Cigarettes.

Fucking cigarettes was all he had left, and it wasn't enough: it wasn't never enough, but he was used to it, he reckoned so, anyway, but Gerard Way was nothing more than a liar at best, and himself was most certainly no exception.

He never made exceptions for anybody: especially not Frank Iero.

But he did. Past tense.

Past fucking tense and that was the way it was going to stay, and the cold dusk winter air was nothing but a reminder of that. It was fucking raining too - of course, it was fucking raining.

And in fact it seemed an awful lot like God had woken up on the sadistic side of the bed today, but then again, Gerard couldn't exactly talk: that was the only side he had.

The other was empty and yet full at the same time: vacant but with no vacancy, and only due to the fact that he found himself far too stubborn to simply accept the fact that such a vacancy had already been filled, and of course, by a certain Frank Iero who'd spoke the three fucking words that had ruined everything.

Because Gerard Way was doing absolutely fine, and this whole fuck thing was absolutely fucking fine, until Frank said those three little words and Gerard had to force away the urge to say them back.

He was heartless, he was cruel, he was a fucking vampire, and really, he was anything and everything but a romantic, and he'd known that forever and ever, and yet Frank fucking Iero had to come and fuck the whole world up.

Gerard thought he was in control here - not just of Frank, but of himself and his emotions too, but it had become rather evident recently that everything was nothing more than under Frank's control, because without the nineteen year old with a too big smile and too much sarcasm, Gerard would have never even found those three deadly words crossing his head, let alone begging at his lips: begging at escape and the chance of verbalisation.

But he couldn't.

Even if he really wanted to, he never could.

It'd destroy everything he ever had, everything that Frank Iero had destroyed already, and it seemed he was already in low supply of things he could hold onto that the nineteen year old hadn't already taken from him.

His sanity, for starters.

Frank was never supposed to be important; he was just supposed to be cute and easy to manipulate, and well, fuck. He was just a fuck, and he was just an obedient little whore who got entirely too attached, and it just seemed that only now had it become apparent that such levels of attachment were now nothing but mutual.

And maybe he should have just said 'I love you' back and said to hell with it: his whole existence brought a rather ironically literal meaning to 'living hell' and therefore, surely things couldn't get any worse, but things could, and things loved to play on such a cliché, because they always did, and he knew that like hell itself by now.

Gerard pulled his attention away from his thoughts and over onto the horizon and the dark fog that lay over it: suffocation, almost, but separation, more like. Up on this hill, up away amidst the gravestones and things that lay beneath them was the little pocket of hell in which Gerard Way belonged: underneath the mausoleum and in the caverns below, yet he couldn't help but find the truth to be in the fact that his heart was somewhere in the village below: a house, large and with far too many rooms for the three occupants, but with only one room that at all mattered - Frank's.

But of course, he didn't have a heart: he was a vampire and it was just a stone cold, empty chest, and this all meant nothing, but everything at the same time - he was just empty on the inside. A whole lot of shrivelled up, dead nothing: a walking corpse, to be unpleasant about it.

But at the very least, he could smoke as many damn cigarettes as he wanted to and live, forever, without fear of suffering any consequences.

But what he couldn't do was fall in love with Frank Iero, because like that, he couldn't, and wouldn't live forever. Immortality meant everything, and perhaps beside the sodden packet of cigarettes, it was all he had left.

Because with a death, broken, shrivelled and never-beating, never-loving heart like his, there was a certain consequence to promising something you couldn't give: love. Love from an empty heart was nothing, and yet consequence rose to fix the dilemma and the challenge, in the form of a beating heart, and even a 'cure'.

Some went that route, but not many: it hurt, and it was like birth and death entwined, it was every ailment ever suffered and every fucking injury all at once: it all backfired, but it was death and birth entwined in the 'I love you too'.

There's a reason you shouldn't make promises that you can't keep, and especially of such a heartfelt nature, because although Gerard found himself tempted, it just wasn't a sacrifice he was prepared to make: the sacrifice of loving some and saying it and meaning it was all it took to tear this comfortable, cushioned state of immortality apart.

Because there was nothing quite so human, so pure and so mortal, than the promise that came with loving someone and whole-heartedly meaning it, and although Frank was special and Frank meant so much more than a rainy evening and a packet of sodden cigarettes that took too long and too much of Gerard's patience for him to light, his immortality was not something that he was prepared to promise away to Frank Iero, and especially not upon three fucking little words.

Even Mikey, even Mikey hadn't promised that to Ray, and fuck, there was no way around just how strongly they felt for one another, even if Mikey had in the end, been the one to kill him, but if Mikey didn't waste it all away on the person he cared the most for, then there was no way in hell that Gerard Way was going to let those three little deadly words, especially on someone like Frank Iero.

