Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

1969, December 1st. There was a period of limbo between when the letter was sent and when the nervously awaiting family had received it through their mail slot. Between when the television had given them an ambiguous number and when they got the confirmation of the worst outcome. The following week was spent in mourning, already dreading what was yet to come. 

Four months later: May 1st, 1970, a bullet had found its way through the helmet of an unfortunate victim of a far drawn-out war. Though this death was one of many Americans and Vietnamese alike, truly unremarkable in the grand scheme of things, it struck one home a short car ride away from Newark, New Jersey in particular. 

1971, May 12th. Gerard Way was stood in his dead brother’s room, alone. He tapped his foot, testing out the wooden floors he hadn’t seen in nearly a year. He hadn’t been in this house since the funeral. Since then, he’d been in New York, sharing an apartment and living in his own personal limbo.      

Gerard clutched the empty box in his hands, stuck in place. Clearing out Mikey’s room, the last refuge of his memory. After this, he’d be gone. It would be like he never existed in the first place. All the stuff his brother had acquired in his short life, dispersed once again. 

This was the last place to be cleaned. For the past year, Mikey’s door sat shut, never to be opened by anyone, even his closest family. It felt like walking into a coffin. A distant relic of life. 

Gerard moved to the walls, admiring the posters in the dimness of the room. It felt wrong to turn the overhead light on for some reason, like he was disturbing something. The walls were painted a dark blue, the color Mikey chose when he was 13, old enough finally to decorate himself. Gerard had chosen a light green at the time, which he then regretted and covered up with his favorite comic book art and vinyl posters. 

That was all gone now; some moved to his college dorm while others were stuffed in a cardboard box he probably wouldn’t open for years. His wall was painted a subtle off-white now, like the rest of the house. What used to be the bright blue kitchen was now dull: its colorful tile flooring stripped away along with the floral wallpaper in the living room, now replaced with vertical wooden planks. The renovators loved it, Gerard hated it. It robbed all the personality out of his childhood home. 

Mikey’s room was saved for last. His parents made sure to tell the renovators to leave the door shut for now, until it was the last thing left to do. Now it was, and Gerard had asked to be the one to clean it out. To say goodbye for the last time. 

Gerard started pulling at the tacks in the wall, peeling away the posters one by one. His eyes stopped stinging as much when his brain finally turned off and it all just became meaningless paper that needed to be tucked away. He worked almost mechanically.

When he was done with the walls, leaving little holes and peeled paint scattered around the room, he moved to the clothes on the floor, which had yet to be picked up since his brother left them there. He clenched his teeth as he worked, shoving all of Mikey’s clothes in a bag, which would soon be sorted into “Keep” and “Donate,” but Gerard didn’t think about that now. 

22, thought Gerard. That was too goddamn young for a man to die, let alone in war. He had his whole life ahead of him—at least 50 more years—cut short by something as small as an unlucky bullet. 

Gerard bit his cheek. A year was too soon. It felt like just a week ago when he had gotten the call, his mother’s sobs crackling through on the other end of the line. “Mikey’s dead,” she had choked out on the fourth try. Gerard still remembered the gut wrenching sob that followed as he had stared, dismayed, at the wall in front of him. 

Here in this room, it felt like his brother was still alive and breathing. Like nothing had changed since they were kids. 

Sighing, Gerard opened the boy’s closet, stuffed with the accumulation of all of his possessions essentially from birth until four months up until his death. 22 years of items, soon to be stored or thrown away. He pulled boxes and bags and various trinkets down from the closet, dispersing them onto the floor haphazardly. He had about a month to get this all cleared out, so he had time to look through this whole mess. 

A particular green box caught Gerard’s eye as he pulled it down from the top shelf. He sat down on the messy bed, setting the small box down in front of himself. The top read “U.S. Air Force”, telling Gerard that this was likely something sent after his death. He dusted it off before unlatching the lid. 

Inside were an assortment of envelopes stacked against each other, and a small, leatherbound book that jumped out to him against the white papers. He slid it out of the box, turning it around in his hands. He flipped through the pages; some were lightly stained, but other than that it seemed to be in relatively good condition. 

Then it hit him. 

Fuck, a journal? Mikey kept a journal? Gerard had never known about this. It looked quite full, too, which was surprising to Gerard because Mikey never had that much to say. 

“Gee?” said a voice at the door frame. Gerard looked up from the journal. “We’re going out to dinner in a few.”

Gerard nodded, stuffing the journal in his pocket. “I’ll be down in a second,” he said. 

His mother smiled solemnly, looking around the messy room before sighing and stepping away with a, “We’ll meet you downstairs.”

— — —

“Frank.”

Gerard had the telephone pressed to his ear, pacing back and forth as long as the cord would let him. 

Frank laughed on the other end of the line, but Gerard wasn’t laughing. “God, Gerard, what is it?” he chuckled. “What’s so important you had to call me three times in a row? That's some stalker shit, y’a know. The operators are probably calling the police at this point.”

“Frank, this is important.” Gerard flopped down on his bed with a sigh, purposefully loud enough for Frank to hear his annoyance. 

After imitating Gerard with a deep sigh on the other side of the phone, Frank cleared his throat. “Okay, what happened?”

“I found Mikey’s old diary.”

Frank let out a short burst of laughter. “Diary? Like, ‘Dear Diary, today I—‘“

“This is serious, Frank,” Gerard mumbled, bringing his hand up to the bridge of his nose and wondering why he couldn’t have just phoned Ray instead. He would take this seriously. 

Frank cleared his throat on the other end of the line, as if he suddenly realized the implications of Gerard finding his dead brother’s diary. “Alright then, what is it?” he asked. 

Gerard clenched his teeth suddenly, the stinging behind his eyes making itself clear again. 

“Gerard?” asked Frank after a moment of silence.

“I think he hated me, Frank.” 

Gerard waited for a few seconds in silence as Frank thought of a reply, his throat starting to tighten.

“I’m sure it wasn’t like that.”

Chapter Text

June 5, 1969

I dont hate you, thats not what it is. 

Mikey tensed his jaw as he stared at the white lines on the road. “Can you guys roll down the window or something?”

Its not as much you as it is the both of you,

He looked in the rearview mirror to see Bert languidly sucking on a joint before letting out a long exhale of smoke. He turned slowly to his window—purposefully dragging it out, Mikey knew—rolling it down without a word. Mikey hummed a half-hearted “Thanks” in response, fixing his glasses before returning his gaze to the road. He knew not to mess with Bert now, he knew it would only make him more upset.

hes an asshole and youre apathetic, which makes for a great ride, if you can imagine. 

Gerard tapped on his own window just behind Mikey, slurring a mumbled few words under the sound of the air now entering the car. Mikey took a moment to roll down his own window just a bit so his ears wouldn’t throb before he asked Gerard to repeat whatever he had said.

He could hear his brother sigh before repeating, louder this time, “How far out are we?” 

Mikey shrugged in the front seat. “I don’t know. I’d have to stop and check the map. Unless you guys think you can figure it out back there.” Mikey took a glance in the rearview mirror to see his brother purse his lips, sunglasses concealing the top half of his face. “That’s what I thought.”

Gerard exhaled a long line of smoke, and Mikey could feel his lungs fill up with the bitter taste from the front seat, despite his efforts to ventilate the car. “It’s getting late, anyway,” said Gerard, flicking ash out the window and onto the speeding asphalt. “Maybe we should stop soon.” 

Mikey nodded, trying to keep his eyes out for the next sign he’d see.

Its only been 3 days and I already want to go home. Bert has this way of getting to me that makes me want to swerve into oncoming traffic every time he talks. I hate talking to him, and I hate talking to you because you put up with him. 

Even the first day of the trip had already made Mikey regret coming. 

They had taken a spot in some random parking lot behind a hotel over some place in Pennsylvania, near a buddy of Bert’s, whose house they had stopped at for some reason unknown to Mikey since they didn’t stay the night. It was Mikey’s first night on the road; he’d never been camping before or anything of the sort. His home was his haven. 

Bert, on the other hand, had been floating around nowhere in particular near the New Jersey/New York/Pennsylvania area most of his late teenage years to early adulthood. Mikey remembered this from an argument between Gerard and his mother a couple months ago, about how Gerard shouldn’t be hanging around delinquents like Bert, that he was a bad influence, yadda yadda. She didn’t know he’d been hanging around those sorts of people for most of his life. 

Bert’s “delinquency”, Mikey learned, which consisted of running around between houses of strangers and living on the street with various hippie acquaintances, made the guy a goddamned pain in the ass.

“Will you guys set up the tent?” Mikey had asked, shivering in one of the minimal t-shirts he’d packed, neglecting to think about how even in the middle of summer it was still cold as shit once the sun went down. 

Bert took a moment to stub the end of a short joint on the concrete, placing it on the ground next to two others, before pulling out another from his pack. Mikey always worried about Bert getting them pulled over or arrested for the abundant weed he smoked, but he always brushed it off when Mikey mentioned it. He stretched his legs out from the curb he was sat upon. “Why?” he asked, because of course. 

Mikey clenched his jaw and took a subtle deep breath, looking to Gerard to see if he would reason with the guy; surely he was cold and tired, too. But he seemed to be too busy with his own chain smoking to care. Great.

“Because,” said Mikey, clenching and unclenching his hands in his pockets. Be nice, be nice. “I’ve been sitting in the car for the past hour while you guys sit out here—” doing nothing “—and I’m tired and would like to have energy to drive tomorrow morning.” He paused. “Please.”

Bert looked up at him finally, no particular emotion written on his face. “Why can’t you set it up?”

Deep breath, Mikey told himself. He knew if he explained to Bert that he didn’t know how, and Bert isn’t doing anything anyway so why can’t he, it would be useless, so he turned around and spent a grueling half-an-hour in the cold trying to figure out how to work it out himself. 

I know Ill get used to how it is now, and at least Im with you, I guess. I was kind of worried about how once you leave Ill never see you again, so I guess this is just a final goodbye or something, however this ends up. I try not to be mad at you the way it is now because its not really your fault getting kicked out. I mean, it kind of is, but. whatever.

Besides that, weve been kind of caught in a predicament. 

Mikey was lost, unbeknownst to his passengers. 

This occurred to him as the bright sun hit his eyes over the horizon, reading the sign to a city he had never heard before, in 26 miles. His mindset for the past few days had been to drive in the direction of Chicago, because they had to end up there at some point, right? He figured as such. Or maybe he just had never been out much. There was only so much road…

There was a lot of road. 

Mikey was tapping his fingers against the wheel, looking nervously in the rearview mirror to see if Bert of Gerard had caught on yet, but they seemed to be engrossed in probably the most boring conversation Mikey will ever hear in his life. He kept his eyes forward, trying to read the signs to form a mental map of where he was, while also on the search for the nearest rest stop. Maybe he’d have to find a trucker or go to a gas station to find his way back on track, something he’d been avoiding up until this point. He’d made it this far, hadn’t he?

“That’s not what I said.”

Mikey’s attention was brought to the back seat at the words. He looked in the mirror to see Gerard glaring at Bert. 

“You’re twisting my words.”

“I’m just repeating what I heard,” said Bert simply, not even looking at Gerard, instead outside the window at the wide field to the right. 

Mikey was lost on the context. 

“Jesus, you’re such a—”

We crashed today. 

Gerard stopped his words as a loud boom was heard below the car, launching the wheels into a lopsided battle with the road. Mikey had to clutch onto the steering wheel as the car rattled into another lane against his will, steering toward the concrete median in the middle of the highway. Fucking fuck fuck fuck—

“What the fuck?” Mikey heard Gerard say from the back. 

Then there was a squawk from who he guessed was Gerard as he slammed on the brakes out of fear of running into the concrete wall, launching the three forward in their seats. The looming margin came fast, though, forcing Mikey to turn the wheel sharply to the right to avoid it, resulting in the honk of another car behind them and launching the Beetle off the road. 

The car halted with a surprising amount of force into the side of a ditch, and Mikey felt his body forced over the metal steering wheel. With a loud creak, the car careened briefly to the side before hissing to a stop. 

It took him a moment to catch his breath. 

Fuck.

He pushed himself up, using the dashboard as balance so he wouldn’t slide forward again. His ribs hurt like a fucking bitch. Ditches look a lot smaller from the road, Mikey noticed, compared to when you’re in them.

“Is everyone okay?” Mikey wheezed, trying to situate himself in a way where he could look back at his passengers. 

Bert grunted in response, attempting to open the door, but halted by the wall of the ditch. 

Mikey sighed, grimacing as he opened his own door before pushing himself out of the car. He tried not to instantly fold over on himself as fumbled his way over to Bert’s door on the other side, climbing over the crumpled car in the process. Bert wasn’t gonna be happy about that. 

Getting Gerard and Bert out of the car was a hassle, with one of the back doors blocked and the other broken, but they ended up being able to pry it open before climbing out to check the damage—of both themselves and the car. 

Mikey chose a spot a few paces away from the car to sit, collapsing against the wall of the ditch and spreading himself out so his body could breathe. He took his hand under his shirt to feel for any broken ribs, though he didn’t know exactly how to search for that so he quickly gave up, resorting to leaning back with his eyes closed and listening to whatever Gerard and Bert were bickering about. 

“—gonna be pissed,” Bert spoke as Mikey’s ears tuned in. Probably that person Bert had borrowed the car from, if Mikey had to guess whom he was referring to. 

“Yeah,” responded Gerard as Mikey opened his eyes to dense, white smoke flowing out the front and back of the car. How nice. ”What are we gonna do?” asked Gerard after a second of staring at the wreck. Mikey couldn’t really bring himself to care about much more than the fact that he didn’t want to be stuck here for God knows how long. 

Bert reached up to scratch the back of his neck, moving to stand next to Gerard and peer into the folded hood that poured smoke. “Um,” he said simply. Mikey closed his eyes again, rubbing a particularly painful spot on his chest.

“Should we wave someone down?”

“Oh, smart! Mikey.”

Mikey opened his eyes, turning his head over to Bert, trying not to narrow his eyes at the man. God, if he—

“Can you go try to wave someone down?”

Mikey clenched his jaw. Of course he was gonna ask Mikey to be the one to go wave down cars when he was the one clearly in pain. How kind of him. “Sure,” he muttered, willing himself to sit up with a hiss. What were Gerard and Bert do, anyway? Sit there?

He made his way over to the side of the road, holding his chest and gritting his teeth. 

Bert was being an ass, as he does.

Not particularly in any rush, and sort of hoping to inconvenience Bert in any small way possible, Mikey half-heartedly stood off to the side of the road with no true intent of making an effort to pull someone over. If some kind soul decided to stop and help, they’re welcome, but Mikey had no particular interest in getting to Chicago any time soon. What are they gonna do in Chicago, anyway?

He sighed, sitting down on the grass off the side of the road with a grunt. Fuck this shit.

And Im so excited to deal with him for the next however long Im gonna be stuck with you guys. And deal with you putting up with his shit. 

Mikey looked over to Bert and Gerard, talking out of ear shot but motioning to certain parts of the car. Gerard nodded, pulling out a cigarette pack from his pocket, and Bert held out his hand expectantly at the motion. 

He scoffed, turning back to watch the road and picking at the grass as he watched cars speed by. This was the worst possible scenario. If Bert tried to give him shit about a fucking blown out tire, Mikey might as well hitch a ride home. He couldn’t deal with one more word out of that man’s stupid mouth.  

Not too much later came the sound of slow tires on the asphalt. Mikey shot his eyes up to that direction. 

It was an impressive looking burgundy Ford, holding a large crew cab that Mikey had never seen before. It was a fucking huge truck, and a lot nicer compared to Bert’s beat-up, loaned Beetle, running on hopes and dreams and probably pot at this point.

Out hopped a colored man, about Mikey’s age, he guessed, though a few inches shorter than he. The man wore a blue-and-yellow striped shirt, tucked into a pair of dark blue jeans. He looked normal, beside the two tiny hoop earrings on either side of his face. A lot more normal than Bert’s friends that Mikey had been forced to hang around. 

He furrowed his eyebrows, pushing himself off the ground with a hand to his chest as the man made his way to where Mikey was stood.

“Hey,” the man said, pulling a pair of brown sunglasses from his nose to the top of his head, resting above his short, coily hair. “You guys alright?”

“Um,” said Mikey, realizing his arm was still clutched over his chest. “For the most part.” He gave an awkward laugh.

He followed the man’s gaze above his shoulder to the Beetle in the ditch behind him. Bert and Gerard were making their way to where Mikey was speaking with the stranger, with Bert in the lead. 

“D’you need help putting that thing back on the road?” asked the man as the boys approached, pointing at the wreck in the ditch. “I got a spare in the back of my car, if y’want it, I can help you pull that thing out. Get you to the nearest shop.”

Bert just shrugged like he couldn’t be bothered. 

Gerard explained that the Beetle had been lended, and their unpleasant relationship with the man who had given it to them, and Bert followed up with, “The scuzz deserves it.” The man raised his eyebrows as if he was thinking that Bert was rather a scuzz himself, with his uncleanly hair and rather rugged clothing. 

Or maybe Mikey was just projecting. 

“Where you guys headed?” the man asked, taking his sunglasses from his head and wiping them off with the edge of his shirt, before giving the group a look. 

Mikey just looked at the other two, waiting for them to give an answer. Babying his older brother and his idiot friend was the last thing he wanted to do.

“Chicago,” Gerard answered eventually, when he realized neither of his companions would speak. 

“Chicago!” said the guy, letting out a large, toothy smile. “I’m from there, y’know.” Then he furrowed his eyebrows upon some further realization. “You guys know that you’re really not headed in the right direction, right?”

Gerard and Bert looked at Mikey, who bit his cheek. Whoops. 

“You turned onto I-65, you’re headed toward Indianapolis,” he explained, moving his sunglasses back up to his forehead. “You were supposed to go on I-90.”

Like that was the most of Mikey’s problems right now. Maybe he should just leave Bert and Gerard here and let them figure shit out. He figured he could walk along the side of his road with his thumb out for long enough to catch a ride back to Jersey.

He massaged his ribs as the man brought a hand to the bottom of his face, seeming to think something over. 

It only took a few minutes to unload the alarmingly small amount of personal items from the Beetle to the Ford once the man seemed to finally relent, offering to take the three to the city. He’d shaken each of their hands, introducing himself as “Pete”, a simple name. 

Pete had a surprising amount of shit in the bed of his truck, covered in a tarp as to not let it get rained on or stolen or something. There were tools Mikey didn’t even know the purpose of, a few bags for what looked like clothes or whatever, sat right up next to various plastic bags full of food or other smaller items. It made Mikey wonder how long the man had been on the road for. He didn’t look like a hippie, but maybe he was like a different kind of one, living out his car. Alone. 

“Shit, dude,” exclaimed Bert when they had got in the car, “you got a radio?” He leaned in from the back between the middle of the front seats to get a better look at it. 

Pete smacked Bert’s reaching hand when it got close to the box. “Jesus,” he said, “you ever heard of personal space?” He then dialled it himself to some sort of channel that was playing The Beetles or The Rolling Stones or something akin to that; Mikey was not very well-versed in music. 

Bert gave a few beautiful seconds of silence as Pete started up the car, putting it in first. Mikey watched out the window, hand on his chest, taking a last look at the Beetle they had left in the ditch before it rolled out of sight. 

“Can I smoke a little MJ in here?” asked Bert, already pulling out a package of joints from his pocket like he didn’t care what the answer was. 

Pete took a look back from the rearview mirror, watching as Bert already had a joint held up to his lips, now bringing up a lighter. “Do you at least have a cigarette?” he sighed, just before Bert struck up the end of the roll. Mikey watched Pete clench his jaw as he looked back to the road. 

“Why smoke if you don’t get high?” Bert asked rhetorically, before blowing out a long line of smoke into Pete’s car. He started rolling his window down, and Mikey caught Pete scrunch his nose beside him, looking around in his mirrors nervously. 

Pete bit his lip. “Can you toss it, please?” he asked after a couple moments, watching Bert in the rearview mirror. 

“What, weed’s too much for you?” Bert gave a dry laugh before taking a long inhale, holding his breath at the bottom before letting it out slowly through the window. 

The driver picked at his lip with his teeth, eyes darting on the road. “I don’t want to get pulled over,” he said simply, and Bert just scoffed. 

“Pulled over? Please, no one’s cared about grass since the ‘50s. I’ve maybe got told off once, ever.”

Mikey coughed as the smoke reached his lungs in the front seat, and he felt his ribs scream a little at the action. He tried to hold his chest without making the pain too obvious. 

He watched Pete straighten in his seat, tapping his fingers a couple times on the wheel as a sort of silence stretched on in the truck. “I’m black,” he said suddenly, more force in his voice than he’d given before. “They’d pull me over.”

Bert gave a laugh, and Mikey bit his cheek. “You’re paranoid,” he answered simply, playing with the smoke rolling off the paper, twirling it languidly in the air. 

Mikey fought the urge to roll his eyes, sliding them instead over to the driver’s seat. Pete’s eyes that were focused on the mirrors around him. When the man opened his mouth again, Mikey hushed it with a rushed, “Just throw out the joint, Bert.”

The man scoffed. “Really?” He rolled his eyes, before taking a long suck in and flicking the joint onto the road. “What a waste,” he muttered. Mikey just took a long sigh under his breath, thankful that he had stopped it from going any further. 

“So…” Pete started after a few long seconds, and Mikey clenched his jaw nervously. “Where you guys from?”

“Jersey,” Bert answered, with no effort whatsoever to keep the conversation going. Mikey would say that maybe that was an indicator for him being pissed about the joint, but the starkness was hardly anything deviant from Bert’s normal behavior. 

Pete hummed in the front seat. “Why you headed to Chicago, then?”

Mikey looked to Bert to see if he’d be any help to the conversation, before realizing that he wasn’t much help to anything. He took it upon himself, somewhat relieved that they were talking about something else now. 

“We, uh,” Mikey started, before realizing he didn’t really know the answer to the question, so he just ended with a trailing, “Um…”

“We’re on a journey,” said Bert with a sense of finality, rolling the window up with one hand as he spoke. Mikey’s skin felt itchy with either embarrassment or annoyance or both at the comment. He turned his eyes to the road just outside his window. 

“Mmm,” Pete said simply. “So what’s this, uh, ‘journey’ about?”

The large Midwestern field was shining in the blue cast of the recently set sun. Mikey tried to focus on that, rather than Bert’s bullshit, but that proved to be difficult. “I want to find myself,” said the man, after a long few hopeful seconds of silence. 

“Find yourself?”

“That’s what I said.”

