Posted originally on the Archive_of_Our_Own at https://archiveofourown.org/
works/306947.
  Rating:
      Explicit
  Archive Warning:
      Underage
  Category:
      M/M, Other
  Fandom:
      Bandom, My_Chemical_Romance, Fall_Out_Boy, Pencey_Prep
  Relationship:
      Frank_Iero/Mikey_Way, Patrick_Stump/Mikey_Way/Pete_Wentz, Ashlee_Simpson/
      Patrick_Stump/Pete_Wentz
  Character:
      Frank_Iero, Mikey_Way, Gerard_Way, Shaun_Simon, John_McGuire, Neil
      Sabatino, Tim_Hagevik, Pete_Wentz, Bert_McCracken, Matt_Skiba
  Additional Tags:
      Alternate_Universe_-_High_School, First_Time, First_Love, First_Kiss,
      Rave, Drunk_Sex, Hand_Jobs, Coming_Out, Marijuana, Problems_Bottoming,
      Break_Up, Second_Chances
  Series:
      Part 3 of Rentverse
  Stats:
      Published: 2011-12-29 Words: 37364
****** Truths That He Learned ******
by gala_apples
Summary
     It's Frank's senior year, and it seems like he's constantly having
     new experiences, at least half of which come as a complete surprise
     to him. He falls in love, comes out, and has sex, not necessarily in
     that order.
Sometimes Frank hates the shit out of his friends. It’s not often, but when it
comes on it’s strong. Grama always calls him the mercurial one, and when
compared to all his cousins he can see that. But to him it’s much simpler than
being diagnosed with mood swings. Frank just thinks sometimes his friends or
relatives are assholes, and when they are he’s perfectly in his right to hate
them. It doesn’t matter if it’s because Alice, who is actually month younger
than him, just took the last spot at the adult table and now he has to sit at
the kiddie table, or if it’s because Shaun totally spoilered Watchman because
he’s read the comics and Frank is more a movie guy. When people are assholes,
they’re assholes, and they deserve any and all possible wrath.
In this case all of his friends are assholes. They’ve called him literally non-
stop for the last hour. He had to switch it to vibrate because the constant
snippet of Misfits was driving him crazy. Of course, the better choice probably
would have been to power his phone down altogether, because the buzz of it
shuddering across his desk like a worm on crack isn’t much better. But he’s a
teenager and shutting it off seems unfathomable so instead he’s trying to
ignore it.
Out of curiosity, Frank picks it up. Missed calls: 183. Fucking ridiculous.
None of them have left messages. They must just be waiting out the three rings,
hanging up, and telling the next person to call. He’s got multiple calls from
each of them, the same eight numbers repeat like writing lines in grade school.
Which is stupid, because it’s not like the separate numbers will convince him
they’re each alone in their various houses, desperate to discuss something. He
knows they’re all together, he knows what they want, and they’re all idiots for
thinking he’s going to bow down.
And that’s when the house phone rings. Frank swears and bolts for the stairs,
cursing more as his socks slip on the wooden stairs. The runner looked like you
could catch a disease from putting your foot on it, so they tossed it a few
weeks ago, but it hasn’t been replaced and now he’s going to topple down the
entire flight and die, just because his friends are assholes that don’t know
how to listen at school, and don’t know how to infer a fucking meaning from
someone ignoring calls.
By the time he makes it halfway down, he can already hear his mom talking to
whomever it is. Going into the kitchen now will only make it worse. She’ll hand
the phone over to him and be shocked if he calls whoever it is a fucking cunt,
and after the phone is hung up she’ll want to know why he made someone call the
house phone if he knew he was going to get a call. Frank turns and stomps back
up the stairs.
He’s sprawled on his bed when she stands at the foot of the stairs and screams
up them that his friends will be here in ten minutes, they want you ready to
leave. Frank snorts and flips off the air. Ready to leave his fucking ass,
they’ll have to drag him out kicking and screaming. If it was just Frank and
his dad, he wouldn’t be worried about it. The doorbell is broken and none of
the guys can possibly knock loud enough to be heard over the big screen tv
playing endless football. Unfortunately it’s his mom, which means the door is
probably already propped open as a sign of welcome. It’s an alliance between
his friends, his mom, and the world. They’re all colluding to make him
miserable.
Frank can hear them when they come in. Not so much for the slammed door or the
sound of eight people crowding into a front hall. Instead it’s his mom, cooing
about how good they all look. Fuck his fucking life. Christ.
And then they’re all in his room. Okay, so maybe they do look really good.
Shaun and John and Neil and Tim are all wearing suit shirts and pressed pants
and ties. Kelly and Claire and Tina are wearing dresses, and Zoe’s in pressed
pants and suspenders and a dress shirt that matches John’s perfectly. Frank is
man enough to admit that his friends look really fucking amazing. That in no
way means he wants to be one of them. Which he explains, sort of. “Fuck off.”
“Dude, we’ll fuck off in a second. You just need to stand up, ‘cause you’re
fucking off with us.”
“No, seriously. Fuck off. I’m not going.”
“You might like it!” Tina exclaims. Frank is not even going to try to dignify
that with a response.
“Do we really need to wrestle you out of your bed? Because none of us want
that.” Neil crosses his arms and Frank mutters I could take you, half into his
pillow. He’s so full of crap, Neil’s like a foot taller than he is. Kindly Neil
doesn’t point out his bullshit, just goes on, “We’d wrinkle our nicely ironed
clothes, you’d get broken to pieces, we’d thud onto the floor and your mom
would shout questions from the bottom of the stairs. Nobody’d win.”
Which, true as it might be, still isn’t enough to make Frank get off his bed.
“Look, we’ll make a deal.” This perks Frank up a bit. John’s always making
weird ass deals and bets, hardly ever caring if he wins or not. Betting with
John could be a great out. “If you can think of eight reasons why you shouldn’t
go to homecoming, one for each of us, we won’t take you.”
Frank sits up and readjusts his shirt from where it hiked up during his
justified pouting. “Deal. I don’t have a date. I don’t have an outfit. I don’t
have a flower. I don’t have a ticket. I don’t know how to dance. I don’t like
the music they’ll play. I won’t like the company there.”
Claire smirks. “That’s seven. Suck it the fuck up.” Shit. He should have
counted on his fingers as he was listing them off.
“Also they’re all invalid reasons. We knew you’d do this, so we all chipped in
and got you a ticket.”
Frank crosses his arms. “I’m not paying you back.”
“It was fifteen bucks between eight people, I’m sure we’ll survive. And of
course you’ll like the company, we’re the company.” Claire smiles, teeth
gleaming white against her mocha lips. She’s had her braces off for six months,
and now she smiles almost every second of the day. Frank can’t really blame
Neil for falling in love with her, she’s got a great smile.
“If you don’t tell us where your dress clothes are, we’ll ask your mom.”
Fucking Neil and his fucking threats. The last thing he wants is to get his mom
involved in this horrorshow. “They’re in my closet, asshole.”
“What do you think, Tina? Buttercup or navy?”
“I am not wearing motherfucking yellow to homecoming. I will jump out of the
fucking car first.” There have to be lines, goddamn it.
“Drama queen says no buttercup.”
“Yeah, I heard him.” The shirt comes flying at him, the buttoned sleeve hitting
him in the face before crumpling to his lap. Unfortunately the hanger doesn't
skewer a limb. It would be painful, but it would be a truly valid excuse for
not doing this. Frank strips off his t-shirt and tosses it to the laundry
basket that’s in the corner of his room. He undoes enough buttons that he can
slip it over his head, and stands, waiting for Tim to chuck the pants at him.
There’s no sense of embarrassment about changing in front of them. Boxers are
no different than swimming trunks. He doesn’t even own a pair of briefs, and he
plans to laugh straight in their faces if they say something equivalent to
pantyline.
“So I’ve got the fucking outfit. But you’re telling me I also have a stupid
flower thing for my lack of date?"
“A corsage,” Tim adds helpfully.
“Whatever the fuck. A corsage then.”
“No, most people don’t have fifty dollar flowers in their fridge. But since
it’s not prom, it doesn’t matter. And what you talkin’ about, lack of date?
We’re your dates!” Frank rolls his eyes at John. Four couples and him. Great.
Twenty minutes later they’re in the school, listening to some jerkoff think
he’s DJing because he’s playing a burnt CD of top forty songs.
“So, is this as awful as you thought it was going to be?” Zoe asks, voice a bit
panting from the speed at which she’s grinding against John. If Frank crossed
his eyes he wouldn’t be able to tell which one was which, they’re the same
height and weight. He finds it sort of funny that John’s gonna end up marrying
a girl his female clone, but if it works for him, it’s not like Frank’s going
to try to break them up.
“No it’s not as as awful as I thought it was gong to be.”
“See! I-”
Frank cuts off Tina’s triumphant words. “It’s worse. Look at this place.
There’s crap dangling from the ceiling.”
“It’s crepe paper,” Zoe informs him from her muffled position against John’s
neck.
“It’s seaweed,” Tina corrects.
“In what fucking world is this seaweed?” Frank inches a bit closer to the exit,
like he could actually escape without his friends getting pissed at him, and in
the process gets tangled by a low hanging strand. It’s with no little
satisfaction that he rips it down.
“Use your imagination!”
Frank isn’t even going to start on how the poster paper seahorses on the wall
look like they want to eat his soul, not if Tina was apparently on the
decorating committee without any of them knowing. “And we’re surrounded by
assholes that actually care about beating the Tigers.”
“It was the Badgers.” There is no eyebrow in the world large enough to raise at
Kelly. “What? My brother’s on our team, I have to know these things.”
“Frankie, very few people give anything remotely resembling a crap.” Shaun
informs him. “It’s an excuse to dance to music you tell your friends you hate
without being mocked, and to stealthfully drink from flasks.”
“Someone brought a flask? Who has it? I need it to live, I’m not even joking.
Right now.” Frank cannot possibly do this without the aid of alcohol. The bowl
he smoked in John’s car with him and Zoe and Tim and Kelly, mostly as a
consolation prize, is rapidly fading from his consciousness. The nice haze
covering his brain is being eaten by fucking Kesha. Ke$ha. Whatever, having
random symbols instead of letters should mean you’re not allowed in the music
industry. Like the entire record when Pink was P!nk.
It’s not much of a surprise when instead of coming out of one of the guy’s
pockets, one of the folds in Claire’s dress turns out to be a pocket big enough
to conceal a flask. Claire is fucking bad ass. Really, all of his friends
girlfriends are pretty cool. If Frank had a Claire or Zoe, he might have gone
to homecoming without coaxing.
“I’m drinking like all of this. Consider it your punishment for making me do
this for the next three hours.” With that said, Frank unscrews the lid and
takes a sip of the vanilla flavoured vodka. It’s going to be a long fucking
night.
*
Frank has a pretty basic weekend routine. Basically he just tries to do all the
things he loves and can’t really do during the week. The weekend is for rest
and relaxation, so sayeth the education system, and Frank plans to take them up
on it for as long as he can.
The first important part of his day is when after waking up needing to piss -
Frank has both an irritatingly small bladder and a penchant for drinking a
Slurpee from the Sev across the street before bed- he can stumble to the
bathroom, take a whiz, and stumble back to bed, all without opening his eyes.
Sitting down to pee doesn’t make him a girl, it makes him not have to gain any
sort of measurable consciousness. The warm spot hasn’t even dissipated by the
time he crawls back under the covers. He always gets straight back to sleep.
When he wakes up for real, the first order of business is to get stoned. Frank
doesn’t smoke often during the week. Only half his friends smoke, and while
Neil and Shaun don’t really care, Tina freaks out, so they can’t smoke if all
nine of them are hanging out. It’s just a lot easier to save it for the
weekend, when he can chill with Hambone and Timmy, or enjoy it alone. He likes
to smoke a bowl and go back to bed so he can daydream. Sometimes it’s stuff
like what would he write on college applications if he could be honest instead
of writing what’s going to get him into the schools he wants. Sometimes he
thinks of lyrics, and what they might really mean. Sometimes he writes entire
plots to horror movies. Whatever it is, it’s his brain-time, and he loves it.
He’ll eventually really get up, change into his outfit of a hoodie and pyjama
bottoms so old all the flannel has worn off and go online to find new Youtube
videos to impress friends with. At various intervals he’ll eat, or clomp to the
garage to smoke a cigarette. Which is hypocritical if you ask him, because both
his parents smoke inside, but they say they’re preparing him for real life
which means only smoking outdoors completely secluded, and it’s their house,
their rules. He might watch a movie, or carry multiple conversations on MSN, or
go for a run. Okay, so the only things that makes weekends different from a
weekday are the pot and the sleeping in. But those are his favourite parts, so
whatever.
Frank’s day gets to a poor start when on his way to the kitchen to grab a bagel
his mom calls him from the living room. Usually his parents are content to
leave him alone, so if either wants to talk that means he sort of has to go
talk to them. Which would be fine on a weekday, but stoned talks tend to not be
good things. Whether he's being yelled at or discussed with about his opinion
on something on the radio, he still has to pull. Luckily he’s normally rambley
so they never really notice.
“So when your friends were over we noticed something.”
They’ve waited an entire week to bring this up, which means they probably asked
for advice about it at church before deciding to approach him. Which means it’s
something that they think might piss him off, which means it’s probably a
fucking ‘what are you going to do with your life’ conversation. Shit. Annoyed
or not he really should have come downstairs to intervene on any sort of
conversation his friends might have had with his parents. Even if he couldn’t
have stopped it, he could have at least prepared for it. Frank really doesn’t
want to have the ‘I have no idea what my major will be’ conversation again.
He’s either too stoned or not stoned enough for this, it’s too early to tell.
“Frank, all your friends have girlfriends. Is there something you’ve been
hiding from us?”
What? “What? No.”
“We won’t judge her, Frank. Even if she’s not Catholic. We understand
struggling with finding the path to God at this age.” Considering Frank’s
parents haven’t forced him to go to church in three years, he’d say it’s less a
path and more a diversion in traffic around a mess of construction. He believes
in some sort of Him, he’s just sketchy on the details, he still needs to pour
the concrete.
“It’s not that. I really don’t have a girlfriend.” On one hand, this is awkward
as hell. On the other, at least it’s not the ‘you’re wasting money if you don’t
have a major’ conversation.
“Why not? Are you concerned you won’t be able to be celibate?”
Okay, the answer is definitely not stoned enough. This is why Frank gets along
with his dad much better when he’s watching television. “What? No. I just
haven’t found the right girl yet.”
“We can help. We’ll set you up with a girl from church.” Seriously, how has his
life turned into this so quickly?
Frank doesn’t have epic battles with his parents. He’s not Timmy, where
screaming at each other followed by slammed doors is the norm. But he’s not a
goodie-goodie either, not quite Tina, who is taking all the courses her parents
asked her to instead of what she enjoys. There’s no reason for him to go
ridiculously out of his way to please them when no matter what he does they’ll
still love him.
That being said, Frank’s also old enough to know when to cut his losses. It’s
far far easier to agree to be set up than it is to try and explain why it’s a
lame idea. Also, Frank is an optimist. There’s a chance that whoever this girl
is, she could be his true love. He hasn’t been to church in three years, he has
no idea which girls go there. There might be someone perfect waiting for him,
and he just doesn’t know it because he can’t or doesn’t want to sit still
through a sermon.
“Sure. Okay, I guess. Just-”
“No dogs.” Frank is grateful that his mom is smacking his dad for that, because
he can’t hit his parents, but that’s not okay to say. And it wasn’t what he was
going to say. He didn’t even know what he was going to say, he just. There’s
just something about this that feels uncomfortable. Beyond his parents being
the instigators, even, which is pretty fucked up. But he’s going to chalk it up
to thoughts and feelings tainted with pot, because there’s no real reason to be
weirded out.
“So we’re good? I can go grab breakfast now?”
“Frank, it’s two pm.” Which means yes. Frank escapes to the kitchen, where the
hardest thing to think about is blueberry or pumpkin. It’s the weekend, he’s
not meant to think or feel.
*
His date is Wednesday, after school. Frank’s supposed to meet her at a diner. A
freaking diner, like his life isn’t already pathetically nineteen fifties
enough. Shaun could see in his face Monday before home room that something had
happened, and they’d all known by lunch. He’s had three days of mocking, and by
the time he walks in the small restaurant he’s already feeling like a fucking
idiot for ever agreeing to this. Just because he didn’t have a reason prepared
for why he didn’t have a girlfriend didn’t mean he couldn’t have come up with
one on the spot. He’s not quite Nate Novarro, who, as far as Frank can tell,
has never had a single piece of homework ready on time since junior high, but
always has a brilliant excuse. But surely any conversation with his parents
full of lies would have been better than the hundreds of things Neil and Kelly
have pointed out could go wrong on this date.
He squirms his back so his backpack is sitting better on his shoulders as he
gazes around the diner. Blond hair, he’s supposed to be looking for a girl with
blond hair. There are a few, but there’s only one that’s sitting by herself.
Frank walks up to the table. “I’m Frank?” It shouldn’t be a question, it’s not
like he may or may not be Frank. He just hasn’t really done this before. He’s
not sure how to go about everything. Should he remind her of his last name, so
she can remember the kind parents that probably asked her parents if this was
okay? Should he stick out his hand for her to shake? He hugs his friends, and
his friends’ girlfriends, but a hug within three seconds is probably too soon.
Isn’t it? It would be really fucking helpful if he could text Tim or Shaun for
directions.
“Hello, I’m Rebekah. You know, like Isaac’s wife. It’s even spelled the same.”
Frank doesn’t know. Well, he knows it’s a story from the bible, but he sure as
fuck doesn’t remember a single thing about the story. Also, it seems like a bit
of a bad sign that the first words out of her mouth are talking about a
religion he’s not sure he fully believes in. He doesn’t tell her that he’s more
likely to know about Rebecca as in Rebecca Romijn, Mystique from X-Men.
“I’m Frank. Like, um. I think Frank is Italian for protector?” So he has no
fucking idea about the origin of his name. It’s about the best he’s going to do
right now.
“Actually it’s free, or truthful,” she replies, smiling lightly. Holy fucking
hell, how is this his life? To be set up with a girl that has some sort of name
encyclopedia, and lie about his name within the first ten words. Christ.
“Oh.”
“Are you going to sit down? I was thinking we could get milkshakes. Or, that’s
what I told the guy when he came over to ask for my order.”
Frank takes off his backpack and slides it into the booth before he follows it.
“You’ve been waiting long enough to order?”
“Yeah.”
“Sorry?”
“Don’t worry about it, Frank. Patience is a virtue. So, milkshakes?”
“Sure.” He watches her wave at the counter, and lets her order them two
chocolate milkshakes. He’d really rather strawberry, but he doesn’t trust
himself to speak without saying something else completely retarded.
“So, you’re in senior year, right?” Frank nods. “What are you going to major
in?”
If Frank had the ability to text right now, without seeming like a rude
asshole, he’d ask Shaun if it was considered a dating failure if he shot
himself in the face. “I haven’t decided yet. I’m gonna just take first year
classes and then see what gets me, you know? Are you a senior too?”
“Yes. I’m going to be a lawyer.” The waiter comes back over with their
milkshakes and Frank takes a deep sip. Decent, though he still likes smoothies
more.
When the thought comes, it’s like a slap in the face. He doesn’t want to have
sex with her. Frank’s smart enough to know he should want to. That’s what’s
supposed to happen in this sort of situation. His conscious fore-brain is
supposed to deal with having conversation, his caveman back-brain is supposed
to say ‘mine, sperm time now’ and they’re supposed to meet somewhere in the
middle with witty jokes designed to make her like him and want to date him so
that in a month or two she’ll put out, less time if she’s not a Catholic. But
his caveman isn’t interested in the least.
Theoretically she’s hot. He can see patches of untanned skin under the weird
neckline of her dress, he should be turned on by them. He should want to see
her naked so he can see where exactly warm brown meets baby pink. But he
doesn’t, and he isn’t. And what that probably means is he’s gay.
He hasn’t really thought about it before, considered it an option. He watches
straight porn and jerks off to it. When he doesn’t watch the porn because he’d
rather jerk off without getting out of bed, it’s him watching a couple in his
head, not the girl -guy apparently- doing stuff to him. It’s fucking weird to
have not figured this out before. He’s sixteen, seventeen in less than a month.
This is the sort of bomb that gets dropped when you’re just starting puberty.
To be fair though it’s not like he’s ever had a mad urge to make out with
Hambone. It’s never really come up before.
Still, it feels right. He takes a second to think about Rebekah, and moves
beyond her to whether or not he’d want to have sex with Zoe or Claire, and then
moves beyond them to any girl at Carleton. In all cases the answer is a
resounding no. And then Frank poses the hypothetical, could I have sex with
Ryland and gets a maybe. Fuck.
“So, what do you like?” It’s about as vague a question as Frank can think of,
which normally he wouldn’t do if he wanted to get to know someone. But right
now he just wants her to talk about something -anything- and only have to nod
or throw in a ‘yeah’ or ‘that’s shitty’ on occasion. Although with her a swear
will probably be shocking and he should try to avoid them. It would be rude to
walk out right now, which means he’s got to do the next best thing and let her
think she’s interesting while he actually gives himself a chance to think.
The first thing that comes to mind under the swell of slight panic is
irritation at the panic, because it’s not like it should really matter. He
needs to get home and do some empirical testing with various porn downloads to
figure out for sure. But if he does end up liking guys, he’s not going to be a
self-loathing gay guy. Closeted would probably be a better option for the time
being, there’s no point in coming out when he hasn’t even has ass sex to make
sure. But he’s not going to hate himself for it if he does like it. The
Bouncing Souls say ‘this is a message to you, do what you love, love what you
do’, and their lyrics have never steered him wrong.
*
It’s not difficult at all to find the gay porn. It’s not like being twelve and
not having his own computer yet. Back then Frank had to resort to either
stealing his father’s magazines, or sneaking into the living room after his
parents were asleep and frantically clearing the browser history afterward.
He’s sixteen now, and in control of whatever he wants to download on his own
computer.
It’s not difficult, and it’s not different. Like always when looking for porn
careful navigation is required. Some downloads are obviously a mainframe
melting virus hidden in an oddly kb’ed file, just waiting to infect his
computer. Some websites are utter cockteases, a few seconds of video before
they ask you to pay, or erotic literature instead of film, like he wants to
fucking read. Jerking off is not supposed to be English class. And because for
every decent pervert in the world who just wants to watch a few people fuck
there is some pervert that wants to see people drinking each other’s piss,
Frank also needs to steer around everything that completely nauseates him.
