The Chasing of Moons

Monday mornings are awful. The only thing on this planet that is worse than a Monday morning is when your mother starts using your middle name. That’s it. That’s the only thing. Looking into the eyes of the grim reaper himself isn’t as bad as a Monday morning.

This Monday isn’t as bad as last Monday however. Last Monday was the day after Gee had left Frank. It was the day he made an idiot of himself in front of Gerard. It was the worst thing he has ever had to endure in his entire life. And Frank once sat through the first Twilight movie with his kind-of-girlfriend-but-not-really.

Mainly he’s trying not to fall asleep as he looks down at his cereal bowl, eyeing his mother as she busies herself doing the dishes that Frank was supposed to do last night. Sunday’s are depressing too, because most of the day is spent dreading the day to follow. Frank doesn’t understand how half of life is spent waiting for one day of the week, Saturday, and the rest of life is spent dreading the fact that that day is over.

All he can do is just sit, and look at the dry cereal in the bowl in front of him because milk makes him sick and he honestly would like to just go back to bed and sleep in until Christmas or his wedding day or that concert that he’s taking Gerard to. Honestly, he’s never heard of the band before but if Gerard likes them, the guy who’s favorite bands are The Smashing Pumpkins and Iron Maiden, then surely they can’t be that bad. Though when you google them the first image you get is of a supermarket in a suburb of Atlanta.

As promised, Brendon did not hang out with him or Pete yesterday because he spent 12 hours playing the Sims and regretting his life choices. But on the plus side Bart SIMpson now has a huge family and a thriving career in rocket science. Instead Frank spent a very long amount of time trying to explain exponential decay to Pete who evidently was not paying attention in math class literally almost five years ago when they learned it. Frank considers himself a procrastinator. If he’s a procrastinator then there isn’t a word for whatever the hell Pete is. Pete’s not very good at homework. Or schoolwork. Or work in general. What he is good at is making poop jokes. He still lives in the mind of a child.

He never really got around to asking Pete about Mikey though. Maybe he will later today, but he does really have to say something about it, because Pete could be a great tool to get to Gerard. Gerard doesn’t hate Pete as much as he seems to hate Frank. Frank supposes that that’s because he’s had a crush on Frank who’s ignored him for several years, so if it weren’t for the fact that he also had a crush on Frank the whole time, Gerard probably wouldn’t hate him so much.

He needs to use Pete in any way that he can. And possibly Mikey too. And if he has to, in return for their help in getting him to be with Gerard, he will get them together. He’s probably going to be gagging a lot for the rest of his life, but whatever. That would make Pete his brother in law or something. Kind of. Not really. Frank’s not sure how those things work. He just knows that Pete would be a weirdass person to have to see on holidays. Good god, think of the crazy little adopted children they would have. If Pete has a child the first word his kid would learn would be pizza. But to be fair if Frank has a kid their first word will be coffee.

Frank’s really trying not to focus on his existential fear that this is all fake and that he’s chasing after something that’s not real. He’s completely terrified of the fact that maybe he won’t end up with Gerard or maybe he’ll mess everything up. He just wants it so much. He wants to be with Gerard, he wants to be married to Gee and get to know the guy that sat on the roof with him on Thursday night. He wants to get to wake up next to that guy, and know that it’s Gerard and he wants to make pancakes that end up getting stuck to the ceiling when they try to flip them. He wants all of that so desperately he can’t bear it.

He knows that he’s too young to be making decisions like that. He’s too young to have decided who he wants to marry and how he’s going to spend holidays. He’s just full of dumb ideas and he can’t figure out why on earth any of this seems so terrifying, he just fucking wants it.

He’s not looking forward to the long distance that they’ll probably be going through for the next four years. It’s only just now occurring to him that they’re probably going to be going to two different sides of the country. His luck is definitely not good enough for them to be going to the same college. Fuck, why is life so hard? Why does he have to go to school, he doesn’t want another four years of this hell, he just wants to eat snacks all day and, like, fuck. A lot. Lots of fucking. So Gerard needs to not have a job either. That’s what he wants. That sounds absolutely amazing.

It’s about five minutes after he should have left when Frank finally decides to leave. The sky is returning to its cerulean blue color after too long of the grey, but it’s still early so the sun isn’t the highest in the sky quite yet.

Monday’s are sweatpants days. Or at least, they are when you’re not trying to impress someone. In that case Mondays are somewhat low hanging shirt days because if you have collarbones to flaunt, then you must flaunt the fuck out of them. Frank’s not actually sure what it is about collarbones that’s so attractive he just knows that there’s literally nothing better than a good collarbone. Or just necks in general. Necks are nice. Frank never knew he would have this much in common with vampires when he grew up.

