Archive of Our Own

Mikey kind of likes working the graveyard shift. Which is handy, because he's only been on staff at the hospital for a few months and he has seniority over absolutely nobody, so he gets scheduled for it a lot.

"Way. Can you get exam room three?"

Mikey rubs his eyes with the back of his hand. He wants a cup of coffee, or a few minutes to sit down, or a cigarette, but no chance. "Yeah. What am I looking at?"

"Kid who got in a fight. Stitches, no concussion."

"On it." Mikey grabs the chart he needs and makes his way down the hall, dodging the human by-products of a Chicago Saturday night.

The patient in Exam 3 is a dark-haired guy wearing a bloodstained t-shirt, an even more bloody sweatshirt tossed over the chair beside him. The slowly-swelling black eye, cut on his forehead, and blood smeared all over his face make it pretty easy to reconstruct his evening.

Mikey takes one last glance at the chart before setting it aside and reaching for a pair of gloves. "Mr. Wentz. I’m Mikey. I’m a nurse. I’m going to stitch up your face."

"Nice to meet you." Wentz swings his feet in a slow arc, kicking the side of the bed. "That wasn’t too bad a wait. Thanks."

Mikey drags the stool over in front of Wentz and sits down, studying the cut carefully. "Three inches. Impressive."

One of Wentz’s eyebrows goes up. "Do you always start out with a personal insult?" Mikey takes a deep breath, schooling his face to remain blank, and turns to check the needle and sutures. "I was making a joke."

"I know."

"You didn’t laugh."

Mikey turns to face him again and probes the edges of the cut carefully. "It would be against hospital policy for me to laugh."

"Wow. This isn’t going to be fun at all, then."

"More fun for me than for you. Tilt your head, please."

Wentz obeys and swings his feet again, kicking Mikey’s stool and then the bed. "I’m not afraid of needles."

"I figured." The tattoos are kind of a giveaway. Mikey places the first stitch and stops as Wentz kicks again. "Mr. Wentz. Could you not do that, please."

"Call me Pete. Mr. Wentz is my dad."

"Could you please not kick the stool? I don’t want to hurt you."

Pete smiles at him, wide and bright and slightly grotesque given the blood and bruising. "That’s nice of you."

"That’s my job."

"Still. I’m touched." Mikey stops again and Pete frowns. "What?"

"I was waiting for the double entendre."

Pete doubles over laughing, which almost leads to Mikey yanking the sutures right out of his face. "Nah, you got that one for free."

Mikey takes a deep breath and guides Pete’s head back to where he needs it. "Sit up and sit still, please."

He actually gets the first inch of the cut sewn up before Pete talks again. "So. You’re not from around here."

"That’s right."

"Let’s see, your accent…East Coast, right? Like, New York, or something."

"New Jersey," Mikey murmurs, keeping his eyes fixed carefully on his work, wishing Pete would stop talking. It makes his forehead move and if he keeps it up he’s going to end up with a scar.

"New Jersey. Shit." Pete takes a big, gulping sigh of breath. "What brings New Jersey to Chicago?"

"I need you to not talk. It makes your forehead move."

"Fine, fine." Pete heaves another sigh, which makes him move just as much, actually, but he shuts up long enough for Mikey to finish what he’s doing. He moves away and strips his gloves off, flexing his fingers.

"You’ll want to take over-the-counter painkillers and apply cold to the area around your eye as needed."

"Do you like music?"

Mikey sighs softly and makes a note on the chart. "Doesn’t everybody?"

"Good point. Awesome. I’m in a band."

"That’s nice."

"You should come hear us play."

"I only like country-western," Mikey mutters, keeping his eyes on the chart.

Pete doesn't miss a beat. "What a coincidence, we’re a country-western band."

Mikey glances sideways at him. "That is a coincidence."

Pete grins, and it’s just as grotesque as before but kind of a little bit charming, too. Mikey really needs a ten-minute break and a cigarette. "C’mon. Friday night. It’s only a five-dollar cover. We’re awesome."

"If you’re playing for a five-dollar cover, you probably suck."

"Okay, so we suck. But we have fun. Here." He digs around in the pocket of his jeans and comes up with a wad of paper that uncrumples into a half-sized flier. "Friday night. Just what you need after spending a day here in sicko land."

"Usually I have the night shift, actually." He takes the flier, though, smoothing it out against the chart. "Arma Angelus."

"Yeah."

"I’m not sure if I’ll be able to make it."

Pete shrugs and stands up, grabbing the bloodstained hoodie and tying it around his waist. "Keep the flier, anyway. Just in case. And, whatever, dude. Was just an idea. I’m not going to stalk you or anything."

"I appreciate that."

"Thanks for the stitches, Nurse Mikey. I just need to hit the desk on my way out, right?"

"You’ve done this before, huh?"

Another quick grin. "Many times. See you Friday, I hope. Goodnight."
**
Mikey has no plans to go to that show. For one thing, he’s scheduled to work Friday night.

Except then Javi begs him for a shift swap, so he ends up pulling a double on Wednesday instead and having Friday night off. Which he might take as a sign, if he was inclined to believe in signs. Which he isn't. It’s not a sign that the flier’s still sitting on his bedside table, either, instead of in the trash like he completely intended for it to be. It’s not anything. It’s laziness.

He’s lying on his bed Friday evening, on top of the covers and still fully dressed from his afternoon round of the laundromat, the library, and the corner bakery, when his phone rings. He glances at the caller ID and picks up, clearing his throat roughly. "Hey."

"Mikey." Gerard's voice is low and scratchy, and Mikey closes his eyes, breath catching in his throat on a sudden wave of homesickness. "Mikey Mikey. I wasn't sure if I would catch you."

"Got the night off."

"Big plans? Hot date?"

Mikey smiles a little, keeping his eyes closed and pretending Gerard's voice is coming from much closer than it is. "More like my computer and maybe a movie if I feel really ambitious."

"You should go out. Everyone around here is going to be disappointed to hear that Mikey Way stays home with a movie nowadays."

"Think it's called growing up." The illusion's all broken. He opens his eyes and blinks at the ceiling, the dim light soothing the sudden unhappiness in his chest. "Or something."

"Scary shit." Gerard sighs and Mikey tries not to analyze it, not to guess if Gerard's drunk. It's not his business, not at this point, and it's not like it matters anyway.

"How's work?" he asks, chewing at his lower lip while he waits for an answer. Gerard doesn't like that question sometimes, but it sounds like he's in a pretty good mood tonight.

"It's fine," Gerard says dismissively, and Mikey's shoulders ease a little. "How's yours?"

"Full moon or something this week. All the weirdos were out. Intense."

"It's so amazing, what you do."

"It's really not."

"You save lives, Mikey."

It makes his eyes burn, the note in Gerard's voice when he says that, and Mikey blinks hard against it, digging his fingers into the blankets. "I clean up blood and puke and shit, Gerard."

"I didn't call to piss you off."

"I know." It just happens, near-inevitably, and it makes Mikey feel sick all over, the way they can't seem to talk these days. Like being apart is poisoning things, the things he's had and relied on as a constant since he was born.

"I know," he repeats, blinking again against the dark. "I'm sorry, Gee. It's just been a long week."

"Full fuckin' moon." He hears the click of the lighter and Gerard's rough inhalation. "Check yourself for fur."

"Totally." He turns on his side like he can curl around the phone and bridge the distance that way. "How are Mom and Dad?"

They talk for another half an hour, and by the time they're done Mikey has pretty well reassured himself that Gerard is okay, even though he was trying not to wonder. "I love you," Mikey says, unprompted and actually in the middle of a story about their old neighbors, where it doesn't really fit.

Gerard doesn't seem startled. "I love you too."

"You should come out here."

"Yeah, totally. Visit at Christmas."

Mikey takes a breath that makes his chest hurt. "Yeah. That's what I meant."

"G'night, Mikes. Enjoy your movie."

"Take it easy. Talk to you soon." He snaps his phone closed and holds it against his chest, forcing himself to breathe slowly and deeply, to not feel anything, to exhale everything before it can take root.

When it works, more or less, he sits up and grabs the flier off his bedside table. Fuck it. He can't stand the sight of this apartment any longer. If nothing else, he can get a drink and some laughs at the show.
**
Arma Angelus is not terrible. They're not great, but they're head and shoulders above where Mikey had set the bar for the evening. He celebrates by having his drink, and a few more, then by throwing himself into the crowd on the floor just like he used to, when he was younger and dumber and believed guitars and bright lights meant something.

Pete, the guy he patched up, is screaming into the microphone, a hat pulled half down over his face to cover the stitches. He looks lost in the moment, bellowing love and insults at the audience and getting it back in equal measure, getting back enough to make him glow as he runs back and forth across the stage. Mikey screams as loudly as anyone, not sure what he's trying to let go, what's cutting his throat raw and making him slam forward over and over again, trying to get to the edge of the stage.

When it's over, he aches and he can breathe, he feels hollowed-out and empty and calm for the first time in ages. He stumbles off the floor and gets one last drink, closing his tab and then heading out to the alley behind the venue. He's not consciously stage-dooring; he doesn't know Pete Wentz beyond blood type and this performance, and he doesn't have anything to say to him besides good show. Partly it's habit, from every show he ever went to in Jersey. Partly he just wants a cigarette.

He'd smoked four by the time the band comes out, and when he sees them he feels like an idiot. He grinds the last cigarette out and turns to go, hunching his shoulders like that will hide him.

"Hey!"

Of course he has no such fucking luck. He glances back over his shoulder and sees Pete jogging down the alley toward him.

"Nurse dude." Pete stops an arm's length away and grins. No blood, the swelling down, just sweat and fading bruises; the smile definitely isn't grotesque anymore. Not even close. "Nurse Mikey."

"Good show." It is, indeed, all he can think to say.

"You came."

Mikey blinks, tucking his hand into the pocket of his jeans. "That's a little presumptuous. I said good, not orgasmic."

Pete throws his head back and laughs, loud enough that the sound rings off the alley walls. It's a little too loud, it makes something tense in Mikey, but then Pete smiles at him again. "Nice. Seriously, though, it's awesome that you showed up. I was hoping you would, but you seemed kind of completely unimpressed with me."

"It was a really long week. And you'd just suffered a head injury. Not a major marker for reliability."

"That's fair." Pete rocks back on his heels and glances over his shoulder at the stage door. "I've gotta go finish this shit. Stick around, huh? We can go grab some food."

"Oh. I wasn't--"

Pete stops, looking at him intently. "Wasn't what?"

"Trying to..." Mikey waves his hand in a vague cranking motion, as if that explains anything.

"I'm the one who offered, dude."

That's true. And Mikey is hungry, suddenly, the booze settling into some kind of pit in his stomach that wants to be filled with starch and grease. "Yeah, okay. I'll hang out."

"Sweet." Pete bounces a few steps down the alley, then stops again. "If you try to escape, I know where you work. I can totally find you and tell you about my hurt feelings for days."

"I thought you weren't going to stalk me."

"That was before you came to my show."

"I didn't realize I was opening a door by showing up."

"Dude, Nurse Mikey." That smile shows way too many teeth, and yet it's still not grotesque anymore. "The door is gone. Don't go anywhere. Give me twenty minutes."
**
It takes more like forty, but Mikey doesn't really mind. He waits out back, smoking a little more and letting his buzz settle out and texting a few people back home. He talks to his Jersey friends less and less these days, but tonight's made him homesick. Friday and Saturday nights make him restless anyway, and the talk with Gerard, the jolt of the show...

It's almost like being who he used to be.

Pete comes outside again and body-checks him, slamming his shoulder into Mikey's ribs and knocking him sideways into the wall.

"Ow," Mikey says, bumping him back again. "Is that how you fucked up your face? Running into innocent bystanders?"

"Ha. No. That was a full-on fight. Come on, this way. There's a diner."

"What were you fighting over?"

"Fuck if I remember." Pete's a buzzing ball of energy, his eyes blown out until they seem to take up half his face, his words coming so fast they trip over each other, his laugh bright and electric. Mikey's only a little jealous.

He reaches out and pushes Pete's hat up, exposing the stitches to the flat combined light of the street. "You've been picking at this."

"It itches."

"It's going to scar if you do that. Or maybe get infected."

"It itches."

"Put some ointment on it and leave it alone."

"If you're going to tell me what to do, you're paying for dinner."

Mikey raises an eyebrow at him. "But you invited me. That means you pay."

"Damn. Guess we'll have to split it down the middle."

Mikey shakes his head, not sure why he's fighting the smile tugging at the edges of his mouth. It just seems like he should, for no reason at all. "If you're broke, you could've just told me. Broke musician, not a big surprise."

"And ER nurses are rolling in it?"

"I didn't say that." Pete holds the door open for him and Mikey steps carefully around him. "Splitting down the middle works for me."

