fic: this one coming
This One Coming
pete/mikey, pete/mikey/gerard
R
~5550 words.
uh, high school au with bonus incest! written for romanticalgirl in the waysplusone exchange.
The thing is, it takes Pete a while to admit to himself that he's totally fucking gone for Mikey Way.
Oddly, it takes him even longer than that to realise that they're like, actually a couple, now. It doesn't matter that almost no one else knows about them because they still hang out and fool around and hold hands, and text each other through the night, and tell each other the things that other people don't know. Pete skips soccer to see Mikey whenever he thinks he can get away with it; he still feels an embarrassing, nervous, happy thrill every time he sees Mikey. For the most part, he likes that no one else knows. He kind of likes feeling like they're a secret.
It means it feels kind of weird though, when he's over at Mikey's at the start of the Christmas vacation and Mikey's brother walks in and suddenly, someone else knows. Pete's heard the way that Mikey talks about Gerard, and he doesn't even think about asking him to pretend nothing is going on. He thinks that Gerard must be able to tell anyway. He doesn't walk in on anything too incriminating, but they're on the couch watching TV, Pete lying across it with his feet on the arm and his head in Mikey's lap as Mikey channel surfs so quickly Pete can't figure out what's actually on. He hasn't even caught a whole word from any of the shows Mikey skips past, just random snatches of sound. Mikey's fingers are resting lightly against the hair at the back of his neck. Pete's not even wearing a shirt because they thought the house was empty, and they've only been awake for about half an hour.
Pete tenses up as he waits for Gerard to say something. It's an automatic reaction; he can't help it, but Mikey just twists slightly to grin happily at Gerard and say, "I thought you weren't getting in until later?"
The sight of his smile helps Pete to relax a little, as does the way Gerard just shrugs after a few more moments of staring at them. He says, "Yeah, I mixed up the train times when I checked them, there was an earlier one right as I got to the station, so. You're Pete?" and then, "Mikey, please tell me there's some fucking coffee left."
"Hi," Pete says, once he's processed the quick string of words. In an incredibly lame move, he lifts his hand and briefly waves.
Mikey gets up then, and Pete moves across to the other side of the couch quickly, trying not to draw any attention to how close his head just was to Mikey's crotch. Mikey heads into the kitchen, motioning for Gerard to follow him.
For a long moment, Gerard stays where he is in the doorway, and he gives Pete a long, measuring look. Pete's half waiting for a speech, the kind of warning older brothers always come out with in movies, but after a few beats Gerard just smiles at him, a wider, brighter version of Mikey's crooked grin. Then he drops his bag unceremoniously onto the carpet and follows Mikey into the kitchen.
Pete stays where he is on the couch, watching the commercials on the channel Mikey's left the TV on, listening to the animated sounds of their conversation floating in from the kitchen. What he's feeling is surprise, he realises suddenly. It's surprising that he isn't more freaked out.
-
It's Christmas vacation, which Pete has always been told repeatedly by his parents is family time. Yes, he's still allowed to go to the occasional Christmas parties if his friends manage to throw any, and yes, he's still allowed to hang out with his friends, but he has to be at home more than usual and he's always to be sure he's not intruding on anyone else's family. He tells himself this is the reason that he hasn't been around Mikey's house so much over the last few days. Gerard is home; he probably wants to spend time catching up with him, and Pete would probably get in the way a bit. He doesn't think that he's actually nervous about Gerard's reaction to him anymore, at least not significantly.
He still texts Mikey a lot, though. He needs some sort of escape and distraction from the visiting aunts who tell him how much he's grown since they last saw him even though he clearly hasn't. He's busy informing Mikey of his pain in 160 character instalments when he gets a text from him saying why dont u just come round here, its not busy.
He jumps on the invitation straight away, grinning so widely at his phone that his mom asks him what's so funny. He makes a quick excuse and walks to Mikey's so fast he's out of breath when he gets there, cheeks burning from the biting wind. He pauses before he knocks on the door, trying to smooth down his hair, and then has to knock five times before the door actually opens. Mikey's standing there, one hand on the door frame and the other wrapped around a huge mug, and his hair is sticking up in the way it always does when he hasn't been awake for long.
"Thanks for offering to rescue me," Pete says.
Mikey smiles. "All we're doing is watching movies in the basement. My parents went..." he pauses, a slight frown creasing across his forehead with the effort of trying to remember. He shrugs, apparently giving up. "Somewhere. I don't know. So it's cool."
Pete grins in return and follows Mikey in. He likes Mikey's house, with its occasionally creepy but awesome decorations and the faint smell of smoke that lingers in everything. He's been here enough now that he knows his way around it well, but he's never been down to the basement. It turns out that it's kind of like a more extreme version of Mikey's room: it stinks so much of smoke that the air feels thick with it, there are creepy drawings tacked up on the walls that look like the couple Mikey's got up in his room, and it's even messier, probably because there's more floor space to be taken up with crumpled, dirty clothing. Gerard is sitting on the couch, huddled under a quilt that Pete guesses he dragged off of the bed, clasping his own mug.
"Hey," Gerard says.
Pete does the lame wave thing again, inwardly rolling his eyes at himself, and follows Mikey over to the couch. Mikey sits in the middle, but he passes some of the quilt over to Pete on his other side as well. Pete accepts it gratefully, trying to huddle up in it as much as he can without tugging it away from Gerard; the basement is freezing, and Mikey smiles sheepishly and mutters something about the space heater and how it doesn't work anymore before they turn the movie back on. Pete's never seen it before, but it's not too far from the beginning, so figures he'll be able to catch up, and he takes advantage of Mikey's distraction to take his mug off of him and drink some of his coffee. Mikey never has enough sugar in it for Pete's liking, but it's hot, and it still tastes okay.
The cold of the basement fades away after a while, less noticeable when he's under the quilt and pressed up next to Mikey in the small space of the couch, and it's easy to tangle their fingers together down out of sight. Every time Pete glances across at Mikey, Mikey's gaze is fixed on the TV, riveted, but he's smiling softly, and Pete wants to kiss him. He tries to focus on the movie as well.
It's not as though they're spending the time doing anything hugely exciting, or even as though Pete is as enthusiastic about old horror movies as Mikey and Gerard both are, but he enjoys himself a lot anyway. At the end of the night, he doesn't want to leave the basement - he doesn't even notice the smell that much any more, even though Gerard smokes through the movie as well, ashing into a dirty mug on the floor - and walk home alone, back to his own, dull house.
