Archive of Our Own ^beta

Pete’s all about warning signs. It’s a habit he picked up when he was fourteen and it’s never gone away. He sees them in everything; postures, the sort of people clustered, the weather. He judges any situation for how it might go down, and the part of his brain that’s always alert makes up a hundred plans for everything. He has to constantly discard them as new points of data are entered, but he can’t imagine not having a plan to fall back on.

It’s second period of the first day of senior year. First class, homeroom, was Biology, complete with stools instead of chairs and tables half the length of the room instead of desks. Now he’s in Current Affairs, something Ms Garcia recommended to him because it would help broaden his perspective. Pete might not be a runner for valedictorian, but it doesn’t take a genius to realise the class is going to suck. There are only about half a dozen warning signs.

For starters, none of his real friends are with him. Sure he knows the names of half the class, enough to bum a pen or talk about the current sports team’s chances. But of the five people truly important to him, a grand total of none are in Current Affairs. Which yes, he can sort of understand. The only one interested in the content would be Andy, and he’s got it the period after lunch. Still, any class that doesn’t have Patrick or Joe or Andy or Gabe goes down in esteem, just for that.

The second hint is that Mr Kirkpatrick is wearing a suit. Stereotypes exist for a reason; because they help categorize someone when you only have moments to figure out if someone is a threat. While they’re not overalls -which would cause Pete to bolt from the room in an instant and nothing in the world could get him back inside- brown suits aren’t indicative of a calm soul. He can’t think of an adult in a suit that’s ever been anything but condescending to him.

Adding to that is how he’s just sitting behind his desk, suit blending in to the chipped and scarred desk, making him an almost indistinguishable lump. Any class Pete’s been in with a decent teacher, they spend the few minutes before the bell rings chatting with one of the students. A kinder person would say Mr Kirkpatrick is just nervous about his first year of teaching. Pete’s not that person. He has learned benefit of the doubt helps no one.

The bell goes off, and he strides to the middle of the room. His gait is another warning bell in Pete’s mind, he’s got an authoritative walk. Kirkpatrick takes the attendance, then introduces himself before starting to introduce the class. “This is Current Affairs. There is no textbook, instead you’ll be expected to read the newspaper each day. This is a class of thirty, assuming none of you drop or try to switch out. My budget allows for ten papers a day. It would behoove you to purchase your own, but as this is not college I can’t demand it.”

It’s another warning sign. What kind of teacher uses ‘behooves’ in a sentence? Pete starts drawing figure eights in the margins of his paper, trying to settle down the part of him that wants to flee. He knows it’s bad, but he doesn’t have any proof yet, and Garcia definitely will not accept he said behoove as an reason for switching out.

“You must also follow one online paper somewhere in the United States, and one outside of it, and write a weekly journal. Each will be worth five marks, and yes, I will read them, so don’t think you can fake it.” At this Kirkpatrick hands a pile of paper to each person in the front row. They take a paper and pass it back. Pete’s sitting in the third row, like he always does; a compromise between needing to be close to the door at the front of the class and not wanting anyone to be at his back. He looks at the sheet, it’s just a list of assignments and their weight. He clips it into his binder without reading it. There’s time for worrying about marks later.

“This is not a subject in which I feed you an entire overhead scroll of notes each class. This is a class where you need to think.” Pete sighs as he thinks how much better this class could have been had Mr Molko or Mr Armstrong been teaching it.

“You will be expected to have opinions, and to be able to back them up with something more than a heartfelt gut feeling. If you need to play it safe, refer to the article. Or you can show some initiative and take five minutes in the morning to wiki for a different slant on the issue.” Pete sees the way the entire class has their eyes glued to their notebook and thinks a sum total of none of them will be showing any initiative. Maybe Andy, in the afternoon. Knowing Andy, he’ll probably take up the whole class with his arguing and initiative.

“For example, this morning I read an article on stolen cars. What the writer didn’t acknowledge is why the rate is so high. I know from other sources that the reason for this is because there are no penalties for the underage criminals. If those teens had to face harsh consequences it would be different.”

Things kaleidoscope for a second. When his vision clears he’s in the hallway, Gabe’s friend Nate with him. He’s in mid sentence, “-to focus, dude.” Nate looks at him, and some of the worry clears off his face. “Good. Still, more focusing is required. You only have a few seconds to pull it together. Jessica was sent to get the principal. If you’re not chill when he gets here you might get suspended.”

“What happened?” It’s not like it’s the first time Pete has kaledioscoped, he’s not worried about not being able to remember what happened, memory loss is just another lovely parting gift he's gotten. But sometimes things go badly after he flips out, and he'll be suspended if he hit Kirkpatrick. The thought of having to spend an entire week at home makes him sick to his stomach.

Nate shrugs. “Look, Gabe doesn’t share your business, okay? But you’ve said some stuff when you’ve hung out, and that with what happened? I think you freaked out when he said consequences. You started screaming at him, I don’t have eidetic memory, but something about being a fucking cunt that wouldn’t know consequences if they stabbed him in the eye. He asked for someone to go get Hawthorne and it was like Pavlovian or some shit, you stopped shouting and walked out. I followed to make sure you didn’t do something stupid.”

“Thanks.” So he just shouted. Nothing good, but all in all, not nearly as bad as it could have been.

Pete leans against a locker and waits for Hawthorne. Chances are pretty good that everything will be okay. Pretty much all the staff know the barest skeleton of his issues, he doesn't tell Garcia more than he has to, and Garcia for the most part keeps confidentiality. If it had been any seasoned teacher they probably wouldn't have brought up 'consequences'. Still, there’s always the possibility that shit’s gonna go down, that the principal will be pressured by the new teacher to crack down on disrespect. Pete's plan for this is to make a case based on not knowing that's what he did. It's worked in the past. He knows better than to try and go back into the classroom. At best it will be seen as antagonizing towards Kirkpatrick, at worst the man will trigger another kaleidoscope. So instead he just stands and waits to see what will happen. Nate doesn’t try to pat his shoulder or attempt another method of comfort, for which Pete is grateful. Nate’s a Cobra and Gabe only has cool friends, but when his body is coming down from a scare he can only tolerate those he trusts most to touch him. Nate's on the slightly longer list of trusted friends, but he's not on the shortlist of those that inspire faith.

Nate only leaves when Jessica and Hawthorne turn the corner. He pauses with his hand on the door and says “Good luck, dude.” Pete nods his acknowledgment.

*

Pete shrugs. “On the plus side, I have another spare now.”

“Yeah, but do you have enough credits to graduate?” It doesn’t surprise him that’s the first thing Joe thinks of. He’s got the worst case of university fear that Pete’s ever seen.

“They’ll spot me one,” he says before taking a bite of his sandwich. He’s never understood putting lettuce into a sandwich, it doesn’t taste like anything. But it’s not a big enough deal to actually peel the mayonnaise soaked bread apart to take it out.

“I’m pretty sure they won’t.”

Patrick will always be the naysayer, and Pete will always be the one trying to convince him he’s not full of shit. It’s comforting in its routine. “No, they’re pulling it out of their collective asses. Assi? Independent study. I need to write a fifteen page paper and some sort of demonstration to an audience of at least one teacher and five students, but if I do it I get a credit.”

“Molko suggest that?”

“Yeah, Andy. He telepathically told Hawthorne and Garcia that I should get to do a project.” Pete rolls his eyes. “Ash, wanna trade my sandwich for your cookies?”

“I’m not even gonna dignify that with a response.”

“The fact that you just spoke means you dignified me.”

“Fuckin' smartass. See if you get cookies ever.”

*

“What are you doing tonight?” Pete asks carefully as they’re settling in the basement. It’s a slightly touchy subject. Anything that involves Ashlee and her dad’s crazy ass rules is. But his friends would never ignore his bullshit, or say things to make it worse. In the same way, he'll never not tread carefully when it comes to Ashlee and her family's expectations.

“Two parties. One with you guys. And when you big bad boys go then the girls will come over. Fifteen of my closest female friends as personally designated by my mother and sister, having a Sweet Sixteen sleepover. Lucky me.”

Andy pats her on the head, making her ponytail bob. “It can’t be that bad. You have fifteen nubile teenage girls in your basement, in shorty pajamas. Isn’t that like the dream of every straight man and lesbian ever?”

“Point.”

“Just never ever tell him you’re bisexual, cause then he’ll never let you have a guest past news again.” Pete nods his agreement with Andy. That would truly be fucked up. What he and Ashlee have only works on the basis that they’re both getting some on the outside. If she can’t see any girls, then it wouldn’t be fair for him to see his guys. And that would probably wreck their relationship.

“Right, like I needed you to tell me that,” Ashlee grimaces. It's retardly puritan of Mr Simpson to believe in virginity until marriage, but with her older sister believing whole-heartedly in his shit it makes Ashlee the black sheep if she tries to argue any of the household rules. Pete has no doubt that if he knew Ashlee's interests he'd expand her curfew.

“So, I think we’re all overlooking the important thing. Do we get cake? Or are we not special enough? I realize we’re only males, I can see where we aren’t worth it.”

“Joe, of course you get cake. My dad bought one for us now, and one for the girls later.”

“That’s awesome.” Joe’s grinning like it’s the best thing in the world. Pete thinks it’s a bit early in life to become permastoned and have the munchies even when not high, but each to their own. It's taken Pete a long time to cultivate a more relaxed attitude towards what Joe chooses to do, and he's not going to let himself tense up again.

“I guess.”

Okay, so Joe’s joy is a bit overdone. Still, it’s Ashlee’s birthday and she’s acting like it’s a funeral. Less than a month ago had been Joe’s birthday, and he’d been fucking thrilled about it. So Pete camps it up a bit. “How is two cakes in one night not awesome? And I swear if you say anything related to the word fat I will kick your ass.”

“You can’t threaten your girlfriend.”

“Yeah, that’s like domestic abuse.”

Patrick smirks. “Oh, I know! It’s not awesome because your dad fucking hates us and has poisoned the carefully marked boys cake.”

“Don’t be stupid, he doesn’t hate us all.” Joe says with a significant look at Pete.

“Right. For some crazy ass reason, he likes you two. I confuse him.” Patrick utterly ignores Andy’s comment of ‘it’s probably the hats’ and continues “he probably would only poison Pete.”

“Thanks for the vote of confidence, man.” Pete likes to think that even if Mr Simpson came at him with an axe, he could run fast enough to get away.

“Thanks for calling my dad a mass murderer,” Ashlee adds.

“If the arsenic fits, man.”

“Is it mass murder when it’s only four people? Four doesn’t really seem massive, you know?”

“Dude, I told you, he’s not going to hurt any of us. Just Pete. And one is definitely not mass murder.”

“Oh, you can do math. Congratulations. I’d like to inform everyone in this room that if Ashlee’s dad tried to kill me I could totally take him.”

“We’d like to inform you that Ashlee’s dad would fucking gut you like a fish. But it’s cute that you think he wouldn’t.”

Andy is full of shit, and in accordance Pete scowls at him. “Fetch me my cake, woman.”

“For that shit you’re so not getting the end piece with the extra chocolate shavings.”

As always, the door slams open at precisely six. Aside from his own, which is not an option at all, Ashlee’s is the house they go to least often. Every time they've been over though, the door crashes open at six. You could set the time on your computer by it, it would be more accurate than international internet time. It's the time that Mr Simpson gets home from work. Mrs Simpson and Jessica are generally home when everyone comes over, but they leave them alone. It’s Mr Simpson that’s the most likely -the only- to care what the youngest Simpson is doing and barge down the stairs. Luckily for Pete, Andy and Joe are great people. Not only are they willing to play cover, they have somehow convinced Mr Simpson they give a shit about sports, and therefore can distract him for upwards of an hour. Once it hits seven, there is no excuse or explanation in the universe that could keep a male in the house for a second longer. But until then, Joe and Andy are pretty good at distracting the Simpsons.

“We’re going to go watch football with him. Happy birthday Ash.” Joe bends and gives Ashlee a hug before crossing the room and waiting at the foot of the stairs for Andy.

“When you do each other’s makeup and nails make sure it’s not tested on animals.”

“Whose, Pete and Patrick’s?”

“Piss off!” Patrick sounds appalled at the idea, but Pete happens to know he looks good in eyeliner.

Once they leave Patrick moves from the bitch spot sitting cross legged on the ottoman to stretched out on the couch they left. He fiddles with the remote until he lands on some mindless crap. Something about ways to die. Pete tries to pay attention, but he really doesn’t give a shit about people that had to paint shit with radioactive paint and were dumb enough to put the paintbrushes in their mouths. Idiots.

Ashlee’s hand is on his thigh, fingers lightly drumming. The movement is fucking intoxicating. Pete lasts all the way to the commercial break before turning partially sideways and locking lips with her. The skin along her ribcage is so fucking soft, he doesn’t want to stop touching her. For a second her shirt gets caught on her ponytail, then he prevails.

“Hey, Patrick? You want in?”

“You have such ADD you can’t even wait until she gets off once?”

“It’s not like that!” It’s a token protest because they know that, and he knows that they know that. Pete doesn’t think he could have sex with someone if they didn’t trust him, if they didn’t know he cared. “I just think she’d like to get off once with me, and once with you.”

Ashlee snorts, nose crinkling adorably. “I think, and guess what, I know me pretty well, I think I don’t care which one of you as long as it happens.”

“Pete’s good,” Patrick says before looking back at the tv. Okay, so it’s not very nice to ask Patrick. He’s like ninety five percent gay, only doing shit with Ashlee on special occasions. But it is her birthday, and that totally counts as special, so he should be jumping in on this. On the other hand, it’s not like Ashlee seems to care that he’s not interested. And they can always fuck at Patrick’s house after they drop Andy and Joe off.

“Happy Birthday,” he whispers into her thigh before putting his mouth on her. He’s got at least forty minutes, he’s going to use them to the best of his ability.

*

Gabe’s parties are always awesome. Firstly, and most importantly, he’s got cool parents. The Saportas stay in their second floor master suite and leave the rest of the house to Gabe, a proposition which most parents would never agree with. Not every parent is a Simpson, but most hover around the Trohman level of supervision, watching tv in the other room and occasionally asking if they want a snack of some sort. There have even been a few times where, it’s reported, that Gabe had respectfully asked if he could have the house to himself for the night, and instead of laughing him out of the room they agreed.

Secondly, Gabe is an entertaining kind of guy. He’s Mr Marks’ prized student for a reason, he knows how to bring everything to a peak. Usually it’s humour, but Gabe can pull off intense fear, or rage, or really, whatever a scene calls for. Pete’s never seen Gabe not emote about something. It’s impressive. Pete would attend anything that Gabe was hosting just to see what would happen, even something ridiculous like a hotdog eating contest. Gabe would find a way to jazz up an eating contest, no question about it.

But it’s not just Gabe. With Gabe comes the rest of his improv troupe. There are six Cobras, never to be seen apart. Ryland’s got the best skill with accents, Alex and Elisa are wonderful with physical comedy and clowning, Victoria knows every media reference in the world to throw into the mix, from Family Guy to 1970’s sci-fi, and if you give Nate three seconds he can turn something into a song. It’s utter fact that any sort of event Gabe throws, the five of them will be there, and that is enough to guarantee a good time. Gabe’s parties are the only ones that have successful party games like Charades or Pictionary. Somehow, by sheer force of Cobra will, each cynical teenager enjoys things they learned to hate doing with relatives at ten years old.

There are also the parts that Pete is carefully neutral on, but definitely thrill most of the other party goers. Gabe always has a stash of party favours for his guests to imbibe, as long as they have the cash for it. Most parties Joe'll smoke, and Patrick drinks. Ashlee too, though it's rare that she's granted permission to go to a party; usually only if Jessica accompanies her. Pete’s not sure if Gabe is Joe’s dealer, and he doesn’t want to know. Just because he’s calmed down since Gabe’s first party doesn’t mean he wants any of the details. The more he knows, the worse he’ll feel.

After Blue Springs, Gabe was the only one to not fear the near-convict. Gabe spotted him at a show the week after he got out, Pete had been terrified but determined to watch the whole concert, even if the night ended with him fainting at the edges of the pit. Somehow Gabe had just known, and used his considerable height to keep everyone away from them. Gabe and Ryland and Elisa were the only ones he spoke to the entire summer. Not only does he owe his reintroduction to humanity to Gabe, Pete knows it’s also because of Gabe that the rest of Carleton decided as a whole that they didn’t care.

Everyone does drugs, Pete was just the one that got caught. The first time he heard Gabe use that excuse, Pete flipped out. He had a flashback, his face being smeared with something stinking and white because crackheads suck cock for drugs. He came back, shaking, the both of them sitting on the stairwell, Gabe glaring at anyone that tried to pass them. Gabe actually apologized, said he didn’t realize there was such an issue with narcotics. He explained that it was the best way to make other people normalize the whole thing, associate what little they knew and all the stupid rumours with things that were true in their own lives; getting caught and getting in trouble. Pete let him keep using that excuse. It was better than trying to use the truth.

“It’s now time for competitive Twister!” Elisa’s voice carries perfectly over the blasting stereo, which isn’t a surprise. All the Cobras are excellent at projection, it comes package and parcel with doing spontaneous shows on buses or in malls. Still, someone with brains locates the CD player and turns it down a few notches. No one wants to miss the rules.

“There will be a mat in each room. Pick your competition room carefully, whoever else joins will be your opponents. You want to win, winning is a very good thing. Or don’t play, whatever, no one’s forcing you.” Almost in unison the room snorts. Pete doubts anyone is going to not play. “Whoever wins, go to the porch.”

Being short is both a blessing and a curse. It’s hard for him to stretch and reach a diagonal green from red, but he doesn’t have as much leg to get in the way, it’s easier for him to go under his three opponents. Pete does a quick running man when he wins, and heads off to the porch. A quick headcount proves there’s nine other winners, which is sort of hilarious. Only Gabe would own ten fucking twister mats.

The winners are pretty stacked. Five of the six Cobras have made it, clearly whatever the prize is, it’s something they wanted and so played a game they already had skill at. Aside from them, it’s his friends. Pete’s not surprised at seeing Joe or Andy, they’re nimble fuckers. Patrick is a bit of a odd contender, but maybe his opponents threw the game? The last winner Pete can’t help but wince at. He’s done pretty good with avoiding Jeanae since their final, epic breakup, she enjoys house parties as much as he does but with the sheer volume of people at a Cobra party it's easy to walk in the other direction. He can only hope whatever this is, he’s not forced into conversation with her.

“So, what did we win?”

“An all expenses paid vacation to my motherfuckin hot tub!” Gabe says gleefully.

“You have a hot tub?” Gabe didn’t have a hot tub the last time Pete came over, he knows that.

“Yes. Yes I most certainly do. And it is awesome. And it’s only supposed to seat ten people, so that’s why we had to pick who got first dibs.”

“And it just so happens that almost all the Cobras won?” Andy snorts.

“We played to our strengths, what of it? Shuddap and strip to your boxers, damn it.” Alex follows his own advice. Pete considers it for all of two seconds before stripping down. Hot tub now beats having to uncomfortably put on jeans over wet boxers later. And hey, maybe Gabe will actually let them use towels.

The hot tub is around the side of the house, not visible from any of the windows in the house. It’s a good idea, especially for parties like this, no asshole is going to try to crash it before one of them wanders wet back into the house and lets the cat out of the bag. Or the beautiful steaming water out of the turquoise coloured container. Whatever. Pete has a minute to slide into the bubbling water and adjust so that the jet isn’t getting him directly in the back before it happens. Jeanae looks at him, that smirking expression, and Pete has just a second to prepare himself before she speaks. “Does it fuck you up to think that you’ve had sex with everyone in this tub?”

He doesn’t know what to say to that. It’s not like he can deny it. “I like everyone in the tub.”

His voice sounds tiny, like he’s trying to avoid pissing someone off. She knows, and smirks more. Jeanae was always good at driving in at the weaknesses the counselors left spotted all over him when it was to her amusement to do so. He never told her anything about it, but she never needed his personal history to see what could be used against him. “Can’t you like someone and not have sex with them?”

He doesn’t know how to answer. Before Andy or Patrick has a chance to realise he needs help, Gabe steps in. “You could, but I don’t see why you wouldn’t want to. Do you realise how hot everyone in this tub is?”

“You’re such a slut Gabe.” Gabe leers and slides sort of sideways, shielding Pete with his larger frame. Pete should be able to protest. It’s not about being a slut. He’s not one of the people that had to be smeared in lipstick. But the words stick to his cheeks, and then Gabe is kissing Jeanae, hand on her navy blue bra, mismatched to aqua polkadot underwear, and it’s okay. He’ll thank Gabe later, as they’re leaving the party, and Gabe will know that the words aren’t for inviting him over.

