FicWad

Mikey was almost sick with worry that Frank wanted to see his bruises. He was ugly under his shirt--bony, pale, lacerated and bruised, and Frank won't want him if he sees. He won't ever call him pretty and kiss him again. His bones cut too sharply under spiderweb skin--he looked like he belonged in a fucking hospital. He didn't know why Frank stayed with him in the first place--he was right, Mikey didn't ever tell him anything, and he wasn't pretty enough, and he didn't even like to kiss! He was a fucking freak, and why was Frank with him? Was this really just a very elaborate plan to fuck with him? To get so involved that Mikey couldn't imagine life without Frank, then just leave him alone?

Fuck, Mikey trusted Frank, he really did. He didn't want to even think about those kinds of things, because he knew he was just being stupid, and that Frank really did care about him, but he'd grown up with people doing that to him. Wasting a few days on him, pretending to be his friend, then dumping him and laughing at the stupid naive mess that he was. He was used to it, and it was hard to break that mindset, but Frank tells him all the time that he should trust him, and Mikey does. Frank is really nice, and he cares.

He thought.

The ceiling fan whirring over their heads was the only noise in the small room as the two of them laid on Frank's bed on their backs. Mikey's arm was around Frank's waist in a half-hearted hug that started when they got in bed and never ended. He could feel Frank's heartbeat from where his head was resting on his shoulder and it was slowly soothing him into a dreamy state where he could almost forget everything that had happened today so far and pretend that Frank still didn't know. He could almost pretend that he didn't have any bruises underneath the zombies on his shirt, that the cut was there because he fell out of a tree or something like that because he was always so clumsy. He could almost pretend that Frank kissed him better and they were laying in silence because they were content and nothing needed to be said, other than Mikey needed to watch out the next time he gets cocky and tries to climb something.

Almost.

"Hey, Mikey?" Frank asked in a whisper, rolling over on his side to face Mikey. He couldn't see Mikey's face because he was still looking at the ceiling, but he knew there was no smile. "I'm really, really sorry, okay?"

"Sorry for what?" Mikey rolled over too. He liked to watch Frank while he talked, just to see his expressions and make sure he wasn't being sarcastic. Most of the time he could gauge Frank's emotions by his eyebrows. He retracted his arms and stuck them under his pillow, bending them at impossible angles to fit between his body and Frank's.

"For letting all this shit happen. If I knew...you know I would have done something to stop it, right, babe? I don't ever want you to be hurt."

"Yeah, I know. But it's not as bad as you think, Frank. It's just a few bruises, and I get bruised all the time. I'm fine."

"Then can I see them?" Frank asked, running a hand down the side of Mikey's shirt, curling his fingers into the fabric at the bottom. He still wasn't sure whether to believe Mikey--Ray said it was pretty fucking bad, but he didn't give many details. His voice was really shaky and he kept insisting that he shouldn't have said anything because Mikey would get mad and never talk to him again.

Frank almost didn't want to see them, he didn't want to see Mikey in pain. He just wanted to stop it and kiss him better and have it all in the past. It wasn't fair that this happened. Life wasn't fair. Mikey never did anything to anyone, he just sat there and always had to take the ridicule and fists. Like a building that stood its ground while being grafitti'd, but bruises never turned out beautiful like spray paint could. There wasn't going to be colorful murals sprawled out on Mikey's stomach, there will be marks of hate, marring his beauty and proving how evil the world really is.

Mikey's hand slipped over Frank's and he shook his head. "I...um, I don't want you to see. They're ugly, and there's nothing you can do about them, so why bother?"

"I just want to know that you're really okay. Please?"

Mikey sighed and let his hand slip back down to his pillow, fisting into the white and blue-striped cotton. "Yeah, okay. Just don't..."

Frank got up on his knees and hooked his fingers into Mikey's shirt. "Don't what?"

Mikey bit his lip and shook his head, rolling onto his back and fixing his stare up at the ceiling so he didn't have to see Frank's disgusted face after he saw. Frank was slowly sliding his shirt up. He put his hand on Mikey's back when he wanted him to sit up so he could tug the shirt over his arms, and when he was done Mikey fell back onto the bed with a sigh, little yellow birds fluttering around in his chest and pecking at his skin from the inside.

Don't say I'm ugly

"Oh my God," Frank whispered. His eyes were tearing up, but he still maintained that he was going to be strong for once and protect Mikey and not let him see him fucking cry. But there were so many bruises and scars and...he didn't know what was under that bandage, but he was pretty sure it was still bleeding.

"See! I'm ugly, now gimme my shirt." Mikey made to sit up but Frank's hand on his shoulder stopped him. He slumped back down, wiggling uncomfortably under the prickling gaze.

Frank looked up at Mikey's face, catching a few glimpses of his bruised shoulders and upper arms. Mikey was crying. Well, tears were rolling down his cheeks but his face remained emotionless.

He leaned over Mikey's body, planting his hands on either side of his face to hold himself up, staring down at Mikey's face. Mikey thought he was ugly. What the hell, who told him that? Was he even looking at the same person that Frank saw everyday? Frank buried his face in Mikey's neck.

