Bandfic: Snapshots From a Possible Future [23-31] [I/II]
So today is my one year bandom anniversary. How it's been a year already, I have no idea. Especially since it was just supposed to be a fling--or so I kept insisting to amy13 long after it became apparent that it really, really wasn't. It's been a very fun year, though, filled concerts and fangirls and more squee than I could have possibly imagined (this canon still amazes me every single day), and just, well. I really love this fandom and I'm really happy I'm still here.
So, because I'm pretty much a sap and I like commemorating anniversaries, I decided weeks ago that I was going to finish my self-indulgent bandom future!fic and post it today. Well, I didn't finish the story, but I'm a whole heck of a lot closer than I was! So, here, have the next arc of the story. (If anyone still wants to read it, that is, since it's taken me far too long to get this out into the world.)
Title: Snapshots from a Possible Future [23-31]
Author: tigs
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: Don't know or own.
Author's Notes: Huge, huge thanks to amy13 for letting me babble about this story to her, for nitpicking and rereading sections multiple times, and for getting all 13,000 words of this arc back to me in under 24 hours because she is awesome like that. All remaining errors are my own. Um, enjoy? Previous bits of the 'verse can be found here.
23. The Morning After
The thing is: it actually turns out not to be that big of a deal at all.
No phone calls the next morning, waking Patrick from his much-deserved sleep. No reporters camped out on his front lawn, wanting an exclusive on, as Pete declares it, the biggest thing to hit the music scene in fucking *years*.
No, the most Patrick gets is a phone call around noon from Joe, where he says things like, "Dude," and "You totally thought you could stay away, didn't you?" before cackling loudly enough in Patrick's ear for long enough that Patrick hangs up on him.
Patrick is fine with this. He prefers this, actually, because while it might have seemed like a big fucking deal to the four of them the night before, to Pete and Ryan and Benji, well. It was fun. It was a one-time thing. It was a favor to a friend.
Nothing more.
*
Pete, though, has an entirely different outlook on the whole matter.
Because when Patrick wakes up the next morning-at nine, still too short on sleep, given that they'd gone out after the show with the Turtles and their crew, and hadn't made it back to Patrick's place until after three-he finds that Pete has moved from the guest room to the couch, that he's got his laptop open and propped up on his knees, and that he's typing frantically.
Never a good sign.
Especially when Patrick sees the familiar background color of Pete's preferred blog of the moment. *Especially* when Pete turns to look over his shoulder at Patrick when he comes into the living room and grins widely at him. Maybe even a little maniacally. He doesn't even try to hide the screen when Patrick glances at it, so Patrick is able to see black boxes of embedded video, and because Pete is no one if not Pete, he pushes play just a moment later, and Patrick hears his voice, tinny through computer speakers, but definitely him.
He says, "Jesus, Pete," but Pete just grins more widely than before.
"The whole concert's already made it onto YouTube," Pete says, but he doesn't follow it up with any talk of how it's already the most popular of the day, or how it's had 10,000 views in the last 3 hours, or something like that, so Patrick counts it as a plus.
"And you're feeling the need to point it out to the world?" Patrick asks, and Pete nods.
"Got to make them jealous!" he says. Indeed, when Patrick rests his elbows on the couch so that he can peer over Pete's shoulder, he reads: *Flew to la ysterday. saw a showby my new fav band. you should 've been there. howmany fam faces do you see??*
"Jesus, Pete," Patrick says again, but it's fond, exasperated.
*
It's less fond an hour later, when Pete's talking albums, whether Patrick's started writing his new group any songs, and has Patrick considered a tour. They could take a month, right? They could do the West Coast for sure, if they couldn't be away for a whole four weeks. Also, in case Patrick's forgotten, Pete has a label. Right here! Waiting to cater to Patrick's every whim!
"*Pete*," Patrick says, and there's a bite to it. More than he wants, but it gets Pete to shut up. Because Pete doesn't seem to understand: there is a difference between Patrick jamming in his basement with other musicians and Patrick starting up a new band.
Pete actually looks hurt, and he sounds it, too, when he says, "You shouldn't be cooped up in the studio all day, Stump. You weren't meant to live the rest of your life behind the soundboard."
"Except that that's what I'm doing now," Patrick says. "Except that it's what I *want* to be doing."
Because it is, has been, from the time he was still out on the road being a lead singer. Since he started sitting in the back of tour busses, messing around on Garage Band. Since people started asking him to do arrangements, create beats, be the driving force behind the music, and that's the rush now, putting his stamp on it, making the notes fit the vision in his head.
That's who he is now.
"But you miss it," Pete says, and Patrick sighs, because yes, yes, the night before he'd remembered the rush of being up on stage, the audience spread out in front of him, singing along, feeding the energy, the playing. He'd had fun. But.
But he's co-owner of a studio now. He has a full slate of artists lined up to work with him, stretching into the summer. Frank and Jamia have their store, Spencer doesn't even call Los Angeles home, and Adam-some band is going to lure Adam out of the studio before very much longer, if Patrick's any judge. And he likes to think that he is.
"But we aren't a band," Patrick says. "Not in the way that you're defining band, anyway. We're guys who played together once, who will probably get together in my basement again next week, and maybe Spencer will join us when he's out here. But that's it, Pete. That's all we're ever going to be."
Pete just looks at him and sighs.
24. The Welcome
So. Patrick doesn't really consider Ryan to be much of a pool party sort of guy. When Patrick thinks of Ryan and parties in the same sentence, he thinks of suits, of formal dining tables with more silverware at each place setting than Patrick knows what to do with. He thinks of top hats and bowties and china with gilt edges.
The party invitation that arrives in Patrick's mailbox the second week of January, though, reads:
Join Us!
When: Saturday, 2 o'clock!
Where: The Ross Backyard & Pool!
Why: To welcome our friend Spencer to LA!
Off to the side, Keltie's written in her bubbly scrawl: Bring a suit, if you'd like! and Patrick thinks, only in LA. Only in LA, where it's been known to be 80 degrees on Christmas, would anyone think it was a good idea to throw a pool party in *January*.
Patrick RSVPs, saying he'll be there, but when he goes he does not bring his swimsuit.
Instead, he brings himself, a cake from the bakery that Amanda swears by, and a bottle of relatively good wine, because, as Amanda said, "This is a Ryan Ross party, Stump. You know better than to go empty handed."
And it is a Ryan Ross party, which is why Patrick's not surprised to see that the street that Ryan and Keltie live on is already lined with cars. When he opens his car door and steps outside, he can hear the sounds of a party in full swing: screeches and splashing water, laughter, music turned up loud.
Patrick doesn't know the kid who answers the door when he knocks-a member of one of Ryan's bands, he's sure, because once Ryan signs them, they pretty much get adopted into the Ross-Colleen family. The kid recognizes Patrick, though, because he grins brightly and says, "Patrick fucking Stump, man. Dude."
If Pete was there with Patrick, Patrick thinks, he'd either a) say a snide '*dude*' in reply, or b) he'd say something like, '*dude*, I know, right?' and twenty minutes later, he and the kid would be chatting like they'd known each other for years.
Patrick, though, just says, "Hi."
Then, "Have any idea where I can put these?" to which the kid gestures in the direction of the backyard, straight through the house. There are quite a few people hanging out in the living room, in the kitchen, by the bar in the sunroom at the back of the house. There are more in the garden, though, and Patrick's barely three steps out the door when Keltie calls out, "Patrick! You made it!"
She's by the grill, an apron on over her bikini top and wrap skirt. She's got a beer in one hand, a pair of tongs in the other, and when Patrick gets close enough, she says, "There are, what, forty guys here? And yet I don't trust a single one of them within 10 feet of my grill." With that, she leans over and kisses Patrick on the cheek, before motioning Patrick to put his contributions down on a nearby table.
"Our grill," Ryan says, coming over to where they're standing, and Keltie hangs the tongs over the handle of the grill so that she can pat his head. "If you say so, honey," she says, and then, when Ryan's looking at Patrick, she shakes her head, points to herself, and mouths, "Mine."
Patrick doesn't manage to hide his smile, but Ryan doesn't notice because he's saying, "Patrick, man, we're glad you could escape from the studio long enough to actually come out today."
"It's good for me to see the sun every once in a while, you know?" Patrick says. "So I don't fade away to nothing." He laughs a little. "Pete swears it's going to happen one of these days, if I'm not careful."
As Patrick's talking, Keltie's pointing at Ryan, who's wearing sunglasses and long sleeves-although it *is* a t-shirt-mouthing, "Him too! Him too!" but this time Ryan catches her at it, and Patrick can only see half the eye roll, but there's no way for him to miss Ryan's smile as he leans down to give Keltie a kiss.
"Are you sure you want to be doing that in front of the kids?" Spencer asks, and Patrick starts, because he hadn't heard Spencer approach. He's got on sunglasses, too, a mixed drink with a little red straw in his hand, and he grins widely when Ryan, still kissing Keltie, flips him off.
A few of the boys and girls in Ryan's bands must hear Spencer's comment, because the next thing Patrick knows, he's surrounded by wolf whistles and people saying, "My eyes, my eyes!" Ryan pulls back far enough to lean his head on Keltie's shoulder for a moment before he straightens his own, then smiles widely at everyone who's now staring at them. He shoots a pointed, steady look at Spencer, one which makes Spencer laugh-Patrick's pretty sure that even though it's hidden behind tinted lenses, it translates to something like, 'I hate you, and also? I know where you sleep at night.'
