YANMS commentary (2/3)
There’s nothing special about the day it happens.
oh god lol are we here already.
“Good morning, Michael,” he says as he walks in, and Michael’s smiling at him again, eyes full of familiarity and relief and chemical contentment.
They don’t speak after that, and Korse settles into his chair next to Michael’s bed, the one that never really moves from its spot. His hand goes to Michael’s hair once they’ve both found their usual positions, and Michael sighs.
Then, Korse’s thumb comes near Michael’s lips as he brushes his hair away, and Michael pokes out his tongue to lick it. Korse raises an eyebrow, but keeps his thumb there, watching him, wondering if it will happen again.
Michael starts to suck his thumb into his mouth.
He lets him for a few seconds, lets him lick and suck the pad of his thumb before pulling it back and replacing it with his first two fingers. It’s a better angle now, better for thrusting deep into Michael’s mouth.
“Suck,” Korse hisses in his ear, and Michael sucks hard without question, his tongue teasing between the two fingers until Korse spreads them apart, watching Michael’s lips stretch and humming at the feel of Michael’s tongue against the soft skin between them.
“It’s been a while, hasn’t it?” Korse asks softly, and Michael makes a low noise around his fingers. “You’ve been here for nearly a month and haven’t even taken any sex-suppression pills. And I can’t imagine all that much happening in the desert. A companion bot here and there, maybe.”
Nah incest is pretty big out there in the zones.
Korse is totally bullshitting here, in case you can’t tell.
No, seriously, there is so much sex between the four of them and Show Pony, goddamn.
He keeps one hand occupied with Michael’s mouth, but the other hand starts to go for his collar, pulling at the back until Michael’s making choked noises. “How much do you want this?”
Michael whines, his breath coming out in short bursts around his fingers, his hips suddenly bucking up, and it’s only now that Korse notices just how much he does want this, how much strain there is on the fabric of his loose prisoner’s pants.
Korse doesn’t make a move to help him. Suddenly his fingers are out of his mouth and he’s tugging the collar forward instead of backward, leading Michael to sit up and start to climb off the bed. He stays in his own chair and lets Michael do all the work, and once he’s tugged Michael to his knees in front of him, he draws his gun and holds it at his side before telling Michael, “Take off the holster.”
Michael complies, removing the holster with the ease of someone who wields a gun just as much as he does, and sets it on the ground next to him.
“You know what to do next?” Korse asks with a smirk, leaning back in the chair and idly looking at the gun in his hand. Michael starts working on his pants.
Korse doesn’t take sex-suppression pills. His status gives him exemption, and hasn’t needed to control himself for years-not like the other employees who illegally skip pills and end up getting caught in storage closets-and he’s found it very useful to avoid them when he has a prisoner.
Past self, you’re gross.
Although now that I think of it I kind of want to make an awful Gray-A joke.
Nope, not gonna do it.
(Don’t think about Poison)
Past self, you’re silly.
So when Michael’s got his pants open and starts licking the head of his cock, he’s just as capable of wanting it as Michael, but there’s no urgency, no pressure.
He keeps the hand not holding his gun on the back of Michael’s head, gently pressing him forward until his lips are wrapped around his hardening cock. Korse tilts his head back and hums his approval, which seems to encourage Michael enough to start taking him down, inch by inch, until he has almost the entirety of Korse’s cock in his mouth and a little down his throat. Korse can’t suppress a small groan in the back of his throat as Michael starts to bob his head.
(Don’t think about Poison, don’t think about Poison)
“How many times have you done this?” He tightens the hand in Michael’s hair, and Michael gasps around him. “To all the Wave-Heads in those bars, to people you’ve met in the desert, maybe to some of your Killjoy friends?” Michael maneuvers his tongue in a way that only proves Korse’s point-he knows how to do this.
“You must have a lot of practice,” he croons, setting the gun on the bed beside him (out of Michael’s reach, he’s still not trusting a prisoner) and putting his other hand on the back of Michael’s head. “Taking it like this, you’ve been doing this for years.”
Michael takes him all the way down, and Korse pulls him back up by the hair, getting a sharp noise of surprise as Michael’s eyes flutter open to stare up at him. Korse only smiles and pulls him back down, not quickly, but with intent.
Michael lets go, his shoulders going limp as Korse brings his head up, down, up, down, only his lips and tongue moving voluntarily. He’s making noise the whole time, little gasps and moans every time Korse tugs on his hair on top of the wet, obscene sucking noises. Korse can feel himself getting closer, but there’s no rush.
Michael stares up at him through his lashes almost the whole time, eyes wide but dulled by arousal and medication.
Korse considers starting to speak again, but there’s really nothing to say, nothing that can top the fact that he’s using Michael’s mouth like this, both hands tangled in his hair, and Michael’s groaning like he’s the one being touched.
