"Literally everyone knows you only joined the croquet team because you want to impress Alicia Simmons, Mikey." Ray came to point out the obvious, disheartening Mikey's mallet wielding form to a visible extent.

Mikey Way threw a death glare in Ray's direction, coming to hold the mallet in a more weapon like manner, which would have been threatening if Mikey wasn't a scrawny kid with glasses, hair sticking up in every direction, and perfectly polished superhero figurines laid out on his bedroom windowsill in alphabetical order.

"Just saying, dude." Ray shrugged, his eyes drifting downwards in what anyone would presume to be guilt.

Ray Toro was quite probably the kindest dude you'd ever meet, and intending to insult anyone, even someone with the arrogance of Mikey Way, was in no way in his intentions. He ran a hand through his afro, before pulling his eyes back up to meet Mikey's.

"Who says I want to impress Alicia Simmons?" Mikey's cheeks flushed in a gradient like manner, going through just about every shade of red on the colour wheel before settling upon a reddish beetroot colour that really didn't complaint his shockingly pale skin.

"Just about everyone." Ray was always one for the truth, and he did his best not to offend anyone with it, but with some things, reactions were inevitable.

Ray was of course expecting some reaction from his words after having known Mikey for a good few years now, but what he was not expecting was for his best friend to go through a full blown hissy fit.

"So now you tell me that everyone's gossiping about me behind my back and that you've joined them, huh? What a great fucking friend are you?" Mikey slammed his croquet mallet to down, the wooden handle colliding with the dampened soil reaching up through the patchy grass of the Toro family's backyard, the thud resonating from the impact threw Frank back to consciousness.

Frank had been leaning against the fence about a metre away from Mikey and the wicket he'd struggled to set up beside Ray. As much as the seventeen year old had tried to show interest in the affairs of his best friends, even if they were the girl troubles of Mikey Way, Frank had resorted to laying back and basking in what little sun he could get, and had in fact nearly dozed off before Mikey's unexpected case of generally uncalled for mallet abuse woke him up.

"Mikey you could smash that mallet - I'd be careful." Ray pointed out in a very maternal fashion that wasn't exactly unexpected from someone of his nature, gesturing towards the mallet, which lay wedged into the ground at an odd angle. He kept his distance from the thing though, because he knew Mikey wouldn't hesitate to whack him over the head with the thing if he even went as far as to touch it.

"Who cares about the freaking mallet?" Mikey exclaimed, his agitated nature now becoming aware to Frank, who was regretting having woken up entirely.

Frank was an odd kind of guy, he wasn't particularly noticed in school at all, but unlike Mikey, he was completely fine with that, and not for the same goodhearted reasons as Ray. Frank simply had other things on his mind; as his friends were fussing over Alicia Simmons and croquet, Frank was considering just how his mum would react when he came home tomorrow with the lip piercing he'd booked an appointment for yesterday.

She hadn't reacted particularly badly to the nose ringed that now adorned his face, but then again she hadn't loved it either. Mrs Iero wasn't a conservative kind of mother like Mrs Toro and Mrs Way, she was more laid back and Frank had come to assume this was from the seven ex husbands she'd had that had brought forth her general disregard for typical family values and structure.

In Frank's mind, this was a good thing - he'd definitely have a lip ring than some shitty stepfather any day.

He did mind just a little that he didn't have a clue as to whom his father actually was, especially when both of his best friends had happily married parents and even siblings at that. It was just Frank and his mum at home, and hopefully soon to be the dog she'd promised to buy him if he passed his exams, however with all the time Mikey was forcing the three of them to waste staying behind at netball practices in order just to catch a vague glance of Alicia Simmons in a mini skirt, Frank was pretty sure he'd been getting D grades at best.

An exam on Alicia Simmons' appearance and odd quirks, however he'd get an A* on that - he didn't even have to study for that: Mikey practically reeled off information about the girl as if he was paid to do so. He was obsessed.

Frank didn't even know why Mikey was bothering with all this croquet shit, yeah Alicia liked netball, but he didn't reckon she'd even heard of croquet before Mikey would inevitably involve her in an in-depth discussion about the sport- well, that was if he even made the team, and Frank hadn't been even watching him practice, but Mikey was the skinniest, least sportiest guy he knew, so it didn't take much to know that the possibility of Mikey Way ever being accepted onto a school sport's team was just about as likely as Frank passing his maths exam this year.

