PETE STOP LETTING ME WRITE ABOUT YOU.
AHAHAHA so this is um. Fic. Because sometimes I write things that include throwaway lines that should be left as throwaway lines and they end up becoming 5000 WORD TRAGEDIES.
Just Didn't Know the Date
RATED...PG-15? ISH? SHIT.
Pairings: Pete/Mikey! /o\
Warnings: Makeouts, drug use, makeouts and drug use, not actually as cracktacular as other in this universe, SUMMER OF LIKE, SUMMER OF LIKE IS ITS OWN WARNING, OH GOD.
Disclaimer: This didn't happen, don't Google yourself, Mikeyway I'm sorry for making you so boring so don't read this. You too, Pete.
Summary: "It was a good summer." "It was three years of summer." Same universe as my other Time Lord fics, sort of a giant flashback that spawned from the one about Mikeyway.
Pete met Mikey at a funeral.
It was a nice funeral, with everyone well-dressed in black and red, and a few good speeches were made, but it was still a funeral.
Pete sat in the pews of the church to watch the dancers perform in front of the coffin, and sang the hymns along with the rest of the crowd. He looked down politely when the deceased had her last dance. The customs in this world were strange, but he’d picked them up after accidentally crashing here three or four times.
He waited until the mourners started to disperse before walking over to the small group of pallbearers, who were still lingering around the hearse.
There were five of them, all looking solemn, but two of them were holding each other tightly, both looking like they were trying to hide their tears from the other, both mumbling words of comfort, while the other three alternated between looking at each other and looking at the pair. They looked like brothers-family of the deceased, probably. Pete couldn’t bring himself to say anything, to any of them.
Eventually one of the other three, a short guy with red hair that matched the rest of the church, took one of them-the one who’d made the big speech at the funeral, Pete remembered-by the hand and looked at the other one, who nodded slowly. They walked away together, leaving the other brother alone.
Then, he caught Pete’s eye.
He said his goodbyes to the other pallbearers, who both patted his shoulder encouragingly, and then they were all walking in separate directions. The brother went to Pete as soon as the other two were out of earshot.
“You’re one of us, aren’t you.” It wasn’t a question.
“Yeah. Name’s Pete, just crashed here.” He held out a hand, smiling as much as he dared at a funeral.
The brother took it, not smiling back, but he didn’t look quite as miserable as before. “Mikey. My brother and I thought we were the last ones.”
“Yeah, well, I’m the exception to a lot of rules.”
Mikey actually smiled at that, a sad little quirk of the lips. “I should go after Frank and Gerard. See you in time?”
“See you in time.” It was hard not to just go after him, keep up the conversation, but when someone had a Time Lord mourning, he knew not to get in the way.
~~~
The next time they met was in high school.
Pete had landed there while trying for the fifth time to go to the homecoming dance he was supposed to be playing at, but when he looked outside and saw the short guy from the funeral-Frank, he remembered-eating a sandwich in the courtyard of a rather nice-looking Catholic school, he figured he’d stay awhile.
He found a uniform in one of the back rooms of his ship, struggled into it (how did humans stand wearing ties all the time?), and stepped outside. He hadn’t been to high school in a while.
Of course, the first thing he wanted to do was pull a high school level prank. Wreaking havoc in the principal’s office would do, and he was already snickering over the idea of changing his computer desktop to gay porn (because Pete loved satisfying his inner twelve-year-old) as he walked through the front doors.
“Shit-oh.”
Mikey was at the desk, plugging wires into a tape recorder with the utmost concentration. “Thought you were the principal.”
Pete just grinned and knelt down in front of the desk, chin hanging over the edge. “Thought I’d never see you again.”
Mikey looked up as he pressed a button on the tape recorder, and anything else Pete could have said was drowned out by the sweet sounds of wailing guitars and screaming, playing through the speakers in the room and echoing from outside.
Pete grinned. Mikey smiled back. Then they ran out the door.
~~~
They sat through a math class together after the commotion settled down, and they passed notes the entire time. The teacher was probably eighty years old and didn’t even notice he had a new student, even if some of the other kids gave Pete weird looks.
hate this place, Mikey wrote on a blank piece of paper. The first one they’d been passing back and forth for the first half of class had been retired after they ran out of room to doodle any more zombies or dinosaurs.
y? Pete wrote back.
it’s just. school. g makes sure we stop by every now and then and ends up getting all nostalgic and staying.
i could take you somewhere better. Pete had been thinking about taking a trip with Mikey since he saw him in the principal’s office, and he had a few ideas.
please. And underneath, an address, where Pete assumed he was supposed to pick Mikey up. Awesome.
Then the bell rang, and kids started racing for the door. Mikey followed, and Pete started after him, but Mikey stopped and turned around. “I need to pack up some stuff at home. Go prep your ship and meet me where I said, all right?”
“Expecting a long vacation?”
“Actually, yeah.” Mikey smirked. Pete grinned back.
~~~
Mikey stepped inside his ship barely thirty seconds after Pete had landed outside the house. “Write down the time, I’m supposed to be back in fifteen.” He tossed a duffel bag at Pete, who fumbled with it for a second before putting it safely on the floor.
“You said you wanted a vacation.”
Mikey smiled back, a full-on grin that made Pete’s heart melt, just a bit. “We could be gone for years and come back ten seconds later, remember?”
“Oh. Right.” Pete hoped he could navigate that precisely. Maybe Mikey could take over when the time came.
Whatever, they wouldn’t have to worry about that for a while.
Mikey leaned up against the wall, looking around appraisingly. “So, where are we off to?”
“You don’t mind a walk in the park, do you?” Pete asked, already flipping switches.
“You’re a cheap date.” But Mikey wasn’t complaining, Pete could tell, and they smiled at each other as Pete hit the button that set the whole room rocking.
~~~
Pete had wanted to hang out with Mikey just because hey, another guy like him, they could sit down together and talk about all the different worlds they’d seen and swap stories, it’d be great. No other reason.
Except, now that he was lying in the sun, watching how it reflected off Mikey’s glasses and Mikey’s hair and the buttons of Mikey’s way-too-tight jeans, he was starting to think of another reason to stay close to him.
Of course, that could’ve just been the pot.
“Really fucking good pot, too,” Pete said out loud, before realizing he hadn’t said any of the other stuff earlier, so it probably sounded kind of weird and out of context or something.
Mikey snickered, then took another hit as if in agreement.
