Archive of Our Own

Frank stared at the syllabus. He was certain that this final project couldn't have been on there the first time he looked at it. He would have remembered something so completely fucking impossible.

"How the hell am I even supposed to do this?" he wondered aloud.

"Do what?" Mikey responded absently from his bottom bunk.

Frank leaned back in his desk chair, hooking his feet through the desk legs for balance. "'Identify and introduce yourself to a student' -- and it specifies that it needs to be someone you don't know -- 'and request to interview him or her about a recent academic, athletic or artistic achievement,'" he read aloud. "'Submit both your raw interview data and a completed human interest story of four to five thousand words.'" Frank let the chair fall back to the floor with a thump. "How do I find someone I don't know to interview? Isn't that like technically impossible?"

"You could take a look at the sports section of the newspaper, see who's done well in like lacrosse or something," Dewees said.

"This prof keeps trying to make the actual assignments as challenging as real life. What the fuck is up with that," Frank said, warming up to his topic.

"Yeah, it's so terrible that a journalism professor wants to simulate what the actual profession might be like," Dewees deadpanned.

"Simulate this," Mikey snickered.

Frank laughed and threw a pencil at the direction of his bunk. "I'll simulate you--"

"Bend over," all three of them chorused. Frank shook his head. He had the best freshman suite ever.

"You could interview my brother," Mikey suggested.

"What about?" Frank asked.

"His senior art project is on display all month in the fine arts building," Mikey said, focus still on the copy of On Writing he'd been pouring over all semester.

There was one problem with this suggestion, and Frank could attempt to be subtle about it, or he could just fucking ask. "Well. Is he any good? And how come we've never met your bro, anyway? Is he a dick or something?" Frank asked suspiciously.

"He's been a hermit the last six months working on it. And yeah. He's really good."

Frank looked closely at Mikey. He sounded like he did when he was talking about Jaws. "Really good, huh?"

Mikey nodded. "Yup."

Frank glanced over at Dewees, who just shrugged. No help there. Well, talking to Mikey's brother for two hours about art had to be better than finding a random senior athlete who was having a standout year. "Okay," he decided. "Give me his email."

* * *

Frank was a firm believer in the idea that the best interviewers should actually know something about their subjects before they started asking questions. It was a careful balance of knowing enough to be able to ask questions that were actually interesting, and not knowing so much that there was nothing left to discover.

It was with this in mind that he made his way over to the cluster of arts buildings near south campus. He wandered around some of the permanent sculptures on display in the courtyard between the concert hall and main auditorium, snapping some pictures. He debated whether to sound the big gong right outside the fine arts building for about two seconds before giving into the urge and banging it with the helpfully-provided mallet, the sound reverberating off the stone buildings.

Now he was ready to do some work.

There was a hush in the hallways of the arts building, the squeaking of his sneakers on the floor loud and intrusive even to his own ears. He saw a directory of final projects on an A-frame poster and searched for Way, Gerard, eyes scanning the listings until he saw it next to Room 302A.

He trotted up the stairs as quietly as he could, wondering what he was about to see. Even if Mikey had exaggerated how good his brother was, Frank hoped that his work would at least be bad in an interesting way. He found the right studio and took a deep breath before opening the door and walking in.

His jaw dropped.

At first Frank wasn't even sure what he was looking at, the swirls of color covering the enormous canvas on the far wall obscuring the details. But as he walked closer, stark images started to pop into focus from beneath the sheets of paint: a pile of bones with a raven perched atop them; a house burning, the flames spreading to the bare trees surrounding it; a naked man cradled in another man's arms.

Frank walked back and forth in front of the project, the painting, the fucking work of art filling his entire view. His eyes were drawn from one corner to another, the piece compelling his attention in a way he had no control over. He felt like he couldn't quite get enough air in his lungs.

Finally, he was able to take a few steps back, breaking the spell. He wasn't entirely sure what he had been expecting, but it definitely wasn't this. There were certainly no new and insightful questions for Mikey's brother floating through his brain now, though. If anything, actually seeing his work had just reduced his questions down to single words: What. Why. How.

