Roll Away Your Stone (standalone)
Title: Roll Away Your Stone (standalone)
Author: ivesia19
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: Mikey/Pete (side Brendon/Ryan)
POV: 3rd limited (Mikey)
Summary: Semi-magical dystopian AU! Mikey doesn’t know where music comes from, he just knows that he likes it.
Disclaimer: Fake. False. Fabrication. Fallacy. Other “f” words.
Beta: coffeshop-kites
Author Notes: For The Pete and Mikey Happy Fic Challenge ! This story was influenced by many wonderful dystopian novels (mainly The Hunger Games, The Giver, and Anthem), and the title belongs to the fantastic Mumford & Sons.
---
Now listen to what I am about to tell you: Musicians do not have to be believed in. We do not have to be trusted. Our Music speaks for itself without the listener having to know anything about us. Music touches people's emotions in a way that nothing else can.
The Music Lesson: A Spiritual Search For growth Through Music by Victor Wooten
---
Mikey doesn’t know where music comes from, he just knows that he likes it. Ever since he could remember, the strange sounds that he later learned was called music spoke to him in a way that nothing else seemed to.
When he is six, he tells his mother - looking up at her with bright eyes that the world hasn’t yet dimmed - “I want to make music when I grow up”.
She smiles the only smile she has left, the one that seems tired no matter how much sleep she gets, and shakes her head. “You know that people don’t make music,” she says.
It is confusing to his six-year-old mind. He knows, logically, that whatever his mother says is true, but he doesn’t understand how music came to be if it doesn’t come from people. Words come from people, from human mouths. Light comes from generators made by people and controlled by people, too. Mikey knows that everything comes from people. Why should music be any different?
“People used to make music,” Gerard whispers to Mikey one night after all the lights in the town are turned off at the start of curfew. “A long time ago, people could play instruments and even sing.” His eyes are large, but Mikey can barely make them out in the moonlight. He wishes it wasn’t always so dark.
“What’s singing?” Mikey asks.
Gerard moves closer to Mikey on the cot they share, bringing his voice down lower, as if singing is something dangerous. “It’s when people make music out of words,” he says. “It’s powerful, which is why it was taken away. It was taken before the notes.”
“But we can still hear the notes,” Mikey says, and he can feel Gerard nod against his upper arm.
“But we don’t know where it comes from,” Gerard says. It is silent for a moment, and outside the thin walls of their bedroom, Mikey can hear the silence from the night, and no matter how much he strains, he can’t hear music. It only comes when least expected.
“Frankie thinks that music is just an echo from long ago - from the time before,” Gerard says.
Even at six, Mikey knows that is ridiculous. “It’s not an echo,” he says. “Maybe there are still people who can make music.”
Gerard doesn’t say anything to that, but he pulls Mikey close to his chest as if he knows what Mikey is thinking, his grip only loosening with the steady rhythm of his sleeping breath.
---
When Mikey is seventeen, Gerard comes back from the Knowledge Center for a couple of days, and he’s different.
Their mother doesn’t notice anything, but the smile on Gerard’s face reaches his eyes, and when he talks, his words seem to sway, fusing into each other at times or leaping up to connect phrases.
Mikey doesn’t get the chance to ask Gerard about it until a couple of nights later.
The night is dark, just like always, and the sheets that Mikey is wrapped in are the same as the ones he had the last time he and Gerard had had a conversation about something forbidden - well, something really forbidden; the Capitol seemed to ban everything that remotely sparked interest in anyone. But music, Mikey knows, is something that can only be talked about in hushed whispers and never acknowledged out loud, not even when the faint melody is something he’s heard before, and he desperately wants to move to the rhythm.
It’s times like that that his vocal chords ache, always trying to bring about that noise that Gerard has once explained: singing.
“You’re different,” Mikey whispers, and even though his voice carries easily across the small room, it only takes a moment for Gerard to leave the single-person bed that he got from the Capitol when he turned thirteen and crowd Mikey on his own cramped cot.
Gerard’s smile is enigmatic, and he says, “Everyone changes, Mikey,” but Mikey knows that’s not really true. Not here, at least.
He waits, just for a couple of moments for Gerard to speak again, because Gerard never could keep anything from Mikey. What little secrets one could have here, Gerard always trusted Mikey with them, and now is no different.
Gerard shifts down on the bed, and he whispers, “I’ve heard it, Mikey,” so quietly that Mikey thinks that Gerard’s voice must be straining to be that soft. “I met some people at the Knowledge Center. People from the Perimeter. They’ve heard music. Real music.”
The tone in Gerard’s voice is like the one he had earlier, the one where his words were flowing almost like water, bleeding into one another with excitement.
It’s shocking news, what Gerard has just said, but Mikey knows that Gerard isn’t lying - would never lie to him. If Gerard had made friends from the Perimeter - from a place that almost lies beyond the Capitol’s rule (as if there were such a place) - they might be lucky enough to hear music as more than just an echo.
“It’s more than that,” Gerard goes on, “they’ve told me where to go.”
“Where to go for what?” Mikey asks, though he thinks he already knows. Gerard has always been different: clenching his jaw tightly during afternoon community briefs, never reciting the pledge to the Capitol every morning after the meal.
Mikey tolerates the Capitol. It’s all he knows. But Gerard, Gerard wants to get out. Mikey can see it now in his older brother’s eyes clearer than ever before.
“There’s a place,” Gerard says, the rhythm in his voice almost mesmerizing, “where people still know how to sing. I’m going to find it. I need to find it, Mikey.” The determination is clear in every syllable of Gerard’s words.
There’s no stopping him, Mikey knows. Gerard will go. And Gerard, wonderful, trusting Gerard, will fuck up and get killed by the Capitol because he can’t keep his mouth shut and he can’t lie worth a damn.
It’s a spilt second decision, one he makes almost without thinking, but the moment that the words come out of his mouth - even though he knows that they’re probably damning - Mikey knows that he’s making the right choice.
“I’m coming with you.”
---
It’s far easier than Mikey had expected to sneak out of their house.
Their mother, once a light sleeper who would wake at any sound from her children, has grown tired and worn out by the years of dull oppression. She doesn’t even stir when Mikey and Gerard tiptoe past her bedroom.
They’re not carrying much, the two of them. Gerard has a backpack, one issued by the Capitol when he had reached his fourth year in the Middle Level School, that has grown ragged through years of use. There are a couple of meal bars and bottles of water wrapped up in a blanket. Mikey doesn’t know what else Gerard stuffed in the bag when he was packing his own, but the pack bulges out, straining at the zippers.
Mikey’s own bag is fairly light. He’s pretty confident that Gerard will realize the ridiculousness of his plan before they hit the boundary of their community and the one due south. Mikey’s bag just holds a couple of changes of shirts and boxers, some food and water, and comic that Gerard had drawn him one summer when they were younger.
The comic Mikey takes more because he doesn’t want to risk leaving it here, in case anyone finds it. It’s a stupid thing, but Gerard had drawn it all by hand, and even though it could get them both in trouble (the main character, a boy who looks a lot like Mikey, takes over the Capitol and reinstates what their teachers at school always called “that dangerous plague of humanity once called democracy” with the help of a brother that is the spitting image of Gerard) Mikey loves the crinkled papers.
They slip out of the house without any problems and have a surprisingly easy time making it through the streets of their community. They’re almost at the edge, nearing the stretch of woods that separates their community from the one just south, when Gerard stops.
“What are you doing?” Mikey hisses. This is Gerard’s stupid idea - Gerard’s idea even if Mikey went along with it - and they need to keep moving.
“Frank is supposed to meet us here,” Gerard whispers back. “He’s the one who became friends with the guy who knows about the place.”
Mikey feels like snapping back at Gerard for being so vague, but just then, he hears the snap of a twig, and before he can get too scared, Frank’s smiling face appears from behind a tree.
“Do you have it?” Gerard asks, and Mikey can just barely see a faded piece of a paper that Frank holds up against the dim light of the moon. “Great, let’s go.”
