February 14, 2016

“Worst Valentine’s Day ever!” Gerard says, battling to be heard over the sound of the pouring rain outside. There’s a storm brewing deep in the sky, with the clouds a treacherous dark grey, lighting up every few seconds with brilliant flashes of lightning.

“It’s not so bad,” Frank shrugs, putting his arms around Gerard from where he stands behind him, which only does a little to help calm his anger and sadness. This is not supposed to happen. Not today, on all days, this can’t be happening. But of course, it is Valentine’s Day after all, and Valentine’s Day is nothing if not consistent. It will always be the worst day of the year, without fail, even when it’s supposed to be the best goddamn day of Frank’s entire fucking life. Of course he doesn’t even get that. Not today. Not on fucking February fourteenth.

“Frank, could you for like a second in your life stop trying to cheer me up?” Gerard asks, “I’m pissed the fuck off, and nothing’s going to plan, and I’m not happy. Nothing you say will make me happy. I’m just pissed.”

“Gerard,” Frank shakes his head, “listen, the storm will blow over. At most, in a few hours. No one will leave, it’s okay. We’ll be fine for a little while.”

“But the caterer is going to be here in like three hours!” Gerard says, emphatically, “what are we supposed to do when she gets here?”

“We’ll eat food.”

“In the pouring rain?” Gerard asks.

“Well, no, we can just stay inside,” Frank responds, “no reason to get all damp.”

“Damp, Frank?” Gerard asks, turning on him, looking pissed as all hell, with venom raging in his eyes. Frank’s seen that look before, and it’s usually reserved for people who cut him off in traffic and fox news. “Damp is running through a sprinkler. You go outside right now, you might as well have jumped into a swimming pool wearing your clothes. And we can’t exactly have the wedding in here, can we? It’s too small, we’ don’t even have enough space to get everyone in the same room. What are we going to fucking do, this is the biggest disaster of a wedding ever.”

“Gerard, you’re over exaggerating everything. I knew today wasn’t a good idea,” Frank says shaking his head.

“What?” Gerard asks, looking both alarmed and angry.

“No, I mean, ugh,” Frank groans, trying to think of the right words to say, so that he doesn’t piss Gerard off even more than he already is. Really, though, he should’ve expected this. It’s Valentine’s day, and even though last Valentine’s Day was the best day of Gerard’s damn life, that doesn’t mean that this year would be any different than the one’s previously. Of course it’s going downhill with the speed of a bullet. Nothing else could have happened on today of all days.

“What are you saying, Frank?” Gerard asks, looking upset, and on the verge of either tears or of punching someone in the face. Due to Frank’s proximity, it’ll probably be him if Gerard decides to take a swing at somebody.

“Oh, calm your tits,” Frank says, shaking his head. “You know I love you, dumbass. I just knew that picking today, Valentine’s Day, as our wedding day was a bad idea. I knew something bad was gonna happen, because of your curse.”

“You said you didn’t believe in my curse!” Gerard says, looking angry, with his eyebrows furrowed together in a stare that could turn a lesser person to stone.

“Well, I was being nice! That’s what you do when someone says their cursed, you play nice and pretend you don’t believe in curses, all the while knowing that somewhere up in the heavens, Cupid is looking down at us laughing his stupid ass off.”

“You’re a dick, you know that?”

“I’m not the one who pissed off the god of love!” Frank exclaims. He knows he shouldn’t be blaming Gerard right now, but he’s a little pissed off too, and Gerard is the most convenient target. Frank is sure to regret this conversation in a matter of moments, but it’s his wedding day too and it’s all fucked up so goddammit, he’s going to complain if he wants to.

“I didn’t do shit to the god of love,” Gerard replies, groaning. It figures that his wedding day, which of course is on fucking Valentine’s Day, would start off with him and Frank arguing with each other about Cupid. Only ridiculous things happen on this day. Logic has no role.

