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Mikey picks them out; from bars and clubs, from the street sometimes. He’s got the face for it, all shy smiles and downcast eyes, every awkward angle of his body broadcasting vulnerability like a radio tuned up to a soft rock station.
When Mikey walks up to them and says ‘hey’ and ‘I like the way your skin looks’ and ‘will you come with me?’ they think it’s their goddamn lucky day and follow him out like dumb dogs; happy and obedient.
Mikey has always been good at hiding his true face, much better than Gerard.
When Gerard was sixteen Mikey had walked in on him with the neighbour’s rabbit. Gerard still remembers the taste of terror and remorse, the fear of losing his brother, but then Mikey had touched his fingers to the blood, smearing it across his own lips and then Gerard’s, and it had all made sense, been such a relief.
Because it couldn’t be wrong if Mikey liked it too.
And Mikey did. Does. So much that he goes out and picks out gifts for Gerard and brings them to where he’s waiting: back alleys, the van, a cheap motel room. They both like the woods best though, where it’s quiet and dark, the cool green smell of the forest blanketing everything like moss on a grave stone.
There are implements. Pointy things and jagged things and hard unyielding things. Things with edges and things with curves. Things that cut and carve and cleave. Things Gerard uses like an artist and Mikey licks clean afterwards, his tongue wet and coppery in Gerard’s mouth, over his eyelids, under his fingernails as he licks him clean too.
Right at the end, when there is nothing left but air and skin and the hitching sound of Mikey’s breath, Gerard knows the truth of the world like it’s been shot into his heart. There is nothing out there as sharp and beautiful as the two of them; brothers in blood.