Crooked Halos

“George Ryan Ross!” Jade crows with laughter.

We’re all crammed into the boys dormitory, apart from Kyla that is. She sometimes comes up when she can sneak in without being noticed, but the girls aren’t allowed in out dormitory, and vice versa.

George blushes, rummaging through his rucksack for something clean to wear.

The uniform isn’t as strict as it could be, sure there are limits to what you can/can’t do, but they’re pretty lax on standards.

Black blazers, white shirts, black pants and black shoes for ‘school’ hours, the rest of the time we can wear pretty much whatever the fuck we want.

“Ryan suits you more than George.” Pete mutters, eyes skimming over the amber-eyed boy in the corner.

“Ryan Ross?” Jared snorts. “Please, it sounds like you’re taking the piss.”

“No, seriously, he doesn’t look like a George…”

“He looks like a wanker, whatever his name is.” That would be little Frankie, oh so charming. Gerard’s little toy-boy and permanently PMS-ing, either that or Gerard fucks him way too hard up the ass… every goddamn night.

“Oh, be nice, Franklin.” Shannon rolls his eyes, not bothering to look up from where he’s playing cards with Patrick.

Yeah, I should probably introduce the group before everyone’s tiny minds get so overheated with information that they completely frazzle and melt, and that would leave a nasty mess on the carpet.

On the bottom bunk in the corner by the window is Frankie Iero, green-eyed PMS-ing bitch.
Next to him is his boyfriend, Gerard Way, who’s one of those guys you just don’t fuck with, under any circumstances.

Rule number one for surviving MerryWeather; Gerard is always right.

Reading on the bunk above them is Brendon Urie, he doesn’t really fit the whole ‘kid gone wrong’ stereotype that the rest of us seem to settle so comfortably into.

On the bunk opposite him is wiL Francis, the dark-haired kid from the corner who, rumour has it, fucked Kyla on numerous occasions.

Below wiL are Shannon Leto and Patrick Stump. Shannon’s kind of… well, he’s one of the kids you don’t get on the wrong side of, but unlike Gerard, he’s actually a really great guy. Patrick’s fucked up and over in completely the opposite direction. He’s the sort of kid who’ll sit there in complete silence and just listen… its kind of creepy really.

Gabe Saporta should be occupying the bunk next to them, but he’s gone to the toilet. Gabe’s just nice, really friendly, really bouncy… if he’s in MerryWeather for anything it’s probably because everyone thinks he has ADHD.

Jared Leto’s the blue-eyed boy above Gabe’s empty bunk, he’s Shannon’s younger brother, and boy does it show, everyone talking to them just knows that Shannon is older.

The cunt opposite him is Pete Wentz, and the shit-head below him is Davey Havok, all curled up on his bunk with his boyfriend Jade Puget. Jade’s got a mean-streak, Davey’s just plain stubborn.

Heck, they were made for each other.

“Hiya!” Gabe bounces back into the room, planting a sloppy kiss on Jade’s cheek before laughing and running away, jumping on his bunk and pulling faces at Gerard.

Jade wipes at his cheek, his face torn between amusement and disgust.

Davey snickers and Gerard gives Gabe the death-glare.

The only one of us who isn’t present right now, is Kyla Jakobs, the only female in the group unless you count Frankie who despite being a bitch, actually has got a dick (I know, I saw it.) Ky’s another one of those ‘kids from the corner’ which is probably why she gets along so well with wiL.

And then there’s me, William Beckett, apparently I have a short attention span… what were we talking about, sorry?

“William, Ryan or George?”

“Wha-” My head snaps up and I return Pete’s glare with gusto.

“Do you think he looks more like a Ryan or a George?” Pete rolls his eyes dramatically and I narrow my eyes, carefully apprising the boy with amber eyes.

“Ryan.”

“Told you!” Pete laughs manically, pointing at Jared while the rest of us look on, faces contorted into either careful amusement or just plain nervousness.

“I only said that calling him Ryan Ross sounds like you’re taking the piss.” Jared mutters, not looking up from the notepad he’s writing in.

“He’s got a point.” Shannon interjects quietly.

“I think we should ask him.” Brendon mutters. We ignore him.

Pete turns on Patrick. “Trick!”

Patrick looks up, not saying a word, just surveying Pete silently though thick glasses.

“Ryan or George?”

Patrick shrugs, blushing slightly, turning away quickly, hiding his face with his hair.

“Why are we even discussing him?” Frankie butts in, eyes fired up but Gerards arm tightens warningly around his waist and he leans back into Gerard touch, biting his bottom lip and glaring.

