All We Need is Daylight

So far, it has been the slowest and hardest week of Frank’s life, and it is only Wednesday. Monday, the day the article had been released, had taken an eon. Tuesday, somehow, took even longer. No one could even speak in the locker room yesterday, the tension was just that thick.

Brendon still remains intact, but Frank isn’t sure for how much longer that will remain to be true. Brendon doesn’t have many friends, so he goes most places alone, which puts him in precarious position, because he’s got about four guys, one being Morgan, out for his blood. Frank had tried to lowkey stalk him yesterday, just to make sure he didn’t get beaten to a pulp, but he only managed to keep his eyes on him near the beginning of the day, and then lost him completely until practice that night. He’s still breathing, though, and that’s what matters, but Frank is worried for his safety.

Wednesday begins much the same as any other day, with him and Ray throwing things at each other and trying to wake up despite the fact that neither of them wants to.

Eventually, Frank does pull himself out of bed, ready to face a day that takes the same number of millennia as yesterday and the day prior had.

The article is completely on fire right now, everyone knows about it, everyone’s talking about it, people are starting to bother Patrick about it, it’s getting crazy. Frank had some hope that it might blow over by Tuesday, but it had only become all the more enormous. Things are getting heated very quickly, and Frank fucking hates it.

Frank is almost entirely sure that he shouldn’t have done the article at this point. He’s pretty sure it was a huge mistake. Patrick is starting to think so as well, they’ve exchanged a few pained expressions, that translate the same idea. “Fuck.”

At least Frank is in the clear right now, however that is the most that he can say. No one has really pointed their finger at him yet, he’s gotten a few sideways glances, but he doesn’t think that that’s out of normal. People don’t seem to really trust Frank or his group of friends that much, mainly because they’re the youngest guys on the team, and that makes them the shiftiest.

Gerard hasn’t spoken a single word to Frank since Saturday. Frank doesn’t know why. It seems like he’s avoiding him. Frank saw him walking into the ice rink the other day before breakfast, and he called out to the guy, but Gerard either didn’t hear him or ignored him. Before and after practice, Gerard said no words to him. He didn’t even really talk to Frank during practice, he had few comments, good or bad, to say about his performance. Frank is starting to think that there is a trend going on, and it’s really bothering him, but he doesn’t know what might be causing it.

He tries to assure himself that it’s just because Gerard is busy, that it’s because they have a game on Friday and he’s focused on that rather than on actively ignoring Frank, but he doesn’t know what the truth is anymore.

Maybe Gerard suspects Frank’s the gay player, and that really bothers him. Despite that speech he made on Monday, it is possible that Gerard is more bothered by it than he let on. Maybe he’s a hypocrite who expects everyone to be respectful of their teammates but doesn’t abide by that rule himself. Or maybe Morgan has scared him off in some way.

Frank doesn’t know, all he does know is that his life is seriously lacking in Gerard and it’s really getting to him. He feels quite a bit lonelier than he has in a long time, since about the time he got to this school probably.

At the very thought, someone starts yelling his name from behind him as Frank walks through the chilly October air.

“Frank Iero!” Pete shouts, excitedly, as he runs up to Frank as he makes his way towards the dining hall for breakfast.

“That is my name,” Frank says, nodding in confirmation as Pete grabs his shoulder heavily to get him to slow down so that they can walk together.

“What are you doing this Saturday, after practice?” Pete asks. Frank thinks ahead to that date, realizing that their game this week is on Friday, and not Saturday, which means they’ll have a practice as usual. If they win, there’s a chance they’ll get to skip it, but if they lose, it’ll probably go longer. Then he remembers that this Saturday will be Halloween, so he’s starting to suspect that he knows what Pete is about to say.

“Halloween, you mean?” Frank asks.

“Yes!” Pete responds, “best day of the year after my birthday and Christmas.”

“Well, let’s see, on Saturday, pretty sure my plan was to wallow away in my room with the fear from my looming death,” Frank says.

