You're So Dark (Frerard)

3. Unfun

The weather is almost non-depressive on the Sunday morning that Patrick decided that that's it. No more hiding in basements and fueling up on B-movies and perpetual darkness, it's time to choose another place to sit around and do nothing at. Brendon, of course, was on board with the plan, since nothing makes him happier than seeing a disgruntled Gerard, pulled out of his comfort zone and thrown into his danger zone that is the daylight. So, in only half an hour, his car is outside of Gerard's house, honking like there is no tomorrow. It's a good thing Gerard's learned that the fine art of over-accessorizing can knock even the laziest look of flares, coat and docs up a few notches. He'd even had a minute left to apply sunscreen.

The café they arrive at seems like a regular one for Patrick and Brendon, but Gerard probably wouldn't be able to find it on a map if he tried. It's tucked in somewhere between a couple of buildings and a dog park, almost invisible to the random passerby. It's pretty big once you've found your way in, though, and not at all uninviting with its vintage style interior - all in brown, gold and floral patterns. The waitress brought Gerard his English Breakfast in an actual tea pot, complete with that little milk jug, all made out of pearly white porcelain.

"There's a gig going on downtown next weekend," Patrick says. He looks like he could be a member of the 'Dead Poets' Society' today, with his cream-colored waistcoat and oxfords, which Brendon spent the first ten minutes of their meeting fawning over. Perfect balance of hot and smart, that's my boy, he'd said, legitimately looking like he might cry. "That band I was telling you about is playing Punk Rock Night."

"At 'The Crowbar'?" Brendon asks, mouth glossy from the butter in his croissant. "Man, we ought to go."

Patrick is quick to give Gerard details before he has to ask for them himself. "It's this small underground club, they usually throw themed events for all kinds of alt folk. Sometimes it'll be, like, a live show and sometimes it's just a regular club night. There's punk nights, raves, industrial, and yes, before you ask, goth nights, too."

"They make their money off of donations, so there isn't any kind of real entrance fee, you can give a dollar for all they care," says Brendon. "It's eighteen to get in, twenty-one to drink. But I know a guy who can get you a fake ID if you don't have one. At a bargain, too. Me and Patrick have gone to a couple of gigs already, no one gave us trouble."

"I won't need one," explains Gerard through a puff of smoke. "I'm turning nineteen next month."

"Oh," Brendon says like that explains a lot more than Gerard feels it does. He doesn't exactly think there's anything mystical in getting sick with mono at six years old, especially since it most likely had something to do with him insistently using other people's plastic straws. To make it worse, he thinks it was quite a silly feat for his mother to decide that the best way to handle the situation was to have him be held off one year because she 'didn't want to risk it'. "So that's why you're smarter than the rest of us. You cheated. Now you've got all this power you flaunt all over the place and nobody knows what's up, but you're actually just old and more acquainted with the secrets of life."

Gerard laughs, "Yeah, that one year really puts things in perspective. You children can only hope to see the things I'd seen."

"Don't be so condescending, grandpa. Is that a gray hair I spy?" Brendon shoots a look at Gerard's scalp, mouth agape. Patrick sighs his usual 'Brendon being over the top' sigh.

"Hey, now, kid," Gerard tries to mimic the way your usual twenty-three-year-old treats anyone below the drinking age, "watch your mouth. Patrick here is already at the top of my list of people I'm planning to share this archaic wisdom with. You'd be there, too, if you weren't so annoying."

"Guys," Patrick says, very quietly, and breaks off the pointless banter. "Ryan Ross."

Ryan can be seen through the window, just walking by, a Frappuccino in hand, one of the friends he's usually seen at school with pacing alongside him and listening to him talk. He glances briefly in their direction, probably feeling someone's eyes on him, and smiles directly at the three of them with a casual wave before turning the corner.

"He's acknowledged my existence," Brendon says, looking like someone just spilt boiled milk on him, "that velour jacket looks so good on him I think I'm going to decompose."

"Doesn't he always?" Gerard says, alluding to the multiple times he'd witnessed Ryan passing them by and saying 'hi guys' in the hallway.

