#8 - Weeks
#8 - Weeks
#8; Weeks
Gerard was revelling in not being on the road. It wasn’t that he didn’t like being on the road – on the contrary, he fucking loved it – but it was just nice to have some time to himself. Even if he was all alone in a flat he’d bought three years ago and never done anything with. Okay, fuck that, he wasn’t revelling, he was lonely.
“Mikey,” he said, as soon as his brother picked up the phone. “Mikey, I think I’m having a mid-life crisis.”
“Wouldn’t it be like, a post-quarter life crisis?” Mikey said mildly. “Since you’re only twenty-seven.”
“Fuck you,” Gerard sighed. “I’m lonely, Mikes. What do I do?”
“Invite someone over?” Mikey suggested, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. Which, come to think of it, it kind of was. “Invite your boyfriend over. He’s pissing me off.”
“Frank’s not my boyfriend,” Gerard protested indignantly.
"The fact you knew who I was talking about proves it," said his infuriating younger brother, before there was a click and the phone line went dead. Well, fuck.
"Well, fuck," Gerard sighed, carding a hand through his messy, onyx hair. He dropped the phone on the floor and tipped his head back, examining the beautiful stains in the ceiling. He sat there for approximately ten seconds before muttering a quick 'Fuck it', picking the phone up and dialling Frank's number. He picked up after the first ring.
"I'm on my way."
"Thank the Lord."
"No, thank me, I'm the one who's coming over."
-
Three minutes and thirty four seconds later, Gerard's doorbell rang. He fell over himself rushing to open the door.
"Frank!" he exclaimed, as if it was a surprise.
"Long time no see," Frank snorted, pushing past Gerard into the hallway. "What's with your lights?" he asked, referring to Gerard's flickering candles.
"Frank," he said. "We were on the road. For two years straight. You expect me to remember to pay my bills? I don't think so."
"Point," Frank conceded, and Gerard led him over to the comfier of the two uncomfortable chairs in the room. "Have you not ever thought of going to Ikea?" he asked after a moment. Gerard shook his head.
"It's all in Swedish," he said. "I don't speak Swedish."
"It's not that hard," Frank said. "You see that it's a bed. It might be called, I don't know, Skveltertak or something, but it's still a bed."
"It's still Swedish."
"Are you being racist?"
"No," Gerard said. "I'm saying I don't understand Swedish."
"How much furniture do you have, Gee?" Frank asked, glancing around the room. Two chairs and a desk. That was it.
"I can count the amount on the fingers of one hand," Gerard supplied helpfully.
"We need to get this place done up," Frank said decisively, pulling out his phone, but of course there was no goddamn signal.
"How long will that take?" Gerard wanted to know. "And how much will it cost?"
"Well within your budget," Frank replied, heading out of the door to see if he could get signal outside. "And a couple of weeks, I'd imagine."
"Who are you calling?" Gerard shouted after him.
"The decorators and Mikey. Not necessarily in that order," floated back at him. Gerard frowned.
"Why Mikey?"
"So I have someone to complain to about how hopeless you are at existing."
-
"Right," Frank said, clapping his hands together and stomping his feet on the mat. "They'll be here at six a.m sharp. Be ready." Gerard's eyes widened.
"B-but Frank...six a.m...six a.m..." he trailed off, seeing the look on Frank's face. "Okay, okay. What are they gonna do?"
"Paint everywhere," Frank said.
"We haven't got paint. I haven't even picked out colours."
"Gerard."
"What?"
"You? Colours?"
"Okay," Gerard sighed. "Cream everywhere, I guess."
"You guess my ass," Frank snorted, walking off into what would be the kitchen, had Gerard had time to install anything more than a microwave (Mikey had broken the toaster). "We need to move all your furniture out tonight."
"Three questions," Gerard said. Frank paused in the doorway, pulling off his gloves and looking horribly domestic. Gerard decided not to dwell on that. When Frank raised his eyebrows, Gerard continued. "Where do we put my furniture, where do I sleep and what the fuck is going on?"
