Fic: Typical Girls (Part Three)
Typical Girls Part Two
Typical Girls Part Three
*
They left the garage, and Lyn-Z's shoulder kept bumping against his as they stuck to the narrow, weed-choked sidewalk.
"Sorry about last night," she said, not looking at him. "I was kind of stupid."
"No," Gerard said immediately, then clarified, "It's not stupid to be upset."
"It was a stupid thing to be upset over, though," Lyn-Z said. "But it's in the past now."
"Yeah," Gerard agreed uneasily, "in the past."
Kitty and Lyn-Z hadn't exactly been cold to each other during practice. Tense, yeah, but everything had been. Fuck.
"But I'm glad we're closer now," Lyn-Z said. "It helps sometime just to talk, you know?"
Gerard nodded but didn't trust himself to say anything. He was increasingly worried with where this was leading.
“Like….” Lyn-Z trailed off and kicked at a loose bit of pavement. “Mind if I unload something?”
“No!” Gerard said. “I mean, yes. Or, no, I don’t mind.”
“It’s just, I love Kitty and all, but she’s just so frustrating sometimes,” Lyn-Z said, “you know?”
“Not really,” Gerard said. He summoned his courage. “What was your fight about?”
She sighed. “What would you do if you liked someone who was dating someone else?”
“Uh… I guess it would depend on the situation?” Gerard started, flapping his hands around. “Like… I don’t know.”
Gerard flapped a little too hard and accidentally veered off the sidewalk and only just caught himself before falling on his face. Lyn-Z reached out and helped him regain his balance before saying, “Yeah, well, me and Kitty don’t really agree on what the answer to that should be.”
“I, um… I’m sorry.”
Lyn-Z bumped shoulders with him again, this time on purpose, and said, "It's good to have a friend."
Fuckity fuck fuck. Gerard knew what that meant. "Yeah," he managed to choke out.
The silence that followed felt awkward and Gerard had to say something. He couldn't bring up the almost-kiss, so instead he said, "I like talking to you. Listening."
"I don't really have an English paper," Lyn-Z said. "Well, I do, but it's fucking Saturday night. I'm not going to write it now."
Gerard smiled. "I know, I'm..." He cut himself off just before saying, I'm in that class. "I’m the same way."
"Do you..." Lyn-Z faltered, then said, almost shyly, "Do you want to come to my house and watch a movie?"
Gerard's stomach and his heart nearly collided, and he fiercely reminded himself that they were friends. Just friends. "That sounds like fun," he said, mentally apologizing to Mikey.
"Awesome," Lyn-Z said. She grinned at him and said, "We're already going in the right direction."
"Cool," Gerard managed to get out. He was already mentally freaking out. He was going to Lyn-Z's house. Where she lived, all the time, being awesome. Where she slept and where she showered and oh god everyone was right he was a total creep when it came to her.
He really hoped she wouldn't notice that.
"I'm assuming you like horror?" she said, glancing down, and Gerard had a moment of abject terror trying to figure out what she meant before remembering his black cat socks.
"Of course," he said, hoping that he didn't sound horrified. Maybe he was just going to have to rethink this becoming Lyn-Z's girlfriend thing if he was going to have a heart attack every time she fucking talked to him.
"Great! I've got Zombie Strippers," she said cheerfully.
"That sounds kind of exploitative," Gerard said reluctantly.
"Please," Lyn-Z said, rolling her eyes. "It's Jenna Jameson's finest work."
Holy fuck. Apparently Lyn-Z invited her friends to her house to watch zombie porn. Gerard was first of all mildly disappointed in himself for not having thought of finding zombie porn on his own time, and wholly horrified because there was no way he could watch zombie porn with Lyn-Z and giggle or what the fuck ever girls did when they watched porn together.
This was not one of the contingencies Chantal or Frank or Mikey or anyone had come up with for him. In fact, porn hadn't even entered the conversation. They'd mostly focused on getting him to talk to her.
He said, "Oh," in what he hoped was an appropriate tone, and Lyn-Z laughed and looped her arm around his. "You are in for a treat," she promised.
"Hooray," Gerard said, not sure whether he was internally freaking out because he was arm-in-arm with Lyn-Z or the fact that there was zombie porn on the horizon.
"So," Lyn-Z said, "tell me more about your love of Glenn Danzig."
"Oh my god," Gerard said. "I'd prayed you'd forgotten that."
She laughed. "Sorry, sweetheart! But no one fucks up punk rock 101 like that and doesn't get teased for it."
"I was so nervous," he said, and wow, two true statements in a row. It felt strangely nice to actually talk to her, even though he knew he was only clinging to the conversation in an attempt to not think about the coming hour.
"I'm glad you're over that," Lyn-Z said. Gerard briefly wondered if she was maybe existing in a slightly different universe that happened to overlap with his own. It would explain how she managed to be so perfect, he thought. "Practice is more fun when you're there."
"Did you miss today's?" he asked.
Lyn-Z rolled her eyes. "It started out a little shaky, but dude, we were fucking on there for a minute. And it was kind of nice to have girl talk. I usually have that with Steve, which isn't really the same." She paused. "Steve's one of my best friends. Him and Jimmy - you'll have to meet them. And Kitty, of course," she added, almost as an afterthought.
Gerard chose to gloss over the sticky subject of Kitty. "It sounds like you're close," he said.
"Well, I'm not really one of the cool kids," Lyn-Z said. "We mostly hang out with each other because no one else wants to, but I fucking adore them."
"You are so a cool kid," Gerard insisted. "Way cooler than me."
Lyn-Z rolled her eyes. "Tell the losers at my school that," she said. "Or not, it's better that you've never been to that hellhole. But you have people you talk to, right?"
Gerard was trying to wrap his head around the idea that maybe Lyn-Z didn't realize how awesome she was. He tried to remember who she would know, and then just said, "Mostly just Chantal," because he couldn't say his brother or anyone. He realized after he said it that Lyn-Z definitely knew Chantal.
"Claret? She's rad," Lyn-Z said. "I didn't realize you knew her."
"She's how I heard about the band," Gerard said. He was really glad he'd come up with that elaborate backstory now. "I guess she does go to your school."
It turned out that he didn't like fibbing to Lyn-Z, something that might become problematic in his whole wooing plan.
"Here we are!" Lyn-Z said, starting up a driveway of a house that was perfectly nondescript and normal and not at all what Gerard would have imagined for her. Granted, there weren't actually cool artsy lofts with blinking lights proclaiming how awesome its inhabitants were anywhere in town, but still, the fantasy was shattered.
Gerard followed her up the driveway and inside through the garage, entering a kitchen where Lyn-Z opened a fridge and offered him something to drink while she tossed a bag of popcorn in the microwave. Gerard tried not to be too creepy with reading the messages on the fridge while Lyn-Z pulled out cups and a bowl, and then cheerfully told him that she'd named the skeleton cookie jar "Ernest."
Lyn-Z's kitchen was alarmingly like his own. He felt comfortable grabbing the salt to add an extra dash to the popcorn, and Lyn-Z grinned as she came up with a handful of Twizzlers that she stuck jauntily in the center of the bowl.
Sodas in hand, he followed her in the living room, and then paused as she kept going through the house.
"Come on, there's a TV in my room," she said. "My mom always has to watch her shows in here."
"Okay," Gerard said, and obediently followed her down the hall into her bedroom. There he took a quick look around, set down the sodas and said, "Where's the bathroom?"
"Third door on the left," she said, digging through a messy pile of DVDs on her desk.
Gerard hurried to the bathroom, locked the door, pulled out his phone and called Frank.
"Dude, your brother is listening to "How Soon is Now" on repeat," Frank said crankily as soon as he answered.
"I am in Lyn-Z's bathroom," Gerard whispered. "She is waiting in her bedroom for me so we can watch a movie starring Jenna Jameson."
Frank repeated this information, and in the background the Smiths suddenly silenced. "Gerard, what did you do?"
"She spent the walk over here talking about how we were friends and how nice it was to have friends and oh my god, Frank, she thinks friends watch zombie porn together."
"Don't they?" Frank said.
"I mean, okay, I wouldn't have a problem watching zombie porn with you, but this is Lyn-Z we're talking about!" Gerard said. He sat down on the toilet and stared at the shower curtain. It was decorated with dancing Scotsmen.
There was muffled noises as Frank and Mikey discussed the situation and Gerard grew increasingly antsy. Lyn-Z was waiting on him! She was in her bedroom with her Jack Skellington pillowcase and her Sonic Youth poster and a bunch of paintings and shit that Gerard had only gotten a glimpse of but had looked really cool and he was huddled in her bathroom in a skirt and uncomfortable boots.
A really cute skirt, he reminded himself, and stood - only wobbling a little, he was pretty much an expert at walking now - and checked himself in the mirror. His hair was sticking up a little awkwardly and he hastily reapplied his lip gloss, but overall he still looked girlish.
"So basically," Mikey's voice suddenly said in his ear, "You've got to be cool."
"That was all you could come up with?" Gerard asked.
"If you freak out, you're never going to get into her pants," Frank chimed in.
"Right now her pants are the least of my worries," Gerard lied.
"You should just rub one out now," Frank suggested. Mikey's voice, teenier and further away said, "I told you not to suggest that!"
"I am not jerking off in Lyn-Z's bathroom," Gerard hissed.
"If you're gone for much longer she's gonna assume you are anyway," Frank said.
"Oh my god," Gerard said and hung up.
He hurried back to Lyn-Z's room, and when he pushed open the door hesitantly he saw her hastily putting down her phone.
"I put the movie in," she said, motioning vaguely to the TV perched on her dresser. Half the drawers were open, spilling out t-shirts, socks and pants legs. Now that he was actually in the room he could tell it was just as trashed as his own. For some reason he found that comforting, like he'd have been even more awkwardly uncomfortable if Lyn-Z's room had looked like something in a movie or TV show, sterile and unrealistic.
"Um, awesome," he said.
She laughed and settled on the bed, holding the popcorn bowl. It was a twin bed pushed against the wall opposite the TV, and she pulled out two pillows and propped one on the wall behind her and one beside her. Gerard climbed onto her bed carefully, then remembered his boots and sprawled his legs out to unbuckle and unzip them. Lyn-Z watched him and he felt strangely conscious of every movement, especially how jerking at his boots hitched his skirt up uncomfortably high on his thighs.
He dropped the boots on the floor - he could see Lyn-Z's sneakers chucked on the floor near the door - and scooted back, carefully tugging his skirt to make sure that everything that needed to be covered was well under wraps. He took a deep breath and tried to figure out where he could put his hands that wouldn't be awkward. It was like he'd never had hands before, they were just there and in the way and he finally let one rest on his leg and the other on Lyn-Z's comforter.
"You're going to love this," she said again. She set the popcorn bowl between them, then she toyed with the remote.
If Gerard didn't know better he would think she was nervous.
"I think horror movies could do a lot less to exploit women and continue the virgin-whore dichotomy," Gerard said more out of reflex than anything else.
