Épousez-moi, Restez la Même Chose

"You're fucked," Mikey told his brother with a smile. And yeah, he was right, Gerard was completely and utterly fucked, his world might as well be crashing down around his ears, but he couldn't help smiling back, his whole face lighting up with the silly little grin. He chuckled and nodded.

"I'm fucked," he agreed.

They were outside on what had started out as a cigarette break but had morphed into them climbing up onto the roof and cracking jokes at one another. Gerard was content to lean on Mikey and stare at the sun as it was at half-mast. It wasn't as pretty here as it was at home, but it was...okay. It was yellow, bursting with energy and pain, stinging Gerard's eyes when he tried to look. The sky around was orange, like construction signs.

He dug his big vogue sunglasses out of his hoodie pocket and slipped them onto his face. They made him look like a fucking rockstar, but he thought he could pull it off. Sort of. Until Mikey started singing, "I wear my sunglasses at night".

"Shut up, asswipe. The sun is burning my eyes."

"Stop looking at it, fuckwad." Mikey nudged Gerard with his elbow and laughed. "You know, I'm actually relieved that you have someone to look out for you now. You're so dumb. Maybe wiL can keep you alive until the next tour."

And he had to bring it up.

Gerard turned his mouth into Mikey's coat and sighed, biting into the material. "When do you think that will be?" he asked around a mouthful of fabric. Because he seriously needed to introduce wiL to Frank and Ray and Bob and all the others. Oh god, and Brian. He wasn't going to be happy. He specifically told Gerard not to get spastically married while they were on break.

He felt Mikey shrug and the coat slide out from between his teeth. "After we make our new record, Gerard. As soon as you start writing again. As soon as Frankie gets done with Leathermouth." He sighed. "I don't know, Gerard. When...when things settle down."

"Are you losing faith, Michael?" Gerard didn't even mean it as a joke. If he had--maybe his heart wouldn't be jumping. Maybe he wouldn't suddenly feel so much shittier than he already did, than this day had already seemed to dump on him from the moment he woke up. And Mikey knew that, because he threaded his fingers through Gerard's hair and sighed again. This was real, they were really going to talk about this? Because Gerard hadn't really thought about it, he just assumed that when it stopped he would know, they would all know. It would just crack through their minds like a connected telepathic bolt and then that was the end. That hadn't come yet, so...they were still okay?

"Things are different now. We're grown up. Most of us are married. How long do you think we can stay like this? Already, people are starting to think of us as old news, and--I mean, if we're all tired, and no one even wants us back, what's the point?"

Gerard was about to reply, but Mikey held up his hand. "How many kids are we really saving anymore? All the good ones came a long time ago. Now, we're just a punch line. Or, like, a discussion on Youtube. I hate this, you know? I love to tour, but I always miss my family when we're gone."

Gerard picked his head up off of Mikey's shoulder and nodded. He did know, he didn't want to leave wiL behind, however far in the future that was going to be, but-- "I don't like to stand still."

He was confused at Mikey's smile, because weren't they just talking about sad topics, and since when did Mikey smile anyway? Mikey leaned in and pressed a kiss to his cheek.

"I love ya, Gerard."

"I love you too..." He wiped at his cheek. "But I told you I'm not gay."

Mikey smiled at him with hooded eyes, and he didn't even have to mention wiL.

"We're...we're not really married, you know. We never were," Gerard said softly, looking back out into the sky. He half-hoped that Mikey would ask him about it, ask what the hell he was going to do about this and give him some doubts. But he already knew. It was solidified. And fuck if that wasn't scary.

Gerard was commiting himself now. On his own, he had a chance to get out, but no. No, wiL needed him, and he sort-of needed wiL, and this was going to work.

*

It took some clever thinking, but Gerard finally got Alicia to stop hugging wiL to death by threatening to put up pictures of her kissing wiL and letting her deal with the backlash of all the Mikey-lovers who just knew she was going to cheat on him. She was a bitch when she wanted to be, but even she couldn't hold up to the ranting power of thousands of little girls. So wiL and Gerard made it into Gerard's car eventually, and Gerard started it up and let wiL pick the radio station.

An hour into the trip, wiL was leaning with his cheek pressed up against the window, the half of his face that Gerard could see graced with eyes closed and a serene expression that he hadn't seen the whole time that they were in New Jersey. WiL really hadn't slept much there. Because of him, of course, because he was so fucking selfish he couldn't let the kid sleep, but he thought it had to do with something else entirely. He was always waking up at odd hours at home and it never bothered wiL.

Another glance over in the passenger seat showed that wiL was at least partially awake. His head lolled on the headrest, one eye squeezed tight against the sun and the other half-open and shining underneath dark eyelashes, one of his arms tucked behind the seat and the other laying outstretched on the seat. A suspender hooked into his pants on the left was coming undone and his shirt had pulled itself free from where he'd tucked in into his pants, and he was looking disheveled but content.

It was Jersey. He didn't like New Jersey, that was all.

"Y'okay?" Gerard felt the need to ask, sliding his free hand over the seat until it rested over wiL's.

His answer came out as a garbled mess that Gerard only just barely understood. "Je manque notre maison." It just confirmed what he already knew. What he felt as well.

"I know. We're almost home, though."

*

It shouldn't have been weird. When he climbed into bed later on that night, curling his arms around his pillow instead of wiL, he knew that he needed to get over himself and just act normal, for wiL's sake. But it did bother him, it made things just a little bit different.

WiL wasn't his, not now, wasn't ever, and touching was weird. He couldn't sidle up to wiL and tug him into his chest and press his nose into his hair. It seemed invasive all of a sudden, sort of presumptious. What made all of this okay for wiL? What if he didn't want this? He'd acted sweetly enough, but that's how he was trained to act, right? And it didn't mean that wiL really wanted Gerard cuddling up to him all the time like he'd suddenly taken to doing, acting like wiL was his own personal teddy bear.

WiL rolled over in place on his own side of the bed--they had sides. No, Gerard still wasn't over freaking out about all of the sharing--and stared into the darkness where Gerard would be. Where he knew he would be because the bed dipped that way, so he couldn't trick himself into thinking that Gerard was just downstairs and not cowering at the edge of the bed or whatever wiL really was thinking.

A hand curled itself around Gerard's waist and tugged a little, drawing him closer to the center of the bed. "Gera-rrrrd..." wiL groaned, and he Gerard could just imagine the pretty, wet pout that must be there. "C'mere..." he drawled in a whisper slurred with sleep, tugging and groaning until the two of them were finally resting chest-to-chest.

Gerard could only imagine how wiL looked, whether his expression would be annoyed or sleepy or just I-don't-care. Whether he was smiling now that he finally got Gerard where he wanted him, with his arms locked around him in a vice and his face smushed into his neck.

Sometimes, Gerard liked the dark better. His own face was too expressive, and his sensors to dull to pick up on other's expressions, so he was always unfairly disadvantaged in conversations. When he bit his lip, it didn't mean a thousand things, no one could write a book on the many ways his eyebrows eloquated his emotions, he was very simple and open, and no one else was like that. They tended to be guarded and selfish with their expressions.

He was sort of glad that he couldn't see wiL's face when their lips slid across each other's.