Most of his trusted websites are now irrelevant. Too bad there’s no such thing
as Suicide Boys. Frank would totally pay for that, it would be worth it. He’s
got the credit card to do so, which not everyone his age does. It’s got a low
limit, but his aunt pays the bill on his birthday and Christmas. Normally it’s
for concert tickets, when the band is popular and can only get them by phone or
online purchase. She never seems to read the items list, just pays it for him,
she probably wouldn't notice a subscription to a website of hot emo college
students. Unfortunately it doesn't actually exist. But there’s stuff like
Xtube, sites that cater to anyone wanting to watch anything. And within five
minutes it’s obvious his type is a kind of guy called a twink. The term helps
refine the search.
Frank clicks around, not watching anything for more than a few seconds. He
wants to think that his hesitance isn’t because he doesn’t want to find out the
truth about himself. He doesn’t want to be the closeted douchebag, that shit is
so fucking nineteen eighties. Not that Frank particularly loves glam music, but
Freddie fucking Mercury, superstar of an era, and he couldn’t come out until he
was dying. It’s pathetic when heroes are too scared be themselves, and it’s
even more pathetic that it’s him. His friends won’t care, and he shouldn’t
care.
Needing to give himself a pep talk isn’t the best platform for trying to get
aroused. He keeps clicking through Xtube, five seconds at most of guys jerking
off before going on to the next. Finally he ends up following one of the
comments off the website. It’s some guy’s personal site, a few more films of
him jerking off, a few with him with others. They each have titles, like Eric’s
Big Day, or Rockstar Blowjob. Frank scrolls through them before clicking on
Locker Room Lust. While he’s waiting for it to buffer enough, he reads the
summary and snickers. Eric, new to the baseball team, is surprised the first
time he sees the nubile team get wild and kinky off the diamond. He’s pretty
sure nubile is supposed to mean girls, but since he’s not Mr Watton, he’s not
going to be underlining it in red pen with a question mark beside it.
The first part of the video shows a six guys standing in a circle. They all
have their shorts pulled down to mid-thigh, jerking off. Frank thinks, amused,
that six guys grunting in different speeds and tones is probably a bit of a
nightmare for the sound guy.
Then it switches to a scene between just two guys. One guy his leaning against
the bank of lockers, towel still slung over his shoulder. The other is on his
knees, tugging the tiny uniform shorts to his ankles, then repeating the step
with his briefs before leaning forward to lick at the head of his cock. It cuts
to a scene of the guy sucking like a pro, the entire dick in his mouth at once,
the standing guy with his hand in the the kneeling guy’s hair, making him take
it.
Then it goes to another group scene. This time it’s bunch of guys totally
naked, lined up against the lockers. They’re waiting for the guy that’s on the
bench, nude except for high baseball socks, his feet near his ears.
It shows a few seconds of the guy being fucked before it fades out and a few
sentences of white lettering come up on the black square saying that for only
twenty nine dollars he can watch the entire movie. Frank scoffs. They were hot,
but they weren’t mythical Suicide Boys hot. He doesn’t need a come shot anyway,
what he watched was enough information for Frank to try.
He leans back in the computer chair, making himself comfortable against the
padded back. He pulls out his dick and tries to imagine himself in the
situation; a bunch of guys in the locker room all ready to grab his junk. The
visual is there but the arousal isn’t, so Frank moves on. A bunch of guys
wanting to fuck him does nothing. A bunch of guys wanted to be fucked. Nothing.
Frank shrugs mentally. It’s either the same issue he had with straight porn, or
he’s asexual. That at least doesn’t seem likely at all, considering how often
he jerks off. He clears his mind of himself and pictures the guys he just
watched on screen, reimagines the cocksucking scene. This time there’s no cut
away, no pausing to try to get money from a horny viewer. There’s just a tall
slim guy getting his big dick sucked by someone who is clearly loving doing it.
Someone who knows how to properly stretch his mouth, how to get the proper
rhythm to make the tall guy throw his head back and nearly brain himself on the
locker without caring because it’s just that good.
It works. The revelations hit strong and fast; he’s hard, he’s gay, he’s coming
into his hand. Frank grabs a tissue from the box that’s always present beside
his monitor and cleans up. He decides he’ll think about the next step later.
Finding a boyfriend to do this shit with is important. The longer he has to
have sex before he goes off to college and has to start all over again the
better. But it’s been a long fucking day, and it’s not like he can just text
everyone in his phone asking if they want to go on a date.
*
“What are the Cobras doing now?” Frank’s curious, but ignorant. They’ve been
doing something half the day, they’re all walking around with their hands
planted on their mouths like mimes ashamed of their failure.
“Dunno. I don’t think this is right consistency.” Joe pokes at the dish with a
long wooden spoon. Frankly Frank’s a bit surprised it doesn’t rear up and
devour the spoon. Home Ec Stream A is for the students that just want to fuck
off and get an easy credit for cooking, Stream B is for the students planning
on going in the culinary arts. It’s not said out loud, it’s just supposed to be
two classes to catch the overflow. But if you look at him and Joe in one class,
and Alex Suarez and Smith the Fifth in the other, and the fact that the two
different teachers sharing the same classroom have entirely different lesson
plans, well, you don’t need to be a rocket scientist to know that Stream A is
going to get the shitty ingredients.
“Joe, we’re making a sausage and egg casserole. We’re not going to eat it
anyway.” Part of the trouble of having Stream A Collins instead of Stream B
Okama is Collins has lost all hope, and ignores everything his students say,
including dietary restrictions. Technically Joe could probably sue for bigotry
or something, but he doesn’t seem to care, just doesn’t eat anything related to
pigs. “Seriously this is fucking gross. Why did we not skip?”
“Because we want to get into college?”
“You’ve got it the other way ‘round. It’s senior year, our apps are mostly in,
we’re supposed to be slacking.”
It’s a stupid ass comment, he realises too late. Frank needs to change the
subject, and quickly and provocatively at that. Joe’s starting to do that
staring into the distance thing, which means he’s close to a panic attack. Yeah
he has at least one a day, there’s probably not a day in the last month Joe
hasn’t gone to the guidance counselor, but that doesn’t mean it has to be under
Frank’s watch. He might not be as good as Joe’s real friends, but he’ll at
least try.
“Seriously, how are they not kicked out yet?” The door is closed but he can see
Gabe through the window latticed with metal. “Do they attend more than a class
a day?”
“Well Gabe, Ryland and Elisa are repeating so I think they only have the one
class. Besides, Mr Marks will vouch for anything they do. If they’re making a
scene, it’s a sponsored scene. For the most part, anyway. Whatever it was,
Brock was against it, and Ryland took him out. I doubt Marks will be saying
that brawling is an important experience.”
Frank still sometimes wishes he could get in on that. The improv troupe is
small but they seem to have the most fun of the school. Surely they could use
more than six members. On the other hand, it’s a bit late. The Cobras formed
under Gabe’s vast enthusiasm in his freshman year, encouraging the entirety of
all four years of drama class to sign up. By the end it had dwindled to Gabe,
Ryland and Elisa, but Gabe had kept his hope. He’d had a second round of
auditions in his sophomore year, and had gathered the rest of the troupe that
still exists this year. Honestly, Frank is glad to be graduating this year.
Carleton is going to be far more boring without them.
“Fucking Gabe, man.” Not that he actually has anything against the guy, it’s
just a phrase to keep Joe talking and his mind off applications.
“Actually no. I have no idea what they’re doing but this time it’s not some
crazy ass thing Gabe got from one of Marks’ textbooks. He got it from- oh what
the fuck is his name? Loner kid.”
“Joe, we’ve got like two thousand teens here. There’s more than one loner kid.”
The timer goes off on the stove and Frank jams their casserole in it, glancing
around the class as he does. Half the stations are still working on stirring
it. Theirs was too thick to stir. Joe’s probably right, which would suck if
Frank cared. You don’t get graded for how awesome your dish is, not in Stream
A. In Stream B Okama demands a portion of each dish to test it. Collins is
probably well aware that he could get food poisoning twelve times over.
“Fine. Music whore loner kid. Worked at the last place Pete did.”
“Again, not helpful.” Pete’s had like a thousand jobs, somehow he’s always
getting fired. Not that Frank knows that much about Pete, Joe’s friends and his
friends don’t really mesh, even though they tried for a week or two to hang out
in the science lab at lunch. It just you always learn a bit about acquaintances
friends because what else is there to talk about while you’re waiting for your
bread to not rise because you fucked up measuring the yeast?
“Dude, his last job. Fuck, I dunno, tall, skinny music whore always wears a hat
loner. He’s seriously not that hard to miss, he has fucking duct tape on his
mouth. Fuck, I don’t care. Just saying he started it, not Gabe.”
After Home Ec Frank’s got a spare. A legit one, not a man made one. He could
ask Gabe, or even a different drama kid. But as soon as he asks he’s going to
be involved whether or not he wants to be. That’s how he runs a perfect
spontaneous improv group, he recruits whether or not anyone wants to be
recruited. It’s best not to engage with that dude unless you’re willing to be
committed to the ridiculous. But when he sees hat and duct tape in the library
he sits down beside him. Frank’s curious.
“So what’s that about?” he asks, gesturing. The guy rolls his eyes at him, and
it occurs to Frank he can’t really talk. "Okay, point. Come."
Frank tugs Mikey from the spread of tables over to the double row of computers
against the wall. He logs in and mutters "I'm just gonna haveta figure this out
myself."
Google is utterly useless. 'Crazy motherfuckers with duct tape' gets nothing of
relevance through the first three pages of possibilities. "It's all fuckin
blogs and lyrics. What the hell?"
The guy is arching over him, using a horrifically pointy elbow to balance
himself as he awkwardly types in ‘day of silence’ with his right hand. He opens
Wikipedia and then sits back and gives Frank a minute to read it. It’s pretty
short for a Wiki article, only a few outlinks that he doesn’t bother to click
on. Everyone is being silent to protest gay, lesbian, bi and transgendered
bullying.
Frank can’t help the noise of disgust that escapes him. "That's it? That's why
Ryland took out Brock?" Not that it should be surprising. Brock’s one of the
guys that hides behind Christianity to hate people, even though he doesn’t
bother to go to church. Brock’s parents know his parents, and at least when he
doesn’t go to church he’s honest about his lack of belief. No wonder Ryland
took him out. It was probably random chance that got Ryland doing it, it could
have easily been any of the Cobras. Gabe’s not the sort of person to put up
with bullshit.
There’s not a chance that he can stay silent. There’s only two periods left,
but they’re his favourite. A legitimate spare nearly requires going to the caf
to play a few round of cards and over-exaggerate about everything, and Ancient
Civilisations is just about the most fascinating elective he’s taken over the
last four years. That doesn’t mean that he can’t do something. Even if he
wasn’t gay himself, he should still do something. Shit, this should have been
on the announcements this morning. His friends totally would have participated.
He leaves the library and goes out through the smoking doors. Just like a
cafeteria, there are always people at the smoking doors. Technically the
school’s probably not allowed to have them, but it’s where everyone congregates
and if they tried to stop them they’d just move to a different door. “Anyone
have a Sharpie?” He only knows half of them by name, but that’s fine. They’re
all smokers, they’re united in their need to poison their lungs.
They all shrug, except one girl that holds out a blue highlighter. Frank pulls
out the hem of his shirt and tries it, it doesn’t show up on the fabric. He
gives it back to her and thanks her before going back inside, not even taking
the time to have a cigarette. He’s on a mission, he can smoke after he looks
the part.
There’s a freshman kid sitting in the art hallway. It’s a short hall, it only
has four classrooms. Frank’s never seen an aerial view of his school, but it
has to look like a centipede, one main drag with a dozen little halls acting as
legs. Frank doesn’t know the guy, but he’s sitting cross legged, face nearly on
the floor as he crouches to draw on a piece of posterboard.
“Do you have a sharpie? Or know which teacher would be the least pissed about
me walking in to ask for one?”
“It would be Mr Labine, but yeah I’ve got. If you’ll use it here, you can’t
take it.” The kid opens one of the many sections of his messenger bag and pulls
out a dozen sharpies held together with an elastic. “What colour?”
Shit. Frank didn’t even know Sharpies came in more than black, red, and navy
blue. “Black, I guess?”
He holds it out and Frank jams it in his pocket. Then he takes off his shirt,
turns it inside out, and smooths it out on the floor so he can write on it. He
gives the marker back and puts his shirt on before thanking the kid and making
his way back to the library.
Duct tape guy - Frank thinks it’s a nicer descriptor than ‘tall, skinny music
whore always wears a hat loner’ - is listening to a CD player, earbuds under
his skullcap. Frank doesn’t know his name to call his attention, so he just
puts his hand on his shoulder. Duct Tape flinches away, like he’s pissed. Which
is stupid, it’s not like Frank punched him to get him to pay attention.
"Do you know few people actually have Sharpies here? You know I had to go all
the way to the fuckin' art hallway? Ridiculous. You'd think there'd at least be
someone wanting to vandalise the bathroom or something."
Duct Tape doesn’t react, doesn’t even look up from his empty sheet of lined
paper. Frank goes on. "Anyway, w'ad you think? I didn't think I'd be able to
shut up, but this could work. Right?"
At that Duct Tape does look at him. He takes in the expensive Hollister, inside
out and with the words homophobia is gay written on top of where you can still
sort of see the white logo. Frank could swear he smiles, and takes that as
invitation to sit down.
“I’m not gonna ask what you’re listening to, because you’ll just roll your eyes
again. Instead I’m just yoinking.” Frank reaches out a hand and pops a earbud
out and puts it in his own ear. “Placebo. Not bad. Not my favourite or
anything, but I like how they just do their thing you know? They just do their
drugs, and enjoy it, without trying to brag like oh my god I’m so hardcore.
Rock is always better with that kinda thing than rap though. You ever think rap
is just songs about people bragging how awesome they are? Oh, I guess I can’t
get your opinion. Unless you want to go all Helen Keller about it, and start
writing it in letters on my spine. How about I go do my thing, and you keep on
doing whatever, but you gimme your email so we can talk about this later?”
Duct Tape tears a corner of the paper off and in surprisingly legible
handwriting puts Mikeyfollowstheway@gmail. Frank pockets it, and goes off to
find a game of Spoons to crash.
*
Frank tucks his backpack under the bench of the cafeteria table before
announcing to the group “’m going to go get Mikey. He’s probably in the-”
“Library? Yeah, just where he’s been every day the last two weeks when you’ve
invited him to sit with us.”
“What the fuck? Do you not like him?” It doesn’t make sense to him. The guy’s
got a wicked sense of humour, and great Youtube links.
“Oh no, we like him. We’re just getting really sick of waiting for you to say
you like him.”
Frank gives Shaun the best glare he can. “Excuse me?” What the fuck.
“Frank, it’s not like any of us give a flying fucking crap,” John says around a
bite of cold mashed potatoes.
“Speak for yourself, darlin’,” Zoe says, patting her boyfriend’s hand.
“Actually me and Tina met because we write fanfic so we’re actually pretty
stoked. You and Mikey would look really good together, you don’t even know.”
No, seriously. What the fuck? He hasn’t even actually officially come out and
his friends are imagining him have sex?
“There’s a difference between being gay and liking Mikey, okay?” Shit. It’s the
first time he’s said it out loud. It doesn’t seem as panic inducing as it
should be.
“Frankie, it’s like a math equation, right?”
Tina throws a cheeto at Tim. Out of all of them she’s the one that gets the
most annoyed when he gets drunk and starts rambling about code or homework he’s
particularly enjoyed. “You’re taking a double major of math and computers in
college. Of course it’s like a math equation.”
“I’m just saying if AC is Frank liking guys and AB is him wanting to hang out
with Mikey every day then BC is pretty obviously-”
“How about BC equals shut the fuck up you fucking fucktard?” Frank doesn’t care
how often he has to say it, there is a difference between him liking dudes and
him liking Mikey. Of course the cursing doesn’t put off his friends in the
least. They couldn’t really be his friends if swearing offended them.
“Okay lets analyse it, alright?” Claire pulls out her netbook. The school wifi
is notoriously shitty but she manages to load a page. “Read this.” Frank looks
at the title of the article; wikihow.com know if you have a crush on a guy.
Frank pushes the laptop across the table without looking at it. He doesn’t need
to start getting paranoid about his own reactions.
“Fine. If you talk to your friends about him a lot. If you’ve googled him or
looked for him on social networking websites. If you look forward to the class
you have with him. If you’re the first one to start a conversation with him.
If-”
Frank’s had enough. “I talk about him like you talk about your coworkers, Adam
or Sheena and I’m really not going to list all the motherfuckers off, but come
on. It was Last.FM, and we have a fucking common interest in music, so I
thought I could get more recs. I fucking like gym class, I don’t care if he’s
there. And I’m the first one to start a conversation because I’m the one that
always has to go get him from the library. Fuck you all, you’re all assholes.
I’ll be back in five minutes. Hambone, if you steal my pudding I will cut you
in half with a coin.”
He leaves his backpack at the table, knowing that they’ll still be there when
he gets back. The walk from the cafeteria to the library is short, a flight of
stairs and a turn around a corner. He doesn’t spend the time thinking about
what his friends are saying, because they’re all assholes.
Frank finds Mikey where he always finds him, at one of the tables in the
library. It would be retarded to think of it as their table, so he doesn’t.
Just like he doesn’t have a permanent claim to the Whack-A-Mole at the arcade
where he first met Hambone. That being clear, it is the table where they talked
for the first time. Or Frank talked, and Mikey gave him contact information.
Whatever.
Frank sneaks behind Mikey and pulls an earbud out. He recognises Where Eagles
Dare and utterly ignores any slight rumble his body may make. Having the same
brilliant taste in music doesn’t mean you’re soulmates. For all Frank knows,
even Rebekah, the girl who turned him gay, might have the proper Jersey pride
of loving the Misfits. Instead he chooses to sing along. There’s something
about signing ‘I aint no goddamn son of a bitch’ in the library that makes him
happy.
After the song finishes he says “I don’t get why you still come here every day.
You know we want you to sit with us.”
“I’m just used to this. Me and Gee would come here instead of the caf.” Frank
hopes he’s the kind of guy that comes home for the holidays. Mikey sort of
needs him to. His friends might think he’s talking about Mikey all the time,
but it’s nothing compared to Mikey with his brother. Almost everything in
Mikey’s life relates to Gerard, his name comes up a dozen times a night during
their instant messaging.
“Yeah, well, get used to the caf. You’re cutting into my precious eating time.
Come on, my sandwich is getting cold.” Frank watches Mikey toss his book into
his backpack, not bothering with a bookmark. The iPod gets a lot more care, he
takes the time to curl up his headphones before putting it in a front
compartment.
When they sit, Mikey’s across the table from him. Frank pulls out his paper bag
and notes that his pudding is still intact. So at least there’s that, that his
friends know when to back off. It’s that cocky thought that jinxes him.
“Mikey do you have a girlfriend?” Frank’s first urge to to slam his face
against the cafeteria table, his second is to punch Claire in the face. Sheer
self preservation is what stops him from doing either. Nosebleeds are stupid
unless they come from mosh pits, and not only would Neil need to beat the crap
out of him to defend Claire’s honor, Claire herself would also give him a epic
beatdown. She’s a bit obsessive with her smile ever since removing the braces,
she would slaughter him if he split her lip.
The third best option is defend Mikey from his friends’ stupidity. “Dude, he
had his mouth taped on gay silence day. Shit, he started gay silence day.”
“Fine. Agreed. Do you have a boyfriend?”
“Yes.” Frank turns to look at Mikey quick enough to get whiplash. It’s not like
he cares, he just thought it would have come up earlier if he had, so it’s a
bit of a shock. They’ve been hanging out and messaging for like two weeks now,
that’s sort of a first few days bit of information. “His name is Klaus. He’s in
his forties and got this great chest of hair. He’s really into leather.”
Frank is not staring in horror. He’s not. Mikey can be into whatever he’s into.
Mikey bursts into laughter. “Oh man, you should see your faces. No, I totally
don’t.”
“Klaus?” Shaun questions.
“You don’t think? I thought it sounded like the perfect leather daddy.”
“What about Randolph?”
Frank stays out of the conversation, just takes a bite of his sandwich and
considers himself lucky to get out of it that fast. Which is why a minute later
over Zoe arguing hard for Roger, Tina says “Mikey, you have our blessing for
whoever you want to date.” Because that’s what happens when he gets complacent.
“What are you, a fucking priest?” Frank snaps. Just because his friends are
assholes that don’t know what they’re talking about doesn’t mean Mikey should
have to be inflicted.
“Cool. You have my blessing for dating Shaun.” Frank thinks he loves Mikey a
little bit. Not for real, or anything. Just because he’s able to handle his
friends and their crap. It’s pretty amazing.
*
Frank loves his spare. To be honest, he loves all his classes first semester,
he’s got the best possible schedule. When the worst thing he’s got is a slacker
cooking class that he can spend talking to Joe, it’s obvious things are pretty
sweet. But there’s something about having a free forty five minutes to do
whatever the fuck you want that’s awesome.
Before meeting Mikey, four days a week it was time to head downstairs to the
cafeteria and play cards, the last day being left for trying to rush a project
due the next day when he had a busy evening of moshing in a pit with Hambone
and Shaun planned. But now there’s Mikey, and Frank has been spending all his
time in the library. Mikey’s got ‘study hall’, which is the politically correct
term they give ‘the nutjob needs less pressure’. You can only take study hall
after meeting with a guidance counsellor. He hasn’t asked Mikey how he got it,
figures it’s not his business unless Mikey tells him.
It’s weird though. Most people that get study hall just use it as another
spare, a time to fuck off and be with friends. Mikey doesn’t. Every day Frank
can find him in the library, headphones on. Sometimes he’s working on homework,
sometimes he’s reading a book or just sitting with his eyes closed listening to
his music. He’s always alone. Frank doesn’t understand it. It’s not like
there’s any reason for him to be a loner. He’s funny online, has a great taste
in videos and links. And it’s not like he’s people shy; when Frank drags him to
the cafeteria each day he talks to all of them without a problem.
So three weeks in, and no closer to understanding, Frank does what he always
does when he doesn’t understand something. He asks, as bluntly as possible.
“So, you’ve got no friends, huh?”
Mikey flashes him the quickest of smiles before shaking his head. “I’ve got no
school friends. There’s a difference.”