Once he had walked backwards far enough, he finally saw a little easel set up off to the side. There was a posterboard with a brief biographical paragraph about Gerard, and a black and white photo of him. He was looking away from the camera, head almost turned all the way over his shoulder, barely quarter profile, with a cigarette dangling from his lips. Frank squinted a little, trying to see any resemblance to Mikey. He finally decided there was something there in the nose, or jawline, or something, but it was all very fuzzy.

Mostly he just tried to see who this guy had to be to create something like this.

* * *

The student center was pretty quiet at 2 p.m. on a Wednesday, most students either in class or between them. Frank sat at a corner booth near the back, a plate of curly fries half-forgotten next to his notes. His next class was at 4, so he should have just enough time to get through his set of questions.

"Frank?"

He looked up when he heard his name, and holy shit. The dude in front of him was in a pair of dark jeans with paint splattered on the thighs, a t-shirt that looked like it was going to give up the ghost any moment and just fall off his body, and a worn-in leather jacket. His hair was messy and looked like it hadn't seen a comb or a shower in a couple of days, and there was a well-loved travel mug clutched in one hand. Frank could smell the cigarette smoke on him.

But the main thing Frank noticed were Gerard's eyes, big and bright gazing back at him, and his mouth pulled to one side, almost like he was still in the middle of saying Frank's name.

Frank stared at him for another second before realizing that Gerard was waiting for Frank, that his mouth looked like that because Frank was being a total loser. "Yeah! Um. I'm Frank. You must be Gerard?" he finally got out, shoving his hand out for Gerard to shake. He only had a moment to worry about whether that was totally stupid and childish, acting like he was a real journalist or something, but Gerard just took his hand and shook it, fingers cool on the back of Frank's hand.

"Yeah! Sorry I'm late, I got caught up in something," Gerard said, pulling away for a moment before sitting across from Frank in the booth.

"No no, it's fine. Um. Thank you for taking the time to do me a favor, man," Frank said. He looked down at his notes like they could save him from being a complete idiot.

Gerard waved a hand. "Things have finally calmed down for me, so it's no problem. And I don't know if Mikey mentioned it, but talking about my work is one of my favorite things to do," Gerard said, a thread of self-deprecation weaving its way through the comment.

It occurred to Frank that he might not be the only one who was nervous here. "That's the main quality of a good interview subject, so I think we'll be good," Frank said, smiling a little, his left knee bouncing like crazy under the table. "So. Uh. Why don't we get started?"

Gerard nodded. "Ask away."

"When did you first start painting?"

* * *

Frank had been prepared for a lot of potential issues he might have with this interview -- not having enough questions, not knowing enough about art to understand what Gerard was talking about, not knowing how to coax Gerard to open up more.

The one thing he hadn't anticipated was only getting through the first half of his questions in almost two hours. Gerard hadn't been kidding when he said he could talk.

"--and that was the moment when I realized that if you just talk about death all the time, you're a freak or people think you should be in therapy. But if you paint a fucking painting about it, then you're making a point, artistically."

"So you became an artist so that no one could give you grief over being a weirdo?" Frank couldn't resist asking.

Gerard grinned back at him. "Isn't that why all artists create? But no, everyone still thinks I'm a weirdo," he said, shrugging. "I just have a good excuse for it now."

Frank looked down at his notes, trying to figured out how to skip ahead. They hadn't even gotten to the actual final project the interview was supposed to be focused on, and his freshman seminar was in fifteen minutes. Fuck. He looked back up at Gerard, trying to figure out what to do.

Apparently his terrible time management was obvious on his face. "Is something wrong?" Gerard asked, voice completely different than it had been when he was describing his high school art projects.

Frank tried to be cool. "Yeah, I just--have to go? I have a seminar in like ten minutes. But I still had a lot left I wanted to talk to you about," he said, gesturing at his pad.

