Patrendon? Brentrick? Huh.
Ryan Ross stomped into the living room, a scowl on his face. Two of his three friends/the members of his not-that-shitty garage band turned to stare up at him. Brendon was too busy violently crushing the buttons on the Playstation controller he was holding to notice. He won because Spencer wasn’t paying attention, as he was focusing a bemused expression on their guitarist.
Brendon dropped his controller to throw his arms up in victory, and shouted ‘WOO!’ just for good measure. It was then that he realized no one had been paying attention to him.
“What’s with the sour face, Ross?” he asked, tilting his head and giving his friend a toothy grin.
“We will be coming face to face with our destiny, tomorrow. This is serious business and you two playing your trivial games at a time like this is entirely inappropriate!” he snapped in response, sending Brent into a fit of laughter. Spencer got up and went for the fridge, deciding not to humor Ryan, as he usually does.
Brendon just stared back at the fierce look Ryan was giving him - his eyebrow raised and his mouth working to find words. There wasn’t much you could say to something like that, though, as examples by Spencer.
“Sorry?” Brendon said, and instead of ignoring him, because he had never been good at things like that, he asked, “What destiny?”
“Our musical one,” he said, his tone long-suffering, because to be fair to him he had been talking about this shit for weeks. “Pete Wentz is going to sign us to his label. We will duel at dawn.”
There was a long, uncomfortable silence. Ryan glanced around to make eye contact with each of them for at least five seconds.
“Excuse me?” Brent said, baffled. “Like, with swords?”
“Ooh!” Brendon chirped. “With cards?”
A growl came from the fridge and Spencer was pinching the bridge of his nose irritably. “What the fuck are you dueling Pete Wentz for?”
Ryan just glared around at each of them, starting with Brent, and the furrow of his eyebrow getting a lot angrier looking as he made his way to Spencer. He didn’t respond, just stormed back to his room and slammed the door.
Another long, awkward silence followed before Brent said, “Wait… who’s Pete Wentz?”
The next morning was an odd one. Brendon had been woken up by the sound of Ryan storming around the house, and it hadn’t even occurred to Brendon that it was morning until he saw the time. It was still dark out and the clock insisted it was four in the morning. The way Ryan stepped on them as he moved about the bedroom suggested it was more like the afternoon. There was grumbling from the other two, but Brendon crawled out of bed quietly, and followed Ryan to the front door before saying anything.
He was dressed in all of Spencer’s snazziest black clothing, and Brendon was still in his pajamas - the clouds on the button up top matching the clouds on the bottoms. Ryan glared at him when he turned to pull the door shut behind him, in a strange attempt to be quiet while leaving.
Brendon gave him a sleepy smile.
“Where are you going?”
Ryan glared harder and said, “I already explained this to you.”
“Oh,” Brendon said, nodding. “Right. Where’s your duel disk?”
“My what?” Ryan snapped. Brendon had forgotten he was the only one that watched 4kids on Saturday mornings, because he was the only one that ever woke up that early on a weekend day.
“Never mind. Can I come?”
Ryan made a weird, frustrated sounding noise.
“…I don’t speak grunting.”
“Why do you want to come?” Ryan was obviously impatient, since he was standing there turning the doorknob back and forth. Apparently this duel really was some serious shit.
“I dunno,” Brendon answered honestly. “Make sure you don’t get crushed?”
Ryan snorted.
“He’s like, a foot shorter than me.”
Brendon shrugged.
“Whatever,” Ryan said, before turning and speed-walking to his car. He left the door open, though, which was a yes in Brendon’s brain. Without a second thought, he shoved his feet into Spencer’s mother’s slippers and hurried out, because Ryan sure as hell wasn’t going to wait.
The meeting place was a park bench at some park Brendon had never been to. It was a bit far from Spencer’s house, and the sun was hardly coming up when the pulled up into a parking space. Brendon was starting to worry about this whole situation. Not only was it completely weird, now that he was waking up, the whole thing was starting to seem rather dangerous.
“Are you sure we’re meeting Pete here?” Brendon asked, as Ryan turned off the car.
“Where else should I meet him?” Ryan snapped, as he pushed open his door.
Brendon followed suit, frowning, as he climbed out of the passenger’s side.
“No,” he said, hurrying to catch up with Ryan, who was already striding across the grass. “I mean, how do you know it’s Pete Wentz? It seems a little weird he would offer to sign you and then ask to …duel.”
He was looking at the back of Ryan’s messy haired head, but he could see the eye roll that he was given. As if that wasn’t a completely valid concern to have. Maybe it wasn’t. Brendon couldn’t be too sure this early in the morning.
“It’s him, okay? And the duel was my idea. I need to make sure he is worth our time,” Ryan said, before standing directly in front of the park bench, the designated dueling arena. Brendon chose to follow in Spencer’s footsteps this time. Instead of inquiring further, he let that explanation be enough because honestly, Ryan Ross was obviously out of his goddamn mind.
After a couple long minutes of Brendon fidgeting in his seat on the bench, and Ryan staring sternly out over the playground, two figures approached them. It was definitely Pete Wentz standing in front of them, a smirk on his face. He was far too awake to have gone to bed at all, and, Brendon noticed, he was ridiculously small - Ryan could definitely crush him.
