fic: Any Ordinary Stranger

[adellyna]

Title Any Ordinary Stranger
Author adellyna
Pairing Pete/Patrick, some Spencer/Brendon, hints of past Jon/Spencer
Rating PG-13
Word Count 11,000
Summary Bandboys with superpowers! Sort of!
Disclaimer I'd like to see the jury that would convict me of anything for writing this.
Auathor's Notes Thanks oodles to shleemeri, maleyka, and o4fuxache for their beta work. Thanks, as always, to foxxcub for all the hand-holding and for letting me breathe into her paper bag after every scene and to flimsy who never lets me stop writing.


brendon.
"So how did you know?" Spencer asks. "Did you pick up a tractor when you were two, or something?"

"Oh, yeah, totally. Lifted it over my head one-handed and everything, didn't even pop the snaps on my onesie, dude, it was awesome."

Spencer quirks an eyebrow. Brendon was maybe a little too earnest with his delivery.

"No," he amends. "I don't know, have you ever seen a toddler try to lift a tractor? It just doesn't happen. There are accepted restrictions on what people can pick up with their bare hands, and usually you don't try to bench-press a John Deere just for the hell of it, you know?"

"Mmhmm." Spencer's been stirring his coffee the whole time. Stir stir stir, but the red plastic between his fingers keeps disappearing, going transparent, turning back; sometimes it looks like he's just circling his fingers above the cup, like the liquid is spinning inside simply because he wants it to. Brendon wants to know how his power works, what the limits are, if he can hide things selectively; like, could he turn just the cup invisible, but leave the paper sleeve? Or just his chair, maybe, and keep himself suspended in mid-air.

More time, he figures. Once he's known Spencer longer than an hour, he'll know the ins and outs.

"No tractors," Spencer says. "Got it. So, what?"

"The word of God," Brendon says solemnly.

Spencer quirks his brow again, but he finally lifts his coffee, takes a sip. "Heavy, I take it?"

"Weighs a ton."

"Care to elaborate?"

"Uh." He watches Spencer take another sip, kind of hoping he'll turn the cup invisible, too, maybe Brendon can watch the liquid slide gracefully, impossibly through the air, but no. "I was at church, and we were moving boxes, and there was this one I thought was empty, but it had, like, five hundred Bibles in it. I just kind of picked it up, and I was standing there, and Sister Sherman was like, 'Oh, I thought that box was full,' and I was like 'No, it feels empty,' and then when we opened it, it was full."

He shrugs, because it's not a very glamorous story. Maybe he should add some tractors, next time he tells it. Have himself save a bus full of babies from, like, a larger bus falling onto it. On fire. In the middle of a collapsing bridge. "After that, like, I don't know. I tried picking up heavier and heavier things, and there was never anything too heavy. I stopped after a while, though. It felt kind of lame, you know? Walking around, picking up Hondas."

Spencer nods again, and turns just the rim of his cup invisible, so Brendon can see the coffee slipping into his mouth, hovering just above his lips.

"Messy, too," Brendon adds. "Engines, you know. Greasy."

"You say 'you know,' a lot," Spencer says. "Do you really think people know? Or are you just apologizing for the fact that you're still talking?"

"I don't know." Brendon blinks and lifts his coffee, takes his first sip. It's a little too cinnamony, but whatever. "Do you realize that you've turned your pants invisible?"

If Brendon had super speed instead of super strength, he would be gone by the time Spencer looks up with pink-tinged cheeks and narrowed eyes, but he doesn't, so instead he's just standing. With dignity.

"You suck," Spencer snaps. "That--isn't funny."

"Happened in high school, huh?" Brendon tsks, but he's grinning. Spencer is funny when he's mad. "Gives that whole naked in the classroom nightmare a whole new twist, doesn't it?"

"You should be careful," Spencer says. His eyes get even narrower. "Maybe one day you'll forget your own strength when you're jerking off or something. Be the little meta who couldn't, if you know what I mean."

"We should do this again sometime," Brendon counters cheerfully. "I'll pick up a tractor or something, give you something to ooh and ah about."

"Or I could turn your pants invisible."

Brendon has to walk around six extra tables to leave without coming within grabbing distance of Spencer, but he does it anyway. He may have been born a freak, but he wasn't born stupid.

patrick.
Patrick has a crossword puzzle and a Spanish song playing in his head--the woman next door is singing it silently, with a full orchestra echoing around inside her mind--and an Andy on the couch. A topless Andy with a lap full of bulldog; he's scratching it between the ears and humming a little, nonsense syllables that somehow match the story Andy is idly narrating in his mind; a brisk wind to ruffle fur and damp grass beneath paws and a big bowl of kibble at the far end of the field. Andy hums out another half-word and adds a rainbow stretching out above it all. Patrick grins down at the crossword in his hand and bites at his eraser, tries to think of a seven-letter word for "shaped plants."

Are you smiling at me? Andy thinks at him. Patrick hums a "no" note and keeps his eyes trained on the crossword, on the third letter ("p"); he smiles harder when he hears Andy's lilting mental, I'm just telling Hemmy a story.

He bites his grin back a little, slumps happily into the leather of his chair, and doesn't look up again (he's filled out the second letter, an "o", thanks to "autonomous" on the down-row) until there's a knock on the door. Who?, Andy thinks, scritching-fingers stilling on Hemmy's head. Pete's not back for hours.

Patrick shrugs, tucks his pencil behind his hear and flattens his paper out in his lap.

Andy calls, "Come in," and when the door opens it's just Spencer. Beard and dingy jeans and that guy he's been hanging out with lately in tow. Brandon. Brendon. Something like that. Neither of them is thinking it, so Patrick's not sure.

"Hey," Spencer says. Out loud, which has Patrick pausing and blinking--Spencer's speaking voice is much different than his brain-voice, it's smoother, more modulated, a little rounder on the vowels--because people so rarely bother with greeting him out loud. "This is Brendon," Spencer says. Which, oh, hey. That's why. "Brendon, this is Andy and Patrick."

Patrick waves, offers Brendon a little quirk of his lips, and tugs his pencil back out from behind his ear.

"Hey," Andy says. His speaking voice is different, too, but not in a way Patrick's ever been able to pin down, not exactly. "This is Hemmy."

He scratches under Hemingway's chin and Hemmy lifts his head, slips his teeth out from under flaps of skin and growls down his snout at Brendon.

"Uh," Brendon says, stepping half behind Spencer again. "Is he--I mean. Dogs."

"It's cool," Andy says. He scratches under Hemmy's chin again, repeats, "It's cool," but to Hemmy this time. "Spence can vouch," Andy says, and Hemingway rolls over in his lap, shows Andy his belly.

"Oh," Brendon says. He sounds cool enough, but Patrick can hear the Big dog. Big fucking dog playing under all that floppy hair. "Do you. I mean, can you guys... understand each other?"

"Yeah," Andy drawls, setting his hands to scratching at Hemmy's belly. "Like right now, little Timmy's fallen down a well, but he was kind of a dick before he did, so we're just gonna let him stew a little, soak up some of that well-water and humility, aren't we Hemmy?"

