fic: my epistolary romance (bandslash, FOB, Pete/Patrick)
So what happens when you sit out five-sixths of the holiday ficathons (except for Pretty Lights, which I will get around to posting here sometime this week) and find yourself deadline-free, fic-wise?
You write 14 pages of bandslash. Fall Out Boy bandslash. And you give it a title that will make MCR fans wrinkle their noses thinking you’re mocking them, when really, you just like the title. Seriously, when was the last time you saw someone use “epistolary” in a sentence?
my epistolary romance
By Gale
SUMMARY: One night a couple years back, in the middle of someone’s house party after a show, Patrick asks Pete if he wants to have sex.
Pete stops, then lifts his head and turns back around. He blinks a couple of times, because there is no way on God’s green earth he’s just heard what he thinks he’s heard.
He says, slowly, “Say that again.”
Patrick stands there, not saying anything. He doesn’t seem particularly defensive, or even angry; if anything, he seems patient, like he thinks Pete’s just mulling it over, when in fact Pete is doing no such thing, because Patrick is seventeen and Pete is twenty-one.
Finally, Patrick says, “What?”
“Don’t ‘what’ me,” Pete says. “Tell me you didn’t just ask me what I think you just asked me.”
“Okay,” Patrick says, “I didn’t just ask you what you think I just asked you.”
That earns him a glare. “*Patrick*.”
“What?” *Now* Patrick sounds defensive. “You’re acting like it’s such a big fucking deal-“
Oh, God. God save him from pissy lead singers, seriously. “It *is* a big fucking deal,” Pete says. He takes hold of Patrick’s sleeve and steers him out the door and down the hall, into what looks like a bathroom. It’s probably not soundproof, but that’s okay; most of the people here already look mostly-drunk, or at least drunk enough to forget conversation they’re having, let alone ones they overhear.
”Look,” Pete says when the door’s shut, “it’s - it’s just a bad idea, okay? On a lot of levels.”
Patrick gives him a look. “Let me guess,” he says. “You don’t date guys.”
“Don’t be a dick,” Pete says, because he’s dragged a couple of - okay, not boyfriends, exactly, but guys-he’s-slept-with-more-than-once to practice on occasion. He’s dragged girls-he’s-slept-with-more-than-once to practice, too. Pete likes people. Normally Pete likes Patrick, too; more than likes him, even. It’s like he’s spent the first almost-quarter of his life without his right arm, and then one day it was in his garage, singing a Saves the Day song and bitching about how much MTV sucked these days.
“Oh, right,” Patrick says, nodding. He crosses his arms over his chest. “It’s because you don’t date people my age, right?”
Really, Pete would like to know when this stopped being a conversation and started being Let’s Trap Pete With Bullshit Logic. “Once,” he admits, “or twice-“
Patrick coughs something that sounds like “a week”. Pete elbows him in the ribs, hard, because if he tries to actually argue this out with Patrick he’s going to lose. Patrick knows damn well what the kinds of people Pete hooks up with are like, and okay, maybe - maybe - there’s something to a lot of them being a…little on the young side, but they’re not, like, actual jailbait.
He really, *really* does not want to be having this conversation.
Finally, Pete says, “It’s not about that.”
Patrick looks at him for a long minute, then lets out a deep breath and - it’s not deflating, exactly, but he stops being Pissy Singer in Someone’s Bathroom Guy and starts being Patrick again. Which is a relief, because Pete’s driving him home, and he really wasn’t looking forward to forty minutes of Pissy Singer in Someone’s Bathroom Guy combined with the-bars-just-let-out traffic.
“You’re right,” Patrick says, running a hand through his hair. He pulls on it a little, the way he does when he’s not really sure about something, but you’d never know it from his expression. “I was - I don’t know what I was thinking. Seriously, just forget I said anything, okay?”
That’s either a really great idea or a horrible one, and it’s a little disturbing that Pete can’t figure out which one this is. “Patrick-“
“No,” Patrick says. “Please, just. Forget I said anything, okay?”
And Pete’s always been a soft touch where his friends are concerned, and Christ, it’s not like he’s never done anything stupid he’d rather forget. He lets out a long breath.
”Not a problem,” he says. “Nothing happened.”
“That’s sort of the idea, yeah,” Patrick says - and it’s Patrick again, no sign of the sullen, pissy teenager who’d just tried - and completely, utterly failed - to pick up Pete over by the stairs. There’s no sign of anything, actually, which is worrying as much as it is comforting. Patrick doesn’t usually speak up unless it’s about the music, and then you can’t shut him up.
“It’s fine,” Patrick says. He sounds and looks more than a little rueful, but not upset. Inside, Pete lets out a long breath, feeling like he’s just dodged a bullet. “Have you seen Joe? I wanted to ask him something earlier.”
“I think he’s out by the van,” Pete says, reflexively, then: “Patrick.”
Patrick looks at him again, and for a second - just a second - Pete has the urge to kick Joe and Insert Girl’s Name Here out of the van so they can have someplace private to talk. He and Patrick don’t really have heart-to-hearts, mostly because Pete secretly thinks Patrick was born thirty years old and is, in fact, mentally nearing fifty, and anyway he’s not the kind of guy who asks for advice.
But Pete still wants to give him some, or at least get him to fucking *talk*, because there’s something here he’s missing.
Then Patrick shakes his head, and just like that, the moment’s gone. “I’m fine,” he says one more time. “I’ll come find you later, okay?” He gives a brief smile and a small wave, then disappears into the crowd.
*
And one day Pete looks up, and it’s been five years since that night.
It all plays out in his head like a laundry list: the miles on the road, the girls, the boys. The distance, the awkward silences, the quiet moments. All those weeks spent in his room, under a blanket on the floor, not speaking for days at a time. The notebooks littered around hotel rooms and buses and bunks, battered and well-loved, written in one hand with notations in another. Awards and concerts and short films and Warped, Mikey and Anna and She Who Will Not Be Named, and all of it seems like it’s taken five days, not five years.
He’s more bitter about some things, but not as jaded as he could be, and there are days Pete still wakes up weirdly optimistic about the world - not entirely, because hi, the bus gets CNN, but enough. He’s not the guy who got fucked over by his girlfriend a couple years ago, but that guy’s still in him, and he still has opinions, and that’s okay. Pete’s learned to let that guy out sometimes, usually when he’s performing; it’s almost like an exorcism.
And Patrick’s still Patrick. The cosmetic differences are sharper, but he’s the same guy who butted into Joe’s conversation in a Borders and took the mic like he was born to it, all clear voice and strong chords when you put a guitar in his hands. He’s just - he’s Patrick, one of the strongest presences in Pete’s life, even now. There are days when it seems like he gets quieter the bigger they get, like something out of high school math, what - inverse proportions or something.
That’s not the important part, though. They’re the same people they were that night, and they’re completely different people, and it’s all at the same time, and that’s okay.
It’s okay. It’s all okay, in every sense of the term. He gets that, now.
He just needs to find some way to tell Patrick that.
*
It takes him the better part of forty-five minutes to come up with a game plan, and Pete’s never been happier in his life to have a Wal-Mart handy. It’s nothing at all to drive over at quarter after one in the morning and get a couple packs of tape, a ream of notebook paper, and a fresh Sharpie. No one even looks at him funny.
It’s a good thing that they got stuck with a van at the rent-a-car place, if only because doing this in a car would’ve been a fucking nightmare. As if is, even stretched out and twisted around like a pretzel, it’s six kinds of pain in the ass. But it’ll be worth it, if this works.
Patrick doesn’t notice that Pete doesn’t come back to the room, or if he does, he doesn’t come out to see what’s going on. That’s fine with Pete; this is going to take long enough. The last thing he needs right now is a distraction.
*
Pete’s there first thing the next morning, leaning over Patrick’s bed, shaking him awake and saying “Patrick. Patrick, get up.”
Patrick makes a noise and half-heartedly takes a swing at Pete. It would have been a hell of a lot more successful, Pete decides, if he’d been on that side of the bed. And not leaning away, because five years on the road with a guy, and you realize he’s kind of a bitch when he first wakes up.
Pete waits a couple of seconds, then pokes Patrick in what he hopes is the shoulder. “Patrick. No, really, dude, get up. I have to show you something.” He keeps poking Patrick in the - whatever while he speaks. If nothing else, Patrick will wake up to make Pete stop harassing him, goddammit, and by then it’ll be too late to fall back asleep. And sure enough--
”Fine,” Patrick says, sitting up in bed and scrubbing his hands over his face. It makes everything he says sound muffled. “I’m up, okay? God. What?”
”Not here,” Pete says. “You get showered, dressed, whatever. I’ll meet you out by the van.”
Patrick shoots him a disbelieving look, but it’s missing something without the glasses. Without them, Patrick looks all of seventeen all over again. Something about that makes Pete’s mouth go a little dry.
On the other hand, Patrick might just be asking himself why the hell Pete’s awake and dressed and ready! to! go! at seven-thirty in the morning, complete with eyeliner and a shiny red ribbon tied in a bow around his wrist.
But all Patrick says is, “Give me twenty minutes.”
*
Sure enough, twenty minutes later, Patrick’s outside. He looks a little disgruntled, but Pete can work with that. “This had better be good,” Patrick says. “We don’t have to be anywhere until this afternoon.”
“I know,” Pete says, and tosses the keys from one hand to the other. “Here,” he says, and hands them over.
Patrick looks at him, then unlocks the van and gets both doors open.
There have been a couple of changes.
