The Chasing of Moons

Frank feels like Kim Possible. He feels like James Bond. He feels like Austin Powers, Ethan Hunt, Maxwell Smart, and he feels like a really anal wedding planner. Basically, he just feels like one elusive, strategic, suave as fuck dude who’s probably amazing in bed.

His plan is simple, and convoluted, and idiotic at best, but he thinks it’ll work. After all, he’s now alone on this. Not today, at least. Tomorrow he’ll be a small child in the middle of a shopping mall on Black Friday, but he’s got his bearings right now and that’s all that matters.

The first step is what he needs Ray for. Ray is the only person with the combination to Gerard’s locker, because he doesn’t trust Mikey with that information, and that is probably a smart idea on Gerard’s part. Ray also lives a block from Gerard which means that he is basically Frank’s delivery boy.

Pete is the distraction, and the mouth. Given that Pete can’t shut up on a bad day, there’s no telling how much shit will come out of his mouth on today of all days. And there’s one particular set of words that Pete is in charge of getting out.

Brendon’s role, well Brendon’s mainly there for Frank so that he doesn’t fucking implode on himself, but his goal is to make sure that Gerard does what Frank needs him to do, and to make sure that Mikey doesn’t mess something up. He’s the eyes and ears of the operation.

Mikey is the loose cannon. He refuses to get involved because he doesn’t want to be the guy who meddles in his brother’s romance, but he’ll try to stay out of Frank’s way anyway.

After tonight, Frank is going to be one broke ass son of a bitch, but hopefully he’ll be one with a boyfriend.

The plan starts actually at about three in the morning when Frank wakes up and realizes that he can’t get back to sleep. He paces around his room, checking his watch every few seconds hoping that the time has either stopped or fast forwarded. He’s not sure which he wants more.

He doesn’t know what to do. He’s so ripe with anticipation that he thinks he could combust. He decides to take a shower and to make himself look as pretty as he can, which is not very much so because Frank has no skill whatsoever. At least his pimple, Earl, is long deceased. Now he’s just got regular old acne that makes him look as young as he tells his mom he isn’t.

Frank steps out of the shower, hoping that he has now wasted an hour, when in fact it is still a quarter to four. But now he smells like apples so maybe this will make him more appealing.

Frank sits on his bed ten minutes later, and still he cannot shut up his brain. All he can think about is every single thing that might go wrong with the plan, and he just needs it to work. He needs Gerard’s birthday to be perfect. He needs Gerard to know that he’s crazy for him and that nothing is going to stop that. He just needs Gerard.

He needs Gerard and his stupidly perfect smile, and he needs to hear Gerard talk from only one side of his mouth, and he needs to feel Gerard’s insanely warm arms around him. He just needs that stupid lovingly sincere, adorably chubby, motherfucker to realize that Frank wants nothing in life more than he wants him.

Frank has reread both of the letters from Gerard a million times, and he reads them again as he sits on his bed waiting for the minutes to pass. He smiles because he can hear them both in Gerard’s voice. He can hear the inflection that Gerard put on each word when he wrote them. He can hear Gerard scrapping and rewriting this letter a dozen times before deciding it was perfect. He can hear all of it, and he just wants to know that he has what the Gerard writing these letters has.

He wants to be so domestic that he doesn’t bat and eyelash at the word ‘potluck’ and doesn’t even care that his next door neighbor is called Susan. He wants to argue with Gerard as to whether an occasion is special enough for them to break out the wedding china. He wants to hear Gerard yell at a self-checkout machine when it won’t scan his tangerines. He wants to watch Gilmore Girls on a Friday night wrapped in a blanket the size of Manhattan.

Frank finishes rereading the second note, and his heart sinks. It’s not even because of the fear of death or the weight of what he has to do against all odds. It’s because he’s so truly terrified of messing things up with Gerard so much that he doesn’t get Gerard at all.

Frank doesn’t know how it is that he, an eighteen-year-old kid with as few long-term aspirations as he has left feet, is already so set on who he wants to marry. He knows he can attest some of it to the letter and the future that he knows he’s going to have, but honestly, Frank is a very stubborn person. If it were anything else, Frank would think of this destiny for him to be with Gerard as a challenge for him to show that it’s not true. He would do anything to prove everyone wrong, show the world that he’s not destined for Gerard. Flip off the man who’s telling him that his future has already been planned.