Lyn-Z rolled her eyes and said, "Don't be such a pussy."
That was not the response he usually got.
"But," he started, but Lyn-Z shushed him and pressed play. Gerard tensed and wished that she'd taken him up on a conversation about feminism instead of turning on zombie porn, but he wasn't going to punk out now.
She seemed more relaxed once the movie was playing, which was the opposite of what Gerard felt, though he knew he couldn't escape off to the bathroom again so soon. So instead he looked around the room, but then he realized there were bras hanging on the back of the closet door and something dark and lacy sticking out of the laundry pile, and he glued his eyes to the television.
He was in Lyn-Z's fucking bedroom, what the hell. He had no business being here.
Lyn-Z kept shifting beside him and he tried really hard to not let his hand slide closer to her when she did, and keep his eyes firmly on the television, and not think about anything untoward - like the fact that Lyn-Z might be wearing lacy underwear right now or that his ass was planted right where she slept at night. Any thoughts that flitted through his mind that would cause Mikey to roll his eyes or someone to announce that he was a creepo, he tried to shoot down. Mercilessly. With mental lasers.
He focused instead on the zombie porn, which he slowly realized wasn't zombie porn at all, but a fucking hilarious movie that pretty much fit all his criteria for a perfect film. This didn't do a whole lot to make him less conscious of Lyn-Z's every movement, which didn't really surprise him.
While on the screen a stripper swung around a pole, Lyn-Z shifted again and casually dropped her hand on the bed between them. There was scarcely an inch of red comforter between their pinkies.
Gerard's other hand tightened nervously, bunching up his skirt a little. He left it crumpled that way when he forced himself to stop clutching his skirt.
He should just sit there being friendly but his hand scooted closer to hers almost of its own accord.
Then her hand moved, and their pinkies were touching.
Gerard's heart stopped beating. He didn't really know what to do because it felt like his entire being was solely focused in the strip of skin on the side of his pinkie that was in contact with hers. He glanced over quickly but her eyes were glued to the TV, lips parted slightly as she watched a newly zombified goth dance.
Gerard couldn't get over how it felt like the nerves in his hand were amplified a thousand fold, how his skin tingled and how warm she was. He tried to pay attention to the naked ladies on the screen instead of Lyn-Z's hand touching his own, but kept trying to steal glances of her, hoping to see some sort of reaction.
Right now it was still accidental touching in friendly territory. All he had to do to change that was to take her hand in his own.
They'd only been friends a day, really.
He kept his hand still.
He felt her hand move a little a few times but she didn't move any closer to giving him a sign that she was interested. No further away either, he told himself firmly, and hoping that this moment either ended soon or never ended, whichever would keep him closer to her. Slowly he managed to refocus on the movie instead of his entire universe hinging on the slightest of contact with her - even less than at practice, way less than last night, but its deliberateness and the setting making him extremely conscious of it - and he felt almost relaxed, like this was where he was meant to be.
Lyn-Z leaned and grabbed popcorn with her other hand, leaving their their pinkies in contact with each other until she excitedly started waving her hands around when she started talking about one of the more ridiculous zombie theories in the movie, and Gerard was caught up enough in the conversation that he didn't even notice until a few minutes later.
The movie ended and they laughed a few minutes over their favorite parts, and then Gerard fidgeted awkwardly. He didn't want to leave, not ever, but he really should go before he fucked things up somehow.
He didn’t want to risk forgetting what common sense and Lyn-Z herself had both told him and end up grabbing her hand like he'd been dying to and kissing her, never mind that she still had a girlfriend. He'd totally explain to his mother that he was a hussy so long as he got to just kiss her.
He was thinking maybe this wasn't such a crazy plan when Lyn-Z scooted off the bed and took the DVD out of the player. She fiddled with the box for a minute, and Gerard made his decision and got his boots, leaning awkwardly on the side of the bed to cram his feet back in them.
"I should probably go," he said. Frank had probably cheered Mikey up way better than Gerard could have - though probably at Gerard's expense - but still, he needed to check up on his brother. That totally wasn't an excuse to get him out of here before he did something he would regret when Lyn-Z wouldn't look at him anymore.
It was still so new that she was talking to him. He couldn't ruin that, not already.
"Yeah," Lyn-Z said. "I'm glad you came over."
"Me too," said Gerard. He stood up and straightened his skirt. He realized that he never tried to act like a girl when he was around Lyn-Z. He didn't really act at all, but she still invited him over and accepted he was who he looked like.
He felt a little guilty about the whole falsely-wooing plan, but it wasn't like he was doing any actual wooing. He was just finally becoming her friend, and she was even more perfect than he had fantasized. He paused as she flicked on the light, and looked at the drawings that decorated the walls. They were stranger than the ones she presented in art class, less constrained and the faces far sadder.
"Did you draw all these?" he asked.
She nodded, then laughed. "Well, not those few," she said, motioning towards a couple of sheets of paper taped to the far wall. "Those are Jimmy's handiwork."
"Yours are really good," Gerard said. "They have personalities."
She beamed and came over to him. "That's the most interesting trait people have."
He was not going to propose and/or take it that as a sign that his crazy plan could work. He wasn't.
"I really do have to go," he said regretfully.
Lyn-Z leaned over and pecked him on the cheek. "See you soon."
"Yeah. See... talk.. um, later," Gerard said and tried to remember how to use a doorknob. She had just kissed him on the cheek. A totally friendly gesture, but she had kissed him.
He left, and in the exact opposite from the night before, it was the longest walk home ever.
*
"She kissed me on the cheek," Gerard announced as he barged into Mikey's room.
Frank paused his game. "Lyn-Z?"
"Yes!" Gerard said. "She kissed me. On the cheek, but, a kiss!"
"I can't believe that," Frank said. "Did you hallucinate this? What have I told you about psychedelics?"
"I didn't hallucinate anything," Gerard said, doubting it even as he said it. He then realized someone was missing. "Where's Mikey?"
"In the backyard with Patrick Stump," Frank said.
That wouldn't have been any of Gerard's guesses. "Doing what?"
"Getting the "What are your intentions with my best friend?" speech," Frank answered. "I eavesdropped for the first ten minutes or so, then it got really repetitive with lots of mentions of ripping hearts out and stomping on them. Though most of them were threats about what Patrick would do to Mikey." Frank paused then added approvingly, "I didn't realize that kid was so violent."
"I should go down there," Gerard said.
Frank raised an eyebrow. "Like that?"
Gerard remembered he was still dressed as Gee. "Oh yeah."
Frank snickered and threw him a controller. "You can play Left 4 Dead with me while Mikey gets lectured."
Gerard flopped beside him and pried off his boots again. "Alright." Patrick was tiny. Surely Mikey could manage to keep away from him if Patrick decided to go through with his threats.
"Enjoy your zombie porn?" Frank asked, fighting off zombies.
"It turned out it wasn't zombie porn," Gerard said. "It was a movie about zombie strippers."
"No fucking way," Frank said. "Dude, she likes movies about zombie strippers?"
"Awesome movies about zombie strippers," Gerard corrected. "Dude, she had all her kickass art on her walls and From Hell on her bookshelf and she told me I was a pussy when I tried to tell her about how horror movies are exploitative to women."
"So you managed to actually talk to her?" Frank said.
"I talked to her and we sat next to each other on her goddamn bed for two hours and our hands touched and then she kissed me on the cheek when I was leaving," Gerard said. "It was the most fucking amazing night ever."
"And to think, some people want more than a peck on the cheek," Frank said, sticking his tongue out in concentration as he jabbed at the buttons. "Motherfucker!"
Gerard flicked Frank in the head before Frank started with his giggle of assholish mirth that Gerard hated so much, then resumed playing, failing pretty spectacularly but not really caring because every other thought through his head revolved around Lyn-Z and the feel of her lips on his cheek.
Mikey stalked into the room, looking crankier than he had when Gerard had left earlier, but also more animated. "I cannot believe I just got a fucking lecture about breaking Pete Wentz's stupid fucking heart," he said, waving his hands around.
Gerard and Frank both stared.
"He acted like it was my fault that Pete's a stupidhead!" Mikey continued.
Frank started to snicker. "Stupidhead?"
Mikey flipped Frank off and kept ranting. "It is not my fault. It is Pete's fault. Pete's the one who's freaking out. I am completely fucking cool with the situation. But who gets tiny angry choirboys at their house yelling about being insensitive and goddamn broken hearts?"
Gerard blinked. "Mikey, you're freaking out a little. I mean. You're still waving your arms around."
Mikey lowered his arms abruptly.
"So Pete's best friend showed up and asked you what your intentions are and then yelled at you for breaking his heart," Frank said.
"God, Mikey, you didn't say something stupid, did you?" Gerard said.
"No, just the truth," Mikey said. "That I don't ever want to see Pete Wentz's stupid face ever again."
"Okay, you know we're not members of Pete's fan club," Frank said. "But aren't you maybe overreacting?"
"He didn't say, 'Hey, I can't do this, sorry,' he fucking kicked me out of his car half-naked," Mikey said. "And he's ashamed to be seen with me. He isn't that fucking cool."
Gerard took a deep breath, not quite believing what he was about to say, but he remembered how frustrated and down Alicia was. “Maybe he has reasons?"
"I am not listening to someone who is currently wearing a skirt so that he has a chance with a lesbian," Mikey grumbled, but he looked significantly less irate.
"She totally kissed me on the cheek!" Gerard couldn't help sharing.
"Seriously? Did you trick her into it?" Mikey asked. He looked a little more chipper now that he had someone else's romantic catastrophe to concentrate on.
"No," Gerard said, sticking out his tongue. "Her own free will."
"Her friendly free will," Frank clarified. "Gerard had the opportunity to make a move and didn't."
"Gee!" Mikey said. "What the hell?"
"I didn't want to ruin our friendship!" Gerard explained.
"It's too easy to tell you you're such a girl right now," Frank said, flicking Gerard's skirt.
"And the whole point is to make sure you aren't just her friend," Mikey said. "Otherwise you could talk to her at, you know, school. Wearing pants."
"Pants are overrated," Gerard said. "I just don't want to fuck this up."
"Like I did?" Mikey said. "I don't blame you."
Frank threw his controller down. "Seriously, if you two want to cry in your pillows, I can leave."
"Easy for you to be smug," Mikey said.
"Hey, you've got a nice girlfriend," Frank retorted. "Not my fault you're rushing a skittish ass-virgin to boot."
Mikey flushed and Gerard snickered. Mikey threw an Aquaman action figure at him, and Gerard attempted to bat it away but missed and it hit him in the nose.
"At least I've tried," Mikey told Gerard, who was rubbing his nose.
Gerard set Aquaman down beside him and scowled at his brother. "At least Lyn-Z's talking to me."
"At least I don't have a fucking Aquaman action figure," Frank told them both, making Aquaman swim through the air. "Oooh, I talk to fish and rule an imaginary city of sea creatures, and somehow that qualifies me to fight crime and join the goddamn Justice League. Totally badass."
