Chapter Text
"Pencils down. Hand in your tests as you leave the room."
Another Friday, another stupid fucking test. Not that it mattered much anyway. As long as Gerard kept Bs, it would be fine. He could scrape by enough to get into art school. Even if it would leave him drowning in debt, he wouldn't have to repay it in the end. As for his parents, he'd mastered changing the letters on his report cards years ago.
He jotted down one last word and put his pencil down, before his teacher could say shit about his self-prescribed morsel of extra time. It seemed she only noticed Gerard to give him shit, but as long as Gerard avoided it, he was fine with fading into the scenery.
He kept time with the ticks of the clock on the wall, silently tapping his fingers on the desk in order, as he watched and waited for most of the class to drop their papers on the teacher's desk and leave.
Gerard didn't much like to be noticed, at least not when he wasn't trying to be noticed. Not that anyone had ever payed too much attention to him, not for a while. He'd perfected the art of blending into the background around the same time he'd gotten so good at faking grades; when he'd started at his second middle school.
He sat and waited to make sure he wouldn't be noticed or remembered, not for dumb shit like this. He always had to be the third to last one out the door, finding it best to leave after the cool goth chick that sat in front of him. He'd once almost made the mistake of asking her where she shopped, being mildly envious of her dramatic attire, but he remembered himself and his need to fade away. So she wouldn't remember so much as his name.
As for the other two, as long as he wasn't the last out of the room, his teacher wouldn't notice. And Ray, the person who was usually last out of the room, noticed him regardless, as he was the guy who sat next to him in organic chemistry. He too was someone Gerard had almost made the mistake of talking to, in a real genuine conversation besides labs during organic chem. He found his notebooks, completely plastered with taped-on photographs and band stickers, interesting. But he'd never spoken a word of it, because it made it too likely that he wouldn't fade from Ray's head in due time.
After Nessie had handed in her test, Gerard picked up his bookbag and walked to the front of the room to hand Ms. Jessik his own test, before calmly strolling out of the room.
A strange calmness washed over him, it always did after something like this would happen. After it was all out of his hands but not in the hands of anyone else, so there was no one left to fuck shit up.
It wasn't a happy feeling, just as if the rough waters of his head had, for once, come to a still. Or at least a tranquil undulation. Like getting pissed-drink to the point you just lie on the floor thinking about nothing at all.
Even as the bustling hallway kicked in, he still felt like he was simply floating along. People rushed about the hall, packed like sardines in a can, bumping into one another in their equally panicked and sleep-deprived states. He waited, and watched, from the small cavity outside the classroom door, for a break in the endless stream of students.
Upstream, in the distance, he caught glimpse of a familiar mop of borderline jet-black hair. Familiar in one sense or another. He and Frank talked every once and a while, after they'd been lab partners in their freshman year biology class. It was for one project, one particularly shitty project, where the two had bonded, and where Gerard developed an interest in Frank.
Of course, Gerard had never mentioned it, and the little bouts of blank minds and sweaty palms kept him from gathering enough confidence to talk to Frank much more after that project. So the two of them just had their passing conversations every few months, to shake Gerard's mind loose, and let him slip a little bit deeper down the cavern.
Frank had remained entirely oblivious the entire time. As Gerard had intended, despite his want to be something more than almost-strangers. This year, he'd promised himself he'd change it.
This year, he knew, was his last chance to take a stab at it, and it wasn't like he had a long line of other rosy high school romances to look back on an reminisce about. He had to at least try, because at the end of the day there would be nothing lost but hope, and that particular hope was dwindling with each passing day.
He could feel his heart beginning to hammer as he thought about it, like a flurry of bird-wings against the inside of his chest. It was almost exhilarating, if it wasn't nearly so terrifying. But he took a deep breath and ducked into the flood of traffic as he saw a break.
He tried to keep himself from getting swept away, but his head was elsewhere. People bumped into him like he was a fucking crash test dummy, yet he kept his eyes glued to the ground.
From time to time, he'd break his gaze to steal a glance of the pointed face ahead of him, but every time he'd look up, he'd end up running into the end of someone's backpack. He'd try to compensate by shrinking smaller and smaller each time, no doubt terrible for his scoliosis. But it was just the way things had to be.
He jutted his head up once again to search for Frank, but didn't see him this time around. He must've already passed beyond Gerard, but he kept looking, in hopes that he would spot one last glimpse of him before they disappeared from each others' lives for another month. He took another step with his head held up, and another person hit him. Hard.
