FIC: My Way Home is Through You
This is a cleaned up and slightly expanded version of something I wrote for imntsaying. (I said I could ship Frank and Jamia with anyone and invited her to try me. She asked for Mikey.)
My Way Home Is Through You
Frank/Jamia/Mikey
~3,500 words
NC-17
For the first week after Mikey leaves the Paramour, he doesn't answer his phone.
It's such a relief to be out of that fucking house. He feels like he can breathe again, and for the first day or two, he thinks maybe just being out of there is enough after all. But the sixth or seventh time he sends one of their calls to voicemail, stomach knotted up tight and unhappy, he knows he was right the first time, knows he needs help with this.
He still doesn't answer the phone, though.
Frank calls a ridiculous number of times before he apparently decides to pull out the big guns.
Or at last that's what Mikey assumes he decides, since he opens the door one morning and finds Jamia on the other side.
"Mikey fucking Way," she says as blinks at her. "I'm glad to see reports of your death have been greatly exaggerated."
She has two venti Starbucks cups with the extra shots markings in one hand, and an entire carton of Marlboros under one arm. Mikey thinks about closing the door in her face, but he can't quite look away from the coffee. Or the cigarettes.
They sit down in the living room.
"What are you doing here?" he asks. "Did Frank--"
"You're my friend, too, asshole," she says mildly. "Frank says you haven't been taking their calls, I thought you could use someone to talk to."
He has people to talk to. He has Stacy, and Brian, and four fucking therapists, and his mom and his brother and his band, if he picked up the phone. He doesn't need Frank's girlfriend to fly across the country to talk to him.
He shrugs, and reaches for the cigarettes.
Jamia grabs his Sidekick while he's fumbling with the cellophane, and he makes a face, but he knows he's not getting it back until she's done with it.
She listens to his voicemail and scrolls through his inbox, rolling her eyes or laughing occasionally. Once, out of the corner of his eye, he sees her frown, small and unhappy, but it's gone as soon as he looks directly at her.
Finally she tosses the phone onto the couch next to him. He doesn't touch it. "So," he says.
"So," she says back, and lights her own cigarette.
They sit there in silence, drinking coffee and smoking, until the pack's half empty and the angle of the sharp LA sunshine has changed.
"Well, this has been great," she says finally, and she doesn't actually sound sarcastic.
He doesn't actually disagree.
She hugs him hard at the door, her body warm and soft and strong against his, and just for a second, he leans into her, putting all of his weight into the hug. Then he makes himself step back.
"Call me, motherfucker," she says, and she's gone.
He picks up his Sidekick and tells himself he should set some kind of password on it, but it's a relief to see there's no new mail in his inbox, only saved messages in his voicemail. He's pretty sure there were more new messages than there are saved ones, but that's kind of a relief, too.
He doesn't call her.
A week later, she's on his doorstep again with another carton of cigarettes, but--
"No Starbucks?" he asks dryly.
"What I've got is better than Starbucks," she says, and makes him come down to the cab with her.
There's a sleek, shining Gaggia espresso maker in the trunk, and he maybe makes an undignified noise when he sees it. She grins at him.
They spend the rest of the day experimenting with it, and they don't talk about anything but coffee. He's lost track of how many shots they've made by the end, and he pretends that's why his hands are shaking when he hugs her goodbye.
He doesn't need someone else to talk to, but maybe he needs someone to be quiet with.
"You should call them," she says into his neck, and he makes a noncommittal sound.
He doesn't call them. But when Frank's number shows up on his Sidekick, he answers.
"Oh," Frank says, and he sounds a little thrown. "Mikey! I, um--"
He stops, like there are so many things he wants to say they're all getting stuck together on his tongue. Or maybe Mikey's just projecting.
"How's recording going?" Mikey makes himself ask finally.
"Oh, man, it's, it's okay," Frank says. "I mean, we really miss you, but Ray and Gerard came up with this, it's awesome--well, you'll hear it when you get back."
He says when you get back like it's nothing, like it's a sure thing, and Mikey rests his forehead on his knees and lets himself believe.
"I'm sorry," Frank says towards the end of the call. "For the stuff I said on your voicemail. It was, I was wrong, I didn't--"
"It's okay," Mikey says. "I think Jamia deleted all the messages where you acted like an asshole before I could play them."
