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Oct. 2nd, 2010 03:40 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
gala_applesTitle: Truths That He Learned (5)
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.
Athletic Leadership is the most ludicrously easy course Frank has ever taken at Carleton. Essentially it’s a credit for people that need to fulfill their credit number requirements, and will never pass anything that demands thought, or capability to form full sentences. It’s a bit like study hall, except for jocks rather than mental patients.
What it boils down to is a second class of grade twelve gym. It actually has grade twelve gym as a prerequisite, which is sort of ridiculous. Prerequisites are for things like you can’t take autoshop until you take metal smithing, because it’s impossible to make your own carburetor if you can’t use a welding gun. Or at least that’s what Frank assumes happens in metal smithing, watching Hostel and his subsequent fear of blowtorches made it entirely impossible for him to take the course. It’s not like grade twelve badminton is any more demanding than freshman year badminton.
The way they skirt around it being almost identical in curriculum is by promoting it as teaching leadership. It’s basically a self taught course, they have to form their own teams and remember regulations. Technically there’s a teacher, but in the two months Frank’s been in AL, he’s left his office all of twice. There’s also an end of the year assignment, in pairs of two or three they have to create their own sport or game, and make the rest of the class play. He and Mikey already have a tentative list of five or six, although Frank suspects that trying to get everyone to run a hundred metre dash for people with no direction won’t work out well, because it’s not like Chamber Mulligan has ever heard of Monty Python in his life.
Right now Frank doesn’t care about the class being lax. He doesn’t want to play fucking volleyball, even though he’s played it a hundred times and actually sort of likes it, beyond it being an easy credit. All he wants to do is curl up and die. In lieu of that as a true possibility, at least until he gets home, he does the next best thing. He goes to the side of the metal bleachers and crawls under them. It’s dark and disgusting, so it matches his mood perfectly.
Frank knows from sophomore gym that the last class of the day is responsible for retracting the bleachers back against the wall, as well as taking down any free standing equipment. So it stands to reason the custodian has never washed this part of the floor. He presses his forehead on the underside of one of the stairs and draws swirls in the grime. His team has to be waiting for him, but fuck them. Perfecting his strike is just about the last thing on his mind.
It’s Cash that finally comes over. He’s a tool, what kind of ass tries to call himself Cash? but he’s sort of a cool tool, and has somehow convinced everyone to use the nickname. He doesn’t join Frank, just squats until he’s almost at eye level. “What’s up?”
“I just got broken up with.” Fuck, saying it is like razorblades coming out of his throat.
“Shitty. I can see why you wouldn’t care about volleyball then. Who’d you get dumped by?”
“Seriously?” It’s not like he and Mikey were ever subtle about their relationship. Frank can remember more than one hallway kiss.
“You’re the centre of your universe, not everyone else’s dude. I have no idea who your girlfriend was. But if you’re here, all suited up in gym uniform she obviously just broke up with you, which means she’s obviously in this class.” Cash swivels a bit and Frank can only imagine he’s scoping out the girls in the class. “Was it Amy? She’s sort of an addict. She’ll decide she wants to be with you when she comes down. Or goes back up, whatever.”
It’s like some punishment from above, having to discuss a relationship after it’s over. Over, Frank shudders as the word rings through his brain. “No. For starters I’m gay.”
“Really?”
“I protested on gay silence day.”
“What the fuck is that? Did Ryan Seacrest not show up on a episode or something?”
Frank stares at him. Seriously? Jesus fuck, the fucking people in this school. Cash’s stupidity is almost enough to distract him, except for the part where nothing will ever stop him from repeating the last five minutes over and over again.
Cash shrugs and reaches out to pat Frank’s shoulder. “Well, you just stay here. We’ll play in rounds. Don’t worry about it.”
Frank wants to laugh. Like he’s fucking worried about who will replace him in volleyball right now. He doesn’t. It’s not so much that he’s worried about being the lunatic that rocks himself back and forth and laughs eerily monotonously, because descending into madness doesn’t seem like that poor of an option. It’s just he’s not sure someone won’t get the coach to deal with the crazy kid sitting under the bleachers, and if the coach comes he’ll immediately pass on the problem to the guidance counselor, so he can go back to his office, doing whatever the fuck is is gym teachers do. Meanwhile, in the guidance office, after a few aborted attempts, she will most likely call his fucking parents, and Frank cannot handle that shit. Less the straw that broke the camel’s back and more sewage pouring into open wounds from walking into a bear trap.
The hell of it is Mikey was right. Is right, it’s fucking crazy to think of Mikey in past tense. He’s not dead, he hasn’t ceased to exist just because they’ve split up. If he needs proof of that, he’ll get it in half an hour, when he has to go into the locker room and change and no longer has the right to ogle Mikey. Their relationship wasn’t equal, and he never did listen to Mikey’s attempts at making it equal. To be fair though, it wasn’t like he knew not bottoming was a deal breaker. If Mikey had actually called him out on it, told Frank how much it was pissing him off, Frank likes to think he would have dealt with it. Heartfelt conversations, or some shit. But Mikey just suggested, on occasion, only making a statement when it was too late, when the statement was ‘I can’t do this anymore’.
*
Frank finds out during his spare. He’s not in the mood to play Spoons, there’s nothing about sitting in a circle with a bunch of guys elbowing for one of the treasures laid out on the floor that appeals to him right now. Of course, there’s poker and rummy, and the guys that sit around trading their Ipods to impress each other with the rare b-sides they’ve tracked down, but he isn’t in the mood for bluffing, or strategising, or complimenting. He really isn’t in the mood for anything at all.
If he had his way, he wouldn’t even be here. His parents don’t understand the gravity of the situation. They only let him skip one day. Seeing as it was the only time they’d ever let him skip he should have been impressed. But given his heartache Frank thought he had grounds for skipping the rest of the year. One day doesn’t seem like much in comparison.
His first move after leadership is to go straight to the smoking doors. He’s been having a smoke between every period since Mikey dumped him, it helps take the edge off. But the one he needs most is after AL, after being stuck in a room with Mikey for nearly an hour and not being able to acknowledge him. The price of a pack every two days -it would be more, but his parents acknowledgment of his upset is mainly proved by letting him bum smokes and smoke inside- is worth the slight soothing it gives him.
After sucking it to the filter, Frank goes to the library. Mikey will be there, but if he sits on the couch beside the reference desk he won’t be able to see him, and it’ll be quiet. The moment he steps into the caf people will try to recruit him into their game, nobody bothers him in the library. He just wants to sit with his headphones on, blasting Bouncing Souls loud enough to cause deafness in his middle aged years.
Frank’s partially right. Mikey’s there, of course. But instead of alone, he’s with Pete. Pete Wentz and Patrick Stump. Frank does an about face and follows the exact path back out to the smoking doors.
Somehow he makes it to lunch. It’s windy but Frank nestles into the corner, cigarette protected by the brick wall on one side and the metal doors on another. He methodically smokes through the rest of his pack. He can practically feel his lungs shrivelling with each of the nine, but the only other option is to break down and start sobbing, and that’s not really an option at all.
Once the package is finished he paces outside the cafeteria doors. It’s impossible to tell if his racing heart is due to the nicotine overdose, if he’s lightheaded because he can’t stop moving and his heart isn’t beating fast enough to get the oxygen where it needs to go, or if it’s because of the other thing. The bell rings, a massive noise right beside Frank’s ear. It bangs directly on Frank’s exposed nerves, like scraping his skin with razors and a rinse of lemon juice.
John is the first one to come up to him, his smile fading as he takes in Frank’s short pacing, three steps and a turn, three steps and a turn. Zoe and Tina are in media with him, their discussion on a project cuts off too. Frank used to care about killing the happiness of a person, but he hasn’t cared much recently, and right now it doesn’t matter at all.
“John we need to go.” It comes out frantic, like he’s cracking up after ingesting bad coke.
“What?”
“I need a smoke. I need a smoke more than I have ever needed a smoke before in my life. And if I smoke by myself there’s no telling what I’ll do so I need a smoking buddy slash babysitter.”
“Dude, what? Why? I thought you were getting over him.”
There’s nothing in John’s sentence that makes any sense at all, or is anything near the truth. Frank grabs onto the straps of his backpack and clings to them so he doesn’t descend into hysterics. “I can’t tell you until I can’t feel my face anymore.”