Pete could hear laughter from a distance, and he knew that if he rolled over he’d see the four guys who gave them the pot in the first place, probably trying to figure out new and exciting ways to use a guitar. But he was pretty comfortable like this, just lying on his side in the grass, occasionally reaching over when the joint needed to be passed.
He brushed a stray blade of grass off Mikey’s shoulder. Mikey rolled away from him, then rolled back, and now he had even more grass stuck to him.
“You did that on purpose,” Pete said, stifling a giggle as he picked pieces out of Mikey’s hair.
“You still fell for my evil plan,” Mikey said with a grin. His glasses looked like they were going to fall off.
“Your evil plan to get my hands all over you?” Pete brushed some dirt off Mikey’s thigh, letting his hand linger even after it looked clean.
“Yep.” He still had the joint in one hand, and he scooted a few inches closer before bringing it to Pete’s mouth. Pete took a long drag, held it as Mikey took the joint back, and then blew the smoke in his face.
“Asshole,” Mikey said in the least threatening voice Pete had ever heard, and Pete just smiled, the last few tendrils of smoke curling out from between his teeth. Mikey took a hit, then leaned in, pressing his forehead against Pete’s. Pete pushed Mikey’s glasses up the bridge of his nose, angled his head, and kissed him.
Mikey opened his mouth immediately, letting Pete suck the smoke out of his lungs, and there was something about that, something about knowing that he was breathing the exact same air that Mikey had, that made Pete bring a hand to the small of Mikey’s back and pull him closer, needing more. Pete was panting a bit, little puffs of air that brought the stale smoke back outside, only for Mikey to breathe some of it back in.
They stayed like that for a while, not quite kissing but not quite apart, breathing each other’s air until the last of the smoke had drifted away, and then, then it went from zero to tongue in about three seconds.
They both rushed into it too fast, their noses bumping a bit, and they almost broke apart to giggle, but then Pete let his lips drift to Mikey’s jaw so he had room to pick Mikey’s glasses off his face and put them in the grass, and Mikey put out the joint to place it next to them, and then it was just the two of them and the ground. Mikey rolled on top of Pete and Pete let him, watching the clouds drift by as Mikey started to suck a bruise into his neck.
He could feel everything; every strand of Mikey’s hair threading through his fingers, every movement of Mikey’s lips and tongue, every inch of Mikey’s almost painfully bony body touching his. Pete had to shut his eyes so he could just take in all the sensation.
Mikey licked over the spot that Pete knew would be red for days before bringing his tongue back to Pete’s lips, and they both groaned into each other’s mouths. All sense of urgency was gone, and it was nothing but lazy slides of lips and the slow, gentle rocking of their hips against each other, not expecting, not promising, just present and perfect. Something in the far corner of Pete’s brain told him he should be writing all this down, a different, weirder corner wanted him to write it on Mikey’s bare back, but most of him was content to just suck on Mikey’s lower lip and idly wonder what Mikey’s hair would feel like without the interference of a flat iron.
It was a long time before they separated, but Pete couldn’t tell you just how long if he tried. It felt like days. But at some point in time, Mikey sat up, grabbed his glasses back, climbed off of Pete to press up against his side, and mumbled into his ear: “I’m starving.”
Pete laughed, and then there was a slow process of sitting up, standing up, holding each other up as Pete led him to the blanket where the other kids in the park were lounging around.
They were all laughing about something or another-the kids laughed a lot-when Pete interrupted with a “Heard you guys were having a picnic,” and sat down on the corner of the blanket, bringing Mikey with him.
“Food, yeah, food sounds awesome,” one of the kids-Brendon-said, opening up the basket in the center of the blanket like he’d forgotten it was there until just now. Pete liked the kids; you could always rely on them for food, weed, and fun. Mostly weed, though, as Pete had demonstrated within thirty seconds of introducing them-Brendon, Ryan, Spencer, and Jon the mastermind-to Mikey.
Brendon pulled more sandwiches and bowls of chips and pretzels out of the basket than should have fit, but Pete knew not to trust the size of anything in this place.
They all ate too fast, and Brendon put his head in Spencer’s lap, groaning dramatically about a stomachache and how dumb they were to pack so many salty snacks when his mouth felt like it was going to turn to sand.
“You packed the basket, asshole,” Ryan said, reaching back into the basket find enough water for everyone. He held Brendon’s bottle just out of his reach for a minute before finally giving in to his whining. Spencer snickered the whole time.
Pete lay back once he was done eating junk food and gulping down water, and the rest of them followed soon after (except for Brendon, who was already perfectly comfortable lying in Spencer’s lap). Pete was full, and almost totally sober, and Mikey was holding his hand, and it was quite possibly the best feeling in the world. Which was weird, considering the sober part.
~~~
On the fifth day (well, the fifth time Pete woke up, the sun didn’t really go down here), Pete said, “Let’s go see a magic show.”
“A magic show. With rabbits in hats and people getting sawed in half and everything?” Mikey looked at him skeptically over the top of his glasses, which were kind of skewed. Rolling down a hill with Pete did that.
“Yeah, kind of. He’s a terrible magician.” Pete brushed some dirt off his shoulder. Okay, a lot of dirt.
“And we’re seeing a terrible magician because…”
“Because there’s no movie theater here, and I feel like I should take you on a date that isn’t a stoned picnic.”
“We had a drunk picnic?”
“The beer was shitty, though. Remind me to never let Brendon bring the alcohol again.” Pete started to stand up, still a bit dizzy. The hill was pretty big.
He held out a hand to help Mikey up, and he didn’t let go as he started leading him to the little cabin in the middle of the field.
Mikey didn’t even blink when they opened the door to enter a theater at least five times the size of the cabin itself. They were both used to things that were bigger on the inside.
The show was as terrible as usual, and the whole audience laughed at the magician’s clumsy attempts at simple illusions, cards and feathers everywhere. Pete never let go of Mikey’s hand.
“That was the worst date,” Mikey said as they walked out the door, back into the sun.
“I know, right?” Pete grinned, squeezing his hand. Mikey squeezed back, then kissed him on the cheek.
~~~
“So, who was she?”
Mikey glanced over at Pete, which probably wasn’t a good idea, since there was a turn coming up, and they both nearly crashed their bikes into a tree.
“Who?” Mikey asked once they were both going straight and not crashing. He didn’t try to look at Pete again.
“The girl at the funeral.”
Mikey didn’t answer for a minute, suddenly looking very interested in the road ahead of them. Pete was about to push for an answer when Mikey started, “Helena. She traveled with us.”
“Yeah?” Pete hadn’t had a proper companion in a while. He knew what it was like to be alone in time and space, and it wasn’t the best place to be.
