Archive of Our Own

It's a running joke in the band that they always bring bad weather with them to L.A., and the rain pelting against the windshield of the van as they pull up the long and winding drive to the Paramour Mansion is doing nothing to break their streak.

"We're fucking cursed!" Frank shouts as water rolls down his face and under his collar, as they're hauling bags and gear into the mansion's front foyer.

"Don't say that, asshole," Mikey sighs, and punches Frank's shoulder on his way by to drop off his last bag.

"What did I do?" Frank asks disingenuously, and then laughs when Ray rolls his eyes at him.

So it's kind of funny, Gerard will think later, in the middle of the night when his eyes are burning dry and his throat is chafing from trying not to scream, that everything really started going wrong when the sun finally came out.

 

* * *

Nobody says as much aloud, but Gerard can tell from everybody's faces when they get inside that they're all a little awed by the opulence of their surroundings. They decide to put their gear in the ballroom near the mansion's front foyer, and for the first hour it feels like they spend less time setting up than just wandering around slowly and taking in the total visual overload of their surroundings. The room is packed full of antique furniture, strange statues, and massive paintings in elaborate frames, and Gerard isn't sure where to even start poking around to make space for their gear.

He stands in the middle of the room and tips his head back to look up at the ceiling, paneled in dark wood and no less extravagant and ornate than the contents of the room beneath it. There are chandeliers hanging from the ceiling, too, massive crystal affairs that light up the whole room.

"This is un-fucking-believable," Frank murmurs as he comes to stand next to Gerard.

"It's no Jersey basement, that's for sure," Gerard agrees, still a little wide-eyed.

They keep staring at everything around them, their eyes skipping back and forth as things keep catching their attention.

"Those lion statues are ridiculous," Gerard says, and walks over to run his hands along the carved stone head of the nearer of the pair.

"Everything here is ridiculous," Frank mutters, leaning over Gerard's shoulder to peer at the lions. Frank is warm where he's pressing up against Gerard's back—and it's freezing in the ballroom, Gerard realizes suddenly.

"Hey, Frank," Ray calls from across the room.

Frank and Gerard both look up to see Ray trying to carry four guitar cases at once.

"Shit, better go help," Frank says, and he runs over to grab two of the cases from Ray.

Bob trails after them, carrying a drum case in one hand and a guitar rack against the other shoulder with the ease of years of practice.

Gerard watches as the three of them stand in a loose circle, pointing to various parts of the room as they figure out where to put everything. Gerard smiles while he watches them, and sure enough, they all move with a sense of purpose once they break apart, moving things and unrolling the rugs they'd brought and starting to get boxes unpacked.

Mikey comes over to join them once he notices what's going on, and Bob helps him roll their enormous bass cab across the floor. Mikey starts pulling cables out of an old duffel bag and passing them to Frank and Ray when they hold out their hands.

Gerard loves the way the band works together these days, like five precisely interlocking parts of a well-oiled machine. Or something. He's not sure how he feels about machines as a metaphor anymore. Maybe they're like different organ systems, working together to keep a living body going. Bodies are imperfect, he thinks, but there's that certain magic to how they just seem to work, so complex that even scientists haven't really figured out all the details of yet, and–

"Hey asshole," Frank shouts. Gerard startles out from where he's lost in thought and looks over, and sure enough, Frank is looking right at him, a tiny grin pulling at the corners of his mouth. "You just going to stand there or are you going to pull your weight?"

"Coming, coming," Gerard says, and he grins back at Frank.

Gerard's been worrying that maybe he's aiming too high with the album they're writing, that he's pushing the band too hard for too much, but right now all he can feel is the excitement crackling in the air between them, and honestly, he can't wait to really dig in and get going again.

He shoots one last look at the chandelier overhead. Coming to L.A. for a change of scenery while they finish writing was definitely something they decided on a whim, but Gerard thinks it's going to work in their favour. There's no way they're going to get anything less than an epic record out of a room—a house—like this.

 

* * *

They only get halfway set up before Ray starts yawning, and Frank and Mikey catch it from him in short order.

"Why don't we call it a night?" Bob suggests. "We can finish setting up tomorrow. Where are the bedrooms here, anyway?"

"Um," Ray says. "I think they left a list of rooms they got ready for us." He picks up the big folder of papers that had been waiting for them in the front entrance when they arrived and starts shuffling through it. "Yeah, here it is. There's six rooms ready, it looks like they're all on the second floor."

Gerard plucks the paper from Ray's hand and skims over it quickly. "Should we pick numbers randomly, or what?"

"May as well," Frank shrugs.

Ray pulls a blank sheet of paper from the back of the folder and pulls a pen out of his pocket. He writes the room numbers onto the sheet and then rips it up into surprisingly even pieces. "Shit, what am I going to put these in?"

"Use this," Bob says, and they all laugh when Bob swipes the beanie off Mikey's head and holds it out to Ray so he can put the bits of paper inside.

One by one they reach in and pick their numbers. Gerard and Mikey end up with consecutive numbers, but other than that, there's no real pattern or meaning to the numbers they pick.

"Mine ends in 13," Frank says, peering at his number. "We're in a haunted house, do you think I should be worried?"

"Yes," Mikey tells him.

Frank laughs. "I'm just kidding, man."

Mikey sighs melodramatically. "Don't complain to me when your room is haunted, then."

"I won't," Frank tells him, "because it won't be."

"If you insist," Mikey says. "Hey, Bob, can I have my hat back?"

"As if this house is actually haunted," Frank scoffs.

Bob throws the hat back to Mikey. "I'm going to bed," he announces. "See you guys tomorrow."

"Don't let the ghosts get you!" Frank calls at his retreating back.

Bob flips Frank the bird over his shoulder, and Frank cracks up.

"Hey, our rooms must be near each other, right?" Mikey asks Gerard.

Gerard nods. "That makes sense."

"Walk with me," Mikey says, and goes to get his bag.

Gerard can't say no to that. It's no secret that Mikey believes in ghosts, and it's no surprise that he's a little freaked out by being in a house that's so famously haunted. Even though Mikey was playing it off as joking with Frank, Gerard could see the real nervousness behind it. He doesn't think that Mikey—or any of them—have anything to worry about, but he's got no problem keeping his brother company on their way to their rooms.

"Fuck, I'm cold," Mikey mutters as he wheels his suitcase down the second-floor hallway towards where they figured their rooms must be.

"Me too," Gerard agrees. "It's freezing in here. Downstairs, too. You'd think they would have turned the heat on for us, I mean, they knew we were coming today."

Mikey just shrugs.

They keep walking, their footsteps soft on the faded red Oriental carpet that runs down the middle of the entire length of the hall.

Finally, one of the doors catches Gerard's eye. He stops and checks the tiny wrought-iron numbers nailed to the door against the numbers he'd scrawled on his hand downstairs.

"I think this is it," he says.

Mikey nods, and then looks warily down the hall to the last door. Gerard catches the look, and he suddenly feels the urge to follow Mikey and make sure he gets settled in okay.

Gerard drops his bag in front of the door to his room and then hurries to catch up with his brother, who throws him a look over his shoulder, one eyebrow raised.

"I want to see your room," Gerard says. It's not exactly a lie, anyway. He does want to see Mikey's room.

Mikey doesn't say anything to that. He drops one bag to free up a hand and then slowly opens his door, almost as if he were nervous about it.

Gerard peers in over Mikey's shoulder. It's his first glimpse of anything in the house that isn't the ballroom, and it simultaneously both is and isn't exactly what he was expecting.

The furniture is old and the brocade wallpaper has definitely seen better days, but the bedding is new and bright and expensive-looking. There's no dust—at least not that he can see from this distance, anyway—and the whole room gives off an impression of stiff, austere tidiness. It doesn't actually feel very friendly, but Gerard doesn't want to say anything about it.

Mikey steps into the room and then pauses for long seconds. It doesn't look like he's taking it all in, Gerard thinks; it looks more like he's completely frozen in place. But then Mikey shakes it off and reaches for the light switch on the wall near the door.

They both gasp when the light comes on.

It's the strangest thing: the single bulb in the middle of the ceiling is giving off light in this unsettling shade of blue. It barely counts as light, even; it's just an eerie, watery glow.

Gerard's eyes ache when he tries to look directly at it, but it's not the same ache that comes from looking directly at any other light; it's more of a buzz in the very liquid of his eyes. He dares himself to keep staring at it, to be contrary. The buzz gets worse the longer he stares, and when he finally tears his eyes away it doesn't subside right away. He's shivering now too, even though he's got a hoodie on, because it's real fucking cold in Mikey's room.

He takes a step towards his brother almost unconsciously, and it brings him into the room. As he steps across the threshold, this overwhelming feeling of wrongness hits him like a wave, crashing over his head and trying to drag him under.

Some kind of fight or flight instinct must be kicking in, because all Gerard wants is to get the fuck out of there—it's not like there's anything to fight against, anyway. "Are you going to be okay in here?" he asks, and then feels stupid right away. Why wouldn't Mikey be okay? As weird as the blue light is, it's just a light—and as weird a vibe as Gerard gets from the place, it's just a room.

"Why wouldn't I be?" The look on Mikey's face makes Gerard feel bad for worrying.

"Okay, well, I'm gonna go unpack," Gerard says awkwardly, and then he backs quickly out of the room.

The hallway is noticeably less cold than Mikey's room, and Gerard pauses for a moment to try to clear his head. What the hell had happened in there?

The bedroom door is still open so Gerard turns back to check on his brother. He looks okay, if a little washed-out under the weird blue light. He's moving around slowly, like he's taking stock of the furniture and considering where he wants to keep his things.

Gerard still can't put his finger on why he'd reacted like he had to the room, so he decides that he may as well push it from his mind; it must be just nerves, or concern for his brother. He turns and goes back down the hallway until he gets to where he left his bags in a heap.

The knob on the door to his own bedroom turns easily under his hand, and the door swings open on silent hinges.

His room looks a lot like Mikey's, but one wall shows exposed brick and everything is appointed in warm tones of red and orange. It's shocking how inviting his room is in contrast to Mikey's.

He takes a deep breath and braces himself, and then steps into his room.

Nothing happens.

When he breathes out, it's a sigh of relief.

His room is cold too, but only as cold as the hallway and the ballroom downstairs, and he's pretty sure he'll get used to it. He hopes he packed slippers.

In the corner is an enormous desk, and there's a big lamp on its corner. Gerard is already getting mental images of spreading out his sketchbooks and markers and taking full advantage of the space.

He hauls his bag into the middle of the room and decides that he may as well start unpacking now. He fills the small dresser next to the window, stopping now and then to admire the view, which looks out over an enormous swimming pool and the other wing of the house on the other side of the central patio. Gerard watches for a while as the rain falls into the pool, the steady barrage of drops making its surface choppy with hundreds of overlapping ripples. It looks pretty cool, actually.

It turns out that the dresser doesn't quite hold all the stuff he packed, so he needs to figure out where the closet is. He hopes it has hangers, because he didn't bring any. He isn't really into hanging his clothes; it's too much work. Maybe he can leave the rest of his stuff in his suitcase. They're only going to be here for a month and some, right?

Gerard sighs. His ma would be shaking her head sternly at him for that. He needs to find the closet.

He opens a nearby door set into the wall. He was expecting a closet, but what he gets instead is a small bathroom with Mikey standing in it, unpacking his toiletries onto a shelf above the sink.

"Oh," Gerard says, and Mikey drops his toothpaste.

"You scared me," Mikey gasps as he whirls around to face Gerard, his tone harsh and accusing. He balls his hands into fists, but not before Gerard sees them shaking.

"Sorry," Gerard offers. "So, hey, we're sharing? Just like back at home, man, what a trip." He steps around Mikey to peer around the shower curtain into the tub.

"Yeah," Mikey mumbles. "Just like home."

Gerard pulls his head out of the tub and leans against the jamb of the door back into his room.

"You okay?" he asks his brother.

"Just peachy," Mikey says. He clearly doesn't mean it and Gerard doesn't get why. They've been in L.A. less than a day; surely Mikey isn't homesick already?

Maybe he misses Alicia, Gerard thinks. Maybe he's found out that the cell reception in the house fucking sucks and it's hitting him hard. Gerard watches as Mikey gets the rest of his toiletries unpacked and lays out his razor and soap and deodorant in a neat line on a shelf, but his eyes eventually drift away to the door at the other end of the bathroom.

It's leaned most of the way closed so Gerard can't see into Mikey's room, but the blue light is coming in through the space around the edges. It still gives Gerard the heebie-jeebies and he turns away quickly.

Gerard wants to ask Mikey about it, wants to say something to cheer him up, but doesn't because it's clear that Mikey doesn't want to talk.

The air gets thicker and thicker between them as they stand in silence, and Gerard excuses himself a moment later under pretenses of finding his actual closet.

 

* * *

New digs are old news to them by this point, so nobody is clamouring to explore the place right away the next morning—except Frank, because "it's a giant fucking haunted mansion! Come on, this is awesome, aren't you guys even the least bit interested?"

"Shut up, Frank," Bob growls, clutching his first Red Bull of the day close to his face.

"Back me up here, Gerard," Frank pleads around a mouthful of toast.

Gerard shrugs. "Let's stick to the rehearsal schedule," he says. "We can explore after."

"Nothing stopping you from going alone," Bob points out. When Frank doesn't answer right away, Bob smirks at him and says, "Or are you too scared to go alone?"

"I am not," Frank bristles. "It's just more fun with someone else, you know?"

"Sure it is," Bob says, too amiably to be sincere.

"You're all pussies," Frank mumbles. "I'm going to go finish my set-up, see you guys in a bit." He shoves the rest of his toast into his mouth, then gets up and dumps his plate into the sink. It sounds like he's making as much noise as he can, which Gerard wouldn't put past him.

Gerard watches Bob scowl at Frank's back as Frank moves across the kitchen towards the ballroom, but then the door slams shut with a startling BANG scant inches from Frank's face.

Frank jumps backwards, practically tripping over his own feet as he dashes back to the table. "Did you guys see that? What the fuck was that?" He sits back down in the seat he'd just vacated and then scoots it over, closer to Ray.

"Probably just a draft," Ray tells him, then puts one hand on Frank's shoulder, comfortingly.

"Probably just a ghost," Frank spits. "I told you guys this place is fucking haunted."

Everybody stares at Frank for a minute, and then Bob bursts out laughing. "You fucking liar," he says gleefully, "you are scared, admit it."

"I am not," Frank protests, but his heart's really not in it. "It took me by surprise, that's all."

Bob doesn't say anything; he keeps smirking at Frank.

"This place is fucking haunted," Mikey says into the silence.

Frank smiles, then. "See, Mikey Way knows what's up."

Mikey smiles back, and he and Frank high-five awkwardly across the table, their edges of their palms skidding away from each other with barely a noise.

"Did that count as landing it or not?" Frank asks the room.

"I say not," Ray says.

Bob shakes his head.

"No," Mikey says.

"Same," Gerard agrees. He's actually not sure how it should count, but he doesn't want to screw around with their high-five superstitions. Now is really not the time.

"Good," Frank says, and he's just leaning up to go for the high-five they actually want to land when he freezes in place.

"Frank?" Mikey blinks at him, and shakes his raised hand in front of Frank's face.

"Did you guys see that?"

"See what?" Mikey asks.

"Did you see a ghost?" Bob asks. Gerard leans over and punches him gently to keep Frank from doing it harder.

"I thought I saw something moving over in the corner," Frank says.

"I didn't see anything," Ray says.

"Me either," Gerard and Mikey say at the same time.

"Oh," Frank says. "Well, never mind, then."

Bob snorts.

Frank's features start settling into that mulishness that Gerard has come to recognize so well, so Gerard gets up, wincing briefly at the scrape of his chair against the tiles of the kitchen floor, and says, "Hey, Frank, let's go finish setting up. Ghosts won't fuck with the two of us, right?"

The hard look on Frank's face softens, and Gerard is pleased to have headed that one off early.

"Sure," Frank agrees, and gets up again.

They make it through the kitchen door and into the ballroom where they left all their gear without event, although Gerard chooses not to comment on the fact that Frank is sticking awfully close to his back the entire walk over.

 

* * *

The rest of the band drifts into the ballroom over the next half an hour, and their set-up slowly comes together as they finish arranging cables, repositioning amps, and filling the guitar rack.

"Fuck," Bob hisses in the middle of screwing his tom onto his rack, and Gerard looks up quickly. Bob is scowling at his finger, which is bright red, visible even from where Gerard's standing. "Pinched myself," Bob says by way of explanation. "Motherfucker, ow."

"Are you okay?" Ray asks.

"Yeah," Bob grunts and goes back to putting his drums together. He gets the tom attached, finally, and he turns to take his snare out of its case. When he turns back to his kit, he trips on something and knocks his crash cymbal over. Gerard winces at the immense noise—it echoes around the giant ballroom, louder than he would have figured possible—and Mikey almost drops his bass in surprise.

"Seriously, are you okay?" Ray asks, sounding a lot more concerned.

"Sorry," Bob sighs as he rights the cymbal stand. "Yeah. I'm fine. I didn't sleep very well last night. There was water dripping in my bathroom and it kept going all night."

"Why didn't you turn it off?" Mikey asks. He looks serious, though, and not like he's trying to give Bob shit.

Bob shrugs, adjusting his last tom and eyeing the whole kit critically. "I got up a couple times and watched the faucets, but none of them were actually dripping."

"Maybe it was in the pipes?" Mikey offers. He doesn't look too convinced, though, and neither does Bob.

"I didn't sleep well either," Ray admits. "I couldn't get warm, you know? I kept waking up because I'd get so cold."

"Yeah, my room was real cold too," Gerard tells him.

"I was cold, and it felt like something was biting my toes," Frank says.

"Bedbugs?" Ray asks, cringing a little.

Frank shakes his head. "No, it felt like actual teeth, not a bug bite."

"Okay, that's fucking weird," Gerard says.

"Dude, I know, right?" Frank finishes attaching his pedals and straightens up. "Is anyone else still really cold, or is it just me?"

"It's freezing," Mikey tells him.

"Why is there no heat in here?" Frank asks.

"Maybe it'll kick in soon?" Gerard suggests half-heartedly.

"I hope so," Ray says. "My fingers are already getting cold. We should get playing, help warm up."

"You good, Bob?" Frank asks.

Bob looks up from where he's settling in behind his kit, adjusting the throne. "Yeah," he says, and starts tapping on the rim of his snare with one stick.

"You guys good?" Frank gestures to the rest of them.

"Yeah," Ray says, and he reaches over to turn on his amp. There's a big static pop and a moment of crackle, but it smoothes out after a second into the warm background hum of a well-used Marshall stack.

Gerard readjusts his mic stand, fixing the angle in tiny increments. There was nothing wrong with it before, and now he realizes he actually over-adjusted it with his fidgeting and he can't figure out which way to bend it to set it back. He's not sure why he's so anxious about rehearsal all of a sudden, but now that he's here in front of a mic in this enormous crazy ballroom with half an album's worth of songs done and another half still to write, he can feel the pressure breathing down his neck.

He takes a deep breath and nods at Frank, then looks over at Mikey.

Mikey's got his bass on and he's shifting his weight from foot to foot, pressing his fingers across the width of his bass's neck one fret at a time. It's a ritual Gerard's seen hundreds of times now, and he smiles as he watches Mikey work his hand all the way up to the last playable fret before he looks up and catches Gerard looking at him.

Mikey nods at Gerard, a single tip of the head.

Gerard looks away only when he hears Frank start playing the opening chords to "Dead!"

 

* * *

Their warm-up goes really well. The music sounds amazing in the ballroom, bigger and more than it might otherwise be, and even though the room is still surprisingly cold they're all playing well, getting more and more comfortable in the new songs with every repetition.

They're running through "Teenagers" when the painting on the far wall catches Gerard's eye. He stares at it for a few moments as he sings, but he's too wrapped up in the music to pin down what exactly about the painting is bothering him. He looks away without thinking about it, turning to watch Ray start improvising on the guitar solo.

It's not until half an hour later, when they're running through the song again with a completely different drum part, "just to see what happens," that Gerard figures out what exactly about the painting was bothering him before.

"Hey, guys," he says instead of coming back in where he's supposed to after the solo.

The song grinds to a staggering halt as they all stop playing and give him various weird looks.

"What?" Ray asks him.

"You see that painting over there, above the fireplace?"

"The one with the angel?" Frank asks, squinting a little as he looks.

"Yeah, that one," Gerard says. "Didn't it used to be over by the front window?"

"I have no idea," Frank says.

"Did any of you move it?" Bob asks.

Everyone shakes their head.

"So it didn't move," Bob says like it's the most obvious thing ever, and taps his sticks together like he's anxious to count them all back in.

Gerard wrinkles his nose. "Weird. I could have sworn it was by the front window."

"Maybe you got it confused with a different painting?"

Gerard looks over his shoulder at the wall by the front window. There's a painting there, but it's a portrait of a woman and much smaller than the painting of the angel. "Maybe," he says.

He's not convinced, though, and it lurks in the back of his mind as practice goes on.

They work their way through most of the songs they wrote back in New York, still trying little tweaks and changes to get the songs sounding as good as they can. The echo of the ballroom gives them a new perspective on the songs; they sound different under the chandeliers and wooden ceilings, and Gerard suspects that at least some of them would agree with him that part of the difference isn't just acoustic.

Ray starts strumming the the verse chords to "Mama," but he has this look on his face like he's concentrating on some tiny aspect of them, which they all know means he wants to play on loop for a while to get a feel for something that's bothering him.

"Do you guys mind if I take a break?" Mikey asks then.

Gerard jerks around to look at him; he's already got his bass unplugged and propped up in its stand, the strap trailing on the floor.

"Sure?" Gerard says, a little confused. They haven't been playing for that long, surely. He glances down at his watch to check, and—oh, they've been playing for four hours.

The rest of the guys nod and agree. Frank raises an eyebrow at Gerard in question, but Gerard just shrugs back at him.

"Cool," Mikey says. "I'll be right back." He shakes his hands out, and then walks out of the ballroom.

It takes a few minutes for Gerard to shake this feeling of whiplash, going from filling the room's huge space with music to standing around like the last pill in the metaphorical bottle.

Ray's still working out his problems with the verse and Frank is watching intently, his lips pursed and eyebrows drawn in close, so Gerard leaves them be and starts wandering around the ballroom, looking at the weird carved statues and extravagant antique furniture that's all scattered around in the room, serving no discernible purpose—except, perhaps, to give the room its particular ambiance.

Soon enough his feet bring him to the portrait of the woman by the front window, as if that wasn't his whole purpose for leaving their set-up in the first place. There's a plaque at the bottom of the frame that he hadn't seen from across the room, so he leans in and gently brushes the dust from it with a finger.

Daisy Canfield Danziger, it says in neat engraved Art Deco letters.

"Oh," Gerard says in surprise. He vaguely remembers Mikey telling him something about the history of this mansion when they were still in New York, and he recognizes the name. She and her husband had the house built, he thinks, and she died in a car accident on Mulholland.

He looks up from the plaque to her face. She has big sad eyes, and there's something truly haunting about them. Gerard can't quite put his finger on whether it's her likeness or something more, maybe a quirk of the way the artist handled the oils. She's staring past him, through him, distant and proud in her pearls and finger-waved dark hair.

Gerard sort of feels like he should talk to the painting—say "hi" or something—but he bites it back because he's not sure that talking to the painting won't get him mocked mercilessly for the rest of the day. Bob and Frank are both still a little punchy and he'd rather not draw that his way. Instead, he keeps looking at the painting like that'll settle things in his mind; he's still sure that this painting wasn't here yesterday. He doesn't remember seeing it at all.

He finally gives up on Daisy's portrait and wanders over to the fireplace to look at the painting he thought used to hang by the window. He cranes his neck, leaning in over the screen in front of the hearth to try to get a closer view. It's a painting of an angel with wings as big as her body and her arms held wide, palms up, as if giving benediction.

This painting isn't giving up any secrets, either, so Gerard turns away after a few moments of observation and wanders back to the circle of their instruments.

Frank's playing a riff Gerard doesn't recognize over a simple beat from Bob, and Gerard leans against his mic stand and listens until Frank stops.

"Is that anything?" Gerard asks.

Frank shrugs. "It might be later, but it needs more work."

"I like it," Ray says, and Frank grins at him.

There's a noise from somewhere across the room, then—not loud, but enough to startle Gerard. He spins on his heel and he's relieved to see that it's just Mikey.

Gerard frowns as he watches Mikey start walking back towards their set-up. He looks unsteady on his feet, and his path couldn't be described, even generously, as a straight line. Gerard can't help but notice that Mikey's hands are shaking as he picks up his bass again, and when Gerard looks up from Mikey's hands to face, he's shocked at how pale he is.

"You okay?" Gerard leans in to ask quietly.

"I'm still kind of jet lagged," Mikey tells him shortly before turning back to his bass, adjusting the strap on his shoulder and then turning his amp back on.

Gerard stares at Mikey's back, a little surprised by the brusqueness of the brush-off, but then he notices that everybody else is ready to to play again, so he lets it slide in favour of letting Bob count them in to "I Don't Love You".

 

* * *

They play almost until midnight, with only a quick break for dinner, before they finally decide to call it a day, setting their instruments down carefully and leaving the ballroom. The house is dark around them and the hallways seem almost claustrophobic for it. They shuffle together through to the foyer, and Gerard sticks as close as he can to his bandmates. It's not that he's afraid of the dark, or afraid of the house, or worried about getting lost, but somehow it feels like the right—safest—thing to do.

A light further down the hall comes on, then. The single bulb in the ceiling gives just enough light that some of the shadows retreat, and in the dim glow, Gerard can see Ray taking his hand off a light switch on the wall.

"You guys want to explore now?" Frank's voice sounds strangely loud in the near-dark.

"Go for it," Ray says.

"Are you coming with me?" Frank asks him.

Even as Ray nods his agreement, Bob starts snickering.

Frank frowns at him. "What?"

"You still won't go alone? Now who's the pussy?"

"Shut up, Bryar," Frank mutters, and Gerard is more than half-expecting Frank to launch himself at Bob, but he doesn't.

Gerard watches as Ray and Frank take off down the hallway, Frank talking animatedly about something while Ray nods along.

"I haven't been into the south half of the house at all yet," Bob says, "you guys wanna come?"

"Okay," Gerard agrees. He's still too pumped from the day of rehearsal to go to bed, so he figures that if nothing else, walking around a bit will help him wind down. He wouldn't do it alone, though; he's completely with Frank on that one.

On the way to the south end of the Paramour, they pass through an enormous foyer with oversized French doors leading out to the swimming pool. Gerard walks over to the doors before he even realizes what he's doing, unlocking them and opening one only far enough that he can step through into the yard.

Gerard walks out onto the patio towards the pool, still acting on whatever weird impulse has been leading him so far. It's like there's this itch at the back of his brain that's getting scratched more and more as he gets closer to the pool.

He walks all the way up to the edge before he stops, his mind suddenly clear again. He stares down at the water, which is dark and murky in the rain, exactly the way it was when he saw it from his window. It's just a swimming pool, he tells himself. Perfectly normal, except for how big it is.

Gerard is so intent on the pool that he doesn't realize Bob is standing next to him until he clears his throat.

"Gonna go for a swim?" Bob asks, his tone gently teasing.

"You gonna work on your tan?" Gerard shoots back. He doesn't take his eyes off the pool.

"Hey, fuck you, I'm not the one who needs it," Bob says mildly, and they both laugh.

Gerard finally manages to look up from the pool and he notices Mikey hanging back, lurking around the edge of the patio. He's about to call over to him when Mikey wanders off down the far edge of the patio, past the end of the pool, and then flips his phone open and starts squinting at it, hunching over it to protect it from the rain. He stands still for a few minutes, his fingers moving quickly across its buttons, and then he visibly deflates, jams the phone back in his pocket, and walks back into the house.

Gerard follows him in, ready to head for the kitchen to grab a cup of coffee and try to warm up. He's expecting Mikey to do the same thing, so when Mikey walks past the turn for the kitchen and then past the turn for the stairs up to his bedroom, Gerard decides to keep following him.

Gerard hangs back, waiting for Mikey to turn a corner before he goes down the hallway Mikey just left. He can't put his finger on why he's trying to hide from his brother, why he's trailing him rather than catching up, but that doesn't stop him from doing it.

Soon enough Gerard finds himself in the back of the house, and he hears the door to the yard open and then close. Gerard lets himself out half a minute later, shutting the door as quietly as he can behind him, and he stands on the back stoop under a small overhang to protect himself from the rain as he watches Mikey walk across the back yard.

Mikey's shape gets smaller and smaller as he gets further from the house, and eventually he stops at what Gerard assumes must be the pond—somebody mentioned there was one out back. It might have been Mikey, come to think of it.

Gerard watches as Mikey skirts the edge of the pond, his shoulders hunched and his head bowed. Then he veers off and Gerard squints and strains but can't see what Mikey is heading towards.

Eventually Mikey stops, seemingly in the middle of the lawn, and bends down. He stands stooped for a minute before sinking down to his knees in the wet grass, leaning in close to peer at something. Gerard has no idea how long Mikey sits there looking, how long he himself stands there watching, but it feels like a long time—too long for somebody to be out in the rain without a jacket, for sure.

Gerard wonders if he should go out and ask Mikey to come back in, but the debate between brotherly care and justifying why he was watching Mikey so closely is rendered moot when Mikey gets to his feet and starts back towards the house.

Gerard has a few moments to decide whether he wants to wait for Mikey at the door or retreat to the kitchen and pretend that he wasn't watching. There's nothing wrong with what he was doing, he tells himself.

So he waits.

Mikey is soaking wet when he gets back to the house, and he doesn't seem surprised to find Gerard waiting for him. A little irked, maybe, if Gerard is reading his expression right, but not surprised.

"What did you find?" Gerard asks.

"Daisy's grave," Mikey tells him, taking his glasses off and wiping some of the rain off the lenses with his cuffs. It looks like he's only smearing more water around instead of helping.

Gerard is taken aback. "She's buried on the property?"

"Yeah." Mikey frowns at his glasses, then puts them back on, low on his nose.

"Oh," Gerard says. There's an edge of awkward tension between them, now, and Gerard can't stand it. "Look, I'm going to go get some coffee, do you want some?" he asks, feeling like he's grasping at straws. He doesn't know why Mikey's been so distant since they got to L.A., and he doesn't like it.

Mikey is silent for a moment, and Gerard's heart drops. But then Mikey smiles at him—albeit a bit weakly—and says, "Sure."

 

* * *

Ray and Frank are already in the kitchen when Gerard and Mikey get there. There's half a pot of coffee left, and when Frank sees them come in, he jumps to his feet to pour a new mug and press it into Mikey's hands.

"Jesus," Frank mutters, "you're soaking wet and it's freezing in here, are you trying to catch pneumonia and die? Because you're on the right track, believe–" Frank cuts himself off and makes a face. "Oh my god, I'm turning into my mother."

They all laugh at that, even Mikey.

Gerard gets his own coffee and slides into one of the empty seats at the table, sitting with the mug held close to his face so the steam can help warm him up. It hadn't been that bad outside but it's still freezing inside, and being a bit damp is only making it worse.

"Where's Bob?" Gerard asks, realizing that he has no idea where he is if he's not in the kitchen.

"He went to bed," Ray says. "I don't blame him, actually. It was a long day." He puts his mug down, looks at it, and then stands up and says, "You know what, I'm going to turn in now, too."

Mikey gets to his feet, then. "I'll go up with you," he says to Ray. "I really need to put on some dry clothes."

Ray nods at him, and they head out together.

"This house is really something, huh," Gerard says, once it's just him and Frank sitting across the table from each other.

"Do you think this place is haunted?" Frank asks. He's staring at some point over Gerard's shoulder, probably deliberately avoiding meeting his eyes. "Be honest."

"I don't know," Gerard says. "I guess not."

Frank's face falls.

"I don't– I don't not think it's haunted, either," Gerard adds hurriedly. "I mean, there's this weird vibe here, right? We all feel it, so it's got to be something, you know?"

"It's definitely something," Frank agrees fervently.

"I know Mikey thinks it's haunted," Gerard says. "Maybe that's why he's been so weird since we got here."

"You think he's been weird?" Frank's concern is evident, right next to his confusion.

"You don't think so?" Gerard frowns at Frank. "He's been kind of distant."

"He seemed okay just now," Frank says.

Gerard can't argue with that, and he makes a non-committal noise of agreement.

"Maybe he's homesick?" Frank offers.

"That's what I figured," Gerard says.

"I mean, he hasn't been engaged to Alicia for very long, right? It's hard to have to leave so soon." Frank's voice gets soft, and Gerard knows he's got to be thinking about Jamia, waiting for him back in Jersey.

"Yeah. I don't know. I mean, that must be it. It's hard to see him like that, you know?"

Frank smiles at Gerard, then reaches across the table to cover Gerard's hand with his and squeeze it tightly. "He'll be okay," Frank says.

"I hope so."

"He will," Frank insists, and Gerard wants nothing more than to believe him.

They sit in silence after that, but it's comfortable. Gerard finishes his coffee and debates getting another cup, but quickly decides against it in favour of actually being able to fall asleep at some point that night.

"Hey, so," Frank starts into the quiet, and Gerard looks up at him. "This is really dumb, but can you walk me to my room?"

"Sure," Gerard says, and gets up and offers Frank his arm like an old-fashioned gentleman. Frank laughs, which was the whole point of the gesture.

The trip up to Frank's room is mostly quiet—the overwhelming stillness of the house around them seems to demand it somehow—and when they get to Frank's door, Frank leans in to confide, "I'm not scared, okay, but it's still fucking creepy to be alone in this place after midnight, you know?"

Gerard wraps his arms around Frank in a goodnight hug and murmurs, "I know," into the top of his head.

"Thanks," Frank says against Gerard's shoulder.

"It's nothing," Gerard says.

"Be careful on your way," Frank says seriously, pulling back from the hug to look Gerard in the eye.

"I will," Gerard assures him.

So of course Gerard gets turned around on his way back to his room. He wouldn't say that he's lost, necessarily, but he clearly missed a turn somewhere because he wasn't paying enough attention.

The hallway gets darker and darker as he goes until it's almost completely wrapped up in shadows. The things hanging on the walls are just dark outlines as he moves by; some look like they must be framed paintings, perhaps portraits of long-dead Hollywood players, while others look like old-fashioned ornamental sculptures, nailed to the wall to ride out the tastes of changing residents.

Gerard stops to admire a really ornate gilt frame of a mirror. The glass itself is dusty so he blows on it to clear it, and then he spends the next minute coughing as the dust flies back into his nose and mouth. The glass is cleaner for it, though, and he gives it an extra swipe with the cuff of his hoodie.

He can see himself reflected in it now: the rise of one cheekbone, the peak of his nose, the line of his brow, all picked out in the contrast of light and shadow. It's almost poetic, he thinks as he tilts his head sideways to watch the way the change in angle affects the play of shadows across his skin, changing the face he sees in the mirror.

There's a flicker, then, not in the lights around him but in his reflection. His hair suddenly looks much shorter, cropped close above the ears and a only a little longer than that in front, and his reflection's cheeks are flushed even though it's far too cold in the hallway for his face to be so hot. He looks younger in his reflection, almost like a teenager.

And his eyes...

He hesitates to even call them his; they're bloodshot around the edges and his pupils are dull and flat in a way that has nothing to do with the lack of light in the hallway, and it makes something dark and sick start to swim around in his guts.

Gerard winces, stepping back from the mirror as though he's trying to dodge the wild swing of a fist. He takes a deep breath, trying to slow the too-fast beating of his heart, and then shakes his head as if it'll help him shake off what he just saw.

When he looks back a heartbeat later, his reflection is exactly as it should be.

Gerard stares at the glass for a long moment before turning away, moving briskly down the hall back in the direction he came from to put as much space between himself and the mirror as possible.

He's still kind of turned around, but eventually he finds his way back to his room. He shuts the door firmly behind him, strangely relieved to have something solid between him and the rest of the house.

 

* * * * * *

When Gerard stumbles into the kitchen shortly before noon a few days later, the only person there already is Ray.

"There's coffee," Ray says from behind his mug, and Gerard makes a beeline for the coffeemaker. He pours himself a mug and then sits down across the table from Ray.

They sit in silence as Gerard makes short work of his first cup, and it's not until he's sitting down with his second that Ray opens his mouth.

"So, hey, maybe this is a weird question," Ray starts tentatively.

"Go for it," Gerard says. The words get kind of garbled because he's talking into his coffee mug, but he figures Ray's used to that.

"We're the only people staying here right now, right?"

"Right."

"So it's only us in the house."

"Yeah."

Ray sighs. "Okay, that's what I thought."

"Why do you ask?" Gerard may only have two cups of coffee in him, but that was definitely kind of a weird question—especially coming from Ray, whose attention to detail really puts the rest of them to shame—and his curiosity is piqued.

"Last night, I... I could have sworn I heard voices, like there were other people in the house."

"Me and Frank were talking in the kitchen until pretty late," Gerard offers. "Maybe that got carried through the ducts or something?"

"Maybe," Ray says, totally unconvinced. "I heard a woman, though. And I know what you guys sound like, and I'm pretty sure it wasn't you, even distorted."

"Oh," Gerard says. He could make the obvious joke, but he doesn't.

"And it sounded like she was talking to someone, maybe a man, but the way they were talking? I don't know, it sounded kind of... old-fashioned, I guess?"

"That's real weird. I didn't hear anything like that at all."

Ray shrugs. "It's okay. Maybe someone was watching a movie and I heard that. Or it was just noise, and my brain was trying to tell me it was voices, you know, making order out of chaos?" Ray doesn't look like he believes his own theories, though, and it leaves Gerard kind of unsettled.

It occurs to Gerard then that Ray isn't the only one to have had something weird happen to him since they've been here. The memory of the strange face in the mirror is rushing back to him, and he's about to say something about it when he stops, practically biting his tongue to keep the words in. It's not that he wants to keep it a secret per se; it's more that he still isn't sure at all what exactly happened, and he'd rather not have word get back to Mikey and Frank when it would do nothing but freak them out for no good reason.

Ray lifts an eyebrow at him, and Gerard realizes he must still have his mouth hanging open like he's about to say something. "More coffee," he says lamely, and then gets up to go get it.

When he turns back to the table, Frank is sitting in Gerard's seat, wrapped in what looks like three or four hoodies. Gerard grabs another mug from the cupboard and fills it for Frank, who takes it from him gratefully.

"Any word on when we're getting the heat on?" Frank asks.

Ray shakes his head. "I talked to Brian last night–"

"Holy shit, you got cell reception?" Frank interrupts, his eyes wide. "How?"

"Believe it or not, the house has a landline," Ray says. "I found a phone in the front hall. It might be the only one, though."

"So that's a no, then," Frank says glumly.

"Hey, what did Brian say?" Gerard asks, even as he wraps his hands more tightly around his mug for warmth. He's starting to get used to the cold, but that doesn't mean he likes it.

"He said that the heat should be on already, but he'd look into it for us."

"Oh," Frank sighs.

"Thanks, though," Gerard says to Ray. "Hey, did you manage to get the internet in your room working yet? Mine's still down."

Ray shakes his head, frowns. "It should work. It looks like all the settings are right, so I don't know what's wrong. It just doesn't work."

"Shit," Gerard says with feeling.

 

* * *

Rehearsals go well for the first week. They're having fun playing with the way the new songs sound in the ballroom, and some of the pieces they've been working on are definitely starting to turn into something. The songs they wrote in New York are getting better and better as they tweak them and start really owning them, and it gives Gerard a little thrill that keeps him going through the admittedly tough schedule they've set themselves: they get up around noon and then play until midnight or later every single night. It's working for them, though, and that's what matters.

And then one morning the second week they're there, they're all left sitting around doing nothing while they wait for Bob, who is rather late for practice. It's not that they've got a hard and fast rule about when they start each day, but they've all been coming downstairs around the same time every day and getting started by 1, 1:30 at the very latest. But it's almost 2 now, and there's still no sign of Bob.

Gerard and Ray go upstairs to knock on his door. There's no answer. It's completely quiet inside Bob's room, and after a few minutes of banging on his door and yelling his name in case he needs to be woken up, they give up and go back downstairs to the ballroom without him.

"He wasn't there," Gerard shrugs apologetically when he sees Mikey and Frank's expectant faces.

Mikey looks upset for a moment, and then goes back to glaring down at his cell phone, as if he's trying to convince a text message to go through with the power of his mind.

Frank shakes his head and goes back to working on the riff he's been playing for the last week. It's sounding better and better and Gerard has been starting to think about what kind of words it might need—he's got a couple ideas already simmering in the back of his mind now, and he's excited for Frank to get it finished enough to share properly with everyone.

When Bob does finally show up almost an hour later, he's red in the face and his hair is soaked and he looks pretty pissed off. "Sorry guys," he says as he hurries over to where they're all sitting around in the ballroom.

