I Hate My Ways

The thing, Pete knows, is that between the lines of kinship, written and hidden in looks masked by jokes and little punches to the arm, there is always going to be an ongoing contest. Between cousins, best friends, long-lost relatives, but most notably, between brothers. He doesn't understand it himself, no one without a brother close to their own age ever could, but he sees it. So that's why, when he finds Mikey Way--slumped up against his tour bus, an unlit cigarette cradled between his lips, hips pointing articulately out from his size-fucking-four pants--and declares him his best friend, he's not surprised when he finds himself face-to-face with Gerard Way, who, previously, he'd never even talked to. (Not counting pre-stage chatter, the time in between sets where all of the bands are hanging out, stressing out as one collective unit.)

At first, he's sure that he's in for The Talk. He's not stupid, he knows what's being said about him. And no big brother wants that for their little brother. Especially not Gerard--Gerard, who gave Mikey a place in his band when he couldn't play worth a shit and still couldn't, and who can be seen hanging on to Mikey like a leech when the scenery is less than pleasant. He probably thinks that Pete's going to fuck him. And Pete would, except he just bought Mikey a friendship bracelet, and that concludes that he doesn't need to mix Mikey in with the list of People to Avoid at Parties.

It was a nice bracelet, it was plastic and had little white unicorns dancing on a string. And Pete had written his name on it with a green sharpie.

Gerard doesn't seem angry at all, though. He's not--he's not seething, at least, but does have a fierce little smirk playing, and Pete can't help but stiffen a little at it. It's not like he's going to fuck Gerard either, because the Ways come as a package, and he very well can't go and fuck his Best Friend's brother. His breath catches as he's backed into a corner, can't stop the vignette playing through his mind of how Gerard might look just bruising him, leaving his mark on Pete's back in small finger-shaped smudges. Biting his neck in broad daylight.

"Hey," Gerard says, and Pete winces, prepares for the inevitable 'stay away from my fucking brother'.

Instead, Gerard's smirk loses it's bite and he scratches the back of his head, further tangling the mess of black his hair's become. "You wanna go get a drink?" His eyebrow cocks behind the sheet of bangs, over challenging green eyes. Pete thinks quietly of a game of Russian Roulette. The barrel's to his head, and he already knows the outcome.

"Yes, yes."

*

No. He wakes up the next morning in his own bunk, cozy and cohabitant. The pillow's a mess of tangled black hair and closed eyes. He traces the lines of veins on Gerard's rouged eyelids until a tiny tongue pokes out from in between cracked lips and Gerard wakes up, staring at him with big, dull dark eyes.

"Um," he says, glancing from the side of his eye up to the ceiling. "We--" He licks his lips again--Pete really wishes he wouldn't--and pulls the blanket up far enough to see his own body. "Yeah, that's what I thought," he sighs.

Pete shrugs. He likes Gerard, oddly enough. He likes counting the freckles on his nose as the sun slices over his early-morning sleepy face, and so he doesn't want to make this any more awkward than it already is. He wants to be able to look Gerard in the eyes next time he goes to the MCR bus to hang out with Mikey.

"Man, were we drunk," and he smiles lopsidedly, proudly. Gerard smiles back and slides onto his back.

Alcohol is the best excuse.

Never mind that they were both sober when it was planned. That, from the instant Gerard asked, both knew how it was going to end.

"Want some breakfast? There's a Denny's across the street."

Gerard glances out the window momentarily, and Pete gives him the time to figure out if he wants to have breakfast with the guy who fucked him last night. Pete knows that if they do end up having breakfast together, he's going to be biting his tongue and trying not to giggle the whole time, but if they don't they weren't going to be able to act civil around each other at all.

"Yeah, sure."

"Okay." Pete moves to get up, despite being on the inside of the bunk, but his phone gets him out of trying to figure out how to get out without touching Gerard's bare chest. He reaches for his sidekick reflexively without checking the ID and answers.

"Pete?"

"Oh, hi Mikey."

Fate loves to piss on Pete's face.

"Have you seen my brother?"

He glances over at Gerard's body, pale and naked under the covers. He's reaching over for something on the ground and Pete wants to bite at his shoulderblades. Gerard's turning him into a fucking vampire. He coughs and nods, then answers verbally after he realizes that Mikey can't see him.

