She's the answer to the silence - Mikey/Ray - 1/1
Title: She’s the answer to the silence
Pairing/Prompt: 41 - Mikey/Ray - taking care of Grace - this was written for the no_tags 2012 round!
Rating: PG
Warnings: None
Notes: Thank you to both of my amazing betas slashxyouxup littlblackghost ♥
When the news beaks over the radio one blistering afternoon they don’t know how to feel. The five of them have become so used to the hot and sticky desert, the run-down diner and the life they have built for themselves that when the unfamiliar voice crackles over the radio, they don’t know how to feel. Shocked, mostly.
They sit there in silence for a few moments just playing the announcement over again in their heads before Frank finally breaks the silence.
“They’re gone.” He whispers, his eyes still wide and staring at the radio as if he can see the words that they had just heard.
“We’ve been out here what, five years and they have only just worked out how to overthrow the them?” Gerard continues, something in his voice suggesting that he’s slightly angry with the news. Maybe he’s been happy enough living in the desert, fighting Dracs and taking care of one another the way they know how.
Mikey sighs and lets his hand drop down from the table on to the leather booth seat, searching for Ray’s hand. He finds it a few moments later and lets his fingers close around his boyfriend’s, squeezing gently.
“What does this mean for us?” Ray asks as he reciprocates Mikey’s hand squeeze, letting his fingers tighten before he strokes the pad of his thumb across his boyfriend’s knuckles.
“We wait, carry on with our lives until something else comes up.” Gerard answers. He reaches over to turn the radio up a little more before sinking back in to the booth, resting his head against Frank’s shoulder and closes his eyes for a moment.
The next announcement arrives a few days later. Frank and Gerard are out on a supply run and as the strange voice crackles over the radio again (which has been switched on since the first message days ago) Mikey runs across the diner and slides in to the booth, calling Ray in to the room. He hears Ray tell Grace to carry on drawing without him for a moment as he comes striding in to the room, knowing something is up.
“Another broadcast?” Ray asks as he slides in to the booth next to Mikey who just nods, moving closer to the radio to listen closer to what is being said.
Frank and Gerard walk through the doors of the diner just as the broadcast finished looping a couple of times. Mikey and Ray are still sat at the booth, looking a little shell shocked.
“What’s happened?” Gerard asks as he quickly sets the box of tinned food down on the counter and heads over to the booth, Frank following him.
“They’re moving us.” Mikey declares and Gerard’s eyes grow wide. “They’ve got rooms, like, apartments for the ones that were left out here during the occupation.” Mikey continues, trying to explain what the broadcast had said and what they should be expecting.
“What? Why? ” Gerard asks completely baffled and obviously struggling to process the information. They were happy out in the desert.
“They want to give the people left out here a chance. A chance to rebuild their lives, eat right again. At least that’s what they said on the broadcast. They want to save us.” Mikey voices and flinches a little as Gerard scoffs kicks at the metal leg of the table.
“They want to save us? They are only a couple years too late.” He spits because they really are fuckin’ years too late. Now, they have managed to take care of themselves, fight the hundreds of Dracs they had come in to contact with and managed to feed and take care of a young child, Grace.
“So they know we’re out here?” Frank pipes up and questions because he was sure they were too far out for anybody to know they were there, apart from the Dracs of course. It was a miracle they had never followed them back to base, had never managed to work out just where they were.
“Yeah, they said that they are working from zone 6 inwards, housing anybody that has been out here in the desert.” Mikey continues and he tries to ignore his brother’s face that is starting to show signs of anger. He knows that Gerard has worked his damn hardest over the years to try and make the diner feel more like home, somewhere that they could feel safe away from the Dracs and the zone wars, where they could help take care of Grace and look out for one another. The diner was their safe haven, their home that they had come to love and now to learn that Better Living were gone, that the last Drac they fought was long gone was unsettling for them all. It was the unknown, the uncertainty that Mikey knew Gerard didn’t like because here in the diner, it was all set. They had their routine that consisted of supply runs, the odd Drac fights but mostly hanging around the diner, taking care of Grace and working on the Trans-am. The possibility of all of their hard work, the familiarity of the diner and the desert slipping away unnerved them all.
