FicWad

Otherside

A couple of days later, Mikey and Braelyn went back to the city. Once back at her apartment, Braelyn dropped her bags on the floor of her bedroom and she collapsed on the bed. A few moments later, Mikey joined her.

“Glad to be out of the craziness?” Mikey asked.

“It is nice for it to be just the two of us,” Braelyn answered, her voice muffled by the pillow her head was buried in.

“Well you have about 48 hours to enjoy it before you have to go back to work.”

Braelyn groaned. “Why did you have to remind me?”

“Again, I’ll bring your attention to the fact that you were excited about all this. I believe you stated that you would be world famous with actual glee in your voice.”

“That’s when I didn’t know how many early mornings and late nights it took.” Mikey just laughed. Braelyn rolled over and propped her head up on her head, looking at Mikey, “When do you have to go back to work?”

“That’s a good question.” Mikey reached out and brushed a stray lock of hair out of her face. “Gee mentioned something about writing again. So, whenever he decides to let us all in on that, I guess we’ll have to go record.”

“You make it seem so glamorous,” she said giggling.

“Not even. Gerard will just call us in two weeks or two months and be like ‘I have like ninety songs written, but only the lyrics. Let’s go lock ourselves in some creepy old house and not come out until we have a new record.’ And, because he’s usually right about when it’s time for a new album, we’ll follow him wherever his heart desires and live off take out and cheap beer for a few months.”

“Lifestyles of the rich and the famous,” Braelyn replied, laughing at her unexpected Good Charlotte reference.

“It really is.” Mikey snaked an arm around her waist and pulled her to him. Braelyn buried her head in his chest. “What do you want to do today?”

“Just this,” she murmured. “Is that ok?”

“Perfect,” Mikey answered.

By the time the afternoon sun was setting, the two had managed to change into pajamas and crawl under the covers, their whole day spent talking and watching their typical terrible television. It was six o’clock when Riley called.

“Hey, sweetheart,” Braelyn answered, sleepily.

“Hi, Braelyn! I just got back to New York. I’m on my way to the apartment. I thought you guys might want some dinner. Should I pick something up?”

“Oooh, dinner,” Braelyn intoned.

“I’m starving!” Mikey said.

“Ya. We definitely want dinner,” Braelyn said.

“Cool. I’m, like, dying for Chinese food. Is that ok?”

“Chinese?” Braelyn asked Mikey, who nodded. “Chinese sounds great.”

“The usual, then?”

“Please.”

“Ok,” Riley said. “I’ll be there soon.”

Braelyn sat up and pulled her hair into a bun on the top of her head. She looked back at Mikey who was still laying down. “Dinner’s on it’s way.”

“Excellent.” He tugged on her arm and she fell down onto him.

“I was gonna get up and find a hoodie,” Braelyn said with a slight whine in her voice. Mikey covered her mouth with his. After a moment, Braelyn pulled back and said, a little breathlessly, “This is better.”

“Right?”

A half an hour later, they were still entangled with one another when Riley’s voice cut through the apartment. “Put your clothes back on!” She shouted. “Dinner is here.”

Braelyn laughed and tried to push herself off Mikey and the bed. He tighten his arms around her waist before calling out, “We’ll be there in a second!”

Braelyn kissed him on the nose. “Come on. Chinese food.”

He sat up, holding her on his lap, and kissed her thoroughly. “Ok, I guess.”

She kissed Mikey’s cheek and got up. Instead of going through her own clothes for a sweatshirt, she grabbed the one that he had been wearing on the car ride back to the city. It came to her knees. Then she grabbed some thick socks and pulled them on. Braelyn then took Mikey’s hand and pulled him to his feet. Then, she ran for the kitchen.

Upon seeing Riley, Braelyn let go of Mikey’s hand and allowed herself to go sliding across the floor on her socks, colliding with Riley. The girls fell laughing to the ground, arms around each other. Mikey just stepped over the two writhing on the floor and took the take-out containers.

“While you two do whatever it is you’re doing, I’m gonna eat this...”

“It’s nice to see you, too, Mikey,” Riley said, she and Braelyn getting up from the floor.

“Hey, kiddo.” Mikey hugged the younger girl. “How was your holiday?”

“Excellent. And y’all’s?”

Mikey and Braelyn looked at each other, eyebrows raised. Then Braelyn said, “It was...dramatic.”

“Oh! Tell me all about it!”

The three of them spent the evening around the kitchen table, sharing the Chinese food and catching Riley up on all the events she missed while she was away. Then Riley and Braelyn decided it was time to watch their favorite chick flick/holiday movie, Love, Actually. Mikey made it through about ten minutes before he opted to go back into Braelyn’s room and watch television.

The girls ended up talking through some of their favorites scenes, causing them to have to continually rewind and rewatch, making the movie twice as long. Then they put in Bridgette Jones’ Diary.

