
Posted originally on the Archive_of_Our_Own at https://archiveofourown.org/
works/307592.
  Rating:
      Explicit
  Archive Warning:
      Underage
  Category:
      F/M, M/M
  Fandom:
      My_Chemical_Romance
  Relationship:
      Frank_Iero/Gerard_Way, Frank_Iero/Mikey_Way, Mikey_Way/Original_Female
      Character, Ray/Original_Female_Character, Frank_Iero/Original_Female
      Character
  Character:
      Frank_Iero, Gerard_Way, Bob_Bryar, Ray_Toro, Mikey_Way
  Additional Tags:
      Alternate_Universe_-_High_School, Alternate_Universe_-_I'm_Not_Okay
      Video, Misunderstanding, Coming_In_Pants
  Stats:
      Published: 2011-12-30 Words: 27853
****** We're all Okay ******
by rivers_bend
Summary
     A story in which Frank is not a stalker, Gerard is not a psycho, and
     Mikeyway is nobody’s boyfriend.
Notes
     I do not know any of the people whose names and music-video/public
     personas are used in this story, and neither believe nor mean to
     imply any of this ever happened.
     There is not actually any incest in this story, but if you are
     particularly sensitive to mentions of it, this might be one to skip.
     See the end for the podfic, toooooo :D :D
See the end of the work for more notes
Frankie was totally fine with his old school, but when the second kid in a
month got caught with a gun in his locker, his mother decided she'd had enough
of it. (The first time was only a cap gun, and the second time it wasn't even
loaded; Danny was only worried his mom was gonna use it on his dad who had just
come home from eighteen months inside, but that didn't seem to matter to her.)
Her solution was private school, which she convinced Frank's dad to pay for
with this dramatic speech about how his son's future, nay, his very life was in
danger. She's really into the idea of Frank going to college. And, like, sure,
it’d be great to live long enough to see his eighteenth birthday and all, but
he doesn't see why he can't do that in a school where he doesn't have to wear
fucking slacks and a tie and a fucking ugly blazer. Besides which, her plan of
keeping Frank safe totally backfired, because sure, no one has ever brought a
gun to school here, but there's this one kid, Frank's heard all about him, and
he apparently ate a live frog in biology class, and at his old school, tried to
pull a kid's tongue out with his bare hands. Which, in Frank's book? Is way
more psycho than trying to keep your mom from killing your deadbeat drunk of a
daddy.
Frank would like to point out, if he had anyone to point it out to, that he
didn't get his information about psycho boy because people are lining up to
share gossip and good times with the new kid. It's more that he's so invisible
that no one thinks to check their conversation just because he's sitting right
at their fucking lab table in chemistry or standing at the next bench in the
locker room during gym. Even half the teachers can't be bothered to learn
Frank's name around here. He's almost tempted to bring a gun to school himself,
just to see if his mom would send him back where he belongs if he did. Except,
no, she'd probably send him to fucking boarding school or something, where he'd
have to shine the older boys' shoes with his tongue. Which is not one of his
things. (He's pretty sure.)
So Frank goes to class and does his homework and lets his mom iron his uniform
shirt every morning even though he’s tried to tell her that it’s not going to
make any difference. It makes her feel better, and he figures that at least one
of them should feel good about something. At this point it’s pretty unlikely
that it’s going to be him.
He’s been a Beaver (and seriously? What the fuck kind of high school has the
beaver as a mascot?) for almost three months when he finds out psycho boy’s
name. Frank thought he was going to be in the dark forever, since everyone just
calls him “psycho boy” or “that crazy kid”, except one boy from the lacrosse
team—obviously not scared of having his tongue ripped out by the roots—who
calls him “fagtard”. Even though Frank’s curiosity grows with each time he
hears the guy mentioned, there is no one for him to ask. But the weather’s
getting cold and wet enough that Frank can’t sit outside to eat his lunch
anymore so he has to go to the cafeteria, which apparently is the secret.
Like the administration knows there are going to be kids without friends,
there’s a row of small, four-person tables lining the back wall. Frank finds an
empty one and puts his brown bag down—his dad’s help with tuition for this
place doesn’t stretch to the meal plan, which, fine, whatever, the food doesn’t
look that great anyway. There’s a short girl with greasy brown hair at the next
table, and two boys at the table beyond her. They have even greasier hair than
the girl (is Frank the only outcast at this school who showers? What the
fuck.), and are bent over a notebook, or maybe a sketchbook; Frank can’t really
see from his vantage point. The two tables beyond them are empty. With luck,
Frank can finish his food and get the fuck out before those fill up and someone
expects him to share his table in the corner. Not that it wouldn’t be nice to
have a friend, or at least someone to sit with sometimes, but Frank would
prefer it if he got some say in who that person was gonna be.
Half of Frank’s peanut butter sandwich is still sitting on his torn-open bag
when two of the biggest jerks in his gym class bump his chair from behind.
“Freak,” one of them mutters at him, and he bristles, but before he can respond
they’ve moved on to hissing, “Loser,” at the girl at the next table as they
pass. She doesn’t even look up from her apple or her book, and Frank figures
she’s probably gotten immune to the assholes around here. Not that she was
their main target anyway. They actually stop at the table with the two boys,
and glare down at them. Frank can see the one with long, dyed-black hair
clutching a pen in his fist as he glares back. The bony one with glasses is
watching his friend instead of the assholes. Frank’s own hands grip the edge of
the table in anticipation.
“Hey, foureyes,” asshole number one says. (If they won’t learn Frank’s name, he
sees no reason to try to learn theirs.) “You get psycho boy there to suck your
dick yet?”
Frank’s eyes snap to the kid with the pen in his fist. That’s the violent
maniac everyone’s been talking about? It’s kinda hard to tell when he’s sitting
down, but the dude doesn’t look a whole lot bigger than Frank. He does look
pretty pissed, though, straining against his friend’s hold, trying to lunge at
his taunters, pen first.
“Ignore them,” the friend says, and when psycho boy growls and—WTF—barks at the
assholes, glasses boy snaps, “Gerard! I said leave it.”
The gym-class jerks laugh, and asshole number two says, “I wouldn’t put your
dick anywhere near those teeth, Way, he might bite it off.” Gerard growls again
and nearly lunges out of the Way kid’s grasp to snap the teeth in question in
the assholes’ faces.
They keep laughing, but they leave, stumbling off towards the jocks’ table,
slapping each other on the back in congratulations. But Frank doesn’t even
notice.
Gerard. Psycho boy’s name is Gerard, and he’s little, and kinda emo looking,
and somehow, he has a friend. Frank’s idle interest in the dude tips over into
fascination.
 
Frank figures now he knows who Gerard is, he’ll start to see him everywhere.
That’s how these things work. Or at least it’s how they’re supposed to work.
But even though he eats at the losers tables every day for the rest of the week
and into the next, and lurks near the bike racks and the janitor’s closet and
the bathrooms near the library—all the places the unpopular kids tend to
gather—he doesn’t catch so much as a whiff of unwashed hair. Well. Not of
Gerard’s unwashed hair. Considering half the kids in this school could probably
afford to buy a shampoo factory, there are a disturbing number who take the
grunge aesthetic a little too seriously.
But the point is, Frank would like to get a better look at his new school’s
resident psychopath. Unfortunately, Gerard doesn’t seem to want to be found.
 
It’s Thursday morning, and Frank is at school super early, because his mom has
a first-thing dentist appointment and needs to drop him off on the way. He’s
got his book, and also his math homework which he hadn’t bothered to do the
night before, and he’s hoping the doors will be open, because it’s fucking
December, but if they’re not, he’s got his grandfather’s old duffle coat which
comes almost down to his knees, and like three scarves because he keeps
forgetting he has one in his bag and grabs another one off the coat rack, and
the steps are pretty sheltered from the wind. He’ll be fine. “No, seriously,
Mom. I’ll totally be fine. I promise I won’t get sick, or, like, kidnapped. Go
get your filling.”
She drops him by the school gates and goes.
It figures that the first day in over a week Frank isn’t actually looking for
Gerard is the day he finds him. Most of the kids who drive to school have to
park in the big lot around the back of the grounds. But the lacrosse team gets
to park in a special lot right up by the school’s front doors. Frank has gotten
used to walking past their cars every day, because the team’s always at school
early for practice, and so, nose buried in his book, he doesn’t even notice
them this morning. Until a clatter and an unexpected movement draws his
attention.
“Mikey, be quiet,” someone hisses, and if the dude thinks he’s whispering, he
seriously needs some lessons in the art.
The stage whisper is followed by a noise like someone slapping a car’s door,
and more movement about three rows in. Frank tracks it, and sees two boys all
hunched over, shuffle-crawling towards a bright red SUV. The one with his back
to Frankie looks like a small Professor Snape in a frayed, grey coat dragging
on the ground, and the other one, who Frank can see in profile, has short hair
and glasses. Is, in fact, the kid with glasses who was sitting with Gerard the
other day at lunch. Frank stops breathing and moves a little closer so he’s
better hidden by the rows of cars between them. And maybe so he can hear
better. Whatever.
Snugged up against a blue four-door, Frank has a good view through the windows
to where the kid who must be Mikey, and Snape—who, now that he’s turned a
little bit, is definitely Gerard—have stopped to squat against the back tire of
the SUV. Mikey has a screwdriver the length of his forearm in his right hand,
and is clutching Gerard’s sleeve with his left. Gerard seems to be holding a
bottle of something with a red label. Frank doubts it’s water if the way he’s
wobbling and the volume of his whispers are anything to go by.
“Mikey,” he’s saying. “Mikey, do it.”
Mikey, who actually understands the concept of whispering, even if he did—Frank
assumes—drop his screwdriver, says something back that Frank can’t hear. Gerard
frowns in response, eliciting a flat-eyed stare from his friend. They tussle
for a minute, still squatting, and the only thing that keeps them from taking
each other down is that they’re mostly shoving each other into the fender of
the SUV. Mikey relents first, plopping onto his ass, just watching Gerard who
is now holding the bottle in one hand and the screwdriver in the other. He
doesn’t seem sure what to do with either of them. After a moment, he hands
Mikey the bottle and goes to his knees. Before Frank even has time to wonder if
he’s going to do it, Gerard rears back and slams the screwdriver into the tire.
Or. Slams the screwdriver onto the tire, where it rebounds, sending Gerard’s
wrist careening into the wheel arch. “Motherfuck!” Gerard yells, with not even
the tiniest pretense at whispering now. Mikey manages to keep a straight face
for about two and a half seconds, and then he just sort of tips over onto his
side, curled up on the asphalt, laughing like he might die from it.
He and Frank notice at the same time that Gerard is bleeding. It’s only obvious
when Gerard pulls back the too-long sleeve of his coat and starts sucking blood
off his hand. Frank’s starting to suspect that licking blood does not fall into
the same not-his-thing category as licking upperclassmen’s shoes where he’s
concerned, but he’s not going to think about that right now. He’s also not
going to edge closer. He’s really not. Because that is likely to get him
caught, and this is a kid who ate a live frog and tried to tear a boys tongue
out with his bare hands, and gets drunk at seven in the morning and eats his
own blood. Frank doesn’t want to sneak up on him when he’s armed.
Mikey apparently doesn’t have any conflicted kinky feelings or fear of an armed
Gerard, because he’s wrenching Gerard’s hand out of his mouth, and gesturing
pointedly, and Frank can hear words like filthy and toxic and then tetanus,
which makes Gerard flail backwards and fall on his ass, holding up both hands
like he’s warding off a ghost. Mikey ignores that, and grabbing Gerard’s arm
again, pushes his sleeve up farther and pours what Frank’s now 99% sure is
vodka onto the wound.
Gerard lets him do it, but before Mikey can deplete the level of alcohol too
much, Gerard takes the bottle back and downs a healthy gulp or two. They argue
too quietly for Frank to hear, but only for a moment, and then Mikey unscrews
the valve cap, picks up the screwdriver, and jams the tip into the valve,
letting the air out that way. It’s way more effective than Gerard’s attempt,
and still pretty fucking badass. Frank’s fascination officially becomes
obsession.
Before Frank can get too distracted by all the ways his stomach’s twisting up
as he watches Mikey and Gerard half clinging and half shoving at each other on
their knees in the players’ lot, he hears the scuff of footsteps behind him. He
spins, trying to look innocent, but the two girls haven’t seen him, their heads
close together, attention caught by the phone they’re holding between them. One
of them is in his English class. She’s never talked to him, but he’s never seen
her talking to the jock assholes either, so even if she does notice him lurking
around the lot, he’s probably safe from her tattling if the car’s owner starts
looking for a vandal. He still edges away from the cars, circling around behind
the girls to let them go into the school first. When he turns back around,
Mikey and Gerard are gone.
This time, though, Frank’s luck is better. It’s still half an hour to first
bell, and only the entrance hall with the admin offices and bathrooms are open.
Frank sits himself on a bench in a corner where he can keep an eye on the girls
by the drinking fountain and on the front doors, where Gerard and Mikey will
have to appear eventually. Probably. He reads three pages of his book before
they do. There’s no sign of the screwdriver or the bottle, but Gerard still has
a smear of blood on his cheek, and Mikey’s holding onto his arm like he’s
afraid Gerard won’t come with him if he doesn’t. A burst of giggles from the
drinking fountain catches Mikey’s attention, but Gerard just keeps staring down
at his feet, or maybe the weird shit-colored flecks in the floor.
“Hi, Mikey Way,” the girl from Frank’s class calls, still giggling a little and
giving him a twiddly finger wave. Frank thinks she’s making fun of him, but
then sees her friend is bright red and elbowing her in the side, and he
realizes the friend has a crush.
Mikey gives them a half nod, which makes the girls clutch each other’s hands,
but he doesn’t slow down as he drags Gerard into the boys bathroom. Frank
really wants to follow them. But he has no idea what he’d say, and he doesn’t
exactly want to get his dick out in front of either of them (because he really
kind of does), and his hands and face are clean so he’d look like he has OCD if
he went in just to wash his hands, and going into a stall to eavesdrop is a
level of creepy he’s not sure he’s ready for.
So he sits and pretends to read his book, keeping half an eye on the bathroom
and half an eye on the girls, who aren't pretending to do anything but wait for
Mikey to come back. The three of them hold their ground as the doors to the
rest of the school open and kids start to filter in, and as the hallway fills
so Frank has to stand on his bench to keep sight of the bathroom door. The
girls finally give up when first bell rings, but Frank gives it another two
minutes, until if he doesn't go right now he's going to get a tardy and
detention. But Gerard and Mikey still don't come out of the bathroom.
 
Though he makes it to homeroom on time, Frank completely forgets to do his math
homework while he’s sitting and ignoring the principal’s announcement over the
PA and the teacher’s announcements for the class. He’s too busy wondering what
Gerard and Mikey were doing in the bathroom for so long, and whose tire they
were trying to slash and why, and if they’ll get caught or if they’ll get away
with it. He also can’t help wondering if some of the stuff he’s heard about
Gerard was actually stuff Mikey did the way the stunt in the parking lot today
was. Maybe Mikey’s just better at not being seen. Frank would probably be
pissed if he had a friend who kept doing shit that Frank got blamed for, but
maybe Gerard likes that. Maybe the whole point is his reputation. Maybe Mikey’s
helping him.
The bell rips him out of his reverie and Frank clambers to his feet to get to
English class. At least he’s done the homework for that one.
Mrs. Canetti is probably Frank’s favorite teacher. She gives interesting
assignments and cares what people have to say about the books they’re reading,
even if it’s something she’s never heard before. Especially if it’s something
she hasn’t heard before. Also, when she has them do group work she always draws
their names out of a hat, which means that Frank doesn’t have to sit in the
corner hoping someone might actually pick him. There’s always that feeling of
dread while he waits to see how annoyed his partners are to see they got landed
with him—it ranges from indifferent to hostile, usually more of the former than
the latter—but that’s still better than being left ’til last the way he always
is in History.
Today Mrs. Canetti wants them in pairs so they can interview each other as
though the interviewee is a character in Nineteen Eighty-Four. Frank only has
to wait for three teams to be drawn before his name comes out of the hat. His
partner is Janine Brewster. He doesn’t recognize the name, but when he turns to
see who’s making a that’s-me face, it’s the girl from this morning. The one who
knows Mikey Way. If she doesn’t hate him, this might totally work out for
something more than keeping his grades up.
Janine is chilly to start with, but once she finds out he’s not only read the
book but loves Orwell and wrote an essay on him at his old school, she’s
positively toasty. By the time they’ve chosen their characters and written
about half the interview questions, she’s dropping in queries about what he
likes to do when he’s not reading, and they’re chatting a little about music
and stuff, and he feels pretty comfortable saying, “So, you know Mikey Way?”
If she thinks it’s a weird question, she doesn’t let on. “Sure,” she says.
“He’s in my bio class. Kinda weird, but, you know, pretty cool.”
“Huh,” Frank says. Before an avalanche of questions like, “Weird how?” and “How
well do you know him?” and “Do you know his friend too?” and “Are they having
sex?” come spilling out of his mouth, Frank covers it with two layers of scarf,
biting down as hard as he can on the wool.
“He’s probably going to be at this party me and Rachel are going to tomorrow
night. At least Rachel hopes so. She’s got a massive crush on him.”
Frank wonders if there is a way of asking if Rachel has any chance at all
without sounding like a total asshole. He’s still debating when Janine says,
“You should come. It’s at Bob’s house. Bob’s awesome.”
Given Frank has yet to meet anyone awesome at this school and he’s been here
since the beginning of October, he’s not sure how convinced he is by this news.
Except that Janine actually does seem pretty nice, and Frank does have to admit
that he hasn’t exactly gone out of his way to actually chat to anyone. “Bob?”
he says.
“He goes to Central. He’s a senior. But he was really good friends with my
brother before he went to college, and he likes me. He’s chill with sophomores
coming to his parties. It’ll be fun.”
“Okay.” Frank tries not to chew his scarf while he waits for Janine to write
down Bob’s address. He’s mostly successful. A party. And Mikey might be there.
And he might bring Gerard. Plus, everyone at school doesn’t hate him. Today is
totally made of win.
 
