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“Fucking stupid, it’s not fair that we don’t have super speed or any of that shit,” Mikey huffed as he raced up the street in the Moreno Highlands. It wasn’t as if he was necessarily out of breath, but he wasn’t going fast enough. And what was even worse, Gerard kept trailing behind him. “Come on!”
“Your legs are way too fucking long! Why the fuck are we going uphill, anyway?” Gerard looked behind them, and thankfully, the street was silent except for them.
Mikey slowed down just enough to make sure Gerard was at his side again. “Because they wouldn’t expect it. There’s places to hide, there’s gotta be.” The only problem was, neither of them knew the place that well. The brothers never stayed in one place for more than a month at a time. Gerard would claim it was for safety reasons, but Mikey really did love getting to see everything about the different states. He made a very quick decision that he hated Los Angeles.
“Do you think we shook them off?” Gerard slowed down, and diverted behind the twisted trunks of some trees. They pulled Mikey by the hand over some low-rise adobe wall, crouching down. When they opened their mouth to speak again, though, they gasped in a pained wheeze.
“Gerard? Gerard, look at me.” Mikey’s chest tightened as he tried to search Gerard’s eyes. He can’t count the number of times he’d watched Gerard’s pupils blow out, searching upwards like he’s in pain or paralyzed with fear. He hated the way Gerard’s jaw went slack and their lungs seized up. If Mikey was any more paranoid, he’d be afraid that every vision that they suffered would end them. “Gerard?” Mikey tried again, and he held his breath as he raised his hands and gripped Gerard’s jaw tight from both sides. “Come back!”
All of Mikey’s muscles stiffened painfully to the point of shaking the moment he touched Gerard’s skin. He shut his eyes tight and forced himself to inhale through it, and as Gerard leaned their head back, Mikey nodded. “That’s it,” Mikey whispered, and they both exhaled as slowly as they could. “Breathe, listen to my voice. I’m still with you.”
Gerard whimpered and vicegripped Mikey’s shirt, until their gaze lowered and searched for comfort in their brother’s face.
“I know it hurts.” Mikey brushed Gerard’s hair back. “You’re coming down from it now, just lean on me.” He glanced up at the sky, swallowing hard. “We need to get inside.”
“How?” Gerard croaked, pressing his forehead against Mikey’s collarbone. “We have nowhere to hide, Mikey. We’re stuck out here.”
“That’s not true. Did you see us die in your vision?” Mikey lifted Gerard’s head again to look them hard in the eye. “No. We’re gonna make it through the day. But we don’t have time.” A deep azure bloomed across the sky with dusty pink clouds stretched out across it. “Sunrise is soon. We don’t have a lot of time left.”
“Mikey-” Gerard’s eyes rolled up in the back of their head as their lids fluttered, gasping for breath.
Mikey shook them gently and tapped their cheek. “No. No, Gerard, come on.” Much to Mikey’s panic, he couldn’t seem to get Gerard on his feet. “Shit. Shit! Don’t fucking pass out on me now.” He slung their arm over his shoulders and half-dragged him onto a sparse patch of trees. It seemed to be the edge of a garden; the mansion it must have belonged to spanned out over two vast yards. But it was the closest place to hide, so he steeled himself and marched through the brush and avoided the flowers and vegetables to pull Gerard onto the brickwork.
How he was even going to get in, he wasn’t sure. But it was obvious that this place was occupied by someone, giving the upkept maintenance on it. All he could find around the walls were windows, windows, more windows, holy shit, there were so many goddamn windows, but he found a balcony to hide under, at the very least. Just to set Gerard down and catch his breath. He wasn’t the best at measuring time, but he had maybe 15 more minutes to figure out a plan until shit really started to go sideways.
Mikey pressed his back up against the brick arch and rested Gerard’s head in his lap. “Wake up,” he tried again, and he hoped that the quiet whine they let out was a sign that they were coming to again. Mikey shook their shoulders harder. “Come on! If you don’t get up soon, we’re gonna be fucking dust piles.”
And with enough shaking, Gerard’s eyes finally opened again, and they shrieked, clutching their chest. In any other situation, Mikey would have tried to silence them. But they needed to get inside, so catching anyone’s attention was ideal at this point.
To their luck, a light turned on inside. Someone walked through the room, peering blearily out of the French doors. Mikey stared back at him, studying the way his mouth moved in the words, “What the fuck?”
Mikey sat up straighter, holding his breath as the stranger, most likely a caretaker, cracked the door open. “We’re really sorry about trespassing,” he started off before the stranger could get a word in. “I-it’s just...my brother had a bad seizure.”
“Did you want me to call an ambulance?” he offered, rubbing the side of his neck. The more Mikey really looked at him, the more he noticed how colorful his hands were. His neck was the same as well; tattoos covered what little skin Mikey could see below his head, and his face. Inkless, sure, but it was sharp. Sparse scruff lined his jaw and just over his upper lip. His dark hair was cropped in a way that reminded Mikey of Ian Curtis with a little uneven tuft sticking up in the back, but the eyes. Dark and- oh, right. His eyes were staring down at them cautiously as he frowned. Mikey forgot to answer him. “Are you okay?”
“Oh-” Mikey swallowed. “They’ll be fine in just a minute, this- this happens a lot. Can we just come in and rest for a bit? Promise we’ll stay out of the way and we won’t touch anything.”
The stranger turned around to check inside the house again, humming hesitantly. “I really shouldn’t. Listen, it’s really no trouble to me, I can just-”
Mikey closed his eyes when he realized glimmers of light started reflecting off the pool just a few feet away. “Please.” Mikey’s voice got firmer. “We won’t be a bother, just- please.”
Gerard pushed themself to sit up more, struggling to take a breath in. “Mikey, it’s getting lighter.”
“I know.” Mikey tried his hardest not to yell at them, mainly because it was his own damn fault for not being able to find an abandoned place they could just bunker down in. “I...I’m sorry.” He pressed his face into his hands and whined softly. “We can-”
“Come in,” the stranger finally relented. He stepped outside and offered Gerard a hand, but Mikey was quick to hug their side and do most of the heavy lifting. “There’s a bed right through that door, just lay ‘em down.”
“I’ll be fine,” Gerard assured the both of them, and remained sitting up. They leaned over lightly with their hands pressing down into the plush duvet on top. “Thank you, um-”
The stranger’s stare was fixated on Mikey shutting the floor-length drapes, squinting before he noticed Gerard looking at him. “Hm? Shit, sorry. Frank.”
“I’m Mikey,” Mikey piped up. He quickly eyed the three mirrors in the room, and tried to look like he wasn’t freaking out about their lack of reflections. “And that’s my brother, Gerard.”
Whether it was sheer dumb luck or some outer force was on the brothers’ side, Frank didn’t seem to catch on. “And you sure you guys are okay? Not like it’s really a big deal, the owner’s out of state today.”
“We’re really sorry to barge in,” Mikey spoke up again. “Obviously it’s not every day where we’re caught out in the middle of nowhere-”
“It kind of is, though,” Gerard interrupted, the asshole. Way to make the stranger think he let two freaks into the house and risk his job.
Mikey tapped the back of their head. “We’re traveling cross-country,” he quickly filled in. It was sort of a half-truth. If one could squint at words. “What they meant to say was that we do wake up in new places every ni- day, but we don’t drop in uninvited on random doorsteps.” It was Gerard’s turn to elbow him back.
Frank paused, then nodded. “I knew a girl in the hospital once. We were both patients, and she had epilepsy. So I get the whole...neurological thing. A little.” He rubbed idly at his own arm. “Do you need an ice pack? Or water, anything? Breakfast?” Oh, no. He was actually sweet.
Mikey was a little relieved he couldn’t blush anymore, though he did fall quiet the more his gaze honed in on the faint quirk of Frank’s thin lips. Mikey supposed he didn’t need a uniform for his job, not in the plain white T-shirt with the loose knit olive cardigan with a few rips and missing buttons. A cardigan? In summer?
He was snapped out of his thoughts again with Gerard’s elbow stabbing into his ribs harder. “Hey.”
“What?” Mikey blinked.
“I think that maybe you’re the one that needs to lay down.” Frank’s eyes narrowed again, but with more worry than hesitation.
Gerard sighed and patted the space next to him. “C’mere.” When Mikey took up the space, they rubbed his shoulder slowly.
Frank nodded, snapped his fingers, and pointed finger guns at them both. “So, that’s a no for anything? Just rest?” he asked to be sure.
“Yep, we’re all fine.” Gerard nodded. “We won’t make a sound. Promise.”
Frank shrugged. “I’ll, uh, just come back to check on you guys in a few minutes. I gotta.” He pointed his thumb out the door to the hallway. “Get back to work. Or- start work, I mean. Not like I have a set time where my shift starts, but...”
Mikey straightened his back more. “Do you live here?”
“Maybe let him get back to his job?” Gerard whispered, lightly chewing on their inner cheek. They didn’t regret making Mikey lower his head and frown, or making Frank pause awkwardly, nod, and leave the room. “Mikes, the less we talk to him, the bigger chance we have of him not figuring shit out.”
Mikey pulled Gerard in close and leaned their head on his shoulder. Sliding a hand right under their shirt to rub their back, to melt the hesitation out of their nerves, he took a moment to let them relax. “So tell me, what did you see?”
Gerard turned his gaze away, and his fingers fumbled clumsily together, picking at loose cuticles. “It was intense. More than any vision I’ve ever seen.”
“I could tell,” Mikey whispered, and brushed his nimble fingers through the dark, slick tresses of Gerard’s hair. “I’ve never seen you like that before. How bad did it hurt?”
Gerard’s lips tightened before the corners turned downward harshly. Their chin scrunched up. “I can barely explain it. We-” They pulled their sleeves over their hands and gripped onto the hems. “I couldn’t see you. I couldn’t see anything, it was all...yellow. More yellow than I’ve ever seen, neverending. It swallowed me up.” They sat up again to look Mikey in the eye. “All except white lights under my feet. And- and there was motion. I don’t know how, but there was movement all around me. And the screaming, Mikey.” Tears filled Gerard’s eyes, but Mikey was quick to wipe them away right as they fell.
“I could hear the screaming through my whole body. I don’t even know how, but...it was like it- it was absorbing into my skin.” They turned their palms up, staring down into them. Their fingers flexed out, stretching the lines in their palms. The deep veins under the tendons seemed more vibrant as their skin thinned out. “I tried to run, but there was no way out.”
Mikey wrapped his hands around their wrists, over the sleeves and massaged them. He rubbed his thumbs in slow circles, and nodded to himself. “So what do you think it means?”
Gerard shook their head slowly, and the familiar wide-eyed look came back to them. Only, their body stayed relaxed this time. Their chest rose as they kept their gaze fixed on Mikey this time. “Usually, my visions are a lot clearer. They’re not just buzzing colors, I always see something. The movements-” Their brow furrowed hard, a crease forming deep between them. It made them look older in the worst way. “I don’t know. The air stung, and everything was so blurry.”
“You don’t have to give yourself a headache remembering everything.” Mikey sighed out worry through his nose. “Listen. This isn’t the ideal place to be trapped, sure. But we’re gonna make it to sundown. I’m not gonna let anyone hurt you, got it?”
Gerard’s frown didn’t let up. “Don’t make promises you can’t keep.” Their voice cracked, the fear bleeding through even more. “I can’t let you out of my sight.”
“Okay. Okay, I’m right here.” Mikey pulled them in again, closing his eyes as he tried to focus. “Don’t think about the vision anymore. We’ll figure it out in time, but you need to rest. How bad does it hurt, still?”
They tried to shake their head, closing their eyes again with a whine.
“Hey. Don’t lie to me.” Mikey huffed. His chest started to tense up as well, no matter how hard he tried to swallow it down. “You’re the big brother, here, you gotta be responsible,” he tried to tease.
The joke didn’t land as much as Mikey hoped it would. Gerard’s head bowed, and they wiped miserably at an eye. “I’m okay. I’m not thinking about it anymore,” they promised.
Mikey glanced around at the garish pink walls, the smallest mirror hanging high on the wall in front of them, and he clenched his teeth tighter. There were footsteps outside the door, quiet at first and growing in volume. When they stopped, Mikey started to convince himself that the footsteps weren't actually real, and then he jumped at a mere quiet knock on the door.
"Hey, it's just me again," Frank spoke up. "I know...you said you guys were fine, but...I dunno. I felt bad, and I brought you some tea anyway."
Mikey smiled to himself as he got up, and peeked out the door. It was like he had forgotten the sun existed temporarily. The beams of light weren't facing his direction, instead spilling out over the floor of the long hallway behind Frank. And his vision was washed out in a harsh, painful robin's egg blue. He gasped as he turned his face away as a reflex.
"Mikey?" Frank reached out to rest a hand on his shoulder. "I'm sorry, I-"
"Don't touch him." Gerard did their best to keep the sharpness out of their tone, though they stood up quickly.
Frank could tell something was really off now. Mikey almost had a mind to slam the door in his face in sheer embarrassment, but he couldn't risk anything that would kick both of them out to their deaths.
"It's fine, Gerard." Mikey flicked his gaze back at Frank, from what details remained of him in the harsh light., Frank was glancing away with his lips pressed together tightly.
Before Mikey could really think things through- he could blame it on slowly going blind, or something -he pulled the door open a few more inches and reached out to brush his fingers over the back of Frank’s hand as if he was reaching for the kettle and just misplaced his touch. “Thanks for the tea,” he murmured as a rush of fear and guilt dropped into his stomach. He suddenly fought the conviction, too, of wanting to turn tail and save himself the humiliation versus staying close to him and trying to lend a hand to the pretty stranger.
Mikey quickly glanced down at Frank's arm again and tried to focus through the light. Six tattoos on his wrist, he counted, and it helped him relax his muscles. He could practically feel Frank’s shoulders perk up again. “Seriously, man. This is really kind to go out of your way and do this for us. Thank you.” Nevermind Gerard’s eyes burning holes in the back of his neck.
“It’s no problem at all.” There was a new softness there, melodic to Mikey. When he listened in closer, there was an unsteady, but gentle thumping rhythm that resonated right to the base of Mikey’s skull. If Gerard wasn’t being such a defensive asshole, he would have pulled Frank closer and pressed up against his side just to listen to the electric pulses in his nerves. But he must have started to get that look again, because he blinked in a short, rapid succession as Frank cleared his throat. “Anyway,” Frank continued, and finally passed the kettle and the two mugs he brought off.
Mikey flashed a smile and closed the door again, listening to the telltale click right before Gerard scoffed.
“You two are like dogs sniffing at each other’s assholes.” They rolled their eyes so hard, their head leaned back in the process.
“Can you calm down for once?” Mikey stormed over to the en suite bathroom to dump the tea out in the sink, keeping his gaze pointedly down to avoid the mirror in front of him. “People are allowed to be friendly to us, Gee. Have you ever considered that?” And after the words escaped him, regret weighed down on his back. They were still in pain, after all. “I know you’re protecting the both of us. And you’re doing a good job of it. But at the same time-” He paused, choosing his words carefully. “-What if Frank gets fed up with us being rude? What would happen to us?”
