trees

9.

It was another two weeks before Pete heard from Mikey again.

Two weeks. That was like, a really long time. Pete was going through some serious withdrawal symptoms, and he was trying to hard not to call Mikey every five seconds to ask if he was doing alright, and when he showed up at Mikey's place, his brother said that everything was okay, but Pete should probably just go home and that Mikey would talk when he was ready. So he did go home, and he moped about it for a while, because his boyfriend was ignoring him.

He was hanging out at the children's playground at the park with a few of his school friends one day, hogging the swing set and hoping that they didn't look like kidnappers or drug dealers when he saw Mikey climb that goddamn tree. At least, he hoped it was Mikey. He was pretty sure it was Mikey. He wanted to see Mikey and talk to Mikey and Mikey, Mikey, Mikey, god, Pete really missed him. He was just a lovesick fifteen-year-old, and two weeks felt like two years.

"Are you even listening to me?" Pete's friend Joe said from the swing next to him, and Pete just shrugged. "Dumbass, you're such a bad friend."

"Hey, don't swear, there are kids here," Patrick scolded from the next swing over, frowning at Joe, and Pete stood up.

"Hey, I'm gonna be in that tree over there if you need me," Pete said, promptly getting up and making his way out of the playground without even offering any explanation; Joe and Patrick exchanged a confused look while Andy replied with, "okay, have fun!" and then Joe swung backwards and hit him in the stomach. What a great friendship.

Mikey wasn't on a very high branch that time, probably due to the fact that he had a book with him - how he got that up there, Pete had no idea.

"Hey, Mikeyway," Pete said once he finally made it up to where Mikey was. "Where have you been these last few miserable weeks?"

Mikey didn't look up from his book.

"I got really worried. 'Cause you've been, like, ignoring me, but I'm glad you're okay."

Mikey turned the page, still not looking up.

"You're still ignoring me. That's okay, I guess." Pete bit the inside of his mouth in a moment of hesitation, "no, I'm lying, it's not okay and I wish you'd tell me what's wrong."

Wow, that must be a really damn good book Mikey was reading if he was going to choose it over a conversation with his boyfriend. Pete wasn't bitter.

"Please?"

Nothing.

"I wanna help you. Even if you don't want me to."

Nothing.

"Mikey."

Nothing.

"I just want to talk to you."

Nothing.

"'Cause I like you."

Nothing.

"Come on, baby."

And then Mikey started blushing and he buried his entire face in his book; Pete grinned victoriously and Mikey flipped him off.

"Thanks for finally acknowledging my presence," Pete said, and Mikey looked like he was trying really hard not to smile.

"Fuck you," Mikey replied, but he didn't sound very serious and he didn't look up from his book.

"I appreciate you, too. What're you reading?"

"The Communist Manifesto," Mikey said without missing a beat. "Very interesting. Karl Marx is my celebrity crush."

"You're so weird."

"Yeah, I get that a lot."

Mikey shifted, presumably to somehow get more comfortable on the very, very uncomfortable tree branch, and Pete caught a glimpse of the book cover. "To Kill A Mockingbird. You're such a nerd."

"It's summer work for school, shut up."

"It's July. You've got, like, an entire month left to do it."

Mikey shrugged. "It's not like I've got anything better to do."

Pete moved closer, almost falling out of the tree in the process. "You can actually talk to me and tell me why you've been ignoring me."

"That's not fun," Mikey said, and he actually closed his book and looked up at Pete. "We don't talk about how much we hate life here in Narnia."

"Look, it's been at least seven years since I last read any of the Narnia books, but doesn't a lot of shit go down there?"

Mikey crossed his arms and leaned in closer. "You're such a killjoy. I'll tell you when I need to."

"Is it that important?"

"It's a government secret, and the CIA will come to my house and murder me if I tell you." Mikey smiled gently and put an arm around Pete's shoulders, and wow, Pete was really, really gay. "But I don't want to talk about it. Let's just kiss or some shit."

Pete hadn't realized how uncomfortable making out in a tree really was. He kept forgetting he was in a tree, and he almost fell off when he tried moving closer to Mikey, and Mikey ended up dropping his book by accident, but, like, whatever. They made it work.

"Pete, get your bitch ass down here," someone yelled from the ground eventually; Pete groaned and very reluctantly pulled away from Mikey.

"No, fuck you," Pete yelled back, glancing down. He could very clearly see Joe glaring at him, and Andy paging through Mikey's fallen book. Great.

"What are you even doing up there?" Andy asked, looking up, and he didn't even wait for a response before going, "wait, never mind, I probably don't want to know the answer to that."

"Come down or I will throw rocks at you," Joe threatened, and Pete rolled his eyes before turning back to Mikey.

"My friends are assholes," he complained, and Mikey grinned and shook his head.

"Just go with them. I'm also gonna leave, anyways. Sitting in a tree gets really, really uncomfortable after a while."

"You should come with us." Pete kissed Mikey on the cheek and pushed the other's glasses up. "I don't know where they're taking me, but still. I've been dating you for, what, two months or something? And my friends still don't have a clue as to who you are."

Mikey considered his options - should he tackle the beast now or later? - and nodded quickly. "Yeah, sure, I'll come with."

Pete grinned. "Great."

--
what's this?? an update?? and it hasn't even been a month since the last real chapter was published!!

anyways today's the last day of spring break so i gotta go write some more before school drains the life out of me again. thx for reading my dudes see you in may probably