“Okay, let’s calm down,” Frank says, taking a few breaths in and then letting them out. He turns back to look at the window outside. “We’re getting married, okay? Let’s not argue about anything. That’s not how today is supposed to go.”

“Well today was supposed to go smoothly,” Gerard says, “but now, it’s two in the afternoon and our wedding has been rained out, the florist canceled on us, the DJ got stranded because of the weather, and I get to fucking complain if I want to!”

Frank nods, understanding Gerard’s annoyance. Frank had been the one who’d pushed for them to do this today of all days. He thought it would be symbolic of their relationship. They met today, they got engaged today, it seemed right that they should get married today too. Frank didn’t take heed of Gerard’s curse though, and now he’s being slapped in the face with it.

He's already regretting blowing up at Gerard though, because Gerard is a fairly sensitive person, and he looks like he’s going to cry, which is well deserved. Gerard wanted today to be perfect, and so far, it has been the exact opposite. Almost everything that could go wrong has gone wrong. Now Gerard’s pissed at Frank too which sucks, because you’re not supposed to get pissed at your own goddamn groom on your wedding day.

“Uh, guys,” a voice says, and they turn around to see Pete standing there with trepidation both in his eyes and evident in the way he plays with his cufflinks. “So, everyone is starting to wonder if this thing is going to actually happen, or not?”

Gerard groans loudly, and just storms on past Pete without any words. Frank hears loud exaggerated footsteps that then run up the stairs, making loud, echoing sounds that resonate through the whole house on the way up. Gerard’s a bit of a drama queen, but he’s definitely earned that right considering the day he’s having.

“He’s a little upset,” Frank explains, making Pete roll his eyes, because that is quite clear.

“Yeah, I can see that,” Pete nods. Frank follows Pete into the living room where most of their family and friends are all gathered watching the weather channel, all with grim looks on their faces. Frank feels like a jerk, and a bit of a tool. He’s invited all these people out here and then had to shove them all into his mother’s tiny little house, and there’s nothing he can do about it. According to the weatherman on the screen, the rain is going to remain strong and heavy for the next several hours, which makes Frank’s heart sink even further down into his chest. He cannot believe that this is happening.

Everything has blown up in their faces. They set everything up for the wedding last night, so now everything’s a mess. The tent collapsed under the weight of the heavy rain, the few flowers that they did get delivered before the florist canceled have probably all died or flooded beyond the point of saving. The tables and chairs are all completely soaked, he’s sure. Everything has gone all wrong.

The weather report had claimed today was going to be a bright, beautiful, sunny day. Every weather station had claimed the same. But of course, a storm comparable to a hurricane would decide to hit just for fun.

“How’s Gerard?” Patrick asks, looking over at Frank from where he sits on one of the antique dining chairs his mother bought at a flea market. Frank makes an exasperated face that everyone in the entire room gets disheartened by, and he wishes there were something he could do.

“I’m sorry everybody,” Frank says, addressing the whole room full of people that he would wager are almost as upset as himself, but not nearly as upset as Gerard. This means a lot more to Gerard than it does to Frank, he’s sure of that much. Frank is probably the more romantic one, but Valentine’s Day is a very precarious day for Gerard, and anything shitty that can happen on any other day is amplified tenfold today. If their wedding were last week and this had happened, it would have sucked, but Gerard would’ve gotten over it. It’s the fact that it’s today though that has him so upset. Gerard’s only blaming himself for this entire mess, because he genuinely believes it’s his fault that this is happening. Gerard genuinely does believe he’s been cursed, even though Gerard doesn’t believe in anything mystical whatsoever. He believes he actually is cursed though, and at this point, Frank doesn’t think that belief is entirely unwarranted.

Frank doesn’t actually believe in the curse himself, Frank is an entirely rational and very scientific person. He certainly did think that something would get fucked up, but he figured that it would, in some part, if not entirely, be Gerard’s fault. He figured it would be a self-fulfilling prophecy, that Gerard might accidentally spill mustard on his tux, or that he’d have messed up the dates that he gave the caterer. Something like that. Never did Frank expect for everything to go right but then get all messed up because something like the weather The fact that something like this did happen is just uncanny and some serious bad luck. Or it would be if Frank believed in luck.

