Not!Fic: Smells Like Turpentine (various pairings)
So, a couple of days back I said I'd come across a bunch of ficlets I was pretty sure I hadn't posted before. Things I wrote for my own amusement, or for the amusement of friends, or as writing exercises. And I figured I'd post them in case anyone wanted to read them, and also so I have them up somewhere, I guess. Anyways, here's one of them:
Title:Smells Like Turpentine (looks like Indian ink)
Pairings: Pete/Patrick, Brendon/Spencer, Cash/Deleon, Ryan/Jon, AAR GSF.
Rating: PG
Summary: 5 times band boys attempts at using love potions backfire
Warning: Even though it probably sounds dodgy, there's no dubcon or anything.
A/N: Unbetaed. Just something I wrote for the hell of it.
There’s a place down on 34th and Vine that sells it. No one really knows who first heard about it- it’s mentioned in whispers, easy enough to find out about if you really want to know. Everyone says they know someone who went there, how it was magical, changed their lives. No one who hears about it really believes it, but a lot want to.
It’s not even a shop. Madame Rue sells the stuff out of her spare room, tiny bottles of black liquid, only $39.99 plus tax.
~~~
Pete/Patrick
“Pete?” Patrick asks, wandering in. Pete is curled up with Hemmy lying across his feet, laptop next to him, writing in his blog.
“Yeah?” Pete glances up from the screen and then tries not to look guilty when he spots the tiny bottle in Patrick’s hands. He turns back to the computer, types a couple of words, and idly wonders what the Shift key does.
“What’s this?” Patrick asks. His voice is that quiet calm he saves especially for Pete, when Pete’s pissed him off or done something stupid or is about to do one of those things.
Pete looks up quickly, not looking at the bottle. “I don’t know,” he lies.
Patrick narrows his eyes.
“Um,” Pete says. He shifts uncomfortably and Hemmy lifts his head. He gives Pete a ‘you’re on your own, buddy’ look and pushes himself up. Pete watches him jump to the ground and pad towards the kitchen, abandoning him.
“Because to me,” Patrick picks up Pete’s laptop and sticks it on the coffee table to make Pete stop looking at it, “it looks like a Love Potion.”
“It could be something else,” Pete points out.
Patrick turns the bottle to face him and points at the label, which clearly says ‘Love Potion #9’.
“Oh,” Pete says. “Damn. Look, I can explain.”
“Your explanation better include details of whoever it is you wanted to use this on. I’m talking full name and address and rough outline of their daily routine so I can lay in wait and get rid of them.”
Pete stares at Patrick. Patrick looks mad. Pete’s not seen him this mad in years, and it takes Pete a moment to click.
“Wait,” he says, reaching out and grabbing at both the bottle and Patrick’s hand. Patrick resists for a moment, then lets Pete pull him down onto the sofa beside him. Pete loses grip on Patrick’s hand, but keeps hold of the incriminating bottle. “You thought I was going to use this on someone else? To make them fall in love with me? Seriously?”
Patrick frowns. “Why else would you have it?” he demands.
“For you!” Pete exclaims and Patrick’s expression changes from annoyance to frustration. It’s a subtle difference, but Pete has spent every moment he could spare memorising everything about Patrick, so he sees it straight away.
“For me,” Patrick repeats. “I don’t-”
“I just…” Pete trails off. He hopes it’s cute enough that Patrick might not need an explanation, but when he looks up through his lashes, Patrick is still frowning. “It was just in case,” he finishes lamely.
“Just in case what?” Patrick asks. His tone is clipped, and he’s getting mad again, so Pete grabs Patrick’s hand.
“I really, really love you,” he says, and Patrick sighs.
“I know, Pete, really I do, I just don’t-”
“And you love me,” Pete hurries on. “I just…what if one day you don’t love me anymore.”
“Oh,” Patrick says, and Pete looks away. Patrick’s hand is warm in his, calloused fingers pressed against his palm for a moment, and then they’re tugging him closer.
Patrick puts his arm round Pete’s neck and pulls him in for an awkward hug. Pete tries to move, to get his legs out from under him, but it just makes it worse and he goes still.
“You’re a fucking idiot,” Patrick says, and Pete nods, because it’s not like this is news to him. Sometimes he really is. “You can’t make me stay in love with you,” he carries on, and Pete wants to pull away, wants to hide so this conversation never happens, but Patrick’s grip on him is pretty tight.
Patrick waits until Pete stops struggling. “You can’t do that, no one can. You wouldn’t want that anyways, right? For me to love you, but for it to be forced?”
A tiny part of Pete thinks he probably wouldn’t care, as long as he always had Patrick, but mostly he thinks that Patrick probably wouldn’t like that, which means Pete really wouldn’t either.
“No,” he says, miserably. “I’m sorry, I just, I thought-”
“The fucked up thing,” Patrick says, pressing a kiss to the side of Pete’s head, “is that I’m really fucking touched by this.”
“You will be,” Pete leers, and Patrick rolls his eyes and lets Pete go. Pete sits up and rubs his neck, even though it hadn’t hurt at all.
“I’m sorry I’m a freak,” Pete says and Patrick laughs.
“You’re not a freak,” he says. “That was…almost sweet. Almost romantic. What the fuck am I saying?”
“That you love me?” Pete asks, hopefully, inching closer and Patrick smiles.
“Yeah, he says, and lets Pete snuggle against him. “Yeah, I do. And you know what? You don’t need a love potion to keep me loving you.”
“Oh yeah?” Pete asks, glancing at the tiny bottle that had seemed so important at the time. He chucks it across to a nearby armchair, where it disappears amongst a pile of brightly coloured cushions.
Patrick nods. “Yeah. You’ve just gotta keep being you,” he says. “That should do it.”
Pete presses his lips to Patrick’s neck once, twice, then rests his face there and smiles. “I think I can do that,” he says, and reaches up to feel the vibrations in Patrick’s throat when he laughs.
~~~
Brendon/Spencer
“I don’t care,” Brendon says. “I followed the instructions! I did everything you said. And it hasn’t worked…no…no…that’s not fair!”
Brendon sometimes hates phones. He hates people not being able to fully appreciate the weight of his best glare, which is currently being aimed at one of the cupboard doors in the kitchenette.
