Return To Sender

For a few minutes, all Mikey can do is lie in the grass and stare up at the sky, spotted with fluffy clouds that look like rabbit tails. The gentle breeze is like ethereal fingers on his stomach, brushing against his skin and leaving goosebumps in their wake. Someone drives past, their car blaring some atrocious rap song and he can feel his body tensing up as he bites back the urge to scream at them.

Something bad is going to happen. He doesn't know why he thinks this; the day seems even more sickeningly perfect than usual, the kind you always saw on a cheesy 50's sitcom. The sky was blue, the grass was green and yet Mikey still knows something is going to happen. Everything's about to change.

He doesn't want to hear his mother question him about his lack of proper attire so he goes inside the same way he used the night before, scrabbling up the side of his house and sliding back into his window, still wide open and bringing in sunlight. A animal-like howl abruptly comes from downstairs and he smirks, knowing that Gerard is home again and already suffering from the burning pain of withdrawal.

His brother's lifestyle truly does disgust him but he never speaks up. Mikey can't even remember the last time him and Gerard exchanged words, had an actual conversation. He thinks it's been a few months but it could have been years; Gerard's been doing drugs for as long as he could remember. He doesn't remember what it's like to have a brother to share experiences with and be there for.

Gerard's a leech, a parasite, sucking the blood of their family to satisfy his own selfish hunger.

Sleep comes easily to him after the debacles the night before. He can feel his muscles thanking him as they start to calm down from the aches plaguing them. There are bruises all over his back and thighs, he knows this without having to take his jeans off. However, he does this anyways, tossing them into a corner of his room and collapsing on his bed, completely naked and exposed to anyone who would have looked in through the window.

But no one does and Mikey sleeps, even though his room is still completely exposed to the sun and elements. Hours tick by, dark gray clouds cover the sky and it starts to pour rain, freezing cold droplets that patter against the roof and come through Mikey's window, covering his skin in moisture.

Somewhere outside, there's a tortured scream that briefly echoes throughout the neighborhood before a monstrous roar of thunder cuts it off like someone having their throat slit.

***

When Mikey wakes up, eyes snapping instantly open, nostrils flared, he already knows that something has happened. The peaceful sky of the morning was now nothing but a distant memory. The sun is setting, barely visible over the gray haze and fog that has settled over the backyard. Feeling the cold for the first time, he jolts up and within seconds has shut his window, not bothering with the curtains yet.

Something tells him that he'll be needing to escape his room that night.

He pulls on a pair of jeans and walks downstairs, not bothering to button them up. Everything is... hushed. Usually, the television in the den is blaring some cooking show but now, he can't hear any advice about how to make the perfect stir-fry. Instead, whispers are coming from the kitchen and it's then that he notices the red and blue light slowly reflecting off the stained glass windows in the entrance hall.

The cops are here. It's not a first, especially with Gerard's drug habit and the sleazy prostitutes he hangs out with, but it's not Gerard this time. He steps out onto the front step and immediately, a gust of wind blows the sickly sweet smell of freshly spilled blood right into his face.

He inhales deeply, savoring as it fills his entire body, penetrates every pore. For the first time in years, Mikey feels completely energized, he feels alive.

It takes him another few seconds to realize that his front lawn is swarming with cops and in the middle of the chaos, there's a blue tarp lying on the grass, held down by a few rocks. Even before he starts walking over, he knows that someone's been murdered. The blood that's purifying him is all over his front lawn, he can see it splattered across the ground, coming from the direction of the swimming pool.

His mother is being restrained by two police officers, each holding one of her arms and taking not so discreet glances down her flimsy nightgown as she struggles, for once not caring that there's makeup pouring down her surgically enhanced face.

"Juan!" she screams, fingers clawing towards the direction of the tarp. Her hands are covered in blood, just like the grass. Mikey watches her flail madly before giving up and collapsing to the ground in a boneless heap, hands still reaching out even as the officers go about loading the body of their former gardener into the ambulance that's waiting in the driveway.

