New fic: Home is Where Our Hearts Are
Sometimes I do this thing where I post things I feel like maybe I shouldn't be posting because they're not really stories in any kind of beta'd, srs bsns way.
This is not one of those times.
5200 happy-making cracked words, bandsmush, OTPs, OT3s and OTmanys. It totally started life as an IM conversation. And this is like, all the beta it got--loveyouallwrong: It's the kind of story that i'm going to tack on to every OTHER story. like "pete and patrick fell in love and lived happily ever after. and then moved into the fbr nursing home. THE END"
WORKS FOR ME.
Most mornings start off with the day shift fighting over who is going to bring Ms. Salpeter her applesauce and oatmeal.
"Ohhhh, no no no," says Jennie, the lead nurse, shaking her head and holding her clipboard close to her chest. "Oh no, I had Ms. Salpeter last week. No one gets her two weeks in a row, those are the rules."
Christina pouts. "But she hates me. I've got like, physical and emotional scars from that old bat. It took me a month to get my hair back to normal! Please, Jennie, please--I will totally trade you bathtime with Mr. Wentz."
Jennie hesistates. Bathtime with Mr. Wentz is also known as sit on your ass with a book 'cause you ain't needed time. It's a plum duty, the kind the nurses and aides hope to see on their schedules week after week.
But the new girl has clearly been listening to the night shift talk. She pops up all eager, like she can't wait to get oatmeal down her shirt. She says, perky and cheerful, "I'll do it!"
Jennie raises an eyebrow. "You're...volunteering for breakfast with Ms. Salpeter? You sure you wanna do that?"
"Don't listen to them," Tonya from the night shift tells the new girl as she comes around the corner of the nurses' station, finished changing into her street clothes. "Ms. Salpeter's just the sweetest. Sleeps like an angel, with all that pretty hair spread out on her pillow. And she purrs like a kitten when she's dreaming. She's just too cute."
"Purrs like a kitten that just ate your soul," Jennie mutters to Christina, but she marks the new girl down on the clipboard for 8:00-8:30 Breakfast with Ms Salpeter. And hey, she figures, if the new girl survives, maybe she'll even bother to learn her name instead of just scratching in NG #21.
"You're in luck, honey," Christina says as she passes the new girl a tray with Ms. Salpeter's pills and breakfast, lined up neatly. A bud vase with a yellow rose is carefully placed in the corner. "She let Mr. Saporta in there with her last night. You're getting her on a good day."
"Aww, cuddles. That's so sweet," the new girl says, smiling brightly, and she trots off down the hall with her pony tail swinging, her scrubs gleaming, and her entire being projecting perky good will.
"I give her fifteen minutes," Christina says, leaning an elbow on the desk as she watches the new girl go. "Maybe eighteen, if Mr. Saporta was real good at cuddling last night."
"You're on," Jennie says, and holds out her hand to shake on it.
~
Nineteen minutes later, the new girl comes walking down the hall from Ms. Salpeter's room looking like an extra in a zombie flick. Minus the gore, of course; Ms. Salpeter almost never leaves a mark on 'em.
"I...didn't know," she says, all the shine wiped right off her. "I just...."
"Aww, honey," Jennie says, oozing sympathy and barely a trace of I told you so; on the job training comes in handy sometimes. "It happens to all of us. Why don't you go on over to the break room and lie down for a little bit. I'll have people cover you. Go on, now. Go ahead."
When the new girl is gone, Jennie buzzes Christina, who is out walking with Mr. Hurley; he can get going once he starts, and Christina's the only one who can keep up. And that's just politics. The man's a marathon walker on top of that. Some shifts, Jennie's glad she rarely has to take.
She makes Christina trade the new girl Arts and Crafts, bathtime with Mr. Wentz, and Pudding. She's impressed the new girl didn't quit on the spot after nineteen minutes with Ms. Salpeter--she must be tougher than she looks, because even Mr. Saporta isn't that good.
Jennie writes BECCA! on the schedule in big, happy letters, and sits back, satisfied. This new girl is going to work out just fine.
~
Bob hates Arts and Crafts.
"It's good for you," Brian tells him, while Ray nods along, big mane of hair floating on its own breeze; fucker never did have the common decency to go bald. Bob reaches up and grabs a handful of hair, soft and familiar in his palms, and uses it to hold Ray still.
Not that it does much good. The rest of the hair, curly and thick still, grey, brown, red and shiny in the early sunshine, floats all over the place. Plus now Bob has to look at Ray's big, sweet, earnest eyes while Brian extols the virtues of Arts and Crafts from his safe position as a guy no one makes fuck around with macaroni and string.
Brian finishes his lecture with a tap of his cane and a flourish of, "And it makes Frankie unhappy when you skip it. So you should go."
That's a low blow and Brian knows it, judging by the twinkle in his eye and the, oh, sixty years of knowing Bob and Frank he's got under his belt. Sometimes Bob wishes they'd stayed the fuck away from the home, but Mikey was going so Gerard was going. That meant it was either Ray, Bob and Brian go or they make Frankie really unhappy, which wasn't an option at all.
"Kryptonite," Bob mutters, but he hauls himself out of his chair by his grip on Ray's hair, ignoring Ray's soft, "Oww. Oww. Oww, Bob, leggo, oww," until he's upright and steady.
Steadyish, anyway.
"You fuckers are coming with me," he says, using the tone of voice that hasn't taken no for an answer in fifty-nine years, and he hobbles down the wide hall with Ray and Brian flanking him on either side.
~
"Bob!" Frankie shouts, beaming. "You fucker, you told me you weren't coming back to A&C!"
"Brian?" Bob asks, and Brian raises an eyebrow at him but dutifully recites, "Bob is staying fifteen feet away from the blowtorches at all times. He refuses to allow anyone to sit on, or under, his table. There will be no macaroni projects. String will not be handled by anyone, Frank, in Bob's presence. And, uh--fuck, what am I forgetting?"
"No one with oxygen uses the blowtorch," Ray says helpfully.
"Ahem?"
"Except Jamia and Alicia," Brian amends. "Because they're too smart to do it anyway, and therefore the rule does not apply."
Frank considers this, his hands shoved deep in the stretched-out pockets of his sweater. Then he goes right for Bob's other weak spot, the one that isn't tiny and Frank-shaped and possessing all its hair even though it's as old as Bob; like Ray, Frank is a total fucker. He says, "What if Gerard colored all the macaroni black already?"
Everyone looks at Bob. Gerard holds up the big bucket of black macaroni. If he doesn't mean to be shaking it a little, it's still rattling kind of temptingly, and well. No one's gonna call him on it. It's been a while since Gerard drew a truly straight line, and there isn't an asshole in the world, or at least in Clandestine Assisted Living, who ever wants to make Gerard sad.
Bob looks back at them, his friends and loved ones all old and decrepit and entertaining themselves with black and glitter macaroni art, not a blowtorch in sight. "I'm in," he says, and takes his seat.
