Patrick noticed a lot, and perhaps that was a good thing - just to watch, just to listen and pick up everything, but Patrick knew he well preferred the comfort of naivety. It wasn't even a talent - anything magical or special; Patrick was just quiet, and when he didn't talk, he listened.

Sometimes he wished he could just turn it off - turn it all off and not hear a thing, not know a thing and live complacent and confused in the dark as the world went on around him and he remained nothing but unaware, but he had really tried, and it seemed this was just how he was, and really, the more he thought about it, the more he came to realise that he'd only wanted this 'talent' of his to stop, to cease to exist, the very day he met Pete Wentz.

Pete was all words: all talk, and he never stopped, he never listened, and it wasn't that he didn't know - Pete knew a lot, it was just the knowledge he acquired through people and words - knowledge shared: secrets that weren't quite secrets anymore.

Patrick knew all the secrets that remained just as that and the things people only kept in their facial expressions and the things you noticed when you looked at people and they didn't think you noticed at all. Pete left all his secrets on his face; he was too much, because there was what he said, that still Patrick felt he should never know, and then what he didn't that cut Patrick apart like it was nothing.

And perhaps it did look like a perfect friendship, and perhaps that was what it used to be, because they were the opposite sides of a puzzle - pieces that only fitted with each other, but things were still very obvious once you rid yourself of the sophisticated fakeries of metaphor and looked at things straight - they were opposites.

Pete talked and Patrick listened.

Patrick knew everything about Pete, and Pete knew nothing about Patrick - not really. He knew things in the general kind of friendship way: when his birthday was, his favourite band, not to eat his mum's spaghetti - that kind of thing, but he knew nothing about what went on in Patrick's head: who he liked, who he cared for, and what thoughts he killed himself over everyday.

Because Pete never really talked about himself, and still Patrick knew everything - his face did the talking, and even when he wasn't there, he still just knew. Pete was kind of predictable, especially when you knew him as well as Patrick did, and that was exactly what left Patrick with the answer to a question that had slipped past everyone else entirely.

The park was empty apart from the three of them: Patrick, Ryan, and Frank (Brendon was in another state visiting relatives and considering shooting himself in the head.

"Where's Pete?" Ryan had directed the question at Patrick, as the ginger haired boy was indeed his best friend, and realistically had the best idea of knowing where Pete could possibly be.

Patrick only bit down on his bottom lip in response, shrugging a little, and generally keeping quiet, yet trying his best not to allude to the presence of a secret upon his lips, because Patrick knew where Pete was and he knew all too well.

"Where's Mikey? Not that I really want to see him all that much, but it's just us huh?" Ryan continued almost awkwardly into the silence; the question, this time, directed at Frank, being Mikey's best friend, yet this time Frank didn't have the answers, and Patrick did.

Patrick knew all too well. It was practically the same question - just phrased differently.

"Ray's with his brother - looking at universities and shit. Just because you didn't ask." Frank spoke up finally, the expression on his face alluding to nothing more than mild irritance. "Yeah, it's just the three of us." He continued after a moment, inhaling sharply as he tried his best not to think about his asshole of a not quite boyfriend and the very mess he'd thrown himself into and the text to a drug dealer sent barely ten minutes ago that was forever keeping him on edge.

"Yeah..." Ryan exhaled, almost feeling awkward without Brendon being there - they kind of came like a pair, always together, and Brendon definitely was the more confident of the two, leaving Ryan alone, and feeling like he didn't quite know what to say. "Is it bad to say that I miss Brendon, just after not having seen him for two days?"

"That just means you love him." Patrick voiced what he picked up upon this time, and Ryan could help but agree with a blush and a nod to follow. "Maybe that's not a bad thing at all."

"Maybe?" Ryan asked, eyebrows raised as he considered being offended and effort it would take to be even marginally angry with someone like Patrick.

"Depends on whether he feels the same." Patrick exhaled loudly, all thoughts in his head running to just that one fucking asshole that didn't even need to be named anymore - after all, his name was practically permanently imprinted upon Patrick's mind. "If he doesn't, well, then that sucks and you're screwed, because there's really nothing you can do when it comes to love and people's hearts."

