Fic: But I Get Up Again (1/2)
Fandom: Fall Out Boy
Pairing: Pete/Patrick
Length: ~12,000 words
Notes/summary: Take yourself on a ride on the Wayback Machine, because this story started back in April of 2007, when I said to zee, "You know, I love all these Patrick trashed on his birthday stories, but you know what I'd really like? One where Patrick got totally wasted and hit on Pete and then it was All Awkward the next day. And maybe for a while." OVER A YEAR LATER, here we are. So, it's more of an alternate reality story, now?
In one post at AO3.
Pete and Patrick have a certain shtick when it comes to Patrick's birthday. A certain pattern. It goes something like this: Pete tries to get Patrick to do something crazy. Patrick resists.
Example A-- That thing they never talk about with the pool table and the lighter on Patrick's twentieth birthday.
Example B--The extravaganza with mixed drinks at his twenty-first.
Example C--The stripper fiasco at his twenty-second.
Pete's pretty accustomed to the way things go down, so it takes him giving Patrick three shots and a particularly frilly and alcohol-rich mixed drink at Patrick's twenty-third and Patrick actually drinking them to realize things aren't following type. By that point, though, Patrick is already well on his way toward totally sloshed, expansive and affectionate with everyone around him, and then he actually starts grooving in a laid-back white-boy way to the music, and well. Pete isn't going to mess that up.
He goes to see Patrick the next afternoon, because that's what he would have done before. He and Andy once made out seriously enough that both of them had lost their shirts by the end, and they were fine afterward. It's not a big deal. Though, to be fair, they'd both been trying to make an ideological point about human sexuality and strike a blow against bigotry.
Pete managed to get the hot girl in his Philosophy class to finally pay attention to him with that trick.
The point is, it wasn't a big deal then, and it won't be now. At the door, he nobly resists the urge to pound on it the way he might have if he hadn't been quite so instrumental in getting Patrick totally wasted the night before. When Patrick answers the door, he's wearing a rumpled t-shirt, boxers, and a hat pulled so low over his eyes that it's practically a face mask.
"Dude," Pete says, and the face mask tilts enough that Pete can see the corner of Patrick's glasses shining reproachfully at him.
"Yeah, laugh it up," Patrick says, shoving the hat up enough to press his fingers to his forehead, and Pete had meant to, because it's Pete's god-given right as someone who hadn't gotten drunk the night before to laugh at the hangovers, but Patrick looks tired and sick and not so much like someone who remembers having a good time the night before. He had, though, or at least, Pete thinks he had.
Pete scratches at the side of his neck, and opens his mouth to say something, then closes it. What comes out instead is, "So, did you have a good time?"
"Yeah," Patrick says. "It was awesome. Thanks for getting me trashed, by the way."
"I can't believe you let me," Pete says, bouncing on his feet, deciding to brazen it out. "And, man, I'm sorry, but you've turned into an affectionate drunk. That was fucking awesome, I'm gonna have to do it again."
Patrick squints at him, and Pete forces a laugh, then waves a hand, saying, "Sorry, sorry. No, really, I'm sorry, I didn't expect you to actually drink all of them, since when do you listen to me? You're a pretty sweet kisser, though," and Patrick winces.
"Yeah, thanks," he says. "Um, Pete, I'm kinda. I'm thinking about going back to bed, so." His body language has closed off, arms crossed over his chest, and it's such a contrast to how he'd been the night before, laughing, eyes unfocused and arm slung easily around Pete's waist when Pete brought Patrick back to Patrick's hotel room at the end of the party. Patrick slides his hand up to cover his mouth and Pete remembers, suddenly and vividly, the way it felt to have Patrick's mouth pressed against his, the lazy, lax, wet kisses Pete had opened helplessly for, Patrick's lips sliding down the line of Pete's jaw. The way Patrick had leaned in, laughing, singing, "It's my biiiiiiirthday, you gotta give me what I want," shimmying a little, easy and playful the way he was when he'd forgotten the need for self-consciousness, until Pete had needed to put a hand on Patrick's waist, reeling him in so he didn't fall.
"No, hold up," Pete says, putting up a hand. "Are you actually, like, seriously dude, it's not a big deal." He apologizes again, because that seems like what he's expected to do, and Patrick gets a little frown line between his eyebrows.
"No, that's okay," Patrick says. "I'm sorry I was a handful." He doesn't really meet Pete's eyes, and Pete fakes a laugh, saying, "Hah, handsy handful," but Patrick doesn't laugh, just squints again like his eyes are bothering him, and says, "sorry," then, "I'm gonna, I think I'm going to go back to bed."
"Sure, yeah," Pete says. "Get some sleep, Romeo." Patrick winces again and flips him off, and Pete laughs, slapping him on the shoulder before heading out the door.
They're a quiet group down in the lobby later that day. Patrick still looks like he's hiding, hunched under his hat and hoodie, and giving one-word answers to everyone. Joe, Charlie, and Dirty are all hung over.
Pete sidles over to Andy with his hands in his pockets and knocks him with his shoulder. Andy elbows him back, but it's Andy's usual automatic retaliation, not a sign of bad temper. Pete doesn't bother saying anything else, just settles in with his back against the glass window that looks out on the street. He scans the lobby again, but it hasn't changed in the second since he last looked at it, polished marble floors and black shiny counters staffed by painfully professional kids in suits, and then he's looking at Patrick again.
Patrick sniffs and rubs at the back of his nose, then wipes his hand on the back of his jeans. It's pretty attractive, and Pete shakes his head, looking down to stare at the reflection of his shoes on the floor because he means it a little less sarcastically than he should. Patrick is attractive to Pete, and Pete has always enjoyed looking at him. He's a pleasant part of Pete's internal statuary, like Joe's hands as he cradles a guitar or Andy's flamboyant back when he wanders around topless backstage prior to performances. Something Pete could look at and enjoy without urgency, pleased with his choice in best friends. But now Pete has to roll his eyes at himself, because pleasant isn't the right word at the moment.
