Entry tags:

bandom, campus, mcr4u

campus [1/2]
Title: Campus
Author: bellheim
Recipient: thesamefire
Pairing: Bob/Gerard
Rating: pg-13
Word count: 16000

The prompt: Bob/Gerard, something to do with art. College au.


“Okay, so, whatever, I know a guy,” Mikey says, and doesn’t look away from his magazine. He’s holding it above his face, lying on Gerard’s unmade double bed and crumpling the sheets underneath his dirty sneakers.

Thing is, Gerard doesn’t even care. He focuses on his computer screen, trying to edge out the bleed on the left side of his portfolio cover, because honestly, he hates generating computer images to print, because the plotter fucks them all to hell.

“Gerard,” Mikey says, after a minute, raising one end of the magazine to look at his brother. “Are you listening?”

“No,” Gerard says, and hits the key sequence to undo a few steps. It goes too far, and leaves his text object a few hundred pixels to the left of where it should be. “Fuck. Do we have to do this now?”

“Whatever.” Mikey says, and tilts the magazine back down. “Did you buy more light bulbs?”

“When do I have time,” Gerard mutters, almost a whine. “No. Okay? I’m living green.”

“Dude, not turning on your lights doesn’t exactly mean you’re saving the world.” Mikey snorts and then his pocket dingles.

“What the hell, man,” Gerard turns a bit from his desk, because the last time he’d checked, Mikey hadn’t replaced the phone he’d lost at a party somewhere.

“Turns out Frank had it hi,” Mikey says, answering the phone with the last word. “No, just with Gerard.”

Gerard shakes his head and turns back to the computer, deciding to save his work before he screwed something else up and had to start all over. He kind of hates his media in progressive technology studies class, but it’d seemed like a good idea at the time.

Mikey laughs behind him, his girlfriend laugh, the one Gerard usually hears twice a week and three times on Saturdays, and he’s kind of dying to know who called. He can’t see the display on Mikey’s phone from here, and after his document saves he pushes back from his desk and heads to the kitchen.

He has this open-concept apartment, everything done in shades of gray and silver and rust, because it’s a fringe campus. There aren’t any dorms, and since there are exactly three courses that aren’t already tied to his major, Gerard has to make a portfolio cover incorporating a watermark and percentages of one dye lot.

There’s nothing in his fridge, and the automatic shut-off on his kettle keeps automatically shutting it off before it can really boil. Gerard makes a face as he lets the door slam shut, and grabs his keys from the counter. He jingles them in Mikey’s direction, and Mikey gets up from the bed, all legs and elbows.

“We’ll meet you there,” Mikey says as he grabs for his hoodie, thrown over Gerard’s dehumidifier. He hits the end button and kind of takes a second to give his phone a look.

Gerard knows that look, it’s the same one Mikey uses on orange Gatorade when he’s particularly hung over or a quesadilla the night before. He has a similar expression himself, but he saves it for like, new tips for his ink stylus, and maybe a nice jacket.

“Who is it?” Gerard asks, already resigning himself to a night of dealing with Mikey’s half-ass flirting. It’s only half-ass because Mikey pretends he’s not doing it.

“Ray, you know Ray?” Mikey says. He doesn’t really expect an answer, because Ray’s his roommate and Gerard knew Ray even before that. Ray isn’t in any of Mikey’s classes, but he’s also the least likely one to tape all of Mikey’s shoes together, so Gerard doesn’t find it weird that they’re roommates or anything.

Mikey’s taking business because he couldn’t decide on anything else, and figures at least business would help if he decides to do something later. Gerard doesn’t think that Mikey actually plans further than the weekend, but at least it keeps Mikey busy.

“I know Ray,” Gerard says, and that would pretty much be it, except that he still doesn’t have an idea for his final project in his concepts and presentation visual art course.

“Good.” Mikey lets Gerard turn out all the lights and follows him out the door, zipping up his hoodie and tugging the hood over his head. “So, he has this friend.”

“Mikey, no,” Gerard says, hitting the up button on the elevator by accident. He punches the down button before turning to his brother. “Seriously, okay? Not the time.”

“Gerard.” Mikey waits until the elevator doors open and they get inside, and they’re the only two heading for the first floor. “Listen, it’s not like that.”

“Like what,” Gerard says, because honestly. The last time he’d listened to Mikey it hadn’t ended well, because the guy turned out to be the professor for Gerard’s generic math course. He’d only barely managed to pass the class after that, and he still can’t make eye contact with anyone in the gen ed department.

“This guy I know, his scholarship only covers so much,” Mikey says. “So he’s looking for a little, nothing serious, just enough to get him by this semester. And I know you’re looking.”

“Wait, wait,” Gerard says, and doesn’t freak out. “The fuck do you take me for? I don’t need to pay some guy you know for a date.”

Mikey snorts, shoving his hands into his pockets. “Yeah, no, okay? Maybe I was talking about your project? I’m not that interested in your personal life.”

Gerard pauses, catching himself before he stumbles. “Okay, that sounds about right.”

“Yeah, I know.” Mikey rolls his eyes. “Just think about it, okay? He’s willing to give you a hand, because he knows you’re good for it, because I said you were, because you’re my brother.”

“Because,” Gerard prompts.

Mikey doesn’t disappoint. “Because you’re—you’re fucking with me, aren’t you? Asshole.”