“I’m just saying,” Brendon continues, “is that if you’re gonna guarantee success, then I’m pretty sure I’m entitled to, you know, success!”
He glares at the cupboard door again as the voice on the other end of the phone says “I’m sorry there’s nothing I can do. You must wait, be patient.”
Brendon takes a deep breath, tries to be patient, and then says “Screw you,” about two seconds after he’s hung up the phone, because he’s not actually an asshole.
“What’s up?” Spencer asks, and Brendon jumps, dropping his cell.
“Nothing!” he says, too brightly, dropping to his knees and scrabbling at the floor for his phone. Spencer walks over, stops in front of him, and Brendon looks up.
He swallows hard, despite himself. There’s something about the view of Spencer from his knees that does things to Brendon. He wants to reach out and cup the line of Spencer’s dick, pressed against the denim. If the potion had worked, maybe he’d be able to. But it hadn’t worked. He’d wasted his money. And so instead he reaches out and hooks two fingers into one of Spencer’s beltloops and uses them to pull himself to his feet.
Spencer rolls his eyes and grabs the waistband of his jeans to keep them in place, the other grabbing Brendon’s wrist.
“Seriously,” he says. “Who were you yelling at.”
“I wasn’t yelling,” Brendon denies, trying to untangle his fingers from Spencer’s beltloop. It’s difficult, when he’s standing so close, close enough to kiss, except he can’t do it.
He thinks about dosing Spencer’s morning coffee, and his lunchtime vanilla coke, and his nightcap shot of Jagermeister, and how it hadn’t worked. Spencer just looked at Brendon, spoken to Brendon, smiled at Brendon, like he always did. He touched Brendon, and was willing to be touched by Brendon, pretty much exactly the same amount as he always did (not that Brendon had ever quantified things like that in his mind or anything). And it was frustrating.
Brendon gets his hand free, shakes off Spencer’s fingers, still around his wrist, and goes to curl up by the window. He watches the trees fly by outside the bus and doesn’t look at Spencer until Spencer sits opposite him, bottle of water in his hand. Brendon considers somehow slipping some potion into the bottle- he’s sure he could create enough of a distraction if he had to- but the potion is pretty black and foul looking and Spencer would just make a face and get a fresh bottle.
“What didn’t work?” Spencer asks, and Brendon shrugs.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he says, and Spencer frowns.
“Brendon,” Spencer says. “Tell me. I’m worried about you.”
Brendon’s stomach flips a little. Spencer’s using that cajoling voice that makes Brendon want to do whatever Spencer asks.
“Nothing,” Brendon says again, but he can feel himself wavering.
“Bren,” Spencer says, and reaches out a hand towards him. Brendon doesn’t reach back, but it makes him sigh.
“I bought a love potion,” he says. “Okay? And it didn’t work.”
Brendon watches as Spencer’s fingers curl in until his hand is a fist and he slowly pulls his hand back across the table. Spencer fiddles with the lid of his water bottle and Brendon wishes he hadn’t said anything.
“Oh,” Spencer says eventually. “I’m. I’m sorry.”
He doesn’t sound sorry, and Brendon doesn’t blame him. He’s probably creeped out. It makes Brendon feel a little sick.
“Was it, uh, for anyone I know?” Spencer asks, not meeting Brendon’s gaze, and Brendon laughs a little when he realises Spencer doesn’t know it was for him.
“Yeah,” Brendon says. “You know them really well.”
Spencer looks kind of pale. “Brendon, look, if you and Ryan want to-”
Brendon grins. “Ryan? Ha! No, I’m not in love with Ryan.”
Spencer looks relieved, and Brendon’s breath catches in his throat. It’s a tiny thread of hope, the possibility that Spencer might have had a flicker of jealousy, thinking of Brendon liking Ryan.
“Jon?” Spencer asks. “Or. Oh. Singer?”
Brendon laughs again. “Oh. No, haha, definitely not.”
“Okay,” Spencer shrugs, not looking convinced by Brendon’s denials. “You don’t have to tell me, it’s okay. I’m sorry the potion didn’t work though.”
He looks away and Brendon licks his lips nervously. “It was you,” he blurts out, without thinking and Spencer’s head snaps round to stare at him.
Brendon giggles nervously. “Uh, is you, I mean,” he says. “The potion. It was for you. I gave you some and I know that’s probably really creepy but I just…I don’t know why. It seemed a good idea at the time? But it didn’t work, because, I mean, obviously,” he finishes, waving a hand back and forth between them.
Spencer stares at him. “You’ve been feeding me love potion?” he repeats, sounding horrified.
“No,” Brendon corrects. “Adding it to beverages. No feeding, drinking!”
Spencer makes a face. “Do you even know what’s in it? God, there could be anything in there.”
“It’s all natural!” Brendon insists, fishing the bottle out of his pocket and sliding it across the tabletop. The dark liquid swishes inside and Spencer makes a face, but picks it up.
He reads the label, squinting at it, then puts it back down on the table.
“That’s gross,” Spencer says. Brendon doesn’t know if he means the potion itself, or dosing him with it, but Brendon figures Spencer has a point either way.
“Sorry,” Brendon mutters, staring at the gold writing on the label and carefully avoiding looking at Spencer.
“Do you think,” Spencer says slowly, “that maybe the reason it doesn’t seem to have worked is because it’s just a cheap imitation of love?”
“Maybe,” Brendon agrees quietly.
“And maybe in the presence of actual love, real ‘I’d do anything for you, you make me complete, you make every day better by your presence’ type love, it can’t have an effect because it’s so much less?”
Brendon looks up slowly. “Um,” he says. “Do you. I don’t get what you mean.”
Spencer sighs and rolls his eyes and Brendon can’t help but smile. “I’m saying that of course it didn’t work on me, you idiot, because I’m already in love with you.”
“Really?” Brendon squeaks.
Spencer nods. “More than anything,” he says, and then blushes.
“Aww,” Brendon says, and Spencer glares.
“Shut up,” he says, and Brendon scrambles out of his seat and into Spencer’s.
“Hi,” he says, and Spencer laughs and kisses him.
Brendon tries to remember to phone back and apologise for being rude and saying the potion didn’t work. It’s not his fault that Spencer is really good at filling up his thoughts and erasing things like that from memory with all the mind blowing sex they end up having.
