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DIMMER: WAYCEST NUCLEAR WAR FIC
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My Chemical Romance
Author: abrandnewboom
Don’t know, don’t own.
NC-17
Waycest
That Nuclear War fic.
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Here we are: A hazy, drinking, loud, joking, smoky scene.
The average informal, drunk-off-your-face after-party. Warped tour, best stinking hot summer in a long decade, mosquitoes, and sweaty heaving audiences. Heat rolling in waves, darkly, in the wet afternoon air.
Roaring crowd has ruined eardrums, brain solidified with constant thrum of voices. Only shrill voices penetrate the cotton-wool blocked ears.
It’s the same as any day, the contented full feeling of monotony warming the bellies of those present. Some, younger, hair astray in the static heat, gesture wildly in bursts of colourful energy, punctuating the cold blooded lethargy of elders and wisers, content to just watch what they’ve already seen so many times before, and sip familiarly stale alcohol from dirty, half crumpled paper cups, seized from the dirt floor without a thought to hygiene, because nothing could mar the perfection of the moments they lived.
They had been so lucky, elevated among so many, and now they were invincible, just like everybody else in the world.
Gerard Way lazed on a broke-down sofa, probably filched from a roasting garbage heap. He basked in the pinpoints of sunlight that filtered through the old marquee, writhed a little like a pale gargantuan lizard staked his territory with mere presence. A smaller man stepped up, squinted as a pinprick stung him in the eye, magnified by thick lenses.
"Mikey?" the reptile paused in his basking, cracking open a heavily made up eyelid.
Gerard always managed to look regal in makeup. Mikey sometimes told him he looked like a rich and retired drag queen, just to get into another one of their friendly fights. Gerard didn’t resent the allusion. If he truly did look that way - and Mikey never lied to him - it gave him a power over people. An awing, confusing, attractive power. He was too gaudy to get into ordinary trouble, so he stuck to being extraordinary.
Gerard patted the cushions, and Mikey complied, sitting, and then easing onto his back in his care not to fall off the edge. Gerard had a nasty sneaky kick in him at times like these. Only brothers. He curled half on his side, head pressed against Gerard’s fleshy shoulder, one arm of his glasses digging into the side of his head, and he stared up into the pinpricks of the roof, tilting to catch the light, making a game out of blinding one eye at a time until Gerard noticed, and took away his glasses.
Mikey was restless but he didn’t want to get up and have to mingle with all the other guys, even if they were all drunk and more than usually accommodating of the quiet kid with the glasses. It was more comfortable here with Gerard, even if this sofa stank and he was feeling over heated, and his back was cramping up.
Somebody on the other side of the room turned up the constantly blaring television, and MTV noise assaulted his ears. "I'm Not Okay” came on, and he heard Ray lead a drunken cheer and the squeaks and crackles of still congratulatory cups pressing together, like a boring old girlfriend's friction.
Mikey could feel Gerard’s annoyance with the television like a faint tang of electricity in the localized air. He breathed it in and felt contention sliding away, impatience setting in. Gerard hated unsolicited change, but he hated the unpleasantness of monotony - the annoying things kept happening over and over again - even more.
Some people would call him ungrateful, but Mikey forgave him everything. It was in his nature. Both of their natures.
Bert McCracken stumbled over his own feet emerging from the heated throng, and sat heavily on Mikey's legs. Mikey wished he would move.
Gerard picked up on it somehow. "Move your skinny ass, McCracken," he intoned, without opening his eyes, bland expression still gracing his features with a placating lack of offence.
Bert shrugged and shifted backwards to crush Gerard’s thicker limbs.
"Better?" he asked.
Gerard shrugged, took another lingering sip from his beer. Let Bert take the cup from his hands, slurp more than his unfair share, give it back. Gerard was impassive. He drank quietly, leisurely, again, and threw the cup over the back of the sofa. Mikey never failed to wonder at his brother’s cool handling of the volatile vocalist.
Sometimes, he could swear he saw some of his own nervous, gentle strategies incorporated in Gerard’s conduct around Bert and his difficult manner; only when Gerard prodded, and appeased, it was a sleek cunning movement. The same mannerisms only made Mikey seem weak when he used them.
They sat there for a while, not saying anything, Bert swaying a little, even in his stable sitting position, soaked in alcohol to the tips of his toes. Mikey could smell it drifting in the air, attaching to his clothes. He’d end up wearing them again tomorrow, smelling like stagnant vodka and rum, hating that he looked a mess, secretly loving that he had someone else’s scent on him, proof that he interacted with others just fine, thank you.
Mikey never managed to pick up Gerard’s scent anymore. Back when they’d both abused their livers as no hope clubber kids they’d both had the alcohol stench, but still cheaper than Bert’s beverages.
Now Mikey felt weirdly clean when he wasn’t wearing week old clothes that often didn’t belong to him. Gerard’s stuff had smelt like leather or sticky sweat back at the beginning of the band, but Mikey had never got his hands on it. Gerard had worn the leather jackets like second skins.
Now it was a whole new ball game, much easier, less complicated in theory. He could take Gerard’s shirts, and Gerard could take his, sometimes the other guys borrowed and traded whatever fit, but Mikey couldn’t figure out their own smells. It was like they’d lost track of themselves in the woods, been thrown off the scent. Mikey thought Gerard felt the same, but he never put it into words or lyrics. Too hard to explain in a stanza.
