"Run" - Frank/Gerard, My Chemical Romance (bandom), NC-17, Part II

[mrsronweasley]

( Part I.)

The next morning brings nothing but pain and humiliation, and by the time Frank climbs out of the gym showers and manages to dress himself in the wet rags those assholes have made of his clothes, he just doesn't feel like sticking around for the rest. His mom would be disappointed, but what the fuck is he going to do, start sticking his own head in the toilet or throwing himself around in the showers before they even get to him?

No. And he's not going to spend half of his day shivering in wet clinging clothes. He's not going to forget the look on Dershowitz's face when he spied Frank's scars and bruises, either, and that's a different kind of humiliation.

"What, your daddy beat you at home, Iero? Pissed he got such a tiny faggot freakazoid for a son?"

Frank had almost wished for the full moon so that at least he could have lashed out in earnest, but he just wound up falling over a lot, because his body was still aching from the weekend. Fucking assholes.

He picks a wet wedgie out of his ass and shuffles out of the gym. He just has to grab his iPod from his locker - hard lessons learned from too many broken belongings every gym period - and he is fucking out of there.

He rounds the corner, and oh, crap. Gerard is at his locker, even though Frank is about fifteen minutes late for lunch. And while Frank is kind of excited he's got someone to talk to at school now, he's so not in the mood for it today. Fuck.

Gerard is sitting on the floor like he's been there a while, propped up against the wall of lockers, ear buds running down his front, cord leading into his messenger bag, sketching. He definitely hasn't heard Frank yet. Frank has a moment of just wanting to turn around and not even deal, but he's left important shit overnight in his locker before, and it's never ended well. And he can't afford another iPod. He sucks it up and shuffles forward. In the quiet of the hallway, all he can hear is the squeak of his shoes, the rustle of his wet pants, and the tinny sounds leaking from Gerard's headphones.

Frank doesn't know what to say when he finally reaches Gerard, so he just kind of nudges his butt with his foot. Gerard startles like Frank had thrown a bucket of water over him and gasps. For a split second, Frank's right back on that dirty bathroom floor, on his knees, Gerard panting over him. He shakes his head and looks down at Gerard now, attempting a grin and totally failing.

"Frank! Hey, you scared me, man," Gerard says, relief flooding his features. Then he takes Frank in and frowns. "Hey, what the - what happened to you, is it raining outside? Did you fall in the lake or something?"

Frank shrugs and taps his locker meaningfully. Gerard's eyebrows fly up and he mumbles something as he struggles to his feet. Frank doesn't answer, just flips through the lock and gets the door opened.

Gerard is hovering real close, so close, Frank can smell his stale clothes and sweat. It doesn't turn him off as much as it should, which is fucking annoying. He grabs his iPod off the shelf and shoulders his bag. It's ripping again, and he has to patch it up, and he fucking hates sewing this thing, the fabric's always too thick and he winds up stabbing himself with the needle, like, a thousand times before he manages to get it through even once.

"Frank?" Gerard's voice is tentative and unsure and Frank sighs. He wishes he didn't have to explain.

"Nothing happened. Just… Just school crap, you know." He leans out of the locker and slams the door shut. A passing janitor gives him a dirty look and Frank just barely manages to suppress flipping him the bird. Why is everybody such a fucking asshole, seriously.

"Sorry," Gerard offers. He sounds kind of confused. Well, Frank is confused, too.

He keeps watching the yellow metal door, wondering how they keep managing to shove crap in. There's barely room in the slats for, like, a baby finger to fit through. "Listen, sorry about lunch, but I'm bailing. Can't stay here like this." Baby finger, what the fuck.

"Oh."

"Yeah." Frank shrugs and finally turns towards Gerard. "So, I'll see you another time, I guess. You can, uh, you can use my room if you want," he offers without even checking with his brain first.

Gerard's chewing on his lip, his eyebrows drawn together in this tragic arc, and seriously, does this dude's every emotion show up directly on his face, or what? "Oh," he says, and adds, "Where are you going?"

Frank rolls his eyes. "I don't know, away from this place, okay?" He can't believe he's still here, either. And that he's about to skip out on French. Shit, Mom is going to murder him, he'd promised her to be better. Chevalier is just going to skin him alive. But his pants are sticking to him and making everything itch, and he's fucking freezing, and he hates everybody, and if he doesn't get out of here right now, he is going to lose the last shreds of his sanity. "So, I'll see you later, okay?"

He turns to go and even manages a few steps before Gerard is right there, tugging on his arm, catching up. "Hey, d'you - d'you mind if I come, too?"

Frank sighs and shakes his head. "Fine, Jesus, but, like, I got no cool place to go, I just wanted to leave." Gerard doesn't expect Frank to, like, entertain him or anything, right? Because Frank is not in an entertaining kind of mood right now.

"Dude, that's fine, I just. I mean. You don't mind, right?"

"Oh, Jesus, no, okay?" Frank snaps and instantly feels bad, because - Gerard didn't do anything. Sure, he's kind of clingy, but at least he fucking seems to like Frank, for now. That doesn't come along every day. "Sorry, just. Let's get the fuck out of here and we'll talk."

