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(i.)
“I look ridiculous.” Mikey stated dryly, arms crossed tightly over his chest and eyeing himself up and down in the mirror.
“You look fine.” Gerard sighed from his spot pushed back against the headboard of the bed. He didn’t sound like he was even trying to sound convincing, and he wasn’t even looking up from his sketchpad either, the asshole, and Mikey glared at him in the mirror, not turning around to really face him.
“This is ridiculous.”
“I’d like to say it isn’t, but it really is.” His brother just shrugged, still focusing on his pen and paper more than on Mikey, who could really use some moral support by now since it felt like his life was flashing before his eyes.
“Why did she never make you do this?”
“I took art class.” Gerard just excused himself. It felt like the sound of the pen scratching over the paper was going to drive Mikey insane.
“She could’ve just made me take art class. This is stupid.”
“Next thing you know, you might be Belleville’s biggest jock.”
“You’re the worst.” Mikey sighed before shooting a last glance in his brothers full-figure mirror and leaving the room. He swore he could hear Gerard snicker as he closed the door.
Mikey was that kind of quiet kid who just wasn’t indifferent enough to avoid getting detentions when he forgot to pay attention in class. He rarely ever paid attention, because his English teacher really knew how to slowly murder good books, and after three weeks of analyzing The Catcher In The Rye, he kind of started tuning out in the beginning of every English class. Getting detentions made his mom mad, and his mom in a bad mood was universally a bad idea, since it most likely lead to things like this.
Last weekend she had entered his room without any kind of warning and handed him a pamphlet with information about the local soccer team (seriously, just the fact that they had pamphlets made him want to avoid it), and he’d known he was doomed.
“It might get you a scholarship in the long run, if you’re lucky,” and “You could use some sun anyways,” were compelling arguments besides the main idea, which was to keep him occupied so he would sleep at night instead of at school. Mikey thought she was being unreasonable. He wasn’t that bad in school and he liked being pale. But she’d been unbreakable, and within a couple of days he’d been signed up for practice two times a week, plus appertaining matches on weekends. Mikey seriously couldn’t believe that he was going to spend his weekends running around in a field with twenty other sweaty dudes in clothes that made him look even skinnier than he really was.
“You’ll do fine. You used to love sports in pre-school.” Donna said around the dinner table that night. Gerard stared at his food and Mikey knew the way his shoulders were almost shaking. He was seconds away from laughing loudly at him because on Tuesday he would have to go to soccer practice for the first time and Gerard was a lucky dickhead who was going back to college on Sunday and wouldn’t have to deal with her insane ideas, such as putting him on a sports team. Mikey sat back in his chair and crossed his arms.
“Pre-school was like twelve years ago, mom.” He mumbled.
“I’m sure it’ll come back to you when you’re first out on the field.”
“Yeah, I don’t think so.”
“Stop being rude.” She snapped and he stayed quiet after that, letting her and Gerard discuss his latest project in art class. He stayed in his room for the rest of the night too, even when Gerard came up and asked him if he wanted to watch Alien, mostly out of bad conscience probably because Gerard didn’t love those movies half as much as Mikey did. He didn’t feel like it though, but he put on the uniform again and cursed the lady in the store who had given him one that was at least two sizes too big.
(ii.)
“Mikey it’s soccer, not Chinese torture, it’s not even like you’re bad at it.” Gabe pointed out, poking his lunch with his fork without any intention to actually eat it. It was Tuesday afternoon and Mikey was slouching in his chair, looking at the ceiling. He had deliberately been ignoring the extra weight in his bag all day, which was the uniform and the shoes that he’d need later.
“I would’ve preferred torture.” He groaned.
“You should’ve taken it into consideration that he’s secretly into bondage.” William snickered and Mikey curled his napkin into a ball and threw it at him, only missing by a couple of inches.
“Mikeys kinks aside,” Gabe grinned. “You suck because you wanna suck. Soccer isn’t even hard.”
“I’m gonna suck through an hour and a half of slow painful death.” Mikey complained.
“You’re a princess,” He scoffed and William nodded. Mikey kind of hated them both. “Go out there and get some dirt under your nails.”
“I’m pretty sure you’re not supposed to use your hands.” William mumbled and Gabe sent him a look.
“Yeah, not with that attitude.”
Mikey zoned out as Gabe and William got into an intense discussion on exactly which purposes you could use your hands for in soccer without getting kicked off the team, and he was kind of relieved when the bell sounded. Then again, not really, since for every class that passed, soccer practiced moved closer.
Like the ten minutes he was forced to spend in stinky locker rooms before and after every PE class wasn’t enough, he was met with the unbearable smell of sweat and ass and naked dudes that roamed every locker room in every high school in the whole world, and he cringed. He had a hard time believing that anyone actually enjoyed practicing sports when he hadn’t even started moving yet and he already hated it.
It got even worse when he took a look at the other guys on the team and found that he went to school with most of them. A couple of them said hi or nodded to him, and one of them even asked if he wasn’t too scrawny to be a jock in this sort of joking way that Mikey didn’t really know what meant, so he just shrugged and picked the locker furthest away from everyone else and started changing. Chinese torture definitely still sounded more appealing, what the fuck ever Saporta.
A few minutes later when they’d moved out on the field and were standing in a relatively straight line with Mikey at the end; the coach approached them from the door to his own locker room, which was a while further away than the player’s locker rooms.
The first thing Mikey noticed about him was that he was kind of small, and that was sort of amusing because all of the players was like six foot brick walls (which also kind of scared Mikey because he was lanky and probably going to die when they first started playing, but now at least he wasn’t the smallest guy on the field).
“Okay, start by running laps, speed up, come back here when you’ve taken ten. And you,” He pointed at Mikey who kind of froze and stood back as the other guys started running along the fence around the fields. “You’re new?”
“Yeah, um, I’m Mikey.” He mumbled and glanced down. His knees looked really bony in these shorts and he would’ve liked if he could at least have worn jogging pants. He looked up at the coach again.
“Cool. I’m Pete, you nervous?” He asked and patted Mikeys shoulder. Mikey would really like to go and run laps with the other guys now because it wasn’t like it made him less nervous to tell the coach about it.
“I’m kinda really bad at soccer.” He blurted and Pete smiled at him. He had a really toothy grin that made Mikey kind of uneasy, but he smiled back, just a little.
“Do you know the rules?”
“Yeah.”
“Then you can’t be all that bad. I’ve had guys on this team who didn’t know which side of the ball was the inside when they started, hell, I have guys on this team who still doesn’t know that. Shit, don’t tell anyone I said that.” He looked kind of sorry for a second but then he flashed Mikey another grin, and it was oddly comforting.
“Um, okay.”
“Cool. Go catch up with the others, get warmed up.” He said and Mikey half-heartedly jogged across the field where the other guys were running gradually faster.
Saying that some of the other players didn’t know which side of the ball was the inside was probably an understatement. Also, saying that Mikey would’ve preferred torture instead of soccer practice was definitely an understatement.
He was soaked with sweat from racing up and down the field in an attempt to not get trampled down by the other players, he was black and blue all over from being trampled down by the other players and he had touched the ball approximately twice in the entire time. Because some of the others might be stupid, but they had size and speed – and basically being human war machines – on their side.
“Okay boys, hit the showers, see you Thursday.” Pete yelled after what felt like the longest hour in Mikeys entire life. Some of them high-fived and some of them glared at each other but most of them just headed for the showers as fast as possible to be the ones to get the ones that were actually warm.
“Hey, Mikey?” Pete called and Mikey turned around, standing back again as the other guys ran for the locker rooms. “You did great.” He smiled and Mikey couldn’t help but raise his eyebrow, which hurt and he made a face.
“I have a black-eye and I’m like half the size of everyone else, and I’m not wearing my glasses so I’m sort of blind. I did horrible.”
“Nonsense. You just need a bit more practice, and I know they can be a bit hard on new ones, but if it gets too bad just kick them in the shins and I’ll promise to look the other way,” He said with a laugh. “Besides, I really think I have the last word when it comes to size.”
Mikey sent him a lopsided smile before making his way towards the locker room, mentally preparing himself for the coldest shower in the history of ever, since the field was empty by now and everyone had already claimed the better ones.
The second thing he’d noticed about the coach was that he was kind of awesome.
*
Mikey was sitting in front of his mirror, damp hair and wearing remotely clean clothes, on the phone with Gerard who had at least been considerate enough to call and hear if Mikey was alive after his first practice, which had mostly just been pain and public humiliation.
“I got a black-eye,” He told and poked the darkened skin around his eye and cringed when it sent shots of pain through his face. It looked kind of cool though. “I sucked. The coach is nice, though.”
“Well, that’s something.” Gerard said airily and Mikey highly suspected that he was working and paying very little attention to what Mikey was actually saying.
“I guess it is.”
(iii.)
Gabe and William only mocked him for about twenty minutes the next day before they had to give in and admit that his black-eye was actually totally badass, especially when accompanied by the six hundred other bruises up and down his arms and legs he’d acquired yesterday. He definitely looked like he’d won a fist fight over someone three times his size, never mind that he had actually just been absolutely murdered by a bunch of guys that were all bigger and stronger than him.
“So, was it really that bad?” William asked while Gabe had shoved his entire upper body in his locker to look for his chemistry book and couldn’t really hear them.
“Yeah. I think I almost died like four times.” Mikey explained with an excessive hand motion, but he really felt bad for himself. If it wasn’t because he knew his mom just wanted the best for him he would’ve probably egged his own house just to get back at her. On the other hand he would’ve had to clean it up himself, so that was probably a bad idea.
“I still don’t believe you suck that hard,” Gabe said, retreating his head from the depths of his locker and bending backwards until he was staring at Mikey upside down. Gabes anatomy was kind of a chapter to itself. “We played last summer.”
“Gabe, last summer we were too hammered to actually know which goal was whose. I barely remember any of it.” Mikey argued but Gabe wasn’t convinced.
“We’ll come watch you practice one of the days, won’t we?” He said and gave William a look.
“I will kick you both in the nuts if you do.” Mikey warned.
“Of course we will,” William grinned. “That’s what friends are for.”
“You’re not my friends.”
“Love you too, Mikeyway.” Gabe sad smugly before diving back into his locker, rustling through loose papers and empty candy wrappers and various questionable objects that he kept in his locker for reasons Mikey didn’t want in on.
(iv.)
With Thursday came with the second soccer practice, and Mikey dreaded it just as much as the first one, even though the fact that the coach going really easy on him was making it slightly less life-depriving. He still hated being there, but at least someone had a bit of sympathy with him.
“Mikey, come over here, I want to try something with you.” Pete yelled halfway through the first game, where Mikey had been flopping around in the middle of the field, trying not to get knocked out by anyone or anything, without moving more than absolutely necessary.
“What?” He asked as he made his way towards Pete that was standing on the side of the field, watching for potential forbidden tacklings.
“I think you’d do awesome as goalie, try and switch with James down there – you can just borrow his gloves for the rest of today.” Pete explained and pointed towards one of the goals where a dude twice Mikeys size was leaning on the frame of the goal, looking slightly bored across the field, as the ball was far away from him right now.
“Sure.” Mikey mumbled and jogged down to the goal to get the other guy to move out in the field again. The other guy was slightly dissatisfied with it, since it required a lot more movement from his side, but whatever, Mikey wasn’t one to feel bad for him.
Practice actually went a whole lot better as goalie as it had done out in the field, since first of all there weren’t as many players back here who could trample him, so he could kind of stop worrying about his life, and second of all he didn’t have to run around as much, which was always an upside to anything.
Plus, they tried scoring on him three times and he saved it one of them and then Pete grinned over at him and gave him thumbs up which was kind of lame but it made Mikey feel a little proud because then maybe Gabe was right when he said that Mikey wasn’t terrible at soccer – even though they’d been hammered the only few times they’d actually ever played and he probably didn’t remember any of it.
“You were awesome today.” Pete told him afterwards and Mikey shrugged sheepishly.
“It went better than last time.”
“You make a really good goalie. If you wanna try it out the next time too I have some spare gloves you can borrow, so you don’t have to go and get your own just yet if it turns out you don’t like it.” He offered and Mikey just nodded because keeping the goal was definitely better than playing the field, so he might as well do it.
So he followed Pete over to the coach’s locker rooms where it smelled a lot less gross and looked a lot less gross and there was a lot less crap lying around that people either forgot or didn’t want.
“They’re in here somewhere.” Pete stated before opening a tall supply closet, looking through deflated footballs and spare uniforms that didn’t fit anybody.
“So, what’d you do to end up on the team?” He asked after another moment of silence, without turning around to look at Mikey who stood behind him with his arms awkwardly down his sides because he didn’t have any pockets in these stupid shorts.
“What do you mean?” Mikey asked, pretending that he didn’t know, because maybe it was obvious that he really didn’t want to be here, but that wasn’t Petes fault.
“I have a hard time believing that you voluntarily signed up for the team. Don’t worry, it’s not new that people are sent here because they can’t behave – not that I don’t think you can behave though, but yeah, you don’t have to answer that if you don’t want to - sorry for asking.” Pete said quickly and Mikey thought that he had an odd way of filtering the things he said considering that he was coach and not another player, though it made him seem cooler and less stuck-up in Mikeys eyes. It probably had to do with the fact that he wasn’t that much older than Mikey; he had to be in his mid-twenties at most, which wasn’t even close to how old any of Mikeys teachers were.
“No it’s okay, it’s not like I really did something. I just like, didn’t have my shit together at school and got detention one time too many and my mom got pissed, said I had to keep myself occupied. Well, she also said it was for scholarships and getting a tan.” He explained and Pete let out a laugh at the last part.
“It’s not like there’s going to be a whole lot of sun yet, y’know, being March and all, but it’ll be awesome in the summer, it’s always better being on the team from like, June,” He turned around with a single worn-out glove in his hand and gave it to Mikey. ”You don’t hate it too much, do you?”
“No. It’s fine.” He said and really didn’t mean it, but Pete smiled and found the other glove for him, which was nice.
(v.)
After that, soccer practice actually got kind of tolerable. Mikey didn’t jog around on the field without ever touching the ball like another idiot or get any more black-eyes, but he did get better at saving the ball before it went in the net behind him.
Of course, he only got to sort of enjoy it for so long, before Gabe and William decided to show up and watch.
