Fic: So Easy To Drown (Mikey/Gerard, R, 1/1)
Title: So Easy To Drown
Prompt: Gerard/Mikey in the early MCR days, being on the road and in the van and dealing with UST between the two
Pairing: Mikey/Gerard
Rating: R
Word count: 5800
AN: My mcr4u fic for velvet_tuberose! So many thanks to tangleofthorns and nova33 and chmclfairytales for being utterly amazing and helping SO much. <333
“We’ll be fine,” Gerard tells Mikey in the jittery, endless minutes they’re killing in his basement room, waiting to leave. The tour looms ahead of them, the longest stretch they’ve ever attempted.
Mikey kind of sees the tour as a strange, blank stretch of highway, punctuated with shows that he’s kind of sure he’s going to fuck up. It’s terrifying, but exhilarating at the same time. He’s seen so many people from Eyeball and the scene embark on the same journey, Mikey is kind of unable to believe it’s his turn now.
“Of course we will,” he says to Gerard, patting the side of his bag to make sure he can feel the lump of his toothbrush still stuck inside.
“Really,” Gerard says. He leans over and wraps his arms around Mikey, leaning his head on Mikey’s shoulder. Mikey tilts his head so that their temples are pressed together.
“You’re going to poke me in the eye,” Gerard says after a minute, prodding at Mikey’s glasses.
“You’re the one draped all over me,” Mikey shoots back, grinning as Gerard gives him a smacking kiss. He swipes his sleeve across his face with an exaggerated look of disgust, and goes to make sure that his toothbrush hasn’t made a bid for freedom for one last time.
“It’s going to work out fine,” Gerard says again, and Mikey lets him think that it’s to reassure Mikey, not himself.
*
“That was the wrong fucking way,” Frank bitches as he leans over Mikey to peer out the window. “We were supposed to go east.”
“How the hell am I supposed to know which way is east?” Otter grumbles, slowing down enough that the other cars kept swerving around them. “Fuck, we’re going to die on the goddamn interstate.”
“I don’t even think this is the right exit,” Ray says, squinting at the directions. “Is that supposed to be Exit 88 or 68?”
“I think you’re looking at it upside down,” Mikey offers.
“I vote we never let Gerard write down the directions again,” Ray announces as he flips the paper over again.
“I did a kickass job with the directions,” Gerard says suddenly. Mikey rolls his eyes, and Gerard prods at him, scrunching his nose.
Mikey likes being completely used to one person in the van, at least. He’s known the other guys a while, but he can’t imagine yet being as comfortable with their every habit like he is with Gerard.
“Fuck, dude, I thought you were out!” Frank exclaims. “If you did such a kickass job, what the hell does it say?”
Ray holds out the paper and Gerard scrutinizes it. “Exit 86!”
Mikey sometimes thinks he wants to stay like this forever.
*
Some days, when it’s hot and sticky and the AC isn’t blowing strong enough to cool off a van packed with too much stuff and too many bodies, Mikey hates his band.
He hates Frank’s stupid laugh when he takes control of the radio and makes them listen to fucking Ace of Bass out of cruelty, he hates Otter’s annoyed grunts and bitching, and he hates that Ray has somehow perfected the art of leaning back in his seat and losing himself in his headphones, fingers twitching as he plays a phantom guitar.
In the times when he’s seriously considering shucking off his sweaty black jeans and the t-shirt that’s sticking to his spine in awkward bunches, and maybe finding some duct tape to slap over Frank’s mouth (He knows there’s some back with the gear), he also hates Gerard, who is bundled in a fucking hoodie and snoozing against the window like it’s the most comfortable he’s ever been.
Gerard wouldn’t complain if Mikey used him as a pillow, but the thought of leaning against a ninety-eight degree pillow is unbearable. They’re somewhere in the south, and the sticky heat seems to creep through the metal exterior of the van.
Mikey shifts again, trying to slouch down enough in his seat to be comfortable, shoving Little Debbie wrappers and a few empty beer and coke cans away with his feet to make some room.
“Stop it, Mikey,” Gerard mumbles sleepily beside him.
“Fuck you,” Mikey replies, wriggling a little. Two nights ago - somewhere in Virginia, he thinks, though he isn’t sure - he’d discovered the holy grail of comfortable sleeping positions, but now it feels like his legs have somehow stretched and are too gangly to fit. It doesn’t matter that he and Gerard have wrangled the coveted backseat, because with the stupid box of merch and the garbage piling up on the floor the van is feeling more and more cramped.
Mikey knows that the van is the same size as it was when they left, and that if anything they’ve gained room from selling some of the merch and eating most of the food, but he’s hot and cranky as fuck and just wants to be at the venue already, where even if there’s no air there’ll be a fan or something and maybe even an eager girl willing to buy him a cold beer.
There have been more of those lately, those hungry-eyed girls and boys.
He shifts around again, trying to position himself where a gust of air from the vents will hit him, and thinks that home really is fucking far away.
The people - his friends and family and everyone outside of his band and the people they’re touring with - are reduced to phone calls and, when he can get to the internet, emails filled with silly details of their lives. Mikey’s luckier than everyone else in the band because he has Gerard here with him, within arm’s reach. He isn’t sure what he’d do without him.
The longer they’re on the road, the stranger normal lives seem to Mikey.
Now, normal just looks like his brother passed out against a van window and days with ringing ears and nights filled with screaming kids.
*
It’s far from the first time their van has broken down, but it’s the first time that Otter hasn’t instinctively figured out what was wrong with it.
Mikey leans against the guardrail, tapping his fingers on the rough metal to the tune of “Sweet and Tender Hooligan,” watching Otter swear and bang around under the hood and occasionally jerk his hand back with a quietly yelped “Ow ”
Ray hovers nearby, offering suggestions and helping Otter try to analyze the exact noise the van had made before dying. They seem to have narrowed it down to either the radiator, the water pump or the looming possibility of a cracked header, which Otter keeps fretting about as he uselessly re-checks the plugs in an attempt to find a cheap solution to the problem.
Mikey doesn’t even offer to help. Any mechanical knowledge he possesses is useless in the face of his inability to actually fix things, and Frank got a fretful look at the thought of Mikey rooting around the engine with its sharp hot bits of metal and moveable parts.
Gerard stumbles out of the van, hair rumpled and vivid red impression-marks etching across his cheek from where he was sleeping. He blearily blinks, looking around, and finally says, “Did we break down?”
“No, we decided that it was the perfect time for a fucking oil change,” Frank grumbles. He’s sprawled sideways in the passenger seat, feet swinging out the open door, banging against the van rhythmically.
Gerard rubs at his eyes, getting the sleep out. “Bite me.”
“Did you seriously sleep through all that?” Ray asks, leaning around so he can look at Gerard from around the open hood. “It was pretty gnarly for a minute there.”
Mikey squints into the sun and weighs sight versus shades. He watches jealously as Gerard slips on his sunglasses and stumbles to the fence on unsteady legs.
“You need to get out of the van more,” Mikey chides.
“You need to shut your face,” Gerard mumbles, leaning against Mikey and surveying the scene. “Is that my shirt Otter’s using?”
Mikey looks back at the crumpled cloth Otter’s using and has to concede that it does look like the shirt Gerard had been wearing for the past few days. “But now it’s sacrificing itself for the good of the band,” he offers.
“Plus now we won’t have to smell it anymore. That thing was getting rank,” Frank adds.
“I love that shirt,” Gerard says. Mikey gives him a little hug.
