Archive of Our Own ^beta

Pete's class gets cancelled, because even his professors can't be bothered to pretend to care at this point, the last semester of third year. Terrifying their students into compliance was accomplished ages ago. Beating them into submission and breaking every shred of their spirits finished up shortly after that, and now what's left is a bunch of hungry, soulless, amoral larval lawyers being followed by upcoming loan payments like sharks. There was just no fun for the profs in tormenting them any more.

Pete ponders on all of this, wishing he could remember exactly when his soul left his body, while he takes the train to his sort-of boyfriend's apartment, after a brief pit stop for doughnuts. Showing up at Mikey's doorstep unannounced tends to get a better reception if he provides sugar.

"I thought about bringing coffee, but it just would've gotten cold," he says as soon as Mikey opens the door. "Here." He shoves the bag of doughnuts into Mikey's hands and dodges around him into the apartment. Once he's in, he's golden. Mikey won't actually throw him out. "Hi."

"Hi." Mikey locks the door and sits on the couch, hugging the bag to his chest like Gollum clinging to the Ring. They're only sort-of dating, but Pete is awesome at sort-of dating. He knows this shit. "Aren't you supposed to be in class?"

"Cancelled." Pete shoves his hands in his pockets and rocks back and forth on his heels, studying the nearest shelf of textbooks. Grad students in German literature get way more awesome textbooks than law students. All...obscure and vaguely occult-looking. Mikey could probably summon demons with some of these.

"I'm not done with my reading," Mikey mumbles around a mouthful of bear claw. "Give me an hour?"

"Sure." The problem is that Mikey doesn't really have all that much furniture. There's the couch he's sitting on, and then a chair with stacks of clothing taking up most of the cushion and a very, very unpleasant-looking cat taking up the rest.

The cat reminds Pete. "Hey, how's your roommate?"

Mikey is now eating with one hand and holding an inch-thick stack of printouts with the other, eyes tracking methodically across some journal article. "Haven't seen him in days."

"He does that kind of a lot, doesn't he?" Mikey shrugs. "He doesn't even come back to feed the cat?"

"I feed the cat."

"Why? It's his."

"If I don't feed her, she'll kill me in my sleep."

"Oh." Pete looks at the cat again, and yeah, he can see it. God, that would be fucking disgusting. "What does he do, anyway? I mean, he vanishes for days at a time, he sleeps all day and goes out all night...do you think he's a drug dealer? Or maybe a vampire?"

Mikey lowers his papers half an inch and stares at Pete over the edge of them. "Reading."

"Right. Right." Pete nods and puts his hands up. "I'm just going to go...take a nap, okay?"

Mikey makes a vague sound that Pete translates as I don't care what you do as long as it's not bothering me. Most of the people he knows seem to have a variation on that sound.

He goes into Mikey's room and flops down on the bed, staring up at the ceiling. He's not actually tired, but in here he's guaranteed not to distract Mikey and piss him off. If he hits a solid average in "not pissing Mikey off," there's a good chance he'll ace "getting laid."

He pokes through the stuff on the bedside table--tissues, candy bar wrappers, Tylenol, those vitamin C gummy bears (oh, hey, he likes those, he takes one), two books in German and a comic book. He fishes that out of the mess and studies the cover. Mikey's brother sends him a big stack of comics every month. They arrive in fat padded envelopes, bristling with post-its annotating every page.

"Why doesn't he just call you and talk about them?" Pete asked once, which earned him a look that he was pretty sure meant something like we are only sort-of dating, back the fuck away from the line. Which, you know, totally fair. Being able to take a hint is part of Pete's amazing talent at sort-of dating.

This one doesn't have any post-its. Pete rubs his fingers over the glossy paper and pictures Mikey methodically turning each page, reading the story and then his brother's notes, removing the post-its one by one. It makes him grin, for no good reason except that it's...very Mikey, in his head.

He settles in to read the comic, even though those have never been his thing and he doesn't really understand what's going on. The art's pretty good; there's this one page with the hero just staring off the paper and that's pretty cool, pretty intense. Pete only wonders for, like, a minute about what kind of liability shields superheroes would need, and how you could evade charges from citizens citing collateral damage. Maybe a few shreds of his soul have held on after all. He might even still have the capacity to feel joy.

He finishes the issue and sets it aside, then crawls down the bed. There's a long cardboard box at the end and he has a hunch that that's where Mikey files these things when he's feeling organized. And, yeah, jackpot. Dozens of 'em. He pulls a handful out at random and stretches out on his stomach to read.

He gets through three more before he hears a slight cough from the doorway and looks up to see Mikey watching him. "Oh. Hey. Done reading?"

Mikey nods. "Walk into my room and there's a hot guy in my bed reading comics. High-school me just came in his pants."

Pete laughs and pushes the comics aside. "How's current-you doing?"

"Done with work, ready to play."

"That's what I like to hear." Pete rolls over onto his back and stretches, giving his best come-and-get-it grin.

Mikey's eyes narrow slightly. "You did get those all out of order, though."

"So I don't deserve sex?" Mikey appears to be actually considering the question. "What if I let you fuck me and I put them all back in order when we're done?"

Mikey rolls his eyes. "I like you trying to pretend you let me fuck you. It's more like 'begging for it.'"

"I'm a flexible guy. I stretch."

Mikey snorts and comes over to the bed, collecting the comics and carefully setting them on a shelf before leaning down to kiss Pete. "Assume the position, Wentz."
**
Pete either dozes off afterward or Mikey has some kind of mind-control power. At any rate Pete wakes up blinking in the dim light, alone in the bed with the blanket tugged loosely over his hips.

He can hear the TV in the next room, so Mikey didn't go far. Pete rubs his eyes and lays there for a few more minutes, wondering if he should head home, or if the fact that Mikey didn't wake him up and kick him out is a hint to stay, or...what.

His phone beeps from the pile of clothes on the floor. Digging around for it is committing to getting out of bed, and then he really will have to decide if he's staying or going. Which sucks. But it turns out that he's physically incapable of ignoring his phone.

He has three texts waiting, all from Joe, one of the guys in his bar exam study group (and yes, there's the wave of nausea that goes with thinking about the bar exam, right on schedule). The first one gives the time of their next study meeting, the second was probably supposed to go to Joe's girlfriend, and the last one is asking if anybody wants to meet up at the bar and watch the game.

Pete puts his jeans back on and replies maybe tell me when u have a plan. He isn't sure what game is going to be on, or actually even what sport is involved, but bars are good. He's a fan of bars.

He finds Mikey out on the couch again, dressed in sweats and a hoodie and watching a movie. It's in German, of course. Pete stands behind the couch awkwardly for a moment, shirtless and barefoot and trying to figure out if the choice of a movie in a language he does not speak is a subtle cue for him to leave.

Mikey tilts his head back to look at him. "Stuff blows up."

"What?"

"The movie. Explosions are kind of a universal language, right?"

"Oh. Right." Pete climbs over the back of the couch and sits next to Mikey, rolling his phone around in the palm of his hand. Mikey goes back to watching the movie, and Pete watches him out of the corner of his eye. It's always interesting to watch Mikey react to things, because his responses are so subtle--a twitch of a smile, a slight arch of an eyebrow, a vague noise of surprise that never quite leaves his throat. Pete has no idea whatsoever what he's responding to, but he likes watching it happen.

His phone beeps every so often and he taps out responses, tuning out the movie to argue about which bar, what time, stop texting me when you mean your girlfriend, Joe, seriously, I did not want to know that. Mikey doesn't seem to care. It's weird, the two of them sitting there in their own little worlds, with absolutely no idea what's going on in the other one's head--a whole different language, a whole different medium--or at least it seems like it should be weird, but it kind of isn't. It's...nice. Weird, nice. The intersection of those two is exactly why Pete has sworn off dating in favor of sort-of dating.

The movie ends and Mikey hums to himself as he turns off the TV, a low shifting tone. He looks at Pete and brushes his hair back off his forehead. "So."

"So."

Mikey looks at Pete's phone, spinning restlessly between his fingers. "You've got plans?"

There's no accusation in his tone, it's just a question, but Pete winces anyway. Nice manners, Wentz. His mom would be appalled. "Oh, uh. Some of the guys just were going to meet at the bar. Watch the game. You want to come?"

Mikey blinks. "The Michigan-Northwestern game?"

"Maybe?" Fuck. "You're a fan?"