"I know." Frank gives an unhappy little laugh. "I'm still really fucking sorry."
"Yeah," Mikey says. "Me, too."
When Frank hangs up, Mikey calls Gerard. It's kind of awful, and it reminds Mikey of the first couple of weeks back from Japan. But at the end, Gerard says, "I love you," earnest and a little ragged, and Mikey can say back, completely true, "I know, I know."
He calls Ray, too, while he's at it, and Ray talks with great enthusiasm about the new stuff he's working on, and Bob comes on the line and they mostly just sit and smoke in silence. Cortez takes the phone away to bitch about working with them, "Seriously, no money is worth this, I don't know how you haven't killed them yet, you better be coming back soon."
Mikey's maybe smiling a little when he hangs up.
That night, he tells Stacy about talking to them.
She pauses in the middle of opening the take-out container, eyes wide. "Oh, baby, that's good," she says, and he nods.
He wants to call Jamia and tell her, too. He has the phone in his hand, flicking the screen open and shut, but in the end he doesn't call. He figures Frank will tell her anyway.
So that's how it goes for a while. Stacy kicks his ass out of bed in the mornings, and makes sure he actually goes to see one of his therapists.
The guys call him--not everyone every day (he suspects there might be a schedule), except for Frank, who calls him and e-mails him constantly. Either the cell phone reception has improved at the Paramour, or they're spending more time out of the house.
Jamia comes by randomly to talk about coffee and kung-fu movies and old gossip about people at Eyeball.
He forgets, or really, he tries not to remember that he met Jamia through Eyeball before she ever started dating Frank.
(He can't remember what he was doing in the office that day, or why she was there instead of the usual girl. What he does remember is her telling their incompetent flier guy, in this calm, scary voice, "Lick my balls, wombat-fucker," before slamming down the phone.
"What?" she said flatly. She looked like she could break him in half.
"I, um--wombat-fucker?"
She shrugged. "I figure even pedophiles draw the line at wombats."
It was so bizarre and random that it startled a totally uncool yelp of laughter out of him.
She blinked, and her grim expression slipped, and she smiled back at him, like she was as surprised as he was.)
Mikey kind of assumes Jamia's staying out in LA, but he doesn't know if she's staying with Frank or what. He never asks, and she never talks about the rest of the band.
So that's how it goes for a while, and if he's not happy, he can imagine the possibility that he will be, one day.
He's almost sure he's got things under control, or at least on the way there, and then Jamia takes her clothes off.
She's wearing a bathing suit underneath; she dragged him down to the pool that afternoon, because, "This is LA. I'm going back with a tan, dammit."
She takes off her clothes, and she has a bright red bikini on underneath, and his brain just stutters to a halt. She makes him put sunblock on the part of her back that she can't reach, and he does it like he's hypnotized.
He can still feel her skin on his palms when he sits back. He can't remember the last time he got laid, can't remember the last time he wanted to get laid, but God, he wants now.
"Take off your shirt, I'll do you," she says, and he bites his lip so he doesn't giggle hysterically.
"No, I'm good."
She grins and drops her enormous white-framed sunglasses over her eyes. "You Ways and your deathly pallor," she says, and he nods back dumbly.
That night, Frank calls him, and Mikey spends most of the conversation trying not to say your girlfriend has an amazing body, trying not to say you have the same smile, but you look nothing alike without clothes on. Trying not to remember things he used to want.
This is why he doesn't think about knowing both of them before they were a couple, because it's hard to shut up the little voice that wonders What if? If he'd been smarter, more together, if he'd known what he really wanted, instead of what he thought he should want. If he'd realized then, instead of years later, what it meant when he thought Oh with his whole body the first time he saw Frank on-stage, the first time Jamia grinned at him.
"Are you okay?" Frank asks. "You've been quiet."
"No, I'm just--too much sun."
Frank laughs. "Oh, yeah, Jamia told me," he says, and Mikey is stupidly, achingly hard.
He jerks off when Frank hangs up, and he doesn't even pretend he's not thinking about them.
It's a good thing he has four therapists.
He's in a Starbucks down the block from the third one's office when someone's phone goes off with a fucking Fall Out Boy ring tone, and all of the sudden, just like that, his fingers are itching for his bass.
