The Chasing of Moons

“Frank?” Gerard asks, looking directly at Frank which makes his tongue lose all traction and sense.

“Who’s Frank?” Frank asks.

“You’re Frank,” Brendon tells him.

“I’m Frank,” Frank says, like it’s a question.

“I told you to act natural not like you didn’t know who you were,” Brendon says, rolling his eyes, and questioning how he could have possibly gotten himself wrapped up in all of this.

“Frank, what a crazy random happenstance,” Mikey says, stalely.

“Aren’t you just quoting Dr. Horrible?” Gerard asks him, looking at Mikey quizzically.

“Maybe.”

“Okay so this wasn’t at all staged though was it?” Gerard asks, and Frank turns pink.

“What? Staged? What does that even, uh, mean?” he asks, with a painfully fake laugh that makes Brendon want to crawl under a rock for Frank.

“Frank, what are you looking for?” Gerard asks.

“What am I what?”

“What book? What book are you looking for?”

“What book...?” Frank repeats suddenly forgetting every book that has ever existed on the face of the planet. He cannot remember a single author, a single book, a single name, a single word, or the name of the planet that he is currently standing on.

“He’s looking for,” Brendon starts but then seems to have a change of heart in the middle of his sentence and instead says, “nope, not going to try to make an excuse.”

“Thanks,” Frank says, through gritted teeth, “I’m glad I decided to bring you along.”

“Where’s Pete?” Mikey asks, looking around, hoping to find him between the bookshelves, and instead making eye contact with the girl who was, a moment ago staring at Brendon’s ass, but has now moved on to evaluating Gerard, trying to figure out if he’s worthwhile or not, which makes Frank feel like a mother lion protecting his cubs, which is to say he wants to tear her throat out and feed her carcass to the buzzards.

“He’s better than I am apparently,” Brendon says, “because Frank called him first.”

“I told you, that’s not the reason for why I called him first.”

“Yeah, but who wants to say that they’re referred to as an asshole on their friends phone?”

“Not just an asshole, a big asshole,” Frank corrects.

“Fuck you.”

“Yeah, I can get in on that, fuck you Frank,” Gerard says.

“No, you can’t just get in on my fuck you, you have to get your own,” Brendon says.

“Alright fine. Fuck you Frank,” Gerard says.

“Fair enough,” Frank nods.

“So Pete’s not here?” Mikey asks for clarification.

“No, he’s doing something better,” Brendon replies.

“Are you implying that this isn’t enjoyable?” Frank asks.

“Yes.”

“Well, you’re an asshole and I hate you.”

“Great, so now that that’s clarified, I’m going to walk away,” Gerard says, and he turns on his heels, Frank quick to follow.

“Why are you following me?” Gerard asks, leading him to the dank and dark corner of the shop where they keep all the old comic books, which just makes Frank make an ‘awwing’ sound internally to himself. He kind of sees watching Gerard as looking at a puppy, because he’s adorable and wants to marry the son of a bitch so much. The feeling he gets in his stomach right now just looking at Gerard is the same one he gets when he watches YouTube videos of cats. He wants to cuddle him so much and be his best friend and love him to death. It’s quite infuriating.

“Because I am,” Frank says.

He looks behind him at Mikey staring at Brendon uncomfortably, and he realizes that the two of them just don’t have that much in common and Mikey is probably angry at Frank for not bringing Pete, but that was never a part of the agreement.

Frank makes an informed decision at this and looks at Gerard judicially as he gawks at the rows and rows of graphic novels before him.

“I think I should call Pete and get him to come here,” Frank says. “I think then Mikey will stop looking at me like I burned down his house.”

“It might,” Gerard shrugs, and then seems to hear what Frank says, looks up and straight into Frank’s eyes which makes his heart bounce in a way that would seriously worry a nurse and then says, “Definitely do that. I think the only thing that could get that boy to shut up is for you to get Pete to stick his damn tongue in Mikey’s mouth. My god, that is a strange thing to say about my own brother.”

“I’ll call him,” Frank says, nodding, grabbing his phone, and hoping that Pete picks up this time.

When he does pick up, he leads with, “Estonia is not the capital of Luxembourg, Frank. It’s a country, which, according to Wikipedia, is a great place to live, and they have awesome WiFi, which intrigues me and makes me feel bad about the fact that I’ve never heard of it before today.”

