Wintertime (Frerard, Sequel to Summertime)

31: this whole chapter is literally a conversation wow lmao

It was way too early, Mikey reckoned he'd woken up by accident. In fact, he couldn't even remember just what had him awake, but he did know that he'd found himself lying in bed unable to get back to sleep for long enough to render himself tired of the process, and with that, he'd gotten out of bed and made his way downstairs, and still it was little more than ten minutes past six on a Saturday, and with that he'd made himself a cup of coffee and grabbed his cigarettes and made his way out onto the back porch.

He honestly didn't know why he'd gone outside, considering that it was Winter and cold as fuck, but somehow he wasn't actually freezing his tits off out on the porch and actually found some comfort in the cool morning air and the silence of the world, because yes, absolutely fucking no one was and would be awake for a good few hours.

Mikey was certain of that.

Right up until the very moment he remembered that Gerard didn't sleep anymore.

And that moment was the very one in which Gerard seemed to materialise out of nowhere and sit down beside him, because Mikey was honestly struggling to keep up, but then again, it wasn't like it was the easiest thing to follow in the world.

"Morning," Gerard uttered, glancing across at Mikey's coffee and hating being dead and not able to have it.

"Morning," Mikey replied: a little taken aback, "could you maybe just walk through the door like a normal person instead of popping out of nowhere?"

Gerard shrugged, "I could, but it's more fun, isn't it?"

Mikey rolled his eyes, taking a sip of his coffee. "Suppose."

"Don't get all pissy, you should be happy because you're the one who can drink coffee. You know I've gone ten years without coffee or anything like that! It's insane. I mean, I don't crave it anymore like that's impossible, but I'm still jealous of you and your fucking coffee." He rolled his eyes a little.

"What happens if you try to drink it?" Mikey asked, suddenly feeling very self-conscious as he sipped his coffee: the way Gerard was staring at him like a vulture circling its prey wasn't helping at all.

"It goes through me." Gerard laughed a little. "That's what happened last time... I made contact with a liquid..."

"And what liquid was that?" Mikey asked, all too naive.

"Frank's come." Gerard said, all too nonchalantly, just before common sense could kick in and remind him that he was indeed a fucking idiot.

"Oh..." Mikey trailed off, his eyes widening, "lovely." He took another sip of his coffee, "nice to know the whole you being dead thing isn't stopping you two from fucking."

"Yeah. it is." Gerard smiled, leaving Mikey was a disgusted expression upon his face. "It's not that bad being dead, really, like sure I can't drink coffee but that's like the worst of it-"

"It is bad." Mikey snapped, meeting his brother's gaze, "it was hell." He put the mug of coffee down. "I don't think you quite get it, still, even though you definitely seem to have a better grasp of things and emotions now compared to as you did when you were alive, which really doesn't make sense, but... I don't think you understand what it's like to have your brother die - your big brother, the person you've seen everyday for the entirety of your life and then never again. You were like my best friend and my worst enemy all at once, and now you're just... just... you're back but it's not the same anymore."

"I know it can't be the same, Mikey, but it can be okay again-"

"No, Gerard, you don't get it, you don't fucking get that you were the one person I was close to, that we knew everything about one another, and we had this weird kind of relationship, in that we hated each other, but we'd die for each other and protect one another at any cost, and that was all I had been doing to get you to hate me - protecting you. And then suddenly, I don't have a brother anymore because he's killed himself, and you know what I do have? A grieving mother who won't stop crying but has to pull herself together because she's got another son who doesn't know what the fuck to do and keeps going on long walks and considering never coming back home, who considers killing himself because nothing seems to ever quite fit without his brother-"