The Chasing of Moons

By a happenstance that is completely not coincidental and may or may not be related to Frank, once again, stealing things from Pete’s locker, he finds himself sitting at a table, all of a day after Frank realized he was in love with the way Gerard laughs, staring uncomfortably at Mikey.

The rain has lasted through to the afternoon for once, something it rarely does, which means that the grass outside is not something anybody wants to go around lounging in. No one is eating outside it seems, because for the first time in a week, the cafeteria is nearly full. It’s not an overly large school when you put things in perspective, but when you cram that many people in one mediocrely sized room, you start to get a little claustrophobic.

“So, like, I need more tips,” Frank says, awkwardly. There’s really no relaxed way to say that he’s bad at getting Gerard’s attention and he needs his fucking brothers help to do so.

“I don’t know what to tell you, man,” Mikey says.

“Is he doing anything this weekend?”

“He’s going to be playing video games and catching up on House Hunters,” Mikey says.

“So, is there, like, anyway you could lure him out of the house?”

“What do you mean?”

“Well I don’t mean lure him out of the house like I’m going to kidnap him and tie him to the radiator in my basement, I just mean that I would very much like to try to find an excuse for me to talk to him that cannot be interrupted by a bell,” Frank says.

“Well, if you wanted to tie him to a radiator, I’d be fine with that, what do I care?” Mikey says. “But to answer your question, I could probably get him to the book store. He’s been wanting a new Dungeons and Dragons book recently, I could get him there without too much worry.”

“Really?” Frank asks. “This could work. There’s a coffee shop next door too, so, like, I could bump into him and then buy him coffee?”

“You could try,” Mikey shrugs, “no promises on whether it would work or not, but it’s a possibility. Have you told him about the concert yet?”

“No,” Frank shakes his head, “I’m still looking for a good time to slip it in there, ya know? Like ‘hey, I stalked you to figure out that this band you like is playing, I bought you tickets, will you marry me’?”

“Might be a little too much to start off with,” Mikey says, “I would try instead complimenting him or something. Maybe something like ‘you’re hair isn’t that greasy,’ or maybe ‘you’re only mostly bad at life’ or you could even try, ‘your brother is the coolest guy in the world, but you’re alright too, I guess.’”

“Thanks. That’s real helpful. I’ll just go over to Gerard and tell him that his brother is better than him.”

“Well if the shoe fits,” Mikey says uninterestedly, and Frank rolls his eyes at him.

“Frank!” Pete’s voice carries through the cafeteria, like a paper airplane, except stronger and more definite. People look around at him, and Frank ignores them, he’s pretty much used to Pete making a scene by now.

“Well it looks like someone realized his phone is missing,” Frank announces.

“You stole his phone?”

“I didn’t really want to broadcast it to them that I need tips from Gerard’s brother on how to get him to fall in love with me. It’s kind of belittling,” Frank replies.

“But still, you stole his phone?” Mikey asks. Frank wonders absentmindedly if Mikey’s got Pete’s number yet. Do they flirt through text? Do they send emoji’s to each other during class? How grossly coupley are they without being an actual couple?

“I may have,” Frank says and it’s at that moment when Pete hits him over the head as he sits down.

“Hand it over, Franklin.”

“That is not my name,” Frank says, shaking his head. Pete has known him for literally over ten years and is still incapable of understanding that ‘Frank’ isn’t short for anything. Frank has known Pete for literally over ten years and still insists on calling him Peter to piss him off.

“Hand it over, Francis,” Pete says.

“Also not my name.”

“Hand it over, Maureen.”

“I don’t even know where you got that one from,” Frank replies.

“Just hand it over, assface,” Pete says.

“Now that I’ll accept. Call me assface. Wow, Moby Dick sure would be a hell of a different story if that’s how the book started, huh?” Frank says, holding Pete’s phone out to him.

“Why do you insist on stealing my stuff?” Pete asks.

“You gave me the combo, why would you do that? What are you expecting from me?”

“Evidently, more,” Pete replies.

“Well,” Brendon says, which is his less obvious way of shouting ‘pay attention to me,’ because apparently he doesn’t like not being acknowledged. Frank was too busy annoying Pete to say hi to Brendon, and also, ignoring him makes his ears turn this pinkish color which is kind of funny.

“Well what?” Frank asks, looking across the table at him.

“What are we talking about?”

“Frank needed tips on how to ask out my brother,” Mikey says casually, and Frank kicks him under the table. There are very few benefits of having to eat lunch indoors rather than outside, but one of those such benefits is that it is far easier to kick whomever you like, inconspicuously or not.

