Fic: Understanding: Lack Of, To Have An, bandslash, non-gen
Title: Understanding: Lack Of, To Have An
Author: jamjar
Fandom: Bandslash (RPS). Fall Out Boy/Gym Class Heroes
Person ultimately responsible: ficbyzee again. She kept saying things! And then writing things and demanding I entertain her! She also audienced and beta-read and was about equal parts loveliness and evil.
Summary: Travis doesn't get it, even though he is and does.
Notes: Fair warning, this is RPS, Patrick/Travis explicitly and other stuff on the edges, mostly involving Travis, Pete and/or Patrick. Sexual content so avoid if that's not your cup of tea.
Disclaimer: Utterly fictional.
Feedback (including comments, criticisms and point out weird formatting) is all appreciated.
Travis isn't surprised that Patrick and Pete aren't hooking up. Bands, tours, things happen. Sometimes, you just don't. What he doesn't get is that it's never happened. Not once. Ever. And that's pretty fucking weird. And they can't even explain it to him when he asks.
"I don't mean, you know, dating. Just maybe making out sometimes, post-show fucks. Or right at the beginning, when you didn't really know each other and he was just some hot guy you maybe could get to like when he wasn't being, you know, how he is sometimes. Never?"
Pete rolls his eyes and kicks Travis's leg with his foot. He's lying on his back on the bench, and Travis is kind of envious that he can do that, fold up into that small a space. Like the group was designed for tour buses, smaller sized for their convenience. "Stop trying to distract me from kicking your ass on this."
Travis punch-punch-kick-jump-on-the-head combos. "Okay, but you've watched porn together, right? You gave each other a hand then-- fucker! You fucking motherfucker of a fucking--"
"You need to expand your vocabulary," Pete says lazily. "Maybe you'll have time in between crying your eyes out at my complete dominance of you in the field of all things digi--" He stops, focusing on the bright green alien that appeared on screen. "Where's my chainsaw?"
"So you just took care of yourself? Patrick's sitting there, right next to you, hot lesbians or guys or whatever you're into in your porn on screen, and you don't even reach other and-- What the fuck? What the fuck is a dinosaur doing in a futuristic dystopia?"
"Kicking your ass, it looks like," Pete says. "And no, I didn't. This may be a shocker to you, but not everyone thinks watching porn with their friends is, like, obligatory group bonding."
Travis throws down the controller as the dinosaur --fucking game is cheating, and velociraptors never got that big anyway and they had feathers, he saw it on Discovery Channel--bites his head off. "Didn't hear any complaints from you," he says.
"Yeah, but that's because you have the world's biggest and best selection of porn. It's impressive. Or scary, one of those."
Travis watches moodily as Pete chainsaws off the dinosaur's leg, before shooting it with a rocket launcher. "I've got to have a range, man. That's just being sociable. Some of my friends, especially some of my girl friends, are pretty fucking picky. And some of them only like girl on girl, but not Pent House girl-on-girl, but the real stuff, and some of them have pretty fucking weird ideas of what constitutes porn, and then there's-- so I'm not just being a perv. I'm being polite. Considerate. 'Cause that's the kind of guy I am. And you can skip the ending sequence."
"Come on, they're rewarding my diligence and bravery in saving their planet. I've got to at least let them give me the princess. It's only polite. Considerate."
Travis reaches over, takes the controller out of Pete's hand and cancels the ending sequence before the dancing girls show up. Pete makes a grab for it, and Travis pretty much just falls on him, trapping him. Pete's giving him the look, like he's debating feet, knees, fists or elbows, and Travis tries to keep his hands pinned against the wall, "be free" under his fingers. "Seriously," he says. "Never?"
Pete rolls his eyes, manages to get his feet up somehow and kick Travis with both feet, off him and the bench and on to the floor. "You're still on this? No, I have never had sex with your boyfriend. Not even handjobs, not even circlejerks or anything."
Travis looks up at him, rubbing the back of his head where it hit the cupboard. "That's kind of-- that's kind of stupid. I mean, your loss, but..." He shakes his head. "You guys are strange. And maybe a little dumb. Really?"
The thing is, Travis hadn't even thought about it, he'd just assumed so strongly that even now he knows differently, he can't quite shake it. Travis had just kind of assumed, from the way they interact, that they'd done *something*. And because, you know, friends. There's a whole closed group, living together, vans, hotels, hanging out thing. After a certain amount of time, you've spent that much time around someone, you're gonna have at least watched porn together. That's just-- that's just a law of nature. Of probability or something.
Pete looks at him and rolls his eyes. "Dude, stop thinking about me fucking your boyfriend." He draws out the boyfriend, like he always does, like he's six years old. You like him, he's your boyfriend, you want to marry him...
