It's Only Just A Dream

Mikey spoke to Gerard once over the next few days, only once, and only to tell him that he would be skipping school with his friends and that Gerard would have to find another lift home or get the bus. Gerard hated getting the bus— he had only been on it a couple of times but every time had been the same old process: he sat at the front because the back was where the "cool" kids sat, he was alone because nobody wanted to get to know him and risk getting in trouble with Mikey and he had to avoid the gaze of the creepy bus driver who always seemed to be watching him in the rear view mirror whenever Gerard glanced over.

Other than that, it really shouldn't have made much of a difference to his day. Mikey wasn't talking to him, refused to acknowledge him when they encoutered each other in the hallways, he even started blanking him when Gerard would try to talk to him at home! It was too much, Gerard thought, for speaking the truth. All he did was stand up for himself, and point out what Mikey was trying to overlook; indifference was worse than aggression, and Gerard was being subjected to it. He didn't deserve it, he knew that.

Gerard still didn't have anybody to eat with at lunch, but he had been back to Mr Reed's art classroom a couple of times. The teacher would just a smile and wave him inside - there was never anybody else there, so he wondered if he was the only student Mr Reed had invited - and ask him to do something work for the next forty-five minutes. Sometimes he struck up a conversation with Gerard, but mostly they just sat in silence, each of them absorbed in their own work. Gerard didn't mind; Mr Reed was nice and he let Gee eat in his class— he didn't tell him he should be making friends "his own age" or that he was wrong to talk to certain people.

He kept complimenting his artwork in class and didn't even mind it when Gerard somehow managed to get acrylic paint on the man's work shirt.

He just took it off, right there in the classroom, and substituted it for a spare he had stored in his
bag. He didn't even make Gerard apologise…

Today though, Gerard was barely able to make it through his first four classes before the bell for lunch began; he had a pounding headache and the school nurse wouldn't give him any pain medication without a signed form showing parental consent, which Gerard didn't have. He made a mental note to himself, as he snatched the paper out of the nurse's hand, to get his parents to sign it as soon as possible. He would have asked around to see if any of his classmates had ibuprofen or another such painkiller, but he didn't want to risk them slipping him something else instead as a prank. Mikey wasn't here, so there was an increased chance of bullying…

Or maybe Gerard was just stupidly paranoid. Why would anyone want to drug him or make fun of him? He hadn't done anything to them.

Gerard slid into his seat in the cafeteria at lunch. People had stopped sitting at this table as soon as he arrived; even if he arrived twenty minutes late after staying after class - his Spanish teacher often kept him behind to re-revise for the vocabulary test that he'd flunked - his table would be empty and people would manoeuvre away from it if he was sitting there.

In some ways it was nice to have his own table: at least it was one thing he could control in this hellish school, but at the same time it gave him a sense of loneliness. After only a few weeks at this school, he has already managed to render one table in the cafeteria unusable, just by sitting at it.

Whatever, he decided. If Mikey didn't want to talk to him, then that was fine. And if the other people in his classes didn't want to talk to him either, well that was just fine as well. Gerard was fine on his own; he didn't need lots of friends to be happy or a big brother that didn't ignore him. He was just fine on his own—

"Hey!" Gerard squeaked in surprise when he heard the voice, far too close for comfort, and jerked away from the tabletop in surprise. As he'd gotten lost in his own thoughts, he hadn't realised he'd gradually been bending over to rest his head on the surface of the table. The voice - the person - had taken him completely by surprise.

"Hey!" The person said again, completely unphased by Gerard almost falling over right in front of them. Gerard caught his breath before looking up, and recognised the person immediately.

"Ray," he said as a reply, remembering the big-haired, smiley senior he had run into - literally - the other day. "Hi."

He couldn't help it when his eyes darted around nervously, looking for anyone that could be watching them. Just because Mikey and his friends were supposed to be out for the day didn't mean that one of them could have stayed behind. Pete or Patrick or even Alicia could spot him talking to one of Frank's friends, one of his gang members, and rat him out to his brother before the lunch period was even over.