But, he knew he'd been so close, and his head had been spinning like hell, and now he'd almost ran out of cigarettes and he had no stupidly cute nineteen year to fuck away all his problems with.

Maybe he just needed to distract himself with someone else: someone he could never love, but someone he could fuck like it was all he had left.

Because Gerard had been awfully careless, and now, he was doing nothing but paying the price for such reckless behaviour.

-

Frank Iero was an idiot, and an idiot that fell all too easily for the worst fucking people in the whole world, and an idiot that couldn't even keep promises to himself as he found himself calling Alex again, and again, and again.

Because he was needy.

Gerard was fucking right: he was needy.

He was a needy little faggot who needed some asshole to fuck him and call him pretty, and now he'd fucked that all up with Gerard, and of nothing other than his own accord, with no hope for either apology or acceptance, he found himself sat on his bed all night and dialling the same number every single time.

But of course, it wasn't the same without Alex actually being there with him, and perhaps that was exactly what had him jaded enough to actually consider this anything more than the worst idea he'd ever had.

At the very least, Gerard actually cared for him: sometimes, anyway, Frank wouldn't push it. Gerard was an apathetic vampire and there was just no fucking way around that fact, but there were moments, even if they were brief and in abundance, there were moments when Gerard seemed like far less of an asshole than he made himself out to be, but of course, Frank had fucked that all up now.

And he was left with nothing but ringtones and dial tones and an empty bedroom as a reminder of that.

Alex was some form of clarity, though, at the very least, and just the sound of his voice filled up that needy part inside him and made him okay again.

Okay was the very best he was going to get right now and there was simply no other way of looking at it.

It was just rather bleak and kind of empty, and Alex's familiar, asshole voice was the only thing that made that empty and that nothing, into the something he needed.

"Alex?" His voice broke the silence dial tones faded away into: anxious - nervous, yet full of anticipation.

"Frankie!" He seemed to exclaim down the phoneline: drunk, Frank could tell, but it didn't matter unless he made it matter, and he was going to so this would all be absolutely fucking fine.

He promised himself, because he had absolutely fucking nothing else left.

"I've missed you." Frank found himself admitting as his mind lost control of his tongue and his heart spoke without fear or even thought of consequences. "I've really fucking missed you and I can't help myself from thinking about you and calling you. I'm lonely, Alex. Too fucking lonely."

Alex chuckled a little: distorted and crackled down the phoneline. "I've missed you forever, Frankie, but you never fucking missed me since now and that fucking hurts, so are you ever going to repay me? Are you going to stitch that wound or are you just going to leave it to bleed?"

"I-I-I... I don't know how to fix it. I miss you, Alex, I really do." Frank stumbled over his words as he mind struggled to catch up with his heart and the multitude of bombshells it had taken the liberty of dropping, but it was far too late: they were at detonating point already.

"Prove it - fucking prove it. Tell that boyfriend of yours that you're done: don't just be a coward about it and actually make him sorry and make this mean something." Alex was wrong and right at the same time and Frank was just jaded enough to take his word as gospel, almost as if Alex was a reincarnation of Christ, and in fact, nothing short of the antichrist himself.

"I can't speak to him: he hates me, and I fucked up, surely he should be the one to dump me, and fuck, Alex, I can't do this - I just need you-" Frank choked up, forcing himself away from tears and the new kind of hell they'd bring.

"You don't need me." Alex found himself fucking laughing at that, and really, Frank hadn't a single as to how he was supposed to even fathom reacting. "You're the world's biggest fucking slut - you just need someone to fuck you hard and kiss you afterwards. And since you fucked that all up with him, you've come crawling back to me, and really, I saw this coming long ago."

"No, Alex- it's, it's- n-not like that." And if Frank said he was crying at this point, then really, he'd be nothing more than a filthy fucking liar.

"Of course it is, Iero." And again, Alex could do nothing but laughter, even as he heard the sobs down the phoneline, and really, it was no mystery as to what or who had caused them. "But I don't mind, you're my best friend and my favourite whore - that's forever. But, I won't let you just come crawling back to me without a way of proving it, so fucking sort shit out with this asshole who's been fucking you the past few months."

"He's not as good as you." Frank muttered out promises and words that meant nothing: a mess that served as nothing more than a waste of space and a needy beggar's plead.

"I know - I don't need someone like you to tell me that." Alex scoffed, and Frank just thought it best not to ask just what he meant by that, because if he knew anything, it was that looking into things and fucking caring wasn't at all worthwhile.

He'd lost everything, and at this point, Alex was the only person he had left: the only comforting voice, and for that, for him, Frank would do anything and everything.

"Okay. I'll tell him."

-

Mikey sat in the record store, once again, but after the certain discovery and idea that Bob had planted in his mind, he really hadn't left the place: his mind now hard-wired into the belief that Ray Toro and whatever could possibly be left of him was far, far more important than himself, and this mess of a life he had here.

