Fic: This story's going somewhere, bandom, RPS, non-gen 3/5
3/5
Previous part
There's a zip of pictures attached to Patrick's next email. Most of them are places, some of them are of Patrick with people, most of them from his work. Patrick looks happy in the ones he's in, sitting in a recording studio, sitting on the grass somewhere. Pete wonders who took those ones.
The website for Principle Uncertainty has a bunch of blogs attached, including one introducing their "shiny new intern" with a picture of Patrick, head tilted forwards so his hat covers most of his face. His first post talks about how nice everyone is -It's New York, aren't you guys meant to be rude and obnoxious- and gets one comment telling him to wait around and one comment telling him not to hide that pretty face.
Second post has pictures of a show, some band Pete doesn't recognise and some guy as short as Patrick hanging all over him. The guy's pretty, tattoos and the-world-can-fuck-off make-up, smiling at Patrick like he's his new best friend. The subtitle underneath says, "Everything Frank says is a lie" and the post tells the world to check out his band.
Pete's not entirely surprised when Patrick sends him an email, promising him a CD of the band, telling him how cool they are, how much he thinks Pete will like them. When he calls that evening, he makes Pete listen over the phone, tiny, tinny sound playing, then Patrick's voice saying, "You see?"
"Maybe it's the connection," Pete says.
"They're much better in person," Patrick tells him. "Kind of insane on-stage. You and Joe could take notes. Frank is--"
"Frank, is he the guy in your photos?" Pete says, interrupting him.
"That's the one."
"Kind of clingy?"
"I hadn't noticed. Maybe you desensitised me?"
"You should be careful," Pete says, smiling so Patrick can hear it in his voice. "He might get the wrong idea." He fiddles with his jeans, where the ink stains haven't come out in the wash.
"It's nice that you're so concerned for my virtue," Patrick says. If he was here, Pete could tell if that tone meant he was annoyed or joking.
"I'm just saying you don't want to lead him on. There you are, all friendly, letting him hang all over you, maybe you're rolling up your sleeves and letting him see your wrists. Next thing you know, he's got you in front of an Elvis preacher in Vegas, his mama on one end of the line telling you what pretty children you'll have."
"If I had a dime for every time that happened to me," Patrick says.
"Heartbreaker," Pete says. "Nah, I'm not worried. He's too young for you, right?"
"He's only a couple years younger," Patrick says. "Maybe he can be my summer fling?" Light, like he's joking, maybe. Pete can't tell, not without seeing him, and it's not like he's been gone that long or even that he's technically that far away, but it feels like he's on the other side of the world.
"But you like his band?"
"Yeah, they're--do you remember," Patrick says, sounding affectionate, "what you said to me that first practice?"
Pete blinks. "Uh, was it 'What the hell are you wearing?'"
"No, apart from that. You told me you and Joe were awesome, even if you sucked right then, you were still awesome on some higher level."
Pete laughs. "Wow, I was kind of full of it, wasn't I?"
"Still are, and that's why we love you." Pete wants Patrick there, wants to have the contact, the touch and smile that usually goes with that tone of voice. "That's what these guys are like. They're not awesome yet, except that they are, on some level. It's just-- it's good to listen to. Reminds me of you guys."
"I really fucking miss you," Pete says without meaning to. He think about hanging up the moment it's out of his mouth, but when you say something like that, you've just got to just suck it up and take the emo like a man. "Seriously, it's not the same here without you."
Patrick doesn't say anything for a while, but Pete can hear him breathing for what seems like hours before he says, "I miss you guys as well." Quiet, sincere.
Pete's fingertips dig in to the phone like he can touch Patrick through the plastic. "So as great as the opportunity is, and all the cool bands and pretty little guitarists there are in New York..." He trails off expectantly.
"Oh, fuck your fishing for compliments," Patrick says, laughing. "Yes, I still love you best."
"All I wanted to hear," Pete says.
Pete gets into a rhythm. School, parties, clubs --all easier to go to, without practice and rehearsal and the time he just spends hanging around Patrick's. He hooks up with Bill semi-regularly and makes vague plans about getting him to meet Patrick. He likes showing off Patrick and he can picture Bill's expression, the first time Patrick sings two lines and then starts talking about layering the sound.
He keeps up with Patrick's blog, gets into a minor squabble with someone named ShiningOver over grammar and stalking and posts anonymous comments that almost never make it past the filter. Someone, maybe Pete's parents for his own good, or Joe or his brother out of pure evil, tells Patrick that Pete was skipping school and even though Patrick was never militant about it when he was in Chicago, some how he thinks it's his fault if Pete doesn't go now.
Pete doesn't object to Patrick calling in the morning to check he's awake and heading to school. Pete gets used to it, getting dressed with his phone held between his head and his shoulder, eating breakfast with Patrick telling him to "At least hold the phone away when you chew, Pete, that's really disgusting." He likes it, hearing the differences in Patrick's voice, awake and excited over the rush of traffic. Croaky and tired and, "No, I'm not coming down with anything, they just used too much dry ice at the show yesterday and please, please stop sounding so much like my mother."
It's actually kind of nice like that, enough that Pete wonders if they can fake it on a song. Flawed, but personal. A waking up kind of voice, like how Pete imagines he'll sound in the morning when they're touring properly, waking up too early and singing too late, tired but good over breakfast and living in each other's pockets.
He knows he's romanticising it, because he's woken up with the guys often enough to know that Andy is a bitch when he's sleepy, that Patrick has to get in the shower before Joe or there are fights, that Pete's sense of humour is not always given the appreciation it deserves. Still, when he thinks about it, he's pretty much got it down as awesome.
He doesn't call Patrick every night. Maybe every other, which is what he tells Joe when he asks, and he doesn't mention that Patrick phones him first the rest of the time.
Pete's awake by seven most days, waiting for Patrick's morning call. When it's 7.45 and he hasn't, Pete calls Patrick's cell. It rings for a while before someone picks it up.
"Hello, you have reached the pocket of Patrick's pants. He's not in them right now, but--"
Pete doesn't recognise the voice. "So, uh, are you the new occupant?" he says. "Is Patrick there?"
"Lemme just wake him up," the guy says.
"If he's sleeping," Pete starts to say, then shuts up. If this guy wants to wake Patrick up when Patrick can hold a grudge about that for weeks, it's his look-out.
"I just got to find him, he's in here somewhere." The guy laughs. "Can't go far without his pants, right?"
"Depends what kind of company he keeps," Pete says. "Why doesn't he have his pants?" Which is, he thinks, a much better question than the one he really wanted to ask.
"I think I-- I'm pretty sure I confiscated them," the guy says. "Yeah, that sounds about right. Hey, are you Pete?"
"Yeah," Pete says, cautiously.
"Hey, it's the wife!" The guy yells to someone else. "Dude, tell Patrick he missed his--"
Pete can hear a muffled feminine, "I'm not a dude." Then, "Really? Hey, let me--"
"No, I've got it--" There's the sound of a brief fight that ends with someone groaning and a girl saying, bright and cheerful, "So you're Pete, huh?"
"I'm Patrick's Chicago wife," Pete says, pushing through humiliating to funny. "He keeps me barefoot, pregnant and in the kitchen," he says.
"Funny, he keeps his New York wife pregnant, barefoot and in the bedroom."
"We've been together a while," Pete says. "The romance is dead. Sex is still fantastic, though."
"In the kitchen? That's just not hygienic."
"Patrick has his kinks," Pete says, thinking about the first time he saw Faye. "Hey, just get him to call me back or something when he wakes up? He's kind of a bitch if someone wakes him up before he's ready."
"Yeah," she says. "But he's so gosh darned cute when he's in a mood, right?"
Pete misses Patrick right then, enough that he wants to say fuck it and tell her to go ahead and wake him up, but--
--Patrick's been working hard, and he probably needs the sleep more than he needs to talk to Pete. And he's obviously not lonely, not with people who he's comfortable enough with to let them steal his pants and Pete's not that selfish, whatever everyone says.
"Yeah, it's cool," he says.
"'Kay, I'll tell him when he wakes up. So Pete, any little tales you can tell us about Mr Stump?" She says. "Any dark secrets you want to share with the--"
Pete fakes nervous laughter and hangs up.
Pete's in kind of a bad mood that weekend. He leaves his phone at home when he goes to the party, so he's not expecting Joe to be there. Bill isn't, so Pete hooks up with a pretty girl with goth-red hair and a "Nobody knows I'm a lesbian" T-shirt. He likes the irony and she's pretty hot. He thinks about how he's going to tell Patrick about this, a voice over in the background describing her breasts, her hands, how she sounded when he went down on her. Picturing Patrick sounding embarrassed the more details Pete brings up, so Pete teases him by telling him more details. Patrick doesn't usually go red, but he gets flustered enough that it doesn't matter.
It kind of pushes him to go a little bit more with her, show off more than with the usual casual party hook-up. It's good, because sex pretty much is, but he doesn't feel any more relaxed after, just wired. He goes along with a bunch of people to a club and starts a fight with the first random stranger to call him a cocksucker like it's a bad thing.
He rides the high from that all the way home, ducking his dad so he doesn't see the damage, so he doesn't have to feel guilty at making them worry, checks the time and thinks about phoning Patrick. Waking him up, maybe, and Patrick probably has plans, maybe has company, and Patrick hates being woken up early and Pete's in just the kind of mood to find that funny.
Patrick answers on the first ring which Pete wasn't expecting and says, "Did I miss our anniversary again?"