They lean against the guardrail together until Otter triumphantly shouts, “It’s a hose ”
“A hose ” cheers Frank. “They’re cheap ”
Mikey laughs as Gerard joins Frank in a celebration dance, and then joins in as Frank grabs his hand.
They miss soundcheck, but make it to the venue in time to perform.
Gerard grabs Mikey and whirls him around during Honey. Mikey just shakes his head and grins down at his bass as Gerard moves onto Frank.
*
“Do you ever think about not making it?” Gerard asks, staring at his beer bottle.
“Like, the band?” Mikey says carefully.
The pause before Gerard’s answer is telling. “Yeah. The band.”
It isn’t a strange topic for Gerard, not by a long shot, but not one Mikey wants to think about. “No,” he lies.
“Oh,” Gerard says, tilting his head back. There’s nothing interesting above them, just dull grey ceiling. Mikey wonders if things would be better if their surroundings were blue or green or something that wasn’t fucking grey. He doubts it, but it’s nice to have something concrete to lay his blame on.
Mikey leans over to peck Gerard on the cheek, because his brother thrives on physical contact. Too much time alone and he gets too lost in his own head. Gerard turns to say something in the last second, and Mikey’s kiss lands on Gerard’s parted lips.
It’s the same as every other kiss they’ve shared, a lifetime of affection and closeness, except for the pitfall-feeling in Mikey’s stomach. He leans back, probably too abruptly, and Gerard ruffles his hair.
“You always make me feel better,” Gerard says.
Mikey takes both his hands to his hair, trying to find the flyaways more out of habit than actual concern, but it does a lot to restore a sense of normalcy to him. He feels unsettled, the way he can still taste Gerard’s shitty beer on his mouth and his heart is hammering in his chest, but he just smiles and tells his brother that they should go try to find the van soon, if they don’t want Ray to leave them.
“He’d never do that,” Gerard says. “We’re important.”
“Exactly,” Mikey says, and hopes that Gerard gets it.
*
Mikey thinks maybe his reaction to the kiss was a fluke.
Gerard doesn’t act any differently; if anything, he’s pushing them closer. Mikey finds himself sharing a bench seat in the van with his brother more and more often, waking up with Gerard’s head or feet pressed into his side, fending off drunken, adrenaline-laced post-show cuddles.
It’s kind of pathetic that he’s still thinking about the kiss at all, really. It happened a week ago, and Mikey’s laying awake and he can’t stop thinking about the way it felt like a first kiss.
They’re crashing in someone’s living room. Otter has disappeared like a fucking ninja, probably with one of the girls from the show. Mikey can’t blame him, really, though he hasn’t been tempted by any of them - none has been quite right.
Ray grumbles and rolls over and kind of whacks Mikey in the face with his hair, and that’s when Mikey decides it’s time to go outside for a smoke.
The world is still pleasantly blurry from the party a few hours ago, and he almost stumbles into Gerard. Gerard blends into the nighttime, a dark blur against their trailer, the glowing cherry of his cigarette the only thing that seperates him from the shadows.
“Fuck, Gee, you scared me,” Mikey manages, leaning unsteadily against the trailer and reaching for Gerard’s cigarette. “I thought you were inside.”
“Nope,” Gerard replies. He draws his fingers back as Mikey takes his cigarette. “Couldn’t sleep.”
Mikey laughs. “Tonight was fucking awesome.”
“Yeah. Yeah, it was great.” Gerard rests his head back against the trailer. The careless and artful graffiti is just a bunch of dark blurs, but Mikey’s memorized it all and knows that Gerard’s hair is obscuring a skull-and-crossbones that Frank had added in Philly.
“Hey,” Mikey says, grabbing at Gerard’s hand, which is tapping an arrhythmic beat on the thin metal. “You alright?”
Gerard draws in a sharp breath. He’s standing stock-still, and Mikey kind of freezes, feeling his own heartbeat in their entwined hands. He’s staring at his brother, at his parted lips and the strange look in his bloodshot eyes, and Mikey can’t do anything, can’t move, can’t speak.
The look on Gerard’s face could mean nothing and it could mean everything, and Mikey doesn’t even know if he wants to find out which.
“Sometimes,” Gerard says finally, as though he’s just remembered the question. His hand is slick with sweat wrapped around Mikey’s, and Mikey just grips tighter. “And sometimes...”
“The whole fucking sky is falling,” Mikey says quietly, thinking of their mother saying the same thing to Gerard a thousand times during their teenage melodramatics.
Mikey lets go of Gerard’s hand.
Gerard lets out a quiet, sarcastic laugh, shoulders shaking against the trailer in a way that makes Mikey think of sobs, and says, “Sometimes I think it might be.”
Mikey wants to say something, anything to make Gerard happy, but his own brain is fuzzy enough that the best he can do is, “There are a lot of stars out.”
Gerard gives him a sideways glance, then looks up at a sky clearer and brighter than they’d ever seen in Jersey. “Yeah, there are.”
“None of them are falling.”
“Too bad, then we could make a wish,” Gerard says, and takes back his cigarette.
*
“Do you ever think me and Gerard are, I dunno, weird?” Mikey asks Frank in a gas station somewhere in Pennsylvania. The sun is shining through the window, making the inside of the store even brighter than the rows of brightly-packaged merchandise made it.
“Is that a serious question?” Frank asks through a mouthful of Twizzlers.
Mikey glares.
“Of course I think you two are fucking weirdos,” Frank replies, giving Mikey a look that shows that in Frank’s view of the world today Mikey is being weirder than usual. “It’s what I love about you, you know?”
“Not like, are we singularly weird,” Mikey says, managing to balance a bag of Doritos on top of his armful of beer and soda. “But together.”
Frank rolls his eyes as he stands on his tiptoes and peers around the shoulder-high aisles. “Do you see Toro’s Tastykakes anywhere?”
Mikey nods with his head towards the register. “Up there. Seriously, man, I need to know.”
“Like, are you two having some sort of weird fight or something?” Frank asks, finally looking directly at Mikey as he dumps his armful of junk food that’s supposed to last them a week on the counter. “Because I don’t like stepping into something blind, you know?”
“No, it’s just...” Mikey doesn’t know how to ask without sounding like some kind of weird-ass who wants to fuck his brother. Which... “Do we act like normal brothers?”
“Normal is a relative term, especially when it comes to you fuckers,” Frank says, digging the band’s crumpled combined cash out of his pocket and forking it over to the cashier, who has her painted-on eyebrow raised at them. “I mean, you two are close.”
“Weird close?” Mikey asks, casual like he doesn’t even care what answer Frank gives.
Honestly, he isn’t sure he wants to know what Frank thinks, but he sure as fuck isn’t going to ask Otter, and Ray wouldn’t be as honest.
“Well, yeah,” Frank says. He accepts their change and snags most of the light bags before Mikey can get a chance to. Mikey picks up the heavier bags filled with drinks with a scowl. “You two are... Mikey and Gerard, you know? I don’t know, I don’t have any brothers, but you two are close.”
He still doesn’t say what Mikey kind of needs for him to say out loud.
“I think it’s a little fucking weird when you kiss, though,” Frank adds casually as they walked out of the gas station.
Mikey manages to step out of the way of the heavy glass door just in time.
“You... you saw that?” he says, stepping quickly to catch up to Frank. His voice doesn’t crack at all.
“We’ve all seen it. What, are you two keeping your love affair secret or some shit?” Frank says back over his shoulder. Mikey stops, and after a moment, realizing he’s lost Mikey, Frank does too.
