Teeth

You have my cat.

I blinked and re-read it. Then bent my head down to get a closer look, as if that would help the tall, thin script make more sense. Of course, figures it would be his cat. The he I'm referring to would be Gerard.

I looked up from the neatly creased note in my lap at Gerard, who was scribbling away on his notebook. He wasn't paying the slightest attention to me, and seemed too absorbed in his writing.

How the hell did he get this note over here?

I stared at the note once again, wondering if I should write a response. I shook my head slightly, then crumpled the innocent looking lined paper into my pocket. I wouldn't be able to get the message over to him anyways without the supervisor seeing.

"I saw Gerard Way making out with the head fucking cheerleader behind the school this morning."

I closed my eyes and leaned my forehead against the wood of my desk, feeling that drowning sensation of confusion. First of all, who would kiss Gerard? I mean, he'd as soon as kiss you as kill you and stuff you under his front porch. I felt myself shiver. The idea of Gerard kissing anyone was as unimaginable as Billy Corgan with an afro. And just wrong. Billy Corgan was meant to be bald, just like Gerard is meant to be locked away in a padded room 300 feet below the surface of the earth.

I flopped my head on the desk in the direction facing Quinn, and watched with growing amusement as drool dribbled down his chin and he wiggled his single eyebrow in sleep.

Courtney Fox and Gerard Way... I thought wonderingly, then closed my eyes and tried to survive detention.

---------------------------------

The bell rang, startling us all awake, and I lifted my head off my desk, blinking my eyes blearily.

"O'er? Already?" Quinn mumbled sleepily beside me, wiping the drool off his chin.

I rolled my eyes. "Come on drooly, I need to talk to our good friend Gerard."

"Huh? We're on speaking basis with him now? What'd I miss?" Quinn asked, sounding confused. He pulled his head off his desk to join me in the World of the Awake.

I was just as surprised as he was by my decision, but I think the overwhelming need to get rid of Buster was overshadowing my better judgment. "Since now," I replied, climbing out of the cage of metal and wood that was my desk to follow after Gerard.

"It's about this time that I question your sanity, " Quinn said incredulously, catching my arm, his black fingernails looking like beetles on my pale flesh.

I shook him loose impatiently, Gerard was walking out the door. "I think the devil cat is his."

Quinn shook his head. "You should hear yourself right now."

"I know I sound crazy," I snapped, starting after Gerard again and ignoring his further protests.

I darted out the door to the classroom, looking both ways before spotting Gerard's retreating form. The crowded hallway parted for him subconsciously like a school of fish for a shark.

I pushed through them, not having the magic power of The Force to part the sea of kids in front of me like Gerard. I called out in my desperation to get rid of the cat, "Gerard!"

The people around me looked at me strangely, and some stopped completely to watch the show. It was a foreign thing at best for someone to chase after Gerard. Mostly it was just crazy.

Gerard turned, a look of annoyance making his eyes cold. "Frank? I'm flattered," he growled, his eyes flicking around and taking in the crowd of observers.

I approached sheepishly, highly aware of my loud pursuit. My stomach flipped sickly when I got close to him, and I bit my lip. "Umm, I need to talk to--"

"Hey!" Gerard barked suddenly, making me jump. But he was addressing the crowd not me. "You fucking looking at something?!"

The nosy students around us lowered there heads and skulked off, some at a fast trot.

He turned his attention back to me reluctantly, looking more pissed of than usual. "What?"

I cleared my throat and tugged at the collar of my shirt, averting my eyes. "Um, did you-- is my, er, the note--you...?" I choked out nervously, staring at one of his pale hands instead of his cold calculating face.

"What?" Gerard repeated, a hint of amusement and irritation evident this time.

I pulled the note out of my pocket. "You wrote this right?" I managed to ask.

I held it out to him and he stared at me for a second before taking it. His cold fingers brushed mine and a fizzle of electricity rushed under my skin, like my blood was made out of champagne bubbles.

We both jerked our hands away, and I knew he'd felt it too. I tucked my buzzing fingers into my jean pocket, and watched as he concentrated on un-folding the note.

He read the four words there and raised an eyebrow at me. "I didn't write this," he stated.

I looked at him in confusion. "What?"

He smirked. "Do I look like a cat owner, Frank?"

No, you look like a rattlesnake owner.

"You and this cat would be a good match," I muttered under my breath before saying more loudly, "You didn't write it?"

He rolled his dark eyes. "No. Why's this so important to you?"

"Because it's dead," I grumbled.

He arched an eyebrow.

"I mean, it pees the bed!" I improvised wildly, mentally kicking myself for telling Gerard I had a dead cat.

"Alright..." Gerard said slowly, still holding the note. To my surprise he tucked it into his pocket, his eyes daring me to ask for it back now.

