Alicia Simmons sometimes liked running away and getting away from everything: living another life for just a few hours, and for just a few hours she could pretend she was someone else completely, and that nothing of her shitty, confined, 'free' life mattered.

The subject of freedom even caused her to laugh, because she had nothing she could be free in; she was a seventeen year old, relatively attractive, relatively popular, Catholic school girl, and therefore, it seemed her life was everybody's business, and even furthermore so when it came to Mikey fucking Way - the nice guy with the stupid fucking fringe and the glasses just a little too far down her nose that people told her she shouldn't date, so she did.

But when she did, people started caring, and people fucking started acting like what happened in her private life with her boyfriend was at all their business, and when they broke up it seemed to be world fucking news. People wanted to know why, and when she told them nothing they just filled in the gaps for themselves, and that's how rumours, horrible, and in their hundreds were born.

But fuck, people telling her to get back with him, and that they were glad that she dumped, and that she was a bitch, and that he was an asshole, and that they were both shitty people, and that was why she needed to get away, and even if it was just a few hours, and even if she always wanted to run away forever, it was how she managed, and it was how she forgot things that had no place in a mind with some degree of sanity, because people were blind, and popularity really was nothing but a figurative prison cell.

And the worst, and yet somehow best, of all, was that no one, not a soul that cared knew why.

No one knew why, and no one knew what Mikey had done, and no one knew that Mikey Way with the fringe and the glasses had ruined his relationship with Alicia Simmons with the boobs and the miniskirts, and by fucking Pete Wentz, the guy with more eyeliner than friends. No one fucking knew that Alicia had pretty much caused someone to realise that they were gay.

She didn't know what to think, and really she just hated to know, because she could barely even fucking think straight with this mess, and she wasn't the kind of person that knew how to get some dope in five minutes flat, unlike Pete Wentz. Maybe that was what Mikey saw in him... or perhaps it was just his dick.

Fuck, perhaps Mikey was gay from the very start and Alicia just had to accept that she was nothing more than an experiment in sexuality to him, and she just had to accept that she was an experiment gone wrong, and an experiment abandoned, but not by the public, abandoned only by Mikey, and perhaps the one person she'd cared about.

Because Alicia didn't know what love was, but she reckoned that what she'd had with Mikey was pretty close. For starters, Mikey Way wasn't her usual type, you know, assholes who spend more time getting ready in the morning than their girlfriends.

So she'd concluded that perhaps the only way to get through this was to forget completely: to forget her friends, and Mikey, and Pete, and to forget them all.

Maybe she'd be gone longer than a few hours this time.

She couldn't tell anymore, anyway; she'd turned off her phone, and then thrown it in the lake, just like the first thing wasn't quite enough. At least now, no one could call her and no one could find her, and maybe too, they could forget about her as well in eventuality. Wouldn't that just be a dream?

But she wasn't dreaming, not this time, and her senses heightened by the handful of paracetamol she'd taken as she'd left her house, ensured of that, but it wasn't quite enough, and nothing was quite real, or quite worthwhile, not yet anyway. And she wasn't even the type to do things like this, she'd never taken pills or smoked anything before, and up until now, getting drunk once or twice a month had remained her greatest sin.

She didn't even know what part of town she was in anymore, and it was alien to the high income, Catholic household she'd walked out of, because this was all council houses and stated own old people bungalows, and houses without cars in the driveways, and this wasn't her at all, and yet she'd still prefer this downright realism to the life of plastic, but it wasn't just something you could snap your fingers and change about your life.

And she wouldn't even be here without the handful of paracetamol, because she'd been told a thousand times that she'd get murdered in this part of town, and maybe that was what caused the heart attack that came with the gentle tap on her shoulder.

"Fuck, I... get away, I-" She stopped at the grin cracking at the lips of a questionable, but over whelmingly calm face, and this guy, he didn't look bad, and he didn't look at all like Mikey, and he was smiling at her like he'd played a practical joke, and despite her panic and confusion, she found herself smiling, much like an idiot, back.

