By novembersmith 4 страница

“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.”

This was not actually a sentiment Gerard was familiar with. Gerard was not generally a fan of the sun, per se, but Frank was looking at him hopefully and fuck, Gerard could already tell this was going to be a problem.

“Okay,” he said gamely, and hoped to God it was too cold for there to be ticks out. “Lay on, MacDuff.”

“Anyone ever told you you’re fucking bizarre?” Frank asked, kicking at a pile of leaves to make sure nothing unpleasantly moist lurked beneath before motioning Gerard forward.

“I’m fucking charming,” Gerard quipped, and then had to fight a blush when Frank beamed at him and said, “You totally are. I am charmed as fuck.”

Half an hour or so later, they wandered past a dilapidated stone house and Gerard halted mid-sentence, abandoning their fierce debate on whether or not the Sandman graphic novels should be adapted to film (Frank a definite yes, Gerard an emphatic no) to stare at it. There had been dilapidated houses in Jersey, sure, and old ruined factories with broken glass windows, but this was different. This was another scale entirely.

The house was barely identifiable, trees growing throughout, the front wall a crumbling pile of rubble, the chimney barely standing. Ruins, real ruins, how fucking cool. He had to admit Vermont had atmosphere, if nothing else. He dug in his pockets and found a couple receipts big enough to sketch on.

“Hey, Frank, you got a pen?” he asked. “This fucker at school took my bag earlier. Fucking assholes. At least he didn’t shove me around this time, I guess.”

Frank shook his head and scowled. “Someone shoved you around?”

“Well, yeah,” Gerard said, and fingered the cut on his lip, mildly embarrassed. He bet people never picked on Frank. Frank was hardcore, even if he was basically a midget. Frank looked like he could fuck shit up, if he wanted. Gerard mainly glared at people and made kissy faces, and then got punched and had his bag thrown into garbage. “’S no big deal, though,” Gerard added airily, and shoved his hands in his pockets, fiddling with loose change and his lighter. “Those fuckers don’t scare me.”

When he looked back up Frank was suddenly right in front of him, inches from his face. Gerard drew in a quick, startled breath and then Frank was grabbing Gerard’s shoulder, the line of his mouth hard. “You should be scared, Gee. You need to watch yourself around guys like that,” he said intently. “People out here can be vicious close-minded pigfuckers. Stay out of their way.”

“I didn’t exactly go up and kick them in the shins or anything,” Gerard said, taken aback and, really, sort of insulted. He knew all about close-minded fuckers, he didn’t go seek them out—well. He sort of maybe had provoked them, a little, but they’d provoked him first. Anyway, Gerard had had worse back home, before Mikey tricked him into being friends with Pete Wentz, and before Gabe Saporta had adopted him.

The point was, Gerard could take a bunch of high school jocks flexing their hetero muscles for a few months, especially if he had someone awesome and strange like Frank to hang out with in the meantime. But Frank looked intense, like he did think it was a big deal. Gerard wasn’t really interested in reliving the experience, though, or being lectured on it, even if the lecture was well-meaning, or driven by righteous fury or whatever. Time to change the subject.

“Um,” he said diffidently, searching his pockets for his Marlboros. “Sure, yeah. Whatever, I’ll be careful. Stay out of their way, all that. ’Nother cigarette?”

Another second or so passed with Frank still staring at him, hand tight on Gerard’s shoulder, before he sort of shook himself, face clearing.

“Hell yeah, if you’re offering. I never pass up a free smoke.”

They started walking again, winding around past the collapsed walls and what looked like an old, mossy well. Gerard eyed Frank a little warily, but he’d totally calmed down, was all bright and bubbly again, all traces of the intense emotion he’d just been showing completely wiped away. Which was kind of weird. But he guessed living in Glen Fell would do that to you.

Gerard had always thought woods were supposed to be quiet, but there were a thousand tiny noises filling the spaces in their conversation: distant birds, something crackling through the undergrowth, the wind in the trees. The woods here were thicker, and the moldering leaves blanketed the forest floor in deep drifts. Gerard couldn’t believe he’d actually let Frank lead him off the path, now that he thought about it—he couldn’t follow the most basic directions on a street map and now he was in the middle of the woods somewhere, watching Frank. He barely knew Frank—how sure was he that Frank hadn’t gotten them blitheringly lost?

Frank had bopped a few more yards ahead, like a punk will-o’-the-wisp, before he looked back and realized that no, Gerard had actually stopped and wasn’t merely temporarily delayed by vegetation.

“Alright, Gee?” he called, a strange note in his voice, bangs over his eyes.

“Yeah,” Gerard replied slowly, and ran a hand through his hair, trying not to freak out. Frank probably knew where they were going. “Just, you know. Smoker’s lung. Movement, bleah,” He shrugged. “Uh. So. Is it much farther, the mill or whatever?”

