Fic: "lots of days there's no water" (Bandom)
So this afternoon pearl_o and I got talking about a World War II/"Ghost of You" AU with Pete and Mikey. And after work I went to Starbucks fully intending to start something for either popoffacork or kink_bingo, but instead, this happened.
Title and mood from The War, by Lucero. (Take the song even if you don't read the fic, it is amazing.)
Unbeta'd, unresearched, etc, etc.
...seriously, this lack of a Mikey icon is becoming a *problem*. /o\
Ten things Mikey knows:
1.
Pete is from Chicago. His stories center around howling wind, close-packed buildings reaching down, the blue curve of Lake Michigan, but always, always, the awareness of broad open spaces just out of sight. His accent is broad and nasal, funny to Mikey's ears, though Mikey never laughs out loud, just raises an eyebrow at the vowels that stretch on and on and don't go anywhere. (Mikey doesn't hear any accent in his own words, of course, but Pete does laugh at him, right out loud, and says he's sorry that nobody taught anybody how to talk in New Jersey, though as long as they're raising 'em to be so good-looking and personable he guesses it must be all right.)
2.
Pete is an older son. There are two siblings back home, who scribble notes at the bottom of the letters Pete gets from his mother. Pete traces his fingers over the lopsided writing and goes quiet when he reads those parts. (Mikey is a younger son and sometimes he wonders if it would be the same if the gap was wider, if he had had to stay behind and write notes to Gerard in the margins. He suspects Gerard wouldn't have gone without him, would have refused to leave him behind.)
3.
Pete always smells like peppermint. His mother sends papers of mints, twisted up and folded in with the letters and cigarettes and socks and anything else that gets through the mail. Pete always has them in his pockets, punctuates his sentences by cracking them between his teeth or tucking them between his cheek and his jaw and sucking loudly. (In Mikey's mind, Pete and the smell of peppermint are wound together inseparably. He wonders if in twenty years he'll be standing in his own kitchen in his own home, watching whatever girl he marries make Christmas candy with their children, and still think of Pete Wentz when they move on to peppermints.)
4.
Pete doesn't dance. "Two left feet," he says, every time they go to the bar, "you boys have fun." And he flashes that wide grin that caught Mikey's eyes in the first place, white and sharp over the rim of his glass. (Mikey wouldn't dance if given his choice, but the others are insistent, sometimes. He always ends up out on the floor with a pretty English girl with a face like a star, and somehow he can only keep his eyes on her half the time, catching himself again and again looking back toward the table where Pete is sitting, watching, drinking. Pete's eyes glitter in the shadows like stars, too.)
5.
Pete had a friend who died. (Mikey does, too. They all do.)
6.
Pete never manages a clean shave. He always misses a spot on the curve of his cheekbone or the slope of his throat below his jaw. He loses his razors and comes wandering over to Mikey at the sinks, the towel wrapped around his hips sliding low, dog tags clinking. "Mikey Way, got a spare? I'll owe you, I'll owe you." (Mikey always has a spare. He asks his mother to throw some more in the next package, and she sends enough for the whole unit. He hands them over to Pete one by one and he bites his lip, careful to never offer to help Pete clean up those spots he's missed.)
7.
Pete smokes his cigarettes all the way down to his fingers, dragging the last bit of anything out of the paper and leaving shiny, flat-burned calluses on the sides of his knuckles. (Mikey feels them against his jaw, smooth and cool when Pete touches his face while they kiss on a night neither of them went dancing. Mikey doesn't taste peppermint, only beer and warmth, and Pete whispers Mikey's name against his mouth like it's the most important thing he'll ever say.)
8.
Pete doesn't pray. "God didn't do much for my buddies, so I guess I'm not interested in doing much for Him," he tells the chaplain, who gives him a patient, stern look and moves on. (Mikey goes to the service, kneels beside Gerard and softly mouths the old words, looks from the corner of his half-closed eyes over at where Pete is standing with the tall, skinny guy who rejected the chaplain by saying "I'm Jewish, your god doesn't even want me." Mikey watches them stand and smoke and is careful not to consider the nature of sin.)
9.
Pete writes things, jagged broken-off scraps of poems that trail off the edges of whatever bits of paper he finds. They don't all make sense, and the cramped way he holds the pen makes Mikey think that Sister Mary Catherine back at school would slap his knuckles hard and declare that she would straighten him out in a hurry. But the words have a certain beauty, raw and a little lonely, and Mikey is always careful to read them closely when Pete lets him look at all. (Mikey is jealous in the same way he's jealous of Gerard's drawings: vaguely and hardly worthy of the term. "You don't have to make up lies about amazing things," Pete tells him one night, out under the stars and the searchlights. "You are one.")
10.
Pete is being sent to Italy, and Mikey is going to France, and there are many miles of road in between. (Mikey sinks his teeth into Pete's hand where it presses over his mouth, too hard, holding in his air as well as keeping him silent. Pete relents just a little, barely enough. They grind against each other in the dark, against the bricks of the bar, achingly hard with too many layers of uniform between them, too much silence, too much caution that neither of them wants and both of them need. Their eyes meet, and they both pretend not to see tears glittering in the dark.