But, it was ridiculous in the fact that now Mikey had even the slightest clue as to what was going on, Ray seemed adamant upon denying all evidence of his existence - either that or he'd been wrong and Mikey was actually going crazy.

And if he wasn't crazy already, he most certainly would be by the end of this, by the time he actually made it out of the record store, even if it was only in his own coffin.

Of course due to this immortality bullshit he was stuck with, that may as well take a while: Ray could hide himself forever, but Mikey could wait out forever too.

Time was irrelevant when his eyes fixated upon the smashed picture frame for hours: he hadn't allowed anyone to clean up the only mess that at all alluded to Ray Toro's continued existence - spectral or not, it didn't matter to Mikey anymore.

Everything was just a case of the after effects of the storm that was Ray Toro, Mikey being the debris left behind, and the debris that people had tried to help clear, but Mikey was just as stubborn as Ray was, and continued to sit in the abandoned and almost eerie record store for days on end.

Perhaps people had even just given up all hope at this point, perhaps even deemed him insane, and perhaps, Mikey didn't even care. Gerard hadn't even dropped by to laugh at him, which of course only worked to highlight the fact that something was most certainly not okay with his older brother, but Mikey's continued ignorance towards that fact did nothing but highlight the fact that maybe he just didn't care.

If Gerard was allowed to be an apathetic bitchy asshole without question, then it was definitely Mikey's time to shine as the cold-hearted vampire he really was.

Because this was the first time in his whole life, well, death, to be technical about it, but whatever, this was the first time that Mikey had actually felt dead, cold, and fucking empty inside.

Alone.

And as the record store remained abandoned, that was just how he'd stay.

And perhaps he was entirely too content with the way things were.

"Mikey?" He jolted out his thoughts within milliseconds: gaze darting around the room in hopes for any sign of Ray - perhaps, finally, he'd accepted Mikey's apology and shown himself to the vampire sat in his record store for days on end. Either that or he was just so damn tired of this that he was going to fucking kick him out - dead or not.

But as Mikey's eyes met the brown ones of none other than Pete fucking Wentz, his non-existent, stone-cold heart sunk the depth of a thousand oceans.

And really, that could not have been doing wonders for Pete's self-esteem.

"Are you okay in here? I mean, like, Bert said that you've been in here for days? Is that true?" Pete exclaimed, playing utterly naive when it came to over-exaggerated, antisocial body language on Mikey's part, and sitting down beside the vampire, and Mikey tried entirely too hard not to think about how he was pretty much certain that Ray had sat in that exact spot only a few days ago.

"I guess." Mikey sighed out, swallowing every insult he wanted to hurl at the eighteen year old boy, who had really, just got himself caught up in a mess that he didn't deserve.

Mikey tried to think about how Pete didn't even know that Mikey had intended to kill him and had indeed come awfully close, and failed miserably, because, sure, Pete was annoying as fuck, but there was no question about the fact that he just didn't deserve this.

Nobody deserved this, but in a town such as this, it really didn't seem that mortality and ethics came into play all that much.

"That's really not healthy." Pete told Mikey what had already knew, and the vampire found himself forcing back a multitude of snide comments, that perhaps, really, maybe he just shouldn't have made an effort with.

"Neither is cake and people still fucking eat it." Mikey sighed out, loosing his patience as he lost the silence and company of his own thoughts, or perhaps, really, just the bubble of privacy that his own insanity brought.

"Yes, but I really doubt that you're planning on eating your dead boyfriend." Pete almost fucking smiled to himself at that, and Mikey was within fucking millimetres of slapping him right across the face, despite the fact that he didn't deserve it, and mainly because Pete was really, really fucking annoying. "But you are a fucking vampire so-"

"Fucking shut up, will you?" Needless to say, Mikey finally lost it, and surprisingly, Pete shut up for a good few minutes after that, but of course there was still no fucking hope in the chance that he might actually leave Mikey alone to his own thoughts and the insanity they brought.

"You could also eat his ass." And that was what six minutes of silence in Pete Wentz's head brought to the subject.

Mikey just fucking glared. "Just cut it - he's fucking dead." He doubted his words would have any effect at all, as he really doubted that 'respect' was a word in Pete Wentz's vocabulary.

"Technically, so are you." Pete didn't fucking stop, but he didn't fucking smile this time, so maybe, just maybe, that was an improvement, even if only a tiny one. "So technically, I'm the only alive person in this room, like with you and Ray-"

"What?" Mikey suddenly became entirely too interested in Pete Wentz and the insanity strung from his lips.

"Have you not noticed? The mirror - look, he's there, he's behind us right now... watching."

And for once, even if it was only just once, Pete was right.

-

Hey guys:) look at all the fucking plot in this chapter like wow actual plot development I'm so proud of myself what even is this:') Anyway, votes and comments are always appreciated and I love you all<3