FicWad

Chapter Eight – It’s Dark in Here


Mikey’s POV




It’s dark.

As dark as my heart and the pressure that’s forcing it against my ribcage like a prisoner to his cell bars is excruciating; almost as if the heaviness of my soul is being loaded relentlessly onto my weak chest. I want to scream like the pathetic, petrified child that I am. I want to run as though the ground is on fire and for all I know it could be; it’s so dark in here that I can’t even see my hand in front of my face. I don’t even know where here is. All I know is that I don’t like it.

It’s frightening me.

I want my mom to come in and cuddle the fear and fright away, to make it all better. I want my dad to come in and yell out into the darkness to prove that nothing’s out there and even if there is, I know that he’ll protect me from whatever it is. I want my big brother to come in and tell me funny stories from his comic books until I’m laughing so hard that I forget to be scared. I want all of the people I can’t have; I can’t have because they’re dead. All of them. Never coming in to make the darkness lighter or more bearable. I’m afraid and hopeless and all alone. I don’t want to die alone.

Wow. I sound pathetic.

Just like every time I stutter.

Fuck, I hate my stutter! People treat me as though I choose to let my words come out as though they’ve been smashed with a toffee hammer; but I don’t. I really don’t. It’s like my words get torn apart in my throat by every expectant stare; by every teasing yell; by everything people expect from me and hate about me. It’s ridiculous really. It’s gotten to the point where I can’t even speak properly to Gerard, the one person who used to be able to coax whole and near-self-assured words from my fumbling lips. The one person that I could speak to in confidence, without fear that my stutter would pounce like the beast that it is from my mouth, making a train wreck of my words as they steam away from voice-box, and I don’t even have that anymore because I stuttered with him. And he hates me for it.

No, not just for that. He hates me for who I am. Which is more than I can say for the bullies who pick on me solely because of my stutter without taking the time to get to know me first.

But that makes it worse; Gerard knows who I am and he’s still abandoned me, still teased me, still hates me. I could take the abandonment and the teasing as neither are something new; but the hate? That hurts. Hurts way more than any pain that I can ever remember feeling before. Way more than the time I fell off my trike whilst trying to keep up with Gerard’s two-wheeler; way more than when I ran into the old oak tree outside of our house whilst playing tag with Gerard, which resulted in me having six stitches and a lot of hugs from my big brother; way more than when I fell out of that same old oak tree whilst trying to prove to my brother that I wasn’t a scaredy-cat, which concluded with me waking up in the arms of a very guilty, very teary Gerard; way more than when I dropped my electric bass onto my foot, managing to break two toes in the process but I never went to the hospital about them because nobody was there to tell me to go or to take me; way more than all of the times I’ve been tripped up or pushed over by mindless tormentors at school; way more than all of the times that Gerard’s fist collided with me when he was too out of it to realise what he was doing and who he was doing it to.

I don’t think he even remembers it. I do. How could I forget? I wish with all of my worthless being that I could. But I can’t. I never will. Could you forget the person that meant the most to you, your best friend and big brother, damn near knocking you out? I think not. Maybe if it just happened once, perhaps then it might fade into the background noise of my memories, but not when it happened almost weekly at it’s worse. It was never his fault; I just always got in the way at the wrong time. In the morning he’d ask how I’d gotten that bruise or this cut, genuine concern rife in his hazy hazel eyes. I’d just say that it was some guys from school, to which he’d just hug me as I cried my blackened eyes out; cried for reasons that he didn’t know and never can. We’ve never spoken about back then, back when he was a hazard to himself. It upsets him and that’s the last thing I want to do, even if all of the memories still haunt me and long to be flushed from my mind in a torrent of speech (stuttered or otherwise); he hates me enough already without me forcing him to recall events that drugs and booze and fuck-knows-what blotted from his mind.

He hates me.

He must do. He should do. I was horrid to him and now he doesn’t want me anymore. I don’t know why I yelled at him like the ungrateful little fucker that I am; all I know is that I feel terrible for it. No. Wait. I do know why I yelled at him; I was scared. Scared like I am now. Because he’s losing himself to the ideals that I don’t want, ideals that, as much as I love him, he will never fill or have or be. And that’s the way I want it. I want him to be the big brother he was before Mom and Dad died, before he fell in with the wrong crowd. Fuck, even if he did go back to when he was an addict at least he wouldn’t be pretending to be someone that he can’t possibly be. It wasn’t so bad when he was like… that. He was still the kind, lovely, caring big brother he’d always been. When he wasn’t… doing stuff.