“He’s moping, isn’t he?” Pete asks, looking dejected, but pretty sure of himself.

“Yeah, a little bit,” Frank nods. “I mean, that’s my assumption. He ran upstairs, he’s probably crying. I don’t know what to do. It’s my fault. I’m the one who pressured him into doing this today, and now it’s all fucked up, I should’ve listened to him when he said no, but I just thought, I thought it would be romantic, you know? Today is the day when all the important events in our relationship happened, I just assumed it’d be okay, but here we are now.”

“You couldn’t have known,” Pete says.

“Well, yeah, that’s true, but at the same time, I’d be an idiot not to notice the trend Valentine’s Days tend to have in Gerard’s life, and I decided to just mess with fate, which has really bitten back at me.”

“You don’t need to blame yourself, it’s not your fault,” Pete replies.

“It kind of is,” he responds. “I’ve got to go be with Gerard.”

Pete nods, agreeing that Frank’s time is best served there rather than here. He doesn’t agree that it’s Frank’s fault, it’s no one’s fault, but he understands why both of them would feel the need to take the blame. That doesn’t mean they’re right, but he does understand.

Frank makes his way out of the living room, and through the creaky old house until he reaches the stairs, the oldest and creakiest part of the house. He walks up slowly, not looking forward to having to face Gerard’s tears on the other end of the steps.

Frank hates it when Gerard cries, Frank’s not good around crying people in general. His goal in life is usually to make everyone happy, so when someone is sad enough to be crying, and he can’t do anything about it, he feels defenseless.

He can hear Gerard crying softly when he comes upon the landing, and it makes his heart break as he makes his way to the open doorway that leads into Frank’s old bedroom.

Gerard is there, sitting on the bed, head in his hands, and Frank knows it’s all his fault.

“Gerard, look,” Frank starts, staring at Gerard, who’s honestly a wreck which makes everything all the worse. He looks far more dramatic about all of this than is entirely necessary, but in his defense, he knew this was going to happen and now he’s got to live with the grunt of it. Gerard had expected this, and to have his expectations realized is worse than if this had been a surprise. What’s happened has been inevitable and that’s what makes it a million times worse.

“Frank, we can’t even get fucking married without the universe pissing all over it,” Gerard says, his voice hoarse because he’s been crying, which sucks, because the last thing Gerard should be doing on his wedding day is crying. Your wedding day should be spent laughing and smiling, and if any tear is shed it’s one of happiness. Not this, this isn’t supposed to happen.

“I know,” Frank says, and he walks over to sit down next to Gerard, wrapping his arms around him, feeling like a complete jerk, because in a way, this is all his fault. He’s sure Gerard’s blaming himself, but in actuality, it’s Frank who deserves the blame, but Gerard loves him too much to give him that.

“I just-” Gerard starts, but interrupts himself to sniffle, “-I just wanted everything to go smoothly, and for us to get married. That’s all I wanted. But it’s all gone to shit.”

Frank frowns, resting his head-on Gerard’s shoulder, and pulling him tighter into his body, because honestly Frank feels about ready to start crying too. This is all wrong. The only thing he can do right now is just be here for Gerard, and he wishes that there was a way to pull him tighter to him, but he’s about as close as he can get. Frank kisses the top of his head, but it doesn’t do much to lighten the mood in the air, as it still feels like a mess.

They stay like that for a few minutes before there’s the sound of footsteps coming up the stairs outside, and then Pete and Patrick both appear in the doorway.

“Okay, guys,” Pete says, “We talked it over with the rest of the group, and we’ve decided that you’re going to get married.”

“Thanks,” Frank replies flatly, because this has been established. They’re going to get married, yeah, duh, but they just can’t do it right now, and probably not even today.

