WRONGMAPS: North Jersey!
Title: wrong_maps entry: north jersey
Rating: pg-13
Summary: New Jersey is every worst nightmare, come true!
Disclaimer: I own nothing!!!
Patrick was just awaking when they neared the state line, his face cold where it had been smushed against the window and his eyes heavy and half-lidded beneath the dreary weight of sleep upon them. Yawning, he looked over at Pete, who was watching the road and strumming his fingers on the wheel to the beat of some 80’s pop song that was playing, soft and static and terribly tacky, on the car radio.
"Mm… where are we?" Patrick asked, and Pete cracked a crooked grin from the driver’s seat - Patrick was so desperately adorable when he was sleepy, rubbing at his eyes with his fist like a chubby-cheeked baby.
"Look," he replied, pointing to the looming road sign welcoming them to…
"TURN AROUND!" Patrick cried, suddenly wide-eyed and pale and clutching at the door handle as if he were about to fling it open and throw himself from the vehicle to meet his doom on the asphalt.
The car swerved. A collision with a passing 4x4 was closely avoided. Pete straightened them back out on the road, took a settling breath, and rounded on a still-petrified Patrick. "What. The fuck?"
"We’re in New Jersey," he rasped, still gripping at the door and his seat to keep him anchored and shrinking back from the scenery flying past the windows.
"…Yeah, and?"
"We have to go around! Go through Pennsylvania or Ohio or whatever instead. Just… just get the hell out of Jersey!" He was shouting. Pete winced.
"What the hell is so wrong with New Jersey?" Pete asked while Patrick gestured wildly at a passing exit sign, letting out a wail of distress as Pete drove by yet another Last Chance to Escape.
Patrick snorted. "What the hell is so wrong with New Jersey? I'll tell you what's wrong with New Jersey! It is a dangerous, toxic-radiation zone and the only people that can survive there are scary bull dykes, wealthy serial killers, and the mafia."
"Oh come on, Patrick. Don't you think you're overreacting just a little?"
Patrick gave Pete a level glare. "I am really terrified of angry lesbians, Peter."
Pete snorted.
"Patrick, you can't be serious."
"Oh, but I am," he said gravely.
"Fine," Pete sighed, throwing his hands up in the air in exasperated defeat and Patrick made a panicked lunge to steady the wheel before the car veered off into a ditch. "I promise to battle any and all giant, man-hating dykes that accost you, dearest."
Patrick's eyes were narrowed and he still looked highly skeptical as he settled back into his seat with his arms crossed tightly over his chest. He watched the trees and road signs melt together as they flew past the window and thought that it was a very clever ruse for Jersey to disguise its true, demonic self with all of this innocent-looking scenery. "Fine," Patrick echoed, in a tone that would befit a small child stomping his feet in pouting protest, "but if we don't make it out alive, don't say I didn't warn you."
--
Well, as such things are inevitable, they ended up getting lost.
"Orange?" Patrick had asked incredulously from his position glaring cutely out the window to draw some sympathy from Pete. He glanced around their surroundings - mostly some worn houses cramped side by side along the street, a convenience store with a filthy sign, and a brick train station at the corner. A few Hispanic guys were walking in the direction of the station and an empty Dunkin Donut's cup rolled waywardly down the sidewalk. Patrick wasn't quite sure that 'Orange' was a fitting name for the place, which couldn't exactly be called a city but stretched on from one crowded lower-class suburb to another seamlessly.
"So," he said, rounding on Pete, "do you have any plans of re-locating the highway any time soon so we can get out of here, or are you just gonna keep driving around in this sketchy neighborhood until we get shot?"
"Stop being so cynical," Pete retorted with a roll of his eyes, making another random turn down another unfamiliar street. "It's unbecoming. You're too adorable to be cynical."
Patrick answered with a look about as adorable as a pony getting flattened by a truck. "How about you just stop for directions so we can get the hell out of this place?"