He still has to sit on his own in the cafeteria at lunch, but Mikey and Gerard
are there again, right at the next table this time so it totally looks natural
if Frank’s gaze happens to fall on them occasionally. Gerard seems to be blood
free, but Frank can see the edges of several bandaids sticking out of the cuff
of his shirt as he lifts his spoon to his mouth. He and Mikey both have some
kind of red soup in old-fashioned blue thermos flasks like Frank’s dad used to
have. Frank imagines them down at the thrift store picking through the junk,
finding a matching set, probably stuffing them into the pockets of Gerard’s
coat instead of paying the fifty cents or whatever they were marked. Or maybe
Mikey’s mom has two thermoses and she made the soup and Mikey brings lunch for
Gerard, because he’s drunk before school and can’t remember to bring his own.
That’s probably it, because they also both have saltines in a little baggie to
go with the soup, and cookies afterwards. And it would be super weird (like,
weirder than eating live frogs in biology class) if they have a matching lunch
schedule.
After they finish eating, Gerard swaps his thermos for a sketch book and a pack
of pencils, leans his head on Mikey’s shoulder and starts drawing. Mikey rests
his cheek on Gerard’s head and watches him. Right there in the cafeteria, like
that isn’t asking for commentary from the gang of assholes. Sure enough, less
than a minute later, someone calls, “Fags!” from across the room, accompanying
his shout with an apple missile. The apple falls short and rolls to rest
against Gerard’s foot. He doesn’t seem to notice either the taunt or the fruit.
Mikey doesn’t move either, but something in the set of his jaw makes Frank
think he’s not oblivious but actively ignoring it.
When Gerard pauses to swap pencils, Mikey looks up and catches Frank watching.
Frank gives him his best winning smile—the smaller, sincere one for people he
actually likes, not the one for teachers and other people’s parents and anyone
he’s trying to impress with his general innocence and good behavior. Mikey
doesn’t exactly smile back, but his face relaxes in a way that suggests he’s
not about to sic Gerard and his pointy pencils on Frank’s eyes. Frank totally
views this as a step forward.
He also views it as permission to continue watching them, but then he remembers
that he still hasn’t done his math homework, and he has math right after lunch,
so he gets that out of his backpack and starts working on it. He occasionally
hears Mikey and Gerard murmuring to each other over the general hubbub of the
lunch crowd, but he does his best to keep his eyes on his work, and manages to
get all but the last two questions done before bell. Those he can totally bang
out while Mr. Bromley takes attendance and deals with Tiffany’s inevitable
complaining about whatever today’s topic is.
The lacrosse team seems to be holding an impromptu kangaroo court on Frank’s
usual route from Math to History, so Frank goes the long way around, and
clearly his luck is still in, because right outside the art room, he spies
Gerard putting books in a locker. The pictures inside the door aren’t cut from
a magazine, but pulled from a sketch book, and seem, from what Frank can see as
he passes, to feature zombies, and blood, and possibly a human-sized cat thing.
Frank can see why Mikey likes to watch him draw; he’s really good. Frank would
love to stop and look closer, and he’s already opening his mouth to say, “Hey,
zombies. I love zombies,” when the bell rings and Gerard slams the door,
turning with a scowl that would wither Voldemort. Frank’s mouth snaps shut, and
he remembers that he really does have to get to History.
Friday, Frank finds an excuse to go past the art room between almost every
class. Even the two that are three doors down from each other on the other side
of the school. But he sees Gerard four more times, and is able to determine
that yes, it’s totally a human-sized cat—possibly Cat Woman without the
leather; he doesn’t get quite close enough to see for sure—and its claws are
shredding Freddy Kreuger’s chest. Mikey is never with him, but Janine told
Frank—after they kicked ass on their interview-presentation thing—that Mikey
was in Bio and he confirmed he’s definitely going to be at Bob’s party. Rachel
apparently nearly peed herself.
Frank’s bladder has no interest in the news at all, and he ignores anything
else in the region that takes notice. Mostly because he’s pretty sure Mikey has
a boyfriend. One who Frank’s a little scared of. (And more than a little turned
on by, as long as he’s being up front here. And is it weird to maybe want to do
two dudes who are probably already doing each other? Like. If you’re not in
porn or whatever, because he’s totally seen that in porn.)
Frank’s still thinking about Mikey and Gerard when he bumps into Janine and
Rachel outside his locker after seventh.
“So we’ll see you at the party, right?” Janine asks, interrupting Frank’s
musings on the likelihood of his getting to experience an actual gay threesome
while he’s still in high school.
“Uh, yeah.” Frank is so going to be there.
 
His mom is so excited that a girl invited him to a party that she doesn’t even
ask where it is, or if anyone’s parents will be home. She even offers him a
ride. It’s cold, and too far to walk sober, so he finds an address a couple
blocks away and lets her drop him there, making it the rest of the way on foot.
It’s still early enough that the party’s contained in the house, and Frank’s
not sure if he should knock or ring the bell, and is standing on the porch like
an idiot when a tall dude with a mane of curly hair and a guitar case comes up
the walk. “Just go in,” he says. “No one will hear you anyway. Bob’s always got
the music up.”
Because the dude has his hands full with the guitar and a six-pack, Frank does
as he’s told. And wow. Yeah. The music’s much louder than he expected. Bob must
have good storm windows. “Thanks!” Frank shouts over the music coming from a
giant set of speakers in the archway to their right, shutting the door behind
the guitar guy. “I’m Frank!”
The guy looks around for a second before propping his six-pack on the hall
table so he can hold out his hand to shake. “Ray,” he says. “Nice to meet you.”
They shake, and kind of nod and smile for a minute, then Ray picks up his beer
and heads toward the back of the house, probably in the direction of the
kitchen. Frank fully intends to investigate the kitchen soon, because he
fucking needs a drink. He’s hoping this is the kind of party where it’s okay to
bring cash instead of an actual alcohol offering, because there’s no fake in
the world that would make the asshole down the LiquorMart believe Frank was
twenty-one, and he didn’t have time to wait around the parking lot to find
someone to buy for him this afternoon. He doesn’t want to look like he’s
following Ray like a lost puppy though, so he turns right and checks out the
crowd in the living room first.
About a quarter of the kids he recognizes from his new school—including Rachel,
though he doesn’t see Janine—and at least half the crowd looks like they’re old
enough to have graduated, and then he sees a knot of kids in the corner from
his old school. Waving his arm above his head as he makes a point is Larry, who
Frank’s known since junior high, and two of the other dudes were in his World
Studies class before he transfered, so Frank heads over to say hello. They all
shoot the shit for a while, the guys ribbing Frank about having to wear a
uniform now, and asking if the pussy at private school is any easier to come by
than at public school, which, Frank doesn’t even know what to say to that
except, “Are you fucking kidding me?” and they decide that’s totally a front
for him getting laid every weekend. They’ve got a flask they’re passing around,
which Frank’s pretty sure has an inch or two from each of the bottles in
Larry’s dad’s liquor cabinet in it, and it’s disgusting as hell, but it warms
his chest and makes him feel like life is pretty fucking sweet.
After a while they run out of booze and Frank volunteers to go on a mission for
more. Halfway across the room he’s waylaid by Janine, who slides her arms
around his neck and gives him a smacking kiss on the cheek. Her breath smells
like bubblegum schnapps. His friends in the corner start cat-calling and
whooping at him, toning it down a little but not stopping when he flips them
off behind his back, because Janine’s still clinging to him. “I like you,” she
yells in his ear. “But I don’t think I want to make out with you tonight,
because we really only started talking two days ago, and I’m not a slut.”
“Okay,” Frank says. He had no idea making out might be on the cards. Like,
none. “Don’t worry. I didn’t think you were a slut. Not that I’d think you were
a slut if you did want to make out. With anyone. Not necessarily me. Because I
didn’t. Think that. Okay. Yeah.” Trying to back away, Frank pulls Janine’s arms
from around his neck. She’s pretty hot, and also cute, and she’s almost
definitely never tried to pull out a dude’s tongue, because she just doesn’t
seem like that kind of girl. He would be pretty much totally into making out
with her. If she were less not in to making out with him. Like, if she wanted
to. The thought doesn’t give him quite the same scary-dirty thrill as thinking
about making out with Gerard or Mikey (or Gerard and Mikey) does, but it’s
almost definitely more likely. Because he’s pretty sure what she meant is that
she doesn’t think they should make out tonight but she would be into it in the
future. After they’ve talked more. He can do that. He likes talking.
“Bob has a lot of parties,” Janine says, patting Frank on the shoulder. “You
should sit next to me in English.”
“Right. English.”
“Now I have to go see if Rachel’s found Mikey Way’s tongue yet.”
Frank is going to be thinking about tongues forever.
Janine wobbles off, and Larry shouts, “Dude, go tap that!” and Frank flips him
off again, and heads in the direction Ray went earlier.
The kitchen is not hard to find; he just follows the chants of, “Drink! Drink!
Drink!” to their source. Ray is doing a beer bong being held by a dude with red
hair standing on the kitchen counter wearing an inside-out t-shirt and shorts.
When it’s fucking forty degrees outside. As you do. There’s a guy with huge
arms covered in ink leaning against the fridge door. Frank wonders if that’s
Bob guarding the booze. But then people start chanting, “Bob! Bob! Bob!” and
the guy in shorts jumps off the counter and takes the business end of the beer
bong from Ray. Mr. Tattoos gets two beers out of the refrigerator and pours
them into the funnel end without a word. Bob nods his thanks before handing the
funnel to a pretty girl with long dark curls and wide, brown eyes. Once Bob
gets the tube in his mouth she lets Ray help her climb onto a chair and lifts
the funnel above her head. The chants of, “Drink! Drink! Drink!” start up
again.
While everyone’s distracted watching the beer bong, Frank takes a look around,
spying a cluster of bottles in the corner by the door that goes through to the
dining room. The area is refreshingly free of muscled booze guards. When no one
tries to stop him edging closer, Frank gets bolder and aims directly for one of
the three mostly full bottles of vodka he spies right at the edge by the door.
He grabs it just as the chanting reaches a frenzied peak, and darts into the
dining room. Perfect. They can re-fill Larry’s flask, leave the bottle in a
corner somewhere, and no one will know.
The dining room is playing host to a drinking game that seems to involve cards,
several many-sided dice, the board from a Candyland game, poker chips, and a
system of tapping shot glasses with a spoon. Frank gets lost watching for at
least ten minutes, but he’s pretty sure he fails to figure out even one of the
rules. When two of the girls playing launch into a round of high-speed pat-a-
cake while the rest of the people at the table flick cards at them, Frank
decides he’s seen enough. He fortifies himself with a slug of vodka from his
bottle, and heads back out into the hallway. Where he runs into Rachel again.
Literally. Apparently she did find Mikey Way’s tongue. Also, his tonsils.
Mikey’s leaning against the wall, legs spread wide with Rachel between them.
Even after Frank tripped on Mikey’s foot and stumbled into Rachel’s shoulder,
they’re still fused at the mouth. “Sorry,” Frank mumbles. Mikey takes a hand
off Rachel’s ass to wave at him in what Frank takes to be a Don’t worry about
it, she’s still attached, it’s all good gesture. He’s looking at Frank, but
with no loss of kissing skill at all. It’s pretty impressive. “I’ll just,
yeah,” Frank says, and checks his path for any further trip hazards before
hurrying back to the living room.
His dudes have disbanded by the time he gets there, which means more vodka for
him, yay, but also means he doesn’t really have anyone to talk to. But that’s
cool. If Mikey’s here, that might mean Gerard is too, and Frank can get a
chance to see what he’s like not at school, or maybe Janine has decided she and
Frank have known each other long enough now and wants to make out with him.
There are people on the stairs and the landing, so Frank figures it’s okay to
head up and see what’s shaking in the rest of the house. And, hey, maybe
there’s a bathroom up there. Somehow the vodka bottle he’s carrying is emptier
than it should be, which is probably why he’s gotta piss. He reaches for the
first door he comes to, but a guy in a t-shirt with a bow-tie painted on around
the neck (why?) says, “Don’t bother. Linen closet,” so Frank moves on. No one
stops him trying the next door he comes to, so he turns the handle and opens
it. It’s not a bathroom.
It’s a bedroom, Bob’s probably, unless he has a brother, and there’s a couple
making out furiously on the bed. Frank has time to recognize Ray’s hair and
bright-green shirt as he’s attempting to back out again without being heard,
but before he escapes, the girl pushes Ray off and sits up. It’s Janine.
“Oh, Frank. Hey, hi,” she says, sounding a little slurry. “I’ve known Ray for
two years, so this is totally not slutty.”
Frank is starting to strongly suspect Janine’s parents still make her go to
Mass and confession every week.
“Okaaaaaaay,” Frank says, sort of hovering in the doorway.
“You’re not mad, are you? Don’t be mad.”
“Oh god,” Ray says, looking back and forth from Frank to Janine and back. “Are
you guys? Did I? I don’t want to be stepping on any toes here.”
So awkward. How did this even get so awkward? Frank only came to this party to
stalk the school psycho and his maybe-boyfriend, and suddenly he’s trapped in
the middle of a love triangle (kissing triangle? Talked-about-kissing
triangle?) with a girl from his English class and a beer-bong-doing dude who
plays guitar. Probably. Unless he was just carrying it for someone. Maybe Bob
plays and Ray just borrowed it and was bringing it back, and god, why won’t
Frank’s brain just stop.
“No toes,” he says. “Stepping. There hasn’t been stepping. We just, English.”
“He was Winston,” Janine says, clarifying absolutely nothing. “We just met.”
“I thought your name was Frank.” Ray looks supremely puzzled. Frank knows how
he feels.
“I am Frank. Winston was a thing for English class.”
“Ray was in my brother’s band,” Janine continues. “But he doesn’t think of me
as Josh’s little sister anymore.”
“Oh god,” Ray says again. He looks like he’s going to throw up.
Janine pats him on the face sloppily. “Don’t worry! Josh likes you. And you’re
not— You’re still— I’m allowed to date boys if they’re still in high school. As
long as my dad doesn’t find out.”
“Your dad.”
Frank wonders if he should hand Ray the wastepaper basket by the desk. Bob
probably doesn’t want puke on his bed. Instead, he says, “Okay then. I’m gonna
go.” And he goes.
Conveniently, someone is coming out of the room across the hall as Frank
finally escapes, and he can see it’s a bathroom, and no one else is waiting to
dart in before him. He doesn’t bother turning on the light, just locks the door
behind himself and stares at his reflection in the mirror in the glow of the
nightlight. He’s skinny, and little, but he looks okay—hair the right amount of
messy, shirt and jeans the right amount of baggy, pretty good face—but he knows
he can’t compete with in-a-band. Well, not in-my-brother’s-band. Because Frank
could totally be in his own band. If he had some guys to play with.
Remembering what he came in here for, Frank pisses, washes his hands, and takes
one last look in the mirror. “Whatever,” he mutters, and heads back to the
party.
The door to the room where he left Ray and Janine is closed, so Frank is
guessing they either worked out the whole brother’s friend/friend’s sister
thing, or another couple got in there in the time it took Frank to empty his
bladder. He’s not going to check. What he is going to do is head back
downstairs, because so far tonight, downstairs has worked out better for him.
The stairs are wobbling just a little bit, and he’s clutching the banister with
both hands when he realizes that means he must have left the vodka in the
bathroom. But that’s probably best, what with the whole stairs wobbling thing.
Or, or, maybe Bob’s house is like Hogwarts, and the stairs are actually moving.
That would be awesome. But dangerous.
“Frankie! Sup!” someone yells from below him. Frank focuses and finds Larry and
the other dudes from before. “You missed beer bongs!”
“Sorry,” Frank says, even though he’s not. He concentrates on the last four
steps, only looking up again once he’s on stable ground.
“Woah, dude,” one of the guys whose name Frank can’t remember says. “Looks like
you found the alcohol anyway. You okay?”
“I’m great,” Frank tells him. “Definitely great.” He’s not great. He needs to
sit down.
There’s a dim room off to his left that looks like some sort of den. There’s
probably a sofa in there. Or a carpet at least. “I’m just—“ Frank waves his
hand and heads for the dark.
It’s perfect. Somehow there’s no one in here, and there is a sofa. Even better,
there’s a large pile of pillows on the floor, the kind you sit on to watch TV.
They look amazing. Frank collapses onto them and closes his eyes. Just for a
few minutes.
The sounds of whispering and—god, seriously, again?—kissing wake him up. He
considers keeping his eyes closed, but of course they pay no attention
whatsoever to the fact that he’s seen enough kissing tonight to last him a
month. A year. Unless he’s doing the kissing. That could happen any time now
and he’d be good. And hey, look. Right there, not three feet away on the sofa
Frank had been eyeing up as a bed, is Mikey Way. Again. Only this time he’s
macking on the girl who was holding Bob’s beer bong earlier. Maybe his thing
with Gerard is that he can kiss any girls he wants, as long as he doesn’t kiss
any of them twice.
“Really?” Frank says, totally without meaning to. Mikey and the bong girl leap
apart. Now he’s interrupted, he figures he might as well continue. “I’m right
here.”
The girl laughs like she thinks that’s the funniest thing she’s ever heard.
Mikey looks at him like he doesn’t get the point.
“Right here. You could have at least told me to get lost.” Frank is aware that
he’s not being rational and is probably breaking like ten party rules to boot,
but he’s drunk and he just woke up, and he doesn’t really give a fuck.
“Didn’t even see you,” Mikey says at the same time the girl says, “You were
sleeping.”
“Fine,” Frank grumbles, struggling to get his feet out of the mound of pillows.
“Fine. You two just have fun.”
“Hey,” a voice says from the doorway, sending Frank flailing back onto his ass.
“I’m the one who gets to decide who has fun around here.” The speaking
silhouette is wearing shorts, so Frank figures it’s Bob. Also, he’s the logical
person to be saying, “My house; my rules.”
And the girl and Mikey both say, “Hey, Bob.”
“Colette’s looking for you. You have her phone,” Bob says.
The girl starts patting her pockets. “Shit. Yeah.” She stands up. “Later,
Mikey. Later, sleeping dude.”
“Later, Roxie,” Mikey says.
Roxie pinches Bob’s cheek as she squeezes past him out the door. He glowers at
her then comes in and plops down next to Mikey on the couch.
“If you two are going to start making out, can I leave first?” Frank asks, and
god, he really needs to wake up and engage that brain-to-mouth filter.
“Mikey’s not really my type,” Bob says. He doesn’t look offended, though, which
is awesome.
“Yeah, well,” Mikey says, jabbing Bob in the ribs with both hands, ratta-tat-
tat, “I don’t make out with drummers, so you’d be shit outta luck anyway.”
Bob turns and looks at Frank. “Hi,” he says. “Do I know you?”
“Janine invited me?” Frank says.
“He goes to school with me and Gee. I’ve seen him around.”
“Oh. Okay.” Bob nods a little. “Janine’s good people. Wish her brother didn’t
have to fucking go to Arizona for college, though. What the fuck. Who goes to
Arizona?”
“People whose grandparents live there, I think,” Mikey says.
“Gee like Gerard? Is he here?” Frank says. Because his mouth hates him so
fucking much.
Bob snorts, and Mikey’s nose wrinkles a little bit. “You know Gee?” he asks.
“No. I mean. Just I’ve seen him. You. Guys. The two of you. At school. Around.
Like you said.”
Bob snorts again. “I bet,” he says. “It’s practically fucking impossible to get
that dude to come to a party.”
Mikey frowns. “You know a lot of the guys at school are assholes to him. It’s
not that he doesn’t like to party.”
“That’s the truth,” Bob says, then when Mikey jabs him again, harder this time,
“Aww, come on, Way. You know I like the guy. But even you have to admit he’s
kind of a weird fucker.”
Mikey glares for a moment longer, then he relaxes back against the cushions.
“He’s a fucking genius. You just don’t appreciate the art of being Gerard.”
“Guess I don’t.” Bob nudges Mikey’s knee with his own. “You guys coming to our
gig tomorrow?”
“Duh,” Mikey says. “We’ll see about Gee, though.”
“You should come too, friend of Janine’s,” Bob says, turning his attention to
Frank again. “It’s gonna be good.”
“Sure,” Frank says. “Where is it? Also, I’m Frank.”
“Hawkshead on Washington.” Bob squints at him. “Over eighteens. You got a
fake?”
Frank has an old Rutgers ID he found in the street a couple years ago that
looks a little like him. In dim lighting, if you kinda scrunch your eyes up.
“Sorta?”
“Come with Mikey,” Bob says. “He’ll get you in.”
“Cool,” Mikey says. (Cool. Like Bob didn’t just suggest he take a dorky
stranger from his school to a gig.) “Meet you outside at eleven.”
“Yeah.” Frank’s voice doesn’t squeak or anything. “Cool.”
“Well, boys,” Bob says, planting his hands on either side of his knees, “gotta
go make sure there’s enough music lined up. Wouldn’t want to ruin my rep.”
Which means he’s leaving Mikey Way alone in a room with Frank with no filter
and no chaperon. Bad idea. Bad, bad idea.
“Me too!” Frank says, rather more loudly than he intended. “I’ve gotta—
Tomorrow. Eleven. Washington.” Somehow he finds his feet, and rushes out of the
room. He is such a fucking tool.
While he’s still drunk enough to not mind the cold, Frank digs his coat and
scarf out of the pile in the corner, and sets off on the two-mile walk home.
 
