Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Coffee, that was always the first thought on Gerard's mind. It's the first stop he makes on all his morning walks. He recently had to change where he'd get said Coffee, for unfortunate reasons.
So he changed up his route just a bit. At first it was because he wanted to avoid the old coffee place, but then he discovered a new place to get his fix and maybe he liked the new place even better. It was a small bakery, with all the charm that came with that. Yellow and white striped awnings with metal bistro tables under them and the smell of fresh cinnamon buns. He was sure they probably actually sold those cinnamon buns as well, but he only ever ordered coffee.

The last few weeks Gerard had been coming here every couple of days. Today was a saturday, normally he wouldn't dare step outside on the weekend, but something pulled him out of bed. Was it the idea of fresh coffee or the flyer in his pocket saying something about a comicbook sale? Who knows?

The bell gently rang as he entered the bakery. "Goodmorning!" A voice sounds from the backroom. A guy comes through the door, carrying a tray of fresh chocolate cookies. His smile widens as he recognizes Gerard. He has been the one manning the bakery most times he had visited. Every now and then it was an older Italian-looking woman.
"How are you?" He asked as he put down the tray, laying them all down on a plate, save for one. He was probably planning on eating it himself, it looked delicious and gooey.
"Im good, thanks."
He's quiet a bit shorter than Gerard and clearly had a bigger muscle mass than he would or could ever aquire. Then again he's pretty lanky and survives on coffee and burned toast. The man also sports dark short hair, a few piercings and tattoos. Today he's wearing a black apron with a graphic tee underneath. A small badge on his apron reads; Frankie.
"The usual?" Frankie asks. Gerard finds it slightly embarrasing that he allready had a usual here. But then again, a plain black coffee maybe wasn't that hard to remember. He nods.
"Are you new around here?" He asks again. "You've been coming here a lot lately." No actually, Gerard wasn't new here. He lived in and around the city allmost his entire live, certainly his adult life. He bites the inside of his cheeck briefly thinking how he should answer this question.
"No, I'm not new here. I was just stuck in my old ways, wanted to try something new." He hummed while thinking of his old ways, it was a painful memory.
"Seems to me like you're allready stuck in your new ways, as well." He jokes. "No worries though, you're very welcome here."
Gerard nods,"Thank you." He says just above a whisper. Meanwhile Frankie is pouring his coffee for a large coffeepot. "I don't think I'll be changing my habbit any time soon. I'm not planning on it, anyway." He explains. Frankie nods like he understands, but I doubt he really gets it.
He pops the lid onto the to-go cup in a satisfying way, he gently puts a napkin on top. The lonely cookie get's stacked on the napkin. "Be carefull it's hot." Frankie notes, pointing at the cookie.
"I didn't order that?" Gerard says, allmost questioning himself, since that cookie did look really good.
"It's on the house." He states.
"Why?"
"Look at it as a bribe, a bribe to keep your new habbit." He smiles softly, his eyes smile with him. Gerard looks into them a few seconds too long.
"Okay... I'll remember that." He says, cupping his hand around the hot coffee.
"That'll be 4,50." Frankie says, raising his eyebrows.
"Oh my god! I was about to leave, without paying. I'm so very sorry!" He blurts, setting down the coffee and patting his pockets to find his wallet as quickly as possible. Gerard franticly fumbles his card out of his wallet and mouths "sorry" again while paying. His face feels like it's burning slightly.
"See you monday?" Frankie asks when Gerard is about to leave. His eyes seem allmost hopefull. He decides to ignore the look and gives Frankie a small nod. "See you monday." He confirms.
The bell rings softly as Gerard leaves the small bakery. He looks over his shoulder one more time before crossing the street. Frankie's standing behind the counter still looking in his direction.

A couple of blocks later his feet have brought him to the appartment complex where his brother lives. He had folded the cookie into the napkin and put it in his pocket. A bribe.
Maybe he could bribe him with it, to join him to the comic book sale. Most of the time Mikey really didn't need to get bribed to join him in such an adventure, but better save then sorry.
Gerard let's himself into the building with his spare key, while he whips out his flip phone. He dials her number while starting to climb the stairs. Her appartment is only on the second story, so he's in luck, because this building does not have an elevator.
"Hey Mikey, i'm in the building. Is it okay to come over?"
"You are outside? On a saturday morning? Are you sick? please don't bring those germs into my appartment."
"No I just went for coffee, so can i come in? I'm infront of your door."
"Coffee huh?" Mikey says as he opens the door, still holding his own shiny silver flipphone to his ear, beaded charms dangling from the phone. Gerard nods. They both flip their phones shut.
Mikey inspects the coffee cup he's is holding. "South Bakery..." He reads, squinting her eyes. "So still not going back to Our Place?" He asks, Our Place is the name of the café that supplied Gerard's old habbit.
"How can you, after being turned down like that?" Gerard scoffs, stepping into his brother's appartment and sitting at one of the breakfast bar stools in the kitchen.
"You asked him on a date, he said no, you cried yourself to sleep on my sofa. It's not that embarrassing! He doesn't even know the last part." Mikey says as he rubs Gerard's back. "It's not that deep, you'll be back there in no time."
"It's been 4 weeks Mikey, I'm not going back." He grumbles. Being reminded of the events that went on really didn't make it better.

One morning Gerard had decided this was the day. He was going to ask Matt out. Matt was the was the barista at Our place and he was gorgeous. He was blonde and tall, the whole thing. Long lashes and blue eyes, everything a teenage girl would swoon over, and apparently Gerard would too. He was going for that surfer- skaterboy- look that was so in these days, but he pulled it off without looking like a complete ass.
Matt had been pouring his coffee for more than a year now and there has always been something flirty in the air. They'd make jokes, He'd take smoke breaks when Gerard left so they could talk some more outside the café and they'd just hang out at the café every now and then. They'd always sit close together, share sigarets and silly inside jokes. Matt often complimented Gerard or touched his leg in what seemed like an accidental way, but it drove Gerard absolutely mad.
Ultimately, Gerard talked to Mikey and Ray; Mikey's best friend and roommate. They were basicly Gerard's two best friends. The ones who were there during every awfull high school phase and crush. They gave the final push: You'll regret it if you don't do it. They had said.
So, very unlike himself, he had rocked up to the café on his day off, ready to ask a boy out. After his order, Matt took his usual smoke break and they stood outside the café. They started their usual catch up. Talking about work and their weekend's, but Gerard had to cut to the chase. "So, I've been thinking. You're a really nice guy, maybe... Can I get your number?" Gerard had asked with all the courage he could muster, he had been impressed by his directness.
"Offcourse!" Matt had answered excitedly. "I'd love to hang out some time, I mean outside of the coffeehouse." Gerard handed Matt his phone and Matt was allready putting the numbers in. "We should go out for drinks next weekend."
"Oh pfew! I was so scared you didn't like me that! Like I misread all the signs." Gerard had exhaled loudly, a sigh of relieve.
"Like what...?" Matt suddenly hestitated. "I'm not gay, Gee." He said sternly. Gerard's world was build up and smashed back down in seconds. "I don't know about any signs... but if I was giving off that vibe; I'm so sorry, Gee..."
"Oh... No, no, I'm so sorry!" Gerard had blurted, grabbing his phone from Matt's hands. "I shouldn't have brought it up... I'll... I'll see you later." Only half of his number was dialed in. Gerard started walking back to Mikey appartment, quickening his pace with every step, when he turned the corner the tears started escaping his eyes.
Gerard's stomache turned at the memory. He winced. "Anyways, I got you a cookie." He said reaching into his pocket.
Mikey accepts the gift hesitantly. "It's still warm.... You payed for this? Actually bought this for me?"
"It's a bribe." Gerard clarrified.
"A bribe from who?"
"From Frankie, originally. But now it's my bribe for you to come with me to the comicbook sale." Gerard digs in his pocket to find the flyer. He lays it on the counter, flattens it out with his hands as much as he can and slides it over to Mikey.
"Okay... I will go with you." He takes a bite. "But rewind..." He says, crumbs falling from the corners of his mouth. "Who is Frankie? And why is he bribing you?"
"He works at South Bakery." Gerard taps the coffee cup to clarify. "He said he wanted me to keep going there for coffee."
Mickey's eyes widen. "Oh you got a thing for barista's." he sighs. "You can't flirt with every guy who pours you a cup of coffee. Coffee is more important than finding love, Gee."
Gerard sputters. "I'm not flirting with Frankie! And i'm pretty sure he's a baker, not a barrista."
"Baker... barista... It doesn't matter. Before you know it you're confessing your feelings over the counter and half an hour later you are on my sofa again. I won't let this guy do that to you." He says firmly, his lips forming into a stern line.
" trust me, I wont let that happen again!" Gerard huffs. "Anyway, where's your barista anyway?" He looks over Mikey shoulder, but the appartment seems empty otherwise.
"He stayed over at some girl's place." Mikey shrugged. "I think he'll be home pretty soon. He never stays for breakfast. That makes it real, he says."
"Hasn't this been like the same girl for weeks now? Doesn't that make it real?" Gerard asks.
"He says it doesn't, I don't make the rules. Anyway, He doesn't care about comics that much, so we don't have to wait for him." Mikey says.

"Okay, I don't care that it's not on route to the comicbook sale, we need to pass by that bakery." Mikey states as they step out of the appartment building. Gerard sighs.
"Why?"
"Because I want to know where to get those cookies. It was a very good cookie." Mikey explains, wiggling his eyebrows. "Are you sure thats the only reason? You dont need to check if Frankie's a good guy... I promise, I'm not into him." Gerard explains.
"Your whole body language and voice says otherwise, you at least think he's hot!" He guesses. "Your cheecks are a bit red." He notes.
"Mikey..." Gerard whines. "Yes, he is pretty, but that's not going to change anything. I don't want to be involved with anyone right now. I don't think I'm over my rejection yet." He clutches his heart and side eyes Mikey, checking if his play is working. "And like you said, coffee is more important than love."
"He's pretty? I've not met a lot of pretty guys, another reason to stop by." He's sure of it.
They walk a few blocks and the yellow and white awning pops up around the corner. They now have to walk right past it to get to the next metro station.
Mikey isn't the most subtle of the Way-Siblings, he's looking into the bakery shamelessly. His eyes are squinting to look through the reflection of the glass.
"That's him?" Mikey asks, Gerard sighs and quickly glances over. He didn't really have to look over. Frankie was the only guy working at the bakery, the only other employee he ever saw was an italian lady who was roughly the same age as their own mom.
Offcourse they make eyecontact instantly. "Yep." He confirms quickly looking the other way, trying to play it of as if they weren't talking about him. He can still see Mikey looking over, really taking Frankie in.
"Wow, okay... He's definitly diffrent. Most of your crushes are kinda girly, this guy isn't that." he decides. "He's quiet wide", Mikey gestures with his hands, " and so many tattoos. He'd look scary, if he wasn't wearing an apron. Also he's waving in a very friendly manner. Does he have an eyebrow piercing?"
"He's what?" Gerard snaps his head around, making eye contact again. He waves back and whispers a soft "Hi..."
"He can't hear you." Mikey bursts his bubble. The bakery door rings.
"Did you like the cookie?" Frankie asks loudly, as they had allready passed the door in the meantime.
"Uh..." Gerard fumbles, he looks at Mikey as if asking what do I do? Do I lie ? To this innocent man?
"I loved it, man!" Mikey yells as they walked on. "The bribe is really working!"
Frankie's pierced eyebrow shoot up in confusion.
"I'll explain Monday!" Gerard yells sheepishly. That makes Frankie smile wide.
"Okay!" he yells back. There still was a lot of confusion on his face, but the smile took over while he closed the bakery door. When they walk further towards the metro station, Gerard glances back one last time. Frankie's still looking at them, their eyes meet again and Frankie looks away quickly, pretending to be buzy arranging the baked goods in the counter.
"It's a shame.." Mikey sighs.
"What is?"
"If you're not into him... He's very into you."
"Mikey! This is the barista story all over again. That is what you said about Matt. Oh he's so into you." Gerard puts on a pretend voice, waving his hands int the air, mocking Mikey. "You should really go for it, you've got nothing to lose." Gerard rolls his eyes dramaticly. "He was straight! And Now I don't have that perfect perfect coffee." He makes the chefs-kiss, italian perfection gesture with his hands while he talks about the coffee.
"I still think he isn't straight. The way he looked at you!" Mikey explains, arms flapping up and down.
"Yeah straight or not, he said no. So I don't think I will be following your advice this time. Also, maybe it would be nice to make other friends than my brother and his friends. You know?" Gerard explains. "I mean I love them, but I'm the older brother, I shouldn't be following you around every weekend."
"You have known Ray since High School." Mikey dead pans. "But I get it, you want to spread your wings." He sighs melodramaticly. "This time I'm right, though. You just wait. Frankie's got the hots for you! At least just the hots. Like he thinks your hot, you know?"
"I got that... Thanks." Gerard huffed. "Let's just go and buy some comics, please? And please dont insert yourself into my non-existing dating life."
Mickey nodded, placing a hand of Gerard's shoulder. "Fine, whatever you want."

*Monday*

Monday mornings are always a drag, but Gerard had managed to get himself out of bed. Maybe with the sole purpose of explaining the bribe to Frankie.
He also needs to catch the train to work, a boring cubicle job, but that definitly was secondary. In a way, Gerard felt like this job was perfect for him. He wasn't good at anything, at least that's what he thought. So answering a few phonecalls and filling in forms mindlessly really seemed to fit for someone who wasn't ambitious at all.
He did feel shame about it though. He almost never told anyone what he did for a living; "I work to live, I don't live to work " He would joke.
He also didn't really like his job, most people at his job were insufferable and the few that weren't, also hated the job.
Sometimes he wondered if there was something out there that he could actually feel passionate about. Other than drinking coffee and reading comic books, which wasn't a job - at least he had never found a jobopening for that.
He had tried different jobs, most of which he got fired from pretty quickly. It was never really his fault, but he just wasn't fit for many jobs. In this one, he could just kinda dissapear and most people just didn't care enough to bother with him.
It weighed heavy on him, that he was just one of those robot-people, following the norm. Doing exactly what society wanted him to do, but he had to do something to be able to pay rent. He did live with Mikey for a few weeks a year or so ago, then he didn't have to pay rent, but he did have a brother bothering him every day about finding a job and getting of his lazy ass. So paying rent and having a shit job seemed like the lesser evil really. This way he could actually enjoy hanging out with his way to responsible baby brother without feeling bad.
Mikey had always been the resposible one, the one with the degree in science, with the job that actually payed good money and maybe he would even make a diffrence one day. To G it just seemed like Mikey was playing scientist everyday in the lab. pouring mixtures into each other and laughing manicly when a cloud of smoke would mushroom out of one of them.
Mikey had reassured him it was nothing like that, but hadn't allowed G to actually come and watch. So what was he supposed to think!?

The door to the bakery rings, there's still a customer infront of him and a girl he hasn't seen before his manning the register. A few minutes pass and it's G's turn. He orders a coffee and a pastry to eat at work.
"Is Frankie in?" Gerard asks shyly.
"Who's asking?" The girl says, while pouring gerards coffee. She has a friendly smile on her face.
"You can tell him it's Gerard." He says, the girl nods and dissapears into the back. That's when it hits him, Frankie doesn't know his name. So that won't mean anything to him. He palms his face, not his best move. Then again, how would he have to explain it for him to know? Tell him it's the bribe guy. The new habbit's guy. The guy who allmost didn't pay his coffee on saturday.
Frankie's head peaked out of the backdoor. "Hi Gerard." He says softly, a knowing smile playing on his lips. He's wearing a black shirt and checkered pants. There are flour marks all over him, there's even flour in his short hair.
"Hi..." Gerard answers softly, matching Frankie's tone.
"I'll meet you up front." He says, pointing at the door. Gerard nods, quickly pays for his coffee as another customer enters.
Gerard stands next to the chalkboard sign that says there are fresh cinnamonbuns daily, looking around to see where he would appear from. A side door opens and Frankie emerges.
"I was hoping you'd ask for me." He admits. He digs in his pockets and reveals a pack of sigarets. He flips it open and pulls two out, he hands Gerard one. He accepts it and digs for a lighter while the sigaret dangles from his lips. This all seems so normal, as if they do this all the time. Gerard lights it and inhales.
"How did you know it was me?"
"Bunnie said it was a lanky guy with a lot of messy black hair and a superhero t-shirt." He grins. Gerard looks down and there is the green lantern, peaking out from his leather jacket. He's a walking stereotype. "Yeah, that seems pretty recognizable. That girl is called Bunny?"
"No no, her name is Bunnie, like Bun in the oven? My parents have a thing for the ie-names." Frankie explains.
"She's your sister?" Gerard asks, looking back at the young girl. They did share a lot of similarities now he's looking for them. Sharp eyebrows, soft eyes, long eyelashes, dark hair, olive skin... His mind wanders. Now he's just looking all these traits in Frankie.
"Yeah, she's a bit younger than me though, she's still in college. Just working in the bakery every now and then to help our mom out. Family Bussiness." He states, shrugging. "Anyways," he continues. "So what was all that about last saturday?" He asks, then takes a drag. Gerard can't help but look as he closes his eyes and tips his head to exhale. Suddenly it seemed like such a weird thing to explain. Gerard came especially to the bakery to explain to Frankie that he used his cookie for a new bribe? Gerard crinkles his face trying to think of how to explain it.
"So that other guy ate my cookie?" Frankie tries, wiggling his eyebrow. Coaxing me to start the story.
"So yeah... about that other guy..." Gerard starts, "He's your lover or something?" Frankie interupts, his eyebrows allmost flying of his face, his smile is wide and clearly joking. Gerard turns red either way, then a wave of disgust washes over him. "That's my brother!"
"Yeah... that was obvious. You guys basicly have the same face, same lanky body. He's just way nerdier looking." Frank explains.
"Because he has glasses? And doesn't dye his hair? I don't think there's a lot more that's diffrent about us. I mean... yeah he's hella tall as well, but that's about it." Gerard thinks out loud. Frankie laughs loudly. "Okay now tell me about the cookie, you don't like cookies?"
"No no, I love cookies. I just used your bribe, to bribe Mikes. He needed to come with me to the comic book store. They were having a big sale, I didn't really find much except for a few batman-copies. He lucked out more, he's into marvel."
"Okay, my bad! You are the nerdier one. Now I'll just say that all makes sense and not elaborate on this further." Frankie decides, smiling wide this whole time. His smile is big and full, it takes up the whole lower half of his face. "I should give you a new cookie, you got to experience it." He decides. "Can you wait a few more minutes?"
Gerard can't wait, because he will have to take the next train and that means he'll have to stay longer, but he nods anyways and waits while Frankie goes inside. He comes back with a paper bag. "This one isn't warm, unfortunately. If you have a microwave at work, just zap it for a few seconds. So good!" He assures Gerard, pushing the bag into his hands.
"Thanks, I'll defintly try it warm then." Gerard says, holding up the little bag and stuffing it into his messenger bag.
"I'll see you wednesday probably." Frankie says, walking backwards towards the door.
Once on the train, Gerard pulls out his phone.