"Fair enough," Pete chirped and pulled into a gas station that looked as if it hadn't seen better days in quite some time, with rust beginning to gnaw away at the bedraggled line of pumps outside and a couple of dilapidated old cars half-sunk into the ground at the end of the lot. Patrick looked highly skeptical - Pete rolled down his window with a sunny smile and watched as an employee emerged from the dusty depths of the garage.
Patrick stared on, eyes widened with disbelief and horror, as the massive woman began to walk across the oil-streaked pavement, her torn t-shirt faded and stained and her hair falling in gnarled wisps from her stubby ponytail and into her stout, sour face. There was a wrench protruding from the front pocket of her baggy jeans. As she drew nearer, Patrick saw that she was wearing combat boots. This could only mean one thing...
"Pete!" Patrick hissed, shrinking back from the approaching woman. "Pete! We should go-"
"Hey, um... do you know how to get back to the highway? We're not from around here and I think we've gotten ourselves a little lost!" Pete said as if he didn't notice Patrick gesturing wildly from the passenger's seat for him to make a run for it. Instead, he had turned on the full power of his toothy smile and was shining it up at the Big Scary Lesbian like an endearing beacon.
She seemed unimpressed.
In fact, rather than being charmed by the bassist, she seemed to grow even more surly and consequentially, though neither men had thought it possible, even more hideous than before. She looked disdainfully from Pete's thick, charcoal eyeliner and his narrow thighs in their snug jeans to Patrick's long sideburns and expression of utter terror. Her face wrinkled to make her strongly resemble a grumpy bulldog before she said, in a rasping voice that sounded like car exhausts and cigarette butts, "what highway?"
"Oh," Pete only betrayed a flicker of a frown, but otherwise didn't appear to be entirely put-out by the Big Scary Lesbian's clear, violent hatred for them both. "I dunno... the closest one?"
She stared at him, blank and hard, and crossed her thick arms over her chest.
Patrick, panicking on the other side of the car, was busy trying to juggle plotting escape routes from the vehicle and cowering from the ominous presence of the manly woman. He had told Pete about the lesbians in New Jersey, dammit! And about how big and scary they were! But did Pete listen to him? Nooo. And now look where they were - trapped in the clutches of a beastly dyke with a vengeance.
"Where you trying to get to?" She asked gruffly, and it took Pete a little effort not to squirm under her crippling glare.
"New York," he replied, and waited for the Big Scary Lesbian to clear her throat, spit some phlegm onto the ground beside the car, and wipe at her nose with the hem of her shirt before she brusquely gave them directions and, glowering darkly, stalked back to the gas station.
"Quick!" Patrick yelped, rolling up all the windows hurriedly and re-locking the doors, just in case. "Drive! Before she comes back to castrate us!"
--
So, because you should never follow the advice of a spiteful man-hating bull dyke, they ended up getting even more lost and nowhere near the highway at all.
Rather than being merrily en route to New York City and leaving the sketchy Garden State behind, Peter and Patrick found themselves instead entering into the most decrepit, God-forsaken city in the country: Newark .
Patrick looked on in horror as the entire world seemed to darken around them, as if the streets were doused in sinister shadow. Every sign seemed to be streaked with dirt, car horns blared obnoxiously, and the sky was painted the same bleak grey as the filthy sidewalks.
“This doesn’t look so bad!” Pete said optimistically, fiddling with the radio to change the abrasive gangsta-rap that had started as soon as they entered Newark .
Patrick threw him a scathing glare.
"Look, this is supposed to be a pretty big city, I'm sure we can find something to do," Pete said confidently, making a few purposeful turns as if he had the slightest clue where he was going. An airplane passed by low overhead and the roaring of its engines leaked in through the car's windows.
Wherever they were, it looked to be the shady part of town, if the homeless people scattered across the sidewalks like heaps of forgotten rags and the vacant windows of abandoned buildings were any indication. To confirm Patrick's suspicions, at the end of the block there was a huddle of gangsta black people, very obviously doing a drug deal.
"Holy shit! Did you hear that?" Patrick asked, jumping in his seat and ducking down a little.