"My place, my place, your apartment is getting done up," Frank said, ticking off the things on his fingers. "Now, come help me move the bed."
-
"This is quite sudden," Gerard remarked. They were lying in the dark on Frank's king-size bed - Frank had insisted that Gerard would and could not sleep on the couch - and it was horribly, terribly, atrociously comforting.
"What is?" Frank replied.
"You know," Gerard said nonchalantly. "The fact that this morning, I woke up in my bed, sat in my chair all day, then you came over at ten p.m and suddenly my entire flat is getting renovated."
"You know what I'm like," Frank sighed. "I need a project. If My Chem is on a break, I need something else."
"Oh," Gerard said, hurt. "Is that all My Chem is to you? A project?"
"You know it's more than a project," Frank said. "You know it's everything to me." That reassured Gerard.
"So, basically, what you're saying is because you're bored you're gonna spend a fuckload of my hard-earned money."
"Yeah, that's pretty much it."
-
"Wakey wakey," someone cooed right in Gerard's ear, and he sat up with nauseating speed.
"Huh? Where am I?" he said, waiting for the room to stop spinning. Memories of the night before came flooding back to him, and he blinked.
"Fuck," he breathed, staring out of the window. At blackness. "Fuck. What fucking time do you fucking call this, you fucking motherfucker?"
"Five thirty a.m," Frank called. "And mind your language."
Gerard groaned, falling back onto the bed. He didn't want to get up.
"Get up," Frank said. "Or I will set Peppers on you." Gerard whimpered, pulling the sheets around him. Peppers was one terrifying dog when she wanted to be.
"Five minutes," he mumbled, and heard a distant grumble, but Peppers didn't mutilate him so he figured Frank had grudgingly allowed it.
-
"So basically, every single room is going to be cream?" one of the decorators asked in disbelief. Gerard nodded meekly.
"That's mundane," the other remarked.
"I'm a mundane person," Gerard shrugged. The decorators shared a look.
"We need the paint. Have you got a sample, so we can get it?"
"N-"
"Yes," Frank intervened, waving a hand at the van he'd insisted on driving over here. "I have...fifty tins? That should be enough for all the rooms, right? I stocked up."
"When?" Gerard asked.
"Yesterday. After you'd gone to bed."
"I went to bed at...one a.m," Gerard replied. "What shops were open at a time like that?"
"None," Frank grinned. "But I woke Shaun up and he gave me some."
"Shaun runs a-" Gerard was interrupted in his exclamation of disbelief by one of the decorators clearing his throat.
"If I may be so bold," he said, gesturing at Frank's van.
"You may," Frank said.
-
"Swedish," Gerard said, inspecting the label hanging off a lamp. "Swedish," he said, pointing at the mirror hanging on the wall. "Swedish," he said, gesturing at the sofa in the corner. "Sw-"
"I get the idea, Gee," Frank said irritably. "What about this sofa?" he asked, pointing at a beautiful crimson leather sofa. Gerard walked over and looked at the label. He turned to face Frank.
"Swedish," he said solemnly. Frank made a loud noise of aggravation.
"But do you like it?" he asked Gerard as calmly as he could. Gerard tilted his head, looking at it analytically. He moved to the left, plaing a finger on his chin thoughtfully. He walked around to the back, squinting at the sofa.
"No," he said decisively to Frank, who groaned and mentally hit himself with a large mallet. Why had he taken Gerard to Ikea? What on earth had possessed him?
"That one," Gerard said suddenly, pointing at a black number tucked away between two hideously ugly beige couches. "I like that one." Frank noted down the name (with great difficulty - fucking Swedish, seriously) and hurried to catch up with Gerard, who'd wandered off to look at some mirrors.
"I want this as well," Gerard said, pointing at a black-framed mirror. "And this. And this," he added, pointing at a white warderobe and a white bookcase respectively. "Oh, and this," he said, picking up a toy giraffe.
"Gerard," Frank said, noting the obscure names of the items of furniture he wanted. "We didn't come here to buy a toy giraffe for you."