By the time he gets there, his teeth are chattering and his legs are numb, and
he’s sober as hell. But his mom is sound asleep, and she left the heater on in
his room, and he’s going to a gig tomorrow night with a kid who’s not afraid to
get creative slashing tires, and who everyone, except apparently Bob, wants to
make out with. Plus, Janine wants to kiss him. So she wanted to kiss Ray more,
whatever, she at least thought about kissing Frank. And the guys at his old
school haven’t forgotten him completely. Life could be way worse.
Just in case, Frank takes a handful of vitamins and a couple aspirin with two
big glasses of water to counteract the vodka and the walk home in the cold
before he heads for bed. He plans to go to sleep, but there’s Janine all
pressed up against him, sugar-sweet breath on his face, and Mikey, in jeans and
a hoodie instead of their stupid uniform, his mouth moving slow and determined
on Rachel’s, his hands up under the back of Roxie’s shirt, the way he held
Gerard’s bloody hand away from his mouth in the parking lot, Gerard drawing, so
focused it’s like nothing else (except maybe Mikey) exists, the way he doesn’t
care about pissing people off, the way he stands at his locker, hip cocked but
shoulders hunched, like he’s caught between diva and emo, and Frank’s got his
hand down his pants, jacking hard and fast and rough, thinking about how Mikey
and Gerard pushed and shoved and grappled with each other in the parking lot,
somehow gentle and careless all at once, imagines them treating Frank like
that, maybe Mikey kissing him while Gerard jerked Frank’s dick, both of them
pinning him down, and he’s caught between them while they have their way with
him, and he’d do it, whatever they wanted, if they’d just let him— fucking
just— just fucking let him come.
After, Frank’s chest feels tight, and he can’t catch his breath, but it’s just
because he came so hard. He’s not getting sick. He’s got a fucking gig to go
to.
When he wakes from the nightmare he’s having the next morning (or one forty-
five in the afternoon, whatever, it’s Saturday), his lungs feel full of ground
glass, and he wants to fucking cry. But then he takes a deep breath, and it’s
just whatever he was dreaming lodged in there, stress tight and choking, and he
actually feels fine. No sniffles, no sore throat, not even the hint of a
headache. Clearly it’s a sign that going to Bob’s party was the right thing to
do, and that he’s fated to meet Mikey at Hawkshead, and they’re gonna have a
great time. Or he’s gonna have a great time. Mikey might ditch him the second
he gets him through the door, and that would be okay. Frank likes the music Bob
was playing at his party last night, so he’ll probably dig Bob’s gig.
But maybe Mikey won’t ditch him. Maybe he’ll let Frank hang with him, and maybe
Gerard will come and they’ll all three hang out, and Mikey and Gerard will
think, Hey this Frank kid’s pretty cool, we should sit with him at lunch, and
maybe tell him next time we’re gonna fuck some asshole’s car up, and— Yeah.
Whatever. Cool stuff could totally happen tonight.
Frank did not even dare to dream big enough.
 
Mikey is totally waiting for him when he gets there, and he looks happy to see
Frank, and they have no trouble getting in—they don’t even get their IDs out,
Mikey just says, “Hey, Tony,” and the guy on the door says, “Hey, Mikey,” and
they walk inside—and then they’re hit by a wall of noise and smoke and fucking
energy that makes Frank feel like he stuck his hand in a tank of electric eels.
In a good way. He’s a little bummed that Gerard isn’t here, but maybe that’s
better. Gerard is still a little scary. Mikey’s at least talked to Frank.
And, apparently, bought him drinks. Frank’s still getting his bearings, trying
to figure out where the best place to get into the crowd up near the stage is,
when Mikey’s arm comes over his shoulder, bearing a bottle of beer. Frank looks
twelve, he knows, but he doesn’t think Mikey looks that much older than him,
and yet here he is getting served in a club. A dank, dirty, basement club, that
clearly doesn’t get too stressed about letting high school students in, but
still. “Thanks,” Frank says, trusting Mikey can read his lips.
They drink their beers and edge to the right where the crowd is a little
thinner. “Bob and Ray are up next!” Mikey shouts over the music. “We’ll head
for the pit while they’re setting up.” Frank didn’t know Ray was playing, too.
He wonders if Janine is here, but it’s not like he’d have a chance with her
anyway. Not if Ray’s going to be on stage.
And Ray is so on stage, holy shit. Frank can play guitar. He’s not great or
anything, but he can play in a way where he knows once he’s been doing it
longer he’ll get better. And he’s got the basics. He knows what it takes. If
Ray’s still in high school, he can’t be more than a couple years older than
Frank is. But he plays like he was fucking born with a guitar in his hands. If
he’d been in Frank’s older brother’s band? Frank totally would have spent the
last two years wanting to fuck him, too. He does not blame Janine one little
bit. “Damn!” he says to Mikey, eyes wide. Mikey manages to convey, Right?
Totally amazing, with a nod.
Abandoning their empty bottles, they worm their way into the center mass, where
Frank loses track of Mikey, his own limbs, everything but the way his heartbeat
throbs with the sound. It’s been months since he came to a show, and he’d
almost forgotten how it feels to get lost in it. He closes his eyes for a
minute and lets the crowd move him, not really caring if he’s tripping and
falling or being pushed, then he dives in and gets active, a pinball in a bag
of pinballs, immune to bruises as long as the music’s playing. It’s like being
high.
In the changeover between Bob and Ray’s band and the one following them, Mikey
appears behind Frank again, another beer in his hand. Frank’s starting to
wonder if this is his super power. And, man, if you’re the type of guy who
likes to drink at seven in the morning, that would be a totally amazing power
for your boyfriend to have. Plus, even though he’s super bony, Mikey looked
pretty good to lean on, like Gerard was doing in the cafeteria the other day.
Cuddles and beer. Frank’s almost jealous.
“Wanna smoke?” Mikey asks as he hands over the beer.
Frank can’t tell if Mikey means a cigarette break or bud, but either way the
answer is a whole-hearted “Yes.”
Looping an arm around Frank’s neck as though they’re actually friends, Mikey
steers him over to the stage door like he totally belongs and has been there
before. Ray and Bob are wrestling with an amp on the other side. They shouldn’t
have a problem, but half the width of the hallway is taken up by a stack of
broken chairs that look like castoffs from a church hall, and they’re starting
to fall where the guys are walking past.
“Hey, here,” Frank says, shoving his beer into Mikey’s hand and darting around
Ray’s legs under the amp to rescue them from the attacking furniture. He holds
back the tide long enough for them to pass, and then Mikey comes and helps him
stack the pile less precariously. Frank’s pretty sure he hears Ray ask Bob
about him as they make their way out the door to the alley, but half of what he
says is swallowed up by Mikey saying, “You’re quick, dude. Nice,” and most of
the rest by the night.
“Do they need help carrying shit?” Frank asks.
“Nah, Bob lets the Crackerjacks use his kit and most of the rest of the setup
tonight’s JoJo’s, but Ray’s particular about who uses his amp.”
Frank can totally see how a guy as good as Ray would be picky about his
equipment, but he doesn’t want Mikey to be putting him off because he thinks
Frank’s too small to haul gear. “I’m totally stronger than I look,” he says.
“If anyone needs any help later.”
“Good to know,” Mikey answers, pulling Frank into a headlock to drag him out
back.
The alley is bigger than Frank was expecting, with room for six or seven cars
under the too-bright security lights, but is otherwise the same rough brick,
cracked and pitted asphalt, and sagging chain link fence he’s seen a hundred
times out back the drug store and the music shop and his mom’s favorite deli.
He figured they’d be smoking huddled between the wall and a dumpster or
something, but apparently Bob is one of those dudes who always has a place to
party. He and Ray are loading the amp into a little trailer on the back of an
80s-era VW van, open side door revealing a bench seat draped in blankets and a
pile of the same pillows he had in the den, only twice the size.
“Mikey,” Bob says, checking the padlock on the trailer’s door is set. “Tell us
you found Steve.” Neither Bob nor Ray seem to think it’s weird that Mikey still
has his arm around Frank’s neck, so Frank tries putting an arm around Mikey’s
waist. It goes a long way toward lessening the choke-hold aspects of the
embrace and doesn’t seem to bother anyone either, so Frank leaves it there.
“I found Steve,” Mikey says, patting the breast pocket of his jacket. Pot then.
Because if Mikey can buy beers, it seems real unlikely he needs to get someone
else to buy his smokes for him.
Bob ushers them all into his lair. He and Ray take the pillows, leaving the
bench seat for Frank and Mikey. Mikey needs both hands to roll, and Frank gets
time to wonder what it meant that Mikey had his arm around him. He’s seen him
with his arms around Gerard, of course, and then everyone he saw his arms
around at the party he was kissing. Does he want to kiss Frank? Or does he only
kiss girls when he’s not kissing Gerard?
“So, Frank,” Ray says, interrupting Frank’s musings before he can get to the
part where he thinks too much about his jerk-off fantasy from last night. “I
didn’t know you knew Mikey.”
“I, um—“ Frank says, just as Bob says, “They go to school together, but they
met last night at the party.”
Ray’s face scrunches up and he drops Frank’s gaze. “Uh, about that—“
The dude almost looks like he thinks Frank’s gonna punch him, and like maybe he
deserves it. “Oh, hey, no.” Frank rushes to say. “Seriously. I just met her
this week, and we did like, one project together in English class. She’s
obviously really into you, which, I get that. Have you seen you playing
guitar?” Oh, god, why is it so hard for him to just stop talking?
Bob looks at Frank, looks at Ray, and bursts out laughing.
“Who wants to start?” Mikey says, holding out a neatly rolled joint. Frank
grabs it.
Mikey starts a second one while Frank, Ray and Bob pass the first one around,
and before long they’ve hotboxed the van and Frank’s starting to get a little
worried he might slide right off the seat onto the floor. Except then Mikey’s
hand appears out of nowhere to settle on the back of Frank’s neck, and while it
should feel like it’s pushing him down, it’s more kind of pinning him right
where he is. Especially once Mikey starts feathering his fingers through the
hair at the back of Frank’s neck. A sharp pain in his fingers makes him jump,
and he realizes he’s just holding onto a joint and letting it burn down.
“Sorry,” he mutters, and hands it to Mikey. Mikey quirks a smile at him and
takes it, other hand never pausing in playing with his hair. He and Bob seem to
be having a seriously earnest discussion about the sound mix during the show.
“It was fucking awesome,” Frank contributes. “Lotsa beat, lotsa guitar, not too
much of your singer, who, I don’t know if you’re friends or whatever, but I
don’t think he’s doing a lot for you, so it’s cool if he’s more in the
background.”
“Fucking Josh,” Ray says. Bob adds, “Fucking Arizona.”
Frank’s brain chugs through the smoke and the stupor induced by Mikey’s fingers
and lands on Janine’s brother. “Fucking college,” he says. “With a better
singer, I bet you guys could really make it.” He sits forward, better to
emphasize his point. Mikey’s hand drops to the small of his back, resting just
below the hem of his jacket, his thumb stroking up and down, rubbing Frank’s t-
shirt against his spine. It feels really fucking good, but it doesn’t distract
him. Frank totally has feelings about college.
“Music is fucking important, okay?” Frank says, looking at Bob and Ray, waiting
for their nods of agreement. “And you hafta fucking just do it. You can’t say,
‘Well, I’ll just take four years out of living my dream to take all these
classes that might get me somewhere I don’t even want to fucking be, anyway,
right?”
“You have a band?” Bob asks.
“No. I mean, I play guitar a little, and my dad taught me drums, and there were
some guys at my old school and we used to jam sometimes, but it’s what I love,
ya know?”
“You gotta love it to do it,” Ray says and takes a hit so huge he looks like
the big bad wolf.
“You could totally blow the brick house,” Frank says.
Bob starts laughing again, so hard this time he has to clutch his stomach and
rock back and forth.
“What?” Frank says, and then they’re all laughing.
Mikey rolls another joint, and Frank’s back feels cold where his hand isn’t
anymore, and they smoke it, and Frank thinks about how three days ago he didn’t
have any friends, and now here he is, and Bob is being really fucking serious
again, Frank thinks about pedal setups—which, doesn’t he play the drums?—and
Ray is nodding really earnestly which makes his hair bob up and down like
Sideshow Bob’s, and wow, there’s a whole lot of bob happening in the van right
now, and Mikey puts his arm around Frank’s shoulders and pulls him so he’s kind
of resting his head on Mikey’s chest, and he is pretty bony, but weirdly kinda
comfortable, and his heartbeat is really loud.
“Ray and I need to go,” Bob says suddenly, in the middle of a sentence about
something else entirely. “And see. Some people. About a thing. We’ll be a
while, lock the doors if you have to leave before we get back. I have the
keys.”
“We do?” Ray says.
Bob looks at Frank’s face pressed against Mikey’s collar bone. “We do,” he
says, tugging on Ray’s wrist.
“Oh,” Ray says, pushing himself up. “Oh. Right. The thing.”
“You fail,” Mikey tells them. “Subtlety failure across the board.”
“I assume,” Bob says drily as he opens the van door, letting smoke out and icy
air in, “that you understand the irony in you making that kind of accusation.”
“Fuck off,” Mikey says.
“Wait.” Frank’s brain catches up to the fact that people are exiting the van.
“Are we leaving?”
“They’re leaving,” Mikey says, fingers twirling the hair that tufts out over
Frank’s left ear. Ray’s feet hit the ground and he heaves the door shut. “They
didn’t want to watch us make out.”
“We’re making out?” Frank is a little worried that he’s blurring the line
between fantasy and reality again.
“Only if you want to,” Mikey says, low and reassuring, but he’s tugging Frank
up by the handful of hair he’s gripping at the back of Frank’s head like he’s
pretty sure Frank is going to want to.
Frank is totally going to say that he wants to, but before he can get the words
out, he kind of launches himself at Mikey’s face instead. The action pulls
sharply at his hair, but Frank discovers he doesn’t actually mind that. Is, in
fact, really glad he didn’t take any of his mom’s hints that he should get a
haircut.
Mikey doesn’t flinch away from Frank’s attack, but he does slow him down, the
hand not fisted in Frank’s hair stroking his cheek, down his neck, down his arm
and back up again, mouth moving slowly against Frank’s, teeth nipping gently
when Frank does his best to stuff his tongue down Mikey’s throat in his
excitement. Frank tries to remember to breathe, tries to slow down and let
Mikey do his thing, since only including the ones Frank knows about first hand,
Mikey’s kissed more people this weekend than Frank’s kissed in his whole life.
Oh, wait, no, they’re tied. Because Mikey’s not only kissing Frank, Frank’s
also kissing Mikey.
“Hey,” Mikey says, framing Frank’s face with his hands, pushing him back a
little bit. “Bob won’t come back for at least an hour. We’ve got time.”
Frank nods, gets as much air into his lungs as he can before Mikey pulls him
back in. He’s a really really good kisser.
When Frank made out with Becky Wilson on the sofa in her basement, she climbed
into his lap, which meant he could get his arms tight around her, and after a
while grope her boobs, edge his fingers up under her skirt. He wonders if Mikey
would think it was weird if Frank crawled onto him. (The idea of Mikey sitting
on Frank’s lap is both awesome and ridiculous, but not what Frank’s body is
itching for.) He probably wouldn’t; Frank can totally imagine Gerard sitting on
Mikey’s lap.
Gerard. Fuck. “Oh, hey, hang on,” Frank says, pushing Mikey to arm’s length.
“Doesn’t Gerard mind that you keep kissing people?”
Mikey looks at him like he’s not speaking a language Mikey understands. “Why
would Gerard care who I kiss?”
He looks so confused that Frank’s too embarrassed to explain. He’s certainly
not going to judge their relationship. As long as he’s not going to piss Gerard
off by making out with Mikey, Frank’s good. “Nothing,” Frank says. “No reason.
Let’s make out some more.”
Mikey gives him one last bemused look and reels him back in.
Kissing Mikey is mostly amazing but also kind of maddening. Becky had always
let Frank take the wheel, and he’d pretty much aimed at getting where they were
going as fast as possible. Not that they were going very far ever, but there
was always the risk of her parents coming home, or coming downstairs, and Frank
wanted to get as much tongue as he could in the window of opportunity he had.
Matt had been so drunk he’d mostly licked the lower half of Frank’s face for a
few minutes and then dropped to his knees and sucked Frank off. So Frank has
definitely never kissed anyone as in control as Mikey Way.
When Frank tries to pull Mikey down on top of him, Mikey just pulls him up, and
when Frank tries to edge onto Mikey’s lap, Mikey holds him back. He seems
perfectly content to just kiss, hands never exploring lower than Frank’s ribs.
Not that that isn’t good. Frank feels like his face is melting and his skin is
on fire and his dick is hard as fuck, and it’s not exactly like this is the
first time Frank’s been hard where he couldn’t do anything about it, plus the
high takes the edge off a little anyway. He concentrates on how Mikey’s licking
into his mouth, gentle and pushy at the same time, and it reminds him of how he
was grappling with Gerard in the parking lot, and oh. Yeah. Gerard. That’s
probably why Mikey isn’t getting all up on Frank’s junk.
The sound of doors slamming breaks through Frank’s stupor and he pulls away in
case it’s Bob and Ray coming back. He knows how it feels to have to watch other
people making out in your face. “We should probably—“ Mikey says, adjusting his
coat and straightening his glasses on his nose.
“Yeah,” Frank says. “Probably.” Then, “You’re a really fucking good kisser.”
“Like the man says: You gotta love it to do it.”
Frank isn’t sure what man Mikey’s talking about, then remembers that’s what Ray
said about music earlier. “Well, you must really love it.”
“Kissing’s awesome.” Mikey smiles, pats his pockets like he’s checking for his
weed and whatever. “And anyone can do it. No big deal, just fun. No harm, no
foul.”
“Oh, yeah. Totally.” Frank is stoned, but not stoned enough to miss the big
neon ‘THIS DOESN’T MEAN WE’RE BOYFRIENDS NOW’ Mikey’s flashing in his face. “No
strings attached, just kissing. Some fun between friends.” Great, Frankie, way
to make assumptions. “I mean. Not that we— Not that you have to be my friend or
whatever now just because we kissed. You probably— God. Just fucking shut me
up.”
Mikey laughs, a quick burst of sound, then kisses Frank soundly on the lips.
“Shut up,” he says. “We’re totally friends now. Not because we kissed, but,
dude, we totally went to a gig together, and smoked up, and Bob clearly likes
you, and Bob doesn’t like just anyone, believe me.”
“Oh,” Frank says, grinning fit to split his face in two. “Okay then.”
“Come on, though. He’ll like you better if we give him his van back.”
 
