Joe College; Joe/Pete, NC-17, bandslash_usa story
Title: Joe College
Author: Eleanor_lavish
Pairing: Pete/Joe; ~6000 words
Rating: NC-17
State: Connecticut (for the first bandslash_usa challenge)
Notes: Future!fic, so a disclaimer is unnecessary, yes? Clearly I am not clairvoyant. Thanks to clumsygyrl for running this awesome challenge; to stonedtodeath, o4fuxache, and lovelypoet, all of whom let me babble about this thing incessantly; and to schuyler for being by bestest beta, once again. This was so self-indulgent, I can't even express. Thanks for putting up with me.
Summary: "Doesn't anyone think it's bizarre that you're a twenty-six year old freshman?" Pete bites out, arms crossed in front of him.
"Doesn't anyone think its bizarre that you're thirty-one and still spending your free time designing hoodies with thumb holes?" he replies with a shrug and Pete stomps into the bedroom and slams the door.
The apartment buzzer goes off at eight-fifteen in the morning, and Joe ignores it. He ignores it the second time, and the third, but when it finally sounds like someone's just smacked their hand there and leaned their whole weight on it, he finally rolls out of bed and stumbles to the intercom. "Seriously, this better be good," he says loudly, his voice still scratchy with sleep.
"Seriously, how can you live this far from a major international airport?" Pete's voice floats through and Joe blinks.
"Pete?"
"Trohman, let me the fuck in. Hemmy's already chewed, like, almost through his leash."
Joe doesn't even try to parse out why Pete is on his doorstep, three thousand miles from home, with his dog. He just buzzes Pete up, and leaves the door unlocked as he stumbles to the kitchen to make coffee. He hears Hemmy before he hears Pete, doggy nails clicking on the wood of his foyer, snuffling noises growing louder as Hemmy runs to the kitchen.
"Hey, boy," Joe grins and drops to his knees to let Hemmy cover him in slobbery kisses.
"Knew the kid would soften you up," Pete says from the doorway. Joe looks up. Pete is leaning on the doorjam, dark jeans as tight as ever, hair shorter, but fashionably in his eyes. He's wearing a soft wool sweater, and Joe can see a suitcase behind him, large enough to hold more than an overnight stay's worth of clothes. "So, you want to tell me how the fuck you got into Yale?" he says conversationally. "I'm going with bribery, possibly including sexual favors."
*
"You knew," Pete says, accusatory, and Joe can hear Patrick roll his eyes on the other end of the phone. He scratches behind Hemmy's ears and flips the TV to the Cartoon Network. "No, fucker," he says louder, "I didn't think I had to ask if any of you scored a 1540 on your SATs! I thought that would be, like, something you'd share!" Joe wonders if it's too early for a beer. It's 11:30, but he hasn't had breakfast, so he decides against it.
Pete hems and haws for a few more minutes before Patrick hangs up on him ("no, asshole, I don't care how early it is over there, I can't believe… hello?") and Joe looks over.
"You done freaking out over this, dude? I have class in two hours."
"Doesn't anyone think it's bizarre that you're a twenty-six year old freshman?" Pete bites out, arms crossed in front of him.
"Doesn't anyone think its bizarre that you're thirty-one and still spending your free time designing hoodies with thumb holes?" he replies with a shrug and Pete stomps into the bedroom and slams the door. Joe's a little pissed, since its his room, but Hemmy snuffles on his lap and Joe just sighs and figures he'll just steal a shirt from Pete's suitcase when he has to leave.
*
"Is that why your parents hated me so much for a while there?" Pete asks when Joe gets back. He's in track pants and a worn grey t-shirt that Joe's seen so many times he can fill in the blanks where the lettering's worn off.
"They didn't," he says absently, shuffling his backpack to the ground. "Put on shoes, we're going out for Thai." There are four separate Thai places on Joe's street, and he's grown addicted to them.
"They did," Pete says thirty minutes later around a mouthful of massaman curry. "Your dad shot me death glares every time I came over for, like, a year. I thought it was just because I was ruining your life in the normal dude-in-a-band way. Not in the my-kid-is-a-genius-you-asshole way."
"I'm not a genius, Pete." Joe sips at his plum wine. "And they weren't mad at you that I didn't go to college eight years ago. They were fucking pissed at me, but they got over it when I paid off the mortgage," he grins and Pete sighs, exasperated.
"You should have told me, Trohman," he says, but he leaves it at that and Joe doesn't push. They eat in companionable silence for a few minutes. "So, what the fuck is your major, anyway?"
Joe shrugs. "I'm undecided on paper, but probably history. Political science. Something like that." He likes all of his classes so far, but the books for his class on 'Dilemmas of the Nuclear Age' actually keep him up at night, reading. He tells Pete this, and bites back a grin as Pete's eyes light up.
"No shit, that's actually the name of the class?" he asks, and Joe spends the next thirty minutes debating the pros and cons of nuclear power with him.
*
Pete wants to come to class the next day, and Joe hesitates. It's been really cool to be the semi-anonymous guy in the back of a lecture hall, instead of Joe from Fall Out Boy, these last few months. He'd had a hard go his first few weeks-the campus was spread out all over the place, and Joe didn't have the usual freshman orientation, since he was part of a small group of 'special students' admitted that Fall. He'd shaved his beard the day after he moved in, after seeing the baby faces of the kids wrestling IKEA furniture into the dorms across the street. Now, the tattoos got him more looks than anything.
He loves his spacious top-floor apartment on Chapel Street, perched over a candy shop and a fancy restaurant, but he sometimes stares wistfully out the window at Old Campus. It's not a what-if that really matters, and he wouldn't change anything in his life for the world, but this college thing is way harder than he thought it would be, and he kind of feels like he missed out on keggers and dances.
Then he remembers the gross smell of the back of the van in 2003, and the feel of a hundred hands under him as he crowd surfed in a VA hall in Des Moines, and the look on Pete's face when they first played on TV, and figures he still got the better end of the deal.
He looks at Pete. "Wear a hat and keep your big fucking mouth closed," he says and Pete says "Sweet!" Joe tries not to feel too self-conscious when they slink into the back of the lecture hall. Pete takes notes. Their arms touch and Joe tries to remember the reading he skimmed the night before.
*
Pete comes with him to his discussion section too, and sits quietly in the corner, his knee bouncing up and down with barely contained excitement. Joe is nervous about it for the first few minutes until his TA makes the girls in the corner stop whispering, and Joe gets in a heated argument over Iran with a kid in a lacrosse sweatshirt.
"Fucking Young Republican bullshit," Joe mutters under his breath as they walk back to Joe's. He points out the Skull and Bones crypt ("that was an awful movie," Pete says with a shake of his head) and swing by Atticus Bakery and Bookstore, at which they're finally stopped for a few autographs. (Joe being a student isn't quite old news, but he's happy the student body mostly considers themselves too cool to do anything other than pretend he's just another guy trying to pass his classes. Pete, on the other hand, has never been able to deflect that kind of attention. Joe sips his coffee and flips through a few books while Pete smiles and signs a few napkins, and a pair of jeans.)
"You're good at this," Pete says later that night as Joe organizes note cards in library books on the Cold War. Joe looks up, distracted.
"Sorry, what?"
Pete smiles, but it doesn't quite reach his eyes, and Joe feels a familiar twist in his stomach. "This," he waves his hand at the pile of books, "this college stuff. You're good at it. You kicked that kid's ass in your discussion today."
"You were good at it," Joe counters. He remembers picking Pete up from the dorms for gigs-his room was always a total mess, but most of it was copies of articles from magazines, and pages of notes on economic theory.