Frank’s a flurry of emotions. He’s happy, because it sucks when he imagines
Mikey sitting at home, alone, waiting for Gerard to sign in or call him. He’s
curious as hell. He’s even the slightest bit pissed, because getting
information shouldn’t be like extracting teeth. It didn’t take Joe three weeks
to tell him that he hangs out with Pete, Patrick, and Andy. When they became
cooking buddies in junior year, they were telling each other about stoned
adventures with friends within twenty minutes. “Well, you show me yours and
I’ll show you mine.”
“I’ve met all your friends.”
“My point exactly, fucker. Show me who you’re hanging out with after you log
off.” Frank could almost set his watch by it, at nine thirty Mikey says gotta
go and signs off. It’s never earlier, it’s sometimes a bit later, but he’s
always gone by ten.
“Fine. Email me your address, and be ready at ten.” Frank starts to tell him
where he lives and Mikey shakes his head. “Email me it, I need to mapquest.”
Frank’s parents are usually pretty decent about him going out. Their stance on
it is most likely formed after having conversations about it on Sunday morning,
because in the end everything goes back to heavenly advice for them. It's
simple; they don’t care where he goes or how long he’s out, as long as he’s in
bed to be woken up for breakfast before school. They don’t ask what his plans
are as he waits by the door, which is good, considering he has no idea what
Mikey’s friends like to do. Frank imagines Mikey hangs out with a lot of
musicians, that he’s in a different band for every day of the week. He’s varied
enough in his tastes that it’s entirely possible, and at this point it wouldn’t
surprise Frank to find out Mikey’s a music prodigy and can play ten
instruments, and he just hasn’t told anyone. A car pulls in front of the house,
horn blaring at the same time that his cell buzzes. Frank shouts bye to his
parents, already halfway out the door.
Mikey’s car is disgusting. It looks like he lives in it, except if someone
actually lived in their car they’d have to keep things packed neatly to fit
everything they’d need. It’s probably more accurate to say it looks like he
lives in his car, if his house/car was in tornado alley and had just been taken
out. Frank stands with the passenger door open, staring. There’s no way he’s
sitting on the seat, with everything that’s on it, if only because he sees the
glint of burned CDs and he doesn’t want to crack them.
Mikey rolls his eyes, stretches out his hand and grabs a handful of the papers
and wrappers. He tosses them into the back seat. Literally tosses, just
stretches his hand until it’s a bit past the headrest and flicks his wrist.
It’s a rain of crap. He has to do it twice more before the seat is clear and
Frank can sit. At his feet are no less than four half empty bottles of coke,
and a bunch of coffee cups. Frank can only pray Mikey finished drinking them
before he chucked the paper cup onto the floor.
Frank doesn’t recognise the song playing, but he likes it. It’s metal, fast
enough to get his leg jittering to the beat.
Mikey looks over at him. He looks different. Happier. More confident. It’s hard
to say how Frank knows, because it’s not like Mikey’s grinning or wearing a
cocky smirk, but Frank can tell. “You want to go to a bar or a rave?”
“What?” Frank tries to remember their conversation during his spare. He doesn’t
know it word for word, but he’s sure they were talking about meeting friends,
not going to listen to a band.
“Well there are a few good places, and a few more if you’ve got a fake id-” of
course he does, he couldn’t see half the concerts he does if he didn’t “but
I’ve gotten a few texts about this awesome rave, so.”
“What do you want?”
“You pick.”
Frank scowls. This isn’t supposed to be about him. This is supposed to be
meeting Mikey’s fucking friends, and how the hell is Frank supposed to know
where they’re chilling tonight? But he’s never been to a rave before, never
hung out with the kind of people that would know where to find one. So that’s
what he picks, and Mikey smiles a bit as he checks his phone for directions.
Twenty minutes later they’re parking a few blocks away from the location, so
nobody notices the herd of cars and calls the cops. Mikey informs him that it’s
pretty much inevitable that the cops will be called, but the longer it gets put
off the better. And that he shouldn’t worry, there are always a few of the DJ’s
friends sitting around the location to warn everyone when they need to bail.
Frank’s never been arrested, but he trusts Mikey when he says he’s been to more
than he can count and he’s never been taken in. The worst they do to the
participants is demand they leave, apparently.
It still doesn’t quite hit him what they’re doing until Mikey clomps up the
steps of a abandoned elementary school. It’s fucking creepy as hell. The
windows are covered in grime. Frank nearly kills himself when part of the
broken concrete shifts under him, only a quick grip onto the dirty railing
saves him. Mikey’s nicer than Neil, he doesn’t snicker at him for the lack of
smooth moves. Frank considers it partially Mikey’s fault anyway. He didn’t
really notice in the car, but now that he’s three steps lower than him, it’s
easy to see the skin tight jeans tucked into high leather boots with big soles
and silver clasps. Frank doesn’t really consider himself to have a thing for
feet, but Mikey looks fucking good.
The door is open when Mikey tugs on it, Frank notices a heavy chain on the
concrete side of the threshold. He takes a second to wonder if it still counts
as B&E if you’re the hundredth person to enter and it’s already broken, then
decides he’s already committed and puts it out of his head.
Mikey checks his phone again. “It’s supposed to be in one of the classrooms.”
They search the school until they can hear music thumping behind a door, window
covered to bar peeking in. When Frank twists the handle and walks in it’s like
falling into another universe. Suddenly Mikey’s outfit looks tame, there are
people in fur and ratty denim and purposely torn gauze all around him. He’s had
the ‘walking into a wall of sound’ experience before, it’s present at the
better concerts. But it’s the first time it’s been techno, the first time he
can’t identify why the floor is vibrating instead of just blaming the drums or
bass guitar.
Things only get weirder from there. He stands to the side as Mikey starts
conversations with people that Frank can’t hear from two feet away. Not that it
matters, probably. Most of them look blazed out of their minds. Mikey and the
girl with the pumpkin coloured hair are probably just saying the same stupid
crap that he and Tim and Kelly talk about when they’re stoned. He ends up
following Mikey for a good half hour as he gives his hellos. Mikey is fucking
mingling, there’s no other word for it. It’s not that Frank begrudges him for
it, it’s just surprising.
Finally they’re standing across the room from the DJ, and a gorgeous black guy
comes up and slides the stem of a plastic flower into Mikey’s pocket, the
petals arching away from his body obscenely. “I’m gonna dance, you want to-”
Mikey shouts over the music.
Frank shakes his head. He doesn’t know how to dance to this. It’s not bad
sounding, but it doesn’t crawl into his bones like a drum solo does. Never mind
screaming, there’s no fucking lyrics at all, just synthesizers. Mikey shrugs at
him and follows the guy. Frank leans against the wall, head pressed against a
poster of alphabet. He’s cool with just watching.
As it turns out, there’s a lot to watch. Mikey only dances with the black guy
for a little bit -it’s impossible to tell how long it’s been, there are no
breaks between songs, it’s a never ending thump- before moving on to another,
and then another. Each guy he dances with grabs his ass, or his hips, unless
their arms are up in the air. Each guy Mikey picks he kisses, hands sliding
into curls or afros or dreds or obvious wigs. He doesn’t hold back at all, and
it’s uncomfortable watching him but Frank can’t look away. He’s seen his
friends stoned and get into some heavy petting while watching a movie, but he’s
never watched someone kiss like a dozen guys.
Eventually Mikey breaks away. Frank loses him in the crowd, until he’s coming
back to lean with him. He’s got a bottle of water in hand, and after chugging
half of it he gives it to Frank. Frank doesn’t need it, he’s not the one that’s
been dancing for nearly two hours, but he takes a sip anyway.
“Wow. You make out with a lot of guys, huh?”
Mikey shrugs. Really, it’s not like his clothes are that much different from
school. Crazy boots or not, it’s still tight jeans, band shirt a size too small
and a belt with a great buckle. But they look different now, sticking to him
with sweat.
“If I wasn’t here would you be hooking up with one of them?” Frank is just
curious if he’s being a cock block, honestly. He doesn’t care if Mikey’s been
with the entire bar. He’s fucking hot enough to have been; this is clearly
Mikey’s element. It doesn’t come out sounding that way, like simple curiosity.
It sounds jealous, or protective, or some shit. Fuckin’ weird. He wants to
apologise for the tone, but thinks that would make it even weirder.
“No man. I don’t go home with anyone.” Which is a totally evasive answer, but
it’s not like Frank cares. But not only has he lost control of his inflection,
apparently he’s also lost his face too. Mikey clarifies for him. “A grope, a
handjob in the bathroom, his car maybe. Nothing more important.”
Frank has no idea how to respond to that. “Oh. Cool. Well, keep on-” he waves
his hand towards the mash of people to finish his sentence.
“I know you don’t know them. But I could get Jillie or Kenna to dance, if you
wanted.”
“What? No. Homphobia is gay, remember?”
“You can be supportive without being gay.” Mikey says evenly before taking
another sip of water.
“Yeah, and you can also be supportive ‘cause you want to have sex with guys.
But before you list off a few guys, just no. I’d rather just. Just go have fun,
fuck.” He waves his arm again and this time Mikey takes him up on it. Frank
bites his lip when Mikey pours some of the water on a redhead in a white shirt
and they start to grind together. He needs a fucking drink. A drink or a smoke.
But it’s highly fucking unlikely that this group has anything but MDMA and meth
in their systems.
He needs a drink, or a smoke, or to get the fuck out. Frank takes another look
at the writhing happy mass, not a nosebleed or thrown elbow in sight. He can’t
fucking do this. He takes a step forward, about to let Mikey know he’s leaving,
then thinks better of it. There’s no sense in interrupting Mikey’s fun. Frank
walks a couple of blocks before calling a cab. A cab dispatched to an abandoned
school is probably pretty fishy. He doesn’t want to be the reason the cops
come.
*
Frank doesn’t know why Mikey is waiting beside his locker. Hell, he didn’t even
know Mikey knew where his locker was. As far as he can remember he never
visited it while with Mikey. That’s the secondary issue though, the primary of
course being the way Mikey is standing with his arms crossed. He doesn’t even
have his earbuds in.
“What the fuck.” Sometimes it’s really aggravating how flat Mikey can make his
voice. Frank’s seen him get excited, on occasion, but for the most part he’s
flat-toned. The words don’t sound like a question, they don’t sound mad or
curious. They’re just three words, and Frank doesn’t know what to do with them.
Not that he should have to do anything. In his point of view, things are pretty
simple. He took a cab home, on the way texting Mikey once to tell him to not
look for him when he decided to leave because he wasn’t there. He didn’t
respond to Mikey’s texts back, because it was late and he needed to sleep. Even
if he didn’t actually fall asleep for a few hours, trying to compose a sentence
would have only woken up his brain further.
“Was that seriously a big deal for you?”
Frank just looks at him, because what the fuck. How is he supposed to answer
that question? He’s only got a second to stare though, before Mikey is closing
in on him. Mikey’s hands are on the hem of his shirt, his lips starting a
smooth kiss. For a moment Frank is stunned. And then a wise voice in the back
of his head screams at him to seize the day motherfucker because who knows if
this will ever happen again, and regardless of all his denials to his friends
over the last week, in the moment of truth, with Mikey’s lips on his, he wants
this. So Frank opens his mouth a bit and does his best to slide his tongue in
without jabbing at Mikey’s teeth or something else equally stupid.
It takes a minute for him to really get into it, but once he’s over the shock
his hands go to Mikey’s ass. Mikey’s wallet is between his hand and his left
check but the right Frank can get a bit of a grip on.
And then Mikey’s pulling away. He smiles for a brief second. “See? No big
deal.”
Frank smiles back, ignoring the piece of him that’s crumpling like a piece of
notebook paper. “No big. Hey, I gotta write my homework questions before class
starts. I’ll see you at lunch. You could try coming to the caf yourself, you
know.” By now it’s like a private joke, having to track him down every day.
It’s quite possible that Frank has homework he hasn’t done for Spanish. He
doesn’t know, and he doesn’t care. What’s far more important is writing a list
of reasons why it really is a big deal, actually, thanks. It’s shaping up to be
a nice list.
-my first kiss with my preffered gender
-best kiss i’ve gotten
-took place in the hall so people saw will ask
-didn’t care that people saw, makes me a pervert?
-i want to kiss him again
-makes me want to tell him to not kiss others
-thought of others kissing him makes me want to kill them
He’s scrawling out his eighth no, really, kill them dead when Mrs Aguirre comes
up to him. She peers at his notebook and says in her clipped accented voice
“This doesn’t look like notes Mr Iero.”
Frank hates the way adults only use your last name like it’s a threat. It’s
stupid and annoying. It’s almost like when parents use your full name when
they’re angry, except worse because Frank actually sometimes gives a shit if
his parents are angry, and seeing as they’re his parents, they have the right
to use his name how they please. A teacher trying to threaten him with his
family name is fucking dumb.
He should just apologise. He knows he should. It’s not like he’s the first
person in the world to be caught writing something other than notes. Shit, Zoe
was telling a story about almost getting caught writing smut a few days ago.
But the frustration of last night combines with the frustration of the kiss and
the stupidity of names being threats and Frank doesn’t deal well with
frustration. Instead of a muttered sorry he says clearly “Would you like it
better if I’d written it in Spanish? I could do that. Quiero besarlo otra vez,
alright?”
“Mr Iero, your smart mouth has earned you a detention.” Wow, that’s just
fucking great. Because nobody will notice and ask him what happened at all! He
won’t have to avoid explaining to John why he doesn’t need a ride, and he won’t
have to think up some bullshit excuse to give his parents about being about an
hour and a half late, between the detention and the bus he’ll have to take.
Fuck.
The moment Spanish is done Frank books it for the smoking doors. He’s never
needed a cigarette more in his life. It takes his lighter three slides of the
wheel to actually create fire, though he’s convinced his creative swearing is
what finally gets it going. It sputters out before he can get the end lit, and
a torrent of words not approved by the FCC come out. Victoria takes pity on him
and cups her hand around his face so he can light it without the wind blowing
it out. He appreciates the move, and knows that he should probably work on his
smokers karma. Just not today. Today, if any fucker tries to bum a smoke
without at least offering a dollar to recompense him he’s going to drop kick
them.
The smoke fills his lungs and for brief seconds Frank forgets how utter shit
his life is. He balances his backpack on the bike stand and pulls out his
morning binder. It’s harder to balance it on top of his backpack, but he’s
fucked if he’s going to stub out his cigarette so he can use two hands. Finally
he’s able to get the whipping in the wind papers open to the Spanish section.
He rips out the page and clicks his lighter a few more times until a weak flame
comes out of the Bic. He holds the corner to the flame. It goes up in an arch,
a fiery rainbow. Fuck everything on it. Mikey kissing a guy means nothing to
him, so it needs to mean nothing to Frank. Even when it’s him. If he loses this
friendship because he’s an asshole it will suck, so he needs to man up about
this.
*
If there’s one truth Frank holds to his heart, it’s that those that are head
over heels in love with Christmas are jerks. Not that he’s got anything against
Christmas, per se. It’s just everyone claims it’s the best holiday ever, and
Frank gets a bit sick of their lies. Frank’s got an entire mental list of
reasons that Halloween is the best day ever. He even wrote it out once, for the
daily journal they had to have in sixth grade.
A lot of parents let their child skip school on their birthday. Frank’s known
John forever, and in the twelve years they’ve been going to school together, he
hasn’t seen him sitting in a desk once. His parents like to take him to the
movies on the fourteenth. They do their best to see everything in the theatre,
carefully scheduling a restaurant dinner between two of the movies with a
bigger wait time. Frank’s parents are different. His skipping class is entirely
without their knowledge, and he’s never actually ditched an entire day.
But, thanks to the special fact that his birthday is the thirty first of
October, it doesn’t matter. There’s no real schooling at school on Halloween.
When he was younger it was all about the different classes having their time to
march around the gymnasium, the way the locker room was changed into a pitch
black monster house, having worksheets for English asking them to list all the
words they know with double ee’s. Now that he’s older, everyone is just
preoccupied trying to figure out where to go and what to do. No teacher really
tries to get them to focus. Twelve grades and preschool, and it’s always almost
a free day.
Frank gets a lot of shit for his build. His Aunt Catalina calls him ‘the wee
one’, they didn’t want him trying out for track because he was too short for
any of the jumping, and sometimes the asshole carnies actually make him stand
against the fucking pointing clowns before they let him on the ride. The only
time it doesn’t bother him is Halloween. Common social knowledge states you
need to stop trick or treating when you hit puberty. The only teenagers that go
are the jerkoffs just looking for an excuse to egg a house when the adult
refuses to give them candy. But not Frank. Dressed up, he’s short enough that
if he goes to a neighbourhood where they don’t know him, he can still be a
twelve year old. Which is still bordering on too old, but most houses will
still give him candy.
He’s got two costumes. He’s got the costume he puts on after John drops him
off. It’s always something age diminishing, like Transformers or Power Rangers.
Something that tells the stranger at the door he buses to so he can be out of
his area that yes, he really is a socially retarded pre-teen that needs mini
chocolate bars. When he finally buses back home -not until he’s got a grocery
bag of chocolate and candy and licorice in each hand- it’s time to dress up for
the rest of the night.
The night’s usually on a tight schedule, but Frank has just enough time between
changing and calling John or Tina to get a ride to whatever they’ve decided is
the master plan to sit down with his parents. They never make him have a full
dinner, they’re perfectly aware that he spent the entire bus trip sorting
through his bags and eating every Snickers he collected. But there is cake,
delicious orange flavoured cake. Every year they use the same candles, with the
additional one pressed into the icing. It’s funny how after seventeen years
some are nearly nubs.
Once he’s got the last crumbs of the cake wiped up with a licked thumb, an ETA
of five minutes from Shaun, who answered Tina’s phone, Frank goes upstairs.
It’s hard to find a place to hide his mickey in his Freddy Krueger costume, but
he’ll need it. The papers and pot goes in his other pocket, and he runs down
the stairs. There’s no sense in taking a jacket, being cold for the car ride is
better than getting it jacked or puked on at whoever’s house. Or hell, at the
last house party Alex Marshall got into a fist fight when he went into the
bedroom and two people were fucking on top of the heap of jackets. Frank’s not
planning on blood or come stains, thanks.
After they arrive, it’s mutually decided between the nine of them that two am
is the agreed upon leaving time. No matter how drunk, stoned, or fucked up, at
two it’s time to go to the cars. If you want to go home earlier or stay later,
then you’re taking on the responsibility of finding your own way home. A mass
text will be sent out to anyone that doesn’t show up at the cars, but after ten
minutes tough shit. Frank can deal with that. Worst comes to worst, he gets to
crash on Elisa’s basement floor with twenty other people and take first bus
home after a nap.
At one thirty, Frank staggers into the kitchen. Like always, his presents are
sitting on the table, shiny wrapped boxes covering the place mats. Frank grins
when he sees them, but decides to save them for the morning. His joy threshold
has been exceeded, and even world peace and a lifetime’s supply of weed won’t
make life more brilliant. Better to save them until the morning, when he has a
hangover and still needs to go to fucking Spanish class.
He pours a glass of grape juice and takes it upstairs with him, careful to not
jostle the cup as he climbs. He has neither the patience nor the clear eyesight
to mop up a spill right now.
Once in his room he pulls out his phone. He considers a mass text, but in the
end keeps it to the guys. Kelly, at least, will not be impressed with what he’s
about to send, and he doesn’t need anyone killing his glee. So he types in
John, Neil, Tim and Shaun as recipients and sends so found another reason why
halloween is the best holiday ever
Shaun texts him back first, the reply also sent to all of them. w?
It’s only eight letters, but it’s the sweetest eight letters in the world.
handjobs.
A minute later Zoe texts him, email me the story or so help me god i will.
dunno. fill in appropriate threat here.
Okay. So maybe it’s a bit creepy. But it’s not like he doesn’t want to brag,
and the guys won’t fully understand the awesomeness of it. Or rather, they
surely must understand how completely awesome a very first handjob is. But they
won’t want details, just like how he’s never really wanted details of what
Claire feels like riding Neil. He thought it was some sort of riding a high
horse ‘I respect her more than you respect her’ thing, but now it’s obvious
it’s not. He respects the shit out of Mikey, that’s why he wants everyone to
know. Because having sex with someone you actually fucking care about proves
that they’re awesome. Or something. Whatever, he doesn’t need to justify it, if
it was something new and exciting for Mikey he’s sure Mikey would be IMing
Gerard.
The keyboard is possibly not the easiest thing to see. The letters are half
worn off, A and E and L completely gone. But spellcheck kindly underlines his
mistakes, and Frank actually takes the time to fix them. After all, there’s no
sense in telling a story if it’s not comprehensible.
so i was talking to beckie about something, this girl in my psychology class.
mikey came up, he was like i have an important horror movie question. so i told
him to go ahead and ask, and he told me that it was a conversation that would
be better over a smoke. so we went outside and he lit my cigarette for me, i
didn’t know he smoked, i’ve never seen him at the smoking doors. but whatever
that’s not the point. he took a drag and gave it back to me, and as i was
smoking it he asked if i thought if freddy krueger had gotten laid in hell,
would he have been pissed enough to have come back and started murdering
people? so i pointed out that freddy was a pedophile, so i didn’t really want
to think about him having sex. and he told me that that was a good point, and
also that freddy probably would have had a hard time giving a handjob with his
hands the way they were. and before i had time to point out that he didn’t have
his hands like that until he came back from hell anyway, mikey grinned and said
that jason didn’t have the same problem.
dude, i didn’t even know he was jason. he was wearing a really ratty jacket,
but he didn’t have the mask or a cleaver. i guess he left it in the house
somewhere, or on Elisa’s bed with the rest of everyone’s crap.
anyway, he said that jason didn’t have the same problem, and then he stuck his
hand down my jeans. he pressed me against the house, the stucco was sharp and
cold as fuck, but it was totally worth it. he jerked me off, then scraped his
hand on the side of the house. i asked him if he wanted me to do it back, i
guess it was a stupid question, nobody’s really gonna say no, are they, but he
looked at my kick ass gloves and said he liked his dick not sliced up. not that
they were knives anyway, but i guess he was trying to give me an out? but i
just took them off and give him one back.
so yeah. pretty fucking kick ass. clear proof halloween totally owns every
other holiday. hope you have a equally good time with hambone. handjobs for
everyone! is it a handjob when it’s a girl? or is that just fingering.
whatever. point is, have a good night. i’m gonna crash now.
Frank double checks that it’s being sent to Zoe and just Zoe. Not that he’s
afraid to come out to everyone at school, but a, Mikey might not want something
like this broadcast, and b, he’s got sensitive email addresses. Like his uncle,
who sends him shit about the football pool, as though Frank cares. The account
is in the clear, so he presses send, drains his juice, and strips down. He
needs to sleep off the alcohol as best he can before school the next morning.
