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

“Look who finally decided to come back!” Patrick says when he walks into the apartment about two hours after Frank returned.

“Pete told you I came back?”

“Yes,” Patrick says, “What took so long?”

“Just some things,” Frank says.

“Things like the fact that you’re in love with your roommate, but you’re also dating a possessive Canadian man?” Patrick summarizes. That’s pretty much Frank’s life at the moment though.

“Why does everyone think he’s possessive?” Frank asks.

“Because Gerard was pretty distraught after what he said the other week, and I tend to believe Gerard over the guy I don’t know at all.”

“Well that’s because someone made sure that you never got to really meet him,” Frank says. He’s going through a pile on the counter with all the mail he missed after the past few weeks. Surprisingly, he doesn’t have that many correspondents, so it’s not a very large stack of papers.

“That someone being you?” Patrick questions.

“Well I was implying that it was Gerard.”

“But it was you as well. It was both of you,” Patrick says, “but you probably forgave him because you’re in love with him.”

“Patrick, do we have to do this? Yes, okay? I’m in love with him! I’m in love with Gerard! What do you want from me? Do you want a written confession, and a receipt for the missing half of my soul that I gave to him or something? I love him, like a lot. I love Gerard. There! Happy?”

“Repeating it isn’t going to make it any less true. I don’t know who you think you’re insulting there,” Patrick says.

“I’m still mad at you, why am I talking to you?” Frank asks himself.

“Well because you left for ten days, and I have every right to be as mad at you as you are at me,” Patrick says.

“God, I hate you,” Frank rolls his eyes. “Well fine then. Truce?”

“I was never actually mad at you, Frank. I don’t know why you didn’t believe me, but whatever,” Patrick says.

“Please, can we just not talk about it? I don’t want to talk about him. I love Gerard, and honestly, it’s hell knowing that he doesn’t like me back. Talking about it more just makes me feel worse about myself. For now, can we leave it be? I only just got back. Maybe in a few days I’ll be up for the existential crisis that loving Gerard will give me, but right now, I’m not in the mood for it.”

“Sorry,” Patrick says, holding his hands up in defense. “So what are you going to do about Gerard then?”

“The same thing I was doing before,” Frank replies, “I’m going to pretend I don’t have feelings for him, and hope that Aaron can help me get over him.”

“How’s it going on that front?”

“Not well,” Frank says solemnly.

“It’s really not going well for you. Maybe you should try, I don’t know, talking to Gerard about your feelings?” Patrick says.

“I’m not suicidal, what are you talking about? Why on earth would you say that? Literally I would rather do anything but that, because at least this way, Gerard won’t laugh in my face. Let’s face it, Patrick. Gerard doesn’t like me in that way, and he never will,” Frank states.

“I wouldn’t say never,” Patrick shrugs.

“Well you may not think so, but I’m pretty sure that he’s never going to love me. Why would he? Dude, I’m just this weirdo who lives in the room next to his. He’s way out of my league, and he’s too fucking stupid to even notice that I’m in love with him anyway. I’m just his best friend, and that’s the closest I’m ever going to get to him,” Frank says, making the saddest face Patrick’s ever seen. He literally feels like going over to Frank and hugging him, but that would probably breach some boundaries given the fact that Frank thinks he teased him about Gerard.

“Just try talking to him,” Patrick suggests, “a heart to heart?”

“Whatever,” Frank rolls his eyes, “I’m going to go get food.”

Frank walks around the counter and past Patrick.

“You know the refrigerator is right there,” Patrick says, when Frank walks over to the front door. It’s been nine days, not nearly enough time for him to have forgotten where the refrigerator is. Also he has eyes, and it’s not like the thing is hiding.

“Yeah, but Gerard didn’t buy any fucking groceries. All we have are eggs,” Frank says.

“Well then you can make eggs,” Patrick says.

“We don’t have a pan,” Frank says. Patrick walks over to the cupboard and opens it, to see that there is a pan right there literally inches from his face.

“Nope. No pans here,” Patrick says, and he gives Frank a judgmental, and mildly amused, stare.

“Why do I need an excuse to leave my own apartment?” Frank asks, and then he’s out the door.

Patrick’s head falls down to the counter in frustration, when he hears the door open again. He picks his head up to look and see why Frank’s back, but the front door isn’t open. He looks at it curiously for a few seconds before turning his head and deciding he must have imagined it. That’s when he sees that the door that opened wasn’t the front door at all. It was Gerard’s door.

He’s standing there in the living room looking gobsmacked, staring at Patrick who’s staring right back at him like a surprised dog.

“Frank’s in love with me?”

“What?” Patrick asks, hoping that if he pretends he didn’t hear Gerard, then maybe Gerard will forget about everything.

Gerard’s brain is literally trying to think a million different things all at once. He’s trying to grasp and process what he’s just heard, and then he has to decide what the hell that even means. Frank said he loves Gerard, which is weird, but not unwelcome. That’s literally the best news he’s heard in years. Frank loves him, which is driving him crazy! In a good way. He’s so frazzled that what he just heard was even the truth.

“Frank. He’s in love with me?” Gerard says, voice a little shaky.

“I... uh, no?”

“Frank loves me?” Gerard says.

“Uh, how many variants of the same sentence can you say before you’re verging on Yoda territory?” Patrick asks, because if he can’t deny it then he can at least try distracting Gerard.