"Yeah, maybe," Pete shakes his head and leans on his knees. A few minutes later, Joe is jolted out of his reading again with "You backed the wrong horse, man."
"What?" Joe says, laughing, because what else can he do.
"It's not funny!" Pete says and points at him. "You were way too smart, man. You were smart enough to know that the band was a massive fucking long shot and you did it anyway. In all probability, you were seriously fucking up your future." He sounds annoyed and Joe gapes at him.
"Yeah, well, smart people have notoriously bad common sense," he jokes. Pete just glares. "It worked out okay, you know?" he says, in case Pete has forgotten that they're still kind of a big deal, as bands go.
"We got lucky."
"Yeah, we did. Now shut up," Joe smiles. He picks up a book on the KGB and tosses it in Pete's lap. "Here, feed your neuroses a little and let me work, okay?"
*
Pete still has nightmares, and Joe doesn't wake up when Pete comes stumbling from the living room into his room in the middle of the night and crawls under the covers. He does wake up a few hours later to Pete's face pressed to his shoulder, breathing deep and heavy. From this close he can see the purple tinge of the skin around his eyes, and a few tentative grey roots hiding at Pete's temples. He smiles at the top of Pete's head and lies in bed quietly, not wanting to disturb Pete's rare comfortable sleep. It's forty-five minutes before Hemmy puts his paws up on the mattress and makes imploring whining sounds at them. Joe shushes him quietly and rolls out of bed to take him on a short walk.
When he gets back, Pete's made coffee, and his suitcase is in Joe's room, tucked in the corner.
*
It's cool in New England in the fall in a way that's strangely the same as home, and Joe loves it. He wears three layers to every class, and a blue baseball cap with a big 'Y' in the front. Pete snorts when he sees it.
"It helps me blend in," Joe says defensively, but secretly he loves it. He wanted to buy one that said 'Y '14' but he's pretty sure that's a long shot. He has seven years to finish as a special student, and in reality he's not sure how long he'll last. Patrick's already been making noises about new songs, and they aren't even a year into their two-year hiatus yet.
"It makes you look like a douche," Pete counters, but he's grinning.
"Good, 'cause you like dudes who are douches," Joe says and tugs the brim lower.
"Lucky you." Pete wraps an arm around his shoulder as they get to Richter's Bar.
"Yeah," Joe says, and anything else he would have said is swallowed by the din of the bar as Pete opens the door.
"They play any Fall Out Boy on the stereo, and we are so gone," Pete says loudly over the noise, and it's Joe's turn to snort. Richter's is the kind of place that still serves beer in actual yard glasses. Inside, it's the size of a postage stamp, with crew team memorabilia and old black and white photos on the walls, and is populated mostly by guys in polo shirts getting wasted on local brews.
"If there's FOB on the stereo here, I'll actually eat this hat."
*
"So," Pete asks from the couch. Hemmy's asleep in his lap, drooling on his jeans. Joe's in the big chair by the window, computer open in his lap. He has a paper due in three days, and 3000 words to go on it. He remembers that homework totally blew in high school, and its worse now. "You gave Marie the condo."
He's been at Joe's a week, but somehow Joe isn't surprised it took this long to come up. He closes his laptop with a click and rubs the bridge of his nose. "It only seemed fair, you know?" he says. Six years of long distance dating and seeing each other on tour buses and over holidays... It wasn't her fault that, when they finally lived in the same space for more than three weeks at time, they found they had nothing to say to each other.
Pete just nods like he gets it. Joe shuffles to the couch and flops next to him, reaching out to run his fingers over Hemmy's short, stiff fur. The dog snuffles a little in his sleep and Pete shifts a fraction closer. "He missed you," he says quietly and Joe leans heavily against Pete's side.
"I missed him too," he replies and flips the TV to a Friends re-run.
*
"They can't be serious," Pete says and Joe, for once, agrees.
"I know, it's a sacrilege," he nods, face grim. The people at the tables around them seem undisturbed and Joe hopes they're just masking their disgust. "There's no… substance to it."
"I mean," Pete says, picking up a slice and watching it flop lifelessly in his hand, "for twenty bucks, they could at least throw some more cheese on it. I could fit, like, three of these in a deep-dish back home.
Joe nods gravely. "It was an experiment, and obviously we were temporarily crazy," he says. New Haven in general, and Pepe's Pizza in particular, pride themselves as the Birthplace of American Pizza, so they'd felt obligated to at least try it. They're entirely unimpressed. "I hear there's a place a few blocks from my apartment that invented the hamburger," he tells Pete with a hopeful lilt to his voice. "Maybe that won't suck?"
Pete eyes the thin, flat pizza in front of him and looks critically at Joe. "Maybe," he says disdainfully.
*
"Here's all the delivery menus; you're fending for yourself tonight," Joe tells Pete and drops a small stack of papers in his lap. He's looking for his one pair of decent shoes, and he hopes like hell Hemmy hasn't already found them.
"Hot date?" Pete asks slyly, perched on top of the kitchen counter. He kicks feet against the cabinets and leaves little scuff marks.
"Fuck off," Joe replies reflexively. His head is buried in his hall closet, so it loses a little 'oompf', muffled by three winter coats.
"What's her name?" Pete goads. "Is she hot? Are you sure she's after you for your huge brain and not your huge pocketbook?" Joe stands up, shoes in hand triumphantly.
"Simon," he says. It's not really Pete's business, but it's worth it to see the shocked expression on Pete's face. "Yes, he's hot, I doubt he's after me for my money since his dad makes fifteen million a year, and I hope he's not after anything too huge, as I'm sure to be a disappointment." He closes the door to his bedroom behind him and tries to chalk the rapid beating of his heart up to nerves about his date.
Pete doesn't say a word until Joe's almost out the door, keys shoved in the pocket of his leather jacket. "You're not fucking with me," he says flatly and Joe runs a hand through his hair. He's agitated, and he doesn't want to have this conversation now.
"No."
"Since when did you like guys, Trohman?" Pete asks, and he sounds just this side of pissed. Joe's cheeks color hotly.
"You missed all those parties in Chicago when I was hooking up with boys, Pete? Because I distinctly remember you being there," he bites out. "In fact, I remember you tossing Butcher at me at Nick's once and swearing it was fine if we both weren't legal."
"That was a long time ago, and-" Pete starts.
"Yeah, and then I was dating someone for six years, and I didn't fucking cheat on her, imagine that." Joe's going to be late, and Simon's a really cool guy, and what the fuck is Pete even doing here?
"Yeah, well, excuse me for thinking-"
"Thinking what? Thinking that my gay was just from the waist up? Well, I hate to break it to you, Pete, but I'm half gay in the way that actually involves more than just my upper body. In fact, my lower body is pretty stoked about this date, so you'll fucking excuse me if I don't have time to talk about this right now." He slams the door when he leaves and Hemmy barks on the other side of it.
*
Simon is really hot, and he went to boarding school in Switzerland. He has a vague idea of who Fall Out Boy are, but nothing more than that. He asks more questions about Joe's tattoos than about his friendship with Jay-Z, and talks about his grandparents' vineyard in Portugal, and kisses really well when he walks Joe back to his building.
Joe doesn't invite him up.
Pete's asleep in Joe's bed when he gets upstairs and Joe undresses quietly and just lays on top of the covers for a while until he drifts off thinking about the way Butch fit in his lap all those years ago, and Pete's warm murmur in his ear as he'd watched Joe peel off Butcher's shirt.
*
Pete's still asleep when Joe heads out to his nine-thirty class (Rocks for Jocks, or, Geology for Non-Majors), and by the time Joe gets back, he's gone. Hemmy's still there, but there's a note on the fridge:
went to NYC to see Bob and co. back in a day or two. sorry about leaving hemmy-- he likes you better anyway.