All Brendon does is blink, but his mind turns into a running red block of ????, spiking and weaving under Spencer's Oh, for fuck's sake and more thoughtful Let him believe it for a while?

Patrick grins and carefully untucks the corners of his paper, making a soft, triumphant sound when he remembers the word he's looking for ("topiary").

"No," Spencer says. He hooks his arm under Brendon's elbow and drags him out from behind him, "Andy can fly. Also, he's kind of a douche."

"Did you hear that, boy?" Andy wiggles his fingers up under Hemmy's front legs, tickles there like Hemmy's a person. "I'm a douche. But you love me, right?"

Patrick doesn't hear dog-thoughts. Or cat-thoughts or hamster-thoughts or any other animal-thoughts, but he doesn't feel like he's missing out on anything. Hemmy's snuffling and face-licking are easy enough to read.

"This is Patrick," Spencer says, pointedly, pushing Brendon toward him. "He's--"

Brendon starts to fill it in, like, Patrick hears a low mental whistle and a Kind of ho- and starts talking so fast he almost trips over the words. He can feel his cheeks go warm, but he shoves his glasses up his nose and forges on.

"A telepath." He gets it out in time for Brendon's last word to crack off in the middle, like a sharp mental jaw-snap. "Hi."

"Hi," Brendon says. His feet turn towards each other, and he starts doing that thing people do around telepaths, where they think ocean-sounds so hard that Patrick starts to feel like he can taste the salt on his tongue. It usually gives him a headache. This is no exception.

"That's kind of loud," he says, as politely as he can manage when his eye is starting to twitch. "If you're really worried about it, let a song run through your head. It works better, and it won't make me want to punch you in the face."

Brendon blinks, but the ocean track makes a loud slapping noise like coming up against a hull and then stops, fading away beneath something mindless and poppy that's been hovering around 23 on the Top 40. Patrick's shoulders go looser and he shoves his glasses up a bit more, smiles, and says, "Thanks."

"Where's Pete?" Spencer asks. Patrick isn't the kind of telepath who sees images; he only gets noise, and he's never more grateful for this than he is whenever someone mentions Pete, when their mind fills with the fuzzy, melodic static that means they're running a mental slideshow. Patrick's not sure he could stand it if he had to watch Pete through their minds, see all that skin and that mouth and those fucking eyes looking up at him through someone else's memories. If he sees it, if he ever sees it, he wants it to just be his.

Patrick shrugs and crosses the clue for "topiary" off of his crossword, tugs the brim of his hat down lower and moves on to the next: "Mixing Meals under pressure (TV)"

"He's out," Andy supplies. "Won't be back for a few hours, sorry."

Spencer sighs--out loud and in his head, it's this weird, trippy echo thing that makes Patrick have to blink his way clear of it--and says, "I wanted Brendon to meet him."

Patrick fills in the sixth letter (a "u" from "Quanjude", 36 Down) and ducks his head a little more.

"He will," Andy says. "Everyone meets Pete."

"Dude." Brendon laughs a little, and finally settles onto the couch next to Andy. Patrick can't actually see him petting Hemmy, but he hears the anxious Just do it, just pet the damn dog weaving in through the chorus of the song Brendon's playing in his head, so he figures that's what he's doing. "What's the big fucking deal about Pete?"

Andy and Spencer's heads both fill with static; Andy's static is a little slower than Spencer's, which... Patrick doesn't want to think about too much, but he can hear Brendon getting impatient, so he looks up a little, sees them all distorted by the top rim of his glasses, dark in the shadow from his hat, and says, "It's Pete. People like the way he makes them feel."

spencer.
"It's like life is like an egg," Ryan says slowly.

"Like an actual egg?" Spencer asks. "Because an egg is part of the cycle of life, Ryan, I'm not sure you can make a simile out of that."

"No, like a metaphor of an egg."

Spencer remains skeptical. "I'm not sure where you're going with this. But I'm listening."

"Life is fragile, like an egg, but you can still stand on it."

"You can stand on an egg?"

"Well, a lot of eggs. And some boards. And these little clay surrounds--I saw it on Reading Rainbow."

Spencer is beginning to understand the problem. "Ryan," he says, very deliberately. "Have you been watching PBS again?"

"Only when I'm stoned," Ryan says, waving a dismissive hand. "I like the way so many things are based on true stories. True stories are the best stories, which is why they always say you couldn't make this sh-"

Spencer loses the rest of that sentence the moment Ryan's mouth passes through the brick in front of him, but he catches Ryan's hand gesture; his twitching fingers are the last to disappear. Spencer turns and puts his back to the wall, leans and digs out his phone to text Brendon and wait for Ryan to realize that he's walking through some dirty, abandoned textile factory. Alone.

He turns himself invisible, just in case someone creepy comes along and thinks his tiny jeans and the flowered scarf around his head mean he'd be happy to put his hands up and fork over all of his money.

It takes about two minutes. Spencer's grinning down at Brendon's reply when Ryan pokes his head back through the wall, the paisley print of his collar weirdly stark against the dingy brick wall. "Spencer," Ryan says. Spencer shimmers visible before he can finish the word. "Thanks. Are you coming?"

"No, actually," Spencer answers, smoothly straightening and snapping his phone shut. "I mean, sure, I recently and spontaneously developed the ability to walk through walls like you do, but I thought I'd just cop a lean here, chill out in this alley, see if I couldn't pick up a nice mugger to take home to mom and dad."

"Funny." Ryan rolls his eyes and pokes his hand through the wall, fingers wiggling impatiently. "Now can we please go so we don't miss the movie?"

"We could go around the filthy building."

"Or we could go through, it's faster."

Spencer sighs, but Ryan's right. It is faster. And no matter how gritty he feels when they walk through old walls, he's always passed Ryan's smug white-glove test, so he's given up bitching about it. "Fine," he grumbles. "But if my popcorn tastes like plaster, I'm going to kick your ass later."

"Oooh," Ryan says, grinning; his fingers close over Spencer's and he gives a little tug. Spencer goes invisible again, turns Ryan with him, and closes his eyes like he always does, convinced that if he's looking at the wall when he passes through, he'll hit it. "I'm so scared," Ryan says, once they're both inside, weak light streaming in through dirty, high windows, nothing but rat-tracks and Ryan's footprints disturbing the dust on the floor.

"Fuck you," Spencer says. He just barely resists the urge to dust off his sleeves. "You won't even see me coming."

"Cheap," Ryan says, but he's laughing anyway, so it's a victory. "Cheap, Spencer. You're hanging out too much with that Brendon kid, if this is what your jokes have come to."

patrick.
Brendon starts coming over sometimes. Usually it's when Andy is there; he sits around and asks a lot of questions about veganism and drumming and tattoos and the discography of bands that Patrick hears him mentally label as Don't know, don't care, can't pronounce.

"I don't know," Patrick says, when people ask him about it, their eyebrows waggling. "I think he has a hero-worship thing for Andy, but I'm trying really hard not to know. Okay?"

He wishes that were true. It's not. Brendon has a thing for Spencer, but he also has mortifyingly vivid thoughts about Patrick's mouth. Patrick just catches snatches of Brendon's fantasy narration; he's good about trying to hide it beneath a constant stream of a mental playlist Patrick has titled Now That's What I Call The Oldies. Press his bottom lip down and watch myself-- comes hidden in the chorus of Can't Buy Me Love, and it only gets worse from there.