He doesn't quite mean that in a way it comes out, but then he catches a glimpse of Gerard's face and it's - weird. Gerard, like, lights up or something. Something about him gets excited, anyway, and Frank thinks, wait, wait, no, that's not what I meant.

But he doesn't say it, just leads Gerard out through the doors under the center staircase, the ones that are monitored by that hippie-ass stoner janitor that tends to turn a blind eye to Frank whenever he sees him leaving school grounds. He's there now, too, pretending like he doesn't see two weird students, one of whom is sopping wet, walking quickly away around the football field and smoking.

Frank slows down as soon as they hit the bend and shivers when the wind hits him, his lungs shriveling up. "So, what do you wanna do? I gotta change out of these clothes at some point, or I'll -" Actually, he'll nothing, he hasn't been sick in years, but some things stick with you, apparently. "It sucks, basically."

"Oh, yeah, sure. Uh, will your mom get mad that you cut classes?" Gerard asks curiously.

Frank shrugs. "Yeah. But she's working through some deadline tonight, I think, so she won't be home for a while." He's a dick for feeling happy about that, he knows she hates working late, but it's not like he's the one who sets the deadlines. He kicks at a plastic cup on the ground and can't believe he's about to say this. "Wanna come over? I have, like, coffee. Do you drink coffee? We've got coke, too, I think." He's got some pot stashed away, as well, but he thinks he's shared enough with Gerard already.

Gerard's grin is so wide, Frank thinks it'll blind him. "Awesome!"

*

It takes them a while to walk to Frank's, mostly because no busses run convenient to their place except for the school bus, but it's kind of worth it for the look on Gerard's face when he realizes that Frank's back yard is directly adjacent to a cemetery.

"Shit," he breathes and turns around. "Can we go there? Like, now?"

Frank cracks up. "Maybe. I gotta get out of these clothes, first."

He lets them in through the back door, because he doesn't want the neighbors seeing him home so early, just in case one decides to call his mom. It's weird, bringing somebody new here. They have people over, but they're adults, people Frank's mom knows, or his dad, when he visits with Melanie, or Frank's cousins, or something. Never anybody Frank has just met, just like that.

He tries to see the place from Gerard's perspective - the pictures on the wall, the faded carpet - but he doesn't really know what Gerard's perspective is yet. Frank just watches him take the place in, or at least the short run of the hallway before they get to Frank's room, and that's weird.

His room has really stayed the same for years, apart from the posters changing up, maybe, and the books on his shelves, so it almost feels like he's letting Gerard see his ten year old self. Looking at it like that, he gets the urge to shove him out the door and never let him back in again. But he doesn't, he just allows Gerard to shuffle in behind him, and drops his bag faster than he can say "thank God."

He's halfway through stripping off his clothes before he realizes what he's doing, and when he turns around, Gerard's frozen on the spot, his mouth half-opened like he's forgotten how it works.

"Uh," Frank says and looks down past his bruised chest to where his wet underwear is plastered to his hips and junk, his pants down around his calves. "Sorry, man, I just - really wanted to - I mean, this was seriously -"

Frank doesn't get to finish the sentence, because while he was busy stammering, Gerard has apparently managed to make himself move enough to cross the few steps between them and - what? what? - capture Frank's mouth in a kiss.

Gerard kisses him, lips soft and wet against Frank's, and Frank's lungs fill up with too much breath as he forgets to let it out, because Jesus, he's - it's -

Frank never expected his first kiss to happen on such a shitty fucking day.

He garbles something out, and kind of wants to push Gerard away, but his hands won't move and he's still standing there with his pants around his fucking ankles, and Gerard is still kissing him - not even touching him anywhere else, just kissing. Maybe not like they kiss in movies, but it's real soft and stupidly sweet, how does it taste so sweet? And it lasts for a million mind-spinning years before Frank's numb hands finally come up enough to push Gerard away.

"What the fuck," he says, watching Gerard's face, but Gerard's eyes are still closed, though his mouth is open. "Gerard, what the -"

Gerard opens his eyes and just looks at Frank through his eyelashes, but he doesn't answer. Instead, he sneaks a hand up to the small of Frank's back, and Frank can't stop the shudder that runs all the way up his spine, a painless kind of shiver that echoes the change, and his brain completely confuses the two because he just - falls against Gerard. He doesn't even mean to move, but when he does, Gerard catches him fast and hard and then they're kissing again, but this time Frank's mouth falls open and Gerard slips out his tongue and - fuck, fuck, fuck, Frank can't even - he feels like he's falling through a dark tunnel and will never come out the same again.

Gerard's tongue slides against his and Frank actually moans, moans, like he's never done anything more, never done anything worse. How does a fucking kiss do that to him? He has no idea, but he presses closer to Gerard, until his chest is leaving a wet imprint on Gerard's shirt, against his chest, and Gerard moans right back, the sound vibrating through Frank's skin, and he's clutching at Frank so hard, it actually hurts where his bruises are worst. Frank wants to curse and he wants to push away; he wants to get even closer, he wants to press his - hard, Jesus, he's hard - dick against Gerard's, but most of all, he wants out of his fucking pants.

