Frank on a Leash

"Hey, we should, like, go get ice cream for lunch!" exclaimed Frank, bolting up from his comfortable spot nestled in the dip of Mikey's shoulder to glance at his other two friends. His eyebrows made exclamation marks in the middle of his face and his smooth grin was superior like he knew that his will shall be done. No one here could resist him and his cute pout.

Well, maybe Mikey. But he obviously doesn't care that much about Frank.

Bob was sitting on top of the monkey bars with his legs folded underneath one another in a way that looked quite uncomfortable, but necessary if he insisted on sitting on metal poles without falling through the cracks and busting his ass. His thick arms were crossed over his chest in an obvious expression of distaste in Frank's spot on the jungle gym. His thoughts were constantly revolving around two mantras, playing in his head like the prayers they tried to teach him in church when he was little. The ones he was supposed to say before going to sleep at night.

I want to kill him and use his bloated corpse as a trophy....No, I need to leave him alone because it's not his fault Frank is in love with him, and at least Frankie is talking to me again...

Ray was hanging upside down off the side of the slide, his legs hooked at the knees over the yellow plastic and his signature 'fro dangling below him like an extra organ. The blood was slowly rushing to his head, turning his naturally dark cheeks a nice vibrant red, suitably complimenting his red Dracula shirt that proclaimed Everyone should visit Transylvania, it's a scream! It was a shirt his cousin brought back to him from Europe, where, yes, he did actually visit Dracula's castle.

Mikey was splayed out in the middle of the jungle gym, taking up the most space despite his petite stature. His arms and legs bent at awkward angles like a crushed spider laying helpless on the kitchen floor after the assault of a shoe, still twitching with pent-up life and dying slowly, slow enough to know all about its life in those brief moments of intense pain. Mikey's right arm was supporting his head from the rough and unsanitary floor of the jungle gym where little feet had tracked mud and probably shit and piss as well. His left had previously been at the middle of Frank's back, tracing lazy circles on the crests and troughs of his spine, but now it laid dejectedly at his side, twisting at one of the chains hanging off of his over sized pants.

After sizing up the other two, Frank turned his gaze softly down to Mikey, who was staring right back at him, who was the only one who actually drove, meaning the decision was wholly upon him. Frank poked out his bottom lip in an attempt to look sad while his eyes told differently. They said, Geez, Mikey is too pretty when he looks up at me like that. I wonder how no one else seems to see this.

But he didn't really want anyone to know that Mikey was beautiful, that he was so indescribably lost-looking, like a love-starved orphan wondering where her parents are even as she searched around the broken down rubble that used to be her house before the fire.

Frank's eyelids sank down for a moment, long enough to gain some composure after bearing witness to that stare that Mikey was giving him, the needy stare that he saw sometimes. The dark depths of space that radiated coldness, radiated the desire to be warm for once, to be normal like everyone else. Mikey didn't bother to hide it, perhaps he didn't know how desperate he looked. Either way, Frank wanted to overload him with buckets and buckets spilling and seeping love from the cracks that beg to collapse. He knew he had enough affection to sate Mikey if only he was given the chance to lower that dam that he built specifically to protect Mikey from his normal waterfall of emotions that he exposed to others.

Mikey twisted his mouth into a grin that Frank knew he was faking, knew it because he could see the tremble laying low, out of sight that no one seemed to be able to see, ever, and Frank wished they could see that, at least. He wished everyone could see that Mikey actually was human, believe it or not. He wasn't the stereotypical teenager who only thought the world and his parents hated him, who stayed out late with his friends and worked on killing off every single brain cell he had left, took kindness for granted and never dealt it back.

"Hmmm, how did I know that one was coming?" Mikey gave Frank a playful jab in the ribs with his elbow, and Frank was content enough to play along like he really was fine with Mikey putting his mask back on after all the attempts Frank had made to throw the thing away. He could fake too.

