The Chasing of Moons

“Okay, so you ever wonder who in our grade has a crush on you?” Frank asks.

“No, because I know that the answer is everyone,” Brendon replies.

“And you wonder why I tell you that you have an ego the size of Mount Everest.”

“Is it really an ego though, if it’s completely true?” Brendon asks.

“Yes,” Pete nods.

“The answer is still everybody though, okay. I mean look at me, I’m gorgeous,” Brendon says, and surely, if he had hair long enough, he would do a hair flip of some variety to help prove his point.

“You just keep telling yourself that.”

“My point is that, if you did happen to know with certainty that someone has a crush on you, would you tell them that you know?” Frank asks.

“What? Absolutely not!” Pete says, his mouth open widely like the mere thought of it astounds him. “Who is it that you think has a crush on you? Is she pretty?”

“I... why should I tell you, and yes, she is extraordinarily pretty,” Frank says.

“Well I don’t see why you need to tell her that you know she has a crush on you, when you could just as easily ask her out, and save yourself on the awkward. You need to find a prom date, Frank, you’ve only got a month and a half left.”

“What? No, I’ve got two months left.”

“No, you have a month and a half, because you’ve gotta ask them at least two weeks before,” Pete says, “and you gotta make a big grand gesture of it too, buy a cake, get a skywriter, hire a pony, blow up some balloons, write a song, book a rocket to take you to outer space, and most importantly, find some backup dancers.”

“Or I could just ask,” Frank offers.

“Nope, big gesture. Chicks dig grand gestures.”

Frank shakes his head, “Well it’s not really that easy anyway. I can’t tell you what makes it so difficult, it just is. If you knew who it was that had a crush on me you’d understand how complicated it was.”

“Why? Is it a teacher?” Pete asks, with this face like he’s hearing the latest celebrity gossip.

“No!” Frank says quickly.

“Good. Oh, are they dating someone else?” Pete asks.

“Not that I know of,” Frank replies, but then curses to himself because that would have been a good excuse.

He’s known that Gerard has had a crush on him for all of two days and he hasn’t been able to do anything about making him own up to it. The first day after reading the letter and he’d cozied up to Gerard about as well as he could, but failed to get anything out of him. He barely even talked to Frank at all. He sat with them at lunch again, and still nothing. Yesterday was about as fruitful as the day before it. Frank got him to smile during class for a few seconds before it turned into that blank face he tries to maintain whenever he’s talking to Frank. Gerard is a stubborn guy, Frank will give him that much.

At least he knows now why he’s so reluctant to admit to anything though. Gee’s letter made it pretty clear that Gerard really is just angry about that whole speech thing and ignoring him, and he feels kind of extremely awful about it. He wants to take that back and have a history where he was best friends with Gerard, but he can’t do that. Time isn’t that kind, and this whole wacky business won’t allow him the chance to go back in time to change things either.

Now it’s Friday morning, and Frank hasn’t seen Gerard yet, because they’re standing in front of the school, waiting for the doors to open, but Gerard is nowhere in sight. If Frank has made any progress though it’s that he’s gotten closer to Mikey which is a good thing. Pete sure has too.

Frank can’t even believe he didn’t notice it before, but wow, yeah, Pete really is flirting with Mikey. Gerard was completely right when he said that in class, and if it weren’t for that letter, Frank would never have noticed it. But he’s like completely tripping over himself whenever he talks to Mikey, which is weird, because seriously, Mikey’s two grades younger than him, and a gigantic fucking dork, and he’s basically just a more sarcastic, less rude version of Gerard with a minor obsession with Billy Corgan. And if you consider how sarcastic Gerard is then the fact that Mikey is even more so is astounding beyond words.

But the fact that Pete’s so transparently obvious about his flirting with Mikey makes Frank wonder how obvious his own interactions with Gerard are. Then again he’s come to the conclusion that everyone around him has straight goggles which just means that everyone’s brain is so completely wired to assuming the state of widespread heteronormativity that they are incapable of comprehending when someone’s blatantly bent as fuck.

Besides, Gee’s letter said that he thought Frank was playing some sort of joke on him, so that’s probably why he hasn’t caught on to it yet. The worrying thing is the fact that someone might catch onto him, and he’ll be found out. Frank is petrified that it’s going to be the latest school gossip, because if he’s going to be the gay guy, he wants it to be on his own terms. He wants to come out, not be outed. There’s a huge difference.

The bell rings, and Frank looks up to see Pete and Brendon are still talking and he must’ve tuned out, because he doesn’t know how the topic steered around to The Ghostbusters, but evidently it has.

Frank neglects to participate, and he manages to slip away from them when they turn one way and he goes the other. He has always rather hated the fact that his locker is literally in the middle of nowhere when the other two have lockers across from each other. But sometimes it’s kind of liberating to not have to hear them have lengthy discussions about the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man.

“Hey Frank,” someone says behind him and he’s caught off guard when he turns to see Mikey walking over to him, alone, no Gerard in sight.

“Yes?”

“We need to talk.”

“Oh that’s never a good thing to hear,” Frank replies, walking just the slightest bit faster in an attempt to get rid of him.

“Yeah, it’s about Gerard.”

