When We're Both Thirty

So it’s about seven in the morning when Gerard’s phone starts ringing. He groans out a long, and unintelligible cuss at it, before he groggily reaches for the nightstand and tries to blink away the blurriness in his eyes long enough to read the caller ID. His body is not allowing him to do that though so he just ends up staring at a blurry, vaguely blue light for about thirty seconds before he decides it’s better to answer it then to let it go to voicemail.

His voice sounds sleep-filled and hoarse when he picks up the phone, and it’s more of a mumble than an actual greeting.

“Why the fuck did you blow my guy off yesterday?” is what Gerard’s met with from a very angry sounding voice. Now, in the morning, Gerard is very stupid, and he is very bad at recognizing anything. Sometimes he doesn’t even figure out that he’s awake until an hour after he’s pulled himself out of bed. Usually it takes a cup of coffee, a piss, and something to eat before he’s ready to socialize with anything.

“Um?” Gerard says, because he doesn’t know who the hell he’s talking to, and he also doesn’t remember what his own name is right now. He knows one thing and that is that he’s craving caffeine.

“Gerard, you’d better give me a straight answer here. This was your fucking plan after all and here you are, completely blowing off a guy who I set you up with!”

Gerard blinks a few times with the new information. His name is Gerard. Yeah, that sounds familiar. Gerard.

He is Gerard. He’s in bed. He’s not wearing pants. Wait, why isn’t he wearing pants?

“Oh fuck,” Gerard says, and he springs up into a sitting position so fast that you’d think he’s on strings. “Fucking hell. Oh fuck. Fuck!”

“What are you on about?” the person asks. Gerard now recognizes that voice to belong to Frank.

Frank is the one who.... yeah, fuck Gerard’s life.

“Fuck,” is all Gerard says, as he rubs the temple of his forehead, hoping that if he pretends nothing happened last night than nothing actually did.

“What’s your explanation then, Gerard? Why’d you act like a jerk to the guy I set you up with? I mean, I get that you’re a jerk anyhow, I’ve embraced that knowledge, but you could have at least been cordial about it, but no, you went and ruined it. You shot the horse before it was even out of the gate and all you have to say is ‘fuck’?” Frank says.

“No, that’s not it, it’s-” Gerard stops himself, because he can’t tell a soul what happened last night, not a single person, but if there’s one person he especially can’t tell, it’s Frank.

“What? You going to try to defend yourself?”

“You know what, never mind. Why are you awake? It’s seven in the morning?” Gerard groans as he looks at the clock across the room from him.

“I have a flexible sleeping schedule because of my band. That’s not the point, why are we talking about me? You’ve already spoiled this date, he doesn’t want to even attempt to go out with you, so great going Gerard, you fucked up.”

“Ugh whatever,” Gerard says. He almost said sorry until he realized that he was conversing with Frank, and he is not going to say sorry to Frank unless he’s apologizing for how unfortunate it is that Frank is the owner of such a horrific face. Except it’s a really nice face. A really really nice face. A face that Gerard was thinking about last night when he-

“I don’t even know why I bother setting you up in the first place. I mean, only one of us needs to find someone before my birthday, and it’s obviously not going to be you.”

“Asshole,” Gerard replies, “How many days do we have again?”

“Twenty eight,” Frank says almost immediately. “You’ve already wasted five of them by being a lazy ass and not fucking doing anything.”

“I’m the lazy one?” Gerard asks, though he can’t really argue on that one. He is pretty lazy, but Frank does not need to know that.

“Yes. You are the lazy one.”

“You’re stupid.”

“You’re stupider!” Frank counteracts.

“That’s such a stupid comeback. Next thing you know, you’ll be calling me a butt face.”

“Well you are a butt face.”

“Snot breath,” Gerard replies.

“Poo head,” Frank says.

“Used tampon,” Gerard says, a bit louder than he’d anticipated.

“Gross.”

“Just like you’re face!”

Frank makes a noise on the other end like a disappointed horse, “that’s seriously the best you can come up with? We both know you like my face, give up the charade!”

Gerard turns pale for a second thinking that Frank knows. Frank’s got like a sixth sense or something, and he knows what happened last night. Then Gerard calms his breathing when he realizes he’s being stupid. No way does Frank actually know a damn thing.

Now Mikey on the other hand, he might want to avoid. Mikey really does have some extra sense to him, he’s freaky good at reading people’s emotions which is weird because he really doesn’t have that many emotions himself. Mikey is probably meant to be a superhero in some alternate universe but he got switched up and accidentally came to this universe instead. Basically, he’s Professor X, but with more hair.