The small gaggle of swaying guys across the marquee swayed in time to music, all out of their heads, vision and dignity gone, only rhythm and reaction left. Mikey hoped they’d all start passing out earlier than usual and struggle off to their bunks. Of course it wouldn’t matter, since the partying always went until early morning, every day, again and again. He knew the guy’s schedules and their body clocks well now.
Quinn would start tripping over stuff around 11:30pm so long as he had a couple of bottles in him.
Frankie would clear off to wash his hair much earlier than that. Nine o’clock usually. Mikey knew he just wanted to call his girlfriend in peace and quiet to assure her he wasn’t getting wasted or laid.
Bob just tended to drift off somewhere, and turn up much later, snoring violently in his bunk on the bus.
Ray was a sort of safety catch though, loud and friendly when he was drunk, a constant reminder to Mikey that there was someone in the crowd that he knew, who he could stumble home with if push came to shove, even if they woke up in the middle of nowhere in cold morning light. He was the kind of guy who’d just lie there and laugh at the predicament, and then sort it all out, with some inane superpower of responsibility that he seemed to have been born with.
Around all these busy and capable guys, Mikey felt a little inadequate. No long term girl, no life plan, no where to go. But then there was always Gerard to cling to. He used to have a recurring nightmare when he was little. It had come back a couple of times in the last months, as they’d caught frantic flights across oceans and sprawling orange continents.
The fear of getting left behind. He was left in an airport, a shopping mall, a train station, or the backstreets of some huge dead city. He was sure, just so sure that for the first part of the dream he was hurrying, running, sprinting even - to get somewhere but it was okay, because he wasn’t really scared at all, because somebody warm was gripping his hand firmly. When he was little he’d naturally concluded that it was his big brother.
Gerard and he had been very close even as dirty-faced little children. They’d done stupid things, like lighting fires in abandoned lots, conjuring huge plumes of smoke to leap through, coughing, wheezing, reaching out to the hand on the other side of the fire, and then getting dragged out by immensely round matronly women. They’d blamed each other, and Gerard had consistently managed to invent faultlessly tight alibis, even as the ash settled in his eyelashes.
As he’d gotten older, gone to school, seen normal kids who hated their siblings and despised their parents, he’d wondered what was wrong with him and Gerard to have ever been so close. He’d pulled away, Gerard still watchful but quietly hurt, and he’d tried to live on the outside of family. He couldn’t.
It was as simple as that. Mikey couldn’t look after himself. Mikey couldn’t resist walking down the stairs and leaning against Gerard’s doorway, just to watch his hunched back sketch. He couldn’t resist holding his breath when he felt Gerard stand outside his door, checking on him at three in the morning.
And as was expected, he went crawling back to his brother. Started curling up on the couch with him to watch scary movies again, learned bass guitar with him, sat still as artist’s model once or twice. Just hung around. But Gerard smiled when he saw him.
The dreams hadn’t come back until all the guys had gotten together, and My Chemical Romance had become official. Gerard was busier now, and Mikey trailing after him looked weird to executives. Bassists weren’t needed in the conference rooms. Bassists weren’t needed in the voice recording studio.
Music wasn’t Mikey. He wasn’t cut out for the business, and he didn’t even care if the band got booed off the charts and back into their mom’s house. He was just following Gerard.
Just like in the dream, where he clutched the hand that he was so certain belonged to his brother; dragged through dizzying colours, spun in circles, and then it was gone.
He’d been left all alone where no one cared, and when the loneliness got so wrenching that he sobbed aloud, he woke up.
Not always, but usually there was someone else awake on the bus when he got up to cry properly and stupidly in the bathroom. He’d shuffle past Frankie or Ray, sitting upright in their bunks. They didn’t talk to him, just sort of guiltily averted their eyes and pretended that they couldn’t see the wet matting his face, or the asthmatic jerking of thin, frightened shoulders. Mikey was glad they didn’t bring it up. He didn’t know if he screamed in his sleep. He’d suspected it a couple of times, but no-one said anything about it or what he might have called out.
Gerard slept through whatever happened, but Mikey knew he knew about it.
Frank’s girl had called them lovebirds once, jokingly with a smile when she had come on tour to France and seen them curled up on the couch in the middle of the day, watching cheesy French horror movies that they couldn’t understand the dialogue from.
Gerard had smiled then, and tilted his head back just like when Jepha would stroll over to kiss him at photo ops - with a slight tang of fakeness that Mikey barely picked up on. True, Gerard loved to be kissed, especially by his friends, but he didn’t kiss forever, if that made any sense. It was as real as Gerard got, but it wasn’t a promise of more.
He looked at Frank’s girlfriend in that way, appreciating who she was, and what she said, but not really caring whether she stayed in his life or not; and she petted him and tweaked Mikey’s mop of hair fondly. Mikey liked her.
Gerard was apathetic. He was apathetic to most things, and completely dedicated to others in phases. The singing he was focused on now, but it would pass, just as art had. Mikey only hoped he was somehow exempt from the rule. He’d lasted almost twenty-five years under Gerard’s gentle eye. He couldn’t leave now.