"Ge - Gerard," he mumbles, and it doesn't really come out as anything resembling words, so he struggles until his mouth mostly belongs to him again, and says, louder, "Gerard, wait, wait, I -"

"What, was - hmm?" Gerard's eyes are heavy-lidded and unfocused, and it's stupidly hot, like, languid and weirdly seductive, which is…unexpected. Frank tears his gaze away and lurches until he's able to finally, fucking finally, get his feet out of his disgusting pants. He sees, while he's down there, that Gerard's beat-up Chucks have the Misfits skull drawn on them in Sharpie.

"Uh." Had he noticed that before? It's fucking awesome. "Those are awesome," he says before he can stop himself.

"What?"

"Your, uh - the Misfits thing, dude, that's so badass," Frank says and finally struggles back up, using Gerard as a climbing tree. Everywhere he's touching him is warm and kind of, like, pulsating, even his palms when Frank brushes them with his fingers.

"Huh?" Gerard asks and Frank gets stuck watching his flushed face. He's already forgotten what they were talking about.

"Nothing, nothing, just -"

It feels like the waxing of the moon, this ridiculous pull, but it isn't, Frank knows that. But maybe it is, maybe he isn't actually this stupid, falling into something without thinking. It's - it's the middle of the day, he's in his room. Nothing about this feels real or normal. If he's ever in his room in the middle of the day not on a weekend, it means he's sick. It means he's crazy. In the dead of winter, it means he's about to change. But that's impossible.

He leans in minutely and in a flash, Gerard is there, meeting him, struggling against him a little bit, kissing him open-mouthed and hot. Frank can't even catch his breath - he's dizzy.

He has no idea what he's doing. He's getting the hang of the whole tongue-in-mouth thing, sure, but on a deeper level, he has no idea why he's letting Gerard do this to him, back him up until Frank's ass hits his desk and then - Frank feels his gasp torn out of his throat - grind against him, Gerard just as hard as Frank. That should feel familiar, but it doesn't, not when Gerard's got Frank's face between his sweaty palms, and his tongue sliding wetly in and out of Frank's mouth. Frank can't think like this, he's lightheaded from the lack of oxygen, from how much he wants to shove Gerard onto his floor and grind against him until they both come, and then do it all over again. He squeezes his hands around the hard edge of the desk and tries to breathe.

A car door slams right outside his window and Frank jerks out of Gerard's grasp so hard, Gerard stumbles back. When Frank plasters himself up against the window, he sees that it's not his mom's car and it's not his mom, but it could have been, and he's not - no. This is -

"You gotta go," he tells Gerard when he turns back around, feeling crazy, hating how shot his voice sounds. Gerard's eyes are wide and his mouth is red and slick and open in a wordless question. His hands are clutching empty air, looking listless, hanging there down by his sides. His shirt is still damp from the imprint of Frank's chest.

Frank bites his lip and repeats, "You gotta go, I'm sorry, I just - my mom and - you -"

He doesn't finish, crossing the few steps between them, aware of how fucking stupid he must look with his dick still hard in his wet, clinging underwear, bruised up all to shit, and Gerard's face is actually so tragic, it'd be heartbreaking if Frank wasn't so fucking lost himself.

Gerard finally breaks his own confused silence when Frank grabs his arms and tries to turn him bodily around. "Frank, I'm sorry, I didn't -"

"It's all right, I just can't - I can't do this, okay?"

Gerard, vaguely pliant until now, suddenly twists out of his grasp and Frank stops short at the sudden strength of it. "We don't… I'm sorry," Gerard mumbles, his gaze not quite darting up to Frank's face, and Frank's heart is beating so fast, he thinks it might crack his ribs. He's totally at sea. He doesn't even know if he's sorry. "We can, like. Still hang out, right?" Gerard asks and finally settles his gaze on Frank's.

Which. Yeah. They probably can. Frank knows he's fucked this whole thing up himself, he's the cause of it, he's the one who fucking got down on his knees in front of Gerard before he ever even knew his name, but. He fucking likes this guy, he's as cool a person as Frank's going to meet around these parts. He's just - he doesn't -

"Sure. Totally," he nods. He's so aware of being nearly naked, and for a second he thinks he might laugh. What the fuck has happened to his life, anyway? When he looks down, he sees that Gerard is still kind of hard in his pants, watching Frank right back. Frank bites the inside of his cheek and, fighting the urge to cover up, looks away.

"Cool. Okay," Gerard answers and Frank watches him pick up his own bag from where he'd dropped it on the floor earlier. Gerard shoulders it and looks at Frank uncertainly. Frank knows it's up to him when and where they actually ‘hang out', but he doesn't think it can be here and now.