But then, with a newfound confidence that he was sure wouldn't last him to the end of the day, Gerard decided it didn't matter. It simply didn't matter if someone saw him and Mikey somehow found out; he didn't care. His older brother was already withholding all forms of affection or care— he wasn't even talking to Gerard for Christ's sake! What more could Mikey do to him?— He was already doing his worst, in Gerard's opinion. A beating couldn't hurt more than having his entire existence ignored, even though Gerard knew Mikey would never, ever beat him up.

"You mind if I sit here?" Ray asked, still grinning like the Cheshire-fucking-cat. Gerard bet he still smiled like that when he was attacking innocent people…

Gerard rid his head of the bad thought and blinked.

"You mean, for a minute or for, like, the whole lunch time?" He asked, cringing at how stupid and young he sounded. He should have just said "no", or that he couldn't stop him. He shouldn't have embarrassed himself by asking stupid questions.

"Well, my friends and I were kind of bored on our own, y'know?" Ray replied cheerily, not actually answering Gerard's question at all.

"Wait, your… friends?" Gerard didn't have time to dwell on what that meant before his table was being swarmed by pretty much the entirety of Frank's gang. All of his brothers enemies, everyone he had been explicitly told not to talk to or have anything to do with, were now sat eating lunch with him on the one day his brother wasn't there to threaten them. Mikey would have a heart attack if he could see Gerard now.

For some reason, that made Gerard feel more satisfied than it should have done.

Gerard didn't recognise any of the others sat with him; he hasn't spoken to any of them so they were practically strangers, and it was more than a little nerve-wracking— but of course, sat right next to Gerard at the table was none other than Frank Iero. There were a lot of people there all trying to crowd around one circular table, so Gerard was squashed up between Frank and another guy with a Mohawk and three eyebrow piercings.

Frank was so close that Gee could smell his sweat, and he wondered if the older boy - man? - has just had P.E. Did you still have to take P.E if you were a senior? Gerard knew Mikey didn't, but he also knew his brother skipped at least half of his lessons on a regular basis so that wasn't a great comparison.

"Hey, Gee." Frank said lowly, leaning close to the younger boy to be heard. Nothing seemed to have changed in Frank's group of friends. They were still being uproariously noisy and obnoxiously ignorant of everyone else around them; they didn't bother to try and include Gerard in their conversation even though they had taken over his table uninvited.

"I haven't seen you around here in a while." Frank continued when Gerard didn't reply. He was afraid to look up, to face Frank and speak to him, because he just knew that if he did their faces would be far too close. He'd have to lean in close to be heard by the older boy and then he'd get nervous and stutter through his answer and humiliate himself further.

He shrugged and mumbled something inaudible over the thrum of the crowd.

"Huh?!" Frank yelled directly into Gerard's ear, making him jump. He felt Frank's breath ghosting over his ear and he broke out in goosebumps, wrapping his arms around himself so he wouldn't shudder.

"I— I said 'I've been staying in art a lot'. I, um, catch up on my work." He repeated, winding when he had to lean closer to Frank. It wasn't that he didn't want to be closer to Frank, he did… or, he thought he did… or he didn't know what the fuck he wanted. He wanted Frank closer, he wanted Frank to leave him alone. He wanted Mikey to stop meddling with his business, he didn't want Mikey to be indifferent to what he did. He didn't know what the fuck he wanted.

"Oh, I thought you'd be an art student." Frank grinned, causing Gee to frown.

"Why?" He asked, turning to Frank and blushing all over again when he noticed how close they were. It was stupid, he was just as close to the guy on his other side as he was to Frank; why was he noticing things like that?

"I'd seen you coming from that direction— the drama, music and art corridor I mean." Frank explained, clarifying what he meant quickly as though he thought Gerard didn't understand already.

"Why not drama or music?"

"Well," Frank grinned again, looking at Gerard before laughing and shaking his head. "Don't worry about it. I just guessed is all."

