(no subject)
Title: A Horse With No Name
Author: DF
Fandom: MCR, PatD
Pairing: Mikey/Brendon, vague Frank/Gerard
Summary: An almost AU. First Gerard gets sick, and then Mikey. Just when Mikey's starting to get better, too, they find the boy.
Notes: This is... kind of odd? If you have any questions about what the hell is going on, just ask.
Disclaimer: Seriously? Never happened. Really.
First Gerard gets sick, and then Mikey. It's bad when Gerard gets sick; it rains all the time, and everyone slows down and speeds up, simultaneously, and even Horse loses a little of the fire in his eye. Mikey can feel himself getting sick while Gerard gets better. He tries to put it aside for as long as possible, but here, especially, he can't ignore himself for too long. He gets sick.
Just when Mikey's starting to get better, too, they meet the boy. They're walking alongside the caravan - it's not a caravan, not really; more like the skeleton of a bus, long shards of metal rising up to form a vague shape, cloth pinned up inside to keep out the light. The jags of metal on the outside are decorated with bits of bright fabric twined through them, a few pieces of rope, a feather boa Gerard picked up somewhere. It's a gaudy mess, with fog where there should be wheels and no discernible doors. Horse pulls it, slowly, because a lot of the time they walk; it's not like they're going for speed, at this point. Not like speed matters.
Horse doesn't step on the boy, but it's a near thing. He stops just short and howls, a sound you wouldn't think a unicorn would make, not even a demon one.
"The fuck?" Gerard mutters, stepping around to see what's going on. Mikey, still unwilling to face the sun for long periods of time, pulls himself out of the caravan, standing on the slight ledge and peering over Horse.
"Huh," Frank says, crouching down to get a better look at the boy. "Where the fuck did he come from?"
The boy is sprawled face down on the ground, his back moving slightly, just enough to show that he's breathing. His arms are bent, his hands palm down, fingers spread.
Ray and Frank turn him over and brush some of the dust off. Mikey levers himself off the ledge and gets his feet on the ground, running a hand absently over Horse's back. Horse sighs and tosses his head pointedly.
"Up?" Mikey suggests, following Horse's suggestion, and Bob says, "I'll grab him."
"Wait!" Gerard says, throwing a hand out. "We don't even know who he is, god, we can't just -"
"It's not like it matters, here," Mikey says blandly, and Gerard makes a face. The sky, which had been beginning to darken, just the hint of rainclouds, clears up, not to a blue but an unresisting white.
"It could," Gerard tries, a last resort, but Bob is already picking the boy up. He hangs limp in Bob's arms, too thin, just like Mikey. Gerard sighs. "He going to ride?"
"Well, it's not like he can walk," Mikey points out, and climbs back inside.
It's dark in the tent, darker than you'd think a couple yards of cloth would make it. Gerard and Mikey are both pale from it, spending too much time inside taking care of each other and being taken care of.
He hears Bob clambering up onto the ledge and walking inside the caravan, still holding the boy. Mikey gestures to the pile of blankets and pillows that serves as a bed whenever they sleep inside, curls himself up into the corner. He still doesn't feel like walking, not yet.
He knows Bob's nodding at him, even if he's not looking to see it. "I'm gonna go walk now; you ever come out, I'll give you a ride."
Mikey smirks. "Thanks," he says, but he won't take him up on it, not today. He hears Bob climb down again, feels Horse start moving now that his path is cleared of all obstacles.
Mikey looks at the boy again, just an unconcerned glance. He's not worried about anything; Horse won't let anything happen, he thinks. That's what Gerard told him, back when Horse first appeared, just like the boy except less incongruous, somehow. Horse fits. The boy doesn't, and that's why Gerard is so worried, probably, but Mikey's not planning on getting hurt.
.
The boy wakes up later that afternoon, coughing slightly and frowning, blinking his eyes open.
"Hey," Mikey says, looking up.
"Hey," the boy rasps out. "Fuck." He doesn't ask where he is, which might be a good thing; Mikey's not too sure he could answer.
"Water?" Mikey wonders, tossing over a bottle. It's dry today, has been for the past week or so. Their stores of water are getting low, but nobody's particularly worried. They'll find more; they always do, just in time.
"Thanks," the boy says, drinking it down. In the dark, Mikey can barely see his throat move as he swallows. "Sorry."
"For what?" Mikey doesn't always believe in apologies. Gerard does, all the time, except when he refuses to admit that he's done something wrong. Mikey generally forgives him anyway; they all do.
"I'm not sure." The boy laughs, the rasp dissipating. "Stealing your water. Making you pick me up. Unless you kidnapped me, in which case I'm not really sorry."
"You were lying on the ground," Mikey says without emotion, taking the bottle when the boy passes it back. "We thought it'd be kind of mean to leave you there."
"Thanks, then." The boy smiles; it almost isn't visible. Mikey thinks he wouldn't mind seeing it in the light, sometime.
"So how'd you get there?"
The boy shrugs helplessly. "I don't remember. I don't remember any of it."
"Nothing?" Mikey asks curiously, because he's still wondering how the boy ended up directly on their path, miles from anything, when apparently none of the walkers had seen him before Horse almost stepped on him.
"Well, one thing." Mikey waits through the pause for it, and the boy tells him, "I'm Brendon."
"Mikey," he says, and the boy smiles again, just another flash of movement in the dark.
.
Brendon doesn't remember anything specific except his name and waking up in the caravan, he tells Mikey in bits and pieces, digressing and wandering over the entire conversation. He's easily distracted, apparently, but Mikey's good at hearing the important bits and discarding the rest.
"It's funny," Brendon says thoughtfully, "you'd think if I really had, like, full-blown amnesia I wouldn't remember how to speak or what words mean or whatever, but I do. I mean, I remember what amnesia is. And -" He stops for a moment. Mikey can practically hear him trying to think of an example; he might be frowning in concentration, but there's no way of knowing for sure. "I don't know, how storms feel, and stuff?"
"Storms?" Mikey wonders, because it doesn't storm much, here. The closest it gets is a miserable, drizzly rain that goes on for days without pause and turns the dust underneath their feet into sticky mud that pulls at their shoes every time they take a step.
"Yeah," Brendon says wistfully, reminiscently, "you can just sit there for hours in the rain and not say anything. Really hard rain, too. And lightning. One time lightning struck like two feet away from me, it was so awesome."
If lightning ever strikes near you, Mikey knows, you should crouch and make as many half circles with the ground as possible. Dirt touching toes, heels touching heels in the air. That's one. Hands braced on the ground, thumbs connecting; that's two. And so on; the lightning that hits the earth will go up, through and back down where the half circle meets the ground again. He doesn't think Brendon bothered.