"No." Mikey stands up and snags a pair of jeans from the stack on the chair. "But having a drink sounds good."

Pete opens his mouth to say something else, but chokes on it as Mikey drops his sweatpants. Not at the sudden random nudity--that would be stupid, given that they just had sex, like, two hours ago--but because instead of the worn-thin boxers or briefs he expects, Mikey is wearing pale blue girls' bikini panties, a fine line of lace along the edge and the Victoria's Secret logo across the ass.

Mikey is apparently completely oblivious to the fact that Pete is choking, stepping into his jeans, tugging them up over the slightly shiny fabric--silk, satin, whatever it is that girls wear--zipping up, and then looking at Pete with a raised eyebrow.

"What?" Pete manages.

"Are you getting dressed?" Mikey nods at him and Pete realizes he's still wearing nothing but his own jeans, slouching there on Mikey's couch and clinging to his phone for dear life.

"Oh. Yeah." He gets up and stumbles back toward Mikey's bedroom, not looking at him, not checking the way his jeans might be clinging across his ass over that pale blue whatever it is. "I'll be right back."
**
The thing is, there's no reason he's reacting like this. There's no reason he's reacting at all. As kinks go, girls' underpants barely even register on the scale. He's dated more out-there, he's been more out-there.

And yet he is acting like a giant freak about the whole thing.

He barely says anything on the way to the bar, just texts busily at people he barely knows and nods whenever Mikey asks him something. Mikey doesn't ask much, as usual. Pete's usually a little off-balance with how comfortable Mikey is with silence, but it works out well tonight.

They get to the bar and someone has already said the magic word of pitcher and made the beer start flowing. Whichever one of the guys around the table is responsible for that is Pete's most sincere beloved. He would kiss that gentleman on the mouth, if he cared enough to find out who it was.

Instead he just starts drinking, talking loudly over the bar noise as it ebbs and flows with the game. And he is talking complete shit, no rhyme or reason, trash talk, picking arguments and squashing them with way more hostility than makes any sense.

He mostly ignores Mikey, who sits there nursing his own series of beers, watching the game with an utter absence of reaction and making vague, polite noises in response to the questions lobbed his way. "German literature," Ryland says blankly in response to Mikey's flat statement of specialization. "Why?"

Mikey stares at him just long enough for everyone to become uncomfortable, at which point Pete blurts, too loudly, "Why not?" and runs away to the bar to get their pitcher refilled.

Christ. What the fuck? There is no excuse for this, for how he can't get the image of the curve of Mikey's cock under that thin blue fabric out of his head. He's not desperate to get laid, just the normal degree of eager, so it's not that. It's possibly some kind of psychotic break.

He has regressed to fourteen years old. And he's being a dick to his sort-of boyfriend, who has done nothing wrong and is putting up with all of his buddies who are also kind of being dicks, under the flickering light of a game neither of them could care less about.

The only possible answer is to drink more. So he does. He aggressively pursues the science of emptying pitchers, and he gets stinking shit-faced drunk.

He regrets this the next morning, both for the obvious reason that his brain is trying to escape his head by drilling holes over his eyes from the inside, and because he's in his own bed in his own apartment, alone, with a note on the table in Mikey's slanted handwriting that says "See you after midterms."
**
Hangover-day is also the second Saturday of the month, which means Pete needs to be in the suburbs by six for dinner with his parents. It is not a pleasant day. It is an even less pleasant train ride. Still, he's on time, he made his hair behave, and he's wearing khakis. Hopefully he's hitting the minimums of good behavior even if he isn't going to be able to eat much.

He texts Mikey from the train--hey sorry abt last nite thx for getting me home good luck w midterms. There's no response by the time his mom picks him up at the station, and he turns his phone off in his pocket.

It's not that Mikey doesn't have a right to be pissed. They're only sort-of dating and Pete acted like a douche. Pete is enough of an adult to totally, totally acknowledge that. It's just that apparently he's also enough of a non-adult to want it to not be true and just correct itself now.

Of course, maybe Mikey's not even pissed. Maybe he's studying. Or grading papers for the class he TA's for. Or...playing video games. There are a lot of reasons why he might not answer Pete's text. That's logic. That's rationality. That's thinking like a lawyer and, spoiler alert, Pete hates that.

His mom is asking him questions about school and friends and his apartment and what he's been eating. He manages to tune back in enough to answer, editing his actual life on the fly into a parentally-acceptable remix. He does this once a month. It's cool.

She doesn't get to "Are you seeing anybody?" until they're at the house and he's hanging up his jacket. He gives the same answer as always, delivered sideways over his shoulder while he hugs his dad.

"Sort of. Nothing serious."

"Is this the same not-serious person as last month, or a new one?" she asks, also like every time, and Pete rolls his eyes and smiles. His parents are nosy but they've been awesome about pronouns since his senior year of high school when he went to prom with Anna Lewis and came home with her brother Steve. Sometimes it hits him all over again that he's lucky.

"Same one," he says, and goes to hug his sister, because seriously, talking to his parents about his sex life is very much not on the agenda. Especially since he can't guarantee that his brain and mouth won't dislodge the filter keeping back what he can't stop thinking about. If he blurts out blue silk, Mikey's cock in front of his entire family he's probably going to have to kill himself in the back yard. It's just the principle of the thing.

Fortunately, the subject gets discarded almost immediately over dinner. Unfortunately, it dies so a discussion of the bar exam can live, which means Pete eats even less than he thought he might. The whole concept of the bar exam fills him with a kind of existential horror. It's like staring into the abyss. He has a job lined up for after graduation at one of his dad's friend's firms, so all he has to do is pass the thing and not fall down a flight of stairs afterward. His future is locked. Loaded. A done deal.

He definitely cannot eat meatloaf while thinking about this.

"You're going to do great," his dad says, and Pete nods, smiling as wide as he can. "Jeff is really looking forward to you starting."

Pete stabs wildly at his meatloaf and doesn't say anything. What's he supposed to say?

When he looks up both of his parents are looking at him. He knows this look. He remembers this look very distinctly from several occasions. Most notable among them are a) his senior year of high school, when they asked him what he wanted to do with his life and he answered "I want to be a rock star. Or an astronaut." This look happened, and then his mom said that she would help him write up college applications. Also b) his senior year of college, when they asked him what his plans were after graduation, and he answered "I want to be a rock star. Or a pirate." This look happened, and then his dad said that a legacy admission to law school was a terrible thing to waste.

There is a correct answer here, basically. "Yeah. I can't wait."
**
Pete doesn't see Mikey again for a week and a half, though he starts getting replies to his texts around the third day. That eases some of the tension in his chest, though not as much as actually going over there and seeing Mikey would. He understands the distance and there are god reasons for it above and beyond the ones related to his own behavior--Mikey is up to his neck in midterms, and based on his texts they are making him grumpy and full of despair--but it still sucks. He won't really feel like things are okay until he can make it up to Mikey in person.

And maybe get close enough to see what Mikey's got under his jeans this time. Not in a creepy way. In a "stuff that turns you on is awesome, I'm pretty turned on, too, let's go somewhere with a flat surface" way. He really, really likes having sex with Mikey and it's been ten days, is his point, here.

Finally, before he goes completely crazy, one day his text of buy you dinner hot stuff? gets a reply of ok come over 2nite. He's psyched enough that he blows off his bar review plans for the afternoon and buys vodka, cookies, and a zombie movie instead.

He's bouncing on his toes with anticipation when he knocks on the door to Mikey's place, just on the edge of frantic to deliver the speech he made up on the way over. It's a good little speech. There's self-deprecating humor and some metaphor.

The door swings open and he takes a breath to start talking, except it's not Mikey standing there, it's...well, he hopes it's Mikey's roommate. Tall, skinny, dark hair, doesn't look thrilled with existence in general, dressed like a cross between a performance artist and a hobo.

"Hi," Pete says carefully. The guy just looks at him. "Is Mikey here?"

The guy's eyes narrow slightly. "Are you Pete?"

This is going to be the world's dumbest game of 20 Questions. "Why?"

"Because it would explain why he called me and said 'tell Pete I'm running late.'"

"Oh." Pete nods slowly. "Yeah. I'm Pete."

"Solved one of the mysteries of the universe. Score." He does a slow, exaggerated fist-pump that makes Pete uncomfortable for no adequately explainable reason. "I don't know when he'll be back."

