Brendon hated being in the dark, and he hated knowing that something was wrong, and he hated when that despite that knowledge, he still couldn't do a thing about it, and really just to top it off, it had to be Ryan, and it had to be the one person that he cared about the most.

He hated that, and somehow, with all that hate brewing up inside him, it just had to go somewhere, and on this unfortunate occasion, that somewhere, just happened to be the silent boy sat down on his bed, knees pulled up to his chest and not a word of any worth leaving his lips.

 "Just fucking tell me what's wrong, Ryan." It was more demanding and far more abusive than Brendon had intended, but he was far too caught up in the moment to ever consider going back on his words. "Please." He added, almost like an afterthought, perhaps somewhere near an apology, but not quite.

"It doesn't matter." Ryan sighed out, biting down on his fingernail, before hazarding a glance up at his boyfriend. "Really." And Ryan lied through the weight on his shoulders, because really, it did matter, and even if it didn't directly affect him, the weight was a lot to bear, and this was the weight shared, so really Ryan just couldn't fathom how this had been kept and how this weight had been balanced on one person's shoulders for such a long time.

And it broke his heart a little, and as much as he would like to share that weight with Brendon, he couldn't, because despite how little he wanted to admit it, Brendon was hardly the sensitive type and just wouldn't understand. Then again, there was the fact that it was a secret, and the main thing about secrets was that they stayed that way - secret.

Ryan liked to think he was a good friend, and Ryan liked to think that he was trustworthy, and he didn't particularly like lying to himself, so this was the way it had to be.

"If it matters to you, Ryan, then it fucking matters me." Brendon sighed out, pissed off beyond belief and trying his best just not to end up punching something right now - either the wall or his boyfriend, and really both would have explosively disastrous consequences.

If he punched the wall, his mum would kill him. If he punched Ryan, Ryan's mum would probably kill him, along with just about the rest of the population of the planet, because Ryan was adorable, and he was an asshole.

That was a fact that Brendon had grown to not only accept, but embrace, because really, there seemed to be very little that he could do about it, and he wasn't the petty optimistic type. Anyway, his ego had grown so big by this point that it really didn't even matter to him if anyone did happen to point out what an asshole he'd become, and all by simply embracing himself. In his mind, it was really just better than hating himself and hiding everything he was away.

He put the 'show' in freak show, and was proud to do so.

He didn't punched the wall, though, or Ryan, and he considered that his greatest achievement of the past twenty four hours, and resorted to sitting down beside his boyfriend instead - sat on his hands, because maybe he didn't quite trust himself, and really, who would?

Brendon wasn't good with secrets; he couldn't even keep his sexuality to himself, and ended up screaming it from the rooftops, and preparing himself for the disastrous consequences. It didn't seem to faze him though - everything ended in disaster and the seventeen year old had figured that out by now.

"It somebody else's secret." Ryan finally opted for the closest to an explanation that he could get, exhaling loudly, and fixating his gaze upon the class photo from four years ago that was still hung on Brendon's wall, yet amusingly annotated with Brendon's rather crude and uncensored opinion of each member of the class, and really, Ryan was just glad that he wasn't acquainted with angsty fourteen year old Brendon Urie.

"But we're supposed to tell each other everything, aren't we?" Brendon asked, what was kind of a genuine question, because Brendon was hopeless when it came to this kind of thing. "I mean, that's how relationships work. I don't want us to end in disaster... Ryan, I want you to be the one thing that I get right, I- I fuck everything up." Brendon stopped himself, exhaling and silently counting to ten, but only getting as far as seven, before getting pissed off with himself and the therapist from four years ago that taught him the count to ten method, and then continuing regardless. "Secrets are poisonous, Ryan. Secrets killed my dad, and you know that."

"Brendon, I'm sorry, but I... look, it's not your fault, it's not my fault, it's not anyone’s fault that your dad killed himself." The silence that followed suggested to Ryan that perhaps he shouldn't have put it so bluntly, but it was too late for anything besides a mediocre apology now, and neither of them were really the type.