Patrick spends most of Brendon's visits blushing in the corner, not saying anything, and trying to tune out Brendon's breathless, almost hesitant filth.

It's one of those times when Brendon is over without Spencer, late in the afternoon, some rerun of Reba from back when Barbara Jean was plump on the TV. Andy's over, the way he always is; his unconscious Hungry, hungry, hungry is playing in the background of Patrick's mind, so quiet he almost can't hear it over what Andy's saying out loud, something about the true spirit of the punk movement, and the increasingly explicit stream of Jesus, I could hold his hands above his head, fuck his mouth-- from Brendon that's turning Patrick's face so hot he feels like he's sitting directly in midday sunlight.

Suddenly, everything goes quiet, his own desperate thoughts of escape echoing around in the sudden empty space in his head; he looks up fast, tips the brim of his hat back and tightens his fingers on the word-search book in his hands.

Pete's home.

Hemmy huffs and rolls over in his sleep, Andy's hand twitches on the remote, and Brendon shifts a little, looking inexplicably uncomfortable. Then there's the sound of a key in the lock and the door pushing open, Pete's breezy, "Home, bitches," ricocheting off every wall, like the whole house is celebrating him.

"Heeeeeey, fuck you," Andy says easily, lifting his hand to bump fists with Pete when he comes sailing into the living room, tossing his bag into the empty corner of the sofa.

Pete bends and drags his fingertips in long, wavy lines over Hemmy's stomach as he passes in front of the sofa, stepping over Andy's legs, and then over Brendon's; Hemmy waves his paws in the air and huffs in his sleep again, flops onto his side.

"Patrick," Pete says. "Stumpy."

He sits so fast that Patrick has to scramble to slide over, try to make room for a second person on a one-person chair. "Don't call me that, asshole," he grumbles, but he can't stop smiling; his cheeks are still pink from his blush and it aches a little, stretching them that tight. "I know where you sleep."

Pete kisses his cheek, loud and smacking, then pulls back and squints a little. Narrow eyes and knuckles pressed to Patrick's face, like he's taking his temperature. "Huh," he says, and then turns and looks right at Brendon. "You must be Brendon."

Which. Oh god, Patrick doesn't want to think about what people must be telling Pete about Brendon coming over like this; he's already gotten enough ribbing from Andy about his "not-so-secret admirer," the last thing he wants is to get shit from Pete about it too.

"I'm--" Brendon says; he's still frowning, tightening his hand on his knee like he's confused. "Yeah."

"I thought you'd be bigger," Pete says. He turns, then, presses his face back against Patrick's neck and smiles a little, mumbles, "Stumpy, Pattycake, Stumpycake, I'm hungry. Why isn't dinner on the table?"

"Because I'm not your wife, maybe?" Patrick says, but he turns the brim of his hat to the side a little, gives Pete's stupid hair more room to poke stiffly against his own. When he's around Pete, he gets to think only his own thoughts, which is a lot more comforting when his thoughts aren't a constant stream of Pete Pete Pete Pete Pete Pete Pete. He curls his fingers loosely over Pete's forearm where it stretches over his stomach and wrinkles his nose at the buzz of Pete's laugh against his neck.

"I object," Andy says absently. "Your cavalier dismissal of all the Feminist movement has accomplished is--no, shit, I could go for some pizza."

"I don't know," Brendon mumbles, brow furrowed. "I feel. Funny."

"That's just because you're a delicate flower like the rest of us," Andy says. "Making it through the world without your freakish carnival strength. Hey, is Joe working tonight? We should order from his place if he's working."

"I--" Brendon says. "What?"

"I hate the mushrooms there," Pete grumbles, wrinkling his nose. "Can't we get it from the other place? The one with all the 9s in the number?"

"Don't be a dick," Patrick says. "I haven't seen Joe since Monday."

"He can come on his lunch break," Pete suggests hopefully. "Have some decent vegan pizza with us."

Patrick laughs and shakes his head; he's tucked in a chair with Pete, so he can't really be bothered to explain it all to Brendon, who's still shifting on his cushion, saying, "What?" again.

Andy sighs. "Pete's a null," he explains, in a pretty decent impersonation of sincerity and patience. "When he's around, we're all just normal people without whatever it is that makes us tabloid-fodder."

"I," Brendon says. "What?"

"Just let him try to pick up the couch or something," Pete says dismissively. "He'll figure it out."

Patrick is starting to get the distinct impression that Pete doesn't care for Brendon; usually he's a lot more soothing about his power, explaining about the proximity thing and how they'll go back to normal once they get far enough away from him, but now he's just wedging himself against Patrick's side and humming something fast and ticklish into Patrick's neck.

Pete is handsy, but this is more of a "honey, I'm home" than Patrick usually gets from him. He pets Pete's arm anyway, turns his head a little and pretends like he's not nuzzling when he whispers, "What are you singing me?"

"Dunno," Pete whispers back. "Crazy dude on the subway was singing it. It made me think of you."

"Thanks," Patrick says dryly. "That's the nicest thing anyone's ever said to me."

"Hey, you don't know. He sounded like an angel."

"I ordered from Joe's," Andy announces. "I got extra mushrooms for you, Pete."

Pete flips Andy off without taking his face away from Patrick's neck; Andy catches it and tucks it under the waist of his shorts, batting his eyelashes furiously behind thick glass lenses.

"So what you're saying," Brendon says slowly, "is that Andy can't fly right now?"

"I can't fly, Patrick can't read minds, and you probably can't even open a jar, yeah."

"Strong but not quick, I guess," Pete snorts. Patrick has to wrinkle his nose to keep from laughing. He tugs the brim of his hat down lower and drums the rhythm of Pete's song against his forearm, watching his pale fingers tap against dark skin.

Brendon eventually starts to say something else, but he's cut off by the sound of knuckles pounding on the front door, and Andy's relieved, "Pizza!"

This time, Brendon manages to make a half-strangled, totally-confused sound. Patrick almost feels bad for him.

Almost, but... Pete Pete Pete Pete Pete.

"Joe," Andy says, taking the box immediately and using it to point at Brendon, whose mouth is working soundlessly. "This is Brendon. He just moved here a few weeks ago. Please explain your power to him, because my mouth is about to be full of pizza."

Joe tosses Pete's bag onto the floor--Pete makes a disgruntled sound but doesn't move to reclaim it--and folds himself into the corner of the sofa. "Joseph Trohman," he says, offering Brendon his hand for shaking. "I can stop time and then move around all the frozen, funny-faced people."

"That," Brendon says, once his mouth starts making sounds again. "Is so fucking cool."

"It's pretty sweet," Joe says, nodding. "But essentially useless. Unless someone is shooting at me. Then it's really helpful."

"People shoot at you?"

Joe shrugs. "I've been here five years, delivering pizzas at night, dude. Of course people shoot at me."

spencer.
Spencer sighs at his phone. Then he sighs at Ryan, who is sprawled backwards over the arm of the sofa, humming at the ceiling. "Ryan. Ryan."