It knocked the wind right out of Gerard, sending him scrambling for his balance and everything he could feel falling out of his hands. His stained, green bookbag hit the ground with a thud, spewing books and pencils and papers every which way. He knew he should scramble to pick everything up but he could only freeze, leaving it all to be trampled by the relentless traffic of the halls.
"Shit, I didn't mean to do that." a familiarly warm voice said. "I'm so fucking sorry."
Gerard looked up from the floor, greeted by a thin meek smile stretched across Frank's sharp features, displaying his silver lip piercing more than usual. He knelt down next to Gerard to pick up some of the mess, apologizing a few more times for good measure. Gerard got up and aided in collecting his shit, but he tried to keep his eyes to the ground.
As much as he wanted to let them wander off to the person in front of him, he couldn't. His heart was already thrumming with the ferocity of a hummingbird's wings. He didn't need to add any more strain on his heart, afraid he might just have a fucking heart attack on the spot.
"It's not really your fault. It happens." Gerard muttered, afraid his voice might break and give him away is he wasn't careful, not that his face was being too much of a help. He could feel the width of his cheeks warming to a boil without even touching them with his fingertips.
He hurriedly scraped up the last handful of pencils and index cards and shoved them into his bookbag, hoping Frank would just ignore their little fumble and they could part ways and both go on with their day.
"Hey, Gerard right?" Frank asked, as they were getting up off the dirty linoleum.
"Yeah. that's me. At least I hope it is." Gerard awkwardly laughed, embarrassed by his dumb joke. He tried to hide his face behind a cascade of patchy black-and-red dyed chestnut-brown hair as he dusted off his knees, and prepared to leave this whole thing behind.
"Cool." Frank said, offering out his hand. "I'm really sorry, Gerard."
Gerard hesitantly took his hand, knowing full well that his own hand would be gross and sweaty and probably covered in rubbed-off graphite. He could feel his hand trembling ever so slightly as he grasped his hand, contrasted by the calm, warm, and dewy nature of Frank's.
He didn't know how Frank could do that; just take everything with a calm and collected face whenever he wanted to.
"Hey, I can walk you to class if you want." Frank offered with a little smile.
Gerard wasn't sure if he should to take him up on his offer, as much as the idea seemed appealing. He knew that if he were to go, the situation would probably arise where he could ask him out. And he wanted to keep good the promise he'd made to himself.
But after such a fucking blunder, and after Gerard's unrelenting hesitant nature, he found himself biting his tongue. He was unable to say no to the offer, but he knew it'd kill him if he were to go back on his own word when their little trip was over.
"What about your class?" Gerard asked, fishing for an out so that he wouldn't have to live with the regret of passing up this chance.
"They won't die without me." Frank said nonchalantly, "Besides, attendance doesn't kill your grade unless you skip more than ten times."
Gerard tapped his fingers to the side of his thigh, from thumb to pinky to back again. He didn't know what else he expected. It was such a silly thing to overthink like this, he wanted to go, so why the fuck not, but he didn't want to break his promise. He also didn't want to be the reason Frank got stuck in summer school, or even just got a detention.
But he wanted to go.
"Okay, sure." he said hesitantly.
They walked to class side by side, talking about their summers. Well, it was mostly Frank, Gerard being hesitant to offer up too much about his summer. Staying in his cramped bedroom, hunched over books and drawings all day, seemed rather boring in contrast to Frank's chaos-filled roadtrip in a run-down van to Death Valley with his friends.
It was almost a way for Gerard to live vicariously. He felt he hadn't done much with his time in high school, opting for the safety of his room, writing quests to play out with friends he didn't have and drawing characters he'd sometimes pretend to be. It was nice and safe, but it made the whole time feel like a blur, as if it were only one conglomerate instead of a series of years speckled with different exciting events, real events.
Not that his parents would've let him go on a road trip with his friends in his wildest dreams, but it would've been nice to attend one party, or go camp with some friends in the woods, or something.
But Frank was another creature with an entirely different life and an entirely different preset of boundaries. He jumped from one misadventure to the next; from a piss bottle falling over and spilling in the back of the van to deciding one very late (drunken) night to glue his sunglasses to his face so that his eyes would have 'automatic UV protection'.
Gerard would offer up little bits of reaction and tangential commentary, but he would offer up little of his summer. All he ended up offering was that he wrote over the summer, not wanting to go into detail about his little worlds that most people his age had since abandoned for the normal high-school dramatized gossip. Or in Frank's case, probably-exaggerated tales of a life well-lived.