“Yeah.” Mikey didn’t say anything else for a while, and then: “So you don’t have anyone?”
Pete shrugged. “Used to. Ashlee, her name was. She…kind of went crazy.”
“Crazy as in, psycho ex-girlfriend crazy?”
“Crazy as in the last time I saw her she was in a straitjacket, babbling about giant Rubik’s cubes.”
“Oh.”
Pete glanced over. Mikey’s face had its usual blank expression, but just a little off, like he was forcing it that way.
“…You’re totally trying not to laugh.”
“I am not.” But opening his mouth gave away the smirk he was trying to hide.
“You totally are!”
“Okay, okay,” Mikey didn’t even try to cover up the little laugh that came out, “But seriously. Giant Rubik’s cubes?”
“Insensitive,” Pete said, trying to sound pained but ending up letting out a laugh instead. “You’re lucky I love you, I should be way more offended than I am.”
“Love me, huh?” Mikey said it slowly, like he was testing the words on his tongue.
Pete went silent for a while. Huh. He’d really said that.
He thought about it for a few minutes, just pedaling ahead, before finally answering. “Yeah. Yeah, I do.”
Mikey didn’t answer, but when Pete looked over out of the corner of his eye, he saw Mikey making his weird little smile-hiding face again.
~~~
There was a lot to do in the park, and plenty of time to do it. They went canoeing across the lake, rode the bikes they kept borrowing from the kids, went to see the terrible magician again (sometimes there were rabbits, and that was enough to bring Mikey back a few times), and listened to a lot of music until they fell asleep on each other in the grass. Instruments were scattered around the park like they grew out of the ground, and Brendon and his friends knew how to play most of them. Sometimes Pete or Mikey would pick up a guitar and strum a few chords, but most of the time they would just watch the kids.
“I haven’t showered in two weeks,” Mikey said one day, as if suddenly reminded of this fact by the smoke hitting his lungs. They were lying in the grass again, just letting the sounds of an accordion and Ryan’s voice wash over them. The noise was definitely easier to deal with while high.
“You don’t really need to,” Pete said, holding out a hand for the joint. “This place is…weird. We could swim naked in the lake, if you want.”
“I love how you say ‘we’ automatically.”
They did end up skinny-dipping in the lake, eventually. Brendon stole their shirts.
No one really complained.
~~~
“I love you too,” Mikey said, two months later. They were making out sober, which probably shouldn’t have been considered an interesting change of pace, but Jon had a lot of weed and a lot of generosity in his heart.
Pete pulled back from Mikey’s collarbone to look him in the eye. “Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
“Awesome,” Pete said, and started licking into Mikey’s mouth.
There wasn’t really anything else to say.
~~~
“How long have we been here again?” Pete asked, his fingers just dipping below the surface of the lake.
Mikey stopped rowing to look up at the sky, as if the clouds would turn into a calendar. “Dunno. Six months?”
“Doesn’t feel like it.”
“Yeah.”
They let the boat drift for a while, silently watching the clouds. Pete shut his eyes after a few minutes and heard the faint sound of kids-actual kids, ten years old or so-laughing and playing on the shore. He smiled.
“Six months,” he said with a sigh, “I always lose track of time in this place.”
“The weed probably doesn’t help,” Mikey pointed out.
Pete laughed. “Probably not. That and the sun not going down.”
“But mostly the weed.”
“Mostly, yeah.”
The boat shifted a bit, and Pete opened his eyes to see Mikey sitting up and grabbing back at the oars. “Is there anything else in this park you haven’t showed me?” he asked, slowly rowing them further away from the shore.
“Nothing special,” Pete admitted, “But there is a little grove or something over that way, lots of trees.” He tilted his head, and Mikey turned the boat to start heading in that direction.
“Awesome. Shade. It’s still weird, staying out in the sun this long and not getting burned.”
“I know, right? This place is like, paradise.” He’d never actually stayed here all that long; it was too quiet, too peaceful, and Pete just couldn’t deal with quiet and peaceful when there were other worlds with gang wars, or explosions, or wolves.
Mikey, though. Mikey was the deciding factor here.
There was a sudden lurch as the boat hit the shore, and they both climbed out to pull it up further so it wouldn’t drift away. Then Mikey took Pete’s hand, Pete squeezed his, and they walked together into the trees.
It was the darkest place Pete knew of in the whole park; the trees were thick enough that when you closed your eyes, you could see black instead of red. Nobody else was around, as far as he could tell, but there were blankets spread out every twenty feet or so.
“Did everyone abandon their picnics?” Mikey asked as he stepped around another blanket.
“Nobody puts them down here, I don’t think. They just kind of…are.” Pete shrugged. He never really tried to understand this place, it just gave him a headache.
“Oh. So no one will mind if we just commandeer one.”
Pete grinned, probably showing a few too many teeth. “No one at all.”
Mikey sat down at the next blanket they came across, pulling Pete with him. He was on top of Pete almost immediately, no booze or pot to slow him down, kissing him all over while Pete sighed and dug his fingers into Mikey’s hips.
“This the most privacy we’re going to get?” Mikey whispered, his lips barely brushing Pete’s ear.
“Probably.” Pete struggled to keep his voice steady. “Didn’t think you were such a prude, Mikeyway.”
“Just because I’m not as much of a fucking exhibitionist as you…” Mikey trailed off as Pete put his hands in his hair and started nipping at his jawline.
Then Mikey was working at Pete’s belt buckle, and they both decided that words weren’t really necessary for a while.
~~~
Before Pete could blink, it seemed like, two years had gone by.
“We could stay here forever,” Pete said into Mikey’s hair. They were in the grove again, naked and probably due for a dip in the lake, but Pete was content to keep up with the spooning until Mikey complained beyond the occasional grunt.
Mikey didn’t answer, just reached behind him to rub at the back of Pete’s thigh, humming happily.
“Until the end of time,” Pete continued, “Just the two of us and a whole lot of fucking around.”
“Emphasis on the fucking?” Mikey mumbled, pushing his head into the hollow of Pete’s throat.
“You know me too well.” Pete watched as a leaf fell a few feet away from their blanket. The leaves never seemed to drop too close to where they were lying-just another paradise thing, Pete guessed.
Pete kissed the top of Mikey’s head and sighed happily, his eyes falling shut. He could fall asleep like this, maybe stay here for days, just curled up around Mikey, breathing him in.
“Just the two of us,” Pete said again, quiet enough that he could barely hear his own voice, “Happily ever after.”