Whatever, it's fine. To prove it, Pete pushes off from the wall and wanders over to Patrick, getting right into his personal space and bracing an elbow on the slope of Patrick's shoulder, leaning hard. Patrick shifts and takes it, but Pete catches the annoyed twitch Patrick gives before he settles, and so he leans in more and noses at Patrick's neck.
"What. Come on, Pete," Patrick says.
"What, what," Pete says. "Hey, are you still hung over?"
"No," Patrick says resolutely, and Pete straightens upright, but leaves his arm draped around Patrick's shoulders.
"Awesome," he says, and smacks a kiss on the side of Patrick's hat over his temple. "That's my best dude. All grown up and a rockstar and shit."
"Yeah, whatever," Patrick says, body warm under Pete's arm and in a line down Pete's side, and then Dan comes across the lobby toward Pete with a phone outstretched in one hand. Pete takes it and finds himself talking to the label publicist, who wants to run through a couple schedule adjustments. Pete, distracted by the voice on the other end of the line and trying to follow the woman's rapid-fire sentence structure, loosens his grip on Patrick's shoulders. By the time Pete gets off the phone, Patrick is again across the room and sitting on one of the couches grouped in an island around a coffee table with his laptop out. Pete can't tell if Patrick's actually working or just faking it. When he goes over, he sees that Patrick's jacking the hotel's free wireless to read the news headlines.
"Damn," Pete says, settling next to him. "Your birthday didn't even make the New York Times. That's a bummer."
"Shit," Patrick says. "I guess you'll just have to try harder next time."
"Oh, don't worry," Pete says. "I will."
"No property damage, no trips to the hospital, and no tattoos," Patrick says absently, and then they both read an article about a minor earthquake in Kent, England.
"Wow, that was boring," Pete says when they reach the bottom.
"So don't read over my shoulder," Patrick says.
"No, I want to see what you come up with next," Pete says, and Patrick clicks on the business section. He's got such a smug look on his face that Pete kind of wants to laugh or kiss him for real or something, so appreciative of his Patrick-ness, this dude that thinks clicking on an article about Intel processors is a witty comeback.
Instead, he reads an article about Intel processors and then another one about the Dow Jones and then Patrick apparently gives up or something because the next article is an interview with an up-and-coming hip-hop star. After that, he checks his email, and Pete has just enough time to read, "HEY SEXXXXAY-hot pictures, birthday boy," on the subject line of the top unread email and note the attachment icon before Patrick toggles to another window.
"What, I want to see those," Pete says, trying for humor, but his brain starts throwing images at him of Patrick kissing other boys and girls, and it's disturbing how easily he can picture it, like Pete's been specially saving all the times he caught Patrick and Anna kissing in back hallways and private rooms just so he can replay the confident tilt of Patrick's head and the way he always closes his eyes as he leans in.
"You've already seen me make an ass of myself," Patrick reminds him. He shifts on the couch, pulling away from Pete's encroaching elbow.
"Yeah, but," Pete says, and: "I'm going to see them anyway," and: "stop being such a lamer, man."
"Stop being such an asshole, man," Patrick says, mimicking him in a stupid voice, and gets up from the couch.
He thinks about it sometimes. His life has a lot of stops and starts and repetitions. He doesn't blame anyone other than himself for his fucked-up head, he's had enough therapy and time to figure out that Pete Wentz's biggest enemy is Pete Wentz, but he also knows enough about the way his life works to know why he constantly circles back on the same couple of things that are his obsessions of the moment.
The point is, he thinks about it. On travel nights when everyone else is sleeping and Pete is awake and listening to the whine of the road under the soundtrack of a bad kung fu movie looping through the DVD player. When they're all waiting in the green room for a TV interview and Patrick is wandering around singing his latest R&B song of the week. In between dialing numbers and texting friends and writing emails and shaking hands and signing autographs and taking pictures.
If it had just been some girl drunk and kissing him and tugging at his belt buckle, Pete wouldn't have left. He knows that. He wouldn't have, but it's Patrick, and it's different, and he knows Patrick so much better than some random girl, and Patrick doesn't do drunken one-night stands that Pete can write into songs for Patrick to sing about later.
He's been a lot of firsts for Patrick, Pete knows, but that. That's just not a first Pete's willing to be. Patrick, who only ever dated one person, and that one for four years. Pete did the right thing, no question. Pete sometimes can't help but second-guess his choices, because his track record isn't so good, but this one he knows is right. Hardcore right.
He thinks about it, though. Sometimes.
They're on their way down the hallway at their record label, and Pete goes to elbow Patrick and point out the Jay-Z record the way he always does, but then he realizes he can't, because Patrick is all the way on the other side of their little group, talking to Joe about a guitar riff and not looking at Pete at all. Patrick does elbow Joe and point out the Jay-Z record, though. Pete feels obscurely insulted. Somehow, Joe has stolen Pete's spot in the Jay-Z ritual, or Patrick has stolen Pete's, and it wouldn't be a problem if it were an accident of fate or something, except that it keeps happening. Pete, reaching for Patrick and not finding him.
He slams into the SUV scowling, and Andy gives him a sidelong look. Patrick gets into the front passenger seat while Joe gets into back and points at Pete, saying, "Hahhhh, bitch seat," and then, "whoa, down boy," when Pete glares at him.
"Fuck you," Pete says, staring at the back of Patrick's neck. Joe looks at him and then, like Andy, shifts closer to the door and turns his face toward the window, leaving Pete on a small, leather-upholstered island at the center of the bench. Pete keeps looking steadily at Patrick, and he can tell by the way Patrick holds his shoulders that he's aware of Pete's eyes on him. Patrick's used to Pete looking at him, though. Pete stared at Patrick for two hours once when he was at the tail end of a long month of sleep deprivation, just sat opposite him in the back of their shitty van, both of them sitting on the floor and slouching down against the sides, Pete's head banging on metal with each bump in the road while Patrick slept or listened to music or talked about eighties cartoons with Joe and their old merch guy. It had been soothing to watch Patrick's thoughts cross his face like weather patterns in the sky and know that none of it was very bad. Patrick thinks in music, not horrors. The closest he gets to derangement is when he's got a song half-formed that refuses to work itself out.