"You're the girl I saw chucking her phone in the lake at the park life half an hour ago- I didn't follow you, I... that sounded bad... I was there, left before you did, I guess, and walked a different way... I didn't follow you..." He shook his head, sighing, leaving Alicia to grin like an idiot, because there was something about the stupid blonde hair and the stupidly bright blue eyes that made this guy cute. "You, you, uhh... dropped like five dollars down the street." He awkwardly stretched his hand out, handing it back, only to be declined.

"Keep it, I've got... more..." Her tone faltered, soon realising that proclaiming the wealth she carried in an area like this, or really any area, wasn't exactly the best of ideas.

"Yeah, I guess, someone like you probably has." He shrugged, pocketing the five dollars without question, because well, he wasn't stupid, just nice to pretty girls, and a little stoned.

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"You're a rich girl. What you're doing here, I don't understand, but whatever it is, it's none of my business and I'm not your fucking boyfriend... unless you'd like me to be, which of course can be arranged." Thankfully, she laughed at that, instead of slapping him across the face, which admittedly, happened more often than not. "I'm Bob, what about you?"

"Alicia." She smiled, having gathered that if this guy was a murderer, she'd probably be dead already. "I'm getting away from shit for a while... it's just too much at the moment."

Bob smirked at that. "Of course it is. What's happened, Alicia? Your butler brought you too little caviar this morning?"

"Fuck off, I'm not the queen." She rolled her eyes as Bob gasped in mock shock at the curse word. "Like I'd tell you anyway."

"Didn't know posh girls could swear. Anyway, would you tell me, if I offered you into my house in a totally friendly and non-predatory manner? I have tea and dope, also probably poptarts, but not caviar, unfortunately."

"What flavour poptarts?"

"Strawberry."

And that was how Alicia Simmons went home with a strange dude off the street in a bad part of town, and if she got murdered, at least her family had poptarts to sue.

-

But thing was that Patrick Stump never wanted to cause any trouble, and the thing was that Patrick Stump never wanted to be any bother, but it seemed like trouble and bother surrounded and strangled him in chokehold that he just couldn't escape, and of course, all in the form of Pete Wentz and the things he thought Patrick didn't know about.

Surely, it'd had been liberating telling Ryan, because suddenly he didn't feel quite so pathetic, and this didn't feel nearly as much like 'his stupid little secret' as it did before, which had to be good, because his mental stability was soaring, and even so much as to seek out further liberation, and perhaps even so in the form of breaking down everything about this 'stupid little secret' of his, and really, all that he needed to do to be able to breath steady again was for the secret to be anything but secret anymore.

And everything about this felt like a stupid decision, but Pete Wentz was a connoisseur of stupid decisions, and Mikey Way had to be his best, so really, something like this, Pete had to appreciate, and perhaps it would even top that arrogant little stupid decision list of his, because Patrick had this hatred for Mikey on Pete's behalf that it seemed that he felt more loyal to than Pete ever did.

But Patrick knew that Pete had liked Mikey from the start, anyway, even when he slept with Gabe - that was just Pete being a whore, and Patrick was more than happy to admit that, but everything was so much easier when it was still inside your head and in no way quite as real as it would be when it was spoken aloud, but Patrick had this awful, burning desire to prove the whole world wrong.

Because these days, Pete looked at him like he was that friend - the one that everyone left behind and served only as a second choice and a back up for when things fucked up, but Patrick had had it up to here, and just the cherry on the top of the fucking cake was Pete's stupid dopey face sat outside his house, home alone and with a little bag of weed, and fuck, he'd never even care like this, but maybe Patrick didn't care, and maybe this would be better if it was forgotten in the long term.

And maybe, it would be better if this wasn't done, and if Patrick simply chickened out and went home, but Patrick knew that somehow, proving the whole world wrong was the most important desire he'd even succumbed to, and he'd start with Pete Wentz.

"Pete." He addressed him simply as they came into eyeshot and Patrick ignored his best friend's gesture for him to sit down beside him, because he reckoned he wouldn't be staying long and he hardly reckoned Pete would want him to, especially after the truth came out... quite literally.... came out.