“That’s not gonna happen.” Gerard turned to look at Mikey through the doorway. They took their shoes off, pulling their knees up to their chest and hugging their legs. “But you can’t just immediately start sucking up to him, either. The only people we can-”
“-Trust is each other.” Mikey finished for them, and nodded his head like his neck had gone limp for a second. He rolled his eyes to himself before stepping over to sit on the other side of the bed. “I do trust you, before anyone else. Does your head still hurt?”
Gerard nodded, and they finally laid back to stare up at the ceiling. “We’ll be fine,” they thought aloud. They rubbed their eyes in slow circles, humming softly as they kept them closed and folded their hands loosely over their chest. “We’ll find a way out of here.”
Mikey hummed back at them in agreement, and stared off at the two paintings hung up in the room. He didn’t have an eye for art at all, but he could tell Catholic-inspired art when he saw it. Dozens of people gathered together in colorful robes going in some unknown destination. Mikey’s chest tensed uncomfortably, and he flinched when the footsteps came back. Ten footsteps. Only, they veered off to the left. Behind the bathroom.
When he was sure Gerard was asleep, he stepped back into the bathroom and noticed a door on the other wall. It was unlocked, and peeking on the other side of it, he hummed curiously when he found another bedroom connected to it. And Frank was there again, wiping down another mirror. Mikey could practically see his mistake unfurl in slow motion. The reflection of the door seeming to open on its own. Frank wiping his rag over it, blissfully unaware until his hand stopped.
Frank’s face was only in half the reflection. Mikey could see his lids draw back, his pupil blow out in the span of just a second. The rag dropped from his hand. His pulse hammered through the silence. The quick, sharp breath he inhaled as his head whipped around.
At least Mikey still had lightning reflexes. He had the sense to turn the fuck back around and press his back to the wall next to the frame moulding before Frank could see him. As much as he wanted to look again, he stood completely still, only blinking and curling his fingers into his palms. The silence dragged on for only a few seconds, but it still felt like hours until Frank’s cautious footsteps crept closer. One by one, Mikey started counting them as the volume subtly increased. Six footsteps. His chest relaxed a little more as he stopped breathing, making himself silent.
Then Frank stopped again, and there was a gentle flicker. After another few seconds, a soothing scent of a dense forest and dried herbs swirled around the room, and then Frank closed the bathroom door again.
Mikey’s brow furrowed in thought as he continued to stand there. He wanted to know what was going on in Frank’s mind, what made him stop so suddenly, but he settled on exhaling slowly and relaxing. He didn’t move away from the wall, not yet. There was an odd comfort now in listening to Frank meander around the room and dust things. He was humming a New York Dolls melody as he worked for the next 15 minutes, according to the clock far off in their bedroom. Mikey’s heart dropped slightly when Frank seemed to finish, because his footfalls echoed further away and another door closed.
When Mikey placed his hand on the doorknob again, something else skimmed over his hand. Something cold, like a winter breeze. Another one slid across the back of his neck, and he practically jumped away from the door and hurried back over to Gerard. “Shit-”
Gerard groaned softly, cracking an eye open. “What is it?” They frowned, craning their neck forward, not quite off the pillow. “Everything okay?”
Mikey rubbed at his hands, and he nodded. “Yeah. Felt a draft,” he explained, staring into the bathroom through a squint. “We still got about 13 hours left to go. Fuck this stupid fucking day...”
Gerard rolled onto their side towards their brother. “Can’t sleep?” they asked in sympathy.
Mikey shook his head. “I just feel like I can’t stop moving. Like if I sit down for too long, my body’s gonna take control of itself and move for me.”
Gerard sat up, then, bunching all the pillows together so they could lean back against them. They were silent, their jaw shifting when their gaze drifted off to the corner of the bed. “This place is weird. I don’t think it’s the people here, Mikey, I think it’s the house itself. Like it’s alive.”
“What?” Mikey squinted. “The house is alive.” Before he made any judgments against them, he took a look at the paintings again, and up at the ceiling. “Maybe you have a point. Maybe this was originally built as, I dunno. A safehouse for witches.”
Gerard kept thinking, and they got this frown with a downwards head-tilt like they were disappointed in themself. “We should check this place out more.”
Mikey blinked. “For real?” He swallowed his excitement for their sake, which only made his fear blossom through. Considering the hallway just outside their room was decked out in windows, there was no telling how unsafe the rest of the house was.
“As long as we stay out of the direct sunlight, we’ll make it.” Gerard steeled themself. “And as for navigating the place...”
“We can’t.” Mikey hated taking hope away from himself, but he had to be reasonable if he was going to keep Gerard safe. “Just because the sun’s pointing away from us right now doesn’t mean that it’s inherently less dangerous. This place is huge. And what are you even looking for, anyway?”
“The history, maybe. The reason that this place doesn’t feel right.” Gerard swung their legs off the bed and stood up, and got their shoes back on. “Maybe that has to do with the vision.”
Suddenly, Mikey was even more uneasy. “How’s your head? It’s really bright out there, you’re probably gonna make it worse.” The last thing both of them, and even Frank, needed was Gerard passing out again.
Gerard took Mikey’s hand. “Nothing bad’s gonna happen as long as we don’t get separated. So don’t let go of me.”
“Okay.” That was easy enough, at least. He opened the door and tried to let his eyes adjust as much as they could, which wasn’t a whole lot. He reached his hand out to follow along the wall that didn’t have windows. A few obstacles got in the way of his hands, strange figurines that ended up hot and uncomfortable against his skin. “...I think this owner might be weirdly religious.”
Gerard huffed. “As if this place couldn’t get any better...” They stepped up to walk along Mikey’s side instead of behind. “Did you want me to take the lead?”
“I’m fine either way,” he assured them, and stopped to jerk his hand away when a set of double doors burnt his skin more intensely. “Fuck, what’s with this place?” He swallowed lightly again when he heard familiar footsteps.
Frank peeked into the hallway. “I thought I heard your voices.” Mikey wished he could see his face better, but he settled on pretending to accidentally brush his hand over his instead. There was warmth in his chest, eager curiosity. Maybe a glimmer of hope, for some reason. “Are you guys feeling better? Gerard, you look a lot steadier.”
Gerard shrugged. “I’m getting there,” they answered, and shifted an inch closer to Mikey.
Frank nodded, and turned to look at the doors in front of them. He had a pretty profile. “You like these? The owner said that when this place was being built, they salvaged doors from abandoned churches for the bigger rooms like this one.”
Mikey swallowed his tension and hummed. “This place has a lot of church stuff, huh?”
“Weird, right?” Frank snorted. If only he knew. “20 years ago, the original owner died, and the estate was given to a convent of Franciscan nuns. And I guess they decided to make this place a safehouse for relics, or something. Don’t ask about the zebra, I’m not really sure where that’s from, either.”
Mikey blinked wildly. “The zebra?”
“He lives over at the other end of this hall. Ray and I call him Hennessy.” Frank giggled softly; it sort of drew Mikey closer to him by a step.
Gerard squeezed Mikey’s hand gently. “Ray’s your coworker?” they assumed. Danger.
“Yeah, she’s not supposed to be around for another few hours. Called me this morning and said she had a wild late night, she works this gig and some overnight job. Which...I’m not sure why, since this pays more than well enough,” Frank rambled. Mikey started liking Frank more, putting himself on edge.
“How did someone as interesting as you come to housekeep for a place this big?” Mikey thought aloud. Clearly, someone with hand tattoos like Frank’s didn’t just stumble into jobs like this.
Frank sucked air through his teeth. “It was a really weird chance encounter. Ray and I were out one night at one of her friends’ shows...they played in some band. And the owner of this place was there and started getting all chatty with Ray. By the end of the night, Ray told me that we didn’t have to keep struggling to pay our bills.” He shrugged. “It sounded really weird of course, yeah, but...gift horse and all.”
Mikey and Gerard glanced at each other. “Guess so,” Gerard spoke up quietly. “Congrats on the job.”
“Thanks.” Frank’s voice warmed. “Did you...wanna see more of the place?” He opened up the double doors for them. “I like the ballroom a lot. It’s kinda spooky when it’s all empty like this.”
It was a lot easier to see in here, despite the enormous window on the other end with a stainglass mural decorating the top. It didn’t seem to be a religious piece, oddly enough, just a colorful garden. The walls were an inviting, bright yellow, though, and Mikey glanced to Gerard for their reaction.
They settled on staring at the chandelier at first, pretty standard, but the giant fireplace to the side wasn’t. “Very interesting,” they observed; extremely cautious of the twenty-some foot mirror above it. There was something else off about the twitch in the corner of their mouth. Something unnerving. “It is a beautiful room.”
Frank hummed. “Ray keeps telling me a bunch of ghost stories about this room, specifically. Like- have you ever been to Disneyland?” They both stared back at him blankly. “No? Oh, well...there’s this ride there. Haunted Mansion. There’s this one part of the ride that shows this giant ballroom of ghosts all dancing together. I just think she keeps wishing that this place was haunted, too.”
“Does she like ghosts?” Gerard arched an eager brow.
His shoulders sagged, and he gently nudged them both back so he could close the doors again. “Yeah. She gets all excited when anyone talks about them, or anything cryptic, but then she brushes it off real quick. Maybe she’s embarrassed about it; I tried asking her about it, but...” He shook his head, and guided them down the hall.
Mikey jumped when he saw the life-sized zebra in question. He didn’t expect a fully taxidermied animal just placed as some quirky decor in a hallway. “...Oh. Hi, Hennessy.”
Frank giggled high in his throat. “He doesn’t bite. The bear and tiger upstairs do, though.” When he got their attention, he gestured toward the staircase and led them up to a lavish dining room.
Gerard narrowed their eyes. “Why is there a dining room on the second floor?” As if that wasn’t strange enough, they noticed the polar bear with its arms raised up and jaw open wide, stretching up as high as the ceiling. The tiger in question was just up on the opposite side of the room with its own rocks mounted to the wall to stand on.
Frank pressed his lips tightly together. “Beats me.”
Mikey was all too careful not to walk into this room, either. Everywhere he turned, there were mirrors everywhere. There were two in this room alone, a dining room, for fuck’s sake, and he was grateful neither of them were pointing in their direction. He took a step back to look down the upstairs hall, and wandered down just enough to step into the balcony that overlooked the ballroom. “Swanky.”
When he placed his hands on the railing, something touched his back from both sides. Quickly turning around again, he only found a golden altar behind him with a snowy owl gracefully gazing back at him. Mikey never imagined something dead looking so serene.
“See something interesting?” Gerard asked hesitantly.
Mikey tried to brush it off. “The railings are cool,” he decided to answer, and shuffled away. “So’s this guy. Is this a mansion or a zoo?”
Frank bit back a playful smile. “There’s five animals in total in the house. You’ll just have to find the coyote for yourself.”
“Is this where the tour ends?” Mikey snorted.
Frank poked his tongue at his cheek and shrugged. “I probably should be more careful. Ray gets pretty defensive about this place, and I just...I’m on the clock. It’s nothing against you guys.”
Gerard was more than content enough to step up to Mikey again and just hold onto the end of his sleeve. “Well. Thanks for giving us a little sneak peek. This place is really something else.” They bit their tongue.
Frank eyed Mikey a little more eagerly. “Yeah, you’re right about that. I...it really looks like you’re feeling better, Gerard, but you- you guys don’t have to run off yet. Are you sure you don’t need an ice pack or anything?”
“Actually, that’d be nice,” Mikey answered for them. It was just another excuse to stay longer, despite Frank just giving them the freedom of not needing one. Gerard shot him a look through the light, and he was barely able to see it. “Just...trust me,” he whispered back after Frank left for the kitchen.
Gerard’s frown grew. “Leave him alone,” they hissed back. “We have to get out of here as soon as we can.”
Mikey tried his hardest not to take that personally. Not when it was clear that he was growing fonder of Frank every minute he was allowed to spend with him. “I’m keeping us alive, asshole,” he settled on. He dragged Gerard back over to the stairs and waited at the bottom of them for Frank to return.
Frank blinked when he saw them sitting on the stairs. “Do you know how many couches this place has?” He flashed a nervous smile. “Too many. C’mon, it’s a lot comfier in the other room over here.” Handing the ice pack to Gerard, he took Mikey’s hand to help him back on his feet.
For the first time in years, Mikey felt his heart thump again. Their eyes met as Mikey straightened himself out intentionally slower, and their smiles grew at the same time. “Thank you,” Mikey whispered.
Gerard cleared their throat loudly. “Where did you say those couches were, Frank?”
He let go of Mikey’s hand and idly rubbed his palm over his cardigan before nodding. “Right, just around the corner.” He turned out of the stairwell and into a lavish burgundy room; none of the windows in here had curtains, but the sun was thankfully pointed far on the other side.
It was a lot easier to see again, which meant that Mikey and Gerard had more mirrors to dodge, but that wasn’t the only thing that caught Mikey’s eye. Sticking to the walls to avoid the lack of reflections, he stared up at the massive floor-to-ceiling paintings of angels triumphing over evil. “...Wow.”
Frank, thank God he was easily distracted, stared at the wall with him. “I think the Vatican itself donated these. Can’t imagine how something this big could be put on any plane, though.”
“I guess that’s why boats are still useful.” Gerard tucked themself onto an art deco chaise longue in the corner. They patted the empty space next to them while glaring at Mikey.
Frank bit his lip lightly as he smiled. “How long have you guys been cross-countrying?”
Mikey took pity on Gerard and pressed himself up against them, leaning back with a content sigh. “We live on the road, pretty much. Ever since we left home, so...what? Ten years?” Gerard responded with a nonchalant shrug, and Mikey half-smiled. “They’re a big talker.”
Frank snorted. “It’s whatever, your day already started out rough. I’m not gonna make you sit here and regale me your life story or anything.” Slowly, he sat down on Mikey’s other side. “Even though I can’t deny how curious I am about you two.”
The corners of Mikey’s lips pulled up into a cheeky smile, but Gerard cut in before he could say anything. “And what about you, Frank? What’s your story, besides getting roped into a mysterious housekeeping job?”
Frank’s expression softened as he folded his hands. Mikey couldn’t stop looking at his tattooed fingers; he wondered why Halloween was so special to him. “I guess you could say Ray and I have been around, too. Instead of just going where the wind took us, which, I still wish I can do one day, we took our time road tripping with a destination. LA.”
“Land of the stars or whatever?” Mikey nudged Frank’s arm gently. “You two trying to get famous?”
“We wrote a horror movie script together, and there were a few people who got interested, but somewhere in production and planning-” Frank gestured vaguely. “It just fell outta interest.”
“We love horror.” Mikey grinned. “Gee can quote Whatever Happened to Baby Jane, front and back.”
“Oh, you like the psychological stuff?” Frank nudged MIkey back. “What about the undead?”
“Not really, no,” Gerard cut in. Mikey turned back to stare at them, hurt that they lied.
Frank pressed his lips together, and shrugged. “That’s alright, I think the housekeeping business is working out well enough for us anyway.”
“I’ll still look out for your names in the big pictures in the future. Just in case.” Mikey tried to play it off, hoping Frank didn’t get discouraged from Gerard’s bitterness. Frank smiled anyway, taking an eyeful of him in as Gerard turned their head away.
