The Chasing of Moons

There is actually a part of him, a very small part of Frank, that feels kind of guilty about sitting in the tower part of the jungle gym, but the rest of him doesn’t give that much of a shit. He knows it’s a Saturday and that there are kids who want to be where he and the other two are, but he doesn’t care enough to move. He likes it where he is, and he’s going to stay here until someone forces him away.

“Do you think we’re going to get yelled at by soccer moms who think we’re being punks?” Brendon asks.

“They’ll probably discourage of Pete the most, he’s the one who looks like trouble,” Frank says, because Pete, is in fact terrifying, but it’s not his personality it’s mostly his face. Or at least that’s the way Frank sees things.

“We could just push him off,” Brendon says, and Pete makes a spitting sound so presumably he just spit at Brendon. Frank watches his feet dangling off the edge, looking at his shoes and noticing all the scoffs on the sides and the dirt scattered across them. He looks down at the woodchips below, and then back up where he watches two siblings trying to swing higher than the other on the other side of the park.

“I don’t see why you’re ganging up on me, I’m perfect,” Pete sighs.

“Perfectly idiotic.”

“You’re a dick.”

“No, you’re a dick,” Brendon says.

“Shut up, you two. You’re both dicks.”

“Fair enough,” Brendon says, and Frank looks over at him for a moment before he looks up, squinting at the sun that’s directly in his eye. It’s still only march so the air is still cool, and the snow has all washed away with the rain, but the overcast weather hasn’t made the days get any warmer. Today is the first day since last week where the sun has had the nerve to rear its head up above the clouds, and Frank’s honestly kind of missing the rain. It’s too bright and happy while he’s feeling all melancholic and gloomy.

“What’s got you so blue?” Pete asks, nudging Frank with his elbow.

“What? Nothing. I’m just kind of down, I guess,” Frank confesses.

“Ugh, is it about that guy at the bar again?” Pete asks.

“I mean, I guess it is.”

“Is it about that chick you met?” Brendon questions.

“More so, yeah. More about that then the guy...”

“And then Gerard too,” Pete adds. Frank wishes he could admit that it’s all the same thing. All of the problems are the same problem. Gerard not liking him or giving him the time of day is directly related to the ‘chick’ at the bar who is actually the guy at the bar.

“Dude, you gotta let that one go, she was married,” Brendon says.

Frank sighs, messing with his fingers and frowning at the dirt under his fingernails, “I know, it’s, you wouldn’t understand. Even if you would, I can’t tell you.”

“Why not?”

“You wouldn’t get it,” Frank replies.

“You’re not giving us a lot of faith, are you,” Pete says, “Like, dude, we’re here for you.”

Frank shrugs and looks at Pete, remembering that he’s probably going through a very similar situation as he is. Pete definitely doesn’t have to try to figure out all this stupid time travelling stuff, but he’s at least got something he’s hiding if Gerard’s note about him and Mikey was true. Then there’s Brendon who probably couldn’t give less of a shit about anyone’s sexuality as long as they accept that he looks good without a shirt. To be fair, he doesn’t look bad without a shirt.

“What if you don’t want to hear what it is I have to say?” Frank asks.

“Then we’ll push you off the jungle gym,” Pete says, and looks over at Brendon who nods. “Yeah, if you’re not exciting enough then we’ll push you off the thing.”

“Why is that supposed to make me feel any better?” Frank asks.

“Because you know that we’re here for you with whatever, bro,” Brendon says, “unless, you’re like, an arsonist or a murderer or something, then I think I have permission to maybe not wanna hang with you.”

“Right! So as long as you’re not into fire or homicide, we’re here for you,” Pete says. “Or if you try to tell us you’re a Brony.”

“Ew, yeah, agreed. If you’re a Brony we can’t be friends anymore. I mean, I’ll come visit you in prison if you’re into murdering people, that’s fine, but like, nope, I can’t accept the other thing, I don’t even want to say the word because I might puke in my mouth if I do.”

