fic: In The Walls (5/8)
Headers & Main Post - Part One - Part Two - Part Three - Part Four - Part Five - Part Six - Part Seven - Part Eight - Bonus Content
Frank still hasn't put in an appearance by mid-afternoon the next day and Gerard is more worried than he'd like to admit-they never go this long after a fight before they talk about it. Add to that the fact that they're in a haunted house that keeps fucking with them, and it really doesn't sit well with him that nobody's seen Frank in two days. There's a clenching ball of worry right in the pit of his stomach that's getting worse and worse as the hours tick by.
Finally it gets too much to take anymore and he decides he needs to go make sure Frank's okay. He's pretty sure Frank's got to be in his room so he heads upstairs, following the same path he takes on nights when he walks Frank to his door.
This time, he can't help but stare at the little numbers nailed to the door. 213, in solid wrought iron. Maybe the number is unlucky, after all. At this point, nothing would surprise Gerard less.
Gerard takes a deep breath and then forces himself to knock on Frank's door, two firm taps. "Frank?" he calls, "are you okay?"
"What do you want, Gerard?" Frank's voice is distant and muffled but even so, it sounds thick like he's been crying, or maybe trying not to. He sounds completely miserable.
Gerard tries the knob and is vaguely unsurprised to find it locked. "Nobody saw you yesterday," he tells the door. "I wanted to make sure you're... you know, still alive." He wishes he could even play that off as a joke, but he's entirely serious.
"I don't know why you care."
Gerard sighs heavily and leans against the door. Fucking Frank. "Is this about the other day?"
Frank doesn't answer and doesn't answer and Gerard is starting to wonder if Frank is going to shut him out completely when Frank finally says, "I don't blame you if you never forgive me for that." His voice sounds closer to the door than it had been before, though.
"You hurt me, and you meant to. I'm not going to say otherwise, because I'd be lying-" Gerard says carefully, and Frank makes a noise like a half-swallowed gasp of pain. "But I don't think it was unforgivable."
"No?" The word is hopeful, almost pathetically so.
"No," Gerard confirms, then clears his throat. "But I do think you need to apologize."
Frank is quiet for a long time and Gerard wonders if he fucked up and said the wrong thing-or the right thing the wrong way. He can't help but think it might have been a bad idea to try to push Frank on the matter.
There's more noise through the door, then-some muffled crashing and cursing-but Gerard can't figure out what just happened. At least it doesn't sound like Frank is breaking anything (electronics, instruments, bones), which Gerard cautiously takes as a good sign. "Frank?" he asks softly, not daring anything more.
"God, I can't even-" Frank starts, his voice choked up and sounding like it's coming from just the other side of the door. "I'm sorry, I'm so sorry, you have no idea, Gerard."
Gerard's breath catches in his throat. "Frank," he says again. He doesn't know what else to say, not to that.
"I wish I hadn't said that. I wish more than anything. I don't know why I even did it, fuck, but I couldn't stop myself and I should have, I know I should have."
"It was true, though," Gerard frowns, suddenly bitter. "And sometimes the truth fucking hurts."
The sound Frank makes then must be a gasp of shocked laughter; Gerard knows Frank well enough to recognize the sound, even muffled, even when Frank is still all snotty and stuffed up. "Yeah," Frank agrees, "yeah, it fucking does." He sighs loud enough for it to carry, and then it sounds like he thunks his head against the door. "You know I love you, right? You and Mikey, you guys are the best thing to ever happen to me."
"I love you too," Gerard tells him, and he means it with everything he has.
"I just miss him so much." And if Frank isn't holding back tears now, Gerard will be very surprised. Because it seems like such a simple thing to say-to admit-but Gerard knows maybe even better than Frank the full depth of what it means. It's not just Mikey's physical absence that's hurting them, but the way he's missing from their hive mind of five, the way he's missing from the music, the writing. It's the way he's been missing as himself for much longer than he's been gone from the house-the Mikey they know so well and love so much and need around as a brother and a best friend, well, he's been gone for a while.
"Me too," Gerard says, suddenly all choked up himself. He reaches for the knob to try the door again, but it's still locked. "Will you let me in now?"
"Not yet," Frank sniffs. "I'm not done beating myself up yet."
Gerard frowns. "Are you-"
"Just emotionally," Frank interrupts. "I'll be okay."
"Well, I'll be downstairs," Gerard says. "Come find me when you're ready, okay?"
"Okay," Frank promises. His voice is practically in Gerard's ear.
