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

Gerard has been reevaluating the last seven hours in search of finding out what was true and what was not. His brain is playing tricks on him though, and he’s not certain exactly what was real and what wasn’t.

He’s positive that he kissed Frank. That definitely happened. Another thing that definitely happened was that Frank pushed him away and they had a fight. The next thing he knows is that he was left in the kitchen, but that’s where things get a little sketchy. He’s not sure what’s real and what’s not.

He didn’t drink anything, and that’s the weird part about his memory blur. He didn’t have any alcohol, so how could he have forgotten half of the last few hours?

Gerard looks around the dim room around him, and the part that’s really confusing him is the fact that this isn’t his bed. This also isn’t his room. It’s his apartment, but it isn’t his bed, and these aren’t his sheets. The blankets smell really nice, but that’s not what matters.

Why on earth is Frank right there though, and why is he asleep?

Gerard is trying to connect the dots from how he got to be standing in the kitchen to now, seven hours later, at three in the morning, in Frank’s bed.

He’s fairly sure of at least one thing though. He didn’t sleep with Frank. He recalls giving Frank a hickey, but that might be one of the things he’d imagined. What if he did give Frank a hickey though? That would not exactly be a good thing. You usually remember giving someone a hickey, and now Gerard’s worried about the fact that Aaron’s going to notice it, if it’s even there.

Why the fuck does he care about Aaron? Probably because he doesn’t trust Aaron. He really doesn’t trust that guy, so he doesn’t know how he’d feel about Frank having a hickey. Aaron already knows that Gerard likes Frank, and if he saw that Gerard liked Frank, than certainly he saw that it wasn’t one way. That makes him an even bigger dick in Gerard’s eyes, because he knew they liked each other, and yet he still tried to steal Frank. Gerard really hopes that someday Aaron will give him a reason to punch him in the face. As it is now, he’s just a slimy bastard, not necessarily warranting to be smacked, but if he ever crosses that line, Gerard will gladly hit him.

“Okay,” He says to himself, and tries to piece things together to find what was real and what wasn’t.

He called Mikey after Frank went to bed. No he didn’t. He didn’t call Mikey. He’d thought about calling him, but realized how depressing and horribly lonely his story sounded, so he decided not to. He didn’t go talk to Pete or Patrick either, because he was worried that they were getting tired of hearing him talk about Frank.

The dream he’d just woken up from was certainly not real, because Frank was there, and they were happy. They were actually happy, with the same trashy apartment and weird neighbors, but they weren’t in this mess. They were just watching Batman. That was what made it happy. There wasn’t any drama about dating anyone, it was all just okay because they were doing something menial and easy.

That didn’t happen though. What happened was that Gerard was still standing in the kitchen. No, he was pacing. Yeah, he was pacing in the kitchen. Or was it the living room? He might have been pacing in the living room. He was pacing in either the kitchen or the living room. He recalls the TV being on, but it hadn’t been on when he and Frank were arguing. It might have been on though, because he’s pretty sure he kept getting distracted by a chest-heavy lady on a game show who wasn’t wearing a bra. It was distracting, and a little unsettling.

So if the TV was on he was probably in the living room.

The next part of what he remembers is the part that he feels has to be fake, but it’s the part that he remembers most vividly.

It was about twenty minutes after Frank had gone to his room, when Frank slinked out kind of slowly. Gerard had thought that he was going to start yelling at him again, but instead, he kind of jumped Gerard.

He’d gone over to Gerard, and there wasn’t even the slightest bit of hesitation, Frank just started kissing him. That part doesn’t seem like it could be real, but Gerard remembers it so well. He’s lying next to Frank though in Frank’s bed, so obviously something had to have happened between the two of them.

It was what Frank had been saying that Gerard got so freaked out by.

“Just once,” Frank said quietly.

“What?” Gerard had asked, “Frank?”

“Just... just once, okay?” Frank asked, and he stood as close as he physically could to Gerard without stepping on his socks.

“Frank,” Gerard whispered, but that’s all he could say before Frank was kissing him again, even more than he had been a minute ago. Gerard no longer cared. He didn’t care about anything at all. Nothing but that. Nothing but the way Frank’s heat radiated off of him in a way that made Gerard feel him all over, even the parts where they were not pressed together. He felt all of Frank, and yet, it still wasn’t enough.

Frank pulled Gerard into his room. Well if Frank pulled them into his room, then Gerard must have been in the living room then. He doesn’t hear the TV going now though, so now he’s even more confused. He also doesn’t know why it matters what room he was in.

He does remember Frank throwing Gerard down onto his bed, which felt really weird considering it was Frank. It was fantastic, that’s true, but it was weird. Oddly enough, Gerard doesn’t remember having sex with Frank, because he assumes if he had, he would remember it. Logically, that’s what should’ve happened next, but it must not have been.

Gerard keeps going through the memory to figure out what had actually happened.

Gerard didn’t dare put his hands on Frank though. Not yet at least. Not after what had happened last time.

“Gerard, god I love you,” Frank said.

That’s his favorite thing to hear, especially from Frank. It carries more weight when it’s Frank than it does when it’s someone else.

“God, Frank,” Gerard said, and he’d felt guilt build up in his stomach. What they were doing was wrong, which sucks, because it was so good. Why does the wrong thing have to feel so unearthly right?