He giggled at the jab--he didn't even have to fake the laugh, Mikey was just too cute like this, even if it was make-believe--and nuzzled into Mikey's neck, pressing his cheek into the throbbing skin just below his jaw. He just waited for the strumming of vocal chords deep in Mikey's throat to send him into a fit of happiness. But he knew he had to give a response before Mikey would say any more, that was just how it worked. Mikey didn't like to talk twice in a row unless he really had something important to say, but if it was that important he wouldn't have paused in the first place.

"Miiikey, I want iiice creammm!" Frank wailed, purposefully drawing out the 'i's' and sounding like a little kid because he knew that's how he normally got his way, pretending that he was just a kid who didn't care about the politics of the world because those were grown-up concerns. A kid who just wanted ice cream. And who wanted to fix his friend.

Mikey fake-smiled and shook his head disbelievingly with a side-glance over at Frank.

"What are you, like, two?"

Frank let out a small growling noise--it was cute, Mikey thought, like a blood-thirsty lion cub--and narrowed his eyes, giving Mikey a small push. Mikey scoffed, crossing his arms over his chest and turned his head away from Frank in mock-disdain. He opted instead to roll over onto his side and turn his attention to Bob, who was glaring at him as well with eyes as cold as his own, sizing him up to see how much resistance he would have as a punching bag. (Probably none, since Mikey wasn't good for anything.)

It stopped bothering him that Bob hated him and wanted to kill him. Really, he wasn't too fond of Bob himself, and still didn't understand why this all happened. Why was Bob so pissy toward him, he didn't steal Frank. They were all out together now, so why did Bob still give him the mean looks?

He smirked at Bob, wondering just how much pain he would have to endure later if he decided to hug Frank right now. No, scratch that, he knew exactly what Bob would do. He would fucking twist Mikey's body around these bars until he broke, screaming and bleeding internally and probably externally, as well. Too bad, he really felt like curling his arms around Frankie and feeling him hug back like he always did. He needed a little reassurance that Frank still wanted to be his friend even though he has two other normal friends who weren't needy, over-analyzing pessimists.

Oh, fuck it.

Mikey rolled over again so his chest was pressed up against Frank's, feeling that was enough contact to satisfy him that Frank wasn't leaving him. As long as he could feel Frank's heartbeat, alerting him that yeah, a living, breathing human being is talking to him, not a corpse, not an imaginary friend that he sometimes saw when he was particularly lonely.

"Okay, Frank, where do you want to go? Sonic again?" Mikey asked, having an inkling that he was right. They always went to Sonic when Frank wanted ice cream. It was their place.

"No, uhmmm...." Frank continued to mumble as he thought about where he wanted to go, because he sure as hell wasn't sharing the place he had so many good memories with the boy he loved with Bob and Ray. It would somehow be sacreligious.

"Hmmm. Hmm. Hm-"

"Frankie!"

Frank giggled and looked down sheepishly, his fringe of bangs sweeping across his button of a nose and successively hiding his blush. Mikey was really a cutie when he's annoyed. Or when he's happy. Or asleep. Or awake. Basically, he is cute all the time, and on that note, Frank decided to pull Mikey into a tight hug, snuggling his face into his hair. He pulled Mikey as close as he could get him into his chest protectively because he noticed Bob's nasty look, and he just wanted to block all of that out for Mikey if he could.

"Sorry. I wanna go...I don't know where, let's just go."

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

Mikey watched in silent amusement, chin resting on one curled up fist, his bracelets falling down his skinny arm, as Frank filled his ice cream bowl with three different flavors of ice cream--chocolate, chocolate chip, and strawberry--topped off with a mixture of chocolate sauce, rainbow sprinkles, gummy worms, nuts (Mikey bit back a laugh), and about 12 cherries hanging precariously off the tower of sweets. He carried the overflowing slowly back to the table that he, Mikey, Bob, and Ray were sitting at. It looked a bit ridiculous from Mikey's view, since the ice cream was nearly as tall as Frank--it really was, the poor thing had to stretch his neck up to see over it--but he did make it back to the table with his treat in tact, sliding into the booth beside Mikey.