*

Pete's going on the senior trip, as are Patrick and Joe and Andy. Obviously it's more for it being entertaining than because it expands their geographical horizons. They’re from New Jersey, they’ve all been to New York a hundred times. It’s the familiarity of the city that makes picking their particular tour so easy. They’ve all been shopping, they’ve all been dragged to the Statue of Liberty, they’ve all seen concerts. And God knows they don’t give a shit about the Jets, regardless of what Joe and Andy have made Mr Simpson believe. What they haven’t seen is the Cobras totally geeking out. It’s going to be great entertainment. Pete doesn’t even care what play they see, or what back stages they’re allowed to watch the technical aspects of. Pete just knows beyond a shadow of a doubt that if Gabe and Ryland and Alex and Victoria and Elisa and Nate are all going to be all watching theatre that’s where he needs to be too. It wasn’t a hard sell to convince Andy and Joe and Patrick of the same.

Pete’s happy about the trip until the morning of. Or, more truthfully, the dawn of the trip. Sunrise was at four forty five and while Pete didn't see it, it was a close thing. Any normal person wouldn’t have to get up any earlier than normal. It’s not like they’re going on a red eye to Germany and need to be in at airport at four to be ready for customs. All the seniors that are going are meeting in the auditorium at nine, bag in hand.

And therein lies the problem. Pete is not the sort of person to write out a list, making checks as he’s packing, finally satisfied with an entirely checked list. Rather, Pete throws everything he could possibly need in his suitcase, then mistrusts himself and that he put his toothbrush in and so he dumps the entire bag upside down to check before repacking it. And then he figures he has his toothbrush but what about his toothpaste and has to empty it on the bed and check all of it again. It’s important to make sure he has everything he could need. Kurt didn’t pack enough water and he nearly died.

Pete’s been up since five thirty. He woke up in a fit knowing he needed to count how many pairs of underwear he’d packed. Since then he’s been repacking and repacking. It comes as a relief when he gets a text from Ashlee at seven saying open your front door. He doesn’t know why she’s awake, but he’ll gladly take the distraction.

He doesn’t bother to try to avoid the squeaky parts of the hall. It’s not like Hillary or Andrew will wake up, they haven’t learned the lessons he has about needing to be awake. He takes the stairs normally, which has been compared to an elephant in clogs. He doesn’t care if he wakes any of them up. Nights like these he thinks about his parents' need for sleep and weighs it against it being their fault he’s awake. He’s not going to stand outside their bedroom door with a ladle and a pot, but he’s not going to sneak either.

Pete presses the alarm combination and undoes both locks. Ashlee looks brilliant for it being seven am. And she’s brought Patrick. He looks distinctly less happy to be awake so early, hat tilted down so his eyes are completely hidden from the burning sun. “Do you want juice or toast, or something? I think we have nutella and strawberry jam.”

“Maybe later. Right now we just want to go to your room,” Ashlee punctuates her reply by pushing past him and starting up the stairs. Ashlee and Patrick take them as quietly as possible, which is a statement of what the Stumphs and Simpson families are.

Since Pete is the last on the stairs, by the time he gets into his room they’re both staring at his bed, which is covered in almost every article of his room. Neither seem shocked, which makes Pete feel better. His parents don’t like the way he packs, not that they’ve had a successful family vacation since... since.

“Yeah, we figured you’d do this. So first you’re going to tell Patrick all the shit you want to take and he’s going to pack it for you. And then you’re not going to open your suitcase again, because you’ll have it verified from an outside source you have everything you need. And to distract you from the doubt we all know will come creeping in-”

“Me? Doubt Patrick? Never!” But he knows she’s right. His inner planner doesn’t much trust others to do its work. That wouldn’t be safe.

“To distract you-” she continues like Pete didn’t interrupt “we’ll have sex until it’s time to go pick up Andy and Joe.”

“How did you get here this morning? Did Patrick drive?”

"I drove to Patrick’s, parked there, we took his car here, I’ll drive everyone to school, and you fuckers get to go party in New York while I sit through French. I’ll drive it back to Patrick’s, and then take my car home from there.”

“You’re trusting Ash to drive your car?” Pete’s pretty surprised, Patrick’s protective of his car.

“It’s better than having it sit at Carleton for a week. Who knows what jackass vandals might break the windows or scratch it. Ashlee’s skills are a small price to pay.”

“I resent the fact that I’m somehow the worst driver ever. My sister couldn’t even get her license! And Pete hasn't driven since the day he got his. If practice makes perfect then he must be shitty.”

“I didn’t want it in the first place. Too much drama, too many expenses. Plus me not driving makes Andy feel better, that way there are only two gas guzzlers in our group. You wouldn’t want him to have an eco-meltdown, would you?”

“I already check the ingredients of the makeup Jessica buys and toss it if it’s been cruelly tested. That’s the extent of my action. Now stop avoiding it and tell Patrick what you want him to pack.”

Pete does. It’s a long list, but Patrick just listens, nods his head a few times moments before Pete can accuse him of not listening. When he wraps up with slippers, Patrick makes a sweeping movement with both arms and gets everything on the bed on the floor, including half the blanket. He picks up the first pair of jeans Pete demanded and uses the bed as a flat surface to fold them.

Pete wants Patrick and Ashlee to be right. He wants to believe he can be distracted from worrying, even though it’s never been true in the past. So he lets Ashlee pull off his shirt, and watches her take off hers instead of looking behind her at Patrick and how he’s packing. Her bra is cute, white polka dots on a bright green colour. Oddly, it matches her belt, but he’s pretty sure she didn’t plan that. Shoes are supposed to match purse, necklace is supposed to match tights, but he’s pretty sure there’s no woman-rule about bra and belt. He runs his hands over her ribcage, slowly pushes his thumbs where the green meets her skin. Ashlee’s mouth still tastes like mint, either she brushed after breakfast or she didn’t eat. He wants to ask, but right now they’re dealing with his shit, not hers. She’d only get mad if he asked.

“I’m done, I packed it all. You have everything on your list.” Pete notices how Patrick restrains himself from mentioning that he’s probably bringing way too much considering it’s a six day trip, and appreciates it. Just because his needs aren’t rational doesn’t mean they’re not still needed. “And now I think you should suck me off. Go on your bed.”

Ash shakes her head, strands of hair whipping Pete’s neck. “Actually you should fuck him which he eats me out. I’ll go on the bed, Pete kneels on the floor, and you can get behind him. Alright? Sounds good.”

Pete has to stop for a moment when Patrick pushes into him. Ashlee grabs onto his hair and tries to make him continue, but Pete just pants into her folds. She calls him a fucking tease and gives a quick hard yank. He just needs a minute to feel. The way Pete feels with someone inside him is amazing, he never wants it to stop. Pete’s version of heaven is actually this exact scenario, being fucked, with the scent of lube and girls’ wetness lingering in the air, and the taste of cunt on his tongue.

After they’re done they rearrange themselves on the bed. Patrick falls asleep, scootched close against the wall while Pete turns on the tv. He doesn’t really watch any of it, just flips stations as Ashlee rests her head against his shoulder. They let Patrick sleep until eight, then text Andy and Joe to let them know they’re coming. It’ll give Andy time to premake all the vegan sandwiches he’s taking just in case -like New York of all places won’t have vegan options- and give Joe time to smoke up. Joe gets bored while traveling.

As it turns out, Joe had the right of it. The bus ride is pretty boring, and while Pete could never have eaten the cookies Joe offered at the Trohman house, Joe seems to be the only one on the bus of seventy teenagers that’s really enjoying himself. Even the Cobras have been doing nothing but playing rummy. Their bets guarantee good times for the future, but it’s nothing interesting now. Pete doesn’t even have a book.

When they’re almost there, Pete’s math teacher stands at the front of the bus. He tells everyone to be quiet, waits a minute, and starts in. “Attention students. As a treat we are letting you pick your own roommates. Be responsible with your choices, you’re not switching rooms if you get into a bicker with one of them. And keep in mind it’s four to a room. New York City hotels are expensive enough without filling a room. It goes without saying all four in a room are the same gender.”

Gabe stands up and Pete grins. This is the start of everything, the first dramatic act of nearly a week of Gabe being a drama queen. Non-stop improv geekery, it’s exactly what Pete signed on for.

“Excuse me, but why? If it’s to prevent sexual misconduct, I have to say that’s very ignorant of you. As Mr Marks can attest to, our protest revealed we have a significant faction of gay, lesbian, and bisexual students. To assume that just because it is all the same gender in the room means there can’t be sexual feelings is simply ludicrous."

“Ohhh, way to get your lawyer on,” someone shouts out.

Figero’s completely stumped, and Pete almost wants to burst into applause. But it’s tacky to do that in the middle of a show, and he’s sure Gabe isn’t done yet. It’s Mr Marks that answers. “While I appreciate your activism, the majority of the students do happen to be nearer the straight side of the sexuality continuum. Our rooming arrangements stand.”

“But sir-” Gabe starts. Ryland reaches up from his seat beside Gabe and pulls him down. Pete can’t help but grin. It was a short bit of theatrics, sure, but it was enough to halt a teacher in his tracks. They’re not even off the bus yet, Gabe will do better when he’s got room to work. He does have a point though. Same gendered rooms mean nothing when you’ve got an ass as sweet as Patrick’s in it. Or for that matter, Andy’s hand or Joe’s mouth. Though it has been a while since he fooled around with either them. Pete knows they’re basically straight. It’s not like with Patrick, who’s his boyfriend just as much as Ashlee is his girlfriend. They’re highly infrequent FWBs, Joe because anything is an option when you’re high, Andy because he finds anything the norm distasteful, and sometimes needs to prove he’s not mainstream.

Picking your own room is a pleasant turn of events. Pete wasn’t looking forward to explaining his bed issues to random seniors; anyone besides the Cobras and it would have sucked. It’s perfect that there’s four of them, a sign from the gods or something that it’s going to be a great week. Hell, maybe he can even convince Joe and Andy to join him and Patrick once. It’s not like Ash will care, she’s most likely using her time away from Pete to have a six day sex marathon with Julie or Tara. It works out perfectly for her too, girls are allowed to sleep over at the Simpson house. Pete wishes her all or orgasms she can physically stand. Thinking that she'll be getting off five times a night takes away some of the guilt he has for her having to stay home while they party. It's the bad thing about the senior trip, that it's only available for seniors.

*

Pete wakes up before anyone else in the room. He fell asleep after all of them, but that’s not a surprise. Really, it’s more shocking that he slept for - a glance at the clock tells him almost five hours. He doesn’t like digital clocks, and the way every number is composed of a handful of straight red lines. It seems hostile. At least old fashioned clocks with ticking hands have normal looking numbers.

It hits him upon waking. It’s like a tidal wave, he’s suddenly hit with the realization that his life is completely meaningless and he’ll never be able to escape his past, and that can only mean he’ll never have a decent future. It’s a realization he’s had many times before, but it never stops hurting for the repetition.

Pete always falls asleep on his side. It’s not a habit learned by necessity when he was fourteen, for as long as he can remember he’s woken up with his right arm half numb. To try to stop the thoughts he stares across the few foot gap between queen beds. Joe’s nearer him, Andy by the window, but in the darkness of the room -it’s almost eight, but the windows have black out curtains, there’s only the thinnest sliver of light coming from the sides of the curtains- it’s impossible to tell which mass of hair belongs to who. There’s not enough light to lend colour to the room, and Andy tends to be a snuggler. It’s why Pete’s sharing a bed with Patrick, besides the obvious reason.

Andy’s cell phone alarm starts singing at eight thirty. As far as Pete can tell it’s a Green Day song, but it’s hard to be certain. It’s muffled by Andy’s gigantic stack of pillows, he’d complained the hotel ones were too soft and had called the front desk for more. The concierge had seemed annoyed, but as far as Pete was concerned better that Andy ask for five and not tip the deliverer, than Andy start in on a rant about down filled pillows being cruel to ducks or whatever. Andy turns the music off almost immediately, then stays in bed for at least ten minutes.

When he finally gets up, he just slides jeans over his boxers and leaves the room. He comes back with coffee and a paper plate full of doughnuts. Pete has no doubt the coffee is lukewarm and that Andy refused to put cream in it, and that the doughnuts are stale. But you get what you get from a continental breakfast, and frankly he’s amazed Andy did it in the first place. For his own breakfast he pulls a package of vegan cookies from his food suitcase.

Andy sets about waking up Joe, mouth full of cookie. Joe groans and mutters something about needing a smoke, his sleep slur spoken directly into his pillow makes it nearly impossible to understand. Andy informs him there’s coffee, to which Joe says something that sounds like ‘that’ll do’ and sits up.

Patrick is a harder charge. He takes several swings at Andy before Andy punches him in the arm, tells him to stop being a fucktard or he’s going to wake Pete up, and tugs the blankets halfway off. The triple combo has some effect, Patrick reaches for the trucker hat he dropped the night before in the tiny space between the bed and the wall. If Pete had been sleeping, all the jostling definitely would have woken him up.

Pete lies in bed, watching them get ready through half closed eyes. They won’t wake him up until the last minute. Everyone’s supposed to meet their tour leaders at quarter after nine, Pete’s betting on a 9:10 wake up. They get worried about how little he sleeps. Pete’s tried to explain he’s used to it, but they hate when he compares his life now to his months away. Andy and Patrick get mad, Joe gets sad. Knowledge of Blue Springs makes them hate the world. Pete hates the idea that he’s the reason his friends are becoming cynical.

Sure enough, it’s 9:08 when Andy’s hand lands gently on his forehead. Pete appreciates the kindness, a rough shake of his shoulder is a trigger. It was precisely one botched wake-up before they all knew and never did it again. “Time to get up man.”

Pete pretends to be waking up. He stutters his eyes open slowly, and asks where his jeans are.

“I kicked all your shit over to your suitcase. It’s under the table.” Joe is barely understable through a mouth of doughnut, but Pete knew already.

“Pete, you’ve got like five minutes to take a piss and get dressed. We need to be in the lobby.”

“Yeah, about that...” He doesn’t want to go. He doesn’t want to get out of bed, he just wants to lay and stare at the curtains until he stops thinking.

“About what? Come on, Gabe and Alex are waiting. What do you want to bet they’ve already started fucking around?” Patrick adjusts his hat, then tosses Pete’s inside out jeans onto the bed. They land half on him, half sliding off the bed.

“What do you want to bet that Mr Marks is giving them extra credit for the fucking around?” Andy adds.

“I think I’m going to take the morning off.”

“What? This was your idea in the first place.”

“Yeah, and I’ll see you guys this afternoon.” He won’t be happier by then, unless by some miracle he’s able to fall back asleep and wake up saner. But he can face that difficulty when he comes to it. Right now he needs to focus on getting them to leave him alone now. “I really need to work on my project. Remember, I got it because I’m a total fucking freak?”

“So I’m going out on a limb and I’m gonna say a depressive mood.” Joe garbles out.

Fuck, he’s such an idiot. He should have phrased it better, the self loathing sort of makes it obvious to his friends. And now that they know, they’re going to become self-sacrificing. It’s supposed to be a good trip and he’s ruining it with his fucking drama. He’s such a shit.

“No, no. I’m fine, I just want to work on my project.” Pete actually needs to do that sooner rather than later. It’s not entirely a lie.

“You’re full of crap and you’re also more crazy than we know you are if you think we’re leaving you alone right now.” Andy says bluntly.

At this point Pete really wishes Ashlee was a senior rather than a junior. She’s usually fine with letting him mope, she believes he’ll eventually talk himself out of it. If she was a senior she’d definitely be in their room right now, Figero’s rules or no. Andy and Joe wouldn’t have cared about her sneaking in. If she was a senior, she’d help him against the guys, temper their aggressive need to fix him.

“You guys go, I’ll stay,” Patrick decides. Andy looks rebellious, Joe not much better, although the bulging cheeks distract from his upset expression. Andy opens his mouth to start to argue, and that will only end in them all getting stubborn and refusing to be the one to bail on him.

“What, you’re going to brawl over who gets to stay with pathetic me? Can I at least talk you down to rock paper scissors?” Pete is fucking trying his hardest to sound like his normal self so they’ll all go. It’s bad enough that he’s ruining their morning, making them whatever awesome shit Victoria and Ryland are doing five floors down. He won’t have them missing the whole damn day. “How about you all win and no one stays?”

“No.” He’s not sure who says it first, but he hears it three times in near unison.

“Come on, it’s not like I’m going to hang myself from the chandelier. There is none. So much for upper crust New York, no chandelier in the hotel.” Are they buying it? Please let them buy it. Pete doesn’t need another weight on his conscience.

“That’s not fucking funny.” Okay, apparently not.

“We all know I don’t actually give a shit about anything related to theatre. So I’ll stay.” Patrick crosses his arms. “You guys have like less than a minute to get to the lobby. We’ll see you later.”

“We’ll text you,” are Andy’s last words before they leave. Patrick leaves the lights off, but sits on the unmade abandoned bed and turns on the television. Pete stares at the way Patrick’s silhouette changes at he flips through channels and wills himself back to sleep. It won't happen, but he can still want it.

*

Pete slides into his spot between Ashlee and Andy. It’s a skilled move, he doesn’t even hipcheck them. “I am the spot snatching champion!”

“Yeah, no. Spot snatching is dashing to the couch when someone goes to the kitchen. Spot snatching is a masterful thing, a skill you practice starting at a young age, when you reign supreme in musical chairs.” Pete grins and gestures for Andy to continue. “What you did was merely climb into an already saved spot.”

“But he did it without smashing his knee into the nasty gummy underside. He should totally get points for that.”

“Thanks Joe, for pointing that out. I give me a ten out of ten. So does Ashlee, right?”

“No, you get a six.”

“I’ll deny you sex, Ash.”

“You should knock him down to a five for threats he can’t keep,” Patrick laughs, and Pete cheerfully flips him off.

“Can I just say that Forty Days Forty Nights, but with Ashlee and Pete, would be the best fucking thing ever?” Joe offers.

“Oh yeah? Who would be the hot chick that I get to rub with flowers?” Ashlee glances around the cafeteria. “The movie states it’s gotta be someone new, not a fuck buddy, so it can’t be Jules or Tara. Everyone cool with movie me bagging Kirsten Curtis?”

“Why do you get to have the sexy plant sex?” Pete could rock Nate’s world with a lily, or whatever the hell flower it was. Although he might be screwed for the having sex with a stranger thing, it’s not his style.

“Because she’s the lesbian, and it’s like United States constitutional law that nobody is allowed to prevent lesbian sex.”

“Damn straight,” Ashlee laughs.

“No, seriously though, a contest between Ash and Pete, who do you think could not have sex longer?”

“The smart vote is on neither,” Patrick says before unwrapping the tinfoil on his sub and starting to eat.

“Ashlee.”

“Yeah, that’s what I thought too.”

Pete shakes his head. Joe and Andy clearly are insane. “No way guys. The movie had no jerking off too, right?”

“Yeah?”

“Well, Ashlee would win for abstaining from two person sex, but she’d be screwed, pardon the pun about getting off.”

“Yeah, he’s totally right. I definitely get off more than Pete does.”

“I feel like I should be saying that’s TMI, and yet...”

“TMI is for pussies.”

“I feel it should be stated that I’m the smartest guy at the table, for saying neither.”

“I feel it should be stated that the smartest guy at the table has lettuce on his teeth.” Pete cracks open his Pepsi and takes a sip.

They talk and eat for a bit before Pete brings up his piece of news. It’s not like it’s big, or important. Well, it’s possibly important, if things don’t work out in the future. And it would be big if it was someone else. But it’s him, and he knows before he says it no one will be stunned. “So, uh. I got fired again. Andy?”

“Yeah, I know what to say.” Mr Molko and Andy are his resume references. Andy’s better at selling him than Patrick, and Joe can’t be trusted to answer the phone sober. Ashlee would be a good reference, if Mr Simpson wasn’t a crazy bastard. She’s not supposed to answer unknown numbers, and occasionally he tests her by calling her from a payphone. If she answers, her phone gets confiscated for ‘unsafe practices’. He’ll talk to Molko about it later.

“Was it ’cause you didn’t show up 'cause you were in bed?” Pete shakes his head. Patrick’s right, he’s been having more depressive moods than manic ones lately, but that has nothing to do with last night.

“Did you scare the customers again? Because you could probably A.D.A. that shit.” And that in a nutshell is the problem with letting Joe Trohman take law. He reads way too many case studies, beyond what’s in the textbook he’ll actually Google things that are only referenced by year and name, and then thinks he knows shit about things.

“No, I couldn’t, you have to be diagnosed for that.”

“Oh.”

“And it wasn’t that anyway. Another employee caught someone shoplifting last night. I tried to convince them not to call the cops, even though it’s store policy. Because you never know what the parents could do, right? They could decide it’s the last straw, even though it’s only a fine it’s still criminal, and it would be my fault, so I tried to convince Kayla and Kayla called anyway and I started shouting and then the cops came and the guy was crying and the cops were there and they were trying to grab and-”

Andy cuts him off. “Okay Pete. We get it.”

Patrick reaches across the table with the hand that isn’t holding his lime crush and takes his hand, and Ashlee kisses his cheek. It’s grounding, enough to stop him from starting to freak. He takes a breath and finishes his story. “Right. So yeah, the manager didn’t like that I went against store policy, or at least tried to. And abusing an employee apparently wasn’t good either. So I got fired.”

“Abusing? You hit Kayla in front of cops? I know she’s a bitch, but I-”

“I didn’t hit anyone, I just called her a dumb bitch a few times. Verbal abuse counts, according to Mitchell.”