I didn't.

"I'll, er, see you later then," I mumbled, rubbing my hand and starting to turn away.

"Tonight," he said suddenly, and I turned in surprise to see his serious expression.

"Uh, what?"

"I'll see you tonight," he replied calmly.

"Why?" I blurted out, my tingling hand clenched into a fist.

He shrugged. "To tell you who sent you this note."

I blinked. "You know? What the fuck? Gerard if it's you I swear..."

He shook his head, smirking. "It's not me."

"Who is--"

"Tonight."

Then he turned and walked away.

-----------------------------

"No, it's a fucking C Major," I growled at myself, correcting my fingers on the fret board. My left hand was tired, and the muscles felt like they were on fire. Playing through an entire Misfits album was incredibly tiring. I shook my hand out, then returned it to the neck. "Okay, instead of going down to the seventh fret, play that C Major," I told my hand, then pressed play on the stereo and proceeded to play along with the guitar on track 5.

"Frank!" My mom howled through the door, raising her voice over the loud music thundering in my room.

I paused the player and snapped, "What?!"

"Come feed the cat!"

I groaned, loud enough for her to hear through the wood. "It already ate my soul," I replied angrily, muting the strings of my guitar as the amp started hum with feedback.

She opened the door, a stormy look on her face. "I'm not taking full care of that cat, Frank Iero. He's your responsibility too."

"Since when?!" I asked, exasperated. "Since YOU bought it? Mom, I hate that thing. It's ugly, it smells like shit, and it tried to kill me last night," I complained angrily, flicking the amp off and putting my guitar on the bed.

"Don't exaggerate," she scoffed, placing a hand on her hip.

"Whatever," I grumbled, not in the mood to have my guitar taken away. I glanced out my window, mostly obscured with the black sheets I had tacked up. The sky was alight with a sunset, but night seemed to be pressing against the glass hungrily.

I had the chilling concept that Gerard would come when it was dark.

I shuddered.

I stalked past my mom and down the stairs into the kitchen, pausing at the pantry to grab a brand new bag of cat food from the shelf.

As I was measuring the scoops out forcefully into Bastard's copper bowl, my eyes fixed themselves on a small hourglass shaped bottle next to the sink. Blue dish washing soap. My eyes snapped back to the bowl, and then to the soap.

I could just poison the little shit, I thought darkly, then turned away.

If Gerard came tonight he could take it off my hands, and I wouldn't have to commit animal murder. One of the reasons I'm a vegetarian is to save a few animals, I couldn't turn around and kill one.

I dropped the bowl on the floor with a clank, and a few bits of 'X' shaped fish flavored food skittered across the linoleum.

Bastard (no, that is not a typo) lurched into the kitchen, his skinny hips moving creakily. He sniffed the food, then turned away, dismissing it.

"Sorry it isn't human children, you dirty mother fucker," I muttered under my breath, exiting the kitchen quickly. I glanced out the living room window, the sky now scorched with the dying blood of the sun. The hazy half moon was rising now in the dark blue part of the sky, an ominous half-lidded eye.

I ran my fingers through my gelled hair nervously, chewing at my lip ring.

Inside the kitchen Bastard yowled.

"Did you feed the cat?" My mom called from the other room, that creatures unearthly moans from the kitchen drawing her attention.

"Yeah," I called back, "he's not eating."

She said something in response, but I didn't understand her. "Okay," I said anyways, rolling my eyes.

I sat down on the couch, sinking into the blue fabric. Across from me the blank face of the TV reflected my pale nervous face. I glanced out the window again. The bloody streaks were scabbing over in dark purple, the blue face of the sky laced with beautiful scars.

I tapped my fingers on my pant leg, listening idly to the muted tapping of flesh on denim. I don't think I've ever seen the sun go down so fast in my life. Black was spreading like an ink puddle across the blue, purple, and dying red sections of the sky, dousing out the day.

It seemed like the second the sun disappeared into the earth, a dark figure was walking down the street towards my house.

I felt myself rise from the couch, breathing in an almost panicked manner.

He's going to kill me, I thought ridiculously, my heart pounding.

The cat went silent in the other room, and a chill ran down my arms.

He was crossing the street now, and I blinked. How did he get here so fast? Did I zone out?

He was outside the house, looking from the sidewalk into the living room window... at me. Another shiver. So fast. How did he get here so fast?

It reminded me of that poem, from 'Where the Sidewalk Ends'. Every kid read that book, and laughed at the roughly drawn sketches and poems inside. But one was chillingly familiar to Gerard...