(Don’t think about Poison, don’t think about Poison)
One of his hands lets go of his hair to slide down to the back of his collar, slipping two fingers underneath and pulling until Michael’s making those choked-off noises again, not quite out of air but not able to breath normally. Korse keeps the other hand pushing on Michael’s head, smiling down at him with what he hopes looks at least somewhat like warmth.
“Mine.”
He pulls Michael all the way off his cock with the hand holding the collar, and Michael stares at him for a few moments before gasping out, “Yours.”
Korse takes his hand out of Michael’s hair and starts stroking himself, the glide easy with saliva, and Michael seems to understand what he’s about to do, because his eyes widen for a moment before he shuts them, waiting.
(Don’t think about Poison, don’t think about Poison, don’t think about Poison)
ahahaha THAT FUCKING BOLD, I was so conflicted over whether or not to bold that last bit. I wanted an extra emphasis on that last repetition but I didn’t want to just, y’know, unitalicize it to indicate italicizing. Or whatever. But bold looks tacky!
Eventually I decided on WHATEVER, the most common answer to any questions about this fic.
His hips jerk involuntarily in his seat, and he comes, striping white across Michael’s flushed cheeks and swollen lips. Michael opens his eyes after the last spurt hits his chin, his mouth slightly open, and it’s the filthiest thing he’s ever seen since-
(Don’t think about Poison)
“Please,” Michael gasps, still out of breath from the pressure on his throat, and Korse lets go, throwing Michael off balance until he’s sitting on his heels and staring up at Korse with painful-looking desperation.
“Finish yourself off,” Korse says slowly, starting to do his pants back up. Michael nods furiously and shoves a hand down his own pants, pulling down on the loose material as quickly as he can with the other hand and never taking his eyes off Korse.
It doesn’t take long; it’s barely a minute before Michael’s gasping and coming over his hand, and Korse watches him shake through it. He goes limp when it’s over, his head falling forward as he catches his breath.
Korse stands up and re-fastens his holster before putting the gun back in its place, then finds a clean spot on Michael’s chin and tips it up, smiling down at him. Michael smiles back, hazily.
“Clean yourself up.”
Michael nods and starts to stand up, heading to the washroom. Korse leaves the room once he’s shut the door.
He makes a mental note to erase today’s security footage. But not before making a copy for himself, of course.
AHAHAHA.
~
The next few days go by normally, nothing but the usual idle chatter and soft touches, but there’s an odd look in Michael’s eyes. Expectant. Waiting.
Korse makes him wait. His hands wander around Michael’s whole head and neck, but he never pushes further, even when Michael tries to mouth at his fingers again. Michael looks like he wants to speak up sometimes, but he never does, except to carry on the conversation.
Then, one completely ordinary morning, Korse opens the door, takes one look at Michael’s synthetically smiling face, and says simply, “Knees.”
Michael practically jumps off the bed to comply.
~
He fucks Michael once, tells him to get on his hands and knees and spreads him open with the help of something confiscated from a pill-skipping lawbreaker before sinking into him to the sounds of more and please and yes.
Michael’s good at keeping still, if not quiet, and he lets Korse hold him wherever he likes and take whatever he wants without asking for anything but more. Korse comes inside him with a sharp exhale that might have started out as a name, and then whispers permission for Michael to stroke himself off before letting him collapse on the bed.
Michael rolls over after Korse has pulled out, staring up at him from between Korse’s arms. Then he lifts himself up, tilts his head, and kisses him gently.
Korse pulls back immediately, and it’s barely seconds before he’s off the bed, tucking himself back into his pants and telling Michael to clean himself up. Michael stares at him silently for a few moments, but he obeys.
He doesn’t do it again after that, preferring to take Michael’s mouth and leave.
(Don’t think about Poison)
~
“There’s been some recent Killjoy activity in Zone 1.”
“Hm. Are you going to send a unit after them?”
“Normally, you’d be jumping at the first chance to chase them yourself.”
“I have a prisoner to take care of.”
“They’ll be easier to deal with once they’re closer, anyway. Let them come to us. That was your plan, right?”
“Right. Lure them here, take them out with our full force. I told you it would work.”
“And your problem-solving skills will be commended. But right now, you’re going to go back to your precious prisoner and wait until the Killjoys arrive. I’ll expect you to be on the front lines when they do.”
“Of course, ma’am.”
~
They actually attempt a bit of stealth this time, which is unusual. Most attempts to take back their lost comrades involve storming the building, guns blazing, color flying everywhere.
This time, there’s a knock on the door.
“Open,” Korse says to the door mechanism, and there’s a masked guard, no different than the others.
Except that when this guard sees them, Korse running his fingers through Michael’s hair while Michael sighs and smiles contentedly, he recoils, draws a familiar painted yellow gun, and shouts, “Get your fucking hands off him!”
Korse complies, but only to jump out of his seat and start firing his own gun at the imposter, who’s shooting back while working his way into the room with two other disguised invaders.