But he doesn’t think like that remotely. He wants this. He wants his future, and he wants Gerard.

Frank doesn’t even know what he’s going to major in next year at college. He’s not even positive he wants to even fucking go to college.

But he is sure that he wants Gerard, and honestly, that’s enough.

Several millennia later, or so it feels, Frank finds himself standing in front of the school building, waiting for any sign of Gerard or Ray. He’ll probably see Ray first, his hair is like a beacon. You can’t lose Ray in a crowd, you just look for the guy whose head could arguably be used as a museum exhibit on static electricity.

“There,” Brendon says, pointing to someone who’s just now arriving from one of the buses. Frank’s eyes find the spot and he sees Gerard, Mikey, and Ray, walking towards the building slowly. Gerard doesn’t look overly upset or perturbed, but he doesn’t look very gleeful either. Frank doesn’t know if that’s a good thing or not.

Ray spots them, and he allows Gerard and Mikey to go on ahead as he jogs to meet Frank, Pete, and Brendon standing by the flag pole.

“So?”

“I dropped the first gift off in front of his house,” Ray says, “he knew it was from you the second he saw it.”

“Good reaction or bad?” Frank asks.

“Well he didn’t throw it away,” Ray says, “but I’m not sure he was happy that it was from you.”

“It could have been worse,” Frank says. “You should go, you’ve got to beat Gerard back to his locker.”

“Mikey said they’d take a circuitous route, but I should go get that done anyway,” Ray nods. Frank nods and hopes that Ray gets it there in time. Frank did not blow all of his savings for this to not go perfectly.

Frank bought Gerard a total of five gifts. One to be given to him in the morning, and one for every morning period, each to arrive in his locker, one after another. One of which is the signed copy of Abbey Road that he’s had his eyes on for about three months and cost more than a plane ticket, but this is Gerard. That’s the most expensive thing he’s bought, but it’s not the most intimate. Technically that award would go to the inexplicable pillow he happened to find with Morrissey’s face on it which is both perfect for Gerard and creepy. Frank has been mentally picking gifts out for Gerard for the last few weeks though so it wasn’t actually that hard to find five.

He bought Gerard five gifts that is, and he made one of them. With the help of his mother, because Frank is just that cool, he constructed what he thinks is probably the worst, but hopefully most endearing, birthday cake that has ever graced this earth. There’s a good chance it might be a giant hockey puck, but Frank is an optimist.

“Alright,” Frank says, turning to Pete. “Pete, you know what to do?”

“Yep,” Pete nods, “I’m on it.”

The ball can only roll if Pete fulfills his end of the bargain. Pete is the one Frank is relying on the most, because Ray’s only a few steps in a much larger plan. Frank nods, and hopes that Pete does not fuck this up. Although Frank probably trusts Pete more than any other person in the entire world, he still worries that Pete is somehow going to mess up.

Frank’s not entirely sure he wants to do this, but he is sure that he’s got to do something, and this is the only way that he thinks Gerard will realize how much he means to Frank. Frank loves that guy so much and he doesn’t want him slipping through his fingers.

“I’m trusting you Pete,” Frank says.

“I don’t wanna let you down, okay? I promise you I’ll do everything, and I’ll do it right,” Pete says.

“Okay,” Frank says and instead turns his gaze to Brendon, “You have more classes with him than either me or Pete-”

“Dude I know, I got it, you can relax,” Brendon says.

“Are you sure, because-”

“Frank, I was sure the first thirteen times you asked me, I’m sure now as well.”

“Alright,” Frank nods, “I’m just a little on edge, okay?”

“Yeah, I get it, but it’s fine. Everything is going to work out, Frank,” Brendon says.

“Yeah, dude,” Pete chips in, “Gerard isn’t stupid enough not to realize how much work you’re putting into all of this. If he’s got a smart bone in his body, he’ll come crawling back to you.”

“I don’t want him to be the one crawling, I’m the one who fucked up in the first place,” Frank says, even though he still thinks that he has a good point.

“Just take deep breaths,” Brendon says, and checks his watch, “listen, I’ve got to go, okay? You just calm yourself and try not to pass out.”

“Easier said than done,” Frank groans.