They start moving again - Gerard leading the way now that he’s taken the piece of paper from Frank’s grasp.
“What is it?” Mikey asks Frank as Gerard stops for a second to study the paper before turning left abruptly, which makes no sense. There’s nothing to the left, everyone knows that. There isn’t even a Perimeter community or the Beyond. There’s nothing. It just….stops. But Gerard keeps walking.
“The map?” Frank clarifies, and off of Mikey’s nod, he says, “I got it from a friend of mine - this guy called Andy. He has a friend, some guy he grew up with in his community, who made this map for him.”
Mikey’s brow furrows. “And how did this friend make the map?”
Frank’s grin glows in the moonlight, and just in front of them, Gerard is muttering under his breath as he tries to make sense out of the loopy writing on the map. “He ran away with his best friend once they found out, and the guy kept track of how they got there.”
Mikey is getting pretty sick of the way that Gerard and Frank are talking. They’re always so vague, as if they think that other people are listening, even in the dark, winding paths of the forest. “Got where?”
“When they got to the place where music still exists,” Frank says. “The guy,” Frank continues, “the friend of the guy who wrote this map, he can sing.”
Mikey almost trips over a tree root.
Frank laughs, a little gruff giggle, and helps Mikey regain his balance before they’re off again, trying to keep up with Gerard. “We’re going to find them,” Frank says, and Gerard keeps leading them forward - right to the edge, where Mikey knows nothing exists.
---
When they hit the wall of rock, Gerard sits down on the ground.
It’s the end. The one Mikey knew they would hit. There’s nothing beyond here. Just the rock wall. Just the end. But Frank and Gerard don’t look discouraged. With the first rays of morning light bouncing off the dull grey of the rock, Gerard hands Frank a piece of bread and then extends the same to Mikey.
Mikey takes the bread, because it’s the only thing he can do right now. He doesn’t want to be the one to shatter Gerard’s dreams, but the solid wall of rock in front of them should do that just fine on it’s own.
“We’ll take a rest here,” Gerard says, the words muffled by the bread in his mouth. “Then we’ll continue down.”
Mikey looks to where Gerard is pointing, but all he can see is the same looming wall of rock.
Gerard doesn’t seem deterred, though. “Just take a nap, Mikey,” he says, passing him a bottle of water to wash his bread down with. “We’ll head out in a couple of hours, but you’ll need your strength.”
Vagueness, again. Mikey’s getting tired of that shit, but he’s even more tired from wandering through the woods all night, trying to follow his brother’s abrupt turns and not trip and die. His eyes are tired, and it only takes a couple of minutes after he burrows against three of his rolled up shirts to fall into a dream of bright colors filtering through the air and music resonating, bouncing off the colors, always finding its way back to Mikey.
---
When he wakes, the sun is high in the sky, and Gerard and Frank are already packing up their stuff to get moving.
“It shouldn’t be more than an hour hike from here,” Gerard is saying as Mikey picks himself up off the far-too-unyielding ground. “We could be there as soon as tomorrow morning.”
“It almost seems too easy,” Frank says.
Gerard shrugs. “The path was made to be easy for those who needed to find it,” he says. He looks over at Mikey, smiling at him for a moment. It’s the same smile he used to have before three days ago, the one that always had an underlying layer of concern peeking at the edges. “Did you get enough sleep, Mikey?”
Mikey nods. He isn’t used to much sleep, anyway, and Gerard should know that he isn’t weak. He can handle himself.
“Let’s get going,” Frank says, and they set off again, walking a straight path parallel to the giant rock wall, but they move slower than before, and instead of keeping his eyes on the map, Gerard and Frank’s eyes seem to study each crack in the rock.
They walk for hours, the warm sun beating down on Mikey’s skin, and he knows that he’s going to be red tomorrow. He can already see the pink tint in Gerard’s once pale skin.
Just when the sun starts to dip down again, Frank stops suddenly, and Mikey, who wasn’t paying much attention, crashes into the protruding bump of Gerard’s backpack.
“I think it’s here,” Frank says, his hand rubbing over a strange looking crack in the wall - and when Mikey steps closer, it looks like a design. It’s something old and worn, but it definitely wasn’t made naturally, and Gerard looks pleased as his hands echo over where Frank’s hands just left.
“Does the map say how it works?” Frank asks, and Gerard nods.
“I just have to sing anything,” Gerard says. “The music will make the doorway open.”
The words that Gerard is using aren’t difficult to understand, but still, Mikey is confused, because Gerard doesn’t sing. No one he knows sings. It’s lost - that’s why they’re going to find it.
But Gerard just stands up a little straighter, and very obviously not looking at Mikey, he opens his mouth, and a sound that Mikey’s never heard before (certainly a sound he’s never heard from Gerard before, the one person who Mikey always thought he could trust) starts to sound.
The notes that Gerard is making with his mouth is at the same time identical to and so different from the echoes of notes that Mikey has heard his whole life. It’s identical in its beauty, in the way that it draws Mikey in, but it’s different, because this is Gerard making the noise. It’s Gerard singing, and even though it’s happening right now, right in front of Mikey, he can barely believe it.
Even more unbelievable is the way that the strange symbol on the rock wall seems to burn bright with each note of Gerard’s voice. It glows a strange orange/red, and then a crack forms from the center, splitting the rock wall apart.
Mikey takes a step back, but Gerard and Frank don’t move, apparently unconcerned with falling rocks. And it’s then that Mikey notices the faint light surrounding them, like a barrier. It seems to come from Gerard’s notes, and each falling rock or splash of dust bounces right off the protective cover.
In the space that was previously just unyielding rock, Mikey sees that a doorway is starting to take shape. Gerard is still singing, just a stream of notes with no real words, and Frank is holding tight to Gerard’s arm, his fingers turning white, hinting at the pressure of his hold.
Then, just as soon as it starts, Gerard stops singing, and the forming doorway is right in front of them - solid and wide-open.
Gerard looks over at Mikey, and Mikey doesn’t need a mirror to know how he looks. He can feel the shock still tingling in his body. He had no idea that Gerard could sing, and though there are a million questions bouncing around in his mind, he just manages to croak out the question, “How long? How long have you been able to sing?”
Thankfully, Gerard doesn’t answer in that vague way that has been dominating lately. “I think I’ve been able to sing forever,” Gerard says. “But I didn’t realize it until a couple of weeks ago.”
Mikey swallows, his throat suddenly dry, and he thinks of home, where the water is always cool (not like the warm water that he drinks now) and Gerard and he were always so much alike. Now, the differences between them are blaring. Gerard can sing. And Mikey can’t.
The look in Gerard’s eyes says so much - it speaks of how genuinely he wanted to tell Mikey, even after that first burst of music, but Frank breaks the moment.
“I don’t know how long this door is going to stay open, Gerard. We better get moving.”
Gerard throws a questioning look at Mikey, and Mikey nods. “It’s fine. We can talk about it later,” he says, and together, they walk into the darkness of the cave, Frank’s small, lone flashlight the only thing casting light. It bounces off the walls, following the path of Gerard’s voice, which echoes still.
---
After the cave, the instructions from the map become more difficult to understand.
“It says to just walk straight through the woods,” Frank says, peering down at the faded writing.
“Until what?” Mikey asks.
Frank shrugs. “Until we find where we’re going.”
“Or it finds us,” Gerard says, and now that Mikey knows the truth about Gerard, he can’t believe that he ever missed it. He can’t believe that he didn’t hear Gerard’s voice for what it was - something with music in it. Now, it’s so clear.
They walk through the forest, and it’s so much like the forest near their house, but Mikey knows it’s different. This is beyond the control of the Capitol. He’s walking in a place that he never thought existed.
He feels as though there should be something glaringly unique about the forest, but there isn’t. Mikey can’t even hear wisps of music, and since Gerard hasn’t sung since the rock wall, he hasn’t heard a hint of singing, either.
