and the control you've got is spinning round and round his finger
Title: and the control you’ve got is spinning round and round his finger
Author: detourtoyou
Rating: R
Pairing: Frank/Gerard, onesided, forced Frank/Mikey
POV: 3rd
Summary: Mikey’s used to the days of living with just Gerard, but now that it’s Gerard, Mikey, and Frank, it seems too crowded everywhere. He wants to get along with Frank, if only for Gerard’s sake, but it’s hard, and his unresponsiveness only elicits Frank’s temper.
Warning: Physical abuse, hinted/implied dub-con. If any of these turn you off or are potentially triggering, please turn away.
Disclaimer: A pretty piece of fabrication of a reality that doesn’t exist and written from my lying head.
A/N: Written for a prompt on anon_lovefest. This is my first “official” MCR fic I've written which will mean it's probably not too great (writing isn't coming well for me lately :/), so any constructive criticism would be lovely and so very greatly appreciated :)
Sitting down at the shitty kitchen table, which doubles as the dinner table most nights, Mikey stares at the chip in the hard wood where he had accidentally knocked his knee into when they had first gotten it at a garage sale. He traces it with his eyes and doesn’t look up.
“Mikey,” calls out Gerard softly, careful to keep his voice gentle.
Mikey makes a noncommittal noise low from his throat to let Gerard know that he’s listening and feels his glasses slip down his nose. He refuses to look up. It’s supposed to be just the two of them, has always been just the two of them, but Mikey can’t bring himself to tell Gerard that because it sounds so selfish, so childish. He wants Gerard to be happy, especially after everything he’s given up for Mikey - art school, a proper job as some sort of artist, a life, a fucking future - but there’s just some part of him that isn’t right. Some part of him that won’t say it. Mikey doesn’t want it to feel that way.
“Look at me,” says Gerard, then tacks on a small, “please.”
He can’t not look at him, so Mikey lifts his head, guilt swimming around in his vision, heavy and deep. It isn’t fair for him to be so difficult and ask Gerard to give up the one and only thing he wants to be selfish about. And really, it isn’t even something that selfish. Mikey hates himself a little; he’s already seventeen, almost eighteen. He shouldn’t be this juvenile.
It’s a little difficult to keep his eyes on Gerard, but he does, nails digging into the deep navy blue fabric of his uniform pants at the thighs to keep them from wandering. Gerard smiles at him, small, and says, “Listen, Mikes,” and Mikey wishes Gerard would stop saying his name so often, “if you don’t like it, just tell me. Okay? If you’re uncomfortable with it, just say something, and I promise I won’t. But you have to tell me. You gotta say something to me and let me know. I don’t want to do anything that you don’t want.”
And Gerard is just so genuine, means every last word, that Mikey hates himself even more for ever thinking about taking this one last happiness, this one little joy Gerard has managed to find in their already smudged lives. He swallows around the lump in his throat and tries to stretch his lips into a smile but it means nothing so he lets it snap back, slack. Instead, he shifts his hand a little, and Gerard’s hand is already there, holding on tight and reassuring from across the table. Mikey takes a discreet breath and forces out the words, “It’s fine, Gee. Really.”
“Don’t lie to me, Mikey,” orders Gerard just as gently, and he squeezes his hand to let Mikey know that it’s okay, that he won’t be mad if Mikey tells him the truth.
So Mikey improvises, talks around the truth just a little without trudging into the territory of lying. “I mean, it’s gonna be a little uncomfortable at first, but if you want this, then I’m all for it. And I know how much you want this, so you don’t lie either.”
A sheepish look of guilt crosses Gerard’s features and he says one last time, giving Mikey one last chance to say no, “Are you sure you’re okay with this?”
Mikey isn’t; it’s supposed to be just the two of them, has always been just the two of them. But this is what Gerard wants and just the fact that even though he wants it enough, he still asks Mikey for permission makes Mikey’s heart clench somewhere in his chest. He wants Gerard to be happy, to have something to make up for everything he had to give up because of him.
“Yeah. I’m sure, Gee.”
*
Mikey comes home from school precisely one week later to see Gerard hauling a box into their home. He holds the door open, waiting for his brother to go through before coming in himself.
“Hey, Mikey,” greets Gerard with a small pant hindering his words. He wipes the sweat from his forehead and grins.
“Hey,” Mikey returns, slow and careful with the letters around his mouth. “So today’s the day, huh.”
Gerard looks visibly guilty for one long second, the smile dropping and bottom lip pulled between two rows of teeth. Mikey pinches his thigh discreetly as punishment and decides to just not talk. He lets Gerard talk instead, mouth pinched shut.
“Yeah. Sorry. I meant to tell you, but I guess I forget in all the rush,” apologizes Gerard. “I think you’ll like him though. He’s kind of a dumbass sometimes and likes to joke around a lot and shit, but he’s - a good person.”
Leaning against the entryway to the kitchen, Mikey nods and says simply, “Okay. I’m sure he is. I mean, he’s gotta be since you like him, right?”
The smile returns, and Gerard pulls him into a hug before Mikey can even react. The arms are tight around his shoulders, positioned awkwardly around his backpack, but it’s a Gerard hug, and Mikey doesn’t think he will ever outgrow it. He worms his arms out from between them and hugs back.
“Thanks,” whispers Gerard, and Mikey just nods stiffly, unable to properly move. They hug until the front door crashes open and another body moves in, holding a box awkwardly in one hand while trying to catch his balance. Gerard lets Mikey go to help him, shaking his head with a small laugh. “God, you’re such a fucking klutz.”
He sticks his tongue out indignantly, letting Gerard take the box from his hands, and retaliates, “Too bad you still love me.”
“I forget why,” jokes Gerard as he sets it down, and the other quickly leans in to steal a kiss.
He smirks and says smugly, "That's why."
"Dumbass," Gerard huffs, but the smile he's got is wide and unlike anything Mikey's seen before. His eyes flit from the mysterious body in their kitchen over to Mikey who is standing at the sink, the edge of the counter digging into his lower back as he chews quietly on an apple he retrieved from the fridge during their exchange. “Um, well. Mikey, this is my boyfriend, Frank. Frank, this is my brother, Mikey.”
Frank looks loud. He looks hyperactive and like the type to do stupid shit and get everyone hurt and in trouble. He looks exactly like someone Mikey would oddly enough get along with, but he keeps that to himself. Frank jumps forward, all smiling teeth and bright eyes, and extends his hand, exclaiming on a volume level that probably echoes through to the neighbors, “Mikey fucking Way! Can’t believe I finally get to meet you.”
In his opinion, there’s nothing special enough about him that calls for Frank’s enthusiasm at finally meeting him. Mikey chews one, two, three more times before swallowing and wipes the apple juice from his hand on his pants before taking Frank’s. “Hi,” he monotones, eyes going wide when Frank suddenly yanks him forward into a tighter hug that almost makes Mikey lose his grip on the apple and definitely lose his footing, falling into Frank who manages to brace his weight and keep them both stranding. He chokes a little, sees a blur of colors scattered across what he thinks is an arm, and Frank lets go of him, still grinning toothily.
His glasses are skewed, but he can still see Gerard behind them, lips splitting in a smile and cheeks pushed up so high to accommodate it, Mikey just fixes them and smiles back without a single word.
Maybe it’ll work.
*
Closing the door, Mikey stops short when he sees Frank on the living room couch, cigarette between his lips and cartoons running on the television. He still isn’t used to coming home to someone else in the house, and he is not exactly decided on how he feels about it either.
“Mikey,” greets Frank easily, cigarette taken out and tipped up. A few of the ashes drop onto the floor, and Mikey manages to hold his wince in even though he has never cared about the carpet before. Instead, he nods in return, one hand still clutching the strap of his backpack. “Sit down and watch some shows with me?”
He has homework; it’s the first excuse sitting on the tip of his tongue, but Mikey knows how much Gerard wants him and Frank to get along, so he just shrugs and plops down onto the couch, careful to leave a whole seat of room between them. His backpack sits against the ratty couch, and Mikey stares at the TV with no words to facilitate conversation between them. Normally, he’s not this awkward around Gerard’s friends (boyfriend, he corrects himself), but there’s something about Frank that leaves Mikey without words, mind utterly blank. Sometimes, he thinks it might just be because of the fact that Frank is Gerard’s boyfriend and just that is enough to halt any and all conversation between them.
“So, you’re still in high school,” says Frank, no question in his words. Although it’s fairly obvious considering his state of dress. Mikey still nods. “That sucks man.” Frank laughs around the words, putting out his cigarette in the ashtray. “I remember my high school days. Fuck. I was fat, angry, and fucking stupid.”
Mikey isn’t sure he knows what to tell him, so he just doesn’t say anything at all. In his opinion, high school isn’t too bad. It is not a cakewalk and some days, he just doesn’t want to get out of bed at all and live through another one of those days, but it is manageable for the most part. He hopes Frank will keep talking so that he won’t have too. Frank does, not even seeming to notice the lack of response from him.
“I used to sneak out of the house at night and go to shows. Thought I was so fucking cool because I went to shows, got into fights, and listened to better music than the shitheads that sat next to me in class,” Frank comments with a shake of his head. He turns, neck craned just a little ways so that he can face Mikey. There is a brilliant grin against his lips, amused.
Not knowing how to answer, Mikey just nods along. There is too much awkward filling the room, and he isn’t sure how to overcome it. He picks around for an excuse to leave Frank to his own devices when one comes to him in the form of the phone ringing.
“I’ll get it,” he volunteers. It turns out to be Pete, whose apparently got big news judging by the way he can’t even get the words out of his mouth without stumbling over his excitement. Mikey takes the phone back to his room and even though he usually doesn’t tolerate much of it, listens to Pete’s stuttered ramblings for the next two hours.
*
“Need a ride to school?”
Glancing up from his shoelaces, Mikey tilts his head to the side, his world at an awkward angle crouched against the floor. According to when he last checked the glowing green digits on the microwave clock, he was five minutes too late to catch the bus. Mikey is pretty certain that while that fact hasn’t changed, he glances around Frank’s legs and checks again anyway.
He is now seven minutes too late to catch the bus which isn’t really any better than when he was five minutes late.
Tightening the laces, Mikey stands back up, knees cramping from the weight forced upon it, and shakes his head side to side.