"Gee went back to the guy... the guy, who, raped him, a week or so ago now... he hasn't made contact with me or anyone and no one knows why and everyone's shit scared of this guy, and basically everything's so fucking messed up because I haven't the slightest clue as to why." Frank broke the silence with a bombshell that left wide eyes as he spoke.

"Why would anyone go back to someone who did something like that to them?" Ryan was the first to speak, eyes open wide as he watched Frank's jittery demeanour and the eyes to his cellphone in his pocket every few seconds, like a thirteen year old girl, awaiting a reply from her crush, except this was all far more messed up, and Frank was awaiting a reply from a drug dealer, and out of all the fact, the drug dealer part was the only thing Patrick didn't exactly pick up on.

"Loads of reasons. If things were simple and easy like they are in fairytales then we'd all be married to our soulmates and happily so at the age of eighteen." Patrick explained, meeting Frank's eyes momentarily before the seventeen year old seemed to go off like a firework at his text notification tone, pulling his cellphone out like his life depended on it.

"That sounds kind of boring, actually." Ryan mused, his words in connotation to Patrick's statement, which Frank had already forgotten in the mess of text messages that he shouldn't be receiving and other things generally in the category of things that he shouldn't be doing.

"I have to go. To go meet someone." He exhale, glancing between the pissed off expressions of his two friends. "It's important, he stressed."

And Patrick had to bite back his words once more, because it would have just been too easy to go 'I know'.

-

"I feel like a fucking thirteen year old." Pete announced, perhaps not even to Mikey who sat beside him, but his bedroom wall opposite, of the house that they had double-checked was empty this time.

The previous encounter had both sparked and ruined things; things had gone to absolute shit with Pete and his dad, but Pete reckoned that getting Mikey to say something like that, to chose him and to get this far caused just about the best feeling he'd ever known.

"Why?" Mikey eventually broke the silence, his hand running to entwine with Pete's as he held on far too tight, because maybe even if Mikey lied all the time, in no way did it mean he was all that good at it, especially when it came to lying to people like Pete, because maybe, despite how little he wanted to admit something like this, perhaps Pete meant something to him, and perhaps that was what made lying quite so hard.

Mikey Way was never any good with emotions.

"Because we're sneaking around like this and you're not supposed to love me and I'm not supposed to love you, but we do, and we kiss, and we fuck, and we pretend it didn't happen sometimes - sometimes to ourselves and sometimes only to other people, and honestly I feel like within a week you'll end up faking your death, I'll poison myself and then you'll stab yourself in sorrow."

Mikey chuckled as the subject of Pete's rather elaborate and slightly pretentious analogy finally hit him. "You'd totally be Juliet, though."

"Uh? Excuse me?" Pete exclaimed, unsure whether to be offended or not, his eyebrows raised in his boyfriend's direction. "What do you mean? I am the most manly man you will ever see."

"Eyeliner." Mikey rolled his eyes, turning to Pete and pushing his fringe from his eyes and smudging his boyfriend's raccoon rings of eyeliner a little. "How's it going raccoon boy?" Pete shook his head in response, kissing Mikey to shut him up, because that always seemed to work better than actually picking a fight with someone as arrogant as Mikey.

"So we're boyfriends now." Pete almost reminded himself allowed as they pulled away, his gaze drawn away from Mikey, as he still couldn't quite look him in the eye, for fear of rejection at a situation such as this.

"I guess." Mikey shrugged, blushing a little as he pulled his knees up his chest and tried not to think about Gee's first boyfriend and the way his parents had reacted, and the way they would react if they ever found out about this, and yet somehow, as much as that all scared him, Pete was still worth the threat of his parents disowning him.

"That's what you said to my dad." Pete reminded him, eyes narrowed, as he got ready to slap his not quite boyfriend across the face, just in case things happened to go sour.

