"Awake huh, are we pretty boy?" Gerard let a chuckle pass his lips as he gave Frank's sleeping form - currently occupying his bed, a gentle shove. The boy groaned into the pillow as a result of the impact, shaking his head firmly and turning over in the hopes of just going back to bed.

"No, Frankie, come on, you're going to get up now." Gerard shook his head, pushing his hair back from his face and sitting down, almost awkwardly beside the sleeping body, giving him another a shove - another shove Frank solely ignored. "You're going to ignore me, huh? You're going to be a naughty boy and ignore your master, are you?"

Frank, of course, sat up almost instantly at that, just a little shocked and very aroused, his eyes open wide and full of lust, dark and needing Gerard in far few clothes than he was in now. "No, master, I-I'll be good."

Gerard bit down on his bottom lip hard, because oh fuck, Frank was just so easy, so fucking obedient, and so fucking beautiful - this was all just being handed to him; he didn't even have to try. "You don't have to call me that when we're not fucking, you know, Frank. I was just teasing- well, I kind of wanted to see just how well that would work, and trust me I'm rather delighted with the results."

"What if I want to call you that, though, master?" Frank gave way to a blush as he pulled himself onto Gerard's lap, nuzzling into his black shirt clad torso, gesturing for him to remove them of such clothing related complications.

"Not in public, Frankie." He exhaled, running his fingers through Frank's hair, as Gerard came to realise that perhaps when it came to making Frank Iero his own, all the work had indeed already been done for him - how considerate was that, huh? "Not yet, anyway."

"What does that mean?" Frank asked, getting up and pulling on his shirt from the floor.

"You can borrow some of my stuff, if you want." Gerard added, stopping Frank with the shirt half lifted over his head, and totally not staring at his stretched out, exposed, and tattooed torso. "I have a few things in the closet."

"What does that mean?" Frank repeated after a few seconds of silence, which passed as Frank discarded his shirt for the second time and pulled open the closet, grabbing the first shirt he saw, and a pair of jeans, that probably would bunch on his little fucking midget legs enough for him to conceal stilts under them.

"It means that maybe I like you, Iero." Gerard paused, gasping just a little as the nineteen year old pulled the very tight pair of skinny, emphasis on the skinny, jeans on. "Maybe I like you, and maybe I like you more than I'm supposed to."

"And what does that mean?" Frank continued, smirking just a little at the gasp he heard from the boy sat on the bed, making no secret out of the fact that he was biding his time away by admiring Frank's ass. "Or are you too distracted by my ass to answer, Mr Way?"

"Fuck, don't ever fucking stop calling me that." Gerard exclaimed, getting up from the bed and slinging his arms around Frank's neck. "You're so fucking pretty, Frank, you know that? Maybe I'm not supposed to find people like you so fucking pretty."

"What do you mean by that? Boys? Guys? Because you're seriously a flaming homosexual, Gerard." Frank sighed, rolling his eyes as he turned back to face the vampire.

"Humans." He finished, leaving the two of them to just deal with the silence that followed, because really, it was far too easy to just forget about and to just ignore the complications that surrounded the two of them throughout every step they took, but things like these - the little reminders, they made it far too real, all again.

"So I'm just some little fucking secret- some fuck toy, and this is never going to be anything, and what? Do you have a real vampire boyfriend or something? How much do you fuck around? How much will hurt me? How right was everyone else - tell me, Gerard."

It was also very easy to forget just how easy things could turn so fucking sour, and just how easily something so perfect, burning bright, became too much to take, and just a mess, a pile of ashes on the floor.

"No, Frank, look, I promise you, it's not like that." Gerard let out an exasperated sigh as he made his way over to the chest of drawers, this time opening the one that didn't contain the multitude of sex toys, and instead one continuing a collection of far more personal possessions. "Maybe I'm just a little scared, you know. And maybe I was just a little too scared to admit that."

"Scared? About what?" Frank exclaimed, making his way over to join Gerard, and maybe getting just slightly disappointed with the fact that this was a different drawer that he'd opened, and that he wasn't staring with such fascination at a drawer full of dildos. "You're a vampire, Gerard!"