Mikey flicked his eyes over to Pete, who was looking at Bert’s reflection in the mirror, tightening his lips at the response. Mikey had to hide his smile at the man’s frustration by turning back toward the field.  

Its relieving Im not the only one who finds you two exhausting.

He was starting to like this guy. 

They listened to some sort of music on the radio for the next stretch of the drive, making for a more peaceful couple hours than Mikey was used to, chaperoning. It seemed to him that Gerard and Bert were never just content to listen to the silence of the car, so the music playing from Pete’s radio apparently sufficed just enough for them to shut up. Mikey let his head fall against the window, closing his eyes as he listened to the weird guitar from the speaker. It wasn’t what he would put on—he was fine just listening to silence—but it was better than Bert’s voice. 

“Where you guys looking to go in Chicago?” 

Mikey opened his eyes at the voice of their driver. He was probably about two seconds from falling asleep by the time the man spoke. He wiped the tiredness from his eyes, looking out the window of the truck. The light of the city could be seen now from the car. 

It was silent for a few seconds, and Mikey just let his head lean back against the window, hoping someone else would answer. He didn’t fucking know why he was here. 

“Anywhere,” answered Gerard at some point after a few long seconds. Mikey clenched his jaw. 

“I take it you don’t have anywhere to sleep tonight?” said Pete after a moment. 

Mikey let the silence stretch on for five, six, seven seconds before relenting. He mumbled a, “No” against the glass of the window, watching his breath fog it up for a couple seconds before fading away. 

Pete seemed to wait for a few seconds, but Mikey was unsure for what. There seemed to be a lot of long seconds in this car. “Well,” he said finally, “you guys are welcome to stay with me, if you like.”

“Where are you staying?” Mikey asked, watching the lights from the city come up closer in the distance. It reminded him of Newark at night.

Fuck, he missed home.

Pete shrugged. “Anywhere. Probably a parking lot somewhere.”

“Didn’t you—” Mikey furrowed his eyebrows against the window. “Didn’t you say you’re from there?”

“Yeah,” said Pete. He didn’t elaborate. 

The parking lot was somewhere up north of Chicago, about 45 minutes away from the last time they’d spoken, where Pete stated he knew his way around a bit more than the south. 

Pete took the back seat of his truck while Bert and Gerard and Mikey worked to set up the tent hastily, ready to retire for the night. Mikey was stuck once again inside his sleeping bag, between Gerard and the fabric of the tent that pressed close to his face. 

Sleep took a long time to come, feeling packed like sardines with Bert’s stench of weed he brought everywhere and Gerard’s snoring, but he managed. Had to manage. Like he had every night before now. 

He tried not to regret forcing Gerard to bring him with.

Chapter Text

“So you found this in a box the military sent back, right?”

Gerard nodded. The journal was sat on the top of the bed in the middle of the three, neatly closed on top of the blankets. Ray always kept his room clean, his bed made. It bothered him to live in a dirty environment, which contrasted Gerard’s living preferences immensely. 

“How much did you read?” Frank asked, taking another drag from a cigarette as he leaned against the headboard. He puffed out the smoke to the side. 

Gerard shrugged. “Not much. I kinda stopped after I called you, you know,” he said. “Plus, I thought you guys would find it interesting.”

Ray nodded thoughtfully, bringing his hand up to massage his face as he spoke. “What else did you find when you were cleaning?” 

“Not much,” Gerard replied. “I mostly just took posters down and stuff. The closet is a whole other project. I think that’ll take at least a few weeks to get that all sorted.” Gerard picked up the journal and twisted it in his hands to look at it. “It’s strange, though; I’d never seen that box before. The one that I found it in, you know. I remember a different one coming in the mail after the news came back, bigger, but I’ve never seen that one before.”

“Maybe you just didn’t notice it,” Ray offered, shrugging at Gerard. 

“Are you going to read through it?” asked Frank, sitting up to look at the journal better. He motioned with his hand for Gerard to hand it over before flipping through the pages curiously. 

Ray made a sound. “That feels weird. When he’s…you know.” He looked up apologetically to Gerard. “Sorry.”

Gerard shrugged at the comment. It’s not like he had forgotten Mikey was dead, but Ray was always touchy around the topic. “I’m just so curious—” Gerard took the journal from Frank’s hand “—y’know? Everything he’s thought about me, in here. I didn’t even know he had a diary.” He flipped through it. It seemed long; his secretive life hidden away by the leather covers. He’d used it for a while, apparently. Or he just had a lot to say, which is funny because Mikey seemed to become so much less of a talker in his later years before he died. Maybe this was why. Gerard wanted to know it all. 

“I don’t think that would be the best idea, y’know, reading a…deceased's diary.” Ray gently took the book from Gerard’s hands. “I mean, what if you find something you don’t want to? Maybe you’ve seen enough, just from what I’ve heard. It’s best to keep a good lasting impression of your brother, I think. Don’t let his memory get tainted.”

Gerard pushed his head into his hands and groaned. “But now I know, you know?” He brought his head up, running his fingers through his hair. It was shorter than he was used to, he had gotten it cut when he moved in with Ray as a fresh start. “Now I’ll be thinking about how Mikey hated me and I won’t know why when there’s all of his thoughts written down right there. I can’t not read it now. Don’t look at me like that.”

Ray had his eyebrows raised at Gerard judgmentally. Fuck him and his morals. 

“I think you should let him read it, Ray,” said Frank after a few seconds of silence. Gerard looked at Frank, who was putting his cigarette out on the ashtray. Ray made a noise of protest, but Frank shook his head. “I think he’ll never stop thinking about it if he doesn’t, y’know? Maybe he has to get it out of his system, know the full story.”

Ray pursed his lips. “Fine.”

Chapter Text

June 7, 1969

I cant believe you just left me with this fucking guy. 

Pete was stood outside the car, taking a full body stretch with his arms in the air. He was wearing an undershirt like a tank top, nearly see-through but not quite. Mikey furrowed his eyebrows. What kind of guy wears a goddamn a-shirt and nothing else? 

Hes nice but hes odd and I dont know exactly how to think of him. I just think its an asshole move of you to just go out and disappear with bert like I dont exist. We dont even know the guy. 

Bert and Gerard had gone off yesterday afternoon in hopes to find some hippie that would sell them cheap weed or whatever, Mikey hadn’t really been paying attention, until at some point he realized they wouldn’t be back before sundown. And they weren’t back in the morning, so really they’d just left him with a stranger in a strange town. 

Fucking fantastic. 

Pete was odd, that was the first thing that Mikey noticed. He wore this undershirt and some jeans cut at the knee, loose string hanging off the modified shorts. He had all of his shit packed into the back of his truck, including some sort of make-shift kitchen supplies and a cooler. Despite the lack of hair; a semi-clean cut of dark coils about an inch away from his skull, Mikey was slowly starting to realize that he probably was some sort of hippie. A less obvious one, sure, but it was there. He lived out of his fucking car. 

Right now he was eating out of a plastic bowl on the tail of his truck bed, swinging his feet a little as he ate what looked like cereal, from Mikey’s distance. 

What an odd guy. 

Mikey turned back to the arrangement of poles and light fabric, trying to figure out how to put everything away neatly in that small bag. He never understood how it was possible to fit an entire tent into that thing.

He kneeled down, taking the tent fabric and scrunching it together before trying to stuff it into the bag. The injury over his ribs had healed in the past few days, leaving him only with a dull ache now when he moved too suddenly. Unfortunately, it was too minute to override the worries about his brother. He tried not to think about how Gerard and Bert may have been kidnapped or something. Maybe, more realistically, they found some sort of party or congregation or whatever and got too blown out of their mind to make their way back to the car. Or they’d tried and gotten lost, maybe they didn’t remember where Pete was parked. Or maybe Bert overdosed and they were at the hospital. 

Who fucking knew. They could be anywhere. 

Mikey pulled the tent out of the bag, throwing it to the side. It wasn’t fitting. Maybe he had to roll it up first. 

He started rolling up the fabric, trying to get as little dirt mixed into it as possible. 

“D’you need help?”

“Oh my God,” Mikey gasped, turning around on the ground and flinging the half-stuffed compressible bag out of his lap. He looked up at the man from the ground, feeling a little intimidated. He didn’t know what to think of this guy. “Walk a little quieter, next time, will you?” he muttered, grabbing the bag he had flung back to his lap. “Jesus H.”

Pete let out a light laugh, eyes crinkling with amusement. He had a very wide smile, that was something Mikey noticed. If it wasn’t for that smile, Mikey would be a lot more nervous about being left along with the guy, because quite frankly it looked like he was going to commit a felony. He’d only ever seen convicts wear an a-shirt and nothing else. 

Mikey turned back to the bag on the ground, worrying his cheek. “Fine,” he eventually relented, and Pete squatted down, picking up the fabric and the bag, stuffing it in effortlessly. 

“How long are you guys in town, d’you know?”

Mikey just shrugged, picking up a pole and starting to disassemble it. “I don’t know. I don’t think Gerard or Bert knows either.”

Pete finished the bag, grabbing one of the poles as well. Mikey set his own on the ground beside him. “How do you know them? You don’t seem to like them very much.” 

“No, no, I do,” he said automatically, bringing his hand to the back of his neck awkwardly. Then corrected himself with, “Well, I—Gerard’s my brother. Bert’s his friend.” He didn’t answer the rest of the question. He could feel Pete looking at him as he worked, but he couldn’t reciprocate. He kept his eyes on the ground in front of him. 

The good thing is he seems fine enough, got me a job at some auto shop because apparently he knows people. The only thing is they made an odd agreement that makes me think were gonna be stuck here a bit longer than we intended. Im sure you wont mind, stuck in your odd oblivion with Bert. Im the only one who gets to deal with this shit. 

“You smoke?”

Pete nodded as he let the cigarette rest between his lips, stuffing the pack back in his pocket. “Yeah, why?” he asked between the cigarette paper, leading Mikey as they crossed the street and away from Pete’s car, which now held the message “Gerard, Bert - We’ll be back soon” on the windshield.

Mikey just shrugged. “I don’t know, I kind of assumed otherwise since you didn’t want Bert to smoke in your car.”

“Ohh.” Pete hummed, cupping his hand over the cigarette to light it as he walked. When it ignited, he took a long inhale, before blowing it out to the side and letting the smoke trail behind the two of them in a cloud. “I don’t mind cigarettes,” he explained, “weed’s different. Er—well.” He held the cigarette between his two fingers as he walked, seeming to think. “I do mind some cigarettes, the ones that smell crummy. Mine’s a bit better.”

All of them smelt shitty to Mikey, he didn’t know that there were different types of smells. “What’s different about yours?”

Pete pulled out the pack from his pocket, showing the box to Mikey like that would give him much insight. It was a green and white pack that read Salem over the front. “Got menthol in it,” he said, “makes ‘em taste a little better.

He just nodded, watching Pete slide the pack back in his pocket. 

They were on some main street now, full of loud, colorful cars and high buildings packed with motion. The ambiance was soothing to Mikey, reminding him of trips into the city in search of something more interesting than Belleville had to offer. He had always liked cities; didn’t care much for the rolling Midwest—large roads and dull towns full of beige buildings that were no more than a few stories tall. Chicago reminded him more of Newark, lively with shining signs and things to look at. 

Pete had mentioned a job for Mikey in the main part of town.

“It’s a Standard Oil,” said Pete at some point, stepping around a fire hydrant on the sidewalk. “Some buddies of mine work—or at least they used to work there. I don’t see why they wouldn’t be anymore, but I can get a word in if they don’t.”

It was only a few minutes walk away from where Pete had parked, down the main street and east a couple blocks until they arrived at a white and red gas station. One of the men working the dispenser gave Pete and Mikey a wave as they passed. 

Pete hesitated for a moment outside the door, before pushing it open and ringing a chime throughout the auto store. Mikey stuffed his hands in his pockets as Pete crossed his arms over his chest, looking around the place with a sort of nervous energy that even Mikey could pick up. 

“Hold on!” 

Pete shut his eyes at the voice that sounded from the back of the store, seeming to take a long, deep breath. Mikey felt suddenly awkward at Pete’s timidness. He hadn’t known the guy for long, but “timid” didn’t strike Mikey as a word that would describe Pete often. 

He bit the inside of his lip. 

A man with curly brown hair down to his shoulders popped out from an aisle, mouth dropping open the second his eyes landed on the two new customers. Well, Pete, mostly. 

“Pete? Man!” He stood still for a second, mouth agape, before speeding over to Pete and pulling him into a hug. “I haven’t seen you in a while, dude, where’ve you been?”

Pete gave an awkward smile as the man let go. “Uh.” He scratched the back of his neck. “Nowhere in particular.”

The man furrowed his eyebrows, a hint of annoyance flashing behind his eyes. Mikey’s eyes were drawn to a blue floral bandana that kept the man’s hair out of his face. He figured the guy was some sort of hippie. Matching with the bandana, the guy wore dark blue coveralls, stained with grease and dirt and unzipped just enough to see the top of his chest hair. He had a bright silver piercing on the side of his lip that made Mikey shift on his feet as he stood. 

The whole thing made Mikey second guess blindly following some guy he’d just met to find a job in a city he’d never been to. Hippies made him uncomfortable. They were all political and strongly-opinionated and he felt like if he said the wrong thing he’d get a long rant into things he didn’t want to get into. He didn’t know much about the war, and hadn’t paid too much attention to what had been going on with the civil rights stuff in the past few years, other than that MLK guy that got shot last year. 

“C’mon, man,” the man said, a little bitterness to his tone. “You’ve been somewhere this entire time.” Pete just shrugged. The guy paused, seeming to look Pete up and down like that would give anything away. He sighed. “Man, I gotta tell Andy,” he relented suddenly, before giving a smile and a pat to the shoulder to his old friend. “I’ll be right back.” Then he whisked away through the aisles. 

Mikey watched Pete, noting how his jaw moved when he looked around the shop. A door was heard closing in the back of the store.

The two stood in silence at the front of the shop. Pete was tapping his foot, making for the only noise in the store. “That was Joe,” Pete said after a moment, voice coming across a little nervous, breathy. Mikey just nodded. 

A man with similar shoulder-length hair came next, covered in intimidating tattoos and an odd piercing below his chin that made Mikey grimace. He looked frightening. 

“Pete?” he said—Andy, apparently, with a voice that made Mikey want to laugh a little. It didn’t match his look at all. “Shit, man, haven’t seen you in a while.” He was wearing the same coveralls as Joe, though tied around his waist to show off the impressive tattoos across his chest that made him look like some sort of convict. Mikey didn’t like the look of him, but he sounded friendly enough. And at least Mikey had some height on him, if that was anything. 

Pete laughed awkwardly at the comment as Andy pulled him into a one-armed hug. “Hey, dude,” he greeted through the man’s long orange hair. 

“Who’s this?” Andy asked, giving a wide, polite smile, addressing Mikey finally after whatever high school reunion just occurred. 

Pete turned to Mikey, seeming to revive a little as soon as the attention wasn’t on him. “This is Mikey,” he introduced. Mikey reached out his hand to shake. Andy took it. “He’s looking for a job.”

“Just him?” asked Joe, pointing between the two, eyebrows beginning to stitch together accusingly. “What about you? We haven’t seen you in, what, two, three years? And you’re just gonna drop off some guy and split?”

Pete pursed his lips. “Yeah...” He gave a slow nod to emphasize his point, though his eyes seemed to be giving something else away. Something that told Mikey there was a lot going on here. 

He looked at his shoes on the floor, feeling wildly out of place. 

“What the fuck!” Exclaimed Joe, throwing his arms up dramatically in Mikey’s periphery. “Does Patrick even know you’re here? We should call him. Andy, can you—”

Mikey felt Pete move next to him with sudden forcefulness, pulling Mikey’s attention back up to the three. Pete had his hand around Andy’s large, tattooed arm, who looked like he was turning to leave before he was halted. 

“Don’t call him. Please.” Pete seemed to be practically begging Andy, a hint of desperation leaking into his voice. He looked small, but his hand still wrapped tight around Andy’s giant arm. The man looked quickly between Pete and Joe, before finally directing his body back to Pete, away from wherever the phone was. “Listen,” Pete continued. “I—I can’t do that right now. We can talk about this later, yeah?” He waited for the boys to nod. “My friend Mikey, here—” he gave a hard pat on Mikey’s shoulder, causing him to recoil just a little bit “—he and his friends need a job. Capiche?” 

Joe pursed his lips, clearly wanting to continue the conversation. “Fine,” he spat after a moment. “But we will talk about this, okay?” He waited for Pete to nod before giving his attention to Mikey, shifting into what seemed like his costumer service voice. “What d’ya need, man?”

Mikey bit his cheek, looking between the three that had suddenly directed all their attention toward him. “I really just need money,” he said truthfully. “My brother and, uh, his friend need some sort of job as well, if that’s alright. Just for a few days, maybe a week or so?”

Joe nodded intensely. “Cool, cool, we can do that.” He looked to his friend. “Andy, do you think you can get this guy set up? Just on pumps or something should be fine. Pete.” He beckoned with his head toward the door in the back. 

Pete hesitated for a moment, looking to Mikey with alarmed eyes. “Shouldn’t I go make sure—”

“He’ll be alright,” Joe hushed, not even glancing at Mikey. He raised his eyebrows, and Pete obliged after a few moments of silent eye contact. 

They were probably there for a little less than an hour as Andy waited for Joe to stop speaking with Pete, going into much more detail than was needed to work gas pumps to pass the time. Mikey’s mind was beginning to crawl back to Gerard and Bert’s whereabouts about fifteen minutes in after he was told the basics, and he hardly paid attention to anything Andy rambled on about for the next thirty, leading him around the gas station and auto shop in a sort of tour. He was imagining Gerard coked out in a corner somewhere, alone. 

Pete came out of the back with Joe trailing behind him at around the 45-minute mark. Pete looked less than pleased. 

“Let’s go,” he said, with a nod of his head in the direction of the front door, and Mikey followed him out silently after a small reciprocated wave to Andy. 

It didn’t look like Pete wanted to talk about it. Nor did Mikey feel like he was in the place to let this guy talk about his issues. They didn’t know each other. 

Luckily for him, only about ten seconds of awkward silence passed before he noticed sounds coming from the direction in which they’d come from. “What’s that noise?” He furrowed his eyebrows. 

The sound seemed to be coming from the main street about a block away in the direction of Pete’s car. Mikey tried to peak through the buildings as they crossed the street, watching through the alleys what seemed like a large group of people walking through the street. There was a muffled chant going on. 

“Um, should we go another way?” Mikey asked, looking over to Pete as they walked toward one of the alleyways that they had crossed before. 

Pete just shrugged, hands in his pockets. “They’re not gonna do anything,” he said, seemingly unworried. Mikey watched his face for a second, before Pete caught his eyes and returning them back to his feet. He could feel his shoulders tighten. 

“There was a protest in Newark about a year ago that set some buildings on fire,” Mikey said, biting his cheek a little as he filled the silence. They were on the main street now, watching the people march with their signs, singing, One, two, three, four! We don’t want your fucking war!” Mikey was reminded of the photos he had seen from the city after the riots, the masses of people. He remembered walking down those streets for the next couple months, looking at the destruction they had left of the buildings. “There was a lot of destruction. The, y’know, the race riots. Er—”

He looked at Pete nervously as he misspoke, wondering if he would give Mikey some sort of lecture like to Bert in the car, but the man seemed too enthralled by the protesters to notice, weaving through the onlookers. 

There were a lot of people dressed in baggy and tie dye clothes, but Mikey was surprised by the amount of normal looking people that were there, too. A cleanly man with short, brown hair held a sign reading, “YOUR SON NEXT.” Mikey looked away, turning his focus back to Pete, who had slowed their pace, wondering if he should reiterate that they should get out of here. He didn’t want to be around when something inevitably went wrong. 

“They’re not dangerous,” Pete said, seeming to read his thoughts. He looked at Mikey, who tried to hold the man’s gaze firmly, though he knew he looked as uncomfortable as he felt. Pete looked over his shoulder to some place behind him. “He is, though,” he said, directing Mikey’s attention to a man behind them on the corner of the block they’d just passed. 

The man was older—probably in his 50’s or 60’s—waving around what looked like a Coca-Cola bottle while screaming profanities at the crowd as they passed. The people gave him dirty looks as they chanted, until suddenly the bottle was launched from his hands and into a woman’s head. In just a few seconds, a man beside the woman was on top of the aggressor, landing a solid punch to the nose that made Mikey flinch. There was yelling, but it was indistinguishable above the chanting. Some hippie came in, pulling the man off the aggressor, before the crowd got in the way of Mikey’s view. 

“Oh my God,” Mikey said, mostly to himself, turning his eyes to his feet. He watched Pete’s shoes beside him as they walked, letting them lead the way. The whole protest thing was stupid. It just caused unnecessary violence, and for what? “I never really understood the protests,” Mikey admitted after a moment of walking. The crowd had switched the chant to the “Hell no, we won’t go!” one he’d seen in newspapers. “I mean, we’re winning, aren’t we?”

“I met this Army man,” Pete started as he walked Mikey through the people on the sidewalk. He looked up from his shoes to watch the man speak, “I drove him from Grand Forks to Omaha—some family thing. He said we’re getting beat up real bad down there, that the generals or whatever are lying to make it seem like they’re winning.”

Mikey furrowed his eyebrows. That was stupid. “Why would they lie?” Why would the government be sending so many soldiers to a war they were losing? In another country, no less. That was just dangerous. They couldn’t be lying. “Are you sure?”

Pete nodded. “Apparently Nixon’s pulling troops out,” he continued, not letting the silence marinate for too long, “so maybe it’ll stop soon. Hoping for that, at least.”

“Nixon’s pulling troops out?” But that wasn’t because of the protests. It was because they were losing. Stupid parades like this down the street go nowhere. 

“Supposedly.”

And Mikey let the conversation die off after that point. He wasn’t one to be interested in or know too much about politics. Most of it was stupid, anyway, debates and stuff. And politicians knew more about this kind of stuff than any random civilian like Mikey, who got his news like anyone else: from the papers. He figured most of it was just to have something to disagree with, anyway. 

The walk back to the car was more silent than he’d hoped. It let his mind wander to his companion’s whereabouts.

Chapter Text

Gerard had brought Mikey’s box back to his apartment later that evening, planning to search whatever else was inside. It was surprisingly light, he noticed, as he brought it up to the counter. Frank had invited him for dinner earlier, which had disrupted his plans of looking through whatever else the military had sent back of Mikey’s belongings, but he figured the box would still be there when he got home. 