Sunday, Frank goes with his mom to visit his grandparents. She gets him up
earlier than he would have gotten up on his own, but pot hangover is not nearly
as bad as drink hangover, so by the time he’s had a shower and a couple cups of
coffee, he’s feeling pretty good. With his mother still in her happy-he-has-
friends-again state, she’s not complaining about two late nights in a row, and
hasn’t even asked if he has homework he should be doing. (He doesn’t, but it’s
nice not to have to justify anything.) Plus, his grandma is a really good cook,
and gives him twenty bucks for being a good boy, then sends him and his mom
home with a veggie lasagna, a pot of bean soup, a tray of cannelloni, and a bag
of chocolate-covered toffees that she claims will break her teeth if she tries
to eat them so it would be a favor for Frank to take them off her hands.
Monday, Frank’s almost looking forward to going to school. He’s pretty sure
he’s got someone to talk to in English, and almost certain he has someone to
sit with at lunch, and that’s two more people to talk to than he’s had since he
started at this school, and maybe, if Mikey’s told Gerard about Frank, there
will be three people for him to talk to. Frank would really like that.
His mom’s got a headache, so she’s running a little behind, and Frank has to
jog up the drive and he still misses first bell. Mrs. Hopewell marks him tardy
for homeroom, which means if he gets one more he’ll have to do detention, but
he doesn’t even care. When he gets to English, there’s still an empty seat next
to Janine, so he drops into it. “Hi,” he says, grinning, possibly scarily
hugely. “How was the rest of your weekend?”
Barely glancing at him first, she covers her face with her hands. “I’m
mortified,” she says, all muffled. “I can’t believe I did that.”
“Did what?” He thought they’d already established he was cool about the whole
Ray thing.
“I really do think you’re cute,” she says, taking her hands down, but still not
looking him in the eye. “And I would have— you know. If I were a little
drunker, or maybe not so drunk— But I shouldn’t have come on to you and then
gone off with someone else like that.”
“Well,” Frank says, wishing she would look at him so she could see he’s being
sincere. “You pretty much said you weren’t gonna kiss me, so I wasn’t really
expecting anything. And, I mean. Ray. I saw him play on Saturday, and dude. I
would totally, too. If. Well. I get it is what I’m saying.”
She sneaks a look at him again. Holding his gaze when she sees his (much more
normal-sized) smile. “You do?”
“I do,” he says more quietly, as Mrs. Canetti picks up her attendance book.
While her attention’s on the other side of the room, he quickly whispers, “I
hope he called you.” Ray seems like the kind of guy who calls, so Frank’s
pretty confident he’ll get the nod and pleased smile Janine gives him.
They have a freewrite assignment in class, and Janine takes the opportunity to
pass Frank a note. He hasn’t had a note passed to him ever, he’s pretty sure.
His friends were mostly boys at his old school, and they had assigned seating
in all their classes and he never sat next to them anyway. It probably
shouldn’t be as thrilling as it is that someone wants to pass notes with him,
but whatever. He’s really glad Janine wants to be friends with him still. The
note says, ray and I talked for like four hours sunday on facebook, and then he
called me. asked me to come see him play next weekend. And maybe go see a
movie. I think he likes me!!! Hope you don’t mind me getting excited at you.
Can’t tell rachel because she’s sad mikey didn’t call her.
Sneaking a peek at Mrs. Canetti first—she’s doing her own freewrite—Frank grins
at Janine so she knows he’s not upset, and then he shifts the paper onto his
notebook so it looks like he’s still doing the assignment. hung with him some
on sat nite. he’s an awesome dude you should totally go for it. He thinks for a
minute, but it only seems fair, so he adds, pretty sure mikey isn’t going to
call your friend. He kisses a lot of people I think. Folding the paper along
the same lines as Janine had, Frank tosses it back onto her desk.
She smiles when she opens it, then frowns a little, Frank assumes when she gets
to the part about Mikey. With a glance at the front of the room, she scribbles
below Frank’s words. told her he doesn’t actually date but she wouldn’t listen.
She said he’s the best kisser. I think ray’s the best tho.
Frank decides not to comment on Mikey’s kissing skills and the fact that he
knows about them. Just says, yeah. Saw him kissing other people at party and
also saturday. She should move on.
“Okay!” Mrs. Canetti says before Frank has a chance to toss the note back onto
Janine’s desk. “Time’s up. Does anyone want to read what they wrote?”
One of the girls who cheers for the lacrosse team raises her hand. Boy. Frank
can’t wait. He slides the note over as the cheerleader stands, watches as
Janine reads it and nods, and then he zones out and waits for the bell to ring.
After making out with Gerard’s probably boyfriend, Frank feels a little weird
about stalking him at his locker, so he avoids the art wing between classes. He
considers going outside for lunch, too—the grounds are so big that he’s pretty
unlikely to run into Gerard and Mikey out there—but he doesn’t want Mikey to
think he’s avoiding him and decide he doesn’t want to be friends anymore, so he
heads for the cafeteria instead. And there they are, sitting at the same table
Frank’s seen them at before, facing the door.
Mikey nods in Frank’s direction when he catches his eye, and Frank nods back,
sketching a little wave with the hand not holding his lunch. Gerard is looking
at something on the table; Frank can’t see what it is due to the crowd between
them. When he gets closer, Mikey says, “Hey, Frank, eat with us,” and Gerard’s
head snaps up. Frank is pretty sure he doesn’t look like he’s going to attack
or anything, but he definitely looks like someone who might eat a live frog in
front of his biology class—eyes wide and a little crazed, mouth crooked
awkwardly around the tip of his tongue caught between his teeth. Frank is
pretty sure the normal reaction to someone looking at you like that isn’t
supposed to be an overwhelming desire to kiss the look off his face. It’s
probably also not supposed to be a strong urge to see the guy he’s sitting next
to do it for you because you’re too scared to do it yourself. But apparently if
you’re Frank Iero, Gerard’s crazy looks really really kissable, because that’s
all he can think about as he follows Mikey’s instructions and sits down across
from them.
 
“Frank,” Mikey says. “Gerard. Gerard, Frank.”
Frank doesn’t gush or bounce or ask if Gerard really ate a live frog or if the
drawing in his locker is Cat Woman with fur instead of a leather suit—he nods a
little and says, “Hey,” like it’s no big deal to be meeting the dude he sort of
maybe accidentally somehow got obsessed with while he wasn’t looking.
Eyes still big, Gerard nods back, and looks at Mikey, making his eyes even
bigger, and then smaller, and then big again, and he does a thing with his hand
that’s like, his fingers splay out and he flicks his wrist, all of which
obviously means something to Mikey because he says, “Yeah,” and Gerard says,
“Okay,” and looks at Frank consideringly, and mumbles, “Hi.”
“Gerard’s drawing me an army of hipsters,” Mikey says. “But their irony is no
match for the zombies.”
“That,” Frank says. “Yeah.” Because how could it be? “Unless they had actual
iron. Or maybe irons. Could you take a zombie’s head off with an iron if you
swung it hard enough d’you think?”
Biting his lip again, Gerard starts to sketch something in the hand of the
figure at the front of the pack. After a few seconds, it takes the shape of an
iron. Gerard draws a plug, but then he erases it.
“Yeah,” Mikey says. “It would probably be better if it was one of those old
fashioned ones you put on the stove, not one of those modern light-weight ones.
No power behind that.”
“If you had two,” Frank says, warming to the subject, “one in each hand, you
could crush the head between them. Like the Three Stooges clap, only, squish!”
For the first time, Gerard looks him in the eye. It’s only for a second, but it
makes Frank feel special. “Squish,” Gerard says. “Disgusting.” He says it like
‘disgusting’ is a total achievement. The lead figure gets a second iron, and
then Gerard erases his face and when he draws it again, Frank can see something
of himself in the lines.
“Is that me?” he blurts.
“I’m not saying you’re a hipster,” Gerard says. “Sorry, Mikes. But if the
humans are gonna win, they’re not gonna be hipsters.”
“No,” Mikey agrees. “Obviously.”
Frank’s stomach rumbles softly, making him remember that technically he’s here
to eat, and he plunks his bag down on the table. Pop-Tarts, a granola bar, two
fruit rollups, and a little baggie of carrots that his mom must have snuck in
there while he wasn’t looking, because he definitely didn’t pack them.
“Fruit rollups,” Mikey says. “Hey, Gee, d’we have fruit rollups today?”
Frank looks at the food abandoned for the clearly more interesting zombie-fight
drawing. They have matching ham-and-cheese sandwiches this time.
“No,” Gerard says. “Mom didn’t buy any. I’ll tell her we want some.”
So much for Frank’s theory Mikey’s mom is feeding Gerard. Maybe Mikey spends
all his lunch money on drugs and shows, so Gerard is feeding him. Or maybe they
take turns, and that way each of them only has to think about lunch half the
time. Maybe Frank shouldn’t be so fascinated with his new friend’s (Or maybe
friends’? The jury’s still out on Gerard.) lunch habits.
“You can have one of mine,” Frank says, pushing one toward Mikey. Gerard eyes
the packet inching across the table toward his boyfriend. Frank wonders what
Mikey told him about Saturday night.
“You can have one too.” Frank starts to poke the second one in Gerard’s
direction, but Gerard shakes his head.
“We can’t take your whole lunch,” Gerard says. “Mikey’ll share with me.”
Mikey elbows him in the ribs and says, “That’s what you think,” but he’s
already tearing off a piece and handing it over.
“See?” Gerard says, grinning up at Mikey, eyes shining. He tears off a bite
with his tiny teeth, and his cheeks hollow as he sucks it, getting back to his
drawing.
Frank tries really hard not to stare at the way Gerard’s tongue is moving in
his mouth, obviously pressing the fruit to his palate, licking it, but he can’t
tear his eyes away. When he finally manages it, he catches Mikey watching him,
smirking. Which is embarrassing, but much better than Mikey watching him and
glaring.
“So, zombies!” Frank says a little too loudly as he tears into his Pop-Tarts.
Dialing it back, he adds, “I guess they’re a thing for you?”
Stopping all intriguing mouth movements, Gerard looks at him, eyes flat. Frank
suddenly remembers that half the school calls Gerard psycho boy.
“I just— In your locker. You have— I totally love zombies. You’re really good
at them.”
“You’ve been in my locker?”
Frank can’t tell if that’s alarm or anger, but it makes his stomach twist the
way watching Mikey and Gerard fight over Gerard’s bloody wrist had. “Just
walking past,” Frank says quickly. Now Mikey’s looking at him, too, no smirk in
sight. “You were getting your books? And I could see— Zombies. They’re awesome.
And, like, a cat woman, too. I wanted to— But you— Really. You’re really good.”
Frank flaps his hand in the direction of the drawing Gerard’s doing now, where
Mikey is starting to take shape in the face of the little figure next to Frank.
“Told you,” Mikey says to Gerard.
Frank watches them stare at each other for a moment and demands, “Told him
what?”
Before Mikey can answer, Gerard pushes him and says, “Nothing!” with a hard
glare right up in Mikey’s face so he can’t miss it.
“Nothing,” Mikey agrees placidly, but his little smile doesn’t say ‘nothing’ to
Frank. It says something Frank wants to know about.
“I have to go,” Gerard says, shoving his sandwich back in his backpack,
stuffing his pencil case and hastily closed sketch book in after it.
“You don’t have to go,” Mikey says.
Gerard doesn’t answer.
“Should you go after him?” Frank asks, watching Gerard dodge a flying bread
roll as he ducks out the door.
“Nah,” Mikey says. “He just needs to sulk and smoke for a while. He sometimes
gets weird about anyone but me and Mr. Zukaris liking his art.
“I didn’t mean—“
“He needs to get over it. Just, a lot of people make fun of the weird kid
sitting in the back of the class drawing gory comics, so he kinda figures
that’s people’s default. But you’re not like that.”
Frank is so not like that. He’s totally the weird kid, too. Only he can’t draw.
“Want some of my pudding cup?” Mikey asks. “I’ll get you a spoon.”
 
