The fic I didn't write for bandombigbang
So BBB is well over by now, and with Pedicone having departed in less than ideal circumstances, I thought it was about time I posted this. (And also about time I GOT IT OUT OF MY LIFE, FFS.)
Title: This doesn't deserve a title
Fandom: Bandom (MCR, FOB)
Pairings: Pete/Patrick, Patrick/MCR, Pete/Patrick/MCR, past Pete/Mikey and Bob/Patrick
This is a ramble about Patrick replacing Bob as MCR's drummer, being slowly drawn into having sex with all of them, and Pete's long-distance FEELINGS about everything. I originally intended to write it for BBB but I could never get the right tone, so I abandoned it. Except that then I couldn't get it out of my head, so it turned into not!fic.
*
So Mikey and Pete are hanging out, because Pete hasn't seen Mikey in ages and Mikey wasn't answering his calls, and Pete was starting to wonder what the hell was going on.
Pete didn’t plan on asking Mikey what had happened right away, not when it had taken such a sustained stalking campaign just to get him to leave the studio. Pete didn’t call it ‘stalking’, of course. He was just concerned about his friend.
“No, it’s totally stalking,” said Mikey, not looking away from the TV screen.
“Is not!” Pete protested, and dropped his controller for dramatic effect. Mikey immediately blasted Pete off the track, so he hastened to pick it up again. “It’s not stalking when it’s your friend.”
“Pretty sure that doesn’t stand up in court. Especially when it’s a friend you used to fuck.”
“Whatever. I was just worried about you.” Pete fired off a shell at Mikey but missed. “You have to admit, you’d be freaking out about me if I didn’t answer my phone for three days.”
It was just an offhand comment; true, but the kind of truth that didn’t require any further comment. He really hadn’t meant to press Mikey about what was going on. Something must have told Mikey that this was the ideal time to explain, though, because he shrugged, said “Bob quit,” and smashed past Pete to win his third game of Mariokart in a row.
Pete is sympathetic and understands how difficult it is, and the drama of it and everything, but he's also a businessman and he can't help wondering who they're going to get to replace him.
"Well, that's the thing," Mikey said. "We were wondering if we could have Patrick."
Pete sits there, torn between Patrick loved drumming for you and No you can't have him, he's MY Patrick, and eventually settles for "Shouldn't you be asking Patrick that?"
But Mikey knows that Pete will worry about Patrick, and he'll miss him, and Pete probably misses Patrick already with Patrick being off doing his solo thing all the time. So he has to ask. And Pete doesn't really want to say that My Chem can have Patrick, because he doesn't want to share Patrick, but maybe not sharing was what made Patrick need the space to go off and be a little solo control freak in the first place. So even though he's going to be jealous of MCR and of Patrick for having each other and him not being there, he says yes.
"You have to take care of him. Walk him twice a day and make sure he eats," Pete joked. "And make sure you include him in all your post-show group sex."
Mikey raises an eyebrow and smirks, but there's something distant about it. "Of course we'll include him in the group sex. That's one of the reasons we chose Patrick."
He could have been joking, but he could have been serious, and the possibility nags at the back of Pete's mind for days. Did MCR really all have sex with each other after shows? No, they couldn't, he was joking and Mikey was too. Except maybe he wasn't. Fuck, he'd said they could take Patrick and now Patrick was maybe going to have sex with all of MCR, and the whole idea just made him jumpy. It was stupid. It was probably not real. But he couldn't help thinking about it now, thinking about all four of them in a hotel room, or a dressing room or the back lounge of a bus, stripping off their sweaty, filthy stage clothes and then touching and licking and fucking each other. Gerard's white skin, Frank's boundless energy, Ray's solid limbs and huge hands, and Mikey's... Mikey's everything.
But it was probably silly.
He was in his kitchen trying very hard not to imagine the boys from My Chemical Romance undressing Patrick, stripping off the clothes he usually clung to so closely even in the nudity-prone environs of the tour bus, four pairs of hands roaming Patrick's skin, touching places even Pete never had, getting to hear what Pete imagined would be Patrick's glorious, musical moan... anyway, that was when the doorbell rang and Pete found Patrick standing outside his house.
"Hi," said Pete, staring kind of blankly at him.
"Hi," Patrick agreed.
They stared at each other for a moment as Pete tried very hard to stop thinking about Patrick naked.
"Are you going to let me in?"
"Oh yeah! Yeah, sure," Pete babbled, and shuffled aside to let Patrick in.
"So My Chemical Romance asked me to fill in for them on drums."
"Yeah, I heard. Are you going to do it?"
Patrick shrugged. "I don't know. Maybe? Do you think I should?"
Yes, stop being a recluse, thought one part of Pete. No, you're supposed to be mine, said another. An equally loud voice wanted to know Patrick's thoughts on sleeping with all of the members of MCR at once, but he mercifully managed to keep that one under control.
"Well, why not?" Pete asked, helplessly.
"Yeah, that's the thing. I don't really know. At first I thought, I don't want to get involved in ANOTHER thing when I'm trying to record my own stuff, but I talked to Ray and he said they mostly just want me for the studio tracks, and if I don't want to hang around for the tour then that's okay. Then I was worried about Bob. Just, I don't want to step on his toes, you know? He's one of my best friends, still, and I couldn't just go join his old band if he wasn't going to be happy with it. But I went to see him this morning, and we talked for ages, and he's really okay with it. More than okay, actually."
There's a tiny, private smile on Patrick's face, and Pete finds himself wondering if anything ever went on between Patrick and Bob back when they were living together, or anything since. He has to fight the image of Bob and Patrick snuggling on the couch, watching TV, and Patrick's hand on Bob's knee, and his head on Bob's shoulder, and Bob turning in to Patrick for a kiss...
"... And you know, I like those guys, and I really miss drumming, so there's a lot of good there, and I don't have to be any more involved than I want to."
"Right, yeah, okay." Pete nods, trying to get his thoughts back onto the matter at hand. "So then why not?"
"Because I just wonder if you'll be... if it's going to..." He looked at his hands and frowned and looked at Pete again. "You're not going to, you know, freak out and stuff, are you?"
You should do this, Patrick, it's what you want, it's what's good for you says one part of Pete. You can't do this, I'll miss you, you're supposed to be mine says another. In some detached, logical, observant part of his mind, he thinks, If I'm thinking like this then of COURSE I'm going to freak out.
Pete thinks a lot of things. What Pete does is put a smile on his face and say "Nah, it's cool. I have plenty of other things to keep me busy."
"You sure?" Patrick just looks even more concerned, and if there's one thing Pete has to put a stop to then it's Patrick worrying about him.
"Of course I'm sure." He slips into a sly grin, one he feels more comfortable in than his attempt at looking reassuring. "But if My Chem decide to invite you to their full band orgies then I want all the details, right? No holding back. Every bit of it."
There's a split second of... something in Patrick's eyes that Pete can't read, something like shock or uncertainty or fear. But it's gone too quickly for Pete to tell, and then he's looking at the same old Patrick again, sighing and shaking his head at Pete like that would ever stop him. "My Chemical Romance do not have whole of band group sex, Pete."
"Sure they do. Mikeyway told me." Pete figures it's only half a lie if he isn't sure whether Mikey was serious or not. "It's a great idea. We should have thought of that years ago."
"Well, they don't," said Patrick, stubbornly. "And I'm not having group sex with anyone, ever."
"Oh sure, you say that now," Pete grinned, "But once you've spent a few long weeks in the studio together, and they're falling in love with your musical genius and you're falling in love with all their ideas and shit..."
"Shut up, Pete."
"And spend all your time having to watch Gerard's ass while he dances along to his own music, or Frank and Ray ripping up the guitars, and Mikey, oh boy, you'll love Mikey, he has these fingers."
"Pete," there was a warning in his voice this time, "Stop it."
It all ends in a tickle fight and Patrick pushing Pete off the couch, hard, and by the time he hugs Patrick goodbye, Pete is so sore just from laughing that he couldn't possibly feel bad right now.
It was completely true, and it was a relief, Pete thought, when he walked away from his closed front door, Hemmy trotting at his feet. Even if My Chemical Romance really did all have sex with each other, and even if they tried to get Patrick involved in it, too, there was no way that Patrick actually would. If Patrick still lectured Pete about boundaries whenever he got too close, there was no way he was going to have sex with four guys he didn't really know that well. Not all at once.
But when Pete closed his eyes, he was still haunted by visions of four pairs of strange-but-familiar hands roaming over Patrick's pale skin.
When he heads to the studio for their first day of recording, Patrick feels more nervous than he has in years. He's spent thousands of hours in studios recording and producing over the years, but somehow none of it was ever quite like this.