Travis thinks he wouldn't have to think it if Pete and Patrick had actually done it.
He's sort of-- you know, buddyfucking sounds kind of rude, and friends with benefits is so fucking 90s, mock-coy, so he's just fucking and hanging with Patrick, who is a friend.
Which is pretty fucking great, really, because Patrick is the band guy equivalent of That Girl in teen movies or the secretary in some 1950s film. The one that's low-key, but funny enough, and then ends up having sex on the desk with Cary Grant or something. You know, off-screen because of that Hayes code shit, but still.
He's easy, in the best way that mostly involves being persuadable and being willing to smack Travis down, hard and with no room for misinterpretation when he's not in the mood or whatever, which leaves relatively little room for Travis to fuck up in.
He's a good fuck, without having any issues about it, and Travis can work with the ones he does have. the whole "Uh, I know we've just spent the last fifteen minutes naked and doing things that would get us imprisoned in three states, shot in two more, but now that you're not distracted by sex, I'm just going to put this T-shirt on to sleep in. But casual, so you won't notice I'm doing it."
It's-- okay, it's kind of funny, but also, at the right time? Kind of hot. Reminds him of school, the keep-your-pants on method of contraception vs. "aw, baby, I just want to see, let me, I promise I won't think you're easy."
Fantastic blowjobs, which would be even better if Travis could break Patrick of his tendency to only give them in rooms or closets that have doors that lock. It speaks of the kind of deep emotional trauma that Travis needs to know and bring up at any possible opportunity. Possibly in song.
And, in between, there's talking about music and bands and Patrick is actually, genuinely funny. Getting to hang out more with Fall Out Boy, which is better than good. They're, like, concentrated goodness, which is why they're all so short. Focussed down to being varying degrees of dorky-cool. Some of them -one of them- fakes genuine cool for the cameras, but really, they're all closer to the dorky-cool end of the spectrum.
Travis knows, because he occasionally hovers there himself, though he's usually assumed to be generic cool by people who don't realise he is his own category of Travis Cool, which, if the rest of the band is lucky, will rub off on them
("Fuck off, Travie. You listen to musicals," Disashi says, hitting him in the stomach.
"Fuck you, Cole Porter rocks. 'Always true to you, darling in my fashion--' Ow! You fucker!")
There's a lot of hanging with Pete because Patrick sometimes goes into these little moods when he's working on something, where he doesn't quite tell you to go away, so much as imply that your existence in the world is more or less irrelevant until he's found out a way to get that bit of the chorus to stop sounding like it belongs in a high school staging of Les Miserables and more like it belongs in the top 10.
So, yeah, Pete. Who doesn't act differently after Travis starts hooking up with Patrick, not even to give them the usual hard time of a best friend. Travis is kind of disappointed, but not so much that he won't stop trying to figure out how Pete keeps cheating when they play video games
"You see," Pete says, jerking the controller around like he's playing DDR at the same time, "It's not just that I'm awesome. It's that you suck. You suck amazingly. There are whole extra levels of sucking, to which you, my friend, belong to. It's actually kind of impressive."
Travis throws his obviously broken -or sabotaged- control at the ground, then attacks. Pete is little, but wiry and vicious, and Travis has to make the most use of his long arms to keep Pete from his sides.
It's mostly successful, because Pete doesn't end on top, but when Joe walks in and says, "Are you working your way through the band? Because my girlfriend said that after the thing with Ryan--"
Pete manages to get a hand free enough to give Joe the finger. "She was just angry we didn't tape it."
"Her and youtube both," Joe says. Pete uses his now-free hand to make a sudden, sneak attack, poking Travis in his side, using the automatic reaction to twist around and land on top.
"Yes! Still the king. Technically, this makes you my bitch," Pete says. He reaches across, grabs the controller and starts playing the game. "And I'm still in first pla-- fuck, where'd that guy come from?"
He gets off and sits back on the bench, heels resting against Travis's side. Travis puts on a pathetic look, until Joe shakes his head and says, "Hey, at least he's not going to sell your ass for a pack of smokes."
Which isn't a bad idea. Travis mimes a smoke himself, raising an eyebrow, and Joe shrugs and then grins.
Later, when Patrick gets in to bed, T-shirt on, Travis is feeling warm, coasting along, and he'd be perfectly happy to just pet Patrick, along his sides, his head, spreading his hands across his skin, feeling his hip bones, the reassuringly solidity of it.
But he's happy when Patrick sighs, pushes back in to him. Travis feels like he can hold all of him, big enough to spread around like a tree, and Patrick says, "I'm kind of tired," which he knows isn't the same as, "I'm too tired."
