FicWad

The leaves on the trees had abandoned their usual places on their branches. As the air cooled and the sun left the sky a little quicker each day, the leaves now congregated in piles on the browning grass, joining wilting flowers and the occasional dead rodent. It had gotten cooler. And while the air was still warm enough that one didn’t require a heavy jacket but rather, a light one more accommodated to the rapidly deteriorating autumn (such as the one Gerard usually wore), the temperature was acquiring an annoying habit of declining at inconvenient times. Such as when Gerard left his car for ten minutes to get coffee. And that just wasn’t something you wanted to come back to.

Gerard sat down in his car again, put one of his cups of coffee in the cup holder and continued (not that he had stopped) to sip (gulp) cautiously (quickly) on the one in his hand (hand). He could have cared less that his throat was burning, his car was now uncomfortably chilly on the inside, and he might just have to serve a detention for skipping school two days in the a row, because about twenty minutes ago a certain boy with multi-colored hair made strange, unnatural things happen to his insides. Things he liked. Gerard took another mouthful of strong, black coffee and swallowed it, now sure that his esophagus was melting out of his throat. He leaned back far into his seat and out his feet up on the dashboard. He could feel the cell phone in his back pocket digging into his flesh uncomfortably, but didn’t feel like exerting the energy required to move.

Gerard starred out the front window. The sun was out and the clouds from earlier had dissipated, leaving a flawless, endless blue above him. It was like nature was taunting him. It looked so warm but was really becoming uncomfortable. Gerard cursed global warming and hoped he could at least give Frank a good kiss before the earth decided to melt. He swallowed. The thought of seriously kissing Frank awoke mixed feelings inside his stomach. One of these was anxious, curious. He wanted to try it. Maybe sneak it in when they were alone again; just graze his cheek with his lips. Something else inside him was nervous and scared. That part of him didn’t want to kiss Frank, didn’t want to jeopardize the good thing he already had, that he may never get again/. The feelings that didn’t want to mix, like oil and water. They just sloshed around inside him until he tried to mentally will them away. After a few more minutes for heavy gulping, he finished his coffee, threw the empty Styrofoam cup in the back seat somewhere, popped the plastic lid off the second cup of coffee, and started to drink. Gerard didn’t like to think that he had addictions (save for alcohol, anti-depressants, the occasional joint, cigarettes, comic books and now Frank), but if he didn’t have one…or /four cups of coffee in his system for an extended period of time, then God have mercy on the pour soul to cross his path. He breathed in…and breathed out again. His body was heating up from the coffee, his mind was slowing down. It actually felt nice to be alone for a while, even if it meant sitting in his car outside a coffee shop. It meant that he could think without interruptions. Gerard held onto his coffee, the warmth seeping through to his hands, while his eyelids became heavy.

He was thinking about Frank again. How could he not, the boy was now his obsession. A few days ago in the gym locker room, Gerard had nervously glanced over at Frank while they were changing. This always made him feel dirty, sneaky, like some pervert who watches girls change through their open windows, but he simply couldn’t resist. When Gerard looked over, pretending to have dropped his gym shirt on the floor, he noticed that Frank had tattoos scattered all over his lightly tanned flesh. Gerard always liked the color of his skin. It wasn’t tanned like the jocks who spent all their time training outside or the preps who practically lived at the beach in the summer. It was a light, natural tan, and Gerard guessed that he probably had some Italian in him somewhere. The dark ink was on his arm, his fingers, in between his shoulder blades, on his neck. There was even a small tattoo just below his navel that snaked around his prominent hip bones to his back. Gerard had had to stop himself from starring. He didn’t know where he went that they would offer him service since he was a minor, but whoever did the many pieces of art now drawn into his skin was no novice. They didn’t look sloppy or even random: each one seemed to have a place, a meaning, and while Gerard was deathly afraid of needles (his trips to the doctor’s often ending interrupted with panic attacks) and generally opposed tattoos in general, he couldn’t help but find them extremely attractive. He wondered what…/other/ tattoos Frank had. Maybe there were some he hadn’t seen yet.

Gerard felt dirty again, but the temptation was too much. Plus, there was no one around/, right? And /thinking wasn’t that bad…was it? No, no. Of course it wasn’t. Gerard bit down on his bottom lip for a moment then released it, his eyes still closed. He sighed to himself.

This was probably how most boys felt about girls, he realized. Of course Gerard would have no idea what it was like to be sexually attracted to a girl. He’d been aware of his sexuality since he was twelve. There had been a time, a desperate time, when he was about thirteen and in the seventh grade when he tried to convince himself that he liked girls. After a total of what he assumed was many hours, he told himself that he “liked” (a term that one would assume would die off after the fifth grade, but followed like a plague all the way through high school) the most pretty, popular girl in their tiny school. Looking back on it, Gerard doesn’t even remember her name. It was probably something soft and pretty, something feminine that mothers always named their daughters. Something like…Katie. Maybe that was it. Anyway, he told himself that he really liked this girl with her long, straight brown hair, large eyes, and pretty little figure. He couldn’t like boys because her liked her/, and he just /thought he liked boys because he was unpopular and desperate and she was popular and cute. And this theory suited him just fine for a while. Until “Katie” got a boyfriend.

