if these walls could talk | mikey way x ?? | standalone
another of the weird fics that have suddenly taken up residence inside my head. this one is a bit rough around the edges and totally un-betaed. i just sort of needed to get it out. someday in the future i might re-do it and make it something a bit more...i don't know what, exactly. just, better, i guess.
anyway.
if these walls could talk
mikey x someone*
nc17
1593 words
The house is nothing special. Walls and plaster and planks of wood all mashed together to hold up the shabby roof that leaks during the monsoon season.
The master bedroom hosts a small wooden bed-frame with one mattress, rusted springs poking through the cloth at the sides, and really, he didn’t expect much more from a house advertised as “pre-furnished.” Not in this part of town, anyway.
The den window is missing two panes of glass, and in the bottom corner he can see the angry red edge of spray paint left over from when a gang of neighborhood troublemakers tried to leave their mark.
But there are no rats and there are no roaches. The realtor - sweet lady with streaks of gray in her red-brown hair, trying to scrounge enough money to send the kids to college - says she doesn’t know about termites. He just smiles and smiles that that’s fine and asks where he needs to sign. Secretly, he hopes there are termites, so that maybe one night while he’s lying awake, begging for sleep, he’ll listen to the foundations and the support beams groan and creak and then the ceiling will collapse down on him and finally give him the solitude he craves.
His mother tells him that she thinks he chose this house as a subconscious embodiment of his self-resentment. He could afford a better place and they both know that. He just taps the cherry end of his cigarette against the little black ash tray he keeps on the kitchen counter and shrugs and asks if she wants anything to drink and could she please keep the psycho-analyzing to a minimum because she’s not with a client, she’s with her son.
Sometimes she forgets.
Sometimes he does, too.
*
His friends wander the halls on some days, wrinkling their noses and inspecting the miniscule portions of the wall where the plaster is crumbling away to reveal the paneling underneath. He stops for a moment and scratches at one such area, fingernails digging in and coming away coated in white powder. Flashback to the two and a half years he spent crawling clubs, searching for mirrors and razors and little white lines that looked just like these.
“Man,” Mikey says and wipes his hands on the duct-taped jeans he probably stole from the Salvation Army store over on Fifth Street. “Man, weird shit’s goin’ on here.”
The single bulb hanging overhead in the corridor flickers and Mikey shivers.
He looks up at it.
“Maybe,” he says noncommittally, and keeps peeling the plaster away.
*
“I don’t get it,” Mikey says one afternoon when they’re sitting in the kitchen. “You’ve been here for months. What else do you have to prove?”
He takes a bite of cereal - something chocolate-flavored and blasted with particles of sugar - and drums his fingers against the table. After awhile he says it isn’t about proving anything, never was, this is just where he lives, what he needs. He closes his eyes and takes another bite of cereal. Swallows.
Mikey kisses his shoulder and says, “Okay. I trust you.”
His voice screams inside his head, a chorus of you shouldn’t and don’t you remember what happened last time and I’m a liar, baby. He keeps his eyes closed, inhales through his nose, tries not to tense too much when Mikey’s arms snake around his chest.
*
He never notices it when he’s alone. It’s only ever the company that points out the peculiar rattling coming from the bedroom at the end of the hall and suggesting that he should maybe get the air conditioner looked at.
He sips his coffee and doesn’t tell them that there is no air conditioner. Asks if anyone wants cream or sugar and hopes to God he remembered to re-stock.
Saturday morning he opens his eyes, awake all of a sudden, to find himself on the couch, foam peeking out from tiny tears in the fabric, threads sticking up like the cushions were just roused from sleep. The antique table with the chipped teal paint - house warming present that Mikey left here last Tuesday; Mikey never said where it was from and he never asked, so it’s safe to assume Mikey’s sticky fingers triumphed again - shudders once, violently, and the lamp falls to the floor.
The bulb shatters. He yawns and shuffles over to the fridge and wonders if his milk is still good.
*
“This place gives me the creeps.”
