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Patrick opens the bus door for Mikey, who stands awkwardly until Patrick says he can sit anywhere. He pulls out an office chair that he takes his seat on.
"I like the plushies." Mikey says, pointing at the array of stuffed animals around the tour bus. "Love the dragon." He pulls a plush green dragon from out from under a blanket on Pete's bunk.
“Thank you,” Pete says, backing into the tour bus just a bit further. “did you not bring your laptop?”
“You can use mine, you know. Seriously!” Patrick assures, facing Mikey, who has a vacant expression.
“Shared laptop it is!”, Pete announces. He pulls up the screen to show the title card of the game. “This game’s like, super old. Used to play in fifth grade and everything. Do you guys want advice along the way or do we just go?” “Just go, yeah.” Patrick climbs on the bed with a slight battle- Pete’s taken a stepstool to sit on and Mikey has a chair. Leaves him with his own bunk to lay on.
“Alright, we gotta put names in… who’s the wife?” Pete asks after putting in “peterick” for the first space.
“Oh my god, do William Beckett.” Patrick says after getting adjusted, lying on his stomach.
“Smaaaart.” Pete types the frontman’s first name, all lowercase, and puts Mikey’s name third. “You’re cool with being the little boy, right?”
“Yep.”
Pete enters “mikey” for the third slot. “Now, for the girls. Who are we cool with losing? Frank and Joe?” The other two agree, and thus “frank” and “joe” become the last two names on the list.
“Alright, we gotta buy stuff. What’s the move?” Pete asks.
“We only have 400$.”
“Can we make money later? Just buy enough of everything.” Mikey says, which Pete follows through with.
- - - -
The team makes their merry way through Illinois- as that's where their course began- and are faced with a terrible obstacle: a river. At 4.1 feet deep, Pete compares it to Patrick’s guitar case, proving to be a bad example. They choose to ford the river- draw their wagon with oxen as if on land.
“Oh my god, our wagon sank. We lost two oxen, 32 pounds of-“
“I DIED? FRANK, TOO?” a sharp voice interrupts, followed by an “And we still have Joe!” from Pete.
A sharp inhale comes from Patrick. “Damn. Gotta live through this.”
“I’m gonna haunt you all.” Mikey says, giggling.
- - - -
The remaining 3.5 (the “peterick” accounts for 1.5, at least to the namesake pair.) continue on their path, encountering a fort. They’ve been robbed about twice now, and have no sets of clothes left, and two oxen have been stolen. Their ”williamb” has broken a leg at this point.
Mikey goes totally still.
“You alright there?” Patrick asks, as Pete’s too busy wasting bullets on squirrels and bunnies.
“Those are my favorite snacks, can I PLEASE have some.” Mikey answers, “Sorry, I really overreact…”
“It’s alright! Go ahead.”
Mikey picks up the frosted animal crackers, and him and Patrick continue to joke about how bad Pete is at getting food in this game (he’s pretty great at it, but who cares!)
- - - -
“Our health is poor,” Mikey notices. “can we do anything about this?”
“Increase portions, guys.” Patrick recommends, as portions turned meager by the end of June due to a lack of food.
“Rest!” Mikey says, like a sort of “Eureka!”
“How long… 3 days?” “Yeah.”
- - - -
"Oh my God, we all died." Patrick states, looking at what's now a grey tombstone headed by "peterick" and an epitaph of "first game".
"And William broke, like, all her limbs along the way! What the hell!" Pete whisper-yells, lamenting the loss of his in-game life and real-life tour mates.
- - - -
The game ends, and topics shift. Mikey starts asking Pete about how he does his eyeliner, and things go on from there.
- - - -
Mikey chooses to listen to From Under the Cork Tree while the other two prepare to do his makeup.
"Um, I'm just gonna use the woman on this album cover for a reference," Pete says, taking out a blink-182 CD. He whips out a 9-color palette of all blue shades, and gets to work on Mikey's left eyelid. "I don't have any lipstick, so you'll kind-of have to just live through this being an eyeshadow type look."
Both Pete and Patrick are singing along to the album playing, Mikey coming in quietly anytime he recognizes part of the lyrics.
"I have to admit, like, the only reason I'm so good at makeup- you can't tell anybody this, hear me- I've watched so many makeup tutorials, it's actually evil." Pete says, applying a lighter color to his work.
Patrick mumbles to himself about some fallout on Mikey's lower left lid and grabs makeup wipes. "You're cool if I use these around your eyes, right?" Mikey had told them during Pete's number on his eyeliner that other people doing makeup on his waterline freaks him out.
"Yeah, sure." Patrick wipes some bright blue powder away from his eye, and continues working on his smoky eye on the right side.
- - - -
"I only want sympathy in the form of you" the two inhale, "crawling into bed with me!" the pair expressively sing together.
"Oh my God, that lyric is so crazy." Mikey almost giggles, being full-on serenaded by the guys.
- - - -
"Oh, it's bright." Mikey looks at Pete's work on his eye, appreciating the differences in the pair's work. "Ugh, both of you did so well."
He takes at least ten pictures, more than half of which he'll probably find something to pick at or hate on tomorrow. "Thank you, I had so much fun."
- - - -
Getting back onto his own band's bus, he totally disregards looking like a hot mess. With totally strange makeup, thin shirt, sleep pants all on his person, he walks slowly towards the small powder room on the bus and washes his face with whatever he took from a hotel room on a day break.
- - - -
In the early afternoon, backstage, Patrick and Mikey cross paths in the restrooms. Patrick waves a hello after washing his hands, while Mikey's still poring over the residue that some soap from a hotel just couldn't get off.
They don't speak to each other in that encounter, and there isn't anything close to a repeat of that night.