The Majesty of Choice

Fate

"I cannot believe you said all that!" Patrick says, as Gerard hurries him away from the crowd. The last thing he needs is to be anywhere near the Prince. After hearing his own words out of the guys mouth for an hour, he really can't bear himself, and wants to be alone. Also, he wants to make sure that he is nowhere near the Prince. He doesn't want the guy to see him after he keptstaring at him the whole goddamn time. Gerard was sure that those eyes were going to burn a whole straight through him.

"I know," Gerard says. "I have a big mouth."

"You said that to the Prince!"

"Don't remind me," Gerard says, sure he will forever be a startling shade of bright pink.

"He was totally into it though. You just happened to mouth off the one person in the kingdom who likes people yelling at him."

"I did not yell," Gerard says, walking almost too fast for Patrick to keep up. He's got shorter legs than Gerard, and especially when Gerard is in a hurry, Patrick is starting to feel the height difference.

"Slow down," Patrick says, and Gerard, groaning, complies. He doesn't have a choice though. "What is up with you?"

"I don't want him to have a chance to try to find me," Gerard says, "he kept staring at me. Did you see that! That was weird. I don't like it, I don't like people paying attention to me like that. I mean I can accept infamy, infamy is fine, but when someone keeps looking at me like that, I don't like that."

"You like it, I know you do, you just don't know how to accept that so you're trying to convince yourself that you don't like the attention."

"I don't like anything about him," Gerard says, "I don't like anything to do with him."

"Except his face."

"Right. Wait what? No!"

"You just admitted to it," Patrick laughs.

"Only because you tricked me."

"I may have, but you still meant it."

"What kind of person do you think I am? You've known me for ten years, Patrick, why on earth do you think I'm like... that."

"That?" Patrick asks.

"That."

"What does 'that' mean?"

"I don't know," Gerard says, "I just know that I'm not it. I'm not like it. And I also know that you need to get your mind away from this idea that I don't dislike the Prince. I do, okay? That's just how it is. I don't understand why you don't get that."

"Sometimes, Gerard, other people know what's going on better than the actual person, because when it's your situation, you don't have as good a vantage point."

"How do you mean?"

"Well, Gerard, you're clueless to your own thoughts. You don't know all that much about yourself," Patrick responds.

"You don't know me as well as you think you do."

Patrick rolls his eyes, and looks around at the quiet of the world around them now that they're away from the crowd of people. Gerard at least managed to achieve getting away from Frank. He'll be gone to some other part of the kingdom soon, so Gerard doesn't really have to worry about him. He's not sure if that's a good thing or not. He knows that he should feel glad, but he kind of feels guilty.

"Did you listen to half of the stuff he said though?" Patrick asks finally. "He seemed so genuine. He really took to heart what you said to him."

"He was guilt tripping me," Gerard says.