“No,” Pete says, shaking his head, “You don’t get it. Like we’re going to do this right now. Fuck the rain, alright? You’re gonna get married here and now.”

“What do you even mean?” Frank asks.

“Well, if Phoebe and Mike can get married while it’s snowing, you two can get married in a torrential downpour.”

“What?” Gerard asks, looking up, eyes kind of red, but something a little like hope on his face. He’s willing to hear them out, even if their idea kind of seems idiotic.

“Everyone’s clothes will get ruined,” Frank says. “Expensive clothes. This suit alone cost like four hundred bucks.”

“It’s just clothes,” Pete says. “We’ll all live. What matters is that your day doesn’t get ruined by this.”

Gerard bites his lip, and pulls his eyebrows together, thinking, obviously considering the proposition seriously. Frank can’t imagine that Gerard will say yes, because Gerard can’t want to get married in the actual rain. It’s a complete impossibility. It’ll just be a bleak reminder for their entire married life that their wedding was a huge fuck up. Somehow, he feels like going into a marriage like that will put a literal damper on the entire relationship.

“Rain on your wedding day is a sign of good luck,” Patrick says. “I googled it. It’s a sign of fertility.”

“Yeah, because what we need is fertility,” Frank says, making a face at the mere thought of it. Frank still doesn’t believe in luck, but there’s something symbolic about it raining right now, in a way. He doesn’t entirely know what that symbol is, but it’s symbolic of something

“I’m just saying,” Patrick replies, putting his hands up defensively.

“So, you say our guests are willing to actually go outside in this weather just to watch us get married?” Gerard asks. Frank puzzles his own eyebrows together, surprised that Gerard is actually considering this. He hadn’t expected Gerard to give it any real thought.

“Yeah,” Pete says. “Everybody knows how awful this is on you two, but they just want you to be happy. We’re your friends, after all. Do what you gotta do for the people you love. Everyone here loves you guys, we’ll do what you want.”

Frank frowns, as he looks at Gerard, who’s still considering things. Honestly, Frank doesn’t think he’d mind it that much. Yeah, he probably won’t be able to return the tux that he’s renting, and Gerard might not be able to either. Sure, they’re florist canceled. Yeah, the DJ can’t get here because the weather is bad. But the two of them are still here, and so are all their guests.

It’s just flowers, Frank knows what flowers look like, they’re not that important. What do they really need a DJ for anyway, Frank’s got music on his phone, they can just hook it up to a speaker. They still have the cameraman, and the caterer is still coming. Why not?

“Gerard,” Frank says, “I’m willing if you are.”

“Yeah?” Gerard asks, looking up, and staring into Frank’s eyes with his big doe ones which make Frank remember why it is that he wants to marry this man in the first place. Why does it even matter how they get married, as long as it’s Gerard he’s marrying? Frank would do anything for this boy, and so what if it’s not the perfect ceremony? If he’s marrying Gerard than it honestly doesn’t matter if they get married in a Wendy’s or in a shack. It’s him, and it’s Gerard. That’s all that matters.

“Yeah,” Frank nods.

“Okay,” Gerard says resolutely. “Fuck it.”

“Really?” Pete asks, incredulous. Somehow, he didn’t think either of them would go for it, but he’s not upset that they have.

“It doesn’t matter,” Frank says, “it’s just a formality, isn’t it? Just a wedding. As long as I’m marrying Gerard, I don’t care.”

Gerard smiles back at him widely, and Frank becomes even more sure. Nothing in this world could stop him from having Gerard, not rain, not anything. Nothing’s going to stop him from making this the best Valentine’s Day ever.

Frank and Gerard, along with the other two, hurry down stairs and tell everyone what’s going down. The crowd of people don’t look too surprised, and while there are definitely some wary faces, most of them just look happy that Frank and Gerard have made the decision to get married at all. It seemed like the day was going downhill too fast for a resolution to even be made.

Collectively, they manage to find about eight umbrellas total between everybody, and amidst about fifty people, that is not enough umbrellas.

