Three Cheers for Sweethearts [Frerard AU]

PART I: Chapter 1

                  

PART I: GIVE EM HELL

CHAPTER 1 - SO LONG AND GOOD MORNING

It's crazy how fast things can change.

The first day of the second semester, I got into the car and flopped in the back seat, letting my younger brother sit in the passenger seat. I plugged my earbuds into my ears and turned up the volume until my mother gave me a look.

Like always, I stared out the window through the entire ride to school. If anyone tried to talk to me, I didn't hear. When the car stopped in front of the school, I left my iPod in the car, straightened my tie, and headed toward Chemistry.

I didn't even get into the building before Hunter shoved me down. "What's with the wig, Gerard? Going to cross-dress today as Gerardine?" he sneered. As I stood, I rolled my eyes and continued my trek to the front doors of the school, ignoring him the best I could. "Gerardine! Geraldine!" I could hear him and his friends snickering behind me. Grabbing my textbook, I shoved my bag in my locker and stormed my way into the Chemistry lab.

I was one of the first people in the classroom, probably because the warning bell hadn't even rung yet. The white-guy afro at the back of the class was my friend Ray; I took a seat a row in front of him. There was also a relatively attractive kid in the classroom that I didn't know; he certainly wasn't in our class last semester. He had short brown – almost black – hair, and a scorpion tattoo on the right side of his neck. I wasn't sure how he'd been accepted with that; usually tattoos weren't allowed or at least had to be covered here, but maybe everything else about him had been so impressive that the school had let him slide. He sat straightening his school uniform's tie again and again. Watching him gave me the urge to straighten my identical one.

I fingered my newly-dyed, shoulder-length hair. It didn't look like a wig, did it? Holding it in front of my face, I could see how the black made it look a little stringy. Maybe I should have  just cut it instead.

Or maybe I just shouldn't listen to guys like Hunter.

I turned around and asked Ray, "Who's the kid with the tat?" Ray only shrugged and started playing with the glass beaker in front of him.

The warning bell rang, and as more students trickled in, I started tapping my pen against the table. The new kid tensed at the noise, and puzzled by the reaction, I stopped. Slowly, the room filled. When class started, everyone obediently finished their conversations and found an empty seat to sit in.    

"Good morning," Mrs. Ratliff monotoned.

"Good morning, Mrs. Ratliff," the girls recited back. The guys in the class had decided it was dumb a few weeks in.

She turned to the board and began writing a complicated-looking equation consisting of compounds and elements that I didn't care to know about.

"We should all have this memorized by now, yes?" Ratliff stared at us pointedly. I rolled my eyes up to the ceiling. As we took turns being stared down, Ratliff noticed the boy with the scorpion tattoo. She smiled at him, which just made the whole class uncomfortable. Ratliff lived up to her name in the sense that she was very rat-like: no one really liked her, she was downright creepy, and the way she smiled stretched her face in unnatural ways.

"Oh, hello there, are you new here?" Ratliff asked him. He looked up from fiddling with his tie and stared her in the eye.

"Yes," he told her, and she smiled bigger.

"Let me look at our roster; I do recall getting some sort of notification about you... Yes! Frank Lero. Your guardian didn't sign all of the papers necessary. I did hear about this."

"My name's Frank Iero."

"And, as I understand it, Frank Iero, when you are new to a class, you are to ask the teacher what the class has been learning whilst you were not with us. And, hm," she paused, "I don't seem to recall you doing anything like that."

"Er, I apologize sincerely," Frank said, trying to match her official way of speaking, but clearly in a mocking way. "I was told to go to class and pretend I had been there all year, to catch on, and I figured I should listen to what the principal told me. I presume his authority is above yours."

The class reacted loudly, but we were quickly silenced by Ratliff's sharp glare. "I do not appreciate your tone, sir," she said to Frank, and he cast his eyes down. For such a sassy statement, l didn't expect him to look so defeated so quickly.

Ratliff looked at him pointedly before returning to the writing she had on the board. "Frank, will you read this out loud for us?"

He sighed, but didn't protest. After that she left him alone.

The rest of the period played out like any other day - Ray and I stayed shady in the back, the trio of girls toward the front took turns answering every question, and the last five minutes of class were spent deliberately not doing our classwork.

As Ray and I packed our bags for second period, we exchanged a few mutters that sounded something like conversation before Frank reappeared in front of us. He straightened his tie, then pointed at his schedule.

"Any idea where the Precalc room is?" he asked me.

I looked at him, he looked at me, and after a beat I took his schedule and looked where he was pointing.

On his paper was written in tiny print: "Precalc - Mr. Little." I was vaguely impressed by how advanced he was, but I'd also be lying if I didn't add that I flat-out judged him: what a nerd. I grunted something about showing him where it was and walked out of the room. He followed me.

When I stopped, Frank literally ran into me. He apologized, but I shrugged it off and pointed down the hallway. "Last one," I told him. He nodded and thanked me before stumbling to his second period class, but with surprisingly straight posture.

Poor clueless kid. I vaguely hoped he wouldn't get himself killed in high school. What I'd seen of him so far wasn't too promising.