-8:45 am-
G: I got a new cookie from Frank. He also said you were nerdier looking than me.
M: He hasn't seen you in your star wars pyjamas.
G: And he never will.
M: Are you on the train rn? You are going to be late!
G: Coffee and cookies are more important. You said so yourself.
M: More important then LOVE, not WORK.

*Wednesday*

Gerard didn't stop by the bakery on Tuesday, mostly because Frankie wasn't going to be there. At least that's what he guessed when he said "See you wednesday!". He had gotten his coffee from starbucks that day, he wasn't proud of himself, but starbucks coffee really hit a whole diffrent spot for him. If he was honest, the Bakery's coffee could do with some improving, the pastry and maybe the staff was what pulled him in.
Today the line at the bakery was longer than usual. Frankie and the older lady; who he now guessed was his mom, manned the counter.
When Gerard walked in, Frankie spotted him instantly, giving him a small wave and a mouthed "Hi!". Gerard couldn't help but notice a sparkle in his eye and a pep in his step. How could a person look so intimidating, but be so bubbly at the same time?
When Frankie was concentrating on something he looked unapproachable. Like he would only grunt noises and was just a big grump, well short grump. Yet, when he talked, he was the bubbliest person ever. Sparkling eyes and dimples.
The store was busy, but after a few minutes it was Gerard's turn. Frank's mom was the one he had to order with, which dissapointed him slightly. He hoped he didn't let that show to much on his face.
"One coffee to go please, and one of those chocolate chip cookies." Gerard ordered, Frankie was clearly listening in. He joined his mom at the coffee machine, making multiple drinks for another customer.
"Mamma, please. Give him the cookie for free."
"Why would i do that, my birichino?"
"Mamma, that's the guy Bunnie talked about..." Frankie trailed on, looking over his shoulder, smiling at Gerard, who couldn't hear a thing they were saying over the loud coffee machine.
"She told me you fancied him." She said, raising an eyebrow and looking over at Gerard.
"No no, mamma, I just want to make some friends. Since moving back I haven't really made any new friends." He folded his hands together like a prayer.
"You think you can buy friends with cookies? I'll give him the cookie, but you better ask him out as well!"
"I don't want to date him, Mamma!" Frank said slightly louder, but not loud enough to drown out he coffeemachine's noises.
"La mamma sa tutto, angioletto." She hummed, causing Frank to roll his eyes.
"Here you go Hunny," The older woman said, "That'll be 4,50."
"Oh, I also ordered a cookie? I think you forgot to add that in." Gerard fumbles, not wanting to rip off Frankie's family bussiness.
"Frankie told me it's on the house, but you better know it's coming out of his paycheck." She smiling like it's a joke, but Gerard's not so sure that it is. He nods gratefully. "Thank you Mrs.."
"Mrs Iero."
"Yes offcourse, Mrs Iero."
"Frankie, 5 minutes break, now." She orders sternly. Looking over to Frankie, then Gerard. "Go!"
Frankie nods obedient, rings up his last customer and escapes through the backdoor. Once Gerard has payed and turned to leave Frank was standing on the stoop, lighting a sigaret.
"Hi..." Gerard says, just above a whisper. He goes to stand next to Frankie, fishing his sigarets out of his pocket as well. "Sorry for stealing this cookie out of your paycheck."
"My mom says we should hang out or something..." He says, like a six year old following his mom's orders.
"Your mom is a stern lady, but I wouldn't mind hanging out. You play Halo?" Gerard tries, suprising himself with his own confidence.
"Oh, I love it! You should come by when you finish work, I got an X-box in my room." Frank explains happily, really sounding like a teenager now.
"I mean I would love to... You said your Sister was the youngest right? How young exactly are you?" Gerard asked, just making sure he wasn't actually hanging out with a teenager. Frankie couldn't be, right? He's heavily tattooed, has piercings,... but his face looks so young and now he's talking about playing Halo in his room.
"Oh!" Frank exclaims. "Oh fuck, I really sounded like a teenager just then. No no, i'm 25, turning 26 soon." He explains.
"Okay, then I'll come play halo in your room." Gerard giggles. "You live here?" Gerard nods towards the bakery.
"Yeah, I kinda have a studio- appartment on the top floor. In my eyes it's just still my childhood room." He crinkles his nose, clearly not to happy with the situation. "You can just ring the doorbell, my mom will send you up." again his nose crinkles and he visually cringes.
"Thanks, so nice that you can live with your family. The rent in the city is insane. I'll see you tonight." Gerard confirms, extinguishing his sigaret.
"Yeah, that's true, I guess." Frank says, quickly looking at his razorphone for the time. "I've got to get back to it, see you tonight!" With that he dissapears into the bakery.
They didn't exchange numbers, or said any specific times, so Gerard will just have to wait and see if their plans actually come to fruition.

-10:45 am-
G: Playing Halo tonight at Frankie's.
M: But we were going to play Halo tonight!
G: You can still play with Ray. I'm making new friends!
M: Friends or Boyfriends?
G: I won't entertain you.
M: Tell me everything in the morning. xo
G: I will. xo

After work Gerard truely felt exhausted. The commute, plus the horrible 7 hours he had to spend there today really wore him out. On the way to the station he picked up a redbull and some candy. The redbull was to down right now, trying to wake himself up again and the candy was to eat while playing Halo with Frankie. He didn't really have in mind what he would eat for dinner, but he figured he could eat when he got home.
The train station was only a short walk from the bakery or what now has become Frank's home in Gerard's mind. It was 5h 30 pm and the bakery was closed. The awning was drawn in and the chalkboard was inside, the bistro tables and chairs were stacked into a corner. Gerard had never been here past 3 pm he realized, he walked briskly towards the front door. The door that Frank had appeared from when he told him to wait outside.
There was only one doorbell. The Iero Family, it read. Under it were all their names: Bianca, Frankie & Bunnie. Gerard cleared his throat, balancing on his heels, trying to find some confidence. The nerves kicked in now, he was realising he was about to spend some real one on one time with Frankie.
He rings the bell. Now what seems like an infinity of waiting starts.
Suddenly heavy footsteps seem to be thundering down the stairs, the door flies open.
"Hi.." Frankie Breathes. Taking Gerard in. He looked the same as this morning, only a little more wired, Frankie figured Gerard consumes an unhealthy amount of caffeine. Today he was wearing basicly the same outfit as he wore last time he saw him, the green lantern shirt was swapped out for a batman one.
"Hi." Gerard says, looking Frankie up and down. He's not in his bakery clothes. He's wearing black sweatpants and a oversized black flag shirt, his hair is messy and still wet. A smell of fresh soap seems to still be steaming off him, like he just stepped out of the shower. Gerard's pushes hard to get those thoughts out of his head as quickly as possible. Frank looked like a lost puppy with the wet hair and the panting from running down the stairs.
"I'm sorry for my outfit, I was in the shower and just threw my pyjama's on when I heard the doorbell." Frank explains, stepping aside to let Gerard in. They start the climb the stairs.
When they arrive at the first story, Frank pokes his head inside a door. "Gerard's here!" He chimes. "Okay, my angioletto!" His mom answers. "I'm making pasta if you guys want some, you can take it upstairs." She adds.
"Maybe later!" He adds, and motions to keep going up the stairs.
We pass by the second story, not poking our heads in any doors and then start to climb a narrower staircase to the top floor. He opens the one and only door on the top floor, inviting Gerard in. Inside is a small living room with a two person couch and a tv. Behind the Tv is a roomdevider, Gerard imagine's Frank's bed is probably behind that. To the right is a small kitchenette that clearly never get's used since it's so clean and another door.
The place is small, but Frankie had definitly tried to make it more homey, with halloween-themed throw pillows and a fun rug. Even some framed movie posters on the walls.
"Please sit down." Frankie motioned to the couch. "Make yourself at home." He smiles, clearly still adjusting to another human in his space. "I'm going to quickly put on some actual clothes." He grins sheepishly. Gerard hadn't minded the pyjama's, they looked like pretty regular clothes to him. He sat down on the sofa, patiently waiting.
Frankie dissapears into the only unknown door, as soon as he opens it it becomes clear it's a small bathroom. The soapy sent that G had smelled earlier fills the room. It smells fresh, yet musky. It fitted Frankie's exterior perfectly, a rugged scent for a rugged guy. Yet, if the sparkles he had spotted in his eyes earlier today are anything to go by, he's probably secretly prefer bubblegum and fruity scents.
After a few minutes Frankie comes out in a relaxed pair of black jeans and a band t-shirt Gerard can't read because of the intense font, over top he's wearing a black hoodie with the hood up. The look really wasn't so diffrent from the afformentioned pyjama's.
"You want a coke?" Frankie asks, walking over to the small fridge in the kitchenette. Gerard nods.
"So your mom wanted us the hang out?" Gerard says, leaning back on the couch trying to make himself more comfy, it only makes him feel more awkward and out of place. Frank cracks open two coke's and walks over, setting them down on the coffee table. He plops down on the sofa next to gerard, sitting criss-cross-applesauce.
"Well, she just doesn't want me to continue handing out cookies to strangers." Frank clarifies. "So if you want to continue getting free cookies, you better become my friend."
"Noted." Gerard smiles, picking up his coke and taking a sip. "Really good that your mom is making pasta, I only brought these." He explains, pulling a packet of skittles out of his jacket. Frankie giggles. "That definitly isn't a full meal, but they are my favourite!" This confirms Gerard's suspicions about Frankie liking fruity things.
Frank boots up the X-box and hands a controller to Gerard. The first game they basicly play in silence, munching on the skittles every now and then. The air feels stale, even if it's still filled with Frankie's shower scent, now mixed with sweet skittles. The silence feels uneasy.
"So you work in the bakery full time?" Gerard tries to cut the silence after their first game.
"Yeah, I work there 4 days in the week. Most days it's only in the morning though. I gotta wake up pretty early to help actually bake a bunch of stuff. Not everything is made in house, but those cookies, those are my special recipe." He explains.
"You bake those? They are seriously so good Frankie. I wouldn't mind buying a tupperware full of those so I can make it through the week at work." Gerard says.
"I can provide you with that, no worries. What do you do for work?"
"I work at a call center." He sighs, clearly unhappy about the new topic. "It's really boring as hell, but it does pay actual money."
"So you only do it for the money? What would you do if money wasn't the issue?"
"I don't know... that's a pretty heavy question. I mean i love art and comics, so maybe something related to that. Really I'm just working so I can enjoy the time that I'm not at work."
"I feel you on that, I mean I love to bake. It's definitly a passion of mine, but before coming back to the bakery I was in a band. I really thought we were going to make it, but I guess there are bad apples everywhere." The way he said it it sounded like he didn't want to eleborate. They booted up another game.
"What type of music did you make?"
"Oh, the awfully loud and screaming kind." He flashed G a smile. "It's not for everyone."
"I'd love to hear it!"
After that game they decide to get some pasta downstairs. They take it up to Frank's room again. They eat sitting on the floor, plates on the coffee table. After a while being in the same room as Frankie had started to feel more normal and their conversations were less awkard. Frankie had put on a demo-cd of his old band.
"Is that you... singing?" Gerard gasped when the track was allmost finished. He only now recognized the voice. In his defense he was actually listening to frank talk right now and not paying to much attention to the cd.
"Yeah, that's me." He says, suddenly shy. "I wish the guys could sort out there diffrences. The shows were electric." A shy blush appeared on Frank's cheecks as he talked about it. He was clearly excited about the subject.
"You're voice is so good!" Gerard chimed. "You mind if I borrow the cd?"
That question only made Frank's cheecks redder. "You really like it that much?"
"I love it, maybe another opportunity will come along for you musically, who knows?"
After a few more games, Frankie's yawning only increases. He doesn't say that G should leave, but it seems to be pretty apparent.
"Frankie, I should go. I mean, you probably have an early morning tomorrow and it's allmost midnight." Gerard says, suddenly feeling awkard again. He learned a lot about frankie tonight and Frankie had also asked him a lot of questions. They really hit it off, but saying goodbye to someone you really don't know that well is always so awkard. Is he going to go for the hug? or a fist bump? maybe just a wave?
"No you can stay! I'm wide awake." Frank tries, actually prying his eyes open with his fingers. Fingers that are tattooed with letters and symbols. That makes G giggle.
"I can't sleep over, Frankie, i'm not ready for that." Gerard jokes, that joke really wakes Frankie up though. "Oh no... I didn't mean.. oh god please don't..."
"It's fine!" Gerard assures him. "I was just kidding. You need to get to bed, though. How early do you have to wake up?"
"at 4 o' clock." Frankie whines.
"I'll see you tomorrow." Gerard smiles, standing up to leave. Frankie walks him to the door, which is litterally two steps from the couch. He quickly gets the cd out of the player and hands it to Gerard. "Enjoy."
"Goodnight, Frankie." Gerard says just above a whisper, waving goodbye with the cd in his hand. Frankie looks sleepy again, eyes small and a face full of soft features. His guard is all the way down and the tattooes and heavy metal t-shirts don't make him look that tough anymore.
"Goodnight, G." Frankie says, opening the door for Gerard. Gerard's cheecks warm at the nickname. "Be quiet in the hall, my mom is probably allready asleep." He whispers. Gerard remains awkwardly at Frankie's door for a few seconds before turning to leave and giving a small wave as he ascends the stairs. "Bye." He mouths without a sound.

-11:47 PM-
G: Can we do breakfast tomorrow?
M: You are only now leaving Frank's appartment?
G: Just got home actually. You should be sleeping, Michael.
M: Lucky for you I'm not, you can come over for breakfast 'round 8 am, okay?
G: See you tomorrow! xo
M: Goodnight! xo
*Thursday*
-7:53 AM- G: I'm here.
M: just come in, getting dressed now.

Gerard opens the door with his sparekey, which really isn't a sparekey. Just Gerards key to Mikey's apparment at this point. It gets used multiple times a week. "Hi Mikey!" Gerard calls.
"Hey G!" He yells back. On small table by the kitchen there is allready a stack of waffles and 2 plates. Gerard puts down his workbag and hangs his leather jacket on a chair. He starts digging in the cupboards to find some condiments to put on the waffles. He finds some maple sirop and banana's on the counter.
Gerard places everthing on the table, together with some cutlery and two plates. He sits down and starts cutting the banana's, when Mikey comes out of his bedroomdoor.
"Hi brother." He smiles, giving Gerard a half hug from behind. "How was your date yesterday?"
"It wasn't a date, we just played halo!" Gerard says, rolling his eyes.
"You were there until midnight!" Mikey counters.
"When did Maddy leave here?" Maddy was mostly Ray's hook up, but she was a bit of a gamer and hung out with Mikey more and more.
"That's diffrent! We're friends!"
"How late?" His eyebrows raise, expecting a serious answer from his brother.
"She left like an hour ago, he stayed over." Mikey rolls his eyes.
"Oh, Frankie and I aren't at that stage yet!" Gerard jokes, clasping his hands together. "You guys are so cute."
"Okay, no, you are not turning this conversation around!" Mikey states, while pulling out a chair and sitting down. He steals about half of the banana slices of of G's plate. "Me and Ray are childhood friends and Maddy's an extention of that friendship." He gestures his hands forward. "It's not the same as hanging out with someone for the first time. Tell me how it went!"
"So we played Halo in his room and ate pasta, we also listened to his band." Gerard explains. "We got along pretty well."
"He's a baker and he's in a band ? Might be your dream guy." Mikey wiggles his eyebrows.
"Can you please stop suggesting that for just one second? I'm just getting to know him." Gerard sighs. "Maybe I don't want every person I meet to be the love of my live, okay?"
"Okay okay... but what was he wearing?"
"Oh.... uh he was in his pyjama's at first, he just came out of the shower. He really smelled nice, but then he changed into his normal clothes. Not so different from the clothes he wears in the bakery. Black jeans, a band shirt and a hoodie. Why do you ask?"
"Just to see how much attention you payed to his looks! A lot i'd say!" Mikey teases, causing Gerard to roll his eyes. "You asked! Why am I even here?"
"Okay, sounds to me like you guys really hit it off! When are you seeing him again? Is he any good at Halo? 'Cause if he is he should join us sometime. We could play with all four of us!"
"Oh, good that you mention it. I told him I'd see him today!" Gerard says, glancing at his phone for the time. "I could probably grab a quick coffee on my way to work." He continues eating his waffles, just a little bit faster than he was doing originally.
"I'm coming with you." Mikey states. "I could use some caffeine."
"You want me to ask him? If he wants to play halo with us on friday?" Gerard sighs.
"Only if he's good, you haven't answered that yet."
"Yes, he's good."
"Okay, you can ask him."
"I will." Gerard assures him. "So, are you coming?" He throws on his jacket and workbag. Mikey also finds his jacket and backpack and out the door they go.
"You just told him you'd come for coffee today?" Mikey asks as they run down the stairs.
"No, I just said I'd see him today. I didn't really think about it in the moment. We were both pretty tired." Gerard smiles, rubbing his head in confusion. "Im actually not sure why I said that. But he'll be at the bakery, it's a thursday.... so yeah."
"I can't believe you guys have like talked three times and hung out once and you allready know his schedule!" Mikey says shocked.
"We talked way more than that! In the beginning it was really simple conversations where I asked for coffee and he said 'that's 4,50 please'. But you know, that's how you really get to know someone and their schedule." G explains.
They round the corner and there's the bakery. Frankie's outside placing the tables and chairs as the sun was just coming out. He spots us and does a small wave, before continueing to work.
We go inside and order coffee, behind the counter is Frank's mom. "Hi Gerard." She smiles warmly, suddenly it dawned on Gerard that they had probably spoken about him in the morning. "Hi Mrs. Iero." Gerard answers politely.
"Sounded like you guys had a lot of fun, I could hear you laughing while I was in the kitchen." She says, while pouring Gerard his coffee.
"Oh I'm so sorry, I'll try to keep it down next time. I mean if there ever is a next time." Gerard explains, his face is flustered.
"Oh please no!" Mrs Iero starts, "I like the noise of my boy happy, he hasn't been this smiley in a long while. Moving back to the city hasn't been easy on him. He's just always in the bakery. Even when he's not supposed to be working, trust me, he's working."
"Yeah, I figured. He told me he works 4 days a week, but I litterally see him here all the time." Gerard agrees.
Mrs. Iero puts two cups of coffee on the counter. "Here, they're on the house. Just this once."
"Ah, a bribe! The Iero's seem to be good at that." Mikey smiles, grabbing his coffee from the counter and quickly dissapearing out the front door.
"Don't mind him, he's just my lunatic brother. Thank you so much." Gerard thanked Frank's mom and joined mikey outside.
"What did she say?" Frank asks, before even saying hello. He's looking at his mom through the window, not really at Gerard or Mikey at all.
"Just that we were loud yesterday, you talked about me this morning, didn't you?"
Frank's eyes finally meet Gerard's. The seriousness in them fades quickly and is replaced with that sparkle. "Don't flatter yourself! I just said I really enjoyed myself."
"I did too" Gerard smiles wide. "and after some debate I decided you are pretty good at Halo."
"You debated about that? With yourself?"
"Just go with it... Mikey said, if you were any good at halo, you should join us this friday night. We're playing at Mikey's appartment with another friend." Gerard explains, Mikey gives Frank a wave.
"We could finally try playing with 4 players. If you bring your controllers!" Mikey adds excitedly.
"Really sounds like an opportunity I can't miss out on." Frank hums, tapping his finger to his cheeck. "I really got to work on saturday though." He sighs.
"Your mom just said that you work to much!" Gerard pointed out, "You deserve a day off!"
"So you did talk more!" Frank says, in a aha-gotcha!-tone.
"Only good things, Frankie, only good things." Gerard assures him.
"Right..." Frank frown deeply, shooting daggers at his mom.
"Do you really think you mom would bad-mouth you?" Gerard asks in shock.
"No no, it's not that.. you know, never mind." Frank decides.
"Anyways, so that's a yes for friday?" Mikey interrupts.
"Oh yeah, I'd love to join you guys."
"Great! I'll text you the details, I really got to get going to work." Gerard says, taking a few step towards the station allready.
"Wait!" Frankie yells. "Give me your phone, i'll put my number in."
Gerard hands him his flipphone and Frankie quickly puts his number in. "Text me." He says as he pushes the phone back into Gerards hands, making eyecontact the whole time. His eyes shift to mikey for a second. "Bye Mikey." and with a quick wave he enters the bakery again.
"Wow, he does know how to flirt." Mikey says impressed, making a soft whistle noise with his mouth.
"He wasn't flirting, Mikey. I'm just making friends." Gerard's rolling his eyes. "I'm so done with your narrative."
"He can't take his eyes of you! He barely noticed me standing here this whole time!" Mikey waves his arms dramatically while they walk towards the station. "And that intense eye-contact while he said: text me." Mikey whispered the last part in a sultry voice.
"He did not sound like that!"
"Did too!"
"You work on the other side of the city, fuck off!" Gerard says, pointing in the opposite direction. "stop harassing me."
"Okay, okay." Mikey says, hands in the air. "I'll go, but you know I'm right! See you tonight!"
On the train Gerard flips his phone open, he opens contacts to find Frankie's name. He finds his number saved as Frankie <3. Gerards stomach does a flip and a small smile creeps on his lips. Maybe Frankie just really identified with the less-than three symbol. Maybe that was his AOL or Myspace username.