"I know, and that's why everything's fucked up, because maybe for us, commitment is a big thing. Fucking is just kind of a power thing, a dominance kind of thing, and actual emotions, and love - keeping people, that's just different. Because maybe I do really like you, Frank, and maybe I just don't know what to do about that."

"So Mikey and Ray, that's a big thing." Frank asked, eyes growing wide, as he came to realise just how little he did actually know about them, despite their apparent friendship.

"Yeah, I guess. I mean, Mikey's not really like the rest of us, anyway. He always seemed to care about people and how they felt just a bit more than he was supposed to, and he always seemed to care too much about my cold-heartedness- metaphorically, not literally, I mean- I..."

"So, what are we, Gerard? Where are we going? What's to become of us?" Frank asked, eyes open wide as he struggled to cope with the racing thoughts as they darted throughout his mind.

"I don't know, Iero." Gerard rolled his eyes, grabbing an item from the draw and clasping it tightly in his palm so Frank couldn't see. "I'm a vampire, not a fortune teller."

"What’s that in your hand?" Frank noticed, but not quite, and perhaps he wasn't about to give up until he got answers.

"I want to give you something." Gerard finally said, biting down upon his lip, almost as if he was scared, almost as if he wasn't quite sure, and almost as if a small part of him felt like he shouldn't do this. "It's a bracelet, nothing fancy, I mean, I just want you to know that I care."

Frank let the item fall gently into his palm; it was a black leather kind of thing, yet with an odd sort of symbol stitched into the leather in a dark, almost dried blood, day old bruise, kind of red colour. "What's that symbol thing?" Frank asked as he slipped it around his wrist: the leather instantly feeling just a little too tight, but perhaps not tight enough for the nineteen year old to actually care enough to loosen it.

"I don't know, actually. Something in Latin, probably. It's just pretty, like you." Gerard added, and to be honest, Frank was blushing far too much right now to actually care.

"Does it mean asshole? Just like you are?" Frank asked, gaining nothing but a shake of the head from Gerard, as the vampire shut the drawer and opened the door, Frank following him downstairs into the house that he was still kind of unsure as to whether they were actually trespassing in or not.

-

"Sometimes I wonder why we fucking bother with Frank, you know." Ray exhaled loudly, leaning against the counter of the record store as he came to the realisation that he hadn't actually seen Frank for days. "I haven't seem him at all - I mean, he could be dead and I don't even know- oh my god, he could be dead-"

"Ray, come on, calm down." The girl stood flicking through the half price vinyl rack commented, drawing breath as Ray froze in what was the beginning of some form of panic attack.

"Christa!" Ray exclaimed in response, shaking his head firmly, "he could be dead. Like absolutely dead."

"Ray cut it out. You do know that I'm very aware that you bribed me over here to keep you company with cheaply priced records." She shook her head as Ray continued in his crisis like state a few metres away, as she continued to browse the stock.

"No, Christa, that's just business." Ray corrected her with a roll of his eyes, calming down a little, as he turned to here. "Can you promise me that Frank isn't dead?"

"Look Ray, I'm sure he's fine-"

"Promise me." He demanded almost in a manner worthy of a toddler having a tantrum.

"Jesus, Ray! Do you like him or something- oh wait you have that secret boyfriend that I'm not suppose to know about, don't you?" She smirked a little, placing a Smiths record on the counter. "I'd like to buy this, please, Mr Toro."

Ray stood there frozen for a few moments, glancing at her with his mouth open wide and gaping, as he struggled to quite comprehend just what she said, because his vampire boyfriend was most certainly not common knowledge, that was for sure.

"Come on, Toro - I’m waiting, aren't you going to serve me- this is bad business, you know?" She winked at him, leaving Ray to almost grudgingly make his way behind the counter and sell her the record - oh what a trouble, so much effort.

"What do you know about Mikey? And how do you know it?" Ray demanded, grabbing her hand as she turned to leave and ensuring that she didn't, despite the fact that just to his request, she had indeed spent over five dollars.

"It's not really a secret anymore, if people know, well especially not a good one, is it? A secret's only a secret - when it stays that - secret." She drew breath, pulling her gaze to his hand; pushing hers down against the counter and keeping her here. "Can I have the luxury of having my hand back as well, Ray? Preferably before it goes dead and drops off from you grabbing it like that. I think only having one hand would be rather problematic, and I would be rather tempted to sue."