Pete blinks, but recovers quickly. "My mama warned me about guys like you. She always said you were too old for me."
"Your mother loves me," Patrick says. It's true, Pete's mother has a disturbingly high regard for Patrick and Andy, which Pete likes to ignore except for when he's taking advantage of it.
"So I'm your child bride now? 'Cause I've got to say, the honeymoon was all kind of a blur. I'm thinking of getting an annulment." He checks the clock. "It's-- fuck, is it three o'clock there? Why are you awake?"
"Did you want me to be asleep?" Patrick says. "You're a mean, mean, petty boy."
"Fuck you," Pete says. "I'm a vicious and vengeful man."
"Greedy little brat."
"Fearsome and mighty god. Look upon my works and tremble," Pete says, settling on the bed. "Seriously, shouldn't you be sleeping?"
"Same to you," Patrick says. "I was working."
"What kind of work are you doing at three in the morning?" Pete says. He can't hear anything in the background, no music or people talking. "Or does knowing make me an accessory?" He lowers his voice to a stage-whisper. "Come home, Patrick, I'll send you a ticket. You don't have to live like that, selling yourself on the streets of New York..."
"My life is so much more interesting when you're narrating it," Patrick says. "Actually, you can-- listen to this, okay?" There's the sound of him putting his cell phone down, and then a burst of music, tinny through the phoneline but clear enough for Pete to hear. Patrick picks up the phone again. "I'm allowed to use the equipment on my own time so I'm just doing a little production work for Gabe's band. They're between labels right now, so I was-- Does that sound right to you? The bassline, because I was thinking about emphasising it a little more, but--"
Pete pokes at a sore spot on his arm as Patrick talks, wondering if it'll bruise, how much it'll show. He loves listening to Patrick talk about music and he can almost see him, playing chords and imaginary drums or keyboards as he explains about moving this bit further up there, like that, coming in on that bit with a ba-dam-ba instead of a ba-dam-dam. Patrick's learning new stuff, working hard and Pete's mind drifts, like Patrick is a hawk, flying about and picking up rabbits and then coming back to Pete's wrist with a belt full of new, useful talents for him.
If you love something, he thinks. Patrick on the phone sometimes sounds lightyears away, but sometimes --now--, it's like he's right there and talking into Pete's ear. He's not sure when he falls asleep, but he's pretty sure Patrick's still talking when he does.
The next day, hunger trumps potential guilt trips and he goes downstairs for breakfast to make sure he gets his fair share of the waffles. He shrugs off his parents questions with a general, "It's not like I was in any danger, I was with friends." And hazes over which friends they were. His dad casually states that Pete won’t be staying out that late for at least two weeks and Pete shrugs and accepts it. Not like he had anything planned anyway.
His mom adds something about how much she'll enjoy having him home, helping around the house, straight after school and at the weekends and she doesn't say the word grounding either, but it's pretty clear. Pete looks up over his waffle --maple syrup as god intended, not the strawberry syrup and honey blasphemy of his brother-- and says, "But I can still go to practice, right? It's not fair on Joe and Andy if I skip."
There's meaningful eye-contact, but it ends with his dad saying, "I suppose we should encourage that kind of hard work."
Pete grins and then grins wider when he catches his brother rolling his eyes. "It's for the band," he says. "I'm all about self-sacrifice."
"Pete," his mother says. He listens to the warning and shuts up, smiling.
Andy gives him a lift to practice and Pete spends ten minutes looking at his arms. Pete wants tattoos like that-- not those ones exactly, because copying tats is just lame, but that kind of thing. It's not that he regrets his, exactly, just that in retrospect, they were pretty fucking stupid. At least his ankle has a prison-tattoo thing going for it, his back just kind of sucks, especially when he's got Andy's for comparison.
He looks at his arms, holding his hands out and pictures them decorated. It makes him think of Danielle, of her drawing on his arm, but he pushes that out and replaces it with the image of a tattoo parlour, Andy's advice, words and specific images instead of her abstract, spiralling artwork.
"Nightmare before Christmas, lame or cool?" he says. Andy looks over and Pete holds up his right arm as an explanation.
Andy actually thinks about it, which is one of the reasons Andy is also pretty cool. "Cool," he says, "As long as you embrace it, get it done right."
Pete nods and thinks about Sally, Jack, pumpkins and bones. Maybe something for the band, something that says all of them. Or something for himself, like he's branding himself as his own. Property of Pete Wentz.
Maybe he can persuade his parents to go with him, if Andy knows a good place in Wisconsin or some place they can go for his birthday.
They pull in and Joe's waiting outside, leaning against the door. Pete unlocks it. He should give Joe a copy of the key, but he's vaguely worried about Joe using Patrick's place like he does.
"I'm gonna make some coffee," Andy says. "You want some?"
"No milk," Pete warns. "No soya stuff either."
"Black coffee, sign of manliness," Andy says. "He's got sugar, right?"
Pete nods and finds it in the cupboard while Joe gets the mugs out, putting four on the kitchen surface before remembering. Andy makes the coffee, starts to pour it and frowns. "Where's my cup?"
Joe shrugs and Pete rolls his eyes. "You're so persnickety. You're like my grandma."
"I'm not persnickety," Andy says, still frowning at the mugs. "I just like my coffee in my mug. It's mine."
"You're kind of anal," Pete tells him. "And not in the good way."
Andy's smile is sudden and wide. "You don't know me well enough to say that."
Pete raises his eyebrows and opens his mouth before Joe interrupts with a, "Why does every conversation come back to anal sex with us?"
"Just lucky?" Pete suggests.
"I miss Patrick," Joe says. "At least then, we'd talk about music. Or blow-jobs. Your cup's on the sink." He points behind Andy.
Andy pours a cup and Pete makes a note to mock him about his obvious relief. It's a pretty good practice, as Patrickless practices go and Pete's in a good mood after. Andy's on the phone to someone about one of his outside bands and Joe and Pete lean against the side of his van and wait for him to finish. Pete closes his eyes to feel the sun, warm and red against his eyelids and smiling up at it until he hears Joe's amused little huff, like an audible smirk.
"What?" He says, opening one eye enough to see him.
"You talk to Patrick today?" Joe says.
Pete shrugs. "Last night, this morning."
"That explains the good mood," Joe says. "You got your Patrick fix." He holds his hands wide, pacifying. "Hey, I'm not judging. I indulge in a little Patrick myself sometimes. Email, mostly, because if I try talking to him before school or in the evening, his phone's usually busy. Must be making a lot of friends, right?"
"Right," Pete says, and he's normally much better at lying than this, but it's kind of not worth it with Joe. Not worth the effort of trying, and he's too content right now with the sun on his face and one hand still absently picking out chords to even bother.
Joe looks at him, then says, "Pete, are you-- You're kind of clingy, you know? I mean, generally, you are, but also especially."
Pete gives a "Yeah, and?" shrug.
"You and Patrick..." Joe says. "I know you hook up with a lot of people, so I just--"
"It's not--" Pete starts to say. "Me and Patrick, it's not like--" And then he has to figure out the end of that sentence and can't, so he tries again. "We're not, you know. It's just me, I have a-- It's just a thing."
"Just a thing," Joe says. "Not a thing, thing. Just a thing, right?"
"Right," Pete says. "I'm not going to lose my mind over it and Patrick, it's not like he even knows. I just have this--" and he can't say thing again, that sounds stupid and juvenile, so he makes a vague sketch in the air, "--but I'm not like-- it's not like with Danielle or anything. I've got it under control."
"Yeah, because it's not like you're phoning him twice a day or stalking his friends or sleeping in his bed, right?" Joe says. "Because you know, anyone else and that would probably mean it wasn't just a thing, but a major obsession. Since it's you..." He shrugs. "You get kind of focussed sometimes. Addictive personality or something."
Pete grins, hunches down and tries to look as shifty as he can, nervous junkie. "I can quit any time!" he says. "I only do Patrick recreationally."
"Dude, 'do Patrick,'" Joe says, cracking up like he's twelve.
"You have a dirty mind, Joseph Trohman. A dirty, dirty mind." Pete shakes his head in mock-disappointment.
"So recreational, does that mean you suck but you don't in--"
Pete thinks the world owes him for covering Joe's mouth with his hand before he can finish that sentence, especially when Joe licks it right after.
It goes from being weeks, months, *years* until Patrick gets back to being a week away, which means that Pete spends most of that week running around and sorting stuff out. Making sure Andy knows when Patrick's flight lands so he can drive them all to pick him up, working out bus and train routes in case the van breaks down, replacing the plants Pete killed from over-watering, making sure everything in Patrick's place is clean and, at his mum's suggestion, getting a few basics in -milk, bread, frozen pizza- so Patrick doesn't come home to an empty fridge.
He's bracing himself for delays, for the plane being late or Patrick missing it, so he's really not prepared when it lands fifteen minutes early and Patrick's one of the first off, coming off the plane while they're still running to the gate. They rush him at the same time and Pete wins first go by jumping over the seats when Joe has to go around, and then he's jumping on Patrick, making him stagger back and almost drop his laptop case. It's mostly that Joe and Andy get there in time to prop him up that stops Pete from actually knocking Patrick over.
He rubs his nose into Patrick's jacket and just enjoys it, Patrick hugging him, Joe and Andy hugging both of them, until Patrick says, "At some point, I will need to breathe."
"That's a myth," Pete says, but he relaxes his hold enough that he can lean back and-- "dude, your face!"
