The Chasing of Moons

“Hey Gerard,” Frank says, making Gerard jump as he sits down next to him. They’re conveniently the only two to have sat down by the tree at lunch so far, and Frank may have planned that accordingly. He may or may not have stolen Pete’s lunch so that he would look for it for ten minutes. This is what happens when you give away your locker combination so freely.

“Yes, Frank, what do you want now?”

“I think we’ve established that I don’t want anything from you,” Frank says, “I’m just sitting here. I have to eat lunch too.”

“Yeah, but you could sit anywhere else. Any of the hundreds of places that don’t happen to be near me. Like over there, or in a volcano, or literally anywhere else.”

“Yeah, but I want to sit here.”

“Fine,” Gerard says, stabbing his juice box with a straw and making it spill over his hand. Frank would like to comment on the fact that he has a juice box in the first place, but he decides against it. There’s no reason for why he needs to make fun of Gerard drinking from a juice box, he’s actually a little bit jealous.

“So, I just wanted to, like, apologize.”

“Fuck. Again? That’s the twenty third time you’ve apologized to me.”

“You’ve been keeping track?” Frank asks.

“Yes! And if I’d made it into a drinking game, I’d have needed my stomach pumped two days ago.”

“Well, like, sorry again then. Okay, I just like, I think I should keep saying it until you understand that I mean it.”

“You apologizing does not mean I am obligated to accept it.”

“I know, but like, I am sorry anyway.” Gerard mimes taking a shot, and Frank refrains from rolling his eyes. “Well, listen, I don’t want to keep trying to defend my actions over the past years, so I’m just going to say sorry and be done with that. I fucked up and I know I did, and I’m sorry, you have every right to be mad, but I sincerely apologize.”

“So fucking hammered that I can’t remember who the president is,” Gerard says.

“Yeah I did say it a lot in that sentence didn’t I. Sorry. Shit!”

Gerard snorts, but then pretends he didn’t and he looks past Frank’s shoulder at the flag pole by the front doors.

“For what it’s worth,” he says, “thank you for not trying to make an excuse.”

Frank smiles, and makes a mental note to thank Mikey, because his first piece of advice has given him the most polite reaction he’s gotten out of Gerard yet.

Not a minute later, a disgruntled looking Pete plops down on the patch of grass next to Frank with Brendon not far behind him.

“So I lost my lunch,” Pete says dramatically. His flailing arms and melodramatic voice would not be ill-suited for a Shakespearean drama.

“No you didn’t,” Frank shrugs, “I stole it.”

Frank grabs the paper bag that he’d grabbed from Pete’s locker and throws it at him, which makes Pete grumble to himself and flip Frank off.

“What did you do that for?”

“The other day when we were over at your house, your mom had made brownies, wanted to see if you had any left,” Frank shrugs, which isn’t entirely a lie.

“Well the joke’s on you then,” Pete says, “because I am a bottomless pit when it comes to baked goods.”

“I know,” Frank growls, “but I am just too full of hope.”

“Your mom does make good brownies,” Brendon says, looking off as if he’s daydreaming. Pete stares at him with a confounded expression on his face before hitting him over the head. “Ow. What’d I say?”

“Nothing, you just look stupid.”

“What else is new?” Frank responds, watching as Mikey walks over and sits down, conveniently in the spot next to Pete, but Frank doesn’t say anything about it. Not his business, but he is going to spy on those two like a motherfucker.

Mikey says a quick hello to Frank, and completely ignores both Brendon and Gerard as he starts talking to Pete. Frank would swear that he and Gerard have this moment of eye contact where they read each other’s minds because he can literally almost hear the rolling of Gerard’s eyes as he looks away and smiles to himself sheepishly. It’s literally so obvious that they might as well hire a man with a bullhorn to announce it to the entire student population that Pete has a gigantic crush on Gerard Way’s younger brother.

“And now I suddenly feel like a fifth wheel,” Brendon says, “What a shame.”

“How can you be a fifth wheel when Gerard ignores me?” Frank asks him.

“Because you spend the entire time trying to talk to him. I don’t see what friendship you’re trying to create that requires you to be ignored the entire time, but it’s your life. I’m just going to sit here and throw breadcrumbs at the football team,” Brendon says, spying a group of guys in Letterman jackets who are sitting not too far from them.

“You have fun with that,” Frank says, sighing, and barely even noticing when the last of their small group, Ray, sits down. Frank’s definitely noticed the complete irony that Gerard thinks he’s popular when they literally have the same number of friends. Frank only ever talks to Brendon and Pete, he literally has almost no other friends. He’s got acquaintances, people he gets along with, that is most people, really, but he doesn’t have any actual friends other than the two guys whose lives revolve around insulting each other as much as it is physically possible. If Frank had a nickel for every time Brendon or Pete threatened to push him off of a building he would at least have enough to buy himself a Venti from Starbucks.

“Does anyone have any carrots?” Brendon asks, “I don’t think the breadcrumbs are even big enough for them to notice.”

“I can offer you a raisin,” Ray says.

“Ha, Raysin,” Frank says to himself, simultaneously disappointed and proud of his bad joke.

“You really are seven years old,” Brendon says, shaking his head as he takes the small carton of raisins and begins throwing them at the guys behind them, which is kind of a redundant thing to say to someone when you’re throwing food at people.

“Okay, so which one of us is throwing dried fruit at jocks?” Frank asks.

“Yeah, but to be fair, what’s a better use of raisins,” Gerard says, “Raisins are Satan’s work.”

“Preach it,” Frank agrees.

“I happen to enjoy raisins,” Pete mumbles.

“You are a minion of Satan and must be destroyed in the fires of Mount Doom,” Frank says.

“That’s the weirdest threat I’ve ever heard.”