“What did you tell him?” Brendon asks, “My biggest recommendation would be to get a bag, put it over your face and then maybe you’ll be able to distract Gerard long enough from your ugly face to get him to say yes to a date.”

“I’m not really trying to ask him out quite yet, I just need him to stop hating me,” Frank says.

“Good luck with that,” Mikey says, raising his eyebrows like he doubts Frank is capable of that much. Frank’s not an idiot though, he knows Gerard likes him, he just has to get the guy to admit to it. Well, he is an idiot. He didn’t realize that Gerard liked him until Gerard himself, future Gerard, told him. He’s still not over how stupid that sounds.

“Okay so, Gerard likes me though, right,” Frank says, and he doesn’t wait for an answer before he continues, “what do you think would happen if I went up to him and told him that I know? Because, like, he does have a crush on me so if I were to just tell him.”

“Oh,” Pete makes a sound, and Frank looks at him to see his face screwed up in concentration, “took me a little while to put all those pieces together. But I gotcha. I gotcha.”

“You’re such an idiot,” Frank shakes his head, and then looks back at Mikey who’s looking at Frank curiously.

“How do you know Gerard likes you?” Mikey asks.

“I, uh, I just do,” Frank replies.

“No, but you can’t know that,” Mikey says.

“Trust me when I say that I do know,” Frank says, “for certain.”

“Know what for certain?” a new voice prompts, and Frank has a heart palpitation before he realizes that it’s just Ray. Of course it is, Gerard is always trying to do whatever he possibly can to avoid having to be near Frank, which is a little annoying, but he’ll break the guy soon, he just knows it.

“That Gerard has a crush on me,” Frank answers.

Ray immediately looks at Mikey and says, disapprovingly, “dude!”

“I didn’t tell him!” Mikey says defensively. “Why would I tell him? Did you tell him?”

“Tell him what?” Pete asks, out of the loop that’s right in front of him as always.

“Why would I tell him?” Ray asks.

“Wait so Gerard does have a crush on Frank then?” Brendon questions, waiting for someone to verify whatever weird conversation the other two are having.

“No!” Ray says.

“Yes,” Frank replies.

“How do you know that?” Mikey asks. “I never told you that. At least not directly. Did I? Oh fuck, I must have. Gerard’s gonna kill me.”

“You literally didn’t, I’m just a genius,” Frank says, “I read his mind.”

“No, that’s Mikey’s thing,” Ray says, “only Mikey can read minds.”

“It’s true,” Pete says, nodding, and Frank kicks him under the table too.

“Ow, what was that for?” Pete asks.

“For being dumb.”

“What did I say?”

“It was your face,” Frank responds.

“I still need clarification on how the fuck you know about Gerard!” Mikey says, maybe a bit too loudly, because a girl at the table behind them turns to look at Mikey judgingly.

“Look, the how is not important, the point is that I just do, okay?”

“How much do you know?” Mikey asks.

“You mean, am I aware that he’s liked me since middle school?” Frank asks.

“Ray!” Mikey shouts.

“Seriously, I didn’t tell him!” Ray shouts back.

“Someone must have!” Mikey says, “And I certainly didn’t tell him that.”

“Tell who what?” And finally, there’s Gerard’s voice interrupting everybody to make all eyes turn to him, which is pretty creepy, and makes Gerard frown back at them. Frank takes this as an opportune time to ogle at how adorable he is when he’s, well, breathing. Frank’s got it really bad, he can’t even bear it.

“Pete, uh, once tried to use pool noodles to walk on water but he just face planted in the pool and made an idiot of himself,” Frank says, and Pete frowns, before nodding.

“Uh,” Gerard says.

“I was testing out a theory... I just didn’t think things through,” Pete explains.

“I see why you wouldn’t want people to know that,” Gerard says, sitting on the other side of Pete because the other two spots on the other side of the table are filled. That means that there’s only one person between Frank sitting next to Gerard, if only there were a way to smoothly push Pete off the seat without making it obvious that he’s trying to get closer to Gerard. He could just push him, because that’s what friends do, but that probably wouldn’t make it any less obvious. He’ll just sit here and long for the space next to Gerard which he doesn’t get to occupy.

“He’s done a lot of stupid things,” Brendon says, “he tried to microwave orange juice.”

“Another failed experiment,” Pete notes.

“Broke his hand when he slipped while lip syncing too passionately to Toxic in the shower,” Frank adds.

“I have no defense for that one,” Pete says, nodding his head somberly.

“Tried to pass off a Smiths song as his poetry assignment in fifth grade.”

Pete smiles, “that one I’m not ashamed of, it was just funny.”