The ice cream was a work of art compared to the lackluster--no, they didn't even deserve a word as long as lackluster-- plain ice creams that the others got. It was dips and swirls of rich dark chocolate dispersed with the vibrant red, blue, yellow, purple, and pink splatters of colour that completely canceled out any aesthetic beauty of the bland frozen dairy products in Frank's friends' bowls. That is, if ice cream can possess beauty.

Frank, taking a second look at his masterpiece with blatant ravaging hunger, decided they could.

Mikey held back snickers as he watched his small friend stumble back to their table with the bowl clutched tightly, possessively, almost, in his arms. It was cute, really, and so like Frank to do. Mikey knew when they first stepped foot in this place and saw the bar with all the candies and sauces on display that Frank was going to try and give himself a sugar coma by drowning his poor ice cream in so much chocolate that a fat German boy couldn't dream of finishing it. (Bad stereotype!) In a way, when Mikey stepped back and saw he was completely right, he thought it was weird to know someone that well. Personalities were something he didn't understand so well in people, like he didn't understand Bob or Ray at all, or his teachers or parents or the guys at school who looked at him funny when he walked into the boy's bathroom to re-apply his eyeliner, but he understood Frank a little bit. He knew enough to know when Frank was joking about something, because that was when he would smile cheekily at his own joke and sometimes giggle, and he knew when Frank was being serious because he looked right at Mikey--he would probably look Mikey in the eyes, but Mikey couldn't look people in the eyes, he always kept his head hung low when he was talking to anyone--and he knew that Frank was a nice guy that didn't want to hurt him. So he could piece together what he knew and automatically be able to tell what Frank wanted from the ice cream bar. When Mikey thought about all of this, he realized he knew more about Frank than anyone else in the world besides himself. And he also realized that it made him smile.

As Frank slid into the seat beside Mikey, they both subconsciously moved closer to the middle so their thighs were touching and their shoulders bumped against each other, and neither bothered to move away as their elbows hit each other when Frank moved to pick up his spoon.

"Wow, Frankie, are you planning on eating that whole thing by yourself?" Ray asked, fully believing that Frank could do it if he put his mind to it. But he was hoping that he wouldn't, because eating all of that would make him sick, and then he would have to deal with Bob and Mikey fighting over who got to cuddle Frank better.

Frank shook his head, glancing up at Mikey with a broad, mischievous smile on his lips. "Nope, I have every intention of making Mikey help me."

"S'cuse me?" Mikey asked through the plastic spoon in his mouth, arching an eyebrow in disbelief at Frank. He was perfectly content with his small bowl of mint chocolate chip ice cream. But he knew Frank didn't like green ice cream, having to sit through Frank's rant about orange and green ice creams one day as he called them 'tacky, pastel frauds of what real ice cream should be'. Ice cream was like a political issue with him, it was that important.

"Frank, there is no way I can eat my ice cream and help you with that one without me puking up all of my intestines and dying on this nice shiny table that I'm sure the unfortunate waitresses will have to clean my dead body off of." He punctuated his sentence by stabbing his utensil into his ice cream pointedly.

"Oh. Okay then." Frank reached out and grabbed Mikey's bowl of icky brown and green ice cream by the side, careful not to get any of the poisonous gook on his fingers. He put it under the table on his lap despite the uncomfortable coldness seeping down near his crotch, that way he won no matter what. Mikey had the choice to either give in and let Frank feed him, or grab the ice cream off of Frank's lap. (seductive eye wiggle).

"There, problem solved, Mikey," Frank chirped brightly, grinning up at Mikey like a madman on dope. He knew he'd won because Mikey wasn't going to go grabbing at things near Frank's crotch. Or maybe he would and give Frank a little thrill.