“Fuck ‘em. Like you want to be working at Radio Shack for the rest of your life anyway, right?”

“You going to look for something new right away?”

“Yeah, you know my parents.” Pete’s got what most would consider a sweet deal, really. As long as he’s working, his parents match his paycheck. There’s no allowance at the Wentz house, they want their children to have a work ethic. Andrew’s already starting to complain he doesn’t have the money for the things he needs. Considering he’s thirteen and no store will hire him, it sucks to be him.

The thing is, he’s pretty sure it’s guilt money. He doesn’t talk to Hilary about it -about anything, really-, but he’s pretty sure she’s not getting her Claires check matched. And the idea that they’re just giving him money because they don’t want to talk to him, well, it’s shitty. Pete won’t bring it up first. Every few weeks he shows them his pay stub and takes the fistful of cash essentially silently. He can get any concert ticket he wants, go see any movie he wants. But it’s still shitty.

*

Joe is across the hall, leaning against a locker and chewing a piece of gum when Pete gets out of chemistry class. This semester Joe’s been meeting him for study hall. He’s got gym while Pete has chem, and always says Pete’s got the better deal. Considering gym is one of the mandatory courses, Pete's triumphing in better classes will only last so long. And at least Joe has Andy in his class to have someone to talk to while they're forced to run cross country. Joe doesn’t shower after gym, -he claims he doesn’t want to ruin the jewfro- so he’s always out of the locker room before anyone else. By the time the bell rings, signaling the true end of class, Joe’s already waiting for Pete.

“Hey, do you mind if I see Molko?”

It’s a question Pete asks on average once a week. Joe never seems to mind. Pete’s not entirely sure what Joe does when he bails. It’s probably not that different from what they do together; hang out in the library and do homework, Pete sometimes down enough that he wants nothing more than for the entire library to explode so he can be finished with existance, Joe sometimes having a panic attack about all the universities currently judging him.

This time is no exception. Joe shakes his head and Pete watches his hair bounce. “Go for it.”

Pete doesn’t have any class with Mr Molko this semester. It doesn’t stop him from dropping in to talk to him almost every day. Sometimes it’s before homeroom, or in the ten minutes between classes. When he first came back to Carleton that was a bit terrifying, he could only stand to be in the hallway for a few minutes before running to his next class. Being late to any class was not an option, it was one of the things that had gotten him into the torture he’d faced in the first place.

Then came the day that he’d gotten heavily into a conversation with Mr Molko. They’d both been in the hall, Mr Molko leaning against the white painted cinderblock, Pete standing beside him. Pete’s attention had been focused on his opinion and he hadn’t noticed the swarm of people thinning out. Then the bell had rung and he’d seen that the halls were empty. Things had started to kaleidoscope, but Molko had pulled him out of it and walked him to his next class.

Pete likes Mr Molko. More than that, he can almost trust him. Pete’s pretty sure he’s broken, that Blue Springs broke things inside him that were never meant to be shown to strangers. Pete’s not Terry, he was strong enough to survive. But every prisoner at Blue Springs was almost the teen that drowned himself in the stream at least once. He’s probably never going to fully trust someone again, he’ll probably never last a day -or even an hour- without picking up warning signs and making plans. But the teacher is the only adult that he can fathom even partially trusting.

Mr Molko is the only adult that ever apologised to him. He’d gotten a few from people his age, Gabe and Eliza, later Joe and Patrick. He’s never wanted them from peers, no one his age had anything to do with it. None of the adults that caused it seemed inclined towards guilt. No one except Mr Molko. After he came back, he was in Molko’s freshman English. The first class Molko had paused beside his desk and spoken quietly to him. Pete can still remember the words exactly, down to inflection. For what little it’s worth, we’re sorry. I’m sorry. We didn’t realise your parents would go psycho. Many of us would have fudged absences, had we known. Pete hadn’t been able to say anything to that, and finally Molko had moved to talk to another student. It wasn’t much, but it was more than anything any other teacher said.

Among other things, Mr Molko teaches health. Technically it’s biomedics, a class for those that can’t quite hack biology but have statements like ‘biology recommended’ in their college course plans. It’s biology that doesn’t deal with DNA or animals or plants, just narcotics and heart conditions and contagious disease. Pete took it in grade ten and loved it, scored a ninety two. A fully deserved ninety two, his final project was amazing, and is still tucked in the box of ‘school shit to keep’ in his closet.

This semester, biomedics is at the same time as study hall. Pete likes sitting in. Molko has a way with words, a turn of phrase that makes everything easy to remember come tests. It’s been two years and he still remembers half of what Mr Molko’s talking about. Pete doubts he’ll ever forget that the pericardium is a chicken sack, like a Ziploc with chicken marinating in fluid inside.

Mr Molko never seems surprised to see him. Pete slides into one of the empty desks and listens to the notes he's reading out as he writes them on the dry erase board. Each new word about the cardiovascular system is written in red, the definitions green. He sits through the entire class, of course. It would be rude to get up and walk out halfway through, especially considering he’s not supposed to be sitting in. Not that Molko ever mentions it, just like Mr Marks not mentioning how Gabe, Eliza, and Ryland show up for every class of drama, though they’d taken all four graded semesters of it by junior year. Teachers can be fairly skilled at not mentioning things when bringing them up only makes things worse for everyone.

If he did walk out, Mr Molko probably wouldn’t call him on it. He’d know it was for a reason, he’d know Pete wasn’t doing it to be rude. Mr Molko is the only person over eighteen that understands him, and frankly he has no idea what he’s going to do when he graduates. Part of him hopes they can go for coffee and talk sometimes. Most of him understands how unrealistic that is, and how much trouble Molko would be in if he agreed. CNN and job suspension styles of trouble.

Pete will wait until the end of class to ask Mr Molko to be his reference again. Or rather, he’ll wait to tell him to expect another phone call. Pete just automatically puts Mr Molko on his resume, he’s helped him get dozens of jobs over the last few years. But it’s only fair to warn him that he needs help again. He has faith that Mr Molko won’t look down on him for it.

*

In the most technical terms, this is Ashlee’s date. She paid for Julie’s ticket as well as her own, twenty bucks each for a slip of orange cardboard the size of a business card. Pete knows from texting that Ashlee spent at least an hour after she got home looking for something to wear that would make her feel beautiful. Every text Pete sent assuring her she didn’t need to look, she already was went unanswered. He also knows they went for something to eat first, at Jhour, because Ashlee texted him asking if he could remember what burger had the onion in it, because their waiter didn’t seem to speak English and she hated onions. If it had been Pete, he probably would have asked for a different waiter, but Ashlee hates making a scene. Fancy clothes, a dinner, and an event afterward all add up to date, that’s basic social math.

The thing is, they’ve all got tickets too. Last night after they got kicked out of Ashlee’s they went over to Andy’s. It’s the best place to go when they don’t want to be checked on by parents, like the Stumphs and Trohmans inevitably will. Andy’s parents got divorced when he was still a kid, and for most of his childhood he lived with his dad. But then his dad got remarried and his stepmom already had two kids, and from the way Andy’s bitterly described it they immediately went to work popping out more. At the beginning of junior high he moved back in with his mom, and since she works evenings things are always quiet at the Hurley house.

Halfway through a vicious battle of Guitar Hero, Andy stopped cheering on Joe and went to his room. He came out with four tickets and demanded a twenty from each of them. He gave Patrick’s to him, looked at Joe and Pete for a second, and then gave Patrick the other two, saying he didn’t trust Pete or Joe to not lose them, and that was fucking important because the show was nearly sold out when he picked them up a week ago. Pete can see Joe misplacing his ticket in a stoned ‘clean up’ of his room, but resents the idea that he’d lose his. Pete’s been going to concerts since before Andy was born! Metaphorically speaking, of course. Okay, so Andy probably goes to more concerts then he does, really. But Pete still isn’t that stupid, and it’s sort of insulting. When Andy’s not looking Patrick gives him a ticket, and that makes him feel a bit better.

Pete had no idea Ashlee was seeing The Suck of the Scene until Patrick had them almost at the venue. He texted to ask where her next stop was before couch and/or bed, and her answer was the address of the parking lot they were pulling into. To be perfectly honest, he’s not sure the knowledge would have stopped him from buying a ticket, TSS is a pretty good local band. Passing them up to give Ashlee her privacy is the sort of scenario that would depend entirely on what sort of mood Pete was in. But now that he’s actually paid for the ticket he’s not going to stop himself from standing in line. It’s not like any of them are going to bother her while she’s with Julie.

Pete rushes into the mosh pit as soon as they get their tickets ripped, Andy and Joe following as Patrick goes to find a table. It’s one of the few areas that he’s actually been able to talk himself out of freaking out about. People pressed against his back still isn’t a good feeling. He still gets sick to his stomach if someone in a grocery store gets too close to him in line. But it was the most important of his fears to get over. Carleton’s hallways were crowded, he couldn’t have stayed in school if he had a meltdown every time he felt someone graze his shoulder as they passed him going to their next class.

Really, it was the music that fixed it. Pete spent seven months at Blue Springs in silence, apart from the screaming of Rapport. The first month he came back his iPod never left his pocket. It took him a week to steel himself to attempt a concert, knowing that if anything was going to reconnect him to his old self, it would be how he felt hearing teens screaming lyrics and the way the floor reverberated with the power of the amps. Gabe had stayed at his back after Pete had asked for it, wincing the entire time -it had been his first conversation with someone not a blood relation- without even thinking it was weird. And it had been worth it. Concerts are entirely worth it. Pete still hates people coming at him from behind, it’s still a trigger. But he doesn’t immediately kaleidoscope anymore, just gets this knot of fear and shame and hate in his stomach. It’s a feeling he can channel into shoving the people around him as hard as possible, and it makes getting shoved back comforting somehow. Joe still tends to stand behind him, he’s not Gabe but he is a few inches taller.

Pete doesn’t wade out of the crush of people until Pulse Running High is done their set. He heads towards the bar, knowing that Patrick will most likely have bought them all a bottle of juice, and if not he’ll have his own that Pete can happily steal swigs from. Andy stays near the stage to try to talk to Pulse’s drummer, but Joe comes with him. He’ll probably go out for a smoke in a minute, but he’ll want something to drink first.

At the table with Patrick is Jules and Ashlee. Pete freezes. He’s ten feet away and he’s pretty sure they haven’t seen him, although they’d have to guess he was here by sheer virtue of Patrick’s presence. He has no clue what the etiquette of this is. He knows that Julie knows about him, just like he knows about her. Ashlee doesn’t cheat. He doesn’t know how much she knows, doesn’t know if Ashlee tells her about their straight sex like she sometimes tells him about her lesbian sex. Pete’s never actually talked to her, Ashlee keeps her girl life mostly separate, unlike Pete with his boys.

Evidently Joe is as stymied as he is. Pete hears his ‘uhhhh’ over the ambient noise of a hundred people wandering and waiting for the next band to set up.

“Let’s go for a smoke,” Pete offers. He can handle standing and breathing in secondhand smoke, it’s better than trying to interfere. Patrick will manage.

There are a ton of people milling around that they need to weave through before they can exit. Before he can get much closer to the front door Ashlee looks up and smiles. Pete can’t help but smile back, and then she’s standing and walking over to him. She looks great, she’s wearing her blue shirtdress with torn off jean shorts, and black tights underneath. His girlfriend is a fucking hot ass, there’s no question about that.

She hugs him when she gets close enough. “Come say hi to Jules,” she murmurs in his ear.

“You sure? I don’t want to fuck up your date.” It doesn’t seem fair. He gets time alone with Patrick all the time, he could have it every day if he wanted. Hell, he normally does want it. So it’s technically true for her too, Mr Simpson’s girl-rules being so much less overbearing than his boy-rules. Pete knows she doesn’t take advantage of that nearly as often as he does with Patrick.

“No, it’s good. Hell, she doesn’t even know what you look like, and it’s been almost as long with her as with you.” The second part of it isn’t a shock, Pete had the ‘um, Patrick and Gabe and sometimes...’ conversation as soon as he started dating her, positive he didn’t want another Jeanae experience. She’d taken it utterly in stride, and a few weeks later she’d had the Julie conversation with him. The first half is though. While he doesn’t know Ashlee’s girlfriend’s favourite colour or if she has pets, he sure as hell as seen her on Facebook.

“Sure, I guess. Let’s go say hi.” It can’t be that awful, can it?

It isn’t. Julie smiles at him and makes a comment about group dates being the best kind after he introduces himself, and then Joe, and Andy when he wanders over a minute later. And while Ashlee sits on Julie’s lap because they don’t have enough chairs, Julie takes Ash’s arm like a puppeteer and stretches it out until it’s on Pete’s leg. It’s only for a few minutes, then the second band, Be Someone, Not Just Anyone, starts up. Ashlee hops off Julie and they rush to the floor again. Be Someone isn’t as much of a moshing band, so they stand in a circle and jump to the beat. Pete knows who Ashlee’s going home with, knows because she’s got no choice about it, and knows how it would go down even if she did. But he’s happy for her, and he’s probably going to get his own kisses from Patrick, as long as Patrick drops him off last.

*

A few minutes after Pete sits for biology, Mr Jessop’s sub tells them they’ve got a break, that they don’t have to turn in their homework. A few of his classmates seem relieved, which Pete thinks is stupid. If they’re the kind of person that doesn’t do homework, an extra day does nothing but delay the inevitable. He’s more concerned about what will go down tomorrow. Mr Jessop is a homework Nazi, he’s not going to be impressed that a substitute let them get out of passing their work one to the side and one up so they can grade each other and ‘learn from each other’s mistakes’.

“After the bell rings, I’ll need you all to line up in an orderly fashion and make your way to the auditorium. You’ll be spending the class there.”

Pete sighs. Suddenly it all makes sense. It’s the dreaded ‘nose to the grindstone’ lecture, he should have realised. After all, it is the last day before holidays, and when they come back they’ve got three days before exams start. Hell, sometimes Hawthorne likes to really drive his point in by scheduling another talk on the first day back. He’s hardly the only person in the class to groan. There can’t be a single student in the school that finds the lecture meaningful on any level. People study (or don’t) how they want to (or don’t), and nothing any teacher tells them is going to change that. He’s sort of a prime example of that.

His heart beats a bit faster as they enter the auditorium. Groups of metal chairs are a warning sign. It’s not an immediate meltdown, it’s more like his back thing. Folding chairs are part of school, drama and film and art use them instead of the blue plastic chairs used by most courses. They’re something he needs to deal with even if they do have correlations to all sorts of bad events Pete doesn’t want to think about. It’s not a matter of loving folding chairs and powering through it like it is for his back thing, it would take a real freak to have a passion for folding chairs. Dealing with them is different, and revolves mostly around making sure that current experiences have absolutely no ties to old ones.

The most important is being able to choose his own posture. Pete can slouch in the chair if he wants to, spine unhealthily curved. Or he can set his ass on the very edge of the chair and sprawl so he’s almost on it diagonally. He can pick what he wants to do with his arms too. He can cross his arms instead of having his hands either in front of him clapping or tucked under his thighs. And he can listen with his eyes closed.

It’s also helpful that he can refuse to clap. Pete can be one of the masses that thinks this entire thing is ridiculous, and just not clap without fearing repercussions. To be honest, he probably won’t ever clap again. Thanks to Blue Springs slapping your palms together no longer means applause, it means you don’t believe someone’s story and they have to shout to continue telling it.

Hawthorne starts orating, buckle down and exams are a crucial part of one’s education. Pete does his best to tune out. It doesn’t much work, the planner inside him needs to hear every word in case something dangerous is said. He wishes he could stop listening. He’s on the verge of making a scene, every shouted authoritative word makes it worse. He really wishes one of his friends was in his biology class, so he’d have someone beside him. Hell, even a Cobra would hold his hand.

Hawthorne coughs once and says “And for the first time, I am pleased to introduce a group that will help drive the point home. Please give a Carleton welcome to DARE.”

Pete starts to plan an exit strategy. If only he could remember the sub’s name, he could hiss it to get her attention, then whisper to her about needing to leave. With Mr Jessop this wouldn’t have been an issue, any normal teacher would have known. His hyperventilating is the loudest sound in the auditorium. Any second now a teacher is going to notice and is going to help him get out.

There is a huddle of people on the stage, all wearing black shirts with white writing. They’re clearly a group that knows what it wants to do, and Pete’s stomach churns. One steps up to the microphone and shouts into it ‘do you know what kind of people do drugs?’ Pete kaleidoscopes as the feedback echos.

When he comes back he’s outside. He’s in the parking lot, sitting on the ground, body pressed against against the tire. Everything smells like rubber and metal, the road is hard and cold under him. He’s in the safe/unsafe place where he knows he’s bad but he can get better, as long as he doesn’t struggle against the cold or hard.

Slowly, slowly, he starts to come back to himself. The first thing he does his twist himself so he can see more of the car. Something like relief hits him when he sees it’s Patrick’s. He’s not sure how long it will take him to talk himself into going back inside. Nothing about going back to a crowd of people pressed against his back in the hallway and authority figures lecturing sounds safe or even possible right now. At the very least Patrick will be able to find him after last class, if it takes that long.

It makes sense he’s against Patrick’s front wheel. It should have been either Patrick’s or Ashlee’s. Andy refuses the fossil fuel consumption and either carpools or bikes. Joe remains convinced that moderate amounts of marijuana make you paranoid about cops pulling you over for erratic driving, which makes you a far more careful driver than most on the road, but his therapist made him promise to never drive. Ashlee and Patrick are the only ones that drive to school and back every day, Patrick’s almost always the one that picks up Andy and Pete. Pete has a car, but he only uses it to get to work, he doesn't like to drive. When he’s depressed addiction to cars seems like just another one of society’s ills. It’s a reason why they all deserve to die; like Andy’s thoughts but much worse. When he’s manic Patrick takes his keys and drives him to work. He’s not sure what Patrick thinks he’s going to do, but it’s not impossible that Patrick’s right about it; when Pete gets hyper he doesn’t always make the best choices. At the time he thinks Patrick’s full of crap, but he puts up with being chauffeured because Patrick’s good to rant at and can be talked into singing.

With morbid curiosity Pete can’t help but wonder how many people he shoved out of the way in order to leave. He imagines a wake of toppled chairs and thinks of the kids in his class. There are a few that won’t be happy about being pushed, the next few days will involve fistfights he’s going to have to get into. Fucking substitutes, not giving him a proper warning.

*

Pete’s got a few safety nets for when he’s forced into taking a drive with his family. The first is an car emergency tool. He doesn’t care about the seat belt cutter, he’s got capable hands. Nor does the flashlight or the flashing distress light mean anything. His five-in-one tool is for one thing and one thing only; the glass breaker meant for cars plunging into lakes. With it, he can bail from the car even if they decide to use the child locks. The second is seat placement. Pete always sits on one side of the backseat, letting Hilary and Andrew argue over who is stuck in the middle seat/beside him. He’s not sure what fate is more concerning to a thirteen year old and doesn’t really care about their opinion. The entire family is well aware Pete will not get into the car if he doesn’t have a window seat. His final plan comes in the form of a pen in his pocket. Worst comes to worst he can shove it up his nose and into his brain. He’s never going back.

It’s very rare that Pete finds himself in this situation. It’s one of the reasons he has a car, so he can drive himself to family functions when his presence is required. Not that he really cares about their feelings, but he figures it has to be awkward for his parents in the front seat, knowing that their eldest going nearly blind with worry in the back. But there’s something wrong with his car, and he’s got no choice but to be driven with Andrew and Hilary.

He’s not the only one with holiday problems. Joe’s grandfather spends the whole of Hanukkah at the Trohman’s house, discussing the education of his grandchildren. He’s been channeling money to college funds for all three of them since the day Joe and his siblings were born. Pete’s willing to bet nearly all of Joe’s school anxieties come from him. Ashlee has to spend nearly of her time leading up to Boxing Day in church, the Simpsons only celebrate religion during the holidays, but they make up for their lack of concern the other fifty weeks of the year on Christmas and Easter. Besides himself though, Pete thinks he probably feels the worst for Andy. Christmas Day is the single day of the year he spends with his father and his half siblings. They’re all carnivores, and there’s nothing that doesn’t have some kind of animal product in it. Andy says not eating for twenty four hours is the only way he can survive, but even then he’s not comfortable. His stepmom owns three fur coats.

Pete spends most of the almost-hour long car ride texting his friends. Their words are distracting, it’s nice to talk about horror stories past and present. Besides that, it’s also part of Pete’s safety system. If he has to bail from the car he’s got promises from all five of them to descend on the highway like vultures after carrion to come get him. He’s got his preferences, of course, considering the Saportas spend most of the holiday season sloshed Gabe won’t be the safest pick up. And Andy is more likely to get in a crash than make it to wherever Pete’s body has landed after diving out a window, considering he’s never even gotten his beginners license. But Pete will take a ride from any of them, he’s not picky. Nor does he care how bad it will hurt to dive out of the window at fifty miles or faster. It doesn’t matter what breaks as long as it’s not his phone.

