Nights Like These

He's standing in line beside a decisively not twenty-one year-old Frank Iero, fake I.D. twisting in his hands. He thinks that no one's ever going to let them into this place, this dingy, shitty club nestled in between a bakery and a 24-hour pharmacy. There's grime on the brick wall he's leaning on and two people down someone's barfing on someone else's shoes. Frank bounces in place beside him, all energy and hormones and generally what a sixteen year-old boy should be. Nah. No one in their right minds is going to let them inside.

"Oh, dude," Frank moans, gripping onto Mikey's arm. "This is going to kick so much ass. We're, dude, nightclub!" He motions to a group of girls who make Mikey's stomach knot up. "I'm going to get laid at least fourteen times before I'm leaving," he swears, waving his fingers at the girls and grinning.

The girls, all but two, wave back and smile, giggling. Someone's noticed them already, the glitter must be paying off.

Mikey cuts a glance up at the guy who's checking the I.D.s. He's big and fucking masculine and looks like he could break both of them in two using only his pinky. But he's not going to tell Frank that they can't get in. That's like kicking a puppy.

The line moves as a coercive unit, one that Mikey's completely not a part of because he only slides down the wall when Frank prompts him and the guy behind him gives him a little push. It's like the doctor's office. He doesn't really want to get to the end, has no desire to be turned down and have all the people behind him laugh at him and have to hear Frank bitch the whole walk home.

"No, seriously, I am completely in a band..."

Mikey tunes into the world long enough to hear Frank going on about his non-existent band. Then Frank's arm is around his shoulders and he's bending down under the weight. "And Mikey here, he's the guitar player."

And that's just a lie, but what here isn't?

*

At the end of the line, the guy takes a peek at their I.D.s and motions them into the club. Mikey thinks that his heart is going to explode, but from what, he's not sure. Frank has a death grip on his waist and the fumes of the nightclub hit him strongly as he walks through the police tape they have over the door. It's pungent and acidic and a year's worth of cigarettes all balled up into one. The main floor is a sea of sweat and hair.

Mikey wants to leave already.

Instead, he is maneuvered into a corner by Frank and they wait for a break in the swarm of people at the bar. When there is one, Frank takes the ten Mikey fists into his hand and dives in. The lady at the bar is smiling at Frank, at him and his painfully obvious excitement and leans over to say something to him. Frank nods, twists his head to answer her, and returns with two drinks.

"Oh, I am so in love with this place. Let's never leave and grow old here," Frank shouts over the music, grabbing Mikey by the neck and leaning in too close. "She," he motions to the girl at the bar who's moved on to the next one in line with his cup, "gave me free drinks. Because I'm adorable."

"Um." Okay. Okay, so Frank's pretty taken with this place and Mikey's melting into the walls. Great. But next to Frank, he's always going to be the ugly friend. It's the norm and it's okay. He takes the drink Frank shoves at him and doesn't take a second to down it. It burns, it kills his throat. A thousand lighters are going off in his body all at once and immediately after he coughs.

"Slow down, man. Don't want to get wasted too early on."

Words of wisdom and then Frank's off, disappearing into the thriving, pulsing, sweating core of the building. Mikey has a fleeting desire to grab Frank and pull him back into the corner because he's so small and that crowd looks vicious, but. But he doesn't. Instead he goes up to the bar, leans in, and waits to be noticed.

It's always a waiting game, trying not to look too desperate for attention even though he is sort of desperate to move away, far away so there's not an elbow jabbing into his waist and it doesn't feel like a thousand eyes all on him, weighing him up, finding him wholly unspectacular. The girl doesn't lock eyes with him, instead moves to the tall guy leaning over him, asking what he wants.

Mikey follows her gaze, craning his neck up to see a long neck and an outstretched hand with a twenty clutched in it. Mikey feels a hand on his waist and twists to see the arm leads up to the guy above him, disappearing into his gray shirt stained with all the colors of the strobe light that's hovering over the club inhabitants. His smile is easy and directed down at Mikey and--and Mikey's throat closes. The fingers on his waist slide down to bite into his hips and spark heat throughout his body. He squeaks--later denying it, but--and arches his body into the bar.