"What?" Patrick blinks, then puts one hand up to touch the outline of a black eye and winces. "Oh, yeah, that."
"You never said anything!" Pete says, channelling his mother.
"It's not--" Patrick pauses, then looks at Pete. "I don't know if I should tell you."
"What? You're in New York six weeks and you start keeping secrets from me?" Pete puts on puppy-dog eyes and tries to look hurt. It's not entirely successful, because his mouth keeps smiling, wide and dorky and it's a good thing he's way, way past the point where being even the littlest bit cool matters in front of these guys.
"Seriously," Andy says. "If you wanted to get beaten up, we could have done that for you here. I would have personally punched you out, you didn't have to go out of state for that."
"I wasn't beaten up, it was... yeah, I really don't think I should be talking about this in front of the kids. They might get ideas."
Pete and Joe exchange looks and then Joe says, "You know that nothing you say is ever gonna be worse than what we're thinking right now?"
Pete nods. "There are cops and handcuffs and 7 foot tall women named Lola in my head right now."
Patrick smiles and shakes his head. "Nothing like that. Okay, the truth is, Gabe was showing off with his guitar, spinning it around him, and he kind of lost control and it hit me in the eye."
Pete folds his arms and raises a suspicious eyebrow. "That's what you didn't want us to hear? That's pretty weak."
"Pete, look at me. Tell me you're not thinking, right now, how cool it'd look."
Pete meets his eyes for about three seconds before he starts laughing. Patrick shakes his head and looks at Andy. "See? Ideas."
There's a party, which is mostly to welcome Patrick home, but also a pre-birthday thing for Pete. It's at Andy's on the basis that he's moving out of his place at the end of the month. They play a couple of songs while they wait for people to arrive, more like a mini-practice than anything else. Pete listens for differences, and there are some -Patrick holding notes a little longer, a little shorter, breaking off to talk about maybe changing this bit around- but the feel is as good as it ever was. Pete thinks dumb, clichéd thoughts about loving things and setting them free and tries to feel embarrassed about them instead of *smug*.
There are people Pete knows and he keeps introducing Patrick to them, showing him off. Someone has to, since Patrick kind of sucks at doing that for himself. He tries to make sure that Patrick meets the best people. It's bizarre, how many people there are that Pete knows that have never met Patrick or Andy. The guys are just-- they're there, part of Pete's life, and it's like people are only now going, "Oh hey, you have an extra head! Where have you been hiding that?"
They know that Pete's in a band, some of them have seen him play with the guys, but they've never actually talked to them and it really hadn't even occurred to Pete that people who knew him wouldn't have.
Patrick introduces him to his friends. Pete knows some of them from the scene, a couple of them pretty well, but there are a few strangers. Some poli-sci & media studies chick who tells Pete that she met him freshman year and "tried to get him to let me tape him kissing people naked, but he wouldn't even let me take a Polaroid."
"She told me it was for media studies," Patrick said. "A commentary on prejudice, love and beauty."
"You didn't fall for it?"
"Nah, too damn suspicious." She hugs Patrick, then says, "Hey, is Andy here? Because I heard he got new ink done, and I've got to see some skin." She heads off and leaves Pete looking at Patrick, one eyebrow raised.
"Interesting friends you have."
"She's offered to do our music videos," Patrick says. "But she's kind of-- poli-sci and media studies, it's all porn and propaganda."
Pete grins at him. "And that's bad?"
Patrick tries to ruffle his hair but Pete's hair gel triumphs. "She'd have us all thrown in prison for getting your and Joe's jailbait naked bodies on MTV."
"One month and I'm legal," Pete says. He steals a kiss, joking and quick on Patrick's mouth before he can blink, and says, "Maybe I should get all my illicit sex in while I still can?"
"You're not bored with that stuff yet?"
Pete smiles at Patrick's faked look of disbelief and lets Patrick back away a little. "Sex gets boring? You really must lose it after eighteen."
"Sure it's fun, but have you ever tried doing your taxes? Applying for a grant? Signing a lease?" Patrick sighs and looks heavenward, exaggerated afterglow. "You never forget your first rental agreement."
That girl's cool, and so is the big guy that Patrick knows from Mythology 101 who does security in his part-time. Patrick knows good people, mostly, and some of them aren't exactly to Pete's taste, but a lot of them are exactly the kind of people Patrick should have as friends. There are a couple of people that he doesn't click with, the ones that give Pete this look when Patrick introduces him. It's not mean, exactly, just kind of dismissive. The kind of look that, in a club, would have Pete clenching his hands in to fists, throwing a punch or dragging them on to the dance floor. Playing faster, screaming louder if he was on stage.
He can't exactly do that here, not when they're Patrick's friends, so he just leans on Patrick a little more when one guy says, "So you're in high school, right?" and shows his teeth when he smiles. It's not even about the way they treat him, because he's sixteen, he's used to "you're just young," and "when you're older," it's the way they act like him and Patrick, like the band, is just a joke or Patrick being kind.
It's only a few people, because most of Patrick's friends are cool, and it's easily trumped by Patrick's, "This is Pete, my bassist, the guy I told you about." "Pete's the guy that makes me get in front of people and sing." And, "Joe and Pete were already playing together when they got me and Andy to join."
It's a rush and it's calming and Pete feels right, like he hasn't done in a while. Part of him wants to do something, dance, play, something, and part of him just wants to stay here like this. It's exactly the sort of moment, he thinks, when the obvious thing, sex or not even that, just making out, would be perfect.
Seventeen in a month, Pete thinks, and that might make a difference. He finds a couch and pulls Patrick down on it, so Patrick's sitting in the corner and Pete's at the other end, his legs swung over Patrick's lap, toeing his shoes off and leaning back. A familiar shape, tall and skinny, floats into view.
"Bill!" he says. "Over here."
He straightens up a little, pulling himself upright using the sofa couch and ignoring Patrick's oof when it makes Pete's heels dig in too hard. "You made it, then?"
"I think so," Bill says.
Patrick smiles and waves an introduction. "Bill Beckett, Patrick Stump."
Bill holds his hand out for Patrick to shake, polite as any one could like. "You're Pete's Patrick?"
Pete grins and slings his arm across Patrick. "My very own."
Bill's smile is pretty, a little sly, but mostly pretty. Pete wonders if he's drunk, but downgrades it to tipsy when Bill says, "It's just, from the way Pete talks about you, I was expecting you to be seven foot tall and made of gold. With, like, Shiva-arms, guitar in one hand, microphone in the other, keyboard in the third and fourth and an extra set fiddling with the sound board."
"Sorry to disappoint you," Patrick says. He holds out his hands. "Just the two."
Bill shrugs. "It's okay, they're nice hands anyway." He looks at Pete and raises an eyebrow, like he's asking Pete a question. Pete's not sure what he's asking, so he just shrugs. "Are you guys going to play later? Someone said I missed it, being fashionably late."
"You didn't miss much. We haven't practiced in weeks," Patrick says. "We were kind of a mess."
"And yet, we still rocked," Pete says. "We're pretty fucking miraculous that way."
"That's the kind of thing that gets me interested," Bill says. "Pete's kind of got me curious about you. He talks about you a lot."
"That's, uh. Nice of him?" Patrick says, like he's not quite sure that's true. "Pete may be a little biased."
"Pete knows a good thing when he sees it," Pete says.
Bill sits down on the arm of the couch on the other side of Patrick and reaches down to grab his hat. Patrick slams a hand on it before he can, keeping it on there as he tilts his head up to look at Bill. "No," he says, firm as Pete's mom with a puppy.
Bill makes another grab and Patrick jerks back, falling on to Pete and Bill slides down into the new space. There's only just enough room for him, and he slings his arm across the back of the couch, behind Patrick, crossing over Pete's. "So I sing too, and play guitar, but I don't know, because I like playing guitar, but sometimes it's kind of distracting when I'm singing. You get that? Because I'm thinking about the words and audience and connecting and sometimes I lose track of what I'm doing." Bill shrugs and he's stroking Pete's forearm, lightly, probably not even aware he's doing it. "I just don't want it to be a barrier between me and the audience. How do you deal with that?"
"I like the barrier," Patrick says. "It's-- we tried a couple of times, just me singing and I--"
"You pretty much hated it," Pete says.
"I didn't-- hate is kind of-- it just wasn't comfortable, you know? Being the centre of attention like that."
"Yeah?" Bill says with polite lack of comprehension. "I guess that would be-- uh, so you felt kind of exposed?"
"Naked without an instrument," Patrick says. "And no-one wants to see me naked under a spotlight."
"Dude, you underestimate our fanbase."
"Our fanbase is about ten guys and your parents."
"Yeah, but those ten guys?" Pete grins.
"Is it different if you have another singer on stage?" Bill says, leaning in to Patrick a little. His hand strokes along Pete's arm, his wrist and tangles his fingers in Pete. "Maybe a duet or something. Or back-up." He makes a face. "I'm kind of between bands and if don't get to sing with someone soon, I'm gonna go crazy. I tried doing the solo thing, but you kind of need people, you know?"
He looks at Patrick again, managing to look up through his lashes even though he's about a foot taller, and his thumb brushes across Pete's wrist and Pete's turned on and trying not to laugh, because Bill really, really fails utterly at subtlety.
"Music, like pretty much everything, is better when you do it with other people," Bill says. He sounds sincere, edging on to deep and meaningful, and Pete has a moment where he thinks, "He's only sixteen," which is stupid, because it's not like Pete's much older, and he knows Bill isn't exactly sweet sixteen and never been kissed, kicked or caught in public with something better left private.