“Frank?” they spoke up quietly. “Is there anyone else here in the mansion, or is it just us?”
He checked his watch, shaking his head. “No, there’s the morning gardeners, but they’re all the way on the edge of the property. They don’t come around here. Why?”
They shook their head. “Thought I heard a voice in the other room.” Picking at their nails, they leaned forward with their elbows on their knees.
“Ray’s not here yet.” Frank stood up anyway to check into the adjacent dining room, and he shrugged. “Nope, don’t see anyone. Did you wanna go lie back down?”
Gerard glared hard at him, and Mikey tensed up with a little shake of his head. Five paintings in total on the walls. “Gerard’s just fine, Frank, don’t worry.” He rested a gentle hand on their back.
Frank scratched the back of his head and nodded. “I didn’t mean to imply anything, I’m sorry. How’s your head?”
“I dunno, there’s this faint buzzing in my ear.” Gerard grunted lightly when Mikey nudged them, and they sat up straighter. “The headache’s gone down.”
Frank gave a tight-lipped smile and a nod at first, until he heard distant clicking and creaking. And then-
“Frankie?” Keys jingled with another click. “I got off my night shift early, you around?”
“Oh, fuck me.” Frank grabbed Mikey’s wrist and yanked him back up to his feet. “Come on, this way.” He ran out of the room and into the stairwell immediately adjacent to them.
Mikey turned back to make sure Gerard was following, relieved at least to see them just a few steps behind him.
Gerard’s head whipped around; the first thing they noticed when all of them had reached the top of the stairs was the golden statue of Jesus in front of a mirror. “These relics are fucking everywhere, huh?”
Frank snorted anxiously. “Uh, yeah. I guess you could say this place isn’t as much of a zoo as it is a museum.” His hand lifted in a vague, floppy wave. “The owner is really protective of them, so we just don’t ask questions.”
“Great.” Mikey tried to sound interested, but he really wasn’t keen on finding even more things that could potentially kill him and Gerard. He remembered how many stairs they had just walked up, two flights, nine each flight, and he gripped Gerard’s hand tight and pulled them along. The sheer curtains on the two windows didn’t do a lot to help them see at all; everything was a clash of deep teal and bright orange. Mikey only closed his eyes for a second as he walked forward, praying not to get burned, and he was relieved that he guided Gerard safely past them. Only, at the end of the hall, another mirror stood right in front of them. Frank was the only one in the reflection. “Wait, before you say anything, hear me out.”
Frank was frozen as he stared directly at himself, then he reached up to touch the surface before turning around to stare wide-eyed at Mikey and Gerard. “Where the fuck did you guys go?” He couldn’t stop checking the mirror, then behind him again, Mikey counted at least five times that his head whipped back and forth until he figured it out. That, or either his neck ached.
“Frank-” Mikey grabbed his hand, but was careful not to squeeze. His brain completely blanked over, which was even worse paired with the light-blindness. Mikey fell disoriented, tongue-tied, and he completely forgot how to center himself. Frank’s voice suddenly felt distant, or muffled like a wall was placed between them. Mikey could hear Frank say his name, or at least a word closely resembling it- there was really no telling in that moment.
Mikey jumped with a yelp when Gerard grabbed him by the back of his shirt and tugged him back. He broke contact, their hands separated, and Mikey gained control of himself again. “Frank,” he was quick to call out again. “Frank, I know this looks insane. Could we- please, you need to get us away from the windows. Anywhere. We’re not gonna hurt you.”
“Frankie!” Ray’s voice echoed from down the stairs. It didn’t exactly sound closer than the first time, but it still wasn’t ideal.
“Come on,” Frank whispered, and grabbed Mikey’s wrist again to tug him along, along with Gerard indirectly. When he turned to the right, he tried to pull them ahead, but with Mikey planted his feet, their hands broke apart again, and he frowned. “What-” He stopped, then noticed the windows. The sunlight was shining directly on the mirrored doors that lined this corridor.
Mikey pressed his back against Gerard’s chest. “We can’t go that way.”
“You’re vampires,” Frank thought aloud. From the downwards stairwell right next to him, his pulse nearly doubled when slow footsteps got increasingly louder. “Your left,” he hissed.
Gerard took the liberty of tugging Mikey so hard through the door closest to them that Mikey nearly slipped on the floor. They turned the corner into a walk-in closet and pressed Mikey up against a wall right as someone else, Ray, Mikey assumed, finished walking up the stairs.
“Hey, why didn’t you answer me?” she asked. Her voice was surprisingly soft, despite being apprehensive, Mikey imagined her smiling as she looked at Frank.
Frank stuttered slightly. “Sorry. I got distracted, uh, I had to do that incense thing again in the tower room.” He exhaled a faint, nervous giggle. “I feel like that room needs to be incensed every day. Weird.”
There was another pause, and Ray hummed. “Did you see anything weird?” Concern filled her tone more.
“Nothing that I haven’t, uh, dealt with before. Just the normal scratching in the walls.” He scoffed; the sentence sounded ridiculous on its own. Mikey looked back over at Gerard, whose pupils were blown out. “It’s taken care of,” Frank continued on.
Mikey’s curiosity got the better of him. Resting a hand on Gerard’s chest, he kept them out of sight as he turned around to peek at Frank and Ray walking by. For once, he was thankful that his reflection couldn’t be seen, considering there was another floor-length one facing their door. But what he could see of Ray, she was at least a head taller than Frank, her hair must have added another half-inch onto her height, and she was built like an Amazon. Great.
Only, there was something else in the mirror. Something moving with them, something transparent and shapeless. Mikey didn’t really know how to explain it, which scared him.
“Alright. So I guess you finished cleaning up the rooms on this floor?” she asked Frank as they walked by and left Mikey and Gerard in peace.
Frank settled with his hands folded in his lap. “So,” he started off, as if he was bracing himself. His lips twisted hesitantly. “You guys are vampires.”
Mikey nodded. “Yeah,” he confirmed audibly. “We’re not gonna hurt you, Frank. We were just in a really dire situation and we needed a place, well, not to spontaneously combust. And obviously I was afraid of telling you that because I didn’t want you to be afraid. Makes sense?”
“Well, yeah.” Frank rubbed the side of his neck. His cardigan sleeve slouched down his arm more, and Mikey caught himself staring at more of the revealed tattoos. He didn’t look away. “And it’s still hard to believe, but you guys- you don’t have reflections. And the sun hurts you?”
“We’re not gonna demonstrate.” Gerard curled their upper lip up and flashed their fangs.
Frank shook his head. “Wouldn’t ask you to.” He sighed hard. “I just- Ray’s really dodgy about all the supernatural stuff. Not like she’s religious, but she always has- I dunno. These...this routine, I guess, on how to do certain things. Never invite people in after dark. Always wear something iron and silver. Keep garlic and vervain in the kitchen at all times. Weird stuff like that.”
Gerard turned to Mikey, wide-eyed. “Is she one of them?”
Mikey bit his tongue. “None of them looked anything like her, if I remember. They were all kinda...well, smaller.”
“What are you talking about?” Frank’s brow knotted, and he frowned.
Gerard opened their mouth, but Mikey held a hand up to answer. “We were chased last night through the city, and we thought that we could outrun them by hiding somewhere less condensed. This is how we got here, and we only narrowly escaped them. There were, I dunno, 3 or 4 at most.” His jaw clenched as he looked down. “They caught us biting someone.”
Frank’s face paled, and he nodded in understanding. “Right.” His eyes flicked from side to side a few times, searching through his thoughts. “So, uh, you’re not hungry right now, at least?”
“We’re not. Even if we were, we wouldn’t hurt you or Ray,” Mikey assured him, just touching his sleeve. There was no need to force him to be calm this time. “All we need is a place to stay alive until the sun sets. The moment the sky is dark enough, you’ll never have to see us again.”
Frank paused, and bit back a frown. “Yeah,” he complied in a soft sigh. “That’s what I agreed to at the beginning, anyway. I’m not going back on my word.” He picked at a loose thread on his jeans. “Thanks for being honest with me, Mikey.”
Gerard slouched more against the wall. “Can we move somewhere a little darker again?” they muttered.
“Yeah, one of these rooms has to help.” Mikey took a deep breath, and helped them to their feet. “Just take it easy.” When the coast was clear in the hallway, Mikey moved out of the closet and into a bathroom without windows. The tiles on the floor and walls gave a powerfully relieving coolness once they settled down again, and they just laid on their backs until they exhaled all the stress out.
“I’ll make sure Ray doesn’t come around this way again,” Frank murmured. “At least around these rooms. We got a lot of stuff to catch up on.”
Mikey nodded. “Yeah, we get it. Thanks again, man.” Mikey gave him a thumbs-up. “Oh. What time is it, d’you know?”
Frank hummed and tapped at his wristwatch. “Just past 10. I’d reckon you got 7 to 8 hours left?” He smiled softly again. “You guys are gonna be just fine, promise.”
Mikey smiled back at him, right when he turned his head and stared up at a four-foot angel statue. “Frank?”
He was speechless. “I didn’t put it there.” He frowned. “Is it gonna hurt you if it stays in here?”
Gerard shook their head. “We’re fine, the angel’s fine.”
“Frank?” Ray called out from the far distance.
Frank sighed. “I’ll come back and check on you guys in a few hours.” He closed the door and ran off to respond to her, leaving them in darkness.
The pitch black didn’t matter too much; they could see well enough without any light source. It was a huge relief from the daylight, easing away both their headaches. “Hey, Gee?” Mikey whispered. Gerard hummed idly. “What was that voice you heard? Was it part of a vision?”
“No.” They folded their hands over their chest. “I dunno what it was. It wasn’t a voice that I heard in my vision this morning. Or...I didn’t recognize it, at least.”
Mikey sucked air through his teeth. “Because...I thought I felt someone touch me. When Frank was showing us around, but it wasn’t either of you. There was nobody there. I just didn’t wanna freak Frank out.”
Gerard sat up on their elbows, and they glanced back at the angel statue. “Frank said that nuns used to keep this place. Maybe they put up protections against people like us.”
“We’re not evil, Gerard.” Mikey shook his head. “Just because blessed things hurt us doesn’t make us bad people. Just because we hurt someone last night doesn’t make us bad people.”
“Bad and evil aren’t always the same, I guess.” They sighed and let their head fall back, staring at the ceiling. “We aren’t evil, sure, but we are...bad people, I think. In a way that accidents are bad. You know what I mean? Out of our control. Out of the control of people we have to feed from. The food chain is bad.”
Mikey snorted softly. “How profound.” He reached out and patted their shoulder. “So you still think the house itself is punishing us?”
“Can’t really think of anything else it could be. Unless your new boy toy is pulling a fast one on us.” They laid down flat on their back again.
Mikey scoffed. “Don’t be mean to Frank. He’s breaking the rules just to keep us safe. Just-” He rolled onto his side and rubbed Gerard’s arm. “Relax, we’re gonna be safe here, okay? We’re in the dark. Frank’s protecting us.”
Gerard’s jaw shifted, and they poked their tongue at their cheek. “Okay. This is exhausting.”
“I know.” Mikey rested his hands over their eyes, making them laugh. “It’s gonna be fine.”
Mikey had no idea how fast or slow time was dragging by, but he moved around every so often to avoid the ache in his neck and shoulders. He’d been in far more comfortable hideouts before. Then again, he’d been in a lot dingier and disgusting ones, too, so a clean porcelain floor should have been nothing to stick his nose up at. Gerard had fallen quiet, Mikey could only hope that they were sleeping, but he stayed awake to guard them.
He could hear the distant echoes of footsteps every so often, though they never got loud enough to be concerning. Gerard’s back arched with a hard gasp, and their eyes flew open.
“Gee?” Mikey sat up quickly and rubbed their chest, trying to soothe them. “It’s okay, you’re gonna get through this, just breathe.”
They scratched hard at their arms and whimpered, shaking their head. “Mikey, don’t leave me,” they begged. “Stay with me!”
Carefully, Mikey pulled them into a safe corner and hugged them from behind, pressing a hand over their mouth as they whined. “S’okay, I’m not gonna leave you, I’m right here and you’re still safe. Please just stay quiet.”
Gerard closed their eyes and leaned their head back on Mikey’s shoulders, actual tears threatening to pour down. It only hit Mikey a moment later; a horrid pain tearing his skin open everywhere. He gasped hard and cried out, not expecting the intensity, and slouched more against the wall. His muscles tensed up as well; it felt like razor wire coiled up around every inch of his body.
“What the fuck is going on?!” Mikey hissed through a sob, but he held onto his brother anyway. “What did you see?” When they didn’t answer, he only assumed they were still stuck in the vision. The moment he let go of them, the pain ebbed away, and he turned around to face them from the front. “Gee? Gee, come on.” He propped them up and tried to shake their shoulders, only to get a meager response of them hugging themself shakily. “Gerard!” Mikey tried again. In a fit of fear, he kicked his foot out and knocked the statue onto the floor.
“I thought I heard it coming from this way.” It was Frank’s voice in the distance, making Mikey’s hairs stand on end. Four footsteps at once. Ray was with him, of course. Mikey’s eyes widened, and he did his best to drag Gerard to their feet, until the footsteps headed into the adjacent room. “Did you want me to burn that incense in here or whatever?”
“You told me you got this room already.” Ray sounded worried. Mikey squinted, and once Gerard started to calm down, he slowly let go of them and crawled over to press his ear against the closest wall. “What exactly did you do?” Ray asked.
Frank hesitated aloud. “Just the usual stuff-”
“Frankie.” Ray’s voice took a turn, then. Almost patronizing. “I need you to be honest with me. It’s fine if you didn’t get all the rooms yet, you know that.” Someone walked a few steps to the left, and some draw shifted open. “But this is a daily thing, it’s really important.”
“You still never explained to me why, though.” Frank’s voice stayed quiet, but Mikey could hear the frustration.
Ray sighed. “Because that’s just Dana’s instructions. I didn’t wanna question her.” There was an awkward minute of silence. “Frank.”
“Okay, okay. Right.” Frank groaned. “Maybe I just messed it up somehow.”
“You can’t really mess it up, man. There’s no specific steps of, uh, cleaning the rooms, you just use the brooms she gave us to sweep the floors-”
“Brooms that barely even work,” Frank interrupted her.
Ray hushed him. “Light the incense, replace the water in the bowls, and make sure all the curtains stay open.”
Mikey swallowed hard. “Gee, we gotta keep moving,” he hissed, and grabbed their hand again. “Get up.”
“I’m sorry, okay?” Frank got slightly defensive. “I woke up with a headache and I just needed to give my eyes a rest while I was cleaning downstairs.”
Gerard stumbled forward and gripped Mikey’s shoulder as they both got up. If they could make it past the door to the next room, they could make it down to the ground floor again, and possibly find a way to the kitchen, down to the basement. Mikey nodded at Gerard as they both crept up to the doorway.
“Are you feeling okay?” Ray’s voice softened.
Mikey’s spine shuddered, and he peeked around the doorway and into the next room. The room was flooded over with harsh white, but his face didn’t burn when he pulled himself back. Sliding his fingers between Gerard’s, he gripped their hand tight.
