FicWad

Chapter Eleven – Scratching Yourself Clean


Pete’s POV




He was so peaceful, so content, so relaxed; almost happy enough to not be sad.

And I had caused it; I had made him comfortable enough to lull him into the sleep that his exhausted eyes were begging for. Begging for yet terrified of at the same time. Kind of like his starved stomach was crying for food but was, for some unknown reason that really does break my heart, refusing it. Exactly like he craves his big brother’s affection yet it’s like he was scared of aforementioned big brother when he walked in on us, not like I can blame my poor little angel for being frightened of that vampire-wannabe.

But the point still stands; he was absolutely exhausted, just like always, so much so that it almost hurt me to see him looking so weak. Absolutely exhausted and anxious about sleep; or rather, he was anxious until I kissed him again, until I stroked the small of his back like a banker strokes money, until I held him close enough to be able to hear every one of his bodily functions. Then he was relaxed, calm and willing to sleep, purely because I’m his boyfriend and I know how to make everything alright.

Or at least, I thought that I did. I thought that I made him feel safe, thought that I made it clear to his pretty little head that nothing can ever hurt him as long as I have him and as long as I have him I will always love him, always protect him. Protect him with the courage of a proud lion, with the ferocity of a rabid Rottweiler, with the determination of a loving boyfriend who wants nothing more than to see his little angel smile. I did make it clear, at least as clear as I could, to him; to a hurt-way-more-than-is-bearable, broken up little angel who’s gasping for some kind of approval, for some kind of love.

I made it perfectly clear and yet this is still happening.

I was having a nice dream, actually. A dream revolving around making my Mikey smile that smile of his that could easily light entire stars and send planets spinning in awe of it’s complete, unparalleled uplifting adorableness. Fuck, that smile is something that could easily make angels fall and devils rise just to get a glimpse of it; the only reason that the angels and devils are still in their appropriate abodes is because his smiles are always too brief. Brief and never truly happy. Sure, before he went to sleep he gave me the most mind-melting little grin ever to grace my eyes and it had been full love and adulation and contentment and many other nice things, but there was still sorrow dwelling in the back of his eyes. The sorrow that is ever-present like the buzz of a bee whenever it flies, a sorrow so profound and pure that I doubt he can even feel it anymore because he’s grown so used to it being there; so used to being sad that he doesn’t even realise it unless that sadness grows like a cancer into absolute misery, like I have seen it do way too many times. But in my dream he was truly happy, eyes so bright that it seemed sorrow had never dulled them and smile so wide that it consumed the entirety of his face including his scar; in my dream he was exactly how I want him to be, how I want to make him feel, how I thought he might have been close to feeling through being asleep in my arms despite the fact that he has obviously had a fray with his big brother.

A big brother that is neither ‘big’ nor ‘brother’.

Isn’t big because it isn’t at all big to yell at someone so small and fragile, to practically pick on them and bully them; I honestly don’t care anymore if my Mikey loves that bastard like that bastard should be loving my Mikey, I don’t care if Geetard thinks that he’s doing the right thing, I’m still going to give him more than just a piece of my mind the next time I come into contact with him. He isn’t a brother either; maybe biologically, but definitely not in any other way, not in the way that matters. I’ve only seen him around my Mikey once yet I can already see how un-capable he is of being a good big brother, of looking after a kid who really does need looking after.

And Mikey asked me why Gerard hates him. Something that made me both heartbroken for my hurt little angel and furious at his legal guardian. The amount of agony in those honey-flecked eyes when he had asked me that question was higher than that of anything else I’ve ever seen, even in those same eyes after getting cat-called or walked into. It was like he honestly believed something that a frustrated nineteen-year-old said, or maybe didn’t say, and then believed that without Gerard he truly is nothing. Or not nothing, just useless; like a camera without film or a cigarette without a lighter. Because Gerard is all that my poor, lonely little angel has left; apart from not really. He’s got that Frankie guy, or at least I sincerely hope that he does, and, more importantly, he has me. Someone who would die if he asked me to, someone who would kill if I thought it would keep him safe, someone who would rob a bank to be able to buy him everything that he could ever want, someone who would climb the starlit ladder to heaven just to bring him back his parents if I were able to.