*
Frank’s never actually been out of Jersey. He’s never had a summer road trip
with his parents, or thought to tag along when his cousins had theirs. So even
though the buses are only taking them forty five minutes away, it’s still
exciting. It’s fucking New York, if you’re not excited you don’t have a soul.
However, he seems to be alone in his opinion, nobody else is jittering in their
seat. A lot of the seniors didn’t even care enough to want to come. Of the
approximate five hundred seniors, they’ve got a little less than two hundred
spread through the three buses.
Frank thinks the downers can fuck off. If they’ve got such a shitty attitude
it’s better that they’re not coming. He knows the truth; that one could be in
New York City for a month and not see everything, never mind just the six days
they’ve got. Which is why each of the six staff are leading their own tour,
with a few parent volunteers to help. They’ve got art, theatre, music, sports,
shopping, and landmarks. It wasn’t really a question between them, Frank, John,
Tim, and Mikey are obviously going to go on the music tour. How could one be in
New York and not go to the place that CBGB’s used to be and spit on the fashion
connoisseurs inside?
For a minute though, it had been debated. Tim wanted landmarks, because he
plans on moving to New York and doesn’t want to be a gawker once he gets there,
he wants to see all there is to see as a tourist beforehand. Frank almost
signed up for the theatre tour, just to see how the Cobras would react. And he
knows that Mikey nearly went with the art tour. Frank wouldn’t have complained,
he understands Mikey’s need to understand everything Gerard does. But he’s
happy that when the three of them decided on music as their mutual interest,
Mikey went with them.
Mr Figero rises to his feet and calls for quiet. Once the bus is as quiet as a
bus of seventy teenagers is going to get, he speaks. “Attention students. As a
treat we are letting you pick your own roommates. Be responsible with your
choices, you’re not switching rooms if you get into a bicker with one of them.
And keep in mind it’s four to a room. New York City hotels are expensive enough
without not filling a room. It goes without saying all four in a room are the
same gender.”
Gabe stands up and Frank leans into the aisle more so he can get a clear view
of whatever is about to happen. Whatever it is, he’s sure it’s going to be
good. Gabe says “excuse me, but why? If it’s to prevent sexual misconduct, I
have to say that’s very ignorant of you. As Mr Marks can attest to, our protest
revealed we have a significant faction of gay, lesbian, and bisexual students.
To assume that just because it is all the same gender in the room means there
can’t be sexual feelings is simply ludicrous.”
“Ohhh, way to get your lawyer on,” somebody cat calls. Frank’s expecting a
flourish, a wave or a tiny bow, but Gabe stands with strong posture, seemingly
intent on Mr Figero’s answer.
Instead of the short bald man struggling for a response, it’s Mr Marks that
answers. “While I appreciate your activism, the majority of the students do
happen to be nearer the straight side of the sexuality continuum. Our rooming
arrangements stand.”
“But sir-” Gabe starts. Ryland reaches up from the bus bench and tugs him back
down into the seat. Frank scowls. It could have gotten really good.
*
A few hours ago Frank felt torn between sad that Neil was too crazy to come and
Shaun didn’t want to come and happy that that meant Mikey could room with them.
Sure it was Shaun’s decision. Like everything else in Tina’s life her parents
are controlling her through lavish rewards, in this case bribing her with a
fully paid education as long as she goes to one of the schools they’ve
selected. All the applications she sent out were really theirs, and none of
them were places Shaun applied to. Since they only have until the end of the
summer to be together, he understand why Shaun would blow off a trip to New
York. Those seniors that stayed home don’t have class, which means Shaun’s got
over a hundred hours to spend with Tina. Neil had never been a question, he’s
not even going to university because his agoraphobia is so bad. But it still
made him sad to know that he wouldn’t get this experience with all his friends.
Now there’s no question. Fuck Shaun and fuck Neil. Mikey is in his room. Mikey
is making out with him, and that’s something that never would have happened
with Shaun. In the two weeks since his birthday they’ve had a lot of
encounters. Mikey drives him home instead of John, and usually Mikey will find
a back lane to pull into so they can get each other off. Then Frank goes to
chill with his boys and girls, and Mikey goes out. They’ve got a friends with
benefits thing going on, and while it’s not everything, it’s better than
nothing. It’s more benefits than he gets with Hambone.
Frank’s in just his boxers, lying on his side. Mikey’s close enough that he can
feel his erection through the two layers of fabric. Their hands are chaste, but
their hips are rocking. From the way Mikey’s kissing him he thinks they’re
going to do this even with John and Tim in the bed beside them. But they’re
sleeping, so it’s okay. It’s not wrong if they don’t know it’s happening.
“Frank do you want a blowjob?” Frank’s first reaction is probably the typical
reaction of every teenage male ever. He gets even harder and the only word on
the tip of his tongue is ‘duh’. Then Frank’s human brain comes back and writes
over his caveman brain. It’s not just a question, it’s a question that means
something.
“You don’t do blowjobs.” Frank’s a bit of a masochist, or at the very least
he's trying his best to stay a realist. Whenever he starts to care about Mikey
he asks for details about one of the nights Mikey’s spent out. He can’t afford
to mix up what they have with what he wants. Mikey probably thinks he’s some
sort of audio-voyeur, but it’s better than falling head over heels. So he knows
in the three years he’s been going out Mikey’s only given two blowjobs.
“Yeah. I don’t. But I want to for you.” Mikey deliberately grinds his dick
against Frank’s. It’s enough to make his eyes water. “I mean, I’m obviously
hoping you reciprocate. Like the ancient judges used to say, an eye for an eye,
head for head, but you don’t have to.”
Frank’s not sure if he wants to. Not because he’s a scared oral virgin, and not
because he’s ashamed of doing it with his friends across the room. It’s just it
will be so much easier to ascribe meaning to this that isn’t there. “Uh.”
Mikey pushes his hips forward again. “Frank, you know I haven’t touched a guy
in a week, right?”
How the hell would he know that? He can’t go out with Mikey. He hasn’t since
the first night in the abandoned school. It’s too depressing. Also, the
statement doesn’t make sense at all. Frank’s seen him in gym and at lunch every
day, he’s been in perfect health. “You didn’t go out?”
“No, I did. I just didn’t hook up.”
Granted, Frank’s only known Mikey about two months. But he’s had the same
habits ingrained since fourteen, fresh on the scene. “Why not?”
“I like you.” Mikey rolls his hips like Frank is a fucking hoola hoop. “I like
you enough to want to blow you. So?”
Which is exactly the fucking problem. He likes him enough. But everything is
piling in on the other side, he’s hard and Mikey’s hard and blinking at him
like an owl without his glasses. It’s the first time he’s seen Mikey without
them on, and it’s a heavy weight on the ‘go ahead’ side of the scale. Frank
collapses. Mikey only wants him enough, but at least Mikey’s a good guy to have
a first time with.
In one quick move he pulls away from Mikey, tugs the covers over his head, and
shimmies down the bed. Like an ostrich, if he can’t see John and Tim they can’t
see him. Mikey arches his hips so Frank can slide down his underwear, and then
that’s it. There’s nothing left to do but go down on him.
Frank’s got a urge to wake up Neil and ask him if there’s so mathematical
equation that can explain how something that seems normally sized when in hand
is ridiculously large when in a mouth. Because, god, he’s not even getting his
lips to slide down more than half way before it triggers his gag reflex. Frank
doesn’t pull off to puke, he’s a teenager that can handle his alcohol. But it’s
not very fucking impressive. He sort of feels like he should be apologising for
the shitty work.
Mikey doesn’t seem to think so, a fact which is made obvious when Mikey comes
in his mouth. Without warning Frank first, nothing so much as a tug on his
hair. It’s not that it’s bad, it’s sort of like liquid salt, it’s just shitty
manners. Frank punches Mikey in the thigh to let him know it’s not cool.
Of course, then Mikey moves down the bed and pushes him into a sitting up
position, legs out in a v, Mikey between them. As soon as Mikey’s mouth
descends Frank completely forgets about anything other than ‘if I scream
they’ll wake up and Mikey will probably stop’. His hands bunch in the mess of
sheet and comforter, he nearly bites a hole in his lip, but he manages to
prevent himself from rousing the entire hotel. He comes in what seems like
moments, stammering out an apology only after Mikey’s already swallowed.
“Whatever. I’m gonna crash now.” Mikey moves his arm in the bedding, picking
out the white briefs from the white sheets in the darkness like magic. He
performs a complicated movement that gets them back on without him having to
stand up, and flops back.
Frank casts an eye towards the bathroom, but in the end decides that lying down
is a better move. Each room is getting a phone call at quarter after seven, so
they can meet for continental breakfast. It’s currently after two AM. He scoots
to the left edge of the bed and expects Mikey to do the same on his edge.
That’s what guys that share beds do. Surely it still applies, even after having
sex with the guy. Instead Mikey inches in close enough to smell his breath.
“That was fun,” are Mikey’s last words before his breath evens out. Frank
whispers back ‘yeah,’ but he’s not sure Mikey hears him.
*
can i come pick you up?
Frank arches and tries to see around Neil and Claire to the alarm clock. When
even stretched he can’t see more than the top half of the numbers he hits his
pillow to compress it. It’s quarter after nine. He checks his phone again, in
case he got it wrong.
He didn’t, the message was from Mikey. Confused he texts back what? then its
like nine, we dont have time before and i dont want to go and lastly im at
neils youll get lost. It’s not that he’s against the concept of a booty call.
It’s just by the time Mikey drives over and they trade handjobs there will be a
line up at whatever club he’s going to, and he knows Mikey hates that. Mikey
likes to arrive early, so he can scout out his entertainment as the stranger
walks through the door.
On the other hand, Mikey might mean by his text is that he wants Frank to join
him. Frank has had to turn down a few invites, he thought enough by now to get
the point across that he’s not going to be coming out with Mikey to a place
that has a million temptations. Any chastity declaration made on their senior
trip Frank considers nullified. It’s been nearly three weeks, he knows from
hickies he hasn’t made that Mikey’s had other guys. The only thing worse than
knowing Mikey’s been having fun would be actually being ditched to witness it
at a club.
tell me where he lives Frank snorts, but sends the address. Unless he’s sitting
at his computer with mapquest on screen Mikey’s screwed. He snorts again when
Mikey texts back he knows where it is.
“Hey Frank?” He looks up from his phone over at Neil. “Guess how much snot I
like on my bed? None!”
“What a shocker!” Frank replies. He presses down on one nostril with his index
finger and makes as if to blow a chunk out. Neil dives over Claire to punch him
in the thigh. Claire responds by turning the volume of Family Guy up a few more
notches.
By the time they’re done wrestling, Franks’ got three messages from Mikey.
seriously, not gonna get lost, followed by would neil care and the last is no i
don’t feel like a club. can i come get you? because Mikey is bad for responding
to messages in reverse order.
Frank looks over at Neil and Claire. It’s not that he feels like a third wheel,
not really. Any time he goes over to one of his friends’ houses there’s a high
probability their girlfriend will be over too. And the girls are all his
friends too. Obviously if any of them broke up he’d choose John or Neil or
Shaun or Tim, but he can’t see it happening. Shaun and Tina know they’ve only
got until August so they’re trying to keep everything pleasant. Tim and Kelly
break up multiple times a day, and nothing ever comes of it. And he’s not the
only one that thinks John and Zoe will get married in ten years. While they’re
all happy with each other, Frank is happy to enjoy their happiness. He’s also
realistic, and knows that when he hangs out with a single couple, he’s being a
cock block. They care about him, but they won’t be upset if he leaves.
So Frank checks to make sure he has enough money for a cab, just in case it’s
some sort of trick to try to get him to come to a bar. Assured of his ability
to escape if need be, he texts back yes.
He waits for Mikey’s text of outside before leaving. They make a token protest,
but Frank’s willing to bet money that before he’s entirely down the sidewalk
they’re making out. He has to stand with his door on the handle while Mikey
throws his crap in the back, then drops in and clicks his seat belt closed.
“Where are we going?”
“Didn’t have a plan. Wanna Bonnie and Clyde it? Or Thelma and Louise?”
“I like that song!” Frank bursts into the chorus of the Horrorpops song and
Mikey twiddles his fingers on the steering wheel in the same beat, both of them
doing their own thing over the sounds of Daft Punk coming from the CD player.
It doesn’t surprise him at all that Mikey knows it, Mikey knows all the music
in the world.
They drive until Mikey pulls to a stop in front of a school. They idle for a
minute, Mikey’s silent and Frank’s not entirely sure why he’s stopped. Then he
says “Let’s hop the fence.” Frank scoffs for a second. It’s December eighth,
it’s a bit ridiculous. But Mikey is looking at him, shades of emotions that
Frank can’t really read on his face. For some reason Mikey wants this, and
Frank isn’t in the habit of telling his friends no.
It’s easy enough to scale it, it’s the drop to the ground that stings. He
scrapes his hand, but it’s not bad enough to bleed, so Frank considers it a
win. Mikey leads the way to the swings. The chill of the chain eats through his
actual gloves in seconds, he can’t imagine Mikey’s fingerless gloves are
helpful at all. But he’s not his fucking mother, and at least they’re both
wearing jackets. Mikey lights a cigarette and after he takes a drag he passes
it to Frank. They sit, silently passing it as they kick their legs, not enough
to really start swinging, but enough to sway. There’s this anticipation Frank
can feel crawling all over him, even though he doesn’t know what he could be
waiting for. He hopes they’re not going to have sex on the slide or something,
it seems wrong. Little kids play here, it’s bad enough that they’re going to
infect the air with tar and ammonia and whatever the other poisonous
ingredients are in his smokes. At least he’s going to stick the butt in his
pocket once he’s done. If they come on something, Frank’s got no way of
cleaning it up.
“So, yeah,” Mikey starts, almost like he’s picking up on a conversation they
had earlier, “I was thinking we should be boyfriends.”
“What?” Frank nearly falls off the swing.
“Well, I’m only getting off with you.”
Mikey lying to him is bullshit, he’s seen the fucking hickies, but Frank
doesn’t want to get into it right now. So he swerves around it with “don’t
forget to add the part where we’re truly madly deeply in love each other.”
He picks up on the reference Frank didn’t even mean to make. “I’ll be your
hope, I’ll be your love, be everything that you need? Yeah, that could work.”
“You don’t need to say you want me forever to get a second blowjob.” Frank
snaps. Bottom line, Frank cannot tolerate a friends with benefits relationship
that mocks love. It’s cruel and awful and he just fucking won’t. Even if saying
no to sex means that things with Mikey are entirely fucked forever, it’s the
one line he can’t cross.
Mikey reaches over and shoves his shoulder hard, making the swing turn
awkwardly with the force. “Assface. I fucking like you, okay.”
Somehow it’s easier to believe it at eleven at night freezing his balls off in
a elementary school than it is in a hotel bed in New York. “Okay.”
He doesn’t have an explanation for the bruises littering Mikey’s neck, but
chalks it up to the past. He doesn’t care about what Mikey used to do, doesn’t
even care if Mikey had a orgy while he was watching cartoons with Neil and
Claire. It doesn’t matter any more, now that Mikey is his. At least, Frank
assumes that’s what boyfriends means to Mikey. He’s never had a conversation
about it, if the Klaus thing doesn’t count. “Monogamous?”
“Of course. Assface,” he adds, almost as an afterthought, before shoving at the
swing again.
“If that’s going to be my pet name, can I just suggest that cupcake and
sweetums are far more pleasant?”
This time he entirely expects the shove and jumps off the swing to avoid it.
Instead he grabs a freezing chain with each hand to stop Mikey from moving,
bends down, and kisses him. A real kiss, a you’re fuckin’ mine, now kiss. Mikey
doesn’t seem to disapprove.
*
With great power comes responsibility. Frank might not actually like Spiderman
-honestly, who would? He seems like a bit of a bitch, all ‘whyyyy me’ all the
time. He needs to man up and accept his destiny.- but he’s a teenage male, and
there is a state regulation that half his thoughts must be pop culture related.
Quality of a tv show or film had nothing to do with being able to quote it. So
Frank knows Spiderman quotes, and uses them when relevant. Similarly, with
great boyfriend comes the need to show him off. And that is a far harder
prospect than Peter Parker has in saving people; Frank doesn’t have any
radioactive insects to help him. But because he’s a real man, not a bitch, he’s
going to do what he’s got to do.
It’s not like his friends don’t know how awesome Mikey is, they’ve been having
lunches together for almost four months. Still, right now Mikey is just a dude
that they eat lunch with while poking at Frank to make a move. They all know
about Halloween. While he only sent Zoe the email, he’s utterly positive she
sent it to everyone else. He hadn’t told them about any of the rest of it, they
would have only given him stupid advice about telling Mikey about his needs.
Frank doesn’t regret not telling them. Things worked out perfectly without
having to have awkward clingy conversations, and there’s no telling if Mikey
would have shied away from it earlier.
The night before, after they blew each other in the car, Frank asked Mikey to
let him handle things. Mikey shrugged, and nothing was brought up during lunch.
But when Zoe texts him to let him know that there’s an Xbox party and he’s
invited, Frank takes the opportunity to call Mikey and ask if he’s doing
anything.
Zoe’s place is the best for video games. The Epsteins have every console known
to man, every game ever produced, and not one, but two large screen tvs on
opposite sides of the basement. Apparently there used to be epic battles
between Zoe and Zacharias about whether a zombie game or a sports game was the
better way to spend the night, and the parents decided to solve the problem by
throwing money at it. If Frank had a sibling, he’s pretty sure his parents
would first consult their church group, and then take the tv away completely
until they could come to an agreement, but he’s rather fond of the Epstein’s
solution.
Frank can tell at the stop of the stairs that some of his friends are playing
Left 4 Dead, and the others are playing Rockband. It’s definitely Rockband, not
a later version of Guitar Hero, he recognises the song. He stops three steps
down, where, if they’re actually looking over, which is unlikely considering
the need for exacting attention in both games, they can only see his socked
feet, not Mikey’s behind him. “I brought my boyfriend,” he calls out. “I hope
you don’t mind.”
“What?” Tina shouts out.
Frank takes the rest of the stairs as quickly as he can, Mikey following behind
him. He can’t help but grin as all his friends look at Mikey, and Mikey just
looks between screens, as if deciding the better option. The next thing he
knows he’s getting tackled by two hundred and fifty pounds of girl. He goes
down hard, the carpeting not really softening the fall.
“I’m so fucking happy for you!” she shouts, face inches away from his. Frank
would say thanks, but her exuberance is crushing his lungs.
“Zoe! Come on, fuck! We don’t have any overdrives, you’re gonna die!” Zoe
scrambles back off him and starts moaning the lyrics of Creep again. Mikey
drifts to the zombie side of the room, and the next time they have a stopping
point, Claire gives him a controller.
And that’s it. Aside from Shaun saying ‘congrats, man’, and John punching him
in the thigh, there’s no other recognition. Of course, it’s not really his
friends that needed to know.
He brings it up on the car ride home. It’s early for a Friday night, but Frank
wants to do this now. There’s no reason to wait, he’s not a pussy or self-
hating. If he’d stayed out with his friends until the Epsteins kicked everyone
out at one am, his parents would be asleep.
“I’m gonna tell them too. You might want to wait in the car for a bit? In case
they’re. Well. They might not be very happy. You could drop me off at John’s?
Or I could go home with you. If your parents wouldn’t care. Do they know?”
Frank’s still never been to the Way’s, even though he thinks he knows more
about Gerard than anyone in the world. To be fair though, Mikey has never come
inside his house either.
“Me and Gee basically did at the same time. Well, mine was more hypothetical
than his, he’d just had sex with a guy and was freaking out and decided he had
to tell them, and I joined in because having sex with guys didn’t seem like a
bad idea. And like a week or two after I went to my first rave, and...” Mikey
shrugs. Frank can finish the sentence himself, he knows perfectly well one of
the two blowjobs Mikey gave on the scene was his first night out. “Donna and
Don didn’t really care.” Frank still can’t get over the calling your parents by
their first name thing. It’s weird. “They won’t care if you need to sleep over.
Or if you just want to sleep over.”
Mikey has to double park when they get to Frank’s house. Frank doesn’t really
pay attention to the movements Mikey’s making until he’s halfway up the
sidewalk and he realises Mikey’s behind him, keys making a bulge in the side of
his skin tight jeans. Frank doesn’t know whether to be grateful or not. Mikey
in the room will change things. It will make it more real to his parents, and
he doesn’t know if that’s good thing or not, that they can’t wave away his
revelation. He thinks desperately of his stash in his room. This would be so
much easier if he was stoned.
They’re watching some crime drama. One of the CSIs, probably, the brief second
Frank takes to look at the tv there’s a girl with blood prettily sprayed over
her.
“Hey. Mom? Dad?”
“Frank, who’s this?” His dad doesn’t bother to mute the tv, but he looks up
which Frank considers a win.
“I’m Mikey. Mikey Way.” Mikey gives a half-assed wave. It’s cute enough that in
other circumstances Frank would feel the urge to kiss him. Right now all he
feels is the need to stop himself from throwing up.
Frank’s got the perfect opportunity to pass Mikey off as a friend. Instead he
hums a lyric from When You’re Young. Stand and decide, stand and decide, stand
and decide. Never say die, never say die, never say die. He’s got to do this,
and he’s got to do it before he loses his father’s attention.
“That’s Mikey, and he’s my boyfriend.” His father wordlessly presses the power
button the remote and Frank hears the strange bell noise the tv makes when it
turns on or off. Frank thinks he might vomit.
“Frank-” his mom starts.
Frank shakes his head, letting his hair stay where it falls into his eyes. “No.
I don’t want to hear it. He’s my boyfriend, because I’m gay. That means I like
guys. Okay? Don’t answer that, I don’t care if it’s okay.” His vaguely aware
that he’s getting louder and louder, trying to drown out the white noise that
is somehow radiating from his parents faces. “I don’t care, because he’s my
fucking boyfriend, and we’ve been together for awhile, and that’s not going to
stop just because you don’t like it!”
“Frank-” his mom says again.
“Some people like girls, some people like boys. Regardless of what it says in
the bible, it’s fucking true facts! I like guys!” Frank’s working on sheer
bluster at this point. At least until he feels Mikey take a step closer to him
and remembers what he’s fighting for. “When I come home, sometimes he will be
coming with me! Because that’s what happens with boyfriends. They come into
your house! No more driving around for hours, being fucking scared!”
