this is my fanfic

1. Descent - PG-13, MCR Gen, angst, 2,160 words
2. Itchyfucker - NC-17, MCR Frank/Gerard, humor, 2,798 words
3. Revenge - PG-13, MCR Gen, 4,037 words
4. Sand (The Years Arc #1) - NC-17, MCR Frank/Gerard, 4,379 words
5. Magic (The Years Arc #2) - NC-17, MCR Frank/Gerard, 4,214 words
6. You - NC-17, MCR Frank/Gerard, 5,168 words
7. Nowhere - PG-13, MCR gen (Frank/Gerard off-screen), 7,722 words
8. Breathe - PG-13, MCR Gen, 3,738 words
9. Hush (follows Breathe) - NC-17, MCR Frank/Gerard, 6,384 words
10. Time (The Years Arc #3) - NC-17, MCR Frank/Gerard, 5,262 words
11. Season (The Years Arc #4) - NC-17, MCR Frank/Gerard, 7,657 words
12. Crisis (The Years Arc #5) - R, MCR Frank/Gerard, 7,556 words
13. Next (The Years Arc #6) - PG-13, MCR Frank/Gerard, 6,370 words
14. Immortal (The Years Arc #7) - PG-13, MCR Frank/Gerard, 5,303 words
15. Chill (The Years Arc #8) - PG-13, MCR Frank/Gerard, 1,749 words
16. Listen - NC-17, MCR Frank/Gerard, 4,239 words
17. Realms - PG-13, MCR Gen, fantasy, 5,039 words
18. Dungeons (follows Realms) - PG-13, MCR Gen, fantasy, 5,525 words
19. Settle - NC-17, MCR Frank/Gerard, 10,023 words
20. Settled (follows Settle) - NC-17, MCR Frank/Gerard, 12,975 words
21. Space - PG-13, MCR Gen, 1,815 words
22. Scarf - NC-17, MCR Frank/Gerard unrequited, 279 words
23. One - NC-17, MCR Frank/Gerard, 4,247 words
24. Special - PG-13, MCR Gen, 1,065 words
25. Wish - R, MCR Frank/Gerard implied, 3,678 words
26. Wishes (follows Wish) - NC-17, MCR Frank/Gerard, genderswap, 5,611 words
27. Honeysuckle - G, MCR Frank/Gerard, 603 words
28. Wished (follows Wishes) - NC-17, MCR Frank/Gerard, genderswap, pregnancy, 6,634 words
29. Dinner - PG-13, MCR Gen, 2,201 words
30. Broken - NC-17, MCR Frank/Gerard, 34,106 words
31. Back - G, MCR Gen, 1,153 words
32. Once - PG-13, MCR Waycest, 692 words
33. Tired - G, MCR gen, angst, 627 words
34. Simple - NC-17, MCR Mikey/Frank, 2,262 words
35. Wings - NC-17, MCR Frank/Gerard, 3,834 words
36. Holiday (follows Settled) - PG-13, MCR Frank/Gerard, 1,494 words
37. Phylogeny - NC-17, PatD Brendon/Jon/Ryan/Spencer, 92,990 words
38. Circadian (follows Revelations) - NC-17, PatD Brendon/Jon/Ryan/Spencer, 31,770 words
39. Valentines (follows Circadian) - G, PatD Brendon/Jon/Ryan/Spencer, 429 words
40. Discordance (follows Valentines) - NC-17, PatD Brendon/Jon/Ryan/Spencer, 41,281 words
41. Adonis (follows Discordance) - R, PatD Brendon/Jon/Ryan/Spencer, 1,238 words
42. Revelations (follows Phylogeny) - NC-17, PatD Brendon/Jon/Ryan/Spencer (FOB Pete/Patrick), 11,108 words
43. Pack - G, PatD gen, 4,224 words
44. Encumbrance (follows Adonis) - PG-13, PatD Brendon/Jon/Ryan/Spencer, 393 words
45. Bitter - PG-13, PatD gen, 1,074 words
46. Summersong (follows Encumbrance) - R, PatD Brendon/Jon/Ryan/Spencer, 3,301 words

Descent

I suffered a head injury some years back, and of all the things I've forgotten thanks to that, I still vividly remember the feeling of helplessness as things slipped away from me, the sense of loss. It's a theme I've brought to more than one fic, in more than one fandom; and here in this one, it was the first story idea that twinged at me and made me write. I think I'd probably put this first on the list of Horrible Things I've Done To Fictional!Gerard, and all I can say is, may life never imitate art in this respect.

• Stats: Written first, on January 13, 2008. 2,160 words.
• Rating: PG-13 for profanity. Content note: Angst.
• Band: My Chemical Romance
• Relationship: Gerard & Frank, platonic.
• POV: Gerard.
• Summary: There's a lot Gerard doesn't remember, nowadays.
• Excerpt: "Then came the fumbling and the stumbling and the forgetting of lyrics, and after that, the intervention: we know you've fallen off the wagon, man, don't lie to us, we're your friends - then, the slow realization and dawning horror that something far more sinister than addiction lay behind his descent."
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Revenge

I don't know Frank Iero, not at all. But he's an Italian boy, and he's a Jersey boy, and so it could be postulated that he's capable of having a temper, yeah? This story grew out of that speculation, alongside musing about how easy it is for things to get out of hand, for people to get carried away, once tempers ignite. It also goes on the list of Horrible Things I've Done To Fictional!Gerard, probably (at this point) at about number three.

