Gerard was already in bed when Mikey crept up to their room. He was curled up to face the window, no sound in the room except for the clicking of Gerard's rosary beads. Mikey watched him for a minute, feeling guilty that he'd kissed Ray, that it was making him feel so good when Gerard was so unhappy. Then he felt mad that he couldn't tell Gerard about it, but he wanted to hold onto the good feeling so he pushed it out of his mind, undressing quickly. He climbed into the bed and curled up close behind Gerard, like when they were kids. He put his arm around Gerard's waist and fumbled for his hands, folding his fingers over Gerard's when he found them. He pressed his cheek against the back of Gerard's neck and said softly, "You did the right thing."
Gerard clung tightly to Mikey's hand. "Yeah," he said thickly. "It doesn't feel like it."
Now Mikey was so close, he could feel that Gerard's breathing was quick and uneven for all that it was quiet. He held on and tried to soothe Gerard into sleep, but he was still awake when Mikey dozed off. Still clinging to Mikey's hand.
The next day blew. Mikey was so mad at Frank for saying that he was going to quit on them, for not coming to Mikey first, that he couldn't even begin to feel sorry about what had happened with him and Gerard last night. Plus he wasn't even supposed to have heard any of it in the first place, and he felt so guilty it was like a thing coating of dirt all over his skin. Frank kept looking at him like Mikey was the one breaking his heart, which made Mikey mad at Gerard, except then he'd look at Gerard's face and the deep, sleepless hollows under his eyes and then he'd feel guilt wash through him again, so strong it drowned everything out, until he'd remember what Frank said about going home, and then he was mad all over again.
The only time he felt better was when he caught Ray's eyes. It was so weird how things could just change overnight, Mikey thought. Here was this guy who'd gone from being Ray to being Ray, and every time he caught Ray looking at him he had to look away really fast so he wouldn't smile and give himself away. Of course then he'd look back at Frank or Gerard and be plunged back into a whirlpool of gross confusion again. Mikey really didn't deal well with multiple emotions. It made him so uneasy that he wouldn't be surprised if his skin just peeled itself off his body and went crawling off across the floor to get away from the atmosphere in the house. And on top of everything, every time there was a noise outside they all jumped, thinking it might be whoever had been pulling Mark's strings.
"I'm so worried about them," Gerard said in the afternoon, when Mikey was making coffee in the kitchen and trying not to think about Gerard and Frank yelling at each other in there the night before. "The kids, I mean. Who knows what's happening to them?"
Mikey added sugar to the mugs and stirred. "I guess there's not much we can do until necromancer guy makes a move, huh?"
"I wish he'd just get it over with," Bob said grumpily. He was sitting at the kitchen table cleaning his axe and trying not to get in the way of Ray's herbs. "This waiting is such bullshit."
"I'm with you," Ray agreed, measuring something out into a dish. "But the longer he waits, the longer we have to prepare."
Bob made a face. "It's not preparation if we don't know what the hell we're preparing for. It's just sitting on our asses."
Brian came in, folding his phone up. He said, "All right, they're sending cars for us in an hour. Does anyone know where Frank is?"
"I think he's napping," Mikey said quickly, but then Frank appeared behind Brian in the doorway. "Or he's awake."
Brian gave Frank one of those looks that made it obvious he was worried, but didn't want to give anybody an excuse to start yelling at anyone else. "Frankie, you're coming to the show, right?"
Frank nodded and moved wordlessly into the kitchen, cutting a wide berth past Gerard on his way to the coffee.
"I think I'm going to skip it," Gerard said suddenly, looking determinedly down at his mug. "I have a lot of reading to do anyway."
Brian frowned. "Are you sure? What if something goes down?"
Gerard waved his hand. "You can call me. Look, like Bob says, we don't know what we're up against at all, and someone needs to keep hitting the books. I actually think Pete is probably safe for now. We don't want to be caught out."
"Well, okay," Brian said doubtfully. He didn't look at all convinced, but you couldn't argue with Gerard when he'd made up his mind about something, no matter how stupid that something was.
The show that night was way bigger than any of the others had been. "This place is huge," Ray said in Mikey's ear as they peered out from the side of the stage. His hand rested on the small of Mikey's back, and Mikey pushed into it a little. "Ten thousand kids is a fucking lot, dude."
"Seriously," Mikey agreed. He couldn't help but wonder what it would feel like, to go out on stage in front of that many people, to be in that kind of band. The openers had already been on and played, and the place was still filling up, kids filing in from all the exits. It seemed like every single one of the seats in the balcony was taken, and the crowd on the floor was enormous. And this was just one city - Mikey knew that what he and the guys did was important, but he'd spent his whole life before that dreaming about being in a band, and he couldn't help but still think that it would be totally fucking cool.
When the lights went down, the kids went crazy, screaming and waving their cellphones and glowsticks around, and they only got wilder when the show started for real. The band were obviously super-happy to be playing back in their home town, so much so that Mikey felt an ache in his chest when he thought about Jersey.
The show went on and there was no sign of Mark, or Danny, or anybody with any designs on Pete's soul, and by the time Pete announced that they were about to play their last song of the evening, Mikey was almost relaxed. Frank was standing a few feet away, watching Cortez fiddle with buttons and leads. He hadn't smiled all day, and when he looked up and met Mikey's eyes, he looked so completely miserable that Mikey thought oh, fuck this and was about to go over and give him a motherfucking hug, when something caught his eye on the other side of the stage.
It was Gerard, yelling something in Bob's ear and gesturing frantically at the stage. Brian was there too, and when he looked over at Mikey he looked so freaked out that the bottom of Mikey's stomach dropped sharply, making him reel and flail his hand out for support.
"Mikey?" It was Frank, curling his fingers into Mikey's sleeve. "Mikey, what's going on?"
Mikey pointed, and Frank followed his eyes, cursing when he saw Gerard. Mikey thumped Ray on the arm to get his attention too, by which time Brian was waving his arms and mouthing something that Mikey couldn't make out.
"Text it to me," he yelled pointlessly, and then tried to mime it. On stage, Pete was handing his bass off to Cortez and climbing onto Charlie's back, leaning out into the audience with his arms outstretched. On the other side of the stage, Gerard did something Mikey didn't understand: he pointed at his own eyes, then out into the crowd.
When Mikey turned to look at the audience, he had to blink twice to make sure that he was really seeing what he was seeing. The kids' faces were totally distorted; Mikey could only make out the first few rows in the crush, but their mouths were dragging sharply down at the corners like some kind of grotesque mask, and as they grasped at Pete's hands and arms with their worshipful, greedy fingers, they gazed at him with giant, horribly stretched eyes.
"What the fuck?" Frank breathed in Mikey's ear.
"Their eyes are big," Mikey said, feeling like he was going to throw up. He tore his eyes away from the kids and looked across the stage to see Gerard, Bob and Brian disappearing backstage. "Their eyes are so big because they're looking at God."
Ray shook his head. "Mikey, what are you talking about?"
"It's not Pete," Mikey realized aloud. "It's not Pete they want to drain. It's the fans."