"Fucking hell, Mikey," he mumbled. He kissed at Mikey's ear. "You're so beautiful I don't know what to do with you. How can you think that you're ugly?"

"'C-cause Imall b-bruised and shit. A-and I'm too skinn-ny and pale and goth and I'm ugly!" Mikey sniffled and wiped his face on his sleeve. He hated to cry, it always made his nose and cheeks red and his eyes squinty, and he was just feeling worse about his appearance by the minute. Especially when Frank was looking at him openly like that. He couldn't hide behind his hair anymore. "Why do you even like me?" he asked miserably.

Frank sat back on his heels and found himself popping off many answers. "You're gorgeous, you're sweet, you know more about make up than anyone I've ever met, you're funny, an amazing kisser, you don't get mad when I try to force feed you, we can sit up late at night and argue about Gran Turismo, you let me tell you loads of shit about manga that you don't care about, you have the cutest jaw I've ever seen, the chains on your pants are awesome, you lead me around on a fucking leash, and you are the only person that I have ever chased after for three months. Do I need to keep going? Because I totally will."

Mikey smiled--God, Frank loved his smile. It always seemed like Mikey was trying to keep himself from smiling, which made for the cutest little lopsided grin. Frank reached out his hand to run his thumb along Mikey's lips. "You have the most adorable-est smile ever. And the prettiest lips." He pecked Mikey's lips. "And I'm pretty fucking crazy about you, Mikey Way. So there."

He slid off of Mikey and laid down beside him in the groove he'd created earlier laying next to Mikey. He cuddled into his side and kissed his shoulder.

"...what's so cute about my jaw?" Mikey asked, the very thought puzzling him. He was pretty much on cloud 9 right now and couldn't be bothered with making up anything that made sense.

"It's just...so geometrical. And cute. I don't know, it just is. I can't explain it."

Mikey smiled and snuggled down until his head was resting under Frank's chin. He let out the breath he'd been holding since Frank took his shirt off and, looking back, he couldn't remember why he was so worried about it in the first place. Frank liked him. So, yeah.

"Hey, what's this for?" Frank asked, running his finger lightly over the gauze on Mikey's hip. "It looks like it's bleeding through. Maybe you should change it. Here, I have some gauze in the bathroom."

Mikey looked down and decided to listen to Frank. It was starting to stain the white material of the gauze, and he hadn't even looked at it since yesterday. He let Frank pull him into the bathroom and make him sit on the sink. He dangled his legs off the side of the counter, enjoying the feeling because he was too tall to be able to do this with chairs. It made him feel like a little kid again. He watched Frank rummage in a drawer for a minute, then turned his attention to the little window at the top of the bathroom. He liked those little windows, because he could open them and smoke in the bathroom if he wanted to without his parents knowing about it.

"Okay, this might hurt a little, Mikey," Frank warned as he grabbed an edge of the tape Mikey used to keep the gauze on. He peeled it off slowly, petrified of hurting Mikey, and finally got one piece off. Then he went for the other. The used gauze was thrown in the garbage and he leaned down to inspect the cut. He never really knew about cuts like his mom did, since she was a nurse and saw these things all the time, but he knew one thing, at least.

"Oh shit, Mikey, it's infected."

"But I disinfected it! I swear I did! Stupid motherfucking glass." Mikey would have crossed his arms over his chest if he wasn't afraid of hurting his cut more, so he just sat there and waited for further instruction from Frank.

"Hey, it's really deep too, honey. I'm going to go get my mom. She's a nurse, and she'll know what to do."

"No, she'll tell me that I need to go to the hospital!"

Frank eyed him skeptically. "...do you need to go to the hospital?"

"Well, the nurse at school said I needed to go get stitches, but I don't think it's tha--"

"Mikey!" Frank put his face in his hands and prayed that Mikey was kidding. Mikey was too smart for this, really. He should know when a cut is bad enough to have to go get medical help. "Just stay here. Don't move."

He ran downstairs and left Mikey sitting on the counter shirtless. At first, he was inclined to listen and not move a muscle, but he just knew that Frank was going to make him go to the hospital, and then his parents would find out. The only reason they let him move to this school was so he didn't get beaten up anymore, and what if they decided that if he was still getting beaten up that it was pointless to waste all that money for gas and made him go back to the Belleville school?

He hopped off the counter and walked over to the window, pushing it open and lighting up a cigarette. He hoped Frank's mom didn't hate him for smoking, but he was just so nervous and he didn't know what else to do with himself. The walls were beginning to close in on him, the sailboat wallpaper flooding the small room and making him sick just looking at it. He stood leaned up against the wall until Frank dragged his mom into the room.

"Mikey, I told you not to move," Frank said, pulling Mikey by the arm back to the counter. Frank's mom bent down to look at Mikey's stomach, and he suddenly became acutely aware that he still had a cigarette in his hand that she either didn't notice or didn't care about.