"Ah," says Brendon, sadly, "you really have no clue, do you." It isn't pronounced as a question.

"As a matter of fact, no I do not," Gerard says, in a huff. The urge to tell him how stupid it looks when a hot guy in a red leather jacket feels sorry for himself is suddenly huge inside his body, but he decides against it. Perhaps it's because of the look Patrick's giving him, which reads 'do not bother' very clearly. "I'll go cry for a bit in the bathroom."

On a regular day, Gerard takes much pride in his persistent moral compass. However, the likes of human nature, inherently flawed, are now working against him. So is his own nasty temper which, no matter how trained, absolutely despises being denied information everyone around him already has. He cannot pass up the evident opportunity to gossip, opened up wide and calling him in. The only thing comforting him is his wild feeling that Brendon wouldn't actually want him to miss it. "Alright, what's up with all that?" he asks Patrick, only slightly annoyed, lighting another cigarette to go with the last of his tea. "It's been a week of my life with 'Ryan this', 'Ryan that', but Ryan what? Don't get me wrong, but I can't help but feel he's putting on a show for the sake of it."

"Sometimes I feel like he's putting on a show for the sake of it," Patrick says, exasperated. Brendon seems like quite a handful in general to Gerard, and he has a feeling that even Patrick's heart of gold is having a hard time putting up with it at all times. "He'll tell you it's the charm, the looks, the shoes or whatever but it's not. Brendon tries really hard to come off as shallow as a dinner plate."

"You'll realize, once you're my age, that I could easily do the math on that one myself."

Patrick rolls his eyes, but his face softens a bit. "It's kind of complicated. But I guess he can fill the gaps for you later." He inhales sharply, and says, "Bren used to be kind of a dickhead. In tenth grade, he'd sneak off every couple of nights and go partying. At gay clubs mostly. His mom was going crazy over it, he couldn't be contained. But he was just a kid freshly out of the closet who wanted to have fun." His voice doesn't sound understanding - it sounds hurt. "He drank a lot, did whatever drug he was offered, and fucked a lot. A lot of strangers. Most of them were quite older, they usually wouldn't care that he'd never call, and were usually looking for the same thing as him. Casual sex."

"He had this other friend. Pete and I didn't know him that well, and we didn't see a whole lot of Brendon back then, either. They were really close, since kindergarten or something, childhood friends. One time he showed up at school with a black eye and said he'd gotten it from him. Pete was furious, he was preparing to gauge the guy's eyeballs out."

It starts to feel like Patrick's having a hard time speaking, so Gerard tells him he can stop if he wants to.

"No, it's fine," he clears his throat and takes a sip of water before continuing. "But then, Bren told us they got high together, and he got horny. So, he used the fact he'd known for a while that the guy had feelings for him, and he slept with him."

"You're probably wondering what the hell this has got to do with Ryan Ross," Patrick chuckles to himself a bit, slightly awkwardly. Gerard is perfectly aware of everything he's said, and he can sense that the overture is necessary for the whole story to take form, so he just lets him keep going. "Brendon was convinced he'd done nothing wrong. He was blaming it all on the guy because he'd punched him when he'd realized he was being taken advantage of. Bren would say things like 'he flushed our entire friendship down the drain because I made one stupid mistake'. It wouldn't get to his head, none of it, how easily he'd hurt another person's feelings because of his own dumb selfishness, how all that reckless stuff is making him look like a terrible person. And to make it worse, he'd cut off me and Pete. Completely. For a couple of months."

"Because you tried to make him see he'd acted like a jerk?" Gerard asks.

"Yeah. He'd get so defensive about it. Blaming the guy for catching feelings, blaming us for taking his side even though I said at least a hundred times that it's not about the sides, that I was always on his side and that it was because of that I had to tell him that he was in the wrong."

