Hibiscus
Gerard/Mikey
One-shot
Four scenes from Hawaii. Mikey keeps getting hurt and he keeps wanting Gerard and it's a little bittersweet. Rated PG-13 for language. Written for fanfic100, prompt #64: "fall". Lyrics taken from "Iowa" by Dar Williams, "Fall" by Something Corporate, "Falling for You" by Weezer, and "It's Not a Fashion Statement..." by MCR.
3,215 words
Written February 12, 2006
i fear that to fall in love with you
is to fall from a great and gruesome height
They're in Hawaii and Mikey likes the way it rains, every afternoon, like clockwork. He sits in a hotel room and watches the rain pitter-patter down onto the soil. He likes how his shoes are always a bit muddy, here - the sun is so bright and so strong but the ground never quite dries, in a way. He likes leaving muddy footprints all over hotel floors. He likes being a nuisance and being sloppy and messy and not having to worry about clean-up later.
Gerard yells at him for doing it, but Mikey just points out, "You spilled sand all over the bed" and Gerard pouts and pretends it isn't totally true. Mikey loves that too. He loves lying down at night to sleep and feeling grit all over, and waking up with his skin scratched raw by sand. He used to read encyclopedias when he was a kid - they had this big set of them, and when he was grounded, he'd flip open to a random entry and think about nothing but that. He used to look at the entry about glass-blowing, about melting sand down, and dream about beaches made entirely of glass. He thinks about that now - waking up on a smooth cool sheet of blown glass.
The rain looks like strings of glass, maybe. Thin melted-down glass falling in strands. He considers it for awhile then finally dismisses the idea.
"Jeez," Gerard says, opening the door. "Have you left the room at all today?"
Mikey shrugs. "It's nice in here."
"We're going out. Come on." Gerard flashes a bright brilliant smile and Mikey thinks spun-glass. "I'm bringing a sketchpad, it'll be nice. The view from the cliffs, it's just... wow."
Mikey fakes reluctance but he doesn't struggle too hard when Gerard tugs him to his feet. He slips a jacket on, pulling the hood up; when Gerard shoots him a look, he just says, "It's raining, dumbass."
"It'll be over in ten minutes. You know that." Gerard loops his arm through Mikey's. He likes walking with Gerard like this - casual, but with an air of devastating elegance about the whole thing. He walks differently when he's with Gerard. Or - he doesn't at all, but it feels like it, somewhere deep in the center of his bones. Somewhere in the thickness of his marrow.
The cliff they find is epic and beautiful and the thought of climbing it exhausts Mikey, utterly. He starts up it with Gerard anyway. He has this idea of what Gerard will look like, standing on the edge, lips parted ever so slightly to catch the taste of ocean air. Paradise air. He thinks this is paradise. He wants to see Gerard on the top of this fucking island, eyes closed, lashes fringed against his skin. The tautness of his cheekbones. Mikey wants to rub Gerard's cheekbones and follow that curve up around his eyes, spiraling down into the bridge of his nose. On top of a cliff in Hawaii and with the world crashing in waves, miles and years below them.
They pass some ferns that Gerard snaps off at the root, tickling Mikey's nose with them. Mikey laughs and brushes them away. They pass a sign that says in big blocky letters "WARNING: LEPTOSPIROSIS" and Mikey laughs and laughs, saying, "What the fuck is a lepto... lepro... fuck it, man, what is that?"
Gerard shrugs and slings an arm about Mikey's shoulders. "A vulture," he says. "With bear arms."
"And a lion's mouth."
"Scorpion tail."
Mikey can't top that so he smiles and twirls a lock of Gerard's hair around his fingers. "I don't want to go all this way," he says. His legs are sore. "Let's just stay here. You can draw the plants." Gerard frowns. Mikey wants so desperately to be up there with him but he knows he will sit to the side, alone, watching Gerard draw. He will think about touching Gerard but not do it and he cannot stand that.
"At least let me look," Gerard says. "I'll be right back down."
Mikey sighs and leans against a tree. He can't begrudge Gerard this.
