The Chasing of Moons

For Forever

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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