Mikey laughs, kind of shakily. “Yeah, our torrid love affair. Gerard’s going to write a song about it. Unicorns instead of zombies, all that shit.”
Frank grins.
Mikey pauses, but then figures, what the hell. “He’s Gerard, you know?”
“Yeah, I know,” Frank says. “I worry about him too.”
“I don’t want him to forget...”
“Mikey, Gerard is not going to forget about you,” Frank says with confidence. His brow furrows, and he starts up again hesitantly. “No matter what you do.”
“Frank,” Mikey says. “I’m not--”
Frank interrupts him. “Mikey, whatever you’re about to say, just don’t, okay?”
Mikey nods mutely.
“I don’t know, I don’t want to know, I just...” Frank scratches his head, the plastic bag in his hands bumping against him as he lowers his arm. “All I’m gonna say is, neither one of you are even approaching fucking normal, okay? But don’t get caught up in shit that you’re going to regret. Especially not when my ass is on the line, too.”
“Your ass?” Mikey says blankly.
“Dude, if you haven’t noticed, I’ve put fucking everything in this band,” Frank says, kind of motioning towards the vivid new scorpion tattooed on his neck. “We can’t fuck it up, okay? It means too much.”
Mikey nods. “Of course. I was just... Things haven’t been good, lately, you know.”
“Fuck, dude, we live in a shitty van together. I ‘ve noticed. It hasn’t exactly been a day at the waterpark for any of us, okay? Just... whatever it takes to keep Gee’s head above water, just make sure it isn’t something that’s gonna bite you on the ass later.”
“Dude, that was a lot of water metaphors,” Mikey says.
“Don’t make fun of my metaphors, I will drown your bitch ass,” Frank replies, and whacks Mikey with the bag.
“Don’t crush the chips ” they hear Ray yelling across the parking lot, and Mikey grins as Frank takes off at a sprint, clearly aiming to tackle Ray. Or makes an attempt to, anyway, as he bounces off and kind of stumbles into the van.
Mikey climbs in the van shotgun, throwing the drinks in the back while Otter fiddles with the radio.
He isn’t going to be the one to fuck this up.
*
Mikey wakes slowly, cracking his eyes open enough to see that the van is still dark. He’s curled up on his side, feet pressed into Otter’s side, cheek pressed against the seat back. He shifts a little, trying to get his head in a more comfortable position, wondering what woke him.
Ray is driving, and the radio is turned onto some shitty classic rock station, just loud enough to give them all the semblance of privacy. One of the first thing they’d all figured out about touring in a van was that silence was far worse than suffering through whatever music choice the driver made.
It’s just too intimate otherwise.
Otter is sleeping sitting up, head leaned against the window as he snores quietly. It’s a familiar sound by this point, just as familiar as Frank’s occasional soft sleepy grunts, so Mikey doesn’t think that’s what woke him.
Ray is singing along with Bob Segar about the fire down below, and then Mikey realizes what broke through his restless dreams.
A quiet, breathy whine from the back seat.
He’s heard it before. When he was younger he’d loudly, pointedly cough if Gee started up when he was in earshot, and lately he’d just roll his eyes and turn up his headphones just like any of the others, because there’s no fucking privacy anymore, but tonight, for the first time, he just lay there, blinking in the darkness, listening.
He lifts his head away from the seat, tilting his head back to lean on the armrest so he can hear better. From here, he’s close enough to hear the sound of Gerard shifting, hand moving against fabric in a tell-tale rhythmic swish.
Mikey closes his eyes and concentrates on keeping his breathing even, like he’s asleep. If he concentrates on his own breathing, then he isn’t thinking about how flushed Gerard probably is, just a few feet away, hand wrapped around his dick.
Gerard makes another noise, muffled like it’s through a bitten lip, and Mikey kind of stops breathing. He’s hard, but doesn’t allow his hands to move. If he so much as cups himself, he knows he won’t be able to stop.
There are lines, he knows, and jacking off to the sound of his brother getting off crosses them all.
He clenches his fists, desperate to reach down and do something, anything to get himself off. He’s at the edge of a precipice now, and all he wants to fucking do is tumble off it, to hell with everything else. Gerard lets out another low whine, and Mikey can hear him speed up, can hear him shifting his hips and the quiet wet sound of his hand against his cock.
Mikey squeezes his eyes even more shut, because if he opens them, just twists his body a little, arches his neck just right, then he could see, and if he twisted his body just a little more he could press up against the back of the seat, rub against it like a fucking horny teenager.
Gerard lets out another moan, quiet enough that Mikey thinks he doesn’t even realize he’s made a sound, and then a sharp inhale, exhale, and he’s done. Mikey tries to ignore the throbbing need in his own dick and listens to Gerard rustle through the garbage on the floor for a napkin, and then he concentrates on his own breathing.
He can hear Gee roll over, letting out a satisfied sigh as he settles for sleep. Ray is still singing along with the radio, and Otter hasn’t budged.
Mikey lays there, eyes tightly shut and trying to get the sound of his brother’s soft sighs out of his head enough to sleep himself.
He remembers what Frank said about not fucking up.
He doesn’t reach down.
*
Mikey starts spending more time with the other bands.
It’s impossible to avoid his own band, and he doesn’t even want to, really, but something’s got to give.
He’s sitting on a curb somewhere - he thinks they’re somewhere west of the Mississippi, but when he tried to ask a guitar tech earlier he got jumbled up on all the S’s and just laughed his ass off - and trying to remember where he left his lighter when Ray sits down heavily beside him.
“Mikey Way,” Ray says in a careful, grave tone that lets Mikey know he isn’t the only one drunk off his ass tonight. “Mikey Way, where have you been?”
“Around,” Mikey says. “You can’t miss me.”
It doesn’t come out quite like he means, and he laughs.
Ray reaches out and pulls up on the strand of hair Mikey has carefully arranged under his glasses, skewing them. Mikey blinks rapidly as the world explodes into triplicate, then shoves at the bridge of his glasses to revert the world back to nice hazy normality.
They sit in silence for a few minutes, then Ray starts to fidget like he’s got something important to say.
“It’s easier when you help,” Ray finally comes out with. He sounds strangely serious, and Mikey holds in his giggles and tries to focus. “You’re the best with Gee, you know that.”
“He likes you, too,” Mikey assures Ray, patting his thigh.
“You don’t get to do that,” Ray says, voice sharpening in pitch. “Mikey, you aren’t allowed.”
“To what?”
“To fucking ignore your brother,” Ray snaps. “I can’t worry about you both, okay? You have to fix whatever is wrong, because you’re fucking up.”
Mikey stares at a few scraggly weeds growing up through a crack in the pavement. “I’ve been trying to not fuck up,” he says quietly.
“It’s not working,” Ray says, then shakes his head. “Sorry, man, I didn’t mean to... I’m just tired, you know?”
“Me too,” Mikey replies. “I’ll... I’ll try, okay?”
“That’s all we can do,” Ray says, smiling as he pats Mikey on the shoulder.
*
For once, it’s a motel night. They’ve pulled into a crappy run-down motel that Mikey suspects also rents rooms by the hour, but it’s an actual bed and shower, and really not any sketchier than any of the other places they’ve been sleeping lately.
The other guys have already ran (and skipped, in Frank’s case) across the parking lot to their assigned rooms - Ray nudged Mikey with his elbow before he left - but Gerard had been writing intently in his notebook and Mikey decided to hang around.
