Fairy-tales. He always loves it when I tell him fairy-tales. Especially ones with unicorns and fairies and big palaces with a big happy family swanning around inside it's secure walls.
I've been telling them to him, to Mikey, ever since we were little kids and we couldn't go out to play in the park because of the imminent threat of being mugged by some druggie searching out an extra dollar for his next hit. Actually, I could have gone outside to the park with his big brother because we're both a full three years older than Mikes, I just chose not to after seeing the way a ten-year-old Mikey's eyes would start watering at the thought of being left out. Again.
So I'd just tell Gerard that I wanted to stay and play on his beloved GameCube with him until my fingers bled. Just because of the lanky, awkward-kneed little boy too alone to want to be left out of his big brother's life and too shy to ever say anything about not wanting to be ditched, I became an expert story teller.
Not just any stories, no. Fairy-tales. The only kind of stories that could calm Mikey down in a thunder-storm or if he had a nightmare whenever I, the puffy-haired guitarist from across the road, slept over. In a respect I guess you could say that those stories shaped our friendship; me always willing to make time for the introverted little sweetheart and him always hanging around me in the hopes that someone would finally take notice of him instead of always going straight to Gerard. Don't get me wrong, Gee's a great guy and nobody loves his baby brother as much as he does but he has this way of commanding everyone's attention before they can even register Mikey's existence.
Apart from the bullies. They always go for Mikey first. Because he's skinny and weak whereas Gerard is well-built and somewhat strong. Because he's sensitive and takes everything to heart whereas Gerard doesn't care and can block it all out. Because he's too innocent and sweet for high school whereas Gerard is about as innocent as a kid next to a cookie jar and less sweet than cyanide.