Pete's entire band is like that, really, criminally laid back, but Patrick is the one Pete likes to watch, maybe because Patrick makes it seem like something special. Except, Pete can't see Patrick at all, really, right now. Patrick's not letting him the way he usually does, not giving in to the demand of Pete's attention.
He starts kicking irregularly on the back of Patrick's seat.
Patrick puts up with Pete's harassment briefly, but anything out of rhythm drives him up the wall, and he snaps, "Fucking quit it, Pete, you're being an asshole," after less than a minute, not turning around in his seat.
"What," Pete says. "What am I doing?" He aims an extra-hard kick toward Patrick's hidden kidneys, already starting to laugh a little.
"Wrecking the upholstery," Patrick says exasperatedly, rotating to stare over the headrest at Pete. "What, are we trying to make rock legends, or something? Pete, come on. An SUV barely gets you a footnote." By the end, he's started to smile a little bit, shaking his head, and Pete toes the seat-back before dropping his foot to the floor, grinning back.
"Whatever, no, look." Pete jabs his chin toward their driver, a six-foot-tall burly woman with solid forearms and a no-nonsense appearance. "She's totally reaching for her cell phone, gonna call TMZ for a report. I think it'll be more than a footnote. I'm going to be a star." The driver smiles slightly, but otherwise ignores them, both hands still wrapped firmly around the wheel as they wend their way through Manhattan traffic.
Patrick deepens his voice like a corny TV announcer, saying, "Fall Out Boy bassist Pete Wentz, in an act of rockstar temper, destroyed the interior of his label's SUV on Monday morning..."
"I dunno, pretty lame, dude," Joe says, looking away from the window toward Pete. "You can do better."
"Fuck yeah, I can," Pete says, but Patrick has already turned back to face the front, and the whole thing is less fun without him. He gives Patrick's seat another kick, and Patrick aims a warning look at him over his shoulder. "What?" Pete says, and keeps doing it each time Patrick turns to face front, until Patrick finally turns all the way sideways in his seat and leans his back against the door handle so that he can keep a cautious eye on him.
"Hey, what did you think of that new producer-deal?" Pete says once he has Patrick's full attention. Patrick immediately loses the annoyed crease gathering between his eyebrows and drapes himself forward over the headrest.
"Confusing as hell," Patrick says.
"Maybe worth it?" Pete says, and Patrick shrugs.
"Better get Bob to get our lawyers to look it over."
"Nah," Pete says. He captures two of Patrick's fingers where they're looped around the metal post of the headrest and tugs a little. "I figured we'd just go for it, sight unseen. Like trusting little lambs."
"Sure," Patrick says lightly, and scissors his fingers apart to grab onto Pete's thumb.
"Mm, lambchops," Joe says.
Patrick laughs, then lets Pete's hand drop, pulling his hand back behind the barrier of the seat. "Do you remember that kid's show?" he says.
"Yo, with the freaky red-haired lady?" Pete says. He rubs the pad of his index finger across his thumbnail where Patrick had gripped him. "My brother loved that show."
"Really," Joe says, grinning evilly.
"Yeah, it had that fucking song," Pete says, looking at Patrick. Sure enough, Patrick, looking horrified, is already starting to hum it.
He breaks off long enough to say, "Pete, I'm going to fucking kill you," and they spend the rest of the car-ride singing, "This Is The Song That Never Ends."
That all feels normal, so normal that Pete starts to wonder if he'd imagined everything. Hell, it could have just been an accident of chance that Pete and Patrick's fates didn't align for a couple weeks. Pete tends to get a little paranoid after too long on the road, a little strung out and hallucinatory. He talks to his therapist about it that afternoon over the phone, who says carefully, "Have you been feeling particularly worn down lately?" and Pete has to admit that the tour's barely started. He's not even really sleep-deprived yet.
"Hey, sorry, I have to go," he says instead. "It's almost showtime."
Everything's fine, Pete thinks right before they go onstage. They all high-five. Patrick's palm is warm and rough against his for a brief, hard moment of contact and then everything is moving fast, fast, fast, and they are on.
Everything's so on, everything's so fine, and Pete can feel it pumping through his veins, making him spin and run and then grab the mic like he owns it, because he does, or if he doesn't then he deserves to and that's all that matters. He doesn't know how he could have thought that something was wrong, and then he goes over halfway through the show and leans his head into Patrick's cheek like he has a thousand times before and Patrick steps away. Patrick steps away, almost like an accident, like he didn't mean to. Pete misses his next two chords, fingers strumming gracelessly across the strings and loosening from the fret board and then they are looking at each other and Pete can see his own shock reflected on Patrick's widened eyes even as Patrick's mouth moves onward in the song on autopilot. Patrick steps back toward him, but Pete is backing up and spinning away, concentrating on his fingering like it deserves ten times the attention he'd ever given it before, like he's finding his way through a brand new song for the first time instead of something he's played too many times to count.
The rest of the concert is so shaky Pete's surprised they don't get booed off the stage. Andy and Joe are solid but Pete and Patrick are not, and by the end of the first break, Joe is eyeing everyone warily, Charlie and Patrick's guitar tech are asking in tense whispers if they need anything, and Patrick is looking a little wild-eyed.
Pete drags Patrick off to the side and boxes him in behind an equipment case. Patrick starts apologizing before they even stop moving, saying, "Sorry, sorry, I don't know what happened out there," sounding honestly baffled.
"Are we good?" Pete demands.
"Yeah-yes," Patrick says, looking down and then up, meeting Pete's eyes firmly.
"Are you sure?" Pete asks, and Patrick doesn't say anything. "Patrick," Pete repeats. "Are we good." They aren't touching, but they're standing so close they might as well be, trying to hear each other over the noise of the crowd.
"We're fine," Patrick says, and they aren't, but Pete has an internal clock counting down in his head and Charlie seven feet away on his left telling him time's up, so he reluctantly backs away and lets Patrick move past him. They do their quick change and run back out there, but Patrick stays even more anchored to his mike stand and Pete gives him wide berth for the rest of the show, walking forward a couple steps, then retreating back when he gets within Patrick's field of vision.