Gerard clears his throat a couple times and scrubs at his eyes as he walks down the hall. It occurs to him that he never told Frank that he forgives him, not in so many words, but he realizes that he has anyway, and he would bet anything that Frank knows it.
* * *
Once he leaves the hall near Frank's room, Gerard lets his feet lead him down to the kitchen, where he pours himself a cup of coffee and a bowl of cereal. He ends up forgetting about both as he stares out the window, chin cupped in his hand. It's still sunny and bright out, and the light is slanting in the windows to light up the entire kitchen. It's so incongruous with everything that's been going on lately, Gerard thinks, and he almost wishes that the sun would disappear again for a week, just so all the weird shit would sit a little better. It would make more sense, somehow.
Gerard is so lost in his head that he doesn't realize he's not alone in the kitchen anymore until he feels a hand on his shoulder. He jumps, almost knocking his spoon out of his bowl, and whirls to see Ray standing an arm's length away.
"Earth to Gerard," Ray says gently.
"Jeez," Gerard says, shaking his head to get rid of his last lingering melancholy thoughts. "How long were you standing there?"
"A while." Ray walks around the table then and sits down. "How long has your cereal been sitting there? Looks pretty gross now."
"Dunno. A while." Gerard cracks the faintest hint of a smile, then looks down at his cereal. The little shapes are all pale and bloated as they float limply in the milk. Gerard wrinkles his nose at it, then pushes the bowl away.
"You seen anyone else today?" Ray asks. He's tapping out a rhythm on the edge of the table and he's staring down at his hands.
"Not technically," Gerard says. He takes a sip of his coffee. It's stone cold, but he can't be bothered getting up to nuke it so he grits his teeth and swills it back as fast as he can.
"Hmm?" Ray looks up.
"I talked to Frank through his door."
"He okay?"
Gerard looks down into his empty mug. "Yeah, he will be. He'll turn up when he's ready. Don't think it'll be too much longer now. You want some coffee?" He gets to his feet and heads for the counter.
"Okay, good. And yes, thanks."
Gerard pours two cups and brings them back to the table. Ray keeps tapping away, reaching occasionally for his coffee, but doesn't say anything more. A certain relaxed stillness falls around them, and it's a comfortable enough way to pass the time. Gerard is glad for Ray's solid company, too. They're not waiting for anything in particular, not with rehearsal on indefinite hiatus, and it makes the days feel extra long now that they've got nothing to do.
After a while, Gerard becomes vaguely aware of footsteps approaching the kitchen. He's hoping against hope that it's Frank, but it turns out to be Bob-soaking wet, scowling, and really, shockingly pale.
Gerard blinks at him. "What the hell happened to you?"
"I think the house tried to kill me," Bob says.
"What happened?" Ray repeats Gerard's question.
Bob frowns. "I was having a shower, and then I got attacked."
"By what?" Ray leans in, pulling himself in closer to the table.
"Dunno," Bob says. "Didn't see anyone, but it happened." He uncrosses his arms to push his wet hair back out of his face, and only then does Gerard notice the jagged gash down the inside of Bob's arm, still oozing wet red.
"What the fuck happened to your arm?" Gerard launches himself out of his chair to grab hold of Bob's hand and pull it towards himself, stretching out Bob's arm for his inspection.
"Like I said," Bob says. He sounds subdued, too subdued, and Gerard looks up to Bob's face. Bob is even paler up close, and the freckles across his nose stand out sharply.
"Maybe you should sit down," Gerard tells him, and tugs him gently to the nearest chair. Bob sits without protest. He tucks his arm back in close to his body.
"I'm going to get the first aid kit," Ray says, leaning across the table to pull Bob's arm back out and look at it intensely.
"I'll be okay," Bob says.
"Yeah, because I'm getting the first aid kit," Ray tells him firmly. His chair scrapes loudly against the floor as he gets to his feet.
Gerard hovers uselessly for a moment and then finally sits down next to Bob. He doesn't know what to say and he manages to bite his tongue before it takes off under its own volition and starts him babbling to fill the silence.
"You're not gonna make fun of me now, are you?" Bob asks, saving Gerard the trouble of coming up with something.
Gerard is taken aback by the question. "For what?"
Bob doesn't answer right away, but then he says, "For coming around on the haunted thing." He's staring intently down at the table like he's deliberately avoiding looking at Gerard. "I mean, I gave you guys a lot of shit for that, but now..."
"It makes more sense to believe than not," Gerard finishes the sentence, and Bob looks up at him, finally.
"Exactly," Bob says. "What the fuck is wrong with this place?"