Frank has to run to get to Math. He and Mikey get caught up talking about the
gig Saturday night and all the other shows they’ve been to—Frank far fewer than
Mikey since Frank tends to be hampered by being a sophomore in high school, a
problem he’s going to have to get Mikey to teach him how to get around. It
means he doesn’t have time to swing past Gerard’s locker on the way. Mr.
Bromley keeps droning on after the bell about what they can expect on their
quiz, which makes a traffic jam near the door. Frank still detours down the art
hall on his way to History, but Gerard is already shutting his locker and
pushing through the classroom door by the time Frank gets there. Plus side, it
looks like he definitely has art sixth period. Which is good to know. Just out
of curiosity.
Between History and Business Skills, Frank catches Gerard slipping out the door
that leads to the half-hidden corner made by the maintenance building and the
wall around the staff parking lot where sometimes kids go to smoke. Business is
a stupid class, and they’re just practicing typing today—Frank can already type
just fine, thanks—and Frank hasn’t had a cigarette since the weekend and he’d
really like one. He’s pretty sure there’s a crumpled pack at the bottom of his
bag.
“You got a light?” he asks as he approaches Gerard’s huddled form tucked tight
in the windbreak made by the walls.
Gerard eyes him suspiciously, so Frank holds up his last sad and slightly
mangled cigarette. “Don’t you have class?” Gerard says, failing to produce a
lighter or any matches.
“Don’t you?” Frank asks.
It seems Gerard thinks if he doesn’t answer Frank might go away, but Frank’s
not cutting class and then not even getting some nicotine out of it, so he
watches Gerard drag smoke into his lungs and send it billowing up over the wall
until it’s all he can do not to jump on him and lick the taste of smoke off his
lips. And wow, okay, now all he can think about is getting stoned with Mikey
again, only this time with Gerard there too, and maybe pushing him back into
Bob’s pile of pillows, straddling his hips, leaning closer and closer as Gerard
takes a hit, diving in as soon as the joint’s out of the way, brushing their
lips together, breathing in as Gerard exhales, getting dizzy but not stopping,
melting into him, maybe with Mikey watching, saying, Yeah. Look at you.
“Please,” Frank says. Okay, begs—thanking god Gerard’s a smoker and surely will
credit Frank’s obvious desperation to jonesing rather than wonder about the
contents of Frank’s imagination. “You’ve gotta have a lighter or something.
“Mikey doesn’t smoke unless he’s drinking,” Gerard says, still not coughing up
a flame.
“Okay,” Frank says. “Random. Or you could let me use your cherry.”
Gerard does cough at that, sputtering and hacking. While he’s distracted, Frank
plucks his cigarette from between his fingers and uses it to light his own.
“Hey!” Gerard protests, wheezes out another cough and repeats himself a little
more quietly. “Hey. That’s mine.”
“And this one’s mine.” Frank holds his finally lit stick of nicotine heaven
aloft and hands Gerard’s only slightly worse for wear one back to him. “You
were withholding. Desperate times and all that.”
“Mikey didn’t say you were this pushy.” Gerard is sulking. It shouldn’t be so
cute. But it is. Totally cute. It’s also not a face anyone would call psycho,
and Frank tries not to be too pleased that he’s getting to see it.
“What did Mikey say about me?”
“That you’re short,” Gerard mutters, still sulking, but standing up to full
height so he’s got a couple inches on Frank. “And into music. And Bob approves
of you.”
Frank tries to get bent out of shape about being called short, but Gerard is
talking to him and doing distractingly hot things with his mouth again, and he
just can’t. Instead he says, “So tell me about the cat woman gutting Freddy.”
“He also said you’re not an asshole and I should let you look at my drawings.”
Gerard doesn’t exactly sound like he agrees with this course of action.
“I’m not,” Frank agrees. “And you should.”
“Freddy forgot that cats have claws,” Gerard says, flicking his butt to the
ground and stepping on it. “I have studio time now. Have to work on my
project.”
Before Frank gets a chance to suggest Gerard stay just another minute while
Frank finishes his smoke, Gerard’s scooting around the edge of the building.
On principle, Frank smokes down to the filter before going back inside. He
debates just going home early, but he might not get detention if he goes to
class, so he does that instead. Mrs. Ware doesn’t notice him slipping in, and
he even gets the assignment in by the end of the period, easy peasy.
 
When Frank got his locker when he changed schools, the secretary made a point
of telling him how lucky he was to get one in the sophomore hall even though he
was a late transfer. Frank doesn’t see what’s so great about it. He just gets
to spend even more time surrounded by the assholes he already has to put up
with during class. Like the jerks at the next table in chemistry who today
decide that nothing would improve Frank’s day more than being shoved into his
locker. He so should have just gone home after his cigarette. Though the one
good thing about the lockers here is that their designer clearly used to get
shut into lockers as a kid because there’s a latch on the inside, so all Frank
has to do is wait for the assholes to stop congratulating themselves on their
awesome wit and leave.
But they don’t seem to be leaving. One of them breaks off mid guffaw to say,
“Fuck off, Way. Go blow your boyfriend in the bike shed.”
“I blew your boyfriend in the bike shed and he said I was the best he ever
had.” The voice, clearly Mikey, comes closer, and by the time he gets to “best”
he’s right outside Frank’s locker door. Great. Now Frank has to wait for all of
them to go away.
“Fuck you, fag,” Frank hears. He can’t tell which asshole it is.
“I thought the possibility of my fucking you was the problem you have with me,”
Mikey answers.
That’s greeted with a moment of silence and then, “Oh, go blow the short kid.”
Mikey doesn’t bother responding, and all Frank can hear is the general sound of
people in the hall, until Mikey taps on the locker door. “You can come out now,
Frank. They’re gone.” He doesn’t ask for the combination or anything, which
makes Frank suspect he has reason to know about the latch on the inside. That
makes coming out a little less embarrassing.
“Fucking assholes,” Frank mutters as he steps out of his locker with as much
dignity as possible.
“Yeah,” Mikey agrees, handing Frank his coat which had gotten dropped on the
floor in the scuffle. “Randy sits behind me in History. He’s a total fuckwit.”
“Chemistry,” Frank says. “He set his own homework on fire last week.”
“So do you wanna come over and watch movies or something?” Mikey asks.
Frank’s brain cycles through Yes! and Wait, is that a euphemism? and Will
Gerard be there? and settles on, “You don’t have to feel sorry for me.”
“Between you and Gee, god,” Mikey says, pushing Frank’s shoulder. “I came over
to invite you, saw Randy and his friend shutting you in your locker, you’re out
now, so I’m inviting you. I don’t do pity fucks.”
Pity what? “Wait,” Frank says, stopping dead in the middle of the hall. “We’re
gonna—“
Mikey looks at him like he’s crazy and tugs him back into motion by the cuff of
his blazer. “It’s just a saying. No need to panic.”
“Wasn’t panicking,” Frank protests. He wasn’t. Just it sounded like— and he was
pretty sure Mikey wasn’t interested in that with him, and how was he supposed
to know?
“You’re funny,” Mikey says, opening the main doors and ushering Frank out.
“Yeah. And short. Gerard told me.” Frank isn’t sulking. He’s just a little out
of practice having friends who rib him, and Mikey has one of those faces that
hides when he’s being sarcastic.
But hey! He has a friend who ribs him again, and that’s pretty awesome.
Not so awesome is that Mikey lives about a mile from school in a direction none
of the buses go. But it turns out to be not that far from a bus that goes to
Frank’s house, which at least means he won’t have much of a walk home after
movies, even if his mom can’t come and get him. Speaking of which, he should
probably leave her a message. Mikey doesn’t make fun when Frank says, “Love
you,” before hanging up on the machine, which wins him points. Not that he
really needs them where Frank’s concerned.
His house looks pretty normal from the outside, but the inside’s kind of a
freakshow. If this is the aesthetic Mikey grew up with, Frank can see why
Gerard and his macabre art appeals to him. Not that Gerard isn’t appealing even
if you grew up in a house like Frank’s. Obviously.
“Let’s go downstairs,” Mikey says. “All the good movies are down there.”
As far as Frank can tell, all the everything is down there. It’s definitely not
so much with the dolls and stuffed birds theme that was going on upstairs, but
it looks like ten teenagers’ bedrooms exploded all over the floor and an
artist’s studio vomited in the corner. “Wow,” Frank says, awed and impressed,
and maybe a little horrified. “Is this your bedroom?”
“Naw,” Mikey says, wading through the detritus toward the bed. “It’s Gee’s.”
“Gee’s? Gerard lives with you?” Frank tries to imagine his mother being cool
with someone Frank was dating living in their basement. He can’t do it.
“Is there a reason he wouldn’t?” Mikey asks, giving Frank another one of those
looks like he doesn’t quite get how Frank’s brain works.
It’s not like Frank can’t sympathize—he’s not always sure how his brain works
either—but this doesn’t actually seem like one of the times when he’s being
particularly out there. Before he can say any of that, though, footsteps come
down the stairs, giving a second’s notice before Gerard comes in.
“They didn’t have—“ he’s saying as he opens the door, looking toward where
Mikey’s sitting perched on the edge of the bed. But he obviously caught Frank
hovering out of the corner of his eye, because his head whips around.
“Mikes?” he says, looking at Frank as though if he stares hard enough Frank
might either disappear or explain himself. “Did he follow you home?”
“I invited him,” Mikey says. “We’re gonna watch movies. He might even stay for
dinner if he’s feeling brave.”
“I might?” Frank says.
“We’ll see what we’re having,” Mikey answers.
“Movies?” Gerard echoes, turning to look at Mikey, since Frank isn’t really
saying anything helpful.
“Movies.” Mikey confirms. “You pick. Frank and I are easy.”
Gerard snorts at that and Mikey’s eyes narrow and Frank is suspicious that they
probably did have a conversation about the kissing. “Did you want me to leave
you two alone?” Gerard asks.
“Don’t be stupid.” Mikey scoots up the bed and settles himself against the wall
by the pillows. “Something with zombies.” He turns to Frank. “C’mon. Have a
seat.”
Frank tries to sit at the other edge of the bed, leaving room for Gerard
between them, but Mikey pulls him over so Frank will be in the middle. It’s a
lot like how his most recent fantasies have started (only there was never so
much stuff on the floor or the bed in his imagination), and he hopes against
hope that he won’t get hard.
When Gerard turns around he gives Mikey a look Frank can’t read, but he doesn’t
say anything, just climbs on the bed and wedges himself in the corner. Frank
suspects it’s not going to be nearly as easy to get Gerard’s arm around him as
it was to get Mikey’s. He tries not to be too disappointed.
“Good choice,” Mikey says, and Frank looks up at the TV finally.
“Oh hey!” he says. “Astro Zombies! Like The Misfits song. I’ve always wanted to
see this.”
“You like The Misfits?” Gerard says, uncoiling a fraction.
“There are people who don’t?” Frank asks.
“See?” Mikey says. Frank doesn’t see, but apparently Gerard does, because he
leans across Frank and punches Mikey in the thigh. Mikey ignores the violence,
and, sounding bored, instructs Gerard to press play.
They’ve been watching for about fifteen minutes when Gerard starts digging
around between the mattress and the wall and pulls out a fifth of vodka with a
red label that looks like the one he had in the parking lot the other day. Only
this one’s full. Frank watches him side-eyed as he takes a slug, then another,
then goes to wipe the mouth on his cuff. He thinks better of that, and offers
the bottle to Frank as-is.
“You can wipe it,” he says. “Your shirt looks cleaner.”
Gerard isn’t wrong about that, but Frank’s not actually bothered about wiping
off Gerard’s spit since he’d quite happily drink it right from the source. Or.
Something that sounds a little less gross but means the same thing. “It’s
cool,” he says and takes a small sip to assess the burn factor before taking a
second, bigger one and then passing the bottle along to Mikey, who doesn’t wipe
the bottle either.
Frank doesn’t mean to get drunk. Though he carefully hands the bottle back to
Gerard when Mikey’s done with it so he’s not drinking coming and going, and
after the first few rounds he limits himself to one sip each time even though
Gerard is totally taking two, they’re not even half-way into the movie when
Frank starts feeling floaty and finds it harder to concentrate on the plot than
it should be (or harder to tell if there’s a plot at all. He’s not actually
sure on that point), and he stops feeling like there’s any good reason he
shouldn’t lean against Gerard’s side if he wants to. He hasn’t stopped wanting
to.
It’s just his knee at first, resting against Gerard’s thigh, maybe pressing
against it a little each time Frank reaches out to take the bottle. Gerard
doesn’t seem to notice, so when Mikey shifts around to adjust his pillows,
Frank takes the opportunity to move his own ass so his whole leg is up against
Gerard’s. That puts him close enough that there isn’t really any good place to
put his arm except his own lap, which is right there next to Gerard’s lap, and
it’s probably not his fault if his fingers drift a little.
They’re all still in their uniforms, so Gerard’s pants should be just like
Frank’s, but they’re not. The texture’s smoother, not really like chinos
smooth, but more like Frank’s dad’s tux pants that he wears when he’s
performing sometimes. They feel good under Frank’s fingers. He goes back to
touching his own pants for a moment to appreciate the difference, then rubs
Gerard’s again with his whole hand. He forgets that means he’s rubbing Gerard’s
leg until he hears a squeak and looks up to find Gerard staring at him, eyes
wider than Frank’s ever seen them. He had no idea eyes could even do that.
“Um,” Gerard says, shifting his gaze to Frank’s hand which is still on his
thigh. But, like, at least six inches from his dick. Which is good. Because if
Frank’s gonna grope Gerard, he wants to be aware he’s doing it.
“Your pants are soft,” he says.
“I think we need snacks,” Mikey says, and oh yeah. Mikey. “I’m going to go find
some. Upstairs. It might take me a little while.” It’s weird the way he says
it. Stilted. Not Mikey-like. Though really it’s only been a couple hours
Frank’s spent with Mikey total so far, so maybe he talks like that sometimes.
“We don’t need snacks,” Gerard says, glaring at Mikey over Frank’s shoulder.
“Yes, Gee. We do.” Mikey reaches across Frank to pat Gerard’s leg just above
where Frank’s hand is still resting. Still resting awkwardly. Suddenly really
awkwardly. Frank moves it back to his own lap. “Be back in a while,” Mikey
says, clambering off the bed.
It seems weird to just go back to watching the movie, so when the door closes
behind Mikey, Frank says, “It’s nice of Mikey’s parents to let you live here.”
Gerard looks at him, at the bottle in his hand, at Frank again. “It would suck
if your parents kicked you out of the house before you even graduated from high
school.”
That would totally suck. Frank would cry if his mom didn’t want to live with
him anymore. “Is that what happened?”
“Is what what happened?” Gerard asks.
“Did your parents kick you out?” It’s like fucking Abbot and Costello in here.
Gerard shakes his head slowly. “If they kicked me out, I wouldn’t be living
here.”
“Where would you be living?”
“Somewhere not with my parents, I guess.” Gerard screws the lid back on the
vodka and stuffs it back between the wall and the mattress. “I never really
thought about it.”
“Wait,” Frank says. “I thought this was Mikey’s house.”
With his head tipped to the side and his eyes narrowed in confusion, Gerard
looks a little like a puppy. Frank wants to pet him.
“This is Mikey’s house,” Gerard says, still looking at Frank like Frank’s the
perplexing one here. “It’s Mikey’s house and it’s my house. But mostly it’s our
parents’ house. Because we’re in high school. And we live with our parents,
which is what most people in high school do, I think.”
Realization hits Frank like a snowball to the face. “Oh my god,” he says,
scrabbling to his knees because this news is too big to process slumped against
the wall. “Oh my god, you guys are brothers.”
The whole knee thing makes him dizzy and he pitches forward and has to catch
himself on Gerard’s shoulders. “That explains so much.”
“You didn’t know we’re brothers?” Gerard asks. He reaches up to grab Frank’s
wrists, but he doesn’t try to pull him off. “How did you not know we’re
brothers?”
“I thought you were his boyfriend.” Frank says. How was he supposed to know
they’re brothers, anyway. It’s not like they wear badges or anything.
“His—“ Gerard starts laughing, and he does push Frank off then, but more
because he’s doubled up with his head on his knees, cackling and gasping for
oxygen, than because he’s exhibiting a burning need to get Frank away.
“You’re always cuddling,” Frank says over the sound of Gerard’s honking and
braying. And come on. It’s not that funny. “And the way you were wrestling in
the parking lot when you—“ But Mikey and Gerard don’t know Frank knows about
the tire thing. “And people always talk about you sucking each other’s dicks.”
Frank pauses, mourning for a moment the fact that his dreams of a real life gay
threesome while he’s still in high school are probably not going to be
realized. “Wait. Do they know you’re brothers?”
“I’m pretty sure everyone but you knows we’re brothers.” Gerard says. “Those
assholes just can’t think of any more imaginative insult than ‘cocksuckers’.”
Frank thinks about that. “To be fair, they’re calling you incestuous
cocksuckers, which raises the baseline a little bit, right?”
“No,” Gerard says. “It doesn’t.” But he looks like maybe he’s mulling it over a
little, so Frank takes it as a win anyway.
Not that he wants to defend the assholes. Just apparently something inside him
likes disagreeing with Gerard. Mostly he likes the little wrinkle he gets over
his nose and the way his mouth quirks down at the corner. Carefully, because
the vodka in his system has made Gerard’s bed feel like it’s filled with water,
Frank returns to his seat up against the wall. And against Gerard’s side. He’s
warm. And cute. And not Mikey’s boyfriend.
“So are you dating anyone who’s not Mikey?” Frank asks. He never claimed to be
smooth.
“No,” Gerard says, eyes on the screen where a woman seems to be burning someone
with her cigarette.
Frank leans in and kisses him.
Gerard leaps back, though he only gets about half an inch before his head meets
the wall with a thunk. Frank remembers the part where Mikey asked him if he
wanted to kiss before he laid his lips on him. Asking might have been a good
idea.
“You can’t just— Ow.” Gerard rubs the back of his head, pushing Frank out of
his breathing space. “Just because I’m Mikey’s brother doesn’t mean we’re
interchangeable.”
“I know,” Frank tells him, wondering if this is going to be the start of
another one of those conversations where apparently neither of them’s making
sense.
“Okay,” Gerard says. “Good.” He goes back to watching the movie.
“Just to clarify, does that mean okay I can kiss you?”
“What?” At least Gerard’s looking at him again now. “No! It means okay, we both
agree I’m not a Mikey substitute and if you want to make out with my brother,
you’re going to have to talk to him.”
“Oh,” Frank says, stuck on the ‘no’ part of Gerard’s answer. He was really
hoping there wasn’t going to be a no. Then the rest of his sentence penetrates.
“But wait.” He puts his hand back on Gerard’s thigh, but it’s not awkward this
time because it has a point. “What if I want to make out with you?”
“You don’t,” Gerard says. Which makes no sense, because Frank really really
does.
“I really, really do.”
Gerard glances down at Frank’s hand and then back up at Frank’s face. “Why? I,
but.” He flaps his hand the way Frank’s seen him do at Mikey several times.
Mikey always seems to know what it means, but Frank doesn’t have a fucking
clue.
“I don’t have a fucking clue what this means—” Frank does his best
approximation of Gerard’s hand flap— “but because I’m pretty much obsessed with
you.” Frank plays that back in his head. “Not like in a dangerous stalker way.
Just. You. With your—“ Frank gestures in a much less flappy, much more
specifically pointing out the ways Gerard is awesome kind of way. “You.”
“Huh,” Gerard says. He doesn’t look all that convinced.
“How ‘bout this. You could try kissing me. I’m not— I haven’t had as much
practice as Mikey, so— But hey. You’ve never kissed Mikey? Right? So that’s
okay. You could try it. If you don’t like it we can stop. I won’t, like, be a
dick about it.” Frank moves his hand a little higher and leans in a little
closer, but he remembers to wait for Gerard to say yes this time.
Gerard tilts his head a little, and Frank thinks, Yes! but then Gerard says,
“What if you don’t like it?”
Frank breathes. He’s pretty sure no two boys in the history of ever have had to
talk this much before they kissed. “I’ll like it. I promise.”
“Okay,” Gerard says, fucking finally.
The angle they’re sitting at is not the best for kissing, especially because
Gerard seems reluctant to move his shoulders off the wall, but Frank goes for
it anyway, moving the hand on Gerard’s leg up to his waist, hooking the other
one around the back of his neck in case Gerard tries to run away again. Not
that Frank was lying about stopping if Gerard hates it. But he wants the guy to
give it a fair shot first. Thinking about how hot it was when Mikey did his
whole slow exploration thing, Frank tempers his urge to shove his tongue down
Gerard’s throat. It’s hard, because he’s drunk, but actually thinking about
kissing Gerard is part of what makes it awesome.
He seems to appreciate Frank’s careful approach, if the way his hands are
gripping at Frank’s shirt and the soft noises he’s making are any indication,
though neither of those things are making careful any easier to maintain.
Mostly, they’re making Frank want to pin Gerard to the bed and hump him ’til
they both come in their pants. Instead, he does the next best thing, which is
straddle Gerard’s lap, easing the crick in his neck and getting a lot more body
contact.
“Is this okay?” Frank tries to ask, because he’d only gotten permission for a
kiss and now he’s kind of rubbing his nuts on Gerard’s junk. But Gerard has his
arms around Frank’s back and his hands hooked over his shoulders and is pulling
Frank down and grinding up into him and kissing him so hard Frank’s having
trouble breathing, so he figures the question is moot.
In bed at night imagining this, Frank thought kissing Gerard would feel
dangerous. It feels thrilling—heat, excitement, anticipation coiling in his
belly—but weirdly safe, too, like Gerard’s got him, won’t let him fall, and
like he’s got Gerard. That might be the vodka and the death grip he has on the
tangle of Gerard’s hair, but Frank doesn’t care. He likes it. Likes feeling
solid in Gerard’s hands.
He’s contemplating rolling them, making use of the fact that they’ve got a
whole bed at their disposal, when Gerard shoves him back. Not in the fun lying
down way, but in the holding him at arms’ length way. Frank frowns, draws
breath to protest, and is hit in the thigh with a bag of potato chips.
“Hey, Mikey,” Gerard says, voice rough and cracking. Rough and cracking from
kissing Frank. Hell, yes.
“Hi,” Frank says, trying not to grin too inanely.
“I’d leave you to it,” Mikey says, and Frank’s pretty sure he’s never seen
someone manage quite that combination of perturbed and smug with nothing more
than their eyebrows before, “but Mom brought Chinese home and it’s getting
cold. There’s enough for Frank if he wants to stay.”
Frank would love to stay, but when he gets his phone out to call his mom and
ask her, there’s a voicemail from her demanding to know where he is and did he
forget his dad is coming over tonight.
“Fuck,” he says. “Fuck! My dad. I’ve gotta go.”
“Is he okay?” Gerard asks, face creased with concern. Mikey’s helpfully making
sure none of the detritus from Gerard’s floor is tangled in Frank’s backpack
straps.
“He’s fine. Just he’s here. Well. Not here, but at my mom’s house. To see me.
And I’m here.” Oh, god, and clearly still drunk. “Fuck,” he says again.
“I’d drive you, but—“ Gerard does his flappy wave again, but enough in the
direction of his vodka stash that Frank gets the meaning this time.
“No, it’s cool. I’ll call my mom.”
Gerard’s scooting over to get off the bed, and Frank envisions an awkward
goodbye at the front door in front of his whole family. It’s not pretty. So
Frank flees. “Bye!” he calls, already climbing the stairs. “I had fun. Lots of
fun!” He makes it out the front door without running into either of Gerard and
Mikey’s parents. He can meet them later, when he’s not already in trouble with
his own.
 