"But he should have told my mum that he was depressed and that he wanted to do it, and he should have told someone, gotten help or something, and he shouldn't have kept his own secret and let himself rot, and then it was my mum's secret that pushed his finger against the trigger - she wasn't supposed to get pregnant, and he wasn't supposed to have another fuck up kid to add to the fuck up family, and he wasn't supposed to die, and neither was that stupid fucking kid- fuck, Ryan just go, fuck... I, I fucked up again, and you shouldn't see me like this."

"But I love you, Brendon, and I don't care about mess and complications, and only about you." And Ryan placed his lips to Brendon's - cold and cracked, and still it didn't matter to Ryan at all, because everything seemed to fade away like static in the ten seconds in which their lips were connected and that they could to themselves that everything was okay.

"I love you too." Brendon broke the silence after two minutes and thirty six seconds, and yes, Ryan was counting - on Brendon's digital alarm clock on the beside table. "I'm sorry. Secrets are secrets and it doesn't matter."

"It does matter, Brendon." Ryan's voice was hoarse and this time nothing more than a whisper, because it mattered, and it mattered like fuck, because this a weight that he was struggling to bear, and in fact the only thing that was keeping him going strong was the thought of it being carried alone for so long. "But it doesn't have to matter to you, and it shouldn't, because it's not even my secret and it hurts."

"Okay." Brendon exhaled, swallowing the curse words that bubbled and brewed at the top of his throat. "That's fine. Secrets are secrets, and I just hope that this person is okay." Brendon lied again, and he didn't want to, but there are a million things in life that we don't want to do.

"He's not okay. He's just far too good at pretending, and keeping secrets it seems."

Because although Ryan reckoned he was trustworthy and could carry secrets to his grave, he knew that he was nothing in comparison to Patrick and the secret that he'd now shared, because this was one that you didn't take to your grave, this was the kind of secret that took you to your grave.

No one ever seemed to notice or listen to Patrick Stump quite enough, especially not Pete, and he was the one person that mattered to Patrick like no one else did.

And that was how Ryan Ross learned that there were some secrets that it just hurt less to know.

-

"You know... everything's really fucking weird now, Patrick." Pete a top some random-ass hill outside of town with his bestfriend, or perhaps ex-bestfriend, depending which perspective you chose to look at it from.

"Yeah..." Patrick exhaled, his eyes focused on the horizon: watching the sunset like it was some kind of spectacular unique event that didn't happen every fucking day since the creation of the universe. "I guess it is."

"Like, I mean.. Mikey and me... that's just something I would have never seen coming, like actually happening, like fuck, I can't believe he can actually stop being a homophobic asshole for more than five minutes at a time." Pete exclaimed, and Patrick just had to crack a smile at what his best friend didn't know, because Patrick had seen this coming from like thirty fucking miles off.

"Me neither, to be honest." The less emo of the two sighed, pulling his gaze away from the stupid fucking orange tinted skies of dusk and met Pete's eyes, and tried to figure out what the hell they were at all, because this certainly didn't feel like friendship, not anymore, not when Patrick did the caring for both of them.

"But, he's like... a really good boyfriend really, and that's so weird, I mean, he's actually a really nice guy when you get past the 'bigoted asshole' part." Pete's words were strewn with a certain kind of nonchalance that sent Patrick's realistic approach into laughter. "What?"

"Doesn't the 'bigoted asshole' part make up like ninety percent of his personality?" Patrick raised his eyebrows, offering a more than slightly controversial comment, and really, Patrick wasn’t the hating kind, and no matter how much he tried not to hate Mikey Way, it just didn't seem to work at all, and really, it was killing him more than anything.

"Patrick?" Pete explained, eyes widening, almost astounded at the fact that it seemed he didn't quite know his bestfriend as well as he thought he did. "Something's bothering you, isn't it? Come on, tell me. I'm your bestfriend - you can tell me."

But Patrick couldn't and he'd known that from the first day he started digging this grave of his; the grave affectionately titled 'falling in love with Pete Wentz'.

