When We're Both Thirty

“How was that blind date thing going for you then?” Mikey asks.

“We’ve been through this, I haven’t talked to Frank in almost a week,” Gerard says.

“Right. How’s that avoiding the problem thing going? Have you sat in the corner every day for the last week rocking back and forth crying?”

“It’s been fine. I don’t miss him or anything,” Gerard replies.

“Yeah, so you say, but we both know that ain’t the truth. You love him.”

“I don’t!”

“Yes you do,” Mikey responds, “You love Frank, and you’re too chicken to admit it. You’ll admit to having a crush on him, but you won’t even get to the whole truth which is that you want to have his babies, and you want to wear those god-awful matching T-shirts that couples have, and you want to kiss him at New Year’s Eve, and you want to watch bad horror movies with him. You want to do dirty dirty things to that guy, I mean to say, things you haven’t already done-”

“Shut up!” Gerard says, considering the option of just hanging his phone up altogether, because he cannot deal with Mikey right now. Or at all. Or ever. Mikey’s just too much to ever have to deal with, and if Gerard didn’t care about him so much, he’d have pushed Mikey down an elevator shaft many years ago.

“So we’ve established that you love him, then,” Mikey says, “and you know what today is? Saturday. You know what Saturday is? It’s a weekend. You know what weekends are ideal for? Fuc-”

“Stop right there or so help me god I will stable your fingers to a railroad track,” Gerard says.

“Well, that’s colorful,” Mikey says, “Being around Frank has really buffed up your insults. It’s fine with me. You know what might help you though is if you go hang out with him again, because then you’ll be forced to come up with ever more creative disses.”

“You can try all you want, but I’m not going to go see Frank.”

“Ugh, but Gerard!” Mikey groans, “You’ve got what, like twenty days left ‘til Halloween?”

“Eighteen,” Gerard corrects.

“Oh, so you know the exact number. That’ll make me believe you don’t love him, really, good job, absolutely fantastic. You’ve convinced me. What, did you, like, download a countdown app for your phone or something? Can you tell me how many minutes and seconds there are to Frank’s birthday too?”

“No! I just know how to read a fucking calendar.”

“You knew the answer from the top of your head though. Gerard, I usually don’t even remember my own birthday more than a week in advance, but here you are remembering something over two weeks away.”

“Okay, fine, maybe it’s important, alright? Maybe I do know when his birthday is, but that’s only because it’s an important date for me too. As soon as that holiday passes, mom’s going to give me shit about it until the day I die. So yeah, I know when it is, and yeah, I hate that it’s so near to now, but what can I do?”

“Right, whatever you say, Gerard,” Mikey says skeptically.

“Ugh, okay, so what do you want to tell me then?”

“What?” Mikey asks, “Oh, right, that, yeah. I tracked down all of your classmates from second grade, that’s when you and Frank had your falling out, correct?”

“Uh, yeah, hold on, you did what?”

“You know, everyone’s on Facebook these days. It’s insane. You missed out on some crazies, not going to lie. One of the guys who you went to school with was admitted into a mental hospital. Wild stuff you can find out about people through google.”

“How do you even know the names of my classmates?”

“Your old yearbook, dumbass,” Mikey replies.

“How on earth did you... what are you... no, here’s a good question, why are you doing any of this?”

“I called Frank,” Mikey says, “He swore to me that the glue incident wasn’t him. You swore to me that you never did anything to Frank. That means the logical assumption is that someone from your class pulled both of the pranks.”

“No, the logical assumption is that Frank was lying to you.”

“Hm, see, Gee, the error in your logic is that, if Frank were lying, that means the odds are great that you were lying too. Now, I don’t think you’re lying, but if you were then you realize someone else would have pulled that stunt of ruining Frank’s shirt. He didn’t do that himself obviously, because, why the hell would he? What’re the odds that someone coincidentally pulled a prank on him in that fashion only a few days after he had supposedly pulled a prank on you? I’m sorry to break it to you Gerard, but look at it like this, someone probably framed you to make you turn against each other. My money is on someone resenting you for something or other, I just haven’t figured it out quite yet what they hated about you.”

