Geometry - Patrick Stump/Keira Knightley - PG
Geometry
Patrick Stump/Keira Knightley
PG
2788 words
Still for dreadfulrauw.
He meets her the night of the MTV Movie Awards. She and a guy who looks like a poor man’s Orlando Bloom win for best kiss and he and the guys perform. They never would have even crossed paths, but they both end up at Kanye’s after party.
“Dude,” Pete says. “I’ve never slept with a British chick.” The party’s at some club, and it’s dark with lots of blue lights and there must be a smoke machine somewhere, because there’s about six inches of fake fog covering the floor. It hides the step up to their booth so that Patrick stumbles every time he gets in and out to go to the bathroom.
“Yes you have,” Patrick replies. “You totally have.”
Pete grins. “Yeah but they all looked British.”
“So, you want to sleep with a British girl who doesn’t look British,” Patrick says, and for Pete that actually makes a certain amount of sense. Or at least it’s par for the course.
He smiles devilishly at Patrick and shoves his water bottle aside. “I need a new drink,” he announces and stands up. He takes a step toward the bar and then stops, reaching out to haul Patrick out of the booth by the wrist. “I need a wingman.”
“What?”
“You look non-threatening.”
“Jesus.”
She’s sitting at the bar with the same guy who she kissed in that movie. Patrick hadn’t really liked it when he saw it three months ago. Not that she was bad in it or anything. Just, not really his thing.
Pete walks up to her, dragging Patrick behind him. Patrick will never understand where he gets the balls, but he taps her on the shoulder, interrupting her conversation with a loud,
“Hi, I’m Pete Wentz. We just wanted to come introduce ourselves. We’re big fans.” Patrick rolls his eyes.
She looks at the guy for a moment and then turns to face them, a polite smile already in place. Patrick drops his head, embarrassed. Sometimes Pete just, like, doesn’t even understand what tact is.
“Oh, hi!” she says, and when Patrick looks up, she’s looking right at him, smiling prettily. She sort of is disconcertingly beautiful.
“Um,” he says.
“You sang tonight! You were bloody brilliant!” Patrick feels his eyebrows shoot up.
“Oh, um. Thank you. That’s really, that’s - thanks.”
“No, you were! Honestly! I was dancing and all!” She’s waving her hands around, sort of sloshing her drink. She stops suddenly and it’s dark so Patrick can’t really tell but it looks a bit like she’s blushing. “I’m,” she smiles again, a bit softer this time. “I’m Keira.” She holds out her hand and Patrick can’t think of anything better to do but take it.
“Yeah,” he says. “I’m Patrick.”
“Hullo, Patrick.”
“Hi,” he says, and he’s actually a bit amused by now. He glances at Pete, who smirks at him and bows slightly as he backs away, turning to return to their booth in the corner.
“Really, though,” Keira says, and it's obvious she hasn't even noticed Pete's departure, “you were brill. You’ve got to let me buy you a drink; I’m such a fan now! What are you having?”
Patrick shrugs. “Ginger ale?”
Keira cocks her head at him. “Do you not drink?”
He shakes his head. “Not a lot, no.” She gapes.
“Seriously? That's amazing! I am the biggest lush, it’s unbelievable!”
“She really is,” the guy says. He sounds British, too, which is weird since Patrick remembers thinking his accent sounded really fake in the movie. “She’s locked right now.”
Keira laughs loudly. “Fuck off! Patrick, this is Javier. He’s a bit touched, if you get my meaning.”
“Ta,” Javier says to her, winking. He shakes Patrick’s hand. “Good to meet you. She really was dancing. It was horrific.”
Keira laughs again. It’s a pretty nice laugh, really. “Fuck off,” she says to Javier again. He smiles again and then looks over her shoulder.
“Ah, there’s Sam.” He leans forward and they kiss each other’s cheeks. “I’m off,” he says. He nods at Patrick. “Patrick.” He gets up and pushes past them, making his way over to a tall blonde guy.
“Later,” Patrick says. He looks up again and Keira is still smiling.
“Quick,” she says, nodding at Javier’s empty stool. “Grab it before someone else gets any ideas.”
Patrick sits down next to her and taps his hands on the bar top nervously. Keira Knightley is chatting him up, he’s pretty sure of it.