"Shut up, Christa." He shook his head, rolling his eyes at her, as he only released the pressure on her hand a little. "Tell me who told you about me and Mikey. People aren't supposed to know-"

"Yeah, because he's technically dead and you're alive and that's kind of fucked up to a certain level, and then again, not to mention that it's a gay relationship, and that you're having buttsex in this very shop, right under everyone's noses, but soon enough people will start to notice, and people are noticing, and people will know, and people know. I know. Wonder who else does?"

"Christa- For god's sake, just tell me. I thought we were friends, friends keep secrets, huh?" He smiled at her awkwardly, really just praying that somehow this would all fix itself and that he never have to deal with the mess that was unfolding before his very eyes.

"Your brother dumped me and broke my heart, Ray - we can never be friends. That's just not how friends work. You just happen to have my number and then only because your cellphone used to be his and you haven't quite figured out how to delete the contacts that were saved to the SD card yet - by the way, I recommend you just get a new SD card, but-"

"Who knows?" Ray screeched this time, his eyes almost glowing in anger, and perhaps Christa was just a little intimidated, but not really, because she couldn't quite the image of twelve year old Ray out of her head. "Just tell me how you know, Christa, and then you can go, and then we'll never speak again, but just tell me, please."

"Oh, but it's a secret, and maybe I actually know how to keep them." She smirked, attempting to pull away, Ray grabbing her back, leaving her to roll her eyes and pull a little piece of paper from her pocket, sliding it across the table.

Bob's business card: a 'him' scribbled on the back in definitively feminine handwriting.

Ray was absolutely fucked.

-

"Bob, this is absolutely fucking stupid, and you know that, and really, I thought you were actually the only person with an ounce of sense in this place." Bert shook his head, biting down just a little too hard on his bottom lip as he attempted to distract himself from the almost thudding throb of a headache that he pretended not to know the cause of, mostly just because it was something he'd rather not think about, and actually even forget the entire existence of if it was at all possible. He very much doubted that it at all was, though.

"Yeah, but Bert, I know it's stupid, but we can't just leave people like this, and we can't just leave them to die. We can't just condemn such a fate to the innocent." Bob shook his head as he continued, his draws of breath growing more desperate as they climbed further up the hill, Bert trailing nervously behind Bob's figure: determined and almost marching on ahead to the ultimate demise in the form of the hill the graveyard lay a top of.

Even Frank Iero knew this wasn't a place to trust or visit, and now Bob Bryar was marching up here like it was nobody's business, and in that moment, Bert began to wonder if the war had already even began, or if Bob had just smoked a little too much weed this morning or something, but the one thing that he did know, from cold, hard experience, was the fact that once Bob got an idea in his head, there really was absolutely no talking him out of it.

"Like you've never killed anyone before, Bob." Bert exhaled, shaking his head too, as he came to realise what this was bringing him to- what it was bringing them both to, what it was bringing everybody too.

"I've killed them, yes-"

"Who are you, Bob Bryar? You know what? I thought you were all about peace and equality and that you were the person I could trust here, but now you're just like the rest of them. You just want every fucking undead dead right this moment, and with very little reason for it." Bert met Bob's eyes, scowling a little at the man before him, who was now the man he no longer recognised, because this wasn't Bob, not anymore. "Who are you? Because this isn't what Bob would do."

"That all changed the moment I actually met with them, and found that they care oh so little about peace and keeping this treaty - they're worse than me, you know, and with all this blood hostage mess, what's to say that the war hasn't already begun? What's to say that they haven't already smashed that treaty to bits, huh?"

"And what's to say that you can't be the better man?" Bert shook his head, rapidly losing all faith he had in the bearded man before him. "Those blood hostages, whatever you call them, I hate this as much as you do, but they're long dead now - it's only the blood keeping them alive and if we 'rescue' them, we'll rescue them as the dead, and not the wounded."

"So, I'm just supposed to let them get away with this?" Bob asked, looking at Bert like he too, didn't quite recognise his friend anymore. "Tell me what I'm supposed to do, McCracken, if you seem to have all the answers, yeah?"