"God," Brendon says, still happily caught in the memory. "Does it storm here?"
"Not really," Mikey says, imagining Brendon in the rain, mud creeping up the sides of his legs, rain beading in his hair, his clothes soaked through. He can see lightning striking almost within arms' reach and Brendon sitting, not moving. Water in his eyelashes, running off the end of his nose, collecting in his collarbones. "Did it storm a lot, where you were?"
Brendon hesitates, and Mikey sees a flicker of movement that might be Brendon shrugging helplessly. "I don't know," he says finally. "I can't remember."
So Brendon likes storms, and he's been in them often enough to remember it, at least. Mikey would write it down if he were taking notes. Brendon hums a lot and taps his hands to the beat, but he never seems to know what song it is. He's got all his language memory; Mikey casually starts dropping harder and harder words into his sentences, just to see how much he remembers. Brendon doesn't seem phased by any of them, at least not until Mikey starts getting to words like absquatulate and defenestration, which, okay. And fuck, those were hard to slip into conversation.
It's not like it really matters, anyway. Mikey just wants to pass the time.
.
Really, Brendon's not the first stranger they've met; other people have traveled with them before, flitted here and away again. Brendon's just the most sudden. The others come from a long way off and fade gradually, until you look over one day to realise that instead of being able to see through them you can't see them at all. They're not important.
There haven't been as many since Horse appeared; a couple girls here and there, their hair thick against Mikey's fingers but hazy when he turned to look at it straight on.
It's not like he didn't enjoy it, while it lasted. It just never lasted for very long.
"Dinner!" Frank yells, startling Mikey out of his thoughts. He sits up and looks vaguely in the direction where Brendon might be.
"Come on," he says, starting to get up.
"Are you sure?" Brendon asks, and Mikey rolls his eyes even though nobody can see it.
"Yeah," he says, climbing out of the caravan. Brendon follows him without a sound.
It's getting dark outside, but not nearly as dark as it was inside, and Mikey blinks as his eyes adjust to the change in light. He takes the moment to look over at Brendon, standing there with his hands in his pockets, vividly outlined by the fading sun, so real he's almost not real at all.
"Food!" Frank calls out impatiently, smacking his hand against the side of the pot and hissing as he burns himself. Gerard grabs Frank's wrist and looks at his palm concernedly.
"I could go for food," Brendon admits. One hand comes up to brush the dust off his shirt. He tries to get it out of his hair, as well, but he just succeeds in spreading it all over the place, frosting his hair with silvery brown. "And a shower, but that's probbaly not going to be happening any time soon."
"Man, don't talk to Mikey about showers!" Ray hoots, lounging by the fire with Bob. "He and Gerard barely know what they are."
Frank, ignoring Gerard's protestations, agrees, "It's true. And kind of gross." His singed hand is still clasped in Gerard's, but he offers Brendon his unburned hand to shake. "I'm Frank."
Mikey watches the introductions and tries to remember how Gerard, Ray, Frank, and Bob acted around the girls, but it's too hard to remember the girls at all.
.
They stumble across a stream the very next day. Well, stream isn't precisely the right word; it's not one of the streams they come across when they need to replenish their water supply, it's a deep pool with an attached river to keep a current going, keep the water from getting too stagnant. It's the sort of thing they find when their state of cleanliness, or lack thereof, has become unbearable.
Stumble across isn't the right phrase, either. From what Mikey can gather, a slightly more accurate description would be that Frank noticed the stream - pond, whatever - whooped in delight, and immediately got the unanimous cooperation of Ray and Bob to push Gerard in.
When Mikey climbs out of the caravan to see what all the noise is about, he sees Gerard sitting on the bank, soaking wet and pouting. Bob looks at Mikey thoughtfully.
"Oh, no," Mikey says, backing up and holding his hands out. "Don't you fucking dare."
"Dare what?" Brendon asks from behind him, and when Mikey spins around, Ray takes advantage of his distraction to grab him by the shoulders. Ray is a fucking ninja.
"I blame you," Mikey tells Brendon, trying to struggle against Ray's hold. It's no use; Frank is distracted by trying to forcibly wash Gerard's hair, but Bob is coming over to them. "I'll go in on my own! Seriously!"
"You'll dip a toe in," Ray corrects him cheerfully as Bob picks up his legs. Ray staggers a little bit as they lift Mikey off the ground, lets go for a terrifying second to adjust his hold.
"What's the matter, afraid of being clean?" Brendon teases. Mikey glares at him, and he at least has the decency to look slightly abashed.
"It doesn't matter, he doesn't have a choice," Bob says mildly, just before throwing Mikey in the pond.
"I hate you all," Mikey mutters. He's not a delicate flower like Frank says he is, okay, it's just fucking cold. "Are you guys coming in, or what?"
"Of course," Ray says innocently, sitting down and dipping his feet into the water. "I just thought I'd go in slowly, get used to it."
"Asshole," Mikey says, and Frank adds, "Wimp!" before jumping in. He comes up in a half second, shakes the water out of his hair and ears, and pulls Gerard farther in.
"We're totally getting revenge on you guys later," Gerard promises, and the sun is behind a cloud but the sky stays clear and blue. They know he doesn't really mean it, even if Mikey does glower and nod.
Brendon just stands on the ground, alternating between laughing and trying to hold it back, and Mikey just says, "Come on, what are you waiting for?"
Brendon looks surprised as he asks, "What?" like he doesn't get what Mikey is saying, and maybe he doesn't; Mikey generally expects everyone to understand, here, and for some reason he keeps on forgetting that Brendon turned up yesterday.
"Well, you wanted to get clean, didn't you?" Mikey asks. Bob's already gone off to get the soap, shampoo.
Brendon smiles, and by all rights the sun should come out from behind the clouds, but it doesn't. There are implications, levels to this, but Mikey just concentrates on getting clean. After a second, Brendon joins him, laughing at the way Gerard is determinedly attempting to tug Ray into the water, with Frank clinging to his back and hampering his efforts.
Bob comes back and says, "Right. Good luck, Gerard."
"Mikey!" Gerard protests, trying to one-handedly pull Frank off of him. "Help!"
"Sorry," Mikey says blandly, because if he helps Gerard then Frank will cling to him, too, and Frank is impossible to peel away. "You're on your own."
"Sometimes a glorious retreat is the best course of action," Brendon advises, grinning at Mikey. Mikey was right; he really doesn't mind seeing it in the daylight, after all.
.
They go on, just like always, and they never get any closer. Mikey doesn't think about it too much, tries not to. It turns out to be surprisingly easy to ignore.
