A Brief History Of Who I Love
Gerard/Mikey
One-shot
Gerard thinks all they're going to do is watch old home movies, in honor of Christmas - but there's something a bit off-kilter about one of the tapes. Rated PG-13 for language & vague vague sexuality. Written for fanfic100, prompt #48: "diamond". [Title shamelessly stolen from "House of Leaves" by Mark Z. Danielewski.]
3,156 words
Written December 25, 2005
On the TV, five-year-old Frank is stomping on the floor and screaming incoherently, and Gerard is thinking how maybe this isn't so different from modern-day Frank. He forms a little tent with his fingers on the arm of the couch, leans his head against it. He's so fucking tired.
"You're cute," he tells Frank. "What happened?"
"I was an asshole." Frank laughs and throws popcorn in the air. "Wasn't I the biggest asshole ever? I would've kicked me in the face."
Ray nods in agreement, then dives into Frank's lap, mouth wide open to catch the popcorn. It falls onto his chest and he says, "Fuck you, Iero, if you weren't there I could've got it." Frank only slaps his head with an open palm, making Ray pout exaggeratedly.
"Jeez," Bob mumbles, shaking his head. "Break it up, kids."
Gerard can't help laughing, even though he's drifting in and out of the conversation. He can't really focus on the videos, either - the home movies they all requested in their Christmas care packages. Gerard thinks the packages themselves are inherently hilarious (like they're at fucking camp, or something) but he does appreciate the movies. Still... they take something out of him. It's so exhausting, trying to match up faces and names and old stories.
"Hey," Mikey says. He's sitting in front of Gerard, propped up against the couch. He leans his head back to look at Gerard. "Let's watch one of ours next! I'm sick of Frankie, he looks like such a dork." Another open-palmed slap, but Mikey only brushes it off with a swat of his hand, still looking hopefully at Gerard.
Gerard really isn't up for watching himself look like a total asshole... but oh, Mikey's got that pleading look on, eyebrows drawn together and lower lip out just so much. He sighs. "Yeah, fine, fine. Bob, you wanna grab one from our box?" He waves a hand in the general direction. Christmas makes him so... lethargic. Full of ennui and melancholy and other big philosophy-student words. He curls up a little, arms locked around his knees, and watches tiny Frank with his chubby red cheeks flicker off the screen.
"Oh hey!" Bob waves a video in the air triumphantly. "Here's one all of Mikey!" He laughs, and reads off the label: "Mikey Way, ages seven to seventeen."
Shit.
Gerard kind of thinks it's the wrong video in the wrong box, for a long few seconds - hoping - how could his mother have found it? Did he - oh, god, he did. He left it in the huge box of videos and thought she'd never see it and oh fuck he is so dead.
On the screen is a sign, propped against a wall. The handwriting is distinctly Gerard's: feminine and smooth. It reads, A Brief History Of Who I Love. The voice-over is Gerard, too, younger and more gentle. Before he smoked so damn much. Still raspy, but... higher. Younger Gerard says, "A history of Michael Way's life, seven to seventeen, as filmed and edited by Gerard Way." A pause, then, with a laugh - "With help from Ray Toro, who let me use his editing equipment."
There's a brief yelp of laughter from Ray, who's tugging at Frank's sweater and saying, "Hey - I'm in it too! Fuckin' A!"
Gerard-on-the-video continues, "Ray's not in this, but I went to school with him for awhile, and he's the best at this film shit. So I got him to show me how it works. He doesn't know what the fuck I'm doing with it, and I guess I don't either, and he never will, but - thank you, Ray! Even if you won't know it!"
The irony, it is sharp enough to kill. Gerard moans and covers his face. Ray is still laughing, and Frank's been forced to resort to another slap to the head, though Bob returns the blow in Ray's defense. They are so cheerful and happy and Gerard wants to hide. Mikey is giving him this look. This look, like, what is this? What the fuck?
