Across the Road

Frank was woken up by his mother calling out his name.

"Frank!" Mrs. Iero hollered from the kitchen, "Get dressed for school!"

Frank snapped up in his bed, forgetting that winter break was over. He felt like he should've gotten more time as he just moved into the neighborhood and made some friends. Frank groaned as he got up, got dressed, and took his as clock with him into the kitchen.

"Good to see someone's awake" Mrs. Iero smiled.

"Where's dad?" Frank asked. He hadn't seen Mr. Iero since the dinner time incident.

Mrs. Iero shrugged her shoulders. "He came home at two in the morning last night, drunk as a hillbilly, and despite his painful hangover, he said he was going to another 'job' interview.Butn honestly that's bull if you ask me"

"What do you think he could be doing?" Frank asked, curious.

"Oh, that old man could be doing anything. The school bus should be here in five minutes, though. So I made you some coffee to help wake you up"

Frank grabbed the coffee from his mother before walking out the door. He looked across the street towards Gerard and Mikey's house. They probably were sleeping. Frank continued forth to the end of the street and waited. Looked like no one else from the neighborhood went to the school.
"Ready to be made fun of" Frank thought as the bus pulled up to the corner.

Surprisingly, he was the only kid there. Frank wondered if he was the first stop or if he was just lucky. He hoped it was the first thought. Frank chose to sit in the farthest back of the school bus, hoping people who were to come on would ignore him.

Frank watched through the window at each stop the driver made, observing all the kids that came on.

"Y'look lost, kid" A brown-haired girl told Frank as she sat down in the seat in front of him. Frank thought of Gerard when she said kid, but didn't feel the same way knowing it was some random girl and not Gerard.

Frank snapped out of his gaze as he looked at the girl. "I'm thinking."

"Well you're thinking real hard" the girl replied.
"Name?" Frank asked. He didn't really want to talk to the girl; he liked being in his own thoughts.

"Jamia, you?" Jamia answered.

"Frank." He replied, looking at the floor of the bus.

"Okay Frank, you look tired. Ill leave ya alone" Jamia said, pausing before she turned around back into her seat. "Till next time"

Frank didn't really want to talk. And he was quite surprised Jamia didn't say anything about his big swollen lip. Some students came up and asked him about it during the ride, though Frank said nothing. He didn't want to talk. His face hurt.
"Stupid Gerard. Stupid ducking Gerard. I hate him. And now I'm hanging out with that guy and his asshole friends. I robbed a bank yesterday! I acted like I did it every weekend. Im a horrible person now. Stupid Gerard. I just want to smash my lips right into them and-" Frank cut himself off as he mentally slapped himself. He didn't like thinking about Gerard that way. "You're not gay, Frank Iero. Fuck, you're straight. You hate Gerard, you do not have a crush on him"

When the school bus arrived at the school, Frank got out and headed towards hit first class, English.

"So Today we are going to learn more about Shakespeare and explore his story, Romeo and Juliet, because they represent another genre of his writing: romance. Though there is tragedy as we all know the basic plot of this story, the main point was Romeo and Juliet's love, there Frank was honestly to tired to listen.

"But before we began, we have a student: Frank Iero. Everyone say hi" The English teacher said. Frank heard his name was Mr. B but was honestly not too sure what it was.

But of course there was worse worries then knowing his english teacher's name, because now the whole class was staring at him and his swollen lip.

"That's a nasty lip"
"Are you okay?"
"What happened?"
"Did you get kicked out of your old school for fighting?"
And the sounds of the student's chatter hurt Frank's head. How could his mom send him to school like this?

"Class, settle down. You can ask Frank questions later. And Frank, you don't have to answer the questions if you don't want to" Mr. B said.

Frank nodded, knowing when Mr. B said he didn't need to answer questions he was indirectly talking about the question of his swollen lip.

The rest of english went by slowly, but Frank was happy when it ended because next was digital concepts.

"Hey, Frank" A familiar voice said from behind while Frank was walking to english.

"it couldn't be..." Frank asked himself as he turned around.

Gerard.

"time to leave" Gerard laughed, grabbing one of Frank's backpack straps and pulling it towards him.

"Gerard!" Frank frowned, "How do you even know I go to this school?"

"Well I don't know I just guessed because its not like I saw you get on the bus to Belleville Fucking High this mornin'. Lets go" Gerard said sarcastically.

"No!" Frank denied. Although he didn't want to be in school, he didn't want to ditch it.

"Baby" Gerard muttered.

"Asshole" Frank said back.

"I'm not afraid to slap you" Gerard threatened.

"Well obviously because there's evidence on my face" Frank frowned.

Gerard shut up after that, still regretting how he slapped Frank that hard. He didn't mean to, it was just meant to be a little bit harder slap then the one Frank gave him, but Gerard couldn't control himself and now Frank was in pain.

