He fell asleep within minutes.
--
When he woke up, it was not yet morning. Mikey was lying next to him with an arm thrown over Pete's chest, and Pete watched him, lying absolutely still, for a few moments. Then he lifted a hand to Mikey's face and touched his mouth carefully, sliding his fingers across his lips. "Hey." When Mikey didn't answer, Pete poked him in the shoulder, "Hey, hey, time to wake up." He ran his hand over Mikey's neck and chest and side and Mikey grunted and turned over. He mumbled something that sounded like "foff," and Pete giggled. It echoed in the quiet morning and he pressed the heel of his palm to his mouth, thought, oh shit, the Ways will all wake up and chase me out with shotguns. Mikey was apparently a grumpy morning person, at least at 4.30 in the morning, but Pete felt warm all over. He was only too happy to be able to lie down again and press his nose against Mikey's neck and breathe in.
***
When Gerard woke up that morning, he was convinced that their friendship was over. He tried and tried to think of a reason why he wouldn't care, why it wouldn't hurt, but the only thing he could come up with was that having sex with Frank had been totally worth it - until that feeling wore off.
Frank was still sleeping, curled up in the middle of the bed. His face was turned towards Gerard, scrunched up against the light and he was naked under the sheets. Gerard knew, because Frank had undressed in front of him.
He didn't know what he was going to say when Frank woke up, because he didn't have any experience of waking up with someone who hours ago had shot his load all over his chest and stomach. Frank had been drunk, but Gerard had been sober, so he had no excuse for why he had ended up in bed with Frank, fumbling around and sort of losing his virginity. On prom night. The sex hadn't been that great; Gerard had been too nervous, he barely remembered coming, and he wasn't sure if Frank felt the same.
"Mhm," Frank said and flopped over onto his back then turned his head and opened his eyes, blinking as he saw Gerard. "Hi. I."
Gerard tried to smile, but it came out more of a grimace. "Hi," he mumbled.
Frank scratched his neck, pushed his hair away from his eyes. "Hmm," he said, and rubbed his eyes. He seemed a little bleary. "You okay?"
Gerard nodded. "Sure."
Frank turned and reached for something on the floor. When he came back up, he pulled his t-shirt over his head and reached for his pants, holding the sheets around him. He pulled them on and let go of the sheet, leaning back, to do up the zipper. Then he looked at Gerard over his shoulder.
Gerard was so in love with Frank, it wasn't even funny. His heart was beating hard in his chest and he wouldn't be surprised if it was visible on the outside. He imagined his ribcage billowing like something was trying to get out. Months of having a crush on Frank and now they'd had sex. Gerard had no good way of dealing with it.
"I can't stay, I have to go home," Frank said and Gerard tried to tell himself that it didn't matter, that Frank didn't matter, that he wouldn't be losing anything, not really. There was a beat of silence and then Frank continued, "I really do. I promised my mom I'd go to my cousin's birthday party today."
Gerard nodded, numbly.
"I can't come over tonight either, I'm sorry, but," Frank spoke quickly, a flurry of words, "I have to be home on school nights, it's - with exams and stuff, she wants me to be more focused." They looked at each other for a while and Gerard felt like he was under scrutiny. "It's not an excuse or anything, I really have to."
"Sure," Gerard nodded again. "I didn't think, uh." He searched for something else to say.
Frank stood up and found his other sock, grabbed his jacket from the chair and stuffed the tie into the pocket. He stood hesitating for a while before he went over and gave Gerard an awkward hug. "Okay. Well, I'll see you later, yeah?" he said.
"Yeah. Definitely," Gerard mumbled.
At dinner, Mikey was silent and grumpy and Gerard had no patience to make excuses, so they didn't speak.
He was sort of annoyed with Mikey, because if he had accidentally overheard Mikey have sex with a girl or Pete Wentz or whoever, he would have put headphones on and saved everyone some embarrassment. It was kind of childish to blare out loud music and sulk all through the next day. Mikey usually wasn't childish, but, then again, Gerard usually didn't get laid. Maybe Mikey had been as shocked as Gerard had.
