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Chapter Nine – Anticipating Nothing

Bert’s POV





Okay, now I’m starting to get a little bit worried about the kid.

Fuck that; I’d be tearing my hair out right now if it wasn’t for the fact that I’ve got to stop Gee from doing the same.

Mikey’s not come home, because this truly is his home no matter how many times I act like I don’t like it, and school’s been out for nearly two hours now, a school that my words forced him into attending this morning even though he quite clearly is in no fit state to be anywhere but home.

But he shouldn’t have taken my words as seriously as he did; I was frustrated, it was early in the morning and he should know better by now when it comes to me saying things like that. Of course, a huge part of me did mean what I said about the kid, he does need to get over it, but I just wish that he hadn’t have heard it. At least then I wouldn’t be cursed with rampant remorse running riot through my veins, fuelling the gut-twistingly sickening worry.

Worry because he’s just a grieving, abused kid out there in the big scary world, all on his own, where absolutely anything could happen to him. He could already be dead in a ditch for all we know.

No.

I’m being fucking ridiculous; he’s sixteen, he should be more than capable of looking after himself and, if anything has happened to his fragile little porcelain body, then he only has himself to blame. I didn’t force him out of those doors this morning, I may come across as cold but even I’m not heartless enough to physically force such a jumpy kid to do something that terrifies him, and nor have I done anything to actually hurt him.

Besides, he’s most likely hanging in the school library or having a coffee somewhere or something else perfectly rational that won’t destroy my beautiful boyfriend when he finds out.

That’s why I feel so horrendously guilty; I have to watch Gee pace the living room, blinking back his tears of agonized concern, and hear him sniffle as he reels off all of the things that could possibly be happening to a kid who has already been through way too much for my liking. None of those things pleasant. I have to sit here and act like I’m fine just because Mikey Way isn’t. Just because he’s more important to Gerard than I, his own boyfriend who’s been here for him way more than that skinny slip of nothing, ever has been. Could be.

Fucking attention-seeking little brat.

What the actual fuck?

Now is not the time for jealousy and I know it. But it’s just so hard not to let my heart burn itself out when I think of a time before Mikey Way, before Gerard cried at least three times a week when he sees his baby brother having yet another one of his episodes, as opposed to curling up with me on the couch; instead of going out for dinner with me to our favourite little pizza place because Mikey freaks as though he’s about to be murdered if anyone so much as brushes against him; rather than just simply being the young couple that I thought we both always found pleasure in being, our lives are getting mixed up worse than a campsite in a tornado into being one long drama full of responsibilities that I never asked for and sure as hell don’t want, i.e. Mikey Way.

I may not have asked for him, but I got him and now he’s not come home where, even I will admit, he belongs. And it’s driving me hard and fast out of my swamped mind, making the butterflies in my stomach turn into violent vampire-bats at the thought of what will happen if Mikey’s gotten himself all busted up. Again.

I swear to God that kid gets more and more bruised every day, like a sweet fruit that’s been snatched at by rowdy hands several times to many. Most days he comes home with the purpley-black impact of some motherfucker’s fist painting the intricate canvas of his face and it makes me feel absolutely sick. I may not be the kid’s biggest fan, fuck knows I’m everything other than that, but the kid’s a part of my family and I care about him a hell of a lot more than I let on; I also know him well enough to know that he does nothing to deserve that sort of treatment and definitely doesn’t fight back. And, of course, I have one other, vital fact in the arsenal that pity and guilt have harshly bestowed me with; I know that he was abused for three never-ending years, three years that have left him torn-up enough in every possible way without some mindless teenagers adding to it.

I let out a huff of clawing frustration that has somehow crawled it’s relentless way into my throat, and look up from where I have been trying desperately to just focus on some stupid cartoon on the television, to see that Gee, my lovely and caring angel of vampiric darkness, is still pacing behind the couch as though stopping would mean the death of his precious baby brother.

Our precious baby brother.

But it isn’t just like any ordinary pacing, oh no, it’s more like that of a majestic tiger padding the length of it’s iron cell, longing to get back to the wonders of it’s homeland and to it’s abandoned little cub; he’s walking around because he feels like he has to be doing something, walking around the living room substituting for racing the dimming streets to find a boy that I managed to scare away, just to stop himself from going insane with worry. Worry that’s making his hands curl around each other, his eyes well with the tears whose brothers have already fallen on the emotional battlefield that is his blanched face.

He’s tearing himself apart and tearing my heart into shreds in the process. Because of Mikey fucking Way.

