My Fic: Don't Ever Leave Me
Thank you to everyone who commented on my Mikey post. You helped me sort out how I feel about him. I was going to write a big long meta post about my new insights, but I decided to write a fic instead. I hope you like it . . . and, btw, please please give me critical feedback, and be as harsh as you want/need to. I plan to do a lot of writing in this fandom, and I really want to get things right. If anything feels off to you - especially the voices of the characters - please let me know. I'll be very grateful for the help. Seriously. Thank you for your feedback ahead of time.
Title: Don't Ever Leave Me
Author: Frayach
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: Non-explicit child abuse
Summary: This is about Brian and Mikey's early friendship. It's not a "pairing fic." It's the back-history before Justin comes along.
Author's Notes: I wanted to write a fic that would make Michael real for me and help me understand the origins of his relationship to Brian. Please give me feed-back. I'm a newbie and need you guys' advice.
The new kid was kind of a jerk. He was smart-alecky to the teachers. He slouched at his desk and rolled his eyes at any authority figure who tried to discipline him. He was both a loner and an instigator. The first time Michael said hello, the response was a dismissive look and the hint of a sneer. Michael resolved to stay away from him, except that he couldn’t. It seemed the earth could just as easily stop circling the sun.
Everything changed when Michael noticed the bruises and occasional swollen lip. His mother, who was friendly with their neighbor Diane who worked with Paula who was Pam’s cousin who knew the deacon at Saint Peters, told him (with strict instructions not to pass it along) that sometimes Mr. Kinney showed up drunk for Mass.
“Apparently he’s a real asshole,” his mom said as she hung the wet laundry on the line.
“What do you expect of the Irish?” said Diane as she watered her marigolds and righted the gnomes that the neighbor kids kicked over every night. “Drunks and wife-beaters the lot of them.”
Later, over their dinner of macaroni and cheese and slabs of fried Spam, his mother reminded him that Diane was a prejudiced old lady but admitted she may have a point. The Irish were famous for their drinking.
“Perhaps it’s best that you steer clear of the Kinney boy. Where there’s drink, there’s trouble, and I don’t want my son anywhere near trouble.” She reached across the table and pinched his cheek.
“His name’s Brian,” Michael said, which was true, “and he’s not trouble,” he added, which was a boldfaced lie. He didn’t like to lie to his mom, but there was something about Brian that made him want to.
“Does that hurt?”
Brian glared at him, but this time Michael didn’t walk away.
“What d'ya think?”
“I think it probably hurts.”
“Then why’d you ask?”
The black eye was slightly yellow. Brian must’ve got it over April vacation. Michael took a deep breath and just said it:
“Your dad do that?”
In an instant, Brian turned and grabbed his collar. “None of your fucking business,” he hissed. He let Michael go and started walking toward the buses as fast as he could.
“Hey!” Michael yelled after him. “Want to come to my house for dinner some night?" He'd expected Brian to give him the finger or merely ignore him, but to Michael’s surprise, Brian stopped and turned around. He regarded Michael with a cool appraising gaze.
“Sure,” he said. “Whatever.” And then he was running for the bus before its doors closed.
And that’s how it all started. Before either Michael or his mother was fully aware of what had happened, Brian had practically moved in.
“He’s the brother you always wanted,” his mom said one day as she was pulling both his and Brian’s clothes out of the hamper and folding them fastidiously.
But she was wrong. Brian wasn’t the brother Michael had always wanted. He was something else. A day without Brian was interminable. Michael moped around the house and snapped at his mother. Even his comic books couldn’t distract him from Brian’s absence. When the phone rang, he ran to it as though it was a pot of gold at the end of a rainbow. If it was Brian, he’d feel euphoric and spend the next few hours talking. If it was one of his mom’s friends, he felt like someone had punched him in the stomach. He was pretty sure people didn’t feel about their brothers what he felt for Brian. Whatever that was.
“I’ve changed my mind,” his mother said one grey December day as she slid the Christmas cookies off the cookie sheet and began slathering them with frosting made green and red with food coloring. “You’re not brothers. You’re Brian’s mother hen, and he’s your chick.”
Michael bristled. A mother hen? Brian a chick? How stupid could she get?
