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After Mikey had panickedly insulted and rejected Gerard in Starbucks’ parking lot, Gerard talked to Mikey less and less. They didn’t hang out at lunch like they always did before. Gee didn’t meet him after school. He’d kept coming to their group’s games, but he would only talk to Mikey as the GM, and only if he had a direct question. Picard hadn’t called on Titania once.
Gerard even stopped hanging out after games had finished. When it hit seven o’clock he’d be pulling on his jacket like he was on fire and then leaving with a wave over his shoulder instead of a regular goodbye, all before the rest of them had even properly stood up.
The guys noticed. The third week in a row that Gerard absconded, Frank looked over at Mikey where he was sitting slumped, a little crestfallen. “Should I recast that friendship spell?” Frank asked quietly.
Ray cracked a bit of a smile.
Mikey tried too as well but couldn’t bring himself to play it off. “Sure. Maybe it’d help,” he said to Frank instead. It was a joke that didn’t quite land.
It would’ve been bad enough if Gee just hated him. At least there would’ve been some closure for Mikey then, some kind of certainty at what was happening. But the situation was worse than that. They weren’t technically not-friends. Neither of them had said they weren’t friends, because to do that, Gerard would need to acknowledge Mikey existed.
Mikey wanted to yell that that was unfair. He hadn’t asked the other boy to get a crush on him, or make him romantic drawings like some kind of very special episode; he hadn’t asked Gee to try and kiss him in the parking lot or be so hurt when Mikey didn’t want to. And he felt terrible about it, alright? He was sorry. And, okay, so maybe he’d never actually apologized out loud, but Gerard should know Mikey was sorry. He should. It made Mikey angrier that he didn’t.
Gerard was being stupid, and immature, and a whole slew of other things that Mikey seethed with every single time the other boy pretended not to see Mikey or the guys waving at him in the cafeteria.
Then, one night in May, Mikey woke up in his room freezing and gasping. It took a second of blinking wildly in the dark for the nightmare to catch up to him. When it did he quailed underneath it.
The dream had been a twisted echo of the actual morning Frank and Ray had busted into his room and seen the Titania and Picard drawing. In real life it’d been awkward but not too awful. Mikey’s nightmare, his friends laughed and laughed until their voices warped, fierce and eldritch. They started tearing off everything else he had on his corkboard, and then they yanked open and tore apart the rest of his drawers, and then everything else in the room: his mattress, the walls, Mikey himself. Their clawed arms were up to the elbows in Mikey’s chest and the back of his head and his memories had bled through to them and they'd known about everything: about Gee and Mikey’s feelings and the kiss and his forest-parking lot dreams, and how sick his mom got, how many times he’d come home to see her in the exact same spot of her bed she’d been in in the morning, and how his dad sent letters sometimes that were super weird and how Mikey never really asked because he didn’t want to know, and the overdue bills in the kitchen drawer, and all of it. It all was terrifying and hurt and Mikey couldn’t stop bawling which made everything worse. Their claws scraped against Mikey’s guts and his memories; they said were gonna tell everyone. Mikey had tried to kick or scream, but it wasn’t any use.
Then Gerard rushed in with a shout holding a lightsaber, but it wouldn't work, and the gibbering monsters that Frank and Ray had become turned on him too, and Mikey was yelling but it didn’t stop them, and--
Mikey shook under his blankets, curling into a ball and pressing his face into his shivering arms, hiccupping as he cried.
He wasn’t angry about how unfair it all was after that. Gerard’s determined denial of his existence still hurt, but Mikey suddenly understood how it all could’ve been much, much worse.
At the very bottom of the whole stupid fight was a bare fact: Gerard had been his best friend since third grade. He’d never told any of Mikey’s secrets. Not one. He’d always listened to Mikey’s hare-brained story plans or quiet confessions, and he’d talked to Mikey whenever he’d called his house after school because Mikey’s was too quiet. He’d listened to the cool ideas Mikey had about music, or the future, or their D&D quest. He’d talked Mikey out of a lot of bad ideas, big and small.
Now Mikey had fucked up, and he didn’t want to talk to Mikey whatsoever. That really, truly sucked, but if Mikey didn’t respect that, it’d be like he didn’t respect Gerard himself at all. It’d be like their friendship hadn’t meant anything.
So Mikey gave him space. It was a way of honouring their friendship up until that point, even if after that point it couldn’t be saved. He stopped trying to get Gee to hang out with him outside of D&D. He avoided the comic store where Gerard worked part-time. He walked home with only Ray and Frank, or alone.
Not talking to Gerard was shitty. It meant lonely weekends when Frankie had family stuff and Ray had other plans, and boring afternoons with nowhere to visit for mediocre coffee and good comic books.
It also meant Mikey wasn’t suspecting anything out of the (depressing) ordinary during their final D&D game of the year.