Frank swallowed lightly. “Yeah, I’m a little better now. I dunno, just...didn’t sleep well last night.” There was more shuffling around, and he let out a long exhale as blankets softly rustled. “I’ll be fine, Ray.”
Gerard closed their eyes tightly, then took the opportunity to finally run past the doorway. Since Mikey’s eyes were still adjusting, he was taken a little off-guard and slipped on the rug as they ran for their lives. One footstep was all it took to alert Ray, even if they made it to the stairwell.
“Frankie, wait here,” she told him and hurried to check the hallway.
“Shit,” Mikey mouthed as they stumbled back into the ground floor corridor. “Right. Go right.”
Gerard tugged Mikey again, but he was quick to catch up to them and race into the red room. Mikey could feel the heat on his ankles as they hurried past the windows, and he bit his tongue hard. “We’ll be safe in a second,” Gerard promised him. “Just don’t stop.”
Mikey kept running, but he looked over his shoulder to see Ray emerging from the stairwell right before they turned the corner. “I dunno if she saw us,” Mikey thought aloud when he slid into the kitchen. “That door.”
“Hey!” Ray projected.
“Fuck, fuck-” Gerard lost their balance out of panic and tumbled down the bottom half of the stairs leading down to the laundry room. Mikey nearly fell with them, only catching himself at the last minute and slipping out of their grip. He knelt down and wrapped his arms around their ribs to get them back up on their feet. “Come on. We’ll be fine.”
“Stop,” Ray barked out. She held up some sort of small gun, which only made Mikey yank Gerard away from the stairs. Ray grunted and hurried down the stairs to catch up with them.
With Gerard struggling to stay on their feet after the fall, they weren’t able to get far, but they still covered Mikey’s body when she faced the both of them. “Stay back,” they warned.
“How did you get in here?” Ray asked firmly. “Who let you in?”
Mikey centered himself. “We climbed in through an unlocked window,” he answered, and rubbed Gerard’s shoulder. “My brother just suffered a seizure, we were trying to hide out until they got better. We didn’t steal anything. You can check my pockets to be sure.”
Gerard tensed up at first, but quickly caught on and took a cautious, pained step to the side.
“Sit down,” Mikey whispered, shaking his head. He kept his hands up as he closed the distance between himself and Ray, watching her eyes. “We don’t wanna hurt you, okay? We’re really sorry for trespassing.”
Ray’s frown tightened. “Where did you come from?”
“We were just passing through the neighborhood, and this was the closest house to us.” Mikey relaxed his shoulders. He kept his eyes away from the short metal barrel pointing right at his heart. “You’re really prepared for invaders, huh?” He choked out a faint laugh.
Ray shrugged. “One can never be too careful, right? A girl’s gotta defend her own.”
Mikey nodded. “Yeah, I get that. I mean- I’m a guy, so not completely, but I can’t blame you.” His jaw shifted as he thought; he was pretty sure he would be able to pacify her if he stayed like this. “You wanna check my pockets for real?”
Still, she hesitated. “Whatever you want, just keep it and go. Our boss is gonna be really pissed if she comes back and finds you here.”
“I’m really sorry, my brother’s still sick and I can’t carry them to a hospital yet.” Mikey shook his head. “And we don’t have insurance, so we can’t afford an ambulance.”
Ray’s lips parted, and she rolled her eyes as she finally lowered her gun. “You still can’t stay here. I’m sorry.” She looked down at her belt when she started holstering the gun, but it fell out of her hand when Mikey wrapped his fingers gently around her forearm.
“Please let us stay for a few hours,” Mikey whispered against her ear. He could feel the chill that ran through her whole body, the dilation of her pupils. The extra wave of saliva that she quickly swallowed down. He tried his hardest to ignore how good she suddenly smelled, a cool rush of breath with fresh water.
Her gaze fixated on Mikey, eyeing him up and down. “I really shouldn’t.” The change in her demeanor was a complete 180, from on the defense to looking at Mikey like a dear old friend. “Our boss hates strangers.”
“I know. We’ll stay out of your...” Mikey gripped Ray’s hand tighter when he felt other hands all over both of his arms. The sensation slithered up to his shoulders and wrapped coldly around his neck, causing him to wheeze and throw his head back. Looking down, he saw nothing, but he quickly jumped back and rubbed at his arms harshly. “What-”
“What did you just do?” Ray’s sharpness returned in a snap.
“Mikey, why did you do that?” Gerard frowned hard; he knew they meant why he let go of her.
Mikey’s eyes widened, and he looked back at Ray. “You didn’t feel that? Did you do it?” He took a step back as a shiver surged through his whole body. “Something grabbed me. It was all over-”
Loud footsteps thumped down the stairs again, and Frank gripped the railing. “Ray- holy shit.”
Ray held her gun up to Gerard again. “Frank, go back upstairs-”
“Where the fuck did you get a gun from?” He hurried over to her and lowered her arm. “What are you even doing ?”
“Frank, we’re not gonna hurt you.” Mikey held his hands up in surrender. “I’m sorry that Gerard and I didn’t tell you that we’re vampires, I-I was afraid. But all we’re doing is staying out of the sun. Or, we were trying to.” He took a few steps back closer to Gerard to shield their body.
Ray’s shoulders sagged more as her gaze softened. Mikey wasn’t even touching her this time. She shook her head softly. “You were supposed to get further away from here.”
Gerard sat up. “What the hell are you talking about?” Mikey stared at her, sharing the same bewilderment. Frank narrowed his eyes as he gripped her arm harder.
Ray’s jaw clenched. “I veered you away from the path where...where you were supposed to get trapped and killed. I knew you two were only feeding to survive, but you weren’t supposed to get trapped in here.”
“You were part of the hunters that chased us down last night.” Mikey’s fingers curled.
“Your side gig is fucking vampire hunting?!” Frank raised his voice, and pushed her ribs. “All this time, you were running around at night killing vampires and you just let me go about our job all clueless?” He scoffed. “Who are you?”
Gerard pulled Mikey’s arm to get themself back on their feet. “She’s also been harboring ghosts in this place. I can hear them,” they whispered. “That was the vision I just had. They’re calling to us, Mikey, can’t you hear them?”
Mikey pressed Gerard’s head to his shoulder. “Jesus fucking Christ, okay. This place is haunted and Ray’s trying to kill us.”
“Not true.” Ray tensed up, and she looked down at her gun. “I don’t want to kill you, okay? This is only for desperate measures.”
Frank shook his head and backed up toward Mikey. “You don’t have to hurt them. Mikey has been nothing but kind to me, and- and you’re a liar. I don’t even know what else you’ve been keeping from me, what you’re doing is wrong.”
Gerard eyed Frank up and down, pulling Mikey another few inches away from him. “Watch yourself, Frank. They’re not too fond of you, you know.” Their voice deepened. Mikey pressed a hand to their chest to try and keep them back, but they leered over his shoulder. “A few Hail Marys can’t save you from the sins you’ve done.”
On instinct, Ray raised her gun one more time and fired a warning shot past Gerard’s ear, and they vanished in the shadows before Mikey could even turn around.
Frank had raised his arms in defense while he caught his breath, and stepped in front of Mikey. “You’ve got a serious fucking problem, Ray.”
Ray lamented the new bullet hole in the wall for a moment, and she pushed her hair back. “I have to go find Gerard.”
“No. No, you keep your hands off them.” Mikey backed up, staring at the door he assumed they escaped through. “You stay away from both of us, got it? And we’ll stay out of yours.”
“I’m sorry,” Ray shook her head. “Mikey, I’m sorry I didn’t think.”
“They’re just sick, okay? Let me take care of them, I know them. I know how to get them through this, and if you- if you...” Mikey hesitated. There’s no way he could hurt either of them. “Just stay away.” He could hear Frank call out for him when he turned and ran, right before Ray shouted and tried to chase him.
The underground level wasn’t as vast as the floors above, and there were only so many options Mikey could take. He rushed through old servants’ quarters, darting around corners and sticking to the shadows.
Unsure of where else to go, Mikey stumbled up a staircase and out into a second, smaller kitchen, feeling around the cold tiles until he pushed himself up. Taking a deep breath, he held his arms out until he felt the kitchen counter and leaned against it, hunching over. His knees buckled until he found his strength again, and he rubbed at his nose. “Gee?” he called out quietly, swallowing as he blindly shuffled into a dining room with glass walls.
What kind of fucking dining room had this much stupid exposure? The heat was kind of unbearable, and Mikey couldn’t see another door out. He took a few more steps until he bumped into the table, then stumbled back into a window and cried out in frustration. “Gerard!” he called out louder, casting aside all caution of Ray finding him.
That didn’t matter. He needed to get his brother back, his brother who was so militant about staying together, and had just run out on him. His brother who was always at Mikey’s side in times of crisis, and gave him a shoulder to rest his head on when he needed it. His brother who he betrayed, and dragged him into a fucking haunted house. Might as well be a gateway to Hell, for all he knew.
Before Mikey let himself break, he gave himself another moment before the heat started to get unbearable. His eyes were aching more by the second, no matter if he kept them closed or not,, so he kept his hand on the glass walls until he bumped into another table, leveled with his stomach. He grunted hard, and jumped back when he heard glass shatter on the floor.
He stumbled back into a few chairs, causing their legs to screech as they slid on the floor, and he barely kept himself upright as he finally found the door to the red sitting room. It was marginally more visible, but with a fuckton more obstacles. Really, who the fuck needed this many thrones and couches and coffee tables? When Mikey found Gerard and got their asses out of here, he was gonna send a threatening letter to Frank to tell whoever owns this hellpit to stop hoarding.
After bumping into too much furniture, he could hear the familiar quick stomping of Ray’s boots. Terrified, Mikey dropped to the floor and rolled under one of the couches, pressing his hands tight to his chest and shutting his eyes to center himself again.
He decided to use his senses as he breathed silently. Five things to see- well, that was kind of a bust. There was the bottom of the couch right in front of him, and everything else was a headache-inducing mess of technicolor blur. Four things to feel- the lingering heat from the near sunburns he’d narrowly avoided, his own weight pressing against the floor, the void in his stomach that felt like it was expanding. Gerard had to be alone, too. They must be alone and terrified and pissed off and, worst of all, hungry. Mikey had to find them. Mikey had to find them before Frank became their victim.
“Oh, Mary...” Ray’s voice carried through from the next room, and the glass crunched under her boot. Mikey shifted around to try and look over at her, but he couldn’t catch more than just the vague movement of shadows. “Fuck.” Ray had knelt down and picked something, Mary, probably, off the floor and brushed the statue off. There was a soft thud of it being placed on the table, and a few quiet footsteps and the brushing of a broom against the floor.
Mikey held his breath. Not like he really ever breathed anyway, but it helped him to move silently. As long as Ray’s attention was diverted, he slowly tested his luck by rolling himself out from under the couch, and he pressed himself to the wall and out of her sight, before slinking completely out of the room.
The brightness overtook his sight again; the sun was moving quicker and not quickly enough at the same time. But he had to get out of the room before Ray caught him, so he took a timid first step further into the hallway. So far, so good; as long as he could feel the heat rise and fall, he could find someplace else to hide. He kept his hand on the wall away from the windows, and tried to press his body closer to it to avoid the sunspots on the floor.
When his hand suddenly stopped dragging over the wall and into an empty space, he took a deep breath and hurried up the staircase. It was definitely not less brighter than the first floor, but it was further away from Ray, at least. He could risk running and making noise as he ran, just crossing his fingers that his feet weren’t loud enough to reverberate through the first floor ceiling.
The hall of mirrored doors from before was finally safe to run through, now that the sun had eased up, and Mikey was quick to open the last door he could find. His sight didn’t adjust well, still, but the heat of the room wasn’t as threatening. Mikey closed the door behind him and shuffled toward the center of the room, and jumped when he felt fur slide over his hand.
Turning on his heel, Mikey came face to face with the coyote. It stared back at him, unblinking, with a permanent snarl and its front legs bent as if it could pounce again. “Oh, shit-” he whispered, then was knocked off-balance when two large, heavy paws sank into the side of his ribs. “Shit!”
He knew the thud would give him away, but he had no idea how to push a ghost off of his body. He tried crawling out from under it instead, hissing back to try and scare it off. The ghost even went as far as shoving the couches in the room around, and Mikey curled his body up to keep himself from being hit in the head from one of them.
By the time he was finally able to get to his feet, he heard the door creak. Swallowing hard, he turned toward the noise and stepped back, still unable to make out the figure in the window’s silhouette. “Gee?” he croaked against all hope. “Are you okay?”
“I’m really sorry, Mikey,” Ray sighed.
He didn’t have time to react before his body was wrapped up in a net, sending him toppling back over again. He screamed out, trying to tear at the lightweight wires, but they only dug into his skin the more he pushed. “Ray, let me go. Get this off of me, please!” he begged, rolling onto his hands and knees. The net had locked around his whole body.
“Mikey-” Ray took a deep breath as she approached him. “Mikey, this is for everyone’s own good-”
“I just wanna find my brother!” Mikey kept pushing until the wires threatened to break skin. “Let me go, I won’t hurt you.”
A beat of silence passed, then Ray shifted and dropped down to tie Mikey’s wrists together. “I’m gonna take the net off,” she warned him after binding his ankles as well. “I don’t want you to get hurt, either.” It was harder as Mikey continued to struggle, but she untied the net from around him.
Mikey punched at her chest, but he couldn’t put enough force into it to do too much damage. Before he could roll away from her, he tried biting her hands when she grabbed him again. “No!” he grunted as she lifted him up from the floor, and he screamed it again when he was hoisted over her shoulder.
“Come on.” Ray pinned his thighs to her chest and kept her other hand steady on his back to keep him from writhing around too much. She left the sitting room and took him back down the corner of a hall to a spiral staircase this time, leading up to another church door. She was careful to make sure Mikey didn’t touch it before carrying him into a dark, circular bedroom.
Mikey jerked his arms around as he tried to slip out of Ray’s grip, but the woman had hands of iron. She was smart not to untie his wrists before securing one to the chair’s arm. The rope dragged across his hands, but she kept a hold on his other arm to tie it on the other side. “Ray? Ray, just let me go. I can calm Gerard down, I’ll make sure they won’t hurt you or Frank. Please.”
Ray frowned and shook her head. “I’m sorry, but he’s my priority right now, Mikey. Gerard’s posing a threat...whatever’s wrong with them-”
“Don’t say that!” Mikey hunched forward. “There’s nothing wrong with Gerard, this house is just fucking us up. It’s not our fault.”
Before Ray could say anything else, the door creaked open and Frank gripped onto it when he crept inside. His eyes widened again, glancing back and forth between Mikey and Ray. “Shit, why is he-” Frank could put the pieces together as to why Mikey was tied up. “Do we really have to do this to him?”
“It’s only temporary until we can find Gerard.” Ray’s voice softened around him.
Mikey huffed. “Stop talking like you know him!” His voice sharpened at a volume that shocked himself, and he quickly reeled back. A chill settled heavy on his shoulders when Frank even looked scared. “I’m sorry. Just tell me about the ghosts.”