Frank bounded back—like Tigger, Gerard thought inanely, and pictured Frank in Halloween colors, which would be an awesome portrait, he’d have to get out his good markers when he got home. And okay, Frank either must be freezing or he just had no concept of personal space, because he was hovering about two inches from Gerard’s nose. No one did that, got close to him like that, except his Mom and Mikey and sometimes Pete, because Pete was like an attack monkey of inappropriate hugging.

“’S not far at all,” Frank said happily and ruffled Gerard’s hair, leaning in even closer, what the fuck. Gerard stared at Frank’s neck, at the inky black scorpion crawling towards the line of his jaw, and had a sudden blinding urge to lean over and scrape his teeth over Frank’s skin. “Plus, I have a surprise for you. I’m pretty sure you’ll totally love it—it’s fucking awesome.”

“How awesome, on a scale of Spiderman to Rob Zombie?” Ten points for his voice not shaking, and twelve zillion points for not freaking out and running away. He needed to get home soon, seriously. Home, where there were lights and heating and coffee and cold showers.

“Rob Zombie dueling Batman levels of awesome. It’s creepy cool. Don’t punk out on me now, Gee, c’mon! We can take a break if you really have to be a pussy about it, though. Do you need a break?” Frank said, completely oblivious to Gerard’s inner struggles. “It’ll be dark soon, I think, but I can get you back to the school, if you’re worried. The dark doesn’t bother me.”

Gerard huffed shakily and scuffed a toe against the forest floor as he weighed his options. The ground here was deep with leaves and fallen branches, and smelled rich and earthy when he overturned it with his shoe. “Like a fresh grave,” he said to himself absently, in his best Cryptkeeper voice, and then shook himself. Okay, being weird in public again. This town was totally warping his brain. “Man, I gotta get out of here,” he said ruefully.

Frank frowned abruptly and stepped back, shoving his hands in his pockets.

“Or, we can go back now, if you want. ‘S okay.”

Gerard blinked. It obviously wasn’t okay. Frank was looking away from Gerard, scowling, his shoulders slumped. He looked almost… disappointed, like Gerard had let him down somehow.

“Huh?” Gerard said intelligently, and Frank shrugged.

“If you wanna go, we can go.”

“Oh!” Gerard said. “No, that’s not—that’s not what I meant. I don’t want to miss out on your, uh, super cool creepy surprise, honest. It sounds amazing. But I probably should get going eventually. I have to be home in time to visit Mikey, you know?” Frank eyed him, looking hopeful, eyes big and that damned dimple coming back into play on his face.

And okay, Frank liked Alan Moore and played guitar and loved punk and the Misfits and his favorite movie was the The Devil’s Rejects, and Gerard didn’t have a crush or anything, okay. But Frank was pretty damned awesome, even if he did have some mood swing issues. Gerard was pretty moody himself.

On the other hand, it was fucking cold, and getting colder, and even though he liked Frank, really, they’d had only met yesterday. Gerard was never like this with strangers. It was awesome, but also weird.

Frank was almost all in shadow now; it was getting pretty late. They’d been out here wandering for hours, just talking, which was weird all on its own. And then the significance of the shadows hit him, because he was a fucking moron and hadn’t even thought about what time it was. Holy fuck. Fuck, he had to be home, like, an hour ago.

“Shit! Shit shit shit! Frank, what time is it?” he asked, frantic. Frank stopped looking pissy and mournful, and started staring at Gerard as though he had live lobsters crawling out of his ears, like Ralphie from A Christmas Story. Possibly because Gerard had grabbed two handfuls of his own hair and was pacing in frantic, tiny circles. He was so screwed.

“Dude,” Frank said in a hushed voice as Gerard nearly tripped over a giant rock, fucking nature, with all the fucking rocks, and trees, and sunsets. Frank had an unwillingly fascinated look on his face, like he thought Gerard might start speaking in tongues at any second. “I think it’s almost six? I dunno. Are you okay?”

“Fuck, my mom’s gonna flip. Mikey’s gonna flip. I’m going to miss visiting hours, I can’t fucking—I’m such an asshole.”

“Ohhh,” Frank said. “Oh, man, it’s okay, Gee. Don’t worry, it’s not far. We’ll take a short cut. Uh. Calm down. Breathe?”

Gerard tried to glare at him, but he was too busy freaking out with guilt and self-loathing for it to really take. It was only Mikey’s second day here, and Gerard was already letting him down. Fuck.

Frank started herding Gerard back the way they’d come, which, now that he looked at it, was a pretty clear trail of skid marks in the dirt and broken branches and crushed bushes. Crushed bushes filled with thorns, he thought darkly, rubbing at an angry scratch on his wrist. Frank’s hand had wandered back onto Gerard’s sleeve and all of his energy was going towards not leaning into Frank.

It wasn’t that it freaked Gerard out, exactly, to be out in the woods at night—it was actually pretty fucking cool, in a novel sort of way. He totally dug the creepy scuttling sounds in the underbrush and the looming darkness, though it did up his chances of tripping on shit. Just, this wasn’t exactly Gerard’s realm of expertise. He kept close to Frank, who looked totally serene in the dim light. Hopefully that meant they weren’t lost beyond all hope or knowledge.