~
"Nonna, why is that lady naked?" little Mike III says, and Alicia doesn't even look up from the book on her lap, her hand in his hair.
"That's just Auntie Ash," she says. "Auntie Ash thinks she's a ninja."
"Really?" Three asks, looking up at her, and Alicia laughs a little; he looks so much like his grandfather before he got his eyes done, owlish and earnest.
"That's what she says," Alicia tells him, and over in the hallway someone is saying, "Mrs. Wentz. Mrs. Wentz. Your robe, please," and Ashlee is tittering, and Pete is guffawing somewhere in the distance.
Alicia rubs little Three's head, making his hair stand up. "You want more story, baby?" she asks, and he nods, curling against her knee to listen while she finishes the book. Three's heard it before, but he loves this one; the story of a boy, his dog, his friends, and their adventures, all illustrated by his Uncle Gee years ago.
"And they all lived however they wanted after. The End."
~
"The look," Pete gasps, clutching his sides. "Oh fuck, Ash. The look on the new girl's face, Jesus, that was awesome."
Ashlee ties the belt of her robe, calmly walking up the hall, the heels of her fluffy slippers slapping on the linoleum. "I don't think anyone even warned her. It's like they want to run off the newbies, baby. You notice that?"
"Maybe they just like a little thrill," Pete says, and he pinches her ass lightly--she bruises easier than they'd like, damn her old skin, even if it does look pretty good considering she's too close to old these days.
"It ain't no little thrill anymore," she tells him, patting his hand.
"Perfect-sized thrill," he argues, pinching again, then darting away with a smile. He's not as agile as he used to be, but he gets around pretty well on his new knees. Bionic, Ashlee calls him, but she doesn't mind. The important stuff is the same. He's still Pete.
Even his new teeth are just as big and horsey as the old ones, through the miracles of modern dentistry. He'd considered getting the new ones smaller, but she'd put her foot down on that one. "I want to kiss you," she'd said when he'd brought it up. "Not some little, fake, pretty you. Fuck that."
"Patrick time," he says, toying with the tie of her robe, then pecking the corner of her mouth with a kiss. "See you when the kids get here?"
"How much do you want to be seeing?" she asks, eyebrows raised, and he kisses her again, laughing, before he heads off for his Patrick time.
Ashlee watches him go. God, she loves him, even all these years later; even with those big, ridiculous teeth.
~
"Hey Vic," Pete says, giving Vicky-T a high five. She's hanging out chatting with Patrick, who is busily filling the tub and adding salts from the nice, comfy bench conveniently positioned for just that purpose. Patrick didn't exactly get lazy in his old age, but he saves his energy for the important stuff.
Like Pete.
Who leers as he comes around the tub, asking Vicky, "You here for sponge bath time?"
"Fuck no," Vicky says. She creaks to her feet. He gives her legs an appreciative look out of habit more than anything, and she laughs at him, mocking just like always. "Me and the girls are gonna paint Jon's toenails today. That's enough shriveled old man nudity for me, ugh."
"Says the woman who got in trouble for keeping Ryland and Alex up all night," Patrick says, sly and knowing. He always has the good gossip. People got so used to telling him everything when he was wearing his headphones that now they can't stop, even though the headphones spend a good 70% of the time lost in a drawer somewhere.
Pete drops down onto the bench next to him--carefully, the hips might need to be replaced at any time, and Pete would rather they go after something more fun than sitting in the spa. He drapes his arm over Patrick's shoulder and kisses his cheek when Patrick leans in comfortably. He loves the soft, dry paper feel of Patrick's skin now as much as he'd loved the sweaty, round-cheeked Patrick he'd kissed on stage for all those years.
Patrick smiles sideways at him, but asks Vicky, "Where was Nate? Alex-Alex-Alex time?"
"Something like that," Vicky says dryly. "All right, duty calls--keep it clean, guys."
"Aww, that's no fun," Pete says. He grins as she laughs at him again, shaking her head and wandering away.
When the door is closed behind her, he tips his head, nuzzling Patrick's shoulder. "Naughty sponge baths?" he asks, hopeful. He smiles when Patrick kisses his hair, takes a deep breath to get a good, solid lungful of Patrick-smell, as sweet as ever.
"I don't think Jennie approves of naughty sponge baths," Patrick says. He likes Jennie, and tries to keep Pete from scarring her too badly. Pete's all set to pout his way to victory like it's 2049 anyway, but then Patrick laughs, low and dirty. "We got the new girl today though, so you bet."
"Awesome," Pete says. He loves naughty sponge bath time, with Patrick all spread out for him like a much younger dude, wearing a hat of suds, soap flying everywhere while they scandalize the nurse on the other side of the curtain.
Plus, he's heard that everyone asks, "Is that Pete's sponge?" after naughty sponge bath time. He kind of wants to tell them that when it's Patrick's turn, he pretty much just uses his hands to wash Pete, or on the best days, his sweet little tongue. But it's too much fun to horrify everyone with thoughts of just where those sponges have been, so he doesn't. He just lets 'em wonder.
"I say we don't wait for the new girl," Pete says, even though they're not supposed to get in the big old tubs alone. He'd argue to the death that a bath with Patrick isn't a bath alone in any way, but Patrick worries about Pete's knees--even the new bionic ones!--and usually makes him wait.
Not today, though. "What new girl?" Patrick says, shrugging Pete off his shoulder and standing to strip off one, two, three layers of sweaters, his pants, his boxers, before he climbs into the deep tub and looks back at Pete, waggling his bushy, ridiculous eyebrows.
"This is a fucking awesome day," Pete says, and tosses his clothes aside, climbing into the warm water like a dude fifty years younger, feeling sixty years younger all the way.
~
"Hold still," Greta says, and Jon does, even though he's not particularly sure he likes his toes that particular shade of crimson.
"I don't know," Spencer says, watching critically. "You think he can carry that off? He's kind of old."
Spencer has been jealously guarding his place as the baby of Panic at the Disco since he turned 30 and decided age wasn't just a number. "You're kind of old to be wearing those slacks," Jon says, trying to stay still for Greta, who is watching him with her big, pretty, serious eyes. "Did you pop your collar on purpose?"
Spencer smiles at him, sideways and indulgent. That smile's gotten Jon in a lot of trouble over the years. "Cassie popped it. She likes the way I dress."
Jon narrows his gaze. "Are you trying to steal my girl?"
"I stole your everything," Spencer points out. "Fifty years ago. You didn't notice? Greta, seriously, that red. I just don't think it works."
Jon holds his breath for a second, but Greta is busy painting again and doesn't look up. Only a couple people can get away with questioning her these days: Spencer, Vicky, her Bob, Andy, and Ray Toro. Everyone else, pfft, petrified of her. Jon's seen her make nurses cry.