-
It turns out that Mikey's parents go out a lot over the holidays, and they don't really mind if Pete's hanging around when they're in, either, probably because he and Mikey pretty much stay out of the way in the basement with Gerard. Mikey tells him, with a roll of his eyes, that they're probably just glad he and Gerard are actually spending time with someone other than each other. It makes sense. Mikey seems more consistently relaxed and happy in Gerard's company than Pete's ever seen him, and sometimes he gets the feeling they're not used to sharing each other's time with other people.
Pete's surprised at how much he likes hanging out with Gerard as well as Mikey. Occasionally, he wishes he and Mikey could spend some more time alone because they can't really do anything with Gerard there with them. Gerard never seems too bothered if they're a lot closer than they would be were they just friends, though, and it's not too difficult sometimes to sneak up to Mikey's room or even go back to Pete's on the rare occasions he has a free house, and Gerard is funny; Pete likes him. He smokes cigarettes as though he needs them to exist and drinks even more coffee than Mikey, and he goes on long rants sometimes that Pete finds equal parts hilarious and true.
Gerard also has a seemingly never ending supply of booze, and he doesn't mind sharing with Mikey and, by default, Pete. One night, warm all the way through despite the weather and buzzed from too much vodka, squashed between Gerard and Mikey on Gerard's tiny couch, Pete feels half overwhelmed with it, the happiness settled deep in his stomach. He says, out of nowhere, “I'm so fucking in love,” and he means it, a little embarrassed when he thinks back to it the next day even though neither of them brings it up.
-
They're drunk when it happens, although Pete doesn't think that'll hold up well as a decent excuse.
They're drunk and it's just creeping past three a.m., and Mikey has fallen asleep on Gerard's bed, on top of the covers, his glasses still on and askew. Gerard huffs out a loud breath of laughter from his spot on his couch when he glances over at them and Pete points silently down at Mikey. Belatedly, Pete thinks to take Mikey's glasses off, and feels bad that it took him so long when he notices the dark pink mark on the side of Mikey's nose where they've been digging in. He looks around for somewhere to put them where they won't get stepped on or broken.
“Here,” Gerard says, getting up and holding out his hand for them. Pete passes them over, stretching across over Mikey, and watches as Gerard puts them on his desk in a deliberately careful way that Pete recognises from seeing Mikey when he's had too much to drink. Gerard smiles fondly down at Mikey, one side of his mouth pulled up further than the other, and Pete's stomach twists, warm. He likes that he gets to see this side of them both. He likes that Gerard is comfortable enough with him now to show it. From what Mikey says, it doesn't seem like Gerard is that trusting with a whole lot of people, and it makes Pete feel inexplicably pleased with himself.
He gets up slowly, concentrating hard on not tripping as he moves off of the bed, determined not to wake Mikey; Mikey has sleeping patterns to rival his own, sometimes. Pete's still wide awake and wired, though, and Gerard is rummaging through the pockets of different hoodies that he's discarded on his floor, obviously not about to go to sleep himself. Gerard lets out a triumphant sound as he pulls out a pack of crumpled cigarettes, and Pete sits down next to him. The TV is still on, but it's quiet enough Pete can't make out what's going on. He hasn't followed the plot for a while anyway, too drunk and distracted for it to be anything but background noise. He feels like he's sinking down so far into the cushions he must almost be on the floor.
“I don't know how he falls asleep with his fucking glasses on,” Gerard says.
Pete watches Gerard light his cigarette. “He does it all the time.”
For a moment, he wonders if he should feel uncomfortable, basically telling Gerard they sleep together, but Gerard just smiles again, shaking his head as he exhales a long stream of smoke out the side of his mouth. Pete doesn't smoke himself, but he spends a lot of time sitting around outside with Mikey while Mikey does, and there's something about the lingering smell and the way the smoke looks as it drifts off into the distance that he loves anyway. He finds he can't really look away. Whatever is on TV now just isn't gripping enough, and Gerard smokes differently from Mikey. It's interesting. He looks more natural, even though his fingers stick out at odd angles that should look awkward.
“You want one?” Gerard asks suddenly after a couple of minutes, as though it only just occurred to him to offer.
“Nah.” Pete shakes his head. “I play soccer, my coach would fucking kill me.”
Gerard pulls a face, twisting his mouth down on one side and shuddering as though the idea of playing soccer physically horrifies him, and it's so similar to Mikey's reaction every time Pete talks about playing that Pete laughs, a loud burst of sound that he clamps down on quickly in case he wakes Mikey up.
“It's not that bad,” he says, and Gerard twists where he's sitting to shoot him a disbelieving look.
Pete doesn't know what it is: the eye contact or the alcohol or maybe just the fact that at three a.m., the basement doesn't feel like it belongs with the rest of the world, and it doesn't feel like the normal rules apply. Maybe it's just that Gerard reminds him so strongly of Mikey in that moment, or that he's just glad Gerard actually likes him - Pete doesn't have a fucking clue. He's got no practice with ignoring drunken impulses like this though; he hasn't felt anything like it since he started hooking up with Mikey, so he hasn't had to.
He leans forward on the couch as the air swims around him and kisses Gerard, pulling back with the second hand taste of smoke in his mouth and no excuses.
-
The next night, when Pete's at home and the screen of his phone lights up with u still coming over tomorrow from Mikey, Pete panics.
The night before (after kissing Gerard; his brain isn't letting him forget about it - after kissing Mikey's brother), he'd gone straight to sleep, or at least pretended to while he closed his eyes against the spinning room and counted the hours slip by, and he's spent the whole day reflecting on how he's probably fucked up one of the few decent parts of his life right now. Patrick is busy and Joe' s away visiting family; he's had no distractions and no one is around to make any potential other plans with. Mikey must know about it. Pete doesn't know why else he'd text to reconfirm Pete going over.
He texts back saying yes, even though he's half tempted to find an excuse, avoid facing anyone. Mikey doesn't text him again. It's late, but that doesn't usually mean much to either of them. Pete looks at the time. They'll probably be hanging out in the basement again right now, Mikey and Gerard. Maybe talking about him.
When he goes over, Pete sits in his car outside Mikey's house for five minutes before he switches off the radio he hasn't really been hearing and forces himself to get out into the cold.
Mikey answers the door, and Pete knows straight away that he was right, that Gerard must have told him and that Mikey knows. The thing with Mikey is that Pete can't even imagine him being confrontational, but he expects there to be something. Instead, Mikey is just looking at him, face unreadable while Pete stands in front of him with the wind whipping at his face and no idea what's about to happen.