It’s boring, walking through this stretch of woods, and Gerard and Frank are being strangely quiet again, as if they’re looking for something, and Mikey is already tired of being left out. He isn’t the one who can sing or decipher codes on the map or even hold a flashlight steady. He’s only there because he had thought that Gerard couldn’t leave on his own, but now Mikey knows better.
He is just delving into that layer of extreme self-pity when a movement to the far left catches his eye. He stops for a moment, but when he doesn’t see anything, he continues walking.
Mikey doesn’t mention it to Gerard or Frank, but he feels a strange tingling sensation run down his spine, as if someone were watching him, but the forest surrounding them is quiet and bare.
Mikey shakes his head, shakes the feeling out of him, and hurries to catch up to his brother and Frank, who haven’t noticed Mikey’s stop. His feet fall in line with theirs again when he senses that same presence again, and this time, Mikey reaches a hand out to stop Gerard.
He holds a finger up to his mouth, though he doesn’t really know why. All he knows is that Frank and Gerard need to be quiet so that he can find the source of this feeling. It’s unlike anything he’s felt before. It’s almost a vibration in his bones.
It only takes a couple of seconds - a couple of seconds where Gerard and Frank look at him with a confused stare - before he feels a stronger vibration and turns quickly.
There’s a man there, standing in the center of the woods.
He looks a little bit taller than Frank, with skin the color of the deep tan that Mikey got the one summer his community’s weather malfunctioned and it was hot for weeks on end.
There’s an easy smile on his face, and when his eyes lock on Mikey’s, Mikey can feel the vibration again move through him.
“Which one of you is the singer?” the man asks, and though he addresses them all, he doesn’t take his eyes off of Mikey.
Gerard clears his throat. “Were you sent to lead us to the village?”
The man nods. “So you’re the singer, then? Yeah. We knew you were coming.”
Mikey waits for Gerard to make the first move, but when his brother says in place, he takes a step forward. “I’m Mikey,” he says. “Gerard. Frank.” He points to them in turn.
The man just nods along with each of Mikey’s introductions, but he grins wide and extends a strangely calloused hand. “I’m Pete,” he says. “We’re glad you’re here.”
---
Here turns out to be a vast clearing in the woods that Pete leads them to. It only takes a couple of minutes to get there by foot, and the entire time, as Pete talked about how they were waiting for them, there is a faint hum in Mikey’s bones.
When they make it to the clearing, Mikey takes in the small wooden houses that are bright and stand out boldly against the woods.
“Aren’t you worried about your village being seen?” Mikey asks Pete.
Pete grins and says, “No one can find us unless they have need of us. Don’t worry, Mikey. You’re safe with us.” Pete speaks as if everything he says is a confession. He turns to Gerard, “Patrick is expecting you, I’ll take you to him. Mikey, Frank, Brendon should be here in a second to help you.”
As if on cue, another man comes out of one of the house’s doorway. Like Pete, he’s smiling, but his smile is different than Pete’s in so many ways that Mikey doesn’t know where to start. He starts toward where they’re standing, but Mikey watches as a long, thin arm pulls him back toward the door, and a huff of musical laughter comes out of his mouth.
“Don’t worry about Brendon, he’ll be here once Ryan feels secure enough in his masculinity.” Pete laughs, but it’s more of a braying than the musical force of Brendon’s laugh. “I’ll get Gerard back to you guys soon,” he says, and just like that, Pete pulls Gerard away, leaving confusion and a noticeable stillness in Mikey.
Mikey turns to look at Frank, who is looking around, taking everything in, but he doesn’t look nearly as concerned as Mikey feels coming to this strange place. “Where are we?” he asks.
“The place where all the musicians are,” Frank answers, and Brendon seems to have pulled himself out of Ryan’s grasp, because he’s right in front of them, smiling still.
“Welcome, guys. We’re all really excited that you’re here!” Brendon’s voice is full and rich, and Mikey doesn’t even need to ask - he knows that Brendon has music in him. He can hear it in every syllable.
It’s strange how everyone seems to be expecting them, so Mikey asks, “How did you know we were coming?”
Brendon’s smile softens a little at that. “Ryan, my partner, he can transfer the future through song.”
It’s probably the strangest thing Mikey has ever heard, but thankfully, Brendon explains. “When Ryan sings, he can only verbalize everyday things. Usually he gets stuck in repetitions, but he can transfer the future he sees to others, who can sing it for him. When he saw you guys coming, I sang it for everyone.”
Frank’s eyes are wide. “That’s some power your Ryan has,” he says.
Brendon looks proud and smiles. “It’s better than mine,” he admits.
“What?” Mikey asks. He didn’t know that having music equated to having powers, but, when he thinks about it, it makes sense that the Capitol deemed music so dangerous. “Powers?”
Before Brendon can talk, Frank interrupts, and Mikey wonders just how much longer Frankie knew about Gerard than Mikey. He wonders how much he and Gerard figured out together.
“Music is something that comes from within special people,” Frank says. “It’s already supernatural, since it’s so rare, but when the Capitol suppressed it, it manifested itself into something more.”
“Not everyone has powers who has music,” Brendon explains. “Usually just those of us who can sing have that something extra, but there are a couple of people who play instruments who have gifts, too.”
“Like who?” Mikey asks, intrigued.
Brendon shrugs. “Well, Pete can’t sing, but he can play the bass, and he can find music in others. That’s probably how he knew that you were who we were looking for.”
“How does he find them?” Mikey asks.
“The vibrations light up the music,” Brendon explains, “but only Pete can see it.”
Brendon’s words make Mikey pause and wonder, because he felt vibrations in the woods before he met Pete - he sensed him, but there’s no use asking Brendon about that now. There are so many other questions.
“What’s your power?” Frank asks, interrupting Mikey’s thoughts, and Brendon flushes red.
“When I sing, I put people at ease,” he says. “It’s why I’m the welcome committee. My singing makes people happy.”
Frank laughs. “You’re a special snowflake, aren’t you?”
Brendon burns even redder, but he still smiles, as if he finds it a little funny, too. “How about I show you guys around,” Brendon says, and he starts to show them around the village.
Mikey and Frank meet Gabe, who can speak to animals through song; Spencer and Jon, who help form the songs that Ryan and Brendon dream up; William, who can make time speed up or slow down depending on his tempo. They meet dozens of people, who Brendon explains don’t sing but are still important, and Mikey tries to remember each person’s name.
By the end of the day, he’s tired from days of walking and worried, because he hasn’t seen Gerard for hours, but as they make their way to the house designated to them, Brendon starts to sing lightly under his breath, and a wave of calm rushes over Mikey.
---
Gerard comes back before it gets dark, a couple of minutes before Brendon had told them dinner starts, and he looks happier than Mikey’s ever seen him.
“How was meeting Patrick?” Frank asks, and Mikey’s glad that Frank said something, because right now it’s hard for him to find words. He doesn’t know why, but it could be because he never realized just how unhappy Gerard must have been growing up, because Mikey has never seen the glow that Gerard has now.
“He’s amazing,” Gerard says. “There are a couple of people here who can play a bunch of instruments and sing, but Patrick can do it all. He’s agreed to mentor me.”
“Wasn’t Patrick the first one to find this place?” Frank asks.
Gerard shakes his head. “No, but he and Pete the only ones left from the first generation. They came here seven years ago. Pete could sense music out here and followed the path set out before him.”
Mikey listens, as if detached, as Gerard talks about all that Patrick is going to teach him. “Patrick says that my gift is protection,” Gerard says, his voice bright with pride. “I can save people, Mikey, just like we’ve always dreamed.”
Mikey thinks of his crinkled comic stuffed in the bottom of his pack. In those pages, Mikey is saving the day with Gerard, both of them fighting together.
Now, though, Mikey tries to smile - tries desperately to bring back the memory of Brendon’s voice to make him seem genuine - as Gerard talks excitedly, talking a mile a minute until Brendon pokes his head in the front door of their small house and tells them that dinner is ready.
