Frerard One-shots

Sometimes high school was a bitch.
Like when it had Gerard’s head pushed down into a toilet. It was a bitch then. Or when Gerard was so anxious about some insignificant fucking test the next day in Anatomy that he drunk himself nearly into a coma. It was a bitch then, too. And when being gay was such a crime that Gerard wasn’t even able to walk to class without some sort of verbal or physical punishment, well it was definitely a bitch then.
High school was a bitch.
But the future? Well, the future was something else altogether.
The future was what had Gerard on his knees in front of the toilet in his shared bathroom at home. The future was what made Gerard pick up that drinking habit in the first place. The future was what terrorized Gerard’s thoughts at night - not the bullies, not the teachers, not the tests or the long detention hours - the future.
He was in an hourglass, the bottom half of it, and the sand was slowly but surely filling his half. Soon enough, he would be buried in it, asphyxiated by the grains, and there was nothing he could do to stop it. All he could do was sit and wait, wait, wait, wait for the inevitable.
He was afraid of the inevitable, even if he didn’t quite know what it was.
That’s why he was afraid of it: he didn’t know what it was.
The future was all anyone seemed to be talking about these days; Where are you going next year? Have you applied to any colleges yet? Are you staying in New Jersey? What do you want to be? and his personal favorites, Are you sure you can make a living off of that? and But don’t you think you should get a real job?
The thought of the future was the root of all of Gerard’s anxieties, he could swear by it. It was closing in on him, like he was in that the trash compactor in that scene in Star Wars: Episode IV. That’s what he thought it felt like. The threat of two metal walls on either side of him, making loud, ugly sounds as they closed in on him.
The passage of time tightened around Gerard’s throat like his school tie. Menacing. Restricting. Suffocating.
It wasn’t so much the years slipping away from him as it was the seconds, the milliseconds. The moments he wouldn’t get back and couldn't remember. The tiniest fractions of time that he wished he could hold onto in a desperate, almost obsessive, attempt to never grow old.

The air in the basement was sticky and warm, like it was mid-summer, only now it was late fall and the warmth was created not by the sun but by the energy of tens of sweaty teenage bodies. Gerard really hated nights like this.
He would’ve been much more comfortable in his own basement, with his own sweat on his body, with his own drink spilled all over his front. He would’ve been more confident sprawled out on his own bed, rather than hanging like a socially anxious ghost in the corner of a shitty party with shitty music.
He would’ve been perfectly content with Mikey as his only company.
But Mikey wasn’t perfectly content with Gerard as his only company. At least, not all the time. There were nights, and these were the majority of all nights, that he wanted out of their house. He thrived at parties, at rock shows. His natural habitat was the sticky basement floor of some shitty mom of some shitty teen who left her liquor cabinet unlocked when she went away for the weekend. A stranger’s beer-stained couch was probably more familiar to him than his own bed was.
And Gerard wasn’t like that. At all. He was nearly as afraid of people as he was of the future. He didn’t like talking to strangers, didn’t like being introduced to the half-drunk band dudes Mikey was friends with, even when they were cute. Gerard didn’t like to look stupid in front of his peers. And anything that involved talking, interacting, or anything to do with physical activity, would probably lead to him looking stupid in front of his peers.
So, he preferred to stay in his bedroom.
But there were nights when that just wasn’t acceptable. In Mikey’s mind, anyway.
Mikey seemed to have this convoluted opinion that it was good for Gerard to get out sometimes. That seeing people would make him less anxious, less depressed. That maybe he wouldn’t be so sad all the time, wouldn’t want to hurt himself all the time, if he just grew up and talked to some cute guys.
Mikey was wrong. Only, he didn’t know that, and Gerard tried his hardest not to tell him that. See, Mikey cared about Gerard. He meant well, he really did. And even if he was going about caring in a completely wrong way, Gerard just couldn’t find it in him to refute his brother’s endless attempts at curing his anxiety and depression and overall social incapabilities. So, Gerard went along with Mikey’s antics most of the time.
He usually regretted it.
Regret seemed to have an inverse relationship with the number of drinks Gerard downed, though, and so he was nearly regret-free as Mikey introduced him to possibly the cutest Pency vocalist yet. Gerard had lost count of how many there had been - that band went through vocalists like Taylor Swift went through hot male celebrities - and in his drunken state, he really didn’t care. He’d met almost all of them, by way of Mikey, but none of them had been so breathtaking.
This one was younger than the last one, considerably. Chubbier, too. Although almost anyone would have been chubbier than Curtis. Er-Carter... Chris? Gerard couldn’t remember. It didn’t matter, anyway. Gerard had a deal with himself that anyone he hooked up with, he wouldn’t become invested in. Most of the time, he tried to not even learn guys’ names. He played a game with himself sometimes that he liked to call See How Long I Can Fuck This Guy Without Learning His Name. Or... something like that.
And although Gerard was pretty sure that at the time of the hookup he knew Curtis-Carter-Chris’s actual name, he didn’t now, and that was all that really mattered.
So, Gerard wasn’t concerned when Pency vocalist number whatever’s name was lost in the basement noise the moment it left Mikey’s lips. Because, really, Gerard was almost drunk enough to be at the point where all social expectations were thrown out the window and he stopped giving a shit about how he looked or sounded. He was nearly to that point where he would be able to drunkenly hit on this guy, Pency vocalist number whatever, and maybe, if he was lucky and if either the guy’s orientation wasn’t straight or he was drunk enough to forget about his own orientation, Gerard could bring him to some bathroom or bedroom or maybe even his own house.
But before Gerard had a chance to pull some kind of pathetic, drunk move on Pency vocalist, there was a hand on his back and a mess of gross sticky hair butting in between the two of them.