"Hey, hey kid," is breathed, wet and cold and hot and everything melted into one into his ear, and then the fingers are gone, instead curling around his arm and pulling him out of the crowd gathered around the bar. A flash of panic shoots through him--oh God, someone found out that he's underage, and he's going to be thrown out, and holy shit, he was staying at Frank's house and Frank's not leaving and where's he gonna go?--before he finds himself chest-to-chest with a boy who easily towers his six foot tall frame.

"Hi," the guys says, smiling down at him, and. God. His cheeks, his face.

"Hi," Mikey breathes, biting down on the side of his lip. The guy--Mikey wants desperately to know his name because saying 'guy' over and over in his mind is seriously driving him mad--hands Mikey a drink in a red cup, offering an almost-shy, "Dance with me?" like he doesn't think Mikey will go for it. But oh, how can Mikey not? When this guy, this pretty guy who keeps his hand curled around Mikey's waist and has to lean down to talk to him, when he's offering?

Mikey nods, fuck yeah he wants to dance. Suddenly kind of wants to lean up so far his toes are the only things anchoring him to the ground and taste The Guy's cheeks. They shine in the light in a way that had nothing to do with grease and. Mikey didn't know how to explain that, really.

Instead of pondering over it, he takes another large sip of his drink and grins up at The Guy.

Almost like he can telepathically sense Mikey's distress over the mental anonimity he was suffering, he leans close, tugging Mikey's head closer by the back of the neck. "I'm Gabe."

"Mikey," he responds timidly, and crap. He's already told someone his real name. He sucks at these sort of things, maybe. Or maybe he is just being completely paranoid.

"So, Mikey," Gabe drawls, slipping long, fucking beautiful arms around Mikey's shoulders and emcompassing him, swaying slightly in time with the shitty butchered dance-mix version of Where Is My Mind, "how old are you, really?"

There's only a sip left of his drink and he makes it disappear. "Does it matter?" Because he's completely intent on telling this guy--Gabe, Gabe, he has a name, he has a name and a face with cheeks Mikey wants to own and arms that slink around his whole body like Mikey is nothing--whatever the hell he wants to know. But not if he doesn't have to. Especially not if he was going to get weird knowing Mikey is underage.

"I just want to know, cabrito."

Oh God, Spanish. Spanish whispered in his fucking ear in a dingy nightclub where he's dancing with a guy who knows he's underage and is still grinding unabashed against him. He answers on a hip jerk.

"S-seventeen," he gasps out, arching into Gabe. It's delicious. It's a word that has no meaning here in the darkness pooled around them as they slink into a corner, bodies still writhing with the outward facade of dancing and all the innuendo of just.

Just because this is all new. Just because he's wanting and wanting and Gabe's hands are slipping up under the back of his shirt. Their hips fit together like the jaws of some animal, sharp and deadly, waxing on just this side of tan. Teeth stained with age and nicotine, clamping onto each other. That's what they are, Mikey thinks. He thinks of endless metaphores, puzzles, building blocks, inanimate objects with points and purposes until the grinding takes away that sacred ability to think in coherent sentences.

Now it's all. God. Gabe. Shit.

He knows he's hard in a detached way, like knowing that his hair is messed up or his glasses are askew.

"What's the age of consent again?" Gabe asks just as he's squirming a hand down the front of Mikey's pants. "Eighteen?" Delight marrs any resentment Mikey might have against Gabe when he feels the tips of his fingers brush against the head of his cock. Skin on skin, and holyshit, yes.

"Doesn't matter!" Mikey tilts his hips up desperately, following the hand retreating from his pants, whimpering. "Wha-"

Gabe cups the side of his face with the hand that wasn't just in his pants. "Patience."

And no, teenage boys do not have that quality when there is sex on the table. Mikey whimpers again, louder this time, trying to out-do the horrible music that's playing.

"Aw," Gabe coos, running his thumb over Mikey's eyebrow. "Apenas sea cabrito paciente."