“I’m good. I’ve still thirty minutes until school starts,” Mikey informs him, shifting his weight to accommodate for his aching knees and calves. He grips the straps of his backpack, rearranging his fingers once, then twice around the padded fabric.
“You sure?” asks Frank with an uncertain mold of his lips. He looks skeptical, which he rightly should be considering that the school is way too far for Mikey to simply walk. But Mikey has a plan, one that involves calling and getting a ride from Ray; Ray never leaves early for school, always there three minutes before the first period bell.
Satisfied with his plan, Mikey makes a noise of affirmation and reiterates, “Yeah. I’m good.” He makes sure to shut the door firmly behind him, not bothering to wait for another potential interjection from Frank.
*
Frank seems to be home a lot. He is always here when Mikey comes back from school, either catching a ride from Ray or Gerard on the days he doesn’t have to work until late at night or can manage a late, hour long lunch break. It is not too concerning, but it does make Mikey wonder just what Frank does to support himself. Or the house, rather. Or what he does from morning until Mikey comes home in the very least. It just seems like he sleeps. A lot.
Although in Frank’s defense, Mikey does attribute that to possibly him just seeing Frank at all moments before and after school and never actually during school hours. Maybe he works then.
Dropping his backpack onto the floor in his room, Mikey pauses for a second before heading back out of his room to grab himself a snack. Today is a Thursday, and Thursdays always mean that Gerard comes back early, early enough for them all to sit down and eat dinner together. He doesn’t want to spoil his appetite.
The kitchen is already occupied when Mikey gets in there; Frank’s at the counter, staring out the open window with a mostly vacant expression molding his face and taking a drag of his cigarette. There is a cup of coffee in his free hand.
“Oh, you’re back already?” Frank asks absently, eyes sleepy around the edges. “Didn’t even hear you coming in.”
Mikey thinks that if Frank was awake long enough, he would have been able to hear. He keeps the comment to himself though - it sounds too snarky, and the last thing Mikey wants is to dredge up problems between him and Frank considering that Frank seems to be a permanent part of Gerard’s life which roughly translate to being a permanent existence in his life too - and shrugs. There is just something about Frank that makes him keep conversations short and as nonexistent as possible.
“So, have a good day at school?” The question prompts Mikey into staring at the shorter man with a blank expression untying his face. Frank chuckles, hand held up in surrender, and amends, “Yeah, okay. Stupid question. Sorry. I don’t even know why I even asked it in the first place. It’s high school; the breeding ground of shitty days.”
“It’s not that bad,” he settles for saying simply.
Reaching around Frank, who unhelpfully doesn’t budge, just blows another cloud of smoke aimed towards the window, Mikey takes a mug out of the overhead cupboard and pours himself some coffee. He has every intention of going up to his room and maybe consider doing homework (even though he knows he won’t just yet) without sharing a single word with Frank when he speaks up again, rooting Mikey to his spot. He notices that Frank likes to do that a lot - talk.
“Gee tells me you play bass?” It comes off as more of a question than Mikey thinks the other wanted it to be. He frowns minutely at the fact that Frank knows more about him than he ever told him and then at Gerard’s nickname thrown so easily.
“Yeah. Sort of,” Mikey answers anyway, taking a sip of coffee to hide the frown behind the mug. He is not especially keen on sharing his personal life with the other. Besides, he is mostly learning to play bass with Pete, and to be honest, Pete’s kind of shitty at it. He should have just learned guitar from Ray or something.
“Nice.” Frank nods approvingly, the sleep gone from his smile as it stretches up against his cheeks. He looks excited again. “I play the guitar. Back from my angry high schools days. I actually played in a band, and we were sort of fucking terrible, but it was the best shit ever at that time. What about you? Play in a band or go to any shows?”
“No, not really.”
Frank waits, like he expects more, and Mikey just hides behind the coffee again, using it as an excuse to keep from talking.
“Shit, seriously? You haven’t gone to a single show?”
Mikey shakes his head in the negative. “I went to one once,” he amends, remembering the horribly shitty band that played at the dark and cramped venue that smelled like piss. He blames Pete for the unpleasant experience and vowed to never go again. Not with Pete at least. The dick had ditched him about twenty minutes into the opening act to go flirt with one of the members of the band or something.
The grimace on his face must mirror the unpleasant thoughts crawling in Mikey’s head about the memory because Frank is then stating with fact, “Obviously, it fucking sucked.” His head moves up and down in a confirming nod, and Frank shakes his head. “Dude, no. I obviously need to take you to a proper show. Well, not so much proper as it is just moshing and fucking loud music.”
Outlining the rim of his mug with an idle finger, Mikey shrugs half-heartedly, saying, “Maybe.”
Fingers land back around the lukewarm cup of coffee, grasping tightly for a second. Frank looks marginally stuck by Mikey’s answers, or lack thereof, and flicks the ashes of his burning cigarette out the crack of the open window, brows held tight together in thought.
“We should play together some time too, yeah?” he tries, offering a smile.
“Sure. I guess.” Mikey pushes himself away from the wall, eyes peering down at the rippling liquid. “I have some homework to do.”
Frank maybe appears sort of frustrated, face taut with an uneven blend of confusion and disappointment. It hides barely behind his thin veil of pretend nonchalance, head bobbing to throw Mikey off from his expression. Not that it works.
“Oh. Right, I forgot that that comes with school. Yeah. Go ahead. I’m probably just gonna go watch some TV or something.”
Strangely enough, the guilt barely prickles him as Mikey nods back in response, juggling the mug between his hands and leaving Frank behind, just as he found him.
*
For what seems like every day of this week, Frank tries to be amicable with Mikey. He offers him rides to and from school, tries to cook both him and Gerard dinner (which only strengthens Mikey’s theory that Frank may not actually have a job), and pretty much strikes up a conversation with him whenever within distance.
For his part, Mikey has only spoken in two full, real conversations with Frank, exceeding his maximum word count of ten words or less. He can see the frustration building in Frank with each attempt he strikes down, and it is funny in a really unfunny sort of way.
*
Gerard is sitting in the living room, alone, flipping through channel after channel of local television because cable is too much to put in. He stops at a PBS special of a biographical telling of Audrey Hepburn’s life, sitting up a little when he spots Mikey. Patting the empty seat of worn leather next to him, Gerard grins a little in invitation.
“Hey.”
With a weak wave back, Mikey sits down next to him without question. “Hey.” The question is burning on his tongue, and he knows that even if he doesn’t ask, Gerard will know and tell him anyway.
“Frank’s out meeting a friend of his.”
“Oh.” Mikey had chanced to think that maybe Frank was out at his job - the one that still remains a mystery to him.
“You’re not getting along with Frank,” he says - doesn’t suggest or ask - upfront, cutting straight to the point and not fiddling with bullshit. Gerard usually never does when they’re talking serious, and right now, Mikey guesses this is serious. He just doesn’t know which parts.
Hands clasped loosely in his lap, Mikey stares down at them, wiggles his index finger a little. “No, I’m not,” the younger Way agrees without hesitation, and he feels a little guilt creeping under his skin. Gerard probably already knows that too, though.
“Why not?” His tone is genuinely curious, eyes querying Mikey silently. Gerard picks at the edge of the remote where it had gotten scratched from when he had thrown it into the wall during one of his rampages back in the earlier days when they had first moved in here and out of their house, the flake of black plastic twisting between his nail ends.
“I don’t know,” intones Mikey, and there is nothing but truth soaking his words. Mikey doesn’t know why he isn’t getting along with Frank. He doesn’t know why he goes as unresponsive as a heartbeat when near the other; he just does. Most of the times, Mikey does not even think it is because of Frank, of his nature, but just something with himself. He doesn’t want to be friends with Frank; hell, he doesn’t even want to share the same bowl of cereal much less get along. But he keeps the words from tumbling out just yet, wants to hear what Gerard has to say.
Rubbing his jaw with a thoughtful hand, Gerard hums quietly to himself. He furrows his brows together, one stretched just slightly higher than the other, and thinks. The TV drones on about Hepburn’s back story, and Mikey listens with minimal interest as he watches Gerard think.
“Do you not like him?” Gerard suggests finally, taking a stab and missing. He lowers the volume of the television when a commercial for some detergent comes on, the announcer loud and obnoxious about its effectiveness; it is distracting.
“It’s not that,” the younger Way begins, truthful, letting his incomplete sentence drop away when he can’t find the words to continue it. “I like him. He seems pretty cool.”
Gerard eyes him skeptically, brow arched. “Oh really? Then why aren’t you getting along?”
“Don’t know.” Mikey gives a one-shouldered shrug to accompany the rhythm of the words, fingernail picking at the seam of his uniform slacks.
They both stare at each other, unrelenting and questioning in ways that found no answers. Mikey tries to be as impassive as he can; he doesn’t know if it works or not when Gerard sighs a bit, deep from his lungs.
“He’s trying, Mikes.”
It’s soft, like Gerard is trying to convince Mikey of what he already can see. Mikey knows Frank is trying; the problem is that he isn’t, and he is still unclear why. He shifts his eyes back over to the biographical of Audrey Hepburn, focusing in on the black and white lines of her body and clothes in the photo.
“I know.”
Gerard outlines a frown with his mouth and folds away, not pressing any further on the matter. They both know it won’t get anywhere anyway.
Personally, Mikey likes to think that it is over but he knows it isn’t. It’s just a conversation on hold, persistent until the next time comes around and Mikey is dodging giving out the answers he doesn’t have to the questions that always come on repeat.
*
Cereal suffices as tonight’s dinner, soggy Fruit Loops sitting in sugared milk. Mikey makes a note to remind Gerard to stop buying Fruit Loops and get something else. He’s in the living room, watching an old horror movie and too fake spatters of red corn syrup as blood.
“Hey, got a sec?”
There is a strict no talking policy during movies that Mikey likes to uphold. He makes a gurgling noise in the back of his throat, hoping it is enough for Frank to get the picture and try to be buddy-buddy with him some other time. When there isn’t a girl, half-mutilated, trying to crawl her way across the screen.
The image disappears, however, into a black screen. Mikey gapes, turning his head to the side just in time to see Frank tossing away the remote back onto the couch furthest away from them. He stands with his arms crossed.
“What is your problem?” The words are hard, eyes narrowing to accentuate that this conversation? It isn’t so much going to be Frank trying to chummy things up with him.