Ray was the closest thing Gerard had to a friend that wasn’t Mikey, but was really only the kind-of-cool guitar master from his Functions, Stats, and Trig class. Ray was a lot friendlier with Gerard than Gerard was with him, but Gerard didn’t mind most of the time. He kind of minded now, as Ray was being a total cock block and Gerard had practically already gotten Pency vocalist undressed in his mind. God, being a teenager sucked sometimes.
“Gerard! Frank!” Ray expressed, a hand on each of their shoulders.
Fuck. Gerard had heard it that time. He tried his best to erase the name from his memory. Fr-what?
When Ray started gushing about the band that was currently making their eardrums all but bleed, Gerard was sure he’d scored something really heavy. Because no way in hell did someone with such a musical ear think that shitty band had any kind of potential whatsoever; even he could tell they totally sucked.
As the fro-ed stoner rambled on beside him, Gerard sipped at his drink some more and wondered where Mikey went off to. At least Fr-er... Pency vocalist was still here. Ray would get bored of them soon enough, and Gerard could continue his advances. He was itching for it. Hadn’t had a hookup in weeks.
Well, hadn’t had sex in weeks. Hadn’t had a hookup in months.
Sure enough, Ray had begun to grow bored of their company, his mind obviously speeding at a thousand miles an hour even as the people around him weren’t. Gerard knew that feeling.
A beat after downing the rest of the contents of his red Solo cup, Gerard took a moment to really take Pency vocalist in. Yeah. Yeah, he was definitely a whole lot more attractive than any of the Pency vocalists Gerard had ever been introduced to.
“You wanna go somewhere?” Gerard asked, feet faltering toward Pency vocalist when someone knocked him from behind on their way to either puke or do more shots until they puked.
Pency vocalist grinned, this filthy stretching of his lips across his face that was nothing if it wasn’t mischievous. His lip ring caught a light from across the room and Gerard had a hard time not jumping him then and there. The people around them probably wouldn’t have minded.
Then Pency vocalist had taken Gerard’s hoodie-clad wrist and pulled him through the crowd of drunk youth. They were in a bedroom in no time, but it wasn’t going to do.
There was already a couple in there, some scrawny kid and a girl who Gerard was pretty sure was in college. Pency vocalist didn’t seem to mind them, but the idea nagged at Gerard’s drunk mind. He could be naked in front of some drunk guy when he himself was drunk off his ass, but not when there was anyone else in the room. That had always seemed to be the little bit of his sober self that liked to peek out from behind the curtain when he was drunk. He still hated his body.
It was just easier to forget about it when he was getting fucked, or doing the fucking, because he knew that other person was probably more focused on other things than his pudgy stomach and scarred arms and thighs.
Tonight, Gerard seemed to be out on his luck because the entire house proved to be full of giggling, hormonal teenagers fooling around with each others’ bodies and slurring out embarrassing confessions. By the time Gerard and Pency vocalist had finished searching the entire house for solitude, Gerard was desperate.
“I’ll drive us to my place.” He slurred, pulling Pency vocalist to him before he changed his mind about Gerard and decided to run away from him and his maybe weird aversion to having sex with non-participants in the room.
Pency vocalist was weary of that idea. “You sure you can drive like this?”
“Sure-sure!” Gerard assured him, “I live like three blocks down.” Although, he wasn’t one-hundred percent sure on that, he pretended like he was. By the time they were at Gerard’s car, parked across the street, Gerard had nearly convinced himself that driving this fucking drunk would be worth it when he was in the solitude of his own bed with this fucking guy. God, he was desperate.
And fuck, he probably wasn’t even going to remember it in the morning.

Turns out, much to his delight, Gerard does remember it in the morning.
Sure, there were some blurry details - scary details like did we use a condom? or did I crash my car? - but they were all things he would probably remember later if he didn’t end up hearing about them from either his mom or the guy in the shower down the hall.
Who was that again...?
Pency guy. Pency vocalist number whatever. Right. Gerard still had a pretty good image of his face in his head and was relieved to remember how cute the guy had been. If he had been that cute when Gerard was drunk, he had to be at least a seven when Gerard was sober.
He was higher than a seven, even when Gerard was sober.
Gerard found this out when his bedroom door opened, last night’s hookup walking through lazily, wearing some of Gerard’s star wars pajama pants and a T-shirt that might have been his but might have been Gerard’s.
Pency Prep guy was definitely higher than a seven.
God, Gerard was so glad he could still remember last night.
“Morning.” Pency guy smiled down at Gerard, tossing him some clothes. It was with horror that Gerard noticed his own naked body. Shit, he was usually so good about pulling something on before passing out. He hated this, hated being seen naked by someone who was sober. He knew what they’d probably think. He knew what Frank had probably thought.
Something he’d thought himself before. Something along the lines of wow, you weren’t this ugly when I was drunk. He suddenly felt feverish, like his skin was on fire, and he couldn’t get the clothes on fast enough.
Pency guy’s hair was wet and sticking up in a bunch of different angles that maybe sort of disobeyed the laws of physics, but still looked cute.
“You should-” Gerard stammered, “You should, uh, leave.”
Pency guy frowned, “I can’t - It’s Sunday morning and my mom’ll kill me for not going to church.”
Gerard gaped at that. “How fucking old are you?” Gerard hated that question, because he usually ended up feeling way too old and kind of like a pedophile, or way too young and in over his head. He rarely felt on the same level as the person next to him. That’s why he stopped asking a long time ago. Suddenly, all of his insecurities had subsided in his mind. The kid in front of him sure looked a lot younger than he had the night before.
