repair anything sold, bought, or processed (Part 2/2)
Good lord, LJ is sucking for me.
Part One is here.
It turned out that they kind of sucked.
Not individually, really -- Andy had some serious skills -- but wow, did they need to practice a little more.
“Uh, who votes for weekly band practice?” Joe asked, raising his hand.
“Hey, I’ve been in worse bands.” Pete frowned in concentration, strumming his bass.
“This is true.” Andy came out from behind the drum set and thwapped Pete on the back of his head with a drumstick. “But I’d like to think were aiming a little higher than Pete’s old crappy bands.”
“The song kicks ass,” Pete said fiercely. “We just need to practice it some more.” He looked at Patrick through his lowered eyelashes and Patrick tried not to blush.
“Patrick, you’re singing, right?” Andy asked, popping the tab on a Mountain Dew and taking a huge gulp. “We should try it with the vocals.”
“Well, uh, I don’t know.” Patrick tugged his hat down to cover his eyes. “Pete, can you sing at all?”
Andy choked on his Mountain Dew.
“I sing, fucker.” Pete punched Andy in the arm. “Well, I scream. And that’s not what we’re writing. Besides, you can sing. I heard the demo.”
“It’s better live,” Joe mumbled around the pick in his mouth. “Show him.”
“Not while you assholes stand around gawking at me.” Patrick shoved Joe in the shoulder. “You have instruments, right?”
They all went back to their spots. Andy counted off the beat, Patrick braced one arm behind his back, guitar forgotten, closed his eyes and began to sing. He tried not to think about the other guys or impressing Pete or the possibility that he might end up fronting this damned band; he just sang.
Partway through the first chorus, he felt something brush his elbow, then the side of his hat, then Pete was there, pressed up against him, lips against Patrick’s neck for the briefest moment, mouthing the words into his skin. Patrick stumbled into the verse, heart hammering. He dared a grin at Pete, who was grinning, shining back at him and Patrick never wanted the song to end.
But end it did, and there was high-fiving and backslapping and Joe planting a big, wet kiss on Patrick’s cheek. “Told you,” he said, laughing. “So, who’s up for some snacks before we bust this baby out again?”
They headed for the kitchen, weaving their way through the garage. Just before the storm door, Pete wrapped his arm around Patrick’s shoulder. “You’re amazing,” he said, into Patrick’s ear. “I think I’m the luckiest motherfucker alive right now.”
Patrick bit his lip to keep from smiling the stupidest, happiest smile on the planet. “I’m still not a good frontman,” he said. “Can you imagine me on the cover of some magazine?” He shook his head.
“You’re fucking perfect,” Pete opened the door for Patrick. “But I can be loud enough for both of us, if you want.”
Patrick looked at Pete, with his painted-on pants and the slip of belly and hipbones showing below his tiny black shirt (TIDDLYWINKS CHAMPION, it declared) and he could see Pete on the cover of a hundred magazines.
Stepping through the door, Patrick laid a hand on Pete’s shoulder.
“I want,” he said.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>
It was an accident, how it all happened. The Friday after their first practice, Pete had texted him with “busy all night”, so Patrick decided to go into the city and check out the vinyl collection at this hole-in-the-wall resale shop called “Sweet Junk,” He’d stayed until the owner kicked him out at ten when they closed. He’d heard that they had a weirdly big music section, which turned out to be awesomely true, and Patrick was so wrapped up in music and distracted by the thought of funk beats behind Joe’s guitar solo on top of this chord progression, yes, that by the time he remembered what he was doing, he was kind of lost.
Patrick looked around, hefting his slippery plastic bag of records under his arm. Shit, his car had to be parked around here somewhere. Patrick squinted through the darkness at the row of unfamiliar apartment buildings. Heading for the nearest street sign, Patrick caught a glimmer of -- yep, there was the lake. Breathing a sigh of relief, Patrick made his way down the quiet side street out toward the shore. Right. He was just north of Wrigleyville, only a few blocks from his car.
A bunch of laughing twentysomethings emptied out of a bar onto the street, catching Patrick’s eye. But that wasn’t what held his eye. Next to the bar, walking quickly, his head down, was Pete.
Patrick cleared his throat so he could call out, maybe give Pete a ride back to his place, but something about the set of Pete’s shoulders and the way he was looking around stopped him. Carefully stepping back into the shadow of the building behind him, Patrick waited to see where Pete would go.
And -- huh. Pete made a quick left and hopped the fence in front of the bird sanctuary. Patrick took a moment to weigh new records vs. fence vs. short dude vs. finding out what the fuck Pete was doing in a damned bird sanctuary this late at night, and decided that fuck it, he could wrap the records in his jacket.
After making short work of the fence, Patrick crept around the perimeter of the park, trying not to crinkle his record bag too loudly. As his eyes adjusted to the dark, he could make out figures here and there amongst the trees and bushes, but none of them looked like Pete. He was ready to give up when he heard a distinctive laugh, muffled slightly, like someone had their hand over their mouth.
He’d heard that exact laugh yesterday, when Joe’s mom had asked him and Pete to “Keep it down, already,” in the middle of Pete improvising dirty lyrics to the Reading Rainbow theme song.
Patrick caught sight of Pete just a few yards away, leaning against a tree. The hoodie he’d been wearing was in a heap on the ground. Pete was naked to the waist, his tattoos blending in with the shadows from the moon and the trees, and he was laughing behind his hand at something the guy in front of him had said.
The much older, kind of skeevy-looking guy.
Oh.
Patrick had tried really, really hard to put the image of Pete-the-prostitute out of his head and replace it with Pete-his-new-friend, but he couldn’t anymore, not with Pete smiling up at the skeevy guy like that. Pete took something -- money, Patrick guessed -- from the guy, tucked it into the front of his jeans, and slid down onto his knees.
Patrick sucked in his breath, hard. This wasn’t, it shouldn’t be hot, it really shouldn’t. It was cold and Pete wasn’t wearing a shirt and Patrick wanted to strangle the fucking asshole in front of him with his bare hands, but he could hear the noises they were making and Patrick could imagine, just imagine, what it might be like to make those noises and fuck, this was all so fucking unfair.
Patrick closed his eyes and willed himself to stop getting hard, goddamnit. He wasn’t going to jerk off to this shit. He swallowed hard and forced himself to look away. Getting out of here started to sound like a really good idea.
Staying out of Pete’s line of sight, (if he had his eyes open; Patrick couldn’t even tell) Patrick made his way back around the edge of the fence, his eyes glued to the ground, not looking at anything that may or may not be happening around him.
He managed to make it back to the entrance without making too much noise, his blood thundering in his ears, the thirty minutes it was going to take to get back to Glenview feeling like a goddamned eternity.
Patrick had just made it over the fence, tumbling ungracefully to the ground, smacking his elbow on the pavement, when a hand grabbed his shoulder and hauled him up.
“You’re trespassing, son.” Patrick blinked against the bright white glare of the flashlight in his eyes. Shit, shit, shit, fuck.
“Um, I was just, um, I have this friend, see, and uh, I bought records.” He rustled the bag helpfully, as much as he could with the cop gripping his arm like that.
“Riiiight,” the cop drawled. “You weren’t in there for a little late-night boy action.”
Boy action? Patrick tried to will himself dead. It didn’t work.
“No, officer, um, I don’t do that! Really! I’m just, I was buying records, and I have this friend, and I said that part before, right? Um.” Patrick gnawed at his lip and oh God, his mom was going to kill him.
The cop took the record bag from his hand, slid out Rick James’ Ultimate Collection and Ziggy Stardust, cocked an eye at Patrick and snorted, “Yeah right, kid.”
Patrick closed his eyes and held out his wrists. Fuck.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
When they got to the police station, Patrick had to endure a horrifically embarrassing lecture from the cop about how there were nicer places to get dates than ‘that place’ and how he knew how hard it could be to be gay in high school, but Patrick didn’t look like he was far away from college and things would be different then. Really, Patrick could die any second now, and that would be great. Officer Josephs had brought Patrick in as a warning against such risky behavior, he seemed like such a nice kid, blah, blah blah, bail was set at $40, and Patrick could make his phone call now.
Patrick blinked at the phone in his hand. He could call his mom and say, “Hey, mom, I got picked up for trespassing among the boybait!” No. Not a conversation he wanted to be having. His dad would tell his mom, so, equally out. Joe was at some family thing, and Joe’s mom would tell his mom... Patrick gritted his teeth, picked up the phone, and dialed the last person he wanted to see in the whole world.
“You’re where?” Pete laughed, the full-belly laugh that Patrick didn’t hear all that often. Awesome. He was so happy to be amusing.
“Just shut up and come get me, okay? I need you to take my bank card and get $40 from the ATM. I get one phone call, asshole, so make it quick.”
“Okay, okay.” Patrick could hear the street noises behind Pete, honking cars and some guy yelling, as Pete shuffled the phone around against his ear. “What station are you at again?”
“I’m on North Halstead,” Patrick said, flushing and biting his lip.
The rustling stopped. Patrick could only hear rumbling blur of the traffic and the static of wind. “What did you say you got picked up for?” Pete asked, finally.
