Gerard was seven when he'd met his uncle for the first time.

It was some sort of grandiose occasion that his mother had hyped up to an extreme, and he hated the itchy suit he'd been made to wear.

It was ridiculous; he was seven, but still it was important and he couldn't quite figure out why.

He'd sat there colouring in with red and green crayons that he'd found on the coffee table, paying little attention to the speech his mother was making, and Mikey, a few years younger than Gerard, was crying somewhere in the corner, only to be taken into the kitchen by a cousin Gerard didn't quite know the name of.

As his mother finished talking and sat back down and the family began to eat, the aforementioned uncle came and sat down beside Gerard; he was a tall, skinny man with lanky limbs, and Mikey had ended up looking an awful lot like him, but that was besides the point, and it was the glimmer in green eyes that had really had captured Gerard's attention.

He'd asked Gerard why he was colouring when his mother was speaking; he'd spoken to Gerard like it was a genuine question and like he was an equal adult and not a slightly rude seven year old.

Gerard had told him that he was drawing because he didn't know what was going on. Gerard had told his uncle about the words that he didn't know the meaning of and the itchy suits and the dinner with no meaning and the way Mikey wouldn't stop crying.

And Gerard's uncle had smiled a little at him before explaining that a cousin that Gerard still hadn't heard of was getting married, and Gerard had nodded whilst the uncle sat there for a while, watching as Gerard continued to draw.

Eventually, the uncle had asked Gerard why he didn't ask what was going on if he didn't understand, and why he'd simply just chosen to distance himself from matters, of course, that wasn't exactly how he'd phrased it for a seven year old, but it was along those lines.

Gerard had stopped colouring at that point, sitting up straighter in his chair and turning to face his uncle with a perplexed look on his face, and explained that if he didn't know what to do he would find things out for himself.

Of course, slightly amused by the answer he'd received, Gerard's uncle pursued in his search for answer, and Gerard had explained that he didn't trust adults because if he couldn't understand what they were saying, how could he possibly understand or trust their explanation.

Gerard's uncle had sat there for a moment, bewildered, before telling seven year old Gerard Way that he had a point, but had reassured him that one day, years in the future he would indeed understand adults and the way they thought and why they did things, and that he would in fact be of a similar mindset himself.

Gerard had been repulsed by the idea and told his uncle that he never would understand, but his uncle just smiled in that way adults do when kids saying something cute and vaguely amusing.

However, come twenty one whole years later, Gerard still didn't understand a thing; he'd simply gone from holding a crayon in his hands, to squeezing his index finger around the trigger of a gun - ignoring his mother, shooting his ex-boyfriend; they were all the same thing, after all, weren't they?

They weren't, because he was supposed to have grown up by now, but Gerard was still scared and trembling, feeling twenty one years younger than he really was, because he'd gone past the point where a sorry could quite cut it.

Pete's eyes grew wide as he grabbed Frank, and leaned his weight upon him; the two stumbling back out the front door as Pete shot Gerard the worst glare he'd ever witnessed, and the two people remaining in the living room didn't utter another word until Pete's car set off out of the driveway.

Bert was speechless, perhaps even having not expected Gerard's actions as much as Gerard himself had, because in his mind, he was still seven, still colouring, and Bert was the uncle he still couldn't quite recall the name of.

This felt like an ending point of sorts; this was the end of the road, this was the freefall, and Gerard wasn't free at all, just falling.

"I hope you don't ending up shooting me." Bert added after a few minutes of silence had passed, attempting to cover the fear and anxiety in his voice with poorly executed humour.

Gerard bit his lip, his gaze fixated upon the blood stain on the carpet that would be impossible to get out; it was a permanent reminder, a second one perhaps for the mess Gerard had made, and he would have to live with the grave he'd dug himself, or well, the grave he'd dug Frank perhaps.

"I think it'd be best if you didn't have the gun anymore." Bert exhaled sharply, taking the pistol from Gerard's lose grip on it; turning the safety back on, and stuffing it back into a draw, before following Gerard's gaze to the stain on the carpet and cursing aloud.