The gunfire sets off an alarm, meaning Korse will only have to hold them off for a few minutes before an army of Draculoids show up to back him up. But they’re in a cramped space, and it’s three against one, and he’s trying to shoot three different targets while avoiding another, and-
His leg seizes up with the familiar burn of a raygun blast, and he falls sideways, arm still outstretched and shooting. One of the invaders has switched gun arms and another is holding his side gingerly, but otherwise, they’re winning.
There’s a bright yellow gun against his head, and Korse can see the vague outline of a snarl under the skintight mask. The other two are trying to get Michael to stand up, ignoring his protests of “No, stop-“ and “I don’t want to-“
Then the one with the yellow gun whispers, “You’ll fucking pay for this,” and puts his finger on the trigger.
Korse smirks, and the world goes dark.
My raygun headcanons seem to be different from other people’s for some reason? Like, a lot of Killjoys fic seems to have the rayguns blowing holes in things, but I see them more as shooting an electrical pulse of some kind. If it hits your arm or leg it’ll be out of commission for a while, but you’ll survive, but a direct headshot or a shot to the heart will kill you straight-up. Which is why Korse doesn’t get his head blasted off in this scene, his circuits just go haywire.
~
“…Am I awake?”
“Don’t move. You’ve been in stasis for a day. I’m only waking you up to let you know you’ll be in shutdown for another month. Maybe two.”
“A blast to the head, that could take some time to heal. I understand.”
“You let them escape. Again. They charged through the Draculoids and took back your prisoner. Honestly, it’s starting to get to the point where I wonder if you’re even trying to kill them.”
“I was overpowered.”
“You were in a small room. You could have taken them out in three shots.”
“Hm.”
HM INDEED god shut the fuck up Korse.
“You’re going into retraining once you’re healed. Something must be misfiring.”
“Ma’am, that won’t be necess-“
“Don’t question my decisions. You’re going to sleep, now.”
“But-“
“I’ll see you in a month. We can talk about your unusual empathy for prisoners then.”
“…Very well.”
(Don’t think about-)
One day I’ll decide on what the fuck happens to him after this scene. One of the original endings I had planned was Mikey recovers (at least mostly), the Killjoys face down Korse, Korse tries to bring him back to his side, Mikey kills him and finds closure or something.
Another option I was tossing around in my head was Korse coming back but he’s totally different (because of whatever retraining they did), and it kind of scares Mikey. But I never really went anywhere with that. There were a lot of potential endings for this fucking fic.
~~~~~~~~~~
~PART 2: IN WHICH MIKEYWAY’S LIFE IS HARD~
Again, yes, this is the original title. Welcome to how I write words.
“Mikey, keep walking.”
“I can’t leave, I told you, and I don’t want-“
“Is it the collar? Shit, Frank, can you get rid of it?”
“On it.”
“Just leave me there, seriously, I’m fine-“
“God, what did he do to you?”
“Might be pills. Do we have enough water to help him get through a pill withdrawal?”
“Barely. Call Show Pony once we get out-Frank, you doing all right there?”
“Yeah, just-hold still, Mikes, this might hurt.”
“But I don’t-agh!”
“Almost got it, one more-“
“Agh!”
“There, all gone. You feeling any better?”
“I didn’t need it off!”
“You’ll thank me later, once you’re not all medded up. Gee, is the car still out there?”
“Surrounded by Dracs, but yeah. Still there.”
“All right. Ray, you take care of him, we’ll take out the armed guard.”
“Got it.”
“Let me go, I was fine where I-“
“Shh, Mikey, it’ll be okay. You’re just confused right now. We’ll take you back to the desert, get you off the pills, and you’ll be fine.”
“But-“
“Shh.”
NO ONE UNDERSTANDS HOW MUCH I LOVE DIALOGUE-ONLY FIC. I’m surprised I don’t write more pesterlogs because that is basically the perfect format for me to write it, because holy fuck do I love dialogue. I love the challenge of trying to distinguish each character by just a few words and no speech tags, I love adding ambiguity if it’s necessary, I love PEOPLE TALKING. GOD!!!
…So yeah, this bit was fun, even more fun than the Korse/GoGo stuff.
~
He wakes up to soft light, and the first thing he thinks is Did a bulb go out? There’s never any variation in the brightness of the room-it’s either flooded with bright white light, or completely dark when he’s going to sleep.
Then something stirs behind him and mumbles, “Mikey?” and oh. Oh. He’s not in the room anymore.
He rolls over and sees a sleeping bag-like the one he’s in, which he’s only noticing now-with a mop of red hair at one end. The mop is parted by a hand, and Gerard’s looking at him through his bangs, smiling uncertainly. “How are you feeling?”
“All right.” It’s coming back to him now, bits and pieces. The escape. The fight. Yesterday-fuck, yesterday, pain and need and concerned faces and glares and struggle and-
“Just all right?”
