Épousez-moi, Restez la Même Chose

Gerard leaned back on the headboard of his bed, the dull ache of hunger nudging at his spine. He hasn't eaten in a few hours. Well no, he hasn't eaten in a day. He figured it was more productive to binge-starve than binge-eat. Before wiL came, there were a lot of those days when he would sit on his ass in front of his laptop and a bag of potato chips beside him. Now. He's impressed that he hasn't gained ten pounds in the last hour.

The blood inside his veins felt like lead, like it was convalescing right inside his body. It took too much effort to try and move, even to extend his arm the length it took to brush the hair that was tickling his nose out of his face.

He laid on his bed, he stared at the ceiling. His phone vibrated from its spot on the pillow next to Gerard's head, alerting him of a new text message. They had been coming on and off for the better part of an hour. He'd ignored most of them so far, knowing that they were all from Alicia. After the third text he'd opened from her, the one calling him a fat failure--his sister-in-law is seriously a bitch who knows how to hit where it hurt--he'd decided it was safer to just not open his phone.

So basically, he was stuck in bed cut off from the world because his brother's evil wife wouldn't let up on him long enough for him to call Mikey and whine about how miserable he was. Which was pretty futile, because Mikey was in the midst of the lake of complaining over in New York. He had to deal with Alicia while she was with wiL.

That was just horrible. Gerard still thought he had it worse, but Mikey was suffering pretty badly. Appropriately, because this was all his fault--Gerard didn't just meet wiL on the street, after all--but seriously, the kid needed a break. He was fragile, Alicia could break him right in half.

He sighed again, oh-so-heartbroken, and rolled over on his side to face the window, to look out on the slice of blue he could see peeking out of the bottom pane. He wanted to go out there, to sit beside the water and look and smell the air and pretend that nothing was wrong, but he didn't think that was likely. Although he was a master at pretending.

Beside him, he could hear an ear-splitting ringing, and was about to write it off as his cell phone again until he remembered that his phone was set on silent, and anyways, he had coded ringtones for everyone. He reached his hand out blindly, feeling around on the night stand until his hand curled over the receiver of his home phone.

"Hello?" he asked blearily into the plastic covering of his phone.

"Gerard..."

He could recognize his little brother's voice even through his fog of depression.

"Mikey? Hey." He frowned, wondering why Mikey would call him. He knew he was just in for hearing more complaining. Unless, well, unless there was something wrong with wiL... "What's wrong?"

"Nothing, nothing's wrong. Well, I'm going crazy and regretting ever getting married, but other than that nothing's wrong. Everyone's safe." And Gerard knew that by everyone, Mikey meant wiL. Because Gerard told Mikey countless times that he didn't care for his wife, and if something was wrong with Mikey, he would know about it already.

"WiL misses you."

A surprise. "Did he say that?" Because if he didn't, and if Mikey was only going by his intuition, Gerard wasn't going to bother getting his hopes up. That was pointless. That was heartbreak waiting to happen. It was hard to believe that wiL could miss Gerard while he was with Alicia.

"He's crying."

"Oh shit. Do. Do you think he'll talk to me?"

"Lemme ask him."

Gerard heard Mikey put the phone down and the rustle of bed sheets. So. Mikey was holed up in his own bedroom being miserable with Gerard via long distance. He closed his eyes, his heart getting heavier; he was ruining Mikey's life too. But of course he was. There was nothing else for him to do, even if he was holed up in his bedroom. The perimeter of his destruction knew no bounds.

"Gerard?" The voice on the other end was quiet, so quiet. It was sad and he was sad and he wanted wiL to be here so they could be sad together.

"WiL? Hey, you okay? Mikey treating you okay?" Gerard asked softly, scooting up his bed until he was sitting up. The cell phone at his side was still steadily buzzing so he picked it up in his free hand, the vibrations running through his arm. He hated it.

"Yeah, m'okay." He heard a sigh, then, "I miss you."

His heart sung, just a little bit. He wanted to tell wiL that he could come back now, everything was going to be okay, but he couldn't be the first one to break. WiL needed to ask. Or. Well, it wasn't like he couldn't just show up. He lived here too.

"I miss you too." The words on the tip of his tongue never surfaced, though. They were there, they were jumping, hitting the backs of his teeth, filling his mouth with tar. All he had to say was come home. That was all, and wiL would be there. He tossed his cell phone up into the air and caught it in the palm of his hand. "...are you still mad?"

He could ask that, at least. He wanted to know. The want ate at what little pride he had left, denting it far enough to let the question slip through.

And it was times like these that he wished scientists had perfected the visual phone. Seeing wiL's face might have been easier. At least then he would have a picture to match up with the silence pouring out of his phone.

"Yes. I miss you and I love you but I can't forgive you right now."

Gerard drew in a long-winded breath, "That's a start." Not really what he was looking for, but a start. He had a jumping off point now instead of waiting in silence.

"Alicia told me--"

Gerard closed his eyes, pinching the bridge of his nose between two fingers. "Told you...?" he prompted, knowing that he didn't want to hear it. Already knew what it was going to be, because that's just the way his life works.

"That we're not married."

Gerard sighed.

"Is it true?" he whimpered, the rustle of fabric reaching Gerard's ears through the phone.

And okay, that wasn't fair. So un-fair, Gerard was contemplating disowning Mikey just for marrying Alicia. He'd do it too. But it wasn't like he didn't know this wouldn't happen, like Alicia wouldn't use every weapon in her arsenal to keep wiL in New York with her. Should have known better than to let wiL go, he should have--fucking begged or something, should have soaked up his pride and made wiL stay and work things out before giving up.

"Yeah. Yeah, I guess it is true. Mom said that we aren't married because I didn't sign anything. But it's just a stupid fucking piece of paper, and it shouldn't matter anyways, right?" Pushing himself up, hearing the pops and cracks his body made from age and lack of movement over the past few days made him groan. He reached blindly on the nightstand for the pack of cigarettes he hadn't touched the whole day, slipping a few out and patting down his pockets to make sure he had his lighter.

"It matters to me."

Gerard nodded to himself, making his way outside to his balcony. He toed a chair closer to him and sat down. It took him a few lights, but he got his cigarette lit, tossing the others onto the table and sighing. "Matters to me too." He flicked his cigarette before it really needed it. "You know I love you, right?"

"Mhm."

"And you know that I'm a fuck up." Eyes lazing closed of their own accord against the bright afternoon sun, he slouched down in his chair. He knew that his sunglasses were still downstairs on the kitchen table, knew that he wasn't going down to get them. Couldn't be bothered right now.

"You're not a fuck up. You just do fucked up things."

The answer sparked a smile from Gerard, one that he wished wiL could see. "Okay. I do fucked up things. And if we're going to get married, you have to know that I end up doing a lot of fucked up things." The wind wore his cigarette down to and he watched it, flicked it when he needed something to do with his hands. "I don't want you getting into something without knowing that."

"We're getting married?"

"If you'll marry me." And he wasn't so worried about the answer right now. He knew that this was something he would fight for if he had to.

"You're going to have to cut back on the fucked up things."

He chuckled, and it sounded so good. The first time anything close to a laugh had come out of him in days, and it rumbled his chest, made his smile wider. "I will, I promise."

"Then I'll marry you."

"Okay. Good."

"Mhm. I have to go now, Licia wants to take me shopping."

Imagining the piles of black clothes he would have to throw out to adapt to wiL's growing wardrobe, Gerard made a tiny sound in the back of his throat. "Okay. Have fun."

"Okay. Bye, Gerard."

"Bye."