No one answers Frank. Not because we can’t bothered with him (like Brendon) but simply because Gerard’s here. If Gerard was taking a piss or something, no one would think twice about putting Frank down a few pegs, but Gerard doesn’t like people talking back to Frankie… despite that fact that no one has any respect for the green-eyed bitch anyway.

And no one disagrees with Gerard.

“wiL, Ryan or George?”

“Ryan.” wiL doesn’t even look at the feminine amber-eyed boy.

“Gabe?”

“Talk to me?”

“Do you think he…” Pete points at Ryan “looks more like a Ryan or a George?”

“Ryan, no question, dude.”

“Ha!” Pete’s finger changes direction from Ryan to Jared. “Told you!”

“Look, I only said that calling him Ryan Ross…”

“We know, Leto.” Gerard’s voice is icy. “It sounds like Pete’s taking the piss, but it suits him.”

Little Ryan Ross blushes, roses flaring into life within his pale cheeks.

Cute.

Jared lowers his head, keeping quiet and getting on with whatever he was doing in that notepad.

“Lights out!” One of the warden’s shouting from outside the dormitory and everyone grumbles, crawling into their bunks when he comes in.

He can’t be any younger than forty five and he either really hates us or the wind changed direction when he was locked in a room with Gabe… or Pete… or possibly Jade and Davey…

“Light’s out! It’s ten O’ clock!” He barks, hand on the light switch, glaring at Shannon who’s fumbling around with the pack of cards.

He flicks the switch and the room is plunged into a state of semi-darkness, the only light coming from the moon outside.

Someone left the window open, I can tell because it’s fucking freezing in here.
I open my eyes and get up, stumbling towards the window, meaning to shut it, but someone’s already there.

Squinting only reveals the skinny figure to be Ryan.

“What’s up?” I yawn, reaching for the window and pulling it shut. Yeah, we have windows in this place and no, we can’t escape through them. There is a wall around this place, you know. Big fucking help it would be to launch ourselves out the window because this is the sixth floor so even if we survived, we’d break a hell of a lot.

“I don’t like it here.” Ryan mutters, gazing through the double-glazing.

“Big fucking deal, I don’t think anyone does.” Yeah, I sound like an asshole, but what do I care? He’s a newbie and it’s three in the morning.

I make my way back to my bunk, clambering in and pulling the heavy sheets over my body.
I can feel his amber eyes burning into my back the whole way.

***

“Dude, what the fuck’s up?” Gabe bounces on the bed Jared’s trying to hard to make all neat and tidy. “Apart from your dick, of course, but that doesn’t count, not saying that it’s too small or anything…”

“Gabe.” I butt in, stopping Gabe mid-flow.

“Yeah?”

“Go bug Pete; you haven’t done that this morning.”

“I haven’t?” Gabe’s eyes sparkle with laughter as he runs off. “Oh, Petey!”

“What’s wrong, Jay?” I sit beside him, looping an arm around his shoulders and trying to keep my mind on Jared and his problems and off Pete and the problems Gabe will probably be causing.

“Nothing’s wrong.” He mutters, shrugging my arm off and digging his pen out from somewhere underneath his pillow.

“OH MY GOD!” Gabe shrieks and there’s the sound of scampering feet before he bursts in, scaring the hell out of myself, Jared and Shannon who’s playing a game of solitaire by the window.

“Guys! Ohmigod! It’s so gross!” He groans, still practically bouncing on the balls of his feet.

“What?” Shannon sighs.

“Davey and Jade… ewww…. They were naked, in the showers!”

Shannon cocks an eyebrow. “You can hardly expect them to be clothed in the shower. What were you doing in there anyway?”
“I thought Pete was going to be in there and I was going to steal his towel.” A bell rings from somewhere out in the hallway and Jared sighs, toying with a lock of soggy hair in between two fingers. Yeah, we showered earlier. Did you really expect me to let you tune into that?

Definitely not. Especially when Frank and Gerard are being so goddamn loud only a couple of cubicles down.

I shudder at the thought.

Gabe shrieks and Jared winces due to the pitch of it. Ha, Jared’s a sissy. “Ohmigod, breakfast!”

He sprints out like an Olympic athlete and Shannon shuffles his cards, slotting them away into their case and standing up.

“Come on then, follow the retard.” He grins and leaves after Gabe, leaving me and Jared alone in the dorm.

“So what’s wrong?”

“Nothing’s wrong, Will!” Jared leaves, exasperated and I’m all alone again.

God, I feel like I’ve been there too many times.