“Think about it, sweetheart,” she said. “If he’s hungry, you run to the cupboard to get him something to eat. If he’s thirsty, you run to the fridge to get him something to drink. He’s the only person in the world who can pry you away from your comic books. You’d throw yourself in front of a train if you thought you could save him.”
“He’s my best friend,” Michael said. “Of course I’d do anything for him.”
His mother looked at him with the same kind of sadness in her eyes that she had when she read letters from Uncle Vic.
“Just be careful, sweetie,” she said. Something in her voice made him stomp to the door and run down the street, skidding on the icy pavement, until he was out of breath.
Michael was pretty sure boys couldn’t fall in love with other boys, but the first time Brian showed up on their doorstep in nothing but a t-shirt and jeans, soaked to the skin in February rain, his eyes puffy and red, it occurred to Michael that he might be - in love, that is. They’d read Romeo and Juliet in English class (well, he’d read the Cliff notes - even Brian couldn’t help him understand what the hell William Shakespeare was trying to say). When Romeo decided to kill himself when he was told Juliet was dead, Michael had known exactly how he felt. He knew to the marrow of his bones that if Brian died, he couldn’t survive. His life would end. All the happiness would evaporate. The world would no longer hold any joy if Brian wasn’t beside him - if Brian went away.
Brian must never go away.
The biggest fight he and his mom ever had was when she came home from work early one day and found Michael and Brian wrestling and giggling and drunk out of their minds.
“I’m sorry,” she yelled, tears in her eyes, “but I can’t have my son getting drunk. You’re fourteen years-old, Michael! Brian is not allowed in this house unless the two of you are in my sight at all times . . .”
Michael resorted to stamping his foot like a frustrated toddler. There were tears in his eyes too. “It’s not fair,” he yelled back. “We won’t do it again!”
His mom wiped her eyes with the back of her sudsy hand. “I’m not saying he can’t come over,” she said. “All I’m saying is that you two can’t be together when I’m not here, and you can’t spend all your time up in your room. Michael, sweetie, you broke your promise to me. Remember? You promised me you’d never drink or do drugs. But you did. I don’t think the punishment is too harsh.”
But it was. The thought of not being alone with Brian, just the two of them together up in his room, was unbearable.
“You can watch cartoons in the living room . . .”
“I’ll run away,” he said wildly. “Brian and I will run away, and you’ll never see us again!”
“Baby . . .”
He started crying in earnest, not only because he knew he was going to lose the fight, but he was going to lose the way Brian looked at him sometimes. The way Brian would suddenly grab him and pin him to the bed, looming over him and smiling with mischievous glee, the way he felt under Brian’s weight. Excited. Overwhelmed. Free.
He turned and ran out of the kitchen to his room, slammed his door, and sank to the floor sobbing into his hands.
As it turned out, Brian was just as unhappy with the new arrangement at the Novotny household as Michael was. Every day after school, they lay on their stomachs on the floor, a bowl of Cracker Jacks between them, and watched Gilligan’s Island and The Brady Bunch, and then every night they sat on the couch, side-by-side, their arms touching, watching Dynasty and Falcon Crest.
“This sucks,” Brain whispered one night. “Let’s go to my house. My mom won’t care if we go to my room, and my father will either be at the Hibernian Hall or too drunk to notice.”
Michael frowned. It didn’t sound like a great idea - his mother may be constantly watching them, but she also gave them RingDings, played Life with them, and kissed them sloppily on the cheeks now and then. He had the distinct feeling that none of those things would happen at Brian’s house . . .
. . . and he wasn’t wrong. Michael hated Brian’s house before he even walked through the front door. There were no flowers or gnomes, no big “WELCOME!” on the doormat, no warm humid scent of cooking and the clatter-clang of pots and pans. There was no nothing.
“Welcome to the Kinney Household,” Brian said. “Want to meet my mom?” He took Michael by the sleeve and practically dragged him into the living room. Everything was neat and matching. There were even bowls of potpourri instead of Glade air fresheners. The windows looked out on a dry lawn with uncomfortable-looking grass and mournful shrubs.
Brian’s mom was sitting on the couch in front of the T.V. watching a show about cooking.
“Which is ironic,” Brian whispered in Michael’s ear, “since she tells us every night how much she hates cooking for us.”
