Unholyverse

~Part 26~

"Ray's a good guy," Gerard said and then he got a weird look on his face and blurted out, "I want to thank you."

Frank looked at him in surprise. Gerard was sitting turned towards him, his hands clasped in his lap. He wrinkled his nose when Frank didn't say anything, and went on, "Look...I've been having a lot of...a lot of really confusing feelings, about the Church, and about my place in it, and-" he broke off suddenly, shaking his head. "You know what, I don't need to lay this on you, forget it."

"No, no." Frank sat up and caught Gerard's sleeve, tugging until Gerard met his eyes again. "You can tell me. I wanna know."

Gerard shook his head and looked at the ceiling for a minute. "Before - before all this went down, I was wondering whether I'd made the right choice, you know? I mean - I had to be away from Mikey, from everyone I care about a lot of the time, and I wasn't really helping anyone, I felt like an insurance claims adjuster, going around telling people their miracles weren't real." Gerard's voice was low and bitter, and then he looked up at Frank and smiled, sudden and soft and real; it was like having a front-row seat to a mood swing, and Frank felt kind of dizzy with it. Gerard took a deep breath and continued, "And then I met you."

Frank swallowed; his throat was dry. "Oh."

"And you made me see that I was in completely the wrong place." Gerard was warming to his subject now, touching Frank's arm insistently and leaning forward, eyes intent. "I don't have to serve God that way, Frank, I don't know how I could have gotten it so wrong - well, except that if I'd been on a different path I might never have met you, and then we wouldn't be having this conversation, so I guess it was something I had to go through in order to realize-"

"Gerard," Frank prompted him, wiping his hands surreptitiously on his pants because he could feel his hands sweating - his heart was beating so hard he wondered if Gerard could see his pulse in his throat. "What do you mean, you were in the wrong place?"

Gerard gave him another one of those smiles that made Frank feel like reaching for his shades. "I was so unhappy before, Frankie, I felt - I felt so trapped. And now - now there's so much possibility, and it's all because of you."

Frank held his breath. "So - what's changed?"

"The Cardinal's offered me a new position," Gerard announced, grinning the whole time. "I'm going to be helping people like you. I mean, not specifically like you, because I don't know how many Lukes there are in the world, but people who're in that kind of trouble and need help. I can save lives, Frank, isn't that amazing? It'll mean more traveling, but-"

Frank couldn't hear him anymore; his ears were ringing too hard with relief that he hadn't made a complete fool out of himself by throwing himself on Gerard, and the sick, swoopy embarrassment that comes when you realize you've been a complete fucking moron, even if you're the only one who knows it. What the fuck did he think Gerard was going to say, 'Oh, I dumped God, wanna run away with me?'

He was just getting his teeth into some serious self-loathing when Gerard must have realized he'd stopped listening, because he said, "Frank?" and touched Frank's arm again.

Frank pulled his arm away in what he hoped was a casual manner, and forced a smile onto his face. "That's great, man. I'm really happy for you."

Gerard smiled back, but it was a little wavery, a little unsure. "Well, like I said, it's all down to you, really. Not that I would ever have wanted anything to happen to you, but if we hadn't met..."

"I'd be dead," Frank finished for him, tucking his hands under his knees in case they were shaking. "And you'd still be looking at toast in Maine."

"Yeah," a frown flitted briefly across Gerard's face. "Frank - you know that night we all stayed over here, and you and I...you know."

"What about it?" Frank forced his voice to stay light, forced his face to stay neutral.

Gerard hesitated, then took a breath and said in a rush, "I don't want you to think that...that I..."

"That you what?" Frank widened his eyes slightly, gave a tiny shake of the head. It was a pretty masterful I-have-no-idea-what-you're-talking-about face, if he did say so himself, and Gerard might see God's plan everywhere, but he couldn't see through that, because he relaxed and shook his head.

"Nothing, I'm just - I'm really glad you're okay."

I'm not, Frank wanted to say, but he bit his tongue and forced himself to chat with Gerard about things that didn't matter; the shop, the lawsuit, Mikey's stupid new hair that Ray came up with and Mikey loved more than anything else in the world.

"Will I see you before I leave?" Gerard asked when Frank was seeing him out. "I think Mikey wants to do something tomorrow night, if you're free."

Frank rolled his head on his shoulders like he was thinking about it, when really he was trying to get his voice under control again. "I don't know, maybe. I'll give Mikey a call when I know."

Gerard's face fell a little bit; Frank pretended not to notice. "Oh. Well...I guess I'll see you around, then."

"Guess so," Frank agreed, holding the door open.

Gerard gave him a look somewhere between sorrowful and confused, and stepped outside. "So...'bye, Frank."

"Bye," Frank replied, and let the door swing shut.

He waited until he heard Gerard's footsteps recede, then thought, what the fuck are you doing, yanked the door open again and ran down the hall, skidding into the top of the stairwell just as Gerard was about to round the first bend, half a flight down. "Wait!"

Gerard blinked up at him, surprised. "What is it?"

"Of course I'll be there tomorrow," Frank told him, the feeling of being a prize asshole sinking into the background a little when Gerard grinned up at him. "Of course I will, I don't even know what I was - I'll be there."

"Awesome," Gerard smiled. From this angle Frank could see his collar peeking out from underneath all his scarves. "So I'll see you tomorrow?"

"See you tomorrow," Frank said firmly, and ignored the way his chest ached as he watched Gerard walk down the stairs.