Ray tried not to groan. “I don’t know what happened when the house was first built, but back then-” She stuttered and shrugged. “Maybe parties have gotten out of hand. People died here. Then when the nuns took over, they- they tried to exorcize the place, and the ghosts fought back. That’s why we did all those rituals. That’s why we still keep all the relics up, to keep them at peace.”
“And that’s what we were originally hired to do?” Frank narrowed his eyes. “Did you know from the start? Did you drag me into a ghost war?”
“No!” Ray looked him in the eye. “I didn’t know at first, but...I felt the ghosts’ presence, too. So I looked into it and- and I dug through the history.”
“And you just didn’t tell me.” Frank crossed his arms. Mikey tugged again on the ropes.
Ray gestured an open hand back at Mikey. “Things were going fine until these two came and woke the ghosts up! So now we have to start all over again and try to quiet them before they turn Gerard into a murder vessel.”
“They’re- Gerard’s better than that.” Mikey clenched his jaw hard. “Let me calm them down. I’m the only person they trust, they’ll listen to me. Let me go, Ray.”
“No, this is my responsibility. I have to fix it.” Ray shook her head. “You’ll stay here where they can’t reach you, and I promise I won’t kill Gerard. No matter what.”
“Fix what?!” Frank threw his hands up.
“The house, Frankie! They’ve already caused enough damage, relics have been broken. I can’t risk anything else. I promised to keep everything safe.” Ray gently took his hand and rubbed her thumb over his knuckles. “I’m not gonna get hurt. I’m gonna make sure you don’t get hurt, either.”
“You’re only gonna make them worse!” Mikey tugged against the ropes again.
Ray took a deep breath and rubbed Frank’s back. “I’m not gonna kill them,” she thought aloud. “Just stay put, okay?” Before Frank or Mikey could say anything else, she ran out of the room.
Mikey grunted hard, baring his teeth as he jerked his whole body. “Motherfucker- Frank. Frank, you gotta help me, I need to make sure my brother’s okay. Please.”
Frank paced a few times, then sat down on the bed. His fingers curled into the top blanket; he couldn’t look at Mikey yet.
“Please, I was never going to hurt you. We just wanted to get out of the sun,” Mikey explained. “This is the longest day of the year, we’re literally at our weakest right now. On top of that...I really like you.” Silence dominated the room. Mikey’s chest was going to collapse in on itself.
The only sound that cut through it was Frank swallowing. “I, uh-” He glanced away. Mikey could feel the heat pusing off his face from the other side of the room. “I know the feeling. You’ve been really sweet to me, Mikey.”
“And I mean it.” Mikey didn’t skip a beat. He rolled his shoulders slowly to ebb some of the tension out, but he could still feel a stone of anxiety weighing his stomach down. When Frank wasn’t sure how else to respond, Mikey’s eyes searched for something. Anything. His brain turned off and let his instinct take hold of him, finally staring at the quilt that lay over the bed. Twenty squares in one row-
Frank chewed on his lip. “What are you doin’, man?”
Mikey pressed his lips together tightly. “I...have this thing. Um-” He squirmed again. “So, I can calm people down if I touch them, but it requires me to be calm first. But I get nervous a lot of the time, naturally, so to try and keep myself in the moment...I count something close to me until my head clears.”
“Is the counting thing impulsive?” Frank lightened up, a smile peeking out.
Mikey snorted. “It’s hard being a vampire, man. You- you gotta hide half the day, you gotta make sure you stay away from mirrors, can’t touch silver or anything blessed, doesn’t matter the religion.”
Frank blinked. “For real?”
“Yeah. Can’t enter temples, churches, mosques, synagogues, anywhere that’s used as a house of worship.” Mikey shrugged. “We can say prayers, though.”
“Do you?” Frank stepped a little closer.
Mikey exhaled softly. “We used to. Gee and I were raised Catholic, got so far as confirmation and everything, but uh...” He smiled tightly. “After the turn, Gerard thought that maybe God could turn us back if we believed hard enough. They gave up about 10 years in. Might explain why the ghost nuns are so drawn to them, though...”
Frank paused. “Shit. They must not take too kindly to the loss of faith, I suppose.” He lowered his face again, rocking back on his heels. “So...how old are you, exactly?”
“I’m only 40.” Mikey’s brow knotted apologetically. “I know, I’m not some cool and mysterious millennium-old keeper of the world’s secrets.”
Frank snorted. “You’ll get there, eventually.” His voice softened. “I’m a little glad you’re not a million years old, if I’m bein’ honest. You’re still young for your, uh, species?”
“Disease,” Mikey joked.
“You look really great for 40, too.” Frank’s gaze slowly took Mikey in. He dared to close the distance between them, leaning over to rest his hands against the ropes, only his fingertips brushing over Mikey’s arms. “Is this okay?” His pulse was racing, his pupils blown out. The room was dark to begin with, but Mikey knew well enough. “You’re honest.”
Mikey nodded. “I am. It’s good,” he answered without thinking. At this point, he really didn’t need to. “Frank-”
“Don’t tell Ray,” he whispered, biting his lip. “Don’t tell anyone.”
Mikey leaned forward as much as he could. “Your secret’s safe with me.” He batted his lashes and silently prompted Frank to sit on his lap, which worked. Frank was clearly nervous, now that he could see the fangs up close, but he still poked his tongue at his own lips as he braced himself. “I won’t hurt you,” Mikey promised him, but let Frank make the choice.
Frank’s palms pressed against Mikey’s jaw as his thumbs swept over his cheekbones. “You’re actually kinda warmer than I expected,” he admitted. “A lot more handsome up close.”
“I could say the same about you,” Mikey purred, tilting his head subtly.
Frank lifted Mikey’s face back up at just the right angle to kiss him, slowly at first to get a feel of what he liked, but he quickly deepened it when a rush of endorphins overwhelmed them both. Mikey pressed further against Frank’s lips, savoring his taste, and he jerked against the ropes again.
Frank pulled back and glanced down at Mikey’s hands. “Why did Ray really tie you up?” His hands stopped to Mikey’s shoulders, rubbing them gently.
“She doesn’t want me to interfere with Gerard.” Mikey shook his head. Gerard needed his help, but he didn’t want to push his luck. “Ray trusted me enough to stay with you.”
Frank nodded, brushing the tip of his nose against Mikey’s. “She’d do anything for me. And if she trusts you...”
“Don’t think about it.” Mikey kissed him back. “Just- just stay, okay?”
Frank’s arms wrapped around Mikey’s shoulders, and he straddled Mikey’s lap wider, just resting on him. “I had a good feeling about you since I first saw you.” He nipped the shell of Mikey’s ear. “Even if you are a vampire. You’ve still got a heart.”
“You’re so sweet, Frankie.” Mikey shivered softly, leaning his head back. The sound of Frank’s blood was flooding Mikey’s ears, and he turned his face away more. Frank’s lips pressed against his cold artery, and trailed up to suck on the corner of his jaw.
“Call me that again,” Frank begged him.
Mikey turned to kiss his temple. “Frankie.” He kissed his hairline. “Frankie...”
“You promise to hold me?” Frank’s fingertips trailed down Mikey’s arms. Already, he was playing with the knots of the ropes. Mikey noddedand Frank gasped softly when Mikey wrapped his arms tight around him when the ropes were tugged off.
Mikey didn’t move out of the chair. He just kissed Frank harder and let Frank bury his hands in his hair as much as he could. “Frankie,” he murmured again. His ankles were still tied together, and he shifted his calves against each other under the chair.
Frank pressed his face against Mikey’s shoulder and just clung to him tight. “Do you promise things are gonna be okay?”
He closed his eyes with a nod. “Yeah, of course it is.” The ache in his stomach seared back through him as he grabbed Frank’s wrist and pinned it to the arm of the chair. Leaning over, he tore the ropes off his ankles and slid out from under Frank before racing to the door. He didn’t tie him down, he didn’t try to subdue him in any way.
“Mikey!” Frank just barely missed grabbing him when he reached out. Smoke wafted through the air when Mikey tugged the door open just enough to slip through, and he slammed it shut on Frank again.
Frank immediately banged his fists on the other side of the door, and the guilt already made Mikey dizzy. “Frank, I’m just protecting you. Ray would want the same.” He pressed his back against the ornate wood; as long as it didn’t touch his skin, it didn’t burn him severely.
“Let me out of here!” Frank screamed. “Mikey, you promised that you’d stay with me! Don’t leave me here all alone!”
Mikey’s chest rose and fell, already second guessing his choice. “Ray will come back for you,” he promised. It was the only way he could justify his decision. “Okay, Frank? You’re gonna be okay.” He winced when he tore a plank of wood from the stairs and slid it in front of the door to keep it shut.
“No-” Frank tugged hard at the doorknob in an attempt to break it, but it wouldn’t budge. “Mikey! You liar, open the fucking door!”
Mikey pulled himself away from the door and walked backwards down a few steps, until he could feel a gentle touch on his cheek. Something was turning his face the other way, beckoning him down the stairs. “I’m already heading down, you don’t have to drag me,” he muttered, trying to rub the feeling off his face as he hurried the rest of the way down. “Look- could you just help me back to my brother?”
He shivered when his wrists were gripped again, but he didn’t feel any push or pull toward any direction. He tried to move his legs, his feet, his toes, but he found his joints stiff. Glued together. Sharp pain like knives tore through his shoulder, and he hunched over and pulled his shirt collar down. He wasn’t bleeding, but six sizable dents were pressed into the thin skin, and two more were in his shoulder blade. When he turned around behind him, the snowy owl in the altar had turned its head and stared right at Mikey.
He bolted away from wherever the sun was brightest, but the light was blurring things over again. His hands still stung from touching the door, and his shirt was being tugged on by the forces moving around him. They pulled him back down a stairwell where he narrowly avoided tripping. He clung to the railing and stumbled to the ground floor, his legs shaking.
“Gerard?” he called out faintly, peeking out into the corridor. “Gerard, please answer me.” When the ghosts guided him back over to the bedrooms, he shut his eyes when he approached another mirror. It was paneled this time, and the sunlight was only barely shining on the edge of it. Mikey hissed, but the ghosts pulled him to the wall beside the mirror.
He could barely see. The window didn’t even have any curtains hanging around it, and the light heated his skin far too quickly. The ghosts kept tugging him closer to the mirror, though, and he tried to fight against them. “Stop,” he grunted, until they raised his hand, and slapped it on the edge. His hand burned again, but when he pulled away, the mirror cracked open. Not across the glass, but away from the wall. It opened.
Desperate, Mikey opened the mirror enough to slide into the crack and descended another flight of cold brick stairs. There were no lights on at all, but once his eyes adjusted, he could see well enough without them. Gerard was humming some old hymn obliviously; the air was musty and damp, which comforted Mikey in the strangest way. At least, from what both of them had suffered so far today. This could have been the perfect hiding spot, if Gerard was in their right mind.
The far wall was built floor-to-ceiling with shelves full of empty bottles, tucked away behind a bar. Gerard was kneeling up on a torn-up sofa, their back facing Mikey as they scrawled peacefully, but the writing was so jagged. Dripping.
The writing was everywhere. Even in the high corners of two cold brick walls where Mikey didn’t even think Gerard could reach. It frightened him to think how they even got up there, but he was speechless. His throat dried up instantly; he couldn’t even call out to them. From what he could see, they were writing names everywhere. Names and dates. Epitaphs. Mikey dreaded to count them all, so he just shut his eyes instead.
“Mikey.” Gerard’s accent was softer, silver-tongued. They strode up to their brother and held his face in their palms. “I’m so glad you found me, I was worried about you.”
When he opened his eyes again, he only took one look into Gerard’s dull eyes before shaking out of their grip. “Who are all these people?” he asked, scanning over the walls again. “How do you know these names?”
“They’re talking to me.” They lifted their hands with an air of grace, shiny red fingers poised as they turned back to touch the wet walls.
“Oh, Gee-” Mikey grabbed their hands and tried to wipe the blood off them. “The sun’s gonna set soon, okay? M-maybe if we’re careful, we could lay low and find another house until it’s completely safe. We’ve gotta get you outta here.”
“Maybe we should stay after all.” Their pupils blew out as their fingers curled tightly around his hands again. “They tell us that our souls are damned, and they can help us see the light. We need the light again, Mikey, it’s how we’ll find salvation!”
Mikey shook his head. “We’re not goin’ to Heaven yet, okay? Ray promised not to hurt you-” He jumped when Gerard shoved him. “Stop it! You have to listen to me, you said I was the only person that you can trust! That’s all you ever say!”
Gerard tilted their head. “Mikey-” They pressed their hands over their chest. “You’re wrong, Mikey. I-I’ve always wanted you to have friends.” They hiccuped softly. “That’s all I’ve always wanted, really.”
He bit his tongue hard. “Shut up, Gee. They’re getting into your memories now.”
“I’m pleased you have a friend! That’s what you need.” Their smile trembled on their lips, and their fangs peeked out more as they tried to sweeten their voice more. “I was just hoping, maybe...I could meet him, and we could have a nice talk. Just the three of us.”
Mikey pinned their wrists together. “No. You’re not going to hurt Frank, and we’re going to leave.”
Gerard pulled back against them, but he was stronger. “You don’t understand!” they screeched, flipping their tone completely. “No! We have to stay, we have to be saved! We’ll bring Frank with us, they want him to be saved, too!”
He wheezed hard when the air around his throat grew icy, squeezing his trachea closed. “Gee-” He stumbled back. “Gee, tell them to stop.”
A still calm came over Gerard’s body, and they linked arms with him. “It’s so dingy in this room, we need to get some air.” They led him out of the bar area and toward the stairs; Mikey could no longer walk on his own will. The ghosts had him in a complete bind. “Gerard?” he choked out. “Gerard, I know that you can hear me. I know you can keep fighting this, just follow my voice.”
“But I can see so clearly now!” They barely took any caution with the sunlight spilled out over the floor. Mikey just barely jerked them away from getting burned, and they just laughed softly in response. “The saints protect this holy ground. Don’t you see?” Pulling Mikey over to the front foyer, they shoved him down in front of a golden altar resting on a Romanesque column. A statue of Saint Joan of Arc stared down at Mikey in sympathy. “Saints, protect him now. Come, angels-”
Another bullet hole splintered the wooden floor next to Gerard’s feet, and both they and Mikey scrambled back. “Gerard, don’t move!”
Once Mikey was free from the ghosts’ hold, they pulled Gerard’s legs out from under them and pinned them to the floor, his knees weighted on their back. “Ray, don’t hurt them. It’s gonna be okay.”
Gerard squirmed, but their breaths quickened and shallowed. “Mikey,” they pleaded in a voice much more familiar. “Mikey, it hurts.”
“Damn it,” Ray whispered, kneeling to touch around the floor splinters.
Mikey took their face into his hands, forcing them to look at him. “It’s okay, I’m right here, Gee. Hold onto me, okay?” He gripped their hand tight. “Trust me. Keep your focus on me.”
Gerard whimpered and nodded. “Please don’t let me go.” They sniffled hard, shaking their head. “Please tell them to be quiet.”
Mikey glanced in desperation at Ray. “Isn’t there anything you can do? What- what about your rituals? Don’t they keep the ghosts calm?”
