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Touring sucked. It wasn’t just enough to be a new member in an internationally famous band, no, Mikey had to tour with them too. In theory, touring was great. He would get to see the world, gain experiences, learn new things, meet new people, and see thousands of fans cheering and singing along to his songs. But they weren’t Mikey’s songs, and that was made clear to him every time Rivers walked into a room.
Rivers was a decent guy. A good guy, even. He was timid and soft-spoken. He could churn out great songs like he was born to do it, and girls seemed to gravitate to him like magnets to metal or the moon to the Earth.
That, however, was one of the two sides of Rivers Cuomo, and the other was not nearly as pleasant. He could turn on a dime from shyness to rage, raising his voice louder than any of their interviewers could imagine coming from such a small man, and any object or idea in his way could be used as a weapon. Rivers was like a knife in a leather sleeve: soft and unassuming, until he got sharp.
Or, rather, didn’t get Sharpe, ha ha.
That was what sucked the most about being with Weezer. Mikey was always, first and foremost, the replacement. He was the participation trophy, second place prize in a bassist contest where there would only ever be one winner. Sure, Brian was technically a replacement for that Jason guy at one point, and while Brian still got his fair share of ire from Rivers, the edge of their relationship had dulled over time. It was a tried-and-true cycle between the two of them, that give-and-take, that tug-and-pull. But Mikey was new. He got thrown in the cycle like computer in a washing machine, and no matter how hard he tried, all he got was banged up, broken, and fried. He’d honestly prefer to just get baked, but Rivers wasn’t chill like that on tour. These days, Rivers wasn’t chill at all.
Who was chill, though, was Pat. Pat, who had been with Weezer since the beginning. Pat, who shared that apartment with Mikey and Rivers and always helped to smooth things over. Pat, who never made him feel like an outcast at a new school or a second wife after a messy divorce. With Pat, Mikey was just… Mikey. Not even Mikey-the-current-bassist-of-Weezer, but Mikey Welsh, the guy who liked to smoke pot, had a side passion for art, and liked to dick around with his friends. And, with Pat being the amazing guy that he was, he let Mikey pass around a blunt in their shared hotel room and doodle bullshit on napkins and dick around with him.
In Mikey’s humble opinion, messing around with Pat was one of the best feelings in the world. Being on stage gave him a rush that was unparalleled by even some of the stronger drugs he’d taken in his time, but goofing with the tour crew? That made him feel like a kid again. Pat Wilson gave him the best version of that feeling, a never-ending sleepover full of prank calls, summoning ghosts, tackling each other to the ground, and filming the best of it all to look back on in the morning.
When someone bought that shitty scooter on their latest tour, though, was when things with Pat went from great to amazing.
Wrestling each other in hotel rooms became performing “stunt crashes” into the on-suite bathroom. Poking around backstage became doing lame tricks in music rooms that left holes in the wall (that he felt very sorry for, despite him and Pat giggling like morons after the recording cut). Most commonly and importantly, running around hotel hallways had become riding down them at insane hours of the night (morning?) and seeing how loud they could be without getting noise complaints.
Tonight was one of those nights. Mikey had lost track of the time somewhere around 11 PM and of the city even before that—they were still in the United States, at least. Probably—but since when do hotels even really exist in normal places anyway? And since when did goofing off have a curfew? At least this time they left the portable keyboard in their room, so their antics wouldn’t annoy anyone but Rivers come the morning proper, when getting out of bed would be a drag. But Rivers wasn’t there, despite his attempts to steal their precious scooter earlier in the day. Mikey and Pat were alone on some floor of some hotel in some city in some state, and they couldn’t be happier.
At the moment, though, Mikey was on his own. Pat had decided to zip around on the scooter alone for a bit, so Mikey was left with the video camera and a couple of nice round oranges. He positioned the camera on the floor, trying not to ding it up too bad—Karl was nice enough to lend them one of his during the tour, and Mikey would feel bad to hand it back to him in a scratched-up heap. He pressed record on the other side, then messed with the angle some more. “This is bowling with Mikey,” he said, face close to the lens and nearly pressed against the floor. Then he popped up from the ground and took a few steps back. Hopefully, his goal would be as obvious to anyone watching the tape in the future as it was to him then: roll the oranges near the camera, try to hit it, and if he hits it, he wins. Easy, simple, tour-tweaked fun, with minimal damage to Karl’s camera. Maybe I could have a two-person tournament with Pat later, he thought, lining up for his first shot.