"What the hell, Bob," Frank calls at him, getting up off the amp he'd been sitting on and taking a couple steps toward him.

Bob sighs. "Sit down, Iero. I'm sorry, okay? The bathtub in my room decided it wanted to overflow in the middle of the night, so I've been cleaning it up for the last four hours."

"You left the tub on overnight?" Ray says, kind of incredulously.

"It took you four hours?" Mikey frowns.

"I did not leave the tub on overnight," Bob says, crossing his arms over his chest defensively. "I haven't even used the thing in like three days, okay?"

Ray spreads his hands apologetically, and Bob waves it off.

"And it took me four hours," Bob goes on, "because I couldn't get the damn faucet to stop running. The taps wouldn't turn, and then they did and nothing happened, and then they wouldn't turn again, so I had to keep bucketing water down the sink." Bob scowls. "Fuck, I hope there's no permanent water damage, I bet they'll charge us an arm and a leg for that."

"How'd you get it to stop?" Mikey asks him.

Bob shrugs. "Honestly? It stopped by itself."

"Just like it turned on by itself?" Frank asks, but it sounds pretty rhetorical. Nobody answers him, anyway, but Mikey gives him a long look.

"So you were in your bathroom the whole time?" Gerard asks.

"Yeah."

Gerard shoots a sidelong glance at Ray, and can see the exact moment he gets where Gerard is going with that—his eyes go wide and his jaw drops.

"We were knocking on your door," Ray tells Bob. "Calling your name."

"Didn't hear you, I guess," Bob says.

"Yeah, but we didn't hear you," Gerard says, "and you'd think we'd have at least heard the water running."

"It was totally quiet," Ray confirms.

"Okay, that's weird. I don't know what to tell you." Bob starts shaking his hands out, and then reaches for his sticks. "Seriously, can we play now? I feel bad about holding things up."

Ray nods and pulls his guitar off its stand, and Mikey does the same thing a moment later. He's still giving Bob weird looks, half-considering and half-upset.

"Did you get everything cleaned up?" Frank asks Bob.

Bob nods. "I need new towels now, though."

"Okay," Frank says. He looks Bob up and down like he's confirming that he's okay, and then goes to get his guitar too.

 

* * *

They're working out some of the last kinks in the outro to "Dead!" when it happens: Mikey stops playing halfway through a measure, his hands going limp against his guitar.

"Mikey?" Frank is the first to notice and he stops playing, too, and takes the few steps across the middle of the loose circle they've formed to go put his hands on Mikey's shoulders. "Hey, hey, Mikey, you okay?"

Mikey blinks and jerks back like he's just been woken up. "Yeah. I'm fine."

"Sure," Frank says suspiciously, and looks at Mikey's face as if he's searching for something. He must not find it, because his lip is curled a little when he turns away and goes back to stand in front of his amp.

They start playing again, but now Gerard is paying a lot more attention to Mikey. He looks like he's playing okay, his hands moving the same way they always do, but then as Gerard watches, Mikey drops his pick—which he almost never does anymore—and he's slow to pull a new one out of his pocket, his fingers fumbling and clumsy.

Gerard's eyes go narrow with concern as he watches Mikey get back into the song. His whole demeanour is off, now; his shoulders are slumped and his hands are slow, and he looks like he's holding himself up by sheer force of will alone. And even though Mikey's got his glasses on, Gerard can see that his eyes are bleary, unfocused, and bloodshot.

As Gerard watches, Mikey's hands slow more until they stop again, his left hand halfway wrapped around the neck of the guitar partway towards the head but not actually touching any strings.

Ray frowns at Mikey. He opens his mouth to say something, but Mikey cuts him off pre-emptively.

"I'm, uh, I'm going to take a break," Mikey mutters, shifting his weight from foot to foot. It's obvious he can feel them all staring at him, but what else are they going to do?

"Why?" Bob asks.

"Can't concentrate," Mikey says as he takes off his bass and rests it on its stand.

"Are you coming back?" Ray asks him.

"Dunno," Mikey shrugs. "I don't feel very good."

"Are you okay?" Frank asks, full of concern, and Mikey just nods at him.

Gerard really wants to go give Mikey a hug and try to convince him that having a bad day isn't the end of the world, but Mikey is giving off these serious prickly vibes and Gerard doesn't want to aggravate him. He knows Mikey will come around and talk to him later. So for now he stands by and watches as Mikey turns and walks unsteadily out of the room, leaving them with something mumbled about being in his room for the rest of the night.

Gerard's stomach jumps sideways at the simple mention of Mikey's room. That place gives him the creeps, even though there's no good reason for it. There's just something about it that doesn't sit right with Gerard, that sends chills down his spine and makes the little hairs on the back of his neck stand up.

And now that he's started thinking about it, he can't stop. It's strange how fucking cold Mikey's bedroom is; it's even colder than the ballroom, the kitchen, the hallways, the entire rest of the house. It's like a fucking meat locker in there, Gerard's brain supplies unhelpfully. Gerard cringes, and a shudder of revulsion shakes him to his toes as a grotesque parade of mental images marches through his head—limbs hanging on hooks, dripping blood into frozen spikes–

Stop it, he orders himself sternly.

"Are we going to keep playing?" Ray asks.

Frank shrugs and looks to Gerard, probably on instinct. When Gerard glances over to check, Ray and Bob are also looking expectant, like they're waiting for him to say something.

Gerard bites his lip as he thinks. He knows they should go on—there's really no reason not to; they still have little drum bits and guitar parts to play with and there's always that song Frank's been working on, but for some reason he can't bring himself to keep going. He's too unsettled, both by his thoughts of Mikey's room and by Mikey's strange, abrupt departure from practice, and he's not sure any work he's involved in right now will be in any way productive.

"You guys can," Gerard says lamely. "I'm going to be in the kitchen, I really need some coffee." He doesn't actually need the coffee, but he always finds it soothing and he's not sure what else to do with himself right now. And besides, he'll take any excuse to get out of the ballroom; the atmosphere is getting too heavy and stifling in there.

He lights a cigarette even though they're not supposed to smoke inside, and then pours a cup of coffee and sits down. He pulls his chair in closer to the table, then folds his arms on its old, pock-marked surface and rests his head on top. It gives him a pretty clear view out the window, inasmuch as it counts as a view. All he can see is the thick growth of trees ringing the house in, keeping drunk teenagers and other unsavoury types away.

And keeping us unsavoury types in, Gerard thinks darkly; they've been so intent on their work that they haven't really left the house since they arrived. When they need something—food, space heaters, a new guitar pedal, Netflix—they have it delivered. At first it felt like a real perk of being in L.A., but now it just means that they're completely holed up and hidden away from the outside world. He can't help but think the isolation is starting to get to them.

Rain keeps hitting the window, creating rivulets running on angles, merging and diverging and merging again as they roll their way down and off the glass.

Gerard isn't completely sure, but he feels like it hasn't stopped raining at all since they got here.

 

* * *

It's pushing well into the wee hours of the morning and Gerard feels like he's only just finally drifted off to sleep when something jolts him back into wakefulness. He's totally disoriented for a moment when he breaks back into consciousness, and his heart thuds hard in his chest as he tries to figure out what woke him up.

It was a noise, he realizes when he hears it again. It was the door from Mikey's room into their bathroom opening—and then the door from their bathroom into his own room. The door is open far enough that he can pick out the silhouette of someone standing there, black-on-black in the room's darkness.

"Mikey?" Gerard calls out. It comes out mostly a croak, thick with sleep.

"Sorry, I'm sorry," Mikey mumbles as he steps the rest of the way into the room, pushing the door shut with a solid thud behind him.

Now that Mikey's away from the door Gerard can see that he's wrapped in blankets, cocooned head to toe in them, and he's shivering so hard that Gerard can see it even from halfway across the room, even with the blankets hiding his body.

"Are you okay?" Gerard asks, a little alarmed. He's feeling a lot more awake now.

"I'm sorry," Mikey repeats, hunching in on himself as he stands there in the middle of the floor.

"For what?"

"I can't take it anymore," Mikey whispers into the blankets around his face, but it's quiet enough in the dark that Gerard catches it anyway.

Gerard blinks at him. "What, your bedroom?"

Mikey nods, his jaw clenched tight. "Can I sleep in here?"

"Of course! Do you want to sleep in the bed? There's room." Gerard scoots over to make space.

"The floor's fine," Mikey says, already starting to sit down near the bed. "Go back to sleep, Gerard."

Gerard watches as Mikey adjusts the blankets around himself before he lies down, curled up tight with his face practically hidden. He wants to insist that the bed will be more comfortable, wants to try to comfort his brother somehow, but Mikey seems happy enough where he is so Gerard lets it go.

But he can't stop thinking about Mikey, about Mikey's bedroom, the strange blue light and Mikey's strange behaviour since they've been here. He lies awake for a long time, listening to Mikey breathing.

Mikey is already gone when Gerard wakes up the next day, and Gerard can't help but wonder if he simply dreamed it happening.

 

* * *

Even though things between Mikey and everyone else are a little strained, like a hangover from the weirdness the day before, the next day of rehearsal goes well, and the next one goes even better, and the one after that is good, too. Gerard thinks it's because they're all doing a good job of keeping a lid on the worst of their tempers, which have started running unusually high. Nobody is sleeping well by the sound of it, and he suspects that none of them have really gotten used to the vibe in the ballroom or how quietly creepy the whole house is, with the permeating chill that still hasn't gone away and then all the dusty antiques and statues that sit around staring at them.

The day after that, though, Gerard wakes up late and in a hell of a bad mood, the kind where he knows nothing is going to go right for the rest of the day. He debates rolling over and going back to sleep, but he forces himself to get out of bed anyway. He doesn't bother to brush his teeth or get dressed, just takes a quick piss and shuffles out into the hallway, which is dim and grey and cold even though it's mid-afternoon in fucking California.

He keeps his head down as he walks, not even watching his feet as he zones out. He looks up when he figures he's almost at the stairs, but to his shock he's staring down a long hallway that's even darker and colder than the one outside his bedroom.

What the fuck, Gerard thinks. Did he seriously just get lost? But it can't be; he knows the way from his room to the stairs, he knows he was walking the right way, didn't make any turns. The stairs should be right there.

But they're not.

Gerard's heart starts racing as he fights down a sudden panic, and he looks around to try to get his bearings.

The stairs are behind him. Walking past them in a daze wouldn't be that weird, except...

Gerard thinks about it very carefully, and what he knows as fact is simply not matching up with what's happening at this very moment: the hallway has always ended at the stairs, but right now, somehow, the hallway extends past them, and where Gerard is standing should not even physically exist because he'd have to be out over the yard somewhere.

And yet the floor is solid under his feet and the stairs are a dozen yards behind him.

He looks ahead to the end of the hallway and that's when he sees the full-sized mirror hanging on the wall another ten feet ahead of him.

A moment of blind panic rips through him and he wants to retreat, run back to the stairs as fast as he can and get the hell away from the mirror, but when he lifts his feet to back away he finds himself moving towards it instead, entirely against his will.

Gerard sucks in a breath through his teeth as his reflection wavers, getting distorted like the picture on a TV channel you don't get, and then changes in front of his very eyes. It's still him, sort of—it isn't as much as it is. The face staring impassively back at him is old, lined with wrinkles around the eyes and mouth, and its—his—skin sags over his cheekbones. The skin is bone-white, paper-thin. His hair is thin too, wispy and pale around his temples.

Just like last time, it's his reflection's eyes that give him pause. They're so dark; it's like his pupils have expanded to fill his entire iris. It's the same unnervingly stark blackness, flat and empty and dead.

Gerard's heart is suddenly in his throat as he struggles to breathe. He tries to make himself look at anything but the ghastly face in the mirror, but he can't. It feels like something is holding his gaze in place, and he can't break eye contact—because that's what it is, he realizes with a sick jolt. It's staring at him as much as he's staring at it.

Gerard feels a chill at the back of his neck, and it feels like both a breeze and the touch of cold fingers in equal measure. His whole body strains against it, trying to break free from whatever's keeping him mesmerized and held in place.

He stands helplessly frozen, staring with growing horror at the reflection, but then finally, finally, the reflection looks away, breaking eye contact. And then Gerard can move again, and he's stumbling backwards and away as fast as he possibly can, not quite daring to turn his back to the mirror.

When he gets to the stairs, he runs into Frank—literally. Frank catches him by the shoulders before he can lose his balance and fall.

"Thanks," Gerard gasps, still pretty freaked out from whatever the hell it was that just happened with the ghost hallway and the mirror.

"I was just coming to look for you," Frank tells him.

"Overslept," Gerard says shortly. He makes to move past Frank to head downstairs to get some breakfast and get the hell away from this hallway when Frank stops him with a hand on his arm. "What?"

"You okay?" Frank asks.

"Eh," Gerard says after a moment of thought. "Having a shitty morning. It's just one of those days, you know?" He feels bad for lying (even though it's only by omission), because he's pretty sure that Frank would believe him if he told the truth.

But the thing is, he still isn't convinced that what's going on is actually, irrefutably supernatural. He can't shake the feeling that maybe his brain is playing tricks on him—that it's taking the undeniable creepiness of the house and filtering it through his stress about the album and his worrying about his brother and the fact that he's not sleeping that well most nights, and it's coming up with this. So he doesn't say anything to Frank, even though he suspects that telling somebody will probably help, might even make it stop.

Frank nods, clearly accepting Gerard's explanation at face value, then slings an arm around Gerard's shoulder to draw him in for something almost resembling a hug. "Everyone's been having those since we got here, it's about time you had your turn."

"I guess," Gerard says into Frank's shoulder.

"I swear to god it's because of this house," Frank says quietly. "Remind me again why we're here?"

Gerard laughs, totally humourless. "Change of scenery for inspiration," he says, the words flat like he's reciting it by rote.

"Right," Frank says. "Inspiration."

They're quiet for a moment, and Gerard is just about to pull away to go downstairs and drink four cups of coffee because damn, he really fucking needs it, but Frank stops him dead when he says, "I seriously hate this place."

Gerard blinks at him.

"It's definitely haunted," Frank goes on. "It felt like there was something in my room with me last night."

"What, like a ghost?" Gerard blinks some more. On the one hand, he's relieved that apparently he's not the only one having weird shit happen, but on the other hand, it's not as easy to write off the weird shit if it's happening to other people, too.

Frank's eyebrows creep together as he shrugs. "A ghost or something else, I don't know. But I kept turning on the light and nothing was there."

"So maybe it was nothing?"

"Maybe," Frank allows slowly. "But I could swear I heard something breathing, right near my bed."

Gerard knows it's not the right thing to say, but he's still feeling off-kilter so he doesn't stop himself from asking, "Are you sure it wasn't you?"

Frank sticks him with a level stare, and then says, "I saw eyes, too."

"Eyes?"

"Yeah, they were yellow. Like a dog's or something." Frank sounds matter-of-fact when he says it, but Gerard knows him well enough to read the tension in the lines of his body and realize that he's actually sort of freaking out about it.

"There aren't any dogs in the house, Frank," Gerard says. He's aiming for soothing but it comes out a bit short.

Frank's shoulders sag as he sighs. "I know that! But I wasn't dreaming, I wasn't seeing things or hearing things. I know I wasn't."

Gerard bites at his lower lip, worrying at the skin with his top teeth. "So, okay," he starts slowly, "there was a ghost dog or something in your room last night. Did anything happen?"

Frank shakes his head. "It was... watching me, it felt like. Sizing me up like I was its dinner. You know when somebody's watching you and it makes the back of your neck prickle? It was just like that, but kind of slithery and cold. It was really fuckin' freaky."

Maybe it's a coincidence, but the feeling Frank described sounds an awful lot like what Gerard had just felt at the mirror.

The thought that he should say something surges again, but Gerard pushes it back down and forces himself not to shiver. He doesn't want Frank to get even more freaked out over what still might be nothing. He looks up to meet Frank's eyes. "Well, it's gone now, right?" he says, offering it like a condolence.

"Yeah," Frank nods. "I didn't sleep too good after that, though."

Gerard makes a sympathetic noise. "Sounds like we both need coffee," he says as lightly as he can manage.

"When do we not?" Frank asks, just as fake-lightly as Gerard.

When they head down the stairs, the hair at the back of Gerard's neck prickles when they step onto the landing, but a quick glance around reveals nothing out of the ordinary. He takes a deep breath and keeps walking.

 

* * *

It's another indistinguishable grey and rainy afternoon and Gerard's mood hasn't improved, not really. He's still got his metaphorical hackles up like he's waiting for the other shoe to drop, and he's so on edge that he's having trouble losing himself in the music, letting himself get fully immersed like the songs deserve.

When they get back to practice after wolfing down a quick dinner, Frank announces that the song he's been working on is finished enough to share with the rest of them. It's a matter of minutes for him to explain what he was imagining for the bass and drum parts—they're all attuned to each other well enough at this point, after days and days of ten-hour rehearsals—and he's nodding right away at the licks Ray starts playing along with him. Mikey comes in a few bars later, just picking the root notes at first but quickly adding more, and it sounds like a real song almost right away.

"Holy shit," Frank cheers when they break off after a few verse-chorus repetitions, his whole face lit up with delight. "That's it, that's exactly it."

Bob is staring at Frank over his drum kit, visibly impressed. "It's a hell of a song," he says, blushing a little when Frank beams back at him. "Where the fuck did it come from?"

Frank gives a one-shouldered shrug. "From the house, I guess. There's such a strange vibe to this place, I don't know, I wanted to try to capture it in music."

"I'd say you sure did it," Ray says, and Mikey murmurs his agreement, even as he keeps fingering his part without actually playing the strings, already starting to push his fingers towards muscle memory.

"Do you have any ideas for lyrics?" Frank says, turning to Gerard.

Gerard does, in fact, have some ideas. He's gotten into the habit of staying up after everyone else has gone to sleep, sitting in the chair by his bedroom window with a pen and paper in his lap and staring out at the pool, watching the way the reflection from the lights along the patio jitter and skip across the pool's surface as the rain keeps pelting at it. He sits and he watches and he writes, almost as if he's in a trance, like he's letting the words get pulled out of his brain through his eyes to guide his fingers.

There are two pages in particular full of lyrics he's been working on since the song first started to really come together. There's something dark about the song's aggression, something that makes him want to turn that aggression against himself, to peel himself open and stick his most tender parts full of knives.

And when the words are ready, he's going to pull back his skin and spill his guts for everyone.

"I do, actually," Gerard tells Frank. "I just need to put the finishing touches on them tonight."

"We could break so you could work on them now, if you wanted?" Frank offers.

"No, but thanks," Gerard shakes his head. "I've been writing in the middle of the night, there's something about it that's been working really well for me."

"Oh, um, speaking of the middle of the night," Ray interrupts. He sounds nervous, and Gerard turns to look at him, trying to figure it out.

"Yeah?" Frank prompts.

"Did anybody else hear that dog barking all night? It kept me up, I had a terrible time trying to sleep."

Gerard spins on his heel, looking instinctively to Frank as he remembers their earlier conversation. Frank is staring at Ray wide-eyed, his mouth slightly agape.

"Maybe we have dicks for neighbours," Bob muses. "Leaving their dogs locked out all night in the rain, real nice."

"I didn't hear anything," Mikey says, sounding pretty bewildered.

"Me either," Bob shrugs, "but my room faces the other way, so maybe it was coming in Ray's window or something?"

Gerard isn't sure which way his room is facing with respect to Ray's but he knows he didn't hear any dogs last night either, but with the way Frank is visibly paler now than he was a minute ago, he doesn't want to say anything. "Why don't we run through the song a few more times," Gerard suggests, to change the subject.

After they call it a day on rehearsals, Gerard heads up to his room with a big mug of coffee and a sandwich and settles into the chair by the window. He promptly forgets about the food as he sits and stares out at the swimming pool, his notebook open on his lap. The pool's surface is still for the first time since he's taken to watching it, and he realizes that it means it must have stopped raining. It's still as dark as ever outside so he peers up at the sky, but he can't see any stars. He's not sure if it's because it's still overcast or if there's too much light pollution from the city to ever see them.

The house is perfectly quiet around him except for the soft scratching of his pen against paper. He writes, stops to cross things out, keeps writing. The words are coming steadily, but it's still a fight to tear them free from where they're clinging to the dark thoughts that lurk in the back of his mind.

Gerard loses track of time as he writes, and it's almost 4 a.m. when he finally puts his pen down. He was mostly working on some new ideas he just had to get on paper, but for the last hour he was finally pinning down the last of the words he needed to finish Frank's new song. He knows that the song is done, now—something about it resonates with him, hits all the right notes, and he's equal parts excited and nervous to share it.

When he brings his notebook to rehearsal the next morning, he realizes that it's actually the first time he's officially put new words to new music since they got here. They have a new song, their first in the house, and they're all visibly buoyed by the achievement as they launch into the first run-through with Gerard singing.

Gerard taps his foot as Ray starts in on the intro and when he opens his mouth to sing, he can practically feel the words as a tangible thing leaving his body, like he's sweating them out, bleeding them away, spitting them up out from the dark corners of his being. "To unexplain the unforgivable," he snarls into the mic, and then closes his eyes and lets the words take over.

The last notes of the song are still vibrating in the air around them when Frank launches himself at Gerard, nearly hitting him in the stomach with the headstock of his guitar. He shoves it around to hang behind his back and wraps his arms tightly around Gerard and hugs him as hard as he can.

"I don't know how you do it, but that's perfect," Frank tells the side of Gerard's neck.

Gerard smiles weakly and pats Frank's shoulder. He's strangely sweaty from the single run-through, and he's breathing hard and feels tired like he's just run a mile with the hounds of hell hot on his heels. It's crazy how good he feels, though, considering the dark thoughts he was stirring up.

"Glad you like it," Gerard says, and his smile gets bigger when he looks up and sees the rest of the guys grinning at them.

"Can we do it again?" Frank asks as he pulls back.

Gerard laughs. "Yeah, we can do it again."

 

* * * * * *

Later that night, much later, when he knows he really ought to be asleep but can't seem to find a way to get there, Gerard hears the creak of Mikey's door opening into their shared bathroom. The tap turns on and stays on for almost a minute, and once it's off Gerard hears the soft sounds of Mikey spitting into the sink.

It's a comforting and almost homey noise, but then Gerard hears the tell-tale rattle of pills in a prescription bottle cutting through the stillness, and that's not the most reassuring sound. There's no noise again for long moments until the little quiet clink of glass against the marble counter carries through the closed door.

Then more silence. No running water, no more rattling or clinking, just the faint groan of the floorboards under Mikey's feet as he shifts his weight.

Gerard has no idea what Mikey is up to and he's dying to ask, dying to get up and stick his head into the bathroom and make sure his little brother is okay, but he can't quite convince his body to get out of bed to do it.

He tries again.

He can't get his body to move even an inch.

His heart starts beating way too hard as he struggles to get his legs to respond. It beats against his ribs as he tries to get his knees to bend, tries to get his feet to slide out from under the blankets to the floor, tries to get anything to cooperate.

He tries to move even one of his fingers from where they're resting, still relaxed, on the sheets at his sides.

But nothing happens.

Gerard shuts his eyes and tries to draw in a deep breath, tries to fight off the panic growing fast and hot in his mind.

But even his lungs don't cooperate. Panic blooms full and deep in his chest, beating like dark wings. Gerard doesn't know what to do. Lurking right at the edge of his thoughts is the idea—the knowledge, even—that if he can't get his body working, his lungs breathing, he might... he might...

There's a noise, then, and Gerard gets one eye open to look wildly around the dark room. There's a sliver of light where there was none before, and it takes him a moment to cut through his terror to place that it's from the door to the bathroom.

The sliver turns into a wedge and then a full-on beam, and Mikey appears in the doorway, half his face illuminated and the other half in deep shadow. He's totally expressionless and the lenses of his glasses are opaque slices of reflected light, almost like a wild animal's.

Gerard wants to call out to him, tries with all his might and will to get his body to do something. He's tense, straining, desperate to move, to draw a deep breath and run away, to get the fuck out of his room and out of the house and never look back.

Mikey lifts a hand and turns off the bathroom light, plunging them back into darkness. The door clicks shut and Gerard can barely make out Mikey's dark shape moving through his room towards the bed. He can hear Mikey's blanket dragging on the floor, so soft it's barely a noise at all. Mikey walks right up to the bed and Gerard can feel Mikey's eyes on him, the force of his gaze like a physical presence against his skin.

And then Mikey reaches out and does touch him, just a brush of a fingertip against Gerard's forehead. It's almost painful, like a shock when you touch a doorknob on a dry day, and Gerard flinches from it by reflex, draws in his next breath like a gasp.

Wait, Gerard tries to call out as he watches Mikey step away from the bed to settle onto the floor in the corner where he'd taken to sleeping most nights. But no sound comes out. Gerard focuses his attention on breathing, takes a deep breath.

That, at least, he can do now. He takes another—in through the nose, out through the mouth—and then another still. He starts to relax despite himself, and the next thing he knows there's a warm tingle in his legs. Hoping against hope, he tries to bend his leg.

It moves easily, muscles and tendons cooperating exactly like they should.

When Gerard lets out his next breath, it's shaky with relief. He moves his other leg, just to make sure he can, and then wiggles all his fingers for good measure.

He rolls over and stares at Mikey, wrapped up in his blankets and huddled in the corner. He's completely still, but Gerard can't tell if he's asleep already or not. He has no idea how much time has passed since Mikey touched him, since he lay down... and what the hell had happened there, anyway? Gerard doesn't like any of the vague ideas his brain is spinning out—that the strange paralysis was somehow Mikey's fault, or that it wasn't but that Mikey had somehow made it go away anyway, or that maybe Gerard's own body is turning against him, or–

Gerard takes another deep breath, relishing the feel of it it because he can, and tries to clear his mind. It's tough going, though, and he spends a long time staring at Mikey before he finally falls asleep.

 

* * *

Bob is late coming downstairs again a few days later. Frank paces the kitchen in concern, even though they're really only pushing forty-five minutes behind schedule—and it's not like they haven't all accidentally overslept before, as Ray keeps pointing out unhelpfully. Gerard and Ray take turns offering to make Frank breakfast if he'll just sit down, but he shrugs them off and keeps pacing.

"Why don't you go bang on his door?" Mikey finally asks him from where he's sitting at the end of the table, flipping his Sidekick around between his fingers as he glares at it.

"Why do you even bother with your phone?" Frank asks him in return. Mikey shrugs at him, puts it down to pick up his coffee instead, and then gestures with his free hand at the door to the hallway, like he's inviting Frank to leave.

Frank shakes his head at Mikey and keeps pacing.

Gerard sighs quietly and stares down at his coffee to try to block everything (and everyone) else out. Frank's nervous energy is starting to get to him, making him unsettled and jittery. He can still hear Frank's footsteps, though, soft against the hardwood floor and squeaking sometimes when he steps on a loose board. And then he realizes what's holding Frank back.

"I'll go up with you, to knock," Gerard tells Frank, who stops in the middle of the floor and turns to look at him.

"Yeah, okay, since you guys insist," Frank agrees, playing it off like he's caving even though the relief in his eyes is pretty obvious.

Gerard is just getting to his feet when Bob walks into the kitchen, his expression dark and his whole body tense.

Bob blows past them to stand by the sink, and they all watch in stunned silence as he turns on the taps. "Fuck!" he shouts once the water starts running, and he turns the taps off again with a vicious shove.

Gerard's view is blocked by Bob's back so he has no idea what exactly happened to get such a reaction, but he can see the freaked-out looks on Frank and Mikey's faces and he can tell that whatever it was, it can't be good.

"What's going on?" Gerard asks carefully.

"Every time I've turned on the water in my room in the last couple days," Bob starts, his words measured like he's barely holding himself back from freaking out, or maybe getting real angry, "the water's been running red. And it just did it here, too."

"What, like, rusty pipes?" Ray asks.

"That's what I thought," Bob says, "but it never clears up, it keeps running red."

"It shouldn't be doing that," Mikey says thoughtfully.

"No fucking kidding." Bob crosses his arms over his chest and leans back against the cabinets.

"No, I mean, it shouldn't, I..."

"You what?" Gerard asks.

Mikey flushes red, then shrugs. "Nothing, it's nothing, never mind."

Gerard wants to push Mikey further, try to figure out what the hell he's talking about, but then Frank is gently pulling Bob away from the sink and then reaching down to turn it on himself.

Gerard stands up straighter and tilts his head and he can see around Frank. It looks like the water is running perfectly clear, not even a trace of red in it.

"Oh, thanks, way to show me up there," Bob mutters.

Frank shrugs and turns the tap off.

Bob hesitates briefly and then reaches out to turn it back on, the expectation clear on his face.

The water comes out red again, bright and dark and opaque.

"Okay, that shit's just not right," Frank says, backing away quickly until he's got his back up against the counter on the other side of the room. There's fear in his voice, and Gerard doesn't blame him—his own heart is suddenly beating much, much faster.

"It hasn't been doing this for anyone else?" Bob asks angrily.

They all shake their heads no.

"What the hell is going on?" Bob asks the room.

Nobody has an answer.

"What were you saying before, Mikey?" Gerard asks, turning to look at his brother. He's going to get a straight answer out of him eventually, and he figures it doesn't hurt to start now.

But Mikey's not there.

"Uh," Gerard starts slowly, "when did Mikey leave?"

"He left?" Bob asks, turning away from the sink. "Huh."

"I didn't notice," Ray says. He sounds concerned—and fuck, Gerard's worried too.

"Wouldn't it be nice if we could text him," Frank sighs, and Gerard can't help but laugh at that a little desperately. Just because Mikey's taking it the hardest doesn't mean they aren't all chafing at the total lack of cell reception.

Maybe they should take a day off soon, Gerard thinks, drumming his fingers on the kitchen table as they all look back and forth at each other. Maybe it would do them all some good.

"So, hey, let's find Mikey and get to work," Bob says. He sounds kind of... nervous isn't quite the right word, Gerard thinks, but he's definitely unsettled and Gerard doesn't blame him for wanting to stop talking about the water and get on with more normal things.

"Maybe he's in the ballroom already," Frank suggests. It's a pretty good idea, actually, and it makes most sense to start there, so Gerard grabs a quick refill on his coffee and then follows the rest of the band out of the kitchen and over to their rehearsal space.

But Mikey isn't in the ballroom when they get there.

"Maybe he's in his room?" Ray says.

"We could wait for him here," Frank points out. "He knows we're going to be in here eventually anyway."

"I'm gonna go look for him," Gerard announces. Mikey's sudden disappearance really isn't sitting right with him, and he really wants to figure out what the hell is going on.

"Have fun with that," Frank says. "I'm going to stay right here, if it's all the same to you."

"Fine," Gerard shrugs, and heads off into the house to start looking. He's got this feeling that Mikey probably isn't in his room—he doesn't know where he would be instead, but Gerard can't imagine that Mikey would want to be in his room any more than he has to, not when he's already sleeping on Gerard's floor every night.

Gerard starts walking, letting his feet pick their own path through the house's winding hallways. He knows he's probably been through the entire house at least once by this point, but he doesn't recognize the hallway he's in right now and it's starting to give him the creeps.

But then he hears a noise coming from behind a door that he's definitely never opened before—and it sounds like a voice.

He chews on his lip as he hesitates for a moment, but then decides he should open the door to check, just in case it's Mikey—because if everybody else is waiting for them in the ballroom, what else would it be?

The door swings open easily when he turns the handle, and it turns out the room is a small library. He blinks, trying to get his eyes to adjust to the dim light in the room, and then stands there in awe as he takes in his surroundings. The walls are lined with shelves crammed full of old books that probably date back to the turn of the century—the last century—and there's a thick layer of dust everywhere, ashy and uninterrupted, like nobody's been in for years and years.

Mikey isn't in the room, and clearly never has been.

Gerard shakes his head and is about to back out of the room when something in his peripheral vision catches his attention.

It's a mirror.

He stops dead and stares. Just like the last time he found himself suddenly facing a mirror, he can't shake off the sudden and overwhelming compulsion to stare at it—and he hates it, tries to fight against it, but it's not taking.

And then he starts to move. His feet are bringing him closer and closer to the mirror even as he tries to resist. He can feel himself breaking out into a sweat as he concentrates on getting his feet to stop moving, but they don't, they keep walking him forward until he's standing right in front of the mirror.

The room is dark around him except for a single weak ray of sunlight coming in through a crack in the heavy curtains, and it hits the mirror at a long angle. The mirror's elaborate frame is wreathed in shadows, and as Gerard steps towards it his own shadow spreads across its surface as he blocks out the dim light spilling in from the hallway.

As he watches, the shadows already lurking under the edge of the massive frame seem to grow even bigger. They're pulsating, not in even measured beats, but–

But more like a heartbeat. He drops his mug in shock as the recognition uncurls in his stomach. He doesn't even notice when the coffee splashes over his feet, searingly hot for a moment, or that the mug breaks into a dozen pieces. He keeps staring at the mirror.

And the face staring back at him, well... It's nominally his, but it's somehow all wrong. It's pale, sallow, with dark bruise-coloured circles around his eyes. It looks like he's sick, so sick he's almost dying, like he's got a bad case of something vicious and lingering that's sapped everything out of him but the very last spark of life—and by the looks of it, that spark is next to go.

Gerard tries to swallow but finds his muscles aren't cooperating. He just stands there, helplessly staring this twisted reflection down while his heart beats harder and harder and his lungs don't quite pull in enough air. He can feel a fat drop of sweat rolling between his shoulder blades, another slipping down the side of his face. He's fighting this strange compulsion as hard as he can, and he's not winning.

Time stands still as his legs keep him locked in place in front of the mirror, watching, being watched. He keeps struggling against it, trying to get his body to move, to turn around, even just to look away, but he can't do it. It feels as if his body has somehow turned to stone and he's trapped inside, doomed to fight against it forever.

And then, as he looks on helplessly, the light in the reflection's eyes grows dim.

Then the shadows around the mirror's edge seem to subside, too; from the corners of his eyes, it seems to Gerard like some of them are slithering away from where they were lurking, writhing down and across the wall to mass in the corners of the room.

Gerard keeps staring, totally horrified, as that last spark of life in his reflection's eyes flickers weakly for a moment before finally fading out completely. He's hit with a wave of nausea as he watches his reflection's eyes sag half-shut, the eyeballs growing glassy and cloudy.

Gerard's heart is beating too hard against his ribs and his stomach starts clenching abruptly. He wants to throw up, he wants to run as far away as humanly possible, he wants to get the fuck out of here and never see another mirror for the rest of his life.

It's not until his reflection's eyes glaze completely over and turn almost white that the reflection finally fades away, leaving Gerard's own face—sweaty and red and shocked, but undeniably his—staring back at him. He flinches away at the sudden change, and that's when he realizes he can finally move again.

He runs. He runs right the fuck out of the room and slams the door behind him. He books it away as fast as he possibly can, trying to put space between himself and whatever the fuck that had been in the mirror, whatever the fuck it was that had just happened. Soon enough he finds himself back in the ballroom like he went there on instinct, his feet taking him somewhere he knows he'll be okay, surrounded by his band.

They're all waiting for him—Mikey included—when he staggers around the corner and then slows until he's stopped in the middle of the room. His legs go weak on him as he bends forward, hands on his knees, and tries to catch his breath. He's sweaty and panting and he's sure he looks like hell, and he's not surprised at all to feel them staring at him in concern.

"You okay?" Ray asks gently, and Gerard forces himself to nod, even though he isn't entirely sure that he's fine.

He takes another few moments try to get ahold of his breath again, and then he straightens up and walks the rest of the way over to his band. "Where were you?" he asks Mikey.

Mikey shrugs, gives him a blank look. "I was cold, so I went to get another sweater."

"Oh," Gerard says. He feels monumentally stupid for freaking out the way he did.

"Seriously, are you okay?" Frank asks, coming up to Gerard and putting a hand on his arm. "Why were you running, anyway?"

Gerard doesn't shake Frank's hand free even though his skin is crawling. He wants to forget what he just saw, ignore it, make like it never happened. He's not so sure that the memory will ever fade—it feels like the face with its dead eyes is seared into the front of his brain, now—but it never hurt a guy to hope.

"Yeah, yeah, I'm fine," Gerard says, trying to sound as reassuring as he can. He doesn't think he does a very good job, though, and Frank doesn't look like he's buying it.

Gerard realizes then that he doesn't have to make like something freaky didn't just happen—it's not like they didn't all just witness something inexplicable in the kitchen when Bob turned on the taps, and it's not like Frank wouldn't believe him anyway.

Gerard sighs, and then puts his free hand on Frank's shoulder and pulls him in close. "Actually, I... saw something that kind of freaked me out," he says quietly by Frank's ear, and he feels Frank get tense all over.

"What was it?" Frank asks, just as quietly. His breath is warm against Gerard's skin, and there's something about his proximity, his body heat, the way he's so undeniably alive that Gerard finds incredibly reassuring.

"I'm not sure," Gerard hedges. He doesn't want to lie to Frank, but he doesn't really know how to describe what he saw, either—or how to explain why he didn't mention it the other times it happened. "I found this room that had a strange mirror in it, and there was something wrong with my reflection–"

"Wrong how?" Frank cuts in sharply.

"It was me, but it wasn't. The face in the mirror, it... I don't know, it looked sick, like it was dying or something. I think– I think I watched it die."

Frank tenses up against him at that, so quickly he's practically recoiling. Frank's mouth is open, moving slightly like he's testing out words in his head before he says them, and Gerard wishes Frank didn't look quite so scared by what he'd just said.

"Maybe my eyes were playing tricks on me," Gerard offers, trying to sound like he believes it, "but I figured I'd be better off getting back here fast. Just to be safe."

Frank moves back half a step, and looks seriously at Gerard, taking him in. "You're okay now, right?"

Gerard bites his lip and takes a deep breath in through his nose, then nods. "Yeah. Yeah, I am. I need to get over it, you know? Wait for my heart to stop beating so fast."

"Hey, so–" Bob's voice cuts through the weird tension that Gerard seems to have brought with him, and Gerard startles back from Frank to cut a glance at Bob. "When you guys are done having your tender moment, we have a new song to work on."

Frank keeps a straight face for almost ten seconds before he starts laughing, and Gerard cracks a smile, too, because he can't not. He doesn't know how Bob managed to find the right thing to say to help him shake off most of the lingering weirdness from earlier, but he did and it helped and fuck, he loves his band. Sometimes he can't get over how right it feels to have them all in his life, constantly around him, constantly in his space, bugging him with their weird habits and weirder smells. He loves his band, and they are going to make a great fucking record together.

 

* * *

When Gerard wakes up in the middle of the night, it's not with a sudden jolt like it's been every other time. It's more of a slow resurfacing into consciousness, a little at a time, and when he's finally awake enough to actually realize that he's awake, he has no idea why.

He lies there, still and silent, breathing in deep breaths to get himself ready to roll over and go back to sleep.

He's about to roll onto his side when he hears it: a soft scratching noise, coming from somewhere quite close.

He freezes, suddenly wide awake, then slowly finishes rolling over anyway, so he can look at his room and convince himself that it's nothing.

Except it turns out to be something, after all.

Mikey is in his room again tonight, but he's not curled up in a pile of blankets in the corner like Gerard would have expected. Instead, he's sitting cross-legged in the middle of the floor, hunched over something.

Gerard blinks a few times and then squints, trying to get the sleep out of his eyes so he can see exactly what's going on. It takes him a few minutes to make out the details against the dark of the room, but the sheet of white paper on the floor in front of Mikey jumps out at him first, almost luminescent in the moonlight coming in through the window. Mikey's got a pen in his hand and it looks like he's writing on the paper.

Gerard watches as Mikey's hand skitters across the page in jerky movements, and he realizes after a moment that Mikey is holding the pen all wrong compared to how he normally does. His knuckles are sticking out all weird and it seems like he's barely holding the pen upright, let alone pressing hard enough to actually write.

Gerard looks up at Mikey's face and the deep strangeness of the whole tableau starts to really sink in, not like a punch to the gut but more like cold fingers on the back of his neck.

Mikey's not wearing his glasses and his face is slack and his eyes are glazed, like a thousand-mile stare at nothing. His mouth is hanging slightly open and he looks completely disconnected from the world around him, as though he's wrapped up so tightly in something in his head that it's squeezed out everything else.

It's like he's in a trance, Gerard thinks.

Gerard holds his breath as he watches. Mikey is completely still—even his chest is hardly moving, like he's barely even breathing—except for his hand, which keeps moving across the page. Gerard's eyes have adjusted enough to the dark that he can see the vague shapes of the marks left behind. It looks like writing, but it's nothing like Mikey's handwriting at all.

