A/N: Hello. I was really sad to hear that Kevin Clark, who played Freddy Jones passed away May 26, 2021 (age 32 years). Like, really sad. I don't really know why. I didn't know him. But I was kind of heartbroken about it.

So, I've basically been writing this weird School of Rock (2003) fic that no one asked for ever since.

Here we go, folks.

**THIS IS THE SISTER FIC to "Run Jump Surrender." That's Zack's POV of the same story.

Narrative structure goes like this:

Zack is chronological. Freddy jumps all over the damn place.

FIC FACTS:

Richard Linklater (the director) said that he basically threw out Mike White's script and tried to quit the project because he didn't like it. Then he completely re-developed all the characters based closely on the actors who played them. WHAT I DID was take everything that happens in the movie (not the musicals or terrible spin off TV show) as canon. Then I added some things that fit the story from the actors who played the characters' lives. The director sort of blended fiction/reality when it came to each kid's character in the movie. So I did the same. I left some details out (such as Joey Gaydos Jr.'s, who played Zack, public heroin addiction) because I felt like it crossed an ethical line for me, personally. Obviously, I also added plenty of things I made up, and I didn't break my back retrofitting personal details from the actors' lives if it didn't flow with the story. I did break my back trying to make it all conform to canon. All this to say, the actors are not the characters. But I pulled some stuff from their actual lives, because the director did it first, but also I just wanted to. Felt right.

According to official lore, the movie was set when Zack and Freddy were in 5th grade. That's approximately 10-11 years old. THIS STORY starts when they are 14-15. 8th grade.

I set it in 2006 (3 years after the movie came out in 2003). But there are anachronisms. Two big ones: the Ana Soler exhibit was shown in Spain in 2012—in the fic, Zack copies it in 2006. And Taylor Swift's album 1989 came out in 2014—in the fic, Zack sings a song from it in 2007. It is what it is.

Trigger warnings:

-TONS of swearing. The f* slur is used a couple times.

-Zack and Freddy are teenagers in love, and they have a lot of (very consensual), fairly graphic, gay sex. If very young people having sex bothers you, this ain't for you.

-They also talk about sex, a lot.

-Not just with each other. There's straight sex here too.

-There's also internalized homophobia.

-There's regular, garden variety homophobia, too.

-Body dysmorphia (no eating disorders, but stress about weight gain).

-Near death experience

-Break up trauma.

-Also a realistic but not bloody violent scene. Freddy gets in a fist fight at least once.

Unbeta'd we die like men.

2008. Sophomore year of High school. Summer.

Freddy knew, or at least should have learned after so many years, that Zack was way too serious and no-fun about everything to be a good partner in a game of hypotheticals.

Sophomore year in high school, and Year 2 of being "official boyfriends," and Freddy had a secret suspicion that the only reason that their relationship had not gotten old whatsoever…was Zack.

Good old, stubborn, neurotic Zack had his own ideas about what love should be and what it should feel like. And he seemed pretty set on them. He made it very clear that even though they were "boyfriends" and would honor all social protocols required of the title…he did NOT want the same old thing that everyone else had.

He insisted: he wanted something unique with Freddy. Something special. Personally, Freddy didn't know what exactly was so wrong with other people's relationships. They seemed happy enough to him. But Zack found garden-variety-love to be simply Not Good Enough. And Freddy guessed he trusted his judgment on that. After all, he had to admit that Zack had generally pretty great judgment. Better than his own, usually.

In fact, someone like Zack would unironically use a word like "redefining" to describe what he wanted…which Freddy thought was kind of pretentious, but also kind of badass…and wasn't that just Zack to a T?

But this particular insistence of Zack's seemed particularly, uh. Ambitious, was the nice way to put it.

Because people cooled off. That was just the natural law. Freddy was only 17 (almost 18 damnit, almost a Real Adult ™). But he wasn't a moron. He saw it all around him: couples losing interest, fizzling out after a little while. The spark of early romance was a short-burning fuse. If you were lucky, the open flame of infatuation burned down into a cheery campfire of happy companionship. Freddy didn't think he'd mind a campfire love with Zack. That didn't scare him. He liked Zack so much he was pretty sure they'd be happy even if they COULD bear to keep their hands off each other for more than a few hours. Really happy. Freddy secretly thought they had the best relationship of anyone they knew. He suspected he'd like Zack even after a hundred years, whether they were banging or not. Zack was his favorite person. Everything was better with Zack. And since he'd felt that way even before he knew he wanted to kiss him, he didn't see it changing any time soon.

Really, Freddy wouldn't have even been anxious about "fizzling out" at all. …If not for Zack. It would not even have been on his radar. Freddy knew himself at least that well, and he knew he rarely fretted about the future. It was at least partially intentional. He found it easier to just focus on what was right in front of him and make the most of it.

But he also knew that Zack DID. Zack was a Big Time Future Fretter. He just cared so much, about everything. Zack never seemed to run out of bandwidth to care about stuff. It was really annoying but also really, really amazing. Zack made impossible seeming stuff happen (mostly on his guitar) because he would just focus on it so long, work on it so hard, that he'd figure it out when pretty much everyone else gave up.

So in the end, Freddy had essentially no choice but to believe… one night, during the summer before their sophomore year, when they'd snuck out to the ritzy Silver Lake Golf Course to wander around and skip rocks on the ponds and scuff up the hazards…what Zack had promised him.

