Alice

someone has to tell him

At some point I fall asleep. I wake up the next morning, having missed the show from the night before.

When I do wake up, its about 10 and spencer is making a fresh pot of coffee. "morning sleepy head." He says.

"morning, did I sleep through the show?" I ask.

"like a rock."

"Must've needed it."

"no kidding. Hey, me and Patrick are going to hang out with some of the other guys. Get dressed here soon 'cause you're coming with." Spencer says.

"Okay, who's all there?" I ask

"Me, you, Patrick, Justin, Andy, August, Ricky, and Chris." He says.

I get dressed and pour myself some coffee. I take my cup with me and walk with Spencer and Patrick to the motionless in white bus.

"hey hey, there they are!" Justin says, waving as we walk up.

"so, apparently there is more to the Mikey story than I was told?" Chris says when we finally get to the group.

"I don't know how much you were told but, yeah there's probably more." August says, laughing. I laugh too. no one else does.

"Well, I assumed if Spencer was picking up an old neighbor from a shitty dad that the shitty dad in question is dead." Chris says.

"about the neighbor thing." I start, "I didn't know Spencer until he killed my dad. I don't know what happened but my first instinct after seeing Spencer was to hug him." I say, laughing a bit to make it sound like a joke. No one laughs except Chris, his laugh seems nervous.

"I was supposed to... dispatch... Everyone in the house, but I just couldn't. I couldn't leave him there either, so I took him." Spencer says.

"Sorry, sorry. Did you kidnap him? were you going to kill him? Charnas, I swear to god if I find out you ever hurt him I will-" Chris gets angry, the way he did when I told him I saw my brother.

"no no, I went with him willingly, I promise." I say, trying to make sure Chris doesn't rip Spencer's head off. "and honestly even the first week I was with Spencer I felt safer than I had anywhere else my entire life."

"Okay, okay. so, let me make sense of this. You aren't neighbors, Spencer murdered your dad and you hugged him for it, he took you, and now you're his son." Chris says.

"kind of, yeah." August says.

"I feel like there's a lot of context like the first month or so I lived with Spencer. And the whole not being able to leave the house for any reason thing, and the tour rules, and so on and so forth." I say.

"There's a lot of context about your dad too." Spencer says.

"yeah, it's not the most normal thing to willingly go with the man who killed your dad." Justin says.

"yeah but when it's Mikey's dad..." Ricky says, making a so-so hand gesture.

"what do you mean?" Chris asks, looking over at him. A silence falls over the group, no one says anything, most look down at their feet or hands to avoid eye contact.

"he did things. Awful, disgusting, life-ruining things." I say. I find myself needing to remind myself he's gone and can't hurt me.

"What kind of things?" Chris asks. Silence. Look down.

"Mikey's dad was a hit job—a name put on my list by an 8-year-old a few towns away. The kid saved up his lunch money for months for me to help his friend a few towns over. I didn't take the money but I did the job." Spencer says.

I see it click in Chris's head. The flash of realization, sadness, anger. The second realization that my father did that to me too, followed by the same sadness and anger but this time followed by a kind of guilt.

Chris silently walks over to me and hugs me carefully. It's different from the hug earlier when he picked me up, this one is more gentle, as if I'm somehow more fragile this time. It's protective.

When he lets me go he stays near me, almost as if playing bodyguard.

"We should tell Vinny. Not tell him everything but some version of the truth. He clearly cares about Mikey." Ricky says.

"chenzo? No fucking way. He wouldn't get it. That's a surefire way to get Mikey put into the fucking system, I'm not letting that happen to him. If anything Mikey goes to Justin and Shea." Spencer says.

"he'd understand more than you think. He knows what happened with Mikey's brother." Chris says. Andy and August nod.

"you fucking told him my son killed someone?" Spencer asks, starting to get angry. "do you have any idea what could've happened?" 

"no, no they didn't. He overheard me talking about it with Andy and August. He didn't get upset he just sat next to me and hugged me. I think he deserves to know at least a little bit, that my dad isn't still out there looking for me." I say.

Spencer's demeanor changes. I can see him think about it, then sigh. "You're right, but we should think about how much he can know before we tell him. Once we have the papers we have to explain a lot of things to a lot of people, might as well start with chenzo." He says.

"what do you mean?" I ask.

"People on tour know me as your foster dad, once papers are in we have to tell people I'm your biological dad." He explains. 
     
"or we can tell them I don't want anyone to know you aren't. I feel like that would be easier." I say.

"yeah, definitely easier." Ricky says.

"I mean, you guys are my family. I'd like to pretend you've always been my family." I say. Spencer puts his hand on my shoulder in a comforting way.

After not too long, we are all standing around talking about whatever. Spencer and Ricky are talking about legal papers, Chris, Justin, and Andy are talking about Justin's kid, August and I are talking about movies, games, and books.

"you know, we should go to a bookstore together. I feel like that would be fun." August says
      
"yeah, we should!" I agree excitedly.

"hey, kiddo come over here." Spencer says. I turn around to join his and Ricky's conversation.

"What's up?"

"Spencer told me you chose a name for your birth certificate."  Ricky says.

"yeah, well Spencer and Patrick did technically. It's Casey, like from scream." I say.

"of course you'd name your kid Casey, Spencer." Justin jokes.

"well it was that or carrie, and one could argue that Mikey does still have a horror-themed name." Spencer says.

"god, maybe you two are related." Andy jokes.

"That's what I've been saying! He's just a mini, less murdery Spencer!" Patrick says, laughing.

"I'm not sure he can be called mini if they're almost the same height." Andy jokes. Spencer tries and fails not to laugh.

a/n sorry this chapter is a bit shorter, i am very burnt out rn.

A/n 2 I totally published this out of order I am so sorry lol