"Leave me alone. I'm angry."

"Okay," the pidgin-ish kid in front of her said, "but I really need that charcoal pencil."

She drew a balloon with it, then made the balloon a severed head instead. "Too bad it's mine."

He actually stomped his foot. Christ, he was a loser even by art geek standards. "It's school property!"

"Whatever," she said, and flipped him off.

It was totally unfair to land in detention for that. She hadn't even punched him.

||

Detention wasn't anything like the movies. Lyn half thought it would be easier if it was, because then she could sulk and glower. Also, she'd probably be hot instead of pale and pudgy. As it was, there were a few preppy goody-goods sulking in a corner, some obvious regulars, and her.

She wasn't expecting pidgin-kid to plop himself down next to her. "Hi again."

She stared. "Do you want me to cut you open and feed your guts to the dogs, or something?"

"I just wanted to apologize." He held out his hand. "I'm sorry for trying to take your pencil."

If there had really been dogs, she would have already been feeding him to them. As it was, she rolled her eyes and shook his hand. "Apology accepted, Mr. Rogers."

"I love that guy." He sat down next to her - next to her, seriously, what was wrong with him? - and pulled out a pencil.

His drawing was different from hers, and she wanted to make fun of it before it had even taken shape as anything recognizable. Unfortunately she couldn't, because it was slowly becoming obvious that he was drawing a gruesome zombie, completely at odds with how friendly he'd been.

She wanted to say something smart, like, "There's a disparity in your personality and your art." Instead she just poked his arm and said, "What the hell?"

"I can move away if you want."

"I do, because I hate you." She frowned. "But what are you drawing?"

"A zombie. I think I'm going to name him Horace."

That should have made her angrier, but somehow it was appealing. "You're a freak."

His chubby cheeks looked kind of cute when he smiled. "So are you."

He could live, she decided, and went back to ignoring him.

||

The problem was, she expected him to be an annoying suck-up. He was cheerful and friendly, totally the kind of person who followed jocks around hoping for approval. The kind of person Lyn hated most of all.

For awhile she also thought he cut class a lot, because she never saw him around for a solid week after detention. Pudgy wasn't just unnoticeable, he was invisible.

She realized her mistake the Monday after he'd gotten her detention. She was looking around the lunchroom, categorizing people ("sucks", "sucks more", "would shoot if asked") and eating half-heartedly, when she saw him lurking in the corner.

At first she thought she was delusional. He was stupidly friendly in art. But no, it was the same kid, only instead of smiling he was glaring at everyone, shoulders hunched like Lyn's own.

It shouldn't have made him interesting. Whatever, anyone could be an unfriendly asshole. But the difference stuck with her, and she kept watching.

Gerard ("Not Garry," he told her with a mulish look, and it wasn't worth her time to argue) was only friendly in art some days. Others he was quiet and withdrawn and no matter what they were supposed to be doing, he'd sit in the back and draw. She didn't know why Mrs. Jameson let him; it wasn't like he sucked up to her or anything.

They didn't get to know each other, because Lyn hated everyone and didn't want to talk to him. He hung around her, though, and one day when he was drawing various booze bottles she said, "Do you even have a fake ID?"

He shook his head. "Mikey does."

Mikey, Lyn knew from Gerard's babbling (not that she paid attention, of course, but if he talked enough a few things sank in anyway) was Gerard's little brother. "He's a freshman, isn't he?"

He had no right to look that pleased, like he thought she cared. "He's smart, though."

"So you want your baby brother to buy us booze."

She realized her mistake too late. "That depends. Are you saying you want to come over to my house?"

"Shut the fuck up," she said, but when the dismissal bell rang she followed him outside.

Gerard, it turned out, rode the bus. Loser. "We could ride in your car," Gerard said, but she glared and stepped on. Her bus had already left.

They sat next to a skinny kid Lyn figured was Mikey - or rather, Gerard sat and Lyn stood and tried to ignore how everyone was staring at her.

"Jesus, Mikes," Gerard said, and pulled the kid's headphones off.

Mikey blinked at Gerard, and then at Lyn, then at Gerard again. "Um."

"What?" Lyn said loudly

But Mikey's eyes were on Gerard. "That's a girl."

Gerard smacked his face against the bus seat. "Shut up."

"That's a girl. Why is she talking to you?"

"She's standing right here," Lyn said, ignoring Gerard's grateful look.