Gerard almost forgot where he is right now and when he snaps himself back to reality he doesn’t know how to make a comeback. Obviously he’s going to have to lie and tell Frank that he thinks he’s ugly, but he’s all nervous now.

“In your dreams, Iero,” he says, and that sounds vague enough that it should suffice. “Now hang up will you, I have anything and everything else to do that doesn’t include talking to you?”

“What you really need to do is find me a fucking date, shitdick.”

“It’s going to take me a while, jeez! What, do you think eligible bachelors grow on trees, or something?”

“I bet all the guys you know are ugly. You attract people of your own kind,” Frank says.

“If that’s true than you’d think I’d be surrounded with hot Italian men, but sadly I am not.”

“Well that’s because I’m in my apartment, and the last place I’d ever go is to yours.”

“Please, Frank,” Gerard says, “you are many things. Annoying, boring, dumb, whiney, stubborn, and pigheaded, but one thing you are not is hot.”

“Gerard, don’t you know lying is a sin?”

“Don’t you know pride is a sin too?”

“Go to hell,” Frank responds.

“I can’t, I don’t want to have to spend eternity with you!” Gerard answers, “I’d rather be strapped to a bed of nails or beaten to death with a blunt object than see you for the rest of forever.”

“You’re insufferable,” Frank says.

“The longer you insult me the more likely you are to have to deal with me for the rest of your life,” Gerard reminds him.

“Okay let’s get this one things straight, Gerard. I would take a million years of being scolded by my mother over marrying you any day. Hell, I would accept being tortured endlessly for a million years over being married to you for five minutes.”

“I’m glad you put it into words for me,” Gerard says, and then he cringes. Okay, so obviously he’d never admit it, but he honestly isn’t sure which he’d prefer. He’s honestly not sure that being scolded by his mother every single second she can is any better than being married to Frank. Now obviously Frank is unbearable and irritating, but still, he’s eye candy. At the very least he’s the kind of person you’d be able to show off at office Christmas parties, and brag to everyone whose cubicles are adjacent to yours that your spouse is prettier. That is of course assuming that Gerard had a job.

If he only had a job that he could actually hold down, then his mother wouldn’t be disappointed, and he wouldn’t have felt pressured to talk to Frank, and he wouldn’t have thought about how hot Frank is, and he wouldn’t have jerked off thinking about how fucking attractive he is.

Gerard still can’t help but wonder what on earth it is that Frank did to disappoint his mom. Surely the fact that he’s in a band can’t be it. Gerard’s pretty much come to the conclusion that his band is his job, because he seems to have a lot of free time which he wouldn’t have in a normal nine-to-five job. It must be a pretty damn good band to sustain him. That, or maybe he had a rich uncle who passed away recently or something. Maybe he hits up Atlantic City really often and has really good luck.

“I’m just gonna...” Gerard drifts off, forgetting what he was about to say. “Find you a date. Clear your schedule up for tonight.”

“Can’t,” Frank says, “just make sure the date is over before eight.”

“Well that’s probably good because you wouldn’t be able to get laid anyway.”

“Do you seriously think I have any trouble getting laid, Gerard?” Frank asks incredulously, which makes Gerard frown, because the way that Frank says it makes it sound like he’s talking about brushing his teeth. Gerard isn’t exactly bad or unappealing, but Frank is making himself out to be like a fucking dude magnet, but if that were the case, he wouldn’t still be single.

“Oh Frank, I thought you adamantly denied that you weren’t a prostitute,” Gerard says, smirking to himself.

“Fuck you,” Frank says. “You’re just jealous.”

“Jealous of what? The fact that you’re a whore?” Gerard asks. Gerard almost never even uses that word, but he’s on a roll here. He’s actually winding Frank up.

“I am not!” Frank says, getting defensive.

“Whatever you say,” Gerard says, letting his words come out as sarcastically as he can make them.

“Just, ugh! Stop being such a sloth and get me a date!”

“Fine,” Gerard says bitingly.

“Fine,” Frank answers and then the line goes dead.

Gerard lets out a long breath and whimpers a little bit. He’s not sure how he managed not to explode throughout that conversation, but it’s over now which is a mercy at least.

Why does it bother him if Frank does have a lot of sex? Frank can have as much sex as he wants, that’s not Gerard’s business. That means he’s just probably really good at it.

“Stop that,” Gerard says, whacking himself on the head, because he’s starting to imagine it now, and he can’t allow that. The number of impure thoughts he has right now, though, it’s just getting ridiculous.