He’s got me, his boyfriend, and I’ll make sure that I’m all that he needs to make him feel important and loved and beautiful and worth the world.

Which is why I feel like such a failure right now.

Not just a failure; a disgusting human being who isn’t even worthy of breathing the same air as my, currently terrified, little angel, let alone good enough to be allowed to have him wrapped up in my arms.

Because right now he’s not all of the lovely things that he was before I let sleep claim me; right now he’s whimpering like an abused puppy in the presence of a threatening looking human. He’s whimpering in such panicked little mewls that it broke through my own dream which was, rather cruelly ironically, the polar opposite of what my eyes are currently being cursed with consuming.

We’re still in the same position that we fell asleep in around four hours ago, him lying on top of me with his head cradled in my chest and my hand resting on the exposed small of his back, but he’s starting to struggle against the blankets, like he’s trying to get away from something that only he can see. Something that’s making him whimper and shudder and actually cry in his sleep. As in tears are seeping out from under his scrunched-up eyelids; as in what’s going on in his tortured little mind is effecting him on the outside too.

My poor, frightened, lonely little angel.

I move to turn the bedside light on, shocked beyond belief to see that he’s started convulsing in my grip; like practically fitting in my arms, that’s how bad his nightmare is. He looks like he’s about to shake himself into oblivion. Apart from he’s already in his own personal oblivion, the kind of dark and disturbed oblivion that nobody as innocent and kind as my Mikey should ever be subjected to. Fuck that; the kind of oblivion that nobody at all should ever be subjected to. With the exception of the people who are horrid enough to make my Mikey cry and bleed like they end up doing when I find out; with the exception of people like Gerard.

Because Gerard will be seeing the oblivion of my fist should he come near me any time soon for letting my depressed little angel become so depressed and so little.

I pull my Mikey up slightly, so that we’re both sat against the back of the bed, trying to ignore the way that his now frenzied thrashing is earning me a fair few nasty bruises and roll him over so that his back is to my chest. This is what you’re supposed to do when someone’s like this, right? Get them in a comfortable position and hold them until something helpful happens. I stroke my hands all over his empty tummy in some sort of attempt to slow his violent thrashing, my hand using the same amount of delicacy as an archaeologist inspecting some extremely rare artefact and with the same amount of urgency as a mother trying to resuscitate her drowning baby.

It’s not working; he’s not stopping, not waking up at my soothing touch. If anything, he’s getting worse. He’s sweating like his body is trying to flush out the pain that his own mind is inflicting his already overstressed soul with and his whimpers have mutated into proper, sincere cries of a deadly cocktail containing both excruciating pain and absolute terror. Two things that I’d rather die preventing than have him experience.

This is no ordinary nightmare, this is nothing to do with spooky shapes running riot behind his soft eyelids; his something so much worse, something that really is traumatising my petrified, thrashing little angel.

“Sugar?” My voice, though soft and caring, is all but a yell fighting to be heard over the sounds of his soul screeching for help.

He doesn’t respond at all, just carries on as he was. It’s like he’s being punched and slammed around, the way he’s moving I mean; the way he keeps flailing around and twisting, it almost seems as though he’s reacting to someone hurting him. Someone who I’d quite happily slaughter for reducing my Mikey to this if they weren’t just a figment of his mutinous imagination.

Fuck, he looks so helpless, so afraid even though he’s in my arms. Arms that are bound by love to protect him and care for him to the best of their ability.

