Entre la Sombra y el Alma
Gerard/Mikey
One-shot
Gerard comes home for the holidays, and gets a brief chance to catch up with Mikey. Set pre-MCR, while Gerard's still in college. Te amo como se aman ciertas cosas oscuras... Rated PG-13.
2,328 words
Written September 25, 2005
They are sitting on a roof and it is just the two of them, and it's winter - New Year's Eve - and when Gerard's cigarette burns down to the filter he just laughs and stubs it out in a bank of snow. It's a good night. Solidly cold, the kind that doesn't slice through their jackets, just whistles around them and seems to leave their heads hollow and filled with mountain air. That's how it is - crisp and edged, really defined. Like rocky outcroppings against skies so blue they seem almost ancient. Gerard thinks how maybe he is waxing a bit too poetic about this, the fucking temperature, but that's okay because he is on a roof and somehow this makes anything acceptable, no matter how trite.
Mikey probably thinks the same thing because he tips his head back onto his crossed arms and says, "God, I love the stars." It's exactly the kind of cliche sentiment that would normally make Gerard's skin tighten - hell, if it were anyone else lying next to him, he probably would stay silent. But it's Mikey. So he looks up too and watches the stars, and they are bright and scattered, hidden in spots by clouds like veils, falling over the night sky like a quiet bride.
Gerard is thinking about brides now. Zombie brides, their mouths all rotting off so when they lean in for the big kiss their lips come away. Or vampire brides who slit the dresses high to their hips, their black hair dye staining the veil, the silk flowers. He says to Mikey, "It's a good night for bad things," and Mikey laughs in his faintly asthmatic way.
"Every night is like that for you," he says.
There isn't much Gerard can say, mostly because it is true, so he smiles. "Yeah," he says. He lights another cigarette. There's something about smoking that would forever comfort him even if it weren't for the nicotine. The way his hand cups around the flame, like the curve of someone's shoulder, or the way his fingers relax into a V almost without thought. When he tries to sleep at night, his hand rests against his cheek in that position, as if a cigarette will appear by magic.
"Hey," Mikey says, holding out one hand. "Share?" Even though it aggravates his lungs terribly, he chain-smokes every time he is around Gerard, almost as if his brother's presence reminds him that he is addicted. He can sit in his room alone for hours, but place Gerard in the next room, and boom - there it is. The itch in his chest.
Gerard knows this, so he just shrugs and takes a quick drag. The first one always tastes a bit foul to him. It might be a misguided belief, sparked by some urban legend somewhere, but it is his habit - the sweetest second drag always goes to Mikey, if Mikey is so inclined to ask. And Mikey takes it willingly. He puckers his lips and blows out, his mouth an exaggerated O, and they both laugh.
When the cigarette is in Gerard's hands again, he makes it dance through the air, drawing patterns with the smoke trail. "Hey," he says, "hey Mikey, look - it's a star too." The ember-orange end of the cigarette glows and Mikey giggles, hands clapped over his mouth. Gerard feels close enough to Mikey in right this moment that for a second, he imagines he can taste the wet wool of Mikey's gloves. His lips feel chapped out of pure sympathy and when Mikey smiles, he says, "Are you cold?"
"Nah, actually - a little warm." Mikey nods down to the house, where their friends are still probably passing around some variant of illegal substance. "It was the beer I think? Warmed me up."
Gerard's heart aches a little to hear his younger brother speak this way. They're not kids anymore, no; Mikey will be twenty next year. But there's still something about sitting on the roof of your fucking parents' house and hearing those kind of words - it's just a sharp brief flash of silvery pain, but. There it is. He sighs and hands the cigarette back to Mikey and tucks his hands into his pockets. "Well," he says a bit dolefully, "I'm cold. It's the snow, and all."
"You're the one who sat down in it," Mikey says, wiggling a bit and laughing. His back is resting firmly on rough shingles. Gerard, who was second out the window because he had to hold Mikey's feet to balance him, was left with only a spot of half-melted snow to sit in. It's mostly melted now - melted, or entirely absorbed into the seat of his jeans.
But Gerard only inches back, trying to keep himself warm. It is late and the clouds are growing, the air heavier with that sharp cold, but he won't go in. Not to see all those friends who are nice enough but only in love with their music and their own hands in the mirror when they play their shitty guitars, those girls with bad hair who want to kiss Mikey until he drowns - no. Gerard won't face that. He takes in a breath, fierce, and holds it in his throat until he thinks he will get frostbite and die. He waits another beat. Exhales.
Mikey says, all soft eyes and hands like shooting stars, "Here." He lifts off his hat and tugs it down onto Gerard's head. It's this ugly old beanie, knitted out of the same blandly-colored wool as his gloves, and it's lost all elasticity in the brim from being shoved so far down onto Mikey's forehead. Gerard adjusts it so it covers his face right up to his eyebrows.
"Hey," he says, smiling a little. "I'm you, now."
"No you're not," Mikey says, and he turns, legs tangled awkwardly so that he can look straight at Gerard. And Gerard doesn't know this but Mikey, he's not seeing the way Gerard's hair looks plastered to his face, or the soft outwards curve of his waist. Not the spots on his skin that still linger - twenty-one and he still hasn't cleared up perfectly, not the way he thought he would've by now. Senior fucking year of college and he still looks like a teenager, except his hair is grown out now, almost to his shoulders.
But what Mikey's seeing, it's something else. It's his eyelashes, the way they sparkle in the faint light coming off the streetlights, and the way his eyes are so wide and stripped bare without bangs covering them. And the way the point of his nose and the line of his jaw suddenly come clear, outlined in shadow, and Mikey pushes back a wisp of Gerard's hair to make the picture perfectly symmetrical.
