The anatomy of a fall 3 page

There was a giant maple tree next to the band room, and the picnic tables beneath it were strewn with bright red leaves and those little helicopter seeds. A few kids were loitering around, some sitting on the tree’s roots and balancing their lunch trays on their knees, others eating at the rickety wooden picnic tables.

“Don’t worry,” Ray said, completely misinterpreting Gerard’s nervousness. “When it rains we have these beach umbrellas that we found in the band storage room, and we rig them to the tables. It works pretty well until it gets cold—then we usually invade the library.”

“You eat out here when it rains?” Gerard replied, horrified. Oh god, he was probably going to be eating grubs and acorns before the week was out. “Why does the band room have beach umbrellas? The beach is like a hundred miles from here.”

“For the rain,” Bob said mildly, and set his tray down on the warped wooden table. “Hey Patrick, Worm. This is Gerard.”

A diminutive guy wearing a trucker hat and a blank expression looked up from the sheets of music he was scribbling on and mumbled hello before turning back to his paper, the brim of his hat hiding his eyes.

“Hey,” the bigger guy said, toying with his bottle of orange juice and smiling. He had some killer tattoos, Gerard noticed. Maybe he knew Frank. “I’m Worm, French horn. Patrick plays everything; drums, sax, guitar. You’re the new senior, right? You play anything?”

“Yeah, I’m a senior,” Gerard said and sat down at the far edge of the table next to Ray. Ray and Bob were both leaning over across the table and poking at Patrick’s sheet music, debating whether the staccato in the third measure was too much. “And, no, I don’t play anything. Besides, like, the kazoo. But, um. Sometimes I sing?”

This was an exaggeration. Gerard sang in the shower, and to Mikey, and in seventh and eighth grade he’d been the lead tenor for the chorus group, but in high school he’d abandoned extracurricular activities in favor of drawing comics in the basement. All the guys perked up, though, and Gerard realized he may have made a tactical error as they leaned towards him, eyes eager.

“Oh, yeah? Patrick sings too, he’s phenomenal. Too bad we don’t have chorus here,” Worm said over Patrick’s denials. “Mr. Curtis is thinking of adding a vocals section to the band, though, you should definitely audition if he does.”

Gerard frowned and poked at the helicopter seed that had landed on the arm of his hoodie, picked it up and watched it twirl off in the light breeze to land in a drift of leaves near Bob’s foot. “Uh, maybe,” he said, avoiding eye contact. “I dunno.”

“How do you like Glen Fell?” Patrick interjected with an expression of solidarity, cutting off an enthusiastic-looking Ray who’d already started to rattle something about try-outs and practice sessions. “I know it’s pretty small.”

Gerard pondered how to respond to this blatant understatement.

“Really fucking small, you mean,” Bob said, snorting and stealing one of Gerard’s fries. Gerard gloated a little at the success of his plan. Now he just had to stealthily slip his spaghetti, noodle by disgusting noodle, under the table. Ray would never notice. He’d cover up the evidence with dead leaves.

“It is a little smaller than I’m used to,” Gerard admitted, twirling the rubbery spaghetti with his fork. “I keep thinking the townspeople are gonna come up and ask me to join their lottery and, like, fucking stone me to death in the town square or something.”

Just as he was freaking out that that had maybe, just maybe, been a little bit insensitive, Patrick snorted into his chocolate milk.

“Yeah,” Patrick said, looking up at Gerard and smiling crookedly, “We’ve definitely got that wholesome Norman Rockwell creepiness going on. Just wait ‘til you see the corn mazes. About fifteen of them pop up around Halloween.”

Ray, who was diligently cutting his spaghetti into manageable portions and chewing carefully, swallowed and nodded earnestly. “Yeah, man, I got lost in one of those mazes when I was six. Scarred for life, man. I can’t even eat creamed corn now.”

“And,” Worm said conspiratorially, “he totally had to be excused from class when we were watching Children of the Corn during English last Halloween.”

Ray tossed one of his fries at Worm’s head, scowling. “It’s fucking creepy, dude. Little kids and corn will never not be creepy.”

Gerard secretly agreed with Ray. Little kids were totally sinister, and there was no way in hell he was ever going into a cornfield without a giant mirror on a stick, or a gun, or someone else to climb on top of. He wondered if Frank liked the corn mazes, if he went to the local ‘Halloween Extravaganza.’ There were black and orange posters for it all throughout town, some already ragged and flapping in the breeze, promising hay rides, a haunted house run by the local baseball team—Gerard could safely say that he’d be sitting that one out—and, this was the best part: a greased pole with a Grand Prize for whoever could climb to the top of it. Norman Rockwell had nothing on this shit.

