mwestbelle | commentfic again

"Yes, you're right." Mikey gives a last wistful look to the moon, then he and Gerard retreat as silently as possible (which, for them, is a little more silent than a human could manage) back to their cabin.

They remain there until the sun is above and the sounds of the sailors' voices has faded to a vague buzz, the shouts of docking gone (A few times they had made the mistake of emerging when the boat first stopped, and were forced to wait in the blaze of the sun while ropes were tied and gangplanks laid in order to avoid arousing suspicion. Both of their skin turned angry red later, and had to be soothed with one of Mikey's myriad oils). Slipping belowdecks to the hold to retrieve their things, it should be an easy departure, until when starting back up the ladder, Gerard is bowled over by a tiny someone.

The tiny someone is about to make a move to keep running (and whoever it is, it moves so fast it's almost a blur) but Gerard grabs its arm before it can leave.

It's a boy, maybe twelve, with a mop of messy black hair and shining eyes. His clothes are almost immaculate except for smudges of dirt and dust along the bottoms, fancy even. He looks downright panicked, eyes darting around, trying to pull himself free from Gerard's tight grip. "I, um. I. Sorry!" Great, I'm caught.

Gerard looks somewhat amused, a almost smile crinkling the corners of his eyes, and Mikey eyes the boy, nose wrinkled a little. He's so small, even for a child, and the last vestiges of babyfat are still visible on his face. "And what are you doing here?"

He blinks, still wriggling desperately to get away from Gerard (who holds on much tighter than one would expect, based on his soft pale hands). "I'm, I. I'm just...looking for my parents." His eyes widen and spark even a little brighter with his obvious lie. "We're taking this ship, and I don't. I'm just looking for them. You can let me go now."

Gerard nearly laughs outright. "No you're not." He's known enough--seen enough--to have a sense of when someone's lying, and the boy is a terrible liar besides, far too expressive in his face. "Either you're sneaking off the ship, and I don't think so, since we would have noticed, or you're sneaking on."

The boy's eyes widen and he stops wriggling, abruptly. "Please don't get me in trouble," he says, pleading, and Gerard isn't sure if he wants to release him or take him to some secluded corner and drink from his pretty little neck.

Mikey watches Gerard's face, can see the hunger there plain as day. It's not unusual, Gerard is often drawn to the small and delicate to assuage his thirst, but for some reason, the way Gerard is looking at this boy makes his jealousy flare hot and bitter. He's a little surprised; there's no reason for him to be jealous of the food. There's something about the way Gerard's hand is clenched around this soft, pretty little boy's arm makes his lip twitch, moving towards a snarl.

"Come here." He snatches the child's arm away from Gerard in the space of a blink. "We're taking you home."

Gerard tries to shake off the feeling, because it sounds from Mikey's tone that they're actually taking the boy home rather than using it as an excuse to find a secluded place. He isn't sure what it is, exactly, about this particular boy that makes the hunger (or something else, he wants him either way) flare up like this.

"What's your name?" he asks, trying to keep the darkness out of his tone as they lead the boy out of the ship, Mikey's hand tight on his arm.

"Frankie." There's a frightened tightness in his voice, a mix between fear of what his parents will do when they find out and pain because for looking just like any of the frail nobleborn youths who are constantly lounging around in the gardens (and yelling at people who are perfectly innocently climbing things and trying to have a good time), both of them have a tight grip, this sharp one especially. He's not struggling anymore, just getting pulled along. The softer one smiles a little bit and he amends quickly with, "I mean. Frank. It's Frank."

Mikey nods, mouth set in a tight line, from annoyance at Gerard's wandering eye (which has never bothered him like this before, he doesn't understand why he's so viciously jealous of some child, after more than a century by his brother's side) and the harshness of the sun. He looks down at Frankie. "Which way?"

"That way." Frank points down the winding road to where another street branches off. "My house is on that one," he says, looking up at the men with big eyes. "Can you not tell my mom? She doesn't like me sneaking out and I don't like worrying her." The older one seems more sympathetic, the younger not even looking at him and holding his arm tightly.

"If you don't want to worry her, why were you trying to stow away on the ship in the first place?" Gerard has to ask, glancing at Mikey's face, a carefully controlled blank. Mikey. What's wrong?

"I wanted to see the world, before--" Frank cuts himself off quickly, unsure of why he feels like he should tell these strangers anything about himself, and looks down at the stones under his feet and makes a face, scowling and pulling against the hand on his arm a little even though he knows it won't do any good, like the bratty kid he is. "Why do you even care? I wanted to get away, but I didn't, so I don't want to scare my mom. Is that so bad?"

Mikey snorts a little, and he can feel Gerard's questioning eyes, wondering why they aren't just leading the kid into a nice, dark alley and ripping into him, but he doesn't want Gerard to touch the boy. At all, not even to pull his head to the side so there's space to bite down. It's irrational, but it prickles all along his back.

"Before what?" Gerard asks, and he isn't sure why he needs to know, but the boy is interesting (and doesn't seem to be too afraid of talking to them, which is definitely a change. He's used to dark alleyways and big eyes glazing over, blood on softwhite skin, not this) and they still have a little ways to go, so why not? "It's not safe for someone as little as you to be seeing the world alone anyway, you'd probably get eaten by some tribe in the jungle..."

Frank looks up, curious despite himself. "Have you been there?" When Gerard nods, his eyes get bigger still.