"Yeah, I guess we are then." Mikey confirmed, and it was weird how six little fucking insignificant words could make Pete feel like he was flying, because really, it wasn't the words, it was who said them, and what they meant, because 'I love you' can mean a million things, you've just got listen and look for the ones that matter.

"Good, because I totally messed everything up with my dad for you." Pete chuckled, leaning against his definitely boyfriend, and pulling Mikey's arm around his shoulders, because it seemed the younger of the two Way brothers was just as romantically inadequate as his brother.

"My parents would actually just disown me on the spot if they ever found out about us, and that maybe I like boys, but only certain boys, maybe only you... I don't get sexuality, Pete, especially mine - not at all." Mikey exhaled, wondering just how his mother would chose to exorcise him when the time came to it.

"I think you're demisexual, Mikey. Which has nothing to do with Demi Lovato and far more to do with getting to know someone before you actually start to have romantic feelings for them." Pete met Mikey's gaze, who only nodded in response, accepting what his boyfriend said to be the truth, because really Mikey didn't have the slightest clue.

"Anyway, if things fuck up with your parents, then you've got Gee - you've got a fucking gay brother with a house who could maybe tolerate you enough to ensure that you're not homeless." Pete chuckled a little as he spoke, however Mikey didn't, his face turning a ghostly pale shade instead, and instantly Pete knew that something was up, and it most certainly wasn't his dick.

"I got spiteful when I found out about Gee and Frank, and oh dear god did I do something fucking stupid-"

"Mikey..." Pete exhaled, wondering whether he was at all prepared for just how bad this would have to be for Mikey to actually recognise that he'd committed an injustice. "What did you do?"

"Gee most certainly hates me now, because I gave his parents details on how to contact me - like his address and number and, I just wanted to fuck him up - I just wanted to make him sorry, but now they've probably gone over there and ruined his whole fucking life, dear god, I've messed up, because all he can do is just get out of there and run, live somewhere else, but I've completely screwed over everything he had just because I was fucking pissed off-"

"Mikey-"

"Why the fuck does it have to be my fucking brother? Maybe it would be easier if he was just gay, but why? He's an asshole-"

"Because when we're in love, it doesn't seem to matter that the person we love is a complete fucking assholes at all." And Pete caught Mikey's eyes at exactly the right moment.

-

They had agreed to meet in the park, in public, and even before it had even begun, Frank already knew this was most definitely the worst idea that he'd ever had, especially if they ended up getting arrested, because that was the one thing his mum had specified for him not to do, and it was Frank's mum, so what she told you not to do, you really shouldn't do.

However, it seemed that Frank Iero was an idiot, or at the very least, he was feeling like one today, and it was definitely showing through in his decision to meet with the most incompetent drug dealer known to man kind in a public place, and talk about something private that could very easily ruin several people's lives, including his own, especially his own.

Frank was screwed, basically, and perhaps this was just a fact that he'd grown almost uncomfortably acquainted with, especially on the ten minutes walk it took to get to the other side of the park with the suspicious looking woods, and generally the place that was nicknamed as the most likely place to get unintentionally buttfucked this side of the Atlantic.

Frank sometimes thought that maybe he did far too much for this asshole of a boyfriend he had, especially when he just ran off to his ex-boyfriend without a word to anybody, and then continued to not allow anyone to contact him, even just to ask him what was wrong.

But then again, Gee Way, wasn't just anybody, and that really had been established by now, because Frank Iero most certainly didn't go to lengths like this, even for himself, Jamia, maybe, and only because she'd end up blackmailing him into it, but whatever, this was still sudden death, and he reckoned that Gee ought to be at least a little grateful.

"So, Frankie, what's up, huh?" Bob staggered into their meeting spot, tripping over his own feet and evidently severely drunk and Frank already knew that this was going to go absolutely perfectly, and it wasn't just a question as to whether he'd end up punching Bob or himself in face. "Need some weed? Need some pills?"

"Weed and a favour." Frank exhaled, wondering if it would actually be better for him to just storm in there in comparison to this shitty ass plan that Bob was absolutely going to fuck up spectacularly, without question.

