It's the lake in November, and the move closer to the ocean, and Gerard's fixation, and Gerard's compulsions like tidal waves dragging him down, and Mikey's more distant than ever: like they're drifting out into the middle of the ocean, whereas Gerard's just stuck there: water turning to quicksand around him, drowning. And it's the letter; Frank finds it on the floor of the boys' bathroom on the first floor. It's dropped in accident, perhaps from a pocket or something, and it's drenched in what Frank hopes is tap water, and the words: scrawled in blue ink are difficult to make out as the words join together in a fuzzy inky mess. The only paragraph legible is the final one, and even still, it barely is: 'I've been underwater for a long time now, but I'm not drowning, I'm beginning to think I can breathe like this, but I can't, I'm gasping for breath, and I have to do this, Mikey, I have to end this myself. I'm going to the lake on the 1st of November, don't wait for me... I'm not coming back.' And the name signed at the bottom is little more than a smudged mess of blue ink, and there's nothing Frank can do about it, but he knows for certain that the one thing he can't do is ignore this letter, and he reminds himself of that as he folds it into his pocket. It's a suicide note, Frank's stupid, but not stupid enough to brush over that fact, and whoever this person is, Frank knows that they most certainly don't deserve to die. And Frank isn't going to let them. Because he's going to find this person; he's got time now at least, and he can save them, he will save them - Frank promises himself that. But one person in a whole school, it's like a needle in a haystack, but he's got time, it's November 1st in thirty days, and he can only hope that it will be enough. He's got one month: the date is October 1st.

Gerard was late, and it was fucking raining. He'd missed the bus and it was fucking raining, and he was totally going to get dropped from the play if he was late again and he was so fucking screwed, but honestly Gerard wasn't all that keen on it when he'd heard the only main part he'd managed to get in this damn theatre group was of a fucking crossdresser. For someone who was supposed to be in the closet, he was doing an awfully bad job of it. Frank Iero was Gerard's favourite punk ass skater dickhead, that he was currently working on eternally denying to himself the crush he had on Frank, which totally didn't exist of course, but Frank was really cute, and Gerard was really stupid; stupid enough to think that he could totally pull off pretending to be a girl in order for heterosexual Frank Iero to fall for him. Surely, this was truly the worst idea Gerard Way has ever had.

I'm Mikey Way, the grand twenty year old virgin and general klutz when it came to anything vaguely romantic, with a twenty five year old hermit of a brother who only leaves the basement to visit his not quite boyfriend, Frank. I'm also an anti-social mess who's most definitely going to get kicked out of his English course at college by the professor who's more than a little convinced I'm a pyromaniac, unless by some miracle the guy I met at the comic store who wants to suck me off is actually a reincarnation of William Wordsworth. I think Pete may be one of the weirdest people I've ever met, I mean, there are not many people who find amusement in so casually involving blowjobs in their first conversation with you. Pete was a man whore, I thought man whore was a pretty weird term, but I guess Pete was a pretty weird person, so it just sort of fit, like pieces in a puzzle, or a dick in his mouth, apparently. Maybe things would end up with Pete being my friend, or maybe even something more than that, wouldn't that just be... odd? Puzzle pieces, huh? But things are never quite that straight forward, things just love to stray just off the key of reason.

I know that even if there was police tape between myself and him, that if he were a crime scene, I’d jump the tape just to be closer to him, because this feeling, this feeling that makes me feel so alive, and yet so fucking lonely at the same time, is too much to even be able to understand unless I’m near him. And when I’m near him my entire world finally makes sense.

((Basically this is one big messy gay bandom AU, features just about every ship in the emo trinity and a few more)) Frank is the only gay guy he knows, stuck in the rather restricting and conservative world of Catholic school with his two best friends and their Catholic upbringings, where his daily adrenaline hits come from smoking behind the art block with Jamia, who he reckons is on her path to being the next Lindsay Lohan. But then, things really do change, because perhaps Jamia's matchmaking abilities aren't quite as shitty as Frank reckons, and perhaps this 'social gathering' he's dragged along to, does have some benefit to him after all. And perhaps, Frank will draw a face to the name of Gerard - Mikey's older brother, who really despite living in the same town, is worlds away from the reality Frank's stuck in. And on the subject of the unlikely, will Mikey ever finally figure out that Alicia Simmons really doesn't give a fuck about croquet?