He finally relents to go into the school, not because he wants to, but because he’s probably going to be getting into enough trouble today as it is, he doesn’t want to add tardiness to that list.

Frank hides behind a wall so that he can spy on Gerard as he opens his locker a few minutes later. He’s waiting for him to smile or wonder how Frank managed to open his locker or something. Any reaction at all. But what Frank sees is simply nothing. Gerard has a blank expression. He sees the bag, doesn’t even open it, doesn’t even make a move to touch it. All he does is grab his textbook for first period and shove it into his backpack.

Frank can’t resist any longer. He feels like he hasn’t talked to Gerard in years, even though it hasn’t been twenty-four hours. Anytime not spent with Gerard is a century of loneliness, and Frank will never get over how fucking cheesy and cliché he is around this guy.

Gerard starts to walk down the hall, headed to his next class, when Frank decides to walk away from his hiding spot, directly in Gerard’s path. There are other people walking around them on either side, what feels like hundreds of people whose faces have no names. Their names are just as lost to him as Gerard’s had been so little time ago.

“What do you want Frank?” Gerard asks, looking already completely done with him.

“I just… I don’t know,” Frank says, “I just want you to not be mad at me.”

“I want you to not be ashamed of me,” Gerard says.

“I’m ashamed of myself, you know that,” Frank says.

“Whatever,” Gerard says, rolling his eyes, and he brushes past Frank with that, hitting his shoulder on his way past. Frank turns to watch him walk away and feels completely alone standing there and watching Gerard leave.

Frank yells after him, “Happy birthday.” Gerard doesn’t even acknowledge that he’s heard him.

There’s no one in this school but the two of them. Just Gerard walking down an empty hallway, the sound of his feet on the ground echoing off the walls. But the minute Gerard turns the hallway, lost from Frank’s sight, all the other people around him come back into focus. The school isn’t empty. They’re not the only ones anymore. Now there’s a dozen people rushing past and none of them care that Frank’s heart is bleeding through his chest.

Frank makes his way solemnly to his first class, feeling like this isn’t going to work. It has to work. It has to be perfect, and Gerard has to love him. It’s all got to happen. Frank knows that it has to but that doesn’t make it any easier to face the reality that it isn’t happening yet. And he wants to tell himself that it has to, that it’s destiny, but he’s never been good at being the optimist he claims he is, and he’s not going to start now when everything is standing against him.

There isn’t a second of the hour where Frank can concentrate on his teacher or on anything but his own heartbeat. He needs to stop everything and listen to his own heart because he feels like if he doesn’t, he’ll go completely insane. He’s a bundle of nerves, and if anything disturbs his breathing rate, he just might explode.

The sound of the bell ringing is both a mercy and a death sentence. He feels as though his heart is made of lead because he knows that if Pete has done what he was meant to, Frank’s life has now changed forever. It’s already too late. It’s already happening around him.

Frank picks himself up from his seat, feeling like his feet each way a ton. He drags his body to the doorway, and walks out, looking around, waiting to see if anyone is looking at him differently. He doesn’t know how quick this will all be. He doesn’t know if it’ll happen at all, though if history has taught him anything it’s that it always repeats itself.

He wishes that he’d had the courage to do this himself, but instead he needed Pete’s help. He probably wouldn’t have been able to do this if he didn’t have someone to do it for him. He couldn’t have stood up on a table at lunch to scream it out, even if the gesture might have been more grand. It just wouldn’t have happened; he wouldn’t have been able to do it.

Frank eyes Pete walking down the hall across from him a moment later, there are too many people between them for Frank to just go over to him, but when Frank raises an eyebrow at him, Pete nods curtly, telling him silently that it’s been done. Frank’s body feels chalky and he’s going to have a cold sweat about this all day, but he’s got to do it. Gerard is too important to risk letting go.

“You sure you’re ready for this?” Brendon asks, somehow coming up from behind him without him noticing. He might have been there the whole time and Frank’s just so focused on his own thoughts that he didn’t even notice.

“It’s too late now,” Frank says.

“I just hope you know what you’re doing,” Brendon says.

“If I knew what I was doing, that wouldn’t make it love,” Frank replies, because people say love is blind for a reason. No one knows what they’re doing and that’s how you know it’s real.

Right about now, Gerard is probably finding the third gift in his locker. Hopefully he’s starting to soften up a little bit. Frank doesn’t want to get his hopes up though.

