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

“Right so, I thought, hey, wouldn’t it be a grand idea to put an ad on craigslist to see if Aaron’s done this before,” Frank says.

“And?”

“Well, I didn’t think he’d done it so many times before,” Frank replies.

“Wait, hold on,” Gerard says, holding out a hand, “you’re saying that, not only is Aaron a dick, he’s a serial dick?”

“He is indeed a serial dick,” Frank confirms.

“So how many other guys was he a sadistic asshole with?” Gerard asks, putting his head on Frank’s shoulder to look at the computer in front of him.

“Well three people have replied so far,” Frank says, “over the course of about four years, Aaron is infamous, underground that is, for giving boys everything and dropping them like flies. I think I’m the only one that ever stuck around for more than two months.”

“Um,” Gerard makes a sound, “did you stick around the longest or did Aaron keep you the longest?”

“Well, I think technically, Aaron kept me the longest, but that makes me sound like I’m in someone’s possession which is disgusting.”

“No I didn’t mean to imply that. I just mean... well, if he kept you around the longest, I think what we can take from that is that you meant the most. If you meant the most, I think what that means is that you hurt him.”

“You think I hurt him?” Frank asks.

“If you did, I’m really fucking proud of you,” Gerard replies and kisses Frank on the cheek.

“You realize that you just congratulated me for being mean to him.”

“I hate him, Frank,” Gerard says with utter seriousness. “Like, I want to watch him dangling off a cliff and step on his fingers to make him fall. I want to reenact that one scene from the Lion King and watch him get stampeded by a million wildebeests. I want Gollum to bite his finger off and then dangle him off the ledge in Mount Doom. I want a giant watery hand to burst out of the ocean and drown him like Admiral Zhao. I want him to go canyoneering when a rockslide happens out of nowhere getting his arm caught between a boulder and the canyon wall, forcing him to chop his arm off.”

“Gerard, calm yourself.”

“I can’t. I hate that man so much. Like for one thing, he wasn’t good to you, and second, he kept me from you and I fucking love you, and I just really want to tear his head off.”

“We need to buy you a voodoo doll or something so that you don’t do something stupid,” Frank shakes his head, but smiles at Gerard, who’s head is still resting against his own.

“Can anyone blame me?”

“No not particularly, but Gerard, that’s the point of calling that reporter guy. This whole thing is about poetic justice. Not murdering him. That would be bad. Now granted, he’s the kind of guy where you’d probably root for the murderer on an episode of a crime show, but that doesn’t make it any less bad.”

“God, if I didn’t have you, I’d probably have killed that guy weeks ago,” Gerard sighs.

“I’m such a good influence,” Frank grins. “Okay, so I’ve talked with the three guys and they’ve agreed to speak with the reporter about Aaron too. What’s better than the testimony of me? Me and three other people! Maybe more, the ad’s only been up for about four hours.”

“Oh god, we’re going to nail him!” Gerard says grinning, “no one is going to take that guy seriously ever again.”

“Now, don’t count your eggs before they’ve hatched, Gerard. If everything goes flawlessly than hopefully this will work, but we don’t know that yet, so just calm your tits until we have confirmation.”

Gerard groans, “ugh, but I want him to die painfully!”

“I know,” Frank nods slowly, “has anyone ever told you that you’re kind of cute when you’re plotting a murder?”

Gerard looks at Frank and giggles, “you know, I can honestly say that that would be a first.”

“Good,” Frank says, “Because I don’t want you plotting murder with any other boys. Or anyone for that matter.”

“I won’t. You’re the only guy who I want to conspire assassination with. So what about these other guys Aaron was a bitch to then? Tell me about them!” Gerard asks.

“Uh, well lemme see,” Frank says, “okay, so this guy is a chef. Another one of them is a struggling actor, and he’s been struggling a lot more since dating Aaron, because apparently, I’m not the only guy that Aaron has blackballed. The last guy didn’t list his job. He’s the only one who provided me proof of dating Aaron though, he’s got a picture of the two of them. He’s kind of cute actually.”

“Watch it.”

“Sorry. He’s kind of not bad to look at, but not as nice to look at as you are,” Frank says, and Gerard snorts at how stupid that sounded.

“So did they agree to make statements against Aaron too then?”

“Well bachelor number one wants to, let’s see, claw Aaron’s eyes out of his skull with an ice cream scoop. Bachelor number two isn’t as creative, he just wants to cut Aaron’s intestines out with a blunt butter knife, and well, bachelor number three wants to take a snapshot of his internet history and send it to his mother.”

“Ew,” Gerard says making a face.

“The point is that they will gladly assist in ruining Aaron’s life. Hopefully we can bury this man with all of the shit he’s done.”

“What specifically happened to them though?” Gerard asks.

“Um, well the first guy, his name is Lyle, kind of a boring name if you ask me, but anyway, they met when Aaron went to the restaurant that Lyle works at, kind of like me. Hit it off, but then four weeks later, he dumped Lyle on his ass because Aaron was seeing someone else who he liked better.”

“Whoa so he reprimanded you for leaving him for me, but he cheated on someone as well?”

“Hey! Don’t say ‘as well’ I never cheated on anybody. But yeah, he’s a hypocrite. Which is why we need to ruin his life. Anyway the next guy, I’ll bring up his facebook page, gimme a second,” Frank says, and clicks through a few pages on the computer, “so he’s named Seth, but he doesn’t look like a Seth, he looks more like a, um, I don’t know...”

“Reese,” Gerard states.

“Reese? Yeah, he looks like a Reese. Anyway, the guy who looks like a Reese but is actually named Seth, was the guy that Lyle was cheated on with, so yikes. The last guy, no name given, isn’t telling me what happened between him and Aaron. He seems kind of private, but he does want to ruin Aaron’s life and that’s the good thing.”

“So when’s the reporter coming?”

“About half an hour now,” Frank says, “and then they’ll speak with the other guys. I don’t know when this article going to be published, but it’ll be sometime soon, and then we’re going to fucking destroy Aaron.”

“Oh god,” Gerard says, “you know I can honestly say that never in my life have I ever wanted to watch a guy’s life get ruined. Never. But Aaron... he’s the exception. I don’t even have the words to tell you how excited I am to watch him burn.”

“Aww,” Frank says, “I love my sadistic boyfriend. He’s so cute.”

“How cute?”

“So cute that I kind of want to frame your picture and put it on my desk, but I don’t have a desk because I’m jobless.”

“Hopefully that won’t be true for long,” Gerard notes.

“Yeah, well until, then it means more time with you,” Frank says.

“I would fucking quit my job to spend more time with you, only that would be stupid because then we would not be able to pay rent.”

“Yeah, maybe not a good idea,” Frank says, “though I wish we had more time together. You know how boring it gets when you’re at work, and I’m just here?”

“Well we’re not busy now...”

“Gerard, we are expecting company in less than half an hour,” Frank points out.

“Well-”

“No, Gerard.”

“But-”

“No, Gerard.”

“What if-”

“No, Gerard,” Frank says and that ends Gerard’s questioning.

“Spoilsport,” Gerard mutters, shaking his head.

“Love you too,” Frank says, pouting his lip.

“You know I do.”

“Yeah, I know,” Frank says, smiling as Gerard nibbles at his ear.