"Aquaman can be totally interesting with the right writer and slant," Mikey said defensively.
"Yeah. And the goddamn Batman called him up to help move the giant penny," Gerard said. "You can't argue with Batman's character judgment."
"Yeah, I have no clue why you don't have a girlfriend," Frank told Gerard.
"Don't even pretend like you don't see my point," Gerard said.
"But the difference is I'm awesome and irresistible," Frank said.
Mikey yawned. "Go bicker in the basement. I'm going to bed."
Gerard and Frank both refused to move.
"You're going to do something stupid," Frank declared.
"Hard to do that in bed alone," Mikey replied.
"Not with that phone it's not," Gerard said. He tugged Mikey's Teen Titans blanket around him and settled in more comfortably.
"Can you just decide what you want me to do already?" Mikey said crankily. "Don't talk to Pete, talk to him, that's a stupid idea, not doing anything is a stupid idea... It's fucking confusing."
"I know," Gerard said. Mikey climbed up next to him and Gerard shared the blanket, even though Mikey's toes were really cold even through his clammy sock.
"Hey, how about we kill things?" Frank said, waving his controller around.
Gerard offered his controller to Mikey, and tried to concentrate on critiquing their playing instead of everything that had happened that day.
His phone buzzed. He had a new message from Mary Jane Watson: i like when you’re here too.
He fell asleep on Mikey's bed tangled up in the Teen Titan blanket and his own skirt with the phone clutched in his hand and a smile still on his face.
*
Gerard didn't think anything of it when Mikey didn't join them for lunch on Monday.
Ray was regaling them with the story of how Dewees got him kicked out of his third-favorite restaurant after the manager had caught him filling the napkin dispenser with salt while Bob nodded along and Frank offered suggestions of what they could have told the manager instead of meekly filing out of the place and then bitching about it for the rest of the way home. Gerard picked at his lunch and tried to not look around too much or check his phone again hoping for a new message.
He'd updated Ray and Bob on the story - rather, Frank had kept adding details like zombie porn and Gerard's complete lack of game - and neither seemed to really understand how amazing it was that Lyn-Z had kissed him on the cheek.
"Dude, she put you in the friend box," Bob had said. "That's nothing to celebrate."
"It is!" Gerard insisted. "We talk and things are amazing."
"Couldn't you be her friend like, now?" Ray asked skeptically. "I thought the whole girl-plan was so you could be more than friends."
"Fuck off," Gerard said, sick of hearing that point already.
Frank and Bob exchanged glances and started snickering. Gerard hated them all. They Ray sat up straighter and said, "What's Mikey doing?'
Gerard twisted in his chair to see his brother standing awkwardly next to the table filled with soccer players, who were currently still ignoring him. Well, mostly - even from across the cafeteria Gerard could see that Pete was staring at Mikey with a vaguely horrified expression.
"What the hell, Pete?" Mikey demanded.
Pete glanced around at his teammates. They seemed moderately interested in what was happening. "Um. What the hell to you," Pete said nervously.
Mikey seemed to be shaking around a note."I don't think this is funny."
"Me either," Pete said. "I mean, what's that?"
Mikey glared. "You know perfectly fucking well what it is."
"Is Mikey about to out Pete in front of the whole school?" Ray whispered. "That shit isn't cool."
Gerard very much agreed. "Surely not," he said. "He remembers, you know, that thing Bert did."
"I don't think he's thinking very clearly right now," Bob pointed out. "I wonder what that note says."
Gerard glanced around. Most of the cafeteria was unconcerned with the spectacle Mikey Way and Pete Wentz were about to make, but he saw Gabe Saporta and his friends watching avidly, along with a couple tables of freshmen. And, he noticed with a weird twinge, Lyn-Z and her friends.
"What, is that note from your girlfriend?" Pete said, looking more uneasy than pissed. "Saying how I fucked her?"
There were a few approving chuckles from the jock tables, but Gerard was mostly concerned about his brother, whose expression was blank and body very still. "No," Mikey said. "It isn't from anyone I care about."
"I--" Pete started, but Mikey turned away. "Mikey, dammit, you know I meant what I fucking said!"
Mikey turned long enough to say, "And so did I." He walked quickly away from the table, ignoring the roll one of the jocks threw at him that bounced off his shoulder, and Gerard kind of wanted to beat Pete's face into the table for making his brother look that fucking sad.
Gerard went after his brother, chasing him through the halls until they finally ended up in the library. Mikey slumped down on a chair hidden in the stacks and let the note fall out of his hand as he said, "I shouldn't have gone to him there."
"He shouldn't be such an ass," Gerard said. "Who's the note from?"
"Pete," Mikey said. "It doesn't make any fucking sense. I think it's a poem or something. I think he meant it to show how fucked-up I make him."
Gerard gingerly picked up the paper and folded it back up, matching the creases until it was a tiny tight triangle with 'Mikey' written in block letters on either side. He didn't read what it said. "He might have meant it as a compliment," Gerard offered, not quite believing he was really defending Pete Wentz's obscure intentions to his upset brother.
"Doesn't matter," Mikey said. "He shouldn't have said that about Alicia."
No matter how true it might be, Gerard thought. "I think Frank went to go piss in his locker," he offered.
Mikey grinned weakly. "Serves him right," he said, which was so far from his reaction a few days earlier that Gerard wondered what else the note had said. He twisted it in his hands and then tucked it into Mikey's blazer pocket.
"Wanna skip class and go to the comic book store?" Gerard asked.
Mikey considered it, then shook his head. "Can't. I've got a test."
He stuck his hand in his pocket, and Gerard could tell he was fiddling with the note.
"Then at least talk to Alicia," Gerard said. He hadn't told Mikey how upset Alicia had been at practice, but he figured this was the least he could do.
"Yeah, okay," Mikey said. A bell rang, and Gerard stood up reluctantly. "Seriously, we can skip."
"I'm not going to let him drive me away," Mikey said. "Especially with his bullshit about needing to be accepted by those dumbasses."
Gerard didn’t really need to know more about Pete Wentz, but he couldn't help it. "Why does he need them?"
Mikey shrugged. "He says something about his parents or some shit like that. Patrick, though, he said that it's because Pete's fragile. I don't believe that."
Gerard thought that Mikey did believe that. "Then why doesn't he hang out with them instead? Patrick and them."
"Guess they're not cool enough," Mikey said. "Like me."
"You're cooler than all those fuckers," Gerard said.
"Go to class, asshole," Mikey replied. Gerard ignored Mikey’s eye roll as he gave him a hug, He managed to not ruffle Mikey’s hair, which he considered a win, before going to class.
Art class was by far the most stressful in Gerard's schedule, and today it was even worse than usual. For one thing, Lyn-Z was already there when he walked in, and she looked at him when he sat down. He kept his eyes averted because, fuck, what if she recognized him? It wasn't like he looked all that different in a skirt than he did in his wrinkled school uniform.
Lyn-Z didn't say anything, though, and after a moment Gerard relaxed. He caught Chantal's eye as she went to the supply cabinet, and she raised her eyebrows in a way that made Gerard nervous all over again.
Dewees slunk into class five minutes late, something that Mr. Armstrong seemed to deem too minor to mention, and when he sat down next to Gerard he hissed, "Everyone's talking about your brother."
"It happened fifteen minutes ago," Gerard hissed back, knowing full well that high school gossip spread faster than herpes.
Dewees gave him a look, and then obediently opened his sketchbook and began to draw a stick-figure interpretation of the statue Mr. Armstrong had placed in the center of the room for inspiration.
Things went relatively smoothly for a few minutes, and then he heard Steve say in a loud whisper, "Walking off after Wentz said that was a pretty pussy move, you gotta admit," to Lyn-Z.
Lyn-Z crinkled her brow, but Gerard couldn't help saying something first. "Hey, he's my fucking brother. Don't fucking talk shit about him where I can hear you."
Lyn-Z looked taken aback, Steve raised an eyebrow and made a catty hand motion, and Dewees hissed, "Gerard, chill."
“What’re you gonna do, scowl at me and draw a mean picture?” Steve asked. “Come on.”
Lyn-Z whacked Steve’s arm and said, “Steve, shut the fuck up.”
He gave her an unreadable look and said, “No, Lyn-Z, you have no reason to play the white knight. Not for them.”
Gerard usually confined his fits of anger to throwing shit around his room and drawing things that involved a lot of fierce line work, but he couldn’t help remembering how cathartic singing had been and suddenly couldn’t keep his mouth shut, never mind that Lyn-Z was right there and casting him sideways glances and looking for all the world as though Steve were doing this as an unwanted personal favor for her. “Say what the fuck you want about me, but not my brother.”
He was used to it, yeah, but he wasn’t used to hearing it about Mikey.
“Not my fault you both can’t seem to keep your boy troubles under control,” Steve said, and Gerard saw Lyn-Z bury her head in her hands like she was horrified or disgusted.
Gerard was dimly aware that the rest of the class was watching - Gabe Saporta was standing, hand loose on the back of his chair, and Gerard knew he had backup if things went too far - and that Mr. Armstrong had come out of his office.
“I’m surprised you can talk with your head up your ass like that,” Gerard retorted, and he heard his classmates’ halfhearted dismay as Mr. Armstrong declared that they all four - Dewees and Lyn-Z due to proximity - had detention for the next two weeks for their ‘prelude to a fight, and don’t pretend like that wasn’t where all that trash talk was going, mister.”
“What the hell,” Gerard said as Mr. Armstrong disappeared in his office again to write out the detention slips.
“We caught him in his only bad mood ever,” Dewees said. “Crap on a stick, I don’t want detention.”
Gerard thought of being locked in a small room with Lyn-Z every afternoon. There was no fucking way she would fail to put two and two together and his cover would be fucking blown. “Motherfuck,” he grumbled.
“Don’t be such whiny bitches,” Steve said.
Lyn-Z threw a bit of eraser at him. “Just because you have a favorite chair in detention doesn’t mean that we all want to spend our fucking afternoons here, dumbass. I have shit to do.”
“Shit or a rocker chick?” Steve asked. Gerard managed to not choke on his own tongue when Lyn-Z just rolled her eyes and said, “See if I tell you anything ever again.”
Mr. Armstrong returned to present them all with detention slips, and Gerard did his best to not look at Lyn-Z as he took his.
*
“I got fucking detention,” Gerard said after school, flailing his arms and looking despairingly at Frank and Mikey and Bob.
“And?” Frank said.
“So did Lyn-Z!”
Mikey stared. “Seriously? I get shit in front of the whole school, and you’re bitching about detention?”
“I got detention defending your dumb ass,” Gerard said crankily. “And she’ll know who I am!”
“Planning on changing into something more comfortable for detention?” Bob asked.
“You could just drop out as Gerard and re-enroll as Gee Way, your own long lost twin,” Frank said. “Then you could have hot girl-on-girl action in the cafeteria and make everyone forget about Mikey’s disaster.”
“I think we’re blowing my disaster out of proportion,” Mikey said. “It will not take lesbian action to resolve, unlike Gerard’s disaster.”