“Yeah.” He sits up, looking around at the scene. It’s early morning, judging by the pale sunlight just starting to creep up on his right, and there are two other sleeping bags curled up a few feet away. There’s a dead fire at his feet.
“Better than yesterday?” Gerard wriggles his sleeping bag towards his. “I mean, you’re not still…right?”
“Still what?” He looks around a bit more until his eyes fall on-
Steam and smoke billowing from factories, the wide spread of the Residential Complex, the white towers looming over the whole city-the fifteenth floor of Main Tower Block B, a room at the end of the west hall, white sheets, a smiling figure-
“Mikey?”
He looks back at Gerard, who’s staring at him with wide eyes. “You don’t…that was just the pills, that’s why you wanted to stay. They should be out of your system by now. You never have to go back again.”
He stares for a few moments. “But-“
“Never. I don’t know what he did to you, and you don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want, but it’s over now.”
TALK ABOUT YOUR GODDAMN FEELINGS, GOD. Although I guess in this case it’s less “Let’s not talk about feelings” and more “Let’s not talk about the city,” to be honest.
“Oh.” He lets his gaze drift back to the city. “Never?”
“Never. Now-Mikey, seriously, stop that. You’re scaring me.”
He looks away, but he doesn’t look back at Gerard. It doesn’t feel right, following his orders.
~
“Mikey.”
It’s a silly name, anyway. He could have gone with just “Mike.”
Or he could have stayed with “Michael.”
“Mikey” just sounds like a child’s version of his name. Diminutive. And no one else really goes by it. Why be the exception?
“Mikey?”
It always takes him a few seconds to respond to it, to remember it’s what people call him.
“Yes?”
“We’re going to be at the diner soon, maybe another day or two. You can rest there for a while, but we can’t stay long. The Dracs found it a little while ago, and we fought them off just fine, but…we’ll be needing a new hideout.”
Whoops.
“Right.”
He misses the pills. The inside of BL/ind was dull and white, but it was familiar. Comfortable. The desert’s just bleak, a wide expanse of sand and dirt and, but he can’t go back, not now.
“We can talk when we get there.” Gerard turns around from the driver’s seat, staring at him nervously.
“Right.” Mikey looks out the window.
~
Mikey’s always stared off into the desert a lot, waiting for Frank to finish fixing something or Gerard to do the finishing touches on a repainted gun. He doesn’t see why it has to be such a big deal when his gaze happens to fall in the direction of the city more often than not.
Frank and Ray just call his name to get his attention, a nervous look on their faces, but Gerard confronts him about it.
“You’re really worrying me, Mikey,” he says to him one night, wriggling until their sleeping bags are closer together.
Mikey doesn’t look at him, still fixed on the white towers in the distance. “Stop worrying, then. I’m fine.”
“You’re always looking back there. You don’t…you can’t actually miss that, right?”
Mikey watches as the lights at the top of Main Tower Block B start to shut off. It must be 2300.
“Of course not, Gee,” he says, because it’s the easiest answer.
Oh hey! Now we’re getting to the bits that were originally texts to Kyrie that I sent in airports, before I even started the first part. Good times.
So yeah, that’s why some of the bits in this section feel kind of patchworky. I had a bunch of bits already written but with no idea for the timeline, so it ends up just sounding like a series of anecdotes instead of, y’know, a plot.
~
The diner’s the same as ever, but with a few extra scorch marks on the walls. Frank and Ray go out to work on the Trans Am, leaving Mikey and Gerard to sit across from each other in one of the booths, Mikey picking at a can of kibble while Gerard stares at him with concern.
Eventually, Mikey can’t take it anymore, and he sets down the fork without looking up. “What’s wrong?”
“What’s-with me? I was going to ask you that. You haven’t said anything about what happened, and you know you can talk to me about anything.”
Nobody really talks about what happened to them after they’ve been rescued. Mikey remembers Frank being pissed for a while, Ray not really talking for a few weeks, and Gerard being more determined than ever in their cause, but no one ever told stories. So Mikey’s been keeping the tradition, staying quiet about the whole affair, even when one of them looks at him warily and asks, “You want to talk?”
Mikey’s not sure what he’d say, if he let himself.
“It’s nothing,” he finally says, but Gerard’s frown deepens.
“Mikey, you’re fucking traumatized, it’s all right to admit it.” Gerard looks hesitant but he’s leaning in a little, like he wants to give him a hug but he’s not sure how he’d react.
Mikey just shrugs and sinks into the aging cushion of the booth. “It…really wasn’t that bad, Gee.”
“Not that bad?” Gerard gapes at him. “Mikey, he-he fucking kidnapped you, probably tortured you, you won’t even talk about any of the shit he did.”
Mikey still won’t make eye contact. “It’s his job. You know when he’s not working they just lock him up in stasis? How shitty is that?”
“You’re-“ Gerard can’t seem to find words for a moment. “You can’t actually sympathize with him. He’s an exterminator. He’s the bad guy.”