Second, third, and fourth period edge by in a tantalizing crawl. It takes four centuries just for Frank to make it to lunch, and he sure has noticed a difference.

People keep getting texts in the middle of class. Their phones buzz so everyone in the room besides the teacher hears it, but every time anyone’s head lowers to look under the desk, they all look at Frank before putting their phone away. It’s happening all around him and he can’t stop it. He wants to, he really wants to, because he doesn’t want any of this, but it had to be done. From the start it had to be done.

In the halls, Frank is a magnet to every set of eyes he walks past. Pete’s mouth is as big as he had hoped, Frank supposes, but it’s disconcerting to say the least.

Brendon finds Frank at his locker and doesn’t say anything as a greeting, but instead shoves his phone under Frank’s nose. Brendon’s got three unread text messages from people who Frank doesn’t even know, and they’re all talking about him.

“So I’m the gay kid now,” Frank says.

“Looks like it,” Brendon nods.

Frank had underestimated how quick rumors spread throughout this school. He had thought it would take at least until the end of the day for the whole entire school to know he’s gay, but it took half that time.

“The world loves a good gay kid to objectify, doesn’t it?” Frank says, closing his locker and ducking his head as he walks down the hall to the cafeteria, a walking neon sign to everyone else apparently.

Gerard is already sitting at the table when Frank gets to the cafeteria. He’s there by himself, looking blankly at a wall in front of him. He looks as broken and emotionless as Frank feels right now. He hates being away from Gerard, hates being the new school scandal, and he hates that it’s his own fault that all of this is happening.

Frank walks to the table, not seeing any of his friends anywhere in sight. He doesn’t know if this is by plan or what, but even Brendon, who’d been standing beside him a moment ago isn’t there anymore. This part he didn’t plan, and he suddenly feels completely out of control. Like he’s a car swerving on ice, he doesn’t feel like he has a steer on anything, not even his own thoughts.

Mindlessly, Frank feels his feet drag him to the table until he’s standing in front of their table, eyes looking at him from every corner of the lunch room, making him feel like a museum exhibit.

When he finally stops, Gerard doesn’t acknowledge him, he just sits there staring straight ahead. Frank feels all the more hopeless at this development.

“Hi,” Frank says, and Gerard looks up at him, which is more than Frank had expected.

“What?” Gerard asks, with an accusatory tone.

“I just, I’m sorry,” Frank says.

“Sorry?” Gerard asks, not looking impressed. “That’s great.”

“I am. I thought that you might understand that I honestly am not trying to hurt you. I’m the coward here.”

“I know you are,” Gerard says.

“Did you like any of the gifts?” Frank asks.

“A couple albums, a book, and whatever else you think I’m so materialistic as to want, and you think I’m going to forgive you?” Gerard asks.

“It’s not about th-the gifts, Gerard. It’s about sentiment, and I’m doing my best, I just want you to know that I care about you,” Frank pleads.

“I have no doubt that you care about me,” Gerard says, “I really don’t. But that’s not what is important here. What I care about is that you care enough not to let other people’s opinions get in the way of how you feel.”

“I’m always going to be a self-conscious person.”

“I don’t know why you thought a couple gifts were going to change that. I’m still mad at you.”

Frank sighs, “Okay, so it’s like this. I am not very good at this whole relationship thing, as it seems. I’ve never had one before, I’m throwing blind darts here. I don’t know how to get you to forgive me, because I have fucked up. I know one thing though, and it’s that I like you a lot. But I don’t even care if you like me back as much as I like you, Gerard. I know you don’t. I like you a lot. So goddamn much that no words can express it. I know that you can’t like me back as much as I like you but that doesn’t change the fact that I want nothing more than for you to look at me and see a tenth of as much as what I see when I look at you.”

“I don’t need you to tell me this,” Gerard says. He doesn’t want to hear Frank pouring his heart out right now when all Gerard wants is for Frank to give him something that he can’t.

“Gerard,” Frank groans, his head falling to the table as he tries to think of the words he needs to say, “Gerard, I don’t care if this is too fast, I don’t care if you think I’m an idiot, I don’t care if everyone in the world thinks I’m a dumb teenager. I am so crazy for you that the world stands still when I look in your eyes. My heart stops when you smile at me. I understand what Pablo fucking Neruda was always talking about, and I’m pretty sure that I empathize with a character that Katherine Heigl played once. I am suffocating every second that you’re angry at me, and I just don’t know how to tell you that my internal monologue when I’m around you is just that old Cascada song.”