Bert shuffled about on Gerard’s legs, turning towards the television. It had stopped playing music. Instead a strangely pale music DJ was sitting in one of the live studios that the network owned. Mikey thought it looked a little familiar, but all the live studios they’d played in tended to blur together in his head, primary colours and oversized props abound. But the DJ didn’t introduce a band or a song. He didn’t even crack a smile. There was, from where Mikey was squinting from, a translucent fringe comprised of beads of sweat forming on the guy’s forehead.
It was more than a little unsettling to see the only seemingly carefree channel of public television suddenly break out of its mould for something that was obviously important and definitely foreboding.
Gerard actually turned over, almost turning Bert onto the floor, and rested his chin on Mikey’s shoulder to see properly.
"This afternoon, after fierce negotiation and terse peace talks in neutral countries, it was announced live at the White House that The United States of America now formally recognizes the nation of North Korea an active threat and potential attacker. North Korean and American relations have been on the decline ever since the secretive state was labeled by US politicians as part of a worldwide ‘axis of evil’. It has been confirmed that their government possesses nuclear warheads ready for deployment, and our President has assured the nation that the American military forces have equally powerful measures at hand."
A skittish fistfight broke out to the right of the television.
"Shut the fuck up," yelled Gerard, stripping off his shades and slipping them into one of Mikey’s pants pockets, as he had none himself.
The fight immediately calmed, and Gerard continued to stare intently at the DJ cum announcer. The sweat was evidently stinging his eyes, as he wiped his face quickly, almost stumbling over his teleprompter words.
"The United States had issued an ultimatum to the North Korean government, requesting that all warheads be disarmed. An answer is expected by the deadline of eleven tomorrow morning, and then war plans will be put into action. The military has requested that all able bodied young men and women sign up at nearby recruitment offices, primarily for the task of on-continent infantry, protecting the nation. It is not yet clear whether this request will eventually escalate into the need for conscription, but the outcome of this conflict looks to determine the future of the world as we know it."
The worried looking man forgot to pause and look seriously into the camera at the end of his broadcast as anchormen are wont to do. Instead he stumbled off of the stool he had been fidgeting on and the broadcast ended with a semi-audible curse of "shit, fucki-"
The station immediately went back to music video countdowns, a summery techno beat suddenly eerie and reminiscent of war drums.
Gerard was still staring intently, though not really at the screen anymore. Just into space, obviously thinking deeply about something. Mikey had no clue whether he was considering the broadcast, or simply pondering the effectiveness of their last recording session. It could be anything, when it came to Gerard.
"You think it's a spoof?” asked Bert, wiping his nose on his sleeve, and pushing his hair back, out of the corners of his mouth.
Ray, who had managed to rustle up a cracked plastic chair, was pressing his cup of beer against his forehead. "No, I think that guy was serious." He was muffled by his arm, but still audible and coherent, apparent pressure headache or not.
When Ray got drunk and tried to sober up too quickly, he paid for his coherence with splitting migraines. His copper curls were sticking to the cool surface of the cup, darkening a little with condensation.
The marquee was quieter than it had even seen. Mikey could crisply hear the footfalls of people on the outside, quick pattering of girls hoping to glimpse a hero, security guards firmly stepping up to ward the flimsy walls, techies dragging things into trucks, scraping furrows into the already flattened grass. The only appropriate place to talk seemed to be gathered around the keg, and there was an uncommonly large and polite crowd around the tap, all unsure as to what was appropriate to laugh at, and shooting fleeting glances to gauge reactions.
Frank just shook his head. "I'm going to take my shower." He muttered and hastily pushed through the tent flaps, batting them away from his head in his stride towards the tour buses and his cell phone.
Mikey couldn’t blame him for using his best available excuse to escape the suddenly thoughtful marquee. He’d have left himself, if Gerard weren’t still there, with a crease between his brow, finally letting go of a slow breath, measured out to reassure Mikey that everything was perfectly normal with him.
The guys around the keg slowly eased back into conversation, trying their best to act serious and knowledgeable on the subject of war and politics whilst decidedly tipsy. It was an amusing sight, and Mikey had to hide his smile, turning it indeed on Gerard.
All he got back was an absent clap on the shoulder, as Gerard dragged himself out of his reclining position, and sat properly on the edge of the sofa, legs slung over Mikey’s, chin on elbows, elbows on thighs, chest crouched close to his knees. It was an odd scrunched way for someone dressed up as sleekly as Gerard to sit in, but the back of his hair tufted and made it look okay. Almost like an ordinary twenty-eight year old guy.
Bert leant heavily on Gerard’s curved spine. Mikey took this chance to soundly prod Bert in the ribs, hand coming away a little sticky from sweat. Bert scrunched his nose up at the prone bassist, and prodded him back in the stomach. Mikey stuck his tongue out, and for some reason Bert collapsed into giggles, pounding on Gerard’s solid frame and hooting.
Gerard turned his head to look at him. "You’re plain crazy," he told Bert, "and leave Mikey alone, you evil pervert. He has enough trouble with electronic appliances."
Bert sat up and wiped tears of mirth from his eyes, "That's more like the Gerard I know and love! You’re way too caught up in this political shit. What does it matter anyhow?”
He clipped the back of Gerard’s head, mussing the black mane even more. "Everybody knows that this nuclear shit isn’t going to go down in our lifetimes."
Gerard shook his head. "Don't be so sure, man."
He stood up, rolled his shoulders, offered Mikey a hand up.