"Mikey." Frank called out, getting the attention of his best friend from where he stood against the fence of this shockingly tiny backyard.

"What do you want? You're not even paying any attention, Frank?" He responded with an angered tone.

"If you want to date Alicia Simmons, and I'm not going to lie to you here - you're Mikey Way, the reality of this is that it's unlikely-"

"I don't care whether it's likely or impossible or whatever, I just care about getting on the goddamn croquet team." He exclaimed, his words over exaggerated for effect, but no one batted an eyelash as that was generally the given with Mikey.

"You don't even like croquet." Ray couldn't help but point out, resorting to salvaging Mikey's abandoned croquet mallet himself.

"Neither does Alicia." Frank added, trying not to laugh at Mikey's completely astounded reaction.

"Croquet's a sport - she likes sport, doesn't she? Why are girls so confusing?" Mikey shook his head, giving up and sitting down on the grass, his knees pulled up to his chest.

"I'd tell you just to be yourself but your interests include comic books from ten years ago, britpop no one's ever heard of, stalking girls, and apparently... croquet." Frank offered, removing himself from the fence he was leaned against and joining Mikey on the grass.

"So you think I should drop the croquet?" He asked, catching Frank's gaze, before the dark haired boy turned his attention elsewhere.

"Dude I think you should just drop obsessing over girls to the extent that it's creepy." Frank let out a laugh.

"So what am I supposed to do with this then?" Ray asked, holding up the mallet in one hand and the wicket in the other.

"I don't know." Mikey shrugged, "give them to your dad or something - he likes croquet, doesn't he?"

"Cricket. He likes cricket." Ray corrected him, shaking his head, and propping the croquet equipment up against the apple tree that his mum had grown to hate for its apparent reluctance to produce any fruit whatsoever at all, before joining his best friends were they sat beside the cluster of overgrown bushes.

"See, you'd be really shitty jock, Mikey." Frank pointed out, pulling his fingerless, skeleton print gloves back down where they'd been riding up his fingers, and taking note that his black nail polish was chipping and that he should take the time to repaint it tonight. "Even I know the difference between croquet and cricket."

"Ugh..." He sighed out, kicking the dirt with the heel of his sneakers, "I'm fed up with girls, seriously."

"You say that for now, but by Monday it'll be 'Alicia, Alicia, Alicia' all over again." Ray meet Mikey's gaze, receiving a skeptical look in return. "You know it's true, Mikey."

"I wish I could just ignore the female species entirely, they're messing with my head, with their boobs, and hips, and curves, and hair, and miniskirts, and goddamn netball practices. But you just can't do that, can you?" Mikey let out an agitated groan, leaning his back a little, but stopping himself before he fell into the bush behind him.

"You can." Frank added, turning his head away, knowing what he was about to touch upon wouldn't exactly be a welcome subject with Mikey Way and his all Catholic family and upbringing. "It's called being gay."

Frank was surprised Mikey didn't react and immediately insult him or something of the like, but the silence he was faced with from both Mikey and Ray was quite possibly worse. Honestly, Frank was just glad that he had the non-Catholic mother, leaving his queer ass to at least have the hope of being accepted at home, because things definitely weren't looking good between his friends.

God forbid Frank ever got a boyfriend; he may as well just renounce his friends in the process, because damn they would not be okay with it. Luckily for him, Frank really hadn't had any success in the dating department from either gender since first grade, so he could push that worry aside and leave himself to deal with it when he needed to.

Frank had known he was gay pretty much ever since Mikey started going on about girls like Alicia Simmons and dragging him into extravagant schemes in order to get their attention, which was pretty much day one of Freshman year, when the two of them first met.

Frank and Mikey had always shared their love for comics and bonded over their general dorkiness and odd nature, and it didn't take long before Ray with far too much hair and the AC/DC shirt to find not just a mutual music taste but a mutual friendship, or at least tolerance with each other.

The thing Frank did share with Mikey and Ray was their interest in the female gender; he didn't care for breasts, or curves, or sneaking into netball practices, and for a while Frank was even beginning to think he was asexual, which perhaps would have been easier for him once he'd actually explained what the hell that was.

But then that all changed when Frank went with Mikey to see The Smiths live. Initially, Frank hadn't been at all keen upon the idea, not even having heard of the band until Mikey gave him a batman comic in order for him to come with him. 

