The Chasing of Moons

Frank is barely given time to look into the building before Brendon shoves him through the door, and from there, it takes Frank all of about five seconds to spot Pete.

“Oh I fucking knew it,” Frank groans, trying to turn around and get out as quickly as he possibly can. Brendon puts his arm out in front of Frank to stop him, and since Frank is very small, he just ducks underneath until Ray stops him. Basically, they just really don’t want Frank going anywhere. Frank isn’t even positive that Gerard’s here, he just knows that Pete is, and if Pete’s here, logically so is Mikey, and if Mikey is here, logically so is Gerard. Frank is going to kill so many people tonight.

“You’ve got to face him sometime, grow up,” Brendon tells Frank.

“Why? Can’t I just pretend I never knew him?”

“Well, you’re going to have to talk about it with Mikey if that’s what you want, but Mikey is very scary. Very very terrifying, I wouldn’t mess with him if I were you.”

“I’ve known him for a lot longer than either of you,” Ray says, “if you think he’s scary now, you really haven’t seen much of anything yet.”

“He’s just one guy,” Frank says trying to get past Brendon again, who manages to grab the back of his shirt and nearly choke him on it.

“Rude,” Frank says, stopping and rubbing at his neck.

“Just go,” Brendon says. Frank groans, and turns around, but he’s met with Mikey. Frank has no idea how he was that quick but all of a sudden, Mikey is grabbing his elbow and dragging him out of the ice cream store, and Frank doesn’t want to be alone with Mikey with no witnesses.

“Oh fuck, well if you’re going to kill me in an alleyway, can you at least send an email to my mother telling her not to look at my search history?” Frank asks.

“I’m not going to kill you. Maim you maybe,” Mikey says and Frank groans. “Oh relax.”

“So you’re going to tell me that I’m stupid I presume?” Frank asks.

“Well you are stupid. No number of times anyone says that to you will ever get it through your thick skull to enunciate just how unbelievably stupid you fucking are.”

“Thank you?” Frank asks.

“Oh my god I want to beat you senseless with a stick, but I won’t do that, alright? You’re getting off lucky.”

“Yeah, instead of being murdered with a stick you’re just going to bore me to death by talking?” Frank asks, and Mikey flicks him in the temple. “I deserved that.”

“You really did.”

“Okay, well enough of the foreplay, get to what you have to say or I’m going to run away from you.”

“Ew, don’t say foreplay to me, I’m the wrong Way,” Mikey tells him.

“Enough of the whatever then, get to your point,” Frank says.

“Well, basically, you’re an idiot.”

“You said that already I believe.”

“The point is that both you and Gerard are complete imbeciles, and I have half a mind to just let you be assholes to each other until you work things out yourself, but Gerard keeps acting like Eeyore so I have to do something so that I don’t have to hear another Adele song through my wall again.”

“He went for Adele? See I went with angry music because it drowns out the fact that I feel like someone shot me in the heart.”

“Why do you... you’re both idiots.”

“I really need to start keeping a tally of how many times you call me an idiot, because you’re going to owe me like six hundred bucks in dimes one day,” Frank says.

“You’re an idiot. You’re a buffoon. You’re a wanker. You’re an asshole. You’re an imbecile. You’re a fool. You’re a loser. You’re a piece of shit. You’re a dingbat, and you are most importantly, an enormous dick. Add that to my tab.”

“Don’t hold back,” Frank says.

Mikey makes a sound deep in his throat that Frank doesn’t want to attempt to explain, before he says, “Believe me, Frank, that was absolutely me holding back.”

“Ugh, whatever, Mikey, this doesn’t really concern you, so I don’t know why it is that you’re so angry with me about it. This is between me and Gerard.”

“Yes, I know it is, but you let me in on this whole crazy fucking thing a while ago, and now it’s too late to try telling me that I’m not a part of this, because we both know that that isn’t true,” Mikey says.

“Fine, maybe you are all caught up in this mess, but that doesn’t give you the right to tell me what to do.”

“I’m not telling you what to do, I’m telling you that whatever you do is dumb, and that you should listen to me, because I am way smarter than you,” Mikey replies.

“Oh well thanks, that’s going to really make me want to listen to you.”

“Hey, just because you don’t want to hear it, that doesn’t mean I’m not right. Everything you’ve ever done while I’ve known you has been dumb, basically you should just hand the controls of your entire life over to me so that I can steer you in the right direction.”

“Gross,” Frank says, thinking about the idea of Mikey being in charge of his every will. He doesn’t like Pete like that, so the very thought of Mikey being in charge of him makes him shudder. He makes an attempt to walk away, before Mikey grabs his elbow again and turns him around. Seriously, the guy probably weighs less than a sponge, and he has the body width of a toothpick, but he has an alarmingly large amount of hidden strength up his sleeve that Frank was unaware, and completely afraid of. Gerard’s kind of the opposite because he looks like he could probably at least punch you in the face, but Frank has never seen him open a soda bottle without hurting himself.

“Frank, the problem with this whole argument is that you and I both know something that Gerard doesn’t know, okay?”

“I know that, but that doesn’t give him the right to be a complete ass to me with no repercussions.”