It was the eyeliner, Gerard realized. He’d been wearing thick rings around his eyes at the party and now, after sweaty sex and a hot shower, it had all washed off. He looked like a kid.
“I’m- uh.” Pency guy stuttered, “S-sixteen.” He nodded, as if the action would make his words more believable.
Gerard huffed, not believing any of it. This kid wasn’t fucking sixteen. No one said their real age with such uncertainty. “What the hell is your name?” Gerard had apparently won the game that night, because the kid’s name really had escaped him, and all he could think of was the new Pency Prep vocalist.
“Frank.”
Right. Gerard did remember that, after all. So maybe he had lost.
Just as he was about to say something mean and condescending to Frank about his age, Gerard faltered a little. The name Frank rang a bell in his mind, but it took a few seconds for him to really remember where he’d heard it.
Mikey. Duh. “Fucking Frank Iero, right?” Gerard muttered, mood becoming stormier and stormier. He couldn’t fucking believe this.
Frank nodded, starting to look a little bit scared. God, how did Gerard not notice how fucking young he looked back at that party?
“Mikey talks about you sometimes. You’re a fucking freshman. And you’re not fucking sixteen.”
Frank just rolled his eyes, “You didn’t seem to care last night.”
Gerard nearly hissed at him, “I was drunk off of my fucking ass last night. You need to go.”
But Frank wasn’t having that. “Mikes and I were planning on heading out to a show tonight, so I thought I’d just stay over. He said you’d drive us.” His eyes lit up for a moment, as if Gerard’s dark mood hadn’t hindered his own mood, “You should come with us. Mikey’s always talking about how you don’t get out enough.”
Gerard groaned, “Don’t fucking tell me this was a pity fuck.”
They both went silent for what felt like a long time. Frank looked confused for a moment before he finally replied, “I don’t fuck people ‘cause I feel bad for them. I fuck people because I’m attracted to them.”
Gerard scoffed, shaking his head. “You fuck people you think are attractive when you’re drunk.”
Frank was frowning now, staring down at Gerard from across the room. Just before backing out of the door, he muttered, “Yeah, usually. But that doesn’t really apply here.”

“Depict your worst fear in some abstract way. I want to see real feeling.”
Gerard hated Mr. Chile for this. Really, really hated him. Loathed him.
The only good part about this assignment was the fact that it was open-media. He could choose to do a painting. At least there would be one aspect of this project that he was comfortable with. God knows he wasn’t comfortable with any other fiber of it.
Figuring out a way of putting his fear of the future down on canvas was hard enough without having to constantly think about it, digging deeper inside of himself until maybe he’d find something that he could turn into a visual representation of the feeling he got when he thought of himself in ten years.
That’s why, two class periods before the final due date, Gerard found himself stuck in the art room long after school hours, sitting in front of a black canvas with meek gray fog crossing the foreground. It looked like nothing special.
Chile had been nagging him to get to work on it; he’d been spending his now dreaded Advanced Art Studies period doodling vampires and superheroes on the dirty tables rather than thinking about or looking at the sad canvas invading his workspace. Gerard would have skipped off and taken the E for the project if Mikey hadn’t mentioned at lunch that Frank was coming over. Gerard didn’t want another run-in with that kid. He’d noticed him for the first time during school walking to his math class in the Freshmen hall, and pretended not to hear his name being called as they passed each other.
Gerard hated the art room when it was empty. Sure, all of the obnoxious sophomore girls who thought they were somehow artistic and extremely good looking were all gone, and sure, he was alone and allowed to sing as loud as he wanted, but the energy was gone. The buzz of talking, the ringing of really shitty, really obnoxious music was no where to be heard, and Mr. Chile’s booming voice was no longer criticizing or giving tips or praising.
He felt lonely. Really, really lonely.
It wasn’t a new feeling. It had been there, eating at him for a long time; he could hardly remember a time when he wasn’t lonely.
It seemed to strengthen, fade, and repeat as time passed, relationships ended, new ones started, but it was always there. It was on an upcurve now, Gerard having just gotten out of a relationship.
“Fuckin’ Bert.” Gerard muttered, sending his paint brush flying across his table. His black-smudged hands moved to wipe sweat off of his forehead. He hated thinking about Bert. He hated how alone he felt after being with someone for months.
And the thing was, he wasn’t even sore over the fact that Bert had cheated on him or the fact that Bert had blamed the entire breakup on Gerard’s desire to stay inside rather than go out and get smashed with his boyfriend. He wasn’t even sore over the fact that Bert keyed his car two nights after the breakup, probably drunk and angry over something stupid Gerard had said.
Gerard didn’t even miss Bert. He really, really didn’t. Bert was shitty company and an even shittier boyfriend. He only pretended to care when Gerard was sad at first, and anything Gerard confessed to him went in one ear and out the other as long as it had nothing to do with sex or drugs or beer. Sometimes Bert stumbled in through Gerard’s window at three am and drunkenly insist that they go see some super exclusive, super crappy band that was playing downtown. Gerard really didn’t miss Bert.
Gerard missed having someone. God, it sounded so stupid; Gerard hated it. But it was as true as it was pathetic. Gerard really really liked having someone sitting next to him, under him, on him, in his bed while he talked his fucking head off about everything that terrified him and made him sad and made him angry and made him want to hurt himself.
Bert wasn’t a good listener and he sure as hell didn’t care about Gerard’s issues, but he was a living, breathing soul that used to agree to hang in Gerard’s basement with him all night.
Gerard missed that so much that it hurt.
God, he couldn’t focus on this fucking painting to save his life.