Apart from he’s not in my arms, is he? Physically, yes of course I’m cradling him as close to me as I can without crushing him or getting knocked out by his struggling, but mentally? Mentally, as far as he’s concerned anyway, he couldn’t be further away from me if he tried. Mentally he isn’t in the concerned, if a little frightened, embrace of an almost panicking boyfriend; mentally he is in a horrifying place that’s making him feel like he is as far away from the idea of safe as is humanly conceivable. Making him feel even worse than I do, because he really does look like he’s staring Satan in the face with nothing but a cup of cold water for protection.

Not that I’m feeling much better.

Who am I kidding? I’m fucking terrified, more terrified than when I saw him slumped over against the wall of the ninety-nine cents store a fair few hours ago. Terrified because he looks like he’s losing it, like he’s really driving himself mad with his own thoughts, like he’s completely lost and just won’t wake up no matter how much I tap him and stroke him. This can’t get any worse, nothing can be lower than having to watch you poor, defenceless, genuinely good-natured little boyfriend going through something even worse than hell and not being able to do anything about it other than just hold him. Hold him and watch him suffer.

He screams.

Oh God. Oh fucking hell, his scream. It’s just… I don’t even know.

Oh, Mikey, my sweet little Mikey; what the hell are you putting yourself through?

His scream though, it’s still ringing in my ears even though it’s reverted back down to petrified little whimpers once more, it’s still dousing my ears with it’s absolute suffering, the kind of suffering that really would enough to push anyone over the edge and into the hell that my Mikey seems to have fallen into. It was like the scream of someone dying and suddenly realising that they’re going straight to hell. It was like everything cruel and evil and horrible and malevolent all summed up in one, deafening yelp of pure petrification.

He should be waking up now, shouldn’t he? That’s how nightmares normally work, right: it reaches it’s climax, you scream if it’s bad enough and then you wake up. Yeah, that’s how it goes. So why the fuck isn’t he waking up?

Oh shit, what do I do if he can’t wake up? How am I, some stupid eighteen-year-old with barely enough sense in him to make a freezing angel warm again, meant to deal with that; with not being able to wake up my angel from his own personal hell? Should I call an ambulance if he doesn’t wake up soon, should I call for some form of help because I sure as fuck don’t know what to do. But he’s my boyfriend; I have to make this better. It’s my job and my right to make him smile again. Or if not smile, at least not shake in fear at some invisible threat to his precious wellbeing.

By this point he’s kicked the blankets off with his rose-stem-like legs and so I can see the full extent of his excruciating terror. I really rather wouldn’t, I’d rather be experiencing it myself than watching him fighting with things that I can’t even protect him from.

Shit, he’s scratching himself; his face and his arms. Which wouldn’t be a problem if his nails were digging in deep enough to leave painful red drags behind them. He’s really going for himself, really looking as though he’s trying to rip his skin off.

And then I see blood. Blood trickling out of his self-inflicted scratches that he just won’t stop making more of. Fuck, he’s making himself bleed and he still hasn’t woken himself up, still hasn’t had his mental pain outweighed by the searing sting of his frantic nails clawing at his red-raw arms and re-scarred face.

What the fuck am I supposed to do? How am I supposed to fix this?

“Sugar! Sugar, please stop it, you’re going to hurt yourself!” I shout, not all that surprised to find my voice fogged with the tears that I hadn’t noticed traipsing down my face, my tone too panicked to be that of someone in control of a horrendously cruel situation.

I feel a rampant rage of remorse cripple my heart; he’s hurting, both physically and emotionally now, yet I can’t do anything about it. Because I’m a shit boyfriend.

No, no I’m not. I’m just an eighteen-year-old too frightened by seeing my most precious person in a state too horrible to even look at without feeling my heart get smashed all over again with no idea how to make everything good again. Because I can’t make everything good again, not when they weren’t properly ‘good’ in the first place. They weren’t, not really. They were good for me because I had the most sweetly gorgeous boy I’ve ever seen in my arms and with his bare skin under my fingertips, but things weren’t good for him. Content and relaxed, quite possibly, but not good. How can they have been if this is happening?