Mikey blinked at her solemnly. "Did he brainwash you? There are ways to fix that."

"Mikey!"

"You're going to buy us booze," Lyn said to keep from hitting either of them.

"Gerard." Mikey rolled his eyes. "Me and Pete are going to pick up Alicia and -"

"Mikey." They seemed to do half their communication via stressing the other's name in different ways.

"Fine." He slumped down, eyes still stuck up in his skull. "I'll buy some vodka or something before I go, God."

It was a good plan, except it meant she and Gerard would be alone. She frowned. "Wait, we -"

"Oh, hey, it's our stop!" Gerard said, and almost fell flat on his face running off the bus.

She stood back to let Mikey by. He blinked at her owlishly before getting off, face kept unreadable the whole time.

"Drive me to the liquor store," Mikey said when she followed him to their house.

"Gerard -"

"Is down in the basement." Mikey rolled his eyes. "You'll have to get him drunk before he talks to you again. Come on."

"Isn't it a little suspicious for me to be driving?" she said as she started the engine. Not that she cared, but clearly both Ways were completely out of common sense.

His eyeroll was over-the-top disdainful. "No one cares."

He was silent all the way to the store, and didn't say a word when he put the two bottles of vodka in the back seat. It wasn't until Lyn parked in their driveway again that he did anything.

What he did was lock the doors right as she reached for the handle.

"What the hell, you creep," she said.

"Was he nice to you?"

She blinked. "What?"

"Was he nice to you? Gerard." Mikey's face was funny and pinched, almost like he was upset. "He's not nice to people much. He gets...funny. Like he locks up in his head. And I worry. But he talks about you sometimes and he smiles."

She had no idea how to answer that. "I like death metal," she said finally, before grabbing the bottles and going inside.

Mikey followed more slowly. He let her stand awkwardly in the kitchen for five minutes before someone honked a horn outside. "You can go ahead down to the basement," he said, pulling a knitted hat over his head carefully. It bunched up on his glasses. "I gotta go."

"Thanks," she said, as sarcastically as she knew how. It rolled right off of him, though; he shrugged and left without comment.

The basement smelled like mold - or maybe mildew, she wasn't completely sure what the difference was. "Gerard?" she called out into the gloom. "We got the stuff."

The lump of gross-looking blankets stirred, and she realized it was one blanket and Gerard. "He's gone, right?"

"Just you and me." She wished it sounded less sexual, especially when Gerard sat up, snuffling. He was disgusting. "Do you have glasses or something?"

He grabbed a bottle, unscrewing it. "No."

Even as big a loser as she undeniably was had better places to be than here with him. She had no idea, then, what made her grab the other bottle and take a drink. "You're weird," she said.

"You're pretty," he replied, and drank until vodka was spilling down his chin.

They got drunk. Messily, completely drunk, until Lyn couldn't even pretend at anger anymore, until Gerard's face wavered in front of her with lines she itched to draw even though her fingers were three gulps too clumsy. "Hey," Lyn said, and frowned. It had seemed important a minute ago. "Hey."

"Mikey's in trouble," Gerard said gloomily, staring at the ceiling.

It struck her as completely hilarious. "So are you."

He waved a hand. "Art school soon. Pills. 'm okay."

"Maybe." She rolled until her face was against his shoulder. "Maaaaaybe."

"Hey." He petted one of her pigtails. "Hey, stay with me, okay? Stay here. I won't...it'll be cool."

"Guys don't have sleepovers."

"No," Gerard said peacefully.

Lyn nodded. Their understanding, in her vodka-soaked mind, had been reached. She closed her eyes.

||

Falling asleep in guys' basements was, for her, a rarity. So she wasn't totally sure if it was normal to wake up to the guy's little brother standing next to the couch in Batman boxers, peacefully chomping mouthful after mouthful of dry Cap'n Crunch.

"He likes your boobs," Mikey said quietly. Lyn glared, but he was right; Gerard made a tiny contented noise and pushed his nose harder against her chest.

"I'm fat. I make a good pillow."

"You're not that fat," Mikey said. "Gee's not either."

"Whatever." Mikey was a stringbean, and definitely not a good judge. "Aspirin?"

Mikey padded upstairs without answering, which she took to mean she should follow. He tossed her the aspirin bottle - or tried, anyway, since it ended up hitting an old high chair and tumbling into the living room.