Just as his focus was coming back, ideas swirling around in his brain for the first time since laying down the thick black paint, there was a knock on the door. Prepared to inform someone that Mr. Chile wasn’t here, they’d have to come back tomorrow, Gerard turned around to face the door.
It was Frank, standing in the door frame with this smile stretching his lips across his cheeks, pink and obscene. Ugh. What was he doing here?
“What are you doing here?” Gerard voiced his thoughts, dropping the ugh and trying to use a tone that sounded less pissed off.
“Looking for you.” Frank kept that smile on his face as he walked the distance between the door and the table Gerard was at, and when he caught sight of the canvas, his eyes narrowed. “Huh. What’s that?”
The painting, in the past couple of seconds, had all but vanished from Gerard’s thoughts and memories. He nearly asked what Frank was talking about when he remembered the sad beginning of a painting next to him.
“Uh-assignment.” Gerard was really, really bad at talking. “It’s an assignment.” He rephrased so that he would sound less like a caveman.
Frank nodded. “Yeah, but like - What’s it supposed to be?”
Both of the boys looked at the painting for a long time, and Gerard looked just as confused about it as Frank did. It took a while for him to settle on the unsure answer of, “It’s supposed to be my existential crisis.” The statement came out sounding more like a question.
“Existential crisis?” Frank inquired, sounding like a young, ignorant, stupid little freshman. A cute, young, ignorant, stupid little freshman.
Gerard shrugged, feeling like an young, angsty, stupid teen with problems just as small yet just as dramatised as any other stupid kid in this school. “Y’know... I’m afraid of the future.”
There was a silence that fell that made Gerard want to gouge his eyes out. He really hated himself. Really, really wanted to hurt himself. All he could do was hang there, slumped in his stool, like a dead animal corpse waiting to be chopped up and served.
“Hmmm.” Frank hummed, leaning in to get a closer look at the painting. “It’s not done, is it?”
Gerard scoffed, “No.”
Frank nodded, a small smile appearing on his lips once again. Fucking lip ring.
“Okay, I thought so.”
Silence continued, and they both just stared at the piece some more; Gerard wondered if maybe he’d find inspiration if he stared into the sad nothingness long enough.
Frank was the one to break the silence again, “Mikey’s shown me some of your drawings. They’re really cool. You should do comics.”
Gerard looked at Frank with wide eyes because he had no idea that his little brother was going around showing his friends-his cute friends-his artwork. His jovial doodles of vampires and desert kids. He would have to punish him for that later. Gerard thought that no rides for a week would be adequate.
“Uh-thanks.” Gerard muttered, breaking eye contact and beginning to pack up his paints and brushes in order to keep his hands busy so that they couldn’t make him do something embarrassing.
Frank cleared his throat, watching Gerard pack up his things. He looked much more awkward all of the sudden, and Gerard caught him wiping his palms on his slacks out of the corner of his eye. He looked nervous.
“Um.” Was what finally came out of his mouth when Gerard had nearly finished packing up and was pulling his apron over his head. “Sorry I didn’t mention to you how young I am.”
Gerard shrugged it off because he wasn’t about to yell at this kid who had, for some unknown reason, tracked him down to the art room nearly an hour after school got out. Huh. Why had he done that? Rather than asking, Gerard opted to mutter, “It’s fine.” and, a few seconds later, “Sorry I got so angry.”
Frank shrugged right back, a little grin stretching his lips across his face again, “That’s okay. You’re cute when you’re angry.”
That caught Gerard off guard to say the least, and all he could do for a few seconds was sit there blinking and opening and closing his mouth over and over again like a goldfish. When his brain finally recovered as much as it ever would, he faked a little smile and mumbled, “You’re cute when you get out of the shower.”
It definitely wasn’t what he had intended to say. He didn’t know exactly what he did intend to say, but it was probably something along the lines of, “Yeah, well...” or a simple, “Huh.” He definitely hadn’t planned on confessing to Frank’s face that he’d looked irresistible when he’d stepped out of Gerard and Mikey’s shared bathroom.
The laugh that escaped Frank’s lungs, however, almost made Gerard’s idiocy worth it. It was like everything else went silent when Frank’s lips stretched and bubbles of laughter floated up through his throat, and the only thing Gerard could hear was just that - Frank’s laughter.
When his laughter finally ceased, Frank nodded and said a confident, “Thanks.”
With nothing left hanging in the air except for the sexual tension and Gerard’s tornado of anxiety and embarrassment, everything fell silent. Gerard could actually feel how pink his cheeks were. Very, very pink. Probably about as pink as Frank’s fucking lips. His fucking lips.
“So...” Those lips puckered into an O shape. Gerard’s stomach dropped as Frank pulled out the stool next to him and took a seat. His eyes wandered for a moment before landing on Gerard’s painting. “Why are you afraid of the future?”
The question wasn’t one Gerard was excited to hear. He waved a hand through the air uselessly, “Ah... y’know...”
But that didn’t seem to satisfy Frank. He simply lent forward in his stool, face inching closer and closer to Gerard, as if he couldn’t wait to hear what came next out of Gerard’s mouth.
Gerard felt miserable. He hated himself for being so pathetic. I’m afraid of the future. Way to sound lame, Way.
“It’s just scary... I guess... not knowing... how the future’s gonna... play out.” For a long moment, Gerard legitimately considered walking across the room to one of the supply carts where he would find an exacto knife and proceed to stab himself in the eye with it.
He stayed put in his seat, though, as Frank nodded his head and replied, “Yeah, I guess that makes sense. Being a senior and all.”
Gerard let out a shaky breath, not meaning for it to make him sound so flustered. Her certainly felt flustered. He just didn’t want that to come across to Frank. “Yeah... Yeah.”