"Oh, yeah. He's here, we're gonna go to Denny's and get food."

"Oh." He can feel Mikey's confusion over the phone. "Why?"

"Humans need food, Mikeyway." And he knows the next words out of his mouth are a bad, bad idea, but no, he can't stop them. "You want to come?"

Gerard jerks back up and gives Pete a warning look. It's too late, though, because Mikey's already agreed and is on his way over to their bus.

Pete smacks Gerard's thigh under the blanket and gives him a grin. "Get dressed, Gerard. I don't want you to scar Mikey."

"He's seen me naked before," Gerard says, and it almost sounds like another challenge.

"Okay, then. Next time, a threesome."

Pete giggles and hops out of the bunk stark naked, leaving Gerard behind still sputtering.

*

Meeting his girlfriend's parents in his senior year as an effeminate boy in a band wasn't as awkward as sitting across from Mikey and Gerard in one of the poofy red booths in Denny's. Gerard kept looking over at him and blushing, and fuck if it wasn't cute. Pete tried to hold down a conversation with Mikey about the importance of naked chicks in horror flicks, but every once in a while he'd look at Gerard and catch him tucking a little strand of black hair behind his ear and looking down or smiling and looking out the window.

"Dude, are you stoned?" Mikey asks after catching him zoning out again. He cuts right through Pete's daydream about tugging Gerard into the Women's room and screwing around on the baby-changing table.

"I might be..." Pete answers dreamily.

"They're putting mind-control drugs in the salt, Mikes, I told you!" Gerard insists, nudging his brother pointedly. His eyes widen suspiciously and he takes several glances around the room, surveying several small groups of families and one table of teens whispering and nudging each other. The way his hands flail around erratically, tipping over the table salt and bumping Mikey's shoulder, really shouldn't be as endearing as it is, Pete knows, but--

At this point, nothing about Gerard should be this attractive. He's Mikey's older brother, for God's sake. Right now, he is sitting across from Pete with the remnants of last night's make up smeared across a cheek (and, if Pete can bare to think about it, on his tongue, he was pretty sure he and Gerard did some fucked up things last night), his hair's a mess of tangled black tentacles curling and congealing in sweat and maybe some mud, and he's nibbling on the side of a piece of toast while complaining about the food. In all honesty, Pete should be annoyed.

"But they give us the choice of whether or not we have to eat the salt," Pete butts in when he finds a lull in the on-going fight between the Ways. Gerard frowns at Mikey and then pouts at Pete, like it will change his mind. "But--I guess they could just be using the salt on the table as a cover up..." Pete mutters, ashamed of himself. He leans on his knuckles and tries not to look at Gerard's eyelashes as they touch down on his cheek.

That's his problem. Pete's always looking for the beauty in things. He can't even focus on the way Gerard and Mikey smell most of the time, the way Gerard's pudge bulges over the sides of his pants a little bit when he walks, the way he slurs and spits everywhere when he's drunk. All he sees is Mikey's bones and Gerard's skin and their voices permeating in the air as they walk back across the street arguing about the sun.

He sort of hopes no one else can see those things. He wants to believe that he's the only one capable of seeing past the caked-on tour mask to the real beauties the Ways were. Both of them, not just Gerard, who was in the limelight more often than his looked-over brother. Mikey is just as great, he's Pete's best friend. They share stories and shirts and glasses, and there's no one else that Pete does those types of things with. His other friends are more sated with the physical side of Pete.

But is Gerard really a friend? They...they fucked. They had drunken (premeditated) sex in his bunk, the same bunk that he and Mikey had painted each other's nails in that same morning. (He's serious. That's what best friends do.)

"Pete..." He looks up to see Mikey trailing behind his brother who's off on a tangent about orange juice and whether or not the acidic qualities of it could rot his teeth out. Pete actually listens to it while jogging to catch up with the younger brother in question and falls into step alongside him. He likes to mismatch his steps with whoever he's walking beside, so he hops until his left foot is moving forward juxtaposed to the time when Mikey's right foot is hovering over the asphalt. The pitter-patter of the disjointed steps sounds like chaos.

