Learning How To Swim (Frerard)

12. It's Been 2 Months Since I Updated This Shit I'm Sorry

"Holy shit, calm down Pete." Frank said, looking up from watching Gerard sketch. They were in Ryan's basement and it was July third, the night before the lake's Fourth of July celebration. Ryan had asked everyone to come to his house for the night so they could help his mom and dad set up the fireworks in the morning. Gerard and Mikey had arrived after Gerard's swim lesson with Frank and getting some stuff from their grandmother's house. While Elena insisted she'd be fine on her own for the night, Gerard was reluctant to leave her. She'd been coughing a lot lately, but kept saying she was fine and that nothing was wrong. Gerard didn't buy it.

But for now, Gerard was sat in Ryan's (air conditioned) basement, sketching random characters in his sketchbook while Frank watched from behind. But the sound of Pete probably doing something stupid made him look up.

He was right: Pete was trying to hang onto the ceiling fan above the couch, which wasn't going that well. Mikey looked up from his conversation with Ryan and Brendon and his eyes grew wide.

"Pete! Get down from that!" He said, which only made Pete laugh.

"C'mon Mikey, spin me around! I promise I won't kick you." Pete joked, swinging his feet as he hung on the fan. There was a worrying sound from the fan, which got Ryan's attention to say the least.

"Pete goddamnit my parents will lose their shit if the fan breaks! Get the hell down!" He whisper yelled, looking up to the ceiling nervously. Pete rolled his eyes at Ryan but did get down, mumbling something about how "none of you have any fun".

Frank, who'd obviously heard what Pete had said, stood up from behind the chair and looked to Pete, saying:

"Well what do you wanna do then Pete?" Pete turned to Frank with a concerning smile.

"Well..."

-

About five minutes later, Pete had managed to arrange everyone (Frank, Gerard, Mikey, Brendon, Ryan, and himself) into a circle on the floor, and have two hats designated for the game.

Pete had decided on Truth or Dare -which in Gerard's opinion would go south incredibly fast- and had told everyone to write down one truth and one dare on a few slips of paper he'd ripped out of a notebook he found on a table. Of course that wouldn't be enough, so Pete had taken it upon himself to write out as many as he could while everyone else wrote a truth and a dare each. Gerard couldn't deny he was impressed by how organized Pete had turned this game, he had sections for the truths and dares for Christ's sake.

Once everyone had finished writing on their slips and placed them in the hat, Pete took them and swirled the hats around so it could be a "complete surprise" (according to him). Gerard really didn't see the point.

"Okay," Pete started, setting the hats down in the center of their circle. "Who wants to go first?" Nobody said anything, so Pete just glanced around the circle before settling on:

"Ryan! You look like you want to go. Truth or dare?" Ryan let out a sigh of defeat before saying: "Truth." Pete smiled and shoved the 'truth' hat to him.

"Pick a card any card." He said jokingly. Ryan looked at him and deadpanned: "They're slips of paper." Before taking a piece of paper from the hat. He looked at it from a second, his eyebrows narrowing.

"Okay which one of you dipshits wrote: 'have you ever tasted piss?'" This got a slight giggle from Mikey, which didn't really surprise Gerard. Mikey was one of those 'super weird and sexual without anyone realizing it' types.

"Mikey you-" Ryan started, throwing a pillow at Mikey from off the couch. Mikey kept laughing and Ryan said, "I have not tasted piss, thank you very much. Sick bastard." He shook his head and turned to Brendon.