Frank looked around again, taking in the entire room this time, his body rocking side-to-side as if he couldn’t stand to keep still. His stool’s legs, which weren’t all equal lengths, exchanged his weight as he rocked, their clicking against the hard floor the only sound in the large art room.
“Why are you in here all alone?” The boy asked, finally looking back at Gerard and sitting still.
Gerard blinked and stared at Frank, “I’m not.”
Frank smirked and rolled his eyes, “Obviously. I meant before I came in here.”
“Oh.” Gerard felt stupid. He considered getting up to grab an exacto knife again. Instead, he gave a weak shrug and answered Frank’s question, “I don’t know, I guess I just don’t have any friends.”
The smirk was replaced with a frown on Frank’s face. “You have a boyfriend, don’t you?”
At that, Gerard could do nothing but blink and cringe for a moment, “What? No.”
Apparently that response had taken Frank as off guard as his own question had taken Gerard. “Oh. I thought Mikey said you did.”
Gerard’s head spun for a few seconds. Frank had flirted with him, went home with him, and fucked him, all knowing who he was, and thinking that he’d had a boyfriend. Jeez, that was kind of a douchebag thing to do. Somehow, Gerard didn’t care, though, because it wasn’t like Bert hadn’t cheated on him anyway. Cheating on Bet would have actually been a great thing to do. Gross bastard deserved to be cheated on.
Gerard was brought back to their conversation when Frank nudged him in the side, eyes wide and eyebrows raised, “Hello? Anyone home?”
“Sorry.” Gerard muttered. “He uh... well, I had a boyfriend. But we broke up a couple of weeks ago.”
Frank frowned, “Mikey didn’t tell me that.”
It was starting to sound like Gerard had his own personal stalker, and even though that was kind of very weird, Gerard also thought it was kind of very cute.
It wasn’t cute that his brother was spilling things about him on the daily to some freshman.
But this particular freshman was really cute.
Frank seemed to catch what he said a few seconds after he said it, and when he realized, he jumped a little bit and quickly corrected himself, “Sorry, I mean... sorry to hear that. Are you... sad about it?” The way his face went all earnest, the way his eyebrows moved, the way his lips pouted a little, Gerard couldn’t help but not be annoyed at the question. Any other speaker would have gotten the stink eye from Gerard, but not Frank. Frank was... Frank.
Gerard shrugged, “Not really, I mean... I guess a little, yeah.”
Frank nodded, as if waiting for Gerard to continue, to spill out his emotions to him like he was some kind of ninth grade therapist.
For some reason, Gerard didn’t really have a problem doing that. “I don’t miss him. He was a dick. I just miss having someone to be with, y’know?”
Frank nodded again, his head bobbing up and down with an enthusiasm that Gerard had probably never seen on anyone else. “I totally get that.” Gerard tried to keep in his laugh, but he couldn’t. The kid was just so goddamn cute.
“That’s why I go to parties and hook up with people.” Frank continued, “It’s nice to not feel so lonely, even if that person’s just there for one night.”
Gerard really, really hadn’t been expecting that. Silence followed. There was something there, making Gerard’s stomach churn and forcing his eyes down to the ground. He didn’t know what it was. But he knew it wasn’t him developing a crush on a fifteen-year-old.
Okay, maybe he wasn’t so sure about that.

Gerard didn’t run into Frank at school again that week. He even stayed late on Friday in the art room, pretending to be working on his painting, just in case Frank decided to show up and give him company.
But he didn’t show up.
So, Gerard was really really happy to find that when he got home that night, Mikey and Ray and even Bob were all sprawled out on the basement floor, drinks in hand and forgotten homework in crumpled piles all around them. It was a study night. Ray, Bob, and Gerard had a big test on Monday and Gerard’s place was the best place to study because there weren’t any parents poking in every hour or so to make sure that they were actually studying.
Gerard’s place was the best place to study because when they all went to Gerard’s place, they didn’t study. They drank. And drank and drank and sometimes smoked something, but usually just drank.
And their drunken conversations were Gerard’s favorite conversations because he never said anything embarrassing, and even when he did, neither he nor the other guys would ever remember it in the morning. It was always a great time. Always a great thing to do after Gerard had worked himself up over some stupid freshman kid only to be disappointed, pathetically so, when the kid didn’t go out of his way to talk to him like he had once before.
“Hey! It’s Gee!” Ray exclaimed as Gerard entered his own room to find the buzzed three on his dirty floor, laying all over his t-shirts and boxers and jeans. “Fucking finally!”
Mikey looked up. He was the only one who was sitting up, or kind of sitting up. He had his neck crunched against the side of Gerard’s bed, his torso slumped in a way that would probably make his back ache later. “Hey, Gee. We got started without you.”
Gerard frowned but already felt a lot better than he had on his way from school to his house. He barely had his shoes and socks off before Bob was handing him a bottle from his own beer stache. Fucking Mikey had figured out where it was. Little Bastard. Gerard didn’t actually care too much.
He really didn’t care by the time he’d downed the first half of his bottle, loud rock music blaring from his speakers, manned by his little brother. Maybe things actually weren’t so bad. Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad not having a boyfriend for the rest of his life. Maybe he could just live like this forever. Drunk, halfway to passed out in his own basement. Chilling with the most okay dudes there were in the world.
Everything seemed fine all of the sudden. That is, until Frank’s name came up in conversation.
Gerard hadn’t even been a part of the conversation, really, he was just silently listening, soaking it all up in a haze as the world blurred more and more around him. “I invited Frank.” Someone was saying. Mikey, he thought.