Gerard ran a hand through his hair, messing it up even further. "Oh shit, I've been rambling on for like hours, fuck, I'm sorry. Like I said, I can really go on--"

"It's not your fault, I should have said--" Frank said, but Gerard kept talking over him.

"--And you're just really easy to talk to," Gerard finished, and Frank shut his mouth. "You're really good at listening." Gerard looked down at the top of the table, fingers running along the edge.

Frank wiped his palms on the tops of his thighs, suddenly conscious of his entire body. "Thanks. I mean, it's all really interesting." Gerard grinned a little at that, and Frank started to argue with himself about whether he really needed to go to his seminar anyway.

Before he could convince himself that missing the second to last class of a fifteen-person course was a totally reasonable idea, Gerard said, "Well, maybe we could continue this tomorrow? Will that give you enough time to finish your paper?"

Frank nodded quickly. "Yeah, that would work."

"I have to meet with my advisor in the fine arts building, but I'll be done by six," Gerard said. "I don't know if you'll be close to south campus or not, though."

Frank would be all the way on the other side of campus. "That totally works, I'll be right near there," he said. He was a fast walker when he needed to be. He looked at his phone again. Fuck, he had to leave now. "Just email me where exactly and I'll see you then," he said while shoving his notebook into his messenger bag and slinging it over his shoulder. He stopped before running off. "Thanks, Gerard," he said, not waiting for a response before darting out of there.

* * *

Most of the time Frank waited until the last possible minute to start actually writing any of his assignments, but in this case, he didn't want to put it off. He told himself that he was being responsible, that reading through the first half of the interview was being a good student, and that his level of fascination was a sign of being in the right course of study.

It was true that by the time he made it down to south campus the next day he had a good idea of exactly what he needed to find out from Gerard in order to write a good paper, so at least lying to himself was improving his academic career, for once.

He found Gerard sitting on one of the benches outside his advisor's office on the fourth floor. He suddenly felt a little off-balance, not even sure where they were going to go for the interview itself. This was Gerard's turf, not his, and he regretted the location for a moment.

Then Gerard jumped up and smiled at him, and Frank forgot why he wanted a home-field advantage in the first place. "Frank! Come on in, my advisor said we could just talk in here," he said, leading Frank into a cluttered office. There was a tiny round table with two chairs snug around it, and after Gerard sat in one of them Frank took the other, pulling his materials out of his bag.

Before he could get started, Gerard asked him, "So have you interviewed a lot of people?"

Frank shook his head, clearing his throat before saying, "No, you're pretty much my first."

"Really?" Gerard said, tone disbelieving.

"Yeah, I mean, I did a couple of shorter pieces for my high school newspaper, but no one I had never met before," Frank said, mentally kicking himself for bringing up fucking high school. "I'm not sure it really counts when it's just your grandpa."

"That totally fucking counts!" Gerard said, leaning forward. "And that's so cool, that you interviewed him."

"He's lived a pretty crazy life," Frank said. He could talk about his grandpa all day. "Fought in WWII, moved his whole family over here from Italy, figured out how to start over again--he's pretty fucking badass, for an old dude."

"Wow." Gerard was staring at him like Frank was fucking badass. "Does he want you to be a journalist? My grandma has been such a big supporter of me doing my art, even when she hates it."

Frank laughed. "Not such a big fan of the bleeding crosses?"

Gerard's smile was wry. "Not exactly."

"Yeah, my grandpa worries a little about whether I can make a career out of it, but he's pretty supportive. My whole family is," Frank said. "First one to go to college, the whole nine yards."

Suddenly Frank was the one spilling his guts, telling Gerard about how hard high school had been, how his mom had worked two jobs for like five years so that he could go to a good private high school and stay out of the public schools after he got jumped coming home from junior high when he was thirteen. He didn't usually talk about his scholarship, didn't want the guys to think he was lame when he turned down getting pizza or always bought the cheapest, most disgusting vodka out there when it was his turn to get the booze. Even now that he knew they weren't douchebags like that, he still didn't talk about it much, just grateful his work study job was at the library at least and not in the cafeteria.

