FicWad

"Do you really need an answer?" I said miserably as I looked towards the edge of my bed. "I'm the kid everyone beats the shit out of for being queer."

"Well you never know." He said to me with a slight shrug and his infamous grin that hasn't left his face since he arrived. "I don't know why someone as good looking and clever as you can still be single." I rolled my eyes and sighed a little. I couldn't tell if he was complimenting me or flirting with me, but either way I felt my cheeks turn red with blush as I concentrated heavily on my bed. Suddenly, before I could say anything, the door flew open to reveal Mikey, Bob, and Ray.

"Get your ass kicked again Gee?" Mikey teased me as he fell down on the bed next to me. He looked at Frank for a moment then leaned in to whisper to me. "Who's your friend?" Mikey sounded like an over eager school girl. "Cuz he's fucking hot." I smacked Mikey who began laughing as Bob sat on top of my dresser like he normally did and glared at Mikey for a moment which shut Mikey right up.

"What happened this time?" Ray asked, leaning against the door with his arms crossed and his brown curls eating his face.

"Fucking Lance." I mumbled.

"It always is." Bob sighed. We all suffered his through his bullshit, I just seemed to be the one who always got in trouble for it. Frank cleared his throat and I remembered he was sitting there and that he didn't know anyone.

"Sorry." I said sitting up and looking at Frank for the first time in the past ten minutes. "Frank, this is Mikey, Bob, and Ray. Guys, this is Frank." Frank gave them his charming smile and I smiled back to him. Mikey waved, Bob nodded his acknowledgement, and Ray smiled and said 'hello'. "He's my new roommate." I said with a little excitement knowing that I now had a really hot guy to hang out with, even though I kept telling myself we would only be friends.

"You play?" Ray asked Frank when he noticed the guitar propped up by the bed. Before Frank could answer though, I found myself telling everyone for him.

"He's fucking amazing!" I blurted out. Realizing my mistake, I looked at the floor, my face red with embarrassment. Frank laughed, that amazingly wonderful laugh, and picked up his guitar then started playing something different then he did for me. As the music filled the room my mind suddenly took off into its own world, everything melting around me until it was just myself and Frank in the oblivion with the music swirling around us. When he stopped, I snapped back to reality and felt nauseous again so I took some deep breaths until the feeling passed.

"Fuck." Was all Ray could say as he stared at Frank. "You're really good." I caught a slight glimpse of jealousy flash through his eyes and I couldn't help but laugh a little to myself. "I play; just not like that."

"I'm going to take that as a compliment and say 'thank you'." Frank told Ray with a smile. "My guitar is my life." He held his fingers up and I could tell that they were rough with calyces from playing all the time. "So Mikey, Gerard told me you play bass."

"Mhm." Mikey was proud of himself.

"You play anything?" Frank asked Bob who was lost in his thoughts but snapped back when he was being talked to.

"Drums." He told Frank quietly.

"And Gee sings!" Mikey blurted out so of course I smacked him again.

"You didn't tell me that." Frank said looking at me with a curious smile. I wanted to kill Mikey as I felt my nerves run haywire bringing back the nausea.

"Mikey is speaking out of context." I replied glaring at Mikey and talking through gritted teeth, trying not to strangle him as he gave me a smart ass smile. "I was fucking Peter Pan once in a school play." I stopped singing after that, especially when I found out my sexual preference. Kids already beat me up
for being gay. I didn't need to direct more attention to myself. "I don't sing."

"Why not?" Frank asked and everyone shifted a little because they knew that I didn't take well to being asked a bunch of questions about my personal life. Especially not that particular question.

"I just don't." I snapped . I didn't like thinking about when I sang because even though everyone told me I had an amazing voice, I saw it as digging myself a grave. Plus, it brought back painful memories.

"Well if you guys found a singer you could start a band." Frank said looking away from me. Somehow though I knew the matter wasn't dropped and that he would bring it back to the surface again later. "Rock hard enough and people will probably stop harassing you." Though he directed it the others, I felt his eyes on me as I stared at the ground.

"We've thought about it." Ray said, finally getting over Frank's guitar abilities. He was one of the best guitarists I've ever seen so I had no idea why he was jealous. The two played the guitar completely differently so one couldn't really compare their talent to each other.

"We're just no real popular around here so getting someone to be in a band with us could prove to be difficult." Bob said after Ray, playing with a pencil he found on my desk.

"When we do it though, you have to join us!" Mikey exclaimed and Ray gave him a nasty look before looking away in hopes that no one would see him. Mikey needed to learn that thoughts don't always have to be verbalized. Yet again I smacked Mikey who yelled at me and began to rub his red arm.

I was relieved when Ray said he had detention because Bob and Mikey following him, saying they had 'personal' things to attend to. It annoyed me that they just didn't admit they were going out because they did practically everything together and were almost inseparable. When they were gone, I turned my i-pod on and laid back on my bed to 'think' about how I was going to apologize to Lance. There was no way in hell I was giving that spoiled homophobic prick and apology.

Just as I shut my eyes, a pillow smacked me in the face and I sat up to face Frank who was trying not to laugh. Popping my headphones out, I looked at him with annoyance because my room was the only place I could go to relax. Getting pelted in the face with pillows by a new roommate was not my idea of relaxation. "What?" I snapped at him and instead of snapping back at me he just smiled.