A few steps ahead, Gerard's feet fall in place at the same pace as Pete's.

He tries not to think of symbolism or the noise their steps make. Together.

*

"So, Pete."

Gerard's grin is feral the next time he catches Pete in a room alone. Oddly enough, it's in the MCR bus. Mikey's out. Out serenading the techie who stole his heart, or however he put it to Pete on the phone earlier, and the rest of his band aren't social shut-ins like Gerard seems to be. They go out and live while Gerard stays inside and gets drunk off of his own personal bottle of rum.

Pete wouldn't have come if. If there was a better way to pass his time on tour. He's sure.

Gerard waggles the bottle in front of Pete's face and giggles.

"Want any?"

Pete has the same feeling as before. Russian Roulette all over again. You'd think, after they got through the first round alive, any sane person would stop. No way was someone going to take that risk again, not without a whole lot of faith or a death wish.

Pete doesn't have faith.

He reaches out for the bottle, curling his fingers around both the smoky brown bottle and Gerard's wet fingers. They're warm and the bottle's cold and he wants to suck Gerard's fingers into his mouth and bite on them a little bit but he's not inebriated enough. Yet. Instead he takes great gulps and closes his eyes against the burn and fizzle he feels surge throughout his own body. Stars appear on his closed eyelids, a laser show set to the background music of radio static and the hoots of drunken bands outside the bus.

He hears the flick of a lighter and suddenly the hoots are louder, clearer, the fog taken down so Pete feels like he is in the middle of a crowd and not stuck in an empty bus with his Best Friend's Brother.

With. With Gerard.

Gerard has moved to the couch when Pete opens his eyes. His knees are digging into the cushions and his elbows are resting on the back of the couch and he's blowing cigarette out the open window, waving with the lit end when someone calls out to him. He turns around with a bright grin.

"I don't like to make the bus all smokey," he replies sheepishly to Pete's wondering gaze. "S'not good for Frankie when he gets sick." He knee-walks himself off the couch and stubs the cigarette out in a ceramic tray with trees scratched into the bowl by a pen.

"But he smokes when he's sick, so I don't know why I continue it."

"You like the repetition?" Pete supplies quietly. He can feel his heart speed up when Gerard grins over at him and he doesn't like it. It's too foriegn for him. Not, not that foriegn always means bad, but this is bad. Because he's walking over to where the forementioned grin is, leaning up to it. It leans down in agreement of what is about to come.

Gerard snakes his arms around Pete and holds him while they kiss. It's something that girls won't do. They won't press into Pete with their whole body and try to overwhelm them, they won't go at it sloppy like Gerard. He just licks and bites and groans and that's what Pete really wants right now, some unstructured making out.

He thinks he tastes blood before he's being tugged forward until he collapses into Gerard's lap on the couch, his legs tucked in between Gerard's and his arms fastened to his shoulders. Gerard's mouth is warm and tangy and it hurts when he grabs Pete's top lip between his teeth but Pete just dips his head down lower, pressing more definitely into Gerard's figure. His hands drop and fist into Gerard's shirt, pulling at it without any real purpose because Gerard's just about as close to him as two people can get.

"Hey, hey," Gerard mumbles through the kiss. Pete can feel his lips curling up into a smile against his and mimics the expression. He squeaks when Gerard's hand slips up under his shirt and thumbs his belly button. "You're real cute," is whispered onto his lips like it's a secret, like Pete hasn't heard it before. Like he's not Pete Wentz of Fall Out Boy.

It makes his heart flip. Because this is Gerard calling him cute. It's not a girl shouting that he is hot from the crowd, it's not a t-shirt with his face on it, it's Mikey's brother just saying that he is cute like it's perfectly normal. A giggle bubbles up in his throat and comes out more strangled than cute, but it's not like he has the space to let the giggle echo. It gets caught in Gerard's mouth and makes him smile down at Pete.

"So cute."

Pete blushes and looks away, down at where Gerard's hands are fused into his shirt. He slips a hand over Gerard's, fitting his fingers into Gerard's, encompassing his hand. Gerard's fingers are so long and thin, and he wants them, wants to do something, anything with them. To nibble on them, to fit them into his back pockets, to let them just crawl up his stomach like they were doing.