Gerard laughs at that, and figures yeah, okay, maybe, if he really runs out of ideas for his final project, he could maybe give this guy a call, if he got desperate. But really, who’s he kidding. Mikey had him when he said the guy needed it to get through the semester.

Gerard ends up with the guy’s name and the guy’s number, and he doesn’t call for four days after Mikey sticks the paper to the front of Gerard’s fridge with a carrot-shaped magnet.

He tries a few times, on the fifth day, but can’t remember exactly what to say before he hangs up. The one time he lets it dial all the way through, voicemail picks up, and Gerard hadn’t rehearsed a message so he hangs up again.

He’d call again, but Mikey’s coming over in like ten minutes, so he really shouldn’t. Gerard takes his shoes off and leaves them by the door, heading to his computer and turning it off. He’s actually saving some energy, this time, even if he keeps leaving his television on when he goes to class in the mornings.

There’s a heavy duty spotlight in the corner of the room, beside his desk and on the other side of the room from his bed. Gerard’s place is tiny, bedroom crawling on the living room and everything passes as workspace. It works well for the mornings when he’s too tired to change before going to class or when he wakes up from a fucking awesome dream and rolls over and lands directly on a canvas to start working on it.

Mikey buzzes from downstairs, and Gerard hits the button to unlock the door without bothering to check on the intercom. It’s always Mikey, anyway, because Gerard makes a point of never asking people back to his place.

Kneeling down to tie his shoes, Gerard takes the time to make them even and pull out the twists and tangles, because it’ll take Mikey a minute to reach the apartment from the elevator, and he steps out of the way of the door just in time.

Gerard stops short, because he, okay.

“Um, hi,” this big, blond guy says, and looks about as awkward as Gerard feels right now.

“Hi,” Gerard says, taking a step backward and ends up with one side of the counter pressed into his lower back from the kitchenette.

“Uh, okay, I’m Bob,” the guy says, and he’s shutting the door behind him as he comes in. All Gerard can think about is maybe the combination of energy drinks he’s been trying was a bad idea and clearly affecting his imagination, because this kind of shit does not exactly happen to him in real life.

“Bryar?” Bob says, kind of hopefully, and Gerard has no idea what kind of conversation this is, because clearly he’s missing it.

“Uh, hi, what?” Gerard grasps backwards for something, like maybe a letter opener or a fork, and catches sight of the name on his fridge.

“Oh!” Gerard says, because he really was missing something. “Bob Bryar.”

“Yeah, Mikey said you were expecting me,” Bob says, with a wary look at Gerard’s hand.

Gerard looks down, because he’s holding onto a jump drive with his experiments with converting lines to curves in Photoshop, and it’s not really a threatening weapon, however daunting the original concept was.

“Um, I don’t know why I have this,” Gerard says, and drops it to the counter. Bob’s a little taller than he first expected, all in black with a backpack that looks heavy as he drops it to the floor.

“Okay, so,” Bob hesitates before letting go of the strap from his bag as well. “I’ve never done anything like this before.”

“Okay, I have,” Gerard says, and nods his head towards the rest of his apartment. He’s pushed the table against the wall, next to the desk, and there’s absolutely nothing between them as Bob looks at Gerard’s entire life, pretty much.

Gerard stands back and tries not to fidget, but it’s hard, especially when Bob takes a step too close to the canvas that’s hanging from a single nail on the wall.

Bob doesn’t comment on it, or the way it hangs from just one corner, and it’s only been a few seconds when he turns to Gerard. “So, uh. Mikey didn’t really say?”

“Okay, okay,” Gerard says, and kind of panics, because he supposes that Mikey isn’t coming over tonight. He hasn’t really figured out what his theme for the final project is, although he’s thinking it should involve zombies or demons, because hello, that’s awesome.

“It’s for my final project,” Gerard says, and moves to his desk, shuffling papers and trying to pull out the sketches he’d done for the midterm check. Bob’s waiting quietly behind him, and Gerard pulls out his ideas with some relief.

“Mikey said you didn’t have midterms,” Bob says, and he looks pale in the bright overhead light, and Gerard kind of wants to turn it off, but that would be a little too obvious, he thinks.

“No, just a lot of projects,” Gerard says, turning to face Bob more fully. “What about you?”

“Every single class,” Bob says with a laugh, and Gerard thinks, oh. He stares for maybe a minute too long, because Bob shifts uncomfortably in front of the bed.

“What?” Bob asks, frowning as he stands there.

“No, nothing, sorry.” Gerard shakes his head and picks up a canvas leaning against the patio door, prepped and ready.

“How do we do this?” Bob asks, and raises a hand to scratch at the back of his head. “I mean, do you want me to do something, or?”

“Or,” Gerard says, setting the canvas back down against the desk chair. “I’m trying to set up, so, just get comfortable, I guess.”

“Okay,” Bob says, and looks for a place to sit that isn’t Gerard’s bed. There isn’t anything, Gerard realizes a little too late, and Bob just rubs at the base of his thumb awkwardly.

“Um, never mind,” Gerard says, and kneels down to open the plastic container that holds the tubs of his acrylics.

He pries the lid off and sets it to the side, and pulls out a jar of blue paint. He doesn’t notice the way Bob’s shifting his weight and rubbing at his earlobe, too busy comparing the shade of blue to the picture he has in his head.

