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The Majesty of Choice

Giantville

Gerard spends the dominate part of the day in an uncomfortable silence, because Frank is kind of pissed off at him for the whole not being able to accept his feelings thing. It’s completely fair, and Gerard knows he deserves it, but he doesn’t like being completely ignored.

Frank’s got a completely valid point though, and that’s the thing that throws him. Frank shouldn’t have to just keep this a secret. Frank is the Prince. He’s the most important guy on the goddamn planet, and yet Gerard can’t own up that he likes him? Gerard can’t own up to the fact that he wants to kiss this guy? He’s basically more powerful than every single person in the entire kingdom combined, and yet Gerard, stupid, self-loathing, embarrassed, hypocritical, Gerard can’t let anyone know that he likes him?

Gerard is an idiot. Hattie would scream the news that she kissed the Prince into the forest, yell it from a window, slit Olive’s throat and write it on every single surface available in her own sister’s blood, and yet Gerard can’t kiss Frank when people might be watching.

But now Travie knows, and so do Patrick and Pete apparently, so that’s three more people that already know when he’d have that number be zero. Gerard doesn’t know what to do.

They’re barely half an hour from Giantville, or so Ryan keeps assuring them, and when Gerard is there, he’s going to be around hundreds more people all of which he doesn’t want to know. Then again, they might be pretty fucking pissed at Frank so they might just kill him and that would save Gerard a whole lot of trouble. Now, he’s choosing to neglect the voice in his mind telling him that he would sooner die than watch Frank die in front of him, but until that event arises, he is choosing to ignore that voice.

“Are you nervous of what the Giants will think of you, seeing as you’re the Prince?” Gerard asks finally. Well, not really, he’s asked Frank a bunch of questions over the last several hours, all of which Frank replied to very briefly before going back to giving him the silent treatment. At least he’s still got his warm arms around Gerard’s waist, he’ll take the wins wherever he can get them.

“I wouldn’t have been a few weeks ago,” Frank says.

“But now?”

“Now I understand the subjugation my family has put them through,” Frank says, “and it is unforgiveable.”

“Recognizing that much is very strong of you,” Gerard says, overjoyed with how much he’s gotten Frank to say. He’s also pretty proud of how much he seems to be effecting Frank, because it’s almost like he’s talking to a different person than the one he met not long ago.

“I mean, it’s likely that they won’t even recognize me right?” Frank asks, but Gerard isn’t so sure. He didn’t know what Frank looked like, but that’s because he avoided ever going into his stepsisters’ room and never saw their enormous poster of Frank’s face. Given however that there exists a huge poster of Frank’s face, he would say that the odds are against Frank that the Giants won’t know who he is, or what he looks like.

Gerard doesn’t express this thought however, and simply says, “maybe.”

“Don’t-” Frank starts, but then he apparently thinks better of it and stops.

“What?”

“It’s not important. Forget I said anything.”

“No, what was it?” Gerard implores.

“I said, drop it.

“Please,” Gerard says, and he turns around as best as he can to peer at Frank. Frank looks at him, and Gerard can tell, he can see a physical reaction in Frank, that Frank can’t say no to him. He thinks it’s something about his eyes, because that’s what drives Gerard crazy about Frank. Frank’s heart might stutter every time Gerard looks at him, just the same that Gerard’s does.

“Just don’t leave my side,” Frank says, “when we get to Giantville. Don’t leave me.”

“Okay,” Gerard says, “but you have to promise to give me space if I find who I’m looking for.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Frank says, nodding, as Gerard turns back to face forward, because straining his neck to look at Frank is starting to hurt. “It’s just that… well, I find that I’m better with words when I’m around you.”

“This is you at your peak?” Gerard teases.

“Shut up,” Frank groans, but he laughs quietly anyway, “but yeah, I suppose it is.”

“Frank?” Gerard says, nervous about what he’s going to ask, but he can’t let that stop him, because then he’ll never speak again.

“Yes?”

“Are you… mad at me? For, well, for not being able to be as open about this as you are?”

“No!” Frank says hurriedly, “I’m a little miffed, but not mad, never mad. I understand why.”

