The Enigma’s Anomaly

“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me though. A senator? A fucking senator! If that bitch becomes a senator then I will personally buy the first one way ticket to Finland.”

“Finland? Couldn’t you pick somewhere more romantic?” Gerard asks.

“I suppose that Paris isn’t entirely out of the question, but I’m going to need to brush up on my French. The only French I know is ‘soufflez-moi, vous putain de poissons bâton’, and trust me, I don’t think that’s going to come in handy very often.”

“How’s your Italian?” Gerard asks.

I shrug, “Meglio allora il mio francese, ma a volte mi carciofo miei verbi e sostantivi.”

“Yeah, you’ll want to work on that.”

I roll my eyes, “But we’re not moving to Italy, we’re staying here, and we’re going to kick this guy’s fucking butt at his own game.”

Gerard frowns, but nods, “I need a drink.”

I don’t protest to his words and follow behind him, away from the police station which I hate even more than I did the other day. They have no way to get to Banks apparently because it’s just the word of a criminal and it would ‘look bad for the department’ if they were to ‘bother a man of such status’ with something so minimal as a ‘failed and measly assassination plot.’

“You know that this ain’t over though,” I ask Gerard as we walk along the sidewalk.

He frowns, “I know, but I wish it was. I wish we could just be together and not have to worry about things like the inevitability of one or both of us getting shot.”

“Stop being so pessimistic. Neither of us is going to get shot,” I say.

Gerard looks at me unconvinced, but he grabs my hand and folds his fingers into mine. I’ve never held anyone’s hand in public before. His fingers are a little sweaty when they mix with mine and I’m pretty sure I’m shaking a little bit from the prolonged contact, but it’s nice. It’s a good feeling. I feel like we’re making a public declaration of some sort. He doesn’t belong to me, that’s medieval bullshit, and I don’t like that term in the slightest, but he is at least off the market. I don’t belong to Gerard either, but I do belong with him.

I only realize that I’m staring at him when he points it out.

“What? Why are you looking at me like that?”

“I don’t know,” I say and look down at the pavement in front of me, feeling overly modest all of a sudden. “I’ve just never felt so... I don’t know, lucky?

“Lucky? Frank, there’s a madmen who’s trying to kill us, who has unlimited resources and the cops are vehemently unsympathetic in the struggle of having him incarcerated, and you think that meet the requirements of ‘luck’?”

“Well Gerard, I’ve never had a boyfriend who I cared about before. Never really had a boyfriend at all actually.”

“Ever?” he asks, and he gives me an even more skeptical look.

“Not really. Never cared about having one, and it was never more than just a label for convenience. Easier than saying ‘unclothed acquaintance’ and less obscene than saying ‘fuck buddy.’”

Gerard makes a face at that, and I don’t know how to feel about it. I might have said something out of bounds or inconsiderate just now. It’s not like I was trying to allude the fact that I’ve had sex with more people than him, for god’s sake! I just don’t know how to behave, under any circumstance really, but especially with someone as foreign as my literal boyfriend. That word and myself have never been introduced to each other.

It’s honestly like I’m diving headfirst into learning astrophysics. The whole idea of having a boyfriend is alien. Not unwanted, but strange. I don’t understand it, and it drives me crazy to be near him, but I fucking love it. I know less about this then I could ever possibly have imagined. I didn’t know how little I knew about relationships until I was actually in one.

“What must you think of me? A hopeless, blackmailing, virgin?”

“That last one’s not so true. And neither is the first one. And the middle one is in the past. All of what you just said is untrue, essentially.”

“You know what I mean,” Gerard says with a shrug.

“Actually I really don’t. To tell you the truth Gerard, you’re one of the most amazing people I’ve ever met,” I tell him. I don’t get how he could not see that, it’s pretty obvious that he’s remarkable. Self-deprecation is the mark of humanity though I guess.

“You know that a lot of the things you say make no sense,” Gerard tells me.

“I’m not surprised by that observation.”

“I like that about you. Keeps a person thinking.”

“And I like your personality, as well as your face.”

“See, that! That makes no sense,” Gerard says.

“Well how about I buy you a mirror, so you could see for youself. You’d be doing yourself a favor. That’s one of the things that makes me so lucky. I get to see your face whenever. You don’t as much, which sucks.”

“Fuck off,” Gerard says disapprovingly.

“Soufflez-moi,” I respond playfully.

“Oh I intend to,” Gerard answers, “later though.”

I hadn’t been paying any attention to where we were going and find myself a little surprised to be walking into a small bar a minute later that already looks crowded. I really should pay more attention to where I’m walking or one of these days I’m going to end up walking into a Hooters which sounds utterly terrifying.

“Frank, tell me honestly, do you think I’m actually going to live?” Gerard asks me.

That’s a heavy question to throw at someone in a bar. I mean it could’ve been worse, he could’ve asked me to calculate the coefficients of linear expansion, but at least there’s a tangible answer to math problems. There isn’t anything I can possibly tell him that will be either true or unbiased. Obviously, I want to believe he’s going to live, but who am I to give him an estimation of the likelihood of that prospect?

“I don’t know,” I tell him honestly.

“Give me your best guess. You know more about this then I do.”

“I could be completely wrong, Gerard. I don’t want to worry you any more then you already are-“

He interrupts me, “I think it’s too late for that.”

“God, Gerard! I don’t know. I want to know! I want to tell you with absolute certainty that everything’s going to be okay, and I want to tell you that this is all just a bad dream that we’re going to wake up from, but I don’t know. I have no fucking idea if either of is going to live long enough to see this through. I really hope so, because I don’t think I’ll ever get used to how great you are to be around, but I just don’t know.”

“Please, though. Best guess?”

I sigh, and try to think of something to tell him that will make him feel a little better, but I don’t want to lie to him. I wish there was a lever I could pull to just make all this shit go away. I wish I could make everything okay for him, and give him everything he needs to be safe. Clear the skies, and offer him the insurance that he’ll be fine, but I just don’t have that power. I really would give up everything for him to make this better. Anything and everything. I’d give him the world if he asked me for it, but I don’t have the power to do such a thing.

“You deserve to live, Gerard. I’m not an overly religious man, but I assure you that if there’s anyone looking down on you, they can see that. I don’t have the answers you want, and if I did, I would do anything to morph them in your favor, but I do know that you are worth so much more than I could ever possibly vocalize.”

He looks down and doesn’t say anything, so I scramble for something else to say. I just don’t know how to comfort him in anyway.

“It’s going to take a little while to get another assassin, Gerard,” I tell him, “we have a little time, and that’s a guarantee, but somewhere in me, I believe that we’ll be okay. I will do absolutely anything to protect you. Anything. And that’s another guarantee.”