"No," Gerard pressed, finding it easier than he thought it would be to hold a conversation with the guy. He was always surprised with how easy it was to get along with Frank after years and years of being told that he was nothing more than a bully. "Tell me."

"Well," Frank began slowly, looking around. "It's kind of loud; you wanna get out of here? It'd be easier to talk outside."

What Gerard should have said was that he didn't want to leave. It was cold outside, or he had homework to do, or he needed to read or just plain no wouldhave been better than what he did say.

"Yeah. Yeah, sure."

***

Gerard let Frank lead the way after they left the cafeteria because the only places he could have though of to go himself would be the library of Mr Reed's art classroom, and he was sure that wasn't the kind of place Frank had had in mind when he'd said, "get out of here". Although, he supposed, he really didn't know what Frank meant by that. He couldn't act like he had a single clue what went through Frank Iero's head at any given time.

They walked in silence. Gerard had to walk quickly to keep up with Frank's large strides, and even then he fell so far behind him that when he finally reached where he'd been taking them, Gerard was still only halfway across the playing field. It seemed that the older boy's destination was the bleachers… how clichéd. Frank waited patiently for Gee to catch up with him and then continued walking further, turning to the side suddenly until they were under the bleachers, only able to see the main school building through the gaps in between benches.

"C'mon," Frank said amicably, proceeding to lie flat on the ground. He patted the muddy earth next to him and reached into his backpack's front pocket, pulling out a small tin and a lighter.

"Come lie with me."

Gerard wrapped his arms around himself anxiously again. For the first time, it was occurring to him that maybe he shouldn't have come out here. He was all alone with Frank Iero, his brother's worst enemy, far away from the school so that if anything happened there would be no way he could outrun the other boy back there. If this was all just a trap, if Frank had brought him out here to hurt him, then there would be nothing he could do to stop it. He bit his lip and shifted from his left foot to his right, not moving.

"Jesus Christ," Frank laughed shortly, struggling to open the lid of the tin. It was proving difficult, probably due to his horizontal position. "Stop acting like I'm gonna jump you or something. Come lie down!"

Gerard weighed up the pros and cons of lying down. Pro: it might make Frank like him more (it would certainly make him seem cooler.) Con: it would leave him vulnerable to an attack. Pro: it would give him the opportunity to lie next to Frank. Con: it would—

"Lie the fuck down, kid!" Frank interrupted. Gerard would have thought he was getting aggressive if it weren't for the sexy smirk plastered across his face as he said it. "Unless you'd rather go back to your artwork?"

Fuck it, Gerard thought. Frank had never made him feel uneasy before, not since that first day at least when he had started a fight with Mikey in the hallway, and Frank had even said he didn't dislike Gerard the day before. He had nothing to be afraid of. Nothing at all.

Keeping this in mind, he shrugged his bag off his shoulder and lay down on the ground next to Frank. At first he didn't know what to do - did he turn his head to the side to look at the other guy or was that too intimate? Did he speak first or wait for Frank to say something? - but eventually he settled on staying silent and counting how many pieces of chewing gum he could see stuck to the underneath of the bleachers. It was actually quite therapeutic, but before he could really get into it Frank shattered the silence.

"So what were we talking about? Before we came out here, I mean."

Gerard cleared his throat and swallowed so that his voice wouldn't sound squeaky when he spoke.

"Um, art I think." He replied briefly, hoping Frank would take over the conversation from there. No such luck though, and he was rewarded with the older boy hissing out a pleased, "yes!" when he finally managed to open the tin. He went on to pick out a small piece of paper and roll it up around whatever strange substance he got out of the tin.

"You said you didn't think I'd take music or drama. Why?" Gerard wanted to lean over and see what Frank was doing with his hands, but he didn't want to seem too interested. It became apparent, however, when he picked up the lighter and lit the end of his makeshift joint.

Frank inhaled deeply before replying. "You're too shy to act in front of a whole class. You can't even speak to people without stuttering— there's no fucking way you'd be able to take drama and remain sane. Same with music; you'd be too shy to play an instrument in front of everybody. Art is easy; you don't have to put yourself out there. You can just draw, and it's nothing personal. You know what I mean?"