“Let’s get you that ginger ale,” she says, and she leans in sort of close as she signals the bartender. Patrick grins nervously, and she smiles back.
*
They talk until three about the most random shit in the world and Patrick learns that Keira Knightley is really fucking funny. She’s sarcastic and witty and self-deprecating, and does things like put a hand on Patrick’s arm when she’s about to make fun of herself. She seems to have genuinely been impressed by the performance, and quizzes Patrick about music for a while. She has appalling taste and laughs and laughs when Patrick looks at her in horror for liking Junior Senior.
“I go to retro clubs with my mates in London!” she says, laughing. “I don’t know anything!”
“I’m making you a mix cd,” he says gravely, and she seems so honestly pleased by it, that he blushes just slightly.
He doesn’t ask for her number, and she doesn’t offer, but when Andy shows up at his shoulder to say they’re all heading out she does lean in and kiss him once, sweetly, on the corner of the mouth. Patrick goes hot while Andy gapes and Keira smiles.
*
He forgets about it, actually. They’re in the middle of a tour, they have to film two videos at once, and Pete wants to name another t-shirt after him. There are things in Patrick’s life that even Keira Knightley cannot distract him from. Besides, he says to himself, when she shows up on the cover of Vogue in some random green room a few weeks later, it was just one conversation, one night. He hears she's dating Daniel Craig, anyway. James fucking Bond, for fuck’s sake.
*
It’s another week, another show - another awesome show, actually. Patrick’s still grinning when he makes it back to the bus, flushed and sweaty and completely stoked. He really does have the best job in the world.
Joe and Andy and Pete hop on after him, and Joe leaps over to the fridge, pulling out a bottle of blue Gatorade and dumping it on his own head triumphantly, crowing all the while about how fucking rad they were. Pete cackles manically on the couch. Andy rolls his eyes and grins. It was actually Patrick’s Gatorade, so he’s kind of torn.
“Dude,” he says and Joe squirts some more Gatorade at him. “Dude,” Patrick says again, but he’s laughing a little. Joe makes to come after him with more beverages, and Patrick escapes to his bunk.
He pulls his Blackberry from his backpack and checks his messages. One from his mom, two from their manager, one from Pete, who had apparently called to ramble at him when he was sitting six feet away from him in the dressing room. And one from Keira.
“Patrick,” she says, and her voice sounds warmer, a bit deeper than it had at the crowded after party. “This is Keira. Knightley. Uh, yes, I sort of stalked your manager and got your number. Hope that’s alright and what all. I just wanted to get in touch with you so I could give you an address to send that mix cd to, right? Really, I’m so much more aware of my crap taste in music, now, and it’s just not working is it? I’m bereft, you see. Completely soulless, I need some new tunes.” She laughs a bit, and that is nearly exactly as Patrick remembers it. “Ring me back, will you? My number is 07728996874. Cheers.”
Patrick saves the message and pulls out his laptop. He opens iTunes and starts a new playlist. For K, he calls it.
*
He sends the cd off, and they text back and forth occasionally - nothing too flirty and it is not a big deal. Patrick knows this because he tells himself so constantly. Keira is a nice, funny, gorgeous, movie star girl and Patrick is her sort-of friend who has a superior taste in music. That’s all. He’s just educating her.
Then Keira goes on TRL and tells all of America and most of Fall Out Boy’s key demographic that Patrick is her celebrity crush. And then she’s on the cover of Rolling Stone and she mentions twice how she can’t stop listening to the new Fall Out Boy record. Cosmo asks her what her ideal man is and she says she likes a bloke with a sense of humour, a decent music collection, and, she says, “I’m liking them a bit rounder now, actually. Not really into that stereotypical, skinny, pretty-boy look. How dull, right?”
Pete is beside himself. Joe is stunned, and Andy is supportive in his mild Andy way. Patrick waits until he’s alone in his hotel room before he calls her. They’re in Indianapolis, two more shows until Chicago. She picks up on the second ring.
“Patrick! I’m in New York, where are you?”
“Indiana,” he says. “You’re in New York?”
“Yeah, shopping trip with me mum. Are you - do you have a concert or something?”
He nods for a second before he realizes she can’t see him. “Yeah, um. Tonight, actually.”