"I'm mostly just fucking with you, you know."

"I had a hunch, but it seemed rude to assume."

"Well, rule number one of me. You can pretty much always make that assumption and be safe." The smile's distinctly self-deprecating this time, and Mikey finds he likes it less. "I'm the king of fucking around."

"Awesome. I'm gonna guess that includes in the fun sense of the term, too."

Pete blinks once, then laughs and shakes his head. "Well, if I claimed that I would just be bragging, and then one of my ex-girlfriends will drop from the ceiling like a ninja and call me a liar."

"You dated ninjas?" Mikey lets the smile win out. "Dude, tell me more."
**
Arma plays shows almost every week, somewhere or other around the city. Mikey's still at the bottom of the barrel at work, though, and doesn't have much say in how his schedule shakes out. There are a couple of other nurses who rely on him to cover for them when something comes up and come through in return, but even they can't experience massive failure all the time.

After the third week in a row that he misses seeing Pete play again, he figures that's it, he's accidentally expressed a complete lack of interest in being friends, and he should trash the list of shows Pete gave him and quit trying. Showing up stage-door isn't going to mean anything but kind of creepy flakiness, now. Bad fucking luck.

It's a rough shift anyway, and between that and the vague sense of disappointment and having fucked up he's in an awful mood by the time he changes back into his street clothes and leaves the hospital. His back aches, and his head is throbbing, a steady beat of pain in both of his temples that he knows won't go away unless he chases it with a combination of aspirin and booze that's going to rot his stomach into a bloody pulp by the time he's thirty. Sometimes medical knowledge really sucks.

Worse than the physical hurt is the panic in the back of his head, the stuttery desperate feeling of being trapped and drowning, the world pushing down on him too much, too hard, and there's no way out, no hope, nothing but time stretching out ahead of him, years and years where it's just going to keep being this way, no matter what he does or--

"Nurse Mikey."

He misses a step, tripping over his feet and stumbling forward into a trash can before he catches himself. "Fuck."

"Sorry. Sorry." It's Pete, standing there on the sidewalk with his hands shoved in the pouch of his hoodie and his hair brushed back off his forehead, standing up straight with gel and sweat. "Didn't mean to scare you. Are you okay?"

"Yeah. I'm okay." He is, his heart is just pounding in his chest from adrenaline blending into his incipient panic, and it's kind of hard to breathe. "What are you doing here? I thought you had a show."

"I did. Hours ago." He smiles a little, not the big grin but something a little more tentative, not quite shy but in the same neighborhood. "You work late, dude."

"I do. Yeah." He ducks his head against a sudden gust of wind, shivering a little in his thin t-shirt. It had been a lot warmer when he left his apartment. "I hope you're not here for more stitches."

"I'm here looking for you."

Mikey has to swallow, his breath sticking in his throat. "Yeah?"

"I haven't seen you at the shows, but I remembered what you said about usually working nights." Pete shrugs and scuffs the heel of his shoe against the sidewalk. "I'm up all night after a show. Thought I'd come see if you want to grab dinner again."

"Oh. Um." Mikey looks up and down the street, not sure what he's looking for. For some reason he just really can't hold Pete's gaze the way it is right now. "Sure. I'm...really hungry, actually. That would be cool."

"I've been saving my pennies. My treat this time."

"Shit. Steak and lobster it is, then."

"I was thinking waffles and milkshakes."

"I would totally punch a baby for some waffles right now."

He glances at Pete again and Pete's grinning, the real one now, the one that makes the tension in Mikey's chest ease up for no reason he can adequately explain. "You won't even have to. I know a place. C'mon."
**
The waffles are really kick-ass. Mikey cleans his plate, chasing the syrup with the edge of his fork and sucking it clean, eyes closed while he savors the sugar breaking down on his tongue.

When he opens his eyes again Pete's watching him, his own fork halfway to his mouth and apparently forgotten. Mikey takes a drink of his soda and shrugs at him. "What?"

"You look like you haven't eaten in days."

Mikey makes a face, setting his fork down and wiping his mouth on his hand. "Just a bad night. Soothing my inner pain with carbs. It's a thing."

"Did people die?"

"Yeah, but not because of me." He takes another drink, swishing the liquid around his mouth. "It was more...I mean, people dying, that's one thing, that's, like...bam and it sucks and you're done. Tonight was just...shitty."

Pete's brow furrows a little. "I don't follow."

"I had a homeless guy who got clipped by a cab. A heroin addict with an infection, and he wasn't any older than me. A girl with a broken arm and I'm pretty sure her boyfriend did it to her." Mikey shrugs, pushing his plate away. The sugar's going sour in his stomach already, churned into glass by the tension. "Stuff where they're just going to go back to it tomorrow. Over and over again. It isn't done, it's never done, it's just..."

"Shitty." Pete nods. "That sucks."

"Yeah. So."

"Bad night." Mikey just nods, and Pete shifts in his seat, looking past him out the window. "So, new topic, huh?"

"Please."

"Read any good books lately?"

He has to laugh at that. "Unfortunately, no. I don't do a lot of reading anymore. How about you?"

"My little sister's reading Lord of the Flies for school and keeps leaving it around the house. I've picked it up a couple of times."

"You have a sister?" It's an easier segue from that story than you live at home?

"And a brother. Two parents. House in the suburbs. I have to hide all of that so nobody can tell that the deep inner pain in the songs is a total lie. Don't rat me out, dude."

"Your secret's safe with me." Who would he tell, anyway? He takes another drink of his soda, draining it down until the ice rattles. "Your brother's younger, too?"

"Yeah. What about you, any family?"

He pinches the straw closed, twisting a little until the plastic cracks. "I have a brother. Back in Jersey. And, you know, parents, but...yeah, I have an older brother."

"Yeah? Is he a nurse too?"

Mikey chokes on a laugh. "No. God, no. He's a graphic artist."

"Oh, cool." Pete swings his feet, scuffing the heels of his shoes over the floor. "So...you ever get a day off from dealing with the sick and injured?"

"Two per week." He stretches his legs out under the table, one of them brushing against Pete's by accident. Pete doesn't react, but he doesn't pull away. "Every Tuesday, and then my other one kind of floats depending on how the scheduling works out."

"So if I asked you if you wanted to hang out on Tuesday, that would be, like..."

"Are you asking me or is this hypothetical?" Pete shrugs and Mikey bites his lip for a moment, not sure how to read any of this. It's an invitation, but not. Pete seems to like him, Pete came to the hospital to find him, Pete turns all of his attention on him when he talks, like Mikey's the only thing in the whole world. But apparently there are still things they're both tripping over, in-between.

"Cause if you're asking me, I'd say that would be cool," Mikey says finally, wishing he had a sweatshirt so he'd have something to do with his hands. He's gripping the edge of the booth on either side of his thighs, but that's not casual, not discreet with his tension.

Pete gives a small nod, stabbing at another piece of cold waffle. "We could meet right here. At, like, lunchtime. Then walk around or something."

"That sounds cool. But just so you know, on my days off lunchtime is probably around three in the afternoon."

"Oh, thank God." Pete exhales and slumps back in his seat, suddenly relaxed and grinning again. "So afraid you were going to make me see actual morning, dude."

Mikey isn't sure what test he just passed, but he likes the way it feels.
**
On Tuesday, they talk about music.

It was really pretty much inevitable, but Mikey was resisting it anyway. He doesn't like to give things away, to hand pieces of himself to strangers and near-strangers who might do anything with them. He doesn't like being at anyone's mercy.

But they have lunch and they start walking, and it's no surprise when within a couple of blocks Pete grabs Mikey's sleeve and pulls him into a record store. "This place is awesome," he says, still holding on tight, tugging Mikey toward the back wall. "They've got everything. What's your pleasure, Nurse Mikey, tell me your favorite things."

Sometimes Pete seems like a character out of a movie, the amazing and dangerous one who glitters with too much energy to be real, the magic one who changes lives and then vanishes in a puff of cryptic words and best wishes and feeling like nothing will ever be quite the same. Whenever Mikey thinks that, though, he remembers the first time he saw Pete, the blood running down his face and drying thick and ugly on his fingers, the way Pete had shrugged off the needle sliding into his skin, the circles under his eyes.

Making it so nothing will ever be quite the same isn't necessarily a gift. Mikey's read enough comics, seen enough movies, heard enough stories to know that the power to change things has consequences, and a weight.

But those are serious thoughts for a bright afternoon, and they flash through Mikey's head too quickly to really linger anyway. Pete is tugging CDs from the shelves, and talking about the vinyl even further along in the back, and come on, Mikey, Mikey, what do you like, tell me your stories, tell me everything.

And Mikey does what he never wants to do and gives all of his secrets away. He lists the names and somehow the stories slip out, too, about lying on his back on his bedroom floor and listening to the Smiths, how the music curled under his skin like smoke and he held his breath to try to keep it inside him, to keep from losing the moment. He talks about listening to the same Radiohead album sober and stoned and hearing completely different things, but they fit together in his head like puzzle pieces and now whenever he hears those songs they're transcendent, more than real, more than his brain can hold. He talks about the Smashing Pumpkins show at the Garden, about grabbing his brother's hand out there on the floor and telling him his dream, what he wanted, and how for just a minute it had seemed really possible, like something he could really do, someday.

Pete listens, grinning so wide it must hurt. It hurts Mikey to look at it. Pete's with him, in all of those stupid stories, and Mikey wants to tell him not to be, that they're just words, just wishes, just dreams. But then, to Pete, maybe they're not. Pete's still chasing dreams and words and wishes, after all.

"So awesome," Pete says, sliding CD cases between his fingers, the plastic wrapping crinkling against his skin. "So do you play? Were you ever in a band?"

"Guitar," Mikey says, and it's like he was swimming in his sleep, and now he's opened his eyes and he's out in the deep waves, way farther than he ever intended to go. And he has to tread water now, keep his head up, hope like hell he doesn't drown. "A little. Not well. A couple of shitty bands with my friends. Nothing real."

"But you love it." Pete gestures at him and Mikey takes a slight step back, his hips bumping against another shelf. "You just...your face, man. When you were talking about music. You light up. You glow."

"Yeah. Well. Yeah." He doesn't know what to say, or what Pete wants. For some reason another secret comes up and escapes, his voice running off with him before his brain can do anything. "I had an internship, at a label. Back home, for a while."

"No shit?" Pete grins and bounces on his toes a little, still holding the CDs. The cases click together like castanets. "Which one?"

"Doesn't matter." He pulls his phone out of his pocket, staring at the screen like he just got a call. "Didn't have it for very long. Hey, it's getting late."

"Oh. You've got someplace to be?"

He has his apartment, and mumbling half-words at his roommate in the kitchen for a few minutes before going back to his room with a bottle and a DVD. He has leftover Chinese takeaway, and sleep, too much sleep and never enough.

If he stays here, he has waves breaking over his head and threatening to push him under.

"No," he says, shoving his phone into his pocket again, arching his hips to get it between the tight layers of denim. "But it's all cramped in here. Let's go grab a beer or something, huh? I'm buying."

Pete tosses the CDs down on the end of the shelf in an uneven pile. Mikey can't see the covers, but he's pretty sure Pete didn't actually want them even in the first place. He would at least look back as he drops them if he did. "Yeah, dude. Beer sounds good. Let's go."
**
The beer is good, and there's a lot of it, more than Mikey really needs, but he's never been good at stopping himself from indulgence. There's enough in life that hurts that when he finds something that feels good he wants to hold on with both hands, breathe it in, soak in it. It won't last and he knows it, so why shouldn't he have it while he can?

Pete agrees with that philosophy. They drink a toast to it, in fact, huddled over the table in the back of the bar, laughing too loud and too long and pledging their allegiance to hedonism for as long as they're young and alive and as cool as they are.

"Absolutely, Nurse Mikey." Pete leans back on his stool, stretching his arms out over his head until his shoulders pop. "That's the only way to live."

"Are you always going to call me Nurse Mikey? The whole thing?"

"Most likely. It's how I know you."

Mikey refills his glass from the pitcher, licking away the drops that splash over the rim. "Back home, everybody called me Mikeyway."

"Why?"

"Because it's my name. Like, my full name."

"The one on your birth certificate?"

Mikey blinks at him over the rim of the glass. "Well. No. That says Michael James Way. But I go by Mikey. So. Mikey Way." He gestures, a quick circle in the air to draw the words together. "Mikeyway."

Pete nods slowly. "Mikeyway. I like it."

"It sounds a little better than Nurse Mikey, don't you think? That makes me feel like you're casting me in a porno in your head."

Pete looks startled for a minute, and when his smile comes back, there's the slightest tinge of caution in it. "How do you know I'm not?"