He doesn’t think it’s going to happen again. He’s got his safety plans, but he’s reasonably sure they’re going where they promise to be going. After all, it is the middle of the day on Christmas Eve, and he did have to field about a dozen calls from various relatives about what they were bringing for the potluck while his parents were in the kitchen cooking said scalloped potatoes. It seems a bit elaborate for a repeat performance. Last time it was a single easy lie.

Arriving at his aunt’s house doesn’t do much to ease Pete’s life. Sure his parents didn’t try to fuck him over again -he texts everyone about his location so they know- but he still has to deal with his relatives for at least five hours. He undoes the seat belt and jumps out of the back. His vision is still rough, sparkled with nonsensical colours, and since no one bothered to salt the sidewalk he nearly slips a dozen times. The door is open, Pete’s the last one to enter. He tosses his jacket on the couch in the formal living room off the front hall, the pile already there proves they’re the one of the last branches of the Wentz clan to arrive.

Most of the cousins are spread through the kitchen and the den. Both have great draws; the kitchen has a long table of dishes and snacks, the den has the big screen tv. There are a few cousins a few years younger than him, a few a few years older. Andrew is the youngest of them all at thirteen, the age range isn’t great. Pete still feels completely alone in the room of over a dozen cousins, and keeps his phone firmly in hand.

No one says much more than hello to him. He’s not expecting them to. After all, he’s the bad cousin, the bad seed. Pete only starts talking when Samuel turns the tv to an old Eurovision game and then it’s only to heckle the ref. He’s hardly the only one, the entire room bursts into sporadic boos and cheers depending on what team they’ve claimed for their own. Soccer is the only thing that draws the Wentz’s together. After dinner Pete knows they’ll be going outside for a makeshift game. It’s a Christmas tradition, some of his first memories are going outside in the snow and playing until one of his uncles has to sacrifice his gas and car battery by turning on his headlights because some of the streetlamps don’t work.

It used to be one of the best parts of Christmas. Pete loved lining up with his cousins and a few of the more spry aunts and uncles and having teams picked. It’s just another thing that got ruined. Pete hasn’t played soccer since his freshman year. Coach Spriggens was one of the strongest believers that tough love would help him. A lot of Pete’s hate revolves around that bastard, and he’s done his best to avoid him completely. He’s not sure if he would be able to stop himself from getting revenge if he saw him. Belonging to a team that wasn’t Carleton’s was a possibility Mackenzie’d pitched to him the first twenty times there was a birthday after he got back, the idea of being as skilled as Pete was and not utilizing it was unfathomable to her. But he doesn’t ever want to work under a coach again.

The last three Christmases he’s made himself play, and this Christmas will be no different. It’ll be uncomfortable, because his scoring makes people want things from him he can no longer give. The first time he played he had flashes of anger so strong he thought he was going to kill Samuel, his opposition. But it’s not about the game, not really. So he’ll play through any emotion that might come, because he won’t let everything be taken away from him.

*

Pete spins in the computer chair so it’s facing the computer instead of the tv. Rock Band is only four players, and he might as well check Facebook while they’re working on a song. It’s a stupid website, he doesn’t give a shit about anyone’s farms. The only reason he keeps an account is so he can share pictures, and check on local bands gig dates.

Someone without a picture in his profile is trying to add him. Normally Pete would delete it and move on, but the names seems familiar. “Any of you know Wade Ludo?”

A chorus of ‘no’s ring out through Andy’s living room, and Pete stares at the name for a minute before adding the guy. Worst case scenario he’s some troll, and Pete just has to take three seconds to delete and ban him. Pete clicks through the various links; he doesn’t have any friends he recognises, he’s not a fan of any of the same bands so it’s not like they had a three minute conversation at a club. A look at Wade’s info page shows he doesn’t even live in New Jersey.

Pete’s about to sign off and demand the drumsticks from Ashlee when the messenger service pops up in the bottom. hey just found u hope u dont mind i added u

whos ths? Pete types. Even if the guy lived a street away from Pete, he’s not the type to hook up online.

u dont rmmber me?

no

i went 2 BS. i thot we cud meet

Pete looks at the sentence for a second. He moves the mouse to the corner and exits Facebook, pulls his feet to the edge of the oversized chair so he can curl around his knees, and tries not to vomit.

It takes them three songs to notice. Part of him hates them for not caring enough, that if they really cared they'd sense his trouble immediately. Part of him thinks that’s ridiculous, that he can’t be the centre of attention for every second. Most of him would really like for this to just stop. A permanent kaleidoscope would be fantastic, if he could just slip away in a burst of sparks and colour and never come back.

“Pete, you alright?” It’s Joe, and Pete doesn’t reply. It’s answer enough for them, Patrick slips his guitar off his shoulder and focuses his attention on him, while Andy moves to check the internet history.

“Facebook? Did some asshole put something on your wall? It’s a site full of tools, don’t worry-”

“Wade? Remember, I just asked if you knew-”

“Some stranger put shit on your wall? I don’t see why you’d even fucking care, but-”

“Andy, he went to Blue Springs. And he wants to meet me. And I-” Pete stops. If he can’t even think words inside his head of what this means, how the hell is he supposed to explain it, even to them?

“Do you want to meet him?” There Ashlee is, at the dead heart of the question. And he doesn’t fucking know, it’s something he’s never even thought about. In the almost four years he’s been out, he’s never once considered trying to contact someone else. Why the hell would he? What the fuck would be the point? The more Pete thinks about, the more ridiculous and awful it seems.

“What good can come from it?”

Joe shrugs. “I don’t know. It’s your choice dude.”

“No really, sitting around in his basement and talking about all of it? What, comparing war wounds like veterans? I don’t see why.”

“Maybe to talk about it with someone that actually knows?” Joe offers.

“I do talk. You guys know shit, and Garcia knows a little.”

Andy snorts. “Garcia knows exactly what you can best use to get out of detentions. Not that I’m blaming you, because dude, you and Joe get an extra spare for selective speaking, it’s a good deal. But Garcia doesn’t know shit, and you know it.”

“We don’t count either, Pete. Not really. It’s not like we know what the fuck to say when you tell us something.” Coming from Patrick it hurts. It’s like a punch to the gut. Patrick’s the one that Pete’s told the most, aside from maybe Gabe, which isn’t a fair measure because he knew Gabe for the first few months when Patrick wasn’t around. It wouldn’t surprise him to think that Patrick’s passed on all the information he’s learned, because Patrick’s the kind of person that likes group solutions, but Patrick’s almost always the first.

“I didn’t realise I was inconveniencing you.” It’s impossible to say without being bitter.

“Shut up,” Andy starts, rolling his eyes. “He didn’t fucking mean it like that, he just meant this guy has the benefit of knowing exactly what it was like to feel what you felt.”

“It’s not a benefit.”

“That’s Andy’s point, Pete. The worst shit we can imagine? Still doesn’t compare. Wade will know, you can have an epic bitch session, one that you’ve deserved to have for four years now. It’s your business, but I think you should meet him.”

Pete would really appreciate a hug about now. Instead he bats Andy’s hand away from the keyboard and logs in again. where do u want to meet?

Andy’s awkwardly half bent over the chair, head resting on Pete’s shoulder when his answer comes. Pete breathes in the scent of Andy’s shampoo for a moment before he can make himself read the answer. His hair always smells good, like real herbal shampoo, not some Herbal Essences bullshit that actually still has a hundred chemicals in it. It’s soothing. cud u cme here? i dont have a car.

Pete rechecks Wade’s profile. If it’s accurate, he’s in Memphis. Pete types in r u insane but backspaces it all. For all he knows that’s something they used to say to him, he doesn’t want to trigger Wade without even realising it.

“Hey. Who’s up for a road trip?”

He wants to be the kind of person that protests Andy’s suggestion as crazy. But he’s not. Them doing this is proof that they really care. So he doesn’t say a thing at all.

“Yes,” Joe says firmly. After a moment he follows with “Where are we going?”

“Memphis.”

Patrick, the only one of them to ever take geography, thinks for a second before saying “That’s like an eighteen hour drive. We can totally do it in four days. There’s a week left of break.”

“I’m down,” Ashlee adds.

“You realise you’ll be grounded forever, right? Even Andy and my charms won’t be able to calm down your dad.”

“Three days after we come back it’s exams. Even if I wasn’t in epic amounts of trouble we wouldn’t be hanging out. I just have to make sure I don’t bring my cell, in case he somehow GPSes it.” Pete’s not sure that’s actually possible, but thinks she has a point. He sort of remembers something like that from CSI -unless it was Law and Order- and if they can do it, so can Mr Simpson. He has ways.

“So what do we need to bring?”

“Food, stuff to drink. I don’t know about you, but I’ll go broke in seconds if we keep stopping for fast food. Not to mention Andy’s picky.”

“I’m not picky, I just don’t eat anything that’s the result of torturing an animal. Also, books. Possibly a binder or two, cause Ash’s right, we do have exams like right after we get back.”

Pete can’t believe they’re actually thinking about really doing this. “Music.” There’s no way he’s going to be in a car for four days without an epic amount of tunes.

“Chargers, except for Ashlee I guess. But I’m not not talking to people for almost a week. And clothes.” Patrick adds.

“Why? Let’s be honest, every guy in this room wears the same jeans three or four days in a row. Why bother making the car cramped with suitcases? Except I guess if you need girl stuff?”

Ashlee shakes her head at Joe. “Going to my house and leaving like ten minutes later would be suspicious as hell. It’s not my time and if I get a surprise visit any Sev sells Kotex. I’m good.”

It still doesn’t seem real. Not when Andy runs upstairs to grab food and a book and starts a long discussion with his mother on the phone about why this is a safe plan. Not when Pete jumps in Patrick’s car, then has to suffer through twenty minutes of Patrick cursing a storm when he can’t find his wall charger for his iPod. Not when Patrick then drives him to his house and Pete completely ignores Joe’s suggestion and packs enough clothes for a week, under Patrick’s critical gaze.

None of it’s real until they’ve been driving for more than an hour and signs are starting to appear about certain amounts of miles until Pennsylvania. That’s when Pete calls home and lets his parents know he’ll be back in a week. He looks at his hand and programs Wade’s scrawled in sharpie phone number into his phone. He won’t call him until they’re almost there.

*

Being with his friends doesn’t change everything, Pete still needs to be in a window seat. But it’s more of a nervous tick, like Andy rubbing his hair together into a ponytail before letting it spring apart, or Joe scraping his front teeth against his bottom lip when he pauses to think, than it is actual worry. He trusts them as much as he can trust anymore, and he doesn’t think they’ll end up taking him to Fayetteville.

Still, the closer they get to Memphis, the more sick Pete feels. And he’s not the only one walking razors. Joe’s been forbidden to smoke, none of them want to be pulled over then arrested. And while it’s not like Joe’s addicted, he’s spending a lot of the time in the car looking at his notes, and normally he smokes to take the edge off of the fear that anything test related puts into him. Knowing he’s stuck being sober for five days makes them a bit worried for him. Andy keeps taking Joe’s binder away when he starts to frown at his handwritten pages, like Joe isn’t going to take it back minutes later.

Ashlee’s worry is quieter, and Pete tries to be loud to distract her. Everyone in the car knows she’ll be in huge shit for this, but it’s something no one wants to talk about. The idea that Mr Simpson’s rage will leak into him beating the crap out of them is pretty realistic, even if no one mentions it. Ashlee even left her goodbye message on his answering machine from a pay phone so he wouldn’t know anyone’s phone number.

Patrick’s driving as they hit the outskirts of Memphis, Joe in the passenger seat, Joe’s backpack full of binders held hostage at Andy’s feet. Pete’s leaning forward, seat belt off, talking to Joe so he doesn’t dive through the space over the armrest and try to wrestle it back. Joe studying will only make things worse, and the car already has enough tension as it is. It would be a joke to call it Pete’s worst roadtrip, but it’s certainly not a journey worthy of Tom Green and Seann William Scott.

Normally one of them would be shouting at him to put his seat belt back on. No one is ever happy about his habit of resting his head on the inner curve of one of the front seat, Pete’s been yelled at about it more times than he can count. But they’re less than ten minutes away from the McDonalds Pete promised to meet Wade at, and evidently no one is feeling douchey enough to bitch at him for small things.

Pete’s stiff when he gets out of the car. The first night they slept outside a store, after firmly being asked to leave by the manager at noon they’d decided as a group to fork out the money to get a hotel room the second night. Still, a queen sized bed between three people doesn’t give much room for rolling over, and they’d gotten right back in the car to drive the last three hours. Occasional stops to stretch and break up blood clots in their legs so they don’t die on Patrick’s orders suddenly seem too infrequent when he can barely stand in the McDonalds parking lot.

He keeps his eyes on the grey speckled flooring as he walks to the front. He’s not really hungry, but if buying something gives him three more minutes to not do this yet it’s worth the wasted five bucks. Everyone follows him into the line, although only Joe and Patrick get anything.

He’s got a picture of Wade in his phone. He doesn’t need to look at it, there’s only one person sitting in the hard plastic booth section, turned slightly so that no one can approach without him seeing. It’s got all the awkwardness of a blind date with none of the potential benefits. He doesn’t know this person, he doesn’t know what they’ll talk about, and there’s no chance of a kiss at the end of the evening.

“I’m,” he falters as Wade starts to stick out his hand and then aborts the move. He’s not sure where he should sit. Just because he doesn’t have any issues about people sitting beside him doesn’t mean that Wade won’t. The question is solved for him when Joe drags the table beside them over to make one longer one, and his friends all cluster on the other side. To an outsider it would probably look like five vs one, but Wade’s got an easy escape on both sides of him, and Pete’s well aware that that’s what really matters.

“I’m Pete,” he finally says after sitting.

“Yeah. I remembered you.” Fuck, that could mean so many things. Pete tears open a salt packet and sprinkles his french fries with it.

“We’re Joe and Ashlee and Andy and Patrick. We’re not trying to spy, not really, but it was a long drive to do alone, and it’s not like we’re going to leave him by himself to do this while we wait in the car. So, hi.”

Wade smiles. Pete has only known him for a minute, but it’s clear to him the smile is ravaged with bitterness. “I see you reintegrated better than I did. Four friends, shit.”

“Five, really. Gabe couldn’t come.” Pete says without thinking.

“Congratulations. I had friends for a bit when I came back. Turns out they didn’t like my new personality very much, wasn’t enough like the Wade that had left them.”

Pete doesn’t know what to say to that. He got fucking lucky with Gabe not giving a crap, and that Gabe was popular enough to force others to not care either. It’s not Wade’s fault there wasn’t a Memphis version of Gabe. So he stays quiet and shakes the packet of salt. Only a little comes out, so he claims another from the massive pile Patrick grabbed and rips the top off it.

“How did your parents get you there?” Wade questions. “I’ve always kind of wondered if it went down the same way for me as everyone else.”

Pete swallows hard and watches the granules fall on his fries so he doesn’t really have to think about what he’s saying. “I was told we were going to Disney World, a Christmas family road trip culminating in mascots and roller coasters. It seemed sort of weird that we were driving, but I had a dozen movies downloaded on my laptop so what did I care? Except then we stopped in Fayetteville. What happened to you?”

“My parents had a crew bust into my room in the middle of the night. One of the guys handcuffed me to him, I was stuck to him for the thirteen hour drive. There were a few other kids in the van with us, they all were handcuffed to crew too. It wasn’t a normal van. I think it was a modified delivery van because the back was empty and had benches.”

“Shit.” Although Pete’s not sure it’s worse than what he had. Wade’s parents sold him out, just like Pete’s did, but at least Wade’s didn’t want to witness it. Pete’s had his little brother and sister lie to him so they could all go for the drive together.

“We weren’t allowed to leave the van the whole time, not even when they stopped for gas. The other three guys pissed themselves, but I’d gone to the bathroom at midnight before I went to bed, and they came into my bedroom just before two. When we finally got to Blue Springs he sort of crouched beside me so I could go to the bathroom without uncuffing me.” Wade laughs. “Christ, at the time I felt grateful. Of course it came up in Rapport later, everyone saying I got off in it. Sort of funny though. Right after I got out my friends took a few days trying to catch me up on the internet, classic flash and Youtube and all that. Apparently I’m the only one that ever vomited seeing two girls one cup. I didn’t tell them why.”

Pete can’t help his nervous giggle. In retrospect it’s a bad idea, Wade scowls and turns to Andy. “So, is Pete triggered into debilitating flashbacks by taking a crap?”

Before Andy has a chance to get protective Pete replies. “I’m sorry. I wasn’t laughing because it was funny. It’s just, what the fuck else do you do when things are so fucked up?”

“Yeah. I guess.” Wade sounds unconvinced. His french fries are going cold in their red cardboard, but Pete can’t bring himself to take a bite. Instead he dumps them out onto a napkin and squirts a packet of ketchup over them.

“Did you get out much after I did?”

“I got out when I was eighteen. Don’t get me wrong, they tried to convince me I couldn’t handle the world outside, that I wasn’t done being rehabilitated yet. But there wasn’t a chance of me staying.”

“How old were you went you went?” He has no idea why he’s pursuing this. He picks out a fry and shoves it in his mouth, hopefully with something to chew he’ll be able to keep his damn mouth shut from asking stupid questions. It’s disgusting. He can’t taste any potato, just the salt and the ketchup.

“I was there for three years. Three years and they thought I wanted more? Three years and never did my parents once contact me. You were there what, six months? Your parents must have loved you.”

Pete jumps to his feet, metal chair squealing horribly against the floor. “I’m done. I’m not talking about this any more. I’m done. They didn’t love me, don’t ever say that again! I’m done I’m not staying I’m-” with every word the kaleidoscoping is getting grander; bigger sparks, more colours.

He’s outside, at the car. He’s in a three way hug. Patrick is at his front, Ashlee curled around his left arm, Andy on his right. Joe is sitting in the front seat, door still open, revving it to try to make the car start.

“We’ll go home now,” Ashlee whispers in his ear. Pete’s already getting waves of guilt for torturing them for such a waste of time, but he’ll deal with that later. Right now it’s all he can do to breathe.

*

Every friend has a role in a group, and Pete’s fine with being the mental one. Sometimes Andy gets militant about his beliefs and rants about things that they would really rather not hear. No one wants to know what’s in a hotdog, really and truly. Sometimes Patrick gets overly cranky, and even slightly violent, in junior year he got suspended for a week after he tried to choke Grant Waicosky. Sometimes Ashlee’s body issues express themselves in problems with food, and Pete has to try and convince her to eat more than half a salad for the entire day’s meal. But in general it’s well noted that Pete is the crazy one.

That being said, twice a year Pete loses his title. When January and June exam week come along, Joe plummets head first into a giant swimming pool of crazy. And to extend the metaphor, there’s nothing the fellow swimmers can do. There’s no life guard to jump in and drag him out, because Joe refuses to ‘waste the time’ to see his therapist during exam week. As far as reaching poles and ring buoys go, all Joe has is his bong and his test accommodations. The first is self explanatory. The second is a gift from Garcia, wherein gift means if Joe didn’t have multiple accommodations he’d probably collapse into a ball and never regain consciousness. He has them for more than exams; any test in any class is sent to the guidance office where Joe writes alone so there’s no one to look at and worry if they’re doing better than he is. He’s got extra time, so his panic attacks don’t take away valuable writing time. He’s got bathroom breaks -escorted to prevent cheating, but whichever adult is saddled with watching him usually doesn’t care if he uses a break for a cigarette. And he’s got the entire thing monitored. Joe says it’s so he can ask for clarification about questions, but Pete remains convinced it’s a self harm watch.

The problem with Joe’s insanity compared to the rest of the group’s to a lesser extent, and to Pete’s more specifically - after all, they’re the ones that get study hall, they’re special - is that he isolates himself. For the most part they’re a group that lays their troubles out for everyone to deal with. Pete’s just the most extreme example of it, not the only one. In the aftermath of a kaleidoscope nine times out of ten someone is taking care of him because of something he’s said or done that he can’t remember. When he’s hyper Patrick takes his keys, when he’s depressed Ashlee is there to make sure others don’t bother him. When Joe turns into an anxious ball of doomed futures he only gets worse if people try to crowd around him. He always studies in complete solitude.

Pete’s method is different. He learns best when he’s being quizzed. If someone asks him what desalinization is he can ramble for five minutes about it. Andy’s method is weird, he types all his notes out, then reads them a few times before seeing what he can recite. Anything he gets incorrect he retypes, and repeats this until he’s just got tiny paragraphs of things he’ll probably never understand, and the rest of it is in his head. Pete hasn’t seen Ashlee in nine days. He knows her phone and laptop are confiscated, he didn’t even bother to try phoning or emailing. Pete doesn’t need to be in the room to know how she’s studying. Ashlee likes to highlight textbooks and pay the fee at the end of the semester for damaged books.

Of his available friends, Pete likes studying with Patrick best. Their styles are mutually compatible, Patrick’s an audio learner too. He gravitates more towards reading his notes out loud, but he doesn’t get annoyed when Pete just wants to talk about the ideas inside the definitions. At least, not annoyed enough to kick him out of their shared table in Carleton’s library.

