"Frank. Are you listening to me?" Her voice cut through his thoughts like a guillotine, making his fuzzy daydreams disperse. His mind had snapped back to reality; the reality where he was sitting on an overstuffed, grey couch in a grey room and being confronted by a dry, grey woman. The woman tucked a stray lock of silvered hair behind her ear, pushed her wire-framed glasses up her nose and cleared her throat. She was holding a clipboard in one hand and a fancy, cobalt blue fountain pen in the other. She was anticipating the words that would leave Frank's mouth. She wanted to gather them all up on her stark, grey paper and then shove them down his throat. She wanted to listen to what he had to say for an hour and a half. Once that time was up, he didn't matter. She didn't care. Any thought of Frank was discarded from the woman's mind after their time together was up; just thrown away as if he never mattered in the first place. As long as she got her money, then nothing else mattered. "What was the question?" Frank asked with a bitter tone on his words. He hoped his face conveyed the same message: bitterness. Loathing. The woman let out a long, exaggerated breath and closed her eyes. She looked frustrated. Frank smiled on the inside. "I asked you - since you said you were religious - if you believe that what you're doing is a sin." The question was simple. It was a yes or no answer. Frank could have shrugged off the oppressing barrage of words with a simple nod or shake of the head. But he didn't. His mind had been swirling with unspoken thoughts for too long. He didn't care who heard him - not anymore. "I sin every day, Mrs. Tull." He said with a slight smirk playing on his lips. Her eyes widened in surprise as he spoke. "I cuss and I lie and I steal and I cheat. Yes, I do believe in God. But he knows I'm a fuck-up. He knows I don't follow all the rules. Anything that anyone says or touches or even looks at can be considered a sin in some way. So I think," Frank paused and leaned forward slightly, watching the woman's features shift in anticipation, "I think that we're just sins ourselves. God just got bored and wanted to watch something struggle under the pretentious grandeur of his reign. So, no. I don't think that what I'm doing is a sin. Not any more than anything else." She looked at him with a peculiar look, her mouth slightly agape and her brow line furrowed. Her wrinkled face creased and crinkled around her eyes and her shriveled lips. She cleared her throat again and let her face return to its normal state - unreadable and emotionless. Then she remembered the pen and the clipboard in her hand, and started writing things down. She was scribbling notes in a hasty way that made it seem like she was uncomfortable. Frank stared at her, and made sure she felt his gaze. He was almost willing his eyes to burn holes through her stretched and worn skin, causing her to bleed out the ink of the words that she had written, the words that she had so many times devoured - Frank imagined. She looked up every now and then to find him staring at her, and every time she did she shifted her position. She was squirming under his watch, and for a moment Frank felt powerful. Like he had control over her. Once she finished writing she looked up at him again, and her thin lips tightened into a pale line across her face - an attempt at a smile, maybe. She spoke. "I think that you are a very... unique individual, Mr. Iero." Again, she paused to clear her throat, "And I think that I know what the issue is. You feel like cutting yourself is a rebellion against society. You feel like it doesn't really matter anyway, right?" Frank was silent. He wanted to slump down so far into the couch that he would disappear. He hated her. He hated her so much that it almost hurt. She had no idea how he felt. And even within all of the anger and despair, Frank felt like he needed to laugh. He just wanted to laugh. He started laughing so hard that he was on the floor, holding his aching gut and letting tears spill down his face. The woman's expression changed to horror. "F-Frank?... Frank? Are you okay?" She said, her voice wavered and cracked. He sat up, his face now stripped of any joy. He stared into her eyes, he looked deep into her decrepit grey irises and found nothing but emptiness. "...No. I'm not o-fucking-kay." With that, he stood up and walked out of the room, flashing her his middle finger as he walked out. He casually strolled out of the house - an hour before his appointment was supposed to end. That was a whole sixty minutes of his life that he had saved from the grey confines of his therapist-vulture's clipboard. ~•X•X•X•~ Gerard was in a hurry. He needed to get away. Fast. In a small town like Farrow, with a population of just over 500, it was difficult to find a place where no one would discover you. It was impossible to stow away in the nooks and crannies because everyone knew exactly where those were. He was