Bob was nodding along. “Ray’s just traumatized because he had to teach the Laughlins’ kids the mandolin that weekend.”

“Ohhhhh,” Patrick said in understanding, grinning. “The WASPs in training. Gotcha. Probably they have nothing to do with devil-worship, though. The kids seem sweet.”

Ray muttered into his coke bottle, scowling darkly.

“Anyway, besides the occasional escape attempt by McEwan’s cattle, there’s really nothing that exciting about the townfolk, promise. No serial killers or Satanists or anything,” Patrick continued, eyes back on the musical notation in front of him, frowning thoughtfully.

Bob stole another fry from Gerard. “Well, there was Mary Jenkins. She shot her husband, right?”

Worm rolled his eyes expressively as Gerard perked up. “In the twenties,” Worm said pointedly.

“Yeah,” Bob admitted. “Still. Happened here. And there were those two girls in, what, 1980? They had that suicide pact and both jumped of the Pequannock Bridge and drowned. That was pretty fucking creepy. Oh, that that one kid who disappeared before I moved here. You knew him, right, Toro?”

“Yeah,” Ray said, putting his fork down and resting his hand on his chin. “Yeah, he took guitar lessons from my mom when I was a kid. He always stayed late to jam with me, gave me these great CDs. Bowie, Black Flag, the Clash. God, I thought that guy totally wrote the book on cool, you know?”

“And this guy disappeared?” Gerard said, fascinated. The suicide girls were cool enough, but this had the unmistakable and irresistible allure of an unsolved mystery. It wasn’t a vampire cult or alien abductions and mysterious crop circles, but he still felt vaguely validated. The town was clearly a font of evil.

“Yeah, he missed school one day and just never showed up again,” Ray said, shredding a napkin and frowning. “It was a big deal. There were searches with dogs and police and everything. He had all these music scholarships, there was no way he’d have run away, and he was gonna graduate that spring. It’s fucking sad, you know?”

Patrick was nodding, shoving his sheet music into his bookbag and picking up his tray. “I remember that. It really was a big deal. I mean, I didn’t know what was going on or anything, I was only six, but my parents were part of the search party and I had to stay with Mrs. Jules every night for like two weeks. Brussels sprouts for dinner each night.”

“So this guy just vanished without a trace?” Gerard asked, covering the remains of his lunch subtly with a paper napkin and standing up as the rest of the band guys prepared to go.

“Yeah,” Ray said quietly. “Just, suddenly. Gone. Hey, Gerard, did you actually even eat anything? Here, at least eat my roll, jeez, your blood sugar must be hell by now.”

Bob groaned and hit Ray in the back of the head. “Seriously, ignore him,” he told Gerard. “His dad’s a nutritionist at the Trumbull Center—he was warped at a young age.”

They were all heading back into the cafeteria to dump off their trays when one of the younger band girls, who’d been looming around their table all throughout lunch, cornered Patrick by the milk dispenser. Ray and Bob were grinning to each other and Patrick was blushing furiously. Gerard fell back a little, feeling abruptly like an outsider all over again. He was just searching his pockets for his phone to send Mikey a text when the raised voices at the other end of the cafeteria caught his attention.

There was some commotion in the hall in front of the cafeteria. A few kids seemed nervous, but most of the bystanders just looked amused. For once, no one was paying much attention to Gerard—all focus was on this skinny little kid Gerard had seen near the band room earlier. He was wearing what Gerard could only assume was an un-ironic red bandana, cowboy style around his neck, which was sort of awesome. Currently he was staring at the ground, cheeks red and jaw clenched, as he mechanically gathered up his spilled notebooks and papers. He was clearly a freshman—there was no way he was more than thirteen—and as Gerard watched, Ted, jeering, dropped a can of soda next to the kid, soaking most of the books.

“What the fuck,” Gerard said, outraged.

It’s not like he didn’t know he was being a moron, somewhere in the back of his brain, but it took a backseat to the rising indignation. He stalked past Ted, who did a double-take, and crouched down amid the soggy papers. The crowd of students around them made a collective noise, a drawn out ohhhhthat was the universal signal for ‘crazy shit’s about to go down.’

Gerard hated people.

