fic: The Picture of Frank Iero
Title: The Picture of Frank Iero
Pairing: Claude Giroux/Danny Brière, brief Frank/Claude, Frank/Mikey
Rated: PG-13
Summary: Seventeen-year-old Claude has a crush on an older man in his apartment building, but his baby face ensures that he goes unnoticed. A chance encounter with a small, but loud, tattooed Italian changes everything. AU.
Warnings: Crackfic, sorta? Unbetaed (for the sake of the surprise!).
Notes: vamm_goda made me do it. It's all her fault. Also, I know zero about Claude and Danny, and even less about hockey. Yay! Approx. 4,400 words.Claude isn’t that young, okay?
. . . Okay, so he sorta is. But it isn’t like he’s a baby, or anything. He’s seventeen. Seventeen’s legal to drink in some places! But the problem is, there’s this guy, in his apartment building? His name’s Danny (but Claude’s parents make Claude call him “Monsieur Brière,” like he’s fifty or something). He’s actually, like, twenty-five or maybe not even, and just divorced, and gorgeous, okay. Claude’s been into him since Claude’s family moved into the place, and Claude knows, he knows, okay, that this guy, Danny, would be into him, too, if he just gave Claude a chance. But Danny’s one of those super nice guys, the kind that holds doors open for women, and always looks into a person’s eyes and not at their chest or dick when he’s carrying on a conversation with them. Claude knows this, because he’s talked to Danny a few times, and he’s seen Danny talk to the hot girl from 5B in the elevator. (Claude had attempted to set her on fire with his brain, but it hadn’t worked. Whoever started that stereotype in fiction about gingers being pyrokinetic was full of shit.) He has no idea that Claude’s anything more than just a neighbor.
And Claude’s not a creep. He just really wants Danny to notice him. Talking to someone in the lobby or the elevator about the weather doesn’t really count. Danny looks at him the same way he looks at everyone else: kindly, politely, and briefly. Claude wants to be noticed. He knows he’s good looking, okay. So what if he has, like, a baby face? It’s good genes, he’s told. Maybe he’ll still be carded for alcohol when he’s forty, and then people will say ‘Oh, Monsieur Giroux from 17E, he’s so lucky that he looks younger than his age!’ and he’ll be strapping and sexy, and then Danny will realize what he’s missed out on.
Or something.
Claude had thought that maybe that afternoon, Danny would finally notice him the way Claude’s wanted since day one. Claude had been running late from his daily ‘Trying to Get Danny to Notice Him’ thing (he refuses to call it stalking, because he’s not being creepy out it. It’s not his fault that their schedules are almost perfectly matched. Except for how it totally is) and he’d nearly missed the elevator.
“Hold the elevator, please!” he’d called, and he’d thought for sure he was going to have to take the stairs.
And then Danny’s hand had popped out through the steadily shrinking crack between the doors, and they’d dinged and popped open.
Claude had slowed to a walk a few paces from the door, but he’d been kinda panting and sweaty because he’d had to run straight from school, and Claude’s in shape, but even he can’t keep up a four block run without feeling like he’s going to die.
“Thank you so much,” he’d panted, and had leaned against the little bar that went all along the walls of the elevator. Claude remembers thinking it was called a chair rail, but maybe that was only for houses, not elevators.
“No problem,” Danny had replied. He’d totally stared, Claude knows it. Because Claude had watched him from the corner of his eye. Then they’d been stuck inside the elevator for four glorious floors, and Claude had been sure that Danny would finally say something. He’d watched him intently for signs, just to be sure. Danny had glanced at him a few times, and Claude had been sure it would be any moment now.
And then the damn doors had dinged and slid open, and Danny had smiled that polite smile before squeezing past Claude and out the door. Claude’d slumped against the wall in defeat all the way up to the sixth floor. He’d walked into the apartment dejectedly, mourning the tragedy that was his life, and it had been a completely wasted effort because nobody’s even home to see. Claude’s home alone, because it’s Friday and on Fridays his parents go out straight from work.
He takes a shower and goes out that night. He’s been trying to grow a beard or a mustache or something, anything to make him look a little less like a freaking twelve-year-old, so he doesn’t shave. He’d read that shaving helped encourage hair growth, but that hadn’t worked for him yet, so he’d just stopped. He heads to the pub that he likes to walk by, a few blocks down. He gets carded when he asks for a drink, and since this is Quebec and the drinking age is eighteen and not, say, seventeen, which is Claude’s stupid freaking age, and Claude’s life is a cesspool of misery and despair, Claude is resigned to ordering pop instead.
He sits at the bar, though, because there’s something artfully adult about slumping over a bar with a fizzy drink in a little plastic cup, and Claude is in desperate need of feeling artfully adult.
He’s only been there for maybe ten minutes (or an hour, he’s not really sure. Claude sucks at marking the passage of time without a clock, especially when he’s being artfully adult and mournful about the tragedy that is his life) when the door pops open and a crowd of rowdy Americans clambers in. Claude knows they’re American because no self-respecting Canadian is that loud or obnoxious at this time of the evening.
They crowd around him like he’s got a magnet or something, maybe a sign on his back that says ‘AMERICANS COME HERE!’ It’d just be the icing on his cake, really. They loudly order a wide variety of alcoholic beverages, and Claude wonders who is drinking what, because there’s only five or six of them and they’ve ordered an entire pitcher of beer and plenty of the harder stuff.
When they get their drinks, they all migrate towards the tables in the corner. Claude has no idea what they expect here. They’re all loud and happy and this place is really better for quiet and dejected. He listens to them talk to each other. It’s not that difficult, considering they’re not exactly whispering. The few other people here, who are also slumped over the bar, glower in the Americans’ direction, but say nothing. Claude doesn’t bother wasting the energy for any glowering. He just returns to his mourning.