~~~
Cash/Alex
“I swear, it totally works,” Brendon says, and Alex believes him because, well, to be honest if Brendon insisted the sky was green and the Sun revolved around the Earth, Alex would probably believe him because it was Brendon. But also he wanted to believe it.
The next time they’re in the city, he stops buy and forks over the money. He knows Marshall would kick his ass if he found out- after all, it’s forty bucks they should probably use for gas money, but Alex rationalises that they’re freaking rock stars (or, they will be, one day) so what’s a few dollars?
He waits until after the show. It’s a motel night, which suits Alex perfectly. He claims a room for him and Cash- not an unusual occurrence- and ignores the familiar surge of sadness when Cash waggles his eyebrows and asks if tonight’s the night Alex is going to deflower him. Because tonight is the night that Cash will finally look at Alex and tell him he loves him. And that’s all Alex wants, really. For Cash to love him back, love him as much, even if only for a brief moment until the potion wears off.
“I’m going out for a cigarette,” Cash announces, moments after they step into their room, and Alex wrinkles his nose in distaste. He doesn’t want Cash to taste like an ashtray when Alex kisses him later (a kiss, that’s all he’s going to take. He’s not some creep who’s going to force an enchanted Cash to have sex with him or anything, but one solitary kiss surely can’t hurt), but it gives him time to concoct his plan.
“Okay,” he says, and watches Cash leave. Then he pulls two cans of Red Bull out of his bag. He pops the tabs, making sure to twist the tab on his can to the side, so he doesn’t accidentally end up dosing himself. William had told him once that that’s what happened to Gabe, and it had never worn off.
Alex fishes the tiny bottle out of his pocket and carefully pours in a couple of drops, as instructed. He hesitates, then adds a couple more, humming to himself as he does so. Then he picks the can up and sniffs it- it doesn’t smell weird or anything, so he puts it down and turns to head to the bathroom, to make sure his hair looks okay.
Cash is standing in the doorway.
Alex jumps. “Fuck,” he says. “You almost gave me a heart attack. This tour would suck if you put your lead singer in hospital or something.”
Cash is giving Alex a strange look. “I forgot my lighter,” he explains, and crosses the room. “Oh hey, this for me?” He reaches for Alex’s Red Bull and Alex hurries over and snatches it away before he can grab it.
“That’s mine,” he says. “Uh, you don’t want to drink my backwash, do you?”
Cash frowns a little, like he’s a little suspicious, then smiles and takes the other can. He downs it, and Alex watches Cash’s throat work as he swallows, and tries not to lick his lips in anticipation.
Cash makes a refreshed ‘aaah’ noise and sets the can down. Then he closes his eyes and opens them again.
“Uh,” he says, reaching out and grasping Alex’s shoulder. “I think I need to sit down. I feel kinda weird.”
Alex’s stomach flipflops.
“Are you okay?” he asks, worried, and Cash stumbles towards the bed and sits down. Alex is starting to panic. What if he’d accidentally poisoned Cash, instead of dosing him with potion?
“I’m alright,” Cash says, and gives Alex a bright smile. “But I’d be better if you were closer.”
Alex can’t help but smile back. It’s a relieved smile, and hopeful too, when Cash grabs his hand and pulls him down beside him.
“Alex,” Cash says, and it makes Alex shiver. Cash never calls him by his first name. It’s a never ending stream of Singer’s and Deleon’s and Asshat’s and Dude’s, so it’s unusual enough that Alex let’s himself be turned on a little by it, wonders if Cash would say his name like that if Alex was blowing him. Not that that’s going to happen, because that’s not what Alex wants at all.
“Your eyes,” Cash says, staring at Alex dreamily. “They’re like two pools of…of awesome,” he sighs, and Alex laughs nervously.
“And your hair,” Cash reaches out and slides his hand into Alex’s curls. “I could drown in those curls, you know. Can I…I bet you smell really good. Do you mind if I…”
Alex shakes his head and Cash leans in, pressing his nose under Alex’s ear and breathing in.
“Fuck, Alex,” Cash says, and slides his hand up Alex’s thigh. It makes Alex squirm a little, at how right it feels, and yet how wrong it is. “Alex, I…shit, I love you, baby,” Cash continues and it’s what Alex had wanted, what he’d wanted to hear, but it doesn’t sound right. Doesn’t sound like Cash.
“No you don’t,” Alex says, shoving Cash away.
“I do,” Cash says earnestly, nodding his head. He moves closer and Alex scrambles up the bed, away from him. Cash follows. “I love you so much, Alex,” Cash says. “I want to spend forever with you. I’d die for you, Alex. I’d do anything you wanted me to. Anything.”
Alex stares at him miserably. This wasn’t what he wanted, not at all. Cash’s smile is too big, too fake, his tone is too serious, words too overblown for it to really be Cash.
“Anything,” Cash repeats, and climbs into Alex’s lap. He leans in and kisses Alex, and for the briefest of moments Alex lets himself sink into it. And then Cash’s hand slides down and gropes him through his jeans.
“No,” Alex pushes Cash away and gets up. He leaves Cash sprawled across the bed, looking wanton and hot and like everything Alex wants and yet nothing like Cash at all.
“You don’t love me,” Alex tells him. “I did…I did something awful. There’s the love potion. And I put some in your drink. That’s why you want to say those things, do those things. It’s not real. And I didn’t want this, Cash. Really I didn’t. I just wanted you to feel the same way I feel about you. Just for a moment. Just so I could know what it felt like to have you love me back. I didn’t…this is wrong and creepy and not how this was supposed to go.”
Cash is just staring at him, and Alex doesn’t know what to do.
“I’m going to go and sleep in Ian and Johnson’s room,” Alex says, and heads for the door, not even bothering to grab his bag. He just wants out, away from this Cash, and he plans to confess to Johnson, so that he’ll look after Cash, make sure he’s not alone, doesn’t freak out when the spell wears off and he wants to punch Alex in the face.
“Alex,” Cash says, but Alex ignores him. “Singer.”
Cash’s tone is back to normal again- light and a bit exasperated and a bit too full of himself, and it’s noticing things like that that let Alex know he was fucked and head over heels for this dude, all those months ago.