Mikey tilts his head to the side. He feels warm and tight with the beer, like it's made him full and solid and really here for the moment, giving him the courage of being real. "Good point. I guess I don't have any way to know. I hope imaginary porno me is impressive."

Pete raises his glass to his mouth, so Mikey can't tell if he's still smiling. "Don't worry."

And that's one of those turns in the conversation that can't possibly transition into anything but an awkward silence. Mikey drags his fingers through the rings of liquid on the table top, drawing elaborate patterns of lines. Pete takes another drink and sighs.

"You know," Mikey says, just to have something filling the space, "I can take your stitches out for you. Instead of having to go back to the doctor or whatever. I can do it."

"Right here in the bar?"

"Well, I don't have my stuff with me tonight. But, you know. We can pick a time. And...meet up. At one of our places, I guess."

"And you'll work your medical mojo all over my face." Pete takes another drink and makes a face. "Sorry, you were trying to forget the whole porn thing, weren't you?"

Mikey has to laugh, and once he starts he can't quite stop. He ends up resting his head on his forearm, pressed against the table, laughing until he chokes and the table rattles.

When he finally gets his shit together again and looks up, Pete's watching him, but not with any pity or concern. There's just a wry, half-sad understanding in his eyes.

"I should get home," Mikey says, sitting up slowly and pushing his still-half-full glass away. "Obviously."

"What's your other day off this week?"

Mikey rubs the back of his head and thinks, trying to picture the calendar on his wall. "Thursday."

"Cool." Pete slides off his chair and digs his wallet out of his pocket. Mikey catches himself watching the curve of his ass, the cut of his waistband against his hips, the slice of warm skin that gets bared under the edge of his t-shirt. "Call me whenever and I'll come over. You'll do my face, we'll get more beer. It'll be great."
**
Gerard calls on Wednesday night, or really Thursday morning, while Mikey's walking home from the El, his glasses threatening to slip off his nose as he holds his phone with one hand and shoves the other in his pocket for warmth, shoulders hunching against the chill in the air.

"Mikes." Gerard is in a good mood, his voice clear and light. "Tell me you remember that guy who works at the gas station down on the corner. The one with the tattoos. You remember him, right?"

"Yeah. Of course I do."

"You won't fuckin' believe what he said to me tonight." Gerard is giggling so hard Mikey isn't sure he's going to be able to understand the story at all, but he doesn't care. He just wants to hear it, wants the little threads and pieces of home, and more than that he wants Gerard's voice this way. Happy. He wants to wrap that sound around himself and take it home with him.

The story is pretty long, and Mikey walks slow loops around the block while Gerard tells it, despite the fact that he's shivering pretty steadily from the cold. Going inside might break the moment. And besides, he's going to want a cigarette first, after he hangs up.

"...I don't even know." Gerard laughs and Mikey smiles, closing his eyes and pausing for a step. "So, yeah! Sorry. Fuck, it's late. I just really wanted to tell you. As soon as it happened all I could think was 'fuck, I've gotta tell Mikey about that.'"

"It's cool. No worries. That guy's crazy as hell."

"He really is. Wow. I don't even." Another short, helpless giggle and Mikey starts walking again, making a final pass around the block. "Anyway. How are you? I barely let you get a word in edgewise there. What's new?"

"Oh, you know." He digs his lighter out of his pocket and flicks it a few times, letting the heat of the flame glow against his palm. "Work and shit."

"Working for a living." Gerard snorts and Mikey hears the answering click of his own lighter, then the slow indrawn breath. "Fuckin' blows."

"Tell me about it." He turns another corner and picks up his pace just a little, trying to stir a little more bloodflow against the cold. "I think I made a friend."

"Yeah? At work? Another one of the nurses?"

"No, he's not a nurse. Just this guy."

"Oh, that's cool. What's his name?"

"Pete."

"Pete." Gerard exhales against the phone. "That's a nice, non-serial-killer name."

"Can you really tell?"

"I'm never wrong, am I?"

"It is true that I have not yet been serial-killed."

"There you go, then." Gerard chuckles around his cigarette and Mikey smiles, turning the last corner to walk back to his building again. "There you go."
**
Pete shows up on Thursday with beer and Thai food. "I know you probably wanted to go out," he says, setting both on Mikey's couch. "But I just, like, cannot fucking deal with people any more today. I'll punch somebody, I swear. I mean, if you don't want to hang out here, it's cool, I'll take my shit and go home, but I just--"

"It's cool." Mikey's a little surprised, and he took a little more care with his hair and his t-shirt than he might have if he'd known they weren't going anywhere, but he knows the feeling that Pete's describing. He's not really in the mood to provoke an explosion just for the hell of it.

"Thanks." Pete looks around the room and Mikey follows his gaze, seeing that the place is reasonably filthy, pretty bare, and generally depressing. He isn't going to bother trying to defend it. Neither he nor his roommate are ever really home all that much.

"Whose movies?" Pete asks, nodding at the narrow shelf beside the TV.

"My roommate's. Mine are in my room." He expects Pete to take it as an invitation, at least enough to tease, but there's no flicker of response. Mikey rubs his palms on his jeans and goes to get plates and forks for the food. Apparently he needs to readjust his methods for reading the mood in the room.

They eat first, neither of them saying much, and Pete drinks three beers to Mikey's one. "I want to be feeling no pain when you fix my face," he says when he sets the last bottle down, and Mikey realizes that he must have been looking askance. "But this is close enough. Where do you want me?"

"I have to get my scissors." Mikey's glad he left them in the other room. He needs a minute to readjust again; the sudden shift to hostility wasn't what he'd been expecting tonight. He hadn't had any expectations, really, but the air of aggression in the room is unnerving, and more than that, it's...troubling. He wants to do something, make Pete feel better, but he isn't entirely sure that trying won't get his fingers bitten off.

He kind of feels like he's at work, actually. On his goddamn night off. That's what he gets for volunteering free medical care.

He sits on the couch again and gestures for Pete to kneel in front of him and tilt his head back to get the best of the light. Pete doesn't crack a joke or even say a word, just closes his eyes and slides his tongue slowly over his lips, his jaw clenched. His whole body is tense, his shoulders locked tight and his fingers curled into his palms.

Mikey takes a careful breath and curves his hand against Pete's cheek, holding his head still as he starts removing the stitches. He keeps his fingers on Pete's face as light and gentle as he can, trying to be professional and restrained, but the touch seems to relax Pete, as cautious as it is. He bites his lip a few times as Mikey works, but he doesn't flinch away. Mikey thinks he might actually lean into Mikey's hand when it hurts, and when Mikey finishes and starts to pull away, Pete turns his head to follow the movement, so Mikey's knuckles brush across his cheek.

"There you go," Mikey says softly, and Pete opens his eyes, looking up at him for a moment.

"You're good at that," he says.

Mikey shrugs. "Practice."

"Huh." Pete gets to his feet slowly and sits on the couch again, a little closer to Mikey than before. He reaches for the remaining beers, handing Mikey one and opening the other for himself. "What made you decide on nursing?"

Mikey opens his own bottle and takes a long drink before he answers. "You really want the whole story?"

"I like stories."

Mikey isn't quite sure what to make of that as an answer. But holding onto his secrets doesn't really seem to be doing him much good; he keeps hiding and hoarding and nothing ever turns to gold. "I had that internship. At Eyeball." Pete nods and drinks, not looking at Mikey, which helps. "And then I got a drunk and disorderly. I wasn't even nineteen yet, and the guy I punched while being disorderly happened to be in a band. And the guys at Eyeball wanted that band." He stops for a moment, frowning down at his bottle. "More than they wanted me." Another drink washes down the old bitterness with practice. "So."

"That sucks."

"Fucking tell me about it."

"So what did you do?"

"Flipped out for a little bit. Partied all the time, wrecked my dad's car, was an asshole to everybody. Then my parents told me to get my shit together or they were kicking me out. I asked them if they had anything specific in mind."

Pete laughs a little, something knowing in the sound. "That's a dangerous little question."

"Turns out my aunt Janice is the receptionist for the guy who runs admissions at a nursing program. She could slip me in last-minute and I could become a productive member of society. Or I could work at the gas station and live with five other guys in a duplex. My choice." He shrugs again. "I'm not squeamish about blood, so it seemed like an okay idea. I mean, it seemed like a shitty idea, but so did the other one, and I don't actually hate my parents enough for rebellion to be its own reward."

"You like it?"

"It's all right." He thinks about it for a minute and nods. "It's all right. I might try to get out of trauma. Take some more classes and go into pediatrics or ICU or something. I don't know. The ER pays pretty well and you can get a job, like, anywhere."

"You just have to be willing to put up with shit."

Mikey smiles and raises his bottle in a wry toast. "You catch on fast."

Pete stares at him for a moment, long and intently enough that Mikey's stomach starts to twist. When Pete puts his bottle down and moves in to kiss him, it's a surprise and not one at all, Mikey's brain whiting out with a nonsensical mix of oh and fucking finally.

Pete kisses hard and demanding, with teeth, and Mikey groans a little under his aggression, letting Pete's weight carry him back against the arm of the couch. He reaches out, sliding his hands up Pete's back and then down again, curving his fingers around Pete's hips. Pete's teeth catch his lower lip and he groans again, fingers tightening.

Pete breaks the kiss and pulls back, breathing hard. His hands drop to Mikey's wrists and pull them away, pinning them against the cushions on either side of Mikey's own hips. He leans his weight into it, holding Mikey down, and meets Mikey's eyes in challenge and inquiry. Mikey nods, licking his lips and tilting his head for another kiss. Pete can hold him down if that gets his rocks off. Mikey wants to be kissed, wants heat and friction and touch. Fuck, he wants to be touched.

"You can't tell me you don't get laid, Mikeyway," Pete whispers between kisses, and Mikey's hips jerk. He didn't expect his name to sound that good in Pete's mouth. "You're too gorgeous not to be hooking up every goddamn night."

"I work every goddamn night." Mikey closes his eyes and arches up, trying to find contact. Pete is angling his hips away and it's an infuriating, maddening game.

"Then you should hook up in the afternoons." Pete kisses him again, stubble scraping against Mikey's chin. He loves it, loves the sting, loves Pete's fingers closed hot around his wrists, loves Pete's mouth on his, claiming him.

Pete shifts his weight, finally moving to where Mikey can hook his leg around Pete's and pull him closer, signaling his intentions and desire clearly enough for astronauts to see from space.

"Fuck," Pete gasps, rocking forward, his knee grazing against Mikey's crotch and then pressing, hot and solid and right where Mikey can thrust against it, roll his hips and grind up into Pete while Pete fucks his mouth with his tongue and grips his wrists tighter, pressing them down into the couch.

"Your mouth," Pete gasps, and Mikey's hips jerk again, pressing his dick even harder against Pete's knee. "God, want your..."

"Yeah." Mikey nods, breaking the kiss. He struggles under Pete for the first time, just a little, tugging at Pete's hold on his wrist and bucking up enough to knock Pete off-balance. "Yeah, me too."

"What?"

Mikey meets his eyes steadily, trying to eliminate all possible ambiguity. "My mouth. On you. I want that, too. Now."

Pete's mouth falls open a little and Mikey surges up to kiss him again, returning all of the demand and aggression. He doesn't want to waste time and he's done playing games, so it only takes a minute of squirming and shifting to get out from under Pete and drop down to his knees on the floor, pulling Pete's legs around to frame him.

Pete lifts his hips up off the couch, fumbling to undo his jeans. "You're sure? I mean, I was totally good with making out, I was just talking--"

"Shut up." Mikey grabs the waistband and yanks Pete's jeans halfway down his thighs, exposing black boxer-briefs tented at the front. Mikey leans in and breathes against the firm curve of Pete's dick, smiling when it twitches eagerly. He pulls the underwear down, too, then glances up at Pete, holding his gaze as he licks in a slow circle around the head.

"Fuck," Pete breathes, and Mikey smiles again, settling his hand around the shaft and taking Pete in his mouth slowly, enjoying the slide of hot skin against his lips and tongue, the heat against his palm and his chin as he takes him deeper, the warm smell of sweat and musk in his nose.

Giving head is one of Mikey's favorite hobbies, which he fully intends to include on any dating profiles he might fill out in the future. Guys or girls, he's equal-opportunity, though it's been a while since he's been with a guy, which adds a little dash of something to the proceedings as he gets to rediscover what gets the best reactions. Pete is loud, once Mikey gets going, and responsive, which Mikey likes; knowing what he's doing right gives him the chance to keep doing it, over and over again, and that can only increase everybody's fun.

Pete likes intensity, pressure from Mikey's tongue along his shaft and tight, hot sucking; he doesn't grab Mikey's hair or push him down, but instead catches Mikey's hands again and pins them to the edge of the couch cushion. Not by the wrist, this time, but by threading his fingers together with Mikey's and holding tight. His fingertips dig into the back of Mikey's hands, and Mikey's sure his knuckles must be clenched white, the tension all held there while he rocks his hips up into Mikey's mouth.