Keltie just shakes her head and says, "Boys," before turning her attention back to the grill.
"What Spencer meant to say," Ryan says, "Is 'Hi Patrick. So glad to see you at this party that my best friend Ryan is so kindly throwing for me.'"
"Hi Patrick," Spencer parrots, "so glad you could come to this pool party my best friend Ryan decided to throw in my honor, even though it's *January* and I'm only going to be here for *three weeks*."
"Not if Ryan has anything to say about it," Keltie says with a sing-song lilt, not turning away from the grill, and Patrick's reminded, suddenly, of his conversation with Brendon back in Vegas: how sure Brendon was that Ryan was going to try to lure Spencer out of Vegas for good. Brendon, he thinks, might not have been delusional.
Spencer just shakes his head, though, and sips at his drink. "Three weeks," he says to Patrick. "Just until Sweet Midori hits the road. Then-"
"We'll see," Ryan interrupts. "Because three weeks is a long time, you know. Anything could happen in three weeks."
This time Spencer sighs, and he might have responded, except that some of Ryan's kids-the drummer and guitarist-slash-cowbell player for the Turtles-have been edging closer to the grill-possibly wanting food, Patrick thinks, but probably for a more nefarious purpose, as Ryan suddenly stands up straight and starts shaking his head.
"Nuh-uh," he says. "If you even think about it, I'm tearing up your contract. I will take away the fucking cowbell, I swear to god."
As Patrick watches, Ryan starts backing away from the grill. Unfortunately, he's also backing in the direction of the pool. This, Patrick is pretty sure, will not end well, but he also knows better than to stick his nose into pool fights lest he end up in the deep end, too.
So, when Spencer turns to him and says, "Keltie will give them a new one, don't worry," Patrick nods along, saying, "I don't know what would be more tragic, the lost contract or the lost cowbell."
Before Spencer can reply, three things happen in quick succession: Ryan shouts, there's a loud splash from the pool, and pretty much everyone in the backyard starts cheering.
As Keltie passes them by on her way to the pool, presumably to help Ryan out-or maybe, Patrick thinks, to join him-she says, "It's tradition now. The first time, he was wearing a silk shirt, but he's learned."
"He told me about that," Spencer says to Patrick. "He was fucking *pissed*. But he managed to drag the two offenders into the pool with him, and one had on fucking, like, leather or something, so he felt that his revenge was complete."
"Oh, god," Patrick says, because he knows how that goes: years spent on the road with Pete and Joe, even Andy. Dirty. Hundreds of tour mates. He knows about pranks, about revenge.
"I know, right?" Spencer says, and somehow that turns into the two of them sitting at a table, having a conversation about past prank wars, and some of Ryan's kids gather around to listen to the stories, sometimes throwing in their own, which turns into a game of 'do you remember when', which turns into Patrick and Spencer sitting at a table, talking about the apartment Spencer's renting ("Seriously fucking bland.") and the kid he's out here to help ("He just needs to learn to stop thinking, you know? Just let himself go."), which eventually leads to Spencer saying, "So, are you and Frank and that kid still jamming together?"
Patrick nods. After Ryan's show, there had been a few weeks where they'd stopped, what with the holidays and all, but they'd gotten together the week before, and Patrick doesn't really want to admit how good it'd felt to spend two hours fucking around in his basement again, playing, singing.
"Do you think you'd feel like joining us sometime, you think?" Patrick asks, raising an eyebrow, in case Spencer's question was intended to be a not-so-subtle hint.
Spencer ducks his head just a little bit, which tells Patrick that maybe it had been, but his grin is also wide, unashamed. "Sometime, yeah," he says. "Absolutely."
"Okay then," Patrick says, raising his drink to Spencer in a mock-toast. "Okay."
25. The Way It Goes
Spencer shows up on Patrick's doorstep about fifteen minutes early, but Patrick's not surprised; it is Spencer, after all. It's raining out, just like it has been for the past two days, sheets of it coming down, turning Patrick's driveway into something of a river. Spencer's sort of buried in a hoodie, cloth already damp-dark, a few pairs of drumsticks wrapped in a plastic bag clutched in his hand.
"We did just see each other at a pool party at Ryan's on Saturday, right?" Spencer asks. "It wasn't my imagination that it was, you know, 75 and sunny?"
"Welcome to California," Patrick says, "land of fucked up weather."
Earlier, on the news, they'd talked about the three feet of new snow in the mountains, the skiers ecstatic, the flood watch along the Russian River, up in northern California, and about how down south, in San Diego, it was sunny and they were recording record highs for this day in January.
"Tell me about it," Spencer says. He wipes his feet on the mat inside Patrick's door, then peels open the plastic bag, pulling his sticks out. He twirls them in his fingers once, then stills them again. "So, show me your set-up?"
His reaction to Patrick's basement-the blocks of color, the paint splattered walls-is a little comical: eyes wide, a bitten off laugh. He says. "Don't show Brendon, okay? He'll decide he wants to do his whole condo this way, and somehow, I think that I'd be first on his list of people to call up for help."
"That's what Frank said about Gerard," Patrick says. "Well, how if he ever saw it, he and Lyn-Z would probably, like, do their dining room in, like, fucking red and black or something."
"*That* I can see."
Spencer laughs and walks across the room to Patrick's drum kit and nods approvingly before sliding onto the stool. He raises an eyebrow in Patrick's direction as he gets settled, an unspoken, 'can I?' and when Patrick nods, he starts adjusting the kit to fit him-raising the cymbals, pushing the snares a little farther out. He's just started to test them out when the doorbell rings-loud enough that Spencer starts, bringing his drumstick down on a cymbal louder than he'd apparently intended, since he says, "Fuck. That thing's about a hundred times worse on this side, isn't it?"
"Yeah," Patrick says. "It is."
He heads back upstairs, only to find both Frank and Adam standing on his doorstep. Adam's got an umbrella clutched in his hand, but Frank's hair is plastered to his face, water dripping down his cheeks, and as soon as he sees Patrick, he shakes his head, spraying water everywhere.
"Hey! Fuck!" Adam says, holding his umbrella up between the two of them, but Frank just grins in an ingratiating manner and Patrick lets them into the house. Patrick can hear Spencer testing out the drums in the basement, and Frank says, "So, we've got company tonight? How long is he here for? Three weeks?"
"Two and a half now," Patrick says. "Or so he claims. I'd put money on Ryan cooking up some way to get him to stick around for longer, though."
"Because Ross is a sneaky little fuck like that," Frank says. "He's probably figured out 20 ways to make sure that Spencer never leaves again!" He's already heading for the stairs, Adam right behind, so Patrick follows them down and watches as Spencer looks up from the kit. He stops playing after a moment, rolling his shoulders, stretching his muscles, then half-stands when Frank approaches him, reaching out to slap the hand Frank extends in his direction.
"So you decided you wanted to throw your lot in with us for a few weeks?" Frank asks as he and Adam kneel down to pull out their instruments. "I'd have thought that you'd be ready to get away from the drums after spending all day, what, helping some kid get ready for his tour?"
"Or maybe I'm in need of some grownup time," Spencer says, his grin toothy, his shoulders shaking just a bit with suppressed laughter. "Maybe I wanted to play with people over the age of 20."
"Actual age or mental age?" Adam asks, and when all of them turn to look at him, he looks a little startled that he actually said that out loud. He pushes gamely on, though. "Because if you're going for mental, you're in the wrong place. Because Frank is, you know, maybe twelve, *maybe*-"
At which point Frank half tackles him, laughing and saying, "Hey, fuck you, you infant. Don't you know by now that you need to respect your elders?" before shooting a grin in Patrick's direction that looks really fucking proud.
"Yeah." Spencer sighs. "I can see that. So let's go with actual age."
He plays a quick drum roll, which Patrick takes to be a sign that he'd like to get this evening going, please. Patrick obliges by picking up his guitar, settling the strap over his shoulder. In the next moment, it's a race between Frank and Adam to see who can get plugged in next. Frank wins by a riff, but Adam is just behind him, and then they're both looking at Patrick expectantly.
And Patrick, well.
Suddenly, Patrick's not quite sure what to do, because these jam sessions that they've been doing… they've been hours filled with top 40 hits, 80s power ballads, anthems from their childhoods, theme nights and scream-o takes on sappy love songs. Basically: it's been a few months of fun.
Having Spencer here, though, somehow makes it feel more official. Like it's an actual band practice, with a purpose. Which it's not-it's nothing more than it was the week before, or three weeks before that, but.
But Spencer starts tapping out a steady beat against the edge of his snare with his stick, and he says, "So how does this go?"
Frank glances at Patrick before he says, "However the fuck we want it to. What are you all in the mood for tonight? Eighties? Disco? TRL this week?" Patrick shrugs, but Spencer nods and says, "You all know that new Carbon Dated 10,000 BC song? The one that goes like-" He starts tapping out a beat, and it's something that Patrick recognizes, but isn't overly familiar with.
Adam nods, though, and starts picking out the bass line, and that's enough for Patrick to start in on a melody-right or not, it doesn't really matter, because Frank's joining him, head bent forward to stare at his fingers, like he does every week.
Like it's not different at all.
And maybe, Patrick thinks as he plays, it isn't.
26. The Question
It begins, as most things seem to nowadays, with a knock on Patrick's door.