"Mikey, honey, put that out, it'll destroy your lungs." Maybe she did care.

"Sorry," Mikey muttered before spitting on the end of the cigarette and grabbing some toilet paper to wrap around it. He threw it in the garbage and used his newfound free hands to brace himself on the edge of the counter. Ice cold hands pressed on his skin and he didn't think it was any better than being in a doctor's office aside from the fact that Frank had his arm around Mikey's shoulders and was trying to hold him still instead of it being a nurse. Mikey sighed and tilted his head so he could rest it on Frank's shoulder.

"Are you okay?" Frank whispered, smoothing down his hair. He kissed the top of Mikey's head and wound his arms a little tighter.

"Yeah, m'okay. But please don't make me go to the hospital. It's scary."

Frank wasn't going to promise him anything. He would drag Mikey to the hospital and hold his hand the entire time if he had to, but he couldn't let Mikey get any worse. He wasn't going to let him get sick over a stupid infection. "Mom, does he need to go to the hospital?" Frank asked quietly, squeezing Mikey's hand.

"Yes, he does. But...I think I could stitch him up if he really doesn't want to go to the hospital."

Mikey could have hugged her. His arms twitched with the sensation, going unfulfilled because this wasn't Frank, and he couldn't just hug her. "Oh, you are my second favorite person in the world right now," he gushed. He didn't have to go to the hospital!

Frank's mom smiled up at him. "Well, thank you Mikey, sweetie. But it's going to hurt, and you'll need to lie down for a while afterwards."

Mikey was nodding but the words went straight through him, replaced with the mantra everything's going to be okay for once. Frank was telling him that he was going to take care of him.

*

It hurt. It ached more than the initial wound, but at least he knew that he wasn't going to bleed to death in his sleep. And he liked the way the stitches looked on his skin, sewing him shut like he was a doll with a rip and it was just stuffing spilling out of him, not blood. Gory, but in a real way. He had watched Frank's mom as she was threading the string through his cut, delighted that he could feel it when the string passed through his skin and meshed the sides of his cut together. She was putting him back together. Frankie had gathered up the stuffing and helped him put it back in its rightful place, and Frank's mother had sewn him shut and everything was all better. He was starting to accept his role as the helpless one who everyone wanted to fix. Fuck Bob. This was better than anything he had.

He was laying face down on Frank's bed, his face buried in a pillow, listening to Frank's voice as he told him about how he was watching this crappy Batman cartoon where Robin had huge eyes and a jetpack. "And, like, Batman was fighting Superman, because Superman had breathed in mind-control spores, and Robin was all like, 'whoosh' with his awesome jetpack that I so totally want for my birthday, and, and, they went down into the, like, sewers, and," he stopped and giggled. "And Batman totally unleashed the shit! And the fumes made Superman be all super again, and all in all, it was awesome, and you need to stay over at my house one weekend and we'll get up early on Saturday to watch it, yeah?"

Mikey raised his head far enough so Frank could hear him agree.

Frank smiled down at Mikey and wondered if he was boring him. Sometimes he bored himself, and he really just wanted to make Mikey happy. He glanced around his room for something to entertain Mikey. They'd already exhausted his small non-manga comic collection, beaten every level on Crash Team Racing, and he really didn't think Mikey was up for playing with his action figures. "Hey Mikey, do you want to listen to one of my CDs?" He leaned over Mikey and grabbed the CD case off his dresser without waiting for an answer.

"Yeah, sure. Let me see what CDs you have," Mikey said, reaching out blindly with one hand while keeping his face hidden in the pillow. He lifted his head up far enough to see what CDs were in the case when he flipped through them. One, in particular, surprised the shit out of him.

"Oh my God!" He shot up and gave Frank a glazed over dreamy look, hugging the CD case close to his chest.

"What? What is it?" Frank peeked over Mikey's shoulder to try and see the reason Mikey nearly gave him a heart attack.

"You have Rotten Apples," he whispered with reverence. He knew that Smashing Pumpkins were popular, but he really wasn't expecting Frank to have the same CD that he did. It was irrational thinking, but he knew that it meant something special that they both had this. "You're perfect, Frankie." He tilted his head to peck Frank's cheek before holding out the CD case so Frank would put in the CD.

"Geez, Mikey, you scared me, I thought something was wrong!" Frank held his hand over his heart and smiled at Mikey, relieved that wasn't the case. He put in the CD and jumped back on the bed next to Mikey, pleased with himself that he found something Mikey liked. "So, what's your favorite song on here?"

Mikey made a small groaning noise from the bottom of his throat. "God, I love them all. What's yours?"

"Probably Today. Or maybe Ava Adore. I don't know. Like you said, I love them all too." Frank settled himself down in the groove beside Mikey, curling into his side and reaching a hand out to rest on Mikey's bare back, avoiding the bruises. Yeah, Mikey even had bruises on his back, mostly around his shoulder blades where he was pushed into the wall so many times. Frank trailed his finger down Mikey's spine, the ripples that adorned his back, down to his hips, idly drawing X's at the line of his waistband. Mikey was wiggling around underneath his touch, and he worried that Mikey wasn't liking it.