Frank’s mom sends his dad to pick him up. He’s afraid he’s going to get a
lecture about responsibility, but his dad just wants to hear all about school.
It’s a relief to be able to tell him about his interview project with Janine,
and about meeting Bob and Ray, and not have to make up stories about how he’s
fitting in and making friends. With the vodka still sloshing around in his
brain-to-mouth filter, he doesn’t trust himself to start talking about Gerard
and Mikey. His dad really doesn’t need to hear about him getting wasted and
sucking on other boys’ tongues. Boys who are brothers, and wow. That is still a
total trip.
They go out to dinner, and Frank sobers up over tofu in black bean sauce and an
entire pot of green tea, though he does have to practically suffocate himself
in his napkin to stop the giggles when he opens the menu and the irony of
skipping Chinese food with the Ways only to have it anyway strikes him.
Morning comes much too early the next day. Frank blames MSG when his mom asks
him why he looks like he’s going to puke when she puts a plate of eggs in front
of him, which gets a rant about his father not worrying enough about Frank’s
health, trying to poison him blah blah, but he can mostly tune it out and it’s
way better than getting grounded for drinking on a school night. He feels
better once the eggs are in the trash and he’s washed a couple aspirin down
with a glass of water and a mug of coffee. It doesn’t seem fair that he was
fine after Bob’s party and feels so shitty after drinking in the afternoon, but
Gerard wasn’t exactly serving up top-shelf stuff, and hell. Maybe it is the
MSG.
With a hoodie, two scarves, a beanie he wouldn’t be caught dead in, and an
extra pair of mittens stuffed in his backpack courtesy of his mom’s fretting,
Frank trudges up the steps to school. Fortunately, he also managed to snag an
extra pack of Pop-Tarts, because now that he’s caffeinated, he’s getting
hungry. Eating in homeroom doesn’t carry the penalties that eating in any of
his other classes does, so he sneaks pieces of pastry into his mouth while Mrs.
Hopewell gives what is probably supposed to be an inspiring lecture about
school spirit and supporting the stellar lacrosse team. Frank heads to English
uninspired and a little jittery.
The last place he wants to go after English is PE. He figures he might feel
better about it if he gets to see Gerard first, so he takes the art-hall route
to the gym. Gerard’s standing on the floor of his locker with practically his
whole head inside the cubby made by the top shelf, muttering expletives. Frank
doesn’t want to scare him, make him bump his head or anything, so he stands
quietly (lurks) and waits for him to be done. It’s only half successful. Gerard
doesn’t end up with a scalp wound, but he does jump and bash his elbow on the
locker door when he turns around and sees Frank right there.
“Hi,” Frank says. “Sorry.” His face is doing that involuntary smile thing
again, so he probably doesn’t look as sincere as he feels. “I didn’t mean to
scare you.”
“I thought you said you aren’t a stalker.”
“If I were stalking, I’d be over there.” Frank points at the little alcove
across the hall, half hidden by a display cabinet. “I’d be a ghost. You’d never
see me.”
“I think you’re confusing stalker with ninja,” Gerard says. He sounds pretty
grumpy.
He’s cute when he’s grumpy, but Frank wants to see him smile. (Then he wants to
kiss the smile off his face, but he’s pretty sure even in the art wing, school
is not a good place for that.) “Did you lose something?” Frank asks.
“Out of fucking smokes,” Gerard says. “Don’t suppose you have any?”
Frank wishes. “Smoked the last one with you yesterday.”
Scowling, Gerard pulls his messenger bag out of his locker. “Fuck government. I
need cigarettes.”
They’re almost to the doors when Gerard notices that Frank’s still with him.
“You’re coming with me?”
“Duh,” Frank says. “Nicotine and good company, or sweating with a bunch of
meatheads. It’s not much of a contest.”
“I’m not good company,” Gerard says.
Frank doesn’t dignify that with a response.
“Coach Ghastly will make you polish the lacrosse trophies for detention.”
They haven’t cleared the gates yet, but Frank lets his laughter bubble up
anyway. “See?” he demands. “Fucking liar. You’re great company. Ghastly. He is,
too. Fuck.”
The twitching at the corner of Gerard’s mouth tells Frank that the look of
disdain he’s trying to pull off is a total lie. “You can’t tell me you’ve never
heard him called that before.”
Frank snorts. “I don’t hear shit, man. Mikey was like the second person in this
whole school to say two words to me.”
“Stalker like you, don’t tell me you don’t hear the gossip, though.”
“Who’s gonna gossip about Coach Astley?” Frank skips ahead a little and turns
to walk backwards, facing Gerard. “Heard how you ate a live frog in Biology,
though.”
It’s Gerard’s turn to honk a short laugh. “Why the fuck would I do that? No one
would do that.”
A bubble of delight bursts in Frank’s chest. Bad-ass story or not, he’s never
down with animal cruelty. “I did wonder.”
“I refused to put my frog in a jar of formaldehyde,” Gerard says. “And I might
have called the teacher a sadistic prick and told him to go fuck himself when
he sent me to the principal.”
“Did you really pull a kid’s tongue out with your bare hands?”
Gerard grabs Frank’s arms, yanking him against his chest. Does mentioning the
tongue thing make him mad? Horny? Is he going to punch Frank or kiss him? But
he swings Frank around so Frank’s facing forward on the inside of the sidewalk
rather than the outside. Apparently he was just saving Frank from backing into
a hydrant.
“Thanks,” Frank says. “So did you?”
“It was his lip,” Gerard mumbles. “And I didn’t pull it off.”
“Ow.” You can get a much better grip on someone’s lip than you can on their
tongue.
“He threatened to cut off Mikey’s balls.”
Frank’s pretty sure the last thing he’d do is threaten harm to Mikey Way while
Gerard was in hearing distance. Or tattling distance, though Mikey doesn’t
really strike him as a rat, or as someone who particularly needs his brother to
stand up for him. Not that Frank wants to threaten Mikey. Just, Gerard’s way
more of a cupcake than the rumor mill would have it, but he takes that big
brother thing pretty seriously.
“What’d he have against Mikey’s balls?”
“I think Mikey made out with his ex. But she was his ex, so he had no right to
get mad.”
Frank’s not sure about that—jealous is jealous, it doesn’t matter how much
right you have about it—but mad or not, you don’t get to fuck with a dude’s
junk.
“What—“ he gets out, and then Gerard’s grabbing his arm again.
“Do you have a death wish?” Gerard’s staring at him all frownyface, and Frank
realizes that he almost just walked out into the street on a red light.
“Does it sound too much like a line if I say you’re distracting?” Frank tries.
Gerard says, “Yes,” but he turns a little pink and his mouth is doing that
twitching thing again, so Frank’s happy.
“You are. Totally distracting. I can’t stop wondering if I can get you to kiss
me again.”
Dropping Frank’s arm like it’s hot, Gerard goes even pinker, and stares hard at
the light as though he can make it turn green with the power of his mind.
“Oh, wow,” Frank says. “That would be an awesome superpower.”
“Making people kiss you?” Gerard asks, only half looking at Frank.
“No. Well, yeah. That would be awesome, too, but I was thinking about being
able to change lights to green with your mind.”
“Has anyone ever told you you’re kind of a weirdo?” The light changes and
Gerard starts crossing, not checking to see if Frank is coming. But Frank is
totally paying attention now, so it’s cool.
“All the time,” Frank says cheerfully.
Gerard obviously doesn’t have a comeback for that, because they walk to the 7-
Eleven at the end of the block in silence. Tasting the cigarette already, Frank
starts to speed up when they get to the parking lot, but Gerard says, “Wait.”
Waiting is not exactly Frank’s best trick.
“Hafta see who’s working. If it’s the guy with— Yeah. That guy calls the school
if he sees you in there in your uniform. There’s another place in a couple
blocks.”
But Frank wants a cigarette now. Not in another couple blocks. Using the cars
in the lot for cover, he ducks around the side of the building and around the
back of the cardboard recycling bin, Gerard at his heels asking what the hell
he’s doing.
“I’ll just take off my uniform,” Frank says, propping his backpack on one knee
and digging for the clothes his mom made him take that morning.
“Weird and crazy,” Gerard says, hastily turning his back when Frank starts
unbuttoning his blazer.
“You’re the one they call psycho-boy,” Frank points out. “And oh my god, I’m
just taking off my jacket. I don’t think it’s going to melt your face off or
anything.”
“How am I supposed to know what you’re taking off? Just trying to give you some
privacy.”
“Is this a no to the making out again?” Frank asks. He’s not actually worried,
though maybe he should be. But Gerard had been pretty into the kissing
yesterday before Mikey interrupted them, and the way he won’t meet Frank’s gaze
seems more shy than uninterested. “Just so I don’t get my hopes up.”
“You’re more obsessed with making out than Mikey is,” Gerard mutters.
“Pretty much just obsessed with making out with you,” Frank corrects him,
tugging his sweatshirt down over his head. Gerard still has his back turned
when Frank’s face clears the neck hole.
“We can’t just make out in the street,” Gerard points out.
“Okay. Let’s go somewhere we can make out, then.” Wrinkling his nose a little,
Frank pulls on the fugly beanie in the hopes it will distract from his school
slacks, and remembers he’s got his sneaks in his bag since he was on his way to
PE. “Here,” he says. “Help me balance.” Gerard turns and Frank grabs his arm.
Not that he couldn’t lean on the recycling bin, but Gerard’s a lot cuter.
“Do you have your whole closet in there?” Gerard asks, eyeing Frank’s backpack
like Frank might have put an undetectable extension charm on it.
“Mom’s a big believer in knitwear preventing bronchitis and stuff.” Frank pulls
off his second school shoe and stuffs his foot into his sneaker. “And I’m
cutting PE, remember?”
“Huh, you look different,” Gerard says. He touches Frank’s shoulder with a
finger and his mouth does that lopsided quirk like when he’s drawing. Frank
can’t help darting in and pecking a kiss on the downturned corner.
He expects Gerard to protest, ask what Frank thinks he’s doing, or maybe
pretend it didn’t happen. He does not expect Gerard to surge forward, stumbling
over their feet as he pushes Frank back against the wall, jarring his spine and
sending a flood of heat to his dick.
“Mrmph,” Frank says around the tongue Gerard’s shoved into his mouth. Gerard
does ignore that.
The wall is cold and hard, and Gerard is warm and soft, and Frank definitely
has a thing about being pinned between them. Rather than trying to finesse the
kiss the way he did last time, Frank lets Gerard set the pace, turned on by how
Gerard can’t seem to get close enough fast enough as much as he is by how he’s
rubbing his hip up against Frank’s dick. It doesn’t feel at all like the kind
of making out that could go on for hours and not lead to anything.
Frank’s got his hands under Gerard’s blazer, fisted in his shirt, and is making
whimpering noises into his mouth, trying really hard not to hump his thigh so
good he has to buy smokes with a load in his shorts, when a horn bleats from
the lot making Gerard jump back, panting, eyes glazed.
“Fuck,” Frank says, out of breath himself. “Fuck. You are so fucking— Why’d you
stop?”
Gerard blinks at him, then blinks some more, fingers still griping the
shoulders of Frank’s sweatshirt. “We need cigarettes,” he says slowly.
Frank grins. “Aww, sweetie, it was good for me, too.”
That snaps Gerard out of his daze, makes him pfft and push Frank as he lets go
his hold. “You’re a brat, too. Anyone ever tell you that?”
“Be nice, or I won’t get you any smokes.”
“Brat,” Gerard repeats, digging out his wallet so he can give Frank some cash.
Gerard stays in the alley with their bags, out of sight of the plate-glass
storefront while Frank goes in to get them cigarettes. The dude behind the
counter blatantly checks Frank against the height tape on the door jam, and his
hand disappears under the counter about where you’d expect a panic alarm—or
maybe a gun—to be. Frank wonders if it’s the fucking beanie he’s wearing of if
the guy’s just been robbed one too many times. Either way, he seems a little
high strung to be in the minimart business.
“Hey,” Frank says, making sure his hands are visible. “How’s your day going?”
The guy just looks at him.
“Two boxes of Marlboro Reds, please.” Frank concentrates on looking and
sounding as old as possible. He hasn’t been carded buying smokes since he was
thirteen, but it would not surprise him at all if this were the dude to break
the streak.
“Smoking kills, you know.” Now that Frank’s almost to the counter and still has
his hands visible, the guy takes his own hand off whatever he’s got down there.
“I have heard that,” Frank says, and what the fuck? Isn’t this guy supposed to
be selling shit, making money here?
“Just so you know,” the guy says, and turns to his racks of cigarettes. Frank’s
not in the clear yet with the whole ID thing, but things are looking good. The
dude gets out two boxes of Reds and puts them down just out of Frank’s reach.
“Thanks,” Frank says, pulling out his money.
“How old are you?”
“Eighteen,” Frank says confidently.
“Super. You got your ID on you?”
Not super. Not super at all. “Sorry,” Frank says, contrite as he can. “Must’ve
left it in my other pants.”
“No problem.” Frank starts to slide his money over, but the guy continues,
“These’ll be right here for you when you come back.”
Frank doesn’t bother to ask if he’s kidding. The guy is not a kidder. He also
manages to resist flipping the dude off as he leaves, but only because he’s
still not sure that wasn’t a gun he was reaching for when Frank came in.
Asshole. Gerard’s gonna think Frank’s a total loser if he can’t even fucking
buy some god damn smokes.
When he rounds the corner of the building, Gerard takes one look at him and
says, “Do not tell me the fucker carded you.”
“The fucker carded me.” Frank feels like the biggest tool ever. Which doesn’t
even make sense, but he can’t help it.
“Eh, don’t worry about it,” Gerard says. “Guy’s even carded fucking Mikey, and
Mikey never gets carded.”
Frank wants to ask why the hell Gerard sent him in there in that case, then
remembers that Gerard wanted to go to another store and it was Frank’s idea to
stay here. “Just want a fucking cigarette, man.”
Gerard shoves Frank’s backpack into his arms. “Now can we go to the Dixie Dip?”
he asks.
“Fuck you,” Frank says. “Why didn’t you tell me instead of wasting our time?”
“You started taking your clothes off. I lost my train of thought.”
It’s all Frank can do not to bust out his victory fistpump. He does treat
Gerard to a shoulder-shimmy though. “Oh, yeah.”
“Keep it in your pants, brat,” Gerard says. But he’s smiling as he heads
through the lot to continue their quest for tobacco.
 
