Frank had known the Ways for more than half his life, so when he hopped off the double-time transporter and into Mrs. Way's window, about 5 miles above the Upper Lower Level of Newer Jersey, she didn't even bat an eyelash. "Are my boys up to robbing again?"

"Careful, I saw crews rewiring the neighborhood on my way here," Frank said, sitting at the kitchen table.

Donna snorted. "On your way here, perched illegally on the back of a transport that can barely fly anyway? Please. This neighborhood hasn't been effectively monitored in thirty years, they're not starting now."

"Someday you're going to find yourself arrested."

"It's been thirty years since I killed someone," Donna said placidly. "I'm not too worried. Cake or cookies?"

"Yes," Frank replied.

So she set heaping plates of both in front of him, which he devoured immediately. Gerard kept bugging him about gaining weight, but whatever; he could still rob people with a potbelly. And a mustache. His facial hair was going to be fucking amazing once it got less prickly and more menacing.

He'd almost finished stuffing his face when the tapping started. "What the hell is that?" he said, twisting around in his seat.

"Teleporter," Donna said. "It doesn't work too well in this house, with all the aluminum." She waved her hand at the walls, which were papered in the metal.

"...right," Frank said, and stared as the teleporter popped into Donna's living room.

It was a skinny guy, little but not quite as little as Frank. "Delivery for you!" he announced cheerfully.

Donna actually cackled. "Oh, fabulous. Frank, you'll want to watch this."

The guy frowned. He had a huge forehead, Frank thought. "We don't do two for one."

"I'll pay you double," Donna said.

The guy squinted at Frank for a moment before apparently reaching a decision, shrugging and -

Tapping his clothes, which immediately evaporated. Well, then. "Dude," Frank said before he could stop himself, "what the fuck is that tattoo?"

Donna slapped the back of his head. "Just shut up and look at his dick," she said. Her own eyes were riveted on it.

It was nice, Frank guessed. Kind of. Only the dude's forehead was really huge. "Can I have more cake?"

"Get it yourself."

So Frank did. He stuffed his face happily while the dude finished his routine and popped out the window as the guy was putting his pants back on, waving goodbye to Donna.

He assumed he'd never see the guy again. Newer Jersey had a population of almost 100 million – and anyway, Frank pretty much stuck to people who knew exactly how illegal his career was.

Little did he know, his assumption was about as fake as Donna Way's hair color.

||

"I still think it's so creepy that you hang out with my mom," Gerard said, peering down from his perch on the top of the building's spire. Ray, Bob, and Mikey were inside, collecting about a hundred thousand credits' worth of computer parts.

"She feeds me," Frank said.

"Creepy," Gerard said again. "She likes chubby men. She told me so." He shuddered theatrically.

"Really? The dude she had over last time was skinny."

Gerard almost fell off the spire. "What! What! What!"

"Oh my God, calm the fuck down." Frank squinted into the giant night-vision binoculars he always used on lookout. Mikey always told him they made him look like a bug, but Mikey was dating a girl whose eye makeup made her look like a panda bear. Mikey clearly had no taste. Or liked furry animals. "It was just a stripper."

"I think I'm going to be sick."

Frank grinned. "Your mom likes male strippers, Gerard. I bet she fucks them sometimes too."

"I'm going to go home and take tons of pills, and you won't be able to stop me."

"Whoa, whoa, whoa," a new voice said. "Is this a suicide thing? Because that's not healthy."

Frank whirled around so quickly he almost gave himself whiplash, but no one was there. "What the fuck!" he yelled, uncomfortably aware of how high his voice was.

A face appeared in front of him – a smiling face with giant teeth and an even bigger forehead. Shit. "You're Donna's stripper!"

"Whose?" The face turned upright, and the guy from Donna's kitchen was in front of them, hovering in midair like it was no big deal. "Oh, hey, I recognize you. The weird lady with the hair, that's Donna?"

"That's my mom, you dick," Gerard said vehemently. Either he hadn't noticed the guy's inexplicable hovering or he didn't care.

Frank, having already seen the guy's dick and a whole lot more, was more interested in the sudden fucking inexplicable hovering. "Are you a ghost? Or magic?"

"What? Oh," the guy said, looking down, "no. I got antigravity implants."

It was a procedure that cost more money than Frank would probably ever steal in a lifetime, which meant the guy was either emperor of a rebellious off-Earth colony – unlikely – or a seriously big-time thief. "Shit," Frank said, whistling. "Wait, if you've got that kind of cash, why are you a stripper?"

The guy shrugged. "I get bored sometimes."