“That bad huh? Okay.”
“I’m coming. Some shit you need to hear from a girl.” Frank doesn’t want any advice, and chances are fairly high that Zoe will come up with something, but he lets her come anyway. He’s too energetic to come up with a coherent argument for her staying at school, and he’ll need to argue if he wants to convince her.
*
Frank exhales into the dimly lit basement and watches as the fan dissipates the cloud. “I told you why he broke up with me, right?”
“If the answer is either a, you refused to let him fuck you or b you refused to talk him about fucking, the answer is yes. The answer is about a million times. But if you want rant again go for it. That’s why we’re here.”
“John!” Zoe elbows John, the gesture made much more hard by the way the pot makes her sway her whole body into the movement.
“What? I’m being supportive! I said he could keep telling us.”
“That’s not supportive! You suck John, stop sucking.” Zoe slides from the couch to the floor, tugging one of the cushions after her. “Frank, his suckage does not speak for me, alright?” Frank shrugs. He thinks it’s pretty supportive. Maybe girl brains work differently.
“Not that I really oppose skipping to get stoned. But is that all this is? You wanting to rant more?”
Frank shakes his head, for a moment just enjoying how his bangs fly in the machine created breeze. “Mikey got a new boyfriend.”
“Aww fuck, really?”
Frank nods, which plays with his hair completely differently. “He’ll never break up with him either. He’s everything he could want.”
“How do you know?” Zoe asks.
“Because he’s fucking the school whore, man.” Fuck is he glad he’s stoned. If this is how much it hurts to say it stoned, he can only imagine how much worse this conversation would have been sober and trying to choke down french fries at the lunch table.
“Pete Wentz? Seriously?” John doesn’t sound surprised, and Frank guesses he shouldn’t have been either. Pete’s not exactly the guy you trust to keep his dick in his pants.
“And whoever else comes with.” Frank adds bitterly. Really, it’s the perfect solution for Mikey. It’s not like Pete would care if Mikey went out each night for mutual handjobs at the bar, not when he’s got Ashlee and Patrick and everyone else.
“I don’t think Pete is a whore,” Zoe announces flopping back the pile of cushions and pillows she’s collected from the various armchairs.
“You’re the only one in the world Zoe.” John says it with kindness.
“No, really. Even if you take out the whores get paid for sex part, he’s still sleeping with usually the same people.”
“He’s sleeping with multiple people at once!” Frank rolls his eyes. The concept of whorishness isn’t that hard to understand.
“That’s not being a whore, that’s polygamy.”
“Is that one of your porn things?” Frank’s starting to get pissed. Zoe defending his now arch enemy isn’t exactly what he wanted from leaving and smoking up.
“If I start to explain how it’s not a porn thing, it’s got roots in multiple religions and multiple places in history you’re not going to listen, so, whatever.”
“Yeah, really not going to listen to you try to tell me why Pete fucking Mikey is actually a great and awesome thing. Fuck sakes Zoe. I mean-”
“I’m going to pack another bowl,” John interrupts. “Who wants in?”
“John, I’m so in I’m like, inside the bowl.” Which is possibly not the most clever thing he’s ever said, but it’s not fair to judge his witty comebacks right now. He should be saving them up, anyway, right? He’s watched enough tv to know that every set of rivals needs to come with harsh banter, rolled in cutting slights and backhanded compliments. Why waste them on John or Zoe?
*
Back when Frank used to care about things, his favourite class was sociology. A lot of students didn’t really appreciate it, it was a note heavy class and at the end of March B F Skinner’s theory wasn’t what most of the seniors cared about. Operant conditioning wasn’t narrowing down between what places had accepted you to the one place you would go, it wasn’t planning out accommodations or trying to decide what the fuck you were going to do if you didn’t get accepted to the place you wanted. But Frank found it fascinating. There were a ton of different theories about why people did what they did, and he wanted to learn them all.
Even better than reading over his notes and googling for more information is asking Mr Skiba. Unlike most of the teachers, he writes the notes on the overheard as he’s reading them aloud, which makes it feel like he’s engaged in the material. When he asks for hypotheticals he seems genuinely interested in the answer, and the few times that someone brings up an idea that isn’t in the notes Mr Skiba can easily reply with ‘that’s a Jungian concept, you might want to go talk to Mr Grant about it, but here’s what I know about it’, instead of getting upset about his lesson being derailed.
His obvious humanity, as compared to some of the teachers Frank’s had, is why it doesn’t surprise Frank that Mr Skiba notices something. Of course, Frank maybe makes it easy, the class has been over for three minutes and he still hasn’t left his seat yet. He’s not sure exactly why he hasn’t gotten up. It’s not just that AL is his next class, and there’s nothing he dreads more than that first moment of seeing Mikey, where his stomach still heats happily before he remembers and the world comes crashing down again. It just feels like all the things in the world will attack him at once if he leaves. It’s ridiculous but true, and there’s probably a better phrasing for it than Frank vs Everything Ever. He thinks Joe would know, but Joe leads directly to Pete and Patrick and Ashlee and Mikey and that is not a place he wants to delve any deeper than is already on his mind.
“Frank are you okay?” Frank doesn’t look up from his desk, but Mr Skiba’s fingers are pressed lightly on the edge of it, fingers bent slightly backwards to the first knuckle.
“No.” It’s the truth, even if it does seem overly dramatic when he says it out loud.
“Do you need the nurse or a guidance counsellor?”
“No.” He’s not sick, and there’s nothing that she can say that will make things better.
“Frank, I’ve got class this period, but if you want to come back and talk at lunch, you can.” Frank knows he’s right, any second now the teens are going to start trickling in. He’s probably sitting in someone’s desk, some guy that’s going to be glaring at him because he still needs to rush his homework for the first fifteen minutes of class so he can hand it in at the end, or some girl that glares because she just wants to sit down and gossip with her friends about something that happened last period.
“Yeah, I dunno. Maybe.” He zips up his binder and puts it in his backpack. He tries to ignore that his hands are shaking, and Mr Skiba doesn’t say anything about it, so it’s fine.
Frank doesn’t want to talk, he just wants everything to have not happened. He’s talked about everything a hundred times over with his friends, and they just don’t get it. They’re all dating, all happy, and they think Frank going to talk to Mikey will solve everything. He’s not exactly sure why he ends up outside 207, but he suspects it’s that. Mr Skiba is a teacher, which means he’s old enough to understand that not everything can have a happy ending.
Mr Skiba is sitting at his desk when Frank walks in. He’s not grading papers or anything, just sitting and reading a book. It’s old enough that when he reaches for his stainless steel bottle the cracked spine keeps the page open. He tilts his head to take a swallow and that’s when he sees him. “Frank, you came.”
“Yeah, well.”
“Do you want to sit down, or...”
Frank grabs one of the blue plastic chairs and pulls it close to the desk. “Do you always sit alone eating in here, or is this because of me? Am I keeping you from-” Frank doesn’t know what to call them, he’s not sure if the teachers consider each other friends, or just colleagues. “staff room stuff?”
“On and off. It can get pretty noisy there, sometimes I like the quiet here. Or sometimes a student needs me to explain a concept, so I have them swing by so I can help. So what’s wrong?”
“I broke up with my boyfriend over the most stupid thing. It’s been a month and I still want him back.” Frank is happy Mr Skiba doesn’t react at all to the pronoun but then he didn’t really expect anything different. Skiba’s too cool to be homophobic.
“Have you tried talking to him?”
Christ, so much for him having the wisdom of being at least a decade older than his friends. “It’s not the talking that matters, it’s whether or not we can fuck.”
Mr Skiba’s eyes flare open a bit, but his voice stays with the same smooth calmness he always uses in class as he says “Frank, if he’s pressuring you in any way-”
“He’s not because we’re not dating. And he wasn’t either. I didn’t mean it like that.” Frank puts as much emphasis on the last word as he can. Just because he’s frustrated and upset with all of it doesn’t mean that he’s going to let other people think Mikey’s some sort of rapist. “I meant he broke up with me because I refused to bottom.”
“Frank this isn’t really an appropriate conversation.”
