The Catalyst

Held back by the battles they fought for me

A/N: Hello! Sorry, it took a while for me to update. I swear I wasn't lazy, I have been writing! xD No warnings here, you know the drill... x) My next one to write is 'In My Remains'.

Enjoy!

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The next day, when Mike woke up, he was first confused about why he felt so weird. Like there was this invisible weight on him. But when he heard pen scribbling on a paper and turned his head to see Chester on the familiar spot on top of the table, he remembered it all. The sadness in Chester's eyes was so clear, even when there were no tears to be seen anymore. It was unbearable, because he didn't know what to do. Chester chewed the inside of his cheek and stared out from the window and then after puffing out the smoke turned his head back to the notepad. Mike could see the page was full of thick, round letters. Word after word. Same time he wished he could read it from there, and the same time he didn't want to know.

"Morning."

Chester flinched a little, like he had forgotten he wasn't alone and nodded then, "Good morning."

Stretching Mike sat up and turned to face the other while Chester continued with the writing. He checked his wristband and was glad it was only barely midday. Then he smelled it wasn't a cigarette but a joint that Chester was smoking. Scratching the bridge of his nose he realized he had to ask. "Are you okay?"

The other shot a glance at him. Mike felt like it was burning a hole through him. "I'm fine."

It would have been like nothing had happened. Except that the bruises were just darker than yesterday and Chester's tone was even colder. Fuck. This is going to be a long day, Mike thought.

"Okay", he nodded. It was the only thing he could say to that situation. Cause inside he was fuming. Wanting to dig up the answer. What happened. Who did it. And most importantly- why. But he had to ignore the questions. Chester didn't look like he wanted to talk and they had the gig. Whether it was for a bunch of drunken kids or not, Mike didn't want to fail. The questions would wait until tomorrow. "So do you want to see what I managed to do yesterday?"

Chester stared at him for a while, like he was waiting for some hidden meaning to be revealed but nodded then. "Yeah. I still have time to learn it."

"Actually I didn't change your parts. I just added some that I would do. That way... Well, the song still stays the same otherwise. So you don't need to do anything else than wait that I get through my parts."

"Oh? Well, let me hear it then", Chester tossed the notebook aside and turned on the table so he was now facing Mike.

And so Mike did. The words came from his heart as they had always been there. He rapped through the parts that he had written just the day before and only stopped when he was done. Chester watched the whole show in silence. He had to force himself to stay still and not say everything he had in his mind. It was terribly hard. Watching Mike rap eyes closed, hand moving quickly to the rhythm, just sitting there like he doing something casual, was making him feel things he didn't know he could feel. Honestly, he didn't even know such things existed. Fighting it was horrible and he got confused soon, wanting to disappear.