"I can't." His words came from his lips far too fast and with little consideration for the way the affected the boy sat beside him. "Pete, I just can't."

"Whatever happened to us being bestfriends and nothing ever coming between that, huh?" Pete asked, looking at Patrick like he didn't quite know who the ginger kid with glasses was anymore: totally oblivious to the fact that he was the one that had changed.

"Mikey. Mikey happened." Patrick cut straight to the chase, shaking his head as he came to the realisation that maybe he really just didn't care anymore, and really, it was such a liberating feeling.

"What? You're jealous that I actually have someone to spend time with that isn't you?" Pete exclaimed, brows furrowed and pulling away from Patrick a little. "What the fuck? Everyone fucking loves you Patrick, because you're so nice and so sweet, and I'm just the fuck up who's fucking messed up in the head and an annoying asshole - do you even know how messed up I am?"

"Yeah, Pete, everyone loves me, except you." Patrick sighed, getting up to leave, only for Pete to stand up beside him, grab his hand and stop his bestfriend in his tracks.

"Patrick what are you saying? Of course I love you, of course I care - I'm your best-friend." It seemed Pete Wentz was a stupidly naive motherfucker, and he totally didn't get it at all. "You deserve a better bestfriend, Patrick, I'm just a fuck up, I can't do anything- I..."

"You can." Patrick exhaled, catching his best friend’s gaze and wondering just what he'd give for Pete to look at him in the same way that he did to Mikey. "You stopped cutting, you're a week clean now."

"I never even told you... how? How do you know that?" Pete asked, brows furrowed as he stepped away from his bestfriend in an odd sense of confusion - kind of like the one you get when you just know that something's just off in someway.

"Because you've worn short sleeves for the past four days and you told me that your cuts took three days to heal into scars which you could cover with foundation." Patrick reeled off the facts like it was nothing, and Pete began to realise that maybe there were things that Patrick knew about him that he didn't even know about himself. "Mikey helped you, and you're happy because you love him, and I'm happy for you, Pete, I really am."

"But?" It seemed it was Pete's turn to guess what his best friend’s next words were.

"But... I can't be happy for you all the time, because I'm not happy for myself, not really, not at all." And maybe that was just as close as Patrick Stump would ever get to really admitting to Pete Wentz how he truly felt about him.

"Please just tell me, Patrick... I'm your bestfriend and you just can't keep things to yourself, especially when they hurt like that."

"But you can. I can, and I did for so long... but don't worry, because I'm not anymore." Patrick exhaled, taking one last glance as the orange-pinks of dusk faded away into dark blues and then blacks of night-time. "If you really want to know, how about you ask Ryan why I'm upset, and ask him why I can never tell you."

And surely, that was a recipe for disaster, but the perfect kind - Patrick's own planned out demise, and he'd watch and laugh as it unravelled and he ruined his own life, because maybe, just maybe, poor, little Patrick Stump couldn't take it anymore.

-

And oh fuck, Frank knew this was a bad idea from the get go, but it was either this or confronting the 'marked as unread' text from Ryan, because Frank couldn't even explain this mess to himself, let alone anyone else and let alone Brendon Urie's boyfriend.

Sure, Frank didn't have that much of a problem with Ryan at all, but Frank and Brendon's friendship was questionable, especially when it came to trust and the outspoken asshole Frank knew Brendon Urie to be.

But turning up at Bert fucking McCracken's house on advice from Bob, demanding to see his boyfriend, was not the best of ideas, especially when Bert hated his guts, and Gee hadn't spoken to him for near enough two weeks now, and it was driving him fucking crazy, because he loved that piece of shit, and no matter how hard he tried, this was just a situation that he couldn't rule Bert's involvement out of.

And yet, what he couldn't quite piece this together at all, because why would anyone with a brain go back to someone who did that to them? He didn't want to call Gerard stupid, but by this point, he was honestly getting awfully close.