"Hmmmm?"

"Did you tell Brendon that you were a bird and he was a map?"

Ryan taps his fingers slowly against his chin, then licks the tips of them. "Yes."

"What does that even mean?"

"I don't know."

"Do you want him to think you're certifiable?"

Spencer's just going to go ahead and assume, from the way Ryan wrinkles up his chin and hums some more, that the answer to that is "yes."

"Ryan."

"What? It's funny."

Okay. Maybe it is a little funny. Still, Spencer is the one who gets the "..." text messages.

Ryan undulates his fingers through the air, slowly, a little stiltedly. "Hey, hey Spence," he says, holding his hand up higher and doing it again. "Do you think my hand looks like the ocean when I do this?"

"No."

"Oh, dammit."

Spencer snorts and turns from cartoons to the news, they catch the last three seconds of the graphic that indicates a story was set in New Jersey, but it's enough to remind Spencer of... yeah. "Hey," he says, thumbing the mute button on. "Hey, Ry, did you hear about that dude in Jersey?"

"The one with all the garlic and the crosses?"

"No, no, the one who says he was abducted by space snakes who taught him how to dance so he can usher the world out in style."

"Oh, yeah." Ryan hums dreamily again, but squirms until he's dangling sideways off of the couch, facing Spencer. "Dude, someone should maybe lay off the chemical enhancements, I think."

"Yeah, no." Spencer drags his fingertips through his beard and makes a face at Ryan. "That was Gabe."

"What? No shit."

"Yeah, dude. William called me. Says Gabe believes that shit, like, he thinks it's a mission."

"No shit," Ryan says again, voice soft with wonder. "That's amazing."

"I think William can't decide if he should laugh or have him committed."

Ryan shrugs and rolls back into his original position, stretching his fingertips up toward the ceiling. "Never should've moved out of the city. I said it then, I'll say it now."

joe.
Brendon is a cool little dude. Joe digs him. Unfortunately, Joe's been digging him for at least an hour, while Brendon babbles about his home town (small, devoid of metas, and Brendon somewhat sheepishly admits that most of his meta-knowledge comes from Sky High), and while Brendon asks about a million questions about the city and everyone Joe knows. So far he's covered Pete and Patrick ("Not dating. No, really."), Pete ("The null thing is a little freaky at first, yeah, but it's pretty cool once you're used to it."), Jon and Spencer ("Uh, maybe you should ask Spencer about that."), Pete ("Pete likes everyone, you're probably just being paranoid."), Jon ("It's kind of like your grandpa's superpower, but it's pretty cool."), Joe's own power ("Pretty limited, and he doesn't do it all that often, yo, the day is already long enough."), Patrick ("Bi. Yes he can read your mind. No, he'll never bring up anything he hears when he reads your mind."), Pete again ("Pretty much everyone's ex, and no, he's not the one who initiates."), and Jon again ("Really awesome weed, dude.").

Joe has a crick in his neck. He kind of wants to piss.

"But, okay," Brendon says. "I was in the laundry room, right, on my second day, and I dropped half a roll of quarters behind the machine and there was no one around, so I just picked it up, and then suddenly Spencer was there." He waves his hand a little. Joe nods, because he thinks he's supposed to, but seriously, Spencer already told him this story. "Being, you know, Spencer. At first I thought a homeless dude had wandered in, but I still had the washer up over my head with one hand, and I wa--"

Joe stops time. Brendon freezes mid-word, with just a little bit of his tongue hanging out, but he'll never know the difference, so there's no harm to it.

He stretches his arms above his head, pops his back, and eases up off the sofa. The bathroom door is still hanging open, so he can wander through the doorway and unzip, lean his palm heavily against the counter and piss into the bowl. Time's frozen, so there's no satisfying tinkle when piss hits water, but he's careful to angle straight down so that nothing hits the rim; gravity works just a little different when time is stopped, but nobody seems to care about the laws of physics when there's piss on the toilet seat.

People can be so unreasonable.

Joe shakes his dick off and scratches his stomach a little. He hasn't jerked off since this morning, and it's not like he's in a rush, so he wraps his hand loose around his dick and gives an experimental stroke. All diagnostics come back positive, so he licks his palm wet and leans against the counter again, jerks off thinking about their waitress at Hooters last night, and then wipes his hand off on a wad of napkins he digs out of his pocket.

That done, and with his back popped again, he's pretty sure he's firing on all cylinders, ready to answer another zillion pointed questions about Patrick. He ambles back into the living room and sprawls out on the couch, draping his arms along the back.

Joe unfreezes time.

"-s think--" Brendon says, and then stops, eyes narrowed.

Belatedly, Joe realizes he may not have sat down anywhere near the same position.

"You left your zipper down," Brendon says flatly.

Whoops.

"Whoops," Joe says cheerfully. He does up his zipper with flourish and grins at Brendon. "Details."

Brendon rolls his eyes, but he doesn't look pissed, which means Joe won't have to freeze time again mid-rant, so that's a plus. "How long was I out?"

"About fifteen, I guess? Dunno. Hard to keep track, what with time being stopped and all."

"Yeah." Brendon nods and picks at his shirt, then asks, "What's the longest you've ever gone?"

"Three hours."

Brendon makes a squeaking noise and his eyes go wide, and oh, wait.

"Oh, wait. The time thing? Like, forty-five minutes or so? I don't know, I got about thirty blocks on foot once."

"That's so cool," Brendon breathes. "I mean, is it--"

"Hey," Joe interrupts. "Do you smoke?"

patrick.
It has been a very bad day. As terrible as the things people will say to you out loud are, it's usually nothing compared to the things they're saying inside their head. Today, however, he came across a guy with no discernible internal monologue; this because he said every vicious thought out loud. Patrick had been laboring under the delusion that the things people said in their minds could hurt just as much as the things they actually said, but no. No, it's a lot worse when they say it out loud, like a physical slap in the face.

And then, crammed up against people on a packed subway, all of whom thinking uncharitable thoughts about everyone around them. Everyone around them, but impossible not to take it personally when he already felt half his not-so-impressive height.

Worse yet, he lost his hat.

Already stripped down to bare nerves, his head is pounding by the time he makes it to his door, fingers shaking on the key, a wild cacophony of eleven apartments worth of thoughts slamming around the inside of his head. Real sounds, things like his footsteps and the creak of the trash chute and the ding of the elevator, are muffled, coming like echoes, not loud enough to drown out all of the things only he can hear. He feels like someone else's thought, one of the sharpest, is going to break through, pierce his skull and let everything he is just leak out of a hole in his head, until he's got nothing left.

He finally gets the door unlocked, fumbles it open; the moment he steps inside, off of the hallway's carpet and onto their wood floors, the din in his head goes immediately, blissfully silent, leaving his ears vaguely ringing, like he's been standing too close to the speakers at a show for too long.

Pete's home.

There's humming coming from the kitchen. It's off-key and off-tempo and the best thing Patrick's heard all day; he tosses his keys in the bowl on the hall shelf, drops his bag, and tries not to wince when real sounds are suddenly too loud, echoing around all the empty space that was so recently full up of random snatches of thoughts.