It was one am when Mikey woke up, having fallen asleep in Braelyn’s bed. He was disappointed to find that he was only one in the bed. He didn’t hear any talking or laughter from the other room, so he went to investigate. The television screen was playing the DVD’s menu over and over and the girls were dead asleep on the couch, wrapped up in the fuzzy blankets kept on the back of the couch. Riley looked particularly uncomfortable, sprawled over the arm of the couch, Braelyn’s feet in her lap. Mikey laughed softly. He moved Braelyn’s feet and picked up their young friend. She only stirred to lean into Mikey. He tucked her into bed and returned for Braelyn who had, unsurprisingly, stretched out to take up the entirety of the couch.

“Come on, pretty girl,” he whispered, lifting her up. “Let’s go to bed.”

She opened her eyes slightly as he walked down the hall and she smiled. “Hi, Mikey.”

“Hey, Brae,” he smiled down at her. “This has become a habit.”

“My favorite habit,” she mumbled, wrapping her arms around his neck.

“It’s not terrible, as habits go.”

***

The next day passed too quickly, with both Frankie and Chelsea coming into town, and Braelyn found herself up at the ungodly hour of seven AM on the morning of the thirtieth. She reluctantly began to draw herself out of Mikey’s arms.

“You should just stay here.” His arms tightened around her. “It’s too cold and too early to get out of bed.”

She let him hold her captive for a few minutes before she retorted, “Weren’t you the one telling me that I was the one who wanted to be famous? And nowwwww you’re trying to keep me from doing my job?”

“I’m not trying to keep you from doing your job, babe, I’m simply trying to keep you from freezing.”

She giggled. “How thoughtful.” Then there was a knock on the door. “See? There’s my favorite taskmaster!”

“Braeyln!” Riley called. “We gotta go. If you hurry up, there’s coffee.”

“She’s lying. There’s coffee whether or not I hurry.” Braelyn winked at Mikey and kissed his nose. “But really, I’m getting up now.” He groaned and let her go. She yelped as she put her feet on the cold hardwood floor and shed the comforter. “Ok. You’re right. It’s cold.” She shivered and stood. “I’m up, Riley,” she yelled. “I’ll be out in a sec.”

“I’m an eskimo,” Mikey’s voice came from behind her. She turned to see him sitting up, wrapped in the cocoon of their covers.

“I think burrito is more appropriate.”

“You’re jealous because I’m warm.”

In response, Braeyln just stuck her tongue out at him and scampered into the bathroom. She hopped into the shower mostly just to warm up since she had washed her hair the night before, and then put on her skinny jeans and a flannel shirt of Will’s that she had managed to hang onto for all these years. She braided her hair around her head and put on a little bit of eyeliner and mascara. When she emerged back into her room, she found Mikey already asleep in her bed. She laughed and dug through her bureau for her riding boots and tall socks. She bounced a little more than necessary while she sat on the bed and put her socks and shoes on.

Mikey opened one eye and grumbled, “Aren’t you just the sweetest?”

Braelyn stood up, now fully dressed. “Oh, hush, you’re going to fall back to sleep in like two seconds. So, just give me a kiss before I go.”

“Don’t have to ask me twice.” He sat up and kissed her goodbye.

Braelyn walked out into the rest of the apartment to see Riley leaning against the counter, coffee cups in hand, a scolding look on her face. “What?!” Braelyn asked. “I’m ready! And we’re not even late.”

Riley glance pointedly at the clock on the oven.

Braelyn followed her gaze and winced, guilty. “Ok, not late by much.”

“Let’s go, Majesty,” Riley said, mocking.

“Really, dear, there’s no need to be so formal. My Lady will do just fine,” Braelyn returned with a sarcastic air of superiority.

“Enough,” Riley said laughing, pushing her towards their coats and the door.

Braelyn shrugged on her leather jacket and wound her creme colored scarf around her neck as they rode the elevator downstairs. They got in the waiting car and were whisked away towards Times Square. They pulled up to a theater a block off Broadway.

They clambered out of the car as Riley rattled off the day’s events. “Well, tomorrow night you’ll be performing outside, obviously, but today you’re rehearsing here.” As a side note she added, “This is the Gershwin, where Wicked! is done,” she was practically squealing. “They’re on a three day break and ABC is renting the theater so everyone can rehearse today. We’re here until ten, and then we have to go back to the company building for a meeting. After lunch, and you’re going to love this,” she said love with an annoyed tone, “You’re in fittings.”

“Fittings?” Braelyn asked. “For what?”

“You’re costume.”

“Costume?!” Braelyn was confused. “I was just gonna wear jeans and a coat...ya know, because it’s gonna be freezing...”

“Welllll,” Riley said, fiddling with her phone. “This is what they want you to wear.” She turned her phone to show Braelyn a picture.

She burst into an astonished bark of laughter as she looked at the sketch. It was of someone who was obviously supposed to be Braelyn, but she was way too thin. She was also wearing obscenely short shorts with some sort of leather studded straps everywhere, sky high boots, and what could be called a sweater...maybe. It was short sleeved with a furred collar.

“Um. No. Absolutely not.” She shoved the phone back at Riley. “Who do they think I am? Miley Cyrus?!” She pulled out her phone and dialed Topher. When he answered, she replied, “Hell no.”

“I assume this means you’ve seen the sketch,” he replied.