He was tired and not in the mood to chat while they ate, but his mom didn't seem to care; she wanted to discuss school and summer and whether it would be a good idea for Mikey to take his room in the fall.
"Your room is bigger," she said. "And that way we can put the computer in Mikey's room and use it as an office or study. What do you think?"
"So either way I don't get the computer," was all Mikey said.
Gerard stabbed a potato with his fork and wondered what would happen in the fall, if he would see Frank once he started at SVA, whether he would care at that point, and tried to calculate how long a crush could last. He tried to imagine meeting another guy, feeling the same way he did about Frank, but gave up.
"We were thinking we'd do some work on the basement, so if you move back home after college you could have that," she continued, "It has its own entrance at the back. It'd give you some freedom."
The basement was pretty big. It was partly used as a laundry room, but the main room had a door that could be locked. He could hypothetically have a boyfriend and no one would know. It was all very hypothetical.
He realized she was looking at him sort of strangely and immediately felt like all his thoughts were visible on the outside, but all she said was, "I can't believe you're moving out so soon. These last few years have just gone by so fast." Which Gerard really couldn't agree with; for him high school had been a slow uphill crawl, but he just nodded.
She sighed. "But there's nothing to say you won't come back here for a while, after. We could even put a little kitchen unit in there. Then you'd be really independent."
"I could take the basement," Mikey said.
"Sure, in six years when you come back from college, it's all yours."
Gerard stood up. "I'll help clear this." He started to gather the plates.
"It's Mikey's chore, I'm sure you have studying to do," his mom said, somewhat sternly, and Mikey bent lower over his food.
Most things were Mikey's chores at the moment; Gerard hadn't helped clear the table once since the night Mikey sneaked out and took the car. He thought that overall Mikey must really hate his guts right then and have very little incentive to keep any of Gerard's dirty secrets.
But Mikey was the one who would end up under extra scrutiny once Gerard left and, anyway, Mikey was pretty loyal; they tended not to tell on each other, so he just put the dishes in the sink and left them for Mikey to do.
--
The next day, Frank was leaning against the wall outside the Chemistry classroom when Gerard turned the corner. Frank was clearly waiting for him. He smiled and Gerard felt his stomach lurch. He still didn't know if their friendship had just evaporated. Things seemed okay between them, but it was still early, they were still shell-shocked, or at least Gerard was.
"Hey," Frank said, and they went inside together, taking a desk in the back.
For about ten minutes, they didn't speak about anything but Chemistry, but then Frank said, "Do you want to go by the cemetery after practice today?"
When Gerard glanced over at him, Frank was glancing back. "Yeah, okay," he said.
Frank looked down at the instructions again. "I can't go all the way to yours, I won't have time. I have to spend most of the school nights at home," he recited the last part, grimacing.
Gerard swallowed. "Okay," he said and Frank's shoulder brushed his when they leaned over the glass dish.
After school, Frank led his bicycle as they walked along the curb up the street leading to the cemetery. They talked about the band and homework, and once by the edge of the churchyard, they climbed the wall and jumped down onto the grass on the other side. The sun was starting to set, but it was still warm and light enough that Gerard looked around nervously when Frank sat down on the grass by the wall. "Someone could come," he mumbled, but he sat down next to him.
Frank nodded. "I know." He looked at the watch, "I don't have time to do anything anyway, I have to be home soon." Then he seemed to realize what he had just said, because he bit his lip and grimaced, and Gerard tried not to blush.
"Um, no. Me either," he mumbled.
Frank looked away and laughed sort of exasperatedly, "This is really stupid." He met Gerard's eyes again, "I don't know, should we talk about it or..?"
Gerard nodded, even though he wasn't sure what to say about it. "Yeah, okay."
Frank bit his lip and didn't say anything for a few moments. His eyes were open and honest when he looked over at Gerard. "I figured you knew I was gay," he said.
Gerard blinked. "Uh. No. I mean, I wasn't sure."