"Hey," Pete says when Patrick comes into the kitchen. "You look like shit. Bad day?"

Patrick has spent a lot of time trying to figure out why Pete suggested they be roommates approximately seventeen days after they met, approximately twenty-one days after Patrick moved to the city, exactly twenty-four days after his eighteenth birthday, and the answer he keeps coming back to is pity. Back then, at the beginning, the novelty of a private head had been so appealing, Patrick is pretty sure he'd followed Pete around like a puppy. At least, he remembers them rarely being apart, and he can't imagine that was Pete's doing, so he's certain it had been him, following around in the blissful silence of Pete's wake.

So, yeah, pity. Most everyone else they know has something they can turn off and on at will, or something that's constant but doesn't fuck with them; Patrick's the only one in real danger of going slowly insane from the thing that makes him "special," and he can only assume that Pete took pity on him, or figured he might as well get Patrick to chip in on rent, if he was constantly going to be sitting at Pete's feet and making heart eyes at him.

Times like this, Patrick doesn't give a shit if Pete lives with him out of pity or friendship or because he's trying to fatten him up and harvest his organs for sale, he only cares that he can slump into a kitchen chair and stretch out in his own mind, knowing he won't bump into anyone else.

Times like this, Patrick knows he's too much of a coward to ever say anything about wanting Pete, or thinking about Pete too much, or watching Pete too much, or hating everyone they know for their staticky slideshow of Pete-memories. He can't lose this. He can't give up the quiet. Ever.

"You know," he says, shrugging. "It happens."

"Life's a bitch," Pete agrees cheerfully. "But c'mon. I TiVo'd Ellen for you. Let's go cuddle on the couch, I'll rub your head, you'll tell me I'm pretty, it'll be awesome."

Everybody wants Pete. It just happens. Patrick will suffer through it.

He lets Pete pull him into the living room and tug him down on the couch; Pete squirms until he's on his back, pokes and tickles and yanks until Patrick's sprawled out half on top of him, and then sets his fingers against Patrick's scalp and rubs small, soothing circles. Ellen starts dancing on the TV, but Patrick closes his eyes, lets his shoulders go loose and his arm hang off the couch, fingers brushing the floor. He can't even bring himself to move, just stays still and lets Pete's heartbeat fill his head and Pete's fingers soothe away the ache.

Pete sighs. "Patrick," he mumbles reproachfully. "We had a deal."

"Sorry," Patrick says, smiling a little, turning his head to press it against Pete's shirt. "You're very pretty."

brendon.
Ryan needs more weed. Brendon feels that this point is debatable, but Ryan is also prone to sharing, so he refrains.

"You're going to love Jon," Ryan assures him. "Jon's great. Jon's..."

"Jon?" Brendon prompts, mostly because he has a feeling Ryan's about to fill in with Jon's freak cred, but Ryan just blinks and nods.

"Yes."

"Yes what?"

"Jon is Jon."

Sometimes Ryan drives Brendon a little crazy. "Okay," he says, because he's not even sure if Ryan is stoned at the moment, and even if he is, it's just impossible to win an argument when you can't even follow it. He knows a little about Jon, anyway; he knows that Jon has a pawn shop, that Jon has the best (read: most available) weed within walking distance, and that Jon is "good with his hands."

None of this prepares him for the dusty, dimly-lit pawn shop Ryan takes him to. There are bars over the windows. The floor is half hardwood and half ancient checkered linoleum, and there's a dude behind the counter who looks vaguely like he walked straight out of the Museum of Natural History and directly into an Abercrombie & Fitch.

"Sup," Ryan says, lifting his hand to do some kind of complicated stoner hand-slap thing. "Conrad."

The dude behind the counter--Conrad, if that's a real name--drops his hand from slapping Ryan's and picks up a mangled silver ball; he squishes it in his hand; the metal makes a weak, whispered protestation and oozes up between his fingers, misshaping it further. "Not much," he says; he tosses the ball in the air and sets it down next to him again, leans both elbows onto the counter. "You looking for Jon? He's in the back making friends with a lawnmower."

"A lawnmower?" Brendon blurts. "In New York City... I mean. Lawns? Here?"

Conrad shrugs. "Weirder things have happened."

"He's new," Ryan says, like it's an explanation. "He has a thing for Spencer."

Brendon maybe sputters a little. "I don't--" he says, but frowns and changes course. "Shut up."

"Aw," Conrad says, grinning. "That's kind of cute." He drums his fingertips on the plexi of the counter and leans forward a little more, dropping his voice. "Don't tell Jon."

"No," Ryan agrees solemnly. "We won't do that." He pokes at Brendon's side; he has long, bony fingers that wedge right between Brendon's ribs. It hurts like a bitch. "Brendon is a very strong boy, though. I think he can hold his own."

"Oh, hey." Conrad perks up, straightening off his counter and picking up the mangled clump of metal from the little patch of tattered-edge velvet it was sitting on. "Like, strong strong? Can you roll my ball out smooth again? I hate it when it gets pointy like this."

"Uh," Brendon says, looking quickly from Conrad to Ryan. "Sure. I mean. Um." He kind of assumes it's something metal-like, or just shiny, but when Conrad hands it to him it's flat out solid steel, heavy and twisted into shapes; there are fingerprints etched into the metal. Bemusedly, he rolls it out like a clump of cookie dough, biting his lip and concentrating until it's smooth and solid again. There are still lines in it, where the metal folded back onto itself, but it's as perfectly round as he can get it.

"Thanks," Conrad says. He tosses it in the air again and sets it back on the velvet, making a face when it rolls to the side a little. "I'm glad you moved here, Brandon, you can see to my balls."

"Um," Brendon says. "Brendon. I'm Brendon."

"Great. I'm Tom."

Tom sticks out his hand and Brendon sticks his out too, wraps his fingers over the edge of Tom's hand; Tom grins a little, pumps his hand slowly. "Easy now. We just got my ball looking all nice again."

Brendon is so, so confused.

"I am so confused," he says, as soon as Tom lets them behind the desk and into the hallway that leads toward the mysterious Jon Walker. "What the fuck was that?"

"Tom Conrad," Ryan says serenely.

"Yeah, no shit, but the thing with the ball and the squishing? Why didn't he just do that himself?"

Ryan waves an absent hand; the hallway is so narrow that his fingers disappear into yellowed, tacky wallpaper. "He's... kinetic absorption. His body absorbs impact and channels it into raw strength. If he doesn't expel it somehow, he says it hurts like a bitch, so he carries that little ball around and just squeezes it all to fuck."

Where Brendon came from, it was him and some girl who could talk to animals. Nobody believed her, and nobody talked about him, so this is all. A little weird. "Huh. And what does Jon do?"

"Oh," Ryan says, stopping in front of a warped green door, hung on a red doorframe with peeling paint that leaves it speckled with royal blue. "Jon's good with his hands."

Brendon feels like he's going to see the fucking Wizard or something, but when the door opens all that's behind it is a clean, well-lit room with a short dude behind a work table. He has a smear of grease on his cheek and a screwdriver in his hand. There are shelves lined with things that have moving parts: blenders, televisions, music boxes, a grandfather clock.