"Why didn't he just text me?"

"How the hell should I know?" The guy walks back to the couch and flops down, dragging that evil-looking cat onto his stomach. The cat doesn't seem happy about it, but she doesn't attack, either. Obviously this guy has some kind of mind-control power. "I'm Gabe, by the way."

"Hi," Pete says again, kind of stupidly standing there with his vodka and cookies and zombie movie and nowhere to sit because Gabe's legs take up the whole couch and there's even more laundry on the chair than the last time he was here.

Gabe is watching a History Channel special on Nostradamus. From what Pete can tell, he's not very impressed by it. "So what do you do?" Pete asks at the first commercial break, wondering how weird it would be to just go wait for Mikey in the hall. This is, after all, the roommate who may be a vampire or a drug dealer, and while he's definitely curious to find out if he called it correctly, mostly he's getting the feeling that Gabe being home fucks with his chances of getting laid. And that his awesome speech is prematurely dead.

Gabe's eyes don't leave the screen. "I work the overnight shift at a 24-hour coffee shop."

"Oh." So half-credit for both drug dealer and vampire. Sweet.

"I'm also ABD in philosophy, but I don't talk about that."

Pete blinks a few times. Maybe he should just offer up the vodka as a sacrificial lamb. "Cool."

"You can hang out in Mikey's room if you need somewhere to sit."

That's a pretty smooth dismissal right there. Pete has to admit he's impressed. Also that he now wants to hit Gabe over the head with the bottle of vodka.

Mikey's room looks the same as always. Clothes on the floor, books on the chair, notes scattered across the desk and the foot of the bed. Pete sits carefully on the edge of the mattress and avoids staring at the dirty laundry. Going through Mikey's stuff would be creepy. He's been trying really hard not to be overtly creepy at Mikey.

Apparently it was comic-package week; the thick envelope is lying on Mikey's pillow, with two issues stacked on top of it and the rest spilling out of the open end. Pete grabs one of them and flips through, ruffling the post-its with his fingertips. This isn't creepy. It was right out in the open.

Mikey's brother has painfully precise handwriting. Pete flashes back to the semester of drafting that he took as an elective in high school, learning to write in that chilly, precise block print. Mikey's brother--Gee, Mikey always calls him; Pete can't remember ever hearing what that stands for--has opinions on the art, the story, the dialogue. He lists out what he would do differently in careful, numbered lists. He punctuates some references with a tiny, fanged smiley face. Pete assumes that the face and the references are both part of some series of fraternal inside jokes, completely inscrutable from outside the bloodline.

He turns the pages slowly, ignoring the actual comic entirely in favor of the notes. Should've been a splash page, Gee's perfect letters say. Don't you think? Another vampire smile. Mine will be 60% splash pages unless you stop me.

Pete looks at that one for a while, his fingers itching to touch it so badly that he curls them into his palms to keep from giving in. That would smear the ink. And he's not doing anything wrong, but he doesn't need to mess up Mikey's presents from his brother.

He didn't know until right now that Mikey's brother writes--or wants to write, something--comic books, or that apparently Mikey helps him. Edits for him, is his sounding board, maybe; the point is, Pete didn't even know. He still doesn't know the brother's name. It hits him like a gut-punch and it's weird and upsetting and he can't even say why it bothers him because it makes no sense.

It is, he realizes after two or three cycles of Nostradamus and commercial breaks carry through the thin wall, a very close cousin to how he felt the last time he was here, when he saw Mikey in that underwear. It's shock, at learning something new, at finding out there are things he not only didn't know about Mikey but didn't even have a vague hint of a clue about, that there are trapdoors and hidden rooms and fucking secret passageways in Mikey and he's just been fucking staring at the wallpaper.

And of course that makes sense, they're only sort-of dating (every time he thinks that phrase it feels more like a cop-out, fuck), there's no reason he would or should know everything there is to know about Mikey. Except apparently at some point his lizard brain decided he knew more than he did, without telling the rest of him, and he's been operating ever since under the assumption that there was...more sharing going on than that.

He can't really think of anything he's been holding back, not anything significant. Of course, maybe he just doesn't have any hidden passageways of his own. There's no depth to Pete Wentz, he is all wallpaper.

"I'm an idiot," he tells the comic, then closes it and puts it back on Mikey's pillow. He's a complete idiot. He should get up, give Gabe some excuse for Mikey, and drink the whole bottle of vodka on the train home.

He's halfway talked himself into it when he hears the apartment door open and Mikey's voice carries through these really seriously shitty thin walls. "Hey. Did Pete come by?"

"In your bedroom, baby," Gabe says, and somehow Pete can just tell that that comes with a leer. "Didn't know you liked 'em pocket-sized. Keeps him closer to the action, am I right?"

"You're a socially maladjusted virgin," Mikey says in that serene, neutral tone that means he's in a really good mood. "And your cat is a sociopath. Later."

"All cats are sociopaths!" Gabe yells, and Pete rolls his eyes, getting awkwardly to his feet as Mikey opens the bedroom door.

Mikey smiles at him with his eyes more than the just-slight curve of his mouth, and Pete smiles back because he can't help it. Half of his brain is still screaming at him to make an excuse and bolt. The rest really wants to kiss Mikey hello. Well, there's also a small, rebellious faction that wants to cling to Mike's neck and beg him to validate Pete's emotions, now, possibly in writing, but Pete's pretty sure that falls into the category of "extreme neediness" and should be ignored.

"Sorry I'm late," Mikey says. "My advisor wanted to talk to me. And I don't get service in the department, so I called Gabe from the office phone."

"Bad stuff or good stuff?" He belatedly adds, "And it's no problem, I just hung out in here."

"You could've talked to Gabe." Pete stares at him blankly and Mikey smiles again, a little more. "And good stuff."

"Tell me." Some of that neediness escapes despite Pete's best intentions, and Mikey's eyebrows go up.

He doesn't comment, though, just answers, and that's why Pete (maybe kinda sorta oh god how did he not notice this before) loves him. "I got an article accepted. For publication."

Pete's not sure what he expected Mikey to say, but that's a surprise. "An article? That's awesome, dude."

"CV content, here I come."

"What's it about?"

Mikey's mouth twitches. "Sub-themes in the work of a minor 17th-century poet."

Pete nods slowly. "That's...awesome."

"It's really not, but thank you for pretending."

"I'm not pretending. It's awesome. You're a published...sub-themist."

This time, not a twitch, a full-blown smile. "Something like that."

Pete looks at his bag of vodka and cookies and winces as Gabe yells something obscene at Nostradamus. "Come on," he says, "instead of takeout and a movie, how about we go someplace classy?"

Mikey looks skeptical. "Define classy."

"With chairs." He tries for his most winning smile. "It's on me. To celebrate your themes."

Mikey laughs and nods, stepping in to kiss him. "Yeah. Okay."
**
After dinner--he manages to talk Mikey a little farther upscale than just chairs, to actually nice, with a wine list--they go back to Pete's apartment, because Mikey mentions that it's Gabe's night off and Pete is a little afraid of what that might mean.

"Usually not much," Mikey says when he expresses that fear out loud. "He either goes out or he sits on the couch, drinks gin from the bottle, and yells about the futility of human existence. Sometimes he reads from his dissertation."

Pete blinks. "Wow."

"Yeah." Mikey shrugs, a bare rise and fall of his shoulders. "Grad school will fuck you up."

It's one of those statements that is profound in its simplicity, and they stand there in silence for a moment, contemplating it like a Zen koan.

"So anyway," Mikey says finally, "your place is fine."

"Cool."

They had both reaped the benefits of the wine list over dinner, and that plus ten days means it doesn't take long at all before Mikey is straddling Pete's lap on the couch, knees gripping tight against Pete's thighs and fingers digging hard into Pete's shoulders while he fucks Pete's mouth with his tongue, nice and slow.

Pete closes his eyes and kisses him back, his hands wandering in lazy arcs over Mikey's back. He loves his part--he loves all of the parts, really, from watching each other across a room to lying together sweaty and sticky and tangled--but this part is really, really great, both of them teasing the tempo up and down, skin and tongues sliding together, soft little hitches of breath and mutters of fuck, yeah.

Mikey turns his head and breathes Pete's name against his ear, then goes after that sensitive skin underneath it. Pete squirms, hands sliding down to cup Mikey's ass through his jeans, fingertips curling into Mikey's pockets. Mikey laughs, hot breath almost a shock against oversensitive nerves.

