Wishing You Were a Ghost

Seashell Tale

It's honestly really nice as far as holidays go, and Frank manages to have fun. A wild concept considering that, generally speaking, he hates Christmas. The ease of the whole thing probably has something to do with the fact that he and Gerard were able to talk without Frank feeling like he wanted to die, but he's not planning on digging into that any time soon.

He's afraid if he digs into it that Emily is going to crawl out of his hall closet with one of her psych books to bash him over the head with it, so instead of digging, he'll just take it for what it is.

It was a good break. It was nice. He got to open presents with his friends, and his dog, and he may or may not have watched Gerard sleeping for a little while with his face bathed in the twinkle lights on the Christmas tree as he slept curled up in the armchair that used to be his favorite.

Frank had found him so many times asleep in that chair.

This time, instead of coaxing him to bed like he used to, Frank simply puts a blanket over him before laying down on the couch and snuggling his face into Lois' soft ears to stop himself from staring.

It was a good holiday. Nothing more, nothing less. It went well. That's all.

It went well enough, in fact, that he ends up texting Aspen to ask if he can invite everyone to the event they're going to. Though he does warn the group that he's not one hundred percent sure what said event is, which has everyone throwing guesses out.

Gerard's is a simple, and reasonable, "Probably just a party."

Ray guesses, "A club, maybe." Which is more than likely the right answer.

Mikey says it's an orgy.

Frank smacks him upside the head with a pillow.

They've got a week, though, which is terrible fucking news.

It's a week for Frank to sit at home with nothing to do because all his students are on winter break. He just left Mikey's place, and both James and Aspen are still out of town until the thirtieth.

For six days, Frank has to sit and think about the events of Christmas. He has to think about his talk with Gerard, and the warm expressions on his face, and the way their hands brushed in the popcorn tin, and several other times over the course of the two days they were in the apartment together. He has to think about Gerard's peaceful, sleeping face in his armchair. He has to think about Gerard's face when he opened up Frank's gift to him (nothing spectacular, just a box of those fancy colored pencils he used to use), and the way that Gerard had watched Frank when he'd received his own gift (a new capo that he doesn't actually need, a set of strings that he also doesn't need, and a box of guitar picks that he also, also doesn't need).

"I know you have like- unlimited access to stuff, but that makes you a lot harder to shop for."

Frank changed the strings on one of his acoustics the second he got home, and his old capo got magically thrown somewhere in a closet.

Six days. He sits around and wallows for six fucking days.

Okay not true. It's five days to New Year's Eve, but Frank wallows the day he gets back home too, so he's counting it as six. Then again, he really does only fully wallow for five of them, because on the last day, he spends four fucking hours trying to figure out what to wear.

Emily might kill him.

When New Year's Eve finally rolls around, it turns out to be Ray who was correct with his guess. It's a club that one of Aspen's friends owns, and it's your general, stereotypical dance club sort of place, which is fine. Not usually Frank's scene, but there are drinks and pretty decent music, and his friends are here. James even shows up, and despite all odds, Frank feels fairly relaxed for most of the night.