P.
Joe swallows hard around the tightness in his throat. He eats some mac and cheese and tries to do his reading for his English class. He ends up blowing it off in favor of walking Hemmy all the way to the Green and past, down through the new, swanky converted factory apartments, to the railroad tracks and back. He drinks four beers in lieu of dinner and doesn't pick up when Simon calls.
*
Pete finally gets back Saturday. Joe never gave him a key, so he finds him sitting on the floor of the foyer when he gets back with Hemmy after lunch. His chin is resting on his knees, and Joe can see the purple circles starting to edge his eyes again.
"Hey," he says stupidly and Pete scrabbles to his feet, Hemmy almost tangling them both up with his leash in his excitement.
"Hey yourself." They ride the elevator in silence. Pete's hunched in on himself, his hands tucked under his armpits. He's carrying a Gucci bag that probably cost over a grand, and there's scribbling on his dirty Vans, like Pete had gotten bored on the train and started writing on the first handy surface. Joe is torn between smacking him hard in the head and hugging him.
"How's Bob?" he asks as they dump Hemmy's stuff in to the corner of his kitchen. Hemmy takes a running leap for the couch and manages to heave himself up with only a little difficulty.
Pete shrugs. "Okay. Less than thrilled with me at the moment, but I told him that's why he has Ryan and Patrick, to keep the money rolling in."
Joe stops and turns, blinking. "Why is he less than thrilled? Did you dump a project to come out here?"
"Nah, man," Pete answers and swings up onto the counter. He looks normal except for the fact that he won't meet Joe's eyes. "I can do ninety-five percent of all my projects from my phone. You know that." He picks up a plastic bowl of leftover take-out rice noodles and picks at it. "This looks gross, dude."
"Yeah, well, it looked better last night," Joe counters and takes the container from his hands. He steps right into Pete's personal space and crosses his arms. "Why is Bob pissed, Pete?"
Pete scratches behind his ear and focuses his eyes on Joe's shoulder. "I wanted to go over contracts, see what the label would say if we took a little more time. If, you know. This was it."
Joe's heart speeds up, but he keeps his breathing steady. "If what was what?" he asks. His skin prickles with nervous energy.
Pete exhales through his nose, closes his eyes. "If you guys needed time to do other stuff," he says evenly. "If maybe the band didn't do another album."
Joe feels like he's been punched in the chest. "Pete," he starts, but Pete is moving, trying to push off the counter to stand up and walk away. Joe's puts his hands down on either side of Pete's hips, trapping him in place. "What the fuck," he says, and his voice is hoarse.
Pete still won't look him in the eye as he shrugs. "It just seems like if we're going to do it, this is a good time, right? I mean, you're already, like, eight years late to the college thing, Trohman. And Patrick's-"
"Patrick's already writing songs for the next album, you asshole. You talked to him about them last week," Joe snaps. This isn't what he was expecting. He's used to Pete's random freakouts by now, but this. He wants to be funny about it, say What, are you firing us Pete? Replacing us with baby scenesters?, but this isn't funny. Nothing has changed at all from a week ago when Joe listened to Pete and Patrick argue over word choice in a chorus for fifteen minutes. Nothing except Simon, and Pete's low angry voice, the way he left without a word. "Is this some latent homophobic freakout, Wentz?" he asks, because Joe's never had a filter when it came to Pete.
"What?" Pete's face jerks up to his. "No, jesus! I just."
"Did I give any indication ever that I wanted to quit the band?"
"I guess I just," he's squirming now, but Joe doesn't back down. If Pete really wants to move, to get away, he will. Pete's a strong little fucker. "I feel like there are all these things about you I didn't know," he finishes quietly and tugs at the brim of Joe's Yale cap. "Like maybe you really did pick wrong." Pete's eyes are avoiding his again, but Joe can read the dark glint that says Pete is hating himself, that every word coming out of his mouth is going to be uncertain and edged with bitterness.
Joe knows better than to bullshit a bullshitter, especially when he learned everything he knows about bullshitting from Pete. Whatever is going on in Pete's head, Joe knows he has to just ram it like a fucking Mack truck, over and over, until the words shake loose and Joe can make Pete see them for the broken pieces they are. "Maybe I did," he says steadily, even though his heart is still pounding hard enough that he can feel it in his neck, his wrists. "Probably, yeah. It was a fucking stupid decision. Now ask me if I'd do the same thing over again, if I had the choice."
"Joe," Pete says helplessly, and Joe just shakes his head once, hard.
"You know I would. This is fun," he says, one hand sweeping over his tidy living room, his stacks of books and open laptop. "And it would have been then, sure. But I took a shot at something bigger, knowing full well that it would probably fail. What's so wrong with that?"
"But. Why?," Pete asks, still agitated. "What the hell-"
Joe looks him straight in the eye. "You know why," he says, because of course Pete knows. Joe remembers their first show out-of-state back in 2001 when they crashed at Andy's friend's house. Two in the morning after the show and Joe was still wired, and Pete was squashed next to him on the narrow foldout sofa. Pete's skin was hot and he pulled at Joe's arm until Joe was spooned up behind him, their feet tangled together, Joe breathing warm and damp across Pete's shoulder. "God, we suck," Pete had laughed, quietly, and Joe said "Whatever, we rule". He'd fallen asleep like that, and woke up with his dick pressed hard into the small of Pete's back, their fingers tangled on Pete's bare stomach, and he kissed the back of Pete's neck knowing full well Pete wasn't asleep.
Pete never slept.
"Joe," Pete says again, quiet and almost pained, and Joe nearly flinches when Pete's hand curls around his forearm.
"This was only a mistake if you were a mistake." Joe's voice is hard edged and leaves Pete no room for argument. He still shakes Pete's shoulder for emphasis. "You were not a mistake."
Pete finally, finally looks up at him, his eyes wet, and Joe's just angry now. "You were seventeen," he says, voice quiet.
"Now I'm twenty-six."
"I thought you got over it," he says with a shaky half-laugh and Joe leans closer.
"So did I." He doesn't move but Pete's mouth is suddenly on his, warm and tentative. Joe's lips part before he can think about it, and Pete makes a soft, surprised noise before his open too, his tongue swiping at Joe's. It's an okay kiss, a really decent kiss, actually, and Joe doesn't think about the fact that he learned to kiss watching Pete, that he knows the exact moment Pete's hand is going to slide over his shoulder and around the back of his neck. But he never knew how it would feel, exactly, to have Pete toss his hat to the other side of the kitchen and slide his fingers into Joe's unruly hair, to hear Pete's low moan when Joe's palm slides up the outside of his thigh. Joe jerks back at that, pulls his hand away like he's been stung.
Joe says "Fuck, fuck," and Pete's eyes are wide, dazed.
"Please," Pete says, and he hasn't let go of Joe's neck. "Fuck, Joe, I'm an idiot, I know, just," and he tugs just a little until he's kissing Joe again. It's awesome, really; it's amazing. But five minutes ago Pete was breaking up the band and Joe doesn't know what is happening anymore. He pulls away with effort, and barely holds back the whimper when Pete's teeth scrape his lower lip gently.
"I'm not like you, Pete," he says quietly. He grins ruefully, shifts so Pete can feel the friction of his already hard cock. "It goes all the way down."
Pete buries his face in Joe's neck and wraps one leg around Joe's. He pulls himself forward so they're flush against each other, Pete's heel pressed to the back of Joe's knee. He's hard against Joe's thigh, and he says, "You've known me almost ten years. Why the fuck do you think I have any idea what I'm talking about ever, dude?"
