Oranges And Amps, Standalone
Oranges and Amps, Standalone~
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Mikey is introverted to say the least. He usually prefers to be alone or with Gerard, possibly the only other person in the world who understands him at all. There are a few categories that he fits into, such as (the ever obvious) shy, quiet, weird, nerdy, weak, and the likes. Three out of five times, he'd be alone in his own little world with his walkman and jamming out to some song from before the 1990s.
Throughout high school, Gerard, Mikey, Ray and Matt had all been pretty much outcasts. Mikey still is now that his friends have all graduated. He's alone in his grade if not the entire school. He has a few acquaintances, but none of them are anything close to the friendship that he shares with his new band mates.
So when Frank joins the band after his umpteenth failure to find a decent band, Mikey doesn't know exactly how many nor does he really care, Mikey realizes exactly how quiet their band has been.
They've had Gerard's lyrics to let their ideas out, but that's solely it. They don't really talk on stage at all, except for maybe Gerard because he's trying to make the band look good, and they don't really talk too much in their practice space either.
"Hey Mikes!" Frank says, throwing his arm around Mikey and catching him off guard. He coughs his shriek away and readjusts his glasses to cover it up. Gerard looks at him and rolls his eyes, knowing exactly what Mikey's doing. "How was high school today?"
Frank is younger than Mikey, the youngest of them all, being the one who's also still in middle school. He's going to graduate from middle school next week, even though he skipped so much that even he doesn't know how he passed. Next year, Mikey's going into tenth grade and Frank into ninth grade.
"Good," Mikey curtly replies, snaking his way out of Frank's arm and to the other side of the room. He doesn't not notice that Frank has a new tattoo, the plastic rubbing against the back of Mikey's neck torturously. Not that Mikey likes Frank that way.
He definitely doesn't, he hasn't even fooled around with girls yet. In order to properly live a healthy teenaged life, he has to make out with at least one girl before he declares himself gay, bisexual, straight, whatever the fuck he is.
"Mikey," Frank says, following him and refusing to let him get away. They basically chase each other around the practice space, Mikey ducking over to Gerard's side and behind the sofa, "Mikey, come back here!"
"Hey you children," Gerard yells to them, watching them basically run around the room now, "stop running before somebody get hu-"
Gerard stops his warning when he sees Mikey trip over an amp cord and falls flat on his face. He slaps his forehead before walking over to Mikey and helping him up. His younger brother's face turns bright red as he readjusts his glasses until Gerard is certain that they won't become unaligned for at least a century. Gerard sighs and looks at Frank who avoids eye contact and suddenly becomes engulfed in admiring his new tattoo. "Are you done Frank?"
Frank looks up like he wasn't aware anything was happening, "He tripped over the cord, I didn't do anything." He shrugs his shoulders and goes back to staring at his arm.
"If you want to go play tag with somebody, go punch a bunch of truckers and see how that turns out," Gerard says sarcastically as Mikey grabs his bass and slouches against the wall opposite of Frank and begins to tune it again, even though he tuned it only ten minutes ago.
"If you insist," Frank says as he grabs his backpack and heads for the door. He's jerked back by Gerard who sits him down in the corner of the practice space.
He brings Frank's guitar over and gives it to him, "I swear to god, sometimes it feels like I'm babysitting a four year old." He walks back over to Mikey, watching his younger brother tune his bass like the world will explode if he doesn't. "If you're good Frank, I'll bring you a juice box later."
"Yay!" Frank says with a smile and throws his hands up in victory. He accidentally throws his guitar pick in the process, landing somewhere in the vicinity of the drum set. "Can you get that for me Gerard?"
Gerard buries his face in his hands, "Four-year old!" he cries and throws Frank an extra pick from his pocket.
Ray and Matt come in moments after, both looking at the two boys sitting on opposite sides of the room. Gerard throws his hands up, trying to seem like a mere victim of their behavior, "They were acting like babies. I had to separate them," Gerard shoots his brother a glare, "I expected much better from Mikey."
Mikey lowers his head down and plucks a string on his bass. His nail catches at a weird angle, breaking in half. "Ow," he mutters, pulling it back to look at it. He frowns at it as he tries to pull it off, only to recoil once it begins to hurt.
