We're Going Live

Mikey made his way slowly up the grey stone steps, his iPod blaring hopefully in his ears. The building looked like a prison, all bronze slab awards and signs. ‘Westward Counselling’. Mikey scoffed, how original. Wicked witch of the west.

On these very same steps a much younger Mikey with a stupid hair cut and rounder glasses was crouching down before him, cradling his brother in vein attempt to quieten him.

”I hate you,” Gerard wailed, trying to get away from ‘Henry’ his counsellor. Donna sat in her car unknowingly, not realising her oldest was escaping from his weekly visit. A thirteen year old Mikey lay in the back seat, reading one of Gerard’s crumpled comics with a frown on his face. He always hated that way Gerard would borrow the first three issues from some one and then buy the other two, he could never get what they were talking about.

He sat up, grimacing when his bony knee clicked, Donna just smiled, knowing that look of disgust on her younger sons face.

“If you walked around more that wouldn’t happen,” she chuckled, rubbing moisturiser into her hands.

“I hate walking and moving,” he replied stoutly, his eyes catching sight of his brother trying to make a great escape, “Can I go for a little walk actually!?” Mikey asked, opening the car door before more words could be exchanged, “I think I see some one I know from school!” he added, consoling Donna to his quick exit. Donna herself just continued to re-paint her nails.

It was like a nervous habit, painting her nails over and over again until they were layered thick with a pale pink or bright red. She couldn’t remember how many times she had brushed her hair that morning either.

Mikey ran forcefully over to the steps, trying to run up them quickly although he kept tripping and scuffing up his jeans. He ignored it and ran into Gerard’s back, wrapping his arms tightly around his brother's waist so Henry couldn’t try and pull him back inside.

“Just stay away from me!” Gerard cried, not directed at Mikey, Henry of course. He returned the hug to his brother in a strangling fashion, glad to have some one that understood him there, “You don’t know anything, You can’t tell me whether I’m a fag or not!” he screeched, trying to walk down the steps.

“Gerard! I did not say you were a ‘fag’ I simply asked you whether you had considered your sexuality because that may go down to the root of this situation in school!” Henry said, his jaw dropping a little when Gerard stumbled backwards and fell to the floor, tumbling down the six steps painfully.

“Look what you did!” Mikey squealed, a crack appearing in his voice before it deepened again. Gerard had always laughed at him when that happened. He cleared his throat whilst running down the steps after Gerard, pulling his older brother’s head onto his lap. Sobbing, Gerard clawed at Mikey’s sides dragging the younger boys clothes with his finger tips, “Gee? What he say?” Mikey asked, cuddling his head like a rag doll.

“I told him about school,” Gerard cried, choking on the flem stuck in the back of his throat, “I hate school!” he sobbed louder, snot and spit stringing from his top lip, “I only like you,” Gerard snuffled loudly.

Mikey stalked up the steps, noticing the small droplets of blood from when Gerard had cried too hard and burst a blood vessel in his nose resulting in a massive nose bleed. He shoved open the doors, away from the bobble haired secretary and up into the elevator to the third floor where his session was. He knocked three times on the door, swallowing at the nerves swimming around in the pit of his stomach.

“Michael Way?” A voice asked from inside. Mikey stepped in, staring with narrowed eyes at the fat, friendly, balding man behind the desk.

“Hi Dave,” Mikey sighed, closing the door and taking up his place on the dark blue recliner set up in front of his desk, “I feel like shit,” he stated blankly, making Dave chuckle behind the desk, “I haven’t been laid in forever and I have been jogging like five times a day,” he started, pushing his arms behind his head, “And I smoked like a 20 bag by myself last night,” he ended.

“Is it still this girl? I thought we talked about this? Remember we concluded that she’s a little kid. In the long run you’ll be better off without her-“

“-Yeah well, I rang her up… what? Saturday? And we started engaging in a sexual conversation resulting in me freaking and putting the phone down. Then I called back to apologise and she started to get like real dirty and then I found out it was actually Gerard that made her say those things and then to fucking put the cherry on the cake she made it quite clear she won’t tell Gerard to sling his hook, But the worst thing is that I still love Gerard! He’s helped me through so much as a kid!”

“How did he help you?” Dave asked, sitting up on the edge of his desk whilst watching his patient clean his glasses on the edge of his t-shirt.

“Everything! You don’t understand how much he tried to protect me. Sometimes he’d even spend the whole day of his school day beating people up that picked on me. And let me tell you a lot of those kids were so much bigger than him. He’s come home black and blue!” Mikey began.

“What else?” Dave asked when Mikey fell silent and rolled over onto his side.

“For my twelfth birthday party I invited a dozen kids to this supposed party I wanted. Of course no one came, I was just that kid with the weird older brother who jacked off to Tomb raider and pretended he was part of Lord of The Rings. Anyways it was pouring down but he walked all the way into town and spent all his money on buying me this massive tent. Then he put Spiderman on for me and told me to find a bunch of blankets and stuff. He put up this tent,” Mikey chuckled, tears pooling in the bottom of his eyes, “And it was pouring down! And we’ve never been camping, but he got it,” Mikey laughed, wiping is tears away, “And spent the whole night out there with me, he even took me on an adventure round our garden in the middle of the night,” he finished.

Mikey wiped at his eyes with the back of his hand, feeling sick to the stomach with the thought of even thinking about trying to take Gerard away from his family.

“He sounds like a thoughtful brother,” Dave smiled, handing Mikey a tissue so he could pull himself together.

“Yeah I know, that’s why I feel like a bastard because he goes through so much shit for everyone and then my mom, my dad, I even take advantage of him, It’s not fair,” Mikey muttered, “He’s crazy, he’s not mentally stable. I don’t know what he’s going to do to Ren! I don’t think Charlie’s going to grow up with a straight mind if he’s away from both his dad and his mom,” Mikey stressed, everything beginning to tense in his body, “Everything’s just so fucked up.”