-9:32 a.m-
G: Hi, this is Gerard.
F: Hi Gee, this is Frankie xo
G: I know, Frankie. I'll text you Mikeys adress tonight. Have a nice day! xo
F: You too, Gee! :) xo

-12:04 am-
F: Just got off work, will be polishing up my Halo skills this afternoon. I was a bit rusty yesterday. xo
G: You are so lucky, enjoy! I'll be stuck here for another few hours. xo
F: If you think starting work at 4:30 is lucky. :P xo
G: Oh yeah... you should probably not be playing games, you should be a sleep. You looked a bit zombie-esque this morning. xo
F: So sweet of you to say that. & <3 xo

Gerard noticed he was smiling at his phone at his desk. He didn't know what to say to that, so he decided he's just answer later on with Mikey adress details. Something in him was desperate to keep the conversation going, everytime his phone buzzed his heart beat a bit faster. The excitement of a new friend, someone who seemed to really like him, really got to him.
"So did you text him?" Mikey asks, unboxing the chinese food they ordered to G's appartment. His place was really humble and small. In one glimpse you could pretty much see everything Gerard owned. Among some simple furniture there were also Star Wars figurine's, a shelve full of horror VHS's and an insane amount of comic books.
Gerard was sitting criss-cross-applesauce on a recliner. Once he got home he had changed into a comfy oversized t-shirt and his star wars pyjama-pants. "Yeah I texted him, just like a hello-text. y'know." He nodded, accepting a plate full off noodles from Mikey, who went back to the kitchen to scoop another plate before joining Gerard. Mikey sat down on a small 2-person couch next to Gerard's recliner. They often ate like this in G's appartment, just plates on their laps and some bad MTV on the tv.
"Let me see?" Mikey said, allready holding his hand out for Gerard to put his phone in.
"Uh no, that's private!" Gerard squeeled.
"You said it was just a hello-text! Let me see!" He tried again. Gerard rolled his eyes and fished his phone out of his pocket. "Here." Mikey quickly read their short conversation.
"Did you put the heart behind his name? or did he do that?"
"He did."
"Oh and he send you another heart?"
"That was clearly sarcastic."
"And the xo after every message? wow. this is serious."
"You really aren't going to be able to drop this are you? Please at least don't make it weird on friday." Gerard said, snatching the phone out of Mikey's hand.
"So you admit it? There is something in the air?"
"Mikey..." Gerard sighs. "We're just friends. Okay?"
"For now..." Mikey adds.

*Friday
*
-01:55 PM-
G: I'll pick you up at 7 pm. xo
F: So romantic, What should I wear? xo
G: Nothing too crazy, it's only our second date. ;-) xo
F: Oh, so this is a date now? xo
G: 7pm, don't forget! xo

In the end Frankie and Gerard decided to walk together tonight. Gerard had texted him the adress, but after trying to explain the route multiple times via text, they had decided Gerard would walk by the bakery and pick Frank up. So there he was, once again, ringing Frankie's doorbell. Gerard felt his heart pound in his throat, he was nervous. It felt an awfull lot like picking up a date for a party, even though he knew this was nothing like that. Even if it was nothing like that, Gerard did put a lot of thought into his outfit.
Tonight Gerard wore black jeans, a tight black t-shirt and a dark red button up on top. It was definitly a casual look, but the button up added a little something. It was a far cry from his usual geek-uniform. He hoped Frankie would notice, even if he didn't say anything. He smelled fresh and clean, something he normally wouldn't bother with all to much for a night of gaming with his friends.
Frankie opened the door right after Gerard had pressed the bell. As if he was allready waiting right behind the door, or in the bakery. He was wearing ripped jeans, a band shirt and a leather jacket with some coloured stripes on the sleeves. A pair of sunglasses dangles from the collar of his shirt. He looked effortlessly cool. At least, he would've looked effortless if Gerard hadn't spotted the tiniest bit of eyeliner under Frankie's lower lashes.
"Hey G.." He said softly, a smile spreading over his face. Gerard could see a whisper of red of Frankie's cheecks. "Hi." Gerard replied, not moving for a few seconds. They both just stood in silence for a little while, staring awkwardly at each other, taking it all in.
Frank breaks the silence, he swings his backpack over one shoulder. "So,.. are we ready to kick these guy's asses?" Frank smiled, squeezing past Gerard while pulling the door shut behind him. Gerard turned quickly. "I think you will, not sure about me. I'm not the best gamer. I mean.. you definitly won last time we played."
"Even when I was out of practice, ..." Frank said, clearly thinking it over. "Maybe I shouldn't be to hard on you guys, I do want to get invited again."
"Oh you do? You allready know that?"
"Well, I liked hanging out with you? Your friends must be nice as well."
"They are nice, but they will also be assholes. Don't take anything they say too seriously."
Frank and Gerard start walking the couple of blocks towards Mikey's appartment. All the way they were talking, about everything and nothing. Gerard informed Frankie he hadn't been able to stop listening to Frankie's demo, even carrying a diskman on the train to listen on his commute. Frankie was clearly flattered by that.
As they approached the building Gerard fished his keys out of his pocket. He unlocked the door without even thinking twice, nudging his knee against the door to make it pop open. At the same time he fished for his phone with his other hand and flipped it open. Mikey was on speeddial so with the push of a button he called his brother.
"Hi Mikes, we are in the building."
"We?"
"Yeah, Frankie and me."
"Oh, you guys came together? How cute."
"I told you... drop it." Gerard said as he started climbing the stairs. He looked over his shoulder to Frankie. Who was standing at the front door still, looking lost. Gerard motioned for him to follow.
"I don't think I will..." Mikey said through the phone.
"Oh, I'm sure you will!" Gerard said slightly threatening, hanging up the phone.
"What was that about?" Frankie asked curiously.
"It's nothing... at least I hope it's nothing." Gerard opened the door to Mikey's appartment as if it was his own. They were greeted by a very excited Mikey.
"So happy to see you guys! Welcome Frankie, did you bring the goods?" Mikey said. Frank swung his backpack off his shoulder and started unpacking the controllers while talking to Mikey. "I'm not great at Halo.." He heard Frankie lie. "So please, cut me some slack tonight!" Gerard knew frankie was about to annihilate them all, a small smirk played on his lips. He made eye-contact with Frankie. Frankie mouthed without sound: I'm sorry.
Gerard spotted Ray in the sofa and went up to him to say hi. Ray sprung up from his seat, opening his arms wide to welcome Gerard in. "Wow Gee, you smell really good!" Ray says as he's hugging Gerard. The three of them have been inseparable since High School, so Ray definitly has smelt Gerard at his worst. Ray sees Mikey talking to frank over his shoulder.
"Who's the pretty boy?"
Gee's eyes widen. "What?"
"The new guy? That's Frankie?"
"Yeah... He's.... a friend of mine. We met at the bakery."
"Yup, normal place to meet people." Ray confirms.
"Did Mikey tell you everything?" Gerard raised an eyebrow, hoping the answer was no, knowing the answer was offcourse, yes.
"Yeah.. Mikey thinks you guys have allready kissed, or at least Mikey's imagening you guys kissing." Ray makes his two hands kiss as if they were dolls. Gerard bats Ray's hands out of the air.
"You are part of the problem now.." Gerard sighs. "We are just friends!"
"For now..." Ray says, squinting his eyes omminously.
Mikey had made popcorn for everyone and put some beers and soda's on the coffee table. "No butter on the popcorn, I don't want your grimy mits all over my controllers." He said pointin at all three of them. He plopped down in the L shaped sofa where everyone was allready seated.
"So Frankie, I hear you're new to Halo? We'll go easy on you the first round." Ray said, with a glint of misschief of his face. Frankie nodded gracefully, like it was all true. "Thank you, guys." The first round he played normal, not good or bad. The boys praised him, he wasn't that bad. Gerard knew one of these rounds, Frankie was going to let his guard down.
Well the third round was just that, no mercy. Frankie showed them what's good.
"You LIAR!" Mikey spat, mid-game. "How dare you?"Ray chimed. "Gee, were you in on this?? This is dispicable."
Gerard just laughed, loud and wide open. "Oh your faces... well done, Frankie." Gerard sputters. "I mean, it was all his idea." He points at Frankie.
"I'm sorry!" He replies, hands up in the air, yet he was clearly not sorry. He was laughing so hard tiny tears escaped from the side of his eyes. His eyeliner smudged a tiny bit when he wiped them away. It didn't matter, it made it only look better in Gerard opinion.
Frankie cracked open a beer, finally fully at ease. He offered one to Gerard, which he declined. "Can I get a red bull?" He asked Frankie, he handed it to him. "You should really consume less caffeine." He adviced softly, which made the other boys snort.
"Gerard runs on energy drinks and coffee, we all have our vices. I doubt you can take that from him." Ray explains. Gerards face feels warm, he loved how Ray didnt include anything about him not drinking. That might come up another time. Frankie just nods, accepting cafeinne as a part of him.
They played a couple more games, Frankie won them all, before they put the controllers down and cracked open some more beers.
"we're going to have to up our game." Mikey sighed, clinking cans with Ray. He nodded in agreement.
"I'll go easier on you guys, next time." Frankie smiled.
"No no, we just have to practice. Oh no! Now we have to spent even more time gaming." Ray fake-whined.
It was getting late, allmost midnight again, so Gerard walks Frankie home. He probably could find his own way home, but Gerard just thought it was better to be safe then sorry. Frankie was clearly tipsy, but not drunk by any means. He was just a little giggly, which Gerard didn't mind.
"So you had a good time?" Gerard asks, Frankie nods contently. "Thanks for inviting me, its been a while since I hung out with anyone beside Bunnie."
"No problem, I like having you around." Gerard admits. Its feels like a big deal to say, but Frankie doesnt seem to notice that.
"Yeah... and you smelt nice today." Frankie sighed, looking out into the distance. Not locking eyes with Gerard. He didn't know how to answer that, his cheecks burned and he was happy it was allready dark out. It must be the alcohol making Frankie a little loose lipped. "You looked really nice aswell." Frankie added, now looking at gerard. "I mean, I dont mind the geeky t-shirts. But this looks really nice." He gestures towards his open button up, now mostly concealed with his leather jacket. His hands linger somewhere between Gerard and him, like he wants to touch him, but he doesn't.
"Thanks Frankie," Gerard smiled softly, now accepting that tipsy Frank just liked to compliment people.
"You look nice aswell, love the eyeliner." Gerard returned the compliment.
This made Frankie touch the corner of his eye slowly, a smile crept up his face as he looked down at the ground. "Thanks..." he whispered.

Chapter Text

*Monday*

They talked all the way to Frankies house, Gerard promised he'd see him again on monday. Today was said Monday. The weekend had been nothing if not mundane. He read comics, watched bad tv and mostly stayed in his pyjama's. There had only been one new routine added to him hanging around his appartment and that was texting Frankie. They had talked all weekend on and off. The complimenting-conversation had not been mentioned again.
Frank texted about lemon tarts he was baking, gerard answered with batman facts. Both evenings Gerard had received a goodnight text from his new friend. He fell a sleep thinking of Frankie both nights.

F: Goodmorning! See you in a bit! xo
G: Mondaysmornings are not goodmornings, leaving now. xo
F: You sound grumpy, looking forward to it allready! <3 xo
Gerard got out of bed and got dressed. The comicbook t-shirts stayed in the closet today. It might have something to do with what Frankie had told him fridaynight. He picked out a plain t-shirt and added a dark flannel shirt on top. Dark jeans and black converse completed the look. He never combed his hair in the mornings, but today he at least tried. He had a dark mop of messy hair that never wanted to obey him.

M: soooo... have you seen Frankie again this weekend ? ;-P
G: Nope, heading there now.
M: Oh can I come ? I want to invite him for more Halo.
G: No thanks, I'll see you tonight for dinner. :-)
M: Did you kiiiiiiiiiss on fridaaaay ???
G: I'd like to reference to our conversation last week. I'm just making friends, Mikes.
M: You sounds grumpy.
G: 'Cause I am.

Gerard decided to ignore his brother, since texts about Frankie just kept coming in. it might raise more suspsions from Mikey but he just couldn't deal with it right now. Monday mornings were Gerard's personal hell. The thought of having to sit in that office for another full week was agonizing. He had to admit that today's morning did have a silver lining that was made out of coffee and Frankie.
When he arrived at the bakery, Frankie was behind the counter helping customers. He was wearing his usual apron, this time adorned with more badges and his name tag. A batman badge was among the others, which he assumed were bands. He knew for a fact Frankie didn't really care about batman all that much, but it made him smile seeing him wear it.
He was wearing glasses today, he had never seen Frankie with glasses. They were thick black frames, which looked more fashionable than nerdy on him. He was sure if Gerard would wear them himself, he would look even more geeky.
Gerard aproached the counter quickly. Frankie was allready pouring out Gerards coffee. "Hi..." he smiled, looking up through his lashes. He looked more shy than usual. Maybe he did remember their last real life conversation. "Hi Frankie!" Gerard beamed. "Love the badge." He pointed.
"I thought that would brighten your mood, you don't look as grumpy as you seemed over text." He pulled out a small tupperware from under the counter. "They might not last you all week. But it's something." Through the see-through plastic gerard could spot Frankies famous chocolate cookies. "Wow.. Thanks Frankie." Gerard was in a much better mood instantly. It's like the agonizing thoughts of working a 9 to 5 just dissapeared as he entered the bakery. Was it from the cookies or from seeing him? He wasnt too sure.
"I'm gonna take a smoke break, if you want to join ?" Frankie asked, he nodded and put some coins on the counter for his coffee.
This whole thing suddenly reminded him too much off Matt. Taking smoke breaks together, resulting in Gerard being late to work allmost every day and when he saw Matt in the mornings, the days didn't seem that bad. The big diffrence was that Frankie definitly wasn't Matt. Frankie was a lot of things, all at once, while Matt could really only be one thing. Matt was kind, liked working in the coffeeshop and like to talk everyone's ears off and that was about all Gerard ever knew about him. He mostly talked about other people, not himself. While he had known Frankie maybe a week now and it feels like he knows so much about him. It's like he has an endless amount of new things to discover about Frankie.
Gerard really didn't want this to go the same way, but he had decided they were just friends. That way history couldn't repeat itself and he could keep discovering all of Frankie's sides.
They stood on the stoop infront of the bakery. Frankie flipped open his packet of sigarets and handed one to Gerard. Who in turn lit Frankies sigaret as it was dangling from his mouth. Things like this had allready started to feel normal. They stood close together as the autumn wind cut through the air. It was getting colder every week now. Frank only had on a t-shirt and his apron, he hid behind Gerard to avoid the wind.
"Thanks for making my monday morning more bearable." Gerard piped up. "I really wasn't feeling it this morning." He admitted.
"I could tell, I really wanted that goodmorning text. I've been up since 4 a.m. G!"
"Okay, I'll text you tomorrow morning, promise." Gerard said. "Nice glasses by the way." He added, touching Frankie's glasses for just a second before thinking about his actions. Frankie didn't seem to mind as he smiled wide. "I fell asleep with my contacts in on friday. I'd blame you for distracting me, but it was probably the beer. Anyways, now my eyes are still pretty sensitive. So glasses it is." He explains.
"They really look good on you." Gerard says as he stares, straight through them into Frankie's eyes. A few seconds pass and they both don't say a word. A new custumor approaches and Frankie kills his sigaret quickly.
"Uh... See you tomorrow, G." He says, clearly confused at what just happened. He slips by him quickly and gets back to work again. Gerard starts walking towards the train station, when he looks back Frankie's still helping the customer. His eyes flicker towards Gerard every few seconds. They lock eyes for a moment. Gerard smiles a soft smile and waves. He gets a small wave back. He finishes his sigaret on his walk to the trainstation. Frankie is on his mind the entire time.
The day goes by slowly as he sits at his desks. He's doing his job, but even while he's on call with people his mind drifts. He doodles on a spare notepad, some superhero's, some Italian dudes in glasses. As he doodles his mind wanders, imagening Frankie's every feature. The sharp eyebrows, the piercings, the short dark hair and dark hazel eyes. Not to mention, the eyeliner. Gerard wouldn't have seen Frankie as an eyeliner-type, but once he saw him with it, it just fitted. The smokey edges making him look all the more mysterious and soft at the same time.
At the end of his workday he stuffs the notepad in his messenger bag as he sees his flipphone light up. His chest tightens, but relaxes instantly as he sees it's Mikey.

M: So, what's for dinner tonight ?
G: Maybe mexican ?
M: Or Italian ? ;-)
G: Sounds good. You decide.
M: You didn't get my joke! :-(
G: Oh i got it... I'm just not entertaining you. :-)
M: Italian it is then.