Sometimes Mikey could be so oblivious to Gerard’s feelings. “He’s off at that gross jock’s place, though. Big party.” Gerard’s brother belched before continuing. “Probably trying to get in his pants for like the fifth time this month.”
Suddenly, nothing seemed to be alright to Gerard. Suddenly, he really, really wanted to be alone. Suddenly, he wanted to be hurting himself. He was so stupid! Frank didn’t like him! Of course he didn’t! Gerard had imagined that, the grin and giggles and fucking eyes.
He hadn’t imagined that, actually. That stuff was all very, very real. What Gerard had imagined was that all of that stuff had meant that Frank had a crush on Gerard. Of course Frank didn’t have a crush on Gerard. He was a cute punk kid with looks that could get him anyone, and Gerard was a pathetic emotional mess who had irrational fears of the future and spent all of his time on his ass in his own bedroom drinking himself into a coma.
The sound of Mikey’s voice continued fuzzily in the background of Gerard’s mind. “It’s like some game. See if he can get the so-called-straight-guy to go gay.” Mikey scoffed and laughed. Gerard hadn’t heard him talk this much when he was drunk ever, he was pretty sure. “All it’s gonna get him is beat the fuck up, like last time.”
Ray laughed, too, and chimed in, “I thought Frank was going after someone else.”
The last thing Gerard heard before getting up to go puke in the bathroom was Mikey’s voice muttering, “He is. But he’s nervous about it.”

Gerard’s mom’s voice had never sounded so shrill, so annoying, so incredibly cumbersome.
He wasn’t quite passed out, but he was about two minutes away from being so when there was a heavy knock on his locked door. “Gerard! For the fifth time, dinner is ready!”
“I’m not hungry.” He groaned, placing a forearm over his eyes. The lights in his room were off and he’d been having a great time blocking out all sensory details until the sound of his mom’s pleas for him to come out of his room had disrupted his shield from the outside world.
“You haven’t eaten since last night!” She screamed, and Gerard could hear the frustration in her voice. She was on her last string. She’d already been there, long before she’d started trying and failing to get Gerard to put something other than alcohol in him. Her ex husband had called earlier in the morning. That always put her on edge.
Gerard and Mikey didn’t really know their dad. But if what their mother spoke of him was anything to go by, they were pretty sure that they didn’t want to know their dad.
The sound of quieted voices wafted into Gerard’s room through the thin walls, Mikey and their mom, so Gerard stayed as silent as he could, trying to listen to Mikey’s excuses.
“He’s been eating junk food all day.” Finally got their mom to grudgingly drag herself back upstairs, and then Mikey was left alone on the outside of Gerard’s door.
There was a knock, much more tentative than the ones their mother had placed on his door. “Let me in, Gee?”
“No.”
“Please?”
“No.”
Gerard waited for another please, but it never came. He was surprised by that. Mikey was usually the stubborn one. Gerard was usually the one to break first.
When the silence stretched on for about thirty seconds, Gerard finally let out the breath he’d been holding and took a large gulp of alcohol into his mouth. Before he even had a chance to swallow, the bathroom door opened, and out Mikey came.
Gerard swallowed and his face went sour, “You broke our pact.”
That damned shared bathroom connected Gerard and Mikey’s rooms, having two doors that could lock you out but not in. Years and years ago, when Gerard was entering puberty, the two brothers had made a pact to never use the bathroom to enter the others’ room. Gerard, entering his teenage years, felt he needed the privacy, and he liked being able to lock Mikey out of his room when he wanted to, that being virtually impossible with the bathroom door that only locked you out.
Gerard didn’t know why he was so surprised that Mikey had broken the pact; he’d broken it dozens of times already in the five or six years that the pact had been in place. He was maybe just surprised because he knew that there was hot food on the kitchen table upstairs, and Mikey, despite how sickeningly skinny he was, loved very few things more than he loved shoveling food into his mouth.
“Yeah, well you made me do it.” Mikey mumbled, kicking shoes and clothes and empty beer bottles aside in order to make his way over to Gerard’s bed, where he was sprawled out lazily.
“You could be eating dinner right now.” Gerard knew he didn’t sound very convincing, voice slurred and heavy, but he thought that he could at least try.
“You could be eating steak right now. Your favorite.” Mikey managed to sound much more convincing than Gerard did, but still not very convincing. Gerard wasn’t leaving his room. He wasn’t eating until maybe all of the fat disintegrated off of him. He was so stupid to think that some kid, as attractive as Frank would find any of what Gerard had underneath his clothes attractive.
“I don’t have an appetite.”
“Gerard, I’m done with your bullshit. You’ve been locked up all weekend.”
“What’s new?”
“I could hear your stomach grumbling through the door.”
“Whatever happened to leaving me the fuck alone when I drink?”
Mikey didn’t reply to that. Not right away, at least. The room stayed silent for so long that Gerard actually felt compelled to remove his arm from over his eyes to take a peek at his brother, who he found was sitting on the foot of his bed staring back at him with a look on his face that Gerard really couldn’t even begin to read.
“What?” Gerard asked, voice becoming defensive. He didn’t like the scrutinizing four-eyed stare his brother was directing at him.
“Why are you so sad all of the sudden?”
“Why are you surprised?”
Mikey sighed, getting impatient. That made Gerard feel even shittier. He was such a fucking inconvenience sometimes. Why couldn’t he just man up and ignore his problems like every other teenage guy?
“It’s different this time.” Gerard could tell by the way that Mikey’s hands were stuffed into his hoodie’s pocket that he felt a little nervous.