"He wouldn't have any of it. He was being so irrational, and no common sense could get through to him. He'd take anything either of us said as an attack. Pete was scared shitless that we'd lost him completely when he stopped taking our calls. It was all such a mess. I was worried about him, I was worried about Pete, and I had to keep myself sane in the whole chaos, too. And even in all that deep, smelly shit I felt like we were all in, I had no idea why, but I had the feeling he'd come around eventually. And after some time, he'd just called me up on the phone and started crying. Apologizing for everything. He'd tried to reach out to the guy he'd hurt but he didn't want to hear any of it."

"It honestly felt like such a fucking miracle. Pete bawled like a baby when we first met up after all of that. And a few days later he told us what made him realize what he'd done wrong. He overheard some guys in the locker room talking about Ryan. They were being pretty mean, and all testosterone-filled, but the situation they were talking about was pretty similar to the one he'd caused, only reversed. There was this girl, a friend of Ryan's he'd been crazy about for years. And she did the same thing to Ryan that Brendon had done to his friend."

"At first, he said he'd agreed with the attitude those guys had towards Ryan. The whole 'what a pussy' type thing. But he said he'd then started to notice Ryan around the school more often, all by himself. He'd always look so disheveled and pale. It was such a contrast to the way he'd been before, always joking around and laughing with everyone, straight A student, the works. Now he'd constantly forget to do his homework, skip classes, and spend his lunch hour all alone."

"Brendon started to feel guilty when he'd look at him. He couldn't explain it to himself in the beginning because his head was so up his own ass that he didn't want to understand it. He couldn't bear to realize that what he was seeing were, in a way, the consequences of his own actions. But it had only gotten worse as the weeks went by and the only way for him to feel better was to accept that he really was guilty. Not for Ryan, specifically, but in Ryan he could see the hurt he caused right in front of him. And because of it, he changed. He stopped the drinking. The drugs. He stopped hooking up with random people he'd meet on a night out. He started writing songs, walking his grandma's dog, taking me and Pete to town just to eat ice cream and hang out. He learned how to cut his mom's hair so she doesn't have to pay extra to go to the salon, and he still does it. He's brilliant at it. He realized the only way to pay his dues was to focus on things that aren't destructive for him and the people he claims to care about. And his brain attributed all those good things that followed - to Ryan. Without Ryan ever becoming aware of any of it."

"And now he's stuck. He won't look at anyone anymore. He's aware that his infatuation is more of a product of his own head than Ryan's existence at this point, but he can't make it go away. It doesn't help that now he's gathered a collection of things that really are Ryan's that he appreciates, either. And even if he were to try something, he'd already be too invested, right at the start, and it would make everything weird."

"What Ryan is," Gerard says, "is really just a symbol. He symbolizes Brendon's ability to fight off his own demons. Jesus, that's fucked up."

Patrick nods.

"Hey, did you know they have those almond-raisin cookies back on the menu here? God, I wish I ordered some of those," says Brendon, with newly applied lip gloss, who's just about to take his seat. His face falls a bit when he sees Gerard's face expression. "You weren't talking about the menu."

"No, we weren't," Patrick sighs. "I've talked myself into oblivion."

"So, now you know," Brendon says, with a tone more serious than any Gerard's heard from him so far. Gerard isn't sure if the story he was told spoke more about Brendon or Patrick at this point, but he knows he's gotten more than he'd bargained for in any case.

Sometimes, all it takes to know someone is to observe a fatal flaw in their character, and explore how it relates to the person they're trying to be. Or rather, the persona they're trying to put out. No human is entirely themselves, especially in the company of others. But, maybe it can be enough to realize that someone's false exterior isn't necessarily there to fool others, and make them believe one is a better person than they are. Maybe it's the exact opposite - to show others that there is something below worthy enough to explore, hidden under a pile of dogshit to keep away those who aren't prepared to dig deeper. Gerard is a firm believer in the art of passively weeding out the chaff. This philosophy is part of the reason he looks like a stand-in from 'Lost Boys'.

"I don't think you have to worry," says Patrick, interrupting his mental tangent. "He's already started analyzing you like we're in English class."

"Oh yes, his favorite subject!" Brendon grins, of course. Gerard raises his left eyebrow, while lighting a cigarette, and just blows a big cloud of smoke directly into Brendon's face.