~~~
A month later, Mikey started disappearing.
Pete would wake up alone in the grass, fumbling for the body he’d fallen asleep next to and finding nothing. He’d wander around for a few minutes, calling Mikey’s name, only to find him sitting on the edge of the lake or the top of the hill. Whenever Pete asked why he’d left, Mikey would just shrug.
Today, though, he replied: “I wonder how Gerard’s doing.”
Pete had to sit quietly for a minute to try and remember who Gerard was.
“My brother, remember?”
Oh.
They didn’t talk about the worlds outside of this one. It wasn’t an agreement they’d made, just something that never came up, and they both seemed to understand that it wasn’t a subject that needed to come up. This was the first time either of them had mentioned it since they talked about their old companions.
“I know it won’t seem like any time had passed when I get back, but…still. It’s weird. I can’t remember ever being away from him this long.”
Pete nodded, but he didn’t answer.
Mikey looked at him expectantly, but Pete didn’t know what to say. He’d never been all that close to many people. Actually, he tried to avoid it when he could.
“I…guess that means forever’s out of the question, then,” Pete finally said. Mikey frowned, then nodded.
They didn’t go to the grove that day. They mooched some more shitty beer off of Brendon, but only drank half of it before falling asleep on each other.
~~~
The next three months went by slowly. They spent a lot of time with the kids, and some time away from each other. It was awful, being away from Mikey, but Pete thought that maybe giving him some space would help him think, make him want to stay longer.
But after three months, he couldn’t take it anymore, and he launched himself at Mikey as soon as he woke up and saw him at the top of the hill, right next to one of those giant nesting dolls. Mikey yelped, but he didn’t push Pete away, and they rolled all the way down the hill together in each other’s arms.
They were both laughing by the time they stopped, just giggling and shaking and clinging to each other like one of them might run away any second. Pete tried to kiss him, but they were both laughing too hard, so they let go of each other and lay back on the grass until they could both breathe again.
Mikey stopped laughing first, but he didn’t stop smiling, and he poked Pete in the side a few times, because he was a total bastard and was trying to kill Pete.
“Mikey-stop-seriously!” Pete wheezed, grinning until his cheeks felt like they were going to go numb.
Mikey hiccupped in response.
It was a few more minutes before Pete could manage words again. “So. Not forever.”
Mikey’s smile faltered, but didn’t drop completely. “Not forever.”
“But still now. And maybe a little longer.”
Mikey hiccupped again.
“Right?”
Mikey kissed him instead of answering. Pete didn’t press any further.
~~~
As if making up for the speed of the past three months, the next five went by faster than time had ever gone for Pete.
They smoked until Jon started to set (very lenient) limits on how much he would give them, drank until Brendon told them he was losing faith in how much his basket could hold, and went to the grove almost every day. They swam in the lake (sober), and listened to Ryan compose new songs (totally high). They counted every type of fish and bird that lived in the park, raced with the little kids down the hill, and even had Brendon teach them how to play an instrument or two. At least, Pete could make noise out of that weird trumpet-thing that didn’t sound all that much like a beached whale, and Mikey picked up on the kazoo pretty quickly.
They didn’t talk about leaving again. Pete wanted to believe that meant Mikey had changed his mind, that they really could be here forever, but then Mikey would look at him, stare as if trying to take a photograph with his mind and hold the moment forever. As if he wanted to look back on it later.
It made Pete want to scream, but he didn’t say anything. He was going to enjoy this until the end, dammit.
~~~
“It’s been three years.”
Pete barely understood him; he’d just woken up. “Wha?”
“Three years.”
Pete rubbed his eyes, trying to comprehend the words. They’d been running on Mikey’s internal clock the whole time, and while Pete hadn’t tested it or anything, he trusted it enough to know that if Mikey said three years, it had been three years. “Oh.”
“Yeah.”
They looked at each other for a while, not saying anything, not needing anything to say. Then Pete stood up, helped Mikey to his feet, and gripped his hand tightly.
They had fallen asleep in the grove again, so their clothes were rumpled, but wearable. The boat was waiting on the edge of the lake, and Mikey coaxed Pete’s hand into letting go so they could start pushing it into the water.
Pete rowed the whole way across the lake, in time with the sounds of someone singing along with a guitar-it sounded like Brendon. Mikey leaned back to watch the clouds.
When they reached the shore, they held hands as they marched to the top of the hill they hadn’t climbed since they had gone down it the first time.
The box looked the same as it had when they’d left it, albeit a bit dusty-looking. Pete stopped walking a few feet in front of the door and looked at Mikey.
“So.”
“Yeah.”
They kissed, and it wasn’t one of the slow, lazy kisses from before, or the rougher end-of-the-world kisses from recently, but it wasn’t quite a goodbye kiss, either. Pete stopped trying to categorize it and just tried to enjoy it once Mikey’s tongue started tangling with his.
Pete wanted to throw Mikey against the door, pin him there and never let go, but he didn’t.
Mikey had to be the one to pull back, to end the kiss. “Ready to leave?”
No. Never. “Yeah.” Pete opened the door.
~~~
Mikey took the controls on the way back, and managed to navigate them to twenty minutes after they had left, according to the screens. Pete didn’t say a word the whole time.
When they landed, Mikey went to the back of the room to find the bag he’d thrown at Pete, three years ago.
There was a set of clothes in there, just jeans and a band t-shirt, and Pete turned around while Mikey changed out of the dirty, grass-stained, somehow not-disintegrating clothes he’d been wearing all this time. They’d tried to wash their clothes in the lake, a few times, but it never seemed like they really needed to. Paradise.
“All right then,” Mikey said when he finished with the last button. “Guess this is my stop.”
“Yeah.” Pete went to Mikey, to kiss him, to hug him, anything, Pete didn’t know, and he ended up just looking awkwardly at his own shoes.
Mikey finally held out a hand. Pete took it immediately.
“See you in time.”
“See you in time.”
~~~
“I needed this anyway,” Pete told the empty room as he started twisting knobs and dials, just a bit more violently than he probably should. “Staying in one place that long, that’s crazy. I’m crazy. I need to go and, and cause a riot or something. Blow something up. Maybe hunt vampires.” He laughed, and ended up accidentally pulling a lever he probably shouldn’t have pulled. “Crazy, seriously.”
The ship lurched, and something fell over.
Pete looked behind him once he knew the whole thing wasn’t going to turn sideways, and there it was, like a sign from God, sliding across the floor. His bass, probably totally out of tune between the time and the clattering around in its case.