"You've. Wow. What's it like?" There's almost pure worship in his voice, and the hand on his arm clenches. Frank whines a little at that, because it hurts (well, it doesn't hurt that much, not nearly as much as when he fell off the terrace wall or the racking cough that doesn't want to go away, but still), reaching over with his other hand to try to loosen the tight bony fingers, dangerously close to losing his balance with the speed they're moving at. "Hey, hey, stop it. What'd I do?"

"This is your house?" Mikey asks, voice sharp, and when Frank nods, Mikey continues frogmarching him up the path, ignoring his loud protestations. "I'm not taking the chance of you running off again."

"Mikey," Gerard says, warning. "Mikey. Stop it." But they're already at Frank's door, and when Mikey releases Frank all he can say is "Can I come by and tell you about it, sometime?" hoping Frank will take him up on the invitation.

Frank nods, excited, and practically bolts inside, grinning, the door shutting behind him with a snap. Gerard turns to Mikey, a frown on his face. "Mikey. What was that?"

"Nothing," Mikey snaps, fangs visible for the briefest moment. "If you want to spend all your time drooling over idiotic little children, that's just wonderful." He turns on his heel and stalks back down the path, barely quashing the desire to snarl at the cheery plants obviously lovingly cared for (maybe by Frank). The sun feels as though it's charring his brain straight through his skull, his skin still alive with protection and possession and mineminestayaway.

Gerard turns and follows Mikey, half-running to catch up, and he grabs Mikey's arm when he finally reaches him, turning his brother to face him. "Mikey. I was not drooling over him. I was just trying to be friendly. God, I--" and his skin is burning, pain splintering through him. "Let's just get out of the sun and then? We talk about this."

They'll need to set up a room for the duration of their stay here--they had intended for it to be rather lengthy, so they're a little more choosy in their selection of lodgings (though now Mikey isn't sure he even wants Gerard in the same city as Frankie). Still, they find a reasonably posh inn and head up to their room in tense silence, the awkward feeling spreading to the girl who fetches their keys and blinks at them a little with a worried bitten lip.

Once the door is closed behind them, Mikey turns on Gerard, hissing and practically spitting in his anger. "Friendly? Friendly? Don't you lie to me Gerard, I'm not blind, I saw the way you looked at him."

Gerard scowls, because even if he's mad he knows Mikey is right. "So I was a little hungry. It's not like you don't know how that feels. But that's it." He's always been wary of the kind of jealousy Mikey has around other people, and it's not the first time this has happened. But it's different, somehow.

Mikey laughs, a harsh and hollow bark. "I know how that feels, yes. But what I saw, that wasn't hunger, Gee." Something ugly flashes across his face, and his smile is barely that at all--angry, a vicious baring of teeth, fangs stark and obvious like this. "Well, not for his blood, anyway."

"What are you talking about?" Gerard says, frown deepening. "What do you mean, 'not for his blood'? What else would I want from him?" He certainly wanted to taste Frank's blood, he can admit that to himself, but-- something else?

"You looked at him--" and this, Mikey realizes, it the real root of all of this jealousy and anger, why he could barely touch the boy "--like you look at me." His voice breaks a little at the end, but the wave of emotion is far from breaking, he's practically panting even though he doesn't really breathe anymore, not intentionally. The things they do together, touches hot and desperate and soft are theirs and the look Gerard had in his eyes when he caught hold of little Frankie was a dark look Mikey knows well from nights entwined in rumpled sheets.

Gerard sucks in a sharp breath. "I--Mikey, I didn't, I." But he knows Mikey's right, even if he can't admit it to himself, that thoughts like that crossed his mind. He doesn't know why, doesn't get what it is about Frank that makes him do it, but. "I'm sorry," he says, finally, not sure of what else to say.

Mikey wraps his arms tight around himself, hugging his ribcage. He doesn't want to have to feel this way, this inhuman sense of ownership, but he can't help the way his muscles tense when he thinks about Gerard touching that boy, even if it was just a hand on his arm (and Frank obviously knows nothing, wasn't plotting anything, he's just a child) "I hate it." He's trying to keep himself from shouting, wailing to all the rooftops, as he digs his nails into his own arms. "And you want to go back to him."

"Mikey," Gerard says sternly, forcing his brother to look him in the eye. "If you don't want me to go back I am not going to go back. Period." He only intended to go back to talk, anyway, and with Mikey like this he knows that he can do without it, easily. Frank wouldn't be too broken up if the strange men that caught him stowing away didn't show up again, he's pretty sure.

"But you want to." Mikey shrugs a little, helplessness written in the jerk of his shoulders. "You know I hate when you can't have what you want." It's undeniably true--when the flamenco dancer Gerard had been hoping to feed off of proved just too skilled to kill, Mikey had been the one who scowled darkly and found a new (less talented, but just as pretty) one. Mikey is never happy if Gerard isn't perfectly satisfied, and he knows somehow that Gerard won't be satisfied until he goes back to Frank.

"I know." Gerard doesn't know what to say, because he wants to go back and see Frank, but on the other hand he hates when Mikey is like this, doing things he hates because Gerard wants them. "If you don't want me to, I won't, Mikey. I can stop wanting to if I don't think about it." And maybe he can and maybe he can't--but he can pretend for his brother's sake.

"It won't change that you wanted him." Mikey ducks his head, spine curving into a protective slouch. Even if Gerard never sees Frank again, never mentions him, he'll always know. He'll have to remember every time Gerard moves towards him in the privacy of their room that the same shadow flashed across his face for some chubby little boy. "I'm going to read for a while." It's a definite dismissal--Mikey never separates himself from Gerard to read now, especially when they've got a room to themselves.

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