When his phone buzzed with a text from Mikey, Frank jumped. "Oh!"

"What is it?" Gerard asked.

"Nothing, just Mikey wanting to know if I was coming to the showing of Dawn of the Dead tonight," Frank said, sending off a quick response.

"Awesome movie," Gerard commented, craning his head around so he could see Frank's phone. "Tell him hi for me," he said, waving like Mikey could actually see it.

"Yeah, I've got another paper due tomorrow, or else I'd be there for sure," Frank said. He texted, Gerard says hi, laughing when Mikey responded almost instantly. "He says hi back, and that you need to call him about your mom's birthday."

"Right, right, fuck," Gerard said.

Frank shook his head, trying to refocus. "Sorry, I've been going on about me for like the last twenty minutes."

"It's my fault," Gerard said quickly.

"What kind of interviewer am I if I keep letting you distract me?" Frank retorted. The small office seemed warm all of a sudden, Frank's cheeks hot. He cleared his throat. "So, uh. Tell me about the themes you were exploring with your final project."

Frank made himself stick to the questions this time, didn't let himself make any asides or drag Gerard off on tangents, even when Gerard was explaining what he wanted to express with the image of the two men embracing. "It's not so much a literal thing as just a way of showing that they survived, you know?" Gerard said, hands waving through the air.

Even though he wasn't entirely sure he totally understood, Frank nodded along. Time for the final question. "So what's next for you?"

Gerard looked up at him. "I think I'm staying around the area, maybe for a couple of years or so. An MFA would probably be a good idea eventually, but I need to be out there first." He chewed on a fingernail; Frank waited, having already learned that Gerard would usually keep going after a second. "I have a couple of jobs that will pay the bills, and my roommate is a grad student, so I can stay in the same apartment, plus Mikey's gonna be here for three more years. And I don't know--I want to see what I can create outside of a classroom, you know?" Before Frank could answer, Gerard grinned and shook his head. "I don't know, maybe I'll end up teaching twelve year olds how to make paper mache mummies."

"That would be better than the art class I had to take in junior high," Frank said. He doodled along the margins of his notes. "I bet you'd be really good with kids."

Gerard laughed, loud and honking. "Yeah, if their parents would let me near them."

"You're not that weird," Frank said. "You don't even have any tattoos!"

Gerard's eyes flicked down to Frank's left forearm, at his Mary. "I'm not a big fan of needles. And besides," he continued on before Frank could respond, "there are plenty of other things for some parents to not like about me and my art." He sounded a little sad for the first time during their conversation, even though they'd spent over an hour talking about how death had affected Gerard.

Frank clicked off his recorder before he closed his notebook, trying to figure out how to end the interview. If he could wipe that look off Gerard's face too that would be even better. "Well, I think that's pretty much it. Thanks again for talking with me, Gerard."

Gerard smiled at him, but he still seemed a little off. "It was really fun, Frank. I hope that your paper goes well."

"Are you kidding? I'm not even going to have to try to make you sound interesting," Frank said honestly. He felt like a dork saying it, but it was worth it to see Gerard's face finally brighten.

Hey," Gerard said, turning back to Frank while leading them out of the office, "send me a copy of it once it's done, okay?"

"Yeah, sure," Frank said, his brain totally failing at coming up with a good reason why he couldn't. "Will do."

Fuck, now he really had to make it good.

* * *

It took the entire weekend to write up and edit Gerard's hours of quotes and craft a narrative out of it, but by Monday morning Frank was pretty happy with the essay. It was definitely the best thing he'd written so far, and he didn't think it was just because of how interesting Gerard was.

That didn't hurt, though.

By the time he was done, he had mostly convinced himself that the way he felt each time he played back one of Gerard's monologues about what art can mean to society was just about process. He wanted to care, to become invested. He knew that he had to have some distance and separation from his subjects, but he'd never be able to divorce himself from his feelings entirely, especially if he got to write about topics he actually cared about. But everyone probably felt like they were a little in love with the people they wrote about. It was a part of the process.

