FicWad

This took far too long, I apologise. I didn't mean for this to take so long, I kind of have a lot of crap going on right now. But anyway, yeah, here's the next chapter! I hope you enjoy it! I'm not gonna leave much of an A/N here, I'll let you get on with it :)

Chapter Two; First Day Back

“Oh god,” I groaned, putting my head in my hands. Gerard chuckled lightly and knelt down to begin collecting to papers together. “No, don’t, I should...”

“It’s fine,” he said, taking the papers and books that had fallen off the bookshelf out of my incompetent hands and reshuffling them together. I felt my cheeks burn the colour of a menstruating lobster and I rocked back on my heels, careful to not touch anything lest I blow it sky high or something equally ridiculous.

“I’ll do it, I knocked it over, you shouldn’t have to,” I said after a moment, reaching across to stand up one of the piles of books that had remained relatively intact.

“Frank, how do you manage to destroy something within half an hour of your first lesson back?” asked Auriaco, picking my tipped-over chair back up. I scowled up at her from underneath my black fringe, hiding my burning red cheeks.

“I’m just so wonderful like that,” I grumbled. I heard a beautiful chuckle and my stomach flipped inside out, and I glanced up to see a smirk stretching across Gerard’s lips. “Look here, man, I knocked it over, you shouldn’t have to...”

“It’s okay, I can...”

“I can do it!” I said, snatching the books away, feeling my cheeks burn. Gerard raised his eyebrows and sat back on his heels slightly.

“Sorry. I thought you could use some help,” he said. My stomach clenched.

“Thanks, but... I just, I can...” I muttered, blushing and hurrying away from the confused expression on Gerard’s face, my face bright red and every hormone in my body was flinging themselves lovingly in his direction. I glanced back as I reached the back of the room, saw him watching me with his eyebrow quirked up, and I promptly tripped up over my feet.

“Frank!” I groaned and bashed my head on the floor. “You alright?” I heard Kayleigh ask behind me, then footsteps making their way towards me. I kept my face pressed into the carpet, wishing that it would open up and just swallow me into the earth, preferably where I could lie in my own private bay of humiliation.

God dammit. It wasn’t my fault that he had to be walking sex on legs, and on seriously nice legs, too. The soft, tight fitting of the school pants fabric was different to denim and even tastier, making me just want to do things to the guy with my tongue that were probably illegal. Maybe he likes tattoos, I thought semi-consciously, rubbing the spot on my neck where the Jack-o-Lantern that was my 16th birthday present was etched into my skin.

“Frank, you alright?” came a voice from behind me. I groaned again and looked up. Kayleigh was just standing there with her hands on her hips, eyebrow raised, sharp blue eyes watching me.

“I hurt my head,” I said, bashing my forehead into the carpet again and bringing my arms around to cover my face.

“Come on, clumsy, you said you’d put the books away, not fall over anything and everything. And smashing your face into the floor really isn’t going to help,” she said, wrapping her hand around my bicep and hauling me to my feet.

“Would you rather me launch more chairs and books and shelves and shit at the guy?” I asked, deliberately looking anywhere but the walking orgasm that was Gerard on the other side of the classroom.

“No, but... come on, go sit down. Keep walking and you’ll just injure someone else.”

“I... Kitty, you know I get awkward around cute guys,” I said quietly, scratching the back of my neck. “I’ll probably sit down and manage to fall off my chair then fly kick someone upside their head. While sitting down.”

“I know, I know, I know, but still...”

“Give me a break, okay? I just grew ovaries and they exploded, I’m not feeling my best at the moment,” I said, turning around and rearranging the books on the shelf. I heard Kayleigh chuckle.

“Okay. But... try not to melt everywhere? Just imagine your Grandma in her knickers or something.”

“Eeeew!”

“See, it’ll work! And, Frank?” Kayleigh grabbed my arm as I made to make my way back across the classroom. “Please, be nice. I mean it.” And the expression on her face wasn’t her usual one of sarcasm or giggles, she looked genuinely scared, almost pleading with her icy-blue eyes. Like there was something serious going on.

“Why?”

“Just... just do it, okay?” At that, she let go of my arm and we made our way back across the room to Gerard and Auriaco, my brain decidedly confused. My stomach did one of those funny little lurches when I looked at Gerard, and the mouth-wateringly gorgeous smirk was still playing across his face.