See, his relationship with MCR was kind of weird. They were always kind of in the back of his mind, like the kind of relatives you got on with but only saw once a year. He was always vaguely aware of when they were touring or not touring, when Gerard put a comic book out or that Frank's wife was pregnant. Mikey, especially, was someone who always seemed to be slightly awkwardly around, whether he was physically present or not. They were friendly enough from Mikey being around Pete for so long, and Patrick certainly knew more about Mikey than he did about any of the other guys. But there was always a kind of uncomfortable distance with Mikey. Patrick sometimes felt like he knew Mikey better as a secretive smile on Pete's face than as an actual person. he was familiar and distant at the same time, one of those parts of Pete that Patrick knew nothing about.
When he finally got to the studio, though, having Mikey there just made it easier. If it had just been the other guys then Patrick wouldn't have known exactly how to act, even though he was vaguely familiar with them. It was bad enough not really knowing where he stood, or rather knowing that he was just a session musician to them but not knowing how to act when he was in a studio and not in control. He wouldn't have had any proper idea of how to act around Ray, Gerard and Frank. But when Mikey strolled in, quietly called Gerard a dork and gave Patrick a sly wink, Patrick was instantly grateful for all the time they'd known each other, no matter how awkward it sometimes got.
He got to know them as the week wore on. He could play the rhythm of their songs with barely a second thought, but fitting into the rhythm of their conversations was harder. He'd only ever really been in one band, not like most of the people in the music scene, and he'd never had to do this part, learning how to fit in. He always just made Fall Out Boy fit around him, since they'd been more than willing to do so. Pete had always been so willing to carve out whatever space Patrick needed, he realised. He hadn't noticed, after all the years of yelling at Pete for getting in his space too much, that Pete let him have it, too.
Still, it wasn't as though they left him out. They almost had a language of their own, after all the time they'd spent together, but they made an effort to translate for Patrick when they were joking around between takes or after the day's recording was over, so that he wasn't completely out of the loop. Patricks' biggest problem, ultimately, wasn't not having anything to say. it was the struggle to keep his mouth shut.
For all that MCR were accommodating, Patrick was really, acutely aware that this was not his band and he didn't get a say in what they did. It wasn't his place to offer suggestions or tell them to do things differently. He wasn't there to write the songs. He wasn't even there to make them better. They'd hired him to play the drums and that was all he was going to do.
Patrick keeps thinking of ways that the songs could be improved, like he can't stop hearing it, even though he's trying to be on his best behaviour and not interfere. It wouldn't be so much of an issue if it weren't for Ray always hanging back just the same as Patrick, both of them taking some pleasure in setting the studio in order for the next morning before they left for the night, and constantly asking Patrick what he thought. The first few times they chatted casually about music, but then Ray kept on asking him what he thought about the songs, and it just started to get insensitive. Was Ray trying to tempt him.
"So what do you think of Disco?" Ray asked. "We're thinking of changing the name, and maybe a bit of the style. Make it rougher."
"Well, you've been working on it for a while," said Patrick, bending over the kit and pretending to tighten something. "It was one of the first ones you wrote, wasn't it? If you're still not feeling it, then there's obviously something you have to change."
"Yeah?" Ray said. "Any ideas?"
Patrick was full of ideas. He couldn't stop ideas for improvements springing to mind every time they played a single song.
"Nope. No idea."
"I loved that extra drum roll you put in today."
Damn, Patrick thought, he'd been trying so hard to do what they asked him to and not improvise at all. Sometimes things just slipped out. He'd hoped that nobody noticed that extra drumroll, but it turned out he wasn't nearly as subtle as he thought he was.
"Shit, I'm sorry. I'll try not to do that again. I really didn't mean to, I just, you know, when you're used to composing it's hard to..."
"Hey," Patrick jumped a little at the hand on his shoulder. "I said I liked it, didn't I?"
"Yes, but..."
"Patrick, will you just look at me?"
He did, and found himself having to crane his neck up to meet Ray's sunny smile.
"It's okay if you have ideas, you know. You can play them. You can even tell me about it. I like hearing what you think."
"But this isn't my band," said Patrick, stubbornly. "I don't want to come in here and tell you what you should be doing, that's none of my business."
"Yeah, no. You're not a drum machine either." Ray patted his shoulder again. "There are tons of drummers we could have asked if we just wanted someone to play drums. You have ideas and we like your ideas, so if you want to do something differently just speak up, will you?"
There was a swooping feeling in Patrick's stomach, of exhilaration and fear. He could contribute. He could stop biting his tongue and actually say stuff. He was kind of scared of it, too, because it felt uncomfortably like he was becoming part of the band and that wasn't meant to happen. He was meant to be Patrick from Fall Out Boy or plain old Patrick Stump, not the drummer from MCR. But he bit his lip and nodded, and when Ray smiled he couldn't help smiling back. Even if it was scary, the thrill of being able to take a song and make it better was the best. Especially when it was for his friends.
Pete thought he'd been very well behaved since MCR went into the studio, thank you very much. He'd only called Patrick about once a week. If he sent Patrick about twenty texts a day, some of them verging on inappropriately filthy, then so what? He was staying out of Patrick's way. It was a perfectly reasonable thing to do.
"Pete," Patrick growled, when he finally picked up the phone one Friday. "Go away. I'm eating."
"Why? You can eat while I talk. Are you eating with the My Chem guys?" Pete asked, excitedly. He could hear a couple of 'hi, Pete's in the background. "Tell them I said, hi!"
"I... yes, okay, Pete, I am, so leave me alone, I'm being all social and stuff."
Pete grinned to himself. "You really like them, huh?"
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"I mean, if you're hanging out and stuff."
"Well, we're nearly done recording. I don't know. It seemed like a good idea."
"Nearly done, huh?" said Pete, thoughtfully. "So when are you guys going on tour?"
"Pete, I'm not... I'm not talking about this right now," he hissed, embarrassed. "I'll talk to you later, okay?"
"Okay," Pete muttered, and suddenly he was staring at a silent phone, with an uncomfortable twist of jealousy in his stomach. He spent almost a full minute feeling jilted before his phone lit up with the message They haven't even asked me yet.
they will Pete texted him back, faster than he really needed to.
You don't know that
yes i do, they love u
that doesn't mean they want me to go on tour with them
u want it
I'm still Patrick from FOB, said Patrick's final text, and Pete kind of felt his heart melt.
of course u r, ur always mine Pete typed, happily. Then he grinned to himself and added but u can b patrick from mcr for a while if you tell me all about the group sex
shut up i hate u said Patrick's reply, and Pete rolled over and smiled into the arm of his couch, not even bothering to try to stop the images of Patrick and Mikey from running through his head.
There had been a thought worrying at the back of Patrick's mind throughout the recording process, one that had nothing to do with his boundaries as a drummer/composer/all round musical genius. He'd settled in well with the My Chem guys. He liked them, he liked playing with them, and he was happy that he'd decided to do it. Because Pete had been right, it had been good for him, and although he wasn't nearly conversant enough in comic books to keep up with every conversation, for the most part this exercise had been far less awkward than he thought it would be.
But for all that, there was one concern he'd been carrying around with him from day one. He was still on tenterhooks thinking that any day now, one of them was going to ask him to join them for a night of all-out debauchery.
It was not just the fact that Pete kept talking about it. Pete was full of shit quite a lot of the time. It was always possible that Mikey had told Pete something about band sex, Patrick realised that, but it was just as likely that Mikey was bullshitting him. If it had only been Pete who warned him about the My Chemical Romance orgies, Patrick wouldn't have given it a second thought. But Bob Bryar was a different matter. Patrick had laughed when Bob warned him, all those weeks ago when My Chem first offered Patrick the job, and he'd tried to just brush it off. Bob insisted, though, and eventually shrugged and said Patrick couldn't claim he didn't try to warn him, and ever since then Patrick had been worrying, wondering if any moment now the band were going to spring on him like a pack of sexy hyenas and expect him to come to bed with them.
It was stupid, he kept telling himself. Bob had probably been winding him up. Bob did that sometimes. Well, he could, theoretically. To more people than just Frank.
He stopped that line of thought. He had tried to forget that smirk Bob got on his face when he talked about sex and Frank.
The fear of imminent orgy invitations had diminished gradually after the first day. He was tense and worried about it all throughout the first week, but after that, every passing day when he didn't get propositioned for sex had made the prospect a little less scary. With their studio time drawing to a close, though, and tension and emotions clearly running high, Patrick felt certain that it was only a matter of time before they tried to seduce him, and he really didn't know what he was going to do.
When the last tracks were recorded, the mixing done and the damn thing finally set down, the rest of the band whooped and high-fived each other and then, grinning, turned to Patrick. Oh no, he thought, this is it. This is where the group sex comes in. They're going to ask me to...
"Patrick motherfucking Stump," said Gerard, holding out his hand, "It's been an honour to work with you. You helped make our album so much more awesome. What do you say to helping make our tour more awesome as well."
