Forget About It

Gerard doesn’t know what to think. He doesn’t know what to say, and he doesn’t know what to do.

He looks over at Frank and his stomach falls, because he really didn’t just imagine what just happened. Nope. That was real. Frank’s lying on the other side of the bed looking at the wall, and Gerard doesn’t know what to do.

It’s only the middle of the afternoon and he just fucked his coworker. Not only did he fuck his coworker, he fucked the one coworker he really hates. Things could not get worse than this. Frank is literally right there, and he’s naked, and Gerard just saw him naked. He saw Gerard naked, and his mind is spiraling out of control. He can’t believe that this just happened.

He comes to the conclusion that he does not feel any differently about Frank. This changes nothing. He still hates Frank. With a fiery passion, he hates Frank. He just so happened to have sex with the guy he hates. Very wild sex. Gerard’s brain is soaring, and he’s trying to forget about what just happened, because there’s no way this is real. He cannot believe he did that, and he’s both mad and proud of himself.

He’s mad because, ew, that’s Frank over there, and he’s proud because, hey, that’s Frank over there. He’s good looking, there’s no denying that, but he’s also a bitch.

Gerard looks down over the side of the bed, and grabs at his boxers carefully, so as not to move the bed, and make Frank realize he’s doing anything. He’s really worried about Frank seeing him again, and he doesn’t know why, because he did just have the guy’s dick in his ass, but it’s all very hard to keep straight in his head.

Gerard pulls his boxers, pants and then a shirt on messily. Frank doesn’t budge in his position, even though Gerard’s sure he’s conscious. Frank’s eyes are open, and he’s resting his head on his hand. He doesn’t stir when Gerard starts to get up from the bed, and he doesn’t even look like he takes notice.

He’d originally thought that he was going to have to sneak out of the room, but Frank isn’t paying him any mind, so Gerard just saunters across the room. He leaves the room, closing the door behind him, and Gerard finally lets out a long held breath. He cannot even process what just happened. His mind is all jumbled, because none of that could have been real.

Frank is attractive, sure, but Gerard is almost driven insane by the fact that he screwed the guy. He knows that it’s too late to rule out hallucination though. That happened, and now he has to live with it.

Gerard walks slowly to the kitchen, trying to remember where he put his apple.

“Gerard?” A voice asks, when he steps into the kitchen. He turns the corner to see Brendon sitting on the stool at the counter.

“Yeah,” Gerard says groggily, and he slouches against the other side of the counter. He’s facing Brendon, but he puts his head down and almost falls to the floor completely, because his arms are the only thing supporting him right now.

“Why was there a half-eaten apple on the floor?” Brendon asks.

“I... don’t know,” Gerard replies, having his question asked for him. He’s kind of hungry though, and he wishes that the food hadn’t gone to waste.

“It had very small teeth marks,” Brendon notes, and apparently Brendon is using his sixth sense to read Gerard’s mind.

Gerard doesn’t reply, he just lets his forehead thump down onto the cold laminate counter. He’s got another headache, only this one is trying to tell him that he’s a gigantic idiot.

“Alright, tell me what’s wrong,” Brendon says. He seriously has a career as a psychic should he ever decide to quit his job.

“I don’t want to talk about it,” Gerard says, feeling sick to his stomach just thinking about it, and also a little pleased.

“Well, we both know you’re going to tell me, so go on” Brendon says, sounding sure of himself.

Gerard groans loudly, “Brendon, I did something really bad.”

“What’d you do?”

“Really really bad.”

“What did you do?” Brendon repeats.

“Like Satan is probably going to put this in his blooper reel. He’s going to point and laugh at me, and say that I’m such a horrible person, because I just did what I did,” Gerard says.

“What did you do?”

“I um... I sort of went down on Frank.”

“You did what?” Brendon asks looking shocked and horrified.

“Yeah,” Gerard says in a small voice and he looks at Brendon like he’s ready to wince. It’s not that he’s worried that Brendon will hit him, he’s just worried about the verbal reaction he’s about to get.

“You blew a guy you hate?” Brendon says.

“No,” Gerard says meekly.

“No? So you didn’t blow a guy you hate?” Brendon asks hopefully.

“Well no. I did do that, but I also kind of, you know,” Gerard says, with his eyes closed and his hands covering his face.

“Oh great,” Brendon says, with pure exasperation, “I can’t even believe this.”

Gerard nods and frowns, “I’m, uh, sorry?”

Brendon gives him this face like he doesn’t want to even hear it, and says, “when did this happen?”

Gerard shrugs, “uh, like, twenty minutes ago.”

Brendon’s face gets even more inexplicable and he adds in a look of disgust, “You did this while we were all in the house?”

“Well, yeah,” Gerard says, “I wasn’t going to call you up and say ‘hey man could you take Hayley and Patrick out for tacos so I can bang Frank?’ because that would’ve kinda given it away. It was a spur of the moment thing. He figured out that I remembered that thing at the bar and he confronted me, and, I don’t know, we just sort of did it.”