---
Mikey sits next to Ryan at dinner. Ryan is tall and thin like him, and he’s quiet, too. Mikey likes Ryan.
Brendon sits across from them, bright and grinning, talking to everyone around them, but Mikey and Ryan are an oasis of calm.
Mikey isn’t even sure if Ryan can talk (even though Brendon told them that he can) until he turns to Mikey and says, “Life is better here. You just have to give it a chance.”
Ryan’s voice is flat. Against all of the vibrant tones of everyone else that Mikey’s been hearing, his voice stands out.
“It’s hard for those of us who aren’t the stars,” Ryan says, and Mikey knows he’s thinking about Brendon and Gabe and Patrick and William with their melodious voices. With their presence, but Ryan has a power, and Mikey says so.
“You’re not out of place here,” Mikey says. “You can sing. You can tell the future.” Mikey feels a pull of self-sympathy for a moment just before Brendon’s song carries it away.
Ryan frowns, just slightly, and it stays there, as if he’s immune to Brendon after so much time spent with him. “I can see the future, but I can’t sing it,” he says. “Only others can sing what I truly see.”
There’s a lot of trust in that, and though Mikey can see the distress in Ryan’s eyes that he can’t express himself, can only come out with what Brendon hinted as banal songs when he sings, Mikey can see that Ryan trusts Brendon with his words. He can see it in the way that Ryan’s long fingers curl around Brendon’s hands later while they all stand around a roaring fire. He can see it in the way that Brendon whispers something in Ryan’s ear and Ryan rests his head against Brendon’s shoulder.
When Brendon sings Ryan’s words, they resonate with so much more than happiness - they resonate with love - and Mikey wonders if Ryan sees that in his future now, too, with Brendon there.
---
Mikey wakes up early the next morning. He’s up before the sun peaks its way through the trees, and he sits down on a boulder near the edge of the village.
He feels the vibrations before he hears Pete speak. “You’re up early.”
“You too,” Mikey says, and Pete laughs and shakes his head.
“I never fell asleep. It’s hard, sometimes, with all the musicians calling out to me.” He smiles at Mikey and takes a seat next to him on the boulder. Their shoulders touch.
Mikey can see the hint of the sunrise coming up over the horizons as he asks Pete, “So, you’re like some strange music tracking dog?”
“Sort of,” Pete says. “I don’t really have much music in me myself, but I can find others who do. I knew about Patrick before he did. And I found Brendon. And Gabe. And William.”
“And Gerard,” Mikey says.
Pete nods. “Yeah. Gerard, too.”
They sit there in silence for a couple of minutes, both of them watching as the faint light of the morning creeps its way closer and closer until it lights them both up.
Mikey tilts his head to the side, letting the warm sun hit him fully, and in the moment, he tells Pete, “I could feel you in the forest. I could feel the vibrations that you sent out.”
“I know,” Pete says, studying Mikey. Mikey wonders if he glowed like he must now with the sunrise when Pete first saw him, but he doesn’t ask.
“Does that mean I have music in me?”
“You won’t know unless you try,” Pete says.
Mikey nods. He doesn’t have song in him. He knows that much to be true. Every time when he was younger that he tried to make his speech into something more, he only coughed on the words that wouldn’t come out.
“We have instruments here,” Pete says. “You can try anything you want. We all share here.”
“Okay,” Mikey says, and then, because he can and because there’s something comforting about Pete and the low humming that he brings to Mikey, he asks, “Can you help me?”
---
Mikey watches as Pete’s fingers work the strings of the bass.
“It’s the only thing that I can really play,” Pete says. He laughs, almost self-deprecatingly. “I can’t even play this that well, but I love it.”
Mikey’s own fingers falter as they try to mimic Pete’s movements, but he keeps trying.
The noise sounding from Pete’s bass is low and steady, like a heartbeat but richer, and Mikey tries to make his own strums fall into line.
“You’re a natural,” Pete says. “You know, I think that music is in all of us. In some of us it’s just really deep down.” His fingers strum faster and do something complicated that makes Mikey’s fingers stutter, but he finds his rhythm again. “The Capitol can’t suppress what’s in us,” Pete says.
Mikey doesn’t know what’s in him. He knows what’s in Gerard: potential. There’s a force within his brother that is more than anything either of them could have ever dreamed up in a messily scribbled comic book, and Mikey doesn’t know where that leaves him.
“You know,” Pete says after a couple of moments of silence, “I can do more than just find people with my gift.”
Mikey quirks an eyebrow up at that. “Really?” he asks.
Pete nods. “I can sense music in people, but I also can tell their importance,” he says. “The stronger the vibrations, the brighter their aura is, the more important they are.”
“To what?” Mikey asks, and he thinks he’s getting a hang of it now. The strings are almost familiar already. “To the world? To music?”
Pete’s response is quiet, but it makes Mikey’s fingers stop moving. “No. To me.” Pete’s eyes are locked on his own, so bright, and Mikey wants to look away and doesn’t at the same time. “When I found you guys in the woods, I sensed you first,” Pete says. “You were the brightest thing I’ve ever seen.”
---
Mikey doesn’t tell Gerard about what Pete said, but Pete’s words make it a little easier to be genuinely happy for Gerard as he tells Mikey all about his expanding vocal range. “Patrick seemed impressed,” Gerard says one day. “And I think tomorrow Brendon and I are going to try a duet. See what our voices could do together.”
When Gerard sings for him, Mikey feels like he always feels with Gerard: safe. But now there’s something more. Now, when Gerard sings, a barrier forms, and he can’t get hurt.
One day is spent with Gerard singing for as long as possible as people threw pinecones at the strange, shimmery gold barrier that formed around him.
That day, Gabe circled the barrier, holding his hand out because he liked the shock, and Brendon laughed full and loud when an acorn bounced off the force field and hit Spencer in the leg.
It’s obvious, even without the glowy golden orb surrounding him that Gerard is special, but then, Mikey always knew that.
---
The day that Mikey plays the bass better than Pete, he anticipates the worst. Pete has been nothing but kind to him, helping him in a way that no one else could, and how does Mikey repay him? He shows him up.
That day, when Mikey meets Pete at the boulder - their boulder- Pete doesn’t get angry at the sure strums of Mikey’s hand or his smooth transitions. He just grins and scoots closer to Mikey on the warm stone.
“I knew you had it in you,” Pete says.
Mikey thinks of Gerard with his force field and Frank with his new-found guitar skills (he’s learning from a guy named Ray, who seems to have more than two hands) and all the others. He’s nothing compared to them, but the way that Pete is looking at him makes him feel as though he were special.
“Why are you so nice to me?” Mikey asks, but it’s not really what he wants to ask, but it’s all he can manage right now. He’s still so unsure.
Pete moves closer. “Did Ryan tell you that he saw you before you came?”
“I know you guys saw Gerard,” Mikey says, but Pete shakes his head.
“Ryan told me about you. He saw Gerard, yes, but he told me about you.”
“I don’t understand,” Mikey says.
Pete doesn’t answer, he just leans in and kisses Mikey, and at the first press of Pete’s lips to his own, Mikey feels the vibrations move through his body, waking him up, and he kisses back.
---
Gerard is holding the old comic when Mikey makes his way back to the house. His body is still tingling, and it must look as if he ran into Brendon, because he can feel the stupid smile on his face.
When he sees the crumpled paper, the smile doesn’t fade, but it quiets, mirroring Gerard’s own.
“I didn’t know you brought this with you,” Gerard says. He’s holding the pages as if it’s something valuable.
“Of course I did,” Mikey says, and he sits down next to Gerard. They’ve only been here for a short time - a couple of weeks at most, but still, Mikey has missed Gerard. He’s missed his brother.
“I could make a sequel,” Gerard says. “I think that there’s some paper here somewhere. We could write a whole new adventure.”