"I didn't think you had a problem with it." Frank shrugged, "But I thought maybe you'd get mad that I was trying to kiss you all the time." The sun was setting and Frank was golden and orange and Gerard's chest was tight.
"No," he said.
"Okay. Good."
There was a long silence. Gerard swallowed nervously. He was so bad at this, he may already have fucked it up.
Frank picked a little at his knee. "We're still friends, right?"
"Yeah."
Frank looked over at him, "Good." His eyes were sort of inscrutable.
They were quiet again.
"I have to go," Frank said then. He gathered his stuff and pushed himself to stand up.
Gerard slipped as he tried to get up. He felt clumsy and stupid. He stood awkwardly while Frank picked up his bag. "Uh," he said, licking his lips. His face was hot and he knew he was red. Frank swung his backpack over his shoulder and threaded his arms through the straps, not looking at Gerard.
Before Frank could turn around, Gerard grabbed his arm. He put his foot wrong as he took a step forward and swayed a little. Frank's eyes were huge as Gerard steadied himself by gripping his arm harder. He had wanted to maybe kiss Frank, but ended up wrapping his other arm around him and giving him a hard hug instead. Frank breathed out and put his arms around Gerard's waist, squeezing back.
"Thanks for the chat," Frank said into Gerard's shoulder.
"Yeah. Me too. You too."
Frank lifted his head and kissed him on the mouth. Gerard's heart sped up.
"Do you just let me kiss you?" Frank asked, after.
Gerard swallowed. "No." He shook his head.
Frank's eyes were bright as he gathered up his backpack again. "Good. I was worried." He looked really happy. He was flushed and smiling as they climbed the wall again.
Frank gave him a lift down the sloping street until they had to part ways and Gerard didn't know what to say when they waved goodbye. He stuttered something about seeing Frank the next day and felt like the world's biggest idiot. Frank smiled, said, "Yeah, see you in Chemistry," and then he got on his bike again, his heavy backpack wobbling as he took off.
--
When Gerard got home, he had an email from Frank:
Hi. Thanks for the chat today. I guess I just needed to know that we're on the same page. I know I surprised you Saturday, and I wasn't sure if you regretted it. I hope we're still friends. There's not much use pretending I don't like you because it's not like you haven't noticed with me jumping your bones. I just wanted to email you to make sure we're okay. It's easier writing than talking to people sometimes. I can't really come over on school nights anymore, new rules at home, but maybe Friday we can hang out. Okay, have I embarrassed myself enough in this email now, ya think.;) You know you can always talk to me. F
Gerard reread and reread. It had been the best day ever.
--
Gerard used to have these revenge fantasies. In one, he became rich and famous and everyone wanted to be him while the guys on the lacrosse team lived out their miserable loser-lives that were all downhill after high school. It was like a movie. He would embellish and spin it out as he sat alone at the lunch table listening to his music. In the other fantasy, he took a baseball bat to their smirking faces, but that was more fleeting.
Sometimes, especially at the end of his Junior year, he would fantasize that they took a baseball bat to him and broke bones and his parents took him out of school and he graduated and went off to New York without having to see any of the people in school again. After he met Frank, that fantasy all but disappeared.
The week passed in a slow, confusing crawl, or at least that's what it felt like to Gerard, as he tried to get his thoughts and worries under control while paying attention in class at the same time. In school, it was difficult to pretend that everything was normal, even though Frank was acting pretty much like he always did, smiling at Gerard, jumping around and smacking into him at band practice, leaning against him as they sat on the grass after croquet practice, smiling, warm and heavy in the sun. Gerard could barely cope. The tension between them built until it must be visible to everyone and he knew he should just talk to Frank about it, but they didn't get any time alone in class and Frank had to go straight home after practice every day and on the phone Gerard clammed up so that all he could talk about was Chemistry homework until Frank had to go eat dinner.
