When the Frank Met the Gerard
Characters: Frank, Gerard, Mikey, Ray, Pete Wentz, Patrick Stump
Beta: Me and my spell check
Rating: PGee [Gerard says fuck once. OH THE HORROR.]
Disclaimer: Frank and Gerard own themselves, and none of this ever happened.
Warning: I kind of make fun of Pete Wentz' teeth for a second. And I gave Gerard some 'those really need to be touched up' roots. Sue me.
Author's Notes: Title comes from Panic! Ath The Disco's 'When the Day Met the Night'. It was the dumbest title I could come up with, so I used it. Also, I did not intend on writing anything else after my last deaf!Frank fic, but this came out, and I have another planned. This could be read as a standalone, or part of my deaf!verse.
And as usual I'm sorry if this is pure suck.
Frank has been in and out of many different foster homes and orphanages since he was little. After the accident, he didn’t have any family that could, or wanted to, take him in. And Frank was okay with that. To him it never mattered that he couldn’t hear the other boys and girls he was trying to become friends with. He knew how to smile and knew how to hug, so he tried to use those talents to the best of his ability. Unfortunately, it didn’t get him very far.
His first foster family really did try to accommodate Frank and they were very nice to him but, it proved to be too impossible to teach their already large family of 6 ASL, as well as keep trying to teach then-5 year old Frankie more ASL than he knew. Back to the foster home he went a year later.
That happened nearly every other year, a new family would come in and see Frank as this charming little boy they wanted to try and help, and it always ended the same, with Frank back at the doors of a foster home with his single small suitcase at his feet. The last time he had to experience that was 3 years ago, when he first walked up the front steps of Saint Peters.
Frank walked in, already getting the same feeling he usually did when coming to a new foster home - nervous, tired and a little bit excited. A new orphanage meant new kids to meet and try to become friends with. Maybe these ones wouldn’t push him away when he tried to hug them.
‘Frank, this way.’ His case worker, Shelia signed at him as she ushered him down the hall. He did the usual routine, met the head mistress of the orphanage, gave a little wave and shook her hand, then got shown to his room. This time he was sharing with three other boys. As Frank walked in, his nerves started to die down, and his excitement grew. On one bed laid a ratty looking acoustic guitar that had obviously seen better days, but it was a guitar! Frank had only ever seen one in pictures or on TV. On the bed across from that one some clothes were strewn, as well as some books and quite a few CD cases. The bed in the far right corner looked the most interesting to Frank though. Batman sheets were barely visible underneath piles of comic books and ripped notebook pages with colourful drawings Frank couldn’t really see from where he was at the door. He felt two hands on his back as Sheila urged him into the room to the bed across from the Batman bed, the only one in the room that hadn’t been hit by the geek tornado that seems to have ripped through the place.
Frank set his suitcase down on the bed, just as he felt vibrations under his feet. It felt like someone was running in the room. He turned around to find two boys looking over the shoulders of Sheila and the head mistress to get a good look at Frank. The head mistress stepped back so the two boys could come in.
“Frank, this is Mikey and Ray,” the head mistress said while Sheila quickly signed out what she was saying for him. “They’re two of your roommates.” The boy named Mikey didn’t do much but stand there and look at Frank. He looked like he was about Frank’s age, maybe a year younger or older. Ray, the kid with the coolest hair Frank had ever seen in all his 15 years, was the first to do anything.
“Hi.” He said [that was always easy for Frank to read off someone’s lips] and held out his hand for Frank to shake. Frank just smiled and waved back. Mikey looked a bit confused but said hello as well, and then asked something too quickly for Frank to catch. Frank glanced at Sheila who smiled at Frank reassuringly.
‘He asked if you were mute.’ Frank scrunched up his nose and flicked back ‘Not quite’ towards Mikey, before he remembered Mikey probably didn’t know ASL. Frank watched as Sheila explained to the boys that Frank was deaf.
‘I CAN talk a bit, I just sound really stupid.’ He signed, and giggled his flat, breathy laugh when Sheila told the boys what Frank had said. Mikey finally smiled for the first time and shrugged. It was a bit awkward, but Frank liked him. Frank went over and smiled at him, like he did to mostly all of his new friends he’d tried to make since he was very little, and held out his arms for a hug. Mikey didn’t exactly jump at him for a hug, but he did step forward a bit and let himself be hugged. It’s a start, Frank thought.
Before Frank was finished hugging him though, Mikey pulled away without warning, and then him and Ray left the room without saying anything all of a sudden. Frank was so confused -were his hugs THAT bad?
