Fic: Waiting in the Sky 3/3 (My Chemical Romance, Gerard/Mikey, NC-17)
One | Two | Three
Mikey is not drunk enough for this to be fun. He needs at least three, possibly four, more beers before this party gets anywhere near decent. It was okay when Frank and Danny were still hanging around. Then that girl Jamia walked in and Frank disappeared and Danny is running around trying to keep anything his parents would miss from getting destroyed.
There's booze but that doesn’t make the ridiculous bubblegum pop bullshit they're playing any more tolerable. Seriously, it's the Spice Girls. He doesn't know how the soundtrack of this party got there from Smashing Pumpkins but it's just not right. Someone's clearly pranked the CDs on shuffle.
It's the sort of petty little annoyance he'd complain about to Gerard if they were still in each other's heads like they used to be - casual and easy. As it is Mikey only seen Gerard a couple handfuls of times since he went off to school. The thought makes Mikey frown into his now empty plastic cup.
"You look happy," AJ says, holding out a new cup. It has beer in it so Mikey takes it even though he really doesn't want to do the shallow banter thing. AJ's a decent guy and Mikey's known him as Danny's older brother forever but he's not feeling social anymore.
"Man, you're fucking great at reading people." Mikey says then takes a long drink. The beer is actually cold, not too watery which means that someone, probably AJ, went on a run sometime in the last hour. He's lorded his right to buy over Danny ever since he turned twenty-one a few months ago and normally he wouldn't bother. So Danny's got something on him to convince him to help with this party, something pretty good. He has to.
"Hey, no need to get bitchy, Mikey Way. I came bearing beer. It's like a hall pass to any and all parties."
"You graduated like five years ago."
"Logistics."
"And what're the logistical benefits of hanging around your little brother's party?"
"He's got hot friends."
Okay, he's got Mikey's attention. Mikey's seen AJ looking before, covert glances when he and Frank show up to get Danny for a show and he's pretty hot so yeah, Mikey's listening now.
"You want to smoke up?" AJ asks.
Mikey's not a stoner himself. The last time he got high was under the bleachers at the homecoming game. Gerard was supposed to have been coming in that weekend but then had decided not to. He hadn't even fucking called, just thought it at him over the deep pool of distance between them.
It's been about three years and Mikey should be accustomed to the distance by now. In the way that involves the ability to be functional only seeing Gerard at Christmas and Easter, he is totally used to it. Being so fucking angry that it took up most of his brain space helped him adapt during that first year or so. Then he met Frank and fell into the local scene and that helped too but by that point, he was just used to the near-void of space between them that was only connected by one of those shitty Temple of Doom rope bridges where they used to have iron-work, tunnels, and those cool high speed Japanese trains to get between the space between.
He's had time to adjust but when he's drunk, he notices how lonely he is. Gerard's gotten baked plenty over in New York and its nice enough second hand. Plus, he tends to be a relatively cheerful stoner, so why the fuck not? It can't make his mood worse. "Yeah sure."
"I've got some shit in my room."
"Oh. Yeah okay."
AJ hooks a finger into the space between Mikey's belt and his jeans and tugs him down the narrow hallway. Mikey glances around briefly but no one's looking at him. It's a Saturday night. There are no adults and lots of alcohol. No one gives a shit what he's doing. He downs the beer AJ gave him in a few long swallows, drops the cup on the floor, and let's himself be led.
He's been in here before but never with AJ. He and Danny used to raid his room. They'd take porn and cigarettes and any money they could find all the time growing up. Although after AJ came out Danny stopped taking the porn.
There are rap posters on the walls and posters for movies with Jean Claude van Dam. It's not really his thing but whatever. He's more focused on the double bed and the banged up Ghostbusters lunchbox AJ's pulling out from underneath it.
He sits down on the bed and cracks it open. Three different pipes, rolling papers, a very small bong and dime bag of the good shit that Mikey can smell the instant the lunchbox opens. He breathes deep and drops down next to AJ.
"Awesome. I think I used to have that lunchbox man."
"Huh? Oh, I think it was Danny's," AJ says. That explains a lot and doesn't earn him any points at all. Danny was always the cool one in this family. "So, pipe, joint, or bong?"
"Bong."
"Good man."
The music from the party is filtering through the room. It's all bass now so it doesn’t matter what it is. AJ's weed is quality and fifteen minutes later, the bong is on the floor and they're sprawled on their backs on the bed, shoulders touching.
AJ's got those little glow-in-the-dark stars on his ceiling. It makes Mikey think of Gerard, of those blue-green waves of grass, and of the way his smile is uneven. Just thinking of him always makes the bond that ties them together vibrate and widen a bit.
This is different. Thinking of Gee like this, high and a little turned on from the way AJ's fingers are stroking up and down the skin of his inner arm makes the connection blow open like it was before Gerard left. Feeling Gerard goes from the equivalent of music coming from a distant radio playing music he can barely hear to being front-row center at a concert. He's in the room with him in some shitty closet-sized apartment in New York, feeling the paint on his hands and tasting the cigarette hanging from his lips.
Mikey can feel that he's tired and a little lonely but wrapped deeply in his work. He's burning on the inside and staring at a large canvas that is clearly inspired by his homeworld. He's wrapped up, like he always is when he gets inspired, so he only notices Mikey a little, like he always does and absently reaches back to comfort and reassure. The fact that after all this shit, it's still Gerard's first impulse turns Mikey on so hard he can barely breathe for a second there.
When he catches his breath, he pushes up so that he can kiss AJ. He can taste the smoke in Gerard's mouth in the kiss and it makes him moan and closes his eyes. That makes it so much better because suddenly, he can forget that he's with someone else. He can just feel another body under him, another tongue in his mouth. It feels good, so fucking good and God, it's been too long since he last kissed someone. More accurately, since he last kissed Gerard. He's missed the act almost as much as Mikey's missed him.
AJ's hand lands on his waist and squeezes, which is nice. It makes Mikey's hips roll forward and that's awesome. It's hot friction and dull throb and then a rush of whatthemotherfuck that comes straight from Gerard's mind into his. That has to be the sex or the booze or the pot, or some combination of the three, because there's Gerard's pleasure, like Mikey's feeling it in both their bodies at once.
God, yes Mikey thinks, not bothering to try and keep it from Gerard. He's tired and he's high and AJ's set a rhythm beneath him that feels so fucking good. It'd feel better if he could get out of his pants. Actually, that's a good plan. He rears up to unbuckle his belt and yank it free before fumbling at his fly.
Mikey?
AJ's taking off his shirt and his pants. He keeps stopping to drag Mikey back into awkward, rushed kisses, but that doesn’t feel half as good as Gerard saying his name. The way it curls around his mind turns him on like a hand wrapping around his dick.
Yeah? Hi, Gee. Mikey kicks out of his jeans and boxers, not worrying about his socks. He's never done this before. Never really occurred to him to try it with someone who wasn't Gerard. But now that he's here and AJ's hands on him, he can definitely feel the appeal, especially when fingers other than his own take hold of his dick. Fucking fuck, that's awesome. It shouldn’t be that different, but it really is.
Mikey, what are you doing? Gerard demands. He feels closer than he has since he left for college, like he's in the room. You're too close.
Mikey's brain has really reduced to variations on the word fuck. Oh, fuck. Motherfuck. Fucked. Fucking. Nothing else feels particularly relevant with AJ jerking him off slow and lazy, mouthing at his neck sloppily.
"I can't be with you now," Gerard says, out loud and God, yes, Mikey can hear it from a state away.
It's been over a year since that last happened. He can see the way Gerard staggers backwards. His apartment is so small that his back hits a wall. When AJ's lips suck on the skin beneath his jaw, Gerard's head falls back with a thud. Apparently that’s better for him. "You gotta stop."
That is so not happening. He wraps his mind tighter around tighter around Gerard and thrusts up into AJ's hand. Pleasure makes all the careful controls he's built out of anger and hurt to fall away, and he finds Gerard's wall is down too. Instead of being held back and cut off, Mikey's hit with the full, stereo surround-sound, Technicolor Gerard experience.