Pete’s watching Patrick read his textbook. He’s sitting on the edge of the bed, playing with a loose string on the hem of a pillowcase, because Patrick shoved him when he tried to read the chapter over his shoulder. “You know Patrick, I read this study where memories sit better if they’re associated with something tangible, like scent, or taste or touch.”

Patrick sighs, but flips his textbook upside-down so his page doesn’t drift as he turns to talk. “Pete, I have five chapters of Sociology to memorise for Wednesday. So let’s play this out quickly. You want to suggest something about me learning better if I read my notes while you blow me or vice versa, right?”

Pete shrugs. “I was going with fingering, but essentially.”

“I think you’ll full of crap about educational theory, but I’m willing to take a break to indulge you if and only if you go home or to someone else’s after. Because I love you, seriously, but you’re distracting the shit out of me right now and this class has a ton of definitions.”

In one aspect, it’s not really a fair request. Patrick knows he can’t go to Ashlee’s or Joe’s. Andy probably won’t answer his phone, and if he goes to study with Gabe the next thing he knows he’ll be coaxing people in the food court of the mall to play freeze tag, notes forgotten in the passenger seat of his car. But studying alone later is a price he is willing to pay to get off now.

Five minutes later he’s got Patrick naked, textbook on the floor, closed with a bookmark marking where Patrick left off. It’s more than obvious that this is a slight interlude, that Patrick doesn’t want sex so much as he wants Pete to stop annoying him for sex. It doesn’t really bother Pete. In fact, it makes him want to delay it all a bit, just to see Patrick react. When Patrick passes him the Wet he slicks his fingers with the kiwi lubricant and pulls his finger down the crease of his ass. Patrick starts to squirm and Pete takes advantage of the fact that Patrick can’t see him to grin.

“Fuckin’ come on,” Patrick hisses.

Pete replies by drumming his fingers on the base of Patrick’s spine. Each tap leaves a shiny sweet smelling mark.

“This is not fucking Guitar Hero.”

“I don’t think I’ve ever played fucking Guitar Hero. Do you have to thrust to the beat?”

“Pete,” his name cracks down the middle when in the middle of it he presses his fingers hard against Patrick’s asshole. “Stop being a fucking tease!”

It’s as close to begging as Patrick will ever get. Pete really enjoys hearing Patrick beg. He gets so much crankier about it than normal people. As much as he wants to, chances are if he asks Patrick to say please Patrick will kick him out of his bedroom. So Pete just curls down on himself and bites Patrick’s hip before letting the first finger slide in.

*

Pete’s going to the party because he has to go, not because he wants to. Or rather he wants to, but knows he’ll regret going. Except he’d regret not coming even more. It’s all very complicated. Which shouldn’t be a surprise, the things in his head usually are.

It’s not just a normal party. It’s a graduation party for Gabe, Elisa, and Ryland. It’s unknown if principal Hawthorne is being a dick because he doesn’t like the three nuisance Cobras, if it’s because he doesn’t like students that fuck up their lives by being stupid enough to drop out of classes in ninth grade, or if it’s truly just school board policy he can’t do anything about. Regardless of the reason, the three don’t get to graduate with all the other Carleton seniors in June. They don’t get to stand in the group of people on stage, their diplomas will be coming in the mail. Apparently Gabe’s mom phoned the school and screamed at Hawthorne in German for ten minutes. Technically they don’t get to go to prom either, except of course Alex and Nate and Victoria will take them. And if they didn’t, someone else would. Not Pete, he’s the only reason Ashlee will be allowed to come. But someone will, Pete’s sure of that.

The entire street is lined with cars on both sides, half of them parked backwards. There’s only a skinny space left between the rows for driving, any truck will have it’s mirrors ripped off. Pete’s not exactly surprised by the turnout. Sending the elder Cobras off in style was certain to be a big event from the day Pete got the Facebook invite.

In the end Patrick has to park a block away and walk to the house. It’s good and bad; if any assholes gets rowdy they’re far enough that it won’t be Patrick’s car getting egged or puked on. On the other hand, at the end of the night the distance will seem a lot farther for Patrick and Joe, both who plan on getting wasted. Pete’s DD, like he always is, seeing as he’s the only one in the group that is both interested in being sober and can legally drive. On the short walk to the Saportas Pete gives Andy the keys. If anyone is going to get irritated with the drunk bastards around them, it’ll be Andy. More than once Andy’s bailed to wait in the car until everyone else is ready to leave.

Joe goes straight for the garage with a nod of ‘catch you later’ to the others. Pete’s heard rumors that someone was going to be bringing a six foot bong that you have to stand on a chair to smoke from. Joe didn’t bring it up in the car but Pete’s sure he knows and wants to try it. Andy breaks off and goes in one direction to find fellow musicians. He’s still trying to create a band even though all his efforts have failed. Patrick heads in another, towards where the keg is usually set up. And Pete’s alone. It’s a bad start for the night, even though it’s not anyone’s intention. He half expects to kaleidoscope at some point. He’s not nearly ready to say goodbye to Gabe. But the alternative was not coming to the party at all, and he couldn’t let Gabe think he didn’t care.

Not wanting to be the guy that stands by himself and listens in to other people’s conversations, Pete moves into the kitchen. It turns out to be a good choice, the three revelers of the night are there, guarding the counter. It’s covered in cake, each of the three with a loopy handwritten name on the top of massive slabs. Judging from the pieces already cut away revealing the inside, Gabe’s is vegan chocolate with chocolate icing, Ryland’s is mint chocolate chip, and Elisa’s is red velvet.

“Cake or death?”

“Cake?”

Elisa grins. “You’re lucky Alex isn’t Eddie Izzard, Alex made enough for everyone who said yes on Facebook. Which obviously they won’t all come, but some will bring people that didn’t get an invite. So yeah, cake. Who’s do you want?”

“It’s important to note that there will be no seconds. Trying to nab a second slice may result in death, primarily yours.” Ryland adds.

Pete takes Gabe’s chocolate and tries not to get sick when he really looks at his horribly done icing rose. Clearly someone ‘helped’ Alex bake their goodbye cakes. He can’t help but wonder what the mood was in the kitchen, if the younger Cobras are as miserable as he is.

Pete makes it through his square without freaking, and even smiles when his toss of the plastic fork makes it into the garbage bag and the three break into a tiny routine of grading his sportsmanship; Ryland being the heavily accented Russian judge that gives him a 2.5. But his stomach is burning, and he blurts out “Can we go talk?” before he can stop himself.

There’s no need for Pete to clarify, everyone knows who he means. Gabe shrugs and starts to walk out of the kitchen. Then he turns and says “we said death, guys. My cake does not become a free for all just because I’m not here to protect its sanctity.”

“Yeah yeah, painful death, we get it. Go talk.”

Gabe takes the lead, opening doors to look for a private place. When he opens the door to the coral coloured guest room Nate and Spencer are inside, Spencer on his knees. It’s a bad angle, Pete can’t actually see if Nate’s pants are open, but it seems likely.

“We could watch?” Gabe thinks he whispers into Pete’s ear. Whatever he’s intoxicated with it’s given him no control over his volume, he speaks loud enough that both boys look over. Nate shrugs, t-shirt riding up against the wall with the movement. Spencer looks mad enough to murder the entire house, so Pete shakes his head and pushes Gabe so he can shut the door.

By some miracle the room with the pool table is empty. Pete doesn’t know how it’s possible, it should be one of the more crowded rooms of the house. But it’s just them, and when Gabe closes the door the words spill out. “I’m going to miss you.”

Gabe’s smile crumbles, and Pete feels a bit guilty for tramping on his high. Not enough to change the topic though, he tucks his hands into his armpits and wishes for Gabe to repeat the words back to him.

“We’re not even sure where we’re going. It won’t be too far. We need to come back for Suarez, Novarro, and Asher.”

“You’re going to come back for their grad?” It makes a difference to know that they really will be going to prom, to have to verified from the source rather than assumed.

“How else can we go act around the world if it’s not the six of us?” Gabe’s grinning again, and obviously drifting into a fantasy of what his future as an acting troupe is going to be like.

It hurts, how happy he is for them. He’d like nothing more than to have the same certainty that he won’t lose his soul mates. Pete’s got college issues too, but his are completely different than Joe’s fear of failure. In as little as five months everyone he loves might be leaving him, except for Ash, and he’ll be leaving her. Gabe is only the first casualty of the system that rips friendships apart at the root.

“I’m going to fucking miss you,” he repeats helplessly.

“Pete, for the last three years we’ve talked nearly entirely through text and house party. The three of us trying Newark really isn’t going to change that.”

Pete shakes his head. Gabe doesn’t understand. There’s a difference between talking though text by choice and never being able to see someone again, even if you really need to. He doesn’t want to fucking cry, this is supposed to be Gabe’s celebration. He shouldn’t have come, he knew it was a bad idea. And now he can’t leave, unless he wants one of his other friends to try to drive and get them all killed. He’s backed himself into a corner, and it’s fucking terrifying.

Somehow Gabe knows. His face falls again and the guilt hits Pete even harder. He’s ruining this for Gabe, it’s not fair. But he can’t stop how he feels, but he has to so he’s not a shitty friend. The opposing choices, neither of which seem possible, are making him sick, the lack of escape combining to make everything start to crash. Pete’s vision starts to sparkle. He doesn’t want to do this in front of Gabe, it would only make him feel guilty, which would only perpetuate the cycle. He turns to leave. He knows the house well enough, he can probably find a place to melt down in private, even if he doesn’t have enough time to find Andy get his keys.

Before Pete’s has the chance Gabe is grabbing him. Not from the back, Gabe knows that as well as anyone. But the hand on his shoulder makes Pete stop, and then Gabe’s ducking around him and holding him. His arms wrap around him securely, Pete’s body pulled tight to him, face pressed to Gabe’s plaid shirt. He smells like cologne and beer, and he feels like those first moments of safety, and he’s not sure he’ll ever be able to let go.

*

Pete slumps against Ashlee, who accepts his weight gracefully. She pats his head a few times before picking her fork back up and taking another bite of her chicken slices. He stays against her, brooding for most of the lunch period. It’s only a few minutes before the bell rings that he says a nicer form of what he’s been thinking. “I really don’t see why I have to go do this. It’s been a class since I came back. I’ve had it every semester since. It’s already in my schedule!”

“It’s in mine too,” Joe replies. “Doesn’t mean anything until we prove we need it.”

“Right, because in the span of five months you’re suddenly not going to give a shit about grades, and I’m not going to be fucked up about the past.”

“Chill the fuck out. I didn’t say that we were fine, I said we need to prove we’re not. It’s the fucking rules. Follow them or this time tomorrow we could be taking automotive repair.”

Pete can’t think of a comeback to that, mostly because he’s right.

When Pete enters Media & Advertising he knows it’s just a matter of time until he gets called down for his appointment. He sits and fidgets for ten minutes while Mrs Hartnett talks about what they’ll be learning, and gives them their first in class assignment. They’ve got the week to design a method of transmitting a course outline. Whether it’s a brochure or blurb or commercial is up to them. He waits until she’s sitting at her desk before approaching.

“Look, I’ve got to go get my study hall worked out. Can I go before they call me over the intercom?”

Mrs Hartnett looks at him a second and then nods. “Of course you can go. I’ve always felt it’s a poor method. Take your backpack, in case you’re not back by the end of the class.”

Pete doesn’t care that it’s obvious Mrs Hartnett thinks he’s embarrassed about being called in front of the class. It’s not that. It would be stupid if it was, it’s not like he could hide anything by pretending it was an extended bathroom break, not when walking into the library or cafeteria the period before lunch would prove it. Anything that lets him leave the class so he can just this over with is okay with him.

The guidance counselor's office is filled with the fucked up kids of the school. There are between twenty and thirty a grade. Pete’s not sure if those are low or high levels of insanity. Everyone, including himself, has a set fifteen minute appointment, and most have ignored it in favour of just showing up after being checked in for attendance in their respective classes. Every chair has been claimed by people that escaped their class earlier than him, leaving him and about fifty other people standing in the room, the worst of the stragglers and the claustrophobic standing in the hall.

Pete maneuvers so his back is to a wall, and scans the room. Joe’s not here, and he doesn’t want to talk to anyone else. He recognises a lot of them, of course. Darrius is chewing on both hoodie laces because he’s got OCD and everything has to be even, which doesn’t seem to be that big of a deal until it comes to claiming a seat in classrooms. Brendon has ADHD and is doing enough fidgeting to prove it to the world. Shelby’s crying, but that’s nothing new. She’s always crying. Pete wants Joe for distraction purposes. Even more he wants to get this over with.

The thing is, this is basically a formality. Everyone knows it except the freshmen, and they’ll learn the truth by the time they get assigned study hall the first semester of sophomore year. Every student that claims to need it has a fifteen minute long appointment, but as long as you answer the questions properly you can be out in five. The majority would rather be in class than have a fifteen minute long conversation. Hell, half of them have probably done what Pete didn’t; pretend it was a bathroom break. Some hate the labeling of making them come to the guidance office in the middle of class. Pete knows study hall in general is a huge label, and so is the psych profession in its entirety. There’s no escaping it, and once everyone in this room graduates they’ll just be going out into a world that is even more obsessive about labels.

Formality or not, Pete always feels awkward when he sits across the desk from Ms Garcia. This time is no different. He fiddles with the triangle of peeling leather that’s peering through his legs as she digs through her file cabinet to find his. It doesn’t peel easily, but he’s hardly the first person to do it, and in some places you can see the yellow foam under the white threads.

“So, Pete. Do you feel you still need to take study hall? I know in the past you’ve found it a relief.”

If Pete was completely honest, the truth would be he doesn’t need it. Joe needs it, study hall gives him the time to check his homework to make sure he’ll be getting an A. But Joe’s issues are nowhere near his issues. There’s nothing that a spare of forty five minutes will do to change that four years later he can still feel the smudges Blue Springs has left all over him.

Pete doesn’t feel like being honest. The coach, other teachers, his parents, even fucking Garcia across the desk all collaborated to fuck him over. He’ll be mental for the rest of his life, and if the sole benefit is getting an A for a spare he’s going to take it. Still, it always feels weird to beg for it. It feels like he’s auditioning to see if he’s crazy enough to receive compensation. It’s like worker’s comp, except there’s no union to fight for him, just his own fucked up brain.

Pete doesn’t look up from the white thread he’s pulling. “Do we seriously need to go over this again? I fit the diagnostic criteria of bipolar to a T. Not to mention I’ve got a case of PTSD. For those of you playing the home game, that stands for post traumatic stress disorder. What that means for you as someone who claims to care about my well being is that-”

“Pete, I don’t claim to care. I do care about you and your life.”

He stops himself from saying you care so much you helped convince my parents to send me to a place worse than a prison for seven months by biting the insides of his cheeks. It wouldn’t do any good, she’d say some crap about how she genuinely thought it was for the best at the time, and even adults make mistakes, and he’d kaleidoscope and he’d probably come back to with a suspension for hitting her.

“Yes, I think study hall can help me relieve some of the stress and make me less likely to have a flash.” He’s full of crap, but it’s the crap she wants to hear, so whatever.

“Pete, do you ever think therapy might be beneficial?”

This is why he hates adults, barring Mr Molko. The majority of them are stupid and deaf. He had this conversation once with Gabe and Elisa, and later with Andy, Joe, Patrick and Ashlee. A series of short one time conversations and it was over. Every time he’s forced to talk to Garcia she asks.

“No, it really wouldn’t.”

“If you saw one you could get clinically diagnosed and perhaps get medication.”

Pete shudders. “I can’t take drugs.”

“Perhaps talk therapy then.”

Like talking would do any good at all. Not to mention to how he’d have to go about getting an appointment in the first place. “No. If I needed to see someone my parents would have to admit why I needed to see someone. It would destroy the delicate balance of mutual silence in the Wentz household.”

“Pete, I really think-”

“Do you think I still need study hall?”

“Yes. And I think that you-”

“So since we don’t have to switch my schedule, can I go now? I’m missing media class, and from what Mrs Hartnett’s explained it’s all in class projects.” If he doesn’t get out of this tiny office in the next thirty seconds he’s going to start screaming. Which probably wouldn’t be that off-putting to the rest of the nutjobs on the other side of the door, but he doesn’t want to hurt his throat. Pinning Laziness is playing tonight, he wants to save his voice for shouting along.

“Sure,” she says with a air of helplessness. Not that Pete cares about how she feels, but its presence is strong in her voice. “Send the next student in?”

Pete walks out and points to Gurpreet Thind. “You’re up!” Another senior, she walks in the inner office with confidence. She too knows she’ll get her spare.

*

Pete is pretty good at most sports. Soccer aside, he’s quick footed enough to be capable at whatever it is he has to play. He’s also pretty good at pretending he gives a shit. Each class is out of five, graded on participation and positive attitude, so one has to at least passably pretend to care to get a good mark. What he’s not good at is dealing with the jocks around him that actually give a shit. Sports aren’t everything, and what they’re doing isn’t even really sport. Sport is people that are equally good at something completing to see who has the best strategy to come out victorious. Gym class is a state mandated course that half the teens would, if given the choice, rather eat chalk than participate in. There are a few that plan out plays for football scrimmages, with hand gestures and everything, like the fat kids and stoners on the other team aren’t carefully counting down the seconds until they can get changed and leave for creative writing. Each time it happens he can’t quite stop himself from rolling his eyes, which doesn’t make him the most popular on the primary colour pinnied team.

What he’s even worse at is not rising to a challenge. There are a few people who genuinely care about ringette that think he’s an opponent instead of someone that has to play a sport because the school division says. The worse of them is Colin McDougal. He honestly seems to believe part of gym participation marks centre around psyching out your opponent. And of course, since he’s a seventeen year old meathead, his version of psyching people out is being moronic, derogatory, and homophobic.

“Does it bother you your girlfriend is a cheating dyke?” The comment comes at him as Pete stabs his stick at the hole in the ring. Pete rolls his eyes at the sheer inaccuracy and passes the ring to a teammate.

A minute later Colin’s beside him again. “Does it bother your girlfriend you’re a fag?”

As far as insults go he’s really missing the mark. Pete can see Patrick shaking his head, telling him to let it go, and he knows if Ashlee was here she’d be against anyone trying to defend her honour. Still, it’s aggravating. He’s had enough time away from Blue Springs and enough good friends to know that there’s nothing wrong with being a faggot. It’s not like any of the counselors had known their namecalling was truth anyway. Liking dick doesn’t mean anything bad, and if he didn’t take it from the people that had the power to beat and torture him, he’s not going to take it from Colin fucking McDougal.

Pete knows the reaction he wants, so he says exactly what it will take to get it. “No. Does it bother your girlfriend that you’re a pussy bitch?”

Pete’s expecting the punch, gets a moment’s worth of warning as Colin throws his stick to the floor and takes it to plant his feet firmly. He doesn’t want to fall over with the first hit. The blow is hard, the words have pissed him off like Pete intended. He almost likes the pain of the punch, and better yet it gives him a chance to hit back. Taking down bigots is something he definitely likes.

Pete has the chance to get a few good punches in under the supervision of his fellow students. The gym teacher would probably break it up if he was there, but Mr Kline doesn’t tend to leave the office. Technically he’s only supposed to do that with the Athletic Leadership students, but it seems to be a universal teaching strategy for him. All he does is make them do the five minute run warm-up, tell them the rules of the game, and force everyone into teams. If he’s being nice he’ll create teams, if he’s being a jerk he’ll let them make their own teams. That done, he goes back to his office for the next forty minutes. He doesn’t even need to come out to tell them when to rotate teams, the huge countdown billboard attached to the wall takes care of that.

In a room of all teenagers, there’s no intervention. Most of the class is satisfied watching a fight like they’d watch WWE at home on television. It’s just entertainment to them. Colin’s friends have also taken offense at Pete’s ‘diss’ and are chiming in about how Colin’s going to kick his ass. As for Patrick, he knows better than try to and stop Pete. Patrick's been witness to enough of Pete's brawls at clubs to know it's easier to just let Pete get it out of his system.

The fight only ends when Kline steps between them and shoves them apart. Pete has to stumble backwards quickly so he doesn’t topple over, Colin doesn’t manage quick enough and falls on his ass. The jeering of the others settles down as the teacher glares at them all. Brendon Urie is hovering suspiciously close to Kline, Pete guesses he’s the narc.

Standing there, back oriented towards Patrick, arms crossed loosely in front of him in case he needs to take another swing, Pete wonder how this is going to go down. Colin is on a few teams which means Kline will automatically be on his side. There’s an uneasy partnership between the gym teacher, who only coaches volleyball, and the two staff hired just to be coaches. They’ll probably curb-stomp him if he suspends Colin for fighting. However, Pete’s name means nothing, so he’s free range for blame.

He’s already mentally compiling a plan to get himself out of suspension; using select bits of his past with Garcia tends to have huge effect, when Mr Kline bellows “Colin! On the court!”

Kline points with one arm and Colin walks off, sneering at Pete. Then he raises his other arm and point to the locker room. “Wentz, go cool off. Stumph go with him. Don’t let him trash the place.”