And oh god, not only did Frank fall in love with their music but he fell in love with Morrissey a little himself, and Frank reckons that almost kick-started his sexual attractions, because before then Frank had just thought he was a little weird, and in fact hadn't even considered that he should be trying to get hard over men than the porn Mikey was insisting he kept so his very Catholic mother did find in his room and quite possibly crucify him right then and there.

At first Frank was even so glad he could understand all these feelings Mikey had been rambling on about, even if it wasn’t for the same gender, but things just got messy when his attractions transitioned from frontman of the British rock band to 'real guys'.

When Frank started blushing over guys he saw in the hallways at school, that was really when things went a little shitty, because that was really confusing all locked up in his own head, especially when he knew he could never even fathom telling his friends about these feelings. All he could really say was thank the God he didn't believe in for Jamia fucking Nestor.

"What the fuck Frank?" Mikey finally said, his words cutting the strings that kept his head afloat and pulling him very brutally back down to earth. "Like I'm ever going to be a faggot."

Frank just shrugged, aiming on keeping his mouth shut before he blurted out something that would really ensure he'd be bullied for just about the rest of his life.

"Isn't your brother gay?" Ray asked, moving the conversation on, but really not in the direction Frank wanted him to. At least the attention wasn't on him any longer.

"What the hell, man?" Mikey exclaimed, blushing just a little - he always got nervous when people spoke about his brother. "Why should I care about him when he barely even sets foot in his own home for an hour a week? Where did you even get that from any way?"

Ray shrugged, trying his best as not to infuriate Mikey further. "I don't know, I just heard it, I guess."

"Yeah, just because he's a fag, doesn't mean I am." Mikey snapped, remaining on the defensive; Gerard was always a touchy subject for him. The boy ranted about this elusive big brother Gerard that no one had ever actually met as if he was the air he breathed, but whenever anyone else brought him up in conversation that was an entirely different story.

Frank knew he shouldn't, but honestly if this big brother Gerard was gay, then he thought he'd quite like to meet him. Maybe to not entirely to get off with him, but just because they went to a Catholic school and Frank Iero's the only actual gay dude he knows.

And Frank reckons that dating himself would be kind of messed up.

-

"Fuck." Frank sighed, clicking at his lighter furiously, the damn thing failing to light itself at all, functioning just as well as Mikey when Alicia walks with a metre of him.

"Work. You. Piece. Of. Fucking. Shit." Frank exclaimed between clicks, before eventually giving up and going to throw the thing against the concrete, but he doesn't particularly want the teachers to find this smoking spot, because he'd been through a few by now and the art block was kind of peaceful, because none of the art teachers actually wanted to be teachers, and were more of just extravagant, big headed, pretentious, artist fucks, and if they saw you smoking they'd be more likely to sketch you than report you.

He eventually settled for aggressively shoving it in his jeans pocket and glaring at the ground with a rather stony face expression that he thought expressed his inner anger and torment sufficiently.

"I'm guessing you want to use mine?" Jamia Nestor chirped in, turning round the corner of the block, noticing Frank without cigarette and knowing that it was either a sign of demon possession or simply a case of a faulty lighter.

"I was wondering when you were going to turn up." He mumbled, grabbing the lighter from her outstretched and lighting his cigarette before she could even get hers out.

He thought it'd be polite to offer her a smoke in return, but this was his last packet and after the dodgy off license ran by an old man with a beer belly who barely even spoke English, let alone knew what an I.D. was, got shut down, he'd been having a certain difficulty in buying cigarettes, or getting people to buy them for him, especially when the only person that even knew he smoked was Jamia who was in fact very much in the same situation.

Frank knew Ray had an older brother that bought beer for younger kids, but he'd most definitely tell Ray if Frank asked him to get smokes for him, and then Ray would get all motherly on him, lecturing him about the health risks and lung cancer and what not, and then Mikey would find out and he'd probably get his parents to exorcise him or something.

"I do have better things to do than sit here and fuck over my lungs with you, Frank." She noted, lighting her own cigarette, putting her lighter back in her bag as she held the cigarette between her teeth.

"Yes, but where else would you hear fascinating anecdotes about people I hate and my personal life?" Frank counteracted, taking a drag of nicotine mid sentence.

