(no subject)
Title: Hard to Do
Author: Kasha
Rating: PG-13ish
Summary: Reason #2: It’s very inconsiderate of us to have sex in the bunk right across from Andy and right under Joe, even if they pretend not to mind.
Notes: Not even remotely true.
Patrick is almost certain that he quite possibly might be in love with Peter. Which is probably why it takes him five tries to actually break up with the little bastard.
* * *
The first try is during an all-night B-movie marathon. At around three am, just as Mothra and Godzilla are really starting to throw down, Patrick gathers up his courage and decides to go for it. He gets as far as, “Look,” before Peter cuts him off with a kiss and an incredibly well-placed hand. Patrick can’t help but think as he whimpers and squirms in an embarrassingly needy manner to the backdrop of a fire-breathing mutant lizard fighting a giant alien moth that, perhaps, his breakup technique needs a little work.
* * *
The next try comes a week later over gas station burritos and cherry soda.
“Peter,” Patrick says between bites, standing in line behind half of Ohio because Peter absolutely can’t live without a special edition Exxon Monsters of the Road t-shirt. “You ever stop to think that maybe this whole thing-us-is just really, really, incredibly stupid? I mean, not only is it seriously self-destructive, it’s also really selfish. Because what would happen if we were found out? Not only would our careers be over, but we’d be screwing over Joe and Andy, and probably all the bands on your label, and-”
Peter’s cell goes off then, an obnoxiously tinny version of “Sugar, We’re Goin’ Down” because Peter thinks it’s just so hilarious that they’re ringtones now, and he gives Patrick an apologetic shrug and a squeeze on the arm before ducking out of the gas station to answer the call.
As Patrick forks over his own credit card to pay for Peter’s shirt, Peter’s lunch, Peter’s gum, Peter’s Golden Hits of the Groovingest Decade cd, he wonders if they maybe sell instructional pamphlets to help out with this whole breakup thing.
* * *
On the third try, Patrick actually manages to get the words out. He and Peter are curled up in a hotel bed, sweaty and panting and exhausted, and even though Patrick is fairly certain that a post-coital breakup is just about the worst thing anyone can do, he’s been trying for three weeks with no success, and he’s starting to get a bit desperate.
So he brushes a lock of hair off Peter’s forehead, stares as deeply into the other boy’s eyes as he can manage without his glasses, and says:
“I don’t think we should see each other anymore.”
Peter, for his part, nods calmly.
“Does that mean you’re quitting the band?”
“What? No, of course not! I love this band!”
“It’s just that,” Peter continues, undaunted, “if you really don’t want to see me anymore, you’re going to have to leave the band and probably stop hanging out with all of your friends and never watch MTV again, though that one won’t be very hard.”
“You’re being an ass, Peter. You know exactly what I mean.” Patrick rolls over so his back is to Peter and pulls the covers over his head.
“Yeah, I do.” Peter snakes an arm around Patrick’s waist and ducks under the covers with him. “And I think you’re being ridiculous. How about we just get some sleep, and we can talk about this in the morning if you want to, ok?”
Of course, they don’t talk about it in the morning. They don’t do anything in the morning except go for round two, and then round three, and then round four in the shower because hotel rooms are few and far between. In the midst of using No More Tears baby shampoo for a purpose that he’s fairly certain would make the Johnsons roll over in their graves, Patrick gives serious thought to calling up all of his old girlfriends and asking for their secrets-because they sure as hell didn’t seem to have any trouble dumping people.
* * *
For the fourth try, Patrick enlists some help. It’s six days later, and during the course of that Tuesday, Patrick pulls aside pretty much everyone on tour who even knows he and Peter are dating in the first place and confides that they are now broken up. Much to Patrick’s dismay, the almost universal response to this announcement is extreme skepticism followed, after many assurances that, yes, he is for real and no, he’s not drunk, by patronizing acceptance-“Sure you are, Patrick. Sure you are.” (This response is prevented from being entirely universal only by one of the sketchier sound guys, who offers him a joint and a rebound fuck. Patrick politely declines both.)