He wonders if this is how Patrick feels, looking at him. He leans his head against Patrick's shoulder, shuffles in a little closer, and finds where Patrick's T-shirt ends and he can just put his hand flat against Patrick's stomach. He doesn't mean anything special by it except that he likes touching him and that he hasn't quite got over six weeks without him, and he's careful not to press so lightly that it tickles and to keep the rest of his body from pressing against him. Patrick's good at ignoring when Pete's hard, jokes about teenage hormones aside -like he's that much older- but Pete's got used to not pressing too much. It makes it easier to get away with things like this.
And it's not that he's forgotten about Bill, because Bill's leg is touching his, even with Patrick in the middle, his thumb is stroking Pete's skin. It's just that he didn't really think what this might look like to him. Bill's obviously taking it as permission or agreement or something, because he smiles and shifts position, turning more on to his side and bringing his leg up a little, so he's pretty much pressed against Patrick's side and one leg is crossing over Patrick's. Patrick moves back, automatically trying to make room, before coming up against Pete on the other side and stopping. Pete has his hand on Patrick's stomach, so he can feel when he tenses. He relaxes, but Pete knows when Patrick's forcing himself not to tense.
"Yeah, I like working with people," he says, and his voice is light, almost perfect. "I've been in bands pretty much since I first picked up a set of drumsticks. Not really the lone wolf type."
"I'm the same," Bill says. "I just wasn't built to live in isolation. I need people, connection, you know? Especially with music. You've got to be around people with the same language sometimes. So you started out on drums?" He picks up Patrick's hand and looks at it like he's checking for calluses. "Does that give you a different perspective? Like, you're more aware of the rhythm, even when you're doing the melody?"
"Sometimes you pick up one more than the other, but I think that's true with everyone," Patrick says. He's casual, like he doesn't get what Bill's doing, but Pete knows Patrick well enough to know that it's deliberate. He knows the difference between Patrick Not Getting It and *really* not getting it. Deliberate and cheerful attempt at shutting Bill down without ever having to acknowledge the attempt. Patrick pulls his hand out and puts it on his thigh, which might be a mistake because Bill follows it there.
Patrick's smile is kind of uncomfortable, but still trying for "I have no idea what you're doing, that's how much I don't think of you that way." Pete's seen it in action a couple of times and it normally works, but not right now. Bill just looks like he thinks Patrick really doesn't get it, like he's just not seeing it instead of refusing to see it. Bill's not good at subtleties or not used to being put off. Either way, he's leaning on Patrick and it's funny if you know Patrick well enough to know that he's trying not to freak out.
He can see Bill's hand inching up Patrick's thigh and -- yeah, Pete should be nice to Patrick since he only just got him back. He pinches the back of Bill's hand and says, "Can I borrow you for a second?" when Bill looks up, getting to his feet and dragging him off to the kitchen.
"What?" Bill says, rubbing the back of his hand.
"You need to stop hitting on Patrick," Pete says, leaning back on a cupboard.
"Why?" Like he honestly can't see any reason why that would be a problem, and Pete can sympathise with him, really, but...
"Because he doesn't want you to," he says.
"What?" Bill says. "What's the problem?"
"Patrick has this--" not thing "--this policy, where he doesn't fuck around with people our age."
"What, ever?"
"Yeah. So you need to stop before he starts feeling like a dirty old man."
Bill folds his arms and looks at Pete. "Right. And this isn't just you warning me off. It's not like I'm trying to steal your vocalist, Pete. I just want to borrow him for a bit, and you're welcome to watch or join in or whatever."
"I said we didn't fuck," Pete says.
"You just said you never had, which means yet," Bill corrects. "I didn't get that it was like, something you didn't do."
"Right," Pete says. "Like some people don't drink, some people don't smoke. I don't have sex with Patrick."
"Right," Bill says. "I didn't realise it was a thing."
"It's not," Pete says. "It's Patrick, and he has his boundaries or whatever, and you're pushing them so stop. He doesn't like it."
"He doesn't like it." Bill holds up a hand. "Seriously, Pete, if I'm stepping on your toes--"
"Hey, I'm all for Patrick getting laid," Pete says, then lowers his voice when he realises how loud that came out. "Seriously, no-one is more pro that than me. I like it when good things happen to my friends." Bill opens his mouth to say something and Pete talks faster before he can. "Just-- think of it like he has a girlfriend already or something? It's not that he doesn't think you're..." He gestures at Bill, because Bill knows how good he looks, but likes it when you say it too. "But he's gonna make a point of not noticing, because he thinks he shouldn't. Right?"
Bill looks at him, obviously trying to judge Pete's sincerity and Pete tries to look honest even though he knows it makes him look like he's faking it the more sincere he actually is. "But it's not like he's *old*," Bill says, and Pete relaxes. Bill sounds like he believes Pete, he just doesn't get it. "And I want to."
"He just has a thing about it. I don't get it either," Pete says, "I just have to accept it, like... like Andy and cheese. Vegan, doesn't eat it," he adds off of Bill's look.
Bill frowns, pouts a little. It's not deliberate, which makes it kind of cute. "That sucks. Or doesn't, whatever."
Pete hooks a hand on his shoulder sympathetically. "Yeah, I know. Hey, big party, lots of other people if you're looking to hook up." And he's not really thinking about it because it might interfere with his plan to glue himself to Patrick's side all night, but Bill is there and he looks good, and Pete presses himself along his side, rubbing his thumb where Bill's shoulder joins his neck.
"Mmm." Bill looks at him, smiles a little, then says, "Maybe we can just go back and talk. He's kind of good to listen to anyway." His smile widens. "I'll just think of him as the Venus de Milo or something, or an original vinyl of Electric Ladyland. Just appreciate the beauty."
Pete grins, because that works. He likes it when people like Patrick, when they appreciate him, so he grabs a bag of chips to have an excuse for coming in here and heads back out.
Someone's taken their space on the couch and Patrick's turned to face her, one knee resting on the seat, leaning in. Pete doesn't recognise the girl, but he recognises her body language, the tilt of her head, the way she's leaning in. Bill makes a little sound of disappointment and Pete thinks she doesn't look like Faye particularly, but Patrick's leaning in too, and there, he makes a vague gesture and when he drops his hand on the back of the sofa, it's kind of touching hers.
For a moment it's like there are two Petes and one of them's thinking, Hey, good for Patrick, because the girl is hot, college-cool with an afro and glasses that look pretty much identical to Patrick's, and Patrick should get that, Pete likes thinking about Patrick moving on (moving up) from Faye and hooking up with cool (hot) people that don't make him feel like a dirty old man.
The other Pete isn't really thinking anything, except that Patrick's leaning in to her and she's sitting in Pete's place on the couch and he's looking at her and she's touching his hand and she's sitting in Pete's place and Patrick looks okay with that.
"Aw," Bill says from behind Pete, bringing him back to himself. "I think we've been replaced."
"He doesn't even know her," Pete says, and wonders if that's true. He hasn't seen her before, but that doesn't mean anything. Patrick knows a lot of people Pete's never met. He walks up behind them and clears his throat. "Hey," he says.
Patrick looks up and he and the girl kind of lean away in a way that makes it obvious that they were leaning in a second before. "Pete," he says, sounding kind of surprised. "I thought--" Pete can see Patrick's quick glance at Bill, the slight embarrassment and oh. Not an unreasonable assumption, not when Pete practically dragged Bill off, but seriously, does Patrick think Pete would just abandon him on his welcome home party to hook up?
"Just getting supplies," he says, holding up the chips in explanation. "I leave you alone for five minutes..." He shakes his head. "This is why I keep telling you we need a bodyguard."
"Yeah, if you didn't keep picking fights with the headliners..." Patrick says, rolling his eyes. "Seriously, we need them to protect your ass, not my virtue. Wait, that didn't come out right."
Pete's laugh is dirty because accidental innuendo is the best kind. He smiles at the girl and she really is pretty, nice wide smile back at him. Patrick finds his manners and says, "Oh! This is Sara. She's a friend of Andy's."
"We used to abuse the same employee discount," she says. She's smiling and friendly, but her body's still turning towards Patrick and she's not opening up the space between them. Pete's kind of tempted to drop in between them anyway. It'd be kind of rude to just sit between them, but kind of funny as well, the way messing with your friends always is.
Bill's hands are on Pete's shoulders and his voice is cheerful in Pete's ear and he says, "You two kids have fun!" And he steers Pete away.
"What?" Pete says
Bill looks at him and rolls his eyes. "You can't think of anything more fun to do than cockblock your friend?"
Pete hesitates, thinking about it.
"You have warped priorities, Wentz."
"Part of my charm?"
"Yeah, you just keep telling yourself that," Bill says. He shrugs then adds, faux-causal, "Also, you're kind of in love with Patrick."
"You're like the second person to tell me that this week," Pete says. "I don't see what the big deal is. You're halfway there and you've only known him for like, five minutes."
"I'm not that easy," Bill says. "I just wanted to blow him. You're thinking marriage, a house with a studio, 2.5 kids and a puppy."
"Four bedrooms and a big kitchen," Pete says. He pats Bill on the shoulder. "You'll understand when you settle down with a real band of your own."
Bill pouts. "I want to make the commitment, it's just so hard to find someone that feels the same way."
"I hear Mike's band broke up again," Pete says. "Maybe you can catch him on the rebound?"