Joe laughs. "You totally suck, you know that?" he says and tucks his hands into the small of Pete's back to pull him closer. Pete hugs him tight and nods, kissing along Joe's throat.
"I know," he says, sounding a little unsure, and Joe kisses the side of his head.
"I forgive you," he says, with an over-the-top sigh and Pete laughs, finally.
"Is this insane?"
Joe shrugs and slips his fingers under the hem of Pete's shirt in the back. "Probably," he answers, and then Pete is kissing him again.
They don't stop until they're on Joe's bed, Hemmy shut firmly on the other side of the door. ("Not in front of the kid," Pete had said with actual horror and Joe had laughed.) Pete loses his shirt somewhere in the corner and Joe's panting as Pete pushes his shirt up to his armpits, kisses down his chest. He cups Joe's dick through his jeans and Joe shudders as his thumb presses down the hard outline, along his zipper.
"I’m not," Pete starts, and Joe holds his breath until Pete finishes, "I mean, this isn't my area of expertise," with a laugh.
"Whatever," Joe exhales hard and fast and yanks on Pete's arm until he's back in kissing range. "It's a dick. You have one. Treat it like you treat your own, it'll be fine." Pete huffs another laugh into Joe's shoulder, but his fingers shake a little as they ease the zipper down. Joe just pops the button on Pete's jeans open and shoves them down his hips. Pete's cock is searingly hot and impossibly smooth in his hand. "Nice manscaping," he says with a grin.
"I hate you so much," Pete grits out as Joe tugs, just a little. Pete flattens his hand over Joe's cock and slides it back. The friction makes Joe's thighs tremble.
"Hey," Joe pants into Pete's shoulder. "It's not like. I mean, I'm about six years out of practice here, so."
"So this is going to be awful, is what you're saying?" Pete groans, and then tosses his head back as Joe's thumb rubs a small circle over the crown of his cock.
"Maybe not awful," Joe murmurs and starts a rhythm in earnest. After that, Joe can't concentrate on much of anything. The angle is off for him, but Pete shifts to the side a bit, propped on one elbow, and he's apparently taking Joe's advice to heart, jerking him off in slick, speedy strokes. He's not going to last, and when Pete starts muttering "yeah, fuck, come on Joe" low in his ear, teeth scraping his earlobe, Joe gives up trying to hold back. He's had this fantasy for ten years, and there's no way he can stop the electric current working its way down his spine as Pete pulls him over the edge.
"Not awful?" Pete says with a grin as Joe opens his eyes. His hair is plastered to his forehead with sweat already, and Joe just grunts.
"You did just fine for a novice," he concedes, but he's pretty sure the whimper he lets out when Pete pulls his hand away undermines his attempt at coolness. Pete looks at his hand, nose wrinkling a little, and Joe can't help but laugh at him. "That part never gets not gross, just FYI," he says.
"Greeeeat." Pete just wipes his hand on Joe's shirt, and Joe snorts and finally tugs it off.
"Worth it, though. Also, there are ways of avoiding a mess."
"Oh really?" Pete says with his eyebrows raised in mock surprise, but Joe is already pushing him onto his back and tugging Pete's jeans down just a fraction more. He slides down the bed a few feet and Pete's smile slips into something a lot less joking. "Joe," he says, cording his fingers through Joe's curls. "You don't-"
"Six years out of practice, you don't have to thank me," Joe cuts in with a grin. Pete bites his lip as Joe licks the full length of Pete's cock in one long stripe before suckling at the crown, trying to remember how to keep his teeth clear, how to suck hard enough to hollow his cheeks and not lose suction. It's not a great angle to watch Pete's face, even though he wants to. He's spent years listening to the little sounds Pete makes when he jerks off (and occasionally when some random scene girl was crammed in his bunk with him) and he's always just wanted to see.
Next time, he promises himself, and lets his eyes slip shut as he slides a hand down to press against Pete's balls and sucks hard enough that Pete's hips come off the mattress. He babbles something that sounds like "jesus fucking fuck" and Joe moans, lets Pete fuck his mouth for a few strokes before pressing his forearm over Pete's hips and sucking him off in earnest. Six years is a long time, but sucking cock is apparently a lot like riding bicycles, or else Joe was better at this than he remembers. Pete's shaking, his fingers almost painfully tight in Pete's hair, and when Pete says "shit, shit, Troh, I'm gonna" Joe just slides to the head of Pete's cock and swallows as he comes.
Pete is panting heavily when Joe finally looks up. "Shit, Joe," Pete says, and it sounds a little broken, raw. Joe knows what that voice means. He crawls up Pete's body until they're eye to eye.
"Don't," he says, firmly. He's not going to let Pete do this. He's not going to let Pete regret this, not after it's finally within Joe's reach.
"But--," Pete starts and Joe shakes his head once and won't let Pete look away.
"I'm gonna kiss you now, and don't give me any bullshit about it being gross; I know what you've had in your mouth, Wentz." Pete doesn't laugh, but he also doesn't pull away when Joe leans in. Joe doesn't let the kiss get too urgent, just a lot of gentle passes over Pete's lower lip, the occasional fissure down his spine when their tongues slide against each other. They kiss until Joe's arms hurt from holding him up over Pete's body, and Pete's arms are looped around his neck, fingers scratching over the nape.
"You're doing it again, Joe," Pete says quietly when they pull apart.
"Doing what?"
"Backing the wrong horse," Pete says, his eyes cutting to the wall across the room.
"Hey," Joe says until Pete looks at him again. "I don't think so. Still the same horse, okay?"
"I suck at relationships, Joe," Pete says darkly.
"I know."
"I'm petty and mean sometimes, and jealous as fuck."
"I know that too," Joe nods.
Pete pauses, his breathing still ragged and uneven, and Joe keeps as still as he can, resisting the urge to sweep Pete's hair off his forehead or press a kiss to his jaw. "Don't let me fuck this up, Joe," he says finally.
"I won't," Joe nods, not smiling. His heart is skittering a million miles an hour, and all he wants to do is grin, but he knows when Pete is being serious for real.
"I mean it," Pete says, and his voice is even but his eyes are a little wet. "I fuck this up, I lose everything."
"You're not going to fuck it up, Pete," Joe says solemnly and rests his head on Pete's shoulder, his arm and leg slung snugly around Pete's body.
"I've fucked up a lot of things-"
"Shut up, Wentz. It's sleeping time."
"Joe," Pete sighs, and Joe knows they're going to have this conversation a dozen more times, maybe a hundred, but he doesn't actually care. His lips are bruised from kissing Pete, and Pete's fingers are still in his hair, and it's not a dream, not even a really awesome one.
"Seriously," he yawns and pulls Pete closer. "I'm your best friend, I know what's best for you. Sleep, shower-possibly with handjobs-dinner, more serious talk about our relationship where you freak out and I tell you I've been in love with you since I was sixteen so get over it, more sex, more sleep. Although, fuck. Somewhere in there I have to read two hundred pages of Milton. Eh," he shrugs. It figures Pete would be his academic downfall. Again.
"Joe," Pete says again, softer, and Joe lifts his head to kiss Pete softly.
"Don't think you can sleep?" he asks, and Pete shakes his head. "Okay, I didn't really think so," Joe grins. "Think you can wake me in thirty minutes with something dirty?"
"Something dirty?" Pete says, a hint of a smile finally playing across his lips.
"I'll leave it up to you, god help me," Joe smiles back and Pete noses against Joe's cheek.
"I can do that, yeah."
"Good." Joe falls asleep to the steady beat of Pete's heart, hand wrapped firmly around Pete's hip.
A/n: Title stolen shamelessly from Tom Perrotta's excellent book of the same name, also set at Yale.