I would’ve asked Brian what “ironic” meant, but just then Brian’s mother turned and noticed us.
“For heaven’s sake, Brian,” she said. “Don’t you know not to sneak up on people? Who’s that?” She gave Michael a pinched disapproving look as though she’d discovered dog poop on her carpet.
“This, madam,” Brian said with a flourish and a low bow, “is Michael Novotny. Michael, this is my mother.”
Mrs. Kinney glared at her son and then glared at Michael. “I don’t have enough food for five,” she said. “He’ll have to leave before dinner.”
Brian barely suppressed one of his trademark sneers. “I doubt there’ll be five,” he said coldly. “When was the last time Dad had dinner with us?”
Mrs. Kinney stood abruptly. As soon as she reached them, she slapped Brian across the face.
“Don’t you ever again say such a thing about your father in front of a stranger,” she said, her voice low and seething.
Brian turned his face to look her in the eyes. His cheek was pink from her palm. “Michael is not a stranger,” he said. “He’s my best friend.”
It was both one of the best days of Michael’s life . . . and one of the worst.
It turned out Mr. Kinney did show up for supper. Michael heard the door slam and a man with a slight brogue yell, “Goddamn it, Claire, you should’d put your goddamn bike in the garage! I just ran over the damn thing, and don’t think I’ll buy you a new one! I work all day to buy you kids nice things, and then you leave ‘em around. Ungrateful little shits!”
Michael and Brian were up in Brian’s room reading the comic books Michael had brought with him.
“He pretends he’s Irish when he’s blotto,” Brian said. “It’s really lame. I bet the guys at the Hall laugh at him behind his back. The Kinneys have been in the United States since the mid-1800’s. The bastard’s never even been to Ireland.”
“Maybe I should leave,” Michael said, getting up from Brian’s bed and stuffing his comic books in his backpack. He didn’t want to admit it to Brian, but he was afraid of Brian’s father.
Brian grabbed his arm. “No,” he said fiercely. “Stay.”
“But your mom . . .”
“Fuck my mom.”
Michael winced. Pigs would fly before he ever used the words “fuck” and “mom” in one sentence. He must’ve been the very picture of ambivalence because suddenly Brian stood and kissed him hard.
“Don’t be a wuss,” he said, shoving Michael away as though it’d been Michael who kissed him and not vice versa.
Stunned, elated and terrified all at the same time, Michael followed Brian downstairs. On the landing, they ran into Brian’s sister. She stuck her tongue out at Brian, and he gave her the finger.
“‘Bout time you found someone who wants to be your friend,” Claire said. She looked at Michael with a familiar dismissive expression. “You don’t look very smart,” she said, and Brian lunged for her neck.
“Shut up!” he hissed. “Leave him alone!”
“Brian!” Mrs. Kinney yelled. “Stop picking on your sister!”
“What’s he done now?” Mr. Kinney asked. “How many whuppings does that boy need? Get your ass down here this second, Sonny-boy!”
Michael would’ve given up a year’s allowance just to get out of that house. “Perhaps I should go,” he whispered, but Brian just draped an arm over his shoulders.
“Wanna meet dear old Dad?” he said and then manhandled Michael down the stairs and into the sterile, museum-like dining room.
“Who the hell is that?” Mr. Kinney said, gesturing with a jut of his chin at Michael.
“He’s a friend of Brian’s,” Mrs. Kinney said and then turned to Michael. “You should go home now.”
“No,” Brian said, his arm still draped over Michael’s shoulder. “Michael’s mom lets me eat at their house all the time. It’s only fair you let him eat here.”
“Really,” Michael whispered, “it’s okay. I don’t mind . . .” Brian’s arm slipped from his shoulders down to his waist.
“What’s this?” Mr. Kinney said. “Another fairy?” He held up his hand and made a sissy gesture. Michael felt his face redden. He looked at Brian for his reaction, but Brian merely stared at his father defiantly . . . all the same, he let go of Michael and nudged him away with his shoulder.
“Jack . . .”
“Shut up, Joan. It’s your fault anyway. If you hadn’t coddled him like you did, he wouldn’t be a homo.”
“I’m not a homo!” Brian yelled. “And neither is Michael!”