All I want is my big brother. I’m nothing without him. Without the carer that he should be, not the one he’s trying to be.

I want him to ruffle my hair the way he used to; with all of the affection that anyone has ever felt for anything. I want him to listen to me the way he used to; with all of the interest of an astronomer discovering a new star. I want him to joke around with me like he used to; with all of the happiness of a slave being set free. I want him to hug me like he used to; with all of the care that a Magpie feels for a shiny, beautiful jewel. I want him to treat me like he used to; like we’re equals and best friends and brothers and nothing can change us. But it can. It did.

I want him to tell me that he loves me because I’m his little brother. I want to be able to tell him that I love him because he’s my big brother.

But I can’t and now I’ll never be able to. All because I was a stupid little shit and ran off. After I told him that I hate him. Fuck, I’ve made a mess of things. Now I’ll be lucky if he ever even wants to talk to me again, let alone be my big brother. I’ll be lucky if he doesn’t hit me like he used to, but I think if he does it again he’ll mean it; he’ll put all of the horrible things I said behind it and that’ll make it hurt even more than when he didn’t even know what he was hitting out at.

Oh great. Now I’m crying. At least, I think I am. I can’t really tell. For all I know snakes could be slithering down my face, ready to deliver the fatal kiss of death that it’s venom will bestow upon me. It really is that dark.

Darker than that alley where I could have died tonight. Could have gotten beaten and raped and then beaten some more by a drugged-up stranger. Is that what Gerard would have turned into if Mom and Dad hadn’t died?

No. Not my big brother. Not ever. Or maybe not never. He punched like that man in the alley; strong and sloppy and full of confused anger and frustration. Apart from nowhere near that bad. The worst he ever gave me was a cut eyebrow and a bad headache. And a shattered heart. Nothing like the state my body’s in now. Yeah. Gerard would never hurt anyone. He hates violence. He’ll never hit me again. He hasn’t since he got clean, because without all of that shit fogging his vision and thought process he knows what he’s doing; who he’s doing it to. Besides, he never even remembered it the morning after; so that makes it alright. Because that means he didn’t realise what he was doing. It wasn’t his fault. It was mine.

Just like the wounds I bear now are my fault. I shouldn’t have yelled; shouldn’t have told him that I hate him; shouldn’t have sworn at him; should have kept quiet like I always do; shouldn’t have run away. He told me that I couldn’t go back home, back to him. Which is what I want, I want to go back to him. More than anything. No. Not back to him. Back to my big brother. But my big brother’s dead. Has been for years. I still want him, though. That’s all I was trying to tell him earlier, it just came out wrong. Worse than wrong. And now I’m homeless and hurt in more ways than one. But, like I said before, I can’t moan about it; it’s my fault.

Why did Frank help me? What does he stand to gain from it? Other than a punching bag or free fuck? Maybe that is why he helped me. I can’t see why else he would. I’m worthless. Less than worthless. Dirt it worth more than I am. I know that if I had to choose, I’d rather have a jar of dirt instead of some piece of shit like me. But surely if Frank was going to hurt me he would have done so by now? Perhaps he’s waiting to gain my trust so that when he smashes it my tears will be tenfold. No. Frank isn’t cruel. I don’t even know him, but I can tell that he isn’t cruel. It’s like he actually cares. I just don’t understand why. Which is why, no matter how much my heart and soul want to, my head won’t let me believe that he does; that he won’t hurt me; that he really is my friend.

Friend. Ha. I’d almost forgotten that one-syllable word. I have forgotten what it actually means. Forgot what it means long ago. I can’t even remember when I forgot. Friend? I’ve never had many but now I have none, have done for a while now. Only enemies. Apart from they aren’t my enemies. For them to be my enemies I’d have to hate them back; but I don’t. I can’t.

They’ll never like me if I do.