He tells the third therapist about it, and the guy nods and makes encouraging noises. On the way back to Stacy's house, he stops and buys a Fender.
He could have gotten someone to go back and pick one up from Paramour for him, but he doesn't want to get anyone's hopes up.
He sits up all night playing, Fall Out Boy first, then the Misfits and Morrissey and Bon Jovi, just because. He plays everything his band has ever written, and in the end, his fingers are killing him, but he holds on to the instrument and thinks, yes, maybe, in some tiny, hopeful part of his brain.
He calls Ray up a couple of days later and asks him about the bass line in the new song. He nods along while Ray babbles happily, and for the first time in a long time, he can hear the music in his head, and can remember why he loved this so, so much.
He's never going to sleep in that house again, but he thinks he can go back for a little while, for the music.
He doesn't realize how long it's been since he's even listened to music, until he opens the door one day and Jamia stops in the middle of what she was saying and her eyes tear up a little.
She throws her arms around him, and he looks down at her. She was in the middle of a call, and he can faintly hear Frank's voice come from the phone.
"Nothing, no, he's not dead in a ditch, Jesus," she says finally, still hanging on to him with one arm. "He's just listening to his iPod."
She holds the phone out to him. "What are you listening to?" Frank demands.
"Britney," Mikey says, just to jerk his chain, and it's not even a lie, "Baby One More Time" was three songs ago.
Frank makes joyfully indignant noises, and Jamia is still smiling at him, and Mikey says, "Listen, we should go out to dinner."
"Really?" Frank says, and there's a hopeful note in his voice that makes Mikey's chest hurt a little.
"Yeah," Mikey says. "Everybody, all the guys."
After he hangs up, he thinks he maybe should have talked to his therapists about this first.
Stacy recommends a sushi place, and she arranges for Mikey and Jamia to be picked up by one of the firm's drivers.
Gerard and Frank and Ray and Bob are waiting outside the restaurant when they get there.
For a second, getting out of the car, Mikey thinks this was a terrible idea. Everybody is standing around looking awkward and hesitant, and Mikey is very conscious of the fact that this is the first time he's seen them since he ran out on them.
But then Gerard takes two steps forward and hugs him hard enough to squeeze a startled breath out of him.
"Missed you, Mikey," Gerard says. "Sorry, sorry, missed you."
Mikey hugs back just as hard. "Yeah, yes, yes."
When it becomes obvious Gerard isn't going to let go any time soon, Frank just wraps his arms around both of them, and Ray and Bob do the same. Frank snakes an arm out and pulls Jamia in, too.
Mikey's not the touchy-feeliest one, but he's suddenly aware, leaning into the warmth of their embrace, that he hasn't been hugging anyone except Jamia lately, and he's missed this.
Bob's the one who finally clears his throat and steps back, and Mikey realizes that they're having a group hug in the middle of the sidewalk.
"So, hey," Frank says, "I understand there's some dead fish in there with your names on it."
In the restaurant, Frank sits next to him and keeps bumping his knee against Mikey's, keeps breaking out into a grin when he thinks Mikey isn't looking.
The whole thing has an air of cautious relief, not like everything's great again, but like they've passed some milestone, like there's a light at the end of the tunnel.
Mikey calls the driver when they're paying the check, and stands around with the guys while the valet brings their car.
Frank's standing next to Jamia, holding her hand, and Mikey takes a deep breath and catches his eye. "Jamia's hotel is on the way back for me, if you want a ride."
He feels like he is being completely, embarrassingly obvious, but Frank just says, "Sure, yeah," and no one else reacts.
They take turns hugging him this time, before they leave.
The firm's car isn't a limo, but it's got tinted windows and one of those partition thingies between the passengers and the driver. Jamia smacks Frank's hand when he tries to play with it.
Mikey tries not to fidget.
He hasn't told anyone without a medical degree that he's going back yet, because he wants to do this first. He wants to burn all his bridges so he can go back clean, if not whole.
Jamia turns her head and smiles at him when the car stops, and it's easier than he thought it would be to lean over and kiss her, slow and sweet and careful, licking into her mouth.
He doesn't know what he's expecting, but it's not for her to tangle her fingers in his hair and pull him in closer, for her to open her mouth and kiss him back.