A tattooed hand claps him on the shoulder as he’s taking a swig of his pop, and he nearly drenches his shirt front with it.
“Why so glum, Chum?” the guy attached to the wayward hand asks.
Claude doesn’t plan on telling him. In fact, he tries to shrug it off and give the hint that he wants to be left alone. But apparently Claude sucks at that sort of thing, because with some cajoling, the guy leads Claude over to his table. There’s only one empty chair, and Claude knows it belongs to the lanky two-toned blond that just disappeared to go to the men’s room not twenty seconds ago, but the tattooed guy (“Frank,” he says, and shakes Claude’s hand like a gentleman before introducing him to Gerard, Ray, Bob, and Pedicone, which Claude thinks is a strange name until they assure him it’s his surname) urges him into it, so Claude sits.
They replace Claude’s pop with beer, and if the bartender sees, then he says nothing, and Claude doesn’t complain. He drinks it fast and he’s halfway done his glass and already feeling a little warm when Frank asks again why he’s so down. The others encourage him to speak.
Claude tells them. He tells them all about Danny and how amazing he is. And Claude knows he’s only seventeen, but he has stuff to offer, okay? He’s not just a baby face or a jock. He knows things, he can have the sort of deep, intellectual conversations that adults like to have. He’s amazing at being profound, when given half the chance. He’s strongly in tune with his emotions, after all. Why, just earlier he’d been acting very adult, musing on the world and its problems in relation to himself. If Danny would just see that in him, instead of seeing just some random punk kid, then maybe Claude would have a real chance with him. Also, he’s good looking, right? (Gerard and Frank both reassure him eagerly, and Claude blushes in spite of himself.)
He figures Frank and Gerard, at least, might understand, because they both look younger than they tell Claude they are. As Claude speaks, Gerard listens with a sort of rapt attention that makes Claude almost uncomfortable. Bob and Ray nod solemnly. (Ray’s hair nods, too, Claude notes.) Frank appears mainly thoughtful, and Claude is so focused on the tragic, sympathetic arc of Gerard’s eyebrows that he doesn’t realize Frank’s kissing him until Pedicone lets out a catcall and a wolf-whistle and other animal-like sounds that Claude doesn’t want to think about because a stranger is kissing him holy shit. And there’s, like, tongue. This has definitely never happened to Claude before. But Frank is into it, and he’s good. He tastes like beer and cigarettes and it’s kinda gross, but his tongue knows exactly everywhere in Claude’s mouth that feels good. Claude makes a sound that he’ll probably think is embarrassing, later. Frank hums into his mouth, like he’s responding. It feels good.
Claude is starting to feel weird, warm and buzzing, but cool and numb at the same time, when Frank eases back. Frank is holding his face, and Claude’s glad for that. He’s pretty sure that if he weren’t, Claude would fall over. Frank’s eyes flick between Claude’s. He looks thoughtful and focused, and then he presses one quick, light kiss to Claude’s lips. Then he leans back and looks up, and his face lights up. Claude looks up, too. It’s the two-toned blond that had disappeared towards the bathroom. Claude remembers abruptly that he’s sitting in the guy’s chair, and he pops out of his seat like he’s on a spring.
“Sorry, sorry, I was just-”
“Making out with my boyfriend?” the guy finishes in a flat tone, and Claude feels the beer-and-kiss-flush drain from his face at an alarming rate.
“Uh,” he tries.
“Mikey, it’s okay!” Frank says. It sounds like a chirp. “This is Claude, fucking awesome name, right? He’s cool. He’s rocking the unrequited love thing hardcore, y’know?”
“Oh,” Mikey says. He nods, like this explains everything, even though it really, really doesn’t explain anything. It doesn’t explain why Frank was making out with Claude, and it certainly doesn’t explain why Frank was making out with Claude when Frank is in a relationship.
But Mikey doesn’t get mad at him. He just tells him to sit again, and then he sits on Frank’s thigh. Frank’s hand settles on Mikey’s hip. Claude has to force himself to look away from where the tattooed fingers curl in towards Mikey’s crotch. He sits and downs the rest of his beer in one go. They refill his glass and keep talking.
About ten minutes later, Claude is starting to regret the beer. He’s feeling hot and light-headed, and it’s like everyone’s moving in this sort of strange slow-motion. Their faces are blurring together and apart and smearing across Claude’s field of vision.
“I, uh,” he tries. His voice sounds funny, deeper and higher at once, which makes no sense, and he giggles stupidly. “I think I gotta go.”
“Like, to the bathroom?” Frank asks. His voice sounds even funnier than Claude’s, all squeaky and echoic, and Claude snorts. He drives the heel of his hand into his eye. His fingers are a little shaky.
“No, I think he means home,” Gerard says reasonably. He’s frowning at Claude, eyes intent.
“Oh, right!” Frank nods, like this was his next guess, and then he looks at Claude seriously. “Oh. You’re probably not okay to go by yourself.”
“You and me can take him,” Mikey suggests, and he tugs on Frank’s shoulder as he stands. Frank perks.
“Good idea, Mikeyway!”
Claude doesn’t argue. He just tells them his address and lets them guide him home. He keeps tripping on his own feet. Shit, is he drunk? His parents are going to kill him. This is why he never does anything dramatic: every time he tries, he messes up somehow. At least it’s a weekend, so he doesn’t have to worry about going to school with a hangover.
*
Claude wakes up the next day sore all over. His eyes are sticky and bleary, his mouth is dry, and his head is buzzing, as if someone shoved his alarm clock into his brain. He groans and curls his arms over his head. What the hell happened last night? He vaguely remembers two guys escorting him home from the bar.