*
Mikey was first to the darkroom, as usual, lugging his bag full of books and supplies. He stood in front of the door for a second by himself, just appreciating it.
This was their last game. As a whole group, anyway. Him and Ray and Frank would still play next year, obviously, but they’d be missing part of the team. Gerard would be officially graduated after exams ended in nine days.
It felt weird, and was weird, and made Mikey a little sick to think of it. He’d been tempted to stall longer. All the supplies still needed time to set up, though, so he just busied himself unlocking the graphic design room with the key that Mr. Collins’ had given him way back when he’d first registered the D&D club as an official school-endorsed activity.
The empty classroom was a little unnerving after-hours, like always. The strong smell of india ink and the burn of light tables someone forgot to turn off both bothered Mikey’s eyes.
Walking into the red glow of the darkroom, though, was like coming home. Mikey always relaxed a little in here. At least a quarter of that home-safe feeling probably came from the photo-producing chemical soup in the air, and another quarter from the pot smoke from the grade twelves that clung to the corners of the low ceiling, but some of it was genuine. This was a nerd’s safe space. Mikey had made it one.
He shut the darkroom door behind himself and sat down on the floor in his usual spot, with his back to the developing sink’s cabinets. The hum of the reddened lights eased some of the knots in his stomach. He took a few minutes unrolling his foam game board and setting up the usual: dry-erase markers, non-scented Windex, paper towels, a couple miniatures, their hand-drawn map, his GM screen and the dice tray. He’d brought some extra dice in a bag, as always. Someone was always losing one kind or another.
After stacking all of the books in an easily-accessible pile, he sat back with his notebook to refresh himself on the plan for the session. He didn’t tend to railroad, but he had to be on top of his shit this week if the guys were going to have a satisfying end to the adventure. The whole group was pumped to finish before they got kicked out of the school again. Playing during summer was never quite the same.
Ray showed up at quarter to four with the ceremonial pack of Mountain Dew in tow. “Hey dude!” He called loudly, his slightly nasally voice echoing in the small space. He raised the six-pack in the air. “I bring gifts.”
Mikey put aside his notebook to high-five his friend. “Hell yeah,” he replied with a grin as he sat back down. “You can put them in the middle.”
“Sweet.” Ray sat down by the air vent and folded his legs up so he wasn’t taking up half of the darkroom by himself. He took off his reading glasses to try and clean them with his shirt, squinted, shrugged and then replaced them. “Gulstaff and Picard here yet?”
“Not yet,” Mikey said, glancing quickly at his watch. “Soon, though.”
“I hope so. It’ll be hard to take down an ogre mafia myself.”
Mikey snorted. “You’re joking, a Halfling thief can totally overthrow an entire stranglehold on a village.”
“If you’d let me use Juana’s influence, it’d over in like a minute,” Ray protested.
They’d been over this. “Your fiancé is literally recovering from, like, reverse agoraphobia after being in a tower for a bunch of years, dude. You can’t just ask a lady to let you borrow half her fortune after that.”
“But it’d work!”
“I told you before, that’s not how you handle romance.”
“All the more reason the beautiful princess will eventually see her error and ask me to marry her instead,” Frank announced from the door.
He grinned down at Ray and Mikey as they greeted him, dropping his backpack with a heavy squelch and then climbing over Toro to take a spot by the far side of the unrolled board.
Ray let out a muffled string of expletives as Frank clambered over him, and then a string of less-muffled ones as Frank sat down with a serene expression. “Why’d you have to do that every time?”
“Because it is fun,” Frank said promptly. “And hi to you too.”
“Hi,” Mikey said with a roll of his eyes. He paused, rubbing his arm. “Did, uh, did you see Gee anywhere?”
“Yeah, at lunch. He said he had something to do right after school but he’d be back soon.”
Mikey glanced at the clock above the closed door, reading its hands through the reflected glow of the photo-safe light. Then he nodded. “Okay, so. Let’s work out a plan until he gets here, I guess.”
“Like a surprise going-away present?” Frank asked, leaning forward brightly. “Dude! I knew it!”
“… no,” Mikey replied, a little awkwardly. “Like, in the game? What’re you guys going to do about the ogres.”
“Oh.” Frank sat back, looking a little disappointed.
“I have an ogre-slaying knife,” Ray volunteered after an awkward silence. “Plus-nine against ogres. And a really rich wife-to-be. That counts for something, right?”
Mikey sighed out loud mostly for effect; Frank giggled, and the awkwardness passed.
Together the three of them hashed out a general idea of what they wanted to do to finish off the campaign. Mikey nudged them in a couple of directions—yes, it would be a good idea to bring along fire flasks; no, he wasn’t going to tell them the reason—but mostly Ray and Frank did it themselves.
They were a lot better at planning than they’d been at the start of the year. Gulstaff in particular had gotten pretty good at thinking things through and choosing the right spells for the right situations. Mikey was proud of both of them.