“I, uh..,” I mumbled, standing awkwardly in front of him. “I kind of... well, awkward and... uh... you know, I kinda... yeah, sorry.” I bowed my head. Kayleigh sighed.

“And in normal language, he’s a clumsy ass and he didn’t want to upend every single item in the room over you because he thinks you’re hot,” she said. I snapped my head up, all the blood in my body flooding to my cheeks. Gerard smiled.

“Oh?”

“No, it’s... I, uh, oh God, no I don’t...”

“Hey, it’s alright. Kayleigh winds people up all the time,” he said. I stopped my useless babbling and closed my mouth, keeping my gaze well away from his legs and face and hair and beauty and things and... oh god, I was rambling again. The next thing I said was luckily not ‘let me be yours!’ which really would have been quite awkward.

“So, uh, has Sir told you what the assignment is?” I asked, composing myself so I didn’t fall backwards off my chair in a pile of drool and lust over those tight, tight pants. I then squealed inwardly that I’d formed a legible sentence without insulting him or making a complete fool of myself. Gerard nodded and tucked a strand of hair behind his ear. Oh yum.

“Yeah. He said to work with Kayleigh’s group.”

“Oh dear, you’re stuck with us,” I said, trying to sound light-hearted, grinning and pointing at myself and Auriaco. Gerard smiled.

“I suppose it could be worse.”

“Yeah, you could be stuck with someone who doesn’t trip over every flat surface in existence. Oh, wait...” Gerard laughed and my brain had a miniature meltdown at his smile and the high-pitched, slightly awkward sounding chuckle. Oh God, let me lick you.

“What do you play, Gerard?” asked Auriaco as I mentally fought with the retarded centers in my brain.

“I, uh, play guitar a little,” he said, shrugging. Kayleigh snorted a laugh.

“Yeah, really badly,” she said. Gerard grinned and hit her gently on the shoulder.

“Hey, I’m not that bad,” he said.

“Yeah, you really are.”

“No, listen here...”

“Don’t tell me to listen, you’re shit, admit it,” said Kayleigh, holding up a finger to halt Gerard’s speech. He stopped indignantly and raised his eyebrows, pouting his lips in the most extraordinarily gay fashion.

“I play,” I piped up, mainly just to shut down the squeals of interest in the back of my brain. Gerard looked away from Kayleigh, his retort disappearing from the tip of his tongue.

“Oh? Let’s hear, then,” he said, leaning forward interestedly in his chair. I shrugged and stood up. Guitar was good. I knew how to play guitar. Guitar didn’t trip me up or mess up my stomach or muddle my brain into hormonal piles of mush like certain super-hot raven haired cousins of best friends did.

I picked up my favourite, slightly battered acoustic guitar that sat on a stand by the supply cupboard on the far side of the room (far away from the disaster I’d caused with bookshelves just ten minutes ago) and returned, perching on the seat. All three people I’d been with were now staring at me, but I composed myself, placed my fingers on the fretboard and began to play.

I’ve always loved music. Ever since I was little, I would play any instrument I could get my hands on, sing, play out drumbeats on upturned saucepans, anything. I’d dance around holding my Mum’s hairbrush in front of the mirror, pretending to be on stage, or I’d play with old bits of cardboard pretending to be a guitar.

Then I got a real guitar and I never put it down. It had taken me a year or so and then I realized how incredible it was and I began to write my own stuff, melodies and tunes and riffs and all sorts. What I was playing now was something I’d written over the holidays, about six weeks ago; I’d written it under the trees in my back garden, in the sunshine, after hours of doing nothing hours ahead of doing nothing. It was lazy, sweet and quite simple, but I loved it because it always put a smile on my face.

I plucked the last couple of notes and looked up tentatively because I had not showed anyone the piece yet, but to my delight, Auriaco and Gerard were both staring at me as if I had pulled the cure for cancer out of my butt. Kayleigh looked impressed, but her normal sort of impressed, as she kinda got used to my constant showing off. Though I wasn’t as good as Ray, I always put all my heart into my playing.

“That was beautiful,” said Gerard quietly, smiling at me. My heart backflipped and I felt my cheeks warm.

“Thanks,” I said, smiling with one side of my mouth. He thinks it’s beautiful. He thinks it’s beautiful. Oh my god, oh god, this is wonderful... “Let’s hear you play?” I asked, shaking the little voice out of my head.