“Just dude-love,” Frank said cheerfully.
“And Steve implied that Lyn-Z likes a rocker chick,” Gerard said, wringing his hands. “What if he was talking about Kitty? Then I’m fucked.”
“Or not, as the case may be,” Bob said.
“If you got detention, shouldn’t you be there right now?” Mikey asked.
“You are too fucking cheerful,” Gerard said suspiciously. “Weren’t you about to start your own emo death cult two hours ago?”
Mikey shrugged. “I talked to Alicia.”
“And she has more sense than you do?” Bob said.
Mikey half-smiled. “Pretty much.”
“That means she took your side, right?” Frank said. “Unlike your brother, who keeps projecting his own crazy issues.”
“I don’t project,” Gerard replied.
“She totally took my side,” Mikey said. “She’s gonna find Pete after school.”
“Yeah, I hope the soccer team sees that,” Bob said. “That’ll put those rumors right to rest.”
“The soccer team is not the problem,” Mikey said. “The problem is Pete and his stupid stupidness.”
Gerard shrugged and said, “Makes sense.”
“You know if you’re late for detention they make you sit in the study correls, right?” Franks said. “An hour of that and you’ll be going insane.”
“And I won’t have to talk to Lyn-Z,” Gerard said cheerily.
“This isn’t the goddamn Breakfast Club,” Frank said. “Detention isn’t exactly ‘confess your darkest fears and secrets hour.’”
“I’ve had detention before, thanks,” Gerard said snippily. “I just don’t want to risk anything. Class is bad enough.”
“I can’t believe she thinks she’s friends with your looney tunes ass,” Frank said. Mikey snorted.
“I can’t believe she’s actually going to go for him,” Bob said.
“You think so?” Gerard said hopefully.
“You don’t call a drummer like Kitty a ‘rocker chick,’” Bob pointed out. “That’s something you call one of the guitar players or the lead singer.”
“A bit of a stretch,” Mikey judged.
“Though if it isn’t, Gee is going to have some very steamy stories to tell us,” Frank added.
“Not too steamy,” Gerard pointed out. “There are other issues here.”
“Not much of an issue,” Mikey said pointedly, slightly evil smirk on his lips.
“That must be genetic,” Frank said, happily hiding his head in his arms to miss the worst of the flailing waving-arm Way attack he promptly received.
Reluctantly Gerard realized he should probably actually go to detention, and made his way there.
"Mr. Way, kind of you to grace us with your presence," snarked the librarian when he showed up. "You know the drill."
Across the room, settled at a table with Max Bemis, who appeared to be drawing giant purple spirals in magic marker on various pages of his algebra book, Dewees gave him a thumbs-down.
"Yeah, yeah," Gerard said and slunk to one of the empty study correls, dumping his bag beside his chair. He spotted Lyn-Z and Steve and Jimmy sitting at a table nearby, but figured that he would be well-enough hid from view where he was. He took out his homework and was just trying to remember if he was supposed to be reading page 237 or 372 when he heard the door open again and swing shut heavily.
"Mr. Wentz, you're late," he heard the librarian announce much more sternly than she'd addressed Gerard. "Go to one of the study correls and work quietly."
"Okay," Pete mumbled.
Because Gerard was the luckiest person in the universe, he wasn't even surprised when Pete slumped down in the correl next to his. Gerard stared at his book and pretended like Pete wasn't there.
Unfortunately, it seemed like Pete had actually chosen to sit next to him on purpose, as a few minutes later a folded up piece of paper landed on his book. Gerard brushed it aside and tried to focus on a paragraph about the Korean War, but the mystery contents of the note proved more interesting.
He unfolded the note, and almost choked on laughter.
teach me to be gay followed by boxes marked yes and no.
Gerard drew a third box, labeled it 'completely inappropriate,' and checked it. After a second's deliberation he sketched out a tiny hand flipping a bird next to that, and then folded it back up and tossed it over the correl wall to Pete.
Several minutes passed, and then the note dropped down on his book again. Pete's cramped tiny handwriting read, dont you want your brother to be happy?
Gerard hissed, "Fuck you," hoping that Pete could hear him.
Judging from the way Pete scooted his chair back and peered around the divider at Gerard, he did. Gerard glanced around, but no one seemed to be paying them any attention.
"I'm asking for your fucking help," Pete whispered.
"I can't teach you how to be gay," Gerard replied. "Especially not for my brother."
"I just want to know, like, the etiquette," Pete said. "And how to be cool with putting someone's dick in your mouth. Because that's where I get hung up. Not to mention the butt stuff - isn't that shit gross?"
"Please stop asking me about this," Gerard said, trying valiantly to banish the mental images that Pete's questions gave him. "I can't help you."
"You know Mikey better than anyone," Pete said. "Come on."
"Maybe you should ask Gabe," Gerard suggested. "Isn't he actually your friend?"
Gerard could swear that Pete was blushing. Detention wasn't The Breakfast Club, his ass.
"Come on, I'm fucking things up and I might not be able to fix them in time," Pete said. Gerard wondered when the fuck he became the sort of person people came to for love advice.
"There's nothing I can say," Gerard hissed. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Lyn-Z flipping idly through a book, looking in his direction. "If you really like him in a more than friendly way then it shouldn't be a problem."
"But it is," Pete said.
"Then you don't actually want him," Gerard said.
"But I can't fucking sleep, thinking about him and his stupid glasses and wanting to lick his jaw and push him against a wall somewhere," Pete said, "Trust me, I want Mikey. I just don't want, you know. Gay porn shit."
Gerard closed his eyes and counted to ten. "Then just do what you want with him, not what you think gay people do," he said, trying to will the conversation to end. "I don't think he's expecting you to rim him on a first date." Gerard hoped, anyway.
Pete looked thoughtful, and Gerard used that opportunity to scoot back into his correl and try to concentrate on his homework and avoid giving out any more gay sex advice.
"But what if I want to blow him?" Pete whispered, and Gerard resisted the urge to bang his head into his book.
"Go practice on yourself," Gerard hissed, and then he heard a familiar giggle coming from the table Lyn-Z was sitting at.
This time he did thump his head against his book and stayed there until detention was over.
*
"I take back anything pro-Wentz I might have said," Gerard announced as he squished himself into a booth that already contained Mikey, Frank, Bob and Ray. Dewees stole a chair from a nearby table and sat in it backwards, crossing his arms and resting them on the back as he snickered.
"What the hell could have possibly happened in detention?" Ray wondered.
"It turned into the fucking Breakfast Club only worse," Gerard said, glaring pointedly at Frank.
"It was the most fucking entertaining thing ever," Dewees said.
"Pete Wentz is not my friend," Gerard said to Mikey. "He should not be talking to me. He definitely should not be talking to me about his hopes and fears concerning gay sex with my brother."
"He had hopes?" Mikey said. Frank snorted and cherry Coke sprayed across the table, and Ray mouthed, "hopes and fears?" silently.
"Not the point, Mikey!" Gerard said. He tried to do a wavy hand motion to represent the level of horror the experience had inspired in him. "He passed me a note. A check-yes-or-no note about teaching him to be gay."
Gerard was mildly concerned that Frank's laughing fit had turned into some sort of asthmatic seizure, and Bob and Ray weren't faring too much better. Even Mikey was grinning.
"Did you check yes?" Bob asked.
"No!" Gerard said. "I told him it was totally inappropriate!"
"Then did you slap his hand with a ruler?" Frank asked.
"Fuck off," Gerard replied, then vindictively stole a bite of Frank's veggie burger.
"It was the best part of detention," Dewees said cheerily. "Gerard offered very earnest advice then suggested Pete go blow himself for practice. It almost made up for the fact that I had to sit with Bemis. That fucker isn't quite right, you know."
"I would happily sit with Bemis every day if it meant no Wentz ever again," Gerard said.
"Yeah, but you like Bemis," Ray said. "You unstable types get along."
"We get along," Gerard reminded him.
"Pete seriously talked to you?" Mikey said, waving his hand and clearly trying to steer the conversation back to persons of actual interest to him.
"I am not repeating any of it," Gerard said.
"Pete wants to lick your jaw," Dewees added. "Good thing the only people in detention were art kid losers, otherwise Pete would have some 'splainin' to do."
Frank stopped snickering long enough to ask, "He told you in detail what he wanted to do to Mikey?"
"It was awful," Gerard said. And, possibly belatedly, he added, "And why did he decide I was the one to go to with his gay dilemma?"
"Who else would he go to?" Dewees pointed out.
"I suggested Gabe," Gerard said, "but he could have picked Beckett or that freshman with the rose vest or pretty much anyone who isn't me."
"I heard that freshman wasn't gay," Ray said, and Gerard glared at him. "Oh. Right."
"It makes Pete-sense to go to you," Mikey said.
"Is that like a fucked up version of Spideysense?" Bob asked.
"When the fuck did you start finding Pete-sense endearing again?" Gerard said.
"About the time he asked my brother for sex advice," Mikey said. He was actually smiling. "Also Alicia read the note and pointed out some shit I didn't notice."
"Hey, how come Alicia never hangs out with us?" Ray asked.
"We're not cool enough," Frank informed him. "Mikey's ashamed of us."
Mikey threw a french fry at Frank. "She's just busy. With other stuff."
"Uh-huh," Dewees said.
"Like getting her band a gig," Mikey said, shooting a mischievous look in Gerard's direction.
"What?" squeaked Gerard.
"Alicia's in a band?" Dewees said.
"Gerard's in it," Ray informed him.
"Ray!" Gerard's voice appeared to be stuck in squeak-mode. That hadn't happened since eighth grade.
"Cool!" Dewees said. "What kind of band is it?"
"An all-girl punk Dolly Parton cover band," Frank said.
None of Gerard's friends cared about him. He was a laughingstock.
Dewees raised an eyebrow. "I know Gerard's not the most masculine sort of fellow, but..."
"He dresses in drag. No one in the band knows he's a boy," Bob said.
Dewees looked thoughtfully at Gerard. "I bet you're a hot girl," he said.
"He totally is," piped up Frank. "If only we could get him a little less Amish about his hemlines."
Gerard looked around to make sure no one was within hearing range. There was just a slightly annoyed looking family of four, though Gerard couldn't tell if it was his cross-dressing shenanigans or the youngest kid's ice cream splattering party that had the mother looking so pinched and disapproving.
"I'm glad we've decided to just share with everyone," Gerard grumbled.
"Ma taught you better manners than that," Mikey said. "What do ladies say to compliments?"
Gerard was definitely going to do something terrible to Mikey later on, like hide his flatiron. He stuck his tongue out and said, "Gig?"
"Alicia thinks she can get a gig at a party or something," Mikey said. "Through someone she knows."
Gerard paled. The thought of getting up and singing in front of a bunch of people - even drunk not-paying-attention people - was more than a little terrifying. It didn't even fucking matter that no one would know who he was.
"That's great!" Dewees said. "Nothing like getting up in front of people."
Life had been so much easier a few weeks ago. Gerard missed that.
