Chance

“Ah the whole world is at my fingers!” Frank screams as soon as he steps out onto the street. He says it rather loudly and they are in one of the biggest, most populous cities in the world, it’s safe to say Gerard is not the only person who heard.

“Well, your feet,” Gerard says, “but only given the assumption that you recently came into a very large sum of cash seeing as this world is very strictly dictated by a highly insignificant thing called money.”

“Oh your cynicism, it won’t get me down,” Frank says, with a fake laugh that can only be described as a chortle which is a word Gerard would never touch with a nine-foot stick.

It’s not quite cold outside, but it’s not warm either. It’s the transition between autumn and winter that makes you think you don’t need a coat outside, but once night falls you realize you were mistaken. It’s cold enough that Gerard wishes he had Frank wrapped around him. Frank doesn’t look remotely cold because he’s wearing a jacket, he must have listened to his mother as a child when she advised him to wear a coat. Gerard always rebelled and regretted it every single time he stepped foot outside his house. Things have not changed that much since living with his mother.

“You have a lovely perspective,” Gerard replies, “I appreciate it.”

“Oh my optimism? It’s all a ploy!”

“How so?”

“See, I’m actually following an ongoing one-man attempt to take over the world. It’s not been fruitful so far, but I don’t want the general population to catch on, so I pretend to be just the most frolicking little man the world has ever seen. But someday, you’ll see.”

“Ah, but what kind of ruler would you be?” Gerard asks, “more Voldemort or Dr. Drakken?”

“Blue’s not my color,” Frank says making a face, “I was thinking more Brain à la Pinky and the, it fits me more.”

“Oh I get it,” Gerard says, “you are also very short, and have a large head.”

“Precisely!” Frank responds. “Really my long term goal is to just have someone name an ice cream flavor after me. If world domination is the route I take to achieve that, then so be it.”

“Believe it or not, that’s my life goal too.”

“See, and I knew we had a historic future together, they’ll write anthologies about us for sure,” Frank says, “I could see it when I saw your ass. I mean eyes.”

“You know just what to say to find the key to my little heart.”

“I say the same thing to all the boys,” Frank says.

“I’m touched.”

“You’d better believe it, honey,” Frank replies, and honestly it sounds wrong coming from him, but he says it with confidence which gives him maybe a little of his dignity back. Not much though. “You’ve got quite a nice face. If there’s anyone who I would consider taking along with me as my coconspirator it would be you. But we’re not quite at that level, you’ve got to prove your worth before I can make you my right-hand man.”

“I’m honored that you would even consider me. The only talent I can bring to the table is that I can spell onomatopoeia.”

“You’re hired,” Frank replies. Gerard actually feels some pride, but it’s probably not because he earned Frank’s approval, it’s because Frank grinned at him when he said that and he feels honored to be able to personally view this man smiling up close.

“So where in the world-”

“Is Carmen Sandiago?” Frank finishes for him, and Gerard decides to punch him in the arm. They’ve known each other for about ten minutes now, he feels he’s earned the right to punch him.

“I was going to say, where the hell are we actually going?” Gerard asks.

“I thought you knew, I was following you?” Frank replies, and Gerard shakes his head. “Well in that case we’re heading north. Or south. Or west, or east. I don’t carry a compass with me.”

“I have a compass app on my phone,” Gerard shrugs.

“That seems entirely unnecessary. It’s the twenty first century, who uses a compass? How often do you find yourself lost at sea? Possibly chasing after the revenge you seek on a whale who took your leg?”

“It’s one of those apps you can’t delete.”

“Oh, I see like the stocks app,” Frank says, “because I, as a twenty-seven-year-old male, absolutely know what a stock is.”

“I’m still surprised that stock doesn’t pertain to corn,” Gerard shrugs.

“Here, I’ve got a dumb idea,” Frank says, looking excited, “get out your compass app and we’ll head north.”

“Why north?”

“I’m not sure on the exact coordinates, but I have heard rumors that Santa lives up north.”

“Yeah, I can give you coordinates. That would be the north fucking pole,” Gerard responds, “but I’m game, let’s head north.”

Gerard pulls out his phone, and he gets the feeling that Frank would be a backseat driver when he starts telling Gerard what to do, like he can’t find the app on his own phone. But Gerard doesn’t get mad, it’s cute. Frank’s cute.