The sun is bright in the sky and they aren’t due at the venue for another hour and a half, and Mikey is just buzzed enough that he thinks this is a good idea and just sober enough that he thinks he won’t fuck up his words so much that Gerard will be able to purposefully misunderstand him.
“Gee,” he says, before he can change his mind and go racing after Ray and Frank and Otter. He can still see them laughing outside a room, twisting a number on the door around. “Gee, I want to say something.”
“I’m not stopping you,” Gerard says offhandedly, brow furrowed as he stares at the notebook propped against his knee.
“It’s important,” Mikey says.
Gerard closes the notebook - Mikey catches a glimpse of a drawing of himself sleeping, glasses crooked, in the margin - and sits there, looking for all the world like he thinks Mikey’s about to quit the fucking band or something.
“I’ve been..” Mikey starts, and realizes he doesn’t have the first fucking clue how to say this. He takes a deep breath and says, “I think about you all the time.”
Gerard makes a face, like he’s about to say something stupid and joking, so Mikey talks quickly before he loses his courage. “Like how I’m not supposed to think about you, Gee. I don’t know what to do anymore.”
Gerard stays silent. Mikey thinks he’s broken everything, that he’s crossed the line and there’s no going back. He’s lost his brother, and he can’t do a single thing to fix it.
He’s frozen, and he can’t mumble out the apologies, the disclaimers, anything to make things right again. He stares at Gerard, who looks vaguely shell-shocked, as though Mikey has shattered through his medicated haze.
Mikey’s almost worked up the courage to run when Gerard touches his hand, lightly. “I thought it was just me.” He sounds almost as dazed as he looks.
“N-no,” Mikey says. The words should ease the tension between them, but instead it feels even more like he’s waiting for the other shoe to drop. Like something terrible will happen if they finish this conversation.
“I felt... Remember when I kissed you?” Gerard stubs out his cigarette hard enough to crumple the filter. “I couldn’t get that out of my head for weeks. Sometimes I still can’t.”
“Me too,” Mikey mumbles. Now that it’s in the open, the words should come easier, but instead he feels as though he can’t say anything. That anything he admits to will ruin the delicate balancing act they’re performing.
Gerard looks like he’s gearing up for a rant, like he’s going to spill out everything Mikey’s been wondering and hoping and worrying about, and Mikey doesn’t... he can’t listen.
Out in the open, it feels more like a mistake than it ever did in his own head.
“Gerard,” he says, reaching out. Touching Gerard’s hand. It feels natural, once he’s done it, and less like he’s with a stranger.
“Mikey,” Gerard replies, and turns his hand under Mikey’s, tangles their fingers together. “Mikey.”
Mikey thinks Gerard has something to say, but the words are getting caught up before they can come out. “Gee, I don’t know what to think anymore.”
“Are you okay?” Gerard says seriously.
Mikey can’t help the laugh that escapes. He’s asked Gerard that countless times, and sometimes Gerard is honest with him. Mikey thinks he should be honest now. “I don’t fucking know, Gee. I... I miss how things used to be.”
“Between us?”
“No... yes... I mean, everything. I miss being home,” Mikey says. “I love everything about what we’re doing, I just... I miss home.”
Gerard squeezes his hand tighter. “Me too,” he says quietly.
“I don’t want to... I don’t want to ever not have you,” Mikey says. “I don’t want us to fuck things up, not now. We might actually make it, Gee, and it’s terrifying.”
“Everything’s terrifying?” Gerard carefully asks.
“You aren’t,” Mikey says. He strokes his thumb lightly over the sensitive skin of Gerard’s wrist, their fingers still entwined. Gerard shudders. “But this... this is.”
With his free hand, Gerard reaches up and touches Mikey’s cheek, soft as brushing against a spiderweb. Mikey tilts his head into the touch. Outside, the sun is bright on the faded grey pavement.
And Mikey does the only thing he can.
Gerard’s mouth is soft against his, and he bumps his glasses awkwardly against Gerard’s face in the transition from foreheads touching to kissing, but it’s still closer to home than he’s felt in ages.
Mikey feels the exhilarating rush of lust that tells him this hasn’t all been a fluke, that this is what he’s been wanting, and he doesn’t even think how bizarre it is to have Gerard’s tongue tentatively exploring his mouth. He can’t remember his doubts, he can barely focus enough to shift closer.
And when they break apart, he knows what Gerard has decided from the faraway look in his eyes.
They sit in silence for a moment. Mikey watches a family in swimsuits walk across the parking lot to the fenced-in pool area. Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Gerard’s hands shaking as he lights a cigarette.
“Don’t say it,” Mikey says. He hasn’t sorted through his own thoughts, he doesn’t want Gerard’s muddling his up.
Gerard’s never been able to keep silent. “We can’t do this, Mikey.”
“I know, just...” Mikey doesn’t know how to say that he needs Gerard, he needs this to stay pure. He’s fucked up way more friendships than Gerard ever has through ill-advised hookups, and this doesn’t feel like that at all.
Instead, it feels like a defining point. A line that, if they cross it, there’s no turning back from. It’s like when Mikey watched Billy Corgan on stage and could picture Gerard up there instead, himself jamming away beside him. It’s like when they walked into Geoff’s studio.
“We can’t ruin... God, Mikey, I love you too much for this,” Gerard says. His eyes are clearer than they’ve been for a while. “We do this, and we fuck things up for good. Not the tour or the band, but us, and I couldn’t live with that.”
Mikey realizes they’re still holding hands, and he pulls his hand away. Gerard lets go almost reluctantly.
“This isn’t the fucking Flowers in the Attic,” Gerard says, waving his other hand around. Ash drifts down from his cigarette, and Mikey rubs it into the seat, grey blurring into grey. “That’s not who we are.”
Mikey nods, eyes still trained on the seat. It’s impossible to tell where the ash had been smeared in now, even though he’s only blinked a few times.
“Mikey, fuck, look at me,” Gerard says, and clumsily grabs Mikey’s chin. “Mikey, this is us.”
“You’re my brother,” Mikey says a little more fiercely than he intends. A little more possessive.
“Always will be,” Gerard says. “And that’s why we can’t fuck up, not now. Gotta think about the future.”
The future is strangely indistinct to Mikey, as always, looming but indistinct and surreal. Most of the time he figures the future has no real place for him, even when Frank talks about how this band was going to fucking make it big and Brian is there at the edge of everything telling them how much goddamn potential they have.
When Gee says it, though, Mikey can almost see himself standing on a stage playing for thousands of kids screaming their name. He can almost see all those things they are holding out for.
“The future,” Mikey agrees quietly. If he extends his pinky out, he would be touching Gerard’s thigh. His fingers are grimy, and he holds his hand still.
He knows Gerard’s right. Once they get away from this van, once they can breathe and stretch out and see their family again, Mikey thinks things could be normal again. They’re living outside of reality in the constantly-shifting world of touring, and his brother and his band are his only true constants.
He knows Gerard’s right, but it doesn’t make it any easier to pull away.
“We should go inside,” he says finally. “We get actual beds tonight.”
“Yeah, the guys are probably waiting for us.”
They climb out of the van, stumbling and stretching awkwardly. Gerard shoves a pair of sunglasses on, and Mikey follows him across the parking lot, listening to the kids splash in the motel pool, shrieking happily in the summer sun.
*
If sometimes Mikey misses something that never happened... If he maybe feels a strange disconnected ache, like he imagines a phantom limb would feel...