Then again, he's seen those same nurses come back around after one of Gabe's puppet shows, with the cobras and the bears and the big pink elephants, so who the fuck knows about some people.
Vicky looks up from painting Jon's other toenails a pale color that he likes much better. She studies Greta's work appraisingly, then looks up at Jon. "If you ever wore shoes, we wouldn't feel like we had to do this," she points out, and Jon settles back, resigned to two different colors of nail polish, one a truly revolting red.
Spencer is picking at Jon's sleeve. "Butterscotch," he says, showing Jon what he'd peeled off. "You're going to rot your grandkids' teeth."
"Why are they only my grandkids when their teeth are rotting?" Jon bitches, but he just sighs when Spencer sneaks a hand into the pocket of his favorite old sweater and steals the rest of the butterscotch candies.
And he smiles when Spencer gives him a butterscotch-flavored kiss.
~
"Jon's getting his toes done," Spencer says, slowly and carefully lowering himself into a chair next to Ryan's, out in the garden. "I don't know, it looks like he may not survive it."
"Good for the girls," Ryan says. "He's way overdue. He keeps poking me in the shin with his nails at night. I'd have pinned him down and done it myself if I hadn't seen Greta get out the polish." He moves his knight across the black squares and watching Brendon's face; victory, Brendon didn't realize how totally illegal that was. He's too busy cuddling the baby on his knee.
Ryan squints. Looks like Mike Jr's youngest. Could be one of Patrick's twin grandbabies. All the littlest kids are sort of blending together in his mind, these days. Too many of their kids got married--Greta and Gabe's youngest marrying Patrick's eldest; Jon and Cassie's middle girl marrying Andy's son, on and on. The upside of which is that any of the babies could be his grandkids, Brendon says, so he gets to treat them all exactly the same.
"Mine," Frank says, cruising by with his son Jamie, and Brian. He points at the baby in Brendon's hands. "Don't break it, Urie."
"Mikey's," Brian corrects. "But you still can't break it."
Frank squints at the baby, ignores Jamie and Brian laughing at him, Spencer's raised eyebrows, Brendon's glare. "Oh yeah, Mikey's. But still mine, so watch yourself, butterfingers."
"Who taught my grandson that trick with the penny and the fire?" Brendon asked. "Oh yeah, you and Trohman. If anyone needs to watch themself, just saying, not me!"
Frank beams. "That was your grandson? He caught on real fast. Good kid!"
Ryan and Spencer share a look when Brendon beams back. "Boy takes after his mom," Brendon says. "Who of course takes after her dad. Me. Spencer's side of the family was useless on that one."
Which is going too far. Ryan takes another turn on the board, even though it's been his turn three times in a row now. "Checkmate," he says, blandly. Brendon turns wide, betrayed eyes to the game, then hands Jamie the baby before he comes around the table and puts Ryan in a headlock, demanding to know how he did it.
"I beat you fair and square," Ryan insists, not struggling, and he grins when Brendon laughs and presses a fierce kiss to his temple, just like he's been doing for fifty years.
~
"You're not supposed to be smoking," Andy says, when he comes across Joe leaning against a fountain in the garden, lighting up.
Joe almost swallows the joint. "I'm not," he says, coughing and waving his hand in front of his face. "But if I was, Hurley, it'd be good for me. It's totally oxygenating."
"I don't think that means what you think it means," Andy says, then he tilts his head, frowning. "Actually, I'm not even sure that's a word." The sun bounces off his glasses; must be getting late. Joe would nag at him to have surgery, fix his eyes like everyone else in the world, but then he'd never know what time it was. He'd have to make Andy wear his glasses so he could be Joe's watch, and what would be the point of surgery for that? No point.
Maybe there's a reason Joe isn't supposed to be smoking.
He tosses the joint into the fountain; Andy sighs at him and fishes it out, tucks it in one of the baggy pockets of his black shorts. The skin of his chest and arms, his calves, is colored in patterns that never seem to get less meaningful the older Andy is.
Joe knows his name is in there, with Matt's, and Marie's, and Pete's, Patrick's, Ashlee's, the kids. Lots of names. Andy claimed a lot of people in his lifetime, Joe thinks, and he feels sappy and happy when he laces his arm through Andy's; the smoking was a good idea after all.
"You're not supposed to be walking out here by yourself, old man," he says, and Andy shrugs at him, eyes twinkling a little behind his glasses, and they walk each other up to the house for dinner.
~
Gerard paints more than just macaroni, still. His hands aren't as steady as they had been, but he does all right. He knows everyone's real careful about it around him and that's fine--especially since it's everyone but Lyn.
"That looks like a gnome," she says, pointing to his pad. "A constipated gnome."
"It is," he says, shading in the grimacing little face. Lyn slips her arm around his waist and presses a smile against his shoulder.
"Oh," she says. "Good job, then. I thought it was supposed to be Ariana."
"That too." Gerard likes using the grandkids for models. Ariana's his favorite little gnome. Mike Jr. had made an excellent baby vampire, back in his day. Three is a perfect little bad cherub.
Mikey's still his favorite Igor, though. He just gets more Igor-like as he gets older. "I think so anyway," he tells Lyn. "Alicia hit me the last time I said it."
"Damn, can't imagine why," Lyn says. "Hey, Frank--bring Ariana over here, she's got to see this."
Frank hobbles over, braced against Brian's arm, with his eldest son carrying the baby. "Nice work," he says approvingly. "What's she supposed to be, a live turnip baby? What do you call those?"
"Mandrake?" Gerard tilts his head, considers. "Could be." He kisses the baby's cheek, and she pats his face with sticky, sugary hands. He kisses her little fingers and says, "Mmm, butterscotch. You been hanging out with Jon Walker, little doll?"
"I got her from Urie, so probably," Frank says. "Hey, dinner. You ready, or are you planning to hang out here like a starving artist all day?"
"I can't believe how early you all eat," Jamie says, shifting the baby from one hip to the other. "It's like, four."
"Hey, we've got a busy evening schedule," Frank says, smacking his son's arm. "Just because you're not here to see it, doesn't mean we cancel the party."
"Whatever, Pop," Jamie says, rolling his eyes. "Come on, I'll walk you old guys back to the house. Don't want anyone wandering off, right?"
"Me and Brian would never," Lyn says. "Watch your mouth, boy."
"Except that one time," Gerard says, while Jamie is apologizing to his Aunt Lyn, face a mottled, embarassed red.
"That one time!" Frank slips his hand into Gerard's as they walk back up through the large, hilly garden to the main house. Gerard holds his notebook and pencil case in one hand, holds Frank's thin fingers gently in his other, shaking hand, and smiles while Frank embarasses Lyn and Brian with the long story of that one time they got lost, and came home with a statue of a pink flamingo, two flat tires, muddy pants, and Brian's first pet turtle.
It's a good story. Gerard loves it almost as much as he loves all of them.
