Break the Law For Me [completed]

f i v e

"Frank?" Gerard waved a hand to grab his attention.

Snapping back to reality, Frank blinked, shaking his head. "Sorry, what?"

"Are you okay?" he chuckled.

"Yeah, yeah, just tired." He lied, almost yawning for effect.

"Late night?"

Frank laughed dryly. "I was literally just watching TV. It's not like I was partying."

"That not your kind of thing?" Gerard asked, beginning to prepare the work for the students he had first lesson.

Frank shook his head.

"Me neither. I hate loud music."

A smile tugged at Frank's lips. "Me too."

-

Luckily after that riot of a class, Gerard had a pretty straight forward day. He'd survived a double lesson with obnoxious teenagers that had acted like they knew everything already. Next, he'd planned future tests during the lessons he was free. Though another teacher had had a class next door and he'd had to endure all of the noise and chatter, disrupting his concentration. In addition, Mr Wright had been badgering him on and off too.

Due to lack of motivation, Gerard had just ended up glaring at the computer screen for one hundred minutes, fingers threaded through his hair with his fingernails digging in to his scalp.

Suddenly, the bell rang, assaulting Gerard's ears, and students flooded out of 169b for lunch. Just as they exited, Frank entered.

"Hey." Frank dumped his bag.

"Hiya." Gerard couldn't even muster up the energy to answer him properly. He just felt so drained. Today was an unnecessarily bad day.

Frank noticed. "What's up?" He said a little quieter, caught in the middle of staying put and going over to comfort him. Gerard was his teacher, so because of that fact, he stuffed his hands in the pockets of his hoodie, deciding to sit on the edge of a table.

Sighing, Gerard rubbed his eyes, then scratched his fingers through his hair and pushed it back as he looked over at Frank, who offered a small smile. Reluctantly, Gerard returned it, having needed it. "Just. . . It's one of those days, you know?"

Even though he sort of didn't, he nodded anyway to avoid awkwardness. Chewing on his lip ring, Frank gathered shading pencils, picked up his bag and moved in to the middle room to be ready when the lesson started. To his delight, he had art next. For now, because he still had forty minutes of lunch time to waste, he grabbed his food and wandered back through to 169a.

Gerard had his head on the desk, eyes closed, but he still heard Frank's footsteps. He lifted his head, looking at him wearily. "How's your day been?" He picked up his attitude, folding his arms on the desk.

"Alright." Frank shrugged. "I had photography and game development, but maths sucked." He paused for a moment, taking a bite of the oat bar he'd packed. "What about you?"

Gerard groaned, rolling his eyes. "I had to teach art to a bunch of stubborn teenagers. They had to do the subject as part of the curriculum, so most of them obviously didn't want to be there."

"That sucks." He finished the bar, suddenly remembering the news he had. "Oh, I've edited the pictures of Brendon; I just need to print them out. I forgot to say."

"Good, because your main assignment is on kind of a stand still." Gerard frowned, gesturing for Frank to join him. He logged off the computer and Frank logged on, finding the files and then clicking on 'print', using the staff printer instead of the student's one –the difference was it printed in colour.

Frank collected the sheets, grinning at how beautiful they were. Brendon had gone all out in makeup, a shirt, tie and waistcoat with jeans for their 'very professional' photoshoot. There were also other photos for studying facial expressions. Frank flicked through them, coming to the one at the back and his face fell at the amount of emotion it conveyed.

"I like that one most." Gerard pointed to it, admiring Brendon's confidence.

"Me too." He agreed, deciding to draw it first. He printed another copy, gridded it, then copied the grid on to cartridge paper and began sketching.

"What medium are you going to do it in?" Gerard questioned, taking a seat opposite Frank as he marked essays from his other classes. A frown of concentration pursed his lips and his tongue stuck out from the corner of his mouth a little, causing Frank to chuckle quietly to himself.

It dawned on him that he hadn't answered yet. "Uhm, ballpoint pen." He stuttered, brushing hair from his eyes. It was getting down to his shoulders, but he somewhat liked it long. He could hide behind it.

"That might be difficult. Can you handle it?" Gerard glanced up through his lashes, a hint of a smirk gracing his lips.

"It's actually fun to do." Frank felt quite smug because he could shade in pen and capture more tones -as hard as that sounded. Noticing the look Gerard was sending his way, he felt his cheeks heat up, sure he was probably going bright red. But Gerard hastily lowered his gaze and the weird moment was over.

-

Soon enough, the bell rang and Frank gathered the photographs, travelling in to the middle room for the next two lessons of art. He listened to the pounding footsteps of the students as they came bounding in, hyper from lunch. They always came in energized and Frank was almost positive they snorted cocaine to boost their energy. Gerard was going to have one hell of a problem controlling them.

To Frank's surprise, Brendon wandered in, chucking his bags on the floor as he kicked the door shut.

"What're you doing here?" Frank asked, glad to see him. At least he wasn't going to be alone this lesson.

"Mr Way said I could come through here. Makes a change." He shrugged, setting up opposite Frank. "Oh, it's me." He grinned excitedly, snatching a few photos before Frank could whine about it. "You didn't tell me you'd printed these." Brendon examined them, having not seen the final photos yet. He was proud of them to some extent. "These will greatly improve your presentation." He smirked and Frank rolled his eyes.

"Ha, ha." He deadpanned, carefully taking the photos back and sliding them in to a plastic wallet.

"Seriously, though," Brendon raised his eyebrows, "They're really good."

"Is that a compliment to me, or a boast?"

"A compliment." He smiled. "Your photography skills are pretty awesome." He received a shy grin from Frank, who had turned bright red -he both hated and loved compliments, but he never knew how to take them.

[Published 6 May 2019]
[Last edited 15 December 2019]