Hi......

Am I the only one who noticed that Frank is putting his hand down Gerard's pants on the cover? Yes? Ok then.

Dedicated to @SummonedFromHell bc I'm talking to you so here.

So in this one it's not romantic, it's just cute, bc I don't support pedophilia but I had an i d e a, so...

<><><>

Gerard shyly approached the table of preschoolers, nervously eyeing their coloring supplies.

"E-excuse me?" he asked, being as polite as he could, because Mama said people like polite friends. "M-may I color with you?"

Another boy looked up from his Batman coloring book.

"Sure," he said, scooting over so Gerard would have room at the table. Gerard tentatively sat beside him, looking over his currently half-colored image of the Joker. "Do you like Batman?"

Gerard nodded quickly, wondering how he was so good at talking.

"Cool," he continued, coloring on. "I like Batman too, but I like Captain America better, but that's okay. What's your name?"

"Uh, uh, Gerard," Gerard stuttered.

"Cool," he said again. "I'm Pete. And that's Ray and that's Brendon that's Dallon," he rambled on. "and that kid over there is Patrick and that's Andy and that's Joey."

Pete looked around for more people he could point out to Gerard.

"Oh!" he pointed his crayon at an adult with tattoos. "And that's Frank! He's a monitor, he's nice."

"I know," Gerard nodded, already familiar with the monitor in question. When he had arrived at daycare for the first time about half an hour ago, Frank had met him and his Mama by the door, and he gave Gerard goldfish and gave him a paper to draw on, and Gerard was so happy he hugged him. 

Eventually, he had grown bored of pencil and decided to risk social interaction for the gift of crayons, hence why he was here.

The boy with fluffy hair that Gerard really wanted to touch left the table to play blocks with Patrick, abandoning the second Batman book, which Gerard quickly grabbed before anyone else could steal it.

He eyed the portrait of his favorite super hero before him carefully.

He looked over the remaining crayons in the cup, finally choosing a reddish-purple magenta color, and set to work shading inside the lines, making sure every stroke was contained within the shapes of the ink.

After a few minutes of silence, Pete grew bored of silence, so he turned to look at Gerard's drawing.

"Wow! You colored in the lines! That's so hard!"

Gerard looked at him skeptically, since he always colored like this, and figured everyone wanted a masterpiece like his. Then he glanced at Pete's blue scribbles, and turned back to his own immaculate, pink Batman.

"Why did you use girl colors?" the boy he thought was named Brendon asked.

"What do you mean?" Gerard asked, furrowing his tiny eyebrows. Had the girls claimed this crayon?

"Pink is a girl color, Gerard!" Pete explained, as if it should be obvious.

"Why?" questioned the still-confused child.

"Because it's girly!" Brendon said. "It's like for princesses and stuff!"

"Yeah!" Pete agreed. "Only girls like princesses! Are you a girl?!"

"I-I- no," Gerard stuttered, tears forming in his eyes. He did in fact liked princesses, and Sleeping Beauty was his favorite, and she had a pink dress, and Rosetta in Tinkerbell had a pink dress, so why couldn't Batman?

"So why are you using girl colors!" Pete asked. "Only girls use girl colors! I think you're a girl!"

"Uh-uh," Gerard shook his head, his tears threatening to spill over. "I'm a boy!"

"But you used pink!" Brendon argued. "That means you're a girl!"

"You color like a girl!" Pete decided.

"Yeah," Brendon agreed. "You color like a girl, Gerard!"

Gerard couldn't stand anymore yelling or bullying, so he stood from his chair, tears streaming down his round cheeks, and ran to the only person who loved him in the daycare.

-

Frank looked up from his phone when a small body collided with his leg. He looked down to see the top of a brown-haired head, barely reached over his knee. The kid wrapped their arms tightly around his leg, their tiny body shaking with sobs.

Frank bent down to pick them up, recognizing them as the kid he had met earlier.

"Gerard, buddy, what's wrong?"

Gerard kept crying, his cheeks red as he struggled to wipe away his tears and be a big boy.

He clung to Frank's neck, burying his face into the man's hoodie.

Frank hugged him back, running  his hand up and down his back to comfort him.

Eventually, Gerard pulled back, sniffling and wiping his nose on his very extra-small sized Black Flags jacket.

"I-I'm s-sorry for c-crying on you," he apologized, tears lingering in his hazel eyes.

"It's okay, Gee," Frank assured him. "What's up?"

Frank bounced him absentmindedly, something he had picked up from handling babies and small children all day. 

