It was their fifth night in Calum's room, and Mikey couldn't be more bored. Michael hadn't come back, and Calum was miserable, spending his days asleep or with Ashton and Luke. This was one of those days, and Mikey tried to pout his way into Calum's heart.
"Please, please, please, please," Mikey tugged on the Kiwi's arm. "I'll dress up as Michael and everything will be fine."
Calum stopped dead in his tracks. "You can't do that. I-I don't – I couldn't handle that. We can't find Michael, and reminding me of him won't make anything better."
"I'll be your Michael for a night. Just once."
Eventually, the tanned boy gave in, sighing as Mikey kicked him out to get ready. Calum waited outside, his hands in his pockets. He didn't really feel like going out anywhere, but Luke insisted that it would make him feel better. So far, he'd gone outside of his room, and he wasn't feeling too great.
He didn't want Mikey to dress up as his boyfriend. He didn't want Mikey to act like his boyfriend. He didn't want Mikey. He wanted Michael.
He knew he was being pathetic for being so heartbroken for a guy he went out with for a month, but he always fell hard and fell fast. He wanted to punch himself for it.
Mikey opened the door, and Calum nearly choked. The fact that Mikey looked exactly like Michael was scary. His eyes weren't black anymore and his skin wasn't bruised. What had Mikey done to himself?
"I . . ."
"Save it, babe, I know." He gave a small smile. "I'm not him. I'm way better."
Truth was, Mikey had no idea if Michael had come back. When he left his body, he couldn't remember what the other two had done with it, or anything. He just knew he hadn't been there. But judging by Calum's hopeless expression, Michael hadn't been back for days.
"He's hiding, babe, I'm sure of it." A twinge of his accent twisted at the word 'babe.'
It had taken everything in Mikey to not pin Calum up against the wall and make-out with him, or make him moan and feel such pleasure until he could no longer feel his legs. Instead, he had to watch him mope around for a boy that had no guarantees of coming back. He had to be nice, otherwise Calum would kick him out.
Although, whenever he was bored during the night, he just crept out and scared a few people, but kissed them a little to make them feel better. Everyone always feels better with a kiss, right? He gave them love-bites occasionally, which only made people talk more.
"Can I turn on the radio?"
Calum shrugged, flipping the page of his comic book. Mikey got up and played around with the radio, searching for a channel that had nothing but static. And then, he found it. The type of static that sounds oddly like rain, but reminds him of an audience clapping.
He liked the way the static felt when he put his hands on the speaker. The way it numbed him. The way it made him think about everything and nothing at the same time. The way the nothingness gave him something.
He laid down with the small radio in his hands, cuddling up to it in the corner. "Michael likes static, too, you know?"
The name made Calum drop his book, his full attention now on the half-monster in the corner of his room. "What?"
He only knew because Michael wrote about it. Michael wrote about random things in random places. That was really how he knew anything about him. He knew his clothes, and his face, but not him.
"Static means home."
He got up, threw the bag with everything in it out the window and hid under the bed. He heard footsteps. He didn't want to be taken away from Calum. Not yet.
"Mikey, what are you . . ." there was a knock on his door.
"Calum, we haven't seen you for ages, can we come in?" It was Ashton. Why was it always Ashton?
The door opened and Ashton walked in, sitting on the bed, beside Calum and next to Luke. Ashton and Luke figured Calum was just having a hard time coping with the supposed death of Michael, but this was just ridiculous. It had been three weeks since Calum had gone out, or even bothered to make contact with them.
"Get up. We're going out." Luke ordered, pulling Calum off of the bed.
"No!" Calum whined, grabbing onto the frame of the bed. "I need to stay here and . . ." be here with Mikey.
He wasn't moving on from Michael – hell no, not ever. But Mikey was the closest thing to his boyfriend. He needed something left of him. And the fact that Mikey could look like Michael whenever he wanted to was pretty great too.
"Fine. Get out so I can change." Calum mumbled and the other two waited out in the hallway.
Mikey crawled out and hugged the Maori. "I want to come."
"Well, you can't," Calum sighed, hugging him back.
"I know." Mikey sighed, sitting on the bed as he watched Calum change clothes. He loved it more than he would admit.
Once Calum was gone, Mikey got a pen and drawing book out of his bag. He took a picture out as well – a drawing of Michael, to be exact, and put it on Calum's bed. Maybe he'd want to see it later. He started to draw a movie set, biting his lip impatiently, because he couldn't get the lines right.
He ended up ripping up the page in pure anger because it just wasn't turning out the way he wanted it to. He hugged the radio, calming himself down with pure static because whenever he got angry he could never remember what happened next, and he didn't want to go just yet.
He turned off the static shortly after, because this was the time Calum's Mum usually came home from work. He quietly opened Calum's cupboards and drawers, searching for something interesting. All of the clothes smelt like his cologne, which Mikey took a great time to realise. He liked Calum's smell.
It was a half an hour later, and Joy hadn't come home. Mikey decided it was safe to have a shower in the bathroom connected to Calum's room. He used soap, and even washed his hair. He could see all of the make-up run down the drain and hated the fact that he couldn't get water-proof stuff. Michael's skin felt so dirty and disgusting to him. He'd have to reapply make-up after.
He got out and put his clothes back on, the stench of them not bothering him at all. He put all of his make-up on, adjusting his contacts in his eyes a little because they were really starting to hurt.
It got later, and Mikey got impatient. He blasted the static and stuck pieces of paper to the wall. He made sure he had enough pages to draw three bodies. At first, he studied himself and then drew himself on one flat pile of pages that was stuck on the wall. He drew his clothes as well, getting every detail down. At the top, he put Mikey. Then, he did the same for Michael and MIkeyMikey.
He put a pin with a plastic end next to each of them, hanging each of their clothes beside their pictures, just to make it extra clear who Calum had in his room. He knew he got confused sometimes.
Okay so hi made two new stories:
-a straight calum one called Oops!
-a mashton one called I'd Rather Not
Pls check them out