"Do you want to talk about what happened?" Gerard asks. "I get it if you don't, but fuck, if you got attacked? I want to know what to watch out for, you know?"
"I know I should," Bob starts, reluctant.
"You should," Gerard agrees, then adds gently, "but nobody is going to make you."
"Yeah," Bob says, then breathes out heavily. "I- sorry, can you get me a glass of water?"
"Of course!" Gerard gets up and walks to the sink to pour Bob a glass. He eyes the coffeemaker for himself, but then decides that he'd rather have water, too.
When he turns back to the table, Gerard can see blood drying in Bob's hair and almost reaches out to touch it before he remembers his hands are full. "Did you hit your head, too?"
"Yeah," Bob says shortly. "Is it bleeding?"
"It was," Gerard says, leaning in to squint at the back of Bob's head. "I think it's stopped now."
"Good."
Gerard is still looking the blood dried in Bob's hair. "What the hell happened?"
"I'm still not sure," Bob says.
When Gerard puts the glasses down and slides back into his seat, Bob is staring down at the gash in his arm. His mouth is hanging slightly open and he's got this look on his face like he can't quite believe what he's seeing.
"Are you okay?" Gerard asks.
"Honestly? I have no idea," Bob says.
"What happened?"
Bob looks up just long enough to glance over at Gerard, and Gerard has no idea what Bob is looking for but he seems satisfied by whatever it was. "So I was having a shower-"
"You got your taps fixed?" Gerard interrupts.
"They fixed themselves, really," Bob shrugs. "I didn't do anything. It took almost a week of trying to get the water running clear, and then this fucking happened." He waves his injured arm at Gerard, who flinches and looks away.
"Seriously, what did you do?" Gerard asks him. "It looks like you put your arm through a window, but that doesn't explain how you hit your head."
Bob sighs. "You have no idea how much I wish it was that easy."
"Tell me," Gerard presses.
Bob takes a deep breath. "I was in the shower and then out of nowhere, I see these hand prints in the fog on the shower door." Bob's almost rolling his eyes as he says it, putting up a tough front, but Gerard can see right through it and he suspects Bob knows it.
"Not yours, I take it," Gerard says mildly.
Bob shakes his head. "Definitely not. And then they disappeared and I figured I imagined it."
Gerard makes a small noise of encouragement. "That's pretty freaky."
"No, what's freaky is the fact that they reappeared a minute later."
"Point."
"And then," Bob goes on, warming up to his story despite himself, "the door started sliding open all by itself-yes, really," he cuts Gerard off. "At first I thought it was Frank, trying to scare me or something."
"Sounds like him," Gerard agrees. "It wasn't?"
"No," Bob says. "There was nobody there. At all. Room's completely empty except for me."
"Was it a draft or something?" Gerard asks, his forehead creasing in question.
"It was moving way too slow for that," Bob says.
"Weird," Gerard mutters, shaking his head a little. "So, what then?"
Bob spreads his hand and sighs. "Okay, so this is the part that's fucked," he says. "Because there was nothing in the room, right? But then there was something in the shower with me."
Gerard frowns. "What was it?"
"Hell if I know," Bob shrugs. "Couldn't see it. But I could feel that it was there, does that make sense?"
"Yeah," Gerard assures him. "Was it, like, a presence? Or a ghost? Or..."
"No idea. It touched my leg, and I don't even know what it felt like, just that something touched my leg. It was fucking weird."
"Then what?" Gerard asks, a little breathless.
Bob hesitates, and then says slowly, "Then the door slid shut again, all by itself."
"Okay, that doesn't bode well," Gerard says, swept up in the story before he realizes that, yeah, no shit.
Bob shakes his head at Gerard but doesn't start talking again, not right away. Finally he says, "This is the part I still can't really believe."
Gerard unfolds his legs and leans toward Bob, like closing the space between them will make it easier for him to spill his secrets. "Like your mind is playing tricks on you?" Gerard asks, and Bob nods. "Tell me anyway."
Bob lets out a heavy breath. "It felt- something grabbed my wrists and wouldn't let go," he says in a rush. Gerard can hear the faint edge of panic in the words. "It- it was squeezing, it hurt. I couldn't shake it off." He looks down at his hands like he's expecting to see marks from whatever had been holding him. Gerard looks too, and he doesn't see anything except the jagged gash down the inside of Bob's arm, which is already halfway crusted over. "And then..."
"What happened?" Gerard asks, leaning even closer.
