FicWad

They're sitting in Roberta's on either side of a table for two. The silence is somewhat chilly. Mikey doesn't like it. He stares at Pete and wonders, with a sinking feeling in his gut, if they're one of those couples people feel bad for in restaurants.
Mikey can't stand that idea. They're not one of those couples. He proves it to anyone who may be thinking that, or maybe to himself, by reaching forward and covering Pete's hand on the table with his own.
Pete gives him a brittle smile and pulls his hand away to pick up his glass. "Hey, Mikey? Can you stop fucking leaving your shoes in the middle of the doorway? I'm gonna end up tripping and breaking my neck."
"Of course, yeah," Mikey says hurriedly. "Sorry."
Pete hums and goes back to eating. Mikey stares down at his plate and hopes.

"Brendon, can we please just fucking get through this?"
Brendon pouts at William and presses his phone to his ear. "I'm just calling my boyfr- oh, hey Peter Pan!"
William watches Brendon's exaggerated pout turn into a genuine frown, hears the distressed voice on the other end, and thinks shit.

"Oh, hey Peter Pan!"
Mikey's head snaps up from his plate. He looks around the restaurant with huge eyes. No one in the restaurant seems to be looking at them, and besides, the voice is too loud and distorted to be another patron.
When he looks back at Pete, their table is sitting in front of The Academy.
Mikey gets up and goes in. He can see himself standing at the counter, looking tense and awkward, and practically runs over.

"Oh. Brendon. It's you."
"What's wrong?" Brendon chews his lip anxiously.
"I'm just fucking/ miserable /right now. I don't even know why!"
"Hey, calm down, it's okay..."

Pete. That's definitely Pete's voice on the other end of the phone. But who the fuck is calling him, and why can Mikey hear him?
Mikey goes behind the counter, behind the guy picking up spilled papers from his bag. He grabs the guy's shoulder and yanks roughly. The guy turns, but Mikey can't see his face. He can't see anything but the back of the guy's head, no matter how much the rest of his body moves.

"Do you think I'm crazy?" On the other end of the phone, Pete's crying despite himself.
Brendon's eyebrows draw together. "What?! No! Maybe... maybe I should come over."

The restaurant is empty except for the table Pete and Mikey had been sitting at. Pete's gone. Mikey sits down and tries to tune out the conversation that he's hearing. It doesn't matter, he tells himself. You're erasing him anyway.
That kind of makes him feel worse.

"I dunno, Brendon... I'm kind of a mess right now..."
"Well, let me come over and I'll cheer you up."
"Okay..."
Brendon pulls the phone away from his ear and covers the mouthpiece with his hand. "William? Can I leave for a bit?" he says pleadingly. "My boyfriend is really upset."
"Brendon!" William groans. "We're right in the middle of erasing this poor man's-"
"No, go!" Gabe interrupts. "It's fine, I can help!"
Brendon gives William puppy dog eyes and William sighs. "Fine, whatever."
Brendon grins and presses the phone to his ear again. "I'll be right over, Peter Pan."

"You like?"
Mikey sits up a little on the couch and looks at the finger Pete is extending to him. He can see his new tattoo on his forearm, under a layer of plastic wrap and taped down with bandages. It's an owl sitting on top of a book, and Pete's been excited about getting it for the past month, but he got "something extra" while he was at it and he seems more excited about that than his owl.
Mikey shifts his attention from Pete's arm to his finger and a grin splits across his face when he sees the little "2*R" tattooed on the side.
"You like?" Pete repeats, and Mikey nods enthusiastically.
"It's fucking awesome, Pete," he says, before adding "Pan. You're my Peter Pan."
Pete giggles and straddles Mikey's lap. "Come to Neverland with me, Michael Darling," he says. "Be my lost boy."
"Are you allowed to screw your lost boys?" Mikey quips, and Pete throws his head back and laughs.
"I'm Peter Pan, I can do what I want," he eventually decides, and gets off of Mikey. "And right now, I want a coffee."
He goes through to the kitchen and Mikey frowns. "Peter Pan," he repeats to himself, and gets up to follow Pete. "How does he know to call you that?"
The kitchen is empty.

"Harry Potter, like, inspired a generation, you know?" William says eagerly, shifting to prop himself up on one elbow and look up at Gabe. On the other side of the bed, Gabe raises his joint to his lips and draws in a lungful of smoke. William gets distracted by the shape of his lips briefly before continuing what he was saying. "Like, fucking magic and shit. And kids were like whoa! And everyone believed, man."
"It's amazing, isn't it?" Gabe says, tilting his head awkwardly to try and look at Way from his lying-down position.
"It's totally amazing!" William exclaims. "And-"
"What Vicky gives to the world?" Gabe interrupts, sounding dreamy.
William thinks he feels himself physically deflate. "Yeah," he mumbles, reaching over to pluck the joint out of Gabe's fingers and put it to his own lips. "Amazing."
"Like... a fresh start. She takes people's regrets and fears and phobias and makes them just go away. It's fantastic!"
"Yeah," William mumbles again. "It's... it's really fantastic."

Pete answers the door with red eyes and a scowl on his face. Brendon's face falls as he steps past him into the apartment.
"Pete... what's going on?" he asks anxiously.
Pete runs a hand through his hair in frustration and starts pacing. "I dunno. I don't know! I... I'm lost, and I'm scared, I feel like I'm disappearing...!"
Brendon stares at him with wide eyes. "Disappearing?"
Pete ignores him. "I'm getting old, my skin's falling off, nothing makes any sense to me...!" He stops pacing and puts his hands over his face. "Nothing makes any sense," he repeats. "Nothing makes any sense."
"Peter Pan," Brendon says helplessly, going to give him a hug. Before he has a chance, Pete drops his hands from his face.
"Hey," he says eagerly. "Let's go dancing!"
Brendon stares at him in confusion. "Uh... sure. We can go danc-"
"No, wait. Let's go to Leow's 46th Street Theatre! Yeah. Let's go to the theatre, I wanna go to the theatre."
"Sure," Brendon says, taken aback. "We can go this weekend."
"No, now. I wanna go to the theatre now."

William's dancing like an idiot and laughing his ass off at Gabe's David Bowie impression when the phone starts to ring. He stumbles off the bed to answer it, almost tripping over Gabe's discarded jeans in the process.
"Hello?" he says breathlessly, putting a hand over his other ear so he can hear over the music.
"Bill, hey," says Brendon from the other end. "I'm having a bit of a situation with my boyfrend... I don't think I can make it back tonight. I'm so sorry, man."
"Dude, it's totally fine." William glances over at Gabe, who's still dancing around in his boxers. "It's fine, man. I'll see you, I gotta go."
He hangs up before Brendon can say anything else and clambers back onto the bed, grabbing Gabe's hips and giggling as Gabe starts to sashay.

When Pete goes to get changed, Brendon gulps and digs into his bag. He tries not to let any papers fall out as he looks for some kind of clue. He pushes aside CDs and a white denim jacket. "Theatre," he mutters. "46th Street Theatre."
A photograph catches his eye. It's Pete and Mikey, cheeks pressed together, laughing happily. 46th St Theatre is scribbled along the bottom. Brendon flips it over.
Me and you, it says on the back in Pete's handwriting. "I could die right now. I'm just happy. I've never felt like this before. I'm exactly where I want to be."
He reads it over a few times and shoves it back into his bag.