Catalyst (standalone)
Title: Catalyst (standalone)
Author: ivesia19
Rating: R
Pairing: Pete/Mikey (heavy side Brendon/Ryan and Gerard/Frank)
POV: 3rd limited
Summary: High school AU OR the one where Mikey might be having not-so-pure thoughts about the school’s newest soccer player; Ryan is a jealous emo lesbian; and Gerard thinks that love is all you need. ~6,000
Disclaimer: This is fiction. Complete fiction, though any name mentioned in here should wonder why there’s so much of this floating around.
Beta: habezweikatzen
Author Notes: The lovely takkatakkatakka requested for me to write a Mikey/Pete with a side of my OTP. I can’t say no to her. And yes, I know I have promised a lot of other fic. I’m….working on it?
---
For Mikey, the whole thing starts when Gerard tells him about Frank.
“It just happened,” Gerard says, his voice coming out no louder than a hushed whisper through the cell phone. The incessant buzzing of his phone had woken Mikey up this morning - a Saturday, one of his two days out of the week to sleep in - but when he had seen Gerard’s name flashing across the screen, he pushed back his thoughts of more sleep and possibly some water for his dry mouth thanks to a couple too many beers last night, and answered it with a croaked out groan of “Gerard, it’s fucking seven in the morning.”
Now though, only a couple seconds into the conversation, not even a minute, Mikey is feeling wide-awake. “You what?” he asks. He doesn’t even try to keep the surprise out of his question, because seriously, what?
From the other end, Mikey can hear Gerard sigh, and then he can hear rustling around and the faint sound of a door closing shut. “Jesus, Mikey. Keep it down.”
In the background, there’s a din of background noise: muffled talking and shuffled feet. “Where are you now?”
“In the hallway,” Gerard says, and Mikey can almost imagine Gerard in one of his stupid oversized t-shirts that he always wears to bed sitting against the wall of his hallway, legs to his chest, hair hanging down in front of his eyes. “You were being fucking loud.”
Mikey closes his eyes for a second, not for a moment of stolen sleep - no, that idea is far from his mind now - but because he doesn’t even know how to deal with this situation. “God, he’s in your room, isn’t he?”
“Well, it wouldn’t have been very nice for me to kick him out,” Gerard responds, huffing a little, and for a moment Mikey almost smiles because even though the situation is strange, the answer is still so Gerard.
“Okay, okay,” Mikey grumbles, and he pulls on a crumpled pair of sweat pants as he cradles his phone against his shoulder. “Hang on a second.”
“Why? Don’t go back to bed, you asshole.”
“I need to get some fucking water, alright? If I have to deal with this shit, I’ll need some water,” Mikey grumbles as he slips out of his room and pads toward the kitchen. He tries to keep his voice low, though. His mom is still sleeping.
“Are you hung over, Mikey?” Gerard asks, and when Mikey doesn’t answer because he’s gulping down a glass of water, he sighs. “You shouldn’t be out drinking every weekend.”
Refilling his glass, Mikey gives a short laugh and says, “Look who’s talking.” It’s a low blow, but Mikey doesn’t feel like explaining himself to Gerard this early in the morning. “This doesn’t matter,” he says. “Tell me about how exactly you and Frank ended up having sex.” He pauses. “Except for without the actual sex part. I don’t need to hear that.”
And that’s how Mikey spends his morning: hung over and listening to Gerard talk about just how great Frank is and how happy he is.
It almost gives Mikey a worse headache than the hangover.
---
Mikey doesn’t know if he believes in fate and destiny and all that, but later that night, when he’s at a party with Gabe and Ray, leaning against the wall of someone’s house that he doesn’t know, he thinks about what Gerard had said.
The party around him is in full swing. Gabe is making out with some girl in the corner - Mikey vaguely thinks that it might be her house they’re drinking in, her wall that he’s leaning against, but he’s not sure. Ray is trying with a girl that Mikey knows from around school. She’s leaning back a little as she talks to him, and Mikey shakes his head at Ray’s hopeful eyes. Toward the back of the room, the soccer team has started up a competitive looking game of beer pong - varsity against junior varsity - and when one of them (a short, compact looking guy with dark hair and what looks to be the start of a sleeve who Mikey has never noticed before) sinks his shot, he crows happily in triumph, and for some reason, as he’s looking around laughing, he catches Mikey’s eye.
It’s nothing, really, just a brief moment of stupid imaginative insanity, but still, Mikey thinks about how Gerard said that all it took was one look.
The thing is, though, that the guy hasn’t looked away yet. His smile is still there, though it has transformed a little from a victorious grin to a twisted smirk. Mikey keeps his gaze for a second longer, but then he looks down at his beer, breaking the contact.
He can still feel the heat of the guy’s eyes when someone bumps into him. He looks up just in time to see Brendon’s wide eyes and wider smile. “Mikey!” Brendon squeals happily against his shoulder as he squeezes him around the middle. “I haven’t seen you in forever and ever.”
Next to Brendon, wearing an expression that is far from amused, is his boyfriend Ryan. His hands are empty of the plastic red cup that everyone else seems to have. “You saw him yesterday, Bren,” Ryan monotones. His face is impassive as he reaches out and uncurls Brendon from Mikey, pulling him away, though Mikey notices that when Brendon clings to Ryan’s side, there’s a hint of a smile there.
“Don’t be jealous, Ryan,” Brendon says, leaning against him. “Mikey is fucking awesome.” There’s a slight slur in his voice, one that Mikey notices Ryan wincing at as he tightens his arm around his boyfriend possessively.
Mikey tries to send Ryan some sort of reassuring anything, but the glare stops him in his place. It really wasn’t his fault that last year Brendon had gotten so drunk that he had mistaken Mikey for Ryan and tried to grope him. Though, admittedly, the part where he let Brendon have free reign for those twenty seconds before a furious Spencer Smith had dragged Brendon off of him had been his fault. Thinking about that now, with Brendon laughing against Ryan’s neck, his lips moving up his jaw line, Mikey wonders why he didn’t have a mini sexual crisis sooner. A phone call from his brother about his own homosexual escapades and a brief look from a hot soccer player shouldn’t even compare to half a minute of Brendon Urie grinding in his lap.
When he looks up and away from Brendon and Ryan, who seems to be over the brief flare of jealousy, Mikey sees that the soccer player isn’t looking at him anymore but is back to his game.
Mikey watches as he laughs with his friends, as he licks the beer from his lips, and for a moment, he thinks what if he and I and then he stops himself and thinks fuck, laughing at his own stupid brain.
He leaves Brendon and Ryan against the wall just as Brendon’s leg slips between Ryan’s and goes to fill up his cup, and on his way there, he drags Ray along with him, the girl sending him thankful and approving eyes, but he doesn’t pay her any attention.
---
Another reason that Ryan doesn’t particularly like Mikey is that their Chemistry teacher assigned lab partners reverse alphabetically, so Way was stuck with Urie while Ross stalked for the first few days of class.
“It’s almost been two weeks,” Mikey mutters to Brendon as he fills up the pipette with NaOH. “Can’t he get over it?”
“Hm?” Brendon hums. He’s scribbling down messy words and undistinguishable doodles. He adds a swirl around something that doesn’t look anything like Chemistry notes before he looks up and grins. “What? Ryan?” He laughs. “Dude, Ryan still glares at Gabe for saying I have a hot ass. That’s just the way he is.”
Mikey hands Brendon a beaker, but instead of filling it up with anything, he just uses the bottom to trace a perfect circle. Which he turns into a giant flower. With Ryan’s name doodled over.
“Doesn’t that bother you?” Mikey asks. At first, when Brendon and Ryan had started dating last year - officially dating after many long and annoying months of flirting and touching and, God, Mikey’s glad that part is over at least - Mikey had thought that Ryan’s strange jealousy was just a temporary thing until the relationship got more stable, but it’s been almost a year now (in two weeks actually, as Brendon reminds him happily) and Ryan still doesn’t seem to like Brendon being in close proximity to anyone he views as a threat.