The van - the back of it, anyway - is now divided into two sections: Before and After. There’s a strip of masking tape down the middle, just to make sure it’s perfectly clear which side is which, in case the pieces of tape on the bumper marked “Before” and “After” aren’t enough of a giveaway.
(In the back of Pete’s head, the grown-up guy who knows about marketing and record deals really, really hopes the tape comes off, because the van’s a rental. It would have been better if he could’ve done this in the old van, but - right, right, car accident.)
There are pieces of paper taped all over the van - the backs of the seats, covering the windows, ceiling and floor and walls. It took Pete the better part of the night, but he’d like to think it looks mostly symmetrical, and if nothing else the fact that the pieces themselves vary in size and clarity of handwriting; most are printed pretty neatly, but a couple are scribbled. For the most part, the scribbled ones are on the “Before” side.
Patrick looks inside for a long moment, but doesn’t say anything. He looks back at Pete.
Pete shrugs and climbs inside. He helps Patrick up, then settles himself back against the After wall and waits.
Before is the bigger side, but not by much. The pieces of paper on that side say things like “when I said I loved you I swear I lied” and “with every breath I wish your body will be broken again”. The left window, the big one, is completely obscured by “you should try saying no once in a while” and “Oh don’t mind me, I’m watching you two from the closet”; they take up the entire window, and in a couple of places Pete almost ripped the paper, he was writing so hard. The ceiling is covered in things like “this is me wishing you into the worst situations” and “I’ve got headaches and bad luck but they couldn’t touch you”.
Patrick reads them silently. Sometimes he tilts his head; usually he just brushes his fingers across them, like they’ve been written in Braille. He goes over the entire left side slowly and painstakingly, even hanging head-first out the back to read “I’ll be your best kept secret and your biggest mistake” going down the bumper and coming dangerously close to the tailpipe.
Pete just watches him.
When Patrick climbs back inside, he looks at the left side for another minute, then motions for Pete to move. Pete goes to the left side; Patrick, to the right.
After is maybe an inch smaller than Before, but there’s no angry scribbling. The actual seat is bare, mostly because Pete didn’t want to risk crumpling anything when he was doing his contortionist impression when he was crawling around the van, but that’s fine; there’d been plenty of room on the floor and wall and windows.
“We’ll make them so jealous, we’ll make them hate us” is catty-corner with “why can you read me like no one else?” The back window is covered by “I hide behind these words but I’m coming out” and “can I lay in your bed all day?”, each of them on a separate piece of notebook paper. They’re thin enough to let the early morning light in, but not so thick you can make out more than vague shapes. The slightly loopy “we’re friends when you’re on your knees” is more because his hand was starting to get tired than because of any sense of embarrassment about what he’s proposing, however obliquely.
Patrick studies After just as closely as he did Before, still not saying anything. The entire time he’s been looking things over, he’s been expressionless. He hasn’t had so much as a series of confused blinks, which is starting to worry Pete just a little.
God, he thinks, just say *something*.
As if on cue, Patrick says, “This looks like it took a while.”
Pete shrugs. “Couple hours.” If by “couple”, you mean “most of the night”. His hand’s still a little crampy, and he’s pretty sure his back’s going to hate him for the next week. “I just. Started thinking the other day.”
This is not a lie. Technically, quarter to twelve last night is a different day.
”Yeah,” Patrick says, “I got that.” But he’s smiling when he says it. The knot in Pete’s stomach unravels just enough to let him breathe. “About what?”
”I don’t know,” Pete says. “Things. The past.” He scratches his knee through his jeans and is very careful not to make eye contact. “How things change, even when you don’t want them to.”
“I swear to God,” Patrick says, smile vanishing into his normal serious expression, “if you bust out the I Ching at me this early in the morning, before I’ve had coffee-“
”No,” Pete says, shaking his head. “No, it’s not - I promise, it’s not that.”
”And no Gibran,” Patrick adds. “If you want an intelligent conversation about The Prophet, I’d better have caffeine in me.”
And sure, Patrick’s his best friend, but times like this, Pete’s forcibly reminded why the two of them avoid each other first thing in the morning. He makes himself relax and take a deep breath. “I told you,” he says again, “I just started thinking about stuff the other day.”
”And that somehow led you to covering the back of the van in song lyrics,” Patrick says slowly, looking at Pete like he’s a crazy person. Pete doesn’t take it personally; Patrick looks at him like that all the time.
“Yeah,” Pete says.
There’s a little silence.
Patrick says, “This is one of those times where you started the argument without me, isn’t it?”
“It’s not an argument,” Pete says. He lets his knees give out and drop him to the floor of the van, then stretches one leg out in front of him while he pulls the other one up close to his chest. “I told you, sometimes things change-“
”Pete-“
”No,” Pete says, “just - let me get through this, okay?”
Patrick looks at him for a long moment, then nods. Pete takes a deep breath.
“Things change,” Pete starts again, “even when you don’t want them to, right? And that - it’s necessary, but it *sucks*. People don’t react well to change, it makes them stupid and defensive, and they stop talking about stuff they should be talking about.” He pauses, then says, brightly, like it’s just occurred to him, “Hey, remember that time you asked me if I wanted to have sex?”
Patrick’s eyes go wide and panicked; he even sits back a little. Then his eyes go back to normal and he blinks at Pete like nothing happened. “No.”
“Really? Because I do.”
“No you don’t,” Patrick says, “because that never happened.”
It takes Pete a couple of seconds of staring at Patrick before he realizes that no, Patrick’s just avoiding the issue, he hasn’t managed to edit his version of reality. “Yes,” Pete says, “it did. I was there. We were in someone’s house-“
”No we weren’t.”
”-and you sidled up to me and tried to sound all casual, and then you took a second and said, ‘So, do you want to go somewhere more private?’”
”No I didn’t.”
Okay, that’s getting old. “Yes you did,” Pete says. He’s keeping his voice bright, but it’s making his eye twitch. He is totally not cut out for this peppy shit. “And I said no, and I probably smashed any kind of crush you had on me into a thousand pieces, because that’s what I did back then-“
”No you didn’t,” Patrick says, still so pleasant. You’d never know he was lying through his goddamn teeth. Any other time, Pete would be impressed; Patrick can’t lie for shit. “And even if it *had*, so what? That was four years ago. Things change.”
“It was four years ago,” Pete says, not unkindly, “and I don’t think everything’s changed.”
Patrick freezes.
“Some things have, though,” Pete adds, still in that same quiet voice, like he’s trying not to scare off a deer or something, which - well. He might as well be. “I mean, I’d like to think your approach has improved a little since then, dude-“
”You’d be surprised,” Patrick mutters. Pete ignores it, because he’s pretty sure he wasn’t supposed to hear it.
”-and I’d like to think I’ve mellowed in my old age. So to speak.” Pete looks at him for a long minute, then uncoils himself and leans over to grab Patrick’s hand and tug it to the biggest piece of paper nearest his hand. He watches Patrick cock his head and read it - “turn off the lights and turn off the shyness” - and then follow it to the one underneath it: “all of our moves make up for the silence”.
“What do you need,” Pete asks quietly, “a goddamn road map to my parents’ house?”
Another few moments of silence.
”This is kind of a big thing,” Patrick says. All things considered, he sounds pretty calm. Pete lets himself relax a little more.
“I’m allowed one grand gesture,” Pete argues. He lets go of Patrick’s hand, and when Patrick doesn’t jerk back, he eases back against the side of the van.
”Since when?”
”Since, like, a year ago. I bartered Andy up to one.”
”You bartered - wait, there’s a *contract*?” Patrick asks.
“Not written out or anything, but yeah,” Pete says. “We got bored one afternoon. I’m allowed one big, stupid theatrical thing without anyone starting any betting pools about when the relationship’s going to blow up in my face.”
”That was Joe’s idea,” Patrick says automatically, and looks at him. “Wait, so-“
If they still had a backseat, Pete’s pretty sure he’d be smacking his head against it. Since they don’t, he settles for rolling his eyes. “I covered the van in song lyrics,” he says, not even trying to keep the exasperation out of his voice. “I was up half the goddamn night, dude. I am wearing a ribbon around my wrist, and it is Christmas. I swear to God, if you don’t get it after this, I’m kicking your ass out of my band.”
Patrick sort of smiles at that. Pete counts it as a win. “This is a terrible idea, you know.”
Pete shrugs. “We’ve had worse.”
“Name one.”
”Well,” Pete says, trying to keep his voice light, “I turned this really fucking cute guy down a couple years ago. That was dumb.”
Patrick’s face goes completely unguarded for a minute; and there he is, peeking out from under the edges, the guy who had tried to be casual and utterly failed at it. Pete’s been half in love with that guy for years, and he can almost hear the other half slide into place with a tiny click. It tickles a little.
”Pete-“ Patrick starts, and oh my God, he can see it clear as day: Patrick is going to turn down the grand gesture.
”Oh, for Christ’s sake,” Pete snaps, and half-leans, half-throws himself at Patrick and kisses him.
It’s not a great kiss. It’s not even a good kiss. It’s - just a kiss, technically no different than any of the others Pete’s ever had. But it’s five years of anticipation on top of five years of I know you, goddammit, and that’s got something to say for it.
Something really, shockingly nice. With tongue.
”It wasn’t dumb,” Patrick says against Pete’s mouth, pulling back just enough to be understood. The movement’s distracting enough that Pete has to remind himself what the hell Patrick’s talking about. “I was just a kid. It would have been a horrible idea-“
”You don’t know that,” Pete says, but more because he likes playing devil’s advocate than because that’s what he really thinks.
”-and it would have ruined everything,” Patrick says. “God, I was *seventeen*. I can’t even - wait, what’s the age requirement in Illinois?” He pulls back a little and oh my God, *he’s thinking about it.* “Is it even seventeen?”