Gerard turned to face his boyfriend: all wide eyes, and thunderous heartbeat. "I've killed him."

Bert paused, stuck on how to make Gerard better again, because there was no easy answer; there was no solution, because this was a hole six feet deep, and there was no ladder to climb out with. "Not necessarily."

Gerard wasn't convinced, and Bert wasn't either, despite the fact that he'd been the one to utter the words in the first place.

"Bullet wounds don't always kill people- if it's not a vital organ, and you can stop the bleeding you-"

"He never told me how Mikey died... he never told me what happened to Mikey- do you think Mikey was shot?" Gerard changed the subject of conversation within seconds, and with the enraged, half-dead look in his eyes, Bert didn't dare question him.

"No," Bert shook his head, reaching his hand out to meet Gerard's, "no one in the fucking world would ever want to shoot Mikey."

"You've never even met him." Gerard raised his eyebrows at Bert, his hands shaking a little as he spoke.

"If he's at all related to you, he has to have that special, beautiful vibe you have too, and no one could dare fuck with that." Bert promised him, holding his hand tight in his, only for the two to jump apart as Bert's cellphone vibrated in his pocket, and he retrieved it, the contact name reading 'Pete'.

-

Brendon and Ryan have this kind of thing, and it's blaringly obvious, and even harder to avoid, yet somehow, they still do, yet somehow the two are sat on the balcony of Brendon's apartment; Brendon drinking wine, and Ryan drinking milk, because he made some stupid bet about surviving a week without alcohol with a friend of his, and well, the only non alcoholic beverage Brendon really had on hand, was of course, milk.

"Milk isn't bad, is it?" Brendon watched as Ryan gulped the cool, pale white, dairy liquid down his throat; his lips widening to take the milk in a manner almost like the widening of ass cheeks.

Ryan finished his milk, placing the cup by his feet and turning to Brendon with a milky grin (like seriously, the milk had done that weird thing where it stays on your face after you drank it, like milk, seriously, what the fuck is up with that?). "I do love my milk, you know?"

"No, I wasn't that aware actually." Brendon confessed, the vast expanse of his forehead turning a milky white colour in embarrassment, because Brendon was so emo he got paler when he was embarrassed.

"Well, Brendon, did you know that per kilogram of milk there are four twenty calories?" Ryan asked, reciting handy, calcium rich nuggets of information like he'd just googled 'milk facts', but he totally hadn't because Ryan Ross was a milk expert. "So technically, a kilo of milk is equal to one weed?"

"One weed?" Brendon raised his eyebrows, personally offending the separate, conscious entity that was his forehead as he did so, because it didn't appreciate eyebrows invading its personal space.

"Yes, any weed, like a dandelion or a marijuana." Ryan paused, making a mental note to perhaps become as knowledgeable about weed as he was about milk so he could avoid further embarrassment.

"Who measures milk in kilograms?" Brendon asked the question that was obviously on everyone's mind at this point. 

Google, apparently, but that was besides the point.

Ryan looked perplexed for a moment, before springing back to a calcium enriched life with more milky anecdotes. "Milk would not be frothy without its protein content."

"I thought I was speaking to a cute dude and not Siri or something..." Brendon trailed off, pulling his iPhone out of his pocket and speaking to Siri because, yes, Brendon had a life. "Siri, who measures milk in kilograms?"

And Siri, being, you know, so helpful and high tech, misunderstood Brendon and responded to the question 'Siri, who marries men on Kilimanjaro?', and with a rather perplexing, "I'm sorry, I don't know what you mean by 'who marries men on Kilimanjaro, big dick daddy."

"You got Siri to call you 'big dick daddy'?" Ryan exclaimed, almost with the level of shock for someone who hadn't just told him a couple of handy milk enriched facts.

"Fuck off, like you got Siri to call you anything less ridiculous." And Brendon's forehead was getting extremely agitated right then because his eyebrows were fucking overworking themselves there.

"Milk baby sixty nine." Ryan didn't even fucking stutter, because goddamn, he knew he was milk baby sixty nine, and he was fucking proud of it.