The Dixie Dip is another four or five blocks from school, and half way there
Frank checks the time on his phone. “What have you got after Government?
Because it looks like we’re cutting third, too.” Frank has no qualms about
missing his French class—he’s got a detention at this point no matter what, and
they just had a pop quiz yesterday so there won’t be one today—but he’d feel
bad if all the time he wasted at the 7-Eleven made Gerard miss an art class or
something.
“Psychology. We have to go back for lunch or Mikey will worry, but if you want
to skip fourth, too, there’s a comic store next to the Dip.” He says it like he
thinks maybe Frank is going to argue about a comic book store being a worthy
place to spend his time, but all Frank hears is Let’s spend the next two hours
hanging out together even though we’ll get in trouble for it. Not that he has
anything against comics. And he bets he’ll get to see that happy-excited look
on Gerard’s face again—the one he had while he was talking about his drawings
with Mikey in the cafeteria the other day. Frank likes that look.
They get their cigarettes and two crappy cups of coffee and stand huddled
against bricks between the windows of the Dip and the comic store watching each
other feed their addictions.
“You’re seriously a smoker,” Gerard says when Frank’s smoked half his cigarette
in the time Gerard’s gotten his lit and taken two puffs.
“Yeah,” Frank says. It’s shit for his lungs, and if his mom finds his stash she
always throws them away, so sometimes he has to go a few days between the end
of one pack and the start of the next, but he gave up trying to convince anyone
he’s just a social smoker sometime last year. “Did you think I was pretending?”
Gerard looks at him, takes another drag and another sip of coffee. “Maybe. I
thought you were just looking for an excuse to follow me, find out more about
Mikey.”
“If I wanted to find out more about Mikey, wouldn’t it make more sense for me
to have followed Mikey somewhere?”
“No,” Gerard says in that way that means yes.
“Besides. Mikey didn’t run off in the middle of lunch. I didn’t need to follow
him.”
“Whatever.” Cigarette down at his side, Gerard communes with his coffee for a
minute. “Wait. If you thought I was Mikey’s boyfriend, what were you doing
making out with him?”
Probably Gerard knows his brother’s lips get around, so if Frank explains he
won’t exactly be sharing state secrets. “I’d already seen him kissing two
different girls at Bob’s party. And I asked, and he said you don’t care who he
kisses.”
“You didn’t think that was strange?”
“I thought you had a modern and open-minded agreement.” Frank remembers Mikey’s
distinct lack of groping. “It also explained why Mikey didn’t try to get to
second base.”
Gerard snorts. “Mikey doesn’t really believe in going to second base with
anyone unless he’s dating them. Thinks it’s leading them on.”
“Guess I’m glad he didn’t try with me, then.”
From the look on Gerard’s face, that’s the last thing he expected Frank to say.
“Why?”
“Because Mikey’s not who I wish I were dating.” Frank looks right at Gerard as
he says it so his point is clear.
He either succeeds or totally fails, because Gerard says, “Wanna see if there’s
anything new?” and makes a grab for the door of the comic book store. Frank
ditches his coffee and stubs out his cigarette and follows him.
The store is smaller than the one Frank usually goes to out by his dad’s house,
but they’re using every inch of space, so it looks like they have at least as
many titles.
“Gerard, my man,” the guy behind the counter says. “You know it’s only Tuesday,
right?”
“That was one time. During the summer. Days are more confusing then.” Gerard
turns to Frank. “Dave is never gonna let me live that down.”
Dave (Frank assumes) lets his gaze slide from Frank’s beanie to his ratty PE
shoes. “Mikeyway, I always suspected you might be a shape shifter. I like the
new look. Not sure I see the point, but who am I to question?”
“Funny,” Gerard says. “I do have friends besides my brother, you know.”
Dave gives him a look like Gerard’s trying to convince him he was raised on a
moon colony. Gerard just rolls his eyes.
“This is Frank.”
“Hi,” Frank says. He’s not exactly sure what to do with Dave or this Gerard who
doesn’t get all bent out of shape when someone teases him.
Dave comes out from behind the counter and holds out his hand for Frank to
shake, but is looking mostly at Gerard when he says, “Is this you trying to
tell me Mikey doesn’t have superpowers?”
“He totally has superpowers,” Gerard answers. “Just nothing so obvious as
shapeshifting.”
“Nice to meet you,” Dave says, finally remembering to give Frank his hand back
before he’s focused on Gerard again. “I’m gonna have to wait for the book,
aren’t I?”
“There’s a book about Mikey?” Frank asks.
“Not yet,” Dave tells him. “Not yet. But your friend here’s gonna write one,
and it’s gonna be epic. Batman: Year One epic.”
“You’re writing a book about Mikey?” Frank doesn’t ask if his superpower is
getting served beer, because while Dave seems pretty cool and so far hasn’t
called them on cutting school, he is an adult, and if he just knows Mikey and
Gerard from his store, he might not know about the whole alcohol thing.
“Dave,” Gerard says, pointing at him and looking as stern as a kid with too-
long greasy hair and an ill-fitting school uniform can look. “New rule. No
talking to Frank.” Gerard turns on Frank. “You, no listening to Dave. No one’s
writing a book about Mikey.”
“Do you have Year One in hardback?” Frank asks Dave, ignoring Gerard’s rules.
His paperback got destroyed when his grandma’s basement flooded, and his dad
gave him some hardback collections last Christmas, so a hardback replacement
would look better on his bookshelf.
“Do you want to show him where they are, Gerard, since I’m not allowed to talk
to him?”
“I don’t know why I keep coming in here,” Gerard mutters.
“Because I brought you back a signed copy of Arkham Asylum last time I went to
London and you owe me an eternal debt of gratitude.”
“Holy fuck. You have a signed Arkham?” Frank wants to see that.
“Mikey has it. Gave it to him for his birthday. And you’re not following the
rules.”
“Yeah,” Frank says. “I’m not very good at rules.”
“We like him, G-Way. He can stay.”
Gerard stops in front of a display of hardbacks. “And people wonder why I just
want to hang out with my brother,” he says.
Spying Year One, Frank picks it up. “Don’t front. You know you love hanging out
with me.”
Gerard blushes a little bit and shoots a panicked look in Dave’s direction, but
the door’s opening and he’s distracted looking at his new customer.
“Don’t worry,” Frank whispers. “I won’t tell Dave why you love hanging out with
me.”
“Ugh,” Gerard says. “Are you buying that or not?”
“Yes.” Then Frank remembers that it’s the middle of December and his mother
will probably kill him if he tries to buy himself anything until he’s seen
what’s under the Christmas tree. “No. Fuck. Christmas. But I know it’s here.”
“You like Arkham?” Gerard asks.
“Of course.”
Gerard hooks a finger in the pocket of Frank’s hoodie and tugs him toward the
back of the store. “You seen We3?”
Frank hasn’t, but he’s more than happy to let Gerard show him.
Without Dave teasing, Gerard loses his long-suffering air and as they wander
around checking out the inventory, showing each other things they’ve read,
Frank gets to see his happy-excited smile more than once. He does keep asking
Frank what time it is though, until finally Frank asks why he doesn’t just text
Mikey if he’s freaking out that much about missing lunch and worrying him.
“Lost my phone,” Gerard admits.
“In your room?” Frank wouldn’t be surprised if Gerard loses his bed sometimes,
never mind a phone.
“Maybe,” Gerard admits.
“I could come over after school if you want, help you find it.” Frank doesn’t
usually invite himself places—that’s not how his momma raised him—but from what
Bob and Mikey’ve said and what Frank’s seen himself, if he waits on Gerard for
an invitation they’ll be in their eighties when it happens.
“You— I guess.”
“Don’t sound so enthusiastic. You’ll be able to text your brother again, and—“
Frank lowers his voice— “if you’re nice, I’ll let you kiss me.”
“Let me. That’s what we’re calling this?” But his gaze is fixed on Frank’s
mouth and he doesn’t seem able to look away.
 
They get back to school just in time for lunch to start, Frank remembering as
they hit the hall outside the cafeteria that he’d better put his blazer back on
if he doesn’t want detention for being out of uniform as well as cutting class.
“Fucking blazers,” Gerard says, watching Frank try to smooth out the wrinkles
in his. “Teenagers are uncomfortable enough in their skin without making them
uncomfortable in their clothes, too. And don’t try to tell me that a uniform
levels the playing field and erases class and social differences; that’s a
fallacy, and a dangerous one.”
“Um, wow,” Frank says, staring a little. “I— was not going to try to tell you
that. I fucking hate this thing.”
“And don’t get me started on how they’re enforcing gender stereotyping and
dictating a false gender binary to the student body.”
“Please,” someone who sounds a lot like Mikey says from behind Frank, “don’t
get him started.”
“You know it’s wrong to force the girls into skirts and the boys into pants.
You know it is, Mikes.”
“I know, Gee.” Mikey puts an arm around Gerard’s shoulders, herding him toward
the cafeteria. “Did you give him coffee?” Mikey asks sotto voice in Frank’s
direction.
“Yeah,” Frank says, “but like an hour and a half ago.” Although Gerard had
actually been just as passionate in the comic book store, it’s just that Frank
had been expecting that—the lecture on school uniforms seemed a little random.
“I can hear you,” Gerard points out.
“Coffee gets you excited,” Frank says. “Good to know.”
“Usually it’s not so bad, but I wasn’t paying attention and he ordered a
quadruple shot latte on the way to school so whatever he got with you was on
top of that.”
“My ear is seriously like nine inches from your mouth right now.” Gerard has
his hand up flapping back and forth between his ear and Mikey’s lips, and he
looks ridiculous and fucking adorable and Frank wants to hold hands with him
really badly.
 