The officer who was monitoring the phone call was fat and bored, with a grey handlebar mustache and a fondness for Sudoku. He looked up from his book of puzzles and barked, “Time’s up!” as he attacked the page with his eraser.
“Come get me, please?” Patrick begged. “We’ll talk then.” He hung up. Suddenly, he wished he had called his mom. He was exhausted and starving and suddenly terrified of seeing Pete again, staring at his mouth and the grass stains on his jeans.
He turned to the desk to be escorted back to his cell, but the officer looked him up and down, pulled up a chair next to the desk, and patted it with his stubby, rough hand. “You any good at puzzles, kid?” he asked. “I swear I tried every number five times on this one.”
“I can try,” Patrick said, scooting closer. “I suck at math, though.”
“It’s not math,” the cop said, reaching for a half-empty box of donuts and setting it in front of Patrick. “It’s patterns. Logic. You drink coffee?”
Patrick didn’t, but it seemed right to take it anyway.
It took Pete way longer than it should have to get there, and thirty minutes into the wait, after helping Officer Seizowski finish two puzzles, Patrick started to panic that Pete wouldn’t show up at all.
But show up he did, almost an hour after Patrick called him, in different clothes, hoodie pulled low over his face. He barely glanced at Patrick. “Do I have to sign something?” he asked, sliding two crumpled twenties across the counter.
“Let me just get you a receipt.” Officer S. lumbered to his feet. He carefully printed out the receipt, had Pete sign it, then shuffled around for another form. Patrick got up slowly and walked around the counter to stand next to Pete. Pete glanced at him, his mouth set and drawn.
“Thanks,” Patrick started to say, but was interrupted by a sheaf of papers being dumped in front of him. “Sign those and you can take your belongings and head out.” Officer S. pulled Patrick’s bag of records out from under the desk and plopped it one the table. “And I don’t want to see you back in here, you got that?”
“Yes, sir. Um, thank you.” Patrick signed as fast as he could, grabbed his records, and turned to Pete. “My car is a few blocks away, by Sweet Junk.”
“You were buying records?” Pete’s face lifted, looking cautiously hopeful as they walked outside. “What happened? Did you like, stumble into some old lady’s garden, all distracted by a beautiful bass line in your head?”
For a second, Patrick grabbed onto this idea. It was perfect. Pete never had to know that he saw him; he could make up a story about some crazy old lady and...he’d be lying to Pete.
Patrick knew lying to Pete would end badly. It’d fuck up the band; it’d fuck up their friendship.
He shoved his records under his arm and pushed his hands into his pockets. “No,” he said quietly. “I mean, yeah, I was thinking about music.” Pete smiled at this, fast and light -- Patrick barely caught it out of the corner of his eye. “I got distracted and I ended up by the bird sanctuary.”
Flinching, Pete wrapped himself tighter in his hoodie. Patrick saw that his knuckles were white, his hands balled into fists. “And?” he said harshly.
“I saw you,” Patrick went on, his tone carefully neutral. “I saw you and I...I followed you.”
“You followed me,” Pete said flatly. “Of course you did. Fuck.”
They walked in silence down the street until they came to Patrick’s car. Pete didn’t look at Patrick; he just scuffed the ground with his sneaker, his shoulders rounded and hunched. “I can give you a ride...?” Patrick asked.
“Did you whack off?” Pete bit out. In a blur of motion, he pivoted forward and punched the side of Patrick’s car. “Fuck,” he swore, shaking his hand. “Did you fucking get off on seeing me on my knees?”
“No, Jesus!” Patrick braced his hands against the hood of his car and blew out a breath. “Of course not.” He glanced over at Pete. “I left right away. As soon as I went over the fence, the cop grabbed me.”
“Serves you right,” Pete muttered.
“Yeah, it does.” Straightening up, Patrick took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes. “Let me give you a ride,” he said. “It’s the least I can do.”
Pete nodded, but Patrick couldn’t read his expression.
On the way to Pete’s apartment, Patrick called his mom to say he was with Pete and not to worry. She had actually gotten pretty cool with him since he became a senior, but he figured it was just polite to call.
Pete didn’t say a word to Patrick for the whole ride across town. They got to Pete’s apartment and Patrick walked him to the door, looking for one last chance to make things right with them. He hated feeling so stupid and wrong and distant from Pete. He hated that he couldn’t get the sight of shirtless, cocksucking Pete out of his head. It was so unfair. Unfair that Pete thought he had to do this, unfair that Patrick couldn’t keep it professional, and unfair that it wasn’t...well, that it wasn’t Patrick who got to make those noises.
“Wait,” he said, as Pete turned his key in the door. “I need to come in.” Okay, that was rude. Try again, Stump. “I have something I need to tell you.”
Shrugging, Pete stepped past him as he opened the door. “So say it.”
Patrick waited until Pete had closed the door and was facing him, looking straight in his eyes. “I’d be better,” he blurted out.
“Don’t,” Pete said, shaking his head. He started pacing the room. “Just--don’t.”
“How can you do that and say it’s just a job? How can you do that with them and not with me?” Patrick knew he was yelling, but he didn’t give a shit. He grabbed Pete’s arm. “I’d be better,” he said. “And I want -- I want it to be you.”
Pete laughed. “You saw your friend give a forty year-old dude a blowjob in a fucking park for fifty bucks and now you want him to take your virginity.” But he didn’t pull his arm away. “That’s fucked up, you know that?”
“Like you said; you’re my friend.” Patrick tugged him closer. “And you know what you’re doing.” He rested his forehead against Pete’s. “I don’t want it to be anyone else,” he whispered. “Please.”
And how he got from lurking in a park to a police station to here, Patrick didn’t know. But he knew as soon as he opened his mouth that this was what he wanted.
Pete pressed his mouth to Patrick’s ear. “You know what?” he said, low and harsh.
“What?” Patrick barely said the word out loud. He felt Pete’s hand move up his hip and settle on his waist and he knew he’d won.
“I don’t want it to be anyone else either.” And Pete kissed Patrick, for only the second time, but Patrick felt like it had been fucking years instead of days, like he’d been holding his breath the whole time and didn’t even know it.
Patrick kissed back, thinking, yes, yes, fucking finally, aware of Pete’s hand on his waist, his thumb idly stroking the waistband of Patrick’s jeans, aware of his own hands, gripping onto Pete’s shoulders like he was going to take off if Patrick let go. Relaxing a little, Patrick tried rubbing his hands up and down Pete’s arms, wondering exactly where else he should be touching. If Pete was a girl, he’d be heading for her boobs right about now. But Pete didn’t exactly have...Pete’s hands slipped around Patrick’s waist and cupped his ass. Oh.
“Bed,” Pete said, between kisses. “Bed, now.” He walked with his hands glued to Patrick’s ass, refusing to let go for balance. “No way, man, this shit is too good to let go of,” he laughed, when Patrick tripped over one of Pete’s shoes.
Pete flipped off the lights on his way down, which Patrick was thankful for. Mood lighting was good, he thought, for when you didn’t exactly know what you were doing. Patrick kicked off his shoes, reaching for the Pete-shadow on the edge of the bed. When he got a handful of bare skin instead of old t-shirt, Patrick made a noise low in his throat and pulled his own shirt off, wanting more skin, more, more, more, now. He kissed Pete, hands scrabbling over his shoulders, trying to trace tattoos he couldn’t see, pushing his hips up, rubbing his cock against Pete’s in an unsteady rhythm, scraping the zippers of their jeans together.
“Whoa, whoa.” Pete grabbed Patrick’s hips. “Slow down.” Patrick started to panic, until Pete said, “It’ll be over in five seconds if you keep that shit up.” Pete kissed Patrick gently, playing with the button on his jeans. “What do you want? It’s your call, okay? You say when.”
“All of it,” Patrick said, reaching down and yanking his jeans open. He wasn’t going to pussy out now. “Everything, whatever.”
“Right,” Pete said, sounding breathless. He pushed himself away from Patrick and shimmied out of his jeans. Patrick took that as his cue to do the same.
Pete knelt over Patrick and ran his hands up Patrick’s thighs. “Don’t take this wrong,” he said, “but you’re not going to last anyway.” And Patrick would have been insulted if Pete hadn’t finished that thought by sliding down the bed and sucking Patrick’s cock into his mouth. Patrick grabbed the sheets and keened, because shit, he was fucking unprepared for this, this was better than anything in the whole wide world, the feeling of wet heat around him and oh, sparks of pleasure shooting straight up his spine, making his toes curl, Pete’s hand gripping his leg and oh, oh, this was it. “Pete,” he choked out, but that was all he could say before he was coming hard into Pete’s mouth, making noises he never thought he’d ever make, ripping the bottom sheet off Pete’s bed in the process.
Pete crawled up the bed as Patrick was still gasping for air. He had something in his hand. “You said all of it,” Pete said, his voice unsteady.
“Yeah,” Patrick said, even though he couldn’t imagine having more sex than what had just happened. “Go for it.” God, it was probably good that he wasn’t trying to sleep with girls with that smooth talk.
“You could...you could fuck me.” Pete pushed a small bottle into Patrick’s hand. “It’s okay.”