"The shower got really hot all of a sudden, like, scalding hot, burning my back. And I still couldn't get my hands free and I couldn't get away." He looks up from his hands and meets Gerard's eyes, and holds his gaze for a moment before he looks back down again. "Then I managed to slip backwards and crack my head on the faucet."
Gerard winces in sympathy, and Bob lifts his uninjured arm to feel gently at the back of his head.
"The weirdest thing was," Bob goes on slowly, checking his fingers when he pulls them away, "my hands were still somehow held in place in mid-air, even after I fell."
"That's fucked," Gerard says with feeling.
"Sure is," Bob agrees darkly. "So I'm on my back," he goes on, his voice suddenly angry and... disgusted? Gerard thinks. "I'm getting a face full of boiling hot water and my arms are getting wrenched out of their sockets-" he pauses, then gestures vaguely. "And then whatever's holding onto me just let go."
"Oh," Gerard says in surprise. "But that's good, right?"
"Yes and no," Bob says, the words lacking the usual dry humour Gerard would have expected. "I was trying to pull free at the time, so when it let go, I ended up putting my arm through the shower door."
"Ouch." Gerard cringes and pulls both of his arms close against his body.
"Yeah," Bob agrees.
"Shit," Gerard breathes.
"And then I got the hell out of there and came downstairs," Bob concludes quietly.
Gerard knows he's staring, his eyes wide and his jaw hanging open, but holy motherfucking shit. He isn't sure what to say-seriously, what do you even say to a story like that when you know it's got to be true? What comes out is, "You could have died!" He regrets the words immediately when he sees the way Bob flinches.
"You think?" Bob mutters. The sarcasm is thick.
Gerard flushes. "Sorry. I'm still trying to process, you know? It's not that I don't believe every word, but..."
"It's hard to believe," Bob fills in.
"It's a lot to take in," Gerard says. And fuck if Gerard hasn't had almost exactly this same conversation with Mikey. It seems almost too perfectly coincidental for his liking. Too many similarities. Too much he can't quite force himself to wrap his head around. "So, you think it was a ghost?"
"I don't know what to think. It could be. I mean, I wasn't imagining it. There's no way. Not with all this, ah, evidence." Bob has his hand curled protectively over the gash in his arm, and Gerard is glad that Bob's got it mostly hidden from sight. For all that he's into the gory and graphic, he doesn't much care for blood when it's actually real. "I can't believe I didn't see anything. I should have seen something, you know? You don't get attacked by nothing."
"You need a Norman Bates to your Marion Crane," Gerard says before he can stop himself.
Bob shoots him a look. "You have the most incredible one-track mind, you know that?"
"So I've heard," Gerard says dryly.
Bob doesn't say anything after that. He sits, still holding his arm, and he starts sucking on his lower lip. Gerard can hear it from where he's sitting; it's the only noise in the room. The silence otherwise is a little unsettling, considering what's still hanging in the air over their heads, but Bob is clearly thinking something over and Gerard has no desire to interrupt.
"You know," Bob says after a while, "I've thought about leaving-"
"What?" Gerard cuts in sharply.
"-the house," Bob finishes, loud enough to talk over Gerard.
"Ha," Gerard laughs awkwardly, embarrassed by his overreaction. "Yeah, okay." He pauses for a moment and then gives in to his curiosity and asks, "How long've you been thinking that?"
Bob shrugs with one shoulder, then winces slightly. "Since after the fight the other day. I don't know. I thought you guys were going to kill each other, and I couldn't stand to be around that. But before that too, I guess. I get a really bad feel from this place some nights."
"So why didn't you leave?" Gerard asks. He's genuinely curious at this point: given that he's been thinking on and off about leaving the house, the rest of them must have been thinking it, too-so it's a surprise that none of them have actually done it yet.
When Bob doesn't answer right away, Gerard turns his head just enough to look at him from the corners of his eyes. Bob is staring down at his lap, and he's flushed as if he's- as if he's embarrassed about something.
"Bob?" Gerard prompts.
"I felt guilty," Bob says softly, "but mostly I felt like I'd be pussying out." He pauses. He's fidgeting, twisting his fingers together, like he's trying to work up to what he's about to say next. "Like it'd mean I wasn't man enough to take the pressure of being in a band and recording an album. So I stayed."
"Right now it looks like none of us are up to that," Gerard sighs. "Some days I feel like this album is going to kill us all."
"It's so frustrating, not getting anything done," Bob says. He's still looking at the floor. "And I was- it was scary watching you guys fight. And now this time off is too much. I can't do nothing all day, it's-" He breaks off, flushes red up to his hairline, starts shifting uncomfortably.