“You’re a dick,” Cash adds, and Alex turns around and stares at him.
“What? You…it’s worn off already? Fuck, are you going to hit me now?”
Cash rolls his eyes. “It hasn’t worn off, because it never worked in the first place,” he says, and gets off the bed, walking towards Alex. Alex backs up until his back hits the door, and he tries to reach for the door handle, in case he needs to make a quick escape.
“What do you mean, it didn’t work?” Alex asks. “You were just…you thought you were in love with me.”
“I saw you pouring that shit into my drink,” Cash explains. “Spencer told me about Brendon using it on him, and I pretty much recognised the bottle from his description. And I just…played along, I guess.”
Alex’s cheeks flame red. “If you saw me do it, why did you drink it? I mean, obviously it didn’t work, but you didn’t know that it wouldn’t! And fuck, you know, it was a shitty thing to do, but it was shitty to play along, to let me believe, for a moment. I…I actually do love you, you asshole.”
“Spencer told me why it didn’t work on him,” Cash explains. “So I had a hunch it wouldn’t work on me either.”
Alex frowns at him, then the meaning dawns. “Oh!” he says. “Uh. Oh. Um. Really?”
Cash shrugs. “That was before you tried to, like, date rape me,” he says, and Alex crosses his arms across his chest.
“I didn’t try and date rape you!” Alex insists. “I just…I wanted to hear you say it, okay? That’s all.”
Cash raises a sceptical eyebrow.
“And maybe a kiss too,” Alex adds with a sigh. “Sorry. That was it, I swear.”
“Well, you got your kiss,” Cash says, and steps closer. Alex has nowhere to go, so he just watches Cash getting closer. He tries not to think about that kiss, that too-short kiss.
“You could have just said something,” Cash says, when he’s right in Alex’s personal space. “Because I do love you, you dumbass.”
“As a friend?” Alex asks, just to be sure.
Cash makes a face. “As a friend,” he agrees, and smiles when Alex’s face falls a little. “A friend that I get to make out with and go on lame dates with and hold hands with and do some sexin’ with and-”
Alex doesn’t need to hear the rest. He leans in the rest of the way and kisses Cash, and this time it’s completely Cash that’s there, the Cash he knows, the Cash he loves, kissing him back.
“For the record,” Cash says, when they come up for air. “You don’t need to use some date rape love potion on me. I’m pretty easy.”
Alex makes a disgusted noise and pushes at Cash’s chest, but it doesn’t budge him.
“But just for you,” Cash adds, and Alex smiles and kisses him again.
~~~
Jon/Ryan
Jon and Ryan are lying in Ryan’s backyard, looking at the stars. The evening has been full of talk and laughing and mind altering substances.
The grass is a little damp and it tickles Ryan’s neck when he looks to the side to locate his glass. It’s empty.
“My drink is gone,” Ryan announces, surprised, and Jon lifts his head.
“Oh,” he says. “Shit. Really?”
He’s frowning more than he should be, even though Ryan being thirsty and in possession of am empty glass is a pretty important thing.
Ryan nods solemnly.
“I was supposed to do something with your drink,” Jon tells him, leaning in close. He’s whispering, and his breath tickles Ryan’s neck just like the grass did. “Spencer told me about Brendon’s love potion thing and I thought, maybe, if you drank some, we could have sex again.”
Ryan considers it. “Okay,” he says. “’Cept I don’t really want to go and get another drink. We could just have sex without the love potion. Would that work?”
Jon thinks for a moment, then shrugs. “Okay,” he says, and pulls Ryan on top of him.
~~~
The All-American Rejects
Tyson thinks this love potion thing is a total bargain. He’d heard all about the success stories through the grapevine, just like everyone else did, but he hadn’t expected one bottle to be more than enough for what he needed.
He lines the beers up in a row, and carefully adds the advised amount to each. Then he waits for the rest of his band to show up.
Tyson wakes up the next morning with his head on Nick’s bare chest and his thigh resting on Chris’s arm. When he tries to move, his skin feels sticky in places, and memories of the night before flood back. He doesn’t remember who made the first move, who the potion had affected first, but he remembers hands and mouths and various other appendages and orifices, all in various delightful combinations, and he smiles.
“Morning,” Mike says from the doorway, stumbling into the room. He’s naked, which Tyson thinks is brave considering the four mugs of steaming coffee he’s somehow juggling.
Tyson pushes himself upright, and Nick grumbles but opens his eyes, and reaches blindly for the coffee. On the other side of Tyson Chris snores.
The coffee is hot and rich and starts to wake Tyson’s sleep- and sex-addled brain up, and he feels a surge of guilt.
“Uh, guys?” he says, when he’s coherent enough to string the words together. Nick and Mike look at him, and Chris snores in a way that Tyson decides to take as code for ‘I am listening’.
“Last night,” he starts and Nick gives him a surprised look.
“I didn’t think you’d be the one who’d freak out about last night,” he says, and Tyson shakes his head.
“I think you guys might be the ones who’ll freak out,” he says. “See, there’s this love potion.”
He climbs out of bed and tries to find his pants from the mess of clothes on the floor. It takes him a moment, and when he finds them and stands up, he catches Nick and Mike staring at him appreciatively.
“I don’t think it’s worn off,” he says, getting back into bed, and handing the bottle to Mike.
“You gave us all love potion?” Nick asks, and Tyson makes a face.
“Um. Yeah? I thought it’d be…you know. Awesome. Last night was awesome, right?”
Mike nods. “It was. You sure this shit works? Cos I didn’t feel like I was under a spell or anything.”
“Me either,” Nick agrees and takes the bottle.
“Maybe you’re not supposed to feel like you’re under a spell,” Tyson says. “Or maybe you still are. Do you still want to bone me?”
“Always,” Nick says, and Mike nods.
“Oh,” Tyson is confused. He’s not sure whether he’s supposed to be feeling guilty or not anymore.
“Dude,” Nick says, holding out the bottle and pointing at some teeny tiny writing on the bottom of the label. “Did you read this?”
Tyson squints and leans closer. It says ‘effects negated if used in beer’.
“Oh,” Tyson says. “Oh.”
Nick and Mike exchange a grin.
Tyson stops feeling guilty, and starts feeling really fucking lucky to be part of such an awesome band.
