Just Like Heaven
Gerard/Mikey
One-shot
Gerard & Mikey talk about what it's like for Elena now. Rated PG-13 for language. Written for fanfic100, prompt #39: "taste".
697 words
Written April 9, 2006
"What do you think it's like?"
Gerard rolls over in the narrow bunk, frowns at Mikey. "You ask stupid questions."
"I'm just saying," Mikey says placidly, fingers tracing spirals on Gerard's hip. Gerard watches his nails scratch against the rough blanket. "I'm just saying. Do you think she's very happy?"
"I wouldn't know, I'm not dead."
"I bet it's not like clouds or gold halos or anything. I bet it's not even like… fields of flowers, or lots of sunshine."
"I'd like it more if it was just like a cemetery," Gerard says. He rests his hand on top of Mikey's. "And stop doing that, you're making me nervous."
"Yeah," Mikey says. "Real calm and quiet, and lots of trees. I'd like that." His fingers twitch a moment beneath Gerard's, then relax; Gerard can feel the brief movement of the tendons and the flex of it. It's a stirring movement -
(a stretching. a pull in his heart. an expanding.)
"I bet," Gerard says, "I bet it's very peach and blue. Lots of soothing colors."
"Like hospitals, but nicer?"
"Not at all like hospitals," Gerard says, and Mikey laughs in that surprised way he has. Like he's really shocked to find something funny. Gerard smiles and digs his nose into Mikey's shoulder, like he's nuzzling at it, like a little puppy. He feels that way around Mikey sometimes - playful and tiny and wrapped up in blankets. Maybe it's a side effect of growing up with him -
(maybe it's a side effect of love.)
"It probably smells like strawberries," Mikey says. Gerard thinks about the shampoo their mother always used that smelled like fruit salads, and how Mikey used it when he met a boy he really liked, and how Gerard started using it last year because it made him feel nostalgic (because he wanted Mikey to feel nostalgic) (because he wanted to be a boy who would be liked.)
He thinks about strawberries for a second. "Yeah," he says, "but it wouldn't taste that way."
"What would it taste like?" The smile on Mikey's face is hidden by the corner of the blankets, the pillows; playful but secretive about it. Gerard wants to take a photo of that smile because something about it screams Mikey. He reaches through his pockets, takes out a penny, places it at the edge of Mikey's lower lip like it will absorb the sweetness of the smile.
"It tastes like this," he says.
Mikey bends his head forward, parts his lips and catches the penny in his teeth. He holds it in his mouth and rolls it around. "Don't swallow," Gerard warns, and they both laugh almost silently.
Finally Mikey lifts his palm to his mouth and spits. "It tastes like dirt," he says, "and metal, and blood, and all that crap."
"Yeah. Exactly."
"God, you're so fucking morbid," and Mikey laughs, and Gerard laughs too but he feels a little stupid. He isn't trying to be pretentious or intellectual. It feels honest
(it feels like he can't face it. that's the feeling of honesty.)
Mikey shakes his head. "No," he says, "here, watch," and digs through his own pockets. He unwraps a mint and crunches it between his teeth, then puts the penny back in for a moment, sucking so his cheeks get hollow and his cheekbones show like bird wings in his face.
Then he spits the penny out again and says, "Here," and throws the penny over his shoulder and wraps his hand in Gerard's hair. He brings their faces very close together and his breath smells like mint and blood, it smells sweetsour and when Mikey kisses Gerard it tastes like that, and Gerard's breath catches and he thinks he will never breathe again, he thinks this will be it and this will end it and the blankets twist about their hips as Gerard moves closer, kisses harder, lets his own hand cup around the hard thick bone of Mikey's shoulder, he kisses Mikey and fills himself with it and he is going to die right here and now
(but he already knows what it is like, now.)
"Yeah," he says, "that's the taste of it."