“Oh come on, Frank, you were being a complete ass to him too. It’s not a one way argument, okay? You both have warrant to be pissed, but what you don’t have any reason to be pissed about is the fact that you’re angry with him over something he simply does not know! And can’t know for the time being, because he’s weirder than I am, yes, but he wouldn’t be so quick to believe everything.”

“Mikey, I don’t care what you think or what you don’t think, I’m angry with him, and I don’t overly want to talk to him. He’s a jerk, and he’s treating our relationship like a carton of milk that you have to dump down the sink at the end of the month. That’s not fair to me!”

“It’s not fair to him that you’re treating him based on something that he doesn’t know! Frank, no matter how many times you try to avoid the truth, it doesn’t change the fact that Gerard doesn’t know what we know. You expect him to tell you that he wants to be with you forever, when you’re both only teenagers who’ve been, like, I don’t even know, not really dating, but not not-dating for less than a day. You can’t expect him to hear the wedding bells yet!”

Frank groans, “And I’ve told him this, and I’ll tell you now, I don’t expect him to be ready to read his vows right now, I just expect enough from him to know I’m not going to be left alone at the end of the year because of his stupid pride getting in the way of him admitting that he cares about me.”

“Okay, I understand why you’re angry at him, Frank, but that doesn’t change the fact that you’re both stupid.”

“But of course, you’re taking his side, aren’t you?”

“I’m not taking either of your sides!” Mikey shouts, “You’re both complete dunderheads, I don’t think either of you is right. I think that you’re an idiot, and so is he.”

“Well, what about you, Mikey?” Frank asks.

“What about me?”

“You’ve got a lot of nerve calling me an idiot for getting angry at Gerard over something fairly reasonable when you still haven’t made a single move to get Pete. Me and Gerard maybe at each other’s throats but we’ve made a whole hell of a lot more progress than the two of you.”

“What? That’s completely different! It’s not even similar!”

“Not even similar?” Frank asks, “Mikey, you’ve liked Pete for as long as I’ve liked Gerard, but you haven’t done a fucking thing about it!”

“Don’t even try to steer this away from you and Gerard, I know that you’re just bringing up me and Pete because you know that I’m right.”

“Fuck off, Mikey,” Frank replies, “yes, I am pissed at Gerard, and maybe you think this argument is pointless, but the fact of the matter is that I don’t think it’s pointless. What is pointless is the fact that Pete likes you, he has admitted it to my face, and you’re not very good at hiding the fact that you like him just as much, but neither of you will make a move towards the other, so you getting all angry with me about me and Gerard is plainly hypocritical of you!”

“So what are you saying?”

“Well, basically, until you grow a pair and actually get anywhere with Pete, you telling me what to do, is completely, and utterly twofaced of you.”

Mikey stands there, looking like he seriously is considering the best way to shut Frank up, and it doesn’t just involve violence, but also probably entails a chain saw and a shovel as well.

“Well fine,” Mikey says, and that’s when Mikey walks away from him. He doesn’t say anything more to Frank, but Frank, annoyed, follows him back into the store, where Mikey makes his way through the place without looking back at Frank.

“What’d he say?” Brendon asks, returning to where he was when Frank had left, because he was obviously watching the two of them talking from the window.

“What you’d expect,” Frank shrugs, before he’s interrupted by Mikey yelling across the room.

“Pete Wentz!” Mikey shouts before stomping over to him. Pete looks up from the booth he’s sitting in, and watches Mikey make his way over before, blinking quite violently, Frank watches Mikey grab the sides of Pete’s face and kiss him right there in the middle of the store.

“What did you say to him?”

“I might have mentioned something about him being a hypocrite for dissing me and Gerard when he hadn’t made any progress with Pete.”

“Well that explains it,” Brendon says, before looking away because this is a family restaurant for god’s sake. He doesn’t want to see Pete being kissed by anyone, it doesn’t matter who.

“Yeah, you sure showed him,” Ray says, rolling his eyes.

Mikey finally pulls away revealing Pete who is grinning like a fucking maniac. Pete could have just won a multimillion dollar lottery, met Beyoncé, and been given eternal youth and he wouldn’t be beaming as widely as he is now.

“Well at least someone can be happy,” Frank says frowning as he looks over at the person sitting next to Pete, making a disgusted face. There’s Gerard, looking gorgeous as ever, tired and frumpy, but perfect in Frank’s eyes all the same. He’s staring at Mikey and Pete with the same facial expression as Brendon.

“Ugh, get a room,” Brendon murmurs to himself when they start kissing again, and yeah, so maybe Frank is stupid, because that looks like everything that he wants from Gerard.

But he’s got to hand it to Mikey for proving his point. That doesn’t mean he’s not angry at Gerard, but yes, Mikey has successfully gotten the point across. That doesn’t mean he likes it, but he acknowledges it nonetheless.

Frank frowns, looking at the door where he kind of wants to leave, but then looks back at the table halfway across the room where Gerard is. Only when he looks over at the table, Gerard has finally looked up and is now looking back at him.

“You’re going to have to talk to him eventually,” Brendon says, reading his mind.

“Yeah, I know,” Frank sighs when Gerard looks away. “But first let me stuff my face with ice cream, because the only way I’m going to get through this is if I’m on a sugar high.”

“Fair enough,” Brendon shrugs.