• Stats: Written third, on January 16-17, 2008. 4,037 words.
• Rating: PG-13 for profanity.
• Band: My Chemical Romance
• Relationship: Gerard & Frank, platonic.
• POV: Frank.
• Summary: It's just not a good idea to mess with Italian boys from Jersey.
• Excerpt: "The lights around the pool flicker off the water's surface in ripples, lighting Gerard's face as he halts in the threshold and stares helplessly at Frank, then at the pool below, then at Frank again; the vengeful laughter bubbles up inside Frank and overflows, because he's got Gerard now, yeah, just like he deserves."
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Breathe

The coolest thing about being a writer in any form is that when things happen to you, your first thought tends to be, "Hey, I can write this into a story someday!" no matter how otherwise negative the happenstance might be. It's kind of comforting, really. :) Because he'd be more profoundly affected than any other member of the band by the events described, and since the theme of Fictional!Frank being ill seems to be well-used in the fandom to the point of cliche, I decided to slide this into the list of Horrible Things I've Done To Fictional!Gerard at about the number two slot. (There's a sequel, Hush, in the Explicit section.)

• Stats: Written eighth, on January 25, 2008. 3,738 words.
• Rating: PG-13 for profanity.
• Band: My Chemical Romance
• Relationship: Gerard & Frank, platonic.
• POV: Gerard.
• Summary: Sometimes, it's all you can do just to breathe.
• Excerpt: "There are so many things he wants to say, now. 'I don't deserve this,' is probably at the top of the list, followed closely by, 'I don't deserve you,' and after that, 'I promise that next time you're sick, I'll take care of you,' and maybe it's better, Gerard thinks, that he can't talk, can't say these things, because he'd sound like an emo girl if he did."
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Realms

This story comes from two places: 1) the image in my head of Frank with pointy ears that would. not. go. away, and 2) the fact that I have not played World of Warcraft in entirely too long. It's an alternate-universe story, as you might have guessed from those two facts, and I think the thing I like best about it is that the story itself is written with utmost seriousness, despite the fact that the underlying premise? is bloody hilarious. Also, by the way, just in passing? Hunters FTW. I'm just sayin'.

• Stats: Written seventeenth, on February 8th, 2008. 5,039 words.
• Rating: PG-13 for profanity.
• Band: My Chemical Romance
• Relationship: Completely gen, can you believe it?
• POV: Ray.
• Summary: It's, like, on the road... only, kinda, different.
• Excerpt: "Bob's already in the thick of it, sword flashing in the weird magical light as he fights off three at once, and Frank's out there in bear form, claws and teeth savaging whatever gets in his way. Ray takes up position at the fringes of the battle and lets loose arrow after arrow, and every one finds its mark; beside him, Gerard casts spell after spell, focused for once on the task at hand, spreading death and destruction through the enemy's ranks; while somewhere in the shadows - Ray can't see him, but he knows - Mikey is slipping silently and stealthily from enemy to enemy, sliding his dagger into an unseeing back, cutting open a vulnerable throat."
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Dungeons (sequel to Realms)

People begged for a sequel to Realms, and I'd had so much fun with it that I wanted to continue the story - but it wasn't until the summary line, a throwaway bit from the first part, lodged itself in my head and started to reverberate that I had any idea where the story was going to go. And I love that here, basically, is this total crack-fic premise with a completely angsty and serious plotline - and of course, the sheer mental imagery of Elf!Druid!Frank-with-turquoise-hair is just too much fun for words.

• Stats: Written eighteenth, on February 8th-9th, 2008. 5,525 words.
• Rating: PG-13 for profanity.
• Band: My Chemical Romance
• Relationship: Completely gen, can you believe it?
• POV: Ray.
• Summary: Frank is too short to be an elf.
• Excerpt: "It's a tense and frightening trip back to camp, because Frank is still bleeding, all over Bob's garments and armor, all over Gerard's hand that clings to his limp one as if Frank might feel the pressure of his grip through the veil of unconsciousness, bleeding more blood than it seems possible for the small form to possess, and their healer is back at camp, and Mikey's got the resurrection stones, and why, why did I leave them behind? Ray berates himself, over and over, as they run through the forest, pushing their way through the underbrush, not even noticing the branches and thorns that tear at their garments and flesh."
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Space

Much as we love the other guys in the band, there's just something about Bob that provokes weird, wonderful bursts of near-religious fervor. Bob is the man; and so when Nessime begged me to write something about Bob for her, I was happy to oblige.

• Stats: Written twenty-first, on February 23rd, 2008. 1,815 words.
• Rating: PG-13 for profanity.
• Band: My Chemical Romance
• Relationship: Completely gen, because it's Bob.
• POV: Bob.
• Summary: Sometimes, a guy just needs some space.
• Excerpt: "Mikey does not wander over to him spouting insane non-sequiturs, Gerard confines his mania to the far side of the dressing room, and the hurtling missile known as Frank does not fling himself in Bob's direction. He has space, space, fantastic wonderful personal space, with no one sitting on him or sweating on him or shoving gross bodily ailments in his face, and it is heavenly."
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Special

I wrote this for the Give Frank A Hug meme, because Frank, I think, needs more hugs - or perhaps body armor, or neck-to-ankle bubble wrap, something to protect him from the illnesses and blows life seems to keep dealing in his direction.

• Stats: Written twenty-fourth, on March 3rd, 2008. 1,065 words.
• Rating: PG-13 for profanity.
• Band: My Chemical Romance
• Relationship: Completely gen.
• POV: Frank.
• Summary: Everybody's being nice to Frankie.
• Excerpt: "'Why?' he says persistently, around mouthfuls of soup, 'what's going on?' A thought strikes him. 'Am I dying or something, and nobody's told me?' and in that moment, it almost seems likely. 'Or, what, you kicking me out of the band for being sick all the time? What? What?'"
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Honeysuckle

I wrote this for madelinesimone, in accordance with her request for hammockfic. I didn't manage to work in the sweet tea she requested, but otherwise I think I met her specifications.