Ray bit her tongue. “It always worked before you guys showed up, and then I tried to do them again.”
“Then we’ll do them, too. Just show us what we need.” Mikey sat up and pulled Gerard to sit with him, resting their face against his chest. “They’ve never hurt like this before, it’s not our fault.”
“Where’s Frank?” Ray asked quickly.
Mikey kept his eyes on Gerard. “He’s still in that room. You said he’d be safe there, right?” When Gerard started to get themself together, Mikey pulled their arm over his shoulders and squinted hard at a grandfather clock closeby. “It’s 4PM. Think we can make it 3 more hours?”
“We got this.” Gerard cracked a smile and rolled their neck. “Let’s just put these ghosts back to sleep, I feel like shit.”
Ray nodded. “Everything’s in the owner’s room, it’s this way.” She walked up the stairs again, peeking over her shoulder to make sure they followed her. Mikey snorted softly and shook his head at her, hugging Gerard tighter to him as he kept them from tripping. He only paused again in the middle of the hall when he felt a wall of fur brush against his whole arm, and he shivered hard.
“Shit, Mikey.” Gerard clutched to him tighter. “What happened?”
Mikey peeked over his shoulder. “Bear?” he whispered, swallowing. “Oh my god, don’t fucking tell me I can get mauled by a ghost bear.”
Ray’s eyes darted around the corners of the hall. “I’ve never had a problem with the animals here. I don’t think dead animals get hungry, right?”
“I think the owl was pissed at me earlier, though. And the coyote.” Mikey shook off the tremors and kept pulling Gerard forward. “It’s fine. It’ll be fine. The quicker we get this done, the quicker we can rest.”
“I won’t let any ghost animals attack you,” Gerard whispered, ruffling Mikey’s hair to soften him up.
Ray stepped up to another church door and slowly pushed it open. “C’mon in,” she told them quietly. The room was already radiating heavy scents and natural perfumes that made them both step back in dizziness. The air around them grew dense and woodsy, washing Mikey’s skin over with intense pins and needles.
“Fuck,” Mikey turned away to breathe again, his eyes watering. “This owner’s got some pretty powerful shit, huh?”
Ray fiddled around with a few bottles the size of her palm before peeking out again. “Are you guys okay?” she asked with a soft frown. “She doesn’t keep garlic in here, what else is it?”
Gerard covered his nose and mouth with his hands. “I got no fuckin’ idea, it just stings pretty bad.”
Four doors in this hallway, two windows with the sun pointing away from them. Mikey’s eyes still ached from the remaining light, he had to close them and stop breathing for a moment to get himself back together.
“All she really has here is different tree oils and...yeah, some holy water, but that doesn’t have a smell. Right?” Ray fiddled around in a few cabinets. “What about crystals?”
“Nope.” Mikey shook his head, daring to step closer and peek inside the garishly orange room. “It doesn’t smell like garlic. Smells like a forest of death, honestly.”
Ray arched a brow. “I guess that would make sense. Don’t worry, I won’t spend too much longer in here, we don’t need a lot of stuff.” She handed him a long box of incense sticks, which he was reluctant to accept, but it didn’t burn his hand.
He shook the box very gently just to hear the noise the incense made. “Hey, Gee? I got this box for you-” His stomach dropped so hard, he got nauseous. “Gerard?” They had vanished again.
“Oh, for fuck’s sake.” Ray strapped a small leather pouch to her belt and closed the door. “Gerard!”
Mikey tried to keep Ray behind him so she wouldn’t jump to action first, his hands shaking. “Gerard, it’s gonna be okay. Just come out!” He frantically opened every door, but he couldn’t feel any trace of them. “Gerard! Come back!” It was only when he turned the corner and stared up the stairwell to the room Frank was locked in when he saw them standing there, removing the board keeping it locked. “Gerard, come down here!”
He could smell their hands burn when they pulled the door open, and they jumped when Frank pushed them halfway down the stairs. Mikey was quick to catch them before they fully fell down. Frank stood at the top, his fists clenched. “If you assholes lock me away on my own again, I’m calling the fucking cops.”
“Frankie-” Ray’s eyes widened. “Frank, I’m sorry.”
“You should be.” Frank crossed his arms and leaned against the doorframe as Mikey helped Gerard back down the stairs, hugging them tight. “You have no idea what it’s like in there, all alone. Not knowing what the hell is going on, you think that’s an okay thing to do to your best friend? And don’t say some shit like ‘it was just to keep you safe’, you don’t know what’s safe for me!”
Ray bit her tongue. “Gerard’s not in a right state of mind. They could hurt you.”
Gerard struggled against Mikey’s grip, but he held them tight to his chest. “Do you swear that whatever oils you got won’t hurt him permanently?” He tensed up when Gerard kicked backwards at his legs. “Stop it, Gee.”
Ray tapped a few drops onto her fingers. “Just hold them still-”
“I need you to promise!” Mikey cut her off. “This is still my brother’s body, Ray. They’ve been through enough already.” He bit back a gasp when the hands gripped his ankles and shoulders.
Frank stepped up behind Ray, frowning. “Do you even know if that’s gonna fix them, Ray?”
“Of course it is.” Ray widened her stance. “It’s gonna pull the ghosts outta them, at least.”
Mikey put his body in front of Gerard’s. “Then test it on me first.” He kept a tight grip on their wrist as they glared at Ray and Frank over his shoulder. The hands gripped him, making him tremble hard, and he shut his eyes tight as he looked away.
“Don’t do it, Ray,” Gerard spoke up firmly. “Mikey hasn’t done a thing to you, and you want to risk burning him?”
Mikey glanced back at them. “It’s fine. I want her to-”
“No!” Gerard pounced forward to knock the oil out of Ray’s hand, where it smashed on the floor. “Don’t touch him.”
Mikey struggled to reach out and try and stop them, like he was swimming through tight-strung bungee cords. “This isn’t you doing this.”
Ray pulled out a silver knife from her boot and pressed the pointed tip to Gerard’s chest. “I’m only going to take drastic measures if I have to.”
“Gee, I can’t move,” Mikey whimpered. “You have to help me. You’re the only person that can help me, please.”
They turned to face him, then, but their pupils had shrunk and their irises shone with an unnatural gold. They let out a guttural growl before swinging back at Mikey and throwing him into the wall. When Frank hurried to help him, Ray tried to intercede and pull Frank back, but Gerard got their hands on him first.
Frank elbowed them in the sternum, and Ray managed to pull him out of their grip in time. The cedar oil got all over Frank’s lower arms, which made Gerard take a step back. “Mikey?” Frank asked as he hugged Ray’s arm. “Mikey, are you alright?”
The simple answer was no. His brother was being psychologically tortured, he didn’t have anyone to depend on, and the sun was still up. On top of that, his back really fucking hurt. When he didn’t answer, though, Gerard stared down at him, and their eyes shifted again. From carnal anger to fear. They dropped to their knees, sniffling. “Mikey?”
Mikey nudged them away on instinct at first, but was quick to reach out for their hand. “Wait.”
Gerard sobbed. “I’m sorry. I’m just a burden to you.” They lowered their face, resting their forehead on Mikey’s knuckles. “All I’ve ever done was exhaust you.”
“That’s just what they’re telling you.” Mikey groaned as he pushed himself up on his knees, shaking his head. “Gee, they’re fucking with your emotions, aren’t they? Pulling out your fears. I’ve never hated you.”
“Don’t lie to me.” They quickly gripped his shoulders harshly and pinned him back. “You’ve wanted to get rid of me, every time that I’ve isolated you. You think I’m selfish. You think I’m cruel!”
“I think you’re scared!” Mikey’s eyes filled with tears. “The only people we can trust is each other, I know that. And you’re afraid that- I dunno. That trusting someone you don’t know might hurt us, or that I’ll lose trust in you somehow. But that’s not true. If you truly trust me, then listen to me. Not the ghosts.”
Gerard’s face relaxed, understanding, only for a split second. Then, their expression blanked, and they shoved Mikey through the door to the ballroom balcony. They both went toppling over the edge, and Mikey’s vision whited out when he hit the floor. THe head pouring through the twenty-foot window was so close to them, and stretching even closer with every minute the sun sank closer to the horizon.
“Mikey!” Frank scrambled back to the first floor with Ray hot on his heels, and he charged onto the floor to yank Gerard off of him. Gerard tripped him backwards and they slid harshly across the hardwood. When Gerard curled their lips back and hissed, Ray fired a warning shot across their ear.
“Don’t even think about it.” She kept the gun up, facing him. “Let Frank go.”
Gerard panted shakily. “Do it, then. It’s your job to kill us, isn’t it?”
Mikey shook his head. His arms and legs wouldn’t move, no matter how hard he tried to budge them. “Gerard, don’t. She doesn’t want to.”
“Just get off of Frank.” Her aim was steady, even with Frank still trying to shove them off of him. “He showed you kindness. He kept you alive this whole time, so do the same for him.”
“Gerard, the sun’s getting closer,” Frank reminded them. “You need to get out of here.”
Frank was right. Mikey couldn’t see anything now except light so bright, he was afraid his eyes were melting back into his skull. The sunbeams had crept onto his feet, and all other noises were starting to fade out as tinnitus buzzed harshly in his ears. Gerard only came back when Mikey was in danger. They could shake the ghosts off then they could see how much he truly needed them.
Closing his eyes, Mikey pushed himself back, further into the light. He was constricted again, but he couldn’t feel anything on his skin. He had lost the sense of feeling altogether; he was just floating and drowning at the same time. But he was scared. Gerard wasn’t with him anymore. Did they miss him? Did they even notice this time? Mikey tried to call out to them, but he couldn’t remember how to move his lips. He’d forgotten where his mouth was. He was just an abstract conscience.
Mikey managed to open his eyes again. The breeze was cool on his skin, even if he felt like he was made of sand. Able to crumble at the faintest twitch. The breeze sounded nice, at least, complemented by the gentle whispers overlapping each other. Mikey grimaced when he swallowed; his mouth was so coarse, and trying to sit up ached right into his marrow.
“Just lay down, it's okay.” Frank. Frank was okay. Frank's face was shrouded in shadow; the whole room was. The only true light in the room was the silver streaks of moonlight illuminating Ray's body in the distance. “Mikey, how're you feeling?”
Gerard was gripping Mikey's hand. “Why did you do that?” they sobbed.
Mikey cracked a weak smile. “It was the only way to stop the ghosts,” he croaked. “It worked, didn't it?”
“You fucking idiot, I almost lost you.” Gerard leaned in and kissed his forehead. “If you ever pull that again, I am jumping in there with you.”
Ray let out a quiet sigh. “They did, in all fairness. Or, at least, enough to pull you out of there.”
Mikey squeezed Gerard's hand and made a second attempt to sit up. Still, they pushed him to lay down, and he frowned. “Let me up.”
“You need to rest, Mikes.” Gerard shook their head. “Stop using all your energy.”
“Fine, fine.” Mikey closed his eyes again. “How are you doing, Gerard? Are you still in pain?”
“You're gonna have to be a little more specific there.” Gerard snorted, in spite of themself. “I think...I think everything's quiet now. My burns are all healed and everything, too.”
“You never answered us, by the way.” Frank pressed his elbows to his knees, wringing his hands slowly, though the answer seemed clear enough. He settled on another question, then. “How can we help you?”
Mikey blinked. “Gee and I promised that we'd get out of your way when the sun went down. I think we overstayed our welcome, haven't we?”
“Come on, man. You're obviously allowed to stay and recover, if you need to.” Ray tilted her head gently. “Gerard's right. Don't push yourself.”
The room feel quiet, and Mikey studied Ray's gentle nature. She looked so different, now. So at ease. She didn't have anything to worry about anymore. “Could we...” He was afraid to ask, but he had to. “Could we have a moment alone? Me and Ray.”
Gerard's disappointment was prominent, then, but they nodded and stood up. They kept holding onto Mikey's hand before they moved. “I'm gonna be right outside the door, okay? I love you, dumbass.” They finally let go when Frank circled around the bed and opened the door for them, and the door closed softly.
Ray sat down next to Mikey, then, and finally let his sit up. The corners of Mikey's lips crumbled a little as he smiled at her. “You helped Gerard,” he thought aloud. “You had to, right? You finally got the ghosts to leave them alone?”
She nodded, biting her tongue. “In all honesty, it was really easy to calm them down once they flocked to you. Something you- I guess the moment you fell, they were ready to snatch you up and bring you into their brood.” She cast her gaze down to his hands. “When they were all huddled together like that, I could cleanse them all in one easy go.”
“Gerard was released from their control, then,” Mikey thought aloud with a nod. “Frank was safe, after that? Did he get hurt at all?”
“Emotionally? Probably, I'll have to admit. Not enough to change his mind about you, though, but he's not gonna trust Gerard any time soon.” Her lips pursed. “He wouldn't leave your side when the ghosts let you go.”
A warmth flooded over Mikey's chest. “Oh...”
“I couldn't blame him. What you did, Mikey-” She closed the distance fully between them and gently pulled him into her arms. “You're so much braver than I thought. So selfless.” Her neck brushed over his jaw, her pulse was so close. He almost let instinct take over, enough for his mouth to open, but he turned away. “You alright?” she whispered.
Mikey settled himself back against the headboard. “Yeah, just-” He frowned. “That stunt took a lot out of me. Gerard was right, I do need to take it easy.”
Ray picked at her sleeve. “How fast will you heal if you feed?” she asked without hesitation. “Your brother also gave you some of their blood, but I dunno if it works the same way.”
“Yeah, our blood is different from living blood- it doesn't pack as much of a punch.” Mikey shrugged. “Are...you offering?”
Ray nodded. “At least, as long as it doesn't turn me, or anything.”
Mikey shook his head. “A bite wouldn’t be enough alone to do that, no. But it’s messier.”
“Let me make a quick trip to the kitchen and get a cup. Did you wanna talk about anything else?” She squeezed his hand gently.
Mikey's smile grew easier. “Thank you, Ray. So much.” He cleared his throat. “Is the house okay? I know it suffered some damage.”
Ray snorted. “The damages are minor, I’ll just have to replace a few floorboards here and there and...scrub the walls. The, uh, the artifacts weren't really damaged, just their casings. My point is that it's all fixable, but thank you for asking.”
“You care a lot about this place. I've seen you treating it kinda like a person.” Mikey snorted. “No judgment.”
She laughed with him. “Dana, our boss, really cares about this place. She does her best to preserve it, which is why I don't think she can part with the ghosts. They hold their own stories about the house, too.”
“That's an interesting perspective.” Mikey leaned his head back and stared at the ceiling softly. “Whatever gives you a paycheck, right?”
She grinned. “Yeah. Everything's gonna be just fine, and I'm gonna go get you some...food. Thanks again for saving Frankie.” The moon twinkled in her eyes, and she lingered a moment longer, pressed up against his side.
Mikey sat up straighter, and nodded back at her in understanding before she left the room. Gerard hurried back to his side the moment the door opened, eliciting a laugh. “Calm down, Gee.”
“They had their ear up against the door,” Frank teased, grinning as he took his spot at the edge of the bed. His sleeve rode up just enough that Mikey spotted a bandage. When Mikey glanced back at Gerard, he held their hand tighter.