"Well, we're getting it," Gerard shrugged, ignoring his use of the word 'we' rather than ' I '. How horrifyingly domestic they were.
-
Several laborious hours later, they had ordered the sofa, wardrobe, bookcase, several oddly shaped lamps that Gerard claimed would 'help influence and channel the artistic spirit present in the house' (Frank had just nodded and pretended he knew what Gerard was talking about), and bought the giraffe.
"Why didn't we just get the flatpacks?" Gerard wanted to know, cuddling 'George' to his chest closely.
"Because you and DIY is not a good combination," Frank told him, opening the door to the van for him. Gerard opened his mouth, about to protest. "Plus, all the instructions are in Swedish," Frank added hastily, and Gerard shut his mouth, glaring out of the window like a petulant teenager.
"Fucking Swedish," he muttered.
-
One week later, Frank was cooking Gerard dinner (Gerard was not dwelling on how terrifyingly couple-y that was) and the decorators had done two of the six rooms in Gerard's apartment.
"We need to get you a washing machine, a dishwasher, a fridge and find out how to work your oven then," Frank called from the kitchen. Gerard flipped a page in the magazine he was reading about himself. Really, he hadn't had a 'romantic interest' in Frank. The media these days.
"Oh," Gerard replied absently. "I already have all those things. They're at Mikey's, in his garage."
"What?!" Frank yelled, coming out of the kitchen. "You never thought of telling me? I'd been planning our trip to collect electrical appliances very carefully, I know what you're like."
"Hey," Gerard frowned. "I am perfectly capable of handling electrical appliances, fuck you very much." Frank snorted.
"So tomorrow, we go to Mikey's and collect your stuff. What's it even doing at Mikey's anyway?" Frank asked. Gerard shrugged.
"I didn't need it," he replied.
"You didn't need it," Frank repeated. "You didn't need a fridge for food, or a washing machine to- no, actually, I can believe that one."
"Fuck you," Gerard said automatically. Frank flashed him a grin before disappearing into the depths of the kitchen once again.
-
"Mikey," Gerard said, when his brother opened the door.
"Gerard," Mikey replied.
"Mikey," Frank said from behind Gerard.
"Frank," Mikey answered.
"Now we've established we know each other's names, can we please get Gerard's electrical shit out of your garage?" Frank demanded. Mikey smirked.
"With pleasure," he said, making a grand sweeping gesture at the garage.
-
Two weeks later, and Gerard and Frank were in Ikea again. Turns out Gerard needed two beds, in case someone ever came to stay (privately, Frank thought that was ridiculous - anyone who was a close enough friend to stay over was close enough to share a bed with you).
"This one?" Frank suggested, pointing at an elegant silvery-birch bed.
"No," Gerard said, not even looking at it.
"How d'you know you're not gonna like it if you haven't looked at it?" Frank asked, exasperated.
"Because you suggested it."
"Jesus," Frank muttered.
"Hey," Gerard said suddenly. "Hey, Frank. What d'you think about this one?" He was pointing excitedly at a simple black queen-sized bed.
"If you're going for the minimalistic approach I'd suggest it," Frank shrugged.
"I am. Good."
-
"Swedish," Gerard mumbled. "Everything is from Sweden."
"Because Ikea is a Swedish company," Frank explained patiently, walking down the aisles. Twenty-two, twenty-three, twenty-five? Where was twenty-four?
"Where the fuck is aisle twenty-four?" he demanded, and Gerard shrugged.
"It's probably lurking," he whispered. "In Sweden."
"You're ridiculous," Frank scoffed, heading off in search of the invisible aisle.
-
"The decorators called."
"Oh yeah?" Gerard looked up from his drawings with interest. "What did they want?"
"It's done. We can move everything from my store room to your house." Gerard beamed.
"Awesome," he said. Frank stuck his head out of the kitchen.
"Do you want ketchup on your chips?" he asked. Gerard nodded eagerly. "Too bad, we haven't got any." He set the food down in front of Gerard, who eyed it hungrily.