• Stats: Written twenty-seventh, on March 8th, 2008. 603 words.
• Rating: G for utter innocence.
• Band: My Chemical Romance
• Relationship: Gerard & Frank, romantic.
• POV: Frank.
• Summary: It's a warm spring day, and there's a hammock, and Gerard.
• Excerpt: "The hammock is big enough for two; he knows this, because Gerard is snuggled up against him, back against his chest, spooning; and he's actually bathed recently, and the scent of his shampoo mingles with the sweet spring air. Frank inhales deeply and lets it out in a sigh, content and at peace."
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Dinner

nessime_lisen and mrs_batman gave me the prompt, "Mikey makes dinner for the band", and this is what came out of it: a little melancholy, a little bit silly, a little sentimental, and actually a pretty good recipe, too.

• Stats: Written twenty-ninth, on March 9th, 2008. 2,201 words.
• Rating: PG-13 for profanity.
• Band: My Chemical Romance
• Relationship: Just friendship.
• POV: Mikey, Gerard, Frank.
• Summary: Mikey makes dinner for the band.
• Excerpt: "So okay, it turns out that Bob can knit a scarf in less than a day; and now Mikey has to make dinner for the band, as per their bet. And all he's got is a stove and a microwave, and it has to be something Frank will eat, too; and he's got a half hour and a single trip to a convenience store to come up with ingredients, and oh yeah, let's not forget the fact that Mikey can't cook. Yeah. Piece of cake."
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Back

Inspired, I think, by news of the band's impending alleged two-year break, and perhaps the fact that it'd been a month since I'd written anything.

• Stats: Written thirty-first, on April 23rd, 2008. 1,153 words.
• Rating: G.
• Band: My Chemical Romance
• Relationship: Gerard & Frank, platonic.
• POV: Gerard.
• Summary: Six months.
• Excerpt: Six months is just six months, easy, simple, a mere hiccup in time, but he feels like he's been packed away in cotton wool at the bottom of a drawer, inactive and inert, and coming up from it is like gasping for air, re-learning how to breathe, and he just can't get enough.
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Tired

Writing fiction on a Blackberry is not the easiest thing in the world. And yet I did, in a hotel room in St. Louis before the show. You'd think that the prospect of a concert that night would've produced a less grim and unsettling piece of fic, but apparently that's not how it works...

• Stats: Written thirty-third, on May 3rd, 2008. 627 words.
• Rating: G, depressing.
• Band: My Chemical Romance
• Relationship: Just friendship.
• POV: Not stated.
• Summary: He's so tired.
• Excerpt: The sympathy, he's used to; but it's the other looks that get him, the fleeting expressions of pain that cross his bandmates' faces every time the realization strikes afresh, as raw as if the first time, that this will be his last tour. He feels their pain as acutely as he feels his own: they're his family, these guys, the brothers he's never had before, and he knows what kind of loss it will be for them, the size and aching shape of the hole he'll be leaving behind.
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Holiday

This little piece of fluff popped into my head on Christmas Eve, after a long writing hiatus, and was written and posted as a Christmas cookie for the people who've been waiting patiently for me to start writing again. It's nominally a sequel to Settle and Settled but can definitely stand alone, and is best read while snuggled under a warm blanket, with bread baking in an oven nearby.

• Stats: Written thirty-sixth, on December 24th, 2008. 1,494 words.
• Rating: PG-13
• Band: My Chemical Romance
• Relationship: Gerard & Frank, romantic.
• POV: Frank.
• Summary: It's the night before Christmas...
• Excerpt: "For just a moment, though, he flashed back to childhood, his mother's house, warm and toasty, the smell of baking bread and simmering soup... Frank sighed. Things were tight, what with Gee out of work and Frank barely clinging to a minimum-wage paycheck, and there would be no all-encompassing heat, no baking bread, no soup simmering on the stove, much less the trappings and trimmings of Christmas adorning their crappy loft apartment."
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Pack

There are the plot bunnies that drift aimlessly through your mind, and there are the ones that gnaw at you, demanding to be written... and then there are the ones that slip under the radar and creep up on you, and before you know it, you're looking at a half-finished story, thinking, What the hell? This was one of those plot bunnies. (Plot kitties? Whatever.)

• Stats: Written forty-third, on June 3, 2009. 4,224 words.
• Rating: G
• Band: Panic at the Disco
• Relationship: Brendon & Jon & Ryan & Spencer, friendship
• POV: Brendon
• Summary: It's good to be Pack.
• Excerpt: "Up you go," says Jon easily, and Brendon swallows hard and gathers himself. There's a lid on top of the basin their Big likes to sit on, and it's the easiest leap to start with; Brendon steadies himself, gauges the distance and jumps - and lands unevenly, awkward instead of graceful, skidding on a surface treacherously slippery against his paw pads, claws straining against its hardness as he fights for purchase. He narrowly manages to catch himself before he can slide straight off the opposite side, spends a moment catching his breath - then abruptly turns to see if Jon noticed. "I meant to do that," Brendon tells him.
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Bitter

The obligatory Panic split fic. Originally written as a series of forty-eight text messages.