He returns Gerard's smile and shakes his head. "Only because you're drunk."

"...I'm not drunk."

Pete wants to call bullshit. Gerard wavers when he stands, he has the taste of strong liquor on his tongue when it curls around his own, biting, acidic, addictive. He's not sober, not. Pete doesn't want him to be. If they're sober this'll all go to shit and stop. If he's sober their buffer is gone and this is real and they'll label it and be miserable. Pete's never had a relationship that wasn't full of rules, and this. This was his chance to break free from that as long as they can play this charade behind the mask of alcohol.

"Sure, sure," he plays, leaning down to lick at Gerard's bottom lip. It's vulgar. It's. It's them. The response is immediate, Gerard tugging on Pete's lip desperately, arms slipping up the plane of his back to pull him down hard. Their teeth mash together, the shared alcohol on their breath mixing and intoxicating further, and Pete closes his eyes. From up close, it's too easy for him to get lost in some imaginative beauty he could create. Like, oh god, Gerard's skin. Or his eyelashes, or the pathetic stubble that's trying to grow on his face, or his nose. Anything.

And if he's going to start associating everything about Gerard with beauty, he's already fucked.

With a hand on Pete's back, Gerard carefully maneuvers them, climbing over Pete until he's on his back and Gerard's above him, kissing and biting his lips. Pete lets his legs fall apart, inviting Gerard to fit himself in between them and he does, filling the space with warm body heat. He leans further down, splaying his body out on top of Pete and laying as a dead weight, his lips the only part he is willing to move.

"You're comfy," he tells Pete, snuggling his face into Pete's neck. "Like," he yawns, "a huge pillow with a dick, or something."

Pete thinks that's one of the nicest things he's ever been called. It's infinitely depressing. To most, he's a joke. To Gerard, he's a fuck buddy/pillow. He can totally live with that. As long as his fuck buddy isn't trying to fall asleep on him in the middle of a tour bus where anyone can walk in and see them and tell Mikey. Or chuck things at them. That'd be just as sucky.

"Yeah, well your pillow's dick is being neglected," Pete says, nudging his hips under the weight of Gerard.

"Oh. Oh yeah." He sounds like he just got it, and leans up with one hand on the couch's armrest supporting his body. The warmth of his body is still close enough for Pete to feel, for him to press upwards against. From the open window Pete hears someone yelling at someone else and winces.

"Close that, will ya?" he nods toward the window, and Gerard stumbles over himself to close it, shutting out the noises of someone giving someone else an atomic wedgie.

"Better?" Gerard asks, and kisses Pete before he can answer. A hand sneaks into his pants without warning and Pete whimpers into Gerard's mouth, silently grateful for the noise barrier. The hand curls around his dick without any pretense, getting right to work inside his pants. The denim rubs on his skin harshly and he has to--against his better wishes--pop off of Gerard's mouth and grab his arm.

"Hey, hey," he says quietly, kissing Gerard again. He is just trying to get him off, and that's a little valiant. "Slow down, okay?"

Gerard licks his lips and nods, using his elbows to pick himself up enough to fiddle with the button on Pete's pants. He can't get them undone one-handed, which surprises Pete. He figures that Gerard slept with loads of guys, even though he hadn't really heard anything about it. And normally those are the things that get around, but Gerard had always seemed to fly below the radar on tour. He's always holed up somewhere, so there's never much to say about him.

"Pete," he whimpers, nudging at his Pete's cheek with his nose. "Help?"

Pete laughs, because fuck, that's cute. Pete helps, flipping his own button open first, then Gerard's. He's slipping his pants down to his hips when the reality of where they are and how open they are to attack sets in.

"Let's go to your bunk, kay?" He tugs at Gerard's shoulder a little until he groans and sits up on his knees. He acts like it's quiet a feat, stretching his arms high above his head and sighing with relief. Pete hears the pops in Gerard's shoulders and rolls his eyes. He's so fucking dramatic and drunk and stupid, why? Why does Pete always go for the idiots.

Gerard sighs and crawls to his feet while trying to remain stretching, ending up with his shirt somewhere above his belly button and a little trail of hair peeking out, leading down into his unbuttoned pants. And, well. It's not that hard for Pete to understand after all why he wants Gerard.