Mikey wobbles against the wall and sighs. "I don't know what that means," he says, leaning up on his tip-toes. He uses Gabe's shoulder as leverage and kisses up the side of his face. "But I know I like it."

He can't hear the slur in his speech. Can't. Can only smell and taste and feel Gabe. Gabe's hands warm--er, warmer, since the club is scorching his skin, boiling his blood inside his veins--settled over his hipbones, the salt and acid on his tongue, slipping under the radar of his dulled taste buds.

"You need to be patient." Gabe's hand casually brushes the front of his pants, a grin widening on his face. "Don't want this to be over too soon, do we?"

But he doesn't think he can last very long, being touched or not. His body is reacting to every smile, every movement of Gabe's body as he dances to the music. The dirty beauty of it all engulfs him, drags him down to the sleaze and grime of the club itself. He's the floor underneath the booming torture of combat boots and slutty high heels, underneath the strobe lights and sweat and blood and lust being catapulted from person to person, growing more and more urgent with each drink they consume.

Gabe tilts his head to the side and they're kissing for the first time. Mikey likes the way he kisses, with both hands cupping his face protectively, eagerly licking at the roof of his mouth as soon as the kiss starts and drawing obceneties with his tongue when the novelty has worn off and they're kissing slowly, meticuously. At first Mikey doesn't know what to do with his hands, his arms hang uselessly at his sides, malformities growing out of his body. But then, then Gabe presses firmer into Mikey's smaller form and his hands slip up to his shoulders. He's backed into a corner and being engulfed again, and--and he never knew that he needed this, but he does. He needs to be the smaller one. He needs to tilt his head up to be able to kiss and be maneuvered and coaxed into these things, needs to feel safe with a larger body looming over him and taking care of him. It's not often that he gets this because he's pretty tall himself, but Gabe is taller, a more graceful tall than Mikey can ever hope to be, and it just fits.

"Woah."

Out of nowhere, a drunken Frank appears at their side, loopy smile taking up most of his face. Gabe backs off of Mikey just enough for him to be able to see his friend from behind the human cage he is in. "Frankie?" Mikey asks grumpily, squinting at the younger boy. There's a pretty drunken girl hanging off his arm who's looking at Frank like he's just the best thing on earth.

"Heeey, Mikeyway! I'm. I'm gonna go," he points somewhere over his shoulder with both hands, "home, okay? Can you find your way back, er gonna be okay?" He giggles at his own broken speech and hides his face in the girl's neck. "I don't want you gettin' lost. Mom would freeeak."

Gabe chuckles at Frank, and Mikey gets the urge to melt into the wall again. Gah, drunk friends.

"Don't worry, I'll take care of Mikey," Gabe says, and no, Mikey's just fine being a separate entity from the wall. He's fine being pressed up against Gabe's chest. In fact, the wall should be jealous of him. Everyone in the whole fucking club should be jealous of him because right now, he's the one Gabe's attention is on.

"Oh. Kay. Bye Mikey!" Frank waves, then he and the girl stumble in a direction that probably doesn't lead to the door, but Mikey doesn't really know anymore.

Gabe leans down, pressing a trail of kisses along the way until his lips are poised at Mikey's ear. "Hope that's okay," he mutters.

"What's okay?"

"That I'm taking care of you."

"What does that mean?" Mikey's not really worried about Frank anymore. He knows how to get to his house, and he knows where the extra key is stashed, and he's going to be okay. Unless Gabe has something else planned, in which case, he has no fucking clue.

"That means," Gabe stretches out the words, mouthing them wetly into Mikey's ear and licking his jaw lewdly in between thoughts. "That I would really like to take you home, Mikey."

Mikey bites down on his lip and doesn't bother taking the time to weigh out the pros and cons. He's hard, Gabe is offering to take him home and do something about that, and yeah.

"Depends," he sighs, slipping his arms back around Gabe's shoulders, just where he likes them to be. "Will I have to be patient when we get there?"