Bar. That’s right. He’d gone out to wallow impressively and met a bunch of Americans and they’d gotten him drunk and kissed him. Well, okay, one had kissed him, and really well at that. He swallows and grimaces at the too-tight feeling of a dry throat and swirls his tongue against his palate to try to work up some saliva. He thinks he can still taste the cigarettes and the beer and the Frank. It’s grosser now than it was last night, with no Frank to distract him with tongue and lips and noises. With a grunt, Claude rolls out of bed and stumbles into the bathroom. The apartment is nearly silent, but he can hear his father’s snores, so he tries to at least be quiet.
He is the most considerate son ever.
He uses a paper cup from the little pop-up dispenser his mom insists on keeping on the sink, and wets his mouth and throat with a few swallows of tap water. He opens the mirror cabinet and grabs his toothbrush, then brushes his teeth. He sneaks some of his mom’s mouthwash, too, for those hard to reach places. With that done, he washes his face to at least get the grit out of his eyes.
He freezes when he feels something on his cheeks and chin. He straightens from where he’s bent double over the basin and closes the cabinet.
The reflection in the mirror is him, but it’s not.
The Claude in the mirror this morning is a little more rugged than the Claude that had been in the mirror yesterday morning. His bones seem thicker, and he has facial hair. Claude’s been trying to grow a beard for two years. This looks like it could’ve been there for two weeks. He stares, and his jaw is slack and his eyes are wide and he probably looks stupid, but he doesn’t care. He reaches up to rub his chin. The red hairs are prickly but thick, and quite firmly attached to his face. Claude knows, because he tugs on it a few times. He pauses when he sees black ink on the back of his hand.
congrats on being 23. lmk how it goes w/ Dannyboy! xoxof
There’s a phone number, too. Claude scrambles to his bedroom, grabs his mobile, and calls it.
“If this isn’t a call to tell me I’ve just won ten million fucking dollars, I’m going to fucking kill somebody.”
Frank’s voice is gruff and annoyed and thick with sleep. Claude looks at his clock (which has not, in fact, been shoved into his brain). It’s seven in the morning. He doesn’t care.
“What did you do to me!?”
He means for it to be a yell. It seems like a yell-worthy situation. But at the last minute his voice turned it into a squeaky hiss because his parents are still asleep and he wisely fears the wrath of his parents.
“Claude!” Frank is instantly several degrees more cheerful. “That was fast. You noticed already, huh?”
“It’s kind of hard not to, don’t you think!” Claude snaps. He sighs and pinches the bridge of his nose. “What did you do to me?”
Frank huffs. “Relax, Man. I’m doing you a favor, and you’ve done me a favor. It’s called symbiosis.”
Claude learned about symbiosis in science class. This is not symbiosis. This is a freak occurrence in nature. It can’t be real. Claude must be dreaming.
“You made me older?”
“Yep!”
“What- How- What-?”
“Magic,” Frank deadpans. “I gave you six years. That’s six more years during which I’ll continue to be young, beautiful and energetic for my boyfriend.”
He sounds very pleased with himself, and if Claude hadn’t seen his own reflection, he would probably start laughing. Or crying. Or both. As it is, he’s not sure he won’t, anyway.
“What?” he tries weakly. It has to be a joke, right?
“I know, this is some Dorian Gray shit, huh?”
“Who’s Dorian Gray?” Claude asks tiredly.
“. . . Are you serious?” Frank demands. “Jesus, doesn’t anybody read, anymore?” There’s a distant ‘Hey’ in the background, and Frank coos, “I don’t mean you, Mikeyway, of course you read.”
Claude listens as Frank’s voice grows muffled. He can’t make out what Frank’s saying anymore, but his tone is the same it was when he’d asked if Claude was serious about Dorian Gray. Claude intelligently deduces that Frank is relaying his surprise to Mikey.
“Oh, but the thing is,” Frank continues to Claude, “we can never see each other again. I’m leaving, anyway, like, we’re driving back down to Jersey today, which is why you suck for calling so early, but yeah. If we see each other, then I’ll take those years back and you’ll spontaneously de-age. It’s not pretty and it’d suck for both of us, so yeah. Just, y’know. Never come to Jersey, and I’m going back to sleep until we leave so I don’t run into you, and then I’ll be sure to stay away from Canada once we’re gone.” He grunts, then says, “Oh, hey! You probably need new clothes, huh? And lots of condoms. But call me, Man! Lemme know how it goes with Dannyboy.”
He hangs up, just like that, and Claude’s left to stare at the back of his hand. lmk how it goes with Dannyboy! stares back at him, an echo of Frank’s farewell.
*
Frank’s right about new clothes. Apparently people grow a lot between the ages of seventeen and twenty-three, because nothing fits now. Claude has to borrow his dad’s clothes and his mom’s credit card, and he spends three hours shopping for a new wardrobe. He hates shopping.
He doesn’t throw out any of his old clothes, in case he and Frank accidentally do bump into each other before Frank leaves. Claude thinks it’s a smart move.
While he’s out, he also swings by a bookstore and buys The Picture of Dorian Gray. Claude thinks that’s also a smart move. At the very least, he hopes that maybe it’ll help him figure out the finer details of what the hell is happening to him.
Despite having been aged six years by a random American, Claude’s life goes on relatively unchanged. Being spontaneously twenty-three doesn’t make him suddenly smarter than he’d been at seventeen. He still needs to go to school. Which kinda sucks, but there it is. At least it’s his last year. Students notice the changes, and they tease him about ‘protein supplements’ and joke that his balls must’ve finally dropped, but after the first two weeks, the buzz dies down.
The one thing that has changed is the frequency with which Claude sees Danny - in that he suddenly doesn’t, anymore. Claude worries that maybe Danny wised to Claude’s game and has been avoiding him, but he doesn’t seem the type. And he hasn’t moved. If he’d moved, Madame Dufresne in 10C would have said something. She knows everything about everyone in the entire building. Besides, Danny’s name plate is still there on the buzzer, and on the wall of mailboxes.