"What kind of favour?" Bob asked as he rummaged around in his pocket for what Frank hoped was weed, simply because if he wasn't, Bob would have failed on all levels of being a drug dealer, and then, he really would have nothing left for him in life.

"A favour involving your good friend Bert McCracken, and my boyfriend." Perhaps Frank stressed the 'my' a little too much, as Bob jerked his head up in what vaguely resembled shock, but Bob was usually so stoned his facial expressions generally tended to reflex nothing other than his current level of hunger, and therefore, Frank shrugged it off and continued, albeit a little reluctantly, under Bob's gaze. "Gee's there and I don't know why, and he hasn't spoken to me at all, and I want you to find out why for me."

"How do I do that?" Bob asked, handing Frank the weed in what was probably the least discreet manner possible - luckily, nobody was listening and the seventeen year old pocketed it quickly, being far more discreet than the bearded drunk he was trusting to sort his life out - yeah, Frank was pretty stupid.

"By going round to Bert's with some stupid excuse regarding getting drunk and casually asking him what my boyfriend is doing in his house."

"And why can't you do that?" Bob asked, clearly still not quite getting it, but with the level of alcohol in his system right now, Frank couldn't say that he entirely blamed him right now.

"Because he's pretty much just stolen my boyfriend, and kind of hates me anyway, and will probably punch me on sight, and you know, you're a mutual friend-"

"We're friends?" Bob exclaimed, his eyes lighting up like those of a lost puppy, and just this once, Frank couldn't help but feel sorry for the bearded idiot he was blackmailing into sorting out his train wreck of a relationship just so he didn't run the risk of being punched by his least favourite member of society.

"Yeah, of course we are, Bob." Frank assured him, trying his best not think about how much he was fucking everything up for just one second.

"Really?" His eyes continued to light up as his face fell into a borderline ridiculous grin. Frank nodded in response and Bob practically died of delight. "Then yes of course I will - you know, friends do favours for each other and all of that shit!"

"Yes, of course. They do." Frank smiled in response, of course, his far less enthusiastic, but at least he was trying. "Just try not to get so stoned that you can't even remember what he told you in the first place, okay?"

"Of course, of course." Bob pushed it off like Frank's accusation was nothing but preposterous - it most certainly was not.

Frank jumped a little at the sound of his text tone, and pulled his cellphone out in response, ensuring that Bob didn't awkwardly lean over the screen and casually invade his privacy, not that there wasn't much about him that everyone didn't know after Mikey had found about him and Gee.

However, with Ryan's text, he certainly had worse things to think about.

Something's up, Frank, and you're going to tell me.

Well, fuck.

-

"Are you going to sit there and drink all day?" Bert didn't even expect the twenty five year old to even pay him any attention, let alone gift him with the privilege of an answer to his begging question.

"Yes." Was the elusive answer which Bert had so eagerly sought after, and needless to say, he didn't actually find himself all that surprised: Gee was stubborn, and if anyone knew that, it was him.

"I'm not cleaning up your puke when it goes everywhere tomorrow - I tell you that now." Bert rolled his eyes, lighting a cigarette as he joined Gee on the sofa, watching the twenty five year old almost cautiously and wondering if he was already drunk enough to complete disregard the polite thing to do - which was of course offer Bert some of his own vodka, but whatever, maybe he'd make an exception just this wasn't, because although he didn't quite know what was up, Gee was most certainly not okay.

"Maybe I just won't move, and then it won't go everywhere - only here." Gee mused, his voice in the kind of tone he'd use when speaking to himself and Bert began to wonder just what else he'd taken and on what level he'd actually acknowledged his presence, or whether he was just some weirdass voice to Gee right now.

Perhaps it was getting to the point where Bert ought to tell him to stop and calm down and think about things and act rationally, but Bert didn't and Bert wouldn't, because he may be many things, but at the very least, he wasn't a hypocrite.

"Talk to me, Gee." Bert murmured, fingers running through Gee's dark hair, and for once, the twenty five year old didn't quite seem to mind, so Bert entangled his fingers in the black locks, wishing that he'd never have to let go, because although it seemed to be widely ignored, he loved Gee too, he cared about Gee too, but Bert was a messed up person, and he had a messed up way of showing it.

