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Frank's been giving him the cold shoulder since lunch, and Gerard hates it, but at the same time, Gerard knows that he's right. Frank is wrong, dangerously so, and sometimes you just have to take a stand. This is him, picking his battles.
He feels strangely bereft without Frank's attention. It's like standing under the weak winter sun: he can see the light but there's no warmth to it at all.
Gerard ends up hiding in his office, but Frank leaves the house, which renders Gerard's efforts at being the wronged party moot. It's very unsatisfying.
Frank doesn't come home for a long, long time. Hours.
Gerard's not used to being alone in the house anymore, and for a moment, he resents that he's come to depend so much on Frank's presence in his life. He was perfectly happy before he met Frank. He was.
Gerard knows he's an idiot. He can't imagine his life without Frank in it, doesn't want to go back to the way things were. He never would have admitted it before he was with Frank, but he'd been lonely.
He digs around in the fridge like a wild animal; he finds a container of leftover chicken biryani. He eats it cold over the sink, not even bothering with a plate, using a plastic fork he finds in the junk drawer.
He wipes his mouth off on his sleeve and throws away the biodegradable take out box. He's rather proud of himself: nothing to clean up. He's the ultimate bachelor.
Gerard putters around the house, pretending that he's not waiting for Frank to come home. He tries not to think about where Frank might be, what he's doing, who he's with.
Once it gets dark, there's a new worry: Frank has terrible night vision without his glasses, and Gerard's pretty sure Frank left them on his desk when he snuck out of the house earlier. Gerard always frets when Frank drives at night.
"Fuck this," he mutters, and goes upstairs to their bedroom. It's too quiet, so Gerard turns on the fancy sound system that Frank had bought them for their second anniversary. One of Frank's Saturjazz playlists starts up, and Gerard turns out the lights and curls up in the middle of their bed.
When he closes his eyes, all he can see is Frank being menaced by velociraptors, Frank abducted by aliens, Frank eaten by a giant squid. Gerard has a vivid and active imagination, and sometimes that's not a good thing. He stares into the darkness, counting Stegasauri, hoping that will lull him into sleep, but it proves to be fruitless.
He wriggles around until he manages to get under the covers, folding his pillow into the proper configuration. He might as well go to sleep; there's no reason to wait up for Frank.
It feels like hours later when Frank finally comes home.
Gerard listens, traces Frank's progress by the sounds the house makes: the click of the metal strip at the boundary between kitchen tile and living room carpet, the squeak of the third stair and the groan of the last one, the soft swish as Frank pushes their bedroom door open.
He closes his eyes tightly, and waits while Frank sloughs off his clothes. He leaves them where they fall. He must be tired; Frank's usually too much of a neat freak to not throw his dirty clothes into the hamper and carefully fold the ones that can be worn again.
The bed dips, and Frank slips under the blanket, snuggling up close, knees tucked into the bend of Gerard's, arm draped around Gerard's waist.
Gerard loves being the little spoon. He feels protected and sheltered by Frank's body, and that feeling is something he'd never thought he'd experience.
That's why they've been arguing: Gerard wants to keep Frank safe, even if Frank doesn't understand that. Even if Frank doesn't agree.
Gerard thinks about trying to continue to pretend to be asleep, but he knows he's not really fooling Frank. At the same time, though, he doesn't want to argue anymore. He's tired, and sad, and it's been a long, lonely day without Frank.
He takes a deep breath, bracing himself to try to explain again, but Frank beats him to the punch. "Why can't you hear a pterodactyl go to the bathroom?"
There's a long pause while Gerard's brain tries to switch gears and parse the words. "Uh. . ."
"Because the 'p' is silent."
"That's terrible," he says, because it is, but he starts giggling anyway. "Really fucking terrible."
"Yeah," Frank says as Gerard's laughter fades. "Babe, I'm sorry."
Gerard sags back into the curve of Frank's body. Frank lays his hand on Gerard's chest, right over his heart, and presses a kiss to the side of his face. "I couldn't—I didn't see why you were so upset about it, but I went to the office and was looking at some of the new footage, and I tried to imagine how I would feel if our positions were reversed—"
Frank's voice breaks, and Gerard can't help himself. He rolls over and pulls Frank into a hug, squeezing until Frank squeaks. "I don't like arguing with you."
"Me, neither," Frank breathes into his ear.
Gerard giggles again. "'The 'p' is silent,' oh, man, that's so fucking awful."
"Yeah," Frank says, content.
-fin-