"So I've been thinking-" Frank started, and Gerard rolled his eyes. "Fuck you. No, I was thinking - well, you know, we spend all our time together on tour, we're barely ever off tour...wouldn't we save money by, y'know?" He stabbed a pea with his fork whilst blushing lightly.
"Frank Anthony Iero," Gerard said, setting down his fork. "Are you asking to move in with me?"
"Um, well...yes," Frank admitted, pushing a few chips around his plate half-heartedly. "I just thought, after these few weeks-"
"Yes," Gerard interrupted. "Yes, that'd be. I'd love that."
-
Four weeks since the whole process started, Gerard and Frank were directing two removals men as to where to place the furniture.
"By the television," Gerard said.
"Your boyfriend said by the window," one of the men grunted.
"Put it by the TV. He's too small to move it," Gerard said, completely ignoring the way he didn't correct the man when he called Frank Gerard's boyfriend. He wandered into the hallway. It looked like the washing machine was the last of their things, and Frank was having trouble deciding where to put it.
"Next to the dishwasher? No...next to the oven...no, that doesn't work..." he gnawed on a fingernail. "By the dishwasher," he decided finally.
"Hey," Gerard said, hooking his chin over Frank's shoulder. "We're done."
"Cool," Frank grinned. He rushed to find a wad of money for the removals men, who smiled and waved goodbye, before shutting the door and taking in their new apartment.
"I love it," he breathed. "All this in four weeks." He wandered into the bedroom, stopping in confusion.
"Gerard, there's only one bed in here?" he asked, confused. Gerard blushed.
"Well, um..." he trailed off, unsure of how to formulate his sentence. "I thought, since we're going to be together twenty-four seven for our entire lives now, why not..."
"Spend them together?" Frank murmured. Gerard nodded mutely. Frank laced their fingers together. "I love it."
-
"Gerard, I've broken the coffee table."
"How? Wait, I don't even want to know."
"We need to go to-"
"No. I am not going to Ikea again."
"But-"
"No. I can practically speak Swedish by now."
"Then you'll have no problem going," Frank said, tugging his boyfriend out of the door.
Gerard was revelling in not being on the road. It wasn’t that he didn’t like being on the road – on the contrary, he fucking loved it – but it was just nice to have some time to himself. Even if he was all alone in a flat he’d bought three years ago and never done anything with. Okay, fuck that, he wasn’t revelling, he was lonely.
“Mikey,” he said, as soon as his brother picked up the phone. “Mikey, I think I’m having a mid-life crisis.”
“Wouldn’t it be like, a post-quarter life crisis?” Mikey said mildly. “Since you’re only twenty-seven.”
“Fuck you,” Gerard sighed. “I’m lonely, Mikes. What do I do?”
“Invite someone over?” Mikey suggested, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. Which, come to think of it, it kind of was. “Invite your boyfriend over. He’s pissing me off.”
“Frank’s not my boyfriend,” Gerard protested indignantly.
"The fact you knew who I was talking about proves it," said his infuriating younger brother, before there was a click and the phone line went dead. Well, fuck.
"Well, fuck," Gerard sighed, carding a hand through his messy, onyx hair. He dropped the phone on the floor and tipped his head back, examining the beautiful stains in the ceiling. He sat there for approximately ten seconds before muttering a quick 'Fuck it', picking the phone up and dialling Frank's number. He picked up after the first ring.
"I'm on my way."
"Thank the Lord."
"No, thank me, I'm the one who's coming over."
-
Three minutes and thirty four seconds later, Gerard's doorbell rang. He fell over himself rushing to open the door.
"Frank!" he exclaimed, as if it was a surprise.
"Long time no see," Frank snorted, pushing past Gerard into the hallway. "What's with your lights?" he asked, referring to Gerard's flickering candles.
"Frank," he said. "We were on the road. For two years straight. You expect me to remember to pay my bills? I don't think so."
"Point," Frank conceded, and Gerard led him over to the comfier of the two uncomfortable chairs in the room. "Have you not ever thought of going to Ikea?" he asked after a moment. Gerard shook his head.
