"Oi, nerd!" A voice called from down the hallway, presumably directed at Mikey, but he really wasn't in the mood for any confrontation that early on a Monday morning, so he ignored it, and put his book back in his locker, grabbing the required one for next period. Mikey, in actual fact, was never up for any kind of confrontation, because he was the 'quiet kid', and the 'nerd', and he resented any kind of physical contact that wasn't from anybody outside his family.
Actually, he was reluctant to let even his family come close to him, but of course that didn't include his brother, Gerard, who he considered himself as extremely close to (not in that way, obviously). Mikey didn't really know why he wasn't a big fan of being close to someone, but he reckoned it was probably along the lines of him being what he liked to refer to as a 'pissy bitch'. Or maybe it was something deep and psychological, but he couldn't be entirely sure.
"Don't fucking ignore me, Way," the voice said again, and now Mikey could identify who the voice belonged to. Gabe.
Gabe was... something. 'Something' was one of few words that could fit the description of Gabe well, the others being 'dickhead' and 'flirty'. He was the typical jock of the school. A lot of people would call him a manwhore, but Mikey refused, because he wasn't into the whole 'using slut-shamey words' thing, no matter how much he disliked the boy. Although, he would happily admit to him being a dickhead. He was. It was basic knowledge.
Gabe was the actual definition of the phrase 'no homo'. Mikey had even heard Gabe use it on multiple occasions, not even ironically/sarcastically, either. Mikey was more of a 'no hetero' guy if he was being honest, but when it came to somebody as shitty as Gabe, the term 'no homo' would be happily applied. Actually, no, he would still use 'no hetero', because it would piss Gabe off, and pissing Gabe off was something Mikey loved doing.
"What do you want, Gabriel?" Mikey retorted, knowing how much he hated being called that. He wasn't entirely sure where this confidence was coming from, because he usually would just mutter a classy 'fuck off' and speedwalk away before Gabe could smack him.
"Ooh, sassy. I like it," Dickhead teased, and Mikey rolled his eyes, and oh my God, how was he still keeping this up? He had never been this argumentative before, and standing up for himself had never exactly been one of his strongest points, and this analysis left him wondering how he hadn't given up and walked away from the confrontation yet.
"Yeah, yeah, piss off," he said, and it seemed Mikey had decided to bury himself into an even bigger hole than before, and it was getting too late to run away now, though he really wanted to.
"Don't you dare talk to me like that."
"Didn't you just say you liked it?" Mikey pointed out.
"Don't get smart with me, Way."
"You know my name is Mikey, right?"
"Okay, Michael," he said, and okay, Mikey probably deserved that for calling him Gabriel, but he still didn't like it, and that was easily visible by the expression on his face. For as long as he could remember, he had always hated being called Michael, and ever since the first time Gerard had ever called him Mikey, the name had just stuck, and Mikey preferred it a lot more, and he vowed to himself to one day change it legally. That is, if he could stop being so lazy for once.
"Could both of you just shut the fuck up? Gabe, you're a dick for provoking him. Now, just like Mikey said, would you kindly piss off," a new voice chimed into the conversation, and right now, Mikey couldn't be more thankful for a stranger's existence.
Needless to say, when Gabe turned around and saw who it was who spoke, he bolted down the corridor away from them. "Thanks, stranger," Mikey said, grinning in gratitude.
"No problem. I'm Pete, by the way," he said, smiling back.
"Mikey."
"Oh yeah, I know you, you sit behind me in Physics, right?" Pete asked.
"Yep, that's me."
"Cool. Well, see you around, Mikes."
"Don't call me that."
"Whatever," he smirked, walking away.
-
Pete couldn't quite put his finger on why he found Mikey intriguing, and it bothered him.
Maybe it was because of the contrast in their personalities. After all, opposites attract. Well, at least in cases of fictional characters. Pete was rather different from Mikey - that wasn't exactly rocket science to figure out. Pete was somewhat popular; he had a lot of friends. He was known as a bad influence because you could often find him skipping class to smoke behind the supply shed, and because he attended way too many big parties for his own good. His grades were average, so nothing special.
Mikey couldn't have been more different in terms of behaviour to Pete. He actually turned up to class, like, every day, he spent his free time reading books, and he had always steered clear of anything that could ham him, whether that may be drugs or alcohol.
Pete didn't really understand the point of living life as safe as Mikey was. Where was the fun? What did he do to relax? Why did he care so much about things that won't even be relatively significant to him in five years time?
He knew it wasn't his place at all to decide how Mikey acted, but he felt like he had to show the boy what life was like when he wasn't sidetracked with extra unnecessary and revision.
Mikey confused Pete a lot. Why someone so obviously intelligent and sweet choose to sit right at the bottom of the social ladder, he did not know, but he was determined to find out, and even possibly change that.
Pete wasn't quite sure what had came over him. Just a few hours ago he had spoken no more than ten words to Mikey, and that was literally only to ask him if he had a spare pen he could borrow because he was a little shit and had forgotten his own, but now he was somehow all he could think about.
Pete made a mental note to talk to Mikey again at school tomorrow.
-
me: is in the middle of writing another fic and should probably focus on that
me: ignores that and starts new fic
all chapters are gonna be like 1k words long sorry thats short but on the plus side that means frequent updates
YOU ARE READING
learning to fly ➵ petekey
Fanfiction"We're all birds, Mikey. Some birds will fly higher than others, therefore experiencing more, and to get the best out of life, you need to learn how to fly." A story of two boys who have a connection they don't anticipate but have always needed to e...
