[This chapter is named after the Lauren Christy song "Steep" which contains the lines "I can hold you, but not with lover's arms, 'cause you are more of a brother to me now."

I hadn't meant Peter Pan to become a major theme in this story, but it crept up on me and turned out to be important. As I said before, Gob is taking too much responsibility by solely blaming himself as the older brother, but that's the guilt and horror affecting him.]


Gob eventually left the bathroom and decided to talk to Michael. He didn't even consider wasting his time on trying to get a forget-me-now from Mark Cherry's house. There was no way to forget about high school, or the apartment, and all that other stuff now. He had to end this before it got worse.

Gob pulled a chair over to the bed, but not too close, and he said, "Michael, I think, I think we shouldn't... be together like this. It's wrong. We shouldn't fake date anymore, and you shouldn't move in with me."

Michael sat up and looked shocked. "What? No, Gob, you promised!"

"I'm sorry. I made a huge mistake. I'm sorry about the party too, but-"

Michael interrupted, "And we're not fake dating! We're boyfriends, and we're gonna live together again." Gob had even talked about marriage, like he meant it. He sang songs to him about forever, and told him that they belonged together.

Gob looked sad and ashamed for letting this charade go on so long. Maybe this had all been a fantasy, an illusion. "No, Michael, we can't. I'm sorry I hurt you, but I shouldn't have promised in the first place. I mean, you don't have to go back to Sudden Valley. You can stay here 'cause we need to get into therapy or something. But we should break up for good."

"No! What are you talking about? Don't you love me?" He thought that Gob was overreacting to his disgust and guilt. "No, you'll get over this, Gob. You said so. You just need time."

"No, Michael." Gob shook his head. "Yeah, I thought I could, but I can't get over this. It's wrong for us to be lovers. We should never have started in the first place."

Michael was heartbroken. "Why are you ashamed of us? We love each other. We belong together. You always said..."

Gob felt awful enough to risk hugging Michael. "I was wrong."

Michael couldn't accept that. "They fucked us up so bad, and we only have each other now. Nobody else would understand us." Michael had so many disastrous relationships with women that he'd given up on trying anymore. He loved Gob, and wanted to be with him for good.

Gob let go again and looked sad. "Yeah, but that doesn't mean that we can be lovers, and pretend that this is normal. This is fucked up too."

Michael moved back on the bed and hugged his knees again. "I didn't mean anything when I slept in your bed in high school. It's just that I was lonely, and I wanted you to hug me and tell me we were still friends. I couldn't even talk to you half the time because they'd get suspicious and rip us apart again. "

"I know that, Michael. You didn't know any better, and you didn't understand how I felt. That's why I had to protect you. I fucked all those girls to try to forget, but it didn't work. I don't know. Maybe I needed therapy. Maybe I should have let you and Tracey make me go. I'm sorry I didn't listen then. You were trying to help me, but I was in denial."

Michael was still in denial. He said, "So what if you felt that way about me in high school? It's just feelings, Gob. You didn't do anything creepy to me."

Gob disagreed. "I was as bad as Barry Zuckerkorn."

"No, he was ten years older than us. We were much closer in age, Gob, and we already liked each other. You were, you were just falling in love with me."

"No, no!" Gob felt awful. "That wasn't love. It was lust. It was crazy and dirty and wrong."

"No, it wasn't wrong," Michael insisted. "It was love. I mean, I thought I only liked girls back then and I wasn't ready to have sex, with you or anyone. But it's okay if you already loved me secretly. You were older than me, and had more experience."

"Michael, that's the point! I was older and should have protected you."

"You did! You didn't tell me or do anything weird the whole time we shared a bedroom."

Gob could only respond "Michael!" in despair.

Michael tried to mend things with more excuses. "It's not bad. Like, I loved Tracey in high school, but I never even figured out how to say hello to her. Then she dated me in college and we got married. And I liked Sally Sitwell too, and she flirted with me in high school, but we never had sex until years later. So we're just like that, Gob. It was only feelings and desires. Teenagers have crushes all the time."

"Not on their brothers." Although it had been strange how Michael kept telling Lindsay she was beautiful.

Michael said, "It doesn't matter. We grew up and got together after I was ready. You even waited until I was 18 before you tried to bring me that hooker or kiss me. Then you told me the truth. Did you really say that you would wait for me, Gob?" That felt kind of flattering to know. "I'm sorry I made you wait so long. I'm sorry I wasn't ready for you until after Tracey. But I really love you now. We love each other ."

Gob shook his head. "No, you were just lonely, Michael. You needed me to be your friend and your brother, and I just twisted it into something unnatural. Maybe you're not even bisexual."

Michael found that idea absurd. "Gob, we've been having sex on and off for five years now. I wasn't faking it."

"Not on purpose, but I think you were lying to yourself. You were trying to please me, to do anything I wanted so that we could be close again. Maybe you just liked the parts where we talked and slept in the same bed and kept secrets. You thought the sex was worth it, to have all that. I'm sorry I manipulated you. I didn't mean to."

