FicWad

Ok so…never thought I would post on ficwad…I post over on fanfiction.net, and I just got an account here to read MCR fanfics. Which, I swore I would never actually write.
Ha. You can see how well that went. :P

Anyway, this is an idea that’s been bouncing around in my head ever since I heard Mikey struggled with a lot of depression during the making of Black Parade, and that he actually left the band for two months and they weren’t sure what was gonna happen. So I got to thinking about how Gerard would take his brother being seriously depressed, and then thinking about what his problems years ago could have done to Mikey, and wondering how a conversation about BOTH those issues would go, and this is what I came up with.

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It had been a really long day.

Gerard anxiously tapped a cigarette out into his hand, frowning when he realized it was the last one. He’d smoked more than he thought that afternoon. He lit it quickly and closed as his eyes as he took the first drag, the act calming his nerves.

It was only after he had flopped down on the couch and finished his smoke that he realized the house was eerily quiet. “…Hey guys?”

He had only been gone…two hours? Maybe. Still, he didn’t remember anyone saying they were going out. Not that that meant anything, really. Everyone was stressed out lately, and it wouldn’t have been surprising if they had all decided to go out.

Still, hopefully someone was still around. It was way too early to be tired, and he didn’t feel going back out. Definitely, he didn’t feel like calling Kat back. He had talked to her for about 10 minutes on the drive back to the house, and they had fought again. It was always something, these days, and now she was telling him he didn’t call enough. As if he didn’t already have enough on his mind.

Wandering toward the back of the house he passed the living room, noticing the two guitar hero controllers tossed on the couch. Ray and Bob, probably. One of Frank’s guitars rested against the arm of the couch. Well, they had at least been here a little while ago. If Mikey wasn’t around, he might call and see where they’d headed off to.

In the hallway he stopped at the first door on the left, knocking as he opened it. It wasn’t like he could have Alicia in there, and there was nothing else he needed to worry about interrupting. Not with his brother. “Hey, Mikes, you here?” Gerard heard the soft clunk of glass bottle against wood before his eyes finished scanning the room, but the noise was enough to focus his attention, and he saw him then.

The room was dark, and he was sitting forward in the chair that faced his coffee table. The bottle of vodka he’d just put down was almost empty, but it wasn’t that that made Gerard’s heart leap into his throat. It was the bottle of pills beside it, open, scattered out on the table in a way that seemed unlikely to be haphazard and much more like counting. “Mikey…” Gerard could hear the agony in his own voice, and it was enough to make Mikey flinch.

He looked away, his eyes on the floor. “You shouldn’t be here, Gerard.”

“Mikey?” That time, he sounded like the younger one. Hurt, and pleading. God, he had known Mikey had been a little off and he had been meaning to ask if everything was ok, but deep down he had been sure that if it wasn’t, Mikey would have told him. They had always told each other everything.

“Just…it’s fine, just leave me alone, alright?”

That snapped him out of the shock, at least a little bit. He crossed into the room, shut the door behind him. “What the hell’s going on? What is this?”

Mikey stood up, and it was impossible not to notice how unsteady he was when he did. “Look, today sucked. I’m allowed to have a drink if I want it, Gee.”

It should have stung, and normally it might have. At the moment, he was far too worried about his brother to feel any shame. He was at the table faster than he would’ve thought possible, snatching the pill bottle up to wave him. “No, what the fuck is this, Mikey? Huh?”

He didn’t look at him, but even seeing just his profile in the semi-dark, Gerard knew him well enough to see the guilt flicker across his face. Mikey shook his head, moved to step past him. “Think what you want. I’m outta here.”

“The fuck you are!” Gerard’s hand shot out to catch his arm, yanking him back toward the chair. He was off balance anyway, and it was easy to shove him back into the seat. “You’re gonna tell me what this shit’s about right fucking now!” He was yelling at him and he hadn’t meant to, but he couldn’t help that any more than he could hide the slightly hysterical tone his voice had taken. He had lost track, he had lost touch with Mikey, and the sudden shock of that knowledge was mixing with pure terror to make him more desperate than he had ever felt in his life.