He watches the clouds skim by - it's stopped raining, sure enough - and dreams about living in a house made of clouds. Clouds under the sea, drifting like rafts, living in a moving house and watching the fish dart by the windows. Seaweed tickling through the cloud floorboards at his feet. He wants to tell Gerard so Gerard will draw it, the two of them living in this house, eyes stretched open to stare at the brilliant shine of sunlight through crystalline water.
He is caught up in this daydream when he hears the shriek.
Gerard is running down the cliff, tripping over his feet, rocks skittering down and he is screaming and Mikey leaps forward, heart in his throat, and then he realizes Gerard is yelling "Leptospirosis! Leptospirosis, motherfucker!" and Gerard is tackling him to the ground, laughing, breathless, and Mikey stumbles. His knees scrape against the gravel. His jeans tear. He gasps for breath, and Gerard's hands are on his back, sketchpad flung out into the grass, and Gerard is laughing like he will die. "Made you look," he gasps. Mikey feels the skin of his knees tear. Blood smears across his clothes, Gerard's thighs, and it stings.
"Bastard," he says. He feels like spitting the word out. There is gravel in his teeth. Gerard sighs happily, hugging him close.
"Wasn't that good? Wasn't it funny?"
Mikey stays silent. He puts his fingers in his mouth and extracts two small shards of rock. His mouth tastes foul and dusty. Gerard sighs loudly, and finally Mikey relents to the insistent warmth of Gerard's body on his. He says, "What was it like up there? Was it pretty?"
"The prettiest ever," Gerard says. "We can go back up. If you want."
Mikey shakes his head no. "My legs hurt," he says. Gerard's mouth tightens and he looks down, eyebrows drawn together. He presses two fingers to his lips and then to Mikey's knee.
"I'm sorry," he says.
Mikey is acutely aware of the warm dampness of Gerard's fingers. He closes his eyes and shrugs. "It's fine," he says.
old cassettes and cigarettes will be the ones to save you
They are in Hawaii so Mikey thinks maybe one of them should get a tan, you know, as a memento. A souvenir of this glittering sun-showered beauty. But his knees and elbows are sore from falling, and he does not want a tan pockmarked by white new-healing skin, so he refuses to stay in the sun. It won't be Bob, whose skin peels with sunburns, and Frank does not have the concentration to stay anywhere long enough to tan. Ray has locked himself in the bus with their equipment. Which leaves Gerard, and Mikey cannot even bear to think of Gerard's skin without the perfect paleness of it. (Not perfect - that stupid spot on his cheek won't leave and Mikey knows how any sort of flaw agitates Gerard, nearly beyond the point of reason - but Mikey thinks it is more perfect when flawed. Like good, handmade pottery, or supermodels with cocaine problems or scars in the trunks of old willow trees.)
So he has resigned himself to none of them getting tans. But in a way he kind of wants one of them to break character, make the exception. Step out of their role and just lie in the sun like a tiny speckled lizard.
It can't be him, though. Gerard tackling him into the ground - Gerard's breath on his neck - it startled him too much. He can't imagine trying to change right now. Life seems... too much, whatever that means. He doesn't know what the thoughts in his own head mean lately. It's strange. He's not too fond of it.
He's taken to distracting himself with long walks, over volcanoes and under canopies of tree branches. He wants to take the whole damn place home with him. Save it in his pocket for when he is less disturbed by his own thoughts, can fully love the place with all the passion it deserves. He's heard rumors about bad luck coming to people who take pieces of the volcanoes with them. He doesn't want to risk it. Instead, he picks flowers and braids their stems together, then throws them out into the ocean.
After he's walked far enough he can't catch his breath. He has to sit down and focus very deeply on breathing, on the rasp against the back of his throat when he inhales. He smokes sometimes and oddly enough, that helps a lot. He likes smoking in somewhere this beautiful. It makes him feel like a real rebel, a total asshole - leaving ash all over the lush greenness. The taste of smoke stays, heavy and bitter, on the back of his tongue for an hour and he basks in it.
Gerard says to him, one day, "Let me come with you?"
Mikey pauses at the door and turns ever so slightly. "You don't even know where I'm going," he says. He doesn't either but that is probably not the point.
"Exactly. I want to find out."