"I'm kind of tired" means yeah, why not. Easy, not rushing, and Travis could bring him off like that with his hand on his cock, hearing Patrick sigh and yawn and return the favour, casual and easy before falling asleep.
It's tempting, because Patrick has this way of pushing back against him, his head falling forward, when they do it like that. Travis honestly doesn't even need the hand job after, he's quite happy coming against Patrick's back. Maybe next time. Not like there's a limit on this. This time, Travis thinks, he kind of wants to blow him.
So he crawls under the covers, because Patrick's got his T-shirt on and Travis is kind of feeling the whole TV friendly thing, la la la everyone knows why the blankets are moving like that, but we're just going to pretend for the censors we don't. It's dark and muffled and a little too hot, and he can't see anything, but he doesn't have to. It's not like there's going to be any surprises, just Patrick, Patrick's dick, and Travis feeling friendly with the world. He doesn't try anything fancy, just goes with what works. Spreads his thighs a little wider, liking the feel of them, warm, solid in the best way. All that smooth, pale skin, and he flexes his fingers on the muscles, hard enough to feel them tense underneath. He rests the side of his face against Patrick's hip, just for a moment, so he can feel his body tense and all those tiny and deep sounds of movement rather than voice are amplified. And then, because he's feeling lazy and greedy both, he moves just a little closer and licks, along the side and to the top, and then he takes Patrick in. Travis likes to think he's as good at this as he is at everything else, but the truth is, he kind of lacks patience. He wants more, now, always.
One hand keeping Patrick steady, and when he can feel Patrick get close -it's different, not being able to hear so clearly, but Patrick's fingers tighten on his shoulders- he puts his own hand on his dick and starts jerking off.
Patrick comes, and then Travis does, and he crawls back up Patrick. "Need clean sheets."
"Hmm," Patrick says, eyes shut and smiling slightly, which isn't helpful. Then, "Get a towel from the bathroom. Warm night."
He kicks the blankets off, down the end of the bed, and Travis gets a towel, covers the worst of the wet spot then shuffles over, wrapping around Patrick. Patrick settles against him and Travis brushes his hair back, rests his chin on his shoulder and falls asleep
He wakes up because Patrick elbows him. "Wha?" He blinks, pushes his hair out of his face.
"You're pushing me off the bed," Patrick says, turning to shove him back. "You don't need that much space."
"Yeah, I do," Travis says, rolling in tight. He sprawls across Patrick, liking the warmth and the feeling of space, the freedom to move. Being able to stretch out, and he's spent long enough in a touring van to be able to appreciate that. He rubs his face in Patrick's T-shirt and settles down to go back to sleep.
Patrick shoves back again, and Travis goes with the motion, helping it along so he's half rolling Patrick over him and on to the other side, and then he can pin him down again, lazily spread over like a starfish. "Hmm," he says, and there's Patrick's neck, the collar of his T-shirt, and it smells good, so Travis just kind of nuzzles in, drifting off again without quite meaning to.
"I've got work to do," Patrick says, but quietly, like he doesn't want to wake Travis if he's already sleeping.
"Always got stuff to do," Travis says, smiling, eyes shut. "Long periods of stuff to do, short periods of--" Mmm. It's nice like this, and he can feel the sun on the edge of the curtains, but he doesn't have to see it. Just knows that it's there, and Patrick's comfortable, warm. He finds Patrick's hand, laces his fingers through it. There's the usual generalised temptation to do something because he knows he could, and it would be good, but this is good too, as long as Patrick doesn't move.
He can feel Patrick's chest expand, hear him sigh and then settle. "Ten minutes," he says, still pitched low enough not to wake anyone sleeping.
Travis wakes up properly before Patrick, feeling sharp, energised. Productive, he thinks, humming nothing in particular. Today's going to be a good day for writing, as long as he doesn't get distracted. A good day for other stuff, if he does. He gets out of bed carefully, because Patrick, ten-minutes or not, is sleeping, and Travis has never been good at waking people up, not quite heartless enough for that.
Pete's already up in a hoodie he must have stolen from someone else, bigger than he normally wears. It's familiar, so probably someone from the band. Hood's up and he's eating a slice of apple, shoulders hunched like he's fully prepared to give the morning a fight if it insists on making its presence felt.
Mornings make Pete suspicious, and he squints at Travis like he's not quite sure of him. Travis smiles and sits down at the table, getting a plate together. "You think they're got oatmeal?" he says. "With maple syrup and raisins, none of that dry shit, the good stuff. Sweet."
"It's a four star hotel," Pete says, then he puts the apple core on the table. "You're awake." He says. It's an accusation.