No sooner had he thought of Pat did the man himself round the corner of the corridor, barreling his way with a determined grin on his face. Mikey just smiled back, freezing his pose until Pat turned to Mikey’s left, down another hallway. No way was Pat scootering in and out his frame going to mess him up! Mikey readied himself, swung back his arm, and flung the orange forward… only for Pat to wheel around the corner, smack into the wall on the right, and slowly tip over, laughing the whole way.
Oh well, Mikey surely would have missed either way. But Pat didn’t need to know that.
Mikey practically collapsed on top of his friend, a stupid grin plastered on his face. “You messed up my shot!” he said, trying to keep the giggles at bay.
Pat shook his head. “Nuh-uh, that was heading way off!”
Grabbing Pat by the cloth on his shoulders, Mikey mockingly shook his head back. “You messed me up. And you couldn’t have seen a damn thing anyways, scooting around the corner like that!” He gripped Pat’s shirt a bit harder, lifting his back off the ground and bringing their faces closer. “I would have gone to the big leagues with that! You’re gonna have to make that up to me. Big time.”
Pat squinted behind his glasses, his smile narrowing into a cheeky smirk. He pushed himself further into Mikey’s grasp. “Make me.”
Suddenly, Mikey’s heart skipped a beat. In an instant, he became aware of so many things: Pat’s glasses were lopsided from the slow-motion fall. Their warm breath was mixing between them. The scooter was tucked uncomfortably beneath the both of them, and was no doubt sticking its sides into Pat’s ass. Being aware of Pat’s ass at all was new knowledge to Mikey. Or maybe it wasn’t. Maybe he had thought about Pat’s ass when they were smoking weed together in that stupid apartment, and Rivers was out of the house for once, and Pat had stood up from the couch to grab something because Mikey was too bone-dead lazy, and his eyes had lingered for just a second too long.
Mikey’s face flushed hot, just as it would have then, but now he was in a random hotel hallway, Pat’s face mere inches from his, with no drugs to hide behind. So Mikey just kept staring, eyes growing wider with each silent moment shared between them, until he wanted to crawl into a ditch in whatever town they were in and die of exposure and shame.
Pat, though, seemed to have a different idea. While Mikey was stuck in his head, Pat had somehow shifted them both off the scooter so they were sat on the floor. One of his hands was planted on the ground, the other gently wrapped around the side of Mikey’s head. Before Mikey could sputter out a single word, Pat closed his eyes and gently brought their lips together. For a moment, Mikey dared not move, but as Pat pushed harder against him, he felt himself melt into the sensation, tucking a hand around Pat’s waist to bring them even closer still. The kiss was more chaste than any he had since high school, yet still intensely profound.
When they broke away, Mikey felt as if he was looking upon Pat with new eyes. There he is, his brain supplied, and it was right. There was his best friend, his touring buddy, his dicking-around dude, and his… something else. Perhaps, even, something more. As all of the implications were swirling around his mind, Mikey could only say one thing: “Oh.”
Pat chuckled, bringing the hand that was around Mikey to scratch the back of his neck. “Is that a… bad ‘oh’?”
“No!” Mikey exclaimed. “No, not a bad ‘oh’ at all. It was… Well, look, it’s not the first time I’ve kissed a guy–” Pat’s eyebrows raised at that (as if it was completely new and unexpected information, come on now). “–but it was definitely the best. And the most sober.”
That startled a laugh out of Pat. “Yeah, I’ve never…” He trailed off, but Mikey got the gist. “But yeah. It was good for me too.”
“Wanna make it better?” Mikey said, leaning back into Pat’s space.
“What, like second base? Now?”
“Ha!” Mikey yelped. Noise complaints had long been assured by now; who gave a shit about a few more. “No, not quite yet, unless…?”
Pat squirmed.
“Okay, so we wait on that. Rain check.” Mikey grunted as he stood up, holding a hand out for Pat. “But our hotel room is just as good of a spot for kissing, if you wanna keep doing that?”
Pat smiled and took Mikey’s hand. “Yeah, I think I’d be down.”
“Great!” Mikey bent and grabbed the scooter with his free hand. “Off we go!” he shouted, tugging Pat down the hall with him with yells of “Mikeyyyyy!”
Now this, Mikey thought as he quickly surprised Pat with another (less-chaste) hallway kiss, is a touring routine I can get used to.