He and Brendon move out of the caravan and start walking with the others. He's missed it, after being sick. He feels like Brendon's missed it, too, the easy walking and talking, just hanging out without any particular aim, feels like he knows this even though Brendon doesn't remember enough to have ever had it before.
Brendon doesn't remember anything else new, really, but he loves water and he smetimes talks a lot and sometimes doesn't talk for hours, and he gets along well with - everyone. Gets along well with Mikey.
They're not getting closer, but Mikey never stops the caravan, never says that they should take a break of more than an hour for lunch, dinner, a night for sleep if they don't pile together in the caravan. They're not getting any closer, but if Mikey stops he thinks they'll only get farther away.
.
"Mm," Brendon hums, curled up against Horse. They're stopping for the night; Gerard and Frank are off somewhere and Ray and Bob are talking about something, and Brendon and Mikey are using Horse as a giant, demonic pillow. Somewhere, something.
Mikey threads bits of colorful string into Horse's mane, starts to make a braid.
"You see I've been through the desert on a horse with no name," Brendon sings quietly, his head rising and falling with every breath Horse takes.
"This isn't a desert," Mikey points out reasonably. It's just dry, mostly, except for the rain and the streams, when they come. "And Horse has a name. It's Horse."
"Well, he's not exactly a horse, either," Brendon says drily. "I mean, I'm pretty sure unicorns are considered a different species."
Mikey considers the bow he's just finished tying and starts wrapping a green ribbon around Horse's horn. "I don't think they've been classified as a species, considering that they're supposed to be imaginary."
"Shh!" Brendon hisses, clapping his hands over Horse's ears. He has to lean over to do it, coming face to face with Mikey, just a bare inch away and that mostly only out of strength of will. "You'll hurt his feelings."
"Horse knows I love him." Mikey stares straight into brown eyes, leans back a little. Brendon lets go of Horse's ears and shifts back to his original position. It's a warm night; Mikey doesn't feel cold in the empty places where Brendon used to be.
"How did you get Horse, anyway?" Brendon wonders. "I mean, as far as I know demon unicorns don't just drop out of the sky."
Not like you did, Mikey thinks, but he says. "He just showed up one day and started walking with us." Horse whickers, and Mikey remembers that first day when Horse had arrived, looking like something out of Gerard's head, flames burning in his eyes. Gerard had been the first to pet him and say like he knew definitively, "I think he's for you, Mikes."
"Cool," Brendon says, and starts singing again, in a voice no louder than a murmur. "It felt good to get out of the rain."
Mikey doesn't mention that Brendon loves the rain, in fact has a thing for water of all kinds so strong that Mikey suspects he's either from the desert or secretly a mermaid.
"How do you even know that song?" he asks. "You have amnesia."
Horse shifts slightly, and Brendon turns onto his side, looking at Mikey. "How do you know it?" he asks curiously. "I mean, I haven't seen any radios or anything just lying around."
Mikey considers this, dragging his fingers through the dirt. He doesn't have an answer, not really, and Brendon asks, "Where were you before you were here?"
"I was always here," Mikey says, which is at least half true, in a way, but Brendon presses, "So how'd you learn that song, then? Why do you know what a radio is and not have one? If you wash in ponds, why do you talk about showers?"
He asks the questions like he's been making a list, just watching and marking it down in his head, Curiosities About Mikey to Ponder. In this moment, he is the single most irritating person Mikey has ever known.
"I don't know," he snaps. "It doesn't matter."
Brendon shuts up, turning onto his back again and staring up at the sky. His breathing slowly matches to Horse's, and Mikey feels his own breathing, heartbeat, settle into the pattern. The earth hums in counterpoint.
"In the desert you can't remember your name," Brendon sings, finishing out the chorus. "'Cause there ain't no one for to give you no pain."
The first part is wrong, Mikey thinks. The second part might be true.
.
Another night, Brendon asks, "So where are you guys heading, anyway?"
Mikey leans back onto his pillow and looks up at the stars. He and Gerard were pointing out some of the constellations earlier, with a little help from Frank, bob and Ray. Our Lady of Sorrows, Breakfast Monkey, the Sparrows, the Feather Boa, all marked into the night sky. Brendon had squinted up like he was looking for something that wasn't there before relaxing and tracing the shapes Mikey and Gerard were explaining, against the sky with his fingers. Occasionally he would interrupt to say, "I'm totally not seeing it," or, "Seriously, the Feather Boa?" or, "No, you see right there, it's totally spelling out sex, like in the Lion King."
"There's this black wall," Mikey says. "On the horizon? And we have to get there."
Brendon doesn't say, "That thing? But it doesn't get any closer," just, "I hope you get there."
"Maybe we will," Mikey says.
Brendon yawns and wraps an arm around Mikey's waist, snuggling in as he falls asleep. "Night, Mikey."
"Night," Mikey says, and closes his eyes.
.
"I like him," Gerard says the next day, watching Frank and Brendon use Ray and Bob for shields as they, laughing hysterically, try to tackle each other to the ground. "I like him better than all those girls."
"Yeah," Mikey says vaguely. Brendon climbs up Bob, clinging desperately to his head as Bob begins swearing good-naturedly and trying to pull Brendon off. Ray reaches up to hit Brendon's ribs, trying vaguely to get him to defend himself so he'll let go, as Frank laughs at all of them.
"I'm helping!" they hear Ray protest in response to Bob's growl, because Brendon squirms a lot when he gets hit and just clings on tighter.
"Dude, you're so not," Frank says, and starts poking Ray until Ray gives up and runs off, back to Gerard and Mikey and away from Frank's evil fingers.
"Hey," he says, dropping down next to them. The dust rises in a small cloud from the impact, but his pants don't get dirty. "Secret Way conference?"
Gerard shrugs. "We were talking about Brendon."
"He's cool," Ray says, watching Frank try to climb Bob as well, with Brendon alternately helping him and trying to push him off. "Is he staying?"
"All the girls left," Mikey says flatly, lying back with his hands behind his head. The sky is such a pale blue it's almost white today, with fleeting wisps of cloud darting across.
"Yeah, but he's not like the girls," Ray points out, sticking his fingers in his hair so he can scratch his head briefly. "He's not fading."
"No," Mikey says, and Gerard looks thoughtful. Bob finally manages to get Brendon off him; he falls to the ground with a thump, and almost immediately is on his feet again, heading for their small enclave.
"Hey," he says, sitting down next to Mikey and letting his head fall back onto Mikey's stomach. Brendon has this thing about touch, namely that he likes it a lot. Mikey's getting used to it, getting to like it, maybe.
