The World Is Ugly (But You're Beautiful to Me) | Completed

Chapter 6

"I DON'T CARE!"

Frank was at his desk but still could hear Gerard's shout from the other room. It's been a cranky morning, for both of them, but while Frank had to suck it up and do his job, Gerard's been shouting down the phone all morning, even before Frank made it down. He hadn't even left for his studio as usual and stayed in his office all morning. Frank didn't know what was worse, the silent grumpy Gerard or the shouting angry one.

Crash

Frank was still replying to the second chunk of emails in Gerard's inbox, when he heard the sound coming from Gerard's office. He was opening the door before he could think.

"Gerard?" He called but got nothing back and when he couldn't see the man anywhere, he panicked and turned around the desk.

Gerard was kneeling on the floor with his head down, and all Frank could see of him was his hair, but he was moving and so Frank let out a breath. He didn't know what he thought, but an image of Gerard lying unconscious on the floor has definitely crossed his mind. When he moved closer, he found the man picking up pieces of what appeared to be a coffee mug that Frank's always seen on his desk, or clutched in his hands wherever he went.

Frank kneeled by him; all he could see was Gerard's hands shaking around the pieces and he couldn't really help himself. Fearing he might cut himself, Frank took the pieces out of his hands, but Gerard  wouldn't let him.

"Here, let me," he said, as gently as he could, when Gerard wouldn't stop picking the pieces up with shaking hands. He looked up at Frank for a moment like he just realized he was there, then finally gave up and dropped the pieces, setting with one knee up and leaning his back on the side of his desk.

When Frank looked up after gathering the largest pieces of the mug and throwing them in the nearby trashcan, Gerard was leaning his head on the desk now and covering half of his face with his hand, eyes closed. His hair was covering most of his face and, for a moment, Frank wanted to reach over and push his hair away from his eyes. He looked utterly miserable.

"Gerard, what happened?" Frank asked quietly when Gerard wouldn't even move.

It took a second, but finally Gerard opened his eyes and looked at Frank, dropping his hand. Frank could swear he saw tears in there, "the mug fell," he answered plainly, avoiding looking Frank in the eye.

They both knew Frank didn't mean the mug, but Frank bit his lip not to call Gerard on his lie. "Okay," he whispered, attempting to stand up.

A hand stopped him, and when he looked back, he could see Gerard's firm grip on his wrist. He looked up at the other man's face that was much closer now, "thank you," he whispered.

Frank couldn't trust his voice to reply if he wanted to, so he just nodded.

...

After the whole broken mug on the floor thing, Frank couldn't get that much done, he wanted to work to distract himself from going into what exactly happened in there and overanalyze everything, but he couldn't let himself, not now at least. So, nothing could describe how happy he was when he saw Gerard coming out of his office to loom over his desk.

At first, Frank thought that he was going to just tell him to move some paintings or something before going into his studio, but the next words that came out of Gerard's mouth rendered Frank speechless.

"We're going to a wedding," Gerard said casually.

"What?" The question came out a lot dumber than Frank thought.

Gerard ran his fingers in his hair and looked away, "a friend of mine is getting married and we have to be there."

Wait, wait. We? and what wedding exactly? Frank pretty much wrote Gerard's schedule for the next three months, absolutely no wedding dates were there.