The touch of cold on Gerard's neck starts to creep down his spine. He can't look away and he can't bring himself to say anything, either. He just watches, completely enthralled. He's confused and increasingly scared, both by the writing and the total lack of awareness on his brother's face, and he worries that if he looks away, something terrible might happen and he wouldn't be able to stop it.

Not that he'd be able to stop it anyway, he thinks with an edge of panic, because he has no idea what the hell is going on or why it's happening. It's like Mikey isn't even in his own body anymore, like something else has taken over and is making use of it.

Gerard wants to say something. He wants to call out to Mikey, ask what's going on, demand an explanation or just reassurance that Mikey is okay, but he can't bring himself to even make a noise. He has no idea what will happen if he interrupts and he's not willing to risk it. He watches, wide-eyed and desperate with growing fear, as Mikey keeps sitting there, still lost to the world around him and still writing.

And then Mikey stops. One moment his hand is moving awkwardly over the paper and the next moment it's completely still, like all the muscles in his body have seized up in unison. But then Mikey's face tenses up, his nose wrinkling and his lips curling for a few moments before relaxing again, and then his eyes slide slowly shut. They're closed for almost a minute—a very long, tense minute where Gerard watches impatiently, waiting for something, anything to happen—before they open again, and when they do, Mikey is back to normal. Gerard isn't sure how he knows it except for how he just knows his brother, and it's clear that whatever was going on before is now over. Mikey looks okay, more or less; Gerard doesn't get the feeling that whatever just happened has affected him much. He's glad his own stunned inaction didn't end up being the wrong move. He doesn't think he'd ever forgive himself if something happened when he could have maybe stopped it.

Gerard watches as Mikey puts his glasses back on and then picks up the paper. It's covered in strange writing now and Mikey squints at it for a while, then sighs, folds it up, and grips it tightly in one hand as he reaches out with the other to start rearranging his blankets. He lies down a moment later, pulling his blankets up over his head as he curls into a ball, same as always. If Gerard didn't still feel the last touches of a strange chill prickling his skin he would be questioning whether he'd really seen anything at all, or if he'd maybe just dreamed it and Mikey'd actually been asleep the whole time.

Gerard waits for as long as he can stand it before he gets out of bed. He can't figure out what exactly he saw, but he's really rattled by it and he wants to put some distance between himself and his room. There's a strange energy lingering there, and he wants to wait it out somewhere else.

He walks to the bathroom and doesn't bother turning on the lights. Going by feel, he turns on the sink and splashes some water on his face, and then sits on the edge of the bathtub, leans forward, and presses his face to his knees.

It's not until he rolls his shoulders and shifts his face so he's looking the other way that he realizes that the light must be on in Mikey's room—there's a faint blue glow coming in around the edge of the door. Why would Mikey leave his bedroom light on, Gerard wonders. He slides along the edge of the tub so he's as far away from that door as he can get. Why would Mikey leave that light on?

Now that Gerard's aware of the faint blue light he can't ignore it. It's there, nagging at the edges of his awareness, bothering him, setting him on edge. The last thing he wants to do is go into Mikey's room and face it full-on in order to get to the switch and turn it off, but he's not in any hurry to go back into his own room, either.

So he sits there, curled up on the edge of the tub, for as long as he can stand it. His back eventually starts to protest being all hunched over so he slides off the cool rim and sinks down to the floor, pulling his knees up as close to his chest as he can and wrapping his arms around them. He faces resolutely away from the door to Mikey's room, biding time as he waits for some sort of sign that it's safe to go back into his own room.

But nothing happens. There's no sign, no indication that anything is different. It's just Gerard, alone in the dark, trying to ignore the blue light even though it's got him gritting his teeth. He sits there until he can't take it anymore; his ass is almost numb and he's straight-up bored, sitting there and waiting for nothing. He eventually gets up slowly, the muscles in his legs protesting after being bent tight for so long, and he tip-toes back to bed, holding his breath against whatever bad mojo still lingers in the air in his room.

He falls asleep more easily than he would have expected, and when he wakes up, it's to the full force of the noon-day sun shining down on his face.

 

* * * * * *

When Gerard wakes up he's in probably the best mood he's been in since they got to the Paramour, like the sunlight is seeping into his brain to make everything seem that much better. He looks out his window and almost right away he's blinking away the spots from the bright light reflecting off the pool's placid surface. The sky is blue, and it would be cloudless but for the haze he can see hanging over the city as it stretches down the hill below them. It's a gorgeous day, real California weather, and he's actually looking forward to taking his smoke breaks outside while the weather is this great.

He smiles wryly to himself at that, because it's strange to think how far he's come—it really doesn't feel like it was that long ago that he was living in the basement of his parents' house where he refused to let the sunlight in, and now he's waking up in a mansion in California where he's enjoying the weather and working on his band's third album. Not to mention, he thinks, it's still great to wake up with a clear head, even after a year and a half of doing it every day. He hopes the feeling never gets old, that he appreciates it this much every single day for the rest of his life.

He's humming to himself under his breath, some snippet of melody he probably heard on the radio years and years ago, when he goes downstairs for breakfast. The hallways of the house look different with the addition of natural light, which he should have expected but it still takes him by surprise that they're so immediately less ominous. The main hallway is practically airy as he passes through on his way to the kitchen. It hardly feels like the same house in a lot of ways, and Gerard wonders if the vibe in the ballroom will be different now too.

He's still wrapped up in his thoughts when he gets to the kitchen, still humming, still happy, so the last thing he expects to see when he rounds the corner is Frank and Ray squaring off across the kitchen table.

Ray is red in the face and his shoulders are so tight they're almost up at his ears, and Frank is bristling like a wild dog—and they're shouting almost as loud as they can as they try to drown each other out as they argue about... something. It takes Gerard almost a minute, standing stunned in the doorway, to piece it together, but he finally catches enough pieces to figure out that they're arguing about the chord progression in the chorus of the new song they've been working on.

Gerard finally gets over his shock and shuffles around the edge of the room to stand next to Bob, who's leaning against a counter as far from the table as he can get. Mikey is standing a little further down in front of an open cupboard door, like he stopped right in the middle of getting his breakfast. He's hunched in on himself and Gerard tries to catch his eye, but Mikey is staring at Ray and Frank, concerned and perplexed.

"What the hell happened?" Gerard murmurs.

Bob shrugs awkwardly. "It sounds like they both wrote something for the chorus and they can't decide whose to use?"

Gerard frowns. He's not sure he's ever seen Ray and Frank fighting like this, not over songwriting. "What set them off?"

Bob is silent for a moment. "Not sure," he finally admits. "They were sitting at the table, talking it over like they always do, and then the next minute they're on their feet, yelling and looking like they want to kill each other."

"The fuck?" Gerard sighs, and he feels more than sees Bob nodding his agreement next to him.

The three of them hang back and watch, seriously at a loss, as Frank and Ray keep yelling at each other. It's so surreal that Gerard feels like he's watching it on a screen or something, or maybe even imagining it; there's no way it can actually be happening, not when it's Frank and Ray.

And then Frank is stepping around the table. It's practically happening in slow motion—Gerard watches in shock as he sees it telegraphed in Frank's body language before it even happens, but he can't do anything to stop it as Frank's arm comes up, his hand clenched into a fist that's moving through the air between them, swinging, and then connecting with the side of Ray's face.

Everything is completely still for what must be the longest split-second in history, and then Ray lunges at Frank, grabbing hold of his arm and pressing him back towards the wall in two giant paces. Frank grunts when he hits the wall and Gerard catches a flash of Frank's face in the blur and he looks stunned, just rocked with disbelief.

Ray leans in and Gerard starts to brace himself for whatever violence is coming next, but Ray simply pushes Frank again, his hands spread wide on Frank's shoulders. "What the fuck is wrong with you?" he growls. The sudden quiet of his voice is in such sharp contrast to the yelling of mere seconds earlier that it's all the more effective, and Frank looks like he's trying to shrink away from Ray, but he can't go anywhere. Ray doesn't lift his hands; he keeps standing right in front of Frank, looming huge and leaning into his space and pressing him back against the wall.

Gerard feels sick to his stomach and hot all over, like all the tension in his body is giving off enough heat to burn through his skin. He can't see Bob or Mikey because he can't take his eyes off Ray, but he can imagine the looks that must be on their faces (and on his own, for that matter). He keeps watching, horrified and enthralled, waiting for something to snap.

Then Bob is surging forward past Gerard and pulling Ray away from Frank. Ray goes willingly enough and Frank sags when Ray lets him go, sliding down the wall to sink to his knees. His head is bowed and his shoulders are slumped.

"What the hell got into you guys?" Bob asks them with more steel in his voice than Gerard has heard from him in a very long time.

Frank doesn't answer, doesn't even move. Ray shrugs but doesn't say anything aloud.

Bob sighs and crosses his arms over his chest like he's settling in to wait them out. "I don't want to say that you owe us an explanation, but actually, I think you do."

It's silent again for a few beats before Ray says, slowly, "I guess, yeah."

"Let's go talk," Bob says, not unkindly, and ushers Ray out of the kitchen.

As they leave, Frank finally comes alive again, jumping to his feet and running to the door.

"I'm sorry!" Frank yells at Ray as he follows Bob down the hallway. "I don't know what I was thinking!"

Bob twists to glare at Frank over his shoulder, but Ray just keeps walking.

"I really don't," Frank says dejectedly. He's much quieter, and it takes Gerard a moment but he realizes that Frank is really embarrassed. He's not used to seeing or hearing Frank like that; it almost never happens. "I barely even..." Frank starts, then trails off. "I didn't do it," he insists suddenly. "It was like I wasn't even there in my own body when it was happening."

Gerard frowns. It's really not like Frank to try to dodge blame like that.

"Do you want to talk about it?" Mikey asks, crossing the room to stand near Frank, close but not quite touching.

"I... dunno?" Frank trails off and starts chewing on his lip, still looking at the floor.

"I kind of insist, actually," Mikey tells him, and then grabs hold of Frank's arm and pulls him along out of the kitchen.

"What am I supposed to do?" Gerard calls after their retreating backs.

"You'll find something," Mikey tells him, and then disappears around a corner.

Gerard sighs, sits at the table, puts his face in his hands. A minute later he gets back up, his chair scraping across the floor with a ghastly screech, and goes to get some coffee in the biggest mug he can find in the cupboards. He hasn't had any yet, and it probably won't make the morning suck any less at this point, but it sure can't hurt to try.

 

* * *

It feels like forever before Bob shuffles back into the kitchen, but the light coming in the window hasn't changed much so it can't have been more than an hour. Bob makes a beeline for the fridge to grab a Red Bull, and then puts a couple pieces of bread into the toaster. He doesn't say anything to Gerard as he starts digging through the fridge and pulling things out, but he seems relaxed enough that Gerard is content to let the silence go on.

The toaster pops, and Bob grabs the toast and starts putting together his sandwich. When it's done, he sits down across from Gerard and takes a big bite, chewing noisily.

Gerard gulps at his coffee, trying not to watch Bob chew. "How's Ray?" he asks.

"He's okay," Bob says around his food.

"Yeah?" Gerard leans in.

"I think it was just stress boiling over," Bob says when his mouth is empty again.

"Okay," Gerard says. "That's good, I guess."

"He feels really bad about it."

"Yeah." Gerard isn't surprised at all to hear it.

The conversation lapses for a while before Gerard says, "It's not going to be a problem between him and Frank, is it?" Bob looks up but doesn't say anything, so Gerard tries to clarify. "I mean, Frank punched him in the face, I wouldn't be surprised if..." He's not sure how he wants to finish the thought so he shrugs and spreads his hands, like the gestures are enough to explain everything.

"I don't think so. He's upset but he doesn't seem that angry. And he says that Frank didn't actually hit him that hard," Bob says, but he doesn't sound like he believes it.

"You think he's lying?" Gerard asks, taken aback. "Why would he?"

"To make nice? To get past this that much faster? Dunno."

"He would do that," Gerard agrees.

They fall quiet again, and Gerard alternates between staring at the scratches in the table and watching Bob eat.

Bob keeps glaring at him every time he notices Gerard watching him, and Gerard looks away every time, but it's not like there's much else to look at so his gaze keeps wandering back to Bob.

Finally, Bob puts his sandwich down. "Stop it," he says.

"Sorry," Gerard apologizes, and then gets up to go stick his head in the fridge so he's not looking at Bob. He ends up not taking anything out, and when he sits back down, Bob clears his throat awkwardly.

"So, uh, when me and Ray were talking in the heavy room–"

"Wait, what did you call it?" Gerard interrupts. "A heavy room?"

Bob shrugs. "Yeah, I don't know, it seemed appropriate, you know? Like a place to get heavy shit off your chest."

"I like it," Gerard says.

"Anyway," Bob goes on, "Ray claims that he heard voices last night, a man and a woman arguing. He made it sound like... like he was beating her."

Gerard frowns. "That's terrible."

"Yeah," Bob agrees. "So he was pretty freaked out already, and then when Frank started yelling..."

"Oh," Gerard says. It makes a lot of sense, or at least Ray's reaction. He still doesn't know what to make of Frank, though.

The conversation falls off and they sit in silence for a while. Bob starts picking at the crusts of his sandwich instead of finishing it.

"I wonder if I should be worried about Frank," Gerard says, thinking out loud.

"Why?" Bob asks.

"Maybe it's nothing," Gerard says slowly, "But before, after you left the kitchen, he swore that..." he trails off as he tries to remember the exact wording, "it was like he wasn't in his own body when it was happening."

"Whatever," Bob says skeptically.

"I kind of want to believe it," Gerard tells him. "Since when does Frank ever yell at Ray like that?"

"Do you think something made him do it?" Bob's tone is a little mocking at that, like he can't believe he's even giving voice to the words.

"Maybe not when you put it that way," Gerard allows, "but I think something was wrong, and if that's how he wants to describe it, then I believe him."

Bob is quiet, obviously thinking it over before he says, a little carefully, "I didn't know you believed in this haunted house stuff too."

Gerard sighs. "I don't know what I believe anymore. It seems hard to argue with, after everything that's been happening."

Bob doesn't say anything, just breathes out heavily and goes back to his sandwich, so Gerard looks back down at his coffee.

Frank comes back into the kitchen then, Mikey trailing a few steps behind him.

"Hey," Frank says, and when Gerard and Bob are looking at him, he hesitates. "So I was thinking, maybe we should take a bit of a break."

Gerard frowns, more at the brusqueness of the announcement than anything else. It's not necessarily the worst idea Frank has ever had.

"We could use a day off," Frank goes on nervously. "I mean, we've been going really hard pretty much every day since we got here, right?" He breaks off, looks at each of them in turn. "It couldn't hurt, right?"

The fact that the suggestion is coming from Frank is what does it for Gerard. Frank, who loves playing more than anything else in the entire world, who plays until his fingers bleed and then grits his teeth and keeps going. Frank, who still maintains that he's in his favourite band in the world. "Maybe we should," Gerard agrees slowly. "Say, the rest of today and all tomorrow?"

"I could go for that," Bob says. He puts down the crust of his sandwich and rubs absently at his left wrist.

Frank relaxes some. "Is Ray in his room?" he asks. "I want to go apologize."

Gerard glances at Frank, like he's anticipating a request for company on the way upstairs, but Frank doesn't say anything, just turns and leaves the kitchen.

 

* * *

Gerard wakes up early the next day and he waits quietly in his own bedroom for Mikey to leave his. He kind of can't believe he's plotting to sneak into his brother's room to snoop around, but there it is. There's no excuse for it, except that he's really worried about his brother and can't help but think he'll feel better if he can find something, anything about why Mikey's been so strange and distant ever since they all moved into the house. Maybe he's been keeping a journal, maybe he hasn't been taking his pills, maybe he's been taking too many pills... There are a lot of maybes. Gerard wants something a little more concrete.

It takes a while but he finally hears Mikey's door open and then click shut, and he listens as the sound of Mikey's footsteps on the creaky floorboards fades. Once he can't hear Mikey any more, he steps into their shared bathroom and puts his hand on the knob of the door leading into Mikey's room.

He's pretty sure that this isn't the best idea he's ever had—he actually has this suspicion creeping around the back of his mind that it might backfire badly. He still remembers the blow-ups they had as kids sharing a room; even though they never really fought in any seriousness, they'd still push each other's buttons on bad days and Gerard remembers just how upset Mikey would get if he thought Gerard had touched his stuff without permission.

He takes a deep breath and opens the door. He sighs heavily in relief when he finds the blue light isn't on, and then he stands there, stopped a step across the threshold, as he reminds himself that what he's about to do is for the best.

Gerard starts by walking slowly around the room, looking for anything that might be out in the open and thus reasonably plausible for him to have found "by accident". There's nothing, though, and he's not surprised. He sets his lips in a thin line as he takes stock of the various hiding places the room could hold. There's the closet, the dresser, maybe under the bed, that's about it.

The dresser is first, he decides after a moment of thought. He can open the drawers, maybe poke around a little, but he won't have to move things around like he might in the closet. It feels less intrusive somehow, even though he knows his justification for it is seriously weak, so he's starting there.

The first drawer he opens is actually completely empty, so he pushes it shut and moves on to the next one, which is full of black t-shirts. They're not folded or piled in any particular order, so Gerard gingerly pushes a few aside as he looks quickly through the drawer. He still can't believe he's doing this, and he can barely bring himself to look at his hand where it's moving through the shirts. He doesn't find anything, so he shuts the drawer with a shaky breath of relief.

He pauses before opening the next one—it's not too late to back out flashes big across his mind—but he grits his teeth and opens the next drawer. He pushes aside a hoodie he thinks might have belonged to him about ten years ago, and then his fingers brush up against the cool plastic of a nice shopping bag, setting something inside clinking. Gerard lifts the hoodie out of the way and then pulls the bag forward. Whatever's inside clinks again, and Gerard's stomach starts to sink when he realizes that it's an awfully familiar noise.

Inside the bag are three bottles of vodka, one completely empty and the other two most of the way there.

Gerard stares at them blankly, waiting for his brain to provide him with something, anything, any reaction at all that isn't just staring, aghast, at the contents of the bag. He isn't sure what he was expecting to find, but he never, ever expected that it would be this.

It's not like Mikey was supposed to quit drinking when Gerard did, that any of them were—but Gerard knows they all cut down anyway, not just out of respect for him but because they'd all had their own wake-up calls. So finding evidence that Mikey is not only drinking but drinking a lot, from the looks of it, is bad enough, but the fact that he's so clearly been doing it behind everybody's backs is what hits him like a knife to the chest. It shouldn't feel so much like a personal betrayal, but it really, really does.

Finally some sense kicks in and he drops the bag back in the the drawer and pulls the hoodie back over top of it, and then he eases the drawer shut and turns to leave the room. On his way out, on a whim, he sniffs the empty glass sitting on Mikey's dresser. It reeks so strongly of vodka that it makes Gerard recoil sharply, his eyes watering even as something dark and familiar uncoils in the back of his brain. He hasn't smelled vodka so close up since he got sober and now he can practically taste it in his mouth, just from the stink of it. The familiar heat of a craving is already flaring up under his skin, and he wants it as much as he wants to get away from it. He stumbles backwards from the dresser, running as quick as he can through the bathroom and into his own room, slamming doors behind him.

Gerard leans against the wall next to the bathroom door, his heart pounding harder than it ever has before. He wants to throw up to get the lingering smell out of the back of his mouth.

A lot of things suddenly make a lot more sense to Gerard now that he's found the bottles. The way Mikey's been shaky, clumsy, unfocused. The way he's been pulling away from Gerard and distant from everybody else. The mid-rehearsal disappearances, and his increasing tendency to zone out instead of playing.

And– fuck, Mikey's drinking on antidepressants, he's still on them, Gerard's seen him take them as recently as a couple days ago, and Gerard's guts twist and clench at the thought. He knows exactly how bad of an idea it is, but god, it really does explain so much about Mikey's strange behaviour.

Gerard simply doesn't get it, doesn't have the first idea where to start figuring what went so wrong that Mikey would be doing this, hiding it, and slowly falling apart in front of them. He still doesn't understand why Mikey's even drinking in the first place.

But he doesn't have to figure it out, of course. He just needs to ask Mikey, to pull him aside and get him to explain it. Gerard sighs. If he does that then he has to admit that he was digging through Mikey's things, and no matter how well-intentioned it may have been, it's still a betrayal and he knows it. He wishes he hadn't found anything, so he could pretend he'd never snuck into Mikey's room and he wouldn't be torturing himself like this. But at least this way he knows, even if it was wrong of him, and this way he can help Mikey...

Gerard sinks to the floor and buries his face in his hands. He's not crying but he's shaking like he is, his shoulders hitching up around his ears as his whole body trembles. Even if he doesn't have the details it's clear that Mikey is in a really bad place, and knowing that it's been going on under his nose hurts so much. He can't do anything but sit there now and wait for this spell to pass, because he needs to put in an appearance downstairs, needs to eat something, have some coffee, smoke a cigarette—a lot of cigarettes.

So he waits. He sucks in deep breaths and tries to clear his mind and then hold it deliberately empty. He doesn't have much success but it helps anyway; he feels a little bit calmer, even if he's not at all happy about the situation. A few more deep breaths help some more.

He eventually gets it together enough that he feels okay leaving his room. The kitchen is empty when he gets there, and he's surprised how relieved he is to not have company. He pours two cups of coffee and then carries one in each hand as he walks out to the patio to sit and smoke.

He lets his mind wander but it doesn't get him anywhere; he keeps coming back to the same questions, keeps throwing the same accusations at himself—he should have been a better brother, more perceptive, more supportive, whatever it would have taken to keep Mikey's problems from getting so big.

He needs to deal with it right away, that much is obvious. It's clearly a huge problem and it affects them all, not just Mikey, so there's no sense waiting to do something about it. He should do it today, this afternoon. It doesn't give him much time to figure out what he's going to say, though, and that makes him nervous.

Gerard finishes his second coffee and his fifth cigarette—he doesn't remember smoking the third and fourth cigarettes, but the butts are right there in the ashtray—and gets up.

At some point on his walk back up to his room, his unconscious mind must have decided that "doing it soon" means "doing it now", because he finds himself looking past his own room towards Mikey's as he comes down the hall.

The door is closed, and Gerard hovers at it for a minute, not quite able to bring himself to knock. He waits another minute and then huffs a breath out through his nose in disappointment and turns to go into his own room.

He paces for a while, too jittery to sit down and start doing something else, and it's not long before he reaches the point where he's driving himself so crazy over this that the best thing for it really is to go knock on Mikey's damn door.

Gerard strides through their shared bathroom to find the door into Mikey's room closed, as expected. He knocks once, hard, and waits for an answer. He doesn't get one in the time it takes to count to ten, so he knocks again, a few times.

"Mikey?" he calls through the door.

Still no answer.

It's entirely possible that Mikey isn't in his room, but Gerard has this feeling that he is and that he's not answering the door on purpose.

"Mikey, can I..." He puts his hand on the doorknob and starts to turn. It gives easily; the door's not locked.

Now that there's a crack between the door and the frame, Gerard can hear Mikey's voice. He's murmuring something, too quietly for the words to be intelligible. Gerard pushes the door open a little further, just far enough to catch a glimpse of his brother.

Mikey is sitting cross-legged on the floor, facing away from Gerard. He's slumped– no, he's leaning forward and doing something; his elbows are sticking out awkwardly at his sides, bobbing up and down as he moves his arms.

"Mikey?" Gerard calls again.

Mikey jumps then, clearly startled, and he twists around quickly to look at Gerard. "Holy crap, you scared me!" he says accusingly.

"Sorry," Gerard says, then steps wholly into the room. All of a sudden the air around him is heavy and practically crackling with strange energy. Gerard feels like his hair should be standing on end because of it. "What's up?"

"I'm busy," Mikey says, turning back to whatever he was doing when Gerard interrupted.

"I was hoping we could talk," Gerard tells him, and takes another few steps forward. It gives him just the right angle to see around Mikey at what he was doing—he's got a Ouija board spread on the floor in front of him, a few small candles lit and lined up at the top of the board, and the planchette is stopped between letters somewhere in the middle, turned on an angle like Mikey knocked it off-course in surprise when Gerard came in. Mikey's got one hand back on it already, and gently nudges it until it's pointing straight ahead.

Mikey turns around again, and this time he looks angry. "Can it keep?"

"I'd rather do it now," Gerard tells him. He's trying to keep calm, steady, reasonable, even though inside he's really freaking out.

"I'm busy," Mikey says again, his voice flat. "Leave me alone, Gerard."

Gerard blinks at his brother, put off by how brusque and dismissive he's being—but then he remembers why he's here in the first place, and he wishes Mikey's behaviour didn't make so much sense now. Gerard tries to catch Mikey's eye when he notices that there's something off about Mikey's face, like it's not quite right somehow. It's got this strange blue tinge to it, pale and lifeless in a way it's never been, and the whole arrangement of his features seems knocked askew, just a tiny bit.

That's when Gerard realizes that the blue light is on even though there's plenty of sunlight spilling in through the window, and right away he feels this horrible slither of revulsion. He takes a step back instinctively. "Mikey?" he asks, totally confused.

"Please, just get out of here." Mikey's voice is kind of thin and scratchy, Gerard notices now that he's heard him speak more than a couple words at a time. It's wrong, all wrong, and Gerard is getting really worried.

"I'm not leaving," Gerard says. He tries to breathe but all he gets is a thin hiss of air through his nose.

Mikey stands up, then, all awkward knees for a moment as he gets to his feet, and he takes a step towards Gerard. "Leave me alone." Mikey still sounds strange, and his voice is starting to get louder.

"Mikey, what's going on?" Gerard feels like he's practically pleading now, but he doesn't care. He's so worried about Mikey, between the strange look on his face and how seriously bizarrely he's acting—fuck, he's very probably drunk, on top of everything else—and he doesn't care if it shows. He hopes it shows, if it'll help him get through to his brother.

"Leave," Mikey says with an edge of anger in his voice. "Get out and shut the door."

"Not until you tell me what's going on, Mikey." Gerard is having real trouble keeping his composure now.

Mikey takes a step closer, and then another. Gerard looks him in the eye and refuses to back down. Mikey keeps moving closer until he's almost right up in Gerard's face, and when there are barely a few inches separating them, a sudden chill strikes Gerard, freezing the thin layer of sweat that's popped up across his shoulders.

A strange look flits across Mikey's face, and he starts to regain his normal colour for a moment before he gets pale again. His eyes go dark, so dark, and his lips are pulling back into a snarl.

And then Mikey pushes him, hard.

"What the fuck!" Gerard yells in shock, staggering backward until he's got one hand on the wall behind him, holding himself up.

Mikey takes another step towards Gerard and lifts a hand like he's going to hit him, but then he stops and gets tense all over like he's visibly holding himself back, and he says, "Get. Out."

Gerard gives up. There's obviously no way Mikey is about to tell him anything right now, let alone actually talk to him, so he steps sideways, not turning away from Mikey, and moves until he's standing in the doorway to their shared bathroom. He steps backwards through the doorway and then shuts the door, fighting down the urge to slam it. He walks into his own room and shuts that door just as carefully.

It's not until he's collapsed on his bed and staring up at his ceiling that Gerard realizes how hard he's shaking. He can't help it, can't stop it. He squeezes his eyes shut and lets the shakes run their course. His heart is racing and he's sweating like he ran a marathon, and holy fuck, he wants to drink, has ever since he found those bottles, got a whiff of that glass.

He digs his nails into his palms and tries to push the thoughts back out of his brain. It doesn't go so well.

One thing's for sure, though: if he'd been on the fence before, he's now completely convinced that there is something deeply fucking wrong with this house. He knows his brother better than he knows anybody else in the whole fucking world, and that was not him. It's got to have something to do with this stupid fucking haunted house.

Maybe they should pack up and leave. They could do it tomorrow, just get the fuck out of the house and not look back. But even as the thought crosses his mind, an overwhelming reluctance to leave wells up in its wake. As much as he sometimes wants to get out, he's really not ready to give up the progress they're making here or the way the atmosphere in the house is adding so much to their songs. The songs are finally starting to sound the way he's been hearing them in his head all along, and he doesn't want to stop everything dead when they're picking up the momentum they need to make the album as huge as he's been envisioning.

And as long as they're all holding it together enough to keep playing and keep pushing forward, they need to stay in the house and do it. It's hard, getting harder, but it's not impossible, it can't be. Leaving now would be too much like giving up, he thinks. They just need to tough it out. They can do it.

 

* * *

The day off really must have done some good because at practice the next day Frank and Ray are working together easily, same as always. They're arguing over a chord progression again, but it's good-natured and they're both smiling. It probably helps that everybody is paying attention to the conversation—or at least, everyone but Gerard. He's still having a hard time dealing with what he found out about Mikey, and the inevitable confrontation is hanging heavy over his head. He does his best to pay attention, though, because the song in question is something they're all pretty invested in at this point.

"The Five Of Us Are Dying" has been following them around for years, and they've been taking it out every so often to play with for a while before shelving it again. Ever since they've been in L.A., though, it seems like they've been gripped by this weird fixation with finally making the song work. A few days ago Ray decided to see what would happen if he played a couple of the sections at double-time, and fuck, it really seems to be making a difference.

They spend the first part of practice running through the song over and over, trying out different variations in tempo, and Gerard suggests switching the positions of two of the sections just to see what happens. They end up switching them back almost right away, but then Frank starts experimenting with a different chord progression in one of the fast sections, and they take it all again from the top and that seems to work out for the better. It's really unbelievable the progress they're making on the song—it's almost enough that Gerard starts to hope the song may finally see the light of day on this album.

The chorus still needs work though, and a lot of it. Gerard isn't happy with the lyrics in their current shape, and he suspects the entire melody is going to get a face lift at some point in the very near future. But that will be a task for later; for now he's only going to worry about the changes that are going well, maybe starting to get certain parts more nailed down.

Frank suggests another change, this time to something that might end up being a bridge if nothing else changes too much, and then Bob counts them back in so they can try it out. They muddle their way through the intro—it's still kind of a mess after the changes they started working on the week before—and they're almost at the maybe-bridge when it happens.

It takes Gerard a moment to pinpoint what sounds so off, and his heart sinks he realizes that it's Mikey. Gerard twists his neck to shoot a concerned look at his brother, who's got a stormy expression on his face as he stares down at his hands.

The song comes to a sudden end when Frank hits his strings once, hard, and stops playing. He spins around, and it's a tight, angry, barely-contained movement. "Jesus, Mikey, what the fuck is wrong with you? Why can't you play anymore?"

Mikey goes pale and Gerard can see the muscles in Mikey's face twitch as he clenches his jaw. "Sorry if I'm not good enough for you," he grits out.

"Wait, that's not what I'm saying–" Frank starts to protest, but Mikey cuts him off.

"Have I ever been good enough?" Mikey's voice is tight, weak, and it sounds like he might be about to cry.

Frank boggles at Mikey, mouth hanging open, all aggression draining out of his posture. "Are you kidding me? Of course you have, what the hell?"

"Because if you don't want me playing, just tell me now and get it over with." Mikey crosses his arms over his chest and he straightens his shoulders, like he's trying to make himself bigger.

"Mikey– what are you– of course we–" Frank sputters, his hands waving at his sides as if they'll pluck the right words out of the air around him.

"Of course we want you playing," Ray says over Frank, setting his guitar aside and starting to walk towards Mikey. But he stops, stunned, when Mikey bursts into tears, not even trying to hide it as his face goes an unflattering shade of red and his jaw trembles and the tears keep coming as the sobs wrack his body.

Ray hangs back, visibly unsure of what to do next, and Gerard can see the sentiment echoed in everybody else's posture, too. He feels like he should do something, but all he can think to do is put his hand on Mikey's shoulder—which he does, and it shocks him to feel how hard Mikey is shaking. He can't stop himself from pulling Mikey into a full-on hug then, but it only lasts a heartbeat before Mikey pushes him away.

Gerard stares at his brother, feeling overwhelmingly helpless and heartbroken. Frank is hovering awkwardly near Mikey, just an arm's length away, but he's not touching him. He looks just as lost as Gerard feels, just as miserable.

Gerard feels a touch on his elbow, and he turns to see Ray leaning in to him.

"Maybe you should take him to a heavy room to talk," he murmurs. He sounds like he's expecting his suggestion to blow up in his face, but Gerard thinks it's a good idea. It's not like he's got any other ideas, anyway.

"Yeah," Gerard agrees, and he's heartened that Mikey doesn't pull away when he puts a hand on his elbow and tugs gently, just enough to get him walking.

The stark smallness of the heavy room is almost claustrophobic after the ballroom, but Gerard steels himself and waits for Mikey to step in, then follows him in and shuts the door behind them. It's surprisingly cold, much colder than the ballroom or the hallway, and Gerard tucks his hands under his armpits almost instinctively to keep them warm. There are two chairs in the room, dark overstuffed armchairs drawn close together, but Mikey doesn't make any move to sit down so Gerard doesn't either.

Mikey stands there, trembling and bleary-eyed and sad, tear tracks drying on his cheeks. Gerard wishes he could read the look on Mikey's face, but it's too strange and impassive—just like everything else about Mikey since they got to this damned house.

"What's wrong?" Gerard asks simply, trying to make eye contact with his brother. Mikey avoids it, which is disappointing but unsurprising.

Mikey shrugs. "I'm fine," he says, but it's totally unconvincing. There's no way he can get away with that, not after what just happened in the ballroom.

"You're clearly not," Gerard says. "So what's wrong? What's with this 'not good enough' business, anyway?"

Mikey doesn't say anything.

"Have you always felt that way?" Gerard asks.

Mikey doesn't answer, again, but Gerard knows him well enough to read the yes in the line of his shoulders, the way his head sags a little.

"It's not true," Gerard says softly. "You've always been more than good enough for us."

Mikey's silence stretches on and on.

Gerard sighs, shakes his head. There's a question sitting right at the tip of his tongue, and Gerard braces himself before he asks it: "Are you drunk right now, Mikey?"

Mikey's reaction is immediate, his head jerking up like Gerard just slapped him. "What..." he trails off, his mouth still hanging open even though no sound is coming out. He doesn't deny it, though.

"I found the bottles in your room," Gerard starts, but Mikey interrupts him before he can go on.

"What the hell, Gerard? What were you doing in my room? Why were you going through my stuff?" Mikey's eyes are flashing with real anger, hot and bright, and it's been a very, very long time since Gerard saw that directed his way.

"I was worried about you, okay?" Gerard offers, not as an excuse but an explanation.

Mikey's face gets tight as he glares at Gerard, but he doesn't answer.

"I just don't get it," Gerard goes on, to fill the silence. "Why are you so distracted that you're barely able to play? Why are you so distant and–" Gerard cuts himself off to take a steadying breath– "and why are you drunk all the time?"

Mikey is staunchly silent, his lips pressed so tight together that they're turning white.

"Mikey, why?" Gerard asks plaintively. He wonders if Mikey has any idea how his aloofness, his silence—his total withdrawal—has affected him, Frank, the band. He thinks Mikey should but hopes he doesn't, because it would hurt too much if Mikey knew but was doing it anyway.

Mikey shrugs, a lopsided, one-shouldered thing. "Why does anyone do it?" he asks softly, cuttingly, and that's just not fucking fair.

Gerard clenches his teeth and balls his hands into tight fists, forces himself not to rise to the bait. "Why are you doing it?" he asks again.

Mikey doesn't answer for a long time. Gerard starts to wonder if he's not going to answer at all, but then Mikey says so softly that Gerard almost misses it, "I don't know what else to do."

Gerard blinks at Mikey. There's still something he's missing here, and it's killing him that Mikey won't just tell him. He shifts his weight, re-crosses his arms, and wonders if waiting Mikey out will work.

The silence between them is almost unbearably heavy as they stand there, not quite staring each other down, but almost. Gerard chews on the inside of his lip as he waits. Mikey stands immobile, but finally, finally he curls in on himself, looks down at the floor.

His voice is just a tremble of breath when he finally speaks. "When Grandma died, I couldn't deal with it, you know? And then Dad had his heart attack, and I just..."

Gerard nods and keeps waiting, even though his heart is breaking all over again and he wants to wrap Mikey up in a hug and never let go.

Mikey starts wringing his hands, squeezing his fingers so tight that it looks painful. "And I still haven't dealt with it, I guess. I never had the chance to stop and figure it all out."

"You could have said something," Gerard says, trying to cover how he's hurt that Mikey didn't say anything.

Mikey shrugs. "I just said something now."

"I meant before." Gerard tries not to sound accusatory, but it's hard.

Mikey shrugs again.

Gerard doesn't have anything to say right away. Their grandma is still an empty space in his heart, even after almost two and a half years. It's breaking him apart to hear that Mikey feels the way he did, and that he's trying to drink it away the same way Gerard did—and they're both still painfully aware of how badly that ended. But Gerard's done an okay job of dealing with it since then, even though the edges are still a bit raw sometimes, and he honestly thought Mikey's been doing better too. He just wishes Mikey would have come to him sooner, said something, anything. He would give anything to know why Mikey didn't trust him with that before now.

"You need to deal with it at some point," Gerard eventually says, then sighs when he sees Mikey roll his eyes. "Is that where this 'not good enough' bullshit is coming from? Because that's not true, you have to know that's not true." Gerard sees Mikey open his mouth to cut in, so Gerard keeps barreling forward. "And the drinking—fuck, Mikey, come on, you're on anti-depressants, you can't possibly believe that's a good idea."

Mikey says nothing, and his face is turned enough away that Gerard can't read it.

Gerard sighs. He can tell he isn't going to get anywhere on that front. "I can't believe you were going to hit me, yesterday," he says instead.

Mikey flinches at that, almost as if Gerard had hit him back. "That's... I'm sorry," Mikey says. He sounds genuinely sorry, almost anguished.

"What were you thinking?" Gerard isn't quite ready to let it go. He wants an answer, an explanation—because it's so out of character for Mikey to do something like that, he wants to be able to blame it on the drinking, on stress, on anything other than his brother being so irrationally angry he would deliberately try to hurt him.

Mikey shakes his head. "That was... I..." Mikey trails off, and Gerard waits as patiently as he can for him to continue. "I wasn't really myself," Mikey finally offers, a bit tentatively. It's not quite the admission Gerard was hoping for, but he can read between the lines as well as anyone.

He nods at Mikey, who looks like he's trying to avoid meeting Gerard's eyes, and they sit in silence for a while. They're both standing hunched, hugging themselves to try to keep warm, and Mikey is intermittently rubbing his hands together. The brush of skin on skin is the only noise other than their breathing.

Gerard takes advantage of the quiet to try to get his thoughts in order. He knows what he wants to say but he's still not sure how to bring it up without damaging things with Mikey any more than they already are—and god, he can't believe he's even in a situation where that's a consideration.

He keeps thinking, but the silence is starting to get really heavy between them, practically stifling, and Gerard is starting to feel the itch to say something just to cut through it. He opens his mouth and says it before he can really stop himself. "How do you feel about taking a break for a while, leaving the house?"

"What, for the afternoon?" Mikey asks, strangely suspicious.

"Uh," Gerard hedges, "more like a week or two, or longer. However long you want."

Mikey's eyes go wide. "No! I can't, I have to stay!"

"You have to, Mikey," Gerard says, taken aback. The vehemence of Mikey's protest catches him by surprise. "You need help that you can't get here."

"I can't leave her– Who's going to– I can't, okay?" Mikey's panic is clear as the words tumble quickly out over each other.

"Leave who?" Gerard asks gently.

"Never mind, okay?" Mikey snaps, so harshly that Gerard takes a step back.

Gerard breathes out hard, almost a sigh, and the air hisses through his teeth when he breathes back in. "No, Mikey. Tell me what's going on."

"I'm the only one who can–" He breaks off, stares down at his feet with unfocused eyes.

"Who can what?" Gerard leans in, puts his hand around Mikey's forearm and pulls him close. "What's going on, Mikey? Why won't you tell me?"

Mikey shakes his head no, his body rigid and straight.

Gerard can feel his hand getting tighter around Mikey's wrist as his frustration builds, and he lets go guiltily. "Do you think I won't understand? Do you think I won't care?"

"I think you won't believe me," Mikey mumbles.

"Why don't you try me," Gerard says, trying to keep his voice even, trying not to show the anger that's burning hot at Mikey's reticence. He's not doing a very good job of it. "When did we stop telling each other the important things?"

Mikey looks up just enough to glare at Gerard, and he holds it for a moment before his face softens and his whole body practically collapses, sagging forward as his muscles give out. Gerard leans further in to catch him but it doesn't quite come to that; Mikey gets ahold of himself and stands up again, his shoulders still slumped but his posture better.

"Fine," Mikey says, and all the fight's gone out of his voice. Gerard watches as Mikey takes a breath, and then another. "You know yesterday, when you saw me with the Ouija board?"

"Yeah?"

"I was talking to Daisy—you know, the woman who had the house built? Her ghost is trapped here."