“That is… grim as shit, buddy,” Pete says. “I get Halloween is about the macabre, but that’s a little overkill.”

“I’m going to be turning nineteen that day, and I’m pretty sure that the way my life is going right now means that I am cascading towards an existential crisis about my own mortality around that time.”

“Wait, stop,” Pete says, and then as if to express his excitement about what Frank just said, he actually physically stops. “Did you just say your birthday is on Saturday?”

“Yeah,” Frank nods.

“On Halloween?”

“Every year,” Frank nods.

“Fucking hell!” Pete says ecstatically, catching a few peoples attention. “That’s the coolest fucking birthday ever! Oh my shit, well now you have to come to the Halloween party in my dorm, and we’ll get you a cake, and I’ll buy you all the candy you want, or, fuck, hey, we could go trick or treating. I don’t give a shit, you’re short enough to pass as an eight-year-old, we could hit the town, paint it red, ideally with blood, because, you know it’s Halloween, how cool would that be? Or, oh my god, we could ditch the party altogether and have a night out on the town, because you’re getting old, and we need to celebrate before your bones begin to wither, oh my gosh, I’m texting Patrick. Change in plans, this young fella is gonna take on the fucking world!”

Pete has this superhuman ability to not need to breathe when he starts talking, which is the worst superpower that Pete could have, because the guy doesn’t fucking shut up. Like ever. The fact that he doesn’t need to breathe means that everyone around him is in a constant state of bewilderment and annoyance, because Pete doesn’t have a filter, he literally just says what he thinks, and often it’s not tangible, or logical, it just sort of spews out of him like a sprinkler. Pete’s personality is when you shake up a can of soda and then open it.

“Pete, I haven’t even said if I want to do anything,” Frank chides, as they step into the dining hall.

“Of course you want to! It’s your birthday!” Pete exclaims. “And it’s Halloween!”

“I don’t know what I want to do though,” Frank says. “Probably just hang out, not like with that many people either. I’m used to it, it happens every year, we can just chill.”

“Well, party or hit the town, it’s up to you, but I mean, think of all the mischief we can get up to? Oh man, oh boy, I’ve made the decision for you, we’re taking you out, and don’t worry, I’ll still buy you a Costco size variety bag of candy, my gift to you, on your special day.”

“I never asked for a Costco size variety bag of candy?” Frank says, not sure that that even sounds appealing. He likes candy as much as the next guy, but really, no human has the ability to eat that much candy, and also, Frank’s room is small enough as it is, a bag that size would take up a good twenty percent of his space.

“Everyone needs a gallon of sugar in their life, Frank, how do you think I get out of bed every day?”

“This explains so much about your personality,” Frank notes, looking at Pete, who now that he considers it, seems to always be on some sort of sugar high. Pete is the closest that the world will ever get to a human squirrel hybrid, and that’s probably a good thing.

“Fuck, why didn’t you tell me your birthday was so soon? Now I gotta, like rent a hot air balloon in the span of only five days, that’s a really short amount of time, what if I can’t even get a bouncy castle? What then, Frank? What then?”

“Pete, I’m turning nineteen not nine,” Frank replies.

“Okay, but can you look me in the eye and tell me you wouldn’t dig a bouncy castle?” Pete asks, and Frank can’t shatter his dreams like that so he just shakes his head. Pete’s very special, and he’s fragile, and he must be protected.

“Okay, so like, I’ll get everyone, fuck, it’ll be great. Gerard, Mikey, Travie, Ray, that Brendon guy cause I feel like he’s having a tough week, and shit, man, I mean I’ll invite the Queen but I’m not going to make any promises about her showing up, see this is what happens under short notice, not everyone can show up. I’ll also send an evite to the ghost of Tupac, because you never know. And oh, fuck, we should go to an arcade, or to Atlantic City, fuck, I’d pay to see you drunk off your tits but I’ll have to wait a few years, won’t I, and-”

“Pete, has anyone ever told you that you have the personality of the dog from Up?”