• Stats: Written forty-fifth, on July 10, 2009. 1,074 words.
• Rating: G
• Band: Panic at the Disco
• Relationship: Ryan & Spencer, friendship
• POV: Ryan
• Summary: The obligatory Panic split fic.
• Excerpt: "I think this is a song of hope," Robert Plant says, as the first notes of Stairway to Heaven come over the radio. Ryan lets the sound wash over him, unable to manage the strength to change the station, unable to muster more than a token sneer. He doesn't feel very hopeful today.
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Nowhere

I'm really incredibly fond of this story. It started out as a one-word prompt by Nessime Lisen, "mellow" - which provoked a clear and vivid image of the story's opening in my mind, to the point where I could feel the crisp blades of grass, smell the fresh air. That clarity stayed with me the whole time I was writing this, like a series of photographs presented to me by my mind's eye, where all I had to do was sketch words around the pictures to bring it to life. All the little threads just came together of their own accord and wove themselves into a neat whole without my having to work hard to make it happen, and the end result feels to me kind of like a dream, a sort of timeless flow of imagery that tells a tale even though there really isn't any plot to it at all.

• Stats: Written seventh, on January 21-24, 2008. 7,722 words.
• Rating: PG-13 for profanity and mature themes.
• Band: My Chemical Romance
• Relationship: Gerard & Frank, sexual, off-screen.
• POV: Ray.
• Summary: One broken-down bus, three teenagers, and forty-eight hours in the middle of nowhere.
• Excerpt: "It's a watercolor moment, for a band usually better suited to tempera paints and bold marker strokes, and Ray files away the image in memory to save and savor at some future time when the lights are too bright and the world is too loud and everything's sharp edges, with no softness at all."
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Once

I had promised myself, at the first onset of bandom-related madness, that I would never dip my toe into this end of the fiction pool. ...So much for promises.

• Stats: Written thirty-second, on April 24th, 2008. 692 words.
• Rating: PG-13 for profanity and general naughtiness.
• Band: My Chemical Romance
• Relationship: Gerard & Mikey, sexual, non-explicit.
• POV: Mikey.
• Summary: It was just the once...
• Excerpt: It was just the once. Just the once, and they were both drunk, and no, seriously, never gonna happen again, never ever EVER, because there's flouting conventionality and then there's Just. Fucking. Wrong. and this, yeah, latter category, without a doubt.
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Itchyfucker

This story was born at the moment I learned that Gerard is allergic to cats. Being a cat-lover myself, I can't help but feel there's something unnatural about this state of affairs (nothing personal against Gerard; I have friends who are allergic, and I think they're kind of weird, too) and, y'know, what with this list of Horrible Things I've Done To Fictional!Gerard and all, this story was basically inevitable.

• Stats: Written second, on January 14, 2008. 2,798 words.
• Rating: R to NC-17 for light sex and profanity.
• Band: My Chemical Romance
• Relationship: Gerard & Frank, sexual.
• POV: Gerard.
• Summary: No good deed goes unpunished.
• Excerpt: "'Tell you what. You go, I dunno, soak your head in a hot shower, before you drown in your own snot. I'll get Itchyfucker here all squared away, set up the litter box and all that. And because I am a true and loyal friend, I will even get that cat puke off your sofa.'"
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You

I'm not entirely comfortable with this story. For starters, it begins on a very different note from the one it ends on, veering wildly between extremes of emotion and theme. In addition to that, it touches on a real-life romantic relationship... and I'm not comfortable with fictionalizing those at all. It can be argued that writing fiction about the boys in the band is reasonable, given that they've chosen the public eye, but their significant others haven't chosen anything except who to love, and it doesn't seem fair to me to draw them or their relationships into the realm of fiction just because of that. But the story idea came to me, and chewed at me, and I couldn't see any way to do it without using the real-life relationship as a catalyst point - so I compromised by touching on it as lightly as I possibly could while still writing the story I needed to write. I still feel weird about it, though.

• Stats: Written sixth, on January 20, 2008. 5,168 words.
• Rating: NC-17 for sex and profanity.
• Band: My Chemical Romance
• Relationship: Gerard & Frank, sexual.
• POV: Gerard.
• Summary: Sometimes, life changes. Friends help.
• Excerpt: "The phone rings four times and goes to voicemail, Frank's absurdly cheery voice greeting him as if from some alternate dimension, one where Gerard isn't a complete fuck-up. He hangs up without leaving a message and tries again... and again... and again... and the fifth time he calls, the phone clicks straight over to voicemail without ringing at all, signifying that Frank's shut his phone off altogether."
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Hush (sequel to Breathe)

This came from a sort of feeling of incompleteness about Breathe - I mean, the story stands alone nicely, but when I was done with it I had the feeling that there was more that remained to be said. This is the story that You almost was, in a way - a little darker, more unpleasant, and to be honest, I wasn't sure until the very end of the story just how this one was going to wrap itself up.

• Stats: Written ninth, on January 26-27, 2008. 6,384 words.
• Rating: NC-17 for sex and profanity.
• Band: My Chemical Romance
• Relationship: Gerard & Frank, sexual.
• POV: Frank.
• Summary: Shhhh.
• Excerpt: "He's homesick for a past that never was, for a tenderness and caring they'd never had amidst the flashpoint passion they'd once shared, and it's a strange sort of sadness, a hot aching feeling that won't quite go away."
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Listen

The first thing written after the all-encompassing insanity that was the Years Arc, and conclusive proof that I am nowhere near finished doing Horrible Things To Fictional!Gerard - and Fictional!Frank, too, come to think of it. It comes off kind of warm and fluffy on the surface, this one, but it's really a nasty little story underneath that, detailing a painful kind of co-dependency, so that the net effect to me is kind of like an arsenic and cyanide cake covered in pink sugary frosting.