"Yep." Travis smiles brightly and pats his hair. Not trying to tidy it up, he knows how pointless that is, just kind of, liking the feel of it. It's warm from lying in the sun. "Got some coffee?"
"You might wanna put some clothes on if you're going to drink hot coffee," Pete says. "You're pretty clumsy in the morning."
"Just when I'm hungover."
"Or still drunk. Are you high?"
"On life, baby." He scoots his chair around the table s he's sitting next to Pete and hugs him, resting his chin on his head. Pete elbows him and Travis rubs where it hit. "You're so vicious," he says. "Damn bony emo elbows."
"There are knives on the table, Travie," Pete says, but he goes back to eating his apple, every bit of it, including the stem. He stops, mid-chew and says, "Where's Patrick?" Like Travis has hidden him somewhere. Kidnapped him, and is only here eating breakfast with Pete to throw him off the scent. Travis pictures himself in a Lex Luther suit, maybe Moriaty. Evil genius.
"Sleeping," he says. Maybe that can be the next video. Or something old-fashioned, silent movie. He twirls an imaginary moustache and pictures someone tied to the train tracks. Maybe that girl, the one from the show with the guy. Maybe he could do a 16 candles thing, get Bill to play dress-up. he shakes his head to clear it of the image of white nightgowns and looks back at Pete, who's staring at him.
"It's morning," he says, like this is Travis's fault. "Why are you up and Patrick's sleeping?"
Travis sighs, locks his fingers together behind his head and leans back on his chair, balancing on two legs. "Last night, fuck man, last night was just-- there were ropes, handcuffs, vibes, we were--"
"I sleep next door," Pete says. "The walls aren't that thick."
Travis lets his chair fall forward with a thump. "That's what the gags are for," he says reasonably.
Pete rolls his eyes and starts to eat another apple. "Patrick doesn't like gags," he says. "Or being restrained or whatever."
"Hey, who said they were for him?" Travis says. And he looks at Pete for a moment, because Pete said that like it was common knowledge, like it was "Patrick has red hair", "Patrick wears glasses." Like how Travis might say, "Patrick only lets you keep him still when you're blowing him or if he's fucking you with you on top."
Like that.
It's-- it's something. Cute, maybe, so Travis gives Pete another little squeeze. "He's sleeping. Couldn't wake him up."
Pete shakes his head. "You're such a pussy."
"You do it then," Travis says. "if you can. He's sleeping." And that should explain it all, because Patrick had the sheets pushed off a little, slight frown, T-shirt riding up his back so there was easily eight inches more of skin than Patrick usually showed.
"Pathetic," Pete says, but he's not leaping out of his seat either. Travis is still kind of hugging him, so he leans in a little more, resting the side of his face on the top of Pete's head. Pete's sweatshirt is scratchy where it touches Travis's skin. Maybe he should get Pete some fleeces, something nice and soft to rub against. Travis hums a little until Pete says, "We've got stuff to do. Patrick has stuff to do."
"You wake him up," Travis says. "Go, with my blessing." He waves his hand at the door and smiles serenely. "Yeah, that's what I thought. Fucking weak, Wentz."
Pete rubs his forehead against Travis shoulder, then pauses, just a little lech, before looking up and saying, "Hey, shouldn't your boyfriend take care of that."
Travis laughs. "Point. Go wake him up so he can."
Pete elbows him again and shrugs out from under his arm. "What's in it for me?" He looks at Travis's expression, then smacks him upside the hide. Not as hard as he'd like, as hard as Travis's grandmother can do, but a good try. "Pervert," he says.
Travis tries to look injured. "Hey, I was just gonna offer you in on the post-coital cuddles. You like that," he says, because Pete takes obscene use of how Patrick is just a little easier, after, a little more likely to let you curl up over him, let you rest your head in his lap while he taps away on the laptop on the table.
A little more likely to let you pet him.
Pete's pretty good about his friends having people, but he's also kind of a cat, prowling around after, waiting for a free lap to jump in and reclaim. He doesn't quite wait outside the bunk til it's finished then jump in when people are still breathing heavily and put himself in the middle, but--
Okay, one time, maybe. Not pushing anyone out, but Pete tends to hang on people, and that doesn't change just because two of his friends are fucking, or just finished. Pete loves the afterglow, even when he didn't do the work to get it.
Travis shakes his head at him. "You're lazy, you know that?" He says reaching over for the syrup before remembering he doesn't have his breakfast yet. He looks at it for a few seconds wondering what to do. Pete's got some of his cereal left. "Hey, syrup instead of milk, genius or insane?"
"You make no fucking sense in the morning," Pete said.
Travis grins and kisses him quick and easy before he can react. "Yeah, but I'm pretty fucking cute anyway."