When they get to what Frank’s hoping he’s not premature in already thinking of
as their table, Gerard sits down next to Mikey, which means that Frank can’t
lean into him or nudge their knees together, but at least he can look at him
without having to turn his head. And it does make sense, really. Mikey is
Gerard’s brother and best friend in the whole world, and Gerard’s known Frank
for two days.
“I told Frank he could come over after school again,” Gerard tells Mikey, after
he explains that they practically had to cut three whole classes because the
asshat at the 7-Eleven carded Frank.
“Okay, cool,” Mikey says, and then he actually looks at his brother. Frank
thinks Gerard’s face pretty much looks like Gerard’s face, but obviously Mikey
sees something in his eyebrows or whatever, because he says, “Oh. I totally
forgot. I’m going somewhere. So it’ll just be the two of you.” It’s only
marginally more subtle than the stilted getting-snacks conversation. Gerard
tries to hide the pleased look on his face, but he isn’t any more successful
than Mikey is subtle. Frank doesn’t try to hide his pleased look at all.
Math isn’t too interminable, because they have their quiz so there’s the whole
ticking-clock thing going on, but History is at least a hundred years long.
During Business Skills Frank imagines Gerard in his studio class working on his
art project, tries to picture it, wonders if it’s some kind of still life, or a
portrait, or if he gets to draw zombies and cat people and household-appliance
weaponry. It’s a better bet than thinking about Gerard’s bed and how in an hour
or so Frank might be lying on it with Gerard’s tongue in his mouth. That way
lies madness. Also boners. Frank’s not that big a fan of in-class boners.
Especially not in Mrs. Ware’s class, because she looks like she might be your
grandma, and that shit’s just not right. When the final bell rings, it’s all
Frank can do to contain his whoop of joy.
Gerard isn’t at his locker when Frank gets there, but people are still coming
out of the studio, and Frank’s classroom is only in the next hall, so he
probably didn’t miss him. He peers through the window in the door and can see
Gerard’s arm and shoulder up to where his hair falls over his collar. He’s
gesticulating passionately, paintbrush in hand, in the direction of a man in
his fifties Frank assumes is Mr. Zukaris. Craning his neck to try to see
Gerard’s canvas, Frank misses the kid coming at the door from the other
direction, and gets beaned in the head as she opens it.
“Sorry,” she says when she catches him rubbing his skull. Then, and Frank’s not
sure he isn’t hallucinating this part, she says, “Oh, hey, Frank, right?
Janine’s friend from English. You were at Bob Bryar’s gig with Mikey Way.”
“Um,” Frank says intelligently.
“Nice to meet you. See you around.” And she’s off, down the hall and around the
corner.
Frank rubs his head again. This whole not being invisible thing might take some
getting used to.
While he was distracted with head injuries and total strangers knowing his
name, Frank missed Gerard wrapping up whatever conversation he was having and
getting his things together, and suddenly he’s there, almost tripping on
Frank’s feet as he tries to get out of the classroom.
“Oh hi,” he says. “You’re here.” Frank can’t tell if his tone is pleased-but-
distracted, or perturbed.
“I didn’t think you knew where my locker was so it seemed logical to come to
yours.”
“Yeah.” Gerard starts fiddling with his combination lock. “Mikey might have
pointed yours out to me after lunch.”
Frank hopes Mikey didn’t mention he knows where it is because he saw Frank
getting stuffed inside it. “So you still want help finding your phone?”
“Sure.” Gerard shuts his locker with a clang and hooks his bag over his
shoulder. Apparently there is something super interesting about where the strap
attaches. “Or. We don’t have to look for my phone if you’d rather do something
else.”
“My dad’s not coming to take me for dinner tonight,” Frank points out.
“Cool.” Looking up from his bag, Gerard gives Frank a smile half-way between
his little drawing-something-he-likes one and the excited-about-a-great-comic
one.
They walk really close to each other on the way to Gerard’s house. They don’t
hold hands, but their knuckles brush, and every time they do, Frank catches
Gerard looking at him out of the corner of his eye.
By the time they get to the top of the stairs down to Gerard’s room, they’re
practically running, and there is none of the pretending they’re here for any
reason other than making out that Frank was half expecting. They drop their
bags on the floor and dive at each other, hands twisting in polyester blazers,
teeth clacking. “Ow,” Gerard mumbles against Frank’s mouth, kissing him again,
and again, finally finding an angle that doesn’t mush either of their noses or
pinch lips between teeth, then ruining it almost immediately by pushing Frank
across the minefield of his room.
“Can we—“ Frank pulls away, but keeps his grip on Gerard’s elbows as he backs
toward the bed so he doesn’t lose him. “Just let me—” He almost goes down, but
Gerard catches him, and they make it the last couple of feet to where Gerard
can safely tackle Frank onto his mattress.
The bed is nothing like the wall in the alley, but it’s just as good to be
pressed against with Gerard’s soft warmth in terms of making Frank’s dick hard,
and then even better, because they’re alone, and Frank’s not wearing a
ridiculous beanie, so Gerard can grab his hair, pull his head back, suck on his
neck. And when Frank says, “Oh my god,” way louder than he means to at the feel
of Gerard’s teeth on the patch of skin right under his ear, there’s no one to
hear them and come investigate. Gerard groans, sucks harder, makes Frank arch
nearly off the bed despite Gerard’s full weight on top of him, and Frank can’t
help but think of Gerard sucking his own blood in the parking lot, can’t help
wondering what it would feel like if he were sucking Frank’s blood right now.
“Sorry,” Gerard mumbles when Frank starts whimpering.
“No. That was— Good. Noises of good.”
Gerard peers at his neck. “I mean I think I gave you a hickey.”
Never has Frank been more grateful for his mother’s habit of fussing at him to
wear scarves and keep his hood up even in the house, because it’s hard to keep
it warm enough for her to be satisfied he won’t get sick. “S’okay,” Frank
assures him. “Really.” Since they’re paused anyway, Frank tries to get his
hands between them, undo Gerard’s blazer buttons.
Gerard stares a moment and then rolls off Frank onto his back, says, “You too.
And shoes,” and then they’re both flopping around, trying to get their jackets
off, kick off their shoes, and move up the bed all at once. Frank gets a
forearm in the ribs and very nearly elbows Gerard in the eye, and he says,
“Come to a show with me,” as he’s pulling off his tie, because he really wants
to see Gerard sweaty and wild in a pit.
“A show?” Gerard’s on his side, jacket gone, one shoe off and one still on,
struggling with the knot on his tie. Frank can’t wait any more to kiss him.
“Later.” Pushing Gerard onto his back, Frank climbs on top of him and Gerard
immediately gives up on his neckwear, grabs Frank’s hair again, gets back to
licking his mouth. It’s not as good as having Gerard’s weight on top of him,
except for the ways it’s better: Gerard straining up to reach him; the way he
can snug his dick right up against Gerard’s; the way it makes him feel tiny and
powerful at the same time; the way Gerard’s leg comes up to hook around his,
pull him closer.
Frank’s pretty sure he could stay here forever, just like this, but he also
wants more. He wants everything.
The thin light coming through the basement window has gotten thinner and
Frank’s sweating through his shirt, rutting against Gerard and not even caring
if he comes in his pants, when Gerard gets his hands on Frank’s shoulders and
pushes him back. “Gotta get my tie off. Dying,” he gasps. The perverse part of
Frank wants to pull Gerard’s tie tighter, go back to kissing him, see how much
he’d squirm, but the rest of him would like Gerard to invite him over again,
and decides that he should probably not choke him on their first date. Assuming
this counts as a date.
“Just so you know,” Frank says while Gerard’s picking at his knot, “I’m
planning on going for second base. Maybe even third.”
Gerard looks at him, eyes still a little glazed, but serious, too. “You’re not
worried I’ll think you’re my boyfriend?”
No point beating around the bush. Worst case scenario, Frank’s life goes back
to what it was last week. Which would suck, sure, but it’s not like he hasn’t
been pretty obvious here already. “I want to be your boyfriend. I also want to
get in your pants. Either would be good. Both would be fantastic.”
Gerard’s mouth does that thing Frank loves where half of it smiles and the
other half almost grins. “I’ve never really been sure where the baseball
analogies fit, but whatever base is you taking your shirt off, I think we
should do that now.”
Frank only bothers with the top two buttons before yanking his shirt over his
head. Gerard’s still working on his tie by the time Frank’s topless.
“Seriously?” Frank asks. “What did you do to it?” Already moving to run his
hands down Frank’s torso, Gerard doesn’t complain when Frank takes over.
Somehow it’s like Gerard soaked the knot in water after he got it around his
neck, and they end up with Frank straddling Gerard’s stomach, digging into the
stubborn fabric with his nails while Gerard skates his hands up and down
Frank’s ribs, circles Frank’s nipples with his fingers.
“You can touch them,” Frank says, pausing his efforts in order to eye the half-
inch of skin Gerard’s treating like a force field.
“Yeah,” Gerard breathes, but he doesn’t get closer. “Kinda like watching them
get hard when I’m not even touching them, though.”
And wow, okay, speaking of hard, Frank could kill a zombie with his dick right
now. “I’m gonna cut this off you,” Frank says, pulling frustratedly at Gerard’s
tie. But that loosens it so he can get his fingers between the fabric and
Gerard’s neck and yank it open enough to pull it over Gerard’s head. “Fucking
finally.”
Clearly Gerard agrees, because as soon as his tie’s off, he starts undoing the
buttons on his shirt. Frank shoves it up and off as soon as there’s enough
access. Which leaves Frank’s junk resting on Gerard’s pale belly. God, he wants
to rub all over it. “Is it too soon to say I want to jerk off on you right
now?” Frank asks. It’s all he can think about.
“Um.” Gerard looks at the bulge in his pants, the way his hips are rocking a
little. “Maybe? I mean, that would— Really?”
“Yeah,” Frank says. “Never mind. Next time. But can I—“ Scooting down, he leans
in and presses the side of his face to Gerard’s belly. It’s even better than it
looked, so soft and so warm and perfect. He turns his head, presses in with his
other cheek, then his nose, and then he’s kissing it, and this. This is what he
wants to do forever.
Gerard’s wiggling, like maybe it tickles, and without even thinking about it
Frank brings his arms up to pin him down, hold him right there so he can sniff
and lick and kiss and rub his face over every delicious inch of skin. He’s
heard a guy talk about titty facewashes before, and how he just wanted to get
all up in there and drown, and that’s how Frank feels right now. Not that
Gerard’s belly is like a girl’s tits, but it has some give, just the right
amount so if Frank pushes in he can’t breathe, and he had no idea. He’s humping
the mattress, clinging to Gerard’s waist, digging in with fingers and chin and
nose and teeth, and Gerard’s panting and twitching, and he’s practically
pulling Frank’s hair out by the handful, but he’s not telling Frank to stop.
When Frank bites a little too hard, Gerard whimpers, and Frank apologizes,
lapping at the bite marks, soothing them with his tongue and lips, and then his
“sorry, sorry, sorry,” becomes, “please, please, please,” and he isn’t even
sure what he’s asking for. But the hand he had on Gerard’s far hip starts
inching closer to his dick and, god, that’s what Frank wants. He wants to touch
it. Wants to feel Gerard come with Frank’s face right there, cheek pressed to
his quivering belly, feeling him go tense then liquid. “Can I?” he asks, but
his hand’s already there.
“Fuck,” Gerard answers. “Fuck. Yes. Fuck, oh god, oh god.”
And he’s so hard already, dick like a fucking rod under Frank’s hand, so he
doesn’t even try for Gerard’s zipper, just squeezes and rubs him through his
pants, kneading his belly with his other hand, rocking his face into the
softness, digging in deep as he can, so he’s suffocating himself, lungs working
to inhale Gerard’s skin, and it’s so fucking good. Fucking perfect, until
Gerard rips him away by his hair, says, “Breathe, Frankie, jesus, fucking
breathe.” And that’s when Frank comes.
Sometimes coming wears him out, and he just wants to sleep, but sometimes it
energizes him, makes him feel like he can do anything. This is one of those
times. Propping up on one elbow, he gets both hands working Gerard’s fly, has
it peeled open and away from his dick before Gerard can ask what he’s doing.
“Gotta touch you,” Frank says. “Please. You gotta let me touch you.”
Gerard just flops back against the pillows, his hips lifting into Frank’s
hands.
“Yeah,” Frank murmurs. “Yeah.” Gerard’s thick and heavy between his palms,
blood-hot and flushed. Frank hasn’t spent a lot of time looking at cocks—he
feels weird watching porn on a computer he shares with his mother, and when his
own dick’s hard he’s usually too busy jerking off to really examine it that
closely—but Gerard’s is pretty awesome. And like, right there. Frank wants to
kiss it, but there’s gonna be a next time, there has to be, and he’s probably
scared Gerard enough for one afternoon. He rubs it between his hands instead,
kissing Gerard’s belly, his hipbone, the curve of his ribs.
“Stop fucking teasing,” Gerard moans, making Frank realize that random fondling
doesn’t exactly a stellar handjob make.
“Right,” he says. “Right.” He tries to focus.
While he’s doing that, Gerard takes him by the wrist and pulls his hand up to
his mouth, licking the ball of his thumb, his palm, up his fingers. It’s wet,
and slimy, and pretty much the hottest thing anyone has ever done to Frank in
his life, including having his dick in another dude’s mouth. “Jesus,” Frank
breathes, and Gerard mumbles, “’s better wet,” around the fingers he’s sucking
on.
“If you don’t stop that soon, I’m gonna need that hand to jerk myself off.”
Frank tries to care that that isn’t even fair to think about getting off twice
before he’s gotten Gerard off once, but holy fuck it just feels so good.
Gerard obviously doesn’t think it’s fair either, because he gives Frank his
hand back. Like, still super sensitized. Gerard’s dick feels like it’s burning
up, slipping through Frank’s fist fast and easy, and yeah. Yeah. The angle’s
wrong for Frank to get his face back in there, but he lays his other hand flat
on Gerard’s belly, feeling it tense and jump, feeling Gerard’s dick respond
when Frank squeezes the flesh there.
“So much hotter without your clothes,” Frank tells Gerard’s belly. “So fucking
hot.” He speeds up, wanting to see Gerard’s jizz against his skin, wanting to
feel it.
He expects a sound, or a change in Gerard’s breathing, but all he gets is
Gerard’s dick jerking in his hand and then come spilling over the fingers
splayed on his belly. He’s the one who gasps, releases his breath on a drawn-
out moan, while Gerard just keeps inhaling and exhaling, deep and steady.
“Was that—“ Frank says. He came, so it can’t have been horrible.
Like Frank’s words released him, Gerard takes a shuddering breath, and hauls
Frank up the bed onto his chest, smearing jizz everywhere on the way. Frank
takes the rib-crushing hug and the way Gerard’s got his face buried in Frank’s
neck as a good thing.
Until it starts getting hard for him to breathe. The squeak he makes isn’t
exactly dignified, but it is effective. More effective than expected, in fact.
Gerard releases him, pushing him up until he can stare into his face, eyes wild
and intense. Frank’s stomach does that swooping thrill like when Gerard pinned
him to the wall in the alley, or was bucking underneath him while Frank was on
his lap, and the guy’s just looking at him. “Fuuuuck,” Frank breathes.
“You don’t even—” Gerard says, his grip on Frank’s shoulders so tight it aches.
“You don’t even know.”
“Don’t know—“ What. Frank’s gonna ask what, but Gerard’s flipping him, surging
up and over, looming in Frank’s face, and the word’s knocked right out of him.
“You gotta, please, Frank, you gotta let me—“
There’s no time for Frank to even wonder, never mind ask, gotta let him what,
before Gerard’s pawing at his waistband, his fly, careless of the fact that
Frank’s junk is right there and gonna get mauled if he’s not careful.
“Lemme—“ Frank says, pushing Gerard’s hands out of the way, because what’s he
gonna say, No, please don’t get my dick out, I’d rather die of blueballs? Uh
huh. No. He gets the button done, and as soon as he starts on the zipper,
Gerard’s pulling, fingers hooked in not only the pants but Frank’s briefs,
yanking the works down to his knees.
“Please,” Gerard says again, running a finger down the edge where Frank’s pubes
thin to a smattering of leg hair, a look of wonder on his face.
“You need an engraved inv— aaak!” Frank dares anyone not to squawk when a dude
basically faceplants in their naked crotch.
“Gnnngh,” Gerard moans, nuzzling his nose deeper into the groove at the top of
Frank’s thigh. “You smell like sex.”
Which, duh, that’s what happens when you cream your shorts. But Frank’s not
feeling very quippy at the moment, what with the way Gerard’s nuzzling and
sniffing is heading for Frank’s dick. “Ungh,” he says instead.
“Can you—“ Gerard tries to push Frank’s thighs apart, but since he’s lying on
Frank’s left leg and Frank’s still hobbled by his pants, he’s not that
successful. Apparently he’s willing to make do, though, because before Frank
can offer to get more naked, Gerard starts licking his dick like it’s a
popsicle in August.
“Okay,” Frank says weakly.
“Taste like sex,” Gerard mumbles, lips brushing the base of Frank’s cock.
Frank nods, not that Gerard’s paying any attention. He’s too busy kissing every
inch of skin between Frank’s hipbones.
And Frank was so, so wrong thinking Gerard licking his hand was the hottest
thing ever. Because Gerard fucking sniffing him is somehow hotter, never mind
the things he’s doing with his tongue, and god, his fingers, cupping Frank’s
dick so he can rub little circles under the head with his thumb, suck wet,
clinging kisses to the shaft, jack him a few times before—oh god, fuck—opening
his mouth around the tip, licking, sucking, so fucking good Frank doesn’t even
care when his teeth catch for a second on his way down.
He squeaks, flinches a little, but he doesn’t care.
Gerard pulls off, says, “Sorry. I’ve never—“
And god, why is that even hotter? That Frank’s is the first cock he’s ever had
in his mouth? “No, s’good. Don’t stop. Please. Fuck, Gee, please.” Gerard
doesn’t complain about the nickname, and Frank hopes that nuzzling a guy’s junk
means you’re past the need for formalities.
“D’zit always taste this good?” he slurs, chin propped on Frank’s thigh.
Since Frank’s had exactly zero dicks in his mouth, and he’s not really into
licking his fingers after he jerks off, he’s not super qualified to answer that
question. “Just fucking suck me, please. We can talk after.”
Gerard, thank god, giggles at that and gets back to what he was doing.
Objectively, maybe, Gerard is not all that skilled at giving head. Even after
the first time, he hasn’t really got the hang of keeping his teeth out of the
way, though Frank can tell he’s trying, and at least he hasn’t stopped to
apologize again. He hasn’t got any rhythm, and he’s for sure not deep
throating, but he keeps making these hungry, greedy noises that make Frank feel
like he’s gonna vibrate out of his skin, and his mouth is wet and hot and tight
and he keeps doing this thing with his tongue that makes Frank’s dick jerk, and
the way he’s drooling everywhere makes his fist a slick-wet tunnel to thrust
into, and skilled or not, Frank is a big fan of his technique.
The last (and only) time Frank got a blowjob, he was so drunk that he had to
work to come. Now he’s having to work to hold on, despite the fact he came like
fifteen minutes ago. He tries to get a hand in Gerard's hair, maybe slow him
down some, but he just ends up cupping the back of Gerard's head, grinding
awkwardly into his face.
That makes Gerard cough―and oh, there are his teeth again―makes his hand
tighten roughly, and Frank should probably be squawking and flailing and
protecting his junk, but he's too busy coming.
"Are you, um?" Gerard says, squinting up at Frank.
"Good. Great. You bit me."
Ducking Frank’s gaze, Gerard nuzzles his groin, kisses the top of his thigh.
“If I promise I’ll get better, will you let me practice?”
“All day, every day,” Frank answers, voice thick with feeling. “Except the
parts where I’m practicing on you.”
That gets him Gerard’s most blinding grin yet.
 
The next day at school is confusing, because Gerard decides he wants to walk
Frank to his classes, and Frank decides he wants to walk Gerard’s to his, so
they end up lurking around the other one’s locker getting tardies, wondering if
they’d somehow misread the sappy, dirty texts they’d exchanged after Frank made
good on his promise and helped Gerard find his phone before going home, and the
clinging, frantic kisses in the janitor’s closet before school. But at lunch
Mikey explains to both of them how meeting up in the halls works a lot better
if you know where you’re meeting, and after that, things go much more smoothly.
Since Frank already has practice going by Gerard’s locker between classes,
mostly they meet there, and they look at each other longingly, hating everyone
else in the halls, and Gerard shows Frank his locker art, even lets Frank tape
up the Frank-and-Mikey-led, iron-wielding not-hipster army picture once he
finishes it. They’re standing there before Gerard’s studio class a few days
after winter break, debating whether the irons would be any good as weaponry
against Gerard’s cat woman (not because Frank really cares, but because that’s
much more socially acceptable behavior than sucking Gerard’s dick in the middle
of the hall) when the girl who hit Frank with the door a few weeks ago
approaches.
“Hi, Frank. Hi, Gerard,” she says, reaching for the door of the classroom.
Frank debates just asking Gerard what her name is, but figures that even with
Gerard and Mikey and Janine, and even Bob and Ray who they’ve been hanging out
with over break, it’s not like Frank’s so flush with friends he shouldn’t try
to make more where he can. “So you never told me your name,” he says, before
she can escape into the studio.
“Oh,” she says. “Yeah. It’s Erika.”
“Nice to meet you,” Frank says, holding his hand out. She shakes it.
“Nice to meet you, too. Officially,” she says, and as the bell rings, hurries
inside.
“Do you have to go to Business?” Gerard asks, voice tickling in Frank’s ear.
“No.” He doesn’t even have to think about it. Except, “But don’t you need your
studio time?”
“Fuck.” Gerard frowns, and Frank doesn’t take his thumb and smooth the wrinkle
that puts between his eyebrows. “Yes. I’m already behind on my oil painting.”
“That’s what I thought.” Gerard hasn’t complained, quite the opposite in fact,
but Frank knows they’ve both been getting behind on their schoolwork. “See you
after, though,” Frank says, darting a look around the hall before dropping a
quick kiss on Gerard’s shoulder.
“Yeah. See you after.”
 
After, Frank and Gerard are waiting for Mikey at his locker, and he’s taking
forever. They aren’t making out against the wall or anything (although Frank
wishes they were, because damn is Gerard a good kisser) but Gerard has his chin
propped on Frank’s shoulder and an arm around his ribs pointing out details in
the sketch for his painting Frank’s looking at.
“Hey, shortass,” comes a sneer from behind them. “Psycho-boy sucking your dick
now?”
The urge to let his fist fly is strong, but Frank would pretty much have to
elbow Gerard in the stomach to do it, so he just turns and gives PE-class
Asshole Number One a nasty smile. “Yes,” Frank says. “He is. And he’s amazing.
Better than you’ll ever get.”
The asshole doesn’t look like he knows what to say to that. “Yeah, well,” he
sputters. “I get plenty of head. You don’t know how much head I get.”
“Don’t care, either,” Frank points out.
Erika from Gerard’s art class shows up at asshole’s elbow. “God, Carl, you’re
not going to try to count that pity blow Alexis gave you at your party last
summer when you drank so much gin you cried about being a virgin and then
couldn’t get it up, are you?” When he boggles at her wide-eyed, she boggles
back, mocking him. “And their names are Frank and Gerard, not shortass and
psycho-boy.”
“Like I care what their names are,” Carl mutters.
“Like we care about your sexual inadequacies,” Gerard says, arm still around
Frank’s waist, chin still hooked over his shoulder.
“I get being obsessed with Gee’s mouth,” Frank adds. “Believe me. But I’m not
sharing. Sorry.” Erika laughs at that, and Carl scowls.
“Fuck you all,” he says, pushing Erika aside to get away.
“Not if you paid me,” Frank calls after him.
“Paid you for what?” And there’s Mikey, finally.
“Carl is jealous that your brother’s giving Frank head instead of him,” Erika
explains. “And Frank doesn’t want to fuck him.”
Mikey draws his eyebrows together slightly in what Frank has learned is his
frown. “No,” he says. “We’re not talking about Gee and sex.”
“Am I really amazing?” Gerard whispers in Frank’s ear.
“The most amazing,” Frank whispers back, letting his shoulders settle against
Gerard’s chest.
“Ugh,” Mikey says. “You two are not making out through the whole movie again.
“I like movies,” Erika chimes in. “I can distract you so you don’t have to
watch them.”
“Great idea,” Frank says before Mikey can protest.
Erika puts an arm around Mikey, and the other around the bundle of Gerard and
Frank. “That’s what friends are for, right?”
~fin~
End Notes
     Bluesoaring was an invaluable cheerleader, celtic_cookie provided
     much needed comics-geek assistance, isweedan did beta duties (and her
     best to rein in my Frank’s babbling) and miss_begonia was a patient
     and helpful sounding board when I realized that this wasn’t actually
     going to be the 3k PWP I’d planned on, and maybe I needed to find a
     plot somewhere. Thanks also to my impromptu twitter-feed vocab
     committee.
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      Podfic:_We're_All_Okay by cee_m_(ro_mm_ck)
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