~
Meals are a noisy affair, particularly on days when more than a couple kids are visiting, particularly if they happen to have brought along more than a couple of the grandkids and great-grandkids.
Particularly particularly on days when Ashlee's decided to start flashing.
"Oh God, Mom, how do you live like this," Jamia and Frank's daughter Frannie asks, and Jamia looks up.
"I wouldn't even have noticed if you hadn't mentioned it," she says. "Hey, Ash. You want to put that away? There are kids at dinner tonight, you know."
"None of 'em saw anything," Ashlee says, grinning, but she ties her robe tighter again. "I was just out to make the new aide blush. Me and Pete have a bet going on how long it takes her to break and ask to be assigned to the night shift."
"Five dollars says a week," Jamia says, then catches Frannie's disapproving eye. "What? You knew what me and Daddy were getting into when we moved here. It's certainly nothing worse than you got into with that young Saporta boy when you were teenagers, missy."
"Mom," Frannie says, appalled.
"Your dad and I weren't born yesterday," Jamia says, waving her spoon at her youngest.
"We were born like, a hundred thousand yesterdays ago," Frank says, agreeing, even though he had been paying more attention to Gerard's rough sketch of little grandbaby mandrake roots and less to the conversation. "Give or take a few for Leap Years."
"You guys are impossible," Frannie says, but she's grinning. "Hey, is that one Ariana? Uncle Gee, can you do one like that for me?"
Gerard ducks his head, as shyly pleased as ever when someone likes his art.
"Can you do one like that for me?" Pete asks, leaning in from his table across the narrow aisle, just as boldly nosy and demanding as ever. Maybe even worse, after he hit the age where he stopped caring what people thought and started caring more about building his rep as a creepy old man.
"So like, twenty-nine?" Patrick had asked one time when Pete had announced that this was his life's philosophy and it had served him well for lo these many years.
"Something like that, yeah," Pete had said, and kissed him.
"It doesn't matter how many times you ask, I'm not drawing you naked," Gerard tells Pete. "Go back to your own table. You're getting wet hair in my soup. Was it naughty sponge bath day?"
Pete is grinning. "Hell yeah it was. So what if Mikey asks? For old time's sake, come on."
"I'm not asking," Mikey says. "Alicia, oww, I'm not asking."
Andy reels Pete back in, while Ashlee bats her lashes apologetically at Gerard. "Baby, we've all got enough of your naked art," she says. "Come on, let people enjoy their dinner without thinking about your little carrot."
"You wound me," Pete says, but he sounds admiring, and he goes back to dinner without further complaint.
Frannie is doubled over her soup, laughing until she wheezes. "My God, this place," she says, and her Uncle Mikey serves her a little more salad, says, "We wouldn't live anywhere else."
~
After dinner, all the kids, grandkids, great-grandkids, and the--
"I don't think that one was even a relative, Brian. She asked me for my autograph."
"Fans haven't been up here for years. She was probably one of the Panic kids, it's fine."
"She had a camera!"
"Oh well, Bob, call the cops! Some kid came all the way here to take a picture with your old geezer ass, what the fuck was she thinking?"
"Probably, oh, gross--"
"Shut up, Pete!"
--everyone else leaves, and most of the ClanAL residents make their way outside, onto the wide porch that rambles its way around the big old house. It isn't all rocking chairs and orange cats, but it's pretty close.
Pete sits next to Patrick in their favorite old swing, the one they'd had since they first set the house up, back when Ashlee started to get a little weird(er) sometimes and it seemed like a good idea to have everything they needed right where they needed it. He rests his head on Patrick's shoulder and runs the pad of his thumb over the thin, strong crescents of Patrick's nails.
"You need a trim," he says, smiling. "Want me to schedule you some time with Greta?"
"I heard that," Greta says. White-blonde curls spill over Gabe's shoulder as she peeks around him. "You're in my book already, Patrick. Don't forget."
"Of course not, Greta," Patrick says, but he elbows Pete in the side, making wide eyes.
Pete kisses him, laughing. "She hasn't moved on to painting dude's fingernails, I promise," he says. "Except maybe Gee's. I don't know if that color of dirty is totally natural."
"Fuck you," Gerard says amiably from his rocker a little further down the porch. He gives Pete a one-fingered salute with the hand that isn't wrapped in Lyn-Z's.
"That's a Way thing," Alicia says. "Trust me on this one, totally natural."
"I'm totally natural," Ashlee says, coming outside, fully dressed; it isn't exactly warm in the evenings anymore, this time of year. She crawls carefully onto Pete's lap, drapes her ankles across Patrick's, and relaxes. "Well, mostly natural," she amends, smiling. Patrick smiles back at her, massages her ankles, while Pete laughs and kisses her temple.
"We know," Jamia says, dry as dust, making Frank and Brendon giggle, which makes almost everyone laugh; some things are just that kind of wonderfully infectious.
And then everyone settles slowly into comfortable silence, and together they watch the sun set behind the hills, spreading brilliant color across the sky, ending another day as sweetly as it had begun.
~
About a half hour past sunset, inevitably someone breaks the silence to ask, "What time is it?" And inevitably, someone else answers, "Pudding o'clock."
The nurse or aide lurking just out of sight hustles back into the house ahead of the geriatric pudding rush, breathlessly organizing their supplies so that it looks like they happened to be getting ready just in time.
"I love Pudding duty," Christina whispers to Becca, who nods, still a bit dazed but feeling better about her life. She hands Ms. Salpeter her bowl of pudding and gets a sweet smile in exchange, even, which feels like a victory (though anyone who'd been there longer could have told her it wasn't at all).
When the pudding rush is over and everyone is licking their spoons, Mr. Stump leaves his his empty bowl and heads for to the piano, as apparently he or Ms Salpeter does almost every evening. He begins to play a slow, lovely song that Becca doesn't recognize. He has a smear of chocolate across the collar of his sweater, left there by a sticky-sweet kiss from Mr. Wentz. It makes Becca smile.
"I forgot who they were for a while," she whispers to Christina. "Wow, he's still pretty good, huh?"
"Quiet, I love this part," Christina whispers back, and Becca sits with the rest of the day shift and watches Mr. Stump and whoever else feels like joining in sing a couple songs.
If this is the end of every day, Becca things, she might survive this place after all.
~
By the time night shift starts trickling in, most of the residents are heading back to their rooms--or someone else's room. There's a chart of who can be found where in case of emergency, but it's complicated and color-coded, and most of the nurses just learn by (sometimes scarring) experience.
"One thing's for sure," Tonya says, sorting out a tray of pills for Mr. Stump, Mrs. Wentz and Mr. Wentz, "we don't need half the number of bedrooms we've got."
"Well, on the bright side, it must be easier clean up," Becca says. She nods wisely, and the rest of the nurses and aides...just laugh. And laugh. And laugh.
And then someone makes a filthy hand gesture that fairly accurately describes walking into half the rooms at any given time, and they all laugh some more.