Precisely, they can’t have been. I let myself get too wrapped up in my wants and selfishness to see something like this coming, something that I thought my words and actions might just have warded off. Should have warded off if I’d done it right. But I didn’t and now I know why my exhausted little angel is constantly tired-looking; the slight fear in his eyes when he told me about not being a quiet sleeper is more than enough to confirm that this isn’t the first nightmare like this he’s had.

I wonder if anyone holds him like this when his dreams turn evil at home?

I hope so.

I doubt it.

Doubt it because I doubt that he actually sleeps all that much at home, knowing my selfless little angel he probably tries to stay awake until everyone else is asleep before he lets sleep overtake him, if he sleeps at all. But that still doesn’t give Gerard any sort of excuse as to not seeing how drained my poor little baby is every morning and not doing anything about it. I swear to God that that man is more fucking stupid than Fate is for being so cruel towards such an innocent, fragile creature. My innocent, fragile creature. If Gerard really can’t see how messed up inside my Mikey is, then I really do pity him because he’s the one who’s losing out on comforting his little brother; he’s the one who’s pushing away the best person he could ever hope to have for a baby brother.

But he’s not a baby, not by a long shot.

Babies don’t play bass like their fingers are made of gold, like every note strummed is a choir of angels singing their praise at the command of his soft fingertips. Babies don’t understand when people say horrible, nasty lies about them and so don’t care enough to believe in them like a police officer believes in justice. Babies don’t have an amazing mind that can pass any test or help me with any kind of homework despite the fact that I’m two years older than him and should be helping him with his, not the other way around. Babies don’t kiss and grab like an angel under the possession of some curious demon, all passion behind his introverted innocence when the right person, myself, is there to bring out that side to him. Babies don’t claw half of their arms off due to some clearly traumatising and malevolent dream because babies haven’t experienced enough of life’s bad side to be able to even imagine the sorts of horrific things that are currently making my Mikey cry out.

“Mikey, please, please, please just wake up. It’s just a nightmare, Sugar, it’s not real and it never will be because I don’t let bad things happen to my beautiful little boyfriend. C’mon, Beautiful, wake up. Show me those eyes of yours.” Each word comes out as nothing more than a crackly sob; I just can’t take seeing him like this. All thrashing and scratching and crying and gasping and bleeding. “Sugar… please, Sugar, you’re scaring me.”

And there’s nothing wrong with admitting that. Because it’s true. I don’t think I’ve ever been more afraid in my life; not when I had to sleep in an empty house for the first time, not when I started high school, not when I was convinced that aliens were going to abduct me because I’d been Google-ing Area 51 too much. Never have I been more afraid than I am right now, with my sweat-slicked, tear-ridden, self-scratching and bleeding boyfriend relying entirely on me, some socially awkward kid, to pull him through this. He asked me to not leave him, for me to cuddle him because he trusts me and that isn’t something that means nothing to my Mikey; to my Mikey it means that I make him feel safe, that he believes that I won’t hurt him like so many fuckers have. To my Mikey it means that any sort of betrayal of that trust or let down could well destroy him even more than he’s already destroyed.

So I’ve got to try, got to make myself fight the fear so that I can guide him out of his. But first I’ve got to stop him scratching himself before his skin is more raw red than perfect porcelain.

I softly manage to catch each of his hands in my own, instantly wincing as his nails dig into my palms; fuck, he’s really going for it, it’s no wonder his arms and part of his face, the part with the scar, are smeared with his own wine of life that should only ever be on his insides because nobody like him should ever bleed. The pain from his surprisingly sharp little nails is nothing compared to how utterly horrified it makes me feel at the fact that he could do this to himself and just not wake up; something seriously fucked up is going on in that stunningly loveable head of his. I can feel my right palm tearing, bleeding a little but not much, but I’m not about to let go of his hands; no fucking way. I’d die for this boy’s rare and captivating happiness, never mind taking a few sharp scratches for him to save him from even more pain.