"Iero?" Frank jumped a little as the door opened and his eyes were met by none other than the ones of the absolute bane of his existence - Bert McCracken. "Was thinking you wouldn't show up, actually..." His words dwindled off, catching the seventeen year old's gaze as both parties continued to lie to both each other and themselves through devilish glares: made only to conceal the part of them inside that was ready to go off like a ticking time bomb with the anxiety of the situation they were buried so deep in.

"Well, I'm fucking here now, aren't I?" Frank sighed, rolling his eyes and somewhat reluctantly following what arrogance would call his 'arch nemesis', and not just some guy with a really screwed up crush on his boyfriend, inside.

"Yeah, so... I guess Gee wants to see you." Bert's voice was unnervingly quiet and almost nervous as Frank followed the guy into the living room, the seventeen year old's eyes only widening as he laid his eyes upon what he could barely call his boyfriend anymore.

Gee was sat upon the sofa: eyes vacant and pupils dilated to a worrying extent, his gaze distant and Frank was unsure as to whether he'd actually acknowledge his presence or not. His hair was greasy and pushed back - full of tangles and the dye was fading. Hell, he was wearing fucking sweatpants and looked as if eyeliner hadn't touched his face in weeks. And then there was the vodka on the table beside him and the sickeningly pungent smell of dope that left nothing to the unknown.

"What the fuck have you done?" Frank's words were directed at Bert and there was no question about that fact, yet somehow, Bert was still caught off guard, glancing at the seventeen year old weirdly as he sat down on the opposite end of the sofa to the still unresponsive twenty five year old.

"Frank, look, he was in this state when he came to me-"

"What the fuck do you mean by that?" Frank jumped to questionable conclusions within in instants and Bert raised his eyebrows in response, cracking a small smirk.

"I mean, when he arrived on my doorstep, Frankie. Just to clarify, I did not fuck your boyfriend." Bert rolled his eyes, shaking his head a little, gesturing to the space on the sofa between him and Gee. "Sit down."

"Yes, apart from when you ra-"

"Frank, please. Look, do you not even have any idea as to what's happened with him recently and why he's here?" Bert asked, only to be met with a completely blank expression from the seventeen year old.

"Ask Mikey." Gee broke the silence in a monumental manner, reminding Frank of his presence in an almost unnerving manner.

"Gee, seriously, what's going on?' Frank jumped at the first words he'd heard from Gee in weeks now. "Come on, please... I love you."

"Mikey told my fucking 'parents' where I was and you can guess that they weren’t particularly nice to me were they, and I fucking had to get away, and I..." His words faded away into nothing, his gaze going distant again, before he suddenly fell back into reality and speech, like not a word strewn from his lips was quite real at all. "I had to get away and Bert is the only person with a house that I'll be let into, and I just... drugs aren't good for me at all, but it's the only thing that stops me wanting to shove a bullet through my brain... at least temporarily, anyway."

"Gee, fuck, please..." Frank was speechless and simply pulled his boyfriend into a hug, and trying his best not to cry in front of Bert fucking McCracken. "Fuck, I love you, so much, we all do, please why didn't you at least talk to us?"

And it was then that Bert glanced at Gee in a way that made Frank's stomach resort to nothing more but thousands of backflips. "I... couldn't face you... I... I'm a coward."

"No, you're my fucking boyfriend and I love you and I... you haven't fucking spoken to me in like two weeks- what the fuck, Gee?"

"Granted, I reckon there was nothing more than five minutes of it that he spent sober." And at that point, Frank really considered killing Bert McCracken.

"And you let him? Of course, you fucking let him... what the fuck, why? Lindsey would never-"

"Of course she would never and guess what? He ran the fuck away from her and that, didn't he?"

And it was amidst our screaming voices that Gee slipped away to his bedroom and neither of the two noticed until many minutes had passed and the silence beside Frank felt just a little too silent, and just a little too empty.

-

"I'm sorry... I shouldn't have started yelling." Frank whispered to his words to his boyfriend: sat on his bedroom floor, crossed legged and glassy eyed, and really the seventeen year old was both eager and terrified to know exactly what he'd taken to end up in such a state.