In-game the two were hiding in the basement of a hut just outside of the village they were trying to save. The hut was the home of a chaotic neutral witch who’d taken a liking to them after bonding with Gulstaff over the love of blasty-magic. She didn’t concern herself with village matters much, but agreed to let the party bunk in her house while they figured shit out about the ogres. Right then she was out hunting for potion ingredients with her fairy dragon familiar. Mikey decided that it would take a couple days. That was good, since it gave the guys time to consider their plan.
Immediately they started arguing about whether Hobbit-in-Mordor or aggression was the better tactic to take the ogre base down. “I have magic missile, it’s a guaranteed hit,” Frank insisted.
“I have plus ten for stealth, they’ll never see me coming!” Ray said, and then the door squeaked open behind him.
Gerard stood in the doorway with an apologetic smile, his spring denim jacket undone, carrying a paper bag in his hands and a shitty plastic Dollar Tree one hanging off of his wrist.
“Hey man,” Ray said cheerfully, twisting around to see him.
At the same time Frank leaned forwards, his eyes big. “You cut your hair!”
Gerard laughed, stepping into the room properly and letting the door swing shut behind him. His hand that wasn’t occupied holding the bags went up to his hair self-consciously. It was indeed a lot shorter, almost shocking compared to the slightly-less-than-chin-length it’d been before. Even in the low lighting of the darkroom it was obvious he’d had kind of an undercut with the sides thin and dark, complete with tiny sideburns, but with a mop of hair still left on the top of his head. Most of his hair was his usual dark brown, but the mop was unmistakeably cherry red.
Mikey blinked, reaching up to fix his glasses. Gerard had been talking about dyeing his hair bright after he’d moved on to college, but Mikey didn’t think he’d do it so soon. It looked new. And it must be: Frankie had seemed surprised and he’d seen Gee at lunch, so he must’ve dyed it right after that afternoon. Maybe skipped his last class to get it done. The older boy was already graduating which meant he didn’t have to worry about dress codes like the rest of them, and his mom was a hairdresser so it wasn’t like it’d be difficult to do.
“It looks good, dude,” Ray said out loud, at the same time as Frank crowed, “Badass!”
Mikey wondered if the dye was still fresh enough to smudge on your hand if you slid your fingers through it. Then, catching up to himself, he blushed and determinedly re-routed his eyes back to the notebook page full of lists in front of him. He cleared his throat. “Nice to see you, Gee.”
Gerard shrugged the compliments away with one shoulder. “Sorry I’m late,” he said to the room in general. “I brought gifts, though.”
“That’s what I said!” Ray reached into the middle of the board and held up the Dew.
“Sweet.” Gerard finally sat down, taking the last available floorspace by the wall beside the door.
He put down the bags on the floor in front of him and started emptying them. The Dollar Tree one turned out to be full of snacks. “Cheetos, Fritos, and fake Cheerios. I went with an O thing,” he said, with a grin. “And also…” With a flourish he pulled out the contents of the paper bag, which turned out to be a smaller, plastic bag full of weed.
Ray and Mikey cheered; Frank whooped, leaning right across the dice tray on his belly to make grabby hands for the bag. “Gimme!”
Gerard’s grin blossomed into a full-blown smile. He passed the bag over to Frank.
Frank did a weird catlike wriggly-butt move back across the board before sitting back down in his own spot. “You have papers, right?” Frank asked as he peeled open the bag and inspected the produce inside, all business. “I’ve got my lighter somewhere.”
“Yeah, here.” Gerard passed them over, and Frank immediately began to roll a joint.
“You just made it a lot harder for us to finish this game before the janitor kicks us all out, you know,” Mikey said, looking over at Gee with a grin.
Gerard looked like he was going to laugh or fake apologize, but then abruptly the smile faded off of his face and he looked away, coughing into his elbow in a very obviously fake way.
Mikey felt his shoulders hunch. But it was looking like such a good game, he wanted to protest. I’m sorry, he almost said, but instead he just swallowed. He looked at his GM screen, notes and the cluster of d6s he had ready to ambush the party with mooks when they tried to sneak outside. He was a coward. He knew it. Gerard knew it. His face was still burning, but for a different reason than it had been only a moment ago.
Before Mikey could get too lost in that train of thought, though, Frank passed him a passably rolled joint and then the lighter. “After you, sir,” he said solemnly.
The four of them passed the joint around. Mikey snuck looks at Gerard from under a couple strands of his bangs, despite himself. Gerard’s mouth looked nice, curving around the smoke. He always tried to make exhales into Hobbit smoke rings; he could never manage it, but he always tried.
Ray coughed after the third pass, startling Mikey out of his daydream.
Mikey sat up a little straighter. “So, everyone ready?” He asked.
