We were awakened the next morning to someone knocking on the front door.
“Goddammit,” I groaned, forcing myself away from Gerard’s chest and out of bed. I tripped though and landed on the floor with a thud, successfully waking Gerard up.
“Hmm what?” He asked sleepily, rolling over and burying his head into his pillow.
“Someone’s knocking on the door,” I told him rubbing the sleep out of my eyes and standing up. “Mother fucker woke me up.” To be perfectly fair though a glance at the clock informed me that it was 12:24 pm and it was actually an acceptable time to be knocking on someone’s door. But in my defense it was a Saturday and I had no reason to be up.
I left Gerard to drown himself with pillows and blankets on our bed and dragged myself groggily to the front door, stretching out my arms above my head as I went. This would be the second time in two days someone has come to the apartment, which was unusual. I frowned. That sounded really anti-social.
I flung the door open without bothering to look through the peephole, my brain not thinking about the fact that I was only in my boxers. The thought froze me as I realized and I blushed heavily.
Thankfully for me it was only Mikey Way standing in front of me, looking slightly surprised at the amount of skin showing, but not really caring.
“Oh hey sorry,” I ushered him into the apartment. “We just woke up.” He was bouncing on the balls of his feet and looking around nervously.
“Oh okay, I can come back at another time of you want?” He suggested hopefully, probably planning how he could get out of talking to his older brother. Like hell I was gonna let that happen.
“No Mikey,” I told him firmly, grabbing his arm and leading his into the living room. “You can’t run away from him. If you keep doing it you’ll never tell him.” He hung his head and stared at the floor.
“Yeah you’re right.” I did a final glance over him to make sure he wasn’t going to bolt before I nodded and went to go get Gerard out of bed.
Mikey looked pretty much the same as he had the last time I’d seen him. He still had bags under his eyes and an overall appearance that screamed lack of hygiene and the inability to care about it. However the fact that he had come to talk to his brother today and the lack of the smell of beer when he came in told me that things were getting slightly better.
I approached out bedroom door and opened it quietly. I wanted to wake him up nicely so that he would be in a good mood before going out to talk. He had fallen back asleep and was snuggled up in all the blankets. He had had nightmares throughout the entire night last night and I really wished that I was able to let him sleep in longer. However, Mikey needed him and Mikey was more important that catching up on sleep.
“Gerard, baby, c’mon Gee wake up,” I whispered in his ear shaking him slightly. “Your brother is here and he really needs to talk to you about something.” He groaned but his eyes opened slowly and began adjusting to the light.
“What?” He asked, still half asleep. Half of it came out as a groan.
I leaned down and kissed him softly, hoping it would help wake him up more. It did and he eagerly but gently kissed me back. When I pulled away he sat up.
“I said Mikey is here and he needs to talk to you.” Hearing that his brother was here made him wake up more and he hopped out of bed and started pulling on whatever clothes he touched. I followed his lead and grabbed a pair of jeans. He spoke as I struggled to get them on.
“Why is he here? He could have called,” Gerard frowned as he tried to figure out why his baby brother would just pop in out of the blue. “The last time he showed up without calling was to tell me about Lindsey.”
“Well it’s not my place to say why he’s here. You’ll have to talk to him.” I told him, finally getting my jeans on and grabbing for a t-shirt. Out of the corner of my eye I noticed that Gerard had paused and was watching me.
“You know what he’s going to talk to me about?” His eyes narrowed out of confusion and…suspicion?
“Yeah I do,” I admitted. “Mikey will explain everything.”
“You’re not cheating on me with my brother are you?” I laughed before realizing that he was dead serious.
“Wait no! You don’t actually think that that’s what this could be about do you?” I was slightly shocked. He looked bashfully at the floor.
“I’m sorry it was just weird that you would know something about Mikey before I did. Made me think you were apart of it.”
I sighed and crossed the room—now fully dressed—and grabbed his hands in one of mine and using the other hand to tilt his chin up.
“Gerard Way I love you and I would never do anything to hurt you like that.” He sighed and nodded.
“I know, I’m sorry.” I brought him in for a kiss.
“Just go talk to Mikey like I said. He’ll explain everything to you I swear.” He hummed an agreement while I pulled him towards the door. “Now let’s go. We’ve kept him waiting long enough.”

