FicWad

When Mikey wakes up, his head kind of hurts and there's a crick in his neck. He groans at the light coming in through the window and pulls himself to his feet, and immediately wants to go back to bed.
He takes his meds and decides it's one of Those Days.
He calls in sick to work.
He makes it to about midday before he decides he's going stir-crazy and has to get out of the house. That's kind of weird. Mikey normally doesn't go stir-crazy. He's normally perfectly fine with sitting at home in front of his TV. It's one of Those Days, he reminds himself, and gets on the L train.

When William gets to work the next morning, he runs into Gabe, who is struggling out the door with a box in his hands. His mind goes blank for a minute as Gabe walks to his car and puts the box in the trunk, which is already full of other boxes.
He comes to his senses when Gabe slams the trunk closed, and he hurries forward. "Gabe!"
Gabe gives him a sad smile. "Hey, Bilvy."
"You're leaving?" William asks, even though he already knows the answer.
"Yeah. Yeah, I can't..." Gabe trails off, and looks at William suspiciously. "You promise you didn't know?"
William shakes his head. "No. I swear."
"Okay." Gabe lets out a shaky breath. "Well... bye, I guess."
"I really like you, Gabe," William blurts out as Gabe turns away. "Like, a lot."
Gabe laughs quietly. "I really like you too," he says. "And I'll see you soon. There's just something I gotta take of first."

Pete has a huge smile on his face when he walks into his apartment. He presses play on his answering machine as he walks past and listens absently to the new message while he digs a change of clothes out of his closet.
"Pete? It's Brendon. I don't know what I did wrong... can you please call me and we'll talk about it?"
Pete rolls his eyes and deletes the message on his way out the door.
He grabs his mail from the mailbox when he walks past it. There's a shitload of junk mail, a couple of bills, and a package, which he frowns at in confusion. He hasn't ordered anything recently and hasn't been expecting a package. On top of that, he has no idea what "Falta, Inc." is.
"So did you have a good night?" he asks when he gets back into Mikey's car.
Mikey nods, smiling. "Yeah, totally. I had a really nice time."
Pete prods his arm. "/Nice/? Come on, you can do better than that!"
"Fine." Mikey laughs, sounding a bit giddy. "I had the best fucking night of my fucking life."
"Better," says Pete approvingly. He rips open the package and pulls out a letter. As he reads it, his eyebrows crinkle together in confusion.
"What?" Mikey asks, glancing over. "What is it?"
"/To all patients of Dr Victoria Asher. My name is Gabe Saporta. We've met, but you don't remember me. I worked for a company that was hired to erase some of your memories. I've since realized that this was a horrible mistake on the part of Falta, Inc., and to correct the situation I am sending everyone's file back to them/," Pete reads aloud.
"What the fuck?" Mikey says as Pete pulls a CD out of the package. "Put it on!"
Pete pops it into the drive and presses play.
"My name is Pete Wentz/," comes Pete's voice from the speakers, "/and I'm here to erase Mikey Way."
Mikey looks sharply at Pete. "What the fuck?!"
Pete's eyes are wide. "I... I don't know..."
"He's boring. Is that enough reason to erase someone?" Pete on the tape laughs bitterly. "/And he doesn't fucking express any emotions. He does this blank expression, like there's no joy or passion or feelings in him. It drives me crazy/."
"Are you screwing with me?" Mikey asks angrily.
"No, I swear-"
"You're fucking screwing with me!"
"I'm not, I-"
Mikey ejects the CD and practically throws it at Pete before reaching across him and opening the door. "Get out."
Pete sits there for a moment, frozen in shock, then grabs his stuff and gets out of the car.

He walks back home, disoriented and angry and confused. None of this is helped by seeing Brendon standing at his front door.
"Pete," says Brendon as he approaches, "can we please-"
"Fuck off!" Pete yells, pushing past him.
"But can't we please just talk about it?"
"No! Fuck off!"
He goes upstairs and cries on his bed.

When he gets ahold of himself, he finishes listening to the tape. When he recovers from that, he drives over to Mikey's apartment. He knocks tentatively on the door and pushes it open. "Mikey...?"
Mikey's sitting on the couch, staring into space, CD playing in the background.
"He's impulsive. And he just expects everyone to drop everything and do along with his shit.
"Oh. Hey," Mikey says with a start when he notices Pete standing there. "Sorry. Let me, uh, turn this off."
"It's fine," Pete mumbles, shaking his head. "You heard mine, it's only fair."
"Sorry for yelling at you," Mikey sighs. "Apparently you're not screwing with me."
Pete laughs weakly. "Yeah. It would seem that way."
"He gets people to like him by fucking them. Or at least dangling the possibility of getting fucked in front of them."
"I don't do that," Pete says, chewing his lip. "And it hurts that you said that about me because that's not something I do."
"That's not something I would think about you," Mikey says earnestly. "I don't know why I said that."
Pete sighs, rubbing a hand over his face. "I shouldn't have come here. I'm sorry," he says. "I... I'm confused. I should go."
"Yeah... okay," Mikey mumbles.