“I'm sorry,” he says quickly, after the silence has dragged on between them for a few beats too long. “I'm really sorry, I was so--”
“Sorry for what?” Mikey interrupts. “For kissing Gerard?” It sounds even worse, the words spoken out loud in his flat, neutral voice. Pete can feel his face burning in a way that has nothing to do with the cold.
He swallows. “Yeah. I'm. I'm so fucking sorry.” He steps forward, inching toward Mikey, and then stops and shuffles back. Mikey's still not doing anything, and it's freaking Pete out. He thinks it might be easier to deal with if Mikey turned around and yelled at him for being such a fuck up. He can deal with that kind of raw, uncontrolled anger; he's faced it from his parents, from teachers, from his last ex-girlfriend. Even if he doesn't like it, it's something that makes sense to him. It's the not knowing how to react that's getting to him the most now. He hates not knowing what's going on in Mikey's head. “I don't want to fuck this up.”
“Well it's a fucked up thing to do,” Mikey says quietly. “Just 'cause you were drunk or, like, whatever, it doesn't mean that you can just - that you should do that.”
“I know,” Pete says. He feels half terrified, desperation buzzing under his skin. “I know--”
“He's my brother,” Mikey carries on, acting as though Pete didn't speak. Pete's familiar with this trick, at least, the one where nothing he has to say can make any difference and so he might as well not open his mouth, although he's surprised when Mikey adds, “You can't just fuck with Gerard like that, he doesn't deserve it,” as though that's the only issue at hand.
“I know,” Pete repeats, and he does, too. Gerard doesn't need his little brother's boyfriend throwing himself at him just because he can't handle his alcohol, because he can't stop destroying the parts of his life he likes.
Mikey's face is still impassive. “Okay,” he says slowly. “That's... it's okay.”
“I--” Pete begins, and stops. “What?”
“I talked to Gerard about it,” Mikey tells him. “When he told me, we talked. Just like, don't worry about it. He's not gonna say anything, he said you should forget it.”
He steps back from the doorway, leaving space for Pete to step inside after him through the quiet that follows. In the hallway, it's almost too hot after the weather outside. Pete follows Mikey uncertainly; he thought that maybe once they'd go it out the way and he'd apologised, grovelled, done whatever he needed to do, he'd feel relieved, a little less confused and guilty. Instead, he just feels jolted, like he's missed a step somewhere and can't regain his balance.
It's the most easily accepted apology he thinks he's ever had to make; he's sure there must be more to come.
-
They don't go down to the basement. Mikey says something about Gerard being out seeing some old friends, mumbling the words as he leads Pete into the kitchen so Pete only catches the tail end of what he's saying.
It's almost like it was at the start of the Christmas break, just the two of them alone in Mikey's house like they have all the time in the world to themselves. It's almost like it was before except now there's an unspoken tension between them, something Pete can't shake off no matter how much Mikey seems to be pointedly ignoring it. Mikey makes them coffee, and Pete is sharply aware of their fingertips brushing as he takes the mug of him like he hasn't been since they first started seeing each other.
They go up to Mikey's room.
Pete kicks off his shoes before he gets on Mikey's bed, sitting on his feet on top of Mikey's faded Star Wars covers. He relaxes the longer they both sit there together, watching a movie on the tiny, flickering screen of the old TV in Mikey's bedroom, hands touching in the small gap between them. By the time he leans across to close that gap and kiss Mikey, the first time they've really kissed in a while now, now that he thinks about it, he thinks things might actually be okay even if he's not sure how that could be. Mikey kisses him back, just like he always does. As ever, Pete can't get enough of it: the slow slide of Mikey's tongue against his own, the soft noises Mikey makes every now and then as Pete kisses him harder, Mikey's slightly chapped lips. The tension is ebbing away as heat spreads across Pete's skin, and Pete closes his eyes and tries to let himself get lost in it.
Mikey's mouth looks wet and swollen when Pete pulls back just far enough to say, “I really am - I'm sorry if I made things weird between you and Gerard.”
Mikey blinks at him slowly from behind his glasses, as though it takes him a moment to catch on to the sudden jump in subject. “Do you like him?”he asks. He's looking at Pete steadily, but all of a sudden Pete feels like there's extra scrutiny there, that he's facing some sort of test that he doesn't know how to answer.
“He's cool,” he says carefully, truthfully. “Yeah.”
Mikey nods. “I told you it's okay.” He shrugs, shoulders sharp beneath Pete's hands. “We just don't get weird.”
Pete pulls him back in to kiss him again because he doesn't know what else to say.
-
Pete doesn't get it.
He can't imagine being in Mikey's position, if Mikey - or anyone he knows, even just one of his friends - kissed his brother, but there's something different about Mikey and Gerard. They're close, closer than anyone Pete knows; he can tell as much from even the short amount of time he's spent in their combined company. Maybe that's all it is, though, he thinks; maybe they're so close he wants to be a part of it, doesn't want to be left out in any way. He nods anyway when Mikey tells him it's okay, and decides not to think about.
Not thinking about it doesn't work. It's always there somewhere at the back of his mind: Mikey and Gerard, Gerard and Mikey. He can't sleep at night because he can't switch his brain off, but this time it's nothing to do with thoughts of the future and his own spiralling moods. He lies there in the dark, wrapped up in his covers, eyes shut and face pressed into his pillow like that might help block his thoughts of them out; he grips his sheets tight so his hands don't ever creep any lower. He's used to thinking about Mikey, late at night with his underwear pushed down his thighs, his mind conjuring up images of the last times they were together, of how Mikey looks and the soft, low noises Mikey makes, but his mind wanders sometimes now - sometimes he's spent so long trying to work the two of them out that he can't separate them again.
The problem is, it just doesn't make sense to him. He doesn't understand why Mikey wasn't more angry. He doesn't understand why Gerard just looked at him for a long moment after Pete kissed him and then turned back to the TV and carried on smoking as though nothing had happened. He doesn't even understand why he did it in the first place, except that there was something about that night, that basement, that moment with Mikey's sleep heavy breathing in the background and Gerard's warm body sitting next to him.
He doesn't understand how, when a few nights later Mikey invites him over for his and Gerard's traditional shitty horror movie night, it's not going to be fucking weird again no matter what Mikey says.