Beside him Chris stirs. He yawns and stretches and casts a bleary eye towards the others.
“Hey,” he says. “More sex?”
Tyson grins. “More sex,” he agrees.
Title:Smells Like Turpentine (looks like Indian ink)
Pairings: Pete/Patrick, Brendon/Spencer, Cash/Deleon, Ryan/Jon, AAR GSF.
Rating: PG
Summary: 5 times band boys attempts at using love potions backfire
Warning: Even though it probably sounds dodgy, there's no dubcon or anything.
A/N: Unbetaed. Just something I wrote for the hell of it.
There’s a place down on 34th and Vine that sells it. No one really knows who first heard about it- it’s mentioned in whispers, easy enough to find out about if you really want to know. Everyone says they know someone who went there, how it was magical, changed their lives. No one who hears about it really believes it, but a lot want to.
It’s not even a shop. Madame Rue sells the stuff out of her spare room, tiny bottles of black liquid, only $39.99 plus tax.
~~~
Pete/Patrick
“Pete?” Patrick asks, wandering in. Pete is curled up with Hemmy lying across his feet, laptop next to him, writing in his blog.
“Yeah?” Pete glances up from the screen and then tries not to look guilty when he spots the tiny bottle in Patrick’s hands. He turns back to the computer, types a couple of words, and idly wonders what the Shift key does.
“What’s this?” Patrick asks. His voice is that quiet calm he saves especially for Pete, when Pete’s pissed him off or done something stupid or is about to do one of those things.
Pete looks up quickly, not looking at the bottle. “I don’t know,” he lies.
Patrick narrows his eyes.
“Um,” Pete says. He shifts uncomfortably and Hemmy lifts his head. He gives Pete a ‘you’re on your own, buddy’ look and pushes himself up. Pete watches him jump to the ground and pad towards the kitchen, abandoning him.
“Because to me,” Patrick picks up Pete’s laptop and sticks it on the coffee table to make Pete stop looking at it, “it looks like a Love Potion.”
“It could be something else,” Pete points out.
Patrick turns the bottle to face him and points at the label, which clearly says ‘Love Potion #9’.
“Oh,” Pete says. “Damn. Look, I can explain.”
“Your explanation better include details of whoever it is you wanted to use this on. I’m talking full name and address and rough outline of their daily routine so I can lay in wait and get rid of them.”
Pete stares at Patrick. Patrick looks mad. Pete’s not seen him this mad in years, and it takes Pete a moment to click.
“Wait,” he says, reaching out and grabbing at both the bottle and Patrick’s hand. Patrick resists for a moment, then lets Pete pull him down onto the sofa beside him. Pete loses grip on Patrick’s hand, but keeps hold of the incriminating bottle. “You thought I was going to use this on someone else? To make them fall in love with me? Seriously?”
Patrick frowns. “Why else would you have it?” he demands.
“For you!” Pete exclaims and Patrick’s expression changes from annoyance to frustration. It’s a subtle difference, but Pete has spent every moment he could spare memorising everything about Patrick, so he sees it straight away.
“For me,” Patrick repeats. “I don’t-”
“I just…” Pete trails off. He hopes it’s cute enough that Patrick might not need an explanation, but when he looks up through his lashes, Patrick is still frowning. “It was just in case,” he finishes lamely.
“Just in case what?” Patrick asks. His tone is clipped, and he’s getting mad again, so Pete grabs Patrick’s hand.
“I really, really love you,” he says, and Patrick sighs.
“I know, Pete, really I do, I just don’t-”
“And you love me,” Pete hurries on. “I just…what if one day you don’t love me anymore.”
“Oh,” Patrick says, and Pete looks away. Patrick’s hand is warm in his, calloused fingers pressed against his palm for a moment, and then they’re tugging him closer.
Patrick puts his arm round Pete’s neck and pulls him in for an awkward hug. Pete tries to move, to get his legs out from under him, but it just makes it worse and he goes still.
“You’re a fucking idiot,” Patrick says, and Pete nods, because it’s not like this is news to him. Sometimes he really is. “You can’t make me stay in love with you,” he carries on, and Pete wants to pull away, wants to hide so this conversation never happens, but Patrick’s grip on him is pretty tight.
Patrick waits until Pete stops struggling. “You can’t do that, no one can. You wouldn’t want that anyways, right? For me to love you, but for it to be forced?”
A tiny part of Pete thinks he probably wouldn’t care, as long as he always had Patrick, but mostly he thinks that Patrick probably wouldn’t like that, which means Pete really wouldn’t either.
“No,” he says, miserably. “I’m sorry, I just, I thought-”
“The fucked up thing,” Patrick says, pressing a kiss to the side of Pete’s head, “is that I’m really fucking touched by this.”
“You will be,” Pete leers, and Patrick rolls his eyes and lets Pete go. Pete sits up and rubs his neck, even though it hadn’t hurt at all.
“I’m sorry I’m a freak,” Pete says and Patrick laughs.
“You’re not a freak,” he says. “That was…almost sweet. Almost romantic. What the fuck am I saying?”
“That you love me?” Pete asks, hopefully, inching closer and Patrick smiles.
“Yeah, he says, and lets Pete snuggle against him. “Yeah, I do. And you know what? You don’t need a love potion to keep me loving you.”
“Oh yeah?” Pete asks, glancing at the tiny bottle that had seemed so important at the time. He chucks it across to a nearby armchair, where it disappears amongst a pile of brightly coloured cushions.
Patrick nods. “Yeah. You’ve just gotta keep being you,” he says. “That should do it.”
Pete presses his lips to Patrick’s neck once, twice, then rests his face there and smiles. “I think I can do that,” he says, and reaches up to feel the vibrations in Patrick’s throat when he laughs.
~~~
Brendon/Spencer
“I don’t care,” Brendon says. “I followed the instructions! I did everything you said. And it hasn’t worked…no…no…that’s not fair!”
Brendon sometimes hates phones. He hates people not being able to fully appreciate the weight of his best glare, which is currently being aimed at one of the cupboard doors in the kitchenette.
“I’m just saying,” Brendon continues, “is that if you’re gonna guarantee success, then I’m pretty sure I’m entitled to, you know, success!”