"Is this bothering you?"

"No, it just tickles a little." Mikey's voice was muffled by the pillow but Frank could hear a giggle accompany the words. Smiling, Frank let his touch glide back up Mikey's smooth tan back and play over the plateaus of shoulder blades and the nape of his neck softly. Down Mikey's thin arms and back up again, to the middle of his back where Frank leaned over and planted a kiss before going on his way to Mikey's ripply side, to his ribs. He tapped at the ribs playfully for a moment, forgetting about the bruises until he looked down and snatched away his hand. A sound of protest came from somewhere in the pillow.

"That felt good..."

Frank let out a little snort of a laugh and started to run his hands over Mikey's back again, this time making it more a gentle massage than anything, producing happy little sighs out of Mikey for a while until his arms got tired and he collapsed back on the bed. He rolled onto his side and hugged Mikey.

"You're so beautiful," he mumbled against Mikey's throat, punctuating himself with a kiss. Faintly, in the background, he could hear the start of Today, the petite little pluckings of silver guitar strings, and he wanted to sing along a little bit. Just because the song was really fitting for how he felt right now, despite all the shittyness that he thought today would bring.

"Today is the greatest day I've ever known. Can't live for tomorrow, tomorrow's much too long. I'll burn my eyes out before I get out."

He paused for a moment, letting the song go on without his help, wondering if he was annoying Mikey by singing. He didn't know. But, at one point, Mikey lifted his head up and whispered the words to a few lines himself, eyes closed and mouth barely moving.

"Pink ribbon scars that never forget, I tried so hard to cleanse these regrets. My angel wings were bruised and restrained. My belly stings..."

Frank could feel his chest imploding on itself, the prickle, promise that tears were on their way, and he really didn't think he could be brave for Mikey much longer. He wasn't sad, they weren't tears of despair or anything like that, he just...really needed to cry after everything that happened, but he really didn't want to do it in front of Mikey and look like a selfish asshole who always needed attention.

Mikey slipped off his glasses and sat them on the dresser, rubbing at his eyes. He blinked them open and looked over at Frank, then smiled. They were both crying. Frank let out a choked little laugh and hugged Mikey tighter.

"Gah, we're too pathetically a couple."

Mikey laughed too, an awkward sound through the tears, and let his head drop back onto his pillow. "I know! But, you know, that's awesome."

Frank leaned forward to peck Mikey's lips. "Believe me, I know." He smiled and watched his own hand as it reached up to tuck Mikey's hair behind his ears. He loved to look at Mikey without his makeup and glasses, with his hair out of his eyes and his true everything showing. His real skin color, lip color, eye color. Up close, without the glasses, his eyes were almost green when the light hit them, and it was a wonderful emerald contrast to his heavy eyebrows and gorgeous skin. "Hey, Mikey? Stay."

"What?"

"Stay here for the night. Don't drive home. It's too late anyways. Just call your mom and ask her if you can stay here. If you want to, of course." Please, please, Mikey, I'll keep myself up all night worrying about you if you're not here in bed next to me.

"Yeah, okay. I'll call her in a minute," Mikey promised. He shut his eyes and smiled at the song that was playing now. Ava Adore.

"We must never be apart."

*

Waking up to find yourself in someone else's room is always a little disorienting. Humans sleep to recharge their brains and bodies, to provide a release for all the stress in every day life and to let go of reality for a few hours. When they wake up, they expect to find the world in the the same shape as they left it. Mikey always expects to see his radio the first thing in the morning, because that is the way he always faces when he sleeps. He expects to hear the dull whine of his alarm splitting through his head and not giving him a choice whether he was waking up that morning or not. This morning, he blinked sleepily at the light spilling through the window and wondered where the hell his radio was.

Fuzzy sleep was clogging his mind, lulling him into semi-consciousness, so he didn't really give a shit that his radio was missing and his walls were a different color and he was on the wrong side of the bed. He tucked his arms under his pillow and curled up, trying to get back to sleep. It must have been Saturday, because his alarm didn't go off, and he liked to sleep in on the weekend. It meant less time without Frank. He was well on his way to drifting off when he felt a little nudge to his back. He rolled onto his back and Bella jumped on his chest, burrowing under the covers with him.

"Bella!" Frank was standing in the door way with a leash in his hand. He dropped it onto the floor and jumped on the bed with Mikey and Bella. He picked her up and decided against reprimanding her after she turned her doleful fake innocent gaze on him. "Sorry, Mikey. I took her out for a walk, and she's just used to piling into bed with me when I let her."

"Aw, it's okay, Frankie, she's just cuddly," Mikey said, reaching out to tug Bella back to her spot on his chest. Bella was fast becoming his favorite pet, and he thought it was okay to think of her as partly his, too. Frank wouldn't mind. She licked at his chin and laid her head back down on his chest, adjusting her legs to lay out behind her.