"You know you're allowed to have your own thoughts on the matter, right?" Gerard tries to catch Bob's eye. "We're not going to get rid of you if you have an opinion or accidentally piss someone off."
And that clearly hits a nerve. Bob gapes at him, his jaw working like he's trying to say something but no words are coming out.
"Because that isn't going to happen," Gerard says firmly. "You need to stop being afraid of us changing our minds on you, or whatever bullshit you're thinking."
"How- how did you know? I never said anything about that." Bob sounds angry, defensive.
"It got really obvious to me, just then. I know you pretty well by now," Gerard tells him.
Bob looks down, starts picking at the fraying bottom hem of his jeans. "It's stupid, right? To be afraid of that?"
"It makes sense," Gerard says. "It's not stupid. I don't blame you at all."
"Thanks," Bob says. "I... yeah. Thanks." He smiles then, just a little pull at the corners of his lips. He uncurls, relaxing.
"Gerard's right," Ray says from the doorway, and Gerard and Bob both jump at the unexpected interruption. Ray has the good grace to look apologetic for startling them, at least.
"Don't start telling him that too often," Bob says. It sounds like he's trying to change the subject, and even though Gerard thinks it would be better if they kept talking until he had some hope of it sticking to Bob's stubborn mind, he's willing to let it go for now. Besides, Ray's holding a first-aid kit, and that's the most important thing right now anyway.
"I won't," Ray says as he sets the kit on the table and sits down next to Bob. "Give me your arm, Bob."
Bob presents his arm to Ray even as he grits his teeth and looks away, and Gerard is torn between watching Ray work and avoiding looking for the sake of his stomach. He ends up looking at a point over Ray's shoulder where he can see the suggestion of movement at the edge of his vision.
Ray starts sponging at the wound with a wet piece of gauze, leaning in close to peer at it. "Do you think this needs stitches?"
"No," Bob says firmly.
"Gee? Do you-"
"No," Bob repeats. "Just wrap it up, it'll be fine."
"If you're sure," Ray says hesitantly.
"I'm sure," Bob tells him.
Gerard still can't look but he's starting to get antsy, so he gets up and busies himself with making a new pot of coffee. He takes care in measuring out spoonfuls of grinds into the basket, filling the carafe, pouring the water into the coffee maker. Gerard watches the coffee drip into the pot, listens to the sound of it gurgle and hiss as it percolates. It's nice to have something so familiar to latch onto right now. He's shaken up by what Bob told him, about what happened to him and how he's been feeling both, and he needs something to distract himself while he starts to sort it out.
When the pot is finished brewing, he pours three cups and carries them to the table. Ray nods at him but doesn't take a mug. Bob twists to gesture with his free hand. It takes Gerard a second to figure it out but then he lifts one of the mugs and passes it to Bob.
Gerard takes the last two mugs for himself and sets to drinking them as he watches Ray finish patching Bob up.
"Hey, Bob," Ray says seriously when he finishes adjusting the layers of gauze wrapped around Bob's arm. "Can I ask you a favour?"
"What is it?"
"Can you not hide out in your room all day tomorrow? Can you stick your head out and say hi at some point so we know you're still alive?" Ray scratches awkwardly at his scalp, tugs at his hair. He's nervous with the question, that much is clear-Gerard wonders if it's the first time he's actually had to confront exactly how screwed up shit is in the house.
"Yeah, I can do that." Bob lifts his arm and turns it about like he's examining Ray's handiwork. "Looks good. Thanks, Toro."
"No problem," Ray nods at him, then gets to his feet. "I'm going to go watch a movie, do you guys want to come?"
"Sure," Gerard agrees quickly. It sounds way better than passing more time in silence, comfortable or otherwise, and he's starting to get really, really sick of both the kitchen and his own room. "You have anything in mind?"
"I was thinking Dune," Ray says.
Gerard can feel his eyes light up. "Oh, sweet. The movie or the mini-series?"
"The mini-series, come on."
"Nerds," Bob accuses them, but it's affectionate.
"You're coming too, Bryar," Ray tells him, and Bob doesn't argue it.
The three of them head upstairs and settle on Ray's bed around his laptop. Gerard isn't surprised when Bob excuses himself after the first episode-he's been looking more and more pinched and exhausted, like he needs a few nights of really good sleep before he'll be able to shake off the day's events. Gerard and Ray stick it out through the remaining three hours, though Gerard chooses not to say anything about the fact that Ray starts nodding off early into the third episode. When it's finally done, Gerard carefully climbs around Ray, who looks to be most of the way asleep, and makes the short walk back to his own room to put himself to bed.