“You okay?” he asked the kid, who promptly glared at him, blushed, and looked away. Actually, he seemed younger than thirteen. Maybe twelve, Christ. Gerard ignored Ted, who was saying something generic about faggots and cocksucking. “Here, let me help.”

The papers were running with ink, clinging to the sticky floor, and Gerard manfully resisted the urge to try reading them—it was clearly some sort of poetry or lyrics, which probably explained why the local Heteronormative Gender Roles Patrol was after him. He was so sick of this fucking backwards, repressed town, and he’d been here two days. God, this poor kid had probably been here years. Gerard couldn’t even imagine.

He finally got most of the mess off the linoleum and handed it to the kid, who muttered thank you, never meeting Gerard’s eyes, and peeled off through the crowd at top speed. It was actually sort of impressive, the way he seamlessly melted into the throng of people and disappeared.

Gerard sat back on his heels. He could literally feel Ted’s eyes on his back. He’d always thought that was just an expression, but his skin was literally crawling with the knowledge that Ted was staring at him. Then he actually did feel something: Ted’s giant smelly fucking foot on his shoulder, shoving him over so that he just barely caught himself with his hands before falling into the puddle of inky soda. He scrambled to his feet and wondered if he could maybe emulate that kid and disappear somehow. He caught sight of Ray at the back of the crowd, and he was staring at Gerard with wide eyes and trying to say something, not that Gerard could fucking hear him. Even his hair looked upset.

“You done with your little fuckbuddy, now? Should have known you fags would stick together,” Ted sneered.

Gerard glared at Ted from under his bangs and fumed. Fucking asshole. He tried to edge past Ted towards freedom, but Ted caught him by the elbow, and apparently swinging baseball bats was good conditioning for squeezing the fuck out of someone’s arm. Gerard tried to twist loose and Ted tightened his grip.

“What the fuck’s your problem?” Gerard gritted out. “What the fuck did that kid ever do to you?”

“I don’t know who the fuck you think you are, princess,” Ted drawled, right up in Gerard’s face, close enough that his breath was gross and moist on Gerard’s cheek. Gerard recoiled backwards, wrenching free of Ted’s grip. Over Ted’s shoulder, he saw one of the teachers, the gym coach, maybe, look their way, smirk, and then deliberately turn around and keep walking. Fantastic.

“You really can’t take a hint, can you?” Isaac drawled from behind him. “Most people would have by now.”

“You don’t understand how things work around here,” Ted said, still entirely too close for comfort. “Go back to the city and take it up the ass there, fag, we don’t need that shit here. Take your pansy ass little brother, too. Hear he don’t breathe so good? Too fucking bad.”

Distantly Gerard could see Ray and Bob fighting their way through the crowd towards him, but they seemed very far away.

“You shut the fuck up about my brother,” he said, chest tight. His blood felt strange and fizzy, like it’d been replaced with carbonated water, or helium, or carbonic acid.

“Oh, who fucking cares,” Ted said, rocking back on his heels and grinning at Gerard, obviously pleased with the reaction he was getting. “Nobody cares if some loser kid dies. Except you, maybe. What, you gonna miss him sucking your cock?”

“You fucker,” Gerard said, fists clenching. He was just about to launch himself and, and—and do something, he didn’t know what, exactly. Pound in Ted’sfucking face, maybe, but Bob suddenly appeared out of nowhere and grabbed him by the arm, hauling backwards. Ray was in front of them, saying something high and defiant, and the crowd was finally breaking up and dispersing. Gerard couldn’t stop shaking. Bob kept pushing him down the hall, looking over his shoulder now and then.

“You okay?” Bob said quietly.

“That fucker,” Gerard said. It was hard to breathe. Little black spots were dancing in front of his eyes. “Who the fuck do they think they fucking are, the Gestapo? Fuck! And where were the fucking teachers? They were totally fucking around with that kid, it’s not fucking right.”

“C’mon, some nice soothing biology will help calm you down, dude,” Bob said, then sighed and pulled Gerard into a stairwell that was mostly empty—they were already late for class. “Look, you gotta be careful with those guys. Their fucking families own this town. It sucks.”

“That doesn’t mean they can just push little kids around and act like they’re the fucking second coming of the Hitler Youth!” Gerard seethed, and strongly considered punching the wall.

Bob looked at Gerard for a moment, and then said, “Yeah. I know. Want to skip class and go play Resident Evil 4?”