He'd like to lie back and enjoy it but AJ's getting bitey. That's not really his thing, so he takes the hint and reaches down to return the handjob. It's an odd reverse of what he's used to on himself.
"God, Mikey Way, fuck, yeah, yeah, yeah, do it. Faster."
Mikey slams his hand over AJ's mouth. He shoves two fingers into AJ's mouth just to make him stop. "Shut up. Fuck." That makes AJ quit talking and has the bonus of making him suck Mikey's fingers.
Can you feel this? He feels needy and pathetic like he did when Gerard left. This time though, Gerard can't make him stop. Gee, can you feel what he's doing?
Gerard's buzzing bright red through Mikey's whole body. He's close, closer than Mikey even but then, he's getting it double, Mikey's feelings and his own. It doesn’t loop back like it used to but it's still feels so much more, finally, like when Dorothy goes from Kansas to Oz.
How can you think of the Wizard of Oz now?
Gerard is like the Emerald City compared to the black and white world so how could he not? Hell, the longing's almost the same color as the green glass. There you are.
In Oz?
"Yes," Mikey replies, smiling into the skin of AJ's chin. "Fuck yeah." He absently speeds up his rhythm and AJ gasps. His teeth clench painfully for a moment on Mikey's fingers before he resumes his sucking, now ragged and in time to his spasming body.
Fuck, he's coming. Gerard's a little stunned. He can feel the same hot, wet pulse as in his right fist as Mikey does. Mikey, really, what're you doing?
Having sex. It's kind of awesome. He's going to do it way more often. Especially if he can get it to blow the connection between Gerard so far open every time. "Want to come."
AJ pulls back, gasping as Mikey's spit-wet fingers fall from between his lips. "Greedy. Gimme a sec."
"Fuck a second. Now. Touch." That last bit isn't really for AJ, but Gerard doesn't. He digs his fingernails into his drywall and squeezes his eyes shut in protest.
"Fine. Damn."
He shimmies down the bed and holy blowjobs, Batman. His mouth is on Mikey's dick. That's new and yeah. No fucking wonder people go stupid-crazy for it. Breathy little noises are escaping his mouth without his permission because AJ's mouth is wet and sucking and smooth and there's nothing to distract him from the way this feels. He can sink into pleasure and drag Gerard down with him.
Coming isn't the feedback loop it should be, a shadow of the shared dreams they still have some nights. But it’s the best thing Mikey's felt in forever and he would like to live here, thanks. Here he can feel the slightly bumpy texture of wall under Gerard's hands and the way his whole body is shaking with secondhand pleasure that's almost better than Mikey's own orgasm.
Mikey's still in the stratosphere when, outside the room, something huge falls over. The crash is loud enough to sound over the music and suddenly someone is pounding on the door. "AJ! Bro, I need you out here right now! They pulled over the fridge!" Danny's voice is thin and panicked.
"Fucking shit, Dan," AJ curses, hopping into his jeans. He rubs any stray come off his stomach with a dirty shirt he's picked up off his floor. He throws it in Mikey's general direction before hurling open his door and slamming it shut behind him. Aside from jumping at that initial bang, Mikey doesn't move as AJ scrambles away. He lays, sprawled and loose, staring up at the glow-in-the-dark stars and through it to Gerard's apartment.
I missed you Mikey sighs, stroking his own palm with the knuckles of his other hand. The soft sensation travels through his skin into Gerard's.
Miss me? We're in each other's heads 24/7. "Also," Gerard adds aloud, " Boundaries? That was not fucking cool." He sinks down to sit on the floor of his apartment, his back still pressed tight to the wall like if he pulls away from the drywall he'll float away.
Yeah it was. It was so fucking cool. Are blow jobs always that awesome? His skin didn’t smell as good as yours.
How the hell should I know? "You cant ask me things like that."
"I can." Mikey whispers. "I can do anything I want." Then he starts to laugh because he can. He can have sex with AJ again, or with someone else, or bring down all the walls that keep Gerard out of his head. He has some of the control here, too.
I know that. That's why I left.
Mikey's irritation at that is almost tangible. It makes him feel like scratching at his skin only the itch won’t go away just because he tore at himself with his fingernails. It goes too deep into his own head and twists its roots up in Gerard. He can't reach on his own. Way to completely miss the point, Gee.
"There was a point to that besides…" Gerard stops talking but he can't stop himself thinking hurtingme.
Jealousy's not a new emotion coming from Gerard. Most of their childhood he radiated it at people whose skin he thought really fit them, probably because they were human. Almost always, even now that they're mostly grown up, it's cut think with hurt, sickly yellow and stringy. Mikey pushes the jealousy away most of the time. Even after Gerard left, it didn’t stop. He still finds himself combating Gerard's negative emotions away with positive ones of his own when he's not paying attention. Gerard does the same to him. Soothing each other is involuntary, like breathing.
He doesn’t know what to do with Gerard's jealousy and hurt now because yeah, if he's honest, he did want to hurt Gerard a little. Not a lot, just, some. For the last few years that Gerard had kept himself away from Mikey leaving him like an amputee with a phantom arm. On purpose.
He definitely hadn't been going for jealousy. Some weed, a hand besides his own on his dick for the first time ever, yes. But now that he can feel it, he's not all that sorry.
I'm almost eighteen, Gee.
Thanks for letting me know. I just couldn’t remember your birthday.
I'm allowed to get laid. He scrubs his face with his hand. Suddenly, exhaustion is dragging every cell down and he's not sure if its his own or Gerard's. I'm going to get laid. It's fun and I fucking like it.
A wave of Gerard's unhappiness rolls over Mikey. He wraps his arms around his legs and rests his chin on his knees. It's classic Gerard sulk posture. AJ's an asshole.
And? So are you. If you came back, I wouldn't hold it against you either.
Gerard rubs his face with both hands. It streaks paint across one cheek and Mikey wishes he were there. He'd take a picture of it. It's too much.
For you. For me it's not enough. It hasn’t been enough in ages. There are some moments when Mikey feels like he's dying of hunger all at once while staring through glass at a banquet. It's not fucking fair.
I'm sorry.
I can't tell you how little I want to hear that shit again. It's an old fight. Back and forth. Gerard, apologizing and saying no, Mikey feeling quietly angry and not so quietly hurt. But Mikey doesn’t want to fight right now. You can't tell me you don't miss it.
It is the space in their minds they have hollowed out for each other. They can't cut ties. Not won't - can fucking not. The empty space when Gerard mindmelded with his ship was the scariest, most painful thing Mikey has ever experienced. Doing that again is not a goddamn option. But they're not like they used to be. Gerard's wrong about that.
Of course I do.
Okay, Mikey isn't expecting that. Gerard usually shrugs off the way they used to be, like it doesn’t matter. Mikey knows better, can feel it, but Gerard isnt one to admit it to himself. Gerard?
What?
I fucking hate you for doing this to us. Okay. That was not what he meant to say. Think. But apparently, that was what he was thinking and now that the filters were down, it was an open door in both directions.
Mikey can feel Gerard flinch then fumble for his cigarettes. He takes a precious moment to light his cigarette with the lighter Elena got him for his eighteenth birthday, a zippo with a little glow-in-the-dark alien head on it and blows out a thick cloud of smoke. "I hate me too."
As soon as he says it, the self-loathing rolls through like a wave of thick, heavy black tar. It's smothering. Mikey can barely breathe through it as it washes away any lingering pleasure leftover from the orgasm. Jesus fucking Christ, Gee, what is that?
"I'm starting meds on Monday," Gerard says. It's clear that he's been swimming in that ugly shit for ages if he's this calm about it, if he's at a point where he'll try medication calibrated for humans when he wouldn’t even take cold medicine when they were kids. "I was going to call and tell Mom to tell you but- heads up okay? If they fuck with you, you need to tell me okay? I don't want-" He breaks off and another wave hits.
