Chance

“Well fuck me,” Gerard groans.

“That kind of week?” Hayley asks.

“That kind of year,” Gerard responds.

It has not been a good day. It has not been a good week either. Gerard is not having much luck at the whole existing thing lately. In the past six months he has totaled a car, lost a three-year relationship, and today has brought with it the worst thing yet. He was fucking fired.

He didn’t even do anything to deserve being fired. They said he was being ‘let go’ but Gerard doesn’t care how you phrase it, he doesn’t have a job. Just because his company made some poorly thought out investments and his boss ran away to the Cayman Islands doesn’t make it fair that Gerard is now out one very high paying job that he wasn’t very fond of in the first place.

“You always hated that job, I don’t see why you’re so heartbroken over this. This might even turn out to be a good thing,” Hayley says. She’s the optimist to end all doubts, he swears it. Hayley could find a silver lining to a zombie apocalypse. That does not mean Gerard is happy about sitting at a barstool on a Friday night drowning his sorrows in Pepsi, because someone was too cheap when opening this bar and made it a Pepsi place, not a coke place. Pepsi can go to hell and stay there. Sitting here, at this crowded bar, he’s just slightly less unhappy than he would be if he were upstairs groaning at a wall, like he had originally planned on doing.

“But I like money,” Gerard sighs.

“Well maybe the next time you have a boss who embezzles millions of dollars, commits fraud, and runs away to a foreign country, you can ask to go with,” Hayley says.

“That’s an adequate plan,” Gerard says, “but what do I do now that I have no job and am severely lacking in millions of dollars?”

“Cry,” Hayley says.

“You’re always full of good ideas, I don’t know how you do it,” Gerard says, nodding. Hayley rolls her eyes and walks over to refill some guys drink across the bar. Hayley’s the best friend a person can have because she’s a nice person to know in general, but the best part of knowing her is that when she gets done with work she’s always willing to give Gerard the juicy details of all the people who tell her their life stories at work. Apparently, being a bartender is almost the exact same thing as being a therapist, only there’s no patient confidentiality so she can tell everyone about that time that the department store Santa proposed to her with an onion ring.

Gerard’s not about to claim that he was that great at his job. Still, he thinks he was good enough at it to not be left jobless right now. Unemployment is not ideal, and it’s mostly because of the inordinate amount of Ramen that you are forced to consume.

Gerard sighs, turning around in the stool to scope out the crowd. There’s almost no standing room anywhere in here because it’s a Friday night, in New York, at a bar. At least half of the world’s population is inside of this bar.

Gerard is one of the regulars, and despite living above a bar, he’s never actually been one of the patrons who’ve puked on the sidewalk outside. Seeing as he doesn’t drink is a good explanation for this, but also, he doesn’t want to puke on the sidewalk in front of where he lives. He’s not an idiot.

When Gerard turns back to watch Hayley and wait for her to come back to keep his lonesome ass company, he’s met with an unfamiliar face that is really infringing on his personal bubble.

Gerard is not first struck by this guy’s completely unimpressive face, but by his corpse breath. Gerard’s pretty sure this dude’s breath could kill a lesser person than he. Even as it is, Gerard almost falls off his seat from the stench of it. He smells like he made a skunk, garlic, and vodka cocktail with a garnish of fuck you all the way to hell.

“Can I help you?” Gerard asks, because he doesn’t want to be a bitch, but he’s going to have to if this guy doesn’t back the fuck up soon. Or, more likely, he’ll be so restricted by his social awkwardness and need to cater to other people’s feelings, that he’ll end up married to this man.

Shit-breath looks kind of like he could have been a lumberjack in another life, with a bristly ginger beard and an unflattering face to match. He looks like the kind of kid who stood on the edge of the gym at his prom. He also could’ve been the kid who was so ‘cool’ that he decided to ditch prom in favor of playing Halo at home with his friend with hair as greasy as his face.

In any case, Gerard does not want to be near this guy and he certainly does not want this guy to even think about flirting with him. Unfortunately, Gerard just isn’t getting the things he wants today.

“Hello gorgeous,” he says, and Gerard isn’t going to deny that he’s right about that, but there are few people on this planet who he would less rather hear that from. Donald Trump is among that small few. So is Danny Devito. Not because he doesn’t like Danny Devito, but there’s something horrific about the idea of Danny Devito telling you you’re gorgeous.