He suddenly had a new set of problems, which was both scary and thrilling all at once. He spent a lot of time lying on his bed thinking about sex. Sex in general and sex with Frank. He slid his hand across his belly and over his chest to try to feel what Frank must have felt, trying to determine if his body was good enough. He worried that he wouldn't be able to put on a condom if he had to, and tested it out with a condom from the pack in the bathroom, which turned out to be more difficult than he had thought. He wondered if Frank knew how to put on a condom, and then he worried that Mikey would see that he had taken one and think they were having hardcore anal sex or something. By Friday, he was exhausted.
--
The small equipment storage room was cold and smelled of sweaty gym shoes and they were making out against a box of soccer balls, Frank's hand was in his hair, their hips pressed together. Gerard worried that he smelled of sweat too, even though it was sort of impossible after a session of croquet. But in the last few minutes he'd broken into a sweat, rivulets of it running down his back where Frank's hands were moving over his skin. He felt weak and warm as if he'd run a mile.
Frank had told the others that he and Gerard would put away the equipment by themselves after practice, and then he'd dragged Gerard with him and pushed the door to the gym hall closed behind them. He was currently talking against Gerard's mouth, but Gerard had no clue what he was saying.
"What?" he asked, pulling free, catching his breath.
Frank licked his lips. "Uh. I was just. Hey, it's Friday. I'm not sure I asked. You okay? With it. This."
"What?" Gerard said again
Luckily, they had broken apart, and Frank had taken a step back, because just then there was the sound of voices as the door was pulled open and the guys from the lacrosse team piled inside with their equipment.
There was a round of whoops.
Gerard felt his chest flare up with sudden anxiety. He and Frank still stood facing each other, but they were standing by the croquet gear, so it probably looked quite innocent. He thought that if they had really seen him and Frank kissing, the jeers wouldn't be sounding so amused.
"What are you faggots doing?" They were probably the kind of nice surprise guys like that needed on a Friday afternoon after a practice, Gerard thought. There were so many of them in there; he felt like all he saw was purple and white.
"Whatever. Get out of the way," Frank said and grabbed his bag from the floor to push past them out of the room, but he was caught easily and held.
"Your boyfriend's still got some of your spunk on his face," someone said, and Gerard had a feeling it hadn't been said to him.
"Do you like sucking cock?" the tall one, Jesse, said and this time it was definitely to him. The only reason Gerard knew his name was because he was always featured in the local newspaper and he had been after Gerard for years and when Jesse smirked, Gerard wondered if he even really registered that Frank was there.
He suddenly realized that Frank was going to be watching this, and his heart sank. He suddenly wanted to be alone with them, the way it usually was. He tried to will Frank to at least look away; have some respect; this was private.
Someone threw a ball which hit him in the face, and it didn't even really hurt, it just stunned him, but he made an embarrassing sound. Someone threw another ball that hit him in the stomach, really hard, and he winced and got some laughs, but all he could think was fuck, fuck, stop making sounds.
Someone opened a bag and then he was held by two people while Jesse bent over him and drew something on his tie in marker. Everyone except for Frank laughed, and Gerard couldn't see what he had drawn, but he could guess. He tried to get free; it was really stupid, but Frank was always telling him to fight back, so he closed his eyes and kicked out and hit someone in the shin, and soon after he was on the floor and the only one in the small storage room not standing up.
Out of the corner of his eye, he could see that Frank's arms were pinned, but they weren't really doing anything to him even though he was struggling far more than Gerard was, and Gerard had an odd moment of reflection: he thought, why are they only hitting me, what did I do? He sort of wanted to cry, because this was usually humiliating enough, but with Frank watching it was fucking excruciating. He hated that Frank saw him like this, watched when someone spit on him, heard him wheeze and saw some of the blood running from his nose over his lips spray onto the floor, and he thought that it must look pretty gruesome and absolutely pathetic and that it must just make Frank want to turn away.
In truth, it wasn't the worst beating he'd taken, not by far. It ended when someone shouted from across the hall, possibly the coach.
All in all it had only been a few minutes entertainment; they'd even gotten the lacrosse equipment stacked away at the same time.