When gerard got home from work, Mikey was allready at his appartment, which wasn't unusual. No food was in sight though, which was unusual. Mikey always finished work much earlier then Gerard. They didn't always eat together in the evenings, maybe once or twice a week. On those nights Mikey would order food and it would be pretty much ready to eat as he arrived.
"Hi Mikey!" He yelled into the room, as he put down is messenger bag at the door and peeled of his leather jacket. A flannel and a leather jacket was maybe a bit much for the busy train today.
"Hey Gee!" He answers from the couch, he waves one hand as he's texting on his phone.
"You ordered food allready ? Or should I go ahead and call the pizza place ? "
"Oh no need ! An Italian is on his way, with food." He said proudly, grinning from ear to ear. He turned around, his head peaking out above the edge of the sofa. His whole face screamed: Pranked!
"An Italian?" Gerard asks, raising his eyebrows. "Please tell me you didn't.' he sighs.
"As if you don't want to hang out with him!?" Mikey says as he stands up from the couch and strolls to the fridge.
"Did you really go to the bakery to ask him?"
"I might've stole his number from your phone, on friday."
"I think that illigal, I'm not sure, but it sounds illigal to me."
"Yeah yeah, privacy and all that. I told him you gave it to me." Mikey says nonchalantly. He takes a coke from the fridge. "Want one?"
"Dr. Pepper please." Gerard says flatly, allready bored with his brothers antics. He could've expected this, since this is a classic Mikey move. Yet, he wasn't prepared. His flat is a mess, he feels like he needs to hide half of his belongings to still seem cool to Frankie. He shook his head repeatedly. "Not cool, Mikes. Not cool."
"He doesn't send me xo's or hearts by the way." Mikey said matter of factly. Gerard eyes widened for a split second.
"Maybe because you texted him out of the blue?" He countered. The doorbell rang and that was pretty much the end of their conversation. "I'm not a fan of you right now, Michael Way." Gerard added quickly before answering the intercom. "Hi, Gerard speaking."
"Hey G, it's Frankie." A happy voice says.
"Come on up." Gerard answered, instantly in a better mood as he buzzed Frankie in.
Frankie was carrying a big totebag with a pot inside. "It's spaghetti, I hope that's okay." He smiles as he enters the appartment. He looks around intently as he places it down on the small kitchen table that could only sit two people.
"Oh, that sounds great!" Mikey says cheerfully as he starts to dig into Gerard's cupboards for plates and cutlery. Frank and Gerard stand at the kitchentable, close enough to hug, but just awkwardly existing next to eachother. They lock eyes a few times, both their eyes filled with nerves and maybe a little bit of joy.
Mikey just looks at them from a distance. "Okay, enough staring. Time to eat." He announces. The spaghetti is still warm and ready to serve. Frankie scoops the food into everyone's plates.
"It's Mamma's recipe, but I made it, so sorry if it's not perfect." He smiled, all Gerard could think of was Frankie actually cooking for him.
"I'm looking forward to it! We should probably eat at the coffeetable though. We can watch a movie or something." Gerard suggests.
"I wanted to watch MTV." Mikey moaned. "MTV cribs in on, man."
Gerard shrugged and put on MTV, deciding he was just going to talk to Frankie instead. Mikey settled down on the ground, with some pillows from the couch and a plate of spaghetti, he was allready being hypnotized by the TV.

"Can I ask you something?" Gerard says, as he stops Frankie from joining his brother on the floor.
"Yeah sure."
"Can I see your texts with Mikey? I mean... I didn't give him your number. He stole it from my phone and he's never gonna be honest with me about it."
Frank smiles widely and misschevious and shakes his head. "Good to know you didn't just give it to him. But you are not reading those texts."
"Why not?" Gerard's mouth falls open, he didn't expect that answer.
"They're personal." He grins.
"But... What did he ask you ? that you just show up here with fresh pasta?"
"Maybe... He just asked me to provide dinner and show up at your flat. Maybe he mentioned your have a gamecube. Maybe he said something completly diffrent." Frankie wiggles his eyebrows, the awkwardness from this morning allready forgotten again. Gerard play punches Frankie's shoulder. "No please, tell me." He pleads, hands folded.
"No no no, I can't. Maybe you'll find out someday. But right now, my spaghetti is getting cold and Mikey has allready seen half of Good Charlotte's house tour." He picks up his plate and joins Mikey on the ground. Gerard truely is flabbergasted at that.
"You want a drink, Frankie?" Gerard asks, accepting the fact he just won't know, at least not for a while. "Yeah, just a coke if you have it." Frank answers, now also staring at the TV.
Gerard brings over the drinks and his plate of spaghetti and plops down as well. They watch MTV together and when dinner's finished they take turns playing Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3 for a while.
Gerard isn't exactly mad at Mikey anymore, but he sure as hell doesn't get it. Was he trying to get closer to Frankie for some reason? Or was this his way of setting them up? Just as his mind started to wander Mikey stood up and stretched with much exaggeration. "I'm heading home." He says. "Ray's waiting for me, see you Saturday, Frankie?"
"Sure." Frankie nods, looking more fidgety again, he's playing with the joystick of the controller as a nervous-tick.
"See ya, Gee!" He smiles a toothy smile. Gerard let's him out of the appartment, hugging him at the door. "What's your game?" He asks as they hug. His eyes reduced to tiny suspicious slits.
"I just wanted him to play Halo with us on Saturday." Mikey shrugged. "Mission accomplished. Shouldn't he be going home by the way? He's probably dead tired."
Gerard turns around, looking at Frankie. Who's looking straight at them. His eyes look slightly heavy behind his glasses.
"I'll tell him to go home soon," Gerard nods. "Say hi to Ray for me."
"Will do!" Mikey says as he starts decending the stairs, waving with one hand in the air as he goes.

"Strange man..." Gerard pouts as he closes the door behind him.
"Yeah, He's a bit weird." Frankie says, tapping a finger to his lips as he thinks about it. "He's a quirky guy."
"So was this evening everything Mikey promised?" Gerard says as he sits down on the tiny two person-sofa. Frank scoots his butt up from the ground and joins him. The sofa sinks slightly in the middle causing their knees to bump together.
"He just invited me to eat together, G... I loved the company." He says. "I get why you're suspicious though, Mikey seems like the kind of guy who makes weird little plans in his head."
"Yup, and we are all puppets in his little world." Gerard sighs.
"Sure seems like it..." Frankie confirms.
"You want to watch some more MTV?" Gerard asks. He shakes his head.
"I'd rather just talk. I kinda wanted to apologize." Frankie admits, pulling his knees up to his chin on the couch.
"Apologize?"
"Yeah... for drunk Frankie. I mean, lightly buzzed Frankie. I'm sorry. It only clicked in my head the next day, that you don't drink. I didn't want to make you uncomfortable. I get kinda clingy when I drink."
"Frankie, no... I liked clingy-Frankie. Not drinking is my problem, you don't have to worry about that." Gerard reassures him.
Frankie smiles a weak smile. "I mean... I was all over you." Frank's eyes widened in horror.
"You really weren't. You were being respectful. I know to take a drunk person's words with a grain of salt." Gerard smiles. He nods at that.
"Thanks G. Anyways, I'm dying for a smoke and it's getting late." Frank clears his throat as he stands.
"Yeah" Gerard confirms. "I'll show you out, perfect opportunity for a smoke."
They stand close together, this time on Gerard's stoop. The ritual of handing out smokes and lighting eachothers sigarets starts again. Gerard puffs out a few clouds as he tips his head back, his whole body relaxing.
"You should come over again, maybe wednesday... I'll provide some food." Gerard decides.
"Without the puppetmaster?"
"I think that's what the puppetmaster wants."
"You're doing this to please him?"
"Not really... Mostly because I want to." Talking like this seemed easier, both of the staring into the night, not having to make eyecontact.
"I'll come over, if you are truely not doing this for Mikey."
"I swear... I thought we were becoming friends?" Gerard asks innocently.
"We are, we are... I mean, I'm pretty sure Mikey wants to mess that up, though."
Gerard hums knowingly, but he doubts Frank knows the same things he does. Suddenly he's reminded of all the things he doesn't know, about Frankie and about what he had discussed with Mikey. Suddenly he wonders about the other guy's likes and dislikes, sexuality, favourite band, the brand of sunglasses he wears. Still so much to the unknown.
They both finish their sigarets and stomp them out on the stoop. They share a look, the first one in allmost 20 minutes. Frankie holds out the pack of sigarets again and Gerard nods as he sits down on the stoop. "why the fuck not." He decides. Tomorrow morning this was going to hurt, but right now he didn't want to say goodbye yet.
Frankie sits down next to him on the stoop, scooting closer then necessary. Their knees touch again and it's starting to feel familiar. "So tell me, what's your favourite thing at the bakery at the moment? I need some dessert inspiration for Wednesday."
"Are you going to buy my pastry's for our date?" Frankie scoffs, wiggling his eyebrow.
"Not a date."
"Just two dudes hanging out, because the puppetmaster wants it. Got it." He nods. "Anyways, It might seem lame, but I recommend the crumbcake. I'll make sure to make it Wednesday morning."
"That's your favourite? Kinda plain, no?" Gerard wonders.
"It's beauty lies in it's simplicity." Frankie clarifies. "Favourite thing to make are pies though, so satisfying!" He chimes. The next five minutes are just Frankie, talking about all the pies. Key Lime, Pumkin, Pecan,... they all get a spot in his story. Turns out he can't decide what's his favourite; Banoffee or Lemon Meringue. It's all about the layers, Frankie swears. Gerard just listens and nods as he smokes his sigaret. He looks at Frankie intently in the soft, orange glowing streetlamp. His lip piercing shines in the light as he talks and he looks gorgeous. The more he gets to know him his rough exterior seems all an act, but then he reminds himself of the screaming demo-cd that's still in his diskman and there might be something to his ruggedness.
"So you're cooking?" Frankie asks, "I don't need to bring my fancy italian dishes?"
"No, I'll make something. Or order something, I can't promise anything yet." Gerard presses. "I can make some things though, I don't think you'll be too impressed."
"It doesn't have to be michelin star worthy, G." He smiles.
"It's not going to be, I can assure you that."
After another 20 minutes or so of talking, the boys say goodnight. Right now, in the dark, it was easy. They hugged eachother close as if that was just what they did. Gerard inhaled Frankie's sweet smell. He smelled of baked goods and coffee, the best smell on earth.
That night Gerard slept amazingly, his whole body was buzzing from a simple hug, but at the same time that made him more calm and peacefull than ever. He definitly dreamt of crumbcakes that night.

*Tuesday*

-7:30 am-
M: So when did Frankie leave?
G: Nonnayabussiness.
M: C'mon Gee...
G: He left late, I don't know the time. We sat outside smoking for more than an hour.
M: And so the plan commences. ;-P
G: I wish I had other friends to talk to about all of this. :-*
M: You just have me, though! I love you!
G: Love you too.

Gerard rolled around in bed. He definitly overslept, which meant no bakery today. He groaned at the thought of sitting on the train without a coffee in his hand. He quickly got dressed, batman-shirt, hoodie and jeans. Today he didn't comb his hair, there was no use. On his way out he grabbed a redbull from the fridge, better than no caffeine at all.

-8:35 am-
G: Goodmorning Frankie xo
F: Goodmorning Geeeee xo
G: Can't come by the bakery today, I overslept. :( xo
F: No worries, I'll see you tomorrow. xo
G: In track number two of the demo-cd. Do you say I break all the time or To break all the ties? xo
F: It's break all the ties. Don't overanalyze my shitty songwriting ! :-) xo
G: I won't, I love that song, though. xo
F: Thanks and thank you for my goodmorning text. <3 xo
G: Anything for you. <3 xo

Gerard decided Frank was just being the kind of flirty that was littered with sarcasm and jokes. Nothing serious, so he joined in. It was harmless, even if it gave him butterflies in his stomache. On the train he listened to track 02 again and again.

*Wednesday *.
Gerard decided he was going to make butter chicken. His version definitly wasn't top tier, but it was one of his best recipes after having made it a few times. He had cut the recipe out of a magazine at his mom's house and it now lived permanently on his fridge.
He had taken a half day of work. To do the shopping and cooking for tonight. He had some overtime he still needed to use.
Once at the grocery store he decided to call Mikey to pass the time while shopping. He had one hand on the cart and one pressed to his ear with his flipphone.
"Hey Gee!" Mikey answered.
"Hi, i'm just calling to pass some time. Hope you're not busy at work."
"I'm always busy, but I'm on my lunchbreak so go ahead. Shouldn't you be working ?"
"I took a half day, I'm at the grocery store now. Frankie's coming over tonight."
"You're cooking for him!?" Mikey sounded way to excited now.
"Yes, i'm making butter chicken." He says as he pick up some tomato paste from a shelve. He reads the back as if there's going to be anything else but tomatoes in it.
"Wow.. my plan really is working." Mikey was clearly smiling. Gerard imagined mikey rubbing his hands like a villain.
"I will assure you, we are doing this at our free will. Not because you orchestrated anything. Besides, it's not a date." Gerard said flatly, the jitters in his chest tell him something else, but he ignores that. He starts chucking more things into his cart; butter, heavy cream, some spices,... etc.
"Yeah sure sure, whatever you want to believe." Mikey says. "So, you need some advice or something?"
"Hmmm..." gerard humms into the phone. "Not really. I'm only still deciding on my outfit."
"Okay... fashion. I can do that!" He doesn't sound to sure of himself.
"Sure... I'm definitly more fashionable than you, but sure. You can help."
"Any ideas? I need some inspiration!" Mikey says, this makes Gerard laugh.
"Yeah, so Frankie said he liked my outfit the other day. When I wore the crimson button up. When we played halo last saturday, remember ?"
"Hmmm.. yeah it was obvious he liked that." Mikey hummed. "I'd go for your black button up, maybe buttoned up instead of open this time."
"Thats pretty formal, isnt it ?"
"I mean, yeah, but if you pair it with some dark jeans and maybe that white belt you have ? With the fancy buckle?"
"It's not a bad idea, but that white belt screams gay!"
"Which is the whole point!" Mikey says contently. "You have to pair it with some white sneakers. Complete the black and white look."
Gerard was taking in his advice, but allready making changes in his head. No way he was going to wear the button up closed. He thought open, with a band shirt underneath and maybe his ripped jeans. That all seemed more casual. "I like your thinking, Mikey." For now, the belt was staying, Mikey made a good point.

Once at home he dropped the groceries on the counter and walked over to his closet. He owned a small section of band t-shirts. Nothing as heavy metal as Frank owned, he had some Jim morrison, the smiths and Iron Maiden. He had to admit that Frankie's demo was broadening his horizons. Maybe he'd have to check some more metalbands out. He settled for a The Doors t-shirt. On top he added the black button up and grey ripped jeans. Mikey was still right about the belt. It was a white leather belt with a bat for a buckle. Gerard loved it, even if it was a bit extravagant. If it was summer, he'd definitly finish the outfit off with some big bug eyed sunglasses. Originally designed for old ladies, but claimed by gay boys.
After getting dressed and getting slightly cleaned up it was allready 4pm, time to get cooking. He told Frankie he was welcome at 6pm, they settled that he'd bring the cake for dessert, so he better get started.

The recipe wasn't to hard, especially since Gerard had made it many times before. He still kept the little flimsy magazine paper close, just in case something were to go terribly wrong. Once everything was in the pot all he needed to do was wait and put on some rice. He decided to put the chicken on a low fire and went into the bathroom again. Should he do the eyeliner? Or something diffrent with his hair? The latter was a useless thought, it would reside to being a big black mop allmost instantly. Partly because his hair just did it's own thing and partly because he had a nervous tick messing with it.
He decided to not do either, the eyeliner thing had been something he was pretty into when him and Mikey still went out on saturdaynights. Recently it has been replaced by playing Halo, which Gerard isn't mad about, since he's a bit of a hermit himself.
He set the table, still unsure if this was a coffeetable kind of dinner or a table-table kind of dinner. He was looking forward to hanging out with Frankie though, even if it's only been 2 short days. Gerard put the final touches on the butter chicken and put on some rice to accompany it. Frankie could be here any minute now.
It was only a quarter to six, but Gerard run out of thing to do. His appartment was pretty clean, and besides Frankie had seen it at a much worse time on monday. There was no use in concealing his nerdy figurine's for the same reasons. Frankie knows allready.

The doorbell rang early and Gerard thanked the stars for that one. He could feel himself getting sick just waiting. He knew that there was more to that feeling than just a friend coming over, but that was something he was going to unpack another time. Probably alone, when he couldn't sleep.
Gerard pick up the intercom. "Gerard Speaking."
"Frankie Speaking." Frank answered giggling. His laugh was pretty much always a giggle, gerard had noticed. Yet another thing that didn't really fit his exterior.
"I'll buzz you in." Gerard said as he pushed the button. A loud buzzing echoed through the hall.
Frank entered the appartment with a cake box in hand. It was only a small box, just enough for the two of them. He had sunglasses on, the autumn sun must've started to set allready. He half-hugged gerard with his free non-cake-carrying arm. "Hi Gee." He smiled into the crook of Gerard's neck, making the hairs in his neck stand up. He could feel his face flush.
"Hi Frankie." He smiled back as they parted. "You can put the cake on the counter."
"Will do." He said as he walked into the kitchen. When he placed the cake down he removed his sunglasses and put them in the pocket of his black jean jacket. Underneath he wore a black obscure metalshirt and a hoodie. A very casual look, that seemed effortlessly cool. His black jeans were slightly baggy, which Gerard guessed always happened because Frankie's so short.
Gerard's eyes traveled back up Frank's back as he removed his jacket. He wondered how obvious it was that he was eyeing him up and down. Black nailpolish adorned his fingernails and the eyeliner had made a comeback. Frankie hung his jacket over the back of one of the chairs. He cleared his throat loudly, making Gerard's eyes fly up to meet his. A smirk played on his lips and his eyebrows went up as if he was asking a question.

Gerard's eyes met the floor instantly, it had been pretty fucking obvious. "Please, sit down." He starts. "Uh... unless you want to eat in the livingroom?" He pointed his tumb over his shoulder towards the couches. "The table is fine, Gee." Frankie assured him as he sat down on one of the chairs. Gerard took a visible deep breath in and out as he grounded himself. He needed to shake the awkwardness, why was it always like this with Frankie at the start of every meeting?
"You want a drink?" Gerard asks, Frank nods in answer as Gerard opens the fridge. "I have coke, dr pepper aaaand mountain dew. Hmmpf... maybe I should've bought something more fancy."
"Oh, mountain dew!? I haven't had that in ages! Give me one of them." Frank says enthousiasticly. Gerard returns from the fridge with the two drink and finally sits down himself as the crack open the cans. They clink the cans together as a toast.
"I'm really dying to know what you made." Frankie said, sniffing his nose in the air. "It smells incredible."
"Trust me... It won't top your spaghetti, but I truely tried." Gerard smiled. "Maybe we should plate up in the kitchen... there really is no room on this table."
They plate up and finally their usual effortless conversations start to flow. Gerard had noticed that via text they'd say anything that was on their mind and simmilarly after hanging out for a while their conversations were endless. Everytime Gerard had to greet Frank though, it seemed like he was meeting him for the first time. He needed time to take it all in, to adjust to his pressence.
"How was work today?" Gerard asked as they sat down again. Frank tells him about making an extra big crumble cake and his mom being confused. "That'll never sell! She yelled, little did she knew that was the whole fucking point. If you like it, there's more where that came from!" He says pointing to the unopened carton on the counter.
Finally Frank takes his first bite, leaving Gerard in suspense. "So... You like it?" He grinned a toothy grin, more from nerves than actual happiness.
"Gerard! You told me this was going to be an okay meal, but this!" He points at his plate aggresively. "This is above avarage!" Frank said, gesturing more with his hands. Slight sarcasm was weaved through his tone, but he wasn't lying. He liked it. "I'd give it a solid 7.5/10."
"Hey! I didn't know we were doing ratings? This isn't fair. I can't rate your Mamma's spaghetti recipe. Certainly not after 2 days went by."
"I guess you'll have to come and eat a Frankie Iero Jr. Original pretty soon." Frankie shrugged, smirking as he looked up playfully from his plate of food. "Is this Mrs. Way's recipe?" Frank inquiered.
"Hah! No, Mrs. Way doesn't cook much, but I did cut it out of one of her magazines. She didn't even notice I think. At least, that was months ago."
"The Ways really are special." He decided, teasing Gerard. Gerard just nodded. "That's the least you can say."