Frank leaned over to press his nose to Mikey's, ghosting spiderweb eyelashes across his sun kissed cheeks. "She missed you, Mikey. I know it sounds weird, but I know she did. We have that pet-owner telekinesis, and she was really disappointed when she didn't get to wake you up last weekend."

That was the way it went whenever Mikey spent the night over at Frank's house, Bella waking them both up at around eleven and planting herself in between the two to be cuddled, pawing at whoever didn't tend to her wishes. She was more like a baby than a dog.

"Aw, poor baby. Hey, Frank, what time is it?" Mikey asked, absent-mindedly petting Bella. He knew now that it wasn't Saturday, it was actually Wednesday, and he had a test today in third period that he didn't plan on having to make up. Forget about having no makeup or clothes. His third period teacher was an idiot who didn't believe that students should be allowed to make up tests--they just shouldn't get sick on her test days, and Mikey didn't tolerate anything other than an A on his tests.

"Er," Frank looked away guiltily. He knew he should have waken Mikey up when his alarm went off, but Mikey looked really tired and he didn't want to, he wanted to spend the day lazily at home with Mikey, maybe re-exhausting his comic book collection and fighting over dibs on the better spot on the couch next to the table. He glanced over at the alarm clock on the bedside dresser. "It's almost nine."

Mikey perked up. "Oh, okay. I won't miss my test then." He sat up, Bella falling into his lap and looking up at him indignantly. How dare he sit up when she was comfortable? She decided to relocate to Frank's lap, she knew he wasn't so freaking spastic.

*

Mikey stood awkwardly in front of Frank's bathroom mirror, squinting at himself and asking himself if he was really about to do this. His legs were encased in pants that didn't hang off his ass and make everyone wonder about the size of his thighs. Frank had found some of his cousin's blue jeans that she'd left here--yeah, Mikey was forced to wear girl pants like Jared, eesh--the last time she was over. He hated them, they were stifling his legs and showed how girly his hips looked, how he swung them when he walked and cocked them to the left when he stood still. He was wearing one of Frank's shirts, a white one that had Bart Simpson on it that nearly hung off his shoulders and made his arms resemble toothpicks, but he was planning on wearing his coat all day so it didn't really bother him.

What did bother him was himself. He was getting so fucking superficial that he cared about whether he left the house without makeup and a certain brand of pants. His scowl was reflected back at himself in the mirror as he leaned in and just--studied. His face. The self-loathing that usually accompanied his scrutiny as he looked in the mirror in his own room was gone for the most part now, chased away by Frank's constant--everything. The small little touches of their hands when Mikey was off in his own little world, or when Frank would just stare at him, slip off his glasses, and say that his eyes were pretty.

"Fraaank..." he whimpered softly, only half hoping that Frank would hear him, because all he was really going to do was whine about how much he hates himself and hope that Frank says something nice about him.

Frank popped into the bathroom with Bella cradled in his arms. "Yeah?" He hitched her up onto his shoulder, garnering himself a little grunt, because she wasn't down with all the sudden man-handling she'd been put through this morning.

"I'm turning into a fucking girl." He frowned at the mirror and wondered why mankind ever invented the little fuckers. They made people hate themselves, yeah? Made them think that they had to pack into gyms and spend millions on plastic surgery instead of feeding the starving children in Africa or finding a cure for AIDS--they were what is wrong with America. "When I become supreme ruler of the earth, I am melting down every single mirror and using them to create my spaceship!" he spat out, giving one last lingering glare to the glass before turning to Frank and curling his arms around one of Frank's.

Frank didn't really catch anything Mikey was saying...He was trying to listen, but Bella kept pawing at his chin and all he got out of it was a rant about spaceships. Which was actually one of Mikey's usual rants, so he nodded like he understood perfectly and added input. "Yes, because...then the aliens will be blinded." And he decided, after Mikey smiled and pecked him on the cheek, that it was the right answer and silently felt a sense of accomplishment. He let Bella jump out of his arm and then decided that he could devote his full attention to checking Mikey out, because this was a once in a lifetime deal. Mikey in girl pants. Like a fucking whore. The denim clung snugly to his wispy thin legs and settled over his curved hips like they were made for him, detailing out in stone sharp hipbones that met the fabric in a sloping arc.

Frank ran his thumb down the outer seam of the pants, a pleasant heat running down his back. "These look good on you, Mikey."

They think that if they just wipe all that shit off of your face and get you into some tight jeans that you'll bloom into a perfect fucking butterfly and rub in everyone's faces that they liked you from the start.

Bob's not right, Mikey thought. He couldn't be. Frank liked him when he was all gothed out, and he likes him now because they are boyfriends and it has nothing to do with the fact that Mikey was in tight pants. Frank's not superficial like Mikey. He doesn't spend hours in front of a mirror putting on makeup and telling himself that he's ugly. Frank's just running his hand down Mikey's leg because--

"I don't like them," Mikey snapped, jerking his leg away, pressing into his other leg and making himself wobble for a moment. He latched onto the counter, digging his fingers into the sharp corners. He went around Frank and into the hallway, putting all his effort into not swinging his hips. But that was harder than he thought, because to keep that momentum he had to stop swinging his arms and suddenly his walk was robotic. He just stopped, standing up completely straight so his fucking hip wouldn't pop out to the side.