"I’m going to catch some sleep. See you in the morning." He gave Bert a limp wave, and took a path right through the middle of the tent. Mikey tagged along behind, leaving Bert stranded on the stinking sofa, shaking his head at the brothers Way. His concern only lasted for seconds though, up until he spotted Quinn staggering a little, vodka bottle loosely in hand and waved him over eagerly.
Gerard and Mikey boarded the bus in silence, waved at Frank, who had taken over the floor of the kitchen, sprawled out on afternoon sun-warmed linoleum; phone attached to ear, and put themselves to bed in their respective bunks. It was only seven-thirty in the evening. The sun hadn’t yet properly given up on sticking around.
In the marquee, the liquor flowed freer, the television was swapped for a loud boom box, and the musicians partied the night away, losing track of daylight worries, just like they always did, night after night. Everything seemed perfectly normal.
---
The days went on and the nights were repetitive, much to everyone’s joy. The world didn’t seem to be teetering on the brink of a dramatic encore, but of course, they wouldn’t have noticed if it were. They weren’t the audience. There was no audience. The world strutted and fretted its hours on the stage before an empty house of nonsense noise. That is the cold essence of tragedy; that no-one really cares until the house lights come up and it’s over.
Despite the tensions between North Korea and American being all over the news, and a hot discussion topic on all of the radio stations, there was little evidence of anything being wrong on the Warped Tour. The bands were content to wipe themselves out on the booze every day after playing their hearts out on the stages.
Nothing changed, not the oppressive heat, nor even the band line ups. Even Frank was a little more relaxed the mornings after he’d managed to fit in his chat to his girlfriend. He missed her a lot, and Mikey missed her a little too. She was nice, the same girl who’d gone to France with them. He guessed he missed having friendly females around, who were content to just talk to him; he missed a sympathetic ear that he’d known long enough to be comfortable talking with about anything.
Being on the road all the time was jarring to friendships, and only made Mikey more dependent on Gerard, a fact that he didn’t mind so much, knowing he couldn’t have a life any better, but in his weaker, sillier moments he’d known himself to blame Gerard for making him what he was; a weak willed nerd with a taste for the obscure. A difficult scenester, hard to get along with, unwilling to trust, too quiet, too feminine, too close to his brother for other people’s comfort.
It was all a bit sick, a bit pathetic, he’d think to himself every time he crouched in the filthy dark bus bathroom, picking at the silicon seals around the edges of the mirror, until his fingernails pulled backwards at the nail beds, and he had to find the band aids before he went onstage the next day.
Then after he’d told himself how stupid he was being, stopped crying, remembered that this was all he had, and he’d better appreciate it; he went back to bed. Walked past Ray and Frankie, even smiled and waved, or told them it was late, they should get some sleep. It was a hypocritical facade, but it was necessary and sensible.
The kids that came in day after day hadn’t changed at all for the first day or two, but Gerard had taken to leaving a radio on all the time in the back of their bus. Tuned into CNN, of all channels. It wasn’t at all like Gerard to be interested or concerned by politics, or world events in such a way that he followed them closely. The other guys were a little bemused by Gerard’s insistence on the radio playing at all hours, but they let it go when they saw that Mikey wasn’t raising any concern over it.
Mikey was like their meter on Gerard’s sanity. He’d grown up with the front man, and Mikey knew better than anyone that if Gerard became heavily interested in something, it was better to let him ride out the obsession. All the other times, it had led to good things happening, great and fortunate events for all of them. The interest in music, the art, and now the politics. Gerard’s unexplainable sixth sense seemed to have latched onto something important, and that was the only reason that Mikey listened to the CNN updates, perking up an ear when Gerard did, trusting his judgment completely.
He was stumbling in around eleven thirty with Gerard, after they’d succumbed to Bob’s demands that they join in the drinking fight with The Used when he heard the news of the escalation on the radio. Gerard had stopped short, halfway through the doorway, and suddenly, as if he hadn’t touched a drop in his life, managed to maneuver through the mess of a living room to the radio and cracked it up. The guys sleeping in the next van over turned up to complain, but ended up sticking around when they saw how intently Gerard was listening.
They all listened the whole night through, half drunk, but still quiet. Other musicians turned up as the alcohol in the marquee disappeared, and though disappointed that My Chemical Romance wasn’t holding an after party, the serious tone of the bus seemed infectious, and the hourly updates were by no means repetitive.
North Korea refused to disarm. America threatened that if they saw a missile launch, a sizable chunk of North Korea would be destroyed. North Korea said they didn’t care. But this wasn’t what they were listening for. It was the warnings and advice that frightened them, and gave those who’d stayed in school long enough, flashbacks to their World History classes. Fall out shelters were on sale. Subways were recommended as makeshift shelter. The recruitment offices offered an unspeakably large post-war payment for volunteered soldiering services.
And the kids were not warned to stay at home.
They were advised to enjoy the remainder of their lives.
Of course, none of the announcers ever spokes those words so literally, and the mood was essentially optimistic, America would triumph and pull through, just like always. But no-one was stupid. They knew perfectly well that nobody escape a localized nuclear blast.
It dawned a little, but only a little; that their world might be beginning to take its encore bows.