Author: Eleanor_lavish
Pairing: Pete/Joe; ~6000 words
Rating: NC-17
State: Connecticut (for the first bandslash_usa challenge)
Notes: Future!fic, so a disclaimer is unnecessary, yes? Clearly I am not clairvoyant. Thanks to clumsygyrl for running this awesome challenge; to stonedtodeath, o4fuxache, and lovelypoet, all of whom let me babble about this thing incessantly; and to schuyler for being by bestest beta, once again. This was so self-indulgent, I can't even express. Thanks for putting up with me.
Summary: "Doesn't anyone think it's bizarre that you're a twenty-six year old freshman?" Pete bites out, arms crossed in front of him.
"Doesn't anyone think its bizarre that you're thirty-one and still spending your free time designing hoodies with thumb holes?" he replies with a shrug and Pete stomps into the bedroom and slams the door.
The apartment buzzer goes off at eight-fifteen in the morning, and Joe ignores it. He ignores it the second time, and the third, but when it finally sounds like someone's just smacked their hand there and leaned their whole weight on it, he finally rolls out of bed and stumbles to the intercom. "Seriously, this better be good," he says loudly, his voice still scratchy with sleep.
"Seriously, how can you live this far from a major international airport?" Pete's voice floats through and Joe blinks.
"Pete?"
"Trohman, let me the fuck in. Hemmy's already chewed, like, almost through his leash."
Joe doesn't even try to parse out why Pete is on his doorstep, three thousand miles from home, with his dog. He just buzzes Pete up, and leaves the door unlocked as he stumbles to the kitchen to make coffee. He hears Hemmy before he hears Pete, doggy nails clicking on the wood of his foyer, snuffling noises growing louder as Hemmy runs to the kitchen.
"Hey, boy," Joe grins and drops to his knees to let Hemmy cover him in slobbery kisses.
"Knew the kid would soften you up," Pete says from the doorway. Joe looks up. Pete is leaning on the doorjam, dark jeans as tight as ever, hair shorter, but fashionably in his eyes. He's wearing a soft wool sweater, and Joe can see a suitcase behind him, large enough to hold more than an overnight stay's worth of clothes. "So, you want to tell me how the fuck you got into Yale?" he says conversationally. "I'm going with bribery, possibly including sexual favors."
*
"You knew," Pete says, accusatory, and Joe can hear Patrick roll his eyes on the other end of the phone. He scratches behind Hemmy's ears and flips the TV to the Cartoon Network. "No, fucker," he says louder, "I didn't think I had to ask if any of you scored a 1540 on your SATs! I thought that would be, like, something you'd share!" Joe wonders if it's too early for a beer. It's 11:30, but he hasn't had breakfast, so he decides against it.
Pete hems and haws for a few more minutes before Patrick hangs up on him ("no, asshole, I don't care how early it is over there, I can't believe… hello?") and Joe looks over.
"You done freaking out over this, dude? I have class in two hours."
"Doesn't anyone think it's bizarre that you're a twenty-six year old freshman?" Pete bites out, arms crossed in front of him.
"Doesn't anyone think its bizarre that you're thirty-one and still spending your free time designing hoodies with thumb holes?" he replies with a shrug and Pete stomps into the bedroom and slams the door. Joe's a little pissed, since its his room, but Hemmy snuffles on his lap and Joe just sighs and figures he'll just steal a shirt from Pete's suitcase when he has to leave.
*
"Is that why your parents hated me so much for a while there?" Pete asks when Joe gets back. He's in track pants and a worn grey t-shirt that Joe's seen so many times he can fill in the blanks where the lettering's worn off.
"They didn't," he says absently, shuffling his backpack to the ground. "Put on shoes, we're going out for Thai." There are four separate Thai places on Joe's street, and he's grown addicted to them.
"They did," Pete says thirty minutes later around a mouthful of massaman curry. "Your dad shot me death glares every time I came over for, like, a year. I thought it was just because I was ruining your life in the normal dude-in-a-band way. Not in the my-kid-is-a-genius-you-asshole way."
"I'm not a genius, Pete." Joe sips at his plum wine. "And they weren't mad at you that I didn't go to college eight years ago. They were fucking pissed at me, but they got over it when I paid off the mortgage," he grins and Pete sighs, exasperated.
"You should have told me, Trohman," he says, but he leaves it at that and Joe doesn't push. They eat in companionable silence for a few minutes. "So, what the fuck is your major, anyway?"
Joe shrugs. "I'm undecided on paper, but probably history. Political science. Something like that." He likes all of his classes so far, but the books for his class on 'Dilemmas of the Nuclear Age' actually keep him up at night, reading. He tells Pete this, and bites back a grin as Pete's eyes light up.
"No shit, that's actually the name of the class?" he asks, and Joe spends the next thirty minutes debating the pros and cons of nuclear power with him.
*
Pete wants to come to class the next day, and Joe hesitates. It's been really cool to be the semi-anonymous guy in the back of a lecture hall, instead of Joe from Fall Out Boy, these last few months. He'd had a hard go his first few weeks-the campus was spread out all over the place, and Joe didn't have the usual freshman orientation, since he was part of a small group of 'special students' admitted that Fall. He'd shaved his beard the day after he moved in, after seeing the baby faces of the kids wrestling IKEA furniture into the dorms across the street. Now, the tattoos got him more looks than anything.
He loves his spacious top-floor apartment on Chapel Street, perched over a candy shop and a fancy restaurant, but he sometimes stares wistfully out the window at Old Campus. It's not a what-if that really matters, and he wouldn't change anything in his life for the world, but this college thing is way harder than he thought it would be, and he kind of feels like he missed out on keggers and dances.
Then he remembers the gross smell of the back of the van in 2003, and the feel of a hundred hands under him as he crowd surfed in a VA hall in Des Moines, and the look on Pete's face when they first played on TV, and figures he still got the better end of the deal.
He looks at Pete. "Wear a hat and keep your big fucking mouth closed," he says and Pete says "Sweet!" Joe tries not to feel too self-conscious when they slink into the back of the lecture hall. Pete takes notes. Their arms touch and Joe tries to remember the reading he skimmed the night before.
*
Pete comes with him to his discussion section too, and sits quietly in the corner, his knee bouncing up and down with barely contained excitement. Joe is nervous about it for the first few minutes until his TA makes the girls in the corner stop whispering, and Joe gets in a heated argument over Iran with a kid in a lacrosse sweatshirt.
"Fucking Young Republican bullshit," Joe mutters under his breath as they walk back to Joe's. He points out the Skull and Bones crypt ("that was an awful movie," Pete says with a shake of his head) and swing by Atticus Bakery and Bookstore, at which they're finally stopped for a few autographs. (Joe being a student isn't quite old news, but he's happy the student body mostly considers themselves too cool to do anything other than pretend he's just another guy trying to pass his classes. Pete, on the other hand, has never been able to deflect that kind of attention. Joe sips his coffee and flips through a few books while Pete smiles and signs a few napkins, and a pair of jeans.)
"You're good at this," Pete says later that night as Joe organizes note cards in library books on the Cold War. Joe looks up, distracted.
"Sorry, what?"
Pete smiles, but it doesn't quite reach his eyes, and Joe feels a familiar twist in his stomach. "This," he waves his hand at the pile of books, "this college stuff. You're good at it. You kicked that kid's ass in your discussion today."
"You were good at it," Joe counters. He remembers picking Pete up from the dorms for gigs-his room was always a total mess, but most of it was copies of articles from magazines, and pages of notes on economic theory.
"Yeah, maybe," Pete shakes his head and leans on his knees. A few minutes later, Joe is jolted out of his reading again with "You backed the wrong horse, man."