“Who cares?” Gerard shrugs. Frank attacks him in a hug.

Actually going out into the rain becomes somewhat of a predicament, but it’s not the end of the world either. People start filing out, in fours and fives, as many people all trying to get under an umbrella as they can, but they’re rather small. By the time that the last of the guests all manage to get outside, and start taking their seats in the cheap plastic chairs that are set up in rows, they’ve completely run out of umbrellas and people are starting to get wet as fuck. There aren’t any umbrellas left for Gerard or Frank, or for Pete and Patrick. Really, you’d think the wedding party would be left with at least one umbrella, but nope.

Pete and Patrick sprint outside and find their places at the front of the gathering; Patrick as their very soggy best man, and Pete as their dripping, ordained via the internet, minister.

“You ready to do this?” Frank asks, hoping that Gerard hasn’t changed his mind at the last minute. It wouldn’t entirely surprise him. Gerard’s the one who wants the wedding to be perfect. He might see the rain as a hindrance to that perfect wedding.

Gerard’s always liked the rain, honestly. He’s always enjoyed the warm cozy feeling of being inside on a rainy day, always loved the sound of rain against a window, or against an umbrella. He likes the slap of a foot on wet ground, loves the smell that the rain brings to the air, incomparable and mesmerizing beyond perfection. He even likes to be out in it, to just let go of all of his inhibitions and be a little kid playing in the rain.

It’s just rain, so what, they’ll get wet. It’s just rain, what matters is that Frank is there with him, and if Frank’s by his side, it doesn’t matter. Nothing matters besides Frank.

“Absolutely,” Gerard responds.

The two of them, hand in hand, walk out of the relative safety of the house and into the storm outside. Only a second or two passes before they’re already drenched, the rain seems to be coming down even harder now that the two of them are out in it.

Gerard smiles though. He loves Frank so much. He loves Frank so much that he misses Frank when he’s in his arms. He longs for Frank when they’re side by side. Even now, with his hand in Frank’s, knowing that the two of them are about to come closer than they’ve ever been before, it’ll never be enough. He loves Frank so much that he wishes there were a way for their two souls to become tied together, for their lives to become one. For them to be inseparable, by anything in the entire world. Not rain, not shine, not anything.

Gerard loves Frank with the furor of a bonfire, with the potency of all the stars in the sky. With the power of the rain falling from the sky, and with the infinity that is the universe and everything.

Soaked to the bone, clothes heavy with the weight of wet clothes and the added harshness of the violent rain above, Gerard knows. Gerard knows that nothing could stop the love he feels for Frank.

Gerard knows, that no matter how awful Valentine’s Days always strive to be, this one is not only the best one ever, but it’s the best day ever too.

“Best Valentine’s Day ever,” Gerard says. Until next year.

---

February 14, 2017

“Worst Valentine’s Day ever,” Gerard says, his voice too weak and broken from crying to even have any tone to it. His voice is just flat, somber, fragmented, not even worth the effort of pretending anything. He’s so far beyond depressed, beyond hopeless, that the charade of even being sad is too much.

“Amen,” Frank says, with his voice a similar tone, or lack thereof.

The two of them sit across from each other at the dining room table of their too small, too cramped, too lonely little apartment.

Of all the bad things that have happened on this day over the years, this is easily the worst. Pink eye, food poisoning, broken bones, being arrested, dropping his phone in a sink, none of that, none of it even slightly compares to today.

“What are we going to do?” Frank whimpers. He’s kind of cried out at this point. He doesn’t have anything left in him to actually cry anymore. He’s probably dehydrated. Possibly just so depressed that tears aren’t worth the effort.

“I don’t know,” Gerard says, equally as drained.

“We were so close,” Frank says, softly, and the sadness in his voice is tangible. You can touch it, feel it, deep in your bones.

Frank can count on one hand the times in his life where he’s genuinely felt the floor disappear underneath him. The time when he got rejected from the college he wanted to go to, the time Gerard and him broke up, and then today. He’s never felt quite this broken up before, though. Never really understood this level of pain.