“Frank, I really-”
“Really what? Really nothing! Nothing is going to change this, I don’t care
what happens when you go talk to your group on Sunday!” Fuck, he’s so full of
shit. If their Sunday group convinces them to kick him out, he’s so fucked.
Maybe he’ll be able to convince Tim to move out and they can live in squalor
together. “And don’t even think about trying to instill a premarital sex rule!
Because guess what? I’ll die a virgin, thanks to this fine Republican country
we live in! But we don’t care, we don’t need rights, we’ll never stop!”
“Mikey can’t come over every night.” his father says firmly. “I’m sure your mom
and dad like seeing your face. And no, Frank, that isn’t an invitation to spend
every night at Mikey’s. The same rule still applies. No curfew, but you’re in
your bed when your mother comes to wake you up in the morning.”
It’s like being slapped in the face. It’s like running miles through the woods
being chased by a bear, only to turn around and find the bear napping. Frank’s
entire body is shaking with adrenaline, and he can hardly stand in place.
Nearly a minute after his father’s words, he manages a single word. “What?”
“Frank. It’s not as though we didn’t suspect. You’re seventeen, and you’ve
never had a girlfriend. Marlene and Steven informed us Rebekah said you barely
paid attention to her.”
He stares. There’s nothing else to do. Then Mikey puts his hand on the small of
his back. It’s electric, Frank can almost feel the jolt shooting out of him and
up the vein of Mikey’s arm. It somehow takes the edge off his shaking, and he
can get out an entire sentence. “But... God. And bible. And for fucksakes, you
asked me if I was celibate!” So maybe it’s not the most coherent of sentences.
“The passages that mention homosexuality are open to interpretation, as many
passages are. If others choose to believe it’s a sin, that’s their reading.
Ours can be different. God knows you, Frank. He knows everything, and he loves
everything about who you are.”
Frank is still shaking when Mikey slides his hand into his. He’s not sure he
can stop shaking, not when nothing about this makes sense. “But I-”
“Mr and Mrs Iero, Frank and I are going to go for a drive.”
“You don’t have to, Mikey. We’re perfectly fine with you hanging out here.”
“We’re gonna drive and listen to music. I’ll bring him back.” And Mikey is
steering him out of the house, and down the sidewalk, and opens the passenger
door for him, and it’s the first time he hasn’t had to wait for crap to be
relocated before he can sit, which makes sense, he was in the car just minutes
ago, but it still seems weird. Every fucking thing in the world is weird.
“What the fuck?” he asks when Mikey climbs in on the other side.
Mikey doesn’t answer, just fiddles with his iPod, the tiny square of metal
resting in the cup holder. The music doesn’t come out very loud from the
headphones, but it’s unmistakably Bouncing Souls. And that’s the moment Frank
falls sort of in love with him.
*
Mrs Aguirre lets the class know before she takes attendance that they’ll be
going to the auditorium for an assembly shortly. Nate snorts, and Alex Johnson
tosses his binder into his backpack, stands and says “Yeah, I’ll just take an
absent. And detention, I guess. Later.” before walking out. Frank’s sentiments
exactly. Every year Hawthorne gives the same speech on the last day before
winter break, and on the first day back. Exams come three days after everyone
gets back, they all need to buckle down, and use their three weeks off to
study.
Sure enough, after every homeroom fills their allotted row of folding chairs,
Hawthorne starts up. Frank bets somewhere in the audience Joe is staring into
space but that’s Pete’s or Patrick’s or Andy’s concern, not his. Right now all
he can really think about is how he really really likes Mikey but this gay
thing doesn’t seem to be working out.
The morning had started off nicely. Frank wasn’t really one to look a gift
horse in the mouth. As soon as he had come to terms with the fact that his
parents actually were fine with him being gay, with Mikey sleeping over - which
had been a series of phone calls from Mikey’s car at around midnight - he’d
used it to their advantage. Regardless of his mom’s proclamation that it
couldn’t be every night, it’s been a week and Mikey’s been beside him for all
of it. One of the benefits of Mikey sleeping over was his mom no longer walked
straight into his bedroom to shake him awake, which was the only possible way
of getting him up. Instead she just knocked on the door, the rapping enough to
wake Mikey, and let him deal with the task. Or as Mikey liked to call it, the
epic battle of Frank vs Reality.
Frank’s attention is draw back to Hawthorne as the man uses the phrase
‘buckling down’, mainly because Adam, two seats to his left, giggles as the guy
beside him quietly starts to mock Hawthorne. Normally it would be prime
entertainment, the only thing that would keep him awake during such a useless
thing. But it’s nothing compared to Frank’s discomfort. Every time he moves on
the folding chair his ass stings. It’s ridiculous.
Mikey wasn’t one for sweet talk or cajoling. Neither was he fond of his mom’s
method, grabbing him by the shoulder and shaking him. The threads of self
preservation that stopped Frank from ever striking out, even mostly asleep and
entirely pissed, didn’t exist when it wasn’t his mother doing the bothering.
Mikey didn’t like being hit or elbowed, so he used a third method. He used
Frank’s morning wood against him.
Frank shifts again and hisses. Hawthorne coughs once and says “And for the
first time, I am pleased to introduce a group that will help drive the point
home. Please give a Carleton welcome to D.A.R.E.”
The auditorium goes silent as five hundred students all suddenly desperately
believe in sci-fi, much like prison born agains, and try to teleport away. It
doesn’t work in Frank’s case, which only makes everything even more shitty.
Like he needs to hear some lecture about the evils of drugs and how pot is
being sold to him by terrorists, and how his joint funded 9/11 after the
morning he’s had.
Frank woke up to Mikey jerking him off. It wasn’t anything that hadn’t happened
Monday through Thursday, but that didn’t mean he didn’t fucking love it. Just
when Frank was arching off the bed, toe curling, Mikey stopped. “Do you want to
fuck?”
“We were!” Frank nearly wailed.
“No, I mean actual fucking. The kind gay guys do.”
To be honest Frank hadn’t really thought much about it. Mikey spending nearly
twenty four hours a day with him -only different classes and a few hours after
school to make an appearance with his parents separating them- had led to
frequent sex. Shaun and Tim had never told him about getting off three or four
times in a day when they’d regaled him with reasons why he should get a
girlfriend. It seemed like a great selling point, so the only think Frank could
figure was girls didn’t want sex as often as guys did. Still, blowjobs were
still a novelty to him, as was having a bed they could dry hump in. Though he
wasn’t sure if it was still called that when both parties were naked. But if
Mikey wanted to he wasn’t going to say no.
“I guess we don’t need a condom.” Frank trusted Mikey, trusted in their
monogamy. Mikey was the kind of guy that would tell him if having sex with only
one guy was boring him. And even if he didn’t fully trust him, handjobs didn’t
lead to diseases.
“We don’t need them, but I’ve got one if you don’t want me to come in your
ass.” Mikey was smiling at him, squinting without his glasses. Frank’s dick
pulsed. The idea seemed pretty fucking hot.
“Nah, we don’t need them.”
Frank looks up at the stage. From what he can tell from the pathetic dialogue,
and the person pretending to run into a big cardboard cut out, somebody just
freaked out and saw monsters after taking his first hit of marijuana and ran
out of the house and onto the street and got hit by a car. There is a
powerpoint set up that flips to ‘taking hits means taking hits’, and Frank’s
soul dies a little bit.
After Frank had talked to, hung up on, talked to, hung up on, pattern on repeat
for about ten phone calls last Friday, Mikey had driven them to an all night
convenience store. He’d taken Frank into the ‘personal’ aisle, past the shampoo
and the pads to the tiny shelf of sex stuff. Twenty different kids of condoms,
and space and tags for three different brands of lube, but there were only two.
Mikey had chosen cherry over passion-fruit, and once they were back in the car,
he’d gotten his first lubricated handjob. It was better than the dry kind, and
after that they’d just continued to use it.
Mikey opened the bottle and squirted some on his fingers, used his other hand
to spread the liquid on the knuckleside. He sat at the edge of the bed and
rubbed his fingers down the crease of his ass before sticking a finger in.
Frank’s first impression was weird. It didn’t feel bad, it was just his ass
didn’t want it. But Mikey slid his finger in further, and it was like his ass
gave up and just accepted it. Mikey wiggled it a bit before drawing out and
pushing in two. It was the same, not bad, just weird.
“Dude, this is pretty fucking lame.” Frank thought it was Dr Phil of him, being
honest with bed partners.
“No. Once you’ve got my dick it’ll be different. Remember sex ed? Remember
prostates? It’ll be better then.” Mikey pulled his fingers out then asked “Do
you want to be on your back, or your hands and knees?”
Frank pictured them both for only a second before deciding. He didn’t want to
look like a girl with his ankles by his ears. “Hands and knees,” he said, and
rolled over.
All around Frank are students shrinking in their seats, shuffling until it’s
more their back on the metal than their ass. He’s not sure why, but he trusts
the hive mind and does it too. He figures it out a second later when one of the
peppy people jumps off the stage and grabs the hand of an extremely reluctant
girl. Crowd volunteers, what a fucking nightmare.
Mikey’s dick was against his ass, and it seemed way too fucking big to be
possible. But Mikey pushed in, one rough movement. Apparently he was the kind
of person that ripped a bandaid off instead of peeling it. Inside him, it
seemed even more impossible. His eyes were watering with the pain of it. “Ow.
Fuck ow.”
He thrusted, and it was like Mikey was trying to to rip him apart. Frank moved
forward trying to get off but Mikey moved with him. In annoyance Frank raised
one arm behind him and shoved Mikey hard. Mikey inadvertently pulled out as he
scrambled to hold into the blanket they were weighing down so he didn’t fall
off the bed. Frank didn’t even care.
“So that didn’t work. Want me to jerk you off?”
Frank shook his head. “I’m not hard anymore. Let’s just go eat breakfast.”
Frank can’t stop replaying the entire event in his head. He likes Mikey, wants
to be his boyfriend forever. But if being gay means doing that, than he’s not
sure how it’s going to be possible to stay with him.
*
When they wake up they both check their phones. It’s as automatic as breathing,
and if that says something bad about children of the twenty first century,
well, Frank’s okay with being what’s wrong with the world today, as long as he
gets his texts. Frank has two unread; a message from John late last night
wanting to know if he wants to drive around and get high, and one from a half
an hour ago asking the same thing. It’s pretty obvious to Frank how Hambone’s
planning on spending his vacation. Frank wouldn’t be surprised if he even
managed to smoke up on Christmas day. Frank’s considering answering, he and
Mikey can go join John and Zoe. The more lungs the easier it is to hotbox.
It’ll be a good way to spend the first technical day of vacation, Saturday and
Sunday not counting.
Mikey’s got a different idea. He’s lying on his back, phone held in front of
his face as he scrolls through messages. Frank’s taken peeks, Mikey’s usually
got fifty compared to his three or four. He grins at one, and rolls onto his
side so he’s facing Frank. “We need to go over to my house.”
“What?” He still hasn’t been to the Way’s. It’s just automatic now that Mikey
drops Frank off, goes for a few hours, and comes back with a change of clothes
to spend the night. In his more stoned moments, Frank thinks that Mikey might
be an alien, that he doesn’t actually have family on this planet.
“Gerard texted me. He’s on his way. It’s about a forty five minute drive, so
he’ll be there this afternoon, if not then at dinner.”
Frank arches his neck so he can look at his clock. He didn’t think they’d slept
in that late, three pm wake ups tend to only happen during the third week of
vacation, in just enough time to make the first morning back to school a
fucking horrorshow. His instincts are right, it’s only noon. “Um?”
Mikey’s still smiling, but he adds a shake of his head. “You don’t know my
brother. If he sees something interesting or inspiring he’ll pull over and take
out his sketchbook and go with it.”
“Seriously?” Not that Frank’s entirely surprised, from the stories he’s heard
Gerard is an artist with a capital A.
“Once he parked the car on a bridge because he wanted to draw the light
bouncing off the metal. It was a one lane bridge, Frank. He got a six hundred
dollar fine. Honestly, he’s probably the worst person in the world to road trip
with. But I want to be there for when he gets home, so.”
Mikey tosses his part of the blanket to the side and slides out of bed. Frank
takes a moment to appreciate both the warmth that comes from the suddenly
doubled covers and his naked boyfriend. His naked boyfriend who is hard. Mikey
doesn’t pay attention to it, just grabs his jeans and a new shirt from his
backpack. He pushes his dick into his underwear before pulling his jeans up,
adjusting so he doesn’t zip over himself.
“I could take care of that?”
“Nah. What if I’m wrong and he’s already almost home?” Frank’s not even
offended that Mikey’d rather be waiting for Gerard over having sex with him.
Sex between them happens multiple times a day, but it’s been months since
Mikey’s seen his brother.
They say bye to Frank’s mom and dad as they pass out of the house and Frank
tries to not think about meeting Mr and Mrs Way. They’re probably at work, but
there’s a possibility they’ll be home. He’s never asked Mikey what his parents
do. For all he knows they both work night shifts and he’s going to be
interrupting their sleep, and then they’ll hate him, which would fucking suck.
He doesn’t want them to hate him. He’s not that much different from Mikey. They
both like music and video games, they’re both sort of spazzy. If they like
their son, they have to like him. Right?
His worries are for nothing. Once Mikey frowns at the lack of car in the
driveway he pulls into, he takes Frank straight to his bedroom. He doesn’t even
get the chance to see if the Ways are home, never mind have a conversation with
them. Mikey’s room is a duplicate of his car, the mess made no better by the
difference in size. Actually, it seems worse, because there’s more volume for
the clothes and books and CDs to expand in.
“So, this is me.” Mikey says, waving his arm around.
“Yeah,” Frank replies. “Between the mess and that you can’t see your wallpaper
for the posters, and dude, you have an entire section devoted to the Misfits,
that’s fuckin’ cool, yeah, I think I could have guessed. Also, you did bring me
in here, I figure you wouldn’t have brought me into your parents room.”
“You want to watch a movie?”
Frank takes a look at the floor, he can see edges of at least a dozen burned
dvds under clothes and being used as bookmarks. If he had the nerve to hazard
touching it, Mikey’d probably have good stuff to watch. On the other hand,
“well, you’re still hard and your brother’s not home...”
“You make a very good point.” Mikey wriggles out of his clothes and falls onto
the bed, not bothering to kick the blankets out of the way first. Frank shrugs.
It’s not like Mikey spends much time in it anyway, he probably doesn’t care if
it gets stained. Frank strips by the door, where there’s the least amount of
mess to contaminate his stuff, and joins Mikey on the edge of the bed.
“I’m going to suck you until you scream,” he says conversationally.
“Try,” Mikey retorts. Frank considers it a battle, even more the lovely for how
it will end in them both winning. He sticks out his tongue and licks a slow
line up the length of his cock, loving the way it makes Mikey shudder. The
trick with Mikey is to go slow, glacially slow, until his thighs are shaking,
and then speed up until he comes in your mouth. He’s done it enough to know,
just like Mikey knows what he likes. It’s fucking nice, dating someone that
knows how to touch his balls properly.
From his angle, he can’t see what Mikey’s doing, but he can feel him arch. His
dick getting shoved further into his mouth is a major fucking clue. Then Mikey
folds a knee up, nearly taking him out. They seem to be having a communication
breakdown, which is totally plausible considering that Frank can’t talk with a
dick in his mouth, and Mikey isn’t very vocal in bed.
He’s about to pull off and ask ‘what the fuck’ when suddenly there’s a smell of
watermelon. Not real watermelon, but the plasticky, fake dental office shit.
Mikey’s arm is curled under his right thigh, hand on his own ass. Frank moves
his head back a fraction, just in time to see Mikey press two fingers into
himself. Frank’s not sure if it’s the sight, or the noise Mikey makes, but he
can’t help but grind himself against Mikey’s bed. It’s a pillowtop mattress,
way too soft for any good friction. He can’t look away, he doesn’t want to even
blink his eyes.
Mikey adds a third finger and groans, mutters something. Frank asks and Mikey
says it louder. “I want you to fuck me.”
Frank thinks back to Friday and winces. “You don’t have to do this. In fact, I
recommend against it.”
“Frank, I want you to. Please.”
It’s the last word that does it. Frank’s a teenage male, he can’t remember the
last time someone his age in his acquaintance said please. He sure as fuck has
never heard it from someone naked, in bed with him, hard and open. He swallows
the invisible something that’s settled in his throat, making it hard to breath,
and says “I think we need more lube.”
Mikey tosses him the container. It’s the same brand as the bottle that’s tucked
under Frank’s pillow, Frank would be willing to bet Mikey got it from the same
convenience store. He flips open the cap and sneezes as watermelon bursts into
his nostrils, but forgives the scent because of what it means. He squirts some
on his fingers, probably too much. He watches the way it runs down the space
between his fingers, slowly oozing onto his hand.
“Frank, fucksakes. Come on.”
He doesn’t understand the rush, not when he knows what comes next, but he’ll do
it for Mikey. They can do it once, and then it won’t be just Frank being an
inadequate gay, it’ll be both of them knowing their boundaries. Frank shuffles
until he’s closer to Mikey, and Mikey pulls his fingers out, knuckles brushing
Frank’s cock for a moment before relocating his to the side of his ribcage.
Frank presses against Mikey, then pushes in, past the resistance. The entire
world changes. He bites his lip, and tries not to come immediately, counting
backwards from one hundred. He gets to ninety six before he gets impatient and
thrusts forward. If this is how he felt stretched around Mikey he can see why
Mikey didn’t want to stop. The only word for it is amazing.
Still, he doesn’t want Mikey to be feeling what he felt, so he asks “You
alright?”
“Fuckin’ fuck me!” Mikey demands. Frank obliges, snapping forward before
drawing back. Each movement is heat and pressure on his cock, he never wants to
stop. Mikey’s into it too, he’s whimpering, and Frank’s never heard something
so fucking sexy before. None of the porn he watched had people whimpering.
He doesn’t last long. It’s impossible to hold back, not with the way it all
feels. After he comes, -holy fuck, he came in Mikey’s ass- he flops down onto
Mikey and grinds himself on his boyfriend. He’s seeing stars, he doesn’t really
have the capability of a decent handjob, but he can at least provide a surface
for Mikey to rut against.
It’s in the afterglow that he realises Mikey liked it, and what that means.
Like flipping a switch, all the endorphins or hormones or whatever stop flowing
and Frank sits up. “I’m gonna leave for a bit. Give you and Gerard some private
brotherly time. I’ll meet him later, ‘kay? Fuckin’ text me.”
Mikey’s still too high from orgasm to think anything of it. “‘Kay.”
It’s not fair. It’s just not fucking fair, and he’s got to get out before he
makes a big deal of it. He’s being stupid. He shouldn’t be upset about Mikey
liking getting fucked. It means good things for him, it means that he gets to
fuck Mikey. But sometimes logic and emotion don’t really mix, and all Frank
knows is that he’s fucking pissed about it. He gets dressed and leaves without
even using the computer to pull up a transit map. He’ll figure it out, or he’ll
walk home. Either’s better than getting into a fight.
*
The second time Frank goes over is a few days later, it’s thanks to Mikey’s
text. sorry, can’t drive. come over? Frank thinks about it for a second, than
looks up the bus schedule so he knows when he has to leave. There’s a car he
doesn’t recognise in the driveway, but he has no way of telling if it’s Gerard,
or Mr or Mrs Way’s.
The living room is a surprise for how full it is. He looks at Mikey, an unasked
question on his lips. He’s only heard about Gerard, but there are four guys in
the room, apart from Mikey. Two could nearly be twins, short and wearing all
black with a pale complexion. Frank just barely recognises Gerard from the
pictures on Mikey’s phone, his hair is a lot longer than it was whenever the
pictures were taken. Of the two left, one is white-blond, like Mrs Way in
Mikey’s pictures, the other a strawberry blond.
“Hey. I’m Frank.” He wants to tack on Mikey’s boyfriend but doesn’t. Christmas
has a tendency to bring family together, even the ones you never want to see
again. Frank has a couple of cousins that he and his parents only acknowledge
the existence of on Christmas day. If Mikey dislikes these brothers so much he
hasn’t even mentioned them, when he mentions Gerard every day, he’s probably
not comfortable with them or out to them. Frank doesn’t want to make anything
worse.
“I’m Gerard,” says the one on the edge of the couch, proving Frank’s guess
right.
“Bert and Quinn,” the blond says, voice muffled by the brunet’s hair. The
Gerard look alike is sitting on the blond, relaxed, like it’s just a few more
bumps of a lumpy cushion, not knees and ribcage.
Bob is the one on the other couch, sitting beside Mikey. Frank eyeballs the
space between and figures he’s not skinny enough to make it, and sprawling over
a stranger, even a relation of your boyfriend, is something you probably don’t
want to do within the first five minutes of meeting them. Then fate intervenes
and Bob gets up to wrestle the remote out of Bert’s hand. Apparently he doesn’t
take kindly to MTV. The moment he’s up Frank plops into his spot. It’s just
like hanging with his friends, your chair is only yours as long as you’re
actively in it, you can’t claim shit. Bob turns it to the cartoon network and
glares at Frank, but he doesn’t beat him, which Frank appreciates. Bob looks
like the kind of person that would beat down others.
Everyone just stares at the tv, and Frank knows this too. There’s a reason that
there’s football on Christmas day. People that don’t like each other can bond
over shouting at quarterbacks. Or snickering at Rocko’s Modern Life repeats,
whatever. There’s not a lot of conversation until Gerard announces “I’m gonna
get a Pepsi, anyone want something?”
“Cream soda?” Quinn requests.
“Dunno if we have.”
“Orange or grape. What fucking ever, something not cola.”
Gerard stands and Bert takes the chance to leap to his feet, which makes Bob,
who’s sitting on the floor leaning against the couch, scramble out of the way
before Bert steps on him. Seemingly automatically, Quinn stands too. Frank
stays where he is. Gerard takes a few steps forward and Bert grabs his ass.
“Want something. Want something? How about you and me and bed makes three?”
Gerard giggles and pulls out his his grip to leave the room. Frank thinks
‘okay, not a brother then’. Which begs the question “so who are you then?”
“Going senile at such a young age? It’s so sad Quinny!” Bert says and swoons
against the blond. Quinn laughs and braces himself so they don’t collapse.
“I’m Bert,” he shouts. “This is Quinn, that’s Bob! Gerard is in the kitchen!
That’s Mikey! Your name is Frank!” With each name Bert does action. Quinn gets
crossed arms, Bob gets a pulled on skullcap, Gerard gets jazz hands, Mikey gets
a dead face, and Frank gets Bert crouching down. Which is rich, because Bert
looks at least an inch shorter than him. Not that Frank has a Napoleon complex
or anything.