Well, a knock, then the doorbell, button pushed once, twice, three times, and when Patrick actually gets the door open, he's halfway through saying, "Fucking *hell*, Iero," before he realizes that Frank isn't the only one standing on the step. Adam's just getting out of his car, but Spencer's right next to Frank, laughing. Possibly with Frank, possibly at him, since Frank is looking far, *far* too innocent, a fact which is only accentuated by the way that he's pointing at Spencer and saying, "Yeah, fucking hell, *Smith*. You know how fucking loud that doorbell is."
"Uh huh," Spencer says, his voice dry, totally failing to rise to Frank's bait. "It was all me. I admit it. My fingers just get a little trigger happy. You know how it goes."
Frank nods his agreement, then as Adam finally reaches them, slings his arm over Adam's shoulders, saying, "Totally true, right, kid? You know how it goes?" and Adam looks at Patrick with a wide, totally confused look before saying, "Sure?"
"Oh, sure," Spencer says, "take Frank's side. Of course."
Which is why Adam's looking back and forth between Spencer and Frank (and Patrick, too), probably trying to figure out if he should try to work his way out of whatever corner he's backed himself into, when Patrick finally lets them into the house.
"He knows whose good side he needs to stay on," Frank says, and Spencer says, "Yeah. Mine."
And somehow, see, conversations like this are becoming a normal part of Patrick's life, because they're in week two of this arrangement, jam session three, and Patrick's already settling into a routine. Today he actually started checking the clock at four, and he'd watched the second hand jump forward 23 times before Amanda tweaked the bill of his hat and said, "So I'm guessing you have somewhere better to be?"
Patrick shook his head, of course, and turned back to his work, but not ten minutes later he found himself looking up at the clock again.
It's just because Patrick's having a good time with it, is all. It's just because it's something *different*, is all.
Pete calls what they're doing 'practice'--as in, "You got practice tomorrow night, Stump?"--but the thing is, it's not. Yeah, they played one show and yeah, Spencer being there to provide rhythm makes it feel a little more "official", but they're still just four guys getting together to jam. They aren't working *towards* anything.
Except: tonight, when they're wrapping everything up, Frank says, "How much longer are you going to be here, Smith?"
Spencer laughs. "You've been talking to Ryan, haven't you?" At Frank's look--confused, but willing to play along--Spencer continues. "He's been working hard to get me to stick around. Just this week I got three calls from managers whose kids would like some extra help before they go into the studio or out on the road, and another fucking, like, five from the kids themselves. And it's all, 'Oh, we heard you were in town.' 'Oh, do you think you'd have time to help little Johnny?' It has Ryan's fingerprints all over it."
"Fucking Ross," Frank says, but he's grinning now in a way that Patrick has come to know means that he's secretly pleased.
"Fucking Ross," Spencer agrees. Then: "Why?"
Frank closes his guitar case, then sits back on his heels and says, "So Greg. You know, the kid on my bowling team? Well, he's apparently the president of his little geology honors society, and they're doing their annual fundraiser for the preservation of, well, someplace with a lot of rocks, and because someone years and years ago thought it would be clever to have a rock concert for the rocks-I know, right?-well. That's what they're doing. Usually it's local bands-campus, some smaller ones down from LA--but Greg asked me if we might consider dropping by, too. For some reason, he thinks we might be a draw."
He shakes his head, as if this is an absurd thought, but his shoulders are shaking and he sounds pleased. Adam is grinning almost helplessly, looking excited in that way that Patrick remembers being once upon a time.
"I told him I thought we might be down a drummer," Frank says, "but if Ross has got you sticking around...?"
Spencer snorts and shakes his head, scrubbing fingers through his hair. "When?" he asks, finally looking up.
"Two weeks," Frank says. "They're going to have a stage in the center of the fucking UC Riverside quad, and supposedly bands get, like, three or four songs, but Greg said we could have as much time as we wanted." He raises his voice, until it's a little squeaky. "Seriously, dude. Whatever you want."
Adam, Patrick sees, is holding himself carefully still--like he doesn't want to agree if the rest of them aren't going to, or disagree if the rest of them want to. Spencer is tapping his stick against his thigh, obviously thinking, and then he looks at Patrick, like this is his choice, and Patrick's first thought is, *no-yes-no*.
Because last time, see, it was a favor for a friend. Except this time it would be, too. Just. Frank's friend, not Patrick's. And now that Patrick thinks about it, *really* this is just as much Frank's thing as it is Patrick's-maybe even more so, since it was initially Frank's idea to get together in the first place-and since Frank did Patrick's thing, Patrick doesn't really have the *right* to say no.
Plus, it *is* for charity. Patrick tries not to say no to charity very often.
So, after a long look at Frank, who's just sitting there looking hopeful, he says, "Hey, why the fuck not?" He feels a moment of panic flare in his stomach, because, well. Just because. Spencer smiles widely at him, though, and does a quick roll on the drums, and Adam nods his agreement, and Frank does a fist pump of... victory? Joy? Something.
"Awesome," Frank says. "*Fucking* awesome, even. I'll give Greg a call when I get home, let him know he can put us on the program, yeah?"
Spencer says, "Yeah."
27. The Reason
The thing is: for advertised performances, one generally, you know, needs a name.
Frank points this fact out when he calls Patrick approximately an hour and 27 minutes after he leaves Patrick's, approximately thirty seconds, according to Frank, after he hangs up with Greg. "He wanted to know what he should bill us as, and I was like, fuck. You'd think Smith would have thought of that little detail while we were all sitting around, you know? But I told him we'd think about it and get back to him tomorrow, okay?" Then, after Patrick agrees-because what else is he going to say?-he hangs up.
And that, see, is the reason that Patrick's spent the last ten minutes of his break between meetings doodling possible band names on a post-it note stuck to the blotter on his desk. Also, it's pretty much impossible to think of anything else when Frank keeps texting him things like *howbout 'we 're still here'*, or *'why th fck r u still here' 'cause evryone thot they got rd of us yrs ago!*
Pete's trying to help, too, where 'helping' means that he's sent Patrick three emails in the last hour, each with a string of question marks in the subject line. *You guys re lke a fuking puzzle*, one read. Another: *how about 'my bnd has more tlent then your band?' b/c its totally fuckingtrue!*
Patrick replies to the last: *Yeah, that'd go over well. Way to win friends and influence people, #286.*
The thing is: this should be easy, and it's not, which is why, when Amanda eventually comes to find him, he's spinning in his chair. He's a writer, for fucks sake. Some people would probably even call him an integral part of the scene. He should have eight band names ready to go on the tip of his tongue, and he does, really, it's just, well. None of them seem to fit *this* group of people, for *these* circumstances.
"Stump," Amanda says when she physically stops Patrick's chair, making him look up at her. "You haven't heard a word I said since I came in, have you?"
Patrick wants to protest that he had been listening, really. Really! But, well, Amanda's right, and he hadn't been, so. "No," he says. "Sorry. What was it you were saying?"
Amanda sighs, and on any other day, in any other circumstance, she would be looking put out. Amanda is very good at looking put out; over the last several years, she's developed a *look*. Apparently among the staff it's considered intimidating. Patrick might even let himself be intimidated by it if he, you know, weren't her boss. Right now, though, she actually looks a little gleeful, which makes Patrick think that he should probably be worried. There is a precedent, after all, for conversations that start with Amanda and gleeful looks ending with Patrick dressed up in a penguin suit someplace, quite possibly giving a speech.
Then again, this doesn't exactly look like penguin suit glee, because Amanda's spinning her braid around her finger rather than clasping her hands together and rocking back and forth on the balls of her feet; instead, it looks more like juicy gossip glee, which in Patrick's opinion is usually even *worse*.
Indeed, it is even worse, because as Patrick watches, Amanda sits down on the edge of his desk, rubs her hands together and says, "You'll never guess who just left the building!" She waits with visibly baited breath for Patrick to ask 'who?' and because she has long since proven that she can wait Patrick out, he says it.
"Casey!" Amanda says. "From Last Bastion! And you'll never believe this: she actually said *hello* to me. Politely! Then she *smiled*. I mean, what the fuck?"
*Now* she claps her hands together, probably waiting for Patrick to *say* something, and he would, except that he's suddenly too busy wondering 'what the hell?' and 'what did I forget?' and 'it's too late to add hidden tracks,' and 'but it's never too late for digital singles, fucking fuck--'
When it becomes obvious that Patrick's stewing in his own questions, Amanda continues. "*And* she asked where our very own Adam Jacobson was. She actually seemed disappointed when I had to tell her that he wasn't here right now, that she should check back later." A beat, a breath, then: "What do you think she *wanted*? Adam never did anything to her, right?"
"I have no idea," Patrick says, but then he thinks, wait. He remembers overhearing Casey and one of her bandmates talking about Adam, about teching, about touring, he does, vaguely. He thinks, maybe. He's saved from further contemplation, though, by his 3:30 knocking on his door.
*
Adam, as it turns out, really has no idea what Casey wants to talk to him about either, and Patrick doesn't mention his suspicions, overheard conversations.
The four of them are sitting in a pizza place a few miles from Patrick's studio and when Patrick tells him, he stops mid-bite, pulls the slice out of his mouth, blinks, and then says, "What the hell?"
Frank is chortling--that's the only word Patrick can think of for it--saying, "Dude, AJ, if even half of those stories you guys told me about those kids are true, you should call out sick for the rest of the week. I'm serious."