Patrick imagined Pete saying that to some skank-ass guy in a park. “No.” He gave the bottle back to Pete. “I’m the one who offered, remember?”
“Okay,” Pete said, sucking in a sharp, whistling breath and shuddering. “Okay, wow.” Stretching out alongside Patrick, he kissed him long and hard, sucking on his lower lip. Patrick reached out and dragged his fingertips down Pete’s ribs, trailing along his hipbone, dipping into the hollow of his belly. He palmed Pete’s cock, feeling it jerk in his hand. Pete groaned, low and long. “Over, over,” he muttered shoving at Patrick’s shoulder.
Patrick rolled over onto his stomach, realizing with a shock that he was already hard again. He felt Pete behind him, pressing kisses to his shoulders and spine, up and down his body, licking and biting seemingly random spots until Patrick was clutching the pillow so hard that his hands ached and grinding into the mattress. Finally, he felt something cold and wet press into him. Patrick tensed, shocked at how weird it felt, but he eventually relaxed into it, concentrating on the feel of Pete’s other hand heavy on his leg, and the sound of Pete’s voice, murmuring, “Beautiful, beautiful.”
After a minute, the sensation went from “weird” to “really fucking hot” and the curve of Pete’s knuckle was hitting a spot that made Patrick sweat and all of a sudden he was so fucking hard and humping the mattress between thrusts and then Pete stretched him more, and it was so, so good. “Now,” Patrick said. “Fuck, now.”
“We could stop,” Pete said, his voice thin and shaking, right against Patrick’s ear. His body already draped over Patrick’s back, which he hadn’t even noticed happening. “You don’t have to do this.” Patrick could feel Pete’s cock nudging against his leg, heavy and hard, and his mouth went dry. For lack of words, Patrick pushed back, fucking himself on Pete’s fingers, moaning.
“Fuck,” Pete whispered, fumbling for something on the nightstand. He pulled back, Patrick heard a rustle and a tear, and then Pete’s fingers were gone, too fast, the empty sensation making Patrick’s stomach flip.
But he came back, tilting Patrick’s hips up, pulling him back so he was on his knees, blunt pressure pushing into him, stretching him, making Patrick’s eyes water and his arms shake. He tried to breathe shallowly, swallowing a whimper against the burn.
Pete stopped moving. He was shaking all over. “Give it a sec,” he said, gripping Patrick’s hips tightly.
The sharpness of the sensation faded, and Patrick tried rocking on his knees. “Shit,” Pete hissed, and he was right back, wrapping himself over Patrick, pressing his face into Patrick’s shoulder, pushing in, through the burn, past the pain, until Patrick didn’t know where he ended and Pete began. Pleasure and pain and holy, holy shit swirled together in his mind and body until Pete started to move and then it was more and more pleasure and less pain and more of that sparking, and he was hard again, so fucking hard, all of a sudden.
Patrick tried to get his hands on his cock, but he ended up just smacking his face into the edge of the headboard and throwing off Pete’s rhythm. Pete just laughed into Patrick’s neck and wrapped his own hand around Patrick’s cock and that was it, Patrick thrust into Pete’s hand twice and came, Pete’s laughter still echoing in his ear. Through his orgasm, Patrick felt Pete speed up, fucking him harder, his hips stuttering and jerking, muttering, “Have to, sorry, have to,” and then Pete was collapsing against him, panting, coming and coming and coming.
Afterward, Patrick was pretty sure that Pete pulled out and cleaned them up, but he doesn’t remember any of that. He just remembers curling around Pete’s pillow and falling deeply, immediately asleep.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>
The sound and smell of coffee being made woke Patrick up. He had a moment of disorientation -- bare walls, window in the wrong place, was he naked?-- but then he remembered the night before and he threw the blanket over his head in glee and embarrassment, blushing and grinning.
After he managed to control himself, dammit, Patrick eased himself out of bed in search of his clothes. He tossed on what he could find -- it wasn’t like his mom would be checking to see if he was wearing underwear, right?-- and headed out to the kitchen to find Pete.
Pete was at the counter, fully dressed, his back to Patrick, tapping his fingers at the coffee maker. His hoodie was up, covering his face, but Patrick knew Pete’s body language already, and this was not looking so good. “Hey,” he said. “Uh, good morning.”
“Is it?” Pete asked, turning to Patrick. His eyes were hooded and wary, and the circles under his eyes seemed darker than they were the day before. Patrick wondered if he’d even slept.
“You tell me.” Patrick’s body tensed. “I was doing okay until I came out to find you moping at Mister Coffee.”
“I’m going out again tonight,” Pete said sharply, turning around again. “I have to. This is not -- it’s not a relationship. It can’t be.” He jabbed a button on the coffee maker. “At least not for a few months. Not yet.”
Patrick felt sick. Not yet? Fuck that, he thought they were at least friends. He deserved better than that. “We don’t have to be in a relationship, but you also don’t have to be an asshole.” He grabbed Pete’s shoulder and turned him around. “Fuck, you can come live with me or something. We can figure this out together.”
“Right, I can live with you, because that’s not going to cause any problems and my parents aren’t going to flip and your parents aren’t going to flip and we’d both be homeless and the tour and the album.” Pete smacked his hand into the wall. “You just had to wait a few months, okay? And you fucking pushed, and tonight--” Pete snapped his mouth shut.
“Tonight what?” Patrick asked, stepping into his space.
“I have a whole deal going down; my first repeat customer, and he wants something special.” Pete leaned his elbows on the counter, jiggling his foot. “This is going to be enough money to get me a deposit on our van. We’re almost there, Patrick. We’re going to record and tour and I threw away everything for this chance,” Pete said, the muscles in his jaw clenched and tight. “I’m not giving it all up. Not even for a hot piece of teenage ass.”
“Not even for what?” Patrick asked, his heart racing. Pete looked at him, his eyes dark with something Patrick couldn’t name, and then he looked away. “Not even for a hot piece of teenage ass,” Pete said coldly, and Patrick didn’t think, he just reacted, anger twisting through him. He grabbed Pete and shoved him against the fridge. “Well, this piece of ass is also writing your songs, fuckhead, so think about that.”
“I am.” Pete didn’t fight back; he just stood firm with one hand braced on the counter. “We can’t do this--“ he waved his hand toward the bedroom--“and have the band and have my fucking job on top of it all. I can’t do it, not now.” He closed his eyes. “Just a few months. Then we’ll talk.”
Patrick couldn’t handle this fucking conversation again, he really couldn’t. “And who says you get to choose?” he asked. “You’re fucking with me and you need to cut the shit. I was there last night, asshole. I know you wanted...” he bit his lip and stopped, because maybe he didn’t really know what Pete wanted.
“Yeah,” Pete said. “I did. And do you think I want to fuck around on you every night so we can pay rental on the studio? Do you want to throw away the chance we have right now, so I can put in enough overtime at the car wash to feed myself? Do you want to just give me money so you can buy me like everyone else does?”
Patrick didn’t say anything. The kitchen seemed oddly bright and harsh, the yellow tiles of the backsplash shining in sharp relief in the sun. A bird twittered outside.
“That’s what I thought,” Pete said, his head dropping to his chest.
“I think you’re being fucking dumb.” Patrick closed his eyes against the sunlight, which was making his eyes water. “And stubborn. And an asshole. And I’m exhausted and still sore from when you fucked me, which you didn’t seem to have much of a problem with last night.” He opened his eyes to see Pete bracing himself against the counter with both hands now, breathing shallowly through his nose. His arms were shaking.
“So I’m gonna go.” Fishing in his pocket for his keys, Patrick walked to the door. “If you figure your shit out, call me.” Patrick gave him another moment, another chance to take it all back and not be such an ass, but Pete just bobbed his head in the barest of nods. Stomach twisting, Patrick opened the door and said, “Fine. See you in the studio,” and just walked away.
And it hurt; it hurt so fucking much that something that Patrick had looked forward to his whole life was fucking sullied. Pete took this away from him, which Patrick swore nobody could ever do, and now he was twisted up and angry and he just wanted to go home and back to school, which was fucked up and wrong and shit, maybe Pete was right about not getting involved.
Patrick realized that his keys were biting into his hand from him clenching his fist. He grimaced and let up on them. He needed to go home, that was for sure. Food, sleep, and a shower, and then maybe he could think clearly. As he got in the car, he tried to ignore the fact that he really was still sore, because that -- last night -- wasn’t something he could think about right now.
So he started up his car and went home.
>>>>>>>
After mumbling a hello and an excuse to his mom, Patrick crashed out for most of the morning and early afternoon. When he woke up, he had a crick in his neck and a sticky, dry mouth. Dull gold shone through his windows from the setting sun. Remembering the morning, last night, all of it, Patrick closed his eyes, feeling the heavy thump of his heart against his ribs.
Maybe Pete was right. Maybe he’d fucked it all up, for what? Getting laid?
Rolling over onto his back, Patrick thought back to last night; Pete’s mouth, the way his hand stroked Patrick’s shoulder when he was buried deep inside him, his murmured, rambled whispers between fumbling kisses. “No,” Patrick said out loud. He hadn’t fucked up the band.