"See you at school, right?" he asks, finally looking him in the eye, and Gerard nods after a beat, then shuffles out without another word. Frank doesn't see him out, but he does watch him and his slumped shoulders through his bedroom window, where Gerard takes the shortcut through the cemetery.

Frank turns away, slides the blinds closed, and fucking finally slips out of his wet briefs. He flops down on top of the covers in sheer relief and then jerks off fast and hard, trying not to think about anything at all.

It doesn't really work, and he spends a pretty embarrassingly long time remembering exactly how it felt to have Gerard's tongue in his mouth, and how it felt to touch it with his own.

*

He has no idea what to expect from the next day. This week has kind of dragged by and simultaneously flown, and it's only fucking Thursday, so there's not even the relief of the weekend to look forward to today. He tries to blend in with the streaming crowds and avoid any of the assholes who love fucking with his life as he walks between classes, which works pretty well until fucking Study Hall. But spit balls and notes with such inventive scribbles like ‘SUCK DICK FAGGOT' and ‘FOR A GOOD TIME OF TAKING IT UP THE ASS CALL FRANK IERO' are a breeze compared with being thrown around the locker room, so whatever, he'll take it.

What has his heart hammering kind of hard, though, is the minute it takes to walk from the classroom in the K building to his locker at J, and he can't even process the disappointment fully before his stomach sinks cold and fast down into his toes. Gerard's not there.

Fuck. Frank hangs down his head and shuffles up to his locker, bumping against the streaming crowds, hoping to catch a glimpse of him, maybe he's running late or something. But in the thirty seconds it takes Frank to grab his lunch and exchange Western Lit for French and Physics, he realizes that Gerard didn't show on purpose. And he probably won't, now, because Frank is a fucking asshole jerk who can't even hold onto a friend for more than three fucking days. What the fuck did he think was going to change, anyway?

He slams the locker closed and scowls his way outside. At least it's a really warm day, with the sun out. He puts on Henry Rollins and closes his eyes, slumping against the oak that's been in the courtyard since the olden times. He doesn't feel like eating, so he lets the birds pick at his lunch.

*

"Frankie, baby, you okay?" his mom asks when he's helping her put dinner together kind of half-assedly, he will admit, shucking ear after ear from her endless supply of corn.

"Whatever," he shrugs, ‘cause whatever. It was like there was a glimmer of hope that life would maybe gain some kind of luster, but that lasted for a full twenty seconds this time before being snatched away. Fucking typical.

"Don't ‘whatever' me, young man," Mom frowns, the knife in her hand stilling high over the carrots she's chopping. Frank eyes it a bit warily. She's got a mean streak on her sometimes that he never knows when to expect. "Is something the matter in school?"

Ha. "You know," he shrugs again, gently setting her hand down so she can start up on the carrots and stop scaring him with that knife. "The usual, I guess." He shucks the corn with extra relish this time, getting all the little damp hairs stuck around his fingers and trying to wipe them on a dishcloth when they wrap all around his skin and refuse to budge. Gross.

She hums in reply and they continue their vegetable dealings in silence. She breaks it a minute later.

"I heard from Marge Dewees, by the way," she drops airily, like if she does it real casual, Frank won't remember what it was like to have an actual friend and how much it fucking sucks that that friend was a goddamn Army brat that Frank hasn't seen in nearly six months now. He keeps shucking the corn. "She says they're settling down in Houston all right, but Jimmy's having a bit of a hard time adjusting with the local kids."

No fucking kidding. Probably not a lot of call for vaguely faggoty stoner dudes down at a Houston army base, Frank figures. Then he randomly thinks about how Jimmy had taught him all about the art of the cotton-mouth blowjob and the proper application of eyeliner without random eyeball stabbings. Man, Frank fucking misses that kid.

"Do you ever write to him, Frankie?" She's prying. She fucking knows. Probably not about the occasional blowjobs or the pot or the booze, but the stupid whine in Frank's chest getting worse and worse every time he sees the happy-go-lucky 2.5 kid, white-picket-fence family breezing in and out of the Dewees's old house up the street.

"Yeah, sometimes." He'll email Jimmy a YouTube video sometimes and sometimes he'll get an .mp3 of a really good Cure cover or whatever back, but it's just not the same over the internet. And now he's got no one to smoke up with, either, which is a shame because he loves getting stoned, and he fucking hates doing it alone.

"Well, that's good," she says, nodding beside him. "You don't want to lose that kind of friendship."

Frank tears off another husk off another ear of corn and tries to score it across the kitchen right into the trash. He totally fails, of course, and gets a whole other kind of frown in return. He wants to burn through a whole fucking carton of cigarettes, seriously.

*

"Hey, Frank."

Frank's heart leaps into his throat, but he swallows the lump down and shrugs all cool and nonchalant, tugging his locker open.

"Hey, Gerard. What's up?" Where were you yesterday?, he wants to ask, but he's not a girl, whatever. None of his business. Maybe Gerard is a fucking middle-of-the-moon-cycle werewolf, who the fuck knows. Maybe he's a mutant who needed to recharge. Maybe he was just busy.