"Only reason we keep you around," Pete says. He looks over at Patrick in the doorway. "Right?"
End.
Author: jamjar
Fandom: Bandslash (RPS). Fall Out Boy/Gym Class Heroes
Person ultimately responsible: ficbyzee again. She kept saying things! And then writing things and demanding I entertain her! She also audienced and beta-read and was about equal parts loveliness and evil.
Summary: Travis doesn't get it, even though he is and does.
Notes: Fair warning, this is RPS, Patrick/Travis explicitly and other stuff on the edges, mostly involving Travis, Pete and/or Patrick. Sexual content so avoid if that's not your cup of tea.
Disclaimer: Utterly fictional.
Feedback (including comments, criticisms and point out weird formatting) is all appreciated.
Travis isn't surprised that Patrick and Pete aren't hooking up. Bands, tours, things happen. Sometimes, you just don't. What he doesn't get is that it's never happened. Not once. Ever. And that's pretty fucking weird. And they can't even explain it to him when he asks.
"I don't mean, you know, dating. Just maybe making out sometimes, post-show fucks. Or right at the beginning, when you didn't really know each other and he was just some hot guy you maybe could get to like when he wasn't being, you know, how he is sometimes. Never?"
Pete rolls his eyes and kicks Travis's leg with his foot. He's lying on his back on the bench, and Travis is kind of envious that he can do that, fold up into that small a space. Like the group was designed for tour buses, smaller sized for their convenience. "Stop trying to distract me from kicking your ass on this."
Travis punch-punch-kick-jump-on-the-head combos. "Okay, but you've watched porn together, right? You gave each other a hand then-- fucker! You fucking motherfucker of a fucking--"
"You need to expand your vocabulary," Pete says lazily. "Maybe you'll have time in between crying your eyes out at my complete dominance of you in the field of all things digi--" He stops, focusing on the bright green alien that appeared on screen. "Where's my chainsaw?"
"So you just took care of yourself? Patrick's sitting there, right next to you, hot lesbians or guys or whatever you're into in your porn on screen, and you don't even reach other and-- What the fuck? What the fuck is a dinosaur doing in a futuristic dystopia?"
"Kicking your ass, it looks like," Pete says. "And no, I didn't. This may be a shocker to you, but not everyone thinks watching porn with their friends is, like, obligatory group bonding."
Travis throws down the controller as the dinosaur --fucking game is cheating, and velociraptors never got that big anyway and they had feathers, he saw it on Discovery Channel--bites his head off. "Didn't hear any complaints from you," he says.
"Yeah, but that's because you have the world's biggest and best selection of porn. It's impressive. Or scary, one of those."
Travis watches moodily as Pete chainsaws off the dinosaur's leg, before shooting it with a rocket launcher. "I've got to have a range, man. That's just being sociable. Some of my friends, especially some of my girl friends, are pretty fucking picky. And some of them only like girl on girl, but not Pent House girl-on-girl, but the real stuff, and some of them have pretty fucking weird ideas of what constitutes porn, and then there's-- so I'm not just being a perv. I'm being polite. Considerate. 'Cause that's the kind of guy I am. And you can skip the ending sequence."
"Come on, they're rewarding my diligence and bravery in saving their planet. I've got to at least let them give me the princess. It's only polite. Considerate."
Travis reaches over, takes the controller out of Pete's hand and cancels the ending sequence before the dancing girls show up. Pete makes a grab for it, and Travis pretty much just falls on him, trapping him. Pete's giving him the look, like he's debating feet, knees, fists or elbows, and Travis tries to keep his hands pinned against the wall, "be free" under his fingers. "Seriously," he says. "Never?"
Pete rolls his eyes, manages to get his feet up somehow and kick Travis with both feet, off him and the bench and on to the floor. "You're still on this? No, I have never had sex with your boyfriend. Not even handjobs, not even circlejerks or anything."
Travis looks up at him, rubbing the back of his head where it hit the cupboard. "That's kind of-- that's kind of stupid. I mean, your loss, but..." He shakes his head. "You guys are strange. And maybe a little dumb. Really?"
The thing is, Travis hadn't even thought about it, he'd just assumed so strongly that even now he knows differently, he can't quite shake it. Travis had just kind of assumed, from the way they interact, that they'd done *something*. And because, you know, friends. There's a whole closed group, living together, vans, hotels, hanging out thing. After a certain amount of time, you've spent that much time around someone, you're gonna have at least watched porn together. That's just-- that's just a law of nature. Of probability or something.
Pete looks at him and rolls his eyes. "Dude, stop thinking about me fucking your boyfriend." He draws out the boyfriend, like he always does, like he's six years old. You like him, he's your boyfriend, you want to marry him...
