"You see Frank, the void and me... ...we're old friends."

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.

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.

The adventures of 'pretty boy' and 'dyke'. The story of the boy with the boobs who can pack a serious punch, and the girl with a dick and her all mighty powerful butt, and just how the two happen to meet and perhaps happen to fall for one another. And the two's battles against dysphoria, the foes of the judgemental gaze of the outside world, and sometimes themselves, sometimes even each other, but in the end, they both know from that very first moment, the first eye contact: it's the two of them against the motherfucking world. (Trans AU, FTM Frank & MTF Gerard)

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.

"There was something so awfully strange about him that I don't think I could put it into words if I tried. He was so distant, so out of touch with the world around him. He could stare at something, and stare for hours, but never really see it. It was like he wasn't living in the same world as me. If I saw something solid and definite, to Gerard that something would simply be present in his vision but, somehow, not there at all. It was as if he lived in a state of continuous dream, like everything around him was solid but malleable under his palms if he needed it to be." -Frank, The Ghost Room.

It's 2018 and people think that the apocalypse has ended. Where cities, homes, businesses and humble towns once stood, now there lies only death, only destruction, only emptiness. Only the moans and the shuffles of the living dead. But in reality, it's only just begun. And for two lonely boys, once separated from each other by dead-town states and not even aware of each other's existence, it's far from being over. It's not about saving the world. It's about saving themselves. ----------------------------------

((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?

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.

"There's a reason we are white and pure, and they are black and dirty. There's a reason they stain our skin. That we are shamed if others see those stains. They're bad people, Frank. They're disgusting."