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

Gerard knows he really shouldn’t do this. He knows Frank’s probably going to yell at him, or get really angry, but Gerard has no choice. He just doesn’t.

What Aaron is doing is not okay. He’s trying to ruin Frank’s life, all just because he wasn’t in love with Aaron and never was. That’s not his fault. That’s not Frank’s fault, or Aaron’s fault, or Gerard’s fault, or... well no it might be kind of Gerard’s fault. He should probably take some blame for that one.

Still, Aaron is disrespecting the man that Gerard loves, and hell if Gerard is just going to put up with that like it’s no big deal. He needs to have some words with the evil Frenchman and speak his mind. He does have to remind himself that Aaron knows where they live, but he’ll cross that bridge if he comes to it.

Early in the morning, Gerard wakes up and looks over at Frank. He reaches over to the bedside table and grabs Frank’s phone. He quickly scrolls through the contacts and then copies Aaron’s number into his own phone. Gerard’s not exactly surprised that Frank forgot to delete the number, but he’ll remind Frank to do that soon. Part of him is kind of relieved that the name is still there, while the rest of him is trying to convince himself not to be jealous.

Obviously Frank doesn’t like Aaron anymore. Gerard knows that. He knows that with some amount of certainty, but he just doesn’t like that he still has the number. It bothers him. He knows it shouldn’t, but he can’t exactly force that thought to go away when it’s there.

Gerard sighs, looking down at Frank, wishing he could stay. He wants to stay to see Frank wake up and be all cute with his stupidly bleary morning eyes and his cute little yawns, but he does have to go to work. One day calling sick is enough, two probably isn’t going to do him any favors.

He probably wouldn’t land himself in the same position as Frank, because in all likelihood, Aaron doesn’t know much more about him than his first name, but he can’t disqualify that as a possibility. Aaron is rich. He has his ways, and he could find out probably everything about Gerard there is to know. He could find out about that one time when Gerard was a kid and got suspended for pushing a kid out of a tree. That wasn’t really Gerard’s fault though, the kid who he pushed out of a tree was picking on Mikey. He brought it upon himself.

Gerard pulls himself out of bed, careful not to wake Frank. Frank is really cute when he sleeps and Gerard hates that. It makes him want to just stay there and watch him for hours, but he doesn’t get to do that, because he has work and it would be ‘creepy’ or ‘verging on stalkerish.’ Mikey’s words, not his.

Not surprisingly, Mikey’s first response to finding out about Gerard and Frank was verging on apathetic. He looked like he already knew it was happening. He does have some aspect of clairvoyance to him that has always kind of freaked people out.

Mikey’s only words on the matter when they told him were, “took you two long enough.” Frank was kind of upset because he was kind of enjoying the shocked expressions he kept getting from people. Frank gets excited by really little things, and Gerard’s always known that, but never did he imagine he would fall in love with Frank a million times more every time he makes that excited face. Gerard once thought his heart was going to burst when Frank ate a bag of skittles that happened to have an above average number of the red ones, which are his favorite color.

A little over thirty minutes later, after Gerard’s showered and gotten dressed he makes his way out of the apartment. He stops to get his morning coffee on the way to work so that he doesn’t accidentally fall asleep on the Subway and somehow end up in Toronto. The train doesn’t go that far, but he’s sure it would happen somehow or another. That, or he’d end up smelling like the bottom of a shoe.

Gerard almost forgets that he was going to give Aaron a call until noon. He curses himself for not waking Aaron up at an inconvenient time when he had the chance, but it’s too late now.

He makes his way out of the building he works in to take his lunch break, and stows himself away in a small coffee shop. For about ten minutes he just sits there looking at his phone, trying to convince himself to dial. Gerard frowns, feeling his heart beat in his chest as he looks through his phone.

He doesn’t overly like talking to people on the phone at the best of times, but this is a million times worse, because he has to call Aaron. He would rather eat his own thumbs. Gerard is afraid of Aaron. He doesn’t feel shameful of that fact either, because Aaron is one terrifying son of a bitch. He’s bigger than Gerard, and richer, and his accent is nicer. Gerard’s trying to reason how on earth Frank picked him over Aaron. Aaron is a Greek god. He’s not even that. His face was carved by gods. Gerard still can’t grow facial hair. Aaron can probably grow a beard in a day and a half. Gerard hates him.

Gerard keeps frowning to himself, downing an unhealthy amount of caffeine, which is doing the opposite of slowing his heart rate down. It’s making it pound a million times quicker. Gerard’s heart pace is the same as if he’d just run a marathon. He’d rather run a marathon than call Aaron. No he wouldn’t. He’s desperately out of shape, he’d probably die after a hundred yards.

Finally, Gerard’s fingers decide to cooperate with him and he’s able to call Aaron. His blood is pumping in his ears like a coursing river. He’s not even sure if he’ll be able to hear Aaron over the sound of his own anxiety.

“Hello?” a voice asks with a stupidly pretty accent. Gerard hates Aaron and his stupid French Canadian accent. He hates the fact that Aaron probably spoke French to Frank sometimes. He just hates Aaron.

“Uh, hello,” Gerard says, cringing at the sound of his own voice.

“Who is this?”

“Okay, so I want to talk to you about what you’re doing to Frank,” Gerard bursts out with before he can stop himself.

“Wait, you’re Frank’s roommate aren’t you?”

“Yes.”

“What do you want?”