He glares at the cupboard door again as the voice on the other end of the phone says “I’m sorry there’s nothing I can do. You must wait, be patient.”
Brendon takes a deep breath, tries to be patient, and then says “Screw you,” about two seconds after he’s hung up the phone, because he’s not actually an asshole.
“What’s up?” Spencer asks, and Brendon jumps, dropping his cell.
“Nothing!” he says, too brightly, dropping to his knees and scrabbling at the floor for his phone. Spencer walks over, stops in front of him, and Brendon looks up.
He swallows hard, despite himself. There’s something about the view of Spencer from his knees that does things to Brendon. He wants to reach out and cup the line of Spencer’s dick, pressed against the denim. If the potion had worked, maybe he’d be able to. But it hadn’t worked. He’d wasted his money. And so instead he reaches out and hooks two fingers into one of Spencer’s beltloops and uses them to pull himself to his feet.
Spencer rolls his eyes and grabs the waistband of his jeans to keep them in place, the other grabbing Brendon’s wrist.
“Seriously,” he says. “Who were you yelling at.”
“I wasn’t yelling,” Brendon denies, trying to untangle his fingers from Spencer’s beltloop. It’s difficult, when he’s standing so close, close enough to kiss, except he can’t do it.
He thinks about dosing Spencer’s morning coffee, and his lunchtime vanilla coke, and his nightcap shot of Jagermeister, and how it hadn’t worked. Spencer just looked at Brendon, spoken to Brendon, smiled at Brendon, like he always did. He touched Brendon, and was willing to be touched by Brendon, pretty much exactly the same amount as he always did (not that Brendon had ever quantified things like that in his mind or anything). And it was frustrating.
Brendon gets his hand free, shakes off Spencer’s fingers, still around his wrist, and goes to curl up by the window. He watches the trees fly by outside the bus and doesn’t look at Spencer until Spencer sits opposite him, bottle of water in his hand. Brendon considers somehow slipping some potion into the bottle- he’s sure he could create enough of a distraction if he had to- but the potion is pretty black and foul looking and Spencer would just make a face and get a fresh bottle.
“What didn’t work?” Spencer asks, and Brendon shrugs.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he says, and Spencer frowns.
“Brendon,” Spencer says. “Tell me. I’m worried about you.”
Brendon’s stomach flips a little. Spencer’s using that cajoling voice that makes Brendon want to do whatever Spencer asks.
“Nothing,” Brendon says again, but he can feel himself wavering.
“Bren,” Spencer says, and reaches out a hand towards him. Brendon doesn’t reach back, but it makes him sigh.
“I bought a love potion,” he says. “Okay? And it didn’t work.”
Brendon watches as Spencer’s fingers curl in until his hand is a fist and he slowly pulls his hand back across the table. Spencer fiddles with the lid of his water bottle and Brendon wishes he hadn’t said anything.
“Oh,” Spencer says eventually. “I’m. I’m sorry.”
He doesn’t sound sorry, and Brendon doesn’t blame him. He’s probably creeped out. It makes Brendon feel a little sick.
“Was it, uh, for anyone I know?” Spencer asks, not meeting Brendon’s gaze, and Brendon laughs a little when he realises Spencer doesn’t know it was for him.
“Yeah,” Brendon says. “You know them really well.”
Spencer looks kind of pale. “Brendon, look, if you and Ryan want to-”
Brendon grins. “Ryan? Ha! No, I’m not in love with Ryan.”
Spencer looks relieved, and Brendon’s breath catches in his throat. It’s a tiny thread of hope, the possibility that Spencer might have had a flicker of jealousy, thinking of Brendon liking Ryan.
“Jon?” Spencer asks. “Or. Oh. Singer?”
Brendon laughs again. “Oh. No, haha, definitely not.”
“Okay,” Spencer shrugs, not looking convinced by Brendon’s denials. “You don’t have to tell me, it’s okay. I’m sorry the potion didn’t work though.”
He looks away and Brendon licks his lips nervously. “It was you,” he blurts out, without thinking and Spencer’s head snaps round to stare at him.
Brendon giggles nervously. “Uh, is you, I mean,” he says. “The potion. It was for you. I gave you some and I know that’s probably really creepy but I just…I don’t know why. It seemed a good idea at the time? But it didn’t work, because, I mean, obviously,” he finishes, waving a hand back and forth between them.
Spencer stares at him. “You’ve been feeding me love potion?” he repeats, sounding horrified.
“No,” Brendon corrects. “Adding it to beverages. No feeding, drinking!”
Spencer makes a face. “Do you even know what’s in it? God, there could be anything in there.”
“It’s all natural!” Brendon insists, fishing the bottle out of his pocket and sliding it across the tabletop. The dark liquid swishes inside and Spencer makes a face, but picks it up.
He reads the label, squinting at it, then puts it back down on the table.
“That’s gross,” Spencer says. Brendon doesn’t know if he means the potion itself, or dosing him with it, but Brendon figures Spencer has a point either way.
“Sorry,” Brendon mutters, staring at the gold writing on the label and carefully avoiding looking at Spencer.
“Do you think,” Spencer says slowly, “that maybe the reason it doesn’t seem to have worked is because it’s just a cheap imitation of love?”
“Maybe,” Brendon agrees quietly.
“And maybe in the presence of actual love, real ‘I’d do anything for you, you make me complete, you make every day better by your presence’ type love, it can’t have an effect because it’s so much less?”
Brendon looks up slowly. “Um,” he says. “Do you. I don’t get what you mean.”
Spencer sighs and rolls his eyes and Brendon can’t help but smile. “I’m saying that of course it didn’t work on me, you idiot, because I’m already in love with you.”
“Really?” Brendon squeaks.
Spencer nods. “More than anything,” he says, and then blushes.
“Aww,” Brendon says, and Spencer glares.
“Shut up,” he says, and Brendon scrambles out of his seat and into Spencer’s.
“Hi,” he says, and Spencer laughs and kisses him.
Brendon tries to remember to phone back and apologise for being rude and saying the potion didn’t work. It’s not his fault that Spencer is really good at filling up his thoughts and erasing things like that from memory with all the mind blowing sex they end up having.
~~~
Cash/Alex
“I swear, it totally works,” Brendon says, and Alex believes him because, well, to be honest if Brendon insisted the sky was green and the Sun revolved around the Earth, Alex would probably believe him because it was Brendon. But also he wanted to believe it.