“Why did…?” Gerard starts, drifting off. “What did we do? What’s wrong with us?”

“I don’t know,” Frank shakes his head, because he’s still wracking his brain for the answers to those same questions. He thought they did everything right. They have done everything right. They’ve done everything within their power to do, but for some reason it just wasn’t good enough.

They’d been picked though. A month ago, they’d been picked. Out of dozens of other couples, from all around the country, they’d been picked. The mother chose them specifically. But, now, here they are, sitting alone in their little apartment, which suddenly feels too big.

“We did everything we could,” Frank says, trying to reassure Gerard, because now he feels as though it’s all on him to make sure that Gerard is okay. He feels like the world is ending himself, but if Gerard feels that way too then something has been fucked up, because Gerard deserves more from this world than anything that he could ever give him. He can’t even give him this.

“But it wasn’t good enough,” Gerard says, voice just shattering by the end of his sentence, until he puts his head in his arms and starts openly weeping against the table, and Frank hates it. He hates everything about the world right now. He wants it all to just go away, he wants the pain to stop, he especially wants Gerard’s pain to stop.

“I know,” Frank nods, and he stands up, walks around the table, and then sits down again right beside Gerard so that he can grab him and pull him into him. If Frank feels like the world is falling down, he doesn’t know what Gerard must be feeling right now.

Frank wants a kid more than almost anything. More than he wants money, more than he wants a nice house, more even than he wants Gerard. Somehow, though, Gerard manages to want it more. When Gerard feels, he feels with all of his heart. He wants and craves and needs and that’s something Frank’s known about him for most of the time they’ve known each other. When he and Gerard had met, Gerard had wanted him with all of what he’s got to give, on only the first day they met. Gerard fully and utterly feels everything that he feels, with every corner, crevice, and surface of his body, and mind, he feels

Right now what he feels is desperation. They were supposed to have made it all right. They got lucky, Frank knows that, it usually takes years to adopt a kid, but they were supposed to have been halfway there. The mother chose them, read their interview specifically, and she chose them.

But now, here they sit, with all their hope gone. She decided that they just weren’t right. They had been the right pick for all of a month, had what felt like the world promised to them on a silver platter, but now it’s just gone. It’s just been taken away from them, and there’s nothing either of them can actually do about it.

“Maybe, she decided to keep it,” Frank says, trying to come up with any excuse at all that might spare him from the pain of rejection that he feels. “Maybe that’s it. Maybe she wanted to keep the baby.”

“I don’t care why,” Gerard says, “I just know that we were gonna be parents, and now we’re just not. It’s just all over.”

“It’s not over,” Frank says, shaking his head, even though Gerard’s face is buried into Frank’s shoulder so he can’t actually see the gesture. Frank knows that, really, it’s not actually the end of the world. It’s one baby. It’s one baby, who they’re not going to have, and yeah that sucks. Even though the baby isn’t even born yet, and they don’t know anything about it, not even the gender, it still feels like they’ve lost someone. It feels like they’ve lost a close family member. Because even if the baby ends up healthy and happy, they were supposed to have that baby, and now they just won’t. They’ll never have that baby, even though it should’ve been there’s, it was supposed to be theirs. It feels like a death, even though it’s not.

Still though, it’s not like the agency has fired them for any reason. They passed all the screening, the invasive interviews, the audit into their every waking moment. They’re still on the list, but they’re on a list with about a thousand other couples who all want the same things they do.

“Why does it feel like it is?” Gerard asks, his voice muffled into Frank’s shirt. Frank strokes through Gerard’s hair, trying to get him to calm down, even though he knows that Gerard is on the edge of a panic attack. He probably deserves to have that much, though, it’s only been an hour and so far, Gerard’s mostly just been numb. He’s cried a lot, but nothing that could really be called a panic attack. Frank might just join him over the edge any minute now.

