living's just a waste of death

west winona water buffalo's

we're almost at 20 chapters and i feel like nothing has happened??
this is also really late because i started another fic (which i also just updated) soo yeah, please correct any mistakes you may see

baseball practice. goddamn baseball practice. an hour and a half of mikey waiting and waiting around on the bleachers for pete. four days a week. six hours in total. what the hell? who's idea was that? why did they have to make it so long? although, mikey would admit that watching pete swing bats and run bases was much better then doing his homework like he was supposed to be. his grade had dropped in chemistry but who cared, his boyfriend was hot. boyfriend, boyfriend, boyfriend, mikey loved that fucking word. holy fucking shit.

so, maybe baseball practice wasn't all that bad. on the rare occasion that mikey actually decided to do his work, the top of the bleachers were quite enough. and it was always nice to see pete in his uniform- "west winona" across the front with the water buffalo mascot. and "wentz" across the back. lost of w's. pete grinned up at him every time he scored a goal or touchdown or whatever the hell the baseball point system was called. oh, a home run! yeah, that. pete made a lot of those. and they hadn't even started playing real games yet.

sometimes william would stop by, too. and travie. the three of them would pull faces at gabe to make him laugh and giggle whenever pete got yelled at for not tucking in his jersey. but mostly it was just mikey on the bleachers. and even though the ninety minutes always felt like hours longer, he stick around until pete could leave anyway. they got their fair share of making-out under the bleachers. totally cliche but also so perfectly them.

mikey asked, at one point after practice when they were just standing around, why pete had made the whole switch between soccer to baseball. because when he first moved to jersey, that was the thing he was known for. new kid, pete wentz. junior high soccer star. punk eighth grader who plays soccer. have you seen his hair? he looks so cool in his soccer jersey. did i mention he joined the soccer team? woah, look at his chains and the way he kicks a soccer ball.

pete said it was because, "baseball was real popular in chicago- but i guess every sport is. anyway, it was my dad and i's favorite fucking thing, you know? but when they split- my parents- i hated him." so in pete's thirteen year old brain, baseball and soccer were complete opposites. well, "as opposite as two sports could be. without being like, too impractical. so i switched over to soccer. i guess it was just a way to rebel against him. if that makes sense?" mikey nodded his head then.

"yeah well, anyway. i didn't actually like soccer. i was good at it, sure, but it wasn't fun. so when my mom moved us out here-" he took it as an opportunity to do whatever he wanted. if his dad wasn't there, why did it matter? "i didn't really have to rebel anymore so i switched back. i know it doesn't make, like, any sense." then mikey had laughed.

the other downside to baseball practice was the cheerleaders. the cheer team. they weren't even a team- they were a goddamn club. mikey didn't know shit about sports but he knew that baseball didn't typically have cheerleaders. yet, they showed up after their own practice anyway. to "support" or whatever the fuck. ash and sarah and other pretty girls with flowing hair and long legs that mikey didn't care enough about to learn the names of.

they always stood around the sidelines in their skirts and giggled over all the boys in their uniforms. they stared mostly at pete, though. and mikey wasn't jealous. no he wasn't.

they didn't show up on that day, though. mikey was sitting on the bleachers, with a textbook in his lap that he'd neglected to open. and listening to music on the headphones he'd gotten for his birthday- letting himself zone out. so he got pretty terrified when pete snuck up on him. "sorry, mikeyway." pete giggled and pressed a quick hello-kiss to mikey's temple. the first one. "you asshole." mikey said and leaned into him. pete took his cap off and shook his hair like a little dog.

"have i ever told you how good you smell?" pete kissed the top of mikey's head that time. the second. "it's the ginger and honey shampoo." he turned his head up so he could catch pete's lips. third. "fuckin' amazing, dude." pete sat down as close to mikey as he could get. shoulders and knees pressed together. "don't you think it's kinda weird to call me that, now that i'm your boyfriend and all?"

"i mean it in a romantic way." he kissed the corner of mikey's mouth. damn, a fourth. "ah, of course." everyone else had gone, they were probably the only people still on school grounds. they'd usually hang around for a while after everyone left. unless they really needed to get home.

"speaking of like, romantic shit, we've got an exhibition game coming up. and, you know. you should come." mikey looked at him with a confused expression, like he didn't know shit about sports. "exhibition game?"

"yeah. like, a practice game. it's just a warmup, it doesn't actually count, ya know? it's a couple towns away so we gotta stay in a hotel for the night- and i usually room with 'trick but he won't mind switching it up. it's whatever. but think about it, like a weekend away? together?" he knocked his head again mikey's lightly. "doesn't that seem kinda. like, i don't know. serious?"

"yeah, but i honestly think we're ready for marriage. so, come with me?" pete's hand was just slightly rested on top of mikey's. god, they were so cheesy. mikey grinned at him, "i'd love to. but i don't think my dad would be too thrilled about you and me in a hotel room together." it took pete a while to read between the lines of that sentence- "you told him?" about us? mikey finished for him in his head. maybe he wasn't supposed to say anything. "no. he just...figured it out, i guess. he must've- i dunno. i didn't tell him."

"fuck, he didn't freak out did he?" pete asked and mikey turned his hand around so their fingers could lock. "no, i mean. he was really cool about it actually. said all this shit about how he likes you. he doesn't mind." he smiled a little and pete's expression changed just like that. he grinned up at mikey and gripped his hand, "that's funny, mikeyway."

"hey, maybe that's a good thing. we won't have to sneak around next time i take you on a date." pete said after a while. it couldn't have been passed five o'clock but mikey could have sworn the sun was setting already. maybe pete's eyes had just looked extra golden. "you've never taken me on a date." mikey laughed, and pete was gleaming so brightly in the sunlight. but he was the sun, wasn't he? "i will, then."

they sat in silence again for a while, eating up the warmth of late afternoon. and the slight breeze that would move pete's hair around. it was too long beyond return at that point- he needed a haircut. mikey sort of liked it, though. it would get in pete's eyes and most of the time he didn't bother pushing it out of his face. but mikey mostly just liked that he could run his fingers through it. so he moved his hand up to move the bangs out of pete's eyeliner smudged eyes.

pete grinned at him yet again, and kissed his temple again, too. "you're sure your dad's cool with it? i kinda thought he didn't like me." they'd started the walk back to the parking lot, to mikey's car that he'd been driving as often as he could. "why wouldn't he like you?" it still felt weird to drive pete around rather then be driven by pete, though. if that made sense. "i mean, i'm not exactly the most well behaved angel out there." pete said and looked at mikey with a smirk.

mikey rolled his eyes anyway. "no. but you're not a bad person or anything." he wasn't. he never had been. sure, he might not have been a great influence. and he might've been fucking up mikey's innocence a little bit. but they were only teenagers. what more could you have expected from them? "not bad, but not good either." mikey rolled the windows up, it was starting to get colder. "good enough for me." he laughed. and so did pete.