"Hey, what's wrong? You look kind of pissed off, actually, Patty, tell me what's wrong." And that was how Pete's question transformed into a statement, and really, if he insisted, he surely could never bare to upset or disappoint his best friend, because one of them had to be dedicated to this friendship, at the very least, and the duty just seemed to have fallen upon Patrick, once again.

"You're what's wrong, Pete." 

And the silence was astoundingly rewarding: what he'd felt with telling Ryan was nothing, and this was liberation, and this was freedom, and this was flying without wings. "You're being an asshole. Tell me how's Mikey - you two make a good couple, you know. You're both utter cunts."

Patrick wasn't a vulgar person, but some cases just called for it, and it seemed like Pete's was the most important of those, but of course, Patrick had an overwhelming urge to slap that gaping look right off his best friend's face, but he was a pacifist, and he knew that was going to come and bite him in the ass someday, and this was that day indeed.

"Patrick.. I...I..." He was nothing but a stutter and a stumble for words, because he had nothing, and Pete Wentz had never even accounted for the fact that his quiet, shy little best friend may actually grow some personality of his own one day, because he wasn't Patrick - Pete's friend, he was Patrick Stump, and he had more of a right to Pete Wentz's heart than Mikey Way ever did.

"Do you want to know a god awful, life destroying, friendship ruining secret, Pete? Do you? Because you might as well - I know all of yours, you don't even need to tell me them. You make it obvious, Pete, you make it so obvious, and I can be as obvious as I like and you'll still never notice, so I’m setting up a little experiment here - an experiment if it will still ever sink in even when I scream it right in your face. What do you think? What do you predict to be the outcome of the experiment? Do you want to draw a graph-"

"Patrick... I... what the fuck?" His words were breathy and his eyes widened and he looked his best friend up and down and barely recognised the guy called Patrick Stump anymore, because something was seriously wrong, and even Pete knew that, but as Patrick had suggested, it seemed, that as always, it would take screaming it in his face for eyeliner clad idiot to finally realise the truth that had been slapping him across the face for forever now.

"You don't know, do you?" Patrick sighed out, shaking his head in utter disbelief at the mess he'd been forced to call a best friend, and simply for loyalty’s sake, and still it seemed that it was always him that seemed to care the most, when it came to anything. "You don't have a goddamn clue!"

"Patrick-"

"I love you. And I love you more and I've loved you longer than Mikey has and ever will."

-

Mikey Way just about reckoned that this was the most uncomfortable situation he'd ever found himself in, because never before had his brother had more of a stupid idea than bringing his boyfriend home, and of course, whilst he was dressed in a full face of make up and a fucking skirt, and Mrs Way's mini heart attack at the sight of her son had brought a dreadful silence to the reluctant company.

"So..." Mikey felt it necessary to break the silence, and by doing so, all eyes in the room were on him, and his mother almost looked offended at the fact that he'd interrupted her in the process of death glaring her eldest son. "This was unexpected."

"It certainly was, Gerard, you should just be happy that your father's out on business this weekend, otherwise you would be in so much trouble-"

"I'm not fucking sixteen, mum, I'm twenty five, I'm an adult, I don't live here anymore, I don't live with you anymore, and you can't tell me what to do with my life." And it was at that point that Gee stood up from the sofa, and Mrs Way gasped at just how short the tight, black leather miniskirt he eldest son had squeezed into earlier, and more for the sake of spite than anything else, but Frank was most certainly appreciating his boyfriend in that miniskirt nonetheless.

"Funny enough how you were saying exactly the same thing at sixteen." Mrs Way snapped, and Gee sat down, sitting awkwardly close to Frank, and again, perhaps just out of spite.

"And I wonder why that was." Gee sighed, rolling his eyes and leaning back against the leather of the sofa, meeting his mother's gaze without even a flinch. "I just came over to tell you that I'm still alive, in case you were wondering. And I just came to introduce you to my boyfriend, because I love him and he's an important part of my life. Just to be polite, you know."

"Frank and I have already met, Gerard." She snapped, pulling her gaze away from her son, and faking a ridiculously overly sympathetic gaze before meeting Frank's eyes. "How on earth have you gotten meddled up in the mess, huh, Frank? You were always such a nice boy, and I'm terribly sorry that my son has corrupted you with his... his... homosexual behaviour."