"Because that always works so well," Bill says. Then, "Yeah, maybe."
Next part
Previous part
There's a zip of pictures attached to Patrick's next email. Most of them are places, some of them are of Patrick with people, most of them from his work. Patrick looks happy in the ones he's in, sitting in a recording studio, sitting on the grass somewhere. Pete wonders who took those ones.
The website for Principle Uncertainty has a bunch of blogs attached, including one introducing their "shiny new intern" with a picture of Patrick, head tilted forwards so his hat covers most of his face. His first post talks about how nice everyone is -It's New York, aren't you guys meant to be rude and obnoxious- and gets one comment telling him to wait around and one comment telling him not to hide that pretty face.
Second post has pictures of a show, some band Pete doesn't recognise and some guy as short as Patrick hanging all over him. The guy's pretty, tattoos and the-world-can-fuck-off make-up, smiling at Patrick like he's his new best friend. The subtitle underneath says, "Everything Frank says is a lie" and the post tells the world to check out his band.
Pete's not entirely surprised when Patrick sends him an email, promising him a CD of the band, telling him how cool they are, how much he thinks Pete will like them. When he calls that evening, he makes Pete listen over the phone, tiny, tinny sound playing, then Patrick's voice saying, "You see?"
"Maybe it's the connection," Pete says.
"They're much better in person," Patrick tells him. "Kind of insane on-stage. You and Joe could take notes. Frank is--"
"Frank, is he the guy in your photos?" Pete says, interrupting him.
"That's the one."
"Kind of clingy?"
"I hadn't noticed. Maybe you desensitised me?"
"You should be careful," Pete says, smiling so Patrick can hear it in his voice. "He might get the wrong idea." He fiddles with his jeans, where the ink stains haven't come out in the wash.
"It's nice that you're so concerned for my virtue," Patrick says. If he was here, Pete could tell if that tone meant he was annoyed or joking.
"I'm just saying you don't want to lead him on. There you are, all friendly, letting him hang all over you, maybe you're rolling up your sleeves and letting him see your wrists. Next thing you know, he's got you in front of an Elvis preacher in Vegas, his mama on one end of the line telling you what pretty children you'll have."
"If I had a dime for every time that happened to me," Patrick says.
"Heartbreaker," Pete says. "Nah, I'm not worried. He's too young for you, right?"
"He's only a couple years younger," Patrick says. "Maybe he can be my summer fling?" Light, like he's joking, maybe. Pete can't tell, not without seeing him, and it's not like he's been gone that long or even that he's technically that far away, but it feels like he's on the other side of the world.
"But you like his band?"
"Yeah, they're--do you remember," Patrick says, sounding affectionate, "what you said to me that first practice?"
Pete blinks. "Uh, was it 'What the hell are you wearing?'"
"No, apart from that. You told me you and Joe were awesome, even if you sucked right then, you were still awesome on some higher level."
Pete laughs. "Wow, I was kind of full of it, wasn't I?"
"Still are, and that's why we love you." Pete wants Patrick there, wants to have the contact, the touch and smile that usually goes with that tone of voice. "That's what these guys are like. They're not awesome yet, except that they are, on some level. It's just-- it's good to listen to. Reminds me of you guys."
"I really fucking miss you," Pete says without meaning to. He think about hanging up the moment it's out of his mouth, but when you say something like that, you've just got to just suck it up and take the emo like a man. "Seriously, it's not the same here without you."
Patrick doesn't say anything for a while, but Pete can hear him breathing for what seems like hours before he says, "I miss you guys as well." Quiet, sincere.
Pete's fingertips dig in to the phone like he can touch Patrick through the plastic. "So as great as the opportunity is, and all the cool bands and pretty little guitarists there are in New York..." He trails off expectantly.
"Oh, fuck your fishing for compliments," Patrick says, laughing. "Yes, I still love you best."
"All I wanted to hear," Pete says.
Pete gets into a rhythm. School, parties, clubs --all easier to go to, without practice and rehearsal and the time he just spends hanging around Patrick's. He hooks up with Bill semi-regularly and makes vague plans about getting him to meet Patrick. He likes showing off Patrick and he can picture Bill's expression, the first time Patrick sings two lines and then starts talking about layering the sound.
He keeps up with Patrick's blog, gets into a minor squabble with someone named ShiningOver over grammar and stalking and posts anonymous comments that almost never make it past the filter. Someone, maybe Pete's parents for his own good, or Joe or his brother out of pure evil, tells Patrick that Pete was skipping school and even though Patrick was never militant about it when he was in Chicago, some how he thinks it's his fault if Pete doesn't go now.
Pete doesn't object to Patrick calling in the morning to check he's awake and heading to school. Pete gets used to it, getting dressed with his phone held between his head and his shoulder, eating breakfast with Patrick telling him to "At least hold the phone away when you chew, Pete, that's really disgusting." He likes it, hearing the differences in Patrick's voice, awake and excited over the rush of traffic. Croaky and tired and, "No, I'm not coming down with anything, they just used too much dry ice at the show yesterday and please, please stop sounding so much like my mother."
It's actually kind of nice like that, enough that Pete wonders if they can fake it on a song. Flawed, but personal. A waking up kind of voice, like how Pete imagines he'll sound in the morning when they're touring properly, waking up too early and singing too late, tired but good over breakfast and living in each other's pockets.
He knows he's romanticising it, because he's woken up with the guys often enough to know that Andy is a bitch when he's sleepy, that Patrick has to get in the shower before Joe or there are fights, that Pete's sense of humour is not always given the appreciation it deserves. Still, when he thinks about it, he's pretty much got it down as awesome.
He doesn't call Patrick every night. Maybe every other, which is what he tells Joe when he asks, and he doesn't mention that Patrick phones him first the rest of the time.
Pete's awake by seven most days, waiting for Patrick's morning call. When it's 7.45 and he hasn't, Pete calls Patrick's cell. It rings for a while before someone picks it up.
"Hello, you have reached the pocket of Patrick's pants. He's not in them right now, but--"
Pete doesn't recognise the voice. "So, uh, are you the new occupant?" he says. "Is Patrick there?"
"Lemme just wake him up," the guy says.
"If he's sleeping," Pete starts to say, then shuts up. If this guy wants to wake Patrick up when Patrick can hold a grudge about that for weeks, it's his look-out.
"I just got to find him, he's in here somewhere." The guy laughs. "Can't go far without his pants, right?"
"Depends what kind of company he keeps," Pete says. "Why doesn't he have his pants?" Which is, he thinks, a much better question than the one he really wanted to ask.
"I think I-- I'm pretty sure I confiscated them," the guy says. "Yeah, that sounds about right. Hey, are you Pete?"
"Yeah," Pete says, cautiously.
"Hey, it's the wife!" The guy yells to someone else. "Dude, tell Patrick he missed his--"
Pete can hear a muffled feminine, "I'm not a dude." Then, "Really? Hey, let me--"
"No, I've got it--" There's the sound of a brief fight that ends with someone groaning and a girl saying, bright and cheerful, "So you're Pete, huh?"
"I'm Patrick's Chicago wife," Pete says, pushing through humiliating to funny. "He keeps me barefoot, pregnant and in the kitchen," he says.
"Funny, he keeps his New York wife pregnant, barefoot and in the bedroom."
"We've been together a while," Pete says. "The romance is dead. Sex is still fantastic, though."
"In the kitchen? That's just not hygienic."
"Patrick has his kinks," Pete says, thinking about the first time he saw Faye. "Hey, just get him to call me back or something when he wakes up? He's kind of a bitch if someone wakes him up before he's ready."
"Yeah," she says. "But he's so gosh darned cute when he's in a mood, right?"
Pete misses Patrick right then, enough that he wants to say fuck it and tell her to go ahead and wake him up, but--
--Patrick's been working hard, and he probably needs the sleep more than he needs to talk to Pete. And he's obviously not lonely, not with people who he's comfortable enough with to let them steal his pants and Pete's not that selfish, whatever everyone says.
"Yeah, it's cool," he says.
"'Kay, I'll tell him when he wakes up. So Pete, any little tales you can tell us about Mr Stump?" She says. "Any dark secrets you want to share with the--"
Pete fakes nervous laughter and hangs up.
Pete's in kind of a bad mood that weekend. He leaves his phone at home when he goes to the party, so he's not expecting Joe to be there. Bill isn't, so Pete hooks up with a pretty girl with goth-red hair and a "Nobody knows I'm a lesbian" T-shirt. He likes the irony and she's pretty hot. He thinks about how he's going to tell Patrick about this, a voice over in the background describing her breasts, her hands, how she sounded when he went down on her. Picturing Patrick sounding embarrassed the more details Pete brings up, so Pete teases him by telling him more details. Patrick doesn't usually go red, but he gets flustered enough that it doesn't matter.
It kind of pushes him to go a little bit more with her, show off more than with the usual casual party hook-up. It's good, because sex pretty much is, but he doesn't feel any more relaxed after, just wired. He goes along with a bunch of people to a club and starts a fight with the first random stranger to call him a cocksucker like it's a bad thing.
He rides the high from that all the way home, ducking his dad so he doesn't see the damage, so he doesn't have to feel guilty at making them worry, checks the time and thinks about phoning Patrick. Waking him up, maybe, and Patrick probably has plans, maybe has company, and Patrick hates being woken up early and Pete's in just the kind of mood to find that funny.
Patrick answers on the first ring which Pete wasn't expecting and says, "Did I miss our anniversary again?"