”I don’t think it matters,” Pete says, “since, you know, sodomy was illegal there ‘til this year.” He thinks. He’s pretty sure.
“Well, yeah, but that’s not - really? Sodomy?” Patrick blinks at him. “That’s what you were thinking?”
“I *wasn’t* thinking,” Pete says. “Though right now, I’m kind of hoping we can stop saying ‘sodomy’.”
Patrick looks at him for a second, then coughs and tries to look nonchalant. He utterly fails, of course; but then, he always has. “Oh. Right.” He coughs again. “So, um. We should probably-“
”Don’t misunderstand me,” Pete says. He hooks his fingers through the loops in Patrick’s jeans and hauls himself closer, sliding one leg over Patrick’s lap. “I’m not saying we shouldn’t commit it. I just think we should stop using the legal term.”
That one takes Patrick a second, but Pete can tell the instant he gets it, because his eyes narrow a little and he - smiles. It isn’t an expression Pete’s ever seen before, which is saying something. It’s calculating and faintly evil, and something about it makes Pete start aching.
“Fine,” Patrick says - and God, he looks so utterly *normal* when he says it, too. “But you agree that it would have been a stupid idea if we’d fucked back then.”
And that’s - wow, that’s a mental disconnect right there. Hearing someone - hearing *Patrick* - say “fuck” should not be this hot. And yet.
“Probably,” Pete admits. “As long as you agree that it’s a good idea now.”
”You just covered the back of the van in song lyrics,” Patrick says. He sounds - he sounds *proud*, almost. It’s great in a way Pete can’t really express in words. He wonders, idly, if Patrick would be cranky if he stopped for a couple minutes to write some stuff down. “Right now you could say anything, and I’d agree with you.”
Pete moves back enough to clap his hand over Patrick’s mouth. “You should rephrase that,” he says, “unless you want me to hold it against you. and I will. At a very inappropriate moment.”
Patrick looks at him, then takes hold of Pete’s wrist and moves it away, resting it where their knees are touching. Slowly, carefully, he reaches for one end of the ribbon and pulls it, unraveling the bow. When it’s entirely unwrapped, he leans over and puts it in Pete’s pocket. It takes longer than it should, and Pete’s pretty sure that putting something in a pocket, even if it’s someone else’s, shouldn’t involve that much groping. Not that he’s complaining.
They look at each other for a long time.
Finally, Patrick says, “I am not having sex with you in the back of this van.”
“That’s what all the boys say,” Pete says, and kisses him again.
*
They stop making out in the back of the van long enough to walk back to the hotel, and get through the elevator ride and the walk down the hall; but even then, they keep sneaking looks at each other and trying to keep from grinning like idiots. They don’t so much as brush hands, though there’s one extremely slow moment when Pete can’t get the keycard to work and Patrick takes it from him, and their hands bump, and Pete sucks in a deep breath and mutters “work faster” under his breath like it’s physically painful.
Which is sort of is. Five years of foreplay, he thinks as the door swings open, is fucking ridiculous.
*
It isn’t like in the movies; or even, in Pete’s experience, regular with-strangers-or-passing-acquaintances sex.
For starters, Patrick’s jacket gets caught on the doorknob, meaning he has to stay there for a second and untangle it; and when Pete goes to kick his sneakers off he trips on the carpeting, ending up on one knee with the top half of his body splayed across one of the mattresses for balance.
Against the bedspread, voice muffled, Pete says, “This could be going better.”
And that’s just - really, it could be. It *should* be, with five years of buildup, but instead it’s all vandalized tour vehicles and bad French farce. Though come to think of it, that’s more their style than something out of a movie. Really, Pete’s just surprised the closet hasn’t come open and dropped his skateboard onto the floor for one of them to trip over, though hey, it’s still early.
On the other hand, it earns him a hand on his back, sliding under his shirt and touching the skin just above his belt. Trade-off.
”I don’t know,” Patrick says lightly. Sometime after he untangled himself, he took his glasses off; this close, Pete can see how blue his eyes are. “We’ve done dumber things.”
Pete rolls his head to look at him and smiles a little. “Name one.”
“Well,” Patrick says, “a couple of years ago you turned this guy down.”
”This really fucking cute guy,” Pete reminds him, shoving himself up on his elbows and looking at him. He’s suddenly very aware of the inch of skin peeking between the bottom of his shirt and his belt; he can’t help but be, because Patrick keeps glancing between it and his face. “Dude, you should have seen him.”
“I don’t think I was missing a lot,” Patrick says dryly, but Pete shakes his head.
”Oh, you really were.” He shoves himself a little further up, propping himself against the edge of the mattress. It’s a shitty angle, but that’s okay; it’s only temporary. “If I didn’t have a rule about sleeping with teenagers, I totally would’ve hit that.”
“If I’m remembering correctly,” Patrick says dryly, “your rule was ‘what the hell, sure’.”
”That wasn’t a rule,” Pete says, “it was a *guideline*.” He scratches the back of his neck. “One that I broke on occasion.”
“Really.” Patrick looks skeptical, like he’s waiting for the joke to end, but that’s the hell of it: if Patrick had just been some guy he’d met at a party, Pete would have fucked him no problem. Twice. “
“Oh, yeah. He was just so - so *earnest*, you know?” Pete says, looking at Patrick from under his lashes. It’s completely and utterly cheating, but right now he is so far past giving a shit. “And Christ, the *mouth* on this kid.” He notices the look Patrick’s giving him. “Sue me. I’m a sucker for a guy with a good mouth.”
“And drummers,” Patrick points out, sitting back a little. “And bassists, and drum techs, and that girl who worked crew in Houston, remember?”
Pete sits up on his knees and reaches down for the bottom of his shirt, yanks it over and off, tosses it away. “I like people,” he says, eyes never leaving Patrick’s face.
“That’s how the stories I’ve heard always start,” Patrick says. It would probably sound snottier if he wasn’t staring at the lines of Pete’s tattoo jutting up above his beltline.
Pete grins and knee-walks a couple feet, then lets himself fall forward. Patrick goes to catch him - too many years of seeing Pete get hauled out of the crowd have ingrained the instinct in him - and Pete shifts at the last second, sliding one leg over Patrick’s hips and firmly straddling him.
“Also,” Pete adds, “from what I saw when he was walking away, he had a fantastic ass.”
Patrick doesn’t say anything to that. This close, he’s all wide, startled eyes and - God, he smells good. Like, really, shockingly good. And his hands are on Pete’s waist because that’s just where they *went*, on instinct, and Patrick has fucking amazing hands, and probably other amazing things, but Pete’s never going to know because at this rate neither of them will be naked before, what, New Year’s, and that? Is bullshit.
Pete wraps his fingers around the collar of Patrick’s shirt and tugs on it. “Take it off,” he says, barely noticing how his voice sounds. He’s starting to get a little impatient with how he’s the only one here who’s even close to getting naked. Other than that, it’s a little fuzzy.
“Scoot back a little,” Patrick says, and for a horrifying second, Pete’s sure he’s just going to get up and leave. Then he realizes, oh, and pulls back enough for Patrick to sit up and take his jacket off, then reach for his shirt.
Patrick notices him staring and flushes. It goes down to his beltline, and probably lower, but they’re not that far yet.
“One word,” he starts, and Pete just shakes his head.
It’s not - Mikey had explained, once, half-awake and drowsing against Pete’s arm, that one of the prettiest things about Gerard was how *solid* he was, how reassuring that was to someone who’d been knees and elbows his entire life; and really, Pete’s just sorry he didn’t have it on tape, because that was it in a nutshell, everything he wanted to say now.
It’s not fat, Mikey had said, eyes mostly closed and glasses on the bedside table. It’s not - he’s solid, he’s real, and it’s just - I breathe easier, sometimes, knowing that’s there, you know?
In Mikey’s voice, it had sounded like poetry. Pete knows Patrick well enough to know that if he tried to repeat it now it’d just start a fight, and from the tension he can feel underneath him, that’s the last thing they need right now.
“I’m not-“ he starts, and stops.
“I’ll tell you later,” he finally says, and leans down to kiss Patrick again.
They don’t ever figure out whose pants came off first, but it makes for some interesting fights later on.
*
As it turns out, Patrick and Mikey have the same basic approach to foreplay: nuzzle, then…do something else. Mikey had been a biter, too, but Patrick is just - tactile. Very, very tactile.
It’s so different from the guy Pete knows, his best friend who’s quiet and uncomfortable around total strangers unless he’s on stage. *This* Patrick makes soft, slutty noises when he’s turned on, which is most of the time, and keeps touching Pete like he thinks he’s going to disappear.
“You can fuck me, if you want,” Pete says, and shudders a little. Not because he doesn’t mean it - oh God, does he - but because he’s said it. It’s strange to finally hear it out loud.
”Later,” Patrick says. His face looks so naked without the glasses. Pete slides his hand up Patrick’s arm and trails his fingers across the groove in the skin just over the ear. “Can we - is this all right? Like this?”
Like this, apparently, means moving against each other, sliding skin to skin like something out of really, really good porn, all schoolboys and breathless whispers under the bleachers during a football game. Pete is absolutely all right with like this.
It’s slower this way, at first, and harder to find a groove; it’s too easy to get distracted by little things like how pale Patrick’s lashes are this close up, or Patrick’s hand on his hip, like he’s memorizing the feel of it. It’s not a hardship.