He leans back, cereal neglected on the table and forced into the conversation now that he has no distractions, and there’s no way he can reach the remote without Frank intercepting. “What do you mean?”
“This!” Frank says, gesturing wildly with his hands like there aren’t enough words to possibly describe what he means. “It’s been like over three or four something weeks, and I’ve done practically everything to get to know you and be friends, but you fucking ignore me and just. What is your fucking problem with me? Do you not like me or something? Do you hate that I’m dating your brother? Which is it, Mikey?”
Mikey sits quietly and moves his eyes back over to the TV.
“None of them,” he says with a shrug. He stands up with a cocked brow, moving until he’s almost fully around Frank.
“Motherfucker,” Frank says, and Mikey is blindsided when he slams his body into him as hard as he can, knocking Mikey back and towards the wall. There is only enough time for a single breath to make it to his lungs before Frank is there again.
“You act so fucking perfect when you’re around Gerard. Like there’s nothing that can get to you,” he whispers, words hot against his ear, and Mikey twists his body a little, tries to get out of Frank’s grasp because he’s taller, but Frank’s got strength over him and just pushes back into the wall. There’s exasperation still thick in his voice, though, even as he whispers biting remarks and questions. “But it’s all fucking bullshit, isn’t it, Mikey? You’re just a frigid little bitch, aren’t you? Always just fucking itching to make me mess up because for some damn reason, you hate me. Do you hate me, Mikey? Is that why you just sit there, ignoring me and waiting for me to fuck up so you can go running to Gerard and tell him so he’ll kick me out?”
The accusation tickles Mikey’s side, and he feels the hand fisting his shirt knocking into his clavicle. It is cutting off half of his airway, stunting his breaths.
“You hate me,” Frank repeats in assertion, waiting for him to confirm or deny it. Mikey does neither and feels strangely powerful for being able to keep his words to himself and just let Frank drive himself wild with frustration and blind confusion. “Say something, you fucking mute!”
Mikey just stares at him through his skewed glasses, breathing harshly through his nose. He doesn’t even think he can find the words to dignify just how stupid Frank sounds right now, what with his ridiculous theories and premature conclusions, so he doesn’t bother trying. It drives Frank wild, moves him until he’s standing on the edge and he’s pushing Mikey harder and harder into the wall. He thinks it might break and almost laughs when he thinks about the excuses Frank would have to come up with to explain a Mikey-shaped hole in the wall.
“Not much of a conversationalist, eh? Well, that’s fine with me. I’ll just give you a reason to stay so damn silent all the time,” says Frank, and he actually grins a little around the words.
He should probably be more scared than he actually is, and when the first fist knocks itself straight into his gut, causing him to double over as best as he can with Frank crowding him against the wall, Mikey just shuts his eyes tight and sucks in the gasp. The lack of an audible sound must irritate Frank, however, already swinging his fist back once more to launch into his stomach, hard and sharp. Mikey slumps against Frank when his knuckles grind against what feels like his kidneys. He is out of breath, wind knocked out of his lungs, and he wants to grasp on to something to keep him upright so he won’t just fall to his knees.
Frank keeps him steady though, lets Mikey’s fingers curl and uncurl, tugging at his shirt. He hums to himself, leaning in close again to say clearly, even though the blood is rushing in Mikey’s ears, “Don’t just fucking ignore me. If you just talk to me, we can keep things civil between us and maybe even be friends. Yeah? Gerard would like that, wouldn’t he, Mikes?”
The sound of his nickname catches most of Mikey’s attention, his free hand spread against his stomach, and he thinks that if he could talk, without wheezing for sweet oxygen to make it into his lungs, he would probably tell Frank to go fuck himself.
When the hands and arms disappear from his body, now lax without an outward force to keep him up, Mikey crumples down the wall to the floor, clutching at his stomach and trying his best to keep from making any noises outside of heavy breathing.
“Let’s make it happen, Mikes,” Frank suggests in a vicious whisper, smiling toothily with none of the venom he had used to tenderize Mikey’s organs just seconds ago present.
*
Contrary to his thoughts and deductions, the spectacular, and semi-unexpected, beat down doesn’t end there. It follows Mikey into the next day. And the next day. And practically just every time he sees Frank in an either exceptionally good mood or an exceptionally shitty one. Almost anything can set him off, but Mikey notices that it’s his silence that sets him off the loudest and hardest.
It is sort of like a secret; one that someone keeps out of obligation rather than because they sincerely want to protect what it means.
For his part, Frank never leaves bruises on visible skin, always keeping them well hidden from Gerard (or anyone, really) and treats him with the same enthusiasm as always.
For his part, Mikey keeps quiet and goes on with his life without any snags to drag him down.
*
“How the fuck did you get that bruise?”
Mikey looks up, sees the concerned look of horror and slow impending fury contorting Gerard’s face as he half-rises from his chair, already going into worried-pissed-off older brother mode like Mikey is incapable of taking care of himself. Frank is in the chair next to him, and Mikey has to commend him on the look of surprise coloring his face. It looks genuine enough to fool anyone, even Mikey.
The bruise, merging the smooth plane of skin between his hip and stomach, is in plain view to the table, and Mikey doesn’t bother tugging his shirt down to hide it. He sees no point in doing so considering that Gerard’s already seen it and making squirrely attempts to hide it would only breed suspicion. His eyes move back to the inside of their cramped pantry.
“Fell out of bed and on the radio,” he lies smoothly, never missing a single syllable. It isn’t a complete lie because he has fallen out of his bed before, and there is a lot of shit strewn around his room. It is also probably why Gerard takes his explanation without any questions, just a stern look which breaks with the roll of his eyes.
“Seriously? Man, someone needs to just watch out for you, like every hour of the day.”
The shrug disturbs another particularly nasty bruise hidden by his shirt, but Mikey holds in his wince. He just resumes rummaging through their pantry, hunger mostly untouched by any guilt or shame that he isn’t producing, until he locates a pack of Cheetos as the fruits of his efforts. When he leaves the kitchen, he sees Frank, hand warm against Gerard’s arm, break character and wink. It leaves him infuriated that Frank would seriously risk Gerard finding out or even realizing that something is fishy just to taunt him. He tucks his bottom into his mouth to keep the burn of anger trapped under his skin. The anger is good, refreshing, and he wants to keep it for as long as it is willing to hold out.
*
Mikey is reading a comic in the living room, eyes never leaving the inked pages. He shifts, legs having fallen asleep, and contemplates getting up to take a nap in his room when the words blur together and he thinks he quite possibly read something about flying beavers and naked mole rats.
He is nearly asleep, halfway to dreaming when there is a jostle of sound and something pricking his vision even though both his eyes are closed. He swats the disturbance away as tricks his mind is striking paranoia in him with.
But there’s a heavy body near him, and Mikey can hear the faint breaths inhaling, exhaling, inhaling. His eyes stretch open, forced upwards.
There are hands on the buttons of his jeans before he can even react, mind fumbling its way through the dark alley and trying to match up the right words with the right actions he isn’t saying or taking.
By the time Mikey manages to stumble into motion, he makes a grab at Frank’s hands slipping down his jeans and over the front of his boxers and asks, voice surprisingly still, “What the fuck?”
Frank smirks at him, eyes dark and lips wet, and says in echo, “What the fuck what?”
“You’re in my pants, touching my dick,” Mikey explains, pulling sharply at where he’s got a hold of Frank’s hands. They don’t budge.
“Oh yeah?” Frank actually lets his eyes skim down and then back up, amused. “Will you look at that. I am.”
“Get them out,” Mikey demands, and he tries again to tug Frank’s hands out of his pants and ignore the swell of heat resting over the front of his boxers.
But the boxers are easing itself down, and Frank pulls his dick out, only half-hard because Mikey had been thinking about his gym teacher in ballet tights and shaving his legs to keep himself grounded. When Frank palms him slowly, almost experimentally, Mikey’s breath hitches in his throat and his fingers tighten around where they are burning his fingerprints into Frank’s wrist.
“Better?” asks Frank and moves his hand up and down, thumb tracing a faint, ghosting line on the underside of his cock.
“Fuck you,” Mikey wheezes out, sucking in his bottom lip into his mouth. He squirms in Frank’s hand and tries to not push forward. It’s a game of dominance, fucked up and completely worthless, but Mikey can recognize the signs and the burn to win. He almost laughs because that definitely should not be the type of thoughts running through his head right now. Frank twists his hand, and Mikey groans through clenched teeth.
Frank doesn’t respond, just takes his hand off to lick his palm and moves it in steady strokes along Mikey’s cock. He watches him lazily, and Mikey is a little ashamed to admit that his thighs are quivering just with the slightest tremors, fingers still wrapped tight around Frank’s wrist. It should be the most demeaning thing in the world, to be fucking jerked off by his brother’s - and Mikey has to expel the word out of his brain just as quickly as it had flickered through because seriously not the best time - boyfriend in the living room. But Mikey just grits his teeth and digs his short nails into Frank’s flesh. He hopes he leaves tears and bruises through the skin.
It doesn’t take long for Mikey to come, teeth biting down hard into his lower lip.
“Do you hate me?” asks Frank out of the blue, cutting through Mikey’s pants as they fill the suddenly too small and too crowded living room. Frank still has his dick in his hand, and he doesn’t want to risk looking at Frank, afraid of what he’ll see. There’s too much shame clouding his eyes anyhow. He eventually pulls away, releasing Mikey.
Mikey can’t quite get his breathing back normal, panting softly, and he squeezes his eyes shut. Squeezes them until he can see a burst of colors where his eyelids meet, scrunched together. He counts to fifty, slow and steady and forcing his breaths through his nose, and then adds another one hundred before he peeks with one eye. Then the other. Then both.
Frank is gone. But the sticky come staining his pants and boxers is too real for Mikey to write off as a hellish nightmare. He does anyways to keep himself sane.
*
When Mikey crashes into the kitchen the next morning, he almost falls flat on his face when he sees Frank, shirtless and making breakfast. With Gerard. He can guess what they might have done last night. Or this morning. Whatever.
He suddenly feels distinctly uncomfortable but forces himself into a chair, Gerard having already caught sight of him.
“Morning.”
“Way past morning. It’s already one.” Gerard grins and hands him a cup of coffee.
“Which is why you’re making pancakes?” Mikey fires back with a raised brow, inhaling the rich, warm scent deeply. He’s going to need it.