Opening the jar, Gerard gets blue paint over his fingers from where it slops onto the lid. Making a face, he looks over to see Bob still standing there and waiting for some direction. Bob goes to bring a hand to his ear again, not seeming to notice Gerard watching him.

“Shit, okay, hold on,” Gerard says, and holds one hand up—the one with bright dark paint on the tips of his fingers, and Bob freezes, hand halfway to his face.

Gerard goes to pick up the canvas again, and Bob’s going to warn him, going to say there’s paint all over his fingers, but it’s too late, and Gerard’s setting the canvas back against the wall and now there are blue fingerprints down one side.

“Okay, like, it’s for my project,” Gerard says, and looks at his fingers, where the blue is dripping down towards the palm of his hand. “I wouldn’t ask if it wasn’t for my grade.”

“You’re paying me,” Bob says, because Gerard is, right, but he doesn’t move. There’s a spotlight on the corner of Gerard’s desk, and it looks ominous, but Bob figures it’s safe to focus on.

“Yeah, okay,” Gerard hesitates, taking a few steps towards Bob and then to the side, giving him a curious look and squinting. “Um, could you. Uh, hold on.”

Bob still hasn’t moved, and the back of his neck is starting to itch with the effort. “What?”

“Like, I don’t know, something’s missing,” Gerard says, and takes another step closer. “It’s. It’s exactly like this other one I tried.”

“Hey, you’re the artist,” Bob says, and holds up his hands. “You just tell me what you want me to do.”

“No, I mean, it’s like the first time I tried to do this,” Gerard says, and sighs. “It’s not working.”

“I’m sorry,” Bob says, and isn’t sure whether he’s disappointed or relieved. “I guess I’ll just go then?”

“No, no, not that,” Gerard says immediately, looking alarmed. “I just mean, I can’t make you.”

“Okay,” Bob says, and tries not to get pissed with the waste of time. It’s already way later than he thought it was going to be, after Gerard tried to get started and didn’t, and he still has to study for his physics midterm and work on a project on the dimensionality of sound.

“It’s going to be a minute,” Gerard says, and raises his hand to his chin, tapping it with two blue fingers.

Bob doesn’t mention the smudge left behind, but it takes an effort. “Listen, could I maybe study while you’re figuring it out? I have a midterm, and—”

“Dude, of course,” Gerard says, and looks embarrassed when Bob hesitates. “No, I mean, go ahead, I don’t want to keep you. I have no idea what I’m doing, seriously.”

“Okay,” Bob says, waiting for Gerard to make a move, but he doesn’t. He has a smear of blue on his chin and near the sleeve of his black tee, but with the streaks of colour already on it, Bob figures it’s not the first time.

He goes for his backpack and pulls out his physics textbook. It’s hardcover and orange, and Bob leaves his notes on loose sheets of notebook paper crammed inside the cover.

Hesitating with the book in hand, Bob turns a bit to look at Gerard. He’s wiping the blue paint on his shirt, and looks up after only a second.

“Can I borrow your desk?” Bob asks, because he’s not about to study on some other guy’s bed.

“Sure, yeah, go ahead,” Gerard says, and takes a step to shove his loose papers to the side, setting the spotlight on top of the stack. A sketchbook falls over the edge of the desk, landing on the floor.

“Thanks,” Bob says, and tries not to think about the pencil Gerard grabs along with the sketchbook.

He flips his book open to the most recent section on transverse waves, and gets used to the soft scratching noise of Gerard’s pencil on paper, and doesn’t notice when he switches to illustration board, until Gerard’s propping it up on the kitchen table beside him.

“Huh,” Bob says, because he’s zoned out to the tune of electromagnetic waves and oscillations, and it just hits him then, that Gerard drew a rough sketch of him bent over the desk, and he eyes it as he’s still sitting there.

It’s pretty good, even with the little demons hanging around in the shadows around Bob’s shoulders, the ones that look frustrated and sort of what Bob imagines procrastination is like, but it’s still his face in the middle, half-obscured by the way his hair falls over his face.

Bob stiffens at that, and closes his book, because it’s a little weird to see his face on anything, especially something that’s the same size as a sheet of Bristol board.

“So, it’s just rough, but I think it’ll work,” Gerard says, eyeing it critically. He still has his pen in hand, and his fingers are surprisingly free from smudges, although blue underneath the nails.

“I, uh, I have to go,” Bob says, and doesn’t look at the drawing again. He picks up his textbook and turns his back on Gerard, and doesn’t really see the way Gerard’s shoulders slump when he recaps his pen and sees Bob out to the door.

Gerard’s a little disappointed, maybe. Not in the way it turned out, because the shadows look amazing and natural around the slope of Bob’s shoulders, but maybe in the lack of reaction from Bob.

He doesn’t know, and goes back to work on the drawing when Bob leaves. The lines around Bob’s scowl are precise, and Gerard thinks it’s about concentration instead of disgust.



“This is new,” Mikey says, tilting his head as he looks at the illustration board by Gerard’s desk. It’s mostly finished, resting portrait-wise, even if the painting’s in landscape.

Gerard shrugs and doesn’t look away from where he’s sharpening his set of B pencils. They’re his favourite to sketch with.

“I like it,” Mikey says, and takes a step back. “So things went well with Bob?”

“I guess,” Gerard says, and frowns when he checks the clock. “I thought you said you had a date tonight?”