“Come on Mikey! We know you can do it!” Gabe screamed from the top of the bleachers where he was standing, jumping up and down and waving his arms in the air, with William standing beside him with his arms crossed and looking far more satisfied than Mikey liked. They were the only two people on the bleachers, which made them that much more obvious, and if Mikey wasn’t already warm all the way through from the warm-up laps he’d ran, he would’ve blushed. He flipped them both off when Pete wasn’t looking, and Gabe just waved even more excessively.
Anyways, he went over to them afterwards, if nothing else just to tell them that they were massive assholes.
“I hate you both,” He stated. “I think I said that before. I still mean it.”
“Yeah, we hate you too.” Gabe said.
“We’re not here out of affection,” William chimed in and Mikey cringed at them. “We deliberately chose to spend an afternoon here, just to see you suffer.”
“And we weren’t disappointed.”
“I hope someone runs you both over with a car on your way back.”
“So, your coach,” Gabe started, change of subject, thank god.
“Yeah, what about him?” Mikey asked and glanced over at Pete who was heading towards the coach locker rooms, dragging a net of footballs after him.
“You never told me he was hot. I’m pretty sure that’s withholding indispensable information. I should’ve signed up for the soccer team.” He said halfway jokingly, and William scoffed and rolled his eyes.
“What, he’s not-“
“He so is. He’s like totally – small and handy,” He made a smooth explanatory hand-motion. “I want to fit him in my pocket.”
Mikey frowned and looked over at the door Pete had disappeared behind moments ago, while Gabe smiled triumphantly. “Well-”
“You two are unbelievable.” William huffed and then Mikey had to burst into laughter at him along with Gabe, so he only had so much time to consider whether or not Pete was actually good-looking. Whatever, it wasn’t like it mattered anyways.
Gabe and William actually waited the ten minutes it took Mikey to shower and change, because they weren’t dickheads enough to show up for his public humiliation and then just leave afterwards. He was the last one to leave the locker rooms, duffel bag slung across his shoulder when he approached them.
“Look, there comes our favorite jock.” Gabe shouted.
“Shut up.”
“I’m kidding Mikey, you know I don’t like any jocks.”
“Come on,” William cut in. “I need to catch the next bus, I have trig homework that needs to be done before like, three am.”
*
“So, I’m just saying-“ Gabe argued as they were standing outside Mikeys house, without William as he’d left them at the bus stop. “You’ll never get bored at practice with that guy all up in your face.”
“Gabe, I’m not gonna ogle my soccer coach.”
“That is such a waste.”
“I actually have morals, unlike certain other people. Besides, he’s the only one there who’s actually nice to me. Counting you and Beckett.”
“How does that make him less cute?”
“That’s not what I said-“
“Yes it really was. It’s a dead end, Mikeyway. I win.”
Mikey sighed and went inside.
(vi.)
After that, it took a while before Mikey had to take back what he’d said about not looking. Not that he would ever give Gabe the satisfaction of telling him that he’d been right, but suddenly, letting his eyes quickly dart past Pete every once in a while when Mikey wasn’t busy with the goal became a bad, but very pleasant habit. It didn’t help the least that when it started getting warmer in the beginning of April, and Pete started dropping his shirt more often than not when on the field, being all toned and tan and tattooed and sweaty and a lot older than Mikey and a guy and probably straight, so there was no chance of – no, Mikey wasn’t even going to go there.
“Mikey, wait up,” Pete called one Tuesday afternoon after he’d sent them to the showers, before jogging up to where Mikey was standing. Mikey determinately kept his eyes on a spot right next to Petes face because of course he hadn’t put his shirt on yet and Mikey definitely wasn’t going to look. “You did awesome today, but can I show you something?”
“Uh-“ Mikey said dumbfound and blinked.
“You can totally save goals like the last two that went in, if you just throw yourself after them, you’ll catch them, easy.” He explained and Mikeys eyes widened a little at the mention of him having to throw himself anywhere. “Don’t worry, it won’t hurt if you just make sure you land like this.” he laughed which didn’t make Mikey worry any less at all.
But then Pete stretched his arms upwards and turned a certain way to show Mikey where on his shoulder he’d have to land so it wouldn’t hurt and he wouldn’t drop the ball either, watching Mikey carefully to make sure he understood what he was supposed to do. And because he’s a teenage boy and therefore prone to this kind of thing, Mikey started getting hard since – hello, Pete was right there and shirtless and bendy and what not, so he panicked completely because his football shorts covered up fuck at all.
“Uh, I really have to get home, but um, I’ll try that next time. Thank you, though.” He mumbled hastily and hurried back to grab his bag and head home, trying not to look back at Pete.
He later completely suppressed the fact that he jerked off in the shower when he got home, thinking about Pete with even less clothes on, maybe not any at all, because really, it was not something he was going to do again, things had just gotten kind of out of control. Which was totally also what he told himself when he did it again the next morning, and again after the next soccer practice.
*
“What?” Gerard asked later that week, when Mikey had called him up and then gotten weirdly quiet, as he always did when there was something.
“Have you ever had a hot teacher?” He blurted, because maybe he’d need someone to assure him that things weren’t getting really strange, and that someone definitely wasn’t Gabe, whom he would’ve usually asked about stuff like this.
“Uh, well, there was my art teacher in freshman year, did I ever tell about her, uh, with the sculpturing and the thighs? Anyways, she was pretty,” Gerard told indifferently.
“So, who is it? I don’t remember anyone at Belleville High being hot.”
“Uh, no one. Rhetorical question.” Mikey mumbled because the other aspect of it that he didn’t need Gerard in on yet was that, oh yeah, it was his male soccer coach that he was starting to think about more than he’d like to admit. Not that it bothered Mikey that he had the hots for a guy, he was past that, really, but he just didn’t feel like letting Gerard know just yet that his first actual gay crush was his soccer coach. He also refused to use the word crush in his head ever again, because that was so not what this was.
(vii.)
Then, Mikey turned eighteen and those things were pushed a little in the background.
His birthday landed on a Wednesday, and in the evening his mom invited his grandparents and a couple of uncles and aunts over for dinner, and Gerard even found time to come home for the night, which Mikey kind of really appreciated since their family was a lot to handle in the long run when you were the only person under 30 there.
He mostly got money as presents but he got a few movies and cd’s from Gerard which he’d wanted to own for a long time, but really, he could use the money for upcoming parties and shows.
The next day in school Gabe and William greeted him by attacking him with two cans of silly string, completely covering him up in it and then laughing all the way to the bathroom where they almost didn’t help him get it all off again, which resulted in him walking around for the rest of the day looking like a lanky piñata. It was probably the first time it was a relief to get in his soccer uniform after school, though he was pretty sure there was silly string in his underwear by now. He was going to have to come up with a way to make Gabe pay when his birthday came up, because he doubted that William would take his part in it.
*
“You have rainbows in your hair.” Pete said when they took a break from the field to get water.
“It was my birthday yesterday and my asshole friends celebrated it with excessive use of silly string.” Mikey explained, having a little less trouble talking to Pete as he was wearing his shirt today, not exposing any skin or tattoos that could keep Mikey distracted. Not that he wasn’t getting kind of distracting with his shirt on too by now, but that was a whole other story.
“Oh, happy birthday. If this had been the junior team I would’ve made them sing to you, but we can always arrange something.” He said with a devilish grin.
“Please, no.” Mikey whispered and Pete laughed again.
“I’m bullshitting you, Mikey, don’t worry,” He smiled widely and Mikey had to look away because otherwise he would probably melt. “Now, let’s get back on the field.”
*
“I told my cousin he should throw you a party tonight.” Gabe announced Friday morning, and Mikey looked up from his schedule that he’d been spending ten minutes studying because even with two months left of his high school career, he still wasn’t really sure where his history class was taking place. That maybe said something about his commitment to high school, but whatever.
“But I don’t know your cousin.” He said with a frown and Gabe just shrugged.
“My cousin likes to throw parties. He’ll invite half of Jersey at even the smallest occasion, and dude, turning eighteen is kind of huge.”
“You should’ve seen when he graduated college. It was crazy, I think I slept for three days afterwards.” William chimed in and Gabe nodded eagerly.
“There’ll be plenty of college people, which is awesome, so you better show up ‘cause we’ll party anyways and it’s better if the one with the birthday is actually there.” He explained and Mikey nodded because, hey, it wasn’t like he was against having a party and not even having to host it himself, and knowing Gabe was just kind of awesome like that.
Gabe and William came and picked him up around eight, and he promised his mom to be careful and not stay out too long and stay over at Gabes place, and as he headed out the front door he was pretty sure that absolutely none of those promises were going to be kept, which they hadn’t ever been when it came to partying, but he also suspected that his mom knew that too. It was mostly a formality by now that she had to tell him to behave and he had to nod politely and then go and do the exactly opposite.
After Mikey had tried calling shotgun and failing miserably because when Gabe drove William rode shotgun and that was law apparently, they drove over to some apartment blocks in the other end of town where Gabes cousin lived, and when they entered, the place was already packed with people that were at least a handful of years older than themselves, which made sense considering that Gabes cousin had finished college and most of his friends probably were around the same age. It didn’t seem to bother Gabe the least though, so Mikey just followed his lead and took the drink that was handed him and tried to blend in with the crowd as much as possible.
(viii.)
By midnight everyone was already fairly wasted, and Mikey had discovered that Gabes cousin and his friends indeed really knew how to party, considering that there were like three hundred people too much in the small three bedroom apartment and it totally still worked.
Gabe and William danced a lot, shared a lot of drinks and were generally pretty inseparable throughout most of the evening, so Mikey got bored with them pretty quickly and started moving around to talk to someone and dance with someone else. He didn’t really know anyone here, mostly because of the age difference, and at one point some asshole even came up to him and asked what a kid like him was doing at an ‘adult party’, but Mikey just cringed at him and moved on.
He tried talking to a couple of college girls because it was common high school knowledge that there was nothing better than college girls, but either said knowledge was overestimated like everything else about high school and college, or Mikeys values was placed elsewhere. Mikey suspected that maybe it was the latter more than the former.
The last person that Mikey expected to run into was Pete.
And yet there he suddenly was, leaning on the kitchen counter with a beer in his hand, talking to someone Mikey didn’t know and really didn’t care about either because that right there was his hot soccer coach, and he was drunk and this was the first time Mikey had seen him without his uniform on and wow – he had to take a deep breath because Pete looked really good in tight, dark clothes and with his hair styled and not completely clean shaved, all casual and confident and basically everything Mikey wasn’t right now.
So naturally, Mikey got really self-conscious really fast and was already planning to turn around and run and find Gabe and William and try and get them to stop clinging to each other and get him out of here so he didn’t embarrass himself in any way, which he felt the chances of him doing had grown remarkably throughout the last ten seconds.
He didn’t get very far though, because then Pete spotted him through the crowd, and instead of just ignoring him and letting him escape like Mikey had really thought he should, he smiled and tilted his head as hello, saying something that Mikey couldn’t hear over the music. And then it was kind of too late to quietly disappear.
Pete was a lot drunker than Mikey had first estimated, his eyes were dark and hazy and he laughed a lot at everything between his sentences. He also talked a lot to Mikey; more as if they were old friends than as if they were coach and player, and Mikey downed his drink really fast, and then another one, and another, because the drunker he was and the slower his brain was, the lower was the chances of him freaking out because his hot coach was willingly talking to him.
“Metallica, all the way.” Pete said and squinted, as to find out if Mikey was kidding, but he really wasn’t when he said that Metallica wasn’t the best band of the 90’s.
“Smashing Pumpkins or Radiohead was far more awesome.” He slurred and crossed his arms, and Pete just shook his head and sighed dramatically.
“What about Anthrax – or, or, Iron Maiden?” He asked suspiciously and Mikey nodded slowly. He could feel the alcohol rushing through his veins and making his head feel really fuzzy and his thoughts work slower and somehow it made all of this far less odd than it should be. Pete turned out to have a really cool music taste, and he was willing to discuss it with Mikey which was kind of really awesome.
“Amazing. Both of them. Stones are also good.” Mikey nodded.
“Stones are a classic. Like Queen and Sabbath.”
“And AC/DC and Mötorhead?”
“You have awesome music taste for someone that young.” Pete grinned and Mikey scoffed.
“You’re barely out of college, it’s not like you’re Mr. Age President, so shut up.” He said and took the last sip of the nth beer he’d went and got from the fridge while talking to Pete. He had only meant to stand here shortly, maybe talk to Pete a bit about soccer and then move on and avoid him for the rest of the night, but suddenly they were deeply engaged in a conversation about which decade had the most memorable metal shows, and the amount of empty cans around them grew and the clock struck two, then three and suddenly they had reached that point in every party where people either go home or get really wild.
“Rude.” Pete commented and Mikey shrugged, grinning shamelessly at Pete, because yeah, he’d downed so much beer by now that this was totally not awkward anymore.
(ix.)
“Mikey, you can’t just accidentally grind on your soccer coach.” William said with an eye-roll, while Gabe still hadn’t stopped laughing and wasn’t really able to contribute with anything coherent to their conversation at all.
Mikey just groaned, hiding his head in his arms on the table and not wanting to face the world ever again.
He didn’t actually remember dancing with Pete since it hadn’t happened until he had been far past the amount of alcohol he was built to handle, but from what Gabe and William had heard from some of the other guests, it hadn’t been kind of obscene. The worst part was that, with his luck, Pete probably remembered every bit of it and would call him a gross pervert and kick him off the team on Tuesday.
Mikey himself couldn’t recall anything that had happened after him and Pete had talked in the kitchen and then some of the guests had gone home and Gabe had yelled that they needed some better fucking music and more people dancing, because Gabe’s voice drilled through even the worst intoxication apparently.
The next thing he remembered was waking up on Gabes floor with William above him grinning like he’d won the god damn lottery, and then Mikey already knew that something was up because nobody were that happy when they were this hungover, just out of nowhere.
And, as predicted, moments later William had shoved his phone in Mikeys face where there had been a text message from somebody that had been at the party explaining, in a very amused tone, what Mikey had been doing, which included far too much physical contact with Pete with far too many people surrounding them, considering that he was, in fact, Mikeys coach. It had just been dancing though, nothing more, but still, there was plenty of really inappropriate ways to dance. And since he’d woken up to this unpleasant surprise, he’d mostly just been blushing and refusing to talk to William or Gabe at all.