Brendon shakes his head, “I cannot believe this. I cannot believe you. Gerard, you could get into so much trouble. This is his second week on the job! He’s been here for like eight days and you’ve already gone and screwed him.”

“It’s not like I make a habit of this sort of thing! Brendon, I didn’t screw you or Patrick when you joined my team, did I?”

Brendon makes a face, “you weren’t my boss when I joined the team, and also, that’s disgusting, you’re Gerard.”

“What, I’m not pretty enough for you?”

“Gerard, we are not going to do this right now. You are not going to steer us off the topic. We both know that you should not have done what you just did.”

“Well what do you want me to do? Go over to the kid and apologize? Tell him I’m sorry for letting him do me? Do you think that’s the right thing to do?” Gerard says, looking at Brendon like he’s the idiot in this situation.

Brendon puts his head in his hands for a moment and tries to gather his thoughts, “So let me get this straight. You and Frank just did it.”

“Yep,” Gerard nods.

“And does that mean you like him or-”

“Ew! No. Oh god no. That’s disgusting, Brendon. Watch your dirty mouth. I do not, I do not, like Frank. Gross.”

“You just screwed him!” Brendon reminds him.

“Yeah, because he’s hot! I don’t like him. I’m not inhuman. There’s no one in the world who could ever possibly like that thing. So what if we just did what we did, I will never ever like him. Ever.”

Brendon looks at him incredulously, waiting for Gerard to say something else completely horrific and out of character. Gerard is looking at him like Brendon is the strange one though. It’s like he doesn’t even realize what he said.

“Have you lost your fucking mind, Gerard?”

“I don’t think so. Why?”

“You fucking stupid fucker! You fucking fucked fucking Frank!” Brendon hisses, trying to keep his voice quiet, while also trying to express how dumbfounded he is.

“Well it was more like the other way around,” Gerard shrugs.

“Do not even go there. I don’t want details, Gerard. I don’t want to hear any more of what happened, okay? Just let me pretend that all you two did was play a game of checkers,” Brendon says, “and you do realize that playing checkers kind of institutes a different sort of tension. You know you can’t just play checkers with a guy and expect no repercussions.”

“Oh please. Frank doesn’t like me anymore than I like him. We both hate each other,” Gerard says.

“Did you ask him?”

“Why on earth would I talk to him?”

“Gerard! Can you even imagine the gravity of this all? You are such an idiot!”

“I know! I’m sorry. I mean, I wasn’t thinking. It just happened, and you can’t really tell your mind to stop and start thinking rationally in the moment. There’s really not enough blood up there.”

“Gerard! No. Ew. No! Shut up. I said no details,” Brendon says, “so where do you go from here? Checkers is a huge thing for two people to play. I mean you two... kinged each other.”

“Nothing is going to happen. I swear! Nothing. I don’t like Frank, he doesn’t like me, we hate each other. It was a fluke. We made this mistake, okay? We’ll just put it behind us. I promise, I mean there’s no way in hell I could ever look at him as anything but a dumb midget.”

“Gerard, we have both seen the movie No Strings Attached.”

“My life isn’t a movie,” Gerard says.

“Yeah, but you can’t pretend it didn’t happen, because it did,” Brendon tells him.

“I’m not going to ask him to sleep with me again!”

“You mean play checkers.”

Gerard groans and rolls his eyes, “yes fine. I’m not going to ask him to play checkers again. It was a one-time thing. A one-night stand.”

“But that implies that you met the guy at a bar and took him home, then never saw him again! That’s not what this is, you fucking moron! You work with him. You see him every day! You can’t sleep with him. You shouldn’t have in the first place. You could get into trouble, or something,” Brendon says.

“Well it’s not like we’re going to parade around what happened. You’re not going to tell anyone, I’m not going to tell anyone, and I will gag Frank into keeping quiet.”

“Why’d you tell me in the first place?” Brendon asks.

“Well you’re my best friend,” he shrugs, “and Mikey told me he’d chop it off if I ever tried to talk to him about sex again.”

“What do you mean by ‘it’... oh wait, never mind. I got it,” Brendon makes a disgusted face, “I never made any promises that I’d refrain from eviscerating you.”

“I confided in you!” Gerard says irately.

“Please don’t,” Brendon says, “in the future, talk to someone else.”

“Who? My pet rock?”

Brendon nods, like he actually thinks Gerard’s going to talk to a boulder. Gerard doesn’t have a pet rock, but if he did, he’d name it Dwayne. Gerard just makes a face, and Brendon huffs, starting a wordless conversation that mostly consists of glares.

In the other room, Frank pulls himself up in his bed, and peers around the room. He’s trying to figure out why he allowed that to happen. Why he instigated it. That’s not him. He doesn’t do things like this.

Frank puts his boxers on lazily, then climbs back under his covers miserably. Frank reaches over to the bed stand where his mangled phone rests. The screen is cracked, and it makes a game of dropping calls, but it still works. His hands instinctively call the number of the only real person he can talk to right now.