“I think this could be good for us.” Ray admits as he looks over to Mikey. “Think about it, Grace is going to get the chance to have some-what of a normal childhood, like weall had. Don’t you think she deserves that?”
Mikey smiles over to Ray and nods. Of course she deserves the chance to be a normal kid, the chance to have something more to do with her day then hang around the humid diner, drawing on scraps of paper they had managed to pick up on supply runs along with the odd sharpie. Of course she deserves more, a better life with a real kids room, a real bed and a family home. Ever since finding Grace when she was a small child in the zones, it had become Mikey and Ray’s responsibility for some reason. As soon as they had taken her back to the diner and started to take care of her, she had become so fond of Ray. He would be the one to put her to bed of a night on the beat up mattress, covering her with his jacket so that she was warm. Mikey fell in love with her too, but also fell in love with the way that his boyfriend was with her. Since then, it had become some-what of an unwritten rule that Grace was Mikey and Ray’s responsibility, that she was theirs to take care of. Frank and Gerard helped, of course they did but when drawing pictures, Grace would always illustrate that Mikey and Ray were like her Daddies, and that Uncle Frank and Uncle Gerard liked to take care of her too, sometimes. She never so much as called them by the title, but she often liked to point out that this was the best family she could ever have.
“There aren’t many out there in zone 6, which means they should get to us pretty quick.” Frank mentions and looks to Gerard who is nodding.
“So what do we do now, wait?” Ray asks and Mikey nods back.
“Yeah, that’s what the broadcast said.”
-
That night after Ray has tucked Grace in to bed in the garage for the night he wanders back out in the main room of the diner in search of his boyfriend. He looks around and can only find Frank and Gerard who are sprawled across the tables, talking about some epic fight they were remembering they’d had with a particularly sadistic Drac once. They liked to do that often, lay together at night and recite all of the fights they’d had, all of the near misses and near death experiences they had all encountered. Ray laughed to himself quietly as he hears Frank start to make crazy Jedi noises, simulating a lightsaber and then the sound of a Drac exploding. Ray walks through the diner and out through the main doors. He can already see Mikey in the backseat of the car.
“Hey you.” Ray speaks as he opens the car door and climbs over the front seat and in to the back with Mikey, who scoots over to make more room. Mikey smiles and adjusts himself so that there is more room for Ray to sit comfortably before he scoots back over, letting Ray wrap an arm around his shoulders and resting his head on his chest.
“Hey.” Mikey mumbles in to Ray’s dirty shirt and lets his arm rest on his belly, picking at the shirt a little. Ray’s shirts all have chunks out of them, all in the stomach area with thanks to Mikey. When he gets a little nervous or he’s tired, Ray lets him fall in to this position and he picks at the shirt, pulling the strands of dirty cotton and forming small holes at first which for some reason always turn in to gigantic holes that Ray finds hard to then cover his belly.
“Should we tell Grace yet?” Mikey asks and looks up to Ray who is already looking down at him. Ray leans down and places a few gentle kisses on Mikey’s forehead. He hums against his skin before pulling back, resting his chin on the top of his head.
“I think so, she should know what’s going on. Remember the last time we tried to hide the bruises from a run in with a Drac? She was so pissed with us.”
Mikey snorted. “Yeah, she’s far too smart y’know. Been hanging around with you too long.”
Ray smiles and kisses Mikey’s head again, pulling him in to his chest a little more.
“I don’t want to tell her and have her get her hopes up. What if it doesn’t happen?” Ray questions because that is the last thing he would want to do.
“I think it’s going to happen, baby.” Mikey whispers. “We’re going to have an apartment. With a real bed.” he reveals, not quite believing his words.
Ray grins. “We get to live like normal people again. With a bed, a shower, a kitchen…fuck. You know how to cook, right?” Ray asks because he has totally forgotten how to prepare a normal meal.
Mikey laughs. “I used to burn toast, remember?”
Ray groans. “Grace is going to be cooking for us, isn’t she?”
“Yeah, probably…” Mikey answers with a lazy smile because maybe this wasn’t going to be so bad after all.