Frank followed after him into the hallway, watching his stiff display and cringing inwardly, wondering what was up. "Hey, what's wrong, Mikey? Are you okay?" He stepped hesitantly closer to Mikey, put a hand on his shoulder and waited for the explosion. Mikey hung his head and whimpered.

"My hips are showing."

Frank followed the line of Mikey's awkwardly bent body, taking in one last look at how nice his legs were, before landing on his slim hips. Frank bit back the urge to trace the prominent bones with his thumb, to lean down and kiss them, because Mikey did not want to be touched. "So? Your hips are nice. You don't like them?" Mikey shifted a little bit, his shoulders slumping, his hip pitching out to the side, arms crossing themselves over his chest. Within those tiny movements, Mikey underwent a change from robotic to feminine. Frank thought back to what Mikey had been complaining about earlier. "Oh! Mikey, you don't have girly hips, okay?"

Frank snubbed out his conscience, telling it that he could get away with lying this time because this was a really fucking mundane lie and it will make Mikey feel better. But he did. He had really nice, tan, curved hips that reminded Frank of his last girlfriend. No, fuck that, hips that his last girlfriend would die to have, that she would sell her mother for. Mikey's whole look today was slightly feminine, from his glossy black hair hanging in his face, his softly lined pouty lips, thin waist and curved hips. Aside from his very masculine jawline and the slight stubble on his face that Frank had become enthralled with the moment he woke up next to the sleeping Mikey and noticed it, he might be able to pass for a tall girl with glasses.

Frank tugged Mikey into a hug, winding his arm around Mikey's shoulders and nosing into his neck, trying to stomp out his hesitance. Mikey wasn't responding to his touch, so he let his arms hang loose and sighed. Sometimes he could get Mikey perfectly, almost in some pseudo-psyche way that had him believing in Soul Mates and that shit, but every once in a while Mikey became a completely different person that he found almost--oh shit, he hated to say it, but inhuman. It was perfectly normal for a teenage boy to worry about whether other people liked him and how he looked and all of that, but Mikey was taking it to extremes, his moods swinging dangerously from one extreme to another, topped by his trust issues. Frank sometimes thought that Mikey really doesn't trust him, but then guilt floods him for doubting his boyfriend.

Frank scrubbed at his nose while toeing the ground and trying to come up with something completely out-of-the-blue like he usually did to lighten the mood, but nothing came. His internal chatter box was exhausted, between all the emotions he'd suddenly found himself faced with over the past two days--jealousy at Jared and Ray, frustration with Mikey, pity, sympathy, contentment, and confusion--it was an overload on his normally plain pallet and he didn't know how to deal. He took a shuddering breath and blinked away tears because this wasn't a fucking time to cry, nothing sad was even happening. Mikey just didn't want to touch him. He should be used to it by now.

They were just wasting time standing in the hallway when they could be going outside to get in Mikey's car and go to school so he could take his precious test--oh, fuck this, was Frank actually getting jealous of a piece of paper that any normal person would loathe? Who the hell does that! He threw up his hands in defeat and spun around to trudge down the steps, stomping his feet like it was the stairs' fault that he was in love with someone who didn't like hugs and thought a test was more important than wasting the whole day cuddling.

Mikey followed suit sans stomping, actually kind of cowering behind his boyfriend, completely convinced that he had pissed off Frank and he would never want anything to do with him again. He grabbed his coat from the rack as he passed by it, noticing that Frank had forgotten to get one and plucked off a black one before following Frank out the door and to the car, shivering and pulling his thick coat closer around his body against the cold Jersey wind the moment he stepped out the door. He ducked into the drivers seat next to his shaking boyfriend and passed the coat over the gear shifter. Frank eyed him up and down before muttering his thanks and shoving his arms through the sleeves of the jacket. At that point, Mikey was sure that Frank was pissed off at him.

He cranked up the car and turned on the heater, letting the car get warmed up before pulling out of Frank's driveway. He would have liked to say something, some shit about how he was sorry for being the way he is, that he doesn't want to put Frank through all of this, but the silence seemed to have sucked all of the breath from his lungs and he could hardly breathe, let alone talk. Besides, Frank was usually the one to start the conversations, and Mikey wouldn't know what to say other than, 'hey, Frank,' and hope he answers, and if he doesn't, then. Well. He has fucked up.

And he's not going to even attempt to fix it.

*

At school, things got a little better, they arrived five minutes before third period began and Mikey was able to take the test. But he finished predictably quickly, answers falling directly from his mind to be projected on paper without his consent, and it gave him almost an hour to rethink how shitty he felt. If Frank wasn't happy, then he wasn't, and it sucked that his life had suddenly started revolving around someone else without his permission. He wasn't the top priority anymore. Frank was, and if he had to suck up his bitchy attitude and make the first move to apologize, then he really couldn't see any way around that.

