Gabe Saporta was always a particularly spectacular asshole, but he really did seem to be outdoing himself today: Gerard had only arrived at theatre ten minutes ago, and the asshole had already made at least six snide comments in his direction.

It certainly looked like someone didn't get laid last night.

Well, not that the world famous virgin, Gerard Way, did either, but whatever, there was a point here, somewhere, probably, hopefully.

Needless to say, the fact that Gerard was wearing a dress wasn't exactly improving things, and he couldn't help but watch as Gabe practically burned holes in his skin with his eyes throughout the entirety of the rehearsal, and even to the point that he was dreading the break, when Gabe wasn't safely frozen into role and was allowed to say whatever he wanted to poor old Gerard Way, who had resorted to hiding in the toilets, which really did backfire because they only had one cubicle and it was occupied, although he could probably pass as a woman like this.

Perhaps it would just take a few minutes of air and space to himself to be okay, and maybe he'd be fine, and maybe Gabe wouldn't ruin his life today, and maybe everything would be totally fine, except then, the door opened, and Gerard's whole world split in two.

"Gerard?" He jumped a little at the voice: definitely not Gabe, but suspicious nonetheless, but whatever, they'd seen him already, and he turned to face a relatively short guy with ginger hair and glass - Patrick, or something. He knew him, but only vaguely.

"Yeah?" Gerard asked, his voice quavering, and letting Patrick beckon him out of the bathroom and into the hallway, nearly tripping on the goddamn dress in the process, of course.

"Gabe needs to talk to you - I know you hate him and stuff, but please, he means well, maybe an apology or something, but he told me that it's important you meet him in the changing rooms like right now." And Patrick was sincere as hell, but suspicious as fuck, and Gerard's heart was beating in double time as he found curiosity getting the better of him.

"Like fuck I'm going to do that." Gerard rolled his eyes, making his way around Patrick and his way down the corridor with the intentions of ignoring the situation completely, but before he knew anything at all, he was being pulled behind a door, and of course it was none other than Gabe fucking Saporta, and Gerard knew nothing like the fact that he was going to get punched in the face within the next ten seconds.

"What the fuck- Gabe? I... just fucking leave me alone - I don't want any trouble and I just don't want to deal with you and this mess-" And needless to say, that was just not a sentence that Gabe allowed Gerard to finish.

"Look, I just need to talk to you- I... I've been a dick, and this is an apology, sort of, but not really... it's just... I'm not sorry, but there's a reason, Gerard, and I'm surprised that you just don't fucking know it yet." Gabe sighed aloud, pulling away from Gerard and letting him stand alone without being pinned up against the wall rather uncomfortably.

"Gabe, what are you even talking about - just leave me alone, please." And Gabe shook his head, because he couldn't.

"You look good in a dress, you know that, don't you?" Gabe sighed out, trailing off and leaving Gerard more confused than he ever had been before. "You always look good. You know. And it's fucking annoying. I fucking hate you." And as Gabe let out a pathetic little gasp of a laugh, Gerard finally put the pieces together and he did so in the worst way, but he did so in the right way.

"Gabe... please don't... I can't-"

"You're a faggot and I'm a guy and I hate how good you look." Gabe sighed out, pulling away and shaking his head: regret, because this wasn't working and Gerard didn't care and he didn't want to be that guy, even though he kind of already was. "I'm such a dick to you because I just can't deal with that."

Gerard shook his head in response, because this was not happening, and yet it was, and his head was spinning like fuck, and his world had just about turned itself over three times in the last two minutes as Gabe's explanation finally seemed to make sense as his reality neared breaking point.

It was honestly too much with Frank, and now this, and really, telling Gerard was an absolutely horrific idea on Gabe's part, and it was usually Gerard who concocted such life-ruining ideas.

"I don't love you, Gabe. I'm sorry, I guess... but you're a dick to me and I like somebody else." Gerard sighed out, making his way towards the door.