“Frank, I don’t want our relationship to be a secret that we keep between less than ten people. I don’t need it published in a magazine or written on a billboard but I would like for it not to be something that you’d deny if asked about.”

“And I don’t want you to have that,” Frank says.

“But you still can’t hold my hand in this school because you’re afraid of what people will think.”

“No,” Frank says, shaking his head. “I get it. I get why you think I’m childish, and I get why you don’t want this to be a secret, because your worthy of me showing you off to people. Not that that’s all I think of you as, as a trophy, because I think far more of you than that. I just mean to say that you are too good for me to be afraid of admitting that I like you. You are right. I’m not saying my brain is completely on board with the fact that you’re right, because my nerves and anxiety are still there, but I want you to know that I recognize that I am at fault.”

“It’s good to hear that you can take some responsibility, but Frank, I can’t be with you if I have to be a secret. I just can’t. I don’t have it in me to put all my energy into a relationship that no one acknowledges. It’s not fair to me, and it reduces whatever that relationship would mean.”

“Gerard,” Frank says, “I understand. And that’s why my penultimate gift to you is simply my coming out.”

“Your what?” Gerard asks.

“I’m out, Gerard,” Frank says simply. “I didn’t have the courage to announce it myself, but I hope you can accept that I did it anyway. Pete started a rumor earlier this morning. Given that Pete is my best friend, it’s not hard for people to think that it’s true. Everyone knows Gerard.”

“You mean…?” Gerard asks, looking confused and drifting off. Frank watches as he looks around him, studying some of the faces around their table to try to see if he can sense the difference.

“Gerard,” Frank says, “I am absolutely terrified of being the gay kid. I would rather be shot in the foot. I am a giant bundle of nerves right now, and I wouldn’t have done this if someone had held a gun to my head. I would never willingly have let the whole school know. Not until I met you at least. Before you, I couldn’t tell Pete or Brendon. I couldn’t tell my own mother for god’s sake. But Gerard, everyone knows now. My mom, the whole school, my best friends, someone has probably CC’d Jesus. The point is that I am willing to put my fear aside if it means you’ll give me a chance.”

“You told everyone?” Gerard asks.

“Well, indirectly I told the whole school, but yeah, everyone knows,” Frank says.

“For me?” Gerard asks, looking even more confused. Gerard honestly doesn’t feel like he’s worthy of a sacrifice like that.

“It’s what I needed to do to get you to realize that I’m committed,” Frank says.

Gerard feels like a horrible person. He feels like the scum of the earth, gum that’s so unworthy of the bottom of a shoe that it resides forever under a park bench. All of this Frank did for him. Gerard could see the fear in his eyes when he’d brought it up to Frank. He could see the absolute terror at the prospect of the whole school knowing Frank’s secret. Frank couldn’t tell even his own best friends and mother. But he has now. He’s told everyone. And he did it for Gerard.

Gerard doesn’t know how to tell Frank that Gerard’s undeserving of him. He doesn’t want to be the one to put into perspective for Frank, the magnitude of how underserving of Frank he is. Gerard just isn’t good enough for Frank. He’s just not. He wants more from this relationship than Frank possibly can and the mere possibility that Frank is willing to give up finding someone worthy for him, simply to be with Gerard, it’s not fair to him.

Gerard’s the one who had been adamant that this relationship not go past high school, but it’s not because he doesn’t think he’ll like Frank enough to make it last. That’s not it at all. He just doesn’t want Frank to feel as though he’s been tied down. He doesn’t want to hold Frank back, because Frank’s going to go places, Gerard can see it. Frank is going to be someone, and Gerard is just going to be a pencil pusher, and that’s if he’s lucky.

The truth is, Gerard wants nothing more than to be Frank’s boyfriend, or more, for the rest of their goddamn lives, but he knows that even if Frank feels the same way now, he won’t in ten years.

“Frank,” Gerard says shaking his head, and Frank’s heart falls. He was hoping for a positive response. This looks like the opposite of what he wants.

“Fuck.”