“I told you, today fucking sucked. Didn’t we all have a bad day? We can’t focus, any of us. Too much shit going on. I had a few drinks, needed a couple pills to take the edge off too. Can I go now?” The cold look Mikey was giving him was shattering enough to hurt almost more than the fear. Almost.

“Mikey…shit, Mikey you….just tell me this isn’t what it looks like.”

Please, tell me this isn’t what it look like…tell me I’m crazy…

He had been angry and strong a minute ago, but his mood seemed to be flipping fast. Hurt, terrified, angry…he couldn’t stay on one for very long.

“And what if it is?”

Gerard felt like he’d been punched in the chest. No, worse than that. This was like being hit by a train, like having something so fucking heavy dropped on you that you couldn’t think, couldn’t breathe. He was shaking before he knew it, and he dropped the bottle like it had burned him. “Jesus, Mikey…” Tears slipped from the corners of his eyes and he didn’t even notice them, shoved the table out of the way to kneel in front of his brother. “Don’t…don’t even fucking say that, don’t…I can’t…” He couldn’t imagine his life without Mikey, couldn’t imagine a day without him. Ever since he had been born, Gerard had been there looking out for him. And now, it seemed he had failed. Mikey still had that same mask of indifference on his face, and Gerard rested one shaking hand on his knee, slowly. “Come on, talk to me. We can do this, whatever it is, we’ll be ok. Just talk to me, Mikey, you’re scaring the shit outta me.”

Mikey jerked violently away from him, had enough coordination left to shove himself to his feet and stalk away. “Oh and that’s supposed to mean something, Gerard, the fact that I’m scaring the shit outta you? I’m supposed to be fine, all of a sudden, just cause it scares you?”

Gerard flinched, more effected by the harsh words than he would have been by an actual blow. “Fuck, what’s happened to us? We used to talk about shit like this! There was never nothing going on with you I didn’t know!” His voice softened, hazel eyes still shining with tears as he looked up at his brother. “What did I do, Mikey? Tell me, and I’ll tell you how fucking sorry I am.”

“Don’t…don’t talk to me like I’m hurting you, you have no right…” His voice was shaking, now, wavering, and Gerard could see the first real emotion showing on Mikey’s face that he had since the argument had begun. “You have no fucking right to tell me I’m hurting you.”

“Then tell me what I did wrong. Tell me what I did that fucked this up, alright? I can’t fix it if you don’t tell me what I-“

“God, you didn’t do anything! This…this isn’t your fault, alright?” He was yelling now, but Gerard didn’t care. He was letting himself get emotional about it now, and he knew that was the only way this was going to get anywhere. “It’s not all about you, Gerard. You ever think maybe I’m just having some fucking problems, huh? That…that I haven’t been able to sort out in my own head much less in words that’d make sense to anyone else? That if I had, maybe I’d have wanted to tell you, but I couldn’t? I...” He shook his head, running out of steam.

“Even so there’s…there’s being messed up and then there’s…” He gestured at the table, the pills, the alcohol. “You tell me not to act like you’re hurting me after what I walked in on? Fuck, Mikey! You could’ve…do you know what I could have walked in on if I’d been another goddamned hour?”

