Band One-Shots (boyxboy)

Guitar Strings (Brother-shot)

This is based off events that happened to me in my life because I'm a whiny crybaby and I cry and panic over things as trivial as guitar strings and I thought it would make a good fic. Bang, boom, please my adorable Mikey/Gerard bro-shot!

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"Are you serious?!" He yelled at his guitar, fed up with trying to tune the damn thing. He had been attempting to fix the distorted strings for over twenty minutes and the G string finally snapped on it, smacking him in the face in the process.

"Whatever. I'm just going to tune it back." he mumbled, pushing his thin glasses back to the bridge of his nose. He figured that this would just be easier than doing whatever he wanted to do with it in the first place. He started to tune back the strings that weren't broken, being careful and taking his time as to not break another. He was especially careful with the A string, as he had felt as though it were on the edge of snapping the entire duration of this failed tuning process.

Once he had gotten to the high e, he started to tune the knob, slowly but a little more carelessly than the other ones. He soon found that he should have been more careful because the thin string broke in two once he was almost had it to the right pitch.

Looking at the split, thin, silver string, his mind went blank. He just stared at it, and stared, and stared. He slowly put his pick on the mattress underneath him, looking at his guitar, which was now missing a total of two strings, more closely. After ten seconds of staring, he broke out into a fit of tears.

He didn't know why he was crying. It was just a string, wasn't it? Maybe so, but it was more than just the broken strings that contributed to this outburst. Stress had built up like mad on the boy, causing him to just want to get away for awhile. All he wanted was to tune his guitar, and he couldn't even do that right, let alone all the other things he had been attempting to accomplish on top of that.

He was trying to be quiet as to not disturb anyone, but his brother heard him from the next room. Gerard cared about his little brother a great deal, and for him to be crying hurt him immensely. He seemed to be worrying about his brother a lot lately.

Gerard went into his brothers room, the scene instantly becoming enlightened before his eyes. He saw the broken guitar strings and he saw his broken brother beside the instrument which held the wounded equipment.

Mikey felt Gerard's arms pull his body into his chest. Gerard made slow circles on Mikey's back, shushing him every so often. He was an inch taller, so it was only slightly awkward.

"Mikey, this isn't like you. Why are you crying over a couple guitar strings? It's okay. We can go buy some more later. They're not that expensive." he told him, trying to comfort him. It was a pathetic effort, but Gerard was trying.

Mikey shook his head, hinting to Gerard that he should forget this incident ever happened and let it whisk away with the wind, forgotten and never to return until a similar even occurred. He didn't want Gerard to see him like this. Mikey was shy, but he seemed like a normal enough kid and Mikey wanted to keep it that way.

Gerard wouldn't fall for that though. He knew that Mikey thought he didn't know anything. He knew that Mikey thought he had him fooled, but that just wasn't the case. Gerard was his big brother and therefore he was entitled to know everything about the younger sibling. It was his duty to him.

Gerard was able to see when his brother had a bad day at school. He saw how the dim light in his eyes resorted to nothing when he was feeling down. He knew scratched his hand when he was feeling stressed and tugged at the bottom of his shirt when he was anxious or anticipating something. Perhaps it was a sixth sense. Brother vision, possibly?

"Why aren't you leaving?" Mikey asked. He wanted the elder to go, couldn't he see that?

"Because this isn't just about some stupid broken guitar strings. What happened here is pent up emotions that overflowed because of the strings. Let me in?" Gerard requested. He wanted to help him.

Mikey looked at his brother, staring hollowly into his eyes. "It's not that big of a deal. I mean this, I'm okay!" Ah, what a precious lie it was, Mikey holding the truth on the tip of his tongue. It was sour, the truth, and so he wished not to share it.

"Mikes, I know you. I've lived with you my entire life. Trust me, you're not okay. You're not o-fucking-kay. I know your pages are torn and frayed. Tell me what's eating you."

Mikey, surprised by his brother's intelligence and ability to read him, gave in. "I'm just worn out. I'm in a rut. I live each day word for word as it's written and I seem to keep turning the same page which leaves me, as you pointed out, torn and frayed. It's a mix of school and procrastination and music and sleep and family and friends, and I can't balance it all, so I just throw everything off the balcony was watch as it all tumbles down. After I do, I remember that I actually need everything I threw away and so I have to go down and scramble to pick everything up and set it right before time runs out and I'm left with nothing and nobody. I'm worn out." He explained. It seemed like so much less in his head since he tried to minimise everything, but hearing everything come out at once made it all seem more real and more unbalanced. He assumed that was the way it actually was.

"Hey, it's going to be okay. Set aside some things that are less important and focus of what you need to get done right now. Take breaks in between to ensure that you won't feel overwhelmed. You may not be okay now, but you will be. Trust me, you'll be okay." Gerard gave his brother a smile, sending a feeling of trust and thanks through the younger of the two. He had always looked up to his big brother and this was the reason why.

Mikey laughed. "To think, all of this was over a couple of guitar strings." He ran a hand through his hair.

"Hey, those guys are some pesky sons of bitches!" Gerard reminded him.

"Yeah. I guess they are."