“That’s the nicest thing anyone has ever told me,” Pete says and the lilt in his voice suggests that he means it. Frank doesn’t like Pete romantically at all, but he can kind of see why Patrick likes him. It’s very hard to be sad with a guy like Pete in your life, his excitement about the world is highly contagious.

“Okay, but seriously, Pete, I don’t want to do anything extravagant,” Frank says.

“Cool, cool. But just out of curiosity, would you rather be the front or back of a horse costume?” Pete asks, and Frank punches him in the arm.

“I swear to god, Pete, you’re the worst person I know.”

“I’m touched,” Pete says, holding a hand to his heart.

“Oh Pete,” Frank says, shaking his head. “Don’t ever change, you absolute nutcase.”

Pete gives him a big toothy grin in response, and then gets this flash of a look in his eyes, “Oh shit, I gotta start making preparations for your birthday bash. Gotta call everybody, gotta rent out a clown-”

“Pete, literally just invite a couple people and we can go to an Applebee’s,” Frank says.

“Don’t tell me what to do!” Pete says, and then he starts turning, evidently no longer worried about eating as he’s got bigger things to do now. “I’ll see you later, Frank!”

“Pete, don’t do something that’ll make me hate you!” Frank yells after him.

“No promises,” Pete replies, disappearing between a couple of very annoyed looking students.

Frank just shakes his head, which is usually what he does after he has a conversation with Pete, then he makes his way towards the breakfast line, grabbing himself an apple and a granola bar before he starts to make his way off to his first class. It actually doesn’t start for another hour, which gives him time to sit outside the lecture hall and read the textbook chapter he was supposed to have read last night. Somehow, he didn’t find the time even though yesterday took at least twelve years.

Frank is early to everything in life, as a general rule. He’s early to class, early to practice, he was early at birth for fucks sake. He kind of likes it, though, he likes having the time to himself to just exist alone for a little while.

Frank quite likes to be alone sometimes, though he has spent a large portion of his life feeling lonely. There’s a very big difference between being alone and being lonely, and Frank usually finds himself feeling lonely when there’s larger groups of people around him. With larger groups, no one really talks to him, because there’s always someone better to talk to. Being alone allows him the time to just think. He needs that refresher every now and again, because he can feel like he’s drowning under the pressure of having to talk to people all the time.

Frank starts thinking about Gerard again, though, and that makes him feel rather lonelier than he had expected, because not having Gerard in his life the past few days has made everything a little bit bleaker. The sky is slightly greyer, and his body is slightly heavier. Gerard’s presence adds a sort of lightness to the world around him that Frank had never even realized he needed. Everything is just kind of easy with Gerard. Even though Frank is constantly torn up about how much he likes the guy when Gerard doesn’t feel the same way, he still makes everything very simple. Frank craves that simplicity more than he can bare.

Feeling empty as he walks from class to class, Frank avoids as much human interaction as he can all day, but he realizes something is up when Patrick comes hurdling towards him at lunch. Patrick’s got this look on his face that terrifies Frank the very second he spots him.

Frank had at least managed to make it a solid five hours into the day before things started to unravel, and you’ve got to celebrate the little victories when they present themselves.

“Shit, what happened?” is how Frank greets his good friend Patrick when he comes into ear shot. Patrick stops in front of him, pauses, wheezes a little bit, and then takes a deep breath.

“So you haven’t heard?” Patrick asks.

“Haven’t heard what?” Frank asks, and he can already tell he’s going to wish he hadn’t heard at all. He should just walk away from him and accept his ignorance. He’s also dying to hear the gossip, because humans naturally crave answers, but he’s subconsciously aware of the fact that he doesn’t want to know whatever it is that has Patrick looking like that.

“Well, so um, it’s about the article,” Patrick replies.

“Of course it is.”