"Are you fucking cockblocking me, Way?" Gabe sighed out: humour working as a last resort. And it wasn't even particularly good humour either, which probably explained why it was a last resort.

Gerard sighed out, stopping and meeting Gabe's eyes. "Yes." And just like that, he left, and he broke someone's heart, because Gabe had deserved it.

And although Gerard was no one to decide as to whether someone deserved something or not, his head was still spinning from his encounter with Frank the other day, and he reckoned that it could serve as a perfectly suitable excuse as to why he really wasn't thinking straight.

Not that Gerard ever thought straight.

-

Pete Wentz found himself laid across the living room floor of Mikey Way's house: all too casually holding a spliff in his hand as he muttered along to Iron Maiden in the background.

Needless to say, Mrs Way wasn't home and wasn't going to be for a few hours now; if Pete Wentz was laid on her living room floor smoking weed when she could see him, quite frankly, Mikey wouldn't have been entirely so surprised if she'd ended up murdering the both of them.

You had to feel for Mrs Way sometimes, but of course only sometimes, as there was actually a reason as to why Pete had taken it upon himself to declare Mrs Way's favourite rug his new weed smoking spot.

And that reason was of course none other than something of Mikey's own creation, as the two Way brothers had at least something in common: coming up with incredibly bad and incredibly soul destroying ideas.

Of course, Mikey's idea right now was nowhere near up to the standard of breaking up a band after twelve years with one paragraph, and more along the lines of wanting to fuck this girl he'd vaguely knew, which was of course the most important thing in Mikey's life right now.

"Just ask her over and then move the conversation upstairs, you know, whatever, get stoned or drunk or something if you haven't got the balls." Pete sighed out, continuing to smoke as Mikey sat down at his feet, texting back Frank - something regarding meeting up in a couple of days which generally wasn't at all relevant to the plot, but whatever.

"I've barely even spoken a word to her in my life." Mikey reminded Pete, and thought that perhaps Frank would be the better person to ask about this, ignoring his obvious homosexuality and... crush on Mikey's older brother, which Mikey was approaching with the 'ignore it and pretend it doesn't exist' stance, which surprisingly, was working so far. But then again, just about anyone was better to ask for life advice than a stoned Pete Wentz.

He was probably better asking Gerard about this, and it seemed like his brother was actively trying to ruin his own life right now, but of course, Pete was the only one who'd come and listen to Mikey rant on such short notice, and yeah, Gerard was at theatre right now.

"I've barely spoken a word to your mum in my life and we still got it on last night." Pete met Mikey's gaze for a few seconds as Mikey failed to come to terms with the fact that Pete had actually just said that. And then, of course, Pete was practically choking on his own laughter and Mikey came to conclude that he probably just should've asked his mum for advice about this, as it was difficult to even hold a conversation with stoned Pete, let alone get anything of value out of it.

"Fucking hell. Why are we even friends?" Mikey exclaimed, shaking his head as Pete sat up and offered Mikey the spliff, and even if his mum was going to be home before the effects wore off, he needed this right now, or he was seriously going to end up breaking something that he couldn't quite managed to blame on Gerard, and that would be a seriously disastrous situation.

"Because I didn't sleep with Alicia." Pete reminded him, grinning like an idiot and Mikey began to wonder as to why he ever slept or even associated with Alicia in the first place, especially if she'd just gone and become his brother's fucking best friend for the sake of spiting him, fuck.

"Pete you haven't slept with anyone in the past eight months, and even then it didn't count because there's like an eighty percent chance you're lying." Mikey sighed out, shaking his head and let a smirk slip onto his lips as he found himself stuck in the memory of Pete's extremely elaborate, and of course, entirely true, fuck story.

"What? That was the truth!" Pete exclaimed, of course blushing like hell, and seriously the weed was not helping his case as he nearly fell into Mikey's lap simply due to the fact that he was trying far too hard to keep a straight face.