“Exciting!” Keira exclaims and Patrick laughs.
“Yeah,” he says. “Yeah, it is.” There’s a pause, a slightly awkward silence and Patrick clenches his right hand into a fist and decides, fuck it.
“So,” he says. “You - I mean. You like rounder guys?”
Keira laughs, but it sounds friendly, not mean. “I’m really fucking bad at subtlety, eh? Though my brother made a wager with me you wouldn’t see the Cosmo thing.”
“Oh,” Patrick shrugs. He’s grinning hugely. “Pete reads Cosmo. He sort clipped the article out. It’s taped to the fridge on the bus.” Keira laughs again. “Look,” Patrick says before he can stop himself. “I don’t know what your schedule’s like for the next week, but we’re playing in Chicago in three days, and we’re, like, from there? I dunno, I mean. Chicago shows are usually the best and I could take you to this pizza place before and --”
“I’d love to,” Keira cuts in. “I - I’ll book a ticket tonight.”
Patrick stops. He’s been pacing he realizes. “Yeah? That’s -- awesome. Seriously, the pizza’s really good, you won’t be disappointed.”
Keira giggles and says she’ll ring him and leave him a message with the details that night. “I’ve never been to Chicago.”
“Careful,” Patrick grins. “You might fall in love.” There’s a nervous laugh on the other end of the line and he quickly back peddles. “With the city!” he says. “You might fall in love with Chicago.”
“That grand, eh?”
“It’s the best place in the world.”
“Well, hold on, you haven’t let me show you London yet.”
They talk for another hour, making lists of all the reasons why their cities are greater and better than the other’s. Finally Keira says she has to feed her mum and Patrick is ten minutes late for soundcheck anyway. She promises to call again to give him her flight details and when they hang up Patrick is thinking that three days is a really, really long time.
*
He picks her up from the airport before he even goes to see his mother. She could only make it for the night; her flight back to New York to start filming a new movie is at five the next morning. He takes the long way back through the city, pointing out different landmarks and telling different stories from his life there.
“Fantastic,” she keeps saying, and Patrick knows he’s completely smitten.
The show is phenomenal - Chicago shows always are - and Patrick is buzzing with it when they leave the stage. He looks over a few times during the night to see Keira jumping up and down and singing along to all the words with his brother, and it makes him smile into his mic and grip his guitar harder.
“Fucking brilliant!” she yells at him as he’s taking his guitar off and passing it over to the tech. He’s disgusting, covered in sweat and he smells, but she launches herself at him anyway, batting his hat away and getting her arms around his neck as she kisses him. She’s taller than him, and he has to tilt up a bit, but he gets it after a second, his hands settling on her back.
They break apart and he looks at her wide-eyed. Keira just hugs him tighter and presses a series of kisses to his check. “Oh my god!” she yells into his ear. “I don’t want to leave!”
Patrick hugs her back, dazed. He still has to do an encore.
*
PerezHilton.com publishes photos of them saying goodbye at O’Hare, and Keira’s publicist says her client isn’t in the habit of commenting on her personal life.
“Fuck that!” Pete crows and writes a blog about how Patrick’s been really influenced by British pop lately.
“Jesus, Pete,” Patrick says, but he’s too fucking happy to really care.
Keira somehow convinces him to come to a movie premier with her. “It’s not even mine, so it’s not like we’ll really have to stay all that long,” she says and Patrick aggress and buys a ticket to London. She had stayed at a hotel when she was in Chicago, but when Patrick asks her about places in the area she says there’s no need, her bed’s plenty big enough.
They go to the premier. Keira looks stunning and she holds his hand on the red carpet and whispers cutting, witty things in his ear about all the other British actors there.
“Drunk,” she says, pointing at one. “Cunt,” she says, pointing at another. Judi Dench walks by and, “Slag,” says Keira. They both crack up. She grabs his arm. “Seriously, though, I’m obsessed with her.” Patrick can’t help it, he kisses her chin. She’s even worn flats for him.
*
Her apartment really isn’t all that huge. “All I wanted,” she explains, “was a small place with big windows.”
