Stop Playing Around

“We’re what?” Brendon asks.

“We’re going out for drinks,” Gerard repeats.

“And what about Frank?”

“He’s coming with us,” Gerard replies.

“Why?”

“Because Mikey suggested it, and I think it’s a good idea. We’ll take him out, he’ll have a good time, and hopefully we’ll all come out of it a little less judgmental.”

Brendon looks at him like he’s started inexplicably speaking German and says, “But I don’t want to have drinks with him.”

“Too bad,” Gerard says.

“I’m not going if he’s going,” Brendon says, crossing his arms. Gerard gives him a warning glare because Frank is once again in the other room.

“You are if you don’t want to be kicked in the balls,” Gerard says.

“Why do you care so much?”

“Because you barely know him. You have said somewhere between ten and twenty words to him, and judged him based only on my biased description of him.”

“But I-”

“Brendon I am of perfect kneeing height to put you into a lot of pain, do you really want to test me right now?”

“I don’t understand you,” Brendon says turning around and stepping out of the kitchen.

“Where are you going?”

“Well I’m not wearing sweatpants to a bar, am I?” Brendon shouts back.

“Good choice!”

“Fuck off,” Brendon replies, and Gerard follows behind him, but stops when he reaches the living room. Frank is sitting on the couch like he has been all day, staring at the wall. He’s caught in some sort of reverie, and doesn’t even process Gerard looking at him.

“Frank?”

“Hm, what?” Frank says looking around like he was just hit in the head with a football. He looks surprised to find himself back in Gerard’s living room, and finally his eyes rest on Gerard standing in the corner.

“You okay?”

“What?” Frank asks, “Yeah I’m fine.”

“You don’t look fine,” Gerard notes, because he has eyes sunken deep into his head, with bags under his eyes bigger than a carryon.

“Just tired,” Frank says, waving the thought away. Frank had slept in until nearly one though, so Gerard wonders how truthful Frank is being. Then again he probably didn’t get to sleep until well past three in the morning if the noises from the living room were anything to go by.

“Well okay, do you, I mean, did you hear me and Brendon?” Gerard asks, not entirely sure whether that would be ideal or not.

“Vaguely,” Frank says, “I don’t think I want to go out.”

“Frank, you have to leave the apartment sooner or later, it’ll be fine. It’ll help Brendon especially get to know you a little better, which is something that will come in handy for you in the long run.”

“I don’t have any,” Frank splutters, “clothes.”

Gerard curses himself for forgetting that, and looks down at Frank, “uh, shit. Brendon and I don’t really have anything you can fit into.”

“Yeah, I figured. I’m a midget,” Frank says shrugging.

“Well, um,” Gerard tries to think, “Mikey is lanky but his clothes would still drown you.”

“And Mikey is?”

“My brother,” Gerard says, “and Patrick is probably too short.”

Frank gives him an expression of disbelief, “no way do you know someone shorter than me.”

“You haven’t met Patrick,” Gerard says, “how tall are you though?”

“5’6.”

Gerard considers him for a minute, “I’ll call Pete.”

Frank asks, “Who?”

“He helped make your food for the past year,” Gerard says.

“Oh the cute one.”

“The what?”

“Never mind,” Frank says urgently, turning a shade of red. Gerard tries to reason with himself that he misheard Frank, and decides he must have.

Brendon steps out of his room a moment later, and leans against the doorframe, “Do I have to go?”

“Why isn’t he wearing a shirt?”

“I don’t know,” Gerard says, “I’ll ask him. Brendon, why aren’t you wearing a shirt?”

“I felt like it,” Brendon shrugs, “do I have to go?”

“Do you really want me to kick you in the nards?”

“Fine,” Brendon mopes turning back into his room.

“He has a few screws loose,” Gerard explains.

“I heard that!” Brendon shouts.

“You were meant to!” Gerard calls back.

“Fuck you, Way!”

“Back at you, forehead.”

“Don’t make fun of my forehead,” Brendon says warningly.

“Well why not? It’s hard to miss,” Gerard replies, and Brendon’s door opens, he flips Gerard off and then the door closes again.

Frank sits on the sofa watching the whole exchange with confusion, then says, “He does have a fairly large forehead.”

~*~*~*~

“Patrick, do you think Frank seems okay or am I the only one who thinks he acts like a prick?” Brendon asks. They’d only just gotten there and Frank’s made an escape to the bathroom, probably to try to hide from people.

“I won’t judge a guy I just met,” Patrick says.

“Oh fuck, so I’m alone on this,” Brendon says letting his head fall to the table, “you have to at least agree with me that Gerard is turning too quickly on this. Three fucking years of being tortured by this boy and his father! Three years of hearing him complain about the Satan’s at dinner, and breakfast, and sometimes in the middle of the night! That’s not something you just forgive. You have to fucking repent for shit like that, you’re not entitled to be treated the same way as a polite person. It’s not a fucking right, it’s a privilege, and Frank has not shown me enough atonement for me to think he’s had a change of heart.”

“You have some validity, but you’re also being far too critical,” Patrick says.

“What? How! Everything I’ve ever heard about the guy has been ‘Frank is a bitch’ or ‘I want to push Frank into oncoming traffic.’”