The group mumbled general assent. Ray took his last hit, screwed up his eyes and coughed, then set it down in the centre of the circle like THC-infused incense. Frank stretched his hands and then settled back on them, sitting cross-legged with his arms stuck out behind him, focusing on Mikey like he looked at books.
Gerard re-arranged his dice and sheets in front of him on the ground. He didn’t even look at Mikey.
The specs he’d found for Alpha Arachnids blurred in front of Mikey. Goddamnit. He mentally kicked himself, shaking his head back into focus. If he couldn’t face any kind of problem in real life then by God he could make the fictional ones the guys were involved with interesting. “Okay. So you wake up and the witch is back.”
They played for two hours, stopping once to go procure some munchies from the still-functional candy machines outside when they ran out of Gerard’s O-themed ones.
The game itself went pretty well. It definitely helped that everyone was a bit high. The usual tenseness of a battle was loosened and eased, and roleplaying got more forgivable. Before long, Mikey found himself having a genuinely good time again. He started smiling, even over at Gee, who kept bursting into giggles.
There were some tense moments even with the drugs, though. Mikey hadn’t been angling for a TPK because it seemed like an absolutely dick thing to do, but he hadn’t made it easy for them either.
At one point Gulstaff and Nightblade were trapped in a triangular room under the city hall, huddled in one corner while four ogre guards advanced on them. Picard had gotten entangled outside the room and hadn’t rolled a high enough strength check to free himself yet. They were outnumbered, out-weaponed and Gulstaff had used all his third-levels in getting down here. Both Frank and Ray were bent forwards towards each other, consulting their collective inventory, determination set into their faces.
It was a time for a GM intervention. He cleared his throat, interrupting Frank. “The ogres step forwards to attack, but then they’re distracted, as the Queen Of Spiders’ twisted body emerges from a section of soft wall on the left,” he said.
“No way!” Frank shouted, as both Toro and Gerard’s head snapped up. Mikey grinned.
Through some handy mid-battle dialogue Mikey came up with on the fly, the party discovered that the Queen had been down there because her and the ogre general were in an alliance based on trade; she had a guarded space to hibernate, he had her donated venom, which he used to make the drug he’d ensnared the entire town with.
The Queen, in her confusion and anger at being woken early, spat enough venom to physically dissolve the ogre mage that’d entangled Picard outside. With him free the party had use of his arrows, and like that they were back in fighting business. The flame flasks Mikey recommended came in handy soon after. All arachnids were weak to fire damage.
Everyone did great, but the height of the game was really when Gerard decided to go for broke and use triple-shot to hit the Queen through her largest, purplest eye.
It was a brave move. Mikey decided to give him a boost, since it was the last game. The Queen got mixed up in one of the ogre mage’s lingering spell effects which lowered her DC enough for Gerard’s attack to land. “Roll high,” Mikey recommended.
Gerard smiled despite the tension as he tossed his damage dice into the air. Everyone was quiet for a split second as they landed-- revealing a slew of high doubles.
Toro threw both his hands up in a wide salute and Frank hopped onto his feet, whooping loudly, only nearly avoiding braining himself on the photo production counter. Gerard’s whole face was flushed and he was grinning from ear to ear. They all turned to Mikey, bright-eyed.
Mikey grinned too. “Picard, you hit your target square in the center. The Queen of Spider’s eye explodes, and, uh, it oozes black muck onto her six other eyes, rendering her blind.”
“No way!” Frank shouted again, bouncing.
“And, and,” Mikey interrupted him, “She screamed loud enough to give the rest of the nearby orcs a concussion.”
“Fuck yeah, dude!” Ray turned to Gerard and high-fived him energetically.
Frank was still bouncing; he looked about ready to tackle the others across the circle. “We’re totally going to kick their asses!”
Mikey let them have their moment, and then coughed loudly. When everyone looked back at him he said, “You guys aren’t actually out of the catacombs yet.”
It was a fake warning though, and everyone knew it. From there on out the whole dungeon was a cakewalk. Gulstaff used his quarterstaff to deal a final blow to the Queen, and all three of them finished off the ogres together, picking up dozens of gold coins and unused potions each from the huge green corpses before they made their way back up through the caverns to the (now wrecked) town hall.
On the surface again, they found that the villagers had woken up from the drugs-induced stupors. For the most part all were happy. The previous mayor had been killed when the ogres first rolled into town, but his second-in-line promised the party that they’d always be welcome there, given anything they would need, and some of it free of charge---
“Including ale?”
Mikey sighed. “Yeah, ale and spirits are on the tavern’s gold.”
“I get drunk!” Nightblade crowed, waving his Mountain Dew around. Gerard giggled and Frank burst out laughing, almost inhaling his own drink in the process.
“Fine, fine.” Mikey waved his hand. “You all spend the night celebrating.”
