Too Much Time.

“Gerard?”

The man glances up from his shopping cart rapidly, his wrist falling slack immediately when he connects the voice with the eyes. The jar he was holding clatters to the ground and rolls away somewhere. And wow, that hurts, because it’s been three years, and yet his chest still aches when he sees those wide eyes staring at him in disbelief.

“Oh! Frank, wow, I...” His words tail off vacantly, because when he looks closely, the other man – vaguely younger and slighter- is staring at him with the same level of shock and hurt painted across his irises. And that really stings. “You cut your hair.” He states weakly, and Frank tries to laugh.

“Yeah. Quite a lot actually.”

Gerard braces his palms on the cold metal of his cart, gaze falling away from that despairingly sad little hunch to Frank’s shoulders. “How uh...How’ve you been, Frank?”

The attempted laugh is far more desperate this time, and he rubs at the back of his neck with his free hand. “It’s been a while, Gerard. Good, I guess. You?”

“Of course. Me too.”

“I’ve missed you, man.” This time he’s going for a friendly approach, even reaches out and raps his knuckles against Gerard’s arm lightly. It’s even more despairing. He just glances up at Gerard from beneath his eyelashes, an endless hoping for something evident in those wide eyes.

“You too. A lot, actually.”

There’s a long silence then, when Gerard glances between the grazed floor and Frank’s weak gaze, tightening his fists around his handle of the cart till his knuckles bleach driftwood white against his pale skin.

“I'm sorry,” Frank speaks softly, but rapidly, and Gerard can tell the words have been held in his mouth for far too long. “The last time we...I’m really sorry. I didn’t mean that.”

Gerard shrugs, pretending that he’s forgotten, and those faded, sharp words don’t still keep him awake sometimes when he’s trying not to remember. “It doesn’t matter, Frank. It was a long time ago.”

“Too much time,” Frank agrees and ever so hesitantly extends his hand towards Gerard’s and grazes his fingertips against the back of his hand, squeezing his wrist.

“Frank...” Gerard says his name softly, retracting his hand from Frank's, and reaches out the other; the hand with that foreign piece of gold that always seems to weight his wrist down heavily.

Frank's basket smashes to the ground, items spinning out across the shiny floor with a clumsy array of noises.“Oh god, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry. It slipped, oh god,” he rambles as he squats down, gathering his items with a red stain tainting it’s way along his cheekbones. Ha pauses, tipping forward onto his knees, and presses a flat palm to his forehead, eyes squinted shut. “Congratulations, Gee. When did you...?” His eyes are still half closed as he gathers his bottle of vodka and frozen curly fries, softly laying them back into has basket to prevent any unneeded sounds.

“’Bout eighteen months ago.” Gerard says her name but it immediately leaves Frank’s mind, hating the way it’s spoken. Delicate and slowly as if it’s a fragile thing. He’s wrong though, even Frank can’t break a name. “She’s amazing.”

“Good. I’m...That’s really great, Gerard.”

“Thanks Frankie,” he nods, trying not to look to sympathetically. “And uh...” He’s about to say something, but Frank finds that lost little jar that Gerard dropped, resting behind the wheel of his cart and stands up slowly. He inspects Gerard’s provisions then

“You have a kid?” He holds the baby food carefully, as though he’s scared it’ll burn him. The agony in his voice shows, buried in that tiny crease between his eyebrows, and Gerard’s not exactly sure why it kills him so much.

“Yeah, Frank. A girl.” He stares solidly at Frank’s shoes, because he won’t let himself watch Frank fall apart like this, because he doesn’t understand it. Frank dumped him. Technically speaking.

“What’s her name?”

“Amy. She’s so beautiful, Frank.” And Gerard just wants to gush and brag about her, how she’s the best thing to ever come out of his worthless life; but he realises that no, that probably would not be a good idea.

“Of course she is, she’s yours.”

There’s too long a silence then, where Gerard blinks and Frank shuffles around and wipes at his nose rapidly.

“I better go,” he states in a small voice. “I got uh...someone to meet and stuff.”

Gerard ignores his lie and nods, reaching out to very quickly ghost his hand down the length of Frank’s upper arm, and watches as he tries to suppress the shiver.

“Yeah, okay. I’ll see you around, Frank.”

A nod and Frank gathers his basket and moves to leave. He stops though and just stands behind Gerard, wishing he could reach out for him.

“Y’know I loved you, Gerard. A lot.” And that one hurts the most.

“I know. I did too, you know that.”

“I would’ve if you’d told me,” he sighs, half dreamily, but there’s definitely some bitterness hidden in there under all that nostalgia.

“Frank?”

“Mm?”

Gerard glances around, making sure there's no one around to see this, to see him deconstruct like this. “I wish I had. I wish I'd been better. I should have told you. All the time, I know.”

"It doesn't matter," Frank sighs and rubs at his nose again.

"If I had, would you still..." He can't say the word. He'd never said it to Frank before, and he's not prepared to start.

“You’d have never given me the chance, Gee.” And he just leans down a little to press a kiss to Gerard’s shoulder through his jacket, hurrying away with glass bottle clinking in his basket; leaves Gerard to stare at the stacks of diapers in his cart and wonder what the fuck ever happened to them