*

They're having a drunken, giggly conversation as they make their way to Gabe's house. They walk under streetlights and in the darkness, in the quiet permeated every once and a while by a car or a dog or a gunshot. Mikey is cuddled into Gabe's side as they traverse the sidewalks, talking and talking and talking.

"I play bass too," Gabe says when Mikey mentions it, and he grips Mikey tighter in his arms. He kisses the side of his head like they're boyfriends and nuzzles into Mikey's neck. "I sing and I play bass, but we're not that good."

"Neither are we," Mikey answers, tilting Gabe's face up to kiss the corner of his mouth. He's stupidly happy and can't wipe the dopy grin off of his face, and he wonders why Gabe even wants him. "We don't even have a name yet. We do lots of Black Flag covers, though. Maybe we should call ourselves Black Coffee. That'd be cool. Oh! I'm gonna tell Frank about that tomorrow!" Mikey stops long enough to hop in place excitedly, then curls himself back into Gabe, shivering.

"Cold?" Gabe whispers.

"Mhm." Mikey nods into his jacket.

"Wanna stop for coffee?" Gabe motions to an all-night diner a few blocks up, and that sort of sounds like exactly what Mikey needs.

"Mkay." They walk a few blocks, and then Mikey says, "I hope you don't think I'm ugly when the coffee sobers you up."

Gabe barks out a laugh. "Likewise, cabrito."

They duck into the diner and stumble into a booth, Mikey splaying himself over Gabe's lap in the process. The woman working at the counter rolls her eyes, and Mikey gets that. She must see a lot of drunken idiots at all hours of the night who can barely fucking walk. He wants to think that she doesn't see Gabe very often. At least not in these circumstances.

Gabe stands a menu up on its side and nudges Mikey.

"You want anything besides coffee? They have good hamburgers here."

Mikey squints at the menu, running over it a few times. A hamburger does sound good to him right about now. He's starting to feel like a skeleton. He wonders how Gabe feels, with his skinnier frame, with his skin that just barely hangs onto his bones.

"Oh, they have onion rings, sweet," he mumbles to himself, leaning closer to the menu. He leans his head on his arms and bends his back at a sharp angle, scanning over the burgers. Hidden between a hamburger and a chicken sandwich is a grilled cheese, and. Holyshit, it's like the word is a trigger for Mikey's stomach to start rumbling. Comfort food, man. Comfort food, and some onion rings, and coffee, and Gabe.

"Whaddya want?" Gabe asks, slipping his arm around Mikey's shoulders. Fingers tickle the back of his neck and Mikey squirms a little, sinks down in his seat far enough to lay his head on Gabe's shoulder comfortably. It's a stretch, his ass almost slipping off the seat, but he raises his foot to rest against the booth seat across from them and wedges it until he's scrunched up and sitting firmly.

"Mm, some onion rings and a grilled cheese," he says, pointing at the menu vaguely. "And coffee."

"Good deal." Gabe waves the waitress over and she stalks to their table, sighing and plucking a pen out of her hair. She digs a notepad out of her apron and cocks her hip to lean up against the table.

"What can I get you?"

Gabe answers for the both of them. "Two coffees, a cheeseburger without pickles, grilled cheese sandwich, and some onion rings. Thanks, gorgeous."

Her smile is immediate and makes her whole face light up. It's funny that just that word, that compliment can make a person's day. Especially when it's coming from Gabe. Because, dude. Gabe's sex on legs. Okay, so he's (patient)sex on legs that Mikey really should have already sexed up, but instead they are sitting at an almost empty diner cuddling in a booth. Which isn't all that bad, really. Not when Mikey has no doubt of what is eventually going to come.

"Coming right up," she says breathily, fluttering her eyelashes. When she turns around to leave, (pft, shaking her ass like Gabe would really stare at her) Mikey makes a sound and pulls a face at her retreating back. Hey, he is a teenager, he is allowed to be immature and bitchy to people who are moving in on the guy who's taking him home. For the time being, they are together.