"Hey," Mikey says, feeling the texture of Brendon's hair against his shirt, the weight of Brendon's head on his stomach. "You admit defeat?"
Brendon laughs, and Mikey closes his eyes and stops thinking so much.
Later that night, when everyone's curled up in their blankets and bedrolls, close enough to reach out but far enough away that they have their own space, Mikey asks in a sleepy murmur, "Are you going to stay?"
"Can I?" Brendon asks, and Mikey knows him well enough by now to picture what his face looks like: his eyes wide, messy hair falling across his forehead, mouth starting to form the hint of a smile. A hopeful smile, he thinks, maybe, but he doesn't want to presume.
"Yeah," Mikey says, and means it. Brendon sighs contentedly and shifts so he's closer to Mikey. Mikey reaches out and wraps his arm around Brendon's waist.
.
The thing is that Mikey wasn't lying when he said he's always been here, but he also was. He has hazy memories of it, fuzzy recollections of when Bob wasn't there and Matt was, even more distant ones of when there was no Matt, no Ray, no caravan, really. Only Gerard.
But sometimes when he's sleeping or thinking about nothing in particular, he sees clouded images of crowds and parties and everything he knows about but has never seen here. He's always been here, but he doesn't think he was ever meant to be here, not fully, not at the expense of everything he remembers without knowing why.
There's a balance, he thinks, between how here you can be and how there you are, and he crossed it a while ago. He just needs to get to the black wall, eventually. That's all.
.
"So what're you going to do when you get there?" Brendon wonders one day, lying on his stomach and looking at the wall in the distance. Horse nudges him with a jet-black nose, and Brendon starts to pet him without really thinking about it.
"What, the wall?" Mikey clarifies, leaning back on his elbows. The sun is almost finished setting, just the last traces of pink and red fading into greyish blue. It's getting hard to see the wall; it'll be impossible in a few hours.
"Yeah. I mean, do you have an idea or anything? Is it solid? Is it shiny?" Brendon rolls onto his back and looks at Mikey. "Why do you need to go there?"
Mikey shrugs. "I just do." He shifts onto his side so he can meet Brendon's eyes. Horse, lying down next to them, flicks his tail absently. "Maybe we can walk through."
"Me too?"
Mikey just rolls his eyes. "Don't be a moron, of course you're coming."
Brendon laughs. "Sweet." He grabs Mikey's hand, squeezing for a moment before dropping it and scrambling to his feet. "Hey, think Ray would let me braid his hair?"
"No," Mikey says, standing up much more slowly than Brendon had. "Also, you're a girl."
"Hey!" Brendon protests, grinning. "Coming from the guy who likes to put feathers and shit in Horse's mane. Come on, maybe Ray will let you braid ribbons in." He grabs Mikey's hand again and starts dragging him over. Mikey smiles and lets him.
.
Mikey doesn't keep track of time, so he can't say how long it is before Brendon starts regaining his memories.
Not fully, not completely, but it's still there, still makes Brendon frown and chew his lip. Gerard flutters over him concernedly and Frank teases him back into smiling again and Ray talks to him for a while and Bob just sits with him, both of them quiet, and Mikey - Mikey just waits for it all to be over, so that things can go back to normal and everyone else can stop worrying that Brendon's going to disappear.
"I just," Brendon says, rubbing his forehead and trying to smile at Mikey. "I don't know. I don't even know what it is. It's just flashes of something else."
It's been a couple months, maybe? Since Brendon came. And maybe the sun doesn't come out when Brendon smiles, but Horse definitely changed the color of the flame in his eyes from red to bubblegum pink, and that counts, even if it just looks creepy. It counts, Mikey thinks.
"What do you remember?" Ray asks curiously, and Mikey doesn't care.
"Three guys, mostly," Brendon says, still frowning like he's got a headache, like he's trying to pull something out of a dream. "One of them is really skinny and kind of looks like a girl."
"Mikey's skinny and could pass for a girl," Gerard says abruptly, smiling slightly. "We could pretend."
Brendon shakes his head helplessly. "I can't. It doesn't - I don't fit here."
Bob says, "Don't be an idiot," and Brendon looks like he wants to cry.
"I don't - it storms a lot, there." Brendon pulls out a wan smile, and Mikey wants to say, it could storm here. We could make it storm, here.
.
That night, when they're settling down to sleep, their sleeping bags moved just a little farther away from everyone else, Mikey asks quietly, "Are you going to leave?"
He thinks he knows Brendon well enough, now, to guess the expression on his face: eyes down, mouth curved unhappily. If the sun was out, his eyelashes would be casting long shadows on his cheekbones. "I think I have to."
"No you don't," Mikey whispers harshly, because, "You said. You said you wouldn't."
Brendon has the opportunity to say something terrible and patronising like, "People can't always keep their promises," but instead he just sighs miserably and says, "Yeah."
When Mikey reaches out an arm to tug Brendon closer, Brendon kisses him softly, just their mouths sliding together with hardly any pressure at all, at first. It turns out to be good that they're sleeping away from everyone else, tonight.
.
"Hey," Brendon says the next day, and he looks tense even though he was relaxed when he woke up in the morning. "I think. Um, I think this is it."
"What?" Mikey says, because he doesn't think it could actually be happening that quickly. They both need more time to angst, need more time to spend nights sleeping out of earshot of everyone else. It's not - they're not ready yet. He's not ready yet. He needs to bitch more about this before he actually takes it in, because Brendon wasn't like all the girls and he said and now he's going.
Horse whickers unhappily, scuffing a hoof along the ground. It leaves a small ditch at least five inches deep.
"I'll see you," Brendon says firmly, and he pulls Gerard, Frank, Ray, Bob into a hug before he comes back to Mikey and kisses him just once. "Promise. I mean it this time. On the other side, okay?"
It's tense, waiting, but they don't have to wait too long.
When Brendon has disappeared as suddenly as he arrived, Mikey says, "We're not stopping tonight," and climbs inside the caravan. He doesn't hear any argument, but maybe he just stopped listening.
Gerard climbs in after him and just sits with him for a while. Eventually, everyone else piles in, and they fall into restless sleep, hands absently flung out to make sure nobody's disappeared. Mikey's holding Gerard's shoulder, Ray's ankle, but it's not as comforting as it should be.
.
Mikey wakes up first the next morning, and when the others stumble out of the caravan he's standing there, resting his elbow on Horse's spine, staring out to the curved edge where the world almost ends. There's a smear of black, just on that horizon.
"Hey," Mikey says when Gerard is standing next to him, Frank rummaging in their packs a couple feet away, Ray rubbing his eyes sleepily, Bob leaning against the other side of Horse. Mikey nods at the black wall. "I think it's closer today."