He does his best to ignore it. For Gerard’s sake.
For his own.
Prompt: Gerard/Mikey in the early MCR days, being on the road and in the van and dealing with UST between the two
Pairing: Mikey/Gerard
Rating: R
Word count: 5800
AN: My mcr4u fic for velvet_tuberose! So many thanks to tangleofthorns and nova33 and chmclfairytales for being utterly amazing and helping SO much. <333
“We’ll be fine,” Gerard tells Mikey in the jittery, endless minutes they’re killing in his basement room, waiting to leave. The tour looms ahead of them, the longest stretch they’ve ever attempted.
Mikey kind of sees the tour as a strange, blank stretch of highway, punctuated with shows that he’s kind of sure he’s going to fuck up. It’s terrifying, but exhilarating at the same time. He’s seen so many people from Eyeball and the scene embark on the same journey, Mikey is kind of unable to believe it’s his turn now.
“Of course we will,” he says to Gerard, patting the side of his bag to make sure he can feel the lump of his toothbrush still stuck inside.
“Really,” Gerard says. He leans over and wraps his arms around Mikey, leaning his head on Mikey’s shoulder. Mikey tilts his head so that their temples are pressed together.
“You’re going to poke me in the eye,” Gerard says after a minute, prodding at Mikey’s glasses.
“You’re the one draped all over me,” Mikey shoots back, grinning as Gerard gives him a smacking kiss. He swipes his sleeve across his face with an exaggerated look of disgust, and goes to make sure that his toothbrush hasn’t made a bid for freedom for one last time.
“It’s going to work out fine,” Gerard says again, and Mikey lets him think that it’s to reassure Mikey, not himself.
*
“That was the wrong fucking way,” Frank bitches as he leans over Mikey to peer out the window. “We were supposed to go east.”
“How the hell am I supposed to know which way is east?” Otter grumbles, slowing down enough that the other cars kept swerving around them. “Fuck, we’re going to die on the goddamn interstate.”
“I don’t even think this is the right exit,” Ray says, squinting at the directions. “Is that supposed to be Exit 88 or 68?”
“I think you’re looking at it upside down,” Mikey offers.
“I vote we never let Gerard write down the directions again,” Ray announces as he flips the paper over again.
“I did a kickass job with the directions,” Gerard says suddenly. Mikey rolls his eyes, and Gerard prods at him, scrunching his nose.
Mikey likes being completely used to one person in the van, at least. He’s known the other guys a while, but he can’t imagine yet being as comfortable with their every habit like he is with Gerard.
“Fuck, dude, I thought you were out!” Frank exclaims. “If you did such a kickass job, what the hell does it say?”
Ray holds out the paper and Gerard scrutinizes it. “Exit 86!”
Mikey sometimes thinks he wants to stay like this forever.
*
Some days, when it’s hot and sticky and the AC isn’t blowing strong enough to cool off a van packed with too much stuff and too many bodies, Mikey hates his band.
He hates Frank’s stupid laugh when he takes control of the radio and makes them listen to fucking Ace of Bass out of cruelty, he hates Otter’s annoyed grunts and bitching, and he hates that Ray has somehow perfected the art of leaning back in his seat and losing himself in his headphones, fingers twitching as he plays a phantom guitar.
In the times when he’s seriously considering shucking off his sweaty black jeans and the t-shirt that’s sticking to his spine in awkward bunches, and maybe finding some duct tape to slap over Frank’s mouth (He knows there’s some back with the gear), he also hates Gerard, who is bundled in a fucking hoodie and snoozing against the window like it’s the most comfortable he’s ever been.
Gerard wouldn’t complain if Mikey used him as a pillow, but the thought of leaning against a ninety-eight degree pillow is unbearable. They’re somewhere in the south, and the sticky heat seems to creep through the metal exterior of the van.
Mikey shifts again, trying to slouch down enough in his seat to be comfortable, shoving Little Debbie wrappers and a few empty beer and coke cans away with his feet to make some room.
“Stop it, Mikey,” Gerard mumbles sleepily beside him.
“Fuck you,” Mikey replies, wriggling a little. Two nights ago - somewhere in Virginia, he thinks, though he isn’t sure - he’d discovered the holy grail of comfortable sleeping positions, but now it feels like his legs have somehow stretched and are too gangly to fit. It doesn’t matter that he and Gerard have wrangled the coveted backseat, because with the stupid box of merch and the garbage piling up on the floor the van is feeling more and more cramped.
Mikey knows that the van is the same size as it was when they left, and that if anything they’ve gained room from selling some of the merch and eating most of the food, but he’s hot and cranky as fuck and just wants to be at the venue already, where even if there’s no air there’ll be a fan or something and maybe even an eager girl willing to buy him a cold beer.
There have been more of those lately, those hungry-eyed girls and boys.
He shifts around again, trying to position himself where a gust of air from the vents will hit him, and thinks that home really is fucking far away.
The people - his friends and family and everyone outside of his band and the people they’re touring with - are reduced to phone calls and, when he can get to the internet, emails filled with silly details of their lives. Mikey’s luckier than everyone else in the band because he has Gerard here with him, within arm’s reach. He isn’t sure what he’d do without him.
The longer they’re on the road, the stranger normal lives seem to Mikey.
Now, normal just looks like his brother passed out against a van window and days with ringing ears and nights filled with screaming kids.
*
It’s far from the first time their van has broken down, but it’s the first time that Otter hasn’t instinctively figured out what was wrong with it.
Mikey leans against the guardrail, tapping his fingers on the rough metal to the tune of “Sweet and Tender Hooligan,” watching Otter swear and bang around under the hood and occasionally jerk his hand back with a quietly yelped “Ow ”
Ray hovers nearby, offering suggestions and helping Otter try to analyze the exact noise the van had made before dying. They seem to have narrowed it down to either the radiator, the water pump or the looming possibility of a cracked header, which Otter keeps fretting about as he uselessly re-checks the plugs in an attempt to find a cheap solution to the problem.
Mikey doesn’t even offer to help. Any mechanical knowledge he possesses is useless in the face of his inability to actually fix things, and Frank got a fretful look at the thought of Mikey rooting around the engine with its sharp hot bits of metal and moveable parts.
Gerard stumbles out of the van, hair rumpled and vivid red impression-marks etching across his cheek from where he was sleeping. He blearily blinks, looking around, and finally says, “Did we break down?”
“No, we decided that it was the perfect time for a fucking oil change,” Frank grumbles. He’s sprawled sideways in the passenger seat, feet swinging out the open door, banging against the van rhythmically.
Gerard rubs at his eyes, getting the sleep out. “Bite me.”
“Did you seriously sleep through all that?” Ray asks, leaning around so he can look at Gerard from around the open hood. “It was pretty gnarly for a minute there.”
Mikey squints into the sun and weighs sight versus shades. He watches jealously as Gerard slips on his sunglasses and stumbles to the fence on unsteady legs.
“You need to get out of the van more,” Mikey chides.
“You need to shut your face,” Gerard mumbles, leaning against Mikey and surveying the scene. “Is that my shirt Otter’s using?”
Mikey looks back at the crumpled cloth Otter’s using and has to concede that it does look like the shirt Gerard had been wearing for the past few days. “But now it’s sacrificing itself for the good of the band,” he offers.
“Plus now we won’t have to smell it anymore. That thing was getting rank,” Frank adds.
“I love that shirt,” Gerard says. Mikey gives him a little hug.