Frank pulls into the school parking lot, busier than he would like for it to be so he can’t get a nice spot, and he walks to the assembly of people waiting for the doors. He spots Pete and Brendon quickly because he can hear Pete yelling about Brendon concerning something to do with Cyclops being cooler than Wolverine, and he just rolls his eyes. It’s always something with them. Brendon and Pete aren’t getting along unless they’re fighting over something related to pop culture. They got really exceptional grades for the debate unit in public speaking class when they talked about Picard and Kirk. It was really a rather volatile debate, extremely impassioned. One of Brendon’s actual main points was about the reflective qualities of Patrick Stewart’s head.

Frank needs better friends.

He finds them quickly enough and then he is forced to mediate their argument, and what he does to achieve this is tell them that they’re both wrong and Nightcrawler is far superior. He’s not wrong though.

“Oh, who asked you,” Brendon says.

“You did. Literally just now,” Frank tells him.

“Well, fine, but I didn’t like your answer so screw it,” Brendon replies.

“I mean, but like, you seriously think that dumb fucking claws are cooler than fucking laser beam eyes!” Pete asks.

“Dude, he’s got to wear sunglasses or else he blows like everything up, that’s not cool,” Brendon says, “that’s just impractical, I mean, how does he go to the movie theater?”

“You know what’s even cooler though?” Frank asks, “The ability to literally just appear in the movie theater without having to pay because you have a sickass superpower.”

“Yeah, but that’s, like, illegal.”

“Dude, we’re talking about the X-men, being a mutant at all is basically illegal.”

“True,” Brendon nods. “I still say Wolverine beats your guys’ asses.”

“No one cares about your opinion, forehead.”

“No one cares about your face, asshole.”

“Great comeback,” Frank says sarcastically, rolling his eyes.

“Oh shut up,” Brendon says, and he looks away because apparently he needs to look dramatically off in the distance if he doesn’t get his way. “Oh hey look it’s Pete’s boyfriend.”

“My who now?” Pete asks, and Frank already knows who he’s looking for when he spots Mikey and Ray’s heads, but Gerard isn’t in sight.

“Hi Pete,” Mikey says getting to them, and Frank wonders if he even realizes that he has progressively stopped saying hi to everyone who isn’t Pete. First he dropped saying hi to Gerard, and then it was Brendon, now it’s Frank. Soon he’s going to stop even registering their existences. But Pete’s face lights up like someone bought him a new car. Frank curses to himself that he didn’t bring a barf bag with him. It’s kind of sweet a little bit, because Pete looks happy but it’s Pete so it’s kind of gross. Maybe if he hasn’t known Pete since forever it wouldn’t be so weird, but he assumes he’s going to get used to it soon. Hopefully.

Frank’s starting to wonder if Pete’s even aware that he likes Mikey. And vice versa. Both of them seem pretty oblivious when it comes to each other. At least when Frank fawns over Gerard he knows that he’s doing it. And when Brendon looks at himself in the mirror, he’s mostly aware of the fact that he’s in love with himself. Frank’s a little tough on the guy, but Brendon does usually refers to himself as the most attractive person in school.

“What’s up then?” Ray says, because his mind isn’t apparently as narrow as Mikey’s. The two of them have horse blinders, Frank really hopes he’s not that obvious.

Almost as if to prove his whole fear to be true, Frank can’t stop himself from asking, “So where’s Gerard?”

“Dentist appointment,” Mikey says offhandedly, before asking Pete how his weekend was.

“Bart SIMpson had another kid,” Brendon says, “I named him Kevin.”

“Kevin SIMpson? Frank asks.

“No,” Brendon shakes his head, “Just Kevin. Like Beyoncé. Or Prince.”

“Well that’s...” Ray says and then he turns to see if Pete and Mikey are having a more exciting conversation.

“And how is Bart’s life?” Frank asks, “How’s the astronaut thing going?”

“Fine, but his wife was annoying so I killed her,” Brendon replies, “So he married her brother.”

“That’s a little sleazy,” Frank replies.

“Yeah well, it’s a sleazy world we live in,” Brendon says, and Frank’s not positive that he’s not getting his Sims mixed up with the real world like he did with The Princess Diaries. Brendon thought Genovia was a real country until tenth grade.

“Do you think they’re paying attention to a single thing that we say?” Brendon asks.