If this is what Gerard's been holding back from him for the last few years, Mikey is suddenly intensely grateful. This is too much to deal with. He doesn’t know if he can manage, let alone how Gerard can. That relief lasts all of ten seconds before he is railing at himself. He should have noticed. They live in each other's minds, how could he be so fucking angry and self-involved that he didn't realize?
I'm coming to see you. Mikey thinks because this is not okay. He cannot be half naked at some stupid high school party when Gerard feels like this, has felt like this long enough to get help from a human doctor with human medicines. Why didn't you tell me? He tries to rein in the explosion of hurtshockhurtbetrayalhurt that hits him at the thought of Gerard suffering right under his nose. He hadn't known. How could he have missed it?
Mikey sits up so fast his head spins. He needs to find his clothes. He needs to get out of here.
EasycalmdownMikeyitsokayheyeasy Gerard soothes. It works just enough for Mikey to find his pants and shirt but not much more.
He barely glances as he rushes pass the wreckage of the kitchen, where Danny and AJ are trying desperately to right their refrigerator. Danny's trying to get underneath the freezer and AJ's pulling from behind and most of the time, Mikey would stay and help. Danny's a good guy and AJ's probably still got Mikey's come on his tongue.
Now he's doesn't even consider stopping because this is bullshit. This is insane bullshit and how did he not know before? He takes a few deep breaths so he doesn't wreck the shitty silver four-door he's "borrowing" until Gerard moves out of the city and makes a beeline for the train station. It's Friday night and it's not that late. It's the quickest way and it won't spin him out and into a fucking telephone pole or tree.
Fuck you so hard for doing this to us Mikey thinks furiously as he yanks the parking break on. He's met with quiet except for the background hum of Gerard's presence which, fuck, he can't trust anymore. Fuck me for letting you. You're telling Mom where I am.
He doesn't push for an answer before he gets his train ticket. He pulls out the credit card his dad gave him for absolute emergencies and buys a two-part return into Manhattan.
~*~*~
Mikey is relieved to find Gerard waiting for him in the main lobby of the Port Authority Station. He's sitting on a bench, legs folded under him. He's drawing in one of his moleskins, something vaguely art deco and noir-esque for his Monday seminar.
Gerard looks like shit. When he comes home, he always claims that he's been living on nothing but cigarettes and coffee but at least Mikey can see that's not all there is, although he knows that Gerard's not totally lying about forgetting to eat when he gets really involved in a project. Now Mikey can see that the hurt in his face is deep, underneath the skin in the set of his jaw and shoulders, the curve of his back. It's there just under the surface every time Mikey reaches into the bond between them. It has been for awhile.
Mikey thinks he just didn't notice because he's lumped it in with his own pain and anger at school, and life, and Gerard being gone; always just out of reach of where he should be. But now that he sees it, thick and black and tangling everything up inside Gerard. It's like an infection seeping into his perceptions of everything he is - his brain, his impulses, where fits in between his art school friends and the being his biology wanted to be, and how that all relates to the space he's created away from Mikey. Looking at it up close, Mikey can tell the between this black web and average unhappiness. It's impossible to mistake as anything else.
He's a fucking stupid bastard for missing this and oh, god, he's never felt more like a failure than he does looking at Gerard's wounded form. They're supposed to take care of each other. Gerard's always protected his mind, even when Mikey didn't want him to. When it came down to it, Mikey couldn't do the same.
He doesn't look up when Mikey approaches. In fact, he's so still that it's almost… Mikey stops himself from finishing that thought. Gerard doesn’t need him thinking about his differences as he waits for Mikey to sit down beside him. It's better once they're together, shoulders touching, it's like being anchored.
"You really shouldn't have come like this," Gerard says, tilting his head sideways to rest on Mikey's shoulder. Sometime in the last few months, Mikey got taller than him. "Mom's pissed."
"Yeah? Worry about me, Gee, because I'm pissed." Understatement. He's furious, seething and has been the whole train ride up. Gerard should have told him - if not through their connection then a phone call at least. They were so much to each other than this. Mikey deserves more from him.
"I know you do," Gerard says, answering the unspoken thought. "I just couldn't."
"Yeah. I know. The list of things you can't do, Gee, it's longer than the fucking turnpike."
"Mikey-" Gerard tries but Mikey can already feel him trying to close down again, bringing up walls even though there isn't even an inch of physical space between them.
"No. No you don't get to do this." He grabs Gerard's hand, lacing their fingers around his pen and tugging them so they're face to face. "You don't get to hide how much you hurt and then get pissed when I find out because you're mine."
Gerard meets his eyes and they're tired, more tired than he feels to Mikey. He shakes his head. "Yeah, I'm pretty sure that's not how it works."
"Are you? Because I think you're wrong. I think that you've known you were wrong since you left and that's why you're so fucked up."
"Wow, how simple." Gerard snaps, eyes rolling so hard Mikey can feel his own eyes rattling in their sockets. "Thanks for clearing it up for me. I could never have figured that out on my own."
"Well you haven't so far."
"So, what? I'm supposed to drop out of college and come home so we can, what, not date? Forgetting the whole-" alien thing Gerard says silently, "We look like brothers, Mikey. We lived like that - its what your friends and my friends and our parents see us as."
"Yeah. But we're not," He strokes his thumb over the back of Gerard's knuckles. "We're more."
"That doesn't make it right. That doesn’t make any of this right."
"Mom and Dad and Grandma know and fuck everyone else. Fuck everything else. How can you hold yourself to anyone else's version of what's right, anyway? You were the one who was all about being yourself when we were younger."
"There's right and then there's me."
"You're like…expecting a cat to act like an apple."
Gerard laughs at that and it's like an explosion of physical relief. "What the hell does that even mean?"
"It means that you are trying to act like something you're not. You are not an apple. You're a cat, so just let yourself act like one." He bumps Gerard's shoulder with his. "So stop trying to be a fruit. You're a higher life form."
"That's…" Gerard laughs again, casting his eyes down so that his dark lashes stand out stark against his pale skin. "Mikey."
"Yeah?"
Gerard cups his cheek in his free hand and kisses him, before Mikey can process the feeling of him giving in. It's more of an acceptance that this time they should try because they are in the middle of the fucking train station where anyone could see. But that doesn't matter because no one knows them here. Right now they could be absolutely anyone.
Kissing Gerard is nothing like kissing AJ was, sloppy and dirty and raw. This is better. This is slow and sweet and intimate, like coming home after having been lost for so fucking long. Mikey does not cry but his throat burns a little at the ache for wasted time and desperate longing.
He fists one hand in Gerard's greasy hair and doesn’t bother holding back a moan. He smiles into Gerard's mouth when he gets a sigh in return.
Public, Mikey, public.
Mikey wants to be in his lap again, like that first desperate time. He restrains himself but only just. Don't care.
Cops care, Gerard shoots back and it makes Mikey laugh. He has to pull back because he's giggling into Gerard's teeth and it's a sloppy ridiculous mess.
"Yeah, we're public enemy number one." Mikey murmurs, rubbing his nose against Gerard's.
"Total threat to society."
"Well you are the first wave of the invasion."
Gerard rolls his eyes again, his old pain at being so other tied up tight in his amusement and undercut with the black web of his depression. Mikey doesn't like it, not when they were so close to moving forward.
"Hey."
"Hm?"
"We need to talk about this."
He watches Gerard push his hair out of his eyes and frown. "Yeah, I know. What we've been doing hasn't really been talking has it?"
"Yeah, no. It's been you deciding and me yelling."
That gets Gerard to smile again, which is good. It's fucking great actually. It's one of Mikey's favorite things and he hasn't seen nearly enough of it. "You're not really a yeller, Mikes."
He waves Gerard's nitpicking away with a short cutting gesture. "Whatever. Point is, talking. Talking would be good."
Gerard nods and squeezes his hand once. "You haven't seen my new place right?"
"The cardboard box? No."
"It's not cardboard."
"I'm sorry. Plywood lined with asbestos."
