You're So Dark

"Honey," Donna whispered, trying to wake Gerard up. "Gerard."

“Huh?” Gerard stuck his face out of his pillow for a second, just to feel pounding pain in his head and yank it back down.

“It’s Monday, sweetie, you’ve slept through all of Sunday,” Donna said.

“Oh god what time is it? Shit I have to get to school,” Gerard muffled, almost incoherently.

“Don’t you dare,” Donna lightly pushed him down when he wanted to sit up. “You’re really sick. I’m afraid you’ll have to stay in bed today,” she stroked his hair. He groaned loudly.

“But ma,” he protested, “I need to see-“

“Who?” She smirked.

“No one,” he sighed and shoved his head back into the pillow. His stomach was throbbing, as was his head and back. Everything was painful and he was just so tired, but he still regretted the fact he wasn’t going to be there for the first lesson of the week with Mr. Iero, the revelation of this week’s writer and Mr. Iero’s stupid smile through all of the lesson because it was plain obvious he was enjoying every second of it. He sighed before he fell asleep again; mad at himself, God and fate for being against him when he needed them the most.

*

“Hello, class,” Frank smiled as he was glancing around his second period class, the seniors, searching for that one special head he always found in the second row. Today, he was nowhere to be found. Frank assumed he wasn’t ditching because he seemed to have liked Literature, and him as a teacher, but who the fuck knows? It might’ve just been pure kindness and pretend. He decided he would ask Stump, Gerard seemed to have been connected at the hip to that boy.

“Our writer of the week is…” he kept talking, Patrick keeping an eye on Mr. Iero’s actions through the whole period. He was messaging Brendon the entire time, just analyzing the glances Mr. Iero threw at Gerard’s empty spot when he thought nobody was looking. Patrick thought their chemistry was obvious; nobody could’ve missed it if they looked hard enough. Mr. Iero maybe didn’t even realize it himself, but for whatever reason there was - he was interested in Gerard. His body language showed it, as well as the little stuff he was doing. Patrick was only worried he wouldn’t want to act upon it.

Basically, he didn’t care about the fact that it was illegal, it’s not like Mr. Iero was some fifty year old pervert who likes to fuck cute boys, Mr. Iero was young and obviously a great guy and Gerard was madly in love with him. Patrick just wanted what’s best for his friend, and he wanted to help.

“Mr. Stump?” Mr. Iero’s voice called him, catching him by surprise. He looked up and raised his eyebrows, seeing Mr. Iero was leaning against his desk and looking at him.

“Yes?”

“I’d like to see you for two minutes after class? If it’s not a problem,” he smiled.

Patrick nodded. “Sure. Am I in trouble?”

Mr. Iero grinned. “No, don’t worry.”

Patrick sighed in relief and texted Brendon telling him what had just happened, hoping Brendon’s psychic insight in the situation would help his mind do the math of things. It was obvious, everything was so obvious, but why did nobody get it, then?

*

“Gerard,” Gerard heard a light knock on his door and he did his best to shift so he could speak normally.

“Come in,” he groaned with a crackling voice. The door opened with a creak and a familiar head peeked inside. “Grandma!”

Elena smiled wide and happy as she was walking towards the bed Gerard was lying in. She sat beside him, removing hair out of his eyes. “You should consider a haircut.”

“No,” Gerard smiled.

“You know that red house down the street?” She asked, standing up and walking towards the window to open the blinds.

“Yeah?” he yawned.

“That’s mine now,” she smiled and he smiled back. He really loved her, and he missed her fuckloads when they moved here from Chicago. “What’s new in your life?”

“Nothing much,” Gerard lied, a bit embarrassed to admit everything.

“I know you better than you know yourself, Gerard, don’t think you can fool me,” she grinned and sat beside him again. He sighed and ran a hand through his hair, thinking about what he should tell her.

“Well… basically… I’ve made so many friends,” he smiled to himself. “There’s Patrick, and Brendon, and Ryan, and Pete…” he was still smiling, because he was so glad he had them.

“That’s wonderful! How about crushes?” She raised and eyebrow and Gerard sighed.

“Nah… meh…” he sighed reluctantly.

“You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to.”

“His name is Frank,” he sighed and Elena grinned. “Well, not Frank.” He felt like his head is going to spin around. “More like Mr. Iero.”