The giggles turned into leers on Frank’s part and rolled eyes courtesy of Gerard. They launched into an animated discussion of what, specifically, they were going to do at the party.
Mikey let them have their fun for a second and then raised his voice. “Everybody shut up, okay. It’s the next morning. Nightblade, there’s a knock on the window. It’s a messenger hawk,” Mikey said, “With a letter on its leg addressed to you.”
Ray rubbed his nose with one hand while he grabbed the joint for another hit. “I use my grappling hook to open the window and let it in.”
“Won’t the noise wake up all the wenches you have with you?” Frank leered.
“Hey,” Toro said, pointing at him with the weed. He continued, surprisingly dignified, “I’ll have you know I’m a married man.”
“Engaged,” Mikey reminded Ray. “And it’s a good thing you mentioned that. The letter’s from Juana.”
Ray sat up a little straighter at that. Frank propped his chin on his hands. “Oooh!”
“The letter looks normal for her. She says, writes, uh, my love--”
“Oooh!”
“—shut up, Frank—she writes that she’s found her step-parents.”
“What?” Ray leaned forward.
“Yeah.” Mikey had spent a long time thinking about how to handle this part. It’d finally came to him a couple nights ago, while he was halfway down a coffee mug and in the middle of cramming for his English exam. “She says she’s not been feeling like herself ever since you rescued her from the tower, and she’s decided that what she needs to do is confront the people who put her there in the first place.”
“Wait, the orcs put her there,” Frank interrupted, confused.
“The orcs trapped her there,” Gerard corrected him, speaking up out of character for the first time in the whole afternoon. He was looking towards Mikey with a high-but-considering kind of expression. With his hair cut his whole face was in clear view. His cheeks looked softer. It was a little strange being able to see straight into his eyes, instead of having to peer through a curtain of short stringy bangs.
Mikey felt nervous looking at him, down in his stomach, but he kept it up anyway for the sake of the game. “Right,” he said, barely stuttering. “They trapped her, but Juana’s step-parents were the ones who put her up there in the first place, when she was too little to have any say in it. The other stuff came along later.”
“So she found them, now what?” Nightblade asked.
Frank piped up, “Are we gonna go on an epic quest for her, to right the wrongs of her past?”
“You’re going to go with her,” Mikey said. He took a sip of his drink. “For adventure, and the unknown, and to right the wrongs of her past.”
“So she’ll be on the adventure with us?”
“Yes,” Mikey said, and he let himself smile again. It was really satisfying seeing a good ending come together. “She says, in the letter she says, there’ll be a ferry boat crossing the river at noon and she’ll be waiting for you on the other side. You especially,” he adds to Nightblade.
“Oooh.” Frank resettled his chin on his hands and batted his eyelashes.
“Whatever.” Ray set his Dew down. He was totally blushing a little, but he’d never admit that to anybody. “I write a note back that says and we’ll be there and send the bird back,” he said to Mikey.
“Very good.” Mikey turned to Frank, and then Gee. “Are you two going along with him?”
“Duh!” Frank said, sitting up.
Gerard was quiet for a minute. His expression had shifted to the kind that Mikey didn’t entirely understand.
Mikey’s nervousness spiked sharply: he didn’t actually have a contingency planned for if one of the guys didn’t want to go along.
“Yeah,” Gerard said finally.
Frank crowed, “Rock and roll!”
Mikey mentally breathed a sigh of relief. Also physically. He sat up and cleared his throat, pushing his glasses up again. “Okay, so. Nightblade, Picard, Gulstaff-- you all spend the morning getting ready, and then you make your way to the river port at midday. In the streets people hand you gifts along the way, and some cheer as you pass them.”
“Are there pretty girls crying into their skirts because they don’t want us to leave?” Frank butted in.
“Ugh. Sure. But, okay, you get to the river, and there’s the mayor there. She promises again that you’ll always be welcome in Overnid and to come back whenever you want.” Both Frank and Ray had actually shut up and were looking at him with rapt attention, unmoving. It was a bit of a rush. “And then—it’s high noon, right, and there’s not a cloud in the sky, and all you can smell is the water and all of the food and good baking wafting down from the market up the street. Then they ring the bell for the ferry, and you get on it one by one. You start to sail down the river, with Nightblade, uh. With Nightblade at the helm of the ship looking over the railing, and you all think forward to the adventure to come.”
“Out of this tale and into another,” Gerard said, softly.
Mikey looked over at him. Gerard was smiling, dimly lit in the red light. It made funny little butterflies fizz up in Mikey’s stomach so he quickly looked away. “Yeah,” he said, echoing, “Out of this tale and into another.”
He looked down at his hands, then brought them up and together; not clapping, but closing the book. The adventure was done. “That’s it,” he said, a little quieter than he had been talking before. “There isn’t anything more.”
“For now,” Frank added.
“Exactly,” Mikey said quickly. “For now.”