Patrick isn’t exactly certain how this strategy is going to help him break up with Peter, but a childhood of Disney movies has taught him that if enough people believe in something hard enough, that makes it true, so he figures it’s worth a shot.
By the time Patrick actually bumps into Peter for the first time that day-waiting in line to use the venue’s filthy restroom, of all places, about half an hour before soundcheck-the whole tour has heard that Patrick and Peter are through. Patrick smiles awkwardly and tries to pretend he hasn’t been avoiding Peter all day. Peter, for his part, just fixes Patrick with an exasperated look and drags him bodily into the tiny bathroom, locking the door behind them.
“So, apparently,” Peter starts, “you and I are broken up.”
“Yeah. Um, about that.”
“I have received condolences from just about everyone I’ve talked to all day. One creepy looking sound guy even offered me a revenge fuck. So would you care to explain, my dearest Patrick, why everyone on this tour seems to think you and I are over?”
Patrick clears his throat nervously and leans against the stall door. Only to immediately jerk away in shock when his hands come into contact with something sticky. Patrick rushes to the sink, and Peter breaks his glare long enough to laugh at the younger man’s attempts to turn on the faucet without actually touching either of the knobs.
“I guess it would be because I kind of told them that we were,” Patrick says, carefully nudging the hot water on with the back of his wrist.
“You know, I figured as much. So I guess what I really should have asked is, why the hell would you do that?”
Patrick winces.
“Look, Peter. Us as a couple is both stupid and selfish and stupid and, you know, just really, really stupid. I’ve been trying to tell you for weeks, and you’ve been blowing me off for weeks. You know as well as I do that this can’t possibly work, so let’s just end it right now before we get in too deep, ok?”
Peter seems to give this a great deal of thought, gnawing on his bottom lip and tilting his head to one side. Then he seems to decide that gnawing on Patrick’s bottom lip is a better idea, and he does just that.
“I’ll admit it,” Peter says in between kisses. “I know you’ve been trying to break up with me, and I have been blowing you off. But that’s only because you’re being fucking ridiculous. Our relationship is a danger to absolutely no one because I can promise you that absolutely no one cares whether or not we’re sleeping together. You’re seriously over-estimating our fame, here, Trick. There’s no good reason for us to break up, and I won’t let you end this until you can give me one.”
Patrick has several good reasons, actually-excellent reasons. But he can’t quite seem to think of them with Peter’s lips nuzzling against his neck like that and Peter’s leg working its way between his thighs. Patrick can’t really think of much of anything, honestly, not the fact that he is, without a doubt, the worst breaker-upper in the world, or the fact that there are at least three different people pounding on the locked bathroom door because, “C’mon, man, I really have to piss,” or even the fact that Peter has just pushed him right
up against that same suspiciously sticky stall.
So he stops thinking, just for a little while.
Joe settles for giving them a knowing smile when they both turn up for soundcheck twenty minutes late, hair mussed and clothing disheveled.
Andy, safe behind his drum kit, is slightly bolder.
“I thought you guys broke up?”
Peter flicks him off, but Patrick is too busy pondering the logistics of hiring some sort of private breakup tutor to respond with more than an absent nod and a half-hearted scowl.
* * *
For his fifth and final try, two and a half weeks later, Patrick makes a list containing exactly two hundred and seventy-three good reasons why he and Peter should break up.
He waits to spring it on Peter until one night when the two have stayed up late kicking around song ideas and everyone else has long since retreated to their bunks.
“Ok.” Patrick snatches the tattered notebook out of Peter’s hands and tosses it to the floor. “Ok. We’re going to do this.”
“What the hell, dude?” Peter furrows his brow in confusion. “I thought we were doing this. We were coming up with some pretty good shit, too, until you threw all the lyrics on the floor!”
“No, Peter. We’re really going to do this.” Patrick pulls the list out of his pocket and hands it over.