*
Part Four | Return to Title Page
Typical Girls Part Three
*
They left the garage, and Lyn-Z's shoulder kept bumping against his as they stuck to the narrow, weed-choked sidewalk.
"Sorry about last night," she said, not looking at him. "I was kind of stupid."
"No," Gerard said immediately, then clarified, "It's not stupid to be upset."
"It was a stupid thing to be upset over, though," Lyn-Z said. "But it's in the past now."
"Yeah," Gerard agreed uneasily, "in the past."
Kitty and Lyn-Z hadn't exactly been cold to each other during practice. Tense, yeah, but everything had been. Fuck.
"But I'm glad we're closer now," Lyn-Z said. "It helps sometime just to talk, you know?"
Gerard nodded but didn't trust himself to say anything. He was increasingly worried with where this was leading.
“Like….” Lyn-Z trailed off and kicked at a loose bit of pavement. “Mind if I unload something?”
“No!” Gerard said. “I mean, yes. Or, no, I don’t mind.”
“It’s just, I love Kitty and all, but she’s just so frustrating sometimes,” Lyn-Z said, “you know?”
“Not really,” Gerard said. He summoned his courage. “What was your fight about?”
She sighed. “What would you do if you liked someone who was dating someone else?”
“Uh… I guess it would depend on the situation?” Gerard started, flapping his hands around. “Like… I don’t know.”
Gerard flapped a little too hard and accidentally veered off the sidewalk and only just caught himself before falling on his face. Lyn-Z reached out and helped him regain his balance before saying, “Yeah, well, me and Kitty don’t really agree on what the answer to that should be.”
“I, um… I’m sorry.”
Lyn-Z bumped shoulders with him again, this time on purpose, and said, "It's good to have a friend."
Fuckity fuck fuck. Gerard knew what that meant. "Yeah," he managed to choke out.
The silence that followed felt awkward and Gerard had to say something. He couldn't bring up the almost-kiss, so instead he said, "I like talking to you. Listening."
"I don't really have an English paper," Lyn-Z said. "Well, I do, but it's fucking Saturday night. I'm not going to write it now."
Gerard smiled. "I know, I'm..." He cut himself off just before saying, I'm in that class. "I’m the same way."
"Do you..." Lyn-Z faltered, then said, almost shyly, "Do you want to come to my house and watch a movie?"
Gerard's stomach and his heart nearly collided, and he fiercely reminded himself that they were friends. Just friends. "That sounds like fun," he said, mentally apologizing to Mikey.
"Awesome," Lyn-Z said. She grinned at him and said, "We're already going in the right direction."
"Cool," Gerard managed to get out. He was already mentally freaking out. He was going to Lyn-Z's house. Where she lived, all the time, being awesome. Where she slept and where she showered and oh god everyone was right he was a total creep when it came to her.
He really hoped she wouldn't notice that.
"I'm assuming you like horror?" she said, glancing down, and Gerard had a moment of abject terror trying to figure out what she meant before remembering his black cat socks.
"Of course," he said, hoping that he didn't sound horrified. Maybe he was just going to have to rethink this becoming Lyn-Z's girlfriend thing if he was going to have a heart attack every time she fucking talked to him.
"Great! I've got Zombie Strippers," she said cheerfully.
"That sounds kind of exploitative," Gerard said reluctantly.
"Please," Lyn-Z said, rolling her eyes. "It's Jenna Jameson's finest work."
Holy fuck. Apparently Lyn-Z invited her friends to her house to watch zombie porn. Gerard was first of all mildly disappointed in himself for not having thought of finding zombie porn on his own time, and wholly horrified because there was no way he could watch zombie porn with Lyn-Z and giggle or what the fuck ever girls did when they watched porn together.
This was not one of the contingencies Chantal or Frank or Mikey or anyone had come up with for him. In fact, porn hadn't even entered the conversation. They'd mostly focused on getting him to talk to her.
He said, "Oh," in what he hoped was an appropriate tone, and Lyn-Z laughed and looped her arm around his. "You are in for a treat," she promised.
"Hooray," Gerard said, not sure whether he was internally freaking out because he was arm-in-arm with Lyn-Z or the fact that there was zombie porn on the horizon.
"So," Lyn-Z said, "tell me more about your love of Glenn Danzig."
"Oh my god," Gerard said. "I'd prayed you'd forgotten that."
She laughed. "Sorry, sweetheart! But no one fucks up punk rock 101 like that and doesn't get teased for it."
"I was so nervous," he said, and wow, two true statements in a row. It felt strangely nice to actually talk to her, even though he knew he was only clinging to the conversation in an attempt to not think about the coming hour.
"I'm glad you're over that," Lyn-Z said. Gerard briefly wondered if she was maybe existing in a slightly different universe that happened to overlap with his own. It would explain how she managed to be so perfect, he thought. "Practice is more fun when you're there."
"Did you miss today's?" he asked.
Lyn-Z rolled her eyes. "It started out a little shaky, but dude, we were fucking on there for a minute. And it was kind of nice to have girl talk. I usually have that with Steve, which isn't really the same." She paused. "Steve's one of my best friends. Him and Jimmy - you'll have to meet them. And Kitty, of course," she added, almost as an afterthought.
Gerard chose to gloss over the sticky subject of Kitty. "It sounds like you're close," he said.
"Well, I'm not really one of the cool kids," Lyn-Z said. "We mostly hang out with each other because no one else wants to, but I fucking adore them."
"You are so a cool kid," Gerard insisted. "Way cooler than me."
Lyn-Z rolled her eyes. "Tell the losers at my school that," she said. "Or not, it's better that you've never been to that hellhole. But you have people you talk to, right?"
Gerard was trying to wrap his head around the idea that maybe Lyn-Z didn't realize how awesome she was. He tried to remember who she would know, and then just said, "Mostly just Chantal," because he couldn't say his brother or anyone. He realized after he said it that Lyn-Z definitely knew Chantal.
"Claret? She's rad," Lyn-Z said. "I didn't realize you knew her."
"She's how I heard about the band," Gerard said. He was really glad he'd come up with that elaborate backstory now. "I guess she does go to your school."
It turned out that he didn't like fibbing to Lyn-Z, something that might become problematic in his whole wooing plan.
"Here we are!" Lyn-Z said, starting up a driveway of a house that was perfectly nondescript and normal and not at all what Gerard would have imagined for her. Granted, there weren't actually cool artsy lofts with blinking lights proclaiming how awesome its inhabitants were anywhere in town, but still, the fantasy was shattered.
Gerard followed her up the driveway and inside through the garage, entering a kitchen where Lyn-Z opened a fridge and offered him something to drink while she tossed a bag of popcorn in the microwave. Gerard tried not to be too creepy with reading the messages on the fridge while Lyn-Z pulled out cups and a bowl, and then cheerfully told him that she'd named the skeleton cookie jar "Ernest."
Lyn-Z's kitchen was alarmingly like his own. He felt comfortable grabbing the salt to add an extra dash to the popcorn, and Lyn-Z grinned as she came up with a handful of Twizzlers that she stuck jauntily in the center of the bowl.
Sodas in hand, he followed her in the living room, and then paused as she kept going through the house.
"Come on, there's a TV in my room," she said. "My mom always has to watch her shows in here."
"Okay," Gerard said, and obediently followed her down the hall into her bedroom. There he took a quick look around, set down the sodas and said, "Where's the bathroom?"
"Third door on the left," she said, digging through a messy pile of DVDs on her desk.
Gerard hurried to the bathroom, locked the door, pulled out his phone and called Frank.
"Dude, your brother is listening to "How Soon is Now" on repeat," Frank said crankily as soon as he answered.
"I am in Lyn-Z's bathroom," Gerard whispered. "She is waiting in her bedroom for me so we can watch a movie starring Jenna Jameson."
Frank repeated this information, and in the background the Smiths suddenly silenced. "Gerard, what did you do?"
"She spent the walk over here talking about how we were friends and how nice it was to have friends and oh my god, Frank, she thinks friends watch zombie porn together."
"Don't they?" Frank said.
"I mean, okay, I wouldn't have a problem watching zombie porn with you, but this is Lyn-Z we're talking about!" Gerard said. He sat down on the toilet and stared at the shower curtain. It was decorated with dancing Scotsmen.
There was muffled noises as Frank and Mikey discussed the situation and Gerard grew increasingly antsy. Lyn-Z was waiting on him! She was in her bedroom with her Jack Skellington pillowcase and her Sonic Youth poster and a bunch of paintings and shit that Gerard had only gotten a glimpse of but had looked really cool and he was huddled in her bathroom in a skirt and uncomfortable boots.
A really cute skirt, he reminded himself, and stood - only wobbling a little, he was pretty much an expert at walking now - and checked himself in the mirror. His hair was sticking up a little awkwardly and he hastily reapplied his lip gloss, but overall he still looked girlish.
"So basically," Mikey's voice suddenly said in his ear, "You've got to be cool."
"That was all you could come up with?" Gerard asked.
"If you freak out, you're never going to get into her pants," Frank chimed in.
"Right now her pants are the least of my worries," Gerard lied.
"You should just rub one out now," Frank suggested. Mikey's voice, teenier and further away said, "I told you not to suggest that!"
"I am not jerking off in Lyn-Z's bathroom," Gerard hissed.
"If you're gone for much longer she's gonna assume you are anyway," Frank said.
"Oh my god," Gerard said and hung up.
He hurried back to Lyn-Z's room, and when he pushed open the door hesitantly he saw her hastily putting down her phone.
"I put the movie in," she said, motioning vaguely to the TV perched on her dresser. Half the drawers were open, spilling out t-shirts, socks and pants legs. Now that he was actually in the room he could tell it was just as trashed as his own. For some reason he found that comforting, like he'd have been even more awkwardly uncomfortable if Lyn-Z's room had looked like something in a movie or TV show, sterile and unrealistic.
"Um, awesome," he said.
She laughed and settled on the bed, holding the popcorn bowl. It was a twin bed pushed against the wall opposite the TV, and she pulled out two pillows and propped one on the wall behind her and one beside her. Gerard climbed onto her bed carefully, then remembered his boots and sprawled his legs out to unbuckle and unzip them. Lyn-Z watched him and he felt strangely conscious of every movement, especially how jerking at his boots hitched his skirt up uncomfortably high on his thighs.
He dropped the boots on the floor - he could see Lyn-Z's sneakers chucked on the floor near the door - and scooted back, carefully tugging his skirt to make sure that everything that needed to be covered was well under wraps. He took a deep breath and tried to figure out where he could put his hands that wouldn't be awkward. It was like he'd never had hands before, they were just there and in the way and he finally let one rest on his leg and the other on Lyn-Z's comforter.
"You're going to love this," she said again. She set the popcorn bowl between them, then she toyed with the remote.
If Gerard didn't know better he would think she was nervous.
"I think horror movies could do a lot less to exploit women and continue the virgin-whore dichotomy," Gerard said more out of reflex than anything else.
Lyn-Z rolled her eyes and said, "Don't be such a pussy."