Pete looked side to side shiftily, acting as if the virtual canon fire didn't exist. "Hear what?" He said unconvincingly.
"Was that gunfire?"
“Er… look! A nightclub! That looks… fun,” he smiled hesitantly, pulling off into the parking lot of a shady brick building.
“Are you insane?” Patrick asked with acid on his tongue. Pete killed the engine and instantly Patrick slammed on the lock button, peering around the car nice and inconspicuously for any sign of muggers. “We have to keep moving! It isn’t safe here.”
“Patrick,” Pete sighed, trying to open his door, but the redhead was too quick with hitting the lock and foiling his attempts. “You seriously have to overcome this illogical fear of New Jersey , dude. Really, it’s not that bad.”
Patrick’s eyes narrowed. “What about that Big Scary Lesbian, huh?”
Pete looked abashed and stammered for a moment, refusing to meet Patrick’s triumphant stare. “I… okay, so she really was pretty frightening, but come on. Let’s just go inside and have a little fun, yeah? You can shake your ass, I can grope it…” He smirked.
Patrick rolled his eyes dramatically and, with a heavy sigh and a full pout, unlocked the doors. Pete bounded out of the car the moment they were open and looked around them while Patrick, not nearly as enthusiastic, crawled out of the passenger’s seat and sniffed at the air experimentally. He was just starting to inch away from the car, strongly resembling a spooked rabbit emerging from its hole, when Pete came up behind him and slid an arm around his waist. “You’ll survive,” he laughed, pressing his face into the warmth of Patrick’s neck and kissing the pale, fragrant skin gently. “I promise. I won’t let any bloodthirsty New Jerseyans get you.”
“I am holding you to that,” he replied darkly, though he couldn’t stifle the insistent tugging of a small smile at the edges of his mouth from Pete’s lips on his skin, the curves of his body pressed into his. Damn him.
Pete chuckled as they walked into the club, which was even darker than the dingy streets outside with jaundiced light cast in eerie orbs against the stark brick walls. It was bustling without being uncomfortably crowded, with people filling the dimly-lit booths, men crowded around the small stages where strippers rolled their hips seductively, and rows of people anxiously awaiting liquor at the bar. Patrick swallowed and scanned the large room, his fingers groping blindly for Pete’s and curling firmly around them as they worked their way towards the dance floor.
“It’s okay,” Pete reminded him in a murmur, his lips moving against the sensitive skin just behind Patrick’s earlobe as they found a spot amongst the other dancers. Patrick was stiff, not too terribly inclined to dancing as he continued to look around him nervously, a single bead of sweat emerging from beneath his hat and starting to trickle down his temple.
But Pete wouldn’t put up with such behavior for long, and his hips were swaying to the bass line, which was heavy and thundering and breathed life into his restless limbs. He put his hands on Patrick’s sides and looked down into his shadowed eyes, smirking softly as the smaller man tentatively started to move with him.
Pete slid a thigh between Patrick's and ground their hips together, feeling his heart beginning a crescendo as he watched Patrick's teeth sink into his lower lip and felt the responding roll of the singer's hips. He let his hands wander down the line of Patrick's spine, and in return the man arched into him and finally surrendered to the music, dancing with Pete with their bodies welded together at every seam.
"You are so sexy like this," Pete said over the music, his voice gravelly like the rough edges of New Jersey had serrated him.
"You lie," Patrick replied curtly, his wrists crossed in the air above his head and swiveling like soft-boned birds recently released from cages. Pete, for once, found words failing him and could only gather Patrick in his arms and kiss him, tongue slipping between his lips like it was thieve the air from his lungs.
Just then, with rather atrocious timing, someone decided to tap on Pete's shoulder. Glowering darkly, he turned to face the clearly blind intruder.
"Excuse me, sir?"
"Uh, can I help you?" Pete asked the stocky Italian man in a clean-cut suit flatly.