“You really don’t wanna be doing that,” said Kayleigh, smirking. Gerard rolled his eyes.

“Maybe not,” he said.

“Go on, I’m sure you’re not that bad,” I said, smiling. Gerard chuckled and looked down, his raven hair swinging into his eyes.

“No, really, I am,” he said. I sighed and shrugged.

“Well, if you’re sure,” I said. “I’ll put this back, then. Kayleigh, you can... uh, I guess, show the, um...”
____________________

“I can’t fucking believe it. I do well on the guitar, I manage to do something right, then I go and make a complete and utter fool of myself, I don’t even...”

“Frank, calm down.” Kayleigh and I were making our way outside at break time. I had done well with playing guitar, doing my little bit to impress Gerard like I’d wanted to instead of reverting to the language and acting of a simpleton. I put the guitar away safely enough... then I managed to walk back to the group just at the moment where Gerard was laughing very attractively at a joke someone had made and I promptly lost all control of my muscles and hormone centers of the brain and broke the table we sat at in to when I tripped over and smashed my face into it.

I then send the rest of the lesson with my face a very unattractive shade of radioactive red. Kayleigh and I were silent as we walked, she wasn’t even teasing me about my failure of an existence. I rarely talked general chatter with Kayleigh, because she didn’t like unnecessary babbling and I often didn’t have much to say on who’s dating who or what this person did with their hair. That was one good quality about Kayleigh, was even though she could talk a lot, she only talked about what needed to be said. Which wasn’t me being completely hopeless and a wreck of life.

That was left up to our friends. I told you about Auriaco, already, who was already sitting at the bench. There was Ray, the big-haired guitar genius that everybody went to for help with their maths and quantum physics homework. There was Zacky, my second-to-best friend, only second because he was more like my long lost twin brother or something; he had his eyeliner like me, black spiky hair like me, lip ring like me. Except he had two instead of one.

Two other girls who sat with us were Michelle Tate and Dakota Chase; they, like Riley and Kayleigh, were polar opposites but always joined at the hip. I swear, they did everything together. Michelle was loud, blonde and outgoing, who loved gore and Tim Burton movies. Dakota had short spiky brown hair and studs all up her right ear, but was quiet and shy around anyone who wasn’t her friend. Somehow, despite their differences, they were closer than two sisters. As close as you can get without actually being siamese twins.

Bob Bryar was in the year above. All you need to know about him is he has a beard. And last was Phoenix Webb, who also happened to be the drummer for the band I played in. To be honest with you, he’s a lot like a little kid and you never, ever trust him with admitting you fancy someone because he always tries to play cupid and it always ends in disaster.

These people were my closest friends on the planet, and I honestly could not stand a week without them. But if they ever invite you to join a game of Snap, or German Slapsies, or Old Maid, or Chase The Ace or god knows what else... you ought to decline. Our card games could get lethal. Well, I think all of our games could get lethal. I call it the ‘Michelle’ effect.

As we approached, she and Zacky seemed to be involved in some sort of debate and we came into earshot just at the right moment -

“Okay, you do an impression of me,” said Michelle, putting her hand on her hip and staring at him. Zacky raised his eyebrow, then stood up, and spread his arms wide.

“WANNA FUCK?!” he shouted. Everyone at the table burst out laughing, and so did Kayleigh and I as we arrived.

“Okay, that was accurate,” said Dakota, laughing. Zacky grinned at sat down.

“I’m a natural,” he said, sitting back down.

The benches on the table comfortably seated two each, which worked perfectly thanks to there behind eight of us. However, I was an awkward bastard and usually liked sitting next to Zacky so I could annoy him, even though the space next to him was filled by Ray.

“Budge over,” I said, shoving him with my hip.

“Fuck you,” he said, moving over so I could sit.

“Anytime, babes,” I said. Zacky fluttered his eyelashes and pouted, and I just giggled like a little girl.

“Frank, your homo is showing,” said Dakota, looking up from her book. I rolled my eyes.

“Sorry darling,” I said.

“So, Kayleigh,” said Phoenix, smacking Bob on the arm for some reason and leaning across the table. “When are the rest of us gonna meet your cousins?”

“Probably soon as they get outta class. Riley’s probably showing Mikey around...”

“Mikey?” I asked.