“In love with me, Frank is,” Gerard says.

“Apparently only three times,” Patrick notes.

“So, he’s,” Gerard starts, “Frank. Loves me? Like, he loves me the way that I love him?”

Patrick tries for a minute to try to dig himself out of this hole, but when he decides that it isn’t possible he just sighs and nods. If he can’t dig himself out then he might as well get himself a bulldozer.

“He is?” Gerard says, with the most unreadable expression Patrick’s ever seen.

He’s so giddy that his brain forgot to send the message for him to smile. It’s too busy throwing a parade over the fact that Frank loves him. That’s all he’s wanted for like a month, and he’s not at all disappointed to hear that it’s mutual.

There’s so many different thoughts in his head, that he almost forgets to breathe. Breathing seems inconsequential at the moment. Who needs air when Frank is in love with him? The only thing in the world he can come up with that would make him happier than he is right now is for him to be kissing Frank. That’s it. That is literally the only thing that could make him feel any better than he does right now.

“Yeah,” Patrick groans, and hides his face for a minute, “he’s in love with you. He has been for a really long time.”

“How did I not know? Why didn’t you tell me? How long has he loved me? How come you didn’t tell me when I told you that I was in love with him? What does this mean? Does this mean that I can ask him out or something?”

“Too many questions! Um, he’s been in love with you for a really long time, Gerard. Like a really long time. Really really really. As in, I didn’t even know you, or hadn’t met you by the time he was already in love with you,” Patrick says.

“So like three years?” Gerard asks incredulously.

“Three. Yeah. Sure. He’s been in love with you for three years,” Patrick says, because that’s not technically a lie. It’s actually been five years, but three years isn’t untrue or anything. Frank has been in love with Gerard for three years, but he’s been in love with him for two years added to that.

“Why did no one tell me?” Gerard asks.

“Because you never showed any interest in him!” Patrick says.

“What about now?”

“Well now he’s in a relationship,” Patrick says.

“But he’s in love with me,” Gerard says, “What’s stopping us now?”

“He’s dating Aaron!” Patrick says, because Gerard seems to be ignoring that giant fact. That’s literally what’s been keeping them from each other for two months, and Gerard is brushing over that like it’s nothing. Like he hasn’t been plotting Aaron’s murder for eight weeks.

“But he’s still in love with me! I heard him, he said that!” Gerard says.

“You can’t just excuse the fact that Aaron does exist though. Gerard, you haven’t exactly been good for him the last few years. You’ve had him on this hook for so long, and you were too blind to see you were stringing him along like that. You’ve hurt him more than anyone else ever has or ever will. You have to take a step back and evaluate this information.”

“I love him, Patrick. I love him, and I don’t fucking care about Aaron. Frank loves me, and I love him, and every logical person in the entire world would say that means we should be together. We should, because that’s the simple solution to this endless pain I have because of not having him. I want to be his everything, okay? Everything in the world I can give to him, I want to give, and now that I know he wants me back, I’m not going to let an astonishingly attractive French guy get in my way,” Gerard says.

“It’s not really your decision, whether Frank is dating Aaron,” Patrick says.

“But if I tell Frank-”

“Is that the best thing to do?”

“You don’t think so?” Gerard asks.

“I’m, well, I, uh,” Patrick says, “to be honest I want to see you two together more than anybody, but I don’t want you to jump to a conclusion just because you overheard something you weren’t supposed to.”

“But I love him and he loves me back. What am I missing?”

“You’re missing a really gigantic variable, Gerard. There’s three people you need to take into consideration. There’s you, and there’s Frank, but there’s also Aaron.”

“Fuck Aaron, Frank loves me!” Gerard says.

Suddenly, all the hate he had for Aaron is starting to feel a little less prominent to the point where he almost pities the guy. Aaron’s just this stupid rebound. Frank loves Gerard, and he doesn’t love Aaron. Gerard still kind of wants to punch Aaron in the face though. Mostly because currently, Aaron is Frank’s boyfriend, not Gerard. That can be fixed though. Frank doesn’t love Aaron, but he does love Gerard, so things are looking good for Gerard in that respect. All he needs to do is tell Frank, and then maybe he’ll finally get over this hell he’s been going through. Having Frank as his best friend the past five years has made his life infinitely better than it used to be, but that would be nothing compared to the way he’ll feel if Frank becomes his boyfriend.

“I’m not going to tell you what to do, okay? I’m just going to pretend that it’s not my fault you found out, and I’m going to walk away like nothing happened,” Patrick says, standing up, and inching to the door.

“I’m going to tell him I know,” Gerard says matter-of-factly. He means it too. The second Frank steps back through that door, Gerard will tell him, and then maybe today will be the best day of his life. Gerard doesn’t even care about the last nine days, because what is nine days to him if he wins Frank in the end? It’s not like Frank is a prize with Aaron and Gerard being the competitors. Frank’s more important than that, but Gerard really does want to beat the crap out of Aaron.

He wants Frank to look at him the way he tries to look at Aaron. The way Frank might already look at Gerard, but he’s just never noticed.

“You do that. I’m going to leave,” Patrick replies.

“I’m gonna tell him!” Gerard calls after Patrick.

Patrick doesn’t respond, he just closes the door behind him. Gerard is left standing there in his living room looking rather smug.