Mr. Kinney’s expression went from mocking to enraged. “Don’t you dare raise your voice at me,” he said. “Do it again and you’ll wish you’d never been born.”
Brian’s chin was wobbling, but he crossed his arms and glared at his father. “I already do,” he said, his voice choking on tears. “I already fucking do.”
To be continued . . .
Title: Don't Ever Leave Me
Author: Frayach
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: Non-explicit child abuse
Summary: This is about Brian and Mikey's early friendship. It's not a "pairing fic." It's the back-history before Justin comes along.
Author's Notes: I wanted to write a fic that would make Michael real for me and help me understand the origins of his relationship to Brian. Please give me feed-back. I'm a newbie and need you guys' advice.
The new kid was kind of a jerk. He was smart-alecky to the teachers. He slouched at his desk and rolled his eyes at any authority figure who tried to discipline him. He was both a loner and an instigator. The first time Michael said hello, the response was a dismissive look and the hint of a sneer. Michael resolved to stay away from him, except that he couldn’t. It seemed the earth could just as easily stop circling the sun.
Everything changed when Michael noticed the bruises and occasional swollen lip. His mother, who was friendly with their neighbor Diane who worked with Paula who was Pam’s cousin who knew the deacon at Saint Peters, told him (with strict instructions not to pass it along) that sometimes Mr. Kinney showed up drunk for Mass.
“Apparently he’s a real asshole,” his mom said as she hung the wet laundry on the line.
“What do you expect of the Irish?” said Diane as she watered her marigolds and righted the gnomes that the neighbor kids kicked over every night. “Drunks and wife-beaters the lot of them.”
Later, over their dinner of macaroni and cheese and slabs of fried Spam, his mother reminded him that Diane was a prejudiced old lady but admitted she may have a point. The Irish were famous for their drinking.
“Perhaps it’s best that you steer clear of the Kinney boy. Where there’s drink, there’s trouble, and I don’t want my son anywhere near trouble.” She reached across the table and pinched his cheek.
“His name’s Brian,” Michael said, which was true, “and he’s not trouble,” he added, which was a boldfaced lie. He didn’t like to lie to his mom, but there was something about Brian that made him want to.
“Does that hurt?”
Brian glared at him, but this time Michael didn’t walk away.
“What d'ya think?”
“I think it probably hurts.”
“Then why’d you ask?”
The black eye was slightly yellow. Brian must’ve got it over April vacation. Michael took a deep breath and just said it:
“Your dad do that?”
In an instant, Brian turned and grabbed his collar. “None of your fucking business,” he hissed. He let Michael go and started walking toward the buses as fast as he could.
“Hey!” Michael yelled after him. “Want to come to my house for dinner some night?" He'd expected Brian to give him the finger or merely ignore him, but to Michael’s surprise, Brian stopped and turned around. He regarded Michael with a cool appraising gaze.
“Sure,” he said. “Whatever.” And then he was running for the bus before its doors closed.
And that’s how it all started. Before either Michael or his mother was fully aware of what had happened, Brian had practically moved in.
“He’s the brother you always wanted,” his mom said one day as she was pulling both his and Brian’s clothes out of the hamper and folding them fastidiously.
But she was wrong. Brian wasn’t the brother Michael had always wanted. He was something else. A day without Brian was interminable. Michael moped around the house and snapped at his mother. Even his comic books couldn’t distract him from Brian’s absence. When the phone rang, he ran to it as though it was a pot of gold at the end of a rainbow. If it was Brian, he’d feel euphoric and spend the next few hours talking. If it was one of his mom’s friends, he felt like someone had punched him in the stomach. He was pretty sure people didn’t feel about their brothers what he felt for Brian. Whatever that was.
“I’ve changed my mind,” his mother said one grey December day as she slid the Christmas cookies off the cookie sheet and began slathering them with frosting made green and red with food coloring. “You’re not brothers. You’re Brian’s mother hen, and he’s your chick.”
Michael bristled. A mother hen? Brian a chick? How stupid could she get?
“Think about it, sweetheart,” she said. “If he’s hungry, you run to the cupboard to get him something to eat. If he’s thirsty, you run to the fridge to get him something to drink. He’s the only person in the world who can pry you away from your comic books. You’d throw yourself in front of a train if you thought you could save him.”