His mother's words, although sincere and stern in nature, brought the eldest of the two Way brothers to badly suppressed laughter, which then trailing into faked coughing as he let the word, "cumslut," 'unintentionally' slip his lips. Frank could kill him.

"Actually, Mrs Way, I'm sorry to upset you, but, I've been gay all the time you've known me. I was getting to grips with my sexuality years ago, it's just, Gee's the first proper boyfriend I've had, and I don't mean to disrespect you here, but I think you should scare more about whether your son's happy than what he prefers in bed."

And it was Frank's words that brought Mrs Way to silence again, as her eyes drifted to floor, and she exhaled in an auditory fashion, the words slipping her lips with a degree of unintentionality. "What would your mother say about this, Frank?"

"She already knows I'm gay, and she already knows I'm dating Gee, and she's fine with it, so yeah, she probably wouldn't actually say all that much." And it was Gee who had to bite back his smirk at the snide tone with which Frank's words had been spun.

"Mum, look, I really, don't want to cause trouble, but I honestly, don't think it matters, look, Gee, he's happy, he's out of your house most of the time, and he just... he likes guys, that doesn't change him as a person-"

"Yeah, he's always been an utter pain in the ass." Mrs Way sighed, raising her eyebrows, only to find both Gee and Frank giggling like thirteen year olds at the term 'pain in the ass' and the context with which was used.

"And I've always been gay." Gee added, smirking firmly settled upon his lips at this point. "And I've always liked wearing skirts. I think this one is quite flattering, what about you, what do you think-"

"Gerard." Mrs Way sighed out, preferring if the twenty five year old just allowed her to ignore the miniskirt for the time being. "Look, it's just the way you've lived your life, you're nowhere, Gerard - where's your job? Where's your own home? Mikey here's got it all figured out, I mean, he's not messing his life up with stupid little phases like you are-"

"The whole of his life seems like an awfully long phase, don't you think?" And by this time, Frank declared that he'd had enough, stepping up to Mrs Way and entirely stepping out of line, but if he was out of line, Mrs Way was on a different planet.

"I'm just saying, that Mikey is being much more sensible-"

"No, what you're saying is 'why can't you be like Mikey?'" Gee broke the room into silence with a harsh truth that no one could deny. "And honestly, 'mother', just a little fucking spoiler: if you think Mikey is your perfect little well behaved, good Catholic son, then you're so fucking wrong that it's laughable-"

"Shut the fuck up, Gerard!" Mikey screamed, his face growing red, as he interrupted his brother, knowing exactly where the twenty five year old was going with it, and not liking it one bit at all. "Just shut up, okay? Leave me out of this."

"See, sensible-" And even Frank began to reckon that Mrs Way needed slapping across the face at this point.

"Come on, Frank, we're going, seeing as this hasn't at all gone as spectacular as planned." Gee sighed out, getting up and pulling his boyfriend up with him. But of course, in true Gee Way style, he could never quite leave without making a point.

And he did so as he reached the front door, spinning around and meeting his mother's gaze, and then Mikey's, and then looking back to Mrs Way again, as he uttered the two words that fucked everything up for his little brother.

"Pete Wentz."

-

"I wasn't joking about the dope, you know." Bob seemed almost too proud, his face giving way to a smug grin as he returned to his front room with some really badly made tea, slightly more adequate strawberry poptarts, and a little ziplock bag of marijuana.

"Oh..." Alicia chose now to question whether or not just going into some random stranger's house for poptarts was really the best of ideas, but she was quite possibly feeling far too angsty and misunderstood to care right now. "I've never actually seen weed before, like in real life."

"What the fuck do you posh kids do with your time then?" Bob sighed, rolling his eyes and rolling himself a joint as Alicia almost gingerly began to nibble at a poptart: her eyes never leaving Bob, and the weed, and the lighter.

"Uhh..." She sighed out, catching his gaze as she came to realise that perhaps that wasn't a rhetorical question. "I... I play netball, I guess... and... I..."

"Friends? Boyfriend? Girlfriend?" He chuckled a little at the last one, oblivious to the note it struck instead Alicia: Mikey and Pete. "I think you'll find that over here, a lot of us are far less narrow-minded than the people where you're from."

