Two Years And Several Months Later...

“Have you ever thought about dying your hair some other color?” Frank asked, sectioning off another tuft of Gerard’s hair and stroking the application brush over the dark brown roots. With gloved hands, he worked the midnight black dye out to ends of Gerard’s hair carefully and had moved onto the next section of hair before Gerard answered.
“I like it black.” was all Gerard said.
Frank snorted and dipped the brush into the bowl of dye. The smell wafted up as he leaned over and he inhaled deeply at the familiarity of the chemicals.
“Why?” Gerard asked, “Some other color you have in mind?”
“What about like…” Frank faltered, “What about like fire engine red?”
“No way.” Gerard said, letting out a breath of a laugh. He turned the page of his comic book. Frank knew he was still paying attention, though.
“But it’s the color of blood.” Frank offered neutrally, working his fingers through Gerard’s hair, “You love blood.”
“It wouldn’t look good on me.” Gerard said simply.
“How do you know?” Frank asked, “Have you ever done anything other than black?”
“Mmm, a long time ago...” Gerard hummed thoughtfully, “I’ll think about it, Frankie. Maybe next time I’m due for a touch up we can experiment.”
“Okay.” Frank agreed.
He smiled, embracing his tiny victory, and moved onto the next section of hair.

As soon as the dye was done processing, Frank followed Gerard into the shower to help him rinse it out. Gerard didn’t need help with that part, of course - had never needed help with that part in all his years - but he let Frank help anyways. They kissed under the warm spray until the black water circling the drain had faded all the way to clear.
As soon as they were dressed and mostly dry, they headed out into the night.
It was New Year’s Day. They’d gone to a party together the night before, and had planned to spend the day alone together recovering and relaxing. Both of them had a few days off on account of the holiday. Cleaning and other miscellaneous errands would have to wait. Frank was still sort of vaguely hungover, though the headache had gone away at some point during their shower.
Bundled in several layers of flannels, a sweater, a coat, and two pairs of gloves each, they took the train downtown to Union Square.

Union Square was crowded with the leftovers from the holiday. Families and couples and groups of friends meandered the few open shops, nursing hot cocoa and roasted nuts.
“Do you have any New Year’s Resolutions?” Frank asked, glancing off down the sidewalk.
“I’d like to spend more time drawing...” Gerard said, “And I’d like to… be braver, I guess?”
“Braver?” Frank asked.
“Yeah.” Gerard said, not elaborating further.
Frank shrugged it off.
“What about you?” Gerard asked.
“I don’t know.” Frank answered, “I need to find a new hobby, I think.”

They called it Hide and Seek, though the name wasn’t entirely accurate.
The rules were a little different.
Because Frank was always the one to hide.
And Gerard was always the one to seek.
They’d agree upon a time limit and a wager. If Gerard found Frank before the time was up, he’d win. If he didn’t find Frank before the time was up, Frank would win. And most importantly: Gerard had to find Frank entirely by his sense of smell.

“Tonight’s wager?” Gerard asked, puffing on a smoke and passing it over to Frank.
“I don’t have anything in mind.” Frank said, fumbling to not burn his gloves on the cigarette, “What were you thinking?”
“Well…” Gerard mused, “Okay. If you win, you can dye my hair whatever color you want?”
“And if you win?” Frank gulped.

“You have to spend the rest of your life with me.” Gerard said evenly.

Frank looked up at Gerard then. Fuck burning his gloves. He wasn’t sure what the fuck his face was doing, but he tried to keep his expression as blank as possible.
It wasn’t exactly the proposal Frank had been looking for. He wasn’t even fully sure he’d heard Gerard right. But Frank wasn’t one to look a fucking gift horse in the mouth. If this was how he got what he wanted, he was going to fight for it. Or, well, apparently he was going to pretend to fight against it for the sake of their game.
“What do you say?” Gerard prompted. Frank could detect the nervousness in his voice then. He was trying to play it cool but Frank saw right through it.
“You’re on.” Frank smiled, pulling his hood up and taking off. He realized as he leapt away from Gerard that they hadn’t agreed on a time limit, but there was no turning back now. He headed south towards Chinatown, and he took Gerard’s cigarette with him.