"Because that would go down really well with my boss," Adam says, looking at Patrick, but Frank is the one to elbow Patrick in the side. He says, "You'd let him off, right Stump? Totally a justifiable excuse, am I right?"
Adam ignores Frank, though, and keeps right on talking. "Also, I'll have you know that I am an *integral* part of the completion of 'Winter Hope, Spring Pearls'. Agatha Price is actually trusting me with a ten-note melody this time around. I have graduated beyond the three notes on repeat!"
The funny thing is, *Spencer* is actually the one to raise his hand to slap Adam's in victory.
Okay, so, Patrick's known Spencer for fucking years at this point-12? 14? Something like that-but he's pretty sure that he's spent more time with Spencer alone in the last nine months than in all of those other years combined, and there's apparently a difference between Spencer around his band and Spencer away from them.
"You're moving up in the world, kid," Frank says, then reaches across the table for a slapped hand of his own. "But you're going to go higher still, once we actually think of a *name*."
"For one show," Patrick says. "We're putting too much thought into this."
"They should just put down all of your names, seriously," Adam says. "List all of the rest of the bands they've got, then: with special guests Frank Iero, Spencer Smith, Patrick Stump, and more! I'll be the 'and more' and everyone will go 'who the fuck is that?'"
"Starring Patrick Stump as himself," Frank says, and now he kicks Patrick's foot, and seriously, what the hell? Between that and his elbowed side, it's been a long time since he's been this abused. Since Pete, Andy, and Joe, actually. Then, though, his whole body being abused was pretty much par for the course.
"Or," Frank continues, "how about, 'Starring AJ as The Kid!'"
"Fuck you," Adam says, but he's grinning. He pretends to lunge across the table to defend his besmirched honor or something, but Spencer puts a hand on his shoulder and pushes him back down. Adam glowers, then shoves half a slice of pizza in his mouth and starts chewing loudly. After he swallows, though, his eyes widen and he points at Patrick, saying, "Didn't you--in one of the early Fall Out Boy songs--have a line like, fuck, 'starring you instead of me?'
"Honorable mention," Patrick says automatically.
"Starring me instead of you?" Spencer asks. Then he frowns. "No, can you even imagine how much shit we'd get? Exclusive evidence of long covered up band strife! From, like, five, seven, eight years ago!"
"People would totally not be surprised if we called ourselves something that refers back to our bands," Frank says. He traces his finger around the rim of his glass once, twice. "Like, I don't know. Fuck. Like Falling From the Dance Floor Romance. Something. What was your band called, AJ?"
There's a moment of silence then, actually, as Adam freezes, and Patrick doesn't know how much Adam told Frank about his old band--all Patrick really knows is that it didn't end well--but the sudden uncomfortable-ness is gone after a moment when Adam says, "The Still Wanderers. We thought we were all deep and shit."
Frank turns to Patrick. "We are so calling our first album 'Still Falling for that Disco Romance. Just so you know. And I'm not going to let us put it out without a cowbell solo either, FYI."
"Thank you for that," Patrick says. "Because we should really be talking about album titles when we're still trying to come up with a group name." Like they'll actually *get* to a point where they need an album title. Jesus.
"I actually sort of like Honorable Mention," Spencer says. "It's generic enough that people will go 'what the hell were they thinking?' It doesn't have any unnecessary punctuation..."
As much as Patrick hates to admit it, though, the "Starring..." is sticking in his brain and refusing to go away. "Starring your past?" he asks. "Starring the future?"
"Starring us?" Adam asks, raising an eyebrow.
"Because that doesn't sound egotistical at all," Frank says. Then, "I actually sort of like it. Your comeback, starring us instead of you."
"Comeback of the Year?" Adam says, "Because you know that that's what people are going to say." He drops his voice, apparently trying to imitate a reporter. "And today I was able to speak with the members of the aptly named Comeback of the Year. And their bass player Adam."
"AJ," Frank says, and Spencer chimes in with, "The Kid."
Patrick wonders if he should be worried that Frank and Adam seem to be rubbing off on Spencer. Probably.
"And three of us *are* multi-platinum selling artists," Frank says. "We should have the ego to think such a name is appropriate."
"Even for just one show," Patrick adds.
"Hell," Frank says. "You had the balls to name a song *Thriller*. People *know* about you, Stump."
Yes, Patrick thinks, they do, but what he says is: "More like it's reason number 437 that people will think it's a bad idea for retired rock stars to get in a room together: their combined egos will be unbearable."
At that, Adam's eyes light up. "Reason No. 437?"
Patrick nods, not understanding what Adam's getting at, but then Spencer's nodding along. "That could work," he says. "No connection to anything any of us have done before. Doesn't sound too cheesy or, like, well, like we were trying too hard."
"But we would know that it's secretly a code for 'we're all egotistical little fucks'," Frank says.
"And it's not like the world will be out an awesome band name if we only use it for this one show," Adam says.
"Reason No. 437," Patrick says, and it's just random enough, just generic enough that, well… maybe it *could* work.
28. The Interlude
Pete doesn't actually say 'Hello' when Patrick picks up the phone. He doesn't say 'What the fuck, man? No seriously, what the fuck?' or 'Dude, this is just-" before trailing off. No, when Patrick answers the phone with a simple "This is Patrick," what he hears is laughter. Then a snort. Then more laughter.
It's his lunch hour-thus the reason he answered his cell-and he's eating soup, microwavable. He swirls his spoon once, twice around the edge of the bowl as he says, "Hi, Pete."
"Dude," Pete says, crowing the word. "This poster, man. It's fucking *classic*." Patrick hears rustling, which he's pretty sure means that Pete's waving said poster around, as if to emphasize his point, even though Patrick can't see him. Patrick might feel a little bit insulted except, you know, he's seen the poster in question. And maybe it makes him a snob, but, well. It's fucking photocopied, see, with letters made to look like they were ripped out of a newspaper or magazine. Someone actually drew mountains in the background in fucking *sharpie*, okay?
The text reads:
This Saturday
A Rock Concert to Benefit Devil's Canyon
Starring Greased Lighters, the Barbie Doll Murders, Elevation Zero, Agent Orange, and Oscar the Grouchiest, and Many More!!!
w/ Special Guest Reason No. 437
(!!!the new collaborative effort from the members of Fall Out Boy, My Chemical Romance, and Panic at the Disco!!!)
Tickets $10!!!
As Frank said on the phone the day before, "It's so fucking quaint, Stump, I practically *died*." And it is. It really is, because it's been fucking *years* since Fall Out Boy (or My Chemical Romance, or Panic) had anything but professionally done tour posters; more, even, since Patrick and Joe camped out in Kinko's at one a.m. mocking things up in Word, then printing them out on multiple shades of neon, like these kids did. Patrick's own copy is printed on bright orange; Pete's, he knows, is pink.
Actually, if Patrick wants to be honest, the whole thing is maybe a little refreshing. Even if it sort of does make him feel like he's back in high school again.
"This is awesome," Pete says. "I made a copy and posted it on the front door of our building. Dirty thinks that one of the suits on the 8th floor will probably tear it down, since it doesn't really match the décor, but it's not like I can't make more. Besides, you never know who might end up being in Riverside for the weekend, you know?"
"Yeah, right," Patrick says. "You never know." His voice is dry, though, because, well, in his group of friends at least, Riverside is going to be the place to be.
In addition to Pete, Jon is coming ("Apparently Tom and Cassie can take care of the bar for the night," Spencer said) and Gerard is, too ("I told him, after the number of book signings I've been to around this whole fucking country for him, he can come support some goddamn rocks," Frank said. "Which is when he chose to tell me that he already had his ticket.") Brendon will be there, and Ryan, of course, and the last Patrick heard, Bob had been poking around airline websites. Whether he actually bought a ticket or not, Patrick doesn't know.
It's *definitely* not like last time, where no one but Pete even had a chance to make the trip. No, this time the word is out, at least in the corner of the universe that Pete frequents. He's been talking it up in his blogs, writing things like: *reason #438 u shld be in riverside thiswknd!* There's even been a little bit of press. The longest interview was with he kid from the UC Riverside *Highlander*, but Patrick also answered an email from one of the editors of *AP*.
*Favor*, he told them both. *For a friend of ours. We're happy to do it, but it's not the start of anything more. *
"It's going to be a party, dude," Pete says. "Especially since you keep claiming that this is a one time thing. Joe's pissed about that, actually. He told me last night that he thinks you're a fucking tease. One time only! But wait, what's this? Some rocks need saving? Okay, two times only! I told him that safe money is on you playing again sometime-"
"Pete-" Patrick tries to interrupt, but Pete keeps right on talking.
"-because you're you, and we all fucking know you can't stay away, but Joe says that if this really *is* the last show you do, he should probably come see you. So expect a phone call later tonight with details from him. He's trying to get on the same flight as Jon and me."
Patrick says, "Jesus. It's not that big-"
"Big a deal?" Pete asks, and Patrick can picture Pete leaning back in his chair, maybe frowning, maybe not. Looking a little annoyed, anyway. "Fuck yeah it is. I mean, you say you guys aren't a real band-which, what the fuck ever, dude-but even so, like you weren't at Andy's opening night, or haven't flown halfway across the country to see some of my kids play, or like you didn't surprise Joe when he got that award. How is this any different?"
Patrick wants to say, 'it just is,' but Pete's right, it's not really any different at all. If Andy and some of his non-band friends were doing a charity show somewhere, Patrick would be there. He has been there for more of Pete's stuff than he can count. When Joe wins another award for his Trohman Classic line, Patrick will do everything in his power to be there, too.
