Summer Into Dust
Pete/Mikey
One-shot
Pete can see it coming but that doesn't mean he doesn't like it. Fluffy and sweet and totally in honor of the tinhat that sympathy_martyr has managed to pass onto me. Yay!
2,266 words
Written September 18, 2005.
The first time Pete realized they were going to have sex, it was in the changing room of some water park in some anonymous Big City. This was back when Mikey was still just learning that it was okay to smile at Pete, and that they shared a deep appreciation for bad 80s rock, and pretty much every John Hughes movie ever made. That week they'd sat on a hotel bed eating candy and watching The Breakfast Club, debating who they'd rather be. Mikey wanted to be Bender - loud and out there and just sexy enough, in that bad kind of unfashionable way.
"Nah," Pete had said, grinning and scooping another handful of gummy bears into his mouth. When he talked it came out slurred. "I wanna be Allison."
"You would," Mikey said, except Pete really did - wanted to have good hair and a big coat. And also he kind of wanted to tell someone his secrets and have them not care and love him anyway. But that was too philosophical and angsty for teen movies, so he handed Mikey a gummy bear and opened his mouth wide.
"Hey," he said, "see if you can get it in." But he didn't complain when Mikey laughed and just placed it on his tongue very carefully. His fingertips against Pete's tongue, and his wrist against Pete's lip, it felt like Pete could drink him in and find salvation in the way his cells divided. He said, "That's cheating," but it was halfhearted and when Mikey shrugged he didn't push the issue. "Green," he said, "that's the best flavor."
"Everyone knows red's the best." Mikey smiled and plucked out a red one, tossed it in the air. He tried to catch it in his mouth and failed and when Pete held it out for him, Mikey took it with his teeth. That was the first time Pete felt the sudden quick flutter in his ribcage and thought he might be a little bit in love, maybe.
But it was a few days later in the water park that Pete realized that whether or not it was love, they were going to have sex, for sure. They'd spent the day chasing each other up the concrete stairs to the water slides, a lifeguard yelling after them to take it slow - the stairs were wet. Mikey's hair slicked down into his eyes, he grinned and mumbled, "Race you to the top."
In the water, Mikey's skin was slick and it made Pete feel sixteen again, driving out to the beach and the algae slipping over his legs like seaweed. The girls in white bikinis and Mikey's pale skin against his white towel, it was all one and the same.
When they were getting dressed in their adjacent stalls, Pete realized with a shock his hoodie was gone - and then, when he stepped out, still pulling his shoes on, he saw Mikey snuggling his chin into it. "Hey," Pete said, feeling a lot less offended than he sounded. "That's mine, you dick." Mikey beamed and tucked his hands into the pockets, and the black was startling and vibrant against his jawline, enough to make Pete's back tense up in a way that was painful.
"I'm borrowing it," Mikey said. He looked natural in it. Pete wanted to complain but he didn't.
And it was the way he stood in it that convinced Pete, once and for all. It was the first time Mikey had worn Pete's clothes but the air around him crackled with confidence in a way that said, this will not be the last time. When Mikey took out his cell to check his messages, he put it back not into his jeans pocket, but the hoodie pocket. Pete thought it might've been sexual, in a way. The casualness radiating off Mikey in even, strong waves. It certainly felt that way - sinking into his bones and making him want to throw his arm around Mikey's shoulders.
That evening they watched the sunset together, sitting on the roof of an office building and kicking their heels against the pavement. Pete looked at the sunset logo plastered across Mikey's - no, his, no maybe Mikey's now - jacket. "Hey," he said, nudging Mikey's shoulder with his own. "You match."
Mikey looked down, then broke into a wide grin. "It's perfect," he said, an air of finality about the words. "Just perfect."
Pete thought maybe without realizing it he'd had it designed that way on purpose. A sunset, so that months later he could wear that hoodie to a water park, and it could end up on Mikey Way and they could be falling in love a tiny bit. Pete wanted to kiss him but - a sunset? Nah. Too cliche. He decided to wait and find the right moment, the one that could only be them, not any other couple on the planet.
It ended up in the elevator of the office, on their way back down to the ground floor. They were stopped between the eighth and seventh floors. "Hey," Mikey said, tugging the sleeves of the jacket over his wrists. He was smiling in a very quiet kind of way. "Next floor's the lucky one, just so you know." Pete looked at him and was going to say yeah? but then the elevator started moving, and Pete didn't think about it. Just took Mikey's wrists in his hands and felt the fabric, his own hoodie, and on Mikey's arms it felt magical, transformed.
They kissed until the doors opened on the fourth floor, and a businessman in a neat black suit glared at them, and Pete ran out of the elevator laughing. Mikey started after him but the doors closed. They met again on the third floor - both of them laughing, eyes sparkling and faces flushed.
"That guy looked kinda like my brother," Mikey said, stepping forward so that his chest was inches from Pete's. "The suit, and all. Creepy, huh?"
"Really creepy," Pete said. "The creepiest thing ever. So bad."
"Yeah," Mikey said, "so can we shut up now? Maybe? I'll give you a few minutes if you need it. You know." He smirked and stepped closer, and their toes were practically touching and Pete's shoes were still soaking wet - canvas shoes and pools, not such a great mix. He thought how maybe his shoes were going to leak onto the nice carpet and stain it the same deep blue as his shoes, and then he thought how maybe his heart was also leaking red out onto Mikey's and it'd stain his skin.