“It’s just, only a few weeks ago this was never even an option. Not a boy, not the Prince, never in a million years. Now… now it seems like I’ve been blind to the possibility and I opened my eyes at just the right time not to miss you. But still, only a little time has passed.”

“Gerard, I get it. You need time. It’s alright. I had over fifteen years all by myself in a castle to be alone with my thoughts. You’ve had a mere days. I understand, and it’s not your fault that I’m impatient. It’s my problem, not yours.”

“Yeah?” Gerard asks, feeling a tiny bit better. It hadn’t occurred to him that Frank’s been thinking about this for a lot longer than he has. Frank has had a whole life where he lived with the knowledge that nothing was impossible for him. Everything, he could attain almost everything. This was something he was allowed to think about, permitted to daydream about. Gerard hasn’t lived with the same privilege.

Gerard can scarcely imagine it. He’s still not sure how other people are going to react to two boys. He’s not sure if there are rules, and if there are, what they are? He’s never considered it, because, it never touched him. It was never something he thought about in his own life, it was on some other plane of existence.

Gerard thinks about it, and honestly, he doesn’t even know if the Prince is allowed to like other boys. He may be the Prince, but is that even allowed? Is anyone allowed to?

“You look nervous,” Frank says, even though he can’t see Gerard’s face. Gerard just tenses up like crazy though in only a matter of seconds, to a point where Frank thinks he might fall off the horse if he gets any stiffer.

“I just… I’m a boy,” Gerard says, “you’re a boy.”

“Those are both statements.”

“It’s okay right?” Gerard asks, “Are there rules about this? Is it allowed?”

“Who do you think would disallow it?”

“I don’t know,” Gerard says, completely confused. “But you’re allowed to right? You’re the Prince, surely you must.”

“Well I’m not going to have you executed for kissing me when I’m the one who initiated it, if that’s what you’re asking.”

“But like-”

“Gerard, just leave it,” Frank says, “there’s no laws against boys falling in love with each other. No laws about girls either. Why would there be? And if there were, I’m the Prince, I can make them go away.”

“So, like, legally, it’s fine? We’re okay?”

“We’re okay,” Frank says. Gerard nods, feeling a little more at ease. He’s never thought about the legality of liking Frank before, but he doesn’t know anything about the real world at all.

“Right, so it’s all in my mind then?” Gerard asks.

“The moral question? Yes.”

“So Pete and Patrick are okay too?” Gerard asks.

“What about Pete and Patrick?” Frank asks, and Gerard realizes with a very cold wash of grim tingling, that he had not talked to Frank about those two. As far as everyone is concerned, Gerard is the only one who knows. Well he was.

“Nothing,” Gerard says hurriedly, as Frank, very quickly it should be noted, puts the pieces together.

“No!” Frank says, a little too loudly. Frank looks over at the horse not too far behind them, carrying Pete and Patrick, and his mouth just sort of opens in awe, because it’s so obvious. How could he have not noticed? He’s an idiot.

“You heard nothing from me,” Gerard says. “I said nothing.”

“No!” Frank repeats, laughing now.

“Oh shit.”

“Oh my god,” Frank says, still laughing. “That makes so much sense! That, honestly though… the stars, they must have, fuck… they aligned in all the right ways… because holy shit, to make that happen… that’s just, well that’s perfect.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Gerard says.

“My lips are sealed,” Frank says, still kind of giddy.

“Hey guys,” a voice from the front of their gathering says, and Gerard looks up, interested, to see that Ryan and Hayley have stopped on the top of a small hill hidden behind a line of trees from where they are.

Frank, Gerard couldn’t say how, gets the horse to speed up a little bit before they stop in the same spot as the others, and Gerard’s eyes open wide.

He’d inferred that Giants were large, given that they are, quite literally, called Giants , but he had never imagined that they were that big. They’ve got to be at least twelve times the size of humans, probably more. Gerard’s never been good at math.

“Well fuck me,” Frank says, as his gaze goes upward, and then upward some more.

“Well, they’re friendly,” Gerard says, his voice higher than usual. “Supposedly.”