"Hey." Someone was whispering to him. He jerked his head up and squinted at the girl in the desk in front of him. He had abandoned his glasses when he decided to lay his head down and maybe take a nap and didn't see any reason to put them back on just yet. The world looked a little better blurry and without all the fine lines and frowns.

"What?" Leaning his chin on his knuckles in the most sardonic way he could manage, he motioned for her to go on. Girls were completely useless to him. Why did they insist on talking to him when he was so obviously gay? He winced inwardly at the accusation he inflicted upon himself and backtracked. When I am obviously in a relationship?

The girl--he could make out chin-length chocolate hair swept to part in the middle and a wide grin--leaned in unnervingly close to his desk. He thought momentarily about telling her to fuck off, but. He could stand to be a little more polite, he supposed. Not that he was looking for any more friends, but he didn't really want everyone to hate him like he knew they would if he kept up his bad ass goth routine. And, now that the girl leaned in, supporting her weight on one arm, he could make out sweet little freckles dusting her nose and cheeks and big chocolate brown eyes that matched her hair. She looked nice. He was assuming all of this and making stereotypes, of course, but she did look like she was a sweetheart. His fingers crossed themselves as he hoped that all she wanted was to borrow a pencil, and not say what he was fearing.

"Hey, you look good today." Shit. Well, there was one person that proved Bob's theory right. He suddenly felt less inclined to be nice and waved away the compliment with a little 'thanks' and laid his head back down on the desk, throwing the fur-lined hood over his head in a weak attempt to block out the world buzzing gently around him.

*

With hands clasped tightly around his own pinprick of a waist, tugging futily at the back of his coat to urge it down a little further to cover his ass, Mikey walked slowly and self-consciously to his fifth period class. The time to apologize waited, hung open for him, anticipating with eager eyes and ears to see if he would get down on his knees and beg. Deep circles adorned his boyfriend's eyes as he slumped down in his seat and fiddled with a bit of his own hair, punching some guilt into Mikey's chest. He stood in front of Frank's desk, running his finger over the buffed edge nervously.

"H-hey, Frankie?" Like using a nickname was going to help. Frank blinked blearily up at him, eyes seeming to dilate out of focus then return back to the present.

"Yeah, baby?" His voice was laced with sandpaper and sawdust, sprinkling more guilt across Mikey's littered torso. He squirmed around a little, unnerved by the difference in height since Frank was sitting, and crouched down in front of his desk, grabbing for a hand underneath the desk, holding on tight. Smaller fingers squeezed against his own reassuringly, surging confidence through his veins.

"I was being an asshole this morning, I'm sorry. S'just...girl pants are really uncomfortable, and everyone's been staring at my ass." A dorky grin and secretive lean-and-whisper made Frank smile even as jealously bit at him, on the sidelines of his mind. First up was Mikey's apology.

"Oh, Mikey, that's okay." Smiling, he raised a hand to pet at Mikey's hair fondly, to pull lightly at the thin wisps that got caught under his glasses. "Everyone has their bitchy days. Now...who the fuck was looking at your ass? Because I want names." He pressed his thumb against Mikey's sheepish blush and slid it across the expanse of crushed petal, wishing more than ever that they weren't in school. In class.

Sufficiently pleased with himself, Mikey stood up, joints cracking in his knees and coaxing an age joke from Frank, and headed back to his own seat where he planned to finish the nap he had started earlier. He stretched out his arms over his head, yawned silently, and closed his eyes to the flood of people that would be rushing in to beat the bell in a matter of seconds.

He was woken up by a little nudge to his foot, blinking up wearily to Frank's face hovering over his desk. He had a triumphant grin splattered on his face.

"And Goth Sleeping Beauty is awake!" he announced to the empty room, throwing his hands up in imitation of a soccer player who just made a goal. "Come, my dear, we shall away!" Tugging on Mikey's sleeve impatiently, he whimpered at the time Mikey was taking in waking up. He stretched his arms up over his head and--nevermind, his hips were showing, Frank was content. He slumped down in the desk opposite Mikey and watched as his boyfriend yawned, scrubbed at his eyes, ran a little pink tongue out over his bottom lip and turned his obscured gaze on Frank. His glasses hung discarded in his coat pocket, unused for nearly the whole day because Mikey was slowly realizing that the world was prettier blurred out and let out of the glass bubble he lived in. He never really had thought much about his glasses before, they were there to help him after all, to give him the precious gift of sight, but he really hated them. Why didn't he have good vision like everyone else? Why is every aspect of his life different from the people around him?

"Ready, Mikey?"