It occurs to Claude to ask her anyway, on his way to school three Fridays after he’d met Frank. She’s dressed for breakfast, where she’ll meet her gentleman friend of twelve years. Claude knows this because she tells him every time she sees him. He hates to interrupt her, but presses about “Monsieur Brière.”
“Daniel? Oh, he’s sick, Dear.”
“Sick?” Claude echoes. Worry twists in his gut.
“Yes. He was visiting family last week and the week before? Came down with an awful bug while away. I’ve been making him soup; I think he’s on the mend!”
She seems proud of herself, and Claude’s glad she’s such a nosy old woman. He decides then and there to pay Danny a visit after school.
Danny lives in 17C, two floors below Claude’s family. Madame Dufresne lives between them, but that’s neither here nor there. She won’t know that Claude’s visiting and so she won’t be able to gossip about it. Besides, he reminds himself. Thanks to Frank, he’s twenty-three, now. Not seventeen. Even his parents have accepted that fact, once they got over the initial confusion. He can do what he wants, now.
And it’s perfectly acceptable for Claude to visit Danny if he so chooses.
He’s pretty sure it is, anyway.
He’s nervous the way he always is when he knows he’s about to see Danny. His hands are a little shaky, and his heart’s beating a bit faster, and he feels stupidly giddy. In short: he feels like he’s still a teenager. (He reaches up to make sure his beard is still there, then huffs a laugh at himself and stuffs his hands into his pockets. Belatedly, he pulls one back out to knock, then tucks it away again.)
He can hear shuffling around from inside, and there’s a cough that makes Claude’s chest hurt with how painful it sounds, all rattling and disgusting. But it’s also the kind of cough that sounds like the end of a cold, not the beginning or middle of one, and Claude hopes Madame Dufresne is right about Danny being on the mend.
“One second,” Danny calls from inside.
Claude doesn’t answer only because his voice catches in his throat. He chews on his lip and mentally berates himself for behaving like a child when he’s not supposed to be anymore (thanks to Frank, he reminds himself, and makes a note to call him as requested after he sees Danny).
He’s looking down at his toes when the door opens, and he sees Danny. Danny’s nose is pink around the edges from blowing his nose, and he needs a shower and a shave, and he’s wearing sweatpants and a baggy, long-sleeved tee shirt, and the most hideous wool socks Claude’s ever seen. It’s the most disheveled Claude’s ever seen him, and he’s beautiful.
Claude is so screwed.
“Claude,” Danny says. Claude can’t tell if it’s a greeting or just a surprised acknowledgement. He swallows, clears his throat, and offers a wave. He feels suddenly shy and stupid, and Danny staring isn’t helping.
“Hi,” he offers at last. “I, um. I don’t mean to be a bother? Um. I heard you weren’t feeling well. I wanted to, um, check on you.” He wants to kick himself for sounding like an idiot, but Danny just smiles a little.
“Come in.” He steps back to give Claude room, but hangs by the door so he can close it. The apartment, like Claude’s, has a short hallway just inside the door, and this puts them in very close proximity until Claude passes him by and steps in further.
Claude tries very hard not to do anything totally creepy like sniff him, or something. He has his limits. Really.
The apartment is different from Claude’s only in the way that it’s not the Giroux residence. Danny’s things are all neutral in color, and matching in size and shape, and exactly like Claude expected just based on what he knows of Danny. There are a few empty boxes of tissues on the end tables flanking the couch, a bottle of Purell on the coffee table, and a can of disinfectant spray lying on its side on the rug. Claude sees a stray tissue by the leg of the couch that Danny had obviously missed, and immediately pretends he didn’t in case Danny notices him looking at it and gets completely embarrassed. Some people are like that.
“So, um. How are you feeling?” Claude notes with approval that he managed not to stammer as badly that time.
“I’m okay,” Danny replies with a little nod. “It’s nice of you to stop by like this.” He looks around. Claude thinks maybe he feels as shy as Claude does. It makes this, being here, a bit easier. “Sorry for the mess,” Danny adds sheepishly.
Claude shakes his head with what he hopes is a reassuring smile, and then he tries not to die when Danny looks directly at his mouth. So much for easier.
“You look . . . different,” Danny says. He says it slowly, like he’s not really sure Claude does look all that different, like it could be his imagination. Claude silently curses those ‘good genes’ everyone keeps mentioning.
“I do?” he asks. Danny’s eyes narrow thoughtfully, and he nods.
“Yeah.”
He leaves it at that, and Claude looks away. His hands are still in his pockets, and Danny copies him. Claude watches the way Danny curls his toes inside his socks, and he realizes abruptly that Danny is nervous. When he looks up, Danny’s watching his mouth again, and Claude clears his throat.
“Do you . . . want to get dinner with me sometime?” he asks. He’s not sure why he does, or how he managed to get the words out, but now a part of his mind is yelling ‘Abort, abort, abort!’ and making violent throat-cutting gestures.
But it’s too late now: the words are out, and Danny’s eyebrows have already shot up. Claude swallows hard and waits for the laugh or the brush off - or both. When Danny says, “How old are you?” softly, Claude braces himself.
“Twenty-three,” he tries.
Danny’s eyes narrow again, and this time Claude gets the distinct feeling that Danny doesn’t believe him. But remarkably, he doesn’t call him on it. He just smiles, then nods.
“Yeah. Dinner sometime would be great.”
Claude’s grin gets away from him before he can stop it. He looks down, schools it into a smaller smile, then looks up at him again and nods.
“Good. Excellent.” He clears his throat, then gestures for the door. “I’d, um. I’d better go. So you can rest. So you don’t get sick again.”
Danny grins, and God, Claude is totally gone for him. They exchange numbers so they can set up a date - a date Claude’s mind crows - and then very reluctantly, Claude leaves.