When Gerard spoke, his voice was icy. Frank thought he might mean it to sound dangerous, or something, but really it just sounded kind of queen-y. "Why are you here?"

"Mikey told me you guys were robbing this place. I thought I'd drop by and say hi. I'm Pete, by the way."

If he'd said anyone else, Frank would've thought he was lying – but Mikey had no common sense. "He's busy right now. Pete."

Pete smiled. "I know. I thought I'd talk to you instead."

For lack of anything better to say, Frank pressed the binoculars to his eyes, looking at the guy through them. "About what?"

"Did you like my show?"

Gerard made a strangled noise next to him. "Um. Donna is Gerard's mother."

"Oh." Pete leaned forward and patted Gerard's shoulder. "Sorry, man. She was very nice."

"Please stop touching me," Gerard said.

Pete grinned, but he moved his hand away. "Do you know when Mikey'll be out?"

The dude was like a little kid waiting for another little kid. Which made Frank the Mom. Like Donna, who apparently enjoyed nubile young men. Oh God. "When he is, we'll probably have to run for our lives."

"So you should go," Gerard added.

"I can wait too. I can fly, remember? Getting away isn't a problem for me."

"I wish I could fly," Frank said impulsively.

He wasn't expecting Pete to bat his fucking eyelashes. "I could help you with that."

Frank was silent for a long moment. "That's gross," he said finally.

"Totally is," Mikey said from behind them.

"About time," Gerard said. "Come on, are you ready to go? I'm ready to go. Let's get out of here."

Mikey just blinked at him. "Hi, Pete," he said finally, shifting his attention.

Bob came out of the building before Pete could respond. "Quick, run, I tripped the alarm and the guards have plasma guns."

"Wait, seriously?" Frank said.

"No, Iero, and you're as fucking gullible as ever. That was cake. We could camp out here all night and they wouldn't know what had happened."

"You're the best. I'm gonna marry you." Frank hopped off the spire and jumped on Bob's back. "You can wear the dress."

"I want chocolate cake," Bob said.

"Should I go?" Pete asked Mikey.

"Yes," Gerard said loudly.

"You can stay," Mikey said peacefully.

Pete glanced over at Frank and looked him up and down. Bob snickered when Frank started blushing. Jesus, Frank was going to kill all of them. "I have to run," he said. "I have, um. Important things to do."

"Weren't you telling me you were going to sleep for two days straight?" Ray said from behind Bob.

"Important things," Frank almost yelled, and hopped the next transport that flew past the building.

Pete, thankfully, didn't follow.

||

They'd shared an apartment for three years now, since Ray had won the thousandth-floor flat in a video game death match. It wasn't too fancy, and was in a bad part of Newer Jersey; the other day, there'd been a shootout less than a hundred floors below. But it was better than sleeping in an aqueduct, which is what Frank had been doing before he'd met Mikey.

Even if Toro did snore like it was a fucking contest. Frank pressed the pillow tighter against his ears and tried to go to sleep.

The pillow was what kept him from hearing the noise at first. Normally if someone tried to open the living room window it creaked like a motherfucker. Even if the window did open silently, there was a curtain of noisy tin beads hanging in front of it, and stacks of metal pots ringing the curtain. And hidden behind the low-tech noisemakers was one of the best security systems they'd managed to steal.

But somehow, none of it sounded, which was how Frank rolled over and found his face two inches from Pete's.

Pete just smiled like there was nothing unusual about it. "Hi."

"What," Frank said when he finally found his voice, "the fuck is wrong with you?"

"Nothing. Should there be? I could probably fake it if you really wanted."

"Oh my god, you're insane." Frank pushed at him futilely. "Go away."

"Ooh, touch me again."

But Frank wasn't in the habit of feeling up lunatics. Or, okay, he was, but Gerard didn't count. "Help!" he yelled. "Rape! Fire! Rape with fire! Help!"

After an agonizing few minutes, the lights flicked on. "Oh," Mikey said, his voice the same perfect monotone as always. "Hi, Pete."

"Hi," Pete said brightly. "Will Frank love me if I get him a dog?"

"Frank likes food," Mikey said, and snapped his fingers, flicking the lights back off.

"Gerard!" Frank yelled at the top of his lungs.

Mikey snapped his fingers again and looked at Frank. Gerard had trouble sleeping soundly. If he was still asleep he wouldn't be able to go back to sleep once Frank had woken him up.

"...sorry," Frank said.

Mikey snapped his fingers, and Frank heard him shut the living room door.

Wonderful.

"All alone. Muahahaha."

"I've killed people before," Frank said. It was a lie, but hey – Pete didn't need to know that.

"You're like, two feet tall. I really doubt that."