He either doesn't give a warning before he comes or Mikey's so intent he misses it, but in either case Mikey chokes when it happens, pulling back and letting the last spurts splash down over his chin. He coughs and looks up at Pete, blinking in surprise. Pete's face is flushed dark, his skin glistening with sweat, his breathing hard and fast as he stares down at Mikey with wide eyes. "Sorry," he gasps, "sorry."

Mikey just nods and tries to tug his hands free, wanting to wipe his mouth, but Pete slides down off the couch to kneel beside him and kisses him again, licking Mikey's lips clean. He's still holding Mikey's hands, fingers tangled together tightly enough that it's going to hurt when he lets go.

Mikey's hard and aching in his jeans, his hips rocking instinctively. Pete lets go of one hand and reaches down, popping the button on Mikey's fly and working his hand inside to press flush against him through his boxers. Mikey thrusts up against his hand and gasps against his mouth, lost in heat and sensation until it spills over and he comes wet and sticky in his clothes.

Pete breaks off the kiss and rests his forehead against Mikey's, breathing in a sharp, ragged rhythm that doesn't quite match Mikey's own. Mikey traces his free hand down Pete's chest, letting his fingers wander over the warm skin and the pounding heartbeat underneath.

Pete finally lets go of Mikey's hand and it seems like a cue to sit back. Mikey flexes his fingers and reaches for his beer, draining the last inch that remains before he looks at Pete again.

"So," Pete says. "Um."

Mikey nods. "Yeah." He gets to his feet slowly, tugging his boxers and his jeans back into place. "How about a movie? It's not that late yet, if you want to stay."
**
When Mikey wakes up in the morning, Pete's already out of bed, kneeling by the bookshelf and running his fingers down the spines. He jumps about a foot and a half when Mikey clears his throat.

"Morning," he says, tucking his hands up in his sleeves and turning to look at Mikey. "I didn't wake you up, did I?"

"No." Mikey squints at the clock and bites back a groan. He doesn't have to be at work for hours. There's no reason to be awake yet. Stupid fucked-up internal clock. "How long have you been awake?"

"A while. I don't sleep." He says it dismissively, like it's no big deal, and Mikey's still groggy enough to let it pass. "I was going to let myself out, but that seemed kinda...tacky. Didn't want you to get the wrong idea."

"What's the wrong idea?"

"That I was, like, weirded out, or whatever."

Mikey rubs his eyes and peers at Pete through his fingers. "What's the right idea?"

"That absolutely nothing is weird at all."

That's obviously a lie, but Mikey doesn't give a shit. When he's in charge, discussion of anything more complicated than peeing and finding coffee and a muffin is going to be banned for the first two hours after waking up. "I'll be back." He shuffles down the hall to the bathroom and takes care of the first item on that list, then splashes water on his face and combs it back through his hair, wondering vaguely what the most graceful way to handle this situation might be.

He doesn't come up with anything. Winging it, then. Awesome.

He comes out of the bathroom to find Pete already wearing his jacket, keys in hand. "Well, now that it's not awkward..."

"Oh. Okay. I was going to ask if you wanted coffee."

"Nah. I'm good. I'm cool. You think you can make it on Saturday?"

"No."

Pete shuffles his feet, which moves him closer to the door. "Oh. Lunch on Tuesday, then? Diner? Three o'clock?"

Mikey's tempted to say no just on general damn principles, but he looks at Pete again and something stops him. There's hope in Pete's eyes, underneath the unease. This is Pete's version of trying, and it's maybe harder than Mikey's inclined to give him credit for at first.

"Yeah," he says, pushing his hair back off his face again. "Tuesday sounds good. I'll see you then."

"With bells on, Mikeyway," Pete says, smiling again as he walks to the door. "Highlight of my week, I swear."

He's a liar, Mikey thinks as the door clicks closed behind him, he's a liar and he's a million contradictory things all mixed up in one tiny package and laced down with tattoos and that grin and those wide eyes that keep tripping Mikey up when he least expects it. He's a liar and the reasonable thing for Mikey to do is cut his losses.

Mikey's tired of cutting losses. The list of things he's cut away and set adrift because it was the reasonable thing is longer than his arm and every item on it is an ache in his chest. So this is a stupid idea. Maybe he's earned a stupid idea after all this time.
**
Tuesday's lunch is fine. They talk about music and TV and nothing in particular. They make plans to see a movie on Sunday, once Mikey sleeps off Saturday's night shift and Pete recovers from his show. Pete picks up the check and won't take no for an answer, just says "You'll get me next time, Mikeyway."

Mikey does, and somehow it turns into a pattern, lunch every week and alternating on who pays. They see each other on most of Mikey's days off, and he makes it to a handful of Arma shows. Fall starts to wind into winter, and even Mikey's forgetfulness is outweighed by the need for his coat, and for a hat pulled down low over his ears. Soon he'll need a scarf, too, wrapped up to his eyeballs. It's not colder than Jersey, but it's different in a way that makes his bones ache, and Pete's assurances that he'll get used to it in a few years don't help.

Pete spends the night three more times over that stretch of weeks. They're both solidly buzzed every time, warm with one thing or another and wanting skin under their hands, a body close against their own. Every time is mostly the same; they kiss until they're both hazy and stupid and then Mikey goes down on him, takes Pete deep and tastes him in the back of his throat, drags his nails over Pete's thighs to feel him tremble. When Pete can breathe again he touches Mikey, presses his hand against him firm and warm, lets him thrust and gasp and come, through his boxers the first time and skin to skin after that.

The first morning after, like that very first time, Pete's out the door almost as fast as Mikey can say good morning and goodbye. The second time, he stays long enough for a cup of coffee, and Mikey feels like he got away with something, like he needs to hold his breath or it might get taken away.

The third time Pete stays over, Gerard calls.

The sheets are still damp with sweat when Mikey's phone goes off, rattling across the bedside table and threatening to drop to the floor. He reaches for it to silence it, not to answer, but then he sees Gerard's name on the ID and hesitates, curling his fingers around the plastic. "I should..."

"Something important?" Pete's voice is thick and sleepy, relaxed and there in a way he won't be in the morning or even in an hour. Mikey very badly wants to kiss him, to taste that presence on his mouth.

"I should take it, yeah," he says instead, and slides off the bed, hitting the button to accept the call. "Hey. It's me."

"Mikey." Gerard sounds about half-wrecked, and Mikey closes his eyes, slipping out the bedroom door without looking back and closing it behind him. He settles down on the floor in the hallway, leaning against the wall and blinking down at the living room. He can just catch a glimpse out the window, out over the city. He can hear his roommate's stereo thumping away quietly in the next room.

Gerard wants to quit his job again, hates it, hates his life, hates their parents, hates himself. Mikey breathes slowly through his nose and listens, noting every dropped consonant and hesitation, every slur and pause. They're comforting, in a weird way. He knows Gerard like this.

"...and if you would just come home," Gerard says. Mikey waits for the conclusion, for what would be different if he did. Gerard doesn't finish the thought.

"I love you," Mikey says after a few minutes. "I love you."

The note in Gerard's voice might be exhaustion or might be defeat. Mikey can't tell from here. He's sincere, though. The words are true. "I love you too."

"Drink some water, huh? Get some sleep."

"Yeah. I should."

"I love you."

"I love you too."

"Goodnight." Mikey snaps the phone closed on Gerard's mumbled reply. He closes his eyes and presses the phone against his forehead for a moment, forcing himself to keep taking the same slow, controlled breaths. In and in and in. Out and out and out. It is what it is and he can't change anything.

When he looks up, Pete is standing in the bedroom doorway. His brow is furrowed and the light is coming from the far end of the hall, leaving his eyes shadowed and unreadable. Mikey doesn't move for a moment, just stares at the lines of his body, how his tattoos melt into his skin and the shadows and the pair of boxers hanging low on his hips.

"Are you okay?" Pete asks.

Mikey shrugs and carefully gets to his feet. He goes to slide the phone into his pocket, until he realizes that he's naked. "It's fine."

"Who was it?"

"My brother."

"Is he okay?"

"He's..." Mikey takes a breath and starts toward him, toward the door. He doesn't want to be standing naked in the hallway any longer. Either pants or a closed door are a necessity.

Pete falls back and lets him in, his hand brushing cautiously over Mikey's back as he passes. "Hey. You don't have to tell me if you don't want to."

Optional honesty is such a nice, steady barrier between them. Mikey nods and tosses his phone on the table again. "Thanks."

"C'mon and lie down?"

It's very clearly a question, an invitation, and for a beat Mikey wants to refuse it out of pure spite. He wants to tell Pete to get out and take his mouth and his scars and his morning-after panics with him.

Pete's fingers rub along his back in slow, careful circles. Mikey follows him to the bed and stretches out on his stomach, closing his eyes tightly enough to keep even memories out.

"You want..." Pete's voice is low and hesitant. Mikey keeps his eyes closed and his face turned into the pillow, controlling his breath. "I could..."

Mikey feels a hot kiss pressed to his shoulder, his back, the side of his neck. Pete's hand slides down his spine, lingering at the base of it, and Mikey can just barely feel the tremor in his fingers.

He turns his head to the side to take a full breath. "I think I actually just want to go to sleep. If that's okay."

Pete pulls away like he's been burned. "Yeah. Sure. Whatever you need."

In the morning, Pete's gone before Mikey wakes up, and there's a scribbled note stuck to the refrigerator informing him that Arma's going on a three-week tour and they'll totally get together when he gets back. Mikey only reads it once before he throws it away.
**
Mikey had a pretty solid plan to spend a week angry at Pete and then a week forgetting him. Seven single shifts, four doubles, twenty-two missed meals, ten packs of cigarettes and more six-packs than he should later, he has to admit that the plan completely failed. He’s still really, really pissed and he hasn’t forgotten anything.

Friday night of the second week, he’s at work, digging in for the long haul of the second half of a double shift. He’s got two scene kids who aren’t even old enough to smoke sniping at each other back and forth across his exam room, something about one of them being a loser and the other one having stupid hair, and their shrill little voices make something just kind of snaps in the back of his head.

He bangs the supply drawer closed as hard as he can. "Enough! You both have stupid hair. And you’re too young to be getting drunk and picking fights. Get drunk and pick up girls instead." He shoves an ice pack at one of them and a wrist brace at the other. "Or boys. Whatever. And you, be more careful with your hands. You want to keep playing the guitar, you sort of need them."

Wrist Brace glares at him from under thick, heavy bangs. "How’d you know I play the guitar?"

Mikey grabs his wrist and flips his hand palm-up. "Calluses."

"You’re creepy as hell, dude," Ice Pack mutters, and Mikey walks out of the exam room.

"Renee," he says, catching one of the other nurse’s arms as she passes by, "I need you to cover my shift tomorrow."

"That’s kind of short notice, Mikey."

"You owe me one." She owes him about seven, but nobody keeps track any farther back than one.

She wants to argue, he can tell, but she stops and studies his face. "You’re right on the edge of a screaming fit, aren’t you, honey?"

"I’ve had a really rough week." Two weeks. Couple of months. Last few years.

She sighs and rubs the back of her neck. "Night shift tomorrow, right?"

"Yeah."

"And then we’re even?"

Or close enough to it. "Yeah."

"Fine. Get through tonight without pitching a fit and I’ll cover you tomorrow."

"Thank you." He walks to the nurse’s station and snags Javi’s elbow with one hand while scribbling his name on the sign-out sheet with the other. "Can you go release the two kids in Exam Four? I need a cigarette or I’m going to blow a blood vessel."

"That shit’ll kill you, you know."

"I’m counting on it." He dots the i savagely and heads to the locker room for his cell phone and cigarettes before hitting the parking lot. It’s late-autumn cold, the air clear and sharp like it might cut his skin, and he drags warm smoke deep into his lungs before he flips through the contacts in his phone and dials his roommate.

"It’s Mikey," he says, squinting out across the lot through the layer of fog on his glasses. "Can I borrow your car tomorrow? Yeah. Just leave the keys on the table. Thanks, man. I appreciate it."

He hangs up and looks at his phone again, scrolling down to Pete’s name and letting his finger hover over the dial button for a moment. He doesn’t know what it is he wants to say. I memorized your schedule, asshole, you have 24 hours to prepare. That lacks a certain something.

Besides, the only thing he might have going for him is the element of surprise.