Frank turned his head to the side and Gerard's breath caught in his throat as he copied the action. Not too intimate then… Gerard thought.

"Yeah," he answered softly. "I don't think I agree though."

"No?" Frank questioned lazily, inhaling deeply through the joint before blowing out a yellow-coloured smoke out of his nose and mouth. Gerard got distracted watching the way his Adam's apple bobbed up and down as he swallowed, and how his nose twitched ever so slightly every time he breathed in. It was really quite beautiful.

"No," Gerard asserted, unsurprisingly finding himself more comfortable to speak to Frank when they weren't surrounded by Frank's terrifying friends. "With art… yes, maybe you're not standing up and doing something in front of a large crowd, but you're still putting yourself out there. Drawing is like, like… transferring a little piece of your soul onto the paper, and then people. It's leaving you open and vulnerable to attack. That's what it's like for me, anyway."

When Gerard looked round, Frank was staring at him intensely and he blushed. He hadn't meant to get so passionate about the subject when Frank was probably just making a passing comment, but he couldn't help it. When he talked about art, he had to speak his mind or he would feel like he was betraying himself and everyone else who felt the same way. He couldn't do that.

"That's cool." Frank said at last, softly this time. "That you feel so strongly about it. It never felt like that to me, but I know what you mean. You're expressing yourself, right?— So you have to be brave."

"Yeah," Gerard answered, smiling warmly when he realised Frank didn't think he was a freak.

There was a comfortable quiet then; the only noise was the distant yells of students in the school across the field and the slow sucking sound of Frank taking steady drags of his cigarette. Gerard found himself watching him - unable to stop himself - and when Frank tilted his head to the side, revealing more of his neck to Gerard, the boy's eyes were immediately drawn to the artistic scorpion tattoo on his neck. The same scorpion that Gerard had been drawing obsessively all weekend.

He blushed as he realised; he'd obviously seen Frank's tattoo and his subconscious had memorised every little detail about it. Gerard would have liked to have said that that was just his mind's way of expressing itself and it's artistic capabilities, but, he had to admit now, it was probably just him obsessing over Frank Iero.

Frank fucking Iero.

"Gee," Frank said loudly, and Gerard startled. He'd obviously been zoning out and Frank had been speaking to him; when he hadn't replied, the guy had decided to crawl closer to Gerard so he was practically on top of him, holding the joint in one hand with his other placed firmly by Gerard's head, his arm holding his body up. Gerard gasped, shocked, and his eyes widened dramatically.

Frank giggled and that was sure as hell one of the sexiest things Gerard had ever heard.

"Hi," he said quietly, not moving from his position on top of Gerard. He was so close that Gee could feel his body heat radiating off him. "Where did you just go?"

Gerard let out a little huff that was supposed to be a laugh, his heart beginning to race. He could feel Frank's breath fluttering across his face and his breath smelt like weed— like Mikey's room did whenever his gang came over. Gerard had always thought it was disgusting when it was Mikey that did it, but now it was Frank doing it instead… well, Gerard was just fine with it.

"Open your mouth." Frank ordered, smirking. Gerard's eyebrows rose comically high, and just as he was about to retract everything he said about Frank not being an insensitive dick, the older boy raised his other hand - the one with the cigarette in it - wiggling it around a little and licking his bottom lip.

"Quickly!" He laughed again. "My arm fucking hurts!"

Gerard was about to open his mouth… to say no. He was going to say he didn't want to smoke weed, to do drugs, to get addicted and fuck up his life; but then he thought about it, and reconsidered. Everybody smoked weed: Mikey and his friends, Frank and his friends, probably most of the kids in their high school. Gerard could do it every once in a while without it being detrimental to his health.

Besides, he decided, Frank would like him if he saw him as some loser freshman who was too scared to break the rules.

He opened his mouth and tucked his tongue back, scrunching his nose up in distaste as a strand of long black hair got past his lips. He didn't move to get rid of it though, and instead he waited patiently for Frank to place the cigarette in his mouth.