"Why do you wanna take me out of school anyway?" Frank asked as they approached Gerard's car.

"Ray's gone." Gerard stated as they both got in.

"How am I connected here?" Frank asked.

"Because you joined us and decided that we could be friends!" Gerard said oversarcastically.

"So now I'm supposed to be helping you guys look for Ray?" Frank put together.

"Bingo, sugar" Gerard smirked as he started to drive.

"Okay, where would he be- or where do you think he'd be?" Frank wondered aloud.

"Alive if we're lucky" Gerard said tersely.

"What do you mean?" Frank was a little scared now.

"Frank, after yesterday, you should already know Mikey, Ray, and I are horrible people. And even though Ray seems like the sunshine in the group, he does the real risky things Mikey and I won't do. Understand a bit more now?" Gerard explained as they exited the school grounds.

The rest of the car ride was silent, as Frank fell right asleep. Gerard just listened to Iron Maiden while glancing down at Frank every so often.

"I hope you don't turn out horrible" Gerarf told him despite his state at the moment. "You don't wanna be like me, kid"

When they got back to Gerard's house, Frank was still asleep so Gerard carried him inside and went downstairs to his bedroom. Gerard set Frank on the bed before going up to get Mikey.

"He's here. Now we can look for Ray" Gerard smiled.

Mikey rolled his eyes. "We don't need him to look for Ray"

"Yes we do or I could say the same thing about you" Gerard sassed as he exited Mikey's room.

Mikey was hurt by that comment, as he looked up to his brother more than anything and the fact that Gerard saw Frank about similar as he sees Mikey and how long he's known Frank versus his own brother, Mikey wanted to kill Frank more than anything. But he had to look for Ray first.

Mikey went downstairs and meet Gerarf in his bedroom. Gerard was at his table sketching something while Frank was alseep on his bed.

"Why is Frank asleep?" Mikey asked.

"School." Gerard stated. He didn't look at Mikey though, only at his sketchbook and every few seconds he would glance at Frank.

"Don't we need to have him awake to discuss about Ray?" Mikey wondered aloud.

"Get me some coffee, please" Gerard ignored his question.

Mikey groaned as he walked back up the stairs to make Gerard some coffee.

Gerard would've made it himself but he was too busy sketching. Frank. He was sketching Frank sleeping.
"Thats not wrong," Gerard assured himself, "He's cute."

"Ugh, Mikey's taking too long. What is he doing? Poisoning it?" Gerard talked to himself. He set aside his drawing, turning it upside down as he walked over to Frank.

"Wake..." Gerard started, raising his hand, "up."

Gerard slapped Frank lightly, but he slapped him right on his purple lip. "Fuck." He muttered.

Frank sat up in Gerard's bed, letting out a short whimper from the pain now coming back. "Gerard!"

Gerard froze as Frank said his name. It was the same way he said his name on Saturday. It was the same tone he made when Gerard had slapped him. The same pain and hurt and sadness etched into his voice. Gerard's immediately went crestfallen.

"Frank! I-I'm sorr-ry I am-m!" Gerard stumbled out quickly.

Frank watched as Gerard had a mini breakdown.
"I didn't mean to hurt you, I was trying to give you a lesson..You'll forgive me, right?...Don't be sad, stop being sad..."

"Gerard!" Frank barked at him. Frank would slap him, but that would cause Gerard to slap him back harder, another swollen body part, and another regretful Gerard. Not a very good plan.

Mikey walked in while Gerard was frantically sketching something. He didn't notice how Gerard's hands were slightly shaking or how Gerard was going nuts.

"Here's your coffee, ya big baby" Mikey complained. Usually Gerard wouldn't be offended insults from his brother.

"I didn't mean to!" Gerard yelled, slamming his hand, now formed in a fist, on the table.

"Gerard...?" Mikey was really confused. More confused than Frank. Probably because he had never seen Gerard like that in a long time. The last time he did that was after he killed someone for the first time. Which was four years ago.

"Frank!" Mikey turned to Frank, giving him the death glare. "What the hell is wrong with my brother?!"

"I don't know!" Frank said honestly, "He woke me up by slapping me lightly, but he ended up slapping me lightly on my swollen lip and he started saying 'Im sorry, Im sorry!'"

Mikey looked over to Gerard, now passed out by his freshly made coffee, then looked over to Frank. Mikey sighed.

"Look, I'm not trying to do anything or-"
"I know." Mikey cut Frank off.

There was some silence.

"Did he look scared?" Mikey asked.

"When he slapped me Saturday?" Frank asked.

"Yeah, did he?" Mikey asked again.

"Yes" Frank answered.

Mikey now understood why Gerard was acting like that.

"Let's start looking for Ray" Mikey changed the subject

Notes

Sorry if there's any spelling mistakes. I'll update whenever I can!

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