Gerard extends his hand with a small smile on his lips, sleep in his dull, glass eyes.

Pete's insides twist uncomfortably. He understands completely.

*

The third time (and fourth, if he's counting individual times and not the encounters as a whole) happens at The Used's CD release party. Pete's been watching Gerard from across the room all night. Watching him put his arm around Bert and blow raspberries on his cheek, watching him laugh with Frank and Adam Lazzara, and. He doesn't like it. Does not.

So, you know, it's not like he's crazy for the guy. It's strictly a friends-with-benefits thing, by-passing the 'friend' part. Because they don't hang out unless it leads to sex, and in Pete's experience, friends hang out without ending up with a dick in their ass. Most of the time.

Okay, so he doesn't have a name for what he and Gerard are, but he doesn't need one. He can go by feelings alone, and right now, his blood is being replaced with oil. He wants to punch Bert's lights out, fuck if it's his party or not. That's Pete's Gerard, so he figures it will be justified.

Mikey stays at his side for most of the party, thankfully. He swings his arm around him, hands him drinks, tells him how Alicia hates Bert and refused to come to the party, so Mikey is free tonight.

"Oooh, we should do dirty things, then," Pete says, jabbing Mikey in the ribs. It might be the first time he's kidding. Maybe. Maybe he's just distracted, because Mikey still looks like sex to him, just. He doesn't want to get into his pants anymore, that's all.

Mikey laughs, whiny and self-conscious despite the beer in his hand and the three already in his system. "Oh, totally. Only, you know, Alicia would chop my balls off. And I sort of like them," he says loftily.

"Yeah, me too."

"Shut up."

"You shut up."

"Your mom."

"Your mom's dick."

They make no sense. Pete loves it. He loves Mikeyway. But. The urge to fuck him has disappeared. It's fucking with his head.

*

It's late, and the party has relocated outside the bar; Bert tried to light one of his farts on fire and, apparently, that is the kind of thing that will get you thrown out of a groddy bar in the middle of nowhere. Pete sitting with his back leaning on the cold wall of the building, phone out in his lap. Pat's asking where he is, why he isn't in the bus by now, and that's not really something that Pete can answer without getting worried that Patrick will be offended.

Pete's not the kind of guy who has to be alone. The more the merrier, seriously. But in there, in the bar, he didn't want to be around anyone. He still doesn't. It still doesn't make sense, nothing makes sense anymore. He closes his eyes and decides not to think about it anymore, to just exist in the dark alone, cold, and trying to think of something to tell Patrick.

"Hey." A body sinks down the wall next to his, and the weight of a head falls on his shoulder. "You okay?"

"Yeah," Pete says, folding his knees to rest against his chest. "Just. I don't know. I'm not lonely enough." He stops to twist his head and look at Gerard, smiling. "That doesn't make sense, does it?"

"Nope," Gerard pops, grinning. "But I don't ever get lonely, so I think it's a normal feeling...do you want me to leave you alone?"

"No, no." He shoves his face into Gerard's neck, not really giving a shit about personal space. What with the whole 'they've had sex' thing. "Stay here."

"M, okay." Gerard doesn't hesitate to answer, hooking one leg over Pete's and grinning down at him.

"Dork," Pete says, and wonders when Gerard turned into Mikey.

"You like it," Gerard says with a little nip to the top of his ear.

Pete does. Oh. So does. He tilts his head to the side so that maybe Gerard will keep going. Or definitely. Gerard's sort of a sure thing when it comes to this. At least he has the security of knowing that he is one of the guys who have slept with this pretty fucking kid sitting on the ground beside him.

"So hey," Gerard says, slipping a still-hesitant arm around Pete's shoulders. "Bert's having a bonfire tomorrow night. Um." Gerard kisses him on the cheek so lightly Pete has to wonder if it really wasn't an accidental brush of his lips. "You can come if you want to."

Pete's smile is bittersweet. "Bert's kind of wild. He's not thinking of sacrificing...me, right? I can so see that. Dancing around my incinerated body..."

At Gerard's laughter Pete's heart falters for a few beats and he smacks at the leg looped over his own. "Hey, I'm not kidding! He's totally creepy! You can't see him doing something like that to me?"