Gerard runs a hand through his snarled-up hair, which looks and smells a whole lot cleaner today than it's ever done so far, and shrugs. "Lunch?"

So, it sounds like a routine now, maybe. Which is just fine with Frank. He definitely doesn't want to ask about the hiccup in the routine yesterday, so he hits the "reset" button on his brain that magically erases things like worry and resentment and shit, and smiles a real big smile when he finally turns to look Gerard in the eye. "Awesome."

When Gerard smiles right back, kind of unslumping around his shoulders and entire spine, Frank's stomach buzzes like it didn't get the "no feelings" memo from his brain.

Lunch. Right. Okay.

*

Frank's almost through the gates of the school and closer to freedom when he hears a stomping of feet behind him that's definitely headed in his direction, and steels himself. Jesus fucking Christ, don't those assholes have anything better to do? But the hit he's expecting doesn't come, and all he sees out of his periphery is a slouchy figure that transforms into Gerard when Frank turns to look.

Gerard gives him a shy smile, his bag almost sliding off his shoulder. "Hey."

Frank ignores the jump in his belly and nods at him. "Yo."

"So, like, do you like horror?"

Frank fucking loves horror, as long as it's got no fucking Wolfman, but he's got no idea why the non-sequitor. "Duh. Why?"

"Well, just, Mikey and me are having, like, a marathon? Like a reward for getting through the week and crap, so I thought - I mean - wanna come over? We're getting pizza and Mikey's got a quart of vodka, I think. We could make screwdrivers."

Frank stopped really paying attention somewhere in the middle, because even just the first part of that sounded so desperately like exactly what he wanted to be doing with his life tonight. Wow, shit, fuck, he is so fucking screwed. For a long moment, he can feel himself just staring at Gerard.

"Uh, I mean, yeah, it sounds pretty lame, huh," Gerard mumbles, dropping his head forward and kicking at the pebbles in the gravel. "Whatever, I guess, see you Monday."

"Wait, no! I mean." Frank stops and drops the hand he hadn't even realized had grabbed at Gerard's jacket. Whoops. "I really want to, man, it sounds awesome," he says, firmly wrapping his hand around the strap of his bag and keeping it there. "Just. Let me ask my mom?" God, he is so fucking lame, but she knows he doesn't go anywhere on the weekends without telling her.

Gerard's face clears and his cheeks kind of pink up, in that way that brings back, in full Technicolor, how he'd looked last week. It feels like a million years ago. It always does, with the change. Gerard just nods and watches Frank expectantly.

Oh, right. He's calling his mom.

He digs out his cell and speed-dials the last-called number. Seriously, he is goddamn lame. While it's ringing, he tries to act a lot cooler than he feels, and it's stupidly awkward, just standing there in the middle of the fucking school sidewalk, with Gerard fiddling with his own bag strap and occasionally catching Frank's eye and looking away again. Maybe Frank shouldn't actually be worrying about his own lameness.

His mom asks him a few pointed questions, then says, "Okay, Frankie. Where does this Gerard live?"

"Uh, hang on. Gerard? What's your address?"

Gerard's eyes widen like he never in a million years expected the question. "Oh! Right. Uh, we're at 70 Maple Ave, it's, like, right across from that pizza place? With the gangsters on the wall?"

Frank grins and repeats, "70 Maple."

"Okay. I don't know if I can pick you up tonight, though, I'm pretty tired, baby."

"That's all right, I'll get a bus or walk or something."

"Not too late, all right? Call me if anything comes up. Have fun, honey." She adds that last bit like it's no big, but he can hear her being just a little wobbly under all that mom bravado. He mentally rolls his eyes and tells her, "Sure, thanks, Mom."

"Cool!" Gerard says as soon as Frank's flipped the phone shut. "It's not, like, a long walk, I don't think. You mind?"

Frank doesn't even give a fuck. He feels like a real fucking teenager for once, and suppresses everything in his brain that's screaming at him that he's anything but.

*

The first thing that hits Frank when they walk through Gerard's door is all the smoke. Whoa, holy crap. The entire house is dark and hazy with it, even though it looked like a totally normal house from the outside.

Then, he notices a whole lot of potpourri, and past all the haze and the dark and dead flowers, there is an entire cabinet-full of creepy dolls. Frank goes through a quick moment of regret in even coming over, because he maybe hasn't heard of any newcomer serial killers in the area, but that doesn't mean they're not biding their time.

But when he turns back to look at Gerard, who's just throwing the lock shut, he relaxes at his sheepish expression.

"Uh, yeah, sorry about the dolls and shit. My mom has this, like, thing for doll collections. I dunno." Gerard shrugs, looking supremely embarrassed, and Frank cracks up.

"Dude, whatever, it's awesome. I mean, creepy, but what am I here for, right? This is, like, a preview."

Gerard's face kind of clears at that and he smiles back. "Cool, okay. I'm down in the basement, and I think Mikey's probably almost home."

