Posted originally on the Archive_of_Our_Own at https://archiveofourown.org/
works/4742654.
  Rating:
      Explicit
  Archive Warning:
      Graphic_Depictions_Of_Violence, Underage
  Category:
      M/M
  Fandom:
      Bandom, Fall_Out_Boy
  Relationship:
      Patrick_Stump/Pete_Wentz, Pete_Wentz/Jeanae_White
  Character:
      Pete_Wentz, Patrick_Stump, Joe_Trohman, Andy_Hurley, Chris_Gutierrez,
      Jeanae_White
  Additional Tags:
      Internalized_Homophobia, Underage_Drinking, Mildly_Dubious_Consent,
      Mental_Health_Issues, Unsafe_Sex, Infidelity, Van_Days, Alternate
      Universe_-_Canon_Divergence
  Collections:
      Bandom_Big_Bang_2015
  Stats:
      Published: 2015-09-09 Words: 51884
****** Pull Hard and Make a Wish ******
by coricomile
Summary
     “Right.” Patrick shakes his head, tugging his hat back in place. When
     he looks up, his face is still red, his mouth in a thin line. There’s
     a pine needle sticking to his cheek, sticky with sap and sweat. “I’m
     the only dude you know that’ll suck you off, right? Is that it?”
Notes
See the end of the work for notes
The first time Pete fucked a guy, the first actual time he stuck his dick in
someone’s ass, saw heavy, dark balls next to his, he was sixteen. He had his
dress greens on and their belt buckles clanked together behind the barracks as
they scrambled to finish before graduation ceremony started.
The kid—Ray, Greg, something—had yanked Pete back and said, “No one’ll know.”
He’d said, “It’s been a long fucking time since we’ve seen girls.”
And it had sounded right to Pete, had made enough sense to keep Pete from
punching him in the mouth. So, Ray or Greg or whoever had fisted him through
his slacks until Pete got over the fact that it was a dude’s hand and got hard.
And then he’d bent over and opened himself up like a fucking present, like
someone who knew a lot more about it than he should.
It was kind of gross—the facts unavoidable, the thought of what he was doing
making it hard to keep it up—but Greg or Ray was tight and didn’t bitch when
Pete fucked him harder, faster. Didn’t bitch when he grabbed a handful of dark
hair and yanked. Didn’t bitch when Pete got off on his ass first, come sinking
into his boxers.
After Pete walked across the stage, his stupid boot camp signed off as
something he did one summer and half, Greg or Ray or whatever tried to hand him
a phone number. Pete got sick in the car on the way home. He threw the slip of
paper into the mess on the floor and watched it get ruined with his own bile.
Twenty-one is a long way from sixteen, but Pete still wakes up sometimes with
the taste of vomit in his mouth, half hard in his boxers. Those nights—those
nights are the ones he hates himself the most.
---
Pete is drunk. Ish. Drunk-ish. He’s had three shots and enough beers to get him
to this happy, tipsy place where the world spins a little faster than it
usually does. Chris laughs at him, shoving another glass of whatever’s on draft
at him, and Pete knocks it back like a pro.
Semester just ended and Pete’s free for the summer, off to play shows and get
over his on-again-off-again girlfriend and to finally do something away from
the bullshit world of politics and law and school. He laughs to the music,
raises his cup and dances like an idiot. Life is good to him.
They get kicked out of the bar early. Pete almost decks the manager on
principle, but Chris drags him out by the elbow before he can do any damage.
The sky is dark but there are still people on the street, dressed to the nines
and as drunk and happy as Pete.
Chris drags them to the nearest club and Pete goes with it. He’s never heard of
the place, can’t even read the neon sign when he tries, but Chris says he’s
heard good things about it and Pete’s just desperate enough to go with it.
There’s no line outside the door, which is great because Pete’s not actively
cold, but he can see his breath. His fingertips are past the point of drunk
numb, quickly falling into frostbite territory. He trips over the curb and his
asshole friends laugh and laugh and laugh because they’re assholes.
There’s a kid huddled against the wall, hands cupped over his face, breath
pouring out like smoke between his fingers. He’s small, too young to be here,
but Pete instantly likes him for the simple fact that he at least tried. He’s
all for the delinquency of minors.
“Hey,” Pete calls to him as they’re stepping past the bouncer. “John, let’s
go!”
The kid blinks at him, eyes big and blue under the messy fringe of his short
bangs. Pete waves a hand and motions inside to where it’s warm. His fingers
tingle as the heat sinks into them. He can feel himself starting the slide back
into sobriety and that’s not a part of the plan. He waves at the kid again.
“Chris has your ID, asshole,” Pete shouts before turning toward the bouncer.
“He’s drunker than I am, dude.”
Pete shrugs, like it’s no big deal. Fake it until you make it, a life motto
that’s gotten him through a lot. The bouncer nods, grinning like he’s in on the
joke. His balls have to be so far up his body that they’re turning into
ovaries. The kid seems to get it finally and hurries in, popping under Pete’s
arm and into the club.
“My name isn’t John,” the boy shouts when they’re a safe distance away from the
bouncer. In the flashing red and blue and green lights, Pete can see his
freckles. They’re small and kind of orange, like a constellation over his face.
“No, really?” Pete says, voice thick with sarcasm. “I had no idea.” When the
kid recoils, Pete sighs. “I’m Pete.” He offers his hand, and the boy takes it
hesitantly.
“Patrick,” he replies.
“Awesome.” Pete slings an arm over Patrick’s shoulders and steers him towards
the bar. “Now, I had an awesome buzz going, and since I got you in? You should
buy us a shot. Sound like a good plan?”
“Sure,” Patrick says slowly. He stumbles along beside him, dragged down by
Pete’s weight, only hesitating a little as he’s pulled along. “Are you sure
they’re not going to card me?”
“Yes.” Pete pats his cheek and draws to a halt in front of the bar, smiling at
the pretty blonde bartender. Patrick bounces off of him, hanging close like a
lost duckling. “Two double shots of Black Velvet.”
When she bends to grab the bottle, Pete can see down her shirt, can make out
the pale tops of her breasts all the way to the cups of her bra. It’s awesome.
Patrick pays and stares into his shot glass with trepidation. He really is
young. Pete knocks their glasses together.
“Drink up,” he says. “Count of three. One, two—” They knock their glasses back,
and Pete waits until Patrick’s done coughing to laugh. “Good stuff, right?
Let’s do it again.”
After the third shot, Patrick’s face goes a funny shade of pink, and he starts
to sag heavy and warm against Pete, laughing too loud and offering to buy just
one more. Pete has never been one to turn down free liquor, so he sticks close
and takes what he’s given with grace, hands clumsy as he tries to bring the
glass to his mouth.
He doesn’t see Chris or Tim or Zack anywhere. He figures they probably left him
because they’re dicks. It’s fine; the kid’s kind of cool, even when he’s not
pouring booze straight into Pete’s belly. He’s sixteen and has never actually
gotten into a bar. He loves Prince and wants to be in a band that does
something other than fuck around in the garage so bad it hurts. When Pete
mentions his band offhandedly, Patrick’s eyes go wide and his mouth falls open.
“Oh, oh, you’re Pete Wentz?” He blinks, big, sweeping movements of his eyelids,
and then grins when Pete nods. “Wow. That’s—that’s really awesome. I go to a
lot of your shows.”