He pushed away the clutter on the table: 3 half-drank cups of water, unsorted mail, and countless other items that he’d forgotten to bring to his room since the last time Ray scolded him over the mess. 

The box was unlike the one he remembered his mother showing him all those months ago, which was labeled clearly with Mikey’s name on the front and a print of the flag, large and more box-shaped than this box. This one was more like a compartment, with a latched lid and the U.S. Air Force print on the top that assured him it was Mikey’s. 

He opened it, just like he had the other day, but this time he spilled out the contents so he could look at everything. 

All that was in there other than the journal he had pulled out a couple days ago were an assortment of letters and a small metal object. He picked it up, turning it over in his hand. Mikey’s dog tag, worn and dusty. He bit his lip, putting it back in the Air Force’s box. It was unsettling to look at, the necklace hanging off the metal chain. How the military used that object to track his brother’s death. He tried not to think about how Mikey had probably been wearing it when that bullet took his life. 

He moved to the letters, sorting through them. Most seemed to be either from himself or other members of their family. He made sure to not look too closely at the letters signed from Gerard Way for his own sake, markers of the past. 

Two letters stood out drastically from the rest. They both bore an official looking stamp with the words “US Air Force” printed clearly on the front. They were both unopened. Gerard tore one open, heavier than the other one and a lot more intriguing. 

Out fell an assortment of pristine photos, presumably kept in good condition by the envelope, scattering across the table as he poured them out. 

There were about six, all with the date written on the back and noticeably not in his brother’s handwriting. All of them held Mikey in frame, though in none of them was he alone. Some had up to five random men Gerard had never seen before, some with only Mikey and one other person, all in uniform. 

One of the photos specifically stood out to him, dated April 16, 1970. Mikey and three other soldiers were stood in front of a building, all clung together in an eerie sort of way. None of them looked like they were trying to hide any sort of emotion behind their eyes. Or, maybe they were trying, but it wasn’t working. One shorter man had his lips in a pursed smile that never reached his eyes. Mikey, on the other hand, looked hardly aware that the photo was even happening at all. He didn’t even look like Mikey, but Gerard knew it was him. He was stronger than the person Gerard knew, broader, and his eyes had sunk in a little, unnervingly. The boy didn’t even try to crack a smile. 

It was strange looking at the photos. He was looking at his brother who was not his brother. In some photos it looked like he had aged at least a few years, though Gerard knew the photos were only taken a few months since he had seen Mikey last. It was a man he knew, but didn’t know, would never know. He knew the history of the man in the images, what his favorite comic books were, what he was like as a teenager, but he would never know what had sunk those eyes. 

Gerard gathered up the photos again, clenching his jaw slightly. He put them back into the sleeve before reaching for the other unopened envelope. 

This one contained a folded letter, typed in bold ink with another US Air Force stamp at the top of the page. 

He read it. 

DEPARTMENT OF THE AIR FORCE

Air Force Mortuary Affairs & Personal Effects Division

Da Nang Air Base

13 JULY 1970

TO: Donna & Donald Way

SUBJECT: Personal Effects of Officer Michael James Way, USAF

       On behalf of the United States Air Force, please accept our deepest condolences for your loss. We honor the service and sacrifice of Michael Way, who demonstrated unwavering dedication as a Pararescue Officer in service to his country.

       Enclosed, you will find a selection of Officer Way’s personal effects that have been processed and released for return. Due to standard administrative procedures, certain items required additional review before final processing. These have now been cleared and are included in this shipment. 

       Please note that some materials have been retained in accordance with Air Force regulations. If you require further information regarding retained items, inquiries may be directed to the Air Force Office of Special Investigations (AFOSI) Records Division at the address below. 

       We recognize that this is a difficult time, and we remain committed to assisting you in any way possible. If you have any further questions or need support, please do not hesitate to contact the Air Force Casualty Assistance office. 

With deepest sympathies,

ROBERT BRYAR

Judge Advocate General

Air Force Mortuary Affairs Officer

Da Nang Air Base

Gerard furrowed his eyebrows, not particularly understanding a single word of the letter. He figured it was just some sort of official document that was sent out with a soldier’s personal items to return home. 

With a sigh, Gerard put all the envelopes and the dog tag back in the box, still a little unnerved from the photos. He wanted to find that other box of personal items he was sure was laying around somewhere, the ones with items the boy had brought with him to Vietnam, the ones that made Gerard feel more connected to the person he had lost. 

He thought back briefly to the journal in his room as he pulled the hatch on the small green box. That had come back in this box, too. Perhaps that would give him some insight into his brother that was also a stranger, a glimpse into the life he’d missed. 

If he could just get past the part where Mikey was complaining about him all the time.

Chapter Text

June 22, 1969

12:23, early in the morning. Im tired. A lots been on my mind lately, being out here away from home. Im writing this in the car with my lantern because I didn’t want to turn the car on. I told pete I was just grabbing something so I have to make this quick, though I may have to come up with another excuse as to why I was held back. I dont know. I dont like people to know I write. 

       Brief summary of the past week or so, as I haven’t had the privacy to write recently: Andys been keeping us for about a week since he figured out weve got no place to stay. 

“You’re living in your car?” asked Andy incredulously as Pete pulled the pump out of the dispenser. The man shrugged, apparently not wanting to elaborate on his current living situation. “I thought you were staying with a friend somewhere!” Andy turned to Mikey. “What about you?”

Mikey shrugged as well. “Tent,” he answered simply. Then, upon seeing the look on Andy’s face, he rushed, “It’s not that bad! It’s just a road trip. Y’know.” He let out an awkward laugh. In reality, he’d been having the worst time of his fucking life sharing a tent with Gerard and Bert for the past couple weeks. 

Andy shook his head, turning to Pete again. “Really, you couldn’t have gotten him and his friends a place to stay?”

The pump clicked and Pete took it out, putting it back in the slot and looking at the number on the dispenser. “I was giving him a ride,” he replied, before making his way around the other side of the car to speak to the driver. Andy just pursed his lips.

“I’m gonna, uh,” Mikey pointed to a Chevrolet waiting next to the pump behind Andy. Andy turned to look before wordlessly nodding his head to dismiss him. 

Mikey jogged up to the car, tossing the petroleum-stained rag he was holding over his shoulder as he did so—he felt it made him look like he’d been working here longer than he had. He greeted the driver as she rolled down her window, smiling at him with deeply stained teeth. 

“Hey,” the woman said as Mikey walked up to her window, slipping him a five dollar bill between her two fingers. “Fill me up with whatever this can get.”

He nodded, worrying his lip anxiously as he worked on the gas. He didn’t want to get any more involved with people here in Chicago than he already was. Gerard and Bert had already made friends with a few acid heads since they got here, the one they hung out most with being this dude named Quinn. They were usually wondering off in the evening just to wake Mikey up in his tent early in the morning when they got back from doing whatever the fuck they were doing, smelling strongly of substances Mikey was sure were not legal. Every day was spent wishing he hadn’t come along. 

“Mikey.”

Mikey jumped as he pulled the pump out of the car, closing his eyes for a couple seconds to come to his senses again. Pete. Hi. He looked up, raising his eyebrows. “What?”

“Andy’s offering us a place to stay,” he said. “Gerard and Bert, too. He says he has a big basement for us to stay in if we’d like.”

Mikey bit the inside of his cheek. On one hand, it would be nice to sleep indoors again. On the other…Mikey wanted to go back to Jersey as soon as humanly possible. Giving Gerard and Bert a temporary place to live was not the solution to that. “Uh,” he started, focusing on putting the pump back in the dispenser to avoid eye contact. “I suppose we can ask Gerard and Bert. I don’t know.”

Its been nice. Andy and Pete are kind to me, which is all I can ask for, really. Pete’s always nice to me. I think he realized early on that this trip weve been taking was far from my idea. 

It was cold sleeping in Andy’s unfinished basement. He had brought out blankets to put on top of the concrete so the sleeping bags wouldn’t be entirely uncomfortable, but it didn’t help much. 

He climbed out of the sleeping bag, not caring to be particularly quiet because he was sure Gerard could sleep through anything and, quite frankly, he didn’t care enough about Bert to be cautious about his noise level. 

Mikey made his way upstairs as quietly as he could. He wasn’t sure what exactly he was looking for up there, but maybe he just didn’t want to be tossing and turning in the confined hell that was his sleeping bag for however long it would take to fall asleep. And maybe he was a little bit hungry. 

Stepping silently on the wooden floors, Mikey made his way to the kitchen, just around the corner from the stairs. The light from the moon lit the kitchen dimly through the windows, but it was hardly enough to see his way around, having only been in this house for a week. He felt the wall for a light and flicked it on. 

Mikey jumped as the light filled the room to reveal a figure in the middle of the kitchen.

“Holy fuck,” he whisper-yelled as he looked at Pete’s hunched posture over the kitchen table. Mikey had a surprised hand to his chest. “Jesus Christ.”

Pete was sitting at the island, body half-turned to Mikey now with a cigarette raised to his lips.

“Hi,” said Pete simply, taking a short drag of his cigarette, which was already half-smoked. The smoke hovered in his mouth for a second before he blew it out. 

“What are you doing here in the dark?” Mikey asked just over a whisper-level, left hand still hovering over the light switch. 

Pete shrugged. “Felt like it.”

He raised his eyebrows, watching the way Pete’s lips parted as he inhaled the thick smoke, flicking the cig between his fingers and letting the ash fall onto the counter. “You’re smoking at—” he checked his watch “—10:45 p.m.? In the kitchen, in the pitch black?” The smell of Pete’s cigarette, which was slowly becoming familiar to Mikey, had already filled the small kitchen. He was kind of right, that Pete’s smoke smelled different than Gerard’s. 

“The light’s too bright at this time,” argued Pete. “Eyes got used to the dark. Why are you here?” He twirled the smoke around between his fingers.

“Sleeping bag was uncomfortable,” Mikey explained, still standing awkwardly at the entrance of the kitchen. He brought his arms over his stomach under Pete’s eyes. “Thought I could get a snack.”

Pete nodded at the refrigerator, as if signaling that Mikey was allowed to enter. He obliged, walking over silently to open the fridge and gaze at the contents. Everything looked like it took far too long to cook or put together at this hour, so he opted for one of the apples in the corner. 

“Who’s sleeping on the couch down there?” asked Pete as Mikey closed the fridge, apple now in hand. 

He turned around. “Uhm,” he said. “None of us tonight. We were switching, but Bert and Gerard got in an argument earlier and decided no one should tonight.”

Pete nodded, watching Mikey move around the kitchen and running his fingers over his hair, which drew Mikey’s attention to it. It looked different. 

He furrowed his eyebrows. “Did you cut your hair?” His free arm was around his stomach again as he took a slow bite out of his apple. It looked a lot cleaner than it had before, more tame, bringing attention to the soft facial features and away from the hair that surrounded it. 

Mikey watched Pete inhale on the smoke before sighing it out with a, “Yeah, why?” His eyes never left Mikey’s face.

He gulped a little, tightening his arm subconsciously around his stomach. Pete always looked at him in a certain way that made him squirm; he felt too observed. Gerard and Bert hardly ever gave him much attention, he figured maybe he just wasn’t used to it anymore. “When did you have time to do that?” Mikey asked, focusing back to the conversation. He couldn’t think of a time that Pete could have snuck away to the barber in the past couple days that Mikey wouldn’t have noticed. He’d been hanging out a lot with Pete recently just so he wouldn’t have to hang out with his brother and his imbecile friend. 

Shrugging, Pete just said, “I cut it myself.” He pushed himself out of his seat to stub the butt of the cigarette in the ashtray at the corner of the table, finally taking his eyes off Mikey as he did so. “It’s difficult to deal with if it gets too long on the road, so I taught myself how to cut it when it gets too long.” Mikey watched Pete sit back down, taking an inhale of the lingering mint-y flavor of Pete’s finished cigarette. 

He didn’t know why Pete cutting his hair on the road came as such a surprise to him. It made sense, really, that Pete would have learned to cut his own hair. He looked nice and clean compared to the typical hippies that lived on the road. 

“Hm,” said Mikey, touching the back of his own hair, feeling the length. He’d always been one to go to the barber quite regularly—unlike Gerard, who had convinced their mom to stop making him go about a year ago—so Mikey’s hair was getting a lot longer than he was used to on the road. He didn’t like being able to see his bangs. “How do you cut it?” Mikey asked. That was impressive that he had learned to cut his hair himself; Mikey was sure he’d fuck it up entirely if he tried. 

Pete motioned sticking his hand through his coils, mimicking scissors like he was using the width of his fingers as measurement. He shrugged. “It’s not really that hard when you’ve been doing it for, what, two years?” He dropped his hands back down. “It’s easy.”

Still playing with the hair on the back of his neck, Mikey nodded. He was in desperate need of a haircut, himself. He wondered if Pete could cut it for him. Unless it was an actual barber, Mikey doubted he’d trust anyone that close to his ears with scissors, but Pete seemed like he had done it plenty of times, so he asked him as such.

Pete seemed to look at Mikey’s hair thoughtfully for a few moments. He bit the inside of his cheek, trying not to feel weird under Pete’s gaze. 

“I mean,” started Pete after a good few seconds. “I could try? I’ve never cut anyone else’s hair before, especially straight hair, so it may look a little dork-y, but I can try. Later this week, yeah?”

Mikey nodded.

Its been okay staying in Andys basement for the most part, except for the fact that he lets you guys bring in your hippie friends or whatever theyre called. Quinn comes over a lot and I feel like he just amplifies Bert’s personality. Petes been nice in letting me stay with him while you guys are doing whatever youre doing. weve become friends in the past few days, I’d say. Hes cool.

Evening came and Mikey was sat criss-crossed in Andy’s backyard, a blue long sleeve tied loosely around his neck, seriously doubting his decision to let Pete cut his hair with shitty kitchen scissors and limited expertise. 

“Are you sure?” asked Pete, scissors in hand as he walked up to where Mikey was sat with his hands in his lap on the grass, seeming to catch on to his hesitation. 

Mikey ran his fingers through his hair, what had turned into a sort of bob-like haircut in the past few weeks. It really was getting way too long. “Yeah,” said Mikey after a moment, trying to calm himself down. “It’s just hair. It’ll grow back.” It was mostly to reassure himself rather than Pete, but Pete seemed to relax a little at that, too. 

Pete nodded, more to himself than Mikey. He exhaled, shaking his shoulders out a little. 

“Jesus,” Mikey scoffed, a little nervous air to the noise. “It would help if you were a little more confident with yourself, you know? Just pretend you know what you’re doing, it would make me feel better.”

Pete gave a large, exaggerated smile as he moved to kneel down in front of Mikey. “Alright. What do you want?”

Mikey raised an eyebrow. “Whatever you can do without fucking it up too bad. Don’t get cocky.”

“Fine.” Pete gave a little squint of his eyes. “Give me an idea, though, I have no idea what you’re expecting.”

Mikey tried to explain the haircut he’s been getting nearly his entire life, though his only request was to keep the side part and for Pete to do whatever he was comfortable with. 

“You’ve almost got a Beatles cut going on,” said Pete as he finally moved to sit behind Mikey, preparing the kitchen scissors.

Mikey scrunched his eyebrows. “Never tell me that.”

Pete’s fingers brushed through Mikey’s hair unexpectedly, and he couldn’t stop his shoulders from tensing up just the tiniest bit. He wasn’t used to people touching his hair.

“Sorry,” said Pete, drawing his hands back from Mikey’s head. “Different texture than I’m used to.” Mikey nodded at the comment, trying not to not to seem so rigid. It was fine. “I’m gonna start cutting now,” Pete warned.

Mikey sighed to relax himself, letting out an “Alright” as he did so. Pete’s hands found their way to the back of his head again, combing through it a little bit like he was getting used to the length and texture. Mikey held his breath as the fingers made their way through the hair on the back of his head. There was a sudden fidgetiness in his body that he tried to ignore, staying as still as he could manage. 

The first snip came and Mikey closed his eyes, forcing himself to trust Pete. It was fine, it was. He was never one to care too much about his hair. It was going to be okay. 

At some point, the occasional brushing of Mikey’s hair as Pete worked became less off-putting, and he allowed himself to relax more as his hair fell over his shoulders. Not too much, his breathing was still shallow with some sort of fear that wound its way around Mikey’s stomach, but he allowed himself to let his shoulders fall slack and not act like a statue whenever Pete made an unexpected movement. 

“Look up,” Pete said softly as he maneuvered to Mikey’s right side. Mikey obeyed, trying not to worry too much about the proximity between the scissors and his ear. He closed his eyes and just focused on the feeling of Pete cutting his hair. It was kind of nice, once he had come to accept that it probably won't look too good anyway. Once the feeling of fingers running through his hair became soothing rather than jarring. 

Pete did a sort of consistent brushing movement with his fingers as he worked: cutting, then brushing, cutting, then brushing. He felt Pete using his fingers to measure some distance away from his head or something, or maybe that’s just what he was hoping was happening. Whatever it was helped Mikey relax into the sort of rhythm of Pete’s hands through his hair. 

He felt Pete move to the other side of his body, before sliding a finger gently over Mikey’s ear to bring it out of the way of the scissors, and that anxious feeling dug itself into his stomach again. Nerves, probably. He was surprised bit by Pete’s cautiousness as he cut his hair; he seemed to be actually taking the time to make it look good. 

“I’m gonna try the front, now,” said Pete, startling Mikey out of the trance that he had been lulled into. He opened his eyes to see Pete moving to sit directly in front of him. He tensed again, subconsciously. 

“Alright,” replied Mikey. He tried closing his eyes again, but it felt awkward now, directly under Pete’s gaze. And keeping his eyes open felt just as awkward. He found himself keeping his eyes trained forward on the fence behind Pete. 

Pete brushed Mikey’s bangs out of his eyes, startling Mikey to look back up at Pete, who was kneeled in front of him to get a better view. He had his lip in his teeth and his eyebrows were scrunched, concentrating deeply on the top of Mikey’s head. 

Mikey wrapped his arms around his stomach, feeling a sort of nauseous feeling wash over him. He tried telling himself that it was fine, that it was going to turn out alright to quell the nervousness, but it didn’t seem to work. 

Pete looked down suddenly at the movement, drawing his hand away from Mikey’s forehead. 

“Sorry,” said Pete, seemingly embarrassed. “I was just trying to think of how to go about this,” he explained, pulling the scissors back into his own space. 

Mikey shook the apology away with his head, sending a little bit of hair flying into the grass below him. “It’s okay.” He closed his eyes again, biting the inside of his cheek. “Just startled me a little. Do whatever you need to do.”

He heard Pete make a little huffing noise out of his nose before he felt fingers returning to his forehead, brushing away the bangs that fell in front of his eyes again. Mikey was glad he was getting his hair cut; he hated when his bangs were longer than his eyebrows. He didn’t know how Gerard did it. 

There was the light feeling of Pete’s warm breath on Mikey’s face that made his arms tighten around his stomach. He felt odd. Awkward. This felt weird. 

After a few moments, Mikey heard the snips of the scissors over his head again and he opened his eyes without really thinking about it. Curiosity. Pete had the concentrated look on his face again, with his bottom lip curled into his teeth as he scrunched his brows. A part of Mikey’s hair fell onto his eyelashes, then to his nose, but Pete didn’t seem to notice as he snipped away. He watched Pete work for a few moments, almost mesmerized at how precise he was being. He tried not to pay attention to the way his breath tickled Mikey’s face. 

Pete sat back suddenly, stopping to look at his work so far. 

Mikey watched Pete’s eyes searching around his face, seeming to take his task of cutting Mikey’s hair more seriously than expected. He was kneeled just an inch away from Mikey’s crossed legs, sitting back on his haunches now as he surveyed Mikey’s hair. He felt a little hot under Pete’s eyes. He didn’t like being looked at for that long, much less with this much concentration. 

“Don’t look at me.” Pete’s eyes were still trained on the top of Mikey’s head, but they had obviously picked up on Mikey’s staring. He could feel his cheeks heat up a little at this realization. “It makes me nervous,” said Pete, giving a light laugh that emphasized the point before moving to Mikey’s bangs again. 

“Oh,” replied Mikey. He closed his eyes, mumbling an apology. He started picking at the grass absentmindedly as he waited for Pete to finish his work, trying to quell the heat in his cheeks and neck. 

Pete’s hands and scissors were back in his hair again, though just for a few more moments before stopping once again. Mikey waited for him to tell him to adjust his position or stop fidgeting or something, but after a moment, Pete only said, “I think I’m done.”

Mikey immediately ran his hands through his hair, opening his eyes. It felt much nicer than before, lighter, so maybe that was a plus if it was going to look like shit. He hated having his hair too long. He shook his head, letting pieces of hair fall to the grass below him. 

“Thank you.” Mikey smiled, locking eyes with Pete as the man sat back, away from Mikey. 

Pete shrugged it off, but Mikey could see the smile behind his eyes. “I tried,” he said with an exaggerated sigh before standing up and brushing his hands off on his shorts. He gave Mikey a hand up, which he accepted with a less-than-graceful pull up to his feet. 

Its been nice in that sense, but I cant say that its gotten any better with you. Whos surprised there, I guess.

The hair looked presentable, it was only when you got up close that you could clearly see the blunt scissor marks, and maybe the sides were the slightest bit uneven, but it was manageable. It felt like a change. Mikey’d never had his hair cut in such a fashion. 

He made his way down the stairs to the basement of the house, Pete trailing close behind, after having put away the scissors. There was a lot more chatting in the basement than normal and Mikey was curious as to what was going on. 

Gerard, Bert, Quinn, and Andy huddled on the floor in the middle of the basement with the sleeping bags pushed into a random corner to allow room for whatever the four were doing. Playing a game, Mikey presumed at the tone of their voices. 

Luckily, it didn’t take long for Pete to ask what they were up to. 

“Oh, hi, Pete!” Andy smiled as he looked up, nodding to Mikey as well. Mikey waited for Gerard to look up and comment on his new hair, but only Quinn turned his head at the disruption, the two others too invested whatever the game was. “We’re playing Monopoly. You wanna join?”

Bert made a noise of discontent, looking up at Pete and Mikey. “We’re in the middle of a game right now,” he muttered. Mikey bit his cheek. “They can join next round.”

Pete shrugged beside Mikey, moving toward the circle of players. “Alright.”

Andy moved over, making room for Pete and Mikey to watch.

“I’ve never played Monopoly before,” said Mikey as the four began again, beginning a process in rolling dice and moving small objects over a board he was unfamiliar with. 