"Yep." Mikey pushed himself up to follow Frank out the door and to the cafeteria. It was nearly snowing outside, and while Mikey despised being stuck in a crowded cafeteria watching everyone else ingest God-knows-what into their systems, he was not going to make Frank go outside with him and freeze his ass off. See, this was the 'putting Frank first' part of his personality that he just discovered and didn't have much of an opinion on. He was taking someone else's opinions into question, not just relying on his own knowledge to get him through the days, and life, it seemed, without a logical path of thought was exhausting. Instead of getting to class minutes early to study for tests, he found himself waiting outside Frank's classes, walking him to his locker, sharing small hidden kisses and thinking about them throughout the whole class. He couldn't just immerse himself in a book or homework, not with the word 'Frank' always flashing in the back of his mind in bright neon. He really hoped Frank appreciated how much he'd turned his life around just for him.

"Ah, fuck, there's nowhere to sit," Frank grumbled, reaching behind to grab Mikey's arm and lead him over to the corner of the cafeteria to sit on the floor. He was avoiding the bathroom for now, the sudden rush of exactly what the red shit on the wall was hitting him last night while he was cuddling up to Mikey and his hand brushed over the gauze. He'd been in a fuzzy-content state, cool black covering his mind and body, slowly petting at Mikey's ribs as the third CD they'd popped in--Alkaline Trio, also Mikey's choice--played on in the background. He'd just been feeling out the ripples and dents in Mikey's side when his fingers stumbled over rough dappled material and he remembered that Mikey was hurt.

"You don't mind the floor, do you Mikey?" It was a little too late to ask, but he wanted to be nice.

"No, s'fine." Mikey settled himself beside Frank in the dark junction of the white wall, shrugging off his jacket in the process because there was body heat galore in the tiny space. As soon as his black was tossed aside, behind his back so he knew where it was, he felt like all eyes were on him. It's what color did to him now. He didn't know how Frank could stand wearing red and pink and green and all the other bright colors his wardrobe consisted of and not feel like he stuck out so bad. Of course, he knew that probably no one was looking at him, but that didn't stop the prickle on the back of his neck, the increased rate of his heartbeat, the slight spasm that wrecked his shoulders.

"You okay?"

"Yeah, it's just...the absence of black, you know." Mikey's answer was nonchalant, not at all like he'd just been freaking the fuck out.

"Well, did you know that black is the absence of color? And white is the epitome of all colors bouncing back into the human eye?"

"Yes, I know."

Frank nodded--of course Mikey knew--and leaned back into the cove they had created for themselves. He didn't know where he was going with that first statement, he just wanted to sound smart for once. About colors, such a technical subject that was sure to impress Mikey.

"My brother is in art school, and he tells me things like that all the time," Mikey continued, a new note entering his voice, something like...admiration? This seemed like one of the topics that Frank deemed 'safe' for Mikey. Along with robots, aliens, and whether human hearts are edible frozen. "I kinda miss him."

Frank leaned in, one hand propping his head up, and motioned his hand for Mikey to go one. Something stirring in the air between them, promising more than a few quick words about how his brother is a good drawer.

Mikey closed his eyes, finding words just spilling out like he wasn't talking to Frank in a crowded cafeteria, something intimate like he was just alone and talking to himself. "Gerard...was pretty much the only friend in my life, up until I met you. He thinks that he's never going to be anything, like he's always saying that to me when we talk, but I know that I'm the screw-up of the family, and he's going to be fucking famous, and I'm going to go live with him in a huge mansion where we can play videogames all day and beat the hell out of each other." A smile crept its way onto Mikey's lips and he let his head fall onto Frank's awaiting shoulder, nosing into the collar of his jacket and sighing out all the cramps in his heart. "N when he comes around for holidays and shit, he doesn't treat me like everyone else does. If he wants to throw me out a window, he'll do it. Then, like, apologize later and give me a popsicle. Red ones, because he knows that I don't like things that taste purple."

Frank pressed his smile into Mikey's temple and started to thread his fingers through the black silk of Mikey's hair. Softly, with his mouth still attached to Mikey's temple, "How does everyone else treat you?" How do you want to be treated?

"Not like he does. Everyone else either thinks that I have a gun hidden in my coat, or that I'll fucking break if they touch me. I know that normally I push people away and avoid contact, but that's only because everyone is so predictable. 'Cept you, I never know what you're about to pop off with, and that's one of the reasons that I like you so much, Frankie. And Gerard...he's unpredictable too, and I like that trait in the human race. Animals are sweet and cuddly, but they lack the emotion for spontaneity. Even when everything is quiet and peaceful and a dog just flips out, it's not just an act. They always hear or smell something that sets them off, but humans have the ability to do it whenever they like without a catalyst." Teeth bit into the soft underside of Frank's chin and he yelped. "See? I had no reason to do that."

Frank rubbed at the spot, pouting. "Then why'd you do it?" The burn was just seeping further into his skin each time he rubbed at the spot, so he quit, his hand soon replaced by a soft kiss.

"Did it hurt? Sorry."

"Nah, don't worry about it."

From a few feet over, Frank could hear fake-retching sounds, oddly reminiscent to a certain time in a certain ice cream parlor, and he didn't even have to look up to be so pissed off that he jumped up, grabbed the blond by the shirt, and pulled him into the boy's bathroom. His catalyst: blood, vomit noises, and gauze. See, he wasn't all that spontaneous.