They were gathered in Spencer's living room when he returned home, Gee, Bert and Bob, tired and aching, with blood on their hands and dirt under their nails. Even Gee, who was usually pristine, needed about a hundred showers to rid them of their sins.

Spencer saw them all and folded his arms, trying to look stern when in fact it just made him look kind of constipated. Though Bert didn't say that out loud. "Where are my parents? They were supposed to come pick me up."

Nobody else wanted to say it, so Gee thought they may as well. "Out back." They said, and Bert glared at them as if to say 'don't you feel guilty at all?!'. Bob yawned.

"Out...out back?" He looked between the three of them, and as Gee set their pistol on the coffee table, realisation set in, and his whole world fell apart. "You - you killed them?!"

"I had to, they were about to walk in on us burying a dead body."

"You killed my parents?!"

"Spencer, calm -"

"Don't - don't you fucking dare tell me to calm down, I swear to God Gee, I swear to fucking God, when we agreed to do something about Dallon I did not think you'd involve my parents!" Spencer was fuming, pacing the living room like a tense caged animal. "And you - you just - and you just buried them out back with Dallon like they meant nothing?!"

"It was the only thing we could do." Bert said.

"No, what you could've done was not make me murder someone in the first place!"

He stood, as Gee watched, their heart beating fast, and Bob simply picked at his nails. "I hate to break it to you, darling, but you were the one who started all this by wanting to humiliate Brendon in the first place. You're the one who had some crazy revenge scheme planned and you're the one who involved us all in it."

It all happened very quickly after that. The pistol ended up in Spencer's trembling hands, pointing straight at Bert's face, and the younger had gone from a confident, upfront, revenge-planning bitch to a scared boy who'd lost his mind and his way, all in about 2.3 seconds, but Bert didn't even flinch.

"You wouldn't even dare." He said coolly, the corner of his mouth already rising.

"Oh, wouldn't I?" Spencer thumbed back the safety, and Gee shot to their feet, holding out a cautionary arm.

"Whoa, Spence, don't -" they began, but were cut off by the gun-toting maniac turning the gun on them, and they gulped.

"Both of you - you both ruined my life, and -"

"May I just say," Bob interjected, most definitely high enough and way too blasé in Spencer's presence. "may I just say," he raised a hand in a drunken finger point. "Bert's a complete prick, but he does have a point. In a way, you killed your parents. But hey, at least it was Gee that pulled the trigger, that might help you sleep -"

If anyone was going to get a bullet in the arm that night, well, let's face it, it was going to be Bob.

~

Needless to say, Pete didn't expect Ryan to return so soon, least of all with Spencer sobbing at his side, but stranger things had happened, and he let them both in, ignoring the fact that they were both trembling so hard they may have fallen apart right then.

"Hey, Patty." Ryan murmured, acknowledging Pete's rather unfortunate childhood best friend as he sat curled up in an armchair, wearing pajamas (and a fedora) and holding some form of Nintendo DS. He waved in return, going straight back to his game as Ryan ushered Pete and Spencer down the hall, to Pete's room.

"What's going on?" The owner of the untidiest bedroom in the known universe asked, somewhat bewildered, as Spencer collapsed on the bed in heaving floods of tears and Ryan put his fingers to his temples.

"Pete, I swear, I need you to keep a secret, I need you to keep quiet, your mouth is so big you could deep-throat an elephant and still have room but if you tell anyone about this, anyone, you're coming down with us all." He looked up. "Right?"

"Yes - I mean - yes, I won't tell anyone, you can trust me, can't you?" Ryan glared. "Well yes, but -" he shrugged. "Just tell me."

The model took a deep breath. "Spencer killed Dallon and then Gee shot Spencer's parents and then Spencer shot Bob but it was only in the arm so they're at hospital and this wasn't supposed to happen, Brendon doesn't know a thing, he's going to be so pissed when he finds out but I can't tell him I just can't -"

"What?!" Pete shook his head. "No, no, I need a moment, let me have a moment with Spencer. Go see Patrick or something."

Well fuck you then.

Ryan went into the front room and sat himself in the armchair beside Patrick's, who glanced up and gave him a warm smile. Patrick wanted desperately to become a famous composer, to live his dream of making music, but for now he was stuck in this deadbeat down, and even though it housed several pornstars and models and prostitutes, for now he was content with sitting in Pete's armchair playing Animal Crossing and wasting the hours away.

"How long have you been here?" Ryan asked.

"Few hours. Pete called me just after he found out about Mikey, and I couldn't get away until not long after you left." Patrick licked his lips. "I don't know what's going on with them, but I hope they sort it out. Pete really loves Mikey, even though he does have the worst brother in the world."

"Yeah, that's true." He dug the heels of his hands into his eyes, seeing stars and bright spots, but not even the closest constellation could get him out of this mess. "We're all liars and cheats here, Patty. That's just how it is."

A smile, despite being weak and thin. "Y'know, for a liar, you sure tell the truth." Ryan barked a laugh. "I'm more like you guys than Pete thinks."

"What, really?"

"Mm-hm." He set down his DS, barely glancing at it as a blue frog with the biggest eyes Ryan had ever seen and some sort of striped tunic wandered past Patrick's character, nodding its head as music notes danced around it. It was whistling. It was disconcerting, to say the least. "I lie a lot. But nobody ever notices because I'm good at it. Unlike Pete, whose funniest lies include his Internet history and the worst include his mother, I can lie to save my life. I have." He shrugged, as if it was no big deal, and Ryan, who had met the guy thousands of times during his friendship with Pete, stared as if it was Patrick that had the big-ass eyes and the striped tunic.

Ryan waited for more, but all Patrick did was smile secretively and pick up his DS, running away from a zebra while holding a shovel.

"I still owe Nook eighty-thousand bells, the little shit." He said. Something smashed in the bedroom, but he ignored it, hitting a rock with his shovel instead. "I've given him over a million already, and they're hard to come by. Especially when I keep getting the same damned fish over and over again, and he only gives me like three bells for each one."

"What fruit are you growing?"

"Pears. There's an orange tree outside my house, though. I stole it from Pete's town one time."

"What?"

"Yeah, and Pete's friend Andy mailed him some cherries so he gave them to me and I have a cherry tree in my town."

"Not gonna lie, this game is my guilty pleasure."

Patrick scoffed. "It's not even guilty, it's just pleasure." Yelling from the bedroom, but still, he ignored it. "Like, digging up fossils makes you feel like a real archaeologist." He frowned. "Is that what they do? Dig up fossils?"

"Don't you mean palaeontologist?"

He thought for a moment. "Yeah, that one." He shook his head. "I should've been one, I really should. How cool would that be? Much better than a shitty composer." He grinned, and Ryan grinned back, happy to be rid of everything that had happened, even if momentarily.

Until the doorbell rang, and before either of them could get up to answer it, Pete was storming down the hall, throwing the front door open so hard it banged against the wall.

"Where is he? Where's my boyfriend?" Boyfriend?

And as Ryan's heart sank, he realised that there was only one person that voice belonged to.

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