So, what he says is, "So, it's going to be a party?"
"Absolutely," Pete says. "It's going to be the party of the year, dude, and you totally know it."
[ continued]
So, because I'm pretty much a sap and I like commemorating anniversaries, I decided weeks ago that I was going to finish my self-indulgent bandom future!fic and post it today. Well, I didn't finish the story, but I'm a whole heck of a lot closer than I was! So, here, have the next arc of the story. (If anyone still wants to read it, that is, since it's taken me far too long to get this out into the world.)
Title: Snapshots from a Possible Future [23-31]
Author: tigs
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: Don't know or own.
Author's Notes: Huge, huge thanks to amy13 for letting me babble about this story to her, for nitpicking and rereading sections multiple times, and for getting all 13,000 words of this arc back to me in under 24 hours because she is awesome like that. All remaining errors are my own. Um, enjoy? Previous bits of the 'verse can be found here.
23. The Morning After
The thing is: it actually turns out not to be that big of a deal at all.
No phone calls the next morning, waking Patrick from his much-deserved sleep. No reporters camped out on his front lawn, wanting an exclusive on, as Pete declares it, the biggest thing to hit the music scene in fucking *years*.
No, the most Patrick gets is a phone call around noon from Joe, where he says things like, "Dude," and "You totally thought you could stay away, didn't you?" before cackling loudly enough in Patrick's ear for long enough that Patrick hangs up on him.
Patrick is fine with this. He prefers this, actually, because while it might have seemed like a big fucking deal to the four of them the night before, to Pete and Ryan and Benji, well. It was fun. It was a one-time thing. It was a favor to a friend.
Nothing more.
*
Pete, though, has an entirely different outlook on the whole matter.
Because when Patrick wakes up the next morning-at nine, still too short on sleep, given that they'd gone out after the show with the Turtles and their crew, and hadn't made it back to Patrick's place until after three-he finds that Pete has moved from the guest room to the couch, that he's got his laptop open and propped up on his knees, and that he's typing frantically.
Never a good sign.
Especially when Patrick sees the familiar background color of Pete's preferred blog of the moment. *Especially* when Pete turns to look over his shoulder at Patrick when he comes into the living room and grins widely at him. Maybe even a little maniacally. He doesn't even try to hide the screen when Patrick glances at it, so Patrick is able to see black boxes of embedded video, and because Pete is no one if not Pete, he pushes play just a moment later, and Patrick hears his voice, tinny through computer speakers, but definitely him.
He says, "Jesus, Pete," but Pete just grins more widely than before.
"The whole concert's already made it onto YouTube," Pete says, but he doesn't follow it up with any talk of how it's already the most popular of the day, or how it's had 10,000 views in the last 3 hours, or something like that, so Patrick counts it as a plus.
"And you're feeling the need to point it out to the world?" Patrick asks, and Pete nods.
"Got to make them jealous!" he says. Indeed, when Patrick rests his elbows on the couch so that he can peer over Pete's shoulder, he reads: *Flew to la ysterday. saw a showby my new fav band. you should 've been there. howmany fam faces do you see??*
"Jesus, Pete," Patrick says again, but it's fond, exasperated.
*
It's less fond an hour later, when Pete's talking albums, whether Patrick's started writing his new group any songs, and has Patrick considered a tour. They could take a month, right? They could do the West Coast for sure, if they couldn't be away for a whole four weeks. Also, in case Patrick's forgotten, Pete has a label. Right here! Waiting to cater to Patrick's every whim!
"*Pete*," Patrick says, and there's a bite to it. More than he wants, but it gets Pete to shut up. Because Pete doesn't seem to understand: there is a difference between Patrick jamming in his basement with other musicians and Patrick starting up a new band.
Pete actually looks hurt, and he sounds it, too, when he says, "You shouldn't be cooped up in the studio all day, Stump. You weren't meant to live the rest of your life behind the soundboard."
"Except that that's what I'm doing now," Patrick says. "Except that it's what I *want* to be doing."
Because it is, has been, from the time he was still out on the road being a lead singer. Since he started sitting in the back of tour busses, messing around on Garage Band. Since people started asking him to do arrangements, create beats, be the driving force behind the music, and that's the rush now, putting his stamp on it, making the notes fit the vision in his head.
That's who he is now.
"But you miss it," Pete says, and Patrick sighs, because yes, yes, the night before he'd remembered the rush of being up on stage, the audience spread out in front of him, singing along, feeding the energy, the playing. He'd had fun. But.
But he's co-owner of a studio now. He has a full slate of artists lined up to work with him, stretching into the summer. Frank and Jamia have their store, Spencer doesn't even call Los Angeles home, and Adam-some band is going to lure Adam out of the studio before very much longer, if Patrick's any judge. And he likes to think that he is.
"But we aren't a band," Patrick says. "Not in the way that you're defining band, anyway. We're guys who played together once, who will probably get together in my basement again next week, and maybe Spencer will join us when he's out here. But that's it, Pete. That's all we're ever going to be."
Pete just looks at him and sighs.
24. The Welcome
So. Patrick doesn't really consider Ryan to be much of a pool party sort of guy. When Patrick thinks of Ryan and parties in the same sentence, he thinks of suits, of formal dining tables with more silverware at each place setting than Patrick knows what to do with. He thinks of top hats and bowties and china with gilt edges.
The party invitation that arrives in Patrick's mailbox the second week of January, though, reads:
Join Us!
When: Saturday, 2 o'clock!
Where: The Ross Backyard & Pool!
Why: To welcome our friend Spencer to LA!
Off to the side, Keltie's written in her bubbly scrawl: Bring a suit, if you'd like! and Patrick thinks, only in LA. Only in LA, where it's been known to be 80 degrees on Christmas, would anyone think it was a good idea to throw a pool party in *January*.
Patrick RSVPs, saying he'll be there, but when he goes he does not bring his swimsuit.
Instead, he brings himself, a cake from the bakery that Amanda swears by, and a bottle of relatively good wine, because, as Amanda said, "This is a Ryan Ross party, Stump. You know better than to go empty handed."
And it is a Ryan Ross party, which is why Patrick's not surprised to see that the street that Ryan and Keltie live on is already lined with cars. When he opens his car door and steps outside, he can hear the sounds of a party in full swing: screeches and splashing water, laughter, music turned up loud.
Patrick doesn't know the kid who answers the door when he knocks-a member of one of Ryan's bands, he's sure, because once Ryan signs them, they pretty much get adopted into the Ross-Colleen family. The kid recognizes Patrick, though, because he grins brightly and says, "Patrick fucking Stump, man. Dude."
If Pete was there with Patrick, Patrick thinks, he'd either a) say a snide '*dude*' in reply, or b) he'd say something like, '*dude*, I know, right?' and twenty minutes later, he and the kid would be chatting like they'd known each other for years.
Patrick, though, just says, "Hi."
Then, "Have any idea where I can put these?" to which the kid gestures in the direction of the backyard, straight through the house. There are quite a few people hanging out in the living room, in the kitchen, by the bar in the sunroom at the back of the house. There are more in the garden, though, and Patrick's barely three steps out the door when Keltie calls out, "Patrick! You made it!"
She's by the grill, an apron on over her bikini top and wrap skirt. She's got a beer in one hand, a pair of tongs in the other, and when Patrick gets close enough, she says, "There are, what, forty guys here? And yet I don't trust a single one of them within 10 feet of my grill." With that, she leans over and kisses Patrick on the cheek, before motioning Patrick to put his contributions down on a nearby table.
"Our grill," Ryan says, coming over to where they're standing, and Keltie hangs the tongs over the handle of the grill so that she can pat his head. "If you say so, honey," she says, and then, when Ryan's looking at Patrick, she shakes her head, points to herself, and mouths, "Mine."
Patrick doesn't manage to hide his smile, but Ryan doesn't notice because he's saying, "Patrick, man, we're glad you could escape from the studio long enough to actually come out today."
"It's good for me to see the sun every once in a while, you know?" Patrick says. "So I don't fade away to nothing." He laughs a little. "Pete swears it's going to happen one of these days, if I'm not careful."
As Patrick's talking, Keltie's pointing at Ryan, who's wearing sunglasses and long sleeves-although it *is* a t-shirt-mouthing, "Him too! Him too!" but this time Ryan catches her at it, and Patrick can only see half the eye roll, but there's no way for him to miss Ryan's smile as he leans down to give Keltie a kiss.
"Are you sure you want to be doing that in front of the kids?" Spencer asks, and Patrick starts, because he hadn't heard Spencer approach. He's got on sunglasses, too, a mixed drink with a little red straw in his hand, and he grins widely when Ryan, still kissing Keltie, flips him off.
A few of the boys and girls in Ryan's bands must hear Spencer's comment, because the next thing Patrick knows, he's surrounded by wolf whistles and people saying, "My eyes, my eyes!" Ryan pulls back far enough to lean his head on Keltie's shoulder for a moment before he straightens his own, then smiles widely at everyone who's now staring at them. He shoots a pointed, steady look at Spencer, one which makes Spencer laugh-Patrick's pretty sure that even though it's hidden behind tinted lenses, it translates to something like, 'I hate you, and also? I know where you sleep at night.'
Keltie just shakes her head and says, "Boys," before turning her attention back to the grill.
"What Spencer meant to say," Ryan says, "Is 'Hi Patrick. So glad to see you at this party that my best friend Ryan is so kindly throwing for me.'"
