Chapter Two: I Was Just A Boy

The sight of Peter inhaling his lunch sat comfortably between oddly fascinating and utterly disgusting. It was like a non-stop conveyor belt of turkey and potatoes and vanilla malt, sometimes all at once. Micky had attempted, more than once, to warn the other man to slow down, lest he get sick. The guitarist would try for a bit, then slowly pick up speed again until he was doing his best to choke down half of a turkey sandwich at once.

Micky took his time, constantly reminding himself that no one was coming to snatch his meal away, that he was paying for it and that he could take as long as he needed without worrying. He'd thought that the fear of it disappearing was what fueled Peter's urgency, but talking to him, Micky couldn't detect a single mistrustful bone in his scrawny body. The idea of someone taking his lunch from him probably didn't even occur to him.

To be honest, Micky wasn't entirely sure what to make of the guy. He seemed so completely without guile, so out-of-phase with life, it was like the whole crummy, scummy world just warped around him. Like he was surrounded by an anti-reality bubble that scrubbed everything clean before it could reach him. Micky would have envied the hell out of him were it not for two things: one, that was a stupidly dangerous way to go through life, and two, he wasn't so sure he believed Peter was really like that.

"So, Pete," he began, curiosity getting the better of him, "what brought you to sunny California?"

"Well, a bus most of the way, but I could only afford as far as New Mexico, so I had to hitch the rest of the way."

"Right." Placing one hand over his eyes briefly, Micky sighed. "And why did you decide to come here?"

"Oh, well, a few reasons, but mostly because I got arrested for disturbing the peace."

Micky tried really hard to picture Peter being disorderly enough to get arrested, but all that came to mind was an image of the blonde getting given a sweet and patted on the head by a police officer and shooed away.

"Well, I've gotta hear that story."

Peter shrugged. "It's not really a good story - I was playing my guitar in the park, and people complained, so the police came and took me back home.

They said I couldn't play outside without a permit, and when I asked how much a permit was, they said it was whatever I had in my pocket, plus two hundred dollars."

Scowling, Micky dragged his fries through the remaining ketchup. "That sounds like total bull to me."

"Oh, it was," Peter said easily, shocking Micky a little. "I found out later that it was actually a lot less, but I understood why. Nobody liked me back there because they thought I'd made the mayor's son a queer."

Micky choked on his Coke, prompting Peter to start thumping him on the shoulder a great deal harder than a stick-thin kid like him should have been able to. As he wheezed, he peered up at Peter through his bangs, wondering if he wanted to know that story, as well. Peter didn't give him an option, though, launching directly into the explanation.

Apparently, he'd been shoved up against the brick wall at the back of the high school gym by Lou Mayford, the mayor's son, and the older boy had "kinda just suctioned onto my mouth like a plunger". Micky wasn't sure if he was more disgusted or amused by that - on the one hand, it sounded like an unpleasant experience. On the other, it probably would have been hilarious to watch.

Then, apparently, gym class had started, and they'd been caught. Police had been called, and worse, parents had been called. Somehow, despite Peter clearly being the kissee, Lou Mayford, the mayor's son, managed to convince everyone that Peter had made him do it.

"They kind of wanted to believe it, I guess," Peter sighed, poking into the depths of his malt with his straw. "People didn't like me because I'm strange, so they were pretty ready to believe it." He gazed up at Micky with wide eyes. "But what if I did make him queer? Oh, man, that would be awful!"

"Why?" Micky balled up his napkin and threw it at Peter's head, hitting him between the eyes. "What's wrong with being queer?"

"Oh." Leaning in, Peter lowered his voice to a conspiratorial whisper. "Are you a homosexual, Micky?"

He stared at Peter for a moment. No one, absolutely no one, had ever just asked him that. There were methods, there were tells, there were signals and codes, and at the end of the day, sometimes you just knew, but...asking? Who did that? It was just asking to get the shit kicked out of you.

And really, Micky was kind of glad he'd never been asked, because up to that moment, and for a long time afterwards, he wouldn't be altogether too certain what he was. He dug chicks, that was just a given, but he liked guys, too, so what did that make him? Could you be half-queer? Did that even exist? He didn't know, hadn't known from the moment he'd found himself torn between Marcy Letts and Philip Halford in the sixth grade, only to have to bear witness to them making out against his locker the day before Christmas break started.

Man, had that been one of the best and worst days of his life. It certainly hadn't cleared anything up for him, and he'd remained as confused as ever.

That would have taken a while to explain, even if he'd wanted to go into his personal insecurities with a veritable stranger, so instead, Micky just rolled his eyes. "No. I just think people have stupid hang-ups about sex, you know?"