"I asked you what position you did it in and you replied with 'all of them'." Mikey smirked, raising his eyebrows and leaving Pete to stumble out with some poor attempt at an excuse. "That's not physically possible."

"And you would know?" Pete asked, giggling like an idiot and just letting his head fall into Mikey's lap: grinning up at his best friend, as Mikey simply gave up and decided that trying to get Pete to move would be entirely more effort than it was worth and just accepted that he was going to stay there.

"Yeah, I've fucked more girls than I can count, remember?" Mikey shook his head, catching Pete's gaze for a moment and hating how much this seemed to mattered and hating Pete for getting stoned in his living room and providing him with shitty advice, and dear god, if his mum came home early, but none of that seemed to matter, because Pete was his best friend, and dear god, the guy was a fucking idiot beyond belief, but Mikey would still always care about him.

And he really didn't sleep with Alicia, which was wonderful.

"Then why are you asking me for advice on fucking someone?" Pete asked the rather obvious question, and Mikey found himself with an 'I don't know' dangerously close to escaping his lips as he came to the rather puzzling conclusion that in fact he didn't have a fucking close as to why he'd thought it necessary to involve Pete in this and ensure that the living room rug smelled like dope, and-

"Holy shit, it's Frank Iero! Mikey! Mikey-" And what a wonderful way to ruin the moment, not that there was a moment in Mikey's mind, of course, no homo and all of that, you know, not like this is gay fanfiction or anything.

And, Pete was in fact correct, and not hallucinating, which was good news for the both of them really, because that was just something that Mikey did not want to deal with right now.

Mikey left Pete lying on the floor like an idiot as he got up and made his way over to the door, letting Frank in as he rang the doorbell and finding himself slightly overwhelmed as Frank practically started weeping into his shoulder, and dear god, Pete was gazing, starstruck from the living room like Frank was Barack fucking Obama.

"Frank... Jesus Christ, what's wrong?" Mikey exclaimed, attempting to pull the sobbing emo mess away from his best shirt, because he really did not want eyeliner stains on that thing, and it was rather unlikely that Frank would be at all inclined to pay for a new one.

"I fucked up so fucking much- fuck, Mikey, I-" Frank pulled away, his gaze stopping upon Pete, who was sat cross legged in the middle of Mikey's living room, now in the process of rolling himself another spliff, which was of course, nothing but a terrible idea, but Mikey found himself a little too preoccupied with Frank to stop him. "Hey..." Frank dragged out awkwardly, addressing Pete.

"Hey." Pete's face fell into an enormous grin: seemingly far too high to even take into account the fact that Frank was quite clearly fucking sobbing. "Would you like some weed?"

Frank fell into laughter at first, a little taken a back, as Mikey found himself considering just how appealing slamming his head against that wall felt right now. "Yeah, actually. That'd be great."

"Oh yes, the best way to deal with all your fucking problems - get so stoned that you can barely remember your own name. And oh yes, let's do it in Mikey's house so that his mum kills him when she gets home and the house smells like it should belong to Bob fucking Marley." Mikey grumbled, but Frank couldn't quite taken him seriously at the promise of free weed, only giving him a gentle shove as he went and sat down beside Pete, who Frank was now referring to as his new best friend.

It was probably quite concerning as to just how many of Frank's friendships had initiated with either him giving or being given weed, or another illegal substance of some sort.

"Are you actually going to talk to me about how you fucked up or just smoke some weed, huh?" Mikey asked, sitting down beside the two of them, and wishing he wasn't such an asshole so he had more friends that he could text and complain to about his current first world problems regarding an excess of weed and just how much deodorant he was going to have to use to get rid of the fucking smell.