He calls Frank to thank him.
Pairing: Claude Giroux/Danny Brière, brief Frank/Claude, Frank/Mikey
Rated: PG-13
Summary: Seventeen-year-old Claude has a crush on an older man in his apartment building, but his baby face ensures that he goes unnoticed. A chance encounter with a small, but loud, tattooed Italian changes everything. AU.
Warnings: Crackfic, sorta? Unbetaed (for the sake of the surprise!).
Notes: vamm_goda made me do it. It's all her fault. Also, I know zero about Claude and Danny, and even less about hockey. Yay! Approx. 4,400 words.Claude isn’t that young, okay?
. . . Okay, so he sorta is. But it isn’t like he’s a baby, or anything. He’s seventeen. Seventeen’s legal to drink in some places! But the problem is, there’s this guy, in his apartment building? His name’s Danny (but Claude’s parents make Claude call him “Monsieur Brière,” like he’s fifty or something). He’s actually, like, twenty-five or maybe not even, and just divorced, and gorgeous, okay. Claude’s been into him since Claude’s family moved into the place, and Claude knows, he knows, okay, that this guy, Danny, would be into him, too, if he just gave Claude a chance. But Danny’s one of those super nice guys, the kind that holds doors open for women, and always looks into a person’s eyes and not at their chest or dick when he’s carrying on a conversation with them. Claude knows this, because he’s talked to Danny a few times, and he’s seen Danny talk to the hot girl from 5B in the elevator. (Claude had attempted to set her on fire with his brain, but it hadn’t worked. Whoever started that stereotype in fiction about gingers being pyrokinetic was full of shit.) He has no idea that Claude’s anything more than just a neighbor.
And Claude’s not a creep. He just really wants Danny to notice him. Talking to someone in the lobby or the elevator about the weather doesn’t really count. Danny looks at him the same way he looks at everyone else: kindly, politely, and briefly. Claude wants to be noticed. He knows he’s good looking, okay. So what if he has, like, a baby face? It’s good genes, he’s told. Maybe he’ll still be carded for alcohol when he’s forty, and then people will say ‘Oh, Monsieur Giroux from 17E, he’s so lucky that he looks younger than his age!’ and he’ll be strapping and sexy, and then Danny will realize what he’s missed out on.
Or something.
Claude had thought that maybe that afternoon, Danny would finally notice him the way Claude’s wanted since day one. Claude had been running late from his daily ‘Trying to Get Danny to Notice Him’ thing (he refuses to call it stalking, because he’s not being creepy out it. It’s not his fault that their schedules are almost perfectly matched. Except for how it totally is) and he’d nearly missed the elevator.
“Hold the elevator, please!” he’d called, and he’d thought for sure he was going to have to take the stairs.
And then Danny’s hand had popped out through the steadily shrinking crack between the doors, and they’d dinged and popped open.
Claude had slowed to a walk a few paces from the door, but he’d been kinda panting and sweaty because he’d had to run straight from school, and Claude’s in shape, but even he can’t keep up a four block run without feeling like he’s going to die.
“Thank you so much,” he’d panted, and had leaned against the little bar that went all along the walls of the elevator. Claude remembers thinking it was called a chair rail, but maybe that was only for houses, not elevators.
“No problem,” Danny had replied. He’d totally stared, Claude knows it. Because Claude had watched him from the corner of his eye. Then they’d been stuck inside the elevator for four glorious floors, and Claude had been sure that Danny would finally say something. He’d watched him intently for signs, just to be sure. Danny had glanced at him a few times, and Claude had been sure it would be any moment now.
And then the damn doors had dinged and slid open, and Danny had smiled that polite smile before squeezing past Claude and out the door. Claude’d slumped against the wall in defeat all the way up to the sixth floor. He’d walked into the apartment dejectedly, mourning the tragedy that was his life, and it had been a completely wasted effort because nobody’s even home to see. Claude’s home alone, because it’s Friday and on Fridays his parents go out straight from work.
He takes a shower and goes out that night. He’s been trying to grow a beard or a mustache or something, anything to make him look a little less like a freaking twelve-year-old, so he doesn’t shave. He’d read that shaving helped encourage hair growth, but that hadn’t worked for him yet, so he’d just stopped. He heads to the pub that he likes to walk by, a few blocks down. He gets carded when he asks for a drink, and since this is Quebec and the drinking age is eighteen and not, say, seventeen, which is Claude’s stupid freaking age, and Claude’s life is a cesspool of misery and despair, Claude is resigned to ordering pop instead.
He sits at the bar, though, because there’s something artfully adult about slumping over a bar with a fizzy drink in a little plastic cup, and Claude is in desperate need of feeling artfully adult.
He’s only been there for maybe ten minutes (or an hour, he’s not really sure. Claude sucks at marking the passage of time without a clock, especially when he’s being artfully adult and mournful about the tragedy that is his life) when the door pops open and a crowd of rowdy Americans clambers in. Claude knows they’re American because no self-respecting Canadian is that loud or obnoxious at this time of the evening.
They crowd around him like he’s got a magnet or something, maybe a sign on his back that says ‘AMERICANS COME HERE!’ It’d just be the icing on his cake, really. They loudly order a wide variety of alcoholic beverages, and Claude wonders who is drinking what, because there’s only five or six of them and they’ve ordered an entire pitcher of beer and plenty of the harder stuff.
When they get their drinks, they all migrate towards the tables in the corner. Claude has no idea what they expect here. They’re all loud and happy and this place is really better for quiet and dejected. He listens to them talk to each other. It’s not that difficult, considering they’re not exactly whispering. The few other people here, who are also slumped over the bar, glower in the Americans’ direction, but say nothing. Claude doesn’t bother wasting the energy for any glowering. He just returns to his mourning.