"Fuck. No. There is no asbestos. Come on." He tugs Mikey's hand. "We'll talk there. This isn't…" Mikey can feel Gerard's tension as he looks around at the thin early morning traffic walking past them across the marble floor of the lobby.
"Yeah, okay."
They take the subway the rest of the way into the village and Gerard's tiny cardboard box of an apartment. It's just big enough for his double bed, a sink, a microwave, one of those little mini-fridges, his art supplies and a TV. The bathroom that seemed to double as Gerard's closet if the clothes hanging from the shower curtain rod and draped over the edge of the tiny tub were any indication.
"You're sure about the asbestos?" Mikey teases as he flops onto Gerard's bed. It’s a mess of sheets and pillows that smell like paint thinner and Gerard's old sweat. He likes it.
The approval he feels gets a smile from Gerard. "Yeah, no radon leaks either."
"Come here."
Gerard goes without protest. He curls himself around Mikey in a mess of laced fingers and tangled legs. It's like opening a drain, the way the tension pours out of Gerard as they lie together.
Mikey presses their foreheads together because this is better. This is what's been absent for far too long and he's not going back. Not now that he's gotten through.
"You graduate in spring, right?" Gerard asks even though he knows. Mikey nods and waits because he's done pushing.
"Yeah. Then Rutgers."
"You heard back?"
"No, but I will."
Gerard nods. "I'm supposed to graduate next spring."
"Yeah. You going to keep doing the starving artist thing?" He pokes Gerard in the side. "Because I'll have to tell Grandma. You know how she feels about skinniness."
"It's not skinny, it's wasting away."
"You're not though, are you?"
"Skinny?" Gerard's dark brows shooting towards his hairline. It just draws attention to how pronounced his cheekbones are compared to when he left.
"Wasting away."
He used to be kind of heavy. It was just another thing that made Gerard separate from everyone else. Now, though, he's all sharp angles. Mikey thinks it's part of that fluidity that changed him from a gray little alien into a dark haired boy's way. Personally, he thinks it's Gerard's body trying to figure out how he needs to be.
At least he thinks so. Gerard is older but his biology has been slow getting in the message in a lot of ways. This is hopefully one of them.
"I don’t know, Mikes," His hands are rubbing at Mikey's back. "I eat." Then he sighs. "Maybe, it could be."
"But you're trying."
Gerard nods and that black sharp tangle floats back to the front. His fingers drift under the fabric of his shirt. The touch is warm and soft and god, Mikey missed it. He missed it so fucking much. He knew he'd been lonely but he hadn't realized how lonely until Gerard was close enough to touch again. It's impossible to miss the feeling echoing in his head now, pale but solid like opaque glass.
"I'm not trying to make you lonely."
"And I didn't sleep with AJ to hurt you. It's just…" There aren’t words for it. He sends the apology wrapped in the impulse and beer buzz to Gerard in a clear thought.
"Okay. So, what do we do now?"
"We, I don't know. The shit's still waist high. Only I'm not a little kid this time. You can't dictate to me anymore."
"I never dictated."
"The fuck you did."
Gerard's hands tightened on his skin. Maybe it would bruise. He kind of hoped so. "I thought I was right."
Triumph hums through Mikey. It's blue and bright. He isn't ashamed that he's wanted Gerard to say that exactly since the day he decided to leave. "So you admit you were wrong."
"No. I still think I was right. But it's been years, so, things are different now. We're both different."
"Well I've been learning to play bass and you know. You're way better at applying lipstick," Mikey agrees just to feel the mix of frustration and amusement rush from Gerard. Feeling him like this really is like going from black and white Kansas to the Emerald City. Gerard is way more Dorothy than he'll ever be, but he still thinks that metaphor works. He can see things the way they really are again. And Gerard's right, they are both different.
He's not a stupid, hormonal little boy anymore. He's still relatively stupid and really hormonal but at least now he knows that. He didn't get it before. He was too tightly bound to understand the difference between being this close and being his own person but he's had time to practice.
He can see their delineation now. He's been angry about it since it happened but he can see why it's important. He just doesn't want it to stay quite so fucking thick.
"I don’t know how to middle ground this," Gerard whispers. "I don't know that I can. It hurts."
"What hurts?" Mikey brushes dark bangs off Gerard's pale face. He lets the pad of his index finger trail down the bone beneath his eye and over his cheek.
"Everything. It's- I'm not built to be alone."
"I know that."
"No, Mikey, you don't. You being this close makes it…easier, not hurt."
He traces down Gerard jaw. "What does that even mean?"
"It means, I'm okay but things are just… too much." The blackness prods at Mikey through Gerard. "Everything I know tells me I'm supposed to be with you because I'm not built to handle things alone."
"What things?"
"Anything. Everything. I'm too- You know."
Of course he does. "Sensitive."
"Yeah. And I just, in the beginning I wanted to protect us. But lately, I just wanted to see if I could."
He blinks. "The fuck?"
"If I could stay away. I wanted to see if I could be me without you."
"And?"
"And I can, but it sucks. You're here and it's better."
"Which means I was right."
Annoyance on every level of sensation. "Jesus, Mikey."
"What? I was."
"About some things, but you were fourteen," Gerard protests but he pushes his face into Mikey's hand anyway. "And I wasn't much better. I'm still not, really."
"You feel like you are."
"I'm not all there."
He buffets the black barbs with a wave of affection. "So don't be all there. I'm not either, you know? We can be partly there together."
Gerard kisses him again then, because that, he thinks, is possible. He strokes Mikey's sides with curious palms. He opens his mouth to Mikey's tongue and his mind to Mikey's own at the same time. It's almost too much.
He's thrown back to a cold morning in New York where Gerard is sitting in the grass of Gramercy Park. He's rubbing his hands over the grass, palms smoothing the strands back and forth. Through his fingers, it's like Mikey can feel every vein. He can hear each individual bird song, and all of it on top of his own thoughts is unbearable.
Gerard's reaction is like a full-body migraine. His brain naturally takes in too much. It would be so easy to go insane from this, like the overblown, catatonic psychics in the comic books.
Mikey finally gets it. Finally gets what the ship telegraphed into Gerard's head years ago and what he's been running from ever since.
"You really don't have a choice."
They both know it's true. His brain can't handle being on its own. That's just not how his species evolved. They cope by sharing sensation and input and that’s just how they work. The information the ship downloaded into Gerard's head years ago confirmed that, but experiencing it like that makes it more real.
"I'd always pick you, if I had one."
It's an echo of Mikey's desperate plea on purpose. It's better than any apology because he can feel that Gerard means it. "So choose me. I chose you when I was six." He laughs and plants a quick dry kiss to the tip of Gerard's nose. "Keep up."
"Mm," Gerard says and it sounds like he's testing out the possibility. Mikey can feel him rolling the idea around in their minds, batting it backing and forth through the space they share like a cat with a sparkly, feather-covered toy.
His hands wander over Mikey's skin as he does. He learns the line of Mikey's back with the stuttering clumsiness of a kid on a bike for the first time because of all the things they've shared, they've never really done this. It's one shove of fabric away from Gerard taking his shirt off and Mikey thinks Please and Gerard does. His calloused hands tug his t-shirt up over his head, knocking his glasses askew in the process. He doesn't give Mikey a chance to fix them himself, adjusting them for him.
Then Gerard smiles with his little teeth and his dark eyes just the same as he did when he looked like something out of a 50s sci-fi movie. It was beautiful then, it's beautiful now, and Mikey can feel it even better than he can see it. The sensation building on their connection is a glowing bright blue happiness around a core of that red-white love-want that he's been missing, they have been missing for so long. It pushes the black barbs of depression down far enough that for a second, Mikey can almost forget it's there. There's just Gerard's palm cupping his cheek.
"Okay."
"Okay, what?"
"Okay, I choose you, Mikey Way."
Every word hits Mikey like a thousand pounds. He's so stunned it takes him a moment to react when Gerard pulls his own shirt off.
When he does pull himself together, he kisses Gerard, hard and deep, rolling him onto his back beneath him. Mikey doesn't say "Holy shit yes" or "I love you" or "Finally" because he doesn't need to. Gerard can hear him.