Pete goes happily. Chances are high that returning to the court would have had Colin accidentally running into him or body checking him half a dozen times, and if Pete had thrown down again, he almost certainly would have gotten a suspension for two fights in the span of an hour. His punishment is so beyond obviously not one it’s almost funny. He doesn’t get to play ringette for the rest of the period, woe is him. If all brawls ended like this he’d fight every day.

Patrick scowls at Pete as he starts to change back into his normal clothes. He pulls his skullcap back on his head first, of course. “You do realise we’re going to get a zero for participation?”

“You did hear that twat calling Ashlee a cheating dyke, right?” It’s a weak defense at best. He knows that’s not why he did it, Patrick knows that’s not why he did it, and Patrick probably knows that Pete knows that Patrick knows that’s not why he did it.

“You haven’t been in a mosh pit for a few days and you’re getting antsy. You decided to jump the first guy that said something remotely reasonable to fight over, you’ve probably had it in the back of your head for a few days now. And while I’m sure you would have done it to anyone, it probably helped that he was saying shit that reminded you of that hellhole, and that he’s on the soccer team, which makes him friends with-”

“Don’t say his fucking name!”

“Pete, I’m just saying don’t blame it on Ashlee’s virtue. She’ll be pissed if, or wait, when she finds out about you brawling, and if she thinks you did it for her fucking honour she’ll yell at you to not be her dad, and then you’ll be fighting for fucking ages. And unlike Jeanae, Ashlee doesn’t get turned on from fighting. We can all deal with you having a manic swing but-”

“Don’t fucking diagnose me!” Pete can’t remember the last time Patrick was this goddamn annoying.

“You’re manic, and we know how to work around it, but don’t say shit that will make Ashlee-”

“Stop. Fucking. Diagnosing me!” Pete shouts, moving forward, hands out to shove Patrick.

Patrick grabs his wrists. “You wanna do this? Okay. Fine. I’ll brawl with you, so you don’t end up beating Mrs Harnett half to death next class and getting your ass expelled. I won’t even cheat, I won’t stroke your shoulder.”

“Fuck you!” he roars.

“So then hit me!” Patrick screams back. “Hit me and I’ll hit you, because that’s what friends do, right! What are you waiting for?”

Baited, Pete surges forward, wrists still trapped in Patrick’s hands. It’s either hit him or fuck the hell out of him, and he wants- He just wants. Patrick’s lips feel dry and chapped, but he opens his mouth almost immediately to let Pete in.

“Good choice,” he whispers some time later, and Pete can think through the haze well enough to know that later this will be just another thing that he has to feel guilty about. But for now, this is fine, and his hand is on Patrick’s dick, and Patrick is biting Pete’s bottom lip like a motherfucker. For now, he’s riding high, and everything he does is brilliant.

*

It’s beyond routine to be spending his study hall period with Joe, barring slipping away to chill in Mr Molko’s presence. This semester it’s biology, not quite as interesting as biomedics, but still passable. It’s also routine for Joe to say hi or give a head nod towards some of the other study hall kids. Joe tends to be more sociable than Pete, and while normally Pete says hey too, that’s generally the extent he notices other crazies. What’s not routine is Mikey Way sitting at one of the four chair tables, scowling hard enough that all chairs in the vicinity are sucked into the zone of hate, leaving Mikey angrily hoarding the table.

Honestly, Pete’s sort of fascinated. The job at the CD place had lasted longest of any of the jobs he’s had. It was a lucky combination of semi-stable mood, lax employees, and that one of the managers actually knew Mr Molko and seemed to be willing to be talked into giving him breaks. Mikey had already been working there when he started, and continued working there after the debacle that got him fired. Six months Pete had worked with Mikey a few evenings a week, minus the dinner breaks they got at a different time. In all that time he’d never seen Mikey express much more than sarcasm and a wicked sense of humor. But there’s no question about it, Mikey Way is pissed.

The unrelenting scowl makes Pete curious as hell. Something catastrophic must have happened. Pete has personally witnessed assholes requesting a CD that Mikey had to go into the warehouse for twenty minutes to track down, only to be informed that she wanted the one with the alternate cover, assholes spilling a Slurpee on a stack of CDs that Mikey had to spend the next hour wiping down with a wet cloth, and assholes arguing that their credit card isn’t maxed, they paid it off after that awesome show, what, you didn’t see it, were you busy working here like a tool for the man? and never had Mikey as much as frowned. It wouldn’t surprise him to learn that Mikey has just learned there’s a meteor crashing towards earth and it’ll go through them like a bullet in a watermelon. Hell, even that might not crack him. Mikey’s got a ridiculously epic stoneface.

Curiosity desperately needing sating, Pete heads in the ex-coworker’s direction. “Where are you going?”

Pete ignores Joe’s question and hazards the zone of hate. He pulls out the navy blue plastic chair beside Mikey and sits in it, making sure to be out of hitting range, just in case. He never actually asked why Mikey gets study hall, their various mental problems never came into conversation at work. It’s entirely possible if he asks Mikey something he’s going to try to punch Pete in the face. “So. What’s wrong with you?”

“What?”

“You looked mad. You don’t normally look anything. So I figure it’s something bad, and I’m pretty sure I remember you saying that Gerard was going to go to art college, so you won’t have him to vent with, so...” Pete is one hundred percent positive that Mikey said Gerard was going to art college. He and Mikey had a few conversations around SATs time last year, talking about what scores they’d need for colleges they wanted. Pete hadn’t wanted anything in particular, he just applied everywhere Andy and Joe and Patrick did. But Mikey had wanted schools in New York, so he could see all the galleries Gerard’s pieces were going to be in.

“Well, actually he took a leave of absence for second semester. He and his boyfriend had this massive fucking blow out. It was them and a few friends living together, so he couldn’t share an apartment with him anymore, and it got crazy and. He’s going back for fall term, staying here until then. He doesn’t need my shit right now.”

“So use me. It’s not like you’re going to overburden my life, or my soul will weep for you. I’m like the perfect level of interested but unattached for venting.”

“It’s fucking lame. He hid in the gym. Like he’s the wounded party. It’s bullshit.”

“Shitty.”

Mikey almost smirks for a second before he delves back into rage. One thing Mikey has for him, he knows how to keep a mood. He could be an excellent model in New York, if the university thing didn’t work out. “You have no idea what I’m talking about, how do you know it’s shitty?”

“Dude, I told you, you need to vent. Which means you rant, I occasionally agree about how terrible life, the universe, and everything is.”

“And sneak Hitchhiker references in?”

Pete shrugs. “What can I say, I’m a child of the nineties. If I’m not throwing media references in then I cease to be a person.”

“Point. So, I just broke up with fucking Frank fucking Iero. We’d been fucking around since Halloween, dating since December. Guess how many times he fucked me? Like twice a day. Guess how many times I fucked him? Zero, and don’t even try to tell me that one time counted because I was in him for like three goddamn seconds before he pushed me off the fucking bed. Fucking asshole, I told him like a hundred fucking times I wanted to trade sometimes!” Pete stares at Mikey in fascination. He can hear the exclamations in his sentences, and that’s just as new as the scowl thing. “So today I told him I couldn’t do it anymore, and he went and fucking hid under the fucking bleachers like I’m a fucking asshole and he’s the fucking victim!”

“That’s a really stupid thing to fight over.”

“Thanks,” Mikey says, angry expression on his face even stronger, if possible. Pete hurries to clarify.

“No, I mean like he’s being stupid. Me and Patrick trade off, I mean not on a rotating schedule or anything ‘cause that would be weird, but just it changes all the time. Nate and Alex didn’t care either. And with the others I think if I had pushed it they probably would have let me except I didn’t ask. Andy and Joe and Gabe are mostly straight, and Ryland was never into fucking. But what counts is they would have. It’s stupid that you’d have to fight about that.”

“Yeah, well.”

Pete smiles. “And now it’s the time where the vented upon changes the topic in order to temporarily distract the venter. You still work at the record store?”

“Not there. Border’s music department.”

“Good it’s still music but what happened?” Pete can’t imagine Mikey doing anything with his life except getting to talk about and or listen to music all day long.

“Guy that replaced you was a dick. Of course that meant Kristin liked him, gave him the better jobs, took his side in everything. Only lasted a few months after that.”

“And this is the part where I casually delve back into the prior topic, but go at it from a different angle to maybe get rid of some of the anger, maybe give you subtle advice. Of course, I’m not supposed to tell you that this is what I’m doing, but if I wanted to be sneaky about it you might as well be talking to Garcia. So you’re done with Frank. What are you going to do now?” Mikey shrugs. Pete goes with it, continues being blatantly nosy. “Find a new boyfriend, I guess?”

Mikey shrugs again. “I don’t want to just fuck random guys, you know?”

“Yeah. That shit’s not cool. Never fucked a stranger, never will.” In hindsight, he probably didn’t know Jeanae as well as he thought he did, but now’s not the time to dwell on past mistakes. “No one should have to do homework when they’re pissed. You want to go play cards in the caf?” He might not be friends with anyone, but it doesn’t take friendship bracelets and blood pacts to borrow a deck of cards.

“Like, card cards?”

Pete has no idea what he’s asking. “Yeah? What other kind are there?”

Mikey snorts. “You have no idea.”

Mikey stands and Pete follows, considering it a victory. It’s not like he fixed Mikey forever, but the radius of hate seems to have diminished somewhat. Nor does he feel too guilty for ditching Joe. He’ll work on homework whether or not Pete’s there. If he can handle Pete sometimes bailing to sit in on Molko, he can handle him running off with an old acquaintance.

*

Pete gets a text and flips open his phone without a second thought to how much Joe twitches when people text loudly during movies. The glow of his screen shouldn’t be enough to annoy him, but it probably will. Too bad, Joe made his choice when he claimed the best seat in the theatre, making Pete and Ashlee sit on one side, Andy and Patrick on the other. He can suffer for it.

It’s not from anyone normal, a coworker wanting to change shifts or Gabe or Ryland rocking it out and giving him a link to a website he’ll need to check out later where their pictures are plastered all over the gallery. It’s from Mikey, and the only reason Pete knows that is because he doesn’t delete phone numbers. He’s still got coworkers from his first job after coming back.

i’m not used to being along, sorta been with him nonstop. wanna hang out?

Pete announces loudly to the theatre “Mikey’s getting over Frank, anyone care if he comes over after the movie?”

Ignoring the ‘shushes’ from multiple directions Andy shrugs and says “It’s not like there’s no room.”

Pete considers that as good as a yes and starts to type Andy’s address and approximate time of arrival into his reply. He’s only a few words in when Joe asks “he isn’t going to cry, is he? You four are the only tears in the world I will take. Not even my sisters.”

“No he’s not going to cry. If anything he’s going to be mad. Remember yesterday, he had an actual facial expression?”

“If you don’t shut up, I’m going to get the manager!” Pete waits until the guy turns back around before flipping him off and continuing to compose his message.

It takes five or six explanations of how to get to Andy’s before Mikey stops asking. Pete’s never known someone to be so bad with directions. When they get there post movie though, Mikey’s parked and waiting, not in New York, so Pete considers it a success. Pete can’t really remember having someone that wasn’t them in Andy’s house. Even when he was dating Jeanae she never really wanted to hang out with his friends. In hindsight, it probably should have been a sign, at the time it was just another thing to bitch at each other about. But it’s not that different having six bodies in the living room as compared to having five. Wii sports is better paired off, but that’s the only noticeable thing. That and how sometimes when Pete looks away from where Patrick and Joe are boxing each other, Mikey is looking at him and Ashlee.

At quarter to seven Pete walks Ashlee to her car. It’ll probably take a few minutes longer than that for her to get home, but if her dad calls at least she’ll be on the road. He shivers, just a shirt in the beginning of March air means his arms are goosebumped in seconds. A quick kiss and a promise to text later and Pete’s watching her back down the driveway.

When he turns around, Mikey’s standing on the porch. He’s staring at Pete, face unreadable as always. Pete’s not really sure why, but he leans against the screen door for a second, then jumps away as the metal eats through the thin fabric covering his back. Mikey will say whatever’s on his mind in good time.

“So like, how did you and Ashlee. I mean. I guess it’s none of my business. Right,” Mikey turns to go inside.

“When I came back for my second round of freshman year I was pretty fucked up. I mean, way more than I am now.” It’s a slight exaggeration but Pete doesn’t want to scare him off. “I started dating Jeanae because normal guys did that. But she was kind of a bitch, and every time I’d get upset I’d end up sleeping with one of my friends, because they obviously cared more than she did. When she found out she got pissed and dumped me. Later on I met Ashlee, and she was awesome, immediately better than her. But I loved my friends and I only liked her so I told her I probably wouldn’t stop fucking them, even if she wanted me to. She basically said if you can I can.”

“So, it’s not just you with Patrick and Gabe?”

“And a few others, but no, Ashlee’s got her girls too. It wouldn’t be fair if she didn’t. I don’t get in the way of her, she doesn’t get in the way of me. That’s not love.”

“That’s,” Mikey pauses before finishing off. “Interesting.”

Pete shrugs. “It’s not like I think everyone in the world should do it our way. But it works for us, and other things wouldn’t, and there’s no point in making each other miserable by doing it a different way. You wanna go kick Andy’s ass at tennis? It’s fucking freezing out here.”

“Fuck tennis, man. Does he have any first person shooters?” Mikey opens the screen door until it creaks and waits for Pete to pass through it.

A few hours later has Mikey driving them both home; Patrick in the passenger seat, Pete in the back and unbelted, leaning between the two seats, as always. He gives it two minutes or less before Patrick starts bitching at him to restrain himself, so before that happens he says what’s been on his mind since study hall the day before. “So here’s what I think should happen. I think Mikey should fuck me, pull out before he comes, and fuck Patrick.”

They both turn sideways in their seats to stare at him. “What? Does anyone have objections?” He already knows their objections. Patrick is shocked he considers Mikey a friend after one night of hanging out, he probably doesn’t even remember Pete worked with him. Mikey most likely wasn’t expecting to be propositioned, even after showing too much interest in how Pete’s relationship works.

Surprisingly it’s Mikey that replies, Pete would have staked his money on Patrick. He’s frowning slightly, which doesn’t bode well. “I told you I didn’t want random hook ups.”

“You know my style, Mikey. You think I’d offer this if I didn’t want to be around you more than one evening?”

“That’s not exactly a declaration of love.”

“For Pete it is.” Pete’s not surprised that Patrick always understands him perfectly, but he’ll never not be grateful for it.

“Look, you can just drive us home if you want. I’m just saying I like you, and we would never pull any of the bullshit that Frank did.” Pete shrugs. He didn’t offer this to make things difficult between them, if it’s easier for Mikey to say no than so be it.

Mikey looks at him for a minute. “Who’s house then? My brother’s probably in my room, reading my comics.”

Pete settles into the back seat and lets Patrick give directions to his place. He’s feeling magnanimous enough that he even clicks his seat belt closed without being ordered. He snickers each time Patrick flails at Mikey taking a wrong turn, but eventually they’re parking a few houses down from the Stumphs, the nearest possible spot.

When they enter the house Patrick’s mom calls for him. Patrick makes a face and sticks his finger in Pete’s face. “Don’t start without me you fucker. I mean it.”

He doesn’t seem to buy Pete’s innocent smile, but he leaves the landing anyway, tromping down the split level to the rec room. Pete kicks off his shoes and hangs his jacket over the railing, gesturing for Mikey to do the same. He knows the brown carpeted half staircase to the upper level as well as he knows his own hallways, Mikey following behind Pete to Patrick’s bedroom.

“What do you say we start without him?”

A corner of Mikey’s mouth uplifts. “I don’t see why not.”

Pete’s pile of clothes nearly blends in with Patrick’s on the floor. Mikey’s stand out more, black and grey against their reds and purples. He doesn’t really care about the clothes though, he just wants to see what Mikey looks like without them. Feel the thin pale skin. He looks so much different than Pete, than Ashlee or Patrick or Gabe or anyone. On some of the nights when he can’t sleep he catalogs the differences between the people that have loved him. He wants to be able to recall Mikey’s every detail.

His knees sink into the bed when he climbs on, elbows following moments later. Patrick’s got the softest bed of anyone Pete knows, worn away under fifteen years of use without being lumpy or pointed and spring-filled. It shakes with impact as Mikey climbs behind him, limbs long and hot pressing against his. Mikey slides his cock down Pete’s crack. It’s anticipatory and absurdly hot but it also feels wetter than it should.

Pete drops his body flat then rolls over so he can look at Mikey. “What are you doing?”

“I was gonna fuck you, like you said? After lube, obviously.”

Pete frowns. “I could feel your precome, dude.”

“Yeah?” Mikey blinks. “Sorry for being hard just before fucking you?”

“Me and Patrick? We both fuck other people that fuck other people. You need to put on a condom man.”

Before Mikey has a chance to respond to that, the door opens. “Fuck you both! Assholes.”

Pete snorts. “It’s not my fault you have to talk to your mom. And if you want to fuck us both, maybe you should take your pants off.”

“Patrick. Condoms?”

“Under the pillow.” Pete could have told him the same thing, but it’s probably a good sign that Mikey’s trying to involve Patrick in it, rather than just focus on Pete. It’ll mean that this could last longer. Pete can't possibly make something last with people that don't like Patrick or Ashlee, or his other friends. He passes Mikey one of the square packets and pours lube on his fingers, stretching himself while Mikey gets himself ready.

Pete starts to groan when Mikey pushes his way inside, sound loud in the room until Patrick puts his hand over his mouth. The noise still leaks between Patrick’s fingers, but it’s not as bad. When he gains a bit more control of himself he tries his best to grin at Mikey and ask muffledly “so, how’s your first time?”

“Better than my last first time.” Pete moans and spreads his legs farther apart. He’d never shove Mikey off the bed.

*

When Mikey asks Pete if he wants to hang out just them on Thursday, Pete doesn’t think anything by ‘why not?’. It’s only fair to Mikey, really. They’ve been hanging out every evening, Mikey fitting in fairly comfortably with his friends until it reaches the point where it’s just the two of them, sometimes Patrick too, and they fuck. But neither fucking nor chilling with everyone in Ashlee’s basement is dating, and he thinks Mikey needs that in a way that none of the other guys he’s slept with have.

Mikey picks him up, Pete kissing Ashlee on the cheek before running upstairs and throwing himself into the passenger seat. He spends the next fifteen minutes fishing things out from under his ass and tossing them to the floor in front of him, but Mikey’s got a good mix CD playing so Pete’s happy.

“We’re going to be a bit early, but it’s fine. There’s no RSVP,” is the only thing Mikey will tell him when Pete asks, so he settles into the seat and hums along to the songs he knows. Not all of them, some are fresh and exciting. It’s a really good mix CD. Wherever they’re going Mikey’s obviously been before, he doesn’t stop for to ask a gas station attendant for directions, doesn’t even call or text anyone.

Mikey eventually pulls into a warehouse parking lot. There are a lot of cars, more than Pete would have expected for ‘a bit early’. But Pete doesn’t care about whether or not they’re on time like Mikey had claimed didn’t matter. He only cares about what’s inside the warehouse. There are only a few enterprises someone would want to refurbish a old warehouse into, and a lot of them aren’t the sort of thing that would be included in a date night.

His bad feeling gets worse as they have to search for an unlocked door, and even worse when they finally find it -thanks to footprints in the mud, not due to any intelligence of their own- and they go inside. Everything in the hallway is grimy, black with layers of cobwebs and dust. It’s not a refurbished building for watching indie movies or rough circuit boxing, it’s not even a shoe warehouse that they’re not supposed to be in, but the manager decided to open up for the night for his kid’s birthday party, against his better judgment. This is obviously illegal, and his knowledge becomes certainty at the end of the hall where the biggest room has a few dozen people dancing.

“You should have told me. I would have dressed up.” It’s a flat out lie, of course. If Mikey had told him he would have done everything possible to get out of going. But Mikey doesn’t need to know that, he just needs to believe that giving Pete warning is a good thing. If Mikey thinks Pete desperately wants to stock up on glow sticks he’ll give him notice and Pete will able to avoid this next time.

“It’s not all people with soothers and neon, Pete. Do I look like a lime green guy?” Pete has to give him that. His clothes look the same as any other day, for the most part. He is wearing the hottest pair of hooker boots Pete’s ever seen.

“Still, tell me next time.” So he can never do this again. This is quite possibly the worst first date Pete’s ever been on.

“I’m gonna go say hi to the people I know. You know how it is. I’ll be back in a bit, and then we can dance, okay?”

Mikey doesn’t wait for an answer before he’s flitting off. Pete watches him mingle, and Mikey’s right. It’s pretty much exactly what he and Andy and sometimes Joe do in the rock clubs they go to, just with less dyed hair and more Halloween wigs, less perfectly chosen indie band logo shirts and more bright colours and patterns. He keeps his eyes on Mikey and tries to stay calm. He cares about Mikey, wants this to be a good date for him, even if he’s on the verge of freaking out. He might not be head over heels like Frank was, but look how that turned out.