They wander through, and she’s in the middle of trying to hide her hideous cd collection when Patrick pulls her back by the hand and kisses her in her living room. It’s quieter than the kiss at the Chicago show, but it’s gets deeper quickly. Keira curls her fingers in the collar of his white button down shirt and he holds one hand against the small of her back, the other high up on her rib cage.
“Patrick,” she says quietly against his mouth when they pull apart, and Patrick smiles at her. She takes his hand wordlessly and leads him to the bedroom.
*
It’s a patchwork quilt of stolen time together after that. Keira loves acting, says she’s addicted to it like other people need cocaine and booze, and Patrick just isn’t Patrick unless he’s playing or writing or producing. Somehow, though, it gets to the point where Patrick’s mom sends Keira a birthday present and the doorman at Keira’s place recognizes Patrick when he’s in town. Suddenly, it’s a year later and they make it onto VH1’s list of top forty most unlikely celebrity couples.
“Ugh,” Keira says. She’s sitting on Patrick’s bed at the LA house, wearing one of his shirts and nothing else, which Patrick thinks is criminally unfair. He has to go into the studio and concentrate in an hour. “What the fuck do they know?”
Patrick stretches out next to her, palms her thigh. “It’s just shocking to people that you’d ever end up with a guy like me.” She snorts.
"Guy like you - what does that even mean?” She wrinkles her nose. “If only they knew the truth! That I practically threw myself at you, had to resort to hidden messages in fucking magazine articles to get you to notice me -"
Patrick laughs. “I noticed you! I noticed you that first night!”
“Yes, and you thought, ‘Oh what a nerd, the poor dear.’”
He shakes his head, smiling. “You’re crazy.”
“Hmmm,” Keira hums. She slithers down until she’s lying beside him, right up against him, and throws one leg over his hips. “They don’t know shite,” she says lowly, leaning in to kiss him.
“No,” Patrick says, kissing her back. “They really don’t.”
End.
Author's Note: I posted this story ages ago in my old journal, ninjajab. When I deleted that journal, the story got deleted along with it, and I honestly thought nothing of it, as I'm not really all that involved with FBR fandom any longer. But some people were asking for it, so I thought I'd re-post. Thanks again to everyone who read in the first place, all the comments meant a lot and made me feel so welcomed in fandom.
Patrick Stump/Keira Knightley
PG
2788 words
Still for dreadfulrauw.
He meets her the night of the MTV Movie Awards. She and a guy who looks like a poor man’s Orlando Bloom win for best kiss and he and the guys perform. They never would have even crossed paths, but they both end up at Kanye’s after party.
“Dude,” Pete says. “I’ve never slept with a British chick.” The party’s at some club, and it’s dark with lots of blue lights and there must be a smoke machine somewhere, because there’s about six inches of fake fog covering the floor. It hides the step up to their booth so that Patrick stumbles every time he gets in and out to go to the bathroom.
“Yes you have,” Patrick replies. “You totally have.”
Pete grins. “Yeah but they all looked British.”
“So, you want to sleep with a British girl who doesn’t look British,” Patrick says, and for Pete that actually makes a certain amount of sense. Or at least it’s par for the course.
He smiles devilishly at Patrick and shoves his water bottle aside. “I need a new drink,” he announces and stands up. He takes a step toward the bar and then stops, reaching out to haul Patrick out of the booth by the wrist. “I need a wingman.”
“What?”
“You look non-threatening.”
“Jesus.”
She’s sitting at the bar with the same guy who she kissed in that movie. Patrick hadn’t really liked it when he saw it three months ago. Not that she was bad in it or anything. Just, not really his thing.
Pete walks up to her, dragging Patrick behind him. Patrick will never understand where he gets the balls, but he taps her on the shoulder, interrupting her conversation with a loud,
“Hi, I’m Pete Wentz. We just wanted to come introduce ourselves. We’re big fans.” Patrick rolls his eyes.
She looks at the guy for a moment and then turns to face them, a polite smile already in place. Patrick drops his head, embarrassed. Sometimes Pete just, like, doesn’t even understand what tact is.
“Oh, hi!” she says, and when Patrick looks up, she’s looking right at him, smiling prettily. She sort of is disconcertingly beautiful.
“Um,” he says.
“You sang tonight! You were bloody brilliant!” Patrick feels his eyebrows shoot up.