“There is no way I’m wearing that. I’m not an 18 year old pop star. Plus it’s going to be like 28 degrees out. I will be wearing pants. And a coat. And normal people shoes. End. Of. Story.”

“I agree,” Topher said, but there was a diplomatic tone in his voice that Braelyn didn’t like. “But...”

There it was, she thought, the but.

“But,” Topher continued, “The company is trying to hammer out your image. It’s important since your single is dropping so soon.”

“I thought we already had this figured out...my image is already done. It’s what I’ve been doing this whole time.”

Riley and Braelyn were now inside.

“I know that and you know that. It’s what the meeting today is mostly about. You’re branding.”

“That’s ridiculous.”

“Probably. But they’re going to make you sit through the meeting anyway. My advice, if you really want to have a say in how this is going to go, take a few minutes and think about what you want and why. Then make sure you insist upon it today. I would have let you know about this earlier, but I didn’t see the sketch until last night.”

Braelyn sighed. Riley was making motions at her to hang up the phone. “Ok. Riley says I have to go practice.”

“Get your head in the game, Brae. Remember, it’s your career and your life. I’ll have your back in there. Just remember what’s important to you, ok?”

“Ya. Alright.”

“Go get on stage. You don’t have that much time up there today and I bet you haven’t played for two weeks.”

“You know me shockingly well for having met me only eight months ago.”

“Scary, isn’t it?”

Braelyn could hear the smile in Topher’s voice. It made her grin reflexively. “Terrifying.”

“Listen. I’ll come over there in a bit and ride over to the meeting with you. We can go through a couple of things.”

“Thank you. Bye, Topher.”

“Bye, Braelyn.”

The rehearsal went well. Braelyn fell back into playing pretty quickly, even though Topher was right that she hadn’t played at all while she was in New Jersey. And he kept his promise. Topher walked in a few minutes before her session was over. He climbed in the car behind Braelyn and Riley and allowed Braelyn to rant about the awful outfit and what she continually referred to as ‘oppression from the company.’ They neared the building of the record company and she hadn’t finished voicing her concerns, let alone marshalling her arguments for her image being her own, under her control. Topher asked the driver to take a lap and, upon seeing that Braelyn was working herself up into a frenzy, sent a text message.

Her face was getting redder as she continued on her tirade and Topher asked the driver to pull over. A panicked look was on Braelyn’s face as she thought they were there, about to go into the meeting.

“Woah, kid,” Topher said, opening the door. “Just calling in reinforcements.”

Mikey climbed through open door. Riley had snuck out the other side and jumped into the front seat. Mikey squeezed into the empty seat beside Braelyn, an arm around her shoulders.

“So, what’s wrong?”

“They’re trying to make me into something I’m not!” Braelyn said pitifully, all her angry vigor seeping out of her as soon as Mikey was beside her.

“I know. I saw what they want you to wear.”

“I think,” Topher said, “Braelyn’s scared of them taking away her identity and that she has no control over it. I thought you could tell her about Ghost.”

“Oh ya. That was a shitshow.” He put two fingers under Braelyn’s chin and lifted her face so he could look into her eyes. “Story time, ok?” She nodded. “So when it came time to put out a video for ‘Ghost of You’ we had already done ‘Im Not Okay’ and ‘Helena’ which were pretty successful, but the label thought our image was getting too dark and ‘emo.’ They were worried we were going to be too vampire-y and that we wore too much eyeliner to be ‘popular’-not that that was ever our intention in the first place.

"Anyway, if anyone just reads the lyrics to that song, not even listen to it, I think it’s pretty clear that it’s about a tremendous loss, like death or someone really important just walking out of your life. I mean, God, it has the word Ghost in the title. So, the label was terrified we’d do something like kill someone on camera or something, so they found us this cookie cutter video director and had a storyboard written up about how Gerard’s girlfriend was going off to college and we were again in the schoolboy blazers. It was truly awful. But we went along with it, honestly, because we didn’t realize we had a choice. Gee got through like two scenes with the girl and we had like played five seconds of the song on camera before he turned to Ray and was like ‘just no way man.’ We all walked off set because it was so bad and so not us. Without really having to talk about it, we came to a decision that if we couldn’t do our music our way, then what was the point? Turned out, we just needed to stand up for ourselves. We asked for Marc back and then made the video we wanted to make, where we incidently ended up killing someone on camera.” He laughed softly finishing his story.

“So, really, you’re in control. You can let them make all these decisions and just go along like a good little girl, or assert yourself. They’re gonna try their damndest to make you into a product, but they don’t have a product if they don’t have you. You could always just walk away-” Braelyn made a noise of objection. “I know you wouldn’t want to, but if they were trying to make you do something awful, you could just decided this whole thing isn’t for you. It’s something record execs live in fear of, especially when their talent actually has talent and potential to be great. So what is it you want?”

“I want to wear pants,” Braelyn said firmly.

“Then pants it is, sweetheart.”

A/N: I feel like I'm always apologizing here. SORRY! I'm not going to promise that I'll post again soon, because it's pretty likely I'd break your collective heart. Thanks to Taylor and Izzy, even though it was a long time ago that you reviewed. I hope everyone enjoys this one. Let me know what you think if you so choose. Hearts, Corri