Author: DF
Fandom: MCR, PatD
Pairing: Mikey/Brendon, vague Frank/Gerard
Summary: An almost AU. First Gerard gets sick, and then Mikey. Just when Mikey's starting to get better, too, they find the boy.
Notes: This is... kind of odd? If you have any questions about what the hell is going on, just ask.
Disclaimer: Seriously? Never happened. Really.
First Gerard gets sick, and then Mikey. It's bad when Gerard gets sick; it rains all the time, and everyone slows down and speeds up, simultaneously, and even Horse loses a little of the fire in his eye. Mikey can feel himself getting sick while Gerard gets better. He tries to put it aside for as long as possible, but here, especially, he can't ignore himself for too long. He gets sick.
Just when Mikey's starting to get better, too, they meet the boy. They're walking alongside the caravan - it's not a caravan, not really; more like the skeleton of a bus, long shards of metal rising up to form a vague shape, cloth pinned up inside to keep out the light. The jags of metal on the outside are decorated with bits of bright fabric twined through them, a few pieces of rope, a feather boa Gerard picked up somewhere. It's a gaudy mess, with fog where there should be wheels and no discernible doors. Horse pulls it, slowly, because a lot of the time they walk; it's not like they're going for speed, at this point. Not like speed matters.
Horse doesn't step on the boy, but it's a near thing. He stops just short and howls, a sound you wouldn't think a unicorn would make, not even a demon one.
"The fuck?" Gerard mutters, stepping around to see what's going on. Mikey, still unwilling to face the sun for long periods of time, pulls himself out of the caravan, standing on the slight ledge and peering over Horse.
"Huh," Frank says, crouching down to get a better look at the boy. "Where the fuck did he come from?"
The boy is sprawled face down on the ground, his back moving slightly, just enough to show that he's breathing. His arms are bent, his hands palm down, fingers spread.
Ray and Frank turn him over and brush some of the dust off. Mikey levers himself off the ledge and gets his feet on the ground, running a hand absently over Horse's back. Horse sighs and tosses his head pointedly.
"Up?" Mikey suggests, following Horse's suggestion, and Bob says, "I'll grab him."
"Wait!" Gerard says, throwing a hand out. "We don't even know who he is, god, we can't just -"
"It's not like it matters, here," Mikey says blandly, and Gerard makes a face. The sky, which had been beginning to darken, just the hint of rainclouds, clears up, not to a blue but an unresisting white.
"It could," Gerard tries, a last resort, but Bob is already picking the boy up. He hangs limp in Bob's arms, too thin, just like Mikey. Gerard sighs. "He going to ride?"
"Well, it's not like he can walk," Mikey points out, and climbs back inside.
It's dark in the tent, darker than you'd think a couple yards of cloth would make it. Gerard and Mikey are both pale from it, spending too much time inside taking care of each other and being taken care of.
He hears Bob clambering up onto the ledge and walking inside the caravan, still holding the boy. Mikey gestures to the pile of blankets and pillows that serves as a bed whenever they sleep inside, curls himself up into the corner. He still doesn't feel like walking, not yet.
He knows Bob's nodding at him, even if he's not looking to see it. "I'm gonna go walk now; you ever come out, I'll give you a ride."
Mikey smirks. "Thanks," he says, but he won't take him up on it, not today. He hears Bob climb down again, feels Horse start moving now that his path is cleared of all obstacles.
Mikey looks at the boy again, just an unconcerned glance. He's not worried about anything; Horse won't let anything happen, he thinks. That's what Gerard told him, back when Horse first appeared, just like the boy except less incongruous, somehow. Horse fits. The boy doesn't, and that's why Gerard is so worried, probably, but Mikey's not planning on getting hurt.
.
The boy wakes up later that afternoon, coughing slightly and frowning, blinking his eyes open.
"Hey," Mikey says, looking up.
"Hey," the boy rasps out. "Fuck." He doesn't ask where he is, which might be a good thing; Mikey's not too sure he could answer.
"Water?" Mikey wonders, tossing over a bottle. It's dry today, has been for the past week or so. Their stores of water are getting low, but nobody's particularly worried. They'll find more; they always do, just in time.
"Thanks," the boy says, drinking it down. In the dark, Mikey can barely see his throat move as he swallows. "Sorry."
"For what?" Mikey doesn't always believe in apologies. Gerard does, all the time, except when he refuses to admit that he's done something wrong. Mikey generally forgives him anyway; they all do.
"I'm not sure." The boy laughs, the rasp dissipating. "Stealing your water. Making you pick me up. Unless you kidnapped me, in which case I'm not really sorry."
"You were lying on the ground," Mikey says without emotion, taking the bottle when the boy passes it back. "We thought it'd be kind of mean to leave you there."
"Thanks, then." The boy smiles; it almost isn't visible. Mikey thinks he wouldn't mind seeing it in the light, sometime.
"So how'd you get there?"
The boy shrugs helplessly. "I don't remember. I don't remember any of it."
"Nothing?" Mikey asks curiously, because he's still wondering how the boy ended up directly on their path, miles from anything, when apparently none of the walkers had seen him before Horse almost stepped on him.
"Well, one thing." Mikey waits through the pause for it, and the boy tells him, "I'm Brendon."
"Mikey," he says, and the boy smiles again, just another flash of movement in the dark.
.
Brendon doesn't remember anything specific except his name and waking up in the caravan, he tells Mikey in bits and pieces, digressing and wandering over the entire conversation. He's easily distracted, apparently, but Mikey's good at hearing the important bits and discarding the rest.
"It's funny," Brendon says thoughtfully, "you'd think if I really had, like, full-blown amnesia I wouldn't remember how to speak or what words mean or whatever, but I do. I mean, I remember what amnesia is. And -" He stops for a moment. Mikey can practically hear him trying to think of an example; he might be frowning in concentration, but there's no way of knowing for sure. "I don't know, how storms feel, and stuff?"
"Storms?" Mikey wonders, because it doesn't storm much, here. The closest it gets is a miserable, drizzly rain that goes on for days without pause and turns the dust underneath their feet into sticky mud that pulls at their shoes every time they take a step.
"Yeah," Brendon says wistfully, reminiscently, "you can just sit there for hours in the rain and not say anything. Really hard rain, too. And lightning. One time lightning struck like two feet away from me, it was so awesome."
If lightning ever strikes near you, Mikey knows, you should crouch and make as many half circles with the ground as possible. Dirt touching toes, heels touching heels in the air. That's one. Hands braced on the ground, thumbs connecting; that's two. And so on; the lightning that hits the earth will go up, through and back down where the half circle meets the ground again. He doesn't think Brendon bothered.