“Alex?” Frank mumbles when a click on the other end signals that someone’s picked up.

“Are you in a tunnel or something?” he asks.

“No, I just have a broken phone that I haven’t replaced yet,” Frank replies.

“Why did you hang up on me the other day?”

“I didn’t,” Frank grumbles, “you know my shitty boss? He threw my phone at the wall.”

“He did what?” Alex asks.

“He threw my phone at the wall when he heard me insulting him. I mean, it wasn’t unwarranted offense, but he totally overreacted.”

“Oh man. That’s awful. Can you report him or something?”

“I’m not going to give him even more reason for him to hate me,” Frank says, rolling over on his side on the bed.

“So speaking of your boss, how’s it going with him?”

Frank makes a really undescriptive whining sound, which almost sounds like a cry, but it turns into a growl.

“I’m sorry, but I don’t speak whatever the fuck that just was,” Alex says.

“I don’t know what happened, man. Like, my boss, his name is Gerard-”

“Gerard. Okay,” Alex replies, almost like he’s checking something off on a list.

“And he’s, like, fuck,” Frank sighs, and quiets his voice into a whisper, “okay, so he’s like really hot. I will murder if you tell anyone I said that, but he is. Super hot.”

“Okay?”

“Well, so. I don’t know what happened. I really don’t. Essentially, when he threw my phone at the wall, I kind of, like, we kind of had this... moment.”

“Moment?” he asks nervously.

“Yeah, moment. I don’t know what happened really. But the dude gets off from arguing. He was totally, just, you know what I mean,” Frank says.

“He, wait what? He was turned on by arguing? “

“Yes!” Frank says, a little too loudly.

“Oh god, I do not want him on my debate team,” Alex replies.

“Yeah, no me neither,” Frank says and then starts rambling, “But anyway, this moment thing happened, and then it got interrupted, and then Gerard got super drunk. The dude was wasted, it was hardcore. He started coming onto me while he was drunk, okay? And I hate him, and he hates me, but he was totally hot for me, but I kind of excused it, because he was so fucked, and then he forgot all about it by the next day. He had no memory of it, and then I just found out that he totally did remember it and had been lying it to me! He remembered everything, and anyway, what I’m trying to say is that I banged the guy.”

“Whoa there. What was that last part?”

“You heard me, I’m not saying it again,” Frank says.

“Oh my god, Frankie. That is a Darth Vader of a plot twist.”

“I know! I didn’t mean, well I mean, I meant to. Like, it wasn’t an accident, I don’t know how you can make an accident that huge, but it wasn’t really something I’d intended to do. I didn’t wake up this morning, and think ‘hey I should tap the guy I want to push in front of a moving train.’ That wasn’t something I was necessarily trying for, but now it’s happened, and I don’t know what to fucking do!”

Alex makes a sound like a disgruntled elephant, and says, “So you seriously did that? You’re not playing me?”

“No! I did, and I can’t even think right now, because I’m fucking pissed at myself.”

“So you regret it?”

Frank shrugs, but then realizes Alex can’t see him and says, “Well I mean, the actual act of it I don’t regret, the guy is a good fuck, but the fact that it was Gerard is what I really regret.”

“Alright, too much information, but what do you want me to tell you? You want me to tell you that you should apologize, or give you a pat on the back and tell you everything is going to be okay? I mean Frank, you’re the one who messed up. So did he. You both messed up. Now you two have to try to deal with this. You have to get over the bump. It’s your mistake to console.”

“God, I know! I know, okay? I’m just so... I don’t know. I’m angry and confused. I wish, fuck, I wish I didn’t do this!” Frank responds.

“Yeah, but you did. You have to face it now. We all do dumb things. You hate the guy though still? It sounds like you do, so try to find some, um, common ground or something. You can’t really pretend that it didn’t happen. I mean, you could propose that to him, but really, it’s your weight to bare.”

“I fucked up so much,” Frank covers his eyes with his hand and tries to turn back time to rewrite what happened.

“Yeah, you did. You’ll live through it though. Just swallow your pride, and make peace with it, because you can wish it didn’t happen all you want, but that’s not going to do anything to change the past,” Alex tells him.

“I fucking hate that you’re right.”

“Well you called me, so I’m assuming that you knew I’d be right before I even picked up the phone,” he says.

Frank mopes into his pillow and groans again, “Alright. I’m an idiot, but I know that I do have to accept it.”

“Sorry.”

“No, don’t apologize, you’re right. I wish there weren’t a problem that needed solving, but I’ll try my best to come up with a solution.”

“I think ‘solution’ is aiming a little too high, Frank. Settlement maybe?”

“Yeah, you’re right. I guess I should hang up, because I have a few hours of screaming at my pillow ahead of me, and I doubt you want to be there for it.”

“No, I’m good thanks. Talk to you later, Frankie.”

“Bye,” Frank says, “And wish me luck in this fucking nightmare.”