“That’s quite the theory Nancy Drew, but you do realize how many holes there are in that.”

“Gerard, I’m not a detective, and you were, like, six. It can’t be all that complicated. I believe both you and Frank when you say that you didn’t do anything to each other, but that means someone did.”

“You’re out of your mind,” Gerard says.

“I’m going to prove you wrong that Frank never actually did what you’ve been blaming him for all these years. I’ll also prove your innocence too. Now, do you remember anyone resenting you in that grade? It would be really ideal if it were someone in your class or else I’ll have to go through the whole school. The only one I wasn’t able to find, aside from our pal in the looney bin, is some chick called Beatrice, so let’s hope she ain’t the culprit.”

“I don’t even remember any of my classmate’s names from back then,” Gerard says.

“Oh come on, you can’t be serious! How can you not remember your classmates? I still remember the name of the kid who bullied me when I was that age. His name was Julian and he had a green Mohawk.”

“A green Mohawk? Mikes, you do realize he’s probably a figment of your imagination.”

“No, it was green. I remember that very distinctly. Bright green. He was a bit young to have a Mohawk, I guess, but whatever.”

“Yeah, it’s the style of hair that’s weird. Not the fact that it was green.”

“Well your hair is red.”

“Mikey, seven year olds don’t dye their hair.”

Mikey replies, “No. Their mothers do it for them. Or other paternal figure, I’m not one to judge.”

“You’re the one who should be in that looney bin.”

“Whatever,” Mikey says, “I’m going to contact these people and ask them if they remember sabotaging your relationship.”

“How on earth do you plan to do that? And why do you think they’ll tell you? They could lie, that is they could be lying if your theory were backed up by any fact at all.”

“It is, don’t worry. Someone will spill, I have faith. And if not, I’ll just hypnotize them or something,” Mikey says nonchalantly.

“Yeah, because you know how to do that,” Gerard remarks.

“Shouldn’t be too hard,” Mikey says and Gerard can hear the shrug in his voice, “but that’s a last resort.”

“You’re such a weirdo,” Gerard says.

“Yeah whatever. I’ll bet you ten bucks the little demon child ends up being this girl who is right next to Frank in the class photo.”

“What makes you say that?”

“I don’t trust her Jesus fish plastered shirt.”

“Jesus fish... are you trying to say ichthys?”

“That’s precisely what I said. Jesus fish. She’s got the logo on her shirt. What’s her name, let me check... Savannah. I’m putting my money on Jesus fish girl.”

“Preachy Savannah? Oh man, I remember her,” Gerard says, a little surprised at himself.

“Oh, see she has a nickname to that extent even! Yep, my money is on her. Two little gays infiltrated her second grade class, she was a brainwashed little demon child, this makes for a very unpleasant combination of things. I will call you back later with updates.”

“You do that,” Gerard says, shaking his head, and frowning. He’s prepared himself for a long night of eating Wheat Thins and watching the Food Network. Gerard sure does know how to have wild and crazy nights.

“Oh, and by the way, Gerard,” Mikey says in a tone that suggests Gerard is not going to like whatever it is he has to say next.

“What?”

“Forgive me,” Mikey replies, before hanging up. Gerard doesn’t understand him. He’s always doing that. He’s just randomly ending phone conversations all cryptically, and it doesn’t make any sense. Forgive him for what? Gerard groans, knowing that he’ll probably know soon enough.

Then he hears a knock at his door. Gerard groans, stands up, walks over to his door, and then he understands why Mikey asked for forgiveness.

Gerard has made a point, a very valiant effort, into making sure Frank never got ahold of his address. His phone number was one thing but his apartment that was another. Gerard never let Frank near anything that would land him standing in front of Gerard’s door, yet there he is.

When Gerard looks through the peephole on the door, he sees Frank. He’s just standing there looking hot and gorgeous, and Gerard’s looking at him while he’s in the process of being hot and gorgeous looking mediocre and somewhat frumpy.