And, hey, Pete loves that he has fans. Fans are awesome. The fact that this fan
is a baby with a growing drinking problem is no deterrent. Pete buys the next
round and crashes his glass into Patrick’s so hard it nearly shatters.
Time goes weird, a blur of Patrick talking and Pete nodding, and drinks that
neither one of them buy adding on to the ones they do. By time the bar closes,
Patrick looks a little green around the edges and Pete feels like he’s walking
on a treadmill, the Earth not cooperating with him at all. His sneakers drag
the ground, bright and puke green under the streetlights.
He trips over the same curb, but Patrick catches him before he faceplants.
Pete’s nose gets smashed up against Patrick’s shoulder, his ribs crushed a
little by the way he’s being held onto too tightly. It’s the funniest thing
ever. He can’t stop laughing, his chest aching with it. Patrick’s laughing
right along with him, face scrunched up and hat on sideways, breathless. And
Pete… Pete...
Pete kisses him.
They stumble into the closest alley, crashing into a dumpster hard enough to
make it shake. Patrick’s mouth is wet and too open. He’s too young to have
stubble so he kind of feels like a girl, all soft skin and wandering hands.
Pete bites at his mouth—at his full, thick mouth—and Patrick’s groan tastes
like whiskey.
Somewhere between Pete’s hand in Patrick’s back pocket and Patrick’s tongue in
Pete’s mouth, Pete feels his dick swell. Between the meds and the booze he
probably shouldn’t have had, he’s surprised he can get it up at all.
“Let me,” Patrick mumbles and falls down to his knees, clumsy and too fast.
He’ll probably be torn up and sore later, but Pete doesn’t actually care.
Patrick’s wobbly fingers are fighting with the button of his jeans, knuckles
brushing up against him in a way that makes Pete’s head feel light. It’s been
too long since he’s gotten head. Patrick mouths him through his underwear, wet
and dirty, and Pete leans against the side of the dumpster because his legs are
weak. If he falls, he doesn’t think he’ll be able to get up.
It’s too fucking cold for this. Pete nearly loses his hard on when the winter
air hits his dick, but Patrick stuffs it into his mouth like it’s fucking
candy, goes to town on him like he can’t get enough. It’s sloppy and a little
loose, but his tongue’s doing some great things to make up for it. Pete has to
fist a hand into Patrick’s hair. He knocks his hat off and just digs in. His
skin is so dark in the red tangle of it, fingertips curled in and tugging
unevenly.
Patrick whines, pulls off of him with a pop. He yanks at Pete’s jeans and leans
in. Pete’s wet dick slaps against his cheek as he sucks at Pete’s balls, runs
his tongue over the seam and pops one and then the other between his lips like
they’re cherries. Pete jerks his hips, taps his cock against Patrick’s jaw for
the sound it makes. It leaves a wet smear on Patrick’s round, pale cheek that
shines when he turns his head.
When Patrick wraps his mouth around the head of Pete’s dick again, Pete thrusts
up to meet it. He goes in too far, feels Patrick gag, and god if that doesn’t
get him off. He comes against Patrick’s mouth, thick globs of white against the
red of his lips, and fuck. Fuck. Patrick shoves a hand into his own jeans and
jerks himself off, works his wrist quick and dirty, mouth wet and open against
Pete’s stomach. Pete can feel his moan vibrating against his skin.
After, Pete does up his jeans and hauls Patrick to his feet. He scrubs at
Patrick’s mouth with the cuff of his hoodie sleeve, making it turn whore red.
Patrick laughs against it, bright eyes and pink cheeks and pants that are damp
in the front.
“’m a fucking groupie,” he says blurrily. It’s goddamn hilarious. Pete is still
laughing as he hails a cab.
“Is someone going to miss you tonight?” he asks.
“No,” Patrick answers. He tumbles into the back seat like a weed, pliant and
twitchy and drunker than even Pete.
Pete slurs the directions to the cabbie, fights his nausea as the car jerks off
down the road. Patrick’s fucking handsy. He’s got his fingers curled on the
inside of Pete’s thigh, trying to kiss Pete and missing, laughing because
there’s nothing else he can do.
Pete overpays the cabbie, but he can’t really see straight to count out the
right amount anyway. He knocks into the neighbor's garbage cans and nearly
falls into the bushes, Patrick too heavy at his back as Pete tries to make his
clumsy feet work, but he gets the door open and they stumble in, too loud.
He drags Patrick to his room, throws him onto the bed and doesn’t turn on the
light. He can feel him in the dark, squirming and anxious and getting hard in
his jeans again. Pete fucks him in his clothes, Patrick’s bare ass white in the
dark, framed by his jeans and his jacket, and passes out before he can pull his
soft dick out again.
---
There is a hatchet buried deep into the back of Pete’s skull, cleaving his
brain into two throbbing, aching halves. His mouth tastes like sand, dry and
hot and sticky. When he tries to open his eyes they stick together, gummy with
sleep. There’s something warm and solid next to him, the scratch of someone
else’s clothes on Pete’s bare shins.
He tries to remember who he brought home, but thinking makes his skull throb.
All he can remember is a blur of Black Velvet and blue eyes under flashing
lights, blurry in the back of his head. Pete groans and pushes his face into
his pillow where there’s no light to make his eyes sting. How smashed did he
get last night? He remembers changing bars, remembers laughing until he’d felt
like he was going to puke. His stomach revolts as he tries to get back to
sleep.
Some hazy time later, he feels the mysterious someone’s hand on his stomach,
chewed nails catching on the trail of hair that leads into his boxers. The
fingers are kind of rough, kind of big, and Pete wonders if Chris let him go
home with a dog. It wouldn’t be the first time. His friends are assholes and
he’s got a pair of coke bottle thick beer goggles that they make fun of him for
as often as they can.
Still, a morning handjob is a morning handjob, and Pete’s not going to open his
eyes anytime in the next week, so. He might as well try to enjoy it.
The hand wraps around Pete’s dick, fingertips pressing to the place where the
shaft meets the soft skin of his balls. Pete groans again. It’s good, and his
dick is still a little slick, which means he totally got all the way last
night. The chick really knows how to work cock. Ugly girls are always better in
the sack, something
Pete’s always quick to point out to his dickbag friends.
Pete feels lips against his jaw and he turns his head away from it. He’s pretty
sure he didn’t puke last night but he has no idea about the girl. He doesn’t
want the fresh taste of vomit in his mouth this early in the morning. His
stomach is still rumbling, leftover nausea eating at his insides. Too many
shots, not enough food.
He gets off fast. It’s not the best handjob he’s ever had, but it’s pretty
close. He’s debating if he should return the favor, if he’s even coordinated
enough to find her cunt let alone do anything useful to it, when he feels the
mouth on his throat again. There’s a sore spot, which means a hickey. Great.
Just what he needs.
“I think I lost my pants,” the person next to him says. Pete freezes.
He manages to pop his eyes open, heart hammering against his ribs. His chest
squeezes in on his lungs as he sees those blue, blue eyes again, set into a
very, very masculine face. The boy, Patrick, Pete remembers with a twist in his
gut, smiles. He bites his lip and shrugs, the picture of boyish innocence.
“Guess I’ll have to stay in bed,” he says sweetly. He’s reaching for Pete
again, big hands with ragged nails and soft mouth and dick visibly hard under
the sheets.