"Hi Patrick," Spencer parrots, "so glad you could come to this pool party my best friend Ryan decided to throw in my honor, even though it's *January* and I'm only going to be here for *three weeks*."
"Not if Ryan has anything to say about it," Keltie says with a sing-song lilt, not turning away from the grill, and Patrick's reminded, suddenly, of his conversation with Brendon back in Vegas: how sure Brendon was that Ryan was going to try to lure Spencer out of Vegas for good. Brendon, he thinks, might not have been delusional.
Spencer just shakes his head, though, and sips at his drink. "Three weeks," he says to Patrick. "Just until Sweet Midori hits the road. Then-"
"We'll see," Ryan interrupts. "Because three weeks is a long time, you know. Anything could happen in three weeks."
This time Spencer sighs, and he might have responded, except that some of Ryan's kids-the drummer and guitarist-slash-cowbell player for the Turtles-have been edging closer to the grill-possibly wanting food, Patrick thinks, but probably for a more nefarious purpose, as Ryan suddenly stands up straight and starts shaking his head.
"Nuh-uh," he says. "If you even think about it, I'm tearing up your contract. I will take away the fucking cowbell, I swear to god."
As Patrick watches, Ryan starts backing away from the grill. Unfortunately, he's also backing in the direction of the pool. This, Patrick is pretty sure, will not end well, but he also knows better than to stick his nose into pool fights lest he end up in the deep end, too.
So, when Spencer turns to him and says, "Keltie will give them a new one, don't worry," Patrick nods along, saying, "I don't know what would be more tragic, the lost contract or the lost cowbell."
Before Spencer can reply, three things happen in quick succession: Ryan shouts, there's a loud splash from the pool, and pretty much everyone in the backyard starts cheering.
As Keltie passes them by on her way to the pool, presumably to help Ryan out-or maybe, Patrick thinks, to join him-she says, "It's tradition now. The first time, he was wearing a silk shirt, but he's learned."
"He told me about that," Spencer says to Patrick. "He was fucking *pissed*. But he managed to drag the two offenders into the pool with him, and one had on fucking, like, leather or something, so he felt that his revenge was complete."
"Oh, god," Patrick says, because he knows how that goes: years spent on the road with Pete and Joe, even Andy. Dirty. Hundreds of tour mates. He knows about pranks, about revenge.
"I know, right?" Spencer says, and somehow that turns into the two of them sitting at a table, having a conversation about past prank wars, and some of Ryan's kids gather around to listen to the stories, sometimes throwing in their own, which turns into a game of 'do you remember when', which turns into Patrick and Spencer sitting at a table, talking about the apartment Spencer's renting ("Seriously fucking bland.") and the kid he's out here to help ("He just needs to learn to stop thinking, you know? Just let himself go."), which eventually leads to Spencer saying, "So, are you and Frank and that kid still jamming together?"
Patrick nods. After Ryan's show, there had been a few weeks where they'd stopped, what with the holidays and all, but they'd gotten together the week before, and Patrick doesn't really want to admit how good it'd felt to spend two hours fucking around in his basement again, playing, singing.
"Do you think you'd feel like joining us sometime, you think?" Patrick asks, raising an eyebrow, in case Spencer's question was intended to be a not-so-subtle hint.
Spencer ducks his head just a little bit, which tells Patrick that maybe it had been, but his grin is also wide, unashamed. "Sometime, yeah," he says. "Absolutely."
"Okay then," Patrick says, raising his drink to Spencer in a mock-toast. "Okay."
25. The Way It Goes
Spencer shows up on Patrick's doorstep about fifteen minutes early, but Patrick's not surprised; it is Spencer, after all. It's raining out, just like it has been for the past two days, sheets of it coming down, turning Patrick's driveway into something of a river. Spencer's sort of buried in a hoodie, cloth already damp-dark, a few pairs of drumsticks wrapped in a plastic bag clutched in his hand.
"We did just see each other at a pool party at Ryan's on Saturday, right?" Spencer asks. "It wasn't my imagination that it was, you know, 75 and sunny?"
"Welcome to California," Patrick says, "land of fucked up weather."
Earlier, on the news, they'd talked about the three feet of new snow in the mountains, the skiers ecstatic, the flood watch along the Russian River, up in northern California, and about how down south, in San Diego, it was sunny and they were recording record highs for this day in January.
"Tell me about it," Spencer says. He wipes his feet on the mat inside Patrick's door, then peels open the plastic bag, pulling his sticks out. He twirls them in his fingers once, then stills them again. "So, show me your set-up?"
His reaction to Patrick's basement-the blocks of color, the paint splattered walls-is a little comical: eyes wide, a bitten off laugh. He says. "Don't show Brendon, okay? He'll decide he wants to do his whole condo this way, and somehow, I think that I'd be first on his list of people to call up for help."
"That's what Frank said about Gerard," Patrick says. "Well, how if he ever saw it, he and Lyn-Z would probably, like, do their dining room in, like, fucking red and black or something."
"*That* I can see."
Spencer laughs and walks across the room to Patrick's drum kit and nods approvingly before sliding onto the stool. He raises an eyebrow in Patrick's direction as he gets settled, an unspoken, 'can I?' and when Patrick nods, he starts adjusting the kit to fit him-raising the cymbals, pushing the snares a little farther out. He's just started to test them out when the doorbell rings-loud enough that Spencer starts, bringing his drumstick down on a cymbal louder than he'd apparently intended, since he says, "Fuck. That thing's about a hundred times worse on this side, isn't it?"
"Yeah," Patrick says. "It is."
He heads back upstairs, only to find both Frank and Adam standing on his doorstep. Adam's got an umbrella clutched in his hand, but Frank's hair is plastered to his face, water dripping down his cheeks, and as soon as he sees Patrick, he shakes his head, spraying water everywhere.
"Hey! Fuck!" Adam says, holding his umbrella up between the two of them, but Frank just grins in an ingratiating manner and Patrick lets them into the house. Patrick can hear Spencer testing out the drums in the basement, and Frank says, "So, we've got company tonight? How long is he here for? Three weeks?"
"Two and a half now," Patrick says. "Or so he claims. I'd put money on Ryan cooking up some way to get him to stick around for longer, though."
"Because Ross is a sneaky little fuck like that," Frank says. "He's probably figured out 20 ways to make sure that Spencer never leaves again!" He's already heading for the stairs, Adam right behind, so Patrick follows them down and watches as Spencer looks up from the kit. He stops playing after a moment, rolling his shoulders, stretching his muscles, then half-stands when Frank approaches him, reaching out to slap the hand Frank extends in his direction.
"So you decided you wanted to throw your lot in with us for a few weeks?" Frank asks as he and Adam kneel down to pull out their instruments. "I'd have thought that you'd be ready to get away from the drums after spending all day, what, helping some kid get ready for his tour?"
"Or maybe I'm in need of some grownup time," Spencer says, his grin toothy, his shoulders shaking just a bit with suppressed laughter. "Maybe I wanted to play with people over the age of 20."
"Actual age or mental age?" Adam asks, and when all of them turn to look at him, he looks a little startled that he actually said that out loud. He pushes gamely on, though. "Because if you're going for mental, you're in the wrong place. Because Frank is, you know, maybe twelve, *maybe*-"
At which point Frank half tackles him, laughing and saying, "Hey, fuck you, you infant. Don't you know by now that you need to respect your elders?" before shooting a grin in Patrick's direction that looks really fucking proud.
"Yeah." Spencer sighs. "I can see that. So let's go with actual age."
He plays a quick drum roll, which Patrick takes to be a sign that he'd like to get this evening going, please. Patrick obliges by picking up his guitar, settling the strap over his shoulder. In the next moment, it's a race between Frank and Adam to see who can get plugged in next. Frank wins by a riff, but Adam is just behind him, and then they're both looking at Patrick expectantly.
And Patrick, well.
Suddenly, Patrick's not quite sure what to do, because these jam sessions that they've been doing… they've been hours filled with top 40 hits, 80s power ballads, anthems from their childhoods, theme nights and scream-o takes on sappy love songs. Basically: it's been a few months of fun.
Having Spencer here, though, somehow makes it feel more official. Like it's an actual band practice, with a purpose. Which it's not-it's nothing more than it was the week before, or three weeks before that, but.
But Spencer starts tapping out a steady beat against the edge of his snare with his stick, and he says, "So how does this go?"
Frank glances at Patrick before he says, "However the fuck we want it to. What are you all in the mood for tonight? Eighties? Disco? TRL this week?" Patrick shrugs, but Spencer nods and says, "You all know that new Carbon Dated 10,000 BC song? The one that goes like-" He starts tapping out a beat, and it's something that Patrick recognizes, but isn't overly familiar with.
Adam nods, though, and starts picking out the bass line, and that's enough for Patrick to start in on a melody-right or not, it doesn't really matter, because Frank's joining him, head bent forward to stare at his fingers, like he does every week.
Like it's not different at all.
And maybe, Patrick thinks as he plays, it isn't.
26. The Question
It begins, as most things seem to nowadays, with a knock on Patrick's door.
Well, a knock, then the doorbell, button pushed once, twice, three times, and when Patrick actually gets the door open, he's halfway through saying, "Fucking *hell*, Iero," before he realizes that Frank isn't the only one standing on the step. Adam's just getting out of his car, but Spencer's right next to Frank, laughing. Possibly with Frank, possibly at him, since Frank is looking far, *far* too innocent, a fact which is only accentuated by the way that he's pointing at Spencer and saying, "Yeah, fucking hell, *Smith*. You know how fucking loud that doorbell is."