"He won't."

"Is that a promise or a clairvoyant prediction?" Both are nice reassurances.

"Both." It's uncanny. Pete nods like everything the two of them say is making sense to him (in a way it is, but it's a way--and a Way--that he doesn't need to be thinking about right now) and melts into Gerard's side. "It's sometimes a burden, being all-knowing as it is, but I do always know when the coffee is fresh. And when someone's not in the bathroom."

"Very useful gift you have there, Gerard."

"I think I'll use it to fight crime."

"And you can call yourself the Clairvoyant Miss Minnelli," Pete laughs, circling his arms around Gerard's waist. And he wonders if everyone is this warm, or if it's just Gerard.

"Masculine Clairvoyant Miss Minnelli, thank you very much."

"Having a dick doesn't make you masculine."

"Wow, this is the weirdest conversation to walk in on," Patrick says from the shadows, and it takes Pete a moment to really decide in his mind that it is Patrick and not a shape-shifter in the guise of Patrick. "Or, well, it's you two, so maybe I should have expected weirder."

Pete doesn't have the willpower to pull himself away from Gerard, and Gerard doesn't make a move to pry him off. He's pretty sure Pat's known from the beginning about the thing they have going on, so it's not a big deal.

"I was worried about you, loser," Patrick says as he sits down on Pete's free side. "Should have told me you were with Gerard. At least then I would have known you weren't hurt."

"Because I'm an awesome superhero and can protect people, right?" Gerard asks brightly.

Patrick frowns, and Pete's all set to jump in and defend his...whatever the hell Gerard is to him right now, which has to be something really personal by this point, they have bonded, but Pat's frown flips and he reaches out to scruff Gerard's hair.

"Oh," he says, like he's having an epiphany outside a crappy club in the middle of nowhere with two guys who can't decide what they were.

"Oh?" Pete asks, to be sure.

"I was wondering why you'd bother risking so much by doing this. This..." Patrick makes a vague hand movement between the two of them, "whatever's going on here. I sort of get it."

"Enlighten us?" Gerard asks quietly, planting his chin on Pete's shoulder and looking over at Patrick.

"I would, but I don't understand all of this."

"This?" Pete asks, leaning back into Gerard's arms, the action almost a question itself. To himself and to everyone around them, because if there was a this to discuss, it might be beneficial to be a little drunker. Patrick nods to it, anyhow, and makes another hand movement that Pete doesn't understand.

"I don't really want to know too much. Just. Does Mikey know?"

Pete wonders sometimes if Patrick was born with this straight-shooter attitude. It'd be a hoot to time-travel and meet pre-pubescent Patty.

"Nope."

"You think you should tell him? This does affect him, you know."

"It hasn't so far," Gerard points out, and Pete can feel the brush of eyelashes on his jaw.

"You two going to fuck for the whole tour, or have you thought that far ahead?"

"Premeditated sex is sooo 1984," Pete mumbles with a flourish of his arm, shooing away his own thoughts. Because yeah, he had thought that far ahead. And the outlook was not so positive for himself. It mainly involved him finding Gerard with some other boy and spending the rest of his time holed up in his bunk whimpering over a romance that really wasn't. "It's not like we have meetings about this, Pat. We're not all as organized as you."

Patrick huffs and looks close to eating Pete's brains out. He says nothing, but Pete knows what he's saying. Insinuating, at least. Pete was always the one most likely to jump off of a cliff for the thrill. And maybe, just maybe, he is right about this. Maybe it is the thrill that Pete needs. But. But if that's so--this doesn't feel so much like an adrenaline rush as a spark. An electric ringing pouring through his veins, and it has to be different. Maybe it's not what Pete needs, but he likes it and he's willing to take it as far as he can for as long as it feels like this.

"Not about sex at least," Gerard says, dopey grin painted on his face when Pete glances up at the weird-ass boy he freaks out over.

"Only about what kind of superhero Gerard should be," Pete agrees, and leans up, twisting his body around to kiss Gerard. Gerard's cold hands slip around Pete's face, thin fingers fitting into his jaw neatly. Vaguely, Pete hears Patrick's departure (dispersed with a rehearsed gag and an offhand comment about the emptiness of the Fall Out Boy bus) and slips his tongue past Gerard's tiny teeth.