Pete blinks, but recovers quickly. "My mama warned me about guys like you. She always said you were too old for me."
"Your mother loves me," Patrick says. It's true, Pete's mother has a disturbingly high regard for Patrick and Andy, which Pete likes to ignore except for when he's taking advantage of it.
"So I'm your child bride now? 'Cause I've got to say, the honeymoon was all kind of a blur. I'm thinking of getting an annulment." He checks the clock. "It's-- fuck, is it three o'clock there? Why are you awake?"
"Did you want me to be asleep?" Patrick says. "You're a mean, mean, petty boy."
"Fuck you," Pete says. "I'm a vicious and vengeful man."
"Greedy little brat."
"Fearsome and mighty god. Look upon my works and tremble," Pete says, settling on the bed. "Seriously, shouldn't you be sleeping?"
"Same to you," Patrick says. "I was working."
"What kind of work are you doing at three in the morning?" Pete says. He can't hear anything in the background, no music or people talking. "Or does knowing make me an accessory?" He lowers his voice to a stage-whisper. "Come home, Patrick, I'll send you a ticket. You don't have to live like that, selling yourself on the streets of New York..."
"My life is so much more interesting when you're narrating it," Patrick says. "Actually, you can-- listen to this, okay?" There's the sound of him putting his cell phone down, and then a burst of music, tinny through the phoneline but clear enough for Pete to hear. Patrick picks up the phone again. "I'm allowed to use the equipment on my own time so I'm just doing a little production work for Gabe's band. They're between labels right now, so I was-- Does that sound right to you? The bassline, because I was thinking about emphasising it a little more, but--"
Pete pokes at a sore spot on his arm as Patrick talks, wondering if it'll bruise, how much it'll show. He loves listening to Patrick talk about music and he can almost see him, playing chords and imaginary drums or keyboards as he explains about moving this bit further up there, like that, coming in on that bit with a ba-dam-ba instead of a ba-dam-dam. Patrick's learning new stuff, working hard and Pete's mind drifts, like Patrick is a hawk, flying about and picking up rabbits and then coming back to Pete's wrist with a belt full of new, useful talents for him.
If you love something, he thinks. Patrick on the phone sometimes sounds lightyears away, but sometimes --now--, it's like he's right there and talking into Pete's ear. He's not sure when he falls asleep, but he's pretty sure Patrick's still talking when he does.
The next day, hunger trumps potential guilt trips and he goes downstairs for breakfast to make sure he gets his fair share of the waffles. He shrugs off his parents questions with a general, "It's not like I was in any danger, I was with friends." And hazes over which friends they were. His dad casually states that Pete won’t be staying out that late for at least two weeks and Pete shrugs and accepts it. Not like he had anything planned anyway.
His mom adds something about how much she'll enjoy having him home, helping around the house, straight after school and at the weekends and she doesn't say the word grounding either, but it's pretty clear. Pete looks up over his waffle --maple syrup as god intended, not the strawberry syrup and honey blasphemy of his brother-- and says, "But I can still go to practice, right? It's not fair on Joe and Andy if I skip."
There's meaningful eye-contact, but it ends with his dad saying, "I suppose we should encourage that kind of hard work."
Pete grins and then grins wider when he catches his brother rolling his eyes. "It's for the band," he says. "I'm all about self-sacrifice."
"Pete," his mother says. He listens to the warning and shuts up, smiling.
Andy gives him a lift to practice and Pete spends ten minutes looking at his arms. Pete wants tattoos like that-- not those ones exactly, because copying tats is just lame, but that kind of thing. It's not that he regrets his, exactly, just that in retrospect, they were pretty fucking stupid. At least his ankle has a prison-tattoo thing going for it, his back just kind of sucks, especially when he's got Andy's for comparison.
He looks at his arms, holding his hands out and pictures them decorated. It makes him think of Danielle, of her drawing on his arm, but he pushes that out and replaces it with the image of a tattoo parlour, Andy's advice, words and specific images instead of her abstract, spiralling artwork.
"Nightmare before Christmas, lame or cool?" he says. Andy looks over and Pete holds up his right arm as an explanation.
Andy actually thinks about it, which is one of the reasons Andy is also pretty cool. "Cool," he says, "As long as you embrace it, get it done right."
Pete nods and thinks about Sally, Jack, pumpkins and bones. Maybe something for the band, something that says all of them. Or something for himself, like he's branding himself as his own. Property of Pete Wentz.
Maybe he can persuade his parents to go with him, if Andy knows a good place in Wisconsin or some place they can go for his birthday.
They pull in and Joe's waiting outside, leaning against the door. Pete unlocks it. He should give Joe a copy of the key, but he's vaguely worried about Joe using Patrick's place like he does.
"I'm gonna make some coffee," Andy says. "You want some?"
"No milk," Pete warns. "No soya stuff either."
"Black coffee, sign of manliness," Andy says. "He's got sugar, right?"
Pete nods and finds it in the cupboard while Joe gets the mugs out, putting four on the kitchen surface before remembering. Andy makes the coffee, starts to pour it and frowns. "Where's my cup?"
Joe shrugs and Pete rolls his eyes. "You're so persnickety. You're like my grandma."
"I'm not persnickety," Andy says, still frowning at the mugs. "I just like my coffee in my mug. It's mine."
"You're kind of anal," Pete tells him. "And not in the good way."
Andy's smile is sudden and wide. "You don't know me well enough to say that."
Pete raises his eyebrows and opens his mouth before Joe interrupts with a, "Why does every conversation come back to anal sex with us?"
"Just lucky?" Pete suggests.
"I miss Patrick," Joe says. "At least then, we'd talk about music. Or blow-jobs. Your cup's on the sink." He points behind Andy.
Andy pours a cup and Pete makes a note to mock him about his obvious relief. It's a pretty good practice, as Patrickless practices go and Pete's in a good mood after. Andy's on the phone to someone about one of his outside bands and Joe and Pete lean against the side of his van and wait for him to finish. Pete closes his eyes to feel the sun, warm and red against his eyelids and smiling up at it until he hears Joe's amused little huff, like an audible smirk.
"What?" He says, opening one eye enough to see him.
"You talk to Patrick today?" Joe says.
Pete shrugs. "Last night, this morning."
"That explains the good mood," Joe says. "You got your Patrick fix." He holds his hands wide, pacifying. "Hey, I'm not judging. I indulge in a little Patrick myself sometimes. Email, mostly, because if I try talking to him before school or in the evening, his phone's usually busy. Must be making a lot of friends, right?"
"Right," Pete says, and he's normally much better at lying than this, but it's kind of not worth it with Joe. Not worth the effort of trying, and he's too content right now with the sun on his face and one hand still absently picking out chords to even bother.
Joe looks at him, then says, "Pete, are you-- You're kind of clingy, you know? I mean, generally, you are, but also especially."
Pete gives a "Yeah, and?" shrug.
"You and Patrick..." Joe says. "I know you hook up with a lot of people, so I just--"
"It's not--" Pete starts to say. "Me and Patrick, it's not like--" And then he has to figure out the end of that sentence and can't, so he tries again. "We're not, you know. It's just me, I have a-- It's just a thing."
"Just a thing," Joe says. "Not a thing, thing. Just a thing, right?"
"Right," Pete says. "I'm not going to lose my mind over it and Patrick, it's not like he even knows. I just have this--" and he can't say thing again, that sounds stupid and juvenile, so he makes a vague sketch in the air, "--but I'm not like-- it's not like with Danielle or anything. I've got it under control."
"Yeah, because it's not like you're phoning him twice a day or stalking his friends or sleeping in his bed, right?" Joe says. "Because you know, anyone else and that would probably mean it wasn't just a thing, but a major obsession. Since it's you..." He shrugs. "You get kind of focussed sometimes. Addictive personality or something."
Pete grins, hunches down and tries to look as shifty as he can, nervous junkie. "I can quit any time!" he says. "I only do Patrick recreationally."
"Dude, 'do Patrick,'" Joe says, cracking up like he's twelve.
"You have a dirty mind, Joseph Trohman. A dirty, dirty mind." Pete shakes his head in mock-disappointment.
"So recreational, does that mean you suck but you don't in--"
Pete thinks the world owes him for covering Joe's mouth with his hand before he can finish that sentence, especially when Joe licks it right after.
It goes from being weeks, months, *years* until Patrick gets back to being a week away, which means that Pete spends most of that week running around and sorting stuff out. Making sure Andy knows when Patrick's flight lands so he can drive them all to pick him up, working out bus and train routes in case the van breaks down, replacing the plants Pete killed from over-watering, making sure everything in Patrick's place is clean and, at his mum's suggestion, getting a few basics in -milk, bread, frozen pizza- so Patrick doesn't come home to an empty fridge.
He's bracing himself for delays, for the plane being late or Patrick missing it, so he's really not prepared when it lands fifteen minutes early and Patrick's one of the first off, coming off the plane while they're still running to the gate. They rush him at the same time and Pete wins first go by jumping over the seats when Joe has to go around, and then he's jumping on Patrick, making him stagger back and almost drop his laptop case. It's mostly that Joe and Andy get there in time to prop him up that stops Pete from actually knocking Patrick over.
He rubs his nose into Patrick's jacket and just enjoys it, Patrick hugging him, Joe and Andy hugging both of them, until Patrick says, "At some point, I will need to breathe."
"That's a myth," Pete says, but he relaxes his hold enough that he can lean back and-- "dude, your face!"