He was out of breath within a block. The cigarette wasn’t helping. He flicked it into the gutter and slowed to a brisk walk, panting as he looked around for the nearest subway entrance.
He didn’t really have a grandiose plan for tonight’s game. He was so stunned by their wager that he was having a hard time coming up with a solid plan even now. His heart was beating a mile a minute.
Depending on how cold it was, Frank would typically get anywhere between 30 to 45 minutes to hide. It got harder to follow Frank’s scent if it was any longer than an hour, but that was just fine by Frank. 45 minutes could get him halfway to Coney Island if he got on the subway immediately. Not that he was headed for Coney Island tonight. Maybe in the Summer. Waiting for Gerard to find him on a dark beach in the dead of winter didn’t sound very nice. Especially if he wanted a ring on his finger.
Metaphorical ring, of course.
Gerard hadn’t gotten… an actual ring? Had he?
Taking the subway was also totally against the rules. As were busses and taxis. Bicycles were okay for some reason. Gerard could still follow Frank’s scent like that. They’d experimented with that last summer.
Automated transportation complicated things way too much, but that didn’t mean Frank didn’t like to cheat sometimes. Gerard had learned this about him pretty quickly. Tonight wasn’t a cheating kind of night. Frank wasn’t in the mood. He took the steps down to the subway, payed his fare, and headed for the platform for the uptown trains. He wandered up and down the platform to confuse Gerard and look for cellphone reception. As soon as he found it, he sent a text to Gerard.
“45 minutes” was all it said.
He tried to think quickly, deciding on a place to end up. There were bars and restaurants all the way up Manhattan that they had frequented over the time they’d been together. Frank could go into any of them and wait out the rest of the time.
He tried to think of what might be the most romantic. He considered waiting for Gerard at the coffee shop where they’d had their miserable first date. He wasn’t sure they’d be open this late.
He considered Gerard’s favorite comic book shop. It was open late, and it was just around the corner. Frank could work in a spiral around Union Square and make his way back into the comic shop.
It still seemed too easy. An old lady was waiting for the subway beside Frank. He turned to her and considered asking her for advice, but he couldn’t think of a graceful way to explain why he would be trying to hard to hide from someone who had just proposed to him, if he intended to tell them ‘yes.’ The old lady scowled suspiciously at him anyways, so Frank turned and headed for the steps back up to the street level.
Gerard would spend a good amount of time trying to guess which train Frank had taken, so he’d bought himself some extra time if he was lucky. There was always the chance, of course, that Gerard would figure it out and not even go down into the subway at all, because Frank’s scent was still trailing behind him, out of the subway again.
Frank wandered uptown, looking for a starbucks. If he was going to be out in the cold, he needed something warm in his hands. They should’ve gotten coffee before they started.
He went over to 5th and then up Broadway. Broadway would take him straight to Times Square if he kept walking. Frank considered working some kind of zigzag pattern up the streets, or even walking along the riverside. There was a breeze going, which would blow his scent away and distort it, but walking next to the icy breeze coming up off the river would also be fucking cold.
Frank ordered a Soy Latte two sizes two big and waited impatiently. It was mostly to warm his hands, he wouldn’t be drinking half of it.
He ended up going straight up Broadway. The trail would likely confuse Gerard, but Frank was only capable of so much planning. He’d run out of tricks to play a long time ago.
He drank his latte and made his way up Manhattan, looping through Madison Square Park, and wandering into the Manhattan mall. It was getting close to time for Gerard to start seeking and Frank was still a few blocks away from Times Square. The closer he got, the more sure he was that he wanted to wait for Gerard there. Even though the New Year festivities had gone on the night before, there would still be plenty of tourists and romantics to distort his scent. Times Square was an unpleasant place to wait, but it wouldn’t be easy for Gerard, either. All the smells and sounds and lights would make Frank harder to find.
Frank thought, as he continued to sip his latte, that this was starting to feel like the longest 45 minutes of his life. Every time he thought about what was at stake, his heart started beating faster.