The next morning when Grace is sat at the booth eating her breakfast (they always manage to find her something to eat other than tinned) when Ray and Mikey sit down next to her, nervous but excited to tell her what’s going on.
“Gracy, baby?” Ray speaks and she looks up with wide eyes, not stopping eating her breakfast to talk though.
“Mm?”
“We have something to tell you” he speaks and Grace settles her spoon down on the table and stops eating this time, looking at Mikey and Ray with her large dark eyes.
“You remember the bad people that try and find us, don’t you?” Mikey asks gently because of course she knows who the Dracs and Better Living are but actually talking to her about it is too hard.
Grace rolls her eyes “Of course I know who they are, I’m not silly.” She states in a matter of fact kind of voice that makes Mikey smirk because she really is the most amazing little girl he’s ever met.
“They’re gone, baby.” Ray finally admits and Grace scrunches her eyebrows together in confusion.
“The baddies are gone?” Grace asks and they both nod. Mikey extends his arm out and wraps it around Grace’s shoulders, pulling her in to his chest.
“Yeah, they’re gone. This means we get to move from the diner and in to a real house.” Ray continues, tag teaming with Mikey to tell her the news.
Grace’s eyes light up but then suddenly her face falls. “Are we going to get to live together still?”
Mikey leans down and places a kiss on the top of her head, her dark curls falling across her face. “Of course we are, me you and Ray and then Gee and Frankie.”
“So we get to move in to a real house and there aren’t any bad guys after us no more?” Grace asks and Mikey and Ray both nod to confirm. She smiles wide and hums before picking her spoon up and continues to eat her breakfast.
Mikey and Ray look at one another from across the table with a small smile across their lips, suddenly excited for the unknown.
-
It’s a week later when they arrive and Gerard’s face is still as pissed off as the week before. They turn up early on a Tuesday morning, two large blacked out cars. They are all wary of first because any official figures are something that have taught themselves to avoid for the past years. After valid credentials are shown Frank and Gerard allow Mikey and Ray to sort Grace out, getting her things together (not that she has much) and give them time to get her in to the car with them. The first car with the three of them starts to roll away before Frank and Gerard have even carried their things out front.
As Frank heaves a trash bag of their few possessions out from the diner Gerard follows, closing the door for the last time.
“This is best for Grace, right?” Frank asks as he walks over to the Trans-am.
Gerard nods and walks over to the last official car. “We won’t be needing this alright, we’re bringing the Trans-am with us. There’s parking, right?” he asks, his voice wearing thin because he really doesn’t trust these guys. He doesn’t trust anything anymore and probably never will, apart from Frank and his family.
-
When they arrive in Battery City it looks nothing like the last time they saw it. When Better Living were in power everything was white, pristine and crisp and just how they wanted everything to look, even the people. Now though, it’s starting to look like a real city again.
It doesn’t take long for the car to pull up outside a large apartment block, a new build which looks a little like the one Frank and Mikey used to share back in their college days. Mikey grips Ray’s hand tight as they unclip their belts and open the door, making sure Grace is right there with them before entering the building.
Mikey and Ray being the first ones there get the briefing. They are told about Better Living and how they were overthrown a few weeks ago, how the new government is safe, how it is much more like their old legal system before the explosions and how they should be able to live a fairly normal life now, Grace included. They are given two apartments that consist of two bedrooms in one and three in the other.
Frank and Gerard arrive a little later, the Trans-am’s being pissy and it took them far too long to drive in to Battery City. They are both ushered up to the third floor of the apartment building where they find Mikey, Ray and Grace already setting up their own apartment.
“You fuckers chose the biggest apartment!” Frank calls out as he looks around their own and then walks in to Mikey and Ray’s, scrunching his nose up at how damn clean
“We have a child, y’know?” Mikey reminds him and Frank rolls his eyes as he looks over to Grace who he can see through the bedroom door, running around which seems to be the room she has claimed as her own, arranging the few belongings she has and jumping on the bed.
“Frankie! I have a bed!” Grace shouts through the door and in to what Frank is assuming is the living room.
He smiles and in his gut he knows they have done the right thing, if not for them but at least for Grace, Mikey and Ray. They can be a real family now, one that has a clean apartment, where they can take care of Grace the best they can, where they can feed her right and bathe her, tuck her in at night and give her a good education.
