If I were blind I’d know what you are
There are no happy endings, because nothing ends. – Schmendrick, The Last Unicorn

The thing is, Mikey can’t stop talking about the guys in Panic.

Mikey asks, “Have you seen them play?” and Bob shrugs.

He hasn’t, but Mikey’s, like, seriously fucking obsessed. Mikey doesn’t even like their music, but whatever. It’s none of Bob’s business.

“It’s just. There’s something wrong.”

Bob stares at Mikey, but Mikey just blinks back, eyes owlish behind his glasses.

“What?” Bob finally asks.

Mikey shakes his head. “No, um, you’d have to see it.”

Mikey is fucking weird.

*

Mikey’s a quiet dude, but it’s never uncomfortable. Bob likes hanging out with him because he never feels like he has to talk or, like, interact with him in any way whatsoever. Mikey’s always off in his own little world, and sometimes he’ll want Bob to listen to a song or something, but that’s relatively painless, so Bob doesn’t mind.

Mikey’s staring at the side of his head.

“Seriously, what?” Bob asks. He isn’t even short about it. He just wants to know what’s so fucking interesting about the side of his head.

“I’m, like,” Mike says, and Bob looks up from his book and sees Mikey’s mouth moving, can see how the words match up to his sounds, so Mikey actually does say, “Walker won’t let me touch him.”

It’s the single oddest thing Bob’s ever heard Mikey say, and it’s Mikey.

Bob has no idea how to respond to that. He goes back to his book.

*

Bob watches Panic’s set. He’s curious. He takes one look at the bassist and swears, “Jesus fucking Christ,” under his breath.

*

Mikey curls his hands loosely in his lap and says, “But.”

Bob says, “Don’t.”

*

Bob watches Panic play and he tells himself it isn’t the same. That he doesn’t want anything, that there’s nothing wrong. It’s just. He knows.

He dreams. He dreams about dry, crumbling fountains, steadily turning to dust. He dreams of the cold; a cold so deep he can’t even shiver, and in these dreams—he cries. He cries, fucking sobs, because there aren’t any unicorns anymore.

Fuck.

Mikey fucking Way.

*

Bob wakes up with damp cheeks and barely makes it to the bathroom before losing whatever the fuck he ate last night – Cheetos, he thinks, and dry cereal.

He’s pallid, sickly gray, when he stares at himself in the mirror. Dark half circles under dull eyes.

Gerard appears over his shoulder, hands fluttering, expression worried. “You okay?” he asks, and Gerard still looks better than he has in a long fucking while, so Bob doesn’t say anything about the inexplicable guilt eating away at his stomach.

He just says, “Fine.”

*

Bob has no intention of going anywhere near Walker, so it’s a shock to look up and see him sitting there on the edge of the stage, bass in his lap, head bowed.

Bob is going to walk away.

He says, “I know what you are,” instead.

He can’t help feeling a small measure of satisfaction when Walker tenses up, like Bob isn’t fucking crazy, like this is real.

“That’s nice,” Walker says. He stares at Bob.

Bob isn’t sure what he’s expecting, but it isn’t what he sees. He’s too close and too far and Walker’s eyes are fucking creepy and—and wrong. He reaches out and Walker’s frozen, still, and Bob knows, he knows. He knows he can and can’t make it right, and he thinks if he smoothes a finger—just there—he’ll fix it, fix—but.

But.

His hand curls up and he staggers backwards, like he’s been physically pushed even though Walker hasn’t moved an inch, hasn’t even blinked.

Somewhere, some corner of the world that never lived before is dying.

“Sorry,” Bob says, forces past his dry throat.

Walker gives him this tiny fucking nod, like maybe they’re on the same page. He says, “Me too.”

Bob doesn’t think he can forgive him.

*

Mikey doesn’t know anything, not really. Mikey has no fucking clue.

“It’s wrong,” Mikey says, like he has to, like he doesn’t even know what he’s really saying. “You can fix him.”

Bob shakes his head. He could, he definitely could, he wants to, but fuck. He’s pretty sure Walker isn’t really broken.

*

“I know what you are,” someone says, and Jon freezes, every muscle in his body tight.

He forces himself to glance up from his bass, sees Bryar, scowling, hands fisted over drumsticks. “That’s nice,” Jon says.

It’s happened before. It’s unusual, but it’s happened. Jon isn’t going to give Bryar any easy answers.

There’s something about his eyes, though, something frightening in the way his gaze doesn’t waver, and Jon’s breath catches on snow-white stands of birch. On pink-blooming dogwoods, the hum and chorus of cicadas and crickets, the mossy scent of perpetual spring. Jon doesn’t realize Bryar’s reaching for him until his hand’s hovering in front of his face, and maybe. Maybe he should’ve let it happen, should’ve closed his eyes and leaned into the touch. For a moment it aches, the wanting.

He doesn’t say no, not out loud at least, but Bryar stumbles back, stumbles like he’s been hit.

“Sorry,” Bryar says, and his voice his gruff, harsh.

“Me too,” Jon says, even though he knows. He knows they’re not sorry for the same things.