• Stats: Written sixteenth, on February 6th, 2008. 4,239 words.
• Rating: NC-17 for sex and profanity.
• Band: My Chemical Romance
• Relationship: Gerard & Frank, sexual.
• POV: Frank.
• Summary: He never listens.
• Excerpt: "The hotel rises up thirty stories, rooms arranged in a cylinder around a central atrium. Their rooms are on twenty-seven, and the lobby lies so far below them that looking down provokes a sharp spasm of vertigo. 'Seriously, Gee,' Frank says, making one last token effort to forestall the madness, 'this is really not a good idea.'"
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Settle

Sometimes self-insertion in fanfic takes the form of the dreaded Mary Sue character. Sometimes it's less obvious, as in this story, in which I basically plopped Fictional!Gerard into the middle of my life, and let him deal with it in his own way. The weirdly coincidental happenstances that occur here and there are also immensely characteristic of how my own life happens to work; and Frank's apartment is a combination of places I spent time in, and remember fondly, way back in the day. So it's a delightfully bizarre trip for me, casting my own world into fiction, and I think that the story works better for the reality I've been able to toss into it.

• Stats: Written nineteenth, on February 10th-11th, 2008. 10,023 words.
• Rating: NC-17 for sex and profanity.
• Band: My Chemical Romance
• Relationship: Gerard & Frank, sexual.
• POV: Gerard.
• Summary: When did he decide to set aside his dreams, and settle for normalcy? He doesn't know, exactly, but he's pretty sure it sucks.
• Excerpt: "He'd had dreams, once - dreams of making a difference in the world, first through art and then music, but now? Same old eight-to-five, five days a week, doing meaningless things in a meaningless place; and it pays the bills, it allows him to have things like cable television and internet access, but there isn't any point, and sometimes it just gets to him."
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Settled (sequel to Settle)

In the process of writing this follow-up, it turned somehow into the most sugary-sweet piece of fluff I could've written, so much so that I'm pretty sure it'll rot your teeth as you're reading it. But it's basically, overall, a happy little story; and those are just nice, sometimes.

• Stats: Written twentieth, on February 12-17th, 2008. 12,975 words.
• Rating: NC-17 for sex and profanity.
• Band: My Chemical Romance
• Relationship: Gerard & Frank, sexual.
• POV: Gerard.
• Summary: Getting settled into a new life.
• Excerpt: "Frank's still gazing at him with that look in his eyes, as if Gerard is unlike anything he's ever seen before, something beautiful and priceless and precious, and Gerard is almost afraid to let himself fall into that look, because he thinks he might never find his way out again, might be submerged in the depths of that adoration and drown in it. And then he does, and it's the warmest thing he's ever felt, filling holes in his soul that he hadn't known were there."
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Scarf

The backstory to this one is exquisitely simple: Nessime, texting me and saying, "You should fic at me in 150-character bursts." And so, being the generally obliging sort of person I am, I did. It's really an amazing challenge, making a story fit into that kind of constraint - so all things considered, I'm pleased that this one kind of holds together.

• Stats: Written twenty-second, on February 27th, 2008. 279 words.
• Rating: NC-17 (just barely) for sex.
• Band: My Chemical Romance
• Relationship: Gerard & Frank, sexual, unrequited.
• POV: Frank.
• Summary: Frank likes Gerard's scarves.
• Excerpt: "It's twisted, he knows; twisted, and sick, and sometimes he prays for absolution, and then he does it again, because he just. cannot. resist."
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One

Everyone's got regrets, things they wish they could take back and do over, things they wish they could make right. It's not often that one gets a second chance to make up for the past; but I love my fictional characters, and so I gave them that chance, to do with what they chose.

• Stats: Written twenty-third, on March 2nd, 2008. 4,247 words.
• Rating: NC-17 for sex and profanity.
• Band: My Chemical Romance
• Relationship: Gerard & Frank, sexual.
• POV: Gerard.
• Summary: One chance. One night. Just one.
• Excerpt: "At the time, he was glad of Frank's ability to set it aside and forget all about it; now, he regrets. Regrets, with a deep, sharp ache, what he turned aside, what he's missed - thinks about what could have been, and yearns for it, longs to turn back time and snatch back that long-lost chance."
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Wish

"Be careful what you wish for," the saying goes, "because you might actually get it," and nowhere is that saying more apropos than in this story, in which Fictional!Frank discovers that really, some things are better left un-wished-for.

• Stats: Written twenty-fifth, on March 3rd-4th, 2008. 3,678 words.
• Rating: R for sex and profanity.
• Band: My Chemical Romance
• Relationship: Frank & Gerard, implied; Frank & ..., unrequited.
• POV: Frank.
• Summary: Wishes can be dangerous things.
• Excerpt: "When he's alone, leaps onto his bed and bounces a couple of times, giggling uncontrollably. It's real, it's real, and 'oh man, this is gonna be awesome!' delighted by his good fortune. Yeah, he's got a girl back home, but that's not the point, it's the principle of the thing, and it's utterly fantastic."
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Wishes (sequel to Wish)

Sometimes a dream-come-true can have repercussions you wouldn't even think of... and sometimes, that's not a bad thing.