Brendon shrugs. “It’s not like Ryan would actually beat anyone up,” he says. “It’s just his fucked up way to show he cares.” Brendon starts folding his piece of paper into what looks like a very lopsided heart. “He’ll get over it eventually when he actually realizes that no one is going to take me from him. I’m not going anywhere.” Brendon grins as he finishes up his paper heart with a flourish. “Hey, Ross!” he yells from across the room, throwing the heart as soon as Ryan looks up.
Mikey turns his attention back to diluting whatever it is that is in front of him as Brendon makes outlandish faces across the way to Ryan.
“Hey,” a voice interrupts as the mixture makes its color change, and when Mikey looks up, he’s more than a little surprised to see the soccer player from the party standing there. Up close, Mikey can make out the individual tattoos snaking up his arm, and he can see just how that smirk quirks up at his looking.
When Mikey turns a little to see where Brendon is, he finds that his lab partner has forgone across-the-room flirting and decided to go and woo Ryan personally with his origami presents. It sucks a little, though, because Brendon is great for distractions, like the embarrassment Mikey feels when he catches Pete most definitely checking him out.
“Um, hey?” It comes out more like a question than a greeting, and Mikey wants to smack himself over the head, but instead he asks, “What are you doing here”, which, in retrospect with the inflection, is just as embarrassing.
The guy just laughs, his grin growing bigger. “Wentz,” he says, and off of Mikey’s confused look, he says, “I just got moved into this period of Chemistry, and the teacher told me to partner up with a Way and Urie.” He leans a little forward. “I’m really hoping that you’re the Way, because I’ve heard a lot of talk about this Urie guy’s epic love for an emo lesbian.”
At that, Mikey actually manages to smile and not completely mortify himself, though he falters for a minute, because is this guy flirting with him, before he just decides to ignore any wishful thinking. “Lesbian might be a little off.”
“Yeah, the guys told me that, too. Fucking locker room talk, man.” He laughs again, a bold burst of noise and says, “I’m Pete.”
“Mikey.”
“Mikey Way,” Pete says, as if he’s trying the name out, seeing how it feels, and for some reason, it almost makes Mikey blush, which is ridiculous, because Mikey hasn’t blushed since Ray walked in on him playing with his toy unicorn in the forth grade.
Mikey coughs and asks, “So, why are you in this class?”
Pete shrugs. “I moved here a couple of weeks ago, and apparently my parents thought that I should try and do A.P. Chemistry since this was a public school and therefore would be easier.” He scratches the back of his neck, and Mikey finds himself watching the way that Pete’s sleeve inches up, showing more of his arm, more of the ink decorating it. “I’m no scientist, though. Fuck A.P. Chem.”
“That’s too bad, I could have used a good lab partner,” Mikey says.
“What about Urie?”
“Brendon?” Mikey laughs. “If he could actually stay here for more than five minutes before running off to Ryan, I’m sure he’d be good at this. He’s good at anything he fucking tries. But he doesn’t even want to try to understand this shit. Doesn’t really matter, though, because Ryan let’s Brendon copy all his work, which I get, too.”
“I’m a veteran copier,” Pete says proudly, leaning against the countertop, and Mikey doesn’t know why it’s impossible for him not to look at the thin slice of skin that shows between Pete’s jeans and shirt when he does that.
Thankfully, though, his thoughts are interrupted by Brendon when he sees Pete and shouts far too loudly, “Threesome? Awesome!”
Mikey doesn’t need to look over to see Ryan glaring.
---
Ray always parks his car in the back of the lot, near the athletic fields, so when Mikey starts his way from the building, and Pete spots him, stops and waits for him, and then falls into step with him, Mikey knows that he only has about three minutes of having to act like his fucking nerves aren’t freaking out.
“Hey, lab partner,” Pete greets. He has his soccer practice clothes on, which are, unfortunately, much looser than his earlier clothes. When he reaches up to wave goodbye to somebody that Pete calls “Patrick, the coolest kid I’ve met in my life”, his shirt doesn’t even ride up past his waistband.
“So,” Mikey says after about fifteen seconds of silence that seems like an hour, “you’re off to soccer practice, yeah?”
Pete grins. “Hence the completely horrible umbro shorts. You play a sport, MikeyWay?” And Mikey kind of likes the way his name sounds coming from Pete. It flows so easily.
“No.”
“So what do you do?” Pete asks. It’s a little strange, because, to Mikey, it doesn’t sound like small talk at all. It’s like Pete is actually interested.
Mikey can see Ray leaning against his car - they’re almost there - so his words come out a little rushed as he answers. “Mostly I just play music. Listen to music. Stay up way too late fucking around on the internet.” He wishes his answers were a little more cool, but Pete’s eyes light up at the mention of music, and when he asks what instrument he plays, Mikey says, “Bass”, and Pete grins back with a “Me, too.”
Again, there’s a pause that seems longer than normal, but Mikey thinks it has everything to do with the way that Pete keeps looking at him in short, sidelong glances.
“So, you can’t sleep?” Pete asks.
It’s not that he can’t sleep, he can, he sleeps like the dead, but he usually doesn’t. “There seems to be so many more things I could be doing,” Mikey says, shrugging.
“Do you have your cell phone with you?” Pete asks, and when Mikey nods, Pete holds his hand out, programming in his number when Mikey hands his cell over, taking a moment to call it. “That way I can text you tonight when we both aren’t sleeping,” Pete says. He grins. “I’ll talk to you later, Mikeyway,” he says before turning to cross the soccer field.
When Mikey gets to Ray’s car, and Bob asks him suspiciously from the backseat who he was talking to, Mikey just averts his eyes as he definitely doesn’t blush again and says “No one.”
---
Gerard can tell that something is up.
“Something’s up,” he accuses two minutes into Mikey’s phone call to him. “You sound weird.”
“You always sound weird,” Mikey shoots back. When Gerard doesn’t fall for the bait, Mikey sighs. “Okay. Remember how you and Frank had sex?” He goes to close the door to his bedroom and flops down against the well-worn in sheets that he keeps forgetting to wash.
Gerard seems to choke on his words for a moment. “You mean, remember how Frank and I are in a loving, committed relationship?”
Mikey waves his hand dismissively, even though Gerard can’t see it. “Whatever. One that was started by you two randomly having sex.” Before Gerard can argue, Mikey continues. “Well, it made me start thinking… Basically, I think I want to fuck my lab partner.” It didn’t take Mikey too long to come to this conclusion, but still, it’s a lot to take in. Especially when he was scrolling through his phone earlier and found himself stopping far too long on Pete’s name. It’s not like he can even text him now, though. It’s only six.
“Brendon?” Gerard asks incredulously. “I know Ryan doesn’t seem that strong, but, dude, Mikey, he’ll kick your ass.”
“Not Brendon,” Mikey says. God, that would be the worst idea ever. Especially since Brendon would turn him down and then a ninety pound eyeliner-wearing writing nerd would break his arm. “A new guy. Pete.” Mikey doesn’t think there’s anything strange about the way that he says Pete’s name. No, it’s just a name. Just a guy. A very hot guy, who, yeah, maybe Mikey wouldn’t mind making out with or seeing naked.
“And this freaks you out? The liking a guy thing?”
Mikey sighs, a little frustrated. “I don’t know him enough to like him,” he says. “I just find him attractive.”
“Okay,” Gerard says. “Fine. You find another guy attractive. And does that freak you out?”
“Not really.” In the past, he’s found guys attractive before: Gabe, Brendon, even Ryan aesthetically speaking, but he’s never had this sort of reaction to that attraction before.