*

Pete should have known that the day would come when he was faced with such a dilemma. Well no. A few weeks ago, he would have been all over the pretty boy in his lap, but not now. He can't do it. His arms slip around the narrow waist but go no further, settling on his hips in what Pete hopes is an innocuous way.

"...and anyways, she was there, with fucking Gabe! What am I supposed to think? So I go up to her, and I ask her what the fuck is going on, and she--God, Pete, she acted like we aren't even dating!" Mikey spat angrily, throwing his arms out, narrowly missing Ray as he ducked to get past the couch.

"I'm sorry, Mikeyway. I don't know what to say," Pete muttered meekly, snuggling into the bony back, keeping his eyes away from the ripples of spine showing through the fucking tight shirt Mikey has to wear. "Just, you know, the normal shit about how she's not worth it, and I'm sure you don't want to hear that. Oh! You know what I can tell you? You're a sexy beast."

Mikey giggles and leans back into Pete. "Yeah? Tell me more."

And yes, this part was normal. Pete flirts with Mikey, Mikey--normally refuses all advances with a cheeky grin and sometimes fake promises, but Pete's afraid that this was taking a turn for the serious. Mikey never asks to hear Pete go on about him.

"You're the bass player of My Chemical Romance. Who doesn't want to hit that? Dude, go get you some. Take your mind off all this. Frank!" Pete yells as Frank's ducking the flailing arms of a depressed Mikeyway. "You'd do Mikey, right?"

"Pete!"

He oofs at the elbow lodged in his kidneys and gives an apologetic squeeze on Mikey's ribs.

"Sorry. Frank, you'd make sweet, passionate love to Mikeyway if you could, right?" Pete asks, dodging Mikey's attacks. Frank laughs--giggles, dude, Frank has a sweet laugh and sometimes Pete wants to tickle him--and nods.

"Oh, oh I'd totally tap that," he says nonchalantly and goes on with his business, which involves running to the kitchen and popping open a can of beer.

"See? See that, he totally would. Only he's busy."

"Well, what about you?" Mikey asks, and Frank chokes on his beer. Laughing, the little fucker. Laughing, sputtering, and wiping his mouth on the back of his hand. His eyes are alight with glee at Pete's expense. "What--what's so funny?" Mikey asks blankly.

Frank's laugh dies off eerily fast. "Wait. You. You don't know?"

"Frank," Pete growls, leaning out from behind Mikey to glare daggers. Daggers and lightsabers and little arrows with poison at the ends.

"No, Pete--seriously?"

"What's going on?" Mikey asks, much more irritably than last time.

Frank says, "Pete has a boyfriend," at the same time Pete flings a pen at Frank's head (and misses).

He leans back into the smelly cushions of the couch and wants to disappear. Because first of all, how does everyone know about this? Secondly, he isn't--is he?--Gerard's boyfriend, and. Mikey is sitting in his lap, turned around, listening attentively, waiting for Pete to spill everything like he usually does when he gets a new plaything.

Pete glances up at Mikey through his eyelashes and pouts. "He's not my boyfriend," he grumbles.

"Who's not your boyfriend?"

"Everyone."

Mikey rolls his eyes and turns back around. "Frank, who is Pete's boyfriend?"

"Oh, wow." Frank looks like he doesn't know whether to laugh or take pity on Mikey. "This is awkward."

It really is. Pete wants to leave, since Mikey doesn't seem to be too concerned with his cheating non-girlfriend at the moment, because the next thing that will happen has got to be Gerard walking in and getting offended that people think Pete is his boyfriend. Pete turns his eyes to the door, just waiting for it to happen.

"Pete, seriously, what the hell is going on? Frank? PETER!" Mikey takes him by both shoulders and shakes him violently. "Tell meeee!" Meanwhile, Frank the giggling traitor is doing what he does best--giggling. Holding on to the side of the little counter in the kitchen and shaking with laughter.

"Frank Iero, I'm going to skin you alive!" Pete yells over Mikey's interrogating, squirming around to try a vain attempt at shaking Mikey off his lap. "Mikey, let me up, I have to kill your guitar player. You really only need Toro anyways, he's better."