There was a minute of silence and stillness. Even the school around them was silent. Mikey let himself relax, exhaling and slumping backwards into his accustomed slouch.
“Well, fuck yeah!” Frank said finally, breaking the silence. He (again) launched himself across the board space. “Heroes!” He declared, holding up his hand for a high-five.
Gerard laughed out loud and reciprocated; Ray did too, a huge grin lighting up his dorky face. Victorious, Frank squirmed sideways and almost ended up in Mikey’s lap, giving Mikey a view straight up his nose. “Heroes,” he proclaimed again, sticking his palm in Mikey’s face.
Mikey leaned backwards into the cupboard behind him, but returned the high-five nonetheless. “Hell yeah,” he said, grinning.
“Hell yeah,” Frank repeated, solemnly. He wriggled back upright, sitting back on his hands under the vent. He smiled at Mikey. “That was pretty cool, dude.”
“Thanks,” Mikey said, rubbing his forehead. “I only thought of it like, two nights ago.”
“We’re not gonna show up there and find Juana got captured again, right?” Ray asked, his forehead crinkling worriedly.
“No way, dude. You’re gonna roll up and she’s gonna be, like, higher level then all of you, and decked out with all this amazing shit.”
“Wait, she’s been in a tower for like half of her life, how’s she higher level than us?”
“The tower had a bunch of rooms, remember?” Mikey said pointedly. “If you guys’d actually explored them you would’ve found her practice space. She was shooting arrows out of the windows and hitting trees for targets and shit, for like, years.”
“Shooting arrows? Where’d she get arrows?”
“From the dead knights and people who tried to rescue her,” Mikey explained. “The orc general would use them to pick, like, pieces of leg out of their teeth.”
“Ew,” Ray said, screwing his nose up. “That’s gross, dude.”
Mikey laughed, and Frank laughed.
Even Gerard laughed, into his Dew. He was drinking it in long swallows now that the game was over. He’d even put his jacket back on already.
The warmth and happiness in Mikey’s chest withered, looking at him. He busied himself starting clean-up: picking up all the dice and spraying Windex on the board to wipe off the marker from the battles.
Ray helped him a little, leaning over to swipe the little action figure adventurers to one side so they wouldn’t get caught in the cleaning rain. He was still holding a bag of Fritos, so some orange dust sprinkled over the mat every time he moved, but it was the thought that counted. Mostly.
“Hey, you’ll be going on a ferry, right?” Frank asked abruptly, looking from under his grown-out bowlcut fringe over at Gerard. “When you’re off at college?”
Gerard finished his soda, crumpling it flat against his thigh. “I will, yeah,” he replied.
“Cool,” Frank said seriously. “Why aren’t you just moving out there, though? Like properly, not just for school.”
“I’m only on scholarship, dude,” Gerard snorted. “Do you know how much rent and shit is?”
“… no, but fine.” Frank leaned back on his hands again. After considering for a second, though, he continued with a frown, “It just sucks that you’re going. You’ve always been a part of the party. Once you leave we’ll just be…” he squinted up at the ceiling. “Duneons and Draons.”
Ray had sat up, his cleaning help done, and he snorted behind a mouthful of Fritos. Then he swallowed and nodded solemnly, looking at Gerard. “We’ll miss you.”
“And Mikey would miss you,” Frank said, pointing at Mikey, who froze on the spot. “Right, Mikey?”
“… well, yeah,” Mikey said. Thanks to God he didn’t actually stutter, like he felt like he would. He finished pouring all of the extra dice back into his dice box and then zipped it into his backpack, only glancing up when he was done. “Of course I would.”
Frank opened his palm. “See?” He was getting more obviously upset, like he always did really fast when he was high. “Like, I know you guys have been fighting or whatever, but he’d still miss you. Just ‘cause you’re graduating doesn’t mean you have to leave.” His voice caught a little on the last word, nasally and incredibly teenager.
Mikey couldn’t decide if he was embarrassed for Frank or jealous of him just saying shit like he never thought things twice over. Or even if he was totally furious at Frank for putting him on the spot like this. But then, he’d never told anybody about the almost-kiss, so from the outside it probably did seem like he and Gerard were only having a weird fight. He wished it was just that. He wished it so hard he felt dizzy. He put his backpack back down.
Gerard had looked away—ignoring—when Mikey had talked, but he looked up again then. He had a smile playing on his face. It wasn’t exactly a happy smile. “I mean, it kinda does, Frankie. I’m not going to be able to get the ferry back all the time, it only runs for certain hours, and I’ll have class, and shit.”
“And dates,” Ray spoke up, a little garbled through half of the Fritos still in his mouth. “Right? He’s probably going to be too worn out from all the girls he’s doing to get on a boat.”
