The Chasing of Moons

A Grandmother's Laundry Room

It took Frank all of negative six seconds to convince Brendon to go next door for coffee. It's almost like their friendship hangs in the balance of the other buying them caffeinated beverages. Which is probably true.

Brendon is practically dragging him to the place, and Frank only barely has enough time to make sure that Gerard is following him before he's shoved into line. Brendon orders something with too many shots of whatever syrup, and he knows that it will probably taste like liquid sugar, which Frank is honestly not proud to be paying for with his own money. Surprisingly, Gerard's coffee isn't as expensive as he'd promised, because he seriously just gets himself a coffee with sugar, and Frank stares at him a little aghast because he'd expected to have to take out a mortgage on his drink.

"You said you were broke..." Gerard says, drifting off and blushing, but Frank doesn't say anything about it. Mikey tries to trick Frank into paying for him too, but Frank just flicks him in the temple which makes Gerard snort, so Frank decides he's going to have to do that again. Mikey may, and probably will him, but at least he'll go out having seen Gerard smiling.

The unfortunate thing that happens is that they all have to get a table, but it's too awkward for Frank and Gerard to get a table alone so they have to share a table which makes Frank wish Mikey would die in a freak anvil falling from the sky accident. But alas, he does not live in a Warner Brothers cartoon, so no such thing happens.

"Well," Brendon says, as a way to break the silence that surrounded them as soon as they sat down. That can mostly be attributed to the fact that they all kind of want to drown themselves in coffee, because as hipster as it is, coffee is what makes the world go round. Aside, maybe, from Hallmark greeting cards.

"Well?" Mikey asks him.

"I don't know, I was just... we can talk about wells. I mean, how about Lassie?"

Frank looks at him like he grew a second head and kicks him under the table for being an idiot. Frank did at least manage to get himself on the same side of the table as Gerard which is already further than he's gotten so far, so he's not complaining. Mikey looks rather, uncomfortable glaring at Brendon with an expression that suits what expression Brendon deserves to have made at him.

"Yeah, so," Frank says, "I'm just going to pretend that Brendon doesn't exist."

"I don't blame you at all," Brendon says, slurping loudly at his cup full of a gooey mass of sugar and the dead dreams of children.

Mikey nods, looks away from him and at Frank who looks back at him wondering what thoughts he's reading from Frank's mind. He's probably trying to find something juicy that he can use against him some day, and Frank shrugs, because Mikey could probably find out all of his secrets anyway, even if it weren't for the fact that he is most definitely a mind reader.

Frank can almost feel himself receiving transmitted thoughts from Mikey, like they're having a completely telepathic conversation.

Somehow, Mikey manages to extract enough to form the statement, "so you told Gerard about the concert then."

"How do you do that?" Frank asks.

"He's actually supposed to be in the X-Men, but he doesn't play well with others so they never sent him his invitation."

"That explains so much," Frank says.

"Yeah," Mikey says, "I'm a mind reader, with a killer Gaydar, and Gerard has the ability to tell if people are left handed or right handed just by looking at them."

"I have a 70% chance of being right."

"Without studying them?" Brendon asks.

"Well it wouldn't be a superpower if I had to watch them first," Gerard snaps, like Brendon is taking away from his imaginary superpower.