"What the fuck?" Brendon exclaimed like someone who didn't ask their iPhone to call them 'big dick daddy'.

"I just really love milk." Ryan smiled to himself, gazing at the empty glass of milk, and imagining the beautiful, aesthetically pleasing pale white tones of the milky liquid that had once filled it.

"Do you have a milk kink or something?" And oh golly gosh darn it, Brendon did not know what he was getting himself into right there.

Ryan only smiled, but it was a milky smile nevertheless.

"Do you have a daddy kink or something, big dick daddy?" Ryan turned the calcium enriched tables with a question that had Brendon blushing the colour of pink milk.

"Milk baby sixty nine."

"Big dick daddy."

"A milk kink is totally worse than a daddy kink, like okay, maybe I like being called daddy, fucking don't hold it against me, milk baby sixty nine, because at least I don't like being-... having... milk... what the fuck even is a milk kink?"

Brendon reached for his iPhone again, perhaps considering asking Siri, but soon deciding that he really didn't want that on his search history.

"Well..." Ryan let out a sigh, his milky breath released into the air, and adding forty two calories per one hundred grams, making the air they were breathing so much more fattening. "Let me tell you a story."

"What kind of story?" Big dick daddy narrowed his eyes, his corneas a milky white.

"Let me set the scene, it was the twentieth of April, four twenty, and I was kneeling in bathtub, a towel under my knees, and another under my hands. I was a bit drunk, and my friend was like, 'hey Ryan, I dare you to let me put milk in your ass', and so at first, I was like no dude, fuck off, no homo, no homogenised milk, and so he went and bought some standardised milk specially, and I was like, okay, dude that's some dedication, and I was like fuck it, put the milk in my ass, so I got on my knees in the bathtub and he put the milk in my ass..."

"So... you... can you even have sex without having milk in your ass?" Brendon asked, because this was truly an important question to him, for scientific reasons, though, not homosexual ones, of course.

"Of course, Brendon, don't be so stupid." Ryan rolled his eyes, licking the milk from his lips in an oddly seductive gesture.

"Well, I'm sorry, because, fuck you, Ryan-"

"Milk baby sixty nine." Ryan corrected him, waggling his eyebrows in a particularly sexual arousing manner.

"Fuck you, milk baby sixty nine." Brendon repeated, looking just a little like he wanted to shoot himself, or milk up Ryan's ass.

"You know you want to, big milk daddy-"

"Big dick daddy." Brendon shook his head, "gosh, Ryan, can't you get anything right?"

"Stop kink shaming, you ass goblin-"

"Ass goblin?" Brendon exclaimed, having some seriously weird mental images, because okay, milk kink, but a goblin kink?

"Yes, you're an ass goblin, because you love me so much that you're so far up my ass that you live in it like a goblin in a cave or a tunnel or something."

"In your ass, wouldn't the goblin drown in the milk?"

"Well, let's just say that it's a good thing that I don't know any lactose intolerant goblins."

-

Frank had been fifteen when he'd first got fucked in the ass.

It wasn't a particularly spectacular thing to think of as he lay on the backseat of Pete Wentz's car, his jacket pressed around the bullet hole as makeshift bandages, as he tried his best not to bleed out and die, right then and right there.

But Frank was a prostitute: this who he was, and all he'd ever be, and he couldn't even imagine that age fifteen.

He couldn't even imagine what dying might feel like, what the backseat of a gang leader's car might feel like, what being shot by the guy you loved felt like: this was heartbeat, a shot through the heart in the most literal sense.

But of course, Gerard's aim was shoddy and the bullet had ended up more so in his thigh than in his heart, and that was definitely for the better, because at least like this he had perhaps these extra few minutes on the line between life and death, as Pete sped across town, his destination unknown, but irrelevant to Frank.

Because Frank had been fifteen, and he'd had stupid hair with red streaks and he'd looked ridiculous, and he'd been about four feet tall, and still, there was this cute guy with blonde hair who gave him cigarettes called Scott- or was it Anthony? It didn't matter, not really, but that time did.