“We leave you alone for like, a couple of hours, and instantly you’re dry humping the nearest hot teacher.” Gabe giggled and Mikey raised his head only to glare at him with a sigh.
“He’s not my teacher, and we weren’t dry humping.”
“Both is close enough that it totally counts.”
“I was drunk. He was drunk. It just kind of – y’know, got slightly out of hand.” Mikey tried desperately and he knew just as well as Gabe and William that ‘slightly out of hand’ was a violent underestimation. Slightly out of hand was spending the whole evening talking to Pete about music history and punk shows or staring a little more at him in the field when he was shirtless than when he wasn’t. Majorly out of fucking hand was getting a boner from watching him stretch and getting so drunk he couldn’t remember exactly how close he had been to Pete last night, except that it had been too close.
“If you want to I can always ‘cuff you to one of the goals out in the field without your pants on and let him find you like that, just like, to see if he’s up for anything else.” Gabe suggested, still with an annoying smirk across his face.
“I think there’s only one person on earth who would want that less than him, and that’s me.” Mikey said with and rubbed his eyelids, trying to think really hard about something else than that exact scenario but now not really managing to. It was truly a cruel world.
“Now, you never know that.” William argued.
“We all know you’re into kinky bondage anyways.” Gabe said and crossed his arms.
Mikey just frowned at them both before hiding his head in his arms again.
*
Mikey never really figured out whether it was a good or bad thing that Gerard came home that weekend, because on one hand he was in the middle of an existential crisis while constantly listening to Gabe and William giving him shit about it and really didn’t want more people involved than those who already were, but on the other hand he could really use talking to Gerard, since they after all were brothers and talked about most things.
“I think I did something really stupid.” He started out when he and Gerard was settled downstairs in Gerards room, around the playstation with each their controller, focusing more on the screen than on each other which gave Mikey a little more space to talk.
“Please don’t let it involve electric kitchen devices.” Gerard said with a half-grin and Mikey sighed.
“Nobody was electrocuted – I promise.”
“So, what it is?”
“Um, the soccer coach.” He mumbled, wishing that he’d been electrocuted instead. That would’ve at least been easier to get through.
“Did you say something to him to get you kicked off the team?” Gerard asked concernedly. Mikey just huffed a laugh because, oh man, that would’ve been so much better.
“Not exactly, uh, I may or may not have, kind of – gotten drunk and danced with him at Gabes cousins party last weekend.” He stumbled a little on the last part of the sentence, talking more to his knees than to his brother.
“Wait, how old is this dude?” Gerard said with a frown and it sort of relieved Mikey that this was his first concern.
“Uh, early twenties, I guess? I’m not sure. Mid-twenties, maybe.”
“And you danced with him, like, close?”
“Far too close, according to Gabe and William.” He admitted and sent Gerard a glare as he saw the corner of his mouth twitch upwards.
“Why?” he said and looked like he was trying really hard not to giggle.
“He’s kind of, um, y’know- uh, hot”
“Oh.”
“Yeah.”
“But you didn’t, uh-“
“Nothing, Gerard, really. Just dancing, but still, I can’t go to practice on Tuesday.”
“Of course you can, he danced with you too, right? So he’s got just as much of a problem as you do. Besides, you’d have to tell mom.” Gerard said, and that was a really compelling argument, since Mikey didn’t really feel like telling their mom that he had accidentally had very intense full-body contact with his soccer coach. No way.
“Touché.”
Mikey stayed on the spare mattress on Gerards floor that night, but he didn’t fall asleep. Gerards breath had been steady for a while, so he’d thought his brother was sound asleep, but then he heard him turn over, and guessed that he’d been wrong.
“So, you like him?” Gerard whispered without looking down at Mikey, who just squeezed his eyes shut while trying to wrap his brain around Gerards words.
“Maybe. I don’t know,” He whispered back, more quietly. “He’s nice to me.”
“That’s good. That’s the most important thing, actually.”
“You think?”
“Yeah, I do.”
“G’night, Gee”
“Night”
(x.)
Throughout Sunday and Monday, Mikey got more and more anxious about soccer practice, and it was easy enough for Gerard to tell him to just go ahead and show up when he was far away in New York and not in the middle of it.
Sometimes Gabe and William making fun of the whole situation actually lightened him a little, even though mostly it just made him want to punch them, which wasn’t something new, since that was how he felt about 80% of the time anyways.
So when Tuesday afternoon came, he’d gotten a nice and solid amount of panic built up, and as he stood in the locker rooms changing to his uniform, his breath was quick and he was almost shaking. Almost.
He had imagined a lot of worst-case scenarios throughout the past two days, and the only one that hadn’t really occurred to him as a possibility, was everything carrying on as if nothing had happened.
Pete showed up from his own locker room, made them run their laps to get warmed up and started the game as he had done any other Tuesday and Thursday for the past month and a half that Mikey had been on the team. None the less that was pretty much what happened, except there wasn’t any encouraging comments from Petes side on how Mikey was doing as goalie, like there usually was, and he didn’t call him over when the other guys hit the showers to tell him about something he could do better or just congratulating him on a good game either. It was probably a better turn-out than anything Mikey had imagined over the past few days; like Pete causing a scene and Mikey getting dramatically kicked off the team and out of school for sexual harassment and having to tell his mom about it all, and other things like that. It didn’t make Mikey feel any better though, because now it just seemed like it really wasn’t a big deal to Pete, and it was a really big deal to Mikey, even though that he tried to pretend that it wasn’t.
“He ignored you?” Gabe said, sounding outraged and Mikey couldn’t really figure out whether he was sarcastic or not.
“Well, not exactly, he just ignored like – what happened. I liked it better before.” Mikey explained, stabbing his dry spaghetti with his plastic fork, not really wanting to eat it, mainly because it was gross but also because he didn’t feel very well.
“Like, back when you were his little teacher’s pet” William snickered and Mikey turned around to stab Williams ribs with the fork instead of the spaghetti, and while William whined and cursed Mikey, he turned his attention back to Gabe with a sigh.
“It’s not like I want anything to happen-“ He said and personally, he thought it sounded at least somewhat convincing.
“Now, let’s not lie to ourselves Mikey. You totally got a hard-on for him, which is understandable by the way, and if he’s not going to acknowledge that you let him grind on your barely legal hips last Saturday, then you just have to remind him.” Gabe stated with the very smug facial expression that Mikey had classified in his head as ‘whatever-Gabe-is-thinking-don’t-do-it’.
“Whatever you’re thinking – no.”
“Where is your sense of adventure?”
“Same place as your pride.” Mikey mumbled dryly.
“I’m not even gonna acknowledge that comment.” Gabe said, before throwing himself headfirst into a longer explanation of how Mikey had to ‘accidentally’ hurt a muscle in his thigh and insist that Pete made sure that everything was okay by feeling him up after practice behind the bleachers, and after that Mikey had really stopped listening, because somehow Gabe made his spaghetti seem nicer to focus on.
(xi.)
In retrospect, Gabes plan was probably preferable and less awkward outcome than what happened next, because there was apparently a God somewhere that had specifically targeted Mikey as that guy who was always on the losing end of unfortunate chains of events.
Mikey had planned to stay away from soccer practice Thursday, probably spending the extra time lying at home in his bed wallowing his self-pity because Gabe was right, he totally had a big, dumb crush on Pete and not that anything would’ve ever happened anyways if he hadn’t run into him at that party, but the extra attention and friendly comments had been nice.
He was a good half our into repeatedly trying to remember exactly what had happened at the party after Gabe took control of the music and Mikey according to witnesses had hit the dancefloor with Pete –because if it was going to ruin his soccer practice from now on, he’d at least like to remember it – when he heard his mom come home and swore quietly to himself because he’d forgotten Thursday was the day where she got off early.
“Mikey, you home?”
“Yeah, ma.” He answered when she knocked the door to his room and entered.
“Why aren’t you at soccer practice?”
“I wasn’t feeling well.” He lied and shrugged himself a little deeper into his sheets, trying to seem even more miserable than he was.
“That’s bullshit. You were fine at school, get your lazy ass over there, you’ll only miss forty five minutes if you hurry.”
“But, mom-“
“Now, Mikey.”
His mom made him change to his uniform before he left home so she was sure that he wouldn’t just ditch practice and go somewhere else, and he’d have to give to her that she was a very smart lady, because that had been exactly what he was planning, which also eliminated the possibility of just hiding in the locker rooms for the whole time.
When he arrived at the soccer fields, they were already at the end of the first half, and he found that James, the old goalie that he’d borrowed gloves from the first time was back in his spot, and then he felt kind of useless. Eventually he swallowed his pride and went over to where Pete was standing.
“Uh, where do you want m-, where do I go?” He asked, and Pete spun around and faced him with a surprised expression.
“Oh, hi Mikey, you’re here.”
“Yeah, I, uh, lost track of time.”
“Sure, good thing you’re here. We need you as goalie.” Pete said with a half-smile, and not the usual wide and toothy grin he’d give Mikey.
Mikey nodded and headed over towards the goal with a silent sigh, but hadn’t taken more than a few steps before Pete called his name.
“What?”
“You’re, uh, you’re still wearing glasses.”
“Oh.” Mikey frowned and touched the frame of his glasses, cursing himself for not just leaving them in his car when he’d gotten here.
“Here – I can keep them for you while we play.” Pete offered and stepped over to Mikey, reaching up and carefully touching the frame like he was about to take them off, then sort of flinching and widening his eyes, like he’d suddenly just realized that there was only a couple of inches between them, his thumb was resting on Mikey’s cheek and there were twenty soccer players right behind them. Mikey definitely realized that in those few moments at least, and kind of felt like he froze
“Thank you.” Mikey said softly and then it was like the weird little moment was over, Pete took the glasses and Mikey turned around and hurried over to the goal where he had to catch his breath as he sent the other goalie back out in the field.
The game went okay, Mikey was slightly out of it because Pete had not acted the least like last time where he had just been distant and indifferent, and even though he kept his shirt on today too, Mikeys eyes kept darting back and forth between him and the ball, distracting him and making him lose sense of the game, because he was fairly certain that half the times he looked over at Pete, he quickly turned his head and pretended that he hadn’t already been looking at Mikey. It made Mikey feel weird, sort of good, but mostly just really confused.
It wasn’t until he was sitting in his car again, thinking about how blurry the dashboard was looking and how he couldn’t actually really see how much gas he had left, that he realized that he’d forgotten to get his glasses back from Pete after the game. Mostly since he’d just made his way to his car as fasts as possible to go home and maybe call Gabe and get very, very drunk with him, which seemed like the only ideal solution to how he was feeling in his stomach right now.
He let his head rest on his hands on the wheel for a couple of minutes, trying to use mind-force to make his eyes work so he wouldn’t have to go back and get them, but unfortunately he wasn’t a character in some cool superhero movie, which would have made his life easier in so many ways, and he had enough self-realization to know that he wasn’t the best driver already, and driving home without his glasses on was a disguised mass-murder attempt from his side. So he dejectedly got out of his car and headed back towards the fields.
It was empty when he got there, only a couple of balls left in the grass and a single glove lying near the far goal, and it wasn’t like he had expected Pete to still be out on the field when he’d already sent everyone else into the locker rooms, so Mikey just sighed for the nth time that day and started walking towards the coach’s locker room.
“Hey, uh, Pete?” He called, knocking a little harder than the first time. “It’s Mikey. I need my glasses”
Nothing happened, and he was getting slightly impatient. It had really not been his day, or week, or months since the first time he showed up at this very field, and he just wanted to go home and hide from the world, far away from Pete, which said Pete wasn’t being very helpful with at the moment, since he wasn’t letting him in. Maybe he had already gone home, and Mikey closed his eyes and cursed people who were fast at changing clothes, because he really needed those glasses.
His last hope was that Pete had guessed that Mikey would come back for them and left them in there for him to come and get, which made more and more sense to Mikey the longer he stood outside the door. Of course Pete had left them in there, since he wasn’t going to sit around and wait for Mikey to discover he’d left them and come back for them, and couldn’t just bring them home with him either. So he pushed down the handle and smiled quickly to himself because he was ridiculous, as the door clicked open.
He stopped moving immediately as he got inside, because he could clearly hear the sound of water running, so apparently Pete was still here, but hadn’t let him in because he was still showering and couldn’t hear him knocking over the running water. He shut his eyes tightly and damned his own life to hell, because he couldn’t just go and interrupt his naked soccer coach to ask for his glasses, but it would also be weird to sit and wait for him to be done.
So, Mikey figured that the only option left was really to see if his glasses was lying somewhere in here, grab them and then escape as fast as humanly possible, while the amount of alcohol he planned on consuming later today steadily grew, because this day just got worse and worse.
He walked around the bench in the middle of the room, walked past Petes bag on the floor and a single locker against the wall before spotting his glasses lying next to a towel and a small pile of clothes on a small shelf right next to the shower areas where steam was gushing out from, and for a minute he felt a sting of jealousy because the water in the players locker rooms was close to icy, and the coaches got to have steaming hot water, which was kind of unfair.
He only got to be self-righteous for another second because then he reached out for his glasses, and as he did so he accidentally caught a dark shape against white tiles out the corner of his eye, and then it was like car crashes on the highway, he knew he shouldn’t look, that it would be better if he didn’t, but then again, he couldn’t just not look, and besides, what harm could one quick glance do.
He took a deep breath and turned his head and as soon as he’d done so he froze, because through the opening to the shower area he saw Pete standing, legs spread slightly, head and back leaning on the tiled wall with eyes closed and mouth hanging open, and it didn’t take Mikey more than a second of clenching his glasses and inhaling sharply before he lowered his eyes, and yeah, Petes hand was very much on his dick, moving slowly and tightening as Pete rolled his hips forward and sucked in his breath.
Mikey kind of wanted to look at it forever, kind of wanted to get closer, kind of wanted to run out of the room and bury himself alive and kind of wanted to just lay down and die. It was a lot of feelings all at once, which was the main reason that his brain didn’t really catch up with the situation and his legs didn’t really move him towards the door. So, there he was, like the major creeper he really was, watching his soccer coach in the shower of the locker rooms without him having any idea, and he felt himself shiver despite the warm, humid room as he saw Petes body tighten and loosen up again as he pushed his head back and came all over his hand and lower belly.
Mikey only reached to think that he should really get out of here, before Pete opened his eyes and saw him.