on the outskirts of town, the place where rampant wildflowers grew and no one cared to put up fences or cut the grass. He was on the border of his world and another world - one where he could venture free and no one would find him. A world where nobody knew his name or his face. His sneakers pounded against the ground with every step he took. His lungs burned and his eyes watered as his heart beat furiously, trying to keep up with his body. He thought that the 'thump-thump' of his blood pulsing in his ears was starting to sound like the beat of a drum- his own rhythm. He liked the thought of that. He came to a tree on the very edges of the forest, and scaled it. The rough bark made angry, red scrapes his forearms - but he could care less. Once he neared the top he relaxed and made himself comfortable on a sturdy branch, letting out a long, ragged breath and combing through his shaggy black hair with his fingers. His heartbeat started to slow down, and his vision became less blurry. 'What have you gotten yourself into, Gerard?' He thought, 'You're gonna be dead meat.' In the far distance, he heard boisterous yelling from the gang of bullies that had been chasing him. It was hard to tell what they were saying, exactly, but he managed to make out a garbled,?"Where did- go? That --ing fag." He could fill in the blanks, and Gerard almost wished that he could laugh at their remarks. They always taught you that the way to get rid of bullies was to ignore them - to not give them the satisfaction of knowing that they hurt you. But these were no ordinary bullies. They were parasites. They latched onto you and sucked out every last ounce of self-respect and self-esteem from the marrow of your bones. They battered your heart and literally battered your guts until you either puked or cried - or worse - wanted to die. There was only one account of someone actually committing suicide due to bullying in Farrow. The kid's name was Allan Perry. He was a smart kid, and he had a lot of potential. He was very stand-offish - preferring to bury his freckled nose in a book rather than start a conversation. But they bullied him to death. He got so sick of it that he put his dad's pistol into his mouth and pulled the trigger. Three of the five members went to jail, presumably the ones that had engaged in most of the harassing. They said they didn't care. They said that 'the little fucker deserved it.' This was a couple years ago, but almost all the same people were in the gang that were in it now, except they had been younger. And now that they had gotten older, nothing had changed. In fact, they may have become even more vicious than before. They were monsters. Everyone knew they were, and no one messed with them. Even the police eventually gave up on keeping track of them - deciding that they'd rather spend their time solving more important cases in the big cities that they had been dispatched from, miles and miles away. Away from anything to do with the town of Farrow. Gerard startled as he noticed the ghostly outlines of human forms in the pale dusk light gather near his tree. He held his breath as his fingers gripped the branch he was sitting on tighter. "Didjya find 'im?" One of the boys called to the others. "Nope." Another one called back, "I think he got away. I ain't got no clue where he went. Can't find 'im anywhere." Gerard was still. Very still. "Well, he'll be at school tomorrow anyway. Then we'll beat the shit out of the faggot." A third voice said, his voice tinged with icy placidness. "Right." A fourth voice answered. "We can't do nothin' without little Frankie here anyway... wouldn't want him to miss out on the fun." Gerard closed his eyes... Frank Iero. He could see the boy clearly in his mind; his warm, chocolate-colored eyes, his smirk, how his black hair fell over his face - not unlike his own, how he laughed and how he talked and how he moved... and how he hated Gerard with a passion. It felt like a kick in the gut every time he came to that revelation - every time he remembered that small detail it killed him. It broke off another piece of his heart and threw it down an empty abyss. Maybe soon, Gerard wouldn't be able to feel anything anymore. Nothing would hurt, because all the shards of his heart would lay still and cold at the bottom of a well - for no one to find and glue back together, just so he could fall apart again. And that was fine with him. ~•X•X•X•~ Frank awoke to the sunlight shining on his eyelids - blinding him as he slowly stirred from his deep slumber. He was still in his clothes and he felt stiff and sore. He threw the sheets off and swung his legs over the side of the bed, yawning and stretching in a way that reminded him of a cat. He slowly stood up, emitting another shallow yawn as he trudged to the bathroom. He looked in the mirror and noticed that his hair was messed up and jutting out at weird angles. He sighed and turned the squeaky handle of the sink, watching the