"What?" Joe says, laughing, because what else can he do.
"It's not funny!" Pete says and points at him. "You were way too smart, man. You were smart enough to know that the band was a massive fucking long shot and you did it anyway. In all probability, you were seriously fucking up your future." He sounds annoyed and Joe gapes at him.
"Yeah, well, smart people have notoriously bad common sense," he jokes. Pete just glares. "It worked out okay, you know?" he says, in case Pete has forgotten that they're still kind of a big deal, as bands go.
"We got lucky."
"Yeah, we did. Now shut up," Joe smiles. He picks up a book on the KGB and tosses it in Pete's lap. "Here, feed your neuroses a little and let me work, okay?"
*
Pete still has nightmares, and Joe doesn't wake up when Pete comes stumbling from the living room into his room in the middle of the night and crawls under the covers. He does wake up a few hours later to Pete's face pressed to his shoulder, breathing deep and heavy. From this close he can see the purple tinge of the skin around his eyes, and a few tentative grey roots hiding at Pete's temples. He smiles at the top of Pete's head and lies in bed quietly, not wanting to disturb Pete's rare comfortable sleep. It's forty-five minutes before Hemmy puts his paws up on the mattress and makes imploring whining sounds at them. Joe shushes him quietly and rolls out of bed to take him on a short walk.
When he gets back, Pete's made coffee, and his suitcase is in Joe's room, tucked in the corner.
*
It's cool in New England in the fall in a way that's strangely the same as home, and Joe loves it. He wears three layers to every class, and a blue baseball cap with a big 'Y' in the front. Pete snorts when he sees it.
"It helps me blend in," Joe says defensively, but secretly he loves it. He wanted to buy one that said 'Y '14' but he's pretty sure that's a long shot. He has seven years to finish as a special student, and in reality he's not sure how long he'll last. Patrick's already been making noises about new songs, and they aren't even a year into their two-year hiatus yet.
"It makes you look like a douche," Pete counters, but he's grinning.
"Good, 'cause you like dudes who are douches," Joe says and tugs the brim lower.
"Lucky you." Pete wraps an arm around his shoulder as they get to Richter's Bar.
"Yeah," Joe says, and anything else he would have said is swallowed by the din of the bar as Pete opens the door.
"They play any Fall Out Boy on the stereo, and we are so gone," Pete says loudly over the noise, and it's Joe's turn to snort. Richter's is the kind of place that still serves beer in actual yard glasses. Inside, it's the size of a postage stamp, with crew team memorabilia and old black and white photos on the walls, and is populated mostly by guys in polo shirts getting wasted on local brews.
"If there's FOB on the stereo here, I'll actually eat this hat."
*
"So," Pete asks from the couch. Hemmy's asleep in his lap, drooling on his jeans. Joe's in the big chair by the window, computer open in his lap. He has a paper due in three days, and 3000 words to go on it. He remembers that homework totally blew in high school, and its worse now. "You gave Marie the condo."
He's been at Joe's a week, but somehow Joe isn't surprised it took this long to come up. He closes his laptop with a click and rubs the bridge of his nose. "It only seemed fair, you know?" he says. Six years of long distance dating and seeing each other on tour buses and over holidays... It wasn't her fault that, when they finally lived in the same space for more than three weeks at time, they found they had nothing to say to each other.
Pete just nods like he gets it. Joe shuffles to the couch and flops next to him, reaching out to run his fingers over Hemmy's short, stiff fur. The dog snuffles a little in his sleep and Pete shifts a fraction closer. "He missed you," he says quietly and Joe leans heavily against Pete's side.
"I missed him too," he replies and flips the TV to a Friends re-run.
*
"They can't be serious," Pete says and Joe, for once, agrees.
"I know, it's a sacrilege," he nods, face grim. The people at the tables around them seem undisturbed and Joe hopes they're just masking their disgust. "There's no… substance to it."
"I mean," Pete says, picking up a slice and watching it flop lifelessly in his hand, "for twenty bucks, they could at least throw some more cheese on it. I could fit, like, three of these in a deep-dish back home.
Joe nods gravely. "It was an experiment, and obviously we were temporarily crazy," he says. New Haven in general, and Pepe's Pizza in particular, pride themselves as the Birthplace of American Pizza, so they'd felt obligated to at least try it. They're entirely unimpressed. "I hear there's a place a few blocks from my apartment that invented the hamburger," he tells Pete with a hopeful lilt to his voice. "Maybe that won't suck?"
Pete eyes the thin, flat pizza in front of him and looks critically at Joe. "Maybe," he says disdainfully.
*
"Here's all the delivery menus; you're fending for yourself tonight," Joe tells Pete and drops a small stack of papers in his lap. He's looking for his one pair of decent shoes, and he hopes like hell Hemmy hasn't already found them.
"Hot date?" Pete asks slyly, perched on top of the kitchen counter. He kicks feet against the cabinets and leaves little scuff marks.
"Fuck off," Joe replies reflexively. His head is buried in his hall closet, so it loses a little 'oompf', muffled by three winter coats.
"What's her name?" Pete goads. "Is she hot? Are you sure she's after you for your huge brain and not your huge pocketbook?" Joe stands up, shoes in hand triumphantly.
"Simon," he says. It's not really Pete's business, but it's worth it to see the shocked expression on Pete's face. "Yes, he's hot, I doubt he's after me for my money since his dad makes fifteen million a year, and I hope he's not after anything too huge, as I'm sure to be a disappointment." He closes the door to his bedroom behind him and tries to chalk the rapid beating of his heart up to nerves about his date.
Pete doesn't say a word until Joe's almost out the door, keys shoved in the pocket of his leather jacket. "You're not fucking with me," he says flatly and Joe runs a hand through his hair. He's agitated, and he doesn't want to have this conversation now.
"No."
"Since when did you like guys, Trohman?" Pete asks, and he sounds just this side of pissed. Joe's cheeks color hotly.
"You missed all those parties in Chicago when I was hooking up with boys, Pete? Because I distinctly remember you being there," he bites out. "In fact, I remember you tossing Butcher at me at Nick's once and swearing it was fine if we both weren't legal."
"That was a long time ago, and-" Pete starts.
"Yeah, and then I was dating someone for six years, and I didn't fucking cheat on her, imagine that." Joe's going to be late, and Simon's a really cool guy, and what the fuck is Pete even doing here?
"Yeah, well, excuse me for thinking-"
"Thinking what? Thinking that my gay was just from the waist up? Well, I hate to break it to you, Pete, but I'm half gay in the way that actually involves more than just my upper body. In fact, my lower body is pretty stoked about this date, so you'll fucking excuse me if I don't have time to talk about this right now." He slams the door when he leaves and Hemmy barks on the other side of it.
*
Simon is really hot, and he went to boarding school in Switzerland. He has a vague idea of who Fall Out Boy are, but nothing more than that. He asks more questions about Joe's tattoos than about his friendship with Jay-Z, and talks about his grandparents' vineyard in Portugal, and kisses really well when he walks Joe back to his building.
Joe doesn't invite him up.
Pete's asleep in Joe's bed when he gets upstairs and Joe undresses quietly and just lays on top of the covers for a while until he drifts off thinking about the way Butch fit in his lap all those years ago, and Pete's warm murmur in his ear as he'd watched Joe peel off Butcher's shirt.
*
Pete's still asleep when Joe heads out to his nine-thirty class (Rocks for Jocks, or, Geology for Non-Majors), and by the time Joe gets back, he's gone. Hemmy's still there, but there's a note on the fridge:
went to NYC to see Bob and co. back in a day or two. sorry about leaving hemmy-- he likes you better anyway.