Pete feels sick.
“Get out,” he rasps, throat raw and shutting in around his breath.
Patrick frowns, hands paused between them. Oh, god. Oh, god. Patrick keeps
reaching for him, eyebrows drawn together. Pete knocks his hand away violently.
His head is swimming and he can taste bile finally making its way up the back
of his throat.
“Pete?” Patrick asks. He looks confused, a lost fucking kid in Pete’s bed,
waiting for reassurance. Pete wants to punch him, wants to knock him flat and
hurt him until he bleeds, until he forgets what happened.
“Get the fuck out,” Pete says again, louder.
He sees Patrick’s adam's apple bob, sees the way his jaw goes stiff. He doesn’t
fucking care. He doesn’t fucking give a goddamn about this weird little fuck.
Patrick tumbles out of the bed, knees cracking on the hardwood floor. His pants
are in a tangle at the end of the mattress, stuffed half under the covers and
half on top of Pete’s legs. Pete kicks at them, hears the heavy buckle of the
belt smack against the floor. It’s almost satisfying the way Patrick goes red
as he bends to pick them up.
And Jesus, Pete couldn’t have even accidentally picked up an attractive guy.
Patrick’s thick in the middle, the round bump of his stomach pressed to his t-
shirt, red hair almost in knots from sleep. His face is just as round, pointed
little chin wobbling. There’s a line of zits at the edge of his jaw, right
above a vicious bruise that probably matches the shape of Pete’s mouth.
Patrick yanks his pants on ungracefully and stumbles across the room for his
shoes. He’s shaking, hands faltering as he tries to tie the laces. Pete wants
to spit on him, can feel the urge crawling up ugly and nasty from his spine.
“Can you at least give me a ride home?” Patrick eventually asks, not looking
away from his shoes. His face is red and his fists are clenched at his sides.
Pete throws a pillow at him.
“Get out,” he shouts. If the little cocksucker doesn’t get out of his room in
the next ten seconds, Pete’s going to beat him black and blue. “Get the fuck
out and don’t come back.”
Patrick gets the fuck out. Pete hears the door slam downstairs, the sound
hurting his swollen brain. He clutches his head, yanks at his hair as he tries
to breathe. His stomach is in knots, bile climbing up the back of his throat.
There’s a phantom flash of Ray or Greg or whoever behind his eyelids, and Pete
has to crawl to the bathroom and lay his head against the cold porcelain of the
toilet. He wants to puke and get it fucking over with.
---
Pete calls Jeanae once he manages to pick himself up. They’re on an off phase,
but those never last long. Pete had called her a bitch, she had punched him and
left a black eye that stayed for a week. But Pete’s desperate, and he’s got the
script to get her back memorized.
“Hey, baby,” he says into the phone. He doesn’t sound like he’s spent most of
the morning hungover, but his voice is still a little rough. He hopes it works
enough in his favor. “I miss you.”
He’s parked across the street from her house, legs tucked up on the seat,
elbows on the steering wheel. It’s hot in the car, the stench of metal cloying.
He’s got the windows up, and all the air tastes stale, recycled breaths that
just keep getting harder and harder to breathe in. There’s sweat gathering at
the small of his back. He feels like an addict on a bender.
“Yeah, well.” Jeanae is silent and Pete knows she’s waiting. The nice thing
about high school girls, he thinks, is that they haven’t learned to say no.
“Look, I’m sorry,” Pete says and is kind of sincere about it. He’d been having
an off day, and she was only being as big a bitch as she usually is. It’s
normally something Pete loves her for. He taps his fingers against his
forehead. The plastic case of his phone is burning against his cheek. “You know
I love you, right?”
“...You’re such a jerk, Wentz,” Jeanae says, but her voice isn’t as cold as it
was. Pete gives a silent sigh of relief. He’s the first guy she dated, the
first one to say I love you to her, panting in the backseat. “You have to do
better this time, or I swear to god I’m not coming back again. Swear to god.”
“I will, baby,” he promises. He can almost believe it himself. “I will.” He
looks up at her window through the window of his shitty Jetta, fogged breath on
the glass obscuring his view. He can see her silhouette through the curtains,
small and slim and familiar.
“You going to let me in?”
Her parents are out at their day jobs, and Pete’s banking on her being as
desperate as he is. When she appears in the doorway, she’s wearing one of his
old t-shirts like a dress, her short, choppy hair feathered around her annoyed
face. Still, she leans against the door frame, bare legs crossed, and waits for
Pete to sprint inside.
Her waist is tiny in Pete’s cold hands, warm and smooth under his fingertips.
She scowls when he leans in, but she still kisses him sweet like summer, soda
on her breath as Pete slips his tongue against the arch of her lips. Her
breasts press against his chest, and Pete reaches up to pass his hand over one,
just to feel, just to remind himself.
She blows him on her parents' couch. She lets Pete grope her like he’s the one
that’s sixteen, his hands large against her pale, thin chest, fingers spread
wide over her tits. It takes a while, Pete’s gut twisted as he tells himself:
you like this, you fucking like this.
When he tells Jeanae to ride him, she hops up on his lap without question, sits
on his bare dick and presses her chest into his face. She’s stupid like all
high school girls are stupid. He fucks a lot of people, can’t remember if he
wore a condom last night either, and his chest feel like it's going to burst.
Pete’s in love with her crazy, feels his own connect with it on a deeper level.
She’s going to grow up just as fucked up as he is.
She’s wet and hot and tight around him, her thighs soft under his hands, just
shaved and still smelling like lilac. Pete buries his face into the curve of
her throat and breathes her in. He knows the soap she uses, has washed her hair
with her knock off brand strawberry scented shampoo, pressed slick and wet
against her in her parent’s shower. He sucks a bruise into the space between
her tits and hopes that the mark low on his throat is still hidden by his
pullover hoodie, hopes there is no evidence left of what he’s done.
It takes him a while to get off, his head too full and his stomach still
fighting him. He reaches down and rubs her off with his fingers, listens to her
pant and whine against his ear. When she comes, he pulls out and jerks himself
hard enough to hurt. Come spurts over her thigh and stomach, and Pete breathes
out a sigh of relief.
While Jeanae’s in the shower—Dove soap and strawberry shampoo, pink loofah
that’s falling apart at the edges—Pete curls up on her bed and holds her pillow
to his chest, breathing in the soft, sweet smell of girly perfume. She smiles
at him when she comes back, naked and damp, and says she’s ready for round two.
Pete fakes a smile back and lays his head between her thighs. This, at least,
he knows he can do.
---
Joe is weird. Awesome, but weird. He’s wearing a Slayer t-shirt that’s a size
too big and baggy jeans to match, his checker print boxers sticking out over
the waistband. The chop job of his hair is possibly worse than Pete’s, too
short in the back and floppy over his ears when he forgets to gel it. He’s been
bleaching it for years, and the peroxide white patches around his hairline
blend into his mottled, acne riddled face. He talks too slow and has no sense
of style, but Pete thinks he’s a pretty rad dude for all it’s worth.
“So, we’re down a guitarist,” Pete says to Joe’s sneakers. He’s upside down on
the couch, all the blood in his body rushing to his head and making it feel too
heavy. “Tim moved on without us, dude. It’s fucking tragic.”
Pete’s been playing in this dumb high school turned local scene band for years.