"It's okay, it's just everything - all a mess and all at once, and I can't breathe air anymore, only nicotine, and I'm dizzy all the time, and I'm puking my guts away like it's something you just do when you get up in the morning." Gee spaced out again for a few moments, before turning his head and catching Frank's gaze, and even passing his boyfriend what he hoped would turn out to be a smile. "I can't... I mean what use is a train wreck like me to such wonderful people like all of you?"

"We fucking care and worry about you, Gee, and I love you." Frank promised him, and instead of uttering those three words in response, Gee leaned in and pressed his lips against Frank's, and he tasted like vodka and nicotine, and Frank didn't even care because he'd missed this and he'd missed it far too much.

"I can't go back to where my parents can find me again, though." He uttered, head leaned against Frank's chest as the two arranged themselves so that they were curled up together, and so that nothing else in the world seemed to matter. "I can't do that."

"Okay, you can stay here if that's what you want, Gee, but please talk to people about this, like you could have died and none of us would have known." That brought the twenty five year old to silence and for a few moments, Frank reckoned that he'd said far too much. 

"Yeah, I'm sorry, I... can it just be us for a few days though, because, fuck... I'm scared.." Gee admitted, his words muffled against Frank's shirt. "I'm scared of what people will think and say, because I went back to the guy that... that... he... and it's not.... weakness or anything, I just knew that he'd be the only person that would give me somewhere to stay long term, and he's been nicer of recent, like he hasn't been any trouble at all and he's apologised, so maybe I-" Gee stopped, catching his boyfriend's disbelieving gaze and stopping his tracks. "Maybe not... look, he hasn't done anything and I'm, I'm okay - I promise."

"It's fine, I love you, Gee." Frank whispered into his boyfriend's hair: roots growing out and ruining the pretty little princess look he had gone on completely. "What's with the sweatpants, though? I miss you in skirts."

"I miss me in skirts too, but I don't want to risk... with Bert, I... and I, I'm barely myself anymore-"

"Nonsense, you're you and you're perfect." Frank smiled, pressing a kiss to the bridge of his boyfriend's nose. "How about I get you out of those sweatpants, and maybe your clothes entirely, huh?"

Gee bit down into his bottom lip, blushing a little and hiding his head in Frank's shoulder, "I... don't... I.. I-"

"Gee, if you don't want to then that's fine, okay?" Frank caught his boyfriend's gaze. "It was just a suggestion, and if you're not in the mood then that's absolutely fine. What do you want to do?"

Gee sat there for a few minutes, just thinking - either about Frank's question or just how his response had been in comparison to Bert's.

"Can you just talk? I like listening to your voice, and I want to hear more about your life and less about mine."

"Well..." Frank exhaled, wondering just what on earth had actually happened in his miserable little existence during the last two weeks that his boyfriend had made himself absent from. "Pete and Mikey got together, like properly, and they're happy, I guess, like Mikey actually started referring to Pete as his 'boyfriend' and he's over the moon about that, of course, whereas, Patrick is not so much... I guess he's just a bit upset about losing his bestfriend to the asshole that spent forever teasing him in the first place, but with Patrick you never know, because he may be quite, but he sure as hell isn't simple."

"You sure that Patrick doesn't actually have feelings for Pete?" Gee piped up, raising one eyebrow as he met Frank's gaze - half way between confused and concerned.

"I don't think he's even gay, but really, I don't know... he doesn't tell people things, not even Pete, not secrets, not really... it's weird, but that's just Patrick, I guess." Frank shrugged, attempting to brush the thought off, but there was just something about it that ensured that it stuck and never quite left his head, because of course, that'd be simple and that'd be boring.

"If Patrick does like Pete, then really they should be together, because Mikey's an asshole, and he is going to fuck Pete over - whether it's sooner or later, and I don't understand how he can just be magically over his homophobia, especially when he's just gone and sold me out to his parents, huh?"

"Mikey doesn't particularly have it easy either, though." Frank went to point out, only to be met with such a gaze that he regretted bringing it up in the first place.

"I really couldn't give a flying fuck."

"He's your brother." Frank protested, unsure as to what he was even striving for here.