“My friends think I should just talk to him, tell him I miss him and want him back. He’s dating this asshole bastard slut, and even if Mikey thinks that’s what he wants, he’s way better than someone like that. He could catch something!” There’s not a question in Frank’s mind that Pete and Patrick and Mikey are fucking, and that’s different than what happens in a bar. Handjobs are the safest sex you can have, but if Patrick blows Mikey, than that’s fluid exchange, and sex ed proves that Pete’s a dirty whore and Mikey will get syphilis and die of brain swelling. “But I can’t just go and tell him, they don’t get it, he broke up with me because we weren’t compatible, and even if I want him, I’ll have to let him fuck me and I-”
“Frank, seriously, I can’t have this conversation with you. I wish I could, it sounds like you need help and I wish I could help you. But teachers cannot talk to students about their sex lives. I can’t. Nobody can, not Mr Grant or Mr Andriano or Mrs Palmer. We’d get suspended, fired, arrested, and featured on CNN. Maybe not in that order but...” Mr Skiba trails off.
“Fine. Fine, just fucking fine.” Motherfucking goddamn figures. Frank stands, chair making an ugly noise as it scrapes backwards against the floor from the sudden movement.
“Frank-”
“Stop. You don’t want to talk, so fuck off and stop talking. Alright? Fuck.” Mr Skiba could give him a detention for his language and disrespect, but he won’t, which only pisses Frank off more. If you’re going to be a dick, you should be a straight up dick instead of fucking with people’s heads. He doesn’t wait to hear any more, just grabs his bag by one of the straps and walks out, slamming the door behind him. The crashing noise isn’t nearly satisfying enough.
*
Frank realises his mistake as he comes in from his lunch smoke. Shaun’s sitting with a pile of gift bags in front of him. Seven to be exact. “I didn’t forget, it’s just not here.” he says by way of introduction.
“Whatever. Just gimme your pudding and we’ll call it even.” Shaun replies.
“No seriously, I did get you something. This isn’t an episode of Simpsons where I spaced and will end up getting you Santa’s Little Helper.”
“Technically he didn’t forget, he just blew his money gambling.”
Frank rolls his eyes at Neil. “Whatever. Point is, I’m just shitty in the morning, I forgot to put it in my bag.”
“Fine, then gimme your pudding as apology for forgetting.”
“There’s no way I’m going to join the table with my pudding intact is there?”
“Probably not and even if you sit down chances are some dude with a ski mask and a gun will come in and be like your pudding or your life. At least if you hand it over the gun will be on my temple, not yours, right?”
Frank drops his backpack onto the table, fishes in onehandedly until he finds the paper bag, and pulls out the tupperware container. It’s light green, which means that he’s giving Shaun pistachio. All in all, not the worst flavour to give up. Frank would have cut Shaun rather than give up white chocolate or cheesecake.
*
The original plan was for Frank to just put the present in his backpack before bed so he didn’t have to worry about spacing in the morning. But John and Zoe and Tim and Kelly are out playing mini-golf and sometimes there really is such a thing as a fifth wheel. It feels like he’s watched every video on Youtube, and he doesn’t want to go over to Neil’s to watch more, so instead after dinner he just gets on the bus and rides until he’s near enough Shaun’s work to walk the rest of the way. It’s pretty much the perfect place for the guy, Flipped Pages sells comics, manga, and if you talk to Donetello there’s a underground trade of doujinshi. It’s actually how Shaun met Tina; she’d heard of Flipped Pages as a source but asked the wrong guy.
“See! It’s not even belated! I demand a pudding cup!” Frank bellows as he walks into the store, his shout far more effective than the wind chime near the draft of the door
‘What flavour?” It isn’t a voice Frank recognises as Shaun, Don, or Kenny but he’s sure he knows it. He eyes the room slowly, looking for a customer he knows among the display cases. “I’m partial to butterscotch myself.”
Frank sees the owner of the voice and wants to bolt. He would be on Frank’s list of five people he never wanted to be in a room with again, except it never would have occurred to him to add him. The words don’t seem provocative, unless there’s an undercut Frank can’t hear. Frank hopes there isn’t, that this isn’t the start of something. He doesn’t want to have to fight him, he’d probably win but it would be lame, and it would make a mess that Shaun would have to clean, and that’s just not cool to do to someone on their birthday. So he answer as nice as possible ‘I like banana best’ then he scoots past him to the back of the store.
Shaun’s standing at the cash register, slowly reading a doujinshi. It’s obvious it’s a poorly produced fanwork, from the two pages Frank can see the art is shit and Shaun’s snickering means the dialogue isn’t very good. Sometimes when Frank visits, they hold a dramatic reading of one, Don watching and applauding at the appropriate times. Frank is nowhere near that mood now though.
“You didn’t tell me Gerard fucking Way worked here!” His voice is quiet enough to not attract attention of the man, but Frank’s sure his fury is still properly expressed.
“Who?” Frank gesticulates wildly, his finger eventually pointing at Gerard. “Oh, Gee. I didn’t know that was his last name. Shit, you telling me he’s Mikey’s brother? Small world.”
Frank slams the gift on the glass display case, the stein inside thunking heavily. “Open your fucking present, I need to get out of here.”
And like he’s some sort of stealthy vampire, Gerard is right behind him, replying “No you don’t.”
“Excuse me?”
“If you’re leaving because you think I’m going to cause drama over Mikey or something, then you don’t need to leave, because I’m not. You guys broke up, now he’s dating someone else-”
Frank interrupts “yeah, total fucking cockbag. If there’s anyone you’re going to beat up, it should be him!”
“I’m not beating anyone up, Frank. You guys broke up, he’s dating Pete-”
“And Patrick and Ashlee, fucking Christ! And maybe Joe and Andy, you really can’t tell with-”
“Come on, man. You’re not telling me anything I don’t know. Me and Mikey talk, and if it makes him happy than I’m glad he’s doing it. That’s that.”
“He’s happy though? About everything, not just the jackass? Where’d he get into college?” Fuck, he is so fucking weak. He shouldn’t care, he shouldn’t need to know if Mikey is happy. It’s been five weeks since Mikey dumped him, he shouldn’t care about him any more.
“I don’t think we should be colluding with my brother’s information.”
Frank crosses his arms. “It’s not really a secret, I could find out from his friends.”
“So why don’t you?”
There’s a challenging lilt in Gerard’s voice, and already mad at himself for being so pathetic the tone is enough to make him snap. “Because it is fucking traumatizing to talk to them and this is just as bad but at least it’s already started! I might as well get use out of it.”
Gerard looks at him for a second than says quietly “A few places, but he’s going to Rutgers.”
“What? So am I! Can you tell him if he asks?”
“Yeah sorry man, no. He wouldn’t know to ask and I’m not telling him. Everyone needs to do their own thing, dwelling’s never helpful.” It’s the kindest way Frank’s heard ‘get the fuck over him’ yet, which may or may not say something about the empathic capacities of his friends. The words are true, nothing that Frank didn’t know himself, and somehow still crushing. For as short a time as Frank had had, mere seconds, it had been long enough for full fantasies of sharing a room with Mikey and having coffee always brewing on an illegal hotplate, and fucking before first class, and a million other pathetic things. His eyes are closed, but he can feel Gerard looking at him, he can feel the dagger edged sympathy slicing at him.
“Happy birthday Shaun. I gotta go. See you tomorrow.” Frank doesn’t wait for a response, just rushes out the door and starts walking to the bus stop. He needs a fucking smoke.
*
Frank flips to the end of the textbook. It’s impossible to cheat using the answers in the back, it only gives you the number, and every piece of homework always demands you show your work. Still, it’s useful enough for knowing if he’s right, because chances are if his number is correct than the way he solved the problem is the right method.
Claire slips into class at the last possible moment, she’s not even in her seat when the buzzer goes off. But it’s April seventeenth, they’ve got less than two months until graduation, and there are only a few teachers throughout all of Carleton hard-assed enough to give a detention for something so slight. She twists in her seat to face Neil beside her, and Tina behind him, and Frank beside Tina as Mr Mack starts attendance. “Congratulations to us. We are now the average American high school.”
“What, someone pulled a gun?” Frank asks. The idea of it hardly phases him. They’re on the first floor, they can probably break through the window and run to safety.
“Couldn’t have, we didn’t go into lock down.” Neil answers.