“The whole class had to sit through a twenty minute lecture on plagiarism because of you, Pete,” Frank reminds him.

“But it was funny,” Pete answers. “I don’t think our teacher had a sense of humor.”

Frank’s eyes almost get stuck in his skull as he rolls them as painfully obviously as he can, and he murmurs, “Well, at least you’re pretty.”

“Thank you,” Pete grins.

“That wasn’t a compliment Pete,” Brendon tells him. Pete wrinkles his eyebrows, seemingly incapable of understanding that Frank just called him stupid, which kind of proves it’s own point.

Frank shakes his head, sometimes he just doesn’t know how Pete is a real human being. He’s a complete idiot, but he’s also not. Like, he’s the most stupid person in the world, but he’s actually fairly smart which is just weird. Pete himself is a walking contradiction with an arsenal of poop jokes.

“How are you even a real human?” Gerard asks him, looking at Pete like he’s some sort of alien.

“I’ve been asking myself that same question for the past ten years,” Frank says. Frank looks up to see that Mikey is still staring at him, which kind of gives Frank a chill, because he’s giving him this look that says something along the lines of “we’ll talk later.” Frank’s not sure whether or not that’s a good or a bad thing, but he knows that there are very few people he would rather be stuck alone with then Mikey. It’s not that he’s necessarily expecting Mikey to kill him, it’s just that, if there was anyone that Frank believes could hide a body, it’s Mikey.

But at least Frank’s got a new direction to go in, and that’s the fact that Mikey, hopefully he’ll still agree to do it, will lure Gerard to a book store and coffee, and if there’s anywhere that Frank believes he can make a guy fall in love with him, it’s a coffee shop. Maybe it’s the fumes of the coffee beans or the total aura of coffee shops as a whole, but there’s literally nothing more in tuned to allowing romance to flourish than a coffee shop. Or maybe Frank’s just too much of a romantic. Really though, his hopes for progress are starting to become more tangible, and that’s all that matters.

Frank just allows himself to look at Gerard mindlessly. He just lets his mind wonder to the fact that in some universe somewhere, Gerard is his. They’re together, and they do cute couple things. They hold hands when grocery shopping, and Frank sits in Gerard’s lap when they’re watching movies, and they get to kiss whenever they fucking want. He gets to look at Gerard completely unapologetically and tell him that he’s crazy for him without being judged. They get to fool around when they’re watching trashy TV, and call each other at work just to say hi.

Frank’s never been someone who pined over things to the extent that he is now. He’s never wanted something this much before. Sure, there was that movie he wanted his mom to buy him, and that wicked toy his four year old self couldn’t live without, but that’s not comparable to this. He never felt an actual aching in his stomach at the fact that what he wants isn’t his yet. He’s never felt this unbelievably needy. He just wants Gerard so much that it’s almost painful.

He’s in love with the way that Gerard grins whenever he’s talking about something he likes, and how he’s starting to not mind as much that Frank sits with him at lunch. He’s absolutely crazy over the way that Gerard talks out of one side of his mouth, and always ends up finishing his sentences by gesturing with his hands to explain the words that he can’t find. He loves it all, every little nuance, every tiny quirk. Frank’s never experienced this utter wanting before, and he’s not sure that he likes the feeling.

He’s just completely and unabashedly waiting for the day when he can just fucking kiss that stupid face. Gee was a good kisser, sure he was, but something in Frank is positive that Gerard, he’s probably a million times better. Maybe it’s the wait, or maybe it’s just the fact that this is Gerard, the real person behind who Gee was, but Frank can’t even remember his own name when he thinks about the idea of kissing him. What must it be like to actually kiss him? Frank would probably forget what limbs belong to him.

Frank is starting to wonder when he became so grossly cliché, but then he remembers, nothing about this is cliché. He’s pretty sure that no one has ever gone through the same things he has. Maybe this incapacitating crush isn’t new, but the whole predicament is certainly an original one. Waiting for it to all payoff is possibly what makes it so much more painful. He knows that they do end up together, or at least probably, and that’s what makes the fact that they’re not together yet more painful.

Frank really wishes he were five years in the future. He wants to just skip all of this. He doesn’t want to have this guttural fear that he’ll screw everything up, he wants the sure thing, and he wants it now. But then again, where would all the fun be? Frank thinks, even though he’s not happy about it, the chase is probably what makes the final thing so good. If he didn’t have to work for it, what is there to be appreciative of? Frank’s positive though, when it does finally happen, when he does finally get to hold Gerard, or kiss him, or make him laugh that dorky honking laugh, he is going to make damn sure that he cherishes every single second of it.