They lean against the guardrail together until Otter triumphantly shouts, “It’s a hose ”
“A hose ” cheers Frank. “They’re cheap ”
Mikey laughs as Gerard joins Frank in a celebration dance, and then joins in as Frank grabs his hand.
They miss soundcheck, but make it to the venue in time to perform.
Gerard grabs Mikey and whirls him around during Honey. Mikey just shakes his head and grins down at his bass as Gerard moves onto Frank.
*
“Do you ever think about not making it?” Gerard asks, staring at his beer bottle.
“Like, the band?” Mikey says carefully.
The pause before Gerard’s answer is telling. “Yeah. The band.”
It isn’t a strange topic for Gerard, not by a long shot, but not one Mikey wants to think about. “No,” he lies.
“Oh,” Gerard says, tilting his head back. There’s nothing interesting above them, just dull grey ceiling. Mikey wonders if things would be better if their surroundings were blue or green or something that wasn’t fucking grey. He doubts it, but it’s nice to have something concrete to lay his blame on.
Mikey leans over to peck Gerard on the cheek, because his brother thrives on physical contact. Too much time alone and he gets too lost in his own head. Gerard turns to say something in the last second, and Mikey’s kiss lands on Gerard’s parted lips.
It’s the same as every other kiss they’ve shared, a lifetime of affection and closeness, except for the pitfall-feeling in Mikey’s stomach. He leans back, probably too abruptly, and Gerard ruffles his hair.
“You always make me feel better,” Gerard says.
Mikey takes both his hands to his hair, trying to find the flyaways more out of habit than actual concern, but it does a lot to restore a sense of normalcy to him. He feels unsettled, the way he can still taste Gerard’s shitty beer on his mouth and his heart is hammering in his chest, but he just smiles and tells his brother that they should go try to find the van soon, if they don’t want Ray to leave them.
“He’d never do that,” Gerard says. “We’re important.”
“Exactly,” Mikey says, and hopes that Gerard gets it.
*
Mikey thinks maybe his reaction to the kiss was a fluke.
Gerard doesn’t act any differently; if anything, he’s pushing them closer. Mikey finds himself sharing a bench seat in the van with his brother more and more often, waking up with Gerard’s head or feet pressed into his side, fending off drunken, adrenaline-laced post-show cuddles.
It’s kind of pathetic that he’s still thinking about the kiss at all, really. It happened a week ago, and Mikey’s laying awake and he can’t stop thinking about the way it felt like a first kiss.
They’re crashing in someone’s living room. Otter has disappeared like a fucking ninja, probably with one of the girls from the show. Mikey can’t blame him, really, though he hasn’t been tempted by any of them - none has been quite right.
Ray grumbles and rolls over and kind of whacks Mikey in the face with his hair, and that’s when Mikey decides it’s time to go outside for a smoke.
The world is still pleasantly blurry from the party a few hours ago, and he almost stumbles into Gerard. Gerard blends into the nighttime, a dark blur against their trailer, the glowing cherry of his cigarette the only thing that seperates him from the shadows.
“Fuck, Gee, you scared me,” Mikey manages, leaning unsteadily against the trailer and reaching for Gerard’s cigarette. “I thought you were inside.”
“Nope,” Gerard replies. He draws his fingers back as Mikey takes his cigarette. “Couldn’t sleep.”
Mikey laughs. “Tonight was fucking awesome.”
“Yeah. Yeah, it was great.” Gerard rests his head back against the trailer. The careless and artful graffiti is just a bunch of dark blurs, but Mikey’s memorized it all and knows that Gerard’s hair is obscuring a skull-and-crossbones that Frank had added in Philly.
“Hey,” Mikey says, grabbing at Gerard’s hand, which is tapping an arrhythmic beat on the thin metal. “You alright?”
Gerard draws in a sharp breath. He’s standing stock-still, and Mikey kind of freezes, feeling his own heartbeat in their entwined hands. He’s staring at his brother, at his parted lips and the strange look in his bloodshot eyes, and Mikey can’t do anything, can’t move, can’t speak.
The look on Gerard’s face could mean nothing and it could mean everything, and Mikey doesn’t even know if he wants to find out which.
“Sometimes,” Gerard says finally, as though he’s just remembered the question. His hand is slick with sweat wrapped around Mikey’s, and Mikey just grips tighter. “And sometimes...”
“The whole fucking sky is falling,” Mikey says quietly, thinking of their mother saying the same thing to Gerard a thousand times during their teenage melodramatics.
Mikey lets go of Gerard’s hand.
Gerard lets out a quiet, sarcastic laugh, shoulders shaking against the trailer in a way that makes Mikey think of sobs, and says, “Sometimes I think it might be.”
Mikey wants to say something, anything to make Gerard happy, but his own brain is fuzzy enough that the best he can do is, “There are a lot of stars out.”
Gerard gives him a sideways glance, then looks up at a sky clearer and brighter than they’d ever seen in Jersey. “Yeah, there are.”
“None of them are falling.”
“Too bad, then we could make a wish,” Gerard says, and takes back his cigarette.
*
“Do you ever think me and Gerard are, I dunno, weird?” Mikey asks Frank in a gas station somewhere in Pennsylvania. The sun is shining through the window, making the inside of the store even brighter than the rows of brightly-packaged merchandise made it.
“Is that a serious question?” Frank asks through a mouthful of Twizzlers.
Mikey glares.
“Of course I think you two are fucking weirdos,” Frank replies, giving Mikey a look that shows that in Frank’s view of the world today Mikey is being weirder than usual. “It’s what I love about you, you know?”
“Not like, are we singularly weird,” Mikey says, managing to balance a bag of Doritos on top of his armful of beer and soda. “But together.”
Frank rolls his eyes as he stands on his tiptoes and peers around the shoulder-high aisles. “Do you see Toro’s Tastykakes anywhere?”
Mikey nods with his head towards the register. “Up there. Seriously, man, I need to know.”
“Like, are you two having some sort of weird fight or something?” Frank asks, finally looking directly at Mikey as he dumps his armful of junk food that’s supposed to last them a week on the counter. “Because I don’t like stepping into something blind, you know?”
“No, it’s just...” Mikey doesn’t know how to ask without sounding like some kind of weird-ass who wants to fuck his brother. Which... “Do we act like normal brothers?”
“Normal is a relative term, especially when it comes to you fuckers,” Frank says, digging the band’s crumpled combined cash out of his pocket and forking it over to the cashier, who has her painted-on eyebrow raised at them. “I mean, you two are close.”
“Weird close?” Mikey asks, casual like he doesn’t even care what answer Frank gives.
Honestly, he isn’t sure he wants to know what Frank thinks, but he sure as fuck isn’t going to ask Otter, and Ray wouldn’t be as honest.
“Well, yeah,” Frank says. He accepts their change and snags most of the light bags before Mikey can get a chance to. Mikey picks up the heavier bags filled with drinks with a scowl. “You two are... Mikey and Gerard, you know? I don’t know, I don’t have any brothers, but you two are close.”
He still doesn’t say what Mikey kind of needs for him to say out loud.
“I think it’s a little fucking weird when you kiss, though,” Frank adds casually as they walked out of the gas station.
Mikey manages to step out of the way of the heavy glass door just in time.
“You... you saw that?” he says, stepping quickly to catch up to Frank. His voice doesn’t crack at all.
“We’ve all seen it. What, are you two keeping your love affair secret or some shit?” Frank says back over his shoulder. Mikey stops, and after a moment, realizing he’s lost Mikey, Frank does too.
