the madness of limerance

1 - petrichor

Hello friends! This is twitter user prorevvie here, thinking that she knows how to write when she absolutely cannot!

This idea came to me from the movie Dead Poets Society, directed by Peter Weir, and I was going to go crazy if I didn't write it, so I thought I'd share it with you instead of just keeping it in my Google Doc drafts to be forgotten!

I plan on updating every Saturday, so please stay tuned.

A BIG BIG BIG BIG BIG credit to @/paper__kid on AO3, whose Twitter is @/living_ona_star, Connor, for editing these chapters and making sure I'm not being a huge edit, AND Twitter user @/nonbinarybread, Chris, for helping me come up with ideas and figure out the right words! I wouldn't be posting this without you guys, you're amazing!

*This fic takes place in the late '90s to 2000s, where everything sorta feels like a fever dream, so keep that in mind!*

Enjoy! :)

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"I swear to God, that statue just fucking moved."

"Dude," Ray shifts his messenger bag further up his shoulder and pushes around some of the sludge and mud from the rain that had happened the night before with his dress shoes. "You've got to stop smoking so much."

"No, I'm serious. Baby Jesus just looked up at me from Mary's arms and called me a motherfucker."

"Maybe he should- you did almost burn down an entire classroom."

Frank's thin, black eyebrows raise, and he chews on the inside of his cheek for a moment. Looking away from the statue in front of them and over to the school behind it- It looks like some shit that would come out of a fantasy; students filing inside in long school coats and hats that all matched the school colors. It's brick, with pointed roofs, round windows, and a bridge that led to a separate wing of the school, with large, arched openings to look out from.

"Yeah, maybe you're right about that one." He says, turning his eyes away from the bell tower at the top of the school. The taste of a cigarette is faint on his tongue and he longs to strengthen it, but Ray is already swatting his shoulder lightly and nodding for him to follow inside. Frank's trunk of clothing and necessities had already been dropped off just a week after he had been expelled from public school, so all he had with him was himself.

It wasn't particularly Frank's plan to have set a classroom on fire, though he also wasn't one to read labels on things before attempting them. The lucky fellow that had been graced the position of his lab partner had almost lost his eyebrows, but Frank had been left with a small amount of embarrassment and a ticket to a prestigious boarding school.

Honestly, it felt fucking rigged to him. West Ridge was not a school for the sick, spiteful kind of boys that Frank was apparently categorized in. It couldn't have been- his next-door neighbor, Ray 'I'm perfect' Toro, had been in the school since freshman year, and he was exactly the reason that Frank was walking through the large glass doors.

" He's a good influence Frankie, " Frank's mother had explained. " He's never set anything on fire before ."

"You spoke to the Headmaster already, right?" Ray asks as they enter the foyer of the building, already pulling a red knit scarf from his neck.

"Headmaster..." Frank scoffs, scratching at his tight dress collar. "Uh, yeah. Yeah, I have."

"Great, then he should have matched our schedules up so I can show you around and everything." Ray leads him through another set of doors, revealing a bustling room of students. all of them matching in the same, presumably itchy, argyle sweaters. There are students coming from every direction and at least four sets of wooden spiral stairs in each corner of the room. The floors are white and marble and Frank can hear every click of his peers' dress shoes against it, echoing from the ceiling and then into his ears.