Frank covers the phone to say to Gerard, who probably doesn’t care, “I think I may have made Pete the head of the Estonia fan club.”

“Fantastic,” Gerard says, thumbing through something that Frank didn’t get the chance to see the cover of, so he has no idea what it actually is.

“Pete, I just wanted to tell you that we’re all at the book store, and like, Mikey asked about you, so you should-”

“Mikey’s there?” Pete asks. “I, uh, fuck, I haven’t showered today. Uh, no, I’ll just spray myself with Febreze, I’m coming. I’ll be there, just hold on, I’m coming.”

“Oh, okay, so you’re coming?” Frank asks.

“Yeah,” Pete says quickly, “don’t tell Mikey that my mom has to drive me, okay?”

“I mean, I don’t think he’d find it strange that you don’t have a car, Pete.”

“Just don’t tell him, okay!”

“Fine,” Frank says, covers the receiver again and says to Gerard, “be sure to tell Mikey that Pete doesn’t have a car and has to be driven everywhere by his mother.”

“Uh?” Gerard says, and then pretends to have not heard Frank and goes back to his book, which as Frank looks at the page, seems to be about zombies. Frank decides that he has great taste and already plans a date where they’ll watch Dawn of the Dead, followed by the somewhat superior, Shaun of the Dead.

“Okay, Pete, just get here when you can and- Pete? Pete? Did you fucking hang up on me, you fucking dick?” Frank asks, with no response and his eyes turn to slits as he gives the evil stare that he wants to give to Pete to a picture of Guy Fieri on a cookbook in front of him.

“I’d have hung up to,” Gerard says.

“That bastard. Oh well, whatever. Can I ask you a legit question here, Gee?”

“What did you just call me?” Gerard asks, looking at Frank like he just called Gerard the worst curse word imaginable. Like Frank just called him a mudblood.

“Uh, nothing?”

“Never call me that ever again,” Gerard says, and Frank nods nervously and cautiously, because of course, he plans on calling him that again, just not right now maybe.

“Sorry,” Frank says, feeling like he just got scolded by a teacher. “I still have a question though.”

“Ugh, fine, what is it?”

“It’s just, well, you hate me, right?” He asks, but he doesn’t allow Gerard enough time to answer before saying, “but like, do you hate me hate me, or do you just hate me because you think you should and you’re too full of pride to let that go?”

“Uh, what?” Gerard asks.

“Well, really, what I’m trying to ask is, do you actually hate my personality, or do you just say you hate me because you have a grudge?”

“I-”

“And before you answer that, I want you to actually be honest, because I know if it’s the second one, you’ll say it’s the first one because you just want me to think you hate my guts, but I really don’t think you hate my guts at all, you just want to, but can’t, because I’m fantastic.”

“Modesty? Ever heard of it?”

“I don’t do modesty,” Frank says, “it’s not for me. And don’t deflect the question this time.”

“Uh, well, when you put it that way, I guess I don’t even know for sure myself. Like, I really do fucking hate you, Frank.”

“Noted.”

“But like, I’m not sure I’ve paid enough attention to you to know if I hate you or not,” Gerard says.

“Okay, well, I’ll tell you what,” Frank says, “I’ll buy you coffee and you tell me how I rank on the personality scale or something and if you still hate me, I’ll never talk to you again.”

“Is that a promise?” Gerard asks.

“Well, I won’t talk to you again, but I can’t make any promises about Ray and Mikey, I mean, they’re sorta my friends now too.”

“Of course there has to be a catch,” Gerard says exasperatedly. “Fine then.”

“Really?” Frank asks.

“Yes, but I’m getting the most expensive coffee I can make,” Gerard says.

“Uh, that’s fine, yeah, sure. Gotta buy a coffee for Brendon too, and I’m like broke, and I owe my mom like twenty bucks for these concert tickets, but uh, whatever,” Frank says, and thinks to himself ‘who needs college?’

“What concert?” Gerard asks.

“What? Oh, uh, what concert? What?”

“The concert?”

“The concert?” Frank repeats.

“Are you just repeating what I’m saying?”

“I... no,” Frank says, shaking his head furiously, embarrassing himself further.

“Okay,” Gerard says, “Forget I asked.”