“No, not yet, but maybe they’re on the other side of the school? But you think if someone was going to do it it would be in March, after a rejection letter.” It’s possibly not fair for Frank to be ascribing a school shooter persona to Joe, but it’s not like it’s impossible to imagine him freaking out about not getting in where he wanted and taking out the entire school.
“Bullshit, it’s always about bullying.” Neil argues. Frank disagrees. Most of the time it’s about bullying, but sometimes people are just psychopaths, and sometimes people have blackouts or meltdowns. There’s such a thing as criminally insane, after all. He’s about to make the point when Claire speaks up again.
“Moving on from Michael Moore-”
“Yeah, into Maury,” Tina interrupts. Claire glares at her. “What, I heard it too! I didn’t spoil it, I’m still letting you say it.”
“We’ve got a pregnant girl.”
“Shit, really?” Frank honestly can’t think of something more horrible than throwing away your entire future because of lack of a condom. Assuming she’s keeping it. If Frank was a girl, he’d never consider it, not for a split second.
“Statistically speaking, in a school with approx a thousand girls there’s probably more than one.”
“Yes, but she’s the only one not using the coat hanger and clumsiness around the stairs method.” Claire answers Neil.
“So she’s keeping it? Who is she, do we know her?”
“She’s in my photography class, it’s been floating around all day but I got it confirmed last period.”
“You just asked her?” Frank’s not sure he’d have the balls to ask.
“Frank, if she’s keeping it she sure as hell can’t be shy about talking about it. Yeah I asked her, apparently the father doesn’t give a shit. But her parents would kick her out of the house if she got rid of it, so she’s got no choice.”
Tina shakes her head. “She’s got a choice, she’s just copping out by blaming her parents. I would never agree to that shit, not for them, not for anyone.” Coming from Tina it’s a bit rich to hear mockery of following a parent’s wishes, but Frank thinks if he was a girl he’d do the same. “Fuckin’ Rebekah.”
“Wait. Rebekah? As in Rebekah-” Shit, he doesn’t know her last name to clarify.
“As in Rebekah, your last pathetic attempt to be straight? Yeah, that Rebekah. Are you sure you’re not the uncaring father?”
“Fuck off!” Frank exclaims in horror.
“Frank, language and volume, alright? A work period means you need to pretend to be working.”
Frank apologises to Mr Mack and takes a look at problem five in contrition. He can’t concentrate on what it’s asking of him. The girl Frank could have dated in another world -a nightmare world where he hadn’t realised, or had but was too ashamed to cut things off before they started to follow his real wishes, an easily imaginable alternate world- is pregnant. It’s like a slap in the face. An entire life springs to mind, married and with fucking kids and a mortgage, wearing prissy suits and worrying about saving enough for retirement. It’s a full fledged horror in his head, enough to make him shudder like spiders are crawling over his skin. If it’s not what he wants, he’s gotta do something about it. He can’t let normalcy and complacency win. He’ll do what it takes.
At school the next morning, the plan seems less foolproof. But it doesn’t seem any less important to try, and that’s what matters. It’s time to put up or shut up. It’s time to make a move to get what he wants, or end up married and trapped. Because sure he can say he’ll never let that happen, but the only way he knows it won’t is by running in the opposite direction as fast as he can.
So he gets to school earlier than normal, and heads straight for Mikey’s locker. Frank doesn’t care how long it takes for Mikey to come, he’ll sit on the speckled with dirt floor until three thirty if he has to.
It doesn’t take that long. Mikey walks down the hallway, Pete beside him. Frank waits until Mikey twirls his combination and gets his locker open before rushing over to him. They’re talking about something, but manners are not the most important thing in this situation, he can’t wait for a natural pause in the conversation. “Mikey, I fucking love you okay? And I know you broke up with me and I still don’t want you to fuck me, it fucking sucked and I didn’t like it and I don’t know about you but once I realise I hate something I don’t want to do it again. But Jesus Christ, dude, I’d let you tear me apart every fucking night if you’d date me again. It might have taken me like two months to realise it but we still have another six weeks before graduation so fuck, please. You can fuck me, I’ll prove that I’m okay with it.”
Mikey slams his locker closed before whirling around. He looks distinctly unimpressed, and Frank’s heart plummets. “So, what, you’re auditioning? Frank, it wasn’t just the not switching. Don’t get me wrong, I wanted to fuck you. But it wasn’t just that. Every fucking time I brought it up you lied or tried to distract me. You acted like a total bitch, Frank. I don’t date pussies.”
Frank wants to point out that before him Mikey didn’t date anyone. Then he thinks that it’s too confrontational for a conversation meant to get Mikey back in his arms. And then he thinks not saying it out loud sort of proves Mikey’s point that he’s a pussy too scared to say anything important. “Before me you didn’t date anyone!”
“So he made up the rule on the fly. Seems like a solid rule dude.”
Frank turns to look at Pete, cocky and grinning with his fucking horse teeth all over the place. He grounds out through a gritted jaw, “Shut. Up.”
“I’m just saying, man.”
Frank revels in the pain that blossoms in his hand as he punches Pete in the face. It’s the sweetest kind of pain, triumphant.
“Oh, that’s what were doing?” Pete asks rhetorically before striking back. It’s a solid hit and Frank maybe belatedly remembers he’s seen Pete in all the same mosh pits he’s been in, that Pete has the same pain tolerance he does, which his normally his winning factor, because he just doesn’t care if someone hurts him, as long as he hurts them more. But Pete runs on the same fuel, he knows it from the bars, he knows it from the little he’s gleaned from Joe. Frank’s maybe in a bit over his head. That doesn’t mean he’s going to bitch out.
They only have a minute before the crowd that gathers is enough to attract teachers. First it’s Harper, screeching what is going on at the top of her lungs, each word over enunciated. It’s like a bat signal for the stronger teachers, moments after she clips off the ‘n’ there are arms around his chest, pulling him back. Molko’s got Pete, which looks ridiculous, Mr Molko is as effeminate as teachers come, and he’s actually shorter than Pete. But it works, the moment his arms are around Pete he subdues immediately. It only takes a twist of his spine -he’s being held hard enough to keep him from bursting out of the hold, but not hard enough for bruises and a lawsuit- to figure out Skiba’s got him.
And that’s when Patrick comes running down the hall. Frank’s still struggling to get out of Skiba’s hold, but he’s watching everyone else, trying to figure out who’s going to be on his side if he can start fighting again, who’s going to try to stop him. Patrick’ll obviously be on Pete’s side, he doesn’t even look all that surprised to see Pete being cradled by Mr Molko. Still he asks, “what the shit?”
“Frank,” Mr Skiba says lowly, “If I let you go and you go for him, you’ll be suspended. I know you got into Rutgers, a suspension for violence is not going to look good.”
It is fucking infuriating that Molko has already let go of Pete, and Pete is just standing there. Not even telling him to bring it with his eyes, Pete’s are glazed and dead. Pete started everything, and Patrick’s attempting to link his fingers into his, while Pete just stands there frozen, and he looks like such an innocent that if Frank tries to finish what he started he’ll be the bad guy. “This is fucking bullshit.”
“Be that as it may, Frank, do you really want to let being pissed off ruin your chance to get into college?”
That gets to him. While having Mikey to get tattoos with and smoke up with and go on roadtrips every few months was a sure bet to not slide into suburban idiocy, a great first step into that life is a tedious minimum wage job at a supermarket because he didn’t manage college. “I won’t touch the jackass.”
“Frank, are-”
“I’m not going to fucking touch him, let me the fuck go!” Frank snaps. Skiba’s arms uncurl, releasing him, and Frank tugs his shirt down.
“Patrick, Pete has detention after school today. Or tomorrow, if he can’t make today,” Mr Molko calls out, and Patrick waves the hand that’s not slowly leading Pete down the hall. “Frank, yours will be in my classroom after my last period.”
What the shit is that? How does Pete get to pick a day, and his isn’t a choice? It’s proof that life is unfair, and assholes always win. Frank nods once, not trusting himself to not burst into a stream of profanity that will get him a second detention. He scans the hallway. There are a ton of gawkers slowly drifting away now that the fight is done and the repercussions are meted out, but he doesn’t see Mikey anywhere. Fucking Pete, making him fuck up his last chance.
part six
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.