“Then why the phone call? Not that I’m not happy to talk to you. And I guess I’m happy that you’re opening up your sexual viewpoints and experiencing new things, but you sounded kinda freaked out.”
The thing about talking to Gerard was that unlike Ray and Bob, he didn’t let things lie.
“Maybe I do like him,” Mikey admits.
“Interesting.”
“Fuck you, Gerard. I’ve only know the guy a day, and three days ago I was practically sexually objectifying him.”
That, of course, is the wrong thing to say, because for the next twenty minutes, Mikey has to hear yet another one of Gerard’s lectures on respecting people for who they are not how hot they are. Or how good they would look down on their knees.
---
The first buzz of his phone comes at three in the morning. Mikey’s actually sleeping then, but when the phone goes off, his hand grabs for it, knocking his wrist painfully against his bedside table.
U up?
Mikey doesn’t need to look at the sending number to see that it’s from Pete, but he does anyway. There’s something ridiculously close to excitement running through his body as he sees Pete’s name light up.
Y
The next text message is almost instantaneous, and Mikey grins when he reads it.
Good. Cant slp
Mikey doesn’t know how to respond to that, so he just stares at his screen for a couple of minutes, before it suddenly lights up and starts to vibrate.
“Hello,” he answers.
“Fuck text messaging,” Pete says. “I want to hear your melodious voice, Mikey Way.”
And even though Mikey’s pretty sure that Pete is just kidding, just saying that for the sake of saying that, he can’t help but smile again.
---
It becomes a thing. Every night, around the same time usually, Pete texts Mikey. He always texts first, but after the first response, like clockwork, Mikey’s phone vibrates, and when he picks up, it’s Pete’s tired voice on the other end.
They talk. They talk about things that are important - things they don’t understand but pretend they do - and they talk about things that don’t make any difference in the world.
He finds out a lot about Pete during their late night conversations - far more than he does during school hours, where Pete seems to be more guarded. At night, when it’s just his voice on the other end of a cell phone, Pete doesn’t hold back.
“I tried to kill myself once,” Pete mentions blithely one night.
“Girls are too complicated right now,” he says another. “I’m looking for something easier.” Adding, “It’s cool that I like guys, too, right?” when Mikey doesn’t say anything.
Pete does most of the talking. Mikey talks, too, of course he does, but there’s something comforting about listening to Pete tell a story, something soothing about one of his probably falsified recounts of soccer practice. It feels good to be trusted.
One night, though, Pete says something that Mikey doesn’t know how to respond to. Even when Pete told Mikey about his suicide attempt, even when Pete told Mikey about being bisexual, Mikey had figured out something to say. It was always stilted and unsure, but Pete’s reaction had seemed genuine when he responded that it was reasons like that that he liked Mikey so much.
This night, though, when Pete says, “So, I’ve sorta been thinking about kissing you. A lot, actually,” Mikey doesn’t know how to respond.
There’s a couple of moments of silence.
Then a couple more, and then Pete sighs and says, “I guess I’ll see you tomorrow, Mikey.”
When the phone beeps off, Mikey stares off into the dark nothing of his bedroom and swallows, thinking fuck.
---
Brendon catches up with Mikey on his way to Chemistry. “I need your help,” Brendon says, and Mikey really, really wishes that someone would give him some help, especially since in less than three minutes, he’s going to have to see Pete in what will probably be the most awkward forty-four minutes of his life. “Ryan and my one year anniversary is this Friday.”
“Congratulations,” Mikey says, craning his neck a little to see if Pete is walking down the hall. Maybe he’s sick. Maybe last night’s conversation had been nothing but a delusion.
“Yeah, thanks,” Brendon says, “but I’m sort of in a situation.” Brendon sounds so damn concerned that Mikey actually pulls himself away from thoughts of not hyperventilating to give him his full attention. “I promised Gabe that I would have a party this weekend at my house since my parents would be gone.”
“Really?” Mikey is definitely down with the idea of getting completely wasted tomorrow, but then he connects the look on Brendon’s face with what he had just told him. “Oh, fuck, that’s the night of your anniversary, right?”
“Right. And Ryan hates when I drink, so it’d be pretty shitty of me to get smashed on our anniversary.” He gives a dramatic sigh. “Plus, I had been planning to do this whole seduction thing with rose petals and chocolate and pretentious indie love songs. And, you know, sex. Lots and lots of sex, as loud as we want, because the house is empty. Hot, hot sex.”
Mikey cringes a little. “Brendon, remember we talked about keeping your sex life between you and Ryan?”
Brendon waves a hand around. “There’s no time for your quirks, Mikey, I have to figure out something. I don’t want to let Gabe down, but I’m definitely not going to fuck up my anniversary.”
“I don’t think it’s a strange thing to not want to hear about you and Ross fucking,” Mikey defends. Brendon raises an eyebrow and then sticks out his lower lip. “What do you expect me to do, Brendon? Move the party to my house so you and Ryan can get a happy ending?”
From the sheer force of the hug, Mikey suspects that Brendon has a difficult time detecting sarcasm. “You’re the best. Thank you so much.”
Brendon lets go of his tight hug when they make it to the Chemistry room, transferring himself smoothly to Ryan, who, for once, doesn’t glare at Mikey, just shoots him an amused look as Brendon crowds him.
Mikey sets his stuff down and starts getting the equipment together, pulling out the meticulously folded lab aprons (though Brendon wasn’t too keen on doing the actual experiments, he loved cleaning up, for some reason). He is just pulling out all the necessary measuring supplies when Pete comes up.
“Hey,” Pete says, throwing his bag down. “Brendon seems extra happy today.”
So they are going that route: pretending nothing happened. Mikey can work with that.
“It’s Brendon and Ryan’s one year anniversary tomorrow,” Mikey responds. “They have the whole house to themselves.” He holds out one of the aprons for Pete.
“I thought Urie was having a party tomorrow. That’s what Gabe told me,” Pete says as he grabs the apron from Mikey, and for a brief moment, their fingers touch, but then Mikey pulls back quickly.
“Uh, yeah. He was supposed to, but I sort of volunteered my house so he and Ryan could be romantic.”
“Isn’t that amazing?” Brendon interrupts, throwing an arm around Mikey. “Pete, isn’t Mikey amazing?”
Something flickers across Pete’s face that Mikey can’t quite read, something that means something, but it’s gone in an instant. “Yeah, he’s amazing,” Pete says, and he turns his attention away from them and down to the lab instructions. “I guess we should get started, then.”
---
It’s strange, but it’s not like Mikey was expecting any different. For the first time in two weeks - ever since Pete had first asked for his cell phone number - there’s nothing.
It’s nearly five in the morning, and Mikey’s been watching the numbers creep closer and closer to dawn for a while now. The clock is glowing in the darkness, but his cell phone remains blank. Mikey wonders if he should text Pete, but he doesn’t know what he would say.
Sorry?
I think about it, too?
We should have raunchy sex right the fuck now?
Nothing seems right, not his words or the silent cell phone, so Mikey just rolls over and waits for daylight.
---
Mikey’s not going to tell Brendon this, but Brendon is completely going overboard with this one-year anniversary thing.
“Just set it down in front of his locker,” Brendon says as Mikey lugs in the giant stuffed sloth that was apparently not only for Ryan, but his favorite animal as well. “It’s because it’s so slow and still clumsy as fuck,” Brendon had said far too fondly for someone talking about an animal that sleeps most of its life.
Behind him, Brendon is carrying a dozen roses in one hand and a giant sparkly sign in the other, complete with tape to post it up on Ryan’s locker.
“Are you sure Ryan will be okay with all of this?” Mikey asks. If it were him, he wouldn’t want this big of a declaration. Or, judging by his reaction to Pete, any declaration.
Brendon, however, just grins. “You don’t know Ryan like I do.”
“And that’s a good thing,” Mikey interrupts.
