Pretty. (Frerard, Petekey, Ryden, Peterick)

43: It's Just Milk

"You can?"

Because not even Patrick was expecting that, and of course, Mikey had expected it perhaps even less, and from where Mikey was standing, the boy on the porch steps seemed a little astounded too, but that could very easily be just his imagination, or a trick of the light, as the boy on the porch steps might be in his entirety.

"Fuck..." Brendon looked between Patrick and Mikey with a wide kind of genuinely scared look in his eyes. "Mikey, are you... are you being serious right now, like how... how can you?"

Mikey blinked furiously, even rubbing his eyes a little, but the figure remained firmly on the same spot, looking just as real, and just as alive.

"I don't know." Mikey's gaze fell to the floor, well, anywhere but Pete really, because it was starting to give him a headache, like fuck, he really couldn't deal with this, but as he turned back, and the figure remained, he came to the rather unforgiving realisation that he had little choice regarding the matter.

"I don't know either..." Pete spoke up; unheard by Brendon, Ryan, and Frank, but from the look on Patrick's face, he most definitely heard him. "I thought it was only Patrick; I thought it was only ever going to be Patrick-"

"Mikey, are you... can you hear the same thing as me?" Patrick asked, ignoring the three boys, and even the not quite so alive one for favour of the skinny boy, who literally could not stop shaking. "Pete, say something, just something, anything okay?"

Pete raised his eyebrows, glancing between Mikey and Patrick, before letting a few words slip between his lips, "nice ass, Mikeyway."

And from the look in Patrick's eyes, Mikey reckoned he'd heard the same thing as he had. 

"I kind of don't want to repeat that aloud..." Patrick mumbled, his cheeks flushing a shade of scarlet red.

"He said, 'nice ass, Mikeyway'." Mikey inhaled sharply, shuddering a little as he did, because this was all kinds of fucked up.

"Yeah...  he did... I..." Patrick swallowed hard, turning back to Mikey with wide eyes, as the two shared an odd kind of look that made Mikey almost wish that he'd just stayed at Gee's, and that Frank had stayed to, and that they just never made it here and never saw Patrick, and in turn, Pete, again.

"How the fuck does that work?" Brendon couldn't quite wrap his head around the situation at hand, and well, neither Mikey nor Patrick blamed him, however the boy on the porch step, did seem to smirk in his direction.

"I... I... don't know... I..." Mikey shook his head, looking like he was close to tears, before turning to Frank, who had said nothing so far, only staring between the two boys with widened eyes, and a state of disbelief that had never faltered in the slightest. "F-frank... can we... can we go home?"

Frank almost seem to jerk back to life, turning to Ryan and Brendon, and exhaling with a sigh, "yeah, Mikey, of course we can... it's late, anyway."

"Yeah, look... Mikey, don't just leave this, will you?" Ryan added, his tone awfully quiet, and kind of shaky, like this whole situation had affected him much more than anyone could even fathom comprehending. "Like, text or call or something in the morning, please?"

Mikey nodded, biting his lip as he did so, turning away to follow Frank back down the road, when a certain boy moved from his spot on the porch step.

"Don't go with him, don't." Patrick's words caught them all by surprise, and with a moment's thought, they came to conclude that he was indeed speaking to the boy they couldn't see. "He's scared, and I don't understand this either, Pete, but... stay with me, okay? I'm used to you, I'm used to this."