Gerard doesn't know what to say to that. He stares at Mikey; he's sure he's gaping. He's sure it's the wrong move. "Okay?" he says, trying to get Mikey to say more to cover the fact that he himself has nothing.

"You know how weird shit's been happening?"

"Yeah– what, is that her doing?"

Mikey shakes his head. "It's the house. There's something wrong with the actual house. She's been... I've been talking to her. I convinced her to help hold it off, make it easier for us."

Gerard is definitely gaping at Mikey now; he can feel the strain from how wide his eyes have gotten, and his mouth is hanging open. He stands there, looking at his brother, looking at the little clouds that form in the air between them every time they breathe out.

"See, you don't believe me," Mikey sighs. He's already shrinking back in on himself, like if he pulls in hard enough he'll disappear completely.

"I don't not believe you," Gerard says carefully. "I mean, it explains a lot."

"It's true," Mikey says emphatically, and Gerard nods at him, hoping it doesn't come off as patronizing. Because while he now does believe there's something up with the house, he knows Mikey and his ongoing penchant for believing in ghosts and all things spooky, and he isn't really convinced that Ouija boards aren't a crock of shit, everything else aside.

"I still think it would be better if you left, just for a while," Gerard says. It's the only thing he has to say, right now.

"I don't," Mikey tells him, the firmest he's been since everything went belly-up this afternoon.

"Mikey, you need to get help," Gerard counters equally firmly.

"I'll be okay," Mikey insists. He doesn't look it though, doesn't sound it, and Gerard definitely doesn't believe it.

Gerard sighs, runs a hand through his hair nervously. "You should go."

"You can't make me leave!" Mikey's voice cracks with desperation as his strength gives out, and the last word is practically a sob. "I need to stay."

"Mikey," Gerard says gently, "you're not in a good place here. You need to take care of yourself, and you can't do that here."

"But I have to take care of you." Mikey is crying again now, and Gerard suspects that only part of it is frustration.

Gerard's having a really hard time keeping himself together enough to get them through this. He always gets upset when Mikey gets upset, and he hasn't seen Mikey this upset in a very long time. Since their grandma died, he thinks. "You have to take care of yourself first," he repeats as steadily as he can. "And being in this house isn't doing you any good. You need to leave."

"So, what, you're kicking me out?"

"If that's how you want to think of it, then go ahead," Gerard says slowly. It's all he can do to hold himself together now in the face of Mikey's distress. "But that's not how I see it, and that's not how anyone else is going to see it. We want you to come back as soon as you're doing better. But we need you to get better."

"What if I don't leave? Are you going to make me?" It's amazing how Mikey shakes off his upset to flash defiance, Gerard thinks, impressed even now, even after everything.

"No," Gerard says. "But I'm not above canceling the rest of our time here and putting everything on hold, if it gets you out of here."

Mikey is clearly taken aback. "You wouldn't."

"Watch me." Gerard puts everything he has into making his voice steady, believable.

Mikey blanches, and his face crumples. "Fine," he groans, like the words are getting torn out of him against his will. "Do whatever the hell you want, Gerard."

"We'll be waiting here for you, Mikey," Gerard tells him emphatically. "As soon as you're ready." He's glad he doesn't have to follow through on his threat of canceling their time—because as weird as the house can be there's really no sense in the rest of them leaving with Mikey, not yet. He still believes that being there will do them nothing but good, artistically, and it's worth it to stick it out.

Mikey doesn't acknowledge that Gerard's said anything, and it bothers Gerard a lot. He steps closer to Mikey, takes hold of his arm again—but much more gently this time—and slides his hand up to rest on Mikey's shoulder. "Mikey, I promise. Go take care of yourself, and we'll all be here when you come back."

Mikey nods, his head still bowed.

"Let's go back out," Gerard suggests gently. "It's freezing in here, and we need to talk to the guys, okay?"

 

* * *

Mikey doesn't say anything right away when they get back to the ballroom, and he shoots Gerard a pleading look, like he's asking Gerard to tell the rest of the band for him. Gerard shakes his head and Mikey frowns at him, but Gerard holds his ground.

Mikey sighs in defeat, and then crosses his arms over his chest and says in a rush, "I'm leaving the house."

"Forever?" Frank asks incredulously.

"No," Mikey says, his voice small. "Just for a while."

"Oh," Frank says, "okay. I mean, it's not, but–"

"Yeah, I know." Mikey sticks his hands in his pockets and looks up for the first time since he came back into the room. "Come help me pack?"

Gerard watches the two of them leave the ballroom. They're walking close together and Mikey's leaning down like he's talking into Frank's ear, maybe filling him in on the things he'd left out earlier.

"What the hell happened in there?" Ray asks, which pulls Gerard's attention back. Ray's eyes are still as wide as they were when Mikey first made his announcement, and he looks like he might be sick to his stomach. "What did you guys even talk about?"

Gerard's spit gets thick in his mouth and he swallows with difficulty, then starts blinking to try to force down the tears that are pricking hard and hot at his eyes. "Turns out a bunch of shit runs in the family after all," he hears himself say.

His words hang awkwardly between them, and Ray clearly doesn't know how to respond. Gerard doesn't blame him.

"Can I ask for details?" Ray finally asks, tentatively.

Gerard thinks about it and comes to a decision pretty quickly. "I don't think it should be a secret," he says, picking his words carefully. "He's been drinking, a lot. I found the bottles in his room." Ray sucks in a gasp and actually recoils, and Gerard forces himself to press on before he loses it completely. "He's still really screwed up over Grandma, and Dad's heart attack. He's...I don't know, you saw him. He's in a really bad way. I honestly don't know how he even managed to keep it together this long."

Ray looks totally stricken at the words. "Oh my god, I didn't realize! Is that really awful of me? I feel terrible."

"I didn't either," Gerard says miserably, "so how do you think I feel?"

Nobody says anything for a while, and Gerard is completely okay with that. He doesn't want to talk about it anymore, he just wants to curl up into a ball and hide until everything stops feeling so bad. He sits down on the nearest amp and pulls his knees up until he can rest his face on them.

"Do you want me to call Brian?" Bob asks gently.

"Yes, fuck, thank you," Gerard says into the fabric of his jeans.

Gerard hears Bob's footsteps as he shuffles out of the ballroom, and then feels Ray's hand on his shoulder a moment later. "Do you want coffee or something? Lunch?"

"'m not hungry," Gerard croaks.

"We don't have to stay in here," Ray says gently, but he doesn't make any move to make Gerard get up.

Gerard keeps sitting because he'd be more than happy to just stay sitting forever and never move again, but Ray is right, they really ought to get out of the room. There's still tension clinging to the walls around them; Gerard can feel it like something slimy in the very air he's breathing. He heaves a big sigh and straightens his legs, then gets to his feet and follows Ray out and over to the kitchen.

Once they get there, he sinks into the closest chair to the door and slumps forward, cupping his chin in his hands as he stares across the table at nothing. Ray puts a cup of coffee down in front of him so he drinks it, and when Ray puts an ashtray in front of him, he reaches for his cigarettes.

He sits there chain-smoking cigarettes and drinking the coffee Ray keeps refilling, because he doesn't know what else to do. He only stops when he runs out of cigarettes, but that's okay because he's had enough, he thinks; his throat feels ashy and thick from the steady stream of smoke over the last– Gerard realizes he has no idea how long he's been sitting in the kitchen, but it doesn't matter. It really doesn't matter. Not much at all matters right now.

Bob comes in at some point and pulls up a chair one over from Gerard. "I talked to Brian and to Stacy," he says, and Gerard looks up at mention of Stacy. He hadn't thought of calling her, but fuck, that was a good idea. He never imagined their lawyer (of all people, really) would end up so much like a mother to the band, but she did, and she lives in L.A., and now that Bob's mentioned her, Gerard can't think of a better person for him to have called.

"She's coming to pick Mikey up, he's going to stay with her. For as long as he needs. She said she'll be here in an hour and a half."

"Okay," Ray says. "That's good. I mean, it is good, right? If he stays with Stacy?"

Gerard glances up at the clock on the wall, then, feeling strangely compelled to keep track of the time until Stacy's arrival, like it's the countdown to Doomsday.

But time is moving weirdly for Gerard, and he's not sure if the next hour and some feels like a minute or a year. He finds himself pacing back and forth in the front foyer, his eyes glued to the slice of driveway he can see through the windows flanking the front door. He's got a napkin clenched in one hand, and when he realizes he's got it he starts tearing at it nervously, pulling it into tiny pieces that trail behind him as he walks.

"Just have another fucking cigarette," Bob tells him from where he's sitting straddling one of the weird lion statues in the corner.

"I ran out," Gerard says. He has more in his room, a few left in the carton that came with the last order of groceries, but he'd have to go upstairs to get them, have to hear Mikey and Frank packing up Mikey's things.

"You can have one of mine, you're driving me crazy." Bob pulls his pack out of his hoodie pocket and holds it out.

Gerard angles his next lap around the foyer to bring him over to Bob, and he accepts the cigarette gratefully. His napkin is almost completely gone, anyway. He lights the cigarette, sucks down the smoke almost without feeling it.

The cigarette is only halfway done when Gerard finally sees a car pull into the driveway. It comes to a stop right in front of the door, and Stacy gets out. Gerard opens the front door for her—it's something to do. She hugs him when she gets up the stairs, pulling him in tight and rubbing his shoulder. Her hair tickles his ear but it's a good hug, tight and long and comforting, and he didn't realize exactly how much he needed it until Stacy is pulling back and holding him at arm's length and asking quite seriously if he's okay.

"Not really," he says limply, and she sighs and hugs him again. He hugs her back, reluctant to let go when she steps back again and moves to actually go into the house.

"Where is he?" she asks.

"In his room, getting packed up," Bob tells her. "He should be down any minute."

And sure enough, Frank and Mikey appear at the top of the stairs a few minutes later, Frank walking down awkwardly as he wrestles Mikey's bags by himself. Gerard wouldn't be surprised in the slightest if Frank had refused to let Mikey carry any of them.

Mikey hangs back when they get to the bottom, but then Stacy is rushing forward and catching Mikey up in a hug, just as fierce as the one she'd given Gerard. At first, Mikey stands awkwardly with his arms hanging loose at his sides, but then he gets caught up in it, wrapping his arms around Stacy's back and burying his face in her shoulder.

"You ready to go?" she asks, and Mikey nods.

The hug keeps going, so Frank heaves Mikey's bags back up and brings them outside. Gerard watches him through the window as he loads the bags into the back seat of Stacy's car.

It's only then, at that particular image, that it really hits him that this is really happening and Mikey is leaving. He follows Mikey out as far as the front step but can't bring himself to do more than touch Mikey's sleeve and nod at him.

And then the car is starting up, pulling around the circular driveway and then out through the gate, which was still open from when Stacy arrived.

Gerard watches, his hands curling into helpless fists, as the gate swings shut behind them.

 

* * * * * *

Practice the next day feels like some sort of sick joke. The ballroom feels so empty without Mikey in it—they've never played without him before, never written with anyone missing—and the music sounds all wrong without the bass keeping it anchored. What a metaphor, keeping it anchored, Gerard thinks bitterly. Mikey was barely anchored himself, and he was the one knocking everybody else off balance. Even though Mikey leaving was the right thing for him, it still feels all wrong. Well, everything feels wrong right now, not just practice—but practice is really, really bad.

They're back to working on "Dead!" and they're going over things Gerard was sure were nailed down, arguing over things that haven't changed since before they left New York. There's no good reason to be working on it, except that it's a pretty palpable thing between the four of them that nobody wants to pick up where they'd left off on "The Five Of Us".

So they stumble through pointless repetitions of songs they don't need to be playing. Gerard doesn't want to be the one to say it, but they sound terrible. Everything sounds the tiniest bit out of line from where it should be, and it grates on his nerves the entire time.

So they struggle through the day, and if they put their instruments down a couple hours earlier than normal, well, nobody says anything about it.

After they break for the day, Gerard starts coiling up some cable to have something to do with his hands when something touches his shoulder. He startles, and then turns to see Frank standing behind him, looking sheepish. His mouth is open like he wants to say something so Gerard waits, but Frank doesn't say anything.

They're the only ones left in the ballroom, and the silence is almost overpowering.

"What?" Gerard finally asks tersely.

Frank flinches, and Gerard immediately feels bad for snapping. "Sorry. You okay?"

"I guess?" Frank says. "Today was weird." Frank clearly wants to say more but he's holding himself back. Gerard knows what it's got to be about, but he's not going to say anything if Frank isn't. He knows Frank, knows that he'll say something sooner or later—probably as loud as he can, probably cut with a lot of swearing—but he's happy to wait for Frank to do it on his own time, maybe when Gerard isn't around. He wonders if he's a terrible person for even entertaining the thought of not being there for Frank, but he feels bad enough already without having to hear all about how bad Frank feels, too.

They stand in awkward silence until Frank waves one hand towards the door and says, "So, uh. Would you mind walking me upstairs?"

"Sure," Gerard says. He puts the coiled cable down on an amp, and his fingers feel weird as they relax from the death grip he hadn't realized he'd had on it.

They shuffle out of the ballroom in silence, and there's this prickly tension around them like they can both still feel the weight of the shitty practice on their shoulders and they can't shake it off.

As they round the corner into the hallway to Frank's stairs, they hear a long, high-pitched creaking noise, like a door is swinging very slowly on ancient hinges. Gerard pauses, looking around for the source of the noise. It takes him a moment but he finally sees that one of the doors further down the hall is hanging partway open. That must have been it, he decides, and he starts walking again, taking quick steps to catch up to Frank.

But then all the rest of the doors swing open, all at once but not quite in unison, and the noise of it is horrible, grating and squeaking and drawn out. Gerard sucks in a sharp breath and finds himself reaching for Frank, putting a hand on his arm and holding on as they keep walking.

The doors slam behind them as they pass, one by one, and it's weird but not particularly scary, except for how it shouldn't be happening. And then they pass two that don't slam, and Gerard starts to contemplate whether or not hauntings ought to be internally consistent when all the remaining doors slam at once, so loud that he jumps in surprise even though he knows he should have been expecting it, and so hard and fast he can feel the wind of it blowing through his hair.

"What the fuck," Frank gasps. He sounds really freaked out and Gerard can't blame him. That last slam felt almost... almost planned, like the house had been deliberately trying to scare the living shit out of them after lulling them into a false sense of security. And now that he's decided to believe the house is haunted (and he keeps thinking it exactly like that, he decided to believe, like it gives him any small amount of control over all the weird shit that just keeps happening), everything that was merely strange before—like the occasional slamming door, which is a weird fixture of their life in the house—is taking on a new sinister air.

"I still hate this place," Frank mutters once they're clear of the hallway, and he shoots a look over his shoulder like he's making sure the doors are all behaving themselves now that he's got his back to them.

"I'm starting to get there," Gerard admits. "I think you and... you guys are right about it being haunted, too."

"Yeah?" Frank perks up at that, and he turns to face Gerard like he's sizing him up. "What changed your mind?"

They start up the stairs to Frank's room as Gerard gets his thoughts in order. "All the little things, I guess. Like those doors, just now. And the thing with Bob and the taps the other day. And, uh. Remember when I said I thought I saw something in the mirror?"

"Yeah?"

"I definitely did. A few times. I really don't think my eyes were playing tricks on me."

"Huh," Frank says. "That's fucked up. Were you scared?"

"Why do you think I ran away?" Gerard asks dryly. He sort of can't believe he's having this conversation in the middle of the hallway like it's normal—it feels like he should be whispering his secrets behind a closed door somewhere. Maybe this is the healthier approach, he thinks hopefully, but then sneers at himself a moment later. As if actually believing the house is haunted is in any way healthy. It feels like there's nothing about their situation right now that isn't deeply and completely fucked up. Gerard breathes out heavily. "And," he starts, but stops right away.

"And?" Frank prompts gently when Gerard doesn't immediately finish his thought.

"There was some weird shit with Mikey, right before he left."

Frank makes a strange, strangled noise like he's swallowed his words at the last second, and then says, "More than he already told me?"

"I don't know what he told you," Gerard says defensively, stung by the thought that Mikey would have told Frank anything voluntarily when Gerard had to drag it out of him.

The conversation drops off then, and the silence gets heavier and heavier as it drags on. When they get to Frank's room, Frank barely even acknowledges Gerard as he goes in, just upnods briefly and then closes the door firmly.

Gerard stands outside Frank's door staring at it blankly for almost a minute as he tries to collect his thoughts. He has no idea how the conversation spun out of control so badly (and so quickly, seriously), but it makes his chest ache to think about the way Frank looked at the mention of Mikey. Gerard knows the feeling behind it, and fuck, it hurts.

He can't help but wonder what Mikey told Frank. He wouldn't be surprised if Frank blames him for Mikey leaving, if maybe that was what was behind the strange turn in their conversation. But no, that can't be it, he couldn't—he wouldn't have asked Gerard to walk with him if he did, right? If Frank did have a problem with Gerard, he would say something... right?

Gerard wishes he could be sure of that, but he can't forget how he thought the house was fine, that his brother was fine, and look how far that got him. He can't trust himself to be sure of anything, anymore.

When he's back in his room he hovers uselessly for a moment, torn between sitting by the window and trying to write (if only to scrape the shit out of his brain and get rid of it), and going to bed and calling it a day. He doesn't think he can sit still right now, though, so he changes into his pajamas and shuffles into the bathroom to wash up for the night, even though it's barely ten. Maybe the routine of it will help settle him.

As he brushes his teeth he looks at the door to Mikey's room. For once, its outline isn't picked out in fuzzy blue light; it's just a normal door now. Gerard thinks about going in and sitting in the dark. He's not entirely sure why—it seems like sitting around in Mikey's room would be overwhelmingly sad and pathetic, but on the other hand, it might help, might make it feel like Mikey is closer, like he's not missing. But then he remembers the last time he was in there—when Mikey pushed him, almost hit him—and then the time before that, when he found the bottles... Fuck, he really doesn't want to think about that; it's still way too much for him to deal with right now. He spits out his toothpaste and rinses his mouth, keeping his eyes trained down on the sink rather than the mirror, and then takes a perfunctory piss.

He climbs into bed and pulls the covers up to his chin. He tugs them up to his nose a little later when he feels a cold draft blowing through the room, and then up the rest of the way over his face when he rolls over and burrows in when the chill starts creeping in under the blanket's edges. His room has never been this cold before, but it now seems somehow right that it should be.

 

* * *

When Gerard wakes up the next day, it's a real struggle to force himself to get out of bed and go downstairs. It's not until he's finishing his second cup of coffee that he realizes he's still in his pajamas because he straight-up forgot to get dressed. He looks down at the knees of his flannel pants, totally confused, and starts scratching at a spatter of dried paint without really thinking about it.

He's still staring at his pants when he hears somebody else come into the kitchen, but he looks up when the footsteps stop abruptly much earlier than he was expecting.

Bob is leaning up against a counter, staring blankly into a cupboard that Gerard is pretty sure is completely empty.

"Where's the cereal?" Bob finally asks after a solid minute of just standing there, staring.

Gerard frowns. "One cupboard over, where it's always been."

"Whoops." Bob looks down sheepishly.

"You okay?" Gerard asks. It took them a while to get used to where things were in the kitchen, sure, but Gerard has seen Bob get the cereal out any number of times since they arrived, and he's pretty sure finding it hasn't been a problem before.

Bob yawns a great big stretching gulp of a yawn before he can say anything, which is all the answer Gerard really needs anyway. "Just tired," Bob says unnecessarily, then adds, "didn't sleep much last night."

"No? How come?"

Bob shrugs, then leans in to open the next cupboard over and take the cereal out. He brings it to the table and that's when Gerard gets a good look at Bob's face. He'd looked tired at a distance but up close he's drawn and haggard. His skin is so translucent that it makes him look sick, and the bags under his eyes are dark like bruises. "Same old," Bob says. He turns his face away and Gerard blinks, realizing he'd been staring.

Gerard forgot he even asked a question so it takes him a minute to realize what Bob is on about. "What?" Gerard asks, then yawns himself—Bob must have set him off.

"The leaky taps in my bathroom kept me up all damn night," Bob says, and then knocks over the box of cereal when he reaches for it. It spills across the table in a flood of toasted oat flakes, and Bob sits there and stares at it dumbly.

Gerard frowns at the mess on the table but makes no move to sweep it up. "That's happened before, right?"

"This was way worse," Bob says quietly.

"Yeah?"

"Yeah."

"You gonna be okay today?"

Bob doesn't answer right away, and Gerard is about to ask again when Bob says, "Yeah." He sounds like he's not sure he can commit to it, and Gerard's not buying it.

"You sure?"

"I said I was," Bob snaps.

Gerard could push it but he realizes he'll probably end up arguing with Bob—which he'd rather avoid, thanks. So they sit in silence, staring at the mess of cereal on the table like it will clean itself up if they wish for it hard enough, until Ray comes in.

Ray looks at the cereal spilled across the table, and he opens his mouth to say something but then pauses, taking in Gerard's and Bob's faces in turn. "I'll go get more," he says carefully.

Ray brings a fresh box of cereal and a carton of milk to the table, and then goes back for bowls.

They eat their cereal more or less in silence as they wait for Frank to come downstairs. Gerard only eats a few mouthfuls that taste like sawdust before he pushes his bowl away, and he's getting up for coffee number four when the noise starts.

He can't quite place it right away, but then he realizes that it's coming from the ballroom—Frank's started playing without them. He's never heard their new stuff from anywhere but right there, and when it gets to him in the kitchen it's muffled and distorted by hallways and walls—it sounds completely different. It would be virtually unrecognizable, actually, if Gerard didn't know the music so well.

They take that as their cue to head over to the ballroom, and Gerard picks up his pace so he can be the first one in. When he comes around the corner all he can see is Frank, standing by himself, head bowed and shoulders slumped, making a hellish goddamn racket on his guitar. It hurts Gerard to hear it—not the noise itself, though that's pretty bad, but how clear it is that Frank is upset and trying to find something to drain out the feelings.

To nobody's surprise, practice that afternoon is even worse than it was the day before. They're flubbing notes they've always hit, moving into chord changes just a little too slow, never quite locking down in time with each other. The prospect of forward progress really feels like a mirage at this point: just out of reach, never getting any closer. But they keep pushing (hard, probably too hard) and nothing is happening and Gerard can feel the frustration building in the room around them, stinking the place up, clinging greasily to their every move.

What it is, Gerard thinks bitterly, is that it feels like nobody fits together anymore. It's as though Mikey's absence has changed the very shape of things, and the pieces don't interlock anymore around the hole where he should be. It's ironic, Gerard thinks, that the only song they've written in the house so far should have been so shockingly prescient—without you is how I disappear indeed.

They've been playing for a few hours when Frank tentatively proposes taking a stab at the new one again. Gerard has a bad feeling about it but goes along with it anyway—if Frank thinks they can do some work on it, who is he to disagree?

It only takes a couple run-throughs before it becomes obvious to everybody exactly how bad of an idea it was. Frank's turmoil is clear on his face, but Gerard knows that if Frank isn't saying anything, it's because he's not ready. In the mean time, though, it's hard to watch Frank try to take everything out on his guitar. His strumming is a little too hard and his chord shapes are a little too sloppy—and it's better that he's punching at the music instead of a brick wall (which Gerard would not put past him at all), but it's not any good for the rest of them.

Ray and Bob make a valiant go of keeping up with Frank's playing, but he's constantly shifting the tempo as his hands move faster and faster before he catches himself and slows down again, and it's really a lost cause. Ray is doing the best he can but he's still struggling, and he keeps shaking his head like he's scolding himself every time his performance is less than perfect. Gerard catches the motion out of the corner of his eye a couple times before he starts watching for it deliberately, and it seems like the more it happens the more withdrawn Ray gets, pulling in on himself and putting less and less into his playing. Gerard himself is struggling not to space out so bad that he misses his cues to come in, but it keeps happening anyway. Bob is maybe doing the best of all of them, but it's not by much—and there's a certain grimness in the set of his jaw that tells Gerard that it's a struggle there, too.

The strain of them all trying to keep lids on their tempers gets heavier and heavier as practice wears on. Nobody seems at all happy with how things are going, and Gerard doesn't even have enough fingers to count how many times the between-song sniping at each other almost blows up into a full-on fight. When they stop for the day—much earlier than yesterday—it doesn't escape Gerard's notice that Frank practically throws his guitar down when he puts it away.

It was undeniably the best thing for them to do, but stopping so early really doesn't sit too well with Gerard. Are they giving up, he wonders, or are they staging a strategic retreat?

He doesn't have any answers. He doesn't have anything, it feels like—just a great big hole inside him where everything used to be a few days ago.

He wonders again if maybe the rest of them shouldn't leave, too.

But no, that would for sure be giving up. Gerard refuses to give up, not now. Not only that, but he can't shake the fear that stopping now would maybe be the end of the album, at least as far as his high hopes go. He remembers the days it took them to get going again once they got to the house, the long afternoons of replaying and rethinking songs they already thought they'd nailed down in New York, and he's worried what will happen if they pack up and move again. He's scared of losing the new, darker edge the songs have picked up. The songs they've been writing since they've been here are the best they've ever done, and he can't stomach the prospect of losing that.

They've lost enough already.

 

* * *

The next two days of rehearsal are more of the same and worse: more listless run-throughs that do more harm than good, musically and personally. They're barely pretending to go through the motions now; instead, they're lurching around the ballroom like zombies, pale and grubby and unhappy. It's like a plug's been pulled on them, Gerard thinks miserably, and now there's nothing left to keep them moving forward and creating. After four excruciating days of friction and drag, they finally come to a screeching stop.

Frank's playing that afternoon hits new lows of sloppiness and it knocks them all off-balance, Ray most of all. Then Bob somehow manages to entirely lose track of the beat and their run-through of "Mama" completely implodes, collapsing in on itself in a way that hasn't happened since they were young and drunk and a totally different band.

And then Ray takes off his guitar and sets it down carefully in its stand before spinning to face Frank. "What the fuck was that?" he shouts, his hands balling into fists at his sides.

Gerard takes a step towards them, already thinking about how best to stop another fist fight before it starts. From the corner of his eye he sees Bob moving, getting up from his throne and moving around his kit like he's got exactly the same thing in mind.

"Oh, was that my fault?" Frank asks mockingly. His hands flutter over the strings of his guitar for a moment before he takes it off, putting it down with far less care than Ray had given his. "I didn't realize I was the only person playing."

"It was you," Ray insists. "We were all doing okay until you went and fucked it up, Frank!" He's bristling, radiating anger and frustration like none of them have yet dared to do so overtly, and fuck, there's really no way this is going to end well.

"Your playing really isn't so hot right now either, Toro," Frank spits back—and it's true, even though Gerard is internally siding with Ray on this one.

Bob moves towards Frank, his hands out. "Chill out, Iero."

"Fuck you," Frank snaps.

Ray swings to face Bob. "I don't need you fighting my fights, Bryar," he grits out, crossing his arms over his chest.

For a moment it looks like Bob is going to get involved and Gerard's heart starts beating faster in anticipation. He's sweating now too, and his stomach is twisting bitterly like it always does when he's faced with confrontation as bad as this.

But then Frank is moving into Ray's space, and even though his fists are down and he's not quite within swinging distance, he's still holding himself up straight like he's spoiling for a fight, and after the incident between them in the kitchen last week, well, Gerard's not so sure that Frank isn't going to get one. And sure enough, Frank tips his head up and tells Ray, "If it's a fight, then fucking fight me!"

And then Ray—Ray, bless his heart, seriously, takes a giant step away from Frank, almost tripping over his patch cord but keeping his balance—and his distance.

"You're a chicken, you're a fucking pussy," Frank taunts him.

"You're the one who's been a pussy ever since we got here!" Ray shouts back.

And just like that, everything blows up. Frank and Ray are yelling over each other as loud as they can, and then, shit, shit, Ray's got his fists up, even though he's not moving any closer to Frank. But Frank is closing in, and fuck, the noise they're making is unbelievable. Their shouts are echoing around the ballroom and bouncing off the walls, the rafters, shaking the chandelier, coming back and hitting Gerard's ears what feels like a hundred times louder than they started.

It's chaos, that's the only word for it. Frank is closing in on Ray and he's tense all over like he's going to just go for it at any second. Bob is hovering off to the side, visibly anxious. And the yelling keeps going. Gerard can't even make out the words Frank and Ray are hurling at each other. All he can hear are bits of insults and obscenities, and there's a shrill edge to Ray's voice that's got Gerard sure that it's all about to be over, maybe as soon as the next heartbeat.

And then cutting through the din is Ray's frustrated shout, "Fuck, this wouldn't even be happening if Mikey hadn't bailed on us!"

Gerard whirls to face Ray, takes two steps forward without even thinking about it to get in Ray's face. "You don't say that about my brother," Gerard tells him through gritted teeth, and he's uncomfortably close to yelling now, too.

Ray laughs bitterly but doesn't back off. "You think this would be happening if he were still here? We weren't having any problems until he left."

"Where do you get off trying to blame your failures on someone else?" And Gerard really is yelling now. He's actually seeing red, and there's a rushing in his ears that wasn't there a minute ago. He feels more than sees the guys moving around him: Ray taking a step in, Frank still wound tight just off Gerard's side.

"My failures?" Ray scoffs. "Can I remind you that our total suck has been a group effort since he left?"

Gerard opens his mouth to say something, but Frank gets there first. "You'd know failures, wouldn't you?" he says sharply, and—oh, he's facing Gerard, addressing him, accusing him.

Something bitter and vile in Gerard's guts starts bubbling over and he's almost about to say something when Frank keeps going.

"Too bad Mikey didn't learn from your mistakes, huh?"

Gerard staggers back like Frank just kicked him in the stomach—he thinks it'd hurt far less had Frank actually done that instead—and almost falls. He catches his balance and then before he knows it he's lunging at Frank. His hands come up even though he doesn't think he wants to hit Frank, he just wants to make him take it back no matter how he has to do it. "You fucking asshole!" he snarls. All he can see is Frank's stupid sneering face and now he does want to hit him, wipe that fucking look right off his face–

And then Bob is stepping in between them, shouting. Gerard pulls up short, trying to process this sudden interruption through the noise still buzzing in his ears, and he realizes that Bob isn't joining in—he's telling them all to back the fuck off. Bob pushes Gerard away from Frank, and then pushes Frank back considerably more firmly. He turns to Ray, who backs off of his own volition, and Bob nods at him once but doesn't move from where he's standing between them all.

"Guys," Bob says. He sounds dead serious. "Come on, give it up. You know this isn't really about Mikey. He had to leave—you know that, you saw him. It's not personal. He's coming back. So sit the fuck down and shut the fuck up before I beat all your asses." Bob is flushed red and looking a little like he can't believe he yelled at them all, but then the look drops off his face and he gets that stubborn set to his features they've all come to know so well, and then he crosses his arms over his chest and starts glaring at them all in turn.

Gerard chances a look over at Frank, and the look of horrified shock on his face would be heartbreaking if Gerard weren't so furious with him. He looks away when Frank flicks his gaze back at him, but not so fast he doesn't see Frank flinch when their eyes meet.

"Okay?" Bob asks.

Nobody says anything.

"Okay, Toro?" Bob asks, looking over his shoulder at Ray, who mutters an "okay" back.

Gerard mutters his own "okay" when Bob turns his way. Bob nods at him, and then turns to Frank.

"Fuck you," Frank mutters, and then turns on his heel and storms out of the ballroom.

Gerard bites his lip as he watches Frank go.

"I guess we're done for the day," Bob sighs.

Gerard can't decide if he'd rather cry or laugh, and he feels like he might not be too far from doing both. There's a strange buzzing in his head he can't shake and he figures he may as well go hide in his room for the rest of the night. Maybe the quiet and the closer quarters will help make it stop.

 

* * *

Gerard wakes up suddenly too early the next morning, sweaty and over-warm and nauseous. His heart is pounding so hard it feels like it might bruise his ribs. His breath is coming too short and he's practically gasping to get enough air.

When he reaches out to turn on his bedside lamp, his hand is shaking so hard that he almost knocks the lamp over. He keeps fumbling at it and finally the weak light blinks on.

It was just a bad dream, he thinks over and over as he tries to calm himself down. Just a dream, just a dream... but fuck, did it ever seem real.

Gerard can't stop seeing the images from his dreams. It's like the after-image is seared into the front of his fucking brain and they're going to be there forever, waiting for him to close his eyes again.

He throws his covers back from where they're suddenly chokingly tight around his neck and swings his feet out of bed. The floor is cold under his bare feet as he goes into the bathroom to splash cold water on his face. It's bracing and it helps pull him further and further out of sleep, away from the dream.He carefully keeps his eyes trained down on the sink. His hands are still shaking. His heart is still beating too hard.He walks back into his bedroom and hovers awkwardly in the middle of the floor. His room seems so empty now without Mikey sleeping on his floor every night. He stares down his bed, considering, but then realizes there's no way he's getting back in there, not tonight. The sky outside his window is starting to get lighter and he thinks that maybe it's not too early to start his day.

He doesn't even bother getting dressed, even though he eyes the pile of clothes he's accumulated in one corner of his room before heaving a mental shrug and mumbling, "Fuck it," under his breath. He goes down to the kitchen where he eats breakfast like he always does, moving through his morning routine with no real thought or care. He feels all slimy and cotton-headed, halfway between feeling hungover and like he's just spent hours crying.

He sits around for half an hour, and when he doesn't get any indication that anybody else is coming down any time soon, he goes back up to his own room. Everything there looks different now that the sun is up, even his bed, so he tentatively climbs back in. It's too light now and he's too full of coffee to have to worry about falling asleep. He thinks he'll be okay. Maybe. He won't have any more dreams, at least.

It turns out that lying down and pulling his covers up over his face doesn't do much at all to stop the rapid spinning of all the wheels in his head. They're spinning in place, though; they never go anywhere, they just keep coming back around to the same thoughts to dig their ruts deeper and deeper and deeper. He still can't believe how quickly everything changed, how the band basically pulled a 180 and went from making serious progress on a song they'd all but abandoned to actually making finished songs worse. He can't believe the way they fought yesterday, the things they said, the accusations they hurled around at each other and at Mikey. It's not Mikey's fault that the rest of them are fucked because he had to leave, not objectively, but god, he can't help but feel like it is, and he feels bad for feeling good that he's not the only one who thinks so.

And now that he's thinking about leaving, he comes back yet again to the idea of packing the rest of them up and leaving, too. Frank is on the record as hating the place, and Gerard isn't too keen on it himself anymore, not after all the strange shit that keeps happening. But that's dumb, of course. Those aren't good reasons to leave. They're not quitters, they don't give up. Not on this, not on Mikey, not on anything.

Gerard sighs. He knows he's making up reasons not to do it, but he honestly can't see them leaving the house, not now.

He stays in bed for God only knows how long. He alternates staring at the ceiling, staring at the wall next to his bed, and closing his eyes, but he can't get his brain to clear, can't stop the endless rush of terrible thoughts through his mind. He's got a wicked caffeine headache building, a dull throb in both temples that feels like it's going to squeeze his brain out his ears at any minute, and his stomach is about to start trying to devour itself whole.

Finally, he musters up enough energy to swing his legs out from under the covers and he gets slowly out of bed. He figures it won't be too much effort to stop into the kitchen for food—he's just going to grab a box of Pop Tarts and he doesn't really want to dignify it by calling it a meal. The house is eerily still around him as he makes his way through the hallway and down the stairs.

As he nears the turn for the main hall, though, he hears the murmur of voices. He pauses, trying to decide if it's something sinister or not, and then realizes very quickly that it's Bob and Ray. When he turns the corner he sees them standing together near the wall, leaning in close as they talk.

Gerard has no idea what's going on, but from the way they're standing he can tell that it's serious. Gerard stops and tries to think of another route to the kitchen, so he can avoid them and give them some privacy. But then Ray looks up and sees him and waves him over, so he goes.

When he gets close enough to make out actual words, he catches Ray saying, "I really didn't think this house was haunted but now I don't know, I mean, what else could possibly explain what I'm hearing?"

"Fuck, you too?" Gerard blurts out.

Bob jumps, momentarily startled by the vehemence of Gerard's outburst, but then brushes it off easily.

"What is it with you guys and ghost shit?" Bob scoffs, but he sounds uneasy.

"I'd say you're completely outnumbered now, Bryar," Ray offers, not terribly apologetically.

"Yeah, whatever," Bob waves it off.

"So what happened?" Gerard asks Ray.

Ray takes a deep breath, almost as if he's bracing himself, before answering. "You know how before, I told you about how I was sure I heard a strange couple talking?"

"Yeah?"

"I heard them again. I keep hearing them. But this morning..." Ray trails off uncertainly, and he looks a little pale.

"What happened? Did they stop?" Gerard prompts gently.

"No," Ray says. "Not even close. It sounded like a really violent argument, you know, yelling and screaming and all that. And it was loud, like it was coming through the wall from the room next to me. But the woman sounded terrified, and, uh," Ray closes his eyes briefly and takes a deep breath. "She was begging him not to kill her."

"She what?" Gerard gasps.

"It was awful," Ray sighs. "I got up and went and looked in the rooms on both sides of mine, and they were empty, of course, but I kept hearing it. It just kept going. And I swear it was getting louder as it went on."

Gerard sucks in his next breath through his teeth and lets it out unsteadily. "Then what happened?"

Ray shrugs. "It stopped, like, it cut off right in the middle of her screaming, and then it was quiet again."

"Jesus, that's fucked up. Are you okay?"

"I guess? I mean, it was hours ago now and nothing's happened since, so I'm starting to forget, you know?"

Gerard nods.

"Makes me glad I only have a dripping tap all night." Bob's tone of voice says he's trying to make a joke, but Gerard can tell that he really means it.

Ray cracks the barest hint of a smile. "So where've you been all day, Gee?"

"In bed," Gerard admits. "I came down to get something to eat."

"Ah," Ray nods. "Guess you haven't seen Frank, then?"

"No."

"I don't blame him for keeping to himself today," Ray says thoughtfully.

Gerard can't help but agree.

They make some small talk, and then Gerard's stomach growls so loudly they all hear it. Gerard excuses himself and heads to the kitchen. It takes a few minutes of searching but he finds his Pop Tarts, and he eats two of them on the way back to his room--he must have been hungrier than he'd thought, if he can't even wait that long to start eating. He realizes belatedly that he's leaving a trail of crumbs behind him as he goes, but this isn't a fairy tale and he's pretty sure he won't be able to follow them home.

The sun is just starting to go down when he goes back upstairs, and the house is all lit up with the intense orange glow that comes along with springtime evenings. The familiar hallways are new and strange around him as he passes through on his way to his room. Tiny details on the furniture and ornamentation around him get picked out by the warm light and everything casts an exaggeratedly long shadow. The contrast between light and dark tempts Gerard to pay attention to the things he passes but he keeps his gaze mostly on the floor a few paces ahead of him. The details in the rug under his feet are actually almost erased, just by the angle of the light hitting them, so it feels like he's walking down an even, glowing path as he walks through the north wing of the house.

He walks slowly and it takes him a while to get up to his room. So long, in fact, that it's noticeably darker by the time he's got his door shut behind him—the sun must have sunk behind the bulk of the house, because the view from his window is shadowy and blue.

Gerard sits down at his desk and opens his notebook to a clean page. He uncaps his pen and sets the cap neatly on its end near the top of his notebook, but doesn't touch pen to paper. Instead he sits and looks down at it, as if he's waiting for something to happen on its own. Nothing does, of course, and he puts the pen down some minutes later, capping it carefully and setting it next to the notebook, which he closes. Just because he feels like he should be writing doesn't mean that the words want to come, and it feels like tonight is going to be the kind of night where nothing in the world is going to be able to coax them out.

He turns in his seat and looks out the window over the swimming pool. The water is moving gently, like a breeze is skimming across the top and setting the surface to motion in its wake.

That's when it starts. It's a faint itch at the back of his brain at first, but as he sits there and keeps staring down at the water it gets stronger. All of a sudden, all he wants to do is walk into the pool and stand at the bottom until he can't breathe anymore. But that's stupid, of course—what possible good would it do?

It would get the gears in your head to stop turning, he answers his own question. It'll make those nagging voices shut up. It will give you some peace and quiet in your head. Wouldn't you like that?

NO!, he thinks as hard as he can at himself, then gets up, paces back and forth a few times, and then tugs his curtains shut for the first time in what must be a week. Quite deliberately, he turns his back to his window and then pulls his chair further away and angles it so he can sit it in and keep facing away. He opens his notebook again and takes up his pen, setting the cap down with such force that it rolls off the edge of his desk. He ignores it in favour of doodling the vampire he always does when somebody asks him to draw something, over and over and over again, filling one page and then the next in an effort to soothe that itch with rote and monotony.

It doesn't work. The itch gets stronger and stronger, almost unbearably so.