Gerard looked up, giving Mikey furrowed eyebrows in confusion. “You’ve played Monopoly before.” He didn’t seem to notice the hair. Or maybe he just didn’t care. It was a pretty obvious difference. 

Mikey shook his head, biting his cheek. “Not that I remember.” His voice felt small, and he coughed to clear it. He hated when it did that; it made him feel like a child.

“C’mon, don’t be stupid.” Mikey clenched his jaw as Gerard continued. “We used to play it all the time when we were younger. Bert,” he said suddenly, switching his focus to the man next to him, “can I switch a yellow for your blue?”

The game continued and Mikey tried paying attention to catch up on the rules, but he eventually gave up and instead just absently stared at the board game until it seemed the game had finished some good time later. 

“You want to join in this round?” said a voice beside him. 

He blinked, looking up at Andy. “Hmm? Oh, uh,” he looked at the game, which seemed to stare back at him dauntingly. He shook his head. “I’m alright.”

Pete joined in that round, taking the place of Bert, who had stated loudly that he was bored of the game and didn’t want to play anymore, leaving to go smoke somewhere. Quinn followed, telling the three to continue the game. Mikey debated taking the man’s place, but Quinn had put his cards and money away before Mikey could offer. 

The game was excruciatingly long. Mikey watched the three joke around as they played, feeling left out despite the fact it was his own decision to not play. He chuckled when the others laughed in some attempt to feel more included, before stopping after a while when that seemed to make him feel worse. 

He ran his fingers through his new hair absentmindedly as he watched the floor next to the game, getting a feel for the length. It felt stupid now, short and revealing. Maybe he just looked like a fucking idiot. 

Bert and Quinn came back near the end of the game, laughing giddily to each other and collapsing on the old couch in the corner in a manner that told Mikey they had spent the past 25 minutes getting high off their asses. 

The game ended—Andy won—and Bert tossed up the idea of playing another game Mikey hadn’t heard of that he had found upstairs. Mikey fought the urge to stuff his face in his hands and groan loudly. 

Pete was his saving grace. 

“I’m going to go get food,” said Pete as the mystery game was starting up. Andy was the only one who gave him any notice, telling him to have fun before throwing dice on the concrete floor. “Mikey,” Pete said, looking over at him with a nod, “wanna come with?”

Mikey pursed his lips, weighing his options in his head. Really, there was no reason he shouldn’t, except for the fact that he didn’t want to get up and wasn’t in the mood for talking to anybody. 

Pete beckoned with his head for the door. 

It took Mikey about two seconds to give in before he stood up and followed Pete without a word. Pete grabbed his keys from the couch on the way out.

“Where are we going?” asked Mikey as he followed Pete out the front door. The sun was going down, casting a golden glow over the neighborhood. 

Pete shrugged, keeping his head forward as he walked. “I dunno, you looked fucking miserable though, so I figured I could bring you somewhere.”

“Oh.” He tried to keep his face from heating in embarrassment. As nice as it was, Pete shouldn’t be saving him from his shitty relationship with his brother. Gerard should’ve been the one to notice if he looked miserable, not some random person he’d only met a couple weeks ago. 

Pete took me to get food earlier this evening since he could tell you guys were getting to me. He reads me well, I think. It’s embarrassing, having someone pay attention to you like that. 

It didn’t take long for Mikey to find himself spilling his guts for Pete in the back of a McDonald’s parking lot. He watched Pete kick his feet that hung off the bed of his truck, listening quietly to Mikey’s rambling. He leaned backward on his hands as he did so, nose turned up at the sky, watching the stars.

The serene scene would’ve been picturesque if it weren’t for Mikey’s constant blabbering that didn’t seem to end ever. Every time he felt relatively done, Pete would ask a simple question that would send him into a whole other rant that he somehow couldn’t stop himself from. It aggravated him slightly, the way Pete could get him talking with such ease. 

I figured out that hes surprisingly easy to talk to. He gets me talking about things that I dont usually talk about. It feels very strange.

It was embarrassing, is what it was. 

“I just feel so lost,” Mikey confessed into his hands. He pulled the skin on his face as he looked back up at the trees in the parking lot, resting his chin on his knees. “Like, he’s got everything figured out and I’m just following him around. He knows who he is, y’know? I’m just leeching off of it.”

Pete hummed in acknowledgement. “If it helps, Mikey,” he started, “I don’t think anyone that runs away from their hometown to get high every day—or some other mysterious reason—really’s got everything figured out’”

Mikey was surprised at Pete’s sudden input. Up until now he hadn’t really stated much of an opinion on anything Mikey’s said beyond a clarifying question

“I don’t think anyone’s got anything ‘figured out,’” Pete continued lowly, almost like he was talking to himself. “I think we’re all just floating around pretending that we do.”

Mikey scoffed lightly. “It doesn’t feel like that.”

Pete looked back at Mikey, who was sat with his legs to his chest, his arms around them like a shield, leaning against the wall of the truck bed. He felt pathetic, even more so in front of Pete, who, despite his insistence of nobody having anything figured out, seemed to. He was cool and confident and it drew eyes to him. Sometimes Mikey just watched him and the way he moved and wondered how a man could be so confident. 

“Think of it this way,” Pete began once again. “In the First World War—” Mikey let out a surprised laugh at the change in subject “—Shut up,” Pete smiled, “I have a point to this. You know mustard gas?”

Pete shifted his body so he could see Mikey more clearly, and Mikey nodded. He wrapped his arms closer around himself, in contrast to Pete’s lounging. Mikey had heard vaguely about the effects gases like that had on soldiers back in school, but he’d never taken to look at much beyond that. 

“Crazy shit,” said Pete, lying on one elbow now so he was faced toward Mikey. “Tens of thousands of soldiers, slowly dying from burns and blisters and lung damage rather than just like, you know, a shot to the back of the head."

“Jesus.” Mikey’s skin tingled at the thought of that. Getting shot sounded bad enough on its own.

Pete gave a light, sardonic laugh. “Yeah. Anyway, they banned it sometime in the 20s, I forget, but they made it a war crime. That, and a lot of other fucked up shit they did—I mean, war sucks, for them to make it a crime for even war? I can’t even imagine.”

Mikey bit his cheek. “What’s your point?”

“Oh, yeah. Point is, even the oldest countries in the world don’t got everything ‘figured out,’ we’re all learning shit as we’re going. There was so much destruction done because we didn’t know how to handle the new technology we, ourselves, had made.” Pete ran his free hand over his hair as he talked. “I think it’s so interesting we’re all just figuring out how to function on this planet simultaneously. I don’t know, like, we think we know so much when we kind of don’t know anything.”

Mikey raised his eyebrows at Pete, though he was sure the man wouldn’t be able to see his face by the dim light of the moon. “Wow.” He paused, trying to make out Pete’s details in the dark. He didn’t know how exactly to respond to the impromptu history lesson. “I’ve never thought of it that way,” he settled with finally. 

He watched Pete’s silhouette nod, before turning his body back up to the stars, resting on both of his elbows. 

Mikey played with his lip in his teeth, not knowing exactly how to continue after that.  The air was cold on his lungs and skin, but for some reason it didn’t bother him as much as he thought it should. The cool air felt grounding.

The silence stretched on, comfortably or uncomfortably, Mikey didn’t know, and he worried his upper lip. He searched for another source of conversation in his head as he watched the mystery man in front of him. 

“Pete?”

“Hmm?”

“How d’you feel about the future? You think you’ll be on the road still a year from now?” 

Pete sighed, cool air escaping his mouth in a cloud. “I don’t know,” he replied eventually. “I hope not, but I don’t know where else I’d be. I’m just floating along and seeing where the road takes me.”

“I hope I’m back home in a few months,” said Mikey, who had brought a hand up to his short hair, brushing his fingers through the bangs. It felt so different from what he was used to. “I don’t like floating."

“Sometimes it’s all you can do.”

Mikey watched Pete’s silhouette, face outlined with silver lining from the moon. The lighting of the scene made him look sort of majestic in a way, kicking his feet idly off the end of the bed. The light bounced off his skin, reflecting a sort of cool light off the features of his face. The silver lining around the outline of his face, emphasizing his nose and lips and hitting the man’s cheekbones just the tiniest bit. The moon reflected bright in his eyes, too, shimmering as his eyelashes looked up at the sky. But he supposed everything looked a little bit breathtaking under the sort of blue-silver cast. It wasn’t Pete specifically. Though Mikey did notice the way that the outline defined Pete’s side profile; it was kind of easy on the eyes. 

And for some reason Mikey always had to ruin the silence.

“Do you think you’ll have kids, Pete?”

Pete moved back up to his hands, bringing one leg up to his chest. “I don’t know,” he answered after a few seconds of seeming to think. “Haven’t gotten that far, y’know?”

Mikey nodded, mostly to himself. It’s been something he thought about often, for some reason. His mother seemed to always expect for him to be the son to give her grandchildren, as Gerard’s delinquency grew more and more prevalent. “I can’t imagine myself as a father,” he said, letting the thoughts spill out of him. “It feels weird to imagine myself older than I am today, I don’t know.” He wished he could see himself the way his mother saw him. 

Pete hummed. “Do you want kids, though, you think?”

“I don’t know,” Mikey responded. “I don’t want to die alone, y’know, but like, sometimes it feels like I’m not cut out to have a family or something. No matter how much, y’know, my mom wants it. Like, I just cannot imagine that happening to me.” He gave a dry laugh. He didn’t know why he was talking about this. It was never something he’d given voice to, just something he thought about every once and a while. 

“You mean for people to like you like that?”

Mikey shook his head even though Pete wasn’t looking. Perhaps that’s why it felt easier to talk like this; all he was doing was talking to a shadow of a person he barely knew. “I don’t know,” Mikey replied. “I feel like it’s more because of me. I never really resonated with, I don’t know, a domestic life, I guess.” He was kind of shocked by the words coming out of his own mouth. They felt stupid, he didn’t even know what he was saying, but it felt true in a way. It was the most honest he’d ever been with anyone, even himself. “Or maybe I just haven’t met the right girl yet,” he threw in, feeling a little awkward now, laying this all out for some dude he didn’t know. 

He bit his lip. It felt weird saying the words out loud. Like he had just confessed to something.

“I get what you mean.”

Mikey sighed, letting the tension release in his chest silently so Pete couldn’t hear. “Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

Theres not much else to write about for now I dont think, as Ive spilled all my thoughts to an actual person this time. It was nice to get off my chest.

       Writing with less weight than normal tonight. Goodnight.

Chapter Text

“I’m a terrible person.”

Gerard groaned into the telephone, head hanging backward off the couch in desperation.

“What are you calling me about this for?” said the voice on the other end of the line. Frank, naturally. “Ray’s better at this than I am, where’s he?”

“Working,” groaned Gerard again, pulling himself up from dangling off the couch to place his head in his hands. “I feel horrible.” He played with the stretched line that connected to the wall. 

”Mm,” Frank hummed in acknowledgement. “I mean, you kind of signed up for this, reading Mikey’s diary in the first place, you know. It was there in the first entry.”

Gerard rubbed his eyes with his free hand. “I know. I’ve got to be some sort of masochist or something.”

Frank gave another monotone hum. “You gonna keep reading it?”

Sighing, Gerard layed back down on his bed. “I mean, I’ve got to, you know? I gotta know.”

”Mhm,” said Frank simply. “Good luck with that.” A brief pause, then, “I’ve got to go, I got an interview in fifteen.”

Gerard sighed. “Bummer,” he said. “Talk to you later.” 

He spent the rest of the night rummaging through the fridge every once and a while, hoping for some new desirable treat to pop up randomly, and waiting for Ray to get home so he had someone to complain to. 

Chapter Text

June 25, 1969

Holy fuck.

Mikey had calmed down a bit now, after having walked back to the car. 

He sat in the driver’s seat, head on the steering wheel as he looked sideways through the window at the stars. He sat in silence, listening to the beat of his heart in his ears. 

To be completely honest, I have no idea how to go about this. Writing it down makes it feel more real but Im gonna do it anyway because theres no way I can actually tell anyone about this.

The scene replayed in his head and he closed his eyes tightly, trying to block it out. It only made it worse. His stomach hurt. 

The evening started out fine. It was fun, even. Pete had taken me to a drive-in movie. Apparently he was planning on going before by himself until I had told him that Id never gone before. I see why now.

“Never?” Pete clarified, aghast. 

Mikey shook his head. 

“Did you have no childhood? Man.” Pete slid the gas pump nozzle into a bright red Pontiac that had just pulled up, shaking his head. “I used to go all the time when I was in high school.”

Mikey nodded, feeling like he had nothing to contribute to the conversation. He would’ve had no one to go with, anyway, in high school. He was never one for many friends. 

He watched Pete run a hand over his face, leaning gently on the car as he thought deeply about something Mikey couldn’t guess. 

Mikey fidgeted with his hands, watching the man think.

“I can take you,” said Pete eventually, slowly. “I might have to leave early, though, so you’re gonna have to drive yourself back to Andy’s.”

Mikey agreed almost immediately. Hanging out with Pete had become something he looked forward to in his day. Since the McDonald’s trip, they had felt a lot closer than just strangers. And hanging out with Pete was an excuse to not hang around his brother and Bert for as long as possible. 

It was fun for a while, he bought me a soda and stuff, which was nice. I was enjoying myself.

He was sat in the bed of the truck, leaning against the back window with pillows and blankets that Pete always kept in his car—living on the road and such—as he waited for the movie to start. Some “Rebel” movie he’d forgotten the name of after Pete had told him earlier. Pete liked it, apparently. 

Mikey watched a group of teenagers nearby playing soccer in the grass, kicking the ball around with bare feet and laughing at each others’ passes. One kid accidently kicked the ball toward an older couple occupying a blanket in the grass, talking sweetly to each other until a soccer ball rolled right into a bag of popcorn that sat between them. 

The kid who kicked the ball ran up to the couple, apologizing profusely as he tried to help the woman pick up the popcorn as quickly as he could. His group of friends were snickering in the background, laughing amongst themselves as they watched their friend blush and stutter in embarrassment. 

“Hey.”

Mikey turned his head, watching Pete round the car, two bottles of Coca-Cola in hand. “Hey,” replied Mikey, thanking Pete as he took one of the bottles over the wall of the truck bed. 

Pete walked around before climbing up to sit next to Mikey with his own pillow and blanket, though the blankets weren’t needed right now as the chill of the night hadn’t yet set in. Pete was wearing his tank-top-and-cut-jean outfit today, which seemed to bother Mikey less now than it had before. Pete just had a weird sort of style. 

“Was the line long?” asked Mikey as a sort of small-talk. 

Pete shrugged, popping open the bottle with a bottle opener attached to his keys. “Not particularly,” he said, handing the key chain over to Mikey as his drink fizzled. “I still can’t believe you’ve never gone to a drive-in before,” he said, taking a sip of the drink. 

“My family isn’t big into movies,” Mikey explained, struggling to get the bottle open with the opener. “Gerard, uh—” the cap flung to the other side of the bed, making a clanking noise against the metal “—shit. Gerard went with his friends a few times, I think.”

Mikey leaned forward, reaching to grab the red cap from the other side of the bed without spilling his drink. After retrieving it, he tossed the keys back to Pete before leaning back against his pillow and taking a cool sip. 

“Hmm,” was the only thing Pete said, adjusting the pillow he was leaning against so he could comfortably lean back and look at the screen. 

Mikey checked his watch. “When does this start?”

Pete looked at his own watch. “Few minutes, I think.”

Mikey nodded, looking back over to the group of kids he was watching earlier. They seemed to have settled down by now, sitting on a giant quilt that someone seemed to have rolled out sometime since last he checked. 

The opening credits began soon later, presenting the movie Rebel Without a Cause. Mikey recalled the name now. 

He took a swig of his Coke, making himself comfortable in the back of Pete’s truck.

Pete left near the end of the movie.

He had been checking his watch every few minutes since the movie started. Mikey kept wanting to ask what for, but Pete had seemed purposefully vague whenever he explained that Mikey shouldn’t wait up for him after the movie ended, so he kept his mouth shut. The time came, though, sometime between 9:30 and 10 that Pete had to slip away to wherever he was off to, whomever he had to meet. 

“I have to go,” Pete whispered, leaning over so Mikey could hear him, after checking his watch for probably the 40th time in the past hour.

Mikey only nodded, too engrossed by the movie to care too deeply about Pete’s whereabouts. It was none of his business if he didn’t want to tell him. Gunshots from the movie rang loudly through the field as Pete climbed his way out of the bed. 

When it ended I went to the bathroom, one a bit away from the cars to avoid the crowd. Apparently they’d had the same idea. 

It was an old bathroom on the complete other side of the field, hidden sort of behind the big screen next to a weird parking lot with three different types of old street lamps. The ending credits were loud here, the sound of brass echoing behind the screen and through the metal fence surrounding the desolate area. 

The outside walls of the outhouse were all stained and moldy (great sign), but he figured he would be in and out anyway, so he could deal with it. 

Mikey pulled his sleeve over his hand before he touched the handle, twisting it open.

To be completely honest, I dont know how much I want to explain of what I saw, so Ill keep it brief.

Upon opening the door, Mikey took in a sharp inhale, stopping in his tracks at the scene before him. 

It was Pete, with some man attached to him, to his face. 

Mikey’s covered hand was still on the doorknob, his presence unannounced. He felt frozen. 

He was with some guy. 

He thought for a second that he should stop it, save him, but as he watched for longer he realized that Pete was enjoying whatever this was. His hands were on the man’s waist, pushing forward against him as the guy kissed him back against the bathroom wall, hands venturing places Mikey dared not look. His eyes unwillingly caught the line of skin between an untucked wife-beater and a stranger’s hands. Unwanted wet mouth noises filled the empty room. A low guttural noise was shared between the two of them that made Mikey want to puke. 

But he was frozen. He couldn’t move. His breathing had stopped entirely. 

They were really into it,

“Oh my God.”

it was disgusting, really.

Mikey slapped his hand to his mouth, realizing he had spoken aloud. 

He averted his gaze to the ground before the two even had time to stop and look up, practically running out of the room. Cool night air hit his lungs and he breathed it in; it felt like he had been holding his breath that whole time. He probably was. 

Mikey breathed in the air, taking in as much as he could as he tried to walk-run his way back to the car as fast as possible. He’d seen too much.

“Mikey!”

Pete caught up to me as I was trying to leave.

Mikey kept walking for a few more seconds until he realized that Pete was going to catch up with him anyway. He stopped, turning to face Pete to hear whatever he had to say for himself. Cool air rushed in and out of his lungs. 

The guy halted a few feet away from Mikey once he realized Mikey had stopped. He hovered awkwardly, wet mouth half-hung open as he seemed to search for something to say. His lips were red and kissed, his cheeks rosy from either whatever was going on in the bathroom or embarrassment. Mikey guessed some sort of combination of the two.

He closed his eyes, reaching out sideways to the fence beside him to try to steady himself. His brain felt tight. He didn’t know what to think. It wasn’t like he knew Pete; he didn’t really know who the guy was, after all. They just had a few deep chats a couple times, that was all. He was looking at a stranger. This shouldn’t mean anything. 

“Please don’t freak out,” Pete whispered from a few feet away. Mikey flicked his eyes open at the sound. Pete was keeping a safe distance away, hand to his mouth. “Please don’t freak out,” he whispered again through his fingers. 

Mikey shook his head, closing his eyes as he turned to let his head fall back onto the steel fence, taking in deep breaths. He wasn’t freaking out. He just needed a moment to process. 

Too much, is what it was. Mikey had stood by the door, just watching as that random man stuck his hands down Pete’s pants as Pete pushed forward into him from the wall, pulling the guy’s head forward, and Mikey had stood dumbfounded as Pete groaned against the man’s lips and…

He needed to sit down. Too much to process, too much to think about right now. He felt sick to his stomach. 

Mikey slid down the fence, drawing his knees up to his chest to get rid of that nauseous feeling in his stomach. It hurt. 

“Oh my God,” he heard Pete breathe from above, before Mikey saw him move to kneel down in front of him. “You’re freaking out,” he said breathlessly, holding out his hands as if to comfort Mikey from a foot away. Safe distance, safe distance. 

Mikey shook his head. Not freaking out, processing. He drew his legs closer to his body. 

 “Mikey,” said Pete, his voice shaking slightly with nervousness. It was strange, Mikey had never seen Pete like this before. Usually the guy was quite easygoing, nothing seemed to bother him too much from what Mikey observed. The new behavior was weird. Mikey didn’t like it. 

He let his eyes close again, gulping as he leaned his head backward against the fence. He didn’t want to deal with this. He wanted to go home. This was too much.

Hands were on his shoulders suddenly, bringing him back to the situation. He was right here, Pete’s hands on his shoulders. Pete was just getting down with some dude in the bathrooms behind the theater. And Mikey walked in on them. Holy shit. 

“Mikey, please,” said Pete, his voice breaking. Mikey stared at the man silently, alarmed by the sudden emotion that was flooding out of him. “Don’t…” he trailed off, throat closing off as tears started welling up. 

Fuck, not this. Mikey wasn’t good at this emotion shit. He didn’t want to deal with this. He didn’t even know the guy.

He looked into the boy’s wet eyes. The only thing he could think of slipped out of his mouth: “Why were you—”

“Shut up!” Pete yelled, squeezing onto Mikey’s shoulders as he did so. 

Mikey just stared, shocked at the outburst. The man looked mildly psychotic.

A loud sob escaped Pete’s mouth as he brought his head down onto the crease of his elbow, hanging onto Mikey’s shoulder. “I’m sorry,” Pete choked into his own sleeve. “I’m just—It’s…I—”

He was cut off by a sob, and he brought his head up to wipe his face with his hands, finally taking them off Mikey’s shoulders. He tried not to sigh with relief at the distance. 

Mikey didn’t know what to do with the mess in front of him. Pete tried to muffle his noises into his hands, to no avail. He looked wrecked—Mikey didn’t understand why. It wasn’t that big of a deal. It was just…an alarming thing to walk in on out of nowhere. 

He figured he should do something instead of just watching Pete’s sobfest in front of him, so he just reached a hand out to Pete’s shoulder, as he had done to him. 

“Pete.” He paused to clear his throat when it sounded weird coming out. “It’s okay,” he said, not really knowing what he was referring to. Obviously it was weird and he didn’t really know what was gonna happen after this—how could he unsee that? But Pete looked like he needed comfort right now, so Mikey gave him what he could. Tried not to think about how Pete had touched him with the same hands that were just on some random man’s skin, or places Mikey didn’t even want to imagine right now. 

Pete leaned forward suddenly, clutching onto Mikey with a hug. 