“Shit.”
Pete started readjusting the controls, because shit, how had he forgotten?
“I’m gonna be late for homecoming.”
Just Didn't Know the Date
RATED...PG-15? ISH? SHIT.
Pairings: Pete/Mikey! /o\
Warnings: Makeouts, drug use, makeouts and drug use, not actually as cracktacular as other in this universe, SUMMER OF LIKE, SUMMER OF LIKE IS ITS OWN WARNING, OH GOD.
Disclaimer: This didn't happen, don't Google yourself, Mikeyway I'm sorry for making you so boring so don't read this. You too, Pete.
Summary: "It was a good summer." "It was three years of summer." Same universe as my other Time Lord fics, sort of a giant flashback that spawned from the one about Mikeyway.
Pete met Mikey at a funeral.
It was a nice funeral, with everyone well-dressed in black and red, and a few good speeches were made, but it was still a funeral.
Pete sat in the pews of the church to watch the dancers perform in front of the coffin, and sang the hymns along with the rest of the crowd. He looked down politely when the deceased had her last dance. The customs in this world were strange, but he’d picked them up after accidentally crashing here three or four times.
He waited until the mourners started to disperse before walking over to the small group of pallbearers, who were still lingering around the hearse.
There were five of them, all looking solemn, but two of them were holding each other tightly, both looking like they were trying to hide their tears from the other, both mumbling words of comfort, while the other three alternated between looking at each other and looking at the pair. They looked like brothers-family of the deceased, probably. Pete couldn’t bring himself to say anything, to any of them.
Eventually one of the other three, a short guy with red hair that matched the rest of the church, took one of them-the one who’d made the big speech at the funeral, Pete remembered-by the hand and looked at the other one, who nodded slowly. They walked away together, leaving the other brother alone.
Then, he caught Pete’s eye.
He said his goodbyes to the other pallbearers, who both patted his shoulder encouragingly, and then they were all walking in separate directions. The brother went to Pete as soon as the other two were out of earshot.
“You’re one of us, aren’t you.” It wasn’t a question.
“Yeah. Name’s Pete, just crashed here.” He held out a hand, smiling as much as he dared at a funeral.
The brother took it, not smiling back, but he didn’t look quite as miserable as before. “Mikey. My brother and I thought we were the last ones.”
“Yeah, well, I’m the exception to a lot of rules.”
Mikey actually smiled at that, a sad little quirk of the lips. “I should go after Frank and Gerard. See you in time?”
“See you in time.” It was hard not to just go after him, keep up the conversation, but when someone had a Time Lord mourning, he knew not to get in the way.
~~~
The next time they met was in high school.
Pete had landed there while trying for the fifth time to go to the homecoming dance he was supposed to be playing at, but when he looked outside and saw the short guy from the funeral-Frank, he remembered-eating a sandwich in the courtyard of a rather nice-looking Catholic school, he figured he’d stay awhile.
He found a uniform in one of the back rooms of his ship, struggled into it (how did humans stand wearing ties all the time?), and stepped outside. He hadn’t been to high school in a while.
Of course, the first thing he wanted to do was pull a high school level prank. Wreaking havoc in the principal’s office would do, and he was already snickering over the idea of changing his computer desktop to gay porn (because Pete loved satisfying his inner twelve-year-old) as he walked through the front doors.
“Shit-oh.”
Mikey was at the desk, plugging wires into a tape recorder with the utmost concentration. “Thought you were the principal.”
Pete just grinned and knelt down in front of the desk, chin hanging over the edge. “Thought I’d never see you again.”
Mikey looked up as he pressed a button on the tape recorder, and anything else Pete could have said was drowned out by the sweet sounds of wailing guitars and screaming, playing through the speakers in the room and echoing from outside.
Pete grinned. Mikey smiled back. Then they ran out the door.
~~~
They sat through a math class together after the commotion settled down, and they passed notes the entire time. The teacher was probably eighty years old and didn’t even notice he had a new student, even if some of the other kids gave Pete weird looks.
hate this place, Mikey wrote on a blank piece of paper. The first one they’d been passing back and forth for the first half of class had been retired after they ran out of room to doodle any more zombies or dinosaurs.
y? Pete wrote back.
it’s just. school. g makes sure we stop by every now and then and ends up getting all nostalgic and staying.
i could take you somewhere better. Pete had been thinking about taking a trip with Mikey since he saw him in the principal’s office, and he had a few ideas.
please. And underneath, an address, where Pete assumed he was supposed to pick Mikey up. Awesome.
Then the bell rang, and kids started racing for the door. Mikey followed, and Pete started after him, but Mikey stopped and turned around. “I need to pack up some stuff at home. Go prep your ship and meet me where I said, all right?”
“Expecting a long vacation?”
“Actually, yeah.” Mikey smirked. Pete grinned back.
~~~
Mikey stepped inside his ship barely thirty seconds after Pete had landed outside the house. “Write down the time, I’m supposed to be back in fifteen.” He tossed a duffel bag at Pete, who fumbled with it for a second before putting it safely on the floor.
“You said you wanted a vacation.”
Mikey smiled back, a full-on grin that made Pete’s heart melt, just a bit. “We could be gone for years and come back ten seconds later, remember?”
“Oh. Right.” Pete hoped he could navigate that precisely. Maybe Mikey could take over when the time came.
Whatever, they wouldn’t have to worry about that for a while.
Mikey leaned up against the wall, looking around appraisingly. “So, where are we off to?”
“You don’t mind a walk in the park, do you?” Pete asked, already flipping switches.
“You’re a cheap date.” But Mikey wasn’t complaining, Pete could tell, and they smiled at each other as Pete hit the button that set the whole room rocking.
~~~
Pete had wanted to hang out with Mikey just because hey, another guy like him, they could sit down together and talk about all the different worlds they’d seen and swap stories, it’d be great. No other reason.
Except, now that he was lying in the sun, watching how it reflected off Mikey’s glasses and Mikey’s hair and the buttons of Mikey’s way-too-tight jeans, he was starting to think of another reason to stay close to him.
Of course, that could’ve just been the pot.
“Really fucking good pot, too,” Pete said out loud, before realizing he hadn’t said any of the other stuff earlier, so it probably sounded kind of weird and out of context or something.
Mikey snickered, then took another hit as if in agreement.
Pete could hear laughter from a distance, and he knew that if he rolled over he’d see the four guys who gave them the pot in the first place, probably trying to figure out new and exciting ways to use a guitar. But he was pretty comfortable like this, just lying on his side in the grass, occasionally reaching over when the joint needed to be passed.