For Frank to wrap his hand around the back of Mikey's neck, warm and callused and gentle, and stroke his thumb down over Mikey's pulse.
Mikey pulls back first, breathless, almost dizzy, and he looks automatically at Frank, whose eyes are wide with a kind of surprised delight.
It's an awkward angle, with Frank leaning over Jamia, but the kiss is still sweet.
"Mikey, Mikey, Mikey," Frank says against his mouth, and he sounds happier than Mikey has heard him in months, and Mikey thinks yes, yes with his whole heart.
"Come up with us," Jamia says, low and soft.
Mikey nods.
Frank and Jamia both have a hand knotted in his shirt, like they're afraid he's going to run away, and they don't let go when they get out of the car, when they walk into the hotel, when they get on the elevator.
Mikey's maybe a little glad for the excuse not to chicken out.
Jamia unlocks the door and Frank pulls him through, tugging his head down to kiss him again.
When Frank steps back, Jamia is there to take his place, before Mikey can catch his breath. They take turns kissing him, slick and hot and fierce, nudging him back across the room until the back of knees hit the bed and he sits down hard.
Jamia's standing between his legs, his hand on her hip, and she turns halfway around to press her mouth to Frank's.
He's seen them kiss before, but never like this, never with such clear, dirty intent, and his breath catches in his throat.
He watches them kiss while he takes his shirt off, kisses Frank while Jamia unzips his jeans.
He closes his eyes just for a second, almost dizzy, when they're pressed up naked against him.
He has to open them again, though, to kiss the curve of Jamia's shoulder and the soft slope of her breast, to run his tongue over her name inked on Frank's skin.
Frank presses his mouth to Jamia's throat, one hand on her waist and one on Mikey's thigh, and she tilts her head, smiling quiet and private.
Mikey slides back a little, until he can lean back against the headboard, and they both turn their heads to look at him.
"I want--" he says, to the question in their eyes, "I want to see."
Frank frowns, but it's gone in heartbeat, and he moves up to kiss Mikey.
"Like this," he says, and turns, settling himself between Mikey's legs.
Jamia leans in and kisses Frank, slow and lazy, then kneels up to kiss Mikey, just as sweet, over Frank's shoulder.
"You'll have to give me hand, though," she says, low and easy, but smiling just a bit.
It takes him a minute to get it, and then he shivers against Frank's skin.
He wraps his hand around the base of Frank's cock so Jamia can sink down on it, glacier-slow. Her breath hitches and her gaze drops to Frank's face. When he's all the way inside her, she looks up and catches Mikey's eye. Then she starts moving.
"Fuck," Mikey says.
"I know," Frank says breathlessly, reaching up to cup her breast.
Mikey watches her face, the way her mouth drops open and her skin flushes, the way her smile slides over into heat. He can't see Frank's face, but he can feel him, hot skin and tense muscles beneath his hands, and that's just as good.
"Mikey," she grits out, and reaches for his hand, pressing his fingers against her clit. He spreads his hand over the line of her hipbone and rubs his thumb over her clit, slow and deliberate and she gasps.
When she comes, her back arches and she breathes out a shaky curse. Mikey kisses the corner of Frank's jaw without looking away from her.
Her whole body goes soft and she sways into Frank, kissing him wet and open-mouthed.
Frank makes a soft sound in his throat, and his hips jerk up.
Mikey can feel Frank getting closer, can feel him come, tense and shuddering and wordless. He's hard against Frank's back, rubbing up against him, and he's not going to need anything else.
He buries his face in the side of Frank's neck when he comes, fast and too intense. Frank reaches back and curves his hand over Mikey's side, and Jamia threads her hand through his hair, soft and petting.
He keeps his head tucked down while he tries to catch his breath. He can feel something like tears prickling in his eyes, and knows they should clean up before they're all stuck together, but he can't bring himself to let go.
"It's okay," Jamia says, "we've got you," and he lets them shift him around, until they're all lying down, under the covers, still wrapped up together.
Under the pressure of their embrace, he feels like he can breathe again.
Like he has enough air to say, "I want to come back. To play."
Jamia's arms tighten around him. Frank kisses him, hard, but all he says, a little choked, is, "Yeah, good, awesome."
