Unholyverse

~Part 17~

"And they just took the money, no questions asked?"

Mikey nodded. "Yep. All they had to do was make sure this thing was near you while you were on stage. They never even asked what it was."

"Man," said Joe, "I knew those kids were weird."

They'd relayed the whole story to Pete and his guys: how Mark and Danny didn't have any family other than their parents, that they'd wound up getting sent to separate group homes, and in a moment of desperation, Mark had accepted an offer made to him by 'some shady dude' to carry the soul-sucking ball, or whatever it was, onto Pete's tour. The shady dude had paid the kids half up front, with a promise for the other half when he met them in Chicago.

"What I don't understand," Patrick said for the millionth time. "Is how they got on the tour in the first place. You seriously can't remember, Pete?"

"No," Pete shook his head. "I just remember begging Dan to let them come along."

Andy scratched his beard. "Like mind control?"

"It was probably just a temporary thing," Ray said. "It's actually pretty simple once you know how."

Mikey cut his eyes at him. "I'm going to remember you said that."

Ray waved him off, smirking. "The point is, the kids had no idea what they were getting into. Once they realized you were getting sick, the little one got scared, and left the thing where he thought Gerard would find it."

"But it's okay now, right?" Patrick said. "I mean, it's over?"

"We don't know," said Frank. "We need to keep the kids and that weird ball thing away from you, Pete, and we'll see how you are after the show tonight."

Mikey didn't know whether it was better or worse that Mark was doing this for money, that it wasn't because he was trying to bring his parents back from the dead. Being an orphan was pretty much the worst thing Mikey could imagine in the world; it had been bad enough when his Grandma died, although he knew that it had been worse for Gerard.

It had happened right after Gerard graduated from SVA, the ink barely dry on his diploma. At first Mikey was kind of mad at the way Gerard wallowed inside his own misery; locking himself in the basement, only staying awake long enough to drink himself back to sleep again. It seemed so selfish, when Grandpa had lost his wife, Mom had lost her mother; everybody was hurting but Gerard just went to pieces, totally lost inside his rage and grief.

Mikey remembered going down to Gerard's room with the intention of dragging him upstairs, and saying furiously, "I loved her too."

Gerard didn't turn to face Mikey, stayed facing the wall. He said blankly, "Not like I did," and as much as Mikey wanted to argue with him, the thing is, he was right. Mikey loved his Grandma and he would miss her for the rest of his life, but she had been Gerard's hero. And that was different, because Mikey's hero was Gerard.

Mikey was pretty sure that if Gerard had found a way to bring her back, he would have taken it in a second. When he thought about it, actually he was glad that wasn't what Danny and Mark were trying to do, because when Mikey imagined trying to tell them that it wasn't going to happen, his stomach hurt.

He, Frank and Bob stayed on Pete's bus for the rest of the journey, leaving the kids alone with Gerard and Brian. Mikey still didn't know what Gerard was going to do with the kids, and it wasn't even like Mikey could help him decide because the stupid Vatican wouldn't let Gerard tell him anything.

"I mean, they had no malicious intent," he said anxiously to Mikey once they reached the venue and the kids were safe in a room with security posted outside. "They weren't trying to hurt Pete. They had no idea. They were just desperate and someone took advantage of them."