• Stats: Written twenty-sixth, on March 4th, 2008. 5,611 words.
• Rating: NC-17 for sex and profanity.
• Band: My Chemical Romance
• Relationship: Frank & Gerard, sexual. Genderswap.
• POV: Frank.
• Summary: Wishes can be really dangerous things.
• Excerpt: "Life goes on the way it does on the road, shows and long-ass bus rides and too-seldom hotel nights, but the thought sticks with him, the curiosity of what would it be like poking at his mind; and so, by the time they come to their long-awaited week-long break, Frank's pretty much got his thoughts in order, knows what he wants to do."
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Wished (sequel to Wish and Wishes)

In which things become even weirder than before.

• Stats: Written twenty-eighth, on March 5th-8th, 2008. 6,634 words.
• Rating: NC-17 for sex and profanity.
• Band: My Chemical Romance
• Relationship: Frank & Gerard, sexual. Genderswap; pregnancy.
• POV: Frank.
• Summary: Wishes? Still dangerous things.
• Excerpt: "No one calls her Frank anymore, not even her band. It's Frankie, and sometimes Francine when they're being sarcastic; among outsiders, it's usually Fai, a nickname taken from her initials, which she actually kind of likes... but she's Frank, damn it, she's Frank, and she's male, and she doesn't know what's worse: the fact that her band seems to have forgotten that fact, or that she has begun to forget that truth herself."
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Broken

It started as a wisp of a plot bunny in my head and grew to sixteen parts before I really knew what was happening, this saga of love and loss and pain and reunion; it took me on a wild ride through heartbreak and up the U.S. coastline and finally deposited me and the characters in a whole new place, shattered and reassembled into an entirely new form.

• Stats: Written thirtieth, on March 13th - 18th, 2008. 34,106 words.
• Rating: NC-17 for sex and profanity.
• Band: My Chemical Romance
• Relationship: Gerard & Frank, sexual.
• POV: Frank (mostly).
• Summary: Broken hearts. Broken souls.
• Excerpt: What am I doing? crosses his mind, and he doesn't know, not really, only that I'm running away, and it seems a good idea, a fine idea, and maybe the only thing he can really do, because he knows he can't cope with facing what he's left behind.
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Simple

Just a simple little story about friendship, is all.

• Stats: Written thirty-fourth, on May 13th-14th, 2008. 2,262 words.
• Rating: NC-17 for sex and profanity.
• Band: My Chemical Romance
• Relationship: Mikey/Frank, sexual.
• POV: Mikey.
• Summary: Friendship can be a complex thing, or it can be very, very simple.
• Excerpt: He shows up on his best friend's doorstep late at night, because the nightmares won't leave him alone, demons pressing in on him from every angle, and the beautiful part is that he doesn't even have to explain: "C'mon in," Frank says, and Mikey does, and it's just as simple as that.
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Wings

Prompted by my rediscovery of my own wings. (I believe everyone has them, really. Just, only a few of us know it.)

• Stats: Written thirty-fifth, on June 8th, 2008. 3,834 words.
• Rating: NC-17 for sex and profanity.
• Band: My Chemical Romance
• Relationship: Gerard & Frank, sexual.
• POV: Gerard.
• Summary: Finding one's wings.
• Excerpt: It stops him cold, brings him abruptly to full alertness like a shot of ice water to the face, because while it's been a long time, almost since childhood, he still remembers the feeling, the heaviness at his back, the strange tightness, the feeling that if he could flex his muscles just right he could make them unfold, sprout forth, the wings that he knew ought to be there
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Phylogeny

Behold, my first Panic at the Disco story - and the end of a long dry spell for me, in which no stories begged to be written loudly or insistently enough to make me sit down and write them. This one, however, did.

• Stats: Written thirty-seventh, on December 29th, 2008 - January 23, 2009. 92,990 words.
• Rating: NC-17 for sex, profanity and drug use. Content note: Non-specific mentions of past child sexual abuse.
• Band: Panic at the Disco.
• Relationship: Brendon & Jon & Ryan & Spencer, sexual/polygamous.
• POV: Varies.
• Summary: phylogeny: (noun) 1. the sequence of events involved in the evolutionary development of a species or group of organisms, 2. the history or course of the development of something.
• Excerpt: Silence falls, a waiting sort of silence, as if it's still unfinished, more yet to be said. "With these words," Jon says finally, slowly, feeling out the words as he says them, "and with these rings, with the sun and moon and stars as our witness, we commit ourselves to our future together, as a family."
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Revelations

Written out of sequence, because the first time I tackled this story, it came out all wrong. The second time, much better.

• Stats: Written forty-second, on May 9th, 2009. 11,108 words.
• Rating: NC-17 for sex, profanity and drug use.
• Band: Panic at the Disco (incidental Fall Out Boy).
• Relationship: Brendon & Jon & Ryan & Spencer, sexual/polygamous. (Pete & Patrick, sexual.)
• POV: Jon.
• Summary: In which Pete finds out.
• Excerpt: "I need your couch," Pete says, without preliminaries; and "It's yours," Jon says, equally blunt and wholly accepting.
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Circadian (sequel to Phylogeny)

I was so curious to know what happened after Phylogeny ended, and so fond of looking at their world from behind fictional!Brendon's eyes, that this jumped out at me and all but wrote itself. I had so much fun with this!

• Stats: Written thirty-eighth, completed February 3rd, 2009. 31,770 words.
• Rating: NC-17 for sex, profanity and drug use.
• Band: Panic at the Disco.
• Relationship: Brendon & Jon & Ryan & Spencer, sexual/polygamous.
• POV: Brendon.
• Summary: A day in the life.
• Excerpt: The toast pops, and Ryan butters two slices for himself and Brendon, leaving the most well-cooked slice plain for Spencer to spread with jelly, and another for Jon to put cream cheese on; Spencer fetches the jelly and cream cheese while Brendon layers cheese on eggs and puts them in the microwave while Jon's pouring fresh cups of coffee for everyone and fixing them up to suit individual tastes, and it's like a dance routine, almost, the four of them moving around each other in the small kitchen, weaving and dodging each other as if they'd rehearsed it that way.
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Valentines (sequel to Circadian)

Just a brief little snapshot of Valentine's Day.