water pour out into the basin. He stared at it for moment, watching the stream take on vague shapes that his mind was scrambling to recognize but in the end, couldn't. It frustrated him that he didn't have any special powers. He couldn't do anything out of the ordinary... he wasn't special or any different from the other six billion people in the world, or however many were out there. He was destined to fade into the background like white noise. He splashed his face with frigid water, and then looked up, droplets dripping down his face and off the end of his nose. He then patted his face dry with a towel and combed through his hair with brisk motivation. He stared hard into his own eyes reflected upon the glass. He was going to change the world... his world, at least. And he was going to be heard - whether it was for good or for bad. ~•X•X•X•~ For Gerard to say he was a social outcast would have been an understatement. He was one of those kids who was just a nameless face that you passed by in the hallway every now and then. He was the one who's voice was almost nonexistent in class. The one who sat in the back, away from everyone else. The people that did know him preferred to distance themselves from him, in fear that they would get caught up in the trouble that Gerard seemed to carry with him; tucked in his pockets and sparking off his kind smile. It was a dangerous aura - not because of himself, but because of the bullies that were assured to follow him. They were like lurking shadows, or ominous ravens that followed him through the night. No one wanted to end up in the same mess that that 'one gay kid' ended up in. No one wanted to know him. Gerard pushed through the crowds of people, whom were moving at a sluggish pace down the narrow hallways of Farrow High School. He moved with such urgency that a few people stopped to let their gaze linger on him, following him with their eyes in a curious manner. But that didn't matter to him in the slightest. He needed to get to where he was going. He shouldered himself between two people, excusing himself with a brief 'Sorry.' Finally, he had come to the far side of the building. Every morning he had to be here... he had to be. And today he had gotten to school late because he had slept in a tree the previous night. He let out a sharp breath of air as he leaned against a brick wall, the coldness seeping through his clothes and into his skin, making him shiver. Then - from almost nowhere - *he* appeared from around the opposite corner. Gerard let out a tiny, surprised squeak and dove behind the wall, out of sight but still able to watch. He studied the boy's lithe movements with his desperate eyes; the way he was ever-so-careful about opening his locker - his slender fingers making quick and graceful movements, how he would sniffle every now and then from the cool autumn air, how his deep brown eyes would dart from side to side - as if he were paranoid. Gerard wondered with a start if the boy noticed he was there, and withdrew behind the wall. After a few deep breaths, he peeked back around the corner with painstaking caution. The boy was still there, bent over and trying to stuff his books into his backpack. Gerard couldn't help but stare at his ass... even that was perfect. Yep. He was officially a grade-A stalker. ~•X•X•X•~ Frank chewed on the end of his pencil, paying scarce attention to the lesson his teacher was teaching. His mind dug through deep archives of rouge, racing thoughts - trying to find a topic to settle on but never achieving that goal. "Frank." The teacher's sudden voice startled him. "Y-Yes?" He stammered, feeling flustered as all of his classmate's eyes focused on him. He had to play it cool - he had a reputation to keep. "...What's the answer to question number six?" She asked. Her voice dripped with a viscosity that Frank could only picture as poison. He looked at his book, and it wasn't even open to the right page. He started to panic - sharp pangs of tingling numbness rising in his stomach and making him dizzy. He didn't work well under pressure. "Uh-uhm..." He stammered, his eyes pleading to his teacher to help him out, but she made no sign of wanting to aid him. "Who c-cares anyway?" Frank started, "Not me. And sure as hell no one else in this class does." His teacher stared at him, appalled. He felt anger rise in his chest as he struggled to find the right words. He was fed up with not knowing the answers - with being humiliated. It infuriated him. "This is all so pointless!" Frank started to yell, standing up at his desk and sending loose-leaf papers fluttering to the floor. "This whole fucking thing is *pointless*!" He was almost screaming. He was trying to empty his lungs of all of his air - trying to speak all the words that he had bottled up inside for so long - in a single moment. "Frank. Sit down." Her voice commanded, strong and confident. She was used to this kind of thing... she taught a remedial class. Frank's