“Unlike you, we actually got up at twelve thirty,” Frank cuts in as he twists around to waggle his brow at Mikey. Spatula in hand and Gerard by his side, he looks completely content and comfortable. It only half-disgusts Mikey.
Mikey hums into his coffee and watches the two of them cook, disturbed only by the fact that he did not think Gerard to be the romantic type. Well, he did but it isn’t exactly something Mikey ever wanted to witness firsthand. There is a message in black Sharpie scrawled in Gerard’s handwriting on Frank’s hip, stretching out to the small of his back. Mikey can’t make out most of the words, doesn’t want to in any case. He just watches them through sleep glazed eyes.
“I think you poured too much water,” complains Frank, poking Gerard in the ribs with the clean end of the wooden spoon. “Look, it’s all watery and runny.”
“It said two cups!” Gerard says defensively and nudges Frank back in retaliation. Mikey notices the lingering fingers against his arm, gripping for only a second longer than appropriate when just giving someone a shove.
“You used the coffee pot!”
“Hey, the coffee pot makes up to ten cups. It makes a valid measuring cup.”
“That’s how much mix you put into it,” Frank points out, finger tapping the lower half of the bag where the instructions are. Gerard stoops over a little to read it, and when he’s done, he sighs a little, sad.
“Shit. I fucked it up.”
“God, you’re such a fucking dork.” Frank shakes his head and says with a chuckle to his words, “Just add more mix, dumbass.”
But he’s smiling, and as Gerard dumps more mix into the watery mess, Frank darts forward and kisses him. Which redirects the flow of pancake mix onto the counter. Gerard curses, stares at the mess sadly, and then Frank rolls his eyes and kisses Gerard to make it better.
Mikey averts his eyes back over to his coffee. He wonders if this is all some sort of act. Except he’s seen it so many times, the happiness between them, that he damn well knows it isn’t. Not for Frank and definitely not for Gerard.
He feels his stomach churn because for the love of everything fucking good that never seems to happen, he wants them to work out. He just wants Gerard to be this happy forever.
*
Curled up on his bed near the corner, Mikey pulls up the blanket to his nose, breathing softly against the fabric. His fingers are wrapped around the edge, being held by the blanket instead of the other way around. He can hear the steady tick of the clock outside, and the hum of his own brain, never shutting off and always running, running, running. He wants to sleep.
But then there are footsteps, rushed with bounces in each collision against the carpeted floor and never stepping in the same way twice.
Mikey shuts his eyes, tight, and evens out his breaths until he thinks they’ve stopped. The door to his room squeaks, metal hinges protesting against the intrusion, and Mikey doesn’t need to see to know that Frank is in his room. He kind of wants to laugh at the clichéd scenario, wants to mock Frank for not being able to think of anything better than late-night visits when Gerard is busying working overtime or the late shift.
“Mikey,” he sings, barely quiet and flicking on the lights in the room. Mikey hates the way it manages to permeate even through his blanket and onto the backs of his eyelids, slicing bright planes across his black vision. “Come out, Mikey.”
Pretending to be asleep is pretty stupid, so Mikey just tugs the blanket down a little until he sees Frank exactly where he knew he’d be. His nails dig into the blanket.
“What do you want, Frank?” he asks calmly, because Mikey’s got this under control. He knows what he’s doing and how to take care of it when he doesn’t. He isn’t going to worry Gerard. Not when he’s got it all under control.
Frank isn’t drunk. Or high. He never is, so the excuse has never been there to use. Not that Frank ever has. Instead, he jumps onto Mikey’s bed, sprawls out leisurely, and maybe crushes Mikey’s right leg and hip a little with his smaller body. He scoots closer to Mikey who doesn’t move.
“Just looking for some entertainment s’all,” he says with a wily grin that makes Mikey automatically think damage control.
“Well go away. I need to sleep. I have school tomorrow,” states Mikey in the order it should happen. On bad nights. But tonight is a good night; Mikey can see the bright gleam of light behind Frank’s eyes that convey his ecstatic mood.
Frank props himself up on an elbow, cheek smashed against the palm of his hand, and smiles at Mikey.
“Don’t worry. I’ll just drive you so you can sleep in some instead of missing out on all the fun right now,” informs Frank with that stupid smile, and Mikey resists the urge to just wrap him up in the blanket and suffocate him to his death. Instead, Mikey looks straight ahead, at the other side where the pale, off-white wall covered in posters and paints sits in silent mocking.
Not bothering to answer, Mikey just stares, hopes that if he’s quiet for long enough, Frank will just get pissed off and start hitting him. He doesn’t want to talk to Frank like this, like they’re great buds even though Frank is dating Gerard, and it’s normal. It’s not fucking normal. Mikey isn’t sure how to completely handle a kind, chatty Frank who just wants to be friends because Mikey is his boyfriend’s kid brother because it’s out of his league. It’s out of his mind, and he just prefers things to be normal, regardless of how fucked up the current normal may be.
“Gerard thinks we’re getting along, yeah?” says Frank with that shit-eating smile, and Mikey cracks at the mere mention of his brother’s name spilling from those lips when he knows what is going to happen. He can practically feel the next moves, like in the movies, only there is no hero to save him from an evil villain; just Frank and himself. And truth be told, he makes a lousy hero, and Frank makes for an even lousier villain.
“Don’t fucking talk about him,” Mikey snaps, loud and angry with the red right there bleeding between his fingers and letters.
The smile on his lips widens, sharpens with the knowledge of having hit Mikey’s nerve, and Frank plays on it, rides it out. “Why not? It’s true,” he says, voice taunting almost in a way that makes Mikey remind himself to breathe, breathe, breathe. “Gerard thinks we’re getting along, and he’s all happy about it. I mean, I am too. Happy that Gerard’s happy. Aren’t you happy that he’s happy, Mikey?”
Careful not to let himself flare again, Mikey glares at the wall with an impassive face, refusing to see the smug look crowding Frank’s face. Probably.
“C’mon, Mikeyway,” he croons into his ear, pressing closer and closer until Mikey feels uncomfortable in his own skin, even though there is a layer of clothes, blanket, and Frank barricading him. “I’m just here to make friends.”
The weird thing, Mikey thinks, is that if Frank wasn’t dating his older brother, they probably had potential to be friends. They probably could have been friends. Good friends. Best friends even. The thought plays itself in his mind on repeat four more times before Mikey closes his eyes.
“I want to sleep. Go away, Frank.”
Fingers wrap around his hair and tug gently, just enough to garner Mikey’s attention and flutter his eyelids open. Frank’s face is hovering just a thin line away from his, close enough for Mikey to feel his breaths fan across his skin and catch a whiff of his soap, clean against his skin. Mikey thinks it’d be sort of romantic, in a really nondescript sort of way, if he and Frank were the ones dating as opposed to his brother and Frank. But they’re not, so it’s not, and this is entirely not acceptable. He thinks about saying so, about reminding Frank that he’s supposed to be in love with Gerard except Mikey is certain that any mention of Frank and loving Gerard in the same sentence will just make him throw up. It’s the worst lie anyone’s ever kept and the worst secret anyone’s ever told.
Mikey doesn’t think Frank really loves his brother at all.
“It’s all just harmless fun,” insists Frank, just a syllable more away from Mikey’s lips, and Mikey can taste his breaths on his tongue, warm. The exasperation is still there though, abandoned for arrogance but layered under his tongue. Tonight is going to be different. Mikey can feel it, can feel it in Frank, and if he’s completely truthful, which he hasn’t been in a very long while, Mikey is actually afraid. Physical pains were fine; they were only toeing a line that shouldn’t be touched. Anything past that though is foreign territory that is strictly off limits, and Mikey is positive that Frank knows it too.
“You don’t love my brother, do you?” Mikey rushes out in a cursory whisper before Frank can close his lips around Mikey’s. Before Frank can seal the deal on Mikey’s fate and close the lid on the can he thinks is supposed to be metaphorically his life. Whatever, fuck metaphors.
Frank stops, as though burned, and stares at Mikey with unreadable eyes. There is no immediate denial nor does Frank move to show any agreement, neither pushing away nor pulling closer. The pinch of discomfort evolves into a sucker punch to his gut, and Mikey regrets ever asking Frank because he has a feeling that his words, that accusation? It isn't even close to being true.
“Think whatever keeps you sane,” is the only thing Frank finally pushes out between slack lips, surprisingly genuine and soft, and Mikey's not sure who closes the gap, just that it's closed and Frank's mouth against his is raw and gentle.
*
“How are you and Frank getting along lately?” Gerard asks one day in the car when he picks Mikey up after school and tries a tad too hard to sound casual. His fingers tap listlessly against the steering wheel.
Mikey ponders the question, letting it soak in his mind as he watches the hope press through in Gerard’s eyes even as he tries to hide it. There are so many decisions he can make. He can tell Gerard the truth and get him to dump Frank on his fat ass, probably even bruise and bloody him up, if not potentially murder him, before throwing him out to rot on the curb. He can tell Gerard nothing and just let him worry every minute because it must mean that something is wrong. Hell, he can even keep quiet and tell Gerard that everything is fine so that everyone can go along with the lie, no matter how involuntary.
Gerard presses down on the accelerator, just barely making it through a yellow light and flying down the streets of their shitty neighborhood. There is a defined line of worried hope in his jaw.
There isn’t much to think about, when he really thinks about it, and Mikey feels like it is just going in a loop.
“Do you hate me?”
His jaw sets as he curls his fingers into his palm just a little. To be honest, he had been afraid of the question initially. Not answering it, but of what kind of answer would pop from him mouth and whether it’d be the right one. It sits on the lines in his mind though; how could he hate someone who practically grew true, self-happiness in his brother?
It’s simple; he can’t. He can’t hate Frank. He doesn’t hate Frank. Not when he is the only thing in Gerard’s life that is bright enough to make up for everything else Gerard has had to give up. Mikey doesn’t want Gerard to have to give up Frank too. It isn’t fair.
Mikey looks out the window, fingers skimming the dark bruises hiding just under the waistband of his navy slacks and feeling the seatbelt tighten with too much pressure against the equally dark purple and red ones all along his chest. His lips burn from where they’ve touched Frank’s and Mikey abruptly curbs that thought, pulling his fingers away so that he can outline a smudge of a bird on the window. He wants Gerard and Frank to work and prays to high hell that they will. Gerard needs this, and if he’s honest with himself, he needs it too.
