"Gerard." Mikey's voice was low and harsh, almost a growl, and Gerard jumped at the sob, knowing the presence that had joined them instantly and hating him from the very word go, but for Frank it was all confusion and whirlwind, and a smell on Gerard that he couldn't quite trace, yet couldn't quite help but fall for.

"Michael, dear. I think you were interrupting us, and I'm sure your absence would be well appreciated." Gerard stepped forward to his brother, coy smile worn upon his lips like he knew nothing else, and Mikey fought the urge not to punch his brother in the face, of course only with the knowledge, that Gerard would, punch him back harder.

"Frank, come on, stay away from him, he's-" Mikey gritted his teeth, raking his gaze over his brother, shirtless, dark hair flailing everywhere, and scowling as one word just couldn't make his way past his lips.

"I'm what? Trouble? A monster? A whore? What will it be this time? An asshole? Dangerous?" Gerard only scoffed taking far too much advantage over Mikey's adamancy in silence, and how Ray had ensured that today he just couldn't continue and insult his brother, he just needed Frank, and he just needed to be safe so they could go, and then Gerard could forget all about the nineteen year old, but nothing was quite that simple and sometimes Mikey wished he was stupid so he could convince himself of such things.

"Frank, just please, let's go." Mikey gestured awkwardly to the nineteen year old almost sheltered and cowering behind Gerard, who stood tall and proud in front of him, almost as if he owned the boy.

"He's staying with me, Michael, I thought we made that clear." Gerard's pale face parted to allow a smirk to take the prime spot upon his face, as he knew very well that by now, he'd won, and his brother was nothing more than hopeless in his attempts in chasing after him and picking up the pieces.

"Don't fucking 'Michael' me." Mikey snapped: all at once, and like a glass dropped to the floor and shattered, the pieces went everywhere. "Leave him alone - we've spoken about this. Just, anyone, anyone but him. It sounds heartless but Gerard, just this once, please."

Gerard's smirk only transformed into a grin, taking over his face with a simple answer to provide for his brother. "No."

"Ger-"

It was then that Frank popped in, his vocal chords cleansed, and somehow finally having found the capability to speak instead of just looking all wide eyes, scared and intimidated between Mikey and Gerard. "What's going on? Seriously. No one ever fucking tells me anything. What is fucking going on?"

Gerard just laughed: a full blown laugh - half giggle, half witchy cackle, and Mikey scowled like hell, yet neither of the brothers found it within them to provide poor Frank with an answer.

"Fine. Mikey, I'm not coming with you until you explain." Frank took a stand with Gerard, and perhaps entirely the wrong stand, because it was at that moment that Gerard knew that Frank was his and there really was no turning back.

"Your silence is fine with me, Michael. I'd just prefer it if you didn't stare; Frank and I have personal matters to attend to." Gerard's words came off with a smirk almost as a sort of add on effect, and it only of course added to how much Mikey wanted to punch him in the face.

Mikey didn't though, and perhaps he even regretted it, but with the silent looks shared around and the hatred passed around like free alcohol at a party, perhaps not even a broken bone could break the tension.

"Gerard." Mikey posed his words perhaps as a warning but really by now they'd gone long past warnings and even second chances, but Mikey still couldn't admit that he was still too scared of his brother to really do anything about the way the dark haired boy stood in front of Frank.

And of course, the possibility that Ray was even right, and the situation in which he might even have to consider admitting that.

"Frank, come on, please." Perhaps that was just a last ditch effort and perhaps it would have worked but Frank was far too stubborn of his distrust of everyone right now, because this abundance of answers was really driving him crazy.

"What's going on?” Frank was adamant as he stood pressed up against the wall and closer to and perhaps even more trusting of Gerard than Mikey and for entirely all the wrong reasons.

"Look, Ray's going to tell you if you please just-" This was most definitely Mikey's last, last ditch effort and the pleading tone in his voice accompanied with those doe eyes only served as amusement for Gerard's sadistic tendencies.

"Michael, please. This is just getting pathetic now, come on, leave us be, brother dear." Frank flushed at the word 'brother', nervous glances transferred like handshakes as his gaze flashed between Gerard and Mikey, confusion only growing and bubbling away with no hope of release or escape.

"Frank can make his own decisions." Mikey stood firm, almost naive in the belief that the nineteen year old would follow him like some sort of puppy dog with no real reason or need for explanation, and perhaps just blindly wishing that Frank would be clever enough not to listen to Gerard.

"Yeah," Gerard let a grin slip his lips: all pointed white teeth and mad eyes, shining like headlights in the shadows that fell like dust over the corners. "He can."

Silence. A never ending silence, the silence of melancholy, and the silence of unresolved tensions; the silence was everything, yet nothing was to be said. Silence - just silence.