His mind immediately jumps to the worst-case scenarios. There’s a couple things that would be worst case scenario in this instance, for example, if Morgan finds out that the article is about Frank, or if Brendon has been attacked. Frank jumps to that, and hopes that Brendon is alright, because if Patrick has come to him to tell him that they found his body in a ditch somewhere he’s going to fucking hate himself. Now, logically, Brendon wouldn’t be killed for merely being suspected of being a gay hockey player, because Frank doubts even Morgan is that cruel, but he’s not entirely sure just how far Morgan would go, so he’s not going to make himself any assurances if he doesn’t know whether they’re true or not. The most likely thing out of Patrick’s mouth is that Brendon’s in a hospital, so Frank is dreading hearing those words.

“Okay, so don’t freak out or anything,” Patrick says, which is not how you want someone to start out any sentence, in any circumstances.

“I’m not making any promises.”

“Okay, well, that’s fair. Anyway, so, like, uh, well you know how like the article has some like catch words? That’s why everyone on campus has been talking about it, because, like it’s designed to cause controversy. It’s supposed to make people talk. Well, apparently it’s doing that too well.”

“Oh fuck, just rip the band aid off, Patrick.”

“Well, so like, it was on the news.”

“It was one the what now?” Frank asks. This isn’t what he was expecting, but he doesn’t know if it’s worse or better.

“The news,” Patrick replies. “And, uh, not the local one.”

“You’re shitting me.” It’s worse. It’s definitely worse than he was expecting.

“ESPN,” Patrick replies, and Frank’s mouth dramatically falls open without forethought. Yeah, a lot fucking worse.

“Well fuck,” Frank deadpans, and he can genuinely feel himself falling through a blackhole. Like he can feel the ground disappear below his feet and then he’s just falling, for like, years, and years and years, while fully aware that what he’s actually doing is staring at a pillar.

There isn’t a way to describe how he feels. He’s caught between numbness and terror. He thinks this is how a death row inmate feels the night before his execution. There’s a feeling of just absolute, inescapable fear, and there’s not much else. It’s inflated though, making Frank feel like something is about to go off inside of him.

“Frank?” Patrick asks. “You okay? You still with me?”

“How the fuck did this happen?” Frank asks, because he’s in sheer disbelief that this is a real thing that actually happened in real life.

Patrick grabs his phone and pulls Frank to a seat near the edge of the room where they have something like privacy. Frank isn’t thinking clearly right now, he’s just cycling through endless exclamations that all resemble a screaming sound from a horror movie.

This isn’t actually happening, he has concluded. There’s no way that the article was actually coveredon ESPN. This school is tiny. Sure, there’s only sixty teams in their division, but they’ve got to be the fifty ninth most interesting school that there is, there is no fucking way that his article is actually of any interest to any news site at all, least of all sports. It’s barely even about sports. It’s just about the fact that a gay person has the nerve to exist.

He would understand maybe a local paper running with it, maybe. But a fucking sports monolith like ESPN? It’s just not possible. It’s not actually happening.

Then, Patrick is stuffing his phone under Frank’s nose, and his eyes are telling him something entirely different than what his brain is. He’s looking at an article, clearly a fluff piece, but still a fucking article on ESPN, that says ‘Gay Hockey Player at Armstrong University’ in big bold print and it’s just fucking surreal. It can’t be a real goddamn thing, but it is a real goddamn thing and that is not logical.

“Motherfucking shit,” Frank says, and he looks down at the phone in his hands, eyes glazing over, making it impossible for him to read the words printed there.

“It’s short, it wasn’t even on the top of the site or anything, you have to really dig to find it…” Patrick says, drifting off in a way that Frank doesn’t like.

“But?” he asks, waiting for the kicker.

“But they talked about it on their show this morning,” Patrick says, blushing. “Only in passing though. They only spent like a minute on it.”

“A minute?” Frank says, “On national fucking television? On the most trusted sports news channel in the fucking country? A minute? Patrick, a minute is a lot of fucking time when millions of ears can hear it.”

“Well… yeah,” Patrick says, flinching at the tone of Frank’s voice.

