Work Text:
Gerard does a pretty awesome job of dying, he thinks. Or, of killing Party Poison? Whatever, Gerard is Party Poison today, and he’s pretty sure he just pulled off a fucking awesome death scene. There’s a lot of intense eye contact with Grant, who honestly manages to look pretty fucking scary, the way they smile all creepily right before they pull the trigger under Gerard’s chin, and Gerard’s trying to do this whole wide-eyed, scared-but-still-defiant thing, which it feels like he’s pulling off. Like an actor. He slumps to the floor and half-watches as Mikey-as-Kobra-Kid fucking loses his shit — like, he actually screams out Party’s name, it’s totally awesome, and hopefully Gerard’s not visibly smiling and fucking up any shots. When Paul calls cut, Gerard lets Grant haul him to his feet (Grant actually looks kind of sheepish about killing him, as though they hadn’t already shot that scene where they strangled Gerard in a hotel room), and Ray has already picked Mikey up before Gerard can get over there, and then he gets distracted by Paul wanting to go over the next set of shots.
It’s a pretty long day, but it’s mostly inside. There’s the tunnel scene later (or, fucking tomorrow, depending how you look at it) but that hardly even counts as “outside” — so, all told, a very different experience from their insane two-day desert shoot. A lot less sun and a lot less dust in his shoes and underwear and mouth, which is nice, but still, shooting in the desert had been fun in a way that shooting in an office building just isn’t. Today’s intense in different ways, though. Less colourful, more serious. The band’s finished on the set before everyone else is; there are a bunch of BLI scenes to shoot, and Gerard’s needed behind the camera for a lot of those, but the rest of the guys are kind of awkwardly cut loose. It’s not like they can go far, with there being more to shoot later, but maybe they’ll go nap before the tunnel shoot. They have trailers, or something.
All that to say, Gerard doesn’t really notice, at first, that Mikey’s kind of disappeared. He’s going over shots with Paul, and then he’s checking in with Grace (he just wants to make sure she’s okay after being around a bunch of faux death and destruction, and yeah that’s not really his job per se, but she’s so little and it’s hard not to feel kind of weird about it), and the whole time Ray and Frank are kind of popping in and out of corners of his eyes — disappearing for a while and then returning to watch the action. It’s not until Paul actually calls a break and leaves Gerard’s side to go to catering that Gerard realizes he hasn’t seen Mikey since the band got cut loose earlier.
Ray and Frank both look a little confused when he asks them, and neither of them have a solid answer for him. “He’s probably napping in the trailer,” Ray offers, which at the very least confirms Gerard’s suspicions that there’s a trailer, and he sets off to find it. If Mikey is actually napping, Gerard’s obviously not going to wake him, but he just wants to tell him that he did a great job earlier. He’s trying to be better about telling him shit like that.
It turns out that Mikey is in the trailer, but he’s not napping. When Gerard steps inside, it’s to find him curled tightly in on himself on one corner of the couch, hugging his knees to his chest, propping his head up with one hand, staring into space. He’s still in costume, although his boots and gun are discarded by the door (entirely contrary to Dr. Death-Defying’s advice, Gerard thinks, but decides pretty firmly against saying out loud). It brings Gerard up short, the sight of him all curled up like that, anything he’d been planning to say being pushed right out of his head as he’s momentarily — and very unpleasantly — brought back to some of the worst few weeks of his life, back at the Paramour Mansion, watching his little brother spiral and break.
Mikey notices him standing there before he speaks, and startles a little, uncurling ever so slightly. “Shit, hey Gee,” he says, his voice a little rough. He doesn’t tell him to go away, though (like he did sometimes when it was really bad, Gerard’s brain supplies unhelpfully), so Gerard hangs his jacket and mask off the hook by the door and goes to sit down next to him.
“You okay?” he asks, aiming for ‘light’ and landing somewhere in the vicinity. ‘You okay’ is a loaded question around these parts, and sometimes not worth asking, but he’s just looking for a starting point. He knocks his knee against Mikey’s leg amiably, testing the waters, and relaxes a little when Mikey lets it rest there without tensing up. Still, though — Mikey nods a little, and gives him kind of a half-smile, but it doesn’t reach his eyes, and he brings his hand up to his mouth to start worrying a hangnail between his teeth.
Somehow, Gerard presses down the urge to babble questions at him, as though he’s going to find the right one to ask that will get Mikey talking. He knows good and well that that will just shut him down. He just tries to let the silence be comfortable, give off calm ‘I’m here for you’-style vibes. It takes a while, but eventually Mikey shifts a bit towards him, and sort-of-kind-of looks at him, his gaze landing somewhere in the vicinity of Gerard’s throat.
“‘M sorry,” he says around his finger. “It’s — I just — I wasn’t expecting it to be so —”
And oh, oh, Gerard gets it, then — reads Mikey’s meaning in the way he’s holding himself, and the way his eyes keep going to the spot on Gerard’s neck that Grant had pressed their blaster into. He remembers how it felt to be lying on that beach, explosions going off around him, screaming Mikey’s name at the top of his lungs and watching Ray’s hands get covered in blood where he was pressing down on gaping wounds. How little the knowledge that none of it was real, that there was a camera just a few feet away, had done to make it feel less fucking horrifying. How Marc had called cut, and everyone else had started laughing and joking around while he’d had to excuse himself and go chain-smoke three cigarettes before he felt like he could keep filming. How the image of Mikey covered in blood and lying still in the sand had been burned behind his eyelids for the rest of the day.
Without saying anything, he tugs Mikey’s hand away from his mouth, and pulls him over until his head is resting on Gerard’s shoulder. He feels the tension go out of Mikey’s body — he huffs out a little sigh into Gerard’s neck, and rearranges himself more comfortably, although (from what Gerard can see at this angle) his face is still a little pinched.
“It was my turn to get killed and give you the dramatic reaction shot,” he says into Mikey’s hair, just a hint of teasing in his voice, just enough to maybe make Mikey laugh. “Mister “My Favourite Part Was Dying”.”
It works, kind of — Mikey does one of those crazy Mikey-snort-giggles into his shoulder, and moves again so that he’s kind of awkwardly hugging Gerard where they sit. Gerard smiles a pleased little smile and tries to mostly sit still — just carding his fingers lightly through his brother’s hair, trying not to snag them on clumps of hair product.
Eventually, Mikey sits up and leans back, although he keeps his knee pressed firmly against Gerard’s. He looks… better. Maybe not 100%, but he looks okay. He’s smiling, at least, although there’s still something stricken around his eyes.
“Sorry I couldn’t save you,” he says, sounding genuinely a little abashed, and it’s Gerard’s turn to laugh.
“C’mon, Mikeyway, that’s how we scripted it,” he says. “Besides, you looked pretty awesome coming to my defense like that.”
Mikey snort-giggles again, and Gerard can’t help but grin back at him. “You fucking killed it today,” he adds, finally, and Mikey kind of waves him off, but Gerard can just tell he’s pleased.
“Whatever, you know it’s all you,” he says, and Gerard so wants to argue with him — he’s gearing up for it and everything — but then the trailer door opens again and Ray bounds in, his eyes all bright and excited.
“Guys,” he says, a weird mix of reverent and urgent, “You’ve gotta come see this, the moon’s coming up and it looks fucking crazy,” and Gerard’s all for staying here with Mikey until he’s sure he feels better (really, how “fucking crazy” can the moon be, it’s the moon), but Mikey’s already off the couch and offering him a hand before he can voice that thought. So he doesn’t argue. He just lets Mikey help him up and follows him out of the trailer, and lets himself be glad that he at least he got Mikey smiling again.