Gerard had no idea what Boyfriend’s name was but God, he was…he was so fucking cute. Boyfriend had spiky brown hair and muscular arms because he played a lot of football and he was tall and cute and every other girl in the school (and Gerard) wanted him. He supposed that at the time that he knew Boyfriend’s name because he distinctly remembered sitting at his little desk that opened up so he could pull out his pens and pencil sharpener and markers when they needed to do a project, and writing Boyfriend’s name over and over in his notebook along with little hearts and pretty colors. Gerard also remembered how carefully he hid that notebook. Seventh grade was the year he started writing and drawing. He’d sketch the people around him, things he saw. He’d write poems and songs and little stories about whatever he was feeling. When no one was looking, he was proud of it. When surrounded by students, he felt ashamed. And the sense of shame, the one that still haunted him, the one that forced him to lock the cabinet where he kept all his drawings and writing, overwhelmed him when those cruel little thirteen year-old bastards stole that notebook.

Gerard shook his head and crinkled his nose slightly. Eyes still closed, he took another sip from his coffee, finding that it was starting to get cold. He tried to think about something else.

The car was definitely warm. A comfortable, sleepy sort of warm. He wondered what it felt like to kiss someone. Not just the press of lips on lips, but really kiss; the kind that left your mouth and tongue sore and your lips pleasantly bruised. Gerard opened his eyes slightly and gently touched his lips with his middle and index fingers. He traced his lips for a moment and finally concluded that it was nowhere near as satisfying as actual contact with another human being was…or at least, that’s how he imagined it. Imagine was all he could do, as the majority of people didn’t want to date (let alone kiss) the kid who didn’t talk, wore mostly black, kept his long, dark hair in his face, and was probably gay.

He wondered what Frank’s lips were like. Probably soft, yet somewhat firm. Gerard wondered what he would do with his hands if they kissed. He couldn’t just leave them hanging on the ends of his arms, doing nothing. Maybe if Frank did something first, he could just do the same thing with a small amount of variation to it. There was a sort of nervous, embarrassed caution as he imagined the two of them in his car; grasping hair and clothes, breath forced passed their lips, names gasped in a moment of passion. It was amazing how those simple thoughts, fantasizes, whatever you liked to call them, awoke parts of Gerard that he didn’t think existed.

Simply, sex wasn’t his thing. He wasn’t really into pornography (he was actually sort of creeped out by the idea of someone filming you during something so personal and passionate). He wasn’t perpetually horny like Finch, who liked to describe to him her sex dreams with amazing detail. And seeing as he hadn’t had sex yet, that was one addiction he definitely didn’t suffer from. But something about Frank (his clothes, his hair, his smell, that /body/) made him feel like a cat in heat. And Gerard supposed that being sexually attracted to someone who could potentially be your partner wasn’t a bad thing, but there were times when he felt as though the thoughts and feelings he had towards Frank were almost disrespectful…like when he spent his extra time dreaming up makeout scenes, or woke up with wet sheets and uncomfortably tight boxers. And those dreams weren’t entirely his fault, seeing as he couldn’t exactly control what his brain decided to play during his sleeping hours, but there was a sense of shame to it. One he wasn’t used to- one he wasn’t comfortable with.

There was a sudden buzzing in his back pocket, and Gerard’s cup of (now cold) coffee almost made its way onto his lap. Lucky for him, the ludicrous amount of caffeine in his system allowed him the ability of being able to nearly jump out of his seat without splashing his clothes with near-black liquid. Or maybe it was luck. Regardless, his clothes were clean. Gerard took his legs off of the dashboard and reached into his back pocket for his phone. The small, electronic screen read FINCH! in bright blue letters. The phone call was about due: It was their lunch break. He flipped open the cover and placed it to his ear.

“Hello?” he answered. The weird thing about answering cell phones is that, despite the fact that the name of the person who is calling you is always clearly displayed, the person answering the phone almost always feels the need to answer as if a stranger is calling. Gerard was no exception to this rule and his word came out as more of an uncertain question than a statement.

“/Aha…Gee-Gee…/” Came Finch’s mocking laughter. “Where…Like, how do I ask this…Where the fuck are you?! I was in my drawing class alone! You know how those people in their don’t like us! I had to face that alone!”

Gerard giggled slightly. His mood was still euphoric.

“Sorry, I had to get outta there,” he replied. “I got some coffee and I’ve just been sitting here for a while.”

“What’re you so giggly about?” Finch asked slyly. For either of them to hide something from the other was nearly impossible. Gerard did that sort of excited shimmy in his seat that people always do when they’re anxious.

“Frank and I are gonna hang out,” he said. He sounded like an excited little boy. He heard Finch squeal. There were loud, jumbled sounds in the background, like the sound of a hundred voices rumbling over each other. He assumed she was in the cafeteria.

“Gee-Gee!” She squeaked with excitement. “That’s so cute! Which one of you’s gonna be the man in the relationship?!” Gerard made a sound between a laugh, a snort, and a cough.

“What the hell does that mean?”

“Like, which one of you’s gonna be on top-?”