Wrist Brace and Ice Pack go marching across the parking lot, still arguing in high-pitched voices about how unfair everything is and how hard their parents are going to kick their asses. Mikey takes a last deep drag on his cigarette, grinds it out under his heel, and puts his phone away. Six more hours on-shift, a shower, and then he’s heading out of state to crash a show. It’s like being seventeen all over again.
**
Cedar Rapids is, it turns out, only about four hours away from Chicago. That’s a flaw in his plan he hadn’t considered. His shift ended at six in the morning; he was on the road by eight-thirty, and now it’s not even one in the afternoon and he has about eight hours to kill in Iowa. Plus he’s been awake since ten AM the day before.

He treats himself to a movie and then falls asleep in the backseat of the car in a Wal-Mart parking lot. He doesn’t sleep well, between the seat belt buckles digging into his ribs and restless dreams and the fact that it’s just as fucking cold in Iowa as it was in Chicago. He wakes up groggy and chilled just before the club doors open, his stomach sour from popcorn and Jujubes and his head throbbing. He still doesn’t know what he’s going to say to Pete.

The Arma van and trailer are parked by the back entrance to the club, but he’s pretty sure they must all be inside by now. Inside is where the booze lives anyway. He buys his ticket and makes his way inside, verifying at a glance that it’s exactly the kind of shitty venue he expected. The room is the size of a pack of cigarettes and the stage is the size of a matchbook. The whiskey is cheap and vile and warms him all over.

Exactly like being seventeen again.

The opening act is local and young and enthusiastic and terrible. He does his best to ignore them, because they remind him too much of himself, only worse-dressed and with flat Midwestern accents when they intro between songs. He switches to beer when they clear the stage, and moves from the bar over to the wall while Arma sets up. He isn’t going into the pit, not tonight; as bad as he’s already swaying on his feet, he wouldn’t last past the first song.

The set is rocky; Pete is into it, jumping and screaming and throwing himself around the stage, but the drummer is clearly off his ass on something and the guitarists aren’t even acknowledging each other’s existence, much less trying to play together. Mikey stares across the room at Pete’s face, lit up and distorted by the shitty yellow lighting, and thinks about the sweat running down his throat and his back, the way that tastes after it dries and sets on his skin, how wound-up and electric Pete gets after a show.

He goes back to the bar for one more beer, drinking it too fast and shuddering a little against the too-tight feeling in his stomach. He needs air, suddenly, he needs the cold, and he stumbles out into the parking lot without looking back at Pete screaming at the crowd, telling them to get the fuck up already.

Mikey throws up on the telephone pole at the end of the parking lot, and then leans against it, silently grateful that it exists to hold him up until the club empties out. He closes his eyes and rests his head against the splintered wood, his brain swirling behind his eyelids. He wants to lie down. He wants to call Gerard. He wants to not be in goddamn Iowa. He doesn’t know what he wants.

He wants Pete to come outside.

Eventually the doors swing open and people spill out into the lot, voices loud and hoarse in the cold air. Mikey stays where he is, propped solidly against the post, refusing to be distracted until the band starts hauling their shit out and putting it in the trailer. He’s here for a reason, and it’s not to hook up with Iowa girls, even if he does help out the three of them who make their way over and ask him for a light.

When Pete comes outside, it’s with another girl draped over his arm, both of them laughing. Mikey pushes off the telephone pole and makes his way toward them, stepping carefully around potholes and glass and fliers that have been dropped to rot into mush on the pavement. He gets to the trailer just as Pete crowds the girl up against it and ducks his head to investigate the collar of her shirt, his mouth homing in easily on the curve of her breasts.

"Sorry to interrupt," Mikey says, his voice coming out thick and clumsy, stumbling over his own tongue. Fuck, he is drunk. "Only need a minute."

Pete jerks back from the girl, turning around so fast he almost loses his balance. "Mikey?"

"I only need a minute," Mikey repeats, settling his weight back on his heels in an effort to maintain his own upright status.

"What are you doing here?"

Mikey just stares at him, not inclined to bother saying it a third time. There are a really limited number of reasons why he would drive to Iowa and ask for a minute of Pete’s time.

"Who’s that?" the girl asks, tugging at her shirt. "Jesus, fuck off, dude."

"He’s a friend," Pete says, still staring at Mikey with eyes that are wide and dark under the parking-lot lights, both with surprise and with the blown-out glaze that some part of Mikey’s brain helpfully supplies the label of pharmacological effect. "Can you give me a minute to talk to him?"

"Oh, fuck you," she snaps, jerking away from him. "I’m not, like, some toy you can just put aside for a minute and come back to. Asshole. Both of you are assholes." She stalks off across the lot and Mikey feels bad, because he did just ruin her night. It only lasts a few seconds, though, before getting lost in the swirling, pounding mess in his head, and then he’s blinking at Pete again and trying to remember what he came here to say.

Except he never figured that out, so he’s winging it. Right.

"What the fuck," he starts off. Goddamn eloquent as ever.

"Dude, seriously, I can’t believe you drove to Iowa."

"It’s only four hours."

"Yeah, but…"

Mikey waits, shivering even though he feels flushed and hot. He’s staring at Pete, he can’t look away, and he can’t remember any of the cutting words or heartfelt arguments he came up with over the last two weeks or in the drive down the interstate.

"But we suck, and it’s cold, and I’m an asshole," Pete says, laughing a little at the end. It’s a sharp and jagged laugh, a little bit, manic, and Mikey wants to taste it, wants to put his mouth over Pete’s and pull his flaws and edges in and give back his own. "I mean, I’m like a total asshole and I can’t believe you drove out here to see me."

"I drove out here to tell you that you’re an asshole."

Pete laughs again and gestures with both hands, a sweeping arc that takes himself in from head to toe. "So we both agree. That’s fuckin’ awesome."

"And I want you to stop."

Pete drags his fingers through his hair, pushing it off his forehead and leaving it standing up in ragged chunks. "Stop what?"

"Being an asshole."

"I think it’s just the way I am, Mikeyway. I’ve tried to stop and it just comes back. Like herpes or something."

Mikey takes a breath, dragging cold air into his lungs that hurts but clears his head just a little bit, just enough to find the next thing he needs to say. "Why do you leave?"

Pete shoves his hands in his pockets, hunching his shoulders in half a shrug. "I freak out, kinda."

"But why do you leave?"

"I like to do my freaking out without an audience."

"I had your dick in my mouth." It comes out sounding flat and cold and kind of mean in the air of the ugly parking lot, and Pete actually flinches back from it. "I’m pretty sure that means I like you enough to handle some freaking out."

"I don’t think that’s how it works."

"How does it work, then?"

"Jesus, you ask me all these fucking questions like I have any fucking answers." Pete steps forward, jabbing his finger at Mikey’s chest, pushing him back a step. "I don’t, okay? I don’t have a goddamn clue. I just know that I fucking…watch you sleep and think about what we did and I feel like something’s about to explode out of my chest like in Alien or something if I don’t get away."

Mikey’s head is spinning again and it takes a couple more breaths to calm it down. "If you don’t like messing around, you could just, you know, tell me that and we would stop."

"I do like it, though." Pete steps back again, until he bumps into the trailer and lets his head fall back against the side. "I do fucking like it. While we’re doing it. It’s just…that later that gets me." He shrugs. "And I freak out."

Mikey stares at him for a minute and then shakes his head, licking his lips and darting his gaze up to the sky. "I don’t get it, Pete. I mean, I get it, but I don’t."

"It isn’t fair. What we do. I mean, you do all the…stuff and I can’t…I don’t…"

"Who said a fucking thing about fair?"

"It isn’t."

"I like it." Mikey steps in toward him, and Pete can’t back away. "I fucking get off every time, in case you didn’t notice. I like it. I get off on getting you off. Haven’t you been paying attention?"

"But that isn’t fair."

"Jesus Christ." Mikey exhales and moves forward again, pushing his body up against Pete’s and Pete flush up against the trailer. "Jesus Christ, Pete, you are fucking impossible."

Whatever Pete wants to say to that, Mikey kisses him until he can’t, taking his mouth hard and bruising. He doesn’t want to argue, all of a sudden, and he wants Pete to not want it either, and this is the best tactic he can come up with.

Plus Pete tastes good, like beer and sweat, and Pete is warm as a furnace even out there in the breeze moving across the nearly-empty parking lot.

"Mikey," he whispers, his breath hot against Mikey’s mouth. "Jesus, Mikeyway."

"Stop being an asshole," Mikey whispers back, pressing his hips against Pete’s, holding him hard against the trailer.

Pete laughs, breathless and achy. "Yeah, okay. I’ll try?"

"Good." Mikey kisses him again, running his hands down Pete’s arms and catching his wrists. He doesn’t pin them, just holds them for a moment, then guides them until Pete’s hands settle on Mikey’s hips. "Try right now."

"We’re in a parking lot, dude."

"I know."

"My band."

Mikey sighs, ducking his head against Pete’s shoulder. "If they didn’t notice this whole thing, why would they…"

"I’m pretty sure they noticed. They’re just tired of dealing with my bullshit."

"Right." Mikey takes a breath. "Fine. Can we…let’s go somewhere else. Somewhere with food, maybe."

Pete hooks two fingers carefully in the waistband of Mikey’s jeans, holding him in place before he can step away. "No real diners around here. I think I saw a Denny’s the next exit up."

Mikey nods. "Let’s go. I’ve got a car."
**
The circles around Pete’s eyes are dark enough to lose something in. There’s a muscle ticking in his jaw, and Mikey can tell he’s coming down off his post-show high, settling onto a restless, less comfortable level. He's not sure he's quite sober enough to have a conversation on that level. He eats his way through his platter of bacon, eggs, and hashbrowns all swimming in grease, not saying anything, while Pete picks at a burger and fries, eating a few bites and shredding the rest between his fingers.

"I can't believe you drove all this way," Pete says finally.

"I wanted to talk to you."

"You didn't have to work tonight?"

"I got someone to cover me."

Pete glances up from the remains of his fries. "Huh. Usually it's the other way around."

Mikey shifts in his seat and shrugs. "Yeah, well, I really wanted to talk to you."

"You mean you wanted to yell at me." Pete's smiling when Mikey glances up, a lopsided twist of his mouth while his eyes are still fixed on his plate. "Which is smart. That's really the only way to get through to me most of the time."

"I'm not planning to make a habit of it."

"You will." Pete pushes his plate away and settles back in his seat, looking at Mikey thoughtfully. "Or did you mean driving across two states to see a shitty band?"

Mikey spins his fork slowly between his fingers. "You know why I came to Chicago?"

Pete blinks at the non sequitur, but rallies. "No. You never told me."

"I drove across...quite a few states to see a band."

"And decided you liked the Midwest so much you just had to stay?"

Mikey laughs, shaking his head, and swirls the last half-inch of coffee in his mug. "Not exactly."

"Tell me another story, Mikeyway. We've got all night."

Mikey sets his mug at the edge of the table for the waitress, then looks at Pete again. Between the shadows under his eyes and the fluorescent lights washing his skin out, he's an unhealthy picture, but he's looking at Mikey intently, like there's nothing else he wants to hear right now but this story. Mikey thinks they owe each other that much, the listening and the telling.

"I finished the nursing program in the spring," he says, curling his fingers around the edge of the table. "And I knew I needed to put in applications and stuff, but I wanted one last hurrah, right? One last good time before I did all that. And my parents were so proud of me, so proud, so they let me slide a little on it, let me put off getting a job to follow this band around for a couple of weeks with a buddy. He had a car, like a station wagon, so we figured we'd sleep in the back and follow the band from Jersey to Chicago, see all their shows on the way."

"What band?"

Mikey smiled despite himself. Pete would ask the important questions. "You haven't heard of them. They were a Jersey band, guys I knew from the scene at home."

Pete nods. "So you drove to Chicago."

"Yeah. And it was...it was great." Sleeping at rest stops, never ever being really sober, hooking up in the bed of a truck in the venue parking lot while people walking by threw quarters at them like they were performing for tips. Fucking magical. "It was crazy great."

"Like a last hurrah should be."

"Right." He tips his head back and exhales, staring at the ceiling. He thinks he can feel the buzz of the fluorescent lights in the bones of his skull. "So we go to the Chicago show, and it's...incredible, it's amazing, and I'm out there on the floor and I just completely freak the fuck out."

Pete winces a little. "Bad drugs?"

"No. This was purely my head." There's a line of wiring taped to the ceiling tiles, and he tracks it back and forth with his eyes so he won't have to look at Pete. "I don't know, I just...started thinking that this was it, this was the end, I was going to go back to Jersey and get a job and be a real responsible adult, this was the end of bands and running around and doing crazy shit, this was the last fun I was ever going to have. And I freaked out." He shrugs, bumping his shoulder blades back against the plastic of the booth. "I'm a little dramatic sometimes."

"I never would've guessed." Pete rattles his ice in his cup, and when Mikey glances over at him, he's smiling that lopsided smile again. "Plus, you know, I don't have any ground to stand on when it comes to that."