Frank follows him through a quick maze of dark, but doll-free hallways and wonders if anybody else is home. Gerard hasn't mentioned his family's, like, make-up, and so far all Frank knows is there's a kid brother named Mikey, a creepy-doll collecting mom, and an artist grandma.

"So, is it you guys and your mom?" He doesn't mean to ask it like it's fact, it's just Frank's kind of used to having to deal with a single parental figure on a regular basis.

Gerard's shoulders twitch in a shrug as they descend the basement stairs. "My dad, too, he's off on a business trip, and my grandparents are down the street, but they're over here a lot, so."

"Cool." It does sound cool. Gerard's got a whole, well, family. Which Frank does, too - not like his dad is so far away. But he doesn't see him as often as he'd like, and Melanie's nice, but she's no Frank's mom.

If the upstairs looked like something out of a Tom Waits song, the basement looks exactly like what Frank might have predicted, had he actually thought about it. It's a pig sty, with, like, sketch pads and dirty clothes and pens and markers strewn everywhere, and it smells really kind of bad. A damp-looking towel hangs over a chair (Frank thinks it might be a chair) and it gives off a similar smell that Gerard's hair did this morning. Frank bites his lip to keep from laughing, because wow, his mom would have him hanged for this crap. She hates wet towels on furniture, never mind the rest.

Gerard doesn't apologize for the mess like he did for the creepy dolls. He just drops his bag, plops down on his bed, and shoves a bunch of crap down onto the floor, which Frank takes as an invitation to sit in the vacated space. Which he does kind of gingerly, because who the hell knows what's still on the bed. The basement's got a tiny window in one wall, but the sun's pretty much setting, leaving the room vaguely dark.

"So, you guys didn't just move here, right?" Frank asks, settling back against the wall, because it looks like this room's been in this state for a while. It's kind of cool and lived-in, though, and he can tell Gerard's more relaxed in here than he ever is at school.

Gerard chews on his thumbnail as he answers. "Yeah, it's, like, a family home? My mom grew up here, and then bought it from my grandma when it got too much for them to, like, take care of it. So, I grew up here."

"Huh. Cool," he says.

Yeah, this is not Frank's basement. He looks around again, mindlessly rubbing the bedclothes on Gerard's bed, and feels a knot form itself in the pit of his stomach. It's not the creepy dolls, either, it's more like, what the fuck is he doing here? This is great and all, but why is he venturing down this lane, when he knows exactly how it ends?

He tries to brush the anxiety off, and almost manages to while Gerard rummages around his bedside table, grabbing a pack of smokes and a lighter, and then there's some kind of stumbling down the stairs and a skinny kid with epically bad scene hair enters the room and freezes when he spots Frank.

For a split-second, their eyes meet and Frank thinks it's painfully obvious that Frank isn't just another high school kid, but he realizes it's ridiculous, he doesn't exactly have "I'm a werewolf, ask me how I can have you for dinner" stamped on his chest or forehead or anything. And then there's more stumbling, and raised voices as two other guys follow close on the skinny kid's heels.

Gerard's sitting up and breaking into a smile in an instant. "Mikey, dude, you brought ‘em! Awesome!" His socked feet are nudging Frank's thigh and Frank moves his legs without even thinking about it.

Mikey is the skinny kid, he gathers, and he does kind of look like Gerard - if Gerard spent a few months on a hunger strike and tried and failed to bleach streaks into his hair. Mikey throws a lopsided, pursed grin in Frank's direction, and Frank nods, not knowing what to say yet.

"Yeah," Mikey finally says, and whoa, his voice is deeper than Frank would have expected. It's kind of cool. "Picked them up at Dellario's. They're paying for pizza."

"Like fuck we are, Mikeyway," says the tall blond dude, nudging his way past Mikey and plopping down onto the floor, back up against the bed. "I'm Bob," he tells Frank, craning his neck and actually, like, extending his hand for a shake.

"Uh, I'm Frank," Frank answers, shaking the dude's hand. "Good to meet you."

The other kid brays a high-pitched kind of laugh and shakes his head. His hair is a massive crazy mop on top and all over his head, and it shakes as he laughs and lowers himself down next to Bob. "You're such a fucking gentleman, Bryar. Hey," he says, turning up to Frank. "I'm Ray. You don't have to shake my hand, it's cool."

Frank shrugs but plays along, clutching Gerard's comforter in his sweaty fist. "Sounds good."

Mikey is already putting a DVD into the player, kind of ignoring everybody else. Frank looks over at where Gerard has shaken out the smokes and winds up throwing him a hopeful look without even meaning to. Gerard just gives him a small smile along with the cigarette, and for just one moment, it feels like Frank and he are the only people in the room. Frank's fingers brush Gerard's and he inadvertently smiles back at that nudge. Gerard hands him a lighter and Frank clicks it into life, inhaling deeply. The knot in his stomach is not so much loosening as changing shape, maybe. He's pretty set on ignoring it.

"So, what's on the menu?" Bob asks, picking around the floor with some purpose, apparently, because he comes out with a crumpled and stained Angelina's Pizza menu.