"Uh huh," Spencer says, his voice dry, totally failing to rise to Frank's bait. "It was all me. I admit it. My fingers just get a little trigger happy. You know how it goes."
Frank nods his agreement, then as Adam finally reaches them, slings his arm over Adam's shoulders, saying, "Totally true, right, kid? You know how it goes?" and Adam looks at Patrick with a wide, totally confused look before saying, "Sure?"
"Oh, sure," Spencer says, "take Frank's side. Of course."
Which is why Adam's looking back and forth between Spencer and Frank (and Patrick, too), probably trying to figure out if he should try to work his way out of whatever corner he's backed himself into, when Patrick finally lets them into the house.
"He knows whose good side he needs to stay on," Frank says, and Spencer says, "Yeah. Mine."
And somehow, see, conversations like this are becoming a normal part of Patrick's life, because they're in week two of this arrangement, jam session three, and Patrick's already settling into a routine. Today he actually started checking the clock at four, and he'd watched the second hand jump forward 23 times before Amanda tweaked the bill of his hat and said, "So I'm guessing you have somewhere better to be?"
Patrick shook his head, of course, and turned back to his work, but not ten minutes later he found himself looking up at the clock again.
It's just because Patrick's having a good time with it, is all. It's just because it's something *different*, is all.
Pete calls what they're doing 'practice'--as in, "You got practice tomorrow night, Stump?"--but the thing is, it's not. Yeah, they played one show and yeah, Spencer being there to provide rhythm makes it feel a little more "official", but they're still just four guys getting together to jam. They aren't working *towards* anything.
Except: tonight, when they're wrapping everything up, Frank says, "How much longer are you going to be here, Smith?"
Spencer laughs. "You've been talking to Ryan, haven't you?" At Frank's look--confused, but willing to play along--Spencer continues. "He's been working hard to get me to stick around. Just this week I got three calls from managers whose kids would like some extra help before they go into the studio or out on the road, and another fucking, like, five from the kids themselves. And it's all, 'Oh, we heard you were in town.' 'Oh, do you think you'd have time to help little Johnny?' It has Ryan's fingerprints all over it."
"Fucking Ross," Frank says, but he's grinning now in a way that Patrick has come to know means that he's secretly pleased.
"Fucking Ross," Spencer agrees. Then: "Why?"
Frank closes his guitar case, then sits back on his heels and says, "So Greg. You know, the kid on my bowling team? Well, he's apparently the president of his little geology honors society, and they're doing their annual fundraiser for the preservation of, well, someplace with a lot of rocks, and because someone years and years ago thought it would be clever to have a rock concert for the rocks-I know, right?-well. That's what they're doing. Usually it's local bands-campus, some smaller ones down from LA--but Greg asked me if we might consider dropping by, too. For some reason, he thinks we might be a draw."
He shakes his head, as if this is an absurd thought, but his shoulders are shaking and he sounds pleased. Adam is grinning almost helplessly, looking excited in that way that Patrick remembers being once upon a time.
"I told him I thought we might be down a drummer," Frank says, "but if Ross has got you sticking around...?"
Spencer snorts and shakes his head, scrubbing fingers through his hair. "When?" he asks, finally looking up.
"Two weeks," Frank says. "They're going to have a stage in the center of the fucking UC Riverside quad, and supposedly bands get, like, three or four songs, but Greg said we could have as much time as we wanted." He raises his voice, until it's a little squeaky. "Seriously, dude. Whatever you want."
Adam, Patrick sees, is holding himself carefully still--like he doesn't want to agree if the rest of them aren't going to, or disagree if the rest of them want to. Spencer is tapping his stick against his thigh, obviously thinking, and then he looks at Patrick, like this is his choice, and Patrick's first thought is, *no-yes-no*.
Because last time, see, it was a favor for a friend. Except this time it would be, too. Just. Frank's friend, not Patrick's. And now that Patrick thinks about it, *really* this is just as much Frank's thing as it is Patrick's-maybe even more so, since it was initially Frank's idea to get together in the first place-and since Frank did Patrick's thing, Patrick doesn't really have the *right* to say no.
Plus, it *is* for charity. Patrick tries not to say no to charity very often.
So, after a long look at Frank, who's just sitting there looking hopeful, he says, "Hey, why the fuck not?" He feels a moment of panic flare in his stomach, because, well. Just because. Spencer smiles widely at him, though, and does a quick roll on the drums, and Adam nods his agreement, and Frank does a fist pump of... victory? Joy? Something.
"Awesome," Frank says. "*Fucking* awesome, even. I'll give Greg a call when I get home, let him know he can put us on the program, yeah?"
Spencer says, "Yeah."
27. The Reason
The thing is: for advertised performances, one generally, you know, needs a name.
Frank points this fact out when he calls Patrick approximately an hour and 27 minutes after he leaves Patrick's, approximately thirty seconds, according to Frank, after he hangs up with Greg. "He wanted to know what he should bill us as, and I was like, fuck. You'd think Smith would have thought of that little detail while we were all sitting around, you know? But I told him we'd think about it and get back to him tomorrow, okay?" Then, after Patrick agrees-because what else is he going to say?-he hangs up.
And that, see, is the reason that Patrick's spent the last ten minutes of his break between meetings doodling possible band names on a post-it note stuck to the blotter on his desk. Also, it's pretty much impossible to think of anything else when Frank keeps texting him things like *howbout 'we 're still here'*, or *'why th fck r u still here' 'cause evryone thot they got rd of us yrs ago!*
Pete's trying to help, too, where 'helping' means that he's sent Patrick three emails in the last hour, each with a string of question marks in the subject line. *You guys re lke a fuking puzzle*, one read. Another: *how about 'my bnd has more tlent then your band?' b/c its totally fuckingtrue!*
Patrick replies to the last: *Yeah, that'd go over well. Way to win friends and influence people, #286.*
The thing is: this should be easy, and it's not, which is why, when Amanda eventually comes to find him, he's spinning in his chair. He's a writer, for fucks sake. Some people would probably even call him an integral part of the scene. He should have eight band names ready to go on the tip of his tongue, and he does, really, it's just, well. None of them seem to fit *this* group of people, for *these* circumstances.
"Stump," Amanda says when she physically stops Patrick's chair, making him look up at her. "You haven't heard a word I said since I came in, have you?"
Patrick wants to protest that he had been listening, really. Really! But, well, Amanda's right, and he hadn't been, so. "No," he says. "Sorry. What was it you were saying?"
Amanda sighs, and on any other day, in any other circumstance, she would be looking put out. Amanda is very good at looking put out; over the last several years, she's developed a *look*. Apparently among the staff it's considered intimidating. Patrick might even let himself be intimidated by it if he, you know, weren't her boss. Right now, though, she actually looks a little gleeful, which makes Patrick think that he should probably be worried. There is a precedent, after all, for conversations that start with Amanda and gleeful looks ending with Patrick dressed up in a penguin suit someplace, quite possibly giving a speech.
Then again, this doesn't exactly look like penguin suit glee, because Amanda's spinning her braid around her finger rather than clasping her hands together and rocking back and forth on the balls of her feet; instead, it looks more like juicy gossip glee, which in Patrick's opinion is usually even *worse*.
Indeed, it is even worse, because as Patrick watches, Amanda sits down on the edge of his desk, rubs her hands together and says, "You'll never guess who just left the building!" She waits with visibly baited breath for Patrick to ask 'who?' and because she has long since proven that she can wait Patrick out, he says it.
"Casey!" Amanda says. "From Last Bastion! And you'll never believe this: she actually said *hello* to me. Politely! Then she *smiled*. I mean, what the fuck?"
*Now* she claps her hands together, probably waiting for Patrick to *say* something, and he would, except that he's suddenly too busy wondering 'what the hell?' and 'what did I forget?' and 'it's too late to add hidden tracks,' and 'but it's never too late for digital singles, fucking fuck--'
When it becomes obvious that Patrick's stewing in his own questions, Amanda continues. "*And* she asked where our very own Adam Jacobson was. She actually seemed disappointed when I had to tell her that he wasn't here right now, that she should check back later." A beat, a breath, then: "What do you think she *wanted*? Adam never did anything to her, right?"
"I have no idea," Patrick says, but then he thinks, wait. He remembers overhearing Casey and one of her bandmates talking about Adam, about teching, about touring, he does, vaguely. He thinks, maybe. He's saved from further contemplation, though, by his 3:30 knocking on his door.
*
Adam, as it turns out, really has no idea what Casey wants to talk to him about either, and Patrick doesn't mention his suspicions, overheard conversations.
The four of them are sitting in a pizza place a few miles from Patrick's studio and when Patrick tells him, he stops mid-bite, pulls the slice out of his mouth, blinks, and then says, "What the hell?"
Frank is chortling--that's the only word Patrick can think of for it--saying, "Dude, AJ, if even half of those stories you guys told me about those kids are true, you should call out sick for the rest of the week. I'm serious."
"Because that would go down really well with my boss," Adam says, looking at Patrick, but Frank is the one to elbow Patrick in the side. He says, "You'd let him off, right Stump? Totally a justifiable excuse, am I right?"