"Huh." The waitress refills Mikey's mug, and he takes a long drink, letting the coffee burn his tongue. "So I freaked out. Decided I couldn't go home. And the guys we were crashing with, my buddy's friends, they said I could stay on their couch until I got on my feet. I stayed awake until eight AM, called my parents, told them I wasn't coming back, could they send a box of my clothes. They also threw in my diploma, because they're a lot smarter than me and they knew I was going to have to get a job anyway, wherever I was." He takes another drink, swallowing this one quickly now that his mouth is numb. "And I haven't been home since."

"That's awesome, though," Pete says after a minute. "That's brave. You just...made a choice and threw caution to the wind and...you did it. That's awesome. They must be really proud."

Mikey tilts his cup back and forth, watching the coffee splash against the sides. "Yeah. They are. I kind of spit all over my brother, though."

"What do you mean? He's not proud of you?"

"He is." He thinks so, anyway. It's hard to tell, sometimes, in the stilted and strange conversations they have. "We were really close, growing up. Always. Like...finishing each other's sentences, that close. We were talking about getting an apartment together when I found a job."

Pete nods slowly. "But you left."

"I left without saying goodbye." Mikey meets his eyes finally, for the first time since he started the story. "And I haven't been back."

Pete looks at him for a long moment, then breaks away, his gaze settling on the table as he digs his wallet out of his pocket. "Let's get out of here, huh?"

It's warm in the restaurant, and there's coffee, and Mikey's pretty sure that it's going to start to rain if not sleet at any minute. But there's something in Pete's voice, a rough note under the carelessness, that makes him nod, put his cup aside, and follow.
**
The cold is like a slap to the face when they step through the doors. Mikey hunches his shoulders and shoves his hands into the pocket of his hoodie, bracing himself against the wind. Pete steps toward him and he braces himself for an impact, for Pete to bump against him and push him aside, but instead he feels cold fingers against his wrist. He turns his hand, threading his fingers with Pete's as they walk back to the car.

"Where should we go?" Pete asks quietly.

"I don't care. Just drive around, I guess."

"Okay." Pete holds out his hand and Mikey surrenders the keys. "The Cedar Rapids scenic tour."

Mikey rests his head against the cold glass and closes his eyes, feeling the streets race by under the car. He thinks they're moving in aimless, looping circles, but it doesn't matter. They don't have anywhere to be.

He doesn't fall asleep, but he zones out for a while, lost in the vibration of the wheels and the low constant mutter of the CD that's jammed in the player. He only snaps back to himself when Pete's fingers close around his arm, warm now and holding tight. "Mikey?"

"Mmm." He blinks slowly, licking his lips and squinting until he sees that they're parked in an empty lot behind a big-box store, closed down for the night. "What..."

"I wanted to talk to you."

"Oh." Mikey sits up and rubs at his eyes, trying to clear his head. "Um. Okay. What about?"

"I lied. I don't want to talk."

Mikey stares at him, confused, and Pete laughs. He shakes his head and cups a hand around Mikey's jaw, leaning in and kissing him. Mikey shudders and sinks into the kiss, sliding his hands up Pete's arms and holding on tightly.

The CD starts over yet again and Pete flails his hand out to stop it. Mikey laughs against his mouth, pulling back just enough to nuzzle him. "Backseat."

"Yeah." Pete nods, climbing into the back in a complicated maneuver that includes kicking the windshield and getting wedged ass-to-ceiling for a minute before he falls into the seat. Mikey doesn't laugh, just gets out of the car and in again, settling on top of Pete and pinning him to the cushions as he re-claims his mouth.

Mikey slides his hands up under Pete’s shirt, tracing the lines of his ribs and abdomen. Pete is always vocal when they make out, and now is no exception; the hot, bitten-off noises he makes against Mikey’s mouth make Mikey shudder and shift against him, trying to find the right angle and friction to rock their hips together.

"Hold on," Pete mutters. Mikey doesn’t pull back, but he does go still, which lets Pete catch him around the waist and roll them both over. Mikey gasps as the seat belt buckle jams into his kidney all over again, but before he has a chance to complain Pete is grabbing his wrists and pinning them on either side of his head. "You like that, right?" Pete asks, kissing him again before he can answer. "You always kinda seem to like it."

"Yeah. Yeah, I like it."

"Cool." Pete lets go with one hand just long enough to reach down between them and pop the buttons on both their jeans, skimming the zippers down quickly and then moving against Mikey nice and slow. He finds the angle that Mikey had been searching for apparently without any trouble at all, and Mikey arches up into him, closing his eyes as Pete pins his wrist again and starts to move.

It’s awesomely, stupidly adolescent, steaming up the windows and getting off in the backseat of a car that isn’t even theirs. Pete gasps against Mikey’s mouth like he’s drowning, and Mikey’s thighs shake under Pete’s weight, but it’s good, so fucking good. Mikey can’t be bothered with being embarrassed about this, especially since it’s the middle of the night in an Iowa parking lot and nobody in the entire world is wondering where they are.

Pete kisses his forehead and his eyelids and his jaw when it’s over, his lips dry and warm against Mikey’s skin. "Fuck," he whispers, "fucking amazing, Mikeyway."

Mikey slides his hands up and down Pete’s sweat-slick back and allows himself a smile. Pete traces the curve of it with his fingertips. "Hey," he says softly, "hey, I--"

Pete’s phone buzzes, breaking the stillness inside the car, and Mikey closes his eyes, letting himself relax against the seat while Pete squirms around on top of him. "Oh, shit," he says finally, looking at the message. "I know I promised not to be an asshole and take off anymore, but, uh--"

"Your band’s looking for you."

"Yeah."

Pete really does look anxious, and worried, as much as Mikey can see his face in the dark. He pats Pete on the thigh. "It’s cool. Special exception for being on the road, and me being a crazy person who surprises you out of nowhere."

"Yeah, if you’d called ahead I could’ve gotten us a hotel."

"Really?"

"No. I am broke as shit, dude." Pete leans down and kisses him again, then zips off his pants and starts climbing back into the front seat. "Broke as a motherfucking joke."

Mikey does up his own jeans and stretches his legs out as best he can, blinking up at the ceiling as the car comes to life again and starts moving out across the lot. It’ll be nice to have the drive back to Chicago to get used to the idea that things kind of turned out okay.
**
Okay is relative, and Pete moves in cycles. Mikey can accept this, because he’s had an impressive number of people inform him over the years that he does, as well. He doesn’t know if, from the outside, his look anything much like Pete’s, but that doesn’t mean he isn’t going to try to be kind.

As much as he can, anyway, because he isn’t perfect and God knows it isn’t easy all/most/any of the time.

Mikey loses track of Thanksgiving altogether, between work and not having anywhere he plans to go. The call from his family goes to his voicemail while he’s treating people who overestimated their ability to deep-fry a turkey or handle a bread knife. He listens to the message on his way home on the train, and Gerard’s softly muttered "I love you, I miss you" changes his meal plans from carry-out Chinese to soloing a bag of pretzels and a six-pack in front of the football game he could not possibly care less about. Pete spends the whole long weekend with his family, and Mikey doesn’t hear from him at all, though Pete brings him leftover pie on Tuesday.

They’ve kept up their diner dates on Tuesdays, and somewhere-else dates on Mikey’s other days off. Record stores, thrift stores, weird little art shows, one outdoor free-for-all of questionable legality that Mikey was pretty sure had been described to him as a pick-up soccer game at first but definitely wasn’t by the time they got there. Pete’s shows, where Mikey tilts his head back and breathes in smoke and sweat and loses himself for a while, and after-Pete’s-shows, when now he goes off with the band to wherever they’re going that night and they all get high together before the two of them slip away and go back to Mikey’s apartment. Pete starts lingering in the mornings, true to his word, and Mikey learns that he likes toast with strawberry jelly, and has a complicated relationship with Guiding Light. They’re all pieces that fit together, if a little roughly around the edges, and they make a pattern to the days and weeks that Mikey’s starting to like.

And then there are the times when Pete blows up for no reason, or shows up bleeding from a fight, or walks out of the diner mid-meal because I can’t do this, I can’t fucking be here today. Mikey gets it, is the thing. He knows exactly the feeling. He isn’t sure if Pete believes him, but he does.

And then it’s Christmas.
**
Pete shows up mid-afternoon on Christmas Day with two bottles of cheap red wine, a three-inch-thick stack of DVDs, and one carefully wrapped box. "Merry Christmas, Mikeyway."

"How did you know I was off today?"

"You worked Thanksgiving, so you get Christmas. You told me that…at some point. Fuck if I remember." Pete pushes the box into his hand and sets the wine on top of the TV. "This shit is awful, but I figured we should go classy for the holiday."

"How come you’re not with your family?" Mikey gets his fingernail under the edge of the tape and pulls at it slowly, more to buy a minute without looking at Pete than because he cares about preserving the paper.

"We do the big stuff on Christmas Eve. Now the kids are playing with their toys, and I told my mom I needed to get out for a while. By which I meant be back tomorrow, maybe. She knows that." Pete flops down on the couch and blinks at Mikey. "Do you like it?"

"Don’t have it open yet." His excuse used up, he tears the rest of the paper off and opens the box, revealing a black hoodie nestled in tissue paper. He takes it out carefully and finds that it's the heavy, sturdy kind, fabric almost canvas-stiff under his fingers and the fleece a quarter-inch dense inside the hood.

"You're always cold." Pete shrugs. "And you like black." He sounds almost bored, but his eyes are sharp, watching Mikey closely.

"It's great. Exactly what I needed." Mikey tugs it over his head, wincing a little as it catches his glasses and knocks them from his face onto the floor. Pete leans forward and snags them before Mikey can, carefully sliding them back onto his nose. "Thank you."

"You're welcome." Pete kisses him, fast and light, his tongue just grazing against Mikey's lips, then sits back on the couch again, folding his knees up to his chest. "You want to watch a movie?"

"Let me get your present first."

"You didn't have to get me anything."

"You didn't have to get me anything either, but obviously we both wanted to anyway." He walks back to his bedroom, flipping the hood up over his head. It's deep enough that it falls all the way forward to the line of his jaw. He probably looks like a Jedi in this thing.

He hasn't had a chance to wrap Pete's present; it's still in the Barnes & Noble bag, sitting on his bookshelf. He takes it back to the living room and then retreats back to the kitchen, finding two plastic bar cups that aren't too dirty for the wine.

When he comes back, Pete is reading the back flap of the book, his brow furrowed. "Irvine Welsh," he says. "I don't think I've ever read anything by him."

"It's good. I picked it up just because I thought the title was cool, but I really liked it." Mikey sits beside him on the couch and reaches for the first bottle. "Did you find the other thing?"

Pete holds up the movie-theater gift card and smiles. "Thanks. Maybe we can use this tonight?"

"Does that mean I should hold off on opening the wine?"

"Good point." Pete tucks the card into the book. "Movies another day. Getting badly drunk now."

"Sweet." Mikey twists the cork out and pours. "What are all those DVDs you brought?"

"Ah. Those." Pete gets up and goes to get them. "These have been my research project for the last few weeks."

"Research project," Mikey echoes, puzzled. He takes a sip of wine and promptly chokes on it as Pete tosses a case into his lap. "Oh," he manages after a minute. "Okay, well, that's porn."

It very quickly becomes clear that it's all porn, hard-core guy-on-guy (sometimes multiples of that) porn to be exact.

"Research," Pete says again, sitting down and swinging his feet back and forth like a little kid. It's a disorienting image when compared to the eight collections of assorted assfucking that he neatly stacked in Mikey's lap. "I figured that if we're doing this, I should know what I'm doing. And you learn by doing research. Therefore."

Mikey nods a little. "Therefore, porn."

"Exactly."

"I really hope you don't think I'm as flexible or...talented as any of the guys in these movies. Because I have some bad news."

"I know this is more theory. But, you know, you've gotta pass theory 101 before they let you take the lab practical, right?"

Mikey sets the DVDs on the floor carefully and reaches for his wine again. He finishes the glass before he tries to talk. "Pete."

Pete's looking at him blankly, eyes wide and a little wary. They're ringed in shadows again, evidence that he hasn't been sleeping, and Mikey really just wants to pull him into his arms, kiss him a few times, and then hold him while they watch Die Hard and argue about if they could successfully pull off that kind of cool in a crisis. But he's pretty sure the right thing to do is lay this situation to rest first.

"I don't expect you to fuck like a porn star," he says, holding up his hand before Pete can answer. "And yeah, theory vs. practical, I know. But there is no practical, Pete. There's no exam. I'm not grading you. I promise. The absolute last thing on my mind when we're together is any kind of evaluation form, okay?"

"I want you to like having sex with me."

"Don't you think that if I didn't, I would have mentioned it by now?"