But then they get going, and it’s like they’ve been doing this for a hundred years. It’s like being on stage - the energy, the way it moves between them, creating some kind of feedback loop that makes every hair on the back of Pete’s neck stand up. Jesus Christ, if they could bottle this-
Patrick groans softly and leans his head back a little, exposing the line of his throat, and Pete thinks, fuck bottling it. No one’s seeing this but *him*.
“You’re fucking me next time,” Pete says, and isn’t even a little surprised to find he means it: he wants Patrick to fuck him, suck him, to tell one of the tech guys they need a couple minutes before they start soundcheck so he can bend Pete over one of the amps.
”Really?” Patrick asks, and whoa, who knew sex made his voice go that deep?
“Really.” Pete arches against him and doesn’t bother to hide his grin at the way Patrick’s eyes follow him. “I like being fucked, and it’s been a while. I might be a little tight.”
“Now you’re just being mean.” Patrick’s hands are firm on Pete’s hips, like he’s using them for an anchor. They’re really nice hands.
“Oh, what?” Pete asks. “You didn’t know? You couldn’t *not* know, for Christ’s sake. We share a hotel room.”
“I’ve learned not to listen,” Patrick says. “Just let it fade into the background, become - oh, God - white noise.”
“Then I wasn’t trying hard enough,” Pete says, even though he hadn’t been trying at all. He’d always done his damnedest to be quiet, but those days were done now. Now he’s got weeks and months of being pressed together in the bunks to look forward to, legs tangled and hands over each others’ mouths so Andy and Joe don’t hear.
It’s going to be *great*.
He leans in and murmurs in Patrick’s ear, “Tell me when you’re close.”
Patrick nods and lets one hand slide from Pete’s hip to his thigh, gripping and relaxing restlessly. Seriously, *really* nice hands, is all Pete has time to think before the hand on his thigh moves down and over and wraps firmly around his dick.
Ohhh, God. Not wrong. Great fucking hands.
Pete sucks in a deep breath. “So I guess the frottage is off, huh?” His voice isn’t *that* high. It could be higher.
“Mmn?” Patrick blinks at him, sleepy-eyed and sort of unfocused. It looks good on him. “No, I just thought-“ He looks away for a second, then back at Pete. “I just wanted to touch you,” he says, and that’s-
-- that’s the kind of thing that gets nice young men from Wilmette laid, really, and Pete wraps his hand around Patrick’s cock and strokes him slowly. Not too slowly, because there’s mean and then there’s mean, but there’s a tease in there.
“You can touch me,” he says quietly. The energy’s sparking between them even harder, now, almost painful, but it’s okay. “You can touch me whenever you want-“ He rubs his thumb along the head, making tiny circles.
“-however you want-“
Trails his fingers along the length, sliding an E minor against the skin there. He’s so slick already.
“-do whatever you want.”
“Move,” Patrick says breathlessly, closing his eyes. He’s breathing so fast. “Pete, you asshole, you said-“
”Changed my mind,” Pete says, smiling, and moves his hand in steady strokes, one, two, three, four count, and Patrick comes with his fingers curled into the sheets, twisting them with his hands in a way he can’t bring himself to do with his voice. Even now, he’s so *quiet*.
Quiet and slightly collapsed, if the way he’s laying is any indication. Pete looks at him for a while, then smiles ruefully and falls onto his back, hand sliding down towards-
-- and hey, *that’s* new. Pete blinks and looks down when his hand bumps Patrick’s.
“Hey,” he says, honestly surprised. “Dude, you don’t have t-“
”Shut up,” Patrick says, rubbing his hand across Pete’s belly. His thumb traces the ink there, scratching patterns into the skin with the edge of his nail. The motion makes Pete’s breath catch.
”Patrick,” he says, and oh my God, it’s been longer than he thought if he’s this close from someone touching his *stomach*. “I’m - I’m close, I’m gonna…”
And even as he’s talking, Patrick’s hand moves down and cups his dick, stroking the head with his thumb. His expression looks half-asleep, but his hand is sure, and it’s apparently been way too long since someone else touched him, because his balls are getting tight and Jesus, he’s totally going to fucking-
Patrick leans down and bites the inside of Pete’s thigh, hard but not too hard, and Pete comes.
Patrick strokes him through it the whole way, sending shocks through Pete’s legs and stomach and up his spine until he’s sprawled out on the bed, breathing hard and trying to open his eyes.
After maybe a minute, Pete makes himself open his eyes and scoot over, grabbing Patrick’s arm and hauling him up on the bed. Patrick rests his forehead against Pete’s shoulder and sighs a little when Pete runs his fingers over his vertebrae.
“You do realize,” Patrick eventually says, not lifting his head, “that the next time you do something huge and theatrical to get my attention, I’m going to assume we’re breaking up.”
”I remember,” Pete says. “That’s fine. I’ll stick to kicking you in the shin and giving you blowjobs.”
Pete doesn’t bother worrying about whether this is going to be strange for everyone else. Andy and Joe have seen weirder things than this, though he’s pretty sure they’re both going to get the If This Fucks Up the Band, I Will Murder You Both in Your Sleep speech from Andy.
Everyone else will find out when they find out, and if they don’t, they don’t. There are too many things to worry about in life, and Pete really doesn’t have the time or inclination to worry about how people will react when and if they find out, though he thinks at least a couple people are going to make serious money off the betting pools.
Patrick stirs enough to blink at him. “You’re thinking,” he says.
Pete looks back. From this close, without his glasses on and comfortably post-orgasm, Patrick looks a lot like the kid who had tried to proposition him the next room over from the keg. Just looking at him, Pete has the same feeling he’d had five years ago, watching the kid Joe had said he’d met at Borders - fucking Borders, which is still just weird enough that it makes perfect sense to Pete - and thinking he’d just found a missing limb or something. A missing something, anyway.
“Only a little,” Pete says, and traces the little groove over Patrick’s ear again.
*
Sometime later - early afternoon, though to be fair Pete isn’t looking at a clock, and just the idea of getting up and checking his watch makes him wince - he hears someone say, “We should go out.” He’s pretty sure he’s the one who said it, mostly because it’s punctuated by that someone waving their hand, and he’s the only one moving. “Go get. You know. Things.”
Pete isn’t being deliberately vague. He’s fairly certain they need a few things - water, more condoms, probably a couple of IVs - but he hasn’t had sex like this in *months*, and his brain’s decided to put up the No Vacancies sign and take off for the night. He’s actually sort of proud he formed complete sentences.
They really need to get up, Pete tells himself, if only to cancel this afternoon’s appointments. And maybe eat something. And they - seriously, they need more condoms. It feels weird calling down to the concierge or whoever and asking for some, or even worse, for someone to *go get them.* Pete’s pretty sure they’re not that kind of famous just yet, and he doesn’t really want this to be the litmus test.
“Mmmn,” Patrick says. His head is buried against Pete’s shoulder again, which is apparently his new default position, and his breath is warm. He’s warm all over, actually, every place their bodies are touching, which is - which is a lot of places, really. It is not making Pete want to get up out of bed, that’s for sure. “Later.”
It’s really not a good idea. They - they should be *moving*, they should be *doing* things. Or making preparations to come back here and do things, anyway.
”I’m holding you to that,” Pete says, yawning halfway through it. He doesn’t get up.
*
Eventually, they get up. Pete goes to reschedule the 3:30 only to find out that it was canceled yesterday, because hi, *Christmas*, only no one bothered to tell them. He figures he should be more pissed off about that, but what the hell. It’s Christmas, and he has a hickey on his inner thigh. He’ll be angry later.
When he gets out of the shower, Patrick’s on the phone with someone. “No,” he’s saying, “it’s not - can I finish a sentence? Please?” He looks at Pete and mouths “Andy”, pointing to the phone. “Thank you. It’s going fine.” Pause. “No, we haven’t-“
Pete lets it fade into white noise. It’s no different than being on the bus, really, and there are worse things to zone out on than Patrick’s voice. He powers up his laptop, checks his mail, writes his sister back and makes a mental note to call his mom later. Then he thinks, what the hell, and updates his blog.
I am gonna do a real update later. Me and patrick are sitting the cafe they shot swingers in. I keep calling patrick "baby". Joe and andy are asleep back in the midwest-
He hears Patrick hang up on Andy and come over, reading over his shoulder as he types. Patrick hasn’t done that before, but then, the last 24 hours have been an exercise in Things We Haven’t Done Before But Are Going to Damn Well Get Better At. (Pete figures Reading Over Pete’s Shoulder As He Updates His Blog comes somewhere before Buying Condoms with a Straight Face but after Oh My God, We Just Had Sex And Now Your Mom Is On the Phone.)
”You know,” Patrick says, “they’re going to take that entirely the wrong way.” He sounds like he’s trying not to laugh.
Pete tips his head back to look at him. “Crazy bastards,” he says, not without fondness, and tilts his face up to be kissed.
NOTES: Kids, let this be a lesson to you: you like one song - one song - and the next thing you know you have a stack of CDs by four different bands, can rattle off facts about everyone from said bands, and have several hundred photos on your hard drive. Sure, they always *say* the first one’s free, but the next thing you know it’s two in the morning and you’re writing fanfic and watching ripped .mpgs of the Hard Rock Live show on MTV2 while going line-by-line for pertinent song lyrics you can twist to your own ends.
…Not that I would ever do that. No. Heavens. Piffle.
This story would not be as good as it is without xoverau and beatpropx, who smelled blood in the water and promptly attacked. They also betaed, corrected my glaring characterization errors, and squealed enough to let me know that this story did not, in fact, totally suck. All praise is theirs; all concrit and general eyebrow-raising can be directed at me.