The next vampire he draws is wearing a swim mask and a snorkel. He absolutely did not do that consciously.

He flips his sketchbook shut and pushes it away from himself, then gets up and starts pacing his room again. He angles himself to keep his path well away from the window. That only works for so long before he can't help himself any more—he pulls back his curtains to look out at the pool again. And then, like a spark touched to dry paper, it ignites—the itch starts to burn.

Gerard lets himself out of his room and moves silently down the hallway, letting his feet pick their own way down thick carpet and across hardwood floors. Soon enough he's got his fingers on the handle of the big French doors leading out to the central patio and it gives easily when he pushes.

He walks along the uneven patio until he's standing at the edge of the swimming pool. He looks past it to the fence bounding the mansion's property—he can see the gate from here, only partially obscured by the trees lining the yard. It would be a simple enough matter to walk across the patio and down the driveway to let himself out, but he can't even get his feet to move from where he's stopped. Instead he stands in place, dropping his gaze back to the water in front of him.

The compulsion he was feeling before is stronger than ever, like a fire burning so hot it threatens to completely overwhelm him. All he wants to do more than anything else in the world is slide into the water and stand at the bottom until all the air is pressed out of his lungs and the fire finally gets put out.

Gerard toes off his shoes and nudges them forward with his big toe until they drop into the pool, one and then the other, with a soft splash. He's disappointed to see them floating sadly instead of sinking, trailing the long end of one bow-tied shoelace behind.

The water—he has to get closer to the water. He sits down, easing himself onto the textured concrete ringing the pool, and then swings his legs around so they're dipping into the water. He doesn't even bother taking his pajama pants off or even rolling them up, and he feels the press of damp flannel against his skin as the water pressure pushes at it, the fabric getting colder and colder as the water soaks up towards his knees. There's just enough light spilling out from the house that he can see the contrast of wet cloth versus dry, with the darker patches growing ever larger as he watches.

He sits and concentrates on the feel of that for as long as he can, along with the drag through the water as he kicks his feet out from the pool wall and lets them drift back. But it's not enough. He needs to feel the water all against all his skin. He needs to do it now.

He unzips his hoodie and starts tugging at his t-shirt. He gets it all the way up to his armpits where it bunches and stops before he realizes he won't actually be able to get it off with his hoodie still on. In his single-mindedness it seems like almost too much effort to get himself free of his tangle of clothes that he's created, and he freezes up. The water is still right there in front of him, concentric ripples spreading out and out and out from where his legs are still slowly kicking.

It's right there, so close, so close. He should throw himself in and get it over with. It would be okay. He inches closer to the edge until the rim of the pool is digging into the backs of his thighs instead of his knees. The fire in his head is roaring now, crackling and massive, a wall of flame behind his eyes. He needs this so bad, so fucking much, and the water is right there–

"Gerard?" Ray's voice cuts through his reverie and he startles, jerking so hard he almost falls the rest of the way into the pool. But he catches himself by planting one hand firmly on the concrete at his side, and then he twists to look up at Ray.

"Are you okay?" Ray asks. He's a few paces away and he's wringing his hands.

Gerard can't quite cut through the fog in his head to give Ray an answer.

"I was coming down to play a bit before bed and I saw you through the window," Ray goes on nervously. "And something seemed off, I don't know. I mean, you never go swimming." Ray laughs a bit, and it sounds forced. "Seriously, can you say something? You're kind of starting to freak me out."

"Yeah," Gerard finally forces through. "Yeah. I'm okay." And it's the truth, too.

He looks down at his legs where they're knee-deep in the pool. He looks at his stomach hanging over the waistband of his pants, framed between the unzipped halves of his hoodie. He looks at his shoes floating further and further away from where he's sitting, and he wonders what the fuck he was even doing down here in the first place. He stands up awkwardly and gazes dolefully down at his feet, which are white and wrinkled from exposure to the water.

"Why are your shoes in the pool?" Ray asks, obviously following Gerard's line of sight.

"Fuck if I know," Gerard shrugs.

Ray flicks his gaze back to Gerard. "Why were you in the pool?"

"Seemed like a good idea at the time?" Gerard offers.

Ray looks out at where Gerard's shoes are bobbing in the shallow end. "Want me to go get them? I can probably reach."

"They're probably ruined by now," Gerard says. "But go for it, if you want."

It ends up being a simple thing for Ray to kneel at the edge of the pool and reach out and grab the shoes—he even pulls it off gracefully, which Gerard knows is way more than he himself could have ever hoped to manage. Ray comes back and then very seriously presents Gerard with one very soggy pair of black Adidas Sambas.

"Thank you," Gerard says solemnly.

"You're welcome," Ray says, equally so.

Gerard looks forlornly down at the sodden shoes in his hands. He can't quite figure out why he would have kicked them into the pool in the first place. He likes these shoes. As the minutes go by, what he's sure were his very good reasons for coming down to the pool are getting more and more vague.

Ray waits almost a minute for Gerard to say something else, but when he doesn't he starts heading back towards the doors. "Coming?" he calls back over his shoulder.

Gerard is. He leaves his sodden shoes lined up neatly on the stoop and then follows Ray into the house, closing the door tight behind him.

"So, uh, I'm going to go play," Ray says, and starts pushing his hair back away from his face.

Gerard may be crazy enough to try to go swimming half-clothed but he's not an idiot—he can read this one easy. "I'm going to go back to my room," Gerard tells him. "Dry off, try to get some sleep."

Ray looks relieved, and then waves goodbye to Gerard before disappearing down the hall to the ballroom.

 

* * *

Gerard actually meant it when he said he wanted to try to get some sleep but he finds himself wandering, both mentally and literally, as he makes his way back to his room. He doesn't really want to be in his own room. He'll have to close his curtains, which means he'll have to go near the window. Maybe he can keep his eyes shut when he goes in and do it by feel. Maybe he can sleep sitting up in the kitchen. Maybe he can find a couch or something tucked away somewhere and pass out there—except no, that's a terrible idea. He doesn't want to be alone in any strange rooms in this house, no way.

He rounds a corner and realizes belatedly that he is, in fact, alone in a strange hallway; he wasn't paying much attention as he walked and now he has no idea where he is. He looks around, trying to find something, anything to help him get his bearings, but there are no windows and nothing on the walls is terribly familiar. Fuck, if he'd been paying more attention he could retrace his steps. Keep going, then.

When he gets to the end of the hallway he expects the turn to let him out either in the main hall of the house or give him a window or something, but the hallway goes on for a few yards and then there's a staircase that he's certain he's never used (or even seen) before. Well, he figures, he may as well go up.

The air around him gets noticeably colder before he's even halfway up the stairs, and when he gets to the landing he's unsurprised to see what looks to be actual frost clinging to the banister, the hardwood floor, the frames of things hanging on the wall.

The frame of the mirror hanging on the wall.

Oh, fucking hell, Gerard thinks, and he tries not to look at it, he really does, but he simply can't resist.

As he watches, the light around him gets much dimmer, and shadows spring up out of nowhere to fill the edges of his vision and start creeping in towards him. Some shadows slither up from the floor to mass around the mirror's frame, squirming and writhing and twisting around and around the mirror's circumference. Gerard is so enthralled by the shadows and the way they're pulsing and shifting that it takes him a few seconds to notice that he has no reflection at all. He blinks and squeezes his eyes shut so hard that his vision is blurry when he opens his eyes again, but his reflection is still gone—he can see the wall behind him and all the shit hanging on it reflected in the glass, but not his own face.

Gerard's breath is thick in his lungs as he squints at the mirror, tilting his head from side to side as if moving into some sort of sweet spot will make his reflection magically reappear. Just like it magically disappeared, he thinks, a little hysterically, and lifts one hand to wave in front of the mirror to see if maybe it's only his head that's not reflecting, or something.

Then the glass cracks, a jagged scar right down the middle of the mirror's surface. It cracks again with a huge noise, cleaving one of the halves into two, and little fissures start spreading out from all the cracks across the mirror's whole face.

A moment later the glass explodes with a deafening sick crack, and all the shards fly straight out at Gerard. Gerard gets his hands up to cover his face on reflex alone, but he's not fast enough. He feels a dozen peppery bites into the skin of his forehead and hands even as he flinches away.

Then he slips off the edge of the stair he is—was—standing on, and his heart jumps into his throat for an endlessly long second as he teeters on the edge of falling down an entire flight of stairs to die in a broken heap, where nobody will find his body for days. But he catches hold of the bannister—it's cold and rough under his hand, but it's solid and that's all that matters—and he holds on for dear life, his knuckles going white as his palm starts to cramp. He's not moving, though, not falling, and that's all that matters.

He tries to breathe deeply and evenly to force his heart to stop beating so hard, even by a little, and when it finally decides to cooperate Gerard feels confident enough to slowly make his way down the stairs (he doesn't trust himself to go up, not anymore, not when he still has such a vivid sense memory of almost falling). He feels tiny bits of glass falling from his hair and the folds of his clothes as he moves, and he winces every time he feels a cold shard bounce off his bare skin. When he gets to the bottom he shakes out his hair, squeezing his eyes shut as he does. Then he pushes his hair away from where it's hanging in his face—and his fingers come away bloody.

Gerard gently runs his fingers over his face, checking for more wounds. Even though his fingers get redder and wetter, nothing hurts too much to the touch, and he doesn't feel like he's going to pass out from blood loss or anything, so he feels safe enough concluding that he's not going to die. He's going to be okay.

But he still has to find his way back to his room. He sets off down the last hallway he'd been in, happy to leave the weird cold stairway well behind him. He tries to pay more attention to his surroundings, tries to decide if anything around him looks familiar enough to be the path he'd just taken, and then he passes a portrait of a sour-looking nun that he definitely does recognize. He remembers the creeping feeling of its eyes watching him as he passes, and he never thought he'd find such a thing reassuring, but there it is.

The hallway branches with turns both left and right when it ends. The right-hand turn leads into another long hallway that looks the same as the one he's in now, but the left-hand turn is full of the wan electric light that Gerard knows well from the house's main hall. He goes left and sure enough, after following the hallway through a couple turns, he ends up in a new hallway he recognizes right away: he walks through it every morning to get from the main stairs to the kitchen.

Funny, though, that he'd never noticed this branching hallway before.

He shakes his head, frustrated with himself and with everything. He's tired and he doesn't want to deal with the house and its stupid layout and bullshit surprises. He just wants to go back to his room and get some sleep. He pays extra attention as he heads upstairs, just to be sure, and the rest of his walk is completely uneventful.

He's almost in bed when he realizes that he's still wearing wet pants, so he strips them off quickly and grabs a new pair from the dresser. He puts them on and slides into bed and sinks into his mattress, happy to be horizontal, and he's already halfway to sleep when he realizes that his curtains are still open and he can see the light reflecting off the swimming pool on his ceiling.

Instead of getting up to do something about it, he squeezes his eyes shut and rolls over, pulling the covers up over his head.

 

* * * * * *

Frank still hasn't put in an appearance by mid-afternoon the next day and Gerard is more worried than he'd like to admit—they never go this long after a fight before they talk about it. Add to that the fact that they're in a haunted house that keeps fucking with them, and it really doesn't sit well with him that nobody's seen Frank in two days. There's a clenching ball of worry right in the pit of his stomach that's getting worse and worse as the hours tick by.

Finally it gets too much to take anymore and he decides he needs to go make sure Frank's okay. He's pretty sure Frank's got to be in his room so he heads upstairs, following the same path he takes on nights when he walks Frank to his door.

This time, he can't help but stare at the little numbers nailed to the door. 213, in solid wrought iron. Maybe the number is unlucky, after all. At this point, nothing would surprise Gerard less.

Gerard takes a deep breath and then forces himself to knock on Frank's door, two firm taps. "Frank?" he calls, "are you okay?"

"What do you want, Gerard?" Frank's voice is distant and muffled but even so, it sounds thick like he's been crying, or maybe trying not to. He sounds completely miserable.

Gerard tries the knob and is vaguely unsurprised to find it locked. "Nobody saw you yesterday," he tells the door. "I wanted to make sure you're... you know, still alive." He wishes he could even play that off as a joke, but he's entirely serious.

"I don't know why you care."

Gerard sighs heavily and leans against the door. Fucking Frank. "Is this about the other day?"

Frank doesn't answer and doesn't answer and Gerard is starting to wonder if Frank is going to shut him out completely when Frank finally says, "I don't blame you if you never forgive me for that." His voice sounds closer to the door than it had been before, though.

"You hurt me, and you meant to. I'm not going to say otherwise, because I'd be lying–" Gerard says carefully, and Frank makes a noise like a half-swallowed gasp of pain. "But I don't think it was unforgivable."

"No?" The word is hopeful, almost pathetically so.

"No," Gerard confirms, then clears his throat. "But I do think you need to apologize."

Frank is quiet for a long time and Gerard wonders if he fucked up and said the wrong thing—or the right thing the wrong way. He can't help but think it might have been a bad idea to try to push Frank on the matter.

There's more noise through the door, then—some muffled crashing and cursing—but Gerard can't figure out what just happened. At least it doesn't sound like Frank is breaking anything (electronics, instruments, bones), which Gerard cautiously takes as a good sign. "Frank?" he asks softly, not daring anything more.

"God, I can't even–" Frank starts, his voice choked up and sounding like it's coming from just the other side of the door. "I'm sorry, I'm so sorry, you have no idea, Gerard."

Gerard's breath catches in his throat. "Frank," he says again. He doesn't know what else to say, not to that.

"I wish I hadn't said that. I wish more than anything. I don't know why I even did it, fuck, but I couldn't stop myself and I should have, I know I should have."

"It was true, though," Gerard frowns, suddenly bitter. "And sometimes the truth fucking hurts."

The sound Frank makes then must be a gasp of shocked laughter; Gerard knows Frank well enough to recognize the sound, even muffled, even when Frank is still all snotty and stuffed up. "Yeah," Frank agrees, "yeah, it fucking does." He sighs loud enough for it to carry, and then it sounds like he thunks his head against the door. "You know I love you, right? You and Mikey, you guys are the best thing to ever happen to me."

"I love you too," Gerard tells him, and he means it with everything he has.

"I just miss him so much." And if Frank isn't holding back tears now, Gerard will be very surprised. Because it seems like such a simple thing to say—to admit—but Gerard knows maybe even better than Frank the full depth of what it means. It's not just Mikey's physical absence that's hurting them, but the way he's missing from their hive mind of five, the way he's missing from the music, the writing. It's the way he's been missing as himself for much longer than he's been gone from the house—the Mikey they know so well and love so much and need around as a brother and a best friend, well, he's been gone for a while.

"Me too," Gerard says, suddenly all choked up himself. He reaches for the knob to try the door again, but it's still locked. "Will you let me in now?"

"Not yet," Frank sniffs. "I'm not done beating myself up yet."

Gerard frowns. "Are you–"

"Just emotionally," Frank interrupts. "I'll be okay."

"Well, I'll be downstairs," Gerard says. "Come find me when you're ready, okay?"

"Okay," Frank promises. His voice is practically in Gerard's ear.

Gerard clears his throat a couple times and scrubs at his eyes as he walks down the hall. It occurs to him that he never told Frank that he forgives him, not in so many words, but he realizes that he has anyway, and he would bet anything that Frank knows it.

 

* * *

Once he leaves the hall near Frank's room, Gerard lets his feet lead him down to the kitchen, where he pours himself a cup of coffee and a bowl of cereal. He ends up forgetting about both as he stares out the window, chin cupped in his hand. It's still sunny and bright out, and the light is slanting in the windows to light up the entire kitchen. It's so incongruous with everything that's been going on lately, Gerard thinks, and he almost wishes that the sun would disappear again for a week, just so all the weird shit would sit a little better. It would make more sense, somehow.

Gerard is so lost in his head that he doesn't realize he's not alone in the kitchen anymore until he feels a hand on his shoulder. He jumps, almost knocking his spoon out of his bowl, and whirls to see Ray standing an arm's length away.

"Earth to Gerard," Ray says gently.

"Jeez," Gerard says, shaking his head to get rid of his last lingering melancholy thoughts. "How long were you standing there?"

"A while." Ray walks around the table then and sits down. "How long has your cereal been sitting there? Looks pretty gross now."

"Dunno. A while." Gerard cracks the faintest hint of a smile, then looks down at his cereal. The little shapes are all pale and bloated as they float limply in the milk. Gerard wrinkles his nose at it, then pushes the bowl away.

"You seen anyone else today?" Ray asks. He's tapping out a rhythm on the edge of the table and he's staring down at his hands.

"Not technically," Gerard says. He takes a sip of his coffee. It's stone cold, but he can't be bothered getting up to nuke it so he grits his teeth and swills it back as fast as he can.

"Hmm?" Ray looks up.

"I talked to Frank through his door."

"He okay?"

Gerard looks down into his empty mug. "Yeah, he will be. He'll turn up when he's ready. Don't think it'll be too much longer now. You want some coffee?" He gets to his feet and heads for the counter.

"Okay, good. And yes, thanks."

Gerard pours two cups and brings them back to the table. Ray keeps tapping away, reaching occasionally for his coffee, but doesn't say anything more. A certain relaxed stillness falls around them, and it's a comfortable enough way to pass the time. Gerard is glad for Ray's solid company, too. They're not waiting for anything in particular, not with rehearsal on indefinite hiatus, and it makes the days feel extra long now that they've got nothing to do.

After a while, Gerard becomes vaguely aware of footsteps approaching the kitchen. He's hoping against hope that it's Frank, but it turns out to be Bob—soaking wet, scowling, and really, shockingly pale.

Gerard blinks at him. "What the hell happened to you?"

"I think the house tried to kill me," Bob says.

"What happened?" Ray repeats Gerard's question.

Bob frowns. "I was having a shower, and then I got attacked."

"By what?" Ray leans in, pulling himself in closer to the table.

"Dunno," Bob says. "Didn't see anyone, but it happened." He uncrosses his arms to push his wet hair back out of his face, and only then does Gerard notice the jagged gash down the inside of Bob's arm, still oozing wet red.

"What the fuck happened to your arm?" Gerard launches himself out of his chair to grab hold of Bob's hand and pull it towards himself, stretching out Bob's arm for his inspection.

"Like I said," Bob says. He sounds subdued, too subdued, and Gerard looks up to Bob's face. Bob is even paler up close, and the freckles across his nose stand out sharply.

"Maybe you should sit down," Gerard tells him, and tugs him gently to the nearest chair. Bob sits without protest. He tucks his arm back in close to his body.

"I'm going to get the first aid kit," Ray says, leaning across the table to pull Bob's arm back out and look at it intensely.

"I'll be okay," Bob says.

"Yeah, because I'm getting the first aid kit," Ray tells him firmly. His chair scrapes loudly against the floor as he gets to his feet.

Gerard hovers uselessly for a moment and then finally sits down next to Bob. He doesn't know what to say and he manages to bite his tongue before it takes off under its own volition and starts him babbling to fill the silence.

"You're not gonna make fun of me now, are you?" Bob asks, saving Gerard the trouble of coming up with something.

Gerard is taken aback by the question. "For what?"

Bob doesn't answer right away, but then he says, "For coming around on the haunted thing." He's staring intently down at the table like he's deliberately avoiding looking at Gerard. "I mean, I gave you guys a lot of shit for that, but now..."

"It makes more sense to believe than not," Gerard finishes the sentence, and Bob looks up at him, finally.

"Exactly," Bob says. "What the fuck is wrong with this place?"

"Do you want to talk about what happened?" Gerard asks. "I get it if you don't, but fuck, if you got attacked? I want to know what to watch out for, you know?"

"I know I should," Bob starts, reluctant.

"You should," Gerard agrees, then adds gently, "but nobody is going to make you."

"Yeah," Bob says, then breathes out heavily. "I– sorry, can you get me a glass of water?"

"Of course!" Gerard gets up and walks to the sink to pour Bob a glass. He eyes the coffeemaker for himself, but then decides that he'd rather have water, too.

When he turns back to the table, Gerard can see blood drying in Bob's hair and almost reaches out to touch it before he remembers his hands are full. "Did you hit your head, too?"

"Yeah," Bob says shortly. "Is it bleeding?"

"It was," Gerard says, leaning in to squint at the back of Bob's head. "I think it's stopped now."

"Good."

Gerard is still looking the blood dried in Bob's hair. "What the hell happened?"

"I'm still not sure," Bob says.

When Gerard puts the glasses down and slides back into his seat, Bob is staring down at the gash in his arm. His mouth is hanging slightly open and he's got this look on his face like he can't quite believe what he's seeing.

"Are you okay?" Gerard asks.

"Honestly? I have no idea," Bob says.

"What happened?"

Bob looks up just long enough to glance over at Gerard, and Gerard has no idea what Bob is looking for but he seems satisfied by whatever it was. "So I was having a shower–"

"You got your taps fixed?" Gerard interrupts.

"They fixed themselves, really," Bob shrugs. "I didn't do anything. It took almost a week of trying to get the water running clear, and then this fucking happened." He waves his injured arm at Gerard, who flinches and looks away.

"Seriously, what did you do?" Gerard asks him. "It looks like you put your arm through a window, but that doesn't explain how you hit your head."

Bob sighs. "You have no idea how much I wish it was that easy."

"Tell me," Gerard presses.

Bob takes a deep breath. "I was in the shower and then out of nowhere, I see these hand prints in the fog on the shower door." Bob's almost rolling his eyes as he says it, putting up a tough front, but Gerard can see right through it and he suspects Bob knows it.

"Not yours, I take it," Gerard says mildly.

Bob shakes his head. "Definitely not. And then they disappeared and I figured I imagined it."

Gerard makes a small noise of encouragement. "That's pretty freaky."

"No, what's freaky is the fact that they reappeared a minute later."

"Point."

"And then," Bob goes on, warming up to his story despite himself, "the door started sliding open all by itself—yes, really," he cuts Gerard off. "At first I thought it was Frank, trying to scare me or something."

"Sounds like him," Gerard agrees. "It wasn't?"

"No," Bob says. "There was nobody there. At all. Room's completely empty except for me."

"Was it a draft or something?" Gerard asks, his forehead creasing in question.

"It was moving way too slow for that," Bob says.

"Weird," Gerard mutters, shaking his head a little. "So, what then?"

Bob spreads his hand and sighs. "Okay, so this is the part that's fucked," he says. "Because there was nothing in the room, right? But then there was something in the shower with me."

Gerard frowns. "What was it?"

"Hell if I know," Bob shrugs. "Couldn't see it. But I could feel that it was there, does that make sense?"

"Yeah," Gerard assures him. "Was it, like, a presence? Or a ghost? Or..."

"No idea. It touched my leg, and I don't even know what it felt like, just that something touched my leg. It was fucking weird."

"Then what?" Gerard asks, a little breathless.

Bob hesitates, and then says slowly, "Then the door slid shut again, all by itself."

"Okay, that doesn't bode well," Gerard says, swept up in the story before he realizes that, yeah, no shit.

Bob shakes his head at Gerard but doesn't start talking again, not right away. Finally he says, "This is the part I still can't really believe."

Gerard unfolds his legs and leans toward Bob, like closing the space between them will make it easier for him to spill his secrets. "Like your mind is playing tricks on you?" Gerard asks, and Bob nods. "Tell me anyway."

Bob lets out a heavy breath. "It felt– something grabbed my wrists and wouldn't let go," he says in a rush. Gerard can hear the faint edge of panic in the words. "It– it was squeezing, it hurt. I couldn't shake it off." He looks down at his hands like he's expecting to see marks from whatever had been holding him. Gerard looks too, and he doesn't see anything except the jagged gash down the inside of Bob's arm, which is already halfway crusted over. "And then..."

"What happened?" Gerard asks, leaning even closer.

"The shower got really hot all of a sudden, like, scalding hot, burning my back. And I still couldn't get my hands free and I couldn't get away." He looks up from his hands and meets Gerard's eyes, and holds his gaze for a moment before he looks back down again. "Then I managed to slip backwards and crack my head on the faucet."

Gerard winces in sympathy, and Bob lifts his uninjured arm to feel gently at the back of his head.

"The weirdest thing was," Bob goes on slowly, checking his fingers when he pulls them away, "my hands were still somehow held in place in mid-air, even after I fell."

"That's fucked," Gerard says with feeling.

"Sure is," Bob agrees darkly. "So I'm on my back," he goes on, his voice suddenly angry and... disgusted? Gerard thinks. "I'm getting a face full of boiling hot water and my arms are getting wrenched out of their sockets–" he pauses, then gestures vaguely. "And then whatever's holding onto me just let go."

"Oh," Gerard says in surprise. "But that's good, right?"

"Yes and no," Bob says, the words lacking the usual dry humour Gerard would have expected. "I was trying to pull free at the time, so when it let go, I ended up putting my arm through the shower door."

"Ouch." Gerard cringes and pulls both of his arms close against his body.

"Yeah," Bob agrees.

"Shit," Gerard breathes.

"And then I got the hell out of there and came downstairs," Bob concludes quietly.

Gerard knows he's staring, his eyes wide and his jaw hanging open, but holy motherfucking shit. He isn't sure what to say—seriously, what do you even say to a story like that when you know it's got to be true? What comes out is, "You could have died!" He regrets the words immediately when he sees the way Bob flinches.

"You think?" Bob mutters. The sarcasm is thick.

Gerard flushes. "Sorry. I'm still trying to process, you know? It's not that I don't believe every word, but..."

"It's hard to believe," Bob fills in.

"It's a lot to take in," Gerard says. And fuck if Gerard hasn't had almost exactly this same conversation with Mikey. It seems almost too perfectly coincidental for his liking. Too many similarities. Too much he can't quite force himself to wrap his head around. "So, you think it was a ghost?"

"I don't know what to think. It could be. I mean, I wasn't imagining it. There's no way. Not with all this, ah, evidence." Bob has his hand curled protectively over the gash in his arm, and Gerard is glad that Bob's got it mostly hidden from sight. For all that he's into the gory and graphic, he doesn't much care for blood when it's actually real. "I can't believe I didn't see anything. I should have seen something, you know? You don't get attacked by nothing."

"You need a Norman Bates to your Marion Crane," Gerard says before he can stop himself.

Bob shoots him a look. "You have the most incredible one-track mind, you know that?"

"So I've heard," Gerard says dryly.

Bob doesn't say anything after that. He sits, still holding his arm, and he starts sucking on his lower lip. Gerard can hear it from where he's sitting; it's the only noise in the room. The silence otherwise is a little unsettling, considering what's still hanging in the air over their heads, but Bob is clearly thinking something over and Gerard has no desire to interrupt.

"You know," Bob says after a while, "I've thought about leaving–"

"What?" Gerard cuts in sharply.

"–the house," Bob finishes, loud enough to talk over Gerard.

"Ha," Gerard laughs awkwardly, embarrassed by his overreaction. "Yeah, okay." He pauses for a moment and then gives in to his curiosity and asks, "How long've you been thinking that?"

Bob shrugs with one shoulder, then winces slightly. "Since after the fight the other day. I don't know. I thought you guys were going to kill each other, and I couldn't stand to be around that. But before that too, I guess. I get a really bad feel from this place some nights."

"So why didn't you leave?" Gerard asks. He's genuinely curious at this point: given that he's been thinking on and off about leaving the house, the rest of them must have been thinking it, too—so it's a surprise that none of them have actually done it yet.

When Bob doesn't answer right away, Gerard turns his head just enough to look at him from the corners of his eyes. Bob is staring down at his lap, and he's flushed as if he's– as if he's embarrassed about something.

"Bob?" Gerard prompts.

"I felt guilty," Bob says softly, "but mostly I felt like I'd be pussying out." He pauses. He's fidgeting, twisting his fingers together, like he's trying to work up to what he's about to say next. "Like it'd mean I wasn't man enough to take the pressure of being in a band and recording an album. So I stayed."

"Right now it looks like none of us are up to that," Gerard sighs. "Some days I feel like this album is going to kill us all."

"It's so frustrating, not getting anything done," Bob says. He's still looking at the floor. "And I was– it was scary watching you guys fight. And now this time off is too much. I can't do nothing all day, it's–" He breaks off, flushes red up to his hairline, starts shifting uncomfortably.

"You know you're allowed to have your own thoughts on the matter, right?" Gerard tries to catch Bob's eye. "We're not going to get rid of you if you have an opinion or accidentally piss someone off."

And that clearly hits a nerve. Bob gapes at him, his jaw working like he's trying to say something but no words are coming out.

"Because that isn't going to happen," Gerard says firmly. "You need to stop being afraid of us changing our minds on you, or whatever bullshit you're thinking."

"How– how did you know? I never said anything about that." Bob sounds angry, defensive.

"It got really obvious to me, just then. I know you pretty well by now," Gerard tells him.

Bob looks down, starts picking at the fraying bottom hem of his jeans. "It's stupid, right? To be afraid of that?"

"It makes sense," Gerard says. "It's not stupid. I don't blame you at all."

"Thanks," Bob says. "I... yeah. Thanks." He smiles then, just a little pull at the corners of his lips. He uncurls, relaxing.

"Gerard's right," Ray says from the doorway, and Gerard and Bob both jump at the unexpected interruption. Ray has the good grace to look apologetic for startling them, at least.

"Don't start telling him that too often," Bob says. It sounds like he's trying to change the subject, and even though Gerard thinks it would be better if they kept talking until he had some hope of it sticking to Bob's stubborn mind, he's willing to let it go for now. Besides, Ray's holding a first-aid kit, and that's the most important thing right now anyway.

"I won't," Ray says as he sets the kit on the table and sits down next to Bob. "Give me your arm, Bob."

Bob presents his arm to Ray even as he grits his teeth and looks away, and Gerard is torn between watching Ray work and avoiding looking for the sake of his stomach. He ends up looking at a point over Ray's shoulder where he can see the suggestion of movement at the edge of his vision.

Ray starts sponging at the wound with a wet piece of gauze, leaning in close to peer at it. "Do you think this needs stitches?"

"No," Bob says firmly.

"Gee? Do you–"

"No," Bob repeats. "Just wrap it up, it'll be fine."

"If you're sure," Ray says hesitantly.

"I'm sure," Bob tells him.

Gerard still can't look but he's starting to get antsy, so he gets up and busies himself with making a new pot of coffee. He takes care in measuring out spoonfuls of grinds into the basket, filling the carafe, pouring the water into the coffee maker. Gerard watches the coffee drip into the pot, listens to the sound of it gurgle and hiss as it percolates. It's nice to have something so familiar to latch onto right now. He's shaken up by what Bob told him, about what happened to him and how he's been feeling both, and he needs something to distract himself while he starts to sort it out.

When the pot is finished brewing, he pours three cups and carries them to the table. Ray nods at him but doesn't take a mug. Bob twists to gesture with his free hand. It takes Gerard a second to figure it out but then he lifts one of the mugs and passes it to Bob.

Gerard takes the last two mugs for himself and sets to drinking them as he watches Ray finish patching Bob up.

"Hey, Bob," Ray says seriously when he finishes adjusting the layers of gauze wrapped around Bob's arm. "Can I ask you a favour?"

"What is it?"

"Can you not hide out in your room all day tomorrow? Can you stick your head out and say hi at some point so we know you're still alive?" Ray scratches awkwardly at his scalp, tugs at his hair. He's nervous with the question, that much is clear—Gerard wonders if it's the first time he's actually had to confront exactly how screwed up shit is in the house.

"Yeah, I can do that." Bob lifts his arm and turns it about like he's examining Ray's handiwork. "Looks good. Thanks, Toro."

"No problem," Ray nods at him, then gets to his feet. "I'm going to go watch a movie, do you guys want to come?"

"Sure," Gerard agrees quickly. It sounds way better than passing more time in silence, comfortable or otherwise, and he's starting to get really, really sick of both the kitchen and his own room. "You have anything in mind?"

"I was thinking Dune," Ray says.

Gerard can feel his eyes light up. "Oh, sweet. The movie or the mini-series?"

"The mini-series, come on."

"Nerds," Bob accuses them, but it's affectionate.

"You're coming too, Bryar," Ray tells him, and Bob doesn't argue it.

The three of them head upstairs and settle on Ray's bed around his laptop. Gerard isn't surprised when Bob excuses himself after the first episode—he's been looking more and more pinched and exhausted, like he needs a few nights of really good sleep before he'll be able to shake off the day's events. Gerard and Ray stick it out through the remaining three hours, though Gerard chooses not to say anything about the fact that Ray starts nodding off early into the third episode. When it's finally done, Gerard carefully climbs around Ray, who looks to be most of the way asleep, and makes the short walk back to his own room to put himself to bed.

 

* * *

Gerard gasps as he wakes up, coming suddenly and quickly up from sleep. It feels like his heart is beating too hard in his throat and he's going to choke on it. Another fucking bad dream, fuck.

He shakes his head, trying to dislodge the images. He's wide awake from the adrenaline burst, but the dream is sticking to him the way dreams never do. The way dreams never should.It's vivid, too vivid, intense and real like a memory and not simply a figment of his subconscious brain. He can't stop shaking, can't stop the tremble in his hands from getting bigger, can't stop the rattle in his ribs. He listens for a moment, expecting to hear the faint click-clack of bones bouncing off each other, muffled under layers of muscle and flesh. All he hears is nothing.He wants to close his eyes against the onslaught of images but that's too much like being asleep, too close to falling back into the dream he was having, and he doesn't think he can take it a second time. He can barely take it after the first time.Gerard steels himself for the rush of cold air that's going to hit him when he throws his covers back. He grits his teeth against the chill as he gets out of bed, and he gropes blindly for the slippers he left somewhere nearby.After he pulls them onto his feet, he shuffles over to his bathroom. He doesn't bother turning the light on; there's enough moonlight and ambient city light coming in his bedroom window that he can more or less see what he's doing. But his hand is still shaking, and he has trouble keeping his stream of piss aimed at the middle of the bowl.There's just enough light that he could see his reflection in the mirror above the sink if he wanted to, but he very carefully avoids looking up. Instead, he stares at his hands as he washes them. They're his normal, every-day, twenty-something hands. They're not old hands. The hands he saw in his dream weren't his, no matter how overwhelmingly they felt like it at the time.He considers going back to bed for about half a second, and then sighs and heads for the door to the hallway. It's the middle of the goddamn night and he could probably get a few more hours of sleep, but there's no way he's ready to risk another nightmare, not when he's still feeling the one he just had.

He doesn't want to wake anyone else up for company or comfort, even though he's pretty sure none of the guys would be too mad about it. He can't bring himself to share his dream, or even mention it—it's too raw, too fucking personal. He can barely keep himself together as it is right now, when he's actively trying to push the lingering images out of his brain. His hands are still shaking, he's breathing too fast, his mouth is dry. He's still clammy from all the sweat clinging to his skin, and it's giving him chills as it dries in the cold air.

He can't stay in his room, though, and so he heads down to the kitchen, moving slowly on unsteady feet. It's not until he gets there that he wishes he'd brought something with him to keep him distracted, like a book or his laptop, but it hadn't occurred to him at the time and he's not going back upstairs, not now, not yet. He drinks a whole pot of coffee and picks at a piece of toast until it's just tiny crumbs on a plate before he gets so excruciatingly bored that he needs to get up and do something else.

Do what, though, is the question.

And then he realizes that it's been almost a week now since Mikey left, and he's dying to know how he's doing. Okay, maybe that's a bad choice of words, but now that he's had the thought, it's burst into this all-consuming need to talk to him, hear his voice, make sure he's okay. He got so caught up in his own frustration and anger that even when he thought to worry about his brother it never occurred to him to simply pick up the phone and call. He's ashamed of it now that he's aware of it, but at least he's going to do something about it.

Gerard vaguely remembers that Ray found a phone in the front hallway, so he goes to look for it. He doesn't see it at first, but then he finds it completely by accident in a little nook, just when he's about ready to give up in frustration.

He pulls his cell phone out for the first time in weeks to look up Stacy's home number, and then dials it carefully. As it rings, he realizes that he isn't sure what day it is or what time it is, and he has no idea if Stacy is even going to be home, or if Mikey is answering her phone, or if–

"Hello?" Stacy answers.

"Oh, uh, hey, Stacy," Gerard fumbles. "Is Mikey there?"

"He is," she affirms, but instead of passing the phone over she says, "How are you, Gerard? You guys all hanging in there?"

"We're doing our best," he tells her. "Some days it's hard."

"Oh, honey," she says. "I can imagine. You guys hang in there for me, okay?"

"I think we can do that," Gerard smiles. He's strangely comforted by her endearment, by knowing that someone out there cares about them all.

"Let me get Mikey for you," she says.

Gerard hears Stacy's muffled yell of, "Mikey? Phone!" followed shortly by the click of someone picking up an extension.

"Hello?" Mikey asks. He sounds like he can't quite believe that anyone would be calling him.

"Hey, Mikey."

"Gerard?"

"It's good to hear your voice," Gerard says. "How are you?"

"I think I've seen at least one doctor every day since I've been here," Mikey tells him.

"Yeah?"

"Yeah. It looks like Stacy pulled some strings to get me into a couple of them right away, too."

Gerard smiles at that—of course she did. "Do you like them? I mean, is it going okay so far?"

Mikey hmmms for a moment, then says carefully, "It's kind of too soon–"

"I know," Gerard says, "but–"

"It isn't not okay," Mikey says. "It's about as good as you could expect, you know? It's not like it's much fun." Mikey laughs a dry little laugh at that, and Gerard knows exactly what he means. He remembers his own past experiences with therapy far too well.

And speaking of which, fuck, there's something he needs to know, but he's afraid to fuck up asking. "Are you–" he starts. "Have you–"

Mikey seems to get it anyway. "Not since I've been here," he says firmly.

"Thank god." Gerard lets go of the breath he hadn't quite realized he was holding.

The line goes quiet between them but for the sound of them breathing into each other's ears.

"You never answered my question," Gerard says suddenly.

"Which one?"

"How are you doing, really?"

Mikey hesitates, and then says, "I miss you."

"I miss you too. So does Frank. We all do. That's still not an answer."

Mikey breathes out heavily. "What do you want me to say, Gerard? Things aren't that great right now, okay? I have this headache that won't fucking go away and I have to tell strangers my darkest secrets every day, I'm not exactly having a good time."

"I wasn't expecting you to be," Gerard tells him gently.

"And I'm worried about you guys," Mikey says, maybe with more feeling than he's given anything else so far this conversation.

"Don't be. We're okay, we can take care of ourselves," Gerard lies. He's not sure why he does it. Maybe he's still trying to protect his little brother—a lifetime of habit never really goes away.

"Nothing... nothing strange is going on?" Mikey asks tentatively.

"Strange like what?" Gerard asks, his curiosity piqued.

"You're in a haunted house," Mikey reminds him grimly. "What do you think I mean?"

Gerard hates to lie again, but he feels it spilling out before he can consciously do anything about it. "Nothing's going on. I mean, nothing more than it's always been."

"What's been going on?" Mikey asks sharply. "You never told me anything."

"Because I was worried about you and I didn't want to bother you!" Gerard bursts out, then realizes how it must have sounded. He makes a face. "Sorry for yelling, fuck."

Gerard can hear the exasperation when Mikey breathes out heavily through his nose. "But what happened?"

"Nothing serious," Gerard says, trying to make it as believable as he can. "Just weird shit. Like, I don't know, I haven't had a real reflection in a single mirror in this damn house."

There's total silence for a heartbeat, and then Mikey actually laughs. "Your vampire dreams are finally coming true?"

"Shut up," Gerard tells him, but it's too affectionate to carry any real weight.

"Anyone else?" Mikey asks.

"The taps are still doing their thing in Bob's bathroom," Gerard says carefully. He's deliberately lying now, if only by omission. He feels bad about it, but he can't get over this compulsion to keep the truth about the house from Mikey, at least while he's not in it.

"And Frank and Ray?"

"Just weird noises at night," Gerard says, and that at least is mostly true. "We're fine, Mikey. We can take care of ourselves."

"I know you can, but..."

"But what?"

"I don't like it that you're all still in that house without me. I can't stop feeling like something awful is going to happen and I won't be there to stop it."

"What's going to happen? How could you stop it?" But even as the words come out, Gerard can't help but think about the way Bob's arm had looked, bloody and ripped open.

Mikey sighs. "I don't know. But I know I can't do anything from here." He sounds defeated and Gerard wishes he could do something to make it better. But he doesn't want to tell Mikey what's really going on, doesn't want to make him feel even worse for not being there, so his hands are basically tied.

"We'll be okay," Gerard says. He doesn't know what else to say.

"I hope so," Mikey sighs. "Look, I have to go, I have another appointment."

"Okay. I'll call again soon," Gerard promises.

"Okay." And Gerard knows Mikey well enough to hear how pleased he is by that, just from a single word.

Gerard smiles. "Take care of yourself."

"I'll do my best," Mikey says solemnly. "You too. Bye, Gee."

"Bye, Mikey Way."

And then the click of the call ending.