"I. Okay," she said, grabbing the bottle and backing out of the room. A girl and a guy were sleeping on the couch, curled around each other and very obviously a couple.

"Pete and Alicia," Mikey said. He crunched more cereal. "So. Gerard."

Sleepy and hungover though she was, she went on the offensive anyway. "Your big brother's a moron. He's worse than me."

"I know." Mikey raised his eyebrows, looking down his glasses at her. "So what's the deal? Why are you here?"

She wanted to avoid the question, but Mikey's creepy stare made her close her eyes and think up an actual answer. "He's...I don't know. Different." Not true, he was like almost every crappy goth at school, except he could draw. "Nice."

"He's not nice. He's stupid and depressed."

There was the feeling again. It wasn't her going on the offensive at all, she realized suddenly; it was her being defensive. Of Gerard. "Yeah, but his drawings are fucking amazing and he's smart and sometimes his geekiness is endearing. When I'm on Midol." There was another reason, the biggest one, but fucked if she was going to tell Gerard's geekbrother if he didn't press her.

"And?"

Hell. "...he talks to me," she said, embarrassment finally really kicking in. "Like. Listens when I talk, and tells me shit. That doesn't happen to the fat angry art girl in the corner."

Mikey patted her shoulder. "'I'm hoping to get laid' would have been good enough, you know."

But he looked approving, and Lyn wasn't too dumb to realize she'd just gotten approval. "Yeah, well. They have toys for that."

She didn't think he was expecting himself to laugh any more than she was.

"Mikey Way," a shocked voice said, "are you cheating on me?"

She turned her head, frowning. It was the guy from the living room. "Hi?"

"Hi," he said, "I'm Pete, Mikey Way's beleaguered boyfriend." He jumped on Mikey, kissing his cheek messily. "He's so cruel to me."

"You pronounced that wrong," Mikey said, and poked him in the ribs.

"Wait," Lyn said. "If you're - who's the girl?"

"Alicia? We're just friends."

Pete's smile was too big and bright for it to be anything but completely fake, but Lyn was definitely not in the mood to push that kind of thing. "Whatever," she said. "I'm going to take Gerard some coffee. Stop it!"

But Mikey's lips stayed quirked up. Lyn frowned, grabbed the entire pot, and took it down with her.

"You left," Gerard said grumpily.

Her first impulse was to apologize. What the hell? "To get you coffee, jackass," she said instead.

He sat up suddenly, hair in a greasy tangle, eyes wide. "You're an angel," he said, holding out his hands.

"Goddess," she corrected, and handed him the pot.

He drank directly from it, which was disgusting in ways she didn't have words for. He also smelled in ways that were more disgusting than she had words for, but that was a little more direct. "Take a bath, for the love of god."

"You first," Gerard said. He was in a surly mood. "I bet Ma can smell you all the way up on the second floor."

"Good thing she's not my mother, then. Where's your shower?"

"You can't just -"

But Lyn had already opened the door, seen the grimy bathroom, and locked herself inside.

"Damn it," she heard Gerard say. She ignored him in favor of stripping and turning the water on as hot as it went.

Soap was easier than shampoo, and also didn't have a cap for things to grow around like the Ways' shampoo bottle did. She washed herself as best as she could, lathering up her hair. It would be a pain in the ass to comb, but whatever.

Gerard hadn't been too coherent before, so she really wasn't expecting him to yell when she walked out in just a towel.

"For God's sake," she said, exasperated.

"Towel! Oh God," Gerard moaned, rolling over.

"It's not like you can see my rolls." Well, not quite rolls, but...was he making gagging noises? "Sorry, did you forget to mention the grades you skipped?"

That made him stop. "What?"

"You're acting like a twelve-year-old."

"It's just weird," Gerard said petulantly.

"Whatever. Roll over."

"...no."

"Roll over," she said, "or I'll drop my fucking towel and run upstairs and show my tits to your mom."

She realized why he didn't want to when he did what she said: he was hard.

"Oh," she said, staring.

"See?" Gerard stuck his chin out defiantly. "I have good judgment. The counselor says so."

"Which counselor? Never mind," she said when he opened his mouth. "I think...I should go. So you can, um."

"Jerk off thinking about you?"

"Oh my God," Mikey said. Lyn blinked; she hadn't heard him come downstairs.

Not that it mattered, because he was running back up. "It doesn't have to be about me."