The Hallelujah Chorus is conspicuously not playing.

"Hey, Ryan," the guy drawls, waving his screwdriver a little. It has a pink handle.

Brendon waits for something to happen.

What happens is Ryan saying, "Hey, Jwalk," and climbing onto a stool that he pulls out from under the work table. "I understand you have a lawn mower with an attitude problem. This is Brendon."

Still no choirs of angels. Brendon smiles and waves a little; he looks under the table, but there's not another stool, so he just leans awkwardly against the edge, trying not to jostle anything.

"Hey, Brendon," the guy drawls. He waves his screwdriver again. Brendon has a wicked sense of deja-vu.

"Hey Jon," he says. "Uh, I mean, nice to meet you." He considers adding assurances that he doesn't have a thing for Spencer, but he's still not sure that "good with his hands" doesn't translate into "can turn that lawnmower sentient and have it cut your throat like a blade of sweet Georgia grass," so he just smiles weakly and folds his fingers over the edge of the table.

"I need weed," Ryan says solemnly. "And I need you to come partake of it with me. And I need that Tupperware I left at your house last week, because Spencer and I are making lasagna tomorrow and he'll throw a fit if I stain anything else with tomato sauce."

Jon does this thing that's half laughter and half freshly-baked chocolate chip cookies. Maybe just a little ray of heavenly light shines into the room; Brendon can't be sure, but it does seem a little brighter.

"Weed I can do," Jon says. "But I'm too busy to smoke, and you're only getting the Tupperware back if you send Spencer for it."

"You're a pain in the ass," Ryan says. He seems delighted by it. "But seriously, he will take off my head."

"So you should send him over tonight," Jon counters, smiling easily. "It's okay, I don't bite."

"I'm sure he'll be very disappointed," Brendon says.

And then, Brendon fidgets awkwardly while they both stare at him. Very awkwardly.

"I'm sorry," Ryan says, into the stretching silence. "He's not very funny."

"So," Jon says smoothly. "Did you hear about that dude out in Jersey?"

"The one who tried to build a rocket out of mice?"

"That's the one."

Brendon lets them go on about crazy dudes who try to duct tape rodents together and fly them to the moon; he peers around at all the gadgets, but none of them seem to be blinking malevolent LED eyes at him. He doesn't spot even a single instance of telekinesis, and Jon really does just spend the whole time hand-tending to some greasy part engine. He stops occasionally and strokes his fingers across some part or another, squinting down at it, but then picks up his thread of conversation right where he dropped it.

"Technopath," Brendon says, once Ryan's pocket is bulging with weed and they've shut the oddly-colored door behind them. "Am I right?"

Ryan shrugs. "If something is broken, he knows how to fix it."

It seems simple. More importantly, it seems non-deadly. "What about him and Spencer?"

"It only works on machines."

spencer.
On a Monday, at three o'clock in the afternoon, with the sun at the perfect level to reflect off the mirrored glass the next block over and right into Spencer's eyes, a tragedy of epic proportions comes crashing down upon him. It doesn't get any worse than this. "Ryan," Spencer shouts, willing his voice to carry. "Ryan, the fucking TiVo is broken."

"Call Jon," Ryan shouts back.

Spencer was wrong. It can get a lot worse than this.

"Maybe it'll fix itself," he calls back, aiming his voice vaguely toward the bathroom, where Ryan is probably poking his own eye out in the mirror. "Like. If I ask nicely."

"Call Jon," Ryan shouts back. "And do it before Gossip Girl comes on, or I will kick your ass myself."

Spencer mutters uncharitable things about Ryan's masculinity under his breath, but reluctantly digs his phone out of his pocket and stares at it.

"I heard that," Ryan shouts.

"I don't have Jon's number anymore," Spencer replies, both loudly and untruthfully. "I. Uh. Deleted it."

"You're full of shit," Ryan says, from over Spencer's shoulder. He needs a fucking bell or something, if he's going to go walking straight through walls instead of down hallways like normal people. "Just fucking call him, quit being such a fucking girl about it. And tell him I need more weed."

"You always need more weed."

"Then he shouldn't be surprised. Call him."

There's no way Ryan can kick Spencer's ankles, much less his ass, but he does a mean ear-twist, so Spencer reluctantly holds down the 3 button on his phone and tries not to grumble too much when Jon answers. No more than an hour later, Jon is crouched over the guts of his TiVo, with a tiny screwdriver that Spencer is pretty sure was intended for the repair and maintenance of eyeglasses.

"Its okay, baby," Jon coos at the little bit of gadgetry in his hand. "Papa's gonna get you all fixed up."

"You know that's kind of creepy, right?" Spencer asks.

"Yeah?" Jon smiles. It still does unwelcome things to Spencer's stomach. "You used to like when I--"

"Would you like some iced tea, Jon?"

Spencer's pretty sure the answer is no, but he gets up and stomps to the kitchen anyway; Ryan's opened every cabinet door and is standing back, surveying the contents.

"Do not color-code the cabinets," Spencer warns. "And do not alphabetize the contents. And do not try to match-make the dry goods, and just, in general, don't be weird."

"It's okay," Ryan says. He eases an arm around Spencer's waist and rests his chin on Spencer's shoulder and sucks all of the tension out of Spencer's muscles, in that way only Ryan has. "You are in no danger from Jon Walker. You're completely over him, remember?"

Karma's a weird thing. Spencer's not sure what he did to it, but it must've been terrible. "I was Hitler in a past life," he mutters, shaking Ryan off to grab Jon a drink. Which is why he came in here. No escaping, no, not at all.

Ryan tilts his head, and then shakes it. "No," he says. "But is that what you're doing with the facial hair?"

A coke is just as good as iced tea, he figures, so he grabs a can from the back of the shelf and stomps back into the living room. Jon's on the phone, holding the silver plastic pinched between his ear and his shoulder while he coaxes bits and pieces of the TiVo back together. "Uh huh," he says, and smiles when he takes the can from Spencer. "No, you don't say. A bunny? What color is it?"

Spencer squints, but doesn't ask; he slumps onto the sofa and stares at the dusty gray block of his television screen, which is decidedly empty of HGTV or talk shows, or any of the things that make the world a pleasant place to live.

"And a coconut?" Jon says, sounding impressed. "No, I didn't realize they floated that well. Uh huh." He pops the tab on his coke and takes a deep sip, then nods again. "Really? Eleven hundred staples? That's awesome, dude. No, really, I can't wait to see it."

Jon puts his coke down and picks up the top cover of the TiVo, setting it carefully into place and then quickly going at the screws. "Saturday," he says, into the phone. "Definitely, soon as I can get out there. I'll borrow a car if I have to, man, I'm really excited. Uh huh, yeah. Give Gabe my best, dude."

He hangs up, folds his phone shut, places it dead center on the TiVo, and looks at Spencer. "We," he says, sounding grave, "have a serious problem."

brendon.
The laundry room is on the second floor, and Brendon's apartment is on the fifth floor, and that is way more of a pain in the ass than it originally sounded like it would be, seriously. By the time he clomps down the narrow steps of the dark stairwell, he’s covered in sweat, thanks to an inconvenient lack of ventilation. He shrugs out of the shirt and tosses that into the washer, and then yanks a pair of dirty-but-not-filthy basketball shorts out of his hamper and switches his jeans out for those, chucking the jeans into the washer instead.

