Ink World
title: Ink world
characters: Gerard and Mikey Way (GEN)
pov: 3rd
rating: PG-13
summary: Gerard is obsessing over his drawings
disclaimer: no,srsly,i own them -.-"
Mikey always sees his brother Gerard drawing: on the schoolbus,during classes,during lunch break,during classes again. He’s 100% sure of this,even if he has never seen him because they’re in different classes; well…90% sure…he could also be napping…
Of course at home it’s worse,Gerard spends his afternoons drawing (or sleeping a bit again) instead of doing his homeworks,which he prefers to do during the night.
Mikey sometimes worries for his older brother who doesn’t sleep enough,who drinks tons of coffee -but Mikey cannot say a word,because he’s the first to be coffee addicted-,who doesn’t get brilliant marks at school because always distracted by his drawings.
Gerard’s obsession has recently got worse,but Mikey can’t explain himself why; of course he asked his brother about it,but he just obtained a grunt or a shrug or nothing at all,a deafening silence if it wasn’t for the pencil scribbling on his abused notebook.
Mikey tried many times to peek in that notebook,but Gerard was always around to catch his little brother snooping in his stuff and snap his precious secret notebook from the younger one’s hands before he could open it.
The same scene repeats itself everytime Gerard changes the hiding place for his treasure: Mikey looks for it,Mikey finds it,Gerard is immediately there,Gerard takes the notebook back,Gerard hides it again.
---
Mikey is worried for Gerard: the elder closes himself in the bedroom they share to continue drawing.
What worries Mikey the most,although he isn’t sure why,is that Gerard always closes the shutters and the curtains,the onliest light he may use -and Mikey can’t tell,because the light from the crack at the bottom of the door is very dim- is the bedside lamp or even a candle.
Gerard gives Mikey five minutes to get everything he needs for his homeworks right before he closes himself in their bedroom: at least their parents and the brothers themselves can’t say Gerard,being the eldest,bullies Mikey.
What about their parents? Of course they worried. But their concern swung with Gerard’s attitude.
At first they thought he was just showing his talent.
Then they thought it was puberty and the bitchy period also known as adolescence.
Then they got a bit angry with his not-so-good marks.
Then they seriously worried when he started closing himself in the bedroom,not letting Mikey or them in.
Then,finally,they gave up. Gerard ignored the family? And the family ignored Gerard.
But not Mikey.
---
For the first time Gerard beats Mikey.
Guess why? Yes,he caught him again with the notebook,but this time the younger managed to give a glance at the contents.
A red,throbbing,five-fingered mark now decorates Mikey’s left cheek; a blackbluepurplebrowngreenyellow bruise shaped like Asia covers his skin from under the ribs to the hip; a few darkish bruises blossomed on his shins.
A cold shiver runs down Mikey’s spine,but not because of the ice packs he’s using to reduce the reddish mark on his face,to avoid questions from their parents when they’ll be back from work.
No: it was the content of that notebook that made him shiver.
He’d admit he didn’t see too much,just dark twirls and circles and lines,but he still can’t get rid of that sensation.
---
Their parents are out,tonight,and the brothers are at home alone.
Gerard is sealed in the bedroom,Mikey is eating icecream while absently watching tv,homeworks piled on the coffee table in front of the couch.
A muffled rumble arrives from upstairs,from Gerard’s den; Mikey sprints from the couch,letting the ice cream can fall on the floor.
He runs upstairs,shouting his brother’s name,taking two stair-steps at a time.
He reaches the ermetically closed door and bangs it,screaming again,asking Gerard to open that goddamn door.
No answer.
And any other noises either.
Mikey swears,punches and kicks the door again,constantly calling for his brother.
A deathly hush.
This comparison fucking sends chills in Mikey’s whole body,he feels uncomfortable,he’s deadly worried -oh,again that word- for his brother.
He forces himself to calm down,regain voice and composure and strenght to open the door and face whatever is in that room.
A deep breath in,a long breath out,eyes closed; he opens his eyes again and calmly knocks at the door.
---
To his surprise,the door opens by itself at the second knock. But it was locked a minute before.
Mikey slowly pushes it aside. The room is pitch black.
He’s scared. He’s scared. He’s scared.
He calls for Gerard again. No answer.
He says him not to play him a prank,because it’s not funny,in the dark.
Still no answer,no giggles,no noises.
He then thinks his older brother may have committed suicide. In this case he doesn’t want to see.
But it’s still his brother,his beloved brother who started acting weirdly since when he started drawing on his secret notebook.
The notebook.
Mikey forces himself to switch the light in the room on,and with a shaky hand he reaches the switch,while with the other he has a death grip on the doorpost.
It’s empty. The room is empty.
Mikey blinks,it can’t be possible,Gerard was stuck in the room since when they returned home from school.
He looks at the room.
The shutters and the curtains are still closed,no air moves them,so his brother hasn’t escaped from there.
Thinking about the door,it was closed,Mikey is sure it was closed from the inside,and he could have heard Gerard if he ever sneaked from the room and locked it again,isn’t it?
The chairs are still in place at the desks.
The twin beds look almost new,or just well made,as if Gerard has never been laying on his own like he always did when he drew -like he always DOES when he DRAWS,Mikey tells to himself,why using a past sentence?-.
But.
On Gerard’s bed.
There’s the cause of all of this…mess? How can you talk about mess when the room is so clean,like it has never been in all those years the two brothers have lived there?
Anyway.
The notebook is on the bed,on Gerard’s bed,perfectly closed and exactly in the middle of it.
So,here it is. The only particular that ruins the perfection of the room is the torn look of the notebook,with scribbles and cuts and rubs even on the cover.
Mikey sits on Gerard’s bed,and the squeaky sound that it produces makes the boy jump. He decides to look at the notebook while standing.
Trembling a bit,he carefully takes the bottom corner of the cover and slowly opens the notebook that obsessed Gerard for such a long time.
And what the hell.The first pages are totally black. Mikey is sure he saw Gerard neatly draw superheroes and monsters and all that sort of stuff that he liked -LIKES!-,why has he covered them?
He keeps flipping through the pages,going from totally black ones to,slowly,less scribbled ones. Mikey can see again those twirls and lines that creeped him when he first saw them.
And now he understands why.
Those lines MOVE.
It’s subtle,at first,but as Mikey goes forward turning the pages -always slowly and carefully,don’t forget it- the lines move faster,pass from a page to another.
Mikey can swear he’s seen eyes. And mouths. And hands.
And he’s right.
Bodies of boys and girls float in that sea of lines and curves. They aren’t even whole bodies,though,but parts of bodies.
Ripped limbs.
Organs.
Blood.
Now the ink is slowly turning lighter,at first with a shade of dark brown to finally turn crimson red. The color of blood,indeed.
Mikey can almost feel the book being heavier and wet,and when he looks at his hands they’re soaking with blood.
He lets the notebook fall on the floor,and the pages quickly move by themselves,fastening the pace of that ocean of ink,blood,corpses,till they stop at the last page.
There’s only a line written on it,in the psychotic handwriting of Gerard.
The drawn palm of a hand appears on the surface of the page,followed by Gerard’s grinning face.
Mikey screams till he has air in his lungs.
Then it’s all black.
Black as ink.