He remembers sweating in the basement, the stink of him and Chris and Tim and
Andy all jammed into one small space overpowering, his throat raw from
screaming. When the basements turned into real stages, people staring up at him
just as angry and bitter as he was, it felt like home. Like he’d finally found
his place in the world.
They haven’t gone too far, haven’t really left Illinois except to tour the
outsides of Indiana and Wisconsin, but Illinois loves them enough to keep Pete
job free. It never stops being a rush when an angry high schooler stops him,
asks him to sign an autograph or tells him how great the last show was, when he
sees kids in their merch, Arma Angelus scribbled across their chests. It makes
him feel like he’s got something going. That it’s not all pointless.
“And?” Joe asks through a mouthful of Doritos. He’s still in the gangly,
awkward phase of his teen years. He moves more like a spider than anything
graceful as he trips a little over his own feet navigating through his messy
room. “I thought we were going to do a new band together, anyway?”
“Yeah, but you should fill in for Arma,” Pete says. Joe’s eyes get a little
wide, and Pete has to bite back a laugh. He forgets, sometimes, that Joe has
their CD and some of their merch in his closet, right there along with Saves
the Day and Lifetime. “Get your stage legs.”
“Yeah, no, that sounds great.” Joe shoves a handful of chips into his mouth,
chewing thoughtfully. Pete knows a diversion tactic when he sees one. After an
awkward pause, Joe asks, “So, do you think I’m good enough?”
Pete snorts and doesn’t tell him that he’s only been playing bass for maybe
four years. Joe’s been playing most of his life, has music in his blood. If
Pete’s good enough, Joe’s totally in. Pete steals a chip and flips the channel.
On the screen, Patrick Swayze dances Baby across the stage to shitty eighties
pop. Pete reaches for one of the lukewarm beers stashed under Joe’s bed and
settles in.
“Any leads on that, by the way?” Pete asks later, after the credits have rolled
and America’s Funniest Home Videos has taken over. Joe blinks up at him,
somewhere between dazed and asleep. Full belly and a few beers, and Joe’s out
like a goddamn light.
“I got a few people to ask,” he says, shrugging. “Anyone who goes to college
plays guitar now, right?” He yawns into his arm and reaches for the remote.
Pete’s eye catches on the way his muscles bunch under his shirt, skinny back
and sharp shoulder blades standing out. He turns to the TV and stares blankly
at the screen. “Do you know anyone who can, like, play drums?”
“A few,” Pete says, amused. He knows most of the scene, played with half of
them. “I might be able to talk Andy into it.”
“Cool.”
Joe turns the Food Network on, and passes out again. Pete wonders if this new
band thing is actually going to work. He thinks about splitting away from Arma
and building a reputation that isn’t all about being angry at everything all
the time.
Maybe it can be a fresh start.
---
Pete takes Jeanae shopping the week before Christmas. She’s not quite old
enough for a license and it’s not like he has a whole lot else to do, stuck
between semesters and tours. She bitches about her friends and about her
family, and Pete tunes her out to the best of his ability. She’s hot and
sometimes she’s cool to be around, but mostly she just makes noise at him.
There’s only so much drama Pete can deal with.
There’s a headache building up in his temples, exacerbated by the lights of the
stores and the sound of all the people around him chattering. Jeanae’s hand in
his is cool and small, her rings pinching his skin every time she moves her
fingers. Her skirt barely brushes her knees, puffy and stuffed with baby blue
colored tulle. The sound it makes scraping across her skin is driving him nuts.
When she drags him into Claire’s, sneering at the purple and pink winter dance
displays, Pete picks at the rubber snap bracelets and slides a ten pack into
his pocket. He remembers a time when they were used like sex chicken checkmarks
and feels kind of old. He’s only been out of high school for three years, but
it already feels like he’s letting his best years go.
Jeanae makes him buy a stupid tiara and wears it in her teased hair for the
rest of the day. Pete smiles and calls her princess, plays along when she
orders him around. He really wants to be sleeping, or maybe writing something
for Arma that’s not total shit, but he’s been trying to stay in her good
graces. Spending money on her always seems like it does the trick.
When they go to the movies, they sit in the back and mock the actors, stuffing
buttery popcorn into their mouths. Halfway through, Jeanae spreads her legs and
her stupid puffy skirt hikes up over her thighs. She’s wiggled her panties down
and Pete can see them, red and black and tiny against the seat. He keeps
watching the screen as he reaches over and feels her, wet and a little slutty.
The first time he met her she was crying, eyeliner running down her cheeks in
thick, ugly smears. Pete had been bumming around at a high school football
game, visiting the few friends he’d still had there, and he’d nearly run
straight over her where she was crouched on the ground, huddled in on herself.
Even standing, he could see her underwear, could see down her shirt. It had
been winter then too, and the girl was almost naked.
Her boyfriend had left her, she said later, cramped in the backseat of Pete’s
car. Pete, balls deep and so fucking close to getting off, mumbled something
that must have been good enough for her. He’d left with her virginity and her
phone number in his back pocket.
In the present, she moans into his ear, probably thinks she’s being sexy, and
Pete tries not to be annoyed by it. He used to be into it, used to fucking love
her for it, but right now it kind of feels like a chore. He twists his fingers
up into her and moves them like clockwork, uses up all his tricks and hopes she
doesn’t notice that he’s not getting into it.
He hasn’t been, not for months. He’s been faking it, or avoiding it. He tries
to blame the meds he takes twice a day every day, but those hadn’t bothered him
before, not like this.
When Jeanae gets off, cunt tight around Pete’s fingers, she reaches over and
rubs her palm against Pete’s crotch, frowning when she feels that he’s still
soft. Pete wipes his hand on his jeans and leans into her. She smells like
cherries, soft and sweet and young.
“The show was too good,” he says, sly as he can be. Jeanae grins and kisses
him. Her lip gloss smears over his mouth. Pete lets out a soft breath that’s
hidden by an explosion coming through the speakers. If she notices that he’s
totally dry, she doesn’t say anything. He doesn’t know what the fuck’s wrong
with him, but he needs to get over it, and soon.
Joe calls when the credits roll, and Pete hopes it’s good. He’s crawling out of
skin.
“I think I found a drummer,” Joe says into the line. There’s the distinct sound
of chewing along with it. Pete cringes. “I told him we’d check him out
tomorrow.”
“Awesome,” Pete says, surprised when he actually means it. He’s so bored he’s
going blind.
“He knows his shit,” Joe adds.
Pete drags Jeanae through the freezing parking lot and nearly shoves her into
the car. Her knees have gone red even though the walk barely takes any time at
all. Pete’s got a backup story now. He has a reason to take her home without
looking like a total dick.
“He totally, like, writes his own songs in his free time. They’re fucking good,
dude. Like, real deal good.”
Pete feels a flutter of hope as he pulls out of the parking lot, phone trapped
between his ear and shoulder. If Joe thinks this dude’s so good, he probably
is. Joe’s more than just a slightly dopey kid. He’s smart, and he’s got an ear
that makes Pete’s look weak in comparison.
“Awesome,” he says again. He takes off towards Jeanae’s place, speeding down
the slick road. “What time?”
“Two,” Joe answers. Another crunch, the slick sound of his chomping teeth.
“Pick me up and I’ll show you the way to his place.”