Patrick knew he was supposed to think seriously about this, not make a snap decision. He should talk to Pete, and Bob, and, god, somebody else before he decided to suddenly go off on tour with My Chemical Romance. But he was enjoying this, more than he thought he would, and with them all standing there looking at him like he was the best thing they'd ever seen, he realised it was going to be hard to walk away.
And besides, he was so overwhelmed with relief that they weren't trying to have sex with him that he would have agreed to just about anything. So he took Gerard's hand and said "Yes."
A second later he was trying to throw Frank off his back while Mikey and Ray were both trying to shake his hand at once, and he was so busy laughing that he forgot to be annoyed. This wasn't Fall Out Boy. It still wasn't his band. But he could go out and play with some other people for a bit, and he could do it with some of the best people outside his own label he could ever have hoped to meet.
"So Patrick," said Gerard, when it all calmed down, with a dangerous glint in his eye, "Now that you're a touring member of MCR, we have some traditional celebrations that we need to invite you to. Ray took the initiative of booking a hotel room for the occasion..."
Pete knows when Patrick is ignoring him. Or rather, he knows when Patrick is ignoring him because he’s fed up with Pete and can’t take his annoying habits any more, and ignoring him because there’s something wrong with Patrick. A week into his first tour with MCR, Patrick stops returning Pete’s calls, and as much as he tries not to worry, there’s only so much of that he can put up with before he realises something’s seriously wrong.
“Yo,” says Mikey, when he picks up the phone. “What’s up?”
“Not much.” Pete tries to stay casual despite his relief, both at hearing Mikey’s voice and at knowing that Patrick’s right there in the background. “Can you put me onto Patrick?”
“He has his own phone, you know that, right?”
“Well duh,” Pete said. “How do you think I kept him in my band so long without phoning him? He’s not answering it.”
“Okay,” said Mikey. This was what Pete loved about Mikey. He never asked uncomfortable questions, he just helped. “Hey Patrick, catch!”
And a moment later, after a startled squawk, was the sound of a tense Patrick saying “Hello?”
“Patrick!” said Pete, delighted. “It’s so good to hear you!”
“What? Pete? Mikey!”
“Mikey’s an awesome friend,” said Pete, smugly, while Patrick grumbled under his breath. “He takes my calls. And helps me and shit. Unlike some people I could name.”
“I’m taking this outside!” Patrick yelled to someone, and a moment later there was a notable reduction in the background noise.
“So what the fuck? Is there some reason you disappeared off the face of the earth?”
“No,” said Patrick, stiffly. “I’ve just been busy, okay?”
“Because I was worried,” said Pete, indignantly. As much as he was trying to be humorous about this, he could feel a little of his composure slipping, just a bit too jealous that MCR got to see more of Patrick than he did these days, and a little too glad to be talking to him again at last. “I thought something had happened to you. Nothing bad’s happened, has it?”
“No, of course not,” Patrick sighed. “I’m sorry. Tour’s just been keeping me busy, that’s all.”
“You mean MCR’s been keeping you busy,” said Pete, unable to help himself. “With the nightly orgies, I mean.”
And then Patrick didn’t say anything. It started out sounding like a ‘I’m sick of this, Pete’ silence, but as it stretched on it turned into more of an awkward silence, and by the time Patrick finally got around to clearing his throat Pete had figured out exactly what was implied by it.
“Oh my god.”
“Pete, it’s not what you...”
“Mikey wasn’t joking. And you’ve been lying to me, you little sneak.”
“I’m not...”
“You are!”
“I’m not sleeping with any of MCR!” Patrick hissed, and they both shut up for a moment before Patrick mumbled “They just keep asking me to.”
“And you’re not doing it?” Pete blurted, before he could start feeling jealous. “Why the hell not, Patrick?”
“Why not? Are you actually mad?” Patrick demanded.
“Yes, but that’s not the point. The point is that Mikeyway gives really great head.”
Patrick made a sound that was almost a frustrated scream. “Pete, shut the fuck up.”
“What? I’m just stating a fact. You should fuck them, Patrick, it’d be really good. You deserve good things.”
“I have to go on stage with that guy every night, I don’t want to know how great he is in bed.”
“You should find out for yourself,” said Pete, feeling genuinely sad now. “Really, Patrick. You shouldn’t deny yourself something awesome just because you think it’s a bad idea and you hate taking your clothes off or whatever. Stop being repressed and let yourself be happy, Patrick!”
It took a moment for Pete to realise that Patrick had hung up on him. He redialled but this time he got Mikey again.
“Patrick says he’s not talking to you,” said Mikey, sounding unsurprised.
“Why aren’t any of you having sex with him?” Pete demanded, more important things on his mind now. “If you’re gonna borrow my Patrick I expect you to take care of him, Mikeyway.”
“I dunno,” said Mikey, and he sounded so sad that Pete felt bad for telling him off about it. “We’ve all tried, Pete. But he keeps saying no. Some bullshit excuse about boundaries.”
“Figures,” Pete sad, with an equally melancholy sigh.
Nobody told Patrick about the running bet about who would be the first to get Patrick into bed with another guy in the band, but they were pretty sure he knew about it. It was hard to be subtle about whispering about someone when they were in your band, and they figured he must have gotten the idea when he started hanging out with Dewees all the time. Or maybe he was just sick of them all hitting on him.
Initially they all thought the first one would be Ray. After all those late nights hanging out together in the studio, there had to be some chemistry there, right? But Patrick remained resolutely resistant to Ray’s seductive charms, and Ray actually felt kind of bad for coming onto him when he clearly just wanted to talk about song ideas, new arrangements or just how to improve their sound in the latest venue.
Gerard had no such reservations. He was quite happy to lure Patrick into conversations about singing, interviews or D&D before trying to get into his pants.
“Hey, Pete was right,” Gerard said, cheerfully, on one occasion when Patrick huffed, glared at him and stalked back to the bus. “You are extra hot when you’re mad.”
“I hate you,” Patrick shot back.
“I know!” Gerard said, cheerfully.
Normally they would have all put their money on Mikey being the first one to seduce Patrick, given his typical deftness at hooking up under any situation, but though he just said he was out of practice, everyone knew that it wasn’t really going to work with Patrick. There was an uncomfortable Pete-shaped space between them, and though Mikey made a few half-hearted attempts at hitting on him, they both knew that it wasn’t going to be something they were both comfortable with.
Nobody expected it to be Frank.
Patrick realised after only one show that as intense and dedicated as Frank could be in the studio, on stage he was annoying as fuck. It was nice that Frank was so into his music, but he clearly had no goddamn respect for anyone else’s space. He was way too happy to headbutt other people, or rub up against them, or climb on Patrick’s drum kit or kick things or knock things over. Patrick’s things. Worse than that, even were the times that Frank would try to get behind the kit to sniff him or nuzzle him or whatever, while Patrick was trying to concentrate on playing, because apparently sticking his face in Gerard’s crotch whenever he got the chance wasn’t enough for Frank and he had to get as much contact as possible with Patrick, too.
On stage, Frank had all the annoying habits that Pete did. Except that unlike Pete, Frank wasn’t scared of pissing Patrick off.
Between Frank’s general incorrigibility and the entire band’s increasing annoyance that Patrick won’t sleep with them, this eventually culminates in Frank clambering over Patrick’s kit to lick his neck right there on stage in front of everyone. Being such a professional, Patrick doesn’t stop playing, not even when Frank’s fumbling notes and Patrick’s turning red all over, but he does come close to snapping when Frank knocks over a cymbal as he skips away. Patrick takes a deep breath and just puts the stand back up again while Gerard keeps the audience entertained by sticking his hand down his pants, but he spends the rest of the show glaring at Frank, and when he grabs Frank by the arm and drags him away as soon as they’re offstage, the rest of the band just look glad that it’s not them.
“Jesus, Frank!” Patrick yelled, when they were out of sight, if not out of earshot. “Did you have to fucking... in front of everybody.”
“Yep,” said Frank, cheerfully.
“Well fucking don’t,” Patrick shouted, and shoved him against the side of the bus. He felt a stab of guilt and glanced around, but it looked like the rest of MCR were staying out of his way until he was done yelling. Good. “Don’t you ever do that again, you hear me? You don’t get to do that shit on stage when I’m trying to play.”
“What shit would that be?” Frank asked, innocently, and tried to lick Patrick’s neck again while he slid a hand under his shirt. Patrick pushed him away again. “Oh, you mean all the shit Pete used to do? I’m not allowed to get away with that, huh?”
“Pete didn’t wreck my instruments,” Patrick grumbled, pushing Frank back against the side of the bus again and holding him at arm’s length.
“Pete had an unfair advantage,” said Frank. “He didn’t have to go through a drumkit to get to you.”