He stared out past Pete as the man launched into his shoulder, sniffling next to Mikey’s ear. He didn’t know what he was supposed to do, so he settled on rubbing Pete’s back lightly as he waited for him to cry it out. Whatever it was. 

It was a strange feeling trying to comfort a stranger. The significance of the situation was lost on him, but he hoped he was doing something for Pete in some way or another.

We had sort of a moment I don’t know exactly how to think of yet, it was weird. 

“I need to go, I think,” said Pete eventually, letting go of the hug self-consciously. He pulled his arms into himself, covering his stomach. He didn’t look at Mikey under the light of the street lamp. 

“Oh, yeah.” The boy. Mikey nodded. 

Pete took a moment to stand up, brushing the dirt off his pants as he did so, before taking a hand to wipe off his wet face as well.

“You’ll be back tomorrow, right? At Andy’s?” Mikey asked, hoping to keep his tone of voice casual, like nothing happened. He didn’t think of what would happen between now and when he will see Pete next: where he would be sleeping, who he would be with, what they would be doing, et cetera. He didn’t think about it, it wasn’t his business. 

Pete nodded. “Yeah,” he said simply. 

Mikey bit the inside of his cheek. “Okay.” He nodded, finalizing something in his head. “I’m, uh, gonna go home now.”

He watched Pete turn and head back to where he had left the boy, before standing up and wiping himself off as well. 

I hope hes okay.

He made sure not to look back as he walked toward Pete’s car. None of his business. It was none of his business what Pete did, or what he was going to do. Strangers. 

I dont know. Its gonna be awkward from now on, I think.

After sitting in the car in the empty drive-in for a while to collect his thoughts, Mikey finally willed himself to pull up the key and start the ignition. 

Im kind of sad about it. I was becoming friends with him and now its just gonna be weird.

He drove home in silence. 

Im trying hard not to think about what hes doing right now. He hasnt come home yet. 

Mikey laid on his back in the cold sleeping bag, trying to listen to the sound of a door opening upstairs. 

Nothing came.

As far as anyone else was aware, nothing had happened that night.

Chapter Text

Gerard sat up, setting the journal down on the sheets and nearly kicking Frank at the foot of the bed with the erratic movement. 

“Jesus,” said Frank, looking up from his textbook to give Gerard a confused glance.

“Dude,” Gerard started, skimming over the words on the page again. “Not to interrupt your studies or whatever—” Ray turned his head up now from the 500-something page book he was reading in the corner of the room “—but dude. Check this.”

Gerard adjusted so he was sitting next to Frank, shoving the journal on top of the textbook and pointing out a paragraph of the text. Ray was looking up curiously from his position on the floor, swaddled in blankets, only with his arms sticking out to hold up the book.  

He watched Frank’s face, hoping for some sort of reaction of surprise or disgust or something, but the man only raised his eyebrows slightly before handing the book back to Gerard with a, “Hm.”

Gerard furrowed his eyebrows, snatching back the book. “That’s it?” he asked, watching Frank’s face. Nothing. 

“What is it?” asked Ray, setting his book down on the floor. 

“Mikey walked in on some ‘Pete’ guy fondling a dude,” explained Frank. Gerard’s eyes widened at the description, but Frank seemed unperturbed. He just shrugged at Gerard’s reaction. “I don’t know a Pete. Not my business.”

“Pete—” said Gerard, waving around the journal as he spoke “—was Mikey’s friend while we were on that road trip I was talking about. They were like me and Bert, always hanging out.” He raised his eyebrows, looking between Frank and Ray, who gave no notable reaction. He sighed incredulously, “Isn’t that weird?”

“What, that they were friends?” asked Frank, a strange tone to his voice.

“Yes!” 

Frank looked at Ray, seeming to want his take on the situation. 

Ray just shrugged from his corner. “I don’t think it's weird,” he said. 

Gerard narrowed his eyes at the two. “Maybe it’s just because I know what they were like,” he reasoned, taking his seat back at the head of the bed. “Mikey and Pete were, like, attached at the hip. You don’t hang out with dudes that dig dudes like that. That’s weird.”

Frank hummed in response, turning his focus back to his textbook. Gerard looked to Ray for some confirmation—he wasn’t bad for thinking that, he was just telling the truth. Straight guys don’t hang out with gay guys like that. 

“Uh,” said Ray when he realized Gerard was expecting some sort of answer. “I mean,” he said, looking to Frank for help, but he seemed to be well invested in the textbook. “Um, I don’t think it’s that weird.”

Gerard just scoffed and flipped back to the page in the journal, leaning back down to his previous position. He didn’t think of his brother to be the type to hang around with those sort of queer people. He might have not known Mikey well but he knew him well enough to know that.

Chapter Text

June 27, 1969

Ive been avoiding him as much as I can. Only smiles and nods and eyes mostly on the floor when around him. I tried to act normal, but it was difficult to ignore him when we had to go in for work. Just know I tried. 

“Hey,” said Pete when Mikey hopped in the car, feeling as if he had left his stomach outside on the driveway. He’d been dreading this all weekend. 

“Hey,” said Mikey back simply, trying to find a good balance of not avoiding looking at him but also not staring at him. He felt like he had suddenly forgotten how people talk. 

He bit the inside of his cheek as Pete put the car in reverse, backing away out of the driveway. It was going to be a long day. 

Unsurprisingly so, Pete caught on to my strange behavior. He knew what it was about, too. Its blatantly obvious why I was ignoring him

       He confronted me.

“Mikey!” Pete yelled from the parking lot when Mikey finally came out of the store after the shift. 

Had he asked Joe to train him on the basics of fixing a car specifically because he didn’t want to talk to Pete? Maybe. Did he purposefully take a long time getting undressed and redressed from his work attire after the shift was done so that he could avoid getting in the car for as long as possible? Maybe. 

It was fine. Everything was alright. Nothing was abnormal in the slightest. 

Every time he saw Pete he could feel his fight or flight instincts kick in. Viscerally. 

“Hi,” Mikey said simply in a light voice as he walked up to the car, grease-stained jumpsuit slung over his shoulder oh-so-casually. 

“Mikey,” said Pete again, quieter this time as Mikey got within earshot. 

He could feel his stomach swoop with dread. “Can we get in the car first?” Mikey asked, knowing generally what Pete wanted to talk about. He couldn’t risk people listening. The parking lot was practically empty anyway, but Mikey wasn’t taking any chances. 

Pete nodded, and Mikey rounded the car to get in on the passenger side. 

It was a weird conversation that I dont exactly know what to think about it yet, but I cant get it out of my mind. 

He sat nervously as Pete entered the car, bouncing his knee and chewing on the inside of his lip. 

I don’t know.

“I, um,” said Pete as the door creaked shut, staring intensely at the steering wheel rather than looking anywhere near Mikey as he spoke. “I don’t know,” he sighed, then began again. “I’m not sorry for not telling you. I’m sorry you found out the way you did, though.” His eyes were still trained on the wheel in front of him. 

Mikey nodded. He could feel his heart pounding beneath his chest. “Yeah, uh. Sorry for, you know. Walking in on you guys like that, I guess. Even though I didn’t know you were there.”

Pete chuckled softly. “Yeah, it’s alright.”

The two sat in silence for a few seconds. Mikey’s mind was racing and he didn’t know where to begin or what he could or couldn’t say. He’d never been in a situation like this before. 

“Can I, uh, ask you a question?” Mikey settled on eventually. He had thousands, really.

Pete nodded, still avoiding any sort of eye contact. 

“So…” Mikey coughed, clearing his throat and stalling. “Are you like…a sodomite?”

Pete’s face immediately contorted into a strange sort of face. “Don’t ask me that.

“Oh.” He bit his upper lip, playing with it awkwardly. He fidgeted with his hands in his lap. “So, you are?” he couldn’t help from asking. 

“It’s a rude question,” Pete clarified tartly. 

“Oh,” Mikey said again. Apparently that was one of the secret off-limit questions. “Sorry.” He looked at the hands in his lap, thinking. Pete drummed a little on the steering wheel. 

He’d never met a homosexual before; he’d definitely heard about them, but more in the eccentric way. The ones who would paint their faces in rouge and talk in a funny way, or the hippie “free-love” ones that would kind of just fuck anything that walked. Pete was just a normal person. The person he was with looked pretty normal, too. 

“How does that even happen?” Mikey breathed, the question slipping from his brain to his mouth. 

Mikey almost slapped his hand to his face in embarrassment at the look Pete threw at him. 

“I mean,” Mikey corrected instantly, “like, how do you, uh, know, y’know?”

Pete brought his hand up to his face, cringing slightly at the question. 

Mikey scrunched his nose at himself. “Like, how do you even, like—”

“I know what you mean.”

Mikey bit his lip hard to make himself shut up. 

“I…” Pete started, bringing his hand down to his neck. “I don’t know. It’s complicated, I guess.”

Mikey nodded, gulping. His mind slipped back to the whole bathroom scene. It seemed like that was all he could think about since it had happened. The thin line of Pete’s skin between the loose buckle around his hips and the a-shirt, a small glimpse of the hip bone that disappeared under that hands of a mystery man. When one of them made a gutteral noise in their throat that Mikey could hear from the door frame, or how Pete pushed himself forward from against the wall into…

It made Mikey want to beat his head against the window. It wasn’t his fault that he walked in on them, just an unfortunate coincidence, but Holy God he needed it to stop appearing in his brain. He felt like a freak. It really wasn’t his fault. You can’t really unsee something like that.

His stomach churned at the thought of it. He wished he didn’t know.

“Who was the guy?” Mikey asked.

Pete went back to refusing to look at Mikey. “The guy? Oh, uh.” He paused. “Sam…uel? Simon?”

“You don’t know him?” He clenched his jaw as the judgement failed to be hidden in his voice. He was trying to understand, he really was. Mikey was going to be good about this, mature. But that still didn’t help the knowledge that his new friend was now probably a sodomite sleeping with a bunch of random men. 

Mature. He was going to be mature about this. 

He blinked his eyes a couple times to clear his head. Pete could do whatever the fuck he wanted to do. 

Pete shook his head into his lap. “It doesn’t really work like that, Mikey.”

“That feels wrong,” said Mikey, honestly. Hooking up with someone you barely know always seemed like an odd thing to him. The newer “free-love” stuff these days kind of just seemed like an excuse to slut around to Mikey. 

He could see the man’s jaw move as he looked forward through the window. “That’s okay,” he said simply, brushing his hands up and down the wheel. “I’m gonna drive home now.”

Mikey nodded. He wanted to offer up some part of himself too, something to level out the playing field, but he wasn’t interesting enough for dirty secrets. 

They drove home in silence.

Chapter Text

He was beginning to hate this goddamn journal, but he was on a mission, he decided, to learn all he could about his brother. Even if it was a little bit painful. Even if there were things he probably could’ve gone without knowing. 

Ray had accompanied Gerard to look through his parents’ house to find the big box of Mikey’s belongings that Gerard remembered they had gotten in the mail shortly after his death. It took rummaging through Mikey’s room—making a further mess of it than before—calling his dad, who had to get his mom, before finally getting an answer to its whereabouts. In the new house, apparently. 

So Gerard sat in Ray’s passenger seat on the way to his parents’ house on the other side of town, giving a hug and a kiss on the cheek to his mother on the way in, before finally looking upon the unopened box from months ago sat upon the kitchen table. 

It was a large wooden box, almost like a chest, engraved with an American flag into the wood and the words “In Loving Memory of Michael James Way / 10 Sept 1948 - 1 May 1970”. The inside was lined with military green velvet, and the underlying items were concealed by a full America flag, wrapped in a triangle. He remembered that giant flag from the first time he’d opened the box. 

Moving the flag from the chest to the table, Gerard noticed another envelope similar to the one he’d found in the smaller box. He skimmed it, having already read it from the day the chest had come in.

DEPARTMENT OF THE AIR FORCE

Air Force Mortuary Affairs & Personal Effects Division

Da Nang Air Base

8 MAY 1970

Dear Mr. and Mrs. Way,

       Please accept my deepest sympathy and that of every member of this unit on the recent death of your son, Officer Michael J. Way, who died in the service of his country on 1 May 1970. On the evening of 1 May, Way was called in to a noble mission with the rest of his fleet to support a recue mission in an enemy hide-out near Camp Dak Seang. During the courageous battle, Way was mortally wounded in his head with a bullet from the enemy. It may afford you some comfort to know that his death was likely instantaneous and without suffering. 

       News of your son’s death is a shock to those of us who knew him and his loss will certainly be felt in this organization. During the time he was with us, he had shown himself to be a very capable individual. I sincerely hope the knowledge of your son’s bravery will comfort you in this hour of great sorrow. 

       A memorial service was held for Way at the unit’s base camp. The officers and men of Detachment 7 were in attendance. 

       Once again, personally and for the officers and enlisted men of this command, I extend to you our sympathy on the loss of your loved one. 

Sincerely,

BRIAN SCHECHTER

Commanding Officer

Da Nang Air Base

The vision of his sunken-eyed brother getting shot in the back of his head filled Gerard’s mind. He remembered why he had tucked these sort of reminders away for all this time. There’s a difference between knowing someone’s dead, and understanding how they had died, especially when it was done in an act of violence. The loss itself verses the reality of what that meant, the pain that he had gone through that Gerard would never really understand. 

He set the letter on the table to the side of the chest, taking a moment to shut his eyes and wash that vision out of his conscience. A young boy alone in a country that hated him. Scars inside and out Gerard would never see, would never know the full story of. 

Ray picked the letter up silently beside him as Gerard started searching through the items in the box. They’ve been undisturbed since they were shipped, no one daring to look through them yet. It felt too personal then, but now curiosity of Mikey’s last months were too intriguing. 

“That’s strange,” said Gerard suddenly, forcing Ray’s head up from the paper. 

“What’s up?” he asked, peering into the box. 

Gerard picked up a pack of cigarettes tucked in the side of the box, next to a packaged bar of soap. “Mikey never smoked when I knew him,” said Gerard, turning the pack over in his hand. Another reminder of the stranger behind his brother’s face. 

Ray only nodded solemnly at Gerard’s comment. 

Almost habitually, Gerard opened the pack and pulled out two of the seven left, reaching for the lighter in his back pocket. He ignored Ray’s judgemental eyebrows as he lit the two, handing one to Ray. 

“Aren’t you supposed to, like, respect the dead’s belongings or something?” asked Ray, taking the cigarette anyway and placing it between his lips. 

Gerard shrugged, puffing out air from his own. “Waste of a good cigarette,” he said, turning back to the box. If he was going to be honest, the cigarette was a bit stale and sweeter than his liking, but he stood by his statement regardless.

A few interesting yet somewhat boring items were at the top of the box along with the letter, including a Death Certificate (how kind of them), a maroon beret, and a bandana. He tossed them to the side, letting Ray sort them on the table. 

“You guys still have your flag?” asked Ray, holding up the folded flag Gerard had tossed to the side earlier. 

Gerard furrowed his eyebrows. “Yeah? Where else would it go?” He turned back to the box. A glasses case, which revealed Mikey’s familiar rounded glasses when opened. At least those stayed the same. 

“Well, I don’t know,” said Ray beside him, playing a little bit with the fold of the flag. “When my uncle died in World War II they had a funeral set up where the family brought his flag to put on his coffin with all the other veterans. I would’ve thought it was the same with you guys.”

Gerard shrugged, snapping the glasses case closed and putting it in front of Ray on the table as an ‘already seen’ pile. “We never got a funeral,” said Gerard, reaching for a cover of a comic he recognized under a dirty pair of shoes. “Holy shit,” he said, turning it over to show Ray enthusiastically. “Batman!” He smiled. “We used to read these all the time as kids.”

Ray nodded with a smile, before turning back again to the stupid flag. “That’s so odd that you never got a funeral.” 

“Eh,” said Gerard, flipping through the book. “We had a funeral, it just wasn’t a military one. Must’ve been in some sort of mail we forgot to sign or something.”

Humming in acceptance, Ray blew out a puff from his cigarette and turned back to the pile of Mikey’s stuff in front of him. 

Gerard continued sifting through the items. A toothbrush, a nice wristwatch he’d never seen before, a bright lighter that he spun around in his fingers for a few seconds. It read Hawai’i on it. How odd. He puffed amused air out of his nose as he set that one down on the table. 

Tucked in the side of the box, hidden by all the other items, was a stack of more photos. 

Ray watched quietly over Gerard’s shoulder as he sifted through the photos, seeming to want a peek while not disturbing the moment. Gerard just slightly shifted the images to his friend as he flipped through them.

A photo of Mikey with four other men stood out to him. They seemed to be in some sort of cafeteria of sorts, bright lights exposing the photo a bit more than the others. Mikey was sat next to two men, seemingly a lot earlier in his time in Vietnam as his face hadn’t changed as much as in some other photos. Across from Mikey sat a tall man with a wide smile, holding the shoulder of some Vietnamese boy, who held a more reserved smile that more closely resembled Mikey’s. Beside Mikey was a man in a camoflauge hat that matched with the rest of his outfit, and another man who barely even acknowledged the photo being taken.

It took Gerard a moment to notice as he looked at the photo that the man with the hand on the Vietnamese boy’s shoulder seemed to be the same person that had been in all the other photos from that smaller box. He must’ve been a friend of Mikey’s in Vietnam. 

He flipped over the photo, seeing if there was anything written on the back to give him any hint to who the man was. 

The words were still written in a hand that was not Mikey’s, Gerard noted as he read the back. It was a date, March 1st, 1970, and three names of the other men: Stump, Ross, Saporta. The Vietnamese boy seemed to be unnamed. 

Gerard turned the photo around, setting it back in the stack before taking a drag of his cigarette. 

Stump, Ross, Saporta.

Chapter Text

June 28, 1969

Every time Mikey looked at Pete, that was all he could think of. Where he’d been and what he’d done. Lips and tongues and hands and hips, straying places he tried his hardest to keep out of his head. It was hard, though. He found his eyes wandering to those places when Pete wasn’t paying attention, wondering how many nameless men had kissed that mouth or touched those hips or perhaps…other places Mikey always had to stop himself from thinking of. He just couldn’t help it. 

He looked at the menu behind Pete now as the man talked, pointedly keeping his eyes from wandering about, like he’d been so susceptible to the past couple days. 

“Are you okay?” Pete asked suddenly, drawing Mikey’s attention to his eyes, eyes, eyes. He had some sort of look of concern on his face. Mikey sometimes wished Pete was as oblivious as Gerard. 

Mikey nodded hazily, still drawing his mind back to his head. Pete had been talking about some sort of food in Chicago he missed when Mikey had stopped listening. “Yeah,” said Mikey simply. Then, in the silence, he asked, “Y’know when the food will be ready?”

Pete shrugged, pulling out a cigarette from his back pocket and lighting it wordlessly. 

They had gone to some sort of Mexican restaurant just outside of town that Pete and Andy had seemed quite thrilled about when they were speaking about it earlier. An old tradition, apparently. However, Gerard and Bert apparently didn’t feel like taking 15 minutes to drive down there, so Pete offered to go down and grab an order for everyone. Mikey came too, naturally. He didn’t feel like spending the afternoon with his brother that ignored him, a person whom he hated, and a relative stranger. Pete had been his best option recently, despite the current predicament. They never talked about it. 

Pete smoked as they waited, holding the cigarette delicately between his index and middle finger as he leaned against the wall, smoke swirling up into the ceiling as he exhaled every once and a while. It was sort of an elegant view in a way, the serenity in the way he leaned so casually against the wall, entertained by his own thoughts as the smoke swirled out of his mouth. 

Mikey forced himself to look away. He wished it would just stop because it was getting embarrassing at this point, this wasn’t something he wanted to be thinking about. He watched waiters move about the restaurant, wondering if any of them had noticed the way Mikey’s eyes lingered a little too long on his friend as they waited. Much to his relief, none of them seemed to be watching them. He was surprised Pete couldn’t feel his thoughts on the back of his neck, the way Mikey was probably looking at him. Nobody noticed, as far as he was aware.

The order came out steaming through a large bag after just about ten gruelling minutes of waiting, and the two made their way back to Pete’s Ford, warm food in hand. 

“I can drive,” said Mikey, making his way to the front of the car while Pete put the food in the back. He needed something to busy his mind. 

He started the car as Pete hopped in. “You want to put on some jams?” he asked, pointing somewhere on the driver’s side past Mikey’s legs. 

Mikey took his hand off the key, turning to reach around to find wherever Pete was pointing, which ended up being something stowed beneath the driver’s seat. He pulled out a small black case, handing it to Pete. 

The case held what seemed to Mikey like a large collection of cassettes. He held it up for Mikey to look at. “You know any of these?”

Mikey skimmed over the collection as he pulled the parking break down. He recognised the black and white album from The Beatles, though he’d never listened to it; some Simon and Garfunkel, a band he’d only heard of in passing; there was a large collection from a band called The Animals, a band he hadn’t heard of; and there was another artist that seemed to hold a good percentage of the collection as well, one he had heard of. 

“Little Richard,” Mikey read, looking at the man on the cover of the album before putting the car in first. “He’s, uh—” he looked in his mirrors as he pulled out of the space, searching for the word to use “—he’s, uh, a homosexual, isn’t he?” he asked, somewhat hesitantly. “I remember hearing about that.”

Pete nodded, and there Mikey was again, reminded of Pete’s dirty secret and pushing images out of his head of what that entailed. He wanted to bang his head against the steering wheel to get himself to stop, stop, stop, but he only tightened his grip on the wheel. 

“You must like him a lot,” said Mikey as Pete put one of the tapes into the player. The cleared his throat. “You’ve got a lot of albums.”

A strong voice erupted from the tape player, followed by an upbeat piano that made for quite a bouncy sound. It didn’t seem like something Mikey would expect Pete to listen to. 

“He was my favorite artist as a kid.” Mikey looked over to see Pete, smiling lightly to himself. “I wanted to be just like him.”

‘As a kid.’ Mikey couldn’t even imagine Pete being a kid, the way he was now. To have thoughts like that as a kid? How could you even know you’re a queer at that age? The thought bothered him more than he’d like to admit. It was an odd image.

“Why?” asked Mikey. Out of pure curiosity, if nothing else. 

“He’s just, like,” Pete started, staring out the window as the frenzied piano playing softly through the speakers gave sound to the silence. “He’s proud about who he is, you know? He doesn’t let anyone boss him around or tell him how to act—how to dress. I would be blessed to be half as brave as he is.”