Mikey smiles and says, “I’d like that.”
Other Stories
Author: ivesia19
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: Mikey/Pete (side Brendon/Ryan)
POV: 3rd limited (Mikey)
Summary: Semi-magical dystopian AU! Mikey doesn’t know where music comes from, he just knows that he likes it.
Disclaimer: Fake. False. Fabrication. Fallacy. Other “f” words.
Beta: coffeshop-kites
Author Notes: For The Pete and Mikey Happy Fic Challenge ! This story was influenced by many wonderful dystopian novels (mainly The Hunger Games, The Giver, and Anthem), and the title belongs to the fantastic Mumford & Sons.
---
Now listen to what I am about to tell you: Musicians do not have to be believed in. We do not have to be trusted. Our Music speaks for itself without the listener having to know anything about us. Music touches people's emotions in a way that nothing else can.
The Music Lesson: A Spiritual Search For growth Through Music by Victor Wooten
---
Mikey doesn’t know where music comes from, he just knows that he likes it. Ever since he could remember, the strange sounds that he later learned was called music spoke to him in a way that nothing else seemed to.
When he is six, he tells his mother - looking up at her with bright eyes that the world hasn’t yet dimmed - “I want to make music when I grow up”.
She smiles the only smile she has left, the one that seems tired no matter how much sleep she gets, and shakes her head. “You know that people don’t make music,” she says.
It is confusing to his six-year-old mind. He knows, logically, that whatever his mother says is true, but he doesn’t understand how music came to be if it doesn’t come from people. Words come from people, from human mouths. Light comes from generators made by people and controlled by people, too. Mikey knows that everything comes from people. Why should music be any different?
“People used to make music,” Gerard whispers to Mikey one night after all the lights in the town are turned off at the start of curfew. “A long time ago, people could play instruments and even sing.” His eyes are large, but Mikey can barely make them out in the moonlight. He wishes it wasn’t always so dark.
“What’s singing?” Mikey asks.
Gerard moves closer to Mikey on the cot they share, bringing his voice down lower, as if singing is something dangerous. “It’s when people make music out of words,” he says. “It’s powerful, which is why it was taken away. It was taken before the notes.”
“But we can still hear the notes,” Mikey says, and he can feel Gerard nod against his upper arm.
“But we don’t know where it comes from,” Gerard says. It is silent for a moment, and outside the thin walls of their bedroom, Mikey can hear the silence from the night, and no matter how much he strains, he can’t hear music. It only comes when least expected.
“Frankie thinks that music is just an echo from long ago - from the time before,” Gerard says.
Even at six, Mikey knows that is ridiculous. “It’s not an echo,” he says. “Maybe there are still people who can make music.”
Gerard doesn’t say anything to that, but he pulls Mikey close to his chest as if he knows what Mikey is thinking, his grip only loosening with the steady rhythm of his sleeping breath.
---
When Mikey is seventeen, Gerard comes back from the Knowledge Center for a couple of days, and he’s different.
Their mother doesn’t notice anything, but the smile on Gerard’s face reaches his eyes, and when he talks, his words seem to sway, fusing into each other at times or leaping up to connect phrases.
Mikey doesn’t get the chance to ask Gerard about it until a couple of nights later.
The night is dark, just like always, and the sheets that Mikey is wrapped in are the same as the ones he had the last time he and Gerard had had a conversation about something forbidden - well, something really forbidden; the Capitol seemed to ban everything that remotely sparked interest in anyone. But music, Mikey knows, is something that can only be talked about in hushed whispers and never acknowledged out loud, not even when the faint melody is something he’s heard before, and he desperately wants to move to the rhythm.
It’s times like that that his vocal chords ache, always trying to bring about that noise that Gerard has once explained: singing.
“You’re different,” Mikey whispers, and even though his voice carries easily across the small room, it only takes a moment for Gerard to leave the single-person bed that he got from the Capitol when he turned thirteen and crowd Mikey on his own cramped cot.
Gerard’s smile is enigmatic, and he says, “Everyone changes, Mikey,” but Mikey knows that’s not really true. Not here, at least.
He waits, just for a couple of moments for Gerard to speak again, because Gerard never could keep anything from Mikey. What little secrets one could have here, Gerard always trusted Mikey with them, and now is no different.
Gerard shifts down on the bed, and he whispers, “I’ve heard it, Mikey,” so quietly that Mikey thinks that Gerard’s voice must be straining to be that soft. “I met some people at the Knowledge Center. People from the Perimeter. They’ve heard music. Real music.”
The tone in Gerard’s voice is like the one he had earlier, the one where his words were flowing almost like water, bleeding into one another with excitement.
It’s shocking news, what Gerard has just said, but Mikey knows that Gerard isn’t lying - would never lie to him. If Gerard had made friends from the Perimeter - from a place that almost lies beyond the Capitol’s rule (as if there were such a place) - they might be lucky enough to hear music as more than just an echo.
“It’s more than that,” Gerard goes on, “they’ve told me where to go.”
“Where to go for what?” Mikey asks, though he thinks he already knows. Gerard has always been different: clenching his jaw tightly during afternoon community briefs, never reciting the pledge to the Capitol every morning after the meal.
Mikey tolerates the Capitol. It’s all he knows. But Gerard, Gerard wants to get out. Mikey can see it now in his older brother’s eyes clearer than ever before.
“There’s a place,” Gerard says, the rhythm in his voice almost mesmerizing, “where people still know how to sing. I’m going to find it. I need to find it, Mikey.” The determination is clear in every syllable of Gerard’s words.
There’s no stopping him, Mikey knows. Gerard will go. And Gerard, wonderful, trusting Gerard, will fuck up and get killed by the Capitol because he can’t keep his mouth shut and he can’t lie worth a damn.
It’s a spilt second decision, one he makes almost without thinking, but the moment that the words come out of his mouth - even though he knows that they’re probably damning - Mikey knows that he’s making the right choice.
“I’m coming with you.”
---
It’s far easier than Mikey had expected to sneak out of their house.
Their mother, once a light sleeper who would wake at any sound from her children, has grown tired and worn out by the years of dull oppression. She doesn’t even stir when Mikey and Gerard tiptoe past her bedroom.
They’re not carrying much, the two of them. Gerard has a backpack, one issued by the Capitol when he had reached his fourth year in the Middle Level School, that has grown ragged through years of use. There are a couple of meal bars and bottles of water wrapped up in a blanket. Mikey doesn’t know what else Gerard stuffed in the bag when he was packing his own, but the pack bulges out, straining at the zippers.
Mikey’s own bag is fairly light. He’s pretty confident that Gerard will realize the ridiculousness of his plan before they hit the boundary of their community and the one due south. Mikey’s bag just holds a couple of changes of shirts and boxers, some food and water, and comic that Gerard had drawn him one summer when they were younger.
The comic Mikey takes more because he doesn’t want to risk leaving it here, in case anyone finds it. It’s a stupid thing, but Gerard had drawn it all by hand, and even though it could get them both in trouble (the main character, a boy who looks a lot like Mikey, takes over the Capitol and reinstates what their teachers at school always called “that dangerous plague of humanity once called democracy” with the help of a brother that is the spitting image of Gerard) Mikey loves the crinkled papers.
They slip out of the house without any problems and have a surprisingly easy time making it through the streets of their community. They’re almost at the edge, nearing the stretch of woods that separates their community from the one just south, when Gerard stops.
“What are you doing?” Mikey hisses. This is Gerard’s stupid idea - Gerard’s idea even if Mikey went along with it - and they need to keep moving.
“Frank is supposed to meet us here,” Gerard whispers back. “He’s the one who became friends with the guy who knows about the place.”
Mikey feels like snapping back at Gerard for being so vague, but just then, he hears the snap of a twig, and before he can get too scared, Frank’s smiling face appears from behind a tree.
“Do you have it?” Gerard asks, and Mikey can just barely see a faded piece of a paper that Frank holds up against the dim light of the moon. “Great, let’s go.”