Pete shrugs, hunching his shoulders a little. His gaze drops from Mikey's face to the wine. "Maybe you're just, like, really super-polite."

"Nobody is that polite. Maybe robots. I'm not a robot." He reaches out carefully, slowly, and brushes Pete's hair off his forehead when he doesn't pull away. Pete's got it bleached in an odd pattern right now, patchy and lopsided and leaving him looking kind of like one of the mutts that Mikey sees being walked every morning on his way to the El. "I promise, if I have a complaint or a problem, I will tell you."

Pete exhales slowly and leans into Mikey's hand. "Well, now this is just embarrassing and awkward all over the place."

"Yeah. Fortunately, we've got wine."

"Thank God."

Mikey shifts so his back is against the arm of the couch and pats the vee of cushion between his legs. "Come on. Over here." Pete rolls his eyes but moves as instructed, leaning heavily back against him.

"Why did you bring all of the DVDs with you?" Mikey asks after a few moments, pressing a kiss to the top of Pete's head and then taking another sip of wine.

"Oh." Pete shrugs and presses against him more. "I figured two bottles of wine was probably about right that we could watch some of it and then I could try the practical without it being too awkward and horrible."

Mikey rests his forehead against Pete's skull and bites back a sigh. "Hot."

"Tell me about it." Pete's quiet for a minute, then tilts his head to look back at him. "Hey."

"Yeah?"

"I don't have any complaints, either."

Mikey looks at him. "Just an inferiority complex?"

"You're starting to figure me out."

Mikey laughs and holds him tighter. "Maybe."
**
Mikey pulls a double shift on New Year's Day, but by some miracle it's morning and swing shifts and he's out the door at ten PM. A sudden turn in the weather means that the hoodie Pete gave him is enough to wear on its own; rain is threatening at the edge of the sky, but it's too warm for snow.

He digs his phone out after he gets off the El, punching in Pete's number. They had a vague plan to spend the evening together, if Pete was recovered from his New Year's Eve celebrations. Mikey isn't too hung up on it either way. After the day he had, crawling into bed and being immobile for a good twelve hours has a strong appeal.

The phone rings and rings, and he stops at the entrance to the station, shifting his weight and shoving his free hand deeper into his pocket. It's weird for Pete not to pick up, but he might be too hungover to move, or asleep. He counts off the five rings before it'll flip to voicemail, planning out a promise that they'll meet up in the morning.

The phone picks up on the fifth ring. "Pete's phone, Trohman speaking."

Mikey frowns down at the sidewalk, mentally flipping through the list of names Pete's mentioned and not able to pin that one down. "Um. Hi. This is Mikey Way."

"Mikey...oh, Mikey! Hi."

"Hi." Mikey waits, rubbing his fingers together inside his pocket. When the silence stretches out, he clears his throat. "Is Pete there?"

"Pete...no. He's not here."

"Okay." Mikey waits again. "Where is he?"

"He was at a gas station, the last I saw him."

Mikey closes his eyes and thumps his head back against the wall. "Why?"

"Because that was the nearest place to pull over when he threw a fit and told us to let him out of the car."

"Right." Mikey thumps his head again and pushes his glasses up higher. "Can you give me the address of the gas station?"

Trohman tells him the cross-street and Mikey starts walking again, hoping his roommate's either home or left his keys where Mikey can lift them. "Sorry, man," Trohman says. "I wish I could be more helpful."

"It's fine. I'll get him."

"Tell him I'm holding on to his phone for him."

"Yeah, I will." Who the fuck are you?

He shoves his phone back into his jeans pocket and picks up a jog as the sky starts to spit cold, crawling rain. What a night. Damn it, Pete.

He steals the keys off the table by the door and drives out to the address Trohman gave him. It's raining steadily by then, coming down in icy sheets that blur the windshield and make Mikey squint as he maneuvers the car, cutting across traffic to pull into the gas station. Pete's standing off to the side of the building, by the air compressor, viciously kicking at something on the pavement.

Mikey brings the car up beside him and rolls the window down, flinching back from the rain. "Pete."

"What are you doing here?"

"Looking for you."

"You found me!" Pete throws his arms wide, sending water flying out in all directions. His clothes are soaked through, his hoodie dragging down off his body. "You fucking found me, dude. Congratulations. Now what?"

"Get in the car."

"No."

"Please."

Pete kicks at the pavement again, sending up another splash. "What the fuck good would it do? Huh, Mikey?"

"It would keep you from freezing to death, for one thing."

"I'm fine."

"You're soaked."

"I'm fine."

"Pete." Mikey takes a careful breath, digging his fingernails into his palms. "Pete, please."

Pete stares at him, his hair plastered down over his face. "I'll get the car all wet."

"I'll clean it up. Just get in, please?"

Pete climbs into the car, and sure enough, his clothes squish when he sits down and the water puddles in the footwell. He flings his head back against the seat and then forward against the dashboard, hard enough to make Mikey wince. "Fuck. Just...just fucking fuck."

Mikey rolls the window up and starts driving again, aiming the car back toward his apartment. "We'll get dry, get warmed up, I'll order some food."

"Fuck that."

"Okay. We won't order food. But I'd really like to be warm and dry."

"Aren't you going to ask me what happened? What's wrong?" There's a nasty edge to Pete's voice, like he's getting ready in advance to react to anything Mikey says with an explosion. Mikey's too tired to play tonight.

"Tell me if you want to. Don't if you don't." He puts his signal on and slides across lanes, silently cursing the shitty windshield wipers that are making every minute an adventure. "I mostly just didn't want you to freeze to death and die."

Pete's quiet for a minute, still curled forward with his head on the dashboard. He turns to the side a little to look at Mikey. "As opposed to freezing to death and living?"

"Yeah."

"Okay." Pete laughs, a short, choking sound, and sits up, raking his hair back off his face. "Yeah. Okay."

Mikey drives a few more blocks before taking a chance on talking again. "Somebody named Trohman has your phone."

"What? Oh. Okay. Yeah, I'll...I'll get it back from him tomorrow, I guess." Pete frowns and pushes his hair back again. "Yeah, tomorrow."

"I don't think I've met him, have I?"

"No. Probably not." Pete squirms in his seat, tugging his hoodie off and throwing it into the back seat. "He's part of that side project I've been doing. You know. With the kids. He's one of the kids."

Mikey racks his brain and does remember Pete mentioning another project a few times, mostly at top speed and mid-sentence while talking about four other things. It got kind of difficult to tell which were important and which weren't. "So that's coming along?"

"Yeah, actually. It's coming along awesome." Pete stares out the window, shivering in a t-shirt that's also soaked through, even under the hoodie. Mikey flips the heat up higher. "Which I guess is a good thing, since it's going to be all I've got, pretty soon."

"What?"

Mikey's learned to identify a lot of Pete's laughs, and this is one he doesn't like very much. It's high-pitched and sharp-edged and tends to accompany something mean. "Arma's pretty much fucking done, dude. It's toast. It's...in the choice between shit and get off the pot, we are getting off and going our separate ways." He punches the window, his knuckles rapping loudly against the glass. "As soon as we finish the last couple shows we've got booked. Those should just be massively fucking fun to watch, let me tell you."

"I'm sorry."

"Don't be." He hits the window again, flat-handed this time, and Mikey turns his eyes back to the street. "Just don't be."
**
When they get back to the apartment, he tells Pete to go ahead and take a shower while he throws some towels into the car to try to soak up the worst of the water. He didn't get soaked through, so tossing his hoodie and jeans into the dryer and putting on a dry sweatshirt and one of the pairs of beat-up long underwear he brought from Jersey is enough to let him feel warm again. He lies back on his bed and closes his eyes, listening to the pipes groan and hum.

He doesn’t really know what he’s supposed to do at this point, what’s expected of him. Then again, Pete probably doesn’t know, either.

He opens his eyes and finds Pete standing over him, water running down his neck and chest from his hair, a towel clasped loosely around his waist. "Jesus Christ, Pete."

"Did I scare you?"

"Startled me."

"Sorry." Pete reaches out with the hand not holding his towel up and traces his fingers along Mikey’s chest. Mikey swallows and tries not to stare too openly, to not completely ogle the skin above the towel or the pattern of dark hair that vanishes down under it. He’s pretty sure the mood Pete’s in right now isn’t about sex.

Then again, he thinks as Pete climbs onto the bed and straddles his thighs, the towel sliding away forgotten, he could be wrong.

"You’re so fucking gorgeous," Pete whispers, pushing Mikey’s t-shirt up to his armpits and running the flat of his hand down over the exposed skin. "Where did you even come from?"

"Jersey." He means it to come out with a laugh, as a joke, but somehow it just ends up breathless.

"Sometimes I wonder what…" Pete cuts off and lowers his head, pressing kisses along the curve of Mikey’s ribcage, then down to his navel, then lower, until he’s tracing the line of the elastic with his tongue.

"Pete," Mikey says softly, and Pete looks up at him, his eyes dark and shadowed but with cautious warmth there, now, replacing the helpless anger from earlier. Mikey reaches for him, wanting to pull him close and kiss him for real, but Pete shakes his head and sits back.

"Turn over," he says, tossing the towel out of the way. "On your stomach."

Mikey tugs his t-shirt the rest of the way off and obeys, turning his head to the side with his cheek pressed against the pillow and his chin tucked so he can watch Pete from the corner of his eye. Pete curls his fingers in the waist of the long underwear, guiding them down off Mikey’s hips and then pulling them the rest of the way free, tossing them off the bed after the towel. Mikey bites his lip and waits, shifting his hips a little against the mattress.

Pete’s hands settle on his shoulders and then move slowly down his back, warm and heavy. "I want you." He slides his hands up again, then down, lower this time, fingers brushing over Mikey’s waist. They move across where he’s ticklish and he gasps a little, writhing under Pete’s weight.

"Do you want me to stop?" Pete asks, and Mikey shakes his head, closing his eyes tight and turning his head to bury his face in the pillow. Pete kisses the back of his neck, then between his shoulder blades, working his way slowly down until he reaches the base of his spine. When he reverses the path, he licks his way back up, tasting Mikey’s skin and teasing over the pattern of his bones, letting his teeth graze against him as he goes. Mikey’s breath comes in short, helpless gasps, his nerves lighting up at Pete’s slow, careful attention.

When Pete reaches his neck again, he licks along Mikey’s shoulder to the left and nibbles at his skin, his breath hot and wet and his body stretched heavy and close against Mikey’s, his dick hard and caught between his stomach and Mikey’s back. "I want you so fucking much."

Mikey turns his head again, gasping for breath. "Yeah. Yes. Yes."

Pete kisses his neck, then fits his mouth to the flat of bone in his shoulder and bites lightly, thrusting slowly so his cock slides against the small of Mikey’s back. It’s slow, rough friction, pressing Mikey’s own cock down into the mattress, pressure without motion. He holds himself still for what feels like an agonizingly long time, letting the sensations move through him. The heat of Pete’s mouth kissing and sucking along his neck and shoulders and upper back, the sting of his teeth when he bites, the slow roll of his hips and the heat of his dick.

"Fuck," Pete whispers, and moves back, hands clumsily at Mikey’s hips and sides as he adjusts his angle. Now when he thrusts his cock slides in the cleft of Mikey’s ass, not trying to penetrate but rubbing against him, building heat and pressure and grinding Mikey down against the bed. Mikey takes a breath and raises his hips, fumbling blindly beneath himself until he gets his hand wrapped around his cock, working it roughly while Pete weights him down, hot and solid against his back.

Mikey comes first, making a mess trapped between the tight circle of his hand and the bed. Pete thrusts against him a few more times, hot and erratic and slick with precome now, before coming over his back. Mikey turns his face from the pillow again and takes a deep, desperate breath, trying to clear the stars from his vision. He’s soaked in sweat and sticky with come and he feels like human language is a myth he heard a long time ago that applies to people far away and has nothing to do with him.

"I love you," Pete whispers against his neck, and Mikey shakes. "I love you, Mikey Way."
**
January stays rainy and half-warm all the way through. Mikey gets used to splashing and sloshing his way through his days, clothes clinging soddenly to his body and his shoes never quite getting dry.

He's sitting at the diner the last Tuesday of the month, watching the rain streak the glass and half-wondering if it's possible for the whole city to wash away, when Pete slides into the booth across from him. "Sorry I'm late."

"It's cool." He pushes his glasses up on his nose and squints at the folded paper Pete's worrying between his fingers. "What's up? What's that?"

Pete taps it on the table and smiles at the waitress as she brings him a cup of coffee. "You're so awesome, Jennifer. Have I told you that lately?"

"I don't mind hearing it again. Waffles, gentlemen?"

"You know us so well." Pete keeps grinning as she walks away, pulling the paper back out of Mikey's reach. "Take it easy, Mikeyway."

"What is that?"