“Fine.”
Author: detourtoyou
Rating: R
Pairing: Frank/Gerard, onesided, forced Frank/Mikey
POV: 3rd
Summary: Mikey’s used to the days of living with just Gerard, but now that it’s Gerard, Mikey, and Frank, it seems too crowded everywhere. He wants to get along with Frank, if only for Gerard’s sake, but it’s hard, and his unresponsiveness only elicits Frank’s temper.
Warning: Physical abuse, hinted/implied dub-con. If any of these turn you off or are potentially triggering, please turn away.
Disclaimer: A pretty piece of fabrication of a reality that doesn’t exist and written from my lying head.
A/N: Written for a prompt on anon_lovefest. This is my first “official” MCR fic I've written which will mean it's probably not too great (writing isn't coming well for me lately :/), so any constructive criticism would be lovely and so very greatly appreciated :)
Sitting down at the shitty kitchen table, which doubles as the dinner table most nights, Mikey stares at the chip in the hard wood where he had accidentally knocked his knee into when they had first gotten it at a garage sale. He traces it with his eyes and doesn’t look up.
“Mikey,” calls out Gerard softly, careful to keep his voice gentle.
Mikey makes a noncommittal noise low from his throat to let Gerard know that he’s listening and feels his glasses slip down his nose. He refuses to look up. It’s supposed to be just the two of them, has always been just the two of them, but Mikey can’t bring himself to tell Gerard that because it sounds so selfish, so childish. He wants Gerard to be happy, especially after everything he’s given up for Mikey - art school, a proper job as some sort of artist, a life, a fucking future - but there’s just some part of him that isn’t right. Some part of him that won’t say it. Mikey doesn’t want it to feel that way.
“Look at me,” says Gerard, then tacks on a small, “please.”
He can’t not look at him, so Mikey lifts his head, guilt swimming around in his vision, heavy and deep. It isn’t fair for him to be so difficult and ask Gerard to give up the one and only thing he wants to be selfish about. And really, it isn’t even something that selfish. Mikey hates himself a little; he’s already seventeen, almost eighteen. He shouldn’t be this juvenile.
It’s a little difficult to keep his eyes on Gerard, but he does, nails digging into the deep navy blue fabric of his uniform pants at the thighs to keep them from wandering. Gerard smiles at him, small, and says, “Listen, Mikes,” and Mikey wishes Gerard would stop saying his name so often, “if you don’t like it, just tell me. Okay? If you’re uncomfortable with it, just say something, and I promise I won’t. But you have to tell me. You gotta say something to me and let me know. I don’t want to do anything that you don’t want.”
And Gerard is just so genuine, means every last word, that Mikey hates himself even more for ever thinking about taking this one last happiness, this one little joy Gerard has managed to find in their already smudged lives. He swallows around the lump in his throat and tries to stretch his lips into a smile but it means nothing so he lets it snap back, slack. Instead, he shifts his hand a little, and Gerard’s hand is already there, holding on tight and reassuring from across the table. Mikey takes a discreet breath and forces out the words, “It’s fine, Gee. Really.”
“Don’t lie to me, Mikey,” orders Gerard just as gently, and he squeezes his hand to let Mikey know that it’s okay, that he won’t be mad if Mikey tells him the truth.
So Mikey improvises, talks around the truth just a little without trudging into the territory of lying. “I mean, it’s gonna be a little uncomfortable at first, but if you want this, then I’m all for it. And I know how much you want this, so you don’t lie either.”
A sheepish look of guilt crosses Gerard’s features and he says one last time, giving Mikey one last chance to say no, “Are you sure you’re okay with this?”
Mikey isn’t; it’s supposed to be just the two of them, has always been just the two of them. But this is what Gerard wants and just the fact that even though he wants it enough, he still asks Mikey for permission makes Mikey’s heart clench somewhere in his chest. He wants Gerard to be happy, to have something to make up for everything he had to give up because of him.
“Yeah. I’m sure, Gee.”
*
Mikey comes home from school precisely one week later to see Gerard hauling a box into their home. He holds the door open, waiting for his brother to go through before coming in himself.
“Hey, Mikey,” greets Gerard with a small pant hindering his words. He wipes the sweat from his forehead and grins.
“Hey,” Mikey returns, slow and careful with the letters around his mouth. “So today’s the day, huh.”
Gerard looks visibly guilty for one long second, the smile dropping and bottom lip pulled between two rows of teeth. Mikey pinches his thigh discreetly as punishment and decides to just not talk. He lets Gerard talk instead, mouth pinched shut.
“Yeah. Sorry. I meant to tell you, but I guess I forget in all the rush,” apologizes Gerard. “I think you’ll like him though. He’s kind of a dumbass sometimes and likes to joke around a lot and shit, but he’s - a good person.”
Leaning against the entryway to the kitchen, Mikey nods and says simply, “Okay. I’m sure he is. I mean, he’s gotta be since you like him, right?”
The smile returns, and Gerard pulls him into a hug before Mikey can even react. The arms are tight around his shoulders, positioned awkwardly around his backpack, but it’s a Gerard hug, and Mikey doesn’t think he will ever outgrow it. He worms his arms out from between them and hugs back.
“Thanks,” whispers Gerard, and Mikey just nods stiffly, unable to properly move. They hug until the front door crashes open and another body moves in, holding a box awkwardly in one hand while trying to catch his balance. Gerard lets Mikey go to help him, shaking his head with a small laugh. “God, you’re such a fucking klutz.”
He sticks his tongue out indignantly, letting Gerard take the box from his hands, and retaliates, “Too bad you still love me.”
“I forget why,” jokes Gerard as he sets it down, and the other quickly leans in to steal a kiss.
He smirks and says smugly, "That's why."
"Dumbass," Gerard huffs, but the smile he's got is wide and unlike anything Mikey's seen before. His eyes flit from the mysterious body in their kitchen over to Mikey who is standing at the sink, the edge of the counter digging into his lower back as he chews quietly on an apple he retrieved from the fridge during their exchange. “Um, well. Mikey, this is my boyfriend, Frank. Frank, this is my brother, Mikey.”
Frank looks loud. He looks hyperactive and like the type to do stupid shit and get everyone hurt and in trouble. He looks exactly like someone Mikey would oddly enough get along with, but he keeps that to himself. Frank jumps forward, all smiling teeth and bright eyes, and extends his hand, exclaiming on a volume level that probably echoes through to the neighbors, “Mikey fucking Way! Can’t believe I finally get to meet you.”
In his opinion, there’s nothing special enough about him that calls for Frank’s enthusiasm at finally meeting him. Mikey chews one, two, three more times before swallowing and wipes the apple juice from his hand on his pants before taking Frank’s. “Hi,” he monotones, eyes going wide when Frank suddenly yanks him forward into a tighter hug that almost makes Mikey lose his grip on the apple and definitely lose his footing, falling into Frank who manages to brace his weight and keep them both stranding. He chokes a little, sees a blur of colors scattered across what he thinks is an arm, and Frank lets go of him, still grinning toothily.
His glasses are skewed, but he can still see Gerard behind them, lips splitting in a smile and cheeks pushed up so high to accommodate it, Mikey just fixes them and smiles back without a single word.
Maybe it’ll work.
*
Closing the door, Mikey stops short when he sees Frank on the living room couch, cigarette between his lips and cartoons running on the television. He still isn’t used to coming home to someone else in the house, and he is not exactly decided on how he feels about it either.
“Mikey,” greets Frank easily, cigarette taken out and tipped up. A few of the ashes drop onto the floor, and Mikey manages to hold his wince in even though he has never cared about the carpet before. Instead, he nods in return, one hand still clutching the strap of his backpack. “Sit down and watch some shows with me?”
He has homework; it’s the first excuse sitting on the tip of his tongue, but Mikey knows how much Gerard wants him and Frank to get along, so he just shrugs and plops down onto the couch, careful to leave a whole seat of room between them. His backpack sits against the ratty couch, and Mikey stares at the TV with no words to facilitate conversation between them. Normally, he’s not this awkward around Gerard’s friends (boyfriend, he corrects himself), but there’s something about Frank that leaves Mikey without words, mind utterly blank. Sometimes, he thinks it might just be because of the fact that Frank is Gerard’s boyfriend and just that is enough to halt any and all conversation between them.
“So, you’re still in high school,” says Frank, no question in his words. Although it’s fairly obvious considering his state of dress. Mikey still nods. “That sucks man.” Frank laughs around the words, putting out his cigarette in the ashtray. “I remember my high school days. Fuck. I was fat, angry, and fucking stupid.”
Mikey isn’t sure he knows what to tell him, so he just doesn’t say anything at all. In his opinion, high school isn’t too bad. It is not a cakewalk and some days, he just doesn’t want to get out of bed at all and live through another one of those days, but it is manageable for the most part. He hopes Frank will keep talking so that he won’t have too. Frank does, not even seeming to notice the lack of response from him.
“I used to sneak out of the house at night and go to shows. Thought I was so fucking cool because I went to shows, got into fights, and listened to better music than the shitheads that sat next to me in class,” Frank comments with a shake of his head. He turns, neck craned just a little ways so that he can face Mikey. There is a brilliant grin against his lips, amused.
Not knowing how to answer, Mikey just nods along. There is too much awkward filling the room, and he isn’t sure how to overcome it. He picks around for an excuse to leave Frank to his own devices when one comes to him in the form of the phone ringing.
“I’ll get it,” he volunteers. It turns out to be Pete, whose apparently got big news judging by the way he can’t even get the words out of his mouth without stumbling over his excitement. Mikey takes the phone back to his room and even though he usually doesn’t tolerate much of it, listens to Pete’s stuttered ramblings for the next two hours.
*
“Need a ride to school?”
Glancing up from his shoelaces, Mikey tilts his head to the side, his world at an awkward angle crouched against the floor. According to when he last checked the glowing green digits on the microwave clock, he was five minutes too late to catch the bus. Mikey is pretty certain that while that fact hasn’t changed, he glances around Frank’s legs and checks again anyway.
He is now seven minutes too late to catch the bus which isn’t really any better than when he was five minutes late.
Tightening the laces, Mikey stands back up, knees cramping from the weight forced upon it, and shakes his head side to side.
“I’m good. I’ve still thirty minutes until school starts,” Mikey informs him, shifting his weight to accommodate for his aching knees and calves. He grips the straps of his backpack, rearranging his fingers once, then twice around the padded fabric.