“Wow, okay so none of the above,” Frank says.

Pete makes a ‘phew’ sound and acts out wiping his brow of sweat, “dodged a bullet there, didn’t we?”

“You guys are weirdos,” Frank says, doing his best to stable his heartbeat. He looks around him, and right now, they’re the only two people at the park aside from the kids on the swings and their mom, who’s out of earshot to hear them anyway.

Frank considers for an extremely long moment, feeling the sun beating down on his head like an oven, and he feels his skin get all prickly with fear at the thought of it, but he thinks that now would be a good time. Now would be a great time to just say it. To just come out with it and, well... come out.

But every time that Frank tries, his body stops him in some way or another. Either his voice just up and leaves him, or his throat closes up, or his sweat glands overact, or he’s got to puke, or something else disastrous. Right now, he feels his hand shaking, shaking like he can’t keep it still even when he puts it between his thighs to calm himself down, it’s still shaking, making him feel like he’s in the middle of an earthquake.

He doesn’t have to say all of it, he can just say a quick ‘I’m gay’ and be done with the whole thing. He doesn’t have to be the crazy homosexual who believes his future husband traveled back in time to sleep with him. He can just leave that part out. That doesn’t need to ever be spoken to anyone ever. Well, Gerard at some point, because otherwise there’s no way for him to go back in time to do the thing.

Why does this have to be such a big deal? Why does he have to even announce it, why does the world have to just assume he’s straight? Why is that fair? Why can’t he just be Frank? He doesn’t want to be gay or the guy who isn’t straight, he just wants to be someone who likes boys and doesn’t have to deal with the abnormality of that. Loads of people like boys, girls are allowed to, everyone assumes they all do, why is it so weird that Frank does too? Why can’t it just be seen as normal? Frank doesn’t understand or like the incongruity of it all, he just wants to have a fucking boyfriend and be done with it. He wants to just ask Gerard Way the fuck out and buy him a mountain of candy or popcorn or whatever he wants in the world.

Frank thinks he’d be a good boyfriend. He can see himself, picture how great he’d treat whoever he’s dating. That whoever used to be a faceless body, but now it’s Gerard. He’d be such a fantastic boyfriend to Gerard. He would watch any movie in the world with him, buy him dinner, win him stuffed animals in claw machines or at fairs, beat the shit out of him in Mario Kart and then make up for it by giving him the best sex ever, he’d do it all. He would be the perfect boyfriend. He would buy Gerard anything, and hold his hand everywhere, and tell him he looks cute when they wake up, and he would bake for him, and write him post it notes to tell him how much he loves him, and he would seriously dominate him at every game they ever play, even if it’s fucking Uno, and he wouldn’t apologize for it. He would just be everything Gerard needs from him, in any fashion that he can.

Frank wants that so bad, but if he can’t even admit to his two best friends that he’s gay, then he can’t have any of it. If he doesn’t have the nerve to tell people he knows will understand, than how could he ever expect to be with Gerard? If he’s that chicken, then he doesn’t even deserve Gerard.

“I’ve gotta say this guys, and I need you to understand how hard this is for me,” Frank says, in a croak, and he eyes all the space around them to make sure no one else overhears.

“Okay, shoot, Frank. What is it?”

“It’s just...” Frank drifts off, feeling someone choking him, there’s hands around his neck, but when he brings his hands up to feel for them, the hands aren’t there. He’s only imagining it. “I’ve been lying to you.”

“About what?”

“Th-the girl,” Frank says, “that I slept with.”

“You didn’t sleep with someone last weekend?” Pete asks incredulously, and Frank doesn’t dare look at him, for fear of what expression he will find there if he does.

“No, I did,” he says. He doesn’t know why his eyes are burning. It’s like they’re trying to cry, but he can’t form actual tears and he doesn’t want to cry anyway. It’s his whole face in only a matter of seconds, not just his eyes, everything feels like it’s on fire and burning to ashes.

“Okay?” Brendon offers a confused expression.