Afterwards, the only thing Patrick will say is, "I think you startled me," brow wrinkling like he's as clueless as Pete is.
Pete says, "Yeah, okay. The stage is still a little unfamiliar."
"Yeah," Patrick says. He has his laptop in front of him, the screen's twinned reflections shining in his glasses lenses as he scans something. It's making him hard to read.
Pete leans forward and tips the laptop lid down so he can see Patrick's face clearly. "So. This was just. An off day," Pete says, and Patrick nods. "So, yeah," Pete says. "Yeah. For me, too. I'll try not to startle you next time, Janet."
"Fuck off, Norman Bates," Patrick says mildly.
"Hey," Pete says, struck. "Maybe I should dress up for the next show."
"Yeah, maybe," Patrick says, turning his attention back to his laptop and lifting the screen.
"No, you're right," Pete says. "That would be lame. Also, I hate wearing fake boobs. It messes with my style."
He feels a little gun-shy after that, though. They're fine. Off-stage, they're fine. On-stage, they're fine, but Pete keeps his distance anyway for a couple of shows, because it's true. He doesn't need to be all up in Patrick's face all the time. Sometimes Patrick needs space. He wishes Patrick would just fucking step up and ask for it, though, instead of making Pete feel like he just got turned down in front of thirty-thousand people.
He goes down on his knees in front of Patrick, still playing his bass, but that's as close as he gets the first night. Patrick looks down at him and shakes his head and Pete shakes his head back, grinning. Patrick goes back to singing and Pete arches backward until he ends up on his back on the stage, hips tilted toward the sky, playing toward the "FOB" up in the lighting rig. He's not as flexible as he used to be, but he bets he still looks good.
He gets up and brushes into Joe as they pass each other. Joe yells, "Hot, dude," making it clear that he's spelling hot with two t's in his head, and then goes to rock out at the front of the stage, afro flying.
After the show, Pete sits on his bus with his laptop on the kitchenette table. Hemingway is sprawled across the hallway near his foot. Every once in a while, for no reason Pete can figure out, he jumps up and makes a circuit of the room, collar jangling in time with his waddling steps, before lying back down again. This last round put Hemingway with his stomach firmly on Pete's foot. Pete flexes his toes into Hemingway's fur and clicks idly from window to window on his screen. Joe and a couple of their techs are at the other end of the kitchenette, on the couch watching X-Men 2 and laughing at all the explosions, but Pete's not too interested. He's already seen it, plus he imagines it's way less entertaining without the pot.
He signs into one of his email accounts, mostly for something to do, and finds an email and attachment titled, "Patrick's bday pix" waiting for him from a friend he vaguely remembers seeing at Patrick's birthday party, an amateur photographer with higher aspirations. The first couple shots are pretty standard arty shots of the nightclub full of people that Pete skips past quickly. He smiles at the next one, which shows Joe scowling at the camera with his arm wrapping around Patrick's neck. Patrick has his head tipped back, grinning, miming panic, and Pete remembers how the next minute he'd swept in, shouting, "I'll save you!" jumping on Joe's back and spilling everyone's drinks. He flips past the next few ones of Andy and himself wrestling near the DJ booth and then another one of everyone grouped around the birthday boy, watching Patrick blow out the candles on his cake.
The next one is a close up of him and Patrick in what looks like mid-conversation, their heads bent toward each other over their little plates of cake, and then the one after that is of Pete mashing his cake into Patrick's face, laughing uproariously, while Patrick stands with his palms uplifted and eyes closed, not even trying to fend Pete off. Pete snorts, because it's still funny now a month later, but he feels stupidly wistful about the whole thing too, like he wants to be off this bus and back there at that party with all their friends and Patrick, happy and letting Pete do whatever he wanted because he knew what Pete came up with wouldn't ever be that bad.
Pete makes a face at himself, thinking, cheer up emo kid. It's Patrick.
He writes back: dude smokng hot pics bro and closes the browser window halfway through the roll.
The next morning, he's got an email back, reading, hahahahahah especially that one of you and Paitrck. but i got yr back.
Pete's not really that awake when he reads it the first time, so he doesn't think much of it until after he's had breakfast and comes back to find the email still open on the screen. He reads it again and thinks, what? and clicks on the link to the pictures again, but it's just all the same ones, Patrick, him, Patrick, random people, cake, Patrick. What you'd expect, really, from a party of their friends and alcohol. Further down, though, the subject matter changes as his friend wandered away from the party. Arty shots of empty hotel hallways, a picture of an elderly couple getting off an elevator still dressed in their evening clothes. A potted plant. Pete's been in too many empty hotels after midnight to find the pictures all that interesting.
The first picture is too far away and badly out of focus. Pete can't quite tell what it is except that there are two people at the end of the shot, tangled together, and one of them is wearing a bright yellow hat. He thinks, no one would ever know what that was, but the next picture is clearer, and the one after that is clearer still. He doesn't remember putting his hand up to touch Patrick's face, but he did, obviously he did, leaning in to Patrick and Patrick's hands on his lower back, and it looks different from this perspective than he remembers it being. He doesn't remember feeling so hungry for it; he doesn't remember Patrick looking so focused. He's not sure how he managed to stop.
He stares at those three pictures for a long time, and then he saves them on his hard drive.
whos seen these, he writes.
just you dude, he gets back. patricks a good guy.
hes an affectionate drunk, Pete writes back, and then, feeling guilty, hahahah.
Joe comes out from the bunk then, and Pete hits F11 on the keyboard so quickly he almost jams his finger, trying to clear the screen, but Joe just shuffles past him on his way to the coffeemaker. He barely has his eyes open, and hits himself in the forehead with the cabinet while looking for a mug.
"Joe, sit down, dude," Pete says, standing up and taking over coffee-making duties, shoving Joe toward the table.
Joe makes a noise that sounds like, "Glgh-urgh," and then, "I fucking hate waking up."
"Can't wake up if you never go to sleep," Pete says, but bends and gives Joe a kiss on his abused forehead when he sets down the mug in front of him.
"I love you so much," Joe says. "So much. So much."
Pete grins and settles down opposite him, then slides his laptop closed.