"What?" Patrick blinks, then puts one hand up to touch the outline of a black eye and winces. "Oh, yeah, that."
"You never said anything!" Pete says, channelling his mother.
"It's not--" Patrick pauses, then looks at Pete. "I don't know if I should tell you."
"What? You're in New York six weeks and you start keeping secrets from me?" Pete puts on puppy-dog eyes and tries to look hurt. It's not entirely successful, because his mouth keeps smiling, wide and dorky and it's a good thing he's way, way past the point where being even the littlest bit cool matters in front of these guys.
"Seriously," Andy says. "If you wanted to get beaten up, we could have done that for you here. I would have personally punched you out, you didn't have to go out of state for that."
"I wasn't beaten up, it was... yeah, I really don't think I should be talking about this in front of the kids. They might get ideas."
Pete and Joe exchange looks and then Joe says, "You know that nothing you say is ever gonna be worse than what we're thinking right now?"
Pete nods. "There are cops and handcuffs and 7 foot tall women named Lola in my head right now."
Patrick smiles and shakes his head. "Nothing like that. Okay, the truth is, Gabe was showing off with his guitar, spinning it around him, and he kind of lost control and it hit me in the eye."
Pete folds his arms and raises a suspicious eyebrow. "That's what you didn't want us to hear? That's pretty weak."
"Pete, look at me. Tell me you're not thinking, right now, how cool it'd look."
Pete meets his eyes for about three seconds before he starts laughing. Patrick shakes his head and looks at Andy. "See? Ideas."
There's a party, which is mostly to welcome Patrick home, but also a pre-birthday thing for Pete. It's at Andy's on the basis that he's moving out of his place at the end of the month. They play a couple of songs while they wait for people to arrive, more like a mini-practice than anything else. Pete listens for differences, and there are some -Patrick holding notes a little longer, a little shorter, breaking off to talk about maybe changing this bit around- but the feel is as good as it ever was. Pete thinks dumb, clichéd thoughts about loving things and setting them free and tries to feel embarrassed about them instead of *smug*.
There are people Pete knows and he keeps introducing Patrick to them, showing him off. Someone has to, since Patrick kind of sucks at doing that for himself. He tries to make sure that Patrick meets the best people. It's bizarre, how many people there are that Pete knows that have never met Patrick or Andy. The guys are just-- they're there, part of Pete's life, and it's like people are only now going, "Oh hey, you have an extra head! Where have you been hiding that?"
They know that Pete's in a band, some of them have seen him play with the guys, but they've never actually talked to them and it really hadn't even occurred to Pete that people who knew him wouldn't have.
Patrick introduces him to his friends. Pete knows some of them from the scene, a couple of them pretty well, but there are a few strangers. Some poli-sci & media studies chick who tells Pete that she met him freshman year and "tried to get him to let me tape him kissing people naked, but he wouldn't even let me take a Polaroid."
"She told me it was for media studies," Patrick said. "A commentary on prejudice, love and beauty."
"You didn't fall for it?"
"Nah, too damn suspicious." She hugs Patrick, then says, "Hey, is Andy here? Because I heard he got new ink done, and I've got to see some skin." She heads off and leaves Pete looking at Patrick, one eyebrow raised.
"Interesting friends you have."
"She's offered to do our music videos," Patrick says. "But she's kind of-- poli-sci and media studies, it's all porn and propaganda."
Pete grins at him. "And that's bad?"
Patrick tries to ruffle his hair but Pete's hair gel triumphs. "She'd have us all thrown in prison for getting your and Joe's jailbait naked bodies on MTV."
"One month and I'm legal," Pete says. He steals a kiss, joking and quick on Patrick's mouth before he can blink, and says, "Maybe I should get all my illicit sex in while I still can?"
"You're not bored with that stuff yet?"
Pete smiles at Patrick's faked look of disbelief and lets Patrick back away a little. "Sex gets boring? You really must lose it after eighteen."
"Sure it's fun, but have you ever tried doing your taxes? Applying for a grant? Signing a lease?" Patrick sighs and looks heavenward, exaggerated afterglow. "You never forget your first rental agreement."
That girl's cool, and so is the big guy that Patrick knows from Mythology 101 who does security in his part-time. Patrick knows good people, mostly, and some of them aren't exactly to Pete's taste, but a lot of them are exactly the kind of people Patrick should have as friends. There are a couple of people that he doesn't click with, the ones that give Pete this look when Patrick introduces him. It's not mean, exactly, just kind of dismissive. The kind of look that, in a club, would have Pete clenching his hands in to fists, throwing a punch or dragging them on to the dance floor. Playing faster, screaming louder if he was on stage.
He can't exactly do that here, not when they're Patrick's friends, so he just leans on Patrick a little more when one guy says, "So you're in high school, right?" and shows his teeth when he smiles. It's not even about the way they treat him, because he's sixteen, he's used to "you're just young," and "when you're older," it's the way they act like him and Patrick, like the band, is just a joke or Patrick being kind.
It's only a few people, because most of Patrick's friends are cool, and it's easily trumped by Patrick's, "This is Pete, my bassist, the guy I told you about." "Pete's the guy that makes me get in front of people and sing." And, "Joe and Pete were already playing together when they got me and Andy to join."
It's a rush and it's calming and Pete feels right, like he hasn't done in a while. Part of him wants to do something, dance, play, something, and part of him just wants to stay here like this. It's exactly the sort of moment, he thinks, when the obvious thing, sex or not even that, just making out, would be perfect.
Seventeen in a month, Pete thinks, and that might make a difference. He finds a couch and pulls Patrick down on it, so Patrick's sitting in the corner and Pete's at the other end, his legs swung over Patrick's lap, toeing his shoes off and leaning back. A familiar shape, tall and skinny, floats into view.
"Bill!" he says. "Over here."
He straightens up a little, pulling himself upright using the sofa couch and ignoring Patrick's oof when it makes Pete's heels dig in too hard. "You made it, then?"
"I think so," Bill says.
Patrick smiles and waves an introduction. "Bill Beckett, Patrick Stump."
Bill holds his hand out for Patrick to shake, polite as any one could like. "You're Pete's Patrick?"
Pete grins and slings his arm across Patrick. "My very own."
Bill's smile is pretty, a little sly, but mostly pretty. Pete wonders if he's drunk, but downgrades it to tipsy when Bill says, "It's just, from the way Pete talks about you, I was expecting you to be seven foot tall and made of gold. With, like, Shiva-arms, guitar in one hand, microphone in the other, keyboard in the third and fourth and an extra set fiddling with the sound board."
"Sorry to disappoint you," Patrick says. He holds out his hands. "Just the two."
Bill shrugs. "It's okay, they're nice hands anyway." He looks at Pete and raises an eyebrow, like he's asking Pete a question. Pete's not sure what he's asking, so he just shrugs. "Are you guys going to play later? Someone said I missed it, being fashionably late."
"You didn't miss much. We haven't practiced in weeks," Patrick says. "We were kind of a mess."
"And yet, we still rocked," Pete says. "We're pretty fucking miraculous that way."
"That's the kind of thing that gets me interested," Bill says. "Pete's kind of got me curious about you. He talks about you a lot."
"That's, uh. Nice of him?" Patrick says, like he's not quite sure that's true. "Pete may be a little biased."
"Pete knows a good thing when he sees it," Pete says.
Bill sits down on the arm of the couch on the other side of Patrick and reaches down to grab his hat. Patrick slams a hand on it before he can, keeping it on there as he tilts his head up to look at Bill. "No," he says, firm as Pete's mom with a puppy.
Bill makes another grab and Patrick jerks back, falling on to Pete and Bill slides down into the new space. There's only just enough room for him, and he slings his arm across the back of the couch, behind Patrick, crossing over Pete's. "So I sing too, and play guitar, but I don't know, because I like playing guitar, but sometimes it's kind of distracting when I'm singing. You get that? Because I'm thinking about the words and audience and connecting and sometimes I lose track of what I'm doing." Bill shrugs and he's stroking Pete's forearm, lightly, probably not even aware he's doing it. "I just don't want it to be a barrier between me and the audience. How do you deal with that?"
"I like the barrier," Patrick says. "It's-- we tried a couple of times, just me singing and I--"
"You pretty much hated it," Pete says.
"I didn't-- hate is kind of-- it just wasn't comfortable, you know? Being the centre of attention like that."
"Yeah?" Bill says with polite lack of comprehension. "I guess that would be-- uh, so you felt kind of exposed?"
"Naked without an instrument," Patrick says. "And no-one wants to see me naked under a spotlight."
"Dude, you underestimate our fanbase."
"Our fanbase is about ten guys and your parents."
"Yeah, but those ten guys?" Pete grins.
"Is it different if you have another singer on stage?" Bill says, leaning in to Patrick a little. His hand strokes along Pete's arm, his wrist and tangles his fingers in Pete. "Maybe a duet or something. Or back-up." He makes a face. "I'm kind of between bands and if don't get to sing with someone soon, I'm gonna go crazy. I tried doing the solo thing, but you kind of need people, you know?"
He looks at Patrick again, managing to look up through his lashes even though he's about a foot taller, and his thumb brushes across Pete's wrist and Pete's turned on and trying not to laugh, because Bill really, really fails utterly at subtlety.
"Music, like pretty much everything, is better when you do it with other people," Bill says. He sounds sincere, edging on to deep and meaningful, and Pete has a moment where he thinks, "He's only sixteen," which is stupid, because it's not like Pete's much older, and he knows Bill isn't exactly sweet sixteen and never been kissed, kicked or caught in public with something better left private.
