I Didn't Mean to Fall in Love (But I Did)

It’s not that Gerard is an idiot, and Frank knows that. He’s just... blind to just about everything. He doesn’t see anything that doesn’t affect him right then and there, and Frank knows that. It’s not that he doesn’t appreciate Frank. It’s not that he doesn’t like Frank. He just doesn’t see Frank. That’s all. He doesn’t see him.

Frank wishes that Gerard saw him, but he doesn’t and that’s a fact of nature. Maybe someday he will. Frank is a wishful thinker though. Five years and Gerard’s never looked twice at him. Five years, and Gerard hasn’t looked twice at anyone at all.

Frank’s beginning to think that Gerard just isn’t into dudes, but he doesn’t seem to be into girls either. The only thing he seems to be interested in is his comic book collection.

He loves Gerard. He’d never admit to it, but it’s true. He loves Gerard. Not just as a brother or as a friend, or as anything, he loves the guy. He loves Gerard so much that if Gerard asked, he’d marry him today. He’d marry him in a minute. It wouldn’t even take him a second to say yes, because he’s been in love with his roommate for years.

Frank watches him when he’s eating his cereal in the morning, and every single part of him wants to just jump up and kiss him. He watches the way Gerard sticks his tongue out of the corner of his mouth when he’s drawing. Frank loves the way he drifts off when they watch movies on Friday, and sometimes if he’s very very lucky, then Gerard’s head will fall onto his shoulder.

Gerard’s blind though. He doesn’t see the way Frank looks at him. He wouldn’t understand it if he saw the pure, unadulterated love there.

The sad thing is that everyone in the world seems to know about the crush except Gerard. It is literally as obvious as a giant lizard taking over a city. He doesn’t have the ability to hide it. Frank’s nearly swooned a few times just looking at him, but still Gerard doesn’t see it. Maybe he’s just not looking. Maybe he doesn’t care. Maybe he notices but he’s too sweet to crush Frank’s dreams.

Gerard has no idea, though Frank can’t be sure of that. Gerard just sees Frank as Frank.

Everyone knows though. Gerard’s brother even knows Frank’s in love with him. Their next door neighbors, two guys named Pete and Patrick, even know. Frank’s got quite possibly the worst case of love sickness in the entire world. Gerard wouldn’t see love if it wore a flashing light, hit him repeatedly in the face, and then tossed him into a canyon.

It’s ruining Frank’s life.

“It’s just a little crush,” Frank tries to tell himself. There’s nothing little about it.

“You’ve got it bad,” Pete tells him, every time he sees Frank sighing after Gerard. Frank just nods, and mopes whenever he hears the words.

There’s nothing he can really do about it though. It’s not like they have antibiotics to keep you from falling in love. There’s no cold spray that prevents you from having reoccurring dreams about fucking your roommate. There’s no bandage that can make him stop wanting him.

Frank wishes there was some aspirin he could take to make it go away, but he’s checked time and time again. He would know, he gets sick far too much. He’s coming down with something as it is. Probably just a cold, but it could be anything.

Frank stares down at the Benadryl he’s rolling between his fingers. Every time he buys medicine he reminds himself how much he hates the taste of it, but he always ends up buying the liquid anyway. It’s cheaper. Frank likes cheap. It makes him want to gag, but still, it’s cheaper.

“Are you sick again?” Pete asks him with exasperation.

“When am I not?”

“About four days out of the year,” he replies.

“Hey, don’t be stingy! It’s more like five days,” Frank shrugs.

“That’s still not something you should go about bragging,” he replies.

“It’s just a cold,” Frank responds, and then sneezes.

“Ew, get you’re infected snot away from me,” Pete says, scooting his way over on the couch.

“Say that again and I will sneeze on your toothbrush.”

“That’s low,” Pete replies.

“What’s low?” Gerard asks stepping out of his bedroom. Frank looks at him like he’s an angel, which is how he sees him anyway. Gerard just walks across the apartment and over to the counter.

Mikey, Gerard’s brother, once told them that they’re apartment looks just like Chandler and Joey’s on Friends. That’s not exactly true, they have different furniture. It’s pretty close though. They could probably dress it in such a way that you’d think you were in that same apartment, but they decide not to. Partly because they’re not that lame. Just don’t look in Gerard’s closet because he totally doesn’t have twenty stacks of comic books in there. Nope.

“Frank is low,” Pete says.

“Why? What did you do, Frank?” Gerard smiles, raising an eyebrow at Frank.

He almost flubs up his words because that look is giving him chills, “I, um, just told Pete that he was a jerk.”

“Well Pete is a jerk,” Gerard says.

“Fuck you both,” Pete crosses his arms, and Frank punches him in the arm.

“Are you going out? It’s movie night!” Frank asks when he sees Gerard pulling on a jacket.

“Yeah,” Gerard says looking back at Frank, “I’ll be back in a few. Don’t get into too much trouble while I’m gone.”

Pete inches over to Frank and whispers in his ear, “does that mean I’m not allowed to set fire to the kitchen?”

“I’d be much appreciated if you didn’t do that,” Frank tells him.

“Well that spoils my Friday night.”

“Your Friday night for the past three years has been fucking horror movie marathons. You are as much an arsonist as I am a florist,” Frank says.

“I didn’t know you were a florist,” Pete jokes.

“That’s the point, numbskull. I am not a florist, and you are not an arsonist.”