“I know Gracy baby, want to show me around your new pad?” Frank smiles and Grace grins, nodding furiously before Frank goes wandering in, Gerard following quick behind him.
At this moment Ray walks over to Mikey who is currently looking around their kitchen, looking a little confused. He pokes at the modern looking toaster and turns to Ray who then wraps his arms around Mikey’s middle, resting his head on Mikey’s shoulder.
“What’s this?” Mikey asks looking confused. “Like, some really weird toaster?”
Ray laughs and kisses at the side of Mikey’s neck who hums gently and moves his head to the side a little, letting him kiss a little more skin. “I think so. We’re going to have to cook for Grace, aren’t we?”
Mikey laughs and nods. “Yeah, we are. It’s going to be awesome though, really looking after her. I’m so excited for her, she’s going to have a normal life, like we had when we were small.”
“It is going to be awesome, we can show her really geeky things now right. Oh man, you think they have some new kind of X-box?” Ray asks with an excited tone in his voice.
“I’m sure we can find out!” Mikey grins and twists his head around to place a kiss against Ray’s lips. He hums against them as he hears Grace squealing in her room, Frank and Gerard laughing with her too.
“We have our lives back, right?” Mikey asks as he breaks the kiss.
Ray hums against his lips. “Yeah, we do. I think we really do.” He smiles and holds Mikey a little tighter.
-
That night they get to tuck Grace in to an actual bed. They give her an actual bath in their new shiny bathroom, using the towels and soap that were left there for them. She’s even been given pyjamas, which they change her in to before they take her to the bedroom.
“I get a real bed, Mikey.” Grace states with wide eyes as she jumps on to her bed, climbing under the covers and plops herself down on to the mounds of pillows, smiling gently over to Mikey and Ray. They are both smiling too, nodding.
“You do have a real bed, baby girl.” Ray muses and sits at the end of her bed, watching Mikey as he pulls the chair out from under Grace’s new desk and sits down, smiling still.
“Did you like your food?” Mikey asks referring to the meal they had cooked Grace. It turns out that the new government had not only given them the apartment, but had also kitted out the entire apartment with clothes, food and all the essential things they need to start a new life.
Grace nods against her pillow. “It was real yummy Mikey, we haven’t had real food in forever!”
Mikey grins. They had used a few mushrooms, a jar of tomato sauce and some pasta to make a basic but really tasty pasta dish that Grace had demolished, red sauce all around her face. It had been an amazing night for them all really, Mikey and Ray had stood together in their new kitchen cooking for their girl as she sat and watched them at the table.
“You going to sleep now?” Ray asks as he rubs at Grace’s feet through the duvet.
Grace nods again with a yawn. “Yeah. Thank you for taking care of me Ray-ray. And you Mikey.”
Mikey grins and pulls himself up from the desk chair and leans across Grace’s bed to kiss her goodnight. Once he’s kissed her and tucked her in a little more he walks over to the door, watching Ray as he does the same, kisses Grace and tucks her in a little more too, stroking her hair and telling her to sleep well.
“Night gorgeous girl.” Mikey calls out and walks in to the living room, waiting for Ray to close her bedroom door.
He sits down on their new couch in their new apartment and grins. Ray comes over a few seconds later and collapses.
“Y’know this whole having a real house thing is hard. I don’t remember it being this hard.” Ray sighs and Mikey laughs.
“That’s cause we didn’t have a child then, baby.” Mikey muses.
Ray lets out a long breath. “We have a child, man that’s weird.”
“Mmhm, but we wouldn’t have it any other way, we love taking care of her.” He states and snuggles in to Ray’s side, slowly feeling his eyes start to close.
“Hey, you can’t fall asleep on the couch.” Ray mumbles against Mikey’s hair, kissing it gently.
“We’ve slept on a diner floor for years, I can sleep wherever the hell I want in our new house.” Mikey states with a yawn.
Ray laughs, “Yeah, true. But we have a new bed to sleep in with a real damn duvet.”
“Mm, sounds good.” Mikey sighs and snuggles in to Ray’s chest a little more, looking forward to waking up in the morning and giving Grace her breakfast.