"Not really, seeing how many times I've been disowned already, so really, he's just an asshole here to ruin my life, huh?"

"Not quite. He'll always be your brother, Gee - that won't change."

-

Mikey Way and walking home across town combined three things that the seventeen year old despised: walking, home, and the town, needless to say, that combination of things would just about make a worthy pop punk song, and on the subject of pop punk, Pete hadn't shut up about how Mikey should start a band with him, and how his whole life is dedicated to playing bass. Mikey had politely declined, and made a mental note to avoid the subject in future, because the only time he'd seen his boyfriend's pupils that large was when he found taking drugs behind the art block.

It was however relatively easy to ignore the outside world and the idiots in it with a pair of headphones and his music on full volume, even if turning deaf did come as a result, then he wouldn't have to block out the idiots in the first place, but then of course he could never actually hear anything ever again, which could prove to be problematic, but perhaps he could cope, or perhaps the seventeen year old reckoned he had better things to think about than an alternate universe in which he was deaf.

But as soon as he did clear his mind, he began to notice things - stupid fucking things, like how he used to go here when he was seven and his parents hadn't disowned his brother and before neither of them were dating guys, and Mikey really considered if they'd go as far as to disown him too and render themselves devoid of children.

It was of course then that he came to notice something worse, and something that physically hurt as his eyes drew his gaze across it. Alicia's house, and it was unmistakeable, due to the amount of time Mikey spent in it, and really, it was weird to think how relationships worked, because he and Alicia had accomplished nothing, well nothing other than a 360 degree turn.

They'd started off as strangers, became friends, became boyfriend and girlfriend, became something, and then just soon as it started, it ended, and they were back to strangers again - nothing. He wondered if it'd be the same with Pete, and really, the thought scared him like hell, but with Pete, they'd never originally been strangers, just enemies, just hating one another, and the seventeen year old took a moment to consider ranking the possibilities in terms of severity, but he soon remembered that he had maths homework to go home to, and he didn't want to depress himself further than necessary.

Home was a weird thing for Mikey, alright, because home was just ignorance and blind faith in some God asshole, and ignoring the fact that he ever had an older brother, and that his older brother ever messed up everyone's lives, and that his older brother ever dated guys, and that his older brother even existed at all, and Mikey kind of hated that, and he wondered if that was what it would be like with his parents if they ever found out about him and Pete.

It was thoughts like that which scared the shit out of him, because he never wanted things to be like that, because he never was ever quite as brave as Gerard, and he never could put himself out there and live like his brother did, because Mikey was just a coward that cared far too much and far too little about what people thought about him - perhaps he just cared about the wrong people, and perhaps he was just scared, but he didn't think there was anything anymore that could tell him that what he felt for Pete was wrong or not real.

Maybe that was loving someone, but maybe Mikey wasn't quite brave enough to tackle that hurdle - at least not yet anyway; he was just focusing on juggling his life between maintaining what little friendships he had left, ensuring that his parents didn't disown him, and spending time with his boyfriend. Anyone that said Mikey Way had it easy was a liar.

Of course that wasn't to say that Mikey was a good person - he was an asshole, for sure, but he was trying and he would convince you to give him that at the very least.

As Mikey approached his house, he pulled out his earphones, pausing his music, and as he pushed the music player back into his jeans pocket, he came to notice two figures stood outside his front door - almost nervously presented, and until he got close enough to see their faces, the seventeen year old was nothing but clueless.

But of course as he did get closer, things only got far more complicated, and far more messed up, because the two figures outside Mikey's front door were none other than his 'non existent' brother, and Frank, who Mikey still wasn't quite sure as to whether he should be referring to as his friend, or Gerard's boyfriend.

But that barely mattered anymore, and what did was the fact that Gerard was ringing the doorbell, and it didn't take much brain matter to come to the conclusion that this was nothing more than a fucking recipe for disaster, and perhaps that was why it came to Mikey so easily.

-

Hey guys:) I hope you enjoyed this chapter, and if you did, if you want to leave a vote/comment, it would be really appreciated:) I love you all<3