Mikey smirked broadly, figuring that Frank's dick was freezing right now and all he had to do was wait until Frank couldn't take it anymore. The smile slowly slipped from his face as he came to the realization that he was, in fact, thinking about Frank's dick, and that disturbed him to no end. That was going a little too far. He shook his head to rid his thoughts. Sadly for him, it didn't work, and he ended up just looking like a weirdo shaking his head about nothing. When he looked back up he nearly got his eye jabbed out by Frank's ice cream-covered spoon.

"Well Mikey?" Frank raised an eyebrow expectantly. Maybe if he fed Mikey enough chocolate, he would get hyper and un-moody.

Mikey rolled his eyes melo-dramatically as he eyed the ice cream with disdain. He didn't want chocolate ice cream, he liked the minty kind, but he didn't really have a choice, Frank looked too pleased with himself for Mikey to refuse. Mikey stuck out his tongue and hesitantly flicked it to the ice cream, taking a test lick first before fully opening his mouth and allowing Frank to feed him. He didn't want to be force fed again, that was a horrible experience.

Bob made an obnoxious choking sound as he watched the two boys acting so obviously gay that it was embarrassing. Feeding each other? That wasn't too over-the-top? Even couples didn't subject others to watch that kind of blatant, sickening show of affection, and he sure as hell didn't want to be forced to watch this shit by those two. It was disgusting and made the stomach acid churn and boil up in his esophagus.

Frank blocked out any and all retching sounds made by Bob, instead shifting his focus constantly from Mikey to the ice cream still in his lap until he gave in and set it back on the table well out of Mikey's reach. Mikey, on the other hand, was not amused by Bob's bodily sounds, and made a snippy remark through the spoonful of ice cream in his mouth.

"What's wrong Bob, choking on a dick?"

Bob scowled and furrowed his eyebrows in anger, barely able to believe that Mikey had the guts. But he'd been doing a lot of things lately that Bob didn't expect. "Excuse me, you little fucker?"

Mikey smirked while Ray and Frank looked on with dread. "You heard what I said." He was done with tip-toeing around Bob, having to think about what things he could and couldn't do or say, and he was even looking forward to the confrontation that would no doubt happen later on today when Frank and Ray weren't around. He knew damn well that he was no match for Bob, their first fight was just a fluke, but maybe Frank would take care of him again.

Ray and Frank exchanged looks. They knew to grab the boys if they decided to lunge over the table and rip each other's throats out. Frank wrapped his hand around Mikey's arm just in case that awful scenario did happen. Everyone at the table--everyone in the world, probably--could see that bob could beat Mikey up, and Frank wasn't going to let that happen again. Sure, Mikey was kind of asking for it with the superior attitude and smirky remarks, but Frank believed vehemently that Bob started it. Why did Bob even agree to come with them, he knew that Frank was going to fawn over Mikey the whole time!

Mikey was pissed, this whole thing was Bob's fault and he knew it! He was just being immature with those retarded little vomiting sounds he was making. He was just jealous for no fucking reason. Mikey and Frank weren't dating, how many times does he have to say it? It already ate at him that they were never going to be a couple, never able to kiss each other goodbye in the school hallway when the breaks were up and they had to go to class like he saw the other couples do. They all looked so happy and in love--well, teenage love, which amounts to about a month of intense lust filled with decorations on the bathroom stalls and on the sides of their homework that they are in love forever. But if Mikey just blocked out the little fact that in high school love doesn't exist, he was jealous of it. He almost wanted that feeling with Frank, but his pessimistic attitude refused to let him even imagine that it could ever happen. He wouldn't let his hopes up just to be dashed down to leave him raw and emotional. He's spend years building walls for just this sort of thing, just so he won't have to feel the pain that is the subject of so many cheesy songs, poems, books, and movies. Damn, love seems to be at the center of everything entertaining, doesn't it? But he didn't want to be hurt like he knew it would, he didn't want to take the chance.