He brushed a stray blade of grass off Mikey’s shoulder. Mikey rolled away from him, then rolled back, and now he had even more grass stuck to him.
“You did that on purpose,” Pete said, stifling a giggle as he picked pieces out of Mikey’s hair.
“You still fell for my evil plan,” Mikey said with a grin. His glasses looked like they were going to fall off.
“Your evil plan to get my hands all over you?” Pete brushed some dirt off Mikey’s thigh, letting his hand linger even after it looked clean.
“Yep.” He still had the joint in one hand, and he scooted a few inches closer before bringing it to Pete’s mouth. Pete took a long drag, held it as Mikey took the joint back, and then blew the smoke in his face.
“Asshole,” Mikey said in the least threatening voice Pete had ever heard, and Pete just smiled, the last few tendrils of smoke curling out from between his teeth. Mikey took a hit, then leaned in, pressing his forehead against Pete’s. Pete pushed Mikey’s glasses up the bridge of his nose, angled his head, and kissed him.
Mikey opened his mouth immediately, letting Pete suck the smoke out of his lungs, and there was something about that, something about knowing that he was breathing the exact same air that Mikey had, that made Pete bring a hand to the small of Mikey’s back and pull him closer, needing more. Pete was panting a bit, little puffs of air that brought the stale smoke back outside, only for Mikey to breathe some of it back in.
They stayed like that for a while, not quite kissing but not quite apart, breathing each other’s air until the last of the smoke had drifted away, and then, then it went from zero to tongue in about three seconds.
They both rushed into it too fast, their noses bumping a bit, and they almost broke apart to giggle, but then Pete let his lips drift to Mikey’s jaw so he had room to pick Mikey’s glasses off his face and put them in the grass, and Mikey put out the joint to place it next to them, and then it was just the two of them and the ground. Mikey rolled on top of Pete and Pete let him, watching the clouds drift by as Mikey started to suck a bruise into his neck.
He could feel everything; every strand of Mikey’s hair threading through his fingers, every movement of Mikey’s lips and tongue, every inch of Mikey’s almost painfully bony body touching his. Pete had to shut his eyes so he could just take in all the sensation.
Mikey licked over the spot that Pete knew would be red for days before bringing his tongue back to Pete’s lips, and they both groaned into each other’s mouths. All sense of urgency was gone, and it was nothing but lazy slides of lips and the slow, gentle rocking of their hips against each other, not expecting, not promising, just present and perfect. Something in the far corner of Pete’s brain told him he should be writing all this down, a different, weirder corner wanted him to write it on Mikey’s bare back, but most of him was content to just suck on Mikey’s lower lip and idly wonder what Mikey’s hair would feel like without the interference of a flat iron.
It was a long time before they separated, but Pete couldn’t tell you just how long if he tried. It felt like days. But at some point in time, Mikey sat up, grabbed his glasses back, climbed off of Pete to press up against his side, and mumbled into his ear: “I’m starving.”
Pete laughed, and then there was a slow process of sitting up, standing up, holding each other up as Pete led him to the blanket where the other kids in the park were lounging around.
They were all laughing about something or another-the kids laughed a lot-when Pete interrupted with a “Heard you guys were having a picnic,” and sat down on the corner of the blanket, bringing Mikey with him.
“Food, yeah, food sounds awesome,” one of the kids-Brendon-said, opening up the basket in the center of the blanket like he’d forgotten it was there until just now. Pete liked the kids; you could always rely on them for food, weed, and fun. Mostly weed, though, as Pete had demonstrated within thirty seconds of introducing them-Brendon, Ryan, Spencer, and Jon the mastermind-to Mikey.
Brendon pulled more sandwiches and bowls of chips and pretzels out of the basket than should have fit, but Pete knew not to trust the size of anything in this place.
They all ate too fast, and Brendon put his head in Spencer’s lap, groaning dramatically about a stomachache and how dumb they were to pack so many salty snacks when his mouth felt like it was going to turn to sand.
“You packed the basket, asshole,” Ryan said, reaching back into the basket find enough water for everyone. He held Brendon’s bottle just out of his reach for a minute before finally giving in to his whining. Spencer snickered the whole time.
Pete lay back once he was done eating junk food and gulping down water, and the rest of them followed soon after (except for Brendon, who was already perfectly comfortable lying in Spencer’s lap). Pete was full, and almost totally sober, and Mikey was holding his hand, and it was quite possibly the best feeling in the world. Which was weird, considering the sober part.
~~~
On the fifth day (well, the fifth time Pete woke up, the sun didn’t really go down here), Pete said, “Let’s go see a magic show.”
“A magic show. With rabbits in hats and people getting sawed in half and everything?” Mikey looked at him skeptically over the top of his glasses, which were kind of skewed. Rolling down a hill with Pete did that.
“Yeah, kind of. He’s a terrible magician.” Pete brushed some dirt off his shoulder. Okay, a lot of dirt.
“And we’re seeing a terrible magician because…”
“Because there’s no movie theater here, and I feel like I should take you on a date that isn’t a stoned picnic.”
“We had a drunk picnic?”
“The beer was shitty, though. Remind me to never let Brendon bring the alcohol again.” Pete started to stand up, still a bit dizzy. The hill was pretty big.
He held out a hand to help Mikey up, and he didn’t let go as he started leading him to the little cabin in the middle of the field.
Mikey didn’t even blink when they opened the door to enter a theater at least five times the size of the cabin itself. They were both used to things that were bigger on the inside.
The show was as terrible as usual, and the whole audience laughed at the magician’s clumsy attempts at simple illusions, cards and feathers everywhere. Pete never let go of Mikey’s hand.
“That was the worst date,” Mikey said as they walked out the door, back into the sun.
“I know, right?” Pete grinned, squeezing his hand. Mikey squeezed back, then kissed him on the cheek.
~~~
“So, who was she?”
Mikey glanced over at Pete, which probably wasn’t a good idea, since there was a turn coming up, and they both nearly crashed their bikes into a tree.
“Who?” Mikey asked once they were both going straight and not crashing. He didn’t try to look at Pete again.
“The girl at the funeral.”
Mikey didn’t answer for a minute, suddenly looking very interested in the road ahead of them. Pete was about to push for an answer when Mikey started, “Helena. She traveled with us.”
“Yeah?” Pete hadn’t had a proper companion in a while. He knew what it was like to be alone in time and space, and it wasn’t the best place to be.
“Yeah.” Mikey didn’t say anything else for a while, and then: “So you don’t have anyone?”