“You sure?” asks Frank with an uncertain mold of his lips. He looks skeptical, which he rightly should be considering that the school is way too far for Mikey to simply walk. But Mikey has a plan, one that involves calling and getting a ride from Ray; Ray never leaves early for school, always there three minutes before the first period bell.
Satisfied with his plan, Mikey makes a noise of affirmation and reiterates, “Yeah. I’m good.” He makes sure to shut the door firmly behind him, not bothering to wait for another potential interjection from Frank.
*
Frank seems to be home a lot. He is always here when Mikey comes back from school, either catching a ride from Ray or Gerard on the days he doesn’t have to work until late at night or can manage a late, hour long lunch break. It is not too concerning, but it does make Mikey wonder just what Frank does to support himself. Or the house, rather. Or what he does from morning until Mikey comes home in the very least. It just seems like he sleeps. A lot.
Although in Frank’s defense, Mikey does attribute that to possibly him just seeing Frank at all moments before and after school and never actually during school hours. Maybe he works then.
Dropping his backpack onto the floor in his room, Mikey pauses for a second before heading back out of his room to grab himself a snack. Today is a Thursday, and Thursdays always mean that Gerard comes back early, early enough for them all to sit down and eat dinner together. He doesn’t want to spoil his appetite.
The kitchen is already occupied when Mikey gets in there; Frank’s at the counter, staring out the open window with a mostly vacant expression molding his face and taking a drag of his cigarette. There is a cup of coffee in his free hand.
“Oh, you’re back already?” Frank asks absently, eyes sleepy around the edges. “Didn’t even hear you coming in.”
Mikey thinks that if Frank was awake long enough, he would have been able to hear. He keeps the comment to himself though - it sounds too snarky, and the last thing Mikey wants is to dredge up problems between him and Frank considering that Frank seems to be a permanent part of Gerard’s life which roughly translate to being a permanent existence in his life too - and shrugs. There is just something about Frank that makes him keep conversations short and as nonexistent as possible.
“So, have a good day at school?” The question prompts Mikey into staring at the shorter man with a blank expression untying his face. Frank chuckles, hand held up in surrender, and amends, “Yeah, okay. Stupid question. Sorry. I don’t even know why I even asked it in the first place. It’s high school; the breeding ground of shitty days.”
“It’s not that bad,” he settles for saying simply.
Reaching around Frank, who unhelpfully doesn’t budge, just blows another cloud of smoke aimed towards the window, Mikey takes a mug out of the overhead cupboard and pours himself some coffee. He has every intention of going up to his room and maybe consider doing homework (even though he knows he won’t just yet) without sharing a single word with Frank when he speaks up again, rooting Mikey to his spot. He notices that Frank likes to do that a lot - talk.
“Gee tells me you play bass?” It comes off as more of a question than Mikey thinks the other wanted it to be. He frowns minutely at the fact that Frank knows more about him than he ever told him and then at Gerard’s nickname thrown so easily.
“Yeah. Sort of,” Mikey answers anyway, taking a sip of coffee to hide the frown behind the mug. He is not especially keen on sharing his personal life with the other. Besides, he is mostly learning to play bass with Pete, and to be honest, Pete’s kind of shitty at it. He should have just learned guitar from Ray or something.
“Nice.” Frank nods approvingly, the sleep gone from his smile as it stretches up against his cheeks. He looks excited again. “I play the guitar. Back from my angry high schools days. I actually played in a band, and we were sort of fucking terrible, but it was the best shit ever at that time. What about you? Play in a band or go to any shows?”
“No, not really.”
Frank waits, like he expects more, and Mikey just hides behind the coffee again, using it as an excuse to keep from talking.
“Shit, seriously? You haven’t gone to a single show?”
Mikey shakes his head in the negative. “I went to one once,” he amends, remembering the horribly shitty band that played at the dark and cramped venue that smelled like piss. He blames Pete for the unpleasant experience and vowed to never go again. Not with Pete at least. The dick had ditched him about twenty minutes into the opening act to go flirt with one of the members of the band or something.
The grimace on his face must mirror the unpleasant thoughts crawling in Mikey’s head about the memory because Frank is then stating with fact, “Obviously, it fucking sucked.” His head moves up and down in a confirming nod, and Frank shakes his head. “Dude, no. I obviously need to take you to a proper show. Well, not so much proper as it is just moshing and fucking loud music.”
Outlining the rim of his mug with an idle finger, Mikey shrugs half-heartedly, saying, “Maybe.”
Fingers land back around the lukewarm cup of coffee, grasping tightly for a second. Frank looks marginally stuck by Mikey’s answers, or lack thereof, and flicks the ashes of his burning cigarette out the crack of the open window, brows held tight together in thought.
“We should play together some time too, yeah?” he tries, offering a smile.
“Sure. I guess.” Mikey pushes himself away from the wall, eyes peering down at the rippling liquid. “I have some homework to do.”
Frank maybe appears sort of frustrated, face taut with an uneven blend of confusion and disappointment. It hides barely behind his thin veil of pretend nonchalance, head bobbing to throw Mikey off from his expression. Not that it works.
“Oh. Right, I forgot that that comes with school. Yeah. Go ahead. I’m probably just gonna go watch some TV or something.”
Strangely enough, the guilt barely prickles him as Mikey nods back in response, juggling the mug between his hands and leaving Frank behind, just as he found him.
*
For what seems like every day of this week, Frank tries to be amicable with Mikey. He offers him rides to and from school, tries to cook both him and Gerard dinner (which only strengthens Mikey’s theory that Frank may not actually have a job), and pretty much strikes up a conversation with him whenever within distance.
For his part, Mikey has only spoken in two full, real conversations with Frank, exceeding his maximum word count of ten words or less. He can see the frustration building in Frank with each attempt he strikes down, and it is funny in a really unfunny sort of way.
*
Gerard is sitting in the living room, alone, flipping through channel after channel of local television because cable is too much to put in. He stops at a PBS special of a biographical telling of Audrey Hepburn’s life, sitting up a little when he spots Mikey. Patting the empty seat of worn leather next to him, Gerard grins a little in invitation.
“Hey.”
With a weak wave back, Mikey sits down next to him without question. “Hey.” The question is burning on his tongue, and he knows that even if he doesn’t ask, Gerard will know and tell him anyway.
“Frank’s out meeting a friend of his.”
“Oh.” Mikey had chanced to think that maybe Frank was out at his job - the one that still remains a mystery to him.
“You’re not getting along with Frank,” he says - doesn’t suggest or ask - upfront, cutting straight to the point and not fiddling with bullshit. Gerard usually never does when they’re talking serious, and right now, Mikey guesses this is serious. He just doesn’t know which parts.
Hands clasped loosely in his lap, Mikey stares down at them, wiggles his index finger a little. “No, I’m not,” the younger Way agrees without hesitation, and he feels a little guilt creeping under his skin. Gerard probably already knows that too, though.
“Why not?” His tone is genuinely curious, eyes querying Mikey silently. Gerard picks at the edge of the remote where it had gotten scratched from when he had thrown it into the wall during one of his rampages back in the earlier days when they had first moved in here and out of their house, the flake of black plastic twisting between his nail ends.
“I don’t know,” intones Mikey, and there is nothing but truth soaking his words. Mikey doesn’t know why he isn’t getting along with Frank. He doesn’t know why he goes as unresponsive as a heartbeat when near the other; he just does. Most of the times, Mikey does not even think it is because of Frank, of his nature, but just something with himself. He doesn’t want to be friends with Frank; hell, he doesn’t even want to share the same bowl of cereal much less get along. But he keeps the words from tumbling out just yet, wants to hear what Gerard has to say.
Rubbing his jaw with a thoughtful hand, Gerard hums quietly to himself. He furrows his brows together, one stretched just slightly higher than the other, and thinks. The TV drones on about Hepburn’s back story, and Mikey listens with minimal interest as he watches Gerard think.
“Do you not like him?” Gerard suggests finally, taking a stab and missing. He lowers the volume of the television when a commercial for some detergent comes on, the announcer loud and obnoxious about its effectiveness; it is distracting.
“It’s not that,” the younger Way begins, truthful, letting his incomplete sentence drop away when he can’t find the words to continue it. “I like him. He seems pretty cool.”
Gerard eyes him skeptically, brow arched. “Oh really? Then why aren’t you getting along?”
“Don’t know.” Mikey gives a one-shouldered shrug to accompany the rhythm of the words, fingernail picking at the seam of his uniform slacks.
They both stare at each other, unrelenting and questioning in ways that found no answers. Mikey tries to be as impassive as he can; he doesn’t know if it works or not when Gerard sighs a bit, deep from his lungs.
“He’s trying, Mikes.”
It’s soft, like Gerard is trying to convince Mikey of what he already can see. Mikey knows Frank is trying; the problem is that he isn’t, and he is still unclear why. He shifts his eyes back over to the biographical of Audrey Hepburn, focusing in on the black and white lines of her body and clothes in the photo.
“I know.”
Gerard outlines a frown with his mouth and folds away, not pressing any further on the matter. They both know it won’t get anywhere anyway.
Personally, Mikey likes to think that it is over but he knows it isn’t. It’s just a conversation on hold, persistent until the next time comes around and Mikey is dodging giving out the answers he doesn’t have to the questions that always come on repeat.
*
Cereal suffices as tonight’s dinner, soggy Fruit Loops sitting in sugared milk. Mikey makes a note to remind Gerard to stop buying Fruit Loops and get something else. He’s in the living room, watching an old horror movie and too fake spatters of red corn syrup as blood.
“Hey, got a sec?”
There is a strict no talking policy during movies that Mikey likes to uphold. He makes a gurgling noise in the back of his throat, hoping it is enough for Frank to get the picture and try to be buddy-buddy with him some other time. When there isn’t a girl, half-mutilated, trying to crawl her way across the screen.
The image disappears, however, into a black screen. Mikey gapes, turning his head to the side just in time to see Frank tossing away the remote back onto the couch furthest away from them. He stands with his arms crossed.
“What is your problem?” The words are hard, eyes narrowing to accentuate that this conversation? It isn’t so much going to be Frank trying to chummy things up with him.
He leans back, cereal neglected on the table and forced into the conversation now that he has no distractions, and there’s no way he can reach the remote without Frank intercepting. “What do you mean?”