“I have to go meet this dude for an audition,” Pete says when he hangs up. He
omits the day and doesn’t feel bad about it at all. “You cool with going home?”
“I guess.” Jeanae crosses her arms over her chest and pouts, but Pete’s done
his boyfriend thing for the day. He’s off the hook.
When he pulls up to her house, Jeanae kisses him before flouncing off with her
bags of shiny new things. Pete waits until she’s inside, the heavy door
slamming shut behind her, the wreath hanging on it nearly toppling off. He
cranks the radio, feels it fill the car and throb in time to his blooming
headache, and goes home.
He sleeps through the rest of afternoon and spends the night watching porn on
his shitty TV with the volume turned off. It’s not as great as he thought it
would be.
---
Pete wakes up and finds a demo in his inbox. It’s from Joe and is labeled
“LISTEN NOW,” all capital letters and over-sized font. So, Pete does. It’s a
rough cut of a song. It’s just the instrumental, but it’s kind of impressive.
Pete listens to it close, catches the pauses where things were pasted together
and thinks, huh. It’s really fucking good. He puts it on repeat and nods his
head to the syncopated rhythm. It’s not as hardcore as the stuff he’s used to
playing is, but he can get behind it.
At one thirty he picks Joe up and listens to him ramble about how the mystery
dude had made that in a week, just him and a computer and a lot of
determination. Pete can admit that he’s impressed, and he does so begrudgingly.
They pull up in front of a modest house and Pete cuts the engine. He’s got a
good feeling about this, can feel it in his veins as he looks up at the white
paint and flower print curtains. Joe beats him to the door and rings the bell
cheerfully, bouncing on the balls of his feet. He’s wearing the biggest winter
coat Pete’s ever seen. He looks kind of stupid. The roots of his hair are
taking over, bleeding into the blonde, the ends curling against his face.
Pete’s freezing. He watches the door, glaring at the handle as it stays static.
He can’t feel his fingertips. If the tracks Joe had forwarded him hadn’t been
so good, Pete would be knocking points off this kid’s scorecard for taking so
long. Pete’s not a diva, but he’s a somebody, damnit. He shouldn’t be kept
waiting. Eventually there’s a crash and a muttered curse and then the door
crashes opens, spits the kid out at high speed. Pete’s heart stutters in his
chest as the kid rights himself.
On the porch, Patrick’s staring at him, face turning red.
Pete’s stomach drops. He feels faint. Joe’s missing his signs, oblivious as he
steps up to Patrick and throws an arm around his shoulders openly, over
friendly like he always is. Patrick still hasn’t moved, stiff under the layers
of Joe’s thick coat, shaking in his t-shirt and jeans. Pete’s stuck to the
sidewalk, his legs like lead. He can’t move, can’t think, can’t break the
staredown. He wonders what Patrick’s thinking, what he’s remembering.
“Pete, this is the guy I’ve been telling you about,” Joe says pointedly,
raising his eyebrows. It sounds like he’s under water, so far away that Pete
can barely hear him. “Patrick Stump, this is Pete Wentz. He’s not normally so,
like, quiet.”
Joe shoots him a weird look, and Pete swallows down the knot in his throat.
Normal, he thinks. He has to be normal.
“Hey,” he says, rough around the edges. He’s going to pretend nothing happened
and it’s going to go away. They need this kid to get out of here and Pete’s not
going to give into his urge to bolt. Stubborn down to the bone, mean enough to
throw other people under the bus for him.
“I know, right?” Joe says, after a moment, looking between Pete and Patrick,
grinning like he’s finally getting what’s going on. “It’s hard to believe this
dude is Pete Wentz, but he’s not that intimidating. Swear. Hey, do you have any
pretzels?”
Patrick shakes his head, breaks the stare first. He lets them inside, Joe’s arm
still locked around his shoulders tightly. Pete wants to pull Joe away, wants
to say he takes it up the ass, wants to say don’t catch the gay, dude, wants to
grab him by the wrist and just get the fuck out. But he digs his heels in,
bites his lip, and follows them into the kitchen.
It’s awkward, Pete and Patrick both near silent, shuffling around in the far
corners of the room. Joe fills in the blank spots, chowing down on the crackers
that Patrick had pulled down for him like it’s not the first time he’s been
over. He tells Patrick about his vision for this band, tells him about how all
they need to do is lock in the last pieces, how he wants Patrick to be one of
them. They can be a team. They can make art. Pete stares at the dirty tile
floor and thinks about music.
And Patrick, when they head to the basement where his equipment is, plays drums
like a fucking rock star, wrists right and rhythm perfect and nearly as good as
Andy. Pete hates him all the more for it.
“We already have a drummer,” Pete cuts in, shouting over the crash of a cymbal.
Joe glances over at him, frowning. Pete swallows and tries not to think of
what’s in his head. “Sorry, man.”
“Pete,” Joe hisses, leaning in close enough for Pete to smell the butter of the
crackers on his breath. “What the fuck?”
“I called Andy in,” Pete lies, the words tumbling out before he can stop them.
He doesn’t know what he’s doing, why he’s blocking himself so thoroughly. He
hasn’t called, but Andy owes him a few favors, won’t turn him down when he does
ask. Probably. Most likely.
“I thought this kid might be better.” He looks up, meets Patrick’s angry eyes
and almost feels guilty. “I was wrong.”
“Dude, what the fuck?” Joe elbows him in the chest. He runs his hands through
his hair and sighs. “Well. I kind of feel like an ass, man. You’re fucking
great though. I still want you in. Do you play guitar?”
“Not well,” Patrick says uneasily. He’s tapping the sticks on his thighs, tight
motions that barely make a sound.
“Can you sing?” Joe asks. He laughs, bright like he’s figured it out. “Fuck,
they let Pete sing in bands. You can’t be worse than that.” Pete wants to take
offense to it, but his dry throat is keeping him quiet.
“I’d rather not,” Patrick says. He sets his sticks down and stands, not looking
up at either one of them. He looks pathetic.
Pete can remember Patrick pressed to his side, slurring songs about drinking
and being drunk and getting drunker, giggle tripping over the words. He’s not
sure if he’s trying to sabotage Patrick or himself.
“Sing,” Pete says, mouth running in before he can think. Always, always running
in before he can think.
“No,” Patrick says tightly.
“Sing,” Pete says again. Joe’s looking at him funny, eyebrows together,
shoulders starting to get tense. Pete’s a lot of things and selfish is at the
top of the list. “Just fucking do it.”
Patrick sings.
His voice is tight, angry, and it cracks in a few places as he goes along,
young and vulnerable but strong. He’s got good pitch, and when he hits low
notes Pete can hear his potential, knows that this kid is going to be the thing
that gets him out of Ilinois if he lets him. Fire burns low in the pit of his
stomach, boiling over as Patrick stumbles to a halt. It kills him not to scream
when Joe jumps on board.
“You’re in,” he says breathlessly. Pete seethes.
Joe wants to stay for lunch and Pete can’t come up with a reason why they
can’t. Patrick makes them pancakes on the griddle, talking quietly to Joe as
they sizzle. They sit in the living room, the television playing static noise
as they eat. Pete prods at his plate idly and wonders how long it’s been since
he’s actually eaten.
When Joe gets up to use the bathroom, Pete curls in on himself on the couch,
his uneaten pancakes gone cold. He feels like a victim in his skin, traitor and
jury and beady-eyed judge fighting inside, and he doesn’t know what to do.