(xii.)
“Fuck, shit fuck, Mikey?” Pete asked with a great amount of panic to his voice. Mikey felt his cheeks burn and held his glasses tight to his chest as if they were any kind of protection towards Pete, whose voice was a little ragged and who quickly turned the water off and used his hands to cover up as if Mikey hadn’t just seen absolutely everything. “Hand me the towel, will you? “
Mikey took the towel from the shelf where his glasses had been lying too and threw it to Pete who quickly wrapped it around his hips.
“I just needed my glasses.” He mumbled helplessly. “I didn’t, uh, mean to, mean-“
“Oh yeah, that’s right, your glasses.” Pete sighed with closed eyes, rubbing his temple like he didn’t really know what to do with Mikey. Mikey didn’t really know what to do with himself either. “Your glasses, that I forgot to give you back because I was busy getting off the field and trying to not be a huge creep. Which I kind of turned out to be anyways.”
“Wait, what?” Mikey frowned.
“I’m so, so sorry if I freaked you out, if you want to get off the team that’s totally understandable, I’ll tell them whatever you want, sprained ankle, heart attack, anything.“ Pete started, looking like he was the one that was more freaked out of the two of them before sitting down on the bench in the middle of the room, fiddling with the hem of the towel, while Mikey just kept standing in the corner.
“I’m not freaked out.” He said quietly, and he was totally freaked out, but in a way where he was actually sort of okay with it. Maybe, a little bit.
“Why are you not freaked out? I grinded on you and you just saw me rub one out in the shower. That’s violating, like, seven hundred rules. I’m basically harassing you.” Pete said with a sorry expression and for a minute he just looked so obliviously confused and surprised that Mikey couldn’t hold back a giggle because the whole situation was just so fucked up, and lately Mikeys entire life had been majorly fucked up and this was just the very top of it.
“I don’t care about the rules.” He smiled, which wasn’t really true because one of his main concerns when he finally admitted to himself that he did, in fact, have a crush on Pete was that he was a sort-of teacher and older and forbidden, but apparently those things didn’t really matter to him right now. “I don’t mind any of it actually”
“You-“ Pete started, squinting at Mikey, who just took a step towards Pete, suddenly hit by a small wave of confidence due to Petes clear disorientation, and mentally noted himself that Gabe would’ve been proud.
“I grinded on you too, y’know.”
“Yeah, yeah, I’m aware of that. I was there.” Pete said and the corner of his mouth twitched upwards, just a little but enough to make Mikey walk over sit down next to him on the bench without panicking completely, a few inches between them even though they were still sitting close. He looked down at the glasses that he was still holding tightly.
“I don’t really remember it. I kind of wish I did.” Mikey confessed. “My friends told me about it.”
“It was, well, there was some whistling and dirty commenting but then they left us alone, and it was, uh, I had fun.” Pete explained awkwardly and Mikey nodded.
“I had too, I think, at least.”
“You don’t know that for sure.” Pete said with a challenging tone of voice.
“I totally do.”
“High-schoolers don’t know anything, they’re too young.” Pete mocked, and Mikey nudged his shoulder with his own, smiling into his lap.
“I’m not that young.”
“You so are.”
“I’m legal.”
“Oh my god.”
Then Mikey leaned forward and pressed a kiss to the corner of Petes mouth, closed-mouthed and dry and so fast that there was no time for second thoughts before it was over and he was sitting back in his own spot, looking at a dumb-founded Pete, and he couldn’t help snickering again.
“I have to go home,” He said with a smile, and got up from the bench, putting on his glasses before Pete could really do anything besides just nod and blink. “By the way, can I ask you something?”
“Uh, sure. Shoot.”
“What did you think about, y’know, back in there?” he asked with a crooked grin, leaning against the door with his hand on the handle, feeling a whole new level of shamelessness, but whatever, he totally just kissed his soccer coach after seeing him naked and everything was turning out kind of okay, and he just couldn’t help himself. “It looked intense.”
“Definitely not you.” Pete just said with a shrug and a cocked eyebrow. He only blushed a little.
“Whatever, it’s not like I cared anyways,” Mikey smiled and opened the door. “See you, Pete.”
(xiii.)
“My cousin dropped by last night with a bag of the real good shit – I said you liked his party,” Gabe greeted as Mikey opened his front door and Gabe pushed past him, not bothering with taking his shoes off, just heading directly towards the stairs. “Let’s hot-box your room.”
“Where’s William?”
“His mom was making him do mortal duties that doesn’t include this,” Gabe patted his pocket with a smug smile, while taking three steps a time, Mikey right after him. “Sad, for him, really.”
“Totally.”
“Also I called you yesterday to ask if you wanted to get shitfaced, but your lanky ass didn’t pick up.” Gabe complained as he threw himself on the bed and started searching his jacket for paper.
“I was at soccer practice.” Mikey shrugged with a tiny smile that he made sure Gabe didn’t see.
“I thought you said you wasn’t going, y’know, the whole I’d-rather-be-miserable-than-do-what-Gabe-says-plan you had going on, and I’m just saying that-”
“I kissed him.”
“-that if you had done as I’d suggested from the – wait what?” Gabe looked up and frowned. “You kissed him? Pete?”
“Yeah, I kissed him,” Mikey said and let the grin spread across his face. “It was awesome.”
“When? Out on the soccer field? Because cute as it sounds, I think you might have a dozen bigoted soccer-players about to kick your ass on Monday.”
“No, uh, in the locker rooms. Right after I watched him rub one out in the showers.”
“Dude.”
“Yeah, I know.”
“No like, dude.”
“Yeah, I know.”
“How?”
“Long story.” Mikey grinned and dropped down on the bed next to Gabe.
“We’ve got all the time in the world, baby.”
“Hand me that,” he reached for the joint Gabe had rolled while he’d been talking. “I’m gonna need to get high first.”
“As a kite.” Gabe nodded and dug into his pocket for a lighter.
*
“I don’t think I can move.” Mikey stated, a couple of hours later, lying on his back and staring at the ceiling.
“Why do you need to move?” Gabe asked.
“I have to take a piss. I can’t feel my feet.”
“Told you my cousin’s got the best shit. I’m gonna call William.”
“No phone sex in my bed.” Mikey grinned as he pushed himself off the bed, ran a hand through his hair and headed for the bathroom.
“Yo, Beckett, you owe me twenty,” Gabe said to the phone and completely ignored Mikeys presence. “I told you he wouldn’t last a week.”
“You bet on me?” Mikey said and crossed his arms dramatically, not able to hear what William said from the other end of the line, while Gabe still ignored him. “You’re both douchebags.”
“No, you won’t believe what he did.”
“Asshole.” Mikey rolled his eyes and left the room.
(xiv.)
“So, when are you gonna fuck?” Gabe asked as Mikey approached their table in the cafeteria.
“Did you bet on me again?” Mikey cringed and dropped his bag across the back of the chair.
“Maybe. William thinks you can keep it in your pants for a week at least, I think he should’ve learned from losing the last bet.” Gabe explained and stole some of Mikeys fries.
“Who even said that we’re ever gonna fuck?”
“It’s written in the stars, Mikeyway, they’re totally in position for it within a week.”
“Gabe looked up something about astrology last night and now he thinks he’s an expert, and apparently every aspect of the galaxy is working against me.” William added from where he was hidden behind a text book at the other side of the table, listening to their conversation but not really participating in it.
“They’re only against you because you’re bad at predicting literally everything.”
“I predict I’m gonna kick your ass.” William threatened without lifting his eyes from the book.
“Don’t get too close to my ass, you might fall in love.” Gabe snickered and William finally looked up with an indulgent look. Mikey just concentrated on his food, not thinking about anything that had to do with Pete and fucking.
*
“I forgot to take off my glasses in the locker room,” Mikey said with a grin. They were about to start their Tuesday game and Pete was raising his eyebrow at him, crossing his arms, but smiling, at least. Mikey knew he was maybe taking risks here, but it had gone pretty good the last time, so here they were. “Could you please keep them for me while I play?”
“Yeah, I’ll keep them.” Pete said and took the glasses from Mikey with a challenging look, and Mikey just thanked him and jogged back for his spot in the goal.
He had gotten majorly better at not letting anything in, not exactly because he threw himself like Pete had shown him, which hadn’t been to any use anyways because Mikey hadn’t really been focusing enough on what Pete was saying to actually learn something from it, but because he got better at predicting which player the ball would come from, and where he should be standing to catch it.
He got a couple of comments from the closest players of his own team when he caught a particularly difficult ball, and when he looked over at Pete he was smiling at him, so all was well. He was actually pretty decent at soccer by now, he just still didn’t particularly like playing soccer, but it wasn’t half as bad as it was when he began. Plus, Petes presence was an upside that he hadn’t really counted on at first.
When the game was over he followed the rest of the guys back to get his stuff, showered and got dressed, making sure to take a while and being one of the last guys to leave before heading towards the coach’s locker rooms.
He knocked at first, but just as last time he didn’t get any answer, and worried for a moment that Pete had forgotten about him and left – with his glasses, but pretty fast concluded that he just couldn’t hear him. Then he just went in anyways, and he didn’t get to take two steps into the humid room before Pete was standing right in front on him, a sly smile across his lips and Mikey could suddenly feel his heart pounding.
“Hi.” Pete mumbled and slowly walked towards him, backing Mikey up against the door.
“Hey.” Mikey mouthed back, and kept his hands behind his back and his chin tilted downwards, looking Pete in the eyes, very aware of the fact that no part of them were touching, and the fact that he kinda wanted them to.
“So, there’s a party – Friday.”
“Uh-huh.” Mikey nodded, biting his lip in anticipation.
“I think you should come and entertain me.”
“You do?”
“Yeah. Last time was, uh, memorable.” He said with a lopsided grin. “We should do it again.”
“Well I wouldn’t know. We’ve got to do it again, then.” Mikey said and smiled back a little, while Pete just looked at him for what felt like forever. He could feel himself blushing a little bit in the meantime. Then, Pete leaned in and pressed his mouth to Mikeys – not quick or promising like when Mikey had done it a couple of days ago, but slow and secure, making Mikey feel like electric waves was running all the way through him when his tongue teasingly parted Mikeys lips.
Mikey could feel himself shivering while his palms became a little sweaty, because he was feeling absolutely awesome, Pete Wentz, the hot and really cool and really out of his league soccer coach was making out with him, and as if that wasn’t unbelievable enough, they were doing it in the soccer field locker rooms, which was not only forbidden but also totally risky and dangerous. Which once again sent little hits of confidence through him, and he pulled Pete closer, aligning their bodies and allowing himself to notice how Petes chest felt pushed against his own, resting his hands on Petes sides, keeping him close. He felt himself starting to get hard, and only barely stopped himself from pushing his hips against Petes.
Pete just sighed loudly before smiling into the kiss. “We shouldn’t do this here.”
“I know,” Mikey said, losing the words as Petes kissed him again, sliding his hands up and settling them on Mikeys neck, pushing harder against him. They shouldn’t be doing this here. Yet, Pete smoothly flicked his tongue over Mikeys bottom lip, which made Mikey both giggle and feel like his knees had turned liquid, and suddenly he dared letting one of his hands wander down Petes stomach, feeling the flat muscles and slowing down when he reached his abdomen, right where he knew there was inked skin underneath the clothes. “Can I see your tattoo?”
“You’ve already seen it.” Pete whispered and kissed his jaw.
“I wasn’t like, primarily focusing on your tattoos there.” Mikey grinned.
“You’re shameless.” Pete said with a bemused look, but none the less he took a step back from Mikey, who was still leaning on the door, and tugged down the waistband of his jogging pants, exposing his boxer briefs that he pushed down as well, leaving the tattoo on his lower stomach and the top of his pubic hair naked. Mikey took a heavy breath, and another, before letting his thumb run over the patch of skin, and Pete hitched a breath when he let his fingers slowly trace lower. Then he grabbed his wrist, gentle but firm and guided his hand back up.
“Not that, not here.” He warned before kissing Mikeys jaw again, softer this time.
“But - I want to.” Mikey sighed and looked down at his feet, while Pete still hadn’t pulled his head back from the crook of Mikeys neck.
“Yeah, I know. I do too. But not here.” He explained carefully and Mikey shrugged. Then Pete tilted up his chin and kissed him deeper again, and Mikey whined quietly into his mouth. “We have to wait.”
“Okay, yeah.” Mikey said whenever Pete gave him space to actually breathe. “We wait.”
“You should go home. Before the other coach with the junior team shows up.”
“Yeah, I’ll see you Thursday. And Friday.” Mikey said without moving from his spot, but Pete hadn’t moved either, so nothing really happened for another while, except for either of them leaning in once in a while for another kiss. It took a good couple of minutes at least before Mikey managed to get out the door and head back to his car, thinking about all the gross things he could, because he’d rather not walk across the soccer fields with a half-hard boner, coming straight from the coach’s lockers. It would seem kind of suspicious like that.
(xv.)
That night Mikey thought a lot about Pete, lying in his bed with a hand resting on his stomach, determined not to let it slide lower because it wasn’t that kind of thoughts he was having. It was more like, the idea of him and doing things with him and whether or not he was supposed to be freaked out, because he wasn’t – or, maybe a little bit because he’d never had sex and Pete had probably had tons of sex with hot college people, but not in a ‘wait-he’s-a-guy-and-I-am-too’-way. Like, today he’d been standing with his hands less than an inch above Petes growing hard-on, and the only thing he’d wanted to do was take off his pants, which was actually kind of convenient when he thought about it, because it made everything a lot less complicated if he wasn’t about to have a sexual crisis, and it would also make him seem like he had his life that much more in control. Which was also a plus, since Pete was that much more older and probably knew exactly what he was doing most of the time anyways.
Then, he spent a while thinking about exactly how much older than him Pete was, and he didn’t really reach any other conclusion than it was probably somewhere between seven and ten years, which wasn’t that much, until he started thinking about how Pete might very well have been in middle school when Mikey was born.
It was past two am when he called Gerard, none the less his brother picked up within a few rings. “Mikey?”
Mikey didn’t say anything at first, because he had this urge to tell someone about all this new and carefully considered information, but casually coming out to his brother in the middle of the night through phone also seemed sort of strange. Then again, it was Gerard he was talking to, and his perception of strange was usually a lot different from everyone else’s. Still, he would’ve liked it if his brother was there in person.