"Yeah, I go to Catholic school so I guess you're not wrong then." Bob nearly choked on his joint at that, eyes growing wide, as the only thing he got out of Catholic school was uniform.

"Uniform?"

"Fuck off." She rolled her eyes, blushing just a little, just out of embarrassment. "I had a boyfriend until rather recently, but... that went really wrong... he cheated on me."

"Well, he's a douchebag then, because you're very nice and very hot." Alicia guessed it would probably be easier to take that as a compliment and at face value, instead of paying any attention to Bob's body language.

"He cheated on me with a guy." And there came Bob's second choke; this time, however, it went ignored on Alicia's part. "Who he's supposed to hate, and he's homophobic as fuck, but this is just really weird, and now they're dating but it's a 'secret' and I couldn't totally ruin his life, but I haven't and I'm not sure as to why."

"Stop caring about him - he's an asshole." Bob was so nonchalant in saying that, and it wasn't lacklustre advice - Bob really lived in the kind of mentality where something as simple as that would just work, and really Alicia wished things were like that for her too, but Alicia and Bob were worlds away and it was only poptarts that had brought them together.

"I wish I could, but I can't stop thinking and I can't stop caring, because it's all my 'friends' ever seem to go on about." She sighed out, throwing her head back against the sofa, and Bob realised just how useless he was when it came to comforting girls, and found himself generally rather stumped regarding what to do.

"Well, then they're shit friends so tell them to go fuck themselves-"

"I would, but I've got no one else." She sighed out, taking another bite of the poptart and hating how excited she'd been about strawberry poptarts ten minutes ago, and now, just like everything else, it had all turned shit and she just couldn't care less.

"You've got me, huh?" Bob grinned wildly, and soon enough, Alicia found a grin to mirror Bob's across her lips.

"I guess... I just don't know why I can't just forget about this shit, I mean- fuck, you don't even care, do you? I've gone on and whined about my life for ages, look come on, tell me about you and tell me about yours."

"Alicia, I-" Bob spoke up in an attempt to protest, but really, Alicia didn't even let him speak long enough for his point to even be known, let alone considered.

"Tell me about you, Bob." She repeated, ignoring the dodgy tea, and picking up another poptart, because maybe they weren't quite so bad after all.

"Uhh... I do a lot of drugs, I sell a lot of drugs, I have like three- four... you, possibly five on good days, friends. One of these friends is a crossdresser and he's dating a boy from Catholic school, which is mildly amusing, except I've met his boyfriend and he's quite nice actually - he even bought weed off me like the other week." Bob stressed the last fact like it was somehow something that would impress Alicia.

"Wait... who's this guy from Catholic school? Mine's the only school in town, I... I probably know him." Little did Alicia know how such a question would throw everything out of balance, and in ignorance, she asked away, and in favour of possibly seeing Alicia again, and perhaps even in catholic school uniform, Bob answered.

"His name's Frank... like Frank Oreo or something... Lero... or Earo... fuck, I don't know, it's like Italian and shit-"

"It's Frank Iero." Alicia finished for him and honestly, Bob looked goddamn surprised by that, but of course, nowhere as much as Alicia was when it came to Frank's apparent homosexuality and crossdressing kink. "He's my ex-boyfriend's best friend."

"Oh, I thought he was quite nice actually." Bob trailed off, eyes set on the window and the street outside.

"He is, I think... I mean, I've never really spoken to him, but I think anyone's nicer than Mikey Way-"

"Mikey Way?" And there was the third choking incident that Bob had, yet this time, Alicia really did take note.

"Yeah... my ex-boyfriend... do you know him?" She appeared cautious at tis point, because if Bob and Mikey knew each other, then really, she was just out of there.

"I've never actually met him, but I've heard an awful lot about him. I'm very close with his brother... his brother being Gee Way, being the crossdresser-"

"Who Frank's dating? Frank's dating Mikey's fucking brother... what? Does Mikey know?"

"Yeah, it didn't perhaps go as well as planned though. Things are a bit icy between them-"

"Bob, are you even supposed to tell me like half of this?"