“Shut up,” said Patrick, tightening his grip on Frank’s shirt. “And don’t do that again.”
“Yeah, right. You think I’m gonna stop touching you because you scare me? Although...” Frank grinned and rolled his hips against Patrick’s suggestively. “I can promise to shut up if you can think of something else to put in my mouth.”
Patrick glared at Frank for a bit longer, largely in disbelief, but he mutters ‘get in the bus’ in the hope that by the time they both make it inside, sanity will have prevailed and Patrick will no longer feel that shoving Frank to his knees and making him blow him in the bathrooms is just what he needs.
It doesn’t.
Afterwards, when Patrick is breathless and pressed uncomfortably against the shower wall to hold himself up, and Frank is sitting back on his heels grinning at him, all Patrick can think to say is “Bob wasn’t kidding.”
“Bob loved my mouth,” said Frank, smugly. “Although you’d never know during, he was so quiet. You, on the other hand, are a noisy fucker.”
Patrick flushed even redder. “He was right about how annoying you are, jackass.”
“So are you going to return the favour or what?”:
“No. That was payback for you crashing my kit. I don’t owe you anything.”
“Okay.”
Patrick blinked. That was too easy. “So you’ll stop getting in my space on stage?”
“Oh hell no,” Frank laughed. “Come on, it’s not like you really want me to stop.”
“I really do.”
“No you don’t. Because now you know I’m just as good with my tongue as Bob said I was and now you can get me to make it up to you every time I fuck up.” He stood up and grabbed Patrick in a full-body hug, now that Patrick couldn’t escape in the confined space. “Admit it. You want me to do that again.”
Patrick frantically tried to think of a way to avoid answering that, because he couldn’t think of an answer that resulted in more sex with Frank and Frank leaving him alone on stage. Fortunately, Frank forgot about it when Patrick opened the bathroom door to a round of applause from the rest of the band.
“I can’t believe you got there first,” said Gerard, later, poking Frank with his foot.
“First?” Patrick rolled his eyes. “That was one time, guys. It still doesn’t mean I’ll sleep with all of you.”
“Yeah!” Frank punched the air. “I win! I get all the Patrick sex!”
“You do not.” Patrick shooed him away. “That was once, Frank. Now you’re going to stay away from me on stage and I’m going to stay well away from any more tour sex.”
It was after the third time he fucked Frank that Patrick started to find himself ‘accidentally’ walking in on Frank having sex with other people.
The first time, it seemed like a genuine accident. It was a few hours before a show and he walked into a dressing room to find Ray and Frank wrapped around each other in an advanced state of undress. Ray seemed startled, even if Frank just invited Patrick to join, and Patrick yelled a hasty “Sorry!” over the top of him and backed out of there as fast as he could.
“Sorry about that,” Frank whispered, late that night, sticking his head into Patrick’s bunk.
“I should be sorry,” Patrick whispered back.
“I mean, I hope it didn’t make you jealous or anything.”
Patrick gave him a weary look over the top of his book. “How stupid do you think I am?”
“Stupid enough to turn down sex,” said Frank, immediately. “Unless you want me to say sorry right now.”
“No. I’m sleeping. Go away.”
“See, you are mad,” said Frank, grinning at Patrick as though that infuriating logic made sense. “Just give in and join the love, Patrick.”
“No, I know that sex in bunks is a terrible idea,” he said, and tried to push Frank’s head away. Somehow that just resulted in Frank crawling in on top of Patrick, and by then Patrick was ready to just give up.
Patrick was less shocked when he found Gerard blowing Frank backstage one evening, but he was even more annoyed. Seriously, there were techs around. Wouldn’t Frank think of the crew? They could at least use a dressing room. And put a sign on the door, unlike that time with Ray. But it wasn’t until he was climbing on the bus late one night and found Frank and Mikey exchanging lazy handjobs on the couch that he started to think something was up.
“This is some kind of evil plan, isn’t it?” he asked, crossing his arms, trying not to look uncomfortable.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” said Mikey said, flatly, staring straight at him.
It was really hard looking his bandmates in the eye when they were just sitting there getting each other off. “All these ‘coincidental’ caught in the act occasions, Frank.”
“The thing is, Patrick,” said Frank, as he shifted slightly on the couch, “In this band we all love each other a lot. And we all like to show each other that. And we don’t really care if the other see, because we all know, you know?”
“No,” said Patrick, uncertainly. “I’m just going to bed and leaving you to it.”
He’d gotten used to Frank calling him a spoilsport. He was immune to it by now. What stopped him was Mikey saying “Don’t.”
Patrick had been trying to avoid thinking about Mikey. In some weird part of his mind, Mikey was still Pete’s, was still tied up with Pete. He could keep from thinking about it before, but when he turned to look back at Mikey this time, it was different, because his mouth was hanging open and his eyes were dark and he was panting a little as Frank jerked him off and he couldn’t help but think of Pete, now. Because this was Mikeyway as not many people got to see him, but Pete had. Frank was just different enough from Pete that Patrick could keep from thinking about him, but it was impossible to keep Pete out of his head when he was looking at Mikey like this.
So for reasons he barely understood, Patrick turned and sat down next to him, and when Mikey turned to kiss him, Patrick just gave in. Soon he was cushioned between them, Frank at his back whispering filth in his ear and Mikey on his knees in front of him. Patrick groaned and tangled his fingers in Mikey’s hair, dirty blond rather than black as it had been on Warped all those years ago, and he thought about how this was another part of Mikey that he had and Pete didn’t. And when he opened his eyes he saw Gerard hovering in the doorway with Ray behind him, and Gerard asked, timidly, if Patrick minded them joining in. And this time Patrick gave in and said yes, let himself be surrounded by a band who loved him, and let himself think of the person who was missing.
Pete had learned by now to stop asking about MCR’s groupsex habits, so he was completely blindsided when Patrick said “So you know what you kept asking about the band, and how they all have sex...”
“Oh my god,” Pete sat down suddenly. “Patrick, you did it! I didn’t think you had it in you!”
“I didn’t say that.”
Pete could just picture him scowling. “Oh my god. Well something happened. Tell me about it!”
“I... Pete, I’m not going to tell you about the details of my sex life over the phone.”
“Then why tell me about it?”
There was a long pause. “I don’t know.”
“Patrick,” Pete frowned. “Is something wrong?”
“It’s just... I dunno. You probably think it’s all yay, group sex, woo, but it’s... I dunno.”
“Not really, no. Look, I know I keep acting like it sounds exciting and all, but if you don’t like it, don’t do it. There’s nothing wrong with that.”
“It’s not that,” Patrick sighed. “It’s just not... I just miss... fuck never mind, I shouldn’t have called you, this is stupid.”
After a bit more fudging, Patrick abruptly says goodbye, and Pete is left with a phone in his hand and his head full of THOUGHTS about Patrick and Mikey and everyone in MCR, and how he wanted to be a part of it and at the same time didn’t want Patrick to be sad, and wondered why, if Patrick didn’t want to talk about it, he decided to call Pete.
Then he decided that sorting through his thoughts was too much, called Mikey, and booked the next flight to wherever MCR were playing next.
Pete talked to Mikey around midday the day of the concert, but he didn’t go anywhere near the band areas until they were almost ready to go on stage. Then he carefully sidled into the wings at the opposite end of the wings to where Patrick was going to walk on. Patrick’s double take when he saw Pete waiting there was worth all the effort.
Afterwards, Pete and Patrick have a long awkward talk about their feelings which I can’t be bothered writing out, where Patrick talks about missing Pete and Pete talks about how jealous he is (although he doesn’t mention how much time he’s spent imagining Patrick having sex with MCR). And then finally they make out a bit and Patrick thinks yes, that’s what he was missing. It wasn’t the band, it wasn’t that there was something wrong with MCR, it’s just that they weren’t Pete.
Then Pete says “So does this mean I get to come to the MCR orgies now?”
“Pete!” Patrick crossed his arms angrily. “I’m not a backstage pass!”
“I’m not doing this just to get to the orgy,” said Pete, trying to sound reasonable. “I just think, given you’re fucking four other guys right now, we should discuss what that means in terms of our starting a relationship.”
“And you think the answer is you joining in?”
Just then there was a knock at the dressing room door and Mikey stuck his head in.
“Hey guys. We just wanted to let you guys know that you can go back to Pete’s hotel room for tonight, but next time you hook up while we’re on tour, you have to come to the orgy.”
“What?” Patrick demanded.
“Well you don’t have to,” Mikey shrugged. “But Gerard says if you don’t bring Pete you can’t be in our Warhammer game anymore.”
He shut the door and left Patrick and Pete staring at each other.
“Okay,” Patrick sighed, but he was smiling as he hugged Pete again. “I guess you win.”