Like anyone will ever like me anyway. I don’t even talk most of the time. Not even when Gerard forces me to see the school therapist-person. Especially not then. Mrs Evans, the therapist-councillor-thing, scares me further away from the dangers of speech. She acts like she knows what I’ll say, so I don’t say it through fear of saying the wrong thing. It’s not like I’m mute. People shout that at me, but I’m not. I just stutter. And people laugh at that. Not in a nice, friendly way; in a mean, bully way. So I just don’t bother unless I have to. My teachers don’t bother asking me to answer in class anymore, when they do I do answer them, it’d be rude not to, they just don’t ask because the words take forever and the rest of the class get bored/erupt into laughter/yell abuse. So they just don’t ask. I just kind of sit there. Slowly becoming invisible. No, not becoming; I sit there being invisible. I could just disappear and nobody would notice. Nobody would care. I could fade away into the blackness and nobody would bat an eyelid. Gerard might have done, before I was nasty to him. Now I’ll be lucky if he doesn’t completely turn on me like everyone else; like he unknowingly used to. That’s if I ever see him again.

I wrap my bruised arms around my broken body, trying to simulate the feeling of being hugged; the feeling that somebody does care. I can’t remember the last time somebody hugged me. No. Frank did, didn’t he? Or was I too out of it by that point to remember things clearly? Probably. Why would anyone want to hug me? Exactly. They wouldn’t. But I’m so sure that he did. Yeah! He did. He hugged me until I went to sleep…

That’s what I must be doing now; sleeping. This must be some sort of weird dream-thing. That would explain the endless black that’s stretching out in front of like an ocean of leeches. Or maybe it’s more like the darkness that someone experiences when shut up inside of a coffin. I really can’t tell. But I don’t like it. I don’t think that this is a dream; I haven’t had one of those for years, only nightmares. I think this is a nightmare. Or rather, it soon will be knowing my luck.

The darkness is changing. Rippling with different shades of black; dull black, New Jersey night-sky black, bin bag black, coal black, dirty black, darkened cinema black, power-cut black, haunted house black and every other black to stain the face of the Earth. The lighter shades twinkle in the whirlpool of colourless brightness, making me blink my eyes to try and rid me of the disorientating dizziness that it’s forcing into my skull. I think I’m going to throw up so I clutch myself even tighter, my growing hunger not wanting to let go of whatever small substance that my stomach does hold. All of the different shades cluster together, leaving me surrounded in the darkest black, and are making the form of a light silhouette.

A light silhouette that quickly forms into a person. A person that I’ve only seen once and for a collection of terrifying minutes but a person that’s branded into my eyes, a person that no amount of time will allow me to forget. It’s Him. From the alley. I want to scream, to shatter the deafening silence of this hell that my own, traitorous mind has unleashed upon my soul, but I can’t. The sound just won’t go past it’s pitiful forming breath.

He’s stalking the indistinguishable distance between us, like Death stalking towards the elderly, and he's grinning. Grinning like he did in the alley. And it makes me fall back onto the ground of my dream world in helpless petrification. I know this this is just some sort of twisted nightmare, but it still feels real; like it’s going to happen again. Apart from there won’t be a Frank Iero here to save me.

I want a Frank Iero to here to save me. I’m not saying that I trust him, I don’t, but I don’t think that he wants to hurt me. Or let me get hurt either. I just don’t understand why. I may not understand it, but I like it. I like it a lot. Which is why I don’t want to let myself believe it; it’ll hurt too much when he turns against me. Because he will. Everyone does in the end. Even Gerard.

The man’s stood by my feet, just like in the alley. He’s laughing. It sounds like the sort of thing that would play on a loop in hell; that’s how threatening and genuinely scary, for lack of a more fitting word, it is. I can feel the sweat dripping down my forehead, making it’s hasty escape from my demons.

Hang on. He’s changing. Please, please let this be a dream. I don’t want a nightmare! I don’t want to wake up frightened and unable to talk. Please, Fate, be merciful for once.

It turns into Gerard. I dare to smile. It drops like the halo of a fallen angel as soon as the blackness allows me to see him properly. It is Gerard.

Not nice Gerard. Not try-hard Gerard. Off of his face Gerard. No, he’s not off of his face. He’s angry at me for leaving and being evil to him. But he’s still looking at me the way that off of his face Gerard used to.

He’s going to hurt me. I don’t want him to hurt me. I know it’s not real, but it could be given the way that I’ve behaved. But still; I would rather be beaten to death than take a single hit from him. Anyone but him.

I manage a scream. A proper, ear-splitting, glass-shattering, hell-raising, heaven-sinking scream. A scream that doesn’t even begin to cover how truly frightened I am.

Then hands are shaking me. Invisible hands. Hands from outside of my nightmare.

“Mikey!”





A/N: I’ve never really written a chapter like this, I hope that it turned out alright and not too confusing. Thank you sooo much for reading and please PLEASE review! :)