Elena quirked an eyebrow. “Mr. Iero?”

“He… he’s my Literature and Creative writing teacher.” He sighed loudly and swallowed hard, wanting to punch himself in the face.

“Oh, darn,” she bit her lip. “How old is he?”

“Twenty five? I think? I have no idea.” Gerard rubbed his face with his palm, wanting to go back to sleep.

“Tell me more about him,” she shifted so now she was sitting with her back against the headboard, and Gerard took that as an opportunity to put his head into her lap.

“He has short black hair, pale skin, tattoos and huge hazel eyes,” he sighed, dreamily, getting a picture of Mr. Iero inside his head. “He’s really smart and sweet, he has a girly laughter. He loves what he does and he’s so passionate about it, you know? I really really like him and I can’t make it stop.” Gerard almost cried out because he realized how pathetic it actually was. To fall in love with a teacher? Slow clap for Gerard.

“It’s completely fine, Gerard,” Elena stroked his hair gently. “Some things just aren’t meant to be. That doesn’t necessarily mean this one isn’t, either, though.”

“How do you mean?” Gerard sighed.

“Well, there’s always hope,” Elena smiled.

“I guess so,” he said and closed his eyes.

*

“I just wanted to make sure Mr. Way isn’t ditching,” Frank grinned at Patrick, who giggled.

“No, he isn’t. His mom called this morning and told me he is really sick,” Patrick sighed.

“Oh, shucks,” Frank said. “Make sure you give him your notes, yeah?”

“Sure thing,” Patrick smiled. “Oh, and Mr. Iero?”

“Yes?”

“It’s nice that you worry about him so much,” Patrick smiled and left the classroom,

Frank was taken aback by Patrick’s comment, which obviously wasn’t just a harmless thing. Patrick obviously wasn’t mad or anything, but it was possible that he was onto him. And that would’ve been a catastrophe. Because, he could tell Gerard. And that wouldn’t be so great, because Frank held quite a friendly relationship with him, and he didn’t want Gerard to start looking at him like he was some sort of creep.

That made him think and thinking gave him a headache, which only indicated he wasn’t thinking much so he greeted his third period class with ‘wazzap dawgs’.

*

The next few days were spent in bed by Gerard, who was recovering slowly but safely, nursed by Elena and by Friday he was able to walk and talk normally. Naturally, he got up at 7 and told himself he would go mad if he didn’t see Mr. Iero. Logically, Donna tried to stop him, but he didn’t care, he needed to get to school. Mikey realized that and he managed to drag him out of the house before Donna threw nets at him to hold him back.

“Thank you Mikes, I really owe you one,” Gerard said between coughs.

“You do, but it’s fine,” he ruffled Gerard’s hair. Two minutes later they were outside of the school, where Pete and Patrick were waiting under some tree.

“Wow, Gee, you really look like shit,” Pete said before grabbing a hold of Mikey’s hand. Gerard rolled his eyes, indicating he was completely fine – because, if Gerard could be his normal cranky self, he could survive a few hours of school.

The bell rang soon enough and Brendon came running after them with Ryan beside him, both grinning like fools.

“Hey, guys. Gee, I see you’ve recovered. Ish.” Mikey cracked up and Gerard just rolled his eyes.

“Yeah, uhm, Gerard, I’m jamming with Ray on Monday, I couldn’t catch him before because he’s working all the time,” Ryan said.

“Oh god,” Gerard almost got a panic attack, and it was four days left to that.

“It’ll all be fine,” Ryan tried to reassure him. Of course he didn’t succeed,.

*

Frank was late. He didn’t shave. He barely even showered. He took this week of Gerard not coming to school as some personal level punishment from God so he didn’t care about anything. He was teaching as usual, only with light stubble and no hair gel. He had an anatomy of a twelve year old anyway so it wasn’t like those hairs grew out much.

He hated the fact he always had the first period off. It just made his schedule weird. And now he didn’t really have something to look forward when he’d come to work, because the only thing catching his interest in a long time was a boy who was sick and didn’t come to school the whole week. Yay.

He stormed into the classroom three minutes after the bell rang, seeing the kids were all caught up in their chatter and nobody noticed he entered.