“You can open the door, I know you’re there,” Frank says. Gerard’s eyes widen because he doesn’t have a clue as to how Frank could know he’s there. He’s pretty sure he didn’t bump the door or anything. Then he realizes how stupid he is for actually worrying. It’s not like it matters how Frank knows, it’s just the fact that he does know. Then again, Gerard doesn’t have a job, so where else would he be?

Gerard sighs. He’s ignored Frank for almost a week, to be fair, only five days, for a reason. He doesn’t want to be near the guy. He doesn’t want to get closer to him, and feel more and more attracted to him. He doesn’t want either of those things. He just wants to stop feeling anything for Frank, because it’s weird, and that’s not how you treat your enemy.

Gerard knows enough about superheroes and secret agents and all that other geeky shit to know how you treat an enemy. The way you treat your enemy is by dangling them over a long series of blades and slowly lowering them. Doesn’t have to be a spikey death trap. Could be alligators or piranhas. The point is that you tie them up and then try to bring upon their ultimate doom, but they end up surviving anyway. Unless they’re a minion in a Bond film or a Red Shirt, then they’re as good as dead already.

“Gerard!” Frank says, tapping his foot, and Gerard pulls his eye away, because it’s kind of creepy how he’s just staring at Frank. Gerard then decides he can’t stay there forever, so he pulls the door open and lets himself stare awkwardly at Frank.

“So...” Gerard says, “Been a while.”

“Yeah, the last time I saw you was when you were naked, and then you left me the next morning and haven’t talked to me since.”

“Well it sounds kind of bad when you put it like that,” Gerard replies.

“So this is where you live,” Frank says, looking around and Gerard just knows he can smell the neighbors dirty socks from in the hallway. They’re really bad. Gerard doesn’t do laundry enough and he knows that, but that sock smell is insane. They’re going to grow life with that smell, but that is definitely not a good thing.

“Yep,” Gerard says, waiting for an insult on the building. The building would deserve it, but Gerard doesn’t want to hear it anyway.

“It’s uh, well,” Frank says.

“Shitty,” Gerard finishes for him.

“Your words, not mine,” Frank sighs.

“So, what do you want then?” Gerard asks, and that’s all he has time to say before Frank’s pressing him against his door and kissing him. By now you’d think Gerard might find this a regular occurrence or at least be a little less surprised every time that it happens, but there’s really no getting used to it when a guy starts making out with you periodically. Especially when you’re not actually dating him, and you’ve known him for most of your life and he’s kind of your arch nemesis, but you also have a crush on him. It’s just a weird thing to happen in general.

“Oh, okay,” Gerard says.

“Can we just, like, one more time maybe?” Frank asks, and Gerard’s pretty much forgotten what other words there are in the English language other than ‘fuck yeah we can do it again.’

He ends up completely forgetting anything that isn’t those exact words though so when Gerard hears Frank he says, very breathily and without much eloquence, “fuck yeah we can do it again.”

And that’s how Gerard ends up making what some would call a very huge mistake, and others would call a really massive mistake. Gerard’s not good at the whole thinking thing right now though, he’s got a hand down his pants and he’s pretty sure that his neighbor across the hall is peeping out to see what shenanigans he’s up to today, but Gerard doesn’t care. He just doesn’t.

One more time won’t hurt anyone, and Frank came all the way over here. It would be rude not to. Well, Gerard’s whole goal in life is to be rude to Frank, but he’s just not going to be able to pull himself off of Frank when Frank’s doing this thing with his tongue.

So Gerard’s just thinking ‘fuck it’ and he tells himself that he’s going to go with it. He’ll regret this tomorrow, but it’s not tomorrow. It’s today, and this is what Gerard wants today at this very moment. So yeah, fuck it. Fuck rules, fuck social conventions, fuck their history, fuck Gerard’s strange feelings for Frank, fuck everything, but mostly fuck Frank. Literally.