Brendon laughs. “Yes. But Ryan will love this. He’s a closeted romantic.”
“And you’re not closeted anything.”
“Nope. Out and proud, baby.” Brendon does a little shimmy that Mikey is forced to look away from, because God, his friends are so fucking weird. “You excited for your party tonight?”
Mikey gives a humorless laugh. “You mean your party that is being held at my house so that you can have, and I quote, “hot, hot sex”?
“Yeah, that party,” Brendon says, smiling, his eyes glazing over a little, and Mikey really hopes that he’s not fantasizing about his and Ryan’s rendezvous. At least not in front of him. That could get awkward.
“I’m thrilled,” Mikey deadpans.
The hallways are starting to fill up with students, and next to Mikey, Brendon starts bouncing a little on the balls of his feet. “I want to see his face when he sees this.”
Mikey loves Brendon and Ryan, he really does, but he doesn’t know if he wants to watch this, so he says, “Good luck, Bren. You’ll have to tell me how it goes later,” and makes his way toward his locker.
Just as he rounds the corner, though, he can hear a loud, happy shout of Brendon yelling “Happy anniversary, Ryan, the love of my life!” and what sounds like very enthusiastic clapping from some of the other students.
There’s even a wolf whistle or two.
---
By the time that Mikey makes it into Chemistry class, Brendon is still wearing a grin, and Ryan’s face is red, but he’s smiling, too.
“That’s what they’ve looked like all day,” Pete says quietly, throwing them a fond look. He’s standing close to Mikey, far closer than he was standing the day before, and even though part of Mikey wants to take a step backward, a larger part of him doesn’t want to, so he stays where he is. “It’s cute.”
Mikey looks over to where Brendon is whispering something into Ryan’s ear that makes him turn, if possible, even redder, and he can’t help but smile. “I guess they are a little adorable.”
“Yeah,” Pete says, giving Mikey another one of those looks that he can’t quite decipher before he heads over to their station.
“So, uh, are you planning on coming to the party at my house tonight?” Mikey asks. He hasn’t really figured any of this whole thing with Pete out, but he knows that he wants him to be there.
Pete shrugs. “Maybe,” he says. “If I can make it.”
“Oh.”
“I mean, are you sure you want me to come?”
Mikey had thought that they were both going to pretend like nothing had changed, but apparently Pete wants to talk about it. At least in some way. “Of course,” Mikey says.
Pete looks around, as if he’s checking to see if the coast is clear, and there’s no one around, but still, when he speaks again, his voice is quiet. “I’m sorry about the other night, I just thought that you…” He shakes his head. “Sorry, I’m shit with signals.”
“Oh, well-” Mikey stops himself. “It’s cool,” he says instead. “Don’t worry about it. And you should definitely come tonight.”
“Yeah, if I can make it,” Pete says, not quite meeting Mikey’s eyes.
Thankfully, just then, Brendon bounces over. “Ryan says that he has something planned for lunch!” he exclaims. “Today is awesome.”
Mikey nods, and out of the corner of his vision, he can see that Pete just ducks his head.
---
By the time Gabe gets to his house, Mikey is already four beers in, so when Gabe pulls out a handle of vodka, he doesn’t hesitate to throw one back straight.
“That’s my boy!” Gabe says, making a grab for Mikey’s ass. Mikey, who has had just enough to drink to let it happen, but not enough to let it go any further, laughs and sways away from Gabe.
“Let’s get wasted!” one of Gabe’s friends, Nate, shouts, and behind him, Ryland adds a slurred, “Delicious.”
Mikey ushers them all in to where everyone else is, but he grabs onto Gabe’s arm. “Have you seen Pete?” he asks. He’s past caring now if it’s in any way strange that he’s asking, and he knows that Gabe and Pete hang out because of soccer. Plus, it’s not like Gabe is the type of guy to be judgmental.
“I think he’s coming,” Gabe says. “Told him he couldn’t miss out on any Mikey time!” Gabe takes a second to grind up against Mikey’s leg before pulling back. “I’m gonna go see if Victoria’s here.”
Mikey spends a little bit wandering around, grabbing drinks when they’re handed to him, doing shots when someone asks, so by the time that Pete comes in, Mikey stumbles against him as he comes to say hi.
“You okay there, Mikeyway?” Pete asks, and his eyes are close close close, and his breath smells sweet, and his body feels warm, and Mikey leans against him.
“You came,” Mikey says.
Pete laughs, and Mikey thinks that he can detect a hint of nervousness there, but he’s not sure. “Maybe you should sit down for a little. Where’s your bedroom?”
Mikey is being shuffled back by Pete toward the staircase, and yeah, with Pete’s strong arm guiding him, Mikey thinks that the bedroom is a good idea. “About before,” Mikey starts, leaning more and more against Pete as they climb the stairs, “about that night. You know, the one where - you know the one.” They get to the top of the stairs, and Mikey pulls Pete toward his room, not caring if anyone looks up and notices. “I should have told you then. Me, too.”
“What?” Pete asks, but Mikey doesn’t listen as he closes the door behind them and presses Pete against the closest wall, closing the space between them and crashing their mouths together.
Pete’s hand comes up against Mikey’s chest, and after a quick moment of panic where Mikey thinks that maybe Pete is going to push him away, Pete pulls Mikey closer, opening his legs so that their hips line up so, so right, and fuck that’s Pete’s cock.
Mikey lets out a startled noise, but he arches against Pete until Pete’s cock is rubbing right up against his own. It’s all hot, hot heat and delicious friction, and when Pete bites at Mikey’s collarbone, Mikey honest to God whines as his back bows and he pushes forward even more desperately.
From there, it’s just a flash of Pete hard and hot against him, rutting against him, mouth claiming his own, and Mikey doesn’t want it to stop. His hands reach down between their bodies, fumbling at Pete’s belt, but he doesn’t even get it all the way off before Pete’s body jerks and he lets out a harsh moan that Mikey half-swallows. Pete sags against him, mouth moving slower, body a little more relaxed, and Mikey rocks against Pete’s leg until he comes.
“Fuck,” Pete breathes against Mikey, his lips brushing against Mikey’s skin, and he pushes them back from the wall until they tumble against the bed.
“Uhm,” Mikey mumbles, but then the soft bed and warm sheets call to him, and the last thing he can remember seeing is Pete’s hand, traveling down his cheek.
---
When Mikey wakes up to the sound of his cell phone going off, the first thought he has is that it’s Pete, but then, when he opens his eyes to grab for the phone, he sees Pete lying next to him on the bed, sleeping. Mikey quickly grabs his phone, silencing the vibration so that Pete doesn’t wake up.
Best anniversary ever! Hope you had a good party. Thanks again! the text from Brendon reads, and even through his somewhat hazy brain, Mikey finds it all adorable, and he smiles as he types back his answer.
I had a good nite 2. Hopeflly a bttr mrning. Play safe
Mikey looks over at Pete on the other side of the bed as he puts his phone down, and even though his head is throbbing a little, he can remember every touch from the night before. He can remember it all.
He settles back down on the bed, inching over until his side is pressed up against Pete, and he wraps an arm around him, pulling Pete close toward him.
“Hm?” Pete asks sleepily as Mikey curves his body along Pete’s spine.
“Go back to sleep,” Mikey says, and at that, Pete laughs.
“Not very likely, Mikeyway. Once I’m up, I’m up.”
Mikey lets his hand travel down Pete’s stomach, resting against the rough fabric of his jeans and grins against the curve of Pete’s neck. “So I see.”
Pete turns, facing Mikey, face so close. “Want to help me with that?” His words are daring, but his face is almost vulnerable, almost as if he’s afraid that Mikey is going to push him away, so Mikey leans in and kisses him - morning breath be damned - and his hands fumble at Pete’s jeans.