Ray sat tensely in his seat beside Bob, feeling the insane madness radiating off of every fiber in his rage-filled friend's body. He shrank back a bit in his seat and glanced over to the fretful Frank. They locked eyes and a promise to protect Mikey passed between them. And it wasn't just because Frank wanted him to, he really liked Mikey now. He was just a change of scenery, being the only goth kid in school, and Ray liked that. He also liked how much he and Mikey had in common, like their love for the original Game Boy, or the refusal to have normal hair, but especially their tastes in music. And--such a deep dark secret that he will never divulge because it shocks the hell out of himself and left him confused for three whole days and nights without sleep--Mikey was...hot when he was pissed. Hm, just like that this whole pitiful situation turned into a love square. Just peachy. Strange how things just happen like that.

Oh gawd, poor little Mikey, I made fun of him, I'm sure he's just heartbroken, Bob thought bitterly as he slowly clenched and unclenched his fists. He was grinding his teeth down to the gum and his jaw was starting to ache. He wanted to take his plastic spoon and scoop Mikey's eye right out of his head in one sickening, blood spurting pop, but he was scared shitless of what Frank would do. He night not look like much, but Bob knew that, if provoked, Frank will end him. And it was fucking terrifying to see Frank that angry. He'd only seen it once, and that single outburst caused him to regard Frank with the up most reverence from then on. So Bob wasn't going to chance it by killing the person that Frank was supposedly in love with. That was...a death sentence. But, he must say, Mikey has been the only person in existence that Bob had seriously considered killing. Sure, everyone says there is someone they would like to kill if the world suddenly dropped all consequences and nothing bad would happen to them, but Bob was almost willing to go through with killing Mikey and burying him in his backyard just to get the voices to stop. He was tired of telling himself that he couldn't do it, when every other fiber in his body screamed that no one would ever know if he was just really clever about it, that life wasn't how it was in the movies and they can't really find out that it was him, no one would even give a shit that Mikey was dead other than Frank.

Frank scooted tentatively in his seat closer to Mikey, curling both of his arms around one of Mikey's slowly and resting his chin on his shoulder, nosing into the familiar smell of cologne and makeup. He tilted his face up a bit, close to Mikey's ear, tucking a few stray strands of black hair as he did.

"Mikey, please..."

Mikey tore his stare from Bob to look down at Frank, at his pained expression, and felt like an ass. He leaned in to smush his nose against Frank's, their universal sign of affection. He'd never initiated it before, but he felt he needed to do it now. The last thing he wanted was for Frank to be unhappy. He took his free hand (the other one was being hugged in a death grip) and ran his fingers down the side of Frank's face, lovingly brushing the bangs out of his eyes as they ghosted across his forehead.

"I'm sorry, Frank." His breath, hot and muggy and sugary floated between the two in their too-close positions. Hearts thrashed against abused rib cages as neither moved, the only movement made by Mikey as he sucked his lip into his mouth nervously, tonguing a sore he had on the inside ridge that tasted of bloody copper.

Lowly, under his breath, Bob muttered, "Not dating, my god-damn ass," accompanied by the silent crash of his hopes drowned out by the buzz of fluorescent lights and the arguments of two little boys at the ice cream bar fighting over who got to go first. Suddenly, the black and white checkered floor seemed tacky and the white wash walls were cold and insensitive, not at all a place he wanted to be.

He got a jab in the stomach from Ray, who promptly shushed him. Ray wasn't going to let him ruin Mikey and Frank's moment. And it was a moment, no matter how vehemently they may deny it later when it is brought up by Bob. Two people can't look at each other like the way they were--everyone knows that look, the 'you belong to me and I belong to you' look--without having a moment, which happened to be terribly inappropriate at this time and place in front of the people they were sitting across from. Ray expected a passionate kiss, he really did. He thought they would just go *poof* and turn into a couple. But no such thing happened, sadly. When will they learn?