“You get to play drums, I get to watch, I get to sleep with you whenever I want and we both get to be in orgies with MCR,” Pete said, hugging him back. “I think everyone wins.”
Title: This doesn't deserve a title
Fandom: Bandom (MCR, FOB)
Pairings: Pete/Patrick, Patrick/MCR, Pete/Patrick/MCR, past Pete/Mikey and Bob/Patrick
This is a ramble about Patrick replacing Bob as MCR's drummer, being slowly drawn into having sex with all of them, and Pete's long-distance FEELINGS about everything. I originally intended to write it for BBB but I could never get the right tone, so I abandoned it. Except that then I couldn't get it out of my head, so it turned into not!fic.
*
So Mikey and Pete are hanging out, because Pete hasn't seen Mikey in ages and Mikey wasn't answering his calls, and Pete was starting to wonder what the hell was going on.
Pete didn’t plan on asking Mikey what had happened right away, not when it had taken such a sustained stalking campaign just to get him to leave the studio. Pete didn’t call it ‘stalking’, of course. He was just concerned about his friend.
“No, it’s totally stalking,” said Mikey, not looking away from the TV screen.
“Is not!” Pete protested, and dropped his controller for dramatic effect. Mikey immediately blasted Pete off the track, so he hastened to pick it up again. “It’s not stalking when it’s your friend.”
“Pretty sure that doesn’t stand up in court. Especially when it’s a friend you used to fuck.”
“Whatever. I was just worried about you.” Pete fired off a shell at Mikey but missed. “You have to admit, you’d be freaking out about me if I didn’t answer my phone for three days.”
It was just an offhand comment; true, but the kind of truth that didn’t require any further comment. He really hadn’t meant to press Mikey about what was going on. Something must have told Mikey that this was the ideal time to explain, though, because he shrugged, said “Bob quit,” and smashed past Pete to win his third game of Mariokart in a row.
Pete is sympathetic and understands how difficult it is, and the drama of it and everything, but he's also a businessman and he can't help wondering who they're going to get to replace him.
"Well, that's the thing," Mikey said. "We were wondering if we could have Patrick."
Pete sits there, torn between Patrick loved drumming for you and No you can't have him, he's MY Patrick, and eventually settles for "Shouldn't you be asking Patrick that?"
But Mikey knows that Pete will worry about Patrick, and he'll miss him, and Pete probably misses Patrick already with Patrick being off doing his solo thing all the time. So he has to ask. And Pete doesn't really want to say that My Chem can have Patrick, because he doesn't want to share Patrick, but maybe not sharing was what made Patrick need the space to go off and be a little solo control freak in the first place. So even though he's going to be jealous of MCR and of Patrick for having each other and him not being there, he says yes.
"You have to take care of him. Walk him twice a day and make sure he eats," Pete joked. "And make sure you include him in all your post-show group sex."
Mikey raises an eyebrow and smirks, but there's something distant about it. "Of course we'll include him in the group sex. That's one of the reasons we chose Patrick."
He could have been joking, but he could have been serious, and the possibility nags at the back of Pete's mind for days. Did MCR really all have sex with each other after shows? No, they couldn't, he was joking and Mikey was too. Except maybe he wasn't. Fuck, he'd said they could take Patrick and now Patrick was maybe going to have sex with all of MCR, and the whole idea just made him jumpy. It was stupid. It was probably not real. But he couldn't help thinking about it now, thinking about all four of them in a hotel room, or a dressing room or the back lounge of a bus, stripping off their sweaty, filthy stage clothes and then touching and licking and fucking each other. Gerard's white skin, Frank's boundless energy, Ray's solid limbs and huge hands, and Mikey's... Mikey's everything.
But it was probably silly.
He was in his kitchen trying very hard not to imagine the boys from My Chemical Romance undressing Patrick, stripping off the clothes he usually clung to so closely even in the nudity-prone environs of the tour bus, four pairs of hands roaming Patrick's skin, touching places even Pete never had, getting to hear what Pete imagined would be Patrick's glorious, musical moan... anyway, that was when the doorbell rang and Pete found Patrick standing outside his house.
"Hi," said Pete, staring kind of blankly at him.
"Hi," Patrick agreed.
They stared at each other for a moment as Pete tried very hard to stop thinking about Patrick naked.
"Are you going to let me in?"
"Oh yeah! Yeah, sure," Pete babbled, and shuffled aside to let Patrick in.
"So My Chemical Romance asked me to fill in for them on drums."
"Yeah, I heard. Are you going to do it?"
Patrick shrugged. "I don't know. Maybe? Do you think I should?"
Yes, stop being a recluse, thought one part of Pete. No, you're supposed to be mine, said another. An equally loud voice wanted to know Patrick's thoughts on sleeping with all of the members of MCR at once, but he mercifully managed to keep that one under control.
"Well, why not?" Pete asked, helplessly.
"Yeah, that's the thing. I don't really know. At first I thought, I don't want to get involved in ANOTHER thing when I'm trying to record my own stuff, but I talked to Ray and he said they mostly just want me for the studio tracks, and if I don't want to hang around for the tour then that's okay. Then I was worried about Bob. Just, I don't want to step on his toes, you know? He's one of my best friends, still, and I couldn't just go join his old band if he wasn't going to be happy with it. But I went to see him this morning, and we talked for ages, and he's really okay with it. More than okay, actually."
There's a tiny, private smile on Patrick's face, and Pete finds himself wondering if anything ever went on between Patrick and Bob back when they were living together, or anything since. He has to fight the image of Bob and Patrick snuggling on the couch, watching TV, and Patrick's hand on Bob's knee, and his head on Bob's shoulder, and Bob turning in to Patrick for a kiss...
"... And you know, I like those guys, and I really miss drumming, so there's a lot of good there, and I don't have to be any more involved than I want to."
"Right, yeah, okay." Pete nods, trying to get his thoughts back onto the matter at hand. "So then why not?"
"Because I just wonder if you'll be... if it's going to..." He looked at his hands and frowned and looked at Pete again. "You're not going to, you know, freak out and stuff, are you?"
You should do this, Patrick, it's what you want, it's what's good for you says one part of Pete. You can't do this, I'll miss you, you're supposed to be mine says another. In some detached, logical, observant part of his mind, he thinks, If I'm thinking like this then of COURSE I'm going to freak out.
Pete thinks a lot of things. What Pete does is put a smile on his face and say "Nah, it's cool. I have plenty of other things to keep me busy."
"You sure?" Patrick just looks even more concerned, and if there's one thing Pete has to put a stop to then it's Patrick worrying about him.
"Of course I'm sure." He slips into a sly grin, one he feels more comfortable in than his attempt at looking reassuring. "But if My Chem decide to invite you to their full band orgies then I want all the details, right? No holding back. Every bit of it."
There's a split second of... something in Patrick's eyes that Pete can't read, something like shock or uncertainty or fear. But it's gone too quickly for Pete to tell, and then he's looking at the same old Patrick again, sighing and shaking his head at Pete like that would ever stop him. "My Chemical Romance do not have whole of band group sex, Pete."
"Sure they do. Mikeyway told me." Pete figures it's only half a lie if he isn't sure whether Mikey was serious or not. "It's a great idea. We should have thought of that years ago."
"Well, they don't," said Patrick, stubbornly. "And I'm not having group sex with anyone, ever."
"Oh sure, you say that now," Pete grinned, "But once you've spent a few long weeks in the studio together, and they're falling in love with your musical genius and you're falling in love with all their ideas and shit..."
"Shut up, Pete."
"And spend all your time having to watch Gerard's ass while he dances along to his own music, or Frank and Ray ripping up the guitars, and Mikey, oh boy, you'll love Mikey, he has these fingers."
"Pete," there was a warning in his voice this time, "Stop it."
It all ends in a tickle fight and Patrick pushing Pete off the couch, hard, and by the time he hugs Patrick goodbye, Pete is so sore just from laughing that he couldn't possibly feel bad right now.
It was completely true, and it was a relief, Pete thought, when he walked away from his closed front door, Hemmy trotting at his feet. Even if My Chemical Romance really did all have sex with each other, and even if they tried to get Patrick involved in it, too, there was no way that Patrick actually would. If Patrick still lectured Pete about boundaries whenever he got too close, there was no way he was going to have sex with four guys he didn't really know that well. Not all at once.
But when Pete closed his eyes, he was still haunted by visions of four pairs of strange-but-familiar hands roaming over Patrick's pale skin.
When he heads to the studio for their first day of recording, Patrick feels more nervous than he has in years. He's spent thousands of hours in studios recording and producing over the years, but somehow none of it was ever quite like this.