He sighs and gives Frank a look, “I could be if I wanted. Hey Gerard can I borrow a match or something?”

“You want me to lend you something dangerous? You, Pete? I wouldn’t even give you a butter knife.”

“Why does no one trust me?”

“Because you set off the fire alarm last year while you were blow drying your hair,” Frank says.

“That was faulty wiring,” Pete defends.

“You have faulty wiring,” Frank scoffs.

“Whatever,” Pete rolls his eyes, “Gerard if you’re going to be out, just pick the pizza up yourself so we can save on tipping.”

“What makes you think I’m getting pizza?” he asks.

“Because we have gotten pizza every Friday for as long as we have lived in this apartment,” Frank says.

“Repetition is what makes the world go round, bro,” Pete says, “and if you want to live to see tomorrow, you will buy me pizza.”

“Fair enough,” Gerard shrugs, grabbing the door knob to leave.

“Oh and maybe a movie,” Frank says.

“Yeah otherwise we’ll end up watching porn,” Pete says.

“We will not!” Frank yelps. “I don’t think we have any porn anyway.”

“Everyone has porn,” Pete says.

“You realize that we would not find it agreeable even if we did have any,” Frank says.

“Oh right,” Pete nods, and then calls over to Gerard, “We do not want any porn!”

“I don’t even know why we invite him over,” Gerard shakes his head.

“Because his roommate is adorable, and we don’t want to offend him by just hanging out with Patrick,” Frank says.

“I resent that!”

“Good.”

“Okay, so pizza, a movie but not porn, anything else?” Gerard asks.

“One million dollars,” a new voice says, and Frank turns his head to see Patrick in the doorway.

“I’d like that too, Gerard. Get me that too!”

Gerard shakes his head like he’s asking god why he’s even in this situation, and Patrick just grins at him then walks across the room, and sits on the armrest of the couch. There’s an advert for tampons on the TV, but the volume is too quiet to hear about the wonder of feminine hygiene products.

“I’m going to get out of here before one of you asks for a dinosaur,” Gerard says.

“Oh get me a dinosaur!” Frank screams, before the door slams.

“Why do you need a dinosaur?”

“Because they’re cool.”

“Have you seen Jurassic Park? It’s not going to work out too well,” Pete reminds him.

“I’ll tame it, and it’ll be like a giant dog. We’re not allowed dogs in this building, but the rules say nothing about long extinct giant reptilian creatures,” Frank says.

“What are you going to call it?” Patrick asks.

“Winston.”

“Why Winston?”

“Why not?” Frank retorts.

“I’d have thought you’d name it Gerard,” Pete shrugs.

“Why? Because he’s in love with him?” Patrick asks.

“I’m not in love with anyone,” Frank says.

“No, you just want his babies.”

“Well I can’t actually have his babies. I have a detrimental lack of a uterus if you hadn’t noticed,” Frank responds.

“But you totally want his babies,” Pete repeats.

“I hate you both,” Frank says.

“But you don’t deny it,” Patrick points out.

“Frank is a good person. He may have a gigantic, all-consuming, hopeless, and somewhat desperate crush on his roommate, but he’s not going to lie about it. That would be rude,” Pete states.

“Not to mention Gerard is probably not into dudes. Or chicks. Or anyone else for that matter,” Patrick says.

He’s not technically wrong, but he’s also not technically right either. It’s not something he parades about, and it’s true that Gerard’s never had a significant other, but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t want one.

Frank hears him sometimes, so he knows the guy isn’t completely asexual as he makes himself out to be. The walls are thin between their rooms, so he hears it all. He hears the little moans. The hisses. The breathing that gets caught in his throat. The curse words. No man has ever been able to make a swear word sound as dirty as Gerard in the middle of the night jerking himself off. What Frank wouldn’t give to be in the room with him when it happened.

He’ll wake up from dreams about Gerard and it’ll feel a million times more desperate. All he wants in the entire world is to curl up next to Gerard and wake up in his arms. But he doesn’t get that. Instead he gets middle of the night spasms with a tent under his comforter, and a vague image left in his head of Gerard on his knees.

In those dreams Frank has everything. He has the most beautiful man in the entire world, holding onto Frank’s hip with one hand and the base of his cock in the other. Frank’s hands are always wrapped up in Gerard’s hair, tugging on those black locks, soft from his shampoo, and begging to be pulled. If he had a nickel for every wet dream he’s woken up from involving that gorgeous man, he’d have had enough money to buy his own apartment, and a therapist to help him get rid of those lingering thoughts about his best friend.

Really though, Frank can’t help it. Gerard is perfect, and he’s gorgeous, and Frank wants him. He doesn’t just want him sexually, he could live a million years impotent if it meant that he got to steal one single kiss from Gerard. He’d give up his life savings, his home, the shirt on his back, and his job just to be with Gerard as more than a friend.

He has no such luck though. Frank has a dead-end job at a diner, and a crush on his hopelessly uninterested roommate. It’s not even a crush at this point, it’s a disaster.

It would be inaccurate to say however, under either heavy or subtle scrutiny that Gerard does not care about Frank. He cares an awful lot about the guy, but he doesn’t love him.

“Frank?” Pete pokes him in the side, “You’ve been drifting off. Dreaming about Gerard again?”

“Yeah,” Frank frowns, “I mean no. Oh, who am I kidding?”

“No one,” Pete shakes his head.

“Then yeah,” Frank sighs again.