-
Mikey sits between the two of them on the couch in front of the TV while Gerard chain smokes more than Pete remembers him ever doing before. Pete focuses on the movies a lot harder than their plots really warrant, putting all his concentration into that in the hope he might then not act as awkward as he feels, and he can practically feel the effort to make things as normal as possible radiating off of the three of them and bouncing back off the walls at them, the atmosphere so thick it almost blocks the sounds coming from the TV so all that penetrates it is the occasional high-pitched scream.
Pete's concentrating, but he has no idea what's going on in front of him. They're not drinking anything, and even though they don't drink every time they hang out down here or anything, Pete still feels like it's because they don't want a repeat of the other night in any way, shape or form. He wishes he could stop thinking about it. The guilt is a hot knot in the pit of his stomach, twisting every time he catches sight of Mikey out of the corner of his eye, and he waves away the chips Mikey offers him.
During the second film, Mikey says, “This is so bad.” He sounds impressed.
Gerard laughs. “No fucking way, it's a work of fucking art.”
A few seconds too late for it to follow on seamlessly from their exchange, Pete adds, “I've eaten meals that look more gory than that.”
“Ketchup,” Mikey agrees, catching Pete's eye and smiling. Pete looks back at the screen quickly, before Mikey turns away or leans back at he sees Gerard's face.
It surprises Pete how tiring it is, how much work goes into acting and pretending and ignoring any weirdness. He hasn't been sleeping much lately, and his eyelids feel heavy, closing for longer and longer each time he blinks. He glances at the dusty clock in the corner of Gerard's room and squints to make out the time. It's only just half one. It's early by their standards, but he keeps yawning anyway, his jaw aching every time he tries to stifle the sound. He feels like he's sinking into the couch all over again, too warm and comfortable, a contrast to the space around them.
He doesn't realise he's actually falling asleep, dozing off and waking with the occasional start, until he becomes aware of their voices from next to him, soft and muffled, fading in and out of focus like a radio someone's trying to tune. It's a struggle to listen to what they're saying and too tempting to slip back into sleep and not worry about it; he hears his name in two different, soft voices before he lets the tiredness drag him back down.
The TV is off when he wakes up again, dark and blank, and his eyes focus on the dusty reflection of the three of them instead. Gerard and Mikey are still talking, something about zombies this time, and it takes them a few seconds to notice Pete's not asleep anymore. He watches them, listens, and feels a warm burst of fondness that cuts through any guilt. They both talk with their hands in the same way, although Gerard's movements are wider than Mikey's, and Mikey's got the smile on his face again that Pete's beginning to only associate with Gerard.
“Sleeping fucking beauty,” Mikey mutters when he does notice Pete is awake, and he's still smiling.
“I can't believe you can sleep through that movie gold,” Gerard adds. It's the first thing he's said directly to Pete all night, as far as Pete is aware, and he looks happy, too - content, relaxed against Mikey's bony side.
“I'm letting the team down,” Pete says ruefully, and they both laugh, the sounds similar and overlapping.
-
Pete is sleeping again, forehead pressing against Mikey's bare shoulder, his fingers resting lightly on Mikey's ribs, when he's woken this time not by voices, but by the low creak of Mikey's door opening. It's no surprise that Mikey doesn't stir; it's a bitch waking Mikey up in the morning even when the sun is bright enough to illuminate the whole room. Pete rolls over, blinking the sleep from his eyes, just about able to make out Gerard's outline silhouetted in the doorway.
“What's up?” he asks, rough with sleep. He nudges Mikey in the side, and Mikey makes a sleepy, grumpy noise before he rolls over as well.
“What?” Mikey yawns.
“Hey, Mikes,” Gerard say softly.
“Gee,” Mikey mumbles.
Pete wonders if he's missed something yet again. “What's up?” he repeats. “What's - is there something wrong?” He remembers something Mikey told him before about how he and Gerard used to share a bed back when they used to share a room if one of them got nightmares. He wonders if that's what this is.
“Told you to just come up earlier,” Mikey says. “C'mere.”
Pete watches, just as quiet as them, as the silent, sleeping house, as Gerard pads softly over to them without another word. He wonders if this is what they were talking about earlier, when he was dozing on the couch next to them, oblivious, and he thinks about offering to get up and go somewhere else so they can talk. He doesn't.
The mattress dips with a squeak as Gerard gets into the bed on his other side. Pete is suddenly, intensely aware of how tiny Mikey's bed is.
He tenses up as Gerard reaches across him, as Mikey shifts to tangle his fingers up with Gerard's. He doesn't know how to react to this; the last time he and Gerard were this close they were drunk, and Pete kissed him. Pete knows that there's something about this situation that makes it startlingly different, but he can't help thinking back to it anyway, heat pressing in on either side of him.
Sometimes, before, Pete has suspected Mike of being able to read his mind on occasion. Mikey's got great instincts, at least, and he can read Pete like a book. Pete doesn't know if it's that or if what he's thinking about is written all over his face right now, even through the dark, but Mikey says, a little louder now, making him jump, “You should kiss him again.”
All of a sudden, Pete feels absurdly young again as the words sink in, almost like he did when he sent off his college applications; like he did the first time Mikey fucked him, like he can't believe he's actually ready for this and it's happening. Which maybe, he thinks, means he isn't, and maybe it's only Gerard and Mikey who can not be weird about this - but he wants to try.
“If you want to,” Mikey adds. Pete thinks it must be obvious that he wants to. He's still here.
“Do you want me to?” he asks, and he barely recognises his own voice, answering Mikey but looking at Gerard as he speaks. Since he met him, Pete's always thought of Gerard's face as more expressive than Mikey's, always easier to read, but right now Pete has no idea what he's thinking at all, out of the basement in unfamiliar surroundings.
They let go of each other's hands instead of saying anything out loud. Mikey wraps his fingers gently around Pete's wrist, instead, resting on the mattress in the small space between their bodies, and Gerard rests a hand on Pete's shoulder and shifts closer.
“You don't have to,” Gerard says quietly. His eyes are wide; this close, they look huge.
Pete says, after a few seconds, “I know.”
This time, Gerard's mouth doesn't taste of smoke or vodka or three day old flat Coke. It means Pete pays more attention to how it feels, instead, with nothing else to distract him. Every inch of him is a million times more sensitive than usual; Gerard's tongue in his mouth makes him shudder all over, and Gerard's hand feels burning hot as it sweeps from his shoulder down his arm. Gerard gasps against his mouth as his fingers bump into Mikey's, and Mikey's grip tightens.