"You're not me," he repeats. "You're... something else. Something different."
"I really am," Gerard says. He laughs, and he can feel the line along his cheek where Mikey touched, like it's drawn on in a thin, defined streak of red pencil. "I wish I were you though."
There's a long, sudden silence. Mikey takes a drag off the cigarette still clutched in his fingers. Gerard feels shame clench up in his chest - perhaps it was too open? He and Mikey are close, yes, but it's been so long, and here Mikey's grown so tall and thin - he must not be used to the way Gerard talks to him. Straight out like a gunshot to the chest, an old Western with Gerard's eye closed in a wink as he aims down the barrel. That's how it feels when Gerard talks to Mikey. Point-blank.
But then Mikey smiles and hands the cigarette back and he says, "I don't want to be me. Let's trade!" He laughs faintly as he says it, so brightly, and Gerard wonders again where this brother has come from. He says it so easily. The kind of boy who could look down Gerard's sawed-off shotgun words, and purse his lips into a matching O, and blow him a kiss. He continues, "I wouldn't mind being you, not at all."
"You say that now," Gerard says.
"I wouldn't mind at all." Mikey tugs on Gerard's wrist, his fingers warm even through the wet wool of his gloves. Gerard lets his wrist go limp, watching what Mikey is doing, and his heart stops then beats too fast. Mikey lifts Gerard's hand up and takes another slow drag off the cigarette without bothering to transfer it to his own hand. It is only a few moments after he's exhaled that he bothers to let go of Gerard's wrist. "I mean," he says. "I'd like to be really pretty."
"Pretty isn't a good word for boys," Gerard says, and his voice is a little breathless from the shock of being touched. College has done a lot of things for him - made him smarter and better at not being so... whatever it is. So depressed or socially awkward or just off-center. But it has not made him used to people touching him, or even wanting to touch him. He swallows and tries to focus on anything else. The ashy taste of his own tongue, or the music that is only a hint of an idea of a melody, drifting up through the open window.
Mikey tugs at the back of the hat, pulling it lower over Gerard's hair. "Okay," he says, "so, beautiful."
It's starting to snow. Gerard watches it drift down out of nowhere, pure and star-speckled and it covers his eyelashes for seconds before it melts away. He's thinking about watching The Nightmare Before Christmas, a tradition he has for New Year's - not a family thing. Just a him-and-Mikey thing. And the white color of the snow, and the color of bones, and Mikey being delighted and scared at the same time. Gerard saying "You're fifteen, Christ, get over it," and Mikey burrowing farther down into the collar of his jacket.
And the snow is so clean like he didn't believe it could be in Jersey, and when Gerard opens his mouth the cold seeps into his teeth and washes out the back of his throat. He can feel it bleaching him down and that is beautiful. That, or the way the snowflakes catch in Mikey's hair like tinsel, like distant stars. He says very softly, "No, I'm not beautiful, either."
Mikey takes the cigarette from his fingers now and stubs it out violently. The ashes smear all over the roof, staining a bit of snow, and the thin paper of the cigarette splits open like a blooming flower. "Shut up," he says fiercely, "you are so, you're such a fucking liar."
There is nothing that can be said to this so instead Gerard just says, "Hey, look - it's snowing."
"It is, isn't it?" Mikey's shoulders slump and he lifts his bare head, breathes in deeply. "It's going to get really cold." Gerard wants to share his coat, the way Mikey has so grandly and casually offered his hat, but it can't be done. Mikey is already inching back towards the open window. "We should go inside."
"Yeah, I guess."
"They'll be missing us," Mikey says. Gerard is all prepared to think but I am already missing you. And Mikey is going back in through the window, climbing over Gerard's sprawled-out legs, past the cigarette butts and the puddles all melted from Gerard's body heat, turning slushy again in the cold. His knees brush Gerard's and when he turns around, without even asking, he takes Gerard's hand to steady himself and it is easy and natural, no questions.
And before Gerard can think this treacherous thought - before he can be fully impacted by the pain of missing his brother - Mikey slips down onto the windowsill and says, "Hey, I'll help you back in, okay? Since you helped me out."
"Yeah," Gerard says. He smiles and it feels a bit funny on his face, like his mouth hasn't quite gotten used to that. "That's fine. Thank you."
"Not a problem." He doesn't add beautiful, or the wink that would accompany it, but it is present anyway in the smile he returns. The way he doesn't ask for his hat back once they are inside, and the way he stands at the windowsill and smokes another cigarette before they go back to the party. It is present in the way their fingers lace together.
Most of all, it is present in the way they send everyone home, then curl up on the couch in the basement together to watch The Nightmare Before Christmas. "You didn't forget," Mikey says, his nose pressed into Gerard's shoulder. "I thought you would." In response, Gerard only lifts off the hat and puts it back onto Mikey's head. They both laugh, but there it is - clear as the snow outside. He pulls the blanket up around them and hits play, and the movie starts, and then there is nothing else. Only a child's movie and their sides pressed together, and their breathing, slow and even like the snow that might never cease.
Gerard imagines the snow will cover the house and they will be trapped, their parents still out at some other New Year's party. They will eat all the food in the house and play every record they own at top volume. When they run out of cigarettes, they will climb onto the roof again and stare out at the landscape, and the snowdrifts piled right up to their feet. Mikey will breathe into his cupped hands to warm them and Gerard will say, "Hey, no, let me do it." Their hands linked together, they will look out at the world, the snow still floating down over them and rising to their feet.
And then, not letting go of each other, they will jump.