"You're so hot," Pete says, and his voice sounds different than he expects, low and raw and husky. He suspects he sounds like a bad imitation of a porn star. Mikey doesn't seem to mind, or maybe doesn't notice; he just kisses Pete again and grinds slowly against his lap.

And yeah, okay, Pete loves the slow-making-out part but he's only human, and moving things along to the part with nakedness and an increased chance of orgasms is definitely even better. He squeezes Mikey's ass again and then slides his hands around to the fly of Mikey's jeans, popping the button and sliding the zipper down so he can get his hand inside.

And oh Jesus, apparently somebody up there does believe in second chances to not be a freakish weirdo, because that is definitely lace under his fingertips first, and then silk as they slide farther down, silk over smooth, hard flesh and fuck, Mikey.

"Fuck, Mikey," he breathes, rubbing slowly with just his fingertips, kissing Mikey frantically as he gets harder. "Fuck."

"Like it?" Mikey whispers, and there's something in his voice--not quite a tremor but something, maybe hope?--that makes Pete pull back just enough to look up at him. Mikey's blushing, just a little, just faintly, and in the back of Pete's mind he realizes that he might have gotten one thing kind of majorly wrong in his earlier panicky analysis.

But he'll worry about that later.

"So fucking hot," he says again, bringing his free hand up to curve around the back of Mikey's neck and draw him in for another kiss. He keeps teasing Mikey's cock through the thin silk, feeling him get harder, the fabric over the tip getting damp and slick with pre-come.

"Switch," he pants against Mikey's mouth, stealing a final fast kiss and then dragging in a deep breath. "Switch with me, c'mon."

Mikey laughs a little, but he scrambles off Pete's lap to sit on the couch, knees spread wide. Pete presses the heel of his hand against himself, silently telling his dick to just wait, it'll be better if we wait for it, fucking sharp with the sweet. He slides off the couch and kneels on the floor, moving between Mike's legs and tugging Mikey's jeans down out of the way.

The panties are dark purple, the thin band of lace silver, and Pete's pretty sure from half-paying attention to ads and stuff that they're what gets marketed as boy-cut, even though they really don't bear much resemblance at all to what gets sold as being "for boys."

They look fucking amazing on Mikey.

Pete leans in and breathes against the silk, looking up through his lashes at Mikey, watching his eyes close and his teeth worry his lower lip. Pete mouths him slowly through the fabric, just his lips and then very very gently the edge of his front teeth, and Mikey makes a noise, a high, thin whine of breath that goes through Pete like electricity.

He hooks his fingers in the waistband and tugs them down bit by bit, kissing and licking and breathing against the exposed skin until he gets to the salt-sour taste of the head. He swirls his tongue against the sensitive skin again and again until Mikey gives a desperate, half-choked-back moan, then opens his mouth and takes him in.

He likes this part, too.
**
After Mikey comes, he pins Pete to the floor and jerks him off, leaving a chain of dark hickeys and bite marks across Pete's chest while he does. After that, Pete loans him some sweatpants and they end up sitting on the couch watching that same goddamn Nostradamus special, which must be airing on some kind of endless loop.

Mikey picks his jeans up off the floor, folds the panties into a tiny square, and goes to tuck them into the pocket. Pete reaches over and snags them, sliding the silk between his fingers. Mikey's looking at him with an unreadable expression, and Pete forces himself to wait, to choose his words carefully.

"It's hot," he says finally, tracing the logo on the fabric.

Mikey shrugs. "It's okay if you don't think so. I don't need validation."

"It's insanely hot," Pete says, looking at him steadily, and Mikey just shrugs again but the tension around his eyes eases a little.

"How come you didn't tell me?" Pete's careful to keep anything but curiosity out of his voice, absolutely forbidding all forms of accusation, but he's digging his fingers into his palm waiting for the answer, for how it sorts out the vague suspicion he had about what he got wrong before.

Mikey looks down at his knees and shrugs again. "I don't...I guess I wanted you to notice. Or...ask. Wanted to not have to tell you."

And yeah, that's what Pete kind of thought. Mikey doesn't like to talk, like Pete does, so he had been waiting for Pete to see. While Pete figured that anything he was supposed to know, he would be told, and other than that he shouldn't pry.

It's a fucking comedy of mismatched expectations.

Somehow that makes him feel better. Comedy he can deal with. Tragedy's what makes him sweat.

"You want to spend the night?" he asks, because apparently asking is the way to go. It doesn't necessarily have to mean anything; baby steps. He'll hold off on asking the bigger, more awkward questions until later.

Mikey nods and leans in to kiss him again, and for a minute they smile stupidly against each other's mouth. "Yeah."
**
The next two weeks are pretty awesome. Mikey sleeps over most nights when he doesn't have seminars the next morning. Pete helps him grade the multiple-choice portions of freshman German tests. They watch all of the Star Trek movies in reverse order just to see the cast get younger. They have sex in positions that leave Pete with bruises in weird places.

"I'm amazed you have time to have a relationship," William says after a bar review session at the bar, while Pete is waiting for the waitress to wrap up the leftover pizza to take back to Mikey.

"I'm multitalented," Pete says, rolling his phone between his fingers.

"You also skipped the last two study sessions."

That's because they both fell on Mikey's afternoon off, and if given a choice between staying in bed with his hot pretty-sure-it's-no-longer-sort-of boyfriend or an activity that now actively makes him throw up every time he thinks about it, there's no contest.

"Thanks for the update," he says, grabbing the take-out box from the waitress. "I didn't realize you were secretly my mom."

William rolls his eyes. "Whatever. See you on Tuesday. Or, you know, not, because God knows your future is less important than getting laid."

"I'm glad you agree," Pete says, and flees the bar before he has to go throw up again.

Mikey is sitting on the steps to Pete's building when Pete gets there, reading freshman compositions with an expression of cool despair. "They're not even trying," he says by way of greeting, circling something in red pen. "Either that or they think I'm not paying attention."

"I'm sure they know you're paying attention. I bet they're all scared of Mr. Way." He kisses the top of Mikey's head, since his face is still turned down toward the paper. "Hi."

"They just call me Mikey." He shoves the papers back into his bag and follows Pete inside, his fingers sliding over the back of Pete's neck in absent-minded non-verbal greeting. "How was your thing?"

"Fine." He doesn't want to talk about it. Think about it. Acknowledge it as part of his life. "How was your class?"

"Fine." Mikey rocks back and forth on his heels while Pete unlocks the door. "The usual."

"Did you get your rent check over there in time?"

"Yeah. I gotta go home more often. Gabe's cat is going to starve."

There's a weird, awkward pause. Pete's first impulse is still to frantically start cracking codes; is Mikey hinting that Pete should ask him to break his lease and move in here? Is Mikey hinting that he wants to stop spending so much time together and get some breathing room? Is Mikey hinting that he wants to adopt Gabe's cat and keep it as his own? Is Mikey hinting that he wants to break up with Pete and run away to open a coffee shop with Gabe the angry philosopher?

It takes a minute to remember that Mikey doesn't really believe in hinting.

"Actually, she can probably live forever on her own hate," Mikey says finally. Pete laughs a little too loudly as they go inside. He sucks at actually-dating. But he doesn't want to go back to sort-of dating, not with Mikey, so he's going to have to learn to suck it up.

Mikey eats the leftovers while Pete puts his books away, and then it's time for sitcom reruns and beer. They have this sort of routine, now, amorphous and not quite labelled and still new and tentative enough to be scary and amazing.

"So I talked to my brother today," Mikey says, halfway through the second repeat of Frasier.

Pete tries not to react too obviously. It's no big deal for Mikey to mention his brother. It is a totally normal thing. Except for how Mikey never does it. "Oh?"

"He's coming to visit next week."

"Oh." Fuck, that came out of nowhere. "Last-minute trip?"

Mikey gives him a puzzled look. "No. We've had this planned for a few months."

"Oh." He's apparently stuck on repeat. And kind of tempted to punch Mikey in the neck for the way he doesn't fucking share information. "That's...cool."

"Yeah. I haven't seen him since Christmas."

"What are you guys planning to do?"

"Gee wants to go to a couple of museums. I still have classes, though, so mostly we'll probably just hang out."

Pete nods, feeling stupid for no reason. Mikey's telling him stuff, even if it's belatedly. He's sharing. This is a good thing.