"God," Brendon says, still happily caught in the memory. "Does it storm here?"
"Not really," Mikey says, imagining Brendon in the rain, mud creeping up the sides of his legs, rain beading in his hair, his clothes soaked through. He can see lightning striking almost within arms' reach and Brendon sitting, not moving. Water in his eyelashes, running off the end of his nose, collecting in his collarbones. "Did it storm a lot, where you were?"
Brendon hesitates, and Mikey sees a flicker of movement that might be Brendon shrugging helplessly. "I don't know," he says finally. "I can't remember."
So Brendon likes storms, and he's been in them often enough to remember it, at least. Mikey would write it down if he were taking notes. Brendon hums a lot and taps his hands to the beat, but he never seems to know what song it is. He's got all his language memory; Mikey casually starts dropping harder and harder words into his sentences, just to see how much he remembers. Brendon doesn't seem phased by any of them, at least not until Mikey starts getting to words like absquatulate and defenestration, which, okay. And fuck, those were hard to slip into conversation.
It's not like it really matters, anyway. Mikey just wants to pass the time.
.
Really, Brendon's not the first stranger they've met; other people have traveled with them before, flitted here and away again. Brendon's just the most sudden. The others come from a long way off and fade gradually, until you look over one day to realise that instead of being able to see through them you can't see them at all. They're not important.
There haven't been as many since Horse appeared; a couple girls here and there, their hair thick against Mikey's fingers but hazy when he turned to look at it straight on.
It's not like he didn't enjoy it, while it lasted. It just never lasted for very long.
"Dinner!" Frank yells, startling Mikey out of his thoughts. He sits up and looks vaguely in the direction where Brendon might be.
"Come on," he says, starting to get up.
"Are you sure?" Brendon asks, and Mikey rolls his eyes even though nobody can see it.
"Yeah," he says, climbing out of the caravan. Brendon follows him without a sound.
It's getting dark outside, but not nearly as dark as it was inside, and Mikey blinks as his eyes adjust to the change in light. He takes the moment to look over at Brendon, standing there with his hands in his pockets, vividly outlined by the fading sun, so real he's almost not real at all.
"Food!" Frank calls out impatiently, smacking his hand against the side of the pot and hissing as he burns himself. Gerard grabs Frank's wrist and looks at his palm concernedly.
"I could go for food," Brendon admits. One hand comes up to brush the dust off his shirt. He tries to get it out of his hair, as well, but he just succeeds in spreading it all over the place, frosting his hair with silvery brown. "And a shower, but that's probbaly not going to be happening any time soon."
"Man, don't talk to Mikey about showers!" Ray hoots, lounging by the fire with Bob. "He and Gerard barely know what they are."
Frank, ignoring Gerard's protestations, agrees, "It's true. And kind of gross." His singed hand is still clasped in Gerard's, but he offers Brendon his unburned hand to shake. "I'm Frank."
Mikey watches the introductions and tries to remember how Gerard, Ray, Frank, and Bob acted around the girls, but it's too hard to remember the girls at all.
.
They stumble across a stream the very next day. Well, stream isn't precisely the right word; it's not one of the streams they come across when they need to replenish their water supply, it's a deep pool with an attached river to keep a current going, keep the water from getting too stagnant. It's the sort of thing they find when their state of cleanliness, or lack thereof, has become unbearable.
Stumble across isn't the right phrase, either. From what Mikey can gather, a slightly more accurate description would be that Frank noticed the stream - pond, whatever - whooped in delight, and immediately got the unanimous cooperation of Ray and Bob to push Gerard in.
When Mikey climbs out of the caravan to see what all the noise is about, he sees Gerard sitting on the bank, soaking wet and pouting. Bob looks at Mikey thoughtfully.
"Oh, no," Mikey says, backing up and holding his hands out. "Don't you fucking dare."
"Dare what?" Brendon asks from behind him, and when Mikey spins around, Ray takes advantage of his distraction to grab him by the shoulders. Ray is a fucking ninja.
"I blame you," Mikey tells Brendon, trying to struggle against Ray's hold. It's no use; Frank is distracted by trying to forcibly wash Gerard's hair, but Bob is coming over to them. "I'll go in on my own! Seriously!"
"You'll dip a toe in," Ray corrects him cheerfully as Bob picks up his legs. Ray staggers a little bit as they lift Mikey off the ground, lets go for a terrifying second to adjust his hold.
"What's the matter, afraid of being clean?" Brendon teases. Mikey glares at him, and he at least has the decency to look slightly abashed.
"It doesn't matter, he doesn't have a choice," Bob says mildly, just before throwing Mikey in the pond.
"I hate you all," Mikey mutters. He's not a delicate flower like Frank says he is, okay, it's just fucking cold. "Are you guys coming in, or what?"
"Of course," Ray says innocently, sitting down and dipping his feet into the water. "I just thought I'd go in slowly, get used to it."
"Asshole," Mikey says, and Frank adds, "Wimp!" before jumping in. He comes up in a half second, shakes the water out of his hair and ears, and pulls Gerard farther in.
"We're totally getting revenge on you guys later," Gerard promises, and the sun is behind a cloud but the sky stays clear and blue. They know he doesn't really mean it, even if Mikey does glower and nod.
Brendon just stands on the ground, alternating between laughing and trying to hold it back, and Mikey just says, "Come on, what are you waiting for?"
Brendon looks surprised as he asks, "What?" like he doesn't get what Mikey is saying, and maybe he doesn't; Mikey generally expects everyone to understand, here, and for some reason he keeps on forgetting that Brendon turned up yesterday.
"Well, you wanted to get clean, didn't you?" Mikey asks. Bob's already gone off to get the soap, shampoo.
Brendon smiles, and by all rights the sun should come out from behind the clouds, but it doesn't. There are implications, levels to this, but Mikey just concentrates on getting clean. After a second, Brendon joins him, laughing at the way Gerard is determinedly attempting to tug Ray into the water, with Frank clinging to his back and hampering his efforts.
Bob comes back and says, "Right. Good luck, Gerard."
"Mikey!" Gerard protests, trying to one-handedly pull Frank off of him. "Help!"
"Sorry," Mikey says blandly, because if he helps Gerard then Frank will cling to him, too, and Frank is impossible to peel away. "You're on your own."
"Sometimes a glorious retreat is the best course of action," Brendon advises, grinning at Mikey. Mikey was right; he really doesn't mind seeing it in the daylight, after all.
.
They go on, just like always, and they never get any closer. Mikey doesn't think about it too much, tries not to. It turns out to be surprisingly easy to ignore.