"There's nothing to say." His words were slurred, and with such a blatant lie, there wasn't even a chance that he was going to take him seriously in the first place.

"Something's happened with you and Frank, hasn't it?" He asked, dodging around the subject like it was a minefield, and for him, it might as well just be. "You wouldn't be here, with me, if it hadn't. He hates me and you love him, and yet you're here - he wouldn’t like that."

"We're fine..." Gee murmured, his voice coming to a slow, as he found himself falling into the realisation that perhaps they weren't quite so fine after all, and that perhaps it was his fault, but he was definitely far too drunk to deal with something like that right now.

And for what Gee would consider luck, Bert never got the chance to further his carefully interrogation, as the doorbell rang, sounding throughout the house, and it certainly didn't look like Gee even heard it, nevermind actually considering getting up to answer it.

Bert even wondered if Gee had even noticed the passing of time from when Bert got up to when Bert returned with a slightly flustered looking Bob Bryar, because the twenty five year old hadn't moved at all, and in fact, the only notion that he was even alive, was the heaving of his chest as he proceeded in the menial process of inhale, exhale, and repeat.

"Gee, Bob's here." Bert felt awkward for the first time in his life, because this wasn't Gee, and something was wrong, and he couldn't help but feel like it had something to do with what he'd let slip to him out of nothing but the foolish kind of selfishness last night.

"Can I have some-"

"No..." Bert shook his head and hating himself moments after, because this wasn't him not at all, and he wasn't supposed to care, but he did, and it was slowly but surely ruining him. "Look, Gee, I just think you've had enough shit already today."

"I'm here to talk, not sell you drugs, actually." Bob confirmed, secretly biting down on his bottom lip, because he knew that he was most definitely just going to fuck absolutely everything up with absolutely everyone.

"Well, that's a first."

"What's going on with you and Gee?" Bob asked, sitting down beside Gee and his stash of vodka, almost awkwardly, his words directed at Bert, because Gee barely even looked sober enough to speak right now.

"What do you mean?"

"What's he doing here? Are you two- What's going on? I... just... want to know-" Fuck, Bob was most definitely fucking this up, and spectacularly so.

"Frank sent you, didn't he?" Bert exhaled, sitting down between the two of them, and Bert's 'oh fuck I'm dead' face said it all.

"N-No, no, what- n-no... no-"

"He's worried about his boyfriend, it's fine." Bert glanced at Gee, wondering if he was actually picking up anything from the conversation, and when it was made apparent that he wasn't, Bert continued, "I'm worried about his boyfriend too. He moved here because there was something with his parents, like his brother told them where he was- and yeah, he's not good with them."

"What do I say to him though?" Bob asked, shaking a little, because he'd totally screwed up. "He's going to be pissed if he knows that you know that he sent me."

"Tell him to come over, we can talk. I don't hate him, not really - I barely know him." Bert sighed, taking one last glance at Gee. "And, tell him that he should be worried about his boyfriend.

-

"I'm worried about Gee." Lindsey's eyes were set upon the window and her gaze somewhere out far into the distance, and Jamia had never once been jealous of a window and the shitty city skyline beyond.

"We all are." Jamia exhaled, attempting to reassure her girlfriend, having accepted that Lindsey was just far too upset for any kind of sexual activities right now, which was of course a real bummer, but Jamia wasn't an asshole, so she was going to respect that.

"It just makes no sense, I mean, he was kind of trying to cope with everything with drugs, and of course I didn't like that, but I... I don't understand why he'd go back to the guy who... who... did what he did to him, just because that guy's enough of an asshole to let him snort away his problems." Lindsey buried her head in Jamia's shoulder, reckoning that she'd truly been gifted with such an easy relationship with Jamia - the only actual difficultly being the age difference, but Jamia was mature enough for it not to matter at all, and after having lived with Gee Way, even a toddler would seem like a mature adult to Lindsey in comparison.

