Archive of Our Own ^beta

Frank was leaving his classroom after being dismissed by the lunch bell, backpack hanging off one shoulder. He wasn’t exactly the tallest, so a few kids bumped into him on the way through the door, but he didn’t mind because he knew there was no bad intention behind it. He was worried about something though.

Just before the bell had gone off, Frank happened to overhear a few of the assholes in his class that sat behind him talking about some new kid who ‘looked like a fag’. It was a small and shitty school, so new kids were pretty rare. This meant that they had to have been talking about Gerard. Frank had tried to get his things together and get out of the classroom to find his boyfriend before those jackasses did, but both of them were already packed up and ready to go, seemingly determined to cause trouble.

By the time Frank managed to get to Gerard’s locker, they were already there. He cursed himself mentally for not hauling ass faster, because one of them had Gerard by the straps of his backpack, lifting him off the ground to the point that his toes were barely brushing the tile floor. The kid looked terrified as the other guy was inches from his face screaming insults and slurs at him.

“Leave him alone!” Frank shouted as he ran down the hall towards them. Both of them turned to look at him, then decided to run. Not before one pinned Gerard to the lockers and decked him in the face, then let him drop to the ground.

Frank approached quickly, kneeling in front of Gerard, who was frozen, staring at the ground with wide eyes. It was almost like there was nothing going on in there, he looked so distant.

“Hey…” Frank cooed, gently cupping the boys cheek and trying to get a better look at where there was blood dribbling from his nose, and a small cut on his lip. Unfortunately, the second Frank made contact, Gerard was snapped out of whatever haze he was in, causing him to immediately burst into tears.

“Frankie!” He cried, desperately grabbing at Frank’s sweater and tugging on it as if Frank was going to disappear if he didn’t. This whole situation was setting off alarms in franks head. Gerard never called him ‘Frankie’ unless he was little, which he obviously was at the moment.

This was a problem because they were at school.

“Shhhhh, I know, I know, come on sweetheart we gotta get up okay?” Frank said as he slipped his hands under Gerard’s arms and tried to lift him off the ground, which he normally had no trouble with. Gerard, however, was squirming and kicking, effectively throwing off Frank’s plan to get him to a bathroom and calm him down before someone sees.

“Hurts, Frankie!” The boy whined, anxiously slamming his free hand against the ground beside him. Frank was standing over him now, still trying to pull him up.

“I know it does, baby, but I can’t help you feel better if you stay on the ground.” Frank tried to reason with him. “Here, if you let me help you up, I’ll give you some of the chips I packed in my lunch!”

Gerard whined and shook his head, still fussing and squirming away.

“Okay! Fine, all of the chips! You can have the whole bag. All the chips are yours as long as you let me bring you to the bathroom so I can clean up your face, you’re dripping blood on your clothes, honey…”

Finally, Gerard stopped, allowing Frank to lift him off the ground. When small, Gerard rarely had the balance to walk long distances on his own. He definitely didn’t right now, meaning it would be difficult to get him to the second floor to the bathroom that nobody uses, but thankfully they were right by the custodial elevator.

Once in the elevator, Gerard had calmed down a little, but was still crying. He had one had fisted in the sleeve of Franks sweater, refusing to let go.

“m’sorry, Frankie…” the boy mumbled, keeping his head down and letting his kinda greasy hair fall in his face.

“Hey, you did nothing wrong, sweetheart.” Frank said, reaching over to push Gerard’s hair out of his face, not minding the fact that it had been a little longer than ideal since it was last washed. “Those guys are assholes, that’s not your fault.”

The two stood in silence for a moment, but then Frank heard a quiet splat. He looked over and noticed that Gerard’s nose was still dripping blood, which was now landing on the floor of the elevator.

“Oh, honey-“ Frank muttered, gently grabbing Gerard’s chin and titling his head backwards. “You’re dripping on the floor…”

Gerard whined and tried to pull his head away, not wanting to stare up at the harsh elevator lights, but Frank didn’t let him. He pulled the sleeve of his sweater over his other hand and held it to Gerard’s bloody nose, not caring for his sweater.

“I know, I know… gonna get you cleaned up so you feel better, then you just have two more classes, buddy. After than we can run you a nice bath when we get home as long as Alexis isn’t home yet, okay?” Frank soothed, and Gerard nodded, leaning against him.

The short trip from the elevator to the bathroom was awkward because Frank didn’t want more blood dripping everywhere, but they made it, and nobody was in the bathroom when they got there. He dropped his bag on the floor by the sink, and Gerard copied.

Frank instructed Gerard to sit on the counter next to the sink, which he did without complaint. Frank then grabbed a wad of toilet paper from one of the stalls and handed it to him, guiding Gerard’s hand so he could hold it to his nose by himself, and reminding him to keep his head tilted back. Thankfully at this point the bleeding had mostly stopped.

“Keep holding that there, I’ll be right back…” Frank said, making Gerard whine. “I’m not leaving, I’m just getting water from my bag.” He returned a moment later with his water bottle, setting it down on the counter.

“Let me see-“ he carefully pulled Gerard’s hand and the bloody toilet paper away. It looked like the bleeding had finally stopped, so Frank wet some more toilet paper and dabbed away the dried blood from Gerard’s upper lip. Some of it was already crusting over and Gerard didn’t like the feeling of anything that was going on. He kicked his legs frustratedly and a few overwhelmed tears slipped out, but franks presence was helping to soothe him a little.