‘The dinner bell just rang.’ Sheila told him, and Frank nodded, feeling relieved that he hadn’t scared the boys off. ‘Come on Frank, we’ll get you some food and then you can meet your other roommate.’ Frank smiled and nodded, really hoping this kid would be the one who slept under those awesome Batman blankets.
-----
Frank didn’t end up meeting his other roommate until the end of dinner, but as he ate, he had narrowed it down to three boys, all of who were sitting at a table with Ray and Mikey. Frank was told this other kid - Gerard - was Mikey’s brother. Problem was, none of the other guys at the table looked like they were related to Mikey. There was a chubby little kid who didn’t look much older than 13 who had glasses and a hat that his strawberry blonde hair stuck out from underneath of. He mainly just sat and watched the other four boys talk, stars in his eyes like he was excited to get to sit with the cool kids of the place or something. Next to him was a kid, with brown hair in short dreads, and a smile that looked like he had too much teeth for his mouth. If Frank could hear, he bet he could hear this guys laugh above everyone else’s, just by the looks of him. And next to him, sitting across from Ray was a kind of odd looking boy. Black hair down to his shoulders with a blue streak in the front, he kept his eyes down for most off the meals, sometimes laughing at something someone else would say or throwing in a couple words here and there, but mostly kept to himself. Frank secretly hoped that guy wasn’t Gerard - he seemed a bit weird, even by Frank’s standards.
Sheila took Frank over to the table right before dessert, and Frank had his fingers crossed in his pocket that the hat kid was Mikey’s brother. The kid seemed pretty nice, and he looked the most like Mikey, only because of his hair color was light like Mikey’s. But Frank was quickly proved wrong, when the kid, Patrick, was the first to be introduced. Patrick shyly waved hello and smiled politely, then turned back to finish off his glass of juice. The boy next to Patrick’s name was Pete [‘Him and Patrick are pretty inseparable, I’m told’ Sheila signed to him when not many of the boys were looking]. That meant the only boy left was Mikey’s brother.
‘Frank, this is Gerard, your other roommate.’ Sheila told Frank, and noticed how Gerard was kind of staring at Frank as he signed back to her. Staring in the way that made Frank feel uncomfortable and awkward in his skin. He didn’t like feeling different simply for the way he communicated.
‘That’s him? But he looks weird!’ Frank signed quickly, just in case there was a small chance Gerard did know ASL.
‘Frank. Don’t be rude.’ Sheila flicked at him, then pushed him forward to say hi to everyone. Pete high fived Frank, then tossed his kind of dirty looking dreads out of his face. Mikey and Ray just smiled at him for a second before going off to get some dessert. Then Frank noticed Gerard was still staring at him, but not the same way he had before. This looked a bit more...curious?
“Hi.” Frank read Gerard’s lips as he sat down where Ray had been sitting. “So, you can’t hear?” Frank took a second to make sure he was reading Gerard’s lips right - it was hard when he talked out of the side of his mouth and mumbled a bit - then nodded his head. And for some reason, this made Gerard smile. “That’s so cool!” He said it too fast though, and Frank looked at him in confusion.
‘What?’ He signed, then made a motion to tell Gerard to write down what he wanted to say. Gerard quickly took a piece of ripped paper out of his pocket, along with a bright blue marker.
i said thats cool!! you talk with your hands and stuff right??
He pushed the paper at Frank, and Frank nodded slowly, not knowing where Gerard was going with this. Gerard took the paper and scribbled some more.
its like your own secret code!! I wish i had a code. I only know one hand signal and im prety sure its not sign language.
Frank had to admit he had never heard ASL being referred to as a secret code. He thought that was kind of funny, but pretty cool too. Then he pointed at where Gerard had written that he knew a sign, and mouthed ‘what?’ at him. Gerard just smiled at Frank, and then tapped Pete on the shoulder ‘till he turned around. Gerard just grinned and mouthed ‘FUCK YOU!!’ at him, and gave him the finger. Frank was already giggling as Gerard wrote on the paper again.
thats my one signal. is it good??
Frank giggled again and nodded, giving Gerard a thumbs-up. Gerard smiled, and Frank took the time to actually look at him so he could get a better impression than when he was sitting across the room with Sheila.