"Nice," Spencer says. Brendon swings the door of the washing machine shut and catches the blurry, monochrome image of Spencer reflected there, smirk wavering in the dinged-up metal. He appears to have a second head growing out of his shoulder. Brendon assumes it's Ryan. "Classy, Urie."

"He didn't even separate his whites from his colors," Ryan chimes in mournfully, . "This is very irresponsible garment care."

"How are you so stoned all the time and still so fucking prissy?"

Brendon thinks this is a valid question. Spencer, apparently, doesn't. "Crush anything lately?"

"Nope. Accidentally flash anyone lately?"

"I accidentally walked through a tree in the park the other day," Ryan says thoughtfully. "It was beautiful."

See, this? Is what Brendon is talking about. "Great," he says, nodding. "Now do you want to lecture me about my delicates?"

Spencer, apparently, really doesn't. "Goodbye, Brendon," he snaps. "We're going to save the world, have fun with your laundry."

"The world?"

"Well," Ryan says. "Jersey."

patrick.
Pete really doesn't like Brendon. Patrick doesn't even know why, but you don't have to be a telepath to see that it's true. Which is why Patrick's more than a little bemused when Spencer and Ryan show up at his apartment with Brendon--in basketball shorts and one of Ryan's paisley button-ups--in tow, all looking very grave.

"Jon is on his way over," Ryan says, so solemn that Patrick feels like he's going to be asked to put his right hand on a Bible at any moment.

Pete is in the kitchen, singing The Pretenders at the top of his lungs, so Patrick can't just dip into their minds and figure out what's going on. "Dude," he says, belatedly stepping back and holding the door open. "We're good on weed. And all machinery is fully operational."

"What?" Spencer asks, pushing past Ryan and into the apartment; he looks a little harried, but Patrick figures that, considering Jon is on his way over and Brendon is already here, he's entitled to a little frustration. "No, we have a problem. We have a serious problem."

"Well, hey," Patrick drawls. He snags Ryan by his vest and tugs him inside, then shuts the door behind Brendon. "By all means, make dire proclamations and then keep me in suspense. It's like Christmas come early. Pete." This last he shouts over his shoulder, because no one should have to deal with this trio without backup.

Pete comes exploding out the kitchen in typical Pete-fashion, more presence than speed, and is halfway through an enthusiastic greeting when he spots Brendon. "Oh, hey guys," he says, fistbumping Ryan. "And Brendon."

Patrick would feel bad for Brendon, he would, but Ryan is trying to do some complicated finger-tangling hand-thing with Pete, and Pete's settling his other hand low on Patrick's back and crowding into his side, and Spencer is flipping his phone open and shut like someone's going to call him about the Publisher's Clearinghouse grand prize at any second, and Brendon's ensemble smells strongly of Patrick's college memories (weed and dirty laundry).

On the whole, it's kind of overwhelming.

"Will someone," he grits out, sidestepping when Pete's toes start climbing the sides of his sneakers, "please tell me what the fuck is going on?"

"We have a problem," Spencer repeats. "In Jersey."

He doesn't get any more out of them until Jon shows up, and even then he has to put on his most menacing face to stop any talk of waiting until Andy and Joe get there.

"I am not," he snaps, "waiting until anyone else--"

"Called Joe!" Ryan interrupts.

"--gets here," Patrick finishes lamely.

Someone knocks on the door. Fucking Joe; it's so frustrating knowing his righteous indignation was delayed against his will for fifteen or twenty minutes. And it's not even like he can take it out on anyone, it's not like the time even passed, not for him, so he's left to grit his teeth and shred little tiny slivers of glossy paper off the corner of his magazine.

"Sup," Joe says, and collapses into an armchair, half on top of Ryan. "Is this about that dude in Jersey who thinks he built a pan-dimensional jump rope?"

"What's a pan-dimensional jumprope?" Spencer asks.

Joe shrugs.

Something in Patrick's head cracks open. He's pretty sure actual steam is coming out of his ears.

"Will. Someone. Please. Tell me what the fuck is going on?"

What the fuck is going on, apparently, is that nearly everyone in the state of New Jersey has gone stark, raving mad, and it's all because Gerard Way fell ass over end for some kid named Frank Iero. This doesn't even make sense to Patrick, it really doesn't, and yet.

"I called Mikey," Spencer says, shrugging. "We spent twenty minutes talking about this playground around the corner where he's been communing with fairies, but I finally managed to get most of the story out of him."

The story goes like this: Gerard, previously assumed powerless by all and sundry, managed to get hooked up with Frank Iero, who has some sort of electromagnetic thing that is impressive but totally useless unless you want to do static electricity tricks. And instead of being powerless, apparently, Gerard has some sort of energy absorption capabilities.

("That makes a lot of sense," Pete nods. "I mean. Dude was always jittery."

"Dude was jittery because you were fucking his little brother," Patrick counters dryly.)

"Basically," Jon interjects, once Ryan has started confusing everyone with talk about output ratios and prophetic squirrels, "Gerard's soaking up Frank's energy, and leaking it out all over the place. The more energy he soaks up, the more crazy he lets out. By now, the whole state is picking it up and going batshit."

It makes sense. Jersey has been weirder than usual lately.

"Okay," Patrick says, very slowly. "So Frank's turning Gerard on, and Gerard's turning everyone nuts. What are we supposed to do about this?"

"Kill him."

"What?" Spencer sighs and smacks Ryan upside the back of his head. "Don't be retarded, we can't kill Gerard."

"Brendon could kill Gerard."

"Hey," Brendon protests, putting both hands up in the air. "Brendon has to work this weekend. And Brendon doesn't even know Gerard."

"We can't kill Gerard," Patrick snaps. "There's got to be another option."

Seriously, Patrick hears, in Brendon's mental voice, I don't get why he doesn't like me, I've been... It's drowned out by Spencer's Fuck this sucks, I can't save the world when they're both..., which fades away and is replaced by All of their heads look like stained glass, I wonder if I got up high enough... which could come from either Jon or Ryan, Patrick's not sure.

He doesn't have to look beside him to realize Pete's not in the room anymore; he didn't say anything when he left, and everyone is so focused on their own things that they don't realize either, but Brendon starts folding the magazine in his hands like origami, and Spencer's fingers, tapping on his knee, start going invisible one by one, and Ryan absently shoves his fingers through the coffee table and wiggles them on the other side. It's kind of eerie how quickly everyone reverts to using their powers, like it's comforting, even as unconscious as it is.

Patrick keeps a firm eye on Joe, because if he's going to lose more time, he wants to fucking know about it.

"We could form a task force," Jon muses. Sitting awfully close, he says in his mind. "Head on out, put our powers together and..."

"Summon Captain Planet?" Spencer snaps. Why do I always, always fall for it... "That's not going to work. What are we going to do, sneak into his room and fix his clock radio?"

"We could sneak into his room and kill him," Ryan suggests serenely. "Problem solved."

