Just Off The Key Of Reason (Pete Wentz/Mikey Way)

2: Hired A Construction Crew, 'Cause It's Hell On The Engine

An incredibly annoying beeping noise penetrated the complacent silence that hung over the room. Thankfully, Gerard had taken it upon himself to go and irritate Frank instead of me, or perhaps they'd be doing something entirely more romantic, as I had come to very much suspect would be the case, especially considering Gerard's recent confession regarding his rather short and awfully homosexual best friend, a confession that I'd pressured into existence, but a confession nonetheless.

The beeping noise had rather stubbornly refused to stop, forcing me to disregard Pride and Prejudice for what felt like the seventh thousandth time in the past few days - not that part me exactly minded at, well, the rational part, the part that cared at least just a little bit about my college grade and the rather real threat of my professor chucking me out of the course and in turn any hopes of leaving moving out before I was twenty five, and then again, there were her suspicions regarding my somewhat questionable and somewhat pyromaniacally fuelled, tendencies.

I forcefully picked up my phone, which unfortunately still insisted on relentlessly sounding out throughout the barely acceptable study environment, and glancing at the caller I.D. – Pete; should've guessed, really. Pete had somehow come to the conclusion that the best way to assist me with my study was relentless calling, texting and general irritation, because nothing upped your grade like an inability to concentrate.

I picked up on the sole condition that there wouldn't be a chance that he simply wouldn't just give up after one phone call; c'mon this was Pete, after all. Pete didn't stop if you didn't pick up, because Pete took it personally and Pete didn't stop calling, and when I mean didn't, I mean didn't. You could either pick up or develop ear trauma from the dial tones and end up having your eardrum surgically removed by some pompous doctor that didn't exactly have much of a clue as to what the hell he was doing, but just fancied the prestige and the hefty salary.

I opted for picking up; the sensible and stupid option, but then again, with Pete, things were just like that - odd. Pete was generally an odd guy, and it had really taken some oddity for him to continuously persist with his seemingly endless requests and flirtations regarding an episode of Breaking Bad, which left me very much regretting telling him I loved the TV show that pretty much everyone had a box set of. I should have chosen something ambiguous, something that he'd have to trek for several hundred miles across the amazon... website, to simply get a copy of. And then there'd be shipping costs from the actual amazon where it was probably only stocked in one little warehouse where no one spoke English.

"Pete." I sighed, placing the phone on speaker and on my desk beside me, wondering if I could possibly juggle Pete, and Pride and Prejudice at the same time. I very much doubted my ability to do so, but this, of course, wouldn't stop me trying. I’m persistent, yet awfully unsuccessful in my constant attempts. Pete just seemed to beat tiresome literature from God knows how many hundreds of years ago, but then again, who doesn't?

"Mikessss, hello! How are you?" He practically screamed down the line, making me glad I'd insisted upon putting the stupid thing on speaker. He had insisted upon greeting me in a very similar manner every time he'd insisted upon calling me, which over the past few days, had turned out to be a rather frequent occurrence. I knew I should have used Frank's phone; I was planning to, but I wasn't planning for when Gerard had insisted upon breaking it, and I wasn't sure it was actually that accidentally either, which Frank was particularly not pleased about. Coffee and electronics didn't get along, as one may have guessed, but apparently Gerard didn't quite manage that one.

"Pete, you do realise that I've only managed to plough through another fifty pages of this damn book since you've decided I need to be 'checked up upon' every.... what," I paused for a moment, thinking over all the occasions Pete had insisted upon calling me, and instantly regretting that decision as soon as I'd taken it, because just thinking about it put it into perspective, and once it was put into perspective, it simply made my head hurt. "Checking up on me every hour or so." I wasn't even exaggerating, and I'd come to wish I was.