A tattooed hand claps him on the shoulder as he’s taking a swig of his pop, and he nearly drenches his shirt front with it.
“Why so glum, Chum?” the guy attached to the wayward hand asks.
Claude doesn’t plan on telling him. In fact, he tries to shrug it off and give the hint that he wants to be left alone. But apparently Claude sucks at that sort of thing, because with some cajoling, the guy leads Claude over to his table. There’s only one empty chair, and Claude knows it belongs to the lanky two-toned blond that just disappeared to go to the men’s room not twenty seconds ago, but the tattooed guy (“Frank,” he says, and shakes Claude’s hand like a gentleman before introducing him to Gerard, Ray, Bob, and Pedicone, which Claude thinks is a strange name until they assure him it’s his surname) urges him into it, so Claude sits.
They replace Claude’s pop with beer, and if the bartender sees, then he says nothing, and Claude doesn’t complain. He drinks it fast and he’s halfway done his glass and already feeling a little warm when Frank asks again why he’s so down. The others encourage him to speak.
Claude tells them. He tells them all about Danny and how amazing he is. And Claude knows he’s only seventeen, but he has stuff to offer, okay? He’s not just a baby face or a jock. He knows things, he can have the sort of deep, intellectual conversations that adults like to have. He’s amazing at being profound, when given half the chance. He’s strongly in tune with his emotions, after all. Why, just earlier he’d been acting very adult, musing on the world and its problems in relation to himself. If Danny would just see that in him, instead of seeing just some random punk kid, then maybe Claude would have a real chance with him. Also, he’s good looking, right? (Gerard and Frank both reassure him eagerly, and Claude blushes in spite of himself.)
He figures Frank and Gerard, at least, might understand, because they both look younger than they tell Claude they are. As Claude speaks, Gerard listens with a sort of rapt attention that makes Claude almost uncomfortable. Bob and Ray nod solemnly. (Ray’s hair nods, too, Claude notes.) Frank appears mainly thoughtful, and Claude is so focused on the tragic, sympathetic arc of Gerard’s eyebrows that he doesn’t realize Frank’s kissing him until Pedicone lets out a catcall and a wolf-whistle and other animal-like sounds that Claude doesn’t want to think about because a stranger is kissing him holy shit. And there’s, like, tongue. This has definitely never happened to Claude before. But Frank is into it, and he’s good. He tastes like beer and cigarettes and it’s kinda gross, but his tongue knows exactly everywhere in Claude’s mouth that feels good. Claude makes a sound that he’ll probably think is embarrassing, later. Frank hums into his mouth, like he’s responding. It feels good.
Claude is starting to feel weird, warm and buzzing, but cool and numb at the same time, when Frank eases back. Frank is holding his face, and Claude’s glad for that. He’s pretty sure that if he weren’t, Claude would fall over. Frank’s eyes flick between Claude’s. He looks thoughtful and focused, and then he presses one quick, light kiss to Claude’s lips. Then he leans back and looks up, and his face lights up. Claude looks up, too. It’s the two-toned blond that had disappeared towards the bathroom. Claude remembers abruptly that he’s sitting in the guy’s chair, and he pops out of his seat like he’s on a spring.
“Sorry, sorry, I was just-”
“Making out with my boyfriend?” the guy finishes in a flat tone, and Claude feels the beer-and-kiss-flush drain from his face at an alarming rate.
“Uh,” he tries.
“Mikey, it’s okay!” Frank says. It sounds like a chirp. “This is Claude, fucking awesome name, right? He’s cool. He’s rocking the unrequited love thing hardcore, y’know?”
“Oh,” Mikey says. He nods, like this explains everything, even though it really, really doesn’t explain anything. It doesn’t explain why Frank was making out with Claude, and it certainly doesn’t explain why Frank was making out with Claude when Frank is in a relationship.
But Mikey doesn’t get mad at him. He just tells him to sit again, and then he sits on Frank’s thigh. Frank’s hand settles on Mikey’s hip. Claude has to force himself to look away from where the tattooed fingers curl in towards Mikey’s crotch. He sits and downs the rest of his beer in one go. They refill his glass and keep talking.
About ten minutes later, Claude is starting to regret the beer. He’s feeling hot and light-headed, and it’s like everyone’s moving in this sort of strange slow-motion. Their faces are blurring together and apart and smearing across Claude’s field of vision.
“I, uh,” he tries. His voice sounds funny, deeper and higher at once, which makes no sense, and he giggles stupidly. “I think I gotta go.”
“Like, to the bathroom?” Frank asks. His voice sounds even funnier than Claude’s, all squeaky and echoic, and Claude snorts. He drives the heel of his hand into his eye. His fingers are a little shaky.
“No, I think he means home,” Gerard says reasonably. He’s frowning at Claude, eyes intent.
“Oh, right!” Frank nods, like this was his next guess, and then he looks at Claude seriously. “Oh. You’re probably not okay to go by yourself.”
“You and me can take him,” Mikey suggests, and he tugs on Frank’s shoulder as he stands. Frank perks.
“Good idea, Mikeyway!”
Claude doesn’t argue. He just tells them his address and lets them guide him home. He keeps tripping on his own feet. Shit, is he drunk? His parents are going to kill him. This is why he never does anything dramatic: every time he tries, he messes up somehow. At least it’s a weekend, so he doesn’t have to worry about going to school with a hangover.
*
Claude wakes up the next day sore all over. His eyes are sticky and bleary, his mouth is dry, and his head is buzzing, as if someone shoved his alarm clock into his brain. He groans and curls his arms over his head. What the hell happened last night? He vaguely remembers two guys escorting him home from the bar.