“Oh, um. Thank you. That’s really, that’s - thanks.”
“No, you were! Honestly! I was dancing and all!” She’s waving her hands around, sort of sloshing her drink. She stops suddenly and it’s dark so Patrick can’t really tell but it looks a bit like she’s blushing. “I’m,” she smiles again, a bit softer this time. “I’m Keira.” She holds out her hand and Patrick can’t think of anything better to do but take it.
“Yeah,” he says. “I’m Patrick.”
“Hullo, Patrick.”
“Hi,” he says, and he’s actually a bit amused by now. He glances at Pete, who smirks at him and bows slightly as he backs away, turning to return to their booth in the corner.
“Really, though,” Keira says, and it's obvious she hasn't even noticed Pete's departure, “you were brill. You’ve got to let me buy you a drink; I’m such a fan now! What are you having?”
Patrick shrugs. “Ginger ale?”
Keira cocks her head at him. “Do you not drink?”
He shakes his head. “Not a lot, no.” She gapes.
“Seriously? That's amazing! I am the biggest lush, it’s unbelievable!”
“She really is,” the guy says. He sounds British, too, which is weird since Patrick remembers thinking his accent sounded really fake in the movie. “She’s locked right now.”
Keira laughs loudly. “Fuck off! Patrick, this is Javier. He’s a bit touched, if you get my meaning.”
“Ta,” Javier says to her, winking. He shakes Patrick’s hand. “Good to meet you. She really was dancing. It was horrific.”
Keira laughs again. It’s a pretty nice laugh, really. “Fuck off,” she says to Javier again. He smiles again and then looks over her shoulder.
“Ah, there’s Sam.” He leans forward and they kiss each other’s cheeks. “I’m off,” he says. He nods at Patrick. “Patrick.” He gets up and pushes past them, making his way over to a tall blonde guy.
“Later,” Patrick says. He looks up again and Keira is still smiling.
“Quick,” she says, nodding at Javier’s empty stool. “Grab it before someone else gets any ideas.”
Patrick sits down next to her and taps his hands on the bar top nervously. Keira Knightley is chatting him up, he’s pretty sure of it.
“Let’s get you that ginger ale,” she says, and she leans in sort of close as she signals the bartender. Patrick grins nervously, and she smiles back.
*
They talk until three about the most random shit in the world and Patrick learns that Keira Knightley is really fucking funny. She’s sarcastic and witty and self-deprecating, and does things like put a hand on Patrick’s arm when she’s about to make fun of herself. She seems to have genuinely been impressed by the performance, and quizzes Patrick about music for a while. She has appalling taste and laughs and laughs when Patrick looks at her in horror for liking Junior Senior.
“I go to retro clubs with my mates in London!” she says, laughing. “I don’t know anything!”
“I’m making you a mix cd,” he says gravely, and she seems so honestly pleased by it, that he blushes just slightly.
He doesn’t ask for her number, and she doesn’t offer, but when Andy shows up at his shoulder to say they’re all heading out she does lean in and kiss him once, sweetly, on the corner of the mouth. Patrick goes hot while Andy gapes and Keira smiles.
*
He forgets about it, actually. They’re in the middle of a tour, they have to film two videos at once, and Pete wants to name another t-shirt after him. There are things in Patrick’s life that even Keira Knightley cannot distract him from. Besides, he says to himself, when she shows up on the cover of Vogue in some random green room a few weeks later, it was just one conversation, one night. He hears she's dating Daniel Craig, anyway. James fucking Bond, for fuck’s sake.
*
It’s another week, another show - another awesome show, actually. Patrick’s still grinning when he makes it back to the bus, flushed and sweaty and completely stoked. He really does have the best job in the world.
Joe and Andy and Pete hop on after him, and Joe leaps over to the fridge, pulling out a bottle of blue Gatorade and dumping it on his own head triumphantly, crowing all the while about how fucking rad they were. Pete cackles manically on the couch. Andy rolls his eyes and grins. It was actually Patrick’s Gatorade, so he’s kind of torn.
“Dude,” he says and Joe squirts some more Gatorade at him. “Dude,” Patrick says again, but he’s laughing a little. Joe makes to come after him with more beverages, and Patrick escapes to his bunk.