“That’s exactly, exactly what I was talking about, Gerard! Do you have any idea the kinds of things I walked in on, or were you too fucked over to remember? Cause I didn’t forget, not a minute. You think you’re scared, now? Try thinking that every goddamned time you get on the bus, you don’t know what the hell you’re gonna find! I never knew, Gerard! You wouldn’t talk to me, you wouldn’t listen to me…fuck, you were so fucking high once you were even telling me how much you wanted to die! Or how about the times I had to watch Frank picking your ass up out of the parking lot after you had passed out? You know, people always wondered why I was never there, why I was never the one picking you up, holding you when you were sick. The thing is…” He was crying now, hard, and Gerard was frozen. “I was there, sometimes. Half the time you knew it and half the time you didn’t, but you never talked to me about it. I lost count of how many times I begged you to let me in, tell me everything and we’d be ok, like we always had been. But the longer it went on, the more I let Frank do that. And it wasn’t because I was tired of looking out for you, or because I didn’t want to do it, I did…but…” He shook his head, slow. “I couldn’t stand watching you kill yourself. I couldn’t stand knowing that I was losing my brother, knowing that one day… someone was gonna find you dead somewhere and…and it wasn’t…it wasn’t gonna be me. I couldn’t have taken that. so I backed off.” He took a deep breath, let himself fall back into the chair, exhausted. “So what I’m saying is…you think I hurt you, tonight but…you don’t know anything about it. You fuckin’ tore me to pieces, for three fucking years. I haven’t done that to you.”

The silence when he finished was heavy and deafening, and Gerard felt like he was drowning in it. He had known Mikey had been worried, before, had known how happy he was when he got clean, had known that their relationship during those years hadn’t been what it shouldn’ve but… Now, he felt like an idiot. Had he really never considered what it would have been like to be in his brother’s place? He apologized to Mikey, before, but the reality of every reason he had to be sorry had never fully hit him. Not until now. “I didn’t…Mikey, I thought…” His reasons sounded stupid now that he knew the truth. “I didn’t want my darkness to hurt you. I wanted you to be better than that, I didn’t want to take you down with me…”

“Good job.”

His voice was lifeless and pained, and Gerard shut his eyes tight in a futile attempt to block something, anything. “I was trying to think of you, do what I thought was best for you. I’m your older brother…you shouldn’t have to take care of me.”

“Older or younger, you’re my brother, Gee.”

The familiar nickname was like a knife in his heart, and his whole body shuddered from the pain. “I’m sorry.” The whisper was laced with heavy regret, but it still sounded so very not-enough. He shifted on the floor, sat back until his back rested against the arm of the chair, his head brushing Mikey’s knee. He was comforted, a little, when Mikey didn’t move away. “Mikey, I’m sorry. I didn’t…I never realized what I was doing to you.” his voice dropped, softer. “I’d like to think I could have stopped sooner if I had.” The sentiment was true. Whether it would have been possible…that was another question. “Why didn’t you tell me all of this before, Mikey? It’s been years…”

“I should have. I know I should have, but I didn’t want to upset you I didn’t want…” Gerard heard him take a deep breath, steady himself. “I was ok with you not talking to me about everything, if it was what you needed. As long as you were getting help...I didn’t want to tell you it had bothered me. I didn’t want to be a problem.”

Gerard felt sick, nauseous in the way he should have been after one of his drunken nights. He hadn’t felt this sick in years. “You’re never a problem, Mikey.” He sighed, rubbed a hand across his eyes. “Shit, I thought me and you were ok…”

“We were!”

“Obviously not! You…you used to tell me everything. And I didn’t know…I didn’t know that, but I know that’s not what all of this was about tonight, so clearly, there’s a lot more I don’t know.”

“And like I said, maybe I wanted to talk to you but I couldn’t.”

“Bullshit, you’re the best with words out of the both of us. When you have something on your mind, you know what it is and you know how to say it well.”

“Or maybe…maybe I didn’t want you drinking again. And I knew you were upset about the way things were going with Kat already, and the fact the band’s having a hard time writing, and I thought that I didn’t need to put any more pressure on you and…”

Gerard let his head rest in his hands, soaking in the words. He needed to memorize them, because he was going to be doing penance for this fuck up for a long time. Maybe the rest of his life. Slowly, he pulled himself up, let his arms rest on either side of the chair as he leaned over his brother. “Mikey Way listen to me right fucking now. You will never be a fucking problem to me, do you understand?” Mikey was still crying, and the sight of tears on his cheeks was tearing out his heart. “And I will never take another drink, I promise you that. Nothing’s gonna push me to that, because it’s not even an option anymore, ok? It’s not gonna happen.”