Pairing/Prompt: 41 - Mikey/Ray - taking care of Grace - this was written for the no_tags 2012 round!
Rating: PG
Warnings: None
Notes: Thank you to both of my amazing betas slashxyouxup littlblackghost ♥
When the news beaks over the radio one blistering afternoon they don’t know how to feel. The five of them have become so used to the hot and sticky desert, the run-down diner and the life they have built for themselves that when the unfamiliar voice crackles over the radio, they don’t know how to feel. Shocked, mostly.
They sit there in silence for a few moments just playing the announcement over again in their heads before Frank finally breaks the silence.
“They’re gone.” He whispers, his eyes still wide and staring at the radio as if he can see the words that they had just heard.
“We’ve been out here what, five years and they have only just worked out how to overthrow the them?” Gerard continues, something in his voice suggesting that he’s slightly angry with the news. Maybe he’s been happy enough living in the desert, fighting Dracs and taking care of one another the way they know how.
Mikey sighs and lets his hand drop down from the table on to the leather booth seat, searching for Ray’s hand. He finds it a few moments later and lets his fingers close around his boyfriend’s, squeezing gently.
“What does this mean for us?” Ray asks as he reciprocates Mikey’s hand squeeze, letting his fingers tighten before he strokes the pad of his thumb across his boyfriend’s knuckles.
“We wait, carry on with our lives until something else comes up.” Gerard answers. He reaches over to turn the radio up a little more before sinking back in to the booth, resting his head against Frank’s shoulder and closes his eyes for a moment.
The next announcement arrives a few days later. Frank and Gerard are out on a supply run and as the strange voice crackles over the radio again (which has been switched on since the first message days ago) Mikey runs across the diner and slides in to the booth, calling Ray in to the room. He hears Ray tell Grace to carry on drawing without him for a moment as he comes striding in to the room, knowing something is up.
“Another broadcast?” Ray asks as he slides in to the booth next to Mikey who just nods, moving closer to the radio to listen closer to what is being said.
Frank and Gerard walk through the doors of the diner just as the broadcast finished looping a couple of times. Mikey and Ray are still sat at the booth, looking a little shell shocked.
“What’s happened?” Gerard asks as he quickly sets the box of tinned food down on the counter and heads over to the booth, Frank following him.
“They’re moving us.” Mikey declares and Gerard’s eyes grow wide. “They’ve got rooms, like, apartments for the ones that were left out here during the occupation.” Mikey continues, trying to explain what the broadcast had said and what they should be expecting.
“What? Why? ” Gerard asks completely baffled and obviously struggling to process the information. They were happy out in the desert.
“They want to give the people left out here a chance. A chance to rebuild their lives, eat right again. At least that’s what they said on the broadcast. They want to save us.” Mikey voices and flinches a little as Gerard scoffs kicks at the metal leg of the table.
“They want to save us? They are only a couple years too late.” He spits because they really are fuckin’ years too late. Now, they have managed to take care of themselves, fight the hundreds of Dracs they had come in to contact with and managed to feed and take care of a young child, Grace.
“So they know we’re out here?” Frank pipes up and questions because he was sure they were too far out for anybody to know they were there, apart from the Dracs of course. It was a miracle they had never followed them back to base, had never managed to work out just where they were.
“Yeah, they said that they are working from zone 6 inwards, housing anybody that has been out here in the desert.” Mikey continues and he tries to ignore his brother’s face that is starting to show signs of anger. He knows that Gerard has worked his damn hardest over the years to try and make the diner feel more like home, somewhere that they could feel safe away from the Dracs and the zone wars, where they could help take care of Grace and look out for one another. The diner was their safe haven, their home that they had come to love and now to learn that Better Living were gone, that the last Drac they fought was long gone was unsettling for them all. It was the unknown, the uncertainty that Mikey knew Gerard didn’t like because here in the diner, it was all set. They had their routine that consisted of supply runs, the odd Drac fights but mostly hanging around the diner, taking care of Grace and working on the Trans-am. The possibility of all of their hard work, the familiarity of the diner and the desert slipping away unnerved them all.