“This!” Frank says, gesturing wildly with his hands like there aren’t enough words to possibly describe what he means. “It’s been like over three or four something weeks, and I’ve done practically everything to get to know you and be friends, but you fucking ignore me and just. What is your fucking problem with me? Do you not like me or something? Do you hate that I’m dating your brother? Which is it, Mikey?”
Mikey sits quietly and moves his eyes back over to the TV.
“None of them,” he says with a shrug. He stands up with a cocked brow, moving until he’s almost fully around Frank.
“Motherfucker,” Frank says, and Mikey is blindsided when he slams his body into him as hard as he can, knocking Mikey back and towards the wall. There is only enough time for a single breath to make it to his lungs before Frank is there again.
“You act so fucking perfect when you’re around Gerard. Like there’s nothing that can get to you,” he whispers, words hot against his ear, and Mikey twists his body a little, tries to get out of Frank’s grasp because he’s taller, but Frank’s got strength over him and just pushes back into the wall. There’s exasperation still thick in his voice, though, even as he whispers biting remarks and questions. “But it’s all fucking bullshit, isn’t it, Mikey? You’re just a frigid little bitch, aren’t you? Always just fucking itching to make me mess up because for some damn reason, you hate me. Do you hate me, Mikey? Is that why you just sit there, ignoring me and waiting for me to fuck up so you can go running to Gerard and tell him so he’ll kick me out?”
The accusation tickles Mikey’s side, and he feels the hand fisting his shirt knocking into his clavicle. It is cutting off half of his airway, stunting his breaths.
“You hate me,” Frank repeats in assertion, waiting for him to confirm or deny it. Mikey does neither and feels strangely powerful for being able to keep his words to himself and just let Frank drive himself wild with frustration and blind confusion. “Say something, you fucking mute!”
Mikey just stares at him through his skewed glasses, breathing harshly through his nose. He doesn’t even think he can find the words to dignify just how stupid Frank sounds right now, what with his ridiculous theories and premature conclusions, so he doesn’t bother trying. It drives Frank wild, moves him until he’s standing on the edge and he’s pushing Mikey harder and harder into the wall. He thinks it might break and almost laughs when he thinks about the excuses Frank would have to come up with to explain a Mikey-shaped hole in the wall.
“Not much of a conversationalist, eh? Well, that’s fine with me. I’ll just give you a reason to stay so damn silent all the time,” says Frank, and he actually grins a little around the words.
He should probably be more scared than he actually is, and when the first fist knocks itself straight into his gut, causing him to double over as best as he can with Frank crowding him against the wall, Mikey just shuts his eyes tight and sucks in the gasp. The lack of an audible sound must irritate Frank, however, already swinging his fist back once more to launch into his stomach, hard and sharp. Mikey slumps against Frank when his knuckles grind against what feels like his kidneys. He is out of breath, wind knocked out of his lungs, and he wants to grasp on to something to keep him upright so he won’t just fall to his knees.
Frank keeps him steady though, lets Mikey’s fingers curl and uncurl, tugging at his shirt. He hums to himself, leaning in close again to say clearly, even though the blood is rushing in Mikey’s ears, “Don’t just fucking ignore me. If you just talk to me, we can keep things civil between us and maybe even be friends. Yeah? Gerard would like that, wouldn’t he, Mikes?”
The sound of his nickname catches most of Mikey’s attention, his free hand spread against his stomach, and he thinks that if he could talk, without wheezing for sweet oxygen to make it into his lungs, he would probably tell Frank to go fuck himself.
When the hands and arms disappear from his body, now lax without an outward force to keep him up, Mikey crumples down the wall to the floor, clutching at his stomach and trying his best to keep from making any noises outside of heavy breathing.
“Let’s make it happen, Mikes,” Frank suggests in a vicious whisper, smiling toothily with none of the venom he had used to tenderize Mikey’s organs just seconds ago present.
*
Contrary to his thoughts and deductions, the spectacular, and semi-unexpected, beat down doesn’t end there. It follows Mikey into the next day. And the next day. And practically just every time he sees Frank in an either exceptionally good mood or an exceptionally shitty one. Almost anything can set him off, but Mikey notices that it’s his silence that sets him off the loudest and hardest.
It is sort of like a secret; one that someone keeps out of obligation rather than because they sincerely want to protect what it means.
For his part, Frank never leaves bruises on visible skin, always keeping them well hidden from Gerard (or anyone, really) and treats him with the same enthusiasm as always.
For his part, Mikey keeps quiet and goes on with his life without any snags to drag him down.
*
“How the fuck did you get that bruise?”
Mikey looks up, sees the concerned look of horror and slow impending fury contorting Gerard’s face as he half-rises from his chair, already going into worried-pissed-off older brother mode like Mikey is incapable of taking care of himself. Frank is in the chair next to him, and Mikey has to commend him on the look of surprise coloring his face. It looks genuine enough to fool anyone, even Mikey.
The bruise, merging the smooth plane of skin between his hip and stomach, is in plain view to the table, and Mikey doesn’t bother tugging his shirt down to hide it. He sees no point in doing so considering that Gerard’s already seen it and making squirrely attempts to hide it would only breed suspicion. His eyes move back to the inside of their cramped pantry.
“Fell out of bed and on the radio,” he lies smoothly, never missing a single syllable. It isn’t a complete lie because he has fallen out of his bed before, and there is a lot of shit strewn around his room. It is also probably why Gerard takes his explanation without any questions, just a stern look which breaks with the roll of his eyes.
“Seriously? Man, someone needs to just watch out for you, like every hour of the day.”
The shrug disturbs another particularly nasty bruise hidden by his shirt, but Mikey holds in his wince. He just resumes rummaging through their pantry, hunger mostly untouched by any guilt or shame that he isn’t producing, until he locates a pack of Cheetos as the fruits of his efforts. When he leaves the kitchen, he sees Frank, hand warm against Gerard’s arm, break character and wink. It leaves him infuriated that Frank would seriously risk Gerard finding out or even realizing that something is fishy just to taunt him. He tucks his bottom into his mouth to keep the burn of anger trapped under his skin. The anger is good, refreshing, and he wants to keep it for as long as it is willing to hold out.
*
Mikey is reading a comic in the living room, eyes never leaving the inked pages. He shifts, legs having fallen asleep, and contemplates getting up to take a nap in his room when the words blur together and he thinks he quite possibly read something about flying beavers and naked mole rats.
He is nearly asleep, halfway to dreaming when there is a jostle of sound and something pricking his vision even though both his eyes are closed. He swats the disturbance away as tricks his mind is striking paranoia in him with.
But there’s a heavy body near him, and Mikey can hear the faint breaths inhaling, exhaling, inhaling. His eyes stretch open, forced upwards.
There are hands on the buttons of his jeans before he can even react, mind fumbling its way through the dark alley and trying to match up the right words with the right actions he isn’t saying or taking.
By the time Mikey manages to stumble into motion, he makes a grab at Frank’s hands slipping down his jeans and over the front of his boxers and asks, voice surprisingly still, “What the fuck?”
Frank smirks at him, eyes dark and lips wet, and says in echo, “What the fuck what?”
“You’re in my pants, touching my dick,” Mikey explains, pulling sharply at where he’s got a hold of Frank’s hands. They don’t budge.
“Oh yeah?” Frank actually lets his eyes skim down and then back up, amused. “Will you look at that. I am.”
“Get them out,” Mikey demands, and he tries again to tug Frank’s hands out of his pants and ignore the swell of heat resting over the front of his boxers.
But the boxers are easing itself down, and Frank pulls his dick out, only half-hard because Mikey had been thinking about his gym teacher in ballet tights and shaving his legs to keep himself grounded. When Frank palms him slowly, almost experimentally, Mikey’s breath hitches in his throat and his fingers tighten around where they are burning his fingerprints into Frank’s wrist.
“Better?” asks Frank and moves his hand up and down, thumb tracing a faint, ghosting line on the underside of his cock.
“Fuck you,” Mikey wheezes out, sucking in his bottom lip into his mouth. He squirms in Frank’s hand and tries to not push forward. It’s a game of dominance, fucked up and completely worthless, but Mikey can recognize the signs and the burn to win. He almost laughs because that definitely should not be the type of thoughts running through his head right now. Frank twists his hand, and Mikey groans through clenched teeth.
Frank doesn’t respond, just takes his hand off to lick his palm and moves it in steady strokes along Mikey’s cock. He watches him lazily, and Mikey is a little ashamed to admit that his thighs are quivering just with the slightest tremors, fingers still wrapped tight around Frank’s wrist. It should be the most demeaning thing in the world, to be fucking jerked off by his brother’s - and Mikey has to expel the word out of his brain just as quickly as it had flickered through because seriously not the best time - boyfriend in the living room. But Mikey just grits his teeth and digs his short nails into Frank’s flesh. He hopes he leaves tears and bruises through the skin.
It doesn’t take long for Mikey to come, teeth biting down hard into his lower lip.
“Do you hate me?” asks Frank out of the blue, cutting through Mikey’s pants as they fill the suddenly too small and too crowded living room. Frank still has his dick in his hand, and he doesn’t want to risk looking at Frank, afraid of what he’ll see. There’s too much shame clouding his eyes anyhow. He eventually pulls away, releasing Mikey.
Mikey can’t quite get his breathing back normal, panting softly, and he squeezes his eyes shut. Squeezes them until he can see a burst of colors where his eyelids meet, scrunched together. He counts to fifty, slow and steady and forcing his breaths through his nose, and then adds another one hundred before he peeks with one eye. Then the other. Then both.
Frank is gone. But the sticky come staining his pants and boxers is too real for Mikey to write off as a hellish nightmare. He does anyways to keep himself sane.
*
When Mikey crashes into the kitchen the next morning, he almost falls flat on his face when he sees Frank, shirtless and making breakfast. With Gerard. He can guess what they might have done last night. Or this morning. Whatever.
He suddenly feels distinctly uncomfortable but forces himself into a chair, Gerard having already caught sight of him.
“Morning.”
“Way past morning. It’s already one.” Gerard grins and hands him a cup of coffee.
“Which is why you’re making pancakes?” Mikey fires back with a raised brow, inhaling the rich, warm scent deeply. He’s going to need it.