"It does, though." Gerard sounded flat-out miserable. "I'm kind of in a rut."

If she opened her mouth right then, she knew she was going to say something really stupid. Sure enough, she opened her mouth and said, "I could help you out, I guess."

Gerard actually squeaked. It was really nice of him, she thought, to keep making her the less socially retarded person in the room. "Um."

"Just." She clutched her towel, praying it wouldn't fall off. "Just...I don't know. Hold still?"

You'd have thought she was Godzilla, the way he looked when she moved closer. His eyes were wide, his hands pressing down into the bed.

She pushed the blankets aside awkwardly, wincing when he hissed. "Sorry," he said. "The covers."

"Yeah." His dick didn't look any different from the ones she'd seen on the Internet, really, except maybe a little...grimier. Gross. "Okay. Um."

"Here," Gerard said, and passed her the hand cream.

"It's not like it's going anywhere," she said quickly.

"I need it anyway."

She reached out experimentally and ran a hand over him. He squeaked again, hips arching up - and her hand skidded, not at all sexily.

"Okay," she said, and squirted some hand cream out. It smelled flowery - "Rose Vanilla", according to the label. "You sure you're into girls?"

Gerard's gaze was fixed on the part of her boobs that were squished above the towel. "Pretty positive, yep."

"Stop it, perv," she said, and tried her hand on his dick again.

This time it was slippier than when she finger-fucked herself. Gerard went still, almost creepily so, breathing heavily and staring at the ceiling.

After awhile, "almost" became "very definitely". "Oh my god," she said, "stop. Move or something."

"You told me not to," Gerard said.

She stared. It wasn't...whatever, it wasn't anything, except for how it was. "Okay," she said slowly. "You can move. Like, please do, it's weird."

He started thrusting immediately. She wanted to tell herself it wasn't hot, except for how it really, definitely, totally was. "Ohhh god," he said.

She actually jumped when he reached out and grabbed her wrist, but all he did was bring it to his mouth and kiss her fingers - suck her fingers, holy shit. "Um," she said, and licked her lips.

He came all over her hand.

It was really kind of gross, was the thing. She didn't really think about wiping her hand on the towel and then taking the towel off, because...ew. She'd already seen his dick, anyway; fair was fair.

But Gerard gaped. "I. Um."

"What? You're not hard anymore, problem solved." She bent over, snagging her bra. "I should probably go home before my parents have heart attacks."

There was so very much no reason for him to sound disappointed. "Oh. Okay."

"Yeah. So." She waved awkwardly. "Bye."

"Bye," Gerard said, so quietly that she barely heard it as she climbed up the stairs.

||

"I don't want to buy any movies," Lyn said, and slammed her locker door shut.

Mikey just blinked at her creepily. "Okay."

"...well?"

"Gerard," Mikey said. "His dick."

"That's illegal in all fifty states, unless you're cousins and forgot to clarify."

"Stop it." Mikey actually looked uncomfortable now. She wasn't sure if it was a victory. "He's...he totally has a crush on you. Why'd you run away?"

"I didn't run away, I just..." Pretty much ran away, actually, which was embarrassing for any number of reasons, top of which was that it was Gerard and running away from someone like him was just beyond stupid. "Shut up."

Before Mikey had a chance to answer, someone yelled, "Bomb's away!", and Lyn ended up with a solid weight slamming into her back.

"Holy shit!" she yelled, kicking back.

The thing swung down, though, landing nimbly in front of her. "Hi," it said, sticking out its - okay, his, Lyn wasn't that much of a jerk - hand.

"Oh my god, Frank," Mikey said in a near-deadpan.

"What? You said to adopt her."

"I did not!"

"You did so." He whirled around to attach himself to Mikey, arms around Mikey's neck. "You said to be nice to her, and treat her like family, because she pretty much was at this point. Then you went to pretend you weren't thinking about Alicia with Pete."

"You're not even a friend right now," Mikey said. It didn't deter Frank, though; he kept clinging like a lunatic.

"Right," Lyn said. "I'm going to go now."

She left before Mikey could even say anything to stop her.

||

Most weekends she hung out with Jimmy, who alternated between claiming he was her long lost brother and claiming he was her father. The second one didn't even make sense, age-wise, but it was Jimmy. He was worth hanging with if only for how well he could make her forget to be pissed at the universe.