All of them stop there, and look down at the town below them for several minutes. None of them have ever seen a Giant, none of them know what to do with what they’re seeing. It seems unreal, they’re just too huge, too different to be a species that really exist. Except they’re there, and they’re as real as any of them.

“So, uh,” Ryan says, “do we, just, go down there then?”

“I mean, there’s got to be a human safe route somewhere, huh?” Travie adds. “Otherwise, we’ll surely get stepped on, killing us, but only mildly inconveniencing one of these guys.”

“Yeah, over there,” Hayley says, pointing to a dirty brick road that hasn’t been well maintained. It leads into the single largest city that has ever stood, Gerard’s sure of it. He thinks that you could probably stack about nine of his house on top of each other, just to reach the height of one of these buildings, not even accounting for how big and wide they are. They’re actually pretty far away from even the nearest building, not nearly as close as the Giants walking around in front of them. The Giants don’t even notice them, given their comparative size.

“Well, onward we go,” Hayley says, steering her horse in the direction of the path. Slowly, and very reluctantly, the rest of them begin to follow her.

“I sure hope they don’t hold a grudge,” Frank says softly, probably more to himself than to Gerard.

“Your father was a good man,” Gerard says, “if the Giants have any logic, they will see him in you, not your Uncle.”

“Was he?” Frank asks. “Was a he a good King, I mean? I don’t really remember him as well as I would like.”

“I would say he was one of the best Kings ever,” Gerard replies, “but who knows. Maybe someday, you’ll be even better than him.”

“That isn’t my intent,” Frank says, “I don’t want to be better than anyone else. I just want to do right by my people.”

“I think that’s the best thing we can hope for from a future King,” Gerard replies. The horse seems unsteady when they find the neglected path, and Gerard finds himself feeling very wary. Willow, as Frank assured him, is a very strong horse, but Gerard can’t help but to think of how thin and wobbly their horse’s legs all are. When you factor in the deteriorating path and the slope of the hill, Gerard feels very precarious and scared.

It’s taken him days to get to Giantville, granted the trip was cut short substantially because of Frank, but still, now that he’s here, he’s starting to regret more than ever coming here. He’s got so many different fears about what’s going to happen here, that he can’t even count them. He’s scared the Giants will hurt him, he’s scared Brendon will ignore his request, he’s scared Brendon’s left already, even though Gerard checked this morning to see that he was still there.

He's terrified of everything. He’s even scared of what will happen if his curse is broken. This could be the day. It could happen today. He could be curse free in a manner of hours. That anticipating is both terrifying and exciting. What if this becomes the day that he is finally freed?

“You’re nervous,” Frank says, and it’s not a question. He’s stating something as though it’s the most obvious thing in the world.

“I am,” Gerard says nodding.

“It’s okay. I am too,” Frank says, resting his head on Gerard’s shoulder, which Gerard would be self-conscious about if he didn’t enjoy it so much. Frank drives him crazy.

“Where exactly are we supposed to be heading once we get to the city?” Travie asks as they pass over a bridge with a river that must look like a stream to the Giants. The city is only a few minutes away from here, but once they’re in it, it’ll take a while to get to any buildings due to how far apart they are. They’re not far from each other per se, if you’re Giant sized, but when you’re human sizes, they’re very far apart.

“Well, it looked like he was at a wedding when I checked,” Gerard says, “and he’s been here for a few nights, so my guess is that we need to find the nearest inn, and just ask for him. Or any place that might hold a wedding, or just anywhere that a fairy might be.”

“We were probably going to need to find an inn anyway,” Frank says.

It takes several minutes, and as they grow closer to the town, the buildings get bigger and more intimidating. There is however, somewhat of an undercity, because as they get closer to the first big building in front of them, they start to see a couple human sized buildings, most of them about the size of the store Patrick used to live above. It’s all above ground, but it feels like they’re in a basement considering how large the other buildings are above them.

“I think we should actually try splitting up,” Frank says as they approach a human sized town square, that’s beside what appears to be the Giants’ town hall.

“Split up?” Travie asks, “is that good idea?”