---
Other stories
The sorta prequel is here - all ryden, baby!
Author: ivesia19
Rating: R
Pairing: Pete/Mikey (heavy side Brendon/Ryan and Gerard/Frank)
POV: 3rd limited
Summary: High school AU OR the one where Mikey might be having not-so-pure thoughts about the school’s newest soccer player; Ryan is a jealous emo lesbian; and Gerard thinks that love is all you need. ~6,000
Disclaimer: This is fiction. Complete fiction, though any name mentioned in here should wonder why there’s so much of this floating around.
Beta: habezweikatzen
Author Notes: The lovely takkatakkatakka requested for me to write a Mikey/Pete with a side of my OTP. I can’t say no to her. And yes, I know I have promised a lot of other fic. I’m….working on it?
---
For Mikey, the whole thing starts when Gerard tells him about Frank.
“It just happened,” Gerard says, his voice coming out no louder than a hushed whisper through the cell phone. The incessant buzzing of his phone had woken Mikey up this morning - a Saturday, one of his two days out of the week to sleep in - but when he had seen Gerard’s name flashing across the screen, he pushed back his thoughts of more sleep and possibly some water for his dry mouth thanks to a couple too many beers last night, and answered it with a croaked out groan of “Gerard, it’s fucking seven in the morning.”
Now though, only a couple seconds into the conversation, not even a minute, Mikey is feeling wide-awake. “You what?” he asks. He doesn’t even try to keep the surprise out of his question, because seriously, what?
From the other end, Mikey can hear Gerard sigh, and then he can hear rustling around and the faint sound of a door closing shut. “Jesus, Mikey. Keep it down.”
In the background, there’s a din of background noise: muffled talking and shuffled feet. “Where are you now?”
“In the hallway,” Gerard says, and Mikey can almost imagine Gerard in one of his stupid oversized t-shirts that he always wears to bed sitting against the wall of his hallway, legs to his chest, hair hanging down in front of his eyes. “You were being fucking loud.”
Mikey closes his eyes for a second, not for a moment of stolen sleep - no, that idea is far from his mind now - but because he doesn’t even know how to deal with this situation. “God, he’s in your room, isn’t he?”
“Well, it wouldn’t have been very nice for me to kick him out,” Gerard responds, huffing a little, and for a moment Mikey almost smiles because even though the situation is strange, the answer is still so Gerard.
“Okay, okay,” Mikey grumbles, and he pulls on a crumpled pair of sweat pants as he cradles his phone against his shoulder. “Hang on a second.”
“Why? Don’t go back to bed, you asshole.”
“I need to get some fucking water, alright? If I have to deal with this shit, I’ll need some water,” Mikey grumbles as he slips out of his room and pads toward the kitchen. He tries to keep his voice low, though. His mom is still sleeping.
“Are you hung over, Mikey?” Gerard asks, and when Mikey doesn’t answer because he’s gulping down a glass of water, he sighs. “You shouldn’t be out drinking every weekend.”
Refilling his glass, Mikey gives a short laugh and says, “Look who’s talking.” It’s a low blow, but Mikey doesn’t feel like explaining himself to Gerard this early in the morning. “This doesn’t matter,” he says. “Tell me about how exactly you and Frank ended up having sex.” He pauses. “Except for without the actual sex part. I don’t need to hear that.”
And that’s how Mikey spends his morning: hung over and listening to Gerard talk about just how great Frank is and how happy he is.
It almost gives Mikey a worse headache than the hangover.
---
Mikey doesn’t know if he believes in fate and destiny and all that, but later that night, when he’s at a party with Gabe and Ray, leaning against the wall of someone’s house that he doesn’t know, he thinks about what Gerard had said.
The party around him is in full swing. Gabe is making out with some girl in the corner - Mikey vaguely thinks that it might be her house they’re drinking in, her wall that he’s leaning against, but he’s not sure. Ray is trying with a girl that Mikey knows from around school. She’s leaning back a little as she talks to him, and Mikey shakes his head at Ray’s hopeful eyes. Toward the back of the room, the soccer team has started up a competitive looking game of beer pong - varsity against junior varsity - and when one of them (a short, compact looking guy with dark hair and what looks to be the start of a sleeve who Mikey has never noticed before) sinks his shot, he crows happily in triumph, and for some reason, as he’s looking around laughing, he catches Mikey’s eye.
It’s nothing, really, just a brief moment of stupid imaginative insanity, but still, Mikey thinks about how Gerard said that all it took was one look.
The thing is, though, that the guy hasn’t looked away yet. His smile is still there, though it has transformed a little from a victorious grin to a twisted smirk. Mikey keeps his gaze for a second longer, but then he looks down at his beer, breaking the contact.
He can still feel the heat of the guy’s eyes when someone bumps into him. He looks up just in time to see Brendon’s wide eyes and wider smile. “Mikey!” Brendon squeals happily against his shoulder as he squeezes him around the middle. “I haven’t seen you in forever and ever.”
Next to Brendon, wearing an expression that is far from amused, is his boyfriend Ryan. His hands are empty of the plastic red cup that everyone else seems to have. “You saw him yesterday, Bren,” Ryan monotones. His face is impassive as he reaches out and uncurls Brendon from Mikey, pulling him away, though Mikey notices that when Brendon clings to Ryan’s side, there’s a hint of a smile there.
“Don’t be jealous, Ryan,” Brendon says, leaning against him. “Mikey is fucking awesome.” There’s a slight slur in his voice, one that Mikey notices Ryan wincing at as he tightens his arm around his boyfriend possessively.
Mikey tries to send Ryan some sort of reassuring anything, but the glare stops him in his place. It really wasn’t his fault that last year Brendon had gotten so drunk that he had mistaken Mikey for Ryan and tried to grope him. Though, admittedly, the part where he let Brendon have free reign for those twenty seconds before a furious Spencer Smith had dragged Brendon off of him had been his fault. Thinking about that now, with Brendon laughing against Ryan’s neck, his lips moving up his jaw line, Mikey wonders why he didn’t have a mini sexual crisis sooner. A phone call from his brother about his own homosexual escapades and a brief look from a hot soccer player shouldn’t even compare to half a minute of Brendon Urie grinding in his lap.
When he looks up and away from Brendon and Ryan, who seems to be over the brief flare of jealousy, Mikey sees that the soccer player isn’t looking at him anymore but is back to his game.
Mikey watches as he laughs with his friends, as he licks the beer from his lips, and for a moment, he thinks what if he and I and then he stops himself and thinks fuck, laughing at his own stupid brain.
He leaves Brendon and Ryan against the wall just as Brendon’s leg slips between Ryan’s and goes to fill up his cup, and on his way there, he drags Ray along with him, the girl sending him thankful and approving eyes, but he doesn’t pay her any attention.
---
Another reason that Ryan doesn’t particularly like Mikey is that their Chemistry teacher assigned lab partners reverse alphabetically, so Way was stuck with Urie while Ross stalked for the first few days of class.
“It’s almost been two weeks,” Mikey mutters to Brendon as he fills up the pipette with NaOH. “Can’t he get over it?”
“Hm?” Brendon hums. He’s scribbling down messy words and undistinguishable doodles. He adds a swirl around something that doesn’t look anything like Chemistry notes before he looks up and grins. “What? Ryan?” He laughs. “Dude, Ryan still glares at Gabe for saying I have a hot ass. That’s just the way he is.”
Mikey hands Brendon a beaker, but instead of filling it up with anything, he just uses the bottom to trace a perfect circle. Which he turns into a giant flower. With Ryan’s name doodled over.
“Doesn’t that bother you?” Mikey asks. At first, when Brendon and Ryan had started dating last year - officially dating after many long and annoying months of flirting and touching and, God, Mikey’s glad that part is over at least - Mikey had thought that Ryan’s strange jealousy was just a temporary thing until the relationship got more stable, but it’s been almost a year now (in two weeks actually, as Brendon reminds him happily) and Ryan still doesn’t seem to like Brendon being in close proximity to anyone he views as a threat.