“I...” Frank takes a deep breath and says, “Here I go, man, ugh, I did sleep with someone on Thursday, and they were married, and I did really like them. Problem was that they weren’t, a, uh, girl.” Frank’s voice gets progressively higher as his sentence goes on to the point where the last few words may have only been accessible to a dogs ears.

“Wait,” Pete says, but Frank interrupts him.

“Guys, I’m gay.”

“Well thank fuck,” Pete says, “I was really worried you were going to tell us what your favorite pony was.”

“Or that he thinks that Antz is better than A Bugs Life,” Brendon says.

“Okay, dude, we’ve been over this before. Antz is far superior to A Bugs Life,” Pete says.

“No it’s not! It’s stupid, it’s not even good, the animation in A Bugs Life is better and Antz has a stupid plot.”

“Okay, seriously, you’re just biased, because you like Pixar better.”

“Pixar is better,” Brendon responds.

“Nuh-uh! You’ve seen How to Train Your Dragon, how can you say that Pixar is better?”

“Pixar has Finding Nemo, dude.”

“DreamWorks has Shrek.”

“DreamWorks has The Bee Movie,” Brendon counteracts.

“Pixar has Cars 2,” Pete says, and Frank honestly looks from one of them to the other, not entirely sure what just happened. He’s pretty sure he just came out, but they’re having a debate about movie studios and films about bugs, so, it’s completely possible that he’s dreaming.

“Did you two miss entirely what I just said?”

“What? No, it’s just that, Frank, it’s really important that Pete knows how much better A Bugs Life is,” Brendon says.

“You’re delusional,” Pete shakes his head, “you’re just a complete idiot, you can’t even consider the fact that maybe Antz is better than A Bugs Life.”

“It’s not!”

“Oh my god, it takes me two years to come out to you guys and you can’t even stop fighting about fucking bugs to even acknowledge it!” Frank asks, bewildered.

“Hey, Frank, dude, we don’t care what you’re into, you’re still Frank. It’s not a big deal who you like. Don’t get me wrong, it’s not like it’s unimportant, but the fact of the matter is that being into dudes doesn’t deserve some big gasp or anything, it’s just a thing that’s true about you, and it doesn’t change your personality at all,” Brendon says, “so, really, what is a big deal is that Pete is an idiot.”

“Ugh, dick,” Pete shakes his head, “but while we’re at it, I’m bi, and DreamWorks is better.”

“I’m bendy as fuck, and Pixar is better,” Brendon says.

“It really isn’t,” Pete shakes his head. Frank just sighs and rolls his eyes. Honestly, he was kind of expecting this sort of reaction out of them, though he thought that maybe he would get at least one shocked face. He’s not sure that that’s a letdown though, because it doesn’t feel like anything’s changed. That’s the way he wants it to be. He wants everything to just stay the same. He wants everything to be the way it was fifteen minutes ago, and it kind of does feel like that.

Frank hadn’t noticed it fade, but everything seems to be back to normal. His heart rate is steady, his hands aren’t clammy, his face feels regular, if a tad bit hot, but nothing is clenching in his gut the way it was before. It’s like he’s lifted some huge weight from his shoulders. He can feel himself breathing properly for the first time in ages, and for a minute, it’s kind of nice to hear them bickering about movies. It’s like nothing has changed. He’s still Frank. He’s the same Frank, just a little freer. Pete’s still the same Pete, just a little freer. Brendon’s still the same Brendon just a little Brendonier.

Frank knows that he is now going to have to face them teasing him about Gerard, because once he says it out loud, it’s kind of so obvious it hurts, but he’s content for now to just listen to them fighting. They are going to see through that though. He’s crazy for Gerard, and that might also help them put together the pieces as to why he’s so stuck on the doppelgänger in the bar. Maybe he and Pete can exchange tips about the opposite Way’s though, or dubiously talk up to them about each other, but for now, everything is the way it was, and Frank grins to himself a little bit.

And suddenly, the sun beating down on him isn’t as annoying as it was five minutes ago.