"Stupid fucking whore," he mutters, sticking his hands in his pockets and turning back towards the house, amused that none of the cops have even glanced at him. It's something he's rather used to, seeing as his mother's breasts are usually the main attraction to every visitor to their home, but it's not every day that there's a murder committed in their front yard.

The grass is already too long.

***

Sitting at the kitchen island, idly stirring a bowl of cereal until it's mushy and mixed in completely with the milk, Mikey watches the parade go by in front of him. Cops, family friends, neighbors, his parents... all pass by and yet none of them speak a word to him. The most acknowledgment he receives are brief nods from people who seem to be almost... scared of him.

He shrugs it off and pours his cereal in the garbage before getting a new bowl and returning to his spot to continue crowd watching.

People are still flocking in at midnight, expressing their sympathies to his parents. His mother in particular seems to have gathered quite the flock around her, still wearing her grass stained nightgown and with mascara staining her cheeks. His father stands off to one corner, fidgeting nervously and merely nodding when someone tells him how truly sorry they are.

Mikey is the only one who can see the glee in his father's eyes, hiding behind a transparent layer of sadness. The triumph is almost overflowing out of him. Without Juan, maybe now he'll be able to keep Mikey's mother under control, keep her his and his alone.

It's enough to make him wonder if it was his father who murdered Juan.

Well, not his father directly. Donald Way is far too high up in the food chain to dirty his own hands with the blood of an illegal immigrant that was screwing his wife. However, it wasn't that far of a stretch to imagine him on the phone well after midnight, speaking with a Mafia hitman to organize the slaying. The more Mikey thought about it, the more likely it seemed. He was even beginning to think of calling the police station himself and turning his father in, just to see how far down his family would sink down.

They would never hit bottom, but there was nothing wrong with falling down a few floors.

At three o'clock in the morning, the house is silent. His mother is asleep in her arm chair, hair frizzing out around her face. His father is lying on the red leather couch, one arm slung over his face with the phone lying on his chest. Gerard is still nowhere to be found, a phantom in his own house. Finally, Mikey stands up, tossing his bowl in the sink without looking, and goes back upstairs. The muscles in his lower back are all tense from sitting so long and he absently rubs them, ignoring the goosebumps flaring up on his skin.

He nearly has a heart attack when he spots his brother standing in his bedroom door, leaning against one side of the wooden frame, silhouetted in the moonlight.

"Jesus Christ Gerard, you're still fucking alive?" he mutters, actually wincing as he sees how pale his brother's skin is. It doesn't look like he's eaten in weeks.

"I'm alive for today little brother," he says, his voice going up and down in a nearly sing song like pattern. His hand drops and he leans in far enough to Mikey to see his pupils, which have nearly disappeared. His brother is high out of his fucking mind and his lips are touching Mikey's ear, his goddamn diseased lips.

"Have you ever tried heroin?" he whispers, reaching out and brushing against Mikey's stomach with his torn fingernails. There's a scab on his arm that's falling off and Mikey slowly backs up, hitting the opposite wall. He's never been around his brother like this, not when he's... gone.

"I could get you anything you wanted." His fingers wouldn't stop touching him and Mikey was frozen in his spot, unable to move.

"Just say you want to escape it all..."

"Get off me!" Mikey finally snaps out of his shock and he pushes Gerard away from him, shuddering as he continues to feel his grubby fingers touching his skin. "Jesus, you fucking creep!" Slamming his bedroom door behind him, he shuts his eyes, leaning against the cool wood and trying to calm himself down.

Just as his breathing slows to it's normal pace, the moon glints off something metal lying in the middle of his bed. Something that wasn't there when he woke up. Slowly, he steps across to his bed and sits down, picking it up gingerly in one hand.

It's Mr. Murphy and he's covered in blood. At the end of it, there's a yellow Post-It, stained with red, which he quickly rips off.

You're welcome. I love you.