Brendon shrugs. “It’s not like Ryan would actually beat anyone up,” he says. “It’s just his fucked up way to show he cares.” Brendon starts folding his piece of paper into what looks like a very lopsided heart. “He’ll get over it eventually when he actually realizes that no one is going to take me from him. I’m not going anywhere.” Brendon grins as he finishes up his paper heart with a flourish. “Hey, Ross!” he yells from across the room, throwing the heart as soon as Ryan looks up.
Mikey turns his attention back to diluting whatever it is that is in front of him as Brendon makes outlandish faces across the way to Ryan.
“Hey,” a voice interrupts as the mixture makes its color change, and when Mikey looks up, he’s more than a little surprised to see the soccer player from the party standing there. Up close, Mikey can make out the individual tattoos snaking up his arm, and he can see just how that smirk quirks up at his looking.
When Mikey turns a little to see where Brendon is, he finds that his lab partner has forgone across-the-room flirting and decided to go and woo Ryan personally with his origami presents. It sucks a little, though, because Brendon is great for distractions, like the embarrassment Mikey feels when he catches Pete most definitely checking him out.
“Um, hey?” It comes out more like a question than a greeting, and Mikey wants to smack himself over the head, but instead he asks, “What are you doing here”, which, in retrospect with the inflection, is just as embarrassing.
The guy just laughs, his grin growing bigger. “Wentz,” he says, and off of Mikey’s confused look, he says, “I just got moved into this period of Chemistry, and the teacher told me to partner up with a Way and Urie.” He leans a little forward. “I’m really hoping that you’re the Way, because I’ve heard a lot of talk about this Urie guy’s epic love for an emo lesbian.”
At that, Mikey actually manages to smile and not completely mortify himself, though he falters for a minute, because is this guy flirting with him, before he just decides to ignore any wishful thinking. “Lesbian might be a little off.”
“Yeah, the guys told me that, too. Fucking locker room talk, man.” He laughs again, a bold burst of noise and says, “I’m Pete.”
“Mikey.”
“Mikey Way,” Pete says, as if he’s trying the name out, seeing how it feels, and for some reason, it almost makes Mikey blush, which is ridiculous, because Mikey hasn’t blushed since Ray walked in on him playing with his toy unicorn in the forth grade.
Mikey coughs and asks, “So, why are you in this class?”
Pete shrugs. “I moved here a couple of weeks ago, and apparently my parents thought that I should try and do A.P. Chemistry since this was a public school and therefore would be easier.” He scratches the back of his neck, and Mikey finds himself watching the way that Pete’s sleeve inches up, showing more of his arm, more of the ink decorating it. “I’m no scientist, though. Fuck A.P. Chem.”
“That’s too bad, I could have used a good lab partner,” Mikey says.
“What about Urie?”
“Brendon?” Mikey laughs. “If he could actually stay here for more than five minutes before running off to Ryan, I’m sure he’d be good at this. He’s good at anything he fucking tries. But he doesn’t even want to try to understand this shit. Doesn’t really matter, though, because Ryan let’s Brendon copy all his work, which I get, too.”
“I’m a veteran copier,” Pete says proudly, leaning against the countertop, and Mikey doesn’t know why it’s impossible for him not to look at the thin slice of skin that shows between Pete’s jeans and shirt when he does that.
Thankfully, though, his thoughts are interrupted by Brendon when he sees Pete and shouts far too loudly, “Threesome? Awesome!”
Mikey doesn’t need to look over to see Ryan glaring.
---
Ray always parks his car in the back of the lot, near the athletic fields, so when Mikey starts his way from the building, and Pete spots him, stops and waits for him, and then falls into step with him, Mikey knows that he only has about three minutes of having to act like his fucking nerves aren’t freaking out.
“Hey, lab partner,” Pete greets. He has his soccer practice clothes on, which are, unfortunately, much looser than his earlier clothes. When he reaches up to wave goodbye to somebody that Pete calls “Patrick, the coolest kid I’ve met in my life”, his shirt doesn’t even ride up past his waistband.
“So,” Mikey says after about fifteen seconds of silence that seems like an hour, “you’re off to soccer practice, yeah?”
Pete grins. “Hence the completely horrible umbro shorts. You play a sport, MikeyWay?” And Mikey kind of likes the way his name sounds coming from Pete. It flows so easily.
“No.”
“So what do you do?” Pete asks. It’s a little strange, because, to Mikey, it doesn’t sound like small talk at all. It’s like Pete is actually interested.
Mikey can see Ray leaning against his car - they’re almost there - so his words come out a little rushed as he answers. “Mostly I just play music. Listen to music. Stay up way too late fucking around on the internet.” He wishes his answers were a little more cool, but Pete’s eyes light up at the mention of music, and when he asks what instrument he plays, Mikey says, “Bass”, and Pete grins back with a “Me, too.”
Again, there’s a pause that seems longer than normal, but Mikey thinks it has everything to do with the way that Pete keeps looking at him in short, sidelong glances.
“So, you can’t sleep?” Pete asks.
It’s not that he can’t sleep, he can, he sleeps like the dead, but he usually doesn’t. “There seems to be so many more things I could be doing,” Mikey says, shrugging.
“Do you have your cell phone with you?” Pete asks, and when Mikey nods, Pete holds his hand out, programming in his number when Mikey hands his cell over, taking a moment to call it. “That way I can text you tonight when we both aren’t sleeping,” Pete says. He grins. “I’ll talk to you later, Mikeyway,” he says before turning to cross the soccer field.
When Mikey gets to Ray’s car, and Bob asks him suspiciously from the backseat who he was talking to, Mikey just averts his eyes as he definitely doesn’t blush again and says “No one.”
---
Gerard can tell that something is up.
“Something’s up,” he accuses two minutes into Mikey’s phone call to him. “You sound weird.”
“You always sound weird,” Mikey shoots back. When Gerard doesn’t fall for the bait, Mikey sighs. “Okay. Remember how you and Frank had sex?” He goes to close the door to his bedroom and flops down against the well-worn in sheets that he keeps forgetting to wash.
Gerard seems to choke on his words for a moment. “You mean, remember how Frank and I are in a loving, committed relationship?”
Mikey waves his hand dismissively, even though Gerard can’t see it. “Whatever. One that was started by you two randomly having sex.” Before Gerard can argue, Mikey continues. “Well, it made me start thinking… Basically, I think I want to fuck my lab partner.” It didn’t take Mikey too long to come to this conclusion, but still, it’s a lot to take in. Especially when he was scrolling through his phone earlier and found himself stopping far too long on Pete’s name. It’s not like he can even text him now, though. It’s only six.
“Brendon?” Gerard asks incredulously. “I know Ryan doesn’t seem that strong, but, dude, Mikey, he’ll kick your ass.”
“Not Brendon,” Mikey says. God, that would be the worst idea ever. Especially since Brendon would turn him down and then a ninety pound eyeliner-wearing writing nerd would break his arm. “A new guy. Pete.” Mikey doesn’t think there’s anything strange about the way that he says Pete’s name. No, it’s just a name. Just a guy. A very hot guy, who, yeah, maybe Mikey wouldn’t mind making out with or seeing naked.
“And this freaks you out? The liking a guy thing?”
Mikey sighs, a little frustrated. “I don’t know him enough to like him,” he says. “I just find him attractive.”
“Okay,” Gerard says. “Fine. You find another guy attractive. And does that freak you out?”
“Not really.” In the past, he’s found guys attractive before: Gabe, Brendon, even Ryan aesthetically speaking, but he’s never had this sort of reaction to that attraction before.