Mikey felt like he could hear the awe enter Pete’s voice as he spoke about this man, though he felt like he was missing significant context as to who this ‘Little Richard’ was. All he’d heard about the guy was people complaining about his fame and flamboyance. He nodded as if he understood. “How does he dress?” asked Mikey, if just to hear Pete keep talking about something he was interested in. He had a different sort of tone to his voice whenever he was talking about something he was passionate about. 

Mikey caught Pete smiling to himself in the corner of his vision. “Oh, I don’t know how to describe it. I’ll tell you this, though,” he said, readjusting in his seat in Mikey’s peripherals. “When I was younger—maybe 14, 15?—I used to sneak into my mom’s bathroom when she was gone to steal her eyeliner so I could look just like Little Richard. I used to stand in front of that mirror for so long, holding up one of his vinyls to try to get the eyeliner perfect. I got pretty good at it, you know.”

“Hmm,” said Mikey, trying to imagine that scene in his head. A small Pete, waiting until he was home alone to dress up in drag, using his mother’s makeup. It was such a strange idea to him. “And you never got caught?” he asked, genuinely curious this time around. 

Pete shook his head beside Mikey with a breathy laugh. “Thank god, no,” he said. “They would’ve killed me.”

Mikey hummed in response, eyes trained on the car in front of him.

“Dressing up like that, even in private,” Pete started, “it was kind of like my own little form of rebellion. I still got the sort of thrill of breaking the rules, even though no one ever knew. It was freeing.”

“You don’t dress like him now, though,” Mikey pointed out, slightly confused. “You could, but you don’t.”

He looked at Pete, who gave a shrug. “I grew out of it, I guess. Not the, uh—” he waved his hands around awkwardly as Mikey returned his gaze to the road “—dudes part, you know, but like, I figured out other ways to dress my own way. I do what I want. In rebellion to some sort of greater society, I think, rather than just my parents. Turn here.”

Mikey flicked on his blinker, remembering that tank-top he had seen Pete wear that first day sleeping in the parking lot. He’d since gotten fairly used to it; Pete wore it often with his work coveralls when it got too hot and he tied the sleeves around his waist. The white clinging to his chest in a way that felt far more revealing than just taking his shirt off entirely like Andy. His own sort of rebellion.

‘Fairly used to it’ in the sense that Mikey still felt his eyes lingering a little too long on Pete as he leaned over the hoods of cars to check engines, or crawled under propped trucks to change oil with practiced ease. It was skilled, to say the least, and with the tank-top and coveralls, it looked especially impressive. 

He brought his elbow up to his mouth to cough away the image before returning his hand to the gear shift, searching for something else to say before the silence staled. He felt his cheeks heat up. What the fuck was happening?

“How—” started Mikey, adjusting his voice as the word came out weird. He saw Pete look at him from the corner of his eye. “How did you get so, y’know, confident?” he asked simply. 

Pete quirked his head. “What do you mean?”

Mikey had to stop himself from covering his face with his hands at the simple question. “Like,” he said, trying to think of what exactly he meant outside of something to get Pete talking. “I don’t know, like, you seem so confident with who you are.” The scene from the bathroom flashed unwillingly under his eyelids. “It’s impressive, I guess. I’d never be able to—well, not that I’m, y’know—but…I don’t know.” He brought his right hand up to his face with an awkward laugh, willing himself to stop talking. “You know what I mean,” he finalized. 

“Um…” said Pete, probably trying to process Mikey’s words. “Well, I wouldn’t exactly say I’m confident, you know, not like Little Richard. You’re the only one who knows, really.” 

Mikey could hear the nervousness entering the man’s voice as he spoke. “Really?” he asked, surprised. “Not Andy? Joe?”

Pete shook his head beside him. “I mean, I had one friend, but, uh.” He paused. “We’re not really friends anymore, I guess. Take the next right.”

Mikey nodded, looking back to switch lanes. “Was it, uh, because of that? You know, the, um…”

“Yeah,” Pete confirmed as Mikey trailed off. He didn’t make any move to elaborate. 

Mikey nodded again slowly. “That seems rough,” he said simply. It did. Mikey couldn’t even imagine how awful that must feel to have someone cut ties just because of that. It was weird to think about, yeah, a man…laying with another man. He was unsure of how that would actually work, like, biologically, and he tried to wrap his head around it but he just couldn’t. And it was none of his business anyway, really. He just wished it would stop weaving its way into his thoughts. It felt like a fucking, a fucking parasite or something, unwilling to leave. 

He turned at the next light, entering the labyrinth of houses that was Andy’s neighborhood. 

It was weird, Mikey thought, that the fact that Pete was…a homophile? Was that the right word? Maybe he should be more cautious of the man. There was probably a reason dudes stayed away from those kinds of people, right? But Pete seemed pretty normal, compared to others. He didn’t wear makeup or dress flamboyantly in the stereotypical way Mikey always thought of when hearing about those sorts of people. Like Little Richard. He was just a normal person, no one could have ever guessed. He hid it well, Mikey thought. 

Pete pointed in the directions of Andy’s house as Mikey drove back in silence, mind buzzing. 

He wondered what it was like to live like that, an entire aspect of yourself having to be kept secret. How did people like that even connect, when it was supposed to be a secret all the time? How the hell did Pete even find that dude to hook up with the other day? It seemed pre-planned, but Pete barely even seemed to know the name of the guy, what was the deal with that?

Mikey turned left, via Pete’s direction. 

Knowing love through only one-night stands, Mikey felt bad for the guy. Now, he’d never had any sort of long-term relationship himself, but he was sure that it was unfair for someone’s only experience of love to be that fast and fleeting. It just seemed like a sad life to live. 

Mikey looked at Pete now, who was gazing out the window as they rolled past various trees and houses. He felt like he was seeing him in a new light now, exposed in a way apparently no one else knew of. Privy to a secret reserved for him, in a way. 

It occurred to him suddenly that once he follows Gerard and Bert out of Chicago at their unpredictable whim, it was unlikely for Mikey to meet another person like Pete again. And if he were to, it would probably just be some lame ‘free love’ hippie in long hair and tie-dye and perhaps even some weird makeup. Mikey was glad Pete just seemed like a normal guy. With him hanging out so much with Pete lately, he was glad no one would see it as anything other than good friends. A queer who looked it would probably be a different story. 

Pete gave the final directions before Mikey finally pulled up to the sidewalk in front of the house. 

He took a controlled breath as the car slowed, rolling like molasses into a stop. He pulled the brake up, still a million questions in his head, but none forming themselves into any sort of words. He was just curious about the guy. 

His heart picked up pace as he slowly reached to turn the headlights off, clenching his jaw. He didn’t like where his head was at. He wished Pete would stop looking at him right now. He needed time to think. Maybe if he just did something about it, it would stop. Or maybe he was just being a fucking idiot. 

“Mikey? You okay?” 

Fuck. His breath got caught in his chest as Pete spoke. 

He wiped his hands nervously on his legs, adjusting his sitting position slightly. 

Fuck, if Gerard and Bert could go thousands of miles away from home to do crazy shit, he could too, he figured. He would be gone in a couple weeks at most, back in his home in New Jersey. Chicago was like a place that didn’t exist with repercussions that didn’t exist. Maybe if he could just prove to himself that this was something weird then he could make peace with it. Or even if it wasn’t something weird then no one would have to know. 

“Pete?” he said, his voice sort of breathy with nervousness. There was a hot feeling in his stomach that urged him to do it, and he hated it. His eyes were looking out the windows at Andy’s surrounding neighborhood, purposefully not looking at the passenger. 

“What’s up?” asked Pete, sounding sort of hesitant. Mikey didn’t dare look at him.

He took a deep breath, bringing his both hands up to hold the steering wheel for comfort. He bit his cheek, regretting his decision to say anything in the first place rather than just head inside to the people he knew were waiting for their dinner. Fuck, why couldn’t he have just shut up?

Mikey was too far in now, he realized. Pete was waiting for him to say something and Mikey was sure he already knew what it was. He wasn’t being very subtle. Pete probably knew what Mikey was thinking since they were waiting in that restaurant. Maybe even since they were at work yesterday. Pete could probably already see what he was thinking every time he looked at him. Maybe that’s what he wanted. 

He tightened his grip on the wheel, shutting his eyes as he prepared himself. He couldn’t believe he was doing this. 

Deep breath. 

“Can I kiss you?” asked Mikey, quiet and rushed. Quick, so he didn’t have time to think about the words.

He let out a hushed sigh once he had spoken, tentatively opening his eyes to look over at Pete. His face was burning. 

“What?”

Fuck. 

Mikey wanted to bury his head in his hands and never see the light of day ever again. He brought them instead to his thighs to wipe off the sweat. He’d never recover from this, holy shit.

Little Richard’s muffled piano gave sound to the silence.  

“Uh—”

”Um,” said Pete at the same time. He looked just as nervous as Mikey, which, hello? Wasn’t he the one who would’ve wanted this? He hesitated before letting out a slightly breathy, “Sure.”

Mikey couldn’t help his eyes from widening at the response, and he immediately turned to look out the window to his left, bringing a stressed hand to his face. His brain felt cloudy, like none of this was real. He couldn’t believe this was an actual thing he was doing. What was he doing?

He looked back to Pete, swallowing as he brought his hand down from his face. “Uh,” he said shakily. What the fuck was he supposed to do? Pete looked like he’d never done this before in his life which is crazy because wasn’t he the one that Mikey found grinding against that man the other night? 

It was embarrassing to back down now. “You kiss me,” Mikey said, quickly again to avoid any extra thinking. He forced himself to look into Pete’s eyes. It was fine, really. He’d have this moment then leave Chicago in a week and it’ll be fine. Once in a lifetime opportunity or whatever. He tried not to pay attention to the way he was breathing. 

“Are you sure?” Pete asked, eyebrows raising slightly. His hands were fidgeting quietly in his lap and, Jesus, why was he making Mikey think so much about this? What was he supposed to do, say no and pretend nothing happened?

Mikey nodded, heart climbing into his stomach. 

Pete nodded back slowly. “Um, okay,” he said, looking around the windows. Nobody there. It was happening. 

Mikey gulped as Pete adjusted in his seat, clearing out his mouth because really the only thing he knew about Pete was that he could make out—hard—and Mikey wasn’t sure if he was really prepared for that. He’d never properly kissed someone like that before. Was it different kissing a guy?

His breath halted as Pete took a hand and raised it to his jaw, gently cupping it as he leaned closer. Mikey’s stomach seemed to roll over inside of him, watching the man’s lips instead of his eyes. The hesitation felt a lot more intimate than if Pete had just gone for it and got it over with. He was giving Mikey time to think about it, not what he had planned for in the minute leading up to the execution. It was supposed to be a rash sort of decision. 

Eventually, Pete apparently got the confidence to lean in, hesitating just a second over Mikey’s mouth, before connecting their lips.

It was a simple kiss. Nothing hot and dirty like what Mikey had walked in on a couple days ago, no. It was polite, hardly anything other than soft lips upon soft lips for a couple long seconds before it was broken.

He didn’t dare open his eyes when they parted, feeling immobile, like his body was still trying to process what he was doing. There was the feeling of Pete’s hand slipping from his jaw to the back of his hair, sending a flash of heat down his body that made him light headed. He could still feel Pete’s nose lightly against his. Fingers were twirling hair slowly on the back of his neck. There was too much to focus on. He couldn’t breathe. 

Before he could focus on any stream of thought, there were lips on his mouth again, closing just slightly over his bottom lip. Mikey couldn’t do anything but inhale sharply through his nose in a long-awaited breath and return the kiss. They parted and closed their lips a couple times, each one bringing a new wave of nausea into his body. He thought briefly that he should maybe do something with his hands or something, but it was cut short by the feeling of teeth pulling lightly at his bottom lip before the spit on his mouth made contact with the cold air again. 

Holy fuck. 

The feeling of Pete’s nose still lingered on the side of his own, and the fingers in his hair kept twisting and twisting, the way his stomach was winding circles around itself. 

There was a soft exhale over the top of his wetted lips, sending a wave of nausea into his body. 

He opened his eyes. Pete’s were still closed, close to his face, wet lips slightly parted as he sighed softly onto Mikey’s with warm, tickling breath. 

I kissed him.

Mikey wanted to breathe but the air between them felt too hot and shared. It felt suffocating. 

God, it feels so strange to write. I don’t regret it now but I can’t say that I never will.

He focused on the fingers that made small circles on the back of his neck and he wanted to double over at the new pain that flashed in his stomach. 

Holy shit.

“I’m gonna throw up.”

Pete’s eyes shot open and Mikey jerked his head away, feeling Pete’s hand slip out of his hair. 

“What?” said Pete, his voice a little breathy as he brought his hand back toward his own space. 

The distance between them allowed for fresh air, which Mikey took in gratefully. Pete looked confused, but quite frankly Mikey couldn’t bring himself to care as he felt his ears begin to pound with the new cold air entering his lungs. He felt dizzy. 

He was going to throw up. 

Mikey whipped around, flailing a little as he tried to remember where the door handle was. He pulled it, collapsing into the night air as he stumbled out the door, bringing in giant gulps of air. His head felt crowded—loud and claustrophobic. 

He stumbled over to the bed of the truck, using the edge as balance as he leaned over himself, arm covering his stomach. He felt dizzy. 

I don’t know what happens next, Ive never done anything like this before. 

“Mikey!” Said Pete, rounding the car before stopping to stand awkwardly a few feet away. 

I should’ve waited until I knew when were gonna leave so there wouldnt be a “next”, but whatever. Itll sort itself out Im sure.

Mikey watched Pete’s shoes from the corner of his eye as he sort of willed himself to throw up, but it didn’t happen. He licked his lips, hoping Pete couldn’t see from where he was standing. They tasted like how Pete smelled, that cigarette. He could taste the tobacco, but a little bit under that was a sort of minty flavor, the same that Mikey caught sometimes when Pete just finished a cigarette. It was subtle, but it was there. And it was on his lips. 

Fuck, did Pete really bite his lip? 

He felt sick. Pete was still awkwardly watching over him hunching over himself. He sort of opened and closed his mouth a few times, hoping that maybe throwing up would clear the dizziness from his body, but it never came. Throwing up or not throwing up—both were embarrassing, but the latter meant he had made a huge deal out of nothing. He was just left with this weird sort of feeling in his stomach. 

After a few long moments of realizing the nausea had passed, Mikey forced himself to stand up and face the man, bringing his hand from the car to rub his face as some sort of shield to his reddened cheeks. He wished he could curl himself into a ball and roll under Pete’s car for the night, never look at him ever again. 

“Are you alright?” Pete asked, hands shoved into his pockets, still standing a few good feet away from Mikey. He didn’t know if he preferred that or not. Would he rather Pete be all touchy after just a kiss? No. Did it still feel a little strange to have Pete so noticeably closed off? Yes. It wasn’t something the man did often. He hoped this wouldn’t be a new thing. He hoped he didn’t fuck anything up. Maybe that was a stupid thought. 

He didn’t comment on it. 

Mikey still had an arm still folded over his stomach. “Should we, um, bring in the food?” he said, forgetting Pete’s question. He still felt a bit light headed. This was all stupid, so stupid. Why the fuck did he do that? 

Pete nodded, quickly turning away to grab the food from the back of the truck. Mikey took that as a temporary respite, turning to lean against the truck bed and catch the breath he couldn’t dare breathe while Pete was looking at him.

Chapter Text

“What?” said Frank, somewhat bitterly at Gerard’s “Holy shit.” He didn’t look up from his textbook.

“Mikey’s…” started Gerard, not knowing how to continue the sentence. Mikey kissed Pete? Mikey, his brother, kissed a guy. How had he not known? They had all travelled together for over a month, surely Gerard would’ve known something about the two, being around them all the time. Surely. 

Maybe it was just a one time thing, though. Maybe Mikey had just written it wrong—Pete, had kissed Mikey, and maybe something happened where they just stayed as friends, because he was sure nothing went down between the two of them. Maybe Mikey was just curious and Pete was there and it was just a one time thing. No biggie, that’s reasonable that he wouldn’t tell Gerard, because he wasn’t actually gay. 

“What happened to Mikey?” asked Ray, the kind soul he is. Ray cared. 

The words got caught in his throat. “Uh,” he tried to start, but he trailed off, because Mikey wasn’t… No, Gerard would’ve known. 

“Let me guess,” started Frank, eyes still trained on the text Gerard was sure he wasn’t reading anymore. “Your brother’s gay, isn’t he? Fuckin’ shocker there, huh?”

Gerard raised his eyebrows in surprise, and a little bit of annoyance. “Well, no. I mean—how did you know? Not necessarily,” he rushed, shocked that Frank had guessed it so fast. And why was he so angry about it? He didn’t even know Mikey, it was Gerard who should be mad. ”I just…” started Gerard, worrying his lip. “I just don’t know why he never told me.”

Frank scoffed. 

“What did the journal say?” asked Ray simply, setting down his book again to give Gerard his attention. Thank you, Ray. 

“Um,” said Gerard. He didn’t know if he wanted to say it out loud. 

Frank reached over and snatched the journal from his hands. Gerard didn’t even have time to react.

“‘I kissed him,’” he read in a monotone voice, and Gerard brought his hand up in some sort of attempt to hide his face. “‘God, it feels so strange to write. I don’t regret it now but I can’t say that I never will. I don’t know what happens next, I’ve never done anything like this before—’” Gerard looked at Ray through his hand, who seemed to be giving Frank a sort of uncomfortable look as he read “—Blah blah blah—‘It’s kind of like what he said about the thrill of breaking the rules. I'm gonna see how it plays out, I think.’”

Frank only raised his eyebrows for a moment at the page before he closed the journal and threw it back toward Gerard without a glance in his direction. It bounced on the mattress in between the two.

The three sat in silence as Frank went back to his textbook without another word. It sounded a lot different when read out loud, that was for sure.

“Wow,” said Ray after a few seconds.

Gerard tried not to scowl at Frank. 

He just looked at the journal that was thrown right next to him, his cheeks starting to heat. “What was that for?” he asked Frank. 

“Ray asked.” Frank shrugged.

Gerard just narrowed his eyes at Frank, who was still not paying attention. He was acting weird, Gerard knew it, but he didn’t linger on it. 

Mikey was gay, and Gerard never knew. 

He sighed. “I just don’t know why he never told me,” he said.

”It’s very personal,” said Ray simply, trying to comfort Gerard from across the room. “I don’t think it’s that easy.”

Gerard sighed again, picking up the journal to fiddle with in his hands. “Even then, I don’t get how I didn’t know. I should’ve picked up on something.” He thought back to the trip that summer. They had been really close, he guessed. Close, but not that close. He couldn’t have. Mikey and Pete weren’t fucking, he knew that. Nothing happened between the two of them, except that one time. There was nothing beyond that. 

“I’m gonna go get some food,” Gerard said, sliding off the bed and leaving the journal behind. He avoided looking at it for the next couple days, scared of the truth.

Chapter Text

June 30, 1969

Gerard and Bert were talking some nonsense over the table that Mikey had no interest in paying any attention to. 

He had other things on his mind. 

Like Pete’s Ford, illuminated only by the light of the stars in the front of Andy’s house. 

Like Pete’s fingers making tiny circles on the back of Mikey’s neck, twirling in his hair. 

Like Mikey’s voice humming softly over the sound of the radio asking, “Can I kiss you?” 

Pete’s lips on his. Opening just slightly, slowly. The subtle taste of the sweet cigarette in his mouth. A soft exhale upon Mikey’s lips. 

He brought his hand up to his mouth, lightly touching the pad of his fingers to the skin of his lips. 

He looked up at Gerard and Bert from across the table, still engrossed in their own conversation. They weren’t looking at him, but he still felt guilt heat the back of his neck as he took his hand from his lips and brought it down to the pocket of his jeans. 

Ive taken to carrying around this thing in my pocket wherever I go. I cant risk you or anyone else seeing this, it stays between me and these pages.

He felt the leather, running his fingers over the cover to assure him of its presence. No one knew. His secrets were in the safety of his inventory.

Chapter Text

July 2, 1969

Its been a few days and nothings happened so far. I dont really know what I was expecting, if I was expecting anything. I remember lying down the other night after it first happened thinking about how something like this would work.

He tossed to the side, away from Gerard and Bert, who were sleeping on the other side of the room. Mikey had chosen the distance because of their constant rank of weed and body odor, but today it gave him the privacy of his own thoughts. 

If it would actually turn into something more, I mean. not that that’s what I want. Just thinking of possibilities, I guess. 

He thought for a moment as the claustrophobic sleeping bag guarded the sweat forming on his skin. What was to come from this? He didn’t really want to think about the implications of this situation. What this meant for Mikey. He didn’t know. 

Ive never been in any sort of thing before, especially something like this.

With a boy or girl. 

It wasn’t something he wanted to think about. He didn’t know why he had asked Pete to do that; he guessed maybe because he’d been thinking about it so much since that night in the drive-in movie, it was just something that was at the front of his mind. Something he’d never really thought about before. And as much as he wanted to push whatever this was away, deep down he knew he couldn’t. He wasn’t going to be stupid about this. A heterosexual man does not just do that. 

So, he guessed what’s next is to figure out what to do with this thing. 

Not that this is any sort of thing, nothings happened, but just preparing for anything, you know. But its been fine. Not awkward. Its been good.

“Hey.”

Mikey jumped in the passenger seat of the car. Andy had asked them to come in early that morning, right at the buttcrack of dawn, painting the suburbs in a soft yellow color. He bit down an unintentional smile as he closed the door. “Hi,” he said simply, trying not to look at Pete. 

They didn’t talk about it. 

Theres been some sort of mutual understanding of whats happened, I think. I dont know how its gonna be in the future, but maybe thats good that it doesnt look like whatever happened that night will continue. We could leave tomorrow, for all I know, and Id never see him again. 

Mikey looked out the window, pressing his lips together as Pete drove, remembering that night. The taste of the cigarette, the fingers in his hair, and, fuck, teeth? The heat in his stomach was threatening to make a reappearance now. 

He brought a hand to his face to cover his hot cheeks as trees rolled by the window, trying to push down the smile at the corners of his mouth. It felt like a good day. 

Its good not to get my hopes up about anything. Not that thats happening, but just in case. Ive been thinking of how youd react to this if you knew, but I dont like the answers Ive come up with in my head so Im keeping that unknown. 

This wasn’t good for Mikey, he knew it already, stepping out of the car and into the sun that had already heat up the air. 

This wasn’t good for Pete, he knew because he could see the bounce in the man’s step as he prepared the shop for the day. He was getting his hopes up, but Mikey knew it was just going to be another fleeting thing. This couldn’t last. It hadn’t even begun, but it would be over soon enough. Mikey knew it. 