"Would the two of you mind coming with me, please?" He asked, his voice as slimy as his dark, slicked hair and his small eyes glittering maliciously beneath his thick brows. Patrick mouthed 'no!' wildly, shaking his head enthusiastically.
His heart sank as Pete muttered, "uh... sure," and started pulling Patrick through the hot bodies of the crowd, following the stranger to one of the darkened corners of the club, where light seemed to ebb away in fear of the shadows. He wondered if maybe Pete had a wish for neither of them to leave Jersey alive.
"Good evening, gentlemen," they were greeted by another Italian man, this one smirking and so large that the table dug into his bulging stomach and the buttons on his expensive jacket trembled from the effort of restraining it. Patrick gulped as his eyes darted around the private corner of the building, landing on the stolid, blank-faced men standing sentinel at either side of the booth. His gaze landed on their hands disappearing behind their lapels and imagined the guns that were doubtlessly clasped in their fingers. He bit at his lip and gave Pete's hand a squeeze, shifting his weight nervously from foot to foot.
"I am, as you can see, Big Tony," the man grinned, cigar smoke curling from the corners of his mouth, "and this," he motioned around him with fat fingers crippled beneath the weight of his many rings, "is my establishment."
"Have we done something wrong?" Pete asked with a small frown.
Big Tony broke out in a loud, rumbling chuckle that gave the stormy bass line a run for its money, the folds of fat and loose skin beneath his chin rippling like Jell-O. "No, not at all! You see, Mr...?"
"Wentz."
"You see, Mr. Wentz, I am a business man, and I was hoping that you and I could come to an agreement, of sorts," he explained, and though his robust voice sounded diplomatic, reflected in his eyes Patrick could see the black mouths of his men's guns.
How in the hell did they manage to stumble upon the mafia?
Goddamnit.
"Well, what do you want?" Pete asked, eyes narrowing suspiciously as he took Patrick's hand more firmly in his own possessively, holding his lover close against his side. Usually, this would have comforted Patrick, but Pete didn't have a very good track record so far with keeping him safe (ahem scary lesbian, anyone?), regardless of what promises had been made.
"I'm interested in your friend here," he grinned, and Patrick could feel his face blanch and chill as the blood emptied from it. "He is..." Patrick's skin crawled as Big Tony's penetrating gaze landed on him and smoothed over every curve of his body. "...very attractive, he finished with a nauseating smirk.
When he was through staring, Big Tony looked back to Pete, whose jaw was clamped shut tightly, the muscles there twitching slightly. Patrick, though still fairly terrified of the situation they had gotten themselves into, felt an affectionate swell of pride for his wayward hero - Pete looked so handsome when he was defending his honor.
"Excuse me?" He asked tersely, glaring the mobster down with his best icy stare.
"I'd like to purchase him from you," Big Tony continued, as if Pete hadn't even spoken. "I'm willing to make a very generous offer."
"Look, asshole, I don't fucking own him," he spat back.
The guns got drawn.
"FLEE!" Patrick shrieked, and Pete leapt into action, hoisting Patrick in his arms before turning and vaulting off the few steps that led up to the VIP section and -
(Okay, so not really.)
"FLEE!" Patrick shrieked, and the two of them had no qualms about turning and taking the coward's way out, darting into the throngs of people to avoid getting knocked off by mafia hit men.
They managed to escape through the back entrance of the club, and it was almost a pleasure to emerge into the chilly, grey night air that carried that lovely 'decaying waste' smell that was unique to New Jersey. Patrick leaned against Peter, his eyes closed as he listened to the rhythm of his heart gradually slow and return to normal. "You're not a very good night in shining armor, you know," he murmured, curling his arms around Pete's neck.
"I'm sorry," he whined, kissing the pale junction of Patrick's neck and shoulder, "I try."
"Can we please get the fuck out of here now?"
"Yeah, let's," Pete agreed, putting an arm around Patrick's waist and beginning to hurriedly lead him back to the safety of the car, which could always double as a high-speed bludgeoning device if they ever got themselves in a real pickle, "before My Chemical Romance attacks us and turns us into vampires or something."