"It's all in Swedish," he said. "I don't speak Swedish."
"It's not that hard," Frank said. "You see that it's a bed. It might be called, I don't know, Skveltertak or something, but it's still a bed."
"It's still Swedish."
"Are you being racist?"
"No," Gerard said. "I'm saying I don't understand Swedish."
"How much furniture do you have, Gee?" Frank asked, glancing around the room. Two chairs and a desk. That was it.
"I can count the amount on the fingers of one hand," Gerard supplied helpfully.
"We need to get this place done up," Frank said decisively, pulling out his phone, but of course there was no goddamn signal.
"How long will that take?" Gerard wanted to know. "And how much will it cost?"
"Well within your budget," Frank replied, heading out of the door to see if he could get signal outside. "And a couple of weeks, I'd imagine."
"Who are you calling?" Gerard shouted after him.
"The decorators and Mikey. Not necessarily in that order," floated back at him. Gerard frowned.
"Why Mikey?"
"So I have someone to complain to about how hopeless you are at existing."
-
"Right," Frank said, clapping his hands together and stomping his feet on the mat. "They'll be here at six a.m sharp. Be ready." Gerard's eyes widened.
"B-but Frank...six a.m...six a.m..." he trailed off, seeing the look on Frank's face. "Okay, okay. What are they gonna do?"
"Paint everywhere," Frank said.
"We haven't got paint. I haven't even picked out colours."
"Gerard."
"What?"
"You? Colours?"
"Okay," Gerard sighed. "Cream everywhere, I guess."
"You guess my ass," Frank snorted, walking off into what would be the kitchen, had Gerard had time to install anything more than a microwave (Mikey had broken the toaster). "We need to move all your furniture out tonight."
"Three questions," Gerard said. Frank paused in the doorway, pulling off his gloves and looking horribly domestic. Gerard decided not to dwell on that. When Frank raised his eyebrows, Gerard continued. "Where do we put my furniture, where do I sleep and what the fuck is going on?"
"My place, my place, your apartment is getting done up," Frank said, ticking off the things on his fingers. "Now, come help me move the bed."
-
"This is quite sudden," Gerard remarked. They were lying in the dark on Frank's king-size bed - Frank had insisted that Gerard would and could not sleep on the couch - and it was horribly, terribly, atrociously comforting.
"What is?" Frank replied.
"You know," Gerard said nonchalantly. "The fact that this morning, I woke up in my bed, sat in my chair all day, then you came over at ten p.m and suddenly my entire flat is getting renovated."
"You know what I'm like," Frank sighed. "I need a project. If My Chem is on a break, I need something else."
"Oh," Gerard said, hurt. "Is that all My Chem is to you? A project?"
"You know it's more than a project," Frank said. "You know it's everything to me." That reassured Gerard.
"So, basically, what you're saying is because you're bored you're gonna spend a fuckload of my hard-earned money."
"Yeah, that's pretty much it."
-
"Wakey wakey," someone cooed right in Gerard's ear, and he sat up with nauseating speed.
"Huh? Where am I?" he said, waiting for the room to stop spinning. Memories of the night before came flooding back to him, and he blinked.
"Fuck," he breathed, staring out of the window. At blackness. "Fuck. What fucking time do you fucking call this, you fucking motherfucker?"
"Five thirty a.m," Frank called. "And mind your language."
Gerard groaned, falling back onto the bed. He didn't want to get up.
"Get up," Frank said. "Or I will set Peppers on you." Gerard whimpered, pulling the sheets around him. Peppers was one terrifying dog when she wanted to be.
"Five minutes," he mumbled, and heard a distant grumble, but Peppers didn't mutilate him so he figured Frank had grudgingly allowed it.
-
"So basically, every single room is going to be cream?" one of the decorators asked in disbelief. Gerard nodded meekly.
"That's mundane," the other remarked.
"I'm a mundane person," Gerard shrugged. The decorators shared a look.
"We need the paint. Have you got a sample, so we can get it?"