"You didn't, Gob! I liked the sex. I still do. Why can't we kiss anymore?"

"Because you're my brother."

"So?" he repeated.

"It's crazy."

Michael answered defiantly, "I don't care! Gob, if it's crazy to love you, then I don't want to be sane. I need you. You make me happy."

"You call this happy? It's unhealthy. We're just faking things like Lindsay and Tobias did, only with more sex."

Michael looked hurt.

Gob sighed and wished that he had never felt this strange lust. It made him sick with guilt to think about it now.

Michael said, "I know we're brothers, but I love you anyway."

"Like you loved Tracey anyway, even though she was a lying gold-digger?"

Michael protested, "She learned to love me."

"I know. And she loved George Michael too. I just mean, that you do things for other people, Michael, and you're good at denial."

Indeed, Michael had become an expert in denial and blocking out stuff, ever since Gob had read him Peter Pan. Michael had especially liked the first chapter where Mrs. Darling "tidied up" her children's minds while they slept. The author claimed that all good mothers did it, hiding the bad and unpleasant thoughts in the kids' brains so that happy thoughts could come to the top in the morning. Michael had felt sad that Lucille wouldn't do that for him, so he started doing it himself, cleansing his mind and making it orderly. After all, if the Lost Boys could survive on a savage island for years, regularly witnessing carnage, starving because Peter Pan made them make-believe food, and killing pirates, yet they forgot the whole experience and became ordinary, dull Englishmen in the end, then why couldn't Michael block out his upsetting traumas too?

Gob had started to regret reading the book to him, but he also knew that Michael had to cope somehow as a child. He couldn't survive just believing in fairies, and he didn't have alcohol or drugs to help. It was Mom and Dad who manipulated Michael into being an obedient robot who was blind to their crimes and hypocrisy. Gob had tried to save his brother, to fix him. But he didn't know how, because he was broken too.

Michael got up and paced the hotel room. "Denial? What, you think that I'm in the closet about being straight? Gob, that doesn't make any sense. I wouldn't pretend to like having sex with you. I did like having sex. How you made me feel..." He sighed and ached to touch him again. To have makeup sex and be happy again. "You taught me everything." Way more than he had learned with any woman.

That upset Gob even more. "I taught you. That's it. Don't you get it, Michael? I taught you that having sex with your brother was okay, when it wasn't. I was selfish."

"No, I love you, Gob. I wanted this too. Why don't you love me anymore?"

Gob said, "You don't love me, Mikey. Not like that. You're just confused and fucked up and crazy." All Bluths were.

Michael argued angrily, "I know what I feel. Do you think I'm an idiot?"

Of course. Michael was his idiot brother who almost married Rita, after all. He never knew how stupid and blind he could be.

"Why don't you love me?" Michael repeated.

Gob didn't know how to answer. "I really cared about you, Michael. I did. I wanted to protect you and fix you. I didn't come on to you for so many years because I knew this was wrong. But I was on drugs at the hospital, and I couldn't stop myself. I should have just gone to therapy like Tracey said, but I didn't want to become a robot. And it felt like, if I forgot about you, about everything, then there would be a huge piece of me missing. I would be alone."

"That's love," Michael said.

Gob shook his head, but he couldn't articulate what he meant. He was still in denial, and he couldn't see yet that the "huge piece" was the gay part of him. That was the piece that was missing and didn't want to be buried. It was also the piece that was trying to reach him about Tony Wonder, about how to have a normal life and real love.

Michael continued. "So you love me, see? And I love you. It's not wrong."

"No, it is."

"There's nothing wrong with us! I mean, I know that normal people wouldn't accept us, but they didn't grow up like we did. They don't know what we went through. I don't care what they think. We love each other. We need each other. We're not hurting anybody."

"No, we are. We are. George Michael will never forgive us."

"He might," Michael tried to hope. "Even if the birth certificate doesn't work, then we'll figure something else out. We will. You're smart, and if you get off the drugs, you'll be even smarter. Like you used to be."

Gob felt awful and wretched. "Like I used to be when we were kids. We were kids together, Michael! I shouldn't want to fuck you."

"Why not? I want you to. I love you."

"No, you're just fucked up. Just like me. We're both fucked up."

Of course they were. He knew that. "But you make me happy."

"Michael, come on! How could I do all these awful things to you?"

"They weren't awful! We made love. I consented."

Sure, like he consented to unprotected sex without thinking it through. Gob rolled his eyes. "No, it's my fault. I'm the older brother. I should have protected you. I should have stopped this long ago. I shouldn't have asked you to move here and be with me again, but I was selfish. I was lonely, and I missed hearing you say that you love me."

"I missed you too, Gob. All the time. I couldn't understand why you wouldn't break up with Egg if you didn't love her."

Gob shrugged. "Maybe it was all her religious talk and her family and chaperoning friends. It was getting to me." Michael had also been nagging and suffocating during their first affair, and Gob needed a break. He also thought that Michael needed some time to be with more women, to let them try to fix him too. If only Rita hadn't been an MR F.