Gerard was in the middle of laughing (partly out of disgust) when he heard another voice. In was very low and rumbled, even through the phone. He heard Finch snap back some profanities.

“I’m just calling a friend to make sure he’s okay!” he heard Finch cry. This time he heard the voice talk back.

“You can’t have your cell phone in the cafeteria.”

“Fuck you! You’re not even a teacher! You’re a fucking student! A student who spends his lunch hour patrolling the cafeteria for rule-breaking cell phone users! Like, what is that? What possessed you to want to do this?”

Gerard gave a dry laugh. Finch was apparently getting hassled by the student who usually stood in the corner of the cafeteria waiting for other students to try and use their cell phones during lunch so he could confiscate them. The funny thing was, Finch never stopped talking, even when backed into a corner. Even when she was wrong, she ran her mouth like she was right until the other person eventually gave up.

“I’m going to have to take your phone,” Gerard heard the low voice say through the rumble of a hundred other students in the lunch room. “You can get it from the office at the end of the-”

“No!” Finch protested. “I’m asking my friend about if he’s gonna bottom or not and you’re just interrupting! Now I may never find out!”

“You-”

“-No!”

“-Give me the phone-”

“-Go back to your corner and think about what you’ve done!”

“-You’ll get a detention!”

“-THIS IS WHY NOBODY LIKES YOU!”

“I WOULDN’T BE TALKING!”

Gerard was on the verge of hysterics when he heard Finch gasp dramatically. By the sound of it, she hadn’t fought with anyone all day. He knew she was standing up now, puffing herself out, making herself look as intimidating as possible in her giant black boots, lengthy trench coat, and eyes sharp enough to gut a small animal. The “cell phone guy” was tall, but not very intimidating. He had a sort of “passive-aggressive” look to him.

”GET OUT! THIS CELL PHONE BELONGS TO NO ONE!...WHAT?! WHAT?! NO! … PUT YOUR DAMN PEN AND PAPER AWAY, THEY WON’T HELP YOU NOW!”

Gerard was nearly sobbing with laughter into the phone. “Tell him to get laid.”

“GERARD SAYS YOU SHOULD GET FUCKED UP THE ASS!”

“That isn’t what I said but we’ll go with it!” Gerard laughed into the phone. He heard her shout out several more profanities, threats, and sexual positions before she finally huffed. He assumed she sat down again.

“Well, he’s gone for now,” she said. “He’ll probably be back in a few minutes to drag me away. So tell me quick, what’re you two gonna do?” Gerard breathed into the phone.

“Well, I really hadn’t thought of it yet,” he replied. He gave a tired sort of laugh and rubbed the back of his head. “Maybe we’ll watch one of the horror movies in my collection.” He heard Finch snort.

”Nerd.” She was only half-joking by the sound of her tone. “But you’re probably both nerds so I’m going to assume it’s okay.” Gerard asked why Frankie wasn’t at lunch with her and he heard her shrug and say she didn’t know. “Is he here today?” she asked.

“Yeah, that’s how we figured we’d hang later,” Gerard explained, putting his feet back on the dashboard. “…We sorta talked in my car this morning. I told him I wasn’t coming back today.” He remembered how Frank had looked that morning, dripping with rain, his hair matted down to hi perfect face, his eyes large and beautiful and he shivered.

“Pfft. Tell him and not me. But seriously, dude. Maybe that’s why he’s not here. He knew you weren’t going to be at lunch.” Gerard smiled a little at this thought. Maybe that was it. Maybe not. It didn’t matter; the sheer possibility made his heart feel as though it had been inflated with helium. Neither of them spoke for a few moments, letting Gerard bask in the warmth he felt. It was a warmth he hadn’t experienced in a long time. He suddenly heard Finch groan out of frustration.

“What the fuck!/” she cursed loudly. “Okay, those dickheads are back…shit, they brought like, three teachers. Damn it. Okay, I’ll talk to you later if I’m not dead. Bye, Gee-Gee.” He said goodbye to her and closed his phone with a /snap! sound. He took a deep breath, feeling as though he’d somehow aired out his insides of all the dust and filth. It was a good, clean feeling. He liked it. He wanted it to stay.

Gerard drove himself home. It was the afternoon, and with his brother at school and both his parents at different jobs, the house was empty. He made his way to the basement, where his room was. He loved the location of his room. His own private quarter was completely secluded, away from everyone else. It was dark, the only outside light source being a very small, rectangular window that let in a small beam of yellow light. There were posters on every inch of the grey walls, his bed was backed into a corner, the whole place was a mess. CDs were scattered on almost every surface, the wooden desk he usually sketched at had papers and books and notebooks lying in piles; heaps of unwashed clothes littered the floor and the room smelled like cigarettes (much to the dismay of his mother). But it was home. It was where he drew and wrote in peace. Nobody could judge him inside those four walls. He flicked on the light switch (about three lamps simultaneously bursting to life) and plopped down onto his bed. His muscles relaxed. Sleep threatened to consume him. Then his phone buzzed. Gerard pulled it out and felt the nervousness and joy and fear and bliss return to sloshing in his stomach.

Frank was calling.