(end)
Mikey is not drunk enough for this to be fun. He needs at least three, possibly four, more beers before this party gets anywhere near decent. It was okay when Frank and Danny were still hanging around. Then that girl Jamia walked in and Frank disappeared and Danny is running around trying to keep anything his parents would miss from getting destroyed.
There's booze but that doesn’t make the ridiculous bubblegum pop bullshit they're playing any more tolerable. Seriously, it's the Spice Girls. He doesn't know how the soundtrack of this party got there from Smashing Pumpkins but it's just not right. Someone's clearly pranked the CDs on shuffle.
It's the sort of petty little annoyance he'd complain about to Gerard if they were still in each other's heads like they used to be - casual and easy. As it is Mikey only seen Gerard a couple handfuls of times since he went off to school. The thought makes Mikey frown into his now empty plastic cup.
"You look happy," AJ says, holding out a new cup. It has beer in it so Mikey takes it even though he really doesn't want to do the shallow banter thing. AJ's a decent guy and Mikey's known him as Danny's older brother forever but he's not feeling social anymore.
"Man, you're fucking great at reading people." Mikey says then takes a long drink. The beer is actually cold, not too watery which means that someone, probably AJ, went on a run sometime in the last hour. He's lorded his right to buy over Danny ever since he turned twenty-one a few months ago and normally he wouldn't bother. So Danny's got something on him to convince him to help with this party, something pretty good. He has to.
"Hey, no need to get bitchy, Mikey Way. I came bearing beer. It's like a hall pass to any and all parties."
"You graduated like five years ago."
"Logistics."
"And what're the logistical benefits of hanging around your little brother's party?"
"He's got hot friends."
Okay, he's got Mikey's attention. Mikey's seen AJ looking before, covert glances when he and Frank show up to get Danny for a show and he's pretty hot so yeah, Mikey's listening now.
"You want to smoke up?" AJ asks.
Mikey's not a stoner himself. The last time he got high was under the bleachers at the homecoming game. Gerard was supposed to have been coming in that weekend but then had decided not to. He hadn't even fucking called, just thought it at him over the deep pool of distance between them.
It's been about three years and Mikey should be accustomed to the distance by now. In the way that involves the ability to be functional only seeing Gerard at Christmas and Easter, he is totally used to it. Being so fucking angry that it took up most of his brain space helped him adapt during that first year or so. Then he met Frank and fell into the local scene and that helped too but by that point, he was just used to the near-void of space between them that was only connected by one of those shitty Temple of Doom rope bridges where they used to have iron-work, tunnels, and those cool high speed Japanese trains to get between the space between.
He's had time to adjust but when he's drunk, he notices how lonely he is. Gerard's gotten baked plenty over in New York and its nice enough second hand. Plus, he tends to be a relatively cheerful stoner, so why the fuck not? It can't make his mood worse. "Yeah sure."
"I've got some shit in my room."
"Oh. Yeah okay."
AJ hooks a finger into the space between Mikey's belt and his jeans and tugs him down the narrow hallway. Mikey glances around briefly but no one's looking at him. It's a Saturday night. There are no adults and lots of alcohol. No one gives a shit what he's doing. He downs the beer AJ gave him in a few long swallows, drops the cup on the floor, and let's himself be led.
He's been in here before but never with AJ. He and Danny used to raid his room. They'd take porn and cigarettes and any money they could find all the time growing up. Although after AJ came out Danny stopped taking the porn.
There are rap posters on the walls and posters for movies with Jean Claude van Dam. It's not really his thing but whatever. He's more focused on the double bed and the banged up Ghostbusters lunchbox AJ's pulling out from underneath it.
He sits down on the bed and cracks it open. Three different pipes, rolling papers, a very small bong and dime bag of the good shit that Mikey can smell the instant the lunchbox opens. He breathes deep and drops down next to AJ.
"Awesome. I think I used to have that lunchbox man."
"Huh? Oh, I think it was Danny's," AJ says. That explains a lot and doesn't earn him any points at all. Danny was always the cool one in this family. "So, pipe, joint, or bong?"
"Bong."
"Good man."
The music from the party is filtering through the room. It's all bass now so it doesn’t matter what it is. AJ's weed is quality and fifteen minutes later, the bong is on the floor and they're sprawled on their backs on the bed, shoulders touching.
AJ's got those little glow-in-the-dark stars on his ceiling. It makes Mikey think of Gerard, of those blue-green waves of grass, and of the way his smile is uneven. Just thinking of him always makes the bond that ties them together vibrate and widen a bit.
This is different. Thinking of Gee like this, high and a little turned on from the way AJ's fingers are stroking up and down the skin of his inner arm makes the connection blow open like it was before Gerard left. Feeling Gerard goes from the equivalent of music coming from a distant radio playing music he can barely hear to being front-row center at a concert. He's in the room with him in some shitty closet-sized apartment in New York, feeling the paint on his hands and tasting the cigarette hanging from his lips.
Mikey can feel that he's tired and a little lonely but wrapped deeply in his work. He's burning on the inside and staring at a large canvas that is clearly inspired by his homeworld. He's wrapped up, like he always is when he gets inspired, so he only notices Mikey a little, like he always does and absently reaches back to comfort and reassure. The fact that after all this shit, it's still Gerard's first impulse turns Mikey on so hard he can barely breathe for a second there.
When he catches his breath, he pushes up so that he can kiss AJ. He can taste the smoke in Gerard's mouth in the kiss and it makes him moan and closes his eyes. That makes it so much better because suddenly, he can forget that he's with someone else. He can just feel another body under him, another tongue in his mouth. It feels good, so fucking good and God, it's been too long since he last kissed someone. More accurately, since he last kissed Gerard. He's missed the act almost as much as Mikey's missed him.
AJ's hand lands on his waist and squeezes, which is nice. It makes Mikey's hips roll forward and that's awesome. It's hot friction and dull throb and then a rush of whatthemotherfuck that comes straight from Gerard's mind into his. That has to be the sex or the booze or the pot, or some combination of the three, because there's Gerard's pleasure, like Mikey's feeling it in both their bodies at once.
God, yes Mikey thinks, not bothering to try and keep it from Gerard. He's tired and he's high and AJ's set a rhythm beneath him that feels so fucking good. It'd feel better if he could get out of his pants. Actually, that's a good plan. He rears up to unbuckle his belt and yank it free before fumbling at his fly.
Mikey?
AJ's taking off his shirt and his pants. He keeps stopping to drag Mikey back into awkward, rushed kisses, but that doesn’t feel half as good as Gerard saying his name. The way it curls around his mind turns him on like a hand wrapping around his dick.
Yeah? Hi, Gee. Mikey kicks out of his jeans and boxers, not worrying about his socks. He's never done this before. Never really occurred to him to try it with someone who wasn't Gerard. But now that he's here and AJ's hands on him, he can definitely feel the appeal, especially when fingers other than his own take hold of his dick. Fucking fuck, that's awesome. It shouldn’t be that different, but it really is.
Mikey, what are you doing? Gerard demands. He feels closer than he has since he left for college, like he's in the room. You're too close.
Mikey's brain has really reduced to variations on the word fuck. Oh, fuck. Motherfuck. Fucked. Fucking. Nothing else feels particularly relevant with AJ jerking him off slow and lazy, mouthing at his neck sloppily.
"I can't be with you now," Gerard says, out loud and God, yes, Mikey can hear it from a state away.
It's been over a year since that last happened. He can see the way Gerard staggers backwards. His apartment is so small that his back hits a wall. When AJ's lips suck on the skin beneath his jaw, Gerard's head falls back with a thud. Apparently that’s better for him. "You gotta stop."
That is so not happening. He wraps his mind tighter around tighter around Gerard and thrusts up into AJ's hand. Pleasure makes all the careful controls he's built out of anger and hurt to fall away, and he finds Gerard's wall is down too. Instead of being held back and cut off, Mikey's hit with the full, stereo surround-sound, Technicolor Gerard experience.