Gazes spoke in the place of words with both Gerard and Mikey's gazes fixated almost scrutinisingly upon Frank, the nineteen year old's cheeks burning up as his gaze hit the floor and his ears filled with a terrible ringing, as he considered his choices, and the decision that would ruin everything.

Frank knew that if he were going to fail, he would have to fail spectacularly though.

"I'm going to stay with Gerard." 

The silence was deafening at first, almost multiplied by ten, until Mikey was all feet loud against the floor: a beeline to his brother, fists clenched and intentions nothing more than horrific, and things only went downhill from there; Gerard pinning him up against the wall all wide eyes bright and hateful, teeth bared, fingers gripped tight into Mikey's shirt, not caring about the marks they'd make, and hate, hate of the highest calibre, and the silence not gone, lingering, cowering in the corner, taking the words of Frank Iero to break it.

"Stop-" Frank's words served no purpose as Gerard pushed Mikey back against the wall, stepping away as his brother almost fell in shock, and the older of the two just fell back away into the shadows, retreating deeper into the darkness until he simply disappeared completely, and perhaps it would have even gone unnoticed if Frank wasn't staring all wide eyed and tongue tied.

Yet it was only then that Mikey came to realise that Gerard hadn't simply surrendered, letting Mikey win just once, he'd simply left Mikey the responsibility of the explanation and a fired up Frank in the hands of the spindly legged, overwhelmed younger brother who had only wanted to keep his boyfriend happy.

It was rather clever really, because Gerard had painted Mikey as the liar and the faker: the villain, almost, and with the look in Frank's eyes and the decision he tried to make, this wasn't a white flag of surrender Gerard was waving before retreating, this was victory, a smug, irritatingly clever, recognition of it.

Gerard always won.

-

Bob Bryar walked around the streets like he owned the whole fucking town, and in a way, he did.

Bob knew how things worked around here and h knew the way people ticked, which made for getting his way a particularly easy feat to accomplish, yet he never quite needed to cheat people all that often, not recently anyway; the town had been quiet for a while now, and perhaps, dare he say it, Bob reckoned it had been quite for all too long.

It had been long enough for this to be an extended period of silence that creeped you out enough to long for the screaming back, and not that Bob wanted to say he did, he really kind of did. Bob had nothing to do in silence, other than sort out the rogue asshole bothering Ray Toro and his little music shop, but that was nothing like he was trained to do.

He could take out hordes, and he could end wars; arrogance may be overstepping rationality here, but Bob even reckoned he could take out the whole problem in this town, but there was one rule that Bob Bryar lived by, and that was that he never started wars, he only ended them, because as horrific and animalistic as the creatures that hid away in the shadows were, they still lived and they still breathed and he didn't want to justify genocide. With the amount of shit he's already lived through, he doubted that his conscience could even take it.

He was only protecting Ray, though, so that was justified, and if it came down to it then perhaps he'd slay the thing, but that was only if it sprang itself upon them, if it almost brought the punishment upon itself. He would not go looking for it; he would not go looking for trouble.

He was just looking out for Ray and solidifying another alliance, because when this whole place turned to shit and the shadows stepped out into the light, and the residents came to be aware of all that really lurked in them, then they'd have chaos: true, utter chaos, and that was when Bob wanted to be assured of his safety and power, and stupid little favours for people seemed to do the trick rather nicely.

However, that did leave him do favours for the shadowlurkers too, and although less menial and tedious than the tasks set by the living, they most certainly were in no way pleasant, and tending to be all the more of a violent nature.

The shadowlurker community was falling apart by itself: corruption and chaos thriving in the shadow without scrutiny or prevention, and often Bob found himself as the keeper of the peace, desperately trying to hold things together, and perhaps even live through it as well, because perhaps the only thing stopping full scale war was the unspoken treaty of protection and peace that had been made almost hundreds of years ago now.

He even doubted if many knew of it today, only following the instinct set in stone, and watching what he ensured happened to the rogues and troublemakers, but war would soon break some day, because one little asshole was going to get trigger happy, one little asshole was going to take one of the other as their own, and let the shadows loose in daylight.

And that was a mess Bob did not want to clean up after - the blood would really be everywhere.

Perhaps the worst thing, even, would be perhaps that this little asshole may even be ignorant to what they were about to do, capturing one of the enemy, for perhaps just a trophy or the bragging rights, and not the chaos and conflict that an unbroken treaty would let loose.

That was the only reason he let them feed upon hunters. The eager type of course, not just the clever, casual slayers, but the sadistic, naive, little pricks, that thought such a thing to be a hobby: the slay and run kind of type, or even worse, the capture and torture kind of type, because they were quite literally going to get the whole town killed.

Hunters were generally quite easy to take care of though, as they tended to be not the brightest bunch, and were relatively easy to scare off, despite their job description, which was even irony Bob found himself able to laugh at.