And Mikey smiles, because maybe it's not, yet, but it will be.
My Way Home Is Through You
Frank/Jamia/Mikey
~3,500 words
NC-17
For the first week after Mikey leaves the Paramour, he doesn't answer his phone.
It's such a relief to be out of that fucking house. He feels like he can breathe again, and for the first day or two, he thinks maybe just being out of there is enough after all. But the sixth or seventh time he sends one of their calls to voicemail, stomach knotted up tight and unhappy, he knows he was right the first time, knows he needs help with this.
He still doesn't answer the phone, though.
Frank calls a ridiculous number of times before he apparently decides to pull out the big guns.
Or at last that's what Mikey assumes he decides, since he opens the door one morning and finds Jamia on the other side.
"Mikey fucking Way," she says as blinks at her. "I'm glad to see reports of your death have been greatly exaggerated."
She has two venti Starbucks cups with the extra shots markings in one hand, and an entire carton of Marlboros under one arm. Mikey thinks about closing the door in her face, but he can't quite look away from the coffee. Or the cigarettes.
They sit down in the living room.
"What are you doing here?" he asks. "Did Frank--"
"You're my friend, too, asshole," she says mildly. "Frank says you haven't been taking their calls, I thought you could use someone to talk to."
He has people to talk to. He has Stacy, and Brian, and four fucking therapists, and his mom and his brother and his band, if he picked up the phone. He doesn't need Frank's girlfriend to fly across the country to talk to him.
He shrugs, and reaches for the cigarettes.
Jamia grabs his Sidekick while he's fumbling with the cellophane, and he makes a face, but he knows he's not getting it back until she's done with it.
She listens to his voicemail and scrolls through his inbox, rolling her eyes or laughing occasionally. Once, out of the corner of his eye, he sees her frown, small and unhappy, but it's gone as soon as he looks directly at her.
Finally she tosses the phone onto the couch next to him. He doesn't touch it. "So," he says.
"So," she says back, and lights her own cigarette.
They sit there in silence, drinking coffee and smoking, until the pack's half empty and the angle of the sharp LA sunshine has changed.
"Well, this has been great," she says finally, and she doesn't actually sound sarcastic.
He doesn't actually disagree.
She hugs him hard at the door, her body warm and soft and strong against his, and just for a second, he leans into her, putting all of his weight into the hug. Then he makes himself step back.
"Call me, motherfucker," she says, and she's gone.
He picks up his Sidekick and tells himself he should set some kind of password on it, but it's a relief to see there's no new mail in his inbox, only saved messages in his voicemail. He's pretty sure there were more new messages than there are saved ones, but that's kind of a relief, too.
He doesn't call her.
A week later, she's on his doorstep again with another carton of cigarettes, but--
"No Starbucks?" he asks dryly.
"What I've got is better than Starbucks," she says, and makes him come down to the cab with her.
There's a sleek, shining Gaggia espresso maker in the trunk, and he maybe makes an undignified noise when he sees it. She grins at him.
They spend the rest of the day experimenting with it, and they don't talk about anything but coffee. He's lost track of how many shots they've made by the end, and he pretends that's why his hands are shaking when he hugs her goodbye.
He doesn't need someone else to talk to, but maybe he needs someone to be quiet with.
"You should call them," she says into his neck, and he makes a noncommittal sound.
He doesn't call them. But when Frank's number shows up on his Sidekick, he answers.
"Oh," Frank says, and he sounds a little thrown. "Mikey! I, um--"
He stops, like there are so many things he wants to say they're all getting stuck together on his tongue. Or maybe Mikey's just projecting.
"How's recording going?" Mikey makes himself ask finally.
"Oh, man, it's, it's okay," Frank says. "I mean, we really miss you, but Ray and Gerard came up with this, it's awesome--well, you'll hear it when you get back."
He says when you get back like it's nothing, like it's a sure thing, and Mikey rests his forehead on his knees and lets himself believe.
"I'm sorry," Frank says towards the end of the call. "For the stuff I said on your voicemail. It was, I was wrong, I didn't--"
"It's okay," Mikey says. "I think Jamia deleted all the messages where you acted like an asshole before I could play them."
