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“He thinks I have stigmata,” Frank said, because what the fucking hell, it couldn’t get any worse. He might as well just lay it out.
“Oh, well,” said Brian into his hands. “Of course.”
I Have Been All Things Unholy

Unholyverse is a My Chemical Romance Alternate Universe Slash Fic series by Bexless originally written between June 2008 and September 2009, and later republished on Archive of Our Own in 2011. It consists of three works: I Have Been All Things Unholy, Staring Through the Demons, and Heaven Help Us, as well as two small codas: During Working Hours and Turning Point.

The series is a supernatural-oriented What If? centering primarily around the lives of barber Ray Toro, piercer Frank Iero, and receptionist Mikey Way, who have their lives quickly turned upside-down when Frank receives a beautiful angel tattoo on a whim from an odd little shop, and Mikey's older brother Gerard comes back into town, on a short vacation from his work as a traveling priest sent to observe reports of miracles across the world. And when Frank begins to start experiencing some rather painful miracles of his own, well...

Things start to get a bit complicated, to say the least.


The Unholyverse series contains examples of:

  • Alternate Universe Fic: The members of My Chemical Romance (as well as some others) as a piercer, a barber, a receptionist, a tattoo artist, and a priest, all in a world where the supernatural is real and a legitimate threat.
  • Beta Couple: Mikey and Ray.
  • Big Brother Instinct: More like "little brother instinct," but Mikey's first request of Frank is for him to not do anything with Gerard, and to accept that both being a priest and his vow of celibacy isn't something to think he can just somehow get around. Doesn't really work, though not out of any lack of effort on Frank's end.
  • Blessed with Suck: Frank's stigmata is believed to be a gift from God, a physical proof that he is good and blessed, but it makes his life absolutely miserable all the while, landing him in the hospital at one point and causing him immense amounts of pain and suffering. And that's before it turns out that the stigmata is also a mark of how he is branded to be sacrificed for a man to become one with God. Ouch.
  • Came Back Wrong: After Gerard's death during the concert, he comes back unknowingly possessed by the demon Xaphan, manifesting in odd, uncharacteristic behavior, physical pain from holy objects and holy words, and manifestations of fire-related powers. Eventually, the demon manages to take Gerard over completely, and the trope comes into full play.
  • Cassandra Truth: Mikey's warnings and concerns after Gerard comes back from the dead and isn't acting like himself go completely unheeded, leading to complete disaster and the near-deaths of almost everyone in the group. Though the More than Mind Control that Frank was going through at the hands of a demonically-possessed Gerard certainly wasn't helping matters either.
  • Confess in Confidence: One of these is what helped to spark the events that eventually ended in Gerard being made to leave his original position within the Church.
  • Crucified Hero Shot: Frank's stigmata seems to be attempting to force him to wind up like this, with the wounds and injuries he receives throughout the first story being directly related to the ones Jesus received on the cross, down to the poles through the wrists. Taken to its natural conclusion by the end of the third story, where his desperate attempt to save Gerard from demonic possession ends in all of his stigmata injuries returning at once.
  • Cut Himself Shaving: Subverted. The wounds on Frank's wrists that nearly cause him to bleed out on his bathroom floor are really from his stigmata, not a suicide attempt like his friends all think at first.
  • Demonic Possession: Happens to Gerard post-heroic sacrifice and spontaneous resurrection, and what starts as a minor amount of influence and gradual changes turns into the demon having full and complete control over Gerard's body, and over its own powers.
  • Gayngst: Gerard does have a bit of this, as even though he is willing to disagree with certain parts of Catholic doctrine, the common belief within his religion is still that pursuing his sexuality in any way would land him in Hell, which is a bit hard to ignore.
  • Good Girls Avoid Abortion: Gerard's willingness to avert this trope when it comes to ensuring the wellbeing of one of the girls within his parish is what led to him being forced to change positions within the Church before the series began.
  • Green-Eyed Monster: Gerard gets rather jealous whenever it seems as though Frank is taking time away from the group to go sleep with other people, (he isn't), and feels extremely guilty that he's beginning to take it out on Frank.
  • Guilt Complex: Practically every member of the group has one, though it's most prominent when it comes to Gerard, who will happily take the blame for the majority of problems that might arise, even if they are most definitely not his fault.
  • Heroes Love Dogs: Frank's dog Ella has gone missing at the beginning of the series, and he's very much heartbroken over it. She's fine, but he allows the family that found her to keep her because of how attached they'd gotten. Post-main series, he's even managed to convince Gerard to be willing to let him get one again, too.
  • Heroic Sacrifice: Gerard makes one of these near the end of the second story, both in order to protect the people at the Fall Out Boy concert who are at risk of being killed by the necromancy ritual being performed, and to prevent Frank from doing it instead. He does come back, though.
  • Hot for Preacher: Unfortunately for Frank, considering the whole "vow of celibacy" thing.
  • Martyr Without a Cause: Frank's tendency to put himself in harm's way in order to protect his friends or innocents leads to him being pegged as this quite frequently.
  • More than Mind Control: It's stated that demons have very powerful hypnotic powers, and so after Gerard's death and subsequent demonic possession, he is able to subtly influence Frank into not seeing that something is clearly wrong with Gerard, and is able to sew discord within the group from the inside. After the demon takes over completely, he's even able to force Brian to hang himself, though he doesn't die.
  • Parting-Words Regret: Frank feels enormous guilt after Gerard's death, due to the fact that they had a major, very nasty argument right before with no opportunity to resolve it or for Frank to apologize. When Gerard comes back from the dead, Frank does get the chance.
  • Psychic-Assisted Suicide: A demonically-possessed Gerard attempts to do this with Brian when he's left alone with him to watch and make sure he doesn't do anything. He doesn't succeed, but it comes very close.
  • Real-Person Fic: Considering that it's a My Chemical Romance fanfiction, this is obviously at play.
  • Sexy Priest: Gerard is one of these, unfortunately for Frank, who is also forced to contend with the fact that Gerard being a Catholic priest also means that he has a vow of celibacy he's taken along with it.
  • Slash Fic: With the couples present being Frank and Gerard, and Ray and Mikey.
  • The Little Shop That Wasn't There Yesterday: The tattoo shop where Frank gets his angel tattoo. He can't put a name to where it was at when asked about it, and it comes almost out of nowhere to him when he's having an absolutely terrible night, with a flash option in the window that seems almost supernaturally alluring.
  • True Companions: By the end of the series, the group certainly qualifies as a set of these, to the point that Gerard even willingly leaves the priesthood so that he can assist them in settling supernatural occurances again.
  • What You Are in the Dark: After Gerard's death, during which he sacrificed himself to prevent Frank from doing the same, Mikey, in an immense amount of pain and grief, considers both murdering Frank while he's too incapacitated and off-guard to fight back (and likely wouldn't anyway, all things considered), and using Gerard's rosary to perform necromancy and bring him back to life. He does neither, accepting that Frank understands his grief and that no one is responsible for what Gerard chose to do.

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