"I'd rather not think about it, but... I kind of cheated on my girlfriend, and fuck..." Frank froze, almost as if the truth had only really just dawned upon him. "I fucking cheated on my fucking girlfriend- fuck, I knew- I just... everyone's fucking right when they say that I'm not more than a whore, aren't they? Fuck... I... just... f- fuck... I'm fucking broken and fucking fucked up, don't even fucking lie to me, Mikey, I-"

"Frank, you're lying to yourself here." Mikey sighed out, knowing that he would regret giving Frank the advice that he'd be better off dating his brother, but there was simply no way around it right now. "I told you that you wouldn't be able to accept yourself and feel okay if you kept lying to yourself like this... you're..." Mikey turned to Pete, who was making no secret of just how intently he was listening in to what was a rather private conversation.

"But... I care about her... she's different- I-.... maybe I love her." Frank stumbled over his words as he struggled to accept the truth, his vision blurring a little as his eyes began to strain as a result of holding back too many tears.

"Yeah, you love her enough to cheat on her?" Mikey couldn't help but scoff, turning to Pete and giving him a look, which of course, Pete was entirely far too high to even consider processing. "Who did you cheat on her with, though?"

And almost as if right on cue, Gerard Way arrived home, pushing the door open with entirely too much vigour, as he really did not expect his brother to be having some kind of weed orgy in the living room.

And Frank just gave Mikey a look.

And that wall was looking ever so much more promising.

"Mikey, you fucking left the door unlocked!" Gerard yelled up the stairs, obviously not having noticed the three teenagers sat in the living room, and of course only doing so as he locked the door behind him and turned in their direction. "Oh... hey..."

"Hey." Mikey sighed out, swallowing hard as he tried his best to handle the newfound information of that Frank had basically fucking cheated on his brother's alter ego with his brother, and fucking hell, they were both so stupid that Mikey even came close to considering just blurting it all out right now, but Pete would probably be a problem.

"Frank, are you crying?" Gerard exclaimed, eyes widening, almost in horror, because he cared about the sixteen year old more than he'd ever care to admit. "Fuck, what's wrong?" He found himself rushing over and sitting down between his brother and Frank, leaving Mikey to bit down on his bottom lip to refrain from punching someone in the face here.

"It's fine - I'm fine... Pete made me laugh... I'm good... I..." Frank's excuses were worth nothing, and Gerard was supposed to hate him, but he was never very good at expressing any sort of negative emotion towards Frank Iero.

"You're a shitty liar - that's what." Gerard sighed out, shaking his head, refusing to break Frank's gaze, and leaving Mikey to dig his own grave beside them. "Fuck, Mikey, is that- weed? What the fuck? You know what-"

"It's Pete's." Mikey sighed out, getting up and glaring at Frank, only shrugging in Pete's direction, who appeared to be far too stoned to be even conscious of what was happening at this point. "I'm getting a drink." He made the first excuse he could to leave the room, and within seconds, Pete somehow caught on.

"Me too." He added, getting up and taking the weed with him, leaving Frank to be the one to dig his own grave as he found himself face to face with the one person who'd ever managed to make him cry.

-

Frank and Gerard sat in silence for entirely too long: a silence comprised of stop and start heartbeats and looks held for far too long, as neither of the two found themselves with the guts to actually admit how they felt and just what was going on.

And as Gerard heard the backdoor slam throughout the house, he knew within instants that Mikey had been enough of an asshole to fucking leave him alone with Frank, and dear god, if he wasn't dead already, he was most certainly digging his own grave at this point.

Silence continued like there was nothing else left, and Gerard wondered just what he'd done so fucking wrong to deserve this, and then before either of them could figure anything out at all, Frank was fucking crying and Gerard was pulling him into his side like a reflex.

And it was wrong and it was fucked up, but it didn't matter, because to Gerard, Frank mattered so much more than anything else did.

"I fucked up, Gerard, fuck I'm so sorry- I... I can't do this to you, I- I can't do this to myself, I-I... I can't do this to myself... I-" And Frank's words meant nothing as they were pressed into and muffled into Gerard's side, because it wasn't what he'd done, but Frank himself that mattered, well either that, or Gerard was a lovestruck idiot.