Pete was just being a dumbass.
Patrick was going to go back to Chicago, he was going to find Pete, and he was going to kick his ass repeatedly until he understood what a fucking great boyfriend Patrick would be. No, scratch that -- until Pete understood what a great boyfriend he could be.
Determined, Patrick hauled himself out of bed, groaning at the twinges in his sore muscles, and went downstairs. There was a note on the kitchen table:
Out until 10:00. Dinner in the fridge. Be good.
Love,
Mom
Patrick zapped the leftover lasagna, wolfed it down, showered, changed, and was out of the house by the time it was fully dark.
All the way to Chicago, Patrick tried to rehearse what he was going to say to Pete, but all his ideas ended with shaking that stupid, awesome grin off Pete’s face or getting on his knees and begging. Neither of which were the best start to a relationship.
Pulling onto North Halstead, Patrick spotted--miracle of miracles-- an empty parking space within sight of most of the bars. He parked there, took our his iPod, and waited.
And waited.
Patrick waited the better part of two hours (and worked his way through Ride the Lightning, the Batman soundtrack, and Ultimate Run-DMC) before he realized that hey, he never thought to check to see it Pete was home. Duh.
Smacking himself in the forehead, Patrick started his car and drove across town, silently cursing his own stupidity.
He made it to Pete’s apartment in record time, but when he got there, the windows were dark and Pete didn’t answer the door. Patrick chewed his thumbnail for a moment, considering. There was really only one place left to go.
>>>>>>>>>>>>
The side street that Patrick had parked on last time had plenty of parking spaces, so he pulled in there and made his way up to the bird sanctuary. There were a ton of people still wandering the streets at this time of night; leaving restaurants, window-shopping, looking at the lake. Patrick decided to wait it out for a bit at Caribou Coffee, slowly sipping a latte, trying desperately not to think about what Pete might be doing right then.
By the time he was done, the streets had cleared and he could hop the fence into the sanctuary in private. (He checked and double-checked for police cars. Patrick figured he wouldn’t get off that easy twice.)
Guessing that Pete might be in the same spot, Patrick made his way back through the trees, cursing the fact that he’d dropped out of Boy Scouts in second grade, because who the fuck thought he’d need to navigate by compass in Chicago?
Pete wasn’t near the tree he was at before, and Patrick had just decided to sweep out closer to the lake, when he saw something on the ground, further back into the bushes. He squinted. Was that Pete’s hoodie? Had he left his clothes here?
Patrick crept toward it, holding his breath. He could feel his heart pounding and his breath rasping over his tight, chapped lips. He could hear everything: the distant roar of traffic, the rustling of the trees in the wind, a cargo ship’s booming horn; but he ignored it all in favor of the small pile of something ten feet in front of him.
The pile moved.
Patrick caught a glimpse of forearm sticking out from the shadows, Jack Skellington dancing in a patch of moonlight. “Pete?” Patrick rushed forward.
“Pete?” he whispered again, as loud as he dared.
Pete was lying on his side, one arm crooked to cover his face, both knees curled to his chest. Patrick was shocked at how small he seemed at the moment -- Pete wasn’t tall, but he was taller than Patrick-- and Patrick was scared for a second that Pete had been shot or something, shit, shit. Scrabbling his hands over Pete’s body, Patrick checked for blood or holes or like, open, bleeding, wounds.
“Ow,” Pete muttered. “Fuck off.” He flailed weakly at Patrick.
Patrick started breathing again. “What the fuck happened?”
“Guy wanted more than he paid for,” Pete said quietly. “More than I...fuck, Patrick, just get me home.”
“You need a hospital.” Patrick cradled Pete’s head and helped him sit up slowly. Pete hissed in pain. “Seriously, dude.”
“No doctors; I’m fine. I might have a cracked rib.” Pete touched his face. “And I know I’m not as pretty as I was this morning, but I’m okay. I just want to go home.”
“I was there; you weren’t that pretty,” Patrick said absently, maneuvering Pete onto his feet.
Pete laughed pitifully, clutching his ribs. “Truer words, man. Truer words. Now get me home so I can get some sleep. And a fucking ice pack.”
>>>>>>>>>>>>
Patrick watched as Pete slept. He looked ten years younger when he was sleeping, like a little boy with messy hair, all crashed out from a sugar high or something.
Well, he looked liked that from the angle Patrick was sitting, anyway. If he moved, he could see the shadows of bruises along Pete’s jaw and the swelling of his split lip.
Pete stirred, wincing and pulling one arm protectively around his ribs. “Where...?” He looked around, then flopped back on the bed, not meeting Patrick’s eyes, grimacing. “I feel like I got hit by a truck.”
“Nah,” Patrick said, forcing his voice into a semblance of normalcy. “You just got beat up by a john, what the fuck were you thinking?” Well, so much for normal.
Grabbing the glass of water he’d poured an hour ago, Patrick handed it to Pete and sat on the bed, elbowing Pete’s legs out of his way. Pete sat up and sipped the water slowly. “You’re done,” Patrick declared. “We’ll get the money for the van somehow. Christ, Joe and I are getting graduation money, right?” Pete half-smiled at that. “And I would be a shitty boyfriend -- which I am, by the way-- if I let you do this anymore. You can move in with me and my mom, and I’ll come with you to tell your parents that you dropped out of school -- I’m sweet, parents like me -- if it comes to that.” Shit, that was probably moving too fast. Patrick knew he should have rehearsed more.
Pete coughed on his water and spluttered, setting the glass down on a brand new AP magazine that was in danger of sliding off Patrick’s bedside table. "Oh yeah? And when I bring my *boyfriend* with me to tell my parents I dropped out of college and whored myself out so I could join a band and go on tour, and they fucking explode and kick me out and disown me, you'll hold my hand, right?”
Patrick looked down. “Yeah,” he said quietly.
“Why?” Pete asked.
“Because,” was all Patrick could say.
Pete reached for him and froze, grimacing. “Getting beat up fucking sucks,” he said. Still cradling his arm around his stomach, he reached behind him and propped the pillow up against the headboard. He eased himself against the pillow and kicked Patrick in the ass until he moved enough so Pete could pull the blankets up.
Pete fucked around with the blankets for a few minutes, tucking them and smoothing them, until Patrick was ready to give him a damned black eye to go with his fat lip. “For a while,” Pete said suddenly, not meeting Patrick’s eyes, “It was easy money, you know? I could do music almost full-time and not starve. But this?” Pete grimaced. “Fuck that noise.”
“And I’ve been telling you this --” Patrick started.
“Because you wanted to fuck me,” Pete answered, kicking Patrick again. “That’s not fucking fair, you know. I do shit because I want to. Not because you’re going to bully me, or stalk me into feeling fucking guilty about my choices. No,” he said, holding up his hand. “I know. I suck at fair.”
“Damned straight,” Patrick was starting to get good and pissed now. His jaw started to clench and twitch, and his head began to throb. “You can’t say I don’t give a shit about you. You’re all I’ve fucking thought about since I met you, you asshole.”
“Well, that’s romantic.” Pete looked down, then up at Patrick through his lashes. “So I’m your boyfriend, huh?” Pete quirked a smile at Patrick. Patrick was tempted to walk the fuck out the door, because Pete cannot fuck with him any more tonight, seriously, and he was getting whiplash from this conversation.
“Yeah,” Patrick gritted out. “If you’re smart enough to take me up on it. I mean, I keep offering and if you did. If you did.” He licked his lips, smiling tentatively, and turned his hand palm-up on the blanket next to Pete, hoping. “We could have it all.”
The silence stretched between them, heavy and tangible. Patrick felt his smile freeze on his face. “Right,” he said, his voice rasping through the room, severing the moment, but Pete was there, he was grabbing Patrick’s hand, gripping too tightly, and his smile actually reached his eyes. He pulled Patrick into a kiss shaped like his smile, playful and full of promise.
“I’m not really used to that,” Pete said, flexing his fingers, his dark eyes locked on Patrick’s. “I’m the King of Compromises.”
“Bullshit,” Patrick said. “You have loving parents, who you are lying to. You have a decent almost-boyfriend whose head you are fucking with, an you have a band that’s going to take over the world.” Patrick waited.
Pete touched Patrick’s palm gently with his fingers. “But Charlie,” he said, looking hard at Patrick. “Don't forget what happened to the man who suddenly got everything he always wanted.”
“He lived happily ever after,” Patrick finished.
“Weird,” Pete said, but he was smiling, a real smile, and pulling Patrick into a kiss. “Give me the phone,” he said. “I’m gonna fix this.”
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Pete shifted the phone to one ear and reached out with his free hand, crooking his pinky around Patrick’s. “Hey, mom?” he said. “We need to talk.”
END.
1. I was chatting with tzikeh about where gay prostitutes might hang out, and she pointed me to this article about the bird sanctuary. Once again, fiction-0, reality-1.
2. The quote the title is based on, for those of you who are too young who don't know it, is from the movie Say Anything. It goes like this: "I don't want to sell anything, buy anything, or process anything as a career. I don't want to sell anything bought or processed, or buy anything sold or processed, or process anything sold, bought, or processed, or repair anything sold, bought, or processed. You know, as a career, I don't want to do that."
