Gerard winced when he heard someone hit the floor between the bunks--not because it sounded like a hard landing, although it did a little, but because it was five o'clock in the goddamn morning, somewhere on a straight stretch of interstate, and he'd been enjoying the time alone. He stared steadily at the sketchbook in his lap, which he was filling up with words instead of drawings (he could afford to use good paper that way now, which was awesome and guiltily decadent all at once), and hoped the inevitable footsteps would head back to the bathroom.
They came forward.
Gerard glanced up and it was, of all possible people, Pete Wentz standing in the doorway to the front lounge, wearing nothing but a pair of boxers that might well be Mikey's. Gerard wasn't going to give them a second glance to be sure.
Gerard forced a smile even though--of all possible people on the bus, god dammit--Pete was the only one Gerard couldn't reliably just ignore in the still-dark not-yet-morning. He had only the light over the sink turned on, so he was squinting to write, but he liked the atmosphere, stillness even in motion.
Pete didn't say anything, though. He just raised one hand in a silent, ridiculous wave, and walked over--uninvited, Gerard thought, which was stupid and petty, but really, it was impossible to get time alone on the bus when he actually wanted it--to sit at the table, around the corner from Gerard.
Gerard went back to writing, hoping that if he ignored Pete, he'd go away.
He didn't. Long minutes later, Gerard glanced up to find Pete folded up on the bench seat, chin on his knee, only his hands moving. He wasn't tapping out a beat on the table, like everyone else Gerard knew would have (everyone but Gerard himself). He was doing what Gerard would have done, tracing invisible designs, maybe letters, on the smooth surface.
Gerard instantly felt like an asshole. He flipped to the next blank sheet in his sketchbook and tore it out, and dug his second-favorite pen, the 0.1 mm, and slid both across the table to Pete. He had an instant of worry that he was about to never see his pen again, but Pete looked up and smiled bright as headlights at Gerard, and, hell, it wasn't like Gerard couldn't figure out where Pete slept on any given night.
Gerard nodded and went back to writing, and Pete immediately bent over the table, pen scratching quietly. Staring down at his own page, watching his own hand move, Gerard had a moment of powerful déjà vu. It was art school all over again, one of those moments when he'd been sitting in studio, working amidst his classmates, and he'd believed that he was sitting in the middle of something: that everyone he knew to be brilliant and talented, and himself too, they were all going to make it, going to take over the world.
Going to save it.
Me and Pete, Gerard thought, biting his lip to keep from humming it. When he glanced up again Pete met his eyes, and the smile they shared was a real one.