Gerard nods, “Okay, but it’s a fair enough threat given what you said.”

“All I said is that I like raisins!” Pete groans.

“Don’t listen to them Pete, there’s nothing wrong with raisins,” Mikey says. That figures. They’re laying it on pretty thick if you ask him.

“Anyway,” Ray says, shaking his head at the stupid conversation, though it’s not like it’s as bad as that one about sheep the other day. And the debate over which Hogwarts house Pete would be in. And that other debate on who would be the best poker player in the world of Narnia. And that other conversation about who would win in a fight to the death, Gizmo the Gremlin or Stitch.

Pete’s very bad at trying to change the topic of conversation, that much has been established already, but he’s really making sure that everyone knows it for sure. “Anyone doing anything this weekend?”

“I’m playing the Sims for twelve straight hours and regretting my life choices,” Brendon says.

“Dandy,” Gerard nods, looking at him oddly.

“What are you doing then?” Frank asks, hoping for something he can maybe use.

“I wouldn’t tell you,” Gerard says.

“Wouldn’t?”

“What?”

“Well you said ‘wouldn’t,’” Frank replies, “which implies that you’re not doing anything, because you wouldn’t be saying ‘wouldn’t’ if you were doing something because it sort of entails that you’re not doing anything, hence ‘I wouldn’t tell you’ and it’s easy to figure out that what that extends to mean is that ‘I wouldn’t tell you, if I were doing something.’ So, you’re not doing something.”

“Okay, by a show of hands, who here is completely lost,” Pete says, raising his own arm. Mikey looks at him like he’s the only small teddy bear left in the store, which is to say that Frank needs a barf bag.

“Okay my point is that Gerard’s not doing anything this weekend, and you know who else isn’t doing anything? Me,” Frank says.

“Uh, that’s great. I don’t see any reason for why those two statements need to be stated together, but if you say so,” Gerard says, looking down at the grass below him like it’s all he cares about.

“You know Gerard, you don’t have to do nothing, you could hang out with Frank,” Mikey suggests, as casually as he can.

“The only hanging out with Frank I would like to do is if he was hanging upside down from a tree branch over a cliff.”

“I take it back, that’s the weirdest threat I’ve ever heard,” Pete says.

“You don’t have to be such a dick, Gerard,” Mikey sighs.

“Actually I do, I’m contractually obligated to be a dick to anyone really. I’m just an awful awful person who no one in their right mind would ever want to interact with ever, so if I were someone, say someone who was trying to get on my good side, I would give it up now so that I wouldn’t have to deal with how much of a bitch I am.”

“I like a challenge,” Frank says.

“I’m not your Everest, you don’t want to try to get to me,” Gerard says, “I don’t see why you can’t give up the ghost now.”

“That’s a dumb expression, isn’t it? ‘Give up the ghost’?” Pete says. “Like what does the ghost have to do with anything? What’s Casper been up to, like is he playing scrabble and you’re giving up because he has superior knowledge of vocabulary over you, or what?”

Brendon stares at Pete imploringly, and says, in the most resigned voice imaginable, “You’re such an idiot.”

“My point is that I don’t want to hang out with Frank, it has nothing to do with Scrabble,” Gerard says, confusedly.

“Okay, but may I suggest this, how about we play scrabble?” Frank asks.

“How about you stop bothering me?”

“How about I keep trying until you soften up a little bit?”

“How about you understand that that’s never going to happen?” Gerard asks.

“How about you two stop bickering like an old married couple,” Ray says, and Frank turns the color of a strawberry, while Gerard suddenly becomes extremely interested in his fingernails.

“Well that shut them up, I commend you,” Brendon says, giving him a thumbs up and biting into his sandwich.

“I was just, like, never mind,” Frank mutters. He sighs. This has all got to work out somehow, doesn’t it? It’s not like he doesn’t get together with Gerard in the end. If the other Frank could do it, he should be able to as well, right? Why is it so hard? Why is it impossible to say the right thing to Gerard? All he wants is to get on his good side. Just a little bit. That’s all he wants.

“Doesn’t matter anyway,” Gerard whispers, barely loud enough for him to hear. “You wouldn’t want to be my friend even if I didn’t hate you.”

“Hate is a big word,” Mikey notes.

“No, enormous is a big word,” Pete says, “And so is gigantic. Huge. Colossal. Massive.”

“You need to shut up,” Brendon warns him.

“I’m trying to be helpful!”

“We don’t need you to read out the thesaurus page for big, Pete.”

“I’m sorry,” Pete frowns.

“And if we did, surely the first synonym for big would be the size of Brendon’s ego,” Frank adds.

“Yeah, or the size of Brendon’s forehead.”

“I hate you so much it amounts to the size of Brendon’s forehead,” Pete says, testing it out like it’s a new saying. “Yeah, I like it. Has a certain ring to it.”

“Someday I’ll be like Van Gogh. I’m just not respected in my own time, that’s all,” Brendon says.

“Yeah, shut up forehead,” Pete says.

“Someday, I am going to be rich and famous and I’ll give you nothing, Pete, nothing but a middle finger and a scoff.”

“Right, so I’m assuming the riches will be earned when you join the circus to show off your ridiculously huge forehead,” Pete asks.

“Do you see what I have to deal with?” Brendon says, to no one in particular, possibly Jesus.

Frank just smirks and he sets his eyes on Gerard, who was apparently staring at him, because he turns away the instant that they make eye contact. Frank considers that to be a good thing. Maybe future Gerard wasn’t lying about him having a crush on him, it may seem that way sometimes, but at the same time, it also seems like Gerard really is just bitter over the whole ignoring thing. Whatever the case, Frank is not going to give up without a fight, not until hell freezes over.