Frank mumbled something into his ear, and it was only when Gerard pinched himself that he found the willingness to get himself to stop what was happening.

“No,” Gerard said, pushing Frank away, “Oh god no.”

“What?”

“No Frank! No, absolutely not. Not okay. No no no no no no no. Just no. This isn’t okay. Nope. No,” Gerard said, and he was pretty sure he got the point across.

“What? Why? You were ready to go, like, half an hour ago!” Frank exclaimed.

“You’re right, Frank!” Gerard said, pushing Frank off of him, “You were right okay! Your life can’t just cease and desist because I finally came to my senses. Life doesn’t work that way.”

“But you like me, and god knows I love you,” Frank said.

“Well yeah, but it’s not really that easy, is it. Look, I’m not going to lie to you, okay? What I want is for you to breakup with Aaron and be with me. That’s what I want more than anything in the world, but that’s not something I have complete control over. If you want me too, than that’s great, but you are right in the fact that you shouldn’t cheat on Aaron. You’d effectively be cheating on me too. If we’re going to do this, we’re going to do it right. Got that?”

“Aaron and I never said that we were exclusive,” Frank said.

“Frank, just no. Okay? No. You’re in a relationship, and I was wrong earlier. I’ll own up to it, okay? I was wrong,” Gerard said.

“But Gerard, I don’t know what to do. As stupid as it sounds, I’m afraid of breaking up with Aaron, because I don’t know if I want to, but at the same time, I’ve been in love with you for five years. The trouble is that I never thought this would be real. I never thought you would want me back, so I never really considered what I would do if this was real.”

“Well now that it is real, do you still like me?” Gerard asked.

“Well I know I still love you,” Frank said, “but now I have to figure out if I like you too. I also have to take into consideration that Aaron didn’t need to take five years to figure out what he felt for me. Five years is a long time, Gerard.”

“I know,” Gerard replied, bowing his head.

“And I feel like I’ve spent such a long time with this unhealthy obsession with wanting to be with you,” Frank said, “I just feel like, with Aaron, I’m more about being myself than about being the guy with a crush on you.”

“Just remember that I love you, Frank. Like a lot. I don’t want to make you do anything, that’s the last thing I’d ever want to do, because I want you to know that I love you. It would kill me to not get to be with you, but it would kill me more to know I only had a fake version of you that didn’t want to be with me,” Gerard said, confusing himself with his own words.

“You know,” Frank sighed, “About thirty minutes ago, this was a lot easier. You were being an asshole, and it was kind of disgusting, but now you’re you again. You’re the you I fell in love with.”

Gerard shrugged, “this is who I want to be to you, Frank. I hate Aaron, I’m not going to deny that, because, yeah, I see him as this guy who’s trying to ruin my chance at having someone as fucking perfect as you, but he’s not my boyfriend. I don’t know what he’s like to you. I know that he’s not very fond of me, but-”

“But that’s important to me though. I want someone who’s going to be nice to my friends. That’s a really big deal breaker. That’s huge. If I can’t find someone who gets along with my friends, then maybe he’s not the one for me. You are my best friend, so you’re not like that,” Frank shook his head, “and fuck, when I put all these things out in front of myself like this, it feels like it’s obvious. Like, I should pick you, that’s what all logic says, but in so many ways these past few months have been some of the best in my life. I’ve finally felt like I’ve gotten back to myself. Fawning over you made me lose part of who I was, and being with Aaron is like being me again. I have such a codependency on you and that’s not healthy. That can’t be good for me, but I don’t like Aaron the way I like you.”

Gerard shook his head slowly, “I’m not going to tell you what to do. That’s how I made you mad at me in the first place, and it’s not okay to tell you what to do. That’s not my role.”

Gerard blinks a few times and feels himself fall back to reality. That had been several hours ago. The next thing that had happened was Frank trying to get Gerard to kiss him again, but Gerard had kept turning his head the other way. Frank was right, and Gerard still thinks he is.

After that Frank begged Gerard to just stay for a few minutes, and Gerard couldn’t say no. Not when Frank looked so scared. After all the help Frank had given him a few years ago, just by being there, Gerard couldn’t just leave. Then Frank fell asleep on Gerard’s shoulder, and he didn’t have the heart to wake him up, and he eventually fell asleep too.

Gerard looks at Frank’s form beside him. He’s moved over to his side of the bed now so Gerard can leave if he wants. So that’s what happened over the last seven hours. He’s fairly sure that he’s got the complete picture now.

He’s got to make the decision as to whether he wants to wake up next to Frank, which sounds like the best thing in the world, or do the smart thing. He really should get up and give Frank his space, but he doesn’t want to. He really doesn’t want to.

Eventually Gerard decides he’d better get up. Frank hasn’t made his decision yet, and staying here would only be wrong.

Gerard slowly pulls himself out of the bed, and looks back at Frank for a minute before he opens the door quietly and leaves the room. He looks at Frank again before he closes the door, and his heart stutters a little bit at how gorgeous Frank is when he’s asleep. It hurts that Frank isn’t his boyfriend.

Gerard does end up looking away, and he closes the door softly. It would be wrong to wake up next to him. Besides, if he ever does get that opportunity, he wants it to be real. If he ever wakes up next to Frank, he wants to wake up next to his boyfriend Frank, not just his friend.