"You'll learn," Tonya says much later, wiping her eyes. "Oh honey, trust me, you'll learn."
This is not one of those times.
5200 happy-making cracked words, bandsmush, OTPs, OT3s and OTmanys. It totally started life as an IM conversation. And this is like, all the beta it got--loveyouallwrong: It's the kind of story that i'm going to tack on to every OTHER story. like "pete and patrick fell in love and lived happily ever after. and then moved into the fbr nursing home. THE END"
WORKS FOR ME.
Most mornings start off with the day shift fighting over who is going to bring Ms. Salpeter her applesauce and oatmeal.
"Ohhhh, no no no," says Jennie, the lead nurse, shaking her head and holding her clipboard close to her chest. "Oh no, I had Ms. Salpeter last week. No one gets her two weeks in a row, those are the rules."
Christina pouts. "But she hates me. I've got like, physical and emotional scars from that old bat. It took me a month to get my hair back to normal! Please, Jennie, please--I will totally trade you bathtime with Mr. Wentz."
Jennie hesistates. Bathtime with Mr. Wentz is also known as sit on your ass with a book 'cause you ain't needed time. It's a plum duty, the kind the nurses and aides hope to see on their schedules week after week.
But the new girl has clearly been listening to the night shift talk. She pops up all eager, like she can't wait to get oatmeal down her shirt. She says, perky and cheerful, "I'll do it!"
Jennie raises an eyebrow. "You're...volunteering for breakfast with Ms. Salpeter? You sure you wanna do that?"
"Don't listen to them," Tonya from the night shift tells the new girl as she comes around the corner of the nurses' station, finished changing into her street clothes. "Ms. Salpeter's just the sweetest. Sleeps like an angel, with all that pretty hair spread out on her pillow. And she purrs like a kitten when she's dreaming. She's just too cute."
"Purrs like a kitten that just ate your soul," Jennie mutters to Christina, but she marks the new girl down on the clipboard for 8:00-8:30 Breakfast with Ms Salpeter. And hey, she figures, if the new girl survives, maybe she'll even bother to learn her name instead of just scratching in NG #21.
"You're in luck, honey," Christina says as she passes the new girl a tray with Ms. Salpeter's pills and breakfast, lined up neatly. A bud vase with a yellow rose is carefully placed in the corner. "She let Mr. Saporta in there with her last night. You're getting her on a good day."
"Aww, cuddles. That's so sweet," the new girl says, smiling brightly, and she trots off down the hall with her pony tail swinging, her scrubs gleaming, and her entire being projecting perky good will.
"I give her fifteen minutes," Christina says, leaning an elbow on the desk as she watches the new girl go. "Maybe eighteen, if Mr. Saporta was real good at cuddling last night."
"You're on," Jennie says, and holds out her hand to shake on it.
~
Nineteen minutes later, the new girl comes walking down the hall from Ms. Salpeter's room looking like an extra in a zombie flick. Minus the gore, of course; Ms. Salpeter almost never leaves a mark on 'em.
"I...didn't know," she says, all the shine wiped right off her. "I just...."
"Aww, honey," Jennie says, oozing sympathy and barely a trace of I told you so; on the job training comes in handy sometimes. "It happens to all of us. Why don't you go on over to the break room and lie down for a little bit. I'll have people cover you. Go on, now. Go ahead."
When the new girl is gone, Jennie buzzes Christina, who is out walking with Mr. Hurley; he can get going once he starts, and Christina's the only one who can keep up. And that's just politics. The man's a marathon walker on top of that. Some shifts, Jennie's glad she rarely has to take.
She makes Christina trade the new girl Arts and Crafts, bathtime with Mr. Wentz, and Pudding. She's impressed the new girl didn't quit on the spot after nineteen minutes with Ms. Salpeter--she must be tougher than she looks, because even Mr. Saporta isn't that good.
Jennie writes BECCA! on the schedule in big, happy letters, and sits back, satisfied. This new girl is going to work out just fine.
~
Bob hates Arts and Crafts.
"It's good for you," Brian tells him, while Ray nods along, big mane of hair floating on its own breeze; fucker never did have the common decency to go bald. Bob reaches up and grabs a handful of hair, soft and familiar in his palms, and uses it to hold Ray still.
Not that it does much good. The rest of the hair, curly and thick still, grey, brown, red and shiny in the early sunshine, floats all over the place. Plus now Bob has to look at Ray's big, sweet, earnest eyes while Brian extols the virtues of Arts and Crafts from his safe position as a guy no one makes fuck around with macaroni and string.
Brian finishes his lecture with a tap of his cane and a flourish of, "And it makes Frankie unhappy when you skip it. So you should go."
That's a low blow and Brian knows it, judging by the twinkle in his eye and the, oh, sixty years of knowing Bob and Frank he's got under his belt. Sometimes Bob wishes they'd stayed the fuck away from the home, but Mikey was going so Gerard was going. That meant it was either Ray, Bob and Brian go or they make Frankie really unhappy, which wasn't an option at all.
"Kryptonite," Bob mutters, but he hauls himself out of his chair by his grip on Ray's hair, ignoring Ray's soft, "Oww. Oww. Oww, Bob, leggo, oww," until he's upright and steady.
Steadyish, anyway.
"You fuckers are coming with me," he says, using the tone of voice that hasn't taken no for an answer in fifty-nine years, and he hobbles down the wide hall with Ray and Brian flanking him on either side.
~
"Bob!" Frankie shouts, beaming. "You fucker, you told me you weren't coming back to A&C!"
"Brian?" Bob asks, and Brian raises an eyebrow at him but dutifully recites, "Bob is staying fifteen feet away from the blowtorches at all times. He refuses to allow anyone to sit on, or under, his table. There will be no macaroni projects. String will not be handled by anyone, Frank, in Bob's presence. And, uh--fuck, what am I forgetting?"
"No one with oxygen uses the blowtorch," Ray says helpfully.
"Ahem?"
"Except Jamia and Alicia," Brian amends. "Because they're too smart to do it anyway, and therefore the rule does not apply."
Frank considers this, his hands shoved deep in the stretched-out pockets of his sweater. Then he goes right for Bob's other weak spot, the one that isn't tiny and Frank-shaped and possessing all its hair even though it's as old as Bob; like Ray, Frank is a total fucker. He says, "What if Gerard colored all the macaroni black already?"
Everyone looks at Bob. Gerard holds up the big bucket of black macaroni. If he doesn't mean to be shaking it a little, it's still rattling kind of temptingly, and well. No one's gonna call him on it. It's been a while since Gerard drew a truly straight line, and there isn't an asshole in the world, or at least in Clandestine Assisted Living, who ever wants to make Gerard sad.
Bob looks back at them, his friends and loved ones all old and decrepit and entertaining themselves with black and glitter macaroni art, not a blowtorch in sight. "I'm in," he says, and takes his seat.