Frank moved to jab his elbow into Pete's ribs – but somehow Pete dodged him, rolled them, and locked his arms around Frank's waist and his legs around Frank's knees.

They were spooning, Frank realized, and he couldn't do a thing about it.

"You should just relax," Pete said. "There are only like four hours until dawn, anyway."

"Oh, God," Frank said, but he knew if he tried to get Pete to stop Pete would just make noise, and then Mikey would kill him. Frank, not Pete. Because Mikey was a fucking traitor. So instead of yelling, he just closed his eyes and did his best not to relax as he fell back asleep.

The next morning, he woke up to discover he'd totally failed. Not only had he relaxed, but his body – his piece of shit cuddly body – had decided the thing to do was tangle his legs with Pete's and snuggle Pete's arms. And when he managed to disentangle himself and turn around, it was only to find Pete staring at him.

"Jesus, that's creepy," Frank said.

Pete didn't even blink. "I like watching you sleep."

Frank took a deep breath, giving himself a few moments to fully wake up. When he was done, he reached to his right and grabbed his gun, pressing it against Pete's chest. "You should leave now."

Pete's face fell. "But – "

"Seriously, dude. Get out."

Luckily, Pete wasn't stupid enough to disobey someone who had a gun trained on him: he let himself out through the window, flying away with his head hanging.

Frank rolled up his blanket and went to take a shower, feeling a little disappointed – probably, he thought as he'd turned the water on, because he'd expected Pete to fight.

Mikey didn't ask him about the incident in the middle of the night, which made sense; Mikey knew a freaky amount for someone who never seemed to come off Cloud 9. They had a job to do that night, and Frank slept well and soundly without any weird Pete visits.

After a week passed, Frank started to suspect that he'd never see Pete again. If he hadn't been so fucking busy - "Seriously," he bitched to Gerard, "I know the economy's good, but this is insane." – he would've thrown a party to celebrate. But he was busy, and also feeling kind of down lately, so instead he just went to Donna's.

"Fudge or ice cream cake?"

"Yes," Frank said, so she served him huge plates of both.

"You look sad," she said, sitting across from him and tapping her long, red nails on the table.

Frank smiled, both cheeks full of food. "It's 'cause I haven't seen you lately."

"My face could crack a mirror, kid. Don't lie to me or next time it'll be celery and tofu."

"That's just cold."

Donna arched a single drawn-on eyebrow.

"Fine, fine. I've just, I don't know. Been in a bad mood. It's just one of those weeks, I guess."

"Pete came by yesterday. He – "

"I respect you're still a virile woman with an active sex life now please don't tell me anything else," Frank said, fighting the urge to hide under the table.

"He misses you, you little asshole."

"He doesn't know me!"

"I've told him a lot about you." Donna steepled her fingers, smiling evilly. "So has Mikey."

Frank actually took a moment to wonder if he could actually cut relations with the Ways. Probably not, disappointingly enough. "What does he even do?"

Donna waggled her eyebrows. "He has an interesting life."

God, he was going to regret this. "Where does he work?"

"Club 5000."

Jesus, no wonder he could afford the anti-grav. "No fucking way," Frank said, even though he doubted Donna would lie. Not while trying to hook him up, anyway. "He's not that hot."

Donna just shrugged, which confirmed his sinking certainty that she was telling the truth.

"How many transports head up to the 5000-level from here, do you think?"

"I'm sure you can find one if you look hard enough," Donna said, smirking. "Do you want a cookie for the trip?"

"Five," Frank said.

She gave him ten.

||

He was on cookie number nine when he finally found a transport that looked fancy enough to be heading to the upper levels. He hopped on the back easily, hiding behind some useless metal frills and hanging on as the transport rose.

They went through three layers of clouds. The air got colder and thinner, but Frank munched on cookie ten and felt good about his life. Or, okay, nervous. Whatever.

Club 5000 didn't open until night, which gave him plenty of time to loiter and hope no one kicked him off a bridge for looking like the lower-level thief scum he actually was. When it finally did open, Frank took half the credits he'd gotten from the last three takes – a good years' salary for the bouncer at the door – and walked up to the entrance. He wasn't worried about the money; Donna would feed him later.

The stages were already full of gyrating men and women, most of them way hotter than Pete. Frank scanned the crowd, looking for a short stripper with dark hair and an ugly tattoo, but he was nowhere to be found.

Finally Frank had to resort to tapping one of the other strippers on the shoulder and saying, "Can you tell me if Pete's working tonight?"

The stripper held out his hand. When Frank put five credits in it he said, "In the bunny room."

The bunny room? Frank wasn't cut out for rich people antics at all. "Where is that?"