class. He stared at her - his eyes locked with hers and it sent sparks flying. But begrudgingly, slowly, he sat in his seat - never breaking his intense stare-down with the teacher. He didn't want to do this again today. It always happened. He laid his head down at his desk, took a deep breath, and counted to ten. His teacher then resumed the lesson as if nothing had happened. He didn't want to be like this. But he got so mad when he was asked a question that he couldn't answer. It angered him to no end that he had embarrassed himself in front of his classmates. Sure, maybe if he had been paying attention, he would have known. But Frank was a thinker... an inside person who locked up their thoughts and threw away the key. Every so often though, those thoughts bubbled over and exploded from inside him, tainting the world around him like a bruise. No one needed to know what he was thinking... no one would understand. It was best just to keep his bitterness to himself. Why ruin everyone else's day? But it was too late. He couldn't erase the marks that the past made on his future. ~•X•X•X•~ Gerard sat way in the back of his Sophomore English classroom, sketching crude outlines of human figures onto his paper. With every stroke of his pencil, he felt a new idea take shape in his mind - a new vision of the outcome that he hadn't seen before. He did this, until it was finally complete and he felt like a waste of time. But he could have done this until time itself was a waste. He looked up every now and then to make sure he looked like he was paying attention, but Mr. Halle never called on him anyway. He doubted that anyone even realized he was back here, surrounded by piles of paper and books and binders. On either side of him was a tall filing cabinet, creating a little niche for Gerard to hide himself in. It was his own little place in the classroom where - in his mind - he wasn't there. He was in his comic book studio, or his private study. He was in his own fortress. Gerard bit his lip - so hard that he felt the sour, metallic taste of blood on his tongue. Yet again, he found himself unable to block out Mr. Halle's voice. He was unable to teleport himself into his imagination and break away from the cold, prison-like walls of his school. He wished he had been born a bird, free from any fences or places where he had to act 'socially acceptable.' He wanted to admonish the thought of rules completely. He wanted to crush the boundaries of his life in his hands and sprinkle the crumbs everywhere he went, and make his own world. A world where no one but Gerard knew the morals and no one cared. ~•X•X•X•~ Gerard sat by himself at lunch, choosing a picnic table under a shaded tree. It was a surprisingly warm day out today. He took a bite of his peanut butter and honey sandwich, and the golden substance dripped out of the end onto his lap. He sighed. He reached into his backpack and took out his sketch book, unsure what to do. He flipped it open to a clean page and started sketching the outline of a superhero. He wasn't sure who - but soon a new idea was materializing at the edges of his mind. He drew hasty lines, his hand working at a furious pace. Each line he made further cradled his new idea into existence, and fleshed out the picture he had in his mind. When he had a basic sketch, he stopped. He took a moment to look at it and absorb what or who the superhero could be. The hero was wearing a short cape that came halfway down his back, and he had wavy black hair that was swept up into a long ponytail, which reached a bit farther down. He was wearing a black long-sleeved shirt with striped sleeves, and black skinny jeans. He wore fingerless gloves and black Converse shoes, and a thick shadow of eyeliner around his eyes. Part of his face was covered by a white half mask. Gerard realized with a start that he had unconsciously drawn something that resembled himself. He was about to erase it all, when *he* slammed his hand down onto his paper. "Well what do we have here?" The brown-eyed boy sneered. Gerard swallowed hard, and tried to fight back the hot blush rising in his cheeks. "N-Nothing." "Oh really? It doesn't look like nothing." The boy said, ripping the sketchbook from Gerard's grasp. He looked at it, studying it in a mocking way. "So what is it?" He asked. Gerard cleared his throat, "I-It's um... it's a superhero." "Oh really?" The boy smirked, and the highlights in his chocolate-colored eyes crinkled. "Y-Yeah..." Gerard managed to stutter. The boy paused for a moment - looking over his drawing again - then said, "It's not half bad." He then tossed Gerard's sketchbook back at him and walked away - hands shoved deep into his pockets. Gerard couldn't help the look on his face - his eyes wide and his cheeks dusted a violent red. Frank Iero had complimented him.

Notes

This is my first Frerard fic, and I hope you guys like it so far. :)
Any comments/feedback is appreciated!
Sorry for any typos. :P