Mikey laughs, kind of shakily. “Yeah, our torrid love affair. Gerard’s going to write a song about it. Unicorns instead of zombies, all that shit.”
Frank grins.
Mikey pauses, but then figures, what the hell. “He’s Gerard, you know?”
“Yeah, I know,” Frank says. “I worry about him too.”
“I don’t want him to forget...”
“Mikey, Gerard is not going to forget about you,” Frank says with confidence. His brow furrows, and he starts up again hesitantly. “No matter what you do.”
“Frank,” Mikey says. “I’m not--”
Frank interrupts him. “Mikey, whatever you’re about to say, just don’t, okay?”
Mikey nods mutely.
“I don’t know, I don’t want to know, I just...” Frank scratches his head, the plastic bag in his hands bumping against him as he lowers his arm. “All I’m gonna say is, neither one of you are even approaching fucking normal, okay? But don’t get caught up in shit that you’re going to regret. Especially not when my ass is on the line, too.”
“Your ass?” Mikey says blankly.
“Dude, if you haven’t noticed, I’ve put fucking everything in this band,” Frank says, kind of motioning towards the vivid new scorpion tattooed on his neck. “We can’t fuck it up, okay? It means too much.”
Mikey nods. “Of course. I was just... Things haven’t been good, lately, you know.”
“Fuck, dude, we live in a shitty van together. I ‘ve noticed. It hasn’t exactly been a day at the waterpark for any of us, okay? Just... whatever it takes to keep Gee’s head above water, just make sure it isn’t something that’s gonna bite you on the ass later.”
“Dude, that was a lot of water metaphors,” Mikey says.
“Don’t make fun of my metaphors, I will drown your bitch ass,” Frank replies, and whacks Mikey with the bag.
“Don’t crush the chips ” they hear Ray yelling across the parking lot, and Mikey grins as Frank takes off at a sprint, clearly aiming to tackle Ray. Or makes an attempt to, anyway, as he bounces off and kind of stumbles into the van.
Mikey climbs in the van shotgun, throwing the drinks in the back while Otter fiddles with the radio.
He isn’t going to be the one to fuck this up.
*
Mikey wakes slowly, cracking his eyes open enough to see that the van is still dark. He’s curled up on his side, feet pressed into Otter’s side, cheek pressed against the seat back. He shifts a little, trying to get his head in a more comfortable position, wondering what woke him.
Ray is driving, and the radio is turned onto some shitty classic rock station, just loud enough to give them all the semblance of privacy. One of the first thing they’d all figured out about touring in a van was that silence was far worse than suffering through whatever music choice the driver made.
It’s just too intimate otherwise.
Otter is sleeping sitting up, head leaned against the window as he snores quietly. It’s a familiar sound by this point, just as familiar as Frank’s occasional soft sleepy grunts, so Mikey doesn’t think that’s what woke him.
Ray is singing along with Bob Segar about the fire down below, and then Mikey realizes what broke through his restless dreams.
A quiet, breathy whine from the back seat.
He’s heard it before. When he was younger he’d loudly, pointedly cough if Gee started up when he was in earshot, and lately he’d just roll his eyes and turn up his headphones just like any of the others, because there’s no fucking privacy anymore, but tonight, for the first time, he just lay there, blinking in the darkness, listening.
He lifts his head away from the seat, tilting his head back to lean on the armrest so he can hear better. From here, he’s close enough to hear the sound of Gerard shifting, hand moving against fabric in a tell-tale rhythmic swish.
Mikey closes his eyes and concentrates on keeping his breathing even, like he’s asleep. If he concentrates on his own breathing, then he isn’t thinking about how flushed Gerard probably is, just a few feet away, hand wrapped around his dick.
Gerard makes another noise, muffled like it’s through a bitten lip, and Mikey kind of stops breathing. He’s hard, but doesn’t allow his hands to move. If he so much as cups himself, he knows he won’t be able to stop.
There are lines, he knows, and jacking off to the sound of his brother getting off crosses them all.
He clenches his fists, desperate to reach down and do something, anything to get himself off. He’s at the edge of a precipice now, and all he wants to fucking do is tumble off it, to hell with everything else. Gerard lets out another low whine, and Mikey can hear him speed up, can hear him shifting his hips and the quiet wet sound of his hand against his cock.
Mikey squeezes his eyes even more shut, because if he opens them, just twists his body a little, arches his neck just right, then he could see, and if he twisted his body just a little more he could press up against the back of the seat, rub against it like a fucking horny teenager.
Gerard lets out another moan, quiet enough that Mikey thinks he doesn’t even realize he’s made a sound, and then a sharp inhale, exhale, and he’s done. Mikey tries to ignore the throbbing need in his own dick and listens to Gerard rustle through the garbage on the floor for a napkin, and then he concentrates on his own breathing.
He can hear Gee roll over, letting out a satisfied sigh as he settles for sleep. Ray is still singing along with the radio, and Otter hasn’t budged.
Mikey lays there, eyes tightly shut and trying to get the sound of his brother’s soft sighs out of his head enough to sleep himself.
He remembers what Frank said about not fucking up.
He doesn’t reach down.
*
Mikey starts spending more time with the other bands.
It’s impossible to avoid his own band, and he doesn’t even want to, really, but something’s got to give.
He’s sitting on a curb somewhere - he thinks they’re somewhere west of the Mississippi, but when he tried to ask a guitar tech earlier he got jumbled up on all the S’s and just laughed his ass off - and trying to remember where he left his lighter when Ray sits down heavily beside him.
“Mikey Way,” Ray says in a careful, grave tone that lets Mikey know he isn’t the only one drunk off his ass tonight. “Mikey Way, where have you been?”
“Around,” Mikey says. “You can’t miss me.”
It doesn’t come out quite like he means, and he laughs.
Ray reaches out and pulls up on the strand of hair Mikey has carefully arranged under his glasses, skewing them. Mikey blinks rapidly as the world explodes into triplicate, then shoves at the bridge of his glasses to revert the world back to nice hazy normality.
They sit in silence for a few minutes, then Ray starts to fidget like he’s got something important to say.
“It’s easier when you help,” Ray finally comes out with. He sounds strangely serious, and Mikey holds in his giggles and tries to focus. “You’re the best with Gee, you know that.”
“He likes you, too,” Mikey assures Ray, patting his thigh.
“You don’t get to do that,” Ray says, voice sharpening in pitch. “Mikey, you aren’t allowed.”
“To what?”
“To fucking ignore your brother,” Ray snaps. “I can’t worry about you both, okay? You have to fix whatever is wrong, because you’re fucking up.”
Mikey stares at a few scraggly weeds growing up through a crack in the pavement. “I’ve been trying to not fuck up,” he says quietly.
“It’s not working,” Ray says, then shakes his head. “Sorry, man, I didn’t mean to... I’m just tired, you know?”
“Me too,” Mikey replies. “I’ll... I’ll try, okay?”
“That’s all we can do,” Ray says, smiling as he pats Mikey on the shoulder.
*
For once, it’s a motel night. They’ve pulled into a crappy run-down motel that Mikey suspects also rents rooms by the hour, but it’s an actual bed and shower, and really not any sketchier than any of the other places they’ve been sleeping lately.
The other guys have already ran (and skipped, in Frank’s case) across the parking lot to their assigned rooms - Ray nudged Mikey with his elbow before he left - but Gerard had been writing intently in his notebook and Mikey decided to hang around.