They start moving again - Gerard leading the way now that he’s taken the piece of paper from Frank’s grasp.
“What is it?” Mikey asks Frank as Gerard stops for a second to study the paper before turning left abruptly, which makes no sense. There’s nothing to the left, everyone knows that. There isn’t even a Perimeter community or the Beyond. There’s nothing. It just….stops. But Gerard keeps walking.
“The map?” Frank clarifies, and off of Mikey’s nod, he says, “I got it from a friend of mine - this guy called Andy. He has a friend, some guy he grew up with in his community, who made this map for him.”
Mikey’s brow furrows. “And how did this friend make the map?”
Frank’s grin glows in the moonlight, and just in front of them, Gerard is muttering under his breath as he tries to make sense out of the loopy writing on the map. “He ran away with his best friend once they found out, and the guy kept track of how they got there.”
Mikey is getting pretty sick of the way that Gerard and Frank are talking. They’re always so vague, as if they think that other people are listening, even in the dark, winding paths of the forest. “Got where?”
“When they got to the place where music still exists,” Frank says. “The guy,” Frank continues, “the friend of the guy who wrote this map, he can sing.”
Mikey almost trips over a tree root.
Frank laughs, a little gruff giggle, and helps Mikey regain his balance before they’re off again, trying to keep up with Gerard. “We’re going to find them,” Frank says, and Gerard keeps leading them forward - right to the edge, where Mikey knows nothing exists.
---
When they hit the wall of rock, Gerard sits down on the ground.
It’s the end. The one Mikey knew they would hit. There’s nothing beyond here. Just the rock wall. Just the end. But Frank and Gerard don’t look discouraged. With the first rays of morning light bouncing off the dull grey of the rock, Gerard hands Frank a piece of bread and then extends the same to Mikey.
Mikey takes the bread, because it’s the only thing he can do right now. He doesn’t want to be the one to shatter Gerard’s dreams, but the solid wall of rock in front of them should do that just fine on it’s own.
“We’ll take a rest here,” Gerard says, the words muffled by the bread in his mouth. “Then we’ll continue down.”
Mikey looks to where Gerard is pointing, but all he can see is the same looming wall of rock.
Gerard doesn’t seem deterred, though. “Just take a nap, Mikey,” he says, passing him a bottle of water to wash his bread down with. “We’ll head out in a couple of hours, but you’ll need your strength.”
Vagueness, again. Mikey’s getting tired of that shit, but he’s even more tired from wandering through the woods all night, trying to follow his brother’s abrupt turns and not trip and die. His eyes are tired, and it only takes a couple of minutes after he burrows against three of his rolled up shirts to fall into a dream of bright colors filtering through the air and music resonating, bouncing off the colors, always finding its way back to Mikey.
---
When he wakes, the sun is high in the sky, and Gerard and Frank are already packing up their stuff to get moving.
“It shouldn’t be more than an hour hike from here,” Gerard is saying as Mikey picks himself up off the far-too-unyielding ground. “We could be there as soon as tomorrow morning.”
“It almost seems too easy,” Frank says.
Gerard shrugs. “The path was made to be easy for those who needed to find it,” he says. He looks over at Mikey, smiling at him for a moment. It’s the same smile he used to have before three days ago, the one that always had an underlying layer of concern peeking at the edges. “Did you get enough sleep, Mikey?”
Mikey nods. He isn’t used to much sleep, anyway, and Gerard should know that he isn’t weak. He can handle himself.
“Let’s get going,” Frank says, and they set off again, walking a straight path parallel to the giant rock wall, but they move slower than before, and instead of keeping his eyes on the map, Gerard and Frank’s eyes seem to study each crack in the rock.
They walk for hours, the warm sun beating down on Mikey’s skin, and he knows that he’s going to be red tomorrow. He can already see the pink tint in Gerard’s once pale skin.
Just when the sun starts to dip down again, Frank stops suddenly, and Mikey, who wasn’t paying much attention, crashes into the protruding bump of Gerard’s backpack.
“I think it’s here,” Frank says, his hand rubbing over a strange looking crack in the wall - and when Mikey steps closer, it looks like a design. It’s something old and worn, but it definitely wasn’t made naturally, and Gerard looks pleased as his hands echo over where Frank’s hands just left.
“Does the map say how it works?” Frank asks, and Gerard nods.
“I just have to sing anything,” Gerard says. “The music will make the doorway open.”
The words that Gerard is using aren’t difficult to understand, but still, Mikey is confused, because Gerard doesn’t sing. No one he knows sings. It’s lost - that’s why they’re going to find it.
But Gerard just stands up a little straighter, and very obviously not looking at Mikey, he opens his mouth, and a sound that Mikey’s never heard before (certainly a sound he’s never heard from Gerard before, the one person who Mikey always thought he could trust) starts to sound.
The notes that Gerard is making with his mouth is at the same time identical to and so different from the echoes of notes that Mikey has heard his whole life. It’s identical in its beauty, in the way that it draws Mikey in, but it’s different, because this is Gerard making the noise. It’s Gerard singing, and even though it’s happening right now, right in front of Mikey, he can barely believe it.
Even more unbelievable is the way that the strange symbol on the rock wall seems to burn bright with each note of Gerard’s voice. It glows a strange orange/red, and then a crack forms from the center, splitting the rock wall apart.
Mikey takes a step back, but Gerard and Frank don’t move, apparently unconcerned with falling rocks. And it’s then that Mikey notices the faint light surrounding them, like a barrier. It seems to come from Gerard’s notes, and each falling rock or splash of dust bounces right off the protective cover.
In the space that was previously just unyielding rock, Mikey sees that a doorway is starting to take shape. Gerard is still singing, just a stream of notes with no real words, and Frank is holding tight to Gerard’s arm, his fingers turning white, hinting at the pressure of his hold.
Then, just as soon as it starts, Gerard stops singing, and the forming doorway is right in front of them - solid and wide-open.
Gerard looks over at Mikey, and Mikey doesn’t need a mirror to know how he looks. He can feel the shock still tingling in his body. He had no idea that Gerard could sing, and though there are a million questions bouncing around in his mind, he just manages to croak out the question, “How long? How long have you been able to sing?”
Thankfully, Gerard doesn’t answer in that vague way that has been dominating lately. “I think I’ve been able to sing forever,” Gerard says. “But I didn’t realize it until a couple of weeks ago.”
Mikey swallows, his throat suddenly dry, and he thinks of home, where the water is always cool (not like the warm water that he drinks now) and Gerard and he were always so much alike. Now, the differences between them are blaring. Gerard can sing. And Mikey can’t.
The look in Gerard’s eyes says so much - it speaks of how genuinely he wanted to tell Mikey, even after that first burst of music, but Frank breaks the moment.
“I don’t know how long this door is going to stay open, Gerard. We better get moving.”
Gerard throws a questioning look at Mikey, and Mikey nods. “It’s fine. We can talk about it later,” he says, and together, they walk into the darkness of the cave, Frank’s small, lone flashlight the only thing casting light. It bounces off the walls, following the path of Gerard’s voice, which echoes still.
---
After the cave, the instructions from the map become more difficult to understand.
“It says to just walk straight through the woods,” Frank says, peering down at the faded writing.
“Until what?” Mikey asks.
Frank shrugs. “Until we find where we’re going.”
“Or it finds us,” Gerard says, and now that Mikey knows the truth about Gerard, he can’t believe that he ever missed it. He can’t believe that he didn’t hear Gerard’s voice for what it was - something with music in it. Now, it’s so clear.
They walk through the forest, and it’s so much like the forest near their house, but Mikey knows it’s different. This is beyond the control of the Capitol. He’s walking in a place that he never thought existed.
He feels as though there should be something glaringly unique about the forest, but there isn’t. Mikey can’t even hear wisps of music, and since Gerard hasn’t sung since the rock wall, he hasn’t heard a hint of singing, either.