Rating: pg-13
Summary: New Jersey is every worst nightmare, come true!
Disclaimer: I own nothing!!!
Patrick was just awaking when they neared the state line, his face cold where it had been smushed against the window and his eyes heavy and half-lidded beneath the dreary weight of sleep upon them. Yawning, he looked over at Pete, who was watching the road and strumming his fingers on the wheel to the beat of some 80’s pop song that was playing, soft and static and terribly tacky, on the car radio.
"Mm… where are we?" Patrick asked, and Pete cracked a crooked grin from the driver’s seat - Patrick was so desperately adorable when he was sleepy, rubbing at his eyes with his fist like a chubby-cheeked baby.
"Look," he replied, pointing to the looming road sign welcoming them to…
"TURN AROUND!" Patrick cried, suddenly wide-eyed and pale and clutching at the door handle as if he were about to fling it open and throw himself from the vehicle to meet his doom on the asphalt.
The car swerved. A collision with a passing 4x4 was closely avoided. Pete straightened them back out on the road, took a settling breath, and rounded on a still-petrified Patrick. "What. The fuck?"
"We’re in New Jersey," he rasped, still gripping at the door and his seat to keep him anchored and shrinking back from the scenery flying past the windows.
"…Yeah, and?"
"We have to go around! Go through Pennsylvania or Ohio or whatever instead. Just… just get the hell out of Jersey!" He was shouting. Pete winced.
"What the hell is so wrong with New Jersey?" Pete asked while Patrick gestured wildly at a passing exit sign, letting out a wail of distress as Pete drove by yet another Last Chance to Escape.
Patrick snorted. "What the hell is so wrong with New Jersey? I'll tell you what's wrong with New Jersey! It is a dangerous, toxic-radiation zone and the only people that can survive there are scary bull dykes, wealthy serial killers, and the mafia."
"Oh come on, Patrick. Don't you think you're overreacting just a little?"
Patrick gave Pete a level glare. "I am really terrified of angry lesbians, Peter."
Pete snorted.
"Patrick, you can't be serious."
"Oh, but I am," he said gravely.
"Fine," Pete sighed, throwing his hands up in the air in exasperated defeat and Patrick made a panicked lunge to steady the wheel before the car veered off into a ditch. "I promise to battle any and all giant, man-hating dykes that accost you, dearest."
Patrick's eyes were narrowed and he still looked highly skeptical as he settled back into his seat with his arms crossed tightly over his chest. He watched the trees and road signs melt together as they flew past the window and thought that it was a very clever ruse for Jersey to disguise its true, demonic self with all of this innocent-looking scenery. "Fine," Patrick echoed, in a tone that would befit a small child stomping his feet in pouting protest, "but if we don't make it out alive, don't say I didn't warn you."
--
Well, as such things are inevitable, they ended up getting lost.
"Orange?" Patrick had asked incredulously from his position glaring cutely out the window to draw some sympathy from Pete. He glanced around their surroundings - mostly some worn houses cramped side by side along the street, a convenience store with a filthy sign, and a brick train station at the corner. A few Hispanic guys were walking in the direction of the station and an empty Dunkin Donut's cup rolled waywardly down the sidewalk. Patrick wasn't quite sure that 'Orange' was a fitting name for the place, which couldn't exactly be called a city but stretched on from one crowded lower-class suburb to another seamlessly.
"So," he said, rounding on Pete, "do you have any plans of re-locating the highway any time soon so we can get out of here, or are you just gonna keep driving around in this sketchy neighborhood until we get shot?"
"Stop being so cynical," Pete retorted with a roll of his eyes, making another random turn down another unfamiliar street. "It's unbecoming. You're too adorable to be cynical."
Patrick answered with a look about as adorable as a pony getting flattened by a truck. "How about you just stop for directions so we can get the hell out of this place?"