“Hmm, yeah,” Mikey says, and turns around to face his brother. He makes a face when he sees that Gerard’s sharpening pencils in bed.

“Aren’t you going to be late?” Gerard asks, gesturing to the clock. It’s nearly seven-thirty, and Mikey usually likes to be places by eight. It’s not so much a schedule as a ritual, and Gerard knows it well enough by now.

“No, Frank’s coming here,” Mikey says, and checks his watch. “By the way, your clock is fast.”

“Isn’t,” Gerard says, but it’s off by at least fifteen minutes. “Why is he coming here?”

“He’s—Ray,” Mikey says, and shrugs. “Ray hasn’t met him.”

“Oh,” Gerard says, and shakes his head. “I think Ray has to know that you’re into dudes, considering how long you two have lived together.”

Mikey makes a noise and waves a hand. “I slept with him.”

“Already?” Gerard shakes his head, because it doesn’t make sense. Mikey usually dates for free meals and shit like that, and doesn’t usually mess with his strategy because it’s worked so far. “Wait, what?”

“With Ray,” Mikey clarifies, because Gerard still looks a little surprised.

“Your roommate.” Gerard blinks a little, but Mikey nods once, then twice. “Our friend Ray.”

“Yeah.” Mikey makes an awkward face. “So, going on dates is a little tricky right now.”

“Tricky,” Gerard repeats.

“Unless they’re with him.” Shrugging, Mikey gestures again. “You know.”

Gerard shakes his head slowly, and carefully sets his pencil sharpener on the windowsill beside the bed. “No, I don’t think I do.”

“I guess,” Mikey says, and pulls his phone out of his pocket.

Picking up his sketchbook, Gerard turns to a new page and taps the end of his pencil against his teeth, trying to figure out how to start project number two.

He figures this one should involve other figures, maybe real ones this time instead of shadow puppets, and starts out by scrawling what he remembers of the back of Bob’s head. He’s down to the curve of Bob’s shoulder blade through his shirt when Mikey looks up again.

“Frank’s coming up,” Mikey says, and Gerard nods, adding an angular figure that’ll probably end up as Mikey to Bob’s left. On the right, he kind of wants to add himself, but leaves it rough and unformed instead.

“What’s this one?” Mikey asks, sitting down on the other side of the bed. “Me, Bob, and Mr. Potatohead?”

“Work in progress,” Gerard says, and changes a line to make Mikey’s nose ridiculously long.

“Hey,” Mikey protests, and taps the page before Gerard can make it worse. “You should come out tonight.”

“On your date? No thanks,” Gerard says, and pokes at Mikey’s finger with the dull end of his pencil.

“No, it’s like, there’s a couple of us, meeting downtown,” Mikey says. “It won’t be awkward.”

“Hi, I’m Mikey’s brother, hanging out on his date,” Gerard mutters, and flips his sketchbook over to try again. “I don’t think so.”

“Yeah, because this is totally working,” Mikey says, and looks pointedly to the page, where Gerard had tried to draw a picture of Bob shotgunning a beer last night. It looks almost as ridiculous as Mikey’s nose, but this one wasn’t on purpose.

“Field research,” Mikey promises, as someone knocks at the door. Mikey gets up, but not before he stares at Gerard’s sketchbook, pointing at it twice for good measure.

Gerard sighs, because okay, he could probably use some new ideas, but he’s not about to ask Bob back yet, especially since he knows Bob’s studying parametric array for some reason. He gets up from the bed and wipes the pencil shavings away from his shirt, and folds the cover back over his sketchbook, sliding the pencil into the spiral binding.

“Gerard’s coming too,” Mikey’s saying as he comes closer. The guy he’s with isn’t much shorter than Gerard, but it looks worse when he’s standing next to Mikey.

“Hi, I’m Frank,” the guy says, and holds a hand out over Gerard’s messy bed.

“Um, Gerard,” Gerard says, and takes it. It feels weird, meeting people over his bed, and Gerard comes around the side of it as soon as Frank lets go of his hand. Sometimes he hates open concept living, times like right now.

“Hey, cool,” Frank says, and he’s looking at the finished ink rendering of Bob studying on the wall, much in the same way Mikey did. “That’s Bob, right?”

“Yeah,” Mikey says. “Bob’s sitting for Gerard, for his project.”

“Awesome,” Frank says, and straightens up. “Can I be part of it?”

Gerard wants to say no, or maybe later, because he doesn’t know if Bob’s coming back, but Mikey beats him to it.

“Yeah, he’s doing this group thing,” Mikey gestures to the kitchen, but Gerard figures he actually means downtown. “So hopefully he doesn’t make you a midget.”

“Maybe I’d like that,” Frank says, and leers sideways at Mikey’s ass. “Could prove to you I’m not.”

Gerard scowls, but Frank doesn’t see.

“Yeah, okay,” Mikey says, with a soft look that lasts just long enough for Gerard to get uncomfortable, and picks Gerard’s keys up from the counter with a cheerful jingle.

“Come on come on come on come on,” Frank says, and grabs Mikey’s hand to drag him to the door. Gerard barely manages to hit the lights before Mikey pulls him out after, sketchbook safely tucked under one arm.

It doesn’t take long to find the bar, a nondescript place that serves nachos fast and beer faster, and it’s a place Gerard actually feels comfortable in. They can usually find a table somewhere, and Frank makes a beeline towards the back and comes up with one that hasn’t been soaked with beer yet.