“Yeah, I have two cousins, remember?”

“Oh. Sorry. Continue?” She glared at me briefly before continuing.

“And yeah, I suppose Gerard will be around soon.” I nodded and sighed, folding my arms. Auriaco turned and snagged Kayleigh’s attention into conversation. I shifted again and rested my chin in my hand, gazing out into the distance. The distance not being an amazing blue shimmering seascape or anything, but the boring grey walls of buildings. The shrieks of fellow teenagers, and even kids younger than teenagers who’d just started, running around on the black tarmac.

A smudge of darkness flashed in the corner of my eye and I looked around; my heart did a funny little pirouette when Gerard waltzed around the corner. Well, maybe waltz isn’t the right term, he wasn’t a dancer or anything... actually he walked kind of awkwardly I noticed, arms folded and tucked into his pockets across his body. I liked it, it was quite cute.

“What’s he doing with her?” came Auriaco’s voice suddenly. I slipped on my hand and looked around.

“Who?”

“Gerard! What’s he doing talking with her?” she said disgustedly. I looked back and took my gaze off of Gerard’s figure to see who he was walking with.

My stomach churned.

Mikyla Lawrence is not a friendly girl. Seventeen years old, pretty and I do have to admit she had a beautiful figure. What’s scary is I had to admit she was pretty. Scarily pretty. Her hair was soft and brown and it hung in curls, her skin was tanned, her lips were pouty and soft red. Everyone’s perfect girl, if you were straight. That’s why I couldn’t stand her.

Because on the outside she was soft, pretty, made up, super kind, Queen Bee, all of that shit. But inside she is the pure spawn of Satan, the nastiest bitch slut from the depths of hell. She was pretty and kind and everyone loved her but she was so much more than that because she had a thing for dating about seven guys at once.

So naturally I hated her guts to the end of the earth. She’d been quite nice when I’d first met her a few years ago, at the beginning of school. Then I told her what sort of music I liked and she threw me off like I was a turd at the bottom of her sparkly pink shoes. Then of course I came out a year ago and she completely and utterly detested me because of it; just like I did her.

My stomach was swirling and clenching and writhing with hurt and anger when I saw then walking together. Gerard was looking at her, hands in his pockets and she was beside him, only reaching his shoulder (that was the only thing I liked about Mikyla, she was shorter than even me) and laughing. I frowned.

“What on earth?” I asked, tapping my fingers on the table.

“What’s he doing with her?”

“I don’t know. He doesn’t know any better, I suppose,” said Phoenix, scratching the back of his head. “She is pretty nice.” We all looked at him.

“What did you just say?”

“You know,” he said, blushing red. “She’s alright.”

“Are you on something, dude?” I asked, raising my eyebrows. “She’s far from alright. And she’s literally anything but nice.”

“You were friends with her when you started here,” he said, pointing at me.

“That was before she decided I was a horrible disgusting turd and I decided she was a bitch Queen who spawned from Lucifer,” I said, keeping my eyes on the two who were walking together. Gerard was smiling at her, and Mikyla seemed like she was being the kind, friendly, pretty version of herself. I guessed that she didn’t find Gerard completely repulsive, then. I didn’t blame her; the guy was sex on legs. Seriously.

The table of people fell quiet to watch them. They were talking to each other and it looked quite friendly. Scarily friendly, even. Envy bubbled in my stomach watching. Mikyla said a few words, then we saw Gerard laugh. He looked over her shoulder, saw us, and smiled, then he said something to Mikyla. She looked over at us. They exchanged a few more words, then Gerard started walking towards us and Mikyla went towards her own group of friends.

“Making friends, Gerard?” asked Kayleigh when he reached us, but I could hear the distaste in her tone and see her lip curling. Gerard didn’t appear to have noticed, though, and he smiled.

“Yeah, she’s cool. These your friends, Kitty?” he asked. Kayleigh nodded and went around the table quickly, introducing everyone. I frowned and kept my eyes deliberately away from him, watching the back of Mikyla’s head across the playground.

I didn’t get what she’d want with Gerard. I mean, it’s not like she’d fancy him. She usually went for tall, strong, football type guys. Ones with very few brain cells in their head. Ones that were stupid enough to be cheated on, considering the fact that Mikyla usually was good at keeping three or four boys with her at once. Somehow she always got away with it...