That Saturday, though, her mind wasn't really on him, and she knew he could tell. "Okay," he said, lighting the tips of his hair on fire, "spill."

"No," she said, and held the beaker of hydrochloric acid steady.

"I mean about the guy," Jimmy said. He twirled his hair to make the flame burn more brightly. "You can't start macking on Garry Way and expect no one to say anything."

"He doesn't like to be called Garry anymore," she said.

Jimmy actually hooted. "Defending him! That's so cute."

She dumped the acid in his lap and watched him yell.

||

It didn't occur to her till halfway through the week that Gerard was probably avoiding her.

When the thought finally came to her, she was pissed. What the hell, who was he to think a handjob gave him ignoring rights? "It wasn't even mutual!" she yelled to her Pre-Calc textbook. It didn't answer, of course, but everyone in the hallway gave her funny looks.

He'd taken to hiding in the back of the art room, and for Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday she'd let him. Today, though, she sat down next to him. "How's your dick?"

"Um," Gerard said, eyes wide.

"Just curious!" she said. Her voice was too high, and she half wanted to drop it and just talk about something normal, because - fuck, because she'd missed him. That was pretty pathetic on its own.

"Look," Gerard said. "I'm sorry, okay?"

"There's nothing to be sorry for. It was just a -"

"I should've done you, too," he said quickly.

Oh. "Oh." She cleared her throat, trying and completely failing not to think about the way Gerard was looking at her, his fingers curled around a pencil. "Um. Why are you drawing werewolves again? They're lame. Draw vampires instead."

He did, but the clumsy subject change was nowhere near enough to cover up the fact that something had very definitely, almost tangibly changed.

She still wasn't sure exactly what it was until he followed her out of art class, down the hall, and to her bus. "I figured you could return the favor and show me your house," he said, getting on.

Fuck him for finally deciding to be brave and socially forward when she felt this unsettled. "And if I don't?"

He shrugged. "I'll walk home, I guess."

It would take him hours. Damn it. "Fine," she said, and slumped down in her seat.

She didn't have any friends on the bus. It was completely ridiculous to feel embarrassed when the only person Gerard had known on his own bus was his brother, but she was anyway.

"So, um," Gerard said after a few minutes of her staring at her feet.

"My bus stop's almost the last one," she said, and pulled out a sketchbook.

The bus was noisy, of course, and no one noticed when Gerard glanced around and scooted over, putting a hand on the book. "Lyn."

She gritted her teeth. "Back off."

This wasn't a Gerard she'd seen before; he wasn't forced-outgoing or normal or even sullen, which for him was more the norm than 'normal'. You could call it earnest, maybe, earnest and disturbingly attractive. "I like you."

"Oh my god," she said, loudly enough that a few kids actually glanced over, "could you be any more stupid?"

That made him frown. "You like me, though. I know you do."

"Jerking you off doesn't mean I like you."

"I saw you kick Benny Livingston in the balls for not fucking off when you told him to. Putting up with me means you do."

It took the same kind of guts it had taken to kick Benny to turn to him and say, "What the hell are you planning?"

"I just." Gerard was beet red and still leaning too close. "It would suck if it ended with you jerking me off, you know?"

She wasn't going to say the d-word if he wasn't. "Fine," she said, and sat back enough that being smushed together was at least marginally comfortable.

||

"So," she said, sitting down on her bed. "Um. What do you...like, what do you want to do?"

"I showered this morning."

"You're not sticking anything in me," she said immediately. "Not even if we're dat -" D-word, she told herself mentally, not allowed! "Not even if I did jerk you off."

"Oh! No. I..." Gerard twisted his hands, shuffling from foot to foot. "Not even just my hand?"

He had no right to sound that adorable - like he was disappointed, or something. She pressed her thighs together, completely failing at not imagining him rubbing her clit and fucking her with his fingers. "That would be fair, I guess."

"And I want to," Gerard said quietly. "If - I won't be a jerk about it, I promise. We don't even have to really be together if you don't want. I'm pretty sure it would be awesome, though."

It would be, was the problem. She hated people but she hated Gerard a little less, and the thought of holding hands with him, or fucking dating him, was nicer than she wanted to admit. "I'm going to get naked," she said finally.

She didn't expect his eyes to get wide or him to scoot back. "Okay."

Sexy stripping would really, really not have worked for her; she wiggled out of her clothes and lay back, very carefully not looking at his face.