"Fair enough," Pete chirped and pulled into a gas station that looked as if it hadn't seen better days in quite some time, with rust beginning to gnaw away at the bedraggled line of pumps outside and a couple of dilapidated old cars half-sunk into the ground at the end of the lot. Patrick looked highly skeptical - Pete rolled down his window with a sunny smile and watched as an employee emerged from the dusty depths of the garage.
Patrick stared on, eyes widened with disbelief and horror, as the massive woman began to walk across the oil-streaked pavement, her torn t-shirt faded and stained and her hair falling in gnarled wisps from her stubby ponytail and into her stout, sour face. There was a wrench protruding from the front pocket of her baggy jeans. As she drew nearer, Patrick saw that she was wearing combat boots. This could only mean one thing...
"Pete!" Patrick hissed, shrinking back from the approaching woman. "Pete! We should go-"
"Hey, um... do you know how to get back to the highway? We're not from around here and I think we've gotten ourselves a little lost!" Pete said as if he didn't notice Patrick gesturing wildly from the passenger's seat for him to make a run for it. Instead, he had turned on the full power of his toothy smile and was shining it up at the Big Scary Lesbian like an endearing beacon.
She seemed unimpressed.
In fact, rather than being charmed by the bassist, she seemed to grow even more surly and consequentially, though neither men had thought it possible, even more hideous than before. She looked disdainfully from Pete's thick, charcoal eyeliner and his narrow thighs in their snug jeans to Patrick's long sideburns and expression of utter terror. Her face wrinkled to make her strongly resemble a grumpy bulldog before she said, in a rasping voice that sounded like car exhausts and cigarette butts, "what highway?"
"Oh," Pete only betrayed a flicker of a frown, but otherwise didn't appear to be entirely put-out by the Big Scary Lesbian's clear, violent hatred for them both. "I dunno... the closest one?"
She stared at him, blank and hard, and crossed her thick arms over her chest.
Patrick, panicking on the other side of the car, was busy trying to juggle plotting escape routes from the vehicle and cowering from the ominous presence of the manly woman. He had told Pete about the lesbians in New Jersey, dammit! And about how big and scary they were! But did Pete listen to him? Nooo. And now look where they were - trapped in the clutches of a beastly dyke with a vengeance.
"Where you trying to get to?" She asked gruffly, and it took Pete a little effort not to squirm under her crippling glare.
"New York," he replied, and waited for the Big Scary Lesbian to clear her throat, spit some phlegm onto the ground beside the car, and wipe at her nose with the hem of her shirt before she brusquely gave them directions and, glowering darkly, stalked back to the gas station.
"Quick!" Patrick yelped, rolling up all the windows hurriedly and re-locking the doors, just in case. "Drive! Before she comes back to castrate us!"
--
So, because you should never follow the advice of a spiteful man-hating bull dyke, they ended up getting even more lost and nowhere near the highway at all.
Rather than being merrily en route to New York City and leaving the sketchy Garden State behind, Peter and Patrick found themselves instead entering into the most decrepit, God-forsaken city in the country: Newark .
Patrick looked on in horror as the entire world seemed to darken around them, as if the streets were doused in sinister shadow. Every sign seemed to be streaked with dirt, car horns blared obnoxiously, and the sky was painted the same bleak grey as the filthy sidewalks.
“This doesn’t look so bad!” Pete said optimistically, fiddling with the radio to change the abrasive gangsta-rap that had started as soon as they entered Newark .
Patrick threw him a scathing glare.
"Look, this is supposed to be a pretty big city, I'm sure we can find something to do," Pete said confidently, making a few purposeful turns as if he had the slightest clue where he was going. An airplane passed by low overhead and the roaring of its engines leaked in through the car's windows.
Wherever they were, it looked to be the shady part of town, if the homeless people scattered across the sidewalks like heaps of forgotten rags and the vacant windows of abandoned buildings were any indication. To confirm Patrick's suspicions, at the end of the block there was a huddle of gangsta black people, very obviously doing a drug deal.
"Holy shit! Did you hear that?" Patrick asked, jumping in his seat and ducking down a little.