“There, all cleaned up!” Frank said, giving a reassuring smile as he reached for his water bottle. He flipped the lid open and held it up to Gerard’s mouth. Thankfully it was similar to a sippy cup in a way, so Gerard didn’t have any trouble drinking from it in his current headspace. He ended up drinking half of the water bottles contents, but Frank didn’t mind. It was just water.

“You feel a little better now? That was scary, huh.” Frank asked as he stood between Gerard’s legs and rested his hands on the other boys thighs. Gerard nodded, leaning forward to drop his head on franks shoulder.

“Hungry…”

“t’s lunch time, d’you wanna eat now?”

He nodded, allowing frank to retrieve his lunch from his bag. He grabbed a sandwich and a little plastic bag of carrots, as well as the chips that he had promised. Gerard immediately tried to take the chips, but Frank shook his head and held them out of reach.

“Frankieeeeee…” he whined, still reaching for the chips.

“Nuh uh, kid. Gotta deat something healthy first. Your choice, peanut butter sandwich or carrots. We were all outta strawberry jam, sorry…” Frank said, holding up the other two items for the boy to see.

Gerard pouted and pointed to the sandwich.

“Do you want it in smaller pieces?”

He nodded.

“Words, babe.” Frank said, unable to bite back his smile as he already started tearing the sandwich into bite sized pieces.

“P’ease…” gerard mumbled, still pouting.

“Good boy” Frank praised him, kissing his cheek and then holding a piece of the sandwich up to Gerard’s mouth. He opened up and ate it right away.

Frank continued to hand feed the pieces to Gerard until the entire sandwich was gone. By that time Gerard had calmed down significantly and was almost entirely back to him regular headspace.

“Are you, umm…” Frank muttered, still not an expert at being able to tell the difference between regular Gerard and tiny Gerard.

“Yes, Frank, I’m fine now. My nose hurts like a bitch though…” Gerard said, gently feeling it to see if it was bleeding again, which it wasn’t.

Frank grabbed his wrist and tugged it away, cupping Gerard’s face with both hands and pulling him in for a rushed and messy kiss. Gerard kissed back, letting a sharp, surprised breath out of his nose. Frank ran his tongue over the cut on the other boy’s lip, picking up a light metallic taste from it. He pressed a little harder on that spot, trying to see if he could get it to bleed. Unfortunately, Gerard noticed what he was doing and pulled back, panting into his mouth trying to catch his breath.

“Freak…” he muttered jokingly at Frank, shoving at his chest.

“I’m your freak and you love me” Frank responded, stupid grin on his face as he mouthed at Gerard’s cheek and then down his throat.

“Hmmmm…” Gerard pretended to think about it, unable to stop himself from smiling. “Yeah, I guess-“ he cut himself off with a small gasp when Frank grabbed at his hips and pulled him in closer.

“Too much?” Frank asked, immediately pulling away a bit to check in and make sure he wasn’t doing anything triggering. The last thing he wanted to do was upset his boyfriend again after the earlier incident.

“Ah, just a little…” Gerard mumbled as he adjusted franks hands, moving them from his waist to his shoulders. “Other than that you’re fine, sorry”

“No no, don’t be sorry! thanks for telling me,” Frank said quickly, holding Gerard’s face in his hands and smiling warmly at him as he tucked a strand of hair behind Gerard’s ear. “I don’t wanna make you uncomfortable.”

Frank peppered the other boys face with a few kisses, then moved back to his neck to continue his work on the collection of pretty marks he was leaving, making sure to mind where his hands were going. After a moment he heard the sound of a chip bag opening. He reached over to where he knew it was and tried to stick his hand in, only to have the bag pulled away at the last second.

“Uh-uh! You said I could have all of them, fucker!” Gerard shouted playfully, swatting Franks hand away while shovelling chips into his mouth. Frank grumbled something and reached for the bag again, then got a ‘better’ idea.

Right after Gerard shoved a handful of chips into his mouth, Frank moved in and tried to kiss him.

“Ew! Gross!” Gerard yelped and pushed Frank away with a hand on his forehead, realizing that Frank was trying to steal the chips out of his mouth. “You’re so weird!”

Even with how gross he truly thought it was that Frank would eat food right out of his mouth, he couldn’t help but laugh. Gerard’s laughter was highly contagious, though, and soon enough both boys were doubled over laughing, so caught up in each other that they nearly missed the bell ringing that signified the end of lunch.

Gerard hopped off the counter and walked over to the mirror to make sure he looked okay enough to go back to class. He was in the middle of fixing his hair when he caught sight of the dark purple marks on his throat in very visible places.

“Frank!” He gasped under his breath, turning to look at the other boy who was shoving things into his backpack. Frank heard him, casting a glance over his shoulder and smirking.

“What? Don’t like ‘em?” He said, standing up and tilting Gerard’s head out of the way to look at the marks again. He ran his thumb along the line of Gerard’s jaw, then reached down to ghost his fingers over the marks.

“I didn’t say that…” Gerard muttered, barely audible.

“What was that?”

“Nothing, jackass.” He grumbled, but was unable to stop himself from smiling. “I didn’t say anything. We’re late for class you know.”