It's not until he's on his way back to the kitchen that Gerard realizes that Mikey didn't ask about the album. Maybe it's for the best, though—Gerard really doesn't want to have to admit that they've essentially ground to a complete standstill without Mikey there. It's a little too close to admitting defeat for his liking, and even though everything is all wrong right now, Gerard is still clinging to hope that they can push through it and get more written.

There's nobody there when he gets to the kitchen, so, completely on a whim, he turns around and starts walking to the ballroom. He hasn't stepped foot inside since the fight a few days ago, but now seems like as good a time as any to go back.

 

* * *

The ballroom is very much the way Gerard remembers leaving it when he walked out days earlier. He gives their set-up a wide berth but he can still see the guitars they left leaning on practice stands instead of put away on the covered racks. Some of the guitars are starting to collect dust around the pickups, and he thinks about going over to brush it off and pull a cover over the rack but he can't actually bring himself to get close enough to touch anything.

There's dust collecting on everything else in there, too—the useless ornate antiques, the chairs they sometimes sit on, the frames around the shit hanging on the walls. It's like their very absence has somehow turned the room into a ghost town, empty and neglected, far worse than a few days' disuse should do. Gerard runs his finger across the top of a hutch full of tiny figurines without really thinking about it, and he frowns at it when it comes away ashy grey and then wipes it off on his pajama pants.

He can't get himself to stop mentally replaying his phonecall with Mikey. He has no idea what came over him that he would have lied so blatantly to his brother about the weird-ass shit that's been happening since he's been gone. Nothing strange is going on? Mikey had asked. As if he knew exactly what he was missing and was fishing for confirmation. It really doesn't sit right with Gerard. And he can't stop thinking about what Mikey said, something awful is going to happen and I won't be there to stop it. Should Gerard be doing something to protect himself, to protect them all? But that's stupid, it's just a house... right? What could it possibly do to them? Maybe he should be worried about Mikey, instead.

Something catches at Gerard's attention from the edge of his peripheral vision. He turns to try to pin it down, but doesn't see anything that looks right. Nothing's moved, nothing's different. He pulls at the curtain in the front window but the yard is completely empty. Gerard lets the curtain fall back and he's about to write it off and go back to pacing when he notices the painting next to the window.

He remembers the painting; he's seen it before. The woman in it—Daisy Canfield—is staring out from the canvas, watching him as he moves. Gerard hates to say her eyes are following him, but wow, does it ever feel like they are. He goes to stand in front of the painting and once he's standing still, her eyes stop moving. Now they're looking right through him, which isn't much of an improvement.

It was definitely this painting, though, that was catching his attention before. He keeps staring at it, certain that if he tries hard enough, he can pin down what's bothering him about it. Daisy stares back at him. It makes him uncomfortable, deeply so, to meet her painted gaze.

And then he remembers what Mikey told him, right before he left. That Daisy's ghost is trapped in the house, that Mikey was talking to her, that she was... helping them? It still seems all wrong to Gerard. But maybe he should tell the rest of the guys about it, anyway. Not necessarily because he believes it or thinks that they should believe it, but because at this point, after what's been happening, it feels like he's keeping unnecessary secrets from them.

He stands there, chewing on his lip and looking at the painting as he thinks about it. He should probably do it right away. It's bad enough that he's been sitting on it for a week already. What do you think? he mentally asks the painting of Daisy, and then he laughs at himself. He's shaking his head when it hits him: something's changed about the painting since he last saw it. He couldn't swear to what it looked like before, but he knows it's different now. Something about how she's sitting, maybe, or something about the look on her face—something has definitely changed.

The painting's eyes are really starting to give him the creeps now, though—she really shouldn't be looking at him so intensely, it's just not right—so he finally looks away and turns back to the room. He stops next to one of the concrete lion statues to run his hand along its stone mane. He remembers the day they arrived, when him and Frank stopped to look at the statue as they marveled at their surroundings. Gerard is still marveling at his surroundings, but it's totally different now. Funny, how things can change so much so quickly.

He keeps walking around, touching things, wiping dust off his hands, taking in details he'd never bothered to see before in the enormous jumble of antiques and oddities surrounding them every day in the ballroom, and by the time he's circled all the way around to the door again, he's in a bit of a daze. He knows there was something he wanted to be doing but he can't for the life of him remember what it was, so he shrugs mentally and lets it go.

 

* * * * * *

Frank is standing at the coffeemaker when Gerard comes into the kitchen later that afternoon, and he looks mostly relaxed as he putters around, waiting for his coffee to brew.

Gerard breaks into a grin. "Frank!" he calls out, then crosses the room in long strides to wrap Frank up in a hug. "I take it you're feeling better now?"

"Yeah, I just needed to get over myself," Frank says into Gerard's shoulder, then hugs him back tightly. "I'm good now."

The coffeemaker gurgles in the background, and then the steady drip slows and stops. "Hey, coffee time!" Frank pulls away from Gerard and pours himself a mug, which he drinks right away. Once it's done he puts the mug down and says, "I haven't had any in two days and this headache is unbelievable."

"Oh, no, I believe it," Gerard says, and waits for Frank to finish pouring his next cup before he moves in to get his own.

They sit together at the table and drink their coffee. Gerard doesn't feel like there's any particular tension between them now, and he's more grateful for that than he can say. The talk they had clearly went a long way toward clearing the air between them, as hard as it was at the time. And he has no idea what kind of self-flagellation Frank got up to in the days he was locked in his room, but—and he hates to even think this—it must have done him some good, too.

"You're thinking too hard," Frank says into the quiet.

Gerard startles and looks up at Frank, who's smiling gently at him across the table. "I've heard I do that sometimes," Gerard says, smiling back.

And then the smile slides right off of Frank's face and his eyebrows knit together in concern.

"Wha..." Gerard starts to ask, but Frank is standing up, his chair scraping awkwardly against the tile floor.

"What happened to your arm?" Frank demands in a voice that's almost half-gasp.

Gerard turns in his seat to see Bob standing frozen a step across the kitchen threshold, like Frank just caught him in the middle of doing something he shouldn't. His arm is still wrapped wrist-to-elbow in gauze, and even from across the room Gerard can see the reddish spots soaked through to the surface over where he knows the cut to be.

"Nice to see you too, Frank," Bob says sarcastically, and he pulls his arm in close to his body like he's trying to hide it. "Sit down, it's not the end of the world."

Frank crosses his arms over his chest and doesn't sit down.

Bob rolls his eyes and comes the rest of the way into the kitchen, pulling out the chair next to Gerard's and deliberately sitting in it, pinning Frank with a stern look as he does. Only then does Frank sit back down, but he leans across the table to take what looks like a surprisingly gentle hold of Bob's hand and pull his arm back out from his body.

"What happened?" Frank repeats, far less accusatorily.

Bob sketches out the bare bones of the same story he'd told Gerard. Gerard watches as Frank's eyes get wider and wider until they're practically bugging out of his head.

"Why the hell are we still even here?" Frank asks plaintively.

"I keep asking myself that," Gerard sighs, and Bob nods his silent agreement.

Frank scowls down at his coffee. "You know I tried to leave yesterday, just to get out of here for a while?"

Gerard blinks at him. "I take it you didn't?"

"Nope," Frank shakes his head. "I tried walking out. I got all the way up to the gate and I could see the street through it and everything. I stood there for a long time, trying to make myself open the gate. But then, I don't know, I was getting all stressed out and anxious standing there. So I changed my mind and walked back up to the house."

"That's kind of weird," Gerard says.

"Since when do you change your mind?" Bob asks.

"I know." Frank puts his mug down. "I didn't even really realize what had really happened until I was already back in my room."

They're all quiet as they mull that over, and then Bob says, "I tried leaving a couple times, too."

Frank looks at him sharply. "And you couldn't do it either?"

Bob shakes his head. "Same thing happened. Except the second time I couldn't even make it out the front door. I just stood there with my hand on the knob, staring out the window for a while."

"That's fucked," Frank pronounces.

"Tell me about it," Bob agrees.

"I keep thinking about leaving," Gerard says into the silence that's come down around them like a heavy curtain. "But I never even try. I keep making excuses. Or when I'm outside smoking, I'll stand there and look at the gate or the fence, but I never move from where I'm standing. And then I'll come back inside and think about leaving again."

"Do you," Frank starts, but doesn't go on.

"Do I what?" Gerard asks.

"Nothing, it's dumb," Frank tries to wave it off.

"I won't laugh," Gerard tells him.

Frank sighs. "Does it seem to you guys like the house is trying to keep us from leaving?"

"What, like controlling our minds or something?" Bob asks, skeptical.

"Well you just said that you couldn't make yourself go out the front door," Frank says defensively. "What was stopping you from opening it if you really wanted to leave so bad?"

Bob doesn't answer.

"And it's not like that would be the weirdest thing that's happened so far!" Frank goes on, looking pointedly at Bob's arm.

Bob follows Frank's line of sight and stares, too. His inner conflict is showing in every part of his face, and finally he heaves a deep sigh and slowly says, "So, say you're right."

Frank nods encouragingly.

"What are we going to do about it?" Bob asks.

"I think we should try to leave right now," Frank says, suddenly urgent. "The three of us, we should go open the fucking gate and stand on the street just to fucking do it."

"What about Ray?" Gerard asks.

"We're not leaving forever," Frank says. "I just want to prove that we're not fucking locked in like prisoners." He gets to his feet and starts walking to the door. "You guys coming?" he calls back at them, then turns the corner without waiting.

"We may as well," Gerard says to Bob, who shrugs and gets to his feet without saying anything, and they follow Frank out of the kitchen.

Frank is almost to the front door by the time Gerard and Bob catch up with him. They watch as Frank takes a steadying breath and then puts his hand on the door's knob. He turns it decisively and it swings open easily when he pulls. "Okay, that was anti-climactic," Frank mutters.

He walks purposefully out the door and down the walk to the driveway. Gerard picks up his pace to keep up. He's nervous and it's getting worse the closer they get to the gate, which looms dark and imposing ahead of them. They stop a few feet away, the three of them lined up to face it down. The sun is low behind them and their shadows stretch long in front of them, across the asphalt and up the surface of the gate.

"Well?" Gerard says after a minute, when it becomes clear that Frank isn't about to do anything.

"Well what?" Bob asks.

"What are we waiting for?"

"If either of you want to go push the 'open' button, be my guest," Frank mumbles.

"Why don't you do it?" Gerard asks him.

"I'm working on it," Frank says shortly.

Bob turns. "What is there to work on?"

Frank glares at him. "Why don't you try doing it, then you tell me?"

"Fine," Bob says, then turns back to the gate, glaring.

Gerard half-listens to them argue as he tries to work up his own nerve to go push the damn button. It shouldn't be difficult, just a few steps over to the left and a firm press of a finger. There's nothing to it, but he can't bring himself to fucking do it. Every time he thinks he's about to break through and take the step, the anxiety roars up in his brain like a massive wave threatening to crush the very life from his body, and he stops himself in place to make it to subside. Really, the whole situation would be funny if it wasn't so weird and a little scary. "This is ridiculous," he mutters to himself.

"Why don't you do it, then?" Frank asks, anger starting to creep into his words. "What are you so afraid of?"

"Failure," Gerard replies simply, and the stark honesty of the answer takes him by surprise.

Frank looks completely taken aback. "Oh," he says after a pause, then falls quiet again.

Gerard's ears are ringing with the sound of his own heart thudding in his chest and Bob and Frank breathing on either side of him. The trees lining the property are rustling gently around them, and he can hear the background buzz of traffic noise down the hill. He keeps staring down the gate in front of him, which is split into sections by the shapes of their shadows as they stand there, doing nothing.

"I– This is weird. I can't do it either. I'm... I'm afraid of letting you guys down."

Gerard shoots Frank a look from the corner of his eye. He's standing with his chest puffed and his fists balled up, like he's trying to intimidate whatever it is that's affecting them with his physical presence.

"Is it fucking with us all the same way?" Gerard asks. "Bob?"

"Not being good enough." Bob says it quietly but with a certain weight, like the words are a burden he's been carrying for a long time.

They fall into silence again. It seems only fitting, like a tribute to their bravery in laying themselves open, fleeting as it may have been. Gerard certainly doesn't feel brave anymore, didn't really feel it in the first place—though he does Frank and Bob were, for their admissions. He wonders if he's maybe holding himself to too high a standard and he should cut himself some slack. But no, he thinks, his answer had been startled out of him, it shouldn't count.

"Seriously, can none of us go and push the fucking button?" Frank's impatience is cut through with a certain desperation, and he's practically radiating static electricity as he bristles in frustration. Gerard is almost tempted to touch him to see if he'll get a shock.

"Guess not," Bob says.

"So, what, are we fucking stuck in here?"

Gerard is sure Frank already knows what they're going to say, but that doesn't mean he wants to be the one to say it. He glances over at Bob, who's already looking at him. No magic is worked between them and no answer materializes from the ether, but then, Gerard wasn't really expecting anything. Bob doesn't look any more willing than Gerard feels, so neither of them end up answering Frank.

"Fuuuuck," Frank groans into their silence, and storms back towards the house.

Bob shrugs helplessly at Gerard and starts after Frank. Gerard stares at the gate for another few heartbeats. His shadow stretches up most of the way but falls a few inches short of the top. Not even his shadow can get past the gate, he thinks bitterly. Every single bit of him, right down to his fucking shadow, is stuck inside the Paramour's walls. Gerard finally forces himself to look away, and then walks back up the driveway.

When he gets back to the house, Frank and Bob are standing in the foyer like they're waiting for him. Frank seems to have calmed down already—most of the tension is gone from his shoulders and he's not shouting, which Gerard was sort of afraid he'd start doing.

"...haven't seen him at all in days," Frank is saying when Gerard gets into earshot. "I want to make sure things are cool between us."

"Maybe he's in his room," Bob says. "Haven't seen him yet today."

"Ray?" Gerard asks when he gets close enough to stand with them.

"Yeah," Frank nods.

"I haven't seen him today either," Gerard says.

"We should go find him," Frank announces.

"I think we all need to spend some quality time together again," Bob says.

Gerard nods emphatically. "Things have been pretty weird these last few days, it's true."

"Maybe we could try writing some more tomorrow," Bob offers carefully, then shoots a quick look at Gerard. Gerard nods at him, smiles a little. He's glad Bob seems to have taken their conversation to heart.

"No pressure," Gerard says. "We'll just see what happens."

"I miss playing," Frank says with feeling, then adds quietly, "I miss all five of us together."

"Me too," Bob agrees.

Frank kicks at something on the floor in front of him that Gerard can't see and isn't sure even exists. "I wish I knew how Mikey was doing."

"I talked to him yesterday," Gerard tells Frank.

Frank whirls to face Gerard, his whole face lighting up. "You did? How is he?"

Gerard bites his lip as he thinks about how he wants to put it, then settles on, "Better than he was when he was here. Stacy has him seeing a doctor every day, by the sound of it."

"Good," Frank says firmly. "That's really good."

Gerard nods. He wants to tell them that Mikey is worried about them. The words are right on the tip of his tongue, pressing against the backs of his teeth, but he can't bring himself to say it. He's not sure what Mikey told Frank about the house being haunted and he's pretty sure that Mikey didn't tell Bob anything, and if they don't already know about how Mikey feels then he doesn't want to tell them and make them worry about him even more. He forces himself to swallow the thought. It doesn't go down easy. "He says he misses us," is what he says instead.

"I would hope so," Frank says. He's smiling as he says it—it's like the good news is enough to chase away the lingering stormcloud over his head brought on by what had happened with the front gate.

By some unspoken consensus they start walking again, and they've just turned the corner to the hallway to the kitchen when they hear the noise. It's a thumping at first, hard and regular, and a moment later it's overlaid with what sounds like muffled shouting.

Gerard grabs Frank's arm and they stop dead in the middle of the hall. Bob bumps into them, not stopping quite in time.

"Why'd you stop?" Bob asks.

"Does that..." Gerard starts.

Frank's good mood is gone already, and now he looks concerned. "Is that Ray?"

Gerard tilts his head to try to hear better. "Sure sounds like it."

They start walking again, but slowly and carefully, trying to figure out where the noise is coming from. It gets louder as they walk, and the indistinct shouting starts to resolve into intelligible words.

"Let me out!"

Frank hisses in a breath through his teeth and mutters, "That can't be good."

Gerard tightens his grip on Frank's arm. Frank shoots him a quick glance but doesn't shake him off.

As they creep further down the hall, the thumping sounds more and more like someone's—Ray's?—fist beating on a door.

"Is anyone there? Guys? Anyone?"

Gerard's heart starts beating faster and he can feel the sweat breaking out along his hairline. "That's definitely him."

"Fuck," Frank mutters uneasily.

The noise sounds like it's coming from somewhere right in front of them now. They slow as they approach the doors and then come to a stop by some unspoken consensus. The shouting has died off but the pounding is still going, in spurts of rhythmic banging.

"Which door, do you think?" Frank asks tightly as he looks back and forth along the row of doors.

"Who cares? Just open them all," Bob says, then goes to start doing exactly that.

But none of the doors open.

"Hey!" Ray's voice comes through the door, and the pounding noise stops. "Bob? Is that you? Can you open the door?"

"Yeah," Bob calls back. He's turning his head from side to side like he's trying to figure out which door to address. "I'm trying, but the doors are all locked." There's a strange note in his voice that Gerard hasn't heard before, and it takes him a second to place what it is—Bob sounds terrified.

Gerard takes that as his cue to go start rattling knobs himself. He starts trying the ones on the side of the hall that Bob and Frank haven't gotten to yet, but of course none of them give. Of course.

"Fuck!" Ray exclaims. There are a couple muffled thuds, like he's beating the door in frustration.

"What's going on?" Frank calls loudly.

"Is Frank there too?" Ray asks through the door.

"We all are," Frank tells him. "Where are you?"

"I'm locked inside this fucking room," Ray says. He sounds pretty freaked out. Gerard doesn't blame him at all, but he thinks Ray sounds more scared than the simple fact alone alone should merit.

"Which room is it?" Frank asks. He's still rattling doorknobs like enough perseverance will coax them to open.

"It's a library or something, I don't know," Ray tells them.

"Okay, because none of the doors are opening at all, so we're not sure which one's you."

There's a brief pause, and then two really loud bangs echo through the hallway.

"That one's me," Ray announces. He sounds a little wild, like he's going to lose it if he's stuck in the room much longer.

"Sounds like this side of the hall." Bob gestures to the row of doors he's already facing.

"Is there something going on in there?" Gerard asks Ray, pitching his voice louder so it'll carry through whatever door Ray's behind.

"Not right now," Ray says carefully.

"But before?" Gerard prompts. A chill breath of air brushes against the back of his neck and he shivers.

Ray doesn't answer right away, and the silence feels like it stretches on forever. Gerard can hear his own heart thudding in his ears, so loud he can't help but wonder if everyone else hears it too.

"There were ghosts in here with me," Ray finally says, the words tight and sharp.

"But they're gone now?" Gerard asks.

"I can't see them anymore," Ray says.

"What were they doing?" Frank asks him.

"Fighting," Ray says, sounding sick. "Or I should say, one was beating the other."

Frank's eyes go wide. "Can ghosts do that?"

"Apparently." The retort is sharp, and Frank looks chastised for a moment before it gives way to him looking angry. Angry and scared. Bob looks much the same, and Gerard can only imagine what his own face is saying.

Gerard opens his mouth to say something when he gets interrupted by a sudden flurry of thumping that seems to rattle the very walls around them. He flinches instinctively away from the walls, pulling in on himself and making sure someone—Bob—is right behind him, at his back. He wants to run as far away as he can, find somewhere to hide, but he can't, he won't leave his band.

"Toro?" Bob yells, a little shrill. "Are you okay? What was that?" He starts trying doorknobs again. When none give he starts hitting the doors, with fists and feet both, like brute force will work where his other attempts failed.

"One of them– Ow, fuck, fuck, just started throwing books!" Ray's voice sounds like it's coming from farther away, like he had to move to avoid getting hit again.

And then the rapid-fire thumping drops off and the silence is jarring by contrast. Gerard lets out the breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding. He steps across the hall to start trying more doors, then nearly jumps out of his skin when it sounds like something hits the wall right next to his head. The new round of thudding is coming quicker than before, heavy and fast and very, very loud.

"Are you okay in there?" Frank yells. His hands are balled into fists and he's got them up like he's looking for something to fight.

"Not really!" They can barely hear Ray's words over the enormous noise of the repeating thuds. Gerard can't help but wonder how many books are getting thrown at a time; it sounds like it can't be anywhere close to just one.

"Fuck, we've got to–" Bob starts, but gets cut off by a high-pitched female scream that suddenly fills the air around them, nearly drowning out the heavy thudding of the books as they hit the walls and floor. Gerard winces and covers his ears, but the scream keeps going and going. It's a completely horrible sound that grates against his nerves and he can't block it out, not even a little. The sound is assaulting him full-on, and he can only imagine how Ray feels, trapped in a room with whatever—whoever—is making the noise.

The repetitive thumping of the thrown books finally drops off, but the screaming is still going. It feels like the noise is never going to end.

And then, with no warning, the screaming stops. The sudden lack of noise makes Gerard aware of a faint ringing in his ears, a steady drone that nags at him right at the edges of his hearing.

"Oh shit," Ray swears suddenly, urgently.

"What?" Gerard calls out.

"The light just went out." Ray sounds truly terrified. "I heard the bulb shatter. I can't– I can't see anything."

"Fuck," Frank swears under his breath. He starts working his way down the hallway again, trying doorknobs repeatedly, rattling them like he can terrorize them into opening. Bob's face is a thundercloud as he starts at the other end of the line, forgoing trying the knobs in favour of beating them and kicking the doors as hard as he can.

But they all stay firmly closed.

"Fuck!" Frank swears again, louder, and kicks a door in frustration. There's a loud cracking noise, and then the door pops open. Frank freezes, momentarily startled, and then sticks his head in through the door, his feet still firmly planted in the hallway. "Empty," he declares disappointedly when he turns back to the hall.

And then an unfamiliar male voice fills the air around them. "You can't do this to me, I won't let you," it says, a croaking rasp of half-formed consonants.

"You're not my master," comes a thin and breathy female voice. "You don't have any say in this."

"Watch your tongue!" the man snaps, and then the vivid flesh-on-flesh sound of a hard slap rings through the air.

Silence echoes after it, and then the screaming starts again, even louder than before, even more piercingly, even more desperately terrified. Gerard staggers back, pushed by the sheer force of it, and as his back hits the far wall of the hallway he curls in on himself and sinks to the floor, trying to defend himself against the awful noise. As hard as he presses his palms to his ears he can't block out the fleshy thumping sounds, the sound of heavy panting, of grunts and groans and gasps. What sounds like the crack of a skull against something hard and unyielding makes him nauseous.

He looks up and sees that Bob and Frank are doing better than him against it, but only by a little: Bob is leaning hard against the door he'd just been attacking, pressing his hands hard against his ears as he keeps kicking the door; and Frank is vibrating with anger and still rattling doorknobs one at a time even while he has his head bowed, shoulders hunched up high by his ears, and legs spread wide to brace himself against the force of the noise.

Gerard forces himself to stand up again, to fight back against the overwhelming assault of sound. Each step is harder than the one before it as he strides across the hallway, going back to the door he'd been trying when the noise started. It still doesn't give and doesn't give. When he kicks it, all he gets for it his trouble is hot pain blooming in his toes.

Then the whispering starts. "Please don't kill me," the woman pleads, miserable and pathetic. "Don't do it, don't do it, it's not right, please, we can talk about–" She gets cut off by another loud, fleshy thud. A moment later, Gerard hears a couple mucousy sniffles followed by what is unmistakably a sob. "Please, don't do it, we can–"

They never get to hear what the ghosts can do because the desperate pleading turns into a high-pitched shriek that keeps going and going. Gerard has no idea what's going on but there's no way, not a chance in hell, that it's good. He's not sure who or what is in the room with Ray but he's sure right in his guts that he's listening to the woman—whoever she is—get killed.

He grits his teeth against the pain and starts kicking doors again, along with Bob and Frank. If Frank got one open like that, then surely they can get the rest to open, too.

The pounding starts up again, thudding and booming in the hallway, but it's a regular beat and after a second Gerard realizes that it must be Ray.

"Come on, we've got to do something," Bob urges them, kicking at the door in front of him as hard as he can. He finally gets it to pop open in its frame, but that room is empty, just like the first.

Ray keeps pounding, and even through the screaming Gerard can hear him begging, "Please open, please open, come on, let me out, please open..."

He hates feeling so helpless in face of Ray's obvious torment, even though he's doing his very fucking best to get the doors open. But as hard as he tries, twisting and shaking and cajoling the knobs each in turn, kicking and beating the wood in hopes it'll crack and swing open, none of them so much as give the tiniest bit under his hand.

And then the shrieking stops, and all Gerard can hear is a soft gurgle. He doesn't want to think about what the noise could be, even though he's seen enough horror movies that he's got a dozen possibilities, none of them good.

The four of them pounding and pounding on solid wood is loud enough to drown out the lingering gurgling once it starts to drop off, which Gerard appreciates more than he can put into words.

Another door pops open then, giving way under the force of Bob's kick, and that room is empty too. Bob swears and moves on to the next door.

They're actually running out of doors that Ray could be behind, Gerard realizes. As long as they can keep getting them open they'll have him rescued soon enough. If his door will open at all, a nasty little voice in the back of Gerard's mind pipes up, and Gerard sets his jaw and ignores it as he keeps trying to beat down the door in front of him. It finally cracks and then creaks open on rusty hinges. Gerard's blood roars for a moment before he sees that the room is completely empty inside.

He's moving on to the next door down when Frank gasps loudly. When Gerard turns to see what's happening, he sees Ray nearly falling through the doorway in front of Frank in his haste to get out of the room. And then Frank's got Ray caught up in a hug, clinging as tightly as he can, his hands spread wide across Ray's back like the more of him he's touching, the safer he is.

Gerard's heart soars in his chest and he rushes over, puts his hand on Ray's shoulder to reassure himself that he's okay. Ray turns and smiles at him—weakly, but it's still a smile.

"I– Holy fuck, that was... wow, fuck, oh my god," Ray says in a rush, and he sounds relieved but still deeply rattled. Gerard doesn't blame him at all.

"Do you need to sit down?" Gerard asks. There's not exactly a chair nearby for Ray to sit on, but he looks like he could probably make it to the kitchen before he falls over. Maybe.

"I'm okay," Ray says. He lets go of Frank and goes to take a step away from the door but then loses his balance. Gerard rushes forward instinctively to try to catch him but Bob gets there first, grabbing Ray's arm even as he catches himself against the door frame. "Or not," he mutters. He starts inching away from the door, leaning on the wall the whole way.

Gerard glances at the door they just opened, and then takes a deep breath and peers into the room. He's expecting to see some sort of evidence that what they'd heard actually happened—books all over the place, damage to the walls, upended furniture, a body on the floor—but it turns out he can't see anything at all: the room is pitch black, so dark that he can't even see vague shapes. He belatedly remembers Ray telling them that the light had gone out, so he gives up on trying to pin things down and turns back to the hallway, more than a little disappointed.

"So you're not hurt," Bob says to Ray, sounding... not quite jealous, Gerard thinks, but maybe getting close. But then, he wouldn't blame Bob if he did. He still notices Bob staring down at his bandages in disgust when he thinks nobody is looking.

Ray purses his lips as he thinks. "I don't think so. I only got hit by a couple books, so..."

"You should sit down," Frank insists. "Come on, the kitchen's not far."

They stick close together as they walk to the kitchen, and when they get there, Bob solicitously pulls a chair back from the table and offers it to Ray, who sinks into it gratefully. The rest of them pull out their own chairs and drag them so they're clustered protectively around Ray.

"God, I never thought I would get out of there," Ray says quietly.

"But you did," Frank says. "It's over, it's okay."

"Do you know who the people– the ghosts were?" Gerard isn't trying to change the subject per se, but his curiosity is gnawing away at him. He has half an idea skipping around the back of his mind, but he can't pin it down and isn't sure how to articulate it.

Ray shakes his head. "It was a man and a woman if it was anyone, but that's all I've got."

"Oh." Gerard sinks back into his chair and jams his hands deep into the pockets of his hoodie.

They lapse into silence. Gerard watches Ray out of the corner of his eye, and he can see that Bob is doing the same. Ray looks okay, though. Sitting down for a while has visibly helped a lot; he's got most of his colour back and the trembling in his shoulders looks to have subsided.

"Do you know how long you were in there?" Frank asks.

Ray shakes his head. "What time is it now?"

Bob checks his watch, and then says, "Almost five."

"Five?" Ray repeats incredulously.

"Yeah," Bob says simply.

"Fuck," Ray breathes, "I was in there for twelve hours."

"Seriously?" Frank boggles.

"Yeah," Ray says heavily. "I couldn't sleep last night so I went wandering, and I somehow ended up in that room and then... I just couldn't leave."

"Did anything happen before... before we found you?" Gerard asks.

"No," Ray shakes his head. "It was really boring, right up until right before then. I saw... flickers of shapes? Like parts of ghosts. Not the whole thing. It was weird, but nothing too bad." He breaks off and sighs. "And then, well, you guys heard what happened next."

"Twelve hours?" Frank breathes incredulously.

"Looks like," Bob says.

"Wow," Ray says. He's finally starting to relax, his shoulders dropping slowly from where they've been up near his ears, and Gerard wishes he could do more.

"You going to be good?" Gerard asks.

"Yeah," Ray says kind of absently. "It's just, now that I think about it? I'm really hungry." And he laughs, clipped and a little stifled, but it's a real laugh. "Is it wrong that that's all I care about right now?"

"No way, fuck, of course you are!" The words tumble out of Gerard's mouth as he gets to his feet. "We probably still have some frozen pizzas left. Or do you want something else? I'm not sure what we have, but I can go look in the freezer–" He cuts himself off when he realizes he's babbling, but putting a pizza in the oven is something he can do—and even if it isn't much it still means a lot in the face of the increasing horror of the house they're fucking trapped in.

"Pizza is fine," Ray tells him.

Frank pulls his chair a little closer to Ray's, then leans in to hug him again. "I'm glad you're okay."

"Me too," Ray agrees with feeling.

Frank makes a sound halfway between a laugh and a sigh. "No kidding." He pulls back but keeps his hands on Ray's shoulder, holding him still at arm's length like he's inspecting him carefully. "So, hey," he starts nervously. "It's totally cool if you're not up for it yet, but, uh, we were thinking of maybe getting back to work tomorrow? Just to be doing something again."

"Hell yes," Ray agrees quickly. "I hate this feeling like we're suffocating, you know?"

Gerard finds himself nodding—Ray managed to put exactly his feelings into words that easily. And the way Frank's face lights up, Gerard can tell that Ray really nailed it for him too. Bob is nodding, too, and the matter is clearly settled.

 

* * *

When Gerard gets woken up suddenly in the middle of the night he's struck with an immediate surge of panicked déjà vu. The last time he got jerked out of sleep was because of Mikey, and now he's got this crawling sense that whatever comes next is going to be something strange and creepy.

But this time, it's only somebody knocking on his door.

"Gerard? Gee, you awake?" It's Frank, and he sounds upset, like whatever it is, it's urgent.

"What?" Gerard croaks.

"Can I come in?"

"Yeah–" And before the word is entirely out of Gerard's mouth his door is swinging open and Frank is shuffling in.

"Sorry to wake you up," Frank says, hovering a few steps inside the doorway. He still sounds really shaken.

Gerard blinks his eyes hard a few times to try to clear the sleep out, and then sits up and squints at Frank. He looks pale, though that could just be the moonlight coming in, but he looks pinched, too, and he's limping, which is probably not a trick of the light.

"You okay?" Gerard asks.

"Um," Frank starts hesitantly, "can I sleep in here?" Which isn't an answer, except for how it is.

"Sure." Gerard agrees almost without thinking, and then bites down so hard that his teeth click. Fuck, it's like a running theme in his life now, that when he gets woken up in the middle of the night something is off—something is wrong—and somebody else is sleeping in his room. He wonders if Frank knows that Mikey spent most nights curled up on Gerard's floor, wonders if that's one of the things Mikey told him... but he's still too tired, too groggy to get caught up in resentment. Besides, he can't say no to Frank, least of all when he's so visibly shaken up.

Gerard pulls back his covers from where they're bunched up around his shoulders and turns down a corner for Frank, who smiles at him as he makes a beeline for the bed. Frank climbs in and pulls the covers back up to where Gerard had them before. Even though the bed is more than big enough for them to have their own sides with room to spare in the middle, Frank scoots over until he's only inches from Gerard, then curls up on his side, facing him. Now that he's up close Gerard can see the wild look in his eyes, and something clearly isn't right.

"You okay?" Gerard asks again.

Frank shrugs.

"What happened?" Gerard asks, then fights down a yawn. He readjusts the covers around his face, then frowns. Normally Frank is pretty warm—Gerard's certainly slept on him enough times over the years to know—and he should be able to feel it now, warming him up right away. But all he feels is the normal chill of his bedroom. Gerard reaches for Frank's hand and squeezes it: ice cold.

"Something was chewing on my leg," Frank whispers.

It takes a second for the words to register with Gerard, and when they do, he blinks again and says, "What?"

"I woke up in pain, and there was a giant fucking white dog chewing on my leg."

"What?"

"And then I looked again and the dog was gone, but I could see these glowing yellow eyes in the corner, and... Fuck that, you know? I couldn't stay there." The words come out evenly, like Frank is talking about what he had for dinner or something, but Gerard knows that Frank is trying to trick himself into calming down.

Gerard scoots a bit closer and lets go of Frank's hand so he can wrap his arm around Frank's shoulders and pull him in close. "Is your leg okay?" he asks.

"Still hurts. I think it might just be, you know, 'cause I'm still kinda freaked out."

"'Kay," Gerard says, and yawns again. "You good to sleep?" he mumbles. He still hasn't fully woken up and he suspects he's about to pass out again at any second, but he wants to—has to—make sure Frank's okay.

"Yeah." Frank tucks his head in, and his hair tickles Gerard's chin. The feel of it pings at Gerard's sense memory; this could be any other night they've had to share a couch or a twin-sized bed or a sleeping bag in the back of the van. But it's not. This is new and something else completely and Gerard hopes he never has to feel it like this again.

But then the soft puff of Frank's breath on Gerard's throat pulls him back to the moment, and Gerard yawns once more and then he's asleep again.

The next time Gerard wakes up, Frank is shaking his shoulder, hard.

"Gerard," Frank hisses, then shakes him again. "Wake up, come on, wake up."

Gerard grunts something he hopes comes out as "I'm awake." He can't get convince his eyes to open.

"Come on," Frank says, more loudly. His hand stills on Gerard's shoulder, and he starts squeezing hard instead.

"What the fuck," Gerard grumbles. "I'm awake, I'm awake, what?"

"Look," Frank says urgently, pointing down towards their feet.

Gerard finally cracks an eye open and all he can see is red. Frank's hand is red and Frank's leg is red and the narrow stretch of sheet between his feet and Frank's is red.

They weren't last night.

"What the fuck!" Gerard jerks upright, suddenly very awake. His heart is pounding with the quick flood of adrenaline. He barely has his bearings, isn't completely sure what's going on, but fuck, something is so, so wrong. He shuts his eyes and takes a few deep breaths. When he opens his eyes again and actually looks, the red is still there but it's not nearly as bad or as much as it had seemed at first from right up close. He looks at Frank, then, trying to figure out what happened. "Is this your blood?"

"Yeah," Frank says, strained and incredulous. He's got one leg of his sweatpants rolled up and he's staring at his calf. At the angry, bloody mess of his calf. "I mean, I wasn't bleeding last night, right? One of us would have noticed." He grimaces. "I didn't even realize it broke the skin," he says anxiously, turning and twisting to try to get a good view of what Gerard now sees as a distinctly bite-shaped wound.

Gerard reaches down and carefully unrolls Frank's pants. A chill pricks at the back of his neck when he finds all the fabric intact. "There are no holes in your pants, Frankie. Bite-shaped or otherwise."

"But there are holes in my fucking leg!"

"Yeah." Gerard can't argue with that. The evidence is right there in front of him, raw and red and bloody.

"I don't think that dog was real. It wasn't real, but it fucking bit me." Frank sounds scared; his breath is coming faster. Gerard is worried Frank might start hyperventilating soon.

Gerard reaches out to stroke Frank's hair. "It'll heal and you'll have a badass scar," he says. He doesn't know what else to say.

"I hate this place so much," Frank says sullenly. "I want to leave. I want to get the fuck out of here." He leans in and presses his face to Gerard's chest, curling in like he's hiding from everything—his leg, the house, the whole world.

"Me too," Gerard says. He really means it now. He wraps his arms around Frank and holds him because he can't think of anything else to do to help, short of finding them some way to get out. He doesn't know what the fuck he was thinking earlier when he thought they could stay. They need to leave, all of them, and get the hell out while the getting is still good. "We can bring it up to Ray and Bob today, if you want. We can find a way to do it."

"I hope so," Frank says.

Gerard hopes so, too.

 

* * * * * *

There's half a pot of coffee waiting for Gerard when he gets into the kitchen, but there's nobody else in the room. There's a strange light to the room; the sunlight coming in through the curtains is muted, like it's had to fight its way through a layer of cloud cover before it got to the window. It's almost unsettling, Gerard thinks.

He pours himself a cup and drinks it before even thinking about what it could mean, and then pours himself a second and takes it to the table. He thinks about grabbing a bowl of cereal, too, but he's not really hungry. He sits and sips anxiously at his coffee. He's really glad they're finally getting back to work, but he's trying not to get too worked up and risk setting himself up for disappointment. First days back are always rough no matter how well-intentioned they are and no matter what they were doing before, so he knows he shouldn't be expecting great things even though he's secretly hoping for a miracle. It's hard, though. He feels like they deserve a miracle after all the shit they've been through in this house.

He's on his third cup of coffee when he hears it, faint but there: somebody is already in the ballroom playing—it's a guitar, so it's Frank or Ray. Whoever it was must have put the coffee on and then gone straight for the music without waiting for anyone else. Gerard doesn't recognize the song, either, so it's either something new or something obscure, and either way he's excited to go listen. It's exciting to hear music again, plain and simple, and he doesn't want to wait if he doesn't have to.

When he gets to the ballroom he sees right away that it's Frank playing, sitting on an over-embellished antique chair with an acoustic cradled to his chest. His back is to the door and Gerard doesn't want to interrupt so he creeps forward as quietly as he can, still listening intently to Frank pulling music from the instrument. Gerard pauses when the music stops, and his breath catches in his throat. The sudden silence shouldn't strike him as so sinister, but it does. He lets out a relieved breath when Frank starts playing again, this time in a different key.

Now that Gerard can hear it more clearly he can tell that Frank is clearly improvising, running scales and progressions in different rhythms like he's blindly feeling his way towards something, one test run at a time. The sound fills the room, plain and unamplified except for the room's natural acoustics. Gerard stops to lean against one of the random cast-concrete statues standing in the middle of the room to watch and listen from a bit of a distance.

Frank starts tapping his foot and the music changes from simple scales to something more melodic. Gerard can see Frank's hand on the guitar's neck, moving chords down the frets with a bit of swing, some syncopation. It doesn't sound like anything they've ever played together, style-wise. It sounds older than that, really old, almost a call back to the first half of the last century. Frank pauses for a second and then the music switches abruptly into a more minor sound. Gerard likes it more the new way, and he finds himself nodding along in time. He doesn't know if Frank is writing or if he's simply playing for himself, but if it's the latter, Gerard is ready to lean on him to share with the class—it's that good.

Frank plays the same riff for a couple minutes before he starts veering off, moving into a progression Gerard thinks might be intended as a chorus. It's a little off and Gerard can tell that Frank knows it—every time he plays it through it's a little different as he tries out different options.

Eventually Frank stops playing after another run-through of the maybe-chorus, putting his hands over the strings to stop the notes from ringing. He clears his throat and says, "You can stop lurking, Gerard."

"Sorry," Gerard says, a bit abashed, as he steps away from the statue. "I didn't want to interrupt."

"You wouldn't have been," Frank waves it off. "But you just standing there was kinda giving me the creeps."

"Sorry," Gerard says again. "It was nice to listen, though." He drags another chair across the floor and sets it facing Frank, then sits down. "What are you working on?"

"Nothing in particular," Frank shrugs. "Just playing."

"Why the acoustic?" Gerard asks.

"Changing things up," Frank says glibly, but Gerard doesn't miss the sidelong glance Frank shoots at the guitar he was using when everything blew up in their faces days ago. It's still in its stand and getting a little dusty. "It sounds different so it helps me think different, you know?"

Gerard nods. He knows the feeling. "Is it working?"

"Dunno, you tell me," Frank says.

"I really liked what you were playing," Gerard tells him.