"Yeah, I know. But if he wasn't gay, and I made him gay, well...that's kind of mean, isn't it?" Peter twisted his straw paper between his fingers contemplatively. "I mean, because people do have all kinds of hang-ups about it. It's hard enough for people who are normally homosexual, but-"

"You can't turn people into queers, Peter," Micky intoned sternly. This, at least, he'd been pretty certain about. If Alec Thomas (his very favorite regular back in Frisco) hadn't been able to straighten him out, with his chiseled good looks and huge...shoulders, there was just no way it could be done. He was pretty sure that, despite what people liked to think, it didn't work the other way around, either.

"But-"

"You can't. Turn. People. Queer."

"Oh. Okay." Looking down at his empty plate, Peter sighed again. "So, they really just hated me, then."

A wave of nauseating sympathy swept through Micky. He was really regretting interacting with this kid at all - plan or no plan, the blonde was really starting to turn Micky soft, and that was no way to survive.

Still, for the plan to work, he needed the guy to trust him, so he leaned forward and patted Peter on the shoulder awkwardly. "People are assholes, Pete."

"Not everyone," Peter replied softly.

"Pretty much everyone."

"No," Peter shook his head. "You aren't."

Guilt, slimy and cold, writhed in Micky's stomach, and for a second, he thought his lunch might do a curtain call. He swallowed past it frantically and forced a grin. "Well, that's nice of you to say, man," he hedged. Then, inspiration struck. "Hey, how about a piece of pie?"

That effectively ended the discussion, and had the added bonus of bringing a smile to Peter's face. Micky was very sure that said smile shouldn't have been a bonus, but sad-Peter looked sort of...wrong.

One thing had become apparent during their conversation, though; Peter was not completely oblivious to the crueler aspects of humanity. In fact, he seemed to be much more in tune with people's feelings than Micky would have ever guessed, which presented him with something of a challenge.

Apparently, pulling one over on the kid was going to be more difficult than Micky had previously supposed.

He was certain that, if Peter knew what Micky wanted to do, he would disapprove. Guile wasn't just completely missing from his skill set - Micky was positive that Peter had no desire to learn that particular skill, and he was just as positive that if he did learn it, the blonde would probably be absolutely terrible at it. Add that to the fact that, when you had multiple people in on something, they started doing stupid things like thinking for themselves and deviating from the plan, and Micky had pretty solid reasoning for making Peter just another mark.

"You know," he said as blandly as possible as Peter shoveled apple filling into his mouth at a frightening pace, "I was thinking, if you want, I can help you out with your performing."

"Re-" Pausing to swallow his mouthful of flaky goodness, Peter coughed a bit before continuing. "Really?! Oh, wow, that'd be swell, Micky!"

"Yeah," Micky agreed, pinching the bridge of his nose. "Yeah, swell. See, I was thinking that you were doing fine from a performance standpoint, you know? You play really well, and people really like you."

"They do?" The guitarist's cheeks flushed a bit. "Aw, that's nice of you to say, but I don't think-"

"They like you well enough, kid," interrupted Micky. "The problem isn't your playing, it's your location."

"Huh?"

"Oh, yeah. See, you gotta be in the right spot at the right time, you know? Like you said - you keep catching them after they've finished shopping, right? So," Micky continued, gesturing at the passers-by outside their window with a flourish, "you have to know where to be, and when, to get the most out of your audience."

Peter tilted his head to the side, eyes tracking the progress of a young couple as they passed. He looked contemplative, and Micky crossed his fingers under the table.

"Yeah," Peter said eventually, soft enough the Micky almost didn't hear him. Then again, louder, "Yeah, that makes sense." He smiled at Micky beatifically. "You know a lot about this stuff, huh?"

"I guess so," the brunette replied, leaning back. "I know the area, anyway, so I can help you figure out when and where you'd get the most compensation for your time."

There was another moment of silence, and Micky wasn't sure he liked the way it felt to be the one pinned under Peter's intently curious gaze. Then it was gone, and Peter was smiling again, and Micky felt himself able to breathe again.

"I guess that makes us a team."

"Yeah," Micky muttered, reaching out to clasp Peter's outstretched hand. He felt something inside wither shamefully under the warmth of his newest stooge's trusting grin. "Yeah, a team."

He couldn't get that expression out of his head, even hours later, holed up in the dilapidated motel room he'd been squatting in off-and-on. The way Peter had looked at him in those moments before he'd agreed, it had set off all kinds of alarms in Micky's brain. This had been a rotten idea from the start, but suddenly there was anxiety, a hard knot of what-ifs in his stomach that made it hard for him to sleep.

He was in it now, though, and there was no way to back out without definitely making Peter suspicious, so he would just have to stick it out to the end and pray things didn't go ass-up as usual.

Snorting to himself, he curled up on his side and tried to make himself believe, just for a second, that he had any faith left at all.

A/N - IDK. Really. I'm exhausted, and it's been a weird couple of...months. So, yeah.

Okay, and I lied - we don't find out about the two bucks yet. PATIENCE MY FRIENDS, WE WILL GET THERE.

And, yes, it is really Micky who's calling Peter thin. That should tell you something about how skinny our poor, starving musician is. =(

Onward to update Keg!