He and Brendon move out of the caravan and start walking with the others. He's missed it, after being sick. He feels like Brendon's missed it, too, the easy walking and talking, just hanging out without any particular aim, feels like he knows this even though Brendon doesn't remember enough to have ever had it before.
Brendon doesn't remember anything else new, really, but he loves water and he smetimes talks a lot and sometimes doesn't talk for hours, and he gets along well with - everyone. Gets along well with Mikey.
They're not getting closer, but Mikey never stops the caravan, never says that they should take a break of more than an hour for lunch, dinner, a night for sleep if they don't pile together in the caravan. They're not getting any closer, but if Mikey stops he thinks they'll only get farther away.
.
"Mm," Brendon hums, curled up against Horse. They're stopping for the night; Gerard and Frank are off somewhere and Ray and Bob are talking about something, and Brendon and Mikey are using Horse as a giant, demonic pillow. Somewhere, something.
Mikey threads bits of colorful string into Horse's mane, starts to make a braid.
"You see I've been through the desert on a horse with no name," Brendon sings quietly, his head rising and falling with every breath Horse takes.
"This isn't a desert," Mikey points out reasonably. It's just dry, mostly, except for the rain and the streams, when they come. "And Horse has a name. It's Horse."
"Well, he's not exactly a horse, either," Brendon says drily. "I mean, I'm pretty sure unicorns are considered a different species."
Mikey considers the bow he's just finished tying and starts wrapping a green ribbon around Horse's horn. "I don't think they've been classified as a species, considering that they're supposed to be imaginary."
"Shh!" Brendon hisses, clapping his hands over Horse's ears. He has to lean over to do it, coming face to face with Mikey, just a bare inch away and that mostly only out of strength of will. "You'll hurt his feelings."
"Horse knows I love him." Mikey stares straight into brown eyes, leans back a little. Brendon lets go of Horse's ears and shifts back to his original position. It's a warm night; Mikey doesn't feel cold in the empty places where Brendon used to be.
"How did you get Horse, anyway?" Brendon wonders. "I mean, as far as I know demon unicorns don't just drop out of the sky."
Not like you did, Mikey thinks, but he says. "He just showed up one day and started walking with us." Horse whickers, and Mikey remembers that first day when Horse had arrived, looking like something out of Gerard's head, flames burning in his eyes. Gerard had been the first to pet him and say like he knew definitively, "I think he's for you, Mikes."
"Cool," Brendon says, and starts singing again, in a voice no louder than a murmur. "It felt good to get out of the rain."
Mikey doesn't mention that Brendon loves the rain, in fact has a thing for water of all kinds so strong that Mikey suspects he's either from the desert or secretly a mermaid.
"How do you even know that song?" he asks. "You have amnesia."
Horse shifts slightly, and Brendon turns onto his side, looking at Mikey. "How do you know it?" he asks curiously. "I mean, I haven't seen any radios or anything just lying around."
Mikey considers this, dragging his fingers through the dirt. He doesn't have an answer, not really, and Brendon asks, "Where were you before you were here?"
"I was always here," Mikey says, which is at least half true, in a way, but Brendon presses, "So how'd you learn that song, then? Why do you know what a radio is and not have one? If you wash in ponds, why do you talk about showers?"
He asks the questions like he's been making a list, just watching and marking it down in his head, Curiosities About Mikey to Ponder. In this moment, he is the single most irritating person Mikey has ever known.
"I don't know," he snaps. "It doesn't matter."
Brendon shuts up, turning onto his back again and staring up at the sky. His breathing slowly matches to Horse's, and Mikey feels his own breathing, heartbeat, settle into the pattern. The earth hums in counterpoint.
"In the desert you can't remember your name," Brendon sings, finishing out the chorus. "'Cause there ain't no one for to give you no pain."
The first part is wrong, Mikey thinks. The second part might be true.
.
Another night, Brendon asks, "So where are you guys heading, anyway?"
Mikey leans back onto his pillow and looks up at the stars. He and Gerard were pointing out some of the constellations earlier, with a little help from Frank, bob and Ray. Our Lady of Sorrows, Breakfast Monkey, the Sparrows, the Feather Boa, all marked into the night sky. Brendon had squinted up like he was looking for something that wasn't there before relaxing and tracing the shapes Mikey and Gerard were explaining, against the sky with his fingers. Occasionally he would interrupt to say, "I'm totally not seeing it," or, "Seriously, the Feather Boa?" or, "No, you see right there, it's totally spelling out sex, like in the Lion King."
"There's this black wall," Mikey says. "On the horizon? And we have to get there."
Brendon doesn't say, "That thing? But it doesn't get any closer," just, "I hope you get there."
"Maybe we will," Mikey says.
Brendon yawns and wraps an arm around Mikey's waist, snuggling in as he falls asleep. "Night, Mikey."
"Night," Mikey says, and closes his eyes.
.
"I like him," Gerard says the next day, watching Frank and Brendon use Ray and Bob for shields as they, laughing hysterically, try to tackle each other to the ground. "I like him better than all those girls."
"Yeah," Mikey says vaguely. Brendon climbs up Bob, clinging desperately to his head as Bob begins swearing good-naturedly and trying to pull Brendon off. Ray reaches up to hit Brendon's ribs, trying vaguely to get him to defend himself so he'll let go, as Frank laughs at all of them.
"I'm helping!" they hear Ray protest in response to Bob's growl, because Brendon squirms a lot when he gets hit and just clings on tighter.
"Dude, you're so not," Frank says, and starts poking Ray until Ray gives up and runs off, back to Gerard and Mikey and away from Frank's evil fingers.
"Hey," he says, dropping down next to them. The dust rises in a small cloud from the impact, but his pants don't get dirty. "Secret Way conference?"
Gerard shrugs. "We were talking about Brendon."
"He's cool," Ray says, watching Frank try to climb Bob as well, with Brendon alternately helping him and trying to push him off. "Is he staying?"
"All the girls left," Mikey says flatly, lying back with his hands behind his head. The sky is such a pale blue it's almost white today, with fleeting wisps of cloud darting across.
"Yeah, but he's not like the girls," Ray points out, sticking his fingers in his hair so he can scratch his head briefly. "He's not fading."
"No," Mikey says, and Gerard looks thoughtful. Bob finally manages to get Brendon off him; he falls to the ground with a thump, and almost immediately is on his feet again, heading for their small enclave.
"Hey," he says, sitting down next to Mikey and letting his head fall back onto Mikey's stomach. Brendon has this thing about touch, namely that he likes it a lot. Mikey's getting used to it, getting to like it, maybe.