“And how many people have commented on the article,” Frank asks, more to himself than Patrick, as he scrolls down on Patrick’s phone. His heart staggers at a jaw dropping three-digit number. He can’t even bare to look at the first one, because he just sets the phone on the table in front of him and slides it away from himself, not willing to look at what people have to say about him.

“It’s not a big deal, Frank,” Patrick starts, but Frank makes a pft sound.

“Not a big deal, Patrick?” Frank asks, “this article was supposed to be tiny, supposed to be nothing at all! This is not at all what I signed up for! They talked about it on ES-fucking-PN. You know what they talk about on ESPN? The fucking NHL! The fucking NBA! The fucking NFL! They can’t talk about our school on the same fucking channel! It’s not fucking okay. This is a huge fucking deal, Patrick.”

“Okay, yeah, I get that, but you need to calm down, Frank,” Patrick says, and Frank inhales sharply, anger flooding through him, though it’s not directed at Patrick, but at himself. It’s just that Frank is sitting right there and the only person to express his frustration at is Patrick. He tries to calm himself down, because he knows Patrick is right about the fact that needs to, but it’s not easy. It’s not going to happen in the slightest, but he tells himself to contain it until he can find an available opportunity to scream into a pillow. He might just pop a blood vessel, but at least people won’t judge him.

“This is not what I wanted, Patrick,” Frank says, putting his face in his hands and trying to rub the truth out of his eyes, which does not work. “I didn’t want to put Brendon in danger, or to put you on the hot seat, or to make Pete break up with you, or for Gerard to stop talking to me, or for Ray to point his finger at everybody, or for Morgan to want to kill anything that moves.”

Frank feels a flood of pent up emotions all preparing themselves to rush out, and he’s genuinely not sure if he’s going to burst into tears or not. His eyes are starting to burn, and he can tell quite shortly after the thought that the tears are actually going to come, no matter if he likes it or not.

“Patrick, I’ve gotta go,” Frank says, before he grabs his backpack, and then starts running for the exit. He knows he’s not going to make it, because he can honestly feel everything about to unleash itself, so he instead makes a beeline for the bathroom, bursting into it with something like relief as he locks himself in a stall, and then starts gasping for air that isn’t entering his lungs.

“Shit shit shit shit shit,” Frank groans to himself, pacing the few inches he has in the stall as he can feel tears escaping his eyes, which he really wishes he could prevent, but they’ve got a mind of their own.

Everything seems to be crumbling down, and honestly, he doesn’t give a shit if he’s overreacting, because he’s fucking scared, and he’s depressed, and nothing is going to stop that.

This is all his fault, he brought this upon himself. If he didn’t want a reaction like this, he shouldn’t have done that interview. This wasn’t what he was expecting but he should have prepared for it. He should have anticipated some sort of fallout, and now the fallout is here, and he’s not ready for it.

How could he have been so stupid? He’s never made such a huge mistake in his entire life. He shouldn’t have done the article. He just shouldn’t have. He knows that now. Frank wants with all of his heart to go back in time. He wants to reverse it, wants to pull out the cheat codes and make it so that the article never happened, hell, he’ll go back to fucking Boston to avoid ever coming here. He hates it, hates all of this, and there’s nothing he can fucking do about it, and this is suffocating him. This is all his fault, and now he has to live with that.

He has to live in the reality that he doesn’t get a do over. He can’t just return to his last save and start over again. This is actually happening, he can’t rewind time.

Frank puts his hands to his face, leaning against the door behind him, and he tries to suppress new tears from forming, but it doesn’t do any good. It feels like everything is breaking down, feels like he’s collapsing, like everything is collapsing.

He wants to just hold someone. Honestly, what he wouldn’t fucking give to be able to go over to the ice rink and just have Gerard hold him, because honestly, Gerard could make things so much better if he had him. It would all still fucking suck, and he’d still hate himself for writing that article, but at least he’d have Gerard who could make the pain a little less by taking some of it off of Frank’s shoulders. Honestly, just to be held by the guy would make things hurt a little less, and a little less would be a significant thing because it feels like the weight of his mistakes are a bus that he’s being crushed underneath.