“No, really, are you cousins?” The Bert and Gerard thing would still be wrong,
but not as bad. Otherwise it doesn’t make sense. During the holidays the Iero
house is strictly for relatives.
“Well Gerard had to come home, and since I don’t have a home I thought I could
follow my love bunny.” The snort takes any sweetness out of the words.
“I go where Bert goes,” Quinn says simply and Frank imagines a friendship like
he and John have.
“I go where all three go to keep them out of trouble.” Bob explains. Just
witnessing the last minute, Frank can see where Bert might need a bit of
restraining, and Quinn and Gerard can’t be that much better if they’re Bert’s
best friend and boyfriend.
“You mean because you’d be bored dead without us!” Bert makes as if to swoon
again, this time towards Bob.
“Do it motherfucker.” Bob tells him. “I’m not catching you.” He doesn’t either,
Bert plummets straight to the floor and lies there giggling.
“Who wants to smoke?” Bert proclaims about a half hour later.
“Me and Frank know this great place,” Mikey offers. Frank is sure it's a lie,
but he’ll back Mikey up. If Mikey wants to impress Bert, for Gerard, he’s not
going to stomp down on that. Hell, maybe Gerard will even end up doing the
same, end up caring about what Frank thinks about something. Really, he should
have gotten advice from Shaun about how to deal with family of a boyfriend.
“Lead the way, boyo!”
On the way out the door, after jackets are grabbed and shoes are put on, Quinn
tosses his keys to Mikey. Which relieves some of the ‘who’s going in what car’
awkwardness, but not entirely. Because sure, Mikey’s driving. But does Frank
get shotgun, because he’s the boyfriend they may or may not know about? Or does
Gerard, because he’s the brother? Or Quinn, because it’s his car? Frank
hesitates on the driveway, letting everyone brush by him. He hates this sort of
etiquette shit. Luckily the problem is solved by Bob climbing up, and leaving
the back of the van to them, him in the smaller middle seat, the rest in the
larger backseat.
Frank smiles as Mikey pulls to a stop. They’re in front of what he considers
‘their school’, as lame as that might be. It doesn’t matter how lame it is, as
long as he doesn’t say it out loud.
Once they’re on the blacktop, covered with a slick layer of slush, Bert and
Quinn pull out pipes. Bert’s is nearly beautiful, swirls of blue and green
within the glass, purple and orange flecks dotted over the swirls. Frank
apologises for not having anything to contribute, Quinn just shrugs and tells
him to bring with if he’s going to hang out again before they need to go back
to school. The pipes circle the group, Frank looks down and sees the yellow
paint beneath the thin covering. They’re standing on a four-square grid, and
for some reason that seems funny enough that he coughs until he chokes.
After they’ll fully baked they wander to the play structure. Frank has to push
snow off the swing he claims, but a wet ass totally worth it. Nothing’s better
than swings when you’re high. He ignores everyone and just pumps his legs, and
when he really gets going he tilts back. His head nearly scrapes the pebbles,
and even with his eyes open he can’t see anything. It’s amazing.
His joy is interrupted with Bert hopping off his swing and declaring “let’s
break into the school!”
“Uh...” Frank hates to be the party pooper but it sounds stupid. He’s cool with
doing random shit while stoned, God knows he’s tried to make a sandwich only
using his feet because Kelly dared him too, but not shit that’s going to get
them arrested.
But before he has a chance to compose an argument more convincing than ‘that’s
stupid’ Quinn jumps off his resting place on the slide and the two start their
walk towards the school doors. Bob sighs and follows after them. Hopefully
he’ll talk them out of it, but at the very least the three of them being
further from the gate will give Frank, Mikey, and Gerard a better chance of
escaping when the cops respond to an alarm at the school.
Gerard takes one of the now vacant swings beside Frank. “So you’re dating my
brother.”
Frank takes a second to sit upright. It’s a conversation he’d been dreading,
but somehow it doesn’t seem as horrible now that he’s stoned. “Yeah. And I hope
this isn’t one of those hurt him and I’ll beat you to death with a shovel
conversations. Those always seems so unrealistic.”
Gerard shakes his head, looking earnest. “No, Mikey can enjoy whatever he wants
to enjoy. He doesn’t need me to tell him what’s okay. Also Buffy reference,
very nice.”
“Five by five,” Frank responds before starting to pump again.
“We broke in!” Bert calls as he bounds over to them.
“If by broke in you mean bribed the custodian twenty bucks to let us wander.”
Bob says, following more sedately.
“Don’t deny my skills Bryar!”
Mikey climbs down from his spot twirling the wheel attached to the structure,
and Gerard and Frank hop off their swings. Quinn’s holding the door open.
“I’m gonna leave a note in every desk telling the kids to follow their dreams,”
Gerard smiles.
Frank thinks that’s sweet, and so does Bert, if the kiss he pulls Gerard into
is any indication, but he’s got goals that aren’t nearly as lofty. “Hey Mikey.
Ever have sex in the janitor’s closet?”
“Can’t say I have!”
“Mikey, I love you, but if you’re in any way vocal, I will vomit, and then the
custodian will kick our asses. And possibly call the cops. So-”
“I’m sure I can keep my mouth occupied,” Mikey snickers. Gerard shudders, and
Bert pulls him into a second kiss to distract him. Frank grabs Mikey’s hand and
they wander down the hallway looking for a door that isn’t plastered with
artwork. Having sex in a second grade classroom would be wrong, but he really
can’t see any moral objection to a room that consists of mops and pails.
*
“I’m going to kill David Stanhope,” Frank moans. Of course, it sounds like
Dabid Stanhob, but the sentiment stays the same. Mikey knows what he means
anyway, Frank texted the same message a half hour ago.
For the last week every communication they’ve had has been text based, either
text messages or MSN. Even then it hasn’t been real conversation, Frank texts
Mikey and he texts back over an hour later, or Mikey leaves almost two scrolled
pages of random stuff on MSN for Frank to find when he wakes up. It sucks that
they haven’t been hanging out, but there’s no choice, really. Their study
habits are different and incompatible. Frank likes studying for half hours at a
time. Everything he’s taken has a lot of definitions and so he’s got about a
million home made recipe card flashcards, the word on one side, the definition
on the other. Half an hour of quizzing himself, followed by an episode of
something, or dinner, followed by another half hour works best for him. Mikey’s
classes are different. Aside from math everything he’s taking is essay based,
which means far more reading the textbooks and coming up with possible
questions, and writing out the best possible answers. They tried together for
one night, but Frank talks to himself as he flips through the cards, and Mikey
needs long periods of silence. It’s not like not studying is an answer. As much
as senior year is for slacking, failing a course won’t get you into the college
of your choice.
Frank’s surprised to hear Mikey crash up the stairs. Frank had written his last
in the morning, Ancient Civilizations, but Mikey’s had shitty scheduling and
two of his five are tomorrow. Frank’s happy to see him, but that doesn’t mean
he’s going to be getting out of his blankets. He’s shivering, but out of sheer
willpower he’s created a warm spot, and he’s not going to vacate it for
anything in the world. Mikey settles onto the floor beside Frank’s bed, because
unlike Mikey, Frank does know that cleanliness, if not next to godliness, is at
least akin to not getting mice making burrows. There’s actually room for him to
cross his legs on the carpet.
Mikey won’t be staying long, but for as long as he’s here Frank’s going to use
him as a welcome ear to complain to. “Kill him dead, I swear. As soon as I get
better.”
“Did you take any medication yet? Tylenol cold, or something?”
Frank just groans. He doesn’t want to get into why not. The spectacle that’s
made in his house when he’s sick is worthy of jugglers and a big orange tent.
It’s just easier to huddle in his bed and lie if his parents ask why he hasn’t
left. Better for them to think he’s jerking off than knowing he’s sneezing.
“I hate everyone. Not just him, everyone. We are a dirty species, Mikey, and I
hate all of us.”
“I know. We suck.” The thing Frank likes about complaining to Mikey is that he
always agrees with whatever Frank's mad about. It's morale boosting.
“Seriously Mikey, vermin. We should be taken out and shot. A bullet for the
entire world.” He punctuates his statement with a long sniff. Frank hates using
kleenex. Not only does it make his nose bright red and ache as the tissues
somehow get rougher the more he uses them, it’s also gross to have an entire
garbage can full of expelled green illness.
“Bang bang, we’re dead.” Mikey’s agreement is also the problem though, because
you can never be sure that Mikey isn’t being sarcastic. It sounds like song
lyrics, a theory confirmed when Mikey goes on with “always so easily led, bang
bang you’re de-e-ed, put all the rumors to bed.”
“No, really, what kind of society teaches people it’s okay to sneeze on other
people!” He’d be shouting, if he didn’t know it would start a coughing fit. The
last thing he needs is to end up dry heaving all over Mikey. “It was an exam, I
couldn’t go and wash my neck. And now I am diseased.” Frank rolls onto his back
and pointedly coughs into his hand. Even if no one else in the world is, he can
still be sanitary.
Mikey stretches out his hand and puts it on Frank’s leg. Frank swears he can
feel the warmth through the comforter. It must be the idea of actually being
warm that leads him to ask, normally he hates people being all clingy when he’s
ill. He was scarred for life against sickness related affection as a child, but
he feels the weight of Mikey’s hand and it just comes out. “Just lay down with
me until I fall asleep? The way I feel it won’t be long. Like five minutes. I
know you need to go study.”
Mikey unhooks his glasses and puts them on Frank’s desk on top of the discarded
flashcards. He balances on one foot as he takes his sock off the other, then
switches. He sits on the edge of the bed as Frank does the noble thing of
scooting out of the warm spot to give Mikey more than a sliver of room. Just as
Frank lifts up the blanket so Mikey can crawl in, Mikey gets up and reaches for
his glasses. “I’ll be right back.”
Frank watches him leave the room. He’s confused and shivering a little bit. He
lets the blanket settle on him again, but it’s too late, the cold air has
infiltrated.
Mikey comes back with a plastic cup and his hand outstretched, trying to pass
something to him. “What are those?”
“Cough pills, they’ll help you sleep. Your mom gave them to me. They didn’t
even know you were sick, dude.”
“You told them?” Frank’s not sure why he’s not getting mad, if it’s because
he’s his boyfriend or if he’s just too tired. Honestly, it’s probably the
latter. “You’re just giving me these so I’ll fall asleep faster so you can
leave.”
Mikey rolls his eyes. “Yes, you’ve figured out my super secret ulterior motive
in wanting you to get better. Swallow them or we’ll be abstinent for another
week, asshole.”
As the idea of sex with Mikey was the only thing that got him through studying
for Spanish, Frank takes Mikey’s threat seriously. He swallows the pills and
puts the cup of water on the floor, then holds up the edge of the blanket
again. Mikey slides in, chest pressed against his back. Frank angles his face
towards the pillow as he snuggles closer. He doesn’t want to breathe his
contaminated breath onto Mikey.
*
Frank's never been more happy about dating a guy than he is today. Of the both
of them, it’s pretty obvious he’s the more romantic one, and since he can see
clearly through the gauze and velvet of Valentine’s Day, it’s safe to say that
Mikey sees it for the crap that it is. Which isn’t to say they can’t enjoy
themselves, of course.
Mikey still wakes up first, still wakes Frank with a blowjob. Once he’s
coherent enough, Frank still pushes and pulls at Mikey until Mikey’s turned
around and they’re both sucking at each other. But after Frank’s spent, he runs
downstairs to the kitchen. Like the last seventeen Valentines, Frank’s dad has
picked up a box of the pink iced doughnuts from the bakery down the street. He
has to wake up horribly early to get them, the bakery is double staffed the
entire day as the foot traffic doubles. They’re worth it though. Hell, they’re
so good Frank would consider waking up at six in the morning to get them.
Unlike previous years, Frank doesn’t open the box and examine them for the one
with the most amount of icing, and then eat it over the sink in case a bit of
the creme filling squirts out. Instead he takes the entire dozen -minus the two
his dad has already snagged on his way to work- and goes back upstairs.
Breakfast is served.
In the car, Frank sticks in his specially burned CD. It’s a mix of romance
songs, Manson’s If I Was Your Vampire, and Korn’s ADIDAS, and Nekromantix’s
Light My Fire cover, and as much else as he can cram into 80 minutes. Of
course, it doesn’t take anywhere near 80 minutes to get to Carleton, but it’s
the thought that counts.
At lunch the cheerleaders are trying to peddle roses. Shaun buys one for Tina.
Frank settles with informing Mikey that if he wants plants, he’s got plants at
home. Mikey smirks and takes a bite of his pear. Frank hopes that means yes.
Sex while stoned is almost as fun as swinging.
Frank loves his schedule for second semester. He’s only got two difficult
classes, the mandatory science credit and the mandatory math. The rest is
pretty basic, and more importantly it gives him a lot of time with Mikey. Third
period is leadership, which he has with Mikey, his fourth period is a spare
which works with the study hall class Mikey got renewed after a visit to the
counselor, then lunch, and Mikey’s got a spare, which Frank can join him in, if
he decides that chemistry class is a bit beyond his capabilities that day. So
it’s a mixed bag when Brendon’s voice comes over the intercom and informs the
school that tickets for the afternoon dance are still being sold, and the dance
is the final two periods of the day, which you don’t have to attend if you are
instead in the gym. And then he bursts into the first few lyrics of a Beauty
and the Beast song before he gets cut off.
He looks at Mikey, who’s doodling something. Mikey’s supposed to have at least
ten sketches before he decides on the first piece he wants to paint for his art
class. “On one hand, we get to skip classes.”
“Wet art and photography for me, chem and woods for you. Not that great, would
have been better first thing in the morning.”
He snorts. “For you maybe. Not all of us have biology and American history. But
on the other hand, if we buy tickets, we actually have to go. They check
attendance.”
“You know this because...”
“It was St. Patrick’s day, I was a freshman and didn’t know better. Fuck you,
like you were always cool, Mr It Takes Me Months to Stop Sitting In the Library
After I Get Friends.”
“Me and Gee sat in the library to avoid shit like school dances, dude. And you
forgot option three. Skip class.”
“Can’t. It’s only Tuesday, I need to save my skipping for when it’s most
advantageous to use it.” There’s a whole strategy to it, knowing by where they
are in the text whether an in class test will be coming soon, and whether or
not he feels prepared to write it, what days are best for cards in the
cafeteria, if he can convince Mikey to join him. Hell, from the moment they
leave leadership, they’ve got almost two hours to leave the school and do
something. Frank is always willing to skip in order to watch the end of a movie
before Mikey needs to be back for art.
They don’t do a romantic dinner. Mikey rarely comes over before half past
seven, and the Ieros are a supper at six on the dot sort of people. By the time
Mikey’s texting him to open the front door, Frank is fully digested. Mikey
takes a second to say hi to his parents, and then they go upstairs.
Frank makes it through half of Shaun of the Dead before he’s biting a mark onto
Mikey’s neck. He can’t see the screen, but it’s the sort of movie where the
dialogue is as entertaining as the scenes, and what he’s doing is better
anyway. He’d listen to Saw in the background if it meant he could make all the
hickeys he wanted.
Mikey, who’s got fucking impressive willpower sometimes, Frank knows he’s hard
by the time they break into the pub, waits until the credits are rolling before
asking “you wanna try-?”
“No man, I’m good. Maybe next time.” It’s the same thing he says every time
Mikey asks if he wants to bottom and by now it’s probably starting to feel like
an empty promise to Mikey, but it’s easier trying to put it off than making
himself expose himself like that, do that again.
“We should fuck in the shower,” Mikey suggests.
“Dude, my parents!”
“Fuck off, like you’ve never jerked off in the shower. Wetted your willie,
spanked the monkey, said hello to Mrs Palmer-”
“I appreciate a good euphemism just as much as the next person, really, I do.
But I’m hard, you’re hard, and the shower is not going to happen with my
parents home. Wait until Sunday morning, and then we’ll party ‘til the water
turns icy. But right now I just want to suck you off, okay?” Frank thinks it’s
a fair request. It has been more than twelve hours, after all. Besides,
sometimes he doesn’t want to actually fuck. Sometimes Frank hates Mikey a
little bit for how much he likes it, when Frank will never have that.
“Is this the part where I’m supposed to defend my virtue?” Mikey smirks,
unzipping his jeans and slouching back until his head is resting against the
wall.
“I guess you could. Watch any horror movie, the virgin always lives.” Frank’s
shifting, crawling into his stomach, blankets bumpy underneath him, and fuck,
he’ll have to wash them later, but that’s later, and completely irrelevant to
the way Mikey’s cock is struggling against his underwear.
“Yeah, but I’ve always wanted to be impaled on a deer head.”
Frank snickers and pulls the elastic down to get a chance at Mikey’s dick. He
swirls his tongue around the head once before replying “Partial to face being
frozen with nitrogen and then shattered, but each to his own.”
Mikey’s laugh is cut off with a groan as Frank moves to take the entire length
of his cock in one smooth movement. Frank fucking loves this, every single part
of this moment. He loves how Mikey’s panting sounds, he loves the feel of hot
flesh rubbing against the roof of his mouth, he loves having sex with someone
that doesn’t think it’s weird to be having horror movie flashbacks while having
sex. There’s nothing about this moment that isn’t awesome, and while
Valentine’s Day could never be Halloween, it might be edging in on Christmas.
*
Athletic Leadership is the most ludicrously easy course Frank has ever taken at
Carleton. Essentially it’s a credit for people that need to fulfill their
credit number requirements, and will never pass anything that demands thought,
or capability to form full sentences. It’s a bit like study hall, except for
jocks rather than mental patients.
What it boils down to is a second class of grade twelve gym. It actually has
grade twelve gym as a prerequisite, which is sort of ridiculous. Prerequisites
are for things like you can’t take autoshop until you take metal smithing,
because it’s impossible to make your own carburetor if you can’t use a welding
gun. Or at least that’s what Frank assumes happens in metal smithing, watching
Hostel and his subsequent fear of blowtorches made it entirely impossible for
him to take the course. Gym does not need a pre-req, as far as he's concerned.
It’s not like grade twelve badminton is any more demanding than freshman year
badminton.
The way they skirt around it being almost identical in curriculum is by
promoting it as teaching leadership. It’s basically a self taught course, they
have to form their own teams and remember regulations. Technically there’s a
teacher, but in the two months Frank’s been in AL, he’s left his office all of
twice. There’s also an end of the year assignment; in pairs of two or three
they have to create their own sport or game, and make the rest of the class
play. He and Mikey already have a tentative list of five or six, although Frank
suspects that trying to get everyone to run a hundred metre dash for people
with no direction won’t work out well, because it’s not like Chamber Mulligan
has ever heard of Monty Python in his life.
Right now Frank doesn’t care about the class being lax. He doesn’t want to play
fucking volleyball, even though he’s played it a hundred times and actually
sort of likes it, beyond it being an easy credit. All he wants to do is curl up
and die. In lieu of that as a true possibility, at least until he gets home, he
does the next best thing. He goes to the side of the metal bleachers and crawls
under them. It’s dark and disgusting, so it matches his mood perfectly.
Frank knows from sophomore gym that the last class of the day is responsible
for retracting the bleachers back against the wall, as well as taking down any
free standing equipment. So it stands to reason the custodian has never washed
this part of the floor. He presses his forehead on the underside of one of the
stairs and draws swirls in the grime. His team has to be waiting for him, but
fuck them. Perfecting his strike is just about the last thing on his mind.
It’s Cash that finally comes over. He’s a tool -what kind of ass tries to call
himself Cash?- but he’s sort of a cool tool, and has somehow convinced everyone
to use the nickname. He doesn’t join Frank, just squats until he’s almost at
eye level. “What’s up?”
“I just got broken up with.” Fuck, saying it is like razorblades coming out of
his throat.
“Shitty. I can see why you wouldn’t care about volleyball then. Who’d you get
dumped by?”
“Seriously?” It’s not like he and Mikey were ever subtle about their
relationship. Frank can remember more than one hallway kiss.
“You’re the centre of your universe, not everyone else’s dude. I have no idea
who your girlfriend was. But if you’re here, all suited up in gym uniform she
obviously just broke up with you, which means she’s obviously in this class.”
Cash swivels a bit and Frank can only imagine he’s scoping out the girls in the
class. “Was it Amy? She’s sort of an addict. She’ll decide she wants to be with
you when she comes down. Or goes back up, whatever.”
It’s like some punishment from above, having to discuss a relationship after
it’s over. Over, Frank shudders as the word rings through his brain. “No. For
starters I’m gay.”
“Really?”
“I protested on gay silence day.”
“What the fuck is that? Did Ryan Seacrest not show up on a episode or
something?”
Frank stares at him. Seriously? Jesus fuck, the fucking people in this school.
Cash’s stupidity is almost enough to distract him, except for the part where
nothing will ever stop him from repeating the last five minutes over and over
again.
Cash shrugs and reaches out to pat Frank’s shoulder. “Well, you just stay here.
We’ll play in rounds. Don’t worry about it.”
Frank wants to laugh. Like he’s fucking worried about who will replace him in
volleyball right now. He doesn’t. It’s not so much that he’s worried about
being the lunatic that rocks himself back and forth and laughs eerily
monotonously, because descending into madness doesn’t seem like that poor of an
option. It’s just he’s not sure someone won’t get the coach to deal with the
crazy kid sitting under the bleachers, and if the coach comes he’ll immediately
pass on the problem to the guidance counselor, so he can go back to his office,
doing whatever the fuck it is gym teachers do. Meanwhile, in the guidance
office, after a few aborted attempts to talk, she will most likely call his
fucking parents, and Frank cannot handle that shit. Less the straw that broke
the camel’s back and more sewage pouring into open wounds caused from walking
into a bear trap.
The hell of it is Mikey was right. Is right, it’s fucking crazy to think of
Mikey in past tense. He’s not dead, he hasn’t ceased to exist just because
they’ve split up. If he needs proof of that, he’ll get it in half an hour, when
he has to go into the locker room and change and no longer has the right to
ogle Mikey. Their relationship wasn’t equal, and he never did listen to Mikey’s
attempts at making it equal. To be fair though, it wasn’t like he knew not
bottoming was a deal breaker. If Mikey had actually called him out on it, told
Frank how much it was pissing him off, Frank likes to think he would have dealt
with it. Heartfelt conversations, or some shit. But Mikey just suggested, on
occasion, only making a statement when it was too late, when the statement was
‘I can’t do this anymore’.