Across the room, Frank's head shoots up from his guitar, "Mikey! Are you okay?" His face looks completely worried, probably expecting the very worst.
Mikey is astounded as Gerard hadn't even heard him, "I just broke a nail. How did you even hear that?"
Gerard sighs, "I told you to cut them last night. I don't care if you have a fear of nail clippers, having those long ass things is dangerous."
Mikey frowns at his brother but doesn't reply. He hears Frank giggle from the other side of the room, "He's scared of nail clippers? That's adorable."
Mikey decides to block out any conversation for the rest of the day. He's already emotionally tired of people and it is only 3:30.
The next day, Mikey is only tipped off that something is wrong by the eerie quiet that's in the practice space. "Frank's not here," he says absently. Gerard gives him a look that he should ignore it. Nobody else hears him and nobody else really seems to care. Frank usually misses a lot of practices as it is right after school for them and Frank gets detention quite often.
Mikey only knows that something is wrong when Frank misses the next day as well. When Frank gets a week of detention, he usually spreads it out over a long period of time. He never goes to detention twice in a row, ever. Mikey tells Gerard that he left a textbook at school that he needs in order to study for finals. He has the textbook already in his bag, but he knows that he needs to check on Frank.
He only knows where Frank lives because he made Mikey come over so that he could show him his CD collection. Mikey has a generally good memory and it proves him right as Frank's mother answers the door when Mikey shows up.
"Oh, Frank's sick. He's got a fever so I don't know if you want to see him. I don't want you getting you or your brother sick," she tells him in the entry way.
"I don't mind," he says as he takes his shoes off and sets them by the door. He walks over towards the stairs and starts to go up them.
"Sure thing, you know where his bedroom is. He might be sleeping so be quiet," Frank's mother warns him. Mikey will be sure to quiet as he doesn't want to wake Frank if he's sleeping. Just seeing Frank sit still for more than a minute would be a miracle to Mikey.
Frank turns out to not be sleeping when Mikey visits him. He's listening to Weezer when Mikey walks in, jamming out even though he has a coughing fit half way through. Mikey can understand why he hasn't gotten better yet. "Hey Mikey! Aw, you're so nice. You came to visit me! That's what a good friend does."
He's sick. Mikey is positive of this by the way that his voice is hoarse and airy. "Yeah," Mikey says as he walks into Frank's room. The room is stuffy and hot, probably from the door being closed so that Frank can sleep. The first thing that Mikey does is opens his window, letting in a nice breeze.
"Thanks. If I spent another second under these hot blankets in this hot room, I think I'd sweat my balls off. No joke," he says with a laugh. Mikey sees that Frank's bed is littered with used Kleenexes. He collects the Kleenex and puts them into the wastebasket without saying anything. "You're better than my mom."
Mikey cracks just the smallest smile, checking to see if Frank has any more Kleenexes left. He has about a quarter of a box and Mikey figures that's good enough. He doesn't know where they keep Kleenex boxes and he doesn't feel like searching anyways. "Are you drinking enough fluids and eating fruit?"
"All I've had is soup," Frank says, blowing his nose into another Kleenex. Mikey holds up the wastebasket and Frank shoots the used tissue in, throwing his hands up in victory when he makes it. "I haven't had a single solid thing since I got sick. Unless you count noodles and chicken from chicken noodle soup."
Mikey digs in his bag and pulls out his lunch box. He takes an orange that he didn't eat from it and begins to peel it for Frank. “ Oranges are my favorite fruit!" Frank says enthusiastically. Mikey can't help but smile from how happy Frank sounds, just to be getting an orange. He hadn't eaten it because it'd had a bruise on the side while Frank doesn't seem to care at all.
Mikey gives Frank the fruit and lets him eat it happily. He smiles the entire time that he eats the orange, thanking Mikey once he finishes. "Are you feeling okay?" Mikey asks as he presses his hand to Frank's forehead. The younger boy's forehead seems to be on fire, "No way, you're burning up."
Mikey gets up and goes to Frank's bathroom, rummaging through the medicine cabinet for some aspirin. He grabs the bathroom glass and fills it with water for Frank before he takes to Frank. He gives the pills to Frank, who willingly takes them, before he returns the glass.
"They're supposed to make you sleepy," Mikey says softly as he sits on the edge of Frank's bed. He folds his hands in his lap and just sits there.