“Pete...”
“Don’t,” Pete says, head snapping up. It’s the first time they’ve talked
directly to one another. Pete feels like he’s going to start crawling up the
walls. He’s so fucking confused. “We don’t know each other. We never met until
this morning. My girlfriend will be coming to practices to do her homework, so
I hope you have so free space.” Patrick clenches his jaw, the baby soft curve
at the corners going rigid.
“Fine,” he spits. “I hope you choke.”
Joe comes back before Pete can throw himself at that little asshole, all smiles
and big grins.
“When should we get started?”
“Soon,” Pete says. He’s itching to get out and away. If this is the only way to
do it, then this is how it’s going to be. He’ll ignore the giant, flaming
elephant in the room and focus on the music.
When they leave, Patrick puts his number in Joe’s phone and Joe puts both of
theirs into Patrick’s. Pete spends most of the night awake, expecting to get an
angry call. Thankfully, his phone stays blissfully silent.
Pete takes his meds at midnight and watches the sun come up, eyes burning
against the light. He wakes up frozen on his rooftop, snow falling around his
face.
---
Pete’s spent more time on Andy’s couch than is probably healthy. They’d played
in a few bands together in high school and had lived together once, before Pete
had moved back into his parents’ house to “save money.” He’s good people, solid
and reliable. Pete’s banking on this. He thumps down and watches Andy play.
He’s never understood the game, doesn’t even pretend to try, but he can
appreciate the graphics and the way Andy viciously obliterates the competition.
He watches him mash buttons for a half hour, sucking idly on a popsicle. When
the tournament goes on a quick break, Pete jumps in to make his move. Andy’s
many things and patient isn’t always one of them.
"I'm starting a new band," he says to Andy's back. Andy doesn't stop making his
lunch. "We could use a drummer, and you're the best."
"Aren't you doing Arma right now?" Andy finally asks, mouth full of fake turkey
sandwich. Pete shrugs.
Andy had been in Arma for a while, stuck in the back with a busted up kit. He
was better than all the rest of them, all his time eaten away by band after
band after band. Pete had bit his tongue when Andy and Chris had started
fighting, clenched his fists to keep from jumping straight into the middle.
Arma's gotten better, learned how to be a band instead of a bunch of assholes
with instruments, but Pete can still remember Andy shoving a stick through his
snare after a snarling argument with Chris about practices, can remember the
way the door creaked in the frame as it slammed behind Andy on his way out.
The band doesn't really talk about it. Chris was an asshole, Pete and Tim were
cowards. At least Pete can say he learned something, no matter how shitty the
lesson.
"You did, like, six bands once," Pete reminds him. Andy likes to keep busy. If
he's busy playing, he can keep himself out of trouble.
Andy watches him steadily, eyes narrowed. He's trying to figure Pete out. It's
as annoying now as it always has been. The Xbox pings, a message popping back
up to notify him that they're back on and ready to go. Andy doesn't leave the
kitchen, instead hunching over the counter and resting his chin on his hand.
“You’re nervous,” Andy finally says. Jesus fuck, here they go.
“It’s because you’re staring at me, you creep.” Pete drags his legs up onto the
couch, ignoring the scowl Andy directs at his shoes. “Remember Joe? He found
this guy.” Pete’s fingers curl around his shins. He tries not to let his
contempt show. “He’s good. Knows his shit. You’re the best drummer I know, man.
Wouldn’t dream of asking anyone else.” Andy keeps watching him.
“You’re not telling me something, Wentz.” He drops his plate into the sink and
grabs a soda from the fridge. When he flops down onto the couch, the cushions
bounce against Pete’s legs.
“I miss playing with you, dude,” Pete says. It’s not totally a lie. “We did
good together. What’s another band? I know you’ve got the time for it.”
Andy shrugs and picks up the controller he’d left abandoned on the table. He
hands a free one to Pete and presses start. He isn’t looking when he says,
“I’ll think about it.”
Pete grins even as he gets his ass handed to him. Andy is in.
---
Christmas finds Pete at Nana Wentz’s house, stuffing himself full of homemade
cookies and watching It’s a Wonderful Life for approximately the nine hundredth
time. Andrew and Hillary are opening presents, still young and excited enough
to care, the sounds of wrapping paper tearing filling the living room.
Last night at the Christmas Eve party, Pete’s father had handed him a red
envelope. His name had been written across it in neat, tight letters and said
Merry Christmas, son.
Inside, there was a neatly typed letter with an accompanying check written out
to DePaul, courtesy of his father’s law firm. He’d wanted to saycan I trade it
for a skateboard? He still wants to, jealousy eating at him as he watches his
siblings cheer over their gifts. He knows that it’ll just land him in the
doghouse, get him sent to his room like the child he isn’t. So. Cookies.
He’s got plans with Jeanae and her group of friends later, going out to ice
skate or something. He doesn’t really remember. He’d been half asleep when
she’d called. It’s something to get him out of the house, at least. Maybe he
can get Jeanae to ditch the teenagers and make out with him in the lodge. It
sounds like a good plan.
Pete fakes his way through dinner, comments too sharp and face pinched. He
drinks enough scotch and eggnog to kill a small animal, filling his throat to
keep his tongue in check. He smiles too big at his family, laughs too much and
too loud.
Andrew’s the only one to pull him aside, to ask, “Should you be drinking with
your pills?”
And Pete, he says, “I guess we’ll find out.”
At five thirty, he picks Jeanae and her pack of jackals up at her place. The
five of them fill his car to maximum capacity, three in the back and one in the
passenger side seat, Jeanae jammed over the center console. She lays her head
on Pete’s shoulder for the ride, face tucked into his neck. Her closeness makes
him feel warm, content. Pushes any thoughts of his dad’s scholarship and the
new band out of his head.
They point him to Glenview. He avoids driving through Patrick’s neighborhood by
faking an interest in the truly horrific light display a few streets over,
mouthing off about the garish baby Jesus blow up statue in someone’s front
yard. The girls titter in the backseat, abrasive and shrill. He’s half a decade
older than all of them. Jeanae smiles at him, humming quietly.
They wind up at the skating rink. Pete pays for his and Jeanae’s rental skates,
glad that he doubled up on hoodies. The chill still sinks in as he sits down at
the bench and tucks his shoes into the cubby below it. His skates are purple
and worn in, the toes scuffed almost grey and the clasps creaking as he
tightens them. He wobbles to the rink against the ache of his bum knee—always
acts up when it’s cold, reminds him to be more careful when jumping off of
things—and tries his best not to go sprawling on his ass.
When he gets the hang of it, Pete races the girls on the ice, legs swinging the
heavy boots and ice flying up into his socks. It’s mindless and easy, the
steady one-two movements of his legs. The cold air on his face makes his cheeks
burn. He feels young, like he’s got something waiting for him for once. He
breathes out heavily and it looks like smoke rising up from his lungs. If he
were feeling like writing a song, it would be thick with words about souls and
clearing the air forever.
The girls think he’s magic. Pete plays pony for them, racing quick, tight
circles around the rink. His thighs are already burning but Jeanae keeps
smiling at him, eyes bright under the fluorescents every time he does something
stupid. Pete hefts her up and skates her around the rink, the heels of her
skates digging into the small of his back. Her face presses to his neck as she
laughs, the sound floating up into Pete’s chest.