“C’mon, Sugar, c’mon and wake up. I know you can do it. Just listen to my voice, none of it’s real, it’s just a nightmare, Sugar. Nothing’s gonna hurt you, not ever again because I’m here with you. Always will be. I promise.” I blink back a few tears and tug on his hands as though tugging him from sleep. “I love you, Mikey Way, my perfect little angel.”

And, just like that, he stops.

His talon-like fingers relax in my burning fists, his legs languish until they are limp between my own outstretched ones, his frenzied thrashing slows to weak shaking, his cries die down to choked sobs and his head rolls softly to the side, so that he can find my heartbeat.

It’s over.

But it isn’t, not really. Because his arms are still bloody, he’s still crying and he’s still broken inside. This may be many things (horrible, terrifying, dreadful, agonizing, mournful to name but a few), but ‘over’ is not one of them. Not until I’ve made him tell me what he saw behind the veil of sleep, what scared and scarred my weeping little angel so much. I don’t want to know how badly he’s hurt inside, but at the same time I long to know; I long to understand so that I can be the best boyfriend possible for my Mikey, my perfect boyfriend who couldn’t be a nicer person if he tried any harder than he already does.

“Sugar?” My soft voice, rife with crushing concern, prods through his sob-infested silence. My tone was the gentlest it’s ever been with him, I don’t want to make him anymore frightened than he already is, yet it still makes him jump. Jump and rub his arms against my clothes. Which, in turn, makes him cry out in confused pain. “Shush, it’s alright, Beautiful. It was just a nightmare. It’s all over now, Sugar. It wasn’t real.”

At that he lets out an actual yelp of complete devastation that makes me so contrite I wish I wasn’t me just so I don’t have to be responsible for letting this happen; a yelp so sincerely fragmented by the icy shards of what is left of his shattered heart that it slices my ears just to hear it. The kind of yelp that I would make come from the monsters of his nightmare were they actually real rather than a part of his innocent little head.

An innocent little head that’s resting on my chest, or rather; an innocent little head that’s hiding in my chest as though he’s a baby kangaroo looking for a pouch to take shelter in.

“Hey, hey, hey; calm down, Sugar. Tell me what happened.”

He shakes his head, smearing some blood from the few scratches on his face over my t-shirt, and pulls his hands through his hair so violently that I have to reclaim his tiny paws before he rips half his hair out. But that just makes me all the more determined to find out what’s got my Mikey, my boyfriend and responsibility, so distressed.

“Mikey, breathe. Calm down; you’ll make yourself throw up, Sugar.”

He turns so that we’re front-to-front, his head nestling into my upright stomach; half of me wants to believe that it’s because he trusts me to keep him safe, but half of me knows that it’s because he doesn’t want to talk. And normally, that would be fine; normally I’d be perfectly happy with him remaining silent and finding any sort of comfort in me. But this is about as far from fucking normal as possible; normally he doesn’t scream or scratch or bleed or thrash, so this time I will be making him talk. This far too serious for me to let it slide.

“I need you to tell me what happened, Sugar. You know I won’t laugh, won’t judge you or anything; I’m your boyfriend, I just want to show you that I care and be able to help you.”

“W-what hap-appened-ed to my-y arms?”

My heart all but stops with the constricting of my tear-clogged lungs; he’s stuttering with me. He only just stopped doing that, only just stopped letting his fear and sorrow fragment his rare little mewls of speech like a hammer on an antique vase. He’s looking with horrified, bemused eyes at the state of his arms and only then does it really hit me; he didn’t even know what he was doing to himself, wasn’t even aware that he was making himself bleed. That’s how bad his nightmare was, bad enough to blot out all outside pain.

You really are frightened/lost/hurt, aren’t you, my poor little angel?