Frank is better at pretending to have composure, but he doesn’t actually have any. He’s actually a tornado of emotions on the inside. Inside, it’s like the world is over and now he’s just trying to get by, endure through the end. It’s like he’s a survivor in some kind of apocalypse and this is the dystopia that he’s read books about.

“This is just a beginning, Gerard,” Frank says, not believing his own words. “Just the beginning. Not the end.”

“I just thought-” but he interrupts himself with one of those sobs that you can tell he didn’t plan, it just came out of him with no direction. It rips through him, breaks Frank’s heart on its way.

“It’s okay, Gerard,” Frank says, rubbing small circles into his back. When Gerard is upset, it tears through Frank like a dagger through his chest. It’s honestly the worst thing in the world when his husband is upset. Frank loves Gerard so much, all he wants is to make him happy, all the time. Never have him be sad. He always dreads this time of the year for this exact reason. He’s always worried that something is going to come up and make today awful, and yet again, it’s done just that.

Gerard’s crying softly into Frank’s shoulder when his phone starts ringing, a far too loud and cheerful song that is inappropriate in their current setting. He wants whoever it is to go away and leave the two of them in peace, but he knows that he should answer it anyway.

Frank picks up the phone, worried, because he doesn’t know what other inconceivably painful thing could be waiting for him on the other end of that phone. Maybe a family member has died, that wouldn’t entirely surprise him, considering the day they’re having. Maybe the agency has decided to fire them completely, which would really suck, and it would easily be the worst thing that could happen at this point. Frank hopes his imagination is just running wild, though. Whatever’s on the other side of that phone, it’s sure to make his day worse than it already is. If that’s even possible.

“Hello, I’m looking for a Frank Iero,” the voice of a kind woman says when Frank picks up, but he doesn’t let that get to him. He’s sure that whatever she has to say will still be awful, he doesn’t want to kid himself into thinking it’ll be anything but.

“Speaking,” Frank says, with his voice doing little to disguise the pain that’s there.

“Yes, I have some good news for you, considering your adoption,” she replies.

“What?” Frank asks. Maybe she doesn’t know that the mother decided against them. Maybe she’s just got the wrong information. Frank doesn’t have it within him to believe that this call is anything other than that. It’s only an hour after they got the earth-shattering call, a short enough time that her computer must just not have gotten synced with the new information at hand. That’s probably what this is.

“Your adoption,” she says. “I’m very sorry to hear about the fact that your candidacy fell through, but I’ve got some news that’ll hopefully be able to make up for that.”

“What’s that?” Frank croaks, he’s not willing to let himself believe in anything until he actually hears the words.

“Another expecting mother has chosen you as her first candidates,” the woman responds. “She wants to meet you, to make sure you’re the right fit, but your prospects are good.”

“You’re kidding,” Frank says, and he feels the tears that he’s been putting off for an hour start to come to his eyes with a flash. He can’t even hold them back, it just feels like a dam has broken, and now the water is rushing out.

“I’m not,” the woman replies, with a kind laugh. “I wanted to tell you as soon as I could, due to the unfortunate situation.”

Gerard’s ears perk up when he can sense the change in tone of Frank’s voice. He sounds almost… happy? Gleeful even? Gerard doesn’t know what could possibly trigger such a reaction on this, the worst day of both of their lives, but whatever it is, he lifts his head up to look at Frank who’s still on the phone, and is actually crying now.

Gerard hasn’t seen Frank cry very many times. Gerard cries during anything, movies, TV shows, books. Hell, he’ll cry during a song. But Frank is a much more contained person, the only time Gerard’s ever seen him cry was during the Shawshank Redemption and he might have been crying when they got married but it was pouring down rain so Gerard can’t be sure. He sniffled a few times, but he also got a cold a week after so it could’ve just been that.

“What is it?” Gerard asks, looking at Frank critically, trying to extract the answer just by the look on his face, but it’s indecipherable. Frank sounds hopeful, but he’s crying so Gerard doesn’t know if he actually is. Gerard isn’t sure if Frank is more of a happy crier or a sad crier, he just doesn’t cry enough for Gerard to get any sort of reading out of him.