They didn’t get any sleep at all, and had to go onstage blinking blearily and hiding any off notes with clunky stage antics. Their audience didn’t seem to notice anything wrong, but their cries were harsher, and they threw themselves about more violently, and the screams penetrated even the cotton wool ears. The medics had their hands full, only their patients didn’t seem to care so much about healing up, impatient to throw themselves back into the mob.
Mikey saw some warier fans had strange boxes around their necks. He recognised them because Gerard had one at home that he’d picked up in a musty antique shop years ago.
Gasmasks.
He didn’t know whether to laugh at their silliness of carrying such an ineffective device about with them, or to cry at their awareness of the situation. Kids weren’t meant to have to worry about this sort of stuff. They were meant to shriek girlishly in the mosh; cry when other kids kicked them with sprigged boots; to carry as little responsibility as possible.
The after parties began to shorten, something that had never happened before in the history of Warped Tour. The bands would retire to the My Chemical Romance bus, and Gerard would nod them in, shrugging whenever they asked him if they’d missed any important broadcasts. Sometimes they’d all sit all night, and the roadies would look in every hour, suspicious of such a solemn gathering.
Gerard would preside over all of them, some tucked under the table, lolling on the bus steps, but he’d always take the window seat, sometimes painting his nails at two in the morning, eyes wide and lips pursed. Mikey woke up one morning with a messy pedicure, and Gerard just shrugged at him, looking as if he hadn’t slept a wink, smiled, and sent him out to fetch milk for the morning coffee.
A few days in, the crowds became smaller, but still more vicious. The tour coordinator came to them late one night, wringing his hands, and pushing greasy green hair out of his eyes, distraught after a mass meeting of band managers and record representatives. Warped Tour was over. It was getting too dangerous, he explained, eyes not meeting theirs, hastily referring to the hostility of the recent visitors.
They all knew that there was more to it than that, but they had to get him drunk before he spilled out his worries that Warped tour might never be back, and that his buddy who’d dropped out of the music business to follow the army after nine-eleven had called him hours before. The guy was high up, his old man had a good record of service, and this buddy was on the inner circle - he said that North Korea were likely to fire, and even the Star Wars system wouldn’t be able to stop it.
If he was expecting a sympathetic audience of guys to pat his back and tell him everything was going to be okay, he got it, but in semi-shocked moderation. The guys had never thought twice about the capabilities of the American military, they’d been told as kids that America was on top of it all, that they were the luckiest and safest people in the world, and they’d swallowed it all as fact.
Gerard shrugged at the new information, and turned up the radio when the hourly update began broadcasting, drowning out the consolatory murmurs.
Nothing new, until the announcer, in a sing song voice, seemingly disconnected from the reality of what she was saying, began to endorse local bomb shelters.
It was only an hour later that boss’s cell phone rang and he answered it, blinking to get his eyes back into focus. He snapped it shut, and took on his determined look, the look he wore when he had to get the next band out of bed and on stage within two minutes, or the fans would riot, and he’d be out of the music business for good.
"Kids," he announced, needlessly raising his voice for a quieter audience than he’d ever had to address in his career, "the powers that be are shifting us to the nearest fallout shelter, so get your stuff together. Now."
"Whaat?" somebody grumbled in the corner.
It was Bert. Mikey tentatively reached out a hand to pat the long haired man on the shoulder. Bert nodded his appreciation, but impatiently shrugged away the contact, locking bloodshot eyes with those of the tour manager.
"One; this scum bucket of a town has fallout shelters? And they’re willing to let us populate them at the possible detriment of their own population? And two; what are the fucking chances of this place getting hit by some Korean equivalent of Little Boy? I don’t see the point, man. And if it’s our turn to die, nothing’s going to stop it. This ain't Final Destination."
Mikey was a little taken aback. In all the time he’d known Bert, the man had come off as loving life, almost to the point where he’d risk losing it for a little more fun to add to his long resume of experiences and achievements. Granted, these weren’t the types of achievements Bert's parents would be proud of, but Gerard and Mikey's mom was proud enough of everyone to make up for any scrap feelings of neglect in the people that hung around with her boys.
He took the chance to glance desperately at Gerard. Nobody was acting right! Gerard caught his look though, and his face softened, like when they were kids on a bender and Mikey got smashed, and Ray had to lug him home and lean on the doorbell for half an hour before Gerard snapped out of his art induced daze and stumbled to answer the door. Ray would grin sheepishly and carefully hand the poor kid over to his older brother, waving off the thank you’s and dashing home, calling behind him that they’d meet up for practice when Mikey finished sleeping off the vodka overload in his system.
Mikey remembered mornings when he’d wake up in Gerard’s room – Gerard didn’t like having to carry his lolling body up the narrow stairs to his own den – snug in Gerard’s sweaty sheets, glasses secure on Gerard’s side table, Gerard curled at the foot of the bed, or asleep on the nearby desk, hair trailing in the ink.
Then he’d stir, savouring how Gerard would immediately awaken as soon as he twitched a muscle in awareness, almost as if he hadn’t really been asleep at all, just pretending, and just watching over him secretly. It wasn’t weird. No.
And he’d blink and Gerard would quietly hand him his glasses, eyes soft while he told him off for overdoing it on the alcohol, and Mikey would argue back that he was one to talk! And then they’d scream at each other and Mikey would leave and lock himself in his room with a bottle of aspirin, and Gerard would throw a couple of bottles of his cheaper ink at the wall in faux anger, just trying to give off the appearance that he disapproved of going out with friends just to get wasted, pretending to be a responsible big brother, but really he had that softness in his eyes the whole time.