Gerard takes a corner, flipping the cover of his sketchbook back and tugging his black marker out so it would lie flat.

Frank slides down across from him, drumming his hands against the table and pointing to Mikey. “You’re buying the first round?”

“Yeah, yeah,” Mikey grumbles, already fishing out his wallet and raising his eyebrows.

“I’ll take whatever,” Frank says, and nods to Gerard. “You want anything?”

“Just diet coke,” Gerard says, and uncaps the marker. He puts Frank down on the page, head tipped back and laughing with a few short strokes, and Frank’s watching him when he looks up.

“That’s kind of awesome,” Frank says, and doesn’t put his hands on the sketchbook. Gerard appreciates that, and tries another rough sketch of Frank to thank him for it. This one has Frank and Mikey in deep concentration, heads close together while Frank holds one hand up in a gesture.

“I talk with my hands, yeah,” Frank says, and Gerard looks up enough to smile at him, and then Mikey’s setting glasses down to the table and grinning when they look at him.

“Look who I found,” Mikey says, and takes a seat next to Gerard.

“Hey, Bob,” Frank says, sounding ridiculously thrilled to see Gerard’s part time model standing there.

Gerard closes his eyes, both to block out the sight of Frank’s grin and so he doesn’t have to see what comes next.

“Uh, hi,” Bob says, and there’s a noisy clink when he sets his bottle down on the table.

“Imagine finding you here,” Mikey says, and whatever he says next is drowned out by Frank laughing.

Gerard chances taking a look, squinting one eye open to Bob sitting down across from him, Frank sliding down on the bench to make room.

“You know my brother Gerard, right?” Mikey asks, nodding towards Gerard in the corner.

“We’ve met,” Bob says, and tilts his bottle in Gerard’s direction.

“Um, yeah,” Gerard says, worrying at his lower lip with his tongue. “Hi.”

“Okay, I’m going to get a drink,” Frank says, putting his hand to Bob’s shoulder and shoving him sideways. “Mikey, you in?”

“No, I’m good,” Mikey says, and shakes his head to shift the hair away from his face. “Can you get me a water, though?”

“Hmm, okay,” Frank says, and disappears into the crowd when Bob sits back down.

“How’d it go, the other day?” Mikey asks, like he hadn’t seen the half-finished artwork drying against Gerard’s wall.

“Um, okay,” Bob says. “It’s, uh, different, I guess?”

“Different good, I hope,” Mikey says, and nods his head towards Gerard.

Gerard wants to sink down further in his seat, but figures Bob might get the wrong idea.

“It’s good, yeah,” Bob says, and doesn’t look at Gerard when he says it.

“That’s what I thought,” Mikey says, and jabs a boney elbow into Gerard’s side. “I told you so.”

“You told me so,” Gerard agrees, half-heartedly trying to avoid Mikey leaning into him.

“Has he shown you any of his work yet?” Mikey asks, and turns his head enough to give Gerard a meaningful look, but not so far that Bob gets suspicious.

Bob shakes his head, bringing his hand up to sweep the hair out of his face. “Um, no, but I—”

“Here,” Frank says, interrupting Bob and sitting down on his other side.

“Thanks,” Mikey says, and tilts his chin towards Frank. “You told me you saw some of Gee’s artwork, right?”

“What?” Frank frowns, looking from Mikey to Gerard and back. “I don’t think so?”

“You did,” Mikey says impatiently. “You told me.”

“Oh, wait, no,” Frank says, and takes a drink of his beer. “Have you ever done something down by the quad?”

“Last semester,” Gerard says quietly, mostly to the tabletop.

“You’re the guy,” Frank says, and gestures something in the air.

Gerard frowns. He doesn’t get it. The work down by the student union wasn’t his best, right, and he’d gotten pissed when it kept smearing.

“The guy with the stairs,” Frank says, and turns to Mikey. “You remember the chalk thing?”

“Huh, I don’t know, hold on,” Mikey says, and gets up to chase down whoever it was that he saw at the other end of the bar.

“Chalk?” Bob asks, and looks from Frank to Gerard. “You were the guy with the sidewalks?”

“Hi, uh, I guess,” Gerard says, and shifts uncomfortably.

“Those were awesome,” Bob says, and then catches himself. “I, uh, from what I saw. Um, heard. Things I heard.”

“Thanks,” Gerard says, and tries to change the subject. “Uh, where’s Mikey?”

“Over there,” Frank says, and doesn’t turn to look. “Okay, so, how do you make them look real?”

“Um, perspective,” Gerard says, and tries not to squirm awkwardly. He’s not really doing a good job, but the staircases on sidewalks idea isn’t one he likes to talk about.

“I got so drunk, I tried to climb down them, the once,” Frank tells Bob, laughing as he says it, and Gerard joins in with a hesitant smile of his own.

Bob shakes his head, amused.

“Okay, maybe it was two times,” Frank says, and laughs again, loud enough that Mikey looks over from the other side of the room. Gerard recognizes now that he’s with Ray, but doesn’t tell Frank about it.

“So this one,” Frank says, and cups his chin in his hands as he turns the full intensity of his attention to Gerard. “It’s about?”

“College,” Gerard gets out quickly, too sudden, because it’s not what he wanted to say. It’s better than some of the alternatives, really, like saying Bob’s name, something like that.