“I just told you! I want to talk to you about your extremely childish behavior towards Frank,” Gerard says.

“Why should I talk to you?”

Gerard can’t think of an answer, because, really, why should he talk to Gerard? Gerard shakes the doubt off, and tells himself to direct his anger at the guy he’s angry with.

“You know, it’s pretty low that you’re trying to get back at Frank. It’s such a juvenile way to behave. Are you still that immature? You’re getting revenge on a guy which isn’t something rich CEO’s do. They just don’t. We’re all adults here.”

“Frank deserves it.”

“Deserves it? For what? All he did was admit that he wasn’t in love with you. He did what he had to do. Would you have wanted to date a guy who wasn’t capable of falling in love with you? It wouldn’t be real. You can’t be angry with him for just not falling in love with you. That’s not his fault,” Gerard says.

“No, it’s your fault,” Aaron says. Gerard smiles to himself a little bit, because he can sense the jealousy in Aaron’s tone. Gerard can’t even describe how good it feels to have Aaron hate him for having Frank. There’s something amazing about knowing a guy who has everything, money, a big house, fame, a good job, respect, and more, is jealous of him. Gerard has the one thing in the world that Aaron doesn’t have and wants so dearly.

“I’ll own up to that,” Gerard says cockily, “but you can’t say that Frank’s a bad person for breaking up with you so that he didn’t cheat. Face it Aaron, if he hadn’t broken up with you, there’s a good chance he might’ve cheated on you.”

“He would not!”

“No, because being in love with me, and not being in love with you totally means he’d be committed to you,” Gerard replies sarcastically.

“Well why the hell would he want you? You’re poor, and you can’t give him anything. What the hell do you have to offer him?”

Gerard has no idea what he has that Aaron doesn’t, other than one thing, “Well I have the most important thing. I have Frank’s love. I can’t give you a reason as to why that’s true, but it is. He loves me, and not you. There’s nothing you can do about that, and you didn’t exactly handle it very well, did you? I hear you threw a bowl at his face.”

“I gave Frank like three months and he breaks up with me over what? He likes someone else? What a weak excuse! Stringing me along all that time when he never liked me.”

“You’re wrong. Frank liked you. You wanna know why he chose me? He might’ve picked you, Aaron, I swear, it was a real possibility, but he picked me because you tried to drive his friends away. You were so possessive! You tried to isolate him, getting him mad at his friends, and being manipulative. Now granted, I acted like a dick towards him too, but never so much as you. Not even kind of.”

Aaron makes a scoffing sound, “You were trying to steal him away from me!”

“I was respecting Frank’s choice to choose! The last thing in the world I would ever do is tell him what he had to do. I made that mistake once, I wouldn’t do it again. I gave him his space though, and you, well you threw fine china at him,” Gerard says.

“It didn’t hit him, grow up.”

“You’re telling me to grow up?” Gerard asks, exasperatedly, “We do not throw cookware at the people whose pants we want to get into, dude! That is not okay!”

Gerard looks around to see that he caught a few people’s attention with that, as he’d raised his voice a little bit. He waves awkwardly at the bystanders in the coffee shop and tries to concentrate on Aaron trying to defend himself.

After a few seconds Gerard gets annoyed and says, “Alright dude, this isn’t about the bowl anymore. The bowl is in the past. The bowl is in pieces in your local landfill. This is about you making Frank unhireable.”

Aaron snickers at that and Gerard drives the pen he’s holding into the table a little bit. He hadn’t even noticed himself pick it up, and he doesn’t know where it came from, but it makes a small inky blotch in the wood of the table. Gerard drops it before he splits the table in two out of frustration.

“So you noticed that have you?” Aaron asks.

“Listen, it’s not okay. Frank is a good person. We both know that. He’s the best guy. You want him, I know you do, that’s why you’re doing this to him. It’s because you still like him, and you want to teach him a lesson for not being with you, but you know what, that’s not okay. Don’t do this to him!”

“Why shouldn’t I?”

Gerard rolls his eyes, “I just gave you a reason. Besides, you shouldn’t need to have any reason to not be a dickhead to people. That should just be inherent. You should just know not to be an asshole. That’s common sense.”

“Well, you know, I’m not going to get Frank. That’s fact at this point.”

“You shouldn’t have thrown a bowl at him,” Gerard mumbles.

“The fact is that, any relationship between me and Frank is kaput now, so why on earth should I let him just get by scot-free? No, that’s not my speed.”

“You always get what you want, don’t you? You’re used to having everything, and the one thing you can’t have, the one thing in the world that isn’t yours slipped away from you, so now you’re pouting like a toddler who had his juice box stolen.”

“Make as many similes as you want, I’m not giving up on this. Have fun with him, but I won’t let up.”

“Listen here you little weasel, Frank is a good person, and you didn’t deserve him in the first place. I know your kind, okay? You think you can buy your way to anything, but I’m not going to let that happen. You do this to Frank, to us, just because he chose me, and there will be repercussions. I will not let this slide, you hear? You can’t just ruin Frank’s life and not expect any backfire.”

“Okay,” Aaron says with a disbelieving laugh.

“I am not going to let you just walk all over him.”

“Whatever. This conversation is over.”

“It is n-” Gerard says, when the other end clicks, “hello? Aaron?”

Gerard takes the phone away from his ear and looks down at it, to see the flashing ‘call ended’ sign.

Gerard groans long and hard, letting his head fall against the table, whispering under his breath, “bitch.”