“How is it different?” Gerard didn’t believe his brother that this time was any different from any of the other times he’d gone through a bout of depression. He was drinking himself to sleep, he was crying when he couldn’t sleep, he was harming himself at four AM, when he knew Mikey was finally asleep. Everything seemed pretty standard.
“You’ve been self-harming.”
“Huh?” Gerard played dumb, fruitlessly. He could never get that act down like his brother did every time their mother yelled at him for being out too late, “What are you talking about?”
“There was blood in the tub. You didn’t clean up very well last night.”
Gerard glared at his younger brother. Damn him for being attentive. Damn him for actually taking a shower for once.
“Yeah? And how is that different from any other time?”
Mikey shrugged, “I mean, I guess it’s not that different. But you haven’t cut yourself since you were with Bert.”
That, for one, wasn’t true. But Gerard didn’t want to mention that to Mikey because he would probably end up getting a talk about how he shouldn’t hurt himself because that only allowed whoever was hurting him to hurt him even worse, blah blah blah.
Mikey didn’t realize that it was Gerard who was hurting Gerard. Gerard was the one who Gerard was angry with. Gerard was the one who Gerard hated.
There was another long sigh from Mikey’s lungs, and then he hit the nail on the head with, “Is it because you have a crush on someone?”
Shit. Mikey may have been oblivious in most cases when it came to how Gerard’s mind worked, but when it came to Gerard having a crush, he always fucking knew. Always. Fucking. Knew. And Gerard hated it because sometimes, Mikey would know even before he himself knew that he had a crush.
Gerard huffed air out of his lungs and made an unconvincing sound that was supposed to be a confident “No.”
“Okay.” Mikey nodded, “Who is it?”
Gerard huffed, defeated, “Like I would tell you.”
Mikey shrugged, “You will eventually.” He began to get up from Gerard’s bed, and Gerard’s entire body relaxed just a bit. He was about to leave. “Well, I’m starving. And I know you’ll probably be up to eat in like six hours, so I’ll leave you to do your thing.”
Just as Gerard began to think that he was off the hook for the night, Mikey turned, hand on the doorknob, “But try not to hurt yourself, okay? I don’t care who he is; you’re good enough for him.” And with that, he disappeared up the stairs to stuff his face.

The next Friday night, Gerard found himself in the same place at the same time as he was a week before, unfortunately not doing the same thing and unfortunately not with the same company.
On this night, he was alone in his room, having successfully convinced Mikey that taking him to the party he was headed to was a bad idea. Ray and Bob had quickly decided to tag along with Gerard’s younger brother when they noticed the stormy look on the older brother’s face.
So he was alone, on his bed, wearing nothing but his boxers, not even drinking, at midnight on a Friday night. He wasn’t drinking because he was working on a comic. Usually he didn’t care if he was drunk off his ass when he was working on art, but he was starting to realize that he needed to get a portfolio together if he wanted to apply to the School of Visual Arts in New York, so he needed to be in his best state of mind while he inked this comic.
It was really nice and it was actually the first time in almost two weeks that he’d stopped thinking about Frank and dreading his own existence. He didn’t feel like absolute shit and the cute punk boy had completely slipped from his mind, even as he inked in the boy in his comic that strongly resembled Frank.
That all came crashing down when there was a tap at the window above Gerard’s dresser. It was a small window that was only about a foot tall and a couple feet wide, and all you could usually see out of it was the pavement that was Gerard’s driveway.
But when Gerard looked at it now, he saw a cute punk boy staring in at him. Grinning in at him. Motherfucker.
Well, that window wasn’t opening and even if it was, Gerard wasn’t sure that even Frank could fit through it, so Gerard reluctantly threw a thumb in the direction of the backdoor, and Frank grinned even harder, and Gerard sighed as he watched Frank’s feet appear and then disappear through the window.
It was twenty seconds later that there were three very loud knocks on the back door, and Gerard rushed to open it so that his mom wouldn’t notice that someone was over. “Try to be a little quiet, jeez.” He whispered, letting the kid in through the door. “My mom’ll have a fit if she realizes someone’s over.”
Frank stopped just inside of the doorway and looked up at Gerard as if he was looking at a ghost. The look was so comical that Gerard would have been laughing had his gut not been doing some kind of violent dance inside of him that threatened to make him puke if he opened his mouth.
“Why are you not drunk?” Frank gaped at Gerard some more, even as Gerard turned to close the back door of the house. “Mikey said you always get drunk.”
Gerard nearly puked in his mouth. Mikey said this, Mikey said that. Gerard was going to have to punch Mikey in his skinny little gut later. Hopefully he’ll puke.
“I’m working.” Gerard said sullenly, guiding Frank to his room because he didn’t know where else to go. They certainly weren’t going to hang in the livingroom where his mom would find them.
“On what?” Gerard didn’t feel the need to reply because Frank was, evidently, making up for all the drunkenness that Gerard lacked. He staggered a little bit on his way down the hall and it took him a moment longer than it should have to force Gerard’s bedroom door open.
Gerard shrugged and rushed past Frank in order to put away all of his papers. He didn’t want Frank to see the character that had accidentally been inspired by him and think that Gerard was some kind of super creepy stalker. Even though he was the one who apparently always talked about Gerard with his younger brother.
“So I was wondering if we could fuck.” Frank voiced his drunken thoughts as soon as Gerard finished putting away his art things. He looked up and stared at Frank, who was swaying side-to-side a little bit and looking at Gerard’s messy bed.
Gerard sighed and shook his head, “You’re drunk.”
Frank giggled invitingly, moving to lay down on the bed. “Really? Hadn’t noticed.”
“I don’t fuck drunk freshman.”
Frank scoffed.
