Chapter Text
They can't make things worse for me,
Sometimes I'd rather die…
They can tell me lots of things,
But we don't see eye to eye!
Well, I know they know the way I think
We know they always will,
But someday I'm gonna change my mind
Sometimes I'd rather kill—
-
Frank Iero calmed his breathing and grabbed the emergency break latch, pulling it back til it clicked rhythmically into place.
Everything’s gonna be fine, he told himself, not because he wanted it to be, but because he really, really needed it to be.
But by god, they were gonna chew him up.
They were gonna chew him up, spit him out, regurgitate last nights shit show of a dinner onto him and turn him into mulch for their sorry excuse of a lawn.
What started as a failed attempt (because that’s what this was now, a failed attempt) to get a late night meal had turned into a complete fuck fest. The front of his car— a 1987 Honda Civic, all nylon seats with grey in-and-ex-interior— was ruined.
Twisted pieces of the hood stuck out in wild places, wires sparked, jagged and scrapped to hell, but the worst of it wasn’t from their car, but the one across from him.
Spun out on the road was some rich assholes play-thing; a gift from mommy and daddy for doing the bare minimum. Glossy in a vermillion tint, loaded to the brim with letterman jackets and the thick breeze of intoxication, just looking at the car, much less being in its presence, made Frank feel poor. Cheap beer and smoke left its tinted windows, and from where Frank tried to regain his focus, he could see a cluster of people stepping out to inspect the damage.
He shouldn’t have taken it out, and he knew that. With how classes were going, his mom was already threatening to let the piece of shit car impounded, too many tickets for rotting out on the sidewalk with expired plates to really care. A permit didn’t do shit for him now, and he promised his mom it wouldn’t end up with a ticket for at least another few months while they signed the old junk over to him, an early gift for a birthday he didn’t think he’d ever live to have.
The car was gonna outlive him now, too.
‘They look like shit,’ He thought, carefully pressing the back of his hand to his temple, throbbing from impact. His head spun, the dull ache echoed across his knuckles, still, tightly wrapped around the steering wheel. ‘Bet I look like shit too...’
A slam overhead jolted him back to reality. Squinting, the disoriented teen reach forward and cranked the window down, unsure who or what to expect. Frank could taste the liquor on his breath though, mere inches from where he sat, dumbfounded. Blame his better conscious, blame the increasing pulse against his skull, but what came out would be more damaging than any wreck ever would.
Dazed, he curled his nose, letting a droplet of blood rush over his upper lip.
“You know how’ta drive, asshole?”
-
A full week had gone by, and the excuses were getting old.
He couldn’t keep dodging them. His mom suggested they use his car to pick up groceries, something about getting him more experience on the road, and he said he needed more time. She told him the brown tarp looked ugly in their driveway when he tried taking it off earlier this week, and it caused a fight, but neither had led to the discovery of the broken headlights or damaged frame.
He didn’t even want the fucking car. He wanted a lip ring and no responsibilities, not a death trap he pressured himself into learning. Frank knew better than to tempt fate, so he only bothering to drive it when his mom wasn’t around.
The rest of that night was…. Strange. Anyone that knew Frank Iero knew his reputation; he swung first and if you were awake, if he felt any need or desire to, he’d talk to you afterwards. Fights may not have always started with him, but he was damn sure to finish them.
Even in what he assumed was a major concussion (at least, it felt like that), he didn’t receive any impact of a punch from the other teen. No black eye, no busted lip, his fist never collided or connected either.
The four of them—, a center field, a runner and two cheerleaders— watched as their ring leader dragged him from the wreckage of the car and tossed him under the spotlight of a lamp-post labored breaths eager to watch a show, a massacre for damaging his ride.
So how did Frank Iero come out scott-free?
The scruff marks on his face seemed to blend in with all the others, so nobody asked what happened when he walked in the next day. His mom shook her head, as they always did, and scolded him about causing another scene again. They didn’t need to hear the reason anymore, because it was always the same excuse.
Someone said something to him, his anger, that rage that boiled in his chest and stomach that he couldn’t quite control came undone, and the rest was a repeat episode they didn’t bother to tune into again. He stepped on too many toes too often for it to ever not be his fault, and after the fourth or fifth fight, his mom stopped campaigning for him at meetings, rallied to try and convince whatever teacher or principle not to suspend him this time.
Still, his mom didn’t notice the car. He left early enough to avoid them or went late when both were gone for work. It was his only means of getting around without pulling out his bike, and that would be a red flag after shoving it away in the packed garage after so long.
So he acted normal, because as some fucked up luck would have it, he wasn’t the only one failing his classes.
—
Get to class, keep your head down, meet up with the asshole.
Get to class, don’t pick a fight, meet up with the asshole, and figure out how to get out of this whole situation.
He kept repeating it like a mantra, over and over to convince himself. Frank was paranoid on the road, fear that his mom might’ve forgotten her wallet and made a roundabout U-turn back home, which would’ve meant they’d run into each other on the road.