Though, to be fair, it was supposed to be a lot shorter. And less porny. And for the three of you wondering, yes, the age of consent in Illinois is 17. Not that I looked it up or anything. [cough]
You write 14 pages of bandslash. Fall Out Boy bandslash. And you give it a title that will make MCR fans wrinkle their noses thinking you’re mocking them, when really, you just like the title. Seriously, when was the last time you saw someone use “epistolary” in a sentence?
my epistolary romance
By Gale
SUMMARY: One night a couple years back, in the middle of someone’s house party after a show, Patrick asks Pete if he wants to have sex.
Pete stops, then lifts his head and turns back around. He blinks a couple of times, because there is no way on God’s green earth he’s just heard what he thinks he’s heard.
He says, slowly, “Say that again.”
Patrick stands there, not saying anything. He doesn’t seem particularly defensive, or even angry; if anything, he seems patient, like he thinks Pete’s just mulling it over, when in fact Pete is doing no such thing, because Patrick is seventeen and Pete is twenty-one.
Finally, Patrick says, “What?”
“Don’t ‘what’ me,” Pete says. “Tell me you didn’t just ask me what I think you just asked me.”
“Okay,” Patrick says, “I didn’t just ask you what you think I just asked you.”
That earns him a glare. “*Patrick*.”
“What?” *Now* Patrick sounds defensive. “You’re acting like it’s such a big fucking deal-“
Oh, God. God save him from pissy lead singers, seriously. “It *is* a big fucking deal,” Pete says. He takes hold of Patrick’s sleeve and steers him out the door and down the hall, into what looks like a bathroom. It’s probably not soundproof, but that’s okay; most of the people here already look mostly-drunk, or at least drunk enough to forget conversation they’re having, let alone ones they overhear.
”Look,” Pete says when the door’s shut, “it’s - it’s just a bad idea, okay? On a lot of levels.”
Patrick gives him a look. “Let me guess,” he says. “You don’t date guys.”
“Don’t be a dick,” Pete says, because he’s dragged a couple of - okay, not boyfriends, exactly, but guys-he’s-slept-with-more-than-once to practice on occasion. He’s dragged girls-he’s-slept-with-more-than-once to practice, too. Pete likes people. Normally Pete likes Patrick, too; more than likes him, even. It’s like he’s spent the first almost-quarter of his life without his right arm, and then one day it was in his garage, singing a Saves the Day song and bitching about how much MTV sucked these days.
“Oh, right,” Patrick says, nodding. He crosses his arms over his chest. “It’s because you don’t date people my age, right?”
Really, Pete would like to know when this stopped being a conversation and started being Let’s Trap Pete With Bullshit Logic. “Once,” he admits, “or twice-“
Patrick coughs something that sounds like “a week”. Pete elbows him in the ribs, hard, because if he tries to actually argue this out with Patrick he’s going to lose. Patrick knows damn well what the kinds of people Pete hooks up with are like, and okay, maybe - maybe - there’s something to a lot of them being a…little on the young side, but they’re not, like, actual jailbait.
He really, *really* does not want to be having this conversation.
Finally, Pete says, “It’s not about that.”
Patrick looks at him for a long minute, then lets out a deep breath and - it’s not deflating, exactly, but he stops being Pissy Singer in Someone’s Bathroom Guy and starts being Patrick again. Which is a relief, because Pete’s driving him home, and he really wasn’t looking forward to forty minutes of Pissy Singer in Someone’s Bathroom Guy combined with the-bars-just-let-out traffic.
“You’re right,” Patrick says, running a hand through his hair. He pulls on it a little, the way he does when he’s not really sure about something, but you’d never know it from his expression. “I was - I don’t know what I was thinking. Seriously, just forget I said anything, okay?”
That’s either a really great idea or a horrible one, and it’s a little disturbing that Pete can’t figure out which one this is. “Patrick-“
“No,” Patrick says. “Please, just. Forget I said anything, okay?”
And Pete’s always been a soft touch where his friends are concerned, and Christ, it’s not like he’s never done anything stupid he’d rather forget. He lets out a long breath.
”Not a problem,” he says. “Nothing happened.”
“That’s sort of the idea, yeah,” Patrick says - and it’s Patrick again, no sign of the sullen, pissy teenager who’d just tried - and completely, utterly failed - to pick up Pete over by the stairs. There’s no sign of anything, actually, which is worrying as much as it is comforting. Patrick doesn’t usually speak up unless it’s about the music, and then you can’t shut him up.
“It’s fine,” Patrick says. He sounds and looks more than a little rueful, but not upset. Inside, Pete lets out a long breath, feeling like he’s just dodged a bullet. “Have you seen Joe? I wanted to ask him something earlier.”
“I think he’s out by the van,” Pete says, reflexively, then: “Patrick.”
Patrick looks at him again, and for a second - just a second - Pete has the urge to kick Joe and Insert Girl’s Name Here out of the van so they can have someplace private to talk. He and Patrick don’t really have heart-to-hearts, mostly because Pete secretly thinks Patrick was born thirty years old and is, in fact, mentally nearing fifty, and anyway he’s not the kind of guy who asks for advice.
But Pete still wants to give him some, or at least get him to fucking *talk*, because there’s something here he’s missing.
Then Patrick shakes his head, and just like that, the moment’s gone. “I’m fine,” he says one more time. “I’ll come find you later, okay?” He gives a brief smile and a small wave, then disappears into the crowd.
*
And one day Pete looks up, and it’s been five years since that night.
It all plays out in his head like a laundry list: the miles on the road, the girls, the boys. The distance, the awkward silences, the quiet moments. All those weeks spent in his room, under a blanket on the floor, not speaking for days at a time. The notebooks littered around hotel rooms and buses and bunks, battered and well-loved, written in one hand with notations in another. Awards and concerts and short films and Warped, Mikey and Anna and She Who Will Not Be Named, and all of it seems like it’s taken five days, not five years.
He’s more bitter about some things, but not as jaded as he could be, and there are days Pete still wakes up weirdly optimistic about the world - not entirely, because hi, the bus gets CNN, but enough. He’s not the guy who got fucked over by his girlfriend a couple years ago, but that guy’s still in him, and he still has opinions, and that’s okay. Pete’s learned to let that guy out sometimes, usually when he’s performing; it’s almost like an exorcism.
And Patrick’s still Patrick. The cosmetic differences are sharper, but he’s the same guy who butted into Joe’s conversation in a Borders and took the mic like he was born to it, all clear voice and strong chords when you put a guitar in his hands. He’s just - he’s Patrick, one of the strongest presences in Pete’s life, even now. There are days when it seems like he gets quieter the bigger they get, like something out of high school math, what - inverse proportions or something.
That’s not the important part, though. They’re the same people they were that night, and they’re completely different people, and it’s all at the same time, and that’s okay.
It’s okay. It’s all okay, in every sense of the term. He gets that, now.
He just needs to find some way to tell Patrick that.
*
It takes him the better part of forty-five minutes to come up with a game plan, and Pete’s never been happier in his life to have a Wal-Mart handy. It’s nothing at all to drive over at quarter after one in the morning and get a couple packs of tape, a ream of notebook paper, and a fresh Sharpie. No one even looks at him funny.
It’s a good thing that they got stuck with a van at the rent-a-car place, if only because doing this in a car would’ve been a fucking nightmare. As if is, even stretched out and twisted around like a pretzel, it’s six kinds of pain in the ass. But it’ll be worth it, if this works.
Patrick doesn’t notice that Pete doesn’t come back to the room, or if he does, he doesn’t come out to see what’s going on. That’s fine with Pete; this is going to take long enough. The last thing he needs right now is a distraction.
*
Pete’s there first thing the next morning, leaning over Patrick’s bed, shaking him awake and saying “Patrick. Patrick, get up.”
Patrick makes a noise and half-heartedly takes a swing at Pete. It would have been a hell of a lot more successful, Pete decides, if he’d been on that side of the bed. And not leaning away, because five years on the road with a guy, and you realize he’s kind of a bitch when he first wakes up.
Pete waits a couple of seconds, then pokes Patrick in what he hopes is the shoulder. “Patrick. No, really, dude, get up. I have to show you something.” He keeps poking Patrick in the - whatever while he speaks. If nothing else, Patrick will wake up to make Pete stop harassing him, goddammit, and by then it’ll be too late to fall back asleep. And sure enough--
”Fine,” Patrick says, sitting up in bed and scrubbing his hands over his face. It makes everything he says sound muffled. “I’m up, okay? God. What?”
”Not here,” Pete says. “You get showered, dressed, whatever. I’ll meet you out by the van.”
Patrick shoots him a disbelieving look, but it’s missing something without the glasses. Without them, Patrick looks all of seventeen all over again. Something about that makes Pete’s mouth go a little dry.
On the other hand, Patrick might just be asking himself why the hell Pete’s awake and dressed and ready! to! go! at seven-thirty in the morning, complete with eyeliner and a shiny red ribbon tied in a bow around his wrist.
But all Patrick says is, “Give me twenty minutes.”
*
Sure enough, twenty minutes later, Patrick’s outside. He looks a little disgruntled, but Pete can work with that. “This had better be good,” Patrick says. “We don’t have to be anywhere until this afternoon.”
“I know,” Pete says, and tosses the keys from one hand to the other. “Here,” he says, and hands them over.
Patrick looks at him, then unlocks the van and gets both doors open.
There have been a couple of changes.
The van - the back of it, anyway - is now divided into two sections: Before and After. There’s a strip of masking tape down the middle, just to make sure it’s perfectly clear which side is which, in case the pieces of tape on the bumper marked “Before” and “After” aren’t enough of a giveaway.