It’s all that stupid little kid’s fault isn’t it? Apart from if he was a stupid little kid then it would be understandable, his behaviour I mean, but he’s sixteen and this act has grown old; he needs to twig that things aren’t always gonna be perfect for him, that people do leave hurt us and leave us but we have to move on. No matter how agonizingly it might burn into our hearts, we just have to man-up and get the fuck over it. If only Mikey could just get that into his thick skull, a thick skull that’s ruining what could be the first time I’ve had Gee all to myself in the past few months.

A thick skull that’s been concussed more times than I even want to think about, a thick skull that is about as innocent as a spring lamb in March and twice as infuriatingly loveable. Mikey didn’t mean for any of this to happen, the poor kid only ever wants to fade away; not make everything fall to hell for the only family that he has left, that will have him anywhere near them. Yet there’s just a part of me, a part that’s ripping a rift between me and Gee, that just can’t help but want to blame Mikes for everything that’s wrong with the world that he’s flipped upside down with a past that he had absolutely no control over.

“He could be dead, Bert. What if he’s dead? What if he’s all alone in some alley somewhere and dead? What then, Bert? What if I’ve let him down?” The words are bubbling mindlessly from Gerard’s lips like blood spurting from an open bullet wound, smashing my heart into an oblivion at how completely desperate he sounds; his baby brother means the world to him, a fact that I can’t either deny or like in the slightest. “I don’t know what to do!”

The pacing stops and, surely enough, his own personal apocalypse dawns; he stumbles to the couch, collapsing straight into my open arms and just flat-out bawls the split second that his face hits the fabric of my grotty old t-shirt, a t-shirt that still has a tomato-sauce-stain still splattered across my heart (ironically enough) from the last time that we had some alone time like this.

I should be treasuring how he feels in my arms, how utterly like the missing piece to the puzzle of my soul he feels. I should be smiling to myself because I’m holding him like I ache to hold him every night through the wall of his, our, baby brother. I should be overjoyed that he actually needs me for him for once, rather than needing me to help Mikes when he just can’t be enough. I should be feeling like I did all of those months ago at his close contact, but right now I just can’t; right now I would much rather his arms were wrapped around his baby brother’s nearly-non-existent waist than clinging desperately to my firm form because then at least my dark angel would be content. Because I’m not enough when Mikey Way could deliver the sort of brotherly comfort that makes his presence in my home worthwhile.

I fasten my arms quickly around my heap of sobbing boyfriend in a rare display of my softer side and just hold him close to me. I don’t kiss him or stroke him or squeeze him like I am so sorely tempted to, I simply clutch him into me and don’t let go. I won’t let go, not ever, not if he doesn’t want me to; even if he does I doubt that I could.

“It’s alright, Babe, he’s a strong kid, you know that. He’ll waltz back in here any moment, just you watch.” I would wince at how sickeningly sweet I sound, at how much like a patronizing kindergarten teacher my gentle coos come across as, but it really is what he needs to hear, what I think I want to hear too; because if anything, so much as a scratch, has happened to that poor kid then I’ll never forgive myself. “He’ll be fine; Mikes will be absolutely fine.”

My voice may well have the same arrogance and immovability to it as it always does, may sound as unquestionable as an encyclopaedia, but even as those words snake from my lips I can’t help but doubt them. I’m twenty; I’ve been around long enough to know that empty promises and broken wishes don’t stop bad things from happen to good, sweet kids, to know that shit will still be flung at people no matter how much they don’t deserve it.

And no-one deserves it less than Mikes, than my baby brother.

Because that’s what he really is, isn’t it? Gerard’s part of my family and Mikey is a crucially important part of his; therefore Mikey is my brother. And, just like brothers, we don’t always get along. No. He always tries to disappear around me, to make me happy by shrinking into himself even more, and I just gripe about him, make him feel even less loved than he actually is.

I do love him, really I do, the kid’s sweet and cute and just all-round-good, it’s just the fact that he’s so good that perturbs me so unbearably much; he gets more attention from Gee than I ever have and the worst part is that I know he deserves it more than I ever will.

The appalling cruelty of his ‘parents’ soon saw to that. Bastards.

“But… What if, Bert? What if?” He whimpers into me in a way that is nothing like the man I know and love, if anything he sounds like Mikey.

Broken.

“And you’re sure his cell’s off?” I ask sternly, my tone strict to keep out the flaring panic that’s blossoming in my own heart at the thought of my own numerous hellish ‘what ifs’.

