Oh no, I finally did it. I really wrote out a whole outline for my Frank/Charley TL5Y AU (granted, I did it in chronological order so I could make more sense of the plot as I was putting it together, if I ever legitimately write this as a fic, I'll do it in the order the show does). I am truly in too deep now.
Here's how it goes: Frank and Charley meet in their early 20s in NYC and, because it's a modern AU, are completely and openly in love with each other. They're both bisexual, Frank with a preference towards girls and Charley with a preference towards guys. Frank reads a couple of Charley's plays and falls hard, and he starts talking to Charley about turning one of his plays into a musical and writing songs with him and also going out on a date some time and Charley totally falls back when he hears Frank play for the first time and how passionate he is about music. Mary is probably in this too, but as an offstage character whom we sometimes see Frank and Charley interacting with because a) the format of the original L5Y and b) Mary deserves better than to get sucked into all of this drama again. Anyways, this is the Shiksa Goddess / Goodbye Until Tomorrow equivalent.
Their show's coming along pretty well for a while, then Frank gets kinda sidetracked because he's gotten a pretty good deal with Joe and Gussie and The Blob and everything to help them write this bigger, flashier musical (with lyrics from Charley), who's feeling pretty downcast because his independent projects, like his one-act, have not really been going anywhere. But Frank pulls some strings and gets Charley this really good job somewhere else in the city where he can produce one of his other shows with a good team to back him up. A little while after that, they get married and have their The Next Ten Minutes thing and it is beautiful and everyone cries. After getting married, the show Frank and Charley been working on with Gussie and co. opens on Broadway, where it becomes a smash hit! Soon after the opening, Charley goes off to work on his show and, while the experience is kinda miserable in a lot of ways, his show’s coming along pretty well and he’s getting a lot of good buzz from people, especially considering having just finished writing a hit musical score with his brilliant, talented, and successful husband! Things still seem good!
Unfortunately, there is a bad side to Frank’s newfound success. For one thing, with the show he and Charley wrote, Frank was kinda given most of the credit and also most of the attention. Charley isn’t jealous of Frank’s success like Cathy was with Jamie though, because Charley’s actually really good at what he does and his work has been slowly getting recognized by people and even if it wasn’t, at least he still has his integrity. The problem is that Frank is so busy now with all of these new business deals and stuff that he doesn’t have enough time to work on the show with Charley that they really wanted to write together, especially since Frank’s travelling so much and Charley’s still in NYC and Frank’s having all these meetings and shit and also has not been making any music at all in a while and Charley feels really hurt and disappointed in him.
Also, lots of hot girls (and probably a lot of hot gay guys too) have been throwing themselves at Frank and he’s been enjoying the attention a lot, which really sets Charley off. The distance and resentment and lack of communication between the two of them lead to everything falling apart and Frank proves Charley’s paranoias correct and sleeps with Gussie or Meg or whoever and Charley has a huge blow up at Frank the next time they see each other and Frank writes the freaking I Could Never Rescue You letter and leaves him and Charley reads the letter the next morning and realizes that it’s really all over and everything hurts.
Yes, this works perfectly.