*
Frank finds out during his spare. He’s not in the mood to play Spoons, there’s
nothing about sitting in a circle with a bunch of guys elbowing for one of the
treasures laid out on the floor that appeals to him right now. Of course,
there’s poker and rummy, and the guys that sit around trading their iPods to
impress each other with the rare b-sides they’ve tracked down, but he isn’t in
the mood for bluffing, or strategising, or complimenting. He really isn’t in
the mood for anything at all.
If he had his way, he wouldn’t even be here. His parents don’t understand the
gravity of the situation. They only let him skip one day. Seeing as it was the
only time they’d ever let him skip he should have been impressed. But given his
heartache Frank thought he had grounds for skipping the rest of the year. One
day doesn’t seem like much in comparison.
His first move after leadership is to go straight to the smoking doors. He’s
been having a smoke between every period since Mikey dumped him, it helps take
the edge off. But the one he needs most is after AL, after being stuck in a
room with Mikey for nearly an hour and not being able to acknowledge him. The
price of a pack every two days -it would be more, but his parents
acknowledgment of his upset is mainly proved by letting him bum smokes and
smoke inside- is worth the slight soothing it gives him.
After sucking it to the filter, Frank goes to the library. Mikey will be there,
but if he sits on the couch beside the reference desk he won’t be able to see
him, and it’ll be quiet. The moment he steps into the caf people will try to
recruit him into their game, nobody bothers him in the library. He just wants
to sit with his headphones on, blasting Bouncing Souls loud enough to cause
deafness in his middle aged years.
Frank’s partially right. Mikey’s there, of course. But instead of alone, he’s
with Pete. Pete Wentz and Patrick Stump. Frank does an about face and follows
the exact path back out to the smoking doors.
Somehow he makes it to lunch. It’s windy but Frank nestles into the corner,
cigarette protected by the brick wall on one side and the metal doors on
another. He methodically smokes through the rest of his pack. He can
practically feel his lungs shrivelling with each of the nine, but the only
other option is to break down and start sobbing, and that’s not really an
option at all.
Once the package is finished he paces outside the cafeteria doors. It’s
impossible to tell if his racing heart is due to the nicotine overdose, if he’s
lightheaded because he can’t stop moving and his heart isn’t beating fast
enough to get the oxygen where it needs to go, or if it’s because of the other
thing. The bell rings, a massive noise right beside Frank’s ear. It bangs
directly on Frank’s exposed nerves, like scraping his skin with razors and a
rinse of lemon juice.
John is the first one to come up to him, his smile fading as he takes in
Frank’s short pacing, three steps and a turn, three steps and a turn. Zoe and
Tina are in media with him, their discussion on a project cuts off too. Frank
used to care about killing the happiness of a person, but he hasn’t cared much
recently, and right now it doesn’t matter at all.
“John we need to go.” It comes out frantic, like he’s cracking up after
ingesting bad coke.
“What?”
“I need a smoke. I need a smoke more than I have ever needed a smoke before in
my life. And if I smoke by myself there’s no telling what I’ll do so I need a
smoking buddy slash babysitter.”
“Dude, what? Why? I thought you were getting over him.”
There’s nothing in John’s sentence that makes any sense at all, or is anything
near the truth. Frank grabs onto the straps of his backpack and clings to them
so he doesn’t descend into hysterics. “I can’t tell you until I can’t feel my
face anymore.”
“That bad huh? Okay.”
“I’m coming. Some shit you need to hear from a girl.” Frank doesn’t want any
advice, and chances are fairly high that Zoe will come up with something, but
he lets her come anyway. He’s too energetic to come up with a coherent argument
for her staying at school, and he’ll need to argue if he wants to convince her.
*
Frank exhales into the dimly lit basement and watches as the fan dissipates the
cloud. “I told you why he broke up with me, right?”
“If the answer is either a, you refused to let him fuck you, or b, you refused
to talk him about fucking, the answer is yes. The answer is about a million
times. But if you want rant again go for it. That’s why we’re here.”
“John!” Zoe elbows John, the gesture made much more hard by the way the pot
makes her sway her whole body into the movement.
“What? I’m being supportive! I said he could keep telling us.”
“That’s not supportive! You suck John, stop sucking.” Zoe slides from the couch
to the floor, tugging one of the cushions after her. “Frank, his suckage does
not speak for me, alright?” Frank shrugs. He thinks it’s pretty supportive.
Maybe girl brains work differently.
“Not that I really oppose skipping to get stoned. But is that all this is? You
wanting to rant more?”
Frank shakes his head, for a moment just enjoying how his bangs fly in the
machine created breeze. “Mikey got a new boyfriend.”
“Aww fuck, really?”
Frank nods, which plays with his hair completely differently. “He’ll never
break up with him either. He’s everything he could want.”
“How do you know?” Zoe asks.
“Because he’s fucking the school whore, man.” Fuck is he glad he’s stoned. If
this is how much it hurts to say it stoned, he can only imagine how much worse
this conversation would have been sober and trying to choke down french fries
at the lunch table.
“Pete Wentz? Seriously?” John doesn’t sound surprised, and Frank guesses he
shouldn’t have been either. Pete’s not exactly the guy you trust to keep his
dick in his pants.
“And whoever else comes with.” Frank adds bitterly. Really, it’s the perfect
solution for Mikey. It’s not like Pete would care if Mikey went out each night
for mutual handjobs at the bar, not when he’s got Ashlee and Patrick and
everyone else.
“I don’t think Pete is a whore,” Zoe announces flopping back the pile of
cushions and pillows she’s collected from the various armchairs.
“You’re the only one in the world Zoe.” John says it with kindness.
“No, really. Even if you take out the whores get paid for sex part, he’s still
sleeping with usually the same people.”
“He’s sleeping with multiple people at once!” Frank rolls his eyes. The concept
of whorishness isn’t that hard to understand.
“That’s not being a whore, that’s polygamy.”
“Is that one of your porn things?” Frank’s starting to get pissed. Zoe
defending his now arch enemy isn’t exactly what he wanted from leaving and
smoking up.
“If I start to explain how it’s not a porn thing, it’s got roots in multiple
religions and multiple places in history you’re not going to listen, so,
whatever.”
“Yeah, really not going to listen to you try to tell me why Pete fucking Mikey
is actually a great and awesome thing. Fuck sakes Zoe. I mean-”
“I’m going to pack another bowl,” John interrupts. “Who wants in?”
“John, I’m so in I’m like, inside the bowl.” Which is possibly not the most
clever thing he’s ever said, but it’s not fair to judge his witty comebacks
right now. He should be saving them up, anyway, right? He’s watched enough tv
to know that every set of rivals needs to come with harsh banter, rolled in
cutting slights and backhanded compliments. Why waste them on John or Zoe?
*
Back when Frank used to care about things, his favourite class was sociology. A
lot of students didn’t really appreciate it, it was a note heavy class and at
the end of March B F Skinner’s theory wasn’t what most of the seniors cared
about. Operant conditioning wasn’t narrowing down between what places had
accepted you to the one place you would go, it wasn’t planning out
accommodations or trying to decide what the fuck you were going to do if you
didn’t get accepted to the place you wanted. But Frank found it fascinating.
There were a ton of different theories about why people did what they did, and
he wanted to learn them all.
Even better than reading over his notes and googling for more information is
asking Mr Skiba. Unlike most of the teachers, he writes the notes on the
overheard as he’s reading them aloud, which makes it feel like he’s engaged in
the material. When he asks for hypotheticals he seems genuinely interested in
the answer, and the few times that someone brings up an idea that isn’t in the
notes Mr Skiba can easily reply with ‘that’s a Jungian concept, you might want
to go talk to Mr Grant about it, but here’s what I know about it’, instead of
getting upset about his lesson being derailed.
His obvious humanity, as compared to some of the teachers Frank’s had, is why
it doesn’t surprise Frank that Mr Skiba notices something. Of course, Frank
maybe makes it easy, the class has been over for three minutes and he still
hasn’t left his seat yet. He’s not sure exactly why he hasn’t gotten up. It’s
not just that AL is his next class, and there’s nothing he dreads more than
that first moment of seeing Mikey, where his stomach still heats happily before
he remembers and the world comes crashing down again. It just feels like all
the things in the world will attack him at once if he leaves. It’s ridiculous
but true, and there’s probably a better phrasing for it than Frank vs
Everything Ever. He thinks Joe would know, but Joe leads directly to Pete and
Patrick and Ashlee and Mikey and that is not a place he wants to delve any
deeper than is already on his mind.
“Frank are you okay?” Frank doesn’t look up from his desk, but Mr Skiba’s
fingers are pressed lightly on the edge of it, fingers bent slightly backwards
to the first knuckle.
“No.” It’s the truth, even if it does seem overly dramatic when he says it out
loud.
“Do you need the nurse or a guidance counsellor?”
“No.” He’s not sick, and there’s nothing that she can say that will make things
better.
“Frank, I’ve got class this period, but if you want to come back and talk at
lunch, you can.” Frank knows he’s right, any second now the teens are going to
start trickling in. He’s probably sitting in someone’s desk, some guy that’s
going to be glaring at him because he still needs to rush his homework for the
first fifteen minutes of class so he can hand it in at the end, or some girl
that glares because she just wants to sit down and gossip with her friends
about something that happened last period.
“Yeah, I dunno. Maybe.” He zips up his binder and puts it in his backpack. He
tries to ignore that his hands are shaking, and Mr Skiba doesn’t say anything
about it, so it’s fine.
Frank doesn’t want to talk, he just wants everything to have not happened. He’s
talked about everything a hundred times over with his friends, and they just
don’t get it. They’re all dating, all happy, and they think Frank going to talk
to Mikey will solve everything. He’s not exactly sure why he ends up outside
207, but he suspects it’s that. Mr Skiba is a teacher, which means he’s old
enough to understand that not everything can have a happy ending.
Mr Skiba is sitting at his desk when Frank walks in. He’s not grading papers or
anything, just sitting and reading a book. It’s old enough that when he reaches
for his stainless steel bottle the cracked spine keeps the page open. He tilts
his head to take a swallow and that’s when he sees him. “Frank, you came.”
“Yeah, well.”
“Do you want to sit down, or...”
Frank grabs one of the blue plastic chairs and pulls it close to the desk. “Do
you always sit alone eating in here, or is this because of me? Am I keeping you
from-” Frank doesn’t know what to call them, he’s not sure if the teachers
consider each other friends, or just colleagues. “staff room stuff?”
“On and off. It can get pretty noisy there, sometimes I like the quiet here. Or
sometimes a student needs me to explain a concept, so I have them swing by so I
can help. So what’s wrong?”
“I broke up with my boyfriend over the most stupid thing. It’s been a month and
I still want him back.” Frank is happy Mr Skiba doesn’t react at all to the
pronoun but then he didn’t really expect anything different. Skiba’s too cool
to be homophobic.
“Have you tried talking to him?”
Christ, so much for him having the wisdom of being at least a decade older than
his friends. “It’s not the talking that matters, it’s whether or not we can
fuck.”
Mr Skiba’s eyes flare open a bit, but his voice stays with the same smooth
calmness he always uses in class as he says “Frank, if he’s pressuring you in
any way-”
“He’s not because we’re not dating. And he wasn’t either. I didn’t mean it like
that.” Frank puts as much emphasis on the last word as he can. Just because
he’s frustrated and upset with all of it doesn’t mean that he’s going to let
other people think Mikey’s some sort of rapist. “I meant he broke up with me
because I refused to bottom.”
“Frank this isn’t really an appropriate conversation.”
“My friends think I should just talk to him, tell him I miss him and want him
back. He’s dating this asshole bastard slut, and even if Mikey thinks that’s
what he wants, he’s way better than someone like that. He could catch
something!” There’s not a question in Frank’s mind that Pete and Patrick and
Mikey are fucking, and that’s different than what happens in a bar. Handjobs
are the safest sex you can have, but if Patrick blows Mikey, than that’s fluid
exchange, and sex ed proves that Pete’s a dirty whore and Mikey will get
syphilis and die of brain swelling. “But I can’t just go and tell him, they
don’t get it, he broke up with me because we weren’t compatible, and even if I
want him, I’ll have to let him fuck me and I-”
“Frank, seriously, I can’t have this conversation with you. I wish I could, it
sounds like you need help and I wish I could help you. But teachers cannot talk
to students about their sex lives. I can’t. Nobody can, not Mr Grant or Mr
Andriano or Mrs Palmer. We’d get suspended, fired, arrested, and featured on
CNN. Maybe not in that order but...” Mr Skiba trails off.
“Fine. Fine, just fucking fine.” Motherfucking goddamn figures. Frank stands,
chair making an ugly noise as it scrapes backwards against the floor from the
sudden movement.
“Frank-”
“Stop. You don’t want to talk, so fuck off and stop talking. Alright? Fuck.” Mr
Skiba could give him a detention for his language and disrespect, but he won’t,
which only pisses Frank off more. If you’re going to be a dick, you should be a
straight up dick instead of fucking with people’s heads. He doesn’t wait to
hear any more, just grabs his bag by one of the straps and walks out, slamming
the door behind him. The crashing noise isn’t nearly satisfying enough.
*
Frank realises his mistake as he comes in from his lunch smoke. Shaun’s sitting
with a pile of gift bags in front of him. Seven to be exact. “I didn’t forget,
it’s just not here” he says by way of introduction.
“Whatever. Just gimme your pudding and we’ll call it even.” Shaun replies.
“No seriously, I did get you something. This isn’t an episode of Simpsons where
I spaced and will end up getting you Santa’s Little Helper.”
“Technically he didn’t forget, he just blew his money gambling.”
Frank rolls his eyes at Neil. “Whatever. Point is, I’m just shitty in the
morning, I forgot to put it in my bag.”
“Fine, then gimme your pudding as apology for forgetting.”
“There’s no way I’m going to join the table with my pudding intact is there?”
“Probably not and even if you sit down chances are some dude with a ski mask
and a gun will come in and be like your pudding or your life. At least if you
hand it over the gun will be on my temple, not yours, right?”
Frank drops his backpack onto the table, fishes in onehandedly until he finds
the paper bag, and pulls out the tupperware container. It’s light green, which
means that he’s giving Shaun pistachio. All in all, not the worst flavour to
give up. Frank would have cut Shaun rather than give up white chocolate or
cheesecake.
*
The original plan was for Frank to just put the present in his backpack before
bed so he didn’t have to worry about spacing in the morning. But John and Zoe
and Tim and Kelly are out playing mini-golf and sometimes there really is such
a thing as a fifth wheel. It feels like he’s watched every video on Youtube,
and he doesn’t want to go over to Neil’s to watch more, so instead after dinner
he just gets on the bus and rides until he’s near enough Shaun’s work to walk
the rest of the way. It’s pretty much the perfect place for the guy, Flipped
Pages sells comics, manga, and if you talk to Donetello there’s a underground
trade of doujinshi. It’s actually how Shaun met Tina; she’d heard of Flipped
Pages as a source but asked the wrong guy.
“See! It’s not even belated! I demand a pudding cup!” Frank bellows as he walks
into the store, his shout far more effective than the wind chime near the draft
of the door
‘What flavour?” It isn’t a voice Frank recognises as Shaun, Don, or Kenny but
he’s sure he knows it. He eyes the room slowly, looking for a customer he knows
among the display cases. “I’m partial to butterscotch myself.”
Frank sees the owner of the voice and wants to bolt. He would be on Frank’s
list of five people he never wanted to be in a room with again, except it never
would have occurred to him to add him. The words don’t seem provocative, unless
there’s an undercut Frank can’t hear. Frank hopes there isn’t, that this isn’t
the start of something. He doesn’t want to have to fight him. He’d probably win
but it would be lame, and it would make a mess that Shaun would have to clean,
and that’s just not cool to do to someone on their birthday. So he answer as
nice as possible ‘I like banana best’ then he scoots past him to the back of
the store.
Shaun’s standing at the cash register, slowly reading a doujinshi. It’s obvious
it’s a poorly produced fanwork, from the two pages Frank can see the art is
shit and Shaun’s snickering means the dialogue isn’t very good. Sometimes when
Frank visits they hold a dramatic reading of one, Don watching and applauding
at the appropriate times. Frank is nowhere near that mood now though.
“You didn’t tell me Gerard fucking Way worked here!” His voice is quiet enough
to not attract attention of the man, but Frank’s sure his fury is still
properly expressed.
“Who?” Frank gesticulates wildly, his finger eventually pointing at Gerard.
“Oh, Gee. I didn’t know that was his last name. Shit, you telling me he’s
Mikey’s brother? Small world.”
Frank slams the gift on the glass display case, the stein inside thunking
heavily. “Open your fucking present, I need to get out of here.”
And like he’s some sort of stealthy vampire, Gerard is right behind him,
replying “No you don’t.”
“Excuse me?”
“If you’re leaving because you think I’m going to cause drama over Mikey or
something, then you don’t need to leave, because I’m not. You guys broke up,
now he’s dating someone else-”
Frank interrupts “yeah, total fucking cockbag. If there’s anyone you’re going
to beat up, it should be him!”
“I’m not beating anyone up, Frank. You guys broke up, he’s dating Pete-”
“And Patrick and Ashlee, fucking Christ! And maybe Joe and Andy, you really
can’t tell with-”
“Come on, man. You’re not telling me anything I don’t know. Me and Mikey talk,
and if it makes him happy than I’m glad he’s doing it. That’s that.”
“He’s happy though? About everything, not just the jackass? Where’d he get into
college?” Fuck, he is so fucking weak. He shouldn’t care, he shouldn’t need to
know if Mikey is happy. It’s been five weeks since Mikey dumped him, he
shouldn’t care about him any more.
“I don’t think we should be colluding with my brother’s information.”
Frank crosses his arms. “It’s not really a secret, I could find out from his
friends.”
“So why don’t you?”
There’s a challenging lilt in Gerard’s voice, and since he's already mad at
himself for being so pathetic the tone is enough to make Frank snap. “Because
it is fucking traumatizing to talk to them and this is just as bad but at least
it’s already started! I might as well get use out of it.”
Gerard looks at him for a second than says quietly “A few places, but he’s
going to Rutgers.”
“What? So am I! Can you tell him if he asks?”
“Yeah sorry man, no. He wouldn’t know to ask and I’m not telling him. Everyone
needs to do their own thing, dwelling’s never helpful.” It’s the kindest way
Frank’s heard ‘get the fuck over him’ yet, which may or may not say something
about the empathic capacities of his friends. The words are true, nothing that
Frank didn’t know himself, and somehow still crushing. For as short a time as
Frank had had, mere seconds, it had been long enough for full fantasies of
sharing a room with Mikey and having coffee always brewing on an illegal
hotplate, and fucking before first class, and a million other pathetic things.
His eyes are closed, but he can feel Gerard looking at him, he can feel the
dagger edged sympathy slicing at him.
“Happy birthday Shaun. I gotta go. See you tomorrow.” Frank doesn’t wait for a
response, just rushes out the door and starts walking to the bus stop. He needs
a fucking smoke.
*
Frank flips to the end of the textbook. It’s impossible to cheat using the
answers in the back, it only gives you the number, and every piece of homework
always demands you show your work. Still, it’s useful enough for knowing if
he’s right, because chances are if his number is correct than the way he solved
the problem is the right method.
Claire slips into class at the last possible moment, she’s not even in her seat
when the buzzer goes off. But it’s April seventeenth, they’ve got less than two
months until graduation, and there are only a few teachers throughout all of
Carleton hard-assed enough to give a detention for something so slight. She
twists in her seat to face Neil beside her, and Tina behind him, and Frank
beside Tina as Mr Mack starts attendance. “Congratulations to us. We are now
the average American high school.”
“What, someone pulled a gun?” Frank asks. The idea of it hardly phases him.
They’re on the first floor, they can probably break through the window and run
to safety.
“Couldn’t have, we didn’t go into lock down.” Neil answers.
“No, not yet, but maybe they’re on the other side of the school? But you think
if someone was going to do it it would be in March, after a rejection letter.”
It’s possibly not fair for Frank to be ascribing a school shooter persona to
Joe, but it’s not like it’s impossible to imagine him freaking out about not
getting in where he wanted and taking out the entire school.
“Bullshit, it’s always about bullying.” Neil argues. Frank disagrees. Most of
the time it’s about bullying, but sometimes people are just psychopaths, and
sometimes people have blackouts or meltdowns. There’s such a thing as
criminally insane, after all. He’s about to make the point when Claire speaks
up again.
“Moving on from Michael Moore-”
“Yeah, into Maury,” Tina interrupts. Claire glares at her. “What, I heard it
too! I didn’t spoil it, I’m still letting you say it.”
“We’ve got a pregnant girl.”
“Shit, really?” Frank honestly can’t think of something more horrible than
throwing away your entire future because of lack of a condom. Assuming she’s
keeping it. If Frank was a girl, he’d never consider it, not for a split
second.
“Statistically speaking, in a school with approximately a thousand girls
there’s probably more than one.”
“Yes, but she’s the only one not using the coat hanger and clumsiness around
the stairs method.” Claire answers Neil.
“So she’s keeping it? Who is she, do we know her?”
“She’s in my photography class. It’s been floating around all day but I got it
confirmed last period.”
“You just asked her?” Frank’s not sure he’d have the balls to ask.
“Frank, if she’s keeping it she sure as hell can’t be shy about talking about
it. Yeah I asked her, apparently the father doesn’t give a shit. But her
parents would kick her out of the house if she got rid of it, so she’s got no
choice.”
Tina shakes her head. “She’s got a choice, she’s just copping out by blaming
her parents. I would never agree to that shit, not for them, not for anyone.”
Coming from Tina it’s a bit rich to hear mockery of following a parent’s
wishes, but Frank thinks if he was a girl he’d do the same. “Fuckin’ Rebekah.”
“Wait. Rebekah? As in Rebekah-” Shit, he doesn’t know her last name to clarify.
“As in Rebekah, your last pathetic attempt to be straight? Yeah, that Rebekah.
Are you sure you’re not the uncaring father?”
“Fuck off!” Frank exclaims in horror.
“Frank, language and volume, alright? A work period means you need to pretend
to be working.”
Frank apologises to Mr Mack and takes a look at problem five in contrition. He
can’t concentrate on what it’s asking of him. The girl Frank could have dated
in another world -a nightmare world where he hadn’t realised, or had but was
too ashamed to cut things off before they started to follow his real wishes, an
easily imaginable alternate world- is pregnant. It’s like a slap in the face.
An entire life springs to mind, married and with fucking kids and a mortgage,
wearing prissy suits and worrying about saving enough for retirement. It’s a
full fledged horror in his head, enough to make him shudder like spiders are
crawling over his skin. If it’s not what he wants, he’s gotta do something
about it. He can’t let normalcy and complacency win. He’ll do what it takes.
