A nice change

18

Mikey Joseph-Way was confused. He woken up that morning happy. He had a happy life and an amazing daughter who was already adjusting to the new house well. It seemed she had made some good friends. Tyler had dropped Viola off at Alva's house on his way to visit Jenna. Mikey had to go to the studio that morning and Gerard had offered to carpool with him and then they went to lunch together. It was nice to see him again and be able to just be together. They hadn't been able to see each other in the past few years except for when Gerard visited on holidays and Mikey would be lying if he said he didn't miss the only living member of his biological family left. He had expected to go home, maybe have some coffee for old times' sake with Gerard, but instead they saw the kid sitting in the front of a house across the street, looking like they were about to cry. Weirder more was that Gerard seemed to recognize the kid as one of Viola's new friends. And then he watched Gerard walk up to them, talk a little, and then the three of them ended up in Mikey's house, debating whether or not you should add cinnamon to hot coco to take Shadow's mind off what happened.

"No way! I'm not going to ruin hot chocolate by making it spicy!"

"Oh come on! Cinnamon does not legally count as a spice!"

"True, but I don't want it anywhere near any chocolate product!"

"Have you never had chili chocolate?!" Mikey cut in, startling the other two. "Sorry," He said slightly blushing. The three of them started laughing at Mikey and Gerard took this opportunity to pretend to dump cinnamon in Shadow's hot chocolate. Shadow didn't find it as funny as the Way siblings did and decided to grab the cinnamon and pour it down the back of Gerard's shirt. He squealed, causing Shadow and Mikey to laugh even harder. And then Shadow's phone went off, the lightness of the mood turning off with it.

"Shadow! Oh my g-!!!"

"Hey, Remington."

"Wha-where are you?!"

"I'm in neighborhood."

"Just, just stay there please." He was begging.

"Okay." They hung up and looked back at the Way siblings. "I guess I got to go, but thank you for the hot chocolate."

"It's no problem." Mikey said with a sincere smile. Gerard nodded and sadly smiled before walking outside with Shadow to wait for Remington to come.

"I think you're really cool by the way." Shadow said.

"Oh, uh thanks. You're really cool too, kid, although that probably doesn't mean coming from me."

"Well it doesn't mean much coming from me either."

"What do you mean?"

"Well in all honesty I've never really gotten what's 'cool', in fact I usually prefer talking to adults over kids my age, except from Autumn, Viola, and Alva of course."

"Oh. Why's that?"

They sigh, looking at Gerard. He looked like he sincerely cared, not like most adults who don't understand teens can have actual problems. "I guess it's just how I was raised. I mean my guardian, Remington, adopted me when he was still, like, twenty one. So I guess I've always viewed him as more of a big brother? I don't know, but he's really close to his brothers and his friends and like, people from work so I was always just sort of there whenever they hung out with him, and like I mentioned, one of his brothers is a philosopher, so I was pretty much raised by an eighty-year-old man in the body of a twenty-something-year-old who gets so distracted by his own mind he loses concept of time and a bunch of other twenty-something-year-olds who are all trying to get their own lives together. And none of them except Remington had to deal with me all the time so they basically spoiled me and let me talk about whatever I wanted. And I would listen to their conversations too, so the things I knew and were interested in, other kids just weren't, and never seemed able to think deep enough for me."

"Well what about your friends?"

"Alva and Viola are just mature enough that I can enjoy doing stupid kid stuff with, and Autumn's long story but she's like one of the only kids I get along with. Besides we've similar enough lives that we know how each feel."

"Well at least you have some friends." He said, trying to stay on the bright side.

"Yeah, sorry for talking so much."

"No venting's really good."

"Do you have anything you need to get off your chest?"

"Nah, but I get what you meant, having to grow up too quickly is really tough." He said honestly.

"Yeah." They appreciated he was saying. "Did you?"

"Yeah I did."

"Want to talk about it? I promise I'm mature enough to handle it."

"...My parents died when I was a kid, and from then on I needed to take care of Mikey. But of course I hated having to act like an adult, so I acted out, and basically did some stupid things that I'm still paying for today."

"I'm so sorry Gerard."

"Thanks, kid."

"It's no problem, besides I guess this means we're both cool for people who never got to be kids."

"Alright, I'll agree to that."