The next time they’re in the city, he stops buy and forks over the money. He knows Marshall would kick his ass if he found out- after all, it’s forty bucks they should probably use for gas money, but Alex rationalises that they’re freaking rock stars (or, they will be, one day) so what’s a few dollars?
He waits until after the show. It’s a motel night, which suits Alex perfectly. He claims a room for him and Cash- not an unusual occurrence- and ignores the familiar surge of sadness when Cash waggles his eyebrows and asks if tonight’s the night Alex is going to deflower him. Because tonight is the night that Cash will finally look at Alex and tell him he loves him. And that’s all Alex wants, really. For Cash to love him back, love him as much, even if only for a brief moment until the potion wears off.
“I’m going out for a cigarette,” Cash announces, moments after they step into their room, and Alex wrinkles his nose in distaste. He doesn’t want Cash to taste like an ashtray when Alex kisses him later (a kiss, that’s all he’s going to take. He’s not some creep who’s going to force an enchanted Cash to have sex with him or anything, but one solitary kiss surely can’t hurt), but it gives him time to concoct his plan.
“Okay,” he says, and watches Cash leave. Then he pulls two cans of Red Bull out of his bag. He pops the tabs, making sure to twist the tab on his can to the side, so he doesn’t accidentally end up dosing himself. William had told him once that that’s what happened to Gabe, and it had never worn off.
Alex fishes the tiny bottle out of his pocket and carefully pours in a couple of drops, as instructed. He hesitates, then adds a couple more, humming to himself as he does so. Then he picks the can up and sniffs it- it doesn’t smell weird or anything, so he puts it down and turns to head to the bathroom, to make sure his hair looks okay.
Cash is standing in the doorway.
Alex jumps. “Fuck,” he says. “You almost gave me a heart attack. This tour would suck if you put your lead singer in hospital or something.”
Cash is giving Alex a strange look. “I forgot my lighter,” he explains, and crosses the room. “Oh hey, this for me?” He reaches for Alex’s Red Bull and Alex hurries over and snatches it away before he can grab it.
“That’s mine,” he says. “Uh, you don’t want to drink my backwash, do you?”
Cash frowns a little, like he’s a little suspicious, then smiles and takes the other can. He downs it, and Alex watches Cash’s throat work as he swallows, and tries not to lick his lips in anticipation.
Cash makes a refreshed ‘aaah’ noise and sets the can down. Then he closes his eyes and opens them again.
“Uh,” he says, reaching out and grasping Alex’s shoulder. “I think I need to sit down. I feel kinda weird.”
Alex’s stomach flipflops.
“Are you okay?” he asks, worried, and Cash stumbles towards the bed and sits down. Alex is starting to panic. What if he’d accidentally poisoned Cash, instead of dosing him with potion?
“I’m alright,” Cash says, and gives Alex a bright smile. “But I’d be better if you were closer.”
Alex can’t help but smile back. It’s a relieved smile, and hopeful too, when Cash grabs his hand and pulls him down beside him.
“Alex,” Cash says, and it makes Alex shiver. Cash never calls him by his first name. It’s a never ending stream of Singer’s and Deleon’s and Asshat’s and Dude’s, so it’s unusual enough that Alex let’s himself be turned on a little by it, wonders if Cash would say his name like that if Alex was blowing him. Not that that’s going to happen, because that’s not what Alex wants at all.
“Your eyes,” Cash says, staring at Alex dreamily. “They’re like two pools of…of awesome,” he sighs, and Alex laughs nervously.
“And your hair,” Cash reaches out and slides his hand into Alex’s curls. “I could drown in those curls, you know. Can I…I bet you smell really good. Do you mind if I…”
Alex shakes his head and Cash leans in, pressing his nose under Alex’s ear and breathing in.
“Fuck, Alex,” Cash says, and slides his hand up Alex’s thigh. It makes Alex squirm a little, at how right it feels, and yet how wrong it is. “Alex, I…shit, I love you, baby,” Cash continues and it’s what Alex had wanted, what he’d wanted to hear, but it doesn’t sound right. Doesn’t sound like Cash.
“No you don’t,” Alex says, shoving Cash away.
“I do,” Cash says earnestly, nodding his head. He moves closer and Alex scrambles up the bed, away from him. Cash follows. “I love you so much, Alex,” Cash says. “I want to spend forever with you. I’d die for you, Alex. I’d do anything you wanted me to. Anything.”
Alex stares at him miserably. This wasn’t what he wanted, not at all. Cash’s smile is too big, too fake, his tone is too serious, words too overblown for it to really be Cash.
“Anything,” Cash repeats, and climbs into Alex’s lap. He leans in and kisses Alex, and for the briefest of moments Alex lets himself sink into it. And then Cash’s hand slides down and gropes him through his jeans.
“No,” Alex pushes Cash away and gets up. He leaves Cash sprawled across the bed, looking wanton and hot and like everything Alex wants and yet nothing like Cash at all.
“You don’t love me,” Alex tells him. “I did…I did something awful. There’s the love potion. And I put some in your drink. That’s why you want to say those things, do those things. It’s not real. And I didn’t want this, Cash. Really I didn’t. I just wanted you to feel the same way I feel about you. Just for a moment. Just so I could know what it felt like to have you love me back. I didn’t…this is wrong and creepy and not how this was supposed to go.”
Cash is just staring at him, and Alex doesn’t know what to do.
“I’m going to go and sleep in Ian and Johnson’s room,” Alex says, and heads for the door, not even bothering to grab his bag. He just wants out, away from this Cash, and he plans to confess to Johnson, so that he’ll look after Cash, make sure he’s not alone, doesn’t freak out when the spell wears off and he wants to punch Alex in the face.
“Alex,” Cash says, but Alex ignores him. “Singer.”
Cash’s tone is back to normal again- light and a bit exasperated and a bit too full of himself, and it’s noticing things like that that let Alex know he was fucked and head over heels for this dude, all those months ago.
“You’re a dick,” Cash adds, and Alex turns around and stares at him.
“What? You…it’s worn off already? Fuck, are you going to hit me now?”