“College,” Frank repeats, looking at Gerard in mock adoration, and Bob’s throwing back the rest of his beer with a carefully blank expression.

“College experience,” Gerard elaborates, feeling awkward. “Like, midterms, hanging out, stuff like that.”

“Guitar Hero,” Frank says, with a wistful sigh that makes Gerard wonder if he’s in the drama department.

Bob smirks at that, raising his empty bottle to Frank like a toast. “All day pancakes.”

“Random hook-ups,” Frank says. “The freshman fifteen.”

“Entry level scholarships and student loans,” Bob says, setting his bottle down and making a face.

“Wanting to change the world, save it,” Frank says. “Volunteering for causes we don’t believe in because it looks good on a resume.”

“More beer,” Bob says, and goes to get up. He looks to Frank, who shakes his head, and then Gerard.

“Diet coke, please,” Gerard says, and tries not to blush when Bob gives him a small smile.

“He likes you,” Frank says when Bob moves away, and squints down the neck of his bottle to look at the liquid still inside. He doesn’t notice Gerard blushing for real at that. “Hey, do you think if I backwashed into Mikey’s beer, he’d notice?”

“Probably not,” Gerard says, and tries not to be too grateful that Frank changed the subject. “Where did he go?”

“Over there,” Frank says, without looking, and Gerard can see him now, standing by Bob and Ray near the bar, gesturing wide with a phone number written on the back of his hand.

“Oh,” Gerard says, and he’s kind of glad when Bob comes back, even if it is without Mikey.

Bob sets a new glass of coke in front of Gerard, the yellow straw still swinging when Bob pushes it closer.

“Thank you,” Gerard says, and doesn’t look at Frank, and doesn’t think about what Frank said.

“Hey, I’m going to go find Mikey,” Frank says, and pushes his empty bottle towards the middle of the table.

“Wait,” Gerard says, a little too late, because Frank’s gone, and Gerard knows that Mikey’s old enough to know better, but he still tries to protect him.

“I met Mikey’s roommate,” Bob says carefully, tone neutral.

“Yeah, well,” Gerard says, taking a sip of coke and picking his abandoned marker up from the table.

“Seems like a good guy.” Bob nods, taking a drink and sets it down before leaning forward, closer to Gerard.

Gerard pretends not to notice, and doesn’t try to find Mikey out there in the room. “Um, he is.”

“Okay,” Bob says, and hesitates, taking another drink before continuing. “Frank’s a good guy too.”

“Yeah,” Gerard says, and feels his cheeks heat as he looks down to the top of the table.

“What?” Bob asks, shifting closer, even though they’re the only two left in the booth and there’s plenty of room.

“Nothing,” Gerard says, flicks the cap off his marker and tries not to inhale too much of the distinctive smell of sharpie.

Bob pauses, clearly not believing it, but lets it go when Gerard looks up over the room. He can see Mikey and Ray, and then he sees Frank, and he looks away, because there are some things he doesn’t want to see if he doesn’t have to.

Gerard picks up Bob’s empty beer bottle, tapping at the back of the clear glass with the cap of his marker.

“What?” Bob asks, leaning into Gerard to look at the bottle more carefully.

“Nothing,” Gerard says again, even though he’s lying, and he drops the cap to the table. He carefully draws a line down the length of the bottle, from the neck to the rounding near the bottom. It ends up crooked, near the middle.

Picking up one of Frank’s empties, this one green, Gerard makes this one go around the diameter, and gets the idea for a mixed media collage when Bob starts lining the rest of the bottles up on the table.

“Are you thinking?” Bob asks, turning a half-empty bottle of Bud when Gerard runs out of room on the green Heineken.

Gerard purses his lips and shrugs, touching the sharpie to the side of the next bottle and starts making something that looks a little like his campus from above. He’s not doing a great job, because the bottle rocks unsteadily when he sets the tip of the marker to the glass.

“I, um, I think I have to go,” Gerard says, because he likes this idea, doesn’t know if he has enough empty bottles and cans to do it, or what he’s going to arrange them on.

“Uh, okay,” Bob says, and looks confused as he sits back. “Do you want me to walk you home?”

“No, I’m okay,” Gerard says absently, closing his sketchbook and sliding the marker back into the binding. “You don’t have to sit for me tonight.”

“Oh, okay,” Bob says, kind of quiet, and Gerard looks up with a hand behind his ear, and Bob’s looking anywhere but at him.

“Night then,” Gerard says, and tugs one of the empties off the table by the neck. It’s cool in his hand and Gerard wonders where he’s going to find enough empty bottles and cans to do this with, and how he’s going to arrange them.

Gerard can’t find Mikey in the crowd and he leaves Bob behind, ducking through the crowd and ignoring the way he feels weird about Bob by himself at the table.

He gets a text message halfway home, from Mikey, and because it’s just a sad face he has no idea what he’s done now.



This far into his college career, Gerard doesn’t believe he’s going to change the world anymore. He figures this realization, more than the first failed test, is the worst thing to take home from college.

But Bob knocks on his door when Gerard’s trying to hot-glue another bottle to the piece of plywood he’s using as a backer, and Gerard presses his finger into a drying pool of glue, burning his finger. The glue’s tacky and hardens around his fingernail, and Gerard blows on the tip of his finger when he answers.