Pete does his best to stop thinking about it. He closes his eyes and lets himself get lost with them.
pete/mikey, pete/mikey/gerard
R
~5550 words.
uh, high school au with bonus incest! written for romanticalgirl in the waysplusone exchange.
The thing is, it takes Pete a while to admit to himself that he's totally fucking gone for Mikey Way.
Oddly, it takes him even longer than that to realise that they're like, actually a couple, now. It doesn't matter that almost no one else knows about them because they still hang out and fool around and hold hands, and text each other through the night, and tell each other the things that other people don't know. Pete skips soccer to see Mikey whenever he thinks he can get away with it; he still feels an embarrassing, nervous, happy thrill every time he sees Mikey. For the most part, he likes that no one else knows. He kind of likes feeling like they're a secret.
It means it feels kind of weird though, when he's over at Mikey's at the start of the Christmas vacation and Mikey's brother walks in and suddenly, someone else knows. Pete's heard the way that Mikey talks about Gerard, and he doesn't even think about asking him to pretend nothing is going on. He thinks that Gerard must be able to tell anyway. He doesn't walk in on anything too incriminating, but they're on the couch watching TV, Pete lying across it with his feet on the arm and his head in Mikey's lap as Mikey channel surfs so quickly Pete can't figure out what's actually on. He hasn't even caught a whole word from any of the shows Mikey skips past, just random snatches of sound. Mikey's fingers are resting lightly against the hair at the back of his neck. Pete's not even wearing a shirt because they thought the house was empty, and they've only been awake for about half an hour.
Pete tenses up as he waits for Gerard to say something. It's an automatic reaction; he can't help it, but Mikey just twists slightly to grin happily at Gerard and say, "I thought you weren't getting in until later?"
The sight of his smile helps Pete to relax a little, as does the way Gerard just shrugs after a few more moments of staring at them. He says, "Yeah, I mixed up the train times when I checked them, there was an earlier one right as I got to the station, so. You're Pete?" and then, "Mikey, please tell me there's some fucking coffee left."
"Hi," Pete says, once he's processed the quick string of words. In an incredibly lame move, he lifts his hand and briefly waves.
Mikey gets up then, and Pete moves across to the other side of the couch quickly, trying not to draw any attention to how close his head just was to Mikey's crotch. Mikey heads into the kitchen, motioning for Gerard to follow him.
For a long moment, Gerard stays where he is in the doorway, and he gives Pete a long, measuring look. Pete's half waiting for a speech, the kind of warning older brothers always come out with in movies, but after a few beats Gerard just smiles at him, a wider, brighter version of Mikey's crooked grin. Then he drops his bag unceremoniously onto the carpet and follows Mikey into the kitchen.
Pete stays where he is on the couch, watching the commercials on the channel Mikey's left the TV on, listening to the animated sounds of their conversation floating in from the kitchen. What he's feeling is surprise, he realises suddenly. It's surprising that he isn't more freaked out.
-
It's Christmas vacation, which Pete has always been told repeatedly by his parents is family time. Yes, he's still allowed to go to the occasional Christmas parties if his friends manage to throw any, and yes, he's still allowed to hang out with his friends, but he has to be at home more than usual and he's always to be sure he's not intruding on anyone else's family. He tells himself this is the reason that he hasn't been around Mikey's house so much over the last few days. Gerard is home; he probably wants to spend time catching up with him, and Pete would probably get in the way a bit. He doesn't think that he's actually nervous about Gerard's reaction to him anymore, at least not significantly.
He still texts Mikey a lot, though. He needs some sort of escape and distraction from the visiting aunts who tell him how much he's grown since they last saw him even though he clearly hasn't. He's busy informing Mikey of his pain in 160 character instalments when he gets a text from him saying why dont u just come round here, its not busy.
He jumps on the invitation straight away, grinning so widely at his phone that his mom asks him what's so funny. He makes a quick excuse and walks to Mikey's so fast he's out of breath when he gets there, cheeks burning from the biting wind. He pauses before he knocks on the door, trying to smooth down his hair, and then has to knock five times before the door actually opens. Mikey's standing there, one hand on the door frame and the other wrapped around a huge mug, and his hair is sticking up in the way it always does when he hasn't been awake for long.
"Thanks for offering to rescue me," Pete says.
Mikey smiles. "All we're doing is watching movies in the basement. My parents went..." he pauses, a slight frown creasing across his forehead with the effort of trying to remember. He shrugs, apparently giving up. "Somewhere. I don't know. So it's cool."
Pete grins in return and follows Mikey in. He likes Mikey's house, with its occasionally creepy but awesome decorations and the faint smell of smoke that lingers in everything. He's been here enough now that he knows his way around it well, but he's never been down to the basement. It turns out that it's kind of like a more extreme version of Mikey's room: it stinks so much of smoke that the air feels thick with it, there are creepy drawings tacked up on the walls that look like the couple Mikey's got up in his room, and it's even messier, probably because there's more floor space to be taken up with crumpled, dirty clothing. Gerard is sitting on the couch, huddled under a quilt that Pete guesses he dragged off of the bed, clasping his own mug.
"Hey," Gerard says.
Pete does the lame wave thing again, inwardly rolling his eyes at himself, and follows Mikey over to the couch. Mikey sits in the middle, but he passes some of the quilt over to Pete on his other side as well. Pete accepts it gratefully, trying to huddle up in it as much as he can without tugging it away from Gerard; the basement is freezing, and Mikey smiles sheepishly and mutters something about the space heater and how it doesn't work anymore before they turn the movie back on. Pete's never seen it before, but it's not too far from the beginning, so figures he'll be able to catch up, and he takes advantage of Mikey's distraction to take his mug off of him and drink some of his coffee. Mikey never has enough sugar in it for Pete's liking, but it's hot, and it still tastes okay.
The cold of the basement fades away after a while, less noticeable when he's under the quilt and pressed up next to Mikey in the small space of the couch, and it's easy to tangle their fingers together down out of sight. Every time Pete glances across at Mikey, Mikey's gaze is fixed on the TV, riveted, but he's smiling softly, and Pete wants to kiss him. He tries to focus on the movie as well.
It's not as though they're spending the time doing anything hugely exciting, or even as though Pete is as enthusiastic about old horror movies as Mikey and Gerard both are, but he enjoys himself a lot anyway. At the end of the night, he doesn't want to leave the basement - he doesn't even notice the smell that much any more, even though Gerard smokes through the movie as well, ashing into a dirty mug on the floor - and walk home alone, back to his own, dull house.