He'd like to lie back and enjoy it but AJ's getting bitey. That's not really his thing, so he takes the hint and reaches down to return the handjob. It's an odd reverse of what he's used to on himself.
"God, Mikey Way, fuck, yeah, yeah, yeah, do it. Faster."
Mikey slams his hand over AJ's mouth. He shoves two fingers into AJ's mouth just to make him stop. "Shut up. Fuck." That makes AJ quit talking and has the bonus of making him suck Mikey's fingers.
Can you feel this? He feels needy and pathetic like he did when Gerard left. This time though, Gerard can't make him stop. Gee, can you feel what he's doing?
Gerard's buzzing bright red through Mikey's whole body. He's close, closer than Mikey even but then, he's getting it double, Mikey's feelings and his own. It doesn’t loop back like it used to but it's still feels so much more, finally, like when Dorothy goes from Kansas to Oz.
How can you think of the Wizard of Oz now?
Gerard is like the Emerald City compared to the black and white world so how could he not? Hell, the longing's almost the same color as the green glass. There you are.
In Oz?
"Yes," Mikey replies, smiling into the skin of AJ's chin. "Fuck yeah." He absently speeds up his rhythm and AJ gasps. His teeth clench painfully for a moment on Mikey's fingers before he resumes his sucking, now ragged and in time to his spasming body.
Fuck, he's coming. Gerard's a little stunned. He can feel the same hot, wet pulse as in his right fist as Mikey does. Mikey, really, what're you doing?
Having sex. It's kind of awesome. He's going to do it way more often. Especially if he can get it to blow the connection between Gerard so far open every time. "Want to come."
AJ pulls back, gasping as Mikey's spit-wet fingers fall from between his lips. "Greedy. Gimme a sec."
"Fuck a second. Now. Touch." That last bit isn't really for AJ, but Gerard doesn't. He digs his fingernails into his drywall and squeezes his eyes shut in protest.
"Fine. Damn."
He shimmies down the bed and holy blowjobs, Batman. His mouth is on Mikey's dick. That's new and yeah. No fucking wonder people go stupid-crazy for it. Breathy little noises are escaping his mouth without his permission because AJ's mouth is wet and sucking and smooth and there's nothing to distract him from the way this feels. He can sink into pleasure and drag Gerard down with him.
Coming isn't the feedback loop it should be, a shadow of the shared dreams they still have some nights. But it’s the best thing Mikey's felt in forever and he would like to live here, thanks. Here he can feel the slightly bumpy texture of wall under Gerard's hands and the way his whole body is shaking with secondhand pleasure that's almost better than Mikey's own orgasm.
Mikey's still in the stratosphere when, outside the room, something huge falls over. The crash is loud enough to sound over the music and suddenly someone is pounding on the door. "AJ! Bro, I need you out here right now! They pulled over the fridge!" Danny's voice is thin and panicked.
"Fucking shit, Dan," AJ curses, hopping into his jeans. He rubs any stray come off his stomach with a dirty shirt he's picked up off his floor. He throws it in Mikey's general direction before hurling open his door and slamming it shut behind him. Aside from jumping at that initial bang, Mikey doesn't move as AJ scrambles away. He lays, sprawled and loose, staring up at the glow-in-the-dark stars and through it to Gerard's apartment.
I missed you Mikey sighs, stroking his own palm with the knuckles of his other hand. The soft sensation travels through his skin into Gerard's.
Miss me? We're in each other's heads 24/7. "Also," Gerard adds aloud, " Boundaries? That was not fucking cool." He sinks down to sit on the floor of his apartment, his back still pressed tight to the wall like if he pulls away from the drywall he'll float away.
Yeah it was. It was so fucking cool. Are blow jobs always that awesome? His skin didn’t smell as good as yours.
How the hell should I know? "You cant ask me things like that."
"I can." Mikey whispers. "I can do anything I want." Then he starts to laugh because he can. He can have sex with AJ again, or with someone else, or bring down all the walls that keep Gerard out of his head. He has some of the control here, too.
I know that. That's why I left.
Mikey's irritation at that is almost tangible. It makes him feel like scratching at his skin only the itch won’t go away just because he tore at himself with his fingernails. It goes too deep into his own head and twists its roots up in Gerard. He can't reach on his own. Way to completely miss the point, Gee.
"There was a point to that besides…" Gerard stops talking but he can't stop himself thinking hurtingme.
Jealousy's not a new emotion coming from Gerard. Most of their childhood he radiated it at people whose skin he thought really fit them, probably because they were human. Almost always, even now that they're mostly grown up, it's cut think with hurt, sickly yellow and stringy. Mikey pushes the jealousy away most of the time. Even after Gerard left, it didn’t stop. He still finds himself combating Gerard's negative emotions away with positive ones of his own when he's not paying attention. Gerard does the same to him. Soothing each other is involuntary, like breathing.
He doesn’t know what to do with Gerard's jealousy and hurt now because yeah, if he's honest, he did want to hurt Gerard a little. Not a lot, just, some. For the last few years that Gerard had kept himself away from Mikey leaving him like an amputee with a phantom arm. On purpose.
He definitely hadn't been going for jealousy. Some weed, a hand besides his own on his dick for the first time ever, yes. But now that he can feel it, he's not all that sorry.
I'm almost eighteen, Gee.
Thanks for letting me know. I just couldn’t remember your birthday.
I'm allowed to get laid. He scrubs his face with his hand. Suddenly, exhaustion is dragging every cell down and he's not sure if its his own or Gerard's. I'm going to get laid. It's fun and I fucking like it.
A wave of Gerard's unhappiness rolls over Mikey. He wraps his arms around his legs and rests his chin on his knees. It's classic Gerard sulk posture. AJ's an asshole.
And? So are you. If you came back, I wouldn't hold it against you either.
Gerard rubs his face with both hands. It streaks paint across one cheek and Mikey wishes he were there. He'd take a picture of it. It's too much.
For you. For me it's not enough. It hasn’t been enough in ages. There are some moments when Mikey feels like he's dying of hunger all at once while staring through glass at a banquet. It's not fucking fair.
I'm sorry.
I can't tell you how little I want to hear that shit again. It's an old fight. Back and forth. Gerard, apologizing and saying no, Mikey feeling quietly angry and not so quietly hurt. But Mikey doesn’t want to fight right now. You can't tell me you don't miss it.
It is the space in their minds they have hollowed out for each other. They can't cut ties. Not won't - can fucking not. The empty space when Gerard mindmelded with his ship was the scariest, most painful thing Mikey has ever experienced. Doing that again is not a goddamn option. But they're not like they used to be. Gerard's wrong about that.
Of course I do.
Okay, Mikey isn't expecting that. Gerard usually shrugs off the way they used to be, like it doesn’t matter. Mikey knows better, can feel it, but Gerard isnt one to admit it to himself. Gerard?
What?
I fucking hate you for doing this to us. Okay. That was not what he meant to say. Think. But apparently, that was what he was thinking and now that the filters were down, it was an open door in both directions.
Mikey can feel Gerard flinch then fumble for his cigarettes. He takes a precious moment to light his cigarette with the lighter Elena got him for his eighteenth birthday, a zippo with a little glow-in-the-dark alien head on it and blows out a thick cloud of smoke. "I hate me too."
As soon as he says it, the self-loathing rolls through like a wave of thick, heavy black tar. It's smothering. Mikey can barely breathe through it as it washes away any lingering pleasure leftover from the orgasm. Jesus fucking Christ, Gee, what is that?
"I'm starting meds on Monday," Gerard says. It's clear that he's been swimming in that ugly shit for ages if he's this calm about it, if he's at a point where he'll try medication calibrated for humans when he wouldn’t even take cold medicine when they were kids. "I was going to call and tell Mom to tell you but- heads up okay? If they fuck with you, you need to tell me okay? I don't want-" He breaks off and another wave hits.
