All of the Stars

Monday morning was a rushed blur of events.
It started with Frank driving me to school since we had decided that to be our everyday routine, which followed with us practically swallowing each other's faces for about twenty minutes when he parked behind the school. That resulted with us both having very swollen lips and very messy, finger ridden hair. We didn't complain though, and attempted to make it as unnoticeable as we could manage. One thing that couldn't be made unnoticeable was the tiny lovebite on my neck that peeked just above the collar of my flannel, having been placed there by Frank's lips the day before.
We both followed our daily schedules afterwards. I entered the auditorium first to diminish the suspicion that was already lurking in my classmates heads. I moved toward my usual seat to see that Bert McCracken was already occupying the one next to it. My hand automatically tightened it's grip on the strap of my messenger bag when he turned and made dead eye contact with me.
"Hey Gee." Bert cooed when I sat myself down. I looked down at my phone that was now opened to Twitter, giving me an excuse to not have an elongated conversation with him.
"Hey." I mumbled. I still stared at my phone. I heard him shift in his seat which gave him an advantage to face me.
"Did you have a good weekend?" He asked. His voice was sweet. I felt bad for hating him, but not too bad. He was a douchebag, honestly. He deserved to have people hate him.
"It was fine." I said.
"That's good." Bert smiled, "Your hair looks nice."
"Thanks."
"You're welcome." I could feel his icy blue eyes staring me down. I silently prayed in the back of my head for Frank to walk through the doors and move Bert away from me or something. Bert cleared his throat and sniffed, "So um, I'm friends with Ray."
My head shot up. "What?"
"Your friend Ray? Yeah, I'm friends with him too. He's pretty cool."
"I'm not his friend but...good for you I guess." I replied slowly.
"He told me that you're single." Bert said bluntly, picking a piece of lint off of his grey skinny jeans.
"Well, he's a liar." I chuckled bitterly, "He literally despises my boyfriend so I don't know why he would tell you that."
Bert cocked his head at me, "Who's your boyfriend?"
I gulped. Blinked my eyes. Licked my lips nervously. "Doesn't go to this school."
Bert nodded. "Oh. 'S he cute?"
I nodded in response. "Very."
A hurt expression displayed across his greasy face before he forced a smile and looked me in the eye. "I'm happy for you then."
I dipped my head at him, about to say something until the first period bell rang and Frank rushed into the room. Followed by Ray who trailed at his heals. My stomach dropped. Frank walked to the front of the stage, staring at me from the corner of his eye the whole time. He looked beyond distressed.
Ray came over and sat on the opposite side of me from Bert. "Nice hickey." He spat without looking at me.
"Oh fuck you." I retorted, shaking my head at him.
"I talked to him." Ray said simply. There was a tone of 'haha-fuck-you' in his soft voice.
I rolled my eyes. "You're a cunt."
He laughed. "Right back at ya, pal."
I turned my attention back to Frank at the front of the class. He was looking down at his red Vans, rubbing his temples with his thumb and pointer finger.
I turned back to Ray. "Do you get off on this?"
"On what? Confronting pedophiles? Yeah, makes me cream my pants, actually." He smiled.
My eyes went wide. "Excuse me."
"You heard me. He's fucking pathetic, Gerard."
I wanted nothing more than to deck Ray in his stubbly face and give him the most brutal black eye he would ever receive in his lifetime. He was being an asshole on purpose. For fuck's sake, he talked to Frank. My Frank. He most likely threatened him, I was sure. Most likely told him he was a disgrace or some other hurtful thing. The thought of that pissed me off greatly. To me, Frank wasn't exactly sensitive to insults but he also didn't seem prone to them either. And whatever Ray had said to him before class had started, it had obviously gotten into Frank's head.
"Insult him one more time and see what happens to you." I told Ray calmly, my voice monotone and straight.
Ray rolled his eyes and let out a huff, "Oh please. What are you going to do? Seriously? Hit me with a paintbrush? Put out a cigarette on my arm? Get your boyfriend to molest me?"
I chuckled, "You're eighteen, it wouldn't be considered molestation."
"Then it'd be considered rape."
"Problem with that statement." I sighed in mock disappointment.
"Really?" Ray snapped, "What's so wrong with it?"
I leaned in close to Ray's face, "Mr. Iero is a sucker for consent, babycakes."
"He's sick in the head." Ray hissed, pushing me away.