See, his relationship with MCR was kind of weird. They were always kind of in the back of his mind, like the kind of relatives you got on with but only saw once a year. He was always vaguely aware of when they were touring or not touring, when Gerard put a comic book out or that Frank's wife was pregnant. Mikey, especially, was someone who always seemed to be slightly awkwardly around, whether he was physically present or not. They were friendly enough from Mikey being around Pete for so long, and Patrick certainly knew more about Mikey than he did about any of the other guys. But there was always a kind of uncomfortable distance with Mikey. Patrick sometimes felt like he knew Mikey better as a secretive smile on Pete's face than as an actual person. he was familiar and distant at the same time, one of those parts of Pete that Patrick knew nothing about.
When he finally got to the studio, though, having Mikey there just made it easier. If it had just been the other guys then Patrick wouldn't have known exactly how to act, even though he was vaguely familiar with them. It was bad enough not really knowing where he stood, or rather knowing that he was just a session musician to them but not knowing how to act when he was in a studio and not in control. He wouldn't have had any proper idea of how to act around Ray, Gerard and Frank. But when Mikey strolled in, quietly called Gerard a dork and gave Patrick a sly wink, Patrick was instantly grateful for all the time they'd known each other, no matter how awkward it sometimes got.
He got to know them as the week wore on. He could play the rhythm of their songs with barely a second thought, but fitting into the rhythm of their conversations was harder. He'd only ever really been in one band, not like most of the people in the music scene, and he'd never had to do this part, learning how to fit in. He always just made Fall Out Boy fit around him, since they'd been more than willing to do so. Pete had always been so willing to carve out whatever space Patrick needed, he realised. He hadn't noticed, after all the years of yelling at Pete for getting in his space too much, that Pete let him have it, too.
Still, it wasn't as though they left him out. They almost had a language of their own, after all the time they'd spent together, but they made an effort to translate for Patrick when they were joking around between takes or after the day's recording was over, so that he wasn't completely out of the loop. Patricks' biggest problem, ultimately, wasn't not having anything to say. it was the struggle to keep his mouth shut.
For all that MCR were accommodating, Patrick was really, acutely aware that this was not his band and he didn't get a say in what they did. It wasn't his place to offer suggestions or tell them to do things differently. He wasn't there to write the songs. He wasn't even there to make them better. They'd hired him to play the drums and that was all he was going to do.
Patrick keeps thinking of ways that the songs could be improved, like he can't stop hearing it, even though he's trying to be on his best behaviour and not interfere. It wouldn't be so much of an issue if it weren't for Ray always hanging back just the same as Patrick, both of them taking some pleasure in setting the studio in order for the next morning before they left for the night, and constantly asking Patrick what he thought. The first few times they chatted casually about music, but then Ray kept on asking him what he thought about the songs, and it just started to get insensitive. Was Ray trying to tempt him.
"So what do you think of Disco?" Ray asked. "We're thinking of changing the name, and maybe a bit of the style. Make it rougher."
"Well, you've been working on it for a while," said Patrick, bending over the kit and pretending to tighten something. "It was one of the first ones you wrote, wasn't it? If you're still not feeling it, then there's obviously something you have to change."
"Yeah?" Ray said. "Any ideas?"
Patrick was full of ideas. He couldn't stop ideas for improvements springing to mind every time they played a single song.
"Nope. No idea."
"I loved that extra drum roll you put in today."
Damn, Patrick thought, he'd been trying so hard to do what they asked him to and not improvise at all. Sometimes things just slipped out. He'd hoped that nobody noticed that extra drumroll, but it turned out he wasn't nearly as subtle as he thought he was.
"Shit, I'm sorry. I'll try not to do that again. I really didn't mean to, I just, you know, when you're used to composing it's hard to..."
"Hey," Patrick jumped a little at the hand on his shoulder. "I said I liked it, didn't I?"
"Yes, but..."
"Patrick, will you just look at me?"
He did, and found himself having to crane his neck up to meet Ray's sunny smile.
"It's okay if you have ideas, you know. You can play them. You can even tell me about it. I like hearing what you think."
"But this isn't my band," said Patrick, stubbornly. "I don't want to come in here and tell you what you should be doing, that's none of my business."
"Yeah, no. You're not a drum machine either." Ray patted his shoulder again. "There are tons of drummers we could have asked if we just wanted someone to play drums. You have ideas and we like your ideas, so if you want to do something differently just speak up, will you?"
There was a swooping feeling in Patrick's stomach, of exhilaration and fear. He could contribute. He could stop biting his tongue and actually say stuff. He was kind of scared of it, too, because it felt uncomfortably like he was becoming part of the band and that wasn't meant to happen. He was meant to be Patrick from Fall Out Boy or plain old Patrick Stump, not the drummer from MCR. But he bit his lip and nodded, and when Ray smiled he couldn't help smiling back. Even if it was scary, the thrill of being able to take a song and make it better was the best. Especially when it was for his friends.
Pete thought he'd been very well behaved since MCR went into the studio, thank you very much. He'd only called Patrick about once a week. If he sent Patrick about twenty texts a day, some of them verging on inappropriately filthy, then so what? He was staying out of Patrick's way. It was a perfectly reasonable thing to do.
"Pete," Patrick growled, when he finally picked up the phone one Friday. "Go away. I'm eating."
"Why? You can eat while I talk. Are you eating with the My Chem guys?" Pete asked, excitedly. He could hear a couple of 'hi, Pete's in the background. "Tell them I said, hi!"
"I... yes, okay, Pete, I am, so leave me alone, I'm being all social and stuff."
Pete grinned to himself. "You really like them, huh?"
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"I mean, if you're hanging out and stuff."
"Well, we're nearly done recording. I don't know. It seemed like a good idea."
"Nearly done, huh?" said Pete, thoughtfully. "So when are you guys going on tour?"
"Pete, I'm not... I'm not talking about this right now," he hissed, embarrassed. "I'll talk to you later, okay?"
"Okay," Pete muttered, and suddenly he was staring at a silent phone, with an uncomfortable twist of jealousy in his stomach. He spent almost a full minute feeling jilted before his phone lit up with the message They haven't even asked me yet.
they will Pete texted him back, faster than he really needed to.
You don't know that
yes i do, they love u
that doesn't mean they want me to go on tour with them
u want it
I'm still Patrick from FOB, said Patrick's final text, and Pete kind of felt his heart melt.
of course u r, ur always mine Pete typed, happily. Then he grinned to himself and added but u can b patrick from mcr for a while if you tell me all about the group sex
shut up i hate u said Patrick's reply, and Pete rolled over and smiled into the arm of his couch, not even bothering to try to stop the images of Patrick and Mikey from running through his head.
There had been a thought worrying at the back of Patrick's mind throughout the recording process, one that had nothing to do with his boundaries as a drummer/composer/all round musical genius. He'd settled in well with the My Chem guys. He liked them, he liked playing with them, and he was happy that he'd decided to do it. Because Pete had been right, it had been good for him, and although he wasn't nearly conversant enough in comic books to keep up with every conversation, for the most part this exercise had been far less awkward than he thought it would be.
But for all that, there was one concern he'd been carrying around with him from day one. He was still on tenterhooks thinking that any day now, one of them was going to ask him to join them for a night of all-out debauchery.
It was not just the fact that Pete kept talking about it. Pete was full of shit quite a lot of the time. It was always possible that Mikey had told Pete something about band sex, Patrick realised that, but it was just as likely that Mikey was bullshitting him. If it had only been Pete who warned him about the My Chemical Romance orgies, Patrick wouldn't have given it a second thought. But Bob Bryar was a different matter. Patrick had laughed when Bob warned him, all those weeks ago when My Chem first offered Patrick the job, and he'd tried to just brush it off. Bob insisted, though, and eventually shrugged and said Patrick couldn't claim he didn't try to warn him, and ever since then Patrick had been worrying, wondering if any moment now the band were going to spring on him like a pack of sexy hyenas and expect him to come to bed with them.
It was stupid, he kept telling himself. Bob had probably been winding him up. Bob did that sometimes. Well, he could, theoretically. To more people than just Frank.
He stopped that line of thought. He had tried to forget that smirk Bob got on his face when he talked about sex and Frank.
The fear of imminent orgy invitations had diminished gradually after the first day. He was tense and worried about it all throughout the first week, but after that, every passing day when he didn't get propositioned for sex had made the prospect a little less scary. With their studio time drawing to a close, though, and tension and emotions clearly running high, Patrick felt certain that it was only a matter of time before they tried to seduce him, and he really didn't know what he was going to do.
When the last tracks were recorded, the mixing done and the damn thing finally set down, the rest of the band whooped and high-fived each other and then, grinning, turned to Patrick. Oh no, he thought, this is it. This is where the group sex comes in. They're going to ask me to...
"Patrick motherfucking Stump," said Gerard, holding out his hand, "It's been an honour to work with you. You helped make our album so much more awesome. What do you say to helping make our tour more awesome as well."