Bob thought for a moment. "Probably not, no."

-

"Ray?" 

The curly haired boy looked up at the mention of his name, and looked back down again as he saw Mikey approaching him: stood a few metres away from where he was sat awkwardly on a swing in the shitty little playground.

"Ray, hey dude." Mikey flashed him a smile, before sitting down on the swing beside him, and as much as Ray wanted to respond and for things just to be normal again between them, the whole world- well, his friends, his only friends had persistently told him that Mikey was an asshole that he shouldn't let him 'manipulate' him.

Ray always seemed to see the good in everyone though, and Mikey was no exception; he was a nice guy behind the homophobia, douchebaggery, and the fucking everyone's love lives over bit. Okay, maybe, Mikey was a nice guy behind everything that was characteristic of him, and Ray just didn't know how to deal with that, or deal with Mikey himself, so he gave in.

"Hey." It was simple, and it was just polite and something that was overall irrelevant, and this was the same kind of conversation he'd have with someone at a bus stop, so surely it didn't really matter, did it?

"I'm pretty sure that my life's just about ruined now." Mikey sighed out, ruining the air of nonchalance that his tone brought to his words, and causing Ray to look up, and perhaps even look interested, or concerned, rather. Ray wasn't fascinated by Mikey's demise - he wasn't his friends, and he was right in saying that they didn't own him, and therefore, he could totally just talk to Mikey, couldn't he?

"Why?"

"Gerard practically outed me to my mum. Well, he didn't say it directly, but he said that I wasn't the 'perfect' son, and then just added a fucking 'Pete Wentz' to the end of his sentence." Mikey sighed out, kicking the gravel beneath the swing set with his feet. "And her idea of 'perfect' is straight and Catholic, if you haven't picked that up already. And then Gerard brought Frank over so she's totally going to sneak into Frank's house and like crucify him in his sleep or something."

"Your mum is a really horrible person, you know that?"

"Yeah I've picked up on it." Mikey chuckled a little, and almost masochistically so, before letting out a deep sigh and then continuing. "I wish I had a mum like Frank's though, like she's met Gerard and she doesn't even care that he's a twenty five year old crossdresser and I... it's now that I begin to understand why Gerard hated them so much and then ran away."

"You've got Pete though. You've got Pete, Mikey." Ray reminded him with maybe just a slight hint that he should dump his problems on someone that's allowed to speak to him.

"Yeah, well his dad hates me too, and generally, I'm just really fucking, fuck- his dad thought I was like a prostitute or something. Ray, honestly, tell me - do I look like a prostitute?" And Mikey's sincerity sent Ray laughing so hard that he nearly fell off his swing.

"No, Mikey. You look like a pornstar." Ray corrected him, rolling his eyes and pulling out his cellphone to see a text from Frank, which he really doubted would go down at all well with Mikey.

"Text? Who's it from?" Of course, Mikey had to ask, being the asshole with no respect for anyone's privacy but his own.

"Frank." Ray sighed out, pretending not to notice the expression that had subconsciously (or perhaps not) made its way onto Mikey's face. "Something about Patrick and... and slapping Pete across the face- Jesus, what's this? Mikey? What's this?"

"How am I supposed to know?" Mikey exclaimed, practically jumping out of the swing and snatching the phone from Ray's hands and scanning over Frank's text. "What the fuck? What the actual fuck is Patrick like drunk or something?"

"Of course not! It's Patrick." Ray sighed out, the confusion continuing to hit him, because none of this added up - not at all.

"Yeah... he slapped my boyfriend - I want to slap him back, but it's Patrick... I, just..."

"Maybe, maybe, he just snapped. Like completely fell apart, because of something or someone, most likely Pete, despite the fact that they're supposed to be best friends, I mean... that just messed up didn't it, how did that happen?"

"Ray, we're supposed to be best friends."

"But then Frank started dating your brother and you started dating someone you hate and now I'm left awkwardly in the middle - caught in the crossfire between you too, and I really hate it, Mikey. You know that, don't you?"

-

Hey guys:) Well that's like just a little bit of a shitstorm of a chapter, huh?:') Anyway, votes and comments are always appreciated and I love you all<3