"Pepperoni," Ray immediately pipes up, as Mikey says, "Sausage."

"Cheese," Gerard counters. "Frank's vegetarian."

Ray throws him a startled look, but Frank only notices out of the corner of his eye, because he's too busy looking at Gerard and trying to find his voice somewhere. "Oh, dude, that's fine, I don't - I can, like, get something else."

Gerard just shrugs, his smoke dangling from the corner of his mouth. "I want cheese, too, and Mikey likes it. Right, Mikey?"

Mikey shrugs eloquently and squeezes himself into the narrow space between Gerard and the bedside table. Gerard shifts around to give him more room, which brings his toes right back to Frank's thigh. Frank forgets to move away. "Whatever," Mikey says. "I'll eat pineapple, though."

Everybody else groans and mock-barfs.

"Fine, cheese it is," Bob says after Frank's stomach has stopped turning at the pineapple thought. "Toro, split the wings?"

Ray high-fives him and settles back against the bed, mollified. Frank looks at Gerard out of the corner of his eye and pretends not to see him watching Frank back from under his bangs.

*

The booze doesn't come out until after the pizza gets delivered. Frank tries to hand either Gerard or Mikey some cash, which admittedly isn't much, but Gerard just waves him off and Mikey pretends he didn't see it at all. Ray and Bob are too busy fighting over the wings to accept his cash. Frank stuffs it back in his pocket and grumbles, "Fine. Next time, I'm bringing pot and we'll call it even."

Gerard's eyes grow huge and Mikey's eyebrow quirks up. "Dude, deal," he says and raises his hand for a fist-bump. Frank cracks up and bumps him back. What a weirdo, he thinks, smiling.

Orange juice materializes from somewhere, and soon enough, Frank is carefully sniffing the drink in his red Solo cup. Mikey went pretty heavy on the vodka and light on the mixer, but Frank isn't gonna complain, even though it's pretty gross to be drinking warm vodka mixed in with even warmer OJ.

It hits him pretty soon after The Piranha credits begin to roll over the bloody water, because apparently, when Gerard said "horror," he'd meant "70's horror-lite," which is just fine with Frank. He's too busy blinking at how fast the fucking vodka is getting to him, but of course, his tolerance is for shit now. He and Jimmy used to drink a whole lot of PBR, which is piss water in the best of circumstances. Frank can never score any booze himself, because he looks about twelve, but Jimmy always managed to charm his way into shifty clerks selling him shit on the sly. And he always looked older.

"Dude, that chick get eaten yet?" Mikey asks through the pizza slice hanging from his mouth.

"I think so, the water's all red," Gerard answers, and from somewhere around their feet, Bob's quiet voice pops up. "Assholes, are you not paying attention? It's been, like, five minutes, what the fuck are you doing up there, cuddling?"

Frank snorts into his drink. Gerard and Mikey are kind of cuddling, in a totally oblivious way. But Gerard's toes are also kind of busy digging a dent in Frank's thigh at the same time, and he's sweating all down that side, trying stupidly hard not to move away and make it obvious, or move even closer and make it even more obvious. He's stuck in some tug-of-war land where his every instinct battles his higher senses. He chugs the drink down faster than he probably should, but pretty soon, he's feeling a lot calmer.

And buzzier.

The movie is ridiculous and boring, but also kind of hilarious. "This movie is fucking ridiculous," he says. "And boring. But, like, hilarious."

Gerard giggles next to him. "I know, right? It's like the decided to take Jaws and get rid of, like, all the tension and Richard Dreyfuss and shit."

Ray reaches back and swats at Gerard's toes, hitting Frank's thigh in the process. "Shut the fuck up, assholes, I'm watching."

"Well, it fucking sucks, let's change it." Gerard swats Ray's hand back with his toes and then moves his feet until he's cross-legged. Frank's thigh practically vibrates with the retreat of pressure. "Didn't you have another DVD, Mikey?"

Mikey shrugs. "I thought this looked cooler than it is. I'll change it." He clambers up off the bed and steps on, like, every available body part Bob has to offer, causing Bob to curse at him, and Frank to snort at them both. He catches Gerard's eye totally by accident, and his stomach rolls uncomfortably at the way Gerard's eyes shift in the blue of the TV. Frank picks his cup back from between his legs and chugs a disgusting warm sip of it as his eyes water.

Mikey winds up sitting down next to Frank after he's put in the DVD, and Frank zones out on the warmth and the comfort of the familiar scenes on the screen and the vodka, too. He's vaguely aware of shifting bodies as the DVD menu clicks into life, but he doesn't really feel anything much until Bob and Ray begin some sort of an argument that winds up with Bob tugging on Ray's hair so much, Ray yelps and hits the bed with his head so hard, he kind of wakes Frank out of his mollified stupor.

"Fuck you, Bob, that's fighting dirty!"

"It's fighting pretty clean, if your opinion is so stupid."

"That doesn't even make any fucking sense!"