Part 2
Pairing: Pete/Patrick
Length: ~12,000 words
Notes/summary: Take yourself on a ride on the Wayback Machine, because this story started back in April of 2007, when I said to zee, "You know, I love all these Patrick trashed on his birthday stories, but you know what I'd really like? One where Patrick got totally wasted and hit on Pete and then it was All Awkward the next day. And maybe for a while." OVER A YEAR LATER, here we are. So, it's more of an alternate reality story, now?
In one post at AO3.
Pete and Patrick have a certain shtick when it comes to Patrick's birthday. A certain pattern. It goes something like this: Pete tries to get Patrick to do something crazy. Patrick resists.
Example A-- That thing they never talk about with the pool table and the lighter on Patrick's twentieth birthday.
Example B--The extravaganza with mixed drinks at his twenty-first.
Example C--The stripper fiasco at his twenty-second.
Pete's pretty accustomed to the way things go down, so it takes him giving Patrick three shots and a particularly frilly and alcohol-rich mixed drink at Patrick's twenty-third and Patrick actually drinking them to realize things aren't following type. By that point, though, Patrick is already well on his way toward totally sloshed, expansive and affectionate with everyone around him, and then he actually starts grooving in a laid-back white-boy way to the music, and well. Pete isn't going to mess that up.
He goes to see Patrick the next afternoon, because that's what he would have done before. He and Andy once made out seriously enough that both of them had lost their shirts by the end, and they were fine afterward. It's not a big deal. Though, to be fair, they'd both been trying to make an ideological point about human sexuality and strike a blow against bigotry.
Pete managed to get the hot girl in his Philosophy class to finally pay attention to him with that trick.
The point is, it wasn't a big deal then, and it won't be now. At the door, he nobly resists the urge to pound on it the way he might have if he hadn't been quite so instrumental in getting Patrick totally wasted the night before. When Patrick answers the door, he's wearing a rumpled t-shirt, boxers, and a hat pulled so low over his eyes that it's practically a face mask.
"Dude," Pete says, and the face mask tilts enough that Pete can see the corner of Patrick's glasses shining reproachfully at him.
"Yeah, laugh it up," Patrick says, shoving the hat up enough to press his fingers to his forehead, and Pete had meant to, because it's Pete's god-given right as someone who hadn't gotten drunk the night before to laugh at the hangovers, but Patrick looks tired and sick and not so much like someone who remembers having a good time the night before. He had, though, or at least, Pete thinks he had.
Pete scratches at the side of his neck, and opens his mouth to say something, then closes it. What comes out instead is, "So, did you have a good time?"
"Yeah," Patrick says. "It was awesome. Thanks for getting me trashed, by the way."
"I can't believe you let me," Pete says, bouncing on his feet, deciding to brazen it out. "And, man, I'm sorry, but you've turned into an affectionate drunk. That was fucking awesome, I'm gonna have to do it again."
Patrick squints at him, and Pete forces a laugh, then waves a hand, saying, "Sorry, sorry. No, really, I'm sorry, I didn't expect you to actually drink all of them, since when do you listen to me? You're a pretty sweet kisser, though," and Patrick winces.
"Yeah, thanks," he says. "Um, Pete, I'm kinda. I'm thinking about going back to bed, so." His body language has closed off, arms crossed over his chest, and it's such a contrast to how he'd been the night before, laughing, eyes unfocused and arm slung easily around Pete's waist when Pete brought Patrick back to Patrick's hotel room at the end of the party. Patrick slides his hand up to cover his mouth and Pete remembers, suddenly and vividly, the way it felt to have Patrick's mouth pressed against his, the lazy, lax, wet kisses Pete had opened helplessly for, Patrick's lips sliding down the line of Pete's jaw. The way Patrick had leaned in, laughing, singing, "It's my biiiiiiirthday, you gotta give me what I want," shimmying a little, easy and playful the way he was when he'd forgotten the need for self-consciousness, until Pete had needed to put a hand on Patrick's waist, reeling him in so he didn't fall.
"No, hold up," Pete says, putting up a hand. "Are you actually, like, seriously dude, it's not a big deal." He apologizes again, because that seems like what he's expected to do, and Patrick gets a little frown line between his eyebrows.
"No, that's okay," Patrick says. "I'm sorry I was a handful." He doesn't really meet Pete's eyes, and Pete fakes a laugh, saying, "Hah, handsy handful," but Patrick doesn't laugh, just squints again like his eyes are bothering him, and says, "sorry," then, "I'm gonna, I think I'm going to go back to bed."
"Sure, yeah," Pete says. "Get some sleep, Romeo." Patrick winces again and flips him off, and Pete laughs, slapping him on the shoulder before heading out the door.
They're a quiet group down in the lobby later that day. Patrick still looks like he's hiding, hunched under his hat and hoodie, and giving one-word answers to everyone. Joe, Charlie, and Dirty are all hung over.
Pete sidles over to Andy with his hands in his pockets and knocks him with his shoulder. Andy elbows him back, but it's Andy's usual automatic retaliation, not a sign of bad temper. Pete doesn't bother saying anything else, just settles in with his back against the glass window that looks out on the street. He scans the lobby again, but it hasn't changed in the second since he last looked at it, polished marble floors and black shiny counters staffed by painfully professional kids in suits, and then he's looking at Patrick again.
Patrick sniffs and rubs at the back of his nose, then wipes his hand on the back of his jeans. It's pretty attractive, and Pete shakes his head, looking down to stare at the reflection of his shoes on the floor because he means it a little less sarcastically than he should. Patrick is attractive to Pete, and Pete has always enjoyed looking at him. He's a pleasant part of Pete's internal statuary, like Joe's hands as he cradles a guitar or Andy's flamboyant back when he wanders around topless backstage prior to performances. Something Pete could look at and enjoy without urgency, pleased with his choice in best friends. But now Pete has to roll his eyes at himself, because pleasant isn't the right word at the moment.