By the time they had reached Gerard's class, he'd gotten a brief synopsis of Frank's summer. It sounded like a fucking riot, the way Frank had told it. But it wasn't like he could just skip out on class to get more of the story, or more of Frank.
They said their goodbyes, and Gerard thanked Frank one last time, biting his tongue as he snuffed out his promise, convincing himself there would be a better time. The premise was too daunting. The only time he'd ever asked anyone out was in the eighth grade, and that had gone horribly. Not that anyone was to blame but Gerard's own awkwardness, something which had only gotten worse in time.
Gerard watched the small window embedded in the door as Frank disappeared from its frame. He cursed himself silently upon realizing that he'd just given up what was probably his last chance to ask him out and for them to actually become something, with the end of life here soon approaching and all.
He tried to focus on the lesson at hand, placing all the effort he could muster into untie the balloons from around him, tapping his fingers one by one in the same silent pattern on the desk, but it didn't work. While his teacher was attempting to do a brief introduction of alkanes, his mind was busy drifting off into its own universe of regret to pay much attention to what was going on. He tried to ground himself, time and time again, but he could never stay grounded long enough to gather any coherence of the lecture.
He tried to convince himself not to freak out about it even more than he was; that he could just ask Ray for the notes after today, or on Monday, or something; but it didn't help that much. It kept piling on, one thought after another, the unexplored path with Frank and then what would happen if parents found out he'd failed organic chemistry and what if his parents found out he had intended to ask a guy out and what if Ray thought that he was a shitty person for asking for notes and everything on top, until he just couldn't take it anymore.
He quietly slipped out of the room, silently thanking his teacher in his sliver of non-panicked mind for implementing a policy where no one had to ask to go take a piss. The hallway was drained of students; a calming sight for Gerard, who could already feel his heartrate beginning to fall again. Not enough, he could still feel his pulse shaking throughout his body, but it was starting to slow.
He got a drink of water from the fountain before heading off to the restroom, so that he wouldn't be questioned by any teachers that spotted him out in the school's hallway.
The restroom was thankfully empty, leaving space for Gerard to clear his head. Though he was tempted to lock the heavy wooden door that led out into the hall, to ensure that he could just be alone and clear his head good and proper, he knew that if anyone tried to get in he could wind up in deep shit. And while he was a damn good liar, he couldn't explain away a call to his fathers' office so easily.
He sat on the edge of the bathroom counter, not wanting to spend his time in the stalls that seemed to alternate stenches of bad weed and unadulterated shit. He tried to run through things he could easily focus on; things that would otherwise be things that would distract him during class: the latest issue of Doom Patrol, the mystery band that was playing down at Vintage this weekend. Things that the could clear from his mind more easily than his long line of blunders.
He took a sip straight from the tap. It didn't taste particularly good, kind of metallic, but it was nice and cold and pulled him right from the stratosphere and back to the triangle-speckled bathroom counter.
He took another sip, but as he ducked his head under the faucet, he heard the footsteps of someone outside. Someone wearing Docs or some similar work boots, a student. He shut off the water immediately and listened attentively for the sound of the bathroom door. His pulse quickening by the moment, anticipating his supposed calm-down ritual being interrupted.
The door shook. Without a beat, Gerard ran into a stall and locked the door behind before he could even see the door open.
"Fuckssake." someone cursed in a harsh but hushed tone. It took Gerard a moment to place the voice, too caught up in his head, but he soon recognized it to be Frank's. "Hello?" he asked, announcing himself.
He paused for a while, then Gerard heard the main bathroom door lock, sending his heart pounding again. This wasn't what he wanted, to have some fucking teacher find him skipping class, or at least what was deemed as such as his school, and wind up with shit with his parents. On top of that, he sure as hell hadn't prepared to talk to Frank again, not so soon, when he already gone back on his promise once, for fuck's sake.
As if God were against him in a very special sort of way today, they were in the second-story bathroom. Sure, it was the best mens' restroom that Belleville High had to offer, but it was a bathroom that smelled of both weed and shit on this lovely Friday afternoon. How fucking romantic. Gerard couldn't decide whether the environment would make it more or less awkward, after all Frank had never failed to lose his sixth-grade humor, but it was still less-than-ideal.
He heard the switch of a lighter, before the room was filled with the tiniest waft of burning tobacco. It was a trick Gerard had learned in his early sophomore year. The third window of this bathroom was the only one you could open to get a proper smoke in, unless you felt like alerting the entire building with ear-shattering alarm system.
No doubt Frank knew the same trick, something which Gerard had found surprising for only a moment. But he soon realized that just about everyone, everyone who smoked at least, knew the same trick.