Athletic Leadership is the most ludicrously easy course Frank has ever taken at Carleton. Essentially it’s a credit for people that need to fulfill their credit number requirements, and will never pass anything that demands thought, or capability to form full sentences. It’s a bit like study hall, except for jocks rather than mental patients.
What it boils down to is a second class of grade twelve gym. It actually has grade twelve gym as a prerequisite, which is sort of ridiculous. Prerequisites are for things like you can’t take autoshop until you take metal smithing, because it’s impossible to make your own carburetor if you can’t use a welding gun. Or at least that’s what Frank assumes happens in metal smithing, watching Hostel and his subsequent fear of blowtorches made it entirely impossible for him to take the course. It’s not like grade twelve badminton is any more demanding than freshman year badminton.
The way they skirt around it being almost identical in curriculum is by promoting it as teaching leadership. It’s basically a self taught course, they have to form their own teams and remember regulations. Technically there’s a teacher, but in the two months Frank’s been in AL, he’s left his office all of twice. There’s also an end of the year assignment, in pairs of two or three they have to create their own sport or game, and make the rest of the class play. He and Mikey already have a tentative list of five or six, although Frank suspects that trying to get everyone to run a hundred metre dash for people with no direction won’t work out well, because it’s not like Chamber Mulligan has ever heard of Monty Python in his life.
Right now Frank doesn’t care about the class being lax. He doesn’t want to play fucking volleyball, even though he’s played it a hundred times and actually sort of likes it, beyond it being an easy credit. All he wants to do is curl up and die. In lieu of that as a true possibility, at least until he gets home, he does the next best thing. He goes to the side of the metal bleachers and crawls under them. It’s dark and disgusting, so it matches his mood perfectly.
Frank knows from sophomore gym that the last class of the day is responsible for retracting the bleachers back against the wall, as well as taking down any free standing equipment. So it stands to reason the custodian has never washed this part of the floor. He presses his forehead on the underside of one of the stairs and draws swirls in the grime. His team has to be waiting for him, but fuck them. Perfecting his strike is just about the last thing on his mind.
It’s Cash that finally comes over. He’s a tool, what kind of ass tries to call himself Cash? but he’s sort of a cool tool, and has somehow convinced everyone to use the nickname. He doesn’t join Frank, just squats until he’s almost at eye level. “What’s up?”
“I just got broken up with.” Fuck, saying it is like razorblades coming out of his throat.
“Shitty. I can see why you wouldn’t care about volleyball then. Who’d you get dumped by?”
“Seriously?” It’s not like he and Mikey were ever subtle about their relationship. Frank can remember more than one hallway kiss.
“You’re the centre of your universe, not everyone else’s dude. I have no idea who your girlfriend was. But if you’re here, all suited up in gym uniform she obviously just broke up with you, which means she’s obviously in this class.” Cash swivels a bit and Frank can only imagine he’s scoping out the girls in the class. “Was it Amy? She’s sort of an addict. She’ll decide she wants to be with you when she comes down. Or goes back up, whatever.”
It’s like some punishment from above, having to discuss a relationship after it’s over. Over, Frank shudders as the word rings through his brain. “No. For starters I’m gay.”
“Really?”
“I protested on gay silence day.”
“What the fuck is that? Did Ryan Seacrest not show up on a episode or something?”
Frank stares at him. Seriously? Jesus fuck, the fucking people in this school. Cash’s stupidity is almost enough to distract him, except for the part where nothing will ever stop him from repeating the last five minutes over and over again.
Cash shrugs and reaches out to pat Frank’s shoulder. “Well, you just stay here. We’ll play in rounds. Don’t worry about it.”
Frank wants to laugh. Like he’s fucking worried about who will replace him in volleyball right now. He doesn’t. It’s not so much that he’s worried about being the lunatic that rocks himself back and forth and laughs eerily monotonously, because descending into madness doesn’t seem like that poor of an option. It’s just he’s not sure someone won’t get the coach to deal with the crazy kid sitting under the bleachers, and if the coach comes he’ll immediately pass on the problem to the guidance counselor, so he can go back to his office, doing whatever the fuck is is gym teachers do. Meanwhile, in the guidance office, after a few aborted attempts, she will most likely call his fucking parents, and Frank cannot handle that shit. Less the straw that broke the camel’s back and more sewage pouring into open wounds from walking into a bear trap.
The hell of it is Mikey was right. Is right, it’s fucking crazy to think of Mikey in past tense. He’s not dead, he hasn’t ceased to exist just because they’ve split up. If he needs proof of that, he’ll get it in half an hour, when he has to go into the locker room and change and no longer has the right to ogle Mikey. Their relationship wasn’t equal, and he never did listen to Mikey’s attempts at making it equal. To be fair though, it wasn’t like he knew not bottoming was a deal breaker. If Mikey had actually called him out on it, told Frank how much it was pissing him off, Frank likes to think he would have dealt with it. Heartfelt conversations, or some shit. But Mikey just suggested, on occasion, only making a statement when it was too late, when the statement was ‘I can’t do this anymore’.
*
Frank finds out during his spare. He’s not in the mood to play Spoons, there’s nothing about sitting in a circle with a bunch of guys elbowing for one of the treasures laid out on the floor that appeals to him right now. Of course, there’s poker and rummy, and the guys that sit around trading their Ipods to impress each other with the rare b-sides they’ve tracked down, but he isn’t in the mood for bluffing, or strategising, or complimenting. He really isn’t in the mood for anything at all.
If he had his way, he wouldn’t even be here. His parents don’t understand the gravity of the situation. They only let him skip one day. Seeing as it was the only time they’d ever let him skip he should have been impressed. But given his heartache Frank thought he had grounds for skipping the rest of the year. One day doesn’t seem like much in comparison.
His first move after leadership is to go straight to the smoking doors. He’s been having a smoke between every period since Mikey dumped him, it helps take the edge off. But the one he needs most is after AL, after being stuck in a room with Mikey for nearly an hour and not being able to acknowledge him. The price of a pack every two days -it would be more, but his parents acknowledgment of his upset is mainly proved by letting him bum smokes and smoke inside- is worth the slight soothing it gives him.
After sucking it to the filter, Frank goes to the library. Mikey will be there, but if he sits on the couch beside the reference desk he won’t be able to see him, and it’ll be quiet. The moment he steps into the caf people will try to recruit him into their game, nobody bothers him in the library. He just wants to sit with his headphones on, blasting Bouncing Souls loud enough to cause deafness in his middle aged years.
Frank’s partially right. Mikey’s there, of course. But instead of alone, he’s with Pete. Pete Wentz and Patrick Stump. Frank does an about face and follows the exact path back out to the smoking doors.
Somehow he makes it to lunch. It’s windy but Frank nestles into the corner, cigarette protected by the brick wall on one side and the metal doors on another. He methodically smokes through the rest of his pack. He can practically feel his lungs shrivelling with each of the nine, but the only other option is to break down and start sobbing, and that’s not really an option at all.
Once the package is finished he paces outside the cafeteria doors. It’s impossible to tell if his racing heart is due to the nicotine overdose, if he’s lightheaded because he can’t stop moving and his heart isn’t beating fast enough to get the oxygen where it needs to go, or if it’s because of the other thing. The bell rings, a massive noise right beside Frank’s ear. It bangs directly on Frank’s exposed nerves, like scraping his skin with razors and a rinse of lemon juice.
John is the first one to come up to him, his smile fading as he takes in Frank’s short pacing, three steps and a turn, three steps and a turn. Zoe and Tina are in media with him, their discussion on a project cuts off too. Frank used to care about killing the happiness of a person, but he hasn’t cared much recently, and right now it doesn’t matter at all.
“John we need to go.” It comes out frantic, like he’s cracking up after ingesting bad coke.
“What?”
“I need a smoke. I need a smoke more than I have ever needed a smoke before in my life. And if I smoke by myself there’s no telling what I’ll do so I need a smoking buddy slash babysitter.”
“Dude, what? Why? I thought you were getting over him.”
There’s nothing in John’s sentence that makes any sense at all, or is anything near the truth. Frank grabs onto the straps of his backpack and clings to them so he doesn’t descend into hysterics. “I can’t tell you until I can’t feel my face anymore.”