“What if he’s not?” Mikey asks quietly, and he knows this is only going to cause trouble, only going to make everyone worry about him more, but he can’t just let it go. “What if we’re just not thinking everything through?”
“Mikey,” Gerard says firmly, reaching across the table to put a hand on his shoulder. Mikey flinches away, but Gerard continues. “I know he…I know he can get in your head. But if it’s us and them, you have to be able to shoot him, no questions asked. Okay?”
“Gee, he-he’s seriously not as bad as we think.” He wasn’t going to try and convince Gerard like this, but maybe, maybe, he’ll get it, more than the others would. He knows his brother’s been taken by Korse, knows the way Korse talked about him, those weird almost-fond expressions that would spread across his face when he mentioned him, maybe he’d understand. “And maybe BLI isn’t all bad, they have some good ideas, if they just changed how they did things a little-“
“Mikey.” Gerard sounds betrayed. “How can you even-we’re right, they’re wrong, that’s just how it works. There’s no compromise here.”
Mikey starts to inch out of the seat, eyes wide. “You-he was right about you.”
“I-What did he say about me?”
Mikey starts to curl in on himself, flinching when Gerard tries to put a hand on him again. “That you’re just a crazy radical. You aren’t really thinking all this through. If you’d just be reasonable and consider both sides then we could probably-“
“Don’t do this to me, Mikey.” Gerard’s voice is cracking. “Don’t become like them, you’re my baby brother, I need you here.”
He probably exploited that bond, Mikey hears, like he’s back there again, tied down and trying to ignore the words that he should have known were true all along. He manipulated you.
Mikey stands up and walks back outside.
I’m pretty sure this section was originally written to be set around the campfire. There was going to be a whole series of fireside therapy sessions, but it just…didn’t work, for some reason. Bluh.
~
He avoids Gerard for a while. He can’t leave-there’s nowhere to go, not even back to the city-but at least he can keep away from Gerard.
Frank always takes Gerard’s side, he knows, so he gets in the habit of staying near Ray. Ray doesn’t ask too many questions. Ray doesn’t stop him from looking at the city in the distance.
Ray kisses him a few nights after they’ve started looking for a new hideout.
It’s nothing special, a peck on the lips after a quiet conversation about what their new hideout should be like, their sleeping bags pressed up against each other, and it’s not surprising. Ray doesn’t even say a word when Mikey starts to crawl out of his own sleeping bag and join Ray in his, just lets Mikey lie on top of him and kiss him again and again, their hips starting to grind against each other.
They’ve done this before. They’ve all done this before, especially after one of them gets taken-easing stress and high emotion through sex is as natural to them as running from a Drac. Maybe it’s from coming out of a lifetime of sex-suppressors, maybe it’s the way they all need to reacquaint themselves with the team after being separated, but it always works.
They rub off against each other until they’re both sticky and disgusting, and Mikey feels a little better. Definitely more like a Killjoy.
He’s not sure, but the two feelings seem like they’re in opposition to each other.
Again with the endlessly conflicted wording. This sentence still sounds awkward, but I really wanted to get across this weird internal conflict Mikey’s feeling. WORDS ARE HARD!
~
Kissing Ray becomes a regular occurrence. They’ll park for the night, Frank and Gerard will start setting up camp, and Mikey will look over at Ray, eyebrow cocked.
So they’re kissing again, now, somewhere between the desperate just-escaped sucking or biting and the gentle way Ray slides his lips over Mikey’s the way he always does, the way he did before Mikey was taken. It’s cramped, they’re holding each other up so neither of them fall off the back seat, but the touch is so, so worth it.
“You don’t have to be so careful,” Mikey breathes, taking his hands out of Ray’s hair to cross them above his head, rested against the window of the Trans Am. “Come on, you’re strong enough, hold me down.”
AHAHAHA OH RIGHT THIS IS WHERE IT GETS GROSS.
“Mikey-“ he sits up, and Mikey frowns at the loss of contact. Ray looks scared.
“Ray?” Mikey sits up to chase after him, but Ray only backs up further.
“Don’t…don’t do that.” Ray’s looking at him like he just found a dead animal on the side of the road, horrified and sympathetic and nothing he should be feeling right now, what the hell.
“Do what?”
“That…I shouldn’t have done this, it’s not going to help you.” Ray starts to climb out of the car, and Mikey can’t bring himself to stop him.
TALK ABOUT YOUR FEELINGS, DAMMIT.
Killjoys suck at feelings; in other news, bears shit in woods.
~
It’s only a few days before Ray comes back, apologizes, lets Mikey tell him he really doesn’t need to apologize, and they make out in the back of the car again.
Mikey tries not to do whatever it is that made Ray freak out. Maybe he doesn’t like holding people down. Maybe he thinks Mikey’s traumatized, like Gerard said.
Maybe Ray’s the one who’s traumatized.