He wonders if this is how Patrick feels, looking at him. He leans his head against Patrick's shoulder, shuffles in a little closer, and finds where Patrick's T-shirt ends and he can just put his hand flat against Patrick's stomach. He doesn't mean anything special by it except that he likes touching him and that he hasn't quite got over six weeks without him, and he's careful not to press so lightly that it tickles and to keep the rest of his body from pressing against him. Patrick's good at ignoring when Pete's hard, jokes about teenage hormones aside -like he's that much older- but Pete's got used to not pressing too much. It makes it easier to get away with things like this.
And it's not that he's forgotten about Bill, because Bill's leg is touching his, even with Patrick in the middle, his thumb is stroking Pete's skin. It's just that he didn't really think what this might look like to him. Bill's obviously taking it as permission or agreement or something, because he smiles and shifts position, turning more on to his side and bringing his leg up a little, so he's pretty much pressed against Patrick's side and one leg is crossing over Patrick's. Patrick moves back, automatically trying to make room, before coming up against Pete on the other side and stopping. Pete has his hand on Patrick's stomach, so he can feel when he tenses. He relaxes, but Pete knows when Patrick's forcing himself not to tense.
"Yeah, I like working with people," he says, and his voice is light, almost perfect. "I've been in bands pretty much since I first picked up a set of drumsticks. Not really the lone wolf type."
"I'm the same," Bill says. "I just wasn't built to live in isolation. I need people, connection, you know? Especially with music. You've got to be around people with the same language sometimes. So you started out on drums?" He picks up Patrick's hand and looks at it like he's checking for calluses. "Does that give you a different perspective? Like, you're more aware of the rhythm, even when you're doing the melody?"
"Sometimes you pick up one more than the other, but I think that's true with everyone," Patrick says. He's casual, like he doesn't get what Bill's doing, but Pete knows Patrick well enough to know that it's deliberate. He knows the difference between Patrick Not Getting It and *really* not getting it. Deliberate and cheerful attempt at shutting Bill down without ever having to acknowledge the attempt. Patrick pulls his hand out and puts it on his thigh, which might be a mistake because Bill follows it there.
Patrick's smile is kind of uncomfortable, but still trying for "I have no idea what you're doing, that's how much I don't think of you that way." Pete's seen it in action a couple of times and it normally works, but not right now. Bill just looks like he thinks Patrick really doesn't get it, like he's just not seeing it instead of refusing to see it. Bill's not good at subtleties or not used to being put off. Either way, he's leaning on Patrick and it's funny if you know Patrick well enough to know that he's trying not to freak out.
He can see Bill's hand inching up Patrick's thigh and -- yeah, Pete should be nice to Patrick since he only just got him back. He pinches the back of Bill's hand and says, "Can I borrow you for a second?" when Bill looks up, getting to his feet and dragging him off to the kitchen.
"What?" Bill says, rubbing the back of his hand.
"You need to stop hitting on Patrick," Pete says, leaning back on a cupboard.
"Why?" Like he honestly can't see any reason why that would be a problem, and Pete can sympathise with him, really, but...
"Because he doesn't want you to," he says.
"What?" Bill says. "What's the problem?"
"Patrick has this--" not thing "--this policy, where he doesn't fuck around with people our age."
"What, ever?"
"Yeah. So you need to stop before he starts feeling like a dirty old man."
Bill folds his arms and looks at Pete. "Right. And this isn't just you warning me off. It's not like I'm trying to steal your vocalist, Pete. I just want to borrow him for a bit, and you're welcome to watch or join in or whatever."
"I said we didn't fuck," Pete says.
"You just said you never had, which means yet," Bill corrects. "I didn't get that it was like, something you didn't do."
"Right," Pete says. "Like some people don't drink, some people don't smoke. I don't have sex with Patrick."
"Right," Bill says. "I didn't realise it was a thing."
"It's not," Pete says. "It's Patrick, and he has his boundaries or whatever, and you're pushing them so stop. He doesn't like it."
"He doesn't like it." Bill holds up a hand. "Seriously, Pete, if I'm stepping on your toes--"
"Hey, I'm all for Patrick getting laid," Pete says, then lowers his voice when he realises how loud that came out. "Seriously, no-one is more pro that than me. I like it when good things happen to my friends." Bill opens his mouth to say something and Pete talks faster before he can. "Just-- think of it like he has a girlfriend already or something? It's not that he doesn't think you're..." He gestures at Bill, because Bill knows how good he looks, but likes it when you say it too. "But he's gonna make a point of not noticing, because he thinks he shouldn't. Right?"
Bill looks at him, obviously trying to judge Pete's sincerity and Pete tries to look honest even though he knows it makes him look like he's faking it the more sincere he actually is. "But it's not like he's *old*," Bill says, and Pete relaxes. Bill sounds like he believes Pete, he just doesn't get it. "And I want to."
"He just has a thing about it. I don't get it either," Pete says, "I just have to accept it, like... like Andy and cheese. Vegan, doesn't eat it," he adds off of Bill's look.
Bill frowns, pouts a little. It's not deliberate, which makes it kind of cute. "That sucks. Or doesn't, whatever."
Pete hooks a hand on his shoulder sympathetically. "Yeah, I know. Hey, big party, lots of other people if you're looking to hook up." And he's not really thinking about it because it might interfere with his plan to glue himself to Patrick's side all night, but Bill is there and he looks good, and Pete presses himself along his side, rubbing his thumb where Bill's shoulder joins his neck.
"Mmm." Bill looks at him, smiles a little, then says, "Maybe we can just go back and talk. He's kind of good to listen to anyway." His smile widens. "I'll just think of him as the Venus de Milo or something, or an original vinyl of Electric Ladyland. Just appreciate the beauty."
Pete grins, because that works. He likes it when people like Patrick, when they appreciate him, so he grabs a bag of chips to have an excuse for coming in here and heads back out.
Someone's taken their space on the couch and Patrick's turned to face her, one knee resting on the seat, leaning in. Pete doesn't recognise the girl, but he recognises her body language, the tilt of her head, the way she's leaning in. Bill makes a little sound of disappointment and Pete thinks she doesn't look like Faye particularly, but Patrick's leaning in too, and there, he makes a vague gesture and when he drops his hand on the back of the sofa, it's kind of touching hers.
For a moment it's like there are two Petes and one of them's thinking, Hey, good for Patrick, because the girl is hot, college-cool with an afro and glasses that look pretty much identical to Patrick's, and Patrick should get that, Pete likes thinking about Patrick moving on (moving up) from Faye and hooking up with cool (hot) people that don't make him feel like a dirty old man.
The other Pete isn't really thinking anything, except that Patrick's leaning in to her and she's sitting in Pete's place on the couch and he's looking at her and she's touching his hand and she's sitting in Pete's place and Patrick looks okay with that.
"Aw," Bill says from behind Pete, bringing him back to himself. "I think we've been replaced."
"He doesn't even know her," Pete says, and wonders if that's true. He hasn't seen her before, but that doesn't mean anything. Patrick knows a lot of people Pete's never met. He walks up behind them and clears his throat. "Hey," he says.
Patrick looks up and he and the girl kind of lean away in a way that makes it obvious that they were leaning in a second before. "Pete," he says, sounding kind of surprised. "I thought--" Pete can see Patrick's quick glance at Bill, the slight embarrassment and oh. Not an unreasonable assumption, not when Pete practically dragged Bill off, but seriously, does Patrick think Pete would just abandon him on his welcome home party to hook up?
"Just getting supplies," he says, holding up the chips in explanation. "I leave you alone for five minutes..." He shakes his head. "This is why I keep telling you we need a bodyguard."
"Yeah, if you didn't keep picking fights with the headliners..." Patrick says, rolling his eyes. "Seriously, we need them to protect your ass, not my virtue. Wait, that didn't come out right."
Pete's laugh is dirty because accidental innuendo is the best kind. He smiles at the girl and she really is pretty, nice wide smile back at him. Patrick finds his manners and says, "Oh! This is Sara. She's a friend of Andy's."
"We used to abuse the same employee discount," she says. She's smiling and friendly, but her body's still turning towards Patrick and she's not opening up the space between them. Pete's kind of tempted to drop in between them anyway. It'd be kind of rude to just sit between them, but kind of funny as well, the way messing with your friends always is.
Bill's hands are on Pete's shoulders and his voice is cheerful in Pete's ear and he says, "You two kids have fun!" And he steers Pete away.
"What?" Pete says
Bill looks at him and rolls his eyes. "You can't think of anything more fun to do than cockblock your friend?"
Pete hesitates, thinking about it.
"You have warped priorities, Wentz."
"Part of my charm?"
"Yeah, you just keep telling yourself that," Bill says. He shrugs then adds, faux-causal, "Also, you're kind of in love with Patrick."
"You're like the second person to tell me that this week," Pete says. "I don't see what the big deal is. You're halfway there and you've only known him for like, five minutes."
"I'm not that easy," Bill says. "I just wanted to blow him. You're thinking marriage, a house with a studio, 2.5 kids and a puppy."
"Four bedrooms and a big kitchen," Pete says. He pats Bill on the shoulder. "You'll understand when you settle down with a real band of your own."
Bill pouts. "I want to make the commitment, it's just so hard to find someone that feels the same way."
"I hear Mike's band broke up again," Pete says. "Maybe you can catch him on the rebound?"
"Because that always works so well," Bill says. Then, "Yeah, maybe."
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