He thought about all that and also the way Mikey was smiling at him, and he said "Fuck you", and they kissed again. It was a little awkward but not like high-school-bad, just shy and clumsy enough to be perfect. They walked the remaining two flights of stairs and stopped on both landings to kiss again, Pete's leg pressed between Mikey's, both of them glancing over each other's shoulders for more cynical businessmen working late.
Outside, it was dark out, and the stars were just beginning to appear. "Make a wish," Mikey mumbled, arm looped around Pete's waist and over his hip. Pete wanted to say something like I don't have anything else to wish for, like a real-life John Hughes movie. Or he wanted to say I already got my wish. But those were both lies because he had a lot of things to wish for, like the nightmares going away forever or for Patrick to stop being such a fucking pussy all the time. Or for the world to stop screwing up. Or for her to die in a very painful bloody fiery car crash, which he doesn't wish for so much anymore, but it's still an amusing thought.
So he said, "You take the wish, I'll waste it on something stupid."
"Oh," Mikey said, and then turned his head into the curve of Pete's shoulder. He was just tall enough that the arches of their hips slotted together perfectly. "I wish your girlfriend didn't exist."
It was a thousand tiny knives: everything Pete had wanted to forget until after when it was too late, and he sighed and opened the car door, let go of Mikey. "Come on," he said. Mikey got into the passenger seat and when he turned the radio on, it was still blasting from their drive over. He cringed and turned it down. Pete said, "That's a stupid wish too."
"Is it?"
It was, of course, for a thousand reasons Pete couldn't name. Mostly because all they came down to was I think you're a lot prettier in the morning. So he turned the radio back up and flashed a smile and said, "Wish for something like another good movie on TV tonight."
And Mikey understood and Pete thought this is why I love you and not anyone else, and Mikey said, "Okay. I wish for a lot of bad movies on TV tonight, nothing on at all, not even infomercials." And no matter how much Pete yelled he wouldn't say why.
That night when they sat in a hotel room together and flipped through channels, Mikey said, "Okay, nothing on," and then he slid onto Pete's lap and smiled with his face burning red. And Pete laughed very quietly and said something like, "So that's why," and Mikey nodded childishly. Then they kissed again, hands tangled together like seaweed and driftwood and Pete felt himself drift away, lost and hopelessly buoyant.
A week later, they had sex on Pete's tour bus, just as he'd predicted - the door locked and both of them terribly afraid that they'd tip the bus right over. It was awkward and the bunks were all too cramped, piled high with video games and magazines. Even the couch was littered with their copies of the new Harry Potter - one for each of them, with various bookmarks in bright colors to mark plot points. They were too lazy to move it all off and so they just stood against the wall of the kitchenette, Mikey with his head tipped back.
It was easy and slow and when Mikey came, he arched one leg, rising onto the toes of one foot. It was the only thing to break through the haze of Pete's body all tensed up and sweating: the asymmetry. The way Mikey's head tipped at a slight angle, just enough for Pete to bite down on the open curve of his neck into his shoulder, and neither of them made much sound but what was there echoed back and forth between them.
After, Mikey reached for his own jacket - white denim, how classically awful, but oh did he ever pull it off. At least Pete thought so. White like the heaven-colored towel he wrapped around his waist at the pool that day. And yet, he felt the pit of his stomach drop out, and he said, "Aren't you going to steal my jacket?"
"Nah." Mikey smiled brightly.
And Pete had seen this coming all along, had been ready, and he wanted it perfect - this destined moment, he wanted to see Mikey so comfortable in his own clothes again. But Mikey left his jacket aside. And just when he was ready to say all right then, this is it, Mikey leaned past and picked up Pete's shirt. He slipped it on and it clung to the hollows of his ribs and he said, "I do want your shirt though. That okay?"
"God," Pete said, and he wanted to cry. "Yeah. Of course that's okay."
"Good," Mikey said, leaning forward to kiss Pete's cheek. His lips were dry, chapped, and they made something in Pete's fingers set off with sparks. "Because I think you're going to look really cute in my shirt, okay? You have to wear it. Promise me." He smiled shyly and looked up through his bangs and of course Pete nodded yes, and Mikey said, "I think I used my wish for the right thing."
"You're so fucking cheesy," Pete said. He tangled his hands in Mikey's hair. He meant to add and that's why I love you, but then Mikey kissed him for real, and he nearly forgot. But it didn't matter.
On the way out, Mikey stopped one last time to blow him a kiss before saying, "I really need to find Frank, I promised him we'd hang out today." Pete nodded in acceptance and he watched Mikey go. Then he sat on the lone clear corner of the couch, ate gummy bears until his hands turned red. Mikey's shirt smelled warm and faintly like cinnamon, and he could taste sugar and sweat and it was all perfect, wrapped up in that moment, and the air was humid and thick with summer. He read some more and ate and then he watched TV, and all of it sparkled golden because after that, there would be Mikey. And whatever else fell apart into shreds - however long Pete spent crying and tearing his own skin off - there would be someone to stitch it back on.
He called Mikey three hours later, and when he got the voice mail, it was all right. "Hey," he said, fast but casual. "It's Petey. Just thought I'd let you know, this shirt is really nice - I really like it." Then he laughed. "You know what I mean. You know."
Another hour after that, Mikey called back. "Jesus," he said, "your messages are so fucking weird." And before Pete could respond, he added, fast - "But I do know. I get it." And Pete didn't have to say anything.