*

"Wait, why is Daisy an antagonist, again?" Pete interrupts Gerard in the middle of his explanation of the difference between metaphorical, and real death in literature.

They'd been sitting at the library for about an hour, but Gerard feels like it could've easily been a century. Pete is a great dude, he really is, but his absolute lack of talent for understanding written word beyond Misfits lyrics is pretty disheartening for, well, the core of Gerard's being. He's trying to be as patient as his physical existence allows him, but it's getting harder by the second, and the only thing keeping him from giving up completely is the genuine fear that he feels for both of the parties involved when he imagines Iero reading Pete's paper on this.

"Okay. Let's simplify, shall we? The protagonist-" he looks at Pete expectantly.

"-Jay Gatsby."

"His goal is to-"

"Fulfill his dream of being with Daisy who was his long lost love."

"Correct," says Gerard, with honest satisfaction. He's way past the point of feeling embarrassed to be asking these types of questions. "Now, what's an antagonist?"

"Someone that makes life much harder than it needs to be for the protagonist?" Pete says, almost securely. Gerard rolls his eyes. What a way to be spending Thursday afternoon. What makes him feel at least a little bit better is Pete's face that indicates he's thinking the same thing.

"Yes. But it doesn't have to be someone, it can also be something. Daisy herself isn't much of an antagonist, but the fact that she doesn't really want to be with Gatsby is, in fact, an antagonist. Anything that gets in the way of the protagonist getting what he wants is an antagonist."

"The true antagonist is time," they hear from one shelf away. Gerard could recognize that deadpan voice if he didn't have any ears, or head for that matter, at this point. It's so whirring and self-satisfied that Gerard gets a headache just remembering it by accident sometimes. Mr. Iero's silhouette quickly follows it into his line of view, this time in squared-off glasses, and a face overgrown with stubble, carrying a book in his hand. The shirt he's wearing this time has the print of Bela Lugosi's face on it, nothing else, and Gerard just isn't capable of ignoring it, despite having seen it twice only today. "Or, rather, the passing of time. Or were you just getting to that part?"

"You should think of it a success that he knows how the book is called. Do you seriously believe that I can make him understand that the whole symbolism of Daisy's character is the passing of time, and Gatsby not being able to make peace with the fact that everything he's lost, is lost?"

"I sometimes think it's a success I know how I'm called," Pete says, through a sigh. "Hey, Mr. Iero, we're staying after class to dive deep into the intricacies of 'The Great Gatsby'. Extra credit?"

Iero smirks. "Nice try. That imagination might come in handy when you start writing that paper." He turns to Gerard. "I hope you're aware I'll know if you do it for him."

This guy is so damn annoying. Everything about him makes Gerard's fists itchy to throw punches, and aim at that stupidly rectangular face. He's like his personal demon sent from Hell to torture him with his absolute indifference towards everything known to man, his snarky attitude and his infuriatingly good sense of style. Even the things he can appreciate about him are so deeply buried underneath this huge puddle of rage Gerard dissolves into the moment he opens his mouth. At first, he'd been slightly intimidated by him, he'll admit it, since he'd seemed too poetic and mysterious to be true, but now that it's been a while, he is so over it. All that awe and curiosity, shot down into nothingness by the sole fact the dude is just plain unbearable. Gerard can't stand his face.

"Well, since I'm already doing your job, you can't expect me to be doing his, too?" he says, looking straight at Iero. He is probably aware how ready Gerard would be to take him on there and then. He's so pissed at the guy breathing, he would beat the shit out of him for the sake of it.

"You're right. Thanks for that. There's no one I'd rather confide in to take that burden onto themselves." If Gerard has learned well enough how to read those micro-expressions, he'd say this is the one of smugness. His fists tighten so much that the dryness of his skin makes it open up in a few places. And with a mock-salute, Iero's gone away from their view and out the library.

"Did you two, like, forget I was here or something?" Pete says, carefully.

Gerard just groans. And he thought Pete and his literate simplicity would be the final challenge he'd have left for the day. "So. What did we say about metaphorical death?"

"Not a real death?"

Well. Good enough , Gerard thinks.