~
"Nonna, why is that lady naked?" little Mike III says, and Alicia doesn't even look up from the book on her lap, her hand in his hair.
"That's just Auntie Ash," she says. "Auntie Ash thinks she's a ninja."
"Really?" Three asks, looking up at her, and Alicia laughs a little; he looks so much like his grandfather before he got his eyes done, owlish and earnest.
"That's what she says," Alicia tells him, and over in the hallway someone is saying, "Mrs. Wentz. Mrs. Wentz. Your robe, please," and Ashlee is tittering, and Pete is guffawing somewhere in the distance.
Alicia rubs little Three's head, making his hair stand up. "You want more story, baby?" she asks, and he nods, curling against her knee to listen while she finishes the book. Three's heard it before, but he loves this one; the story of a boy, his dog, his friends, and their adventures, all illustrated by his Uncle Gee years ago.
"And they all lived however they wanted after. The End."
~
"The look," Pete gasps, clutching his sides. "Oh fuck, Ash. The look on the new girl's face, Jesus, that was awesome."
Ashlee ties the belt of her robe, calmly walking up the hall, the heels of her fluffy slippers slapping on the linoleum. "I don't think anyone even warned her. It's like they want to run off the newbies, baby. You notice that?"
"Maybe they just like a little thrill," Pete says, and he pinches her ass lightly--she bruises easier than they'd like, damn her old skin, even if it does look pretty good considering she's too close to old these days.
"It ain't no little thrill anymore," she tells him, patting his hand.
"Perfect-sized thrill," he argues, pinching again, then darting away with a smile. He's not as agile as he used to be, but he gets around pretty well on his new knees. Bionic, Ashlee calls him, but she doesn't mind. The important stuff is the same. He's still Pete.
Even his new teeth are just as big and horsey as the old ones, through the miracles of modern dentistry. He'd considered getting the new ones smaller, but she'd put her foot down on that one. "I want to kiss you," she'd said when he'd brought it up. "Not some little, fake, pretty you. Fuck that."
"Patrick time," he says, toying with the tie of her robe, then pecking the corner of her mouth with a kiss. "See you when the kids get here?"
"How much do you want to be seeing?" she asks, eyebrows raised, and he kisses her again, laughing, before he heads off for his Patrick time.
Ashlee watches him go. God, she loves him, even all these years later; even with those big, ridiculous teeth.
~
"Hey Vic," Pete says, giving Vicky-T a high five. She's hanging out chatting with Patrick, who is busily filling the tub and adding salts from the nice, comfy bench conveniently positioned for just that purpose. Patrick didn't exactly get lazy in his old age, but he saves his energy for the important stuff.
Like Pete.
Who leers as he comes around the tub, asking Vicky, "You here for sponge bath time?"
"Fuck no," Vicky says. She creaks to her feet. He gives her legs an appreciative look out of habit more than anything, and she laughs at him, mocking just like always. "Me and the girls are gonna paint Jon's toenails today. That's enough shriveled old man nudity for me, ugh."
"Says the woman who got in trouble for keeping Ryland and Alex up all night," Patrick says, sly and knowing. He always has the good gossip. People got so used to telling him everything when he was wearing his headphones that now they can't stop, even though the headphones spend a good 70% of the time lost in a drawer somewhere.
Pete drops down onto the bench next to him--carefully, the hips might need to be replaced at any time, and Pete would rather they go after something more fun than sitting in the spa. He drapes his arm over Patrick's shoulder and kisses his cheek when Patrick leans in comfortably. He loves the soft, dry paper feel of Patrick's skin now as much as he'd loved the sweaty, round-cheeked Patrick he'd kissed on stage for all those years.
Patrick smiles sideways at him, but asks Vicky, "Where was Nate? Alex-Alex-Alex time?"
"Something like that," Vicky says dryly. "All right, duty calls--keep it clean, guys."
"Aww, that's no fun," Pete says. He grins as she laughs at him again, shaking her head and wandering away.
When the door is closed behind her, he tips his head, nuzzling Patrick's shoulder. "Naughty sponge baths?" he asks, hopeful. He smiles when Patrick kisses his hair, takes a deep breath to get a good, solid lungful of Patrick-smell, as sweet as ever.
"I don't think Jennie approves of naughty sponge baths," Patrick says. He likes Jennie, and tries to keep Pete from scarring her too badly. Pete's all set to pout his way to victory like it's 2049 anyway, but then Patrick laughs, low and dirty. "We got the new girl today though, so you bet."
"Awesome," Pete says. He loves naughty sponge bath time, with Patrick all spread out for him like a much younger dude, wearing a hat of suds, soap flying everywhere while they scandalize the nurse on the other side of the curtain.
Plus, he's heard that everyone asks, "Is that Pete's sponge?" after naughty sponge bath time. He kind of wants to tell them that when it's Patrick's turn, he pretty much just uses his hands to wash Pete, or on the best days, his sweet little tongue. But it's too much fun to horrify everyone with thoughts of just where those sponges have been, so he doesn't. He just lets 'em wonder.
"I say we don't wait for the new girl," Pete says, even though they're not supposed to get in the big old tubs alone. He'd argue to the death that a bath with Patrick isn't a bath alone in any way, but Patrick worries about Pete's knees--even the new bionic ones!--and usually makes him wait.
Not today, though. "What new girl?" Patrick says, shrugging Pete off his shoulder and standing to strip off one, two, three layers of sweaters, his pants, his boxers, before he climbs into the deep tub and looks back at Pete, waggling his bushy, ridiculous eyebrows.
"This is a fucking awesome day," Pete says, and tosses his clothes aside, climbing into the warm water like a dude fifty years younger, feeling sixty years younger all the way.
~
"Hold still," Greta says, and Jon does, even though he's not particularly sure he likes his toes that particular shade of crimson.
"I don't know," Spencer says, watching critically. "You think he can carry that off? He's kind of old."
Spencer has been jealously guarding his place as the baby of Panic at the Disco since he turned 30 and decided age wasn't just a number. "You're kind of old to be wearing those slacks," Jon says, trying to stay still for Greta, who is watching him with her big, pretty, serious eyes. "Did you pop your collar on purpose?"
Spencer smiles at him, sideways and indulgent. That smile's gotten Jon in a lot of trouble over the years. "Cassie popped it. She likes the way I dress."
Jon narrows his gaze. "Are you trying to steal my girl?"
"I stole your everything," Spencer points out. "Fifty years ago. You didn't notice? Greta, seriously, that red. I just don't think it works."
Jon holds his breath for a second, but Greta is busy painting again and doesn't look up. Only a couple people can get away with questioning her these days: Spencer, Vicky, her Bob, Andy, and Ray Toro. Everyone else, pfft, petrified of her. Jon's seen her make nurses cry.
Then again, he's seen those same nurses come back around after one of Gabe's puppet shows, with the cobras and the bears and the big pink elephants, so who the fuck knows about some people.