“I don’t know, she’s quite sweet,” I heard him say. I snapped my neck around.

“What?!"

“I said, Mikyla’s quite sweet,” said Gerard.

“What the hell are you smoking?” I asked, feeling my upper lip curling. Gerard raised his eyebrow and looked to Kayleigh, who was smiling.

“Frank and Mikyla aren’t exactly the best of friends,” she said pointedly. I rolled my eyes, folded my arms and glared at the table.

“What did she do? She seemed lovely,” Gerard said. A collective scoff swept around the people sitting at our table, and I snuck a glance at Gerard who had a tiny look of confusion on his features.

“She... well, let’s put it this way,” I said, leaning back in my seat and placing the tips of my fingers thoughtfully on my lips. “She... is an asshole.”

“Okay...”

“I used to be friends with her. She realized that I like music and comics and everything that she hated. Then I came out about a year ago and she pretty much... well... we’ve hated each other’s guts ever since.”

“Came out?” said Gerard after a moment.

“Yeah,” I said, inspecting my fingers. Silence for another moment.

“You’re gay, then?” he asked. I scoffed and looked up, ready to spit out something sarcastic, probably something along the lines of ‘no shit, Sherlock’, but the expression on Gerard’s face caught me off guard. He didn’t look shocked, like most people did - instead there was a smirk playing on his lips, his eyes twinkled and I temporarily forgot how to speak.

“You couldn’t tell by the adoring way he’s been staring at you, then?” asked Auriaco. I flushed the colour of a boiled lobster covered in tomato sauce and glared at her. Gerard’s smirk was full-blown now, holding two fingers against his lip thoughtfully.

“Like every single guy and girl no matter their sexuality in this school at the moment?” I sighed inwardly and looked around; Dakota was the one who’d spoken, and she’d probably saved my ass from total schoolgirl crush scenario. I had only not melted into a pile of hormones because I was siting down and I was physically unable to fall over.

Gerard was still smirking. Sassy motherfucker. I just sighed and pulled my phone out of my pocket and stared at the screen, tapping out a text to the first person I could find to distract me from mouth-wateringly beautiful guys whom I might or might not have thrown books at and accidentally acted like a dick in front of him...

Seriously though, he should be arrested for being so goddamn delicious. Wait, bad idea, it’s probably a bad idea to put that guy in a prison. God knows what would happen to him. In the movies, don’t the criminals always go for the pretty ones?

“What have you got next, Frank?” asked Zacky, peeking over my shoulder at my pretend-texting.

“Uh, I don’t know,” I said, shoving my phone in my pocket and staring at Zacky, anywhere but Gerard who... dammit, he was still smirking at me. My cheeks were still bright fucking red... oh god, he was just making it worse. I stuttered a little bit, then scrabbled in my pockets for the piece of paper that was my timetable.

“Math... uh, maths,” I said, scanning along for ‘Tuesday, Period 3’. “Oh shit. I hate Maths.”

“I like Maths,” said Kayleigh at the same time. I shook my head.

“You’re just weird.”

“What? Maths is easy.”

“Maths is awful,” said Gerard. “The only way I passed my last two years is I got Kitty to do it for me.”

“He paid me,” said Kayleigh, inspecting her ratty fingernails. “And it means I’m sorted for the shit that comes up this year ‘cos he’s already done it.”

“I hate Maths,” I said again, staring at the small greyed square on my timetable.

“We figured,” said Dakota, yawning.

“It’s fine when you have someone to do it for you,” said Gerard, smiling at me with all his cute, straight white teeth. I shrugged.

“I... I guess.”

“Hey,” he said, nudging me gently on the shoulder. “Trust me. Been there, done that, got the failed test marks to prove it.” I giggled and looked down at the table, then mentally hit myself in the face. giggling like a freaking schoolgirl. Oh god.

I’m screwed. I am well and truly screwed.

I looked up into his pretty hazel eyes and felt my stomach churn with butterflies. God, how could your plain old eyes make someone want to sexually ravish your entire being?

Yeah. You are. You’re screwed.


Heheheh. Yeah, I'm sorry that it took so long. I'm in the midst of exams and revision and all sorts of crazy as shit. But you know, I'm doing my best do do this quickly. I have plenty of little segments written up. I hope you liked this chapter! I'll try not to make you wait so long for the next one D: Please Rate and Review!

BleedingValentine xx