“I think this could be good for us.” Ray admits as he looks over to Mikey. “Think about it, Grace is going to get the chance to have some-what of a normal childhood, like weall had. Don’t you think she deserves that?”
Mikey smiles over to Ray and nods. Of course she deserves the chance to be a normal kid, the chance to have something more to do with her day then hang around the humid diner, drawing on scraps of paper they had managed to pick up on supply runs along with the odd sharpie. Of course she deserves more, a better life with a real kids room, a real bed and a family home. Ever since finding Grace when she was a small child in the zones, it had become Mikey and Ray’s responsibility for some reason. As soon as they had taken her back to the diner and started to take care of her, she had become so fond of Ray. He would be the one to put her to bed of a night on the beat up mattress, covering her with his jacket so that she was warm. Mikey fell in love with her too, but also fell in love with the way that his boyfriend was with her. Since then, it had become some-what of an unwritten rule that Grace was Mikey and Ray’s responsibility, that she was theirs to take care of. Frank and Gerard helped, of course they did but when drawing pictures, Grace would always illustrate that Mikey and Ray were like her Daddies, and that Uncle Frank and Uncle Gerard liked to take care of her too, sometimes. She never so much as called them by the title, but she often liked to point out that this was the best family she could ever have.
“There aren’t many out there in zone 6, which means they should get to us pretty quick.” Frank mentions and looks to Gerard who is nodding.
“So what do we do now, wait?” Ray asks and Mikey nods back.
“Yeah, that’s what the broadcast said.”
-
That night after Ray has tucked Grace in to bed in the garage for the night he wanders back out in the main room of the diner in search of his boyfriend. He looks around and can only find Frank and Gerard who are sprawled across the tables, talking about some epic fight they were remembering they’d had with a particularly sadistic Drac once. They liked to do that often, lay together at night and recite all of the fights they’d had, all of the near misses and near death experiences they had all encountered. Ray laughed to himself quietly as he hears Frank start to make crazy Jedi noises, simulating a lightsaber and then the sound of a Drac exploding. Ray walks through the diner and out through the main doors. He can already see Mikey in the backseat of the car.
“Hey you.” Ray speaks as he opens the car door and climbs over the front seat and in to the back with Mikey, who scoots over to make more room. Mikey smiles and adjusts himself so that there is more room for Ray to sit comfortably before he scoots back over, letting Ray wrap an arm around his shoulders and resting his head on his chest.
“Hey.” Mikey mumbles in to Ray’s dirty shirt and lets his arm rest on his belly, picking at the shirt a little. Ray’s shirts all have chunks out of them, all in the stomach area with thanks to Mikey. When he gets a little nervous or he’s tired, Ray lets him fall in to this position and he picks at the shirt, pulling the strands of dirty cotton and forming small holes at first which for some reason always turn in to gigantic holes that Ray finds hard to then cover his belly.
“Should we tell Grace yet?” Mikey asks and looks up to Ray who is already looking down at him. Ray leans down and places a few gentle kisses on Mikey’s forehead. He hums against his skin before pulling back, resting his chin on the top of his head.
“I think so, she should know what’s going on. Remember the last time we tried to hide the bruises from a run in with a Drac? She was so pissed with us.”
Mikey snorted. “Yeah, she’s far too smart y’know. Been hanging around with you too long.”
Ray smiles and kisses Mikey’s head again, pulling him in to his chest a little more.
“I don’t want to tell her and have her get her hopes up. What if it doesn’t happen?” Ray questions because that is the last thing he would want to do.
“I think it’s going to happen, baby.” Mikey whispers. “We’re going to have an apartment. With a real bed.” he reveals, not quite believing his words.
Ray grins. “We get to live like normal people again. With a bed, a shower, a kitchen…fuck. You know how to cook, right?” Ray asks because he has totally forgotten how to prepare a normal meal.
Mikey laughs. “I used to burn toast, remember?”
Ray groans. “Grace is going to be cooking for us, isn’t she?”
“Yeah, probably…” Mikey answers with a lazy smile because maybe this wasn’t going to be so bad after all.
The next morning when Grace is sat at the booth eating her breakfast (they always manage to find her something to eat other than tinned) when Ray and Mikey sit down next to her, nervous but excited to tell her what’s going on.