"N-"
"Yes," Frank intervened, waving a hand at the van he'd insisted on driving over here. "I have...fifty tins? That should be enough for all the rooms, right? I stocked up."
"When?" Gerard asked.
"Yesterday. After you'd gone to bed."
"I went to bed at...one a.m," Gerard replied. "What shops were open at a time like that?"
"None," Frank grinned. "But I woke Shaun up and he gave me some."
"Shaun runs a-" Gerard was interrupted in his exclamation of disbelief by one of the decorators clearing his throat.
"If I may be so bold," he said, gesturing at Frank's van.
"You may," Frank said.
-
"Swedish," Gerard said, inspecting the label hanging off a lamp. "Swedish," he said, pointing at the mirror hanging on the wall. "Swedish," he said, gesturing at the sofa in the corner. "Sw-"
"I get the idea, Gee," Frank said irritably. "What about this sofa?" he asked, pointing at a beautiful crimson leather sofa. Gerard walked over and looked at the label. He turned to face Frank.
"Swedish," he said solemnly. Frank made a loud noise of aggravation.
"But do you like it?" he asked Gerard as calmly as he could. Gerard tilted his head, looking at it analytically. He moved to the left, plaing a finger on his chin thoughtfully. He walked around to the back, squinting at the sofa.
"No," he said decisively to Frank, who groaned and mentally hit himself with a large mallet. Why had he taken Gerard to Ikea? What on earth had possessed him?
"That one," Gerard said suddenly, pointing at a black number tucked away between two hideously ugly beige couches. "I like that one." Frank noted down the name (with great difficulty - fucking Swedish, seriously) and hurried to catch up with Gerard, who'd wandered off to look at some mirrors.
"I want this as well," Gerard said, pointing at a black-framed mirror. "And this. And this," he added, pointing at a white warderobe and a white bookcase respectively. "Oh, and this," he said, picking up a toy giraffe.
"Gerard," Frank said, noting the obscure names of the items of furniture he wanted. "We didn't come here to buy a toy giraffe for you."
"Well, we're getting it," Gerard shrugged, ignoring his use of the word 'we' rather than ' I '. How horrifyingly domestic they were.
-
Several laborious hours later, they had ordered the sofa, wardrobe, bookcase, several oddly shaped lamps that Gerard claimed would 'help influence and channel the artistic spirit present in the house' (Frank had just nodded and pretended he knew what Gerard was talking about), and bought the giraffe.
"Why didn't we just get the flatpacks?" Gerard wanted to know, cuddling 'George' to his chest closely.
"Because you and DIY is not a good combination," Frank told him, opening the door to the van for him. Gerard opened his mouth, about to protest. "Plus, all the instructions are in Swedish," Frank added hastily, and Gerard shut his mouth, glaring out of the window like a petulant teenager.
"Fucking Swedish," he muttered.
-
One week later, Frank was cooking Gerard dinner (Gerard was not dwelling on how terrifyingly couple-y that was) and the decorators had done two of the six rooms in Gerard's apartment.
"We need to get you a washing machine, a dishwasher, a fridge and find out how to work your oven then," Frank called from the kitchen. Gerard flipped a page in the magazine he was reading about himself. Really, he hadn't had a 'romantic interest' in Frank. The media these days.
"Oh," Gerard replied absently. "I already have all those things. They're at Mikey's, in his garage."
"What?!" Frank yelled, coming out of the kitchen. "You never thought of telling me? I'd been planning our trip to collect electrical appliances very carefully, I know what you're like."
"Hey," Gerard frowned. "I am perfectly capable of handling electrical appliances, fuck you very much." Frank snorted.
"So tomorrow, we go to Mikey's and collect your stuff. What's it even doing at Mikey's anyway?" Frank asked. Gerard shrugged.
"I didn't need it," he replied.
"You didn't need it," Frank repeated. "You didn't need a fridge for food, or a washing machine to- no, actually, I can believe that one."
"Fuck you," Gerard said automatically. Frank flashed him a grin before disappearing into the depths of the kitchen once again.
-
"Mikey," Gerard said, when his brother opened the door.
