The Difference Between You And Me {Petekey}

Chapter fifteen

"Does his name rhyme with tank, by any chance?" Mikey asked with one eyebrow raised. Gerard grinned gleefully.

"Yes!"

"Well, that wasn't exactly a very hard guess, then..." Mikey commented. Gerard ignored him, as he was jumping around the room. When he came close to Mikey, Mikey laid a hand on his ankle, hoping to get his attention but avoid making him trip. Gerard stopped in his place, arms in the air, and looked down at Mikey, who was still sitting on the floor.

Gerard got the message Mikey was sending him and sat down facing him. "I thought you were going to wait before you told him how you felt," Mikey said.

"I was. But this... this just happened. It was a kiss, and nothing else, no discussion of emotions beforehand. Which is fine and lovely. I don't have to worry about him caring about me this way," Gerard explained.

Mikey raised his eyebrows and lowered them again. "Whatever you say. I still think you gotta work on the guilt thing. You're not a burden, Gerard."

"Yeah, whatever. I'm just happy, for now. I mean, at least he's not going to report me to the officers for being a homosexual." Shit. Mikey had totally forgotten that was a thing. Being gay was not only frowned upon there, it was a crime. That meant that he might have to be careful when he wrote the letter - but no, if Gerard kept it like he said he would, there should be no problem. And besides, he'd likely be dead if the letter was read by anyone other than himself.

"Yeah, that's good," Mikey agreed. "Just- be careful, okay? Don't go around making out with him in broad daylight and everything. And please, not in front of me."

Gerard stuck his tongue out at him. "Fine." He looked over to where Mikey's writing supplies were. "You're writing the letter?"

Mikey followed his gaze and looked behind himself, as if he forgot the materials were there. "Yeah, I got, like, the first paragraph done. Not much, but it's a start." Gerard nodded.

" Do you know how long it's going to be?" He asked.

"No idea," Mikey answered honestly. "A couple of pages, at least. My handwriting is kind of big and quite honestly, illegible. I haven't written with an actual pen in a while." That was an understatement. It had been years since Mikey had so much as seen a pen or pencil or, god forbid, actual paper. Most of it was replaced by typing, and then, later, mindwriting. Still, they taught handwriting in elementary schools, despite all of the protests from the children that it wasn't necessary (Mikey still didn't think it was for most people), because "you won't have a keyboard with you every day".

Mikey would have then debated that literally everyone was equipped with a Messenger and typing was much more efficient, but because teachers had authority over him, the argument ended there, usually with the assertion that "I'm the teacher, I decide what is taught."

That didn't mean that Mikey himself never wrote. In fact, in this particular situation, he was very glad to be able to write. However, most people never encountered this situation in their lifetimes. Mikey knew for a fact that Pete was completely unable to write with a pencil because he had forgotten how. When they were in a time period that required the to write something, Pete usually just said that he was illiterate, and usually that wasn't questioned because of his skin tone. Even in more recent time periods, like 1990, people were still very prejudiced and didn't bat an eye at Pete's weakness because African-Americans were more likely to be extremely poor and uneducated.

Later, when they returned, Pete and Mikey would laugh at the stupidity of the situation. They thought that Pete was so old-fashioned because he was unable to write or even read, when in fact he was literally from the future.