Frank was pushed to the floor as they left, and he swore and threw a mallet after them, and then he looked over at Gerard. "Are you okay?"
Gerard nodded. He was a little out of breath, but said, "Yes fine," quite steadily.
"Assholes," Frank said, "Fucking cocksuckers motherfuckers. Are you sure you're okay?"
"I'm fine. " Frank flinched a little, but Gerard pretended he didn't notice. He pushed himself up and undid his tie, stuffing it into his bag without looking at it, and wondered what the fuck he had been thinking making out in the equipment room. He wiped his nose.
"We should get out of here," Frank said then and they got up.
As they exited the gym, Gerard held the tissue Frank gave him pressed to his nose, and they weren't speaking.
"Looks like it stopped bleeding," Frank said quietly.
"Yeah." Gerard bit the inside of his cheek.
"Do you have the car?" Frank asked when they got to the parking lot.
Gerard nodded. They went over to where it was parked and Frank looked like he wanted to get into the driver seat, but Gerard didn't let him have the keys. In the end Frank didn't argue, just went over to the passenger side and got in.
Gerard backed out of the parking space and headed for the exit. They drove in silence for a while.
"We could go get a burger or something, if you want?" Frank said after a few minutes.
Gerard shrugged. He pulled into the first McDonalds and they ordered. Then they sat in the car eating. Gerard was hungry, but he couldn't really taste it. His nose was hurting.
"It's Friday, so I don't have to go straight home," Frank said. "We could go by the cemetery, if you want?"
Gerard wished Frank would shut up and let him brood. He took a sip of his drink and nodded. "Okay." He didn't really want to. He just wanted to go home and close the door to his room and not have to talk to anyone, especially not Frank.
"Why are you mad at me?" Frank asked quietly.
"I'm. I'm not." Gerard threw the wrappers into the backseat.
"You are. You've been like this for a fucking hour now." Frank raised his voice a little.
"I'm not," Gerard buckled his seatbelt again.
Frank didn't seem to get the hint. "It's not my fault, you know. You could have said that we shouldn't have done anything in there too."
Frank was grating on Gerard's nerves and they were pretty sore to begin with; his face was hurting, his stomach was hurting, his pride was in tatters. "I'm not mad at you."
"Fine. Obviously." Frank's voice was sharp.
Then they were sullenly quiet for a while and out of the corner of his eye, Gerard could see that Frank was chewing on his lip the way he did when he was pissed off and about to explode.
He was annoyed that Frank would just assume he knew how Gerard felt. Frank had no idea what it was like. Frank hadn't just been humiliated in front of Gerard, even though he had kissed Gerard just as much as Gerard had kissed him, and it was just unfair. He wasn't angry at Frank as much as at the world and them and himself, but he didn't want to discuss it. Frank wouldn't understand anyway.
"Just drop me off at home," Frank said then.
Gerard didn't argue; he just turned up the next street that lead to Frank's neighbourhood and accelerated.
When they got to Frank's street, he stopped the car by the curb and Frank jumped out and slammed the door. He didn't look back, and Gerard pulled away sharply, making the engine growl.
--
When he got home again, he sat for a few seconds in the driveway, gathering his thoughts. He checked his face in the mirror and straightened out his clothes. His nose was a little red, but that was all. All the other bruises were under his shirt.
"Where's your tie?" was almost the first thing his mom asked when he came in.
"Got paint on it," he mumbled.
He went straight to his room and closed the door then sat on the chair by the desk for a while, staring out the window and trying not to think. He didn't want to remember what had happened in front of Frank and the argument they'd had after. He just wanted to forget the day completely; he ached to be able to get drunk, but it was only 5:30 and his mom was downstairs.
His cell phone rang and when he checked the display, it said 'Frank I'.
"Hello," he answered, cautiously.
"Hi," Frank said, "I'm sorry."
Gerard didn't know what to say for a few moments. "Me too," he said, and it was the truth. His anger had melted away; and it hadn't been about Frank anyway.