"Before I tell you, you have to promise to be cool about it."

Mikey settles back in his seat, his eyebrows going up. "Wow, that doesn't make me suspicious at all."

"You have to promise."

Mikey watches him for a minute, then breaks eye contact and takes a sip of coffee. "Fine. I promise."

"You'd better not have your fingers crossed under the table."

"We're not twelve, Pete." He uncrosses his fingers and rubs his hand on his jeans.

"Okay." Pete takes a drink and unfolds the paper, smoothing it on the table. Even upside-down, Mikey recognizes it a plane ticket confirmation. "I'm also going to need you to agree to get a weekend off work. Soon. The one after next, actually."

"You haven't made plans for us to take a vacation or something, have you?"

"Not exactly."

"Pete, for crying out loud, just..."

"Okay. Okay." Pete puts his hands up in surrender. "Here's the thing. I want you to come to the last Arma show."

"The last Arma show is here, in town. I don't need a weekend off work for that, I just need one night."

"Okay, that's technically the last show, but it doesn't count."

Mikey has a feeling he's going to have a headache by the end of this meal. "Why not?"

"Because it's just going to be a giant drunken clusterfuck." Pete waves his hand dismissively. "Forget that show. That show will suck. I'm talking about the last real show."

"Which is..."

Pete pushes the paper across the table, spinning it under his fingers so Mikey sees it right-side-up. "In New Jersey."

The flight confirmation is in Mikey's name, into Newark. "Pete, what..."

"Consider it an early Valentine's Day present, okay?"

Mikey traces the destination with his fingertip. "How did you pay for this?"

"I borrowed it from my dad." Pete shrugs. "Easiest loan in the world."

"You had your dad buy your boyfriend a ticket across the county to your band's second-to-last show."

"My dad is really cool."

The waitress sets their plates on the table, and Mikey's grateful for the distraction. He folds the confirmation again and sets it on the seat beside him, tucked under his thigh. "You really want me there that bad?"

Pete stabs his fork into his waffle a few times. "Yes and no."

"Elaborate on the 'and no.'"

"I want you to see your brother."

Mikey jerks back in his seat. "That's really none of your business."

"Okay. But after you talk to him, you're sad, because things are all fucked up and you feel guilty and weird about it. And you being sad is my business. I don't like it when you're sad." He pours syrup over his waffles and starts cutting them along the lines. "For one thing, we do like sixty percent less making out when you're sad."

"Pete." Mikey takes a deep breath and reminds himself to keep his temper, to speak slowly. "Things with my brother are complicated."

"I get that. But I bet they're less complicated when you're in the same place together." Pete looks up from his plate and meets Mikey's eyes, steady and serious. "Don't you think?"

Mikey shakes his head. "I don't know what to say to him."

"You've got a couple weeks and a plane ride to figure it out." Pete drops his gaze to his food again. "And if it doesn't work out, well, you'll still get to come to the show and laugh at our dumb asses and get wasted. Win/win."

Mikey touches the edge of the paper, dragging his finger along until it stings. "Okay." Yeah, okay. He can do this. "I'll go."
**
It's a solid enough plan in outline that one way or another never gets filled out with details. Which is to say that Mikey gets off the plane in Newark with no idea what he's doing or where he's going. He figures, if he figures anything, that he'll get a cab and just go to the venue to hang out for the hours before the show, because in a display of Olympic-level avoidance, he never got around to telling anyone he was coming.

He didn't check a bag, just threw a toothbrush and clean boxers in his backpack, so he cuts through the baggage claim area without looking up or taking his headphones off. There's a line of cabs outside at the curb. He takes his headphones off and puts them back on again three times, taking a step forward toward the curb and then falling back and waving the cabs off each time.

Fuck.

"All right," he mutters to himself, taking the headphones off again and letting them settle around his neck. "Fine. Just...just do it already, Jesus."

He scrolls through his phone to Gerard's number and punches the button to call, closing his eyes tightly while it rings.

"Mikey?" Gerard's voice is a little muffled and a lot confused. It's eleven AM on a Saturday; he was probably asleep. "What's up? You okay?"

"I'm fine. I'm, um." He stares down the line of cabs toward the airport exit, imagining the route that would take him back home. And yeah, it's still home, the house he grew up in, the streets he still knows by memory and by heart. "I'm sort of at the airport."

"In Chicago?" Gerard sounds even more confused, and a little irritated. "Where are you going?"

"No. I'm at Newark."

There's a pause before Gerard speaks again, long enough that Mikey bites his lip. "You're here?"

"Yeah."

"And you didn't tell me?"

Mikey winces. "I'm telling you now?"

"Jesus, Mikey."

"It was a last-minute trip. My boyfriend's band."

"Oh." Gerard laughs a little, and fumbles at something close enough for the phone to pick up. Mikey's best guess is that he's going for a cigarette. "Yeah, I probably should've guessed that a band was involved, huh?"

Now it's Mikey's turn to pause before he speaks. "I was thinking you and I could go to the show together. Catch up. Talk about things. You know. Maybe stop being assholes at each other."

Gerard's quiet, and Mikey can picture his face, the way his eyes are probably settled on the burning end of his cigarette but unfocused, somewhere else. "Maybe. I think I'd like that."

Mikey waits for another moment, but Gerard doesn't seem inclined to fill in the missing step, so he nudges. "I could also use some lunch. And someone to pick me up from this airport."

"Oh." Gerard laughs and sucks down more smoke, a soft hiss against the phone. "Yeah, yeah. Give me...fuck, I gotta find my keys. And pants. Give me a little bit? Get coffee or something."

"Yeah. Yeah, definitely." Mikey closes his eyes tight and listens to his brother breathe. "I can't wait to see you, Gee."

"Me too, Mikes. Me too."
**
Lunch is at a genuine Jersey diner, which serves to remind him that while Chicago diners have Pete, they do not have many, many other things. Gerard laughs at him while he stares at the menu, running his fingers over pictures of stuff he hasn't tasted in ages.

"That's why you don't fuckin' run off across the country." Gerard slouches lower in his seat, grinning wide enough that it has to hurt. Mikey can feel the same smile on his own face. It's been there ever since Gerard pulled over to the curb at the airport and flung himself out of the car, nearly getting clipped by a guy in a Volvo in his haste to get to Mikey for a hug.

By some weird, special magic that Mikey doesn't know how to explain beyond it's us and we're brothers, all the weird tension started draining away right then and there. It's better, since they saw each other and touched. Things aren't fixed, but they're better. He and Gerard are smiling at each other, sitting here in a dingy diner booth staring at menus that were old when Mikey was born, layers of stickers updating the prices over time. Things are going to be okay, he already knows it even before they talk about the serious shit. They're always okay once they can look each other in the eye.

"I'm telling you, Mikey. You've gotta get the real thing. You know it."

"Yeah, yeah. I know."

Gerard lights a cigarette and waves it in the air, exhaling smoke in Mikey's face. "The real versus the imitation, that's the difference between gin and ginger ale, right there."

Mikey blinks at him and laughs. "How long have you been saving that one up?"

More smoke in his face, Gerard smiling his crooked smile behind his hand, and Mikey feels like his heart might explode. "Fuckin'...ages. God. I missed you."

"I missed you too." He should say more, open the Big Conversation right now, but the waitress comes over to take their order and he's grateful to let the moment slip away. They're going to be okay, but there's a chance that the Conversation will make things less easy than they feel right now, and he just wants to revel in it for a little longer.

Gerard lets him revel all the way through the meal and a full pot of coffee, a stretch of time that can also be measured in cigarettes. "So," he says, mashing out number ten and leaning back in his seat. "You're just back for the show?"

"Yeah. Just overnight, really. I go back tomorrow afternoon, late." Mikey fidgets in his seat, folding his napkin over and over again between his fingers. "You know. Job, lease, boyfriend, that's all in Chicago now."

"I know." Gerard's voice is soft, but not bitter, and when Mikey meets his eyes he finds resignation and understanding there. "I get it, Mikes. I do."

"I didn't mean to hurt you. It wasn't...personal."

"I know. When I'm being logical, I know." Gerard sighs and runs his hand through his hair, looking away. "When I was being all emotional and shit, though, it felt like you chose a goddamn band over me."

"It wasn't about the band."

"What was it about, then? Why didn't you come back? Ever?"

Mikey shrugs helplessly. "I freaked out. And then I kind of kept freaking out, because I felt bad about not coming back sooner. Also plane tickets are expensive and I work a lot. Kind of a combination of stuff. Mostly the freaking out, though."

Gerard taps his knuckles on the table slowly, rubbing his fingers together like he's looking for the cigarette. "I don't really have a leg to stand on when it comes to judging people for freaking out, huh?"

"Not really." Mikey picks up his cup and swirls the dregs of his coffee. "You could've come out to visit me, you know."

"Yeah, I know, but it just felt..."

"It felt like you were drawing a line. Like you liked New Jersey more than me."

"What?" Gerard frowned at him, eyes sharp and bright under his bangs. "That's stupid. Don't be stupid."

"Yeah." Mikey drinks the last sour swallow, wondering at how much lighter it feels to have finally said the words out loud. "Whatever, right?"

"Right." They're quiet for a moment, until Gerard takes a deep breath and drums his hands on the edge of the table. "I've got some time banked at work, actually. I could maybe come out in April. You know, if you've got room on your couch."

Mikey nods slightly. "I could probably move my laundry."

"Like you fuckin' do your laundry. Bullshit."

"Hey, I'm a legitimate adult, dude."

"Never. Never gonna happen." Gerard dismisses the whole notion with a wave of his hand and lights up cigarette number eleven. "Now, what's this band we're seeing tonight? Do they suck? Tell me everything."
**
The second-to-last Arma Angelus show does, in fact, suck. Mikey doesn't care. He stands in the back, shoulder to shoulder with his brother, watching Pete yell and fling himself around, on fire with something Mikey still recognizes deep inside himself, that thing he can't help looking at with yearning even though he's let it go as a dream.

"They're awful," Gerard yells in his ear halfway through the set. "But your guy is cute."

"I know," Mikey yells back.

"Look at that ass." Gerard nods wisely and bumps his hip against Mikey's. "You should keep him."

Mikey laughs and rests his head on Gerard's shoulder, watching Pete leap and scream.

After the show, Gerard kisses him on the cheek and rumples his hair. "I'll go get the car," he says. "And have a couple of smokes. Take your time congratulating Pete. I'll wait."

"I won't take too long."

"Take your time, Mikes. I get you all night and all day tomorrow." Gerard smiles and tucks Mikey's hair back behind his ears. "And I've gotta learn to share with this guy, right?"

Mikey waits at the van, sitting on the back bumper and tilting his head back to look at the sky. He can't see anything but streetlight haze, which is exactly as it should be. Home, says every drop of blood in his veins, every fiber in his body, but it doesn't hurt. It's home even though he went away, and it'll still be home every time he comes back. It'll wait for him. He gets that now, and it's one more fear taken off his list, lifted away and letting him breathe easier.

"Hey."

He looks up and sees Pete standing a few feet away, balancing a case against his hip and smiling cautiously. There's a streak of dried blood under his nose from where he smacked himself in the face with his microphone midway through the show, and he has his t-shirt tied around his forehead. Mikey's chest ties up in knots looking at him. He's really kind of hopelessly in love.

"Hey," Mikey says, standing up and crossing over to kiss him. "Good show."

"Tell me sweet little lies, Mikeyway." Pete leans against his chest.

"No lies." Mikey brushes his fingers over Pete's hair, pressing another kiss to the top of his head. "You sounded good."

That gets another smile, genuine even though it's clear Pete still doesn't believe him. He traces a line up Mikey's arm and down again, poking at a hole in the cuff of his sweatshirt. "How's your brother?"

"He's good. We're good." Mikey rests his chin on Pete's hair. "You were totally right."

"I'm gonna want that in writing."

"Got it." Mikey wraps his arms loosely around Pete's shoulders. "You want help packing up?"

"Nah. We're good. You and Gerard probably want to get going, huh? You've got a lot of hanging out to do."

Mikey nods and frees one hand, tilting Pete's chin up until they're looking at each other. "Thank you, Pete."

Pete shrugs and escapes his hand, resting his head on Mikey's chest again. "I didn't do anything but get you here."

It counts; it made all the difference, actually, but Mikey can let it go for now. He'll show Pete how grateful he is later. "I'm going to sleep at home tonight and scare the shit out of my parents in the morning. I'll see you on Tuesday?"

"So you will be coming back?" Pete's voice is light, but Mikey can feel the tension in his body.

"Yes." Mikey holds him tight, hoping Pete will believe what he feels even if he doubts what he hears. "Absolutely."

"Okay." Pete turns his head to look at Mikey, his smile widening into a grin before he kisses him. "I'll see you then."