Mikey kicks at the ground. He puts one hand in his pocket, rolls his lighter back and forth between his thumb and forefinger. "Well," he says. "Maybe. I'm not going anywhere special, it's kind of boring."
"Then I really want to go." Gerard smiles and hops off the bed. "I'll be quiet, I promise."
Mikey laughs and says "that's okay" but Gerard is quiet, the whole way to... wherever, looking at everything but not offering opinions. The only time Mikey can even tell he's having fun is when a bright shimmering bird bursts from the trees, and Gerard sucks in his breath. When Mikey turns around Gerard's eyes are wide and fascinated. Mikey feels his shoulders unwind at the sight of Gerard's face - innocent, young again.
They stop under a palm tree. Mikey takes out his lighter; it feels worn down and smooth between his fingers. He holds the pack of cigarettes out to Gerard before taking one for himself. "Oh, Mikey," Gerard says, rolling his eyes. "Here? Doesn't it feel a little wrong?"
"I thought that'd make you like it," Mikey says. He smiles. He ignores the very blatant irony in his statement (not that Gerard would get that, because if he did he would not be so comfortable, so easy and free around Mikey.)
Gerard takes a cigarette, carefully, and lets Mikey light it for him. They chain-smoke for a bit. The pile of discarded butts between them grows slowly, like a physical entity, absorbing all the negativity. The longer Mikey smokes the more sure he is that the place is growing beautiful. "The sun's setting," Gerard says, and then sighs smoke out into the air. "I love this place."
"Let's go back," Mikey says. Gerard raises his eyebrows. "I want to watch the sunset through the trees."
Gerard nods, climbing to his feet. He's still holding a cigarette in one hand, smoldering at the end, but he offers a hand to Mikey. Mikey stumbles and falls forward as he's getting up and oh fuck there's a rush of sizzling, searing hot on his arm, and he yelps and Gerard jumps back, eyes wide. "Motherfucker!" Mikey rubs at his arm tenderly.
"Shit, I'm sorry!" Gerard throws his cigarette down in the dirt, stepping on it. Mikey looks at his arm. The burn is aching and he feels like it's pulsing, beneath the surface, somewhere. It's disgusting. He tightens his lips together.
"It's okay," he says. "Oh. Man. That's going to hurt."
Gerard frowns. "I'm so sorry," he repeats. The sunlight is strong and casts deep shadows, and when he reaches out to touch Mikey's wrist, he casts the burn into shadow and Mikey thinks it looks oddly apt. He pulls his wrist away, then hesitates. He takes Gerard's hand in his own.
"Come on," he says. "It's fine. Let's go back."
maybe i'd rather settle down with you
There's nothing good on TV but Gerard has been watching it all morning anyway, flipping channels with his lower lip between his teeth. He had settled on Jerry Springer for awhile, calling insults out to the TV, but now it's over and he's reduced to bouncing between soap operas. All the characters look alike and have the same voices so Mikey really couldn't tell he was changing channels, until he looked up from his magazine and saw the picture switch out mid-scene. But it was just flipping from one violent argument to another, all of them between blonde women with big tits and teased-out hair, so he went back to his magazine.
Gerard finally throws the remote across the room, groaning. "Mikey," he says, "Mikey - come on. Why is this so boring? We're in fucking Hawaii!"
"I'm not bored." Mikey smirks. He's reading an article about some movie star's affairs, actually, which is less than fascinating but he feels like being an asshole. Gerard makes a helpless flailing motion with Mikey at his hands, but goes back to watching TV. (It's a talk show now - some generic man with an ugly sport jacket on, talking to a woman about why she wants her husband to get a makeover. Gerard yawns very blatantly.)
"You know," Mikey finally says, "you could watch the rain. Instead. That's probably prettier."
"Don't feel like turning into a huge fucking emo right now," Gerard mutters. He turns away from Mikey, flinging a blanket over himself. "Rain makes me sad." The blanket softens the shape of his body, makes it into a smooth landscape of hills. Mikey's heart feels too big for his chest. He's on the third page of the article, but he hasn't paid attention to a sentence beyond the first one. He keeps looking up. Trying to memorize the shape of Gerard's legs, the exact angle they make to the bed.