The video fades out into an old shot. Poor colors - faded-out in places, too strong in others. Mikey is very young and his face is a little blocky with the terrible quality. He's missing teeth and when he smiles at the camera, it is very obvious. They're in a yard - brilliantly sunny, blinding in some frames - and Mikey is standing barefoot in thick grass. He says happily, "My name - my name is Mikey Way - " He pauses, then leans out of the frame, grabs something and tugs with all the effort in his tiny body. Suddenly Gerard stumbles into the frame, biting his lip and worrying it between his teeth. Mikey exclaims, "And this is my brother!"
Cut to Mikey in the same yard, five years later, reading comic books and lying on his stomach, totally absorbed.
Real Mikey is just as totally absorbed as his twelve-year-old counterpart. "God," he says in a low, amused voice, "this is totally embarrassing - "
Mikey in the video looks up to swat at a mosquito and catches sight of the camera. "Gerard," he shrieks, "get that thing out of here - don't be such a loser! I'm tryin' to read!"
"Whatcha reading?"
"Spiderman. Go away, it's mine, you can't read it!" Mikey dives on it, protecting it from Gerard as he zooms in as close as he can with the camera; the entire thing disintegrates in a warm pinkish color. Mikey's skin, tanned in the summer sun.
"That's really fucking adorable," Frank says dryly. "You two fighting for like... the only time in your lives, seriously."
"Shut up!" It's Ray's turn to make an awkward swing at Frank, grinning. "Some of us are trying to watch the movie." In response, Frank only sticks out his tongue, but he falls silent as well. Gerard gets the sickly feeling in his stomach that it's because of the next frame, which is:
Mikey lying on his stomach, just like the last shot - but this time he is in bed, blankets draped over his hips. He is shirtless and quite possibly naked. (Gerard knows from past memory that he is wearing boxers, but that they're sticking to Mikey's skin with sweat and maybe possibly a little come, and he's hiding under the blankets so that it doesn't look totally obscene on film.) Gerard-on-the-film says, "Mikey? Hey, Mikey?"
"Mmmyeah?"
"Tell the folks watching at home a little bit about you," Gerard drawls, pure bland TV-show-host. Mikey laughs and hurls a pillow at the camera, but misses wildly. He sighs.
"Well, I'm Mikey, and I'm sixteen, and my brother is a complete fucking loser." Gerard shrieks at this, and the camera is set down on the floor. A moment later, Gerard comes running into the shot, diving onto the bed with Mikey. They roll about for a moment, both screaming with laughter and cursing as horribly as they can - Gerard hears the word "bitch" at least a few times, and "fuck" more often, and once, almost whispered from Mikey, "cunt". Then Gerard - who is wearing pajama pants, huge wide ones, but no shirt - pins Mikey to the bed by his wrists, and they stop entirely, laughter fading off. They remain poised like that, panting for breath, Gerard looking straight down and Mikey looking straight up - until the camera cuts to the next shot.
"Wow," Ray says in a very soft voice, but Gerard thinks no one is paying much attention. Or maybe they are whispering among themselves - he couldn't care less. Sick as it is, he can't look away from his own editing job. He'd almost forgotten this thing existed.
The next shot - again, Gerard kneeling on Mikey's bed, but fully clothed this time. Mikey is lying on the floor smoking listlessly. "Hey," he says, "what if I got an earring?"
"Oh! Ew - don't!" Gerard claps both hands to his face. (Present-day Bob grins and mouths, "Fear of needles, huh?" Gerard flips him off for a brief second before turning his attention back to the screen.) Mikey only laughs, then stands up, swinging his arms about him. He's younger in this one, and lankier, and his clothes fit in some undefinable way that makes Gerard's stomach cramp with nostalgia. "If you really want to know," Gerard says, "go find one of Mom's earrings and see how it looks."
"I think I will," Mikey says, perfectly complacent.
He returns in a minute, and poses in front of the camera, holding two glittering, oversize diamonds to his ear: "What do you think, huh? Sexy, huh?" He grins widely and shakes his head, making them clatter and spark off in bits of light. "I like it! I'm gonna get 'em both pierced."