It should’ve been nothing, but Mikey saw it anyway, the small shift in Gerard’s shoulders. In that split second he knew what was going to happen before it did. Mikey’s heart leapt into his throat and strangled him. Wait, don’t, he wanted to say, I’m not ready--
“The thing is,” Gerard started, and the others casually re-routed their attention to him with friendly expressions on their faces. “The thing is I’m gay, so, I wouldn’t be sleeping around with a lot of girls.”
In the silence afterwards he added, “And saying shit like that is shitty. Girls aren’t, like, an activity. That you can just do.”
“Dude,” Ray said. His eyes were kind of wide, and Mikey still couldn’t breathe but Ray was maybe not acting like he was grossed out? More surprised. Maybe. Mikey swung his head around to look at Frank; he could practically feel his vertebrae popping when he did. Frank had got a little bug-eyed about it, too, but he hadn’t said anything.
The silence was like… something shitty, Mikey didn’t know, he couldn’t think very well. It was like gauze stuffing itself down his throat. All camaraderie built up from the game was gone, leaving the air around them empty. Fear made goosebumps all along Mikey's arms.
“What?” Gerard said, his voice getting that sharp, arrogant tone it had when he was angry or defensive about something. He shoved his hands into his jacket's pockets but didn't look away from the rest of them. “I like guys. That’s not weird.”
“It’s a little weird?” Ray said, his voice getting slightly higher than it was normally.
“Dude!” Mikey finally burst out, turning towards Ray. His fists clenched by themselves, the sharp bones on his fingers digging into his thighs.
“Like, I mean, it’s not a bad weird,” Ray amended quickly. He put the Fritos down and rubbed his hands clean on his pants, looking at Gerard with alarmed sincerity. “Just, I wasn’t expecting it, and you have—you told us, instead of us, like, assuming it. So it’s a little weird. But it’s totally okay, man.”
Gerard rolled his eyes a little. But his hands crept slowly out of his pockets again and relaxed on his knees. “Thanks.”
The red fluorescents of the darkroom hummed above them.
“… are you,” Frank started, and the others looked over at him. He shifted until he was sitting up fully, holding his fingers with his other hand and with his elbows on his knees. “Are you sick?” Frank finally asked, expression determined but voice small.
“Jesus Christ, Frank!” Mikey said loudly, his hands tightening. Fear made his voice louder than he’d mean to, and the anger didn’t help. Mikey felt like he was flailing inside his head but there wasn’t anything to grab onto. He was having trouble breathing. “How can you even say something like that?!”
“It’s a question!” Frank protested, although he still flinched backwards. His expression was twisted up. “I just, you know...”
Mikey did kind of know, was the thing. The whole time he was growing up the TV news had chattered stories about some kind of illness that he didn’t understand; at family reunions there’d been whispered conversations about those kind of people when the adults gathered around the booze table to gossip; and then in ninth grade health class they'd had to watch a video all about HIV and how if you had sex with someone you were also fucking everyone else they had sex with. Mikey hadn’t—well, he hadn’t not believed any of it, exactly, but he’d never really thought it would affect him. Or his best friend. It felt real now, like it hadn’t otherwise, and the fear is like an ice-fist punch to his gut. “Don’t be fucking stupid, you ass,” he said instead, viciously, “Not everyone who—they don’t all get sick.”
“We don’t, yeah,” Gerard said loudly, emphasis on the we.
Mikey’s head snapped towards him and then he looked down at his shoes, mortified.
Gerard was scowling at Frank. The corners of his eyes were red, maybe just from the weed, but. But. “You don’t get positive as soon as you want to kiss somebody,” Gee said. “Not that it’s any of your fucking business.”
Mikey felt terrible. His stomach was doing that horrible sinking feeling again, like it had on the field out back of the school a couple weeks before.
“Well duh,” Frank said incredulously, clearly not thinking before he was speaking again, “You have to--”
“Frank,” Ray hissed like he was hiding behind something. “Not cool.”
“I didn’t mean—” Frank faltered, and finally shut the hell up, looking embarrassed. He breathed in and then tried again: “I mean, it’s good you’re not sick,” he said.
“Yeah. Thanks.” Gerard said icily.
The humming silence stretched between them all again. Mikey was hanging tightly onto his backpack with one hand. He wanted to say something like, I’m proud of you Gee, or, thank you for telling us.
Gerard decided to speak up before he could. “But you must’ve guessed,” he said, looking up from where he’d been staring at the floor. He looked at Ray first, and then Frank, and finally his gaze landed on Mikey. For the first time in practically all time, he didn’t look away immediately. |
His intent stare was uncomfortable. Mikey didn’t want to back down though, not now that Gee was finally acknowledging his existence again. He stared back.
“Not really,” Frank offered after what seemed like forever. “I mean, when you were wasted you’d like, talk about stuff, but. I mean.” He glanced furtively around their little circle, rubbing his arm. “I guess none of us thought you were. Uh. Serious.”