Vicky looks up from painting Jon's other toenails a pale color that he likes much better. She studies Greta's work appraisingly, then looks up at Jon. "If you ever wore shoes, we wouldn't feel like we had to do this," she points out, and Jon settles back, resigned to two different colors of nail polish, one a truly revolting red.
Spencer is picking at Jon's sleeve. "Butterscotch," he says, showing Jon what he'd peeled off. "You're going to rot your grandkids' teeth."
"Why are they only my grandkids when their teeth are rotting?" Jon bitches, but he just sighs when Spencer sneaks a hand into the pocket of his favorite old sweater and steals the rest of the butterscotch candies.
And he smiles when Spencer gives him a butterscotch-flavored kiss.
~
"Jon's getting his toes done," Spencer says, slowly and carefully lowering himself into a chair next to Ryan's, out in the garden. "I don't know, it looks like he may not survive it."
"Good for the girls," Ryan says. "He's way overdue. He keeps poking me in the shin with his nails at night. I'd have pinned him down and done it myself if I hadn't seen Greta get out the polish." He moves his knight across the black squares and watching Brendon's face; victory, Brendon didn't realize how totally illegal that was. He's too busy cuddling the baby on his knee.
Ryan squints. Looks like Mike Jr's youngest. Could be one of Patrick's twin grandbabies. All the littlest kids are sort of blending together in his mind, these days. Too many of their kids got married--Greta and Gabe's youngest marrying Patrick's eldest; Jon and Cassie's middle girl marrying Andy's son, on and on. The upside of which is that any of the babies could be his grandkids, Brendon says, so he gets to treat them all exactly the same.
"Mine," Frank says, cruising by with his son Jamie, and Brian. He points at the baby in Brendon's hands. "Don't break it, Urie."
"Mikey's," Brian corrects. "But you still can't break it."
Frank squints at the baby, ignores Jamie and Brian laughing at him, Spencer's raised eyebrows, Brendon's glare. "Oh yeah, Mikey's. But still mine, so watch yourself, butterfingers."
"Who taught my grandson that trick with the penny and the fire?" Brendon asked. "Oh yeah, you and Trohman. If anyone needs to watch themself, just saying, not me!"
Frank beams. "That was your grandson? He caught on real fast. Good kid!"
Ryan and Spencer share a look when Brendon beams back. "Boy takes after his mom," Brendon says. "Who of course takes after her dad. Me. Spencer's side of the family was useless on that one."
Which is going too far. Ryan takes another turn on the board, even though it's been his turn three times in a row now. "Checkmate," he says, blandly. Brendon turns wide, betrayed eyes to the game, then hands Jamie the baby before he comes around the table and puts Ryan in a headlock, demanding to know how he did it.
"I beat you fair and square," Ryan insists, not struggling, and he grins when Brendon laughs and presses a fierce kiss to his temple, just like he's been doing for fifty years.
~
"You're not supposed to be smoking," Andy says, when he comes across Joe leaning against a fountain in the garden, lighting up.
Joe almost swallows the joint. "I'm not," he says, coughing and waving his hand in front of his face. "But if I was, Hurley, it'd be good for me. It's totally oxygenating."
"I don't think that means what you think it means," Andy says, then he tilts his head, frowning. "Actually, I'm not even sure that's a word." The sun bounces off his glasses; must be getting late. Joe would nag at him to have surgery, fix his eyes like everyone else in the world, but then he'd never know what time it was. He'd have to make Andy wear his glasses so he could be Joe's watch, and what would be the point of surgery for that? No point.
Maybe there's a reason Joe isn't supposed to be smoking.
He tosses the joint into the fountain; Andy sighs at him and fishes it out, tucks it in one of the baggy pockets of his black shorts. The skin of his chest and arms, his calves, is colored in patterns that never seem to get less meaningful the older Andy is.
Joe knows his name is in there, with Matt's, and Marie's, and Pete's, Patrick's, Ashlee's, the kids. Lots of names. Andy claimed a lot of people in his lifetime, Joe thinks, and he feels sappy and happy when he laces his arm through Andy's; the smoking was a good idea after all.
"You're not supposed to be walking out here by yourself, old man," he says, and Andy shrugs at him, eyes twinkling a little behind his glasses, and they walk each other up to the house for dinner.
~
Gerard paints more than just macaroni, still. His hands aren't as steady as they had been, but he does all right. He knows everyone's real careful about it around him and that's fine--especially since it's everyone but Lyn.
"That looks like a gnome," she says, pointing to his pad. "A constipated gnome."
"It is," he says, shading in the grimacing little face. Lyn slips her arm around his waist and presses a smile against his shoulder.
"Oh," she says. "Good job, then. I thought it was supposed to be Ariana."
"That too." Gerard likes using the grandkids for models. Ariana's his favorite little gnome. Mike Jr. had made an excellent baby vampire, back in his day. Three is a perfect little bad cherub.
Mikey's still his favorite Igor, though. He just gets more Igor-like as he gets older. "I think so anyway," he tells Lyn. "Alicia hit me the last time I said it."
"Damn, can't imagine why," Lyn says. "Hey, Frank--bring Ariana over here, she's got to see this."
Frank hobbles over, braced against Brian's arm, with his eldest son carrying the baby. "Nice work," he says approvingly. "What's she supposed to be, a live turnip baby? What do you call those?"
"Mandrake?" Gerard tilts his head, considers. "Could be." He kisses the baby's cheek, and she pats his face with sticky, sugary hands. He kisses her little fingers and says, "Mmm, butterscotch. You been hanging out with Jon Walker, little doll?"
"I got her from Urie, so probably," Frank says. "Hey, dinner. You ready, or are you planning to hang out here like a starving artist all day?"
"I can't believe how early you all eat," Jamie says, shifting the baby from one hip to the other. "It's like, four."
"Hey, we've got a busy evening schedule," Frank says, smacking his son's arm. "Just because you're not here to see it, doesn't mean we cancel the party."
"Whatever, Pop," Jamie says, rolling his eyes. "Come on, I'll walk you old guys back to the house. Don't want anyone wandering off, right?"
"Me and Brian would never," Lyn says. "Watch your mouth, boy."
"Except that one time," Gerard says, while Jamie is apologizing to his Aunt Lyn, face a mottled, embarassed red.
"That one time!" Frank slips his hand into Gerard's as they walk back up through the large, hilly garden to the main house. Gerard holds his notebook and pencil case in one hand, holds Frank's thin fingers gently in his other, shaking hand, and smiles while Frank embarasses Lyn and Brian with the long story of that one time they got lost, and came home with a statue of a pink flamingo, two flat tires, muddy pants, and Brian's first pet turtle.
It's a good story. Gerard loves it almost as much as he loves all of them.
~
Meals are a noisy affair, particularly on days when more than a couple kids are visiting, particularly if they happen to have brought along more than a couple of the grandkids and great-grandkids.