Pete looked side to side shiftily, acting as if the virtual canon fire didn't exist. "Hear what?" He said unconvincingly.
"Was that gunfire?"
“Er… look! A nightclub! That looks… fun,” he smiled hesitantly, pulling off into the parking lot of a shady brick building.
“Are you insane?” Patrick asked with acid on his tongue. Pete killed the engine and instantly Patrick slammed on the lock button, peering around the car nice and inconspicuously for any sign of muggers. “We have to keep moving! It isn’t safe here.”
“Patrick,” Pete sighed, trying to open his door, but the redhead was too quick with hitting the lock and foiling his attempts. “You seriously have to overcome this illogical fear of New Jersey , dude. Really, it’s not that bad.”
Patrick’s eyes narrowed. “What about that Big Scary Lesbian, huh?”
Pete looked abashed and stammered for a moment, refusing to meet Patrick’s triumphant stare. “I… okay, so she really was pretty frightening, but come on. Let’s just go inside and have a little fun, yeah? You can shake your ass, I can grope it…” He smirked.
Patrick rolled his eyes dramatically and, with a heavy sigh and a full pout, unlocked the doors. Pete bounded out of the car the moment they were open and looked around them while Patrick, not nearly as enthusiastic, crawled out of the passenger’s seat and sniffed at the air experimentally. He was just starting to inch away from the car, strongly resembling a spooked rabbit emerging from its hole, when Pete came up behind him and slid an arm around his waist. “You’ll survive,” he laughed, pressing his face into the warmth of Patrick’s neck and kissing the pale, fragrant skin gently. “I promise. I won’t let any bloodthirsty New Jerseyans get you.”
“I am holding you to that,” he replied darkly, though he couldn’t stifle the insistent tugging of a small smile at the edges of his mouth from Pete’s lips on his skin, the curves of his body pressed into his. Damn him.
Pete chuckled as they walked into the club, which was even darker than the dingy streets outside with jaundiced light cast in eerie orbs against the stark brick walls. It was bustling without being uncomfortably crowded, with people filling the dimly-lit booths, men crowded around the small stages where strippers rolled their hips seductively, and rows of people anxiously awaiting liquor at the bar. Patrick swallowed and scanned the large room, his fingers groping blindly for Pete’s and curling firmly around them as they worked their way towards the dance floor.
“It’s okay,” Pete reminded him in a murmur, his lips moving against the sensitive skin just behind Patrick’s earlobe as they found a spot amongst the other dancers. Patrick was stiff, not too terribly inclined to dancing as he continued to look around him nervously, a single bead of sweat emerging from beneath his hat and starting to trickle down his temple.
But Pete wouldn’t put up with such behavior for long, and his hips were swaying to the bass line, which was heavy and thundering and breathed life into his restless limbs. He put his hands on Patrick’s sides and looked down into his shadowed eyes, smirking softly as the smaller man tentatively started to move with him.
Pete slid a thigh between Patrick's and ground their hips together, feeling his heart beginning a crescendo as he watched Patrick's teeth sink into his lower lip and felt the responding roll of the singer's hips. He let his hands wander down the line of Patrick's spine, and in return the man arched into him and finally surrendered to the music, dancing with Pete with their bodies welded together at every seam.
"You are so sexy like this," Pete said over the music, his voice gravelly like the rough edges of New Jersey had serrated him.
"You lie," Patrick replied curtly, his wrists crossed in the air above his head and swiveling like soft-boned birds recently released from cages. Pete, for once, found words failing him and could only gather Patrick in his arms and kiss him, tongue slipping between his lips like it was thieve the air from his lungs.
Just then, with rather atrocious timing, someone decided to tap on Pete's shoulder. Glowering darkly, he turned to face the clearly blind intruder.
"Excuse me, sir?"
"Uh, can I help you?" Pete asked the stocky Italian man in a clean-cut suit flatly.
"Would the two of you mind coming with me, please?" He asked, his voice as slimy as his dark, slicked hair and his small eyes glittering maliciously beneath his thick brows. Patrick mouthed 'no!' wildly, shaking his head enthusiastically.