“I never said that second one!” Gerard defends.

“But you were thinking it,” Brendon replies.

“But Brendon, god, are you even paying attention to yourself?” Patrick interjects, “you just said ‘everything I’ve ever heard’ in reference to Frank’s character. All you’ve heard about him. Not what you’ve seen from him yourself, or what you’ve determined about him through your own eyes. You’re basing all you know about Frank on what Gerard’s told you.”

“So? It’s not like Gerard was lying.”

“Well you only ever heard one side of the story. You heard one side of a story that, no offense to Gerard, was probably exaggerated a bit out of anger.”

“Patrick’s right,” Gerard concedes.

“Yeah, exactly! Like, he had to suffer through weeks upon weeks, of having crap mostly come from Frank’s father. The tiniest amount that Frank might have added on to that would have probably made Gerard notice it more. He, once again no offense, probably held the two on different standards. You can’t take Gerard’s entire word for it, you’ve got to figure things out for yourself. You’ve got to give the guy a chance and dissect the person he actually is, not the stickman Gerard drew of him.”

“Are you saying I’m the bitch?” Brendon asks.

“What? No! I’m not saying anyone is anything,” Patrick says.

“He’s not saying you’re a bitch, and he’s not saying Frank’s a bitch,” Mikey explains, speaking up for the first time, “he’s saying you need to give him a chance in the same way Gerard is trying to do.”

“Yeah, if Gerard is willing to look past who he was and see him for who he is, then you should be able to do it,” Patrick says.

“I hate this,” Brendon says shaking his head.

“I hate you,” Gerard mocks.

“He’s coming back,” Mikey says, and Gerard looks down at the table.

Frank looks like he’d rather be anywhere else in the entire world then here, but they try not to make it too awkward. It is though, and Gerard wishes he’d never agreed with Mikey.

Patrick is the only person who seems willing to initiate conversation with Frank, and Frank looks at him like he cannot believe he’s just met someone shorter than him. They’re all sitting down, but Frank still looks a little dumbstruck by that fact.

“I think he’s trying to fathom how anyone can possibly be shorter than him,” Gerard comments, and Patrick makes a face. Frank blushes and tries to hide his face with the sleeve of his sweatshirt. It looks kind of torn up on the right sleeve, like it got stuck in a garbage disposal.

Patrick pouts, “I’m not short, I’m vertically challenged.”

“You’re in denial,” Brendon says.

“You have a giant forehead,” Mikey says.

“You only have three facial expressions,” Brendon retorts.

“At least my forehead isn’t bigger than my IQ,” Mikey shrugs.

“I-” Brendon starts, but he doesn’t have a comeback.

“Are conversations with your friends always like this?” Frank asks Gerard as Brendon and Mikey start pointing out each other’s flaws. Some of them include Brendon’s above average sized lips, and Mikey’s apparent lack of capability to laugh.

“You might be surprised just how often it turns into this,” Gerard says.

“I’ve never had a lot of friends, is it normal to insult each other?” Frank questions.

“That’s all friends do. They will insult you into oblivion, but if someone else tries to insult you then they’ll mess a bitch up,” Gerard tells him.

“That sounds kind of counterintuitive.”

“The world is counterintuitive, we don’t make sense, and that’s one of the reasons that makes us all so cynical. Everyone nowadays is a cynic, but in some cases that isn’t always a bad thing. The point is that it might sound contradictive in a friendship dynamic, but we’ve sort of evolved in such a way that showing compassion for one another is taboo. I guess I’m against it, but I’m also a hypocrite so I’m included in the problem. That is what we are though. We’re a society that tells people to hide from emotions, and to keep your love or companionship of other people secret. It’s not meant in bad way, because I still care for my friends even if I call them assholes. Some part of me does have to wonder why it’s so wrong to just say that I care about the people I know, but that’s the world,” Gerard says, “I keep rambling when I talk to you, Frank. Sorry.”

“No it’s okay,” he says, looking worried for a split second, “I was... it was interesting. You have kind of a really cool outlook on life that I’m not familiar with.”

Gerard blushes and then wonders why the fuck he’s blushing. He pauses and tries to compose himself for a moment, listening in on Mikey and Brendon’s debate. Something about Brendon’s feminine hips.

“The only person I know who’s about your size is Pete, so I invited him to come tonight with any of his old clothes,” Gerard says, “there’s no guarantee that he’ll be willing to give you them, but it’s a start anyway. He’s a good person though, so I don’t doubt that he’ll have a little sympathy.”

“But if he decides he still hates me?” Frank asks.

“Well I don’t want you to only have one pair of clothes. That would suck, and be smelly. I guess, we’ll find a thrift shop or something,” Gerard shrugs, “I’m unemployed though, and Brendon makes minimum wage, so we really don’t have a lot of options.”

“Fuck,” Frank sighs, “Well I guess that karma is a real bitch.”

“But you’ll make it through this, Frank. There’s no mountain in the world that’s too tall to eventually be climbed. That’s not how the world works. It may suck, but I do believe, at the end of the day, things do get better.”

“Not everyone thinks like that,” Frank says.

“Not everyone has to think like that to wake up in the morning.”