"Gerard," Mikey replied.
"Mikey," Frank said from behind Gerard.
"Frank," Mikey answered.
"Now we've established we know each other's names, can we please get Gerard's electrical shit out of your garage?" Frank demanded. Mikey smirked.
"With pleasure," he said, making a grand sweeping gesture at the garage.
-
Two weeks later, and Gerard and Frank were in Ikea again. Turns out Gerard needed two beds, in case someone ever came to stay (privately, Frank thought that was ridiculous - anyone who was a close enough friend to stay over was close enough to share a bed with you).
"This one?" Frank suggested, pointing at an elegant silvery-birch bed.
"No," Gerard said, not even looking at it.
"How d'you know you're not gonna like it if you haven't looked at it?" Frank asked, exasperated.
"Because you suggested it."
"Jesus," Frank muttered.
"Hey," Gerard said suddenly. "Hey, Frank. What d'you think about this one?" He was pointing excitedly at a simple black queen-sized bed.
"If you're going for the minimalistic approach I'd suggest it," Frank shrugged.
"I am. Good."
-
"Swedish," Gerard mumbled. "Everything is from Sweden."
"Because Ikea is a Swedish company," Frank explained patiently, walking down the aisles. Twenty-two, twenty-three, twenty-five? Where was twenty-four?
"Where the fuck is aisle twenty-four?" he demanded, and Gerard shrugged.
"It's probably lurking," he whispered. "In Sweden."
"You're ridiculous," Frank scoffed, heading off in search of the invisible aisle.
-
"The decorators called."
"Oh yeah?" Gerard looked up from his drawings with interest. "What did they want?"
"It's done. We can move everything from my store room to your house." Gerard beamed.
"Awesome," he said. Frank stuck his head out of the kitchen.
"Do you want ketchup on your chips?" he asked. Gerard nodded eagerly. "Too bad, we haven't got any." He set the food down in front of Gerard, who eyed it hungrily.
"So I've been thinking-" Frank started, and Gerard rolled his eyes. "Fuck you. No, I was thinking - well, you know, we spend all our time together on tour, we're barely ever off tour...wouldn't we save money by, y'know?" He stabbed a pea with his fork whilst blushing lightly.
"Frank Anthony Iero," Gerard said, setting down his fork. "Are you asking to move in with me?"
"Um, well...yes," Frank admitted, pushing a few chips around his plate half-heartedly. "I just thought, after these few weeks-"
"Yes," Gerard interrupted. "Yes, that'd be. I'd love that."
-
Four weeks since the whole process started, Gerard and Frank were directing two removals men as to where to place the furniture.
"By the television," Gerard said.
"Your boyfriend said by the window," one of the men grunted.
"Put it by the TV. He's too small to move it," Gerard said, completely ignoring the way he didn't correct the man when he called Frank Gerard's boyfriend. He wandered into the hallway. It looked like the washing machine was the last of their things, and Frank was having trouble deciding where to put it.
"Next to the dishwasher? No...next to the oven...no, that doesn't work..." he gnawed on a fingernail. "By the dishwasher," he decided finally.
"Hey," Gerard said, hooking his chin over Frank's shoulder. "We're done."
"Cool," Frank grinned. He rushed to find a wad of money for the removals men, who smiled and waved goodbye, before shutting the door and taking in their new apartment.
"I love it," he breathed. "All this in four weeks." He wandered into the bedroom, stopping in confusion.
"Gerard, there's only one bed in here?" he asked, confused. Gerard blushed.
"Well, um..." he trailed off, unsure of how to formulate his sentence. "I thought, since we're going to be together twenty-four seven for our entire lives now, why not..."
"Spend them together?" Frank murmured. Gerard nodded mutely. Frank laced their fingers together. "I love it."
-
"Gerard, I've broken the coffee table."
"How? Wait, I don't even want to know."
"We need to go to-"
"No. I am not going to Ikea again."
"But-"
"No. I can practically speak Swedish by now."
"Then you'll have no problem going," Frank said, tugging his boyfriend out of the door.