Gerard looks over at Hayley, trying to make eye contact with her so that she can help him get out of this situation but she’s busy making drinks on the other side of the bar, too many feet away from him for him to get her to come over here. He supposes he could scream but then everybody would look at him and he’d be all self-conscious and he’d probably melt into the floorboards, and he doesn’t need that today.

“Hi, uh, I’m not really interested, thanks,” Gerard says, hoping to make this quick because he can only hold his breath for so much longer before actually passing out. He seriously needs Hayley to come rescue him. She’s his knight in shining armor.

“Oh come on,” the guy says which is not what Gerard had wanted to hear at all. He doesn’t need to have someone ‘oh come on’ him right now, he needs someone to offer him a million dollars, and the lumberjack who obviously once worked at a Trader Joes is not the person who’s going to give him that. Gerard has this gut feeling that this guy keeps a couple slices of salami in his pocket. He just seems like that kind of person.

Gerard tries to think of something to do that doesn’t involve throwing a tin of Altoids at this guy, which will ideally knock him out, because after all, they are curiously strong.

“No, really. I’m fine.”

“Why don’t you let me buy you a drink?” he asks, his voice so slurred that Gerard can barely figure out what he’s trying to say, and it doesn’t help that he’s barely speaking the right language. Gosh though, Gerard thinks that he must look irresistible today because he’s being hit on at a straight bar which is not exactly a first but it’s not particularly common either.

“I don’t drink,” Gerard says, which is not a lie. Hopefully it will repel Paul Bunyan who probably makes homemade beer in his bathtub.

“’Course ya do,” the guy says, and Gerard can hear him burp which makes him sure he is going to pass out any fucking second now.

In spite of Hayley still being across the bar being chatted up by some guy who actually thinks he has a chance with her, there is still one person who decides that he’s going to rescue Gerard. Gerard is in no business of denying that he is most definitely a damsel in distress, Gerard would be Daphne in any Scooby Doo type situation. He probably would not be as handy with makeup, but he’d still probably try to get in Fred’s pants.

“Hey babe, sorry I’m late,” a man says, and when Gerard turns to see this guy’s face, he has literally no clue who the hell the dude is.

“Whaaa-” Gerard starts to ask, because he seriously doesn’t know who this guy is. He’s quite attractive, Gerard will give him that, and he would very much like to know who this guy is, but that doesn’t change that fact that he doesn’t. So why the hell is this beautiful stranger all of a sudden acting like they’re best buddies, and whose dick does Gerard have to suck to make it a permanent thing? Preferably the handsome strangers. Or if James McAvoy is available.

“Uh, who’s your friend?” the stranger with the nice face says, looking at the stranger with the not so nice face.

The one who swallowed a stink bomb looks taken aback and Gerard’s still lost when the guy says, “I didn’t realize you had a boyfriend.”

At this point, after taking a moment to decipher what the fuck this guy is trying to say, Gerard catches on to what Prince Charming is doing, and he’s seriously tempted to kiss that pretty motherfucker for saving him from this. “Yeah, yep. I’ve got a boyfriend. He’s my everything. Him and Star Wars. That’s why I don’t wanna, yeah. So you should go.”

“Yeah, sorry,” the guy says and to Gerard’s great relief, the man decides to walk away. Gerard watches as he goes and then grins widely and turns to look at the man who saved him again. If it had been this guy instead who’d chosen to flirt with Gerard, there wouldn’t have been a problem. This guy has a face that is the opposite of a problem.

He’s one of those guys who you look at and all you can do is picture how good they are at cuddling. Like he’s just got this vibe radiating off of him that makes Gerard want to hug him, but to be fair, Gerard is a hugger and wants to hug most people.

“I think I’m in love with you,” Gerard says as a thank you and the guy laughs and Gerard gets a little dizzy off of the sound of this guy laughing. He’s seriously considering proposing to this beautiful stranger. Hayley would probably use that as a dinner table story though, and he’s not going to give her the satisfaction.

Gerard doesn’t have much of a barrier most of the time, which is weird because he’s completely afraid of social situations but once he’s already in one and it’s inescapable, he starts to say whatever he’s thinking which gets him into a lot of trouble on occasion.