They had been lying side-by-side in the wet grass by the shore of a water fixture, listening to the soft sound of the water as the wind made it lap against the shore, tired from running around, stamping footprints in the sand traps, chasing each other up and down the winding paths, lit silver by the moon…

"I am so happy." Zack had said, his breath puffing out in a soft white curl. "...It's the worst."

Freddy scooted closer, pressing their shoulders together, twining their hands. "Whatever the opposite of finding the bright side is," he said, affectionately, "that's your superpower, Eeyore."

"It's hard to be as happy as I am right now." Zack ignored him and stared up at the sky; a few stars visible, city lights blinding them to the rest. "It's hard because I know that this might be it. The high point. This is so perfect, right now, that I almost wish it never happened. I'm having trouble focusing on how happy I am because I am so scared it's gonna end. …Does that make sense, Freddy?"

…And dammit, when Zack rolled on his side and looked at him, Freddy saw that he really WAS afraid, helpless terror swimming around in those ultra-familiar, dark eyes.

Slightly disturbed, Freddy stroked his numb, red fingertips against Zack's warm cheek and spoke softly to try to bring him back down to earth.

"Zack. You can't just enjoy it?" Freddy asked, both annoyed and…weirdly moved at the same time. He knew Zack was just sensitive. And whatever he felt for Freddy was so INTENSE that he was spinning out, getting lost in the deep, cavernous recesses of his own considerable mind power.

"I'M happy," Freddy told him, gently. "I'm so happy right now, to be here with you. I mean it. I love you so much." He kissed Zack's nose. "...Just be happy, too. For me, kay?" He encouraged, in his softest, just-for-Zack voice.

"I love you. So fucking much, Freddy." Zack said it with odd ferocity. "I want to feel like this forever. It's not fair that this kind of thing only lasts for a moment. I want more."

Freddy couldn't help it. He had to laugh as he kissed his ridiculous boyfriend's scowling mouth. "You're crazy, dude."

"Come on! Doesn't it bother YOU? It bothers ME that this might only feel like it does because it's…like. The first time. I don't want it to be all downhill from here!" Zack burst out. "We're only in high school! I want our whole lives to be like this! I want it to MEAN something, these feelings. I don't just want to be happy right now. I want it to be, like. Bigger than that."

Zack seemed very upset, so Freddy pulled him to his chest and stroked his back, rhythmically. He really tried not to use Zack as a human drum, but it was an effort. He loved drumming on Zack. There were so many interesting sounds and textures—the bony bits, the hollow parts. Zack was a great drum, Freddy thought, fingers unable to resist tapping out a little rhythm under Zack's shoulder blade.

"...Maybe it's just a first love thing." Freddy mused, shrugging one shoulder, uncomfortable with the notion because Zack seemed to be. But then he did what he always did, babbled on, picked up speed as he found new words. "I don't know. It could be like a life cycle? First you're crazy about someone. You make a bunch of decisions about it. Then the feelings go away, but the decisions are still there."

He hoped that would help, but Zack's silence didn't indicate he was particularly reassured.

"No…I don't like that." Zack didn't really sound upset anymore, but Freddy knew to believe his literal words, chosen with care.

Freddy rolled his eyes, but squeezed Zack extra hard, still trying to comfort him. He wished Zack could just enjoy the simple things. But then he wouldn't be Zack..so he guessed he didn't wish it so much after all.

"Why not? Happy is happy." Freddy laid back down and stretched out, not caring that the grass was wet, and soon he'd be cold. "As long as it's most of the time. That's why they say you should fall in love with your best friend. So it's still fun, even when you don't wanna bang anymore, really, and it's more just habit. It's a good habit. Like brushing your teeth."

Zack was quiet for a long, long time, but Freddy waited it out, knew to let him cook. Whatever he figured out in the end at least would be interesting.

"No." Zack said it as if it were simple as that. He did not elaborate, but he did sit up, and ball his legs in, chin on his knees, face troubled and stormy.

"…No? Dude, grow up." Freddy laughed and shoved him a little, and Zack wobbled but didn't shove back. Oops, very serious then.

Finally Zack spoke again: "…This isn't physics. Or chemistry! We aren't, like. Limited by natural laws. Love is more like art. I think it is. We invent it. We're limited by imagination." Zack's smile became a little scary, not so much like a smile at all. "Don't worry. I'll invent a wild and wonderful, forever kind of love that feels just like this or even better and always will."

He sounded so strange, so certain, so angry. Freddy felt a little unsure, because that sounded impossible. He wanted to believe Zack, but he'd never heard of anything like that before.

"I dunno. I don't think that exists," Freddy ventured. "I think that might just be in songs and stuff, not real life."

Now it was Zack's turn to shrug, totally cocksure and unflinching. The worry blew away from his face like a cloud blowing over the sun, and something hard and determined glinted in his expression: the determination of someone far more powerful than a skinny kid from Staten Island.

"...Then we'll be the first," he swore.

And maybe it was just the fact that it was night, and everything seemed more serious at night, but damn if Freddy didn't believe him.

Eventually the golf course authorities found them and sent them home—did their parents know they were trespassing in the middle of the night? For shame.

But Freddy remembered that promise now and then.