His classmates were all complaining about the final assignment when he got to the class about five minutes before it started. He slung his bag around the back of the built-in seat at his desk and tried to catch up.

"God, I don't know how I managed to turn this dude's crew team into something worth reading about," Kelly was moaning.

"At least you interviewed an athlete. I bet crew could be interesting," Jen said.

"Not the way he talked about it," Kelly said. "Hey, Frank. How'd you do?"

Frank waved at them both. "Pretty good, I think. I don't know, I think that when you spend that much time talking with someone about their life, they just end up seeming really amazing to you, right?"

Kelly and Jen stared at him. "Who did you interview?" Jen asked finally. "Because the first chair violinist of the orchestra had a lot to say, but I don't know if she was amazing."

Frank coughed. "Really? I was thinking that, like, to be a good interviewer, you need to buy into your subject's whole world, you know?"

Kelly snorted. "Yeah, if you want to be a creeper and fall in love with your subject over and over," she said.

Frank was still trying to figure out a way to respond to that when their professor arrived.

* * *

Frank was going to send his final paper to Gerard. He really was. But when he typed Gerard's email address in, instead of attached the document and going on with his life, he wrote:

Still working on my paper, had one last question I wanted to ask you. Any chance you're free tonight?

He looked over at Mikey, wondering whether he was breaking some sort of special bro code by emailing Gerard like this. But he had seemed cool enough about Frank hanging out with Gerard in the first place, and he wasn't going to bring it up when he didn't even know yet if anything was going to happen. Frank hit send.

He wasn't going to let himself wait around for an answer and was already pulling his Chucks back on to go get nachos from the student center when he heard his computer chime.

I'm around. Mind coming by my apartment? I'm in the middle of writing a paper.

His apartment. Sure. Frank could do that.

* * *

Frank's pits were sweaty and he felt a little like he was going to throw up by the time he made it to Gerard's apartment complex. It was off-campus but just barely, three or four blocks away from official university buildings, and everyone he saw on the way there looked like he felt, strung-out and crazy-eyed. He was sure that most of them looked that way because they were trying to pass their classes and not because they were about to hit on a hot older guy in his own apartment, though.

He climbed up the stairs after Gerard buzzed him in, taking them two at a time as he made his way to the fourth floor. He knocked and rubbed his hands on his shirt, just barely yanking his hand down from his hair before Gerard opened the door.

"Hi!" Gerard said, looking unfairly good for someone who was in the middle of writing a paper. "Come on in."

Frank stepped into the apartment, taking in the stacks of takeout containers on the counter and the papers everywhere in the tiny main room, a kitchenette in one corner and a sofa, coffee table and electric piano shoved in the other. "Hey, um, sorry to barge in while you're in the middle of something."

Gerard shrugged. "It's okay, it's just my last humanities requirement for graduation--I don't need the paper to be good, I just need it to be done, you know?"

Frank nodded, trying to swallow down his nerves and failing badly. "Whose piano is that?"

"Oh, that's my roommate Ray's," Gerard said. "He's in one of the practice rooms on campus right now, practically sleeping under a baby grand while he finishes his final composition for a class." Gerard ran a hand through his hair. "I've barely seen him in like a week."

Frank couldn't think of anything to say to that, just standing there dumbly. Finally, he came up with, "That's too bad."

"Yeah, he's a good guy, too bad you couldn't meet him." Before Frank could figure out a way to believably express that he would have liked nothing more than to meet Gerard's roommate, Gerard moved back towards the junior fridge. "You want anything to drink? We've just got water and piss water beer."

'Water's good," Frank said, and then changed his mind. "Or actually, I'd take a beer."

Gerard gave him a little smile and grabbed two cans of Busch Light from the fridge, handing one to Frank. He popped open the tab and took a swallow, the sour taste of it distracting him a little from what he was here for.