Particularly particularly on days when Ashlee's decided to start flashing.
"Oh God, Mom, how do you live like this," Jamia and Frank's daughter Frannie asks, and Jamia looks up.
"I wouldn't even have noticed if you hadn't mentioned it," she says. "Hey, Ash. You want to put that away? There are kids at dinner tonight, you know."
"None of 'em saw anything," Ashlee says, grinning, but she ties her robe tighter again. "I was just out to make the new aide blush. Me and Pete have a bet going on how long it takes her to break and ask to be assigned to the night shift."
"Five dollars says a week," Jamia says, then catches Frannie's disapproving eye. "What? You knew what me and Daddy were getting into when we moved here. It's certainly nothing worse than you got into with that young Saporta boy when you were teenagers, missy."
"Mom," Frannie says, appalled.
"Your dad and I weren't born yesterday," Jamia says, waving her spoon at her youngest.
"We were born like, a hundred thousand yesterdays ago," Frank says, agreeing, even though he had been paying more attention to Gerard's rough sketch of little grandbaby mandrake roots and less to the conversation. "Give or take a few for Leap Years."
"You guys are impossible," Frannie says, but she's grinning. "Hey, is that one Ariana? Uncle Gee, can you do one like that for me?"
Gerard ducks his head, as shyly pleased as ever when someone likes his art.
"Can you do one like that for me?" Pete asks, leaning in from his table across the narrow aisle, just as boldly nosy and demanding as ever. Maybe even worse, after he hit the age where he stopped caring what people thought and started caring more about building his rep as a creepy old man.
"So like, twenty-nine?" Patrick had asked one time when Pete had announced that this was his life's philosophy and it had served him well for lo these many years.
"Something like that, yeah," Pete had said, and kissed him.
"It doesn't matter how many times you ask, I'm not drawing you naked," Gerard tells Pete. "Go back to your own table. You're getting wet hair in my soup. Was it naughty sponge bath day?"
Pete is grinning. "Hell yeah it was. So what if Mikey asks? For old time's sake, come on."
"I'm not asking," Mikey says. "Alicia, oww, I'm not asking."
Andy reels Pete back in, while Ashlee bats her lashes apologetically at Gerard. "Baby, we've all got enough of your naked art," she says. "Come on, let people enjoy their dinner without thinking about your little carrot."
"You wound me," Pete says, but he sounds admiring, and he goes back to dinner without further complaint.
Frannie is doubled over her soup, laughing until she wheezes. "My God, this place," she says, and her Uncle Mikey serves her a little more salad, says, "We wouldn't live anywhere else."
~
After dinner, all the kids, grandkids, great-grandkids, and the--
"I don't think that one was even a relative, Brian. She asked me for my autograph."
"Fans haven't been up here for years. She was probably one of the Panic kids, it's fine."
"She had a camera!"
"Oh well, Bob, call the cops! Some kid came all the way here to take a picture with your old geezer ass, what the fuck was she thinking?"
"Probably, oh, gross--"
"Shut up, Pete!"
--everyone else leaves, and most of the ClanAL residents make their way outside, onto the wide porch that rambles its way around the big old house. It isn't all rocking chairs and orange cats, but it's pretty close.
Pete sits next to Patrick in their favorite old swing, the one they'd had since they first set the house up, back when Ashlee started to get a little weird(er) sometimes and it seemed like a good idea to have everything they needed right where they needed it. He rests his head on Patrick's shoulder and runs the pad of his thumb over the thin, strong crescents of Patrick's nails.
"You need a trim," he says, smiling. "Want me to schedule you some time with Greta?"
"I heard that," Greta says. White-blonde curls spill over Gabe's shoulder as she peeks around him. "You're in my book already, Patrick. Don't forget."
"Of course not, Greta," Patrick says, but he elbows Pete in the side, making wide eyes.
Pete kisses him, laughing. "She hasn't moved on to painting dude's fingernails, I promise," he says. "Except maybe Gee's. I don't know if that color of dirty is totally natural."
"Fuck you," Gerard says amiably from his rocker a little further down the porch. He gives Pete a one-fingered salute with the hand that isn't wrapped in Lyn-Z's.
"That's a Way thing," Alicia says. "Trust me on this one, totally natural."
"I'm totally natural," Ashlee says, coming outside, fully dressed; it isn't exactly warm in the evenings anymore, this time of year. She crawls carefully onto Pete's lap, drapes her ankles across Patrick's, and relaxes. "Well, mostly natural," she amends, smiling. Patrick smiles back at her, massages her ankles, while Pete laughs and kisses her temple.
"We know," Jamia says, dry as dust, making Frank and Brendon giggle, which makes almost everyone laugh; some things are just that kind of wonderfully infectious.
And then everyone settles slowly into comfortable silence, and together they watch the sun set behind the hills, spreading brilliant color across the sky, ending another day as sweetly as it had begun.
~
About a half hour past sunset, inevitably someone breaks the silence to ask, "What time is it?" And inevitably, someone else answers, "Pudding o'clock."
The nurse or aide lurking just out of sight hustles back into the house ahead of the geriatric pudding rush, breathlessly organizing their supplies so that it looks like they happened to be getting ready just in time.
"I love Pudding duty," Christina whispers to Becca, who nods, still a bit dazed but feeling better about her life. She hands Ms. Salpeter her bowl of pudding and gets a sweet smile in exchange, even, which feels like a victory (though anyone who'd been there longer could have told her it wasn't at all).
When the pudding rush is over and everyone is licking their spoons, Mr. Stump leaves his his empty bowl and heads for to the piano, as apparently he or Ms Salpeter does almost every evening. He begins to play a slow, lovely song that Becca doesn't recognize. He has a smear of chocolate across the collar of his sweater, left there by a sticky-sweet kiss from Mr. Wentz. It makes Becca smile.
"I forgot who they were for a while," she whispers to Christina. "Wow, he's still pretty good, huh?"
"Quiet, I love this part," Christina whispers back, and Becca sits with the rest of the day shift and watches Mr. Stump and whoever else feels like joining in sing a couple songs.
If this is the end of every day, Becca things, she might survive this place after all.
~
By the time night shift starts trickling in, most of the residents are heading back to their rooms--or someone else's room. There's a chart of who can be found where in case of emergency, but it's complicated and color-coded, and most of the nurses just learn by (sometimes scarring) experience.
"One thing's for sure," Tonya says, sorting out a tray of pills for Mr. Stump, Mrs. Wentz and Mr. Wentz, "we don't need half the number of bedrooms we've got."
"Well, on the bright side, it must be easier clean up," Becca says. She nods wisely, and the rest of the nurses and aides...just laugh. And laugh. And laugh.
And then someone makes a filthy hand gesture that fairly accurately describes walking into half the rooms at any given time, and they all laugh some more.
"You'll learn," Tonya says much later, wiping her eyes. "Oh honey, trust me, you'll learn."