Can't Afford the Right to Move On (Bob/Mikey)

[jae_w]

Title: Can't Afford the Right to Move On
Recipient: different_shade
Author: mazily
Band: My Chemical Romance
Pairing: Bob/Mikey
Rating: PG-13?
Summary: Mikey really hopes he's not Suzette Fremon.
Notes: Title from the Misfits. An AU.



"We need an arc," Gerard says. "Something big, with room for our families and gear and pens and a recording studio and-"

"-dogs," Frank says, "Two of each kind. And monkeys. Oh, and a fucking IMAX screen."

"Star Wars," Gerard says.

"Lea," Frank says. "Hey, Gee, you should dress up as her for my birthday."

"Han shot first," Mikey says. He texts the same thing to Pete (Pete's response, when it comes, reads, "trick from sky love like lea & han. truth.") and closes his Sidekick. Everyone's sitting around in Gerard's basement, listening to the rain battering the windows.

Frank's leaning over the edge of the bed, feet kicking as he fumbles and coughs. "Do you ever clean under here?" he says. "Cause I think I just found your favorite porn from, like, 7th grade or some shit. Fucking gross, man, I think this is ancient jizz on here."

"Nice," Ray says. "Real classy."

He's sitting on the floor next to Gerard's beat up old boom box, searching through a shoe box of cassette tapes and randomly putting aside the ones he claims actually belong to him. One of the tapes in his stack is a suspicious shade of neon green.

"Fucking rain," Gerard says.

Frank throws a comic book at him. "Like you were going to leave your Fortress of Solitude anyway." They've been stuck inside for fourteen days. Bob's been missing for twelve of them. Mikey's shocked they haven't killed or maimed each other yet. He opens his Sidekick. Texts Pete, "day 15. no deaths. no missing limbs. disappointed: y/n."

A buzz, and, "n mway but id bake shiv in2 cake 4u."

Mikey hides his smile behind his hand. He closes his Sidekick. Grabs the bag of (vegan, no really!) gummi worms off the bed, but when he reaches his hand inside there's only sticky residue and a tissue in there.

Frank just giggles and opens his mouth. Pulls a half-chewed worm from his mouth and says, "You want? Yum."

Mikey throws the empty bag at Frank's head. He misses. Shrugs.

Frank pops the worm back into his mouth and grins. Ray knocks his tower of tapes over. Mikey pulls his Sidekick back out from his pocket, foot tapping on the floor. There's a knock on the door.

"Uh," Frank says.

Gerard looks up. "Is it just me, or was that knock coming from inside the house?"

"Not just you," Ray says. He grabs a tape. Holds it out in front of himself like a shield.

"Who is it?" Frank asks.

Gerard looks at him funny. Says, "Because a vampire wouldn't lie."

"At least we know it's not a ravaging hoarde of zombies," Frank says. "They'd just break the door down, all brains, braaaaaaiiiiiiins and shit. Of course they'd be out of fucking luck down here."

Mikey opens his Sidekick, types in "sum1 @ door. if i die b4 iwake, sry." He stands up and walks over the stairs, turns to shut everyone else up. He takes the steps two at a time. Takes a deep breath.

"Mikey, no," Gerard says.

Mikey opens the door. Bob is standing there, hand raised like he's about to knock again. His raincoat has Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles on it, and he pushes the hood down as son as he sees Mikey. Jepha and Dan are flanking him like some sort of demented angel and devil.

"You look like a homicidal lumberjack," Mikey tells Dan.

"Thanks," Dan says. He smiles, and Jepha punches him on the arm. Dan's eyes slide shut, and he shudders. Jepha turns to Bob and hands him a big black bag. It looks heavy.

"We've got to," he says, gesturing behind him. "Good seeing you again, Bryar."

"Dude," Bob says. Jepha leads Dan back through the dining roome. The outer door squeaks open--they really should get that fixed--and slams shut. Bob reaches out and pulls Mikey into a hug. Mikey wraps his arms around Bob's back; Bob smells like sulfur and water and Bob.

"You're safe," Mikey says.

"I am," Bob says. He pulls back a little. He just kind of looks at Mikey for a while, and Mikey wonders if there's something weird on his face. He's about to ask when Bob reaches out and pulls Mikey into a kiss. It's all tongue and teeth and not at all how Mikey imagined their first kiss might go.

Frank yells up at them. "Are you dead, Mikey Way? Who the fuck's up there?"

"ZZ Top," Mikey says. Bob snickers. He's still laughing when he kisses Mikey again.