"You should be my mom," Frank says as he lays back in his bed, "I mean, my mom just sort of threw a box of Kleenex in here and called it a day." Frank reaches his hand out and takes Mikey's hand in his own. He rubs his thumb over Mikey's knuckles and smiles at the older boy.
It takes Frank one yawn before he's out like a light. Mikey frowns, he knows that this fever is taking everything out of Frank; he can just see it in Frank's eyes. He makes sure that he watches Frank for one minute, just so that he can tell the people later on that he actually saw Frank sit still and be quiet for a full minute.
Mikey leans over and kisses Frank's cheek before he gets up and leaves. Gerard is probably wondering how long it can even take for him to get one textbook.
The next day, Mikey is the first one at practice. Gerard had had a dentist appointment so Mikey had just walked straight from school.. He's expecting either Ray or Matt to come in but instead it's Frank who comes in. "You're a miracle worker, Mikey," Frank says with a face splitting grin. He bounces over and engulfs Mikey in a huge hug.
Mikey smiles too, wrapping his arms around Frank. Frank obviously isn't expecting it as he sort of jolts when he feels the arms on his back. Mikey just leans in and smiles against Frank's shoulder. Frank is shorter so it's almost awkward, but Mikey doesn't mind it one bit.
Frank drops his arms, but Mikey isn't letting him go. The younger boy laughs and pries Mikey off him gently. He just leaves his hands on Mikey's arms as he leans in and kisses Mikey softly on the lips. "Thanks for taking care of me and giving me the cutest kiss ever. And I'm talking about the one on my cheek."
The brown haired boy eyes widen and he feels his cheeks flush bright red. The black hair boy just smiles at him, "You're cute when you blush.." He leans in for another kiss, "I really like you," he admits when he's inches from Mikey's lips.
Mikey's silent for a moment before he smiles back at Frank, one wider than Mikey has ever smiled, "I kind of really like you too."
It's mutual when they both lean in, meeting half way as Gerard opens the door to the garage. "Fuck. I am ten minutes late and suddenly Frank and Mikey are making out. What has the world come to!?" Gerard asks dramatically. Neither of them break their kiss as both Frank and Mikey flip him off.
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Mikey is introverted to say the least. He usually prefers to be alone or with Gerard, possibly the only other person in the world who understands him at all. There are a few categories that he fits into, such as (the ever obvious) shy, quiet, weird, nerdy, weak, and the likes. Three out of five times, he'd be alone in his own little world with his walkman and jamming out to some song from before the 1990s.
Throughout high school, Gerard, Mikey, Ray and Matt had all been pretty much outcasts. Mikey still is now that his friends have all graduated. He's alone in his grade if not the entire school. He has a few acquaintances, but none of them are anything close to the friendship that he shares with his new band mates.
So when Frank joins the band after his umpteenth failure to find a decent band, Mikey doesn't know exactly how many nor does he really care, Mikey realizes exactly how quiet their band has been.
They've had Gerard's lyrics to let their ideas out, but that's solely it. They don't really talk on stage at all, except for maybe Gerard because he's trying to make the band look good, and they don't really talk too much in their practice space either.
"Hey Mikes!" Frank says, throwing his arm around Mikey and catching him off guard. He coughs his shriek away and readjusts his glasses to cover it up. Gerard looks at him and rolls his eyes, knowing exactly what Mikey's doing. "How was high school today?"
Frank is younger than Mikey, the youngest of them all, being the one who's also still in middle school. He's going to graduate from middle school next week, even though he skipped so much that even he doesn't know how he passed. Next year, Mikey's going into tenth grade and Frank into ninth grade.
"Good," Mikey curtly replies, snaking his way out of Frank's arm and to the other side of the room. He doesn't not notice that Frank has a new tattoo, the plastic rubbing against the back of Mikey's neck torturously. Not that Mikey likes Frank that way.
He definitely doesn't, he hasn't even fooled around with girls yet. In order to properly live a healthy teenaged life, he has to make out with at least one girl before he declares himself gay, bisexual, straight, whatever the fuck he is.
"Mikey," Frank says, following him and refusing to let him get away. They basically chase each other around the practice space, Mikey ducking over to Gerard's side and behind the sofa, "Mikey, come back here!"