Mikey glances sideways at him. "You want to come to the museum with us? Or maybe dinner one night?"

Oh. And, there it is, right on time, Pete's realization that he is, in fact, a total jackass. "What? Yeah. Definitely. Definitely, that would be...awesome. Really. Just let me know where and when."
**
Gerard is shorter than Mikey, fine-boned and birdlike, and it might be Pete's imagination but it seems like he doesn't blink as often as he maybe should. He doesn't shake Pete's hand when they're introduced, but it doesn't feel like a snub. Pete gets the impression instead that Gerard just isn't especially interested in the social niceties of meeting new people.

Pete, however, has been extensively well-trained in those niceties, and it's hard to keep himself from saying Mikey's told me all about you. Mikey hasn't told him anything, and starting things out with blatant lies is just pushing for awkwardness.

Instead he stands there with a fixed grin like some kind of an idiot. Awesome.

Mikey's looking at them with a slight little smile, apparently enjoying the way Pete is staring at Gerard and Gerard is watching Gabe's cat investigate the duffel bag lying at the foot of the couch. Mikey is kind of a shit sometimes.

"So what's the plan?" Pete says finally, a little too loudly. The cat glares at him. Gerard finally blinks.

"There's an exhibition at the museum of modern art," Mikey says, and his smile gets bigger as Gerard's face lights up.

"You said you weren't sure that was still going."

"I lied," Mikey says, eyes all bright in a way that makes Pete's chest ache. He wants to make Mikey look like that more often than he thinks he does. He isn't sure if the best way to go about that is to be easier to make happy, or to try harder to find the things to do and say and give that light Mikey up. Probably both.

"And then we can grab dinner," Mikey adds, glancing at Pete. "Do we have you for the whole day or do you have stuff tonight?"

Pete shakes his head, moving to shove his hands in the pocket of the hoodie that he's not wearing. For meeting the brother, it had seemed necessary to step it up, to be a little more formal. He'd actually made it halfway to the train station wearing a sweater vest before changing his mind and sprinting home to change into a band t-shirt and a cardigan. His hair is still combed flat and parted on the side, though, and he strongly suspects that he looks like a tool.

He also strongly suspects that Gerard doesn't notice or care. Which is simultaneously nice (not being judged is always nice) and sucks (great, Gerard is a good person, and that sets a level that Pete has to match).

He ends up putting his hands on his hips in an awkward, vaguely drum-major-esque pose to compensate for the lack of pockets. "I can definitely do dinner," he says. "Actually I know a great place, right by the museum."

"You know all the great places," Mikey says, and if that isn't quite the same bright smile it's really close. Pete will take it as a win.
**
Pete expects the exhibition to be pretentious douchebaggery, but he ends up pleasantly surprised; it's a collaboration with students at a nearby art school that pairs masterworks with student works in compare/contrast and inspired-by groupings specifically to encourage visitors to discuss. Pete doesn't have much (okay, any) art theory under his belt, but he's good at I like this/I don't like this, and Gerard isn't hung up on terminology anyway.

At one point Pete and Gerard are both leaning in over the protective railing around a sculpture, gesturing and elbowing each other in the neck and arguing about that streak of blue there. Pete glances up at the familiar soft click-whoosh of a camera, and catches Mikey looking at the screen of his phone and smiling. His eyes are bright and warm with that look Pete's just about decided to chase like a drug, his tongue is poking out between this teeth, and Pete wants nothing more on Earth than to be kissing him.

Mikey looks up, meeting Pete's eyes over the edge of the phone, and they stare at each other for a minute, Mikey smiling and Pete kind of stupidly slack-jawed until he starts smiling, too.

"Okay," Gerard says, poking Pete in the side and stepping back from the railing. "You giving up the discussion to make googly eyes at my brother means I win by default."

"I'm not making googly eyes."

"They're practically falling out of your head." Gerard smirks and drapes his arm around Mikey's shoulders, tugging him sideways and pressing a kiss to his temple. "It's okay. Mikey is very googly-eye-worthy."

"Gross," Mikey murmurs, elbowing Gerard but not trying to pull away.

"You're gross." Gerard lets go of him and shoves his hands in his pockets..

"Your face is gross," Mikey retorts and Gerard rolls his eyes, then looks wistfully around the gallery.

"This is fantastic. So much energy, so...I'd love to sit down with the curator and pick his brain. Or her brain. Do you have the program, Mikey? Maybe there's an e-mail address or--"

Mikey hands him the program, beaming at Gerard with affection, and Pete can feel that googly-eyed thing threatening to happen again. He cuts it off with the old standby of asking a stupid question.

"Do you work in art, Gerard?"

Gerard looks at him with surprise, then glances at Mikey, who shrugs serenely, his disinclination to explain things to people apparently not a subject he feels the need to rehash here and now. "I teach," Gerard says, looking at Pete again. "High school. Painting, drawing, ceramics, a little graphic design, but that's practically a computer class now. I prefer getting my hands dirty."

"You teach." Pete nods. That makes sense, perfect sense. It also makes sense of some of Gerard's slightly questionable debate tactics while they were discussion the exhibition; apparently he briefly forgot that Pete isn't fifteen, a few times there.

"Yeah. The kids are really great. So much potential, they just need a direction to point it, you know?"

Pete remembers hearing that from his own high-school teachers. None of them had sounded as earnest about it as Gerard, though. He's not sure how much earnestness is worth, relative to the system, but it looks good on Gerard, leaving no possible response but a smile.

"You're in school, right?" Gerard asks, rolling the program into a tube between his fingers. "I think that's what Mikey said."

"Law school. Yeah." Pete nods, feeling his smile fade. He reaches for his pocket again, but it's still not there. "Almost done."

"Oh, that's great." Gerard looks at him with that unblinking thing going on again. "What are your plans? What kind of law do you want to do? Practice? That's the verb, right?"

"Um." He needs somewhere to put his hands. Denied a hoodie pocket, they want to go to his hips, and it makes him look like a demented cheerleader. "Yeah, it's...practice. I've got a spot lined up at a firm. They do corporate law. Contracts mostly, I guess. It's, you know. Pretty dry stuff."

Gerard nods seriously. "I'm sure. You like it?"

Pete stares at him for a minute. "Well. You know. I've been studying it for three years. And the pay is great."

Gerard blinks once, then spins the rolled-up program between his fingers. "Sure. Sure. That's cool. You've studied really hard, there should be a payoff. Cosmic justice."

Pete has no idea what that means in this context. "I guess."

Gerard's eyes narrow slightly and he opens his mouth like he's about to say something else, then closes it abruptly. He turns to Mikey instead, jabbing at him with the program. "There's one more room, I think. Then we should go get dinner. I'm starving. Aren't you starving?"

"Yeah." Mikey nods and bumps Gerard with his shoulder, moving past him to fall into step with Pete as they leave the room. His hand slides into the back pocket of Pete's jeans, fingers curving easily against Pete's ass and then squeezing lightly. Pete glances sideways at him and smiles.

"He likes you," Mikey says softly. Pete's eyebrows go up a little.

"Yeah?" Mikey nods, and Pete licks his lips, trying to ignore the rush of relief in his chest. "Even if I'm a soulless tool of the corporate machine?"

Mikey blinks slowly. "Well, you're not one yet. And also you'll argue with him about art. And I like you. Those last two are worth a lot of points."

Pete watches Gerard step up close to a painting, studying the brushstrokes from just inches away. "There are points?"

"Yeah. I have a giant scoreboard in my room."

"I don't remember ever seeing that."

"Well, you haven't been in my room for a while."

"I guess not."

"We should fix that." Pete looks at him with mild surprise and Mikey raises an eyebrow. "Just a thought."

"I just figured Gerard was--"

"He's sleeping on the couch. He is aware that we have sex. And he sleeps with earplugs anyway."

Pete wonders if there's ever going to come a point where Mikey stops surprising him. "Awesome."

Mikey squeezes his ass again, then withdraws his hand and moves away to join Gerard at the painting. Pete watches his ass as he walks, wondering what's underneath his jeans, thinking that it's some kind of amazing thing that he's going to get to find out.
**
Mikey sinks his teeth into Pete's shoulder and Pete groans, grabbing at the pillow and pulling it halfway over his face so at least he's making a good-faith effort at being quiet. Gerard and Gabe are both asleep about twelve feet away in either direction, and Pete is apparently experiencing some kind of latent modesty that he had no idea was there. Shit. If Mikey keeps doing that, Pete's going to wake up not only the other guys in the apartment but everybody else on this floor.