* * *
Gerard gasps as he wakes up, coming suddenly and quickly up from sleep. It feels like his heart is beating too hard in his throat and he's going to choke on it. Another fucking bad dream, fuck.
Mikey is staring at him, wide-eyed, pleading, on the edge of falling apart.
He shakes his head, trying to dislodge the images. He's wide awake from the adrenaline burst, but the dream is sticking to him the way dreams never do. The way dreams never should.
And his Ma and his Dad, they're there too, behind Mikey.
It's vivid, too vivid, intense and real like a memory and not simply a figment of his subconscious brain. He can't stop shaking, can't stop the tremble in his hands from getting bigger, can't stop the rattle in his ribs. He listens for a moment, expecting to hear the faint click-clack of bones bouncing off each other, muffled under layers of muscle and flesh. All he hears is nothing.
And then they're all dead.
He wants to close his eyes against the onslaught of images but that's too much like being asleep, too close to falling back into the dream he was having, and he doesn't think he can take it a second time. He can barely take it after the first time.
Not just dead-murdered. They've got perfect round holes in their foreheads, clotted around the edges and running ribbons of red into their open, staring, accusing eyes.
Gerard steels himself for the rush of cold air that's going to hit him when he throws his covers back. He grits his teeth against the chill as he gets out of bed, and he gropes blindly for the slippers he left somewhere nearby.
He turns his back to their bodies and walks away.
After he pulls them onto his feet, he shuffles over to his bathroom. He doesn't bother turning the light on; there's enough moonlight and ambient city light coming in his bedroom window that he can more or less see what he's doing. But his hand is still shaking, and he has trouble keeping his stream of piss aimed at the middle of the bowl.
He stops in front of a full-length mirror to adjust his buttoned-up jacket, smoothing it out with one fat-knuckled, liver-spotted hand.
There's just enough light that he could see his reflection in the mirror above the sink if he wanted to, but he very carefully avoids looking up. Instead, he stares at his hands as he washes them. They're his normal, every-day, twenty-something hands. They're not old hands. The hands he saw in his dream weren't his, no matter how overwhelmingly they felt like it at the time.
The gun falls from his other hand as he walks from the room, and he leaves it where it lands.
He considers going back to bed for about half a second, and then sighs and heads for the door to the hallway. It's the middle of the goddamn night and he could probably get a few more hours of sleep, but there's no way he's ready to risk another nightmare, not when he's still feeling the one he just had.
He doesn't want to wake anyone else up for company or comfort, even though he's pretty sure none of the guys would be too mad about it. He can't bring himself to share his dream, or even mention it-it's too raw, too fucking personal. He can barely keep himself together as it is right now, when he's actively trying to push the lingering images out of his brain. His hands are still shaking, he's breathing too fast, his mouth is dry. He's still clammy from all the sweat clinging to his skin, and it's giving him chills as it dries in the cold air.
He can't stay in his room, though, and so he heads down to the kitchen, moving slowly on unsteady feet. It's not until he gets there that he wishes he'd brought something with him to keep him distracted, like a book or his laptop, but it hadn't occurred to him at the time and he's not going back upstairs, not now, not yet. He drinks a whole pot of coffee and picks at a piece of toast until it's just tiny crumbs on a plate before he gets so excruciatingly bored that he needs to get up and do something else.
Do what, though, is the question.
And then he realizes that it's been almost a week now since Mikey left, and he's dying to know how he's doing. Okay, maybe that's a bad choice of words, but now that he's had the thought, it's burst into this all-consuming need to talk to him, hear his voice, make sure he's okay. He got so caught up in his own frustration and anger that even when he thought to worry about his brother it never occurred to him to simply pick up the phone and call. He's ashamed of it now that he's aware of it, but at least he's going to do something about it.
Gerard vaguely remembers that Ray found a phone in the front hallway, so he goes to look for it. He doesn't see it at first, but then he finds it completely by accident in a little nook, just when he's about ready to give up in frustration.
He pulls his cell phone out for the first time in weeks to look up Stacy's home number, and then dials it carefully. As it rings, he realizes that he isn't sure what day it is or what time it is, and he has no idea if Stacy is even going to be home, or if Mikey is answering her phone, or if-
"Hello?" Stacy answers.
"Oh, uh, hey, Stacy," Gerard fumbles. "Is Mikey there?"
"He is," she affirms, but instead of passing the phone over she says, "How are you, Gerard? You guys all hanging in there?"
"We're doing our best," he tells her. "Some days it's hard."