-
It turns out that Mikey's parents go out a lot over the holidays, and they don't really mind if Pete's hanging around when they're in, either, probably because he and Mikey pretty much stay out of the way in the basement with Gerard. Mikey tells him, with a roll of his eyes, that they're probably just glad he and Gerard are actually spending time with someone other than each other. It makes sense. Mikey seems more consistently relaxed and happy in Gerard's company than Pete's ever seen him, and sometimes he gets the feeling they're not used to sharing each other's time with other people.
Pete's surprised at how much he likes hanging out with Gerard as well as Mikey. Occasionally, he wishes he and Mikey could spend some more time alone because they can't really do anything with Gerard there with them. Gerard never seems too bothered if they're a lot closer than they would be were they just friends, though, and it's not too difficult sometimes to sneak up to Mikey's room or even go back to Pete's on the rare occasions he has a free house, and Gerard is funny; Pete likes him. He smokes cigarettes as though he needs them to exist and drinks even more coffee than Mikey, and he goes on long rants sometimes that Pete finds equal parts hilarious and true.
Gerard also has a seemingly never ending supply of booze, and he doesn't mind sharing with Mikey and, by default, Pete. One night, warm all the way through despite the weather and buzzed from too much vodka, squashed between Gerard and Mikey on Gerard's tiny couch, Pete feels half overwhelmed with it, the happiness settled deep in his stomach. He says, out of nowhere, “I'm so fucking in love,” and he means it, a little embarrassed when he thinks back to it the next day even though neither of them brings it up.
-
They're drunk when it happens, although Pete doesn't think that'll hold up well as a decent excuse.
They're drunk and it's just creeping past three a.m., and Mikey has fallen asleep on Gerard's bed, on top of the covers, his glasses still on and askew. Gerard huffs out a loud breath of laughter from his spot on his couch when he glances over at them and Pete points silently down at Mikey. Belatedly, Pete thinks to take Mikey's glasses off, and feels bad that it took him so long when he notices the dark pink mark on the side of Mikey's nose where they've been digging in. He looks around for somewhere to put them where they won't get stepped on or broken.
“Here,” Gerard says, getting up and holding out his hand for them. Pete passes them over, stretching across over Mikey, and watches as Gerard puts them on his desk in a deliberately careful way that Pete recognises from seeing Mikey when he's had too much to drink. Gerard smiles fondly down at Mikey, one side of his mouth pulled up further than the other, and Pete's stomach twists, warm. He likes that he gets to see this side of them both. He likes that Gerard is comfortable enough with him now to show it. From what Mikey says, it doesn't seem like Gerard is that trusting with a whole lot of people, and it makes Pete feel inexplicably pleased with himself.
He gets up slowly, concentrating hard on not tripping as he moves off of the bed, determined not to wake Mikey; Mikey has sleeping patterns to rival his own, sometimes. Pete's still wide awake and wired, though, and Gerard is rummaging through the pockets of different hoodies that he's discarded on his floor, obviously not about to go to sleep himself. Gerard lets out a triumphant sound as he pulls out a pack of crumpled cigarettes, and Pete sits down next to him. The TV is still on, but it's quiet enough Pete can't make out what's going on. He hasn't followed the plot for a while anyway, too drunk and distracted for it to be anything but background noise. He feels like he's sinking down so far into the cushions he must almost be on the floor.
“I don't know how he falls asleep with his fucking glasses on,” Gerard says.
Pete watches Gerard light his cigarette. “He does it all the time.”
For a moment, he wonders if he should feel uncomfortable, basically telling Gerard they sleep together, but Gerard just smiles again, shaking his head as he exhales a long stream of smoke out the side of his mouth. Pete doesn't smoke himself, but he spends a lot of time sitting around outside with Mikey while Mikey does, and there's something about the lingering smell and the way the smoke looks as it drifts off into the distance that he loves anyway. He finds he can't really look away. Whatever is on TV now just isn't gripping enough, and Gerard smokes differently from Mikey. It's interesting. He looks more natural, even though his fingers stick out at odd angles that should look awkward.
“You want one?” Gerard asks suddenly after a couple of minutes, as though it only just occurred to him to offer.
“Nah.” Pete shakes his head. “I play soccer, my coach would fucking kill me.”
Gerard pulls a face, twisting his mouth down on one side and shuddering as though the idea of playing soccer physically horrifies him, and it's so similar to Mikey's reaction every time Pete talks about playing that Pete laughs, a loud burst of sound that he clamps down on quickly in case he wakes Mikey up.
“It's not that bad,” he says, and Gerard twists where he's sitting to shoot him a disbelieving look.
Pete doesn't know what it is: the eye contact or the alcohol or maybe just the fact that at three a.m., the basement doesn't feel like it belongs with the rest of the world, and it doesn't feel like the normal rules apply. Maybe it's just that Gerard reminds him so strongly of Mikey in that moment, or that he's just glad Gerard actually likes him - Pete doesn't have a fucking clue. He's got no practice with ignoring drunken impulses like this though; he hasn't felt anything like it since he started hooking up with Mikey, so he hasn't had to.
He leans forward on the couch as the air swims around him and kisses Gerard, pulling back with the second hand taste of smoke in his mouth and no excuses.
-
The next night, when Pete's at home and the screen of his phone lights up with u still coming over tomorrow from Mikey, Pete panics.
The night before (after kissing Gerard; his brain isn't letting him forget about it - after kissing Mikey's brother), he'd gone straight to sleep, or at least pretended to while he closed his eyes against the spinning room and counted the hours slip by, and he's spent the whole day reflecting on how he's probably fucked up one of the few decent parts of his life right now. Patrick is busy and Joe' s away visiting family; he's had no distractions and no one is around to make any potential other plans with. Mikey must know about it. Pete doesn't know why else he'd text to reconfirm Pete going over.
He texts back saying yes, even though he's half tempted to find an excuse, avoid facing anyone. Mikey doesn't text him again. It's late, but that doesn't usually mean much to either of them. Pete looks at the time. They'll probably be hanging out in the basement again right now, Mikey and Gerard. Maybe talking about him.
When he goes over, Pete sits in his car outside Mikey's house for five minutes before he switches off the radio he hasn't really been hearing and forces himself to get out into the cold.
Mikey answers the door, and Pete knows straight away that he was right, that Gerard must have told him and that Mikey knows. The thing with Mikey is that Pete can't even imagine him being confrontational, but he expects there to be something. Instead, Mikey is just looking at him, face unreadable while Pete stands in front of him with the wind whipping at his face and no idea what's about to happen.