He bit the inside of his cheek as he watched Pete undo the tarps in the wide open garage, letting in the summer air. 

Maybe Pete was used to this kind of thing. Transience. Maybe he knew what he was in for with this. Maybe Mikey could just let himself take advantage of this opportunity. There would be no other situation where he’d be so far away from home like this with essentially no consequences to his actions.

And as long as Gerard didn’t know, he’d be fine. None of this would have to follow him once he leaves. 

Me and these pages are all that need to know right now. and this stays tucked away in my pocket for safekeeping.

It was a quiet shift, Wednesday morning. 

About an hour into the shift, Mikey found himself and Pete in the back of the garage to escape the heat of the sun, absently sorting through the assortments of jacks, jumpers, tires—anything to pass the time. Occasionally, Mikey would point out a specific tool or maintenance supply and ask what it does, and Pete would take his cigarette between his two fingers and explain where exactly to use it and what it did. He would often drawl out explanations—for two reasons, Mikey guessed: One, for Mikey to understand what he was saying (he didn’t understand the jargon, nor did he particularly care to), and, two, because they simply had nothing better to do. 

“And that one?” asked Mikey as Pete lit himself another cigarette. He used to be annoyed by the habit, just as he was for his brother, but he found himself getting used to the minty sort of scent to it now. 

Perhaps he had been spending too much time with Pete. 

The man took a drag and blew out a cloud of smoke before going on to explain how this particular item would be used to fix suspension issues or something that Mikey knew he’d never come close to using. His eyes watched Pete’s right hand moved up and down from the cigarette in his mouth to the tool as he explained how the gadget worked, motioning with his hands in the air. 

Mikey nodded at the information, taking long inhales of the smoky air. He’d never been drawn to smoking, nor was he particularly interested in starting now, but something about that smell…

“Can I try a cigarette?” 

Pete paused, hands still in the air around the invisible gadget in front of him as he leaned against the storage cabinet. “You smoke?” he asked, looking at Mikey as he furrowed his eyebrows. He’d never seen Mikey smoke before. 

Mikey shrugged. “Not particularly,” he said, watching Pete reach for the packet in the pocket of his coveralls. “Oh, um—” he interjected, “I don’t need a full one.”

“Just a hit?” Pete asked, taking his own out of his mouth. He took it in his thumb and pointer finger and offered it up to Mikey. It was small, seemed a little less than half finished at this point. 

Mikey took it, brushing fingers with Pete’s in the small surface area. His stomach felt heavy with some sort of nervousness or something when he brought it up to his face. He hesitated, Pete’s quiet eyes watching him ponder the cigarette. 

“I’ve only ever had one,” explained Mikey nervously, eyes trained on the small object. “I stole one of Gerard’s when he was out with his friends in high school. I almost threw up at the taste.” Mikey scrunched his nose at the memory, of both the taste and the feeling. He felt left out and young and figured that maybe his brother would be proud of him or something, but he didn’t end up liking it. Oh, well. 

Mikey tried to think of what he’d seen other people do. He brought the cigarette to his lips. It was slightly soggy from Pete’s mouth, but he tried not to linger on that. And he prepared himself for one of those deep inhales he’d seen his brother do so many times. 

The second Mikey let himself breathe in, he let out a sputtering cough, leaning over himself as he brought his free hand to his face while holding the cigarette freely in the other. His throat felt like it was fire. How could people enjoy this? The only flavors he could taste were smoke and tobacco, nothing sweet like Mikey remembered from the kiss. Maybe it was something else.

“Holy God,” he said between coughs as he willed himself to stand up. He felt his eyes prickle a little and he looked up to see Pete laughing a little bit at his intense reaction. 

Once he got himself under control, he handed the cigarette back with a small, embarrassed smile, ignoring the heat in his cheeks. Whatever, whatever, it was fine. 

“You alright?” asked Pete after giving Mikey a few moments to recover.

He nodded, eyes and lungs trying to clear themselves. His chest stung. Pete took another drag from the cigarette with an amused smile, and Mikey felt a little bit like a fucking pussy. 

“It takes getting used to,” Pete reassured, blowing out the smoke to the side. God, how did he make it look so cool?

“That’s shitty,” said Mikey with a grimace. “Remind me to never do that again.” He slid his hands in his pockets, making his way toward the edge of the garage to watch for any customers. Pete followed behind him. 

Mikey breathed in the clean air, clearing out his lungs as they waited. After a few minutes, the air in his lungs started to have that sort of subtle sweet flavor Mikey remembered, something that tasted distantly like Pete in every breath. 

He bit his lip, sliding his eyes over to Pete nervously to see if he had somehow caught that thought. Fuck. He needed to stop thinking like this, it was taking over his brain. 

But that didn’t stop him from taking in the minty tobacco air in long, deep breaths. It was subtle enough for him to bear now, seeming to coat the inside of his mouth and throat, sort of an odd cool feeling each time he breathed in. It tasted like Pete’s lips hovering just slightly over Mikey’s mouth, that sigh over his wet lips…

He prayed Pete couldn’t tell what he was thinking. Tried to wipe his face clean of any possibility of betrayal. 

The two stood next to each other in silence, Pete working away at his cigarette peacefully. Mikey looked at him—not staring at him, just looking—watching him bring the cigarette from his fingers to his mouth as he stared forward, watching the cars roll by on the highway. Nobody seemed to be coming. Mikey pulled his eyes back to the concrete floor of the garage when Pete moved to stub the butt out on the wall beside him. 

He wondered if the kiss was something they’d ever talk about, or if it was just a secret, fading moment that would slowly equate to nothing. He wondered if it was nothing for Pete. Pete had done that sort of thing plenty of times, it was nothing for him. Mikey didn’t know if he preferred to think Pete figured the whole thing as insignificant, or if he’d rather something come from it. He didn’t know. It felt weird to not talk about it, but at the same time he’d kind of rather anything but that. He sure as hell wouldn’t be the one asking about it. 

There was a sound of a car pulling up to one of the gas pumps, and Mikey nearly leapt off the wall to go take care of it, leaving Pete alone in the garage.

Chapter Text

So. Mikey was gay. 

He was gay, and Gerard didn’t know. He never did and he never would’ve. Not if he hadn’t taken the journal. He would’ve never known his brother was gay. Mikey never planned on him knowing. Ever. 

Mikey didn’t trust him. 

It hit him like a ton of bricks as he stood in front of the closet, untouched from a couple weeks ago. His stomach sank. He flipped over a copy of The Riddler in his hands, remembering how they used to sit on this very floor as children. Gerard used to read aloud his favorite Batman comics to Mikey when the boy had trouble sleeping. He always used to love the way Mikey sprawled out on the carpet and gasped whenever the latest plot twist was unveiled.  

They were brothers. Mikey should’ve realized that. 

They’d grown up with each other their entire lives. They used to know everything about each other. How long had Mikey known before Pete came along? How many more were there? How many more secrets would Gerard be pulling out of this closet? 

Mikey’s belongings were tossed haphazardly around the room, dumped out and moved around from when Gerard had planned on sorting through it all. He didn’t know if he had it in him anymore, if he even wanted to know what was hiding in all of this crap. Maybe he’d live better in ignorance. 

He would call up Ray or Frank here to ask for their advice or just complain or something, but Frank had been acting like kind of an ass recently and Ray was just being weirdly distant. He didn’t know what had happened. Some college stuff ramping up or something, probably. Something he didn’t understand. 

Maybe he should get a job or something to make use of his time. He’d been wallowing quite a lot recently since he figured out about Mikey. He felt like an ass, like Mikey hated him. What had happened to that boy reading comics on the floor of his room just a few years ago?

Gerard lowered himself slowly to sit on Mikey’s bed, grimacing a bit at the lonely creaking noise the wood gave as he let his weight rest on the old bed. Not used to a person’s body weight anymore, he guessed. This room had grown lonesome. 

He stared absently at his hand, loose around the comic, ignoring the mess of the room. It was lonely in here, he could feel it. The walls wept silently, waiting for their little boy to return home. All that was left now was an older version of the boy’s brother, someone this room hadn’t properly seen in years. 

The walls would never know what that poor, little boy had endured. Not his queer little love affair or his waning health as he was forced to suffer the consequences of a war he knew nothing about. The walls missed the kid who used to stay up late with his brother without the knowledge of their parents to read the new edition of their favorite comic series. Watching that happy boy grow into that sad young man in the same house he’s lived his whole life, it must be troublesome. Gerard wished he knew what had changed to make Mikey the way he was. He always seemed so distant in the last few years of his life. 

Gerard wondered what the walls would say to him if given the chance. Would they tell him what happened? Had they seen Mikey come home with guys in the quiet of the night, when no one was awake? How often? How many times had they watched him cry late into the night about things nobody knew about? Would even they know why?

The entire existence of the secret peeved him. The fact that he had been so close to Mikey for so long and yet he knew nothing. How long had Mikey been lying to him?

Chapter Text

July 6, 1969

Its too obvious. Theyre gonna find out what happened. 

“What happened?” asked Pete as he came back down the steps of the basement, carrying hot bowls of cheap mac and cheese for the group. He plopped down next to Andy on the couch, looking over Andy’s shoulder at the newspaper in his hands as he handed the man a bowl. 

Andy took it graciously, then tilted the paper toward Pete so he could see it more clearly. Mikey was stuck with the back side of the paper—some giant photo of Nixon painted that side—watching from the other side of the room. He stuck to his bowl, uninterested in whatever was going on in the news. All the news does is make people feel worse than they did before; Mikey saw very little point to it. 

“‘Homo Nest Raided, Queen Bees Stinging Mad,’” read Andy off the paper, and Mikey looked up from sticking his fork in the plasticy cheese. Pete’s eyes furrowed questioningly, not revealing anything in his face that would tell anyone anything about that topic. 

“The hell does that mean?” asked Gerard, shoving a spoonful of macaroni into his mouth. He was sat in his sleeping bag, perched against the wall next to Bert. It was cold in the basement, with limited blankets to go around. 

Andy shrugged, eyes skimming the paper. Mikey had his eyes on Pete, who was reading the page with a blank face. 

“Apparently, uh,” said Andy, flicking the paper as it started to fold backward. “A ‘gay joint’ in New York got raided or something—says, uhh, ‘homosexual riot’, some place called Stonewall Inn, apparently. Pretty violent, they say.” He flipped the page, taking another moment to read the text, before finalizing simply, “Seems about it.”

Mikey tried to catch Pete’s eyes or find any sort of emotion—he was passionate about these sorts of things, right? He expected Pete to say something informative about the incident, why it's important or something, or perhaps just give Mikey some sort of worried look, but he showed nothing. He was good at keeping secrets; he’d been doing it his whole life. 

Bert scoffed ahead of Mikey. “Why are they making it our problem?”

Mikey watched Pete for any comeback or response, but he just read the page blankly, not paying attention to Bert. 

“Violent, how?” asked Gerard for clarification. Mikey could feel the hairs on the back of his neck get cold. He didn’t want to know what Gerard thought about this. “What are they doing?” his brother asked.

Pete finally spoke up, and Mikey bit his cheek at the man’s voice joining in. “Looks like the police raided the gay bar and they fought back. Thirteen arrested. Apparently it happened last Friday.”

Gerard hummed in response. 

“Fucking stupid,” Bert started again. Mikey felt his stomach clench unwillingly, and he brought his knees up to prop his head. He didn’t know how he fit into all this, but all he could think of was that night in the car, Pete’s lips against his. Bert wouldn’t have anything good to say about that. Gerard probably wouldn’t either. “Making a big deal out of nothing. All they have to do is keep their dirty little hands off us, and keep to themselves. The police are just trying to keep people safe—fighting them is just unnecessary violence.” He took a drag off his joint, keeping his eyes on the smoke. “Surprised the fags even know how to fight, anyway.”

Andy raised his eyebrows at the statement, but said nothing. He took a glance at Mikey for the first time in the conversation before turning his head back to the newspaper, flipping the page. Mikey bit his cheek nervously. Was he being too obvious not speaking up about this? Did Andy somehow know what he and Pete did? Did Pete tell him?

Mikey tried to catch Pete’s eye to no avail. He was looking through the paper with Andy. Maybe Pete was trying to put Andy off their scent—usually he sat with Mikey, but maybe something happened and Andy was getting suspicious so he was distancing himself from Mikey, even though there was nothing really going on right now between the two of them. They hadn’t kissed again, probably won’t. It’s too dangerous, Mikey knew this. The evidence was clear in the paper. 

He chewed his cheek. It was becoming sore from his nervous habit. 

You cant hide things like this, its too big and unforgiving. Its gotta come out sooner or later. 

Sooner or later. If whatever was happening here continued, Gerard would have to find out sooner or later. It was bound to happen. 

It was funny, though, because it didn’t continue. Some sort of one-time-off thing. Pete was acting like nothing happened, it was almost like Mikey had dreamed up the kiss in his head. He found himself doubting sometimes that it was even real.

So nothing was bound to happen, and Gerard would never find out, because it was almost as if it didn’t exist. 

Mikey should be relieved. 

But he wasn’t. 

Theres a thing thats confusing me though, about this entire ordeal—or lack thereof. 

They went down the shore on the Fourth, or more accurately to Lake Michigan. It was almost an ocean, so close enough. The plan was to watch the fireworks over the water on Andy’s old beach towel, but it ended up being too small for the five of them.

“Why you sitting all the way over there, Mikey Way?” drawled Bert from the towel, much louder than he needed to prove some sort of point. Mikey and Pete were only sat a few feet away in the sand. 

Mikey didn’t answer, keeping his eyes forward on the dark lake like he didn’t hear the man. He leaned back from his hands to his elbows, reclining himself next to Pete, who had his head resting on a rock. Mikey didn’t think it looked comfortable, but whatever floats his boat. 

“You never talk, Mikey,” whined Bert like he gave a fuck. Mikey guessed he was just bored, with Gerard out grabbing the chairs with Andy. At least he was making himself useful. 

Mikey just shrugged without giving a glance in Bert’s direction, simply to acknowledge the man’s existence without indulging too much. It was for his own sake. Pete had an arm over his eyes like he was sleeping. 

“Aw, c’mon,” said Bert, leaning over to poke Mikey in the arm. “Don’t be a drag.”

Mikey leaned sideways away from the finger, bumping into Pete for a second until the hand retracted from his side. 

Bert tutted beside him. “No fun,” he said simply. He waited a few glorious seconds before speaking up yet again. Mikey had to bite back a sigh when Bert yawned loudly. “When are Gerard and Andy gonna get here? Gonna miss the fireworks,” he said in faux shame. 

They left two minutes ago. “Dunno.”

“Aw!” Bert emitted a little too loudly. Mikey scrunched his nose at the outburst. “Look who finally decided to speak!” Mikey felt a light smack on the side of his shoulder as Bert leaned over again playfully. He could feel Bert’s lingering touch there even after the hand left his arm; even his skin disliked the man. 

Gerard swooped in like an angel from heaven just a few moments later, ridding Mikey of Bert’s attention with an armful of chairs. 

“There were only three chairs,” huffed Gerard, flopping the two in his arms on the ground as Andy set up the third between Mikey and Bert on the sand. God bless Andy. Mikey always liked the guy. 

“It’s alright,” said Mikey, looking up at Andy as he sat up from his elbows. “Pete and I were gonna go somewhere off the beach.” Right, Pete? He kicked Pete’s leg lightly, causing the man to take the arm off his eyes.

Pete rubbed an eye with the palm of his hand. “Yeah,” he said, a slight sigh to his voice as he pushed himself up. 

The two took off with a rushed wave as they trudged in the sand. Pete was Mikey’s unscheduled savior—he knew the guy would just go along with what he said. Thank God for Pete. 

“He’s a fucking chop, ain’t he?” noted Pete once they got out of earshot. They maneuvered around the other people with towels and chairs that had also come to watch the fireworks. “Bert, I mean.”

Mikey nodded. 

“Where we going?”

Mikey shrugged. “I dunno,” he said. “I hoped you knew a place. Preferably where we can still see the fireworks.”

He watched Pete think for a few seconds, looking around the area, before taking off in a direction. Mikey followed, stumbling around people’s towels and bags. 

“How’d Bert and Gerard meet?” Pete asked as they made it to the pavement, weaving through groups of people every once and a while. 

Mikey’s shoulder collided with a man as they walked and he muttered a polite apology. “Um,” he said, trying to think. He didn’t really remember. Gerard was out a lot in his later teen years, never home. “At a party, probably, if I had to guess. He was around a lot of shitty people like Bert all growing up. I’ve never liked his friends.”

Pete nodded beside him, humming. “Why not?”

Mikey shrugged. “They were all into drugs and stuff, I was never into that. It felt like they were stealing him from me, I think.”

“You were close to him as a kid?”

“Yeah,” Mikey smiled to himself a little bit, still getting led through the masses by Pete. He thought for a second that this might be easier to navigate if they were connected at the hands, but he let that thought pass the second it formed. “We used to do everything as kids,” he explained. “He just got wrapped up in a different crowd, I guess.”

Pete hummed in acknowledgement. He was looking at all the stores that lined the road, as if trying to remember where something was. “What was your crowd?” he asked, before nodding at Mikey to follow him across the street. 

He followed the man as a car slowed to let them cross. “I don’t know,” he answered, jogging up a little so he was right next to Pete rather than following awkwardly behind. “Had a few friends here and there but I was never as good at making them as Gerard. He always had a knack for people.”

“Hm,” said Pete. Mikey couldn’t tell if he was genuinely interested in his answers or if he was just making conversation, but he felt appreciative of the questions nonetheless. “I think the place is over here. Fireworks should start in—” he checked his watch as they walked “—seven minutes?”

Mikey nodded. 

Pete led Mikey into a small ice cream shop just a few moments later, tucked between a laundromat and an Italian restaurant. “You want some ice cream?” he asked as they entered.

Mikey shook his head, taking in the long line as Pete took him instead up a flight of stairs on the side of the shop. His shoes clanked against the metal as he held the cold railing. It only took a couple seconds for the cool air to land back on his face as Pete pushed open the door to the roof.

“Oh, wow,” he breathed, taking in the sky from up here. It seemed a lot bigger now than when they were down below, when the already-few stars were obscured by trees and buildings. There were fewer people up here, too. Although every table was taken, there weren’t too many people to move around comfortably. 

He made his way to the fence at the edge of the roof where a couple other people were stood, leaning over it to watch the crowd of people move around each other below. The Lake was large, expansive. Coming from the sea, it baffled him how a lake can be so big that you can’t see the other side for miles. Waves rocked steadily over the sand, though it was too cold for even children to jump in this time of the night. 

“Pretty out here, ain’t it?” Pete’s voice came in as he took a spot next to him, copying Mikey’s crossed arms on the fence. Their elbows brushed against each other, but neither of them moved. 

Mikey nodded, looking out at the stars over the water. This was a much better view than whatever the others were getting. Mikey looked over at Pete, who was staring up at the sky. “Did you used to come here often?” he asked. 

Pete looked back down, meeting Mikey’s eyes. “Not particularly,” he said, soft smile painting over his face. “Maybe just a few times.”

They kept each other’s eyes for a few seconds, neither moving to look away. They were stood kind of close to each other, Mikey noticed, but he felt frozen in place. Pete’s eyes looked a little green. He’d never noticed that before. 

He watched Pete’s eyes slip from his own to what he could only assume was his lips, and his breath stopped. He watched Pete watch his lips, not daring to move or say anything. He wondered what he would do if Pete tried to kiss him right now. Surely they couldn’t, surrounded by people, but he didn’t know if he’d stop it if Pete tried. His stomach filled with a hot, nauseating liquid. 

Pete must’ve caught himself because his eyes snapped back to Mikey’s and he gave one of those polite, pursed smiles, before turning away toward the lake again. 

Mikey breathed a sigh of relief. 

Pete hints at it sometimes, and I dont know what hes trying to do or where hes trying to go with it. 

He watched Pete’s face that had turned to the sea, trying to find some sort of signal that would tell him if that was on purpose or not, or if Pete’s eyes had just wandered there by accident. 

Mikey let out a sigh as lightly as he could muster, allowing himself to breathe again as he followed Pete’s gaze back out to the lake and night sky. He hoped no one behind them saw or noticed anything. He licked his lips absentmindedly, trying to ignore the knot in his stomach. 

What he did know is that this told him that Pete had been thinking about it, too. 

I dont know what his intention is with this. I just hope he can be subtle about it.

The fireworks started, illuminating the sky with reds and whites and blues. The people on the street slowed, turning to point at the light in the sky. 

Mikey and Pete leaned against the fence on the top of the ice cream building, shoulder to shoulder as their heads craned up at the sky, both thinking about the same, unspoken thing. He wasn’t sure if he was happy or not that all these people around them had stopped him from doing something really, really stupid.

Chapter Text

“You got accepted? Shit, dude, I’m so happy for you!” 

Frank smiled at Ray’s praise across the small café table, cheeks a light rose color. 

Apparently he’d been wanting the job for a while, some sort of thing at a tattoo parlor. All Gerard knew was that he wasn’t a tattoo artist; he didn’t know what else they did at those places. He nodded in congratulation, taking a bite of his bagel. 

Frank and Ray met at this local café every Sunday to work on school work. Gerard had been coming too since he moved in with Ray—not because he had anything he had to get done, but rather because the two had become Gerard’s only friends in the past few months and he never had anything better to do. They let him accompany them as long as he promised that when they were working, he wouldn’t bother them. 

And they weren’t working right now, so Gerard took the opportunity to get out what had been plaguing his mind for the past few days.

“Y’know,” started Gerard, drawing their attention from Frank’s new job to him. “I’d been thinking a lot about, y’know, Mikey and Pete.”

Frank’s eyebrows furrowed at the change in topic, but he hid it as he ducked to take a bite of his sandwich. 

“So if Mikey’s a queer, there must’ve been more dudes I wasn’t aware of. Y’know since he hid his relationship with Pete so easily even though we were all travelling together for months.” He took a bite of his bagel, speaking through the bread in his mouth. “I’m just wondering how many more there were growing up.”

The three sat in silence for a few seconds. 

Ray cleared his throat. “Um,” he said. “I don’t know? Maybe Pete was his first?”

“I don’t see why it matters. He’s dead anyway.”

“Frank!”

Gerard stared at Frank, narrowing his eyes. “What’s been up with you recently?” Gerard threw an offended look, but apparently Frank didn’t care enough to watch Gerard’s reaction. The man stared into his sandwich instead. What the fuck was up with this dude?