He shifts, fabric of the blankets making shuffling noises, and slides a hand through Mikey’s hair, presses his lips against Mikey’s throat. He can feel Mikey’s heartbeat against his mouth and wonders fleetingly if that’s the jugular.
“Really,” Mikey says and reaches over to intertwine fingers. “It’s like there’s something waiting under the surface, just outside the corner of my vision.” There’s a brief pause.
“It scares me.”
He kisses Mikey hard on the mouth and runs his palm over the space on Mikey’s chest that lies over his heart. Be quiet, be quiet, be quiet.
*
Stepping from the shower, little droplets of warm water and lilac soap rolling gently down the contours of his thighs, his calves, he wraps the towel around his waist. He sweeps past the mirror, corners all fogged and misty, pauses for a moment.
Turning, he regards his reflection carefully - lines beneath his eyes induced by insomnia, lines at the corners of his mouth from smoking too much - and forces the hairs on the nape of his neck back down, suppresses to the darkest corners of his subconscious the split-second image of a grinning face, dark hair and pale skin, lips ripping it into two halves.
*
His mother says that she doesn’t think it’s good for him to be indoors as much as he is, tells him that he’s gotten so much paler since she last saw him and asks if he’s sleeping well. He shakes his head, although he isn’t sure at what, and assures her that he’s fine and promises that he’ll go grocery shopping later this afternoon.
She looks at him with her lips pursed into a line, the face she makes when she doesn’t believe him, and nods and tells him that she loves him.
He says the same and hugs her. He doesn’t walk her to the door. Just watches it close behind her and bites back the bile rising in his throat, the stinging at the edges of his eyes.
*
Mikey brings him flowers and Chinese food on Wednesday and tries to drag him by his wrists out into the morning sunshine. He digs in his heels and doesn’t speak except to tell Mikey to get the fuck out now.
He can still hear the echo of his own words, still see the hurt welling up in Mikey’s eyes, still feel the sudden rush of cool air after Mikey let him go when the sun sets and casts glaring beams through the open windows.
*
The blood running down the drain in washed-out swirls is almost the same color as the rust ringing the edges of the sink, and he smiles; squeezes his wrist a little tighter and watches the crimson bubble up from the horizontal line across his palm.
*
“I love you.” Mikey murmurs against the shell of his ear, one hand sliding gently below the waistband of his slacks. “I’m sorry I stormed out. Forgive me?”
A moan catches in his throat and he leans back against Mikey’s chest and rests a hand - the one without the bandage - on Mikey’s forearm, tiny hitches of breath acting as his consent.
The lights in the hall go out. Mikey doesn’t stop. Just whispers, “I love you, I love you, please stay with me.”
He says he’ll try his best, but he feels in the hollow of his chest that he doesn’t really mean it.
*
Time bleeds together: weeks and months and days and hours, until he doesn’t know how long it’s been since he last moved, ate, slept.
He holds a hand up, spreads his fingers, and wonders if the edges of his being have always been this blurry.
*
“No, no, no,” Mikey is wailing, his knees drawn up against his chest, tears streaming down his face beneath the glasses.
He rests his head on Mikey’s shoulder, trails his fingertips over Mikey’s face and whispers soothing words.
Mikey reaches up to yank at his own hair, opens his mouth and lets out an inhuman cry - made up of a million fragments of a broken heart, broadcasting at a decibel that makes his blood change to ice and turns his stomach. He grabs Mikey’s wrist, because there has never been terror like this before, begs Mikey to please look at him.
“You promised!” Mikey screams. “You promised me you’d stay!”
Mikey folds in on himself, shaking.
He sits back and closes his eyes, inhales.
He wants to say he’s sorry but he can’t. Instead he stands and paces, going from one end of the room to the other until he’s sprinting back and forth, face flushed with exertion. He runs down the hall, lights flickering with every step that he takes, goes to the left and into the dingy bathroom. Clutching the edges of the sink, he stares into the mirror.
When he doesn’t see himself looking back, he closes his eyes again, reaches forward to touch the glass. It’s cool against his skin, so calming. He keeps pressing until he feels it envelop him, drawing him in.