Mikey doesn't seem to be having any problems with latent modesty. If anything, he's unleashing an inner exhibitionist that Pete also hadn't known was there. He shows every sign of continuing to do that and turn Pete into some kind of helpless, gibbering, noisy mess.

Mikey shoves the pillow out of the way and kisses Pete hard, deep and aggressive and with a lot of teeth involved. "C'mon," he growls against Pete's mouth. "C'mon, c'mon, Pete--"

Pete isn't sure exactly what it is Mikey wants him to do, but the low, desperate note in Mikey's voice cuts through him hot and deep and he can't help but take Mikey's request literally.

Mikey groans and pushes Pete's knees back, thrusting inside him even deeper, fast and erratic and finally stilling when Pete physically cannot bend anymore. They lie tangled up, sweaty and sticky and both breathing loud and hard in the suddenly-quiet room.

"Hey," Mikey whispers finally, and Pete nods, closing his eyes and brushing the backs of his fingers over Mikey's cheek. "I'm gonna move, okay?" Pete nods again and exhales roughly as Mikey pulls out of him, then drags himself into a sitting position and wipes the come off his stomach with his boxers.

Mikey sits cross-legged at the foot of the bed, hair sticking up in a truly bizarre arrangement of sweat and gel and Pete's fingers digging for purchase. He blinks at Pete slowly, a hint of a smile at the edge of his mouth, and Pete sighs.

"For Christ's sake, you weirdo."

"Hey, I don't want to offend you."

"Really not possible at this point." Mikey shrugs and Pete has to grin at him, can't help it, Mikey's so fucking cute like this, still flushed and pleased with himself. "Go get your damn drink."

Mikey slides off the bed and grabs a pair of sweats from the floor in basically one fluid motion, which shouldn't be legal. Pete lies back, blinks up at the ceiling, and waits, letting his brain empty out, willing it to hold nothing. Mikey and his craving for ginger ale after sex. Mikey and the way he can turn on a dime from bossy, growly sex-guy to goofy dork grinning up from the foot of the bed. Mikey, Mikey, and even when Pete's brain is emptied out he can't stop thinking about him.

Mikey comes back in and bumps the door closed with his knee, gripping two cans of ginger ale in one hand and a sleeve of crackers in the other. "I brought provisions," he said, sitting down on the edge of the bed. "No need to thank me. I would've brought cookies but I think Gabe ate them all."

"I love you," Pete says, and wow, that was not at all what he intended to say.

"Um," he added into the careful silence that followed. "Uh."

Mikey sets the cans and the crackers down on the floor and turns so he's facing Pete head-on. "Yeah?"

"Um."

"You love me?"

"Um."

"I'm pretty sure that's what you said. That's what I heard, anyway." He cocks his head to the side, a piece of messy out-of-control hair falling down over his eye. "That is what you said, right?"

"I think so."

"Wow."

"Does it not count if you say it after sex?"

"It doesn't count if you say it to get sex. It doesn't count if you say it during sex." Mikey cocks his head the other way and pushes the hair back off his forehead. "You say it after, well, you already got the sex, what's the ulterior motive, right?"

"Getting more sex, at a later date?"

"Is that your ulterior motive?" Mikey's expression is blank and his voice is light, but there's something in his eyes, a careful question and a readiness to pull back if the answer promises to hurt.

Pete shakes his head, just a little. He would say something eloquent, but his throat's suddenly stopped letting anything in or out, including air. He might pass out and die, right here in Mikey's sex-damp sheets. Anaphylaxis brought on by incredibly awkward and inadvertent declaration of feelings. That's a hell of a cause of death. He might get a paper written about him, and published in Stupid Shit Guys Do Quarterly.

Mikey's still staring at him, and Pete realizes he's staring back and shaking his head like a robot.

"No ulterior motive," he manages to say in what just about passes as a normal voice. "I just..."

Mikey's eyebrow arches up toward his hairline. Pete wants to trace that stupid arched eyebrow with his thumb. He wants to lick it. Fuck, he is so far gone.

"I said it because I wanted to," he says finally, and Mikey starts to smile. "I love you."

"Cool," Mikey says really softly, and Pete suspects he's trying to avoid qualifying for SSGDQ, too. "Cool." He reaches out and touches Pete's hand, then grabs it and pulls Pete close enough to kiss. "I love you, too."

"Everybody loves everybody," Gabe's voice carries through the wall. "It's so awesome great. Shut the fuck up and go to sleep."

Pete looks at the other wall, waiting for Gerard to weigh in, but nothing happens.

"He sleeps like the dead," Mikey says, kissing Pete again and then reaching off the bed for his drink. "Don't worry about it."
**
In the morning, Mikey has to go teach his class. Pete hides in the bedroom for as long as he can, until Gerard knocks on the door and says "Are you dead or do you want coffee?"

For a minute, Pete is caught by the implied logic of that question. It's kind of beautiful, in an odd way. "Coffee sounds great. Be right there."

The idea of drinking coffee with Mikey's brother while wearing yesterday's khakis is just a little weirder than he can deal with, so he just tugs his boxers back on and grabs one of Mikey's t-shirts. There's something printed on the front that Mikey assures him is absolutely hilarious if you are familiar with nineteeth-century philosophers. And speak German. Pete isn't, and doesn't, and the shirt is most definitely not his size. He really wants some coffee, though, so fuck it.

Gerard is sitting at the kitchen table, hands curled around a mug, deeply engaged in a staring contest with Gabe's cat. Pete takes the mug that's sitting by the coffee maker and leans against the counter, drinking and trying to pretend he doesn't feel awkward.

"Good morning," Gerard says after a while, finally looking away from the cat, who celebrates her victory by stretching one hind leg up in the air and cleaning herself.

"Morning." Pete takes another drink and holds it on his tongue until it hurts. "Sleep okay?"

He realizes he probably shouldn't ask that question about half a second after he does, and braces himself for more awkwardness, but Gerard just nods. "Gabe woke me up this morning on his way out, but I'm used to getting up early anyway. For school. I've got a group that meets before first period Tuesday and Thursdays."

"What kind of group?"

"Extracurriculuar art club for kids who can't fit it into their regular schedules."

Pete nods slowly and drinks more, swallowing his coffee around a knot of vague desperation. This guy is unreal.

"I'm kind of surprised Gabe was up early," he says finally, for lack of anything else coming to mind.

"He was on the phone. Something about anarchy. There was yelling." Gerard shrugs. "I didn't ask."

"That guy is so weird," Pete says.

"Mikey says he's harmless."

"I guess Mikey would know."

Gerard shrugs again, raising his eyebrows a little. "I tend to trust his judgment about people." When Pete doesn't react, the eyebrows go higher. "He likes you a lot."

Pete does his best to hide behind the coffee cup. "I like him a lot, too."

"Good." Gerard goes over to the sink and rinses out his own cup. "Make him happy, and I'll let you live."

Pete blinks. "Otherwise, what, you kill me with art supplies?"

"Hey, you could do some slow, painful poisoning with solvents. And sculpting, painting, collage, they all involve a lot of knives." Gerard folds his arms over his chest and smiles brightly. "Be good enough for him and you're golden, though."

Definitely, completely unreal. "No pressure or anything, right?"

"Oh, lots of pressure. Oodles."

Pete frowns. "Who says oodles?"

Gerard rolls his eyes. "You are killing my dramatic moment of being an intimidating big brother."

"It's hard to be intimidating when you're wearing Batman boxers."

"Batman is completely intimidating."

"You're not Batman," Pete feels compelled to point out, even though at this stage it might make more sense to just shut up. "You're just wearing his logo over your dick."

Gerard looks down at himself thoughtfully. "Yeah, good point. Hey, you want to go get some bagels or something? There's no actual food in this kitchen. Just, like, liquids and cat food."

Given that Gerard had just been threatening to kill him, eating with him might not be the safest idea in the world, but on the other hand...Batman boxers. And Pete's like sixty-five percent sure he could take Gerard in a fair fight.

"Definitely," he says. "Bagels. Yes."
**
Pete accompanies Mikey to the laundromat a few day after Gerard leaves. He sits on one of the tables and kicks his feet slowly, watching Mikey sort his clothes in a mishmash way that isn't so much separating brights and darks as separating jeans and hoodies from everything else.