“Even with the Rocky Horror makeup? And the clothes? And everything?” Gerard’s eyes flickered from Frank and then back to Mikey again.
Clothes. He suddenly remembered Gerard’s bitter laugh from the football field that day. Show up in drag tomorrow! Had Gerard really done that? Mikey felt his face heat up.
“You’re just you, man,” Frank said, and Ray nodded along, only a bit slowly. “It’s. That’s just how you’ve been. You’re our friend.”
Mikey swallowed. Frank was right, finally, but he wasn’t telling the whole truth, or at least not how Mikey was thinking about it. Being gay in the city in art school was one thing, Mikey thought. Gerard was still in New Jersey, in fucking senior year, it— it was dangerous for him to be out now.
Gerard was smiling a little again, the creeping unsure one that he’d worn in the car the afternoon that he’d brought Mikey to Starbucks. “I still am your friend, then, huh?” He asked, fake-lightly. “Even though I’m queer?”
The word make Mikey flinch. A lump had grown in his throat while they talked, but he didn’t say anything, or react at all except to smile nervously.
The others spoke up for him. “Of course, man,” Ray said, and Frank agreed a little aggressively. “Of course.”
Gerard looked at both of them, his smile growing a little bit, and then he turned to look at Mikey, who was frozen again. For only the second time in almost a month and a half, he looked at Mikey.
I didn’t tell them, Mikey almost said. He wasn’t sure why he felt the need to explain himself. I didn’t break my promise. Now that you’re saying this stuff I think—maybe you might’ve wanted me to, but— He couldn’t finish the sentence, not even in his thoughts. Confusion and worry and shame blocked it out. He tried to express the sincerity on his face, as much as he could.
Maybe Gerard had some leftover telepathy left and he knew what Mikey was trying to say. Even if he did, Mikey’s thoughts didn’t seem to change his mind on anything. He nodded curtly. It was only softened by the unplaceable look in his eyes.
Little butterflies grew and burst in Mikey’s stomach, like ulcers. He looked away.
*
Gerard moved out of Belleville in the middle of July.
The guys and Mikey all showed up to cheer him through graduation. They could at least do that, lingering awkwardness or not. They’d posed with him for the nerdiest-gang pictures any of them could fathom. Gerard had been laughing in his cap and gown. Mr. and Mrs. Rush, and Gee’s grandmother, had all looked happy and super proud, like they should.
Gee had gotten gifted a ceremonial flask from his dad, which he filled up with the shitty non-alcoholic sparkling cider at the reception. Out of his parents’ earshot Frank promised to get Gerard some of the good stuff once they all went home. Frank was fifteen and he looked like a twelve year old, but Gerard laughed anyway. “It’s the thought that counts, man,” he’d said, and he’d given Frank an extra hug before all of them moved in.
Mikey wasn’t jealous. He wasn’t. Also, despite what Frank cajoled him about on the way there, he definitely did not want to kiss Gerard goodbye. He was just glad it was a good day.
Still, Gerard didn't come over to any of their houses to say goodbye before he skipped out to the city, and that made Mikey worry that things weren't as fixed as the group had acted like they wanted them to be.
Mikey didn't ask Gee for a phone number before he left. What was the point? He figured his friend's dorm floor would barely have one shitty payphone that no one would pick up most of the time, anyway.
Of course, within two weeks Mikey was writing a bunch of notes he'd never send on stupid postcards with movie monsters on the front and regretting the hell out of not getting Gee’s number. Even after kind of not being friends for the last couple months of school, having so much physical distance between them sucked. He missed him.
But Gerard would take winter and Easter breaks off. Right? Belleville wasn't that huge of a place, especially when you stay out of the more-likely-to-get-stabbed areas. It wasn't like Mikey was never going to see his friend again, he just had to wait. He could be okay not calling Gerard or sending him letters, like a perfumed heroine in a gothic film, for a while, for fuck’s sake.
Mikey still had the drawing Gee had given him in the car That Afternoon. He kept safely in a laminated pocket at the back of a binder all its own. He'd carefully slid the Titania and Picard drawing in the same pocket, facing the opposite way so both images were visible. Then he'd stashed the binder in the bottom of a drawer in his room and pushed his desk chair so a leg blocked it from opening even by accident.
He didn't feel better, exactly, hiding Gerard’s drawings like that. But he did feel lighter. More than that, he felt awful, damnable relief. Since Gerard was gone, he didn't have to deal with his totally-not-a-crush anymore. That lifted a weight heavier than he wanted to ever explain.
He didn’t mean to ignore Gee. He just had other stuff going on that summer-- his part-time work, hanging out with the guys, gaming, writing for the gaming, playing bass guitar like he’d been trying to teach himself on and off since he was twelve, reading, taking care of his mom. Just life. And to be fair, Gerard didn't call him either.
The days turned to weeks turned to months.
///