"Hey you children," Gerard yells to them, watching them basically run around the room now, "stop running before somebody get hu-"
Gerard stops his warning when he sees Mikey trip over an amp cord and falls flat on his face. He slaps his forehead before walking over to Mikey and helping him up. His younger brother's face turns bright red as he readjusts his glasses until Gerard is certain that they won't become unaligned for at least a century. Gerard sighs and looks at Frank who avoids eye contact and suddenly becomes engulfed in admiring his new tattoo. "Are you done Frank?"
Frank looks up like he wasn't aware anything was happening, "He tripped over the cord, I didn't do anything." He shrugs his shoulders and goes back to staring at his arm.
"If you want to go play tag with somebody, go punch a bunch of truckers and see how that turns out," Gerard says sarcastically as Mikey grabs his bass and slouches against the wall opposite of Frank and begins to tune it again, even though he tuned it only ten minutes ago.
"If you insist," Frank says as he grabs his backpack and heads for the door. He's jerked back by Gerard who sits him down in the corner of the practice space.
He brings Frank's guitar over and gives it to him, "I swear to god, sometimes it feels like I'm babysitting a four year old." He walks back over to Mikey, watching his younger brother tune his bass like the world will explode if he doesn't. "If you're good Frank, I'll bring you a juice box later."
"Yay!" Frank says with a smile and throws his hands up in victory. He accidentally throws his guitar pick in the process, landing somewhere in the vicinity of the drum set. "Can you get that for me Gerard?"
Gerard buries his face in his hands, "Four-year old!" he cries and throws Frank an extra pick from his pocket.
Ray and Matt come in moments after, both looking at the two boys sitting on opposite sides of the room. Gerard throws his hands up, trying to seem like a mere victim of their behavior, "They were acting like babies. I had to separate them," Gerard shoots his brother a glare, "I expected much better from Mikey."
Mikey lowers his head down and plucks a string on his bass. His nail catches at a weird angle, breaking in half. "Ow," he mutters, pulling it back to look at it. He frowns at it as he tries to pull it off, only to recoil once it begins to hurt.
Across the room, Frank's head shoots up from his guitar, "Mikey! Are you okay?" His face looks completely worried, probably expecting the very worst.
Mikey is astounded as Gerard hadn't even heard him, "I just broke a nail. How did you even hear that?"
Gerard sighs, "I told you to cut them last night. I don't care if you have a fear of nail clippers, having those long ass things is dangerous."
Mikey frowns at his brother but doesn't reply. He hears Frank giggle from the other side of the room, "He's scared of nail clippers? That's adorable."
Mikey decides to block out any conversation for the rest of the day. He's already emotionally tired of people and it is only 3:30.
The next day, Mikey is only tipped off that something is wrong by the eerie quiet that's in the practice space. "Frank's not here," he says absently. Gerard gives him a look that he should ignore it. Nobody else hears him and nobody else really seems to care. Frank usually misses a lot of practices as it is right after school for them and Frank gets detention quite often.
Mikey only knows that something is wrong when Frank misses the next day as well. When Frank gets a week of detention, he usually spreads it out over a long period of time. He never goes to detention twice in a row, ever. Mikey tells Gerard that he left a textbook at school that he needs in order to study for finals. He has the textbook already in his bag, but he knows that he needs to check on Frank.
He only knows where Frank lives because he made Mikey come over so that he could show him his CD collection. Mikey has a generally good memory and it proves him right as Frank's mother answers the door when Mikey shows up.
"Oh, Frank's sick. He's got a fever so I don't know if you want to see him. I don't want you getting you or your brother sick," she tells him in the entry way.
"I don't mind," he says as he takes his shoes off and sets them by the door. He walks over towards the stairs and starts to go up them.
"Sure thing, you know where his bedroom is. He might be sleeping so be quiet," Frank's mother warns him. Mikey will be sure to quiet as he doesn't want to wake Frank if he's sleeping. Just seeing Frank sit still for more than a minute would be a miracle to Mikey.
Frank turns out to not be sleeping when Mikey visits him. He's listening to Weezer when Mikey walks in, jamming out even though he has a coughing fit half way through. Mikey can understand why he hasn't gotten better yet. "Hey Mikey! Aw, you're so nice. You came to visit me! That's what a good friend does."