“How did you heal your burns?” he whispered, flipping both of their hands over. Not a marred scar in place.
Frank turned his face fully away, but Gerard looked Mikey in the eye. “Frank helped out.” It was obvious enough, but they felt obligated to admit it.
Mikey crawled over to Frank, then, and kissed his cheek softly. “I’m never going to forget you.”
Frank’s brow knotted. “Don’t act like this is a goodbye, Mikey.” Gerard stared out the window again, sighing to themself. They were both free to go.
“I don’t want it to be,” Mikey admitted, wrapping his arms loosely around Frank’s arm. “I’m not ready to go just yet. Could...could we help you clean up? How are the ghosts doing?”
“You tell us.” Frank nodded at him. “Do you feel their presence around?”
“They’ve been quiet since Mikey fell into the sun,” Gerard thought aloud, sighing softly. “I think he scared them. When- when Mikey fell, they all screamed at once before going silent.”
Mikey’s lips pressed together as he thought. “I wanna pray for them. Just to show that Gerard and I come in peace. I don’t think they really gave us that chance earlier, but it’ll give the nuns what they want.”
“Are you well enough to get up yet?” Frank gently rubbed Mikey’s back.
“Just wait until Ray gives you some food.” Gerard stood up to get a better look at the moon. “I should go clean up that secret room. Scrub all those names clean.”
When Ray returned with a warm coffee mug, she passed it off to Mikey as she nodded at Gerard. “That’d be greatly appreciated.”
Mikey soaked in the heat of the mug with his hands wrapped around it, and he drank eagerly. “I wanna say a prayer to the ghosts,” he told Ray after he swallowed, cleaning his lips off with the tip of his tongue. “If only to appease them.”
Ray smiled softly. “I’m sure they’d accept that, Mikey. That’s really thoughtful of you.”
Once Mikey finished the drink, he moved his legs over the edge of the bed. Frank was quick to stand up first and help him, and if Mikey wrapped his arms around Frank’s side, it was definitely because he needed the support.
“Hi,” Frank whispered, grinning. “You’re doing good, Mikey.”
Mikey snorted softly. “I just need another second.”
Gerard loosely wrapped their arms around themself, and they took a deep breath. “Right. We’ll help you both clean the place before we go, it’s the least we can do. I’ll start on my mess.” They rubbed Mikey’s shoulder softly.
He hesitated. “Are you sure you’re gonna be okay on your own?”
Gerard took his hand. “It’s me, Mikey. I promise I’m not going anywhere this time. Don’t let me get in the way of your friends.”
Mikey grinned and hugged them tight. “I love you, Gee. Let me know if you need help, okay?”
Their gaze shifted between Frank and Ray, and he nodded at Mikey. “Just help your friends clean up. Gimme an hour, I’ll fix things.” When they walked out of the room, they headed over to the mirror door and walked down the stairs, keeping it open.
Ray pressed up to Mikey’s other side, taking a deep breath. “You guys sure are a strange pair.” She laughed softly, tucking her hair behind her ear.
“I could say the same thing about you and Frankie.” Mikey giggled faintly as Frank reached up and twirled a lock of Mikey’s hair around his finger.
Ray rolled her eyes with a smirk. “Thankfully, there’s not a whole lot to do. I’ll fix the floor, you guys...well-” She hesitated. “Nevermind. You fix the hole in the floor, I’ll get the ballroom.”
“Is it bad?” Mikey frowned in embarrassment.
She waved a hand loosely at him. “Nah, it’s alright. Let’s just get this done so we can go home.” She ruffled Frank’s hair before taking the empty mug again and walking off.
Frank sighed. “Alright. We’ve got caulk in one of the storage closets out there, we can just fill it up and sand it down.” He guided Mikey over to one door after the other, humming hesitantly. “If I could remember which closet it was...”
“This place has too many rooms.” Mikey laughed and rolled his eyes. “Can’t believe nuns would decide to live in such a crazy mansion like this.”
“Yeah, especially now it’s pretty much back to being a party house.” Frank opened another door and sighed in relief. “Good. You wanna hold my caulk?” He turned around with a cheeky grin.
Mikey held his lip between his teeth and took the tube from him. “I’d love to, Frankie.”
Frank giggled quietly and pulled out a few sheets of sandpaper, a brush, and a small bucket of wood finish. “Let’s make this quick.”
“Oh, you don’t like to take your time?” Mikey pouted, backing up when Frank closed the door.
“If I could with you, then I would.” Frank gently held Mikey’s chin for a moment and gazed at his face, then closed the closet door and guided him over to the bullet hole in the floor.
When Mikey knelt down and picked a few splinters off, he pressed his lips tightly together. One, two, three, four little bits of pointy wood. “I’m really sorry for leaving you alone in that room, Frank. I didn’t want you getting caught in the crossfires of...whatever happened to Gerard.”
Frank started laying the caulk over the bullet hole. “I was scared for Ray. I had no idea she lived this kind of life, fighting m-” He stopped himself. “Real monsters, anyway.”
Mikey glanced up at him with a smirk. “I’m not offended, Frankie.” He paused, reaching out to touch his hand. “And I really want you to know, that kiss. I didn’t do that to trick you. I really wanted to, and-” A smile peeked through his lips. “And I really want to, again.”
Frank took a deep breath in, quiet for a second. But his shoulders were light. “Well, that’s a relief.” He laughed softly. “You’re a great kisser.”
Mikey laughed his tension out and lowered his head again. “We should probably finish this up first, right?”
“It’s not gonna take much longer,” Frank promised him. He sanded the caulk down when it dried and painted the first layer of finishing over it. “...Dana’s definitely gonna ask questions.”
“I’m sorry.” Mikey still smiled timidly, anyway. “Do you think she’s gonna be really mad?”
“Probably not.” Frank shrugged. “It’s just a minor hole in the floor. She cares more about all the other stuff, and it’s not like guests would notice.”
“Right.” Mikey shifted around to sit next to him, and gently pressed their shoulders together. “Thanks for being so understanding. I’m sure you’ve had one hell of a day today.”
“Honestly?” Frank brushed his nose against Mikey’s neck. “I’d do it all over again if it meant still getting to meet you.”
Before Mikey could think, his lips were on Frank’s again. He reached up to pull his face even harder against his, whining hard.
Frank broke the kiss, but kept his lips close enough to brush against Mikey’s. “C’mon, let’s sit down,” he whispered, smoothing his thumb over Mikey’s cheekbones. He pecked Mikey’s lips one more time before helping him over to his feet, giggling as they stayed pressed against each other and stumbling over to a camelback couch a few feet away from the ballroom doors.
Frank gripped Mikey’s hair as he kissed him, shuddering when his tongue brushed over Mikey’s fangs.
“I won’t hurt you,” Mikey whispered when he pulled back, his long lashes fluttering. “I just want- I wanna make you feel good, Frankie.” His thighs squeezed Frank’s hips as he settled in his lap. “Do you trust me?”
Frank choked out a little laugh. “As long as you swear never to lock me in a room alone again,” he teased, brushing his thumb over Mikey’s cheekbone. He kissed the corner of his lips as his hips bucked up on instinct.
Mikey tugged at Frank’s jeans, whining. “Can I?” he begged softly, kissing down Frank’s jaw. “You said I could hold your caulk.”
Frank had to turn his head away from laughing so hard, and he immediately pulled his zipper down and shoved his boxers down to his thighs. “You’re amazing, Mikey.”
He smirked and sucked lightly on the base of his neck, wrapping his lithe fingers around Frank’s fully hard dick and stroked quickly. “You’re so beautiful, Frank. Most gorgeous man I’ve ever seen.”
Frank whimpered out a laugh and arched his back under Mikey. “You really know how to sweet-talk a guy, huh?” He reached down for Mikey’s pants as well, confused when Mikey pulled his hips back from him.
Mikey hummed and kissed him again. “Just tryin’ to warm you up first,” he whispered against his lips, and after pressing his thumb in circles around the head of his dick, he started lowering his body. He slid his feet down to the edge of the couch and folded his knees up to his chest, and thankfully, Frank picked up quickly and sat up to rest his back against the opposite arm. “Thank you,” Mikey murmured.
Frank snorted and rolled his eyes. “I’ve never had anyone be this polite to me during a blowjob.”
“Fine, maybe I’ll be mean to you instead.” Mikey tapped Frank’s thigh, trying to put on a façade of confidence to seem like he actually knew what he was doing. He couldn’t let know that Mikey actually hadn’t sucked dick in years, and on top of that, he could only count on one hand how many times he’d done it in his life. At least he didn’t need to breathe, which was a big help, and he at least knew what nerves to touch. He promised to be mean, so he just started off squeezing Frank at the base and flicking his tongue over the head.
Frank was leaning back more at this point with his eyes closed and his lips parted to pant softly. The collar of his shirt rode down more, revealing a tattoo in the dip of his throat that nearly distracted Mikey; it read ‘LET LOVE IN’ backwards, and in any other situation, he could have sat down and psychoanalyzed that. But the pause had dragged on long enough that Frank glanced back down at him. “You alright, man?”
Mikey smiled and nodded. “Yeah, just appreciating you.”
“Could you do a little less appreciating with your eyes and more with your mouth?” Frank actually stuck his lower lip out. Mikey giggled and closed his eyes so Frank didn’t have to see him roll them. Nevertheless, he decided to show him some mercy and opened his mouth more to take half of him in. He wrapped his lips around him tightly and took his time easing the rest of his cock closer to his throat. The way Frank gripped his hair harder and feeling him twitch against his tongue stroked his ego a little more. He pulled back again, still stroking the base, and letting his spit drip down the shaft to ease his hand more.
It got easier to figure out what Frank liked when the sensations shot down to his own dick, tight and borderline uncomfortable in his pants. But he could feel how adding suction and licking the underside of the head really got Frank going when he could feel it on himself as well. He whined harder, wishing he could tell Frank how good it was without having to stop again. Even if it was self-centered.
Frank’s chest rose and fell dramatically the more he got into it, and this time, Mikey was able to actually keep bobbing his head and watch his body writhe until he could take his dick in completely, his throat vibrating gently as he hummed. Just when he was getting the hang of what Frank liked, he coughed and pulled back.
“Are you actually done fixing the floor?” Ray stood behind Frank’s shoulder and tapped the back of his head. Mikey wiped the spit from his lips with the back of his hand.
Frank huffed, still shaking a little. “Yeah, of course we are.” He nudged her back in the ribs. “I promise not to make a mess of the couch, either.”
Mikey swallowed, keeping his hands pressed to Frank’s thighs. “Hey, Ray...” he croaked, cracking a timid smile. “Would you let me thank you, too?” His eyes grazed up and down her body.
“He don’t bite, but he sure knows how to talk.” Frank snorted, and pulled the bottom of his cardigan up and over his hips for temporary coverage.
Ray smiled back at him. “Then could you shut him up for me, Frank?”
“I think I can manage that.” Frank’s eyes gazed over the couch and he nodded to himself; there was a plan brewing in his mind and Mikey couldn’t wait to see it unfurl. He stood up, carefully holding his jeans at his thighs as he moved to stand on the other side of the couch’s arm. “C’mere, Mikey. Lie down on your back.” He placed an extra cushion down to support him, and gently tilted Mikey’s head back until it was upside-down.
Ray hummed as she kicked one leg out of her pants. “We gotta make this quick, is that okay, Mikey?”
He lifted his head again and nodded at her. “I-I don’t mind,” he panted softly, lifting his hips as she tugged his pants down pretty aggressively. God, she was strong, and she liked to show it.
When she threw her leg over his hips and tucked it between his thigh and the couch, she leaned over and slid his shirt up moreto tuck her hands under it. She pressed her weight down into her hands and grinded her wet cunt down against his hips, then immediately paused. “Uh-”
Frank blinked. “What?” He was easing Mikey’s head back again, gently combing his fingers through his hair.
“How have you been getting blown knowing Hennessy’s staring at you?” Ray’s brows raised, a half-smile twitching on her lips. “Didn’t know you were into voyeurism.”
Frank peeked over his shoulder at the taxidermy zebra with its dull, half-lidded eyes pointing in their direction, and he fell into a fit of giggles. “It spices things up, don’t you think?”
“Frankie...” Ray couldn’t help but laugh with him, and shook her head. Mikey was grinning, too, reaching back and grabbing at Frank’s ass eagerly. He could feel Ray take a deep, slow breath in his own lungs, and a wave of calm washed over him like he’d never felt before. It wasn’t forced, it felt so natural and euphoric that it made his eyes roll back and all his muscles drain their tension. “Oh-” Ray murmured, spanning her fingers out. “Shit, Mikey.”
“You ready?” Frank asked, gently stroking his jaw. “You look so good like this, I gotta say.”
Mikey’s heart fluttered, and he let out a shaky hum. “Fuck my throat,” he murmured before opening his mouth. Frank grinned and brushed the head of his dick around Mikey’s lips and eased it into his mouth with precision, careful to avoid the fangs again. Mikey closed his eyes again and fully relaxed, even when Ray held his dick stead and sank her cunt down on him. The curly hair covering it was soft and dewy. His throat was so tight around Frank, verging on the edge of painful, but Frank’s slow and gentle motions helped him adjust easily enough.
Ray gasped as she leaned forward, pressing her palm over Mikey’s heart. “Frank, holy shit. Your dick’s moving- like, I can see it.”
“Does it hurt, man?” Frank was clearly getting lost in the bliss easily, and he snorted as Mikey awkwardly twisted his wrist to give the ‘OK’ sign. “You’re so tight, it’s so hot.”
Mikey couldn’t even really make any noise anymore besides slurps and gurgles the more Frank got comfortable thrusting into him. With that and the way Ray rode his dick, shivering and grunting softly, he rocked his hips up against her rhythm in some attempt to do something besides just lay there and let them use him.
“That’s it, Mikey, shit.” He could hear the smile in her voice, and he desperately wished he could see her face. Still, he could feel both of their pleasure at once, which made him wonder if they could, in turn, feel the absolute rapture taking him over. He reached down and gripped at Ray’s hips when she leaned down again and kissed his neck, her breath hot and sweet against his ear.
He wished he could stay like this forever. His fingers squeezing at her love handles and Frank’s warm fingers on his scalp, he felt loved. The sort of love he’d always been craving when he was on the road, when he stared longingly at strangers he was only allowed to have brief small talks with before moving on. At this point, he didn’t know if he was crying because he was so happy, or because of Frank triggering the reflex. Either way, his face was a mess, and he couldn’t be happier about it.
Mikey’s body started tensing up quickly again, he could feel it all the way down to the soles of his feet. He writhed under Ray’s body, pulling a hand back to press his thumb in rapid circles against her clit. She must have been biting her lip to keep herself more quiet, and her trembling ultimately sent him over the edge. His eyes shut tight as his other hand dug tightly into her soft skin when he came, arching his back up as hard as he could.
Ray slowed down for a moment, taking his dick in fully and sitting on his hips. She gave his ribs a gentle pat. “You alright, there, buddy?”