“I'm sorry,” he says quickly, after the silence has dragged on between them for a few beats too long. “I'm really sorry, I was so--”
“Sorry for what?” Mikey interrupts. “For kissing Gerard?” It sounds even worse, the words spoken out loud in his flat, neutral voice. Pete can feel his face burning in a way that has nothing to do with the cold.
He swallows. “Yeah. I'm. I'm so fucking sorry.” He steps forward, inching toward Mikey, and then stops and shuffles back. Mikey's still not doing anything, and it's freaking Pete out. He thinks it might be easier to deal with if Mikey turned around and yelled at him for being such a fuck up. He can deal with that kind of raw, uncontrolled anger; he's faced it from his parents, from teachers, from his last ex-girlfriend. Even if he doesn't like it, it's something that makes sense to him. It's the not knowing how to react that's getting to him the most now. He hates not knowing what's going on in Mikey's head. “I don't want to fuck this up.”
“Well it's a fucked up thing to do,” Mikey says quietly. “Just 'cause you were drunk or, like, whatever, it doesn't mean that you can just - that you should do that.”
“I know,” Pete says. He feels half terrified, desperation buzzing under his skin. “I know--”
“He's my brother,” Mikey carries on, acting as though Pete didn't speak. Pete's familiar with this trick, at least, the one where nothing he has to say can make any difference and so he might as well not open his mouth, although he's surprised when Mikey adds, “You can't just fuck with Gerard like that, he doesn't deserve it,” as though that's the only issue at hand.
“I know,” Pete repeats, and he does, too. Gerard doesn't need his little brother's boyfriend throwing himself at him just because he can't handle his alcohol, because he can't stop destroying the parts of his life he likes.
Mikey's face is still impassive. “Okay,” he says slowly. “That's... it's okay.”
“I--” Pete begins, and stops. “What?”
“I talked to Gerard about it,” Mikey tells him. “When he told me, we talked. Just like, don't worry about it. He's not gonna say anything, he said you should forget it.”
He steps back from the doorway, leaving space for Pete to step inside after him through the quiet that follows. In the hallway, it's almost too hot after the weather outside. Pete follows Mikey uncertainly; he thought that maybe once they'd go it out the way and he'd apologised, grovelled, done whatever he needed to do, he'd feel relieved, a little less confused and guilty. Instead, he just feels jolted, like he's missed a step somewhere and can't regain his balance.
It's the most easily accepted apology he thinks he's ever had to make; he's sure there must be more to come.
-
They don't go down to the basement. Mikey says something about Gerard being out seeing some old friends, mumbling the words as he leads Pete into the kitchen so Pete only catches the tail end of what he's saying.
It's almost like it was at the start of the Christmas break, just the two of them alone in Mikey's house like they have all the time in the world to themselves. It's almost like it was before except now there's an unspoken tension between them, something Pete can't shake off no matter how much Mikey seems to be pointedly ignoring it. Mikey makes them coffee, and Pete is sharply aware of their fingertips brushing as he takes the mug of him like he hasn't been since they first started seeing each other.
They go up to Mikey's room.
Pete kicks off his shoes before he gets on Mikey's bed, sitting on his feet on top of Mikey's faded Star Wars covers. He relaxes the longer they both sit there together, watching a movie on the tiny, flickering screen of the old TV in Mikey's bedroom, hands touching in the small gap between them. By the time he leans across to close that gap and kiss Mikey, the first time they've really kissed in a while now, now that he thinks about it, he thinks things might actually be okay even if he's not sure how that could be. Mikey kisses him back, just like he always does. As ever, Pete can't get enough of it: the slow slide of Mikey's tongue against his own, the soft noises Mikey makes every now and then as Pete kisses him harder, Mikey's slightly chapped lips. The tension is ebbing away as heat spreads across Pete's skin, and Pete closes his eyes and tries to let himself get lost in it.
Mikey's mouth looks wet and swollen when Pete pulls back just far enough to say, “I really am - I'm sorry if I made things weird between you and Gerard.”
Mikey blinks at him slowly from behind his glasses, as though it takes him a moment to catch on to the sudden jump in subject. “Do you like him?”he asks. He's looking at Pete steadily, but all of a sudden Pete feels like there's extra scrutiny there, that he's facing some sort of test that he doesn't know how to answer.
“He's cool,” he says carefully, truthfully. “Yeah.”
Mikey nods. “I told you it's okay.” He shrugs, shoulders sharp beneath Pete's hands. “We just don't get weird.”
Pete pulls him back in to kiss him again because he doesn't know what else to say.
-
Pete doesn't get it.
He can't imagine being in Mikey's position, if Mikey - or anyone he knows, even just one of his friends - kissed his brother, but there's something different about Mikey and Gerard. They're close, closer than anyone Pete knows; he can tell as much from even the short amount of time he's spent in their combined company. Maybe that's all it is, though, he thinks; maybe they're so close he wants to be a part of it, doesn't want to be left out in any way. He nods anyway when Mikey tells him it's okay, and decides not to think about.
Not thinking about it doesn't work. It's always there somewhere at the back of his mind: Mikey and Gerard, Gerard and Mikey. He can't sleep at night because he can't switch his brain off, but this time it's nothing to do with thoughts of the future and his own spiralling moods. He lies there in the dark, wrapped up in his covers, eyes shut and face pressed into his pillow like that might help block his thoughts of them out; he grips his sheets tight so his hands don't ever creep any lower. He's used to thinking about Mikey, late at night with his underwear pushed down his thighs, his mind conjuring up images of the last times they were together, of how Mikey looks and the soft, low noises Mikey makes, but his mind wanders sometimes now - sometimes he's spent so long trying to work the two of them out that he can't separate them again.
The problem is, it just doesn't make sense to him. He doesn't understand why Mikey wasn't more angry. He doesn't understand why Gerard just looked at him for a long moment after Pete kissed him and then turned back to the TV and carried on smoking as though nothing had happened. He doesn't even understand why he did it in the first place, except that there was something about that night, that basement, that moment with Mikey's sleep heavy breathing in the background and Gerard's warm body sitting next to him.
He doesn't understand how, when a few nights later Mikey invites him over for his and Gerard's traditional shitty horror movie night, it's not going to be fucking weird again no matter what Mikey says.