Michael said, "So maybe that's why you think you want to break up now? You're listening to their religious garbage."

"No, Michael, that's not me. That's you. You still repeat what Dad used to say. And you talk like Tracey still."

That made Gob realize something; Michael had totally remade himself for Tracey, when she taught him how to be normal. Michael used to be so timid and polite, much like Buster, but once he married Tracey, he started to talk sarcastically and toss veiled insults at his family, just like she did. It was a small rebellion and a show of solidarity with his wife. Most of the Bluths had liked it, and took it as a sign of Michael growing up. Gob had thought it was probably healthier for Michael to vent his feelings, and he appreciated Tracey for teaching him how to cope like a normal person. Still, Gob had found the stark difference in his brother rather jarring, once he spent time with Michael again after the three year estrangement.

Michael still argued, "I don't want to break up, Gob. We can be happy again. You can fall in love with me again, if you'll let me be with you. Please let me move in like we talked about."

"No, Michael." Gob tried to tell him what he realized. "You completely changed yourself for Tracey. You changed more with every year you were married. That's what you did with me. You changed yourself so that we could be together. On the yacht, you couldn't handle me kissing you, and that was what you really felt. But after you learned about my feelings, you wanted me to stay around and not disappear, so you changed yourself for me too. You said crazy things on the phone, but I still didn't come back because you were married, and it was wrong. Then after Tracey died, you wanted to try again with me. You missed me and didn't want to be alone, so you kissed me back at the bachelor party and we had sex. You went along with whatever I wanted."

"No! I wanted it too. I still want it." Michael knelt in front of Gob and hugged him desperately. "I fell in love with you. It was real. It is real."

Gob shook his head, and he was crying now. "I'm so sorry. I should have known. You're a robot. You followed Mom and Dad's rules for love and approval. Then you followed Tracey's rules for love and approval. And then you just-"

"No!" Michael cried. "I didn't just go along. I love you."

Gob hugged him and felt miserable. All these years, Gob had blamed their parents for hurting and ruining Michael, but apparently Gob had screwed him up too. He hadn't been saving Michael at all. He had just managed to accidentally reprogram the robot!

As his sobs subsided, Michael sat back on the floor, leaning on the bed. He insisted that Gob didn't brainwash him. "I just needed time, Gob. I wasn't ready, and I was married to Tracey for 12 years. I couldn't reciprocate your feelings before the bachelor party, but I really did fall in love with you. It was more than once; I loved you again after we broke up the first time. You made me that CD, and then all the fighting and cheating didn't matter. After Rita, I realized I should have stayed with you. I loved you, and we belonged together. When you said you were engaged, I couldn't get over you. That's why I couldn't be with anyone else for three years when I was alone in Sudden Valley. Nobody else could be like you."

Gob felt guilty. "You were desperate and lonely. I should have left you alone."

"No, I loved you. We love each other. Remember when you said it the first time?"

Gob was frustrated. "Michael, this isn't love! This is just what happens when two crazy people decide to be crazy together."

"Then why can't we still be crazy?"

Gob sighed and wished he had never screwed up Michael. "I'm so sorry. It's my fault. I should have protected you from me."

"You don't have to protect me. I'm 40 years old, Gob. I'm well past the age of consent. I was 35 before we first had sex. I love you."

"It's still wrong. You just don't know any better. I wrecked you."

He shook his head, "You didn't wreck me. Our parents wrecked us. We just wanted to be friends, and they never let us."

"Right, you just wanted to be friends."

"I wanted that when we were kids. We're grownup now and I want more. I want you. We can do what we want."

"No, Michael. You'll hate it if you lose George Michael over us. You'll hate me."

"I won't. I can't."

Gob shrugged and said sadly, "I wish I could fix you for real. I wish I knew how. We should find a therapist or something."

Michael scoffed. "Oh now you believe in therapy?"

"I don't know what else to try. I'm so sorry, Michael."

"I'm not a robot anymore. I know how I feel. Being you with you makes me feel human. Not alone."

Gob nodded and said, "You know all these years, wanting you, I thought it would be great when we got together. I thought it would fix everything that went wrong between us."

"It did."

"No, you just don't know any better."

"I do, Gob! You're wrong."

Gob sighed. "I thought I would feel happy and complete, if you just loved me back. But it's almost like-I'm still alone."

"You're not. We have each other now."

Gob got up from the chair and kissed Michael's cheek gently. Michael held onto him and started to have hope that Gob was falling for him again.

He whispered, "I love you."

Gob looked in his eyes and realized now why he hadn't been able to say those words before. Because real love was not fucked up and selfish and destructive like this. He said, "I love you too, Mikey."

Michael was happy at first, but then Gob pulled away from him and got up.

Gob went to the door and only stopped to add, "You're my brother. I'll always love you." Then he walked out and shut the door.

Michael crawled back on the bed and sobbed.