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

Is it a walk of shame if you’re a boy, and it wasn’t a one-night stand? Is it a walk of shame if you didn’t even have sex? Is it a walk of shame if you ran away before the other person even woke up?

Frank wonders through all the things it could be, and settles that he doesn’t know the answer. He’s got the right posture for it to be a walk of shame, the same guilty feeling in his gut, and the same feeling of disgust.

He thought he could do it. Frank honestly thought that he could just do it. It’s a mindless thing, he thought he’d be able to do it.

He couldn’t.

Frank had thought that having sex with Aaron would help him get over Gerard, but it’s not going to help any if he can’t even go through with it. He tried, honestly he tried. It’s not like Frank necessarily wanted to have sex because he wanted to, he wanted to have sex because he wanted to prove to himself that he wasn’t in love with Gerard.

He got so far as Aaron’s bedroom until he just collapsed and realized what he was doing. He felt like a whore. He felt like scum. He couldn’t do it. He couldn’t do the follow through. Frank’s mind is stuck on how close he was. He was though. He was so close, but he didn’t do it.

It’s like when you have to take really gross medicine and you hesitate before you do it. Then you look back on it a minute later, and you sigh because it’s over and done with. Frank didn’t do it though. He couldn’t. He was so close, he’d practically done it, but at the last moment he pulled away. He regrets pulling away. Mostly he regrets that he didn’t even find out if he could get rid of those feelings for Gerard. He didn’t even take the risk to see if it would have helped.

He would have regretted that so much more though, and looking back on it, he knows that. He knows that he would have felt infinitely worse had he gone through with sleeping with Aaron, but that doesn’t ease the feeling in his gut now. Frank would have felt worse, true, but that doesn’t take away from the fact that he feels awful now.

What would Gerard think of him if he knew that Frank chickened out? He’s too nice to laugh at him, but he’d probably still find it funny. If Gerard knew that Frank couldn’t sleep with someone because that someone wasn’t Gerard, he’d probably hate Frank and laugh at him. Frank is his best friend, but that’s what makes it so wrong. It’s so wrong to be in love with someone who can’t love you back, because they don’t see you.

Frank’s a ghost, and Gerard is a nonbeliever. He’ll never look twice at Frank, because he doesn’t think there can be anything there. Frank’s lost in this hell of watching Gerard go through his life without noticing, and Gerard’s unaware of the way he hurts Frank. Gerard has no idea that Frank’s cried himself to sleep over the thought that he can’t have him. Gerard has no idea that Frank’s planned out their wedding ceremony to the tiniest detail, millions of times. Gerard has no idea that Frank sometimes steals his sweatshirts just to smell Gerard on them.

Of course Aaron had to be perfect about all of it. He had to be understanding, and sweet, and make Frank feel even worse about the fact that he’s not in love with him. He wants to be. Frank really does, more than anything. He wants to be in love with Aaron. He wants to love the sweet guy who can give him everything he ever wants. Plus it doesn’t hurt that he’s attractive and rich. He’s nice though. He’s good. Frank wants to love him.

Some stupid part of him wants Aaron a lot. So much it hurts. But more of him wants Gerard.

That’s the hardest thing about it. He’s splitting himself too much. He does like Aaron. He likes the guy a lot, but even that feeling can’t compare to Gerard. It’s kind of like Benedict Cumberbatch as Khan in the Star Trek movie. He was good and all, but he wasn’t Ricardo Montalban. Gerard’s the original, and Frank likes him better. He’s actually in love with Gerard, Aaron is nothing more than a sweet guy who likes Frank.

He’d run away from the responsibility of being there when Aaron woke up. He couldn’t do that. He couldn’t look at the guy who’d just woken up, and he couldn’t stand the idea of looking at Aaron knowing he’s not Gerard. So he stood up and ran out. At least he left a note.

If the fact that Aaron was a decent human being and didn’t pressure Frank wasn’t enough the fact that he let Frank stay over so that he didn’t have to face his friends, will prove his qualities. He snuck away from a guy who was so nice about it. The guy really is an angel, and Frank is so lucky, but it doesn’t quite compute in his head.

He’d honestly rather spend an hour with Gerard just holding his hand then a lifetime with Aaron giving him everything he’s ever wanted. It’s not everything he’s ever wanted if it’s coming from the wrong person.

Frank has all these thoughts as he walks down the sidewalk in his, decidedly, worse than a walk of shame walk. He’s pretty miserable for a guy that didn’t do anything. Literally, he didn’t do anything, and that’s most of the reason for why he’s so upset.

Frank walks up the steps into his building slowly, almost forgetting his own way to his apartment. His brain is fuzzy, and he really needs some ibuprofen, but he just wants to make it to his own room. He wants to make it to his own apartment, and rest his head against the wall knowing that just on the other side of the tissue paper thin walls is the guy he loves more than anyone.

He doubts he can hear Gerard breathe, the walls are thin, but not that thin. Sometimes he can hear Gerard talking in his sleep, but luckily he’s not a snorer. He does drool though. It’s kind of cute, especially in Frank’s eyes.

His feet drag against the ugly moth-eaten carpet that lines the halls. Frank recognizes this carpet as the same pattern his old neighbor used for her tea cosies. Though those were much more impressive considering the little old lady knitted them herself. This rug just looks like it was on the clearance rack at a warehouse store. Maybe Frank is just too critical. He lets his feet walk him to his door, and watches them carry him across the floor.

There’s a muttering at the door next to his own, and then some scratching, followed by, “budge over, Frank’s home!”

Frank rolls his eyes, opens the door to his apartment, and then holds it open for the two nosy neighbors to enter before him. Pete smiles his thanks as he walks past Frank, and Patrick looks at Frank with a strange expression between apprehension and fear.