“That bad huh? Okay.”
“I’m coming. Some shit you need to hear from a girl.” Frank doesn’t want any advice, and chances are fairly high that Zoe will come up with something, but he lets her come anyway. He’s too energetic to come up with a coherent argument for her staying at school, and he’ll need to argue if he wants to convince her.
*
Frank exhales into the dimly lit basement and watches as the fan dissipates the cloud. “I told you why he broke up with me, right?”
“If the answer is either a, you refused to let him fuck you or b you refused to talk him about fucking, the answer is yes. The answer is about a million times. But if you want rant again go for it. That’s why we’re here.”
“John!” Zoe elbows John, the gesture made much more hard by the way the pot makes her sway her whole body into the movement.
“What? I’m being supportive! I said he could keep telling us.”
“That’s not supportive! You suck John, stop sucking.” Zoe slides from the couch to the floor, tugging one of the cushions after her. “Frank, his suckage does not speak for me, alright?” Frank shrugs. He thinks it’s pretty supportive. Maybe girl brains work differently.
“Not that I really oppose skipping to get stoned. But is that all this is? You wanting to rant more?”
Frank shakes his head, for a moment just enjoying how his bangs fly in the machine created breeze. “Mikey got a new boyfriend.”
“Aww fuck, really?”
Frank nods, which plays with his hair completely differently. “He’ll never break up with him either. He’s everything he could want.”
“How do you know?” Zoe asks.
“Because he’s fucking the school whore, man.” Fuck is he glad he’s stoned. If this is how much it hurts to say it stoned, he can only imagine how much worse this conversation would have been sober and trying to choke down french fries at the lunch table.
“Pete Wentz? Seriously?” John doesn’t sound surprised, and Frank guesses he shouldn’t have been either. Pete’s not exactly the guy you trust to keep his dick in his pants.
“And whoever else comes with.” Frank adds bitterly. Really, it’s the perfect solution for Mikey. It’s not like Pete would care if Mikey went out each night for mutual handjobs at the bar, not when he’s got Ashlee and Patrick and everyone else.
“I don’t think Pete is a whore,” Zoe announces flopping back the pile of cushions and pillows she’s collected from the various armchairs.
“You’re the only one in the world Zoe.” John says it with kindness.
“No, really. Even if you take out the whores get paid for sex part, he’s still sleeping with usually the same people.”
“He’s sleeping with multiple people at once!” Frank rolls his eyes. The concept of whorishness isn’t that hard to understand.
“That’s not being a whore, that’s polygamy.”
“Is that one of your porn things?” Frank’s starting to get pissed. Zoe defending his now arch enemy isn’t exactly what he wanted from leaving and smoking up.
“If I start to explain how it’s not a porn thing, it’s got roots in multiple religions and multiple places in history you’re not going to listen, so, whatever.”
“Yeah, really not going to listen to you try to tell me why Pete fucking Mikey is actually a great and awesome thing. Fuck sakes Zoe. I mean-”
“I’m going to pack another bowl,” John interrupts. “Who wants in?”
“John, I’m so in I’m like, inside the bowl.” Which is possibly not the most clever thing he’s ever said, but it’s not fair to judge his witty comebacks right now. He should be saving them up, anyway, right? He’s watched enough tv to know that every set of rivals needs to come with harsh banter, rolled in cutting slights and backhanded compliments. Why waste them on John or Zoe?
*
Back when Frank used to care about things, his favourite class was sociology. A lot of students didn’t really appreciate it, it was a note heavy class and at the end of March B F Skinner’s theory wasn’t what most of the seniors cared about. Operant conditioning wasn’t narrowing down between what places had accepted you to the one place you would go, it wasn’t planning out accommodations or trying to decide what the fuck you were going to do if you didn’t get accepted to the place you wanted. But Frank found it fascinating. There were a ton of different theories about why people did what they did, and he wanted to learn them all.
Even better than reading over his notes and googling for more information is asking Mr Skiba. Unlike most of the teachers, he writes the notes on the overheard as he’s reading them aloud, which makes it feel like he’s engaged in the material. When he asks for hypotheticals he seems genuinely interested in the answer, and the few times that someone brings up an idea that isn’t in the notes Mr Skiba can easily reply with ‘that’s a Jungian concept, you might want to go talk to Mr Grant about it, but here’s what I know about it’, instead of getting upset about his lesson being derailed.
His obvious humanity, as compared to some of the teachers Frank’s had, is why it doesn’t surprise Frank that Mr Skiba notices something. Of course, Frank maybe makes it easy, the class has been over for three minutes and he still hasn’t left his seat yet. He’s not sure exactly why he hasn’t gotten up. It’s not just that AL is his next class, and there’s nothing he dreads more than that first moment of seeing Mikey, where his stomach still heats happily before he remembers and the world comes crashing down again. It just feels like all the things in the world will attack him at once if he leaves. It’s ridiculous but true, and there’s probably a better phrasing for it than Frank vs Everything Ever. He thinks Joe would know, but Joe leads directly to Pete and Patrick and Ashlee and Mikey and that is not a place he wants to delve any deeper than is already on his mind.
“Frank are you okay?” Frank doesn’t look up from his desk, but Mr Skiba’s fingers are pressed lightly on the edge of it, fingers bent slightly backwards to the first knuckle.
“No.” It’s the truth, even if it does seem overly dramatic when he says it out loud.
“Do you need the nurse or a guidance counsellor?”
“No.” He’s not sick, and there’s nothing that she can say that will make things better.
“Frank, I’ve got class this period, but if you want to come back and talk at lunch, you can.” Frank knows he’s right, any second now the teens are going to start trickling in. He’s probably sitting in someone’s desk, some guy that’s going to be glaring at him because he still needs to rush his homework for the first fifteen minutes of class so he can hand it in at the end, or some girl that glares because she just wants to sit down and gossip with her friends about something that happened last period.
“Yeah, I dunno. Maybe.” He zips up his binder and puts it in his backpack. He tries to ignore that his hands are shaking, and Mr Skiba doesn’t say anything about it, so it’s fine.
Frank doesn’t want to talk, he just wants everything to have not happened. He’s talked about everything a hundred times over with his friends, and they just don’t get it. They’re all dating, all happy, and they think Frank going to talk to Mikey will solve everything. He’s not exactly sure why he ends up outside 207, but he suspects it’s that. Mr Skiba is a teacher, which means he’s old enough to understand that not everything can have a happy ending.
Mr Skiba is sitting at his desk when Frank walks in. He’s not grading papers or anything, just sitting and reading a book. It’s old enough that when he reaches for his stainless steel bottle the cracked spine keeps the page open. He tilts his head to take a swallow and that’s when he sees him. “Frank, you came.”
“Yeah, well.”
“Do you want to sit down, or...”
Frank grabs one of the blue plastic chairs and pulls it close to the desk. “Do you always sit alone eating in here, or is this because of me? Am I keeping you from-” Frank doesn’t know what to call them, he’s not sure if the teachers consider each other friends, or just colleagues. “staff room stuff?”
“On and off. It can get pretty noisy there, sometimes I like the quiet here. Or sometimes a student needs me to explain a concept, so I have them swing by so I can help. So what’s wrong?”
“I broke up with my boyfriend over the most stupid thing. It’s been a month and I still want him back.” Frank is happy Mr Skiba doesn’t react at all to the pronoun but then he didn’t really expect anything different. Skiba’s too cool to be homophobic.
“Have you tried talking to him?”
Christ, so much for him having the wisdom of being at least a decade older than his friends. “It’s not the talking that matters, it’s whether or not we can fuck.”
Mr Skiba’s eyes flare open a bit, but his voice stays with the same smooth calmness he always uses in class as he says “Frank, if he’s pressuring you in any way-”
“He’s not because we’re not dating. And he wasn’t either. I didn’t mean it like that.” Frank puts as much emphasis on the last word as he can. Just because he’s frustrated and upset with all of it doesn’t mean that he’s going to let other people think Mikey’s some sort of rapist. “I meant he broke up with me because I refused to bottom.”
“Frank this isn’t really an appropriate conversation.”