“You’ve kind of been an ass since this Mikey shit started, Gerard,” Frank said simply as he bit into his sandwich again, avoiding eye contact. 

“My brother died!”

Ray was chewing nervously on his cheek. “Guys,” he started, trying to soothe the mood. “I know it's been hard—”

“Maybe if you paid attention to anyone else you’d realize we’ve all got shit going on, too,” Frank spat, finally looking Gerard in the eyes. “It's not all about you, you know.”

Gerard stared dumbfounded at Frank, insulted at the accusations he was throwing at him. “What?” he brought himself to ask eventually. 

“All we’ve been hearing recently is ‘Oh, guys, Mikey this, Mikey that. Oh, guys, did you hear this?’—” he waved his hands around in the impression “—I don’t care! I did care, I did, but it’s exhausting, Gerard. I want to talk about my shit, too.”

Gerard scoffed. “Okay, then talk about it.”

“No!” said Frank as he threw his half eaten sandwich haphazardly on the plate. Gerard leaned back at the dramatic movement. “You know why? Because you don’t care! You’ve shown it to me time and time again that you don’t care. I don’t want to try to one-up you on your brother’s death out of spite.”

Ray rubbed his face in his hands to the side of Gerard. 

“I care,” said Gerard softly. He did care. He was a good friend. 

Frank scoffed, shaking his head. “Okay,” he said. “Where did I just get hired?”

“A tattoo shop?”

“I was just talking about this like ten minutes ago, I swear to God.”

Gerard clenched his jaw. It wasn’t his fault. He didn’t know Frank was gonna start quizzing him about it. He was listening. 

He said as such. 

Frank just shook his head again, laughing bitterly at Gerard’s weak answer. 

“What if we just all say what’s on our mind?” offered Ray helplessly after a few tense seconds of silence. Gerard felt bad for him, he knew Ray hated when people faught. “I think you’re both going through shit right now, and that’s okay! Maybe just try and talk about it, with an open mind?”

“I don’t wanna hear about Gerard’s dead brother’s gay affair with some guy I don’t even know!”

Gerard looked around at the other people in the café at the outburst, hoping nobody was overhearing the argument. It was decently busy and everyone seemed engrossed in their own conversations for the most part. There were a couple heads turned toward their table. He turned his attention back to Frank. What was with him and Mikey’s homosexuality? He seemed more uptight about this than Gerard.

“Why do you keep bringing that up?” Gerard asked, lowering his voice for the people around him. Was he homophobic? Gerard might think it’s a little weird, but he’s not homophobic. Maybe Frank had an issue with those kinds of people. 

“Because it’s all you ever fucking talk about!” 

There was a cough to the side of them and all three looked up to see some worker standing over the table. “We’re gonna have to ask you to leave, you’re causing a disruption.”

Gerard looked around again at the café. A few groups of people were taking shifty glances toward the situation. Gerard had to hold back from dropping his head in his hands. 

Ray stood up, slinging his unopened backpack over his shoulder. “C’mon,” he said. 

Gerard nodded, following Ray out of the café with Frank trailing behind. They walked silently to the car. Frank took shotgun with Ray in the driver’s seat, banishing Gerard to the back. He huffed as he slammed the door shut, maybe trying to get someone to break the silence, but it was to no avail. 

Ray drove in silence, turning the radio up on a low volume just so they didn’t have to listen to each other’s breathing. 

Frank coughed in the front seat. 

Gerard shifted. 

“I’m gay.”

Gerard scoffed in the backseat. “Ha, ha,” he said, throwing a death glare at Frank from behind Ray. He chose that seat tactfully, so he could see the guy. 

He looked at Ray in the rearview mirror, waiting for him to laugh at the comment too. But Ray only met his eyes in the mirror and looked away, back to the road. 

Wait. 

“What?”

Frank played with his hands in the front seat. Gerard wished he could see Ray’s face. 

“You’re not serious.”

Neither of the two spoke. He felt worry climbing in his stomach, looking between the two seats. 

“Frank,” he said, scooting over so he was sat in the middle of the back seat, holding the back of Frank’s so he could lean forward into the front of the car. “You’re not serious, are you?” Frank just kept his eyes on his fidgeting hands. That fucker. He turned his eyes over to Ray, who was nervously checking the mirrors in the driver’s seat. “You knew?”

Ray nodded silently. 

“What the fuck!” exclaimed Gerard, throwing himself back into the chair. What the fuck? “How could you have not told me?”

“Do you not hear yourself, Gerard?” Frank asked bitterly. “You talk about Mikey like he’s a fucking freak.”

Gerard shook his head. “No, I don’t!” He couldn’t recall a single time he did that. It was just weird for him to know at first, that was all. “I do not. Even before Mikey—did you not trust me?” He tried not to let his voice falter. First Mikey, now Frank. Nobody trusted him. “How long has Ray known?”

Ray looked at Frank as he drove, almost as if he was asking for permission. “Before you were here,” he said simply. 

Gerard didn’t know if that was better or worse. He just sat back, looking out the window at the buildings flashing by. He grit his teeth. 

“You didn’t trust me,” said Gerard softly in the back seat, closing his eyes. Maybe he was as terrible of a person as Mikey wrote about. How come nobody ever told him?

“It’s hard to know if people are safe or not to tell,” reasoned Ray. Frank said nothing. 

Gerard just scoffed lightly. “You’re safe. How am I not safe?”

“Well he just told you, didn’t he?”

But Frank didn’t trust him enough to tell him before, did he? 

“Why are you getting involved in this?” Gerard shifted, directing whatever he was feeling toward Ray. Why was he better than Gerard? What made him morally superior?

“What?” asked Ray, eyebrows furrowing in the mirror. 

Gerard looked between the two. “Are you guys fucking?” That would explain why Ray is always defending the guy. 

Exasperated, Frank shoved his head in his hand. “Jesus fucking Christ.”

“Gerard.”

“No, I’m serious!” said Gerard, riling himself up. “Is this why Ray knew? Do you guys, like, make out whenever I’m not here? Is that what’s going on here?”

“No!” said Ray, voice raising in alarm at the accusation. 

Frank just scoffed loudly, hand massaging his forehead as he looked out the window. “You fuckin’ wonder why I didn’t tell you.”

“It’s a reasonable concern! All of a sudden everyone in my fucking life’s a fucking queer! What’s next, my dad? Jesus.”

Frank just shook his head. Gerard could see him clench his jaw. 

The rest of the ride was in silence. Ray dropped Gerard off at their apartment, saying he and Frank had to talk for a bit. Which, great, more secrets. 

Gerard stared up at his ceiling from his bed. He brought the palms of his hands to his eyes, rubbing them exasperatedly. 

Jesus.

Chapter Text

July 11, 1969

Pete and Andy were out with Joe somewhere, meaning Mikey was stuck with hanging around the two guys he’d been more-or-less ignoring for the past few weeks. 

What Bert and Gerard were doing in goddamn Chicago of all places was still a mystery to Mikey as they walked down the street, with Mikey a few paces behind the other two. He felt like a child again. 

Bert was telling Gerard about some acquaintance back in Philadelphia that had shown him the world of LSD for the first time, how it changed his view of life, blah, blah, blah. Mikey paid as little attention to that man as he could. 

What did catch Mikey’s attention, though, was when Gerard asked about going up there to try it out. This meant two things for Mikey: One, they’re leaving soon, which means he’s leaving Pete. He didn’t know how to feel about that. And, two, Gerard wanted to try LSD. Mikey had only heard horror stories from that drug. What if Gerard tried it and changed forever? What if he left Mikey for good?

And what would happen with Pete? They felt like good friends now, except for this weird thing that was going on between them, whatever it was that made them lean a little bit closer as they watched fireworks from the roof of an ice cream shop together on the Fourth of July. Except this weird thing that drew Mikey’s eyes to Pete’s waist when he took his shirt off at work under the heat of the sun. This weird, weird thing Mikey didn’t know what to do with, but it made him feel giddy and nervous and excited whenever they were together. It was kind of addicting. 

What would happen to that?

Mikey didn’t want to leave Chicago. He liked it here. 

He kicked a rock on the sidewalk as he walked behind his brother and Bert, watching it roll over the concrete.

“Can you stop that?”

“Hm?” Mikey’s head shot up, surprised by the sudden address to him.

Bert was looking backward over his shoulder, no particular emotion written on his face. “I don’t like that sound,” he said, then turned forward again to return to his conversation with Gerard. 

“Sorry,” Mikey muttered, leaving the rock behind on the sidewalk. 

We’re leaving soon, I think. I dont want to leave. Its nice here. Pete and Andy make me feel more at home here than I do in Belleville.

Mikey looked up at his brother, who was walking and nodding at whatever bullshit Bert was spewing. He felt a sort of indignation simmer in his stomach as he watched the long hair on the back of his brother’s head move with his steps. 

You haven’t made home feel like home in a long, long time. 

“Gerard!”

His dad’s scream had travelled up the stairs and through Mikey’s door. His stomach sunk at the noise. 

“Gerard, I swear to fucking God if you don’t come back home right now, I’m calling the cops!”

Mikey closed his eyes, leaning against the headboard of his bed. 

His dad had jumped on the phone the second he had come home to an empty garage. His mother weeped, with her head in her hands on the dining table. Mikey wasn’t there, but he knew. The vents carried the muffled sound of his mother’s sobs through the house. 

Gerard was home a few minutes later, and Mikey moved to sit on the top of the stairwell to watch the scene play out silently. 

“We’re broke, Gerard! What in God’s name were you thinking?” the father yelled, getting up close to his son’s face as he spat. 

Gerard shook his head, taking a step back from his father. “I needed the money,” he reasoned quietly. He was gassed, high as a kite. Mikey doubted he even grasped the severity of the situation. The action was full of reason in his head: he ran out of drugs, Dad’s lawn mowing supplies were easy to access and he knew how to make the money quickly. 

The dad took Gerard by the collar of his shirt, seething. “You’re an ungrateful son of a bitch, you know that?” He gritted the words through his teeth, before shoving his son backward into the wall and letting go. He shook his head. “I can’t fucking believe you.”

“Just buy them back,” Gerard reasoned from the wall. He didn’t dare move. 

Gerard was a fucking idiot, Mikey knew this. Everyone knew this, Gerard probably did too somewhere deep in that thick skull of his. Their dad made his living from mowing lawns, and Gerard stole and sold all his shit. It was a stupid move. 

“Donald,” said their mother weakly from the dining table. She had taken her head from her hands, standing up now to face her husband. She motioned her head to the kitchen, pulling her husband aside. 

They had given Gerard an ultimatum that night: go to rehab, or pack up and leave. He’d chosen the latter. 

Mikey left with him, scared of the fact that he’d probably never see his brother again once he left. He wasn’t ready for that yet. 

Now, after chaperoning Gerard and his shitty ass friend to Illinois, Mikey wondered if he even wanted to follow his brother out of there anymore. He’d seen Gerard up too close, and he met his first proper friend in a long time. 

He didn’t want to leave Chicago.

Chapter Text

July 17, 1969

Im doing something really goddamn stupid here, but I really cannot bring myself to care. Im taking advantage of my next couple weeks here—we leave early august. I have time to do whatever I want before I leave this city forever, and Im not wasting it. 

Pete slept in the guest bedroom on the main floor of Andy’s house, just above where they all slept in the basement. 

Mikey may have been taking advantage of the close proximity on particularly draining nights with Gerard and Bert a little too often. Not to do anything really stupid, but maybe just a little bit given the situation. 

Like sitting on the floor of the bedroom, eyes trained up at the blank ceiling as he ranted about Gerard’s bad habits or Bert’s irritating remarks after especially long days. Sometimes he didn’t even have anything he was particularly peeved about, but he still forced himself to feel passionate toward something just so he’d have an excuse to knock on Pete’s door late at night.

Pete was a good listener. He empathized at the right times and asked the right questions, urging Mikey to go on or trying to get to the bottom of his peeves. Mikey often found his voice sore the next day; he wasn’t used to talking that long to anyone ever. He was never known for being much of a talker at any point in his life, but something about Pete made him want to spill every thought he’d ever had. 

The only thing was that Pete never talked much about himself, which kind of irked Mikey when he thought about it too much. He could talk endlessly about his favorite bands or current political issues Mikey was far too uneducated to speak about, but he never talked about himself. 

It annoyed Mikey, just slightly. Pete knew essentially everything there was to know about Mikey at this point—not that there was much, he was a highly uninteresting person—but he didn’t understand why Pete hadn’t done the same. There were plenty of opportunities: pauses between rants when Mikey just wanted to keep the conversation going, or maybe some sort of sympathizing “I’ve been there, too,” but Pete gave nothing. Mikey would’ve asked, but it felt rude when he figured Pete probably had a reason not to open up. He was a mystery of a person. 

For example: Why had Pete freaked out so much that night Mikey had walked in on him with that guy? Why did he leave his hometown? Was he just restless? Was he escaping something? And why didn’t he just find some place to stay, why had he chosen a life on the road? Mikey wanted to know everything.

Pete never fessed. He paid close attention to Mikey’s words, making him feel heard. That’s all he could ask for, anyway.

The boy is too precious to ignore, too interesting. Im sure his bones are made of secrets hes not willing to crack. Theyre a part of him he doesnt want to give up. Its kind of captivating in a way, annoying in others. I cant complain about it too much. Theres a sort of thrilling feeling about it all that I cant really explain. Sharing a secret like that, its kind of fun. No wonder pete has so many. Its nice to have something to myself. 

       Speaking of, I havent been as uptight about you recently as I typically am. Maybe its good, I dont know. Moving onto new things. Just for a couple of weeks. Reminding myself of that more often than not. Nothing here will last long. Which is frustrating because time seems to pass so fast now. Maybe its just his charm getting to me, its doing stuff to my head. 

Mikey climbed quietly up the stairs, making sure to skip over the creaky steps. 

Making me do stupid stuff.

He knocked on the door softly, trying not to wake anyone up but the one who resided inside. Pete was probably asleep, Mikey had come much later tonight than he normally does. 

Whatever, he was feeling restless. 

Stupid fun stuff, but regardless. 

The door swung open, and Mikey couldn’t control the grin that immediately plastered upon his face. 

“Hey,” he whispered, smiling as Pete wiped the sleep from his eyes. 

“What time is it?” he groaned, squinting at Mikey in the dark. 

Mikey shrugged. “Dunno. One? Couldn’t sleep. We should go out.”

“Go out?”

Mikey nodded enthusiastically in the dark. 

Pete laughed in a sort of whisper. “Where? Is there anywhere open?”

Shrugging again, Mikey just said, “Dunno. Let’s find out.”

“Oh my God."

But Mikey heard the smile in his voice, making him grin even wider. 

Maybe I do need to get out of here before I do anything too stupid. 

They ended up finding some 24/7 diner a 20ish minute walk away from Andy’s house. Maybe. It had taken more or less than an hour to wander around to find somewhere that was open; Mikey wasn’t entirely sure how they had gotten there, but he couldn’t really bring himself to care. Maybe Pete was paying attention to the street signs or maybe they’d get lost on the way back and have to sleep until sunrise on a random patio somewhere. Either way, Mikey was happy just where he was. 

And where he was was in this random diner somewhere inside or outside of town, sitting across from Pete in an empty room with a now-empty plate of what used to be pancakes. They were kind of shitty, but it was alright because Pete and Mikey shared them over semi-delirious laughter and a huge vanilla milkshake neither of them could finish. 

Thank God for shitty 24-hour diners. 

Mikey let his heavy head fall into his hands, eyes starting to ache with sleep that had not yet come. His vision was starting to get a little blurry, even with his glasses. He was not sure how long he and Pete have been in here, but he was sure the workers were getting restless to go back to napping during shifts. 

At some point, one of them suggested to go back; Mikey had forgotten who, but he remembered stumbling out of the diner to a wet spray from the sky. 

“Is it fucking raining?” asked Mikey, throwing his arms over his head fruitlessly. 

Pete smiled, spreading his arms out as the rain soaked his shirt. Mikey laughed at the sight: Pete with his arms up to the dark sky, spinning as his feet splashed around on the wet ground, illuminated dimly by only a street lamp on the other side of the street. It was sort of beautiful, how the light reflected off Pete’s skin as he danced. It made Mikey stop and stare for a moment. 

“I love the rain.”

“I can tell,” Mikey giggled, watching Pete as he brought his hands down from his head once he realized they would be no use for keeping him dry. “You know the way home?” he asked. 

Pete brought his arms down, spinning now in search of a street sign. He pointed to an intersection and Mikey followed him, trying to keep his glasses clear to no avail. Fuck, why was the rain so cold?

“What time is it?” Pete asked as he pointed left, apparently the direction home. 

Mikey shrugged, finding his way to Pete’s side as they walked down the street, feet making splashing sounds on the concrete. They both had watches, but neither reached to check the time. Mikey didn’t care; the sleep calling him earlier had now been replaced with an addicting sort of giddiness.  

Pete kicked the concrete as he walked, splashing the water up like he was playing a game of how far he could get the water. Mikey laughed a little as he watched the concentration paint the man’s face as he played his own personal game. 

“It’s so cold,” said Mikey, shivering a little through his teeth. He was used to this sort of weather in New Jersey and in the spring or fall, but after weeks of relentless sun he seemed to have forgotten the cold. 

Pete kicked the water again, sending it a couple feet in front of them. “Nice break from the heat,” he answered with a light smile, eyes moving from his feet to Mikey’s face.

Mikey exhaled at the tightness that seized his stomach, smiling at Pete in a sort of attempt to ignore it. “True,” he said. He’d forgotten what he was even responding to. 

Pete grinned as he looked at Mikey. He had a certain kind of smile, wide and genuine, and his eyes crinkled in a way that made Mikey’s face heat up despite the cool water dripping from the sky.  

Fuck, when did looking at Pete get so overwhelming? He turned to the pavement, trying to hide the pink that he felt evident on his cheeks, biting down a smile at nothing in particular. 

Their feet squelched on the concrete as they walked. Step, step, step. 

“I’d really like to kiss you right now,” said Pete, openly in the empty street. 

Heat flashed through his body despite himself, and he shot his head up to look around the dark, wet street. He worried for a second that maybe someone from the diner had caught on something between them as they were eating, ha maybe someone wanted to follow these two queers home and beat them up in a dark alleyway in the middle of the night. But no one was there. The only sound was the pouring rain, running over his glasses.

Chicago, he reminded himself. Nothing to lose. There was a definite end now, this would be over in two weeks. 

Mikey turned back to Pete, who seemed to be slowing the speed at which they were walking. “Sure,” he said, letting out a breathy exhale with the word as he watched Pete’s eyes flick to his lips, just as he had done on the Fourth. 

It was romantic, he knew, kissing in the rain. He couldn’t really bring himself to care about the fact that Pete was a guy and it was probably illegal in some way to do this in public. Just as long as Gerard didn’t find out, it was okay. He’d do everything he could to make sure Gerard never found out. 

They slowed to a stop in the open street, and Pete drew a hand to Mikey’s jaw, slowly and respectfully, as he had done that night in the car. Mikey looked at him through the drops on his glasses, stomach churning wildly. Pete’s hand was wet from the rain against his cheek, a couple fingers slipping to a spot just below his ear. 

Mikey let out a wavering exhale as Pete stepped closer, and it was kind of funny because he’d never noticed how short Pete was compared to him until he was right up in his space. The thought was fleeting, though, because he leaned forward to close the distance between them impatiently, both of his hands making their way to the back of Pete’s neck, into his hair. He’d been thinking about this for too long for it to be too drawn out. 

Pete made a noise of surprise as Mikey pulled him into his lips, and Mikey could feel fingers twitch against his face as Pete returned the kiss. It was a weird sort of feeling in the rain; their lips felt oddly slick together in a way Mikey wasn’t expecting. The taste of the cigarette wasn’t there, replaced by the absent taste of the cold rain.

He focused instead on the feeling of Pete’s hair in his hands, how it still somehow felt dry under the rain, warming up his fingers as he rubbed them against the back of Pete’s head. He focused on Pete’s cold nose against his cheek, tickling the side of his own nose. He focused on Pete’s hand that he could feel hovering on his hip lightly, as if he was afraid to scare Mikey. It made his stomach fill with a hot sort of liquid that warmed him up. He focused on Pete’s fingers making their way toward the roots of his own wet hair, scrunching it up a little bit in his hand when he paused to take a breath, resting his forehead against Mikey’s. 

They breathed onto each other’s shiny lips, noses and foreheads still connected, in a sort of daze. At least Mikey felt like he was in some sort of daze, with that addicting feeling winding achingly around his stomach and a weird sort of dizziness in his head. He felt like he could be here forever. 

Mikey felt Pete smile against his lips, and his hand scrunched a bit again in Mikey’s hair, sending a wave of sickness into his body. Like that same kind that made him feel like he wanted to throw up a little bit, but in a kind of intoxicating way that made him think that he maybe didn’t mind it too much.  

There was the feeling of Pete’s hand finally steadying itself upon his waist, and Mikey felt like he was truly at peace for the first time in a long time. He pushed his cold nose into Pete’s without really thinking much about it. 

Then, in a horrid, revolting kind of way, Mikey remembered where they were. 

He jerked back involuntarily, feeling Pete’s hands slip from his hip and his hair. He pulled his own hands down and away from Pete’s neck, his fingers plunged into the cold once again. He took a difficult step away, whipping his head around the dark street. His heart felt like it had leapt into his eardrums. Kissing in public? God, that was stupid. They could get beat up for that shit. What if someone was watching through their window?

“Hey,” said Pete, stepping forward to rest a hand where Mikey’s shoulder connected to his neck. Mikey turned his face back toward his friend, looking into his eyes. “No one’s here, it’s okay.” He whispered the words like he was talking to a baby, trying to lull it to sleep. 

No one’s here. It’s okay. 

Pete’s thumb rubbed against the side of his neck. He was looking at Mikey kind of like he was a stray cat he was trying to tame. Wide, calm eyes. 

Mikey gulped, trying to control his breathing that had started to speed up a little. He gave one final look to the surrounding alleyways then nodded. 

“We should go home,” he said, and Pete took his hand away from Mikey’s skin, taking those eyes back to the street. 

They walked in a sort of awkward distance away from each other, listening to the sound of their feet against the wet concrete. Pete wasn’t playing his game anymore. Mikey tried not to look around anxiously, tried to quell that thought in his head that told him someone was watching them, that the splash he heard wasn’t him or Pete but another pair of footsteps behind him. No one’s here. It’s okay. 

Mikey took a deep breath, sighing into the rain that dripped down his face.