Gerard has a strict policy when it comes to teachers, namely that they should be avoided at all costs because every last one of the bastards is out to get him.
(Mikey says Gerard is paranoid. Gerard says that's exactly what they want him to think.)
What's getting to Gerard is that he's never had any reason to doubt his theory before now. He's suffered through years and years of teachers who were more childish than the kids they were teaching, teachers who he's pretty sure were escaped convicts, teachers who went out of their way to seem nice and then turned out to be cruel, bullying assholes. Gerard hasn't so much had a bad experience as one big, long, clusterfuck of bad experience.
Now, though... well. All of a sudden, Gerard does have a reason to question his policy, and it wears ties and cardigans and ridiculously dorky sweater vests and gets all excited about metaphors. Past experience would lead Gerard to suspect that Mr. Iero falls into the third category - the teachers who pretend to be sweet but are actually agents of Satan himself - but Gerard has been watching him like a slightly chubby, greasy hawk since day one. If it's all an act, Mr. Iero deserves a fucking Academy Award. It's flawless. He hasn't put a single foot wrong. If Gerard didn't know better, he'd be beginning to suspect that Mr. Iero really is just a decent human being.
The thing that Gerard finds more confusing than anything else is how enthusiastic Mr. Iero is. At first, Gerard put it down to the fact that Mr. Iero looks about twelve when he smiles, so this is almost definitely his first teaching job. But that relentless cheerfulness should have been ground out of him after a few weeks, and now it's halfway through March and he's still going strong. It's weird, is what it is. It's weird, and Gerard doesn't trust him. And he definitely doesn't melt a little every time Mr. Iero starts beaming and talking with his hands when he finds, like, a simile that he wants everyone else to appreciate as much as he does.
Liking a teacher is totally against Gerard's principles, obviously, but if there's one thing to be said for Mr. Iero, it's that he's not a pushy teacher. It's just one of those fucking days - Gerard got another D in history, and when Miss Fitzgerald gave him back his trig quiz from last week, it had an angry SEE ME AFTER CLASS scribbled in the corner instead of a grade. And then, on top of all that, Mr. Whitman is making him come up with a whole new proposal for his art project because apparently vampires ripping people's throats out are inappropriate. All Gerard wants right now is to be invisible, so he waits for the stream of people filing into the English classroom to thin out before he slopes in, takes his usual seat in the back row and slumps down in his chair with his hands clamped over his ears. He flinches when some asswipe throws a balled-up piece of paper at him and it hits him square between the eyes, but apart from that he does a pretty good job of tuning the rest of the world out.
When Mr. Iero finally fucking bounds in and starts the register, Gerard answers with an unenthusiastic grunt when his name is called and sinks a little lower into his seat. It's not that he doesn't like English - it's the least tortuous lesson on his timetable after art, although even art is stressing him out right now. It's just one of those times when he needs to be left alone to stew in his misery and contemplate is many, many failings for a while.
By the end of the lesson, Gerard hasn't taken in a single thing Mr. Iero said, but he doesn't feel like he's going to puke anymore, which he considers a plus. He's just slouching back through the door on his way out when Mr. Iero calls his name.
"Gerard? Can I talk to you for a minute?"
Gerard groans inwardly. Motherfucking fuck on a cracker. This is it, the moment when the apparently nice teacher reveals their true, scumbaggy colors and hits him with detention every day for the next twenty years. He knows how it goes. Slowly, reluctantly, he turns back. It really doesn't help that Mr. Iero is-- well, the only word for it is cute, with untidy hair and big, round eyes and a face that's practically fucking cherubic.