"Pete Wentz." She answered, of course having an answer to everything. "He knows just about everything."

"Does he now?" Frank asked, briefly amused by her words, after all, they were most certainly preferable to whatever shit Mikey was spewing out right now, leaving him to feel just a little guilty that he'd left Ray to deal with it on his own. "Does he know who Mikey Way likes, though?"

"I don't think he does, Frank, I don't think he does." She turned her head in my direction, her face adorned with a smirk.

"Does he not? Unfortunate, don't you think?" Frank smirked, smoking as if he was oblivious to Jamia's sudden interest in the subject of conversation.

"I'll give you a packet if you tell me."

"Done." Frank announced before he could even breathe, catching the packet she tossed him and pocketing it instantly, almost as if it could disintegrate in his bare hands. "How are you even getting these after the shop's closed down?" He asked.

"Ray Toro's brother." She replied casually.

"Oh fuck off." Frank let out a sigh. "I'm pretty much screwed then, aren't I?"

"Unless you can find a method in which to severely blackmail either Toro brother, then yes." She smirked, turning her head around the corner momentarily to ensure that the two of them were alone. "Now tell me you fuck."

"Alicia Simmons." Frank reckoned that selling out his friends secrets for a packet of dodgy, illegally acquired cigarettes was not morally okay, but Jamia wasn't going to tell, at least not unless blackmailed or bribed significantly well, so he figured he was good for now. Well, Mikey did kind of deserve it for going on about it so much.

"You're kidding me?" She exclaimed, spluttering and coughing as she choked on cigarette smoke.

"It's kind of obvious actually." Frank admitted, cursing as he got to the end of his cigarette, but with his newly acquired packet he didn't hesitate to push aside the wellbeing of his respiratory system and light another. "He started learning croquet, because he thinks she's going to notice him if he's on a sport's team."

Jamia rolled her eyes at that, laughing like a maniac. "She's only on the netball team because her mum reckons it's going to look good on her college application."

"You're kidding me?" Frank's eyes widened in response, barely able to believe it, and in fact considering not even informing Mikey of this. "Oh my god."

"I don't understand why you're friends with him, he's an absolute asshole, seriously." She finished her cigarette, but seemed to give a damn about not getting lung cancer as she stumped it out in the grass and turned to Frank instead of lighting another.

"It's not like I have a wide variety of options when it comes to the friends department, is it?" Frank admitted, knowing all too well that his two best friends weren't really his type of people, but they had some common interests and they put up with each other, so he guessed that'd do.

"You have me." She offered, winking a little.

Jamia Nestor was the kind of girl that didn't really give a fuck and hung out with bitchy girls simply to discover their secrets and ruin their lives. She was kind of like Lindsey Lohan, except without the drugs. Although she'd been hanging around with some pretty shady people lately so Frank reckoned he'd just have to wait and see.

Frank didn't particularly have anything against drug addicts, but it really wasn't for him, considering that he could barely supply himself with cigarettes and that his smokes would be shock enough to his friends, let alone a heroin addiction. Mikey would probably pass out instantly at the mention of that.

"Mikey hates you." Frank supplied her with what she knew too well.

"Good for him." She laughed. People like Jamia really couldn't careless about people like Mikey Way, and people like Jamia were unfortunately in Mikey's case, people like Alicia.

"I hate how homophobic he is though." Frank admitted, really glad that there was someone he could talk to about his sexuality even if it was the girl he was destined to get lung cancer with. "I made a little fucking joke that fit in conversation and then he just went silent and stared at me as if I'd just told him I was in love with him."

"He's arrogant enough to assume you would be." She noted, and he didn't correct her, because even Frank knew that this wasn't far from the truth.

"I'm never going to be myself around him and that really sucks." Frank sighed, finishing his second cigarette and stumping it out, Jamia tossing him a stern glance before he could light a third.

"Did I tell you about this girl I met on Saturday?" She asked, her face igniting instantly.

"What the Saturday I spend watching Mikey get stroppy over croquet in Ray Toro's backyard? While you spent it getting some cool lesbian hook ups? Seriously can you ask these gay girls if they know any gay guys because I am driving myself crazy here?" Frank reckoned that asking Jamia to play matchmaker really wasn't the best of ideas but he was getting pretty desperate by now and evidently so.