If this is what Gerard's been holding back from him for the last few years, Mikey is suddenly intensely grateful. This is too much to deal with. He doesn’t know if he can manage, let alone how Gerard can. That relief lasts all of ten seconds before he is railing at himself. He should have noticed. They live in each other's minds, how could he be so fucking angry and self-involved that he didn't realize?
I'm coming to see you. Mikey thinks because this is not okay. He cannot be half naked at some stupid high school party when Gerard feels like this, has felt like this long enough to get help from a human doctor with human medicines. Why didn't you tell me? He tries to rein in the explosion of hurtshockhurtbetrayalhurt that hits him at the thought of Gerard suffering right under his nose. He hadn't known. How could he have missed it?
Mikey sits up so fast his head spins. He needs to find his clothes. He needs to get out of here.
EasycalmdownMikeyitsokayheyeasy Gerard soothes. It works just enough for Mikey to find his pants and shirt but not much more.
He barely glances as he rushes pass the wreckage of the kitchen, where Danny and AJ are trying desperately to right their refrigerator. Danny's trying to get underneath the freezer and AJ's pulling from behind and most of the time, Mikey would stay and help. Danny's a good guy and AJ's probably still got Mikey's come on his tongue.
Now he's doesn't even consider stopping because this is bullshit. This is insane bullshit and how did he not know before? He takes a few deep breaths so he doesn't wreck the shitty silver four-door he's "borrowing" until Gerard moves out of the city and makes a beeline for the train station. It's Friday night and it's not that late. It's the quickest way and it won't spin him out and into a fucking telephone pole or tree.
Fuck you so hard for doing this to us Mikey thinks furiously as he yanks the parking break on. He's met with quiet except for the background hum of Gerard's presence which, fuck, he can't trust anymore. Fuck me for letting you. You're telling Mom where I am.
He doesn't push for an answer before he gets his train ticket. He pulls out the credit card his dad gave him for absolute emergencies and buys a two-part return into Manhattan.
~*~*~
Mikey is relieved to find Gerard waiting for him in the main lobby of the Port Authority Station. He's sitting on a bench, legs folded under him. He's drawing in one of his moleskins, something vaguely art deco and noir-esque for his Monday seminar.
Gerard looks like shit. When he comes home, he always claims that he's been living on nothing but cigarettes and coffee but at least Mikey can see that's not all there is, although he knows that Gerard's not totally lying about forgetting to eat when he gets really involved in a project. Now Mikey can see that the hurt in his face is deep, underneath the skin in the set of his jaw and shoulders, the curve of his back. It's there just under the surface every time Mikey reaches into the bond between them. It has been for awhile.
Mikey thinks he just didn't notice because he's lumped it in with his own pain and anger at school, and life, and Gerard being gone; always just out of reach of where he should be. But now that he sees it, thick and black and tangling everything up inside Gerard. It's like an infection seeping into his perceptions of everything he is - his brain, his impulses, where fits in between his art school friends and the being his biology wanted to be, and how that all relates to the space he's created away from Mikey. Looking at it up close, Mikey can tell the between this black web and average unhappiness. It's impossible to mistake as anything else.
He's a fucking stupid bastard for missing this and oh, god, he's never felt more like a failure than he does looking at Gerard's wounded form. They're supposed to take care of each other. Gerard's always protected his mind, even when Mikey didn't want him to. When it came down to it, Mikey couldn't do the same.
He doesn't look up when Mikey approaches. In fact, he's so still that it's almost… Mikey stops himself from finishing that thought. Gerard doesn’t need him thinking about his differences as he waits for Mikey to sit down beside him. It's better once they're together, shoulders touching, it's like being anchored.
"You really shouldn't have come like this," Gerard says, tilting his head sideways to rest on Mikey's shoulder. Sometime in the last few months, Mikey got taller than him. "Mom's pissed."
"Yeah? Worry about me, Gee, because I'm pissed." Understatement. He's furious, seething and has been the whole train ride up. Gerard should have told him - if not through their connection then a phone call at least. They were so much to each other than this. Mikey deserves more from him.
"I know you do," Gerard says, answering the unspoken thought. "I just couldn't."
"Yeah. I know. The list of things you can't do, Gee, it's longer than the fucking turnpike."
"Mikey-" Gerard tries but Mikey can already feel him trying to close down again, bringing up walls even though there isn't even an inch of physical space between them.
"No. No you don't get to do this." He grabs Gerard's hand, lacing their fingers around his pen and tugging them so they're face to face. "You don't get to hide how much you hurt and then get pissed when I find out because you're mine."
Gerard meets his eyes and they're tired, more tired than he feels to Mikey. He shakes his head. "Yeah, I'm pretty sure that's not how it works."
"Are you? Because I think you're wrong. I think that you've known you were wrong since you left and that's why you're so fucked up."
"Wow, how simple." Gerard snaps, eyes rolling so hard Mikey can feel his own eyes rattling in their sockets. "Thanks for clearing it up for me. I could never have figured that out on my own."
"Well you haven't so far."
"So, what? I'm supposed to drop out of college and come home so we can, what, not date? Forgetting the whole-" alien thing Gerard says silently, "We look like brothers, Mikey. We lived like that - its what your friends and my friends and our parents see us as."
"Yeah. But we're not," He strokes his thumb over the back of Gerard's knuckles. "We're more."
"That doesn't make it right. That doesn’t make any of this right."
"Mom and Dad and Grandma know and fuck everyone else. Fuck everything else. How can you hold yourself to anyone else's version of what's right, anyway? You were the one who was all about being yourself when we were younger."
"There's right and then there's me."
"You're like…expecting a cat to act like an apple."
Gerard laughs at that and it's like an explosion of physical relief. "What the hell does that even mean?"
"It means that you are trying to act like something you're not. You are not an apple. You're a cat, so just let yourself act like one." He bumps Gerard's shoulder with his. "So stop trying to be a fruit. You're a higher life form."
"That's…" Gerard laughs again, casting his eyes down so that his dark lashes stand out stark against his pale skin. "Mikey."
"Yeah?"
Gerard cups his cheek in his free hand and kisses him, before Mikey can process the feeling of him giving in. It's more of an acceptance that this time they should try because they are in the middle of the fucking train station where anyone could see. But that doesn't matter because no one knows them here. Right now they could be absolutely anyone.
Kissing Gerard is nothing like kissing AJ was, sloppy and dirty and raw. This is better. This is slow and sweet and intimate, like coming home after having been lost for so fucking long. Mikey does not cry but his throat burns a little at the ache for wasted time and desperate longing.
He fists one hand in Gerard's greasy hair and doesn’t bother holding back a moan. He smiles into Gerard's mouth when he gets a sigh in return.
Public, Mikey, public.
Mikey wants to be in his lap again, like that first desperate time. He restrains himself but only just. Don't care.
Cops care, Gerard shoots back and it makes Mikey laugh. He has to pull back because he's giggling into Gerard's teeth and it's a sloppy ridiculous mess.
"Yeah, we're public enemy number one." Mikey murmurs, rubbing his nose against Gerard's.
"Total threat to society."
"Well you are the first wave of the invasion."
Gerard rolls his eyes again, his old pain at being so other tied up tight in his amusement and undercut with the black web of his depression. Mikey doesn't like it, not when they were so close to moving forward.
"Hey."
"Hm?"
"We need to talk about this."
He watches Gerard push his hair out of his eyes and frown. "Yeah, I know. What we've been doing hasn't really been talking has it?"
"Yeah, no. It's been you deciding and me yelling."
That gets Gerard to smile again, which is good. It's fucking great actually. It's one of Mikey's favorite things and he hasn't seen nearly enough of it. "You're not really a yeller, Mikes."
He waves Gerard's nitpicking away with a short cutting gesture. "Whatever. Point is, talking. Talking would be good."
Gerard nods and squeezes his hand once. "You haven't seen my new place right?"
"The cardboard box? No."
"It's not cardboard."
"I'm sorry. Plywood lined with asbestos."
"Fuck. No. There is no asbestos. Come on." He tugs Mikey's hand. "We'll talk there. This isn't…" Mikey can feel Gerard's tension as he looks around at the thin early morning traffic walking past them across the marble floor of the lobby.