• Stats: Written thirty-ninth, completed February 14th, 2009. 429 words.
• Rating: G for happy fluffiness.
• Band: Panic at the Disco.
• Relationship: Brendon & Jon & Ryan & Spencer, sexual/polygamous.
• POV: Spencer.
• Summary: A Valentine's Day cookie.
• Excerpt: "Perhaps we should have coordinated this ahead of time," Spencer says, bemused.
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Discordance (sequel to Valentines)

Inevitably, there's always the first fight. Sometimes, it's a real doozy.

• Stats: Written fortieth, completed April 19th, 2009. 41,281 words.
• Rating: NC-17 for sex, profanity and drug use.
• Band: Panic at the Disco.
• Relationship: Brendon & Jon & Ryan & Spencer, sexual/polygamous.
• POV: Varies.
• Summary: The first argument.
• Excerpt: It's as if Brendon's disappeared without a trace, and nobody wants to say it, nobody wants to admit it out loud, but sooner or later someone's going to have to call the morgue, and Spencer doesn't know if he can do it.
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Adonis (sequel to Discordance)

Just an ordinary everyday lunchtime at the Walker residence.

• Stats: Written forty-first, completed May 4th, 2009. 1,238 words.
• Rating: R for sexual content.
• Band: Panic at the Disco.
• Relationship: Brendon & Jon & Ryan & Spencer, sexual/polygamous.
• POV: Varies.
• Summary: Jon is a sex god.
• Excerpt: "Son," Dave counsels him, "there's no shame in going down on your knees for the one you love, not ever." Twinkles at Spencer. "Not even when you get caught at it by his parents."
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Encumbrance (sequel to Adonis)

Jon has interesting fetishes.

• Stats: Written forty-fourth, completed July 3rd, 2009. 393 words.
• Rating: PG-13 for sexual imagery.
• Band: Panic at the Disco.
• Relationship: Brendon & Jon & Ryan & Spencer, sexual/polygamous.
• POV: Varies.
• Summary: It's not the weirdest thing Spencer's seen in this apartment, not by a long shot.
• Excerpt: Spencer sighs. "Brendon," he begins, then on second thought, abandons the line of questioning. "Jon," he says instead, "why do you have Brendon cooking," Spencer glances into the pan, "french toast for you in the nude?"
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Summersong (sequel to Encumbrance)

This jumped out at me and demanded to be written at a time when I really needed to be in bed. Eh, sleep is overrated.

• Stats: Written forty-sixth, completed August 13th, 2009. 3,301 words.
• Rating: R for language and adult themes. NOTE: Semi-specific mentions of past child sexual abuse.
• Band: Panic at the Disco.
• Relationship: Brendon & Jon & Ryan & Spencer, sexual/polygamous. (incidental)
• POV: Jon's dad.
• Summary: Dave Walker talks about the summer of '95.
• Excerpt: ...I'm a peaceful kind of guy, you know? I protested against the war in Vietnam. I'm a pacifist, y'know, non-violent. And you have no idea how much I want to kill the motherfucker who hurt my son.
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Sand (Story #1 - 2002)

Ah, the days I've spent at the Jersey shore, watching concerts and splashing around in the uniquely distasteful seawater and eating breakfast sandwiches with pork roll (try finding one of those outside South Jersey!) while sitting on the sand. This story grew out of my memories of New Jersey, and my experiences with the club-level band scene in the tri-state area, and an exploration of those first golden moments of a brand-new relationship with someone you've wanted for awhile.

• Stats: Written fourth, on January 18-19, 2008. 4,379 words.
• Rating: NC-17 for sex and profanity.
• Band: My Chemical Romance
• Relationship: Gerard & Frank, sexual.
• POV: Gerard.
• Summary: A day on the beach, and the making of memories.
• Excerpt: "Years from now, he knows, he will remember this: the way the late-evening sun glints off the waves, the smell of the sea, and the big dopey smile on Iero's face as he stretches out on the sand. 'This was a great idea,' he says, and his voice is heavy with the languor of hours spent splashing in the waves 'til the makeup they never bothered removing from last night's show smudged across their faces in raccoon stripes.'
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Magic (Story #2 - 2002)

Everyone writes "first-time" stories. "Morning after" fiction is far more rare. The idea of presenting a follow-up to Sand appealed to me, and the notion of presenting it from the opposite point of view seemed like a natural progression. What pleases me most about this story, I think, is the way the perspective here meshes with the one in Sand, reinforcing and echoing without hammering things into the ground with unnecessary force. Together, I think, the two stories capture both halves of a moment in time quite nicely.

• Stats: Written fifth, on January 19, 2008. 4,214 words.
• Rating: NC-17 for sex and profanity.
• Band: My Chemical Romance
• Relationship: Gerard & Frank, sexual.
• POV: Frank.
• Summary: When everything comes together just exactly right, it's a special sort of magic...
• Excerpt: "He plants a kiss on the side of Gerard's face while he's singing, feels Gerard's hand come up to the back of his skull to hold him there, without either of them missing a note or a beat, and it feels like a dance, perfectly choreographed, perfectly executed, just perfect. And he knows it all over again, in the deepest part of his soul: this is magic, this is their magic, and nothing can take that away from them, nothing can stop the magic they have together."
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Time (Story #3 - 2012)

I had this really weird dream about the band, see, and as I was recounting it for Nessime Lisen, the story idea just sort of smacked me in the head; and about halfway through, I knew that it was a followup to Sand and Magic, and then I had to spend all day coding at work before I could go home and write it. And that's how it happened.