"I know." Frank gives an unhappy little laugh. "I'm still really fucking sorry."
"Yeah," Mikey says. "Me, too."
When Frank hangs up, Mikey calls Gerard. It's kind of awful, and it reminds Mikey of the first couple of weeks back from Japan. But at the end, Gerard says, "I love you," earnest and a little ragged, and Mikey can say back, completely true, "I know, I know."
He calls Ray, too, while he's at it, and Ray talks with great enthusiasm about the new stuff he's working on, and Bob comes on the line and they mostly just sit and smoke in silence. Cortez takes the phone away to bitch about working with them, "Seriously, no money is worth this, I don't know how you haven't killed them yet, you better be coming back soon."
Mikey's maybe smiling a little when he hangs up.
That night, he tells Stacy about talking to them.
She pauses in the middle of opening the take-out container, eyes wide. "Oh, baby, that's good," she says, and he nods.
He wants to call Jamia and tell her, too. He has the phone in his hand, flicking the screen open and shut, but in the end he doesn't call. He figures Frank will tell her anyway.
So that's how it goes for a while. Stacy kicks his ass out of bed in the mornings, and makes sure he actually goes to see one of his therapists.
The guys call him--not everyone every day (he suspects there might be a schedule), except for Frank, who calls him and e-mails him constantly. Either the cell phone reception has improved at the Paramour, or they're spending more time out of the house.
Jamia comes by randomly to talk about coffee and kung-fu movies and old gossip about people at Eyeball.
He forgets, or really, he tries not to remember that he met Jamia through Eyeball before she ever started dating Frank.
(He can't remember what he was doing in the office that day, or why she was there instead of the usual girl. What he does remember is her telling their incompetent flier guy, in this calm, scary voice, "Lick my balls, wombat-fucker," before slamming down the phone.
"What?" she said flatly. She looked like she could break him in half.
"I, um--wombat-fucker?"
She shrugged. "I figure even pedophiles draw the line at wombats."
It was so bizarre and random that it startled a totally uncool yelp of laughter out of him.
She blinked, and her grim expression slipped, and she smiled back at him, like she was as surprised as he was.)
Mikey kind of assumes Jamia's staying out in LA, but he doesn't know if she's staying with Frank or what. He never asks, and she never talks about the rest of the band.
So that's how it goes for a while, and if he's not happy, he can imagine the possibility that he will be, one day.
He's almost sure he's got things under control, or at least on the way there, and then Jamia takes her clothes off.
She's wearing a bathing suit underneath; she dragged him down to the pool that afternoon, because, "This is LA. I'm going back with a tan, dammit."
She takes off her clothes, and she has a bright red bikini on underneath, and his brain just stutters to a halt. She makes him put sunblock on the part of her back that she can't reach, and he does it like he's hypnotized.
He can still feel her skin on his palms when he sits back. He can't remember the last time he got laid, can't remember the last time he wanted to get laid, but God, he wants now.
"Take off your shirt, I'll do you," she says, and he bites his lip so he doesn't giggle hysterically.
"No, I'm good."
She grins and drops her enormous white-framed sunglasses over her eyes. "You Ways and your deathly pallor," she says, and he nods back dumbly.
That night, Frank calls him, and Mikey spends most of the conversation trying not to say your girlfriend has an amazing body, trying not to say you have the same smile, but you look nothing alike without clothes on. Trying not to remember things he used to want.
This is why he doesn't think about knowing both of them before they were a couple, because it's hard to shut up the little voice that wonders What if? If he'd been smarter, more together, if he'd known what he really wanted, instead of what he thought he should want. If he'd realized then, instead of years later, what it meant when he thought Oh with his whole body the first time he saw Frank on-stage, the first time Jamia grinned at him.
"Are you okay?" Frank asks. "You've been quiet."
"No, I'm just--too much sun."
Frank laughs. "Oh, yeah, Jamia told me," he says, and Mikey is stupidly, achingly hard.
He jerks off when Frank hangs up, and he doesn't even pretend he's not thinking about them.
It's a good thing he has four therapists.
He's in a Starbucks down the block from the third one's office when someone's phone goes off with a fucking Fall Out Boy ring tone, and all of the sudden, just like that, his fingers are itching for his bass.