Patrick knew he was supposed to think seriously about this, not make a snap decision. He should talk to Pete, and Bob, and, god, somebody else before he decided to suddenly go off on tour with My Chemical Romance. But he was enjoying this, more than he thought he would, and with them all standing there looking at him like he was the best thing they'd ever seen, he realised it was going to be hard to walk away.
And besides, he was so overwhelmed with relief that they weren't trying to have sex with him that he would have agreed to just about anything. So he took Gerard's hand and said "Yes."
A second later he was trying to throw Frank off his back while Mikey and Ray were both trying to shake his hand at once, and he was so busy laughing that he forgot to be annoyed. This wasn't Fall Out Boy. It still wasn't his band. But he could go out and play with some other people for a bit, and he could do it with some of the best people outside his own label he could ever have hoped to meet.
"So Patrick," said Gerard, when it all calmed down, with a dangerous glint in his eye, "Now that you're a touring member of MCR, we have some traditional celebrations that we need to invite you to. Ray took the initiative of booking a hotel room for the occasion..."
Pete knows when Patrick is ignoring him. Or rather, he knows when Patrick is ignoring him because he’s fed up with Pete and can’t take his annoying habits any more, and ignoring him because there’s something wrong with Patrick. A week into his first tour with MCR, Patrick stops returning Pete’s calls, and as much as he tries not to worry, there’s only so much of that he can put up with before he realises something’s seriously wrong.
“Yo,” says Mikey, when he picks up the phone. “What’s up?”
“Not much.” Pete tries to stay casual despite his relief, both at hearing Mikey’s voice and at knowing that Patrick’s right there in the background. “Can you put me onto Patrick?”
“He has his own phone, you know that, right?”
“Well duh,” Pete said. “How do you think I kept him in my band so long without phoning him? He’s not answering it.”
“Okay,” said Mikey. This was what Pete loved about Mikey. He never asked uncomfortable questions, he just helped. “Hey Patrick, catch!”
And a moment later, after a startled squawk, was the sound of a tense Patrick saying “Hello?”
“Patrick!” said Pete, delighted. “It’s so good to hear you!”
“What? Pete? Mikey!”
“Mikey’s an awesome friend,” said Pete, smugly, while Patrick grumbled under his breath. “He takes my calls. And helps me and shit. Unlike some people I could name.”
“I’m taking this outside!” Patrick yelled to someone, and a moment later there was a notable reduction in the background noise.
“So what the fuck? Is there some reason you disappeared off the face of the earth?”
“No,” said Patrick, stiffly. “I’ve just been busy, okay?”
“Because I was worried,” said Pete, indignantly. As much as he was trying to be humorous about this, he could feel a little of his composure slipping, just a bit too jealous that MCR got to see more of Patrick than he did these days, and a little too glad to be talking to him again at last. “I thought something had happened to you. Nothing bad’s happened, has it?”
“No, of course not,” Patrick sighed. “I’m sorry. Tour’s just been keeping me busy, that’s all.”
“You mean MCR’s been keeping you busy,” said Pete, unable to help himself. “With the nightly orgies, I mean.”
And then Patrick didn’t say anything. It started out sounding like a ‘I’m sick of this, Pete’ silence, but as it stretched on it turned into more of an awkward silence, and by the time Patrick finally got around to clearing his throat Pete had figured out exactly what was implied by it.
“Oh my god.”
“Pete, it’s not what you...”
“Mikey wasn’t joking. And you’ve been lying to me, you little sneak.”
“I’m not...”
“You are!”
“I’m not sleeping with any of MCR!” Patrick hissed, and they both shut up for a moment before Patrick mumbled “They just keep asking me to.”
“And you’re not doing it?” Pete blurted, before he could start feeling jealous. “Why the hell not, Patrick?”
“Why not? Are you actually mad?” Patrick demanded.
“Yes, but that’s not the point. The point is that Mikeyway gives really great head.”
Patrick made a sound that was almost a frustrated scream. “Pete, shut the fuck up.”
“What? I’m just stating a fact. You should fuck them, Patrick, it’d be really good. You deserve good things.”
“I have to go on stage with that guy every night, I don’t want to know how great he is in bed.”
“You should find out for yourself,” said Pete, feeling genuinely sad now. “Really, Patrick. You shouldn’t deny yourself something awesome just because you think it’s a bad idea and you hate taking your clothes off or whatever. Stop being repressed and let yourself be happy, Patrick!”
It took a moment for Pete to realise that Patrick had hung up on him. He redialled but this time he got Mikey again.
“Patrick says he’s not talking to you,” said Mikey, sounding unsurprised.
“Why aren’t any of you having sex with him?” Pete demanded, more important things on his mind now. “If you’re gonna borrow my Patrick I expect you to take care of him, Mikeyway.”
“I dunno,” said Mikey, and he sounded so sad that Pete felt bad for telling him off about it. “We’ve all tried, Pete. But he keeps saying no. Some bullshit excuse about boundaries.”
“Figures,” Pete sad, with an equally melancholy sigh.
Nobody told Patrick about the running bet about who would be the first to get Patrick into bed with another guy in the band, but they were pretty sure he knew about it. It was hard to be subtle about whispering about someone when they were in your band, and they figured he must have gotten the idea when he started hanging out with Dewees all the time. Or maybe he was just sick of them all hitting on him.
Initially they all thought the first one would be Ray. After all those late nights hanging out together in the studio, there had to be some chemistry there, right? But Patrick remained resolutely resistant to Ray’s seductive charms, and Ray actually felt kind of bad for coming onto him when he clearly just wanted to talk about song ideas, new arrangements or just how to improve their sound in the latest venue.
Gerard had no such reservations. He was quite happy to lure Patrick into conversations about singing, interviews or D&D before trying to get into his pants.
“Hey, Pete was right,” Gerard said, cheerfully, on one occasion when Patrick huffed, glared at him and stalked back to the bus. “You are extra hot when you’re mad.”
“I hate you,” Patrick shot back.
“I know!” Gerard said, cheerfully.
Normally they would have all put their money on Mikey being the first one to seduce Patrick, given his typical deftness at hooking up under any situation, but though he just said he was out of practice, everyone knew that it wasn’t really going to work with Patrick. There was an uncomfortable Pete-shaped space between them, and though Mikey made a few half-hearted attempts at hitting on him, they both knew that it wasn’t going to be something they were both comfortable with.
Nobody expected it to be Frank.
Patrick realised after only one show that as intense and dedicated as Frank could be in the studio, on stage he was annoying as fuck. It was nice that Frank was so into his music, but he clearly had no goddamn respect for anyone else’s space. He was way too happy to headbutt other people, or rub up against them, or climb on Patrick’s drum kit or kick things or knock things over. Patrick’s things. Worse than that, even were the times that Frank would try to get behind the kit to sniff him or nuzzle him or whatever, while Patrick was trying to concentrate on playing, because apparently sticking his face in Gerard’s crotch whenever he got the chance wasn’t enough for Frank and he had to get as much contact as possible with Patrick, too.
On stage, Frank had all the annoying habits that Pete did. Except that unlike Pete, Frank wasn’t scared of pissing Patrick off.
Between Frank’s general incorrigibility and the entire band’s increasing annoyance that Patrick won’t sleep with them, this eventually culminates in Frank clambering over Patrick’s kit to lick his neck right there on stage in front of everyone. Being such a professional, Patrick doesn’t stop playing, not even when Frank’s fumbling notes and Patrick’s turning red all over, but he does come close to snapping when Frank knocks over a cymbal as he skips away. Patrick takes a deep breath and just puts the stand back up again while Gerard keeps the audience entertained by sticking his hand down his pants, but he spends the rest of the show glaring at Frank, and when he grabs Frank by the arm and drags him away as soon as they’re offstage, the rest of the band just look glad that it’s not them.
“Jesus, Frank!” Patrick yelled, when they were out of sight, if not out of earshot. “Did you have to fucking... in front of everybody.”
“Yep,” said Frank, cheerfully.
“Well fucking don’t,” Patrick shouted, and shoved him against the side of the bus. He felt a stab of guilt and glanced around, but it looked like the rest of MCR were staying out of his way until he was done yelling. Good. “Don’t you ever do that again, you hear me? You don’t get to do that shit on stage when I’m trying to play.”
“What shit would that be?” Frank asked, innocently, and tried to lick Patrick’s neck again while he slid a hand under his shirt. Patrick pushed him away again. “Oh, you mean all the shit Pete used to do? I’m not allowed to get away with that, huh?”
“Pete didn’t wreck my instruments,” Patrick grumbled, pushing Frank back against the side of the bus again and holding him at arm’s length.
“Pete had an unfair advantage,” said Frank. “He didn’t have to go through a drumkit to get to you.”
“Shut up,” said Patrick, tightening his grip on Frank’s shirt. “And don’t do that again.”