Frank moved slowly, a big change from his usual, fast-paced lifestyle. When he finally pushed the end of the joint into Gerard's mouth, the top of his index finger brushed against Gerard's top lip. The younger boy's whole body jerked when he felt Frank's fingers pushing his lips apart and repositioning the cigarette in his mouth.

"There," Frank winked, his top lip curling up. "Now suck."

Gerard sucked, then coughed; both at Frank's choice of words and at the sensation of the thick smoke settling in the back of his throat. Since it was his first time smoking anything, it still felt like the smoke was choking him, but the weed did taste nice. He could understand why people did this so often, even though it was bad for them. He could see why Frank did it.

"Easy there," Frank joked. "It's always funny to see someone smoke for the first time. It's like watching them lose their virginity."

"Their smoking virginity?" Gerard questioned, giggling a little because it seemed to ridiculous to him. He could be getting high already, not after just one puff. He took another deep breath to see if it made any difference, and giggled again when it made his eyes water. "How long does this stuff take?"

"You?" Frank snorted. "Not long, kid. Not long at all."

"I don't wanna— don't wanna go back to class high." Gerard hiccuped in the middle of his sentence.

"So don't go back to class." Frank suggested, his tone implying that it was the obvious solution. Gerard bit his lip; he was already breaking about a dozen rules: leaving the cafeteria at lunch without a bathroom pass, being on the playing field without staff supervision, using illegal substances on school grounds… the list went on. Did he really want to add skipping school to the number of things he could be in trouble for?

"Hey, gimme that." Frank made towards Gerard, to take the cigarette. "You're gonna smoke all of it before I'm even high."

Gerard handed it over willingly, groaning a little when his head felt foggy. Instead of feeling on top of the world like he was supposed to, he just felt a little nauseas and groggy. Maybe he was allergic to weed… bullshit. No one was allergic to weed. If Frank could smoke it, so could Gerard. He'd just have to— have to… what was he talking about again?

"Is this against—" he hiccuped again. "Against the rules? Frank?"

"Yup." Frank declared happily, popping the 'p'. "I guess that makes you a trouble maker, huh?" When Gerard next looked at his companion, the older boy was smirking, the cigarette balanced in the side of his mouth perfectly. Gerard blushed and looked away quickly, attempting to hide behind his hair.

"Shit man," Frank muttered, struggling to prop himself up on his elbows as he passed the joint back to Gerard. "You were right; we can't go back to class like this— in this neighbourhood they'd know what was up as soon a season they saw us. They might now do anything about it, but you don't wanna take that risk, right?"

Gerard hummed in what he supposed was agreement. He really didn't want to that risk; it wasn't so much that his parents would lose their shit if they found out he had been smoking weed with a juvenile delinquent - which they totally would - it was that of his parents found out, that would mean Mikey finding out. If Mikey found out… Gerard didn't want to think about what would happen to them if Mikey found out about this. He was certain, though, that this would drive a wedge between them too far to fix.

"But we can't go back to my place— my piece-of-shit dad lost his job and all he does is watch TV all day."

He looked to Gerard expectantly, and the younger boy knew exactly what he wanted him to say. It was only polite to offer, since Frank offered first and Gerard was just as much in this as Frank was.

"We could go to mine?— I mean, if you want? My parents are at work and Mikey probably won't be back until, like, fuckin' midnight or something. My parents get back when school finishes though, just so you know."

Frank nodded and grinned, and Gerard felt a flutter of excitement in his stomach. Frank Iero was coming over to his house, with him. Was it bad for him to be stupidly happy about that?

"So, how will we get home?" Gerard asked, cursing himself immediately after for asking something so obvious. Frank probably had a car to drive them home…

He wasn't expecting it, although he probably should have been, when Frank turned to him with another one of those sexy smirks and said, "You ever ridden a motorbike before?"

Notes

So, would you guys want me to start the Frerard action soon (read: in the next chapter…) or wait until they're better friends first?
<3