Staring through the demons (unholyverse )

13

Mikey was standing on the balcony at the club when Cortez came over with two drinks in his hands and a grin on his face.

"Mikey," he held out one of the glasses. "You look like a man who needs another drink."

Mikey's own glass was almost full still, but he wasn't stupid. He knew what you did when someone offered you a free drink. You took it, and you said, "Thanks, man," and you waited for them to tell you what they wanted.

He didn't have to wait long. Cortez stood next to him for a while, then leaned in and said, "Your boy Frankie. Is he...?"

Mikey looked at Cortez out of the corner of his eye. "Is he what?"

Cortez laughed and jerked his chin towards the dance floor, where Frank was dancing with one of the merch girls. He looked at Mikey again and waggled his eyebrows in a way that could have meant 'single' or 'into dudes' or 'likely to sleep with me'. Mikey knew the answer to at least two of those questions was the same, so he only made Cortez wait a little while longer, sipping his drink carefully before nodding his head yes.

"Awesome," Cortez said, beaming. He clapped Mikey on the shoulder and disappeared down the stairs. Mikey saw him reappear on the floor a few seconds later, sidling up behind Frank.

Mikey watched him turn Frank around with a hand on his elbow, saw Frank push up on his toes to hear what he said. The merch girl had already been swept up to dance with someone else, and after a minute, Frank followed Cortez off the dance floor, out of Mikey's line of sight.

"You not a dancer, Mikeyway?"

Mikey turned and found Pete grinning up at him. "Sometimes. This music isn't exactly my jam, though."

Pete made a face. "Man, me neither. But come on, it's not all bad. You got my techs buying you drinks. We're in VIP."

"I was a club promoter before I met Brian," Mikey told him with regret. "Free drinks and the VIP section aren't new to me, dude."

Pete laughed, shaking his head. "You know what I love about you, man, you're so hard to impress. You're so over everything."

Mikey thought about that. He wasn't hard to impress, he didn't think. He was impressed by a lot of stuff. Just most of that stuff couldn't be found in a nightclub. "I guess."

"So where's your brother?" Pete hopped up to sit on the railing next to him. "He didn't want to party with us? Or - oh," Pete made a guilty face. "Is he not allowed?"

"I think he was going to," Mikey said truthfully, "But he had some research to do."

Pete raised his eyebrows. "Research?"

Shit. Mikey took a deep swig of his drink to give himself some time to think of an answer. "For like, his, you know, he...translates old documents."

"Uh huh," said Pete skeptically.

"From Latin," Mikey added. "Or Greek. Ancient Greek. Into English."

Pete seemed to buy that. It wasn't exactly a lie, anyway. Gerard had to translate things all the time when they were working, because apparently there hadn't been any advances in the mystical evil field since Roman times.

Mikey watched Pete over the rim of his glass. He hadn't been able to see Pete after the show; Charlie had whisked him out of sight the minute he came backstage, but he looked absolutely fine now. There was no grayness to his skin, no deep circles under his eyes. "You look better," Mikey told him.

Pete took a deep breath and let it out slowly, looking around the club for a while. Eventually he said, "You know, I looked it up on the internet. Typed in all my symptoms and waited for 'you're dying' to come up on the screen in giant black font. Nothing good causes episodes of extreme exhaustion, did you know that? Nothing good."