*
The house is nothing special.
i had pete in mind for the someone, but you're welcome to substitue whomever you'd like. hell, throw yourself in there if you want.
anyway.
if these walls could talk
mikey x someone*
nc17
1593 words
The house is nothing special. Walls and plaster and planks of wood all mashed together to hold up the shabby roof that leaks during the monsoon season.
The master bedroom hosts a small wooden bed-frame with one mattress, rusted springs poking through the cloth at the sides, and really, he didn’t expect much more from a house advertised as “pre-furnished.” Not in this part of town, anyway.
The den window is missing two panes of glass, and in the bottom corner he can see the angry red edge of spray paint left over from when a gang of neighborhood troublemakers tried to leave their mark.
But there are no rats and there are no roaches. The realtor - sweet lady with streaks of gray in her red-brown hair, trying to scrounge enough money to send the kids to college - says she doesn’t know about termites. He just smiles and smiles that that’s fine and asks where he needs to sign. Secretly, he hopes there are termites, so that maybe one night while he’s lying awake, begging for sleep, he’ll listen to the foundations and the support beams groan and creak and then the ceiling will collapse down on him and finally give him the solitude he craves.
His mother tells him that she thinks he chose this house as a subconscious embodiment of his self-resentment. He could afford a better place and they both know that. He just taps the cherry end of his cigarette against the little black ash tray he keeps on the kitchen counter and shrugs and asks if she wants anything to drink and could she please keep the psycho-analyzing to a minimum because she’s not with a client, she’s with her son.
Sometimes she forgets.
Sometimes he does, too.
*
His friends wander the halls on some days, wrinkling their noses and inspecting the miniscule portions of the wall where the plaster is crumbling away to reveal the paneling underneath. He stops for a moment and scratches at one such area, fingernails digging in and coming away coated in white powder. Flashback to the two and a half years he spent crawling clubs, searching for mirrors and razors and little white lines that looked just like these.
“Man,” Mikey says and wipes his hands on the duct-taped jeans he probably stole from the Salvation Army store over on Fifth Street. “Man, weird shit’s goin’ on here.”
The single bulb hanging overhead in the corridor flickers and Mikey shivers.
He looks up at it.
“Maybe,” he says noncommittally, and keeps peeling the plaster away.
*
“I don’t get it,” Mikey says one afternoon when they’re sitting in the kitchen. “You’ve been here for months. What else do you have to prove?”
He takes a bite of cereal - something chocolate-flavored and blasted with particles of sugar - and drums his fingers against the table. After awhile he says it isn’t about proving anything, never was, this is just where he lives, what he needs. He closes his eyes and takes another bite of cereal. Swallows.
Mikey kisses his shoulder and says, “Okay. I trust you.”
His voice screams inside his head, a chorus of you shouldn’t and don’t you remember what happened last time and I’m a liar, baby. He keeps his eyes closed, inhales through his nose, tries not to tense too much when Mikey’s arms snake around his chest.
*
He never notices it when he’s alone. It’s only ever the company that points out the peculiar rattling coming from the bedroom at the end of the hall and suggesting that he should maybe get the air conditioner looked at.
He sips his coffee and doesn’t tell them that there is no air conditioner. Asks if anyone wants cream or sugar and hopes to God he remembered to re-stock.
Saturday morning he opens his eyes, awake all of a sudden, to find himself on the couch, foam peeking out from tiny tears in the fabric, threads sticking up like the cushions were just roused from sleep. The antique table with the chipped teal paint - house warming present that Mikey left here last Tuesday; Mikey never said where it was from and he never asked, so it’s safe to assume Mikey’s sticky fingers triumphed again - shudders once, violently, and the lamp falls to the floor.
The bulb shatters. He yawns and shuffles over to the fridge and wonders if his milk is still good.
*
“This place gives me the creeps.”
He shifts, fabric of the blankets making shuffling noises, and slides a hand through Mikey’s hair, presses his lips against Mikey’s throat. He can feel Mikey’s heartbeat against his mouth and wonders fleetingly if that’s the jugular.