He didn’t mean any of it, and he secretly adored the matted clumps of hair that Mikey woke up with after sleeping fretfully in Gerard’s bed. They were cute.
---
The softness flickered away when Gerard’s eyes followed Mikey’s to the obstinate Bert. The man was old enough and capable enough to make his own stupid mistakes, but he gave it a try anyhow. Besides, if they took all the alcohol and the guys all migrated to the shelters, Bert would be lonely, even if Quinn pitied him and stuck around. He’d end up following them in the end, desperate for people to flock around him and amuse him.
“Bert, man, we should all go, just in case. The town ain’t that big and they’ll appreciate some musicians, especially if we end up having to repopulate the world after we get out.”
Ray guffawed, shaking his head and sharing a wide grin with Gerard. “Some musical accompaniment, heh?” he jibed.
Bert laughed low and cynically at them, but he smiled just a little at Gerard’s joke, and got up to smack him on the back in a brotherly fashion and he shrugged at the manager. “Fine, man. We’ll go pack. We going on foot?”
The tour manager looked relieved and mentally planned to shout the My Chemical Romance guys a round next time he found a chance, or a calm bar in a less gloomy world, for that matter. “Yeah, that would be great. We just need clothes and anything essential to keeping you sane – like your iPods, or perhaps some earplugs and deodorant, yeah?”
The musicians laughed instinctively, and the feeling in the air changed like the wind, now blowing from a completely different direction. It seemed more like they were packing up for a huge mass sleep over party from the sounds of youngster’s heated discussions over who’d be carrying the drum set, and how many roadies it would take to set up their equipment or screw in a light bulb, since the name ‘fallout shelter’ sounded awfully dark and dusty. They’d have to bring in some stage lighting and a couple of Warped Tour’s back up generators to brighten the place up.
They all eventually managed to collect all of their things from their buses and trucks, and even managed to pry apart all the couples who persevered in commandeering the - nowadays usually empty - marquee for make out purposes. Trudging half a mile down the local main street was a surreal experience.
All the stores had taken to blaring news updates from television and radio out their storefronts, and the very few cars that passed drove fast and recklessly out of town, apparently theorising that the bright lights of this small town put them in more danger from over head attack.
Mikey had started out clutching his bag of clothes and his iPod, with his bass guitar slung on his back. Gerard wasn’t going to bring anything except the coolers of extra soda he’d found stashed in the back of the bus, but Bob had fixed him with an incredulous stare until Gerard had rolled his eyes and stuffed a couple of thin shirts and a jacket into the coolers, unconcerned about getting them damp from condensation.
Frankie called his girl’s cell on his own, and kept her on the line the whole time. Apparently her neighbours had knocked on her apartment door and dragged her down to the nearest shelter in her town too.
There was no way in hell that there would be enough space in all these new shelters across the nation for the entire population. And who would be left out of the public shelters, when the going got tough?
Hermits, hobos, crack addicts. Street kids, punks, prostitutes.
The kids who worked in the comic stores, got held up, went on drunken benders, had not a friend in the world.
The guys that ran away from their upbringing, did drugs, went to jail, and lived wherever they could, unwanted, on old acquaintance’s sofas and in unused basements.
These were the people they had once been, and still were, under the makeup and the riffs.
Mikey saw some of these people staring into the shop windows and clutching their arms around themselves, taking some small comfort from the possibility that the band emblazoned on their cap or their shirt loved them just a little, despite having never met the unfortunates. It was the same for Mikey, back when he’d been nobody, wearing a stained Anthrax shirt. He didn’t know if he still held to that old belief, now that he’d seen the music scene from inside and met the bands that were so cut-throat that they didn’t even seem to realise that their fans were fellow human beings.
The fallout shelters weren’t what the guys had expected, despite having heard constant broadcasts on how they were constructed and how safe they were going to be. The public one that most people were moving towards wasn’t anything more than a hole in the ground with a huge metal door wide open beside it, grey and uniform, blending in with a vast football field, it seemed, of damp looking concrete.
It wasn’t dark inside, quite the opposite. Apparently the people of the town were determined to take advantage of still having modern conveniences such as electricity for as long as possible. They stood in line to descend down the stairs, feeling as if they were waiting to get into a concert, or some creepy new underground club.
When Gerard got to the front, he pushed Mikey ahead of himself. “You’ll have to catch the coolers for me when you get down there,” he said, swinging said coolers as if they were as light as the air itself.
Mikey shrugged and descended down the rough iron rungs, shrugging the bass strings away from catching in his hair. Deeper he climbed, and the hole seemed to go down an awfully long way – there were at least five other people climbing below him, their fatigued pants echoing around them, motions occasionally synchronized like a huge puzzle painting, one of those optical illusion pictures that went on and on into eternity, by M.C.Escher. He slipped almost twice and heard Gerard, climbing above him, getting on just fine with the bulky coolers, catch his breath every time.
“You okay, Mikey?”
“Yeah.”
The walls had thick metallic staples and nails hammered into them, most safely capped in rubber, no doubt for extra electrical wiring that hadn’t quite gotten installed in time.