“I miss you,” Was what came out, which was sort of unplanned but none the less the truth. “I miss talking to you.”
“You’re talking to me right now.” Gerard said comfortingly from the other end, from New York, which seemed thousands of miles away right now, and Mikey smiled into his cell.
“I’m gay, I think – or, I know, pretty much,” He mumbled, turning over in his bed and looking out across his room. “I kissed the soccer coach.”
“You did?” Gerard asked, seeming as interested as possible when there was four hours until he had to get up and his little brother was talking about his love life, which was actually quite impressive.
“Yeah, in the locker room.” Mikey confessed, and then he giggled. “After practice, it was like, straight out of a minimum budget porno. We just kissed, though.”
He deliberately chose not to tell what else had happened in that locker room, because Gerard was his brother, after all, and even though he probably wouldn’t have minded hearing it, there was certain things Mikey would rather keep to himself. He was still snickering to himself though, because all of sudden he found it all really funny, but that was maybe just because it was 2 am and it felt like the adrenaline from this afternoon was still pumping through him.
“Are you high?” Gerard asked, and Mikey could hear the smile to his voice.
“No, not right now,” He told truthfully. “But I think I’m gonna get laid on Friday.”
“Oh, cool. Just, Mikey, be careful, right?”
“Yeah, I’m careful.”
“Locker room dime store porn – sounds like it.”
“Shut up. It only happened like, twice, kinda,” Mikey said and then Gerard giggled too. “Come home, asshole.”
“Not as long as my kid brother is out getting fucked by older men.”
“I don’t think I deserved that plural form.”
“Whatever you say.”
“I’m gonna go to bed.” Mikey said after a while, with a soft smile across his lips.
“Yeah, I’ll come home soon as I can.”
“Awesome.”
(xvi.)
Thursday after practice Pete held back Mikey while the other guys went to shower, and for a second Mikey came to think about all the times Pete had been talking to Mikey after practice where Mikey had just been standing there having a giant crush on him, and he smiled by the thought of all the things that Mikey didn’t know was going to happen. Today though, Pete just gave him the address of the party and told him that he could bring Gabe and William too if he wanted, which Mikey didn’t see any reason not to, because they we’re always so focused on not having more than three inches between them while seeming like it definitely wasn’t on purpose whatsoever, to notice whenever Mikey disappeared off to somewhere else.
*
“So, tonight.” Mikey said, sitting next to Gabe and William, leaning on the brick wall behind the art classroom on the furthest east side of the school. They were supposed to have biology, but since neither of them were even close to failing, and they all hated it equally, they figured that skipping and getting high on school grounds was much more profitable for all parts. Mikeys head was foggy, and he had English in next period, which was going to be an experience like this.
“What happens tonight?” William asked, leaning his head on the wall with closed eyes.
“We have to hang out at some party while Mikey takes it up the ass,” Gabe explained and William just nodded understandingly while Mikey lazily and not very enthusiastically slapped Gabe over the back of his head. “It’s not even a college party, it’s like a post-college party.”
“I’ve never been at one of those, are they any good?”
“If not, we can always get drunk on other peoples alcohol and steal overcoats and ditch boy-toy here and his sugar daddy to pass out on a park bench.”
“As far as I recall the last time that happened wasn’t very successful for anyone involved,” William said with a huffing laugh. “So, you’re gonna fuck the soccer coach?”
“Hopefully.” Mikey just grinned and Gabe raised an eyebrow at him. “I mean – I think so, I want to. He kind of implied it.”
“So when did he implyit, before or after he jacked it in front of you?” William asked and Gabe laughed obnoxiously.
“Oh, shut up. At least I’m getting laid.”
“Ouch. What loss that I don’t engage in the wonders of gay sex. Gabe, looks like you’re gonna have to fuck me.” William grinned, after sneering at Mikey.
“My pleasure.” Gabe said and looked over at William with a grin and wiggled his eyebrows. After that, Mikey kind of tuned out because then it was like it turned into one of their countless inside jokes, so he sat for a while just letting the high buzz in his head, waiting for the bell to tell them that biology was over.
*
Mikey spent more time in front of his mirror that night that he would ever admit, while Gabe and William was lying on his bed, flipping through an old comic that probably had been Gerards at some point and making sleazy comments, while Mikey made sure he looked okay.
“Those jeans make you look like you’re someone’s prison-twink.” William said observantly while squinting, as Mikey turned to face the mirror again around for the thousandth time that day.
“Which was probably also the original intention.” Gabe added and Mikey glared, while William giggled and turned his attention back to the magazine.
“Both of your jeans are tighter than mine, so fuck off.” Mikey argued, while struggling with getting his hair to stay like he wanted it.
“Wrong, you’re just skinnier. There’s a difference,” Gabe pointed out and Mikey sighed. “You’ve got no ass.”
“Fuck you, I’ve got ass.”
“In your dreams, boy-toy. Come on, you look fine. Absolutely bangable.” Gabe assured before gesturing towards the door, and Mikey shot a last glance in the mirror, and decided he was as satisfied as he was going to be with the result.
(xvii.)
Mikey had kind of forgotten how Pete looked without his jogging suit on, when he’d showered and put on regular clothes, and when he saw him leaning on a doorframe with a beer in his hand, talking to someone Mikey didn’t know, it sort of felt like a slap in the face. Then, he suddenly got very nervous, because the house they’d arrived at less than ten minutes ago was filled with people that were Pete’s age, had real jobs and finished college and probably were a lot cooler than Mikey in all kinds of ways, and it just suddenly seemed very possible that Pete had found someone better and decided to ditch Mikey.
All those thoughts kind of washed away though when Pete looked up and spotted Mikey, and his face twisted into a smile and he waved him over. “Hi, thought you’d never show up,” He said, voice low and lazy, and Mikey felt it all the way into the pit of his stomach. “I was so impatient.”
“Me too.” Mikey mumbled and smiled back.
“Let’s find you something to drink – but you’ll have to remember me when we dance later though.” He giggled and Mikey nudged his shoulder and cringed, to which Pete laughed a little more. Mikey was thankful that he completely ignored that Mikey wasn’t actually old enough to drink and casually handed him a beer without thinking further of it anyways, since Mikey was completely sure that he was the only one except Gabe and William at this place below 21, and it would’ve been weird to make a big deal out of it. Besides, Gabe and William had already disappeared off to somewhere that wasn’t in Mikey’s line of sight, so they didn’t really count at the moment.
“Come sit with me.” Pete sad softly, more like a question than a demand, and as Mikey followed him he gently grabbed his wrist, and as they squeezed in between people standing in small groups, headed towards a couch in the corner, his fingers slid down towards Mikeys palm and somehow their hands entwined before they were sitting down, and Mikey smiled to himself when Pete looked the other way.
They sat and talked for a long while, during which Mikey discovered that they actually barely knew each other besides music taste and soccer, but the more he found out about Pete, the more attractive he actually seemed. At first they sat with appropriate distance considering that nobody was particularly drunk yet, but as more people arrived and sat down beside them, the space got smaller and it ended with Mikey almost sitting in Petes lap, one leg hooked over his knee and still holding hands, and then Pete asked if Mikey wanted to dance. Which he really, really did, and this time it was nice because first of all there was no reason for him to regret it in the morning, and second of all he’d only had a couple of beers so his head was almost completely clear, and it was like being so close to Pete somewhere where it was allowed and no one looked twice at them made Mikey much more aware of all the little things. Like Pete’s hand on the small of his back, steady and guiding him closer whenever he got a little too far away, and how when their eyes met it was like he tensed up with anticipation, and how pretty Petes mouth was up close in the dark room, lips slightly parted and grinning at Mikey occasionally, and it made something as lame as dancing seem like the most awesome concept in the world.
So Mikey leaned in and put his mouth to Petes jaw, slightly drunk on beer as well as Pete, whispering words that didn’t really make sense that Pete couldn’t hear over the music anyways, kissing up and down his jawline. He had a bit of stubble, so it felt kind of rough on Mikeys lips, but it was a really good kind of rough and Mikey didn’t want to stop, so he just held on to Pete, feeling the friction between their jeans whenever their hips slid against each other, and kept his face on the side of his neck.
After another ten minutes or so of what quickly turned out to be intense making out in the middle of the dancefloor, Mikey could feel himself starting to grow hard, and nice as it was against the front of Petes jeans, it wasn’t the most convenient place since there was at least twenty people closely around them. So Mikey tugged at Petes wrist and guided him towards the backdoor in the kitchen.
“I need some air.” He excused and Pete nodded and followed him.
Somewhere on the short walk from the dancefloor and through the kitchen, Pete grabbed an almost full bottle of cheap wine and brought it with them, and Mikey sat down on the grass indian-style, reaching up and taking a sip out of the bottle while Pete sat down.
“I don’t like wine.” Mikey said with a grimace, but put the bottle to his mouth again none the less.
“I didn’t like wine either, before-“ Pete started and Mikey really didn’t want to hear any more about how young he was, because okay, there was a remarkable age difference, but it wasn’t big enough for Pete to never ever stop talking about it.
“-before you got old and sophisticated.” He interrupted quickly, jokingly, and Pete cringed at him and reached for the bottle.
“I’m not that sophisticated.” He said, wiping the back of his hand across his mouth that was shiny and red.
“You’re not that old either.” Mikey shrugged. “You’re like – how old? Twenty three, five?”
“Twenty seven.” He corrected regretfully. “I’m almost thirty and I’m sitting on someone’s lawn drinking wine straight from the bottle. Fuck.”
At this, Mikey grinned and shook his head at him before closing the few inches between them and crawling into his lap, a leg on each side of his hips and arms around his neck. He pressed his nose and forehead against Petes and looked him in the eyes. “God, will you shut up.”
“Yeah, okay.” Pete mumbled, suddenly a little breathless and Mikey smiled again before gently pushing his tongue in Petes mouth, and shortly after Pete leaned backwards, bringing Mikey down with him, trying not to break the kiss meanwhile though it got a little off-center and messy.
As Mikey could feel his dick taking interest in the situation again, he pushed his hips downwards against Petes and God, it felt good with some friction, and it was like it sent waves of electricity all the way to his toes and fingertips and right back to his crotch, and his kisses grew deeper and more desperate, and Pete grinned into his mouth as Mikey let his hand deliberately wander downwards.
“Mikey, we’re not having sex on someone’s lawn.” He sighed and Mikey pulled back an inch and looked at him with a cocked eyebrow.
“Woah, you really are sophisticated.”
“They can see us through the windows.” Pete argued, making a small gesture towards the house, that had a full blown party going on inside even though the curtains were drawn.
“Lucky them.”
“My place isn’t far away.” Pete suggested after giving Mikey a look.
(xviii.)
Petes place might not have been that far away if it had been daylight, and Mikey hadn’t been painfully turned on, as well as ridden with anxiety since he was kind of new to the whole guy on guy thing, and Pete totally definitely wasn’t. But Petes arm around him and the alcohol that was still rushing through him, coming from the bottle of wine which they had brought with them, taking sips on turn just to make the time pass until they got there, made it all a little more bearable.
Pete took hours to find his key in his pocket – at least it felt like it – while Mikey was standing behind him with his arms around his waist and chin resting on his shoulder, completely sure that Pete could feel his heartbeat through their shirts.
“Do you want anything?” Pete asked when they finally got inside his small flat and had abandoned their jackets on the floor of the hallway.
“Yeah, you.” Mikey grinned kind of shamelessly, because he was already standing in Petes living room, half-hard and there was no way either of them were turning back now so he might as well make the most of it, cliché or not.
“Come here.” Pete said with a stupid lopsided smile that Mikey really wanted to kiss off him, reaching out and pulling Mikey in, and yeah, this was much better, chest to chest and mouth to neck.
Pete clumsily backed towards a closed door that Mikey assumed, or hoped to God, was his bedroom, because he was running low on patience, and he could also feel himself growing steadily more nervous.
Inside, Pete kept walking until the back of his knees hit the edge of a bed, that was sort of narrow, but definitely better than a lawn, and he pulled Mikey down on top of him, almost knocking his glasses off in the process and let out a breathy laugh. Mikey just pushed his face into the crook of Petes neck so he wouldn’t see that he was blushing, which he didn’t get by the way since it felt like every ounce of blood in his body was rushing downwards. But Pete just gently guided Mikeys face in front of his own again, and kissed him softly.
“Nervous?” He asked, sounding a little concerned and for a moment Mikey found it hard to look him in the eyes. “We don’t have to, y’know, if you don’t-“
“Fuck, I want to.” Mikey assured with a heavy voice. “I’ve just never, uh –“
Pete nodded, as much as he could when Mikey was lying on top of him, less than an inch between their noses, like he already knew even though Mikey had never really found an appropriate moment in their spare conversations to mention that he hadn’t been with a guy before, but he guessed that Pete had figured anyways. He looked sincere in Mikeys eyes, but he was also drunk and his stomach was burning, with nervousness and lust and something else that he didn’t know what to do with.
“Then let’s make it good.”
*
Pete flipped them over so he was the one on top, and he did it so steadily and smoothly that Mikey couldn’t help but let out a small sigh and wonder how someone could make something as simple as switching spots so attractive.
Then he put his mouth on Mikeys neck, sucking carefully and moving his mouth downwards in hot, wet patterns that made Mikey shiver through his entire body, and small throaty noises escaped him as he couldn’t help but push up his hips, silently begging for everything that was about to happen.
Opening Mikeys jeans, Petes hands felt so strong and careful and it was so different from everything Mikey had tried before, which was all gawky teenage motions and sweaty palms and insecurity. This felt safe, Pete felt much safer because he had done all of this before, with blurry and faceless people before Mikey, and yet, as he worked his lips down the small trail of hair below Mikeys navel, slow and pining, he managed to make it feel like Mikey was the only one that mattered. And Mikey closed his eyes, pushing his head back into the sheets when he heard the soft thump of Petes knees hitting the floor, before he pulled Mikeys jeans down to the middle of his thighs and leaned in between his legs to lick up his length.
Mikey couldn’t bring himself to look down in fear that it would all be over way too fast if he did, so he just stared at a crack in the ceiling and thought about how no one in the entire world cared about where he was or what he was doing right now except for Pete.
Petes lips were pink and shiny when he crawled back up onto Mikey after pulling off his jeans and socks completely and stripping down himself too, and Mikey filed that image away in his mind for later because it was kind of crazy hot how it was giving him head that had caused it.