“Is it true?” Mikey asks one night, curled up against Ray in his sleeping bag, “What they did to you? He told me, he said he took you-“
“Mikey,” Ray interrupts, putting his face in Mikey’s shoulder, “Can we just…sleep? Please?”
No one really talks about what happened to them, after all.
GODDAMMIT.
No but seriously though I’d love to expand on Ray’s story. But Reili said she’d do that, so. Whatever.
They come across an abandoned building a few days later, torn up by the wind and sand just enough that the Dracs probably won’t come looking for them there, but sturdy enough to hold them for a while. It’s a nice change from the road.
(Even if the walls aren’t white, the lights aren’t artificial, and there aren’t any dispensers in the walls.)
The building looks like it might have been a shop at one time, with a wide open area on the first floor and living quarters on the second. Frank and Gerard agree to set up camp downstairs and let Mikey and Ray sleep upstairs. Ray starts to argue that they could probably fit four in the bed, they all know how rare it is to find real sheets and pillows, but Frank and Gerard just look at each other before declining.
Mikey’s fine with that.
~
It’s dark, been dark for days, but this is new, not hearing anything. He snaps his fingers and feels the noise rather than hears it, but when he hums and clicks his tongue he hears that just fine. He can get through this. He’ll be-
Suddenly, noise, noise everywhere, and it’s worse than the vague ringing that never leaves his ears, there’s this steady stream of static that’s more cloying than any amount of silence. He clicks his tongue again, hums again, but nothing. It’s a void.
He can take this. It’s just silence. Silence and darkness-he could sleep like this.
Except he can’t, because the silence is too fucking loud.
He’s been focusing on silence through the whole ordeal, using it as a wall, but now? Now the wall’s stopped keeping things out and started holding him in, and he’s trapped, alone, completely alone in the void, and he’s going to suffocate from this, he can’t stay like this another second longer, he-
Light again, bright white light that hurts like hell and feels better than anything he’s felt in weeks.
A hand in his hair, pushing it out of his eyes, and a face smiling down at him.
“I was there the whole time, Michael.”
Michael smiles.
One day I for reals want to rewrite the entirety of part 1 from Mikey’s perspective. I’d been planning on doing it for ages and was actually considering doing a perspective shift throughout that whole section while I was writing it, but it didn’t work, so I just went through these dream sequences instead. I think it works pretty well as a parallel to the other intermission portions throughout the other parts, but I’d still like to expand on it in a separate fic.
~
“Mikey?”
Mikey wakes up to find that he can see and hear again, and the body wrapped around him is dusty and brightly-colored.
“Oh…morning, Ray.”
Ray tightens his hold on Mikey, putting as little air between them as possible. “You…were you having nightmares? You were saying…”
Mikey knows what he was saying. “Yeah, it’s…I’m fine, Ray, go back to sleep.”
It’d be harder to explain that dreaming about being back there is never really a nightmare.
~
Ray loses himself sometimes, grabs his hips and holds him against the wall, and Mikey’s always trying to find the right spots to lick and suck to make it happen again. But Ray always has to ruin it when it’s over, jumping back like Mikey’s diseased and sputtering out apologies, and it’s just not the same-
He tries not to tell Ray that, at least not in those words. He’d only be worried again.
It’s easy to bait him sometimes, though.
They’ve all been working on the car most of the day, giving it a regular sand-scrubbing, but Mikey’s the first one back to his room. He’s still getting used to the desert sun again.
He sits at the end of the bed and waits until he hears footsteps on the stairs, then stands up, waits by the door, and pulls Ray into the room as soon as it starts to open. Ray lets out a noise of surprise as Mikey pushes him against the door, but Mikey muffles it with his mouth.
“Wanna suck you off,” he whispers between kisses, working Ray’s too-tight pants open. Ray exhales sharply when Mikey bites down on his earlobe before sinking to his knees.
(Ray gets on his knees for Mikey sometimes, but it feels wrong, somehow. Mikey would rather be the one on the ground, the one being good to Ray, but whenever he tries to explain this, Ray frowns and holds him close, and then neither of them are getting off.
“You don’t have to be like this, Mikey,” Ray says, holding him by the small of his back, which he supposes is soothing in its own way.
“Are you judging my sexual preferences?” Mikey asks with a smirk. “My brother might have something to say about that.”
Ray doesn’t laugh.)
He’s got his lips around the head of Ray’s cock the second he hits the ground, and Ray moans, a high and needy sound that prompts Mikey to swallow him down further.
Man, can you tell I like writing blowjobs?
Because I like writing blowjobs.
I’m pretty sure the only more than half-assed sex scenes in this fic are blowjobs.
Mikey can see Ray’s hands flexing, seeking out contact, and Mikey rolls his eyes and takes his hand off Ray’s cock to relocate his hands to the back of his head.