“Let me finish. I don’t fuck drunk freshman when I’m sober.”
Frank rolled his eyes dramatically. “Then drink up.”
Gerard scowled. “No.” It would be the first night in weeks that he hadn’t gone to bed drunk.
Frank scowled right back at him, “What’s your problem?”
“My problem is a drunk thirteen-year-old in my bed.”
“Hey!” Frank had probably never sounded more whiny and young, “I’m fifteen!”
“Either get out or go to sleep.” There was a rising feeling of hysteria in Gerard’s entire body. He knew that the second Frank was either asleep or out of his house, he was going to break out the razor. He could feel himself slipping.
Gerard could see that Frank wanted to protest, but he could also see that when the word sleep had met the air, everything in Frank’s being screamed yes, yes, yes. Gerard knew that feeling. So, it was ten minutes later that Frank had finally passed out on the mess of t-shirts and pants and comic books and crumpled papers that somewhere, if you searched hard enough, contained Gerard’s bed.

The razor that was hidden underneath Gerard’s bedstand did end up coming out, but not for a few hours. It was almost three AM when Gerard shut himself in the bathroom, and laid down in the bathtub to drag the razor against his thighs. He was crying and sobbing and really counting on the hope that Frank was a heavy sleeper when he passed out drunk because his breaths weren’t very quiet, especially in the bathtub.
It was another hour later that the sound of footsteps in Gerard’s room brought him out of his sobs, stilling his breaths, making his heart all but stop. Gerard kept as silent as he possibly could as he heard Frank walk up and try the bathroom door. When he found it was locked, Gerard could hear him sigh and then walk away. Gerard’s breathing resumed, his heart beating at a million miles an hour.
He really wasn’t expecting it when the same set of footsteps appeared on the other side of the bathroom, Mikey’s side, and then a door opened.
He’d forgotten to lock the other door.
Gerard was fucking stupid.
Gerard was really fucking stupid, and he really, really fucking hated himself when Frank’s bleary eyes looked around and then shot wide when he found Gerard in the bathtub, pathetic, in just a t-shirt and boxers with blood seeping from his fat thighs.
The first thing Gerard thought to do was pull the shower curtain shut, but it was already too late. Frank had already seen all he needed to see. He already knew. He already knew that Gerard was a pathetic, gross, emotional mess who cut himself. Gerard sobbed once, an uncontrollable sound that slipped from his lungs even though he tried as hard as he could to stop it. The entire house was silent for about a minute, until a weak voice finally spoke, “Gee?”
“Just... go to the bathroom and leave. Please.” Gerard pleaded, his voice sounding so weak, so small, so like he wanted to shrink and shrink and shrink until he was literally nothing.
Frank sounded scared, “A-are you alright?”
“I’m fine. Just... Please. Leave.”
But Frank didn’t leave. Instead, he grabbed a hold of the shower curtain and pulled it open slowly, eyes searching Gerard’s face, looking uncertain, as if trying to decipher whether or not Gerard’s words had been true.
They stared at each other for a long time, and the only sound in the room was that of a dripping sink and both of their slightly labored breaths. Frank looked like he was about to either cry or puke, and Gerard had already done one of those two things. Mouth opening and closing a few times, Frank looked unsure of what to say. Gerard was sure he was about to say something, finally, but then he just sucked his lip ring into his mouth and turned around to face the sink for a moment. “Do you need help?” He asked, voice shaking.
Gerard looked down at his bloody thighs. Help with what? Hurting himself? No, he had that taken care of, thank you.
“No. Just leave, please.”
But again, Frank stayed. This time, he crouched down to pull a washcloth from the drawer under the sink and then ran it under hot water, back to Gerard the whole time. Next, he wrung the cloth out a little over the sink and turned around to couch near the side of the tub, reaching in toward Gerard’s wounded and scarred thighs.
“What are you-” Gerard nearly gasped when the washcloth made contact with his right thigh, the water making the cuts sting. “Shit, that stings.”
“Sorry.” Frank muttered, but he continued to dab and wipe at Gerard’s thigh regardless.
“What are you doing?”
“Cleaning you up.”
After Gerard saw the soft determination in Frank’s eyes as they made brief eye contact, he sat back and let Frank do his thing. It actually felt really, really nice to have someone there, cleaning him up after he’d hurt himself over and over again. It felt nice to not have to do it himself. It felt incredible, actually. It almost made Gerard cry with relief. It felt like he’d been waiting for this his whole teenage life.

“Why do you do that to yourself?” Frank asked, sounding haunted. They were laid out on Gerard’s bed, Frank snuggled up to Gerard’s side with his head on Gerard’s chest. Gerard had never felt closer to anyone in his life, god.
“I don’t know.” He whispered, cringing when he breathed in and smelled Frank’s shampoo. “I hate myself.”
“You shouldn’t. You’re awesome.”
“No I’m not.”
“Yes you are.”
Gerard felt Frank’s lips press against the side of his neck, and his entire body went tense. “You really are, I promise.”
“Thanks.”
“You know you can talk to me, right?”
“Huh?”
“You can talk to me. About anything. Honest. I know you said you missed having someone to be with. To, like, talk to, I think?” Frank sounded so earnest, so innocent, so perfect. Gerard felt himself falling into something he knew he wouldn’t be getting out of any time soon. “I can be that someone.”
“Really?”
“Yeah.”
“Okay. Yeah.”

Notes

Sooooo I just kind of wrote this on a whim, I don't usually write fan fiction. But I had this idea and wanted to write it so this happened. I literally just finished it as I'm typing this, so it's very unedited and there are probably many mistakes. Feel free to point those out. Idk. It's just a one-shot.