I feel Gee nod sullenly against my chest, his fluffy river of endearing ebony tickling my neck in the process in such a way that’s reminiscent enough of old times to reignite my resentment for the younger and more vulnerable Way brother. But the resentment quickly gets pushed down by the fact that a kid, an innocent kid, is out on the streets that he avoids like the plague and is currently unreachable. Not even the false optimism that Gerard adopts when Mikey is around could make this look like it could quite possibly have a positive outcome. And that scares me shitless. Not just because I know that Gee will never be the same again if that poor brother of his has gotten damaged once more in his state of heightened grief, although that obviously has a huge part to play in it, but also because I don’t want Mikes to be hurt. I care about him too much for that.

I care about him too much for my own good; it’d be easier to hate him for stealing Gee if he wasn’t so goddamn easy to want to care about.

“It’s not even ringing, like it’s broken or something….” His voice trails off, leaving his eyes looking as haunted by that thought as my mind is; thoughts of how it could possibly have gotten broken weighing down my heart until it feels like it will never beat again until I can see Mikes standing in front of me, showing me and his big brother that we’re just being overreacting idiots. “He’s gotta be alright, Bert, I don’t know what I’ll do if he isn’t.”

I do. He’ll destroy himself over it, blame himself for all of the world’s shortcomings and then slip even further away from the warm embrace of my heart.

Because of Mikey Way.

I rest my head on his left shoulder, relishing the way that his strawberry-scented hair tickles my unworthy nostrils like the feather of an angel’s wing, and tighten my hold on him further, adoring the way that he squeezes me back as though my comfort is all that he could ever need.

Apart from it isn’t. The only thing that he needs to be happy is Mikey Way, not me. Because Mikey Way means the universe to him, the stars and the sun and everything in between. I just mean the cruel world. But I still love my Gee though; I may not be his everything, but he’ll always be more than everything to me. Which is why I find it so easy to resent the innocent little kid who only really needs affection to heal life’s endless lacerations upon his tortured soul.

“Look, if he isn’t home by six, in one hour exactly, then we’ll go out looking, okay?” I offer him meekly, knowing that this is the best thing that I can come up with and that my best isn’t nearly enough.

He pulls out from me, eyes aglow with ambition and determination; two things that I’ve only seen in his eyes when comforting Mikes lately, like the only thing he has that’s worth having determined ambitions for is his precious little brother, instead of it being me like it always used to be. Like it still should be. That doesn’t matter now though, not when he’s looking up at me with eyes akin to that of a little kid seeing his first shooting star.

God, I love him. I love him so much that it physically hurts not to be attached to him like I know I always should be.

“Why can’t we go looking for him now?”

Because you’re in no fit state to find anything less than perfect. Because your eyes are still too blurred with tears to actually be able to seek out your lost little beacon of hope. Because I love how you feel in my arms too much for me to be able to let go just yet.

“Because we need to be here in case he comes home.” Is what I settle on, a gentle smirk falling onto my lips as his eyes glow with soft understanding. Understanding and belief. Belief that makes my pulse quicken in agony; if my words aren’t honestly truthful then he’s going to be heartbroken by the end of the night. “C’mere, Babe, let me kiss the worries right outta you.”

Instead of him gazing shyly at my enticing smirk as usual, he gratefully presses his lips to mine; lips that are still slippery from the salty diamonds of his tears. His arms fasten like a platinum chain around my neck, forcing my face to stick atop his like toffee on an apple and my arms, in response, wrap firmly around his defined hips as he crawls to be in my welcoming lap; just like old times. I run a hand artfully down his back, faltering only when his tongue slides smoothly between my two gasping lips, my hand coming to a rest when it finds the back pocket of his overused skinny jeans; skinny jeans that make my mouth water no matter how many times I’ve seen him in them. Our noses rub together like two dancers greeting each other for their first dance in a very long time, his hands tangling desperately through my hair as though it’s the most luxurious thing that he’s ever felt.

I’ve missed this. I really fucking have and it kills me to know that he’s doing this to soothe his worry; not just because he loves me as much as I love him and he wants to show it. At the same time, though, I don’t think that we’ve ever felt this in love with one another. I mean, sure we’ve made out before and we’ve obviously fucked more times than there are stars in the sky, but this kiss seems to have more meaning behind it than any of the others because I’ve been starved of this sort of contact for longer than is survivable; because I’m making him happy; because we love each other.

Thud. Thud. Thud.

My heaven-high heart plummets to the depths of hell as three urgent, rushed and quite clearly panicked knocks sound on the front door. Thus forcing Gee off of me as though I’ve suddenly turned green.

Because of Mikey fucking Way.





A/N: Thank you very much for reading; I hope that this was alright! Please review, it really does mean a lot to me to know what you guys think. :)