“What about him?” Frank asks hesitantly, but it’s almost like he can read Mikey’s mind with what he knows is coming.

“You like him.”

“Shhhhhh,” Frank hisses at him, looking around even though the hall way is so full of people talking that the chances of anyone overhearing them are slim to none. He’s still overly wary and looks over his shoulder three times before looking back at Mikey.

“Oh, grow up,” Mikey says, brushing off his behavior.

“How did you even fucking know that? What is it with you Way’s do you have built in gaydars?”

“Yes,” Mikey says, completely serious. Frank doesn’t like the fact that he’s nearly five inches taller than him, that’s something that bothers him a lot. He’s used to people being taller than him, of course he is, but it’s the fact that Mikey's also marginally younger than him that makes it the most annoying.

“Could you maybe not say it out loud then?” Frank asks, because seriously, this is the third time a Way has decided someone was gay. First it was Gee who was, yes, Gerard, but it was still weird that he knew Frank was gay, and then it was Gerard with Pete which is evidently true, and now Mikey’s figured him out. It could be worse though, Frank’s not sure what it is about Mikey but he seems rather trustworthy. The kind of guy you could trust with the location of buried treasure. Or at least the kind of guy you can trust to ask if you’ve got something in your teeth.

“Please, I’m not out buying advertising space to broadcast it, I just wanted you to know that I know.”

“And what’s the purpose of telling me that you know?” Frank asks.

“Just thought I could help, because you’re not getting very far, are you?” Mikey says.

“You cannot be serious. You want to give me tips on how to...” Frank looks around and then whispers, “woo your brother.”

“Absolutely not. Woo is a dumb word.”

“Okay yeah, but saying ‘seduce’ sounds much more serious, doesn’t it? It sounds more like a porno than it does anything else.”

“You just watch too much porn,” Mikey responds.

“Or maybe you don’t watch enough. What am I saying, you’re seven years old.”

“I am not!” Mikey replies.

“You could’ve fooled me.”

“Do you really want to mess with me, I know you’re secret,” Mikey warns him.

“What? No! Fuck, I was kidding! Jeez, please do not-”

“You have no idea how to take a joke do you?”

“What? Yes, I do, but jokes are meant to be funny, that was not funny. Please, just don’t tell, okay? And also, like, what tips do you have for me?” Frank asks, voice full of trepidation.

“I won’t say, of course I’m not going to, that’s your secret to tell, I don’t have the right to it. But as far as winning over Gerard goes, first of all, you need to stop trying to defend yourself. Like, that’s not going to get you anywhere. You ignored him for a bunch of years, don’t try to justify it. Everyone always tries to justify those things, don’t do that. You will get farther if you just honestly say you fucked up, and you’re sorry. That’s way cleaner, it sounds better and it’ll get you a hell of a lot further,” Mikey says.

“Right,” Frank says, nodding. He’s not sure he agrees with that, because he really does think that a lot of Gerard’s hate is unwarranted, but Mikey knows him way better than Frank does. He really should listen to him.

“Okay, next, conveniently, his birthday is in just a few weeks.”

“Wait, seriously?” Frank asks.

“Yes,” Mikey says, “and I was going to get him tickets to this one concert, but it looks like you need to get on his good side more than I do. Take him to the concert then, okay?”

“Wait, you’re being serious?” Frank asks, “Like really? ‘Cause this is a huge scoop for me, I might get him to stop wanting to tear my head off if you let me actually do this.”

“Why on earth would I say it and not be serious? Like, yes, take him to the concert, his birthday is the ninth, he will love you and I can promise you that, okay?” Mikey says.

“You are the best person ever.”

“I know,” Mikey says, “give me your phone, I’ll text you the details and everything, okay?”

“Right, yeah,” Frank says, stopping when they reach his locker. He grabs his phone from his pocket and hands it to Mikey. While he’s busy messing with it, Frank gets his locker open and grabs his books. Mikey hands it back a moment later, and then nods.

“My other tips include talking about Star Wars as much as possible, he’s in love with Morrissey, do with that information what you will, he’s ticklish under the chin, I know that because he used to sit on me when we were kids and that was how I got him off, and also, coffee is the key to his heart.”

“Wow,” Frank says, getting a feeling in his stomach like someone just gave him a cheat sheet for a huge test. “Okay, but the last one is true of everybody, isn’t it?”

“I suppose so, but it’s still a good thing to know.”

“Thank you very much, man. I appreciate it. But once again, if you tell anyone of this conversation or about my... well, I will rip your tongue out and feed it to you.”

“What a kind thing to say to someone who’s trying to help you,” Mikey notes.

“I’m just making sure we’re on the same level, okay?” Frank asks, “But I do really appreciate you helping me out.”

“No problem. The only way he’s not going to end up an eternal bachelor is if I meddle with every single aspect of his life anyway, and you seem okay, so I might as well.”

“That makes me feel well special. And do you need tips on Pete then?” Frank asks. “Wait fuck.”

“What?”

“What?” Frank asks, hoping if he repeats it he’ll be able to wipe Mikey’s mind of what he just said.

“What about Pete?”

“Nothing about Pete. Who’s Pete? I have no idea to what you’re referring to.”

“No, you just said-”

“I have to go to class!” Frank shouts, and he’s running off with nothing more than that.