FicWad

The Boy Made of Silk




He’s so delicate, too delicate for it to be safe on the physique of a sixteen-year-old boy. It’s like he’s a little ragdoll, all chewed up in the mouth of some vicious Rottweiler after being thrown from the pram of life. He’s my little ragdoll though, my Mikeymouse, and that then means that it’s my job to sew up all of the tears in his stitching, make sure that all of his stuffing stays inside his precious little body.

Or to just make sure that he has any stuffing at all inside that silken skin of his.

It was my job, my duty and my heartfelt pride; and I failed. He’s nothing but silk and stitches, an empty shell with nothing inside of him to keep that golden heart of his beating in time to the bass line of my breathing. It’s all my fault, it has to be. I’m his boyfriend, I’m meant to be able to see when things aren’t right with him so that I can give him love and support whenever he needs it, even if he doesn’t think he does. But I didn’t see. And now he’s in hospital, hooked up to a thousand different drips attempting to bring life to my fragile little ragdoll.

All because I never saw it coming.

I never did anything to stop it. Not even when his big brother got down on his knees and begged me to, I told him that Mikey knew he could come to me if anything was wrong. Gerard cried, pleaded with me to do something because I’m the only one who can ever get Mikes to open up, yet I did nothing. I was too wrapped up in the firm belief that my Mikeymouse would come to me.

I was wrong. So fucking wrong.

”Please, Pete, please. You’re the only one who can make him smile at all anymore; you’re the only one who actually has a chance.”

It isn’t the heartbreakingly desperate tint to Gerard’s tone that makes me look up from my comic book in shock, but rather the fact that the guy’s speaking to me at all in the first place. We used to be pretty good friends, almost as close as him and his Frankie, but that all stopped when I started dating his little brother last year.

Apparently because dating a kid three years younger than me makes me a paedophile. A paedophile worthy of a fair few punches, even if those punches made my Mikey cry and shake in fear from where he was observing in the corner of his bedroom, years of bullying making any kind of violence from anyone an instant threat to his mentality. Which is exactly what attracted me to him in the first place; he’s fragile and in need of someone to hold him together, to put back all of the pieces when he falls apart. Not only that, but he’s a genuinely sweet kid too. The kind of sweet that should have faded over years of being the brunt of cruel jokes and harsh fists, but no. Because he’s a sincerely good person.

Too good for the bastards at school. Too good for the overprotective smothering of his big brother. Too good for Heaven. And far too good for a sucker like me.

Which is exactly why I work so hard to make him feel loved; so that I can feel like I deserve him.

“Whatcha mean, Geetard?” I drawl back, trying my best to hide whatever interest I may have in his words because, well, he’s Gerard and I’m Pete; ex-friends to the end.

“I’m not fucking around here, Pete.” He snaps, tone so full of urgency that it forces my comic shut and me to give him my full attention. “It’s Mikes. There’s something seriously wrong with him.” He pauses, eyes brimming in such a way that it makes me want to just scoop him up until it’s all alright again because, even if we don’t exactly see eye-to-eye anymore, he’s still my boyfriend’s big brother. My old best friend. “He’s even quieter than usual and I, uh, I don’t think he’s been eating enough lately.”

Immediately I huff out a sigh; he’s trying to tell me how to look after my boyfriend. Again.

Of course Mikey’s been a little quieter than normal and of course I’ve noticed. A deaf guy would be able to hear how lost he sounds when he does speak to either of us, but that’s just Mikey. He goes through rough patches, has done ever since the doctor diagnosed him with clinical depression four months ago, and the fact that he’s just started his first semester at school without either me or Gerard there with him makes it obvious that he’s going to be more down than normal. Besides, if something was seriously wrong I know my Mikeymouse would tell me.

He tells me everything.

Because we love each other.

“He’s fine, Gerard. Trust me; I’m more than able to notice if something’s wrong with my Mikey.” I emphasise the ‘my’, revelling in the way that it makes Geetard squirm. “You want to help him? Stop acting like you know it all and just pay attention for once.”

He sneers coldly, but still with an agonized look in his eyes that would make me flinch if I wasn’t Pete Wentz defending his territory.

“Funny. I was just about to say the same to you.”

That wasn’t the only time Gee tried to warn me something was up with my own personal teddy bear. In the months that followed we’d have similar conversations, all resulting in either a shouting match or Mikey walking in on us, looking completely betrayed by the two most important people in his life because they were talking about him behind his back. Hence the reason I gave Gerard short shrift every time he bought it up.

He was right though; something was wrong with my Mikeymouse. I think I noticed it too, I just refused to accept it because for something to be wrong and him to not tell me what, must equate to me being a bad boyfriend. Something that I absolutely refuse to be because Mikey only deserves the best.

Little things, like a fresh black eye or night-time sniffles at sleepovers, I did pick up on though. Picked up on them enough to piece together a brutally vivid picture of what was happening to him at school whilst I was working my ass off at Starbucks to try and save a deposit for a flat. A small little part of the world for me and Mikey to call our own piece of Heaven. Not that Gerard or his parents would have let Mikes run off to live with some older guy anyway. But still, dreams are good. Dreams mean hope and hope is exactly what Mikey needs to get him through the toughness of victimisation and depression, neither of which help the other any.