But Frank doesn’t have Gerard, and Gerard hasn’t even fucking talked to him for days. The fact that Gerard isn’t even talking to him makes things worse, because he can’t even be near the guy right now without the fear of him running away. Gerard wouldn’t understand why Frank feels the way he does now, but being near him would give Frank some sense of control. He doesn’t even have that luxury.

It feels like he’s taking on the world alone. Feels like he’s caught in an enormous storm of wind and he’s trying to run against it.

Everything is falling apart. Only just last week, Frank had started to feel welcome here at this school. He’d started to actually like it. Sure, he was considering leaving the school, but at least he felt safe. He felt like he had a good group of people who all liked him. Now it feels like he’s pushing everyone away, or like they’re pushing him. They don’t even know it, but everyone is slowly edging Frank out of their lives, and he can’t take it. He’s finally, for the first time in his life, found friends, and they’re pushing him away.

Gerard won’t talk to him, Ray is different ever since that article came out, Patrick is drowning, Pete is fake happy and trying to pretend everything’s alright when they both know it’s not, Mikey is still Mikey but he’s not much of a fucking help. Morgan is on the war path, and Brendon is in his line of sight, and everything that’s transpired is all Frank’s fault. Frank’s getting sick of having to tell himself that, but he knows it’s the truth and he deserves to bear it.

“Jesus Christ, I’m a fucking mess,” Frank groans to himself, feeling like he’s still not quite done crying.

“Yeah, you fucking are,” an unfamiliar voice from elsewhere in the bathroom replies, but honestly Frank doesn’t care.

“Fuck off,” Frank replies, going back to the really busying crying that he’d been in the middle of.

Frank’s entire stomach sinks when he remembers that he’s still got a class to attend today, and then he’s got practice. He just wants to go to his room and cry and feel bad for himself for an afternoon, he doesn’t want to have to be an active member of society right now.

He doesn’t know why it’s all falling down on him now. It just is. He shouldn’t have done that article, and he knows that, he just wishes he’d realized it sooner. Why did he have to be such an idiot? What change was he expecting to inspire? Did he actually think the article could do what he wanted it to? It was all wishful thinking, idiotic now that he looks at it from this perspective. He was an idiot. He’s never done anything more stupid in his entire life.

The fact that he can’t change the way things are turning out is gnawing at him like frost bite.

Frank wants things to be simple. He wants things to be easy, and uncomplicated. He wants to just be gay. He wants to be on a hockey team. He wants to figure skate. He wants to have friends, wants to have a boyfriend, wants Gerard. He wants everything to fall into place neatly, and it pains him that what he wants isn’t a lot to ask. Everyone else in the world could have what he wants so simply, and it wouldn’t be a big deal for them. But everything falls apart because he’s gay, and it’s not even his own fucking fault. If he was an asshole than he’d deserve to feel this way, but he doesn’t think he is, and yet he has to suffer through everyone’s hate for him because that’s just the way the world fucking works.

Frank stays in the bathroom stall for another fifteen minutes, trying to cry himself out or become numb from the pain, whichever comes first.

The numbness does.

He pulls himself out of the bathroom, checks the time, and starts walking towards his next class, not even bothering to grab something to eat because his stomach doesn’t feel like it could handle food right now. He doesn’t think he can handle anything right now, not even sleep sounds like a sleep to him.

He also feels like he deserves to suffer. It’s not because of any internalized homophobia, or anything like that, because Frank doesn’t have it. It’s because everything right now is due to his own actions. The grief, the terror for the safety of Brendon, it’s his fault. He deserves to carry that weight because he created it.

But it can’t be said that Frank isn’t strong, and anyone who tries to claim it would be very wrong. Even though it feels like his world is caving in, Frank makes it to his next class that day, and he holds his head up high. It’s something he’s going to need to get good practice at, because he’ll be needing to do it a lot in the near future.

Notes

I'm sorry about the long wait for this chapter, but thank you for sticking with me!