"I took the car," Frank continued and Gerard heard a car swerve into the driveway. When he looked out, Frank was getting out of the car with the phone held to his ear and he waved up at Gerard, said, "I hope you don't mind, but I'm here now so you can't do shit about it anyway."
"Wait, I'll come down," Gerard said and hung up.
He hurried down the stairs and when he opened the door Frank was just putting his phone away. He looked a little wary, but grinned and he didn't seem angry anymore. "Hi," he said again and went up and wrapped his arms around Gerard's neck, pressing close to him.
Gerard slid his arms around Frank's waist and hugged him back. "You must have driven really fast."
"I just went inside and turned around, just grabbed the fucking keys."
Gerard laughed, feeling pleased and warm. Frank's arms were still around him and he was smiling. "You wanna come in?" he asked.
Frank nodded.
"Gerard?" his mom called from the kitchen when Frank was taking off his shoes in the hallway. She was on the phone, smoking with the candle-holder shaped as a skull that doubled as an ashtray in front of her. "Who's with you?"
Frank put his head into the kitchen and said, "Hi. I parked in your driveway, but you should be able to get out."
"Hi, Frank," she said, "Yes, that's fine." She lowered the phone for a second, "Does your mom know you're here? She called the other day because she didn't know where you were."
"Yeah, I told her I'm probably staying here tonight," Frank said, and Gerard felt his heart speed up and his stomach do a swoop. "If that's okay?"
She waved them away and they went up to Gerard's room.
Once Gerard had closed the door, they stood awkwardly looking around for a while and Gerard thought that the room was suddenly too hot, he should probably air it out, maybe air out the mattress too.
"What are you working on?" Frank went over to his desk and picked up the sketchpad sitting on a corner of the desk and he started flipping through the pages as if to not have to aknowledge where they were and what could theoretically happen with no real problem. "Cool. Did you make this up?"
"Um. Yeah." Gerard wanted to take the pad away from him. He had been drawing on the comic for months, but he hadn't added much storyline yet and he wasn't used to talking about it. He didn't know how much Frank knew about comics. He might think Gerard was a bit weird.
"Are they, like, a team?" Frank asked.
It sounded really corny when said like that. "Sort of."
"Some of these are kind of sexy," Frank said then, and Gerard finally managed to maneuver the sketchbook away from him.
It wasn't really sexy, but some of the girls had pretty fantastic bodies. He didn't really know how else to draw them.
"I think it's cool," Frank said. "I wish I could draw. You're really good."
"Thanks," Gerard said.
He closed the pad and put it on an empty chair between them.
"So," Frank fiddled a little with his tie, "What do you want to do?"
Gerard's heart started beating really fast. "Um, I don't know," he said.
"You wanna watch a movie?"
Gerard nodded gratefully. "Yes. Okay." He almost said "thanks".
They sat on the bed and watched a movie, but Gerard couldn't get into it. Frank was sitting next to him on the bed and the heat from his body was distracting.
"You wanna watch another one," Frank asked when the movie was over.
Gerard didn't really. He had a headache from what had happened that day and he was a little sore and couldn't concentrate, but he nodded. "Sure. What do you want to see?"
"Anything," Frank said.
When Gerard shuffled forward on the bed to take the movie they had just watched out of the DVD player, Frank put a hand on his arm, sort of clumsily.
"How's your face?"
"Fine."
Frank's hand squeezed his arm, "I wish I'd been able to help."
"How?" Gerard smiled weakly. "They were 30 against two."
Frank smiled back. "I can scream really loudly, that might have scared them off."
Gerard laughed. "Yeah."
"I just wish there was a way we could get revenge on them." Frank got a determined look on his face.
Gerard shook his head. "They're not after you."
"They fucking would be if they had seen what we were doing in there."
Gerard swallowed. He could feel his face turn red. They were quiet for a few moments. "Yeah," he said finally, "They'd fucking kill us." He could tell that Frank was looking at him as he fiddled with the hem of his shirt and the pillow and the DVD case for a while.
After a few moments Frank leaned over and kissed him.
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