“Then why the phone call? Not that I’m not happy to talk to you. And I guess I’m happy that you’re opening up your sexual viewpoints and experiencing new things, but you sounded kinda freaked out.”
The thing about talking to Gerard was that unlike Ray and Bob, he didn’t let things lie.
“Maybe I do like him,” Mikey admits.
“Interesting.”
“Fuck you, Gerard. I’ve only know the guy a day, and three days ago I was practically sexually objectifying him.”
That, of course, is the wrong thing to say, because for the next twenty minutes, Mikey has to hear yet another one of Gerard’s lectures on respecting people for who they are not how hot they are. Or how good they would look down on their knees.
---
The first buzz of his phone comes at three in the morning. Mikey’s actually sleeping then, but when the phone goes off, his hand grabs for it, knocking his wrist painfully against his bedside table.
U up?
Mikey doesn’t need to look at the sending number to see that it’s from Pete, but he does anyway. There’s something ridiculously close to excitement running through his body as he sees Pete’s name light up.
Y
The next text message is almost instantaneous, and Mikey grins when he reads it.
Good. Cant slp
Mikey doesn’t know how to respond to that, so he just stares at his screen for a couple of minutes, before it suddenly lights up and starts to vibrate.
“Hello,” he answers.
“Fuck text messaging,” Pete says. “I want to hear your melodious voice, Mikey Way.”
And even though Mikey’s pretty sure that Pete is just kidding, just saying that for the sake of saying that, he can’t help but smile again.
---
It becomes a thing. Every night, around the same time usually, Pete texts Mikey. He always texts first, but after the first response, like clockwork, Mikey’s phone vibrates, and when he picks up, it’s Pete’s tired voice on the other end.
They talk. They talk about things that are important - things they don’t understand but pretend they do - and they talk about things that don’t make any difference in the world.
He finds out a lot about Pete during their late night conversations - far more than he does during school hours, where Pete seems to be more guarded. At night, when it’s just his voice on the other end of a cell phone, Pete doesn’t hold back.
“I tried to kill myself once,” Pete mentions blithely one night.
“Girls are too complicated right now,” he says another. “I’m looking for something easier.” Adding, “It’s cool that I like guys, too, right?” when Mikey doesn’t say anything.
Pete does most of the talking. Mikey talks, too, of course he does, but there’s something comforting about listening to Pete tell a story, something soothing about one of his probably falsified recounts of soccer practice. It feels good to be trusted.
One night, though, Pete says something that Mikey doesn’t know how to respond to. Even when Pete told Mikey about his suicide attempt, even when Pete told Mikey about being bisexual, Mikey had figured out something to say. It was always stilted and unsure, but Pete’s reaction had seemed genuine when he responded that it was reasons like that that he liked Mikey so much.
This night, though, when Pete says, “So, I’ve sorta been thinking about kissing you. A lot, actually,” Mikey doesn’t know how to respond.
There’s a couple of moments of silence.
Then a couple more, and then Pete sighs and says, “I guess I’ll see you tomorrow, Mikey.”
When the phone beeps off, Mikey stares off into the dark nothing of his bedroom and swallows, thinking fuck.
---
Brendon catches up with Mikey on his way to Chemistry. “I need your help,” Brendon says, and Mikey really, really wishes that someone would give him some help, especially since in less than three minutes, he’s going to have to see Pete in what will probably be the most awkward forty-four minutes of his life. “Ryan and my one year anniversary is this Friday.”
“Congratulations,” Mikey says, craning his neck a little to see if Pete is walking down the hall. Maybe he’s sick. Maybe last night’s conversation had been nothing but a delusion.
“Yeah, thanks,” Brendon says, “but I’m sort of in a situation.” Brendon sounds so damn concerned that Mikey actually pulls himself away from thoughts of not hyperventilating to give him his full attention. “I promised Gabe that I would have a party this weekend at my house since my parents would be gone.”
“Really?” Mikey is definitely down with the idea of getting completely wasted tomorrow, but then he connects the look on Brendon’s face with what he had just told him. “Oh, fuck, that’s the night of your anniversary, right?”
“Right. And Ryan hates when I drink, so it’d be pretty shitty of me to get smashed on our anniversary.” He gives a dramatic sigh. “Plus, I had been planning to do this whole seduction thing with rose petals and chocolate and pretentious indie love songs. And, you know, sex. Lots and lots of sex, as loud as we want, because the house is empty. Hot, hot sex.”
Mikey cringes a little. “Brendon, remember we talked about keeping your sex life between you and Ryan?”
Brendon waves a hand around. “There’s no time for your quirks, Mikey, I have to figure out something. I don’t want to let Gabe down, but I’m definitely not going to fuck up my anniversary.”
“I don’t think it’s a strange thing to not want to hear about you and Ross fucking,” Mikey defends. Brendon raises an eyebrow and then sticks out his lower lip. “What do you expect me to do, Brendon? Move the party to my house so you and Ryan can get a happy ending?”
From the sheer force of the hug, Mikey suspects that Brendon has a difficult time detecting sarcasm. “You’re the best. Thank you so much.”
Brendon lets go of his tight hug when they make it to the Chemistry room, transferring himself smoothly to Ryan, who, for once, doesn’t glare at Mikey, just shoots him an amused look as Brendon crowds him.
Mikey sets his stuff down and starts getting the equipment together, pulling out the meticulously folded lab aprons (though Brendon wasn’t too keen on doing the actual experiments, he loved cleaning up, for some reason). He is just pulling out all the necessary measuring supplies when Pete comes up.
“Hey,” Pete says, throwing his bag down. “Brendon seems extra happy today.”
So they are going that route: pretending nothing happened. Mikey can work with that.
“It’s Brendon and Ryan’s one year anniversary tomorrow,” Mikey responds. “They have the whole house to themselves.” He holds out one of the aprons for Pete.
“I thought Urie was having a party tomorrow. That’s what Gabe told me,” Pete says as he grabs the apron from Mikey, and for a brief moment, their fingers touch, but then Mikey pulls back quickly.
“Uh, yeah. He was supposed to, but I sort of volunteered my house so he and Ryan could be romantic.”
“Isn’t that amazing?” Brendon interrupts, throwing an arm around Mikey. “Pete, isn’t Mikey amazing?”
Something flickers across Pete’s face that Mikey can’t quite read, something that means something, but it’s gone in an instant. “Yeah, he’s amazing,” Pete says, and he turns his attention away from them and down to the lab instructions. “I guess we should get started, then.”
---
It’s strange, but it’s not like Mikey was expecting any different. For the first time in two weeks - ever since Pete had first asked for his cell phone number - there’s nothing.
It’s nearly five in the morning, and Mikey’s been watching the numbers creep closer and closer to dawn for a while now. The clock is glowing in the darkness, but his cell phone remains blank. Mikey wonders if he should text Pete, but he doesn’t know what he would say.
Sorry?
I think about it, too?
We should have raunchy sex right the fuck now?
Nothing seems right, not his words or the silent cell phone, so Mikey just rolls over and waits for daylight.
---
Mikey’s not going to tell Brendon this, but Brendon is completely going overboard with this one-year anniversary thing.
“Just set it down in front of his locker,” Brendon says as Mikey lugs in the giant stuffed sloth that was apparently not only for Ryan, but his favorite animal as well. “It’s because it’s so slow and still clumsy as fuck,” Brendon had said far too fondly for someone talking about an animal that sleeps most of its life.
Behind him, Brendon is carrying a dozen roses in one hand and a giant sparkly sign in the other, complete with tape to post it up on Ryan’s locker.
“Are you sure Ryan will be okay with all of this?” Mikey asks. If it were him, he wouldn’t want this big of a declaration. Or, judging by his reaction to Pete, any declaration.
Brendon, however, just grins. “You don’t know Ryan like I do.”
“And that’s a good thing,” Mikey interrupts.