"Hey," Mikey says, feeling the texture of Brendon's hair against his shirt, the weight of Brendon's head on his stomach. "You admit defeat?"
Brendon laughs, and Mikey closes his eyes and stops thinking so much.
Later that night, when everyone's curled up in their blankets and bedrolls, close enough to reach out but far enough away that they have their own space, Mikey asks in a sleepy murmur, "Are you going to stay?"
"Can I?" Brendon asks, and Mikey knows him well enough by now to picture what his face looks like: his eyes wide, messy hair falling across his forehead, mouth starting to form the hint of a smile. A hopeful smile, he thinks, maybe, but he doesn't want to presume.
"Yeah," Mikey says, and means it. Brendon sighs contentedly and shifts so he's closer to Mikey. Mikey reaches out and wraps his arm around Brendon's waist.
.
The thing is that Mikey wasn't lying when he said he's always been here, but he also was. He has hazy memories of it, fuzzy recollections of when Bob wasn't there and Matt was, even more distant ones of when there was no Matt, no Ray, no caravan, really. Only Gerard.
But sometimes when he's sleeping or thinking about nothing in particular, he sees clouded images of crowds and parties and everything he knows about but has never seen here. He's always been here, but he doesn't think he was ever meant to be here, not fully, not at the expense of everything he remembers without knowing why.
There's a balance, he thinks, between how here you can be and how there you are, and he crossed it a while ago. He just needs to get to the black wall, eventually. That's all.
.
"So what're you going to do when you get there?" Brendon wonders one day, lying on his stomach and looking at the wall in the distance. Horse nudges him with a jet-black nose, and Brendon starts to pet him without really thinking about it.
"What, the wall?" Mikey clarifies, leaning back on his elbows. The sun is almost finished setting, just the last traces of pink and red fading into greyish blue. It's getting hard to see the wall; it'll be impossible in a few hours.
"Yeah. I mean, do you have an idea or anything? Is it solid? Is it shiny?" Brendon rolls onto his back and looks at Mikey. "Why do you need to go there?"
Mikey shrugs. "I just do." He shifts onto his side so he can meet Brendon's eyes. Horse, lying down next to them, flicks his tail absently. "Maybe we can walk through."
"Me too?"
Mikey just rolls his eyes. "Don't be a moron, of course you're coming."
Brendon laughs. "Sweet." He grabs Mikey's hand, squeezing for a moment before dropping it and scrambling to his feet. "Hey, think Ray would let me braid his hair?"
"No," Mikey says, standing up much more slowly than Brendon had. "Also, you're a girl."
"Hey!" Brendon protests, grinning. "Coming from the guy who likes to put feathers and shit in Horse's mane. Come on, maybe Ray will let you braid ribbons in." He grabs Mikey's hand again and starts dragging him over. Mikey smiles and lets him.
.
Mikey doesn't keep track of time, so he can't say how long it is before Brendon starts regaining his memories.
Not fully, not completely, but it's still there, still makes Brendon frown and chew his lip. Gerard flutters over him concernedly and Frank teases him back into smiling again and Ray talks to him for a while and Bob just sits with him, both of them quiet, and Mikey - Mikey just waits for it all to be over, so that things can go back to normal and everyone else can stop worrying that Brendon's going to disappear.
"I just," Brendon says, rubbing his forehead and trying to smile at Mikey. "I don't know. I don't even know what it is. It's just flashes of something else."
It's been a couple months, maybe? Since Brendon came. And maybe the sun doesn't come out when Brendon smiles, but Horse definitely changed the color of the flame in his eyes from red to bubblegum pink, and that counts, even if it just looks creepy. It counts, Mikey thinks.
"What do you remember?" Ray asks curiously, and Mikey doesn't care.
"Three guys, mostly," Brendon says, still frowning like he's got a headache, like he's trying to pull something out of a dream. "One of them is really skinny and kind of looks like a girl."
"Mikey's skinny and could pass for a girl," Gerard says abruptly, smiling slightly. "We could pretend."
Brendon shakes his head helplessly. "I can't. It doesn't - I don't fit here."
Bob says, "Don't be an idiot," and Brendon looks like he wants to cry.
"I don't - it storms a lot, there." Brendon pulls out a wan smile, and Mikey wants to say, it could storm here. We could make it storm, here.
.
That night, when they're settling down to sleep, their sleeping bags moved just a little farther away from everyone else, Mikey asks quietly, "Are you going to leave?"
He thinks he knows Brendon well enough, now, to guess the expression on his face: eyes down, mouth curved unhappily. If the sun was out, his eyelashes would be casting long shadows on his cheekbones. "I think I have to."
"No you don't," Mikey whispers harshly, because, "You said. You said you wouldn't."
Brendon has the opportunity to say something terrible and patronising like, "People can't always keep their promises," but instead he just sighs miserably and says, "Yeah."
When Mikey reaches out an arm to tug Brendon closer, Brendon kisses him softly, just their mouths sliding together with hardly any pressure at all, at first. It turns out to be good that they're sleeping away from everyone else, tonight.
.
"Hey," Brendon says the next day, and he looks tense even though he was relaxed when he woke up in the morning. "I think. Um, I think this is it."
"What?" Mikey says, because he doesn't think it could actually be happening that quickly. They both need more time to angst, need more time to spend nights sleeping out of earshot of everyone else. It's not - they're not ready yet. He's not ready yet. He needs to bitch more about this before he actually takes it in, because Brendon wasn't like all the girls and he said and now he's going.
Horse whickers unhappily, scuffing a hoof along the ground. It leaves a small ditch at least five inches deep.
"I'll see you," Brendon says firmly, and he pulls Gerard, Frank, Ray, Bob into a hug before he comes back to Mikey and kisses him just once. "Promise. I mean it this time. On the other side, okay?"
It's tense, waiting, but they don't have to wait too long.
When Brendon has disappeared as suddenly as he arrived, Mikey says, "We're not stopping tonight," and climbs inside the caravan. He doesn't hear any argument, but maybe he just stopped listening.
Gerard climbs in after him and just sits with him for a while. Eventually, everyone else piles in, and they fall into restless sleep, hands absently flung out to make sure nobody's disappeared. Mikey's holding Gerard's shoulder, Ray's ankle, but it's not as comforting as it should be.
.
Mikey wakes up first the next morning, and when the others stumble out of the caravan he's standing there, resting his elbow on Horse's spine, staring out to the curved edge where the world almost ends. There's a smear of black, just on that horizon.
"Hey," Mikey says when Gerard is standing next to him, Frank rummaging in their packs a couple feet away, Ray rubbing his eyes sleepily, Bob leaning against the other side of Horse. Mikey nods at the black wall. "I think it's closer today."