Bob looks uncomfortable, looking down to the ground and Gerard’s bare feet when Gerard tells him to get inside.

“Hey,” Bob says, after a minute, and wrinkles his nose at the smell. “What are you doing?”

“Melting,” Gerard says, and goes to the corner of his apartment he classifies as kitchen and unplugs the glue gun. “I don’t have an idea yet.”

“Yeah, I know,” Bob says, because Gerard already told him that when he asked Bob to come over.

Mikey had been making frustrated noises all of yesterday, when he’d brought over a few cases of empties. Gerard figured at first it was the lost bottle deposits, but then Mikey told him to invite Bob over, for fuck’s sakes.

So Gerard did, only now he has no idea what to do with him.

“They trust you around power tools?” Bob asks, bending to look at the pieces of the wooden frame Gerard’s waiting to install.

“Hah, no,” Gerard says, shaking his head and shoving the rapidly cooling glue gun to the side with his foot. “I got a guy to do that for me.”

“What, you want me to hammer in some nails?” Bob asks, looking over at Gerard with a smile. “Seeing as you’re master of the glue.”

“I can’t feel my fingertips,” Gerard says instead, and shrugs. “I don’t know. I can’t think of what I want to do next.”

“Something about college,” Bob supplies helpfully, hiding his grin in his shoulder when Gerard scowls. They’re not serious, not really, and Gerard shrugs when he shoves his hands into the pockets of his black jeans.

“I’ve got this thing,” Bob says, concentrating on the wooden frame instead of looking at Gerard. “Friend of mine, he’s doing this thing.”

“Okay,” Gerard says, unsure of where Bob’s going with this. “Did you want to reschedule? I don’t mind, really, I don’t know what I want you for yet, so—”

“No,” Bob interrupts, and turns his head in Gerard’s direction, but doesn’t look at him. “I mean, do you want to go? Maybe get inspired?”

“What?” Gerard asks, pulling one hand out to scratch at the back of his head in surprise.

“It’s like a protest, or a revival, or something,” Bob says. “He was up all night making posters. Could be interesting. If you want.”

“Huh, okay,” Gerard says, surprising both of them when he agrees. “What’s it about?”

“Green something,” Bob says, finally gracing Gerard with the ghost of a smile. “Green things? Trees or planets or something?”

“Sounds good,” Gerard says, and doesn’t even care that this is the kind of thing that made him nearly fail his mandatory languages class first semester, back when he thought hanging out with his friends and complaining meant something else.

“I hope it’s about trees,” Bob says as they wait for the elevator. “I think Mikey’s supposed to be there?”

“Fuck,” Gerard says, because Mikey’s probably with Ray and this kind of sounds like Frank’s kind of thing too. He scowls as they step into the elevator and Bob hits the button for the first floor. “I hope it’s not about free love.”

“Free love?” Bob coughs once as he repeats it.

Gerard wrinkles his nose. “You know, Mikey, that kind of thing. He’s my brother.”

“Right, okay,” Bob says, and Gerard isn’t sure whether he looks relieved or just tired. The doors open and they head out of Gerard’s building in silence.

“So, uh, green things, huh,” Gerard says, squinting in the sun outside his apartment.

“Yeah, I don’t even know, man,” Bob says. “But I figure, it has to be better than whatever that smell was in your apartment.”

“Hey,” Gerard says, even though he knows it’s true. He hates cleaning out his garbage pail, though, and usually waits for someone else to get tired of the stink and do it for him. “It’s probably me.”

“Aw, come on,” Bob says, and doesn’t sound like he believes it, even if Gerard’s half-serious.

“Serious,” Gerard says, and lets Bob lead the way. It doesn’t take long to get on campus to a small group of students, a few of them brandishing signs and most of them wearing green.

Gerard suddenly feels self-conscious in his hoodie and jeans, even if Bob’s dressed in as much black as he is and looks fine. He spots Mikey on the other side of the crowd, talking to Ray. Ray’s wearing a green tee shirt that looks almost black.

“Hey look, there’s Mikey,” Gerard says, and ducks his head as he moves towards him.

Bob follows a few steps behind, slow enough that Gerard checks his pace and slows down. Gerard’s still in time to see the way Mikey’s face first looks, when he lifts his head with his tongue held between his teeth.

It’s when Mikey realizes that Gerard’s on his way over that his face drops and he moves his hand away from where it’s brushing against Ray’s. Gerard tries not to feel bad when Mikey’s clearly disappointed to see him.

“What’re you doing here?” Mikey says as soon as Gerard’s close enough, scowling and definitely not wearing green.

“Oh,” Gerard says, somewhat surprised by Mikey’s attitude. He takes a step back and Bob’s standing right behind him. Bob is stiff and tense, and warm against Gerard’s back.

“We decided to check things out,” Bob says, and nods towards Ray. “How’s it going?”

“Uh, fine,” Ray says, and looks at Gerard a little nervously. It’s a familiar one. Gerard gets it a lot, because a lot of people sleep with Mikey and think it makes things awkward.

Gerard takes the opportunity to narrow his eyes and give Ray a wary look, because he knows exactly what Ray and Mikey are up to. Ray looks away, so Gerard figures he’s gotten the point across.

“We’re just hanging out,” Ray says, pointing to Mikey. “It was his idea.”

“It always is,” Gerard says, and Mikey gives him a pointed look. Gerard isn’t sure why, and stops halfway through a shrug when he sees Frank catch sight of Mikey and making his way over.