Instead, those who’d come down earlier had draped them with old Christmas lights, some twinkling like stars, and some flashing through turquoise and red sequences. One of them had the Christmas carols built into its circuits, and its tinny rendition of Jingle Bells resounded in the vertical tunnel, warped somehow by circular walls.
Mikey almost became entangled in the power cord dangling from one of the higher sets. He shook himself loose and wrapped it around a rung, hoping that someone else would accidentally rip it out later and end the trilling notes.
When Mikey hit the bottom, and stepped down into a dirty puddle of dust brushed off the walls and various feet, he was surprised to find that the bunker wasn’t at all as well lit as the manhole had been. He felt a little disillusioned, and eyed the dimmer bar-like atmosphere warily. In contrast to the usual groups of teenagers getting wasted with the aid of fake IDs, and truckers eyeing up potential adversaries, there were children snuggled in sleeping bags and woman fussing over bags stuffed full of groceries.
Most of the activity was centered about the loud television in the middle of the expansive room. Everyone present had at least half an eye on its blue screen. The news-station they were tuned to seemed to ironically have taken a commercial break, plastering plain metal walls with mirror images of dancing rabbits and the echoes of candy jingles.
A little girl wrapped in three shawls looked up at her mother pleadingly. “Mommy, next time you go to the store, can you get me some of those new candy-pop things?”
The mother opened her mouth in an indulgent smile, forming the beginnings of the letter ‘y.’ Then she paused and the smile vanished, replaced with the sag of heavier, older eyes. “We’ll see, sweetie.”
Gerard finally stumbled in, tossing the coolers onto the floor with a loud clang. Some kid started crying and he look a little abashed, apologizing loudly to the people nearest to him. The musicians all began to filter in, the crowd sparsely punctuated with incredulous looking old men and star struck teenagers. The chiming tune that introduced news updates blasted through the mess of yelling people, finally compelling them to quiet themselves. Other people began to pour out of hidden corridors – evidently the vast concrete wasteland above ground had not been deceiving them as to the size of the actual complex.
Mikey knew from talk from the fans that the town had begun the construction a long time before it had become an official government sponsored necessity. He wondered at the state of other shelters across the nation. Surely they wouldn’t even be near up to this calibre. He hoped that Newark’s was decent, and that his mom and dad were okay, and Frankie’s girlfriend too.
The crowd of people - it seemed as if the whole town was in here, but Mikey could only see two hobos, not including Bert, and one wide eyed kid staring intently at the light that the television was emitting, not seeing the news at all – all gathered around the television. Mikey found himself pressed against Ray’s shoulder. His friend looked down at him, and then reached for his hand, squeezing reassuringly. Mikey was glad for the living warmth in this weird cold metal prison.
They watched the newscasters adjusting their ties, their eyes constantly flitting away from the camera, probably intent on planning their possible escape routes. They had trouble explaining what had happened to instigate the radical order for the nation to flee to its shelters. Apparently, their computers had received the information that North Korea had fired upon them, missile in transit as they watched. The Pentagon had turned itself over to chaos and panic, and the red button at been pushed in that heart-in-throat instant.
Their missile had taken off, burning air as it travelled, moving from west to east, out of atmosphere, and then re-entering, those monitoring its progress gripping their desks, as their superiors fled for shelters, urging others to do the same. Only martyrs stayed and only martyrs discovered, far too late, that they’d killed, maimed, and slaughtered in vain.
While the nation had been drinking to their own health, hoping to escape nuclear destruction, their military had made the biggest mistake in history, and North Korea, though wounded so badly, so bloodily at their hands – North Korea had fired for real.
Panic flashed through the presenter’s wide eyes as she stammered out the end of her sentence, finally losing her nerve, and she fled, leaving cameras still rolling unattended on an empty stage, all lights blazing – everyone gone, no information, and death on its way.
---
What happened next was a blur in the minds of most survivors. No-one was exactly clear on the events that had escalated, only that next thing they knew, all able bodied, and some not quite able-bodied men were rounded up into the army corps.
Millions were sent offshore, and the rest herded into homeland security training. They would be the last wall of defense for America. And that wall was bitterly needed a lot sooner than any of them had thought probable.
Lots were drawn as to who would be loaded onto the next boat, like human cattle off to the slaughter, to rain havok on the blood clotted sands of your own, now enemy occupied beaches of Florida and California. The isle of Cuba. Most of them had never seen the sea before.
When you were summoned to carry out a strike (in other words, you were beckoned by Morpheus into peaceful death, finally, thank the gods) you would receive an unassuming blue slip under the blankets on your stretcher with the details of your new unit’s attack strategy, and the bunker room in which you would bed down with all your new comrades in arms for the last three days of your life.
Mikey found his first, and he wasn’t going to tell Gerard. He was going to slip away, disappear into his assigned death bunker and spare him the goodbyes. Only, when he turned up in the doorway of his new bunk room he discovered his older brother had received both an identical slip and a matching brainwave.
Gerard smiled coldly at his little brother, and gave him the top bunk.
---
It wasn’t that Gerard lacked morals. It was just that he knew there were no consequences anymore, and that was the point of having morals, wasn’t it? He knew the other guys had realized it. Jack-across-the-room had taken up smoking again, despite having told them all about the fantastic patch he had on his lung from his former life of excess. He hadn’t smoked in twenty years, and he was forty now, never going to make fifty, even if his lungs would have given him that long without war as a stumbling block.