It’s boring, walking through this stretch of woods, and Gerard and Frank are being strangely quiet again, as if they’re looking for something, and Mikey is already tired of being left out. He isn’t the one who can sing or decipher codes on the map or even hold a flashlight steady. He’s only there because he had thought that Gerard couldn’t leave on his own, but now Mikey knows better.
He is just delving into that layer of extreme self-pity when a movement to the far left catches his eye. He stops for a moment, but when he doesn’t see anything, he continues walking.
Mikey doesn’t mention it to Gerard or Frank, but he feels a strange tingling sensation run down his spine, as if someone were watching him, but the forest surrounding them is quiet and bare.
Mikey shakes his head, shakes the feeling out of him, and hurries to catch up to his brother and Frank, who haven’t noticed Mikey’s stop. His feet fall in line with theirs again when he senses that same presence again, and this time, Mikey reaches a hand out to stop Gerard.
He holds a finger up to his mouth, though he doesn’t really know why. All he knows is that Frank and Gerard need to be quiet so that he can find the source of this feeling. It’s unlike anything he’s felt before. It’s almost a vibration in his bones.
It only takes a couple of seconds - a couple of seconds where Gerard and Frank look at him with a confused stare - before he feels a stronger vibration and turns quickly.
There’s a man there, standing in the center of the woods.
He looks a little bit taller than Frank, with skin the color of the deep tan that Mikey got the one summer his community’s weather malfunctioned and it was hot for weeks on end.
There’s an easy smile on his face, and when his eyes lock on Mikey’s, Mikey can feel the vibration again move through him.
“Which one of you is the singer?” the man asks, and though he addresses them all, he doesn’t take his eyes off of Mikey.
Gerard clears his throat. “Were you sent to lead us to the village?”
The man nods. “So you’re the singer, then? Yeah. We knew you were coming.”
Mikey waits for Gerard to make the first move, but when his brother says in place, he takes a step forward. “I’m Mikey,” he says. “Gerard. Frank.” He points to them in turn.
The man just nods along with each of Mikey’s introductions, but he grins wide and extends a strangely calloused hand. “I’m Pete,” he says. “We’re glad you’re here.”
---
Here turns out to be a vast clearing in the woods that Pete leads them to. It only takes a couple of minutes to get there by foot, and the entire time, as Pete talked about how they were waiting for them, there is a faint hum in Mikey’s bones.
When they make it to the clearing, Mikey takes in the small wooden houses that are bright and stand out boldly against the woods.
“Aren’t you worried about your village being seen?” Mikey asks Pete.
Pete grins and says, “No one can find us unless they have need of us. Don’t worry, Mikey. You’re safe with us.” Pete speaks as if everything he says is a confession. He turns to Gerard, “Patrick is expecting you, I’ll take you to him. Mikey, Frank, Brendon should be here in a second to help you.”
As if on cue, another man comes out of one of the house’s doorway. Like Pete, he’s smiling, but his smile is different than Pete’s in so many ways that Mikey doesn’t know where to start. He starts toward where they’re standing, but Mikey watches as a long, thin arm pulls him back toward the door, and a huff of musical laughter comes out of his mouth.
“Don’t worry about Brendon, he’ll be here once Ryan feels secure enough in his masculinity.” Pete laughs, but it’s more of a braying than the musical force of Brendon’s laugh. “I’ll get Gerard back to you guys soon,” he says, and just like that, Pete pulls Gerard away, leaving confusion and a noticeable stillness in Mikey.
Mikey turns to look at Frank, who is looking around, taking everything in, but he doesn’t look nearly as concerned as Mikey feels coming to this strange place. “Where are we?” he asks.
“The place where all the musicians are,” Frank answers, and Brendon seems to have pulled himself out of Ryan’s grasp, because he’s right in front of them, smiling still.
“Welcome, guys. We’re all really excited that you’re here!” Brendon’s voice is full and rich, and Mikey doesn’t even need to ask - he knows that Brendon has music in him. He can hear it in every syllable.
It’s strange how everyone seems to be expecting them, so Mikey asks, “How did you know we were coming?”
Brendon’s smile softens a little at that. “Ryan, my partner, he can transfer the future through song.”
It’s probably the strangest thing Mikey has ever heard, but thankfully, Brendon explains. “When Ryan sings, he can only verbalize everyday things. Usually he gets stuck in repetitions, but he can transfer the future he sees to others, who can sing it for him. When he saw you guys coming, I sang it for everyone.”
Frank’s eyes are wide. “That’s some power your Ryan has,” he says.
Brendon looks proud and smiles. “It’s better than mine,” he admits.
“What?” Mikey asks. He didn’t know that having music equated to having powers, but, when he thinks about it, it makes sense that the Capitol deemed music so dangerous. “Powers?”
Before Brendon can talk, Frank interrupts, and Mikey wonders just how much longer Frankie knew about Gerard than Mikey. He wonders how much he and Gerard figured out together.
“Music is something that comes from within special people,” Frank says. “It’s already supernatural, since it’s so rare, but when the Capitol suppressed it, it manifested itself into something more.”
“Not everyone has powers who has music,” Brendon explains. “Usually just those of us who can sing have that something extra, but there are a couple of people who play instruments who have gifts, too.”
“Like who?” Mikey asks, intrigued.
Brendon shrugs. “Well, Pete can’t sing, but he can play the bass, and he can find music in others. That’s probably how he knew that you were who we were looking for.”
“How does he find them?” Mikey asks.
“The vibrations light up the music,” Brendon explains, “but only Pete can see it.”
Brendon’s words make Mikey pause and wonder, because he felt vibrations in the woods before he met Pete - he sensed him, but there’s no use asking Brendon about that now. There are so many other questions.
“What’s your power?” Frank asks, interrupting Mikey’s thoughts, and Brendon flushes red.
“When I sing, I put people at ease,” he says. “It’s why I’m the welcome committee. My singing makes people happy.”
Frank laughs. “You’re a special snowflake, aren’t you?”
Brendon burns even redder, but he still smiles, as if he finds it a little funny, too. “How about I show you guys around,” Brendon says, and he starts to show them around the village.
Mikey and Frank meet Gabe, who can speak to animals through song; Spencer and Jon, who help form the songs that Ryan and Brendon dream up; William, who can make time speed up or slow down depending on his tempo. They meet dozens of people, who Brendon explains don’t sing but are still important, and Mikey tries to remember each person’s name.
By the end of the day, he’s tired from days of walking and worried, because he hasn’t seen Gerard for hours, but as they make their way to the house designated to them, Brendon starts to sing lightly under his breath, and a wave of calm rushes over Mikey.
---
Gerard comes back before it gets dark, a couple of minutes before Brendon had told them dinner starts, and he looks happier than Mikey’s ever seen him.
“How was meeting Patrick?” Frank asks, and Mikey’s glad that Frank said something, because right now it’s hard for him to find words. He doesn’t know why, but it could be because he never realized just how unhappy Gerard must have been growing up, because Mikey has never seen the glow that Gerard has now.
“He’s amazing,” Gerard says. “There are a couple of people here who can play a bunch of instruments and sing, but Patrick can do it all. He’s agreed to mentor me.”
“Wasn’t Patrick the first one to find this place?” Frank asks.
Gerard shakes his head. “No, but he and Pete the only ones left from the first generation. They came here seven years ago. Pete could sense music out here and followed the path set out before him.”
Mikey listens, as if detached, as Gerard talks about all that Patrick is going to teach him. “Patrick says that my gift is protection,” Gerard says, his voice bright with pride. “I can save people, Mikey, just like we’ve always dreamed.”
Mikey thinks of his crinkled comic stuffed in the bottom of his pack. In those pages, Mikey is saving the day with Gerard, both of them fighting together.
Now, though, Mikey tries to smile - tries desperately to bring back the memory of Brendon’s voice to make him seem genuine - as Gerard talks excitedly, talking a mile a minute until Brendon pokes his head in the front door of their small house and tells them that dinner is ready.