He loves it when I tell him about the dream. Even now, in the hospital, I swear to God he smiles in his sleep and squeezes my hand when I tell it to him. About the dollhouse life I’m going to make for me and my little silk ragdoll.

I can still remember the first time I told it to him. And it still makes me swoon at the thought of how happy it made him.

”Shush, Mikeymouse, shush now. Don’t cry, Baby.” My voice is rushed; pouring into his hate-burnt ears like icy water and making him fight back against the sobs wracking his bony body. “Just relax, Peterpanda’s got ya. And that means it’s all gonna be a-okay. I Promise.”

He embeds himself into my chest, pushing me even further into my mattress, and the feeling of his tears dripping onto my naked stomach pierces me like a tirade of bullets; letting Mikey Way cry is a shooting offence, after all. He was off a little last night, not wanting to watch any movies or anything before bed and too numb to respond to any of my little nips or kisses. Normally, he at least gives as good as I give him, not that the lack of passion last night bothered me in the slightest.

The reasoning behind it, however, does. A hell of a lot.

Because it means that something’s wrong with him, wrong enough to make him have a nightmare adequately unsettling to make him scream and wake me up with his tiny whimpers of terror. He only ever has nightmares when he’s had a bad day and is trying to bottle it up, just like I’ve told him he never has to do with me. And yet here we are; three o’clock in the morning, me clutching a shaking little angel to my chest and nuzzling softly into his wing-feather hair in an attempt to calm him down.

“How, Pete?”

“I was gonna wait until I got some money together before I told you, but I’m taking on extra shifts at work and saving up everything I can because, Mikeymouse, I’m moving out of my folks’ house soon.” He chokes out an anxiety-spawned wail at that, making my arms belt him into me to banish any sort of ridiculous idea about me moving away from him; I could never leave my Mikeymouse. And I thought he knew that. “Hey, I’m not leaving you, Michael James Way. Don’t ever think that, you hear me?”

His eyes fixate on my own, swirling pools of chocolate pulling me towards him and making me press my lips to his forehead. It’s something of a bittersweet gesture, though; normally his skin tastes of his tropical body wash, possibly combined with the smell of sex depending on where and when I taste him. Now, however, he tastes all cold. Dead. Empty.

Empty.

That’s another thing; he wouldn’t have any dinner when I offered it to him. Just like all of the last ten nights I’ve been around him at dinnertime, his lunch bag is always full after school as well and he’s never had anything other than a cup of extra-strong coffee for breakfast in the mornings. Hell, I even offered to take him out for sushi because I know that’s his all-time favourite food, especially from the small Japanese place opposite my house as it’s where we had our first ever date. But he said no, eyes beseeching me not to push it.

So I didn’t. He’d tell me if he was having problems with his eating, if something was stopping him from being healthy. I’m his boyfriend; of course he’d tell me. He just didn’t fancy anything earlier.

Yeah. He’s not sick. He can’t be.

“Where you moving?” He mumbles through his waning tears, sounding very much like a frightened little toddler begging for a puppy. “Jersey? Please?”

“We, Mikeymouse, are staying very much in good ol’ NJ.” I smile down at him, my heart bursting at how adorably stunned he looks when I say ‘we’. He’s just too fucking cute; how could I ever leave him behind? “There’s a new apartment block opening near your place, prices seem pretty cheap at the moment and as soon as I have the dollars, I’m gonna put a deposit down.” It’s the first time I’ve told anyone about my plans, about my dream of having my own palace to keep my princess in, and it feels like a real possibility now; because the delighted way Mikey’s eyes are shining is the only motivation I need to make this happen. “You can move in with me and I’ll never let you out of my sight. Or the bedroom.”

He giggles at that, a small hiccup forming on his lips from the mishmash of emotions raging inside of him, and blushes a bright red before eagerly nodding his consent. He might only be sixteen, a rather innocent and naïve sixteen-year-old at that, but that doesn’t mean his mind isn’t dirty. Far, far from it. Mainly because of me; something that I take great pride in. Also something, as it happens, that makes Gerard hate my little black guts all the more.

“And we can live happily ever after in there. Nobody will ever tell us what to do or who to be; it’ll just be the two of us and whoever we want to invite round. Like Gabe, you like him, don’t you?” He nods happily, smiling at the memory of when he first met my best friend a few weeks back; the first guy in a long time, too long for it to not make my soul strain in agony, other than me to actually be nice to him. “Yep, he can come over some weekends and we’ll have a shitload of fun together. We can have sushi for tea every night and nobody will be able to tell us to turn our music down.”

He lets out an excited little squeal at just the idea of us having such a place together, his head resting lazily on my chest and my hands stroking every piece of exposed skin my hungry digits can find.

God, he’s gotten skinny. Even more so than normal. But that doesn’t stop him from feeling like silk to me; my little silk dolly.

“Tell me more, Peterpanda.” He yawns, rubbing his bully-painted cheek into the depths of my body. “I wanna know more.”