"So you said you had one last question for me?" Gerard asked, moving back into the living room and sitting down on the couch. He put the beer down on the table and looked up at Frank, one hand shoved through his hair.

Frank nodded and sat down next to Gerard, the couch cushions sloping down together. "Yeah, um. It seemed like there were a lot of sort of gay themes in your work? And I was just wondering if you would talk about that more," he said in a rush, finally looking at Gerard. "I mean, not that there's necessarily a reason for that, but if there was--"

He was cut off when Gerard leaned forward and kissed him, his lips catching Frank's in the middle of a word. Frank reached up and grabbed Gerard's hair, kissing him back. They sank together against the back of the couch, hands grasping at each other as they kissed. Frank moaned a little when Gerard slid his tongue into his mouth, and he wanted more and also just wanted to keep making out forever, keep tasting Gerard under the residue of the shitty beer.

He gasped when Gerard broke away from his mouth and then kissed down Frank's throat. "Gerard," he whimpered, and Gerard kissed him again briefly before sucking on his earlobe. "I didn't actually have a question for you."

"I know," Gerard muttered into his ear, his hands tight around Frank's back.

Frank pressed closer. "You knew?"

Gerard pulled away, his eyes bright. "You told me last week that your paper was due yesterday, Frank. So I was kind of hoping this was what you were coming here for."

Frank stared at him. "You invited me over to your apartment!"

Gerard laughed, one hand running down over Frank's hip and onto his thigh above his knee. "You were the one who made up a reason to see me again! I tried to be subtle by asking you to email me your paper."

"I thought you were really interested in my work," Frank said, shifting so he was practically in Gerard's lap, his lips almost touching Gerard's.

"Mmm, among other things," Gerard said, and Frank kissed him again.

He had hooked up with guys before, had gotten off with a couple this year even, but he'd never felt like this, like someone's entire focus was on him, on making him gasp and moan. Gerard thumbed over his nipple once and then did it again, harder, when Frank pressed into Gerard's hand. He could feel the hard line of Gerard's dick against his thigh, and he moved over so that he was straddling Gerard's legs, grinding down against him. The noise Gerard made into his mouth before biting down hard on Frank's lip made his cock jump in his pants.

Gerard's hands were stroking up and down Frank's back, finally sweeping down over his ass and pulling him down hard against him. It wasn't quite the right angle and Frank's dick was trapped in a really awkward way in his jeans and he didn't care at all, couldn't make himself move away from Gerard long enough to do anything about it. When Gerard popped open his jeans and shoved his hand down over his dick, pulling it out and stroking him fast, his entire body clenched up, fingers gripping the back of Gerard's shirt.

He lasted for about ten seconds, pushing his hips up into Gerard's hand, Gerard's other arm around his back the only thing preventing him from falling off the couch altogether as he came. Frank tried to kiss Gerard but could only pant into his mouth, his body finally slumping down against Gerard's, his head thunking down on Gerard's shoulder. He stayed like that for a few seconds before Gerard rolled him back onto the couch, ripping his own jeans down and jerking off as he stared down at Frank, mouth open.

"Here, let me," Frank slurred out, getting his hand around Gerard's dick and stroking him off, his skin already sticky from Frank's own come. Gerard's entire face squinched up and then he came, Frank flicking his thumb up over the head as he shot all over Frank's stomach.

Gerard collapsed on top of him, panting hard, and Frank turned his head just enough to kiss the side of Gerard's neck while wiping his hands off on Gerard's t-shirt. He started to giggle. "I can still send you my paper," he said.

Gerard snorted into Frank's shoulder, his entire body shaking against Frank's. He pulled away just enough to kiss Frank on the lips. "Maybe you can bring it with you the next time you come over?"

"I can't believe you want to read about yourself, you egotistical asshole," Frank said, giddy and a little shaky.

"When it's written by you, I do," Gerard said earnestly, and Frank had to kiss him one more time.