Frank pulled back and Mikey gasped as the rush of air brought on a whole new wave of relief, and swallowed the accumulated spit in his mouth. “Fuck, oh my god,” he panted. His voice was fully gone for a second. “Yeah. I’m so good. You guys...” He wrapped a hand around Frank’s shaft again. “Want you to fill my hole with your caulk.”
Frank snorted out a bright laugh and hunched over to kiss Mikey’s wrecked mouth. “Can we keep you, please?”
Mikey’s chest warmed, and he whined needily. “Wanna be yours.” His whole brain was shut off, he almost felt out of his body. But he tried to pull Frank’s cock back to his mouth as gently as he could while Ray laughed softly and pressed her firm tits against his chest, letting him thrust up into her again. Frank slid back into his throat, and took some mercy on him when he pulled back enough to let Mikey swallow his cum. In turn, Ray threw her head back and squeezed Mikey’s hips shakily before she laid hot kisses over his collarbone.
“Do you think Hennessy got off on that?” Ray smirked when she eased herself off of Mikey and helped him get his pants back up.
Frank rolled his eyes heavily, getting his pants up as well. “I’m never gonna be able to look at that stupid horse the same way again.”
Mikey sat up, and a needy whine escaped him the moment Ray lifted her full weight off of him to fix her pants. “Wait.”
Ray blinked as she slid her leg back in. “You okay?” Her voice softened immediately.
Mikey almost reeled back in embarrassment, and he pulled his knees up more to his chest. “Uh- are you guys...leaving now?”
Frank moved the cushion aside so he could sit down in the empty space next to him. He turned his face, his hand cradling his jaw as he kissed him softly, and Mikey almost cried again. “No, not yet.”
Ray pressed up against his other side and rubbed his back. “We really should get your face washed up.” She laughed and rested her forehead on his shoulder, her curls tickling his cheek.
“In a minute,” Mikey exhaled, closing his eyes again as he leaned more against Frank comfortably. He could have fallen asleep like this, maybe he did for a moment there, just content under Frank peppering kisses against his temple and Ray’s thick arms draped around his waist.
“Do you really have to go?” Frank whined softly, shaking Mikey out of his comfort zone.
He did have to. Gerard was in the speakeasy, and he could imagine their voice in his head telling him that it was time to go. Lifting his head to give Frank a little glance, he nodded. “Lemme clean up, and I’ll get back to you guys.” He gave Frank one last little kiss and squeezed Ray’s hand before trudging over to the closest bathroom and dunking his face in a sinkful of cool water. He couldn’t see himself, or if he looked better or worse by the time he dried off, but he mellowed out. The impulse to count things was gone, but there was a slight emptiness, knowing that his time here was just about over.
Sighing, he left the bathroom and wandered over to the mirror door, surprised to see that Gerard had turned the lights on. The air was a little more damp, but less in an abandoned sense and more soapy. They were tenderly scrubbing at the cracks between the bricks, only pausing to look back at Mikey. “Hey.” They smiled before focusing back on the task.
“Hi,” Mikey whispered back, and picked a rag up to help them work on the edge of the wall. “How you feelin’?”
They shrugged. “I just kinda got out of my head while I’ve been doing this. Still don’t know who all these names are, whether there’s this many ghosts trapped in here...sucks that they don’t get along more.”
“Ray and Frank got it handled.” Mikey tried to keep his voice down to try and hide the fact that his throat was wrecked. Whether Gerard did notice or not, they didn’t let Mikey know. He just took care in wiping the bricks clean, grateful that the monotony droned out his worries. With every name he erased, he thanked them in a faint whisper. It was better than counting this time around.
Gerard ruffled Mikey’s hair softly. “Thanks for comin’ to help down here,” All the blood was wiped off by the time Mikey got to 92. “I think we’re all done now, right?”
Mikey turned to look at the bottles on the shelf. 20 on the top row, 18 on the middle.
“Mikey.” Gerard squeezed his shoulder gently. “We have to get moving, there’s only so much time we’ve got before we can find somewhere else safe.”
“I know.” He knew there was no way he could convince them to stay. Even in the city, just to stay close to Frank and Ray, but they had their own lives. And this was just the way Mikey was used to doing things. “Okay.”
Gerard hugged him softly. “We’ll pass by this area again sometime,” they promised, a gentle smile curling on their mouth. “Let’s go.”
Mikey just bit his tongue and nodded, wishing that he could escape his thoughts as easily this time. But he remained in the moment, fifteen stairs going back up to the ground floor hallway, while Ray and Frank waited in the foyer. He tried his hardest to smile, trying to cling to these last few minutes as they stepped outside for the first time since this morning.
The air stung Mikey’s eyes hard, the heat still lingering from the long day. Frank pulled Mikey into a warm hug, and he took a moment just to feel the soft yarn, the loose knit pattern of his cardigan. “You promise to call us?” Frank asked, slipping something thin into Mikey’s pocket.
“Of course, Frankie.” He pulled his face back to kiss him again, unashamed in front of Gerard.
“Which direction are you guys heading?” Ray locked up the front door.
Gerard tucked their hands in their pockets and shrugged. “I dunno. North, I guess? Washington sounds pretty cool for this time of year.”
Mikey snorted. “Better than California,” he muttered. “Gee says the sun doesn’t set in Alaska in the summer, do you believe that shit?”
“Oh, that’s true.” Ray nodded. “It’s something about the Arctic Circle, the earth is positioned where it’s pointing closer to the sun or something. The sun doesn’t go down all the way.”
Mikey’s jaw dropped. “Get outta here. Really?”
She nodded slowly with a long hum. “But on the contrary, the sun doesn’t come up in the winter. It’s cold as fuck, though, as I assume you’d imagine.”
“Does that mean it’s hot in the summer?” Frank blinked, and glanced back over at Mikey. “It can’t be, right? It’s Alaska.”
“Well, I’d say we should go find out for ourselves, but I think I’ve gotten enough experience with the sun for my taste.” Mikey let out a little nervous laugh. “Ray won’t be around to clean my dust up next time.”
Ray rolled her eyes. “Just make sure that you guys check in at some point and let us know you’re safe, yeah?” She gently nudged Gerard in the ribs. “Even you, Gerard the Grump.”
Their nostrils flared, and they crossed their arms. “Well, aren’t you clever, Ray the Rough. Ray the Raucous?”
“I’d say rough fits pretty well.” Mikey broke out into a timid grin as he eyed her up and down. “We’ll definitely be keeping in touch with you.”
Gerard narrowed their eyes, and their shoulders sagged more. “Thanks again for not throwing us out of the house,” they murmured to Ray and Frank. “C’mon. The clock’s ticking.”
“Oh! Mikey.” Frank perked up. “Did you...get to say your prayer, after all?”
“Yeah, I did. Bye Frank,” Mikey whispered before following Gerard out through the front gate. He kept his eyes up at the stars just to avoid whatever face Gerard must have been making.
Their voice was careful, at least. Calculated. “You got to know them pretty well, huh?”
“Yeah, I’d like to think that I did.” Mikey linked arms with him. “They’re good people. They care a lot, like you do.”
Gerard scoffed lightly. “You don’t have to suck up to me, Mikey, I know you’re not gonna go running back to them.”
Mikey smirked. “I might.” He held his chin up as they wandered down the hills of the Moreno Highlands together, watching the moon overhead.
six months later
“Gee, please.” Mikey held his hand out. “You can spare a few fucking quarters. I really need to check in with Frankie.”
Gerard scrunched their nose and sneered. “Can’t believe you’re still attached to him.” They dug into their pocket and handed the change over, then sat down in the driver’s seat. “Make it quick!”
Mikey sighed and marched over to the payphone, chewing on his lip. When he shoved the quarters into the slot, he tapped idly on the side of the phone as he waited for the operator, and got himself connected to the Paramour. He checked his watch again; the sun had just set, but they should still be at work. And Frank told Mikey he and Ray still had the job, last time he checked in a month prior.
He let out a breath of relief when someone picked up. “Paramour residence,” Frank said in a hurry.
“Frank! Hi-” Mikey beamed. “It’s Mikey. How’ve you been? Gerard and I kinda went on a round trip, and now we’re in Van-”
“I’m really sorry, man, but can we talk tomorrow? I can give you my personal number, but Ray’s got a doctor’s appointment and I promised I’d drive her.” Frank didn’t sound too confident, and it made Mikey’s bright expression freeze over. “Mikes?”
“What happened? Is she okay?” Mikey’s voice dropped softly.
Of course, when catastrophe struck, it always snowballed. The sound of Gerard gasping got Mikey turning on his heel just in time to watch them drop out of the open car door and onto the pavement. “Gee!”
“Mikes?” Frank asked again. Little did he know that Mikey had left the phone hanging off the wire to race over to his brother. “I’m sorry, but we gotta go. Call the house tomorrow.”
Gerard’s eyes rolled back under fluttered lashes, and their head jerked away from Mikey. They whined out in pain, fingers clenching so tight that their hands shook. “Heat,” they whispered. “Searing, dark heat.”
“It’s okay. It’s gonna be okay, just let it pass.” Mikey rubbed their chest in slow circles. Thankfully, it seemed like a quick one, and he brushed their hair back once they could move their limbs again.
The first thing Gerard did was clap their hands over their ears and cried out. “They’re screaming.”
Mikey hushed them. “Okay. C’mon, let’s get you off the ground.” Sliding a hand under their back, he looked around at a few people staring. He glared back at them as Gerard groaned, and he pulled their arm around his shoulders to get them on the passenger’s side again. When he twisted the gas cap back on, he all but jumped into the driver’s seat and peeled off, just to get away from the area. “Can you talk about what you saw?”
Gerard stared out the windshield blankly, but they sat up straighter. “Ray.”
Mikey’s core tightened. “Ray was screaming?” He frowned hard. “What happened? Is she gonna get hurt?”
Gerard turned their gaze quickly over to Mikey. “There were a ton of panicked voices. I couldn’t...see anything except-” Gerard bit their tongue. “Dark. Dark and damp and...everyone was scared. Nobody knew what to do.”
Mikey’s jaw clenched. “Frank said he had to take her to the doctor’s. Do you think she’s sick? Or injured?” He kept his focus on the dark road. “I wanna go back and see her.” He took the first exit he saw off the highway.
“Where are you going?” Gerard rubbed their forehead. “I thought we were going the other way.”
Mikey shook his head. “I’m going to the airport. You can choose to come with me, but I have to make sure she and Frank are okay.”
Gerard’s eyes widened. “Are you crazy?”
“Yeah.” Mikey huffed. “I am. And they’re my friends. I’m allowed to have those, you know.”
Gerard scowled and crossed their arms tightly. “Fine. I’ll go with you.”
It was a harrowingly slow experience, as getting through airports usually is, and Mikey’s head was buzzing the whole time. As they sat in their terminal, no luggage, no carry-ons, just them in slightly broken vinyl seats, Mikey’s knee was bouncing rapidly.
Gerard sighed in sympathy and rubbed his shoulder. “Hey. Ray’s strong, she’s gonna be fine. Okay?” they whispered. “You’re...a good person for worrying about her.”
Mikey glanced back over at them, and nodded. “I dunno, I just- I don’t wanna lose either of them, y’know? It’s not every day we come across people that forgive us for what we have to do.”
“I get it.” Mikey could tell that Gerard wished they didn’t from the crease in their brow, the twitch in their lower eyelid, but it was the thought that counted. Regardless, they still did get it. They cared about Mikey, above everything.
Mikey checked his watch again when he boarded the plane. Takeoff was scheduled at 9, which meant that they would make it to Los Angeles by midnight. They still had a good amount of night time to find Frank and Ray, though he knew it would be harder if they weren’t going to be at work.
Mikey’s muscles ended up aching with how tense he was through the whole flight, no matter how much Gerard tried to soothe him. The three hours they were in the air dragged on, and eventually Mikey had to settle with pulling his feet up and curling his body as tightly as he could.
But the plane eventually did land. They couldn’t get off the plane fast enough, and Mikey found his way to a phone again after he desperately searched his pockets for the number Ray gave him six months ago. Relief washed over him when his fingers clenched around the crumpled, worn paper, and he ran to the nearest phone.
One, two, three, four rings, and then an unfamiliar voice. “How’d you get this number?”
Mikey cleared his throat. There was no time to think, no time to keep the stranger waiting. “I wanna talk to Ray Toro. She said I could call. M-my name is Mikey Way.”
The voice grew distant, then, muttering to someone else in the room, Mikey guessed. His chest tightened with every second, his ribs aching under his thin skin. There was some quiet shuffling, and then the same voice. “You got a pen and paper?”
“Um...yeah,” Mikey lied. He was better at memorizing the address the stranger was giving him, and he nodded as he glanced back over at Gerard. “Thank you, we’ll be over in a few hours.” When he hung up, he pressed his forehead to the wall to get his thoughts together.
Gerard pressed their hand on his upper arm. “What did they say?”
Mikey took a deep breath. “She just told me where Ray lives. We should probably eat first before we go over, it might be a trap.”
“Christ.” Gerard pinched their brow. “Mikey, LA is swarming with hunters. Remember?”
“We know to be more discreet, then, come on.” He grabbed their wrist and tugged them along out of the terminal. It really was easy enough, as long as neither of them took too much blood, they could just sneak into the bathroom and pick on an unsuspecting person, drink enough to satiate the hunger, then move on. No big deal.
They got out of the airport as quickly as they could and shuttled out to the inner city. “Do you know where you’re going?” Gerard whispered to Mikey as they pressed up against his side on the bus.
“We’ll figure it out.” Mikey kept his eyes out the window, clenching his jaw. He felt sick the more he let his thoughts fester. What if Ray was leading them into a trap? What if Ray was on her deathbed? No, Frank would have sounded a lot more freaked out if that was the case. That just meant that he would have to keep his guard up instead.
Mikey took Gerard over to a closed-down newsstand and stole a map from it. “The person on the phone said...she lived about 10 blocks north of here. So it looks like we’re close."
Gerard folded the map back up and stuck it in their pocket. “Then let’s get a move on. It’s weirdly quiet out, and I don’t like that.”
Mikey rubbed their arm softly before he started walking, but already he could feel eyes on them. He kept his back straight and his shoulders relaxed, and he tried to stick to the streetlamps just to stay on course.
When they stopped at a darker street corner, a woman with short, curly hair stood on the other side of the street, facing them. When Mikey looked across the intersection, there was another woman with her hand tucked into her open coat. Mikey gripped Gerard’s jacket tighter. “You okay?” he whispered to them.
“We’re not even fucking doing anything,” Gerard hissed, and turned to look behind them. They were shocked to see another vampire cornering them off.
“Guys, calm down.” Ray stepped out of the adjacent alley and waved her hand, and everyone seemed to relax when she smiled at Mikey and Gerard. “Welcome back, Mikey.”
He blinked as he hesitated. “...Gerard’s here, too,” he thought aloud, unsure of what else to say.
Ray hummed and nodded. “Yeah, I see. Good to see the both of you.” She stepped forward into the closest streetlamp, which made her round stomach really stick out in the light.
Mikey froze, and he couldn’t really wrap his head around what he was looking at. But Ray pressed a hand over the bump, a silent confirmation to him that, yes, she actually was pregnant.
“Let’s go talk.” Ray gestured for everyone to follow her down the alley.