I chuckle at his childishness, fully ready to tell it to him until I can hear him snoring away into a nice little dream about what will one day be our reality. Because it most certainly will.

If it’s what my Mikeymouse wants, then it sure as hell is going to happen.

Eventually it got to the point where even I couldn’t brush of his skinniness as a minor blip on the scale; he was wearing size ‘extra extra’ small woman’s jeans and still needing a belt to keep them from dropping clean off his tiny little hips. You could start to see it in his pretty face too, the way his features were all sunk back and gaunt where they had once been beautifully defined. Now he just looks drained of everything a person needs to survive; substance, life and, above all else, hope.

Life has torn a whole in my ragdoll and the stuffing is fast draining out, leaving me with nothing but the skin of an angel trying to survive through hell.

The school bullying only got worse as well. Most days he wouldn’t go in, too scared and timid to be able to face whatever atrocities those fuckers wanted to commit that particular day. His parents never knew about him skipping but Gerard did. In fact, I think it’s the one thing we’ve ever agreed on after I got with his baby brother; he despises seeing the kid hurt, so if he thought Mikes needed some time away from it all, he’d give him a lift to mine instead of to school. Gee didn’t like it, not at all, but he liked the idea of Mikes getting beaten up even less.

Half the time I’d have to leave him alone to go to work for our dream, but that was okay; the nightmares had gotten worse and so I’d soothe him off to sleep, leaving him napping over the morning and then be back home before he woke up. It worked. We had our system and, as heart-breaking as it is for me to have to face, it was the only thing keeping him alive in a world waiting to kill him.

Just like it very nearly is right now.

I tried to get him to eat, of course I fucking did, but everything I did was never enough.

I was never enough.

”No, Pete, I’m not hungry. Seriously.”

“I don’t give a damn if you’re hungry or not, Michael. You’re eating it.” I hate having to be so hard on him, so cold and harsh even though it clearly frightens him, but I have to be; I can’t remember the last time I saw him eat a full meal like the one I’ve just laid out for him. “All of it.”

He whimpers up at me, looking at the plate of beans and jacket potato as though it might poison him, the pure desperation on his face making me want to forget about it. I can’t though; I’ve let him get away with it for too long and now I’ve got to make him eat something before it gets dangerous. Before he wastes away from me like a ghost fading into the ethos.

“Pete, please I-“

“No, Mikey! You’re wasting away in front of me and I’m not going to let it fucking happen!” I yell, nothing but love fuelling my frustrated anger at the idea of Gerard being right about what he’s told me too many times for me to just write it off anymore; he thinks Mikey’s got an eating disorder. Which is impossible because Mikey would have told me if he did. “Stop being such a fucking drama queen about it and just eat some goddamned food. It’s not fucking hard!”

“Peterpa-“

“Don’t you ‘Peterpanda’ me, Mikey Way; it won’t work anymore.” I snarl back, blinking hard to hide the tears of distressed worry that are threatening to make me look week in front of my baby boyfriend. “Why are you being so fucking difficult about it? You’re acting like a motherfucking baby and I’m sick of it, to be honest.”

I didn’t mean it. Of course I didn’t; I’m just as scared as he is of the bullies. Because I can’t stand the thought of what him not-eating means; anorexia. The exact thing that Gerard’s been giving me leaflets about in his attempts to make me support his idea of Mikeymouse needing help. I’ve only been denying it because I know that it entails my baby boy being unhappy and him not feeling like he can come to me to help him.

And it also means that he’s sick. As in the kind of sick that could easily kill him with how lethally skinny the poor thing has become. Too skinny to be my teddy-bear anymore.

A sob snaps me out of my thoughts, making me look from lap and to my boyfriend. Who looks like his entire world has just imploded upon itself because I’ve just been vile to him, yelled at him like the bullies do and talked down to him like Gerard does.

And I despise myself for it.

He jumps to his feet, a wave of something akin to nausea sweeps over him and he stumbles slightly before righting himself on the kitchen table, tears streaming down his face like they’re starting to do down my own.

“I’m sorry.”

And with that small squeak he runs, leaving me alone in my house with nothing but tears and an appetite to match Mikeymouse’s.

The front door slams shut.

That was the last time I saw him conscious, the next time after that was this morning when I got to the hospital; Gerard found him passed out in the living room, barely breathing and ever raise of his emaciated chest proving to be a struggle for my little ragdoll to perform. I’ve been right here by his side since I heard, clutching his hand as though I can hold him to this world and whispering things to him.

Mostly about how sorry I am. For shouting at him. For not being enough.

For ignoring the problem that was too horrific for me to see.

And it’s very nearly cost me Mikey Way.

Nearly, but not quite.







A/N: So this is what happens when I skip school (with permission from my family) and turn to my prompt table. The prompt? “Silk”. Not quite sure how that one worked out. Anyway, sorry if this is really dull/depressing/boring, but I really hope that you like it and please let me know what you think! :D


P.S. I'm kinda thinking about making this a two-shot (as suggested by youcanstakemyheart), anyone think it's a good idea/anything they'd like to see in a second part?