“Unlike you, we actually got up at twelve thirty,” Frank cuts in as he twists around to waggle his brow at Mikey. Spatula in hand and Gerard by his side, he looks completely content and comfortable. It only half-disgusts Mikey.
Mikey hums into his coffee and watches the two of them cook, disturbed only by the fact that he did not think Gerard to be the romantic type. Well, he did but it isn’t exactly something Mikey ever wanted to witness firsthand. There is a message in black Sharpie scrawled in Gerard’s handwriting on Frank’s hip, stretching out to the small of his back. Mikey can’t make out most of the words, doesn’t want to in any case. He just watches them through sleep glazed eyes.
“I think you poured too much water,” complains Frank, poking Gerard in the ribs with the clean end of the wooden spoon. “Look, it’s all watery and runny.”
“It said two cups!” Gerard says defensively and nudges Frank back in retaliation. Mikey notices the lingering fingers against his arm, gripping for only a second longer than appropriate when just giving someone a shove.
“You used the coffee pot!”
“Hey, the coffee pot makes up to ten cups. It makes a valid measuring cup.”
“That’s how much mix you put into it,” Frank points out, finger tapping the lower half of the bag where the instructions are. Gerard stoops over a little to read it, and when he’s done, he sighs a little, sad.
“Shit. I fucked it up.”
“God, you’re such a fucking dork.” Frank shakes his head and says with a chuckle to his words, “Just add more mix, dumbass.”
But he’s smiling, and as Gerard dumps more mix into the watery mess, Frank darts forward and kisses him. Which redirects the flow of pancake mix onto the counter. Gerard curses, stares at the mess sadly, and then Frank rolls his eyes and kisses Gerard to make it better.
Mikey averts his eyes back over to his coffee. He wonders if this is all some sort of act. Except he’s seen it so many times, the happiness between them, that he damn well knows it isn’t. Not for Frank and definitely not for Gerard.
He feels his stomach churn because for the love of everything fucking good that never seems to happen, he wants them to work out. He just wants Gerard to be this happy forever.
*
Curled up on his bed near the corner, Mikey pulls up the blanket to his nose, breathing softly against the fabric. His fingers are wrapped around the edge, being held by the blanket instead of the other way around. He can hear the steady tick of the clock outside, and the hum of his own brain, never shutting off and always running, running, running. He wants to sleep.
But then there are footsteps, rushed with bounces in each collision against the carpeted floor and never stepping in the same way twice.
Mikey shuts his eyes, tight, and evens out his breaths until he thinks they’ve stopped. The door to his room squeaks, metal hinges protesting against the intrusion, and Mikey doesn’t need to see to know that Frank is in his room. He kind of wants to laugh at the clichéd scenario, wants to mock Frank for not being able to think of anything better than late-night visits when Gerard is busying working overtime or the late shift.
“Mikey,” he sings, barely quiet and flicking on the lights in the room. Mikey hates the way it manages to permeate even through his blanket and onto the backs of his eyelids, slicing bright planes across his black vision. “Come out, Mikey.”
Pretending to be asleep is pretty stupid, so Mikey just tugs the blanket down a little until he sees Frank exactly where he knew he’d be. His nails dig into the blanket.
“What do you want, Frank?” he asks calmly, because Mikey’s got this under control. He knows what he’s doing and how to take care of it when he doesn’t. He isn’t going to worry Gerard. Not when he’s got it all under control.
Frank isn’t drunk. Or high. He never is, so the excuse has never been there to use. Not that Frank ever has. Instead, he jumps onto Mikey’s bed, sprawls out leisurely, and maybe crushes Mikey’s right leg and hip a little with his smaller body. He scoots closer to Mikey who doesn’t move.
“Just looking for some entertainment s’all,” he says with a wily grin that makes Mikey automatically think damage control.
“Well go away. I need to sleep. I have school tomorrow,” states Mikey in the order it should happen. On bad nights. But tonight is a good night; Mikey can see the bright gleam of light behind Frank’s eyes that convey his ecstatic mood.
Frank props himself up on an elbow, cheek smashed against the palm of his hand, and smiles at Mikey.
“Don’t worry. I’ll just drive you so you can sleep in some instead of missing out on all the fun right now,” informs Frank with that stupid smile, and Mikey resists the urge to just wrap him up in the blanket and suffocate him to his death. Instead, Mikey looks straight ahead, at the other side where the pale, off-white wall covered in posters and paints sits in silent mocking.
Not bothering to answer, Mikey just stares, hopes that if he’s quiet for long enough, Frank will just get pissed off and start hitting him. He doesn’t want to talk to Frank like this, like they’re great buds even though Frank is dating Gerard, and it’s normal. It’s not fucking normal. Mikey isn’t sure how to completely handle a kind, chatty Frank who just wants to be friends because Mikey is his boyfriend’s kid brother because it’s out of his league. It’s out of his mind, and he just prefers things to be normal, regardless of how fucked up the current normal may be.
“Gerard thinks we’re getting along, yeah?” says Frank with that shit-eating smile, and Mikey cracks at the mere mention of his brother’s name spilling from those lips when he knows what is going to happen. He can practically feel the next moves, like in the movies, only there is no hero to save him from an evil villain; just Frank and himself. And truth be told, he makes a lousy hero, and Frank makes for an even lousier villain.
“Don’t fucking talk about him,” Mikey snaps, loud and angry with the red right there bleeding between his fingers and letters.
The smile on his lips widens, sharpens with the knowledge of having hit Mikey’s nerve, and Frank plays on it, rides it out. “Why not? It’s true,” he says, voice taunting almost in a way that makes Mikey remind himself to breathe, breathe, breathe. “Gerard thinks we’re getting along, and he’s all happy about it. I mean, I am too. Happy that Gerard’s happy. Aren’t you happy that he’s happy, Mikey?”
Careful not to let himself flare again, Mikey glares at the wall with an impassive face, refusing to see the smug look crowding Frank’s face. Probably.
“C’mon, Mikeyway,” he croons into his ear, pressing closer and closer until Mikey feels uncomfortable in his own skin, even though there is a layer of clothes, blanket, and Frank barricading him. “I’m just here to make friends.”
The weird thing, Mikey thinks, is that if Frank wasn’t dating his older brother, they probably had potential to be friends. They probably could have been friends. Good friends. Best friends even. The thought plays itself in his mind on repeat four more times before Mikey closes his eyes.
“I want to sleep. Go away, Frank.”
Fingers wrap around his hair and tug gently, just enough to garner Mikey’s attention and flutter his eyelids open. Frank’s face is hovering just a thin line away from his, close enough for Mikey to feel his breaths fan across his skin and catch a whiff of his soap, clean against his skin. Mikey thinks it’d be sort of romantic, in a really nondescript sort of way, if he and Frank were the ones dating as opposed to his brother and Frank. But they’re not, so it’s not, and this is entirely not acceptable. He thinks about saying so, about reminding Frank that he’s supposed to be in love with Gerard except Mikey is certain that any mention of Frank and loving Gerard in the same sentence will just make him throw up. It’s the worst lie anyone’s ever kept and the worst secret anyone’s ever told.
Mikey doesn’t think Frank really loves his brother at all.
“It’s all just harmless fun,” insists Frank, just a syllable more away from Mikey’s lips, and Mikey can taste his breaths on his tongue, warm. The exasperation is still there though, abandoned for arrogance but layered under his tongue. Tonight is going to be different. Mikey can feel it, can feel it in Frank, and if he’s completely truthful, which he hasn’t been in a very long while, Mikey is actually afraid. Physical pains were fine; they were only toeing a line that shouldn’t be touched. Anything past that though is foreign territory that is strictly off limits, and Mikey is positive that Frank knows it too.
“You don’t love my brother, do you?” Mikey rushes out in a cursory whisper before Frank can close his lips around Mikey’s. Before Frank can seal the deal on Mikey’s fate and close the lid on the can he thinks is supposed to be metaphorically his life. Whatever, fuck metaphors.
Frank stops, as though burned, and stares at Mikey with unreadable eyes. There is no immediate denial nor does Frank move to show any agreement, neither pushing away nor pulling closer. The pinch of discomfort evolves into a sucker punch to his gut, and Mikey regrets ever asking Frank because he has a feeling that his words, that accusation? It isn't even close to being true.
“Think whatever keeps you sane,” is the only thing Frank finally pushes out between slack lips, surprisingly genuine and soft, and Mikey's not sure who closes the gap, just that it's closed and Frank's mouth against his is raw and gentle.
*
“How are you and Frank getting along lately?” Gerard asks one day in the car when he picks Mikey up after school and tries a tad too hard to sound casual. His fingers tap listlessly against the steering wheel.
Mikey ponders the question, letting it soak in his mind as he watches the hope press through in Gerard’s eyes even as he tries to hide it. There are so many decisions he can make. He can tell Gerard the truth and get him to dump Frank on his fat ass, probably even bruise and bloody him up, if not potentially murder him, before throwing him out to rot on the curb. He can tell Gerard nothing and just let him worry every minute because it must mean that something is wrong. Hell, he can even keep quiet and tell Gerard that everything is fine so that everyone can go along with the lie, no matter how involuntary.
Gerard presses down on the accelerator, just barely making it through a yellow light and flying down the streets of their shitty neighborhood. There is a defined line of worried hope in his jaw.
There isn’t much to think about, when he really thinks about it, and Mikey feels like it is just going in a loop.
“Do you hate me?”
His jaw sets as he curls his fingers into his palm just a little. To be honest, he had been afraid of the question initially. Not answering it, but of what kind of answer would pop from him mouth and whether it’d be the right one. It sits on the lines in his mind though; how could he hate someone who practically grew true, self-happiness in his brother?
It’s simple; he can’t. He can’t hate Frank. He doesn’t hate Frank. Not when he is the only thing in Gerard’s life that is bright enough to make up for everything else Gerard has had to give up. Mikey doesn’t want Gerard to have to give up Frank too. It isn’t fair.
Mikey looks out the window, fingers skimming the dark bruises hiding just under the waistband of his navy slacks and feeling the seatbelt tighten with too much pressure against the equally dark purple and red ones all along his chest. His lips burn from where they’ve touched Frank’s and Mikey abruptly curbs that thought, pulling his fingers away so that he can outline a smudge of a bird on the window. He wants Gerard and Frank to work and prays to high hell that they will. Gerard needs this, and if he’s honest with himself, he needs it too.
“Fine.”