“Really,” Mikey says and reaches over to intertwine fingers. “It’s like there’s something waiting under the surface, just outside the corner of my vision.” There’s a brief pause.
“It scares me.”
He kisses Mikey hard on the mouth and runs his palm over the space on Mikey’s chest that lies over his heart. Be quiet, be quiet, be quiet.
*
Stepping from the shower, little droplets of warm water and lilac soap rolling gently down the contours of his thighs, his calves, he wraps the towel around his waist. He sweeps past the mirror, corners all fogged and misty, pauses for a moment.
Turning, he regards his reflection carefully - lines beneath his eyes induced by insomnia, lines at the corners of his mouth from smoking too much - and forces the hairs on the nape of his neck back down, suppresses to the darkest corners of his subconscious the split-second image of a grinning face, dark hair and pale skin, lips ripping it into two halves.
*
His mother says that she doesn’t think it’s good for him to be indoors as much as he is, tells him that he’s gotten so much paler since she last saw him and asks if he’s sleeping well. He shakes his head, although he isn’t sure at what, and assures her that he’s fine and promises that he’ll go grocery shopping later this afternoon.
She looks at him with her lips pursed into a line, the face she makes when she doesn’t believe him, and nods and tells him that she loves him.
He says the same and hugs her. He doesn’t walk her to the door. Just watches it close behind her and bites back the bile rising in his throat, the stinging at the edges of his eyes.
*
Mikey brings him flowers and Chinese food on Wednesday and tries to drag him by his wrists out into the morning sunshine. He digs in his heels and doesn’t speak except to tell Mikey to get the fuck out now.
He can still hear the echo of his own words, still see the hurt welling up in Mikey’s eyes, still feel the sudden rush of cool air after Mikey let him go when the sun sets and casts glaring beams through the open windows.
*
The blood running down the drain in washed-out swirls is almost the same color as the rust ringing the edges of the sink, and he smiles; squeezes his wrist a little tighter and watches the crimson bubble up from the horizontal line across his palm.
*
“I love you.” Mikey murmurs against the shell of his ear, one hand sliding gently below the waistband of his slacks. “I’m sorry I stormed out. Forgive me?”
A moan catches in his throat and he leans back against Mikey’s chest and rests a hand - the one without the bandage - on Mikey’s forearm, tiny hitches of breath acting as his consent.
The lights in the hall go out. Mikey doesn’t stop. Just whispers, “I love you, I love you, please stay with me.”
He says he’ll try his best, but he feels in the hollow of his chest that he doesn’t really mean it.
*
Time bleeds together: weeks and months and days and hours, until he doesn’t know how long it’s been since he last moved, ate, slept.
He holds a hand up, spreads his fingers, and wonders if the edges of his being have always been this blurry.
*
“No, no, no,” Mikey is wailing, his knees drawn up against his chest, tears streaming down his face beneath the glasses.
He rests his head on Mikey’s shoulder, trails his fingertips over Mikey’s face and whispers soothing words.
Mikey reaches up to yank at his own hair, opens his mouth and lets out an inhuman cry - made up of a million fragments of a broken heart, broadcasting at a decibel that makes his blood change to ice and turns his stomach. He grabs Mikey’s wrist, because there has never been terror like this before, begs Mikey to please look at him.
“You promised!” Mikey screams. “You promised me you’d stay!”
Mikey folds in on himself, shaking.
He sits back and closes his eyes, inhales.
He wants to say he’s sorry but he can’t. Instead he stands and paces, going from one end of the room to the other until he’s sprinting back and forth, face flushed with exertion. He runs down the hall, lights flickering with every step that he takes, goes to the left and into the dingy bathroom. Clutching the edges of the sink, he stares into the mirror.
When he doesn’t see himself looking back, he closes his eyes again, reaches forward to touch the glass. It’s cool against his skin, so calming. He keeps pressing until he feels it envelop him, drawing him in.
*
The house is nothing special.
i had pete in mind for the someone, but you're welcome to substitue whomever you'd like. hell, throw yourself in there if you want.