Gabe nudges his shoulder a bit and Mikey freezes, looking up through his eyelashes innocently. But Gabe only smiles, leans down to engulf Mikey's mouth with his own, and kiss him in the way Mikey just decided is his favorite way to be kissed. Possessive, excessive, dirty. It all serves to remind him that what they're doing is dirty, that he's underage and they're not sober and yet this feels so normal it's weird to call it dirty. He's pressed into the firm-soft seat, Gabe's arm coming around to brace himself on the seat while he kisses the breath out of Mikey.

"You know, I had my hand down your pants half an hour ago," he whispers into Mikey's ear, curling his tongue around the lobe. "I don't think you have anything to worry about." He laughs huskily, the sound being caught completely in Mikey's overexposed ear, when the Mikey's cheeks turn red and he looks down shyly at the table.

"I guess we'll just see," Mikey mumbles, biting on his lip.

Gabe snorts. "Yup." He reaches on the table to grab a straw and poke Mikey's cheek with it.

"Aha," Mikey says smugly.

"What?"

"You're not a pedo, you're just a kid at heart."

*

"What are you, like four?" Gabe asks, fastening his hands around Mikey's legs anyway. His hand comes the whole way around Mikey's thigh and Mikey likes it that way. More, more engulfing. He's decided he can use that word for most situations with Gabe now. That's how he feels around him, anyway. Engulfed. Surrounded. It's sort of nice to have that security. "Fuckin' kid..."

Mikey laughs and settles into place on Gabe's back, leaning forward to kiss the back of his neck. "You fuck four year-olds? Sick. And anyways, my legs are tired."

"...I'll drop you."

Mikey whimpers petulantly and shoves his nose under Gabe's jaw, nipping at soft skin. Gabe's hands on his thighs tighten momentarily, then move farther up on his leg.

"Mmph, tired," he groans into Gabe's cheek, smacking a loud kiss afterwards.

"Are you going to act like a little kid the whole way home?"

Mikey laughs again, happily. He's not drunk anymore, he's just to the point where the world is fuzzy and warm and Gabe is getting prettier by the minute. "Depends. Does it get you off?" Gabe's cheek does taste good under Mikey's tongue, actually. Feels good, feels like it's not stupid to be licking some guy's cheek that he barely knows while they walk (or piggyback ride) to his house.

"Shut up, Mikey," Gabe sighs, but Mikey can hear the grin in his voice without seeing it. "I swear, I'll never hit on a kid again."

"I was just kidding," Mikey says softly, kissing at Gabe's ear. "I'm pretty much legal, anyways. Seventeen isn't--doesn't make me an invalid, or anything. I know what I'm doing."

"Do you?"

And that's a pretty loaded question. Because Mikey doesn't, not really. But admitting that is beyond--it's just beyond. He and Gabe are still strangers, he has no business knowing how experienced or unexperienced Mikey is.

"Yeah." Mikey nuzzles into Gabe's shoulder. "Yeah, I do."

*

When they get to Gabe's apartment, all the previous fuzz and content with the world melts. As soon as the light flicks on in Gabe's living room and Mikey stands there, observing, thinking this is Gabe's fucking living room, he starts to have doubts. He's never been with a boy before. He didn't say it to Gabe, isn't going to, but he hasn't. He's only been with two girls to be honest, and that had to be leaps away from being with a guy.

He watches as Gabe flops onto his couch and relaxes, putting his feet up and stretching his body out. Mikey's mouth goes dry as his eyes fix on the skin peeking out of Gabe's shirt. There's a moment of telling himself that yeah, he's here, and yeah, he gets to touch that skin if he can make his legs work. Forget about all his doubts, he wants this.

"Well?" Gabe asks, patting his lap, raising his eyebrows expectantly.

Mikey walks slowly over to Gabe, thinking the whole way that this was such a bad idea, that Gabe is just going to hurt him, but oh God, his eyes. He swings his leg over Gabe's and sinks down to lay over Gabe's body, being tugged this way and that until they are both comfortable. Well, not so much comfortable as invading the fuck out of each other's spaces. Enough so that the only thing left for Mikey to do is lean up and kiss Gabe softly. He knows that he should try to be more--more something, more sexy, more demanding, more experienced, but there's fear clenching at his throat and then it's replaced with teeth.