“Well he looked kind of sleazy,” the guy replies, “it’s no problem.”

“Yeah but I’d probably have ended up dating him for three weeks out of fear that it’d be awkward,” Gerard says, because that has happened before. And it will probably happen again.

“That would have been a tragedy, I’m pretty sure he had halitosis,” the guy says. “So now that he’s gone would it be totally outrageous if I hit on you instead?”

“No, go ahead,” Gerard says, “I’d actually be disappointed if you didn’t.”

The guy smiles, almost shyly, but not quite, because he still has confidence overflowing off of him which is a turn on for Gerard. So is a pulse, but that does not undermine how nice of a face this guy has. Gerard’s just easy.

“Okay gimme a second, I’ve got to google bad pickup lines on my phone,” he says, pulling it out, and yeah, Gerard is already in love with him.

“You’ve got me on pins and needles,” Gerard grins, but in reality there’s nothing he wants more than to have someone hit on him with bad puns. That’s the only way he can envision meeting his future husband.

“Okay, here we go,” he says, clearing his throat so that Gerard has time to prepare himself for the corniness of what’s to follow. “You must be getting tired, because you’ve been running through my head all night.”

Gerard frowns, because he’d been kind of excited for physically painful eye rolling, and that’s just not going to cut it. “Oh come on, you can do better than that.”

“How about this, can I have your phone number, because I’ve lost mine,” he says, and it’s better but Gerard’s heard it before. He’s pretty sure this was a segment on Ellen, and Gerard is the gayest person ever, if Ellen has said it, Gerard has probably embroidered it on a pillow.

“Nah, keep trying.”

“They’re all dirty!” he says.

“Lay them on me, I can handle it,” Gerard says.

“Alright, well, you’re like my little toe, because I’m going to bang you on every piece of furniture in my home.”

“There ya go,” Gerard says, “you’re going to get further with me the dirtier and stupider they get.”

“Do you like pizza?” he asks, to which Gerard makes a face that expresses the ‘duh’ his eyes are saying. “Well, pizza is my second favorite thing to eat in bed.”

“Fuck,” Gerard says, snorting, “well if you had me alone the pants would be across the room by now.”

“Okay try me,” he says, “I haven’t groaned profusely yet today.”

“You will later, baby,” Gerard says, and that wasn’t even his attempt at a pick up line, it was just staring Gerard right in the face.

“Fair enough,” he says, “I walked into that one, it’s my fault.”

Gerard laughs quite airily which usually only happens when he’s super happy. Seriously though, Gerard falls in love with most strangers, it’s just his thing, he falls in love with little things about people he’ll never talk to or see again. He falls in love with the curvature of a face, the way an eyebrow crooks, the color of people’s eyes. He’s a slut for half the people he walks past on the street. He’s never quite felt this floaty before though.

“I’ve only got one,” Gerard says, cracking his knuckles, because it’s so bad that it’s deserving of the melodrama. “Call me Greedo because I never shoot first.”

“Oh my god that was so awful my dead ancestors cringed. But you’d have me naked at that,” the guy says. “By the way, when you tell your friends about this weird encounter at a later date, it should be noted that my name is Frank.”

“And I’m Gerard. When you describe me to your coworkers, tell them that I have ethereal bedroom eyes that could stop a train in its tracks,” Gerard says. He’s very unhappy that he has to force his gaze away from this beautiful godlike man a moment later because he can feel Hayley looking at him. She’s raising her eyebrows at him like she can just tell. She’s got a sixth sense for those sort of things, she always knows what’s going on with Gerard before he does, it’s kind of freaky. His appendix burst last year, and Hayley had already taken the day off from work before he’d called to tell her.

“I couldn’t forget to mention that,” Frank says, “it’s the first thing I noticed, besides that smile that gives a fairy it’s wings.”

“Oh you,” Gerard says, barely getting the words out before gagging on them.

“Can I buy you a drink then?”

“I don’t drink actually,” Gerard responds.

“So you just hang out in bars for the ambiance?” Frank asks.

“What can I say, I’m drawn to beer bums.”

“Your childhood must have been awful.”

“It’s such a sob story, you couldn’t bear it,” Gerard says, looking dramatically off into the distance, like he’s finally in the soap operas he claims he doesn’t watch.