(In the back of Pete’s head, the grown-up guy who knows about marketing and record deals really, really hopes the tape comes off, because the van’s a rental. It would have been better if he could’ve done this in the old van, but - right, right, car accident.)
There are pieces of paper taped all over the van - the backs of the seats, covering the windows, ceiling and floor and walls. It took Pete the better part of the night, but he’d like to think it looks mostly symmetrical, and if nothing else the fact that the pieces themselves vary in size and clarity of handwriting; most are printed pretty neatly, but a couple are scribbled. For the most part, the scribbled ones are on the “Before” side.
Patrick looks inside for a long moment, but doesn’t say anything. He looks back at Pete.
Pete shrugs and climbs inside. He helps Patrick up, then settles himself back against the After wall and waits.
Before is the bigger side, but not by much. The pieces of paper on that side say things like “when I said I loved you I swear I lied” and “with every breath I wish your body will be broken again”. The left window, the big one, is completely obscured by “you should try saying no once in a while” and “Oh don’t mind me, I’m watching you two from the closet”; they take up the entire window, and in a couple of places Pete almost ripped the paper, he was writing so hard. The ceiling is covered in things like “this is me wishing you into the worst situations” and “I’ve got headaches and bad luck but they couldn’t touch you”.
Patrick reads them silently. Sometimes he tilts his head; usually he just brushes his fingers across them, like they’ve been written in Braille. He goes over the entire left side slowly and painstakingly, even hanging head-first out the back to read “I’ll be your best kept secret and your biggest mistake” going down the bumper and coming dangerously close to the tailpipe.
Pete just watches him.
When Patrick climbs back inside, he looks at the left side for another minute, then motions for Pete to move. Pete goes to the left side; Patrick, to the right.
After is maybe an inch smaller than Before, but there’s no angry scribbling. The actual seat is bare, mostly because Pete didn’t want to risk crumpling anything when he was doing his contortionist impression when he was crawling around the van, but that’s fine; there’d been plenty of room on the floor and wall and windows.
“We’ll make them so jealous, we’ll make them hate us” is catty-corner with “why can you read me like no one else?” The back window is covered by “I hide behind these words but I’m coming out” and “can I lay in your bed all day?”, each of them on a separate piece of notebook paper. They’re thin enough to let the early morning light in, but not so thick you can make out more than vague shapes. The slightly loopy “we’re friends when you’re on your knees” is more because his hand was starting to get tired than because of any sense of embarrassment about what he’s proposing, however obliquely.
Patrick studies After just as closely as he did Before, still not saying anything. The entire time he’s been looking things over, he’s been expressionless. He hasn’t had so much as a series of confused blinks, which is starting to worry Pete just a little.
God, he thinks, just say *something*.
As if on cue, Patrick says, “This looks like it took a while.”
Pete shrugs. “Couple hours.” If by “couple”, you mean “most of the night”. His hand’s still a little crampy, and he’s pretty sure his back’s going to hate him for the next week. “I just. Started thinking the other day.”
This is not a lie. Technically, quarter to twelve last night is a different day.
”Yeah,” Patrick says, “I got that.” But he’s smiling when he says it. The knot in Pete’s stomach unravels just enough to let him breathe. “About what?”
”I don’t know,” Pete says. “Things. The past.” He scratches his knee through his jeans and is very careful not to make eye contact. “How things change, even when you don’t want them to.”
“I swear to God,” Patrick says, smile vanishing into his normal serious expression, “if you bust out the I Ching at me this early in the morning, before I’ve had coffee-“
”No,” Pete says, shaking his head. “No, it’s not - I promise, it’s not that.”
”And no Gibran,” Patrick adds. “If you want an intelligent conversation about The Prophet, I’d better have caffeine in me.”
And sure, Patrick’s his best friend, but times like this, Pete’s forcibly reminded why the two of them avoid each other first thing in the morning. He makes himself relax and take a deep breath. “I told you,” he says again, “I just started thinking about stuff the other day.”
”And that somehow led you to covering the back of the van in song lyrics,” Patrick says slowly, looking at Pete like he’s a crazy person. Pete doesn’t take it personally; Patrick looks at him like that all the time.
“Yeah,” Pete says.
There’s a little silence.
Patrick says, “This is one of those times where you started the argument without me, isn’t it?”
“It’s not an argument,” Pete says. He lets his knees give out and drop him to the floor of the van, then stretches one leg out in front of him while he pulls the other one up close to his chest. “I told you, sometimes things change-“
”Pete-“
”No,” Pete says, “just - let me get through this, okay?”
Patrick looks at him for a long moment, then nods. Pete takes a deep breath.
“Things change,” Pete starts again, “even when you don’t want them to, right? And that - it’s necessary, but it *sucks*. People don’t react well to change, it makes them stupid and defensive, and they stop talking about stuff they should be talking about.” He pauses, then says, brightly, like it’s just occurred to him, “Hey, remember that time you asked me if I wanted to have sex?”
Patrick’s eyes go wide and panicked; he even sits back a little. Then his eyes go back to normal and he blinks at Pete like nothing happened. “No.”
“Really? Because I do.”
“No you don’t,” Patrick says, “because that never happened.”
It takes Pete a couple of seconds of staring at Patrick before he realizes that no, Patrick’s just avoiding the issue, he hasn’t managed to edit his version of reality. “Yes,” Pete says, “it did. I was there. We were in someone’s house-“
”No we weren’t.”
”-and you sidled up to me and tried to sound all casual, and then you took a second and said, ‘So, do you want to go somewhere more private?’”
”No I didn’t.”
Okay, that’s getting old. “Yes you did,” Pete says. He’s keeping his voice bright, but it’s making his eye twitch. He is totally not cut out for this peppy shit. “And I said no, and I probably smashed any kind of crush you had on me into a thousand pieces, because that’s what I did back then-“
”No you didn’t,” Patrick says, still so pleasant. You’d never know he was lying through his goddamn teeth. Any other time, Pete would be impressed; Patrick can’t lie for shit. “And even if it *had*, so what? That was four years ago. Things change.”
“It was four years ago,” Pete says, not unkindly, “and I don’t think everything’s changed.”
Patrick freezes.
“Some things have, though,” Pete adds, still in that same quiet voice, like he’s trying not to scare off a deer or something, which - well. He might as well be. “I mean, I’d like to think your approach has improved a little since then, dude-“
”You’d be surprised,” Patrick mutters. Pete ignores it, because he’s pretty sure he wasn’t supposed to hear it.
”-and I’d like to think I’ve mellowed in my old age. So to speak.” Pete looks at him for a long minute, then uncoils himself and leans over to grab Patrick’s hand and tug it to the biggest piece of paper nearest his hand. He watches Patrick cock his head and read it - “turn off the lights and turn off the shyness” - and then follow it to the one underneath it: “all of our moves make up for the silence”.
“What do you need,” Pete asks quietly, “a goddamn road map to my parents’ house?”
Another few moments of silence.
”This is kind of a big thing,” Patrick says. All things considered, he sounds pretty calm. Pete lets himself relax a little more.
“I’m allowed one grand gesture,” Pete argues. He lets go of Patrick’s hand, and when Patrick doesn’t jerk back, he eases back against the side of the van.
”Since when?”
”Since, like, a year ago. I bartered Andy up to one.”
”You bartered - wait, there’s a *contract*?” Patrick asks.
“Not written out or anything, but yeah,” Pete says. “We got bored one afternoon. I’m allowed one big, stupid theatrical thing without anyone starting any betting pools about when the relationship’s going to blow up in my face.”
”That was Joe’s idea,” Patrick says automatically, and looks at him. “Wait, so-“
If they still had a backseat, Pete’s pretty sure he’d be smacking his head against it. Since they don’t, he settles for rolling his eyes. “I covered the van in song lyrics,” he says, not even trying to keep the exasperation out of his voice. “I was up half the goddamn night, dude. I am wearing a ribbon around my wrist, and it is Christmas. I swear to God, if you don’t get it after this, I’m kicking your ass out of my band.”
Patrick sort of smiles at that. Pete counts it as a win. “This is a terrible idea, you know.”
Pete shrugs. “We’ve had worse.”
“Name one.”
”Well,” Pete says, trying to keep his voice light, “I turned this really fucking cute guy down a couple years ago. That was dumb.”
Patrick’s face goes completely unguarded for a minute; and there he is, peeking out from under the edges, the guy who had tried to be casual and utterly failed at it. Pete’s been half in love with that guy for years, and he can almost hear the other half slide into place with a tiny click. It tickles a little.
”Pete-“ Patrick starts, and oh my God, he can see it clear as day: Patrick is going to turn down the grand gesture.
”Oh, for Christ’s sake,” Pete snaps, and half-leans, half-throws himself at Patrick and kisses him.
It’s not a great kiss. It’s not even a good kiss. It’s - just a kiss, technically no different than any of the others Pete’s ever had. But it’s five years of anticipation on top of five years of I know you, goddammit, and that’s got something to say for it.
Something really, shockingly nice. With tongue.
”It wasn’t dumb,” Patrick says against Pete’s mouth, pulling back just enough to be understood. The movement’s distracting enough that Pete has to remind himself what the hell Patrick’s talking about. “I was just a kid. It would have been a horrible idea-“
”You don’t know that,” Pete says, but more because he likes playing devil’s advocate than because that’s what he really thinks.
”-and it would have ruined everything,” Patrick says. “God, I was *seventeen*. I can’t even - wait, what’s the age requirement in Illinois?” He pulls back a little and oh my God, *he’s thinking about it.* “Is it even seventeen?”