This time Frankie asked alot about Gerard. His favourite places to visit in the city and what he did for past time if he wasn't getting annoyed by his younger brother. Gerard talked about the comicbook store, but also the art suply store and his love for drawing. He also assured Frank that Mikey was in fact not only his brother, but his best friend. The person he hangs out with the most really.
"Sometimes I wish me and Bunnie were like that, but then again she's 19. She's in college most of the time and I must hope life is more interesting over there then it is over here."
"I'm sure it'll come, when she's older. Now she's just in a total diffrent place in life." Gerard confirms.
"Was it like that for you guys?" Frankie asked.
"No, he's only 1,5 years younger. He's always been at my side and pretty much the little brother of our whole friendgroup back in High School." Gerard explained looking back at that time in his head, it seemed a lifetime ago. He wondered where all those people were now, the only ones who stuck around were Ray and Mikey.
After dinner gerard put on a pot of fresh coffee and layed out some tiny plates to eat cake of off. "Fancy!" Frankie grins. Gerard shakes his head. "I never get to use these things. I'm enjoying the moment." He explains.
"I love it, I love feeling fancy. It's like you're spoiling me." Frank beams, his cheeks are slightly red and his hands are clasped together in geniune excitement.
Frank plates up the two pieces of crumbcake he brought and looks at Gerard full of anticipation. "I know how crumbcake tastes." Gerard said as he sat down with two piping hot mugs of coffee.
"Those were not a Frankie Iero Jr. Original Recipe!" He points out before taking a big bite. "I had to really control myself today to not eat these." He says as crumbs fall from his mouth.
Gerard takes a bite, the cinnamony flavour hit him instantly. He tried to play it cool, but a little smile allready played on his lips. "This is more than above avarage, Frankie." He says as he covers his mouth, trying to prevent too many crumbs from spilling out. "So good!"
"This coffee is better than the coffee at the bakery." Frank said suprised after taking a small, way to hot, sip. "I mean like, a lot better."
Gerard blushes. "I'm kinda into fancy coffee."
"Why did you come to the bakery then? I mean this is way way better."
"Fancy coffee is expensive, you have tasty pastries,..."
"Which you never ordered, until I gave you one for free." Frankie chimes in.
"And it's on my way to work."
"Not really, the trainstation is closer to your appartment than the bakery."
"Okay... You guys have nice employee's."
"It's me. I am the employee."
"I know.." Gerard sighed defeated. A blush crept up his cheeks and he could feel his own eyes sparkle at Frankie. He sure was the employee. "Maybe I just liked the convenience of coffee on the go, that I didn't have to make myself and then I turned out you guys had a nice employee."
"I'll tell Bunnie." He winked. "She'll be thrilled."
"It's you, Frankie. You're so nice, that I kept on coming back."
"Just nice?"
"You're really fishing for compliments here, that really doesn't look good on you." Gerard fake cringed. revealing his teeth in as if saying 'Yikes!'.
"Okay okay, but for real, maybe you should help us choose a new coffee vendor. I mean, ours is actually shit. I was starting to worry your tastebuds were actually just burned off." Frank says matter of factly. "I mean it just tastes like hot slop."
"Your coffee isn't that bad! I mean, maybe compared to this." Gerard points at his mug of complex coffee flavours. "But in the grand scheme of things, it's only just below avarage."

"So drawing?" Frankie asks, "You got anything to show me?"
"Yeah maybe..." Gerard thinks as he rummages through his messengerbag, fishing out a notepad. "This is just doodles I did at work." He says, tossing it over to Frankie.
"I mean, I have bigger and better works, but they're all in storage right now. I'm not really doing anything with my drawing at the moment."
"Dude, you're crazy talented." Frank says impressed. "You could really design some sick band merch or album covers." Gerard takes in the compliments with glee. "Thank you so much."
Frank comments on allmost everypage. "This is Ray, right? He plays the guitar?" "You designed this super hero-person yourself? Or is it just a super obscure guy?" "This vampire dude looks sick, I'm super into vampires." Then a silence falls over the two boys. Gerard had allready felt pretty awkward just nodding along every page, but then he realized it. The day he saw Frankie in those glasses, it had been all Gerard could think about at work. His eyes widened in panic as they met Frankie's.
"That's..." Frankie points at the page. "Me?"
The page started of with some bats, clearly mindless doodles, then it progressed to more portrait-style sketches of Frankie. One with his glasses, one where he's smoking a sigaret and one where he's clearly wearing the same style eyeliner he is tonight. The whole pages in surrounded by little abscent-minded batshaped blobs.
"Uh.. Yeah.. I guess. I kinda forgot that was in there." Gerard admits, maybe making the situation even more awkard.
"I mean ... these are really good." Frank said, actually sounding impressed. "I just wasn't expecting to see myself." He giggled. The air was cleared as if nothing happened, Gerard's chest still felt tight, but Frankie was just staring at the page happily. "This is actually insane, like you do these from memory?"
"Yeah... I don't take creepy photo's in secret." Gerard says. "I'll draw you without telling you, but I'll never take weird photo's."
"Maybe this is out of line... but can I have this page?" He puts on his puppy dog eyes as he clasps his hand together. "This is truely so sick!"
"Wait... I'll cut it out for you. One second." Gerard dissapears to his room, only to re-enter the room seconds later with an exacto-knife in his hand. He placed the notebook on the counter and tried to cut as straight as possible along the spine. Inside he was regretting doing that, these drawings probably meant more than he cared to admit. It wasn't just mindless doodles, it was like giving up a part of his personal diary.
He put the drawing into a clear plastic sleeve and handed it to Frankie. "Please don't crumple it, please." He said.
"I won't! I'm just going to be that creep who has a drawing of himself hanging over his bed."
Gerard didn't mind the idea of frank looking up at that drawing every now and then and be reminded of him.

-11:03 pm-
G: You up? Can I call you?
M: You can always call me, especially if it's about Frankie.
G: I hate it when you're right. :-( xo

Gerard calls his brother allmost as soon as Frankie had left his building.
"Hi brother" Mikey answers, a clear happiness in his voice.
"Hi Mikes, so sorry to be bothering you so late." Gerard sighs.
"No such thing. I don't mind, you know that. So what's up?"
"I..." Butterflies fly against Gerard's lungs as he thinks of what he's about to say. "I might have a little thing for Frankie."
"Little?" Mikey seems to choke on some kind of beverage on the other side of the line.
"I mean big! Like enormous. I underestimated my ability to fall and fall quickly." Gerard Sighed. "And I hate how you are my brother, but also best friend, so you will tease me. Go ahead please."
"I'll tease you later, for now I'll say: He's gorgeous, Gerard. Everyone can see that, my straight-ass can see that. It really isn't to crazy. Not to mention he has major heart-eyes for you. So maybe, if a dude looked at me like that, I'd fall too."
"He doesn't. Please don't give me false hope." Gerard sighed allmost hopelessly. "I have to get this out of my system. I can't loose him as a friend, we click so well. I can't have another matt-situation on my hands."
"Tell me about tonight, Gee." Mikey demands and Gerard describes their wonderful dinner. The crumbcake Frank made especially for him, the drawings they discussed and them ending on the sofa together for a while. Frankie's head had been resting in Gerard's lap as they talked. Only because the sofa was so small and Frankie was tired. They both had ignored the fact that there was a whole other seating option, the recliner. Gerard had suggested gaming and booted up the gamecube, eventually they didn't get farther than the start-screen. They just talked and talked all night. About Frank's dreams for a band, what he'd call it and he explained more about track 02, only because Gerard asked. On the flip side they talked about Gerard's art and his secret dream to illustrate a batman comic. In the end Frankie's eyes were struggling to keep focused on gerard and drifted close every now and then. Gerard send him home and promised to come by the bakery in the morning and now, he was calling Mikey.
"I just have to say it, that is so damn cute." Mikey says, in a chipper voice. "You guys are swooning over each other and you're not even noticing?"
"What if he isn't gay, Mikey?"
"He wears eyeliner!"
"A lot of people do, Pete Wentz does!"
"You don't think he's at least bisexual?"
"Frankie or Pete Wentz."
"For the sake of this conversation, let's just say both."
"I don't know... Maybe he's just happy having found a new friend. I really expected him to freak out at my drawings of him, instead he just asked if he could have them. He's probably going to ritually burn them."
"I think you're spiraling a bit."
"I'd rather spiral than get rejected, again."
"So you just called to vent and now you're not going to do anything with these feelings?"
"Sounds like a plan, that's solid advice."
"So saturdaynight will definitly have some awkward moments. I'm looking forward to it. I'll just make sure you guys have to sit way to close together, so I can watch you squirm."
"Ah, here's the teasing." Gerard sighed. "Sorry, it's late and I probably should just sleep on it. Maybe I'm making it bigger than it actually is."
"What comes to mind if you think of him?"
Gerard sighs a loud sigh, he wanted this conversation to end. He was annoyed his brother was actually trying to be helpful. "I see his eyes and his sharp eyebrows. His smell, sweet cakes and coffee. How he looks tough, but only says nice things. His tattoos, his intense eye-contact, his voice on his demo-cd. Did I let you listen to that yet? It's incredible."
"Yeah... You're fucked." Mikey says calmly. "Please mention his eyes one more time."
"They're hazel or whatever." Gerard answers bluntly.
"Great!" Mikey said in dead-pan way. "I think I can diagnose you as hopelessly crushing on Frankie. And I'm pretty sure this all started allmost 2 weeks ago, it'll only get worse from here."
Another heavy sigh left Gerard's body. "I'll just have to try and subdue it a bit. I'll figure it out."
That night, he in fact did not figure it out. He layed awake for allmost an extra hour, only seeing Frankie's eyes and thinking about Frankie's head in his lap as they talked all night.

*thursday*
He entered the bakery, the ding of the bell allready so familiar he doesn't even notice anymore. There's no one behind the counter, but he knew Frankie was working today. He waited patiently for a few seconds, eyeing up the usual pastries in the counter. Gerard spotted some focacia-bread with olives and cherry tomatoes. He might have to buy a piece of that to take to work.
The door that leads to the kitchen of the bakery, creaks open. Frankie is pushing the door open with his back as he's carrying a tray of baked goods. Gerards arms allready are starting to feel weak. He really shouldn't have called mikey, it had made everything so real. He could've kept living in the delussion that Gerard just wanted Frankie to be his friend. That delussion was ruined now, everything was so obvious now. Frankie turns slowly, being carefull not to spill his tray. They make eyecontact and a smile breaks across his face.
"Oh, hey you!" He smiles. He's got that sparkle in his eyes, his glasses on and a knowing smirk plays on his lips. Gerard could feel his breath hitch in his throat.
"uh... Hi." He managed to get out. He hadn't expected glasses-Frankie to sneak up on him like that, again. It must be his weakness, he looked so soft with his glasses on. More innocent. Less rugged. Gerard really liked all the opposites Frankie embodied in one person. Soft and rough, kind and unafraid to talk back, softly spoken and screaming his heart out.
Frankie had started putting away the baked goods, looking up to Gerard every now and then. Still with that sparkle and that smirk. "You look like you haven't slept." He said.
"Well, I really haven't. Had a rough night." Gerard admits, ruffling his messy hair.
"We really stayed up to late." Frankie giggled, "I was lucky and fell a sleep allmost as soon as I got home. Not proud to say it, but I slept in my clothes and contact-lenses again." He pointed to his glasses. "We really can't make this a habit, it's bad for my eyesight!" He giggled.
Gerard nodded, "Sorry, about your eyesight." He said, secretly thinking he didn't mind, that meant he'd see Frankie in glasses more.
"Don't worry about it, I should just not be such a lazy-ass." He grinned. "Anyways, I've been thinking about the coffee-thing. I'm going to order some samples from some roasteries around the city. I'll need someone to taste test them and help me decide. After tasting the coffee at your place, I really noticed how fucking bad our coffee is."
"I'd love to help, oh and also, one of those shitty coffee's to go, please!"
"Can't believe you actually still want to drink that slop!" Frankie said in shock.
"I don't mind. It's like gasstationcoffee. It fucking bad, but it does the job. Also, I'd love to try that focaccia."
"Ahh.. You'll be the first one to try it then. I felt in an experimental mood this morning. Let me know how you like it."
"I definitly will."
"That'll be 8 dollars, please."
Gerard payed quickly, put his bread in his messenger bag and picked up his coffee. "I really got to go now, otherwise I'll be missing my train again. It has kinda become a habbit." He admitted. "You should definitly order coffee from Kaffa, they have really good stuff."
"I'll order some this afternoon, I'll let you know when they arrive." Frankie nods. "Have a nice day at work!"
"Yeah... I'll definitly do that." Gerard said, pulling a face.

-12:30 am-
F: So how is the focaccia? xo
G: I just started eating it, atm it get a 8/10 xo
F: Only an 8? :-( xo
G: That's litterally a great score. I'd just eat it with some ham or something in between. xo
F: Okay, maybe I'll make focaccia sandwiches next. Good Idea! xo
G: You know I'll be ordering. ;-) xo
F: I know! <3 I ordered coffee samples from 5 diffrent roasteries. Hopefully we can taste them soon! xo

*Friday*

-9:16 AM-
F: Goodmorning G! <3 xo
G: Hi Frankie! xo
F: No coffee today? xo
G: I was running late, again. I can stop by after work. xo
F: You don't need to, I just wanted to check you're OK. xo
G: I'm okay. xo

Gerard didn't tell Frankie that he actually wasn't late, but maybe he just needed to have a little less Frankie in his life right now, until he was able to see Frankie without his knees giving out. So he could try and deal with these feelings for a bit. Seeing him everyday had really started to disrupt his mind. All day he sits and daydreams about Frankie and feels all the jitters that come with talking to Frankie or hugging Frankie or being in close proximity to Frankie.
Today at work he noticed that not seeing Frankie was not the solution. His head was still full off thoughts about him and regrets of not stopping by to get a coffee and a smile.

-11:32 AM-
F: Some of the samples allready arrived! Maybe we can do a taste test next week? xo
G: Yeah, sounds great! I'm curious which ones you ordered. xo
F: I'll let you know on saturday, don't remember all the names. xo
G: You coming to Halo Night? xo
F: Wouldn't miss it for the world <3 xo
G: So you're allready missing me? ;-) xo
F: Always! :-* xo
And Gerard was miserably failing at every resolution he set for himself. He knew he'd have to rethink that one tonight. On the commute home he listened to the Demo, again, and drew pictures of Frankie, again.
The only regret he had, was coming to terms with the fact that Frankie meant more to him than just a new frienship. He wished he could've just kept faking it or ignoring his feelings. But no, he had to tell Mikey and now it was like it was fact. He had a crush on Frankie and it was on his mind 24/7.

-8:30 PM-
F: Goodnight Gerard! xo
G: Going to bed allready? xo
F: There's no one keeping me awake today, might as well take the opportunity. xo
G: Hey! You stayed by free will on Tuesday! xo
F: If I didn't need to work, I'd probably still be there now. xo
G: I'm so greatful for the bakery. <3 xo
F: You don't want me just hanging around your appartment, mooching of your food? :( xo
G: You know you're always welcome, Frankie! xo
F: I know! <3 I'm really going to sleep now, early shift tomorrow. xo
G: When don't you have the early shift ? :P xo
G: Anyway, I'm looking forward to tomorrow, sleep tight Frankie. <3 xo
F: Don't let the bed bugs bite. <3 xo

*Saturday*

Last night Gerard used all his free-from-Frankie time to think about all his feelings, all his doubts and all about Frankie. His conclusion was that there was no escaping Frankie, he has allready enveloped him. He'd just have to live with gushing over him, admiring him. The guy had allready taken up his space in Gerard's life. There was no need to do this from afar. Like a creepy lurker. That would only make everything worse.
So he decided to go on the ride, wherever that might lead. In his mind that could only be two places. Friendship or heartbreak, but for Frankie, he was willing to see it through.
Gerard decided to run by the bakery this morning, only quickly for a coffee and maybe a smoke. He'd see Frankie in the evening anyways, but after yesterday he felt kinda bad. Like had had avoided him and he had noticed.

-8:04 AM-
G: Goodmorning, I'm OMW xo
F: Goodmorning! I'm technically not allowed to text at work xo
G: Then wtf are you doing? xo
F: Breaking the rules. :) xo

When Gerard arrived at the bakery Frankie was allready outside with a cup of hot coffee and a sigaret, ready to hand it to Gerard. "Goodmorning Gerard!" He smiled happily.
"Someones cheerfull today!" Gerard laughed. "Goodmorning Frankie."
"Yeah, aren't you? It's halo night!"
"Yeah, I hate to pop your bubble but that's in like... 11 hours."
"Off which I'll be asleep for like 4 or 5. So To me that's in... 6 hours." Frank calculates, waving his hand side to side as if to say it was only a rough estimate of time.
"You lucky dog." Gerard smiled as he took the coffee from Frankie's hands. "Thanks for this." He points.
"Anything for you." Frank smiles wide, giving a sublte wink. Gerard could feel his face flush, but he pushed through. "Vice Versa." He said motioning between the two of them.
Frankie nodded, satisfied with that answer. "So you're picking me up again, tonight?"
"You know how to get there now, right?"
"Yeah... I just hate arriving alone, or early, i don't know. What do I even say to the puppet master if you're not there yet? Or worse, what if only Ray's home?"
"You know you could talk to him about music right? He plays guitar."
"He's probably into Iron Maiden or something." Frankie rolls his eyes.
"Iron Maiden are good right?"
"They ain't no black flag, Gerard..."
"I believe this is what they call comparing apples to oranges?"
"Anywaaayss..." Frankie sighs. "Will you pick me up, please?"
"Allright Allright, but next time you have to be a big boy, okay?" Gerard smiles wide, Frankie shakes his head. "I don't think I'll be getting any taller anytime soon, but I'll try."
They share a sigaret, it's Gerard's last one in his pack. It feels a bit intimate, but also very normal.
They talk for a few more minutes before Frank's mom yells something in Italian.
"Break time's over." He says, with a pained expression. "I think you're also probably missing your train again."
Gerard quickly glances over to the tiny screen on his flipphone and jumps. "Oh Fuck... I gotta go." He puts away his phone and half hugs Frankie avoiding spilling his coffee or setting Frankie's shirt on fire with his sigaret. "See you at 7, Frankie!"