He pulls his Blackberry from his backpack and checks his messages. One from his mom, two from their manager, one from Pete, who had apparently called to ramble at him when he was sitting six feet away from him in the dressing room. And one from Keira.
“Patrick,” she says, and her voice sounds warmer, a bit deeper than it had at the crowded after party. “This is Keira. Knightley. Uh, yes, I sort of stalked your manager and got your number. Hope that’s alright and what all. I just wanted to get in touch with you so I could give you an address to send that mix cd to, right? Really, I’m so much more aware of my crap taste in music, now, and it’s just not working is it? I’m bereft, you see. Completely soulless, I need some new tunes.” She laughs a bit, and that is nearly exactly as Patrick remembers it. “Ring me back, will you? My number is 07728996874. Cheers.”
Patrick saves the message and pulls out his laptop. He opens iTunes and starts a new playlist. For K, he calls it.
*
He sends the cd off, and they text back and forth occasionally - nothing too flirty and it is not a big deal. Patrick knows this because he tells himself so constantly. Keira is a nice, funny, gorgeous, movie star girl and Patrick is her sort-of friend who has a superior taste in music. That’s all. He’s just educating her.
Then Keira goes on TRL and tells all of America and most of Fall Out Boy’s key demographic that Patrick is her celebrity crush. And then she’s on the cover of Rolling Stone and she mentions twice how she can’t stop listening to the new Fall Out Boy record. Cosmo asks her what her ideal man is and she says she likes a bloke with a sense of humour, a decent music collection, and, she says, “I’m liking them a bit rounder now, actually. Not really into that stereotypical, skinny, pretty-boy look. How dull, right?”
Pete is beside himself. Joe is stunned, and Andy is supportive in his mild Andy way. Patrick waits until he’s alone in his hotel room before he calls her. They’re in Indianapolis, two more shows until Chicago. She picks up on the second ring.
“Patrick! I’m in New York, where are you?”
“Indiana,” he says. “You’re in New York?”
“Yeah, shopping trip with me mum. Are you - do you have a concert or something?”
He nods for a second before he realizes she can’t see him. “Yeah, um. Tonight, actually.”
“Exciting!” Keira exclaims and Patrick laughs.
“Yeah,” he says. “Yeah, it is.” There’s a pause, a slightly awkward silence and Patrick clenches his right hand into a fist and decides, fuck it.
“So,” he says. “You - I mean. You like rounder guys?”
Keira laughs, but it sounds friendly, not mean. “I’m really fucking bad at subtlety, eh? Though my brother made a wager with me you wouldn’t see the Cosmo thing.”
“Oh,” Patrick shrugs. He’s grinning hugely. “Pete reads Cosmo. He sort clipped the article out. It’s taped to the fridge on the bus.” Keira laughs again. “Look,” Patrick says before he can stop himself. “I don’t know what your schedule’s like for the next week, but we’re playing in Chicago in three days, and we’re, like, from there? I dunno, I mean. Chicago shows are usually the best and I could take you to this pizza place before and --”
“I’d love to,” Keira cuts in. “I - I’ll book a ticket tonight.”
Patrick stops. He’s been pacing he realizes. “Yeah? That’s -- awesome. Seriously, the pizza’s really good, you won’t be disappointed.”
Keira giggles and says she’ll ring him and leave him a message with the details that night. “I’ve never been to Chicago.”
“Careful,” Patrick grins. “You might fall in love.” There’s a nervous laugh on the other end of the line and he quickly back peddles. “With the city!” he says. “You might fall in love with Chicago.”
“That grand, eh?”
“It’s the best place in the world.”
“Well, hold on, you haven’t let me show you London yet.”
They talk for another hour, making lists of all the reasons why their cities are greater and better than the other’s. Finally Keira says she has to feed her mum and Patrick is ten minutes late for soundcheck anyway. She promises to call again to give him her flight details and when they hang up Patrick is thinking that three days is a really, really long time.
*
He picks her up from the airport before he even goes to see his mother. She could only make it for the night; her flight back to New York to start filming a new movie is at five the next morning. He takes the long way back through the city, pointing out different landmarks and telling different stories from his life there.
“Fantastic,” she keeps saying, and Patrick knows he’s completely smitten.