“He’s my best friend,” Michael said. “Of course I’d do anything for him.”
His mother looked at him with the same kind of sadness in her eyes that she had when she read letters from Uncle Vic.
“Just be careful, sweetie,” she said. Something in her voice made him stomp to the door and run down the street, skidding on the icy pavement, until he was out of breath.
Michael was pretty sure boys couldn’t fall in love with other boys, but the first time Brian showed up on their doorstep in nothing but a t-shirt and jeans, soaked to the skin in February rain, his eyes puffy and red, it occurred to Michael that he might be - in love, that is. They’d read Romeo and Juliet in English class (well, he’d read the Cliff notes - even Brian couldn’t help him understand what the hell William Shakespeare was trying to say). When Romeo decided to kill himself when he was told Juliet was dead, Michael had known exactly how he felt. He knew to the marrow of his bones that if Brian died, he couldn’t survive. His life would end. All the happiness would evaporate. The world would no longer hold any joy if Brian wasn’t beside him - if Brian went away.
Brian must never go away.
The biggest fight he and his mom ever had was when she came home from work early one day and found Michael and Brian wrestling and giggling and drunk out of their minds.
“I’m sorry,” she yelled, tears in her eyes, “but I can’t have my son getting drunk. You’re fourteen years-old, Michael! Brian is not allowed in this house unless the two of you are in my sight at all times . . .”
Michael resorted to stamping his foot like a frustrated toddler. There were tears in his eyes too. “It’s not fair,” he yelled back. “We won’t do it again!”
His mom wiped her eyes with the back of her sudsy hand. “I’m not saying he can’t come over,” she said. “All I’m saying is that you two can’t be together when I’m not here, and you can’t spend all your time up in your room. Michael, sweetie, you broke your promise to me. Remember? You promised me you’d never drink or do drugs. But you did. I don’t think the punishment is too harsh.”
But it was. The thought of not being alone with Brian, just the two of them together up in his room, was unbearable.
“You can watch cartoons in the living room . . .”
“I’ll run away,” he said wildly. “Brian and I will run away, and you’ll never see us again!”
“Baby . . .”
He started crying in earnest, not only because he knew he was going to lose the fight, but he was going to lose the way Brian looked at him sometimes. The way Brian would suddenly grab him and pin him to the bed, looming over him and smiling with mischievous glee, the way he felt under Brian’s weight. Excited. Overwhelmed. Free.
He turned and ran out of the kitchen to his room, slammed his door, and sank to the floor sobbing into his hands.
As it turned out, Brian was just as unhappy with the new arrangement at the Novotny household as Michael was. Every day after school, they lay on their stomachs on the floor, a bowl of Cracker Jacks between them, and watched Gilligan’s Island and The Brady Bunch, and then every night they sat on the couch, side-by-side, their arms touching, watching Dynasty and Falcon Crest.
“This sucks,” Brain whispered one night. “Let’s go to my house. My mom won’t care if we go to my room, and my father will either be at the Hibernian Hall or too drunk to notice.”
Michael frowned. It didn’t sound like a great idea - his mother may be constantly watching them, but she also gave them RingDings, played Life with them, and kissed them sloppily on the cheeks now and then. He had the distinct feeling that none of those things would happen at Brian’s house . . .
. . . and he wasn’t wrong. Michael hated Brian’s house before he even walked through the front door. There were no flowers or gnomes, no big “WELCOME!” on the doormat, no warm humid scent of cooking and the clatter-clang of pots and pans. There was no nothing.
“Welcome to the Kinney Household,” Brian said. “Want to meet my mom?” He took Michael by the sleeve and practically dragged him into the living room. Everything was neat and matching. There were even bowls of potpourri instead of Glade air fresheners. The windows looked out on a dry lawn with uncomfortable-looking grass and mournful shrubs.
Brian’s mom was sitting on the couch in front of the T.V. watching a show about cooking.
“Which is ironic,” Brian whispered in Michael’s ear, “since she tells us every night how much she hates cooking for us.”
I would’ve asked Brian what “ironic” meant, but just then Brian’s mother turned and noticed us.
“For heaven’s sake, Brian,” she said. “Don’t you know not to sneak up on people? Who’s that?” She gave Michael a pinched disapproving look as though she’d discovered dog poop on her carpet.