“Here – give me your glasses, I’ll keep them for you.” Pete grinned smugly and Mikey playfully pouted at him, but Pete just kissed him quickly before snatching his glasses and bringing them with him over to the nightstand, while Mikey maneuvered himself properly up on the bed and out of his shirt, leaving him naked as well.
“You okay with bottoming?” Pete asked when he came back, torso hovering over Mikeys with a hand on each side of his shoulders and their legs entwined. Mikey nodded quietly – he had thought of this maybe more than he would ever admit if Pete asked him, and it mostly played out like that. Pete smiled down at him and Mikey closed his eyes, feeling all the places their naked skin touched.
Mikey hitched a breath when Pete pushed inside him, it wasn’t as painful as he maybe had made it up to be in his head, but there was still an uncomfortable burning stretch, and he closed his eyes and let out a few whimpering noises. It was kind of embarrassing because Pete had probably never had sex with a virgin before and Mikey didn’t know if he was any good or if he was making too much noise or if he was doing anything right at all.
“Okay?” Pete panted and looked down at Mikey with a concerned frown. “We can stop if it’s too much.”
“No, no – I’m okay.” Mikey said and mustered a small smile through his slight discomfort, and Pete immediately smiled back at him before kissing him below his ear.
“You look gorgeous, like this,” He mouthed and Mikey felt Petes words shoot straight to his still almost hard dick. “You feel so good.”
It took another few minutes before Mikey suddenly felt something that was definitely worth the discomfort.
“Oh.” He said, kind of breathless and sudden and wide-eyed.
“What?” Pete asked and lifted his face from the crook of Mikeys neck, looking down at him.
“Do – do that again.”
“Like that?” Pete said with a move of his hips and Mikey let out another throaty noise, he kind of couldn’t help it but Pete really didn’t seem to mind.
As Pete started aiming for that exact angle with every thrust, Mikey gave small moans and curses, feeling the heat spread inside him, through his stomach and causing the throbbing feeling in his dick, and he would actually really like to come soon.
He tightened his legs around Petes thighs, pulling him in closer and reaching down to touch himself, stroking slowly and keeping the same pace as Pete, letting his jaw drop and he felt the orgasm curl in his stomach. “Fuck, Pete, I’m-“
Pete just leaned down and kissed him as he shot his load all over his own stomach, exchanging ragged moans and biting down on his bottom lip, making Mikey whine.
“Shit, Mikey – you’re so, god damn,” Pete groaned, breaking himself off as he went still above Mikey, leaning his forehead on Mikeys as he could feel Pete come inside him, which was both a sort of weird feeling but also incredibly hot.
“I’m gonna pull out now, okay?” Pete asked, after having laid limb on top of Mikey for a while, the both of them just catching their breaths and Mikey processing what had just happened, because, woah.
“Yeah.” Mikey nodded, and shifted a little because suddenly he felt really empty and a little cold as Pete went to drop the condom in the trash and get some tissues for
Mikey, but it was okay because when Pete came back and they were both tired and less sticky, he lazily threw his arm over Mikeys chest and aligned their bodies, kissing Mikey first on the cheek and then sort of on the mouth, and he grinned at Mikey in the dark, and Mikey groggily smiled back.
(ixx.)
They weren’t severely hungover the next morning, so Pete asked if Mikey wanted to take a shower, and Mikey eagerly followed him to the bathroom. There, he gave his first blowjob which he was fairly certain was really bad, but then Pete moaned his name as he came so maybe not. Mikey liked to hope, at least.
He sat at Petes small table in the kitchen, trying not to let a stupid lopsided smile take over his entire face and failing miserably at it, as Pete made scrambled eggs and coffee for them, because hey, his life was really kind of awesome.
After an extended make out session in Petes doorway, Mikey went home and took an actual shower, since the one he’d had this morning had been more about exchanging sexual favors and less about actually getting clean.
He also called Gabe when he was sitting at his desk, dressed in clean clothes that didn’t smell like Pete, and he wasn’t really sure whether calling Gabe was the best or the worst decision he could’ve made, because of all the people he knew, Gabe was probably the most casual to talk to, but it was also Gabe.
“So, does it hurt when you take a shit now?”
“I can shove my foot up your ass and then you can find out yourself.” Mikey said and rolled his eyes even though Gabe couldn’t see him.
“Sorry, I want no part in your bizarre sex games, Mikeyway.”
“Doesn’t sound like you.” Mikey smiled and spun around on his desk chair.
“Come over later, we can get high and then you can tell me in excessive detail what it’s like to have a dick up your ass.” Gabe suggested.
“What, you planning on trying it?”
“You never know. Besides, I’ve heard bi-guys are the new black.”
“Gabe Saporta and The Black Bi-guys.” Mikey snickered.
“I should write children’s books.” Gabe said thoughtfully. “See you later Mikey, I’m gonna call my publisher.”
“Yeah, of course, tell William I said hi.”
(xx.)
Mikey was lying on Gabes bed, eyes closed and letting his thoughts drift, sometimes in the direction of Pete and sometimes not. William was lying next to him and Gabe was on the floor, because as he’d said it himself, he was gentleman enough to leave the bed for the ‘ladies’.
“No, seriously, can you feel it, like – right now?” Gabe asked and he was totally trying not to sound curious and Mikey grinned, because he totally sounded curious.
“Not really, but like, when I walk and stuff, it’s a little sore. It was totally worth it, though.”
“Ew, gross.” William said and nudged Mikey with his elbow, who just giggled.
“Yeah, totally.” Gabe agreed. “You should bring him one day so we can meet him properly.”
“That is so not happening.” Mikey said deliberately, shaking his head violently and probably messing up his hair since he was lying down meanwhile.
“What – are you ashamed of us?” Gabe asked, faking hurt and Mikey kept shaking his head, less violently though.
“No, I am aware of your constant intention to embarrass me.” Mikey explained with a clumsy hand-motion, almost hitting William in the face.
“He’s got us figured out, god dammit.” William snickered and Mikey just sighed obnoxiously.
“Since when has that ever stopped us?” Gabe said and then Mikey decided that he didn’t want part in their conversation anymore, so he just went back to staring at the ceiling and letting his mind wander.
*
At home, Mikey had been lying in his bed for a while just coming down from his high, and he was almost asleep when his mom suddenly entered, abruptly waking him up.
“It’s nice to see you going to bed at a reasonable hour, for once.” She said and Mikey just nodded and pretended it didn’t have more to do with the fact that he’d just been high than being on the soccer team. “I’ve never gotten around to asking you about it, have I? How’s it going, are you surviving it?”
“I think you could say that.” Mikey said, not being able to help a little smile spreading and his mom sighed warmly at him and patted his hair.
“What’s that supposed to mean, huh?” She smirked, managing to look more knowing than he knew that she was, and Mikey just pulled his duvets all the way up to his eyes. He was horrible at keeping things from his mom, both she and Gerard had that absolutely intruding skill where they just looked at him and suddenly he wasn’t able to keep any emotion he owned inside his body. It was horrible, really.
“Nothing, ma. I just like it on the soccer team.”
“Of course you do, but never mind, what I actually wanted to tell you was that I have a course in Newark next weekend, and I’ll just stay there for the night instead of coming home late and leaving again early. So you’re gonna have the house to yourself until Sunday evening.”
“Really?” He asked, uncovering his face again and looking up at his mom.
“Yeah. But you know what I think of those two idiots you spend all your time with.” She mumbled with a slight shake of her head, and Mikey knew that she didn’t mean it entirely.
“Don’t we all think that of those two idiots.” He replied and she kept shaking her head, but looking less convincing. “I think I’ll maybe just have one person over.”
“Oh yeah?” She said in the smuggest voice she could muster, and Mikey knew that he was being totally obvious so he just pulled up the duvets again and his mom laughed. “Whatever, you’re gonna have to tell me some day.”
“Go away.” He mumbled, his voice muffled from underneath the duvet and his mom laughed a little louder at him before getting up and closing the door after her as she left his room.
*
“You could host an orgy.” Gabe suggested determinatedly, while Mikey just pushed himself further against the window frame of the small bathroom behind the lab, his legs tangled with Gabes as he sat opposite of him. They were supposed to be in science, but science sucked and their teacher was approximately the same age as Moses and probably still used two rocks to make fire, so they were hiding in the bathroom instead.
“I’m not gonna host an orgy.” Mikey said and shook his head. In the furthest stall in the bathroom, there was a fairly big window that was partly hidden from the outside because of a couple of bushes, and it was a nice place to spend time instead of in class. It was one of those days where Gabe had cigarettes, so currently the window was ajar and warm spring air was exchanged for two curly trails of smoke in the tiny bathroom stall.
“You have a whole house to your dispose for two days. I heard that you do all of those things in college, but let’s be honest, we’ve always been early out.” Gabe argued like it was the most obvious thing in the world and Mikey just cringed.
“Who would even join – you and Beckett?” He asked with a laugh and Gabe shrugged. “Then I might as well just not show up from the beginning.”
There were a few moments of silence where Gabe picked at the filter of his cigarette and pretended that he was deaf, until Mikey sighed and shook his head with an amused look. “I think I’m just gonna ask Pete if he wants to spend the night.”
“Boring, domestic sex, ah yes-” Gabe mumbled, right as the stall door clicked open and Williams face appeared in the doorway.
“Thank God it’s you – I’ve walked in on three dudes taking shits this week because I thought they were you. People actually use this bathroom for other things than skipping; it’s funny, I always thought it was kind of sacred.” William sighed and flipped down the lid of the toilet before sitting down and managing to get a smoke out of Gabes pocket, which was kind of impressive considering how tight Gabe liked his jeans.
“Mikey doesn’t want to have an orgy with us.” Gabe just said and handed William a lighter.
“Do we sound like people taking shits when we talk?” Mikey asked with a concerned frown and William shrugged.
“Sometimes.” He nodded and then looked up at Gabe. “We can just host our own orgy.”
Gabe made a resigned noise and flailed his arms out to the sides, and Mikey just snickered to himself.
(xxi.)
“You should come over on Saturday, my mom is out for the weekend.” Mikey groaned into the neck of Petes sweatshirt, straddling him in the passenger seat of his car, which was remarkably bigger than Mikeys and therefore also a lot better for purposes such as making out.
“Awesome, I can bring takeaway with me if you want, then we won’t need to cook?” He suggested and Mikey sat up straight for a second, grinning.
“Fuck, you’re the best.” He said breathlessly and kissed him again.
It was Thursday evening, sometime after soccer practice, but Mikey didn’t really have any sense of time right now, and he couldn’t see the clock on the dashboard so he didn’t know. Pete just smiled up at him and pulled him a little closer.
*
It was Gerard who called Mikey that night for a change, and Mikey thought it was a really nice excuse for postponing his trig homework some more, like he hadn’t already done that enough this week, but whatever, talking to Gerard was more important anyways.
“Plans for the weekend?” his brother asked after a brief exchange of ‘what are you doing’ and ‘I miss you’.
“Yeah. Mom’s out so Pete is coming over, and he’s bringing junk.” Mikey explained and let a smile creep up on his face.
“Sounds promising.” Gerard laughed and Mikey just blushed a little.
“Shut up.” He said sheepishly.
“So are you like, boyfriends now or shouldn’t I be asking that?”
“I don’t know. I think so – I hope so. We haven’t talked about it.” Mikey said with a shrug that Gerard couldn’t see. They hadn’t really talked about any of those kinds of things, maybe because right now it was all easy and nice and just doing what felt good, but talking about things would somehow make it a lot more serious, which wasn’t an issue at all for Mikey by the way, but it was still the kind of seriousness that he associated with publicity and people knowing, and just the thought of his mom’s face if he told her that he had a boyfriend who was twenty seven kind of made him want to postpone any serious conversations even more than his trig homework. Also, it still wasn’t really allowed as long as Mikey was on the soccer team. So for now, they had somehow silently agreed on not bringing that up, not yet at least.
“Anyways,” Gerard started, and the tone of his voice indicated a complete change of subject, which Mikey was sort of grateful for. “Did I ever tell you that we painted all my furniture because I accidentally spilled acrylics on the couch – my whole flat looks like a fucking rainbow themed cartoon.”
“Art school is messed up, dude.” Mikey said with a giggle and Gerard just sighed.
“Yeah, be glad you ended up in soccer instead of art.” He just mumbled reassuringly and Mikey couldn’t keep in another laugh.
(xxii.)
The next two days moved painfully slow for Mikey, and it was so bad that not even Gabe and Williams mocking comments and age jokes made them go by any faster, which the days usually did when Mikey was busy being annoyed with them.
And then again, suddenly it was Saturday afternoon and his mom’s car pulled out of the driveway and he was alone in the house that he had even made sure was just remotely clean because that was just how afflicted he was, and he could feel himself panic slightly because they had only been together once if he didn’t count all the making out and grinding in Petes car, which he didn’t really right now, and back then they had been drunk and curious and at Petes house. This time was sober and somehow more real, at least it felt more real at the moment, and Mikey was anxious all the way to his bones.
He flinched when the doorbell sounded, and the walk from the living room to the hallway suddenly seemed really short. But then he quickly opened the door and Pete was standing there with a white plastic bag that smelled like spice and grease, and a kind of shy smile that didn’t really fit on his face, and then it was like Mikey exhaled a breath he didn’t know he’d been holding, because somehow all of this had definitely been scarier in theory.
“Hi.” Mikey mumbled and leaned in to kiss Pete, right here on his own doorstep where all his neighbors could see them, and somehow, surprisingly enough, it didn’t feel weird or intimidating, it just felt like kissing Pete, which he hadn’t done since Thursday and he’d kind of missed it.
“Hey, so this is your hideout when you’re not at soccer practice.” He smiled and Mikey nodded and pulled him inside, shutting the door after them.
“You want the tour or can we skip that and go straight to food and making out?”
“I can always see your house later. Food and making out now, definitely.” Pete said with a grin, and Mikey pointed him to the living room couch while going into the kitchen for plates and forks for them.
“Here – try this.” Pete giggled a while later and held a fork with an excessive amount of food in Mikeys direction, and Mikey quickly let Pete put it in his mouth before it could drip on either the couch or his shirt.
“What am I eating?” He asked, sounding kind of muffled because of the huge mouthful he’d just taken.