“Not ever?” He sounded like a little boy again, and Gerard wouldn’ve smiled if it hadn’t been so serious.

“No. not ever. Except…” Mikey’s eyes flickered with worry, and Gerard moved his hands to grab his shoulders. “Tell me I’m not gonna lose you. I can’t promise you anything if I lose you. Walking in here tonight, thinking if I had been any later you could’ve…”

“I never meant for you to see that. I didn’t want to hurt you.”

“And what do you think would have happened to me if you…if you had gone through with that? Fuck, Mikey, you really think that wouldn’t hurt me? Knowing you had done that, and I’d never even known anything was really wrong?” Had he really done such a shitty job over the past few years that Mikey honestly doubted how much he loved him? It was a sobering thought, and he knew later he was going to have to reevaluate a lot of things. But first, he had to make sure he could straighten this out. “You have any idea how much I love you? Look, you told me you understood how fucking terrified I was tonight…don’t…don’t be like me, alright? I was a stupid bastard, but you’re better than that. You’re smarter than that, and I don’t want to see you going where I went. Talk to me. Whatever’s wrong, we can do this. Together. Don’t…don’t push me out. Please.”

Before he had time to realize it, Mikey’s arms were wrapped around him, his head pressed into his shoulder. Gerard reacted quickly, hugging him close. His body shook with almost silent sobs and Gerard tugged him down, let them slide to the floor together where he could hold him tighter, rest his head on Mikey’s shoulder. The position gave him flashbacks to another night years before, the night their dog had been hit by a car. He was 13 and Mikey was 9, and they had spent that night on the floor just like this, Mikey crying in his arms. He had been strong, then, had waited until Mikey fell asleep to let himself even feel any grief of his own.

This was different. He had come God only knew how close to losing his little brother tonight, and he couldn’t keep himself from crying right along with him, couldn’t help but hold him tight enough to bruise. He couldn’t hold him tight enough.

“I’m sorry, Gee. I’m so sorry but I can’t…I can’t do this I can’t…”

“Shhh…it’s ok, Mikey. I promise. It’s gonna be ok.” He rubbed his back slowly, comfortingly. “We’re ok. Just don’t leave me, ok? I don’t know what I’d do if you left me.”

“I won’t. I won’t. I just…it was too much and I thought…it’d be over, you know and…and…”

As much as he didn’t want to hear it, at the same time he did. Mikey was talking to him now, and he needed to know he could say whatever he needed to get off his chest. “I know. I understand. But that…that’s not the way to do it. You can’t let yourself think it’s an escape. You…you have to deal with it another way, some other way. You change what’s wrong. If everything’s wrong, you change yourself, do whatever you have to do.”

Mikey shuddered, buried his face closer into Gerard’s shoulder and for what seemed like a very long time neither one of them spoke. There was no need.

When Mikey’s voice broke the silence, it was soft but calm. “Gee?”

“Hm?”

“I can’t stay here. I can’t…do this right now. I’ve gotta…I’ve gotta get out of here. And I don’t know…I don’t know when I’ll come back. I don’t know if I can, because I don’t know anything right now except that I absolutely can’t do this anymore. Not now.”

There were a thousand questions to ask, then. Questions about the band, about what it meant for them, about what would happen if he didn’t come back. But those were questions for Gerard Way to think about, later. Right now, he was just Gee, just Mikey’s brother. And as his brother, he knew the most important thing right now was whatever Mikey needed. “Alright.”

“Just…alright?”

“You do what you need to do to get better, Mikey, that’s all I care about. I’ll take care of the rest.” He ruffled Mikey’s hair, like he had when they were kids. “So…Jersey?”

“I don’t know. I don’t think so. I don’t want mom and dad asking questions.”

“Course.” Gerard tapped the fingers of one hand on the floor, considering the question he both needed and didn’t want to ask. “Do you…want me to come with you?” The silence told him everything. “That’s fine, I just-“

“Gee, I want to talk to you about...this, about me, about what’s going on, and we will, I promise. But I need to be by myself for awhile, ok?”