Frank's eyebrows go up. "Yeah?"

"What, was I not supposed to?"

"No– I mean, yes, I don't know, I was trying to come up with something my dad would be really into. I don't know if it's really anything for us."

"I want to use it," Gerard tells him. "Or at least try. It can't hurt, right? I mean, it's something to do today, and it doesn't need to end up being anything if we're just playing..." He trails off. Frank still looks unconvinced.

"Did I hear you playing?"

Gerard and Frank look up in unison as they hear Ray's voice from across the ballroom. Bob is a couple steps behind him.

"Yeah," Frank says.

"Told you," Bob says to Ray.

"I liked it," Ray says. "You going to play it again for us?"

Gerard shoots a pointed look at Frank that more or less amounts to I told you so.

"Fine," Frank says. "I think you guys are nuts, but why the hell not, hey?" He readjusts the guitar across his knees and takes a slow breath, then starts into the riff Gerard had heard from the kitchen. He plays through it a few times, then moves into the maybe-chorus, playing the last variation he'd come up with before he stopped playing. He goes back to the first verse riff from there.

"Hmm." Ray says thoughtfully. Gerard looks over in time to see Ray fretting chord shapes in mid-air with his left hand, nodding along in time with Frank's playing. He only drops his head when Frank stops playing. "Yeah, I really like this," Ray says. "I don't know why you don't."

"I never said I don't," Frank says, maybe a little too defensively for what sounded like a simple observation on Ray's part. "I just didn't think it was really for us. Too different or whatever."

"Looks like you've been outvoted," Bob says dryly. "Better luck next time."

Frank unsuccessfully tries to hide his snicker at that, and if the look on Bob's face isn't quite a smile, it's still pretty close.

Ray lifts his guitar from its stand and settles it around his shoulders, then turns on his amp and tweaks a few knobs. Gerard expects him to try to brush the dust off from where it's been collecting, and when he doesn't, Gerard looks more closely and realizes that the dust has already been cleaned off. Has Ray been playing by himself? Gerard wonders. He must have been.

Frank plays through the song again as Ray watches closely, and soon enough Ray is playing along with him, but quietly so as not to drown out the acoustic.

At first Ray follows Frank's lead, playing the same chords in time, but soon enough he starts breaking off into a second part. It's not long before he's got something fleshed out and full of promise, his fingers practically pulling harmonies out of thin air.

"Something like that?" Ray asks seriously when Frank stops playing.

"Yeah," Frank agrees, his eyes full of light. "Let's run through that again, and maybe figure out a bridge? I think it needs one."

"Sure," Ray says.

They play through it again, and this time, Bob starts tapping out accompanying rhythms on a practice pad he pulls out of a nearby bag. Gerard's not sure exactly what changes they're making as they play but the song sounds better already.

"That was better," Ray declares when they finish.

"Yeah," Frank nods, satisfied, and then says, "Let me get an electric and we'll do that again." He puts the acoustic back into its case and lifts his white Les Paul out of its stand. He looks like he wants to take the time to carefully brush all the accumulated dust out of the lines of the body and the crevices of the pickups, but instead he slings its strap over a shoulder and plugs it in.

Gerard watches him carefully as he walks back, and he's sure he's not imagining it—Frank is definitely limping, favouring his right foot.

"Are you okay?" Gerard asks him. He can't not, even though Ray and Bob look at him funny for it.

"Yeah," Frank shrugs, and then shifts his weight onto his right foot like he's deliberately trying to hide his injury. "I mean, I still wish we could leave, but I'm okay."

"What do you mean, we can't leave the house? Did we sign a contract or something?" Ray looks really perplexed.

Frank shakes his head grimly. "Not quite. Have you thought about leaving the property in the last couple weeks?"

"Sure," Ray says. "I keep thinking I should go for a jog and explore the neighbourhood, get some fresh air."

"Have you done it yet?" Frank asks.

Ray blinks, looking startled. "I haven't, actually."

"Why not?"

Ray gives Frank a confused look. "Huh?"

"Why haven't you gone for a jog yet?" Frank presses.

"Dunno," Ray shrugs. "I guess I keep getting distracted."

"Have you ever walked right up to the gate, all ready to go, and then changed your mind and gone back inside?"

Ray's eyes go wide. "I– How did you know?"

"Lucky guess," Frank says dryly. "Also, the same thing happened to everyone else at some point too."

"Really?" Ray looks to Bob, then Gerard, like he's not quite ready to believe Frank alone.

"Yeah," Bob says.

"We're not going anywhere in a hurry," Gerard says gently.

"Well, shit." Ray practically deflates. He looks torn for a moment, and then he puts down his guitar and walks off across the room. They all watch him go, and then Frank shrugs and turns back to his guitar.

To Gerard's relief Ray doesn't actually leave; he just skirts along the edges, staring down at the floor, clearly lost in thought. Gerard bites his lip and doesn't say anything, even though he wants to call out to Ray and tell him that it's okay, they'll all figure it out together. He's not surprised that Ray needs some space to process—it's not the most pleasant of revelations, especially not when it comes right on the heels of what had happened to Ray yesterday.

He turns back to watch Frank and Bob while they wait Ray out. Frank's not making any pretense of working on the song in Ray's absence; he's noodling around the fretboard as Bob gives him a series of beats in shifting tempos and time signatures. Frank shakes his head as he tries to keep up with Bob, and it turns into a total unmusical mess really quickly. It looks like they're having fun, though, so Gerard is happy to watch.

It's in a quiet lull in Frank and Bob's playing that Gerard hears Ray's shocked gasp of "Holy shit!", even from across the room.

"What?" Gerard yells back, twisting around in his chair to see what's going on.

"It's her!"

"What's who?" Gerard squints at Ray to see what he's waving his hand at. He can't quite see who it is at this distance, and Ray's standing in the middle of a bunch of stuff so it's not clear what exactly he's pointing at.

"The woman, the ghost– I saw her, in the room."

What Gerard can see, even at the distance, is how pale Ray's gotten all of a sudden, and there's no mistaking the edge in his voice. He's unsettled, obviously so, and Gerard still can't tell what it is.

And then Ray moves, and Gerard sees what's on the wall behind him. When he realizes what it is, it's like all the air's been sucked out of his lungs.

Ray is pointing at the painting of Daisy Canfield.

Gerard gets to his feet, then, and crosses the room quickly to stand next to Ray. "Are you sure?" he asks at a normal volume. He's glad to not be yelling anymore.

"As much as I can be," Ray says, not taking his eyes off the painting. "It looks like her. She's striking, you know?" He waves his hand at the painting. "Something about her eyes, I think."

"She is," Gerard agrees. Last time he'd looked at the painting he'd gotten a real sense that it—she, whatever—was watching him, but he's not feeling it this time. Right now it's just paint on canvas, as soulless and unmoving as all the furniture around them.

"Do you know who she is?" Ray asks.

"Yeah, Mikey told me." The words come out before Gerard really realizes what he's saying. "She used to live here—she and her husband had the place built—and she's buried in the back yard." He thinks Mikey told him something else about her, too, but he can't quite remember what it is.

But from the wide-eyed look on Ray's face, it seems he's said enough anyway. "Oh," he says faintly. "So it probably really was her."

"I guess," Gerard shrugs.

Ray stares at the painting for a little while longer before he finally turns away, and Gerard follows close behind as he walks back to where Frank and Bob are still playing. "Sorry for walking off like that," Ray says.

"It's okay," Frank assures him.

"Yeah, we're cool," Bob says.

"You good to play some more?" Gerard asks. He's mostly addressing Ray but he figures it goes for all of them.

"What else are we going to do, if we're stuck in here?" Ray jokes. The words could be harsh but he sounds like he's trying to make the best of it, at least for the moment, and that's a feeling it looks like they're all ready to get behind.

So they play, because it's the best—and only—thing they can do for themselves anymore. There's nothing for Gerard to do yet, not with a song so new he hasn't even had a chance to write the lyrics, so he sits and watches Frank and Ray and Bob, tapping his fingers on his knees in time with the song's swing. They're building the song up from Frank's riff faster than Gerard would have thought possible after their crushing failures not a week earlier, and it's really fucking amazing to watch.

Frank turns, then, to look over at Gerard and shoot him a real, honest-to-god grin. It takes Gerard completely by surprise to see it. The fact that Frank can still smile even after what happened last night, the day before, everything in the days and weeks since they've been in this house—that's enough for Gerard. They're making music and they'll make it out. He has to believe it.

Gerard watches them play, watches them lean in close together to talk about alternate chord progressions and how to handle the counter-melody in the chorus, watches the way Frank tries to avoid putting any weight on his right leg, and he gets a kernel of an idea for the lyrics. He latches onto it right away even though the idea scares him—it's not like he hasn't brought Hell into their songs before, but it's never been like this. It's huge, it's spot-on, and it's more than a little terrifying. But it's an image, a phrase he can't shake: a house of wolves.

It stands for a lot of things, all of them all at once, and he thinks it could be perfect. He can practically hear it in his head already, and the words are right at the tip of his tongue. He knows where the song is going to go and the clarity of the vision is startling, what with how it's coming hot on the heels of all the trouble they've been having.

He reaches for the notebook he's been keeping by the practice set-up and yanks the cap off of his pen so hard it flies out of his hand, but he ignores it as he starts scribbling furiously to get the words onto the page before they dissipate into the ether to join every other good idea he's ever had and lost. It's practically the blink of an eye before half the page is covered in scratchy blue scrawl, and he just lets go and writes, letting it all pour out onto the page.

As he writes, the music swells around him like he's in a fucking movie or something. And even though he can't quite convince himself that everything is going to be okay, he can't help but think that they stand a good fucking chance together.

 

* * *

Gerard gasps and chokes as he jolts awake. It feels like there are hands on his throat, pressing, crushing, and he can't breathe, can't get any air in.

He struggles against it, his hands coming up instinctively to grab at his throat, feeling desperately for anything that might be there, whatever it is that's cutting off his air, stopping his breathing. He has to find it, has to get it off.He trembles and shakes, his whole body going rigid before he breaks through and starts thrashing around blindly in his bed, tangling the sheets up in his legs. He can feel hands on his skin, distinct fingers pressing into his throat, crushing his windpipe, squeezing away the last of his breath right out of him.He wants to fight against this with everything he's got, every cell and molecule of his entire being, but there's nothing to fight against and the terror of the realization is almost enough to make him give up.He's light-headed and faint, falling back into a foggy stupor almost as quickly as he came out of it, but it's not sleep now, no, it's not the same at all, and he fixes his eyes on the ceiling and starts praying because he doesn't know what else to do.His vision is getting dim around the edges, so quickly and suddenly it's black in the corners, and it's creeping in fast, too fast, and he still can't breathe–He wonders if this is what dying is, how it feels. He wonders where his white light is and why his life isn't flashing before his eyes.And then, just like that, the pressure is gone and the pain in his chest takes on a new, hotter quality as he sucks in greedy lungfuls of air, gasping and shivering and sweating, sprawled wide across the mess of tangled sheets. His hair is soaked and sticking in strings to his face. It itches against his skin but he can't even muster up the strength to brush it away as he lies there limply, his heart racing so fast he worries it might give out—and after everything, that would be what kills him.

He finally manages to roll onto his side, and he realizes that his shirt is soaked through too, cold and clammy where it clings to his shoulders and the small of his back. Even the slightest movement feels impossible right now, and every second feels like forever. The air in his room is stifling with the stink of sweat and fear, and he can't help but wonder if there's actually a lingering smell of something burning or if he's just imagining it.

It takes a long time, but he finally gets out of bed and makes his way carefully across to his dresser. He's glad nobody's watching as he wrestles his shirt off; he's never had so much trouble getting his body to cooperate with something this simple before, not even when he was a drunk. But it feels good when he pulls on a dry shirt that he doesn't remember having worn yet, so it's probably clean, and he's thoroughly glad to have made the effort.

He leans against the dresser as he thinks about his options. He can't go back to bed, that much is clear. Not only because of the dreams, but because he needs to strip the sheets before the bed is usable again. But that's too much effort right now. So right now it looks like he's got two choices: he can keep standing there—or rather leaning there, because he still feels an aching weakness in his legs; or he can leave his room, maybe go sit on the stoop for some air. He thinks about smoking a fuckload of cigarettes but can't quite bring himself to get excited about it, not when he can still feel the heat of the dream-fire on his skin.

Leaving his room feels like the better choice, at any rate. His legs are wobbly under him for the first few steps, so he keeps close to the wall as he makes his way down the hallway, one hand up to catch himself should he need it. But then his strength starts to come back, surprisingly quickly now that he's out of his room, and by the time he reaches the stairs he's walking almost normally again.

As freaked out as he was before, it turns out that moving around is sort of strangely soothing in its own way, like if he's walking he only has to think about putting one foot in front of the other and deciding when to turn, instead of having to think about anything else.

It's funny though, he thinks as he moves quietly down hallways he's starting to recognize even in the dark, it sort of feels like he's the one haunting the house on these late-night wanderings, rather than the one getting haunted. He wonders if he's going to disappear when the sun comes up. Maybe he'll just blink out of existence—there one heartbeat and gone the next. Maybe he'll get caught in that weird interstitial zone between late night and early morning and spend eternity stuck in a poorly lit loop, walking through pale grey hallways and reliving the lingering edges of nightmarish terror for the rest of time.

As awake as he felt before, he's still kind of foggy now—or more like he's moving through a fog that's seeping in through his skin, slow and strange. The walls seem to pulse gently around him as he passes them by, letting his feet lead him around. He thinks in passing that he should be more careful of where he's going, or at least pay a little more attention, but the soft coddling fuzz in his mind is enough to convince him that there's no problem, everything will be okay.

Eventually his feet bring him downstairs. The main floor of the house is completely dark except for moonlight edging in the windows, sharp silver slices through the darkness. They're like little finish lines as he crosses them, breaking through the ribbons to leave them flapping in his wake. He isn't sure what the race is, or what he's going to win. A lifetime supply of bad dreams, maybe. An all-expenses-paid vacation in a haunted house. A gold record. A nervous breakdown.

At first, he's not sure if he's actually hearing the music or just imagining it. It nags at him, phasing in and out as he moves through the halls. It's not until he rounds a corner and the suggestions of notes coalesce into something more concrete that he knows for sure that he is actually hearing it. With the way the sound bounces off the walls and bends around corners it's hard to say exactly where it's coming from, but Gerard figures it's almost a sure thing that it's coming from the ballroom. It gets louder as he walks closer, and he pays attention to what it's saying.

It sounds sad, more than anything else. It's like the notes are little bubbles, hollow where the heart should be, floating up to the ceiling to escape. It's hard to listen to, hard to take. It sounds like innocent bystanders caught in the crossfire in a fight between music and a musician.

Gerard keeps listening as his feet bring him toward the ballroom. He wasn't sure at first but now he'd bet anything that it's Ray playing. He simply knows it from hours and years of listening to how he plays, what he puts into it. He knows it so well he can hear what isn't there as much as what is, and tonight the music is missing an awful lot.

And besides, he thinks wryly once he recognizes the song, it's not likely to be Frank who's playing old Ozzy songs at top volume in the middle of the night.

Sure enough, when he rounds the corner into the ballroom he sees Ray sitting on an amp, hunched over his guitar, swinging one foot in slow back-and-forth arcs. There's only one floor lamp on to light the whole room, and it sends long shadows across the floor toward where Gerard is hovering nervously in the door.

And then Ray shifts from the riff he was playing into the intro from "Headfirst for Halos", and damn, Gerard hasn't heard that in a long time. But it sounds a little off—it's not quite the song he remembers. He can hear the frustration in Ray's playing as much as he can see the tension across his shoulders. He's wrestling with the song, with the music, and Gerard isn't sure who's winning. There's something very heartbreaking about it, and he finds himself drawn across the room to where Ray is sitting. He doesn't want to startle him so he tries to step as heavily as he can, but he can't get his slippers to make any noise against the old scuffed wood of the floor.

Ray stops partway through a measure and lets the notes ring out, too loud in the dark ballroom. Gerard takes that as his cue to clear his throat deliberately, and Ray looks up sharply but doesn't look startled, so Gerard counts that as a win.

"Hey," Gerard says softly, walking the rest of the way over to where Ray is sitting.

Ray waves once, abruptly, and then looks down at his hands. "I didn't wake you up, did I?"

"I was up already," Gerard assures him, "you're not being too loud."

"Good," Ray says then sighs. "I haven't been sleeping so well, and it's something to do instead of tossing and turning and thinking about not being asleep, you know? So I'm glad it's not bothering anyone." He shifts his guitar on his lap and Gerard takes note of it for the first time. It's Ray's oldest guitar, the knock-off his brother gave him years and years ago. Gerard recognizes it right away even though he doesn't see it much—it never tours with them because it's got too much sentimental value, so Ray always leaves it at home where there's no chance it'll get broken. He didn't realize that Ray brought it to Los Angeles with him, but now that he knows it's here he's not surprised to see it in Ray's hands in the middle of a sleepless night.

"You come up with anything?" Gerard asks.

Ray shakes his head. "Not really working on anything, no," he says. "I can't pin anything down, it's weird. There's some stuff in my head, riffs and choruses and all that, but I can't get my fingers to do it. So I'm just messing around."

"That sucks," Gerard says with feeling. If there's one thing he can empathize with it's the feeling of being totally blocked, and there's really almost nothing more frustrating than when you have an idea floating around in your head that you can't get out properly. He watches as Ray keeps strumming absently at his guitar, and he has an idea. "So hey," he says carefully, "I have this vocal melody I've been working at for a bit, can you play me something?"

Ray nods and looks down at his guitar. Gerard is expecting him to improvise something, but what he gets is a song he recognizes. When they first came up with it, they called it "The Saddest Music in the World" as a joke, but here and now in the middle of the night it's not so funny anymore. Gerard is about to ask Ray to stop and play something else but he's got this nagging feeling that's keeping him from opening his mouth, and as he sits and listens he realizes that "The Saddest Music" could actually work.

Gerard hums the melody he has overtop of the melody Ray's playing, and yeah, fuck, it's a really good fit. Ray keeps playing and Gerard takes a deep breath and starts singing, wordless tones that somehow work with the guitar. "Fuck," he breathes when they stop.

"Fuck," Ray agrees.

"I mean, it needs a rhythm part, but it definitely works," Gerard says thoughtfully.

"There's an acoustic right there," Ray says, gesturing at the floor by Gerard's feet.

"So there is." Gerard drags the case over and sits down in the nearest chair before flipping the case open. He takes out the acoustic that Frank was using earlier in the day and strums the strings lightly. The wood is cold and feels unwieldy in his hands, and he thinks he should probably do himself a favour and spend more time practicing guitar, to keep his hand in. He fumbles his way through a few chord changes before he picks up the feel for it again, and it's not much longer before he feels old muscle memory coming awake again. It's been hibernating since he last played, in the overheated studio in the back of their bus somewhere in the dusty middle of the continent, a long way away and a long time ago. His fingers slide across the frets lightly, and the squeak of the strings under his fingertips is loud in the dark silence of the ballroom.

Ray picks up a moment later, following Gerard's lead and playing easy harmonies and counter-melodies. Gerard's not playing anything in particular, just sticking to staple chord progressions, and they fall into an easy duet for a while, playing for the sake of playing until Gerard gets warmed up.

The fog Gerard's been feeling ever since he woke up out of his nightmare finally starts to lift, suddenly and startlingly, like something is chasing it away. His head feels clearer and his whole body feels somehow lighter. He smiles to himself, the one side of his mouth quirking up, and keeps playing.

He doesn't think too hard about what he's doing and just lets his fingers move on their own. He ends up playing a lot of discordant notes, chord progressions that would set his teeth on edge if he was playing anything for real, but for now it's okay. He's not trying to say anything or be anything. He's letting the notes come as they will, and if sometimes it doesn't even quite count as music, then that's okay too. He's going to start thinking about the rhythm part soon, but he needs to get comfortable first.

And that's how it happens: one minute he's barely paying attention to what his fingers are doing, and the next he's suddenly caught up in the progression he just played. He bites his lip as he moves his hand back up the neck of the guitar, brushes the strings lightly until he finds the chord that sounds right to start the riff again. He fumbles through it once, trying to feel for the right notes, and then he plays it again, and again. The riff is heavy—not like classic rock or metal heavy, but like it carries a weight with it that's bigger than the notes themselves. It's an emotional weight, he realizes as the notes thrum in his chest. It's pretty fucking emotionally heavy and it's like a firecracker going off in his brain, loud and flashy and immediate.

When he looks up from his hands he sees Ray staring at him, eyes wide and mouth open. "Holy shit," Ray breathes. "Where did that come from?"

"I have no idea," Gerard admits.

"What if we did this," Ray says, parroting the riff back at Gerard much better than Gerard had played it, and then after the second repetition he crescendos into "The Saddest Music." The little flourishes that had seemed so desperately melancholy before sound different in the new context—they're still sad, but there's a certain strength to them now too.

"Okay, play that again," Gerard says, and when Ray starts playing Gerard's new riff, Gerard starts to sing for real. His voice comes out as a rasp without him meaning it to, but he likes it, it works, and he thinks he'll keep it in the song. His eyes fall shut as he sings, the words springing to mind and then coming off his tongue almost before he even registers them. They're about what they're going through without Mikey, trapped in the house with the abject horror of the unexplainable. They're about him, the band, the music, and he's never felt so powerful as he does in that moment, singing those words.

When they run out of music and words for the moment, they stare at each other, flushed and wild. Gerard can feel a vivid electricity crackling between them, powered by the music, the everything. "Shit, that's a verse," he says, a little breathless.

"Two verses," Ray agrees, nodding so hard his hair shakes around his face. "We should stick a chorus in the middle, between your part and mine."

"I have something we could try," Gerard says tentatively. He hums the melody that came to him as he was singing the verse, and then again when Ray gestures for it. Gerard watches Ray ghost chords up and down the neck of his guitar. "Good?"

Ray nods. "You have words already?"

"Yeah." Gerard can hear the wonder in his own voice. He has no idea where this sudden flood of ideas is coming from, but it's like something dark and secret broke open inside him and it all wants to come out all at once.

He's going to let it.

"From the top or from the chorus?" Ray asks him.

"Chorus," Gerard says. "Let's just go for it."

"Sure," Ray says, and then counts them in.

Gerard takes a deep breath and when the music starts, he sings.

I am not afraid to keep on living.

He closes his eyes and lets go, letting the words take on a life of their own as they fill the air around them with everything he never thought he'd be strong enough to say. He's exhausted when the song ends, worn out and wrecked, but he's filled with a rush of elation that lifts him back up.

This, he thinks. This is exactly what he's been looking for. As the last notes of the song echo through the room, he can't help but feel like all the trouble they've had has been worth it, if this is what comes after.

 

* * *

They stay up all night working out guitar parts, rearranging lyrics, and letting the song put itself together out of the pieces they provide. Gerard barely feels the time go by and it feels like one second he's sitting in the dark hunched over Frank's guitar and the next, the room is flooded with sunlight and Frank is holding a steaming mug of coffee under his nose and asking him something.

"Huh?" Gerard blinks dumbly up at Frank, and then gratefully grabs at the mug. The muscles in his back protest as he sits up straight for the first time in what must be hours.

"I said, have you guys been here all night?"

Gerard nods, then starts stretching his shoulders out as best he can without spilling his coffee or knocking the guitar out of his lap. "Yeah," he says into his mug, then takes a big gulp of the coffee. "We've been writing."

Frank's eyes light up. "You have something new?" he asks carefully.

"Fuck yeah we do," Gerard tells him, and Frank finally smiles.

"You're gonna show us, right?"

"You bet," Ray says.

"I thought of something for the song we did yesterday," Bob says from somewhere behind Gerard. Gerard turns and sees Bob settling down behind his kit. "Maybe we can warm up on that and then you guys can play us the new stuff?"

"Sounds good," Ray agrees.

Gerard finishes the mug of coffee and puts it down on the floor, then lifts the guitar off his lap and puts it back into its case. "You know, I should feel tired, but I'm really not," he says.

"Same," Ray says. "I didn't sleep at all last night, but I'm barely even feeling it. It's kind of weird, actually. I was just getting used to being tired all the time."

"Well that's good, I guess," Gerard tells him.

"What did you come up with?" Frank leans right over Bob's kit to ask, almost nailing Bob with the headstock of his guitar.

"Give me some space and I'll show you." Bob probably means for the words to come out as stern, but Gerard thinks he really sounds sort of fondly resigned.

"Yeah, yeah," Frank waves it off, but takes a couple steps back anyway.

Bob rolls his shoulders a few times, then picks up his sticks. "I was thinking this for the intro," he says, and Frank nods. He starts tapping his foot to count himself in, and then starts playing. It's a syncopated beat on the toms, and it sounds fucking huge. He gets through the four measures and then stops. He slumps on his throne and sort of crosses his arms over his chest—it almost looks like he's bracing himself for bad news, Gerard thinks. He wishes Bob would have a little more faith in himself.

"That was epic," Frank breathes, leaning back in over Bob's kit to put a hand on his shoulder and push him until he's looking up. "Play it again, then keep going."

Bob looks at Frank for a second before nodding, and Frank backs off again to let Bob play. Bob counts himself back in and plays the intro again, and Gerard finds himself tapping his foot along in time. He really, really likes it. He listens as Frank comes in on guitar after the fourth measure, and yeah, fuck, Bob's intro captures the menace and the swing of the guitar part perfectly.

Ray comes in for the chorus, and the sound becomes so huge Gerard can feel it vibrating in every molecule of air in the room around them, almost lifting him off his feet in his delight. He can't believe they got almost the entire song put together the day before, but here it is, loud and alive around him, echoing off the vaulting ceilings and ringing in his ears. He feels it resonating in his guts; he's blown away by how good the song is and how it feels so right that they've come together to do this. The song still needs a solo and some of the finer details of the chorus hammered out, sure, but it's a song and they wrote it and it's amazing progress.

Frank looks a little breathless when they finish the run-through, and he turns to face Gerard. "You wrote words, right?"

Gerard nods.

"For the whole song?"

"Yeah," Gerard says. "You guys ready for me to sing already?"

"Looks like," Ray says. He's smiling, and it's such a relief to see him looking so happy after all the doom and gloom of the last weeks.

Gerard gets to his feet and goes to get his mic out of its case. Someone must have put it away—he remembers having left it out the day they fought, and he hasn't touched it since. He slides it into its stand and plugs it in. The stand is still set up just right, so he wraps a hand around the mic and thumbs the switch to turn it on. "Okay," he says. "Whenever you guys are ready."

Bob counts them in again, this time tapping the beats on the rim of his snare. Gerard forces himself to take steady, even breaths as he waits for his cue to come in, and when he finally opens his mouth, he sings with all he's got. The song seems to scream by, the guitar lines practically racing against each other without a bassline to hold them down, but it sounds good—great, excellent even—and Gerard knows with an unshakeable certainty that it will only sound better once Mikey adds his part.

His heart is beating hard by the end of the song just from the excitement of it, and he feels a little lighter on his feet, ready to do anything. The look on everyone else's faces that tell him they must feel the same way.

"Fuck, Gerard," Frank says, whirling to face him even as the last notes are still ringing in the air. "Where did you even get those words?"

Gerard shrugs, spreading his hands wide. "They came to me all at once. It kind of wrote itself, really."

Frank nods thoughtfully. "Does it have a name?"

"Yeah." Gerard takes a steadying breath. "'House of Wolves'."

"Huh," Frank says. "Okay, yeah. Yeah, that's good, I like it."

Gerard smiles.

"Again?" Ray asks.

"Hell yeah," Frank says. He starts scratching the strings over his pickups, then slides his pick up the neck of his guitar. At first it's just noise but then once Bob starts in again with the drums Gerard hears how it works in the context of the song, and he thinks for the millionth time that he's so lucky to be in a band with such talented musicians—because damn, Frank keeps having really great ideas.

The second run-through of the song is even better than the first. Gerard has a better idea of where the vocal melody sits with respect to the guitars and he's able to fix a couple bits of vocal phrasing that bothered him the last time, and by the time they hit the bridge it feels like his entire body is vibrating with barely-contained energy. He missed this, the joy of writing music and playing it together, and while he still isn't quite sure how they got it back, he knows that the last weeks have been hell without it.

They play the song through another half-dozen times and it gets better with every go, but that's almost not the point anymore—now they're really playing for the sheer joy of it.

"That was great," Gerard says after.

"Yeah," Bob nods. He's smiling, and it hits Gerard with a jolt—he can't remember the last time Bob looked happy. He's been dour and grim ever since Mikey left, and maybe even before that.

"I'm feeling pretty warmed up now," Frank says. "I wanna hear the new stuff you guys were working on this morning."

"I do too," Bob says, and he sets his sticks down on his snare and leans forward, resting his elbows on his knees.

"Well, if you insist," Gerard says glibly, but he's already reaching for the acoustic he'd put away. Once he's got it settled on his knees he opens his notebook, flipping through to the page where he'd scribbled himself notes about the chords and words. He glances over them quickly, to make sure he's got it properly in his head.

When he's ready he looks over at Ray, who nods at him and then counts them in.

They play. Gerard still isn't the best at playing guitar and singing at the same time but it doesn't matter, he just lets the little mistakes slide by as he plays, pushing forward, letting himself go. The feeling of strength he'd had before, when the words were coming to him and building him up, comes rushing back, running through his whole body and then out through his voice.

He loses track of everything except the bite of the strings into his fingertips and the breath he's drawing to sing, and the song somehow sounds even better now than it did only a few hours before.

It takes Gerard a moment to pull back into himself once they finish playing, but when he looks up from his hands he sees that Frank and Bob are gaping at them. The last note from Ray's guitar finally rings out and there's silence in the room, a nearly perfect quiet that fills the air around them.

"Wow," Frank finally says, sounding awed and overwhelmed.

"You just did that last night," Bob asks, incredulous.

Ray's voice is proud when he says, "Yeah, we did."

"I don't have to ask what it's about, right?" Frank asks gently.

"That obvious, huh." Gerard looks down at his hands, spins his pick around so the chewed-up edge bites into his palm.

"It's not a bad thing," Bob assures him. "I would have been surprised if you didn't write something like that, to be honest."

"Anyway, I think I got most of it," Frank says thoughtfully. "I might get you to show me the second verse again, Gee, just to make sure."

"Sure," Gerard says, and plays the verse again, below tempo, and Frank nods along as he watches.

"Got it," Frank says.

"What are you thinking of for drums?" Ray asks Bob, who's eyeing his kit consideringly.

"Nothing for the first verse," Bob says after a moment. "I can come in during that breakdown into the next verse." He squints and it looks like he's replaying the song in his head. "I want to keep it simple all the way through, after that."

"Sounds good," Ray tells him. "You guys ready?"

They're ready.

Gerard catches Ray's eye and they look at each other for a long moment before Gerard nods, and then Ray counts him in.

Gerard can tell right away that there's something different about the song this time even though nothing has changed yet, it's still just him and Ray at the top of the first verse. But then when the rest of them come in, Frank punching a power chord overtop of two beats of Bob's kick drum, that's when Gerard knows what it is: it's them, all of them, playing it together, that makes the song what it needs to be.

Having the second guitar part played on electric instead of the acoustic changes the whole feel of the song—for the better, definitely—and now that he's not worried about playing at the same time, Gerard throws even more of himself into his singing. He can feel it rubbing his throat raw, even though it's only the first chorus, and he knows he should pull back but he doesn't want to, can't bring himself to do it. This song deserves everything he can give it and nothing less.

The intensity only grows as the song goes on. It's a palpable thing in the music itself, not quite like an extra instrument but more as if it's an added tone in everything already playing. The music fills the room, ringing off the rafters and rattling all the strange furniture piled around them. It's not just the volume—though that's part of it, all their amps are cranked up to max—but it's how they're all playing, pouring themselves into it and hitting each note as if their very lives depended on it.

When Ray comes in with his solo after the second chorus, Gerard's jaw actually drops. Ray had made a few tries at a solo when it had been him and Gerard, and they'd been okay but had never really filled the space they should have. But now that Frank and Bob are playing too, Ray throws himself into it, curling over his guitar as his fingers fly up and down the frets, tearing notes from his guitar in a shrill-edged storm. The notes rip through Gerard like a spray of shrapnel and they leave behind a story of everything Ray has been bottling up for weeks, the things he hasn't been able to express any other way than music.

The song's build is so intense by the time they get to the bridge that Gerard feels like it might crack him open down the middle and rip him apart. What started as the saddest music in the world is something bigger now, something bright and triumphant. He throws his arms wide and belts for all he's worth. He misses some of the notes as his voice cracks through them but he doesn't care, he just keeps singing.

The song can't keep going forever even though Gerard feels like he himself could, and when the final notes ring out into the room it's like they're all holding their breath, staring at each other in disbelief and wonder. It feels like a turning point—though to what, Gerard doesn't have the slightest idea, but there's something vibrating around them, an energy that can't be denied, and he's willing to bet anything that he's not the only one feeling that way.

They're quiet in the aftermath, like nobody is quite willing to be the one to break the silence. Finally, Frank clears his throat. "This is the best song we've ever done, right? It's not just me?"

"It's not just you," Gerard agrees quietly.

"That was amazing," Ray chimes in.

"Incredible," Bob adds.

The four of them standing around half-dazed and bobbing their heads at each other would be funny if Gerard wasn't still a little subdued from the song's overwhelming impact. Nobody's moving to start playing it again, as if by mutual unspoken agreement they're taking a few minutes to recover. As Gerard looks around he realizes that they're all looking like he feels, half-wrecked and overwhelmed, and he's glad for it.

"We could put a quiet bit right after the solo," Ray finally says into the stillness. "The contrast would give it that much more oomph."

"Oh, I like that a lot," Frank says enthusiastically, and Gerard nods his agreement.

"You think that needed more oomph?" Bob asks in disbelief.

"If it makes the song better we should do it," Frank tells him.

"Well, you guys figure out what you want to put in and then we'll try it," Bob shrugs. "I'm just saying, I don't want to fuck with the song too much, it's too good already."

"I understand," Ray says, and he's already starting to play again, soft palm-muted chords down low on the neck. Frank tips his head sideways as he watches Ray play, and soon enough he's feeling his way through counter-melody. He doesn't look entirely satisfied with what he's playing, but Ray picks up on it pretty quickly.

"What's wrong?" he asks.

Frank shrugs. "It doesn't sound quite right, I don't know."

"It sounds good to me," Ray says.

Frank smiles with one corner of his mouth, but shakes his head. "I think the line should be played on an organ or something, not a guitar."

Ray's eyes light up. "That's a great idea," he says.

Organ? Bob mouths at Gerard, who can't keep his own excitement down at the idea. God, an organ is perfect—he doesn't know how Frank pulled the idea out of nowhere but it's the right one and he can practically hear it already.

"Anyway, I'll keep playing it for now," Frank goes on, "but we should see if there's a keyboard hiding around here somewhere, and figure that out later."

"Sounds like a plan," Ray agrees. "Hey, are we good for another go, to try out the quiet part?"

They day passes quickly after that. They've all got their heads in it, riding the wave of inspiration to work out the finer points of the new song. They record a few takes of the song into Ray's laptop so they can argue over minutely different versions without them all having to start playing again. The quiet part ends up staying in—Bob's misgivings disappear entirely after they play it that way a couple times, and he's relaxed enough when he admits that Ray was right to suggest it.

"Toro's almost always right about that stuff," Gerard tells Bob seriously. He's not even joking. It's completely the truth—and also kind of uncanny when he thinks about it, how good Ray's ear is for the little tweaks that really push a song to be that much better.

"Come on, I'm not," Ray tries to wave it off.

"Sorry, but you are," Frank says.

"Well, I appreciate that you guys listen to my ideas," Ray says earnestly.

"Yeah, because you're awesome," Frank tells him. His stomach rumbles loudly then, and he makes a face. "Okay, looks like someone's telling me it's time to eat. I'm going to make a sandwich, anyone else hungry?"

They all shake their heads so Frank shrugs and says he'll be back soon, so they better be ready to keep playing.

As Gerard watches Frank walk out of the ballroom, he realizes that this is maybe the first time since they got to the house that he's seen Frank so willing to go somewhere alone. He can't help but think the show of courage is the song's doing, somehow.

 

* * * * * *

With Frank absent, Bob and Ray start trying to work out what was bothering Bob about the timing of the bridge in "House of Wolves". There's not much for Gerard to do there so he settles down in a nearby armchair and pulls his knees up to tuck under his chin, wrapping his arms around his legs. It's still really goddamn cold in the ballroom. They've all stopped commenting on how cold the house is and started going around in two and three hoodies at a time, but he knows it still bothers them.

Now that they're taking a bit of a break from playing, Gerard finds himself uncomfortably alone with his thoughts. He's been bottling a lot up the last weeks, an overwhelming mix of stress and self-doubt and fear, and his hold on it isn't so great right now. Pouring his heart and fucking soul into the new song must have stirred it all back up. It's a lot, too much all at once, and the bottle is starting to crack. He's tired of fighting against it, so he slumps back in his seat, blank and focused inward, half-listening to Ray and Bob, and he lets it crack.

It's not long at all before something starts nagging at him. Something someone said– something Mikey told him, sometime before he left the house. He can't quite remember what it was, but he's got a sneaking suspicion that it's important, that he should tell the guys about it. But what was it?

Gerard frowns. Maybe he should call Mikey and ask. Actually, they should call Mikey anyway; they need to play him the new songs and get his input and let him know that they're still waiting for him and they hope he's doing okay. Gerard uncurls out of his chair and walks over to stand next to Ray.

"Hey," he says.

"What's up?" Bob asks.

"I was thinking we should call Mikey," Gerard says, deliberately casual like it's not a big deal or anything.

"Yeah?" Ray looks up from where he's fiddling with something on the front of his guitar.

Gerard takes a breath. "I want to play the demos for him."

"That's a really good idea," Bob says.

"We should all do it together," Ray says. He's already lifting his guitar strap over his shoulder and setting the instrument down on its stand.

"That's what I was thinking," Gerard agrees. "I'll go get Frank, then meet you guys in the front hall?"

"Sure," Bob nods.

Gerard gets lost in thought before he even leaves the ballroom; the half-memory of an earlier conversation is still bothering him and he can't help but feel that if he concentrates on it just a little harder, he'll be able to pin it down and figure out what exactly about it he needs to remember.

He's most of the way to the kitchen when he hears the shouting. It's Frank, and it's coming from somewhere close. Gerard pushes down the terrified thoughts of not again, not again, and forces himself to concentrate. It sounds like it's a little further ahead, and he breaks into a run.

It's not long before he sees it—there's a door that isn't all the way closed. The shouting is louder now than it was before and it sounds like it's coming through the open door. Gerard gets hit with a wicked sense of déjà vu as he stops just outside the room.

He peeks around the door frame, and sure enough, he's found Frank—and an enormous white dog, standing between Frank and the door. They're staring each other down, and Gerard has never seen Frank looking so intense, not ever. Gerard watches as Frank keeps trying to circle around the dog, presumably to get to the door, and the dog keeps standing right in Frank's way, growling low and making Frank back off again.

"Frank?" Gerard hisses. He's trying to avoid catching the dog's attention but Frank doesn't seem to hear him either. "Frank, what's going on? Are you okay?" Still no answer. Gerard tries waving—maybe the motion will do it—but that doesn't work either.

The realization that he can see through the dog hits Gerard like a shock—but it's true; the dog is translucent, like a ghost. He feels a surge of relief. It's not real! It can't hurt Frank, can't hurt anyone! But then he remembers the night Frank showed up at his door, bleeding from a bite that must have come from this very dog, and he's not so sure anymore.

The dog takes a step towards Frank.

Frank takes a step back.

The dog takes another step forward. Shadows seem to be pooling around its feet with every step, and the way it's moving, all coiled tight and efficient, is like it's stalking its prey. Gerard's mouth goes dry as he watches Frank's shoulders come up as he tenses, clearly preparing for a fight.

Frank tries circling around the dog again but the dog just shifts sideways, blocking Frank's path to the door once more.

The dog is toying with Frank. Gerard suddenly can't breathe.

And then when Frank takes another step to the left, the dog leaps at him with no other warning than a flick of one ear. Frank gets his arms up to protect himself—and just in time; Gerard watches the dog's teeth dig into Frank's right forearm, right in the meaty bit by his elbow.

"Fuck!" Frank shouts, grimacing in pain.

"No!" Gerard cries out. He starts running forward—he can't keep standing there not doing anything—but something pushes him back. It's not like walking into a solid wall at all. It's more like– like a fucking forcefield, Gerard thinks a touch hysterically. "Frank!" he yells desperately, throwing himself forward again only to get pushed back once more, harder than before. He can't believe he's stuck here, helpless, watching one of his best friends get torn up by some fucking ghost dog that shouldn't even fucking exist.