It's all so loud, so much thinking; people talking but not saying the things they want to say, people thinking things Patrick doesn't want to know about. He takes his glasses off and pinches the bridge of his nose, trying to stave off the inevitable headache that comes from this many voices in his head all at once.

Mary had a little lamb, he gets, suddenly, loud, enough to drown out everything else. Her fleece was white as fucking snow, mother fucker.

He jerks his head up and looks for the source. It doesn't take long, Joe is sitting in the chair across from him, bouncing and doing his best to squish Ryan, but grinning right at Patrick. And everywhere that Mary went, that bitch lamb went, too, because he was pussy-whipped as all fuck.

Joe hums, in his head, a cheerful hip-hop ditty. He's thinking it so hard, so loud, that Patrick's able to completely tune out the vocal argument around them, and he's only picking up the dull whisper of everyone's thoughts. Oh, oh, some shit about school, and then--

"Hey," Pete shouts from the other end of the apartment. Patrick blinks at the sudden loss of thought and song, and then turns and blinks at Pete, who's stepped into null-range and is walking quickly down the hall, waving his cellphone. "I called Mikey, I'm going to go ahead and head out to Jersey, see if I can't, uh. You know, de-crazify Gerard."

"Oh," Ryan says. "Well, if you need to--"

"Kill him, I'll call you, yes," Pete finishes. "Now, who's going with me?"

"I'll go," Patrick volunteers. He stands and tugs his hat down more firmly on his head. "I've been living with you long enough, if I were going to go crazy, it would've already happened."

brendon.
"Seriously," Brendon asks, once the echo of the door closing behind Pete and Patrick has faded. "Not dating?"

patrick.
In the end, it's kind of anti-climactic. They take the ferry out to Jersey; Pete shares some turkey jerky he pulls from his pocket, and they lean over the railing and watch the dirty water surge up around the hull. They take a taxi to the Way house, and they go right in because the door is wide open, held that way by a grandfather clock painted neon orange. It has fangs glued to the face.

On the way, the taxi driver very earnestly explains to them that his wife is the tooth fairy.

On the way, they see eleven old men trying to form a pyramid with a dog at the top.

On the way, they pass a naked man hanging upside down from a tree.

("I can't believe it took this long for anyone to notice," Pete observes. He puts his thumb on the window and blocks out the dick swinging at them from above. "I mean, even for Jersey...")

They go down to the basement once they get there, but someone has glued marbles to the top three stairs; every step is slippery and hazardous. The fourth is slippery, too, but Patrick would prefer not to think too deeply about what's on it.

Gerard is huddled in a corner, surrounded by heaps and heaps of paper.

"Hey, Gerard," Pete says. He walks into the room like normal, like Gerard might not jump at him at any moment.

It smells like someone's ass crawled into a corner and died.

"They all come alive," Gerard hisses. He jerks his head at the stacks of paper and makes a sharp mark with his pen on the page in front of him. "They come alive at night and crawl on me, I know they do."

Patrick hooks his hand over Pete's elbow and bumps him from behind a little, getting his mouth right up by Pete's ear. "Let's get closer," he whispers. "He might need the full Pete Wentz experience."

Pete idly flips him off over his shoulder, but he gets right up in Gerard's space, leans over his shoulder and peers at the drawings on the page. "These are cool," he says, casual-like. "Are those vampire marshmallows?"

Gerard blinks, dazed, and then all of the tension dribbles out of his shoulders; he slumps, visibly, and blinks again. "I. What?"

Approximately three minutes after that, Mikey stumbles through the door, brow pinched, frowning, and says, "I feel funny."

Patrick calls Bill. Bill feels fine, but Gabe has apparently taught him to Mamba.

"We're just going to have to come out here once a week or so," Pete says once they're back on the ferry. He laces his fingers with Patrick's and yawns a little, presses the last of it to Patrick's shoulder. "If Gerard's going to insist on getting laid regularly, I mean."

"Why don't you like Brendon?" It's not what Patrick intended to say. He'd planned to make some crack about the ferry or something, but instead...

"Are you serious?"

Patrick shrugs. The air is brisk and bracing, or something, and anyway, he's curious. Usually you have to work to earn Pete's dislike, but Brendon had it the minute he stepped through the door, it seems. "It just," he says, weakly, "seems... I don't get it."

"He's." Pete makes a face, a Wentz original, and sighs. He turns and looks at the water, tugs on his bangs, and then looks back at Patrick. "You really want to know?"

Probably not. "Yeah."

"Okay," Pete says. "Well, it's--" he has a hand on Patrick's neck, suddenly, sliding around to cup the back, and he's really close, like, breath-tasting close. His eyes are huge, and really shiny, and Patrick can see all of the pores in Pete's nose and this should really not be making his heart race, but it is anyway.

"It's like this," Pete finishes, quieter than Patrick's ever heard him, and then he slides their mouths together. Pete's lips are a little chapped from the wind, and his mouth still tastes like the jerky from earlier, and he has Jersey-grit on him, but it's the best thing Patrick's ever felt or tasted or touched in his life. Like it's his birthday, his own staticky slideshow all wrapped up in shiny paper and soft hands and the sweet slide of Pete's breath over his mouth. The floor tilts wildly beneath his feet, but he expects that would've happened on dry land, too.

He lets his eyes fall shut and tries to crowd in, but they're standing side-by-side, and his elbow bumps against Pete's, so he can't get any closer. Pete just keeps kissing him, soft, dragging just the tip of his tongue over the swell of Patrick's bottom lip, his fingers lined up neatly over Patrick's spine, his mouth warm and easy under Patrick's, his thumb sweeping steadily over Patrick's knuckles, like this is a song, like he's keeping the tempo.

"Oh," Patrick says, when Pete finally pulls away. "I see." But, he doesn't.

"Nah," Pete says. He drops his hand off the railing and laces their fingers together, tugging Patrick up flush against him. "You're kind of dense sometimes."

He spends the rest of the ride with Pete warm against his chest, the air rushing cool across his back, and only his own thoughts bumping against each other in his head: Pete Pete Pete Pete Pete.

spencer.
"Spencer," Brendon says. He toes the ground and shoves his hands deep in the pockets of his jeans; it drags the denim down some, exposes a thin slice of tan hip, the suggestion of dark hair leading happier places. Spencer tries really hard not to stare.

"Brendon," he mimics, and pointedly rewinds the program he was watching.

"Do you, uh," Brendon says. He looks like he has words trapped in his mouth, which is rare. Usually they just come out, tripping over each other in their haste. "Maybe," he says, and then gets a second (or third, whatever) wind. "Dinner. Do you want to have dinner with me sometime?"

There are a lot of reasons Spencer should say no. He may or may not still have a little tiny bit of a thing for Jon Walker, and even if he doesn't, he's bad at this, bad at dating, bad at commitment and taking care of anyone who isn't Ryan, is prone to disappearing (sometimes literally) when he doesn't feel like dealing with things, hates having to explain himself, will probably have tried to strangle Brendon by the time the main course comes.

"I--" he starts, and then sighs. There are a lot of reasons Spencer should say no. "Yes," he says instead, even though there's only one reason to say it.