The burning tobacco still hung in the air like a ghost that had almost crossed over, but what lingered was masked well enough by the constant shit and weed odor that stuck no matter what, well enough to get by without any intruding teachers knowing of the trick. Not that either of them had to worry about that, with the door locked and all.
The scent reminded Gerard of how long it had been since he'd last had a cigarette. He'd been trying to quit, well he'd tried quitting at least seventeen times in the past month, but he'd been so good about it this time around. Sure, it had been because he didn't have much choice, but he was still somewhat proud of it.
But now, with his nerves and all going a hundred miles an hour, he felt his strength cracking. He was due for another cigarette, one last one.
He didn't want to take one from Frank, he really didn't, but he didn't have money either to repay him. The girl at the convenience shop, whom he used to get cigarettes from, had started being really fucking creepy towards him ever since he'd changed his looks. Ever since he'd traded in his mousy hair for something darker, and lost a bunch of weight, due to stress from his parents' reaction to him dying his hair.
Mikey always had some, but he felt guilty taking them from Mikey. Like he was supposed to be some sort of upstanding role model, being the older brother after all, and the quitting and then quitting quitting just made him feel like a shitbag when he knew Mikey knew.
So he just sat in the bathroom stall, in a mix of emotions. None of them what he had intended upon escaping here, feeling the exact opposite of calmed down. For fucks' sake, he was more stressed than he had been before he'd stepped foot in the restroom.
He sat, waiting for Frank to leave, and for this all to pass. Hoping that his teacher wouldn't notice his unusually long absence. Not that his absences went noticed usually, not by anyone but Ray. But Ray wasn't a snitch, not about these sorts of things, because he seemed to understand on some level Gerard needed the escape from time to time. Even if Gerard didn't say anything.
He leaned against the wall of the stall, his feet growing tired from standing so long in so tense a state. Immediately, he regretted this, because as he began to press his weight into the wall, the joints of the stall gave a most awful creak.
"Shit." Frank muttered under his breath. "Hello?" He asked, this time more definitively. He knew someone was there. "Are you alright in there?"
His voice was much softer and calmer than Gerard had ever remembered it being, taking Gerard by surprise. But it was a pleasant one, sending a strangely calming warmth throughout his limbs, ever so slightly counteracting his overactive nerves.
He held his breath for a moment, biding his time before Frank though he'd fucking died or passed out or something. It had happened before; people passing out, not dying; and he didn't want to send Frank worrying or anything.
"Yeah." he said, sharply letting out a breath he'd been holding onto for too long. "I'm okay."
There was a pause. It unnerved Gerard, so he held his breath once again, scared of what Frank was thinking right now. He knew it was fucking weird, to be sitting in a bathroom stall, waiting for someone to leave. He knew Frank had to see it as what it was too: plain fucking weird.
"You sure?" Frank asked with a note of concern.
There was another pause of silence, before Gerard responded with the same exact broken-record answer. Then he waited again, for Frank to leave, but Gerard was all too familiar with how long it took to finish off a cigarette at leisure. And considering Frank seemed to be skipping, he knew it would be a while before he could leave, unseen.
"Alright." Frank said uncertainly, after a stalemate of at least three minutes. "Are you skipping or something?"
"No." Gerard responded, unsure of what else to say. "Well, maybe. I don't know. Just taking a breather."
"Oh." Frank said. Gerard could sense a catch of hesitation in his voice, but he couldn't place why is was there. It soon disappeared, though, replaced once again by the vibrant character that he'd known Frank to be. "Well then, come here often?" he asked ironically, laughing momentarily at his own joke.
Gerard couldn't tell if it was meant to be answered, even if it was a joke, so he just offered a timid laugh and let the silence settle back in. It was uncomfortable, but he had no idea of how to fill it.
He could only hope that, somehow, it would pass quickly, and he could forget this day had even happened. Forget that stupid little promise which he had made himself, because Gerard was too much a believer in fate to think that this was anything coincidental. But he was afraid that this fate could be another shit one, which really would've been par for the course, but Gerard was trying hard to avoid it for the moment.
Outside, there was a bird chirping. One which his grandmother could probably identify, but he'd never gotten much into the taxonomic side of birds, simply preferring their company. He tried to focus on the cheerful chirping, set it louder than everything in the room he stood in, but the sound just got on his nerves. The chirping turned so fucking obnoxious, as his hunger for a fucking cigarette was irritated with each puff of smoke leaving Frank's mouth, taunting Gerard relentlessly. And this bird, this chipper fucking bird, was scraping out the last morsel of Gerard's sanity.