Gerard watches as Frank grabs his arm instinctively, pressing down on the big flap of skin the dog tore up. Frank winces as blood wells up under his fingers and drips to the floor.

"Fuck you," Frank spits at the dog, even as it falls back and sits down again in front of the door.

"Gerard?" someone yells from down the hall, and it takes Gerard a moment to realize that it's Ray. "What's going on?"

Gerard shakes his head, unable to get his mouth working or any words to come, and frantically waves him over. Bob's with him too.

"Is that a dog?" Ray asks, confused. He makes like he's going to walk into the room but then stops dead—whatever was keeping Gerard out must be keeping all of them out.

"I can't get in!" he gasps. "There's something there."

"No there isn't," Bob snaps at him. He steps forcefully into the doorway and almost gets knocked off his feet when he hits whatever it is that's blocking them. "Okay, what the hell," he says angrily.

"Is Frank bleeding?" Ray's voice is thin. He sounds scared.

All they can do is watch as Frank and the dog stare each other down. It looks like the dog is smiling. Gerard feels like he's holding his breath for the long, long minutes they're frozen in place before the dog finally moves again.

Gerard watches, rapt and horrified, as the dog growls, long and low and ominous, and it flattens its ears against its head. Then it tenses up, rearing back on its haunches like it's about to attack. Oh fuck, oh shit, he thinks desperately.

Bob sucks in a sharp breath through his teeth and then pushes forward, like he's trying to break down the forcefield like it's any other door. He looks angrier and angrier each time it gently pushes him back.

Frank keeps staring the dog down.

And then the dog springs.

Frank tries to get his arms up again, but he doesn't make it in time before the dog hits him right in the chest, paws-first. The dog's teeth close on Frank's shoulder, and the noise Frank makes is anguished and awful. Frank staggers back as the dog falls away, propelled by the momentum of the impact, and he only just barely keeps his feet. He's practically backed into the corner of the room. He puts his hands on his knees and slumps forward, practically doubled-over, and even across the room Gerard can see the way his chest is heaving, hear the wheezing sound of it, as he tries to catch his breath. There's blood running down his arm and chest from the wound in his shoulder. Gerard wants to throw up everything he's ever eaten.

The dog is still between Frank and the door.

Gerard holds his breath again, totally involuntarily, as he waits for something terrible to happen. But there's no movement, just Frank and the dog facing off yet again.

Finally, Frank straightens up, slowly and gingerly, one hand pressed to the side of his chest and the other pressing against his shoulder to try to stop the flow of blood. He takes a deep breath, then another, and his hands fall away as he squares his shoulders. "Hey, you want a piece of me?" he asks as he takes a deliberate step towards the dog. "Come get me, motherfucker," he taunts it. It's such a Frank thing to do that Gerard feels his heart lift for a moment.

The dog flickers briefly, momentarily so translucent it almost disappears, but then it's back, solid and opaque and crouched low. A low, eerie growl is the only warning anyone gets before the dog launches itself at Frank again.

Frank throws himself sideways, like he's hoping to dodge the dog and get a clean line at the door.

He's not that lucky.

The dog hits him, not dead on but from an angle, and Gerard has a clear view of the dog's claws, curved and wickedly sharp, tearing through Frank's shirt and into his ribs as Frank falls to the ground, the dog still on top of him, leaning in again with long, bloody teeth. Frank screams, shrill with pain and frustration and fear.

Gerard's stomach cramps and he retches twice before he fights the nausea down—there's so much blood—but he can't move, can't look away. Ray's hand comes up and flaps for a moment like he's about to cover his eyes but then thinks better of it. Instead he puts his arm around Gerard's shoulders and pulls him close. Bob is coiled tight, making small, jerky movements like he's about to explode from the force of his contained rage. When Gerard grabs hold of his arm, he takes a deep breath but doesn't relax.

They watch as Frank tries to push the dog away, but the dog doesn't budge. Frank flails, trying to reach up to gouge at the dog's eyes or something, but he can't quite reach.

The dog starts panting then, its tongue lolling out one side of its mouth as it breathes. A drop of pink spit rolls off the end and lands on Frank's cheek.

Frank turns his face away, and it leaves him looking straight at the door. Gerard sees Frank's eyes go wide, like he's just noticing them all clustered around the doorway for the first time. Frank looks at them for a long moment before he looks back up at the dog. He stares at it for a moment, and then he shoves as hard as he can, visibly putting every last bit of strength he has left into it.

The dog staggers and steps sideways, losing its balance for only a moment.

But that moment is clearly all that was needed. Gerard feels a strange vibration against his skin, and the feeling of whatever force was blocking them from all from entering the room is completely gone. Bob practically falls into the room, and Gerard and Ray are right behind him.

All of a sudden Gerard is struck by the undeniable sense of evil radiating off the dog. He can feel it, cold and oily, on his skin. And the room is cold, so cold, cold like Mikey's room had been, and he has to fight down the urge to turn and run.

Frank is out from under the dog now and rising unsteadily to his feet, but the dog still stands between Frank and the door—and his back-up, now.

"Hey, motherfucker," Bob yells at the dog.

The dog's ear flicks back towards Bob, but it doesn't move otherwise.

"Yeah, you," Bob goes on angrily. "Fucking look at me when I'm talking to you."

The dog turns its head to look at Bob, far enough that they can see one of its big yellow eyes staring right at them.

Bob crosses his arms over his chest. "You want to fight?" he asks the dog, then takes a step towards it. "Come pick on something your own size, you pathetic piece of shit."

Gerard glances over Frank. He looks focused, tensed up like he's about to make a break for it the first chance he gets.

Bob takes another step forward. Gerard shifts a little further back towards the door. Ray holds his ground in front of Gerard. "What are you waiting for?" Bob says tauntingly, and it's only now that Gerard hears a note of fear creeping into his voice.

The dog turns to look at Bob again, its tail swishing angrily, and that's when Frank moves, darting sideways to skirt around the dog.

He doesn't make it.

The dog whips back around and lunges at Frank, claws extended and teeth snapping. Blood sprays out from where it hits Frank's chest, and the force of it knocks Frank clear off his feet to land heavily on his back in a limp heap. Gerard is expecting Frank to get up once he gets his wind back, to sit up and keep fighting, but he doesn't.

Then Gerard sees all the fresh blood soaking through Frank's shirt, the grey cast and slack expression on Frank's face, the odd angles of his limbs where they're spread on the floor.

Frank doesn't move and doesn't move and doesn't move.

The world goes silent around Gerard, like a heavy curtain dropped down over his ears so all he can hear is the roar of his own blood in his veins. He sees Bob throwing himself at the dog but it's like it's happening in slow motion. Bob's mouth is open like he's screaming. His fists are up. He's moving forward, reaching out, lunging for the dog.

The dog sits on its haunches in the middle of the room, its face and paws smeared in blood. It's panting, grinning.

Bob's fist passes right through the dog's head and the dog disappears, blinking right out of existence. There one moment and gone the next, and it stays gone as the seconds tick by.

Without the dog in the way, Gerard has a clear view of Frank's body sprawled on the floor, limp and bloody and unmoving. Even from across the room, he can see the gaping hole in Frank's shirt and the raw mess of a wound showing through. His arm is all torn up too, and fuck, fuck, there's just so much blood. Gerard's stomach drops out and he throws himself across the room, falling hard to his knees at Frank's side as he reaches for Frank's hand. He clutches it tightly, lacing their fingers together.

The silence around him turns into an overpowering buzzing in his ears, and all he can see is what's immediately in front of him.

Frank.

Tears drip hot down his cheeks as he runs his thumb over the back of Frank's hand and tryies not to look at the blood caked to Frank's skin and quickly rubbing off onto his own. Frank's hand is still warm in his. Gerard wants to sit there and hold it until it gets cold and nothing is going to stop him.

He just watched Frank– just watched it happen. Right in front of his eyes. Didn't lift a fucking finger. He stood there and watched and didn't even fucking do anything, even when he could have. He was too fucking scared, he wanted to run away. It was Bob who did something, Bob who even cared to try to defend Frank, and by then it was too late, too fucking late, and–

"Gee?" Frank croaks, then squeezes his hand weakly.

"Frankie!" Gerard gasps. The buzzing noise drops off, and it gets much brighter in the room all of a sudden, warmer and less grey. His knees are suddenly killing him and he notices that his clothes are covered in blood, but it's not important, nothing else is except Frank. He's alive. "You're alive," he says dumbly, like hearing it out loud makes it more true.

"Yeah." It comes out as a whisper but it may as well be a shout from the rooftops to Gerard. He lifts his free hand to stroke Frank's hair back away from his face.

"You're not dead," Gerard says. Like it's still not registering. Like he isn't sure anymore what's real and what's just a trick.

"I'm not dead," Frank wheezes, and then, fuck, he laughs. It's the hoarse edge of a chuckle, but it's still a laugh. "Not that easy." Gerard can hear the wonder in the words, though, like Frank is as surprised as Gerard. Frank is pale—too pale—but there's still the sparkle in his eye that Gerard recognizes, and that's what really convinces him that Frank is okay.

"Not dead," Gerard repeats, his eyes locked on Frank's face.

"Blacked out, I guess." Frank moves again, rolling up onto his side. He swears and grimaces, and he goes even paler—if that's even possible, which Gerard would have doubted if he hadn't just seen it. "Fuck," Frank hisses through clenched teeth. "Fuck, that hurts."

"Are you okay?" Gerard asks, suddenly scared again. Frank is still bleeding and it's everywhere—maybe Gerard should be trying to do something, maybe he should be ripping his shirt into bandages like they do in the movies, maybe he should be running for help, maybe he should be doing a lot of things—but he doesn't know what to do, doesn't know where to start, can't even bring himself to let go of Frank's hand.

Frank looks down at himself, then reaches across his body with his torn-up right arm to run one finger very carefully around the edge of the wound in his side. He's flinching away even as he touches, but he's got this grim determined look on his face like nothing else is going to happen until he's checked himself out. Gerard can barely bring himself to watch; Frank's flesh is torn up and mangled like it's just meat, and his wounds are all still oozing blood. There's so much of it soaked into Frank's shirt—it barely looks real, Gerard thinks, it's so vivid and intense that it looks more like someone went overboard with corn syrup and food colouring. "I guess," Frank finally says, uncertainly. "I have to be, right?"

"Yes," Gerard tells him fervently. "You have to be."

Then Bob is kneeling next to him at Frank's side, his hands coming to rest lightly on Frank's shoulders as he stares intently at his face. Gerard can feel how hard Bob is shaking and he doesn't blame him one bit for needing to touch Frank, to prove to himself that he's okay.

"I'm here, Bob, it's okay," Frank says weakly, but doesn't make any move to keep Bob from whatever he's looking for.

"I thought– I thought you–" Bob's voice is thick and he's barely getting the words out.

"I'm not," Frank tells him, quiet but sure.

Gerard can feel Ray hovering behind them, tense and nervous, so he twists around to face him and says, "Hey, where'd you leave the first aid kit?"

"It's still in the kitchen," Ray says, "I'll go get it."

It's only a few minutes before Ray comes back, and he settles on Frank's other side and starts unpacking the first aid kit methodically. "I tried calling 911 but the call wouldn't connect," Ray says, his voice shaky. "We have to figure out how to get out. We need to get you to a doctor as soon as possible."

Frank grunts. "I'm okay," he insists.

Ray lifts one eyebrow skeptically. "You passed out and you're bleeding everywhere. You need stitches."

"But I'm okay now," Frank says stubbornly. He struggles to sit up, and doesn't even try to hide the way he's wincing through the pain. It's like he's daring them to disagree. He finally gets settled in a more-or-less upright position, and then his lip curls up as he looks down at himself, like he's only just seeing all the damage for the first time.

"We need to get you patched up, and then we can get you out of here," Ray says gently, like a peace offering against his earlier suggestion.

"We can't get out," Frank says, and the resignation in his voice breaks Gerard's heart.

"We'll find a way," Ray says firmly. He sits down next to Frank, then peels open a package of gauze and lifts Frank's right arm. "And when we do, I am taking your ass to the hospital."

"So what happened?" Bob asks, cutting Frank off before he can argue with Ray. "I mean, we saw part of it, but I thought you were going to make a sandwich."

"I was," Frank says. "I was on my way when the dog basically–" he breaks off into a round of rattling coughs, and he's wincing in pain even after they subside. "Ambushed me in the hallway and pushed me in here."

"Oh my god," Gerard breathes. His stomach is still all twisted up and tied in knots, and Bob looks similarly rattled. Ray's mouth is set in a tight line as he finishes taping down a bandage around Frank's arm.

"That's fucked up," Bob pronounces. Frank nods, and lifts his arm to inspect Ray's handiwork.

"Yeah," Frank agrees. "I wouldn't believe it except for–" he waves his arm at them, and Gerard can see the speckles of red already seeping through the gauze. He looks away quickly.

"Can I get in there?" Ray asks, standing up. Gerard and Bob move apart to give Ray some space to get at Frank's injured side.

Frank starts taking off his shirt, but grunts in pain and stops before he even gets it halfway up his chest. Ray tsks and reaches carefully for one of the holes in Frank's shirt, sticking his fingers through and taking hold of the fabric to rip it carefully off Frank's body.

Gerard stares down at the floor. He can't look; he doesn't want to see any more of Frank's injuries than he has to.

"I think you missed your calling as a nurse," Frank jokes.

Ray rolls his eyes and looks like he's about to say something when he cuts himself off, flinching visibly as he finally sees the full extent of the damage. "You're going to need a lot of stitches," he says gloomily. "I don't know if I can do anything other than cover it up to keep it clean until then."

"Whatever you can do is fine," Frank tells him. "But can you do it fast? I hate sitting around, I feel like I'm waiting for the dog to come finish the job."

"We won't fucking let it," Bob says darkly. "Nobody's going anywhere alone until we're out of here."

Nobody says anything to that, but Gerard can tell they're thinking the same thing.

"Maybe Mikey will know how to get out of here," Frank offers cautiously, like he's half-expecting them to jump on him for saying it, or for bringing Mikey into it.

"We were actually about to call him," Gerard says.

Frank's relief is visible on his face. "Yeah?"

"If we can get the fucking phone to work," Ray mutters darkly.

"We were going to play him the new song, but I think we need to have a serious talk, too." Gerard can't quite bring himself to meet anyone's eyes as he says it.

"What's going on, Gerard?" Ray asks gently.

"He told me something, right before he left," Gerard says, still looking down at the floor between his feet. "He said something about the house, there's something wrong with it. Like it's out to get us or something. I didn't really believe him, then. And when I talked to him last week, he said–" he breaks off, suddenly too choked up to go on. He looks over at Frank, at the streaks of blood across the lines of the tattoos on his torso, at the determined look on his ashen face. He looks back down at his own hands, rust-red with Frank's blood, and he curls his fingers into fists. "He said something bad was going to happen, and if he was here he could maybe stop it."

"Gerard," Frank starts, reaching out to take Gerard's hand again, but Gerard shakes his head and Frank stops just short.

"I should have said something sooner," Gerard goes on miserably. "Maybe we could have done something, maybe this never would have happened." The guilt is gnawing away at his insides and he still can't look at anyone.

"Gerard," Frank says again. He puts his hand firmly over Gerard's, and this time Gerard lets him.

"You know Frank didn't actually die, right?" Bob points out reasonably.

"But he could have!" Gerard is sure he isn't imagining the way Frank's hand gets tense against his at the words.

"But I didn't," Frank insists, "and that's all that matters. That and getting out. So we're going to go call your brother and see what he has to say, okay?"

"Okay," Gerard agrees sullenly. He sighs. Right now it looks like his choices are that and giving up—and after everything they've gone through, there's no fucking way he's going to give up. When he finally forces himself to look up from the floor, Frank smiles at him and squeezes his hand.

They wait for Ray to finish taping the last layer of gauze over Frank's ribs, and then Bob and Gerard help Frank to his feet. The four of them make their way to the front hall, walking as quickly as they can while half-carrying Frank, watching each others' backs and keeping a lookout for anything strange or untoward the house may be trying to pull on them.

But nothing happens on the way and they make it to the front hall unscathed. It takes a couple minutes to find the phone—Bob ends up spotting it behind a fake potted plant sitting between two weird wooden carvings, which is nowhere near where Ray says it was when he tried to call 911 half an hour earlier. It takes them another minute to figure out where the speakerphone button is, but then they're ready. Gerard crosses all his fingers before he dials, desperate for the call to go through.

When it rings, he almost falls over from the rush of relief.

The phone rings four times before Stacy picks up. "Hello?"

"Hi, Stacy," Gerard says, his mouth suddenly dry. "It's Gerard. Is Mikey there?"

"He is. Are you doing okay, hon? You don't sound too good."

"It's been a hard day," Gerard hedges. It's not a lie, not technically, but he's omitting an awful lot of truth and he doesn't like having to do it. "Talking to Mikey will do some good, I'm sure." And that, at least, is the whole truth and nothing but.

"I'll go get him," Stacy says softly.

The few minutes it takes for Mikey to pick up an extension are maybe the longest in Gerard's life. "Hello?" he asks. He sounds groggy.

"Hey, it's me," Gerard says. "Us, actually, you're on speaker. Did we wake you up?"

"No," Mikey says, and then they can hear him yawn. "I was just dozing."

"Sorry," Ray says.

"So, um," Gerard starts, and then pauses.

"What?" Mikey asks warily.

"Remember how last time I called, you said, uh, you said you thought something might happen?"

"What happened?" Mikey's voice is cold and tight, all traces of sleep gone already, and he sounds truly scared.

"We're all alive," Gerard says to ease into it, and Mikey makes a noise of impatient frustration. "But Frank just had a close call."

Even through the low-quality crackle of the speakerphone, he can hear Mikey's sharp hiss of breath. "What happened." The words are flat, bitten off, like Mikey is barely holding onto himself.

Frank pokes Gerard in the shoulder. "Jesus, stop torturing him." He fills Mikey in as best he can. Gerard can hear the strain of it in his voice and he can see how hard it is for Frank to be holding himself upright, even with the support he's getting from Bob and Ray. They really, really need to get out of the house and get Frank medical attention. He frowns as Frank downplays the extent of his injuries as his summary wraps up.

"And we want to leave, but we kind of can't," Frank sighs as he finishes his story.

"We've all tried," Bob adds.

"I knew this would happen if I left!" Mikey practically shouts.

"You did?" Frank asks, incredulous.

"I knew– I knew–" It sounds like Mikey is hyperventilating; they can hear the rapid, asthmatic wheezes crackling out of the speaker. Gerard wishes he could reach through the phone to rub his back like he used to do when they were kids.

"How?" Bob asks, incredulous.

"I had a feeling when I was there and then I looked into it and it's the house, there's something wrong," Mikey says all in a rush, like he cant get the words out of his mouth fast enough. "It's always trying to drive the people in it crazy, pretty much. Like, it tries to get people to turn on each other, turn on themselves, that kind of thing. It doesn't like to let people go once it's got them." The words are slower by the end, like Mikey's managed to get himself back under control, if only just barely.

"Why didn't you tell us before?" Frank asks plaintively.

"Would you have believed me, then?" Mikey answers Frank with his own question.

"I would have," Frank says immediately, and then he leans too far to one side and almost falls over, but Ray leans in and catches him just in time.

Everyone else is silent.

"You know I'd be making so much fun of you if I hadn't just had all kinds of weird shit actually happen to me, right?" Bob finally says.

"Yeah," Mikey agrees. He sounds so heartbreakingly small and dejected. "And I really wish that wasn't the case. I wish you guys hadn't had to go through that." He heaves a sigh. "I can't help but think I could have stopped it—I should have tried."

"What could you have even done?" Frank asks. Gerard can hear the It's not your fault implicit in the words.

"Can it wait?" Bob cuts in impatiently. "We really need to get out of here before we can have story time."

"I still don't know why we're actually trapped in the house, though," Ray adds.

Mikey sighs again. "I don't know how it's doing it, but as best I can figure, the house won't let you go until it gets what it wants."

"Great," Gerard mutters.

"We'll figure something out," Mikey says. It sounds like a promise.

"I fucking hope so," Frank says, looking pointedly down at his arm. More blood has seeped through the bandages since they've been on the phone, and Gerard looks away quickly.

"We will," Mikey insists.

There's a palpable nervous tension as they fall into silence. Gerard can't stop thinking about all their failed attempts at leaving, wondering how the hell they're ever going to find a way to do it if walking out isn't going to work. Then he thinks about what Mikey said, until it gets what it wants, and he gets an idea.

"Do you think we can, I don't know, trick the house into letting us go?" Gerard wonders out loud.

"That's not the worst idea ever," Frank says, "but how?"

"Mikey said the house wants something from us, right?"

"Right," Mikey confirms.

"So what does the house want from us?" Gerard asks.

"Our sanity?" Ray asks.

Bob snorts. "It won't be much longer, then."

"That's not quite it," Gerard says. It doesn't feel right.

"It already got blood, and lots of it," Frank grumbles.

"Your pain," Mikey says suddenly.

"Hasn't it gotten enough of that already?" Frank asks, waving his arm at the phone even though Mikey can't see it.

But that's not quite it, Gerard thinks—and then it clicks, and fuck, that's it, that makes so much sense. "Not that kind of pain," Gerard announces. "It wants all the dark shit in our heads. It wants to pull it out and let it loose and watch it destroy us."

"So, what?" Bob says. "Are we going to take turns spilling our guts while we wait for a sign from on high?"

"No," Gerard says. "We're going to play."

"What?" Frank asks, incredulous.

"You felt it, right? When we were playing earlier? I know it can't have been just me." Gerard gestures widely, like he's trying to encompass all of them, all their music, all the emotion he felt earlier, in a single movement. "If we can do it again..." He trails off as he looks at their faces. They want to believe him, he can see it, but–

"It can't be that easy, can it?" Ray gives voice to what Gerard knows they've all got to be thinking.

"Well, it doesn't hurt to try, right? If it doesn't work we're still stuck in here, but we'd be stuck anyway."

"Did you write something?" Mikey's voice crackles out of the phone, and, oh, right, there was a reason they were going to call him in the first place.

"Yeah!" Ray says. "We did it today. We were actually going to call you to play you the demo, but then things happened, and..." He looks around at them as he trails off. "Anyway, we have something." He steps over to the little table where his laptop is sitting—he must have left it there when he was waiting for Gerard to get Frank from the kitchen—and pushes a few buttons, then carries it over to set it next to the phone. "I hope this sounds okay," he says.

"Mikey?" Gerard says as Ray finishes setting up.

"Yeah?"

"This song is for you," he offers awkwardly, and then motions for Ray to hit play.

There's a hiss and a pop, and then the music starts. The levels on the recording are all off and it definitely needs a bassline and it's not polished or anything yet, just a single take off the floor, but Gerard can feel the power of it even though it's playing out of crappy little speakers.

They all stand still and silent as they listen to the song playing. Even for a shitty recording it's incredibly moving, and Gerard would be embarrassed by all the raw emotion he hears in his own voice if it weren't for the fact that everybody else seems equally as struck by it as he is.

The silence after the music ends is somehow both very heavy and very light. Nobody moves or says anything, like they're waiting for Mikey to say something first.

"That was... guys, that was unbelievable," he says. The speakerphone does nothing to hide how choked-up he sounds. "You really wrote that today?"

"Really," Frank assures him. "Crazy, right?" Even through the strain in his voice, Gerard can hear how proud he is.

"Yeah," Mikey says. "And I think Gerard is right. With a song like that? That's got to work."

"You sure?" Bob says uncertainly, like he doesn't want to be the one to say it.

"No," Mikey says simply, "but I believe it will."

"You're such a cheeseball sometimes," Frank tells Mikey fondly.

"Like you aren't," Mikey retorts. "So, listen," he says, suddenly dead serious. "Don't hang up. Go back to your instruments and play the song again. Give it everything you have, even more than before, more than you think you have. Remember what the house wants, and focus on that."

"What do we do if it works?" Ray asks nervously. "Like, what about all our gear and the stuff upstairs? We can't just leave it..."

"Brian and Stacy can go and get it all packed up," Mikey says.

"Won't they–" Frank starts.

"They'll be fine," Mikey says. "They won't be in the house nearly long enough for it to be a problem."

"Okay," Bob say firmly. "Let's go."

It's a short walk back to the ballroom but it seems to take forever to Gerard. He's more than a little afraid of the hallways around him; it feels like the walls are leaning to smother him. It feels like all the faces in the portraits are leering at him, mocking him. He can barely bring himself to look up from the floor to make sure he's still surrounded by his band. But soon enough they're standing in front of their set-up, taking deep breaths and bracing themselves for whatever is about to happen—or not happen.

Frank grimaces and hisses through his teeth as he tries to lift his guitar strap over his head, and Ray steps over quickly to help. Frank winces when the guitar first bumps against his chest, and his mouth is set in a tight line as he adjusts the strap. He takes a few deep breaths and then carefully starts running his fingers along the fretboard, like he's feeling out the song, making sure he can still play. He finally nods, satisfied with whatever he's found, but a moment later he's leaning heavily against an amp stack like he can't hold up the added weight of the guitar for more than a few moments. He sighs and waves off Ray and Gerard as they approach to help, and then takes a halting step towards the chair still sitting just off the circle of their instruments.

The relief on Frank's face is crystal clear when he sits down, but then he's frowning again. "This isn't right," he grumbles, gesturing at the chair, himself.

"It's okay," Gerard reassures him. "Whatever it takes, just play."

Frank hesitates a moment but then nods at Gerard, and he shifts around in the chair until he's sitting right at the edge and his elbows are clear of the chair's arms.

It's only a few moments more before they're all in position, and then Bob is counting them in.

Right from the first note out of his mouth, he thinks about Mikey. He thinks about what he said in the heavy room, how he looked when he broke down in practice. The way his long fingers rested so lightly on the Ouija board, the look on his face when he was interrupted. He remembers being so concerned about the way Mikey was skulking around the house, how much he worried and how little sense it made.

He sings so hard he almost chokes on the words as they leave his mouth. It feels like every muscle in his body is tensing and straining like he's trying to add his physical strength to the emotion pouring out.

He thinks about sneaking into Mikey's room and how that horrible discovery was almost worse than not knowing at all. He feels the acrid reek of vodka against the back of his throat, and the cravings he's been so carefully pushing away rush back to assault him all at once. He steels himself and pushes them away again, hard and fierce, stronger than he ever has before.

During his break after the second chorus, he plants his feet to steady himself and he looks at his bandmates—his brothers—each in turn. Ray is bent over his guitar, his legs stretched wide in a low stance as he shreds the solo for all he's worth. Bob is flushed and sweaty and his arms are a total blur as he drums hard, throwing his whole body into it. Frank looks pale and clammy, his face tight—he's clearly fighting through the pain to keep playing, struggling to stay upright. But he's playing, they all are, and when Gerard starts singing again it's like the words are lifted straight out of his gut to carry up and on further than they ever have before.

He thinks about the dreams he's been having, remembers the dead staring faces and the scorching heat. He remembers Bob's face when he finally admitted that the house was freaking him out, and how shaky and pale Ray was when they got him out of the locked room. He remembers the sight of blood, so much blood, and the fear in Frank's eyes when he was facing down the dog.

If he thought the song had been intense before, it's nothing compared to how it feels now. The power in their earlier rehearsals is like the flicker of a candle compared to the fire raging in them now, crackling and burning in every note. Gerard isn't sure if he's imagining the sudden heat in the room or if it's real, but he's sweating all over, breathing hard.

He can see the swimming pool like a perfect photograph in the front of his mind, its surface rippling gently and reflecting the moonlight, and he remembers the siren song of its pull and the heat of his need to breathe in its water. He sees all the faces he saw in the mirror, young and old and sick, and he can almost feel the bite of shards from the mirror that blew up in his face.

The weight of it all—all the fear, the doubt, the terror, the self-loathing, the despair, everything that's been building ever since they got into this godforsaken house—is suddenly unbearably heavy, and just like that the floodgates open and all the hurt and the shit breaks over him like a tidal wave, ripping through him and leaving him raw. He sees it all, feels it all, knows it all deep inside, and he lets it all go.

There's an electricity around them now, and the hair on his arms and the back of his neck is standing up almost straight. It feels like sparks thrumming through his veins, his flesh, his brain. He feels the music on his skin, and something else too all of a sudden—there's a profound coldness breathing down his collar, settling in his fingers and toes.

The ballroom is always cold but it's never been such a bone-deep chill. It's a sharp, horrible contrast to the heat he was feeling just a minute earlier. His sweat freezes against his skin, sudden searing pinpricks that threaten to distract him from his focus. The chill creeps into his torso and he feels the sharp bite of real fear when he realizes how close it is to his lungs, his heart. The cold is searing, agonizing. It's all he can do to keep singing to push through it. He cuts a glance sideways and it seems like everyone else is fighting against the cold too, and oh fuck, this is going terribly, horribly, awfully wrong and they're all fucked. It's taking all he's got left to simply breathe, let alone get the air out to sing. But he keeps pushing because he has to. He's not giving up, not now and not ever, and the breath it takes to sing the final chorus is like ice in his lungs.

Nothing you can say can stop me going home.

He feels lighter now than he has in a very long time, in body and spirit both, and there's a tiny spark in his chest that's growing bigger and bigger with every breath, with every heartbeat.

And then the cold is gone, just like that, disappearing along with the last notes of the song.

He realizes that he's crying—they all are. They're four matching faces, tear-streaked and puffy-eyed and red, determined and unyielding. Seeing them all standing there, alive and fighting, feels like the greatest thing that's ever happened to him.

"Did you guys all feel that?" Ray asks, flexing his hands as he looks down at them like he's marveling that they still work.

"Yeah," Bob says, and frowns thoughtfully as he rolls his shoulders.

"Do you–" Frank starts, then stops. He's struggling to get his guitar off, but then stops, detaches the strap from the end of his guitar and lets the strap slide off his shoulder. He puts his guitar down on the floor and turns to face them all, making eye contact with them one at a time. "I'm leaving," he announces. "I don't know what just happened or what the hell that was, but I know that we beat it and I really think we need to get out now."

Gerard doesn't know what kind of sign he was expecting to tell them that they're free to go, but maybe this warm triumph he's feeling is exactly what he needs to break out of the house. "Let's go," he says, and the spark in his chest flares to life, filling him with warmth from head to toe.

Bob helps Frank to his feet and the four of them walk across the ballroom, not in a nebulous group like they'd taken to doing but in a single-file line, following Gerard. Gerard turns to look at the painting of Daisy as they pass, and her canvas form has moved again: it looks like she's waving goodbye. That's got to be my sign, he thinks in a giddy rush, and he holds his head a little higher as they leave the room.

When they reach the front hall, Gerard glances over at the phone. The little speakerphone light is still lit, and he's about to say something to Mikey when Frank shouts, "We're getting the fuck out!"

"Go," Mikey urges, and then there's a click. They leave the dial tone behind as Gerard leads them out the front door.

He almost hesitates on the front step, suddenly bombarded by memories of Mikey leaving and of their ill-fated previous attempt to escape. But he pushes the memories aside and he carries on. He takes a deep breath and glances back at Ray, Frank, and Bob, and then walks purposefully down the front walk and down the driveway.

And then they're lined up in front of the gate, staring it down very much the way they did the last time they tried to leave. But no, it's different now. They've got a sense of purpose they lacked before, and Gerard, at least, is feeling this strange inner calm that's been growing ever since he stepped out the front door.

It's the moment of truth. Somebody has to push the button and open the gate, or not.

"We ready?" Gerard asks.

Everybody nods.

"Who should do it?" Gerard turns to look at them as they stand there. Ray and Bob are holding Frank steady on his feet and they're all tense, like they're ready to fight or run.

"You should," Frank tells him, his voice unexpectedly strong. "It's your plan." He sounds proud as he says it, like all his belief in Gerard has already been validated. Ray and Bob both nod their agreement.

"Okay," Gerard says. He takes the last few steps to the little booth standing at the edge of the drive and takes a steadying breath, and then another. "Here goes nothing," he says, and reaches out and presses the button firmly.

Nothing happens right away, and his heart sinks. He turns back to them, ready to face their disappointment.

And then the gate swings open silently.

"Holy shit," he breathes.

"Run!" Ray shouts, and they all make a break for it.

Gerard's heart is beating hard in his throat as they cross the threshold of the gate and spill onto the street. They come to a stop in the middle of the road, wide-eyed and gaping, reeling from the sudden rush of escape.

And then Frank throws his arms around Gerard and hugs, gasping, "We did it, we did it, we did it," into his chest. He clings tight as he collapses into Gerard, unable to hold himself up any longer. Gerard takes a step back as he catches Frank's weight but he doesn't let go. He holds on for all he's worth, trying to be mindful of Frank's injuries and not accidentally touching anything that would hurt him.

He looks up and sees that Bob has an unnaturally huge grin on his face and Ray just looks dazed, staring down the hill at the lights and blinking like he can't believe what he's seeing.

A car honks at them as it rounds the corner and catches them in its headlights, and they're all jolted out of their dazes to scramble out of its way. They watch it go and then turn to face each other, and a heartbeat later they're all hugging, all four of them a tangle of bodies and arms and hair and warm breath. Gerard sniffs, trying to hold back the tears of relief that are threatening to break free, and Ray squeezes his shoulder and smiles at him, his own eyes wet at the corners.

"I already feel like I just dreamed everything," Bob says as he pulls back a little to stare at the Paramour's roof, which rises ominously over the fence and trees ringing the property in.

Ray nods. "But we didn't. It happened."

"And I'll have the sick scars to prove it," Frank says, sounding a little too gleeful about it for Gerard's liking.

"We should call Mikey back," Gerard says. "Fuck, did someone bring their cell?" He pats himself down but he knows he doesn't have his with him.

"I've got mine," Ray says as he digs it out of his pocket. He thumbs through his contacts and hits send, then pushes another button. The sound of the phone ringing crackles out of the tiny speaker of Ray's cell.

"Hello?" Mikey picks up after a ring and a half. "Guys? Please tell me you're out."

"We're out," Ray tells him, and there's no mistaking Mikey's sigh of relief as it comes through the phone.

"Thank fuck!" He's all choked up like he's been crying, but the relief in his voice is clear. "I called an ambulance for Frank, it should be there any minute."

"Good," Ray says, and Frank sags in relief.

"Hey, Mikey? How did you get out, anyway?" Gerard asks him suddenly. He was so caught up in the immediacy of their problems and their total inability to leave the house that it hadn't occurred to him at all until this very moment to wonder how Mikey had managed to leave.

"Well, I hadn't been in the house as long as you guys were," Mikey says. "And I had Daisy helping me."

"Isn't she dead?" Ray asks, confused.

"What, her ghost let you out?" Frank sounds skeptical.

"More or less," Mikey says. He sounds like he doesn't expect them to believe it, and Gerard wishes they could go back in time to a point where they'd all just laugh instead of taking him seriously without a second thought.

"I feel like I'm missing something obvious," Ray sighs. "What the fuck is wrong the house?"

"I've been trying to figure that out," Mikey says. "I don't know the whole story, but I've got a pretty good idea."

"You're going to tell us, right?" Frank asks.

The line goes quiet except for the noise of some papers getting shuffled around on Mikey's end.

"So as best I can figure out," Mikey finally says, "there's something wrong with the house itself, it's not really a haunting thing."

They all turn as one to look at the house. Gerard bites back a gasp as one of the lit-up windows suddenly goes dark.

"What is it?" Frank asks when he realizes that Mikey didn't finish the thought.

"Dunno," Mikey says. Gerard can practically hear the shrug. "The couple who had this house built, I think the guy was crazy and that might have something to do with it." There's something in Mikey's voice when he says crazy, but it's there and gone so fast Gerard can't pin it down.

"Oh, great," Bob mutters under his breath.

"There were a lot of rumours that he killed his wife, and guess what, they're true." Mikey sounds kind of disgusted.

"What?" Bob spits. "That's terrible."

"He apparently..." Mikey stops, clears his throat. "He beat her to death and then covered it up by putting her in her car and sending it over a cliff." His voice gets more and more faint as he goes on, and the last few words are barely choked out. "She's buried in the backyard, and her ghost is trapped in the house. Where she died."

"I thought you said it wasn't a haunted house?" Frank says. Gerard glances over at where Frank is leaning against Bob, and it looks like he's starting to get some of his colour back—not a lot, but some. Gerard can't help but think that it's because they're free of the house.

"She was never the problem," Mikey sighs.

"Was the guy's name Antonio?" Ray asks, and there's something in his voice that makes Gerard turn to look at him. Ray looks pale and sort of stricken, and he's picking at the cuff of his hoodie nervously.

"Yeah," Mikey affirms nervously. "Why?"

Ray's hand curls into a white-knuckled fist. "That's what I heard," he says. "It's got to be. Oh my god."

"What happened?" Mikey asks.

"When I was stuck in the room, before you guys got there, they were– the ghosts were talking, and the woman called the man Antonio."

"Wait, what?" Mikey asks urgently.

Ray quickly recounts what had happened in the locked room, and Mikey sucks in a breath when Ray is done. "Anything happen to anyone else?" He sounds really upset, like he's making himself ask because he has to know and not because he wants to.

"Yeah," Bob says, then clears his throat. "Something tried to kill me in the shower."

There's quiet for a moment, and then Mikey says, "That's very Psycho."

"That's what your brother said," Bob says, shaking his head.

"I bet," Mikey says. "Gerard? What about you?"

"Not like them," Gerard shakes his head. "I was having real awful nightmares, but nothing was out for my blood." But then he remembers the night he walked out to the swimming pool, gets a flash of the deep longing he'd felt to have the water close over his head and fill his lungs, and he starts to wonder if maybe that's not true, after all.

Ray shoots him a look like he knows exactly what Gerard is thinking, and Gerard shrugs at him in return.

"You said before that you could have done something," Frank says, obviously trying to change the subject.

"There are a few things," Mikey says cheerlessly. "I mean, things were okay when I was still in the house, right? I found ways to communicate with Daisy's ghost—she wants to help people, save them from having her fate, I guess." He pauses for a moment. "Okay, this is going to sound totally crazy, but I swear it's true."

"I'm pretty sure at this point that nothing is going to be any more unbelievable than what's already happened," Gerard tells him.

"Point," Mikey notes dryly. "Okay, so Daisy—her ghost—she wanted to help us. So I guess I was... channeling her protection? I don't know how else to describe it."

"Was that what you were doing when I saw you with your Ouija board?" Gerard asks, the pieces suddenly coming together for the first time.

"Yeah," Mikey says. "I'm still sorry about what happened, by the way."

What happened? Frank mouths at Gerard, who ignores it. He can't even think about that yet, not right now.

"Who knew your obsession with that stuff would ever come in useful, huh?" Ray says lightly, and Bob makes a sound that's half-grunt, half-chuckle.

"I did," Mikey says primly. "So yeah, when I was there I was a focus for her help, so nothing really bad could happen. But after I left..." He trails off, and Gerard is sure he's thinking about what they told him. He just wishes Daisy's protection had extended to Mikey's troubles, too, but maybe that wasn't something she could have helped. "Well, you guys know what happened. The house was trying to feed off your fear, pretty much." Mikey is quiet for a few moments, and then he says, "Did anybody– god, I hate to even ask this, but did anyone... attack anyone else?"

"Not physically," Bob says carefully. The look on his face says he remembers exactly what they all said to each other the night they fought, and he looks like he thinks that maybe they would have been better off if they had actually hit each other instead.

There's silence after that as they all mull it over, try to digest what Mikey said. It all rings so true; Gerard doesn't doubt any of it, especially not when Mikey sounds so sure.

Mikey clears his throat. "But you guys are out now and okay?" It shouldn't be a question but it comes out as one anyway. Gerard thinks it sounds like Mikey really needs the reassurance, like he'd never forgive himself if it were anything less than completely true.

"We are," he says, as emphatically as he can.

"Okay," Mikey says, a little reluctantly.

"We are," Gerard says again, and Frank and Bob chime in their agreement. "Hey, can you tell Stacy we're going to need somewhere new to stay?"

"Can do." And Mikey sounds better now. Maybe not all the way, but he's getting there. "I can do that now. But don't hang up, okay? Just... stay on the line a while. Please."

"We can definitely do that," Gerard promises.

"Thanks," Mikey breathes.

A flicker of movement catches Gerard's eye, and he looks over and realizes that the gate has already closed behind them.

"I hear a siren," Bob says, and sure enough Gerard hears it too, getting louder and louder as it approaches. It's not much longer before he sees the flash of red-and-blue lights cutting through the dark as the ambulance starts to drive up the hill towards them.

They stand together to wait, bleeding and exhausted but holding each other up. The ambulance finally pulls up in front of them, and in the moments of silence between bursts of frantic noise as the paramedics get Frank on a gurney, Gerard can hear it like a heartbeat:

Not broken.

Not beaten.

They're alive.