"Gee never quite makes all that much sense to anyone, now does he?" Jamia sighed, throwing her head back as she considered the situation and then just how badly Frank was evidently coping with it. "Frank's the only one who even had the slightest of ideas and even he's clueless now - I just don't get it, I just don't."

"Frank's not coping well with it either, is he?" Lindsey assumed: the assumption not at all hard to make, because, well the two cared an awful lot about one another, and Gerard had pretty much just entirely messed that up, and for a reason, which no one could even begin to comprehend.

"He's doing something about it... I mean, Ryan's just texted me saying that he's suspicious and worried because Frank's just walked off but he's with Patrick, who's also in an extremely emotional state, and wow, everything's so messed up, Lindsey..."

"Look, I'm just so happy I have you, okay?" Lindsey forced her face into a smile, pressing a kiss to her girlfriend’s lips, and letting herself pretend that everything was okay, for just one minute. "I love you, okay?"

"Love you too." Jamia mumbled into her shoulder, pocketing her cellphone and looking back up her girlfriend. "Patrick thinks no one knows. But I know, and maybe it's arrogant to say, but I just, I know things, remember? And he thinks no one knows, but I do, and it hurts me just to know and just to see how oblivious everyone else is, and then to keep my mouth shut out of respect for the poor guy-"

"What do you know?"

"He's totally fucking head over heels for his best friend - that Pete guy, who's fucking himself over by chasing after Mikey Way like he has some sort of death wish or something, and of course, Patrick doesn't have the heart to tell him, but I can see that everyday I see him, he's just more and more broken. He's a shy, quite, nice to everyone kind of guy, and like this, he's killing himself over this, and one day he's just going to snap; everything's just going to fall about and everything's just going to go to shit, and because Pete's screwed him over so many times, Patrick's going to make sure that it's a good one." Jamia exhaled, eyes turned to the wall once more. "I'm worried about him, and I want to talk to him about this, but we're not close at all, we've barely even spoke once - Frank's not even that close to him."

"Who is he close to?" Lindsey asked, biting down on her fingernails as she considered the predicament of the poor Patrick kid that she doubted she'd never met, yet cared about unimaginably, because Lindsey was just that kind of person - she cared.

"Pete." Jamia exhaled, shaking her head as she came to a horrible realisation. "Pete and only Pete - Pete's his best friend, and Pete, despite being an asshole has several close friends, and I'm just so fucking scared for the day when Patrick just snaps, just breaks, just gives up, because is most certainly not going to get off lightly."

"So Pete doesn't even have a clue that Patrick's head over heels for him and he's busy chasing after some asshole who'll never really care as much about Pete as Pete does about him?"

"Yeah, pretty much." Jamia pulled her cellphone out of her pocket, focusing on the second text - this one from Frank. "Frank's texted me - something about Bob, and then something about needing to get high, and then needing my company."

"Jesus, it's like boys know nothing more to do than drown their sorrows in substances that'll ensure they don't remember them in the morning." Lindsey exclaimed, pulling Jamia to her chest. "I'm so glad that we're good - you're so beautiful, I barely even deserve you-"

"Shut up," Jamia rolled her eyes, tapping out a reply to her best friend. "I'm telling him that I'm busy - I'm sure Bob would be more than happy to get high with him."

"You're busy?" Lindsey raised her eyebrows, a smirk tugging at her lips without a shred of shame. "Who with?"

"You, idiot." Jamia rolled her eyes, throwing her head down into Lindsey's lap, the older of the two proceeding to play with her girlfriend's hair. "We're busy - together."

"Doing what, Miss Nestor?" Lindsey let her face fully break out into a smirk as Jamia pulled herself up to connect their lips: lipstick smudging everywhere, and with far too few fucks to give.

"Well, Miss Ballato - I'd like to point out that your bedroom is that way."

"And what are you proposing with that?"

"Oh, honey, I think you know."

-

Hey guys:) this fic is over 100k words now what am I doing with my life:') No regrets at all though ofc;) As always I'd really appreciate your comments and votes if you want to leave them and I love you all<3