Involuntarily, Gerard’s arms tightened around his brother. After what he had seen tonight, the thought of leaving Mikey alone scared the hell out of him.

“You don’t have to worry. Not about…that. I promise.”

He didn’t answer, his throat too tight for words.

They both heard the front door slam, distant voices spilling into the house, and Mikey sighed heavily against his brother’s shoulder. “Shit, what am I gonna tell the guys?”

“Nothing.” If he could do nothing else for Mikey, this at least was something he could. “I’ll talk to them. You don’t have to say a thing.”

“But I should be the one to-“

“No. You’re going through enough without doing that too. I know how it feels to have all your friends looking at you scared to death. I know it puts pressure on you that you don’t need, makes you more likely to act fine when you’re not. I’ll tell them. C’mere.” He stood up, pulled Mikey along with him. “Let’s get you into bed ok? Sleep that shit off, you’ll feel at least a little better tomorrow.”

“Yeah. Ok.” He let Gerard pull him into his room and even tuck him in, pulling the quilt up high around his shoulders. As he turned to leave, Gerard felt Mikey’s hand close around his wrist and he froze, let himself be held in place. “Thanks, Gee. And I’m sorry I-“

“No more apologies, ya here?” It was teasing, but his voice was gentle and he felt Mikey’s grip on his arm ease. “Night, Mikes.”

“Night.”

Stepping back out into Mikey’s attached living room, Gerard flicked on the light at the nearest end table. Before he went and talked to anyone he wanted to get all the pills and booze put away where they couldn’t see it. He was going to tell them everything, but seeing it was something else entirely. He had really only been sober just over a year, and even so it was much easier than he expected to deal with the almost empty bottle of vodka, and even with the full one he found shoved in the side of the chair. Maybe it was because of how sobering the night had been, or maybe he was just that strong. Either way, it felt good not to be tempted. The pills were harder to put away, if only because he knew what they had almost been used for. When he finished he resisted the urge to throw them out the window, deciding instead that he’d get rid of them in a few days, when he had the time to smash each one before he threw it away.

Finished, he readjusted the coffee table in front of the chair and slipped back to the bedroom door, wanting to check on him one last time. The light from the other room spilled in, and he could see that he was resting peacefully, fast asleep. Unable to resist he crossed the room and pulled the blankets up just a little higher before gently removing his glasses, folding them with one hand to lay on the nightstand.

Watching him sleep Gerard could see the differences, and it pained him to know he had been so damned unobservant. He was thinner, even for Mikey, and the shadows under his eyes were darker than even Gerard’s own. “Shit, Mikey…” it hurt to even look at him, and he bent over him quickly, brushing a kiss against his forehead. “Don’t ever fucking scare me like that again, alright? No way I’m gonna lose you. Can’t let that happen.”

Mikey mumbled something in his sleep, shifted closer to the sound of Gerard’s voice. A simple movement, but a touching one. They had always been like this. Closer than most brothers, closer than some twins. It was a relationship that meant more to Gerard than any other, and now that he could see where he had started to go wrong, it wasn’t going to happen anymore.

He wasn’t going to worry about what could happen if they weren’t a band anymore, or anything else. They had gotten this far together, and they could get a hell of a lot farther. Mikey was going to take some time off, get better, and come back to him. And then, together, they could get pick up where they should have been now. That was how it was going to go, and he wouldn’t let himself think anything else.

But at the moment, there were three other guys that loved Mikey almost as much as he did, and they all deserved to hear everything he knew. Gerard brushed Mikey’s shoulder one last time before he turned and left, switching out the light and sliding the pills into his jacket pocket on the way out.

One hard conversation was over, and now it was time to have another.

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A/N: I’ve been working on this for a few days, and I’m not sure about the ending, but I think that’s where it needs to be. Considering this is my first MCR fanfic, I’d really love to know what you guys thought!! I hope this came out alright…