When Frank looks over at Gerard, Gerard is actually just a few inches away, somehow having made himself comfortable right next to Frank, and his knee's been digging a hole in Frank's thigh for a while. Frank becomes aware of that, as well as how close Gerard is, and how restless his fingers are next to Frank's hand, like he's drawing without a pen and paper. Frank attempts to sit up and move away, but Mikey's got him planted pretty firmly between the two of them and Frank can only try to ignore how much of Gerard he can smell and focus on the screen.

Where a wolf is busy howling at the fucking moon and everything in him recoils at once. He jerks up and looks around, and everybody is just busy staring at the screen, just as zoned out as he himself had been, like, only ten seconds ago.

He looks back at the screen and feels his jaw lock up tight. How - how can they all just sit there, watching this, like it's no big deal at all? His skin prickles with the sudden heat of panic, and he jerks his hand at the feel of Gerard's fingers brushing his own, tentatively but with some definite purpose. Frank is up and moving before he can even think about it.

Bob and Ray both look up at him as he almost falls onto the floor, and the brothers are both watching him, even Mikey shocked into a gaze as big as Gerard's.

"Frank?" It's Ray who asks, but Frank can see it reflected on Gerard's face, too, and he feels himself making an apologetic face. He just. He can't. He can't, what was he even thinking?

"Uh, sorry, I gotta run, actually? My mom, and - yeah, sorry, I'll, uh, I'll see you on Monday, Gerard," he babbles, too loudly, then looks around for his bag in a panic until he spots and shoulders it. "Bye!"

He doesn't wait for a reply, just legs it out of there as fast as he can. Which isn't fast at all, because his tolerance is shot all to hell, so he stumbles against the walls of the stairs and loses his way in the short maze of dark hallways. He's got no idea what time it is, even though it's probably not even late at all, or how he's going to get home, even though he doesn't actually care, but he knows that he can't stay there in the stale smoke, with the guys who in another life could totally have become his friends, but never will now, because Frank's life is for shit.

*

Gerard finds him on Monday despite Frank's best attempts at hiding. After his shitty-ass weekend filled with continuous and humiliating replays of Things He Could Have Done Differently On Friday Night, Frank wants nothing more than to be left alone, but there Gerard is, sitting cozy by Frank's closet.

Frank curses under his breath and slows to a crawl, but it's only a few steps to bring him up to Gerard, slumped against the closet door, sketchpad looking abandoned on his lap.

Gerard just watches him and doesn't make any attempts to get up or anything. Frank has no idea what he wants - to demand what the fuck happened, to tell Frank he's a hopeless loser, or what?

"What?"

Gerard's eyebrows twitch together and he slowly unfolds, slightly awkward as he clamors up, losing his sketchbook along the way. It's definitely less awkward once he's up, because he's a lot closer now, really too close, and he's looking down at Frank with a concerned look that makes Frank's mom's concerned looks seem disinterested in comparison.

"Why'd you run away?" Gerard asks, and his voice is low and, like, intimate. His breath is kind of sour and warm and Frank feels it scatter down all the way down to his toes. He steps away quickly.

"I didn't fucking run," he shrugs, except he totally fucking did. "I just. I had to get home, that's all."

Gerard's face is a study in cynicism as he chews his lip, but then he shrugs and steps away. "Okay. Wanna have lunch?"

Frank can't help cracking up a bit, because sure, why not. Gerard isn't exactly giving him a choice in the matter, being all up in his space like that. Frank shakes his head as he rattles the lock, his belly roiling in something akin to relief. "C'mon in."

Gerard fumbles to pick up his sketchbook and bag and slips in after Frank. Once they're settled in on the floor, Frank is feeling almost comfortable again, because lunch in this closet is a hell of a lot safer than accidental stripping in his room or drunken almost-slumber parties at Gerard's.

"So, uh, you should, like, pick a movie next time. And we should plan in advance. The guys totally want to have another viewing thing with you, but maybe you could, like, stay?" Gerard is mumbling all of it not at Frank but at his sketchbook, his pencil scratching softly over the page, and Frank freezes.

The closet seems even narrower with another person in there, and hotter, too. His collar is rubbing at his neck and he tugs on it, but it's like trying to loosen iron. He doesn't answer and he can sort of feel the silence extending into a million years, even though it's probably barely even a minute. Gerard doesn't look at him, but Frank can practically see his ears twitching under all that hair.

He knows he has to answer. It's just another get-together, not even a party or anything, what the fuck is the big deal, he tries to tell himself, except that he knows. And Gerard doesn't.

And then he thinks back to his weekend of lying around on his bed, watching the ceiling fan swirl and counting the shadows, fucking around on his guitar and avoiding his mom's questioning looks. And he thinks about all the past weekends, too, the ones where he'd done all his homework out of desperation, and trolled through every porn site he could find until he reached what felt like the end of the internet. And he fucking hates those porn sites.

"Sure, I'll, uhm. I'll think about it," he finally answers.

Gerard just nods, and in the shadows of their space, Frank spots the tiny way in which Gerard's lips lift at his answer.

Part III.