Anatomy. Magnetic stars.

Chapter seven - giant metal phalluses

im an ass for not updating. sorry. like, not sorry enough to update regularly, but sorry regardless.

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Gerard drifted in and out of the morning notifications, skimming through conscious thought and sinking like a stone into a sticky web of frustration and numbness. Gerard wondered: how can one feel empty and numb while feeling everything at once? He let his burning forehead melt into the solidity of the table, and let the streaked blue feeling that was overwhelming his body seep into the cracks in his circulation system.

Chemistry was useless. Maybe the teaching method of thundering around and booming out inane jokes helped some people learn, but Gerard wasn't some people. He was starting to think that his chemistry lessons were actually making him un-learn everything he already knew. Every part of him, his mind and his body, felt stiff and dislocated. He wanted to climb onto the ledge of the giant, ugly, 60s style windows of the lab, and spread his arms, and spread his legs, and jump, and let death fuck him. He stared out the window. One of the maintenance men was snapping the cord on some abysmal device that Gerald supposed was meant to be a gardening tool.

He managed to tune out of the lesson without acknowledging or even noticing that he'd done it. He only let himself leave when he wasn't trying. He fucking hated that, but his brain couldn't help it, so he let it absorb its own compassion as he stared blankly and intently out the window. The gardening tool had started up, and the maintenance man had begun his maintenance.

Gerard couldn't help but think that the long handled hedge trimmer looked rather like a skinny metal cock. He wondered that if, hypothetically, there were an infinite number of parallel situations and universes, somewhere out there, a world existed where people trimmed the hedges with their penises.

Gerard did not like his current mind. He wasn't really enjoying the teenager's mindset, preliminarily being drawn to phalluses, but he had to admit, the mass realisation that had come from his several teen existential crises gave him a significantly better mind than when he was a child, and not at all in the respect of academic learning.

Mentally, he'd been great. For several months. And that was a fucking record. Physically, he was not so great. More along the lines of actually dying. The light was like white acid trickling into his eyes, and when he asked to turn down the lights, the other kids laughed and called him a vampire. Ordinarily, he would've taken it as a compliment, but when the only purpose of the accusation was to belittle his problems and essentially make him look like a fussy child, he took it to heart, and probably a lot more than they'd intended him to.

Mr Iero looked up from Gerard's notebook, pausing from reading Gerard's vague account of his day. "But vampires are awesome."

Gerard scowled. "But they didn't mean it as a compliment."

"It sounds like something you would normally class as a compliment anyway."

"I'm sick of that mindset," Gerard said listlessly.

"What mindset?" Mr Iero asked. "Every second our state of mind changes."

Gerard was silent.

"C'mon, humour me here. I'm taking a page out of your book, being all philosophical."

"I'm not philosophical, I'm autistic."

Mr Iero smiled and shook his head. "Being all abstract," he corrected himself.

"I'm not abstract," Gerard said. "I'm alive."

Mr Iero paused. "Alive," he said. "That's your mindset. There are no specifics; everything is at it is, and creation is creation, and destruction is creation."

Gerard nodded slowly. "Yes," he said hesitantly. "Yes, you seem to have it there."

"Clearly, by definition then, it's got to be a compliment. What else could you take it as when vampires are so awesome?"

"I suppose," Gerard said. "Only the old fashioned ones, though. Wooden stakes and suits and slightly offensive Russian accents. No sparkling, shirtless paedophiles."

"Of course," Mr Iero said with a sigh. "Twilight essentially ruined vampires for the world."

Gerard tilted his head to the side. "Are you sure that's the mindset you want to be in, sir? A little black and white."

The teacher shook his head with a little laugh. "No, I suppose not. I'm just old fashioned too, then. In a very modern way."

"I like that," Gerard said. "I like oxymorons."

"Me too," Mr Iero said, a roguish smile on his face. "Although I do sort of hate them at the same time."

Gerard tried not to laugh, and failed.

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The School Song Competition was nearing its massive anticlimax: the final. Three weeks had dragged on by. Three weeks of rehearsals every break, three weeks of Gerard hiding in the toilets every break peeling off his skin against his conscious will. He was far more than desperate for it all to be over. He was almost ready to die.

And to his great dismay, the day the song competition was over, his disastrously planned art trip began. Every day, Gerard lamented choosing art as an option, and lamented the fact that students were forced to create their own timetables. Every day, Gerard prayed for God to save him from the impending doom of the art course. Seven days in muddy, rainy, sticky, freezing England. Seven days in sensory hell. For the other kids, it would be a fucking breeze. Sure, there would be a lot of complaining, and sore feet, but Gerard was most likely going to be in more pain than he had ever been in before in his entire life. And that was a lot, being horrendously oversensitive to every type of uncomfortable physical feeling that existed on this earth. People thought he exaggerated. People were fucking wrong.

Mr Iero wasn't wrong though. He seemed to have almost managed to grapple a hold on the jagged and shattered diamond of Gerard's mind. He was aware of Gerard's spectacular narcissism, and he didn't appear to be fazed by it. Nobody had understood Gerard before, but then again, nobody had read his writing before. Mr Iero could climb under his skin and fill all the cracks in Gerard's mind and Gerard liked it.

Mr Iero gave it his all in the song competition. Gerard gave it his nothing– just the minimal superficial level of effort it took not to be scolded. Gerard stared dully at the crowd, clutching at the hem of his lime green cardigan as he sang. Mr Iero's voice held softly onto the edges of Gerard's mind, leaving a quiet residue behind. His voice was low and a little off key, and he was shy, tugging his sleeves over his hands, but he was strong. It was a sort of contrast, really, Gerard thought absently as he glanced at the teacher stood a few spaces away from him. Mr Iero didn't seem strong, with his plaid jumpers, dorky sweater-vests, and shy, awkward drawl, but he had this quiet sense of status and stance that overwhelmed the space around him. And Gerard fucking liked it.

Ordinarily, he hated when teachers had any kind of confidence (although he also hated it when they were terrified and lacking in self esteem. Teachers were generally just irritating, no matter what they did). He wasn't sure why Mr Iero was an exception. He just was. There was no question about it, he was different. Gerard still had yet to solve why, but he was fairly satisfied with the fact that he knew, and no one else did. He was different too, and he took pride in it. Perhaps too much– but he was almost certain he deserved as much respect from others as he held for himself, and he was certain he would get it someday. Just not yet. Anyone who'd ever achieved anything worthwhile in their life had had a shitty time at school, with no friends, and terrible grades.

Although– Mr Iero had predicted his grade to be an A*; Gerard had seen it on the desk when he left last lesson late after showing Mr Iero his latest nonsense-in-disguise-as-prose. Maybe Gerard would turn out to be an exception as well, and ace his exams, and ace his job interviews. He was sure he could put on a friendly pretence with ease, and any potential manager would hire him for his warm smile and good manners and extensive variety of talents and skills. And for his modesty. His modesty was one of his greatest assets.

(He was doomed. He just wouldn't let himself admit it.)