Travis thinks he wouldn't have to think it if Pete and Patrick had actually done it.
He's sort of-- you know, buddyfucking sounds kind of rude, and friends with benefits is so fucking 90s, mock-coy, so he's just fucking and hanging with Patrick, who is a friend.
Which is pretty fucking great, really, because Patrick is the band guy equivalent of That Girl in teen movies or the secretary in some 1950s film. The one that's low-key, but funny enough, and then ends up having sex on the desk with Cary Grant or something. You know, off-screen because of that Hayes code shit, but still.
He's easy, in the best way that mostly involves being persuadable and being willing to smack Travis down, hard and with no room for misinterpretation when he's not in the mood or whatever, which leaves relatively little room for Travis to fuck up in.
He's a good fuck, without having any issues about it, and Travis can work with the ones he does have. the whole "Uh, I know we've just spent the last fifteen minutes naked and doing things that would get us imprisoned in three states, shot in two more, but now that you're not distracted by sex, I'm just going to put this T-shirt on to sleep in. But casual, so you won't notice I'm doing it."
It's-- okay, it's kind of funny, but also, at the right time? Kind of hot. Reminds him of school, the keep-your-pants on method of contraception vs. "aw, baby, I just want to see, let me, I promise I won't think you're easy."
Fantastic blowjobs, which would be even better if Travis could break Patrick of his tendency to only give them in rooms or closets that have doors that lock. It speaks of the kind of deep emotional trauma that Travis needs to know and bring up at any possible opportunity. Possibly in song.
And, in between, there's talking about music and bands and Patrick is actually, genuinely funny. Getting to hang out more with Fall Out Boy, which is better than good. They're, like, concentrated goodness, which is why they're all so short. Focussed down to being varying degrees of dorky-cool. Some of them -one of them- fakes genuine cool for the cameras, but really, they're all closer to the dorky-cool end of the spectrum.
Travis knows, because he occasionally hovers there himself, though he's usually assumed to be generic cool by people who don't realise he is his own category of Travis Cool, which, if the rest of the band is lucky, will rub off on them
("Fuck off, Travie. You listen to musicals," Disashi says, hitting him in the stomach.
"Fuck you, Cole Porter rocks. 'Always true to you, darling in my fashion--' Ow! You fucker!")
There's a lot of hanging with Pete because Patrick sometimes goes into these little moods when he's working on something, where he doesn't quite tell you to go away, so much as imply that your existence in the world is more or less irrelevant until he's found out a way to get that bit of the chorus to stop sounding like it belongs in a high school staging of Les Miserables and more like it belongs in the top 10.
So, yeah, Pete. Who doesn't act differently after Travis starts hooking up with Patrick, not even to give them the usual hard time of a best friend. Travis is kind of disappointed, but not so much that he won't stop trying to figure out how Pete keeps cheating when they play video games
"You see," Pete says, jerking the controller around like he's playing DDR at the same time, "It's not just that I'm awesome. It's that you suck. You suck amazingly. There are whole extra levels of sucking, to which you, my friend, belong to. It's actually kind of impressive."
Travis throws his obviously broken -or sabotaged- control at the ground, then attacks. Pete is little, but wiry and vicious, and Travis has to make the most use of his long arms to keep Pete from his sides.
It's mostly successful, because Pete doesn't end on top, but when Joe walks in and says, "Are you working your way through the band? Because my girlfriend said that after the thing with Ryan--"
Pete manages to get a hand free enough to give Joe the finger. "She was just angry we didn't tape it."
"Her and youtube both," Joe says. Pete uses his now-free hand to make a sudden, sneak attack, poking Travis in his side, using the automatic reaction to twist around and land on top.
"Yes! Still the king. Technically, this makes you my bitch," Pete says. He reaches across, grabs the controller and starts playing the game. "And I'm still in first pla-- fuck, where'd that guy come from?"
He gets off and sits back on the bench, heels resting against Travis's side. Travis puts on a pathetic look, until Joe shakes his head and says, "Hey, at least he's not going to sell your ass for a pack of smokes."
Which isn't a bad idea. Travis mimes a smoke himself, raising an eyebrow, and Joe shrugs and then grins.
Later, when Patrick gets in to bed, T-shirt on, Travis is feeling warm, coasting along, and he'd be perfectly happy to just pet Patrick, along his sides, his head, spreading his hands across his skin, feeling his hip bones, the reassuringly solidity of it.
But he's happy when Patrick sighs, pushes back in to him. Travis feels like he can hold all of him, big enough to spread around like a tree, and Patrick says, "I'm kind of tired," which he knows isn't the same as, "I'm too tired."