Gerard yelps, "No!" and dives at him, and that shot fades out too, and Gerard is struck with waves of fierce nostalgia. He can remember the scent of Mikey's skin at his shoulder. The glittering earrings - not real diamonds, fuckin' cubic zirconia, but still so beautiful, and Mikey managed to outshine them anyway. He can't bear to keep watching. He buries his face in the crook of his arm, and closes his eyes, but he can hear it go by. Mikey laughing and opening presents on his birthday and making pancakes for their mother and feeding Gerard cookie dough and doing his algebra homework and roasting marshmallows and blowing bubbles and just being, being infinite and beautiful and he remembers most of all making this movie.
Making it, and the cold quiet dark of being surrounded by equipment, and all he had was the sunlight-diffused warmth of the tapes. Making it was hell. Going back and picking out the choice moments that were perfectly Mikey, that were all joy and laughter. And he'd watched them wrestling in bed - and after the place he cut it off in this video, after that, they kissed and Gerard's hand slid under the blankets, and he sat in the studio and wanted to jerk off or cry or both or neither.
The others start joking again - Frank making cracks about what a fatass Gerard used to be, and Ray hitting him. Bob starts throwing more popcorn for Ray to catch and he misses every time - ends up falling off the couch entirely.
Gerard can't miss the way Mikey doesn't quite join in.
He looks up at some point and there's Mikey on the screen, at the local swimming pool, scrawny and nervous with big knobbly knees covered in scrapes and scratches. When he sits on the edge, and water splashes up on his knees, he winces - the chlorine must sting. Gerard can smell the chlorine in his mind and it burns his nose. Mikey on the screen, he smiles and waves and whines, "Gerard! Put that down, come on, get in with me!"
"You're not in," points out Gerard-behind-the-camera, ever logical.
"It's cold!" Mikey smiles in this way that is simultaneously mildly unattractive, and charming as hell. "If you come in with me, we can stand together for warmth, it won't be as bad."
Gerard, the real Gerard of right now - he wants to go back and stand with that Mikey. Curl with him in the corner of the pool like the girls in electric-blue bikinis, wrapped around their boyfriends; keep him warm. Instead, Gerard-of-the-past only laughs and says "No way, it's plenty warm out here", and goes on filming Mikey and the blue sky and the blue water, and the bright bright sun.
He closes his eyes again, and tries to block out how beautiful it all is. Below him he knows Mikey is doing the same.
The last scene - he opens his eyes just in time for this one - it is a jump cut back to Mikey lying in bed, and now Gerard curled up on top of him. Their faces, right up close, cheeks pressed together. One hand of Gerard's is hidden behind Mikey's back and Gerard is well aware that this is because, at the time, his hand was sticky and disgusting. "Hey," Gerard-on-the-screen says in a cheerful whisper. "Mikey. Let's try this again - tell the camera about you."
Mikey rolls his eyes, but obliges. "I'm Mikey," he says, voice soft and drawn-out in the afterglow. "I'm sixteen, almost seventeen, and this is my brother Gerard, and - " With this he turns and places a loud, noisy kiss on Gerard's cheek. "And I love him a whole fucking lot. Happy now?"
"Happy as hell," Gerard says. "You can't even know."
The video ends.
There's a five-second pause before Ray bounces up, calling, "My turn! Goddamn, I was a really cute kid, you have to see!" He laughs and digs through one of the boxes, and all Gerard can manage is to mumble, "I really need a smoke - be back in a sec - "
It's cold outside. Of course it's cold, it's fucking Christmas. His hands shake too much and he can barely light the cigarette, but he manages, and tries not to breathe too deep. Instead he barely breathes at all. Mikey comes out a minute later and stands next to him.
"Well," he says.
Gerard sighs.
Mikey doesn't look pissed but he probably is, because all he says after that is, "Cigarette?" Gerard lights him one very carefully. They smoke quietly and listen to the inside of the bus - all noise and chaos. It looks warm and glowing, from the outside. It's snowing. Gerard feels miserable and cold but he can't bear to go back in, not without knowing what's inside Mikey's heart. He's never seen that video. Gerard didn't want... He didn't know what he wanted. He still doesn't.