It was the shadowlurkers that he had to worry about: the rogues that couldn't quite be stopped, and took humans as their own keep or slave, or whatever fucked up thing they fancied, and of course, the rogues tended to be awfully good at hiding; their own community weren't particularly fond of them either, as they were really nothing but notorious for causing trouble.

It was just what kind of trouble one particular one might cause that might bring hell to the whole town, and bloodshed, bloodshed beyond imagine, and in turn some cleaning up that Bob Bryar would not be doing.

"You look like shit." The words almost caught him off guard in the darkness: the speaker familiar from the very first word, and a smile falling onto Bob's lips as he shook his head in friendly disbelief. "You are a piece of shit, though, so I guess it's accurate. How's saving the entire fucking world going, Bryar?"

"Not as easy as you would think, McCracken." Bert let his lips fall into an almost sleazy grin at Bob's response, stepping out of the shadows and into Bob's stride as they walked, small talk or even explanation unnecessary between them. "How's getting laid going?"

"Admittedly, harder than I first thought-" Bob broke into a sneer at that, Bert flashing his 'I hate you' eyes without need for explanation. "Because everyone here's a fucking senior citizen, and it's not my fault, shut up."

"Can you not foretell the future and who you'll fuck?" Bob teased, grabbing a cigarette from his jacket pocket and lighting it, ignoring Bert's unspoken request for one and roll of eyes that came with the silence, Bert forking out and lighting a cigarette of his own.

"Nah, of course not." He exhaled with the smoke, ignoring the several minute gap in conversation as if it didn't even exist. "I'm like Alice from Twilight; I can only predict the future when it's relevant to the plot."

"You’re not even trying to make me believe that you actually have these visions and shit today, what's wrong with you?" Bob shrugged off his words in a jokey manner, his genuine concern for Bert hidden well under layers of sarcasm and almost ironic skepticism.

"They don't make sense today: my head still spins but all I see is darkness and shadows, and it just hurts, like I usually see something, even if it's fucking useless, it's something, but this is just nothing, and perhaps I miss it a little."

"What do you want me to do about it? Buy you some new fucking tea leaves?" Bob laughed it off with that weird belly laugh that never ceased to make everything awkward and everyone including Bob himself feel terribly uncomfortable.

"Not how it works, asshole. Just happens; I just see things, and they just happen to, well... happen." Perhaps that wasn't the best way to word it but Bert reckoned he didn't really care.

"Tell me if you see anything about this kid, Frank, though. Ray's worried about him, and when Ray's worried, you know he's not going to leave me alone until that shit's sorted." Bob didn't exactly trust Bert's visions, but he reckoned they were better than nothing, and he wasn't quite stupid enough to dismiss everything in favour of skepticism, anyway, he lived here - how could he?

"Frank Iero?"

"You've seen something?" Bob stopped all at once, all excitement and wide eyes, praying to himself that the news wouldn't be bad; because that really wasn't something he was all too keen upon explaining to Ray.

"No, I've just met him about. He passed out the other day actually and I took him back to my place- Bob, shut up, it wasn't a pedophilic thing and I didn't sleep with him. We met before at the church, actually, you know-"

"What the fuck were you doing at church?" Bob snorted, rolling his eyes at the thought.

"Passing time, talking to Jesus and shit, you know - hate to admit it but the place has good vibes-"

"What? So you're getting your feng shui on over there?"

"It was you that asked me about the kid in the first place, Bryar." Bert rolled his eyes, exhaling a puff of cigarette smoke as the two of them approached Bert's house. "You wanna come in for a drink or something?"

"I've got business, unfortunately. Or fortunately, considering how much milk you put in coffee." Bob rolled his eyes, holding his cigarette between his lips before rummaging his hands deep inside his pockets: searching for something, and to no avail. "Fucking thieving assholes."

"What?"

"My ballpoint pen: the good one with the clip top that stayed down, you know-"

"I thought it was something important then, asshole." Bert rolled his eyes, unlocking his front door, giving Bob a wave and a playful puff of cigarette before disappearing inside.

Bob sighed to himself, mourning the loss of his favourite ballpoint pen, ready to make his way back to Ray's and chance an unbearable explanation, until Bert practically fell back out his front door: wide eyes, limbs sprawling everywhere, yet mainly in Bob's direction in a beeline for the overwhelmed man stood before him.

"Fuck..." He drew the word out, clutching out Bob's shoulders in a terribly homosexual manner, yet Bob felt more creeped out than aroused so it was all good. "I saw... I saw.... I had- I saw... him, Iero, I... he's... not good, Bob, not good-"

"For fuck's sake, what do you mean?" Bob snapped, pushing Bert forward back into his house as he reckoned that perhaps for whatever this was he would indeed have to brave the horrors of Bert McCracken's overly milky coffee.