Gerard was....okay he was still weird. But he wasn’t as gloomy or scary as Frank first thought he might be. He had a crooked grin, and little teeth, and dark rings of eye liner around his eyes. The blue in his hair looked a bit more green than blue up close, and Frank could see brown roots showing underneath all the green and black in Gerard’s hair. Frank kept half staring at Gerard as the boy took the marker and paper again and scribbled in the bottom corner:
think you could teach me your secret code sometime??
Frank just smiled again and nodded.
-------
After dessert, the boys were all told to go get ready for bed, and Frank knew his safety blanket time with Sheila was coming to an end. She would go home to her family, and Frank would be here by himself, where the only other person who knew ASL was the head mistress. [And from what Frank could tell after only a few hours at the foster home, she wasn’t very good at it either.] But, Frank wasn’t too bothered. He’d gotten along in situations where not a single person knew any ASL so, he figured he’d at least survive the night here.
He went back to his new room and opened his little suitcase, taking out his only pair of pajama pants, and then chose to sleep in his Nosferatu shirt. It was his favourite. He went into the bathroom and got changed, and when he came back, Gerard, Mikey and Ray were all sitting around talking. Frank walked in, trying not to interrupt anything that was being said simply by being there, and crawled onto his bed, wondering what he would do until he fell asleep. He didn’t have to wonder long when he noticed Gerard was waving his hand to try and get Frank’s attention.
‘What?’ Frank mouthed, and signed the word as well, purely out of habit. Gerard said something back but like before it was too mumbled for Frank to understand, so he mimed to Gerard to write it out again. Gerard grabbed a full note book this time and wrote in large, green letters, so Frank could read it from where he sat.
WE THINK YOUR PRETY COOL. IM GLAD YOUR OUR ROOMATE.
Then he quickly brought the page back down to add a smiley face to the end of the sentence.
8)
Frank didn’t really even think about it before he stood up and was opening his arms for a hug. Now Frank knew how weird it was for some boy who couldn’t talk to just open his arms and hug someone, but it was the only thing he could ever really think to do that didn’t involve him having to try and actually speak and let the other kids hear his stupid voice. Most kids would either give Frank a quick pat on the back, or would just freeze up and shy away when Frank hugged them. But Frank had this feeling from when he met Gerard at dinner that he was different - and he was. He scooted closer to the edge of his bed, and pulled Frank into one of the best hugs he could ever remember getting. And he held on too.
That hug started the greatest friendship Frank would ever have.
Beta: Me and my spell check
Rating: PGee [Gerard says fuck once. OH THE HORROR.]
Disclaimer: Frank and Gerard own themselves, and none of this ever happened.
Warning: I kind of make fun of Pete Wentz' teeth for a second. And I gave Gerard some 'those really need to be touched up' roots. Sue me.
Author's Notes: Title comes from Panic! Ath The Disco's 'When the Day Met the Night'. It was the dumbest title I could come up with, so I used it. Also, I did not intend on writing anything else after my last deaf!Frank fic, but this came out, and I have another planned. This could be read as a standalone, or part of my deaf!verse.
And as usual I'm sorry if this is pure suck.
Frank has been in and out of many different foster homes and orphanages since he was little. After the accident, he didn’t have any family that could, or wanted to, take him in. And Frank was okay with that. To him it never mattered that he couldn’t hear the other boys and girls he was trying to become friends with. He knew how to smile and knew how to hug, so he tried to use those talents to the best of his ability. Unfortunately, it didn’t get him very far.
His first foster family really did try to accommodate Frank and they were very nice to him but, it proved to be too impossible to teach their already large family of 6 ASL, as well as keep trying to teach then-5 year old Frankie more ASL than he knew. Back to the foster home he went a year later.
That happened nearly every other year, a new family would come in and see Frank as this charming little boy they wanted to try and help, and it always ended the same, with Frank back at the doors of a foster home with his single small suitcase at his feet. The last time he had to experience that was 3 years ago, when he first walked up the front steps of Saint Peters.
Frank walked in, already getting the same feeling he usually did when coming to a new foster home - nervous, tired and a little bit excited. A new orphanage meant new kids to meet and try to become friends with. Maybe these ones wouldn’t push him away when he tried to hug them.