“My friends think I should just talk to him, tell him I miss him and want him back. He’s dating this asshole bastard slut, and even if Mikey thinks that’s what he wants, he’s way better than someone like that. He could catch something!” There’s not a question in Frank’s mind that Pete and Patrick and Mikey are fucking, and that’s different than what happens in a bar. Handjobs are the safest sex you can have, but if Patrick blows Mikey, than that’s fluid exchange, and sex ed proves that Pete’s a dirty whore and Mikey will get syphilis and die of brain swelling. “But I can’t just go and tell him, they don’t get it, he broke up with me because we weren’t compatible, and even if I want him, I’ll have to let him fuck me and I-”
“Frank, seriously, I can’t have this conversation with you. I wish I could, it sounds like you need help and I wish I could help you. But teachers cannot talk to students about their sex lives. I can’t. Nobody can, not Mr Grant or Mr Andriano or Mrs Palmer. We’d get suspended, fired, arrested, and featured on CNN. Maybe not in that order but...” Mr Skiba trails off.
“Fine. Fine, just fucking fine.” Motherfucking goddamn figures. Frank stands, chair making an ugly noise as it scrapes backwards against the floor from the sudden movement.
“Frank-”
“Stop. You don’t want to talk, so fuck off and stop talking. Alright? Fuck.” Mr Skiba could give him a detention for his language and disrespect, but he won’t, which only pisses Frank off more. If you’re going to be a dick, you should be a straight up dick instead of fucking with people’s heads. He doesn’t wait to hear any more, just grabs his bag by one of the straps and walks out, slamming the door behind him. The crashing noise isn’t nearly satisfying enough.
*
Frank realises his mistake as he comes in from his lunch smoke. Shaun’s sitting with a pile of gift bags in front of him. Seven to be exact. “I didn’t forget, it’s just not here.” he says by way of introduction.
“Whatever. Just gimme your pudding and we’ll call it even.” Shaun replies.
“No seriously, I did get you something. This isn’t an episode of Simpsons where I spaced and will end up getting you Santa’s Little Helper.”
“Technically he didn’t forget, he just blew his money gambling.”
Frank rolls his eyes at Neil. “Whatever. Point is, I’m just shitty in the morning, I forgot to put it in my bag.”
“Fine, then gimme your pudding as apology for forgetting.”
“There’s no way I’m going to join the table with my pudding intact is there?”
“Probably not and even if you sit down chances are some dude with a ski mask and a gun will come in and be like your pudding or your life. At least if you hand it over the gun will be on my temple, not yours, right?”
Frank drops his backpack onto the table, fishes in onehandedly until he finds the paper bag, and pulls out the tupperware container. It’s light green, which means that he’s giving Shaun pistachio. All in all, not the worst flavour to give up. Frank would have cut Shaun rather than give up white chocolate or cheesecake.
*
The original plan was for Frank to just put the present in his backpack before bed so he didn’t have to worry about spacing in the morning. But John and Zoe and Tim and Kelly are out playing mini-golf and sometimes there really is such a thing as a fifth wheel. It feels like he’s watched every video on Youtube, and he doesn’t want to go over to Neil’s to watch more, so instead after dinner he just gets on the bus and rides until he’s near enough Shaun’s work to walk the rest of the way. It’s pretty much the perfect place for the guy, Flipped Pages sells comics, manga, and if you talk to Donetello there’s a underground trade of doujinshi. It’s actually how Shaun met Tina; she’d heard of Flipped Pages as a source but asked the wrong guy.
“See! It’s not even belated! I demand a pudding cup!” Frank bellows as he walks into the store, his shout far more effective than the wind chime near the draft of the door
‘What flavour?” It isn’t a voice Frank recognises as Shaun, Don, or Kenny but he’s sure he knows it. He eyes the room slowly, looking for a customer he knows among the display cases. “I’m partial to butterscotch myself.”
Frank sees the owner of the voice and wants to bolt. He would be on Frank’s list of five people he never wanted to be in a room with again, except it never would have occurred to him to add him. The words don’t seem provocative, unless there’s an undercut Frank can’t hear. Frank hopes there isn’t, that this isn’t the start of something. He doesn’t want to have to fight him, he’d probably win but it would be lame, and it would make a mess that Shaun would have to clean, and that’s just not cool to do to someone on their birthday. So he answer as nice as possible ‘I like banana best’ then he scoots past him to the back of the store.
Shaun’s standing at the cash register, slowly reading a doujinshi. It’s obvious it’s a poorly produced fanwork, from the two pages Frank can see the art is shit and Shaun’s snickering means the dialogue isn’t very good. Sometimes when Frank visits, they hold a dramatic reading of one, Don watching and applauding at the appropriate times. Frank is nowhere near that mood now though.
“You didn’t tell me Gerard fucking Way worked here!” His voice is quiet enough to not attract attention of the man, but Frank’s sure his fury is still properly expressed.
“Who?” Frank gesticulates wildly, his finger eventually pointing at Gerard. “Oh, Gee. I didn’t know that was his last name. Shit, you telling me he’s Mikey’s brother? Small world.”
Frank slams the gift on the glass display case, the stein inside thunking heavily. “Open your fucking present, I need to get out of here.”
And like he’s some sort of stealthy vampire, Gerard is right behind him, replying “No you don’t.”
“Excuse me?”
“If you’re leaving because you think I’m going to cause drama over Mikey or something, then you don’t need to leave, because I’m not. You guys broke up, now he’s dating someone else-”
Frank interrupts “yeah, total fucking cockbag. If there’s anyone you’re going to beat up, it should be him!”
“I’m not beating anyone up, Frank. You guys broke up, he’s dating Pete-”
“And Patrick and Ashlee, fucking Christ! And maybe Joe and Andy, you really can’t tell with-”
“Come on, man. You’re not telling me anything I don’t know. Me and Mikey talk, and if it makes him happy than I’m glad he’s doing it. That’s that.”
“He’s happy though? About everything, not just the jackass? Where’d he get into college?” Fuck, he is so fucking weak. He shouldn’t care, he shouldn’t need to know if Mikey is happy. It’s been five weeks since Mikey dumped him, he shouldn’t care about him any more.
“I don’t think we should be colluding with my brother’s information.”
Frank crosses his arms. “It’s not really a secret, I could find out from his friends.”
“So why don’t you?”
There’s a challenging lilt in Gerard’s voice, and already mad at himself for being so pathetic the tone is enough to make him snap. “Because it is fucking traumatizing to talk to them and this is just as bad but at least it’s already started! I might as well get use out of it.”
Gerard looks at him for a second than says quietly “A few places, but he’s going to Rutgers.”
“What? So am I! Can you tell him if he asks?”
“Yeah sorry man, no. He wouldn’t know to ask and I’m not telling him. Everyone needs to do their own thing, dwelling’s never helpful.” It’s the kindest way Frank’s heard ‘get the fuck over him’ yet, which may or may not say something about the empathic capacities of his friends. The words are true, nothing that Frank didn’t know himself, and somehow still crushing. For as short a time as Frank had had, mere seconds, it had been long enough for full fantasies of sharing a room with Mikey and having coffee always brewing on an illegal hotplate, and fucking before first class, and a million other pathetic things. His eyes are closed, but he can feel Gerard looking at him, he can feel the dagger edged sympathy slicing at him.
“Happy birthday Shaun. I gotta go. See you tomorrow.” Frank doesn’t wait for a response, just rushes out the door and starts walking to the bus stop. He needs a fucking smoke.
*
Frank flips to the end of the textbook. It’s impossible to cheat using the answers in the back, it only gives you the number, and every piece of homework always demands you show your work. Still, it’s useful enough for knowing if he’s right, because chances are if his number is correct than the way he solved the problem is the right method.
Claire slips into class at the last possible moment, she’s not even in her seat when the buzzer goes off. But it’s April seventeenth, they’ve got less than two months until graduation, and there are only a few teachers throughout all of Carleton hard-assed enough to give a detention for something so slight. She twists in her seat to face Neil beside her, and Tina behind him, and Frank beside Tina as Mr Mack starts attendance. “Congratulations to us. We are now the average American high school.”
“What, someone pulled a gun?” Frank asks. The idea of it hardly phases him. They’re on the first floor, they can probably break through the window and run to safety.
“Couldn’t have, we didn’t go into lock down.” Neil answers.