Pete shrugged. “Used to. Ashlee, her name was. She…kind of went crazy.”
“Crazy as in, psycho ex-girlfriend crazy?”
“Crazy as in the last time I saw her she was in a straitjacket, babbling about giant Rubik’s cubes.”
“Oh.”
Pete glanced over. Mikey’s face had its usual blank expression, but just a little off, like he was forcing it that way.
“…You’re totally trying not to laugh.”
“I am not.” But opening his mouth gave away the smirk he was trying to hide.
“You totally are!”
“Okay, okay,” Mikey didn’t even try to cover up the little laugh that came out, “But seriously. Giant Rubik’s cubes?”
“Insensitive,” Pete said, trying to sound pained but ending up letting out a laugh instead. “You’re lucky I love you, I should be way more offended than I am.”
“Love me, huh?” Mikey said it slowly, like he was testing the words on his tongue.
Pete went silent for a while. Huh. He’d really said that.
He thought about it for a few minutes, just pedaling ahead, before finally answering. “Yeah. Yeah, I do.”
Mikey didn’t answer, but when Pete looked over out of the corner of his eye, he saw Mikey making his weird little smile-hiding face again.
~~~
There was a lot to do in the park, and plenty of time to do it. They went canoeing across the lake, rode the bikes they kept borrowing from the kids, went to see the terrible magician again (sometimes there were rabbits, and that was enough to bring Mikey back a few times), and listened to a lot of music until they fell asleep on each other in the grass. Instruments were scattered around the park like they grew out of the ground, and Brendon and his friends knew how to play most of them. Sometimes Pete or Mikey would pick up a guitar and strum a few chords, but most of the time they would just watch the kids.
“I haven’t showered in two weeks,” Mikey said one day, as if suddenly reminded of this fact by the smoke hitting his lungs. They were lying in the grass again, just letting the sounds of an accordion and Ryan’s voice wash over them. The noise was definitely easier to deal with while high.
“You don’t really need to,” Pete said, holding out a hand for the joint. “This place is…weird. We could swim naked in the lake, if you want.”
“I love how you say ‘we’ automatically.”
They did end up skinny-dipping in the lake, eventually. Brendon stole their shirts.
No one really complained.
~~~
“I love you too,” Mikey said, two months later. They were making out sober, which probably shouldn’t have been considered an interesting change of pace, but Jon had a lot of weed and a lot of generosity in his heart.
Pete pulled back from Mikey’s collarbone to look him in the eye. “Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
“Awesome,” Pete said, and started licking into Mikey’s mouth.
There wasn’t really anything else to say.
~~~
“How long have we been here again?” Pete asked, his fingers just dipping below the surface of the lake.
Mikey stopped rowing to look up at the sky, as if the clouds would turn into a calendar. “Dunno. Six months?”
“Doesn’t feel like it.”
“Yeah.”
They let the boat drift for a while, silently watching the clouds. Pete shut his eyes after a few minutes and heard the faint sound of kids-actual kids, ten years old or so-laughing and playing on the shore. He smiled.
“Six months,” he said with a sigh, “I always lose track of time in this place.”
“The weed probably doesn’t help,” Mikey pointed out.
Pete laughed. “Probably not. That and the sun not going down.”
“But mostly the weed.”
“Mostly, yeah.”
The boat shifted a bit, and Pete opened his eyes to see Mikey sitting up and grabbing back at the oars. “Is there anything else in this park you haven’t showed me?” he asked, slowly rowing them further away from the shore.
“Nothing special,” Pete admitted, “But there is a little grove or something over that way, lots of trees.” He tilted his head, and Mikey turned the boat to start heading in that direction.
“Awesome. Shade. It’s still weird, staying out in the sun this long and not getting burned.”
“I know, right? This place is like, paradise.” He’d never actually stayed here all that long; it was too quiet, too peaceful, and Pete just couldn’t deal with quiet and peaceful when there were other worlds with gang wars, or explosions, or wolves.
Mikey, though. Mikey was the deciding factor here.
There was a sudden lurch as the boat hit the shore, and they both climbed out to pull it up further so it wouldn’t drift away. Then Mikey took Pete’s hand, Pete squeezed his, and they walked together into the trees.
It was the darkest place Pete knew of in the whole park; the trees were thick enough that when you closed your eyes, you could see black instead of red. Nobody else was around, as far as he could tell, but there were blankets spread out every twenty feet or so.
“Did everyone abandon their picnics?” Mikey asked as he stepped around another blanket.
“Nobody puts them down here, I don’t think. They just kind of…are.” Pete shrugged. He never really tried to understand this place, it just gave him a headache.
“Oh. So no one will mind if we just commandeer one.”
Pete grinned, probably showing a few too many teeth. “No one at all.”
Mikey sat down at the next blanket they came across, pulling Pete with him. He was on top of Pete almost immediately, no booze or pot to slow him down, kissing him all over while Pete sighed and dug his fingers into Mikey’s hips.
“This the most privacy we’re going to get?” Mikey whispered, his lips barely brushing Pete’s ear.
“Probably.” Pete struggled to keep his voice steady. “Didn’t think you were such a prude, Mikeyway.”
“Just because I’m not as much of a fucking exhibitionist as you…” Mikey trailed off as Pete put his hands in his hair and started nipping at his jawline.
Then Mikey was working at Pete’s belt buckle, and they both decided that words weren’t really necessary for a while.
~~~
Before Pete could blink, it seemed like, two years had gone by.
“We could stay here forever,” Pete said into Mikey’s hair. They were in the grove again, naked and probably due for a dip in the lake, but Pete was content to keep up with the spooning until Mikey complained beyond the occasional grunt.
Mikey didn’t answer, just reached behind him to rub at the back of Pete’s thigh, humming happily.
“Until the end of time,” Pete continued, “Just the two of us and a whole lot of fucking around.”
“Emphasis on the fucking?” Mikey mumbled, pushing his head into the hollow of Pete’s throat.
“You know me too well.” Pete watched as a leaf fell a few feet away from their blanket. The leaves never seemed to drop too close to where they were lying-just another paradise thing, Pete guessed.
Pete kissed the top of Mikey’s head and sighed happily, his eyes falling shut. He could fall asleep like this, maybe stay here for days, just curled up around Mikey, breathing him in.
“Just the two of us,” Pete said again, quiet enough that he could barely hear his own voice, “Happily ever after.”
~~~
A month later, Mikey started disappearing.