Like, five people had stopped him in stores to congratulate him on his new kid when he didn't realize he was doing it.

"P-pete s-says I c-color like a girl," he said, looking up at Frank with wide, innocent eyes.

"Why did he say that?" Frank asked.

"B-b-because I made Batman p-pink and B-brendon said o-only p-princesses are pink a-and o-only g-girls like p-princesses s-so I m-must be a g-girl," he sniffled out, laying is head back against Frank's chest and enjoying the rhythmic movement of his body. "B-but that's n-not true! B-because I-I llike p-princesses a-and I'm a b-boy, right?"

"Yeah, buddy, you're a boy," he assured him. What a lovely way to start out your life: here, five-year-old, have some gender dysphoria with that cookie! "Boy's can like pink too. I like pink, see?"

Frank pointed to one of his tattoos, which held the smallest dot of pink, but it was enough to convince Gerard.

"R-really?" Gerard touched his tattoo gently.

"And sometimes girls don't like pink," he continued. "My friend Lindsey doesn't like pink, she only likes red and black, see?"

Frank directed Gerard's gaze to where Lindsey, another daycare monitor, sat, and sure enough, not a fleck of pink was on her.

"Oh," Gerard gasped. "D-do you like princesses too?"

"No, I don't," Frank answered honestly. "But Ryan does. Did you say hi to Ryan?"

Gerard shook his head, looking around for said Ryan.

"Hey, Ryan!" Frank called. "Can you come here a sec?"

"Sure!"

A second later, another man approached, and Gerard stared in awe as he saw he had pink pants on.

"Aw, who's this cutie?" he asked, stopping near Frank, who had Gerard in his arms. 

"I-I'm Gerard," he said, holding out his small hand to be polite. He took it back when he realized it was dirty, then stared at both his hands in adorable confusion as he noticed they were both dirty.

Ryan tried to contain his 'aww', which he failed at, and then offered Gerard a wipe.

Gerard took it with a quiet, "Thank you," and struggled to wipe off his hands.

"So, Ryan," Frank said. "You wanna tell Gerard about your favorite princess?"

Ryan nodded, not questioning Frank.

"Mine is Cinderella, Gerard, what's your favorite princess?"

Gerard looked up, dropping the wipe to the floor in his distraction.

"Sleeping Beauty!" he beamed.

"That's a very good choice, she's very pretty."

"Mama said being pretty doesn't matter," Gerard said. "Because she's nice so she's good. But being pretty is also good but only if you're nice, because if you're not, then you're not good."

Ryan nodded solemnly.

"Was someone being not nice to you?" he asked, noticing his tear-tracked face.

Gerard's smile fell.

"Yes..." he said quietly, turning back to the comfort of Frank's chest.

His tiny hands clutched at Frank's sweatshirt, wishing he was inside it and safe and warm instead of out in the cruel world.

He sniffed softly, struggling not to cry.

"I wanna be a big boy," he told Frank. "I don't wanna cry anymore."

"It's okay for big boys to cry," Frank said.

"Oh," Gerard said quietly, and within moments, his face was streaked with tears.

"Shh, buddy, it's okay," Frank assured him. 

Ryan left to pass out snacks, and the rest of the kids gathered around him.

"Do you wanna color a picture for me?" Frank asked the whimpering pre-schooler.

He felt him nod against his chest.

"You can color it however you want, even like a girl. That sound good, buddy?"

"Mmhm," Gerard agreed.

As Frank carried Gerard over to the coloring table, the fluffy-haired kid spoke.

"Why is Gerard crying?" Ray asked.

Gerard snuggled further into Frank.

"Because someone was mean to him," Frank explained.

"Oh," Ray said thoughtfully. "I hope you feel better soon, Gerard!" he said with a bright smile, rushing off to get animal crackers.

"Thank you," Gerard said quietly into Frank's hoodie, even though the boy was gone.

Frank set Gerard down on a chair, and then sat beside him. He had a lot of practice smushing into tiny chairs.

Gerard looked up at him with nervous eyes.

"I-is it okay i-if I sit on your lap?" he asked.

"Of course, buddy," Frank said. "Here." He lifted the small boy up and set him in his lap, laying out a coloring book for him.

Gerard grinned, smiling to himself as he grabbed a pink crayon, and went to work.

<><><>

Yayyyyyyyyyy.

That was so fun to write you have no idea.

I'm moving soon, so I have no clue what my updates will look like, so I might have to like, write things on google docs and really quickly paste it here when I can. idk.

byyyyyyyyyyyyyye

- Brightside ⨳