“EARTHQUAKE!” He shouted and all the students looked like someone punched them in the face. Before anyone could hide under their desk or anything he kept talking. “Sorry, I just needed to get your attention somehow.” They all rolled their eyes and laughed, so he proceeded. “Basically…” he trailed off when he heard a loud cough from the second row, followed by a groan coming from a familiar raven black head. He wanted to smile, but then he remembered how he looked so he replaced that with the wish to punch himself.

“Mr. Way, are you okay?” He looked at Gerard, who was coughing like a maniac. No, he wasn’t okay, he couldn’t stop coughing. And then he felt something wet on his chin and he touched it, to find blood on his fingertips. He looked up at Mr. Iero, who was frowning deeply. “Let’s get you to the nurse, yeah?”

“Stump, we were at chapter 24, keep on reading where we left off yesterday, yeah?” Patrick nodded and looked at Gerard with a bit of worry in his eyes, but he proceeded to take the book from Mr. Iero’s desk.

Mr. Iero helped Gerard from the desk, followed by worried and confused glances from other students from the class. They got to the hallway when Gerard mumbled something.

“What did you say?” Gerard looked at him and then his head spun around and he fell into Frank’s arms. Frank didn’t know whether to feel really worried or plain happy he got to hug him. Anyhow, he picked Gerard up in his lap. “Gerard? Are you okay? Stay with me, okay?”

“I feel weird,” Gerard muttered, “Please hold me, I’m going to fall.”

“I’m holding you, it’s okay,” Frank said when Gerard managed to wrap his arms around his neck. “Just stay with me, okay?”

“Yeah,” Gerard mumbled. Frank got him to the nurse who looked slightly amused.

“You two, again?” She got Gerard inside one of the beds.

“Yeah,” Frank said and sat on one of the chairs.

She fixed Gerard up on an IV and Frank was all confused. “Does he really need that?”

She frowned. “Yes. He’s having breathing problems, I’ll let you know. I think he’s had the flu these few days, but he isn’t completely recovered. He needs at least two more days of rest.”

“Oh,” Frank sighed. “Does he need to go home?”

“Yes, as soon as possible,” she sighed. “Do you think you could drive him? He’s not really able to walk now.”

Frank nodded. “Yeah, but I don’t know where he lives.”

“He’ll tell you, he’s only passed out shortly, he should be back in a few moments.”

“Where am I?” Gerard’s hoarse voice said after a few minutes of silence.

“At the nurse’s,” Frank said. “I’m going to take you home now. I just need your address.”

“I live a few blocks away,” Gerard rebelled. “I can walk.”

“No mister, you can’t,” the nurse chimed in.

Gerard sighed and followed their lead out, where Mr. Iero and the nurse helped him inside his car. It was clean inside, it smelled like vanilla. Gerard wasn’t really happy about this but he couldn’t deny that it was quite convenient, simply because it was Mr. Iero.

“Here we are,” Frank pulled the car over and stepped outside swiftly to open the door for Gerard. He ran there and saw that Gerard was already trying to get out on his own, almost falling down. Frank caught him, though, and he chuckled.

“What’s up with you falling and me catching you?”

Gerard just grinned and let him carry him to the house. He knew there was a possibility grandma was home, she was staying over a few days until everything got arranged at her house. His luck was obviously great because there she was in the living room, and Gerard was getting inside in Mr. Iero’s arms. Not that it bothered him.

“Gerard, holy cow!” Elena ran towards him and helped him climb out of Mr. Iero’s hug. That made him want to punch someone. Not grandma, though, she was cool. “You must be Mr. Iero.”

Frank couldn’t help but to blush. Gerard told his grandma about him? “Yeah, Frank Iero, nice to meet you.”

“Elena,” she smiled and greeted him.

“I’m going to go now, I have classes,” he said awkwardly.

“Of course. Thank you so much for bringing Gerard home,” she smiled warmly.

“My pleasure,” he waved and got out of the house.

"Cute boy, it's obvious where Gerard got his taste from," Elena smiled to herself and helped Gerard up the stairs.

Notes

fun fact: demolition lovers and i never told you what i do for a living are my fav mcr songs atm

one more fun fact: this chapter is completely half assed and bad i'm so sorry

another fun fact:

HIRO SAN IS LIFE
LIFE
LOOK

WITH NOWAKI


THEY ARE THE CUTEST SHITS EVER PLEASE KILL ME PLEASE WHY AM I RERUNNING JUNJOU ROMANTICA WHY KILL ME