”I don’t think it matters,” Pete says, “since, you know, sodomy was illegal there ‘til this year.” He thinks. He’s pretty sure.
“Well, yeah, but that’s not - really? Sodomy?” Patrick blinks at him. “That’s what you were thinking?”
“I *wasn’t* thinking,” Pete says. “Though right now, I’m kind of hoping we can stop saying ‘sodomy’.”
Patrick looks at him for a second, then coughs and tries to look nonchalant. He utterly fails, of course; but then, he always has. “Oh. Right.” He coughs again. “So, um. We should probably-“
”Don’t misunderstand me,” Pete says. He hooks his fingers through the loops in Patrick’s jeans and hauls himself closer, sliding one leg over Patrick’s lap. “I’m not saying we shouldn’t commit it. I just think we should stop using the legal term.”
That one takes Patrick a second, but Pete can tell the instant he gets it, because his eyes narrow a little and he - smiles. It isn’t an expression Pete’s ever seen before, which is saying something. It’s calculating and faintly evil, and something about it makes Pete start aching.
“Fine,” Patrick says - and God, he looks so utterly *normal* when he says it, too. “But you agree that it would have been a stupid idea if we’d fucked back then.”
And that’s - wow, that’s a mental disconnect right there. Hearing someone - hearing *Patrick* - say “fuck” should not be this hot. And yet.
“Probably,” Pete admits. “As long as you agree that it’s a good idea now.”
”You just covered the back of the van in song lyrics,” Patrick says. He sounds - he sounds *proud*, almost. It’s great in a way Pete can’t really express in words. He wonders, idly, if Patrick would be cranky if he stopped for a couple minutes to write some stuff down. “Right now you could say anything, and I’d agree with you.”
Pete moves back enough to clap his hand over Patrick’s mouth. “You should rephrase that,” he says, “unless you want me to hold it against you. and I will. At a very inappropriate moment.”
Patrick looks at him, then takes hold of Pete’s wrist and moves it away, resting it where their knees are touching. Slowly, carefully, he reaches for one end of the ribbon and pulls it, unraveling the bow. When it’s entirely unwrapped, he leans over and puts it in Pete’s pocket. It takes longer than it should, and Pete’s pretty sure that putting something in a pocket, even if it’s someone else’s, shouldn’t involve that much groping. Not that he’s complaining.
They look at each other for a long time.
Finally, Patrick says, “I am not having sex with you in the back of this van.”
“That’s what all the boys say,” Pete says, and kisses him again.
*
They stop making out in the back of the van long enough to walk back to the hotel, and get through the elevator ride and the walk down the hall; but even then, they keep sneaking looks at each other and trying to keep from grinning like idiots. They don’t so much as brush hands, though there’s one extremely slow moment when Pete can’t get the keycard to work and Patrick takes it from him, and their hands bump, and Pete sucks in a deep breath and mutters “work faster” under his breath like it’s physically painful.
Which is sort of is. Five years of foreplay, he thinks as the door swings open, is fucking ridiculous.
*
It isn’t like in the movies; or even, in Pete’s experience, regular with-strangers-or-passing-acquaintances sex.
For starters, Patrick’s jacket gets caught on the doorknob, meaning he has to stay there for a second and untangle it; and when Pete goes to kick his sneakers off he trips on the carpeting, ending up on one knee with the top half of his body splayed across one of the mattresses for balance.
Against the bedspread, voice muffled, Pete says, “This could be going better.”
And that’s just - really, it could be. It *should* be, with five years of buildup, but instead it’s all vandalized tour vehicles and bad French farce. Though come to think of it, that’s more their style than something out of a movie. Really, Pete’s just surprised the closet hasn’t come open and dropped his skateboard onto the floor for one of them to trip over, though hey, it’s still early.
On the other hand, it earns him a hand on his back, sliding under his shirt and touching the skin just above his belt. Trade-off.
”I don’t know,” Patrick says lightly. Sometime after he untangled himself, he took his glasses off; this close, Pete can see how blue his eyes are. “We’ve done dumber things.”
Pete rolls his head to look at him and smiles a little. “Name one.”
“Well,” Patrick says, “a couple of years ago you turned this guy down.”
”This really fucking cute guy,” Pete reminds him, shoving himself up on his elbows and looking at him. He’s suddenly very aware of the inch of skin peeking between the bottom of his shirt and his belt; he can’t help but be, because Patrick keeps glancing between it and his face. “Dude, you should have seen him.”
“I don’t think I was missing a lot,” Patrick says dryly, but Pete shakes his head.
”Oh, you really were.” He shoves himself a little further up, propping himself against the edge of the mattress. It’s a shitty angle, but that’s okay; it’s only temporary. “If I didn’t have a rule about sleeping with teenagers, I totally would’ve hit that.”
“If I’m remembering correctly,” Patrick says dryly, “your rule was ‘what the hell, sure’.”
”That wasn’t a rule,” Pete says, “it was a *guideline*.” He scratches the back of his neck. “One that I broke on occasion.”
“Really.” Patrick looks skeptical, like he’s waiting for the joke to end, but that’s the hell of it: if Patrick had just been some guy he’d met at a party, Pete would have fucked him no problem. Twice. “
“Oh, yeah. He was just so - so *earnest*, you know?” Pete says, looking at Patrick from under his lashes. It’s completely and utterly cheating, but right now he is so far past giving a shit. “And Christ, the *mouth* on this kid.” He notices the look Patrick’s giving him. “Sue me. I’m a sucker for a guy with a good mouth.”
“And drummers,” Patrick points out, sitting back a little. “And bassists, and drum techs, and that girl who worked crew in Houston, remember?”
Pete sits up on his knees and reaches down for the bottom of his shirt, yanks it over and off, tosses it away. “I like people,” he says, eyes never leaving Patrick’s face.
“That’s how the stories I’ve heard always start,” Patrick says. It would probably sound snottier if he wasn’t staring at the lines of Pete’s tattoo jutting up above his beltline.
Pete grins and knee-walks a couple feet, then lets himself fall forward. Patrick goes to catch him - too many years of seeing Pete get hauled out of the crowd have ingrained the instinct in him - and Pete shifts at the last second, sliding one leg over Patrick’s hips and firmly straddling him.
“Also,” Pete adds, “from what I saw when he was walking away, he had a fantastic ass.”
Patrick doesn’t say anything to that. This close, he’s all wide, startled eyes and - God, he smells good. Like, really, shockingly good. And his hands are on Pete’s waist because that’s just where they *went*, on instinct, and Patrick has fucking amazing hands, and probably other amazing things, but Pete’s never going to know because at this rate neither of them will be naked before, what, New Year’s, and that? Is bullshit.
Pete wraps his fingers around the collar of Patrick’s shirt and tugs on it. “Take it off,” he says, barely noticing how his voice sounds. He’s starting to get a little impatient with how he’s the only one here who’s even close to getting naked. Other than that, it’s a little fuzzy.
“Scoot back a little,” Patrick says, and for a horrifying second, Pete’s sure he’s just going to get up and leave. Then he realizes, oh, and pulls back enough for Patrick to sit up and take his jacket off, then reach for his shirt.
Patrick notices him staring and flushes. It goes down to his beltline, and probably lower, but they’re not that far yet.
“One word,” he starts, and Pete just shakes his head.
It’s not - Mikey had explained, once, half-awake and drowsing against Pete’s arm, that one of the prettiest things about Gerard was how *solid* he was, how reassuring that was to someone who’d been knees and elbows his entire life; and really, Pete’s just sorry he didn’t have it on tape, because that was it in a nutshell, everything he wanted to say now.
It’s not fat, Mikey had said, eyes mostly closed and glasses on the bedside table. It’s not - he’s solid, he’s real, and it’s just - I breathe easier, sometimes, knowing that’s there, you know?
In Mikey’s voice, it had sounded like poetry. Pete knows Patrick well enough to know that if he tried to repeat it now it’d just start a fight, and from the tension he can feel underneath him, that’s the last thing they need right now.
“I’m not-“ he starts, and stops.
“I’ll tell you later,” he finally says, and leans down to kiss Patrick again.
They don’t ever figure out whose pants came off first, but it makes for some interesting fights later on.
*
As it turns out, Patrick and Mikey have the same basic approach to foreplay: nuzzle, then…do something else. Mikey had been a biter, too, but Patrick is just - tactile. Very, very tactile.
It’s so different from the guy Pete knows, his best friend who’s quiet and uncomfortable around total strangers unless he’s on stage. *This* Patrick makes soft, slutty noises when he’s turned on, which is most of the time, and keeps touching Pete like he thinks he’s going to disappear.
“You can fuck me, if you want,” Pete says, and shudders a little. Not because he doesn’t mean it - oh God, does he - but because he’s said it. It’s strange to finally hear it out loud.
”Later,” Patrick says. His face looks so naked without the glasses. Pete slides his hand up Patrick’s arm and trails his fingers across the groove in the skin just over the ear. “Can we - is this all right? Like this?”
Like this, apparently, means moving against each other, sliding skin to skin like something out of really, really good porn, all schoolboys and breathless whispers under the bleachers during a football game. Pete is absolutely all right with like this.
It’s slower this way, at first, and harder to find a groove; it’s too easy to get distracted by little things like how pale Patrick’s lashes are this close up, or Patrick’s hand on his hip, like he’s memorizing the feel of it. It’s not a hardship.
But then they get going, and it’s like they’ve been doing this for a hundred years. It’s like being on stage - the energy, the way it moves between them, creating some kind of feedback loop that makes every hair on the back of Pete’s neck stand up. Jesus Christ, if they could bottle this-
Patrick groans softly and leans his head back a little, exposing the line of his throat, and Pete thinks, fuck bottling it. No one’s seeing this but *him*.