“Try me,” Frank responds.

“I was born with glass bones and paper skin. Every morning I break my legs, and every afternoon I break my arms. At night, I lie awake in agony until my heart attacks put me to sleep.”

“That is… a series of unfortunate events,” Frank replies.

“I’m probably going to end up proposing to you in five minutes, I swear to god,” Gerard says. “Where have you been all my life?”

“In a cupboard, under some stairs.”

Gerard’s brain is on red alert because he’s pretty sure this guy is his other half. Gerard is a peculiar person to begin with, so usually people don’t understand what the hell he’s saying. He is also very easily overlooked, so not only do people not understand him, but they also usually ignore him. This Frank guy however is right on the same level as Gerard, in some weird parallel dimension that even Gerard doesn’t really comprehend. Basically, Gerard is a giant fucking dork with a weird sense of humor, and Frank has a similar, yet different, sense of humor, and this for Gerard is considered a bingo, homerun, or hole in one, whichever metaphor you prefer.

“So you just sit here wasting away as you mourn your fragile nature?” Frank asks, “I feel like a bar isn’t the best place for that specific brand of brooding.”

Gerard laughs, “I actually just got fired. Or, well, not fired. My boss ran away to Cuba because he was embezzling money, so like, I was kind of put out of work unexpectedly.”

“Really?” Frank asks, trying not to laugh, because he doesn’t think it would be polite to laugh at Gerard losing his job.

“It’s fine, laugh all you want. If I were a standup comedian, this would be gold. But yeah, it’s true. But I’m here drowning my sorrows, so to speak, in diet Pepsi, and maybe if I’m feeling adventurous, I’ll step it up to just plain old Pepsi.”

“You mad animal,” Frank says.

“I’m just one hell of an antichrist, I guess. And you?”

“Me? No, I’m Satan himself.”

Gerard laughs, “no, I meant why are you here? Scouting out the chicks?”

“Oh absolutely!” Frank says. “I am so straight. So goddamn straight. So straight that words can’t describe it. So straight that I don’t even know who Madonna is.” Gerard can tell that Frank is joking, because honestly, sometimes you don’t even need to have a Gaydar to know that someone is bent as a fucking rainbow. It also helps that Frank asked Gerard if he could hit on him.

“See I got that vibe from you,” Gerard replies. “And let me guess, you love NASCAR.”

“Oh you betcha,” Frank says, “the way they just… drive around that court thing. A rink? A stadium? A pitch?”

“Hell if I know,” Gerard says.

Frank nods, “I love it. I just love cars… and boobs.”

“Oh absolutely.”

Frank breaks into this shit-eating grin and says, “I’m trying so hard right now not to jump you, you are so fucking adorable.”

“Thanks, I try,” Gerard grins back. He doesn’t know why, but Gerard always gets called ‘cute’ and adorable,’ he’s rarely, if ever, been called hot. He thinks it has something to do with his dimples.

Frank thinks that Gerard is totally hot. So long as you imagine him bent over. Otherwise he’s just an overlarge teddy bear.

Frank on the other hand is hot enough to be a porn star, the kind that people obsess over not the ones who are just static compared to other porn stars. He would be the kind that people actually remember the name of. Frank would be the Queen Latifah of porn stars.

“So why are you here then?” Gerard asks, “Assuming that the blinking red sign above your head saying homosexual isn’t a dead giveaway.”

“One of my coworkers actually just hit the big three-o. Or, I mean, I guess this is the sixtieth anniversary of her thirtieth birthday. She’s actually a small duffle bag full of dust and bones that we pretend still has a pulse.”

“You work with Mick Jagger?” Gerard asks, with mock excitement.

Frank snorts and the sound makes Gerard’s heart convulse like a rock skipped over water.

“I’m already planning my wedding to you for fucks sake, stop looking at me like that,” Gerard says.

“Like what?”

“You know precisely what you’re doing. You work on that mug in mirrors, I know you do,” Gerard says.

“Alright, maybe I do know, I just wanted to hear it out loud. I like being told I’m cute, I live for it,” Frank replies.

“You must have a really fulfilling life then. You probably get hit on by straight dudes. My brother is nauseatingly heterosexual and he’d bang you senseless.”