Oh, I'm being eaten
By a boa constrictor,
A boa constrictor,
A boa constrictor,
I'm being eaten by a boa constrictor,
and I don't like it-one bit.
Well, what do you know?
It's nibblin' my toe.
Oh, gee,
It's up to my knee.
Oh my,
It's up to my thigh.
Oh fiddle,
It's up to my middle.
Oh heck,
It's up to my neck.
Oh dread,
It's upmffffffffffffffffffffffffff.....

Except with Gerard it would be:

Oh shit,
there he is.
Oh fuck,
there he is... outside my house?

No cute little levels of approaching. Nah.

I smiled thinly at my thoughts, staring out motionlessly at the dark figure on the sidewalk.

Then I walked down the hallway to the front door.

--------------------

I stepped outside into the night, the air already chilled.

Gerard was a bar of black on the vanilla sidewalk, and I walked hesitantly towards him, wondering if I should have brought the cat. No, that thing would have ripped my shirt to shreds and lumbered to Mexico by the time I opened the door with it in my arms.

I opened my mouth to speak, but nothing came out. I licked my chapped lips and looked away.

"You don't seem surprised that I came," he commented, his voice laced with humor.

I frowned at the sidewalk. "You told me you were going to come," I muttered, kicking at a crack in the cement with the scuffed end of my shoe.

"I did," he agreed unhelpfully. I could feel him watching me.

I raised my head up finally, taking him in. Black, black, black, worn leather jacket, black leather shoes of some kind-torn at the toe, mangy hair, icy eyes, mannequin-like skin...

"So who is it?" I finally asked, after absorbing his intimidating presence.

He smirked. "I'm going to show her to you."

"Her?" I didn't remember a girl being in detention....

He rolled his eyes, which were lighter than usual--almost hazel. "I'm going to show her to you," he repeated, his hands sliding into the small pockets of his leather jacket.

"Okay..." My gut twisted nervously, and I looked down at the ground again. "Lead away."

He stood there for a second more, then turned and started to walk with nice flowing steps. I jogged a couple steps to catch up, then fell in line behind him. I stared at the back of his jacket, which looked dusty with some kind of gray dust that looked strangely familiar...

I shook my head and jogged after Gerard and his speedy pace. "So where are we going exactly?" I asked, being much more courageous with his back turned to me.

"Near the park," he answered vaguely, still looking straight ahead.

I tried to remember what was near the park, and frowned. Silence fell on us like a thick blanket, only broken by the headlights and whir of an engine as a car growled by.

I watched the tail lights float away down the street like two glowing red eyes, and turn at the corner.

"Sooo," I started, not liking the creepy quiet, "what's with you and Courtney?"

How high school gossip is THAT?!

I let out a startled involuntary gasp as Gerard spun around violently, almost causing me to slam into him. "What?" He asked, his voice sounding volatile.

"Um, um--"

Oh, where's your courage now Mr. Iero?

"WHAT?" His eyes were so bright...almost yellow.

I stared into his eyes, terror seizing me.

"What did you hear?" He snapped, leaning in over me, taking advantage of my shortness.

I shook my head, and tried to step back. "I-I--"

"You what?!" He was too close, his mannequin pale face glaring out of the dark, his eyes burning.

"I heard you were kissing! Jesus!" I cried out, jerking away from him. "What is WRONG with you?!" I was breathing hard now, glaring angrily at him.

He stood there, his face blank. Then a smile stretched across his face, and he tossed back his head and laughed. "That's it?" He asked in between his strange laughter, which seemed to hit every octave going low to high.

I watched him in disbelief, taking another step back. "Okay, that's it. I'm going home," I stated.

He stopped laughing and looked at me. "What about the cat?"

"I don't give a flying fuck about it anymore. I'll just feed it bleach or something. And I'm not going anywhere with you again," I growled, stepping back some more. "You'd think I'd learn my lesson from the first day with you in detention, but nooo."

He was watching me curiously. "But that won't do anything," he said matter-of-factly.

I continued to glare at him. "Oh yeah, bleach is completely harmless," I said sarcastically. "What on earth was I thinking?"

"You said the cat was dead," Gerard pointed out.

I blinked. "No I didn't."

"Okay, you tried to cover up that slip up--badly. But you can't kill something that's already dead." He smiled thinly to himself.

And this is the weirdest conversation I've ever had.

"Alright," I allowed, "then what do you suggest I do then?"

He stroked his chin, yes, actually stroked it, like they do in the movies.

"I'm not exactly sure, I'd have to actually see the thing to know," he said thoughtfully. "Or we could just continue walking to the owner like we originally planned." He said the last bit with a sneer, like I was too much of a wuss to continue.

I returned his look with a dirty one, and I peered around him and looked down the sidewalk that led into heavy darkness. "No." Then I added, "But who's the owner?"

Gerard smirked. "Her name's Rosaline Padree."

I arched an eyebrow.

"She's dead."