Part One is here.
It turned out that they kind of sucked.
Not individually, really -- Andy had some serious skills -- but wow, did they need to practice a little more.
“Uh, who votes for weekly band practice?” Joe asked, raising his hand.
“Hey, I’ve been in worse bands.” Pete frowned in concentration, strumming his bass.
“This is true.” Andy came out from behind the drum set and thwapped Pete on the back of his head with a drumstick. “But I’d like to think were aiming a little higher than Pete’s old crappy bands.”
“The song kicks ass,” Pete said fiercely. “We just need to practice it some more.” He looked at Patrick through his lowered eyelashes and Patrick tried not to blush.
“Patrick, you’re singing, right?” Andy asked, popping the tab on a Mountain Dew and taking a huge gulp. “We should try it with the vocals.”
“Well, uh, I don’t know.” Patrick tugged his hat down to cover his eyes. “Pete, can you sing at all?”
Andy choked on his Mountain Dew.
“I sing, fucker.” Pete punched Andy in the arm. “Well, I scream. And that’s not what we’re writing. Besides, you can sing. I heard the demo.”
“It’s better live,” Joe mumbled around the pick in his mouth. “Show him.”
“Not while you assholes stand around gawking at me.” Patrick shoved Joe in the shoulder. “You have instruments, right?”
They all went back to their spots. Andy counted off the beat, Patrick braced one arm behind his back, guitar forgotten, closed his eyes and began to sing. He tried not to think about the other guys or impressing Pete or the possibility that he might end up fronting this damned band; he just sang.
Partway through the first chorus, he felt something brush his elbow, then the side of his hat, then Pete was there, pressed up against him, lips against Patrick’s neck for the briefest moment, mouthing the words into his skin. Patrick stumbled into the verse, heart hammering. He dared a grin at Pete, who was grinning, shining back at him and Patrick never wanted the song to end.
But end it did, and there was high-fiving and backslapping and Joe planting a big, wet kiss on Patrick’s cheek. “Told you,” he said, laughing. “So, who’s up for some snacks before we bust this baby out again?”
They headed for the kitchen, weaving their way through the garage. Just before the storm door, Pete wrapped his arm around Patrick’s shoulder. “You’re amazing,” he said, into Patrick’s ear. “I think I’m the luckiest motherfucker alive right now.”
Patrick bit his lip to keep from smiling the stupidest, happiest smile on the planet. “I’m still not a good frontman,” he said. “Can you imagine me on the cover of some magazine?” He shook his head.
“You’re fucking perfect,” Pete opened the door for Patrick. “But I can be loud enough for both of us, if you want.”
Patrick looked at Pete, with his painted-on pants and the slip of belly and hipbones showing below his tiny black shirt (TIDDLYWINKS CHAMPION, it declared) and he could see Pete on the cover of a hundred magazines.
Stepping through the door, Patrick laid a hand on Pete’s shoulder.
“I want,” he said.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>
It was an accident, how it all happened. The Friday after their first practice, Pete had texted him with “busy all night”, so Patrick decided to go into the city and check out the vinyl collection at this hole-in-the-wall resale shop called “Sweet Junk,” He’d stayed until the owner kicked him out at ten when they closed. He’d heard that they had a weirdly big music section, which turned out to be awesomely true, and Patrick was so wrapped up in music and distracted by the thought of funk beats behind Joe’s guitar solo on top of this chord progression, yes, that by the time he remembered what he was doing, he was kind of lost.
Patrick looked around, hefting his slippery plastic bag of records under his arm. Shit, his car had to be parked around here somewhere. Patrick squinted through the darkness at the row of unfamiliar apartment buildings. Heading for the nearest street sign, Patrick caught a glimmer of -- yep, there was the lake. Breathing a sigh of relief, Patrick made his way down the quiet side street out toward the shore. Right. He was just north of Wrigleyville, only a few blocks from his car.
A bunch of laughing twentysomethings emptied out of a bar onto the street, catching Patrick’s eye. But that wasn’t what held his eye. Next to the bar, walking quickly, his head down, was Pete.
Patrick cleared his throat so he could call out, maybe give Pete a ride back to his place, but something about the set of Pete’s shoulders and the way he was looking around stopped him. Carefully stepping back into the shadow of the building behind him, Patrick waited to see where Pete would go.
And -- huh. Pete made a quick left and hopped the fence in front of the bird sanctuary. Patrick took a moment to weigh new records vs. fence vs. short dude vs. finding out what the fuck Pete was doing in a damned bird sanctuary this late at night, and decided that fuck it, he could wrap the records in his jacket.
After making short work of the fence, Patrick crept around the perimeter of the park, trying not to crinkle his record bag too loudly. As his eyes adjusted to the dark, he could make out figures here and there amongst the trees and bushes, but none of them looked like Pete. He was ready to give up when he heard a distinctive laugh, muffled slightly, like someone had their hand over their mouth.
He’d heard that exact laugh yesterday, when Joe’s mom had asked him and Pete to “Keep it down, already,” in the middle of Pete improvising dirty lyrics to the Reading Rainbow theme song.
Patrick caught sight of Pete just a few yards away, leaning against a tree. The hoodie he’d been wearing was in a heap on the ground. Pete was naked to the waist, his tattoos blending in with the shadows from the moon and the trees, and he was laughing behind his hand at something the guy in front of him had said.
The much older, kind of skeevy-looking guy.
Oh.
Patrick had tried really, really hard to put the image of Pete-the-prostitute out of his head and replace it with Pete-his-new-friend, but he couldn’t anymore, not with Pete smiling up at the skeevy guy like that. Pete took something -- money, Patrick guessed -- from the guy, tucked it into the front of his jeans, and slid down onto his knees.
Patrick sucked in his breath, hard. This wasn’t, it shouldn’t be hot, it really shouldn’t. It was cold and Pete wasn’t wearing a shirt and Patrick wanted to strangle the fucking asshole in front of him with his bare hands, but he could hear the noises they were making and Patrick could imagine, just imagine, what it might be like to make those noises and fuck, this was all so fucking unfair.
Patrick closed his eyes and willed himself to stop getting hard, goddamnit. He wasn’t going to jerk off to this shit. He swallowed hard and forced himself to look away. Getting out of here started to sound like a really good idea.
Staying out of Pete’s line of sight, (if he had his eyes open; Patrick couldn’t even tell) Patrick made his way back around the edge of the fence, his eyes glued to the ground, not looking at anything that may or may not be happening around him.
He managed to make it back to the entrance without making too much noise, his blood thundering in his ears, the thirty minutes it was going to take to get back to Glenview feeling like a goddamned eternity.
Patrick had just made it over the fence, tumbling ungracefully to the ground, smacking his elbow on the pavement, when a hand grabbed his shoulder and hauled him up.
“You’re trespassing, son.” Patrick blinked against the bright white glare of the flashlight in his eyes. Shit, shit, shit, fuck.
“Um, I was just, um, I have this friend, see, and uh, I bought records.” He rustled the bag helpfully, as much as he could with the cop gripping his arm like that.
“Riiiight,” the cop drawled. “You weren’t in there for a little late-night boy action.”
Boy action? Patrick tried to will himself dead. It didn’t work.
“No, officer, um, I don’t do that! Really! I’m just, I was buying records, and I have this friend, and I said that part before, right? Um.” Patrick gnawed at his lip and oh God, his mom was going to kill him.
The cop took the record bag from his hand, slid out Rick James’ Ultimate Collection and Ziggy Stardust, cocked an eye at Patrick and snorted, “Yeah right, kid.”
Patrick closed his eyes and held out his wrists. Fuck.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
When they got to the police station, Patrick had to endure a horrifically embarrassing lecture from the cop about how there were nicer places to get dates than ‘that place’ and how he knew how hard it could be to be gay in high school, but Patrick didn’t look like he was far away from college and things would be different then. Really, Patrick could die any second now, and that would be great. Officer Josephs had brought Patrick in as a warning against such risky behavior, he seemed like such a nice kid, blah, blah blah, bail was set at $40, and Patrick could make his phone call now.
Patrick blinked at the phone in his hand. He could call his mom and say, “Hey, mom, I got picked up for trespassing among the boybait!” No. Not a conversation he wanted to be having. His dad would tell his mom, so, equally out. Joe was at some family thing, and Joe’s mom would tell his mom... Patrick gritted his teeth, picked up the phone, and dialed the last person he wanted to see in the whole world.
“You’re where?” Pete laughed, the full-belly laugh that Patrick didn’t hear all that often. Awesome. He was so happy to be amusing.
“Just shut up and come get me, okay? I need you to take my bank card and get $40 from the ATM. I get one phone call, asshole, so make it quick.”
“Okay, okay.” Patrick could hear the street noises behind Pete, honking cars and some guy yelling, as Pete shuffled the phone around against his ear. “What station are you at again?”
“I’m on North Halstead,” Patrick said, flushing and biting his lip.
The rustling stopped. Patrick could only hear rumbling blur of the traffic and the static of wind. “What did you say you got picked up for?” Pete asked, finally.