Ray’s eyes widen, and he takes in a shaky breath to say something, but Mikey pulls his mouth off of Ray’s cock to interrupt-“Just…fucking fuck my mouth already, come on,” and Ray’s hips twitch in that way they do when Mikey does something just right.
“Ray,” he breathes against the inside of his thigh, clasping his hands behind his back, staring up at him from under his lashes, trying to make himself as presentable as possible.
“Mikey, I-“ But Mikey doesn’t let him say anything else, just takes him all the way down until he’s nearly choking on Ray’s dick, and Ray’s fingers tighten in his hair. Mikey hums his approval, making Ray groan and thrust his hips-just a little, but enough to know that Mikey’s winning.
He bobs his head once, twice, presses his tongue against the shaft and flicks at the head, and Ray’s moaning now, fucking into Mikey’s mouth at a slow pace, and it’s good, but it’s not great.
He goes a little faster, meeting Ray’s shallow thrusts with the back of his throat until Ray gasps and jerks his hips harder, Mikey’s name tumbling off his lips over and over again like a record that’s got too much sand in it.
Mikey stops moving at one point and just waits, and-yes, Ray’s gripping the back of his head and thrusting his hips forward to keep the rhythm going. Mikey shuts his eyes and lets it happen, lets the wave of feeling good and useful to Ray fall over him, and he hardly notices when Ray starts to say his name with a different tone, a warning.
Mikey sucks hard, and Ray makes a choked noise and comes down his throat.
Man, one of my porn pet peeves is actually when people don’t spend more than one sentence on the orgasm, because goddamn do I love orgasms. But then I remember that I do basically the same thing, especially when the perspective character isn’t the one coming. SIGH.
After he’s swallowed everything and cleaned Ray up, he pulls off to sit back on his heels, grinning up at him hazily.
Ray blinks a few times, staring down at Mikey, and then his face contorts into what definitely doesn’t look like a content post-blowjob face.
“Mikey, holy fuck, I’m…I’m so sorry.” He kneels down next to him, holding Mikey around the neck and murmuring apologies into his ear.
What?
“What?” Mikey wriggles out of Ray’s grip enough to look him in the eye. This is ruining that blissed-out state he’d gotten himself into only seconds ago. “What’s wrong?” His voice comes out as a rasp.
“I-I shouldn’t have, that was wrong, I’m so sorry, Mikey…”
“Ray,” Mikey says, and he can see Ray wince at every hoarse word. “It’s fine, seriously, what the hell?”
“I fucking used you, I’m not treating you like I should-“
“I asked for it.”
“You didn’t want to!”
Mikey stares at him. “I asked for it. How is that not-“
“You only asked for it because of…whatever he did to you, it messed you up, and I’m sorry.”
Mikey breaks free of Ray’s grip and stands up. “Not everything has to be about him, you know.”
Ray doesn’t follow him as he goes to the door.
Ugh my biggest regret about this fic is honestly the way I established this. I could have given a lot more context to allow Mikey’s submissiveness to be a bit more ambiguous as to whether Korse affected it or not, but instead it just comes out like another “person gets raped and becomes a sex maniac” story. There’s a lot I could have done with whether his submissiveness was a factor in how he broke down while the other Killjoys didn’t (which could also be gross as fuck but I’d try to make it clear that no, actually, Korse is just a really manipulative fucker with the experience of tearing apart three Killjoys already) or like, how D/s is treated in zonerunner culture, but NOPE, THIS HAPPENED INSTEAD.
This fic should have been longer.
~
Ray still sleeps in the same bed as him, but he doesn’t respond to Mikey’s touches, rolls over if Mikey tries to kiss him, and Mikey’s about two nights away from blowing him in his sleep when Gerard announces that they have to start moving again.
MIKEY I DON’T THINK…THAT WILL SOLVE YOUR PROBLEMS…….
It’s another blur of days and nights, of driving and camping out, of staring at the vague rectangular shapes of the city on the horizon. He doesn’t feel like he did before, like he needed to stay there, like he was so happy there-that was the pills. It’s just hard to readjust to the freedom he’d been wanting for most (most) of his time locked up. To accept that he’s a Killjoy again.
To believe in what that actually means.
~
“You miss him,” Frank says to him out of the corner of his mouth, the other corner occupied with a wrench.
Mikey looks up from the new issue of Murder he’s only been vaguely glancing at. “What?”
“Korse. The city. Everyone’s trying not to believe it, but you miss it.” He takes the wrench out of his mouth and replaces it with a screwdriver, twisting at a bolt on whatever new gadget he’s working on.
“I don’t miss him,” Mikey says, but it sounds hollow in his mouth.
Frank just sighs and starts packing up his toolbox. “You do. You’re always looking over there, you never act angry for what he did-Ray told me you say his name in your sleep, fuck. I don’t know if this is your way of coping or whatever, but if he comes after us again…I just don’t want you running back to him, okay?”
Fun fact: I was also seriously considering this as an ending.