His heart beats double as he holds her close. He closes his eyes and breathes
in the cold of the air and the familiar perfume and thinks I’m okay. We’re
okay.
---
Joe’s having a New Year's Eve party. His parents are out for the week taking
second honeymooning in Pennsylvania, and Joe’s taking full advantage of the
free house. Pete’s been staying with him for the last couple of days, too
restless to go home, too tired to really go out. Joe puts up with him in both
moods and never asks questions.
Pete’s the one that’s roped into buying the alcohol. He brings home three kegs
and enough liquor to fill the trunk, the glass bottles clinking every time he
has to slow to a stop. Joe’s eyes go a little wide when he sees Pete’s haul.
It’s hilarious that he still thinks that Pete does anything in halves.
“Charge five dollars at the door,” Pete tells him as they haul the first keg
in. “What we make on this, we can use for the band.”
The band is, well. They’ve only practiced for a few weeks, but Patrick has a
backlog of music that he’s been handing them, shy and squirming as he sings to
the demos. The drums and bass were recorded live, the guitar played via
keyboard, and all of it sounds too good to have come from some scrawny kid with
too much time on his hands.
Still, Pete plays his parts and changes what he doesn’t like, and he hears
music that might be something someday. He tells Patrick that he’s got talent
when the room’s crowded, acts as awestruck as he feels, but avoids him when
they’re alone. Jeanae thinks his fawning is cute, and she’s obligingly stayed
after every practice until Pete could find an out. Pete’s never been so
grateful for her.
Pete turns Joe’s kitchen into a bar and shows it off with a flourish, proud of
what they’ve got. There’s two hundred dollars missing from his father’s credit
card, but Pete feels like it’s a fair tradeoff for his shitty Christmas. He
celebrates his revenge by roping Joe into a pre-party shot and laughs until he
falls over when Joe chokes on the shitty tequila.
People start showing up at six, dragging in bags of chips and tossing their
five bucks into the old cookie tin Joe has set up next to the door. Pete had
written “band fund” on it in big, thick letters, and every time someone asks
about it, Pete sings their praises until the other person wanders away. He’s
not good at much, but he’s good at getting himself stuck in other people’s
heads.
Jeanae’s mom drops her off with a dubious look towards the house. Pete smiles
disarmingly and tells her that they’re having a birthday party for his friend
Joe. Mrs. White frowns as Jeanae rolls her eyes and hops out of the car, her
skirt swaying over her lean thighs. Pete can see her watching through the
rearview mirror as she drives away, all the way until her car disappears around
the corner.
When Jeanae finds a friend, some other high school girl in a tiny dress and
high heels, Pete wanders to the bar set up. He mans it for a while, putting on
his best bartender face and asking people to tell him their life stories. Some
do, but most just laugh at him and take their drinks. He’s feeling like he’s
about to hit a manic run, all smiles and big motions, can’t really remember the
last time he took his pills.
To throw it off, he makes himself a vodka lemonade and downs it too fast to
taste. It makes him shiver as it hits his belly, but it’s a good feeling so he
does it again. He brings one to Joe, calls him the birthday boy even though Joe
won’t get it, and wanders around to find familiar faces.
He finds Patrick instead.
Patrick’s got a cup full of something dark—Coke, maybe with rum, maybe
without—and is talking to someone Pete vaguely recognizes. He laughs, bright
and chipper, and it feels too familiar to be comfortable. Pete sucks down a
beer stolen off the coffee table and makes his way over. He’s feeling like an
asshole already.
“I see you’re getting acquainted with my ticket out of Illinois,” Pete says to
the person he’s pretty sure is named Jeff.
He slings an arm over Patrick’s shoulders and pulls him in, smiling wide enough
that his mouth feels like it’s going to split open. This is the first time he’s
touched Patrick willingly since they were reintroduced. Patrick’s tense under
him, hand going tight around his cup. His knuckles are bony white, nails
digging into the plastic. Pete can smell the liquor on Patrick’s breath and it
makes Pete’s stomach uncoil for some reason. Drunk is familiar ground.
“He’s fucking great, really. You should hear him sing,” Pete says. Jeff raises
an eyebrow, and Pete taps Patrick’s face with his knuckles. His cheek is
alcohol warm, baby soft skin damp with sweat. “Sing. I know you know this one.”
Blink 182 is on the stereo, sinking into conversations and shaking the walls.
Patrick stares at him, open mouthed. Pete shakes him a little to get him going.
It makes Patrick’s drink jump, the dark liquid nearly spilling out onto the
carpet. Patrick watches him a few moments longer before hesitantly starting in
on the chorus.
He draws a small crowd, including Joe who whoops in the background. Patrick’s
face is pink all the way down into his collar, and Pete feels a touch of
schadenfreude as the crowd gets bigger. It’s great publicity and a great way to
piss Patrick off all at once. He feels smug through the whole thing.
“Yo, Joe,” Pete calls when the song’s over. “You should get your guitar out.
Give the people a preview.”
“No,” Patrick says, squirming under Pete’s arm. Pete hangs on tighter and waves
Joe off.
“Go on. Show them what they’re supporting,” Pete says.
They set up in the middle of the living room, shoving the coffee table and the
chairs out of the way. Patrick looks positively green as he drops down onto one
of the stools dragged in from the kitchen. Pete snags the rest of his
drink—rum, sweetened a little with Coke, stronger than even Pete makes them—and
swallows it down as someone shuts the speakers off. He watches Patrick’s hands
twist in his lap, fingers curling over and over and over each other, nervous.
They run through a couple of songs, easy and a little weak with just the
acoustic. Pete can only kind of remember the bass lines Patrick had written,
his hands clumsy as he tries to play against his thigh. Patrick’s voice shakes
a little, his eyes trained on the floor. He’s not cut out for this at all.
Something is holding him back, too shy and too soft for the viciousness of a
crowd. Pete laughs meanly, but he talks them up anyway between songs.
The crowd breaks up when Joe says they’ve run out of things, come back later. A
few people keep talking about it—Pete hears the word potential thrown
around—and he feels that flutter of hope deep in the pit of his stomach again.
He drowns it out with another shot of tequila. Hoping isn’t enough.
Patrick finds him later, face red and fists clenched at his sides. He’s so
small, so young. Pete stares at him with hazy eyes and tries to shake off the
dizziness that’s blurring his vision. In the background he can hear people
chanting for a kegstand. His head swims.
“Don’t do that again,” Patrick hisses out, voice almost too low to be heard
over the music. He backs Pete up against the wall, one finger pointed in Pete’s
face like he’s someone’s fucking mother. “I swear to god, don’t fucking do that
again.”
“What?” Pete asks, because he’s done a lot of shit and people never specify
when they tell him to stop. Patrick shoves him and Pete’s legs nearly give out
at the knees.
“What you did out there? Wasn’t cool.” Patrick’s breath smells like orange
juice. He’s probably been swallowing down screwdrivers with Joe. “If you want
this band thing to work out, you’re going to have to stop being a dick.”
At dick Pete laughs and staggers forward, into Patrick’s space. They’re almost
the same height, Patrick’s fucked up hair cut just shy of the top of Pete’s
forehead. Pete likes his voice, likes the way he sounds when he’s singing and
when he’s pissed off. And his mouth. It’s pink and thick and damp, probably
tastes like vodka.