Pete parts his fingers and kisses Mikey through the bars of his own hand, and Mikey knows that neither of them will say the word goodbye.)
Title and mood from The War, by Lucero. (Take the song even if you don't read the fic, it is amazing.)
Unbeta'd, unresearched, etc, etc.
...seriously, this lack of a Mikey icon is becoming a *problem*. /o\
Ten things Mikey knows:
1.
Pete is from Chicago. His stories center around howling wind, close-packed buildings reaching down, the blue curve of Lake Michigan, but always, always, the awareness of broad open spaces just out of sight. His accent is broad and nasal, funny to Mikey's ears, though Mikey never laughs out loud, just raises an eyebrow at the vowels that stretch on and on and don't go anywhere. (Mikey doesn't hear any accent in his own words, of course, but Pete does laugh at him, right out loud, and says he's sorry that nobody taught anybody how to talk in New Jersey, though as long as they're raising 'em to be so good-looking and personable he guesses it must be all right.)
2.
Pete is an older son. There are two siblings back home, who scribble notes at the bottom of the letters Pete gets from his mother. Pete traces his fingers over the lopsided writing and goes quiet when he reads those parts. (Mikey is a younger son and sometimes he wonders if it would be the same if the gap was wider, if he had had to stay behind and write notes to Gerard in the margins. He suspects Gerard wouldn't have gone without him, would have refused to leave him behind.)
3.
Pete always smells like peppermint. His mother sends papers of mints, twisted up and folded in with the letters and cigarettes and socks and anything else that gets through the mail. Pete always has them in his pockets, punctuates his sentences by cracking them between his teeth or tucking them between his cheek and his jaw and sucking loudly. (In Mikey's mind, Pete and the smell of peppermint are wound together inseparably. He wonders if in twenty years he'll be standing in his own kitchen in his own home, watching whatever girl he marries make Christmas candy with their children, and still think of Pete Wentz when they move on to peppermints.)
4.
Pete doesn't dance. "Two left feet," he says, every time they go to the bar, "you boys have fun." And he flashes that wide grin that caught Mikey's eyes in the first place, white and sharp over the rim of his glass. (Mikey wouldn't dance if given his choice, but the others are insistent, sometimes. He always ends up out on the floor with a pretty English girl with a face like a star, and somehow he can only keep his eyes on her half the time, catching himself again and again looking back toward the table where Pete is sitting, watching, drinking. Pete's eyes glitter in the shadows like stars, too.)
5.
Pete had a friend who died. (Mikey does, too. They all do.)
6.
Pete never manages a clean shave. He always misses a spot on the curve of his cheekbone or the slope of his throat below his jaw. He loses his razors and comes wandering over to Mikey at the sinks, the towel wrapped around his hips sliding low, dog tags clinking. "Mikey Way, got a spare? I'll owe you, I'll owe you." (Mikey always has a spare. He asks his mother to throw some more in the next package, and she sends enough for the whole unit. He hands them over to Pete one by one and he bites his lip, careful to never offer to help Pete clean up those spots he's missed.)
7.
Pete smokes his cigarettes all the way down to his fingers, dragging the last bit of anything out of the paper and leaving shiny, flat-burned calluses on the sides of his knuckles. (Mikey feels them against his jaw, smooth and cool when Pete touches his face while they kiss on a night neither of them went dancing. Mikey doesn't taste peppermint, only beer and warmth, and Pete whispers Mikey's name against his mouth like it's the most important thing he'll ever say.)
8.
Pete doesn't pray. "God didn't do much for my buddies, so I guess I'm not interested in doing much for Him," he tells the chaplain, who gives him a patient, stern look and moves on. (Mikey goes to the service, kneels beside Gerard and softly mouths the old words, looks from the corner of his half-closed eyes over at where Pete is standing with the tall, skinny guy who rejected the chaplain by saying "I'm Jewish, your god doesn't even want me." Mikey watches them stand and smoke and is careful not to consider the nature of sin.)
9.
Pete writes things, jagged broken-off scraps of poems that trail off the edges of whatever bits of paper he finds. They don't all make sense, and the cramped way he holds the pen makes Mikey think that Sister Mary Catherine back at school would slap his knuckles hard and declare that she would straighten him out in a hurry. But the words have a certain beauty, raw and a little lonely, and Mikey is always careful to read them closely when Pete lets him look at all. (Mikey is jealous in the same way he's jealous of Gerard's drawings: vaguely and hardly worthy of the term. "You don't have to make up lies about amazing things," Pete tells him one night, out under the stars and the searchlights. "You are one.")
10.
Pete is being sent to Italy, and Mikey is going to France, and there are many miles of road in between. (Mikey sinks his teeth into Pete's hand where it presses over his mouth, too hard, holding in his air as well as keeping him silent. Pete relents just a little, barely enough. They grind against each other in the dark, against the bricks of the bar, achingly hard with too many layers of uniform between them, too much silence, too much caution that neither of them wants and both of them need. Their eyes meet, and they both pretend not to see tears glittering in the dark.
Pete parts his fingers and kisses Mikey through the bars of his own hand, and Mikey knows that neither of them will say the word goodbye.)