“You should hate me,” Gerard says, his voice so quiet that Frank can barely hear it.

“I could never hate you.”

“You should though,” Gerard insists. “I’m not good enough for you, and we both know it. I’m needy, and I’m annoying, and I’m stubborn, and I’m short tempered.”

“And I’m neurotic, obsessive, immature, and cynical. We’re all flawed, it doesn’t make me like you any less.”

“But you go to all this trouble, and it’s for me. For me! I don’t deserve this. You should be repelled by me. Repulsed. You shouldn’t like me.”

“But I do,” Frank says. “I can’t prevent that.”

Gerard groans, and looks at the ceiling, and Frank’s scared at the fact that he looks close to crying, “I am so totally and fully scared that someday you are going to get bored with me. You are going to realize you can do better, and I’ll just be left to pick up the pieces of myself that I let you break.”

“I am not going to get bored,” Frank responds, finding the thought of it unfathomable. He could listen to a play by play story of Gerard flossing. He would probably by the screen rights for it. There’s no way he could get bored with Gerard.

“Yes you-”

“Gerard, the past few weeks I have been literally wigging out for every second of every day for fear that you might not like me as much as I like you. I’ve been… festering. Fuck, that sounds gross, but I have. I can’t think about anything but you, I got a D on a math test last week because I was daydreaming about how it would feel to kiss you, and that was before I actually got the chance to kiss you. Now every second that goes by where I’m not kissing you is wasted.”

“I just don’t think you realize how unworthy of you I am.”

“Well firstly, if anyone is settling for the other it’s you, because I am a tiny man with nothing but flaws and your only vice is probably that you can’t see how perfect you are, and you know I mean it because I want to stab myself in the mouth for how cheesy that was, but it’s true.”

“Frank…” Gerard drifts off.

“I don’t want you to concern yourself with whether you think there’s an imbalance here,” Frank says, and he remembers Gerard, or Gee, saying almost the exact same thing, and he can’t believe how much the tables have turned. If only Gerard knew what he’d look like in ten years, there’s definitely no way he’d think that Frank was settling. “The fact of the matter is that I like you and I don’t see why you need to dwell on the specifics as to why that is.”

“Poetic,” Gerard says, and Frank almost laughs because he’s literally quoting Gerard. Gerard just inadvertently called himself poetic.

“Can we just… kiss and make up?” Frank asks looking hopeful.

“I don’t know, Frank.”

“Well do you like me?” Frank asks bluntly.

“Well, yeah,” Gerard says, because it’s obvious. He’s like this guy for over five years. He’s dreamt about Frank in ways that would probably make Frank run away as soon as he heard the details. Gerard hasn’t had a crush on anyone as strong as the way he feels for Frank. And the fact that he has pretended to hate him for so long makes that crush a little bit more painful. It makes the way he feels exponentially stronger.

“Then don’t hurt yourself trying to overthink this. It doesn’t need to be any more complicated than you liking me, and me liking you.”

Gerard doesn’t look entirely sure but Frank raises an eyebrow at him, and Gerard doesn’t think he can handle it. He doesn’t believe that. Love is complicated, that’s what everyone says about it. There is more to it than just the two of them liking each other. But Frank does have a point. The both of them do like each other. They both know that. Given that information, it does sound a little idiotic that two people who both like each other aren’t dating. What other solution would there be for that kind of data? It’s just the most obvious thing to do.

And Frank is gorgeous. Frank can pull off anything. He’s pulled off thirty different haircuts that Gerard has maybe been too interested in over the years. He can make even the most boring topics interesting. It’s like with Frank, Gerard has learned a new emotion. One that he never knew existed. There’s glee, there’s joy, there’s complete ecstasy, but there’s no word that can really capture how he feels about Frank.

Gerard is still wary of the almost indisputable knowledge that Frank will someday get bored with him. That fear is still there, and it’s rooted itself at the bottom of his stomach, making him feel sick just to consider. But still, this is Frank. He doesn’t want to experience what it’ll feel like when Frank will someday ditch him. But then again, it doesn’t seem any less painful to never even get to know what it’d be like to be with him at all. He doesn’t want to be hurt, but he’d rather actually give the two of them a chance and have it fail than not try at all.

“Alright,” Gerard says.

“Alright?” Frank repeats hopefully.