“Yes,” Gerard said fervently, then registered what Bob had said. It was enough to shock him out of his rage, slightly, that Bob, who seemed seriously cool, actually wanted to hang out with him outside of school. He’d been surprised enough that Frank seemed to like him, and now… Gerard never made friends this easily. He couldn’t decide whether to chalk that up to Glen Fell being weird as hell, or what.

“I mean, yes, but I can’t,” he amended hesitantly. “I told Ray I’d be his partner in biology today. We could see if he wants to skip too, I guess?”

“I can text him, but I’ll tell you right now he’s not gonna. Fucker takes being a responsible student way too seriously.”

Bob stuck his hands in his pockets and grinned at Gerard, and, okay, Gerard felt like maybe he was calming down a little. His legs had stopped shaking, anyway. Bob was good at being quiet, which helped. They shared a cigarette, and Gerard got his phone out to text Mikey. Sometime during the bandana-kid fiasco, Mikey had sent him a picture of what had to be his lunch, some discolored pasta and vegetables, with the caption save me. Another text came while Gerard and Bob were finally heading towards class, taking a roundabout route that avoided the attendance office. Gerard wasn’t too worried about being late for Biology – Mrs. Strobel didn’t care much about tardiness, or anything, it seemed like. He hoped Bob wouldn’t get in trouble though.

srsly bring poptarts ill owe you and petes sendin a pic of hs dck 2 hs entire fonebk bware. God, Pete was such an asshole. Gerard grinned at the phone and Bob raised an eyebrow.

“My brother,” he explained, and decided to leave the explanation about Pete’s exhibitionist tendencies out of it. Then Bob peeled off for Calculus, leaving Gerard to make his way down the hallway, keeping a wary eye out for Ted or one of his friends. Ray was waiting for him in the Biology room, shaking his head.

“I can’t believe you did that!” he exclaimed, dragging Gerard over to his station in the far right corner. “But that was totally awesome; they’ve been giving Ryan a hard time all year. The other band kids try to look out for him, but they can’t be there all the time, you know? And you have to be careful with those guys.”

Gerard stared at the dead frog in front of him, a sad twisted little amphibian corpse, waiting to be torn apart, and felt angry all over again.

“What the fuck ever, those assholes don’t scare me,” he said. He flipped open his notebook and started scrawling down the teacher’s brief, incoherent instructions, pen pushing down too hard and ripping tiny holes in the paper as he wrote.

“I mean, they can’t just fucking do whatever the fuck they want,” he hissed at Ray after the teacher had stopped talking and retreated behind her desk. “It’s not like they’re fucking gods.”

“Not gods, but, like, royalty, I dunno,” Ray said, looking alarmed. “Their families are a big deal in this town. Just, seriously, you have to be careful, okay? That’s all I’m saying.”

Gerard scowled. “Yeah, yeah,” he said, and remembered the look on Ted’s face when he said that shit about Mikey, as though he had any idea what it was like, how fucking awful it was to know his brother was sick and not to be able to do anything about it. His pencil snapped against the paper and he jumped, startled. “Fuck,” he said, and tried to calm himself down. He guessed it was time to get started on the frog, anyway. “Pass me the scalpel?”

Ray looked at him sideways. “No offense, dude, but no.”

Gerard cracked a smile. “Sorry, I’m being kind of an asshole, I guess.”

“Nah,” Ray said. “I totally get why you’re mad. I just don’t know that I want you holding sharp objects right now, you know?”

Gerard supposed that was fair.

“I just made it like fifty times worse for myself, didn’t I,” he said reluctantly, and poked the frog with his tweezers as Ray sliced open its belly. It oozed formaldehyde. Delightful. Still, even if Gerard had just antagonized Ted and his asshole friends again, he didn’t regret it. He knew what it was like to be picked on.

“Um,” Ray said, sticking out his tongue as he tried to make a straight cut. “Look, you just need to stick with us. Safety in numbers. Fuck, I just cut open the stomach, that is seriously gross. Ugh. But yeah, you should meet us by the band room after school, we were gonna meet up at my place and playGuitar Hero after practice, if you want to come.”

“I suck at Guitar Hero,” Gerard said, which came out a little brusquer than he meant it to. Fuck. “Plus I was supposed to meet someone after school. But, uh, thanks. Hey, do you have the lab book? I never picked one up.”

“Yep, and all the notes from the last month, I can make you copies tomorrow in the front office,” Ray said, nudging his own book over with gross, froggy hands. Gerard wrinkled his nose and took the notes gingerly. “So lemme give you my address and you can stop by my house later, if you want. It’s totally easy to get to, just head down Main Street, cross the bridge, and turn left at Maple.”