-
Mikey sits between the two of them on the couch in front of the TV while Gerard chain smokes more than Pete remembers him ever doing before. Pete focuses on the movies a lot harder than their plots really warrant, putting all his concentration into that in the hope he might then not act as awkward as he feels, and he can practically feel the effort to make things as normal as possible radiating off of the three of them and bouncing back off the walls at them, the atmosphere so thick it almost blocks the sounds coming from the TV so all that penetrates it is the occasional high-pitched scream.
Pete's concentrating, but he has no idea what's going on in front of him. They're not drinking anything, and even though they don't drink every time they hang out down here or anything, Pete still feels like it's because they don't want a repeat of the other night in any way, shape or form. He wishes he could stop thinking about it. The guilt is a hot knot in the pit of his stomach, twisting every time he catches sight of Mikey out of the corner of his eye, and he waves away the chips Mikey offers him.
During the second film, Mikey says, “This is so bad.” He sounds impressed.
Gerard laughs. “No fucking way, it's a work of fucking art.”
A few seconds too late for it to follow on seamlessly from their exchange, Pete adds, “I've eaten meals that look more gory than that.”
“Ketchup,” Mikey agrees, catching Pete's eye and smiling. Pete looks back at the screen quickly, before Mikey turns away or leans back at he sees Gerard's face.
It surprises Pete how tiring it is, how much work goes into acting and pretending and ignoring any weirdness. He hasn't been sleeping much lately, and his eyelids feel heavy, closing for longer and longer each time he blinks. He glances at the dusty clock in the corner of Gerard's room and squints to make out the time. It's only just half one. It's early by their standards, but he keeps yawning anyway, his jaw aching every time he tries to stifle the sound. He feels like he's sinking into the couch all over again, too warm and comfortable, a contrast to the space around them.
He doesn't realise he's actually falling asleep, dozing off and waking with the occasional start, until he becomes aware of their voices from next to him, soft and muffled, fading in and out of focus like a radio someone's trying to tune. It's a struggle to listen to what they're saying and too tempting to slip back into sleep and not worry about it; he hears his name in two different, soft voices before he lets the tiredness drag him back down.
The TV is off when he wakes up again, dark and blank, and his eyes focus on the dusty reflection of the three of them instead. Gerard and Mikey are still talking, something about zombies this time, and it takes them a few seconds to notice Pete's not asleep anymore. He watches them, listens, and feels a warm burst of fondness that cuts through any guilt. They both talk with their hands in the same way, although Gerard's movements are wider than Mikey's, and Mikey's got the smile on his face again that Pete's beginning to only associate with Gerard.
“Sleeping fucking beauty,” Mikey mutters when he does notice Pete is awake, and he's still smiling.
“I can't believe you can sleep through that movie gold,” Gerard adds. It's the first thing he's said directly to Pete all night, as far as Pete is aware, and he looks happy, too - content, relaxed against Mikey's bony side.
“I'm letting the team down,” Pete says ruefully, and they both laugh, the sounds similar and overlapping.
-
Pete is sleeping again, forehead pressing against Mikey's bare shoulder, his fingers resting lightly on Mikey's ribs, when he's woken this time not by voices, but by the low creak of Mikey's door opening. It's no surprise that Mikey doesn't stir; it's a bitch waking Mikey up in the morning even when the sun is bright enough to illuminate the whole room. Pete rolls over, blinking the sleep from his eyes, just about able to make out Gerard's outline silhouetted in the doorway.
“What's up?” he asks, rough with sleep. He nudges Mikey in the side, and Mikey makes a sleepy, grumpy noise before he rolls over as well.
“What?” Mikey yawns.
“Hey, Mikes,” Gerard say softly.
“Gee,” Mikey mumbles.
Pete wonders if he's missed something yet again. “What's up?” he repeats. “What's - is there something wrong?” He remembers something Mikey told him before about how he and Gerard used to share a bed back when they used to share a room if one of them got nightmares. He wonders if that's what this is.
“Told you to just come up earlier,” Mikey says. “C'mere.”
Pete watches, just as quiet as them, as the silent, sleeping house, as Gerard pads softly over to them without another word. He wonders if this is what they were talking about earlier, when he was dozing on the couch next to them, oblivious, and he thinks about offering to get up and go somewhere else so they can talk. He doesn't.
The mattress dips with a squeak as Gerard gets into the bed on his other side. Pete is suddenly, intensely aware of how tiny Mikey's bed is.
He tenses up as Gerard reaches across him, as Mikey shifts to tangle his fingers up with Gerard's. He doesn't know how to react to this; the last time he and Gerard were this close they were drunk, and Pete kissed him. Pete knows that there's something about this situation that makes it startlingly different, but he can't help thinking back to it anyway, heat pressing in on either side of him.
Sometimes, before, Pete has suspected Mike of being able to read his mind on occasion. Mikey's got great instincts, at least, and he can read Pete like a book. Pete doesn't know if it's that or if what he's thinking about is written all over his face right now, even through the dark, but Mikey says, a little louder now, making him jump, “You should kiss him again.”
All of a sudden, Pete feels absurdly young again as the words sink in, almost like he did when he sent off his college applications; like he did the first time Mikey fucked him, like he can't believe he's actually ready for this and it's happening. Which maybe, he thinks, means he isn't, and maybe it's only Gerard and Mikey who can not be weird about this - but he wants to try.
“If you want to,” Mikey adds. Pete thinks it must be obvious that he wants to. He's still here.
“Do you want me to?” he asks, and he barely recognises his own voice, answering Mikey but looking at Gerard as he speaks. Since he met him, Pete's always thought of Gerard's face as more expressive than Mikey's, always easier to read, but right now Pete has no idea what he's thinking at all, out of the basement in unfamiliar surroundings.
They let go of each other's hands instead of saying anything out loud. Mikey wraps his fingers gently around Pete's wrist, instead, resting on the mattress in the small space between their bodies, and Gerard rests a hand on Pete's shoulder and shifts closer.
“You don't have to,” Gerard says quietly. His eyes are wide; this close, they look huge.
Pete says, after a few seconds, “I know.”
This time, Gerard's mouth doesn't taste of smoke or vodka or three day old flat Coke. It means Pete pays more attention to how it feels, instead, with nothing else to distract him. Every inch of him is a million times more sensitive than usual; Gerard's tongue in his mouth makes him shudder all over, and Gerard's hand feels burning hot as it sweeps from his shoulder down his arm. Gerard gasps against his mouth as his fingers bump into Mikey's, and Mikey's grip tightens.
Pete does his best to stop thinking about it. He closes his eyes and lets himself get lost with them.