Chapter Text
The Most Romantic Boy in Town was a title given rather ironically.
Noel had never, in his seventeen years of life, been in a relationship. No, it was because of the damned poems he hadn’t bothered to hide because he had thought, hey, people had better things to do than go riffling through others’ stuff, right?
Apparently not.
Hell had started in seventh grade, and it had followed him relentlessly. The talk about the girl Noel would write endlessly about. Monique Gibeau from France.
Then he had accidently thrown himself out the closet in eighth grade, and the demons had just closed in further. No matter how much he tried to deny, they just weren’t having it.
All sorts of theories, online in school chat groups, in school, freshmen come rushing over to ask him was it true? Was it true? The weirdest questions, and Noel wanted to scream at them. He wouldn’t answer, denied everything, swam to where the water was calmer. Then they would force him, sending sharks to ram him back into the storm…
The violence didn’t scare him much. Not the pain, the feeling of skin and bone and blood. He almost enjoyed the wild adrenaline it gave, even if it was just a moment of excitement in his dull life.
It was just hard hiding the bruises, the cuts. And especially now that the St. Cassian Choir was closer than ever, him going to meetups covered in black and blue would just raise questions.
The past few months had been relatively peaceful, so Noel couldn’t decide if the Cyclone incident was a blessing or a curse. They’d all healed, thank the stars, all of them survived. It was the first week of school without him hobbling around with a cast on his leg.
The blessing was, no one dared touch him, fearing punishment if he were to be sent back to the hospital.
The curse was, Noel Gruber had kissed a boy and now he couldn’t stop thinking about it.
He could remember Mischa’s hands on him, on his hips, his waist, his chest, and God had it felt good, a strange new kind of good. Their kiss had been nothing gentle. It had been lip-mashing, passionate, furious kissing, and oh-so-fitting for the Angriest Boy in Town. Noel remembered their hands interlocked, and Mischa held him against him as they spun a dance, round and round and round. He knew it had all been orchestrated by Karnak, but some part of him wondered, and hoped, that he could feel that way again, and if Mischa had, somehow, wanted that himself. The excitement. The pure wild passion.
And he remembered his head on Mischa’s shoulder, an arm around him, a bottle in his hand, feeling the safest he’d felt since seventh grade. He had wanted to freeze time; they could have stayed like that for eternity and he would have been fine with it. The warmth. The comfort. The faint scent of cigarette smoke that hung on him even in death.
Noel Gruber wanted Mischa Bachinski.
He realized he’d been staring at Mischa from across the classroom. He also realized that Jacob and Andrew, the Biggest Assholes in Town, were staring at him, but not dreamily; their expressions sent a shiver down Noel’s spine. He jerked his head around to the teacher, feeling the unsettling feeling of being watched.
The bell was his saviour. Where he could melt into the bodies in the hall, Just being another student of Uranium High. He escaped from the glares and moved with the crowd to his locker. The combination had been 8-1-8 for the past few months.
It was unlocked.
Noel froze for a moment, seventh grade replaying in his mind. He had never left his locker unlocked since the incident with the poems. Someone had been in here.
He edged it open warily, and, to his relief, he checked and checked and everything was still there. What was new was a note. A scrap of paper torn from the bottom of a page, the words not aligned with the lines on the notebook page.
Behind school. After school. Need talk.
– M
Emotions.
Confusion? Excitement? Relief? Something else, so may other ones, swirling and plunging and rising inside his chest, down his stomach and up his throat. He couldn’t help the stupid grin that split his face. He slammed his locker. Jacob and Andrew be damned. He was going to see Mischa after school. It didn’t matter what he wanted to talk about; between all the makeup work and classes and work at Taco Bell, they had had barely any time to meet up.
He stared at the words for a while. The writing was a messy scrawl. Noel had never seen Mischa’s writing, but he supposed it was fitting for the Angriest Boy in Town. It was almost cute. He wasn’t sure why.
“What’re you looking so happy about?” pipped a voice, and Noel jumped, slamming the note into his locker and fumbling for the door.
He turned to face Ocean, hoping his face wasn’t as flushed as he felt. “I, uh. Got full score on the math test.” He realized he was still grinning foolishly, and tugged the corners of his mouth downwards. “None of your business, anyway. Don’t you have a meeting to go off to?”
She raised her eyebrows. “I do not, Noel. It’s not after school yet.”
“Any period is after school if you don’t go to school,” said Noel, knowing fully at Ocean’s expression he had prodded her into a lecture, which was what he wanted anyway. Change the subject. Ocean was good at digging out secrets, but she was impressively easy to distract.
His mind drifted away, but this time not to France and alcohol and spinning lights.
No, his thoughts were furiously fixed on the Angriest Boy in Town.