Pete lasts until the third person he sees popping E. Maybe it’s not fair, to the people here or to Mikey. It’s no more than people might use as a party of Gabe’s. Hell, it’s no more than the Cobras themselves would use. But the worst case scenario at a party of Gabe’s is a noise complaint and Pete being able to bail out a window and run away. For something like illicit drug use inside a broken into commercial property they could all be arrested. The very idea makes the spots of colour start to sparkle in front of his eyes.

He winds his way through the gyrating people -more show up each minute, turns out Mikey was right about the early thing- and grabs Mikey by the sleeve. “I need to go.”

“What?”

“I can’t stay here. You don’t need to leave, I’m going to call Patrick. I’m not trying to ruin your night.” Patrick will answer his phone. And if he doesn’t Joe’s a good driver even without a license or Ashlee might be able to sneak out with a combination of saying she’s going to hang out with a female friend and a promise to be home soon. Worst case Pete walks until he finds a bus stop.

Mikey trails after him, persistent in following him out of the dank hallway into the brisk March air. “Why do you need to go?”

“I can’t take the chance this place will get busted.” Technically he’d have more rights in jail than he did at Blue Springs. It’s still not a chance he’s willing to take.

“Can I ask you another question?” Mikey plows on without waiting for permission. “What did you do?”

“What?”

“I remember in freshman year people said you went to juvie for getting caught with drugs. And you’re scared of cops, so it seems true enough. But you’re straight edge. So what did you really do?”

“Honestly?”

Mikey looks at him with a shadow of a serious expression, like he’s expecting Pete to cop to murdering someone. “Yeah.”

“I didn’t study.”

“What?”

Pete curls his arms around his body. He’s told this a few times and it never gets more fun. “Well, there was stuff before that. I skipped a few classes to talk in the caf, I blew off a soccer practice one because I knew it was all drills. I got B’s instead of the honor roll marks I had in junior high. My parents decided they were officially concerned, Garcia and my soccer coach told my parents I needed tough love. They started monitoring my behaviour. When I didn’t study during Christmas break for exams they decided they agreed and sent me to a boot camp. That was-”

He decides to plunge into the details. Not everyone wants to know, not everyone can be trusted to not use it against him. He never told Jeanae any of it, none of the Cobras except Gabe know more than scraps. But Pete thinks Mikey can know. “To test your trust in authority they’d grab you from behind, if you struggled or flinched you’d get punished. We had Rapport for hours each day, you had to sit perfectly in chairs and tell your memories of every time you were a bad person. If people thought you were making yourself sound more innocent than you were they were supposed to clap, so most of the time you’d have to shout terrible things about yourself to be heard. If you didn’t have a story or enough people thought you were lying you’d get punished. Punishments... hurt.”

"Everyone was meant to hate each other, use their worst truths against each other. Faces smeared with mayonnaise because you’re a cocksucker, going naked because you were fat enough that your blubber could keep you warm. Everything was in five levels, food and furniture privileges came with each level. You didn’t get to sit on chairs outside Rapport until level three. Only level fives got beds or juice or meat that wasn’t rotting. Every time you got punished, apart from being hit or whipped or made to run until you fell over you’d go down a level. Some of the counselors liked to use us, but it was never me. It was never me, I was lucky.”

"I only got out because they said they couldn’t safely send me home until they checked out my home life and siblings. They said my sister would turn me back to my bad ways and they needed to bring her in to help her. Since she was twelve my parents decided they were full of crap and took me out as it was a waste of money. I was there seven months, again lucky. The average stay is over a year. A lot of people don’t leave until they turn eighteen. Came back a bit fucked up though. Yay for study hall, I guess.” Pete shrugs.

Mikey looks at him for a minute. Pete hopes he doesn’t start a pity party. Pete didn’t tell him for that, he just wanted to explain. Just as Pete thinks it’s going to be something that’s never brought up again, like Mikey is a younger version of his parents, he speaks. “I thought people’s faces were rotting off their bodies. I take Lamictal now, so I don’t see usually shit, except sometimes if I smoke pot. I’m a bit fucked up too.”

Pete hopes he doesn’t sound like just another asshole adult, but he’s too curious to not ask. “So then, maybe you shouldn’t smoke?”

He shrugs. “I’ve got ‘psychotic features’. That means no matter what I do, I’ll probably see shit. I don’t do hallucinogenics, I’ve turned down shrooms about a thousand times. But E just makes me depressed later in the week, and cycles would happen anyway. And pot sometimes makes things rush at me, but I could wake up tomorrow and see fairies. Might as well enjoy life.”

Pete doesn’t understand it, necessarily. He wouldn’t do the same, it’s pretty much the opposite of the safety plans his mind builds. But he does get it. At some point you have to say ‘fuck being crazy, I’m going to do what I want anyway’.

*

His latest job is not Molko approved. Mr Molko wasn’t a dick about not liking Pete’s application. He didn’t prevent him from getting the job with a bad review upon being phoned as a reference. Nor did he go for a more subtle sabotage of happening to mention Pete was still in high school, a fact which probably would have prevented them from hiring him. That he was eighteen would have easily been countered with being a student, which alluded to irresponsibility. But he hadn’t brought it up, and of course Andy had known better than to say anything.

Pete can kind of understand why Mr Molko wouldn’t like him working at a gas station. Particularly the one he got hired at. The tiny building he needs to stay inside is grimy, like nothing’s ever been cleaned. It’s in a bad area of town, and there’s nothing else open in fleeing distance if something horrible happened. Not to mention that most of the lights near the gas pumps are broken and there’s no schedule for them being replaced. Mr Molko probably thinks he’s going to get robbed and die horribly. Pete thinks it’s a possible outcome, but the other outcome is getting paid for doing next to nothing. It’s a self serve station, all he has to do is make change when the occasional person comes in. It’s a chance he’s willing to take, especially knowing that this won’t be his job forever. The statistics regarding the likelihood of Pete being held at gunpoint in the month at most he’ll be working there before whatever cataclysm occurs to get him fired are in his favour.

There are multiple things he was able to point out to Molko about the awesomeness of the potential job, aside from the mathematical probability of death by robbery. Pete’s not sure which one swayed Mr Molko into continuing to help him. In fact, it’s likely that Molko thought all Pete’s highlights were crap but helped him anyway out of guilt. He doesn’t really care if Molko thinks they’re stupid reasons, they suit him. Since there’s only one person working at a time he’s not going to have any staff to create drama with, nor will there be a boss he inevitably snaps at. When he closes his til at the end of his shift it doesn’t matter if it’s off a bit, because the next person can deal with it. There’s nothing much for him to do, so he’ll have time to do homework. And those are just the small benefits.

The best thing about his manning the til at a creepy nearly abandoned gas station is the shift they have Pete working. It’s a graveyard shift; eleven to seven in the morning. It’s a change in routine, of course. His day used to be school, go to work or see friends, and then sleep. Now it’s work then school then friends and then sleep. It’s a seemingly simple rearrangement, but it makes his life more efficient, which makes everything better.

A lot of parents might oppose the idea, but Pete doesn’t tell them where he works, just flashes his pay stub for as long as it takes one of them to write out a check. If they care enough to think about it, they'd probably think he’s working after school, when he’s at Ashlee’s followed by in a club or at one of the guys’. They’re asleep when he leaves the house at ten thirty, and they’re already gone in the morning when he gets home at seven thirty to have breakfast and shower and whatever else he needs to do. While he doesn’t trust his siblings to not rat on him, Andrew and Hilary don’t get up until quarter after eight.

It’s a bit surprising to see a car pull in at eleven thirty. Normally cars come in on the way home from bars after final call, tipsy dumbasses taking five tries to stick the hose into the opening of the gas tank. Pete always considers going out to help them and never does. Maybe if someone spills gas on their four hundred dollar designer skirt they’ll reconsider driving smashed the next club night. Pete adjusts the debit machine on the counter so the customer won’t ask him where it is and goes back to his homework.

Tonight he brought his math questions and his sketch book. The math textbook and lined paper is still in his backpack, along with a bag of chips so he doesn’t have to buy from the rack of entirely expired food beside the ATM. His art assignment is far more interesting, they’re supposed to come up with at least ten opposing themes and figure out how to combine them, make sketches of the three ideas, and paint one by the end of the week. His strategy is to draw out his first three ideas, then if he gets bored he can just scribble out the last seven while the teacher’s taking attendance. Pete’s on his second sketch, innocence and death combined in the form of a zombie unicorn.

“Hey,” he hears as the bell lets him know that someone’s entered the store. Pete looks up, hoping for a stoner rather than a drunk, and is pleasantly surprised with neither. It’s Mikey, hands crammed into the front pockets of his zippered hoodie.

“Hey,” he answers. Considering the time, Mikey’s either stopping in on his way to something, or on his way home from something. He doesn’t know what Mikey’s been doing, after everyone left Ashlee’s it was just him and Andy seeing stopping in to watch a friend of Andy’s band practice. He doesn’t ask; Mikey can go to all the raves he wants to, as long as he doesn’t try to bring him.

“You want some company for a bit?”

Pete grins. “Do I need to pay you for your services? I’ve got both past their due date peanuts and past their due date sunflower seeds?”

“How about you crack open your til and we fuck in a big pile of money?” Mikey’s snicker betrays the almost sexiness of his voice.

“You realise I make like two hundred bucks the entire eight hours, right? Also, possibly talk about breaking the cash register a bit quieter, I’m not sure if the surveillance gets audio, or just video. It definitely gets video though, so unless you want to find yourself on an amateur website tomorrow, I’d say no passionate fucking.”

“Disappointing. We could do your art homework? I’m not Gee, but I am taking the same class, and I already finished. I’ve got at least a dozen ideas I didn’t use.”

Pete looks at his grand total of two ideas and nods his head. “That would be great. Gimme a second, I’m going to see if there’s another stool in the storage closet. Don’t let anyone steal gas.”

“I make no promises,” Mikey replies, smirking.

*

Pete knows something’s up with Ashlee, and judging from the way Andy keeps kicking him under the table everyone else notices it too. Well, aside from Mikey, but it’s not fair to expect him to read the signs. He’s only hung out with them for three weeks, Pete and the guys have had almost three years to know her eating habits. It’s something different than normal because she’s tearing off bits of her bun and rolling them between her thumb and index until they’re little bread balls. It’s not her style, she either eats when she’s fine or doesn’t even considering taking her lunch out of he backpack when she decides to hate herself. But Ashlee doesn’t like to talk when she’s having food issues, and Pete’s not sure if he wants to potentially make things worse by asking. He can handle a black with bruises leg if it’s a choice between that and making her sad.

Eventually though, under the glares of Joe and Patrick he asks ‘what’s up?’ in as quiet a voice as he can manage, so she can pretend not to hear it if she wants to. He doesn’t know why he has to be the one to do it. Yes, he’s her boyfriend, but the three of them are some of her best friends.

“I really like this girl in my gym class.” Pete’s not surprised Mikey’s head shoots up in his periphery but it’s not really his focus either. If Mikey wants to know more about the Ashlee plus girls side of the equation that’s fine, but he’s hardly going to make giving Mikey details top priority. Not when Ashlee apparently feels bad for liking a girl. She’s never felt bad about it before, she had Tara and Julie and hook ups Pete doesn’t even know the names of, just like he had Gabe and Patrick and the rest, neither of them feeling guilty for it.

“Yeah? How stunning is she?” Pete’s not incredibly interested, it’s Ashlee’s business. But maybe if he shows that he encourages this she won’t feel bad about it?

Ashlee sighs. “She’s amazing. I really fucking like her.”

“Does she like girls?” Pete can’t stop himself from beaming at Mikey’s question, even as Ashlee sighs. If that’s all it is, then everything is fine.

“Do you think you can convert her?” It’s the truly important question, after all. Whoever it is doesn’t have to be a lesbian, she just needs to be open minded and curious. It worked for Andy and Joe after all.

“I have no idea. I don’t know what to do.”

Pete laughs, and Ashlee seems to get that it’s not at her by the lack of frown. “You really like her, huh.” Normally Ashlee goes the direct method, like him, a seductive kiss and see if they push you away. For her to be stalling, for her to be picking at her food instead of ignoring or enjoying it, it must be a huge crush.

“Ash, just ask her. The worst she can do is tell you she’s dating someone, right?” Ashlee shrugs at Joe’s words and rolls another bread ball. Pete ignores it and takes a bite of his ranch covered carrot. Now that he knows what it’s about he’s confident she’ll figure it out.

*

“Uh, where are you going? Need gas?” This is not the route to Ashlee’s house. Hell, it’s not even the route to the gas station nearest Ashlee’s house, but he’s trying to give her the benefit of the doubt, trying to not wish that he had his glass breaker in his pocket. She’s Ashlee, she wouldn’t do anything like that.

Her words are confusing, but also relieving. “I’m driving you home.”

“Are you grounded again?” It makes sense that he doesn’t really know where he is, hearing her words. He can’t remember the last time he went home after school.

“No. I just don’t want anyone to come over.”

“But we always come over. Even Mikey’s come over almost every day.”

“I don’t want anyone over today,” she repeats. Pete thinks he can hear Ashlee grinding her teeth and decides to leave it. Once he gets home he’ll call one of the guys and rearrange plans.

His good intentioned silence lasts until she comes to a stop in front of his house. She’s never not wanted to hang out, Pete can’t think of why she’s suddenly not cool with it unless she’s mad at them for something he can’t remember doing. He hates the idea. “Why are you mad at us?”

“I’m not I just.” Ashlee sighs, hands still clamped on ten and two on the steering wheel. “Look, I got shut down, okay? Really hard. Not ‘I’m straight’ shut down, but ‘I don’t date ugly people and I don’t date sluts so an ugly slut isn’t going to work it for me’ shut down. I just want to be alone.”

Pete shakes his head and moves his hand away from the seat belt it was about to click free from. “I have it on good authority that being alone when depressed does nothing but make you think your thoughts harder. Come on. Just me and you and Patrick? Let us love you, okay?"

Ashlee doesn’t look at him, keeps her head parallel with her outstretched arms. Pete shrugs and adds “you can even invite Tara. I don’t want to puppy pile with another girl, but I will if you need me to.”

“Trust me, Tara doesn’t want to snuggle you either. Pete, if I’m with you and Patrick, Andy and Joe might as well come too. It’s not like they care any less.”

“So let’s go inside and I’ll text the guys.”

“Inside?”

“Yeah, so?” he says like he doesn’t spend every night out of the house for as long as possible.

*

Pete yawns and rolls his shoulders. They crackle the way they always does he when falls asleep on the couch. He’s pretty sure he remembers resting his head on Ashlee’s leg while they were watching School Of Rock for the five hundredth time, but his head is on a pilled fleece throw pillow. “Where’s Ash?”

“She had to go home,” Andy answers.

“What time is it?” Pete sits up, drawing his legs underneath him. Andy and Joe are sitting on the couch across from his, the third that makes up the U facing the tv is empty but Pete can hear the fan whirring in the bathroom. He gives the room a second scan before asking “Mikey left too?”

“And Patrick. Said he was sorry but he has a test in the morning so...” Joe shrugs. Of all of them, of course Joe is the most empathetic about studying.

Pete’s not focused on that though. He doesn’t care about Patrick leaving without saying goodbye. The problem is “he left to get a decent sleep? What the fuck time is it?”

“Three something,” Andy answers casually.

Pete bolts to his feet. God only knows what he’s going to do now. Sierra’s been working an extra four hours, if she hasn’t called the manager Pete will eat his fucking shoes. Driving like a maniac to the station will only get him yelled at in person as compared to over the phone. Which speaking of, what the fuck? “What the hell? I set my phone to remind me to go to work, it should have woken me up.”

“Yeah, I powered down your phone.” Pete stops himself from smacking Joe, but it’s a close thing. “It’s not like we’re anti you working night shift. Considering your sleeping patterns it works. Or it would, if you even tried to sleep after leaving Ashlee’s and before going to work. But we know you haven’t, you’ve hung out with us or you’ve fucked off with Mikey, or you’ve texted constantly.”

Andy shrugs. “You passed the fuck out. We weren’t going to wake you.”

Pete doesn’t know whether to be pissed off or not. Their kindness just cost him his job. But on the other hand, he knew he was going to lose it eventually, it was just a matter of what action would cause it. As far as firable events go, sleeping in is hardly his worst. And it’s not like he can get mad at them for caring about him when sometimes that's the only thing that keeps him alive. “So you just hung out all night?”

“Yeah? Ashlee left, Mikey stayed for a bit for movies then said he had a band to see, Patrick had to go. Joe’s been trying to teach me math, I fucking hate math man. We didn’t want to go until you woke up, sometimes you wake up all fucked up and we wanted to make sure our ‘abandonment’ didn’t fuck you up.”

“Thanks. See you tomorrow, I guess?”

Joe shakes his head. “We called our parents. Official sleepover. Get us blankets, bitch.”

Pete smiles and leaves to ransack the linen closet. He probably won’t get back to sleep, not after he’s already slept for six hours. But it will be nice to wake up with someone in the morning, as long as he can find where Joe hid his phone and set a new alarm. Neither of his siblings would bother to wake them up, presuming that Andrew doesn’t set off the smoke detector again and wake up the neighbours as well.

*

Pete doesn’t know where everyone is going for college. It’s April; they’ve all sent out their acceptance notices to their college of choice’s acceptance letter. The four of them applied to mostly the same places, so he knows the initial range. But he didn’t ask where they got accepted, and he certainly doesn’t want to know where they decided to spend the next four years. If they had chosen somewhere different how could he possibly have picked which one of them was most important to follow?

Mikey wasn’t around for his explanation of purposeful ignorance, which had been firmly stated just after the latest of the college application deadlines were in. Unfortunately this had led to him blurting out he was going to Rutgers. Pete had winced but hadn’t gotten really upset. Mikey was like Alex, or Victoria, or Nate; meaningful but not completely devastating to lose.

Pete tries his best not to think about it. The more he thinks about the inevitable state of being alone -unless pure happenstance means he chose the same university as one of them- the more he wants to cry. He can’t rewind time, he can’t even stop it and live in this moment forever. But he can spend every possible moment with them. He hasn’t bothered to get another job after the last finished, it’s a waste of time. He’s got the rest of his life to get money, he’s only got a few months before everyone goes to get their dorms in order.

It’s the Friday before spring break and Pete needs to do something epic. He’s not sure what, he’s less with the execution and more the idea man. “We could go to Tampa?”

Andy doesn’t seem to appreciate the suggestion, judging by the loud and slightly painful sounding snort. “Right. Because you would feel calm about a road trip vacation to Florida, I want to spend a whole week with drunk idiots, Patrick wants boobs all up in his face, Ashlee wants girls talking about how hot they are and how ugly everyone else is and Joe. Well, Joe would probably enjoy himself-”

“Damn straight!”

“But too bad for him.”

“Oh daddy! You never let me have any fun.” Joe stamps his foot and shoves out a lip far enough that it has Patrick snickering.

“Anyone have a plausible idea? Roadtrip to Canada is not plausible either, Ash, don’t even suggest it. We don’t have passports.” Patrick tosses in. It’s a good idea to head her off at the pass, Pete thinks. For some reason she’s got this thing about Canada. Pete doesn’t see how an imaginary line drawn across a continent makes anything truly different, but he really wouldn’t be surprised if she ended up being a lumberjack or whatever.

“We could go to Days Inn Fest.” Everyone looks at Joe, who shrugs like everyone should know what he’s talking about. Finally he explains. “It’s the second year of it. It’s like if Lollapalooza and Burning Man and a stoner had a baby.”

“Joe, I’m pretty sure those events are already fully attended by stoners and I say that with all possible respect.” Patrick at least says it with more respect than Andy would.

“No, I don’t mean attendance, I mean personal values. Like for someone to look at both events and decide it takes way too much planning and say fuck it. Basically it’s like a four day open mike. It was the best thing I ever did, last year. And Ashlee isn’t missing much if she needs to be home by seven. Well, she is, but you’re missing something by sleeping or being in a different room. So it’s not like it’s unfair or anything.”

They talk about other options until they need to leave Ashlee’s, but it’s pretty much a set deal. A ninety six hour concert sounds pretty damn amazing, the perfect last hurrah sort of event. Not that Pete wants to consider it a last hurrah, the beginning of April seems a bit early for that.

None of them know where the festival is supposed to be, but with Patrick on the phone the entire drive, listening Joe’s step by step instructions they get there. It’s a closed hotel, though at least it looks like it closed from bankruptcy, not condemned for safety reasons. Still, Pete isn’t sure he wants to go in. Statistically the chance of them getting arrested for trespassing in a hotel for four days is much higher than the chances of getting arrested for a three hour rave, and he couldn't even handle that.

When Ashlee and Joe get out of her car though, Joe explains that the festival is being run by the person who owns the hotel. He’s going to flip it or some shit, last year’s Days Inn got knocked down entirely, but getting one last drop of use out of it by charging music lovers ten bucks to come party appeals to the rockstar inside him. Apparently he plays a mean double neck.