"I'm kind of tired" means yeah, why not. Easy, not rushing, and Travis could bring him off like that with his hand on his cock, hearing Patrick sigh and yawn and return the favour, casual and easy before falling asleep.
It's tempting, because Patrick has this way of pushing back against him, his head falling forward, when they do it like that. Travis honestly doesn't even need the hand job after, he's quite happy coming against Patrick's back. Maybe next time. Not like there's a limit on this. This time, Travis thinks, he kind of wants to blow him.
So he crawls under the covers, because Patrick's got his T-shirt on and Travis is kind of feeling the whole TV friendly thing, la la la everyone knows why the blankets are moving like that, but we're just going to pretend for the censors we don't. It's dark and muffled and a little too hot, and he can't see anything, but he doesn't have to. It's not like there's going to be any surprises, just Patrick, Patrick's dick, and Travis feeling friendly with the world. He doesn't try anything fancy, just goes with what works. Spreads his thighs a little wider, liking the feel of them, warm, solid in the best way. All that smooth, pale skin, and he flexes his fingers on the muscles, hard enough to feel them tense underneath. He rests the side of his face against Patrick's hip, just for a moment, so he can feel his body tense and all those tiny and deep sounds of movement rather than voice are amplified. And then, because he's feeling lazy and greedy both, he moves just a little closer and licks, along the side and to the top, and then he takes Patrick in. Travis likes to think he's as good at this as he is at everything else, but the truth is, he kind of lacks patience. He wants more, now, always.
One hand keeping Patrick steady, and when he can feel Patrick get close -it's different, not being able to hear so clearly, but Patrick's fingers tighten on his shoulders- he puts his own hand on his dick and starts jerking off.
Patrick comes, and then Travis does, and he crawls back up Patrick. "Need clean sheets."
"Hmm," Patrick says, eyes shut and smiling slightly, which isn't helpful. Then, "Get a towel from the bathroom. Warm night."
He kicks the blankets off, down the end of the bed, and Travis gets a towel, covers the worst of the wet spot then shuffles over, wrapping around Patrick. Patrick settles against him and Travis brushes his hair back, rests his chin on his shoulder and falls asleep
He wakes up because Patrick elbows him. "Wha?" He blinks, pushes his hair out of his face.
"You're pushing me off the bed," Patrick says, turning to shove him back. "You don't need that much space."
"Yeah, I do," Travis says, rolling in tight. He sprawls across Patrick, liking the warmth and the feeling of space, the freedom to move. Being able to stretch out, and he's spent long enough in a touring van to be able to appreciate that. He rubs his face in Patrick's T-shirt and settles down to go back to sleep.
Patrick shoves back again, and Travis goes with the motion, helping it along so he's half rolling Patrick over him and on to the other side, and then he can pin him down again, lazily spread over like a starfish. "Hmm," he says, and there's Patrick's neck, the collar of his T-shirt, and it smells good, so Travis just kind of nuzzles in, drifting off again without quite meaning to.
"I've got work to do," Patrick says, but quietly, like he doesn't want to wake Travis if he's already sleeping.
"Always got stuff to do," Travis says, smiling, eyes shut. "Long periods of stuff to do, short periods of--" Mmm. It's nice like this, and he can feel the sun on the edge of the curtains, but he doesn't have to see it. Just knows that it's there, and Patrick's comfortable, warm. He finds Patrick's hand, laces his fingers through it. There's the usual generalised temptation to do something because he knows he could, and it would be good, but this is good too, as long as Patrick doesn't move.
He can feel Patrick's chest expand, hear him sigh and then settle. "Ten minutes," he says, still pitched low enough not to wake anyone sleeping.
Travis wakes up properly before Patrick, feeling sharp, energised. Productive, he thinks, humming nothing in particular. Today's going to be a good day for writing, as long as he doesn't get distracted. A good day for other stuff, if he does. He gets out of bed carefully, because Patrick, ten-minutes or not, is sleeping, and Travis has never been good at waking people up, not quite heartless enough for that.
Pete's already up in a hoodie he must have stolen from someone else, bigger than he normally wears. It's familiar, so probably someone from the band. Hood's up and he's eating a slice of apple, shoulders hunched like he's fully prepared to give the morning a fight if it insists on making its presence felt.
Mornings make Pete suspicious, and he squints at Travis like he's not quite sure of him. Travis smiles and sits down at the table, getting a plate together. "You think they're got oatmeal?" he says. "With maple syrup and raisins, none of that dry shit, the good stuff. Sweet."
"It's a four star hotel," Pete says, then he puts the apple core on the table. "You're awake." He says. It's an accusation.
"Yep." Travis smiles brightly and pats his hair. Not trying to tidy it up, he knows how pointless that is, just kind of, liking the feel of it. It's warm from lying in the sun. "Got some coffee?"