It was nice of Ray to ask, Gerard thought, staring at their dead frog. He still felt awkward and weird about showing up at Ray’s house, though—he hated interacting with other peoples’ parents; they always looked at him funny and acted like he was going to steal the silver, just because he wore black eyeliner and dyed his hair. Ray seemed pretty awesome, but maybe he was just sorry for him, the poor outcast new kid with the busted lip. Plus, Gerard had promised to meet up with Frank, who he hadn’t seen yet today at all. He frowned. He’d sort of thought Frank would stand out.

Ray accidentally flipped the dead frog over and got formaldehyde everywhere before Gerard could work himself up to asking obliquely about whether he knew any hot tattooed punk kids and if they might be currently, um, dating anyone.

Instead they spent the rest of the period trying to soak the crap up and stuff the stomach back in the frog’s abdominal cavity. It was depressingly clear that they were both going to fail the class, but at least Ray was pretty funny, and a total dork, too. Maybe he and Bob really did want to hang out.

For having just spent an hour staring at a dead frog, Gerard felt strangely better about the whole day.

So, naturally, when he was getting out of his last class, fucking Ted had to come out of fucking nowhere and grab Gerard’s bookbag. It happened so quickly it barely registered, but his bag was gone, and Ted had a stupid shit-eating grin all over his stupid, asshole face as he took off down the hall. Gerard gaped after him for a moment before realizing, fuck, that fucker actually took his bag, what the fuck. He almost lost Ted in the seething exodus of students; Ted passed through the hall effortlessly, but for Gerard it was fucking impenetrable, a wall of arms and torsos and condescending faces.

He finally caught up with him in the parking lot. Ted was smirking, leaning against the dumpster. His hands were empty and Gerard’s bag was nowhere to be seen. Gerard hated Ted so much. Fuck gay pride stickers on his truck, Gerard was going to make up some I LIKE SUCKING GOATS AND LITTLE BOYS stickers and put them on Ted’s face.

“Have fun with that, assclown,” Ted said cheerfully, slapping Gerard on the back. “Fuck with me again, and you’ll get worse.” He winked and stuck his hands in his pockets, sauntering off. Gerard hated him. There were still tons of people in the parking lot, so it wasn’t like Gerard could just go dumpster diving and be done with it. All he needed to cement himself in the lowest caste of the high school hierarchy—if he hadn’t already—would be to rummage around in the garbage in front of the entire school. Although it’d still probably be a more enjoyable experience than actually going to class here. Motherfucker.

He fumbled for his cell phone and checked the time. He supposed while he was waiting for the parking lot to empty, he could go meet with Frank. For all Frank’s bizarre social skills, he was at least friendly, and seemed to genuinely like Gerard’s company. It wasn’t like Gerard was exactly the poster child for normal himself, anyway. He’d just go hang out with Frank, explore some ruins, and if he wound up as a skin suit for a tiny, hot serial killer, well. It was better than going to this fucking school.

Frank was hovering at the edge of the woods, and when he spotted Gerard he beamed and waved enthusiastically.

“You came back!” he whooped, and he sounded fucking esctatic. Gerard smiled helplessly at him, and when Frank launched himself into an attack hug, Gerard was strangely okay with it. Frank let go almost immediately, but still stayed close, nose to nose, so that Gerard was staring down into his eyes and counting his freckles and could tell that Frank smelled strangely musty and sweet and smoky, which made him feel a like a creeper. He took a step backward and laughed awkwardly, trying to cover up the fact that he’d been sniffing Frank’s hair.

“Fuck, I was afraid I’d weirded you out yesterday and you wouldn’t come back,” Frank said, and Gerard bit his lip.

“Well,” he admitted. “I’m pretty fucking weird myself, so. Maybe we can, uh, be weird together?”

He decided against mentioning the serial killer theory, which was good, because Frank looked fucking delighted. He was rocking back and forth on his heels, hands shoved in his pockets, the grin on his face so wide it had to be painful.

“I knew you couldn’t resist me,” he smirked, eyes sparkling. “I’m fucking charming. Who wants to hang out with normal assholes anyway, right?”

He bumped shoulders with Gerard happily, and then started wandering deeper into the forest, tugging a bemused Gerard along by the sleeve. To be honest, Gerard was mainly charmed by the fact that there was someone in the world more socially awkward than he was.

