Chapter Text
Frank Iero was just beginning to enjoy the comfortable silence of the Way family's basement when Illi's voice cut through the tranquility, kicking off the beginning of a very long, very headache-inducing campaign.
"We should make our own club!"
Frank and his three school friends were hanging out in Illi's room, a large space clearly intended by the home's architects to be some kind of shitty storage area that Illi's parents had allowed to be transformed into a larger-than-average, teenage bedroom. The walls were a dark wood-brown and there was very little light to spare, what with the singular window barely a foot wide up high on the farthest wall and the overhanging interior lights dim with age. So, many corners of the room were dotted with lamps, ranging in completely different aesthetics and lightbulb colors. A lot of Illi's room was like that, furniture strewn about with little reason beyond practicality and a lack of motivation to lift anything up the stairs to be rid of it. And all of it secondhand from the Way family, or just off the New Jersey streets and thrifts and every surface covered in items both beloved and forgotten by Illi. It was a weird, maximalist mess that she managed to turn into a cozy hideaway for herself and her friends.
"I'm already in one, Ills," Ray Toro responded to her declaration. He was sitting on the floor, leaning his back against the side of Illi's bed and facing her black cube of a TV. He had brought his N64 from home to play some goofy looking gorilla-banana game and had been on a roll the past half-hour. Frank wished that if he was gonna bring the damn thing for the weekend, he could've at least brought Smash or something so the three of them weren't stuck waiting for a turn the minute his character died (which with Ray, could take a while).
"Only cause your parents make you," Illi retorted, "You hate playing drums."
"No I don't," Ray smirked, his eyes still locked onto the screen, "I just suck at 'em."
The four of them spent most of their weekends like this. St. Matthew's was technically a boarding school, but Illi and Mikey Way lived so close by, it was more fun to just stay at their place for a couple days than be stuck around a bunch of preppies that hated their guts. Frank was grateful for it, his family lived a couple hours away, so the reprieve from tight uniforms and Sunday mass was, funnily enough, a godsend.
Frank himself was sitting a bit away from his friends, watching their conversation unfold. Illi was laying on their stomach in bed just behind Ray, formerly sketching on their drawing pad and now staring intently at the back of his head. Mikey was right next to Ray, also on the floor and waiting, arm on his knee, for his turn on the console. He managed to call dibs ahead of Frank, and so Frank sat in Illi's beanbag chair, closer to the head of their bed. But he still had a decent view of the screen, even if he was beginning to space out, up until a few moments ago.
"What about you Mikey?" Illi continued, "I'm pretty sure you don't have a club."
"I'm in tutoring," Mikey flatly corrected.
"Doesn't count, we're all in tutoring."
"I'm the only one who goes," Mikey tilted his head towards Illi, issuing a groan from them.
Now Illi's eyes rolled over to their final victim, and Frank braced himself for their killing blow.
"Frankie, do you wanna be in my club?" Illi's eyes got bigger, and they batted their eyelashes, unintentionally creating less of a pleading effect and more of a creepy one.
Frank shrugged, "I'll get kicked out somehow like all the other ones." The school counselor had tried sticking Frank in some benign after-school activity ten times over. The only one that Frank came close to enjoying was concert band with Ray, but he had managed to break the school's drum set during a particularly passionate, impromptu solo. The band director wasn't exactly receptive to his idea of him trying the guitar afterward. And despite Ray's vouching of his character, Frank was now clubless.
"No way, not this one," Illi was assured.
"And why's that?"
"Well I'll be the president, first of all," Illi pressed her fingers to her chest, "So even if you suck, you'd have a permanent membership!"
Frank squinted and pursed his lips. It was like she was challenging him to fuck with this non-existent group before it could even get started.
"Don't you have your art club?" Mikey turned to Illi, poking his finger against the rings of her sketchbook.
Illi rolled her eyes, "Don't even call it that. It's all conformist garbage anyway, art shouldn't have fucking lesson plans."
Ray tilted his head, still mashing away on the controller, "And this won't go like your swim club either?"
"That was different!" She retorted. Illi had explained to them many times over how she thought she was signing up for swim LESSONS, not swim TEAM.
Frank still snickered at how annoyed the memory made her. In fact, it seemed like all the group's vague "No's" were starting to piss her off as she grumbled, abandoning her sketchpad and rolling over onto her back in the bed. A pang of pity shot through Frank, Mikey had turned back to the TV and probably didn't see how she furrowed her brow and scrunched up her mouth. Maybe she wasn't exactly angry, but she was certainly defeated, and Frank couldn't help feeling his own mood be pulled down with hers as a minute or two went by like this. Something definitely wasn't right if she was still for this long... He rubbed his hands on his knees and tried not to think about the floodgate he was about to open.
"So... What would we even do?" Frank spoke up.