“Fuck,” Frank said, breaking the silence between them as he hauled Gerard back onto the main path, thank God. “I’ll just show you the graveyard another time, if you still want.” Gerard stared at him, forgetting for a moment how fucking late he was.

“Seriously?” he said, and okay, maybe his voice went all high-pitched with glee. But seriously, a graveyard. How awesomely Halloween was that? “An abandoned graveyard! That’s so cool, is it, like, in the woods? How’d you find it?”

Frank shot him a tiny, delighted smile, like maybe he’d thought Gerard wouldn’t think a ruined graveyard from the 1700s in the middle of a forest was cool. Which was clearly ridiculous. Gerard was tempted to go tearing off with Frank into the woods right now. It sounded just like a fucking movie set.

“I’ve been exploring out here for a while,” Frank told him, smile audible in his voice, which had the effect of making Gerard beam in response, and then they just smiled at each other for a moment before Frank visibly shook himself and reminded Gerard they had to keep going.

As they walked, Frank adopted a story-telling voice, launching into the story of how Glen Fell had been a little mill town, how it had gotten abandoned and overgrown by the forest when the river shifted, rebuilt three miles away years later. Apparently you could still see parts of the graveyard—old broken marble angels and mossy tombstones, and walk through some of the houses that were still standing.

It took a while for Gerard to remember (re-remember) that he was late, because fuck, it was like walking through a campfire tale, with Frank narrating, grinning evilly and cackling at how Gerard jumped when he ran a cold finger along the back of his neck. Gerard tried to focus on how much of a dick Frank was, instead of on how Frank’s fingers hooked into his belt loops, tugging his jeans low as he walked to show a flat stomach with dark words edging above the hemline. He wasn’t sure how much success he had, to be honest. He’d definitely figured out the word ‘Destroy’ was involved by the time they’d reached the forest’s edge.

Gerard continuing onward a few halting steps into the field, before craning his head and looking back at Frank, who’d stopped for some reason, hands in his pockets.

“Aren’t you coming?” Gerard asked, confused.

Frank shook his head. “No,” he said. “I’m… I’m just, going to hang out here for a while longer. Got shit to do. You know the way, though, right?”

Gerard rolled his eyes. Like the fucking high school wasn’t right fucking behind him, he wasn’t that inept.

“Just checking.” Frank grinned a little, and then looked down at his feet. “Fucking blows you have to leave already.”

Gerard had to go, like yesterday, but Frank looked so oddly wistful he couldn’t bring himself to just brush the guy off and sprint for home.

“Well, you could, I don’t know, come by my place, if you want? Tomorrow, I mean,” He had a brief moment of insanity where he almost invited Frank to come to the hospital with him and his mom, but luckily he managed to bite his tongue on that before it escaped.

“Nahh,” Frank said, still not meeting Gerard’s eyes. “Thanks, though. But, um. You could come back here, and we could hike the rest of the way? I was sort of taking you the long way around today. Didn’t realize you had a time limit.”

Gerard was about to disagree vehemently—he was covered in thorns and scratches and mud. It wasn’t fair, Frank seemed basically unscathed and he’d stepped in just as many mud puddles and through as many brambles as Gerard. Unfortunately, Gerard was fucking late and didn’t have time to debate how much the forest sucked donkey balls. He also had a sneaking suspicion that Frank might have been taking him through the thorniest, muddiest patches on purpose, because Frank was an asshole like that. But Gerard would let it go, because he was the bigger person, and also because it was obnoxiously endearing, somehow.

“Sure,” he sighed. “You still have to show me the graveyard, right?” A smile flickered on Frank’s face, and Gerard wavered. He wanted to stay, he realized incredulously. He wanted to stay in the treacherous forest, which as night had fallen had gotten even more deadly and unnerving. The forest here had thinned and purpling sky showed between the branches, and Frank looked otherworldly standing there, pale against the darkness.

Gerard’s fingers twitched. “I’ll bring my sketchbook next time,” he said, and that got a real grin out of Frank at last.

“Oh man, I’d love to see you sketch, Gee. That’d be fucking sweet,” Frank said earnestly and sort of hugged himself and peered out from under his bangs. “You sure you can’t stay longer?”

Gerard flailed mentally for a moment. He had to go, his Mom was going to leave without him.

“Yeah,” he said, and spun on his heel resolutely. “See you tomorrow, Frank!” he called over his shoulder, and jogged off, stopping now and then to pound his chest, because wow, he was out of shape. By the time he’d gotten to the house, his Mom already in the car and glaring at him from the driver’s seat, it was full darkness.

Weird. He hoped Frank had a flashlight out there, in the woods. Doing whatever the fuck it was he was doing. Maybe he’d lost something?

Whatever. He’d ask tomorrow at school.

Дата добавления: 2014-12-23