“No idea, I can’t read the menu at that really awesome Vietnamese place, so I usually just point at numbers and hope for the best.”
“This is good.” Mikey decided and reached out for another spoonful of it.
“This is like heaven.” Pete agreed.
They were sitting with about four or five dishes in white boxes spread out across the coffee table, trying various combinations of them and by now they had reached the conclusion that they were all some delicious next-level cooking. Some sit-com was on the TV, but neither of them was really paying attention to it, they had gotten into a heated conversation about computer games vs movies in the last decade, and while they agreed on most things, Mikey definitely thought Doom had been cooler than Tomb Raider, half-naked girls or not.
“I’m stuffed.” Pete said a while later, pushing his plate a little and leaning back in the couch.
“We’ve still got like half of it left.” Mikey observed and poked a little at a piece of chicken with his fork. “Me too.”
“We’ll eat it tomorrow. Junk for breakfast is like the seventh wonder of the world.” Pete explained as Mikey leaned back next to him.
“I’m pretty sure that’s Taj Mahal.”
“Whoever decided that clearly had never had re-heated Vietnamese takeaway Sunday before noon.”
“Clearly not.” Mikey grinned.
*
Later Mikey put on Star Wars and they attempted to watch it, they really did, but Pete started getting handsy very shortly into the movie, and as loyal as Mikey usually was to Luke Skywalker, his odds just weren’t good when Petes fingers were running up Mikeys thigh.
So Mikey abandoned all hopes of paying any attention to the movie and slid into Petes lap, straddling his hips and letting Pete work with the buttons of his jeans as he put his mouth to that particular spot on Petes neck that he’d learned throughout the last week had an immediate positive effect, and Pete pushed his hips upwards and groaned.
“Fuck, I was so nervous about this-“ Pete confessed when he had gotten Mikeys jeans halfway down over his ass, letting his hands hesitate for a moment, then gesturing towards the both of them. “-this, whatever this is, whatever you want it to be.”
“Why?” Mikey said, pulling away from Petes throat and looking at him with a frown. Of all the time they had until his mom came home tomorrow, he personally wouldn’t have picked this one to talk in, but whatever, this worked too.
“I didn’t think you wanted it to be anything.”
“Why wouldn’t I?” Mikey kept frowning, because it hadn’t occurred to him that Pete ever got nervous, maybe because he’d been busy panicking every other moment himself, maybe because Mikey had lived his entire life with the impression that adults usually had their lives much more in control. Both was probably kind of stupid, when he thought about it now.
“I don’t know, it was a dumb thought, I guess.”
“-because I want you.” Mikey assured. “I did all along, it was never just, y’know, about sex or something like that.”
“Shit, Mikey.” Pete mumbled before kissing him, kind of quick and hard and close-mouthed. None the less it made Mikeys stomach tingle all the way down to his crotch, and he put his hands on each side of Petes face, keeping him close. “Really?”
“Yeah,” Mikey mouthed, and then he smiled smugly down at Pete. “I’ll even introduce you to my mom tomorrow, if that’ll make you happy.”
“How about the telling mom thing waits another while?” Pete asked, looking kind of terrified, and Mikey giggled.
“The telling mom thing can definitely wait for later.”
“Like this?” Pete asked, sitting naked on the couch with his legs spread slightly, and Mikey nodded eagerly as he climbed back into Petes lap after leaving his clothes next to Petes, sitting face to face and making small noises into his mouth as Pete used first one and then two fingers for opening him up.
It barely hurt this time, and it only took a couple of thrusts before Mikey was whimpering and sighing, keeping both his hands on Petes chest, accidentally leaving a handful of narrow red scratches above his nipples when Pete suddenly angled himself a little differently and he let out an embarrassingly high-pitched moan.
“Oh, shit, sorry.” Mikey apologized quickly after taking a deep breath, and Pete let out a giggle.
“Please, please don’t be.” He whispered and kissed the corner of Mikeys mouth. “You sound so hot.”
Mikey thought it was kind of weird, since he’d always expected himself to be kind of quiet in bed from having to be in fucking stealth-mode when he jacked off throughout his entire life because Gerard had always been right there in the other end of their bedroom, at least until he went to college. But Pete definitely got off on it, leaning his head back and grabbing tightly onto Mikeys hips when he started moving again and Mikey felt another string of throaty noises escape him, so it was kind of hot too.
When Mikey felt like he was about to come undone, he slid his arms around Petes back and dragged his nails across Petes soft skin again as he came over Petes chest and stomach, still more because he couldn’t help it than not and because he didn’t want to scratch him the same place twice, but Pete just sighed his name a couple of times and then Mikey could feel him coming.
“You’re a dangerous fuck.” Pete said as they laid tangled up on the couch, pointing to the red marks on his chest that matched the blooming hickey below his ear, and Mikey just snickered and hid his face against Pete shoulder so he wouldn’t see him blushing.
(xxiii.)
It had taken a while of lazily drifting in and out of sleep before they actually managed to get themselves together and go to bed, abandoning the mess on the coffee table and only bringing the clothes from the floor with them, and crawling into bed with Pete, feeling his chest rise and fall was probably the best way he’d ever tried falling asleep.
The waking up part was slightly less comfortable, and personally, Mikey could’ve lived without the extra feature that the next morning brought.
“Hands above the waist!” Gabes obnoxious voice shouted throughout Mikeys room, and he groggily opened his eyes to see Pete next to him looking slightly disoriented and very tired.
“Oh my fucking god.” Mikey just mumbled and crawled further down underneath his duvet, as he spotted Gabe standing in his doorway with his hands on his hips, with William right behind him. “This is too early. Go away. You aren’t allowed at my house before 3 pm, at least.”
“Consider it a helping hand, Mikey, coitus interruptus; at least you won’t get pregnant.” Gabe said while studying the back of his hand, while William just leaned on the doorframe, giggling. “We wanted to meet loverboy here before you had time to shoo him out the house.”
Mikey looked over at Pete with an apologetic shrug and mouthed ‘sorry’, and Pete just raised his eyebrow and stroked Mikeys thigh under the covers, and it made Mikey feel slightly better. Gabe and William also agreed on turning around while Pete and Mikey got dressed, so at least they had decided to be sort of tractable for once.
The four of them all shared the remains of their takeaway orgy around the dinner table, and even though Mikey could actually see Gabes brain through his skull turning itself inside out to come up with as many embarrassing comments as possible, he didn’t really mind because Petes hand was on his knee underneath the table the entire time, squeezing it a bit once in a while.
“Walk me to the door?” Pete suggested when they’d finished eating, and Gabe whistled lowly as the two of them got up and went into the hallway.
“I’m so, so sorry.” He whispered, leaning into Pete when they had closed the front door behind them.
“I think there’s an old prophecy saying, ‘if you wanna be my lover, you gotta get with my friends’” Pete snickered and wrapped his arms around Mikey who couldn’t help smiling too, before softly catching his mouth, lingering at his tongue for a long time.
“I’d love to say that they’re not always like that, but they really are.” Mikey said with a shrug when they pulled back, and Pete just nodded.
“If it makes it any better, I promise that my friends won’t be any better when you meet them, honestly.”
“But I would’ve liked, y’know, a shower and stuff. We have a bathtub.” Mikey mumbled with a great amount of self-pity to his voice. He never actually used the tub because he never had time for that in the mornings, but it was there and very useful for purposes such as this one.
“We’ll use that some other day, okay?” He just said, and Mikey smiled a little at the thought. “I’m gonna go now, I’ll see you Tuesday.”
*
“That was such an impressive hickey.” Gabe said with awe that Mikey couldn’t figure out if he was faking as he entered the kitchen where they were sitting, still finishing off the last bit of last night’s dinner.
“I’m going to actually kill you both.” Mikey just stated and crossed his arms.
“Don’t forget the back scratches. Those looked wild.” William added from his side of the table, waving a fork at him, and they both looked so smug that Mikey had a really hard time hating them, thought he managed to do so a little bit anyways.
“I always said he was into bondage.” Gabe triumphed and stuffed another spoonful of fried noodles in his mouth.
“No, I’m pretty sure I was the one who said that.” William shot back and stole the white box from Gabe and ate the rest of the noodles while Gabe glared.
“Anyways, we bought you a present to congratulate you on you recently acquired kinky sex life.” Gabe explained and threw something at Mikey before he could do anything except watch it land at his feet.
“They’re pink.” He stated and cocked an eyebrow in general direction of the dinner table.
“And fluffy.” William grinned.
“We knew you’d love them.” Gabe said and clasped his hands together in excitement. “You also still owe us an orgy.”
Mikey just shook his head and flipped Gabe off. But none the less he still picked up the handcuffs and the tiny key from the floor and stuffed them in his back pocket, completely ignoring Gabes hooting.
*
Later, he was watching the rest of Star Wars in his room, after having cleaned up in the kitchen and kicked Gabe and William out, when his mom knocked his door and stuck her head inside. He had kind of assumed it was just to let him know she was home again, but she didn’t seem to be intending to leave him alone again, so he paused the movie and looked up at her.
“Hi, ma.”
“Our couch reeks, Mikey.” She said with her arms crossed, and Mikey was aware that okay maybe it smelled slightly like sex, but it wasn’t something he’d thought his mom would notice.
“Well, that’s what you get from buying yard-sale furniture.” He said innocently.
“Oh, shut up. I wasn’t gonna say anything but I can’t even watch a damn episode of my soap opera without feeling like the all sex-scenes are live.”
“Oh my god, mom.”
“Don’t you ‘oh-my-god-mom’ me. I’m not dumb, Mikey.” She walked in and sat on his desk chair, which was a clear sign that she was going to stay for a while, staring at him with her most intruding look and he could feel himself almost falling apart right in front her eyes.
“So, I’m sort of seeing someone.” He said quickly and felt how his neck grew warm.
“For the love of God, please see them in your room from now on. Also, am I allowed to ask about this someone or do I have to wait until the sort-of phase is over?” She asked and smiled a little at him, and Mikey looked down at his hands and smiled at them instead of his mom, who was so embarrassing sometimes but also nice in her own ways, smoothly avoiding pronouns because she wasn’t stupid, and Mikey figured that it wouldn’t hurt anyone to tell her at least some of it.
“No, it’s okay. His name is Pete. He’s a little older than me, he’s really nice.”
His mom nodded in silence for a while, looking at Mikey with a half-smile. “Is he good looking?”
“Mom.” Mikey said and blushed a little more. It seemed to be all he was doing lately, and he was pretty sure he hadn’t blushed this much within a single week since that time in third grade where Gabe thought it’d be funny to tell everyone that he had a crush on Alicia from the year above them. Whatever, he’d totally gotten his revenge by locking Gabe in the girl’s bathroom an entire afternoon later that year.
“What? That’s relevant.” She said innocently, and Mikey thought about Pete without his shirt on, all sweaty and passionate out on the soccer field, and third grade was so long ago.
“He is.”
She squinted at him. “Really?” And Mikey couldn’t help laughing as he shook his head in disbelief.
“Really.”
“Good. Then it’s almost alright that you did him on my couch.”
“You’re unbelievable.” Mikey mumbled and looked down at his hands while his mom broke into cackling laughter.
“Then at least we know where you’ve got it from.” She giggled as she got up from his chair and headed for his door, a sly smile on her lips. She turned around in the doorway and looked at him. “But Mikey, really, I’m happy for you. I’m looking forward to meeting him. I’ll try and behave.”
(xxiv.)
“Guys, over here,” Pete yelled, and the team jogged over to stand around him. Mikey always avoided standing next to him during practice, and Pete had mostly also stopped paying extra attention to him so it was a mutual thing. Which meant that he soccer was back to being boring because now he was back to only being on the team to actually play soccer. “We have a match on Saturday. It’s against the private school on the south side of Newarks team, and I’ve heard they’re tough. It’ll be the first match this season and I think the weather is going to be in our favor.”
Most of the guys nodded, some made grunting noises in agreement, and Mikey just stared. He’d never played an actual match, that wasn’t against players from his own team or Gabe and some of his friends, and he knew that anyone that they would actually be competing against would be much harder on him, which was why he felt slight discomfort creep over him.
“It’s going to be awesome, and we have a particularly focused team this year, so we’re gonna kick some ass,” He said excitedly, and this time a handful more of the guys mumbled something remotely positive in response. “We’ll practice double time Thursday, and I’ll see you here at ten on Saturday, an hour before we start. Okay, dismiss.”
*
“I have a match this weekend.” Mikey stated the next day at the lunch table, as he sat down next to William who was picking at his salad. Mikey had stopped bothering to even pick up a tray of food by now – after almost four years of high school lunches he was kind of sick of it, and he’d actually rather stare at the table.
“Was that an invitation?” William asked as he spotted Gabe emerging from the other end of the room and waved him over.
“Maybe. You can bring Gabe.” He said as Gabe sat down opposite of him and opened the can of coke that was the only thing he had picked up, and Mikey guessed that the anti-school lunch thing was a mutual concept between all the seniors at this point of the year.
“Bring me where?” Gabe asked curiously.
“To my soccer match.”
“When?”
“Saturday at eleven. Ten thirty for good seats.”
“Sounds like a deal. I recall last time we saw you play as very beneficial for everyone involved,” Gabe said and sent him an excessive grin. “William, we need face paint and banners.”
Mikey just sighed and smiled at them.
*
Thursdays practice was hard, because Pete had extended it to twice the time it usually took, so it was past six before Mikey hit the showers, and he’d actually expected to just go straight home afterwards, where he would usually join Pete in his car and then either make out or sit and listen through his tapes, but when he exited the locker rooms, as one of the last people as usual, Petes car was still parked behind the bleachers, so he went over there and waited by it.
Gerard called before Pete came back, and Mikey thought it was kind of convenient since he’d meant to call him when he got home anyways, and now that would be pushed forward because he’d rather sit in Petes car than lie at home on his bed.
“I think I’ll be home this weekend.” Gerard explained happily.
“That’s awesome.” Mikey said and meant it. “I have a soccer match, so either I’ll get my ass kicked or kick someone’s ass, either way it’s gonna be cool to watch.”
“Oh my god, I’d never thought I’d hear you of all people ask me to come see you play soccer.”
“Me neither. But here we are.” Mikey smiled at his brother’s disbelief, leaning back on the hood of the car.