"I had another vision." Bert exclaimed, finally sat down in a chair, leaving Bob to lock the door behind them in protection from axe murderers and other things less easy to joke about in such a town. 

"Yeah, I got that from the face that looked like a squirrel had just taken you up the ass and given you rabies." Bob rolled his eyes, putting the kettle on before sitting down beside the slightly traumatised and still freakily wide eyed Bert McCracken.

"There's one of them, and he's got dark hair and a trenchcoat and he's with Frank- well, not with, he's watching him, he's stalking him... hunting, but he's not biting, he's almost, he's... waiting, for something. I don't understand what or why, but he's waiting."

"Do you have any fucking idea regarding the time frame of this?" Bob, of course, took what was a long shot, because Bert never did: these visions could range from the next few minutes to next year.

"I can't put it on a timeline, it's just everywhere, it's like it's not even fixed, or real, but it is- god, fuck, he's covering his tracks - the thing, he, I don't know how, but he knows I've seen him, and fuck, is he coming after me now, Bob?"

"With the silver on your door not a chance he's getting in, don't worry, but I'm sticking around for sure, because it seems like we've got a fish stupid enough to take the bait." The kettle boiled with a click and their eyes met in a knowing silence. "Fuck, I'm not doing it - I lost my pen, and you didn't care."

"But-"

"My ballpoint pen."

"Fine."

-

"Frank, please-" Mikey's words were of course to no avail as the nineteen year old walked off like Mikey was his mother and his words were of any reason whatsoever. "Let me explain-"

"Go on, then, because you don't pretty much fucking anything but that, haven't you?" Frank rolled his eyes, walking away from Mikey and into the shadows, which in spite of his ignorance was still probably the worst decision he could ever make.

"You'll hate me!" Mikey exclaimed, wishing Ray was here so he could at least pin some of the blame on him.

"Guess fucking what? I already do."

"You won't believe me if I tell you, though, will you?" Mikey pleaded, begged, even, hating to say it aloud, hating to admit what he was, what Gerard was, perhaps out of shame, or perhaps out of fear, or even the laughter that he was sure Frank would follow it up with.

"Fucking try me." Frank snapped, standing still in the alleyway, their eyes locking, and Frank choosing what could possibly be the most pretentious manner in which he could assure Mikey that he hated him in.

"The only reason you weren't told from like the word 'go' was Ray, you know. I wanted to tell you; you needed to know, but Ray had all this savouring your innocence bullshit going on, and I didn't want to fuck with that, considering that you were his friend, and- and... now this is just hard, because you're angry, and you'll jump to conclusions and you won't understand."

"Should've thought about that before pissing me off then." Came Frank's voice: no remorse, no care, no feelings, and thankfully Mikey had no heart for him to break.

"Can we just talk about this back at the shop where Ray can back me up, please?" Mikey knew this wouldn't get anywhere at all, but if anything, it bought him some time before the inevitability of him being punched in the face reared its ugly head.

"How about this?" Frank rolled his eyes at Mikey's almost expectantly hopeful gaze. "No."

"Fine, you know what? You know what, Frank? Gerard and I are fucking brothers and you know what we are, Frank? Do you know, do you fucking want to know?"

"Get to the goddamn point-"

"We're fucking vampires, Frank, are you fucking happy, huh?"

And for the first time, Frank was utterly silent.

"He's right, you know." And there came the voice that broke the silence as Gerard seemed to step right out of the darkness: eyes glowing, fangs bared as he smirked at Frank's wide eyes and dropped jaw. "Close your mouth though, Frank, or I'll be awfully tempted to put those lips to a good use-"

"Gerard-"

"Fuck off back to your boyfriend, Michael, see if he'll give you a blowjob, huh, keep those lips from complaining?" And for once, Mikey did as he was told, more so for fear of being forced to witness his brother fuck Frank's mouth, even if that was a stupid decision, he could only hope that Frank was freaked out enough to be pissed at Gerard too.

"That's.... that's... just..." Frank drew the words from his lips as he stood in shock as Mikey disappeared into the shadows, turning his gaze to Gerard with an almost intrigued fourth grader kind of expression painted on.

"I don't sparkle though, unfortunately."

"Wait... wait, what the fuck? Wait, that thing about human blood..." Frank's eyes widened as he began to pick up the pieces.

"Yeah, guess that's kind of awkward now, huh?"

Frank could only stare, almost rooted to the spot, his eyes locked upon Gerard's as he found himself still unable to quite believe it.

It couldn’t be true? Surely?

Common sense.... then again, common sense was just about the last thing that applied in this town, and apparently, vampires did.

-

Heeeeyy guys:) How you doing? Hope you liked this chapter and shit, yeah I'd appreciate your votes and comments yo stop me I love you all you're great same <3