“What? Did you write some lyrics of your own or something? ‘Cause that’s cool.” Peter smiles at Patrick encouragingly before carefully unfolding the three sheets of college ruled paper and beginning to read. “One: We’re more than likely going to break up eventually, and then the band’ll probably fall apart because things will just be too weird. Two: It’s very inconsiderate of us to have sex in the bunk right across from Andy and right under Joe, even if they pretend not to mind. Three…what the hell is this, Ric?”
“Don’t ‘Ric’ me, Peter. And don’t you dare touch me,” Patrick all but yells as Peter makes a move toward him. “I’ve tried to break up with you four times now, not including this one, and every time you’ve sweet-talked and sexed your way out of it. Not this time, ok? This is serious. You told me to give you a good reason-well, there’s two hundred and seventy-three of them.”
Peter continues flipping through the list, looking more and more incredulous as he reads on.
“Fifty-six: It would seriously hurt the band if Peter’s ‘sex symbol’ status were compromised. Are you fucking kidding me? Eighty-nine: If word got out that we were a couple, Wal-Mart would probably stop selling our cds. I said good reasons, Patrick. This is just more bullshit.”
Patrick is starting to get seriously frustrated, and he snaps as Peter reaches out to grab his arm.
“No, Peter! I told you not to fucking touch me, and I meant it. We’re broken up! That’s it! You don’t get to say that my reasons aren’t good enough or that I’m being stupid or any of that, ok, that’s just not how it works. I don’t want to be with you anymore, and that’s that. I don’t need your fucking approval, all right? It’s done. We’re done.”
“Calm down, Patrick. I’m not going to touch you, see?” Peter retreats to the other end of the couch. “So just calm down. I know you don’t need my approval; I get that. It’s just that all of these reasons are really superficial. They’re all about our sales or our image or all this other nonsense you’ve never cared about before. This is the kind of list I would expect some Island rep to write to convince me we should break up, not the kind of list I would expect from you. Since when have you given a shit about any of this stuff, anyway?”
“It’s not superficial to care about the good of the band,” Patrick says, but it’s a weak defense, and he knows it.
“Why don’t you just tell me what this is really about?” This time, Patrick doesn’t protest when Peter scoots next to him on the sofa and throws an arm over his shoulder.
Wordlessly, Patrick takes the list from where it’s still loosely clutched in Peter’s hand and flips to the last page.
“Number two seventy-three,” he says, handing the papers back to Peter resignedly.
“Two hundred and seventy-three,” Peter reads out obligingly. “I’m in love with you, and I think it would just about kill me to wait around for you to break up with me.”
There’s silence, and for a terrible, heart-stopping moment, Patrick thinks Peter is going to laugh in his face.
And then Peter does laugh in his face.
He laughs and laughs and kisses the very tip of Patrick’s nose and smiles so wide it looks physically painful.
“Oh, Patrick,” Peter somehow says without moving his lips out of their manic grin. “Patrick, you lovely, lovely, wonderful, gorgeous, smart, funny, amazing, incredible, fucking moron. That’s what this whole thing was about? That’s the one good reason you wanted to dump me?”
“Well,” Patrick shrugs, choosing to take Peter’s laughter as a sign that things are going to work out just fine, “yeah. Though ‘dump’ is kind of a harsh word.”
“That makes things easy, then. I thought I was actually going to have to sit here and come up with two hundred and seventy-three reasons we should stay together, but I guess I really only need one, don’t I?”
With that, Peter carefully leans over Patrick to retrieve the lyric notebook from its resting place half under the couch. Flipping to a new page, he neatly prints out in the glittery green gel pen he insists makes for better songs the words I love you, too.
“Does that mean you’re not going to break up with me?” Patrick asks around his own slightly manic grin.
“That’s exactly what it means. And, dude, if anyone here should be insecure about that, it’s me. I mean, you did just dump me, like, five times. Which, now that I think about it, why aren’t we having wild makeup sex right now?”
Patrick just shrugs and arches an eyebrow, leaning in for a kiss.
Peter pulls away teasingly.
“Unless, of course, you’re worried it would be too ‘inconsiderate’ of Joe and Andy.”
“Reason two hundred and seventy-four,” Patrick mumbles against his lips. “You talk too fucking much.”
