The Chasing of Moons

The Smoldering Batman

"Why the fuck are you awake?" Brendon groans at him.

"Because I am," Frank replies.

"At seven in the morning? On a weekend? Are you insane? Why did you call me? Who uses phones to call each other? What year are you from?"

"The nineties, just, okay, hear me out," Frank replies.

"I just wanna go back to bed," Brendon says groggily. "Whatever you have to say had better be fucking good, because if not then I will make a Frank Iero Sim and I will kill him."

"Okay so Mikey is gonna lure Gerard to the book store, you know the one, and I'm going to bump into them, but I don't wanna be the loser who's there by himself, so like, I was wondering if you were available maybe?"

"Ugh, did you ask Pete?" Brendon asks.

"I- he didn't answer his phone," Frank replies.

"Great so I'm your second choice."

"His name just came up first in my contacts."

There's silence on the other end of the phone as Brendon leaves that in the air and then resumes to say, "You're saying Pete came before Brendon. In a list that's sorted alphabetically."

"It's by last name."

"You're saying Wentz came before Urie. In a list that's sorted alphabetically. Really? Really, Frank?"

"Okay fine, in my contacts I address you as Asshole and Bigger Asshole, are you happy now?"

"Does that make me Bigger Asshole?" Brendon asks.

"Yes," Frank replies.

"And you want me to help you out?" he asks.

"Yes," Frank repeats.

"What's in it for me?"

"The satisfaction of knowing that you've helped me win over Gerard?" Frank offers.

"Yeah, I don't really want that."

"Fine. I'll buy you a coffee."

"And...?"

"And what?" Frank asks, "I'm broke. I can't buy you anything that costs any more than five bucks."

"Just one thing," Brendon says.

"And what is that?"

"I wanna be the best man at your wedding," Brendon says.

"Okay, I think you're thinking a little too far into the future," Frank says, even though it's not unreasonable to ask that knowing what it is that Frank knows, but Brendon doesn't know what he does.

"Well dude, if you marry Gerard, Mikey is going to be your best men at the wedding, if you don't marry Gerard, the most likely option, Pete's going to be your best man, and at Pete's wedding, you're going to be his best man, I just want to be the best man at one of them, I mean, I feel I'm owed that."

"How do you even know that I'm going to know you then? I could ditch you in college," Frank says. "Make better friends."

"It could happen, but you don't have any money and I need to get something out of you," Brendon replies.

"Ugh, fine," Frank groans, "you can be my best man, but you're going to have to deal with Pete if he finds out about that."

"I've always wanted an excuse to fight him. It's jousting at the crack of dawn, I'm going to take that bitch down."

"You are so weird," Frank says.

"Yeah so when are you meeting him?"

"Oh, uh..." Frank starts.