“Gracy, baby?” Ray speaks and she looks up with wide eyes, not stopping eating her breakfast to talk though.
“Mm?”
“We have something to tell you” he speaks and Grace settles her spoon down on the table and stops eating this time, looking at Mikey and Ray with her large dark eyes.
“You remember the bad people that try and find us, don’t you?” Mikey asks gently because of course she knows who the Dracs and Better Living are but actually talking to her about it is too hard.
Grace rolls her eyes “Of course I know who they are, I’m not silly.” She states in a matter of fact kind of voice that makes Mikey smirk because she really is the most amazing little girl he’s ever met.
“They’re gone, baby.” Ray finally admits and Grace scrunches her eyebrows together in confusion.
“The baddies are gone?” Grace asks and they both nod. Mikey extends his arm out and wraps it around Grace’s shoulders, pulling her in to his chest.
“Yeah, they’re gone. This means we get to move from the diner and in to a real house.” Ray continues, tag teaming with Mikey to tell her the news.
Grace’s eyes light up but then suddenly her face falls. “Are we going to get to live together still?”
Mikey leans down and places a kiss on the top of her head, her dark curls falling across her face. “Of course we are, me you and Ray and then Gee and Frankie.”
“So we get to move in to a real house and there aren’t any bad guys after us no more?” Grace asks and Mikey and Ray both nod to confirm. She smiles wide and hums before picking her spoon up and continues to eat her breakfast.
Mikey and Ray look at one another from across the table with a small smile across their lips, suddenly excited for the unknown.
-
It’s a week later when they arrive and Gerard’s face is still as pissed off as the week before. They turn up early on a Tuesday morning, two large blacked out cars. They are all wary of first because any official figures are something that have taught themselves to avoid for the past years. After valid credentials are shown Frank and Gerard allow Mikey and Ray to sort Grace out, getting her things together (not that she has much) and give them time to get her in to the car with them. The first car with the three of them starts to roll away before Frank and Gerard have even carried their things out front.
As Frank heaves a trash bag of their few possessions out from the diner Gerard follows, closing the door for the last time.
“This is best for Grace, right?” Frank asks as he walks over to the Trans-am.
Gerard nods and walks over to the last official car. “We won’t be needing this alright, we’re bringing the Trans-am with us. There’s parking, right?” he asks, his voice wearing thin because he really doesn’t trust these guys. He doesn’t trust anything anymore and probably never will, apart from Frank and his family.
-
When they arrive in Battery City it looks nothing like the last time they saw it. When Better Living were in power everything was white, pristine and crisp and just how they wanted everything to look, even the people. Now though, it’s starting to look like a real city again.
It doesn’t take long for the car to pull up outside a large apartment block, a new build which looks a little like the one Frank and Mikey used to share back in their college days. Mikey grips Ray’s hand tight as they unclip their belts and open the door, making sure Grace is right there with them before entering the building.
Mikey and Ray being the first ones there get the briefing. They are told about Better Living and how they were overthrown a few weeks ago, how the new government is safe, how it is much more like their old legal system before the explosions and how they should be able to live a fairly normal life now, Grace included. They are given two apartments that consist of two bedrooms in one and three in the other.
Frank and Gerard arrive a little later, the Trans-am’s being pissy and it took them far too long to drive in to Battery City. They are both ushered up to the third floor of the apartment building where they find Mikey, Ray and Grace already setting up their own apartment.
“You fuckers chose the biggest apartment!” Frank calls out as he looks around their own and then walks in to Mikey and Ray’s, scrunching his nose up at how damn clean
“We have a child, y’know?” Mikey reminds him and Frank rolls his eyes as he looks over to Grace who he can see through the bedroom door, running around which seems to be the room she has claimed as her own, arranging the few belongings she has and jumping on the bed.
“Frankie! I have a bed!” Grace shouts through the door and in to what Frank is assuming is the living room.
He smiles and in his gut he knows they have done the right thing, if not for them but at least for Grace, Mikey and Ray. They can be a real family now, one that has a clean apartment, where they can take care of Grace the best they can, where they can feed her right and bathe her, tuck her in at night and give her a good education.