“You’re fucking me next time,” Pete says, and isn’t even a little surprised to find he means it: he wants Patrick to fuck him, suck him, to tell one of the tech guys they need a couple minutes before they start soundcheck so he can bend Pete over one of the amps.
”Really?” Patrick asks, and whoa, who knew sex made his voice go that deep?
“Really.” Pete arches against him and doesn’t bother to hide his grin at the way Patrick’s eyes follow him. “I like being fucked, and it’s been a while. I might be a little tight.”
“Now you’re just being mean.” Patrick’s hands are firm on Pete’s hips, like he’s using them for an anchor. They’re really nice hands.
“Oh, what?” Pete asks. “You didn’t know? You couldn’t *not* know, for Christ’s sake. We share a hotel room.”
“I’ve learned not to listen,” Patrick says. “Just let it fade into the background, become - oh, God - white noise.”
“Then I wasn’t trying hard enough,” Pete says, even though he hadn’t been trying at all. He’d always done his damnedest to be quiet, but those days were done now. Now he’s got weeks and months of being pressed together in the bunks to look forward to, legs tangled and hands over each others’ mouths so Andy and Joe don’t hear.
It’s going to be *great*.
He leans in and murmurs in Patrick’s ear, “Tell me when you’re close.”
Patrick nods and lets one hand slide from Pete’s hip to his thigh, gripping and relaxing restlessly. Seriously, *really* nice hands, is all Pete has time to think before the hand on his thigh moves down and over and wraps firmly around his dick.
Ohhh, God. Not wrong. Great fucking hands.
Pete sucks in a deep breath. “So I guess the frottage is off, huh?” His voice isn’t *that* high. It could be higher.
“Mmn?” Patrick blinks at him, sleepy-eyed and sort of unfocused. It looks good on him. “No, I just thought-“ He looks away for a second, then back at Pete. “I just wanted to touch you,” he says, and that’s-
-- that’s the kind of thing that gets nice young men from Wilmette laid, really, and Pete wraps his hand around Patrick’s cock and strokes him slowly. Not too slowly, because there’s mean and then there’s mean, but there’s a tease in there.
“You can touch me,” he says quietly. The energy’s sparking between them even harder, now, almost painful, but it’s okay. “You can touch me whenever you want-“ He rubs his thumb along the head, making tiny circles.
“-however you want-“
Trails his fingers along the length, sliding an E minor against the skin there. He’s so slick already.
“-do whatever you want.”
“Move,” Patrick says breathlessly, closing his eyes. He’s breathing so fast. “Pete, you asshole, you said-“
”Changed my mind,” Pete says, smiling, and moves his hand in steady strokes, one, two, three, four count, and Patrick comes with his fingers curled into the sheets, twisting them with his hands in a way he can’t bring himself to do with his voice. Even now, he’s so *quiet*.
Quiet and slightly collapsed, if the way he’s laying is any indication. Pete looks at him for a while, then smiles ruefully and falls onto his back, hand sliding down towards-
-- and hey, *that’s* new. Pete blinks and looks down when his hand bumps Patrick’s.
“Hey,” he says, honestly surprised. “Dude, you don’t have t-“
”Shut up,” Patrick says, rubbing his hand across Pete’s belly. His thumb traces the ink there, scratching patterns into the skin with the edge of his nail. The motion makes Pete’s breath catch.
”Patrick,” he says, and oh my God, it’s been longer than he thought if he’s this close from someone touching his *stomach*. “I’m - I’m close, I’m gonna…”
And even as he’s talking, Patrick’s hand moves down and cups his dick, stroking the head with his thumb. His expression looks half-asleep, but his hand is sure, and it’s apparently been way too long since someone else touched him, because his balls are getting tight and Jesus, he’s totally going to fucking-
Patrick leans down and bites the inside of Pete’s thigh, hard but not too hard, and Pete comes.
Patrick strokes him through it the whole way, sending shocks through Pete’s legs and stomach and up his spine until he’s sprawled out on the bed, breathing hard and trying to open his eyes.
After maybe a minute, Pete makes himself open his eyes and scoot over, grabbing Patrick’s arm and hauling him up on the bed. Patrick rests his forehead against Pete’s shoulder and sighs a little when Pete runs his fingers over his vertebrae.
“You do realize,” Patrick eventually says, not lifting his head, “that the next time you do something huge and theatrical to get my attention, I’m going to assume we’re breaking up.”
”I remember,” Pete says. “That’s fine. I’ll stick to kicking you in the shin and giving you blowjobs.”
Pete doesn’t bother worrying about whether this is going to be strange for everyone else. Andy and Joe have seen weirder things than this, though he’s pretty sure they’re both going to get the If This Fucks Up the Band, I Will Murder You Both in Your Sleep speech from Andy.
Everyone else will find out when they find out, and if they don’t, they don’t. There are too many things to worry about in life, and Pete really doesn’t have the time or inclination to worry about how people will react when and if they find out, though he thinks at least a couple people are going to make serious money off the betting pools.
Patrick stirs enough to blink at him. “You’re thinking,” he says.
Pete looks back. From this close, without his glasses on and comfortably post-orgasm, Patrick looks a lot like the kid who had tried to proposition him the next room over from the keg. Just looking at him, Pete has the same feeling he’d had five years ago, watching the kid Joe had said he’d met at Borders - fucking Borders, which is still just weird enough that it makes perfect sense to Pete - and thinking he’d just found a missing limb or something. A missing something, anyway.
“Only a little,” Pete says, and traces the little groove over Patrick’s ear again.
*
Sometime later - early afternoon, though to be fair Pete isn’t looking at a clock, and just the idea of getting up and checking his watch makes him wince - he hears someone say, “We should go out.” He’s pretty sure he’s the one who said it, mostly because it’s punctuated by that someone waving their hand, and he’s the only one moving. “Go get. You know. Things.”
Pete isn’t being deliberately vague. He’s fairly certain they need a few things - water, more condoms, probably a couple of IVs - but he hasn’t had sex like this in *months*, and his brain’s decided to put up the No Vacancies sign and take off for the night. He’s actually sort of proud he formed complete sentences.
They really need to get up, Pete tells himself, if only to cancel this afternoon’s appointments. And maybe eat something. And they - seriously, they need more condoms. It feels weird calling down to the concierge or whoever and asking for some, or even worse, for someone to *go get them.* Pete’s pretty sure they’re not that kind of famous just yet, and he doesn’t really want this to be the litmus test.
“Mmmn,” Patrick says. His head is buried against Pete’s shoulder again, which is apparently his new default position, and his breath is warm. He’s warm all over, actually, every place their bodies are touching, which is - which is a lot of places, really. It is not making Pete want to get up out of bed, that’s for sure. “Later.”
It’s really not a good idea. They - they should be *moving*, they should be *doing* things. Or making preparations to come back here and do things, anyway.
”I’m holding you to that,” Pete says, yawning halfway through it. He doesn’t get up.
*
Eventually, they get up. Pete goes to reschedule the 3:30 only to find out that it was canceled yesterday, because hi, *Christmas*, only no one bothered to tell them. He figures he should be more pissed off about that, but what the hell. It’s Christmas, and he has a hickey on his inner thigh. He’ll be angry later.
When he gets out of the shower, Patrick’s on the phone with someone. “No,” he’s saying, “it’s not - can I finish a sentence? Please?” He looks at Pete and mouths “Andy”, pointing to the phone. “Thank you. It’s going fine.” Pause. “No, we haven’t-“
Pete lets it fade into white noise. It’s no different than being on the bus, really, and there are worse things to zone out on than Patrick’s voice. He powers up his laptop, checks his mail, writes his sister back and makes a mental note to call his mom later. Then he thinks, what the hell, and updates his blog.
I am gonna do a real update later. Me and patrick are sitting the cafe they shot swingers in. I keep calling patrick "baby". Joe and andy are asleep back in the midwest-
He hears Patrick hang up on Andy and come over, reading over his shoulder as he types. Patrick hasn’t done that before, but then, the last 24 hours have been an exercise in Things We Haven’t Done Before But Are Going to Damn Well Get Better At. (Pete figures Reading Over Pete’s Shoulder As He Updates His Blog comes somewhere before Buying Condoms with a Straight Face but after Oh My God, We Just Had Sex And Now Your Mom Is On the Phone.)
”You know,” Patrick says, “they’re going to take that entirely the wrong way.” He sounds like he’s trying not to laugh.
Pete tips his head back to look at him. “Crazy bastards,” he says, not without fondness, and tilts his face up to be kissed.
NOTES: Kids, let this be a lesson to you: you like one song - one song - and the next thing you know you have a stack of CDs by four different bands, can rattle off facts about everyone from said bands, and have several hundred photos on your hard drive. Sure, they always *say* the first one’s free, but the next thing you know it’s two in the morning and you’re writing fanfic and watching ripped .mpgs of the Hard Rock Live show on MTV2 while going line-by-line for pertinent song lyrics you can twist to your own ends.
…Not that I would ever do that. No. Heavens. Piffle.
This story would not be as good as it is without xoverau and beatpropx, who smelled blood in the water and promptly attacked. They also betaed, corrected my glaring characterization errors, and squealed enough to let me know that this story did not, in fact, totally suck. All praise is theirs; all concrit and general eyebrow-raising can be directed at me.
Though, to be fair, it was supposed to be a lot shorter. And less porny. And for the three of you wondering, yes, the age of consent in Illinois is 17. Not that I looked it up or anything. [cough]