However, before Brendon could focus on the words that they began to exchange, an even smaller person - the second figure - plopped down next to him. Brendon turned to look at very tired, very irritated looking young man. He had mutton chops, a hat that was determined to hide his face, and at least two hoodies on. This had to be Patrick - he sang and stuff in Pete’s band. That’s Ryan had said when he was forcing all of them to listen to Fall Out Boy all last week. What Ryan hadn’t mentioned was how perfectly adorable he was, but then again, Ryan had bad taste and was too busy developing a plan to duel for their destiny and whatever.
“Hi,” Brendon said, grinning brightly.
Patrick smiled back, not quite so bright, but friendly enough.
“Hi,” he said, and then glanced over at the two. “Do you have any idea what this duel is about?”
“Nope,” Brendon said, still smiling and probably staring just a little. He couldn’t really help it, the guy had these ridiculously blue eyes - kind of like Spencer’s, but better.
Patrick seemed to notice the staring, and gave him a look. Brendon stuck his hand out to shake.
“Brendon,” he said, his grin never faltering. This seemed to kill some of the irritation the being here for a duel at this hour had brought him, because now he giving in to grin right back. Brendon had always been told his smile was contagious. Patrick’s, on the other hand, was just plain awesome.
“Patrick,” he said, taking Brendon’s hand and shaking it. “You’re in this band Pete’s been going on about?”
“Yep!” Brendon said, excitedly. “I sing.”
“Me too.”
“Yeah, and you’re awesome!” Brendon said, not expecting the blush that followed. Patrick seemed to disappear under the rim of his hat. Brendon chuckled.
Patrick eventually got his hand out of Brendon’s grip, and leaned forward suddenly, that irritated back on his face (though Brendon was sure it was mostly beaten down by embarrassment).
“Pete! Where are you going?” he called, and Brendon turned to see Pete and Ryan wandering away. Well, Ryan was marching across the park and Pete was sauntering along behind him.
Pete didn’t say anything, but he lifted his hands up as if to say, “hell if I know”.
Patrick sighed and slumped against the back of the bench. Brendon would normally be frustrated at being abandoned, but he was far too appreciative of this opportunity to continue staring at Patrick and daydreaming up scenarios in which they fall in love romcom style.
“What would happen if I asked you to get coffee with me?” Brendon asked suddenly, and while he sounded confident as he said it, he was hit afterward with the realization that it had actually come out of his mouth. His grin was now pretty awkward looking.
Patrick stared at him from under that magically evil hat that Brendon believed wanted to swallow his beautiful face whole. The expression on his face was unreadable, and they were quiet just long enough for Brendon to start planning escape routes and ways to retract the question. But then Patrick interrupted his thoughts.
“I imagine,” he said, smirking, “that we would end up drinking the coffee.”
Brendon grinned.
“Together?”
“That does sound like the most likely outcome,” Patrick said, chuckling. He stood up suddenly. “Well, lead the way.”
Life couldn’t be any more awesome than it was right then. Brendon was sure of this, because he couldn’t imagine anything more amazing, therefore there was nothing more. He was in a band with his first real best friends, and they were now signed by a real band to be their own real band, that would tour and have albums and be listened to like he listened to music. His mind got stuck on the word music, how he was professionally making it.
Brendon wriggled, undoubtedly creating a grass stain on his new jeans. He was lying outside in Pete Wentz’s backyard, because today he got to do something awesome. Not nearly as awesome as being signed to a record label, of course, but close enough. He was doing vocals on an already established band’s next record. Sure, it was one line, but it was still really cool.
A cloud that was shaped quite distinctly like a cow appeared and Brendon smiled. It was then that footsteps rustled behind him and Brendon was joined by Patrick, who sat down beside him.
“Why did Pete want me on the album?” Brendon asked, before he could stop himself. The question had been poking at his brain since he got asked to do it. Sure, him and Pete hit it off like two awesome people are bound to do, but he didn’t think Pete would jump on the chance to add vocals that weren’t Patrick’s to their album - especially after knowing him for only a week.
“I’m the one that suggested it,” Patrick responded, as he laid back to join Brendon. After their coffee date had been so fantastically date-like, Brendon had been waiting for something romantic like cloud watching to come up. He smiled to himself.
“I’d like to suggest something,” Brendon said after a minute of watching Patrick watch the cow cloud, which had morphed into less of a cow and more of just a generic cloud.
“Go for it,” Patrick said, not looking over at him - either because he was uncomfortable with Brendon’s close proximity stare, or because he hadn’t even realized Brendon was staring again.
“We should kiss. I promise it’ll be awesome.” Brendon didn’t like to promise things when he didn’t know anything about how to make them awesome - but he couldn’t imagine anything involving Patrick being less than fantastic.
It was fun watching Patrick shuffle a little, silent and awkward, tugging at the rim of his hat. Brendon was sure he could see a blush forming, and there was no denying the smile tugging at his lips. Brendon was pretty sure embarrassing Patrick could become his new favorite pastime.
When Patrick shrugged, Brendon rolled excitedly and propped himself up on his elbows. He grinned, wide and toothy and incredibly goofy-like down at him, before pushing his hat out of the way and leaning down to kiss him a lot more softly than Patrick was nervously expecting.
After a couple seconds, Brendon sat up and smiled, expectant and pleased. Patrick smiled, looking uncomfortable, but in that way that Brendon read as shy, not disturbed.
“We should be together forever, Patrick. Whaddya say?”
Patrick chuckled and folded his hands over his chest.
“Sure. Why not?”
~
And so they were together forever. The end.