That was not the response he usually got.
"But," he started, but Lyn-Z shushed him and pressed play. Gerard tensed and wished that she'd taken him up on a conversation about feminism instead of turning on zombie porn, but he wasn't going to punk out now.
She seemed more relaxed once the movie was playing, which was the opposite of what Gerard felt, though he knew he couldn't escape off to the bathroom again so soon. So instead he looked around the room, but then he realized there were bras hanging on the back of the closet door and something dark and lacy sticking out of the laundry pile, and he glued his eyes to the television.
He was in Lyn-Z's fucking bedroom, what the hell. He had no business being here.
Lyn-Z kept shifting beside him and he tried really hard to not let his hand slide closer to her when she did, and keep his eyes firmly on the television, and not think about anything untoward - like the fact that Lyn-Z might be wearing lacy underwear right now or that his ass was planted right where she slept at night. Any thoughts that flitted through his mind that would cause Mikey to roll his eyes or someone to announce that he was a creepo, he tried to shoot down. Mercilessly. With mental lasers.
He focused instead on the zombie porn, which he slowly realized wasn't zombie porn at all, but a fucking hilarious movie that pretty much fit all his criteria for a perfect film. This didn't do a whole lot to make him less conscious of Lyn-Z's every movement, which didn't really surprise him.
While on the screen a stripper swung around a pole, Lyn-Z shifted again and casually dropped her hand on the bed between them. There was scarcely an inch of red comforter between their pinkies.
Gerard's other hand tightened nervously, bunching up his skirt a little. He left it crumpled that way when he forced himself to stop clutching his skirt.
He should just sit there being friendly but his hand scooted closer to hers almost of its own accord.
Then her hand moved, and their pinkies were touching.
Gerard's heart stopped beating. He didn't really know what to do because it felt like his entire being was solely focused in the strip of skin on the side of his pinkie that was in contact with hers. He glanced over quickly but her eyes were glued to the TV, lips parted slightly as she watched a newly zombified goth dance.
Gerard couldn't get over how it felt like the nerves in his hand were amplified a thousand fold, how his skin tingled and how warm she was. He tried to pay attention to the naked ladies on the screen instead of Lyn-Z's hand touching his own, but kept trying to steal glances of her, hoping to see some sort of reaction.
Right now it was still accidental touching in friendly territory. All he had to do to change that was to take her hand in his own.
They'd only been friends a day, really.
He kept his hand still.
He felt her hand move a little a few times but she didn't move any closer to giving him a sign that she was interested. No further away either, he told himself firmly, and hoping that this moment either ended soon or never ended, whichever would keep him closer to her. Slowly he managed to refocus on the movie instead of his entire universe hinging on the slightest of contact with her - even less than at practice, way less than last night, but its deliberateness and the setting making him extremely conscious of it - and he felt almost relaxed, like this was where he was meant to be.
Lyn-Z leaned and grabbed popcorn with her other hand, leaving their their pinkies in contact with each other until she excitedly started waving her hands around when she started talking about one of the more ridiculous zombie theories in the movie, and Gerard was caught up enough in the conversation that he didn't even notice until a few minutes later.
The movie ended and they laughed a few minutes over their favorite parts, and then Gerard fidgeted awkwardly. He didn't want to leave, not ever, but he really should go before he fucked things up somehow.
He didn’t want to risk forgetting what common sense and Lyn-Z herself had both told him and end up grabbing her hand like he'd been dying to and kissing her, never mind that she still had a girlfriend. He'd totally explain to his mother that he was a hussy so long as he got to just kiss her.
He was thinking maybe this wasn't such a crazy plan when Lyn-Z scooted off the bed and took the DVD out of the player. She fiddled with the box for a minute, and Gerard made his decision and got his boots, leaning awkwardly on the side of the bed to cram his feet back in them.
"I should probably go," he said. Frank had probably cheered Mikey up way better than Gerard could have - though probably at Gerard's expense - but still, he needed to check up on his brother. That totally wasn't an excuse to get him out of here before he did something he would regret when Lyn-Z wouldn't look at him anymore.
It was still so new that she was talking to him. He couldn't ruin that, not already.
"Yeah," Lyn-Z said. "I'm glad you came over."
"Me too," said Gerard. He stood up and straightened his skirt. He realized that he never tried to act like a girl when he was around Lyn-Z. He didn't really act at all, but she still invited him over and accepted he was who he looked like.
He felt a little guilty about the whole falsely-wooing plan, but it wasn't like he was doing any actual wooing. He was just finally becoming her friend, and she was even more perfect than he had fantasized. He paused as she flicked on the light, and looked at the drawings that decorated the walls. They were stranger than the ones she presented in art class, less constrained and the faces far sadder.
"Did you draw all these?" he asked.
She nodded, then laughed. "Well, not those few," she said, motioning towards a couple of sheets of paper taped to the far wall. "Those are Jimmy's handiwork."
"Yours are really good," Gerard said. "They have personalities."
She beamed and came over to him. "That's the most interesting trait people have."
He was not going to propose and/or take it that as a sign that his crazy plan could work. He wasn't.
"I really do have to go," he said regretfully.
Lyn-Z leaned over and pecked him on the cheek. "See you soon."
"Yeah. See... talk.. um, later," Gerard said and tried to remember how to use a doorknob. She had just kissed him on the cheek. A totally friendly gesture, but she had kissed him.
He left, and in the exact opposite from the night before, it was the longest walk home ever.
*
"She kissed me on the cheek," Gerard announced as he barged into Mikey's room.
Frank paused his game. "Lyn-Z?"
"Yes!" Gerard said. "She kissed me. On the cheek, but, a kiss!"
"I can't believe that," Frank said. "Did you hallucinate this? What have I told you about psychedelics?"
"I didn't hallucinate anything," Gerard said, doubting it even as he said it. He then realized someone was missing. "Where's Mikey?"
"In the backyard with Patrick Stump," Frank said.
That wouldn't have been any of Gerard's guesses. "Doing what?"
"Getting the "What are your intentions with my best friend?" speech," Frank answered. "I eavesdropped for the first ten minutes or so, then it got really repetitive with lots of mentions of ripping hearts out and stomping on them. Though most of them were threats about what Patrick would do to Mikey." Frank paused then added approvingly, "I didn't realize that kid was so violent."
"I should go down there," Gerard said.
Frank raised an eyebrow. "Like that?"
Gerard remembered he was still dressed as Gee. "Oh yeah."
Frank snickered and threw him a controller. "You can play Left 4 Dead with me while Mikey gets lectured."
Gerard flopped beside him and pried off his boots again. "Alright." Patrick was tiny. Surely Mikey could manage to keep away from him if Patrick decided to go through with his threats.
"Enjoy your zombie porn?" Frank asked, fighting off zombies.
"It turned out it wasn't zombie porn," Gerard said. "It was a movie about zombie strippers."
"No fucking way," Frank said. "Dude, she likes movies about zombie strippers?"
"Awesome movies about zombie strippers," Gerard corrected. "Dude, she had all her kickass art on her walls and From Hell on her bookshelf and she told me I was a pussy when I tried to tell her about how horror movies are exploitative to women."
"So you managed to actually talk to her?" Frank said.
"I talked to her and we sat next to each other on her goddamn bed for two hours and our hands touched and then she kissed me on the cheek when I was leaving," Gerard said. "It was the most fucking amazing night ever."
"And to think, some people want more than a peck on the cheek," Frank said, sticking his tongue out in concentration as he jabbed at the buttons. "Motherfucker!"
Gerard flicked Frank in the head before Frank started with his giggle of assholish mirth that Gerard hated so much, then resumed playing, failing pretty spectacularly but not really caring because every other thought through his head revolved around Lyn-Z and the feel of her lips on his cheek.
Mikey stalked into the room, looking crankier than he had when Gerard had left earlier, but also more animated. "I cannot believe I just got a fucking lecture about breaking Pete Wentz's stupid fucking heart," he said, waving his hands around.
Gerard and Frank both stared.
"He acted like it was my fault that Pete's a stupidhead!" Mikey continued.
Frank started to snicker. "Stupidhead?"
Mikey flipped Frank off and kept ranting. "It is not my fault. It is Pete's fault. Pete's the one who's freaking out. I am completely fucking cool with the situation. But who gets tiny angry choirboys at their house yelling about being insensitive and goddamn broken hearts?"
Gerard blinked. "Mikey, you're freaking out a little. I mean. You're still waving your arms around."
Mikey lowered his arms abruptly.
"So Pete's best friend showed up and asked you what your intentions are and then yelled at you for breaking his heart," Frank said.
"God, Mikey, you didn't say something stupid, did you?" Gerard said.
"No, just the truth," Mikey said. "That I don't ever want to see Pete Wentz's stupid face ever again."
"Okay, you know we're not members of Pete's fan club," Frank said. "But aren't you maybe overreacting?"
"He didn't say, 'Hey, I can't do this, sorry,' he fucking kicked me out of his car half-naked," Mikey said. "And he's ashamed to be seen with me. He isn't that fucking cool."
Gerard took a deep breath, not quite believing what he was about to say, but he remembered how frustrated and down Alicia was. “Maybe he has reasons?"
"I am not listening to someone who is currently wearing a skirt so that he has a chance with a lesbian," Mikey grumbled, but he looked significantly less irate.
"She totally kissed me on the cheek!" Gerard couldn't help sharing.
"Seriously? Did you trick her into it?" Mikey asked. He looked a little more chipper now that he had someone else's romantic catastrophe to concentrate on.
"No," Gerard said, sticking out his tongue. "Her own free will."
"Her friendly free will," Frank clarified. "Gerard had the opportunity to make a move and didn't."
"Gee!" Mikey said. "What the hell?"
"I didn't want to ruin our friendship!" Gerard explained.
"It's too easy to tell you you're such a girl right now," Frank said, flicking Gerard's skirt.
"And the whole point is to make sure you aren't just her friend," Mikey said. "Otherwise you could talk to her at, you know, school. Wearing pants."
"Pants are overrated," Gerard said. "I just don't want to fuck this up."
"Like I did?" Mikey said. "I don't blame you."
Frank threw his controller down. "Seriously, if you two want to cry in your pillows, I can leave."
"Easy for you to be smug," Mikey said.
"Hey, you've got a nice girlfriend," Frank retorted. "Not my fault you're rushing a skittish ass-virgin to boot."
Mikey flushed and Gerard snickered. Mikey threw an Aquaman action figure at him, and Gerard attempted to bat it away but missed and it hit him in the nose.
"At least I've tried," Mikey told Gerard, who was rubbing his nose.
Gerard set Aquaman down beside him and scowled at his brother. "At least Lyn-Z's talking to me."
"At least I don't have a fucking Aquaman action figure," Frank told them both, making Aquaman swim through the air. "Oooh, I talk to fish and rule an imaginary city of sea creatures, and somehow that qualifies me to fight crime and join the goddamn Justice League. Totally badass."
"Aquaman can be totally interesting with the right writer and slant," Mikey said defensively.