• Stats: Written tenth, on January 29, 2008. 5,262 words.
• Rating: NC-17 for sex and profanity.
• Band: My Chemical Romance
• Relationship: Gerard & Frank, sexual.
• POV: Gerard.
• Summary: Sometimes, time sucks. ...Sometimes.
• Excerpt: "When did it happen? he wonders. When did everyone around him stop being stupid kids and start growing up? And when is it going to start happening to him? Or is he doomed to be Peter Pan forever, watching everyone around him fade gracefully into a maturity he doesn't know how to attain?"
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Season (Story #4 - 2012)

For some reason, it just felt like this series needed a Christmas story; and it was as I was wending my way through the bursts of inspiration that I realized that this was a series, and not merely an unusually unwieldy succession of sequels.

• Stats: Written eleventh, on January 30-31, 2008. 7,657 words.
• Rating: NC-17 for sex and profanity.
• Band: My Chemical Romance
• Relationship: Gerard & Frank, sexual.
• POV: Frank.
• Summary: 'Tis the season.
• Excerpt: "Gerard grabs his sketch pad and starts drawing, zombies and vampires and mummies wearing red and green elf hats, and Frank cuts them out and makes them into ornaments, dipping the edges into glue and then into some glitter Gerard's found, so that they catch the light and sparkle. Then Frank has An Idea, and flips open his laptop, and finds a bunch of pictures of the band from the last tour; he prints them out, and Gerard doodles merrily around them, and soon it's Zombie!Ray and Vampire!Bob and Frankenstein!Mikey wearing elf hats and glitter and sitting on their tree as well."
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Crisis (Story #5 - 2022)

The further I got into this series, the more the storylines just seemed to spring forth naturally, without my having to reach for them. It's a sort of natural progression, the passage of time and the way lives flow through it, and the things we face as we wander down the road. ...This one kept me awake, or maybe it was just a bout of coincidental insomnia; but it got written all at once, all in a rush, along with the following three parts of the Arc, and in the end I think they're probably better stories for that.

• Stats: Written twelfth, on February 2, 2008. 7,556 words.
• Rating: Probably R, for sex and profanity.
• Band: My Chemical Romance
• Relationship: Gerard & Frank, relationship.
• POV: Gerard & Frank.
• Summary: Teenagers scare the living shit out of me...
• Excerpt: "'She wants to travel. She wants to tour. She wants to grow up all at once and live the life we used to lead.' Mikey is silent for a moment. 'She's just like we used to be,' he says, 'and you'd think I would've been prepared for this, right? But she was such a cute little girl for so long, and I forgot. I forgot she was going to grow up and be a Way. And now she is, and I don't know how to handle it.'"
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Next (Story #6 - 2032)

I needed to write this, I ached to write this: the wheel coming around full circle, the changing of the guard, and Dora coming into her own. And it pleases me, to hypothesize something like this: the symmetry, the passing on of the legacy, and the dream that never really, entirely dies.

• Stats: Written thirteenth, on February 2, 2008. 6,370 words.
• Rating: PG-13 for profanity.
• Band: My Chemical Romance
• Relationship: Gerard & Frank, relationship.
• POV: Frank.
• Summary: The wheel turns round and round; and everything changes, and everything's just the same.
• Excerpt: "'It's awesome,' says Gerard, quietly. 'It's tiring and boring and totally awesome.' He pauses, clearly debating whether or not to say something. 'Enjoy every minute of it,' he says, at last, 'because no matter how long it lasts, it's never long enough.'"
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Immortal (Story #7 - 2042)

It's a wild ride, life is; but what do you do when it's all starting to wind down, and the end of the horizon is suddenly close enough to touch? This story was inevitable, from the moment the Years Arc grew beyond its initial bounds to become a saga - and it hurt to write, but it needed to be written, to carry the tale forward to its eventual destination.

• Stats: Written fourteenth, on February 2, 2008. 5,303 words.
• Rating: PG-13 for profanity.
• Band: My Chemical Romance
• Relationship: Gerard & Frank, relationship.
• POV: Frank.
• Summary: Time flies; and immortality comes in all forms.
• Excerpt: "It's a stranger's body he inhabits, one that aches and twinges and wrinkles and sags in odd places, aging and worn. And inside his mind he's still twenty, he has always been twenty, he always will be, and his mental image of himself just doesn't match what he sees in the mirror, so that he's always a little startled when he catches sight of himself and realizes that of the two, the mirror isn't the one that lies."
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Chill (Story #8 - 2062)

...And it had to end; and it had to end with laughter, and with love. And if Immortal hurt to write, then this one shattered me, and all I could do afterwards, for a long time, was cry. But it was the way the Arc needed to end, and it fit, and it was right, and I'm happy with that.

• Stats: Written fifteenth, on February 2, 2008. 1,749 words.
• Rating: PG-13 for profanity.
• Band: My Chemical Romance
• Relationship: Gerard & Frank, relationship.
• POV: Frank.
• Summary: This is where the story ends.
• Excerpt: "Images pass before his vision, memories, bits and snippets of a long and basically happy life; they fill him with a vast sense of contentment, of knowing that he's done well, that he's done good, that he's done what he was meant to do, and somewhere far off in the distance he can almost hear a crowd cheering, and applause."
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