Cash rolls his eyes. “It hasn’t worn off, because it never worked in the first place,” he says, and gets off the bed, walking towards Alex. Alex backs up until his back hits the door, and he tries to reach for the door handle, in case he needs to make a quick escape.
“What do you mean, it didn’t work?” Alex asks. “You were just…you thought you were in love with me.”
“I saw you pouring that shit into my drink,” Cash explains. “Spencer told me about Brendon using it on him, and I pretty much recognised the bottle from his description. And I just…played along, I guess.”
Alex’s cheeks flame red. “If you saw me do it, why did you drink it? I mean, obviously it didn’t work, but you didn’t know that it wouldn’t! And fuck, you know, it was a shitty thing to do, but it was shitty to play along, to let me believe, for a moment. I…I actually do love you, you asshole.”
“Spencer told me why it didn’t work on him,” Cash explains. “So I had a hunch it wouldn’t work on me either.”
Alex frowns at him, then the meaning dawns. “Oh!” he says. “Uh. Oh. Um. Really?”
Cash shrugs. “That was before you tried to, like, date rape me,” he says, and Alex crosses his arms across his chest.
“I didn’t try and date rape you!” Alex insists. “I just…I wanted to hear you say it, okay? That’s all.”
Cash raises a sceptical eyebrow.
“And maybe a kiss too,” Alex adds with a sigh. “Sorry. That was it, I swear.”
“Well, you got your kiss,” Cash says, and steps closer. Alex has nowhere to go, so he just watches Cash getting closer. He tries not to think about that kiss, that too-short kiss.
“You could have just said something,” Cash says, when he’s right in Alex’s personal space. “Because I do love you, you dumbass.”
“As a friend?” Alex asks, just to be sure.
Cash makes a face. “As a friend,” he agrees, and smiles when Alex’s face falls a little. “A friend that I get to make out with and go on lame dates with and hold hands with and do some sexin’ with and-”
Alex doesn’t need to hear the rest. He leans in the rest of the way and kisses Cash, and this time it’s completely Cash that’s there, the Cash he knows, the Cash he loves, kissing him back.
“For the record,” Cash says, when they come up for air. “You don’t need to use some date rape love potion on me. I’m pretty easy.”
Alex makes a disgusted noise and pushes at Cash’s chest, but it doesn’t budge him.
“But just for you,” Cash adds, and Alex smiles and kisses him again.
~~~
Jon/Ryan
Jon and Ryan are lying in Ryan’s backyard, looking at the stars. The evening has been full of talk and laughing and mind altering substances.
The grass is a little damp and it tickles Ryan’s neck when he looks to the side to locate his glass. It’s empty.
“My drink is gone,” Ryan announces, surprised, and Jon lifts his head.
“Oh,” he says. “Shit. Really?”
He’s frowning more than he should be, even though Ryan being thirsty and in possession of am empty glass is a pretty important thing.
Ryan nods solemnly.
“I was supposed to do something with your drink,” Jon tells him, leaning in close. He’s whispering, and his breath tickles Ryan’s neck just like the grass did. “Spencer told me about Brendon’s love potion thing and I thought, maybe, if you drank some, we could have sex again.”
Ryan considers it. “Okay,” he says. “’Cept I don’t really want to go and get another drink. We could just have sex without the love potion. Would that work?”
Jon thinks for a moment, then shrugs. “Okay,” he says, and pulls Ryan on top of him.
~~~
The All-American Rejects
Tyson thinks this love potion thing is a total bargain. He’d heard all about the success stories through the grapevine, just like everyone else did, but he hadn’t expected one bottle to be more than enough for what he needed.
He lines the beers up in a row, and carefully adds the advised amount to each. Then he waits for the rest of his band to show up.
Tyson wakes up the next morning with his head on Nick’s bare chest and his thigh resting on Chris’s arm. When he tries to move, his skin feels sticky in places, and memories of the night before flood back. He doesn’t remember who made the first move, who the potion had affected first, but he remembers hands and mouths and various other appendages and orifices, all in various delightful combinations, and he smiles.
“Morning,” Mike says from the doorway, stumbling into the room. He’s naked, which Tyson thinks is brave considering the four mugs of steaming coffee he’s somehow juggling.
Tyson pushes himself upright, and Nick grumbles but opens his eyes, and reaches blindly for the coffee. On the other side of Tyson Chris snores.
The coffee is hot and rich and starts to wake Tyson’s sleep- and sex-addled brain up, and he feels a surge of guilt.
“Uh, guys?” he says, when he’s coherent enough to string the words together. Nick and Mike look at him, and Chris snores in a way that Tyson decides to take as code for ‘I am listening’.
“Last night,” he starts and Nick gives him a surprised look.
“I didn’t think you’d be the one who’d freak out about last night,” he says, and Tyson shakes his head.
“I think you guys might be the ones who’ll freak out,” he says. “See, there’s this love potion.”
He climbs out of bed and tries to find his pants from the mess of clothes on the floor. It takes him a moment, and when he finds them and stands up, he catches Nick and Mike staring at him appreciatively.
“I don’t think it’s worn off,” he says, getting back into bed, and handing the bottle to Mike.
“You gave us all love potion?” Nick asks, and Tyson makes a face.
“Um. Yeah? I thought it’d be…you know. Awesome. Last night was awesome, right?”
Mike nods. “It was. You sure this shit works? Cos I didn’t feel like I was under a spell or anything.”
“Me either,” Nick agrees and takes the bottle.
“Maybe you’re not supposed to feel like you’re under a spell,” Tyson says. “Or maybe you still are. Do you still want to bone me?”
“Always,” Nick says, and Mike nods.
“Oh,” Tyson is confused. He’s not sure whether he’s supposed to be feeling guilty or not anymore.
“Dude,” Nick says, holding out the bottle and pointing at some teeny tiny writing on the bottom of the label. “Did you read this?”
Tyson squints and leans closer. It says ‘effects negated if used in beer’.
“Oh,” Tyson says. “Oh.”
Nick and Mike exchange a grin.
Tyson stops feeling guilty, and starts feeling really fucking lucky to be part of such an awesome band.
Beside him Chris stirs. He yawns and stretches and casts a bleary eye towards the others.
“Hey,” he says. “More sex?”
Tyson grins. “More sex,” he agrees.