“You did. You just… You wouldn’t stop scratching and, shit, I didn’t know what to do and you just… You looked so scared, Sugar.” ‘Looked’? More like ‘look’, present tense. “Please tell me what your nightmare was about, Sugar. It’ll help if you share it. I promise, and I don’t break promises to my beautiful boyfriend.”

He looks painfully conflicted, his obliterated eyes searching my own for something that I’m willing them to provide him with, and nods slowly, as though his nightmare has slowed down all thought process. I give him a watery smile of reassurance and squeeze both of his hands in my own before releasing them so that my fingers can trail gently up his arms until they reach his neck where I start to rub his tensed shoulders; the slow, steady and sensuous process makes my Mikey sigh in relief, a tiny portion of his stress floating out of his mouth like a demon out of Heaven’s gate. Good. At least I’m doing something right for my poor little boyfriend.

“Speak to me, Sugar. Tell me about your nightmare.”

“I-I wa-as….” He stops and scrunches his eyes in frustration, so in return I rub his bony shoulders harder. “It wasn’t a nightmare.” I lean around so that he can see my concerned and questioning gaze; if that wasn’t a nightmare, I don’t know what is. “I was remembering.”

Shit, Sugar.

I wish it had been a nightmare, I wish it was just all made up, I wish his mind was just being traitorous; that was awful enough for me to witness, but the fact that he’s telling me that it wasn’t a nightmare, that it was him remembering, that it was other people being traitorous to him? That’s an inconceivable number of times worse. Because it means that something actually happened to my poor, hurt little angel that was bad enough to make him want to tear his arms up; something happened to my Mikey that hurt him enough to make him scream like he’s just been told what a dickhead his brother is, like I imagine he probably did when his parents died.

“Mikey, what were you remembering? I need you to tell me, okay? It’s really important to me that I know this, know what hurt you.”

“Doesn’t matter. I’m sorry I woke you up.” His voice is small, tired and, most agonizingly to me, contrite.

Here he is shaking and bloody, yet all he cares about is the fact that he woke me up. I really do have the sweetest, most adorably loveable boyfriend in the entire universe. But I also have the stupidest; how can he think, even in the fog of having just woken up from a nightmare/memory, that my lack of sleep is more important than his own burning anguish, his own searing pain that I can almost feel just from looking in his eyes? I say ‘almost feel’ because I don’t think that someone like me, a toned guy with loaded parents and an amazing little boyfriend, can ever understand how it feels to truly hit rock-bottom. At least, I hope I can’t ever understand it; to understand something like what is currently haunting my Mikey’s eyes you have to have felt it for yourself and I never want to feel that kind of agony.

“Do you honestly think that I care about being woken up when my boyfriend has just said something like that to me? I thought you knew me better than that, Sugar.” I let some of my genuine hurt seep into my words. Words meant to trick him with guilt into telling me about those evil memories. I know it’s a dirty tactic and I hate myself for using it on him, but it’s for the greater good; yeah, it might make him feel a little guilty now, but if it works then I’ll be able to make him feel better forever. “Don’t you love me anymore?”

He nods so forcefully and with such huge eyes that I almost want to just forget about it, just kiss him until he manages to fall into a much more restful sleep.

“Prove it then, Sugar. Tell me about what happened.”

“A-alri-“ He cuts himself off with a self-directed scowl and takes a deep breath. “Okay, Pete. Promise you won’t tell anyone at school? Or you mom and dad or anyone?”

Can I really promise that?

What if it’s something really bad, something that I can’t help him deal with on my own? Does ‘anyone’ include Frank, I sure as fuck wouldn’t tell Gerard, because if it’s something really bad then his real, not biological, big brother should probably be told. What if he’s feeling suicidal again; I’d have to tell someone, either Frank or the school nurse or some responsible adult, before he does something heartbreakingly desperate again, if that is the case. What if it’s about his suicide attempt, how do I comfort him through that, through something that I feel like I need comforting over myself?