"The rain'll be over soon," he says, "at least." He tries to smile. Gerard doesn't move. "Well. Okay then."
There's a few moments where the silence is filled up with white-noise rain. Mikey wants to go walking, wants to sit outside somewhere and bask in the sunlight. Instead he stands up and walks out onto the balcony. He puts his hands out into the rain. Everything smells like growth and warmth and green plants, mud, good things. Mikey wants to bring the scent back into the room on his hands and hair and curl up with Gerard and make him smell it. He tips his head back. He wonders if maybe the smell of all that can work its way up into his mind and get him high off it (he really hopes so.)
When he goes back inside, Gerard is still curled up. "Mikey," he says in this soft pitiful voice. "C'mere."
"Hm?"
Gerard lifts one hand from the blankets and waves him over. "I said come here, bitch. Just... c'mon. Lay down with me?"
Mikey presses his face to his hands. His palms smell like rain, a little, but also like sweat and salt. "God," he says. "Are you okay? Really, are you doing okay?"
"I'm fine. I just want... I don't feel like being alone. Lay down with me."
Mikey can feel his heart cracking. He lowers his hands to his side, sits on the edge of the bed. "I'm here," he says. Gerard smiles at him from between wrinkles of the blanket. He waves with his fingertips and Mikey laughs, low and soft. Gerard wraps his hand around Mikey's wrist.
"Lie down."
Mikey shakes his head. He doesn't want to be pressed up warm and close to Gerard - doesn't want the ferocity of Gerard's embrace because it scares him, how much he wants to just give in and lie down and be totally perfectly happy. He doesn't want to be happy the way he would be. There's something about it that's wrong. Gerard tugs at his wrist, trying to pull him down, fed up with his obstinance, and his nails scratch hard across Mikey's wrist and it hurts and Mikey draws back his arm with a yelp. "Your nails! Jesus!"
"Oh!" Gerard cringes, looking down at them. They're bitten and the edges are torn up, and it stings in Mikey's arm. "I'm sorry."
"Whatever." Mikey lies down, but he keeps his back to Gerard. Gerard's arm is slung over his stomach. His hand is heavy and comforting and Mikey tries not to fall asleep but it would be so, so easy, and he finally lets his eyes close. "It doesn't hurt much," he says to Gerard, but there is no response. Mikey thinks Gerard is probably already asleep.
i will be with you
They are out on the pier and it's bright and sunny, and Mikey's eyes hurt. There's a railing around the pier but Gerard is hanging off it, on the other side, head tipped back to look at the sky. He's squinting. "Mikey," he says, "Mikey, isn't the sky beautiful? It's the same color as the water."
Mikey rests his head against the railing. "Yeah, it is."
"Hey, I think I'm gonna go swimming." Gerard's fingers are white against the railing and Mikey wants to say don't go but Gerard has already let go, has already jumped back into the water. He shrieks and splashes and his hair is stringy and wet, clinging to his cheeks. He waves. "It's so nice!" He has to yell up to Mikey to be heard. "Come on, come in!"
Mikey is looking at him in the water and thinking about the cliff, about the purity in Gerard's eyes, about what it would be like to touch his cheekbones. He can't. He can't go in. The water, it's salt water and he feels full of open wounds and it will sting and he yells back, "No! No, I can't!"
"Please?"
He looks down. Gerard is so beautiful like a mermaid in the water and Mikey knows it will hurt, he knows he will drown because he will be screaming in pain. "Catch me?"
"What are you, a damsel in distress?" Gerard bursts into laughter. "Jump down! Come on, I'll even give you a kiss from the handsome prince, just - get the fuck in here!"
And Mikey is looking at Gerard in the sunlight, the water, and he is thinking this time. He is thinking about kissing Gerard and how he couldn't touch Gerard on the cliff and he is thinking this time I will do it. I will kiss him. He climbs up onto the railing. Oh it is going to hurt so much, but he has the strength now, it is in him and he can do it.
He balances himself carefully, rising to his feet. Gerard is looking up at him and the sun is behind his back and he can see everything and it will hurt. It will sting and burn and he is ready for it.
And he falls.