"Yeah, actually this is good news for you. She invited me to this party thing, I don't know, she called it a 'social gathering', with her friends and the idea is that if I meet them then she'll go down on me." Frank tried his best not to imagine his lung cancer buddy getting licked out, but with a mind like his it really was proving difficult, and right now his dick was pretty much just thanking him he was gay because otherwise he'd have a situation that he really didn't want to have to deal with right now.

"How is this at all good news for me?" Frank asked, trying not to sound too heartless in the process, but most likely failing in the matter entirely.

"She has friends, male friends, perhaps gay male friends. And I want you to go with me, because they're older than us and I don't want to be the youngest." She admitted, chuckling a little.

"I don't know whether to insult you or thank you, Jesus fuck, when is this?" Frank exclaimed, praying to any God he didn't believe in that he'd actually meet a gay guy, and perhaps even an attractive one at that.

"Tomorrow night, you better be able to come." 

"I hope I'll come." Frank didn't hesitate to make a fucking stupid joke.

"Oh fuck off, I hope he makes out with and tears that lip ring right off your fucking face in the process." She commented, rolling her eyes and of course as usual making sure that her threats had originality.

"That'd make my mum happy at the very least."

-

"Frank, Mrs Way invited us over for dinner if you want to go?" Mrs Iero called out as Frank slammed the front door behind him, kicking his sneakers off onto the doormat, and making his way into the kitchen where his mum was making herself a coffee.

"I can't take my lip ring out or it's going to heal up, and she'll want to exorcise me if she sees me with it in, you know that." Frank was glad to for once actually have a decent excuse as to not go over and eat in a highly Catholic household that would make him say grace, ask him awkward questions and then get all bitchy about his vegetarianism.

"Mrs Way is a lovely lady-" His mum began; her eyebrows raised just a little as she examined Frank's particularly scruffy form.

"She's convinced she's the Virgin Mary despite having two children, is what you mean." Frank corrected, slumping down in the sofa across the room and putting his feet up on the table in a manner that'd be sure to piss his mum off, but not quite enough for her to demand he stopped it. Anyway it was comfy.

"One child remember. The eldest isn't Christian, and is therefore does not exist." She added, smirking to herself just a little as got her coffee and joined her son on the sofa.

"I heard he's gay as well." Frank offered, discreetly trying to gauge his mother's reaction to homosexuality on a whole.

"She won't be pleased about that." Mrs Iero simply commented, keeping her opinions to herself, which was rather unfortunate for Frank.

"Mikey isn't either. He's either going on about girls or ranting about his brother." Frank exclaimed, remembering the guilt from leaving Mikey to Ray at school today and made a mental note to text him later.

"You've got to feel sorry for his brother though, especially if all his family hate him for just being who he is."

"I heard he stays over at his friend's house pretty much every night." He continued to real off information that had been provided to him amidst one of Mikey's daily rants.

"Poor guy." She sighed, "poor guy. I hope you know that no matter who you are I'll always accept you." She pulled Frank into her side in an embarrassing mum hug that he would have avoided if he had the energy.

"Good." Frank sighed, considering whether he should tell her or not. It'd definitely take a weight off his shoulders for one thing.

"Because?" She urged him on, smirking just a little.

"What?" He flushed a horrible shade of red.

"Oh come on, Frankie. You've never shown interest in a girl at all."

"Mum-" He choked out, eyes practically popping from their sockets. She met him with a skeptical, typical mum kind of look. "Alright, I'm gay."

She grinned, pulling him closer to her side. "Boyfriend?" And that was when Frank had really had enough.

"No, Jesus, I go to a Catholic school. I don't know any gay guys." Frank expressed, rolling his eyes and generally blushing furiously.

"You know, I think we should find out more about Mikey's older brother, don't you think, Frankie?"

-

Hey guys:) Well this was kind of a spur of the moment idea, well I've planning this fic for a month now, but actually writing it was of course a different matter entirely, and I said I'd just start it and now I have over 4,000 words and it's 2am and I'm questioning both my life and my sanity, but I quite like this chapter so I reckon it's not a worry;)

I have no idea as to when this will be updated or even the consistency of it. I expect it will get more regularly when I get back to school and my life is less of a mess and whatever, but I'm not really making promises here;)

So yeah I'd appreciate it if you could leave some votes and comments and remember I love you all<3