The show is phenomenal - Chicago shows always are - and Patrick is buzzing with it when they leave the stage. He looks over a few times during the night to see Keira jumping up and down and singing along to all the words with his brother, and it makes him smile into his mic and grip his guitar harder.
“Fucking brilliant!” she yells at him as he’s taking his guitar off and passing it over to the tech. He’s disgusting, covered in sweat and he smells, but she launches herself at him anyway, batting his hat away and getting her arms around his neck as she kisses him. She’s taller than him, and he has to tilt up a bit, but he gets it after a second, his hands settling on her back.
They break apart and he looks at her wide-eyed. Keira just hugs him tighter and presses a series of kisses to his check. “Oh my god!” she yells into his ear. “I don’t want to leave!”
Patrick hugs her back, dazed. He still has to do an encore.
*
PerezHilton.com publishes photos of them saying goodbye at O’Hare, and Keira’s publicist says her client isn’t in the habit of commenting on her personal life.
“Fuck that!” Pete crows and writes a blog about how Patrick’s been really influenced by British pop lately.
“Jesus, Pete,” Patrick says, but he’s too fucking happy to really care.
Keira somehow convinces him to come to a movie premier with her. “It’s not even mine, so it’s not like we’ll really have to stay all that long,” she says and Patrick aggress and buys a ticket to London. She had stayed at a hotel when she was in Chicago, but when Patrick asks her about places in the area she says there’s no need, her bed’s plenty big enough.
They go to the premier. Keira looks stunning and she holds his hand on the red carpet and whispers cutting, witty things in his ear about all the other British actors there.
“Drunk,” she says, pointing at one. “Cunt,” she says, pointing at another. Judi Dench walks by and, “Slag,” says Keira. They both crack up. She grabs his arm. “Seriously, though, I’m obsessed with her.” Patrick can’t help it, he kisses her chin. She’s even worn flats for him.
*
Her apartment really isn’t all that huge. “All I wanted,” she explains, “was a small place with big windows.”
They wander through, and she’s in the middle of trying to hide her hideous cd collection when Patrick pulls her back by the hand and kisses her in her living room. It’s quieter than the kiss at the Chicago show, but it’s gets deeper quickly. Keira curls her fingers in the collar of his white button down shirt and he holds one hand against the small of her back, the other high up on her rib cage.
“Patrick,” she says quietly against his mouth when they pull apart, and Patrick smiles at her. She takes his hand wordlessly and leads him to the bedroom.
*
It’s a patchwork quilt of stolen time together after that. Keira loves acting, says she’s addicted to it like other people need cocaine and booze, and Patrick just isn’t Patrick unless he’s playing or writing or producing. Somehow, though, it gets to the point where Patrick’s mom sends Keira a birthday present and the doorman at Keira’s place recognizes Patrick when he’s in town. Suddenly, it’s a year later and they make it onto VH1’s list of top forty most unlikely celebrity couples.
“Ugh,” Keira says. She’s sitting on Patrick’s bed at the LA house, wearing one of his shirts and nothing else, which Patrick thinks is criminally unfair. He has to go into the studio and concentrate in an hour. “What the fuck do they know?”
Patrick stretches out next to her, palms her thigh. “It’s just shocking to people that you’d ever end up with a guy like me.” She snorts.
"Guy like you - what does that even mean?” She wrinkles her nose. “If only they knew the truth! That I practically threw myself at you, had to resort to hidden messages in fucking magazine articles to get you to notice me -"
Patrick laughs. “I noticed you! I noticed you that first night!”
“Yes, and you thought, ‘Oh what a nerd, the poor dear.’”
He shakes his head, smiling. “You’re crazy.”
“Hmmm,” Keira hums. She slithers down until she’s lying beside him, right up against him, and throws one leg over his hips. “They don’t know shite,” she says lowly, leaning in to kiss him.
“No,” Patrick says, kissing her back. “They really don’t.”
End.
Author's Note: I posted this story ages ago in my old journal, ninjajab. When I deleted that journal, the story got deleted along with it, and I honestly thought nothing of it, as I'm not really all that involved with FBR fandom any longer. But some people were asking for it, so I thought I'd re-post. Thanks again to everyone who read in the first place, all the comments meant a lot and made me feel so welcomed in fandom.