Author: Kasha
Rating: PG-13ish
Summary: Reason #2: It’s very inconsiderate of us to have sex in the bunk right across from Andy and right under Joe, even if they pretend not to mind.
Notes: Not even remotely true.
Patrick is almost certain that he quite possibly might be in love with Peter. Which is probably why it takes him five tries to actually break up with the little bastard.
* * *
The first try is during an all-night B-movie marathon. At around three am, just as Mothra and Godzilla are really starting to throw down, Patrick gathers up his courage and decides to go for it. He gets as far as, “Look,” before Peter cuts him off with a kiss and an incredibly well-placed hand. Patrick can’t help but think as he whimpers and squirms in an embarrassingly needy manner to the backdrop of a fire-breathing mutant lizard fighting a giant alien moth that, perhaps, his breakup technique needs a little work.
* * *
The next try comes a week later over gas station burritos and cherry soda.
“Peter,” Patrick says between bites, standing in line behind half of Ohio because Peter absolutely can’t live without a special edition Exxon Monsters of the Road t-shirt. “You ever stop to think that maybe this whole thing-us-is just really, really, incredibly stupid? I mean, not only is it seriously self-destructive, it’s also really selfish. Because what would happen if we were found out? Not only would our careers be over, but we’d be screwing over Joe and Andy, and probably all the bands on your label, and-”
Peter’s cell goes off then, an obnoxiously tinny version of “Sugar, We’re Goin’ Down” because Peter thinks it’s just so hilarious that they’re ringtones now, and he gives Patrick an apologetic shrug and a squeeze on the arm before ducking out of the gas station to answer the call.
As Patrick forks over his own credit card to pay for Peter’s shirt, Peter’s lunch, Peter’s gum, Peter’s Golden Hits of the Groovingest Decade cd, he wonders if they maybe sell instructional pamphlets to help out with this whole breakup thing.
* * *
On the third try, Patrick actually manages to get the words out. He and Peter are curled up in a hotel bed, sweaty and panting and exhausted, and even though Patrick is fairly certain that a post-coital breakup is just about the worst thing anyone can do, he’s been trying for three weeks with no success, and he’s starting to get a bit desperate.
So he brushes a lock of hair off Peter’s forehead, stares as deeply into the other boy’s eyes as he can manage without his glasses, and says:
“I don’t think we should see each other anymore.”
Peter, for his part, nods calmly.
“Does that mean you’re quitting the band?”
“What? No, of course not! I love this band!”
“It’s just that,” Peter continues, undaunted, “if you really don’t want to see me anymore, you’re going to have to leave the band and probably stop hanging out with all of your friends and never watch MTV again, though that one won’t be very hard.”
“You’re being an ass, Peter. You know exactly what I mean.” Patrick rolls over so his back is to Peter and pulls the covers over his head.
“Yeah, I do.” Peter snakes an arm around Patrick’s waist and ducks under the covers with him. “And I think you’re being ridiculous. How about we just get some sleep, and we can talk about this in the morning if you want to, ok?”
Of course, they don’t talk about it in the morning. They don’t do anything in the morning except go for round two, and then round three, and then round four in the shower because hotel rooms are few and far between. In the midst of using No More Tears baby shampoo for a purpose that he’s fairly certain would make the Johnsons roll over in their graves, Patrick gives serious thought to calling up all of his old girlfriends and asking for their secrets-because they sure as hell didn’t seem to have any trouble dumping people.
* * *
For the fourth try, Patrick enlists some help. It’s six days later, and during the course of that Tuesday, Patrick pulls aside pretty much everyone on tour who even knows he and Peter are dating in the first place and confides that they are now broken up. Much to Patrick’s dismay, the almost universal response to this announcement is extreme skepticism followed, after many assurances that, yes, he is for real and no, he’s not drunk, by patronizing acceptance-“Sure you are, Patrick. Sure you are.” (This response is prevented from being entirely universal only by one of the sketchier sound guys, who offers him a joint and a rebound fuck. Patrick politely declines both.)