*

"So," Gerard says, "The rain started on, what, a Tuesday?"

Ray nods. "Mmm," he says. He's tuning an old acoustic guitar, plucking a few off-key notes here and there. "I think so? Could've been Monday night, though."

Bob's tapping on his thigh, matching whatever Ray does. Setting the beat when Ray stops for a second to turn the keys. Mikey misses his bass. His fingers ache, so he cracks his knuckles. Pulls out his Sidekick and slides it open. "No signal," he says.

Frank flings himself onto the bed. A pillow falls to the floor. "Fuck," he says.

"Shit," Bob says.

Mikey closes his Sidekick and puts it back into his pocket. "Maybe it's just temporary," he says.

"Fuck," Frank says, "that's what you said about the rain, and now we're underwater."

Mikey shrugs. "It could still be temporary. I mean, if it ends, then it--"

"--by definition, sure," Gerard says, "It'd be temporary. In effect, though..."

No one responds. Ray puts the guitar down in his lap, trying to pick dust out from between the frets and under the strings. Frank sits up, kicks his feet against the edge of the bed. Back and forth, back and forth, back and forth. He picks his nose. Flicks the booger at Ray's hair.

Gerard is drawing something. Head bent over, back hunched, making his concentration face. He keeps pushing his hair back out of his eyes. He hums as he works, moving from their songs to the Misfits to Liza and back again.

Bob starts pulling things out of Jepha's black bag: a gun, a couple of candles, matches, a carton of Marlboros, Gatorade, two knives, a saw, some hats, a nail gun and a whole shitload of nails. When he turns the bag over and shakes it, one of those inflatable life boat things drops out.

"Unless there's an IKEA arc-with-an-umlat," Mikey says, "There is no way I can build one."

Bob pulls out a note. Frank grabs the Marlboros and takes a box out for himself, tosses another to Gerard. Gerard manages to light a cigarette without stopping his work; Frank lights two at once and passes the spare to Bob. Bob takes a long drag, holding the smoke in like he's savoring it.

"It's in case we need to build a boat," Bob says. He offers his cigarette to Mikey, who shakes his head no. "Mostly, though, it's to shoot nails at those creepy-ass shark people. Saw's for cutting shit up to set on fire."

"Awesome." Gerard looks up, a weird glint in his eye. "I need another half-hour."

"I need a nap," Frank says. He spits on the bud of his cigarette, pinches it to make sure it's completely dead. "I call dibs on this comfy, comfy bed." He kicks off his boots. He's snoring before his head really hits the pillow.

Mikey taps Bob on the shoulder. Walks over to the corner on the far side of the room and gestures for Bob to follow. Bob grabs his Marlboros and a bottle of Gatorade and does just that.

"You kissed me," Mikey says. It isn't anything they'd done before, but it's not completely out of the blue. There was pizza in New York, coffee in Hartford, Powerpuff Girls on the bus.

He tilts his head to the side. Bob still looks the same. He stalls for time by twisting off the Gatorade cap, but he passes it to Mikey before swallowing a single drop.

"I did," he says.

"But. Why?"

"You're Mikey," Bob says. "I was glad you're alive. I wanted to."

Mikey drinks some of the Gatorade; it's warm and orange. When he passes the bottle back, Bob's fingers brush his. Bob takes the bottle in his other hand, careful not to move his fingers away from Mikey's.

"Oh," Mikey says.

"Yeah," Bob says. "Was it? I can not do it again if you--I want to, don't get me wrong, but I can not. If you, you know, don't."

It's hard to concentrate with Bob's fingers still brushing against his, but Mikey forces himself to think. Jersey's under water, pretty much, and they're going to need to leave soon even though none of them has a boat or any sort of boat-making skills. The world might even be ending.

Mikey takes the Gatorade away from Bob and puts it down on the floor. He grasps his hand around Bob's, holds on as tight as he can. "Frank's going to throw things at us," he says.

"Like he doesn't already," Bob says. He wiggles his fingers until Mikey loosens his grip. "It's Gerard I'm worried about. He, uh, threatened me. It was a little creepy. In Boston, that's where. Fuck."

His face is pink. Mikey decides to take pity on him and knee-walks the two steps between them.

*

"Fire," Gerard says. He's holding up a drawing of a raindrop morphing into a shark-with-legs, bright red flames all around it and dorsal fin turning into smoke; the speech bubble above its head reads, "Curses! Foiled again!"

Mikey's playing with Bob's hair; they're sitting, knees touching, on the floor next to the bed. Frank sticks his finger in his mouth and makes vomit sounds. Ray plays a couple of chords and puts the guitar down in the middle of their pseudo-circle.

