A/N: please read the notes at the end of this chapter because I'm looking for help.

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Three Years Later

I run my hand through my black greasy hair and groan as I go through my mail for the day.
Bills.
Bills.
Bills.
Bills.
Nothing but bills- oh, wait there's an ad for hardwood flooring.
I carry my mail up to my apartment and walk right on in, having not bothered to lock back up when I went for my mail. Heading into the kitchen I pull out a beer from the fridge, my calculator from a drawer, and a pen and paper before sitting down at the table. I open my beer and chug a little bit of it before I set it down and start to crunch the numbers.

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I feel myself tear up when I check my bank account and find only seventy three bucks in it where, rent, electricity, heating, air conditioning, and hot water have added up to one thousand one hundred thirty two dollars and twenty six cents.
Pay day is only a few days away I remind myself, as I take another sip of beer. Maybe tonight I'll rake in the fucking tips! I nod and keep telling myself that as I try not to start crying at the thought of drowning even more into debt than I already am, being fresh out of college after all with a student loan.
I scrub my face with my hands to try to regain my composure. Okay, Gerard. Pull it together, I command myself, just call Mikey and see if he can come live with you. I nod and pull out my phone and go though my recent call list:
Golden Wok
Golden Wok
Golden Wok
Mom
Golden Wok
Ray Toro
Golden Wok
Golden Wok
Boss
Mikey
I select his name and hold the phone up to my ear, listening to it ring for a bit until he picks up, "Hello?"

"Hey Mikey, how's school?" I ask, leaving the kitchen and heading to the living room to sit on the old couch.

"Not too bad, we have to do a study on antisocial personality disorder so Y'know," I can practically hear his eyes rolling, "gonna totally be paranoid for the next few days that our neighbor, Matt, has it because... Well. You've met him."

"Antisocial personality disorder...?" I ask quizzically, taking another sip of beer, "isn't that what I have?"

He sighs, "No, Gerard, you don't have antisocial personality disorder. You are asocial. Asocial meaning you dislike social situations, where antisocial means that you're incapable of such things as empathy and having emotions and you'd have violent tendencies and sleep around a lot. Because it feels good, but you don't see your partner as a person, but more as an object that brings you pleasure.
It's something common among psychopaths."

My eyes are comically wide at this point, my beer halfway to my lips, "Holy shit," I whisper, slowly feeling terrified. "Mikey I'm not... I'm not that right? I'm not antisocial, right? I'm not psycho, right?!"

He groans on the other end of the line and I picture him rubbing his temples, "Gerard. Tell me. When was the last time you wanted to, say, beat someone over the head with a skillet?"

"N-never-"

"How about, you saw a baby and wanted to take it so you could see its mother cry?"

"I wouldn't-"

"Tied someone up in your bath tub with a blowtorch trained on them?"

I squeak.

"You are an asocial, anxiety ridden, pacifist, who could possibly have manic depr-...
Nevermind that part but, the point is, Norman Bates? Jame Gumb? Hannibal Lector? They all had antisocial personality disorder.
You are perfectly fine. Besides, a butterfly startled you once and you swatted it and you being you you were afraid that it was hurt, so you took it home and put it in a mason jar, and shoved daisies inside so it had some food before releasing... Janice, right? Last week."

"Joyce." I corrected him, relaxing a bit.

"Joyce..." I hear some slurping on the other end, "so, aside from stressing about having a psychological disorder, why'd you call me?"

"I was just wondering if.... You'd... Maybe... Wanna... Move in...?"

Silence on the other end.

"Gerard.
I'm still in Jersey. Still living with mom because I can't afford a place, and my commune is taking the bus for five minutes until it pulls up at Ramapo.
I can't afford to be your roomie. Partially because I can't switch schools because I've got a scholarship here and I don't have to pay for the bus."

"Well... Fuck me."

"Put up an ad on Craigslist or something." "

The fuck, Mikey?! A complete stranger living with me? What if they have anti-"

"Well, you can do a background check, set up restrictions in your ad, and meet them face to face. Or...
Get that kid whose always checking you out at work to come live with you... I bet he'd just /love/ being able to be around you when you shower."

I shudder. ".... I'm gonna make an ad on Craigslist before I go to work."

Another slurp, "Good idea. And you should probably get on that, you've got an hour before you have to be there."

"Fuck, Mikey, you know my schedule better than I do."

"I'm the organized one out of the two of us! Out of... All the Ways, actually.....
....
Well, anyway, good luck on the roommate search!"

"Don't be a stranger, Mikey," I said and hung up. Okay, Gerard. I thought as I grabbed my laptop off the coffee table, opening it, connecting to my building's shitty wifi, and going on Craigslist.
I thought for a moment before typing: 'Wanted: roommate.
You must be able to pay for half the rent, half the utilities, and food. You must be okay with crossdressing and drag and loud rock music. Smokers are fine, but no drugs. If you wanna have sex with someone, do it at their place, or let me know so I can get out of the apartment. No homophobes allowed. I'm gay as hell.'
I nod and put it up on the site before getting up and running to my room to get my clothes and my red wig and my wig cap. I make sure I'm not missing anything before I scurry out of my home and lock the three locks behind me. I run down two flights of stairs and out onto the street of New York. Looking for a cab to flag down.

Notes

Hello!
So first off, I'm not a psychology major at all andI have no authority on the subject. However I do really like psychology as a whole and I enjoy it as a... Hobby of mine..? I can pick people apart to varying degrees of success and I know some terminology. So yes, antisocial and asocial are two completely different things.
If you study psychology, are a psychologist, or just a psych nerd like me, send me a message and if you want, you can help me out with Mikey, because he's going to be HUGE later in the story and I want to get said huge part correct.



I wrote most of this at 3 am this morning and i actually wrote more, but it came to a very natural stopping point. I'm probably gonna post again later today because I want to get the first three chapters up ASAP.

once more, huge thank you to Orginality-At-Its-Finest who is turning out to be my techincal advisor XD

xoxoS