The sun is bright in the sky and they aren’t due at the venue for another hour and a half, and Mikey is just buzzed enough that he thinks this is a good idea and just sober enough that he thinks he won’t fuck up his words so much that Gerard will be able to purposefully misunderstand him.
“Gee,” he says, before he can change his mind and go racing after Ray and Frank and Otter. He can still see them laughing outside a room, twisting a number on the door around. “Gee, I want to say something.”
“I’m not stopping you,” Gerard says offhandedly, brow furrowed as he stares at the notebook propped against his knee.
“It’s important,” Mikey says.
Gerard closes the notebook - Mikey catches a glimpse of a drawing of himself sleeping, glasses crooked, in the margin - and sits there, looking for all the world like he thinks Mikey’s about to quit the fucking band or something.
“I’ve been..” Mikey starts, and realizes he doesn’t have the first fucking clue how to say this. He takes a deep breath and says, “I think about you all the time.”
Gerard makes a face, like he’s about to say something stupid and joking, so Mikey talks quickly before he loses his courage. “Like how I’m not supposed to think about you, Gee. I don’t know what to do anymore.”
Gerard stays silent. Mikey thinks he’s broken everything, that he’s crossed the line and there’s no going back. He’s lost his brother, and he can’t do a single thing to fix it.
He’s frozen, and he can’t mumble out the apologies, the disclaimers, anything to make things right again. He stares at Gerard, who looks vaguely shell-shocked, as though Mikey has shattered through his medicated haze.
Mikey’s almost worked up the courage to run when Gerard touches his hand, lightly. “I thought it was just me.” He sounds almost as dazed as he looks.
“N-no,” Mikey says. The words should ease the tension between them, but instead it feels even more like he’s waiting for the other shoe to drop. Like something terrible will happen if they finish this conversation.
“I felt... Remember when I kissed you?” Gerard stubs out his cigarette hard enough to crumple the filter. “I couldn’t get that out of my head for weeks. Sometimes I still can’t.”
“Me too,” Mikey mumbles. Now that it’s in the open, the words should come easier, but instead he feels as though he can’t say anything. That anything he admits to will ruin the delicate balancing act they’re performing.
Gerard looks like he’s gearing up for a rant, like he’s going to spill out everything Mikey’s been wondering and hoping and worrying about, and Mikey doesn’t... he can’t listen.
Out in the open, it feels more like a mistake than it ever did in his own head.
“Gerard,” he says, reaching out. Touching Gerard’s hand. It feels natural, once he’s done it, and less like he’s with a stranger.
“Mikey,” Gerard replies, and turns his hand under Mikey’s, tangles their fingers together. “Mikey.”
Mikey thinks Gerard has something to say, but the words are getting caught up before they can come out. “Gee, I don’t know what to think anymore.”
“Are you okay?” Gerard says seriously.
Mikey can’t help the laugh that escapes. He’s asked Gerard that countless times, and sometimes Gerard is honest with him. Mikey thinks he should be honest now. “I don’t fucking know, Gee. I... I miss how things used to be.”
“Between us?”
“No... yes... I mean, everything. I miss being home,” Mikey says. “I love everything about what we’re doing, I just... I miss home.”
Gerard squeezes his hand tighter. “Me too,” he says quietly.
“I don’t want to... I don’t want to ever not have you,” Mikey says. “I don’t want us to fuck things up, not now. We might actually make it, Gee, and it’s terrifying.”
“Everything’s terrifying?” Gerard carefully asks.
“You aren’t,” Mikey says. He strokes his thumb lightly over the sensitive skin of Gerard’s wrist, their fingers still entwined. Gerard shudders. “But this... this is.”
With his free hand, Gerard reaches up and touches Mikey’s cheek, soft as brushing against a spiderweb. Mikey tilts his head into the touch. Outside, the sun is bright on the faded grey pavement.
And Mikey does the only thing he can.
Gerard’s mouth is soft against his, and he bumps his glasses awkwardly against Gerard’s face in the transition from foreheads touching to kissing, but it’s still closer to home than he’s felt in ages.
Mikey feels the exhilarating rush of lust that tells him this hasn’t all been a fluke, that this is what he’s been wanting, and he doesn’t even think how bizarre it is to have Gerard’s tongue tentatively exploring his mouth. He can’t remember his doubts, he can barely focus enough to shift closer.
And when they break apart, he knows what Gerard has decided from the faraway look in his eyes.
They sit in silence for a moment. Mikey watches a family in swimsuits walk across the parking lot to the fenced-in pool area. Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Gerard’s hands shaking as he lights a cigarette.
“Don’t say it,” Mikey says. He hasn’t sorted through his own thoughts, he doesn’t want Gerard’s muddling his up.
Gerard’s never been able to keep silent. “We can’t do this, Mikey.”
“I know, just...” Mikey doesn’t know how to say that he needs Gerard, he needs this to stay pure. He’s fucked up way more friendships than Gerard ever has through ill-advised hookups, and this doesn’t feel like that at all.
Instead, it feels like a defining point. A line that, if they cross it, there’s no turning back from. It’s like when Mikey watched Billy Corgan on stage and could picture Gerard up there instead, himself jamming away beside him. It’s like when they walked into Geoff’s studio.
“We can’t ruin... God, Mikey, I love you too much for this,” Gerard says. His eyes are clearer than they’ve been for a while. “We do this, and we fuck things up for good. Not the tour or the band, but us, and I couldn’t live with that.”
Mikey realizes they’re still holding hands, and he pulls his hand away. Gerard lets go almost reluctantly.
“This isn’t the fucking Flowers in the Attic,” Gerard says, waving his other hand around. Ash drifts down from his cigarette, and Mikey rubs it into the seat, grey blurring into grey. “That’s not who we are.”
Mikey nods, eyes still trained on the seat. It’s impossible to tell where the ash had been smeared in now, even though he’s only blinked a few times.
“Mikey, fuck, look at me,” Gerard says, and clumsily grabs Mikey’s chin. “Mikey, this is us.”
“You’re my brother,” Mikey says a little more fiercely than he intends. A little more possessive.
“Always will be,” Gerard says. “And that’s why we can’t fuck up, not now. Gotta think about the future.”
The future is strangely indistinct to Mikey, as always, looming but indistinct and surreal. Most of the time he figures the future has no real place for him, even when Frank talks about how this band was going to fucking make it big and Brian is there at the edge of everything telling them how much goddamn potential they have.
When Gee says it, though, Mikey can almost see himself standing on a stage playing for thousands of kids screaming their name. He can almost see all those things they are holding out for.
“The future,” Mikey agrees quietly. If he extends his pinky out, he would be touching Gerard’s thigh. His fingers are grimy, and he holds his hand still.
He knows Gerard’s right. Once they get away from this van, once they can breathe and stretch out and see their family again, Mikey thinks things could be normal again. They’re living outside of reality in the constantly-shifting world of touring, and his brother and his band are his only true constants.
He knows Gerard’s right, but it doesn’t make it any easier to pull away.
“We should go inside,” he says finally. “We get actual beds tonight.”
“Yeah, the guys are probably waiting for us.”
They climb out of the van, stumbling and stretching awkwardly. Gerard shoves a pair of sunglasses on, and Mikey follows him across the parking lot, listening to the kids splash in the motel pool, shrieking happily in the summer sun.
*
If sometimes Mikey misses something that never happened... If he maybe feels a strange disconnected ache, like he imagines a phantom limb would feel...
He does his best to ignore it. For Gerard’s sake.
For his own.