“Okay so Mikey let slip that your birthday was coming up and he was like ‘hey Frank Gerard likes this one band and they’re playing soon and I was gonna get him tickets but you could do it instead I’ll just buy him a pen or something’ and well Mikey didn’t actually say that last part but like I don’t know what I’m saying but I bought you the tickets and I don’t have any money I had to give my mom the Barnes and Noble gift card that my aunt sends me every Christmas but I never know what to buy so I just have it for like seven months without buying anything and I had to give that to my mom as compensation and I haven’t figured out when to like ask you to the concert because I don’t know how to ask someone that without ranting because I talk a lot like I’m not kidding when I say a lot I mean a lot a lot like a lot a lot so much that people sometimes have to physically restrain my mouth from just ranting on and on and on have you seen that one episode of Friends where Chandler says that and he’s like ‘I just keep talking until someone stops me’ yeah that’s basically me except I have a better haircut but anyway I bought you these tickets and... you’re looking at me kinda funny so I’m going to stop talking.”

Gerard opens his mouth and it looks like he’s trying to piece together what Frank just said but there were far too many words.

Frank shakes his head, “I’m an idiot, and you don’t want to go with me, I paid for tickets to a concert before even asking if you wanted to go, and I’m dumb, and this was a dumb idea and I’m-”

“You actually bought me tickets in exchange for a Barnes and Noble gift card?” Gerard asks, an unreadable expression on his face.

“Uh, yes?” Frank says, “Well, some of them anyway, it wasn’t enough to cover the total, but I just told my mom I’d owe her money, so I’ll have to walk a few dogs and mow a few lawns, but it’s fine, like, I mean, I tried I guess, and that’s what matters, but if you want I can just give you the tickets and you can take Mikey, because they’re paid for so they might as well be used, but like, I’m sorry for being such a presumptuous dumbass.”

“That’s actually really nice,” Gerard says in a tone that suggests he’s questioning his own words as he says them, “like really really nice. Like that’s the nicest thing anyone’s ever done for me.”

“I know and I’m sorry,” Frank says, preemptively responding to what he’d expected Gerard to say and not digesting what exactly it was that he did say, “Wait what was that?”

“It’s just really nice,” Gerard says, and it’s him who’s blushing this time, which makes him blush because he made Gerard blush, and they both look like they got splattered with red paint at this point.

“Yeah?” Frank asks, looking at his feet because he can’t bear to look at Gerard’s stupidly cute face.

“Yeah,” Gerard nods.

“So, would you, like want to go with me then?” Frank asks, hesitantly, not even aware that he’d decided to ask that at all.

There seems to be a year’s worth of silence as Frank waits for Gerard’s answer, and he can feel his heart full of the mixed emotions of complete and utter terror as well as dread if he says no, and an unbelievable joy if he says yes.

“Well, I’d be the dick if I said no.”

“So that’s a yes?”

“Yeah, that’s a yes,” Gerard says.

Frank beams at him, his smile literally enough to cure all problems with the universe and Gerard gets a feeling in his stomach at the thought of how much he hates to pretend he hates Frank. He does kind of, but he doesn’t, he adores him. He thinks Frank is easily the cutest guy on the planet and can’t believe the words that he’s hearing from Frank. He’s so stupid. Frank is literally just a complete idiot. It’s the most endearing thing Gerard’s ever experienced and he’s pretty sure he’s crazy about the guy.

Frank could fly himself to another galaxy all by himself with the swelling happiness he feels right now. He knows it’s not official or anything, but he’s fairly sure that he just asked Gerard Way out. He’s not going to call it a date, because he doesn’t want to scare him away, but he’s pretty sure that that’s what just happened. He just asked Gerard Way out on a date, and he said yes. He’s going to take Gerard Way out and they’re going to go to a concert and Frank is going to be poorer than he was before, because he’s going to buy Gerard a T-shirt, or a poster, or one of the band members if he asks for it.

He’ll buy the guy anything. He’s never wanted to spoil someone this much before. Never in his life has he ever actually had the feeling of wanting to spend more money on someone else then himself. When he gets money, he always wants to buy something for him, and always hates having to spend it on others, but he can’t think of anyone who he just wants to give fucking everything to. He’ll buy him the city of New York, the moon, the rights to Star Wars, an elephant, and the iron throne. He just can’t stand or financially support how much he wants to give Gerard.

“I’m going to buy you that coffee now,” Frank says, and Gerard just nods, bites his lip as he looks at Frank and then quickly looks away. Frank notices it however, and thanks not only God but also Jesus, and most importantly, mikeyway.