"This isn't even mine," Mikey says, frowning at a plaid button-down with a "Hi, My Name Is" sticker on the chest that declares its owner to be Harry Kuntz.

"Gabe?" Pete asks, and Mikey gives a who else? roll of his eyes and a slight smile as he tosses the shirt in the not-jeans-or-hoodies pile.

"Take the sticker off," Pete advises, kicking his feet again and watching a guy in the corner page slowly through Watersports Monthly. The cover shows a guy on a jet ski. That seems like a needlessly confusing title for a magazine. "You know, you could come do laundry at my place," he says. "Save your quarters."

"I'd have to pay for the train," Mikey says, getting up on his toes to jam more hoodies into the washer. "And haul my shit all the way across town. Besides, I like people-watching."

Pete tilts his head in acknowledgment. Valid points, all. "People are interesting." He watches Mikey open another washer and start stuffing jeans inside. "Dude, you're packing everything in so tight it's not going to get clean."

"I mostly just want it rinsed." Mikey glances over at him and smiles wider. "Soap is optional."

"Nice," Pete says, kicking harder and bouncing his heels off the table. Mikey smiling still makes weird things happen inside his chest.

Mikey opens a third machine and starts tossing in t-shirts and boxers and socks, and then a few brightly-colored pieces of softer fabric that make Pete blink and catch his lower lip between his teeth. "You wash that stuff here with everything else?"

Mikey doesn't look up from measuring detergent. "Where else would I wash it?"

"I don't know. I just." Pete frowns and stills his feet, hooking his heels around the legs of the table. "People might see, right?"

"Nobody pays attention to other people's stuff." Mikey twists the cap back on the detergent and sets it aside, letting the washing machine lid close with a bang. "And besides, I don't care if people see."

Pete's stomach twists and flops around something cold. "You didn't let me see for, like, months."

"I wasn't hiding anything on purpose. Maybe you weren't looking."

"I saw you take your clothes off a lot of times. The law of averages--"

"God, shut up about laws of anything." Mikey's face is distinctly flushed and he braces both hands on top of the washer, staring at the dials. "Life is full of weird fucking coincidences, okay? There's not always a pattern."

Pete locks his fingers together inside the pocket of his hoodie and squeezes tight. Sometimes he forgets that Mikey's cool, polished exterior is a face for the world and not proof of total having-it-together-ness. Mikey doesn't know what he's doing, either, and he's kind of adorably defensive about it right now. It makes Pete like him even more.

If he says that out loud, Mikey will probably punch him in the gut, which will also make Pete like him more, once the pain subsides. God, this is absolutely nauseating.

"I mean," Mikey says, with a sharp, small gesture of his hand that somehow encompasses the entire room. "I don't know these people. They don't know me. What they think doesn't matter. There are people who matter and people who don't, you know?"

Pete frowns a little. "So before I mattered, you wouldn't have cared if I saw, but once I did matter, you got nervous?"

Mikey glares at him, but it's not a real one. More like the one he gets when he's pretending he doesn't want to smile. "Okay, for one thing, who said I was ever nervous, and for another, who said you matter?"

He can't decide if that stings or not, since he can tell Mikey doesn't mean it. "Ouch, dude. Low blow."

Mikey rolls his eyes and comes over to stand in the open vee of Pete's legs, looking down at him solemnly. "You know better."

"Yeah." Pete wraps his arms loosely around Mikey's waist and rests his head on Mikey's chest, and they stand there quietly for a moment.

"People think they know one thing about you and that tells them everything, you know?" Mikey says. "They think everything can be reduced to the most obvious or most different part. Like that sums up your whole life." He runs his fingers through Pete's hair carefully. "But people are a lot more complicated than that."

Pete nods a little. "Like your roommate. He's not just an angry foiled philosopher, he also bakes really good coffee cake."

"Fucking to-die-for coffee cake." Mikey's fingers slip through Pete's hair again and Pete closes his eyes. "Or my brother. Mild-mannered art teacher, sure, but he also makes death threats against my boyfriend."

Pete grins against Mikey's chest. "He told you about that?"

"Oh, yeah."

"Should I be afraid?"

"Only if you're planning to break my heart." Mikey traces the vertebrae of Pete's neck. "And I don't think you are, right?"

"I don't know, dude, I'm a lawyer. Can't be trusted."

Mikey kisses the top of his head and eases away, back to the washing machines. "You're more complicated than that, too."
**
Pete might be complicated, but he's also up against a deadline. Or a series of them, really; finals, graduation, bar exam. Until those are over, he's really not all that complicated at all. He's stressed out, awash with existential despair, and has permanent heartburn, but he's not complicated.

His finals overlap with Mikey's for once, so there's about a week where they just disappear off each other's radars entirely, except for occasional texts that say things like contemplating death and so tired i just used mousse as toothpaste and fuck fuck fuck fuck kill me fuck. It's not the best week ever.

And then when finals are over, instead of being able to take a breath like Pete thought he might, things get even more insane and he ends up letting radio silence run right up through graduation. What with one thing and another and his family requiring time and attention and his realization at eleven o'clock the night before that he never bought the stupid graduation outfit, fuck, he just doesn't quite dial the phone, much less make it across town.

Still, Mikey is blessed with the ability to read a schedule on a website, and in the chaos of kiss and cry time after the ceremony, Pete feels a hand squeeze his elbow, and Mikey's voice is low and warm in his ear. "Hey."

"Hey." Pete turns to look at him, ignoring his aunt's calls for him to stop that and face the camera again. "Hey, hi, you're here. Holy shit. Hold on and I'll introduce you to every--"

"It's okay." Mikey smiles and pushes his glasses up on his nose. "I think if they have anything else to process today, they might explode. I just wanted to tell you congratulations. And you should come over tonight."

"We're going to dinner," Pete says, and belatedly realizes he really should have invited Mikey to that, goddamn it, he sucks at being a boyfriend.

Mikey doesn't seem offended, though. He's still smiling and rubbing slow circles on Pete's elbow with his thumb. "Whenever you're done. You know I'm up late."

Then he takes off and Pete's aunt sends one of his cousins to physically pick him up and move him to where she wants him, and he gets lost in the swirl of aggressively proud family for the next few hours.
**
When he knocks on Mikey's door that night, he still has the gown over his arm, wadded up around the hat and hood thing so he wouldn't lose them on the way over. By the time he escaped from extended-family-dinner, the idea of putting enough of a delay to get home and change between himself and seeing Mikey was just too much.

Mikey greets him with a kiss and tosses the gown onto the couch, then tugs Pete into the kitchen, where Gabe is scowling in concentration and writing carefully in frosting on a cake.

"I told you, nothing obscene," Mikey warns.

"Fuck you," Gabe says, eyes narrowing as he puts down another letter.

"You can say it, just don't write it."

"You are oppressing my art."

"It's a cake."

"Way, I will shove this frosting so far up your ass you'll be--"

"You bake real cakes?" Pete looks around Mikey to see the cake, which is actually really gorgeous. There are little frosting flowers and absolutely no predictions of forthcoming doom. "Not just coffee cake?"

"My talents are legion." Gabe adds a final squiggle of frosting and steps back. "Congratulations."

"Thanks, dude." Pete shifts his weight awkwardly. "I mean, you didn't have to--we don't know each other that well or--"

"Mikey's covering my half of the electric this month in payment."

"Ah." Pete nods. "That makes way more sense."

"I am contributing a bottle to the cause, though. Just out of the goodness of my heart." Gabe produces a slightly flour-covered bottle from the back of the counter and waves it in Pete's face. Pete flinches back and grabs at it until the label comes into focus.

"Ouzo? Really? I'm flattered."

"My appetites are also legion." There isn't a hint of irony in Gabe's voice, and Pete suddenly flashes back to when he was pretty sure Gabe was a vampire.

"Enough chit-chat," Mikey says, smacking Pete on the ass and reaching to open a cupboard. "Time for cake and debauchery."
**
Of course, given that they are a proto-lawyer, a literature grad student, and a philosopher in limbo, chit-chat is inevitable. By the time they're halfway into the bottle of ouzo, Gabe is in rare form, preaching to the choir at a great volume that seems to require a lot of arm-waving.

"I mean, look at us! We're the young and over-educated! In any other time in history, we'd be the ones people were looking to shape the future, to come up with the next brilliant fucking change in worldview."