-1:30 PM-
F: I'll be a sleep for the next 5 hours. See you at 7! Peace out! xo
G: Are you just rubbing it in? that you're going to have a nap? And I have to rot away at this desk? xo
F: Maybe... xo
G: Have a good nap, Frankie. May you have only the sweetest of dreams. xo
F: Oh, I will. <3 xo

He did feel jalous of Frankie, sitting in his cubicle on a saturday answering endless calls. He was trying to stay friendly, but really these people needed to start reading the user manuals for their devices. The amount of eyerolling that was happing to Gerard was allmost dangerous. He wished he was just snuggled up having a little nap. In his mind the nap would be happening on Frankie's couch. Instead of a nap, Gerard went on a little journey to the water cooler to clear his mind for a bit. Only a few more hours 'till this horrible workday was over.

When Gerard finally arrives home from work, he's only able to quickly refresh before having to pick up Frankie. He takes a quick shower, tries to fix his hair, but gives up on that pretty quickly and pulls on the first clothes he finds. An old star wars hoodie and baggy jeans, on his way out he puts on his jacket and a scarf. He slings his messenger bag around his body and pulls the door shut. On his way there he puts his buggy sunglasses on, the autumn sun was hanging low behind buildings, blinding Gerard every now and then as it peaked through.

When the frontdoor opened, it wasn't Frankie, but Mrs. Iero standing there. "Oh, hi Mrs. Iero." Gerard waved sheepishly.
"So, you're sticking around?" She smiles, Gerard can hear Frankie shouting something to his mom from upstairs.
"You mean for Frankie?"
"Ofcourse." She's stern, yet there's a softness under her shell. It's clear where Frankie gets his duality from.
"Yeah,... ofcourse. I think he's great!" Gerard tries, not sure what answer mrs. Iero is looking for.
"He's soft. I don't want him getting hurt." She says, full of love. She glances over her shoulder every now and then to make sure he's not in earshot. "I've not seen him like this in ages."
"I won't hurt him, I swear." Gerard nods. He wants to ask more, there are definitly things Frankie isn't telling him, which is fair. They've only really known eachother for a couple of weeks. He had only talked to Mrs. Iero twice and both times she mentioned that Frankie has changed recently. It made Gerard curious, but he also didn't want to mess anything up by bringing it up to Frankie.
"Maybe not intentional." She smiles, with that steps come bouldering down the stairs.
Frankie's hair is still wet and he's wearing comfy clothes. Black sweatpants and a hoodie, another obscure bandname that Gerard can't even try to read is splattered across it. He pulls on a jeanjacket over the ensemble. "You guys gossiping again?" He squints. Now Gerard notices the eyeliner, the super casual outfit and the make up didn't really make sense, but it looked amazing. Like he was a vampire off duty.
"Only good things, my birichino!" Mrs. Iero smiles, as she ruffles his wet hair.
"Mammaaaaa..." He whines. He quickly kisses her on the cheeck, squeezing past her to get to Gerard. "Don't stay up."
"Have fun, boys!" She waves as they leave.
While they walk Frankie pushes his hands deep into his pockets and just stares into the void infront of them. "What did she say?"
"Who?" Gerard asks.
"My mom."
"Oh..." Gerard hestitates. "She asked if I was going to stick around."
"Hmmm..." He pouted his lips. "She needs to stop protecting me from everything that could hurt me."
"She's just looking out for you... I think..." Gerard tries.
"Yeah Maybe..."
"So what even... I mean... " Gerard's trying to figure out how to even go about this.
"You want to know what my deal is?" Frank asks, he smiling, but his eyes aren't really there.
"Well... Yeah... only if you don't mind sharing." Gerard tries.
"So were done with small talk?" Frank teases, clearly trying to delay the subject.
"Have we ever done small talk?" Gerard laughs.
"I don't know, you haven't told me your deepest darkest secrets yet, have you?"
"No... are you about to?"
"Maybe." Frank smiles, the twinkle is back in his eyes, if only for a moment. "Okay, just promise you won"t pitty me. It's a real tear jerker this one."
"Okay, I won't. I'll just say you gotta get some thicker skin and deal with it."
"Hah, no, you won't." Frank shakes his head. "So here's my deal. My dad died when I was 18. It fucked me up, I wasn't really here or anywhere for a few years really. Then I found music, it kind of healed me. I started touring with bands, first as a roadie, then a guitar tech and I started filling in for guitarists after a while. It really was going well at that point, but then I tried having my own band and I felt like I failed. And all these old feelings came back and I decided to live with my mom again. I just moped for a good few months, until she forced me to work in the bakery. I definitly found a new passion there, but I miss music a lot." Frankie shrugged like he didn't just drop a bomb on Gerard. "So yeah, that's me."
"I'm sorry. I don't pitty you, but I'm sorry for your loss." Gerard clarrified. "I'm happy you found something new to be passionate about. But you gotta stick with music, make a new band, talk to ray tonight, seriously."
Frankie smiled. "I didn't expect you to react like that." He giggled. "Most people don't know what to say."
"I mean, I don't know what to say. I'm just saying things." Gerard clarrified.
"I'm happy you're saying things." He nods. "I'll talk to Ray. You're serious right? About my music? you actually like it?"
"Frankie...are you serious!? you're very talented. I think you're waisting it if you don't do something with it."
"You're one to talk..." He huffed. Gerard wondered if a lot of people had left Frankie's life, because he has baggage. Because he's at a point in his life where he's just figuring stuff out. He couldn't imagine turning his back on Frankie.
They were only a few more streets away from Mikey's appartment at this point. "So what's your deal? I mean this conversation kinda goes both ways." Frankie says, motioning between them.
"Yeah... I don't really have a deal, I think? I just went to art school, started a boring depressing job because no one wanted to hire me and I'm still there. I don't have a lot of friends, because I'm a little strange and I don't have a love life because all the guys I fall for are straight." Gerard explained, as if all of these things were just known facts about him. there's a few things Gerard skips over, maybe he's not ready to share every last bit of him. He's sure that time will come.
"You're gay?"
"I'm sorry? I thought that was very clear." Gerard motioned to all of him.
"I mean, I had a hunch? It's not that clear. You're wearing normal clothes most of the time, the only thing gay about this outfit is those sunglasses." Frankie said as he tapped them. "but the rhinestones even fell out. So even that's not really clear."
"My aura is gay, at least I hope so. And my bat-belt is super gay." Gerard clarrified.
"You're right about that." Frankie nodded.

"Before Halo-night was Halo-night, it was going-out-night." Gerard explained further. "We used to go to concerts and stuff, I'd go pretty all-out with the outfits. But time has made us nerdier and halo-nights don't require chique outfits and.... eyeliner" Gerard says, as he points to Frank's eyes, laughing.
"I thought you liked it!?" He counters, suprised by the sudden attack.
"Oh I love it, Frankie." Gerard smiles softly. His whole face feels warm and even is eyes smile. "It looks lovely on you."
Gerard could see Frankie's face flush as the aproached Mikey's front door, he started fishing for his keys in his pockets. "Don't forget to talk to ray, about guitars. He's a nerd about it. I'll give him you're demo, so he can listen to it."
Frankie just nods, patting his cheecks trying to cool them down with his cold fingers.

Chapter Text

Still Saturday

Frankie was still cooling down from their heated walk to Mikey's appartment. A few things had just solidified in his mind. Gerard's gay. He had had a hunch, maybe even more than a hunch, but hearing the words still flustered Frankie. All the small flirtacious interactions between the two of them suddenly had gained weight. Was he really just fooling around or was he courting Frankie? His mind was going a million miles an hour, but that usually happened when he hung out with Gerard.

He had been honest with Gerard, about how he was pretty much a mess, a charity case. Gerard had responded like it was all just normal. In the same breath Gerard had minimized his own talent. How could he talk about himself like that, when there was an artistic genius hiding in his brain? Maybe they were both misfits who just had to find eachother, give eachother that final push they need, to go for it.

Gerard had definitly gotten to Frankie. Him complimenting his work and asking questions for the last few weeks really got him thinking. He allmost picked up his guitar again, allmost. Maybe after talking to Ray tonight he'll actually do it. He hopes Gerard will do something with his talent too. Ofcourse, he's always drawing and his drawings are amazing, but Frankie wondered what else he could achieve.
Frankie got snapped out of his thoughts by Gerard pushing his keys into the actual frontdoor of Mikey's appartment . Apperently he had walked up the stairs without even really noticing. "Ready to annihilate these losers, again?" Gerard smiled at Frankie. He nodded and with that Gerard pushed the door open. "Hey Mikes!" He yells.
"Hey Gee! How's your bo-... ring desk job!?" Mikey had cut off his words as he saw Frankie, like he was going to say something else, but changed his mind. Gerard looked at mikey confused. "The same as always? People need to read their fucking manuals..." And Gerard was off on a tangent about what he had earlier described as his boring, depressing job.
Frankie just stared off into the distance as Gerard's rant continued. He was still mulling everything over that he had just discovered about Gerard and nothing was really registering with him. Was this what shock felt like?
"Hey, you okay?" Gerard asked, eyes full of worry. His hand on Frankie's shoulder.
"Huh?" He snapped out of his thoughts. "Yeah, yeah... I'm fine."
"Mikey just tried saying Hi to you like three times." Gerard smiled apologeticly.
"Oh yeah! Hi Mikey." Frankie smiled a small smile.
"You want a drink?" Mikey asked.
"Yeah, a coke please." Mikey turned his back to grab some drinks out of the fridge. Gerard's brow furrowed. "Are you okay? I'm sorry if I made you relive some old memories earlier... like about your dad."
Frankie hadn't had a single thought about his late father, but he took the bait. "Oh, it's okay. I'll be fine, just give me a few minutes to settle." Gerard rubbed his back abscend-mindedly. Frank didn't complain and leaned into the touch. Gerard fingertips were now gently circling his back while he's clearly deep in thought. He wondered what could be going on in that genius mind of his.

The three of them settled down in the L-shaped couch with their drinks. They started talking about their respective weeks and Frankie boasted about how Gerard made the most delicious butter chicken. Mikey rolled his eyes for about 5 minutes straight. "You guys are sickening." He muttered. Next on Frank's talking-agenda was all about the foccaccia recipe.
"Did your week just revolve around only food?" Mikey asked confused.
"I don't know if you know... but I work in a bakery? That's literally a store that sells fucking bread and shit." Frank lays on the sarcasm thickly.
"You don't saaaay... Anyways, you're always talking about this dilicious food, it's making me hungry, and you never bring any!" Mikey mocks.
Frankie rolls his eyes. "Okay, you tell me what I need to bring next halo night and I'll bring it, fresh." He says it like he's doing illigal bussiness.
"Okay, I"ll let you know by next friday." Mikey said rubbing his hands.
"I'm bringing one thing! not a whole dessert buffet, okay Way!?" Frankie warns. Gerard and Mikey both flinch at Frankie yelling their last name. "That's what I fucking thought." Frankie nods.
"Where's Ray anyways?" Gerard asked after they had finally booted up the game.
"He's in the shower... his hair routine is elaborate. He'll be here in a few minutes I think."
"Let's just start playing allready, he can joing the next round." Gerard nodded.

When Ray arrives they play a few more games of Halo, before setteling into just hanging out, chit chatting and drinking a couple of beers. A typical weekend-night for a bunch of twenty-something year old guys. Frankie was at ease and happy he maybe, just maybe had found his crew. It was weird how well he just fit in with them.
"Hey Ray... Uh.." Frankie starts, rubbing his hands together awkwardly. "I uh... You play guitar right?"
"Yeah..." Ray squints, not sure what he was getting at. Frankie and Ray are leaning on the counter as they drink a beer fresh from the fridge. The Way brothers are on the couch talking about somethings with intens hand gestures. They're giggling like schoolboys.
"I... used to make music. Gerard told me to talk to you about it." Frankie said, grimacing.
"Do you want to ? It doesn't see like you want to?" Ray laughs.
"Oh, I do! I'm just cringing at myself."
"Are you any good?"
"I'd like to think so? I was in a punk rock band as a singer and guitarist. I also played for some more metal and harcore bands on tours."
"Like, you're an actual musician?" Ray asked, mouth allmost agape and eyes only communicating confusion.
"Well yeah, I was. I toured for like 4 years with a bunch of diffrent bands." Frankie's confidence was coming back in the conversation.
"Amazing! Why did you stop? You were living the dream, I mean at least my dream." Ray's getting more and more enthousiastic now.
"Well, I started my own band. The band really didn't like each other, so we split after a year or two. I kinda stopped playing after that." He said, trying to sound as casual as possible.
"Dude, that's too bad. You should come and play with us. We play on wednesdays in one of my friend's garage's. We're not really a band, we just jam, but you should joing us."
"Thanks! I'll think about it, i'll have to practice a bit." Frank says, scratching his head. "I've been kneading dough the last year or so, I hope I haven't lost my skills."
"Hey, no pressure. Some of these guys actually suck." Ray says, hands in the air. "Like I don't know how they've been playing every wednesday for two or more years and still sound like that. If they hear your tour stories they'll probably think you're a god."
Frankie laughs at that. "Oh please, don't worship me!" He jokes.
Right on cue Gerard appears by his side with a cd in a jewelcase. "This is Frankie's Demo." He announces as he hands it over to Ray. "I would say I'll miss it, but I ripped it and burned a second one."
"Are you pirating my demo?"
"You're lucky I didn't put it on the internet. My internet isn't strong enough to do that, but if it was, you'd be famous now."
Frankie rolls his eyes. "You are too kind to me." he sighs, softly so only Gerard really hears him. "I know." Gerard smiles wide, his eyes reduced to rainbow-shaped slits.

That night Frankie feels the buzz of the alcohol, but isn't fully tipsy. He just found a little bit more charisma and confidence in himself.
"You wanna come see my guitar?" He asks. Gerard is stood at his front door, dropping Frankie off like the dutiful chaperone he is.
"Is this a euphenism for something?" Gerard jokes, wiggeling his eyebrows. Frankie snorts.
"No, I'm for real. Ray really convinced me. I need to pick it back up."
"Are you sure right now is the time? I mean, it's late."
"It's 11 pm, come on Gerard. Do you have anywhere to be tomorrow?"
"It's a sunday opening of the comicbook store, so yeah." He says, pressing his lips together like he's emberassed to even say it. "I do have somewhere to be."
"Okay... what if... we'll go together if you come and check out my guitar?" Frankie smiles sweetly.
"Is this a bribe? Again!? Oh Iero, you rascal." Gerard shakes his head.
Frankie grabs his keys and starts opening the front door. "I'm not coming.." Gerard says, he doesn't sound confident.
"You aren't?" Frankie asks. "I'm pretty sure you are." He grabs Gerard's arm and pulls him in. He doesn't quiet fight it, he just accepts he's getting dragged up three flights of stairs.
"Quiet, Mamma is a sleep."
"You are going to play the guitar. how will that be quiet?"
"Headphones!" Frank shout-whispers.
"Are you tipsy-Frankie again?" Gerard asks, confused what's actually happening.
"Gee, I had two beers." He opens the door to his studio and pulls Gerard in. "relax. Come sit." He pulls Gerard to the couch and they fall into it together. They're a heap of limbs for a few seconds before finding their footing and sitting up straight again. A crescendo of giggles immerge from the couch.
"ssssst!" Frankie hisses. Gerard rolls his eyes.
"You were giggling louder!"
"I wasn't giggling, I was laughing."
"You always giggle."
Frankie huffs as he stands up, going behind the privacy screen for a second. He hears some moving of boxes before he sees the neck of a guitar case emerge from behind the screen. Frankie dusts of the case before opening it. Inside is a white epiphone guitar. It has holographic letters curving around the body. "Pansy." Gerard reads out loud.
"Yeah, that's her name." Frankie says, looking up at Gerard on the couch. "I named her that a long time ago. It just seemed to fit." Gerard doesn't asks any further questions. Seeing Frankie with that guitar just seemed like a perfect fit. Even the name, everything he does seems effortlessly genius. Offcourse, Gerard knows this might not be true and this might just be his big fat crush talking. Frankie plugs in the guitar and hands Gerard the headphones. He settles in next to Gerard on the couch. He looks gerard dead in the eyes for a few seconds. "You ready?"
"Uh... I guess?" Gerard's still kinda confused how he even ended up in Frankie's studio tonight. "What exactly is happening?"
"I'm playing you a song."
"Yeah... I though that was going to happen." Gerard scratches his head, suddenly feeling nervous. Everything felt so intimate, the air felt like it was buzzing with electricity.
Frankie softly starts to play a melody into Gerard's ears, it doesn't take long for Gerard to recognize the song he's had on repeat the last 2 weeks. Frankie starts to sing-whispers the lyrics to track 02.

"I can't close my eyes
I can't shut my eyes to you
I can't close my eyes
I won't shed a tear for you this time
No matter how hard I try
To break all the ties
But heartbreak is forever"

This song wasn't one of the loud and screaming ones, this one was soft and sad. Just like on the demo-cd, but even more striking in real life. Gerard crossed his legs onto the couch and scooted closer to Frankie, not taking his eyes of him.
Frankie's eyeliner was smudged over his entire under-eye, his eyes looked tired and he looked comfy, in his soft hoodie. He lightly strummed the guitar and sang with his eyes closed. On the demo the song got louder and faster as it progressed, this version stayed quiet and reserved. Was it because his mamma was sleeping, because he was still finding his footing again with the guitar or just because that's how he wanted to play it to Gerard?
He didn't seem to struggle with the guitar at all, it came to him like second nature. Like riding a bike. Frankie seemed totally in his element. Enjoying every second of it.