Gerard looks at Frank as he looks at Gerard’s phone, trying to find the right direction. Up close, Frank is a sight to be seen. He’s got a strong jaw, with some stubble down his face because he’s apparently got the capability of growing facial hair, which Gerard is still waiting for. His eyebrows are literally perfect, they’re the kind that people spend hours watching makeup tutorials to achieve. Up close, Gerard can see some color peeking out on his neck, which you can’t make out from a distance because he’s wearing a button up, probably because his job demands it. Gerard would love to see the full spectrum, and that steers his mind down a Rated R path, because he sure as hell wants to know what parts of Frank are and aren’t tattooed. The most noticeable thing about Frank are his eyes. Gerard’s a fool for a man with brown eyes. Frank’s eyes are like brown M&M’s. Gerard loves M&M’s.

Frank points in the direction that the app is claiming is north, which is across the street from where they are now.

“Remember kids, look both ways before crossing,” Frank says in the best second grade teacher voice he can muster.

“Jaywalking is only illegal if you get caught!” Gerard says hurrying across the road, Frank behind him, not heeding his own warning.

“But if you get hit by a bus than good luck having to face the almighty ‘I told you so’ of Jesus himself.”

“Jesus is always telling me what to do,” Gerard says, rolling his eyes. He makes it across the road and looks behind him to see Frank grinning at him like Gerard’s got the best face ever. Or maybe it’s just the adrenaline. Gerard chooses to assume the former.

“You’re literally the cutest person ever,” Frank says.

“That’s what my mom always tells me,” Gerard replies.

“When I meet her,” Frank says, assuming that he is Gerard’s betrothed as of about five minutes ago, “remind me to thank her for passing along some awesome genes.”

“My brother got all the good ones.”

“Yeah, but you got the nice face.”

“Touché,” Gerard laughs. However, based on all the girls who had tripped over themselves to date Mikey in high school, it may not have been an exclusive trait.

“Man, you and I would make some really gorgeous babies were it humanly possible,” Frank remarks, possibly to himself, but Gerard snorts at it. “You better believe I would use the Sims hack to make it happen.”

“What a horrific mental image,” Gerard says.

“Yeah, no, I take it back, that’s some seriously disturbing shit right there.”

“I mean they would be pretty cute,” Gerard notes. If they had Frank’s eyes and jaw, and Gerard’s nose, and cheekbones, those kids could initiate world peace.

“They’d make all the other kids feel bad about themselves. And that’s what I strive for. I strive for six year olds to have low self-esteem.”

“So you weren’t kidding when you said that you were Satan, were you?” Gerard asks.

Frank laughs lightly, “you know, I work with kids actually. Bunch of little dicks, but I’d take a bullet for every single one of them. Except Eric. Eric can go to hell. I mean Eric’s seven, but he can still go to hell.”

Gerard makes a mental note that this is why his teacher voice was so good. It’s probably because he’s literally a pro at it by now. The key to a teacher voice is being able to say ridiculous things with a serious tone. Something like ‘Jonah, do not put that Lego in your nose’ without laughing at the mere thought of a kid putting a Lego in his nose. Gerard couldn’t do that job. He would take a photo of Jonah with a Lego up his nose.

“That’s a really passionate hatred if you’re willing to use a seven-year-old as a human shield,” Gerard says, but he likes the idea of Frank working with kids. He can already see the huge smile Frank must have with them. He’s probably more adorable than most of the kids. And Gerard has most definitely got a thing for people who are good with kids. That’s on the top of his list, aside from every other trait he has learned of Frank so far. If Frank is flexible than Gerard would have a bingo with Frank.

“The bitch deserves it,” Frank shakes his head, “but anyway, before your boss ran away, what did you do?”

“I played minesweeper for approximately eight hours a day,” Gerard says.

“Sounds like it would get boring after a while,” Frank remarks.

“Oh man, it does. There was a certain level of boredom that was so vile it forced you to do actual work. That’s rock bottom, dude, actually doing your job.”

“So a cubicle then?” Frank asks.

“Am I that transparent?” Gerard asks.

“You’ve got pencil pusher written across your forehead.”

“Unsurprising. I do live on the couch of a frat house. I’m just glad my forehead doesn’t say Brony. Again.”

Frank grins, looks at him and then down at the sidewalk. He’s not sure where they’re heading, other than that they are heading north. There’s no real destination in mind, it’s just wandering. It’s a good way to get yourself murdered in New York, but hey, it’s home.

Gerard’s got little to no brawn at all so his only defense in warding off potential killers is just his unassuming face and nature. He’s so easy to forget the existence of. Gerard once got sat on because someone didn’t notice him. Gerard could literally be Mia Thermopolis. Aside from the royalty thing. But he too loves cats and Chris Pine.