This was their last dance. Tonight was their last chance.
Gerard wasn’t always sure it was what Mikey had always wanted. Heck, Gerard had never really wanted it either. He’d known it was an impossibility, and he had accepted that, moved on.
But Mikey, he’d never thought Mikey would even want to be like that with him, until Gerard had laid him out in his ink-spotted bed, just like every other time Mikey had gotten wasted, and he’d watched him just like he always did, making up for years of not being at the bar, for not stopping big kids from beating on his only brother, for all the times he hit him when they fought.
Mikey woke up that night, still under the influence, and stared up into Gerard’s moonlike face. He smiled, so happily that it softened everything around them. And then he went back to sleep.
That was when Gerard saw how much he meant to Mikey, and he swore on every paintbrush he had, on every bottle of booze there was in the fridge, on all the kitchen knives, on the doorknob of his mom and dad’s bedroom - that he would look after him forever, because that impossible, vapid, hidden smile had meant that Mikey couldn’t let go.
And that was why Gerard got out of his bunk and clambered up the ladder into Mikey’s.
It was cold in Mikey’s bed, and the sheets were coarse. He crept under the covers, and Mikey didn’t make a sound, only turning his head a little to squint at Gerard.
Gerard moved before second thoughts could catch up with him, and undressed him quietly, finally straddling his brother’s thighs. First time, last time. His own pants he balled up and kicked to the foot of the bed.
Gerard’s shoulders strained under the coarse sheets, lifting Mikey, rearranging him, thinking of men who’d done the same with him, men who’d done the same with Mikey. But this was different to any other encounter, This wasn’t want, or need, or lust, or any foolish form of couple’s love. This was his duty, and it carried a sense of finality. Mikey and he, they’d go to the end together, because that was the way it was going to be. He had to be Mikey’s last fuck, because they’d been each other’s first friends, first family, first loves. Brotherhood was forever.
Mikey choked softly and arched when the thrusts began, and wailed as they deepened. When he tossed his head back to shake bangs out of his eyes, Gerard could see men moving in their own bunks. They weren’t objecting at all. Gerard thought maybe they understood why he had to do this. Or maybe they were simply getting off on his brother’s whimpers. He couldn’t fault them for that.
The bunk creaked in time with his grunts, and Mikey clung to him tightly and cried, heaving sobs alternating with breathy gasps. Of pleasure, Gerard supposed. He didn’t hold back on Mikey, like he knew Adam Lazzara had. Like he knew Bert had.
The spindly legs tight around his waist belonged to someone he’d grown up with. He knew Mikey too well to short change him in his final fuck. He disregarded Mikey’s tears, but rubbed his back with one hand, the other clutching against the block wall on his left, giving him more leverage, a more forceful buck.
He only softened his blows when it seemed Mikey really couldn’t breathe. Gerard slowed to a gentle rocking of hips and let the younger man rest against the mussed blankets, twitching as Gerard shifted, still swollen within him.
They listened to the breathy mutters and groans of men around them. The quiet springing rattle of bunks shifting back and forth with the stroke of a firm hand. Gerard knew well from years in a tour bus, the sound of guys getting off. Gerard sneered at the more voyeuristic type who dared to peer up, mouths gaping, at the violent coupling.
Mikey had caught his breath, and Gerard lifted his brother up the length of his cock again. Mikey moaned for kisses that Gerard thought better not to give as their former pace was matched. He ignored Mikey’s own stiffened dick, in favour of this longer, drawn-out orgasm through pure friction.
Despite the lack of attention, Mikey came long before Gerard, with a whisper, immediately giving up all resistance to Gerard’s continued pounding movements, drooping into Gerard’s arms, which held him securely through a series of final harsh thrusts.
It stung – Gerard’s come. But it was warm, and Gerard was holding him. Laid him back on the bed. Sorted out his blankets and sat beside him like he used to when they were teenagers.
Mikey was satisfied that Gerard loved him just as much as he ever had.
But even though each woozy minute stretched into what seemed an hour, Gerard left him too soon, and climbed down into his own bunk without a word, almost as if he’d contracted that terrible coldness Mikey had felt for so long.
Mikey lay awake and warm the rest of the night, just remembering what it felt like. Gerard’s heat, his glassy eyes, the way he’d picked him up and pushed him down onto his cock until Mikey had whimpered and bit his lip and just wanted Gerard to hold him there with the straining and the throbbing inside of him forever.
---
When the lights automatically came up at 0500 hours their captain shuffled around in his bunk uncomfortably and finally got out, hesitating before he started his customary wake-up routine. Everyone got up. They kept their eyes to the ground. Gerard retrieved his pants from Mikey’s sticky bed, then surprised them both by lifting him down carefully.
He looked thinner than Gerard remembered, paler than the child he’d grown up with. He looked smaller and sicker, like a cancer patient, like all the crack addicts that hung around outside the bars in Newark. He’d never considered it possible for the people he knew to look like those kids. But Gerard supposed he hadn’t looked at anyone properly for the last few years, not since he’d had a stable future bounding ahead of him.
Gerard thought it was a sick thought and shunned it quickly, but - he was glad that this was the last day. He didn’t want to see Mikey waste away under stage lights. The show was over.
They boarded the boat in silence and watched the same black swells undulate over the horizon.
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