Patrick isn’t exactly certain how this strategy is going to help him break up with Peter, but a childhood of Disney movies has taught him that if enough people believe in something hard enough, that makes it true, so he figures it’s worth a shot.
By the time Patrick actually bumps into Peter for the first time that day-waiting in line to use the venue’s filthy restroom, of all places, about half an hour before soundcheck-the whole tour has heard that Patrick and Peter are through. Patrick smiles awkwardly and tries to pretend he hasn’t been avoiding Peter all day. Peter, for his part, just fixes Patrick with an exasperated look and drags him bodily into the tiny bathroom, locking the door behind them.
“So, apparently,” Peter starts, “you and I are broken up.”
“Yeah. Um, about that.”
“I have received condolences from just about everyone I’ve talked to all day. One creepy looking sound guy even offered me a revenge fuck. So would you care to explain, my dearest Patrick, why everyone on this tour seems to think you and I are over?”
Patrick clears his throat nervously and leans against the stall door. Only to immediately jerk away in shock when his hands come into contact with something sticky. Patrick rushes to the sink, and Peter breaks his glare long enough to laugh at the younger man’s attempts to turn on the faucet without actually touching either of the knobs.
“I guess it would be because I kind of told them that we were,” Patrick says, carefully nudging the hot water on with the back of his wrist.
“You know, I figured as much. So I guess what I really should have asked is, why the hell would you do that?”
Patrick winces.
“Look, Peter. Us as a couple is both stupid and selfish and stupid and, you know, just really, really stupid. I’ve been trying to tell you for weeks, and you’ve been blowing me off for weeks. You know as well as I do that this can’t possibly work, so let’s just end it right now before we get in too deep, ok?”
Peter seems to give this a great deal of thought, gnawing on his bottom lip and tilting his head to one side. Then he seems to decide that gnawing on Patrick’s bottom lip is a better idea, and he does just that.
“I’ll admit it,” Peter says in between kisses. “I know you’ve been trying to break up with me, and I have been blowing you off. But that’s only because you’re being fucking ridiculous. Our relationship is a danger to absolutely no one because I can promise you that absolutely no one cares whether or not we’re sleeping together. You’re seriously over-estimating our fame, here, Trick. There’s no good reason for us to break up, and I won’t let you end this until you can give me one.”
Patrick has several good reasons, actually-excellent reasons. But he can’t quite seem to think of them with Peter’s lips nuzzling against his neck like that and Peter’s leg working its way between his thighs. Patrick can’t really think of much of anything, honestly, not the fact that he is, without a doubt, the worst breaker-upper in the world, or the fact that there are at least three different people pounding on the locked bathroom door because, “C’mon, man, I really have to piss,” or even the fact that Peter has just pushed him right
up against that same suspiciously sticky stall.
So he stops thinking, just for a little while.
Joe settles for giving them a knowing smile when they both turn up for soundcheck twenty minutes late, hair mussed and clothing disheveled.
Andy, safe behind his drum kit, is slightly bolder.
“I thought you guys broke up?”
Peter flicks him off, but Patrick is too busy pondering the logistics of hiring some sort of private breakup tutor to respond with more than an absent nod and a half-hearted scowl.
* * *
For his fifth and final try, two and a half weeks later, Patrick makes a list containing exactly two hundred and seventy-three good reasons why he and Peter should break up.
He waits to spring it on Peter until one night when the two have stayed up late kicking around song ideas and everyone else has long since retreated to their bunks.
“Ok.” Patrick snatches the tattered notebook out of Peter’s hands and tosses it to the floor. “Ok. We’re going to do this.”
“What the hell, dude?” Peter furrows his brow in confusion. “I thought we were doing this. We were coming up with some pretty good shit, too, until you threw all the lyrics on the floor!”
“No, Peter. We’re really going to do this.” Patrick pulls the list out of his pocket and hands it over.