Bob steps away from Gerard, and it’s towards Ray. Gerard kind of misses Bob immediately, but figures it’s for the best if Ray goes for Frank in a jealous rage. Thinking of that, Gerard takes a step away from the entire group. He’s not stupid.

“Shit,” Mikey says, because over in the distance he’s spotted Frank too.

“What?” Ray asks, looking from Mikey to Gerard and missing Frank coming up until Frank’s jumping up to Bob’s back.

Bob catches underneath Frank’s knees with his hands and holds him up, barely seeming to notice the weight.

“Hi, uh, hi Frank,” Mikey says, and doesn’t look at anyone at all.

Gerard takes another step away from everyone else. The only one he could predict is Mikey, and he’s more likely to hide behind Gerard than try to defend himself.

“Hey, I missed you yesterday,” Frank says, hitching his legs against Bob’s sides to stay up. Bob grunts and shifts his hands, rolling his eyes and shifting so he’s aimed more in Gerard’s direction.

Shifting uncomfortably, Gerard wishes he wasn’t in the line of fire, but still feels flattered that Bob’s focused on him.

“Yeah, uh, we went out,” Mikey says, nodding once in Ray’s direction. “Um, Frank, this is Ray. My roommate.”

“We’ve met,” Ray says, and ignores the surprised looks he gets from Mikey and Gerard.

“Oh, uh, okay,” Mikey says, and raises a hand to pull at his hair, making it stand up above his forehead. “Also, I’ve been sleeping with both of you.”

Gerard blanches and takes two steps back, the distance obvious between them now. Bob grunts when Frank drops abruptly to the ground, coming around to stand between Ray and Mikey.

“You’ve been boning him?” Frank asks Ray, scowling and tilting his chin up, looking fierce.

“Well,” Ray says, and that’s about all that Gerard wants to hear about that.

“Seriously,” Mikey interrupts, and tugs on the back of Frank’s hoodie hard enough to get him to step back.

“No, wait a second,” Frank says, and shakes himself loose of Mikey’s hand. He actually looks at Mikey then, and that’s when Gerard notices the people sort of staring in their direction.

“We should go back to my place, maybe,” Gerard says quietly, even though no one’s paying attention to him or Bob for the drama that is Frank and Mikey and Ray.

“Yeah, I think so,” Bob agrees, and somehow manages to turn and pull Gerard with him without anyone noticing that they’re suddenly gone.

“Huh,” Gerard says, because Bob’s obviously practiced that move once or twice before.

Bob rolls his shoulders and looks back at Gerard. “That was awkward.”

“Yeah,” Gerard says. “I mean, I don’t care how many people Mikey’s sleeping with, but obviously they do.”

Bob frowns at the sidewalk. “You realize Frank’s my friend, right?”

“I’m not asking you to pick sides,” Gerard says, because he isn’t. “Let Mikey figure it out.”

“Yeah, well,” Bob says, and doesn’t continue, so Gerard figures they’ve maybe said all they need to about who Mikey’s sleeping with.

“We need cardboard boxes first,” Gerard says, taking a few small steps to catch up to Bob. “For, um, working on.”

“I know a place,” Bob says, and doesn’t ask what for. Gerard appreciates that, really, and likes it even more when Bob shows him back behind the student union building, where a few green dumpster bins are just waiting to be raided.

“Dumpster diving,” Gerard says, almost reverently, and nearly misses it when Bob shushes him and tugs him down.

“What, what,” Gerard whispers, not thinking about the reassuring pressure of Bob’s hand on his shoulder.

Bob’s breathing kind of steady beside Gerard. “It’s kind of, well, there are some recycling assholes around here.”

“Recycling assholes,” Gerard repeats, not sure whether to believe it or not.

“Yeah. They don’t really understand the reuse part of the waste hierarchy,” Bob says.

“How do you even know that,” Gerard says, and doesn’t mind when Bob doesn’t answer.

Bob shoves him in the direction of one of the bins instead. By the time they get the lid open and find some cardboard that isn’t wet or mangled, Gerard’s decided on what he’s going to do with the cardboard and his third project.

Of course, it’s when Bob has most of the cardboard under his arm and he’s waiting for Gerard to pick up the last of it, and the back door to the u opens and someone starts yelling for them to drop the cardboard.

Bob tells Gerard to run, run, and Gerard does, mumbling things about being too young to die and that reuse trumps recycle, and they’re both out of breath by the time they make it to the lobby of Gerard’s building.

“Shit,” Gerard says, and loses his grip on the cardboard, trying not to step on the flattened boxes as they fall.

“I’m glad you didn’t do that five minutes ago,” Bob says, leaning his stack against the wall and tries to pick Gerard’s back up too.

“Me too,” Gerard says, and grins to himself when Bob picks up all of the cardboard and waits for Gerard to open the door.

He shoves his key in and wiggles it around so the door opens with a minimum of fuss. “Hey, Bob?”

“Yeah?” Bob asks, holding onto the cardboard more tightly when Gerard slows down.

Gerard purses his lips and shoves his keys back into his pocket. “You think we’re like, recycling vigilantes?”

“Outlaws,” Bob agrees, and ducks his chin down to hide his smile. Gerard doesn’t like that, but isn’t sure how to get Bob to look at him and do it.

part two