A Revolution On Canvas (Frerard)

23: Ryan The Headteacherfucker

"I'm a crap English teacher." Frank laughed a little, "that's what I am." He concluded, rolling his sleeves up, leaving Gerard to get entirely too distracted by his tattoos as he grabbed a cloth and began to help scrub the paint off the windows.

"What the fuck are you doing?" Gerard asked: a little wide eyed.

"Helping you." Frank explained, just looking at Gerard with an expression that said so much and yet nothing at all, and generally just confused the absolute fuck out of Gerard.

"Well, yeah," Gerard gestured up to the paint, "I can see that. But why?"

Frank shrugged, "I don't know, thought you'd appreciate the company- also, yeah, I've got those papers to mark, and this is a wonderful way to put it all off."

"You're such a crap teacher," Gerard shook his head in disbelief, his face lighting up in the world's biggest shit eating grin.

"I know." Frank nodded, sharing Gerard's grin, "I'm a pretty great friend, though, aren't I? Helping you and all."

"That you are." Gerard nodded to himself, "Lindsey fucking abandoned me, and she even agreed that it was bullshit and that she wanted to crucify Mr Urie."

"I yelled at him for you, though." Frank added, "didn't really listen, of course. He's an idiot, but I think I've figured it out."

"Figured what out?" Gerard asked, pausing to look at Frank with a rather inquisitive look and generally just take in how fucking beautiful he was, as he did, as his best, absolutely platonic friend.

"How Ryan hasn't got expelled or killed or whatever yet." Frank continued, also stopping scrubbing at the paint to focus on Gerard.

"And how's that? Because I really am curious. Do you think may I can take tips from him, because Mr Urie hates my guts-"

"Doubt you'd want to." Frank said, letting out a sigh, "although..." he trailed off, "I don't know- I pretend I didn't say that."

"Tell me." Gerard narrowed his eyes, "what is it?"

"Okay, I'm like eighty five percent sure that Ryan's fucking Mr Urie."

Gerard stood completely frozen still, his eyes widening in utter disbelief, before letting out a gasp in the form of, "motherfucker."

"Well, not quite, headteacherfucker, really." Frank corrected him, smirking like the idiot he was.

"Did I ever tell you how much I fucking hate you?"

And to that Frank only laughed, because he knew that it wasn't like that at all, in fact, perhaps the opposite, and that was something Frank had come to accept, only subconsciously of course, but still, some form of acceptance was better than none at all.

-

Somehow cleaning paint off a classroom window didn't seem anywhere near as horrible as it should when he was doing it with Gerard.

And honestly, Frank found himself faced with the reality of that fact and just what it really meant, as he sat in the passenger seat of Gerard's car and struggled to convince himself that everything was fine and just completely platonic, because he knew, now not just subconsciously, that it really wasn't.

Gerard had offered him a ride home.

Frank had declined.

That was the first two times. But then Gerard had started smiling at him and worrying about him having to walk home on his own, which was bullshit, and Frank knew it, and honestly Frank didn't know why Gerard was going out of his way to give Frank a lift home, but Frank wasn't stupid enough to question it.