The fact that Frank has noticed him, let alone is still here with him, walking to who knows where, it’s a rare event. Gerard always gets stuck with scumbags because they’re the only ones who take notice of him. Frank doesn’t strike him as a scumbag and Gerard prides himself with being a very good judge of character, so the fact that Gerard’s got a good feeling about Frank is almost an impossibility. He’s never hit on by people who don’t make his skin crawl, and Frank, Frank gives him goosebumps, but not the bad kind.

Frank is trying to keep himself composed but he’s got jitters all up along his body, especially in his chest. He feels like this is more than just a fluke or a coincidence. Gerard has got a really important role to play in Frank’s life, and he hasn’t quite figured out what it is yet, but he sure as hell knows what his ideal casting would be.

Frank doesn’t normally get nervous around guys, and he’s not nervous now, he just wants to get things going, wants to know everything about Gerard. He wants to not be held back by societies limits, because he knows he only just met this guy. They’ve known each other for no more than twenty minutes, but already Frank wants to have checked off dozens of milestones. He’s not nervous around Gerard, he’s excited to know more, and impatient at the time it’ll take to do so.

“So what would you actually be doing if life weren’t a bitch?” Frank asks, “or, what will you potentially do now that your boss is tanning alongside murderers on a remote island in the Pacific?”

“I actually want to do animation?” Gerard says, like he’s questioning himself for actually wanting to do that. He knows what he wants, but he doesn’t like saying it out loud for him to have to bear people looking at him with such a look of incredulous superiority.

“Sick,” Frank says, which is lacking in the judgmental tone that most people use when Gerard says that. “Maybe if you get famous enough, the kids will watch something you’ve made when I go into work with a hangover.”

“That’s why teachers play videos?” Gerard asks, awestruck.

“Industry secret,” Frank says, winking, “but yeah.”

“Oh my god my entire childhood makes sense now,” Gerard says, thinking back to all the times Mr. Michealson had made them watch movies that almost pertained to history but not quite. Like Newsies, and Phantom of the Opera, and really that dude must have just had a thing for musicals.

“Oh my god and that’s why teachers drink so much coffee,” Gerard says.

“That and it’s literally impossible to even be near a child without coffee. I once tried to quit coffee and my experiment failed after I almost cried when a kid asked me how to spell ‘giraffe.’”

“Giraffes do have that effect on people,” Gerard says, grinning.

“Shut up,” Frank grins, shaking his head. Gerard is definitely falling in love with this guy, little by little. He’s probably going to tell Mikey about this tomorrow and Mikey won’t believe a word he says, because Mikey doesn’t believe that anybody can possibly find his brother attractive in anyway. That’s not to say that Mikey is a bad brother, he is just repulsed by the mere thought of anyone finding Gerard in any way good looking. The same can be said of Gerard’s view of Mikey. Mikey is gross. Mikey may be really great at Guitar Hero, but he’s still gross. That being said, there is no person on this planet who is nearly good enough for Mikey, but all siblings have odd relationships. Mikey usually has more of a say in Gerard’s love life than Gerard does.

“You know,” Gerard says, “there’s a tea store just down that road, over there.”

“That sounds like a hipster breeding ground,” Frank says, “Let’s go.”

“You really want to be asked who your favorite Star Trek captain is while Florence + the Machine plays in the background?”

“Absolutely,” Frank says, excitedly walking down the street Gerard had pointed to. Gerard just really wants coffee. Wanting coffee is Gerard’s default mood, he’s only got like four different moods. His four mods are sleepy, want coffee, bored, and need coffee. Gerard is like a car, only instead of gasoline, he needs coffee, otherwise he breaks down in the middle of a road and people honk at him.

Gerard is lost in thought, thinking about a million different things and mostly Frank and how much he wants to see Frank naked and in his bed, but he feels that this whole back and forth thing would stop abruptly if he were to drop that bomb right now.

“We going to go make fun of hipsters whose lives revolve around Sarah McLachlan or not?”

“I’m always game to make fun of people who quote Robert Frost unironically.”

“I see someone has traveled the road less taken,” Frank says. Frank has this glint in his eyes, like he has some bigger intentions than he’s letting on. Not necessarily malicious ones, he just looks like a sly motherfucker that Gerard would fall so hard for. As it is, Gerard is already falling.

“We’re going to get up to some hella mischief aren’t we?” Gerard asks Frank, because he can sense it. Something tells him this night is not even slightly over. This pleases him on more than one level.

“Oh yes,” Frank says, grinning back at Gerard. Frank has every intention of making Gerard fall in love with him in the next two to seven thousand hours. Because he also has every intention of knowing Gerard for that long.