Adam ignores Frank, though, and keeps right on talking. "Also, I'll have you know that I am an *integral* part of the completion of 'Winter Hope, Spring Pearls'. Agatha Price is actually trusting me with a ten-note melody this time around. I have graduated beyond the three notes on repeat!"
The funny thing is, *Spencer* is actually the one to raise his hand to slap Adam's in victory.
Okay, so, Patrick's known Spencer for fucking years at this point-12? 14? Something like that-but he's pretty sure that he's spent more time with Spencer alone in the last nine months than in all of those other years combined, and there's apparently a difference between Spencer around his band and Spencer away from them.
"You're moving up in the world, kid," Frank says, then reaches across the table for a slapped hand of his own. "But you're going to go higher still, once we actually think of a *name*."
"For one show," Patrick says. "We're putting too much thought into this."
"They should just put down all of your names, seriously," Adam says. "List all of the rest of the bands they've got, then: with special guests Frank Iero, Spencer Smith, Patrick Stump, and more! I'll be the 'and more' and everyone will go 'who the fuck is that?'"
"Starring Patrick Stump as himself," Frank says, and now he kicks Patrick's foot, and seriously, what the hell? Between that and his elbowed side, it's been a long time since he's been this abused. Since Pete, Andy, and Joe, actually. Then, though, his whole body being abused was pretty much par for the course.
"Or," Frank continues, "how about, 'Starring AJ as The Kid!'"
"Fuck you," Adam says, but he's grinning. He pretends to lunge across the table to defend his besmirched honor or something, but Spencer puts a hand on his shoulder and pushes him back down. Adam glowers, then shoves half a slice of pizza in his mouth and starts chewing loudly. After he swallows, though, his eyes widen and he points at Patrick, saying, "Didn't you--in one of the early Fall Out Boy songs--have a line like, fuck, 'starring you instead of me?'
"Honorable mention," Patrick says automatically.
"Starring me instead of you?" Spencer asks. Then he frowns. "No, can you even imagine how much shit we'd get? Exclusive evidence of long covered up band strife! From, like, five, seven, eight years ago!"
"People would totally not be surprised if we called ourselves something that refers back to our bands," Frank says. He traces his finger around the rim of his glass once, twice. "Like, I don't know. Fuck. Like Falling From the Dance Floor Romance. Something. What was your band called, AJ?"
There's a moment of silence then, actually, as Adam freezes, and Patrick doesn't know how much Adam told Frank about his old band--all Patrick really knows is that it didn't end well--but the sudden uncomfortable-ness is gone after a moment when Adam says, "The Still Wanderers. We thought we were all deep and shit."
Frank turns to Patrick. "We are so calling our first album 'Still Falling for that Disco Romance. Just so you know. And I'm not going to let us put it out without a cowbell solo either, FYI."
"Thank you for that," Patrick says. "Because we should really be talking about album titles when we're still trying to come up with a group name." Like they'll actually *get* to a point where they need an album title. Jesus.
"I actually sort of like Honorable Mention," Spencer says. "It's generic enough that people will go 'what the hell were they thinking?' It doesn't have any unnecessary punctuation..."
As much as Patrick hates to admit it, though, the "Starring..." is sticking in his brain and refusing to go away. "Starring your past?" he asks. "Starring the future?"
"Starring us?" Adam asks, raising an eyebrow.
"Because that doesn't sound egotistical at all," Frank says. Then, "I actually sort of like it. Your comeback, starring us instead of you."
"Comeback of the Year?" Adam says, "Because you know that that's what people are going to say." He drops his voice, apparently trying to imitate a reporter. "And today I was able to speak with the members of the aptly named Comeback of the Year. And their bass player Adam."
"AJ," Frank says, and Spencer chimes in with, "The Kid."
Patrick wonders if he should be worried that Frank and Adam seem to be rubbing off on Spencer. Probably.
"And three of us *are* multi-platinum selling artists," Frank says. "We should have the ego to think such a name is appropriate."
"Even for just one show," Patrick adds.
"Hell," Frank says. "You had the balls to name a song *Thriller*. People *know* about you, Stump."
Yes, Patrick thinks, they do, but what he says is: "More like it's reason number 437 that people will think it's a bad idea for retired rock stars to get in a room together: their combined egos will be unbearable."
At that, Adam's eyes light up. "Reason No. 437?"
Patrick nods, not understanding what Adam's getting at, but then Spencer's nodding along. "That could work," he says. "No connection to anything any of us have done before. Doesn't sound too cheesy or, like, well, like we were trying too hard."
"But we would know that it's secretly a code for 'we're all egotistical little fucks'," Frank says.
"And it's not like the world will be out an awesome band name if we only use it for this one show," Adam says.
"Reason No. 437," Patrick says, and it's just random enough, just generic enough that, well… maybe it *could* work.
28. The Interlude
Pete doesn't actually say 'Hello' when Patrick picks up the phone. He doesn't say 'What the fuck, man? No seriously, what the fuck?' or 'Dude, this is just-" before trailing off. No, when Patrick answers the phone with a simple "This is Patrick," what he hears is laughter. Then a snort. Then more laughter.
It's his lunch hour-thus the reason he answered his cell-and he's eating soup, microwavable. He swirls his spoon once, twice around the edge of the bowl as he says, "Hi, Pete."
"Dude," Pete says, crowing the word. "This poster, man. It's fucking *classic*." Patrick hears rustling, which he's pretty sure means that Pete's waving said poster around, as if to emphasize his point, even though Patrick can't see him. Patrick might feel a little bit insulted except, you know, he's seen the poster in question. And maybe it makes him a snob, but, well. It's fucking photocopied, see, with letters made to look like they were ripped out of a newspaper or magazine. Someone actually drew mountains in the background in fucking *sharpie*, okay?
The text reads:
This Saturday
A Rock Concert to Benefit Devil's Canyon
Starring Greased Lighters, the Barbie Doll Murders, Elevation Zero, Agent Orange, and Oscar the Grouchiest, and Many More!!!
w/ Special Guest Reason No. 437
(!!!the new collaborative effort from the members of Fall Out Boy, My Chemical Romance, and Panic at the Disco!!!)
Tickets $10!!!
As Frank said on the phone the day before, "It's so fucking quaint, Stump, I practically *died*." And it is. It really is, because it's been fucking *years* since Fall Out Boy (or My Chemical Romance, or Panic) had anything but professionally done tour posters; more, even, since Patrick and Joe camped out in Kinko's at one a.m. mocking things up in Word, then printing them out on multiple shades of neon, like these kids did. Patrick's own copy is printed on bright orange; Pete's, he knows, is pink.
Actually, if Patrick wants to be honest, the whole thing is maybe a little refreshing. Even if it sort of does make him feel like he's back in high school again.
"This is awesome," Pete says. "I made a copy and posted it on the front door of our building. Dirty thinks that one of the suits on the 8th floor will probably tear it down, since it doesn't really match the décor, but it's not like I can't make more. Besides, you never know who might end up being in Riverside for the weekend, you know?"
"Yeah, right," Patrick says. "You never know." His voice is dry, though, because, well, in his group of friends at least, Riverside is going to be the place to be.
In addition to Pete, Jon is coming ("Apparently Tom and Cassie can take care of the bar for the night," Spencer said) and Gerard is, too ("I told him, after the number of book signings I've been to around this whole fucking country for him, he can come support some goddamn rocks," Frank said. "Which is when he chose to tell me that he already had his ticket.") Brendon will be there, and Ryan, of course, and the last Patrick heard, Bob had been poking around airline websites. Whether he actually bought a ticket or not, Patrick doesn't know.
It's *definitely* not like last time, where no one but Pete even had a chance to make the trip. No, this time the word is out, at least in the corner of the universe that Pete frequents. He's been talking it up in his blogs, writing things like: *reason #438 u shld be in riverside thiswknd!* There's even been a little bit of press. The longest interview was with he kid from the UC Riverside *Highlander*, but Patrick also answered an email from one of the editors of *AP*.
*Favor*, he told them both. *For a friend of ours. We're happy to do it, but it's not the start of anything more. *
"It's going to be a party, dude," Pete says. "Especially since you keep claiming that this is a one time thing. Joe's pissed about that, actually. He told me last night that he thinks you're a fucking tease. One time only! But wait, what's this? Some rocks need saving? Okay, two times only! I told him that safe money is on you playing again sometime-"
"Pete-" Patrick tries to interrupt, but Pete keeps right on talking.
"-because you're you, and we all fucking know you can't stay away, but Joe says that if this really *is* the last show you do, he should probably come see you. So expect a phone call later tonight with details from him. He's trying to get on the same flight as Jon and me."
Patrick says, "Jesus. It's not that big-"
"Big a deal?" Pete asks, and Patrick can picture Pete leaning back in his chair, maybe frowning, maybe not. Looking a little annoyed, anyway. "Fuck yeah it is. I mean, you say you guys aren't a real band-which, what the fuck ever, dude-but even so, like you weren't at Andy's opening night, or haven't flown halfway across the country to see some of my kids play, or like you didn't surprise Joe when he got that award. How is this any different?"
Patrick wants to say, 'it just is,' but Pete's right, it's not really any different at all. If Andy and some of his non-band friends were doing a charity show somewhere, Patrick would be there. He has been there for more of Pete's stuff than he can count. When Joe wins another award for his Trohman Classic line, Patrick will do everything in his power to be there, too.
So, what he says is, "So, it's going to be a party?"
"Absolutely," Pete says. "It's going to be the party of the year, dude, and you totally know it."
[ continued]