“No, not yet, but maybe they’re on the other side of the school? But you think if someone was going to do it it would be in March, after a rejection letter.” It’s possibly not fair for Frank to be ascribing a school shooter persona to Joe, but it’s not like it’s impossible to imagine him freaking out about not getting in where he wanted and taking out the entire school.
“Bullshit, it’s always about bullying.” Neil argues. Frank disagrees. Most of the time it’s about bullying, but sometimes people are just psychopaths, and sometimes people have blackouts or meltdowns. There’s such a thing as criminally insane, after all. He’s about to make the point when Claire speaks up again.
“Moving on from Michael Moore-”
“Yeah, into Maury,” Tina interrupts. Claire glares at her. “What, I heard it too! I didn’t spoil it, I’m still letting you say it.”
“We’ve got a pregnant girl.”
“Shit, really?” Frank honestly can’t think of something more horrible than throwing away your entire future because of lack of a condom. Assuming she’s keeping it. If Frank was a girl, he’d never consider it, not for a split second.
“Statistically speaking, in a school with approx a thousand girls there’s probably more than one.”
“Yes, but she’s the only one not using the coat hanger and clumsiness around the stairs method.” Claire answers Neil.
“So she’s keeping it? Who is she, do we know her?”
“She’s in my photography class, it’s been floating around all day but I got it confirmed last period.”
“You just asked her?” Frank’s not sure he’d have the balls to ask.
“Frank, if she’s keeping it she sure as hell can’t be shy about talking about it. Yeah I asked her, apparently the father doesn’t give a shit. But her parents would kick her out of the house if she got rid of it, so she’s got no choice.”
Tina shakes her head. “She’s got a choice, she’s just copping out by blaming her parents. I would never agree to that shit, not for them, not for anyone.” Coming from Tina it’s a bit rich to hear mockery of following a parent’s wishes, but Frank thinks if he was a girl he’d do the same. “Fuckin’ Rebekah.”
“Wait. Rebekah? As in Rebekah-” Shit, he doesn’t know her last name to clarify.
“As in Rebekah, your last pathetic attempt to be straight? Yeah, that Rebekah. Are you sure you’re not the uncaring father?”
“Fuck off!” Frank exclaims in horror.
“Frank, language and volume, alright? A work period means you need to pretend to be working.”
Frank apologises to Mr Mack and takes a look at problem five in contrition. He can’t concentrate on what it’s asking of him. The girl Frank could have dated in another world -a nightmare world where he hadn’t realised, or had but was too ashamed to cut things off before they started to follow his real wishes, an easily imaginable alternate world- is pregnant. It’s like a slap in the face. An entire life springs to mind, married and with fucking kids and a mortgage, wearing prissy suits and worrying about saving enough for retirement. It’s a full fledged horror in his head, enough to make him shudder like spiders are crawling over his skin. If it’s not what he wants, he’s gotta do something about it. He can’t let normalcy and complacency win. He’ll do what it takes.
At school the next morning, the plan seems less foolproof. But it doesn’t seem any less important to try, and that’s what matters. It’s time to put up or shut up. It’s time to make a move to get what he wants, or end up married and trapped. Because sure he can say he’ll never let that happen, but the only way he knows it won’t is by running in the opposite direction as fast as he can.
So he gets to school earlier than normal, and heads straight for Mikey’s locker. Frank doesn’t care how long it takes for Mikey to come, he’ll sit on the speckled with dirt floor until three thirty if he has to.
It doesn’t take that long. Mikey walks down the hallway, Pete beside him. Frank waits until Mikey twirls his combination and gets his locker open before rushing over to him. They’re talking about something, but manners are not the most important thing in this situation, he can’t wait for a natural pause in the conversation. “Mikey, I fucking love you okay? And I know you broke up with me and I still don’t want you to fuck me, it fucking sucked and I didn’t like it and I don’t know about you but once I realise I hate something I don’t want to do it again. But Jesus Christ, dude, I’d let you tear me apart every fucking night if you’d date me again. It might have taken me like two months to realise it but we still have another six weeks before graduation so fuck, please. You can fuck me, I’ll prove that I’m okay with it.”
Mikey slams his locker closed before whirling around. He looks distinctly unimpressed, and Frank’s heart plummets. “So, what, you’re auditioning? Frank, it wasn’t just the not switching. Don’t get me wrong, I wanted to fuck you. But it wasn’t just that. Every fucking time I brought it up you lied or tried to distract me. You acted like a total bitch, Frank. I don’t date pussies.”
Frank wants to point out that before him Mikey didn’t date anyone. Then he thinks that it’s too confrontational for a conversation meant to get Mikey back in his arms. And then he thinks not saying it out loud sort of proves Mikey’s point that he’s a pussy too scared to say anything important. “Before me you didn’t date anyone!”
“So he made up the rule on the fly. Seems like a solid rule dude.”
Frank turns to look at Pete, cocky and grinning with his fucking horse teeth all over the place. He grounds out through a gritted jaw, “Shut. Up.”
“I’m just saying, man.”
Frank revels in the pain that blossoms in his hand as he punches Pete in the face. It’s the sweetest kind of pain, triumphant.
“Oh, that’s what were doing?” Pete asks rhetorically before striking back. It’s a solid hit and Frank maybe belatedly remembers he’s seen Pete in all the same mosh pits he’s been in, that Pete has the same pain tolerance he does, which his normally his winning factor, because he just doesn’t care if someone hurts him, as long as he hurts them more. But Pete runs on the same fuel, he knows it from the bars, he knows it from the little he’s gleaned from Joe. Frank’s maybe in a bit over his head. That doesn’t mean he’s going to bitch out.
They only have a minute before the crowd that gathers is enough to attract teachers. First it’s Harper, screeching what is going on at the top of her lungs, each word over enunciated. It’s like a bat signal for the stronger teachers, moments after she clips off the ‘n’ there are arms around his chest, pulling him back. Molko’s got Pete, which looks ridiculous, Mr Molko is as effeminate as teachers come, and he’s actually shorter than Pete. But it works, the moment his arms are around Pete he subdues immediately. It only takes a twist of his spine -he’s being held hard enough to keep him from bursting out of the hold, but not hard enough for bruises and a lawsuit- to figure out Skiba’s got him.
And that’s when Patrick comes running down the hall. Frank’s still struggling to get out of Skiba’s hold, but he’s watching everyone else, trying to figure out who’s going to be on his side if he can start fighting again, who’s going to try to stop him. Patrick’ll obviously be on Pete’s side, he doesn’t even look all that surprised to see Pete being cradled by Mr Molko. Still he asks, “what the shit?”
“Frank,” Mr Skiba says lowly, “If I let you go and you go for him, you’ll be suspended. I know you got into Rutgers, a suspension for violence is not going to look good.”
It is fucking infuriating that Molko has already let go of Pete, and Pete is just standing there. Not even telling him to bring it with his eyes, Pete’s are glazed and dead. Pete started everything, and Patrick’s attempting to link his fingers into his, while Pete just stands there frozen, and he looks like such an innocent that if Frank tries to finish what he started he’ll be the bad guy. “This is fucking bullshit.”
“Be that as it may, Frank, do you really want to let being pissed off ruin your chance to get into college?”
That gets to him. While having Mikey to get tattoos with and smoke up with and go on roadtrips every few months was a sure bet to not slide into suburban idiocy, a great first step into that life is a tedious minimum wage job at a supermarket because he didn’t manage college. “I won’t touch the jackass.”
“Frank, are-”
“I’m not going to fucking touch him, let me the fuck go!” Frank snaps. Skiba’s arms uncurl, releasing him, and Frank tugs his shirt down.
“Patrick, Pete has detention after school today. Or tomorrow, if he can’t make today,” Mr Molko calls out, and Patrick waves the hand that’s not slowly leading Pete down the hall. “Frank, yours will be in my classroom after my last period.”
What the shit is that? How does Pete get to pick a day, and his isn’t a choice? It’s proof that life is unfair, and assholes always win. Frank nods once, not trusting himself to not burst into a stream of profanity that will get him a second detention. He scans the hallway. There are a ton of gawkers slowly drifting away now that the fight is done and the repercussions are meted out, but he doesn’t see Mikey anywhere. Fucking Pete, making him fuck up his last chance.
part six