“This, madam,” Brian said with a flourish and a low bow, “is Michael Novotny. Michael, this is my mother.”
Mrs. Kinney glared at her son and then glared at Michael. “I don’t have enough food for five,” she said. “He’ll have to leave before dinner.”
Brian barely suppressed one of his trademark sneers. “I doubt there’ll be five,” he said coldly. “When was the last time Dad had dinner with us?”
Mrs. Kinney stood abruptly. As soon as she reached them, she slapped Brian across the face.
“Don’t you ever again say such a thing about your father in front of a stranger,” she said, her voice low and seething.
Brian turned his face to look her in the eyes. His cheek was pink from her palm. “Michael is not a stranger,” he said. “He’s my best friend.”
It was both one of the best days of Michael’s life . . . and one of the worst.
It turned out Mr. Kinney did show up for supper. Michael heard the door slam and a man with a slight brogue yell, “Goddamn it, Claire, you should’d put your goddamn bike in the garage! I just ran over the damn thing, and don’t think I’ll buy you a new one! I work all day to buy you kids nice things, and then you leave ‘em around. Ungrateful little shits!”
Michael and Brian were up in Brian’s room reading the comic books Michael had brought with him.
“He pretends he’s Irish when he’s blotto,” Brian said. “It’s really lame. I bet the guys at the Hall laugh at him behind his back. The Kinneys have been in the United States since the mid-1800’s. The bastard’s never even been to Ireland.”
“Maybe I should leave,” Michael said, getting up from Brian’s bed and stuffing his comic books in his backpack. He didn’t want to admit it to Brian, but he was afraid of Brian’s father.
Brian grabbed his arm. “No,” he said fiercely. “Stay.”
“But your mom . . .”
“Fuck my mom.”
Michael winced. Pigs would fly before he ever used the words “fuck” and “mom” in one sentence. He must’ve been the very picture of ambivalence because suddenly Brian stood and kissed him hard.
“Don’t be a wuss,” he said, shoving Michael away as though it’d been Michael who kissed him and not vice versa.
Stunned, elated and terrified all at the same time, Michael followed Brian downstairs. On the landing, they ran into Brian’s sister. She stuck her tongue out at Brian, and he gave her the finger.
“‘Bout time you found someone who wants to be your friend,” Claire said. She looked at Michael with a familiar dismissive expression. “You don’t look very smart,” she said, and Brian lunged for her neck.
“Shut up!” he hissed. “Leave him alone!”
“Brian!” Mrs. Kinney yelled. “Stop picking on your sister!”
“What’s he done now?” Mr. Kinney asked. “How many whuppings does that boy need? Get your ass down here this second, Sonny-boy!”
Michael would’ve given up a year’s allowance just to get out of that house. “Perhaps I should go,” he whispered, but Brian just draped an arm over his shoulders.
“Wanna meet dear old Dad?” he said and then manhandled Michael down the stairs and into the sterile, museum-like dining room.
“Who the hell is that?” Mr. Kinney said, gesturing with a jut of his chin at Michael.
“He’s a friend of Brian’s,” Mrs. Kinney said and then turned to Michael. “You should go home now.”
“No,” Brian said, his arm still draped over Michael’s shoulder. “Michael’s mom lets me eat at their house all the time. It’s only fair you let him eat here.”
“Really,” Michael whispered, “it’s okay. I don’t mind . . .” Brian’s arm slipped from his shoulders down to his waist.
“What’s this?” Mr. Kinney said. “Another fairy?” He held up his hand and made a sissy gesture. Michael felt his face redden. He looked at Brian for his reaction, but Brian merely stared at his father defiantly . . . all the same, he let go of Michael and nudged him away with his shoulder.
“Jack . . .”
“Shut up, Joan. It’s your fault anyway. If you hadn’t coddled him like you did, he wouldn’t be a homo.”
“I’m not a homo!” Brian yelled. “And neither is Michael!”
Mr. Kinney’s expression went from mocking to enraged. “Don’t you dare raise your voice at me,” he said. “Do it again and you’ll wish you’d never been born.”
Brian’s chin was wobbling, but he crossed his arms and glared at his father. “I already do,” he said, his voice choking on tears. “I already fucking do.”
To be continued . . .