“So how long were you two at the peephole?” Frank asks. He checks the time on the oven clock. It says that it’s only 7:30, which is way too early for them to be awake on a weekend.

“Only a few minutes,” Pete says trying to defend himself, rather unsuccessfully.

“Well yeah, but before that, Pete had been looking out the window religiously. He even made me watch the window when he had to pee.”

“The world likes its share of irony, okay? If I had let the window go unwatched while pissing, then Frank would have gotten home right about then,” Pete says. Patrick rolls his eyes, and looks at Pete like he doesn’t understand why he’s even there.

“So how did it go?” Pete asks, looking a little less excited than he had a minute ago. He doesn’t like knowing something that Frank doesn’t, and not being able to tell him. It’s so hard for him, because he knows Gerard likes Frank, and that Frank likes Gerard, but stupid Aaron is in the way. If Aaron were gone and Pete had this information still, he wouldn’t even have to think about it. He’d tell Frank so fast that Frank probably wouldn’t understand him, because the words would be too quick.

“What do you mean?” Frank asks. His headache seriously is starting to pound into his head, and he’s seeing rainbows in his eyes from his blurry vision.

“Well you went out yesterday, and are only now coming back...”

“Oh yeah, about that-”

“Is Frank home?” A voice interrupts, and Gerard pops himself out of his room like a bullet. Frank barely even registers him walking into the room. Gerard looks a wreck. His hair would give a stylist a heart attack, followed by an aneurism, followed by a stroke, followed by another heart attack.

Seeing Gerard such a mess really does confirm Frank’s suspicion that he’s sick. Little does he know that Gerard is sick over Frank. He’s wearing that withered Ramones shirt that someone needs to put out of its misery, and a vaguely jaundiced complexion. Honestly, someone should get the guy a bucket incase his stomach decides to screw him over, which doesn’t seem unlikely given the state of him.

“Oh god you don’t look good, Gerard,” Frank says.

Pete is literally biting his tongue down, because he is quite literally looking at two people who are in love with each other, but neither of them knows it. This must be the worst spot to be as a friend. He wants to just tell them to fucking get together. He kind of wants them to start making out, and it’s killing him that Patrick will kill him if he says anything.

The way Frank is looking at Gerard though is breaking Pete’s heart. It’s even worse for Gerard. Frank’s had five years to get used to being in love with Gerard, he’s learned how to handle it, and keep it below the surface. Gerard though, this is all new to him. He’s in love with this guy that he’s known for so long, and he thought that they were just friends. Five years of loving the guy is all hitting Gerard at once. He’s not doing very well, he’s made himself physically ill just from the stress of the situation.

“It’s nothing,” Gerard waves off Frank’s concern. “W-what happened last night then?”

Gerard tries to put a teasing expression on his face, the kind he’d normally give Frank if this had happened, but it feels fake, so he casts it away. It makes him look even sicker than he had looked a minute ago, but the frown is there to stay.

“What? Oh, uh,” Frank panics, because it’s so demeaning to admit that he chickened out. He’s a coward, and he feels bad about being such a prude. They’re all looking at him waiting for his answer to what happened, and they all think they know, but the real reason is the exact opposite of what they’re thinking.

Frank knows that they won’t care as well, which makes him hate himself for being so nervous. He knows they’d just be like ‘oh it’s okay Frank, you don’t owe anyone anything’ and he fucking knows that, but his pride has taken such a beating over the years. He can’t stand yet another reason for Pete and Patrick to tease him about being in love with Gerard. Frank didn’t owe Aaron anything for having changed his mind, but he feels so stupid about it all.

Gerard is oblivious to the real reason, but the other two know. They’ll know that Frank is still so caught up on Gerard. They’ll just pity him. He’ll get that sympathetic little head nod, and he’ll just feel worse about everything. He’s already so hopeless, and he’ll just be proving that even more.

“It was... I mean, what do you expect? We... it was, I mean we... he was nice,” Frank says, vaguely enough that he’s not technically lying.

Gerard feels himself get shot in the heart, and it literally hurts so much that he has to look down to make sure that he hasn’t actually been shot. It feels that way. He’s fairly sure a gunshot, bomb, or being run over by a car couldn’t possibly compare to knowing that Frank slept with someone. Aaron of all people. He’s too perfect. Aaron is perfect, and he’s better for Frank than Gerard ever possibly could be, but Gerard’s selfish. He likes Frank, and Aaron is the competition. Gerard got a late start though, and now Aaron is going to win.

“So it was good?” Patrick asks, “Then why are you home so early?”

“I just... wanted to take a shower?” Frank says, trying to fix the tone of his words to sound more like a statement than a question.

“And Aaron, the millionaire, didn’t have a working shower?” Patrick asks skeptically. Part of him doesn’t believe Frank. A suspicion that is apparently not shared by neither Gerard nor Pete.

“Well, I mean, you know how it is using someone else’s shower,” Frank shrugs, “I like mine. Speaking of showering.”

Frank makes a gesture like he’s going to say more, but he doesn’t trust his own tongue, so he just puts his head down, and walks over to the bathroom. The kitchen stays quiet for a few minutes, with no one saying anything to anyone. They don’t even seem to be breathing at all until the sound of the shower starts, and fills the room with a quiet sound.

“Well-” Pete starts.

Gerard interrupts him before he says anything else, “Save it. I’ll be in my room.”

“Gerard!” Patrick calls after him, but he ignores them both, and just slams his door.

“Well-” Pete starts again.

“Don’t even say it, Pete.”

“Never mind then.”