Whatever, it's fine. To prove it, Pete pushes off from the wall and wanders over to Patrick, getting right into his personal space and bracing an elbow on the slope of Patrick's shoulder, leaning hard. Patrick shifts and takes it, but Pete catches the annoyed twitch Patrick gives before he settles, and so he leans in more and noses at Patrick's neck.
"What. Come on, Pete," Patrick says.
"What, what," Pete says. "Hey, are you still hung over?"
"No," Patrick says resolutely, and Pete straightens upright, but leaves his arm draped around Patrick's shoulders.
"Awesome," he says, and smacks a kiss on the side of Patrick's hat over his temple. "That's my best dude. All grown up and a rockstar and shit."
"Yeah, whatever," Patrick says, body warm under Pete's arm and in a line down Pete's side, and then Dan comes across the lobby toward Pete with a phone outstretched in one hand. Pete takes it and finds himself talking to the label publicist, who wants to run through a couple schedule adjustments. Pete, distracted by the voice on the other end of the line and trying to follow the woman's rapid-fire sentence structure, loosens his grip on Patrick's shoulders. By the time Pete gets off the phone, Patrick is again across the room and sitting on one of the couches grouped in an island around a coffee table with his laptop out. Pete can't tell if Patrick's actually working or just faking it. When he goes over, he sees that Patrick's jacking the hotel's free wireless to read the news headlines.
"Damn," Pete says, settling next to him. "Your birthday didn't even make the New York Times. That's a bummer."
"Shit," Patrick says. "I guess you'll just have to try harder next time."
"Oh, don't worry," Pete says. "I will."
"No property damage, no trips to the hospital, and no tattoos," Patrick says absently, and then they both read an article about a minor earthquake in Kent, England.
"Wow, that was boring," Pete says when they reach the bottom.
"So don't read over my shoulder," Patrick says.
"No, I want to see what you come up with next," Pete says, and Patrick clicks on the business section. He's got such a smug look on his face that Pete kind of wants to laugh or kiss him for real or something, so appreciative of his Patrick-ness, this dude that thinks clicking on an article about Intel processors is a witty comeback.
Instead, he reads an article about Intel processors and then another one about the Dow Jones and then Patrick apparently gives up or something because the next article is an interview with an up-and-coming hip-hop star. After that, he checks his email, and Pete has just enough time to read, "HEY SEXXXXAY-hot pictures, birthday boy," on the subject line of the top unread email and note the attachment icon before Patrick toggles to another window.
"What, I want to see those," Pete says, trying for humor, but his brain starts throwing images at him of Patrick kissing other boys and girls, and it's disturbing how easily he can picture it, like Pete's been specially saving all the times he caught Patrick and Anna kissing in back hallways and private rooms just so he can replay the confident tilt of Patrick's head and the way he always closes his eyes as he leans in.
"You've already seen me make an ass of myself," Patrick reminds him. He shifts on the couch, pulling away from Pete's encroaching elbow.
"Yeah, but," Pete says, and: "I'm going to see them anyway," and: "stop being such a lamer, man."
"Stop being such an asshole, man," Patrick says, mimicking him in a stupid voice, and gets up from the couch.
He thinks about it sometimes. His life has a lot of stops and starts and repetitions. He doesn't blame anyone other than himself for his fucked-up head, he's had enough therapy and time to figure out that Pete Wentz's biggest enemy is Pete Wentz, but he also knows enough about the way his life works to know why he constantly circles back on the same couple of things that are his obsessions of the moment.
The point is, he thinks about it. On travel nights when everyone else is sleeping and Pete is awake and listening to the whine of the road under the soundtrack of a bad kung fu movie looping through the DVD player. When they're all waiting in the green room for a TV interview and Patrick is wandering around singing his latest R&B song of the week. In between dialing numbers and texting friends and writing emails and shaking hands and signing autographs and taking pictures.
If it had just been some girl drunk and kissing him and tugging at his belt buckle, Pete wouldn't have left. He knows that. He wouldn't have, but it's Patrick, and it's different, and he knows Patrick so much better than some random girl, and Patrick doesn't do drunken one-night stands that Pete can write into songs for Patrick to sing about later.
He's been a lot of firsts for Patrick, Pete knows, but that. That's just not a first Pete's willing to be. Patrick, who only ever dated one person, and that one for four years. Pete did the right thing, no question. Pete sometimes can't help but second-guess his choices, because his track record isn't so good, but this one he knows is right. Hardcore right.
He thinks about it, though. Sometimes.
They're on their way down the hallway at their record label, and Pete goes to elbow Patrick and point out the Jay-Z record the way he always does, but then he realizes he can't, because Patrick is all the way on the other side of their little group, talking to Joe about a guitar riff and not looking at Pete at all. Patrick does elbow Joe and point out the Jay-Z record, though. Pete feels obscurely insulted. Somehow, Joe has stolen Pete's spot in the Jay-Z ritual, or Patrick has stolen Pete's, and it wouldn't be a problem if it were an accident of fate or something, except that it keeps happening. Pete, reaching for Patrick and not finding him.
He slams into the SUV scowling, and Andy gives him a sidelong look. Patrick gets into the front passenger seat while Joe gets into back and points at Pete, saying, "Hahhhh, bitch seat," and then, "whoa, down boy," when Pete glares at him.
"Fuck you," Pete says, staring at the back of Patrick's neck. Joe looks at him and then, like Andy, shifts closer to the door and turns his face toward the window, leaving Pete on a small, leather-upholstered island at the center of the bench. Pete keeps looking steadily at Patrick, and he can tell by the way Patrick holds his shoulders that he's aware of Pete's eyes on him. Patrick's used to Pete looking at him, though. Pete stared at Patrick for two hours once when he was at the tail end of a long month of sleep deprivation, just sat opposite him in the back of their shitty van, both of them sitting on the floor and slouching down against the sides, Pete's head banging on metal with each bump in the road while Patrick slept or listened to music or talked about eighties cartoons with Joe and their old merch guy. It had been soothing to watch Patrick's thoughts cross his face like weather patterns in the sky and know that none of it was very bad. Patrick thinks in music, not horrors. The closest he gets to derangement is when he's got a song half-formed that refuses to work itself out.