“I know Gracy baby, want to show me around your new pad?” Frank smiles and Grace grins, nodding furiously before Frank goes wandering in, Gerard following quick behind him.
At this moment Ray walks over to Mikey who is currently looking around their kitchen, looking a little confused. He pokes at the modern looking toaster and turns to Ray who then wraps his arms around Mikey’s middle, resting his head on Mikey’s shoulder.
“What’s this?” Mikey asks looking confused. “Like, some really weird toaster?”
Ray laughs and kisses at the side of Mikey’s neck who hums gently and moves his head to the side a little, letting him kiss a little more skin. “I think so. We’re going to have to cook for Grace, aren’t we?”
Mikey laughs and nods. “Yeah, we are. It’s going to be awesome though, really looking after her. I’m so excited for her, she’s going to have a normal life, like we had when we were small.”
“It is going to be awesome, we can show her really geeky things now right. Oh man, you think they have some new kind of X-box?” Ray asks with an excited tone in his voice.
“I’m sure we can find out!” Mikey grins and twists his head around to place a kiss against Ray’s lips. He hums against them as he hears Grace squealing in her room, Frank and Gerard laughing with her too.
“We have our lives back, right?” Mikey asks as he breaks the kiss.
Ray hums against his lips. “Yeah, we do. I think we really do.” He smiles and holds Mikey a little tighter.
-
That night they get to tuck Grace in to an actual bed. They give her an actual bath in their new shiny bathroom, using the towels and soap that were left there for them. She’s even been given pyjamas, which they change her in to before they take her to the bedroom.
“I get a real bed, Mikey.” Grace states with wide eyes as she jumps on to her bed, climbing under the covers and plops herself down on to the mounds of pillows, smiling gently over to Mikey and Ray. They are both smiling too, nodding.
“You do have a real bed, baby girl.” Ray muses and sits at the end of her bed, watching Mikey as he pulls the chair out from under Grace’s new desk and sits down, smiling still.
“Did you like your food?” Mikey asks referring to the meal they had cooked Grace. It turns out that the new government had not only given them the apartment, but had also kitted out the entire apartment with clothes, food and all the essential things they need to start a new life.
Grace nods against her pillow. “It was real yummy Mikey, we haven’t had real food in forever!”
Mikey grins. They had used a few mushrooms, a jar of tomato sauce and some pasta to make a basic but really tasty pasta dish that Grace had demolished, red sauce all around her face. It had been an amazing night for them all really, Mikey and Ray had stood together in their new kitchen cooking for their girl as she sat and watched them at the table.
“You going to sleep now?” Ray asks as he rubs at Grace’s feet through the duvet.
Grace nods again with a yawn. “Yeah. Thank you for taking care of me Ray-ray. And you Mikey.”
Mikey grins and pulls himself up from the desk chair and leans across Grace’s bed to kiss her goodnight. Once he’s kissed her and tucked her in a little more he walks over to the door, watching Ray as he does the same, kisses Grace and tucks her in a little more too, stroking her hair and telling her to sleep well.
“Night gorgeous girl.” Mikey calls out and walks in to the living room, waiting for Ray to close her bedroom door.
He sits down on their new couch in their new apartment and grins. Ray comes over a few seconds later and collapses.
“Y’know this whole having a real house thing is hard. I don’t remember it being this hard.” Ray sighs and Mikey laughs.
“That’s cause we didn’t have a child then, baby.” Mikey muses.
Ray lets out a long breath. “We have a child, man that’s weird.”
“Mmhm, but we wouldn’t have it any other way, we love taking care of her.” He states and snuggles in to Ray’s side, slowly feeling his eyes start to close.
“Hey, you can’t fall asleep on the couch.” Ray mumbles against Mikey’s hair, kissing it gently.
“We’ve slept on a diner floor for years, I can sleep wherever the hell I want in our new house.” Mikey states with a yawn.
Ray laughs, “Yeah, true. But we have a new bed to sleep in with a real damn duvet.”
“Mm, sounds good.” Mikey sighs and snuggles in to Ray’s chest a little more, looking forward to waking up in the morning and giving Grace her breakfast.