Pete would wake up alone in the grass, fumbling for the body he’d fallen asleep next to and finding nothing. He’d wander around for a few minutes, calling Mikey’s name, only to find him sitting on the edge of the lake or the top of the hill. Whenever Pete asked why he’d left, Mikey would just shrug.
Today, though, he replied: “I wonder how Gerard’s doing.”
Pete had to sit quietly for a minute to try and remember who Gerard was.
“My brother, remember?”
Oh.
They didn’t talk about the worlds outside of this one. It wasn’t an agreement they’d made, just something that never came up, and they both seemed to understand that it wasn’t a subject that needed to come up. This was the first time either of them had mentioned it since they talked about their old companions.
“I know it won’t seem like any time had passed when I get back, but…still. It’s weird. I can’t remember ever being away from him this long.”
Pete nodded, but he didn’t answer.
Mikey looked at him expectantly, but Pete didn’t know what to say. He’d never been all that close to many people. Actually, he tried to avoid it when he could.
“I…guess that means forever’s out of the question, then,” Pete finally said. Mikey frowned, then nodded.
They didn’t go to the grove that day. They mooched some more shitty beer off of Brendon, but only drank half of it before falling asleep on each other.
~~~
The next three months went by slowly. They spent a lot of time with the kids, and some time away from each other. It was awful, being away from Mikey, but Pete thought that maybe giving him some space would help him think, make him want to stay longer.
But after three months, he couldn’t take it anymore, and he launched himself at Mikey as soon as he woke up and saw him at the top of the hill, right next to one of those giant nesting dolls. Mikey yelped, but he didn’t push Pete away, and they rolled all the way down the hill together in each other’s arms.
They were both laughing by the time they stopped, just giggling and shaking and clinging to each other like one of them might run away any second. Pete tried to kiss him, but they were both laughing too hard, so they let go of each other and lay back on the grass until they could both breathe again.
Mikey stopped laughing first, but he didn’t stop smiling, and he poked Pete in the side a few times, because he was a total bastard and was trying to kill Pete.
“Mikey-stop-seriously!” Pete wheezed, grinning until his cheeks felt like they were going to go numb.
Mikey hiccupped in response.
It was a few more minutes before Pete could manage words again. “So. Not forever.”
Mikey’s smile faltered, but didn’t drop completely. “Not forever.”
“But still now. And maybe a little longer.”
Mikey hiccupped again.
“Right?”
Mikey kissed him instead of answering. Pete didn’t press any further.
~~~
As if making up for the speed of the past three months, the next five went by faster than time had ever gone for Pete.
They smoked until Jon started to set (very lenient) limits on how much he would give them, drank until Brendon told them he was losing faith in how much his basket could hold, and went to the grove almost every day. They swam in the lake (sober), and listened to Ryan compose new songs (totally high). They counted every type of fish and bird that lived in the park, raced with the little kids down the hill, and even had Brendon teach them how to play an instrument or two. At least, Pete could make noise out of that weird trumpet-thing that didn’t sound all that much like a beached whale, and Mikey picked up on the kazoo pretty quickly.
They didn’t talk about leaving again. Pete wanted to believe that meant Mikey had changed his mind, that they really could be here forever, but then Mikey would look at him, stare as if trying to take a photograph with his mind and hold the moment forever. As if he wanted to look back on it later.
It made Pete want to scream, but he didn’t say anything. He was going to enjoy this until the end, dammit.
~~~
“It’s been three years.”
Pete barely understood him; he’d just woken up. “Wha?”
“Three years.”
Pete rubbed his eyes, trying to comprehend the words. They’d been running on Mikey’s internal clock the whole time, and while Pete hadn’t tested it or anything, he trusted it enough to know that if Mikey said three years, it had been three years. “Oh.”
“Yeah.”
They looked at each other for a while, not saying anything, not needing anything to say. Then Pete stood up, helped Mikey to his feet, and gripped his hand tightly.
They had fallen asleep in the grove again, so their clothes were rumpled, but wearable. The boat was waiting on the edge of the lake, and Mikey coaxed Pete’s hand into letting go so they could start pushing it into the water.
Pete rowed the whole way across the lake, in time with the sounds of someone singing along with a guitar-it sounded like Brendon. Mikey leaned back to watch the clouds.
When they reached the shore, they held hands as they marched to the top of the hill they hadn’t climbed since they had gone down it the first time.
The box looked the same as it had when they’d left it, albeit a bit dusty-looking. Pete stopped walking a few feet in front of the door and looked at Mikey.
“So.”
“Yeah.”
They kissed, and it wasn’t one of the slow, lazy kisses from before, or the rougher end-of-the-world kisses from recently, but it wasn’t quite a goodbye kiss, either. Pete stopped trying to categorize it and just tried to enjoy it once Mikey’s tongue started tangling with his.
Pete wanted to throw Mikey against the door, pin him there and never let go, but he didn’t.
Mikey had to be the one to pull back, to end the kiss. “Ready to leave?”
No. Never. “Yeah.” Pete opened the door.
~~~
Mikey took the controls on the way back, and managed to navigate them to twenty minutes after they had left, according to the screens. Pete didn’t say a word the whole time.
When they landed, Mikey went to the back of the room to find the bag he’d thrown at Pete, three years ago.
There was a set of clothes in there, just jeans and a band t-shirt, and Pete turned around while Mikey changed out of the dirty, grass-stained, somehow not-disintegrating clothes he’d been wearing all this time. They’d tried to wash their clothes in the lake, a few times, but it never seemed like they really needed to. Paradise.
“All right then,” Mikey said when he finished with the last button. “Guess this is my stop.”
“Yeah.” Pete went to Mikey, to kiss him, to hug him, anything, Pete didn’t know, and he ended up just looking awkwardly at his own shoes.
Mikey finally held out a hand. Pete took it immediately.
“See you in time.”
“See you in time.”
~~~
“I needed this anyway,” Pete told the empty room as he started twisting knobs and dials, just a bit more violently than he probably should. “Staying in one place that long, that’s crazy. I’m crazy. I need to go and, and cause a riot or something. Blow something up. Maybe hunt vampires.” He laughed, and ended up accidentally pulling a lever he probably shouldn’t have pulled. “Crazy, seriously.”
The ship lurched, and something fell over.
Pete looked behind him once he knew the whole thing wasn’t going to turn sideways, and there it was, like a sign from God, sliding across the floor. His bass, probably totally out of tune between the time and the clattering around in its case.
“Shit.”
Pete started readjusting the controls, because shit, how had he forgotten?
“I’m gonna be late for homecoming.”