Pete's entire band is like that, really, criminally laid back, but Patrick is the one Pete likes to watch, maybe because Patrick makes it seem like something special. Except, Pete can't see Patrick at all, really, right now. Patrick's not letting him the way he usually does, not giving in to the demand of Pete's attention.
He starts kicking irregularly on the back of Patrick's seat.
Patrick puts up with Pete's harassment briefly, but anything out of rhythm drives him up the wall, and he snaps, "Fucking quit it, Pete, you're being an asshole," after less than a minute, not turning around in his seat.
"What," Pete says. "What am I doing?" He aims an extra-hard kick toward Patrick's hidden kidneys, already starting to laugh a little.
"Wrecking the upholstery," Patrick says exasperatedly, rotating to stare over the headrest at Pete. "What, are we trying to make rock legends, or something? Pete, come on. An SUV barely gets you a footnote." By the end, he's started to smile a little bit, shaking his head, and Pete toes the seat-back before dropping his foot to the floor, grinning back.
"Whatever, no, look." Pete jabs his chin toward their driver, a six-foot-tall burly woman with solid forearms and a no-nonsense appearance. "She's totally reaching for her cell phone, gonna call TMZ for a report. I think it'll be more than a footnote. I'm going to be a star." The driver smiles slightly, but otherwise ignores them, both hands still wrapped firmly around the wheel as they wend their way through Manhattan traffic.
Patrick deepens his voice like a corny TV announcer, saying, "Fall Out Boy bassist Pete Wentz, in an act of rockstar temper, destroyed the interior of his label's SUV on Monday morning..."
"I dunno, pretty lame, dude," Joe says, looking away from the window toward Pete. "You can do better."
"Fuck yeah, I can," Pete says, but Patrick has already turned back to face the front, and the whole thing is less fun without him. He gives Patrick's seat another kick, and Patrick aims a warning look at him over his shoulder. "What?" Pete says, and keeps doing it each time Patrick turns to face front, until Patrick finally turns all the way sideways in his seat and leans his back against the door handle so that he can keep a cautious eye on him.
"Hey, what did you think of that new producer-deal?" Pete says once he has Patrick's full attention. Patrick immediately loses the annoyed crease gathering between his eyebrows and drapes himself forward over the headrest.
"Confusing as hell," Patrick says.
"Maybe worth it?" Pete says, and Patrick shrugs.
"Better get Bob to get our lawyers to look it over."
"Nah," Pete says. He captures two of Patrick's fingers where they're looped around the metal post of the headrest and tugs a little. "I figured we'd just go for it, sight unseen. Like trusting little lambs."
"Sure," Patrick says lightly, and scissors his fingers apart to grab onto Pete's thumb.
"Mm, lambchops," Joe says.
Patrick laughs, then lets Pete's hand drop, pulling his hand back behind the barrier of the seat. "Do you remember that kid's show?" he says.
"Yo, with the freaky red-haired lady?" Pete says. He rubs the pad of his index finger across his thumbnail where Patrick had gripped him. "My brother loved that show."
"Really," Joe says, grinning evilly.
"Yeah, it had that fucking song," Pete says, looking at Patrick. Sure enough, Patrick, looking horrified, is already starting to hum it.
He breaks off long enough to say, "Pete, I'm going to fucking kill you," and they spend the rest of the car-ride singing, "This Is The Song That Never Ends."
That all feels normal, so normal that Pete starts to wonder if he'd imagined everything. Hell, it could have just been an accident of chance that Pete and Patrick's fates didn't align for a couple weeks. Pete tends to get a little paranoid after too long on the road, a little strung out and hallucinatory. He talks to his therapist about it that afternoon over the phone, who says carefully, "Have you been feeling particularly worn down lately?" and Pete has to admit that the tour's barely started. He's not even really sleep-deprived yet.
"Hey, sorry, I have to go," he says instead. "It's almost showtime."
Everything's fine, Pete thinks right before they go onstage. They all high-five. Patrick's palm is warm and rough against his for a brief, hard moment of contact and then everything is moving fast, fast, fast, and they are on.
Everything's so on, everything's so fine, and Pete can feel it pumping through his veins, making him spin and run and then grab the mic like he owns it, because he does, or if he doesn't then he deserves to and that's all that matters. He doesn't know how he could have thought that something was wrong, and then he goes over halfway through the show and leans his head into Patrick's cheek like he has a thousand times before and Patrick steps away. Patrick steps away, almost like an accident, like he didn't mean to. Pete misses his next two chords, fingers strumming gracelessly across the strings and loosening from the fret board and then they are looking at each other and Pete can see his own shock reflected on Patrick's widened eyes even as Patrick's mouth moves onward in the song on autopilot. Patrick steps back toward him, but Pete is backing up and spinning away, concentrating on his fingering like it deserves ten times the attention he'd ever given it before, like he's finding his way through a brand new song for the first time instead of something he's played too many times to count.
The rest of the concert is so shaky Pete's surprised they don't get booed off the stage. Andy and Joe are solid but Pete and Patrick are not, and by the end of the first break, Joe is eyeing everyone warily, Charlie and Patrick's guitar tech are asking in tense whispers if they need anything, and Patrick is looking a little wild-eyed.
Pete drags Patrick off to the side and boxes him in behind an equipment case. Patrick starts apologizing before they even stop moving, saying, "Sorry, sorry, I don't know what happened out there," sounding honestly baffled.
"Are we good?" Pete demands.
"Yeah-yes," Patrick says, looking down and then up, meeting Pete's eyes firmly.
"Are you sure?" Pete asks, and Patrick doesn't say anything. "Patrick," Pete repeats. "Are we good." They aren't touching, but they're standing so close they might as well be, trying to hear each other over the noise of the crowd.
"We're fine," Patrick says, and they aren't, but Pete has an internal clock counting down in his head and Charlie seven feet away on his left telling him time's up, so he reluctantly backs away and lets Patrick move past him. They do their quick change and run back out there, but Patrick stays even more anchored to his mike stand and Pete gives him wide berth for the rest of the show, walking forward a couple steps, then retreating back when he gets within Patrick's field of vision.