"Heartbreak kills forever
Heartbreak kills forever
Hearbreak kills forever"

Frankie seemed frozen for a while, not sure what to do now the song had ended. Meanwhile Gerard was fighting the urge to take Frankie's face in his hands and kiss him. It was the first time Gerard ever thought of explicitly kissing him. Before he had known that maybe, he wanted to, some day in the distant future. Right now it felt like that was what needed to happen now. He looked so soft and vunerable, like he wanted to cherish and protect whatever version of Frankie this was. A new favourite version, discovered just like that.
Gerard was still cursing himself for ever admitting there were any feelings for Frankie living in his chest, but now it was undeniable. His chest felt like it was going to burst open, like a time bomb was ticking inside of him, ready to explode. He scooted closer and layed his hand on Frankie's lap, the urge to touch him was too big. Too monumental to ignore.
"That was amazing." Gerard managed. Frankie's eyes finally flew open. "You thought so?" His eyes darting from Gerard to his hand and back.
"Yeah, It was great! Especially for not touching the guitar for a while? it was phenomenal." Gerard pushed, removing his hand from Frankie to gesture wildly. He felt he looked like a crazy person, his heart just couldn't stop pounding and he felt his eyes being spread to their maximum capacity.
"Thanks..." Frankie blushed, he set down the guitar next to the couch. "I just wanted you to hear it.... and I mean, Ray really lit a fire under my ass!" He giggled. "I just wanted to get the first time playing over with. If I had waited 'till tomorrow, I might've found an excuse to not do it."
"I would've kept pushing you, you know that! I love this song, so I'm happy I got to hear it live." Gerard replied, thinking about how Frankie's accent sounded even more prominent live than on the demo and how that made him swoon. Frank unplugged and stored his guitar again, this time not hiding the case behind the privacy screen, but leaving it in plain sight. Gerard took this time to take deep breathes and force his heartrate down again. He wasn't sure how he was going to maintain a friendship with Frankie if this is what it was going to be like.
"Gorgeous guitar, by the way." Gerard added. "It's so Frankie... I can't explain it."
"Thanks..." Frankie nodded with a shy smile. The two of them settled into the couch again. Gerard pulled up his legs and pushed his toes under Frankie butt, while Frankie leaned back and let his arm rest on Gerard's legs. Gerard fished out his note pad and pen. He started doodling the guitar and Frankie while they talked. The electricity Gerard had felt earlier wasn't gone, but it had reduced itself to a simmer. Something easy to ignore as they fell into their positions, which were becoming more and more normal by the day. Like this, Gerard felt most at home and suddenly having Frankie in is live in one way or another seemed like the only way forward.

Sunday

Gerard's awakened by the sounds of footsteps sneaking past him and not much later, some mugs clinging in the not-to-far distance. Gerard sat up, rubbing his eyes in confusion. He looked down and found a black and red checkered blanket, that wasn't his own. Underneath it the lightsabers on his hoodie told him he was wearing his clothes from the day before. "Fuck....?" He said in a confused, groggy tone. He rubbed his eyes again as he searched for his phone. It read 9:14 AM. He had a text from Mikey.
-2:03 AM-
M: Did you get home?
M: You okay?

Gerard normally always texted when he got home, just so Mikey didn't worry about him. He groaned audibly.

-9:15 AM-
G: I'm fine...
M: You're home?
G: I don't think so...
M: You don't know where you are!?
G: I'm at Frankie's. I'm pretty sure.
M: OMG DID IT HAPPEN!?
G: Fuck off.

Gerard could feel Frankie sitting down on the far edge of the couch. "Coffee?" He whispered. "It's the good stuff."
Gerard finally finds the energy to turn his head, he finds a tossled Frankie at the end of his feet. His hair is messy, his face is clean but still looks tired. He's wearing his glasses, an old smashing pumpkins t-shirt and checkered pyjama pants. He hold out a mug of steaming coffee. "Yes please." He said, his voice raspy. He takes a big gulp and follows up with "What the fuck happened?"
"We decided to watch some MTV, they were just playing music videos. We were discussing all the songs and suddenly you were quiet for a bit. It took a while before I realized you fell asleep. So I took of your shoes and gave you a blanket." Frankie explains. He could remember them watching MTV vaguely. It had allready been 1 or 2 AM and Gerard just couldn't get himself to leave.
"Hmmm.. I'm sorry for being an uninvited overnight guest." Gerard apologizes. "This coffee is fucking great by the way." Gerard points at the mug.
"It's your recommendation, so I hope so!" Frankie smiles wide. "And.. it's fine. I would've kicked you out of I really didn't want you here."
"Faire enough!" Gerard agrees. "I should really go home though..."
"But we were going to go to the comicbook store sunday opening!?" Frankie says in disbelieve.
"I definitly wanna go, but I slept in my clothes. Some comicbook nerds have a reputation to be gross and stinky, I know that. I'm not really one of those, at least I hope not." Gerard had propped himself up in the couch so Frankie had space to actually join him and not just sit on the edge.
"You can borrow some of my stuff. My shirts might be a bit baggy on you." Frankie says, thinking out loud as he looks Gerard up and down. Sizing him up to the clothes in his closet.
"Thanks for calling me a scrawny guy, without really saying it." Gerard sighs.
"Are you calling me fat, without actually saying it?"
"No... You have actual muscles. Come on, Frankie, you have to look in the mirror sometimes right?"
"I mean yeah, but these are just from kneading bread and carrying bags of flower." He says, blushing. He pokes his own bicep. "It's nothing special."
Said biceps poke out from under the tight sleeves of his shirt, this shirt had clearly been repurposed to a sleeping shirt because it had become quiet ill-fitting since starting to work at the bakery. Gerard's taking in the huge privilege that is seeing Frankie in his pyjama's. He look disheveled and so unbelievably real. This might be Gerard's favourite version of Frankie, yet he finds himself thinking that every time.
"Anyway, You want my clothes, or no?" Frankie says, snapping Gerard out of his trance.
"Yeah sure, kinda embarrasing not showing up to comicbooksunday in the right attire, but it'll do." Gerard sighs with fake drama.
Frankie rolls his eyes. "Oh no!" He joins "Let me go get some stuff. You can take a shower too, if you want." He dissapears behind the privacy screen. Gerard hears closet doors open and drawers open and shut. After a few minutes Frankie reapears with a clean towel and some clothes. A shirt that read: American Nightmare, a black and white striped zip-up hoodie and black boxershorts. "You can just wear your own jeans, right? If you wear mine you're gonna have cold ankles, maybe even cold calves." Frankie joked.
He accepts the pile of clothes and nods. "Thanks Frankie." A lump was forming in Gerard's throat. The thought of wearing Frankie's underwear was overwhelming. He hadn't realized that that was part of it.
"No worries G." Frankie smiles, red splotches also playing on his cheeks. "I bet you'll look better in my clothes than I do." Next, Frankie pointed Gerard in the direction of the bathroom.


Frank's bathroom was filled with LUSH products. Little bottles filled with green, pink and brown goop were displayed on a little shelve inside the shower. On the counter stood bodyspray and bodybutter from the same brand. His whole bathroom smelled like sweets, this explained why Frankie always smelled like pastries. He assumed it was from standing in the bakery 24/7, but this might also have something to do with it . It was a weird thought that he'd now be smelling the same as Frankie, Gerard usually went for the more musky scents.
After what felt like 5 minutes of rubbing candy on his skin and hair, Gerard left the shower. He tried not to think to much about it as he pulled on Frankie's clothes. When he looked in the mirror, his stomach flipped. He couldn't help but smile. He looked a bit goofy, but he felt very comfy in the baggy hoodie and shirt. He flipped up the hood over his head, mimicking how he's seen Frankie wear it often. He looked at himself in the mirror, trying to look broody. "How does he do it?" He whispers, flipping the hood back down. Maybe the secret was in the eyeliner after all. The underpants definitly weren't to Gerard's liking, everything felt hugged, while he prefered a more loose situation. The fact that it was tight everywhere just made Gerard more aware that these were Frankie's boxershorts. After some deep breaths he felt ready to face him, even though his cheecks were still burning. He'll just blame the hot shower for that.
"Hey, you have a spare toothbrush I can borrow!?" He yelled out.
"Are you descent!?" Frankie answered yelling through the door.
"Yeah!" The bathroomdoor opened with a creek and Frankie's head popped through.
"Hi." He smiled wide as he saw Gerard in his clothes. "That really doesn't look half bad on you." Frank slipped past Gerard; took a fresh toothbrush out of a pack in the vanity cabinet behind the mirror and gave it to him.
"Thanks?" Not sure if he had actually meant it as a compliment. He loaded the toothbrush and started brushing, avoiding eye-contact by looking into the mirror as he brushed.
"It looks really good." Frankie said, this time leaning back against the frame of the door, clearly eyeing Gerard up and down.

-10:33 AM-
M: Are you coming to the comicbookstore today? Or are you still at your boytoy?

Gerard rolled his eyes at the message and imagined how long it took Mikey to spell that out on his flipphone. The guy would do anything to make Gerard cringe.

G: We're going, getting breakfast first.
M: Me and Ray are allmost there, c u there?
G: Okay!

Frank and Gerard stopped at a local deli, as the bakery was closed today. They took some bagels to go. Frank's toppings of choice were eggs and chive cream cheese, Gerard went for the classic BEC; bacon, eggs and cheese. The walked while they ate. Usually Gerard would go to the comicbookstore by train, but since he had good company he didn't mind the walk.
"So what are we looking for on this trip to the comicbook store?" Frankie asked, his mouth full of cream cheese. This deli didn't mess around with their portion sizes.
"Always Batman." gerard nods, "I also have other interests, but mostly batman."
Frankie snorts. "Sure, i'll look for Mostly Batman too then."
"You wanna get into comics? I'd recommend you some, or you could borrow some of mine." A sentence Gerard had never spoken before, he never even loaned Mikey one of his comics. Maybe that was just out of brotherly spite though, telling him to buy his own fucking stuff.
"I'm not sure it's for me, but I'd love to give it a go!" Frank said enthousiasticly.
"That's the spirit!" Gerard joked. "I bet you'd like spiderman."
"Yeah right! A geek getting bitten by a radio-active spider." Frank rolls his eyes. "And then he just whines about how he doesn't want to be a super-hero."
"Aha, so you do know comics?"
"Bunnie is like,... in loo-oooove with spiderman. Like she has a crush on him."
"Okay, now I get why you hate him." Gerard laughs. "Just give him a chance! Trust me, you'll like him."
"Bunnie will actually make so much fun of me if she sees me reading it." Frankie's allready dreading the moment. "She'll have the time of her life."
"You guys have such a nice relationship." Gerard humms. "Mikey has actually been harassing me via text since last night. So you're not the only one with a sibling who's only mission in life seems to make fun of you."
"What's he teasing you about?" Frank's eyebrows fly up in wonder. "You didn't do anything stupid last night if I recall correctly."
"Oh trust me, you do not recall correctly." Gerard sighs. "Don't worry about it, he's just pushing my buttons." Frankie shrugs, clearly still curious.


After browsing the comicstore for a good few hours and finding at least a couple of gems allready, which were now safely stashed behind the counter, Gerard decides to take a smokebreak as Frankie and Ray have fallen into a conversation about music again. He doesn't really understand much of it, so he thought it would be the perfect opportunity. As soon as he turned to leave the door, he clocked Mikey following him. He knew an interrogation would follow suit.
"Geraaaaard..." Mikey starts, in a suggestive tone, "tell me everything."
Gerard eyes Mikey up and down and raised his eyebrows as he lights his sigaret. "Nothing happened, I fell a sleep on his couch. So he let me stay over." He shruggs his shoulders to make it seem even more nonchalant.
"How the fuck did you even end up on his couch?" Mikey pushes. "We were literally playing halo until 11. You guys were just going to walk home together."
Gerard face went red as he recalled. "He invited me in," The memory of Frankie pulling him inside plays in his head. "to see his guitar. He played me track 02 from his Demo." Gerard heard Frankie's voice in his head, clear as day. He could feel himself swoon again.
"He asked you in? it was allready allmost midnight! And he played you a song... so romantic."
"I told you before, I don't think he sees it like that."
"I know you told me that, but the facts tell me other things. Plus, you are super in love with him, so we need to make this happen."
Gerard laughs loudly. "We don't need to do anything, Mikey. I want to keep this friendship, thank you very much."
Mikey huffs. "You're boring."
"Anyways, tell me what the facts tell you." Gerard asked, against his better judgement.
"So here are the facts, let's just use the past couple of days. One, he loved your drawing and didn't find it creepy or stalker-ish. Two, he kept texting you pretty much non-stop after your 'date'." Gerard tries to interupt but get's a finger pressed to his mouth telling him to shut the fuck up. "Three, You guys arrived together to halo night, again. Four, he invited you into his home after a late night outing and last but not least; Five, you smell like him."
Gerard feels his cheecks burn. "You can smell it that much?"
"Gerard, Frankie's soap is super noticeable. Ray and I have joked about how it feels like a whole candy store walks into our appartment. It doesn't smell bad, but you can definitly notice it." Gerard sighs as if that was the worst news on earth.
"Okay, so these are the facts, what do they actually tell you?"
"Mostly it tells me he's crazy about you, but the smell thing could be him marking you, y'know? To let everyone know you're his." Mikey explains.
"Frankie doesn't really strike me as an alpha, but yeah sure. He's marked me."
"Yeah maybe not conciously, but I'm sure he loves you smelling like that."
Gerard couldn't really imagine any feelings being mutual, maybe he had allready written that option off. So he didn't even dare to notice things like that. For a split second Gerard allowed in all those thoughts. The small touches, the eyes on him, the serenading and the flushed cheecks. He shook his head. "Please don't let me even think about that. Don't give me false hope."
"I think I know what I have to do." Mikey humms.
"Buy comic books? Not interfere with your brothers life? Not be the puppetmaster?"
"The puppetmaster?"
"Frankie says your a puppetmaster."
"Why does he say that?"
"Because he has noticed you have your own agenda in our friendship."
"What's my agenda? according to Frankie?"
"He says you don't want us to be friends. At least, that's what he said last week."
"Yeah... obviously! because I want you to be MORE."
"Oh, I feel like I have given you vital information. I should really keep my mouth shut."
"I really want to be a fly on the wall when you guys are alone. I'm just wondering how fucking obvious it is. Like are you just constantly allmost kissing eachother?"
"Oh, fuck off Mikey!" Gerard yells, having flash backs to last night. Where he wanted to grab Frankie's face, but settled for his leg.
"I'm going to up my puppetmaster-game." Mikey says sattisfied, he turns and dissapears back into the comicstore. Leaving Gerard cursing under his breath.
After a while everyone is kind of done with the sunday-comicbook-extravaganza and they stand outside the store, all holding a plastic bag containing a few comics, even Frankie. Gerard had recommended him some spiderman, but also some batman comics to get started. "I'm going to actually die of embaressment if Bunnie sees this." Frankie sighs.
"Just don't show her?" Ray tries
"She's home and I told her I'd help her with some things for her school tonight, so she'll be on me like a hawk anyways." Frankie shruggs. "I know it's all sibling love, but it's a lot. She's literally a teenager, she is scary!" They all laugh.
"You'll survive." Gerard encourages him, touching his shoulder for a moment before feeling Mikey's glare on him. A small smirk plays on Mikeys lips as they make eyecontact again.
"Just update me if anything entertaining happens." Gerard adds.
"Oh I will." Frankie sighs, looking at his phone for a second. "I really gotta get going. I'll call you for the coffee-tasting-thingy." He says to Gerard. Gerard nods. "Bye!" Frankie quickly waves his hand as he turns to leave.
"Bye Frankie!" They yell in unison. Suprising themselve with how in sync they are. Frankie smiles a big bright smile back at them. "Bye Boys!"
"So chinese dinner and a movie tonight?" Mikey suggests, they all nod and start walking to Mikey's and Ray's appartment.

Monday

-8:05 AM-
M: Hey Frankie, this is the puppetmaster.
F: Is this a dream?
M: Oh, I know. Talking to Mikey Way is a dream, no this is real life.
F: Fuck my life.
M: Love the enthousiasm. Anyways, I was wondering if you wanted to grab a drink tonight?
F: just us? Will Ray be there?
M: We're just going for a drink, Frankie, you don't have to be afraid.
F: I'm rolling my eyes at you. I feel I have no option or you'd just come to the bakery anyways.
M: Correct. So see you at Sally's tonight, around 8. It's a bar not to far from the Bakery, look it up.
F: See you there. I'm so happy to hang out with my friend, Mikey Way.
M: Oh, don't tell G.

During his lunchbreak Frankie rings Gerard, hoping he's on his break too.
"Hi, this is Gerard"
"Hi, G! This is Frankie."
"Oh Hi! I didn't check caller ID." Gerard admits. "How are you?"
"I'm good, doing baker things." Frankie could allready feel his face flush. Talking to Gerard on the phone was somehow even more nervewrecking than talking in real life. "How are you?"
"Yup yup, doing callcenter things."
"Are you on your break?"
"Yes, I am."
"Oh perfect!" Frankie starts. "So the coffee tasting. When do you want to come over to do it?"
"I can come over tonight, if you want?" Gerard suggests.
Frankie bites his lip. "Uh no, I have plans."
"Plans? Oh yeah, for sure." He sounded dissapointed. "Tuesday, I told mikey I'd eat with him and play tony hawk. Maybe wednesday?"
"Wednesday, I have bandpractice with Ray" Frankie says, loosing confidence in how fun of a phonecall this was going to be.
"Thursday?" Gerard tries.
"Yeah, Thursday works. I'll put it in my non-existent kalender." Frankie tries to make a joke to lighten the mood. It dawns on him that that means 4 days of no Gerard. He hopes he'll at least stop by the bakery in that time.
"I'll remind you, don't worry." Gerard smiles, putting it in his actual kalender. "I didn't get my usual goodmorning text, by the way." Gerard fake mopes.
"Oh!" Frankie allmost yells. "I forgot, I'm sorry. I had another text and I forgot."
"Oh... Yeah it's okay." Again, dissapointment was clear in Gerard's voice through the phone.
"It wasn't anything important. Just... I'll definitly text you tomorrow!"
"Don't even worry about it. I was just joking." Gerard said flatly.
"Yeah... I know?" Frankie was confused where this conversation was now going. He cursed Mikey Way. If Mikey wasn't such a weirdo, Frankie could've just said; I'm having drinks with your brother and that's why I'm being so weird. Well, then maybe Frankie wouldn't even be weird.
"I'll let you continue doing bakery things?" Gerard tries to pick the conversation up again after a few akward seconds of silence.
"Yeah, I have like a lot cookies to make. Someone did a crazy order for tomorrow. I guess for a party or something."
"You better get going then!" Gerard says. "I'm going to stand at the watercooler, trying to hear the gossip that's been happening between Patty and Nancy."
"Ooooh, old-lady gossip! So fun!" Frankie chimes, Gerard let's out a fit of giggles.
"Trust me, it's juicy and there's nothing else going on in this office." Frankie could imagine Gerard rolling his eyes.
"Let me know how it goes!" Frankie says.
"Will do. See you Thursday!"
"See ya! Bye G!"
"Bye Frankie!"