"Yeah. And the goddamn Batman called him up to help move the giant penny," Gerard said. "You can't argue with Batman's character judgment."
"Yeah, I have no clue why you don't have a girlfriend," Frank told Gerard.
"Don't even pretend like you don't see my point," Gerard said.
"But the difference is I'm awesome and irresistible," Frank said.
Mikey yawned. "Go bicker in the basement. I'm going to bed."
Gerard and Frank both refused to move.
"You're going to do something stupid," Frank declared.
"Hard to do that in bed alone," Mikey replied.
"Not with that phone it's not," Gerard said. He tugged Mikey's Teen Titans blanket around him and settled in more comfortably.
"Can you just decide what you want me to do already?" Mikey said crankily. "Don't talk to Pete, talk to him, that's a stupid idea, not doing anything is a stupid idea... It's fucking confusing."
"I know," Gerard said. Mikey climbed up next to him and Gerard shared the blanket, even though Mikey's toes were really cold even through his clammy sock.
"Hey, how about we kill things?" Frank said, waving his controller around.
Gerard offered his controller to Mikey, and tried to concentrate on critiquing their playing instead of everything that had happened that day.
His phone buzzed. He had a new message from Mary Jane Watson: i like when you’re here too.
He fell asleep on Mikey's bed tangled up in the Teen Titan blanket and his own skirt with the phone clutched in his hand and a smile still on his face.
*
Gerard didn't think anything of it when Mikey didn't join them for lunch on Monday.
Ray was regaling them with the story of how Dewees got him kicked out of his third-favorite restaurant after the manager had caught him filling the napkin dispenser with salt while Bob nodded along and Frank offered suggestions of what they could have told the manager instead of meekly filing out of the place and then bitching about it for the rest of the way home. Gerard picked at his lunch and tried to not look around too much or check his phone again hoping for a new message.
He'd updated Ray and Bob on the story - rather, Frank had kept adding details like zombie porn and Gerard's complete lack of game - and neither seemed to really understand how amazing it was that Lyn-Z had kissed him on the cheek.
"Dude, she put you in the friend box," Bob had said. "That's nothing to celebrate."
"It is!" Gerard insisted. "We talk and things are amazing."
"Couldn't you be her friend like, now?" Ray asked skeptically. "I thought the whole girl-plan was so you could be more than friends."
"Fuck off," Gerard said, sick of hearing that point already.
Frank and Bob exchanged glances and started snickering. Gerard hated them all. They Ray sat up straighter and said, "What's Mikey doing?'
Gerard twisted in his chair to see his brother standing awkwardly next to the table filled with soccer players, who were currently still ignoring him. Well, mostly - even from across the cafeteria Gerard could see that Pete was staring at Mikey with a vaguely horrified expression.
"What the hell, Pete?" Mikey demanded.
Pete glanced around at his teammates. They seemed moderately interested in what was happening. "Um. What the hell to you," Pete said nervously.
Mikey seemed to be shaking around a note."I don't think this is funny."
"Me either," Pete said. "I mean, what's that?"
Mikey glared. "You know perfectly fucking well what it is."
"Is Mikey about to out Pete in front of the whole school?" Ray whispered. "That shit isn't cool."
Gerard very much agreed. "Surely not," he said. "He remembers, you know, that thing Bert did."
"I don't think he's thinking very clearly right now," Bob pointed out. "I wonder what that note says."
Gerard glanced around. Most of the cafeteria was unconcerned with the spectacle Mikey Way and Pete Wentz were about to make, but he saw Gabe Saporta and his friends watching avidly, along with a couple tables of freshmen. And, he noticed with a weird twinge, Lyn-Z and her friends.
"What, is that note from your girlfriend?" Pete said, looking more uneasy than pissed. "Saying how I fucked her?"
There were a few approving chuckles from the jock tables, but Gerard was mostly concerned about his brother, whose expression was blank and body very still. "No," Mikey said. "It isn't from anyone I care about."
"I--" Pete started, but Mikey turned away. "Mikey, dammit, you know I meant what I fucking said!"
Mikey turned long enough to say, "And so did I." He walked quickly away from the table, ignoring the roll one of the jocks threw at him that bounced off his shoulder, and Gerard kind of wanted to beat Pete's face into the table for making his brother look that fucking sad.
Gerard went after his brother, chasing him through the halls until they finally ended up in the library. Mikey slumped down on a chair hidden in the stacks and let the note fall out of his hand as he said, "I shouldn't have gone to him there."
"He shouldn't be such an ass," Gerard said. "Who's the note from?"
"Pete," Mikey said. "It doesn't make any fucking sense. I think it's a poem or something. I think he meant it to show how fucked-up I make him."
Gerard gingerly picked up the paper and folded it back up, matching the creases until it was a tiny tight triangle with 'Mikey' written in block letters on either side. He didn't read what it said. "He might have meant it as a compliment," Gerard offered, not quite believing he was really defending Pete Wentz's obscure intentions to his upset brother.
"Doesn't matter," Mikey said. "He shouldn't have said that about Alicia."
No matter how true it might be, Gerard thought. "I think Frank went to go piss in his locker," he offered.
Mikey grinned weakly. "Serves him right," he said, which was so far from his reaction a few days earlier that Gerard wondered what else the note had said. He twisted it in his hands and then tucked it into Mikey's blazer pocket.
"Wanna skip class and go to the comic book store?" Gerard asked.
Mikey considered it, then shook his head. "Can't. I've got a test."
He stuck his hand in his pocket, and Gerard could tell he was fiddling with the note.
"Then at least talk to Alicia," Gerard said. He hadn't told Mikey how upset Alicia had been at practice, but he figured this was the least he could do.
"Yeah, okay," Mikey said. A bell rang, and Gerard stood up reluctantly. "Seriously, we can skip."
"I'm not going to let him drive me away," Mikey said. "Especially with his bullshit about needing to be accepted by those dumbasses."
Gerard didn’t really need to know more about Pete Wentz, but he couldn't help it. "Why does he need them?"
Mikey shrugged. "He says something about his parents or some shit like that. Patrick, though, he said that it's because Pete's fragile. I don't believe that."
Gerard thought that Mikey did believe that. "Then why doesn't he hang out with them instead? Patrick and them."
"Guess they're not cool enough," Mikey said. "Like me."
"You're cooler than all those fuckers," Gerard said.
"Go to class, asshole," Mikey replied. Gerard ignored Mikey’s eye roll as he gave him a hug, He managed to not ruffle Mikey’s hair, which he considered a win, before going to class.
Art class was by far the most stressful in Gerard's schedule, and today it was even worse than usual. For one thing, Lyn-Z was already there when he walked in, and she looked at him when he sat down. He kept his eyes averted because, fuck, what if she recognized him? It wasn't like he looked all that different in a skirt than he did in his wrinkled school uniform.
Lyn-Z didn't say anything, though, and after a moment Gerard relaxed. He caught Chantal's eye as she went to the supply cabinet, and she raised her eyebrows in a way that made Gerard nervous all over again.
Dewees slunk into class five minutes late, something that Mr. Armstrong seemed to deem too minor to mention, and when he sat down next to Gerard he hissed, "Everyone's talking about your brother."
"It happened fifteen minutes ago," Gerard hissed back, knowing full well that high school gossip spread faster than herpes.
Dewees gave him a look, and then obediently opened his sketchbook and began to draw a stick-figure interpretation of the statue Mr. Armstrong had placed in the center of the room for inspiration.
Things went relatively smoothly for a few minutes, and then he heard Steve say in a loud whisper, "Walking off after Wentz said that was a pretty pussy move, you gotta admit," to Lyn-Z.
Lyn-Z crinkled her brow, but Gerard couldn't help saying something first. "Hey, he's my fucking brother. Don't fucking talk shit about him where I can hear you."
Lyn-Z looked taken aback, Steve raised an eyebrow and made a catty hand motion, and Dewees hissed, "Gerard, chill."
“What’re you gonna do, scowl at me and draw a mean picture?” Steve asked. “Come on.”
Lyn-Z whacked Steve’s arm and said, “Steve, shut the fuck up.”
He gave her an unreadable look and said, “No, Lyn-Z, you have no reason to play the white knight. Not for them.”
Gerard usually confined his fits of anger to throwing shit around his room and drawing things that involved a lot of fierce line work, but he couldn’t help remembering how cathartic singing had been and suddenly couldn’t keep his mouth shut, never mind that Lyn-Z was right there and casting him sideways glances and looking for all the world as though Steve were doing this as an unwanted personal favor for her. “Say what the fuck you want about me, but not my brother.”
He was used to it, yeah, but he wasn’t used to hearing it about Mikey.
“Not my fault you both can’t seem to keep your boy troubles under control,” Steve said, and Gerard saw Lyn-Z bury her head in her hands like she was horrified or disgusted.
Gerard was dimly aware that the rest of the class was watching - Gabe Saporta was standing, hand loose on the back of his chair, and Gerard knew he had backup if things went too far - and that Mr. Armstrong had come out of his office.
“I’m surprised you can talk with your head up your ass like that,” Gerard retorted, and he heard his classmates’ halfhearted dismay as Mr. Armstrong declared that they all four - Dewees and Lyn-Z due to proximity - had detention for the next two weeks for their ‘prelude to a fight, and don’t pretend like that wasn’t where all that trash talk was going, mister.”
“What the hell,” Gerard said as Mr. Armstrong disappeared in his office again to write out the detention slips.
“We caught him in his only bad mood ever,” Dewees said. “Crap on a stick, I don’t want detention.”
Gerard thought of being locked in a small room with Lyn-Z every afternoon. There was no fucking way she would fail to put two and two together and his cover would be fucking blown. “Motherfuck,” he grumbled.
“Don’t be such whiny bitches,” Steve said.
Lyn-Z threw a bit of eraser at him. “Just because you have a favorite chair in detention doesn’t mean that we all want to spend our fucking afternoons here, dumbass. I have shit to do.”
“Shit or a rocker chick?” Steve asked. Gerard managed to not choke on his own tongue when Lyn-Z just rolled her eyes and said, “See if I tell you anything ever again.”
Mr. Armstrong returned to present them all with detention slips, and Gerard did his best to not look at Lyn-Z as he took his.
*
“I got fucking detention,” Gerard said after school, flailing his arms and looking despairingly at Frank and Mikey and Bob.
“And?” Frank said.
“So did Lyn-Z!”
Mikey stared. “Seriously? I get shit in front of the whole school, and you’re bitching about detention?”
“I got detention defending your dumb ass,” Gerard said crankily. “And she’ll know who I am!”
“Planning on changing into something more comfortable for detention?” Bob asked.
“You could just drop out as Gerard and re-enroll as Gee Way, your own long lost twin,” Frank said. “Then you could have hot girl-on-girl action in the cafeteria and make everyone forget about Mikey’s disaster.”
“I think we’re blowing my disaster out of proportion,” Mikey said. “It will not take lesbian action to resolve, unlike Gerard’s disaster.”