The officer who was monitoring the phone call was fat and bored, with a grey handlebar mustache and a fondness for Sudoku. He looked up from his book of puzzles and barked, “Time’s up!” as he attacked the page with his eraser.
“Come get me, please?” Patrick begged. “We’ll talk then.” He hung up. Suddenly, he wished he had called his mom. He was exhausted and starving and suddenly terrified of seeing Pete again, staring at his mouth and the grass stains on his jeans.
He turned to the desk to be escorted back to his cell, but the officer looked him up and down, pulled up a chair next to the desk, and patted it with his stubby, rough hand. “You any good at puzzles, kid?” he asked. “I swear I tried every number five times on this one.”
“I can try,” Patrick said, scooting closer. “I suck at math, though.”
“It’s not math,” the cop said, reaching for a half-empty box of donuts and setting it in front of Patrick. “It’s patterns. Logic. You drink coffee?”
Patrick didn’t, but it seemed right to take it anyway.
It took Pete way longer than it should have to get there, and thirty minutes into the wait, after helping Officer Seizowski finish two puzzles, Patrick started to panic that Pete wouldn’t show up at all.
But show up he did, almost an hour after Patrick called him, in different clothes, hoodie pulled low over his face. He barely glanced at Patrick. “Do I have to sign something?” he asked, sliding two crumpled twenties across the counter.
“Let me just get you a receipt.” Officer S. lumbered to his feet. He carefully printed out the receipt, had Pete sign it, then shuffled around for another form. Patrick got up slowly and walked around the counter to stand next to Pete. Pete glanced at him, his mouth set and drawn.
“Thanks,” Patrick started to say, but was interrupted by a sheaf of papers being dumped in front of him. “Sign those and you can take your belongings and head out.” Officer S. pulled Patrick’s bag of records out from under the desk and plopped it one the table. “And I don’t want to see you back in here, you got that?”
“Yes, sir. Um, thank you.” Patrick signed as fast as he could, grabbed his records, and turned to Pete. “My car is a few blocks away, by Sweet Junk.”
“You were buying records?” Pete’s face lifted, looking cautiously hopeful as they walked outside. “What happened? Did you like, stumble into some old lady’s garden, all distracted by a beautiful bass line in your head?”
For a second, Patrick grabbed onto this idea. It was perfect. Pete never had to know that he saw him; he could make up a story about some crazy old lady and...he’d be lying to Pete.
Patrick knew lying to Pete would end badly. It’d fuck up the band; it’d fuck up their friendship.
He shoved his records under his arm and pushed his hands into his pockets. “No,” he said quietly. “I mean, yeah, I was thinking about music.” Pete smiled at this, fast and light -- Patrick barely caught it out of the corner of his eye. “I got distracted and I ended up by the bird sanctuary.”
Flinching, Pete wrapped himself tighter in his hoodie. Patrick saw that his knuckles were white, his hands balled into fists. “And?” he said harshly.
“I saw you,” Patrick went on, his tone carefully neutral. “I saw you and I...I followed you.”
“You followed me,” Pete said flatly. “Of course you did. Fuck.”
They walked in silence down the street until they came to Patrick’s car. Pete didn’t look at Patrick; he just scuffed the ground with his sneaker, his shoulders rounded and hunched. “I can give you a ride...?” Patrick asked.
“Did you whack off?” Pete bit out. In a blur of motion, he pivoted forward and punched the side of Patrick’s car. “Fuck,” he swore, shaking his hand. “Did you fucking get off on seeing me on my knees?”
“No, Jesus!” Patrick braced his hands against the hood of his car and blew out a breath. “Of course not.” He glanced over at Pete. “I left right away. As soon as I went over the fence, the cop grabbed me.”
“Serves you right,” Pete muttered.
“Yeah, it does.” Straightening up, Patrick took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes. “Let me give you a ride,” he said. “It’s the least I can do.”
Pete nodded, but Patrick couldn’t read his expression.
On the way to Pete’s apartment, Patrick called his mom to say he was with Pete and not to worry. She had actually gotten pretty cool with him since he became a senior, but he figured it was just polite to call.
Pete didn’t say a word to Patrick for the whole ride across town. They got to Pete’s apartment and Patrick walked him to the door, looking for one last chance to make things right with them. He hated feeling so stupid and wrong and distant from Pete. He hated that he couldn’t get the sight of shirtless, cocksucking Pete out of his head. It was so unfair. Unfair that Pete thought he had to do this, unfair that Patrick couldn’t keep it professional, and unfair that it wasn’t...well, that it wasn’t Patrick who got to make those noises.
“Wait,” he said, as Pete turned his key in the door. “I need to come in.” Okay, that was rude. Try again, Stump. “I have something I need to tell you.”
Shrugging, Pete stepped past him as he opened the door. “So say it.”
Patrick waited until Pete had closed the door and was facing him, looking straight in his eyes. “I’d be better,” he blurted out.
“Don’t,” Pete said, shaking his head. He started pacing the room. “Just--don’t.”
“How can you do that and say it’s just a job? How can you do that with them and not with me?” Patrick knew he was yelling, but he didn’t give a shit. He grabbed Pete’s arm. “I’d be better,” he said. “And I want -- I want it to be you.”
Pete laughed. “You saw your friend give a forty year-old dude a blowjob in a fucking park for fifty bucks and now you want him to take your virginity.” But he didn’t pull his arm away. “That’s fucked up, you know that?”
“Like you said; you’re my friend.” Patrick tugged him closer. “And you know what you’re doing.” He rested his forehead against Pete’s. “I don’t want it to be anyone else,” he whispered. “Please.”
And how he got from lurking in a park to a police station to here, Patrick didn’t know. But he knew as soon as he opened his mouth that this was what he wanted.
Pete pressed his mouth to Patrick’s ear. “You know what?” he said, low and harsh.
“What?” Patrick barely said the word out loud. He felt Pete’s hand move up his hip and settle on his waist and he knew he’d won.
“I don’t want it to be anyone else either.” And Pete kissed Patrick, for only the second time, but Patrick felt like it had been fucking years instead of days, like he’d been holding his breath the whole time and didn’t even know it.
Patrick kissed back, thinking, yes, yes, fucking finally, aware of Pete’s hand on his waist, his thumb idly stroking the waistband of Patrick’s jeans, aware of his own hands, gripping onto Pete’s shoulders like he was going to take off if Patrick let go. Relaxing a little, Patrick tried rubbing his hands up and down Pete’s arms, wondering exactly where else he should be touching. If Pete was a girl, he’d be heading for her boobs right about now. But Pete didn’t exactly have...Pete’s hands slipped around Patrick’s waist and cupped his ass. Oh.
“Bed,” Pete said, between kisses. “Bed, now.” He walked with his hands glued to Patrick’s ass, refusing to let go for balance. “No way, man, this shit is too good to let go of,” he laughed, when Patrick tripped over one of Pete’s shoes.
Pete flipped off the lights on his way down, which Patrick was thankful for. Mood lighting was good, he thought, for when you didn’t exactly know what you were doing. Patrick kicked off his shoes, reaching for the Pete-shadow on the edge of the bed. When he got a handful of bare skin instead of old t-shirt, Patrick made a noise low in his throat and pulled his own shirt off, wanting more skin, more, more, more, now. He kissed Pete, hands scrabbling over his shoulders, trying to trace tattoos he couldn’t see, pushing his hips up, rubbing his cock against Pete’s in an unsteady rhythm, scraping the zippers of their jeans together.
“Whoa, whoa.” Pete grabbed Patrick’s hips. “Slow down.” Patrick started to panic, until Pete said, “It’ll be over in five seconds if you keep that shit up.” Pete kissed Patrick gently, playing with the button on his jeans. “What do you want? It’s your call, okay? You say when.”
“All of it,” Patrick said, reaching down and yanking his jeans open. He wasn’t going to pussy out now. “Everything, whatever.”
“Right,” Pete said, sounding breathless. He pushed himself away from Patrick and shimmied out of his jeans. Patrick took that as his cue to do the same.
Pete knelt over Patrick and ran his hands up Patrick’s thighs. “Don’t take this wrong,” he said, “but you’re not going to last anyway.” And Patrick would have been insulted if Pete hadn’t finished that thought by sliding down the bed and sucking Patrick’s cock into his mouth. Patrick grabbed the sheets and keened, because shit, he was fucking unprepared for this, this was better than anything in the whole wide world, the feeling of wet heat around him and oh, sparks of pleasure shooting straight up his spine, making his toes curl, Pete’s hand gripping his leg and oh, oh, this was it. “Pete,” he choked out, but that was all he could say before he was coming hard into Pete’s mouth, making noises he never thought he’d ever make, ripping the bottom sheet off Pete’s bed in the process.
Pete crawled up the bed as Patrick was still gasping for air. He had something in his hand. “You said all of it,” Pete said, his voice unsteady.
“Yeah,” Patrick said, even though he couldn’t imagine having more sex than what had just happened. “Go for it.” God, it was probably good that he wasn’t trying to sleep with girls with that smooth talk.
“You could...you could fuck me.” Pete pushed a small bottle into Patrick’s hand. “It’s okay.”