Brendon laughs. “Yes. But Ryan will love this. He’s a closeted romantic.”
“And you’re not closeted anything.”
“Nope. Out and proud, baby.” Brendon does a little shimmy that Mikey is forced to look away from, because God, his friends are so fucking weird. “You excited for your party tonight?”
Mikey gives a humorless laugh. “You mean your party that is being held at my house so that you can have, and I quote, “hot, hot sex”?
“Yeah, that party,” Brendon says, smiling, his eyes glazing over a little, and Mikey really hopes that he’s not fantasizing about his and Ryan’s rendezvous. At least not in front of him. That could get awkward.
“I’m thrilled,” Mikey deadpans.
The hallways are starting to fill up with students, and next to Mikey, Brendon starts bouncing a little on the balls of his feet. “I want to see his face when he sees this.”
Mikey loves Brendon and Ryan, he really does, but he doesn’t know if he wants to watch this, so he says, “Good luck, Bren. You’ll have to tell me how it goes later,” and makes his way toward his locker.
Just as he rounds the corner, though, he can hear a loud, happy shout of Brendon yelling “Happy anniversary, Ryan, the love of my life!” and what sounds like very enthusiastic clapping from some of the other students.
There’s even a wolf whistle or two.
---
By the time that Mikey makes it into Chemistry class, Brendon is still wearing a grin, and Ryan’s face is red, but he’s smiling, too.
“That’s what they’ve looked like all day,” Pete says quietly, throwing them a fond look. He’s standing close to Mikey, far closer than he was standing the day before, and even though part of Mikey wants to take a step backward, a larger part of him doesn’t want to, so he stays where he is. “It’s cute.”
Mikey looks over to where Brendon is whispering something into Ryan’s ear that makes him turn, if possible, even redder, and he can’t help but smile. “I guess they are a little adorable.”
“Yeah,” Pete says, giving Mikey another one of those looks that he can’t quite decipher before he heads over to their station.
“So, uh, are you planning on coming to the party at my house tonight?” Mikey asks. He hasn’t really figured any of this whole thing with Pete out, but he knows that he wants him to be there.
Pete shrugs. “Maybe,” he says. “If I can make it.”
“Oh.”
“I mean, are you sure you want me to come?”
Mikey had thought that they were both going to pretend like nothing had changed, but apparently Pete wants to talk about it. At least in some way. “Of course,” Mikey says.
Pete looks around, as if he’s checking to see if the coast is clear, and there’s no one around, but still, when he speaks again, his voice is quiet. “I’m sorry about the other night, I just thought that you…” He shakes his head. “Sorry, I’m shit with signals.”
“Oh, well-” Mikey stops himself. “It’s cool,” he says instead. “Don’t worry about it. And you should definitely come tonight.”
“Yeah, if I can make it,” Pete says, not quite meeting Mikey’s eyes.
Thankfully, just then, Brendon bounces over. “Ryan says that he has something planned for lunch!” he exclaims. “Today is awesome.”
Mikey nods, and out of the corner of his vision, he can see that Pete just ducks his head.
---
By the time Gabe gets to his house, Mikey is already four beers in, so when Gabe pulls out a handle of vodka, he doesn’t hesitate to throw one back straight.
“That’s my boy!” Gabe says, making a grab for Mikey’s ass. Mikey, who has had just enough to drink to let it happen, but not enough to let it go any further, laughs and sways away from Gabe.
“Let’s get wasted!” one of Gabe’s friends, Nate, shouts, and behind him, Ryland adds a slurred, “Delicious.”
Mikey ushers them all in to where everyone else is, but he grabs onto Gabe’s arm. “Have you seen Pete?” he asks. He’s past caring now if it’s in any way strange that he’s asking, and he knows that Gabe and Pete hang out because of soccer. Plus, it’s not like Gabe is the type of guy to be judgmental.
“I think he’s coming,” Gabe says. “Told him he couldn’t miss out on any Mikey time!” Gabe takes a second to grind up against Mikey’s leg before pulling back. “I’m gonna go see if Victoria’s here.”
Mikey spends a little bit wandering around, grabbing drinks when they’re handed to him, doing shots when someone asks, so by the time that Pete comes in, Mikey stumbles against him as he comes to say hi.
“You okay there, Mikeyway?” Pete asks, and his eyes are close close close, and his breath smells sweet, and his body feels warm, and Mikey leans against him.
“You came,” Mikey says.
Pete laughs, and Mikey thinks that he can detect a hint of nervousness there, but he’s not sure. “Maybe you should sit down for a little. Where’s your bedroom?”
Mikey is being shuffled back by Pete toward the staircase, and yeah, with Pete’s strong arm guiding him, Mikey thinks that the bedroom is a good idea. “About before,” Mikey starts, leaning more and more against Pete as they climb the stairs, “about that night. You know, the one where - you know the one.” They get to the top of the stairs, and Mikey pulls Pete toward his room, not caring if anyone looks up and notices. “I should have told you then. Me, too.”
“What?” Pete asks, but Mikey doesn’t listen as he closes the door behind them and presses Pete against the closest wall, closing the space between them and crashing their mouths together.
Pete’s hand comes up against Mikey’s chest, and after a quick moment of panic where Mikey thinks that maybe Pete is going to push him away, Pete pulls Mikey closer, opening his legs so that their hips line up so, so right, and fuck that’s Pete’s cock.
Mikey lets out a startled noise, but he arches against Pete until Pete’s cock is rubbing right up against his own. It’s all hot, hot heat and delicious friction, and when Pete bites at Mikey’s collarbone, Mikey honest to God whines as his back bows and he pushes forward even more desperately.
From there, it’s just a flash of Pete hard and hot against him, rutting against him, mouth claiming his own, and Mikey doesn’t want it to stop. His hands reach down between their bodies, fumbling at Pete’s belt, but he doesn’t even get it all the way off before Pete’s body jerks and he lets out a harsh moan that Mikey half-swallows. Pete sags against him, mouth moving slower, body a little more relaxed, and Mikey rocks against Pete’s leg until he comes.
“Fuck,” Pete breathes against Mikey, his lips brushing against Mikey’s skin, and he pushes them back from the wall until they tumble against the bed.
“Uhm,” Mikey mumbles, but then the soft bed and warm sheets call to him, and the last thing he can remember seeing is Pete’s hand, traveling down his cheek.
---
When Mikey wakes up to the sound of his cell phone going off, the first thought he has is that it’s Pete, but then, when he opens his eyes to grab for the phone, he sees Pete lying next to him on the bed, sleeping. Mikey quickly grabs his phone, silencing the vibration so that Pete doesn’t wake up.
Best anniversary ever! Hope you had a good party. Thanks again! the text from Brendon reads, and even through his somewhat hazy brain, Mikey finds it all adorable, and he smiles as he types back his answer.
I had a good nite 2. Hopeflly a bttr mrning. Play safe
Mikey looks over at Pete on the other side of the bed as he puts his phone down, and even though his head is throbbing a little, he can remember every touch from the night before. He can remember it all.
He settles back down on the bed, inching over until his side is pressed up against Pete, and he wraps an arm around him, pulling Pete close toward him.
“Hm?” Pete asks sleepily as Mikey curves his body along Pete’s spine.
“Go back to sleep,” Mikey says, and at that, Pete laughs.
“Not very likely, Mikeyway. Once I’m up, I’m up.”
Mikey lets his hand travel down Pete’s stomach, resting against the rough fabric of his jeans and grins against the curve of Pete’s neck. “So I see.”
Pete turns, facing Mikey, face so close. “Want to help me with that?” His words are daring, but his face is almost vulnerable, almost as if he’s afraid that Mikey is going to push him away, so Mikey leans in and kisses him - morning breath be damned - and his hands fumble at Pete’s jeans.
---
Other stories
The sorta prequel is here - all ryden, baby!