"Fuck you." he muttered under his breath. He would've fucking screamed it if Frank wasn't there, but instead he just tapped his fingers quickly and harshly against his thigh.
"Fuck you too." Frank said, in a sickly sweet voice just dripping in sarcasm.
It pissed Gerard off, it really did, but he couldn't help that it made him go a little numb. He couldn't help it when a warm blush creeped across his cheeks as he tried to compose himself again.
"No, um," Gerard stumbled, "It's just that, um, that fucking bird."
He really felt like ripping out his tongue and its stupidity, but he just stood there, hands trembling once again.
"Geez," Frank began, "I didn't take you for a bird-hater."
"No, it's the fucking noise." Gerard said, he could feel the irritation seeping into his voice, but he was finally grasping at a bit of composure with it, "And that fucking cigarette. I haven't had a fucking cigarette in ages."
"So, you did mean fuck me." Frank stated plainly, a hint of a smile in his voice. "Not the bird."
"Yeah, sure, whatever." Gerard said, giving up.
His face was burning a record-high now, but as least Frank couldn't see it, and at least his voice was maintaining its composure. Not that it would long enough for Gerard to explain himself, but he didn't need to anyway. It wasn't like Frank had taken it personally or anything, so he was really only fucking himself over, and any attempt to speak would only fuck him over more, so he was alright.
But he could still feel his self-appointed hell biting at his brain. And this was fucking fate, right? So what the hell. His fate was always going to be shit, so couldn't he take a stab at something sweet for once.
Saying that he was going to do it was a lot easier than actually doing it, and he knew it. He'd already changed his mind one too many times for his liking, so he knew he'd have to do it quick. Before he did it again, before he could take it back, if he was going to do it at all.
"Can I have a cigarette?" was all Gerard managed to spit out. He cursed himself for managing to get his hopes up about it, only to mangle them as he knew he would.
"Sure." Frank said, "But I'm not rolling it under the stall or some shit. You need to get it yourself."
"Yeah, sure." Gerard said, abandoning his hiding spot, half-pretending to be pissed.
Frank extended the cigarette out to him, and Gerard caught a momentary glance of him. He sat, perched up on the counter with his legs dangling over the edge. He was dressed in the same grey skeleton-decorated hoodie and cuffed worn jeans, but Gerard had been to panicked before to notice.
He exhaled a small stream of smoke, looking just like breath in December, only thicker, more deadly. Gerard didn't dare to look him in the eyes, but he could swear that they were bloodshot and a bit puffy. He didn't look again, though.
He just took the cigarette with a solitary "thanks" and joined him up on the counter. It somewhat annoyed him that those few weeks of hard work quitting were now for fuck-all, but it wasn't even supposed to happen in the first place.
He was just happy to let the thick air into his lungs and settle into his head. Sure, his pulse was still going a million miles per hour with Frank sat right next to him, and his self-imposed promise hanging over his head, and a million other things that hadn't managed to fully fall by the wayside. But his head wasn't clouded with as much irritation anymore, and that was worth a lot.
It wasn't a cure-all, it was far from that, but it let his head clear enough to finally ask something. It wasn't exactly what he'd wanted, but it was something.
"Hey," Gerard began. It was a race against time, trying to outrun the hesitant mind that remained hot on his tracks. "We should do something this week."
Gerard still wouldn't look at Frank, but he could feel the questioning look burning into his side. Then came the strange silence again, but this time it wasn't born of hesitation. It wasn't alienating or uncomfortable. It was deliberate and almost blissful.
"Sure. When?", Frank asked, his turn to let out a sharp breath.
He rapped his left-hand fingers against the edge of the counter, but it wasn't orderly like when Gerard did it, having the same quality as when people would tap their pencil on their desks just before an exam.
"I don't know when." Gerard responded. His head had finally caught up in time to remind him of his own idiocy.
"Alright." Frank said, scribbling something out with a cheap ballpoint pen, adding the scent of cherries which juxtaposed just about every other scent of the restroom.
He handing Gerard a piece of paper, a phone number, but Gerard's mind was rushing too fast to read just what exactly those numbers were.
"Call me when you know." he said with another smile, before walking out of the bathroom.
Gerard just sat there dumbfounded until the bell rang, announcing that he had just skipped class, even if it wasn't intentional. No that his teacher would've even noticed. No, only Ray noticed something like that. Only he and Frank and Gerard knew of the slip-up, if it even was that. Because, at the end of the day, it had landed him with a free cigarette and Frank's phone number.