Frank stays on the phone for another few minutes, takes a break to whisper to Gerard for him to get him a pen and paper, and then he starts scribbling things hurriedly on the notepad, so fast and messy that Gerard honestly can’t even read it.

Gerard feels something like hope, but it’s a painful hope that he knows he shouldn’t allow himself to feel. He knows that whatever he hopes is far too idealistic to be the truth. He hopes that Frank’s being told that they’ve already been picked by another mother, but to allow himself to think that is too painful, because he knows how far he’s going to plummet when he finds out that it’s not the case.

It’ll be like having everything he owns taken away from him. Gerard can’t have that happen to him twice in one day, he doesn’t know how he’d ever be able to live through it. He doesn’t know if he could live through it.

Finally, though, Gerard hears the pleasantries that one would associate with the end of a conversation, and at long last, after Gerard’s been kept on the precipice of anticipation, Frank hangs up.

Frank wipes away some of the tears that had been falling from his eyes, which had made his vision so blurry that he’d thought he’d gone blind for a minute or two there. He also makes an unflattering sniffling sound, but Gerard doesn’t care, because he needs to know what’s got that smile plastered on his face.

“Tell me,” Gerard says, more of an order, but one that Frank’s not exactly going to refuse.

“Another mom wants us,” Frank says, his voice almost too weak for Gerard to even make words out of it. It just sounds like a mumble for a second until Gerard starts replaying it, looping the sounds in his head.

At first, it doesn’t quite click. His ears receive the information, but his brain doesn’t quite process it. He just stays still, sits in his seat, feeling unsure of what he’s just heard, until about a minute goes by and he starts to actually let the words sink in.

Then, Gerard feels the same thing that Frank feels. The tears that Gerard had been doing a fairly good job at keeping at bay, they burst through. They burst through like tsunami.

“Really?” Gerard asks, even though he knows that there’s no way in hell Frank would make something like that up. Not when he feels this shitty. Frank would definitely not fake that for him, that’s for sure.

“Yeah,” Frank says, understanding Gerard’s disbelief, because it’s the same thing he’s feeling. He’s kind of in shock. While he’s still a little bit devastated that the kid they were supposed to have isn’t going to be theirs, he’s also relieved that they’re not going back on the waiting list for another six months. That they’re actually going to have a kid, and soon at that.

“We’re gonna be parents?” Gerard asks, voice weak, with nothing stopping the tears from being exposing from his eyes.

“We’re going to be parents,” Frank confirms, with a thankful smile on his face.

Gerard is still for all of a moment before his arms are wrapping around Frank so forcefully that it’d be painful if Frank gave a damn. He doesn’t though, so he understands why Gerard’s grip is so intense, it’s the only way to translate the words that he can’t find. Frank hugs him back, just as tightly.

Looking back at all the bad Valentine’s Days Gerard’s had, he can’t help but to think, maybe they were all just to compensate for this one, and last one, and the year before that one. Maybe Valentine’s day isn’t even that bad after all. Three of the best days of Gerard’s life have all happened on this day, four when you count the day he met Frank, and five when you count the time he found Frank again. Valentine’s Day has a knack for actually being the best day of the year. So much so that it makes up for all the shitty ones.

“Best Valentine’s day ever,” Frank says, sensing the words on the tip of Gerard’s tongue, but beating him to it. Gerard buries his face into Frank’s shoulder, the warmth of him all that Gerard needs to remind him that this is real and it’s actually happening. The best news he’s ever heard, and it’s all real, it’s not just a dream. They’re going to have a kid. He’s going to be a dad. They’re both going to be dads.

“It really is.”

Notes

I guess I should dedicate this fic to Coral again, who was just my girlfriend when I published Long Live the Lonely Hearts, but is my wife now. Coral, you're a fucking moron, and I guess I love you.