Fuck all of that; he’s my boyfriend and he needs me. I’m not about to turn him away; I know that I can be more than what he needs to deal with this. I have to be.

“I promise, Sugar. You can tell me absolutely anything. I just want to help you, Beautiful, just want to see that smile of yours.”

I drop my hands from his shoulders and run them down to his waist, pulling him even further onto my lap and into my chest. I lean down and seal my words with a soft peck on his trembling lips; just something quick and caring, nothing to take away from the serious sorrowfulness of this situation, nothing to let him think that he can get away with not telling me like I let him get away with not eating that soup. When I pull away I can see nothing but trust and adulation in his puddle-like eyes. I can’t help but feel a small sense of blessed achievement; even though he’s still trembling, his arms are still bloody and his eyes are still teary at least I’ve made him feel safer, made him feel loved.

“Memories of when… You gotta understand it was long ago and he didn’t mean it or nothing, it’s just he’d get dr-runk and he-e-e-e…”

My heart’s flaring with panic, the flames of worry licking at my constricting lungs. Whose ‘he’; his father? His father used to get drunk? How could that sentence end? Yelling? Domestic violence? Arguments? Child abuse? No. My Mikey’s too perfect for something like that, too perfect for his own family to want to hurt him. But what else could it be?

“Gera-erard used to-o bea-eat me-e.”

Fucking hell.

“That motherfucker’s dead! I’m going to kill him, how the fu-“

I cut my thoughtless rage short when I notice that my Mikey’s curled into himself, not me but himself, and is shaking almost as profusely as he was when his memories were consuming him like the black cloak of night is hanging consuming the outside world. I’ve frightened him, made him even more petrified than he already was. But I was just being honest; if it wasn’t for the fact that my Mikey needs me to help him through this, I’d already be at the Way ‘family’ home and giving Gerard all that he gave my beautiful, fragile angel. Apart from worse. I don’t care if it was a long time ago or if Gerard was drunk when he did it; he still hurt my boyfriend, is still hurting him now with both the memories and fresh insults.

“Th-three years it went on for. Mom and Dad never knew about anything more than Gerard’s drinking. Dad blamed me, Gee blamed me; I blame me. It’s my own fucking fault and now he fucking hates me! I ruin everything, Pete, every fucking thing.”

And with that somewhat horribly surprising, yet somehow uplifting in the respects that he trusts me enough to open up like that, he dissolves into full-on bawling.

“W-wish-ish I wa-as de-ead.”

I pull him in close and press my lips firmly to his, using my absolute terror at what he’s suggesting to power the passion behind my gently forceful lip movements.

“Never say that again, Mikey Way. Never. I love you too much to lose you, Sugar.” He’s leaning against my chest again, eyelids heavy and soft hiccups dying away into the blackness. “Do you know how lonely I was until I ran into you? Funny thing is, I didn’t even realise how lonely I was until I actually had someone to make me feel not-lonely. I guess you don’t know what you’re missing until you actually have it, huh?” He doesn’t respond, largely because his breathing’s heavy and his eyes have shut once more. But I know that he can still hear me. Because there’s the start of a small smile forming on his face. “Don’t let me go back to being lonely, Sugar. You could say that I’d move on and perhaps I would, but I’d never be in love like this with anyone else. Know why? Because you’re an angel, you’re my unique little Mikey and I would rather die than lose you. Because before you I was dead and after you I will die again. Which is why you can’t say that again, Sugar. Because just the thought of a world without you kills me.”

I look down.

He’s sound asleep.

But more than that, he’s smiling. In a sad, disbelieving sort of way. But it’s still a smile.






A/N: Thank you very much for reading, sorry that it kinda sucked; I’m not great with dialogue/character interaction (as you may have gathered), so sorry if it was really crappy. Anyway, a humongous THANK YOU to anyone who’s been amazingly lovely enough to review/rate this story so far, it really does mean a lot! Thanks for reading and please review! :)