P.
Joe swallows hard around the tightness in his throat. He eats some mac and cheese and tries to do his reading for his English class. He ends up blowing it off in favor of walking Hemmy all the way to the Green and past, down through the new, swanky converted factory apartments, to the railroad tracks and back. He drinks four beers in lieu of dinner and doesn't pick up when Simon calls.
*
Pete finally gets back Saturday. Joe never gave him a key, so he finds him sitting on the floor of the foyer when he gets back with Hemmy after lunch. His chin is resting on his knees, and Joe can see the purple circles starting to edge his eyes again.
"Hey," he says stupidly and Pete scrabbles to his feet, Hemmy almost tangling them both up with his leash in his excitement.
"Hey yourself." They ride the elevator in silence. Pete's hunched in on himself, his hands tucked under his armpits. He's carrying a Gucci bag that probably cost over a grand, and there's scribbling on his dirty Vans, like Pete had gotten bored on the train and started writing on the first handy surface. Joe is torn between smacking him hard in the head and hugging him.
"How's Bob?" he asks as they dump Hemmy's stuff in to the corner of his kitchen. Hemmy takes a running leap for the couch and manages to heave himself up with only a little difficulty.
Pete shrugs. "Okay. Less than thrilled with me at the moment, but I told him that's why he has Ryan and Patrick, to keep the money rolling in."
Joe stops and turns, blinking. "Why is he less than thrilled? Did you dump a project to come out here?"
"Nah, man," Pete answers and swings up onto the counter. He looks normal except for the fact that he won't meet Joe's eyes. "I can do ninety-five percent of all my projects from my phone. You know that." He picks up a plastic bowl of leftover take-out rice noodles and picks at it. "This looks gross, dude."
"Yeah, well, it looked better last night," Joe counters and takes the container from his hands. He steps right into Pete's personal space and crosses his arms. "Why is Bob pissed, Pete?"
Pete scratches behind his ear and focuses his eyes on Joe's shoulder. "I wanted to go over contracts, see what the label would say if we took a little more time. If, you know. This was it."
Joe's heart speeds up, but he keeps his breathing steady. "If what was what?" he asks. His skin prickles with nervous energy.
Pete exhales through his nose, closes his eyes. "If you guys needed time to do other stuff," he says evenly. "If maybe the band didn't do another album."
Joe feels like he's been punched in the chest. "Pete," he starts, but Pete is moving, trying to push off the counter to stand up and walk away. Joe's puts his hands down on either side of Pete's hips, trapping him in place. "What the fuck," he says, and his voice is hoarse.
Pete still won't look him in the eye as he shrugs. "It just seems like if we're going to do it, this is a good time, right? I mean, you're already, like, eight years late to the college thing, Trohman. And Patrick's-"
"Patrick's already writing songs for the next album, you asshole. You talked to him about them last week," Joe snaps. This isn't what he was expecting. He's used to Pete's random freakouts by now, but this. He wants to be funny about it, say What, are you firing us Pete? Replacing us with baby scenesters?, but this isn't funny. Nothing has changed at all from a week ago when Joe listened to Pete and Patrick argue over word choice in a chorus for fifteen minutes. Nothing except Simon, and Pete's low angry voice, the way he left without a word. "Is this some latent homophobic freakout, Wentz?" he asks, because Joe's never had a filter when it came to Pete.
"What?" Pete's face jerks up to his. "No, jesus! I just."
"Did I give any indication ever that I wanted to quit the band?"
"I guess I just," he's squirming now, but Joe doesn't back down. If Pete really wants to move, to get away, he will. Pete's a strong little fucker. "I feel like there are all these things about you I didn't know," he finishes quietly and tugs at the brim of Joe's Yale cap. "Like maybe you really did pick wrong." Pete's eyes are avoiding his again, but Joe can read the dark glint that says Pete is hating himself, that every word coming out of his mouth is going to be uncertain and edged with bitterness.
Joe knows better than to bullshit a bullshitter, especially when he learned everything he knows about bullshitting from Pete. Whatever is going on in Pete's head, Joe knows he has to just ram it like a fucking Mack truck, over and over, until the words shake loose and Joe can make Pete see them for the broken pieces they are. "Maybe I did," he says steadily, even though his heart is still pounding hard enough that he can feel it in his neck, his wrists. "Probably, yeah. It was a fucking stupid decision. Now ask me if I'd do the same thing over again, if I had the choice."
"Joe," Pete says helplessly, and Joe just shakes his head once, hard.
"You know I would. This is fun," he says, one hand sweeping over his tidy living room, his stacks of books and open laptop. "And it would have been then, sure. But I took a shot at something bigger, knowing full well that it would probably fail. What's so wrong with that?"
"But. Why?," Pete asks, still agitated. "What the hell-"
Joe looks him straight in the eye. "You know why," he says, because of course Pete knows. Joe remembers their first show out-of-state back in 2001 when they crashed at Andy's friend's house. Two in the morning after the show and Joe was still wired, and Pete was squashed next to him on the narrow foldout sofa. Pete's skin was hot and he pulled at Joe's arm until Joe was spooned up behind him, their feet tangled together, Joe breathing warm and damp across Pete's shoulder. "God, we suck," Pete had laughed, quietly, and Joe said "Whatever, we rule". He'd fallen asleep like that, and woke up with his dick pressed hard into the small of Pete's back, their fingers tangled on Pete's bare stomach, and he kissed the back of Pete's neck knowing full well Pete wasn't asleep.
Pete never slept.
"Joe," Pete says again, quiet and almost pained, and Joe nearly flinches when Pete's hand curls around his forearm.
"This was only a mistake if you were a mistake." Joe's voice is hard edged and leaves Pete no room for argument. He still shakes Pete's shoulder for emphasis. "You were not a mistake."
Pete finally, finally looks up at him, his eyes wet, and Joe's just angry now. "You were seventeen," he says, voice quiet.
"Now I'm twenty-six."
"I thought you got over it," he says with a shaky half-laugh and Joe leans closer.
"So did I." He doesn't move but Pete's mouth is suddenly on his, warm and tentative. Joe's lips part before he can think about it, and Pete makes a soft, surprised noise before his open too, his tongue swiping at Joe's. It's an okay kiss, a really decent kiss, actually, and Joe doesn't think about the fact that he learned to kiss watching Pete, that he knows the exact moment Pete's hand is going to slide over his shoulder and around the back of his neck. But he never knew how it would feel, exactly, to have Pete toss his hat to the other side of the kitchen and slide his fingers into Joe's unruly hair, to hear Pete's low moan when Joe's palm slides up the outside of his thigh. Joe jerks back at that, pulls his hand away like he's been stung.
Joe says "Fuck, fuck," and Pete's eyes are wide, dazed.
"Please," Pete says, and he hasn't let go of Joe's neck. "Fuck, Joe, I'm an idiot, I know, just," and he tugs just a little until he's kissing Joe again. It's awesome, really; it's amazing. But five minutes ago Pete was breaking up the band and Joe doesn't know what is happening anymore. He pulls away with effort, and barely holds back the whimper when Pete's teeth scrape his lower lip gently.
"I'm not like you, Pete," he says quietly. He grins ruefully, shifts so Pete can feel the friction of his already hard cock. "It goes all the way down."
Pete buries his face in Joe's neck and wraps one leg around Joe's. He pulls himself forward so they're flush against each other, Pete's heel pressed to the back of Joe's knee. He's hard against Joe's thigh, and he says, "You've known me almost ten years. Why the fuck do you think I have any idea what I'm talking about ever, dude?"
