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Oct. 2nd, 2010 03:31 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
gala_applesTitle: Truths That He Learned (2)
Pairing: Frank/Mikey, with periods of Mikey/Patrick/Pete(/Ashlee)
Rating: overall nc17
Wordcount: 37377
Disclaimer:This is a non-profit, non-commercial work of fiction using the names and likenesses of real individuals. This fictional story is not intended to imply that the events herein actually occurred or that the attitudes or behaviors described are engaged in or condoned by the real persons whose names are used without permission.
Warnings: This is a High School AU. Thus, everyone's ages are skewed, there is "underaged" sex (NOT BY CANADIAN RULES!) and since it's a modern HS AU, there are things that weren't around when they were actually teenagers. While it's primarily Frank/Mikey, there are cameos by the rest of MCR, FOB, Pencey Prep, PATD, CS, The Used, and Alkaline Trio. Drug use.
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.
Author's notes: written for high school bingo, it's a 25 chapter fic on my IJ, but I thought 25 posts in a row might make you all strangle me, so here, have it in six parts. I'm kind of blown away by the length of this, prior to this my longest fic was 22k, so this is over a third more. \o/ Also, for anyone wondering what Pete's deal is? Remember that post I made a day or two ago saying WTF PETE STOP HOGGING? Yeah, this is the fic I meant. In the near future I'll be writing a second senior year fic, from Pete's pov.
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, most likely formed after having conversations about it on Sunday morning, because in the end everything goes back to heavenly advice for them, is that 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, 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 better 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 probably matters, 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, and 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. He doesn’t want to be the reason the cops come, a cab dispatched to an abandoned school is probably pretty fishy.
*
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.
part 3
Pairing: Frank/Mikey, with periods of Mikey/Patrick/Pete(/Ashlee)
Rating: overall nc17
Wordcount: 37377
Disclaimer:This is a non-profit, non-commercial work of fiction using the names and likenesses of real individuals. This fictional story is not intended to imply that the events herein actually occurred or that the attitudes or behaviors described are engaged in or condoned by the real persons whose names are used without permission.
Warnings: This is a High School AU. Thus, everyone's ages are skewed, there is "underaged" sex (NOT BY CANADIAN RULES!) and since it's a modern HS AU, there are things that weren't around when they were actually teenagers. While it's primarily Frank/Mikey, there are cameos by the rest of MCR, FOB, Pencey Prep, PATD, CS, The Used, and Alkaline Trio. Drug use.
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.
Author's notes: written for high school bingo, it's a 25 chapter fic on my IJ, but I thought 25 posts in a row might make you all strangle me, so here, have it in six parts. I'm kind of blown away by the length of this, prior to this my longest fic was 22k, so this is over a third more. \o/ Also, for anyone wondering what Pete's deal is? Remember that post I made a day or two ago saying WTF PETE STOP HOGGING? Yeah, this is the fic I meant. In the near future I'll be writing a second senior year fic, from Pete's pov.
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, most likely formed after having conversations about it on Sunday morning, because in the end everything goes back to heavenly advice for them, is that 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, 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 better 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 probably matters, 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, and 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. He doesn’t want to be the reason the cops come, a cab dispatched to an abandoned school is probably pretty fishy.
*
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.
part 3