"I'm going to punch you if you don't shut up." I said nonchalantly, shrugging my shoulders with a smile of pure defiance on my face.
"I dare you." Ray answered, his tone stern and full of anger.
"You're tempting me." I hummed.
"More like taunting."
"Touché." I pushed my messenger bag onto my seat and rose myself to my feet, looking down at Ray.
"Hit me." He smiled.
My instincts took over and that's exactly what I did. Before I could comprehend what was happening, my fist was colliding with the side of Ray's face and everyone around us was gasping. I was decently proud of myself, the punch was hard enough that Ray actually let out a groan of pain and clutched his jaw in his palm.
"Gerard Way, what the fuck do you think you're doing?" A voice boomed behind me. The voice was of course Frank's. I knew I was in deep shit and he was probably going to scold me because well, he was an adult and I was a fucking teenager who didn't have any morals. I looked down at Ray then turned my head to Frank who was now standing next to us, inspecting Ray's jaw without touching him. I still smiled to myself, listening to all the other students whisper around us in shock.
Frank rubbed his eyes, sighing at Ray who was calling me all sorts of vulgar names under his breath.
"Both of you. Outside. Now." Frank spat, pointing to the back door of the auditorium. I rolled my eyes again, letting out another laugh.
"The rest of you, don't do anything stupid. This is a shitshow already." Frank announced to the other eight kids in the room before grabbing the sleeve of my flannel and dragging me to the door while Ray followed closely behind us.
Once outside, Frank slammed the door and looked at both Ray and I with a look of utter anger and disappointment on his face. "Can you please tell me what the fuck happened in there?"
"I punched him." I answered simply.
"Yeah, I can see that." Frank snapped. I was taken back a little. I figured that Frank would've been slightly angry at me but I didn't expect him to be this type of snappy.
Ray snorted and moved his jaw around. "I tell you what happened, Mr. Iero. I told your little boyfriend that I talked to you earlier and he flipped his shit. By the way, let's talk about the fact that he's your boyfriend, you creep."
Frank looked between me and Ray, his lips twitching like he wanted to say something but he didn't know what.
"We don't need to fucking talk about anything." I told Ray with as much hostility in my voice as I could manage in that moment.
Frank cut us off by gesturing his hand in front of us. "Both of you, just stop fighting for one Goddamn second."
We both went silent and looked at Frank.
"First of all," Frank started, "Ray, it was none of your business in the first place. Ever think of that? Maybe if you didn't invade someone's privacy then insult them on top of it, you wouldn't have gotten socked in the face. Are you catching my vibe?"
Ray nodded.
Frank then turned to me, his face softening a little, "As for you, angel, don't punch people in the face even though that was extremely bad ass and I would've probably done the same thing. I'm still pissed though, cause this is gonna involve paperwork if his jaw is fucked."
"You won't need to do paperwork when you're fired." Ray said.
Frank's eyes widened and he shifted his death-stare back to the taller teenager, "Repeat that, kiddo."
Ray raised an eyebrow, "I said, Mr. Iero, you won't be doing any paperwork when you're fired."
Frank leaned his back against the door and crossed his arms, "Why's that?"
"Because I've found out that you're harming my friend." Ray replied. I wanted to fucking punch him in his obnoxious face again.
Frank scrunched his face, "I don't think 'harming' is the word you're lookin' for."
I giggled quietly and covered my mouth with my hand to hide it.
"He's underage." Ray hissed.
"Age of consent is sixteen." I intervined.
"Gerard, honey, shush." Frank said softly.
"Fucking disgusting." Ray muttered, "I can get you fired and put in prison."
Frank smirked. "Can't do that if I leave. Or quit."
"You wouldn't."
"You're sure of that?"
"Yes, Mr. Iero, I am."
"Mhm. I see." Frank bit the nail on his thumb and looked down at the pavement beneath our shoes, "You're gonna report me, yeah?"
Ray nodded. Frank was doing that fucking thing yet again. He was being overly calm and I could sense that it was pissing Ray off. I was proud of Frank for some weird reason, if I was in that situation, I would've handled it a lot worse and probably beat Ray's face in a little more.
"Well," Frank sighed, "I'm very open to accepting that everyone has their own beliefs. And you, Ray, you obviously have your own biased views of what's happening between Gerard and I. I can respect that."
Ray's face crumpled, "What are you trying to say?"