Because Frank's friend didn't show up, and Frank and Scott/Anthony were stood outside Scott/Anthony's house in the rain, and Frank was indiscreet and staring at him the whole time, and the guy was older, and braver than him, and somehow within five minutes, he'd found himself being fucked against that guy's mattress.

Frank's friend never did turn up.

But Frank and Scott/Anthony never spoke again after that.

It didn't matter much, because Frank had forgotten all about him by the next week, but things could never be like that with Gerard.

Gerard was everything, and Frank almost wished he'd never met the guy, because then perhaps he could just carry on being fucked, just carry on living a mundane life, but it was too late, and Pete's mouth was moving, but no words were coming out.

"Frank- fuck... can you hear me?" He was practically screaming at this point, and Frank's ears seemed to pop with such vigour that his whole body jolted a little as they did so, and fuck, that wasn't doing his chances of bleeding out and dying any favours at all.

"I... I... I'm gonna die, Pete." Frank sighed out, his eyes fixated upon the back window, watching as the skyline faded into nothingness as his vision gradually began to blur.

"No- no you're not. Too many fucking people are dying on me, Frankie, and I'm not- I'm not going to let that happen to you- I... Mikey... Mikey... fuck, Mikey, that was my fault... I-..."

"What?" Frank exclaimed, turning his head a little to meet Pete's gaze in the front mirror.

"Fuck." Pete cursed, regretting having ever said anything, but it was too late now; both for take backs, and Frank, and that life of his. "There was an argument and he hit his head and he could have lived if I'd taken him to the hospital, but... he... I couldn't, I didn't, and he died right in my living room, but never once did I let go of his hand." Pete shook his head firmly, his breathing growing heavy as the memories flooded back to his mind. "I'm scared that the same will become of you, please don't die, Frank."

"Then take me to the hospital." Frank pushed the words out with difficulty, and Pete almost crashed the car as he found himself considering it.

"I can't- they have police records, and I'm wanted, and you're a prostitute, and we... we're the fucked up end of town - we're destined to die, and we're destined to die alone."

Frank let out a sigh, leaning his head back a little, because if he was going to die, he was going to die in comfort. "Gerard doesn't deserve this mess; he doesn't deserve to be a murderer... he's beautiful, and I love him still... I'd forgive him if I could... if he'd let me."

"He shot you-"

"I love him."

And Pete shook his head, biting down on his tongue as he did so. "That's fucked up, Frank."

"I know." Frank paused for a moment, "but what part of this world, this life, isn't?"

"Please try not to die." Pete begged, as he turned away from the hospital; making a mistake for the second time over.

"I don't think it's up to me." Frank let out a sigh, but regretted doing so instantly, as every cell in his body seemed to scream out in pain as he did so. "We'd need to get this bullet out anyway, and I doubt you have the guts for that."

"Lindsey'd do it." Pete spoke fast, a grin igniting on his face as he turned into his driveway, his heart racing at the possibility of saving his best friend.

"Doesn't mean it'd work... and I'd probably bleed out before she got here... my vision's getting blurrier with every second, you know. I'm going to die, Pete, and I know that."

"Fuck." Pete pulled out his cellphone turning to Frank in the backseat. "I'm calling Bert, and he'll give the phone to Gerard, and you'll tell him how much you love him, because that's the only thing I can do for you now."

"He won't listen, he won't care."

"You're dying, Frank; of course he will!" Pete exclaimed, putting the phone on speaker and laying it beside Frank.

"But only because I'm dying, because people only care when it's too late, and I kept having this dream where I walk up this hill, only for my legs to break as I reached the top, and there's this river, and I can't swim with broken legs, and there's Gerard on the other side and he has a boat, but he won't give it me, because this is his hill, and he didn't want me to walk up it in the first place..."

Pete paused for a moment, his eyes widening a little, "what on earth does that mean?"

"I don't know."

And Frank closed his eyes.

And fell asleep forever, to have that dream a million times, and perhaps even a million more.

-

hey lmao can you tell i wrote that chapter in two different parts on two different days lmao fuck my life. i m sorry im not im just m i l k i just. please vote and comment i have no sanity anymore i love you as much as i love the milk fic <3