"Um. Wow."

He was actually squeaking. Gross. "Look, if you're not really into girls..."

That got him. "No. God, it's just." His eyes were wide. "You're just...really pretty."

She didn't know if she was more comfortable with him or if she was just really easy; either way, it made her laugh. "Then come here, okay?"

He scooted forward, clearly nervous. She took his hand. "It's not hard. You've seen porn, right?"

"And Mikey talks to me about it sometimes," Gerard said. "It's, I don't know." He moved his hand down and touched her gently, fingers just missing her clit.

"Almost," she said. "Just keep poking around, I guess."

"This is so weird," he said, but he obeyed, stroking her gently. She was wet, and got wetter; the way he was skirting his fingers around her clit went from being evidence of virginity to being kind of hot, teasing.

"What's weird is that you talk clits with your brother," she said, wiggling. "You know where it is, right?"

"Of course I do," he said, sounding supremely offended. "I'm trying to be sexy."

She laughed again, harder this time. It made her whole body jerk, her hips moving down. His fingers slipped down her cunt, just barely touching her opening.

They both got quiet.

"So," Lyn said awkwardly. "You want to?"

"That's a dumb question," Gerard blurted, leaning down. "You feel so good, Lyn."

"Then come on. Do it."

So he did, pressing a single finger inside her.

It felt kind of weird, actually. She wiggled. "Maybe another one?"

He was biting his lip like he did the few times he got really determined and decided to draw dragons with realistic scales. It was cute, and she hated herself a little for thinking so. "What if I hurt you?"

She kneed him as best as she could; he yelped. "Christ, okay."

Two fingers was better. She relaxed, still watching him, but mostly concentrating on how it felt. "Hey, um. My clit, maybe?"

He had to wiggle his fingers to get his thumb up, and holy shit, it felt good. "Do that again?" she said. "With, um."

"This?" He pressed his thumb into her clit.

She nodded. "Please."

He wiggled his fingers again, thrusting a little and curling them. "You feel good," he said.

"You're just thinking about sticking your dick in there." She pressed back, trying to ignore both the weird, near-strangled noise he made and the almost-lurch her stomach gave at the thought. Sooner or later, she thought, unless one of them wimped out - sooner or later they really would do that. And she wanted it a hell of a lot more than she was going to let on right now. "Harder."

He sped up, still frowning in concentration. "How am I going to know when you -"

"Another finger," she said tightly. She could tell she was close, but by now she would've been writhing on her own, fucking herself frantically. It was different like this, with someone else's hands.

But he obeyed immediately. Three fingers felt almost perfect - closer, so fucking close, and it didn't occur to her until she reached up and pinched her nipples, coming hard around his fingers, that that was what she needed.

"Oh," Gerard said. "Wow. Um."

She didn't know what made her grab his shirt and tug. "Come here. We get to kiss now."

When she leaned up and did it, he was smiling.

He wasn't a fantastic kisser, but she didn't really think she was, either. They could practice. More important was the erection she could feel against her thigh. "Hey, want some help with that?"

He pulled back. "You don't have to."

"Shut up." She was blushing. Fuck. "I want to, okay?"

His smile was bizarre: not smug, not even really proud, just openly happy. "Okay."

"The weirdest part about this is that we're both totally sober," she said, and unzipped his pants.

It was a joke, and she expected him to treat it like one; so of course he got all sad and earnest looking, shaking his head even as he thrust against her. "Lotion? No. It's not weird."

She grabbed the bottle and squirted it into his pants, not really paying attention to where exactly it landed. When things were slippery enough again she said, "On my end, it is. Come on, I'm not exactly -"

He lowered his head and bumped her shoulder, hard. "You are. Shut up, you are."

Then he bit her neck and came, because he was a freak.

When he was done, she wiped her hand on her sheets and said, "Did you just headbutt me?"

"You were wrong."

He was a total wuss, she told herself, and if he ran away then she'd have to deal with another week of avoiding. That and only that was why she pulled the covers over both of them and held onto him for dear life.

||

It wasn't actually anywhere close to time for either of them to feel ready to sleep, though, and over the next hour, her covering them both turned into them cuddling in a blanket fort.

"I like this," Lyn said suddenly, poking the blankets.

Gerard was lying down with his head in her lap. "Me too. Does this mean you're my girlfriend? I've never actually had one."

"That's so pathetic," Lyn said. "Um. Me neither."