"You might wanna put some clothes on if you're going to drink hot coffee," Pete says. "You're pretty clumsy in the morning."
"Just when I'm hungover."
"Or still drunk. Are you high?"
"On life, baby." He scoots his chair around the table s he's sitting next to Pete and hugs him, resting his chin on his head. Pete elbows him and Travis rubs where it hit. "You're so vicious," he says. "Damn bony emo elbows."
"There are knives on the table, Travie," Pete says, but he goes back to eating his apple, every bit of it, including the stem. He stops, mid-chew and says, "Where's Patrick?" Like Travis has hidden him somewhere. Kidnapped him, and is only here eating breakfast with Pete to throw him off the scent. Travis pictures himself in a Lex Luther suit, maybe Moriaty. Evil genius.
"Sleeping," he says. Maybe that can be the next video. Or something old-fashioned, silent movie. He twirls an imaginary moustache and pictures someone tied to the train tracks. Maybe that girl, the one from the show with the guy. Maybe he could do a 16 candles thing, get Bill to play dress-up. he shakes his head to clear it of the image of white nightgowns and looks back at Pete, who's staring at him.
"It's morning," he says, like this is Travis's fault. "Why are you up and Patrick's sleeping?"
Travis sighs, locks his fingers together behind his head and leans back on his chair, balancing on two legs. "Last night, fuck man, last night was just-- there were ropes, handcuffs, vibes, we were--"
"I sleep next door," Pete says. "The walls aren't that thick."
Travis lets his chair fall forward with a thump. "That's what the gags are for," he says reasonably.
Pete rolls his eyes and starts to eat another apple. "Patrick doesn't like gags," he says. "Or being restrained or whatever."
"Hey, who said they were for him?" Travis says. And he looks at Pete for a moment, because Pete said that like it was common knowledge, like it was "Patrick has red hair", "Patrick wears glasses." Like how Travis might say, "Patrick only lets you keep him still when you're blowing him or if he's fucking you with you on top."
Like that.
It's-- it's something. Cute, maybe, so Travis gives Pete another little squeeze. "He's sleeping. Couldn't wake him up."
Pete shakes his head. "You're such a pussy."
"You do it then," Travis says. "if you can. He's sleeping." And that should explain it all, because Patrick had the sheets pushed off a little, slight frown, T-shirt riding up his back so there was easily eight inches more of skin than Patrick usually showed.
"Pathetic," Pete says, but he's not leaping out of his seat either. Travis is still kind of hugging him, so he leans in a little more, resting the side of his face on the top of Pete's head. Pete's sweatshirt is scratchy where it touches Travis's skin. Maybe he should get Pete some fleeces, something nice and soft to rub against. Travis hums a little until Pete says, "We've got stuff to do. Patrick has stuff to do."
"You wake him up," Travis says. "Go, with my blessing." He waves his hand at the door and smiles serenely. "Yeah, that's what I thought. Fucking weak, Wentz."
Pete rubs his forehead against Travis shoulder, then pauses, just a little lech, before looking up and saying, "Hey, shouldn't your boyfriend take care of that."
Travis laughs. "Point. Go wake him up so he can."
Pete elbows him again and shrugs out from under his arm. "What's in it for me?" He looks at Travis's expression, then smacks him upside the hide. Not as hard as he'd like, as hard as Travis's grandmother can do, but a good try. "Pervert," he says.
Travis tries to look injured. "Hey, I was just gonna offer you in on the post-coital cuddles. You like that," he says, because Pete takes obscene use of how Patrick is just a little easier, after, a little more likely to let you curl up over him, let you rest your head in his lap while he taps away on the laptop on the table.
A little more likely to let you pet him.
Pete's pretty good about his friends having people, but he's also kind of a cat, prowling around after, waiting for a free lap to jump in and reclaim. He doesn't quite wait outside the bunk til it's finished then jump in when people are still breathing heavily and put himself in the middle, but--
Okay, one time, maybe. Not pushing anyone out, but Pete tends to hang on people, and that doesn't change just because two of his friends are fucking, or just finished. Pete loves the afterglow, even when he didn't do the work to get it.
Travis shakes his head at him. "You're lazy, you know that?" He says reaching over for the syrup before remembering he doesn't have his breakfast yet. He looks at it for a few seconds wondering what to do. Pete's got some of his cereal left. "Hey, syrup instead of milk, genius or insane?"
"You make no fucking sense in the morning," Pete said.
Travis grins and kisses him quick and easy before he can react. "Yeah, but I'm pretty fucking cute anyway."
"Only reason we keep you around," Pete says. He looks over at Patrick in the doorway. "Right?"
End.