"This should burn pretty well," he says.

"We're going to have to get everything," Gerard says, "Beds, chairs, tables, whatever's dry."

Frank jumps up. Starts to pace around the room.

"So what's the difference between your plan and us accidentally burning down the house?" Mikey asks. "Because, no offense, they sound kind of the same to me."

Bob nods. "What he said."

"It's the Rain," Gerard says. Mikey can hear the capital letter, the bestowing of a formal supervillain name. "It's not. We're not burning the house down, we're burning the Rain. But we can't just toss a lit match out the window--the Rain'd snuff that right out--we need to go big."

"So the house," Ray says.

"Exactly." Gerard's nodding excitedly, and he keeps waving his arms around. "The house is the match, it lights the Rain, the Rain turns to steam and dies. We set the fire, we--the hardest part is going to be getting away fast enough in the raft thing. We'll need paddles."

"We should vote," Frank says. "If you're wrong, Gee, we all die. So we should vote."

"We're running out of food. We're stuck here, and we're going to die anyway if we don't do anything." Gerard takes a deep breath. He looks like a frontman again, instead of plain old geeky Gerard. Mikey wants to hug him. "So let's do something."

"Everyone for, raise your hand," Bob says. Everyone raises their hand. Mikey reaches out and wraps his other hand around Bob's wrist. Taps his index finger against the skin a couple of times, rat-tat-tat, rat-a-tat-tat, before letting go again. He unfolds his legs and walks over to give his brother a big hug.

"Aww," Frank says.

"Fuck off," Bob says.

They start collecting anything that looks flammable, using the saw to cut down things that are too big to fit up the stairs. The living room looks abandoned. Spooky. Like something out of a B Movie. Mikey really hopes he's not Suzette Fremon.

Bob tosses a chair onto the pile. Downstairs, Frank yells, "Timber!"

"Not to be a giant sap or anything," Bob says.

"But you totally are," Mikey says. They've somehow ended up standing next to each other inside the deflated yellow raft. Bob's running a finger along the ridge of Mikey's left ear. His other hand is on Mikey's ass.

"So," Bob says, "Not to be a giant sap or anything, but. Well."

"You suck at this," Mikey says, and he kisses Bob. He pulls back, hands on either side of Bob's face, and adds, "And if you pull any of that noble Jack in Titanic bullshit that you think so romantic and drown yourself so I can live, I will kill your corpse."

They climb out of the raft and take turns trying to inflate it. "Smoker's lungs," Bob says when he starts wheezing. Mikey laughs at him and takes an extra-long turn. He wishes he'd saved his old bicycle tire pump instead of donating it to Goodwill when he finally got his first car.

Ray brings the black bag upstairs; he struggles enough with it that Mikey figures he's filled it up too much. "We can't carry too much," he says, "We need to float."

"Yeah," Ray says. He pulls out the candles and a few last pieces of broken furniture and adds them to the pile. He hands the saw over to Frank, who kisses it before setting it down on the floor. "Should be light enough now."

"So this is it," Bob says. He and Mikey drag the raft up to the window in the spare room on the second floor. Set it up on the cheap metal card table Mikey'd set up there earlier. Ray follows. Presses against the raft to see how full it is and gently places the bag inside.

They walk downstairs. Mikey holds Bob's hand.

"Fuck," Frank says. "Fuck 'em all! Let's fucking do this."

Gerard squints. He looks around the room. Looks at Mikey. "Okay, you guys go upstairs. If I'm not up in about a minute, take off without me. And always know I've been proud to get to play with you guys, to be your friends, to--"

"Fuck that," Mikey says. He grabs a table leg and holds it up.

"Word," Ray says. He has a box of matches in one hand and the guitar in the other.

Bob grabs a table leg. Frank picks up a drumstick. Ray tosses the matchbook to Gerard, who looks almost as shocked as everyone else to catch it. He looks at them again, that serious gaze of his, and says, "Fine. We do it together. I'll light your--"

"--torches," Frank says--

"--right, torches," Gerard says, moving from Frank to Ray to Bob. "I'll light them, then we'll set the fire." He reaches Mikey last. Outside, the rain sounds almost like it's howling.

"Light it," Mikey says. Gerard hugs him, short and fast, and when he steps back his eyes look almost teary. He wipes his eyes. Lights Mikey's torch. He grabs a jagged piece of wood from the pile and lights it off Mikey's.

"On three," Gerard says. They count down.