-01:35 PM-
G: Nancy's daughter is working at Hooters, it's a scandal. xo
F: What about patty? xo
G: Her son goes to said Hooters! xo
F: Oh-oh. What will happen next!? xo
G: Nancy's daughter is getting shamed by all the old ladies in the office. poor girl xo
F: At least Patty's son is supporting her! <3 xo
G: They got eachothers back! xo
F: He wishes! xo
G: hahah! Yeah, probably! xo

That night Frankie arrives at Sally's, alone. He didn't think much about his outfit, he's wearing the clothes he wore in the bakery. He could feel flour still in his hair and on his shirt, but he really couldn't care to clean up for Mikey. Mikey is a nice enough guy, but Frankie was just more curious what Mikey wanted. Even after only knowing Mikey for a short time, he had learned that, that guy was always working on an evil masterplan.
Mikey was allready sitting at the bar, two beers parked in front of him. Frankie joined him and grabbed one of the bottles. "Hi Mikey." He said sheepish.
"Hi Frankie." Mikey said, seemingly happy to see him. "How are you?"
Frankie looked at Mikey in pure confusion. "Why am I here?"
"Allright, we're skipping the pleasantries. Good." Mikey nods, pouting his lips. "So I'm just going to spill the beans."
"Please do." Frankie says, taking a swig.
"So, my brother tells me you think I'm a puppetmaster." Mikey starts, was this a personal vendetta Mikey carried towards Frankie? He was really curious where this will even go. He also wondered how much Gerard told Mikey, did he know all their conversations?
"I'm sorry? You just give off those vibes." Frankie said apologeticly.
"You don't have to be sorry! You are correct, I like to be in control." Mikeys explains. "But you and my brother, you're kinda doing your own thing. I'm not really a fan."
"What?" Frankie crinkles his eyebrows in confusion and then lets out a loud laugh. "How do you mean? you're not a fan!?"
"I don't want to alarm you, but you guys are in love with each other." Mikey says bluntly.
"Excuse me?" Frankie's face is quickly warming up, letting out a giggle. "I don't think so."
"Whatever." Mikey sighs. "You guys need to sort that out. I mean it's painfully obvious."
"It is?"
"So it's true?"
"what's true?"
"that you're in love with him?"
"I never said that!"
"I told you it was obvious, you asked if it really was. Making 'it' true."
Frank sputters, before deciding on saying; "Fuck off Mikey."
"That's what Gerard said too. You guys are really tough."
"I feel like i'm talking to a wizard who talks in riddles." Frankie looks at Mikey baffled. "What are we discussing?"
"Such a compliment!" Mikey smiles. "Okay anyways. I'm just saying; I think you've got feelings for Gee. That's all." Mikey holds up his hands as if he's innocent.
Frankie shakes his head in disbelief. "Did you also ask Gerard all of this stuff?"
"What me and Gerard have discussed is to remain private." Mikey nods officially.
Frankie rolls his eyes. "This feels like a feverdream." He takes another couple big gulps of his beer, looking at the level of beer in the bottle hoping to down it quickly and this conversation be over.
Mikey sighs a deep sigh and with that he seems to drop the whole wizard-act. "I just hope you guys figure it out. Gerard hasn't been like this ... I wanted to say in a while, but maybe ever."
"Like what?"
"Like he has a purpose, like he found his place in the world, like he has a home." Mikey smiles. "He's always been the odd one out, but when I see you guys together it's like you're a duo allready. Also, he used to hang out at my appartment every fucking day, now I bearly see him. I'm pretty sure I know where he's been hanging out."
Frank bites his lip, loving what he's hearing. "I feel the same." Frankie finally admits. "I haven't felt so at home with anyone. ever. I'm happy to have his company. Really glad I met him."
Mikey smiled wide. "I'm so happy to hear that. I'd say don't break his heart, but I'm sure you won't."
"I'm pretty sure my mom has given him that spiel allready too." Frankie smiles. "I hate how now you've still got what you wanted."
"What do you mean?" Mikey smiles wide, knowing that Frankie can only answers that question with the actual words.
"Don't do this to me.." Frankie pleads, folding his hands.
"Do what?"
"Force me to say I'm in love with Gerard."
"So you are?"
"I might be"
"Hopelessly?"
"Idiotically." Frank laughs, happy he told someone as it was eating on his insides, but hating it was now out in the open. Mikey rubs his back. "It's okay, you guys are both idiots."
"So it's that obvious?"
"Well, at first I thought you just had puppy eyes, but than you stared me down multiple times and I actually got fucking scared. You're a scary looking dude, but when you're looking at Gerard. You're all heart eyes, man."
"That's unfortunate to hear. I really wanted to keep my tough guy exterior intact." He sighs.
"So what's the plan, puppetman ? What are you going to do with this information?"
"Not much.." Mikey pouts. "I'm just going to let you sit in your feelings that you have probably not really even confessed to yourself before today. Then you'll go mad and ask me for more advice and then I'll advice you to just go for it."
"You got to be kidding me." Frank's mouth has been reduced to a line. "Way to many highs and lows in this conversation." Frankie downs his beer. "I don't think I want you as my brother-in-law."
"I don't think you have much of a choice." Mikey smiles politely. "Another beer?"
"Please." Frankie nodded. "I love you as a friend, Mikey, but I can't get behind this weird puppeteer version of you."
"Aww, you love me!" Mikey says, squeezing Frankie into a sidehug. "I knew it."
"May I deduce from this conversation that Gerard also likes me?" That suddenly started to dawn on Frankie, the posibility that he might be feeling this too.
"You may not." Mikey says. "You don't know anything, I never said anything."
"You said that you thought me and gerard were in love with each other."
"That's just what I think, not what Gerard says."
Frankie groans loudly. "This is useless." Even if this outing was useless, his heart was pounding in his throat. Even just the thought of Gerard maybe liking him made him have an anxiety attack. In his mind all the conversations from the last couple of weeks played in high-speed.
"And Gerard doesn't know, that you're talking to me about all of this?" Frankie starts again.
"I'm pretty sure he has a hunch. I told him I was going to up my puppetmaster-game." Mikey nods satisfied.
"I can't believe you work in a lab, you are so dumb!"
"Rude!"
"What!? It's true. You are being so dumb right now. And the worst part? I'm just going with it. I'm litterally going to have the worst night sleep ever, because I will be thinking about this entire useless conversation on repeat. And I might even fucking throw up when I get home because you just made me realize how fucking deep in my feelings I am for this guy. After all of that, I'm going to text Gerard, because I'm obsessed and then he's the one who's going to reject me and tell me Mikey is a silly boy with silly match-making glasses on!" Frank ranted. "And above fucking all. I wish I could tell you I'm fucking angry at you, but I'm not. I think you are fucking great! And thank you! for bringing my attention to this issue." Frankie was actually yelling now. He looked scary, at least Mikey thought so.
"I'm relieved you say that, because I'm really afraid you're about to punch me." Mikey admitted.
"Trust me, I would if it's wasn't you."
"Being Gerard's brother is actually saving me right now, right?"
"Probably." Frank put down his empty beerbottle. "I'll see you at Halo-night."
"Friday, it's on Friday this week."
"Fine!"
"Bye Frankie!"
"Bye Mikes!" Frank walks out of the bar, walking home with rage in his legs. He felt betrayed, why would Mikey just want Frankie to confess his feelings to then leave him hanging. He did say he just wanted Frankie to just sit in his feelings and then just go for it. Frankie shook his head wildly, trying to get any and all thoughts out of his head. That night before actually falling a sleep he thought of a number of different scenes. Some of them ending in him and Gerard kissing and others ending in a slap across his face. One in particular ended with Gerard saying some painfully hurtfull things.

Tuesday

-7:35 AM-
F: Goodmorning Gee. <3 xo
G: Hello, Morning Frankie <3 xo
F: You slept well? xo
G: Yeah, I did, Thanks! I'm coming over. xo
F: See you in 10? xo
G: Yes, closing my door now. xoxo

"I'm pretty sure I'm not supposed to tell you, but your brother is an egghead." Frankie said, the moment Gerard entered the bakery. Frankie was still full of anger, but seeing Gerard definitly softened that feeling. His heart picked up the pase pretty quickly.
"I'm sorry?"
"He's an egghead and you can tell him that. He has a head, full of uncooked eggy slime." Frankie nodded as he poured in Gerard's coffee. "I'm sorry, this coffee is still the slop-coffee." He added, pointing at the mug.
"That's okay, are you okay?" Gerard tried again.
"Your brother needs to be kept in a safe box or something, where he can't hurt people." Frankie suggested.
"What did he do?"
"He took me to a bar yesterday and made me-..." In that moment Frankie realized he couldn't rant to Gerard about this, he wasn't about to blurt out that Mikey made him confess his feelings for Gerard. "Oh fuck, he has me in his grasp. I can't even tell you."
Gerard giggles. "Yeah he does stuff like that. I know. I'll talk to him. So you're date was with my brother?"
"What date?"
"You told me yesterday you allready had plans, I just assumed..." Gerard said, looking down at his shoes, scratching the nape of his neck. "It was stupid of me to assume."
Frankie lets out a too-loud laugh. "Oh god, no! I didn't have a date! If it was one, that was a horrible one."
"That bad?" Gerard smiled a toothy smile.
"Want to go outside for a bit? Bunnie's in the kitchen, she can take over."
"She's home from college?"
"Yeah just for the week."
They stand outside again, in the autumn breeze. Like they've done so many times this past month. "So bunnies home?" Gerard asks.
"Yeah, we're having a little family celebration." Frankie passes the pack of smokes to Gerard.
"Oh, what's the occasion? You guys go all out for Halloween or something? I saw the themed cookies in the counter. Very cool." Gerard gives a thumbs up before lighting the sigaret dangling in between Frankies lips.
"Yes and no... It's my birthday." Frankie talks out the side of his mouth, letting smoke escape every now and then.
"Today!?" Gerard voice goes up a few octaves.
"No not today, on Halloween."
"You are a Halloween-baby!?" If it was possible, Gerard's voice would go even higher now.
"I mean, I was, when I was a baby. I'm now a Halloween-man."
"Okay, halloween-man." Gerard nods. "What age are you turning?"
"26"
"Oh, you're young. You're even younger than Mikey. I thought you were my age."
"You're like what? 28? 29?"
"Yeah, exactly. 28."
"You're so dramatic." Frankie rolls his eyes. "We literally bearly have a 2 year diffrence, calm down." He waves Gerard's concerns away with his hands.
"We'll have to celebrate then!" Gerard says. "Do you have anything planned allready?"
"We're doing like a lunch thing on Sunday, like on actual Halloween, with the family. And I don't really have any other plans." Frankie shrugged, like it was not a big deal. Frankie tries to quiet his mind, but he can't, not since that talk with Mikey. He can feel himself making hearteyes at Gee, how he's just taking in every word he says like it is gospell. He was so fucked.
"We should really organize something, I'll talk to Mikey." Gerard says determined.
"Mikey..." Frankie sighed, he pressed his lips together in a line, not sure what to even say.
"You don't want him at your birthday? It was that bad!?" Frankie could pick up some anger in Gerard's voice. He wasn't sure who it was pointed towards.
"No no, he can be there. It's just still fresh. I love him, I do. But he's a handfull, man."
"I know..." Gerard's anger hadn't quiet dissapeared, he rubbed Frankie's back. "I'll talk to him, don't worry. And we'll have a great b-day bash. You want to just hang out? Or go out?"
Frankie hadn't been out-out in a while, but it sounded like a perfect opportunity to see Gerard's elaborate going out outfits and let loose a bit. Maybe that was just what he needed. "Let's go out." He confirmed. Gerard nodded. "Yeah, Let's!" He added a confident wink, which made Frankie allmost loose his footing. "Yeah..." He lost track of everything and just nodded. "I gotta get back to work, don't you have work?"
"I think talking to you is more important than helping people at a stupid callcenter." Gerard admitted.
"You really need a new job." Frankie noticed.
"I really do, okay, see you thursday, Frankie!" Gerard hugged Frankie tight before leaving for his train.
Back in the bakery Frankie leaned against the counter, he could see Gerard still walking in the distance. His heart was going 100 miles an hour, all because of a casual wink and a hug. He hated feeling like this and he couldn't ignore it anymore. He also wondered more and more about how Gerard felt about all of this. Today Gerard came of as confident, maybe a little flirty. The thing that most stood out to Frankie was how invested he was in his dating life and how relieved he seemed when he heard Frankie didn't go on a date. Was that actually what he felt or was that just what Frankie wanted to see?

- 10:29 AM-
G: Do you like halloween? xo
F: What do you mean? Halloween is my birthday xo
G: but like, are you into it? Do you like dressing up? Vampires? xo
F: Love vampires, Love dressing up. xo
G: So you wanna go to a halloween party at a bar or something? for your birthday? xo
F: Yeah, that would be awesome. Do you think the guys would like that too? xo
G: Mikey loves that stuff, Ray will just have to endure. xo
F: Thanks for doing this for me <3 xo
G: Anytime! ;-) xo

---
"Michael!" Gerard yells as he enters Mikey's appartment.
"Oh fuck..." Mikey whispers, standing up with his hands in the air. "I've made really tasty dinner." He says with a forced smile. "Please don't kill me."
"I don't really care what you made for dinner. You made Frankie really angry." Gerard starts.
"So now you are really angry?"
"Not really, I'm just confused. What did you do to him? He told me I should tell you: You have uncooked eggslime in your head... I think that's what he said." Gerard recalls.
"That's fair..." Mikey nods. "Sounds like he's really coming to terms with it."
"What did you do?"
"I think you can kind of deduce that yourself, no? We just talked."
"About me?"
"You think!?" Mikey says sarcasticly. "Maybe... maybe..."
"Oh fuck off. Why would he even be angry about that?"
"Because I just provided him with some thought provoking exercizes and no real sollutions." Mikey nodded, loving speaking in riddles again.
"Okay so, if I can translate Mikey-language correctly. You're saying you made him think about his feelings for me and you didn't tell him what to do with that." Gerard asks, in a way to calm manner, hoping he was wrong.
"Yup, you would be correct."
"You did what!?" Gerard now was actually angry and not calm in the slightest. "You can't do that!? What!? Now he knows I'm into him!?"
"I didn't say that! You both really have to manage your anger-issues."
"You need to stay the fuck out of our relationship!"
"You guys have a relationship now!?"
"Fuck off, Mikey! I'm serious!"
"He likes you though... He does." Mikey nodded smugly. Gerard shook his head. "I don't believe he said that, that's just you and your own oppinion. Don't you think this could have the opposite reaction?"
"Did he ghost you?" Mikey asked.
"No..."
"Okay, so then you guys will be fine." Mikey shrugged. "I'm just trying to speed up the process."
"Just don't, Mikey." Mikey throws his hands in the air, as a way of showing defeat. "Anyways, speaking about Frankie." Gerard says, now much more calmly. "It's his birthday this weekend, we need to organize something."

Thursday

Gerard rings Frank's door, the sound familiar. He hears feet stomp down the stairs. He quickly fixes his hair before the door opens. Checking his reflection in the dark glass of the frontdoor. Frankie's little doppleganger opens the door, Bunnie. "Oh..." Gerard says softly.
"You're Gerard." She says matter of factly, she crosses her arms and squints her eyes.
"Yes, this is he." Gerard answers, swaying back and forth on his heels.
"You're like... Frankie's boyfriend?" She asks.
"No, no... We're just friends."
"Frankie doesn't really have friends." She replies, squinting again. It really seemed like she was roasting him, but the way she looked at him made it clear she was just looking out for him.
"Well, he does now. He has me and my brother and Ray..." Gerard trails off as Bunnie steps closer, examening him closer.
"You know he talks about you?"
"Uh... No?"
"A lot... It's annoying. You better be nice to him." She point a pointy finger at him. Gerard wasn't scared of her physically, but it was clear she could do some mental damage.
"I'm always nice!" Gerard exclaims. He hears some stumbling upstairs. This was his chance. "Frankie!!!" He yells past Bunnie.
Bunnie rolls her eyes. "It's your boyfriend!!!" She yells at Frankie. He runs down the stairs and flicks Bunnie in the forehead. A 25 year old man, flicking a 19 year old in the face felt kind of wrong, but I guess that's sibling love. "Fuck off, Bunnie." He spits, behind his tough words there's a playfullness.
"Brandon will be here soon, you don't have to be such a dick." He adds, Bunnie rolls her eyes. "You're a dick! Where are you guys going anyways?"
"We're just hanging out... Upstairs." Frankie says, pointing up. "C'mon." He grabs Gerard's arm, pulling him past Bunnie.
"Hey, Nice batman-shirt." Bunnie compliments Gerard.
"Oh thanks!" He says, while being pulled upstairs.
"I've seen you reading those comics, Frankie! You're new boyfriend has made you a nerd!" Bunnie yells after them with a smirk.
New boyfriend... that implies there was an old one as well. Gerard makes sure to save this information for tonight, so he can mill it over and over again in his head. Him and Mikey had speculated Frankie was probably bi, but he never thought of Frankie's past relationships. Bunnie now plainly yelling about boyfriends definitly solidified Gerard's thoughts on Frankie's sexuality.
"You read those batmans I gave you?" Gerard's eyes sparkle as he looks at Frankie. Entering Frankie's studio. He peels of his leather jacket and hangs it up by the door, dropping his messenger bag. It's like Gerard had allready found a designated spot for all his stuff.
"They weren't bad..." Frankie admits. "And I'm so happy Bunnie didn't spot me with the Spiderman comics. Those we're really good, you we're right."
Gerard giggles, "I knew you'd like those." On the kitchen counter we're 5 bags of coffee, each with a cup in front of them.
"Okay, so." Frankie said, clapping his hands as if to say; let's get down to bussiness. "These are all pretty freshly brewed, so still hot. I just decided to do the prepwork allready, since otherwhise that would've taken up alot of time. You can spit them in the sink if they suck, or if you don't want to get over caffeinated."
Frankie had really put some thought into this taste-test. In Gerard's mind it was just going to be them, hanging out, drinking coffee and eventually deciding on one. He raised his eyebrows at Frankie. "I'm an addict, you think I can just spit it out?"
"Am I enabling you?" Frankie asks, in fake shock.
"I think you are. You're lucky these aren't alcoholic." Gerard points. Frankie tries to laugh along, but he knows this is a serious topic for Gerard. He had assumed since Gerard told him he didn't drink. Hearing the words 'im an addict' as a self-deprecating joke just confirmed it for Frankie. He wondered why he didn't mention that last week. When they were talking about their respective emotional bagage. He figured that was maybe too personal for Gerard to share, maybe ever.
"I would never make you relapse." He said, dutyfull.
"You wouldn't be able to make me, I'm pretty solid on that front. Sorry for bringing it up, let's just taste some coffee." Gerard turned the conversation around. Frankie wanted to assure him that he shouldn't be sorry, but Gerard was allready sniffing cup number one and making notes aloud. Frankie leans against the counter and just listens. Eventually, after multiple rounds, Gerard decides on cup number three.
"This is just the coffee you have at home." Frankie frowns, picking up the bag.
"I'm glad it stood the test of time. I mean, those were some tough competition." Gerard nods along.
"Sure and now you won't sleep for the forseeable future." Frankie says, sticking a post-it on the winning coffeebag that said; WINNER.
"I don't ever sleep really." Gerard said coolly.
"Like a vampire."
"Speaking of Vampires! We will go out on Saturdaynight for your birthday. Just show up at my place, in costume please." Gerard instructs. "I'll text you the hour we're meeting and stuff, but I hope you'll have fun."
"I'm allready looking forward to it!"
Frankie invited Gerard to the couch for a little one-on-one Halo. "We got to practice, so we can kick those guys' butts tomorrow." Frankie says, rubbing his hands as he plops down in the couch. "You allready win every fucking time." Gerard shakes his head.
"You beat me sometimes!" He says in defence.
"It's pretty obvious, you let me win." Gerard pokes Frankie. "You're not fooling anyone."
Frank's face turns red. "I'm not?"
"I suck at Halo, how would I ever beat you? Anyways, you haven't updated me on bandpractice yet... how did it go?" Gerard picks up a controller and boots up the console.