A low moan grinds in his throat, throughout his body, and he leans farther, until the teeth are hurting and Gabe's hugging his body hard enough Mikey's almost afraid he is going to shatter and break in the embrace.

"Hey," Gabe mutters against his neck, "you're not--um. A virgin, right?"

Mikey pulls back and makes a face down at Gabe, scrunching up his nose. "No." He stops to gather his thoughs, sitting back on Gabe's legs. "It's just." He tugs at the collar of Gabe's shirt. "I'm sort of new at this whole 'guy' thing."

Gabe laughs hopelessly, leaning up to tap Mikey on the nose. "That's a 'yes', cabrito."

"Nuh-uh, I've done tons of stuff with girls."

"But never with a boy."

Mikey shakes his head. Never with a boy. Never had the chance, never entertained the idea. He hasn't been harboring secret gay tendencies, his mind doesn't work that intricately. He knows what he likes when he sees it, and he likes what he's seeing right now.

"How do you know you want to be with a boy, then?"

"I'm here, aren't I?" He wiggles his hips so Gabe can feel his erection. "I'm pretty sure I want to be with a boy, Gabe."

"...okay then."

Gabe's hands are on his waist, encompassing his ribs this time, thumbing over the jerky hollows in them slowly. He pushes Mikey forward until he he has to lay back on the armrest of the couch, legs splayed out openly. He sits up, eyeing Mikey with a guarded look.

"Oh, you're more freaked out about this than I am," Mikey says softly. It's not something he wants to notice, but Gabe is looking pale and scared for the first time that night.

"You've never been with a guy."

"I don't think it's a big deal."

Quietly, Gabe mutters, "Now you don't," but he doesn't press the issue further and climbs inbetween Mikey's legs to lay flat on his chest. His lips find Mikey's neck and mark him, his fingers trail down to Mikey's pants. He touches around the waistband of Mikey's jeans, not delving in like before, just. Touching.

It scorches. Mikey follows the fingertips with his whole nervous system, fireworks going off at the punctuation points of his hips. He whimpers until Gabe sighs and scoots himself down, down so he's level with the button on Mikey's jeans. He finally undoes Mikey's pants, and Mikey lets out a breath of relief. Gabe mutters something about teenagers and rolls his eyes before completely engulfing Mikey's dick in his mouth, the vibrations from his half-hearted insult still thrumming deep in his chest.

Mikey does squeak. He twists his body around in various shapes until Gabe has to hold him down to finish the job. When he pulls off he licks his lips, glancing up at Mikey.

"You're so fucking twitchy," he says.

Mikey rolls his eyes.

*

He cracks his eyes open to stare at a foriegn ceiling. It's white. It's dimpled. It's cut into by Gabe's face leaning over his own.

"Oh, hello," Mikey says, stretching up to kiss Gabe's nose.

"Hi."

"...fix me breakfast."

"Fuck you."

Mikey giggles and rolls over on his side. He fits just right into Gabe's chest, their limbs proportionally small enough to wrap around each other's ridiculously. "Seriously, hungry."

"Get your mom to fix you breakfast."

Mikey pouts. "I will." He sits up, hands going to his hair to flatten it. Even though it looks like a bird's nest no matter what he does with it. He sighs after getting it to feel somewhat like the way he wants it, because he actually does have to get back to Frank's pretty soon. And leave Gabe and probably never see him again.

Gabe tugs him back down.

"Hey, gimme your number."

"Hey, gimme a sharpie." Mikey holds out his hand and waits for Gabe to get up out of bed (groaning, lazy asshole) and return with a purple sharpie. Mikey rolls on top of Gabe and puts his hand on his chest. He writes his number across Gabe's hips. Then, sinks lower to press a kiss to his thigh. Gabe's hand slides into his hair and Mikey hears him sigh.

"What're you doin' down there, cabrito?"

Mikey shrugs, then writes CRABS on Gabe's thigh with an arrow pointing to his dick.

"Nothin'..."