"Why don't you sing anymore?" I knew the topic wouldn't be dropped. I just put my headphones back in and laid back down as another pillow smacked me. Trying not to flip out, I sat up and stared at him. Frank motioned for me to take my headphones out so I rolled my eyes and did so. "Running away from your problems does shit to solve them." He said calmly to me.

"I'm not running from any fucking problem." I said rudely and before I had time to return to my music, he opened his mouth again. Something about his voice made me listen to him. It was though his voice was oxygen and I had to take it in.

"You're avoiding talking about singing by blasting your music and ignoring me." Again he spoke calmly.

"Because it's none of your fucking business." I could feel my body fill with anger and annoyance as he stared me down.

"Look, I know you don't know me all that well but I'm not the kind of asshole who will run around spreading what you tell me." Something told me what I wasn't going to get out of telling him not matter how hard I tried.

"Well it doesn't matter." I told him but he stared me down.

"I'm not going to drop this." He told me getting a little rude himself and I knew it was the truth. "If we're going to be roommates, we need to know we can trust each other." Frank was right even if I didn't want to admit it. "This is a perfect way for you to know you can trust me."

"I swear to fucking God if you tell anyone..." I glared at him and he pretended to zip his mouth shut; a quirky smile remaining. Taking a deep breath in, I turned off my i-pod and got comfortable on my bed, bringing up the awful memories. "When I got chosen to play Peter Pan in a school play, my family was overjoyed. Well everyone but my father. I overheard him talking to my mom one night, saying he didn't want a queer for a son." The painful argument danced through as I took another breath in. "At the time, I didn't know what 'queer' meant but as long as I sang, he would abuse me. He would come into my room at night after Mikey and my mom went to sleep and would," I started choking up as tears welled in my eyes, "He would;"

"He would rape you?" Frank asked with compassion and understanding. I looked at him and nodded weakly, trying not to burst into tears.

"He would say 'you like that you little queer?'" I couldn't help it and began to cry. "If I said anything to anyone, he would hurt me physically."

"I'm really sorry Gerard." Frank said softly and he got off his bed to walk towards me. Nervous, I tried to stop crying as he sat by me and put his arms around me. "I'm really sorry." He whispered into my ear.

"Why?" I asked choking a little more. It was my fucked up past, not his. He had nothing to be sorry about.

"Because no one should have to deal with that." He said softly again. His hand started moving slowly up and down my arm, my body shaking with nerves. I jolted out of his grip before things went too far. "Dude, I told you that you don't have to worry about me." Frank said calmly but my gaze was focused on the pillow. I refused to let myself get too close to him only to have my heart torn up again.

Sighing, Frank got off my bed and went back to his while I resumed my position on my bed, staring at the ceiling and listening to my i-pod. I shouldn't have told him and I knew it. Frank quietly played his guitar, looking at me occasionally and smiling when our eyes met. I would just give him a small quick smiled then go back to staring at the ceiling. If I looked at him for too long, my mind would begin to imagine what he would like naked and that was the last thing I needed to think of.

At dinner time, Frank went with Ray because I didn't feel like eating. When they were gone, I turned my i-pod off then, making sure the halls were clear, I locked the door and pulled my cigarettes from their hiding place, sliding one out. I rested it in between my chapped lips then fumbled with my lighter for a moment before it finally flickered and a small ball of flame danced ever so gently. Quickly, trying not to set off any alarms by accidentally setting something on fire, I emerged the opposite end of the cigarette in the flame then released the switch of the lighter causing the flame to disappear.

I took a long, deep drag off the little white stick of delight, and slid down the wall until my ass hit the floor, my knees up by my chest. I let the intake hover in my lungs for a few moments before letting the smoke slowly slip through my tightly pursed lips. Relief flooded over me as I rested my arms on my knees; my hands sticking out lazily before me, the cigarette resting firmly between my middle and index fingers. A small inhale of stale oxygen then I raised the cigarette back to my mouth, sucking in until my chest refused to puff out anymore. I didn't give a fuck about how deadly they were supposed to be. They were my relaxation tool and I wouldn't give them up for anything.

My nerves calmed, I started to think about my situation. One step at a time. Your name is Gerard. You are seventeen years old. Ok. Another deep inhale of tobacco. You go to a fucked up boarding school that you will graduate from this year and never have to look back. Slowly, I opened my mouth to exhale. You get beat up every fucking day by a homophobic asshole since you're gay. That one was hard to think about but there was no denying it. There was no denying who I was; who I am. The cigarette was only good for one more breath so I had to make it good.

You used to have your own room but now you share it with one of the fucking hottest guys you've ever seen. I put the cigarette to my mouth. He's a fucking amazing guitarist and his voice is as heavenly as his heavily tattooed body. I drew in a deep breath, eliminating the remains of fuel the cigarette needed to stay alive. You're falling for him. Falling for him hard. With nothing left to give me, I stuck the tiny butt into the container I kept my cigarettes in, a few ashes falling off. But you can't fall for him. He'll only break your heart like Bert. Closing the lid tightly, I slid the tin under my bed. Still, he's fucking gorgeous and does kind of seem into you...My mind and heart battled with each other. I had no idea which was winning and which was losing. All I knew was I was falling for Frank even though I knew it was a bad idea. Closing my eyes tightly shut, I rested my head against the wall, exhaling the final remains of my guilty pleasure. Fuck.