Despite being on the complete other side of town.
Frank knew he had to find a way out of this, had to make up an excuse why he hadn’t held up his end of the deal.
Michael Way — or Mikey as no one so often called him— was just some teacher pet, a loser who sat in class after everyone left to gag over the lesson plan for the next day. People hardly ever interacted with him, something about being too weird even by their standards. He took raspy breaths and sometimes would run out of class, coughing and swearing, but no one wrote him a pink slip. Everyone just thought he was dying, and the teachers gave him pity for it.
He was just some kid, some face in the sea of adolescent assholes Frank wanted to stay away from.
Teachers trusted him though, a lot. Like, an insane amount. They let him stay behind during free period, so long as he closed the door behind him. He didn’t need to request a library pass, because he always, always returned it on time.
They tolerated someone that made their job easier, but more importantly, they trusted him enough to deliver around the entire semesters lesson keys without taking a peek at them.
All Frank had to do was corner him and take them for himself. It wasn’t anything personal, just business. He was at a god damn western standoff, and the kid’d be caught in the gunfire, sure, but he’d be avoiding bullets instead. That’s the price that had to be paid.
The little shit was slippery though. He’d come in to class, wide frames all adjusted and foggy, head straight for his locker, and he’d disappear. Every period. And he wasn’t around during lunch. After three days of trying to figure out a way to get ahold of him, Frank wanted to call it quits.
There had to be another way. There had to be—
Franks train of thought was suddenly interrupted. He slammed his foot against the breaks, suddenly, the shock and break pads forced to cushion the abrupt stop. He nearly clipped someone. Again.
The girl before him skid the front tire of her bike to a halt and slammed her fist down against the hood, distress and anger in her voice. She wore their schools uniform, but lacked the plaid and pleated skirt the girls all wore. Her hair looked shaggy, jagged in some places, in the midst of needing a haircut and desperately growing it out.
“Dude!” She shouted, jacking her foot back as she kicked the front bumper with her foot. “Learn how to drive, asshole!”
It barley registered how stupid it all sounded in context. He knew how the fuck to drive, distracted or not, and this idiot just didn’t know how to look for traffic. He wanted to snap, the pressure of the last week needing a place to fire off at, but by then, she had already started riding again.
“What the fuck.. what the fuck!” Frank shouted, cranking the window down, at first not enough and then perfectly as he leaned out. “Hey! Yo! Fuck you!”
She whipped her head over her shoulder, riding the wind as she flipped him off. “Fuck you!”
“Fuck you!”
“Fuck you!”
“Fuck—“
By the time the light had turned red, he could only hear the faint response once more, leaving his efforts to have the last say a bygone message in the early morning fog.
Both hands lowered themselves against the wheel as he thumped his head, over and over as he spoke,
“It’s gonna be fine, man, it’s gonna be totally fine, not because you want it to be, but Jesus fuckin’ Christ man, it has to be.”
—
Classes were the same as ever, and so long as he kept his head down, nothing warranted attention.
“Suck on this, fag!”
Well, it shouldn’t have.
The cheaply wrapped hot dog hit the plastic mug in his hand, spilling the remains of lukewarm coffee against his blazer. The two idiots next to him didn’t bother to help, watching as Frank urgently struggled to stop any staining. Another uniform request was simply an out-of-the-question type request.
Whether or not the comment was meant for him didn’t matter. Everyone was a loser, a freak, clustered or riding solo, the insults were interchangeable. Everyone laughed too, no matter what click you found yourself in.
His first and natural instinct was to rush at them. His hand ached for that familiar contact of a cheek or jaw, his leg bounced, ready to catapult him forward at a moments notice. Even with two becoming four, becoming six guys laughing like hyenas, he’d take a swing at them, and he’d fucking win.
It wouldn’t do him any favors though. Not when the chances of getting busted were at an all-time high. He looked like a bitch sitting back down, defeated without so much as a fight, without so much as a word.
A tall, lanky figure had stepped over to him, extending a handful of napkins, seconds away from intervening. “Here man. Don’t wipe it, dab it.”
“I didn’t ask for your help, man.”
Wild tuffs of brown hair shook as he pulled away, both hands lowered defensively. “You didn’t have to. Just seemed like you needed it.”
“Yeah, well,” Even if he most definitely did, he wasn’t about to let someone else come to his rescue. “Whatever.”
-
The rest of the day went as planned. Classes, gym, cigarette behind the building, repeat. He didn’t like smoking, but the excess in his lungs, the chalky taste that coated his mouth and lips for a day or two later, it filled in for whatever was so desperately needed from his life. Pain kept him focused, kept him aware. It inched him closer to a breakthrough he might’ve been ready for, had someone not decided to interrupt him.
The late haze of the afternoon bleached the sky in orange and pink. In their town, your life began the second the bell dismissed you. Whatever came after— gossiping, garage practice, detention, practice, home— was up to you. And how much leeway your parents gave you.