He's sick. Mikey is positive of this by the way that his voice is hoarse and airy. "Yeah," Mikey says as he walks into Frank's room. The room is stuffy and hot, probably from the door being closed so that Frank can sleep. The first thing that Mikey does is opens his window, letting in a nice breeze.
"Thanks. If I spent another second under these hot blankets in this hot room, I think I'd sweat my balls off. No joke," he says with a laugh. Mikey sees that Frank's bed is littered with used Kleenexes. He collects the Kleenex and puts them into the wastebasket without saying anything. "You're better than my mom."
Mikey cracks just the smallest smile, checking to see if Frank has any more Kleenexes left. He has about a quarter of a box and Mikey figures that's good enough. He doesn't know where they keep Kleenex boxes and he doesn't feel like searching anyways. "Are you drinking enough fluids and eating fruit?"
"All I've had is soup," Frank says, blowing his nose into another Kleenex. Mikey holds up the wastebasket and Frank shoots the used tissue in, throwing his hands up in victory when he makes it. "I haven't had a single solid thing since I got sick. Unless you count noodles and chicken from chicken noodle soup."
Mikey digs in his bag and pulls out his lunch box. He takes an orange that he didn't eat from it and begins to peel it for Frank. “ Oranges are my favorite fruit!" Frank says enthusiastically. Mikey can't help but smile from how happy Frank sounds, just to be getting an orange. He hadn't eaten it because it'd had a bruise on the side while Frank doesn't seem to care at all.
Mikey gives Frank the fruit and lets him eat it happily. He smiles the entire time that he eats the orange, thanking Mikey once he finishes. "Are you feeling okay?" Mikey asks as he presses his hand to Frank's forehead. The younger boy's forehead seems to be on fire, "No way, you're burning up."
Mikey gets up and goes to Frank's bathroom, rummaging through the medicine cabinet for some aspirin. He grabs the bathroom glass and fills it with water for Frank before he takes to Frank. He gives the pills to Frank, who willingly takes them, before he returns the glass.
"They're supposed to make you sleepy," Mikey says softly as he sits on the edge of Frank's bed. He folds his hands in his lap and just sits there.
"You should be my mom," Frank says as he lays back in his bed, "I mean, my mom just sort of threw a box of Kleenex in here and called it a day." Frank reaches his hand out and takes Mikey's hand in his own. He rubs his thumb over Mikey's knuckles and smiles at the older boy.
It takes Frank one yawn before he's out like a light. Mikey frowns, he knows that this fever is taking everything out of Frank; he can just see it in Frank's eyes. He makes sure that he watches Frank for one minute, just so that he can tell the people later on that he actually saw Frank sit still and be quiet for a full minute.
Mikey leans over and kisses Frank's cheek before he gets up and leaves. Gerard is probably wondering how long it can even take for him to get one textbook.
The next day, Mikey is the first one at practice. Gerard had had a dentist appointment so Mikey had just walked straight from school.. He's expecting either Ray or Matt to come in but instead it's Frank who comes in. "You're a miracle worker, Mikey," Frank says with a face splitting grin. He bounces over and engulfs Mikey in a huge hug.
Mikey smiles too, wrapping his arms around Frank. Frank obviously isn't expecting it as he sort of jolts when he feels the arms on his back. Mikey just leans in and smiles against Frank's shoulder. Frank is shorter so it's almost awkward, but Mikey doesn't mind it one bit.
Frank drops his arms, but Mikey isn't letting him go. The younger boy laughs and pries Mikey off him gently. He just leaves his hands on Mikey's arms as he leans in and kisses Mikey softly on the lips. "Thanks for taking care of me and giving me the cutest kiss ever. And I'm talking about the one on my cheek."
The brown haired boy eyes widen and he feels his cheeks flush bright red. The black hair boy just smiles at him, "You're cute when you blush.." He leans in for another kiss, "I really like you," he admits when he's inches from Mikey's lips.
Mikey's silent for a moment before he smiles back at Frank, one wider than Mikey has ever smiled, "I kind of really like you too."
It's mutual when they both lean in, meeting half way as Gerard opens the door to the garage. "Fuck. I am ten minutes late and suddenly Frank and Mikey are making out. What has the world come to!?" Gerard asks dramatically. Neither of them break their kiss as both Frank and Mikey flip him off.
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