He tells the third therapist about it, and the guy nods and makes encouraging noises. On the way back to Stacy's house, he stops and buys a Fender.
He could have gotten someone to go back and pick one up from Paramour for him, but he doesn't want to get anyone's hopes up.
He sits up all night playing, Fall Out Boy first, then the Misfits and Morrissey and Bon Jovi, just because. He plays everything his band has ever written, and in the end, his fingers are killing him, but he holds on to the instrument and thinks, yes, maybe, in some tiny, hopeful part of his brain.
He calls Ray up a couple of days later and asks him about the bass line in the new song. He nods along while Ray babbles happily, and for the first time in a long time, he can hear the music in his head, and can remember why he loved this so, so much.
He's never going to sleep in that house again, but he thinks he can go back for a little while, for the music.
He doesn't realize how long it's been since he's even listened to music, until he opens the door one day and Jamia stops in the middle of what she was saying and her eyes tear up a little.
She throws her arms around him, and he looks down at her. She was in the middle of a call, and he can faintly hear Frank's voice come from the phone.
"Nothing, no, he's not dead in a ditch, Jesus," she says finally, still hanging on to him with one arm. "He's just listening to his iPod."
She holds the phone out to him. "What are you listening to?" Frank demands.
"Britney," Mikey says, just to jerk his chain, and it's not even a lie, "Baby One More Time" was three songs ago.
Frank makes joyfully indignant noises, and Jamia is still smiling at him, and Mikey says, "Listen, we should go out to dinner."
"Really?" Frank says, and there's a hopeful note in his voice that makes Mikey's chest hurt a little.
"Yeah," Mikey says. "Everybody, all the guys."
After he hangs up, he thinks he maybe should have talked to his therapists about this first.
Stacy recommends a sushi place, and she arranges for Mikey and Jamia to be picked up by one of the firm's drivers.
Gerard and Frank and Ray and Bob are waiting outside the restaurant when they get there.
For a second, getting out of the car, Mikey thinks this was a terrible idea. Everybody is standing around looking awkward and hesitant, and Mikey is very conscious of the fact that this is the first time he's seen them since he ran out on them.
But then Gerard takes two steps forward and hugs him hard enough to squeeze a startled breath out of him.
"Missed you, Mikey," Gerard says. "Sorry, sorry, missed you."
Mikey hugs back just as hard. "Yeah, yes, yes."
When it becomes obvious Gerard isn't going to let go any time soon, Frank just wraps his arms around both of them, and Ray and Bob do the same. Frank snakes an arm out and pulls Jamia in, too.
Mikey's not the touchy-feeliest one, but he's suddenly aware, leaning into the warmth of their embrace, that he hasn't been hugging anyone except Jamia lately, and he's missed this.
Bob's the one who finally clears his throat and steps back, and Mikey realizes that they're having a group hug in the middle of the sidewalk.
"So, hey," Frank says, "I understand there's some dead fish in there with your names on it."
In the restaurant, Frank sits next to him and keeps bumping his knee against Mikey's, keeps breaking out into a grin when he thinks Mikey isn't looking.
The whole thing has an air of cautious relief, not like everything's great again, but like they've passed some milestone, like there's a light at the end of the tunnel.
Mikey calls the driver when they're paying the check, and stands around with the guys while the valet brings their car.
Frank's standing next to Jamia, holding her hand, and Mikey takes a deep breath and catches his eye. "Jamia's hotel is on the way back for me, if you want a ride."
He feels like he is being completely, embarrassingly obvious, but Frank just says, "Sure, yeah," and no one else reacts.
They take turns hugging him this time, before they leave.
The firm's car isn't a limo, but it's got tinted windows and one of those partition thingies between the passengers and the driver. Jamia smacks Frank's hand when he tries to play with it.
Mikey tries not to fidget.
He hasn't told anyone without a medical degree that he's going back yet, because he wants to do this first. He wants to burn all his bridges so he can go back clean, if not whole.
Jamia turns her head and smiles at him when the car stops, and it's easier than he thought it would be to lean over and kiss her, slow and sweet and careful, licking into her mouth.
He doesn't know what he's expecting, but it's not for her to tangle her fingers in his hair and pull him in closer, for her to open her mouth and kiss him back.