"Yeah, okay."
They take the subway the rest of the way into the village and Gerard's tiny cardboard box of an apartment. It's just big enough for his double bed, a sink, a microwave, one of those little mini-fridges, his art supplies and a TV. The bathroom that seemed to double as Gerard's closet if the clothes hanging from the shower curtain rod and draped over the edge of the tiny tub were any indication.
"You're sure about the asbestos?" Mikey teases as he flops onto Gerard's bed. It’s a mess of sheets and pillows that smell like paint thinner and Gerard's old sweat. He likes it.
The approval he feels gets a smile from Gerard. "Yeah, no radon leaks either."
"Come here."
Gerard goes without protest. He curls himself around Mikey in a mess of laced fingers and tangled legs. It's like opening a drain, the way the tension pours out of Gerard as they lie together.
Mikey presses their foreheads together because this is better. This is what's been absent for far too long and he's not going back. Not now that he's gotten through.
"You graduate in spring, right?" Gerard asks even though he knows. Mikey nods and waits because he's done pushing.
"Yeah. Then Rutgers."
"You heard back?"
"No, but I will."
Gerard nods. "I'm supposed to graduate next spring."
"Yeah. You going to keep doing the starving artist thing?" He pokes Gerard in the side. "Because I'll have to tell Grandma. You know how she feels about skinniness."
"It's not skinny, it's wasting away."
"You're not though, are you?"
"Skinny?" Gerard's dark brows shooting towards his hairline. It just draws attention to how pronounced his cheekbones are compared to when he left.
"Wasting away."
He used to be kind of heavy. It was just another thing that made Gerard separate from everyone else. Now, though, he's all sharp angles. Mikey thinks it's part of that fluidity that changed him from a gray little alien into a dark haired boy's way. Personally, he thinks it's Gerard's body trying to figure out how he needs to be.
At least he thinks so. Gerard is older but his biology has been slow getting in the message in a lot of ways. This is hopefully one of them.
"I don’t know, Mikes," His hands are rubbing at Mikey's back. "I eat." Then he sighs. "Maybe, it could be."
"But you're trying."
Gerard nods and that black sharp tangle floats back to the front. His fingers drift under the fabric of his shirt. The touch is warm and soft and god, Mikey missed it. He missed it so fucking much. He knew he'd been lonely but he hadn't realized how lonely until Gerard was close enough to touch again. It's impossible to miss the feeling echoing in his head now, pale but solid like opaque glass.
"I'm not trying to make you lonely."
"And I didn't sleep with AJ to hurt you. It's just…" There aren’t words for it. He sends the apology wrapped in the impulse and beer buzz to Gerard in a clear thought.
"Okay. So, what do we do now?"
"We, I don't know. The shit's still waist high. Only I'm not a little kid this time. You can't dictate to me anymore."
"I never dictated."
"The fuck you did."
Gerard's hands tightened on his skin. Maybe it would bruise. He kind of hoped so. "I thought I was right."
Triumph hums through Mikey. It's blue and bright. He isn't ashamed that he's wanted Gerard to say that exactly since the day he decided to leave. "So you admit you were wrong."
"No. I still think I was right. But it's been years, so, things are different now. We're both different."
"Well I've been learning to play bass and you know. You're way better at applying lipstick," Mikey agrees just to feel the mix of frustration and amusement rush from Gerard. Feeling him like this really is like going from black and white Kansas to the Emerald City. Gerard is way more Dorothy than he'll ever be, but he still thinks that metaphor works. He can see things the way they really are again. And Gerard's right, they are both different.
He's not a stupid, hormonal little boy anymore. He's still relatively stupid and really hormonal but at least now he knows that. He didn't get it before. He was too tightly bound to understand the difference between being this close and being his own person but he's had time to practice.
He can see their delineation now. He's been angry about it since it happened but he can see why it's important. He just doesn't want it to stay quite so fucking thick.
"I don’t know how to middle ground this," Gerard whispers. "I don't know that I can. It hurts."
"What hurts?" Mikey brushes dark bangs off Gerard's pale face. He lets the pad of his index finger trail down the bone beneath his eye and over his cheek.
"Everything. It's- I'm not built to be alone."
"I know that."
"No, Mikey, you don't. You being this close makes it…easier, not hurt."
He traces down Gerard jaw. "What does that even mean?"
"It means, I'm okay but things are just… too much." The blackness prods at Mikey through Gerard. "Everything I know tells me I'm supposed to be with you because I'm not built to handle things alone."
"What things?"
"Anything. Everything. I'm too- You know."
Of course he does. "Sensitive."
"Yeah. And I just, in the beginning I wanted to protect us. But lately, I just wanted to see if I could."
He blinks. "The fuck?"
"If I could stay away. I wanted to see if I could be me without you."
"And?"
"And I can, but it sucks. You're here and it's better."
"Which means I was right."
Annoyance on every level of sensation. "Jesus, Mikey."
"What? I was."
"About some things, but you were fourteen," Gerard protests but he pushes his face into Mikey's hand anyway. "And I wasn't much better. I'm still not, really."
"You feel like you are."
"I'm not all there."
He buffets the black barbs with a wave of affection. "So don't be all there. I'm not either, you know? We can be partly there together."
Gerard kisses him again then, because that, he thinks, is possible. He strokes Mikey's sides with curious palms. He opens his mouth to Mikey's tongue and his mind to Mikey's own at the same time. It's almost too much.
He's thrown back to a cold morning in New York where Gerard is sitting in the grass of Gramercy Park. He's rubbing his hands over the grass, palms smoothing the strands back and forth. Through his fingers, it's like Mikey can feel every vein. He can hear each individual bird song, and all of it on top of his own thoughts is unbearable.
Gerard's reaction is like a full-body migraine. His brain naturally takes in too much. It would be so easy to go insane from this, like the overblown, catatonic psychics in the comic books.
Mikey finally gets it. Finally gets what the ship telegraphed into Gerard's head years ago and what he's been running from ever since.
"You really don't have a choice."
They both know it's true. His brain can't handle being on its own. That's just not how his species evolved. They cope by sharing sensation and input and that’s just how they work. The information the ship downloaded into Gerard's head years ago confirmed that, but experiencing it like that makes it more real.
"I'd always pick you, if I had one."
It's an echo of Mikey's desperate plea on purpose. It's better than any apology because he can feel that Gerard means it. "So choose me. I chose you when I was six." He laughs and plants a quick dry kiss to the tip of Gerard's nose. "Keep up."
"Mm," Gerard says and it sounds like he's testing out the possibility. Mikey can feel him rolling the idea around in their minds, batting it backing and forth through the space they share like a cat with a sparkly, feather-covered toy.
His hands wander over Mikey's skin as he does. He learns the line of Mikey's back with the stuttering clumsiness of a kid on a bike for the first time because of all the things they've shared, they've never really done this. It's one shove of fabric away from Gerard taking his shirt off and Mikey thinks Please and Gerard does. His calloused hands tug his t-shirt up over his head, knocking his glasses askew in the process. He doesn't give Mikey a chance to fix them himself, adjusting them for him.
Then Gerard smiles with his little teeth and his dark eyes just the same as he did when he looked like something out of a 50s sci-fi movie. It was beautiful then, it's beautiful now, and Mikey can feel it even better than he can see it. The sensation building on their connection is a glowing bright blue happiness around a core of that red-white love-want that he's been missing, they have been missing for so long. It pushes the black barbs of depression down far enough that for a second, Mikey can almost forget it's there. There's just Gerard's palm cupping his cheek.
"Okay."
"Okay, what?"
"Okay, I choose you, Mikey Way."
Every word hits Mikey like a thousand pounds. He's so stunned it takes him a moment to react when Gerard pulls his own shirt off.
When he does pull himself together, he kisses Gerard, hard and deep, rolling him onto his back beneath him. Mikey doesn't say "Holy shit yes" or "I love you" or "Finally" because he doesn't need to. Gerard can hear him.
(end)