His heart sank as Pete muttered, "uh... sure," and started pulling Patrick through the hot bodies of the crowd, following the stranger to one of the darkened corners of the club, where light seemed to ebb away in fear of the shadows. He wondered if maybe Pete had a wish for neither of them to leave Jersey alive.
"Good evening, gentlemen," they were greeted by another Italian man, this one smirking and so large that the table dug into his bulging stomach and the buttons on his expensive jacket trembled from the effort of restraining it. Patrick gulped as his eyes darted around the private corner of the building, landing on the stolid, blank-faced men standing sentinel at either side of the booth. His gaze landed on their hands disappearing behind their lapels and imagined the guns that were doubtlessly clasped in their fingers. He bit at his lip and gave Pete's hand a squeeze, shifting his weight nervously from foot to foot.
"I am, as you can see, Big Tony," the man grinned, cigar smoke curling from the corners of his mouth, "and this," he motioned around him with fat fingers crippled beneath the weight of his many rings, "is my establishment."
"Have we done something wrong?" Pete asked with a small frown.
Big Tony broke out in a loud, rumbling chuckle that gave the stormy bass line a run for its money, the folds of fat and loose skin beneath his chin rippling like Jell-O. "No, not at all! You see, Mr...?"
"Wentz."
"You see, Mr. Wentz, I am a business man, and I was hoping that you and I could come to an agreement, of sorts," he explained, and though his robust voice sounded diplomatic, reflected in his eyes Patrick could see the black mouths of his men's guns.
How in the hell did they manage to stumble upon the mafia?
Goddamnit.
"Well, what do you want?" Pete asked, eyes narrowing suspiciously as he took Patrick's hand more firmly in his own possessively, holding his lover close against his side. Usually, this would have comforted Patrick, but Pete didn't have a very good track record so far with keeping him safe (ahem scary lesbian, anyone?), regardless of what promises had been made.
"I'm interested in your friend here," he grinned, and Patrick could feel his face blanch and chill as the blood emptied from it. "He is..." Patrick's skin crawled as Big Tony's penetrating gaze landed on him and smoothed over every curve of his body. "...very attractive, he finished with a nauseating smirk.
When he was through staring, Big Tony looked back to Pete, whose jaw was clamped shut tightly, the muscles there twitching slightly. Patrick, though still fairly terrified of the situation they had gotten themselves into, felt an affectionate swell of pride for his wayward hero - Pete looked so handsome when he was defending his honor.
"Excuse me?" He asked tersely, glaring the mobster down with his best icy stare.
"I'd like to purchase him from you," Big Tony continued, as if Pete hadn't even spoken. "I'm willing to make a very generous offer."
"Look, asshole, I don't fucking own him," he spat back.
The guns got drawn.
"FLEE!" Patrick shrieked, and Pete leapt into action, hoisting Patrick in his arms before turning and vaulting off the few steps that led up to the VIP section and -
(Okay, so not really.)
"FLEE!" Patrick shrieked, and the two of them had no qualms about turning and taking the coward's way out, darting into the throngs of people to avoid getting knocked off by mafia hit men.
They managed to escape through the back entrance of the club, and it was almost a pleasure to emerge into the chilly, grey night air that carried that lovely 'decaying waste' smell that was unique to New Jersey. Patrick leaned against Peter, his eyes closed as he listened to the rhythm of his heart gradually slow and return to normal. "You're not a very good night in shining armor, you know," he murmured, curling his arms around Pete's neck.
"I'm sorry," he whined, kissing the pale junction of Patrick's neck and shoulder, "I try."
"Can we please get the fuck out of here now?"
"Yeah, let's," Pete agreed, putting an arm around Patrick's waist and beginning to hurriedly lead him back to the safety of the car, which could always double as a high-speed bludgeoning device if they ever got themselves in a real pickle, "before My Chemical Romance attacks us and turns us into vampires or something."