"Weltanschauung," Mikey murmurs happily, and Pete kisses his cheek.

"But instead," Gabe goes on, shaking his head and grabbing the bottle. "Instead, we live in America-of-right-now, and instead of expecting us to shift paradigms, people crack jokes about us working at Starbucks for the rest of our lives. And I don't even work at Starbucks. I work at an independent cafe. But all anybody cares about is punchlines."

"They don't make those jokes about me," Pete feels compelled to point out. Damn booze.

"True." Gabe nods slowly. "True. You picked the one socialy acceptable form of post-baccalaureate education."

"Business school," Mikey says, licking the rim of his glass.

"Fine. Fuck. One of two." Gabe takes a long drink. "The point is, law school, business school, those are training to do something. And more importantly, a something that serves the machine. Just regular grad school? That's different. That's learning for learning's sake. And we are fucked up about that around here and now."

"People are all proud of you when you say you're going to do it," Mikey points out.

"Fuck, yes!" Gabe slams his hand down on the table. "It's so fucking two-faced! It's acceptable while you're doing it. It's the last acceptable way to learn anything in America just because you want to know. But as soon as you're done? Once you've got your degree, once you've achieved? it's a fucking joke." He downs his drink. "You're a fucking joke."

Pete stares down at his own glass. "That's...really depressing, Gabe."

"Welcome to life." Gabe stands up and walks in a slow circle around the kitchen, waving his glass in the air. "I mean, think about it. Think about people who go to grad school. Like...like half of them. Less than half. A third, maybe, a third know exactly what they're doing with their lives. The rest of them? The rest of them don't know shit They're treading water. All they know is that they kinda like learning and there's something they want to know about. And that should be awesome, right? They're exploring the universe of the mind! But instead it's, like...comedy."

Pete looks at Mikey in blank confusion. Mikey shrugs and licks his glass again.

"I guess we should all try to be more like the first group, huh?" Pete says finally.

Gabe stops and stares at him. "No. Are you kidding me? People who know what they're doing with their lives should be punched in the throat repeatedly. Knowing what you're doing is the enemy of experimentation, creative expression, life."

Pete nods slowly. "Is this what your dissertation is like?"

"Ha! Don't I wish." Gabe shakes his head and grabs the bottle again. "If it was about this, I would've finished the fucking thing."
**
"You're quiet," Mikey says, hooking his chin on Pete's shoulder.

Pete shrugs a little, careful not to dislodge him. They're tucked up against each other in Mikey's bed and there's not a ton of room to dislodge him into without falling right off onto the floor. "Head's still kinda fuzzy."

"Lesson learned." Mikey nuzzles the back of his neck. "Don't drink Gabe's booze."

"He drank most of it."

"That's pretty typical." Mikey's hand moves to Pete's hip, fingers wandering gently. "You okay?"

"Yeah. Just, you know. Long day. Crazy day."

Mikey's quiet for a few minutes, and Pete closes his eyes, trying to trick himself into falling asleep to the sound of Mikey's breathing.

"You know," Mikey says finally, and Pete opens his eyes again, blinking at the dark. "I don't have any answers? I don't really know anything. But I think there might be less to be scared of than you think there is."

Pete doesn't know what to say. He doesn't say anything.

"You're pretty amazing," Mikey says, rubbing his thumb over the back of Pete's neck, over the bump of his spine. "And you would still be pretty amazing whatever you decided to do. I'm just...putting that out there. I don't know anything, and you shouldn't have me on this pedestal that I think you do, but...I think maybe you shouldn't be so scared. That's all."

Pete has to swallow twice, hard, before his throat can manage words. "I think about who I'm going to be if I do what I'm supposed to do, and I...I kind of hate that guy."

Mikey is still for a minute, his hand lingering but not moving. "Then do something else."

"Goodnight, Mikey."

Pete feels him pull back, just a fraction of an inch, but enough to make his skin feel colder. "Night, Pete."
**
There are good ways and bad ways to react to that kind of thing. Pete is aware that he is engaging in the latter. He doesn't kid himself about that, but he is apparently powerless to stop it.

It's not full-on meltdown territory, but he's definitely hanging out in the demilitarized zone around the territory, as indicated by such roadposts as "lying on the bathroom floor for three hours paralyzed with terror," "not responding to any attempts at communication from boyfriend, friends, or family for one (1) full week and change," and "setting several things on fire in a drunken attempt at a cleansing ceremony, combined fire and water damage going to take a hefty chunk out of the security deposit."

That lasts for ten days. Then there's one day of sleeping it off. When he wakes up that evening, it's with a surprising clarity of mind and purpose. He spends two days taking care of details.

On the fourteenth day, he knocks on Mikey's door.
**
Mikey opens the door and stares at him, arms folded across his chest.

"Hi," Pete says carefully. He holds up a bag. "I brought doughnuts."

"Bribery." Mikey doesn't smile. Or blink. "Where have you been?"

"They're the really good doughnuts. From the place you like."

"I haven't heard from you in two weeks."

Pete bites his lip. "Can I come in?"

Mikey steps aside, grabbing the bag from Pete as he comes in. Pete relaxes a very little bit. That's a good sign. It's like eighty percent harder to stay mad at someone once you've accepted their peace offering. Add another two percent for doughnuts, and he just might be able to pull this off after all.

"I had to do some thinking," he says. "And then take care of some things."

"And?"

Pete frowns. "And?" From the way Mikey's looking at him, there's a very definite correct answer. There's this line of his mouth, and angle of his hips, and...fuck. "Oh. And I'm sorry."

Mikey nods and leans back against the couch. "Continue."

"Will you come to dinner with me at my parents' house on Saturday night?"

Mikey's eyebrow climbs northward in a distinctly unimpressed arc. "What does that have to do with you disappearing and thinking and taking care of things? Are you going to break up with me in front of your parents? I've never even met your parents."

"What? No." Pete shakes his head frantically, bouncing a little on his heels. "I'm not going to break up with you at all. Unless...unless you're breaking up with me?"

"That really depends on your answer to my question."

Pete frowns at him. "You asked like four questions."

"Pete."

"Okay. Okay." He takes a deep breath, rubbing at his eyes with the back of his hand. "I want you there when I tell them I'm not taking the job at Dad's friend's firm."

Mikey goes still for a minute, except for his hands tightening on the bag of doughnuts and making the paper crackle. "What are you going to do instead?"

Pete prays like hell that this is going to sound sane out loud, unlike the way it does inside his head a good half of the time. "I'm going for this internship in civil liberties and protection of creative expression and free speech and...and stuff." Way to stick the landing, there, Wentz. "With the EFF."

He's afraid to look at Mikey at first, but when he does, Mikey's doing the face where he's trying to pretend he's not starting to smile. "Oh."

"It's not being a rock star, or a pirate." Pete shrugs, looking away from Mikey again because he doesn't want to know if that expression might change. "But I'll get to hang out with both."

"You're still taking the bar?"

"Yeah." Pete nods, shoving his hands into the pocket of his hoodie. "But I don't have a job waiting on the other side, now, so...so I'll have to find something else. Part-time or something."

"I hear coffee shops are always hiring." Mikey sets the doughnuts down on the couch and takes a step toward him. "And I know a guy."

"Awesome." Pete bites his tongue, trying not to smile as Mikey keeps moving closer. He's looking again, he can't help it, and Mikey's face hasn't changed at all. No skepticism, no disapproval, no oh-my-god-how-are-you-so-stupid. That lets Pete start to think maybe he's getting this right after all. "And I'm going to have to give up my apartment. I don't suppose you know where I could find a couch to crash?"

Mikey nods solemnly. "I bet I could even find you a bed."

"Sweet."

"And I guess." Mikey hesitates, tilting his head slightly and considering his words. "I guess I can be on-call to help you learn how to live outside the manner to which you're accustomed."

Biting is useless. Pete really can't keep the smile from escaping anymore. "So, uh. We're on for Saturday night?"

"Yeah." Mikey's smiling too, now, the one Pete likes the most. "Definitely."

"Can I have a doughnut?"

"No." Mikey reaches out and grabs Pete's arms, tugging until Pete takes his hands out of his pocket and laces his fingers with Mikey's. "Those are mine."

"Oh, come on," Pete says, "that isn't fair--"

"Pete, shut up," Mikey says, and kisses him until he does.