“What? Did you write some lyrics of your own or something? ‘Cause that’s cool.” Peter smiles at Patrick encouragingly before carefully unfolding the three sheets of college ruled paper and beginning to read. “One: We’re more than likely going to break up eventually, and then the band’ll probably fall apart because things will just be too weird. Two: It’s very inconsiderate of us to have sex in the bunk right across from Andy and right under Joe, even if they pretend not to mind. Three…what the hell is this, Ric?”
“Don’t ‘Ric’ me, Peter. And don’t you dare touch me,” Patrick all but yells as Peter makes a move toward him. “I’ve tried to break up with you four times now, not including this one, and every time you’ve sweet-talked and sexed your way out of it. Not this time, ok? This is serious. You told me to give you a good reason-well, there’s two hundred and seventy-three of them.”
Peter continues flipping through the list, looking more and more incredulous as he reads on.
“Fifty-six: It would seriously hurt the band if Peter’s ‘sex symbol’ status were compromised. Are you fucking kidding me? Eighty-nine: If word got out that we were a couple, Wal-Mart would probably stop selling our cds. I said good reasons, Patrick. This is just more bullshit.”
Patrick is starting to get seriously frustrated, and he snaps as Peter reaches out to grab his arm.
“No, Peter! I told you not to fucking touch me, and I meant it. We’re broken up! That’s it! You don’t get to say that my reasons aren’t good enough or that I’m being stupid or any of that, ok, that’s just not how it works. I don’t want to be with you anymore, and that’s that. I don’t need your fucking approval, all right? It’s done. We’re done.”
“Calm down, Patrick. I’m not going to touch you, see?” Peter retreats to the other end of the couch. “So just calm down. I know you don’t need my approval; I get that. It’s just that all of these reasons are really superficial. They’re all about our sales or our image or all this other nonsense you’ve never cared about before. This is the kind of list I would expect some Island rep to write to convince me we should break up, not the kind of list I would expect from you. Since when have you given a shit about any of this stuff, anyway?”
“It’s not superficial to care about the good of the band,” Patrick says, but it’s a weak defense, and he knows it.
“Why don’t you just tell me what this is really about?” This time, Patrick doesn’t protest when Peter scoots next to him on the sofa and throws an arm over his shoulder.
Wordlessly, Patrick takes the list from where it’s still loosely clutched in Peter’s hand and flips to the last page.
“Number two seventy-three,” he says, handing the papers back to Peter resignedly.
“Two hundred and seventy-three,” Peter reads out obligingly. “I’m in love with you, and I think it would just about kill me to wait around for you to break up with me.”
There’s silence, and for a terrible, heart-stopping moment, Patrick thinks Peter is going to laugh in his face.
And then Peter does laugh in his face.
He laughs and laughs and kisses the very tip of Patrick’s nose and smiles so wide it looks physically painful.
“Oh, Patrick,” Peter somehow says without moving his lips out of their manic grin. “Patrick, you lovely, lovely, wonderful, gorgeous, smart, funny, amazing, incredible, fucking moron. That’s what this whole thing was about? That’s the one good reason you wanted to dump me?”
“Well,” Patrick shrugs, choosing to take Peter’s laughter as a sign that things are going to work out just fine, “yeah. Though ‘dump’ is kind of a harsh word.”
“That makes things easy, then. I thought I was actually going to have to sit here and come up with two hundred and seventy-three reasons we should stay together, but I guess I really only need one, don’t I?”
With that, Peter carefully leans over Patrick to retrieve the lyric notebook from its resting place half under the couch. Flipping to a new page, he neatly prints out in the glittery green gel pen he insists makes for better songs the words I love you, too.
“Does that mean you’re not going to break up with me?” Patrick asks around his own slightly manic grin.
“That’s exactly what it means. And, dude, if anyone here should be insecure about that, it’s me. I mean, you did just dump me, like, five times. Which, now that I think about it, why aren’t we having wild makeup sex right now?”
Patrick just shrugs and arches an eyebrow, leaning in for a kiss.
Peter pulls away teasingly.
“Unless, of course, you’re worried it would be too ‘inconsiderate’ of Joe and Andy.”
“Reason two hundred and seventy-four,” Patrick mumbles against his lips. “You talk too fucking much.”