Even with their head facing away from Frank, he could tell a big, toothy grin just spread over Illi's face. His suspicions proving correct when they whipped their head toward him, their eyes filled with pure giddiness.
"I have an idea," Illi bit their tongue, looking almost embarrassed to even say, "Anyone ever play croquet?"
"The hell is croquet?" Frank raised an eyebrow.
Ray's gaze intensified as he entered a harder level of his game, "It's the thing with British people, they get those paddles and hit the balls on the field and stuff."
"That's Cricket," Mikey adjusted his glasses.
Illi was back on their stomach again, their feet kicking in the air, "Croquet is kinda like that, but you use smaller, wood mallets not paddles." Their hands were flapping around now, "It's more low-brow, no running around involved."
"I hate running," Mikey sighed.
Frank didn't realize this was going to be a sport-type-thing, even if it was something lame like croquet. "Wait, so do we actually need a field for this?" he asked, the beginnings of worry etching into his mind.
Illi smiled, a knowing look in their eyes, "Yes, we do."
Frank squinted at that, "And... You're not afraid of the lacrossies getting pissy over that?" Frank certainly wasn't this group's babysitter, but it sometimes felt like he was the only one out of all of them who noticed the huge targets on all their backs at school. Illi, Ray, and Mikey were all some flavor of nerd that Frank didn't always match with, but made the four of them the subject of jock beatdowns and forced dumpster dives. This was practically part of their class schedule at this point, but now Illi was suggesting a full-on territory breach. There was no way this club was going to end up with any one of them coming out unscathed by the end of the semester.
"Shit!" Ray's hands released his controller as a dying tune emitted from his game.
"My turn!" Mikey immediately shot his hand out to grab it, "Aw, dude it's all sweaty."
Ray sighed, resigning himself to Mikey's claim. Frank watched as he seemed to finally contemplate everything Illi had said, his eyes closed and his mouth turning into a smile. Eventually, he turned and rested his arm onto Illi's bed, catching her gaze.
"So when are we doing this?" Ray innocently asked.
Frank couldn't help but let out an amused "Tch!" No one had officially said yes to Illi's proposal, but Ray always seemed to understand when she had her mind set on something. Frank knew it'd be pretty pointless to fight back now, especially after he contributed a bit of encouragement already.
"If I fill out the form this week, we can start in January," Illi replied, clearly laying out the beginnings of a convoluted plan no one but her would be privy to.
"And do you have supplies?" Ray continued, "The mallets and stuff, like you said."
Illi reached over and patted the top of his head, "Don't you worry about that, Toro." Illi pulled back and put a mischievous finger on the side of her nose, "I've got my sources."
Ray chuckled, giving an OK hand symbol towards Frank, "Then I guess we're set!" Ray returned to watching the TV where Mikey was now intensely focused on his own game progress.
Everything seemed to melt back into how it was before, Illi had even returned to their sketching, now feverishly moving their pencil over the pale white paper. It was astounding to Frank how quickly the decision was settled, and he wondered how Ray was able to so easily reach it. Especially since he'd either have to juggle this and concert band, or just flat out leave band all together. And even though it meant signing up for more brawls with the jocks, Frank knew why he felt pretty good about joining this new club.
It wasn't like any of them had anything better going on.
When it was quiet again, Frank picked out the sound of Illi's graphite on their paper from the TV's soft soundtrack, his head leaning back instinctively at the tone. He tried, subtly, stretching his head over his shoulder. Slowly trying to catch a glimpse of Illi's art, he couldn't help the anticipation beginning to bubble in his stomach. Frank always had to be sneaky like this just to get a glance of their drawings. Illi went through sketchbooks like they had no more than ten pages in them. That's how they looked anyway when Illi was done with them, constantly ripping paper out when the drawing didn't come out how they wanted, often tearing it to shreds to, "Spare the world it's ugliness." He didn't really care if the drawings were pretty, Frank just wanted to see what was worth hiding to Illi. It'd be better than anything he could make, and that alone filled him with curiosity.
He must have leaned his head back a bit too far, because the sketchbook pulled backward swiftly. He thought he had caught some kind of doodle involving Mary Jane shoes, but now his eyes had nothing to do but glance up to meet Illi's, who held a gaze somewhere in between annoyance and smugness.
"Can I see?" Frank quietly requested, knowing the answer already.
Illi just giggled in response, a wispy sound that made Frank feel like he was missing out on some inside joke. They opened the book again, this time to a new page and began scribbling. Frank let out a small air of relief, the drawing was spared Illi's wrath and he hoped that maybe, they'd finally just show him what their new obsession of the month was. But knowing Illi, they were probably designing the group's uniforms for St. Matthew's fantastic, up-and-coming, loser-dominated croquet club.
And Frank couldn't wait to see how this would end.