"Maybe you're supposed to just go back to protecting those who standby you, because the only thing that an official declaration of war is going to achieve is conflict on the level of absolute bloodshed. Do you want more innocents to die; do you want this town to fall to pieces? Do you want to loose children; do you want to loose mothers? Do you want to loose fathers? And do you want them to?"

"None of them actually care, they don't have feelings." Bob shook his head as he spoke, his tone growing sour, almost as if he was attempting to convince himself, more than he was Bert.

"It seems that you've never met Mikey Way." Bert met Bob's gaze: questioning, and ready to release a firestorm of insults, that only a continuation of his words could silence. "He's close with Ray, Toro, the guy who runs the record store, and despite being one of them, he's a really nice guy. I don't actually know him all that well, but he seems nice enough and Ray thinks the absolute world of him-"

"There were rumours Ray was with one of them- fuck, he can't be fucking him? Does that even work, like technically, he's dead-"

"Bob, that's really none of your business, look, can you please see some sense here?" Bert grabbed Bob's hand, an awkward, perhaps mistake, and perhaps it would have been if Bob simply chose to think nothing of it, letting Bert lead him away from the graveyard, the bearded of the two, exhaling loudly in the inner peace it seemed to bring him, seeing straight finally, and the other lost his headache like it was nothing. "Look, I want you to meet Mikey, properly. You can't go on mindlessly hating them just for the sake of one asshole, Bob-"

"Are you vampires?" The two turned around in shock at a slightly high pitched and maybe just a little pubescent voice, Bob exhaling loudly as a boy no older than eighteen, with tan skin and dark hair, clutching a wonky, unauthentic, e-bay esque stake, stood before them.

"Are you actually fucking kidding me?" Bob rolled his eyes, meeting Bert’s gaze, who was perhaps just a little bit nicer to the guy, but in no way less apprehensive. "What are you, kid? Like twelve?"

"I'm eighteen, eighteen and three ninths, actually." He added, with an 'it's my first day of middle school' smile that Bob felt an uncontrollable urge to punch right off his face. "I'm Pete, I guess you're not vampires, because I'm totally carrying like garlic in my pockets and you haven't erupted into flames in the shape of crucifixes yet, so-"

"Kid, that's not even how it fucking works- wait, actually who the fuck are you, and what the fuck are you doing here?" Bob asked, eyes narrowing as Pete grew all the more suspicious.

"I'm Pete Wentz, and I'm like a vampire slayer, I want to kill some vampire, kick some fanged ass, you know, what about you? Are you my precious civilians to protect? Tell me do you have sisters?" Pete almost pouted at the blank expressions he was presented with. "Brothers? Brothers are fine too? I haven't got time to be fussy about gender when I'm kicking all this vampire butt-"

"Have you ever actually slain a vampire?" Bert interrupted, eyebrows almost fixed halfway up his forehead as a result of his confrontation with Pete.

"Well, uhh... no, but I'm soon to change that-"

"Yeah, it's probably best if you actually fuck off and don't because, kid you really don't know what you're getting yourself into here." Bob sighed, wondering just how long he'd have to talk for before Pete fucked off entirely.

"And who are you?" Pete asked, apprehensive all of a sudden.

"Bob Bryar, town vampire slayer, general hero, keeper of the peace. I run things around here - for both sides, really." Pete stared stunned into silence at what information he'd just been all so casually presented with. "This town is at war, kiddo, even if it doesn't want to admit it, I tell you, this a battle you don't want to get caught in the crossfire of."

"I've never actually met a real vampire." Pete admitted, all wide-eyed and gaping mouthed as he continued in his struggle to comprehend just what he'd been told. "Like, I've met people who have and things, but never, face to face, in the flesh, I-"

"Well, lucky for you, Pete, we're going to see one now, aren't we, Bob?" Bert butted in, knowing that bringing Pete along would be absolutely the perfect way to piss off Bob.

"Really?" Pete exclaimed, eyes popping out of their sockets like an over excited six year old.

"Huh?" Bob grunted, glaring at Bert.

"Yeah, we are, his name's Mikey."

-

Hey guys:) I hope you're all well, today I took a selfies with milk so that's an insight into the kind of thing I do with my life, anyways I hope you enjoyed this chapter and if you did, I'd appreciate it if you could leave a comment and / or a vote, and of course, I love you all<3