“We’re not going to find this guy any other way,” Frank says, shaking his head. “If we split up, odds are, one of us will find him.”

“Alright,” Travie sighs, nodding, and the others seem to agree with Frank’s reasoning.

“We should all meet back here in an hour,” Frank asks, and their party all nod. “Pete, and Patrick, just… well, try to not get crushed by anything. Maybe you two should try to find that inn we talked about or something? And once you find it, just, like stay there until we all meet back here? That way you’ll stay safe.”

“Why does nobody trust me?” Pete asks.

“Pete, your shirt is on backwards,” Patrick replies. Pete looks down, realizes Patrick is right and then nods.

“Alright, fair enough,” Pete says.

“So you two do your best to find a place to stay, the rest of us will look for Gerard’s fairy, and just a reminder his name is Brendon. If you find him, bring him to our meet up spot right here. And just as a precaution, stay in groups of two,” Frank says. Frank, Travie, Hayley, Ryan, and Alex, who are all somehow telepathically linked, Gerard could swear it, divvy up which directions they’re going to go in before they separate, Travie and Hayley going one way as Frank pulls the horse in another. Ryan and Alex go in yet another direction as Gerard watches Pete and Patrick try to figure out where an inn would be.

Gerard wanders fleetingly where they’re going to keep six horses, and how on earth they’re going to be able to prevent them from being stolen if they stay the night somewhere, but he doesn’t think too hard about that. Frank surely has a plan. Frank always has a plan.

Giantville, as far as Gerard can tell, is very inclusive of humans, but from a distance, you can’t see any of the human settlements, because compared to the Giant’s buildings, they’re like dollhouses. There are human stores everywhere, and as Gerard peers down a side road, he sees human houses too. Not many humans are actually out and about however, as Gerard only spots a few as they make their way down their chosen road, which is long and seems to go on forever, especially considering the rate at which Willow trots.

Gerard, from what he’s seen of it so far, likes Giantville. It’s a beautiful place, it looks alarmingly like his own hometown, only multiple times larger. The buildings appear to be predominately made of stone, stones which are all as big as, if not bigger than Gerard. The human buildings, which are all beside their Giant counterparts from the looks of it, are just plain red brick. It’s quite easy to figure out where to go however, because Gerard sees a Giant barbershop, and right beside it is its human barbershop counterpart.

He wonders if the buildings are actually connected to each other, and they just have separate entrances so that humans don’t get squashed. The segregation between humans and Giants might actually be nonexistent if that’s the case. Other than the fact of course that Frank’s Uncle uses Giants as slaves and ships them off to farms and other places around the kingdom.

“This is seriously overwhelming,” Frank says, and Gerard nods. They have to angle over to the side of the path, because there are dozens of Giants just walking by. To be fair, this is their city, but Gerard just can’t imagine moving around that much when you’re that big. They do seem to move a little slower than a human though, and Gerard decides it’s due to the sheer weight of their bodies compared to a human.

Up close, Gerard realizes that Giants look exactly like humans. They’re spitting images of humans, same everything. They’re just bigger. Gerard watches a Giant, an old man, walk down the street in the opposite direction, so Gerard gets a really good look at his face, and he’s amazed by how he looks so human. There aren’t even any tiny differences like with elves, who have pointed ears and sharper jaws. The Giant looks like the kind of guy that used to judge Gerard every day as he walked to and from school. Just a regular person. Only he’s massive.

“I don’t know what I expected,” Gerard says, as the man passes them with huge strides that clear the distance their horse goes in a minute, but only takes the Giant a second.

“Yeah,” Frank says, as a pair of Giants come from the other direction, talking to each other. The road is wide to accommodate their size, but still, Gerard is a little wary at how big their feet are compared to how small he and Frank are.

“They won’t be so bad,” Gerard says, hopefully, and he looks on ahead to any buildings that look like they could either accommodate a wedding or might be able to provide the whereabouts of someone who just attended a wedding. If they could find an Inn that would also be great.

