Chapter Text
The drive to camp was agonizing. It was inhumane, almost tortuous to be locked in a rickety bus for around 3+ hours to go to some Christian retreat for teenagers. Gerard and Mikey’s mom decided it would be fun to ship them off to some religious camp to keep them “closer to the Lord”, as if the both of them weren’t turning out to be super gay and she didn’t ground and absolutely scold Mikey for making out with Pete Wentz in their guest bedroom just a couple of months earlier, effectively ending that relationship.
Mikey will never forget the utterly awful feeling in his stomach as his mom forced the door open as Pete was tongue deep in his mouth, and the both of them immediately stopped to turn to his red-faced Catholic mother. “She drove that poor boy outta the damn house, Mikey,” Gerard kept telling him in the weeks that followed.
She wasn’t even fucking homophobic. She was okay with Gerard and Mikey being gay, but making out like that was too “sexual” for her comfort. Banning Mikey from doing practically anything till the start of sophomore year. Most especially seeing Pete. Gerard never got that talk because he was too much of a loser to say the things he really wanted to Frank, not even having a chance of being caught in the middle of something like that.
Mikey couldn’t secretly do anything or rebel in any way this time because his mom was under a lot of emotional stress with Nonna dying at the start of that year too. If she had to keep worrying about her son “sleeping around with men,” in her words, she might just explode. He was the one who put the final nail in the coffin and pushed Pete away, cause he knew what he had to choose first. His family.
But at least Gerard and Mikey were together. Mikey, in high school terms, was much younger than his brother exiting freshman year. But their age gap wasn’t all that big. They knew they would have each other to rely on, but nonetheless it still sucked. It was a conversion camp, dammit. That was all the both of them could talk about the night before. Though Mikey thought maybe this would be their escape from everything, maybe a way for Gerard to let it out. Time alone in their bunk or cabin or whatever the hell it’s called. He was hit hardest by Nonna’s death. Mikey saw and endured everything Gerard said and did in those first few weeks. But he and Mikey never got to talk about it.
It was morning, far too early for Mikey. They had been on the road for at least 1 out of the 3 and a half hours it takes to get to the camp. Mikey sat beside Ray, Frank and his brother, sharing stories over expired popcorn to hide their car sickness. Pete sat on the other side of the bus with his friends, doing the same with his company. Talking over the hum of the bus’ engine, as the air thickened outside while climbing up the mountain-top countryside.
It has been a couple of months since Mikey and Pete talked about the aforementioned incident. Breaking it off, awkwardly over messages. Of course they were on MySpace, checking in on each other when they accidentally met at the 7/11 near Pete’s house. But the way the words fell out of their mouths could never be the same as it was before. Their conversations don’t mean anything like they used to. Just empty words and promises of not staying strangers, but the bitterness of it all left a bad taste in Mikey’s mouth.
“I really don’t know why Mom thought this would be such a good idea,” Mikey pondered aloud, his feet up on the seat in front of him. “It’s not like we’re going to be any less gay after praying a fuck ton, right?”
He sighed and looked at Gerard, who was scribbling something in his sketch book. He just shrugged, and let out some unintelligible noise that sounded like a mix of “probably not,” and “I don’t know,”.
“I mean, it won’t be that bad? Right? Look at it this way man, you’ve got 10 days on a mountain, allowed to bring your acoustic bass, with your best friends since like, the 6th grade,” Ray said, his face pressed up on the window at the tree-lined mountains.
“Yea, and Jesus. And the counselors. And priests. I guess,” Frank snapped back immediately, eyes closed with one earbud plugged into his iPod.
He knew he wouldn’t be hearing recorded music for a while, since secular music and what not. Ray looked back at him and rolled his eyes, even if Frank couldn’t see him. The bus, as big as it was, was evidently suffocating. The boys were sitting in all sorts of ways and fidgeting in an attempt to ease their restlessness, since the next pit stop was still about a half-hour away.
*
Mikey and Pete’s parents weren’t close, but in a small town word gets around. Most of the kids at school were being sent off here. Or, at least the kids Mikey and Gerard hung out with. The ones with weird hair, messy eyeliner and tight pants at the Sunday Mass Service. Accompanied by their awkward smiles to aunts and uncles, forced to confess their plans of playing in a punk band or becoming a comic book artist in the foreseeable future. Their parents, growing increasingly embarrassed of their lifestyle and parenting choices in suburban America.
Kids like Frank who were raised Christian and had a bible customized for him when he got baptized, later on ran off to play guitar in some stoner’s basement because his parents refused to buy him a proper setup til he got at least a C- in Chemistry. The family council at the high school and pastors at Church didn’t say it out loud, cause God-forbid the innocent kids would be labeled and outcasted (which, they already were) — but the boys on this damn bus were problem children. That’s the reason why they were here.
The rest of the bus ride was a blur. Between small intermittent naps, small pee breaks at run down gas stations supervised by the counselors onboard making them feel like convicts off to some holy prison. Every now and then Mikey would look forward, and Pete would be staring at him. Unmistakably it was him with his stupid bangs, eyes looking up and down Mikey. He hated that he missed him. Because he couldn’t and shouldn’t anymore. It sucks, but his mom was really fucking clear about that or else he’d get his ass beaten. He wasn’t ready for anything anymore.
He missed not just the make outs, that was just a bonus, but the way they’d talk to each other behind the bleachers at school. How they were an open secret in the hallways, always talked about in a voice just above a whisper.
Everybody recognized and knew that they were head over heels for each other, because they truly were. The early sunsets on the hill overlooking their town, the letters hidden in his locker during days Pete felt especially romantic. Ex-friends, better off as lovers and not the other way around, he used to say. He was Mikey’s first kiss for goodness sake. That’s got to count for something, right?
Now it’s just awkward. It’s painfully awkward. Mikey doesn’t intend to get back together with him anymore because he can’t handle it, and he knows Pete would just be moving away to Chicago soon which would just make it even harder to say goodbye.