Joe laughs. "You totally suck, you know that?" he says and tucks his hands into the small of Pete's back to pull him closer. Pete hugs him tight and nods, kissing along Joe's throat.
"I know," he says, sounding a little unsure, and Joe kisses the side of his head.
"I forgive you," he says, with an over-the-top sigh and Pete laughs, finally.
"Is this insane?"
Joe shrugs and slips his fingers under the hem of Pete's shirt in the back. "Probably," he answers, and then Pete is kissing him again.
They don't stop until they're on Joe's bed, Hemmy shut firmly on the other side of the door. ("Not in front of the kid," Pete had said with actual horror and Joe had laughed.) Pete loses his shirt somewhere in the corner and Joe's panting as Pete pushes his shirt up to his armpits, kisses down his chest. He cups Joe's dick through his jeans and Joe shudders as his thumb presses down the hard outline, along his zipper.
"I’m not," Pete starts, and Joe holds his breath until Pete finishes, "I mean, this isn't my area of expertise," with a laugh.
"Whatever," Joe exhales hard and fast and yanks on Pete's arm until he's back in kissing range. "It's a dick. You have one. Treat it like you treat your own, it'll be fine." Pete huffs another laugh into Joe's shoulder, but his fingers shake a little as they ease the zipper down. Joe just pops the button on Pete's jeans open and shoves them down his hips. Pete's cock is searingly hot and impossibly smooth in his hand. "Nice manscaping," he says with a grin.
"I hate you so much," Pete grits out as Joe tugs, just a little. Pete flattens his hand over Joe's cock and slides it back. The friction makes Joe's thighs tremble.
"Hey," Joe pants into Pete's shoulder. "It's not like. I mean, I'm about six years out of practice here, so."
"So this is going to be awful, is what you're saying?" Pete groans, and then tosses his head back as Joe's thumb rubs a small circle over the crown of his cock.
"Maybe not awful," Joe murmurs and starts a rhythm in earnest. After that, Joe can't concentrate on much of anything. The angle is off for him, but Pete shifts to the side a bit, propped on one elbow, and he's apparently taking Joe's advice to heart, jerking him off in slick, speedy strokes. He's not going to last, and when Pete starts muttering "yeah, fuck, come on Joe" low in his ear, teeth scraping his earlobe, Joe gives up trying to hold back. He's had this fantasy for ten years, and there's no way he can stop the electric current working its way down his spine as Pete pulls him over the edge.
"Not awful?" Pete says with a grin as Joe opens his eyes. His hair is plastered to his forehead with sweat already, and Joe just grunts.
"You did just fine for a novice," he concedes, but he's pretty sure the whimper he lets out when Pete pulls his hand away undermines his attempt at coolness. Pete looks at his hand, nose wrinkling a little, and Joe can't help but laugh at him. "That part never gets not gross, just FYI," he says.
"Greeeeat." Pete just wipes his hand on Joe's shirt, and Joe snorts and finally tugs it off.
"Worth it, though. Also, there are ways of avoiding a mess."
"Oh really?" Pete says with his eyebrows raised in mock surprise, but Joe is already pushing him onto his back and tugging Pete's jeans down just a fraction more. He slides down the bed a few feet and Pete's smile slips into something a lot less joking. "Joe," he says, cording his fingers through Joe's curls. "You don't-"
"Six years out of practice, you don't have to thank me," Joe cuts in with a grin. Pete bites his lip as Joe licks the full length of Pete's cock in one long stripe before suckling at the crown, trying to remember how to keep his teeth clear, how to suck hard enough to hollow his cheeks and not lose suction. It's not a great angle to watch Pete's face, even though he wants to. He's spent years listening to the little sounds Pete makes when he jerks off (and occasionally when some random scene girl was crammed in his bunk with him) and he's always just wanted to see.
Next time, he promises himself, and lets his eyes slip shut as he slides a hand down to press against Pete's balls and sucks hard enough that Pete's hips come off the mattress. He babbles something that sounds like "jesus fucking fuck" and Joe moans, lets Pete fuck his mouth for a few strokes before pressing his forearm over Pete's hips and sucking him off in earnest. Six years is a long time, but sucking cock is apparently a lot like riding bicycles, or else Joe was better at this than he remembers. Pete's shaking, his fingers almost painfully tight in Pete's hair, and when Pete says "shit, shit, Troh, I'm gonna" Joe just slides to the head of Pete's cock and swallows as he comes.
Pete is panting heavily when Joe finally looks up. "Shit, Joe," Pete says, and it sounds a little broken, raw. Joe knows what that voice means. He crawls up Pete's body until they're eye to eye.
"Don't," he says, firmly. He's not going to let Pete do this. He's not going to let Pete regret this, not after it's finally within Joe's reach.
"But--," Pete starts and Joe shakes his head once and won't let Pete look away.
"I'm gonna kiss you now, and don't give me any bullshit about it being gross; I know what you've had in your mouth, Wentz." Pete doesn't laugh, but he also doesn't pull away when Joe leans in. Joe doesn't let the kiss get too urgent, just a lot of gentle passes over Pete's lower lip, the occasional fissure down his spine when their tongues slide against each other. They kiss until Joe's arms hurt from holding him up over Pete's body, and Pete's arms are looped around his neck, fingers scratching over the nape.
"You're doing it again, Joe," Pete says quietly when they pull apart.
"Doing what?"
"Backing the wrong horse," Pete says, his eyes cutting to the wall across the room.
"Hey," Joe says until Pete looks at him again. "I don't think so. Still the same horse, okay?"
"I suck at relationships, Joe," Pete says darkly.
"I know."
"I'm petty and mean sometimes, and jealous as fuck."
"I know that too," Joe nods.
Pete pauses, his breathing still ragged and uneven, and Joe keeps as still as he can, resisting the urge to sweep Pete's hair off his forehead or press a kiss to his jaw. "Don't let me fuck this up, Joe," he says finally.
"I won't," Joe nods, not smiling. His heart is skittering a million miles an hour, and all he wants to do is grin, but he knows when Pete is being serious for real.
"I mean it," Pete says, and his voice is even but his eyes are a little wet. "I fuck this up, I lose everything."
"You're not going to fuck it up, Pete," Joe says solemnly and rests his head on Pete's shoulder, his arm and leg slung snugly around Pete's body.
"I've fucked up a lot of things-"
"Shut up, Wentz. It's sleeping time."
"Joe," Pete sighs, and Joe knows they're going to have this conversation a dozen more times, maybe a hundred, but he doesn't actually care. His lips are bruised from kissing Pete, and Pete's fingers are still in his hair, and it's not a dream, not even a really awesome one.
"Seriously," he yawns and pulls Pete closer. "I'm your best friend, I know what's best for you. Sleep, shower-possibly with handjobs-dinner, more serious talk about our relationship where you freak out and I tell you I've been in love with you since I was sixteen so get over it, more sex, more sleep. Although, fuck. Somewhere in there I have to read two hundred pages of Milton. Eh," he shrugs. It figures Pete would be his academic downfall. Again.
"Joe," Pete says again, softer, and Joe lifts his head to kiss Pete softly.
"Don't think you can sleep?" he asks, and Pete shakes his head. "Okay, I didn't really think so," Joe grins. "Think you can wake me in thirty minutes with something dirty?"
"Something dirty?" Pete says, a hint of a smile finally playing across his lips.
"I'll leave it up to you, god help me," Joe smiles back and Pete noses against Joe's cheek.
"I can do that, yeah."
"Good." Joe falls asleep to the steady beat of Pete's heart, hand wrapped firmly around Pete's hip.
A/n: Title stolen shamelessly from Tom Perrotta's excellent book of the same name, also set at Yale.