The Pocket Universe Effect - the feeling that nothing else outside your little bubble of reality can quite matter at all. One am on a Friday in June, admist quiet neighbourhoods of New Jersey, the Ieros are away on a night out and Frank and Gerard are sprawled out across Gerard's green anorak, without the capacity to care about anything other than the night sky and the way the stars reflect in each other's eyes.

After a failed suicide attempt, Frank Iero is placed into an induced coma to prevent any further self harm. While he's asleep, he's visited by what he believes is an angel who sings to him. When Frank finally awakens, it becomes his obsession to find who the voice belongs to. [[Trigger Warning! Suicide-- do not take this warning lightly. Suicide is a main theme. Pretty explicit self-harm, child abuse, underage drinking, reckless behavior, and depression. If you notice anything else that needs tagged, please let me know!]]

Frank is an emo piece of shit who needs to get a grip on life. Gerard is an edgy fuckboy with totally not infected stretched ears and an obsession with writing shit poetry, also all he listens to is Neck Deep and Front Porch Step because they understand his inner angst and how he really is, and all that One Direction on his iPod, totally his Mikey's. And of course, they fucking hate each other. And of course, they're paired up together in English for a class project on Romeo and Juliet. Mikey is a Larry conspiracy theorist, he would compare his need for Larry to his need for oxygen, and if given a choice between the two we all know which one he'd pick. He is however gay and very open minded and generally kind to everyone, except Gryles shippers, of course. Pete is Mikey's best friend. They're sweet little dudes, and have been best friends since they were about six. They're both equally in love with One Direction and Pete doesn't even mind when Mikey talks for like three hours about Harry's dreamy eyes. Pete, however, perhaps, maybe has this little tiny crush on Mikey, which he considers to be the end of the world, however it's not that which leaves Mikey ignoring him for weeks. It's not even his shitty youtube channel with about 6 subscribers. Brendon is openly gay, big foreheaded, and big headed in general. The guy also loves 5SOS, like seriously he's the worst person in the world. He's about seven thousand miles up his own ass and thinks he's Tyler Oakley. He's also totally not fucking Ryan Ross, like seriously, wow that Brian Moss guy? Brendon doesn't even fucking know him, and he already knows he's an asshole. Ryan Ross is straighter than like a straight line. Ryan Ross is the epitome of no homo, and he's totally not getting off with Brendon Urie, because like he doesn't even know that guy - who the fuck is Breadbin Urine anyway? He smokes weed and generally has such a hard life as a 'straight' cis white boy with a secret weakness for John Green.

((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?

Gerard draws dicks for a living. Frank takes them. Gerard Way moves into a new apartment in a dodgy complex where he's bound to get beaten to a pulp after his old place is set on fire by those damned 'youths', and by a certain turn of events, his neighbour, the equally provocative, yet entirely in a different way, Frank Iero, ends up in his bed, and then, everything just really goes to shit.

Frank is a hopelessly short, hopelessly desperate, and just generally hopeless highschooler, whose only friend is the amazingly tall kid with the 'fro: Ray Toro. School is mundane, school is just, well, school: Lindsey Ballato is a goddess, Pete Wentz is a MySpace whore, and Brendon Urie totally deserved getting kicked in the balls last summer, but then Mikey fucking Way turns up and before Frank knows it he's over at the Way household and swooning over an unfairly hot older brother who has totally just made out with an overly casual Lindsey Ballato. And that's not even to mention Gerard's past and sort of ex-boyfriend Bert McCracken who he kind of did, kind of didn't leave in the old town he and Mikey just moved from, but what is for sure is that Gerard Way can't help but stare at Mikey's sort of best friend, Frank, just a little too much. But Gerard is older and sort of world's away from Frank's league: he's like Lindsey Ballato - unobtainable and godly, and most definitely a member of the elite sex club that Frank reckons Lindsey's involved in. And this elite club of people who've seen Gerard Way naked? Let's say, Frank Iero wants in... to Gerard's pants. However Mikey thinks that it's less of a club and more of a support group.

[This is the sequel to Tell Me I'm A Bad Man, it's not a necessity to read that first, but you probably should] Frank was under the impression that as soon as he'd graduated and moved to New York with Gerard, everything would be, well, perfect. Though he wasn't completely naïve - he knew that the presence of Gerard's apparently suicidal ex-boyfriend was going to make things difficult, but he didn't know that his intense distrust of the man would start to break down the relationship he'd tried so hard to keep. And then lies upon lies upon lies from everybody start to build, until nobody's sure of the truth anymore. Six months isn't long, but it's enough. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- [sexual content, may be triggering for some individuals]