Finally, Mikey says slowly, "I wish you wouldn't..."
"I can't help it."
"I thought we agreed it was in the past."
Gerard throws his cigarette to the ground and stomps it out, and spits on it for good measure. He feels violent and ugly. "I made that fucking video in the past, are you happy? It's over. Whatever. It's done - " Mikey touches his arm and says, so quietly that it might only be a hallucination, don't lie and Gerard stops. He turns at the same time Mikey does and they fit together perfectly. The tiniest breeze is making the snow drift into their hair, and Gerard sighs. Mikey's ear is icy cold against his lips and the skin feels weird and rubbery. He doesn't care. He's touching Mikey and oh that is all that matters.
"Especially now," Mikey whispers. "Especially with..."
Before Mikey can say her name, Gerard rushes on and says, "But you knew back then I meant it when I said 'forever', right? I don't joke about that shit, Mikey, it was - it was the truth."
"You're too attached to the past." Mikey shrugs, a faint smile tugging at his mouth. "So'm I. I can't help it. Don't you miss being happy like that? You don't... you don't miss me." He doesn't say anything silly like there is no reason to miss me because I'm right here. They both know it's so false. Gerard clings tighter, and Mikey doesn't push him away, at least. He says, "I love her. A lot. She makes me happy."
"You loved me."
"And you loved me, and none of it does any fucking good, you know?" Gerard hates the deep, placid resignation in his voice. His hands on Gerard's sides, they are so cold and immobile and Gerard wants desperately to believe Mikey has any warmth left. Or that they will freeze and remain together this way forever - anything but this permanent stasis -
Mikey kisses his cheek. "We put it away," he says. "Stop... stop doing things like that. No more videos."
"I made that years ago."
Mikey's breath is hot and ashy and makes Gerard feel like he is going to crumple. "It made me love you now, so fuck you, I don't care when you made it. Stop making me..." He sounds like he's on the verge of tears and Gerard wants to pick him up and carry him. There's one clip - oh, does he remember this one - Mikey is seven and they're playing in the yard. Their mother is filming.
Mikey, he falls and hurts his knee, and even as their mother is putting down the camera Gerard yells, "I've got it!" He sweeps Mikey up in his arms, slung over his shoulder. The small of Mikey's back lines right up with Gerard's face and he looks so grim in the video. He carries Mikey quickly, but oh so delicately, as though the tiniest scrape will make Mikey fall to pieces.
Gerard wants so desperately to get back to that place. This imaginary castle in his head where Mikey will ever let Gerard lift him that way, set him down in bed. Where it is acceptable for them to lie together in one small bed, and Gerard's hand beneath the blankets is not foul or wrong; where after, Mikey will kiss him and swear his love before a camera.
Instead, he watches silently as Mikey digs through his coat pocket. He pulls out a tiny box and Gerard's heart collapses into itself: small, and black velvet, and inside - a diamond. A real one, shimmering, but not as bright as their mother's earrings had been.
Mikey says quietly, "I've had it for awhile. I just... I couldn't make myself give it to her when I asked. I keep pretending if I don't, then this will be not forever - I mean I want to, god, I'd love to, but." There doesn't need to be a phrase after that but. Gerard knows what comes next: what has always been filling in the blanks.
But I love you.
Gerard says, "Me too," and in his mind Mikey's face is lit up by sunlight and he says then let's run away like we planned. Instead, the snow keeps falling and Mikey tilts the ring back and forth, making it catch the streetlights.
"We used to be so happy," he says. He sighs and closes his eyes and for a second, the lenses of his glasses shine, and everything around them is sparkling crystal and Gerard honestly, truly believes they might ever be happy again, they might promise love for a thousand cameras and wide-open eyes. And Mikey says, "As much as you hate it - you have to admit. It's really beautiful, isn't it?"
When he holds the ring up to the light, Gerard can't look straight at it. He closes his eyes instead. "Sure," he says. "Just gorgeous."
Mikey kisses him before he goes back inside but it is not the same at all and it never will be again.