She could feel him smile against her thigh. "Okay."

"What are we going to do?"

"Walk to class, I guess. Kiss a lot. Maybe -"

"No dicks until I say."

"I was going to mention eating you out, actually. Is that allowed?"

The way he said it, all funny and fast, told her exactly how many times he'd done that, too. It made her blush just to think about, partly because - well, mouth - and partly because of how much and how viscerally she wanted it. "Yeah, totally. I'll even, you know. Suck you."

He hugged her tighter. "You don't have to."

"Fuck off, are you calling me crazy for wanting to put my mouth on your dick?"

"Maybe?"

Lyn poked his side hard, but a second later she leaned down, cuddling even closer.

||

"Oh my god," Mikey said the next day. "That's disgusting."

"They're just hands," Gerard said. "You have issues."

Mikey rolled his eyes. "Not the hands, dude. Hickeys."

Mikey was currently sporting a hickey of his own, and Pete and Alicia were kissing less than twenty feet away. He was one to talk. "How's your love life?" she asked, a little meanly.

"Totally awesome," Mikey said. "Pete looked up timeshares."

She almost choked right along with Gerard. "That's for apartment buildings," he said. "Oh my God, Mikey."

"It's going to work," Mikey said. He looked a little wistful. "I mean. It kind of has to."

Apparently sleeping with Mikey's brother meant she inherited some kind of crazy sibling link, because she wanted to hug him even though she knew exactly how wildly unsuccessful that kind of attempt would be. "You'll be okay," she said instead, ignoring Gerard's very obvious look.

"Duh," Mikey said, and turned to go, flapping two fingers over his shoulder.

"That was really nice," Gerard said.

"Shut up," she said. "Like, seriously. It wasn't a big deal."

He actually hugged her, right there in the middle of the hallway. It wasn't like she had a fantastic reputation before, but now it was ruined. "Okay," he said.

She just rolled her eyes.

||

"Ew," Mikey said loudly. "Ew, ew, ew."

"Your hand was in Pete's pants when we walked in," Lyn-z said.

"That's still gross."

Gerard rolled his eyes. "It's just kissing, and it's not like you couldn't just go to Pete's house, I don't see why -"

"I'm telling Alicia."

Mikey punched Pete's thigh. "Traitor."

"Girl."

"It's not girly not to want to see swapping spit. Also, I'm telling Alicia."

Gerard took advantage of Pete's panic to kiss Lyn again.

||

A few months in, they managed to grab a whole day to themselves. Gerard peeked out the window and said, "I guess we could, like...take a walk," which was Lyn's cue to roll her eyes and drag him upstairs.

They had kissing and humping down by now. She wasn't too surprised when he pulled back after a few minutes of making out and said, "So, um. Your boobs?"

"It's not that exciting," Lyn said. She was tempted to add that they didn't look that exciting, because Gerard was staring like a total creep. "I've touched them myself, it's like...fucking nipples and lumps and that's it."

"Maybe it's like tickling."

"My clit's not. I kind of doubt - Jesus Christ!" It wasn't as strong a feeling as her clit, but the touch still sent sensation through her, prickly and good.

Gerard poked her boob again. "Like tickling?"

"You can gloat later," she said, kissing him. "Touch more now."

||

They wound up having sex for the first time half under the Ways' fake plastic Christmas tree.

It wasn't like they hadn't gotten off together before. Doing It, though, was something they just...didn't. Not for lack of time or whatever, it was just nice to grind up against each other and get off like that and not have to think about anything more stressful.

But then the Ways went out of town and Mikey left for the night, tossing "Don't wait up," over his shoulder, and suddenly the time between then and the next morning meant nothing but possibility to either of them.

"I'm not going to keep doing your chores for you," Lyn said, hanging up yet another ornament.

"I know," Gerard said. "Hey, do you want to have sex?"

She froze. "Um. What?"

"Sex." He spread his hands. "It sounds like fun."

That was probably the stupidest thing she'd ever heard. "You think?"

"Not in an abstract way. I -" He made a face, sighing. "I just keep thinking about it, and I think it would be awesome, and you're hot."

She crossed her arms. "What about all that crap about you caring about me?"

Him getting offended over it hadn't even really occurred to her. "You know that stuff already."

...right, then. "Okay," she said, and he tackled her so hard she punched his arm.

||

He was right. It was awesome.