“No I don’t think so,” Frank shakes his head.

“Pete, if you can hear me I agree with you, Cyclops is better,” Brendon says, and when he doesn’t turn around to scream ‘aha’, Brendon makes a face, “that’s totally not true anyway.”

“He’s fucking clueless.”

“So then it’s completely fine if we talk about the fact that Pete’s in love with Mikey.”

“Thank god,” Frank says, “I was wondering if I was the only one who noticed.”

“Dude, my bedside lamp has noticed,” Brendon replies.

“Okay, then can I ask you another question? How obvious is-”

“Your crush on Gerard?” Brendon asks, “Couldn’t be more obvious.”

“It really couldn’t,” Ray says, turning to look at Frank, who feels his stomach fall because he did not know that Ray was listening to them at all.

“Fuck, you heard that?” Frank hisses.

“I mean, it’s not like it was a secret,” Ray replies.

“Fuck!” Frank shouts, maybe a little bit too loudly.

“And it’s not like those two are any less obvious,” Ray says, using his hair to nod towards Mikey and Pete.

“Does Gerard know?” Frank asks. “About me, I mean. He was the one who pointed those two out to me so of course he knows.”

“Gerard wouldn’t recognize someone having a crush on him if you were to scream it in his face and tattoo it on your forehead,” Ray replies. “But I mean, if it helps any, you’re totally his type.”

“Really?” Frank asks, “He has a type?”

“Yeah, like, guys who wear black a lot,” Ray shrugs, “or something like that.”

“I can wear more black. I can buy eyeliner,” Frank says.

“Yeah, that’s not what I meant. It’s just sort of something about people who wear a lot of black. The ambiance of it, I guess. I think it’s the haircut or something.”

“He has such a dumb haircut though,” Brendon says evaluating him analytically so Frank flips him off, and frowns.

“I take offense to that,” Frank says.

“You were meant to,” Brendon replies.

“Sometimes I feel like I’m the only straight person in this school,” Brendon says, “And then I remember that Idris Elba exists.”

“That’s nice Brendon,” Frank says, “so can I ask, did you know, like before?”

“Before what?” Brendon asks.

“Before I told you,” Frank says quietly, because Ray doesn’t need to hear this specific thing.

“Told me...?” Brendon asks, and Frank sighs, and then Brendon gets this look in his eyes, “Oh! Right, sorry, got you.”

“And?”

“Oh, uh, I mean, I had a suspicion or two, but I wasn’t going to say anything about it, ‘cause that would’ve been rude.”

“Fuck,” Frank says, “What is it about me?”

“No it wasn’t you, it was the way you acted with Gerard, it was like, really-”

“In your face,” Ray finishes for him.

“Yeah,” Brendon says, “like you look at him like he’s your future husband.”

“Pffft,” Frank says, pulling a painfully fake face that he hopes isn’t as dumb as he thinks it is, “that’s crazy.”

“It’s not.”

Frank’s voice, getting all high and pitchy, says, “I do not think of Gerard like that. I barely know him. I’ve known him for a week. A week today. 168 hours. No longer than that, I don’t think he’s my future husband, that’s ridiculous.”

“Alright, so Frank’s acting weird,” Brendon says, looking away. Frank agitates his feet nervously and looks around, hoping for something to rescue him from his own.

He looks at Mikey and Pete, and the only thing that’s missing is Mikey twirling his hair. It’s not long enough for him to twirl anyway. But Frank is almost expecting it to grow out so that he can twist it around his finger and bite his lip, and blink too much, and why aren’t they already fucking making out, it’s so obvious. But Pete seems to ignore it. If someone were to call Gerard Frank’s boyfriend he would have a panic attack followed by a series of shushing and begging, but when Brendon says it to Pete he looks like you’re telling him that the earth is made out of peanut butter.

Brendon is still looking anywhere, studying the brickwork of the school to the bird shit on the flagpole, when Frank looks back at him, and Ray is looking directly at him, not even bothering to pretend he doesn’t think Frank is insane beyond measure. Frank has bad luck, very bad luck, but he does get a break just this once when the bell rings.

“Oh hey look at that, saved by the bell,” Brendon says, “but we can continue this awkward conversation later.”

“Or pretend it didn’t happen,” Frank says.

“Yeah we could, but as your best friend it is my sworn duty to make fun of you,” Brendon shouts back, running through the crowd of people to get away from them. Pete’s too busy talking to Mikey to even notice, let alone correct Brendon on calling himself Frank’s best friend. That’s how you know that that shit is fucking serious.