Mikey starts to protest, but when he considers the idea-Korse chasing them down again, smiling at him, the spot next to him empty and waiting-Mikey turns away.
Maybe it’s true. Maybe, if he had the chance, he’d go back to the way it was, but that chance isn’t coming. He’s stuck here again.
He might as well try to start believing again.
~
It doesn’t last long.
The first (and only) time Mikey kills a Drac after being taken back to the desert, he almost throws up.
Gerard kneels down to put an arm around his shoulders when he collapses next to the body, but Mikey shoves him away, snarling, “What if that was you? Drafted into a war you don’t believe in, shoved into a body you don’t want, and then shot by people who could have been your friends? How would you feel?”
“Dead,” Gerard says, and Mikey really does throw up, now.
This was a text, I’m pretty sure! I don’t think any of the original texts from this fic exist anymore, unless Kyrie has them. Kind of a shame.
~
“Mikey.” Gerard sidles into the back seat next to Mikey, and Mikey cringes away, but he doesn’t leave. It’s been a while since they’ve talked, maybe Gerard will listen to him this time. “I know you’re just trying to be reasonable, but…we can’t reason with them. They want us dead. They probably want you dead, too-you’re kind of a liability. So who do you really want to trust, the ones who want you dead or the ones who will keep you safe from them?”
Mikey picks at the half-eaten can of kibble they’ve been sharing all day, not looking at Gerard. “I want to trust you, you know I do. I’m just…having trouble doing that.”
Gerard sighs that hurt little sigh he seems to be doing a lot lately. “Mikey…”
“I’m sorry. Just give me some more time.”
“We don't have any time. You need to pick a side, and you need to pick it now. Are you going to fight the fuckers who fucked you up, or fight your best friends?”
“You don’t underst-“
“I do understand!” Gerard’s gripping the seats tight enough that Mikey starts to worry about the upholstery. “I understand that the guy we’re fighting to the death tortured and manipulated you to get back at me. Do you have any idea how much that’s fucking with my head?”
“Get back at you? The fuck did you do to him that the rest of us haven’t?”
Gerard doesn’t look at him. “We-“ he stops himself, taking a deep breath. “I-“
Mikey waits.
“I just…tricked him into letting me go, that’s all,” Gerard finally stammers out, but there’s obviously a lot going unsaid.
Mikey keeps staring at him. He knows Gerard; if nobody stops him he’ll keep talking until someone does. And he never keeps secrets from Mikey.
“…What?” Gerard still won’t look at him.
“…Go on, tell me more.”
“There’s nothing left to tell,” Gerard snaps, and Mikey recoils at the tone. Gerard doesn’t trust him.
His brother doesn’t trust him.
“You’re sure?” he asks, hoping, wishing for it not to be true, but Gerard just shakes his head and starts to climb out the door.
Mikey slumps in his seat. Gerard, his big brother, the one he’s saved and been saved by so many times, the one who’s been trying to get Mikey to listen to him for the past few weeks, doesn’t even trust him.
He’s seen the way the other guys look at him, too. Ray’s scared of him, especially ever since they stopped sleeping together, and Frank always gives him these obnoxious knowing looks, like Yeah, you’re screwed up, but I won’t say anything. He feels diseased, like everyone wants to watch him and take care of him without getting anywhere near him.
Fine, then. If they’re not going to trust him, he’ll just return the favor.
~
He’s on his knees, there are hands in his hair, his mouth is full of Korse’s cock and it’s the greatest feeling in the world. His brain is flooded with sensation and endorphins and whatever they put in those pills, and he’s barely lucid, unable to think.
So he doesn’t. He just lets Korse move him wherever he likes, fast or slow, deep or shallow, like a tool, like a thing, and his mind goes completely blank. He doesn’t need to think. He just needs to sink into this feeling and hope it never goes away, hope he can stay this open and empty forever.
But then the monotony of Korse’s rhythmic thrusting is interrupted by sudden sharp pains where his fingers are tightening in his hair, and he can hear Korse’s breathing stutter, and then he’s swallowing as fast as he can as Korse comes in his mouth and down his throat.
He comes back to himself all at once, suddenly aware of his own swollen lips and raw throat, and he groans, but then Korse’s hands are back in his hair again, stroking lightly around his ears.
“You’ll never leave, will you, Michael?” Korse tugs on the back of Michael’s collar until he starts to choke again.
He can’t say a word.
~
Mikey wakes up in the back of the car, having given up on sleeping so close to the others. He’s almost surprised to see he’s still wearing the cheap leather jacket and oddly-colored pants that the others forced him into the day he left the building, once they’d managed to get him out of the white prisoner’s uniform.
Waking up is always disorienting. He still dreams in black and white, and when he wakes up and sees the blue sky, the brown dust, he just wants to go back to sleep.
What had he ever seen in the desert?
Freedom of speech and expression, I suppose.
~
next!