At school the next morning, the plan seems less foolproof. But it doesn’t seem
any less important to try, and that’s what matters. It’s time to put up or shut
up. It’s time to make a move to get what he wants, or end up married and
trapped. Because sure he can say he’ll never let that happen, but the only way
he knows it won’t is by running in the opposite direction as fast as he can.
So he gets to school earlier than normal, and heads straight for Mikey’s
locker. Frank doesn’t care how long it takes for Mikey to come, he’ll sit on
the speckled with dirt floor until three thirty if he has to.
It doesn’t take that long. Mikey walks down the hallway, Pete beside him. Frank
waits until Mikey twirls his combination and gets his locker open before
rushing over to him. They’re talking about something, but manners are not the
most important thing in this situation, he can’t wait for a natural pause in
the conversation. “Mikey, I fucking love you okay? And I know you broke up with
me and I still don’t want you to fuck me, it fucking sucked and I didn’t like
it and I don’t know about you but once I realise I hate something I don’t want
to do it again. But Jesus Christ, dude, I’d let you tear me apart every fucking
night if you’d date me again. It might have taken me like two months to realise
it but we still have another six weeks before graduation so fuck, please. You
can fuck me, I’ll prove that I’m okay with it.”
Mikey slams his locker closed before whirling around. He looks distinctly
unimpressed, and Frank’s heart plummets. “So, what, you’re auditioning? Frank,
it wasn’t just the not switching. Don’t get me wrong, I wanted to fuck you. But
it wasn’t just that. Every fucking time I brought it up you lied or tried to
distract me. You acted like a total bitch, Frank. I don’t date pussies.”
Frank wants to point out that before him Mikey didn’t date anyone. Then he
thinks that it’s too confrontational for a conversation meant to get Mikey back
in his arms. And then he thinks not saying it out loud sort of proves Mikey’s
point that he’s a pussy too scared to say anything important. “Before me you
didn’t date anyone!”
“So he made up the rule on the fly. Seems like a solid rule dude.”
Frank turns to look at Pete, cocky and grinning with his fucking horse teeth
all over the place. He grounds out through a gritted jaw, “Shut. Up.”
“I’m just saying, man.”
Frank revels in the pain that blossoms in his hand as he punches Pete in the
face. It’s the sweetest kind of pain, triumphant.
“Oh, that’s what were doing?” Pete asks rhetorically before striking back. It’s
a solid hit and Frank maybe belatedly remembers he’s seen Pete in all the same
mosh pits he’s been in, that Pete has the same pain tolerance he does, which
his normally his winning factor, because he just doesn’t care if someone hurts
him, as long as he hurts them more. But Pete runs on the same fuel, he knows it
from the bars, he knows it from the little he’s gleaned from Joe. Frank’s maybe
in a bit over his head. That doesn’t mean he’s going to bitch out.
They only have a minute before the crowd that gathers is enough to attract
teachers. First it’s Harper, screeching what is going on at the top of her
lungs, each word over enunciated. It’s like a bat signal for the stronger
teachers, moments after she clips off the ‘n’ there are arms around his chest,
pulling him back. Molko’s got Pete, which looks ridiculous. Mr Molko is as
effeminate as teachers come, and he’s actually shorter than Pete. But it works,
the moment his arms are around Pete he subdues immediately. It only takes a
twist of his spine -he’s being held hard enough to keep him from bursting out
of the hold, but not hard enough for bruises and a lawsuit- to figure out
Skiba’s got him.
And that’s when Patrick comes running down the hall. Frank’s still struggling
to get out of Skiba’s hold, but he’s watching everyone else, trying to figure
out who’s going to be on his side if he can start fighting again, who’s going
to try to stop him. Patrick’ll obviously be on Pete’s side, he doesn’t even
look all that surprised to see Pete being cradled by Mr Molko. Still he asks,
“what the shit?”
“Frank,” Mr Skiba says lowly, “If I let you go and you go for him, you’ll be
suspended. I know you got into Rutgers, a suspension for violence is not going
to look good.”
It is fucking infuriating that Molko has already let go of Pete, and Pete is
just standing there. Not even telling him to bring it with his eyes, Pete’s are
glazed and dead. Pete started everything, and Patrick’s attempting to link his
fingers into his, while Pete just stands there frozen, and he looks like such
an innocent that if Frank tries to finish what he started he’ll be the bad guy.
“This is fucking bullshit.”
“Be that as it may, Frank, do you really want to let being pissed off ruin your
chance to get into college?”
That gets to him. While having Mikey to get tattoos with and smoke up with and
go on roadtrips every few months was a sure bet to not slide into suburban
idiocy, a great first step into that life is a tedious minimum wage job at a
supermarket because he didn’t manage college. “I won’t touch the jackass.”
“Frank, are-”
“I’m not going to fucking touch him, let me the fuck go!” Frank snaps. Skiba’s
arms uncurl, releasing him, and Frank tugs his shirt down.
“Patrick, Pete has detention after school today. Or tomorrow, if he can’t make
today,” Mr Molko calls out, and Patrick waves the hand that’s not slowly
leading Pete down the hall. “Frank, yours will be in my classroom after my last
period.”
What the shit is that? How does Pete get to pick a day, and his isn’t a choice?
It’s proof that life is unfair, and assholes always win. Frank nods once, not
trusting himself to not burst into a stream of profanity that will get him a
second detention. He scans the hallway. There are a ton of gawkers slowly
drifting away now that the fight is done and the repercussions are meted out,
but he doesn’t see Mikey anywhere. Fucking Pete, making him fuck up his last
chance.
*
Frank’s almost down to the filter of his cigarette when the door opens behind
him. He exhales and lets out a grunt in hello, they’re all a community of
sorts.
“Didn’t you used to just smoke at lunch?”
Frank doesn’t need to turn his head to recognise Mikey. It’s been nine days of
silence since the drama in the hallway, and it doesn’t make sense that Mikey’s
breaking it now just to ask him about his addictions, but fuck it. Might as
well give an honest answer, and if it prickles him, all the better. “Yeah, but
when the stress levels go up, so does the need for nicotine, so.”
“Wouldn’t know. Gee just smokes like a chimney regardless. Look, Frank-” Mikey
trails off. Frank does not want to hear a ‘stay away from my boyfriend threat,
and thinks it’s a bit late for it anyway. That conversation could have happened
last Wednesday. “Frank, do you want to go to prom?”
What. The fuck. Of all the possible thing Mikey could have said, that’s as low
on Frank’s list of expected inquiries as ‘want to be eaten by grizzlies?’ and
‘want to be astronauts?’ “Prom? I feel like there should be some kind of
ballady happy Muzak in the background.”
“No, let’s save Sixpence None The Richer for the movie they’ll write about you
after you get famous.”
“For what? I don’t even know what I’m taking in college, never mind being good
enough at something to be famous enough to have an autobiography that’ll get
produced into a movie.”
“Fine then, I’ll be famous.” Mikey’s hand gropes into his pocket and pulls out
a cigarette of his own. Frank lights the end, Mikey’s hand curling around the
opposite side to protect it from the breeze.
Frank watches him take a few drags before he asks the primary thought running
through his head. “You’re not going with Pete and Patrick and Ashlee, and fuck,
whoever else comes attached?” Frank’s rather impressed with how level his voice
is.
“I broke up with them a while ago.” It’s only been nine days, Mikey’s clearly
got a different measurement of time than he has. “I just didn’t know if I
wanted you.”
“So what happened?”
“Pete told me I was a fucking moron, that of course I wanted you.” Mikey
punctuates the statement with raising the cigarette to his lips and inhaling
again. The underneath of his fingernails are blue, like he didn’t take more
than a second to wash his hands after art class.
Frank supposes he should be happy for the push in his direction but instead
“and you always listen to Pete?” comes out bitterly.
“I’m not telling you all his secrets. But the guy knows how to take what he
wants in compensation for all the things he can’t have.” Frank snorts. From
what he’s seen, there’s nothing Pete Wentz can’t have. He’s got a girlfriend, a
few boyfriends, a car and a dozen pairs of Converse, the magical ability to
convince teachers to bend the rules for him. But he’s not going to say any of
it out loud, because now is not the time to get into an argument with Mikey
over him.
Mikey takes a fifth drag, then presses the lit end into the brick wall. It
sizzles and dies, and the stub goes back into his pocket. “So, prom?”
“I don’t know.” His response floors him. Frank’s wanted him back since March
and the first chance he gets he plays hard to get? What is his brain? But the
seconds in which he has to edit himself and write it off as a joke are ticking
down and he spends them without replying.
“Oh. Okay. Uh. I found this great band, want me to link you to them?”
“Yeah.” Talking to Mikey on MSN will only prolong the agony of everything, but
at this point he’s really brought it upon himself. And along with everything
else, he’s missed Mikey’s music recs. Even if he’s got no idea what’s going on,
getting a list of twenty new discographies to download will be a good thing.
“I’m going in for photography now. And you?”
“Woods.” Why is Mikey asking? He must already know, just like Frank knows all
of Mikey’s classes. Frank watches Mikey head back inside, and pulls out another
smoke. If he dies of lung cancer in ten years, it’s better than dying from a
complete mental and physical breakdown right now.
It doesn’t leave Frank’s mind for the entirety of woods, in which he wisely
chooses to stay away from the band saw and the belt sander. There are things
you can do with a warped mind, like putting another coat of lacquer on a table,
or gluing together different types of wood for an eventual chessboard, and
there are things you don’t do if you wish to keep your thumbs. Frank needs his
for video games, so he sticks to using a light grit paper to work his
breadboard into softness. The moment class is over he runs for John’s car. He
needs some opinions, and Hambone and Zoe are the best for that.
John’s pulling in front of his house by the time he’s done rambling. Frank
peters off with the same thing he’s said a half a dozen times already. “I don’t
know. Should I go to prom? Do I have to go?”
“Did you not learn your lesson with homecoming?”
“What, that crepe paper is lame?” Frank can’t think of anything else life
changing, and even that’s pushing the concept of a lesson pretty hard.
“No. That even if you don’t want to, we’ll make you. So do we need to make this
some super secret operation, stealing your phone and inviting Mikey pretending
to be you, only to handcuff you together when you both show up at prom, or will
you just shut up and go?”
Frank has no hesitation in believing that Zoe would handcuff him to Mikey. But
it’s not the brilliant advice he was hoping for. He unbuckles his seat belt and
jumps out of the car. He agrees to text John if he wants to hang out later and
goes straight to his bedroom. He needs to think.
Except he’s not in his room five minutes before he’s got his cell phone out.
Frank presses the seventh number and immediately wants to hang up, but it’s
already rung once, and the only thing he can imagine that’s worse than this
imminently awkward conversation is waiting for Mikey to check his phone and
call back. Fuck, what if Mikey doesn’t pick up and he has to wait anyway? He’s
such a fucking-
“Hey?”
“Hi. Mikey? I don’t want to go to prom with you.”
Frank can’t see it, but he’s almost certain Mikey is crossing his arms or
tugging his skullcap further down. “You didn’t have to call me just to tell me
that. I took your reluctance as a answer outside. Have a good night.”
Frank rushes before Mikey can hang up on him. “Wait. Can we like, not go but
still spend the night together? Because homecoming really sucked, and prom is
just a more expensive version of homecoming. Prom is expensive homecoming, with
a shitty meal attached and renting limos and suits. Mikey, proms have suits,
and nobody really wants that, do they?”
“I guess Romero is better than some DJ that thinks Ricky Martin is making a
comeback any day now.”
Frank goes out on a limb. He’s almost shaking, saying it, but tries to put
everything into his tone. He’s only got one more shot at this. He fucked up the
first time, this needs to be clear. “Or you could come over and we could watch
Survival of the Dead tonight, instead of waiting a month?”
“Frankie, Frankie, Frankie. One does not have a zombie date and watch the
newest in a series! You’re lucky it’s me, Gerard would resort to fisticuffs for
such an offense.” Frank sort of tunes out for a minute, Mikey’s voice in his
ear in the background. He said date! A fucking date. Mikey’s done with Pete’s
orgy party and he’s coming over for a zombie date. For the first time in two
months, the world is good.
*
Frank puts his arms up and traps his hands between the back of his head and the
pillow. This time he’s not going to push Mikey away, no matter what happens.
Hindsight is twenty twenty, and has pleasantly informed him he was an idiot for
not following through. He’s not going to fall into the same trap, he’s not
going to let their relationship fall apart in another month because he won’t do
this. Mikey is worth any pain.
Mikey is straddling him, slowly grinding against his cock. His lips are cherry
red from their kissing when he pulls back, sitting up on some combination of
his shins and Frank’s thighs and the bed. He doesn’t look thrilled. “We don’t
have to do this today.”
However kind he might be trying to be, it’s not. Giving him the option to pussy
out is in no way helpful, it’s like waving a forty in front of an alcoholic’s
face, and then telling them it’s their choice. “Shut up and do it.”
“You lying back and thinking of England isn’t exactly making me hard.”
Which blatantly isn’t true, Frank can clearly see Mikey’s cock, big, and
reddened, and about be be shoved inside him. He snaps “what do you want from
me? I’m telling you to fuck me!”
“Uh, maybe for it to not be a chore or a task?”
“Well it is,” slips out before he can stop it. Fuck, he’s going to break them
up again. Fuck shit fuck. In one smooth move Mikey is climbing off him,
standing and grabbing his jeans from the floor. Fuck, “please don’t go!”
“I’m not going anywhere. I’m just not doing this. Frank, you should put your
boxers on and we’ll talk.” On various movies and sitcoms over the years,
Frank’s heard it insinuated that ‘we need to talk’ means the end of a
relationship. And shit, maybe it’s true. But what they had already died one
death because they didn’t talk, so what’s the alternative? Still, he doesn’t
get off the bed to get partially dressed like Mikey, just sits up and reaches
back to grab a pillow to put over his junk.
Mikey smirks and shrugs a bit, then sits on the other end of Frank’s bed.
“Without getting pissed, can you just tell me why you didn’t like it? I mean,
you fucked me all the time and I liked it. Tell me it’s not a masculinity
thing.”
Fuck not getting mad. “Fuck you! You really think I let everything go to hell
because I thought it made me a girl? Fuck you. It hurt. Not the fingering, that
was just weird. But the actual fucking, that hurt. And not that I’m pulling a
sexual assault card but when I asked you to stop you didn’t.”
Mikey shrugs. “Okay. I suck, and you’re tight. We can fix both these problems.”
“What do you suggest we do?” Maybe it’s a bit snotty, but Mikey can handle a
bit of rudeness.
“Well, we’re twenty first century kids, right? So when in doubt, Google.”
Frank puts the pillow down and walks over to his desk. His thighs goosebump
when he sits on the cold leather chair. He types in ‘how to make ass sex hurt
less’ and frowns at the first twenty pages that come up. In every few sentence
blurb it’s some dude asking a forum how to make his girlfriend want to try it.
“You really have no Google-fu at all, do you?” Mikey kisses his temple then
digs his elbow into his shoulder so he can lean over Frank and type. Frank gets
an odd flashback to their first meeting but doesn’t say anything.
“All you did was add the word gay!”
“Yeah, and there are no more fraternity jerkoffs whining about their
girlfriends, are there?”
“Point.” Frank starts to read the article Mikey clicks, then his view is
obscured by Mikey dropping onto his lap. Frank jabs him hard in the back. “If I
can’t read it, tell me what it says, fucker.”
“You have two assholes, and the inner one is the one that doesn’t want me to
fuck you. Basically I need to finger you every time I blow you, and after a
while it’ll calm down. Also you should finger yourself when you jerk off.”
“Interesting. Scholarly, even. So, wanna get started on that?”
“Horny bastard,” Mikey says, but it sounds like he’s smiling. “Get back on the
bed then.”
Frank waits for Mikey to climb off, then lies back down, one hand curled around
his cock while the other flicks open the top of the lube. He could be poetic
and say it smells of new beginnings, but it doesn’t, it’s just cherry lube.
Still, he thinks things are going to get better now.
*
Frank isn’t much for school spirit, so it’s not Nate trying to sell it as one
last act of rebellion and senior camaraderie that gets him. Honestly, it’s just
because Nate is a little bit pathetic these days. Since Gabe, Ryland, and Elisa
graduated mid year, leaving Alex, Nate and Victoria alone, they’ve all been
sort of pathetic. Not that he probably has much credibility in the bad ass
arena, after all the moping over Mikey. But at least his personality didn’t
turn a one eighty. The decimated Cobras only tried two more spontaneous actions
before giving up, going completely against the nature of the improv group to do
what they want and not need the approval of others.
For Nate to try something now, after months of nothing from the Cobras, is
risky. It’s cool if it happens, but if he pleads and no one but Victoria and
Alex are willing to back him, it’s pathetic. Frank doesn’t think it’s fair for
anyone to be pathetic on graduation day. So he pitches in that it seems like a
great idea, which gets his friends on board. The idea begins to ripple through
the graduating class, each vote of ‘that’s stupid’ being drowned by five that
like it. They go silent as a handful of teachers walk in, all clad in dress
clothes. It’s weird to see all the female teachers in dresses, even cocktail
party casual ones, all the men wearing ties.
The teachers carefully line them up, lines of twenty five, and file them into
the twenty rows of folding chairs, and leave them to go sit on the reserved
seats. Frank can hear the parents and grandparents and little brothers and
sisters on the other side of the scarlet curtain. He imagines his parents
somehow stumbling into Gerard and the elusive Mr and Mrs Way and wants to laugh
for the scene that creates itself. Before the curtain opens everyone takes the
brief unsupervised time to reseat themselves. Really, Frank doesn’t see much
rebellion in it. They’re just not in order, it’s not like they’re walking out
or setting fire to the auditorium. Still, he’s happy about the mass migration.
Having John on one side, Mikey on the other seems more meaningful than being
between Mike Idle and Amber Ignatio.
The middle of the stage has a tiny platform and a speaker’s podium Frank knows
perfectly well a few of the guys in his woods class had to make. It’s tradition
for the jocks to steal it and put it in the middle of a bonfire at the after
party Frank’s not invited to. He could probably still go, as he’s sure Mikey is
invited, but he doesn’t really want to spend the night with several hundred
teenagers crammed in a rich kid’s house. He just wants to smoke up and drink
with his friends, and try to forget that by the end of the summer he has to
leave them all.
The other side of the stage, stage right, has another five hundred rented
folding chairs. Each chair has a name post it noted to the seat. After
Hawthorne calls their name to come collect the diploma, they’re supposed to
step off the platform and walk to their assigned seat. The way Frank figures
it, he’ll be crossing the stage in about an hour. The ceremony is supposed to
be three hours long, at least according to the gilted and embossed invitation
he had to give to his parents. I is the ninth letter in the alphabet, which is
a third of the way through. He gets his quick moment to take his rolled up
paper and pose for pictures and his few words, and then it’s back to sitting
with Mike and Amber.
Basically, Frank’s expecting three hours of sheer boredom, only relieved by the
occasional amusing quote. Everyone gets the chance to say the same
inspirational quote they ascribed in their yearbook entry, Hawthorne’s hand on
the microphone in case someone decides to be crude or offensive. Frank’s is a
lyric, of course; but I still believe there are only a few things that really
belong to me, who I am, who I was and who I want to be. He knows most of his
friends choices, but Mikey refuses to tell him his. Frank’s sure it’ll be a
lyric too, there’s no way Mikey can have so much music and not have a lyric be
the most important statement of his life, he just not sure what it will be.
Unfortunately, considering he’s Mikey Way, it’s going to be about three hours
until he learns.
The curtain opens to the entire crowd of relatives clapping for them. It’s sort
of ridiculous, but in a way that feels great. Judging by the glare the
principal gives them, Hawthorne seems less than impressed by the ‘rebellion’.
But he chooses to save face and let them stay in their messed up order rather
than close the curtains and demand they all get back into their proper seats.
The glare is the last spark of interest Frank has for the next fifteen minutes.
Then Victoria Asher walks across the stage and Ryland and Gabe stand on their
chairs in the audience and start screaming and whistling, making a far bigger
deal than her family. Hawthorne is scowling, but honestly Frank thinks he’s
lucky they didn’t start acting out a scene in the aisle. When Gabe hurtles a
plastic snake across the length of the room onto the stage, Victoria bends and
picks it up before she takes the diploma Hawthorne is waiting to give her. Her
quote is ‘fangs up’, which makes Gabe and Ryland burst into another round of
cheering.
It’s obvious he’s not the only one that’s bored. Scattered throughout the
graduating class are teenagers surreptitiously texting, or playing with a DS.
Anyone in the front two rows are screwed, but further back than that it’s proof
that teens of his generation have no focus, no patience. Somehow he doesn’t
feel guilty about it; maybe his generation doesn’t have shame either?
Unfortunately Frank wasn’t one of the ones smart enough to bring his cellphone,
meaning that unless Tina kindly decides to share, he’s shit out of luck.
The gods are clearly smiling on him. Frank becomes certain of this fact when
Mikey puts his hand on his thigh. It only stays there for a minute before it
drifts, up, in. It doesn’t stop moving until it’s on top of his junk. “Mikey?”
“Just look ahead. We’re fifteen rows back, nobody’s going to see. Unless you
scream out in orgasm, nobody’s going to know.” As far as whispered plans go,
it’s not the most elaborate. It’s basically relying on luck. But Frank’s down
with gambling, he’s played poker at Christmas with his relatives since he was
nine. Mikey’s hand on him, stroking him through the graduation gown, and
Frank’s not going to say no.
Douglas Cameron is giving his valedictorian speech, and Frank should be
listening. It’s probably inspirational, it probably talks about heroes in and
outside of the school, it probably mentions the challenges of the future in a
framework of the challenges they’ve already faced. He can’t hear a word of it,
all he can hear is his own panting. Mikey’s hand is on him, and Frank is doing
his best to not arch up into it, because even if the audience doesn’t notice,
he doesn’t want the students around him to see either.
The truth is, Frank doesn’t need to hear what wise people think about the past
of high school, and the future of colleges and careers. Frank’s got his past,
his own future. He’s gay, and in love, and he’s got a family, and friends that
he might not lose as they scatter over the country. Things will suck, and
things will be great, and most things will just be okay. And that’s enough. His
eyes close as he climaxes, coming into the shorts he’s wearing under his gown.
He breathes for a second, and then extends his arm. They’re only on C, he’s got
more than enough time to help Mikey.
Please drop_by_the_archive_and_comment to let the author know if you enjoyed
their work!