It occurs to Gerard that Brendon may have been some other party that wasn’t a wedding. He was definitively in a Giant building when Gerard consulted Mikey’s book last, but he’s not sure if a Giant would be able to help them. Giants are very large after all, and one small fairy isn’t going to make much of an impression on someone so large.

“There’s a bar that way,” Gerard says, pointing in the direction he’s looking, and Frank nods.

“Not a bad place to start,” he agrees, and he guides Willow in that direction. Gerard’s not going to lie, he’s excited to get off of the horse because his ass is really starting to hurt, and his legs are all but numb.

Frank stops in front of the bar, and he dismounts, leaving Gerard feeling helpless until he offers him a hand to help him down. Gerard is sure without his help, he would fall on his face. Gerard’s feet land on the ground but his ankle gives way under him at the force of it, and he would fall down if Frank weren’t there to stop him. Gerard makes an unflattering sound as he almost falls flat on his face like he’d predicted, but Frank’s strong arms catch him, and pull him back up.

“You okay?” Frank asks him as Gerard straightens himself out and comes up only a few inches from his face. Gerard’s lost all sense of control over his body, he swears it. He’s not even thinking, because a second later, he just kisses Frank, and it’s not even his intention. He didn’t even decide to do it, he supposes his body decided for him what his brain hadn’t even considered.

Frank doesn’t seem to mind. Quite the contrary actually. He puts his hand on the side of Gerard’s face, and Gerard doesn’t even have the heart to stop the kiss. Not for a few seconds at least. Everything in him is telling him not to, he wants to just keep kissing Frank, but he reminds himself he’s in a public place. There are people walking by, granted they are far too big to be concerned with whatever two little humans are doing, but still. They’re still there and Gerard is still terrified of other people knowing.

Gerard pulls away from Frank, and only a few seconds pass, where he looks at Frank for a few seconds, wide eyes blinking back at him, and a couple of different things happen all at once.

First, there’s a sound of gasping, followed by a girl screaming. The two of them look around, startled, and a little nervous too. A girl, probably about the same age as the both of them stands in the doorway to the bar, and she’s staring at Frank, and they can both tell in an instant that the girl recognizes him. It’s surprising how widespread Frank’s image seems to be, because everywhere you go, all the girls seem to know precisely what Frank looks like, and they all seem to be head over heels in love with him too.

“It’s the Prince!” the girl starts screaming, as though she’s trying to notify the whole town, and it’s quite possible that she is trying to do just that.

But the thing that really strikes them off guard is the second thing that happens, which is a loud, booming voice of what must be a Giant, repeating her words.

Gerard can feel his own heart run cold, doesn’t even want to think about the feeling Frank must get as the Giant says, “the Prince?”

The two of them look up, and their heads just keep going up until they finally come to see the face of the man who just spoke, and he’s looking directly down back at them. Gerard can’t tell if he looks villainous or not, but in either case, he’s never interacted with a Giant before, and his books haven’t prepared him for the actuality of it happening right now.

Gerard isn’t shocked at all when Frank grabs his hand, and clenches tightly on it, turning his knuckles a stark white. Gerard doesn’t mind, he understands Frank’s worry. Gerard doesn’t think about the fact that people might be looking, doesn’t think about the fact that a whole crowd of Giants are starting to gather, and are all now looking down on him and Frank. He doesn’t think about any of those things. He just squeezes tightly on Frank’s hand, a reminder that he’s here for Frank, and he’s not going anywhere.

Notes

My fiancées birthday is tomorrow so everybody say Happy Birthday Coral in the comments.

Comments

Wow. This story is so good! Even better because I've never the movie. I'm just gonna go along for the ride.
Please keep this going. Your writing is amazing!

cKayE cKayE
2/9/19

@My-FluffFrerard
It sure was.

Helena Hathaway Helena Hathaway
11/7/18

Isn’t this chapter supposed to go to All we need is Daylight?

My-FluffFrerard My-FluffFrerard
11/7/18

Oh my gosh this is amazing. I binge read all of it and am in love. Your writing is truly amazing

cKayE cKayE
10/1/18

I feel like you should rename the chapter! :'D

erinjaynee erinjaynee
10/23/17