Frank chuckled, "I'm saying you can go ahead and report me for being a 'pedophile'. But by time a real lawsuit is filed and such, which probably won't happen because there's no evidence, Gerard and I will be gone. Out of Belleville. Like we were never even here."
A smile broke across my face. Frank looked in my direction, the same smiling appearing across his own face too.
"That's kidnapping." Ray sputtered.
I scoffed loudly and placed my hand on his shoulder, "Kidnap? Are you that desperate for this man to go to jail? How is that considered kidnap when I'm willingly going with him."
"You can't just leave, Gerard." Ray choked.
Frank let out a scratchy cough, "Gerard can do whatever he pleases. He's a big boy, capable of decisions."
I nodded my head, "Matter of fact, I think my decision is that I want to leave right now."
Ray shook his head. "You can't do that."
"Watch me." I gave Frank a look and he nodded, pulling out his car keys from his sweatshirt pocket and tossing them to me. Ray's mouth dropped and he raised a finger at Frank.
"I'm going to walk up to the office, right now, and I'm going to tell Ms. Nestor that you're fucking taking a student off school grounds. Better yet, I'm going to tell her that you're taking advantage of him."
Frank laughed straight in Ray's face, "That plan would be kinda easy for you if Ms. Nestor wasn't one of my childhood friends. Here's a tip, the police will do more than a principal." Frank gave Ray a wink, patted his back, then walked up next to me and grabbed my hand to lead us to his car. I look behind us as we were walking to see Ray practically bolt from where he was standing and dash through the auditorium.
"We should run." I said.
"No, you shouldn't. But I should." Frank said. I was confused until he dropped my hand then with one swift movement, tossed me over his shoulder and started running straight to the car. By time he was placing me down in the passengers seat, we were both laughing hysterically. He pecked my lips gently before shutting the passenger door and climbing into the drivers seat.
"What's the plan?" I asked him as he basically stomped on the gas and sped away from the school.
"We get Sweet Pea. We get your art supplies. We get my guitar. We get snacks. Then we got wherever the hell you want, baby." He told me softly and clasped our hands together as he drove.
"What about your job?"
"What job?" He smirked and tightened his grip on my hand. I smiled to myself, looking out the window and watching the green blur of trees pass by us. I wanted to go with him, more than anything. I wanted to fall asleep next to him at night and wake up to his face every morning all while being held in his tattooed arms. But it made me wonder, was it too soon? Was this happening too fast? It might've been, but I was blinded in the best way possible. I was falling for him. He was falling for me. We trusted each other enough already for this. It was either runaway or be separated forever. There was no way in hell we were going to be separated, not after everything we sacrificed.
"What are you thinking about?" Frank asked me tenderly.
"You." I leered.
"Coincidence," He grinned, "I was thinking about you too."
I kissed each of his knuckles one by one, earning a contentful sigh from his lips. We eventually pulled up in front of his house where he kissed my cheek and jumped out of the car to grab his few things that he needed. I stayed in the car, resting my head on the window and listening to whatever song he had playing on the radio. Within a few minutes time, he returned with a white guitar in one of his hands, backpack on his back and Sweet Pea tucked in his arm. He dropped her into my lap and gently placed his guitar and backpack in the backseat. I stroked Sweet Pea's aged fur and watched Frank scurry back into the car with a beaming grin on his pale face.
"I'll take you the art store downtown and you can pick anything you want, okay? Same goes for clothes, we'll find a thrift shop or something," He said, pushing a few strands of hair behind my ears.
"You don't have to do that." I sighed. He cut me off with a warm, lingering kiss.
"Yes I do." He whispered when our lips pulled apart.
He began to drive again, laughing at Sweet Pea when she howled at the radio and stomped her paws around my lap so her claws dug into my thighs. This was more than I could have ever asked for. It was so sentimental and peaceful and it just felt so right. More than right. I could've stayed in that dumb car with Frank and his ugly dog, listening to Johnny Cash for the rest of eternity and never get tired of it. I could never get tired of his tattooed body or his shaky voice. The lazy way he smiled and how gracefully he did everything, even how he scratched at the scruff under his chin out of habit.
"Thank you." I divulged suddenly.
He turned to look at me for a second, "For what, sweetheart."
"Saving me."

Notes

major creds to @AliceInMCRland for helping me out with this chapter, im heckin grateful for that. butt anygay i hope you all have a nice day/night and ignore all my typos in this chpater cause im too lazy to edit. also if u give me a comment ill give u a cheeto so its a win/win situation. xxx