He paced against the far edge of campus, where the track team did their laps early in the morning. The fence was busted for years now, and either faculty didn’t care that students would slip off between periods to fuck and smoke in the woods, or they just didn’t care enough to stop it anymore.
The taller man beside him never even looked over, as if acknowledging him was below him.
“You get those answers, Iero?”
“Can’t. The kid doesn’t even carry it with him half the time. It’s in his locker til he leaves, and unless you can shit out every possible three-digit combination for me to try without getting caught, we’re shit out of luck.”
He smacked his lips, humming, the only right answer was the one that would suit him best. “I think you’re not taking better initiative here, especially while I’m only trying to do us a both a favor, Iero.”
He crossed his arms, clicking his tongue a few times over as he shook his head, wagged his finger. “You know what, this deals a bunch of bullshit, Brendon.”
“Yeah? How you figure that one out?”
“Cause. I get busted, whatever, a few weeks go by, apologize to some kid, build his character. shit doesn’t mean anything to me. You on the other hand, man, it just feels like you’ve got a lot more to lose than just an afternoon at the body shop. Someone finds out you crashed, drunk, with no license… no one’s gonna wanna back you up, no matter how good you think you play. Shit, those scholarships you got man,”
Checkmate, Frank got him.
“You can kiss those goodbye real’fuckin quick.”
Brendon stared at him, really stared, trying to read past any hesitation in his voice, to figure out where Frank thought he stood. Suddenly, he laughed, soft before blurting it out.
“Oh! Oh man, Frank! Man, you really got me, that’s funny. Scholarships? I’ve got so many colleges looking at me, it makes me sick. Could stick my dick up Miss Callgeys ass and parade her around on it, and no one would say a damn thing to me. You on the other hand,”
Since when did he get so close? The quarterback wasn’t all that tall, not more than most, but he towered over Frank.
“You lose everything just by playing stupid. What I’m offering you here is a golden fuckin goose man, to keep this all under wraps. You get to keep yourself out of a fucking jail cell for a little longer, and all you gotta do is get those answers for me.”
“And how the fuck do you expect me to do that? I can’t break into some dudes locker, you want me to fuckin’ follow him home like some creep?”
“Not my problem.”
“Yeah well, it’s gonna be, so unless you figure out a way for me to steal them, or you wanna reconsider this stupid ass plan of yours, I highly suggest you…..”
Brandon’s mind was elsewhere, narrowed as he scanned across the field. Frank stopped, following his line of sight.
As fate would have it, Mikey Way walked out the schools side door. Wrapped in a thick jacket, his head barely peeked past his oversized hood and the red scarf he wore, accompanied by his friends.
The lanky guy from earlier had his blazer hanging from one arm, making some inside joke Frank half-heartedly wish he knew about. His hair blew back in the wind as he pulled it together with a hair tie. He propped the door open with his foot—
— and out came the girl from earlier.
Frank recognized her now, but only by proxy. Millie, no, Iris? Illi, he remembered it now. Illi McMillin. He remembered seeing Illi ace some science quiz he barely passed a few weeks ago, the one that pissed him off. She enrolled a year ago, after summer break, and right alongside her brother. Some people theorized she was originally homeschooled, or a product of an affair given her last name. Others called her an alien that beamed down as a replacement for some other poor member of the student body. He wasn’t sure which worked better.
She fit right in as she criss-crossed each step, swinging her backpack, wedging herself next to Mikey on the small back road. Seeing her with them… it made him feel better. At least Mikey had a unit of—
“That’s your ticket.”
Frank looked up to him, eyebrows furrowed. He stayed silent as Brandon pieced his words together.
“Yeah, you need a way in right? Well,” Patting both shoulders, he gripped Franks muscles and pinched, hard. “There’s your in, buddy.”
She threw her head back, elbowing her brother’s shoulder as she laughed.
“You want me to deal with his sister?”
“Deal with her, hang out, paint each other’s nails, I don’t really care, Iero. You need an in? That’s your in. Shit, I’ll make it interesting; fifty bucks if you score with her.”
He paused for a moment as he focused in on the trio across the field. Fifty bucks was child’s play, something he could earn stealing and reselling CD’s at their towns local record store, or scrounging around at the bottom of his old mans lazy chair after he went upstairs to sleep. He could have fifty bucks no sweat.
But then he remembered the hood of the car. The imaginary dent she caused on the front bumper after she kicked it, his pride soured. If this rich prick really was willing to shell out for some of the damages and keep it under wraps to cheat, why not? And he’d pitch in some cash just to mess with her?
Illi McMillan, with her dark curls that feathered out near the baby fat of her cheeks, who was in the midst of trying out new shades of red upon her lips in her compact mirror, who was Mikey’s weird older sister, was worth more than that.
“Make it a hundred,” Frank chewed his inner lip, imagining where the placement of a metal ring would be. “And I’ll bang the bitch too.”