---

Mikey was nervously pacing the living room when I returned with Gerard in tow. The second he saw Gerard though he froze before slumping down onto the couch.
“Frank I can’t do it!” He moaned into his hands, refusing to look at us. I walked over and patted his back comfortingly.
“Yes you can Mikey. You know he’s been there before. He’ll understand.” Gerard watched the two of us with confusion plastered on his face as his brother freaked out on his couch.
“C’mon Mikes. Just tell me.” He walked over and knelt in front of his brother, rubbing his arm reassuringly.
“Hey Mikey,” I whispered. “Do you want me to leave you guys alone?” Even if I already knew everything I didn’t want to get in the way of the brothers as they were trying to sort things out.
Mikey shook his head violently. “No please stay.”
“Okay,” I conceded sitting down beside him and wrapping an arm around his shoulder. “Whenever you’re ready just start talking. There’s no rush.” He nodded and we sat in silence for several minutes before I heard him take a deep breath. I felt his pulse jump up and my breath hitched as I tried to ignore it.
“Gerard…I’m so sorry,” He began staring into the palms of his hands. “After he died I just felt so…heartbroken.” Gerard nodded. It looked like he was beginning to understand the direction that this was heading towards. “I couldn’t function anymore. I got really depressed and after I was positive you and Frank were going to be fine I just let myself go.” He looked at his brother guiltily.
“Go on,” Gerard urged giving his hand a squeeze.
“I stopped keeping the house in shape and stopped eating,” Mikey confessed glumly. “Newspapers and mail piled up, food started rotting, and I began looking like a part-time hobo.”
“That’s not really what’s upsetting you though is it?” Gerard made the question seem more like a statement. They were brothers and they had always shared this bond between them. They were closer to each other than most siblings ever were. Gerard understood Mikey and Mikey understood Gerard. It was the way things worked with them.
“No…” Mikey paused again to gather his courage. “Gerard…I started drinking. Like a lot.” I watched as Gerard’s face fell. He didn’t look surprised, just upset and disappointed. “I’m really sorry Gee!” Mikey continued, starting to cry, “Just after Ray I didn’t know how to cope. I decided I would just try to numb myself but it didn’t help Gee! It only made it worse. But for some reason I just kept doing it.” He paused to gasp for breath. “I know how you were addicted and I never wanted to make you go through it again but with me. I always swore I never would but the second some difficult challenge came into my life I cracked and broke the biggest promise I have ever made.” By now he was sobbing and the tears were pouring down his cheeks. I was pretty sure if Gerard could still cry he would be too. I know I felt on the verge of it myself and I hadn’t known Mikey all that long.
“Shhh,” Gerard began comforting him. I moved to the side so that Gerard could engulf his younger brother in a hug. “It’s okay Mikes. I swear it’s going to be okay. I’ll help you through this.”
“I’m just so sorry!” Mikey continued crying. “You shouldn’t have to go through this again.”
Gerard pulled his brother’s chin up so that he could look him in the eyes.
“Mikey. You were there for me when I went through my addiction. You shouldn’t have had to see that or help with it. But you stuck by me and helped me get clean. You’re my brother and I will stick with you throughout this entire thing. You will get better and we’re-” He paused an motioned in my direction, including me in on the Help Mikey Way Campaign. Not that I wasn’t glad to join of course. “-both going to make sure everything ends up okay.”
Mikey sighed and nodded wearily into Gerard’s shoulder.
“It’s going to be okay.”