“Seriously, I am so fucking glad you came back, this is going to be awesome,” Frank said, immediately proving the opposite to be true when he dragged Gerard through a patch of leaves, which looked innocent and beautiful and serene on the surface, jagged-edged red maples and round yellow birches, but turned out to have cold water and mud and probably fucking leeches lurking beneath. Frank totally ignored Gerard’s yelling and attempts to escape to higher ground, just plowing straight through until Gerard’s shoes were totally gross and soaked clear through to his skin.

“What the fuck, let me go!” Gerard moaned, trying to yank his sleeve free of Frank’s surprisingly stubborn grip. “Fuck, I can walk by myself, fucker. Let go. Augh, oh my god, this is disgusting.”

“Pfft,” Frank scoffed. “I saw you yesterday. You walked right into a thorn bush. You clearly need a keeper.”

“You dragged me into a mud puddle, asshole!”

“Oh, fuck,” Frank said, looking behind them at the patch of muddy, rucked-up leaves. “So I did. Whoops!” He looked totally unrepentant, because he was clearly a sadistic prick. He’d started giggling, this ridiculous high-pitched laugh that Gerard totally didn’t find cute at all. “Guess I’ll have to start paying better attention to where I’m walking, with you here. Since you’re such a delicate princess and all, I mean.”

Gerard tried to glare at him, but then Frank cunningly distracted him by complimenting the sharpie-black of his fingernails, taking Gerard’s hand and peering at it, and then Gerard was busy fighting a blush and explaining how fucking boring history class was, and what a shitty day he’d had and how he couldn’t believe he was living in a town where people put antlers on their cars, what the fuck was that? Frank commiserated, and went off on a complementary tangent on how hunting was such bullshit, and people should be more aware of what they ate, and how more people should be vegan, or at least go organic.

“There needs to be a new superhero, for, like animal rights or something,” Frank said earnestly. “They could join up with the Justice League.”

“Fuck yeah,” Gerard said, already scrolling through a mental flipbook of superhero designs. “We totally need an eco-terrorist superhero, that’d be badass. Nothing like Captain Planet, that’s too way fucking lame and cutesy. I don’t know, someone fucking edgy and sort of insane, a total outsider.”

“Like Rorschach?” Frank asked, looking at Gerard and grinning, his lip ring catching the autumn light and his eyes wide and sparkling, and okay, if Frank was a sociopathic killer, Gerard wasn’t entirely sure he cared.

“Dude,” he squealed. “Watchmen is the best thing ever.”

“Can’t fuck with Alan Moore,” Frank agreed. “Man, have you read From Hell? Fucking amazing, right?” Then he spent an eternity laughing and pointing at Gerard, who was stuck in a fucking thornbush, again, because he’d gotten too distracted staring at Frank in delight to watch where he was going. Which was, needless to say, hugely embarrassing. Ugh.

He had no idea where the fuck they were going, actually. They’d left the path at some point and were just threading their way through the trees. The temperature in the forest must drop a lot as it got later in the day, or maybe the weather was changing, because the afternoon-warm air had become downright fucking chilly.

Frank kept bumping shoulders with him and shooting him a conspiratorial look of glee and sometimes their hands brushed, and oh God, Gerard was fourteen. Thirteen, maybe.

“So, uh,” Gerard said, after he’d ripped himself free of another bush—after some reflection, he thought the new holes in his hoodie were sort of aesthetically pleasing, at least—“You actually know where we’re going, right? We’re not lost and wandering in circles?”

“I find your lack of faith disturbing,” Frank intoned menacingly, and then did a fucking awesome Darth Vader wheeze. Gerard couldn’t stop giggling. He suspected he might actually be gazing at Frank adoringly. But, c’mon, Star Wars reference! No nerd in the world would blame him. “By which I mean, fuck yeah, I know where I’m going,” Frank said. “C’mon, this way.”

“Hey, where are we going, by the way?” Gerard asked, and Frank was doing some sort of ridiculous soft-shoe through the fallen leaves, singing the chorus to Skulls, like he was deliberately trying to hit every single one of Gerard’s kinks in one conversation. He glanced back at Gerard over his shoulder and shrugged, crinkling his nose.

“Figured we could go look at the old mill? It’s pretty sweet, from, like, the 1700s. But no rush, it’s fucking nice out. Gotta soak up the last of the sun before winter starts beating the shit out of us, you know.”

Date: 2015-01-11; view: 775