“Just dude-love,” Frank said cheerfully.
“And Steve implied that Lyn-Z likes a rocker chick,” Gerard said, wringing his hands. “What if he was talking about Kitty? Then I’m fucked.”
“Or not, as the case may be,” Bob said.
“If you got detention, shouldn’t you be there right now?” Mikey asked.
“You are too fucking cheerful,” Gerard said suspiciously. “Weren’t you about to start your own emo death cult two hours ago?”
Mikey shrugged. “I talked to Alicia.”
“And she has more sense than you do?” Bob said.
Mikey half-smiled. “Pretty much.”
“That means she took your side, right?” Frank said. “Unlike your brother, who keeps projecting his own crazy issues.”
“I don’t project,” Gerard replied.
“She totally took my side,” Mikey said. “She’s gonna find Pete after school.”
“Yeah, I hope the soccer team sees that,” Bob said. “That’ll put those rumors right to rest.”
“The soccer team is not the problem,” Mikey said. “The problem is Pete and his stupid stupidness.”
Gerard shrugged and said, “Makes sense.”
“You know if you’re late for detention they make you sit in the study correls, right?” Franks said. “An hour of that and you’ll be going insane.”
“And I won’t have to talk to Lyn-Z,” Gerard said cheerily.
“This isn’t the goddamn Breakfast Club,” Frank said. “Detention isn’t exactly ‘confess your darkest fears and secrets hour.’”
“I’ve had detention before, thanks,” Gerard said snippily. “I just don’t want to risk anything. Class is bad enough.”
“I can’t believe she thinks she’s friends with your looney tunes ass,” Frank said. Mikey snorted.
“I can’t believe she’s actually going to go for him,” Bob said.
“You think so?” Gerard said hopefully.
“You don’t call a drummer like Kitty a ‘rocker chick,’” Bob pointed out. “That’s something you call one of the guitar players or the lead singer.”
“A bit of a stretch,” Mikey judged.
“Though if it isn’t, Gee is going to have some very steamy stories to tell us,” Frank added.
“Not too steamy,” Gerard pointed out. “There are other issues here.”
“Not much of an issue,” Mikey said pointedly, slightly evil smirk on his lips.
“That must be genetic,” Frank said, happily hiding his head in his arms to miss the worst of the flailing waving-arm Way attack he promptly received.
Reluctantly Gerard realized he should probably actually go to detention, and made his way there.
"Mr. Way, kind of you to grace us with your presence," snarked the librarian when he showed up. "You know the drill."
Across the room, settled at a table with Max Bemis, who appeared to be drawing giant purple spirals in magic marker on various pages of his algebra book, Dewees gave him a thumbs-down.
"Yeah, yeah," Gerard said and slunk to one of the empty study correls, dumping his bag beside his chair. He spotted Lyn-Z and Steve and Jimmy sitting at a table nearby, but figured that he would be well-enough hid from view where he was. He took out his homework and was just trying to remember if he was supposed to be reading page 237 or 372 when he heard the door open again and swing shut heavily.
"Mr. Wentz, you're late," he heard the librarian announce much more sternly than she'd addressed Gerard. "Go to one of the study correls and work quietly."
"Okay," Pete mumbled.
Because Gerard was the luckiest person in the universe, he wasn't even surprised when Pete slumped down in the correl next to his. Gerard stared at his book and pretended like Pete wasn't there.
Unfortunately, it seemed like Pete had actually chosen to sit next to him on purpose, as a few minutes later a folded up piece of paper landed on his book. Gerard brushed it aside and tried to focus on a paragraph about the Korean War, but the mystery contents of the note proved more interesting.
He unfolded the note, and almost choked on laughter.
teach me to be gay followed by boxes marked yes and no.
Gerard drew a third box, labeled it 'completely inappropriate,' and checked it. After a second's deliberation he sketched out a tiny hand flipping a bird next to that, and then folded it back up and tossed it over the correl wall to Pete.
Several minutes passed, and then the note dropped down on his book again. Pete's cramped tiny handwriting read, dont you want your brother to be happy?
Gerard hissed, "Fuck you," hoping that Pete could hear him.
Judging from the way Pete scooted his chair back and peered around the divider at Gerard, he did. Gerard glanced around, but no one seemed to be paying them any attention.
"I'm asking for your fucking help," Pete whispered.
"I can't teach you how to be gay," Gerard replied. "Especially not for my brother."
"I just want to know, like, the etiquette," Pete said. "And how to be cool with putting someone's dick in your mouth. Because that's where I get hung up. Not to mention the butt stuff - isn't that shit gross?"
"Please stop asking me about this," Gerard said, trying valiantly to banish the mental images that Pete's questions gave him. "I can't help you."
"You know Mikey better than anyone," Pete said. "Come on."
"Maybe you should ask Gabe," Gerard suggested. "Isn't he actually your friend?"
Gerard could swear that Pete was blushing. Detention wasn't The Breakfast Club, his ass.
"Come on, I'm fucking things up and I might not be able to fix them in time," Pete said. Gerard wondered when the fuck he became the sort of person people came to for love advice.
"There's nothing I can say," Gerard hissed. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Lyn-Z flipping idly through a book, looking in his direction. "If you really like him in a more than friendly way then it shouldn't be a problem."
"But it is," Pete said.
"Then you don't actually want him," Gerard said.
"But I can't fucking sleep, thinking about him and his stupid glasses and wanting to lick his jaw and push him against a wall somewhere," Pete said, "Trust me, I want Mikey. I just don't want, you know. Gay porn shit."
Gerard closed his eyes and counted to ten. "Then just do what you want with him, not what you think gay people do," he said, trying to will the conversation to end. "I don't think he's expecting you to rim him on a first date." Gerard hoped, anyway.
Pete looked thoughtful, and Gerard used that opportunity to scoot back into his correl and try to concentrate on his homework and avoid giving out any more gay sex advice.
"But what if I want to blow him?" Pete whispered, and Gerard resisted the urge to bang his head into his book.
"Go practice on yourself," Gerard hissed, and then he heard a familiar giggle coming from the table Lyn-Z was sitting at.
This time he did thump his head against his book and stayed there until detention was over.
*
"I take back anything pro-Wentz I might have said," Gerard announced as he squished himself into a booth that already contained Mikey, Frank, Bob and Ray. Dewees stole a chair from a nearby table and sat in it backwards, crossing his arms and resting them on the back as he snickered.
"What the hell could have possibly happened in detention?" Ray wondered.
"It turned into the fucking Breakfast Club only worse," Gerard said, glaring pointedly at Frank.
"It was the most fucking entertaining thing ever," Dewees said.
"Pete Wentz is not my friend," Gerard said to Mikey. "He should not be talking to me. He definitely should not be talking to me about his hopes and fears concerning gay sex with my brother."
"He had hopes?" Mikey said. Frank snorted and cherry Coke sprayed across the table, and Ray mouthed, "hopes and fears?" silently.
"Not the point, Mikey!" Gerard said. He tried to do a wavy hand motion to represent the level of horror the experience had inspired in him. "He passed me a note. A check-yes-or-no note about teaching him to be gay."
Gerard was mildly concerned that Frank's laughing fit had turned into some sort of asthmatic seizure, and Bob and Ray weren't faring too much better. Even Mikey was grinning.
"Did you check yes?" Bob asked.
"No!" Gerard said. "I told him it was totally inappropriate!"
"Then did you slap his hand with a ruler?" Frank asked.
"Fuck off," Gerard replied, then vindictively stole a bite of Frank's veggie burger.
"It was the best part of detention," Dewees said cheerily. "Gerard offered very earnest advice then suggested Pete go blow himself for practice. It almost made up for the fact that I had to sit with Bemis. That fucker isn't quite right, you know."
"I would happily sit with Bemis every day if it meant no Wentz ever again," Gerard said.
"Yeah, but you like Bemis," Ray said. "You unstable types get along."
"We get along," Gerard reminded him.
"Pete seriously talked to you?" Mikey said, waving his hand and clearly trying to steer the conversation back to persons of actual interest to him.
"I am not repeating any of it," Gerard said.
"Pete wants to lick your jaw," Dewees added. "Good thing the only people in detention were art kid losers, otherwise Pete would have some 'splainin' to do."
Frank stopped snickering long enough to ask, "He told you in detail what he wanted to do to Mikey?"
"It was awful," Gerard said. And, possibly belatedly, he added, "And why did he decide I was the one to go to with his gay dilemma?"
"Who else would he go to?" Dewees pointed out.
"I suggested Gabe," Gerard said, "but he could have picked Beckett or that freshman with the rose vest or pretty much anyone who isn't me."
"I heard that freshman wasn't gay," Ray said, and Gerard glared at him. "Oh. Right."
"It makes Pete-sense to go to you," Mikey said.
"Is that like a fucked up version of Spideysense?" Bob asked.
"When the fuck did you start finding Pete-sense endearing again?" Gerard said.
"About the time he asked my brother for sex advice," Mikey said. He was actually smiling. "Also Alicia read the note and pointed out some shit I didn't notice."
"Hey, how come Alicia never hangs out with us?" Ray asked.
"We're not cool enough," Frank informed him. "Mikey's ashamed of us."
Mikey threw a french fry at Frank. "She's just busy. With other stuff."
"Uh-huh," Dewees said.
"Like getting her band a gig," Mikey said, shooting a mischievous look in Gerard's direction.
"What?" squeaked Gerard.
"Alicia's in a band?" Dewees said.
"Gerard's in it," Ray informed him.
"Ray!" Gerard's voice appeared to be stuck in squeak-mode. That hadn't happened since eighth grade.
"Cool!" Dewees said. "What kind of band is it?"
"An all-girl punk Dolly Parton cover band," Frank said.
None of Gerard's friends cared about him. He was a laughingstock.
Dewees raised an eyebrow. "I know Gerard's not the most masculine sort of fellow, but..."
"He dresses in drag. No one in the band knows he's a boy," Bob said.
Dewees looked thoughtfully at Gerard. "I bet you're a hot girl," he said.
"He totally is," piped up Frank. "If only we could get him a little less Amish about his hemlines."
Gerard looked around to make sure no one was within hearing range. There was just a slightly annoyed looking family of four, though Gerard couldn't tell if it was his cross-dressing shenanigans or the youngest kid's ice cream splattering party that had the mother looking so pinched and disapproving.
"I'm glad we've decided to just share with everyone," Gerard grumbled.
"Ma taught you better manners than that," Mikey said. "What do ladies say to compliments?"
Gerard was definitely going to do something terrible to Mikey later on, like hide his flatiron. He stuck his tongue out and said, "Gig?"
"Alicia thinks she can get a gig at a party or something," Mikey said. "Through someone she knows."
Gerard paled. The thought of getting up and singing in front of a bunch of people - even drunk not-paying-attention people - was more than a little terrifying. It didn't even fucking matter that no one would know who he was.
"That's great!" Dewees said. "Nothing like getting up in front of people."
Life had been so much easier a few weeks ago. Gerard missed that.
*
Part Four | Return to Title Page