Patrick imagined Pete saying that to some skank-ass guy in a park. “No.” He gave the bottle back to Pete. “I’m the one who offered, remember?”
“Okay,” Pete said, sucking in a sharp, whistling breath and shuddering. “Okay, wow.” Stretching out alongside Patrick, he kissed him long and hard, sucking on his lower lip. Patrick reached out and dragged his fingertips down Pete’s ribs, trailing along his hipbone, dipping into the hollow of his belly. He palmed Pete’s cock, feeling it jerk in his hand. Pete groaned, low and long. “Over, over,” he muttered shoving at Patrick’s shoulder.
Patrick rolled over onto his stomach, realizing with a shock that he was already hard again. He felt Pete behind him, pressing kisses to his shoulders and spine, up and down his body, licking and biting seemingly random spots until Patrick was clutching the pillow so hard that his hands ached and grinding into the mattress. Finally, he felt something cold and wet press into him. Patrick tensed, shocked at how weird it felt, but he eventually relaxed into it, concentrating on the feel of Pete’s other hand heavy on his leg, and the sound of Pete’s voice, murmuring, “Beautiful, beautiful.”
After a minute, the sensation went from “weird” to “really fucking hot” and the curve of Pete’s knuckle was hitting a spot that made Patrick sweat and all of a sudden he was so fucking hard and humping the mattress between thrusts and then Pete stretched him more, and it was so, so good. “Now,” Patrick said. “Fuck, now.”
“We could stop,” Pete said, his voice thin and shaking, right against Patrick’s ear. His body already draped over Patrick’s back, which he hadn’t even noticed happening. “You don’t have to do this.” Patrick could feel Pete’s cock nudging against his leg, heavy and hard, and his mouth went dry. For lack of words, Patrick pushed back, fucking himself on Pete’s fingers, moaning.
“Fuck,” Pete whispered, fumbling for something on the nightstand. He pulled back, Patrick heard a rustle and a tear, and then Pete’s fingers were gone, too fast, the empty sensation making Patrick’s stomach flip.
But he came back, tilting Patrick’s hips up, pulling him back so he was on his knees, blunt pressure pushing into him, stretching him, making Patrick’s eyes water and his arms shake. He tried to breathe shallowly, swallowing a whimper against the burn.
Pete stopped moving. He was shaking all over. “Give it a sec,” he said, gripping Patrick’s hips tightly.
The sharpness of the sensation faded, and Patrick tried rocking on his knees. “Shit,” Pete hissed, and he was right back, wrapping himself over Patrick, pressing his face into Patrick’s shoulder, pushing in, through the burn, past the pain, until Patrick didn’t know where he ended and Pete began. Pleasure and pain and holy, holy shit swirled together in his mind and body until Pete started to move and then it was more and more pleasure and less pain and more of that sparking, and he was hard again, so fucking hard, all of a sudden.
Patrick tried to get his hands on his cock, but he ended up just smacking his face into the edge of the headboard and throwing off Pete’s rhythm. Pete just laughed into Patrick’s neck and wrapped his own hand around Patrick’s cock and that was it, Patrick thrust into Pete’s hand twice and came, Pete’s laughter still echoing in his ear. Through his orgasm, Patrick felt Pete speed up, fucking him harder, his hips stuttering and jerking, muttering, “Have to, sorry, have to,” and then Pete was collapsing against him, panting, coming and coming and coming.
Afterward, Patrick was pretty sure that Pete pulled out and cleaned them up, but he doesn’t remember any of that. He just remembers curling around Pete’s pillow and falling deeply, immediately asleep.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>
The sound and smell of coffee being made woke Patrick up. He had a moment of disorientation -- bare walls, window in the wrong place, was he naked?-- but then he remembered the night before and he threw the blanket over his head in glee and embarrassment, blushing and grinning.
After he managed to control himself, dammit, Patrick eased himself out of bed in search of his clothes. He tossed on what he could find -- it wasn’t like his mom would be checking to see if he was wearing underwear, right?-- and headed out to the kitchen to find Pete.
Pete was at the counter, fully dressed, his back to Patrick, tapping his fingers at the coffee maker. His hoodie was up, covering his face, but Patrick knew Pete’s body language already, and this was not looking so good. “Hey,” he said. “Uh, good morning.”
“Is it?” Pete asked, turning to Patrick. His eyes were hooded and wary, and the circles under his eyes seemed darker than they were the day before. Patrick wondered if he’d even slept.
“You tell me.” Patrick’s body tensed. “I was doing okay until I came out to find you moping at Mister Coffee.”
“I’m going out again tonight,” Pete said sharply, turning around again. “I have to. This is not -- it’s not a relationship. It can’t be.” He jabbed a button on the coffee maker. “At least not for a few months. Not yet.”
Patrick felt sick. Not yet? Fuck that, he thought they were at least friends. He deserved better than that. “We don’t have to be in a relationship, but you also don’t have to be an asshole.” He grabbed Pete’s shoulder and turned him around. “Fuck, you can come live with me or something. We can figure this out together.”
“Right, I can live with you, because that’s not going to cause any problems and my parents aren’t going to flip and your parents aren’t going to flip and we’d both be homeless and the tour and the album.” Pete smacked his hand into the wall. “You just had to wait a few months, okay? And you fucking pushed, and tonight--” Pete snapped his mouth shut.
“Tonight what?” Patrick asked, stepping into his space.
“I have a whole deal going down; my first repeat customer, and he wants something special.” Pete leaned his elbows on the counter, jiggling his foot. “This is going to be enough money to get me a deposit on our van. We’re almost there, Patrick. We’re going to record and tour and I threw away everything for this chance,” Pete said, the muscles in his jaw clenched and tight. “I’m not giving it all up. Not even for a hot piece of teenage ass.”
“Not even for what?” Patrick asked, his heart racing. Pete looked at him, his eyes dark with something Patrick couldn’t name, and then he looked away. “Not even for a hot piece of teenage ass,” Pete said coldly, and Patrick didn’t think, he just reacted, anger twisting through him. He grabbed Pete and shoved him against the fridge. “Well, this piece of ass is also writing your songs, fuckhead, so think about that.”
“I am.” Pete didn’t fight back; he just stood firm with one hand braced on the counter. “We can’t do this--“ he waved his hand toward the bedroom--“and have the band and have my fucking job on top of it all. I can’t do it, not now.” He closed his eyes. “Just a few months. Then we’ll talk.”
Patrick couldn’t handle this fucking conversation again, he really couldn’t. “And who says you get to choose?” he asked. “You’re fucking with me and you need to cut the shit. I was there last night, asshole. I know you wanted...” he bit his lip and stopped, because maybe he didn’t really know what Pete wanted.
“Yeah,” Pete said. “I did. And do you think I want to fuck around on you every night so we can pay rental on the studio? Do you want to throw away the chance we have right now, so I can put in enough overtime at the car wash to feed myself? Do you want to just give me money so you can buy me like everyone else does?”
Patrick didn’t say anything. The kitchen seemed oddly bright and harsh, the yellow tiles of the backsplash shining in sharp relief in the sun. A bird twittered outside.
“That’s what I thought,” Pete said, his head dropping to his chest.
“I think you’re being fucking dumb.” Patrick closed his eyes against the sunlight, which was making his eyes water. “And stubborn. And an asshole. And I’m exhausted and still sore from when you fucked me, which you didn’t seem to have much of a problem with last night.” He opened his eyes to see Pete bracing himself against the counter with both hands now, breathing shallowly through his nose. His arms were shaking.
“So I’m gonna go.” Fishing in his pocket for his keys, Patrick walked to the door. “If you figure your shit out, call me.” Patrick gave him another moment, another chance to take it all back and not be such an ass, but Pete just bobbed his head in the barest of nods. Stomach twisting, Patrick opened the door and said, “Fine. See you in the studio,” and just walked away.
And it hurt; it hurt so fucking much that something that Patrick had looked forward to his whole life was fucking sullied. Pete took this away from him, which Patrick swore nobody could ever do, and now he was twisted up and angry and he just wanted to go home and back to school, which was fucked up and wrong and shit, maybe Pete was right about not getting involved.
Patrick realized that his keys were biting into his hand from him clenching his fist. He grimaced and let up on them. He needed to go home, that was for sure. Food, sleep, and a shower, and then maybe he could think clearly. As he got in the car, he tried to ignore the fact that he really was still sore, because that -- last night -- wasn’t something he could think about right now.
So he started up his car and went home.
>>>>>>>
After mumbling a hello and an excuse to his mom, Patrick crashed out for most of the morning and early afternoon. When he woke up, he had a crick in his neck and a sticky, dry mouth. Dull gold shone through his windows from the setting sun. Remembering the morning, last night, all of it, Patrick closed his eyes, feeling the heavy thump of his heart against his ribs.
Maybe Pete was right. Maybe he’d fucked it all up, for what? Getting laid?
Rolling over onto his back, Patrick thought back to last night; Pete’s mouth, the way his hand stroked Patrick’s shoulder when he was buried deep inside him, his murmured, rambled whispers between fumbling kisses. “No,” Patrick said out loud. He hadn’t fucked up the band.
Pete was just being a dumbass.