“I bet you say that to all the boys,” Frank responds.

“It’s not a good line,” Gerard says, “people tend to think it’s a little invasive.”

“Who could turn you down though?” Frank asks. Gerard is either blushing or he’s getting heated up because he’s literally so attracted to this guy that it hurts. He just might implode if he doesn’t make out with him soon.

“Well shucks,” Gerard says, rolling his eyes. “It’s true though, I am drop dead gorgeous.”

“You’re not going to see me arguing with you on that one.”

“Marry me,” Gerard deadpans.

“Took you long enough to ask, didn’t it?” Frank grins back. Gerard wants nothing more than to have this guy alone to do either unspeakable things to him or learn every single last thing there is to know about him. Maybe both, Gerard can multitask.

Frank is about to say something else when a commotion behind them pulls their attentions away from each other, which is an impressive feat considering the fact that Gerard is seriously considering handcuffing himself to this beautiful, beautiful man.

The red-headed Santa who’d been hitting on Gerard has just decided that it would be a good idea to puke right in the middle of the floor. Right there with several dozen spectators. Barely five feet from where Gerard sits.

“Well that’s unpleasant,” Frank says.

“See this is why we don’t mix tequila with red bull,” Hayley shouts loudly from behind the bar. Luckily for her, she’s not the one who has to clean it up. Gerard grimaces as he looks at the guy, just imagining how he’d been hitting on Gerard a few minutes earlier. Frank saved him from that, Gerard doesn’t want to know what would have happened if he hadn’t. Gerard probably would have had someone puke on him. Oddly enough, that too wouldn’t be the first time that’s happened.

“Yeah,” Gerard says, “do you maybe want to not be in a place in such close proximity to the insides of Halitosis Jones.”

“But sir,” Frank says in a bad accent that Gerard can’t even pinpoint the attempted to origin of, “we only just met.”

“And I’ve already named our future children,” he replies, “we’ve long since passed that stage.”

“I’ll leave with you but only if I can murder you in a dark alleyway.”

“Baby, you can stab me as much as you want and with my dying breath I will thank you,” Gerard says to him.

“That sounds a little extreme, I only do that to my enemies,” Frank responds. “But it’s seriously starting to smell in here, so the sooner we leave the better.”

“There’s a hardware store across the street,” Gerard says.

“I’d literally rather be trampled by an army of superhuman armadillos then go into a hardware store,” Frank replies.

“You’re my other half.”

“You are easier than a maze on a kid’s menu.”

“That’s the nicest thing anyone’s ever said to me,” Gerard says, pretending to get choked up.

“Oh I love you,” Frank replies. Gerard’s really into this teasing thing they’ve got going on. Usually when you meet a new person, you have to know them for at least a couple of minutes before you can start to pick up on their sense of humor, but Gerard feels like this guy is on the same wavelength as him. It’s like half of the jokes on Gerard’s repertoire, Frank wrote the book on.

“Who’s easy now?” Gerard says, standing up and walking towards the door, and he is hoping, and fucking praying, that Frank is staring at his ass. These are his good jeans. They’re not very comfortable but his butt looks like a million bucks. To be fair, his butt looks like a couple hundred thousand on a bad day, but he’s allowed to celebrate the little victories when he meets them.

Frank is totally staring at his ass.

Gerard turns to see Frank following him, like Gerard’s got this almost-stranger wrapped around his finger, and it’s amazing. He catches Hayley’s eye once more before he pushes the door open and she looks like she’s seeing if the guy Gerard’s got is worthy of him. When she spots him and evaluates Frank, she makes a face like she’s thinking and gestures that he’s alright. Gerard will take it. Alright is already above his usual standards.

Gerard looks at Frank again and debates whether or not this is actually happening. Gerard’s dreams usually are fairly elaborate; he would not be at all surprised to learn that this is all just some complicated dream he’s going to wake up from. Gerard is full to the brim with sarcasm and cynicism, but by god if he isn’t unforgivingly charmed by Frank.

For now, though, Gerard’s got a hypnotic spell over Frank, put there by their mutual oddities, and that’s good enough to risk wherever this whim may take him. And oh, the places he’ll go.

Notes

Please leave a comment if you like the first chapter! I love you all for reading, I hope to write more soon.