‘Frank, this way.’ His case worker, Shelia signed at him as she ushered him down the hall. He did the usual routine, met the head mistress of the orphanage, gave a little wave and shook her hand, then got shown to his room. This time he was sharing with three other boys. As Frank walked in, his nerves started to die down, and his excitement grew. On one bed laid a ratty looking acoustic guitar that had obviously seen better days, but it was a guitar! Frank had only ever seen one in pictures or on TV. On the bed across from that one some clothes were strewn, as well as some books and quite a few CD cases. The bed in the far right corner looked the most interesting to Frank though. Batman sheets were barely visible underneath piles of comic books and ripped notebook pages with colourful drawings Frank couldn’t really see from where he was at the door. He felt two hands on his back as Sheila urged him into the room to the bed across from the Batman bed, the only one in the room that hadn’t been hit by the geek tornado that seems to have ripped through the place.
Frank set his suitcase down on the bed, just as he felt vibrations under his feet. It felt like someone was running in the room. He turned around to find two boys looking over the shoulders of Sheila and the head mistress to get a good look at Frank. The head mistress stepped back so the two boys could come in.
“Frank, this is Mikey and Ray,” the head mistress said while Sheila quickly signed out what she was saying for him. “They’re two of your roommates.” The boy named Mikey didn’t do much but stand there and look at Frank. He looked like he was about Frank’s age, maybe a year younger or older. Ray, the kid with the coolest hair Frank had ever seen in all his 15 years, was the first to do anything.
“Hi.” He said [that was always easy for Frank to read off someone’s lips] and held out his hand for Frank to shake. Frank just smiled and waved back. Mikey looked a bit confused but said hello as well, and then asked something too quickly for Frank to catch. Frank glanced at Sheila who smiled at Frank reassuringly.
‘He asked if you were mute.’ Frank scrunched up his nose and flicked back ‘Not quite’ towards Mikey, before he remembered Mikey probably didn’t know ASL. Frank watched as Sheila explained to the boys that Frank was deaf.
‘I CAN talk a bit, I just sound really stupid.’ He signed, and giggled his flat, breathy laugh when Sheila told the boys what Frank had said. Mikey finally smiled for the first time and shrugged. It was a bit awkward, but Frank liked him. Frank went over and smiled at him, like he did to mostly all of his new friends he’d tried to make since he was very little, and held out his arms for a hug. Mikey didn’t exactly jump at him for a hug, but he did step forward a bit and let himself be hugged. It’s a start, Frank thought.
Before Frank was finished hugging him though, Mikey pulled away without warning, and then him and Ray left the room without saying anything all of a sudden. Frank was so confused -were his hugs THAT bad?
‘The dinner bell just rang.’ Sheila told him, and Frank nodded, feeling relieved that he hadn’t scared the boys off. ‘Come on Frank, we’ll get you some food and then you can meet your other roommate.’ Frank smiled and nodded, really hoping this kid would be the one who slept under those awesome Batman blankets.
-----
Frank didn’t end up meeting his other roommate until the end of dinner, but as he ate, he had narrowed it down to three boys, all of who were sitting at a table with Ray and Mikey. Frank was told this other kid - Gerard - was Mikey’s brother. Problem was, none of the other guys at the table looked like they were related to Mikey. There was a chubby little kid who didn’t look much older than 13 who had glasses and a hat that his strawberry blonde hair stuck out from underneath of. He mainly just sat and watched the other four boys talk, stars in his eyes like he was excited to get to sit with the cool kids of the place or something. Next to him was a kid, with brown hair in short dreads, and a smile that looked like he had too much teeth for his mouth. If Frank could hear, he bet he could hear this guys laugh above everyone else’s, just by the looks of him. And next to him, sitting across from Ray was a kind of odd looking boy. Black hair down to his shoulders with a blue streak in the front, he kept his eyes down for most off the meals, sometimes laughing at something someone else would say or throwing in a couple words here and there, but mostly kept to himself. Frank secretly hoped that guy wasn’t Gerard - he seemed a bit weird, even by Frank’s standards.
Sheila took Frank over to the table right before dessert, and Frank had his fingers crossed in his pocket that the hat kid was Mikey’s brother. The kid seemed pretty nice, and he looked the most like Mikey, only because of his hair color was light like Mikey’s. But Frank was quickly proved wrong, when the kid, Patrick, was the first to be introduced. Patrick shyly waved hello and smiled politely, then turned back to finish off his glass of juice. The boy next to Patrick’s name was Pete [‘Him and Patrick are pretty inseparable, I’m told’ Sheila signed to him when not many of the boys were looking]. That meant the only boy left was Mikey’s brother.
‘Frank, this is Gerard, your other roommate.’ Sheila told Frank, and noticed how Gerard was kind of staring at Frank as he signed back to her. Staring in the way that made Frank feel uncomfortable and awkward in his skin. He didn’t like feeling different simply for the way he communicated.