"It's okay. It's not my fault that I... that I... have feelings for you, Frank... you're right, you're cute and I'm an absolute idiot and I think we should just forget that and get back to being friends, okay?" Gerard sighed out; forcing the truth back inside, even if it ended up killing him in the end.

"But I don't want to just be friends, Gerard... I... hate it, but there's no way around the fact that I have feelings for you too."

And Gerard held his breath as his heart sunk through the floor, because this was not how it was supposed to go: it was never supposed to work out and now Gerard couldn't cope, because Gee still mattered, and he couldn't just let Frank fuck people over like this, even if that person he was fucking over wasn't real at all.

"You have a girlfriend." Gerard hated to remind him, turning every little spark into nothing more than ashes, and that was all they were: ashes and a could have been, and that was all because they were all spark with no fire - nothing to burn but their own desire, and that desire was soon to crumble as gazes pulled away and Frank stop breathing for a few seconds and Gerard stop believing, forever.

"I know." It was almost a confession, yet one Gerard knew all too well, and still it felt necessary, even if it brought nothing more than heavy sighs and averted gazes for the next thirty seconds as Gerard racked his brains for anyway at all in which he could break the spell of silence that had been cast upon them.

"You haven't dumped her and you're basically asking me to be your boyfriend, and really just fucking think about what kind of impression you're making. Fucking think about how I just can't trust you, and just fucking think about how hard it is for me not to kiss you right now, but I'm fucking managing, and yet, you're insistent upon flirting with me, fucking flirting with everyone - fucking go see your girlfriend and fucking sort this shit out with her, because I can't deal with this, Frank. Believe me, I can't."

"I'm just a whore - I know." Frank exhaled in acceptance: taking it the wrong way, and pulling himself away from the seventeen year old that he couldn't help but fall in love with, and really, here, he'd fucked everything up, and the carpet still smelled like weed, and that was his fault and still a problem that Gerard would have to deal with.

"No, that's not what I'm saying, Frank." Gerard sighed, pulling himself together and grabbing Frank by the arm in a gesture that screamed nothing more than 'stay', and just longed to scream 'I love you too', and it hurt, because everything hurt, and this was the kind of 'I love you' that you had to apologise for. "I just... I don't want to be a part of you cheating on someone."

"If I dump her, can we talk about this then?" Frank asked, his eyes lighting up a little as Gerard's stomach threw itself into a fit of somersaults.

He knew that the right answer was no, and yet nothing felt right anymore and that's exactly where the "yes," came from.

"Is that a promise?" Frank asked, meeting Gerard's gaze, almost expectantly, and really, no, it wasn't, and yet it had to be, and Gerard couldn't say no to that smile, and he was already far in love to have any hope of making it out alive.

"I guess." He sighed out, meeting Frank's gaze and noticing how the sixteen year old moved closer to him, and then placed his hand over Gerard's, and the seventeen year old's heart did that stupid fluttery thing that made him want to die, but he was already dying, because he was fucking himself over here.

This was all he'd ever wanted and all he could never have all at the same time and his head was spinning as he tried to regulate his breathing and look Frank Iero in the eyes at the same time.

"Kiss me. Please." Frank moved in closer and Gerard could feel his breath on his lips and everything went apeshit from then on as the sixteen year old didn't even wait for an answer, taking his nervous, lovestruck silence to be just that as he leaned in, and then just as everything was all sparks and fireworks - devoid of ashes.

Just as everything was perfect, everything fell apart in the form of the front door opening and Mrs Way walking in: stopping dead in her tracks as the smell of weed hit her, closely followed by the sight of her eldest son kissing a boy in her living room.

And Mikey wasn't even home to take the blame.

-

Hey guys:) I hope you enjoyed this chapter because I'm really fucking tired and I might just fucking go to sleep right now:') Anyway, votes and comments are appreciated and I love you all<3