Bar. That’s right. He’d gone out to wallow impressively and met a bunch of Americans and they’d gotten him drunk and kissed him. Well, okay, one had kissed him, and really well at that. He swallows and grimaces at the too-tight feeling of a dry throat and swirls his tongue against his palate to try to work up some saliva. He thinks he can still taste the cigarettes and the beer and the Frank. It’s grosser now than it was last night, with no Frank to distract him with tongue and lips and noises. With a grunt, Claude rolls out of bed and stumbles into the bathroom. The apartment is nearly silent, but he can hear his father’s snores, so he tries to at least be quiet.
He is the most considerate son ever.
He uses a paper cup from the little pop-up dispenser his mom insists on keeping on the sink, and wets his mouth and throat with a few swallows of tap water. He opens the mirror cabinet and grabs his toothbrush, then brushes his teeth. He sneaks some of his mom’s mouthwash, too, for those hard to reach places. With that done, he washes his face to at least get the grit out of his eyes.
He freezes when he feels something on his cheeks and chin. He straightens from where he’s bent double over the basin and closes the cabinet.
The reflection in the mirror is him, but it’s not.
The Claude in the mirror this morning is a little more rugged than the Claude that had been in the mirror yesterday morning. His bones seem thicker, and he has facial hair. Claude’s been trying to grow a beard for two years. This looks like it could’ve been there for two weeks. He stares, and his jaw is slack and his eyes are wide and he probably looks stupid, but he doesn’t care. He reaches up to rub his chin. The red hairs are prickly but thick, and quite firmly attached to his face. Claude knows, because he tugs on it a few times. He pauses when he sees black ink on the back of his hand.
congrats on being 23. lmk how it goes w/ Dannyboy! xoxof
There’s a phone number, too. Claude scrambles to his bedroom, grabs his mobile, and calls it.
“If this isn’t a call to tell me I’ve just won ten million fucking dollars, I’m going to fucking kill somebody.”
Frank’s voice is gruff and annoyed and thick with sleep. Claude looks at his clock (which has not, in fact, been shoved into his brain). It’s seven in the morning. He doesn’t care.
“What did you do to me!?”
He means for it to be a yell. It seems like a yell-worthy situation. But at the last minute his voice turned it into a squeaky hiss because his parents are still asleep and he wisely fears the wrath of his parents.
“Claude!” Frank is instantly several degrees more cheerful. “That was fast. You noticed already, huh?”
“It’s kind of hard not to, don’t you think!” Claude snaps. He sighs and pinches the bridge of his nose. “What did you do to me?”
Frank huffs. “Relax, Man. I’m doing you a favor, and you’ve done me a favor. It’s called symbiosis.”
Claude learned about symbiosis in science class. This is not symbiosis. This is a freak occurrence in nature. It can’t be real. Claude must be dreaming.
“You made me older?”
“Yep!”
“What- How- What-?”
“Magic,” Frank deadpans. “I gave you six years. That’s six more years during which I’ll continue to be young, beautiful and energetic for my boyfriend.”
He sounds very pleased with himself, and if Claude hadn’t seen his own reflection, he would probably start laughing. Or crying. Or both. As it is, he’s not sure he won’t, anyway.
“What?” he tries weakly. It has to be a joke, right?
“I know, this is some Dorian Gray shit, huh?”
“Who’s Dorian Gray?” Claude asks tiredly.
“. . . Are you serious?” Frank demands. “Jesus, doesn’t anybody read, anymore?” There’s a distant ‘Hey’ in the background, and Frank coos, “I don’t mean you, Mikeyway, of course you read.”
Claude listens as Frank’s voice grows muffled. He can’t make out what Frank’s saying anymore, but his tone is the same it was when he’d asked if Claude was serious about Dorian Gray. Claude intelligently deduces that Frank is relaying his surprise to Mikey.
“Oh, but the thing is,” Frank continues to Claude, “we can never see each other again. I’m leaving, anyway, like, we’re driving back down to Jersey today, which is why you suck for calling so early, but yeah. If we see each other, then I’ll take those years back and you’ll spontaneously de-age. It’s not pretty and it’d suck for both of us, so yeah. Just, y’know. Never come to Jersey, and I’m going back to sleep until we leave so I don’t run into you, and then I’ll be sure to stay away from Canada once we’re gone.” He grunts, then says, “Oh, hey! You probably need new clothes, huh? And lots of condoms. But call me, Man! Lemme know how it goes with Dannyboy.”
He hangs up, just like that, and Claude’s left to stare at the back of his hand. lmk how it goes with Dannyboy! stares back at him, an echo of Frank’s farewell.
*
Frank’s right about new clothes. Apparently people grow a lot between the ages of seventeen and twenty-three, because nothing fits now. Claude has to borrow his dad’s clothes and his mom’s credit card, and he spends three hours shopping for a new wardrobe. He hates shopping.
He doesn’t throw out any of his old clothes, in case he and Frank accidentally do bump into each other before Frank leaves. Claude thinks it’s a smart move.
While he’s out, he also swings by a bookstore and buys The Picture of Dorian Gray. Claude thinks that’s also a smart move. At the very least, he hopes that maybe it’ll help him figure out the finer details of what the hell is happening to him.
Despite having been aged six years by a random American, Claude’s life goes on relatively unchanged. Being spontaneously twenty-three doesn’t make him suddenly smarter than he’d been at seventeen. He still needs to go to school. Which kinda sucks, but there it is. At least it’s his last year. Students notice the changes, and they tease him about ‘protein supplements’ and joke that his balls must’ve finally dropped, but after the first two weeks, the buzz dies down.
The one thing that has changed is the frequency with which Claude sees Danny - in that he suddenly doesn’t, anymore. Claude worries that maybe Danny wised to Claude’s game and has been avoiding him, but he doesn’t seem the type. And he hasn’t moved. If he’d moved, Madame Dufresne in 10C would have said something. She knows everything about everyone in the entire building. Besides, Danny’s name plate is still there on the buzzer, and on the wall of mailboxes.