Frank looks slightly put out. "Oh, ow. That was mean." Puts on a huffy front, crossing his arms over his chest and maybe flexing his muscles, Pete can't tell with all the swirling colors going on. "I am a very intricate part of this band, thank you very much."

"The only thing you're good for is riling up your fans by making out with Gerard onstage!" Pete inhales a sharp breath after he hears what just came out of his mouth. He never realized before, but he's sort of jealous of Frank. It just hit him on the side of the head. Sure, he's seen MCR perform quite a few times, but he always assumed that little spurt of dislike for Frank was because he could actually play.

Frank steps away from the counter and blinks at Pete. "Pete..."

He has to stop this now. "No, okay? No, just--fuck, Mikey, let me up, okay?"

"What's going on?" Mikey asks again, noticeably less eager than before, the tension of the situation impossible to ignore. Sounds hesitant to know now, like he knows that something wrong is going on and the fear of being exposed clenches at Pete's chest.

Before Pete has to go on anymore, he fucking shoves Mikeyway--his Best Friend, man, and it's got to mean something that he would stoop to mistreating his Mikeyway just to get away from the subject of boyfriends or non-boyfriends or people Pete thinks that he's secretly crazy for--off his lap and pops up. "Frank..." He sputters for words, something vindictive and biting and so great that it would prompt Mikey to yell out 'burn' even in his confusion. "Fuck you," he spits weakly, heading for the door.

He can't be sure that the second he leaves Frank is going to tell Mikey, but it seems likely, because as he's stepping out the door he sees in his peripheral vision a short little blob of assholery moving towards the couch that the still stunned Mikey is still sitting at the foot of.

He steps out into the dirty air of wherever the tour has moved to--somewhere hot and sticky, Pete's so out of his element here. His eyeliner runs if he spends more than five minutes out in the humid air. With a shock, he notices Gerard crouching at the side of The Used's bus, painting. An easel leaned against the metal siding, and a mash of colors was appearing on the white board.

Pete manages to gulp down his anger and walk over to Gerard calmly with minimal twitching. He's met with the quick twist of Gerard's head and a sweet kiss.

"Hey, Pete. What color do you think needs to be here?" Gerard points to a long vertical streak of burgundy and looks to Pete like he expects an answer.

"Goldenrod, dude." The best named color in the universe right after razzmatazz.

Gerard lights up and kisses him again. He dips the orange end of a paintbrush into garish yellow, and when he touches it to the easel it's goldenrod. "Oh, that's perfect. Thanks."

Pete smiles so hard he thinks his face is going to get stuck that way. "No problem. What's it supposed to be?" And Pete realizes belatedly with a little horror that it could sound like he thinks Gerard's not a good painter.

Instead of taking it as a criticism, Gerard pokes his tongue out the side of his mouth and dips a black tipped brush into the white. "An airplane. Want to help?" he asks, holding out a clean paintbrush with glee written over his features. Pete takes it hesitantly, not wanting to disturb Gerard's smile.

"I don't want to mess it up."

"You won't, dude. Just paint--it's just a relaxing exercise."

He cuts Gerard a nervous smile and leans down, dipping the brush into a nice pool of lime green.

Quietly, he sighs and looks up at Gerard. "I think Frank might be telling Mikey about us right now."

There's no reaction. No visible reaction, at least. Gerard only paints a swatch of gray and hums, but his words are ominous. "If Mikey tells us to stop, would you do it?"

Pete thinks it's a little unfair. "I wouldn't want to. But. Mikey is my best friend, and I don't want him to hate me. "

"So you'd pick him over me," Gerard says moodily.

"It's a different context, Gerard. I mean...you and me are completely different from me and Mikey."

"You'd still pick him, Pete."

"I'm not picking him! I just said I wouldn't want to! I'd be miserable if he told us to stop." Pete fiddles with the bottom of his shirt and swipes some green onto the canvas to distract himself. "But--I mean, what about you? Mikey is your brother and your bandmate. You can't say you'd pick me over him. And I wouldn't ask you to because I don't want to mess with family."

Pete looks up at Gerard, at the fine skim of eyelashes peeking out from the curtain of black hair and his lips drawn into a pout. "I'd pick you," he says softly.