Patrick was going to go back to Chicago, he was going to find Pete, and he was going to kick his ass repeatedly until he understood what a fucking great boyfriend Patrick would be. No, scratch that -- until Pete understood what a great boyfriend he could be.
Determined, Patrick hauled himself out of bed, groaning at the twinges in his sore muscles, and went downstairs. There was a note on the kitchen table:
Out until 10:00. Dinner in the fridge. Be good.
Love,
Mom
Patrick zapped the leftover lasagna, wolfed it down, showered, changed, and was out of the house by the time it was fully dark.
All the way to Chicago, Patrick tried to rehearse what he was going to say to Pete, but all his ideas ended with shaking that stupid, awesome grin off Pete’s face or getting on his knees and begging. Neither of which were the best start to a relationship.
Pulling onto North Halstead, Patrick spotted--miracle of miracles-- an empty parking space within sight of most of the bars. He parked there, took our his iPod, and waited.
And waited.
Patrick waited the better part of two hours (and worked his way through Ride the Lightning, the Batman soundtrack, and Ultimate Run-DMC) before he realized that hey, he never thought to check to see it Pete was home. Duh.
Smacking himself in the forehead, Patrick started his car and drove across town, silently cursing his own stupidity.
He made it to Pete’s apartment in record time, but when he got there, the windows were dark and Pete didn’t answer the door. Patrick chewed his thumbnail for a moment, considering. There was really only one place left to go.
>>>>>>>>>>>>
The side street that Patrick had parked on last time had plenty of parking spaces, so he pulled in there and made his way up to the bird sanctuary. There were a ton of people still wandering the streets at this time of night; leaving restaurants, window-shopping, looking at the lake. Patrick decided to wait it out for a bit at Caribou Coffee, slowly sipping a latte, trying desperately not to think about what Pete might be doing right then.
By the time he was done, the streets had cleared and he could hop the fence into the sanctuary in private. (He checked and double-checked for police cars. Patrick figured he wouldn’t get off that easy twice.)
Guessing that Pete might be in the same spot, Patrick made his way back through the trees, cursing the fact that he’d dropped out of Boy Scouts in second grade, because who the fuck thought he’d need to navigate by compass in Chicago?
Pete wasn’t near the tree he was at before, and Patrick had just decided to sweep out closer to the lake, when he saw something on the ground, further back into the bushes. He squinted. Was that Pete’s hoodie? Had he left his clothes here?
Patrick crept toward it, holding his breath. He could feel his heart pounding and his breath rasping over his tight, chapped lips. He could hear everything: the distant roar of traffic, the rustling of the trees in the wind, a cargo ship’s booming horn; but he ignored it all in favor of the small pile of something ten feet in front of him.
The pile moved.
Patrick caught a glimpse of forearm sticking out from the shadows, Jack Skellington dancing in a patch of moonlight. “Pete?” Patrick rushed forward.
“Pete?” he whispered again, as loud as he dared.
Pete was lying on his side, one arm crooked to cover his face, both knees curled to his chest. Patrick was shocked at how small he seemed at the moment -- Pete wasn’t tall, but he was taller than Patrick-- and Patrick was scared for a second that Pete had been shot or something, shit, shit. Scrabbling his hands over Pete’s body, Patrick checked for blood or holes or like, open, bleeding, wounds.
“Ow,” Pete muttered. “Fuck off.” He flailed weakly at Patrick.
Patrick started breathing again. “What the fuck happened?”
“Guy wanted more than he paid for,” Pete said quietly. “More than I...fuck, Patrick, just get me home.”
“You need a hospital.” Patrick cradled Pete’s head and helped him sit up slowly. Pete hissed in pain. “Seriously, dude.”
“No doctors; I’m fine. I might have a cracked rib.” Pete touched his face. “And I know I’m not as pretty as I was this morning, but I’m okay. I just want to go home.”
“I was there; you weren’t that pretty,” Patrick said absently, maneuvering Pete onto his feet.
Pete laughed pitifully, clutching his ribs. “Truer words, man. Truer words. Now get me home so I can get some sleep. And a fucking ice pack.”
>>>>>>>>>>>>
Patrick watched as Pete slept. He looked ten years younger when he was sleeping, like a little boy with messy hair, all crashed out from a sugar high or something.
Well, he looked liked that from the angle Patrick was sitting, anyway. If he moved, he could see the shadows of bruises along Pete’s jaw and the swelling of his split lip.
Pete stirred, wincing and pulling one arm protectively around his ribs. “Where...?” He looked around, then flopped back on the bed, not meeting Patrick’s eyes, grimacing. “I feel like I got hit by a truck.”
“Nah,” Patrick said, forcing his voice into a semblance of normalcy. “You just got beat up by a john, what the fuck were you thinking?” Well, so much for normal.
Grabbing the glass of water he’d poured an hour ago, Patrick handed it to Pete and sat on the bed, elbowing Pete’s legs out of his way. Pete sat up and sipped the water slowly. “You’re done,” Patrick declared. “We’ll get the money for the van somehow. Christ, Joe and I are getting graduation money, right?” Pete half-smiled at that. “And I would be a shitty boyfriend -- which I am, by the way-- if I let you do this anymore. You can move in with me and my mom, and I’ll come with you to tell your parents that you dropped out of school -- I’m sweet, parents like me -- if it comes to that.” Shit, that was probably moving too fast. Patrick knew he should have rehearsed more.
Pete coughed on his water and spluttered, setting the glass down on a brand new AP magazine that was in danger of sliding off Patrick’s bedside table. "Oh yeah? And when I bring my *boyfriend* with me to tell my parents I dropped out of college and whored myself out so I could join a band and go on tour, and they fucking explode and kick me out and disown me, you'll hold my hand, right?”
Patrick looked down. “Yeah,” he said quietly.
“Why?” Pete asked.
“Because,” was all Patrick could say.
Pete reached for him and froze, grimacing. “Getting beat up fucking sucks,” he said. Still cradling his arm around his stomach, he reached behind him and propped the pillow up against the headboard. He eased himself against the pillow and kicked Patrick in the ass until he moved enough so Pete could pull the blankets up.
Pete fucked around with the blankets for a few minutes, tucking them and smoothing them, until Patrick was ready to give him a damned black eye to go with his fat lip. “For a while,” Pete said suddenly, not meeting Patrick’s eyes, “It was easy money, you know? I could do music almost full-time and not starve. But this?” Pete grimaced. “Fuck that noise.”
“And I’ve been telling you this --” Patrick started.
“Because you wanted to fuck me,” Pete answered, kicking Patrick again. “That’s not fucking fair, you know. I do shit because I want to. Not because you’re going to bully me, or stalk me into feeling fucking guilty about my choices. No,” he said, holding up his hand. “I know. I suck at fair.”
“Damned straight,” Patrick was starting to get good and pissed now. His jaw started to clench and twitch, and his head began to throb. “You can’t say I don’t give a shit about you. You’re all I’ve fucking thought about since I met you, you asshole.”
“Well, that’s romantic.” Pete looked down, then up at Patrick through his lashes. “So I’m your boyfriend, huh?” Pete quirked a smile at Patrick. Patrick was tempted to walk the fuck out the door, because Pete cannot fuck with him any more tonight, seriously, and he was getting whiplash from this conversation.
“Yeah,” Patrick gritted out. “If you’re smart enough to take me up on it. I mean, I keep offering and if you did. If you did.” He licked his lips, smiling tentatively, and turned his hand palm-up on the blanket next to Pete, hoping. “We could have it all.”
The silence stretched between them, heavy and tangible. Patrick felt his smile freeze on his face. “Right,” he said, his voice rasping through the room, severing the moment, but Pete was there, he was grabbing Patrick’s hand, gripping too tightly, and his smile actually reached his eyes. He pulled Patrick into a kiss shaped like his smile, playful and full of promise.
“I’m not really used to that,” Pete said, flexing his fingers, his dark eyes locked on Patrick’s. “I’m the King of Compromises.”
“Bullshit,” Patrick said. “You have loving parents, who you are lying to. You have a decent almost-boyfriend whose head you are fucking with, an you have a band that’s going to take over the world.” Patrick waited.
Pete touched Patrick’s palm gently with his fingers. “But Charlie,” he said, looking hard at Patrick. “Don't forget what happened to the man who suddenly got everything he always wanted.”
“He lived happily ever after,” Patrick finished.
“Weird,” Pete said, but he was smiling, a real smile, and pulling Patrick into a kiss. “Give me the phone,” he said. “I’m gonna fix this.”
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Pete shifted the phone to one ear and reached out with his free hand, crooking his pinky around Patrick’s. “Hey, mom?” he said. “We need to talk.”
END.
1. I was chatting with tzikeh about where gay prostitutes might hang out, and she pointed me to this article about the bird sanctuary. Once again, fiction-0, reality-1.
2. The quote the title is based on, for those of you who are too young who don't know it, is from the movie Say Anything. It goes like this: "I don't want to sell anything, buy anything, or process anything as a career. I don't want to sell anything bought or processed, or buy anything sold or processed, or process anything sold, bought, or processed, or repair anything sold, bought, or processed. You know, as a career, I don't want to do that."