It occurs to Claude to ask her anyway, on his way to school three Fridays after he’d met Frank. She’s dressed for breakfast, where she’ll meet her gentleman friend of twelve years. Claude knows this because she tells him every time she sees him. He hates to interrupt her, but presses about “Monsieur Brière.”
“Daniel? Oh, he’s sick, Dear.”
“Sick?” Claude echoes. Worry twists in his gut.
“Yes. He was visiting family last week and the week before? Came down with an awful bug while away. I’ve been making him soup; I think he’s on the mend!”
She seems proud of herself, and Claude’s glad she’s such a nosy old woman. He decides then and there to pay Danny a visit after school.
Danny lives in 17C, two floors below Claude’s family. Madame Dufresne lives between them, but that’s neither here nor there. She won’t know that Claude’s visiting and so she won’t be able to gossip about it. Besides, he reminds himself. Thanks to Frank, he’s twenty-three, now. Not seventeen. Even his parents have accepted that fact, once they got over the initial confusion. He can do what he wants, now.
And it’s perfectly acceptable for Claude to visit Danny if he so chooses.
He’s pretty sure it is, anyway.
He’s nervous the way he always is when he knows he’s about to see Danny. His hands are a little shaky, and his heart’s beating a bit faster, and he feels stupidly giddy. In short: he feels like he’s still a teenager. (He reaches up to make sure his beard is still there, then huffs a laugh at himself and stuffs his hands into his pockets. Belatedly, he pulls one back out to knock, then tucks it away again.)
He can hear shuffling around from inside, and there’s a cough that makes Claude’s chest hurt with how painful it sounds, all rattling and disgusting. But it’s also the kind of cough that sounds like the end of a cold, not the beginning or middle of one, and Claude hopes Madame Dufresne is right about Danny being on the mend.
“One second,” Danny calls from inside.
Claude doesn’t answer only because his voice catches in his throat. He chews on his lip and mentally berates himself for behaving like a child when he’s not supposed to be anymore (thanks to Frank, he reminds himself, and makes a note to call him as requested after he sees Danny).
He’s looking down at his toes when the door opens, and he sees Danny. Danny’s nose is pink around the edges from blowing his nose, and he needs a shower and a shave, and he’s wearing sweatpants and a baggy, long-sleeved tee shirt, and the most hideous wool socks Claude’s ever seen. It’s the most disheveled Claude’s ever seen him, and he’s beautiful.
Claude is so screwed.
“Claude,” Danny says. Claude can’t tell if it’s a greeting or just a surprised acknowledgement. He swallows, clears his throat, and offers a wave. He feels suddenly shy and stupid, and Danny staring isn’t helping.
“Hi,” he offers at last. “I, um. I don’t mean to be a bother? Um. I heard you weren’t feeling well. I wanted to, um, check on you.” He wants to kick himself for sounding like an idiot, but Danny just smiles a little.
“Come in.” He steps back to give Claude room, but hangs by the door so he can close it. The apartment, like Claude’s, has a short hallway just inside the door, and this puts them in very close proximity until Claude passes him by and steps in further.
Claude tries very hard not to do anything totally creepy like sniff him, or something. He has his limits. Really.
The apartment is different from Claude’s only in the way that it’s not the Giroux residence. Danny’s things are all neutral in color, and matching in size and shape, and exactly like Claude expected just based on what he knows of Danny. There are a few empty boxes of tissues on the end tables flanking the couch, a bottle of Purell on the coffee table, and a can of disinfectant spray lying on its side on the rug. Claude sees a stray tissue by the leg of the couch that Danny had obviously missed, and immediately pretends he didn’t in case Danny notices him looking at it and gets completely embarrassed. Some people are like that.
“So, um. How are you feeling?” Claude notes with approval that he managed not to stammer as badly that time.
“I’m okay,” Danny replies with a little nod. “It’s nice of you to stop by like this.” He looks around. Claude thinks maybe he feels as shy as Claude does. It makes this, being here, a bit easier. “Sorry for the mess,” Danny adds sheepishly.
Claude shakes his head with what he hopes is a reassuring smile, and then he tries not to die when Danny looks directly at his mouth. So much for easier.
“You look . . . different,” Danny says. He says it slowly, like he’s not really sure Claude does look all that different, like it could be his imagination. Claude silently curses those ‘good genes’ everyone keeps mentioning.
“I do?” he asks. Danny’s eyes narrow thoughtfully, and he nods.
“Yeah.”
He leaves it at that, and Claude looks away. His hands are still in his pockets, and Danny copies him. Claude watches the way Danny curls his toes inside his socks, and he realizes abruptly that Danny is nervous. When he looks up, Danny’s watching his mouth again, and Claude clears his throat.
“Do you . . . want to get dinner with me sometime?” he asks. He’s not sure why he does, or how he managed to get the words out, but now a part of his mind is yelling ‘Abort, abort, abort!’ and making violent throat-cutting gestures.
But it’s too late now: the words are out, and Danny’s eyebrows have already shot up. Claude swallows hard and waits for the laugh or the brush off - or both. When Danny says, “How old are you?” softly, Claude braces himself.
“Twenty-three,” he tries.
Danny’s eyes narrow again, and this time Claude gets the distinct feeling that Danny doesn’t believe him. But remarkably, he doesn’t call him on it. He just smiles, then nods.
“Yeah. Dinner sometime would be great.”
Claude’s grin gets away from him before he can stop it. He looks down, schools it into a smaller smile, then looks up at him again and nods.
“Good. Excellent.” He clears his throat, then gestures for the door. “I’d, um. I’d better go. So you can rest. So you don’t get sick again.”
Danny grins, and God, Claude is totally gone for him. They exchange numbers so they can set up a date - a date Claude’s mind crows - and then very reluctantly, Claude leaves.
He calls Frank to thank him.