“Lookin’ good over there.” Mikey heard Pete holler at him from the other end of the parking lot, and he quickly imitated a phone with his hand so Pete wouldn’t say something that Gerard definitely shouldn’t hear. “Who’s that?” He asked when he got closer.
“My brother, he’s gonna come watch us play this weekend.” Mikey said with a wide grin.
“From New York?” Pete asked and Mikey nodded eagerly. “Cool. Say hi.”
“Pete says hi.” Mikey said to the phone.
“Is he gonna be there on Saturday?” Gerard asked curiously, and for a moment he reminded Mikey of their mom.
“Yeah.”
“Cool. I’m gonna leave you two alone, then. I’ll see you Saturday, Mikes.”
“Yeah, I can’t wait.”
He smiled down at his phone after he’d hung up, while Pete walked all the way up to stand between his legs. “You’re really excited?”
“Yeah.” He nodded, and if someone had told him six months ago that he would be able to say he was excited about sports without lying he would’ve laughed in their faces.
“Considering how obvious it was that you hated in in the beginning, that is so awesome. We’re gonna kick ass on Saturday.” Pete said determinatedly, leaning down over Mikey, catching his wrists and sliding his arms up above his head, kissing him deeply. He smelled like soap and fresh sweat and his damp hair tickled Mikeys eyelids.
“You think?” Mikey asked when they parted for breathing.
“Mmmh. I know.” He mouthed, and Mikey could feel him pressing his crotch against Mikeys thigh, knowing that soccer was probably the last thing he was thinking about.
“Come spend the night with me.”
“I have school tomorrow.” Mikey said, and he didn’t even bother to try and sound convincing because he was getting hard and Pete was grinding on him and school just seemed so unimportant to him right now.
“I’ll drive you. No problem.” Pete mumbled carelessly into his mouth. “I’ll even wear one of those uniforms that limo drivers wear. I’ll be your hot chauffeur boyfriend.”
“Can’t refuse an offer like that.” Mikey sighed and ran his hand up the back of Petes thigh. It had a nice ring to it, ‘boyfriend’.
(xxv.)
Mikey was standing in the goal, watching as the bleachers slowly filled up, trying to spot anyone he knew in the crowd. Once in a while he shifted uncomfortably due to the cold metal that was pushed against his hip. This morning, he had tugged the pink handcuffs in the waist of his shorts, safely hidden underneath his loose shirt, and even though the feeling of them was still annoying him, he justified it with that it all came down to a greater purpose.
As the other team, all dressed in red shirts jogged out on the field and the game was about to start, Mikey found that Gerard was sitting in the back with a huge scarf wrapped around his neck and lower face, looking cold, and Mikey waved up at him and grinned.
It wasn’t until the whistle that started the game sounded, that Mikey spotted Gabe and William in the very front, sitting close on a bench and gesturing wildly at him. He’d almost started thinking that they wouldn’t show up, but then again he knew them better than that. He raised a hand in their direction as greeting as his team conquered the ball and headed for the opposite goal with it.
“I need to get out to the audience for like, two minutes.” Mikey whispered to Pete when they were standing in the locker rooms during half, and Pete frowned at him.
“You gotta stay here, you can go say hi afterwards.”
“This is really, really important. Come on,” He pleaded and attempted to look miserable, yet seducing. He couldn't imagine that it was particularly successful, but whatever. “I’ll do anything.”
“Mikey,” Pete hissed and shushed at him. “That is so unfair.”
“I mean it.” He said innocently and tilted his head.
“Okay go, but if you’re not back in five-“
“I will be. Thank you.” He mumbled and discreetly ghosted his hand over the small of Petes back as he hurried out the locker rooms. He would’ve ran if it wasn’t because he still had the handcuffs hidden in the hem of his shorts and if he did there would be a much higher chance of him dropping them.
He had been underneath the bleachers a handful of times before, mostly because it was a good place to get high in school hours, and also to hide from PE, sometimes a combination of both. Today his purpose was slightly different, and he pulled the handcuffs out of his shorts as he recognized Gabes horribly colored sneakers in front of him.
He thanked some higher power for the fact that neither William or Gabe had left to go to the bathroom, and he patiently waited for their hands to move just an inch closer while constantly checking that no one had seen him. When it happened, he quickly reached up and clicked the cuffs closed around each of their wrists, and then pulled back, standing safely hidden where they couldn’t reach him.
“What the-“ He heard Gabe mumble and then his feet shifted, and Mikey was slightly bummed out that he couldn’t see his face. “Oh my god.”
Mikey let his most mischievous grin spread on his face as Gabe and William both leaned down to look back at him, both really wide-eyed and looking slightly out of it. Then he waved at them, turned around and hurried back to the locker rooms without saying a word.
“What was it that was so important?” Pete asked when he came back, slightly out of breath and very satisfied with himself.
“You’ll see.” Mikey grinned, and then sat down on one of the benches along with the other players. They were one goal behind the other team, but it was nothing that couldn’t be caught up on in the second half of the game if they were lucky.
(xxvi.)
“Mikey! Mikey!” Someone bellowed from somewhere further down the field, but he couldn’t see who it was, it wasn’t really important right now either. “Come on!”
They had evened out the score, hell, they’d even put themselves in the lead and there were only a few minutes left of the game, which would’ve been just great if it hadn’t been because of the three hundred pound striker heading towards him with the ball.
Someone roared at him to go left and someone to the right, and he could feel the panic rise up in him as the guy from the other team rapidly came nearer, and he vaguely remembered Pete saying something about jumping to save the ball, that he had been too busy ogling him to really listen to, and he cursed himself to hell and back because he could’ve really used that information by now.
His blood was pounding in his ears, so hard that he couldn’t hear what they were yelling, the other players. He jumped when the striker shot at the goal, and after that he wasn’t really sure what had happened, or what was happening, other than that his nose kind of hurt.
He took a deep breath and opened his eyes to find that he was lying down, and when he looked around he first saw Pete grinning at him from the sideline, and then the other players, further down the field. The game was still going.
There had been no goal – he’d saved it.
He ran his hands across his face and discovered that his nose was bleeding, and his shirt was a little stained with dirt and grass and blood, and he sat up and made a vague wave in Petes direction to let him know that he was okay.
He almost didn’t manage to get up and back to his spot in the goal before the whistle sounded throughout the fields and the game was over. They’d won. He smiled when Pete called him and the other players over, and then broke out in a roar of victory.
Some of the other players even came over and patted Mikeys back or shoulder and congratulated the goal he’d saved, and Mikey felt the adrenaline rush through him as he smiled and nodded and didn’t really know what to do with himself other than just follow everyone else’s lead.
Out in the locker room, he quickly changed back to his own clothes before hurrying out to the bleachers where Gerard, Gabe and William were still settled, cheering at his team.
He didn’t even get to the first row of benches before he was jumped by William and Gabe, who, to his great amusement, made small clicking noises when they moved.
“Mikey, that looked so fucking hardcore!” Gabe exclaimed and punches his shoulder, and Mikey barely flinched because he was busy feeling kind of proud.
“You took the ball straight to your face!” William chimed in and gestured towards Mikeys nose, as if Mikey wasn’t really sure where the ball had hit him yet.
“We never thought you actually got anything out of all that soccer besides sex and public embarrassment. Not in that order though.” Gabe said thoughtfully, and was about to reach up and scratch his chin before he remembered that, oh yeah, he was chained to William. Then he looked up at Mikey with a cocked eyebrow. “Also you’re a massive fucking douchebag.”
“You kind of deserved it.” Mikey just shrugged with a grin.
“We kind of did.” William agreed, and Gabe flailed his right arm out and looked annoyed.
“You can’t just take his side, we’re cuffed together, it should be, like, mandatory to agree with your conjoined twin.” He explained, sounding majorly offended.
“It’s not like it makes a difference anyway. And you should get used to it because I’m not sure where the key is.” Mikey grinned, and then cringed because it kind of hurt his nose to smile.
“I will flykick you all the way into next month, Mikeyway.” Gabe declared solemnly.
“That’s gonna be a little hard when you’re cuffed to William, don’t you think?” He giggled and Gabe glared.
“Shut your filthy jock mouth, Mikey.”
*
“Oh my god, you actually cuffed them together.” Pete laughed when he came out of the locker rooms a while later and walked over to where Mikey, Gabe and William were standing.
“They were asking for it. They even gave me the cuffs.”
“Well, obviously we intended for you to do something else with them, but apparently your mind isn’t dirty enough to catch that.” Gabe explained, and Mikey just shrugged.
“After knowing Gabe for like ten years I don’t think it could not be,” Mikey grinned. “Besides, who says I didn’t already have a pair.”
It wasn’t completely true, but it was totally worth everyone’s facial expressions.
“I knew it – knew it.” Gabe triumphed and poked Mikey in the chest, while Pete just gave him a look with a cocked eyebrow.
(xxvii.)
“You did awesome.” Gerard exclaimed. “I know fuck at all about sports, but it looked awesome and I’m totally sure it was.”
Mikey smiled into his plate of mac n cheese, which was the outcome of he and Gerards gastronomic skills combined, since their mom wasn’t home yet to cook something proper for them.
“Also, Pete seems nice.”
“He is.” Mikey assured and shoved another spoonful of food in his mouth to focus on something else than his cheeks that once again were getting warm.
“So, you’re serious about it, about him, for real?” Gerard asked.
“Very.”
“Did he meet mom yet?” Gerard snickered, and Mikey couldn’t help giggling either.
“God no, she’ll be worse than Gabe and William when it happens, and that was bad. She knows about him though.”
“Huh.” Gerard huffed thoughtfully. “My little brother, dating a dude that’s older than me. Now how am I gonna kick his ass if he acts out.”
“Oh shut up, you couldn’t even kick Gabes stupid ass if you tried.” Mikey said and Gerard frowned.
“He also never stops acting out. Thank God you’re not dating Gabe.”
“I don’t know how Williams puts up with it,” Mikey shrugged and finished off his food. “Or, y’know, whatever it is they’re doing.”
“Huh, I never really figured out whether they were a thing or not.”
“I don’t think they’ve ever really figured it out themselves either, to be honest.” Mikey grinned and got up from the table to drop his plate in the sink.
“On a whole other topic, I brought a bunch of gore movies and about eight pounds of candy.”
“You’re the best.” Mikey said and lightly nudged his brother’s shoulder. “First person in the basement gets the good seat.”
“Fuck you, you fucking athlete.” Gerard yelled after Mikey who sprinted towards the basement to get the best spot for movie marathons first.
(xxviii.)
“Sleeping was sort of complicated, but bathroom visits were just sad.” William said as Mikey still hadn’t stopped laughing at the fact that Gabe and William actually showed up for school, still cuffed together.
“Someday I’m gonna chain you to a streetlamp and then let’s see who’s laughing.” Gabe threatened from next to William, where he desperately tried to get his pack of cigarettes out of his back pocket, via a lot of maneuvering and swearing and hitting Williams ribs with his elbow.
“I’d rather be cuffed to William than a streetlamp.” Mikey argued half-heartedly.
“But that pleasure is mine entirely, soccerboy.” Gabe said and waved threateningly at Mikey with the pack of cigarettes, that Mikey saw his chance to snatch out of Gabes hand.
“Then I suppose you won’t need the key.” Mikey shrugged and lit one of the cigarettes before giving the pack to William who sent him a really desperate look, and he couldn’t help snickering.
“What?” he asked innocently. “The pink color really brings out your eyes.”
“Why are we friends with you, again?” William shook his head before handing the smokes back to Gabe.
“We need a scapegoat,” Gabe said calmly. “Also we’re coming over to your house later, and if you don’t have the key by then we’re gonna raid your room.”
*
He was lying on his bed, reading the last of the book he was supposed to be long done with for English, mostly just waiting for time to pass so Gabe and William would show up, when Pete called him.
“Do you really have handcuffs?” Pete asked curiously and Mikey let out a laugh.
“Not besides the pair Gabe and William gave me. Which I’m getting back later today, I think.” He said, before putting the book away and turning over to lie on his back. He was so far behind with that book anyways that he might as well just give it up in favor for more interesting things, such as discussing handcuffs with Pete.
“Really?”
“Mmmh, y’know, I can bring them tomorrow, uh, if you want.”
“For practice?” Pete asked and sounded utterly confused, causing Mikey to laugh again.
“No, you idiot. Afterwards, at your place.”
“Oh.”
“Yeah.” Mikey rested his hand on his stomach, closing his eyes and taking a deep breath. “As long as you don’t mind they’ve been with Gabe and William to the bathroom.”
“Oh my god, you need to seriously work on your dirty-talk.”
“Is that what we’re doing?” Mikey snickered and started letting his hand wander lower across his abdomen.
“Maybe.”
“Cool.”
*
“Come on, Mikey.” Gabe said with a sugarcoated tone of voice. “Just give me the key.”
“What are you gonna do for me, then?” Mikey grinned.
“I would’ve given you a handjob in the locker rooms but you’ve already got a guy for that. Sucks to be you.” He said sarcastically and rattled with the handcuffs, settled next to William on Mikeys bed.
“No, sucks to be you,” Mikey said and shifted in his seat to make sure he could still feel the tiny key in his back pocket. “You’re the one who’s still cuffed.”
“If I have to take a piss one more time while Gabe watches I’m going to kill myself.” William added and Mikey had to admit that he felt a little bad for him.
“I’ll buy you pot.” Gabe said.
“You already do.”
“I’ll continue to buy you pot even though you’re an asshole.”
“Fine.” Mikey finally gave in and threw the key at Gabe, who immediately unlocked the cuffs and threw them back at Mikey who put them in his top drawer and didn’t allow himself to think more about them before tomorrow.
“It feels weird.” William frowned and grabbed his own wrist where the cuffs had been stuck.
“I’m gonna miss pissing crosswise with you.” Gabe said and gave William a dramatic look.
“We can always arrange shared trips to the bathroom while holding hands.” William grinned and Mikey couldn’t keep in a laugh.
“That’s like homoerotic on a whole new level.”
“Piss off Mikey, you take it up the ass,” Gabe snickered. “And don’t think I didn’t see how nicely you tucked away those gay-ass handcuffs for later. You’ve got nothing on us.”
“I should’ve never let you free.” Mikey said, shaking his head and trying really hard not to blush.
“No but you’re a weak pothead and I’m irresistible and very charming. Also you love me, homoerotic behavior and everything.”
“Shut up.”
“Never.”