"Oh, honey," she says. "I can imagine. You guys hang in there for me, okay?"
"I think we can do that," Gerard smiles. He's strangely comforted by her endearment, by knowing that someone out there cares about them all.
"Let me get Mikey for you," she says.
Gerard hears Stacy's muffled yell of, "Mikey? Phone!" followed shortly by the click of someone picking up an extension.
"Hello?" Mikey asks. He sounds like he can't quite believe that anyone would be calling him.
"Hey, Mikey."
"Gerard?"
"It's good to hear your voice," Gerard says. "How are you?"
"I think I've seen at least one doctor every day since I've been here," Mikey tells him.
"Yeah?"
"Yeah. It looks like Stacy pulled some strings to get me into a couple of them right away, too."
Gerard smiles at that-of course she did. "Do you like them? I mean, is it going okay so far?"
Mikey hmmms for a moment, then says carefully, "It's kind of too soon-"
"I know," Gerard says, "but-"
"It isn't not okay," Mikey says. "It's about as good as you could expect, you know? It's not like it's much fun." Mikey laughs a dry little laugh at that, and Gerard knows exactly what he means. He remembers his own past experiences with therapy far too well.
And speaking of which, fuck, there's something he needs to know, but he's afraid to fuck up asking. "Are you-" he starts. "Have you-"
Mikey seems to get it anyway. "Not since I've been here," he says firmly.
"Thank god." Gerard lets go of the breath he hadn't quite realized he was holding.
The line goes quiet between them but for the sound of them breathing into each other's ears.
"You never answered my question," Gerard says suddenly.
"Which one?"
"How are you doing, really?"
Mikey hesitates, and then says, "I miss you."
"I miss you too. So does Frank. We all do. That's still not an answer."
Mikey breathes out heavily. "What do you want me to say, Gerard? Things aren't that great right now, okay? I have this headache that won't fucking go away and I have to tell strangers my darkest secrets every day, I'm not exactly having a good time."
"I wasn't expecting you to be," Gerard tells him gently.
"And I'm worried about you guys," Mikey says, maybe with more feeling than he's given anything else so far this conversation.
"Don't be. We're okay, we can take care of ourselves," Gerard lies. He's not sure why he does it. Maybe he's still trying to protect his little brother-a lifetime of habit never really goes away.
"Nothing... nothing strange is going on?" Mikey asks tentatively.
"Strange like what?" Gerard asks, his curiosity piqued.
"You're in a haunted house," Mikey reminds him grimly. "What do you think I mean?"
Gerard hates to lie again, but he feels it spilling out before he can consciously do anything about it. "Nothing's going on. I mean, nothing more than it's always been."
"What's been going on?" Mikey asks sharply. "You never told me anything."
"Because I was worried about you and I didn't want to bother you!" Gerard bursts out, then realizes how it must have sounded. He makes a face. "Sorry for yelling, fuck."
Gerard can hear the exasperation when Mikey breathes out heavily through his nose. "But what happened?"
"Nothing serious," Gerard says, trying to make it as believable as he can. "Just weird shit. Like, I don't know, I haven't had a real reflection in a single mirror in this damn house."
There's total silence for a heartbeat, and then Mikey actually laughs. "Your vampire dreams are finally coming true?"
"Shut up," Gerard tells him, but it's too affectionate to carry any real weight.
"Anyone else?" Mikey asks.
"The taps are still doing their thing in Bob's bathroom," Gerard says carefully. He's deliberately lying now, if only by omission. He feels bad about it, but he can't get over this compulsion to keep the truth about the house from Mikey, at least while he's not in it.
"And Frank and Ray?"
"Just weird noises at night," Gerard says, and that at least is mostly true. "We're fine, Mikey. We can take care of ourselves."
"I know you can, but..."
"But what?"
"I don't like it that you're all still in that house without me. I can't stop feeling like something awful is going to happen and I won't be there to stop it."
"What's going to happen? How could you stop it?" But even as the words come out, Gerard can't help but think about the way Bob's arm had looked, bloody and ripped open.
Mikey sighs. "I don't know. But I know I can't do anything from here." He sounds defeated and Gerard wishes he could do something to make it better. But he doesn't want to tell Mikey what's really going on, doesn't want to make him feel even worse for not being there, so his hands are basically tied.
"We'll be okay," Gerard says. He doesn't know what else to say.
"I hope so," Mikey sighs. "Look, I have to go, I have another appointment."
"Okay. I'll call again soon," Gerard promises.
"Okay." And Gerard knows Mikey well enough to hear how pleased he is by that, just from a single word.