---
Mikey sits next to Ryan at dinner. Ryan is tall and thin like him, and he’s quiet, too. Mikey likes Ryan.
Brendon sits across from them, bright and grinning, talking to everyone around them, but Mikey and Ryan are an oasis of calm.
Mikey isn’t even sure if Ryan can talk (even though Brendon told them that he can) until he turns to Mikey and says, “Life is better here. You just have to give it a chance.”
Ryan’s voice is flat. Against all of the vibrant tones of everyone else that Mikey’s been hearing, his voice stands out.
“It’s hard for those of us who aren’t the stars,” Ryan says, and Mikey knows he’s thinking about Brendon and Gabe and Patrick and William with their melodious voices. With their presence, but Ryan has a power, and Mikey says so.
“You’re not out of place here,” Mikey says. “You can sing. You can tell the future.” Mikey feels a pull of self-sympathy for a moment just before Brendon’s song carries it away.
Ryan frowns, just slightly, and it stays there, as if he’s immune to Brendon after so much time spent with him. “I can see the future, but I can’t sing it,” he says. “Only others can sing what I truly see.”
There’s a lot of trust in that, and though Mikey can see the distress in Ryan’s eyes that he can’t express himself, can only come out with what Brendon hinted as banal songs when he sings, Mikey can see that Ryan trusts Brendon with his words. He can see it in the way that Ryan’s long fingers curl around Brendon’s hands later while they all stand around a roaring fire. He can see it in the way that Brendon whispers something in Ryan’s ear and Ryan rests his head against Brendon’s shoulder.
When Brendon sings Ryan’s words, they resonate with so much more than happiness - they resonate with love - and Mikey wonders if Ryan sees that in his future now, too, with Brendon there.
---
Mikey wakes up early the next morning. He’s up before the sun peaks its way through the trees, and he sits down on a boulder near the edge of the village.
He feels the vibrations before he hears Pete speak. “You’re up early.”
“You too,” Mikey says, and Pete laughs and shakes his head.
“I never fell asleep. It’s hard, sometimes, with all the musicians calling out to me.” He smiles at Mikey and takes a seat next to him on the boulder. Their shoulders touch.
Mikey can see the hint of the sunrise coming up over the horizons as he asks Pete, “So, you’re like some strange music tracking dog?”
“Sort of,” Pete says. “I don’t really have much music in me myself, but I can find others who do. I knew about Patrick before he did. And I found Brendon. And Gabe. And William.”
“And Gerard,” Mikey says.
Pete nods. “Yeah. Gerard, too.”
They sit there in silence for a couple of minutes, both of them watching as the faint light of the morning creeps its way closer and closer until it lights them both up.
Mikey tilts his head to the side, letting the warm sun hit him fully, and in the moment, he tells Pete, “I could feel you in the forest. I could feel the vibrations that you sent out.”
“I know,” Pete says, studying Mikey. Mikey wonders if he glowed like he must now with the sunrise when Pete first saw him, but he doesn’t ask.
“Does that mean I have music in me?”
“You won’t know unless you try,” Pete says.
Mikey nods. He doesn’t have song in him. He knows that much to be true. Every time when he was younger that he tried to make his speech into something more, he only coughed on the words that wouldn’t come out.
“We have instruments here,” Pete says. “You can try anything you want. We all share here.”
“Okay,” Mikey says, and then, because he can and because there’s something comforting about Pete and the low humming that he brings to Mikey, he asks, “Can you help me?”
---
Mikey watches as Pete’s fingers work the strings of the bass.
“It’s the only thing that I can really play,” Pete says. He laughs, almost self-deprecatingly. “I can’t even play this that well, but I love it.”
Mikey’s own fingers falter as they try to mimic Pete’s movements, but he keeps trying.
The noise sounding from Pete’s bass is low and steady, like a heartbeat but richer, and Mikey tries to make his own strums fall into line.
“You’re a natural,” Pete says. “You know, I think that music is in all of us. In some of us it’s just really deep down.” His fingers strum faster and do something complicated that makes Mikey’s fingers stutter, but he finds his rhythm again. “The Capitol can’t suppress what’s in us,” Pete says.
Mikey doesn’t know what’s in him. He knows what’s in Gerard: potential. There’s a force within his brother that is more than anything either of them could have ever dreamed up in a messily scribbled comic book, and Mikey doesn’t know where that leaves him.
“You know,” Pete says after a couple of moments of silence, “I can do more than just find people with my gift.”
Mikey quirks an eyebrow up at that. “Really?” he asks.
Pete nods. “I can sense music in people, but I also can tell their importance,” he says. “The stronger the vibrations, the brighter their aura is, the more important they are.”
“To what?” Mikey asks, and he thinks he’s getting a hang of it now. The strings are almost familiar already. “To the world? To music?”
Pete’s response is quiet, but it makes Mikey’s fingers stop moving. “No. To me.” Pete’s eyes are locked on his own, so bright, and Mikey wants to look away and doesn’t at the same time. “When I found you guys in the woods, I sensed you first,” Pete says. “You were the brightest thing I’ve ever seen.”
---
Mikey doesn’t tell Gerard about what Pete said, but Pete’s words make it a little easier to be genuinely happy for Gerard as he tells Mikey all about his expanding vocal range. “Patrick seemed impressed,” Gerard says one day. “And I think tomorrow Brendon and I are going to try a duet. See what our voices could do together.”
When Gerard sings for him, Mikey feels like he always feels with Gerard: safe. But now there’s something more. Now, when Gerard sings, a barrier forms, and he can’t get hurt.
One day is spent with Gerard singing for as long as possible as people threw pinecones at the strange, shimmery gold barrier that formed around him.
That day, Gabe circled the barrier, holding his hand out because he liked the shock, and Brendon laughed full and loud when an acorn bounced off the force field and hit Spencer in the leg.
It’s obvious, even without the glowy golden orb surrounding him that Gerard is special, but then, Mikey always knew that.
---
The day that Mikey plays the bass better than Pete, he anticipates the worst. Pete has been nothing but kind to him, helping him in a way that no one else could, and how does Mikey repay him? He shows him up.
That day, when Mikey meets Pete at the boulder - their boulder- Pete doesn’t get angry at the sure strums of Mikey’s hand or his smooth transitions. He just grins and scoots closer to Mikey on the warm stone.
“I knew you had it in you,” Pete says.
Mikey thinks of Gerard with his force field and Frank with his new-found guitar skills (he’s learning from a guy named Ray, who seems to have more than two hands) and all the others. He’s nothing compared to them, but the way that Pete is looking at him makes him feel as though he were special.
“Why are you so nice to me?” Mikey asks, but it’s not really what he wants to ask, but it’s all he can manage right now. He’s still so unsure.
Pete moves closer. “Did Ryan tell you that he saw you before you came?”
“I know you guys saw Gerard,” Mikey says, but Pete shakes his head.
“Ryan told me about you. He saw Gerard, yes, but he told me about you.”
“I don’t understand,” Mikey says.
Pete doesn’t answer, he just leans in and kisses Mikey, and at the first press of Pete’s lips to his own, Mikey feels the vibrations move through his body, waking him up, and he kisses back.
---
Gerard is holding the old comic when Mikey makes his way back to the house. His body is still tingling, and it must look as if he ran into Brendon, because he can feel the stupid smile on his face.
When he sees the crumpled paper, the smile doesn’t fade, but it quiets, mirroring Gerard’s own.
“I didn’t know you brought this with you,” Gerard says. He’s holding the pages as if it’s something valuable.
“Of course I did,” Mikey says, and he sits down next to Gerard. They’ve only been here for a short time - a couple of weeks at most, but still, Mikey has missed Gerard. He’s missed his brother.
“I could make a sequel,” Gerard says. “I think that there’s some paper here somewhere. We could write a whole new adventure.”
Mikey smiles and says, “I’d like that.”
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