“Yeah, right. You think I’m gonna stop touching you because you scare me? Although...” Frank grinned and rolled his hips against Patrick’s suggestively. “I can promise to shut up if you can think of something else to put in my mouth.”
Patrick glared at Frank for a bit longer, largely in disbelief, but he mutters ‘get in the bus’ in the hope that by the time they both make it inside, sanity will have prevailed and Patrick will no longer feel that shoving Frank to his knees and making him blow him in the bathrooms is just what he needs.
It doesn’t.
Afterwards, when Patrick is breathless and pressed uncomfortably against the shower wall to hold himself up, and Frank is sitting back on his heels grinning at him, all Patrick can think to say is “Bob wasn’t kidding.”
“Bob loved my mouth,” said Frank, smugly. “Although you’d never know during, he was so quiet. You, on the other hand, are a noisy fucker.”
Patrick flushed even redder. “He was right about how annoying you are, jackass.”
“So are you going to return the favour or what?”:
“No. That was payback for you crashing my kit. I don’t owe you anything.”
“Okay.”
Patrick blinked. That was too easy. “So you’ll stop getting in my space on stage?”
“Oh hell no,” Frank laughed. “Come on, it’s not like you really want me to stop.”
“I really do.”
“No you don’t. Because now you know I’m just as good with my tongue as Bob said I was and now you can get me to make it up to you every time I fuck up.” He stood up and grabbed Patrick in a full-body hug, now that Patrick couldn’t escape in the confined space. “Admit it. You want me to do that again.”
Patrick frantically tried to think of a way to avoid answering that, because he couldn’t think of an answer that resulted in more sex with Frank and Frank leaving him alone on stage. Fortunately, Frank forgot about it when Patrick opened the bathroom door to a round of applause from the rest of the band.
“I can’t believe you got there first,” said Gerard, later, poking Frank with his foot.
“First?” Patrick rolled his eyes. “That was one time, guys. It still doesn’t mean I’ll sleep with all of you.”
“Yeah!” Frank punched the air. “I win! I get all the Patrick sex!”
“You do not.” Patrick shooed him away. “That was once, Frank. Now you’re going to stay away from me on stage and I’m going to stay well away from any more tour sex.”
It was after the third time he fucked Frank that Patrick started to find himself ‘accidentally’ walking in on Frank having sex with other people.
The first time, it seemed like a genuine accident. It was a few hours before a show and he walked into a dressing room to find Ray and Frank wrapped around each other in an advanced state of undress. Ray seemed startled, even if Frank just invited Patrick to join, and Patrick yelled a hasty “Sorry!” over the top of him and backed out of there as fast as he could.
“Sorry about that,” Frank whispered, late that night, sticking his head into Patrick’s bunk.
“I should be sorry,” Patrick whispered back.
“I mean, I hope it didn’t make you jealous or anything.”
Patrick gave him a weary look over the top of his book. “How stupid do you think I am?”
“Stupid enough to turn down sex,” said Frank, immediately. “Unless you want me to say sorry right now.”
“No. I’m sleeping. Go away.”
“See, you are mad,” said Frank, grinning at Patrick as though that infuriating logic made sense. “Just give in and join the love, Patrick.”
“No, I know that sex in bunks is a terrible idea,” he said, and tried to push Frank’s head away. Somehow that just resulted in Frank crawling in on top of Patrick, and by then Patrick was ready to just give up.
Patrick was less shocked when he found Gerard blowing Frank backstage one evening, but he was even more annoyed. Seriously, there were techs around. Wouldn’t Frank think of the crew? They could at least use a dressing room. And put a sign on the door, unlike that time with Ray. But it wasn’t until he was climbing on the bus late one night and found Frank and Mikey exchanging lazy handjobs on the couch that he started to think something was up.
“This is some kind of evil plan, isn’t it?” he asked, crossing his arms, trying not to look uncomfortable.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” said Mikey said, flatly, staring straight at him.
It was really hard looking his bandmates in the eye when they were just sitting there getting each other off. “All these ‘coincidental’ caught in the act occasions, Frank.”
“The thing is, Patrick,” said Frank, as he shifted slightly on the couch, “In this band we all love each other a lot. And we all like to show each other that. And we don’t really care if the other see, because we all know, you know?”
“No,” said Patrick, uncertainly. “I’m just going to bed and leaving you to it.”
He’d gotten used to Frank calling him a spoilsport. He was immune to it by now. What stopped him was Mikey saying “Don’t.”
Patrick had been trying to avoid thinking about Mikey. In some weird part of his mind, Mikey was still Pete’s, was still tied up with Pete. He could keep from thinking about it before, but when he turned to look back at Mikey this time, it was different, because his mouth was hanging open and his eyes were dark and he was panting a little as Frank jerked him off and he couldn’t help but think of Pete, now. Because this was Mikeyway as not many people got to see him, but Pete had. Frank was just different enough from Pete that Patrick could keep from thinking about him, but it was impossible to keep Pete out of his head when he was looking at Mikey like this.
So for reasons he barely understood, Patrick turned and sat down next to him, and when Mikey turned to kiss him, Patrick just gave in. Soon he was cushioned between them, Frank at his back whispering filth in his ear and Mikey on his knees in front of him. Patrick groaned and tangled his fingers in Mikey’s hair, dirty blond rather than black as it had been on Warped all those years ago, and he thought about how this was another part of Mikey that he had and Pete didn’t. And when he opened his eyes he saw Gerard hovering in the doorway with Ray behind him, and Gerard asked, timidly, if Patrick minded them joining in. And this time Patrick gave in and said yes, let himself be surrounded by a band who loved him, and let himself think of the person who was missing.
Pete had learned by now to stop asking about MCR’s groupsex habits, so he was completely blindsided when Patrick said “So you know what you kept asking about the band, and how they all have sex...”
“Oh my god,” Pete sat down suddenly. “Patrick, you did it! I didn’t think you had it in you!”
“I didn’t say that.”
Pete could just picture him scowling. “Oh my god. Well something happened. Tell me about it!”
“I... Pete, I’m not going to tell you about the details of my sex life over the phone.”
“Then why tell me about it?”
There was a long pause. “I don’t know.”
“Patrick,” Pete frowned. “Is something wrong?”
“It’s just... I dunno. You probably think it’s all yay, group sex, woo, but it’s... I dunno.”
“Not really, no. Look, I know I keep acting like it sounds exciting and all, but if you don’t like it, don’t do it. There’s nothing wrong with that.”
“It’s not that,” Patrick sighed. “It’s just not... I just miss... fuck never mind, I shouldn’t have called you, this is stupid.”
After a bit more fudging, Patrick abruptly says goodbye, and Pete is left with a phone in his hand and his head full of THOUGHTS about Patrick and Mikey and everyone in MCR, and how he wanted to be a part of it and at the same time didn’t want Patrick to be sad, and wondered why, if Patrick didn’t want to talk about it, he decided to call Pete.
Then he decided that sorting through his thoughts was too much, called Mikey, and booked the next flight to wherever MCR were playing next.
Pete talked to Mikey around midday the day of the concert, but he didn’t go anywhere near the band areas until they were almost ready to go on stage. Then he carefully sidled into the wings at the opposite end of the wings to where Patrick was going to walk on. Patrick’s double take when he saw Pete waiting there was worth all the effort.
Afterwards, Pete and Patrick have a long awkward talk about their feelings which I can’t be bothered writing out, where Patrick talks about missing Pete and Pete talks about how jealous he is (although he doesn’t mention how much time he’s spent imagining Patrick having sex with MCR). And then finally they make out a bit and Patrick thinks yes, that’s what he was missing. It wasn’t the band, it wasn’t that there was something wrong with MCR, it’s just that they weren’t Pete.
Then Pete says “So does this mean I get to come to the MCR orgies now?”
“Pete!” Patrick crossed his arms angrily. “I’m not a backstage pass!”
“I’m not doing this just to get to the orgy,” said Pete, trying to sound reasonable. “I just think, given you’re fucking four other guys right now, we should discuss what that means in terms of our starting a relationship.”
“And you think the answer is you joining in?”
Just then there was a knock at the dressing room door and Mikey stuck his head in.
“Hey guys. We just wanted to let you guys know that you can go back to Pete’s hotel room for tonight, but next time you hook up while we’re on tour, you have to come to the orgy.”
“What?” Patrick demanded.
“Well you don’t have to,” Mikey shrugged. “But Gerard says if you don’t bring Pete you can’t be in our Warhammer game anymore.”
He shut the door and left Patrick and Pete staring at each other.
“Okay,” Patrick sighed, but he was smiling as he hugged Pete again. “I guess you win.”
“You get to play drums, I get to watch, I get to sleep with you whenever I want and we both get to be in orgies with MCR,” Pete said, hugging him back. “I think everyone wins.”