Gerard smiles. "Take care of yourself."
"I'll do my best," Mikey says solemnly. "You too. Bye, Gee."
"Bye, Mikey Way."
And then the click of the call ending.
It's not until he's on his way back to the kitchen that Gerard realizes that Mikey didn't ask about the album. Maybe it's for the best, though-Gerard really doesn't want to have to admit that they've essentially ground to a complete standstill without Mikey there. It's a little too close to admitting defeat for his liking, and even though everything is all wrong right now, Gerard is still clinging to hope that they can push through it and get more written.
There's nobody there when he gets to the kitchen, so, completely on a whim, he turns around and starts walking to the ballroom. He hasn't stepped foot inside since the fight a few days ago, but now seems like as good a time as any to go back.
* * *
The ballroom is very much the way Gerard remembers leaving it when he walked out days earlier. He gives their set-up a wide berth but he can still see the guitars they left leaning on practice stands instead of put away on the covered racks. Some of the guitars are starting to collect dust around the pickups, and he thinks about going over to brush it off and pull a cover over the rack but he can't actually bring himself to get close enough to touch anything.
There's dust collecting on everything else in there, too-the useless ornate antiques, the chairs they sometimes sit on, the frames around the shit hanging on the walls. It's like their very absence has somehow turned the room into a ghost town, empty and neglected, far worse than a few days' disuse should do. Gerard runs his finger across the top of a hutch full of tiny figurines without really thinking about it, and he frowns at it when it comes away ashy grey and then wipes it off on his pajama pants.
He can't get himself to stop mentally replaying his phonecall with Mikey. He has no idea what came over him that he would have lied so blatantly to his brother about the weird-ass shit that's been happening since he's been gone. Nothing strange is going on? Mikey had asked. As if he knew exactly what he was missing and was fishing for confirmation. It really doesn't sit right with Gerard. And he can't stop thinking about what Mikey said, something awful is going to happen and I won't be there to stop it. Should Gerard be doing something to protect himself, to protect them all? But that's stupid, it's just a house... right? What could it possibly do to them? Maybe he should be worried about Mikey, instead.
Something catches at Gerard's attention from the edge of his peripheral vision. He turns to try to pin it down, but doesn't see anything that looks right. Nothing's moved, nothing's different. He pulls at the curtain in the front window but the yard is completely empty. Gerard lets the curtain fall back and he's about to write it off and go back to pacing when he notices the painting next to the window.
He remembers the painting; he's seen it before. The woman in it-Daisy Canfield-is staring out from the canvas, watching him as he moves. Gerard hates to say her eyes are following him, but wow, does it ever feel like they are. He goes to stand in front of the painting and once he's standing still, her eyes stop moving. Now they're looking right through him, which isn't much of an improvement.
It was definitely this painting, though, that was catching his attention before. He keeps staring at it, certain that if he tries hard enough, he can pin down what's bothering him about it. Daisy stares back at him. It makes him uncomfortable, deeply so, to meet her painted gaze.
And then he remembers what Mikey told him, right before he left. That Daisy's ghost is trapped in the house, that Mikey was talking to her, that she was... helping them? It still seems all wrong to Gerard. But maybe he should tell the rest of the guys about it, anyway. Not necessarily because he believes it or thinks that they should believe it, but because at this point, after what's been happening, it feels like he's keeping unnecessary secrets from them.
He stands there, chewing on his lip and looking at the painting as he thinks about it. He should probably do it right away. It's bad enough that he's been sitting on it for a week already. What do you think? he mentally asks the painting of Daisy, and then he laughs at himself. He's shaking his head when it hits him: something's changed about the painting since he last saw it. He couldn't swear to what it looked like before, but he knows it's different now. Something about how she's sitting, maybe, or something about the look on her face-something has definitely changed.
The painting's eyes are really starting to give him the creeps now, though-she really shouldn't be looking at him so intensely, it's just not right-so he finally looks away and turns back to the room. He stops next to one of the concrete lion statues to run his hand along its stone mane. He remembers the day they arrived, when him and Frank stopped to look at the statue as they marveled at their surroundings. Gerard is still marveling at his surroundings, but it's totally different now. Funny, how things can change so much so quickly.
He keeps walking around, touching things, wiping dust off his hands, taking in details he'd never bothered to see before in the enormous jumble of antiques and oddities surrounding them every day in the ballroom, and by the time he's circled all the way around to the door again, he's in a bit of a daze. He knows there was something he wanted to be doing but he can't for the life of him remember what it was, so he shrugs mentally and lets it go.
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