‘That’s him? But he looks weird!’ Frank signed quickly, just in case there was a small chance Gerard did know ASL.
‘Frank. Don’t be rude.’ Sheila flicked at him, then pushed him forward to say hi to everyone. Pete high fived Frank, then tossed his kind of dirty looking dreads out of his face. Mikey and Ray just smiled at him for a second before going off to get some dessert. Then Frank noticed Gerard was still staring at him, but not the same way he had before. This looked a bit more...curious?
“Hi.” Frank read Gerard’s lips as he sat down where Ray had been sitting. “So, you can’t hear?” Frank took a second to make sure he was reading Gerard’s lips right - it was hard when he talked out of the side of his mouth and mumbled a bit - then nodded his head. And for some reason, this made Gerard smile. “That’s so cool!” He said it too fast though, and Frank looked at him in confusion.
‘What?’ He signed, then made a motion to tell Gerard to write down what he wanted to say. Gerard quickly took a piece of ripped paper out of his pocket, along with a bright blue marker.
i said thats cool!! you talk with your hands and stuff right??
He pushed the paper at Frank, and Frank nodded slowly, not knowing where Gerard was going with this. Gerard took the paper and scribbled some more.
its like your own secret code!! I wish i had a code. I only know one hand signal and im prety sure its not sign language.
Frank had to admit he had never heard ASL being referred to as a secret code. He thought that was kind of funny, but pretty cool too. Then he pointed at where Gerard had written that he knew a sign, and mouthed ‘what?’ at him. Gerard just smiled at Frank, and then tapped Pete on the shoulder ‘till he turned around. Gerard just grinned and mouthed ‘FUCK YOU!!’ at him, and gave him the finger. Frank was already giggling as Gerard wrote on the paper again.
thats my one signal. is it good??
Frank giggled again and nodded, giving Gerard a thumbs-up. Gerard smiled, and Frank took the time to actually look at him so he could get a better impression than when he was sitting across the room with Sheila.
Gerard was....okay he was still weird. But he wasn’t as gloomy or scary as Frank first thought he might be. He had a crooked grin, and little teeth, and dark rings of eye liner around his eyes. The blue in his hair looked a bit more green than blue up close, and Frank could see brown roots showing underneath all the green and black in Gerard’s hair. Frank kept half staring at Gerard as the boy took the marker and paper again and scribbled in the bottom corner:
think you could teach me your secret code sometime??
Frank just smiled again and nodded.
-------
After dessert, the boys were all told to go get ready for bed, and Frank knew his safety blanket time with Sheila was coming to an end. She would go home to her family, and Frank would be here by himself, where the only other person who knew ASL was the head mistress. [And from what Frank could tell after only a few hours at the foster home, she wasn’t very good at it either.] But, Frank wasn’t too bothered. He’d gotten along in situations where not a single person knew any ASL so, he figured he’d at least survive the night here.
He went back to his new room and opened his little suitcase, taking out his only pair of pajama pants, and then chose to sleep in his Nosferatu shirt. It was his favourite. He went into the bathroom and got changed, and when he came back, Gerard, Mikey and Ray were all sitting around talking. Frank walked in, trying not to interrupt anything that was being said simply by being there, and crawled onto his bed, wondering what he would do until he fell asleep. He didn’t have to wonder long when he noticed Gerard was waving his hand to try and get Frank’s attention.
‘What?’ Frank mouthed, and signed the word as well, purely out of habit. Gerard said something back but like before it was too mumbled for Frank to understand, so he mimed to Gerard to write it out again. Gerard grabbed a full note book this time and wrote in large, green letters, so Frank could read it from where he sat.
WE THINK YOUR PRETY COOL. IM GLAD YOUR OUR ROOMATE.
Then he quickly brought the page back down to add a smiley face to the end of the sentence.
8)
Frank didn’t really even think about it before he stood up and was opening his arms for a hug. Now Frank knew how weird it was for some boy who couldn’t talk to just open his arms and hug someone, but it was the only thing he could ever really think to do that didn’t involve him having to try and actually speak and let the other kids hear his stupid voice. Most kids would either give Frank a quick pat on the back, or would just freeze up and shy away when Frank hugged them. But Frank had this feeling from when he met Gerard at dinner that he was different - and he was. He scooted closer to the edge of his bed, and pulled Frank into one of the best hugs he could ever remember getting. And he held on too.
That hug started the greatest friendship Frank would ever have.