Afterwards, the only thing Patrick will say is, "I think you startled me," brow wrinkling like he's as clueless as Pete is.
Pete says, "Yeah, okay. The stage is still a little unfamiliar."
"Yeah," Patrick says. He has his laptop in front of him, the screen's twinned reflections shining in his glasses lenses as he scans something. It's making him hard to read.
Pete leans forward and tips the laptop lid down so he can see Patrick's face clearly. "So. This was just. An off day," Pete says, and Patrick nods. "So, yeah," Pete says. "Yeah. For me, too. I'll try not to startle you next time, Janet."
"Fuck off, Norman Bates," Patrick says mildly.
"Hey," Pete says, struck. "Maybe I should dress up for the next show."
"Yeah, maybe," Patrick says, turning his attention back to his laptop and lifting the screen.
"No, you're right," Pete says. "That would be lame. Also, I hate wearing fake boobs. It messes with my style."
He feels a little gun-shy after that, though. They're fine. Off-stage, they're fine. On-stage, they're fine, but Pete keeps his distance anyway for a couple of shows, because it's true. He doesn't need to be all up in Patrick's face all the time. Sometimes Patrick needs space. He wishes Patrick would just fucking step up and ask for it, though, instead of making Pete feel like he just got turned down in front of thirty-thousand people.
He goes down on his knees in front of Patrick, still playing his bass, but that's as close as he gets the first night. Patrick looks down at him and shakes his head and Pete shakes his head back, grinning. Patrick goes back to singing and Pete arches backward until he ends up on his back on the stage, hips tilted toward the sky, playing toward the "FOB" up in the lighting rig. He's not as flexible as he used to be, but he bets he still looks good.
He gets up and brushes into Joe as they pass each other. Joe yells, "Hot, dude," making it clear that he's spelling hot with two t's in his head, and then goes to rock out at the front of the stage, afro flying.
After the show, Pete sits on his bus with his laptop on the kitchenette table. Hemingway is sprawled across the hallway near his foot. Every once in a while, for no reason Pete can figure out, he jumps up and makes a circuit of the room, collar jangling in time with his waddling steps, before lying back down again. This last round put Hemingway with his stomach firmly on Pete's foot. Pete flexes his toes into Hemingway's fur and clicks idly from window to window on his screen. Joe and a couple of their techs are at the other end of the kitchenette, on the couch watching X-Men 2 and laughing at all the explosions, but Pete's not too interested. He's already seen it, plus he imagines it's way less entertaining without the pot.
He signs into one of his email accounts, mostly for something to do, and finds an email and attachment titled, "Patrick's bday pix" waiting for him from a friend he vaguely remembers seeing at Patrick's birthday party, an amateur photographer with higher aspirations. The first couple shots are pretty standard arty shots of the nightclub full of people that Pete skips past quickly. He smiles at the next one, which shows Joe scowling at the camera with his arm wrapping around Patrick's neck. Patrick has his head tipped back, grinning, miming panic, and Pete remembers how the next minute he'd swept in, shouting, "I'll save you!" jumping on Joe's back and spilling everyone's drinks. He flips past the next few ones of Andy and himself wrestling near the DJ booth and then another one of everyone grouped around the birthday boy, watching Patrick blow out the candles on his cake.
The next one is a close up of him and Patrick in what looks like mid-conversation, their heads bent toward each other over their little plates of cake, and then the one after that is of Pete mashing his cake into Patrick's face, laughing uproariously, while Patrick stands with his palms uplifted and eyes closed, not even trying to fend Pete off. Pete snorts, because it's still funny now a month later, but he feels stupidly wistful about the whole thing too, like he wants to be off this bus and back there at that party with all their friends and Patrick, happy and letting Pete do whatever he wanted because he knew what Pete came up with wouldn't ever be that bad.
Pete makes a face at himself, thinking, cheer up emo kid. It's Patrick.
He writes back: dude smokng hot pics bro and closes the browser window halfway through the roll.
The next morning, he's got an email back, reading, hahahahahah especially that one of you and Paitrck. but i got yr back.
Pete's not really that awake when he reads it the first time, so he doesn't think much of it until after he's had breakfast and comes back to find the email still open on the screen. He reads it again and thinks, what? and clicks on the link to the pictures again, but it's just all the same ones, Patrick, him, Patrick, random people, cake, Patrick. What you'd expect, really, from a party of their friends and alcohol. Further down, though, the subject matter changes as his friend wandered away from the party. Arty shots of empty hotel hallways, a picture of an elderly couple getting off an elevator still dressed in their evening clothes. A potted plant. Pete's been in too many empty hotels after midnight to find the pictures all that interesting.
The first picture is too far away and badly out of focus. Pete can't quite tell what it is except that there are two people at the end of the shot, tangled together, and one of them is wearing a bright yellow hat. He thinks, no one would ever know what that was, but the next picture is clearer, and the one after that is clearer still. He doesn't remember putting his hand up to touch Patrick's face, but he did, obviously he did, leaning in to Patrick and Patrick's hands on his lower back, and it looks different from this perspective than he remembers it being. He doesn't remember feeling so hungry for it; he doesn't remember Patrick looking so focused. He's not sure how he managed to stop.
He stares at those three pictures for a long time, and then he saves them on his hard drive.
whos seen these, he writes.
just you dude, he gets back. patricks a good guy.
hes an affectionate drunk, Pete writes back, and then, feeling guilty, hahahah.
Joe comes out from the bunk then, and Pete hits F11 on the keyboard so quickly he almost jams his finger, trying to clear the screen, but Joe just shuffles past him on his way to the coffeemaker. He barely has his eyes open, and hits himself in the forehead with the cabinet while looking for a mug.
"Joe, sit down, dude," Pete says, standing up and taking over coffee-making duties, shoving Joe toward the table.
Joe makes a noise that sounds like, "Glgh-urgh," and then, "I fucking hate waking up."
"Can't wake up if you never go to sleep," Pete says, but bends and gives Joe a kiss on his abused forehead when he sets down the mug in front of him.
"I love you so much," Joe says. "So much. So much."
Pete grins and settles down opposite him, then slides his laptop closed.
Part 2