Normal boyfriends probably didn’t make their boyfriends walk in the dead of winter for forty five minutes if they intended to marry them. Then again, Frank liked Gerard because he wasn’t a normal boyfriend.
Frank’s phone buzzed in his pocket.
“you took the subway.” Gerard’s text read, “thats cheating.”
Frank’s phone buzzed with another text.
“o. nevermind.” Gerard had written.
The wolf was officially hot on Frank’s trail. He wasn’t sure why he was so nervous. Frank quickened his pace, passing groups of families leaving fancy midtown restaurants Frank and Gerard could never afford. They had better things to spend their money on anyways.
Frank could see the glowing signs of times square. The winter wind had picked up, and his cheeks were starting to numb in the cold. He pressed on, eyes flitting to the street numbers as they got larger and larger.
There were still signs of the turn of the year everywhere Frank looked. Confetti and glitter was all over the sidewalk, tucked into every minor chip and crack in the sidewalk underneath his feet. Gerard had said his resolution was to be braver. Had he meant about asking Frank to marry him?
Gerard was always slow to talk about his feelings. Maybe he’d been wanting to ask Frank for awhile? The binding curse had forced them both to consider the reality of being together forever early on. Gerard had always said Frank could leave him if he ever decided he wanted to. Frank treated the situation as though he was bound into it, too, never once thinking of leaving as a possibility.
Gerard had been nothing but good to him. Frank didn’t want to leave.
Frank wandered into Times Square. The lights on the screens surrounding him were as bright as day. He hated it. He hated the tourists. He hated the blaring hat off to capitalism. It didn’t help that it was freezing cold and loud.
His phone’s battery was running down, too. He kept checking the time every couple of minutes.
Frank wandered into the slow-moving crowds in an attempt to disguise himself. He lit a cigarette to keep himself occupied. His eyes landed on the neon sign in the window of a bar. He briefly thought about going in to get out of the cold, but decided against it. He didn’t want Gerard to find him in a bar.
Gerard didn’t have much time left. Frank was sort of getting nervous. This was unusual. Gerard usually won when Frank played by the rules.
Frank kept wandering in circles, torn between trying to hide, and looking for Gerard in the crowd.
The minutes kept ticking by...
Gerard was really about to fuck this up. Frank had nothing to lose, he supposed. He’d get to dye Gerard’s hair a weird color if he lost, and Gerard would have to live with it fair and square.
Frank finished his cigarette and dropped it onto the pavement. He started looking for a trash can so he could trash the rest of his drink. It had gotten cold.
Frank checked his phone again. Gerard had 3 minutes. Three fucking minutes.
As Frank stuffed his phone back in his pocket, someone ran right into him, making Frank drop the rest of his cold latte.
“Watch it, asshole!” Frank barked, even though he hadn’t wanted the rest of the drink anyways.
Gerard laughed, loud and bright, and pulled Frank into his arms.
“Cutting it close, Gee.” Frank said, startled, fumbling to hug Gerard back. He felt himself blush as he realized what this meant. Gerard buried his face in Frank’s scarf.
People were walking past them on all sides, making wider and wider girths around them.
Gerard pressed his lips hard against Frank’s, and hugged him tighter, squeezing the breath right out of Frank’s lungs.
“You don’t want me to dye your hair that bad, huh?” Frank laughed breathlessly.
“Shut up.” Gerard said, pulling away enough to look at Frank, “Marry me.”
“Okay.” Frank said.
“Is that a ‘yes?’” Gerard asked.
“I lost...” Frank said, “So…”
“But you want this, right?” Gerard asked.
“Yes.” Frank nodded.
“Thank God…” Gerard breathed, “I was worried getting married wasn’t punk or something.”
Gerard pulled one arm away and started digging around in his pocket. He pulled out a tiny box and wrestled to open it with his gloves on.
“Put that shit away.” Frank instructed, “I’m not taking my fucking gloves off for that shit.”
“Okay.” Gerard said, shoving the box back in his pocket.
They kissed again, and again, and again.
“It’s not punk.” Frank explained, “But, Gerard... I’d do anything for you. Punk or not.”
“That’s reassuring.” Gerard said sarcastically.
“I had no fucking idea...” Frank said breathlessly, “No fucking idea at all you’d ever ask…”
“That was kinda the point. I wanted it to be a surprise.” Gerard said, “You’re the hardest person to surprise, you know that? All those fucking horror movies…”
“You’ll put up with that for the rest of your life?” Frank wondered.
“If you can be unpunk for the rest of yours, I think I’ll manage the horror just fine…” Gerard said.

Notes

Thank you for reading. <3