The stripper jerked a thumb towards the back of the club. "Thanks," Frank said, and went.

It was easy enough to find once he was finally back there; a door in the far lefthand corner was completely blank except for a stylized pair of bunny ears. Frank took a deep breath and pushed it open.

And then all he could do was stare.

Pete was stripping for a crowd, only the articles of clothing on the floor were brown and white, and he had on a tail, paws, and a giant bear head. When Frank made a noise that sounded a lot like "urk", only about a thousand times louder, the music stopped and Pete turned to look at the interruption.

"Frank!" he said. "You came! Heh, came."

"Um."

"Wanna see a trick?" Pete took off one of the paws and turned around to the audience again. When he turned back to Frank, the paw was fitted over his dick. Pete tugged his balls and it jerked up and down, waving at Frank.

"...that's not a bunny paw," Frank said finally.

A few people in the crowd laughed, and Pete took the bear head off, smiling unashamedly. He was all sweaty and disturbingly hot, and Frank kind of wanted to shoot himself.

Of course, then his wrist comm went off. "Yeah?"

"Frank, meet us at the Brinkely Aquarium in five minute," Gerard said. "And don't bullshit me, I know you're up on 5,000. You can hop a transport easy."

"You have a job? Awesome," Pete said, and tossed the bear head to a girl in the audience. "I'll come with."

Before Frank had a chance to object, Pete was dragging them out of the club, Frank's hand in his, his dick flapping in the wind.

When they arrived at the closed aquarium, they were greeted with complete silence. Bob was the first to break it, saying, "Nice tail."

"It's kind of itchy," Pete said, "but thanks."

"I don't think I want to know," Gerard said, blinking at Pete. "Anyway. We have to steal a squid."

Because apparently Frank's day hadn't been surreal enough. "We have to what?"

"A squid," Gerard said impatiently. "We have to steal it. Or, well, convince it to come with us. We have a cage for it but it'll have to cooperate to get in it."

"Who the fuck are we stealing a squid for?"

Mikey, who was carrying a small aquarium, shrugged. "A friend."

"Where's the cage?"

Mikey tapped the aquarium.

"Oh, I have a shrink ray, too," Gerard said. "But we have to get it to come out of its tank somehow. It doesn't work through water."

"What entices squid?" Frank said.

"We thought maybe food," Ray said, "but we checked, and they were fed right before closing."

"So what you're saying is we're fucked."

"Give me five minutes," Pete said from behind Frank, and hopped the transporter zooming past them.

It actually took him eight minutes, but when Gerard broached the idea of just going inside and trying to lure the squid their way, Mikey said, "I think we should wait, actually." And since Mikey's word was God, they waited.

But what returned to the aquarium didn't look like Pete. It was big and blue and had funny-looking tentacles, lipstick, and a giant floppy bow.

"Helloooooo," Pete said in a ridiculous falsetto, flopping a tentacle at Frank.

"I don't need that image," Mikey said.

"Me neither," Bob said – but he sounded thoughtful, the dick. "This is insane," Frank told Pete. "It's not going to work."

"It totally will. No one can resist me."

"We'll see," Gerard said dubiously.

When the squid saw Pete, it practically rocketed out of its tank.

"Wow," Mikey said in his usual monotone, and zapped the squid in just enough time for it to fall into the tank.

"Let's get this to Gabe," Gerard said when Ray started to poke it.

"Fun-ruiner," Ray said, letting Mikey put the lid on the acquarium.

"Gabe? I know him!" Pete flapped his tentacles excitedly. "Fucking awesome, man."

So Pete went with them to give Gabe the tank, and after an involved conversation about the virtue of tentacles that Frank really did not want to hear, Gabe took the squid and paid them. They split it with Pete, even though he kept protesting.

He was protesting so much, in fact, that Frank didn't even realize he was the only one still arguing with Pete until he looked around for support and realized they were alone. "Shit," he said. "I fucking hate making that trip back by myself."

When he turned back to Pete he almost winced at how ridiculously hopeful Pete's expression was. "I have an apartment on the 3000."

"...does it have a bed?" Frank said.

Pete grinned.

||

When Frank woke up the next morning, it was with a slightly aching ass and the squid costume hanging a few feet from his head, right next to a kitten costume and a bunny costume. Frank rolled his eyes and stretched –

And froze, sniffing the air.

He followed the smell through the living room and into the kitchen, where a giant stack of pancakes was waiting on the table. "Oh my god," Frank said, unable to keep the reverent tone out of his voice, "are those chocolate?"

"Donna gave me the recipe," Pete said smugly.

He still had a giant forehead; Frank blew him anyway.