---

The rest of the afternoon was spent watching movies and playing video games. At some point in time Gerard had gotten up and ordered Mikey a small pizza. It was nice to just hang out for once, but the underlining tension was thick in the air. Although he tried to hide it, Gerard kept sending small worried glances over at Mikey. At one point in the time during whatever movie we were actually watching there was a bar scene and Mikey excused himself from the room claiming that he was gonna go wait for the pizza to get there. Gerard wasn’t far behind him using the excuse that he wanted to go grab some blood from the kitchen. He came back several minutes later with no blood. I changed the channel to something random.
I sighed. Lindsey may have been gone, but she left behind a shit ton of broken pieces. Each person was know fighting a different battle. I was trying to adjust to this new way of life and the changes suddenly thrust upon me. Gerard still feels guilty and has nightmares each night. And Mikey…Mikey has it the worst between all of us. He had his heart ripped out and stomped on. Then there wasn’t even anyone he felt he could turn to because everyone else had to deal with Lindsey. So instead he turned to alcohol and was now fighting an addiction.
“Do you really think he’ll be alright?” Gerard asked me quietly. Mikey was still out of the room waiting for his pizza. I pulled my attention away from my thoughts and looked at him. “Do you think all of us will be alright?”
“Gee. I think that if we fought Lindsey and won that we can pick up the pieces she left behind and glue them all together. It’s not going to be perfect. There’ll be lines marring everything and little chips that are going to be lost forever, but for the most part it will be salvaged.” I stretched up and caught him in a kiss for just a moment before pulling away again.
“Frank, I wanna thank you for going and checking on him.” We had explained to Gerard how I had known about Mikey before he did. “And thank you for respecting him and not telling me.” I frowned.
“Really? Cause I kinda assumed you’d be pissed for not telling you.”
“Maybe, maybe I should be slightly upset.” He moved to sit next to me on the floor in front of the couch. “But Mikey was scared. He knew that I had been there before. I’m glad you helped him and didn’t push him into telling me anything until he was ready. It would’ve only stressed him out and made things worse. And then like you said today, it wasn’t your place to tell me. Mikey had to be the one.”
“I’m glad we’re okay,” I told him honestly, leaning over to rest my head on his shoulder.
Just then Mikey came back in with his pizza.
“Uh do you guys think I could spend the night here?” He asked staring holes into the floor. “I uh…don’t trust myself yet to not go buy alcohol.”
“Sure yeah that’ll be fine Mikes,” Gerard reassured him. “You can stay as long as you need to beat this.”
“Thanks you guys,” He stood there awkwardly holding his pizza box and shuffling his feet. “It really means a lot to me.”
“Anytime Mikey Way,” I said patting the couch cushion above my head. “Now come sit down and watch this movie.”
“Fine,” He said glancing at the TV and smirking. Mikey Way smirked. It was the nearest thing to a smile that I had seen in months now. “Just one thing before I do.”
“What?”
“Please explain to me why the fuck we’re watching the Care Bear movie.” His smirk was set in and I stared at the screen in embarrassment. No more random TV flipping for me. I blushed but refused to let him win.
“Well Michael. Please explain to me how you knew it was the movie and not just an episode?” I retorted back giving him my own smirk. He actually blushed which made me laugh.
“I’m Mikey Way,” He stated sitting down and opening the pizza box, “And I know things.”
I wasn’t sure if I had won or not, but Mikey seemed happy and that was all that mattered.

Notes

Can I just say (and I don't really think that anyone on here is I'm just kinda ranting) that if you're asshole who likes to make fun of people for their sexuality or their gender then get the fuck off my story. This is a no bullshit zone. I'm from a country where personal beliefs and the ability to express those beliefs are a basic right granted to us. But it's like I have the right to bear arms too. That doesn't mean I'm allowed to go out and get an anti-tank rifle. It means that yes, I have my rights but they are limited. The same can be held for freedom of speech and freedom of religion. If your religion frowns upon LBGT then okay. You are allowed to have your opinion. I will not stand up to you against that. I have friends that don't approve due to religious factor. But they are RESPECTFUL and treat everyone like they're human and no less no matter what their belief may be about them. And your freedom of speech does not mean you should stand up and call someone (please excuse the terms) a faggot, or a fairy, or dyke, or tranny or anything. Keep your damn mouth shut. It's offensive and mean. I thought we all heard it from our moms when we were kids but I guess not. "If you don't have anything nice to say, don't say it at all." Nice and simple mother fuckers.

But for those of you who do follow the nice and simple rule and play nice then good for you. You are all boss ass mother fuckers.