For Frank to wrap his hand around the back of Mikey's neck, warm and callused and gentle, and stroke his thumb down over Mikey's pulse.
Mikey pulls back first, breathless, almost dizzy, and he looks automatically at Frank, whose eyes are wide with a kind of surprised delight.
It's an awkward angle, with Frank leaning over Jamia, but the kiss is still sweet.
"Mikey, Mikey, Mikey," Frank says against his mouth, and he sounds happier than Mikey has heard him in months, and Mikey thinks yes, yes with his whole heart.
"Come up with us," Jamia says, low and soft.
Mikey nods.
Frank and Jamia both have a hand knotted in his shirt, like they're afraid he's going to run away, and they don't let go when they get out of the car, when they walk into the hotel, when they get on the elevator.
Mikey's maybe a little glad for the excuse not to chicken out.
Jamia unlocks the door and Frank pulls him through, tugging his head down to kiss him again.
When Frank steps back, Jamia is there to take his place, before Mikey can catch his breath. They take turns kissing him, slick and hot and fierce, nudging him back across the room until the back of knees hit the bed and he sits down hard.
Jamia's standing between his legs, his hand on her hip, and she turns halfway around to press her mouth to Frank's.
He's seen them kiss before, but never like this, never with such clear, dirty intent, and his breath catches in his throat.
He watches them kiss while he takes his shirt off, kisses Frank while Jamia unzips his jeans.
He closes his eyes just for a second, almost dizzy, when they're pressed up naked against him.
He has to open them again, though, to kiss the curve of Jamia's shoulder and the soft slope of her breast, to run his tongue over her name inked on Frank's skin.
Frank presses his mouth to Jamia's throat, one hand on her waist and one on Mikey's thigh, and she tilts her head, smiling quiet and private.
Mikey slides back a little, until he can lean back against the headboard, and they both turn their heads to look at him.
"I want--" he says, to the question in their eyes, "I want to see."
Frank frowns, but it's gone in heartbeat, and he moves up to kiss Mikey.
"Like this," he says, and turns, settling himself between Mikey's legs.
Jamia leans in and kisses Frank, slow and lazy, then kneels up to kiss Mikey, just as sweet, over Frank's shoulder.
"You'll have to give me hand, though," she says, low and easy, but smiling just a bit.
It takes him a minute to get it, and then he shivers against Frank's skin.
He wraps his hand around the base of Frank's cock so Jamia can sink down on it, glacier-slow. Her breath hitches and her gaze drops to Frank's face. When he's all the way inside her, she looks up and catches Mikey's eye. Then she starts moving.
"Fuck," Mikey says.
"I know," Frank says breathlessly, reaching up to cup her breast.
Mikey watches her face, the way her mouth drops open and her skin flushes, the way her smile slides over into heat. He can't see Frank's face, but he can feel him, hot skin and tense muscles beneath his hands, and that's just as good.
"Mikey," she grits out, and reaches for his hand, pressing his fingers against her clit. He spreads his hand over the line of her hipbone and rubs his thumb over her clit, slow and deliberate and she gasps.
When she comes, her back arches and she breathes out a shaky curse. Mikey kisses the corner of Frank's jaw without looking away from her.
Her whole body goes soft and she sways into Frank, kissing him wet and open-mouthed.
Frank makes a soft sound in his throat, and his hips jerk up.
Mikey can feel Frank getting closer, can feel him come, tense and shuddering and wordless. He's hard against Frank's back, rubbing up against him, and he's not going to need anything else.
He buries his face in the side of Frank's neck when he comes, fast and too intense. Frank reaches back and curves his hand over Mikey's side, and Jamia threads her hand through his hair, soft and petting.
He keeps his head tucked down while he tries to catch his breath. He can feel something like tears prickling in his eyes, and knows they should clean up before they're all stuck together, but he can't bring himself to let go.
"It's okay," Jamia says, "we've got you," and he lets them shift him around, until they're all lying down, under the covers, still wrapped up together.
Under the pressure of their embrace, he feels like he can breathe again.
Like he has enough air to say, "I want to come back. To play."
Jamia's arms tighten around him. Frank kisses him, hard, but all he says, a little choked, is, "Yeah, good, awesome."
And Mikey smiles, because maybe it's not, yet, but it will be.