“I don’t want to-” Gerard pauses, “I don’t want to look back on this and have to ask myself ‘what if.’”

“So can I climb over the table and kiss you now?”

Gerard smiles, in a way that makes it look like he’s trying not to. There’s something about Frank that just makes him jittery. Sometimes when Frank touches him, it’s almost like he can see ten years into the future and he can picture himself still with Frank. He knows he’s just a wishful thinking teenager but it still feels like there’s something real between the two of them, even if every fiber in Gerard’s body knows that it’s implausible. Maybe some part of him thinks that it might not be. Maybe there is a part of him that believes that he and Frank can actually be for forever.

Frank takes Gerard’s smile as a yes, and he’s almost about to hesitate kissing Gerard when he remembers that everyone fucking knows, or suspects at the very least. He’s got literally nothing to lose anymore.

The table is long and thin which is good because Frank is short and small, so he just barely manages to actually clear the table, though his feet are no longer touching the ground. But he finally kisses Gerard again, and that’s all that matters.

This kiss should be uncomfortable, because Frank’s got literally a whole table digging into him, and Gerard’s just kind of sitting there like a piece of wood, not even bothering to get closer so Frank is basically planking on a cafeteria table, but it’s fine with him, because Gerard is a damn good kisser. He’s the kind of kisser that teenage girls in movies talk about while Avril Lavigne plays in the distance. Frank doesn’t even think that his brain is giving Gerard too much credit because he’s absolutely in love with the guy, Gerard’s genuinely just that good of a kisser.

“You’re going to ruin my life,” Frank says, grinning like an idiot when he pulls away, but he doesn’t get off the table, he still wants to stare into Gerard’s eyes for a couple more seconds. And maybe kiss him again.

“In a good way?” Gerard asks.

“Absolutely,” Frank says, leaning in to kiss Gerard again, but he’s interrupted a moment before he can by a very obnoxious honking sound, followed by an equally annoying pop.

When Frank turns around he sees Pete, Brendon, and Ray with a not as excited looking Mikey. Ray’s got one of those party horn things that make an obnoxious sound that nobody actually likes and yet they continue to exist, and Brendon, Frank realizes too late has a confetti shooter, and the popping sound he heard is why he is all of a sudden covered in tiny pieces of paper.

“What the fuck,” Frank says, sitting down and shaking bits of confetti out of his hair while literally everyone in the cafeteria is staring at the wankers who just made this mess.

“You’re cleaning this up,” Gerard says, brushing confetti off of his food.

“We’re aware that it’s a slightly premeditative celebration since you’ll probably break up again in two days, but it’s Gerard’s birthday, confetti had to be flung at some point!” Brendon says, taking the seat next to Frank, who gets a handful of confetti and places it carefully on Brendon’s head. Brendon shakes it off like a dog, but Frank decides that it was worth it.

“I brought the cake!” Pete says excitedly, holding the sorry excuse of a cake that Frank had made, and it looks worse now than it had earlier. “If it’s inedible, just remember that Frank’s the one who made it.”

“My will to live is going to exempt me from eating that thing,” Mikey says, making a face as he takes a seat next to Gerard, who looks honestly quite pleased right now.

“Pretty sure I saw it moving earlier,” Pete says grinning.

“You’re so bad at baking that you made a sentient cake?” Gerard asks Frank.

“All my talent is in Candy Crush Saga, I don’t know how to do anything that uses anything more than two fingers.”

Ray, instead of adding any rude remarks about Frank’s cake, blows the horn again and he honestly hates that sound so much that he debates whether getting back together with Gerard is even worth it.

“I’m so happy for you too,” Pete says, honestly looking like this is the best thing ever, and it’s partly because Pete, who was a dog in a former life, is excited by everything.

“Our very own Ross and Rachel,” Brendon says.

“Ew,” Ray makes a face, “who pulled the short straw and has to be Ross?”

“Sorry, let’s go with Harvey and Sabrina,” Brendon clarifies. Frank and Gerard’s eyes meet and Frank can see that Gerard’s in utter disbelief that the two of them are so unlucky as to be friends with these weird ass people.

Pete, ironically, thinks the exact opposite because he wraps his arms around Brendon and Frank who are on either side of him and says, “I love all of you guys.” And well, Frank wouldn’t admit it, but that kind of sums up the way he feels too.