After handing a guy in a grey with years of wash Metallica shirt and a Rolex the group’s fifty, Joe leads everyone on a search for a room. Almost all of them already seem occupied, never mind that it’s only the morning of the first day. Finally they find one, Ash plopping down onto the bed as Andy closes the door to take a leak. Joe’s still talking about procedures for this festival, as though they don’t know to not drink anyone else’s already cracked open water. “And for fucksakes, keep your bag on you at all times. This is only our room as long as one of us is in it, the second it’s empty it’s free game. And while most people aren’t douchebags, an event this crowded is bound to have one or two.”

It takes Andy the longest to crack, and even that’s only twenty minutes of being sprawled on the second bed with Joe and listening. “I apologise for any hippie or Woodstock references I might have made in the last two days. You’re right, this is amazing. This is quite probably going to best anything I’ve ever fucking done.”

“That’s right, I’m a genius. Worship me,” Joe preens.

“I’d rather worship the guy making that lick. Want to help me find him?” With the door propped open Pete can hear nothing but guitars. He’s pretty sure it’s going to be a fruitless search, an audio version of a needle in a haystack. But Ashlee shrugs and says sure and Pete didn’t come to hide in his room at all night, even if it’s the only way they’ll keep their room.

As much as he’s certain he wants to spend every minute with them, it doesn’t take long at all for them to split up. Which might be a metaphor, a sign for the future, but Pete’s going to pretend it’s not. He doesn’t want to think of omens, he just wants to enjoy the makeshift band in front of him. He can’t imagine they knew each other before coming into the same room, it’s three guitars and an accordion. It sounds really interesting, a few people are recording with cellphones, one guy even has what looks like proper audio equipment, but it’s not a grouping that would ever get time at a club. He considers them for a second then plops down and leans against the dresser. He sends a text to Ashlee telling her to come to 308, but she sends one back telling him to come to 211.

It happens again and again over the next three days. Welcome Inn Festival is a place for musical ADHD. It’s a never ending stream of people joining and leaving, playing and listening. There do seem to be a few constants. One room’s propped open door has a Blink 182 poster, and that’s all those inside the room play, with occasional Box Car Racer, Angels And Airwaves, +44, Transplants and Aquabats. There’s also a Beatles room and a Metallica room. But for the most part, everything is constantly changing, and Patrick doesn’t always want to listen to the screamo that Pete’s drawn to, or Ashlee and Andy decide to try to learn the fiddle while Joe fucking hates folk and isn’t putting up with it for anyone. When sticking together would just make everyone miserable, they break into pairs, or go out individually.

In the condemned hotel there’s always someone awake. Pete doesn’t feel right not watching over Joe and Patrick and Andy while they’re sleeping, but they haven’t managed to convince him to crash. Or rather, he would be perfectly willing to, if his body would just cooperate. It’s okay though, there are people playing acoustic all night. After the first night Pete leans against the closed door of whatever room they’re crashing in and has conversations with whomever walks by. Forget kids, strangers say the darnedest things.

*

Pete hasn’t used his own locker in a week. In a bit of manic based paranoia and delusions of grandeur he threw away the school lock, sure they were going to use his registered combo to look at his things. That had been followed with getting his own lock and promptly forgetting the combo, along with half a dozen forum and blog passwords he’d changed. And of course he also changed his email password to some stupid string of numbers and digits, so he can’t log in, in order to get all his passwords reset to something sane. Thanks to that, now he’s only got Livejournal, Dreamwidth, Xanga and Tumbler. Of all the lost the only one he’s really going to miss is Facebook. He’s giving himself until the end of the week to try remembering it before he gets a new account. He's got too many bands with local concerts to miss more than a week of updates.

Like his journalfen, Pete knows whatever’s in his locker is gone forever. Or at least until the end of the year. He can’t ask the janitor to crack it open without explaining, which will undoubtedly get Garcia and maybe even the principal drawn in, entirely not worth it for the applied math textbook. He can’t exactly bring his own bolt cutters into school either, a move like that could get the bomb squad called in. So instead his shit is scattered between Patrick and Mikey’s lockers. His gym clothes are with Patrick, as is a stolen math text that he’ll return at the end of the year. His art stuff is with Mikey, who doesn’t seem to mind bringing it to class with his own instead of making Pete try to remember Mikey’s combo.

Pete doesn’t skip classes. He can’t, not when it was part of the reason behind him being sent to a torture camp. But his creative writing class is going to be boring as hell, considering he’s already finished the assignment. So he sits outside with Ashlee while she has a smoke and texts Mikey telling him he needs his sketchbook when he gets to Carleton. It’s easier to just wait for him than try to remember Mikey’s combo too, and it’s not like he has anything better to do with his time.

He sees Mikey’s ex sitting across the hall from Mikey’s locker, staring, knees curled to his chest. Honestly it’s a bit creepy, but then Pete’s probably done some creepy stuff in his past so he just ignores it. He doesn’t tell him to stop being a creepy stalker. He doesn’t even point him out to Mikey, like Mikey hasn’t already seen him, in order to force a confrontation.

As it turns out, he doesn’t need to. Frank scurries over to them and starts ranting, all sorts of bullshit that Pete can tell Mikey’s not going to be impressed with. Pete has reams of knowledge about ranting and the people around him’s tolerance levels. With the exception of Mikey and his brother, Mikey’s rope tends to be pretty short. Normally he tunes out or casually drifts away, but Frank's not going to give him the chance to do either.

“Mikey, I fucking love you okay? And I know you broke up with me and I still don’t want you to fuck me, it fucking sucked and I didn’t like it and I don’t know about you but once I realise I hate something I don’t want to do it again. But Jesus Christ, dude, I’d let you tear me apart every fucking night if you’d date me again. It might have taken me like two months to realise it but we still have another six weeks before graduation so fuck, please. You can fuck me, I’ll prove that I’m okay with it.”

Mikey slams his locker closed before whirling around to face Frank. Pete’s right; Mikey looks aggravated at least, if not pissed, and the expression looks like it’s breaking Frank, but screw him. He broke Mikey first. “So, what, you’re auditioning? Frank, it wasn’t just the not switching. Don’t get me wrong, I wanted to fuck you. But it wasn’t just that. Every fucking time I brought it up you lied or tried to distract me. You acted like a total bitch, Frank. I don’t date pussies.”

“Before me you didn’t date anyone!”

Pete decides it’s time to throw his two cents in. He doesn’t think Mikey’s going to cave, but it can only help him to have someone else on his side. “So he made up the rule on the fly. Seems like a solid rule dude.”

Frank looks like he wants to kill him. “Shut. Up.”

“I’m just saying, man.”

Pete only has a second to see Frank’s eyes narrow before his fist is up and swinging into his face. It’s a decent hit, though nothing of Blue Springs ‘beating the attitude out of you’ calibre. He knows how to take far worse without flinching, but in a situation like this it’ll be fun to fight back. He’s seen Frank at a lot of the clubs he and the guys go to, knows he’s got the energy for a brawl. It’ll be a good show for those in the hallway starting to gather. The last words out of his mouth before he starts it up are, “oh, that’s what we're doing?”

The next thing he knows someone’s grabbing him from behind. His eyes explode with fireworks, world kaliedoscoping in moments.

Usually when he comes back to the world things are mostly okay. He normally just needs to figure out what happened when he wasn’t there. This time is different. Pete can’t stop shaking, he can feel every muscle in his body spasm. It takes him seconds to recognise enough of his surroundings to know safe, okay, fine, that done he lets himself curl into the soft firmness of not-people at his back and close his eyes. He’s shaking and he can hear the person breathing, and is grateful that whoever it is doesn’t touch him.

When Patrick finally speaks up from the driver’s seat it’s not stupid placations, just a question. “You never told Molko?”

Pete snaps “I didn’t think restraining me from behind would ever come up! Teachers aren’t supposed to touch students!” Patrick raises his hands in a peace gesture and Pete belatedly realises how loud he’d shouted. “Sorry. Only ever came up with you guys and Cobras and Garcia and Mikey. Even Jeanae didn’t know why, just told her to never touch my back. I think she thought I was ticklish.”

Patrick looks at him, hard. When he’s apparently satisfied that Pete’s at least partially back in his own head, he stretches his arm over the cupholders and puts his hand on Pete’s thigh.

“Did I hit anyone?” He doesn’t think he would have. Doing that at Blue Springs would have been an ‘accidental’ broken arm and enough time in solitary to drive a guy insane. Literally. Pete had seen it his first week, a guy named Viktor. According to the few teens not yet made vicious by Rapport, he’d been in solitary for three weeks, given little water and less food, and kept awake with blasts of instructions to do calisthenics or face more time locked up. When he’d come out he had started ramming his head into things. They’d locked him up again so he couldn’t hurt himself, like being tied up in solitary would make him better. Pete can’t imaging ever crossing that line of fighting a hold. Even thinking about it makes him feel sick.

“Just Frank Iero.”

“Yeah, well he’s a douchebag, so.” Frank did the first fucking punch, Pete’s not feeling guilty for punching back.

“Maybe not.”

Pete snorts. “’Trick, if this is going to be a ‘can’t we all get along’ thing, I got along with him just fine until he punched me in the face, okay?”

“No, I’m not saying that. I’m saying Mikey texted me to let me know what happened before I got there just in case I needed to tell your therapist and did you tell him you were seeing someone?”

“I didn’t tell him I’m not seeing someone?” He’s not sure if that counts.

“Maybe you should tell him you’re not on the same sanity wave length?”

Pete says silent. He doesn’t see the point in it.

“Anyway, he said Frank was trying to get him back you decided to be part of the conversation. Imagine if Ashlee broke up with you for full time with Tara and Tara laughed when you tried to talk to Ashlee. I’m not even going to ask you if you’d hit her because I know the answer.”

Patrick’s probably got a point. Pete isn’t sure Frank is good for Mikey, but it’s not his place, really. He and Mikey aren’t as close as Mikey and Frank were, and if there’s actual love there he can’t get in the way of that. Love is way too important to lose. When he sees Mikey at lunch he’ll tell him that.

*

Let’s just start off by saying an in class essay worth marks during the last week of school is really lame. I don’t care if you grade this, I’ll pass regardless, but you have to know the ones who can’t afford to miss twenty marks are the ones most likely to be skipping it makes you kind of a jerk. So grade how you want, but at least know I’m honest. Most people are probably bullshitting this. Which I guess you probably have expect, considering this is creative writing class.

Unlike anyone else in this class, I had two first days of high school. One where I was the same lameass I was in junior high, one where everything was different. There’s no reason to talk about the first since I’m not that guy any more.

On my first day of school, I had three friends watching my back when I came into Carleton. Literally, even. They’ve all graduated now; Gabe and Eliza and Ryland. I know you had Ryland and Elisa, I don’t know if you ever had Gabe. Gabe’s improv troupe had sort of failed in it’s first year, but he was absolutely friggin determined to make it work. Determined to the point of sacrificing goats, it wasn’t like Gabe knew any virgins. (yeah, this is totally getting a four out of twenty. whatever, it’s the last week of school.)

Of my first four classes, Gabe was repeating ninth grade lit with me, Eliza repeating ninth grade math. It pretty much hadn’t been a question at all that I’d have a study hall period, although Garcia was nosy as all hell about it. She wanted me to talk it all out, which was friggin ridiculous. At that point I was sure I’d never trust another adult ever again. Mr Molko fixed that a bit, but Garcia is way too fucking nosy for ever trusting.

By the time lunch rolled around all I wanted to do was go the hell home. But it was skipping that got me into the land of shit I did. And really, if I couldn’t handle school, the only other option that would get me anywhere other than fry cook the rest of my life was getting home schooled. And trust me, the idea of talking to my parents at all, never mind trying to learn six hours of shit a day was entirely not an option.

It would be a lot easier to hate them. If I could just say fuck this and run away things would be so much easier. Instead every ‘they put me there’ is tempered with ‘they took me out’, every ‘they fucked me up forever’ crashing full force into ‘they thought I was already fucked up and were trying to fix me’. Every time I look at them I hate them and love them simultaneously. Sometimes I have to grit my mouth closed because if I open it I don’t know what I’m going to say to them. But hate or love, there’s no way I can ever, ever trust them again. Ever.

But anyway, all that’s beside the point. (you ever notice in class essays bring the quality down a shit-ton, because everyone’s just writing free flow? or maybe that’s what you were expecting to read. this is just a filler assignment, isn’t it? i’ll either get a four because you’ll read this and be pissed with my attitude or you’ll look at my name at the top and give it an automatic seventeen because you know my writing is good and it’s easier to base an assignment on work ethic over the semester than actually read twenty five rambly ass essays.) The point is I was stressed as hell by lunch, and mostly just wanted to flee. So while I was happy Gabe picked the cafeteria table he did and left the spot open he did because it would have the least traffic behind me, I was fucking unhappy that he had so many strangers around him. A bunch of potentially vicious teenagers was not what I needed at that point.

Not that it was surprising, or anything. A quick head count proved I had to watch myself against four new people. Considering the entire morning had passed, more than enough time for Gabe to make a dozen friends, it probably should have been more surprising it was only four. Yeah, it was an assumption that all four of them were brought by Gabe, but if you’ve ever talked to him in the hall or at the Cobras perform in your class you’d know it was a valid assumption. He’s always had this great way of sucking people in.

The guys were Nate, Matty, Alex, and the lone girl was Victoria. I didn’t say shit all, of course, I wasn’t exactly trusting anyone. It took me about half the lunch period to figure out that Gabe had either seduced them with the idea of an improv troupe, or he had picked them silently and was going to make them be his best friends and once they were too ensnared to get out he’d demand they start acting with him and Elisa and Ryland. Either way I basically wished him luck but I wasn’t about to join. He knew that, of course. He wasn’t stupid.

He also wasn’t very good at tact, even if he tried. Which wasn’t often, he was pretty much always of the mindset that if he offended someone it was their problem for being uptight, not his. Nate asked if anyone wanted to come over after school and get high from her dad’s stash. It had taken the summer months to not hysterically vomit at the mention of drugs, and I wasn’t exactly cool with them by September. Still not, really. Gabe must have felt me shudder beside him because he turned to me and said he wouldn’t stop, but he’d tell me when it was time to leave a room so they could enjoy shit and text me or come get me when it was safe to come back. Or I could just start hanging out with straight edge kids, he’d be sad, miss me, but he’d understand, because that would never be them.

I almost started freaking out, because pretty much the only idea worse than people doing drugs and other trouble bringing shit around me was the idea of losing Gabe and Elisa and Ryland. They’d been almost all of the reason I’d started to reclaim my sanity over the summer. But before I could stammer out much more than no with some additional hyperventilating, Nate had said that he had this drummer friend from junior high marching band that was totally straight edge, he could invite him too and we could hang out in a different room while they smoked up.

I didn’t take the offer that day. It took awhile for the idea of meeting more people to seem anywhere near okay. By the time I’d met Andy, Matty had already fucked off, turned out he had a thing against public ‘embarrassment’, the term practically offensive to the six of them. By the time I met Joe, who introduced me to Patrick, I already had my first girlfriend. But all the seeds of it were planted that hour in the caf, including Nate randomly handing me a mix CD full of drum heavy bands that Patrick had known and loved and nearly friggin swooned to find out I knew.

So that’s my first day. And yeah, don’t really care what you grade it as, considering that it got me the best friends in the friggin world.

*

Pete figures there’s two ways the last day of school can go down. A bunch of sub-options to either choice, but in the end two choices. Freak out, or do his best to forget today is the last chance he ever has to have almost all the people he loves in the same room. Freaking out seems the more reasonable choice, considering there’s absolutely no fucking reason to be calm today. The only thing that stops him from flailing immediately is that in during a kaleidoscope time passes without him noticing, and the last thing he wants is to waste his final minutes.

Technically it’s not the last last day. The seniors have still got graduation to attend. Pete doesn’t think it counts though, not when all they’re doing is sitting in silence in the auditorium for hours. Besides, he’s still not sure if he’s going to go. He’s pretty sure it won’t make him kaleidoscope. He hates the chairs and having an authority shouting out names names won’t help. But he can slouch and probably even bring a Gameboy, since the W’s will be hidden by rows of people to combat the bad factors. There’s no question that it will be boring as hell. Pete also doesn’t really want his parents congratulating him on anything, he’s not sure he could hear the words without punching one of them. On the other hand, Nate, Victoria, and Alex are all graduating on time, and he’s already gotten the text from Gabe telling him when the party is. There’s pretty much no question that the older Cobras will be crashing grad, and that could get interesting. Essentially it’s a question of what he wants to do fifteen minutes before the ceremony starts. He can decide next week, he doesn’t need to worry about it now.

Since freaking out would just be a waste of precious time, Pete spends first period figuring out what he wants to do for the rest of the day. Half the students haven’t bothered to show up, he’s pretty sure the teachers aren’t taking attendance either. Pete still can’t skip a period, but he’s confident enough in the lack of interest of his teachers that he can take a twenty minute bathroom break.

Pete’s life is made easier by gym class not happening. Kline waits for them to all change and huddle on the bleachers waiting for instructions before he tells them that they all get full marks and go and find something more fun to do. It’s not all the surprising that Colin and some of his tool friends decide to stay in the gym and play football. Pete wastes a few seconds trying to convince Patrick to go to Molko’s with him before resolving to see him at lunch and leaving Patrick to fend for himself.

He stays through gym and his spare and study hall. Molko perches on his stool beside the seldom used overhead and talks to the students that feel like talking to him, sometimes as much as a third of a class. The time passes quickly, Pete soaking in the cool words and trying to memorise them in case they have a hidden wisdom he’ll only realise much later. He spends a lot of study hall trying to figure out if it’s inappropriate to ask Mr Molko if the number on his resume is his home number, and if he can call him. It probably is, he’s technically still a student. But it’s not like Pete wants to have sex with him. He just doesn’t want graduation to steal away the one adult he’s comfortable talking to.

In the end he just asks Mr Molko to draw something for him. It’s what he’s going to do to combat the dread of the end of everything. He’s going to get an entire sleeve of tattoos about who matter to him. It will shock his parents, if he ever comes home to see them, but what they think hardly matters. If he ever sees Joe or Andy again they’ll probably be just as covered, if not more. Patrick will be undoubtedly be pale skinned his entire life, Ashlee and Gabe might consider one or two. But while Joe’s and Andy’s will be important to them, he can guarantee neither of them will have the commitment he has to his.

Some of his friends are better artists than others. Patrick looks at Joe’s stick figure art and seems mildly horrified at the idea that Pete’s going to get it on his arm, but even as he’s arguing against the whole concept he’s scrolling through his iPod playlists to find a song with relevant lyric., Pete’s sure he’ll use a school computer to print whatever he ends up with off in an epic font. Ashlee sketches out a passable Jack Skellington face, and Andy’s is this awesome sketch of an exploding drum.

“You’re kidding, right? I don’t know how to draw,” is Alex’s response when he joins their table for a minute. In the last few months they’ve become easy to find, not performing during the lunch hours or between classes. Pete can only attribute it to the pain of missing half their troupe.

“Draw something anyway.” It’s not like it’s not a risky thing to say, quieter or not they still have their imagination. But that’s sort of the point, isn’t it? To get their personalities in sketch form?

Nate has blank paper in his binder. It’s not sketchbook quality, but he’s still able to create a decent amount of different sized circles in the bottom right corner before drawing a bubble blowing stick and sliding the paper across the table to Alex. Before Pete can stop him -not that he would have- he sucks a bit of chocolate milk into his straw, then blows it over the top of the page. The splatter is interesting, and actually pretty fitting considering how much Alex likes to deal with food. The paper goes to Victoria last, passed gently so the wet bits don’t rip. Victoria pulls out her lipstick and draws a big sloppy heart with it, more like two candy canes with overlapping bottoms and untouching crooks. Pete hopes the tattoo artist can match the exact shade of red.

Media goes by agonisingly slowly, after five months taking it Pete’s sure it’s the worst choice he’s ever made for an option class. Then it’s art, Pete’s stuff scattered and waiting for him at the spot beside Mikey. The teen getting back together with Frank hasn’t fucked up their friendship, Pete just can’t have sex with Mikey any more.

Pete’s inner monologue debates half the class about asking Mikey. After all, they were only fucking for a month and a half, and Patrick was there for most of it. Mikey was never really Pete’s in the way that Ashlee and Patrick and Joe and Andy are. But then neither are Victoria and Alex and Nate. If anything they’re Gabe’s. And it has to count for something that he told Mikey about Blue Springs.

After he asks, Mikey spends the rest of the class drawing him a unicorn, six separate shades of blue and green in it's mane. Pete’s not entirely sure about putting it on his forearm, it’s the type of beauty that will get him shit in college. But he can’t not get it done.

Math is the last class on the last day he’ll ever have in Carleton. Those who haven’t already blown off school are sitting and talking about plans for the future. Pete doesn’t need that, he just spreads his sheets over the scarred wooden desk and takes them in. Alex’s splatter has dried crinkled, Andy’s mess of mechanical pencil scribbled lines already starting to smudge. Pete doesn’t care, each change makes them more real. He can’t wait to see what they look like on his arm. Bottom line, Pete’s never going to let himself forget his friends. He might never see them face to face, but he’ll see them every time he’s having a shower, or making dinner, or doing coursework. The tattoos will be his, as pieces of them are forever his.