So, Pete kisses him. Shoves his mouth against Patrick’s and tries to siphon the
liquor out of him, tries to swallow his voice and absorb it into his skin.
Patrick goes tight against him, stiff, and Pete pulls back.
Patrick’s watching him, face drawn up like he’s in pain, and Pete suddenly
remembers why he hates him, remembers waking up and seeing that face and
getting sick for hours.
“Fuck.” He shoves past Patrick and stumbles his way down the stairs. He’s got
to find Jeanae.
He finds her in the kitchen, leaned over the counter watching the dance off
that’s happening in the living room. From the doorway, he can see her white
underwear. Pete wraps his hands around her waist, his fingers nearly touching
at the middle of her stomach. She leans back into him, and Pete presses his
face into her neck.
“We should go upstairs,” he says against her skin. Jeanae smiles at him, her
eyes glassy. The sweet smell of daiquiri surrounds her like a cloud.
He leads her to Joe’s room, stumbling over Joe’s clothes and into his bed.
Jeanae weighs nothing on top of him, her skirt fluttering around her thighs as
she crawls over his hips. Pete’s head is spinning, the room nothing but a blur
of blue and smears of black.
Jeanae looks pale in the dim light coming through the windows. Pete tries to
focus on pulling her shirt up over her head without hurting either one of them,
but his hands aren’t working so well with him. She’s not wearing a bra and her
small tits bounce when Pete gets her top all the way off, tossing it to the
side of the mattress. Pete palms one and closes his eyes against the nausea
creeping up his throat.
Jeanae rubs a hand over his crotch, fingers working his zipper. Pete presses up
into it, rocks against her. When she gets his fly open, she wraps her fingers
around his half hard dick and pulls him out, rubs her thumb under the head and
leans in to kiss him.
Pete tastes her lip gloss on his mouth and wills his dick to stiffen up. She
pulls at him but all it does is chafe, and no matter how much Pete gropes at
her chest, he can’t get it up. He can’t fucking get it up.
“Are you serious?” Jeanae asks. She whips her hand up, crossing her arms under
her tits. Pete swallows, his mouth dry. Stuck between a rock and a bitchy
corner, he pretends to pass out. It’s easier this way.
Eventually, Jeanae crawls off of him and pulls her shirt back on, the bed
bouncing under her sharp, angry motions. She punches him in the chest before
she leaves, the door slamming shut behind her. When he’s sure she’s gone, Pete
tucks himself in and tries to catch his breath.
He needs another drink.
---
Pete wakes up on the floor in Joe's basement, head throbbing. He's covered in
dust, sweating on one side and cold on the other. Somewhere between stumbling
out of the bedroom and passing out he'd lost his shirt. There's a Sharpie black
dick drawn on his arm, creeping up past his elbow and down across his wrist.
Pete groans and forces himself to sit up. He's getting too old for high school
parties.
When he manages to drag himself upstairs, he finds Joe humming in the kitchen,
shoving glass after glass into the dishwasher. It sounds like he's throwing
them against the wall, the sharp, grinding sound of them clinking together
ripping into his brain. He sinks down onto a chair and moans pathetically until
Joe hands him a mostly clean cup of water.
"You look like shit," Joe says cheerfully. There's a purpling bruise peeking
out from under his collar. Pete rubs his eyes and flips him off.
"Fuck you," Pete rasps out. He gulps down his water and wiggles his glass until
Joe fills it up again. "Is Jeanae still here?"
"Yeah, no." Joe starts the dishwasher, the sound like knives in Pete's ears.
"She left early last night. She, uh." Joe scratches a hand through his messy
hair, cheeks turning a dull pink. It clashes with his acne. "She was telling
everyone that you can't get it up."
"Fucking bitch." Pete drops his head to the counter and forces himself to
breathe. At least it's better than the other part of the night getting out.
"Sorry, man," Joe says. He pats Pete's shoulder awkwardly. When he pulls away,
he makes a face at the dirt clinging to his hand. "Maybe you should shower.
You're kind of—"
"For the love of God, shut up." Pete tugs at his hair and pushes away from the
counter. His head aches. He should be over the whole hangover thing by now.
He's halfway up the stairs when he runs into a passed out freshman. Her skirt
is flipped up over her ass, pink panties halfway down. Pete's stomach churns at
the sight of her.
If he were a good person, he'd at least kick her awake. As it is, he grabs onto
the railing for support and climbs over her. He's tired of dealing with
people's shit.
---
They spend January and February holed up in Patrick’s basement, writing song
after song after shitty fucking song. Pete stays at Joe’s more often than not,
sneaking in and out to avoid Joe’s parents, eating chips and trying fruitlessly
to sleep during the day while Joe’s at school.
Patrick doesn’t ask him about the New Years party, and Pete pushes it to the
back of his mind with everything else. Things are strained with Jeanae—phone
calls at midnight, screaming in each other’s faces at clubs, and bars, and
shows until they’re both too hoarse to speak anymore. Pete’s going crazy inside
his own head, antsy and waiting for something else to come crashing down. He
can feel it coming in his spine.
The band isn’t great, but they’re not terrible. Pete’s heard worse, been in
worse. Patrick’s voice cracks sometimes when he’s singing, and Joe sometimes
gets too into fucking around with his guitar that he forgets to play it, but
they’ve got potential. They have a chance.
Pete talks Arma Angelus into letting them open. Patrick goes a little green
when Pete tells him that they’re going to play a few shows, just to get the
hang of it. He doesn’t say anything about it as the weeks fly by, but he
practices until he loses his speaking voice, three days before they start the
gigs.
“I don’t think I can do this,” Patrick says to Joe when they’re at the first
venue. He’s clutching a bottle of water to his chest, sweat already visible
under his arms. It’s kind of gross.
They’ve been calling themselves Fall Out Boy and they’re nothing like Arma at
all. Pete looks out into the crowd and rocks up onto the balls of his feet.
He’s ready for a change. He’s so goddamn ready.
“You’re going to do fine,” Pete says. He means it, even. “Seriously.”
Andy heads out first, a stage veteran. Pete watches Joe hug Patrick for luck,
annoyance creeping up into his chest. This is easy. This is everything they’ve
been doing for months with a few extra people in the room.
“Enough of the gay shit. Let’s go.” He doesn’t wait for them, jogging out onto
the stage.
“So, hey,” he says into the microphone when he grabs up his bass. He recognizes
people and they recognize him. It eats away some of Pete’s tension, puts him
back into familiar ground as he sinks into his role. “This isn’t Arma, but
you’re gonna like it anyway.”
And, well, Patrick looks sick as they start, but he’s still more serious about
being in a band than anyone Pete’s ever met. His voice wobbles on the first
song but it picks up through the second one, and Joe plays like he’s on fire.
The kids clap and a few nod along, and it’s not what Pete’s used to, but it’s
good. It’s a start.
When Arma Angelus plays, Patrick and Andy flit off into the crowd, leaving Pete
and Joe to play through the next set. Pete screams until he doesn’t feel so
heavy. He goes home with the knowledge that they’re not wasting their time.
---
Pete’s half asleep when his phone rings. He’s camped out on the roof of his
parent’s house, the weather still too cold to be out in, bundled up in all the
hoodies he could find scattered across the floor of his room. It’s March but it
feels like January all over again, cold sinking all the way into his chest.
“Yeah?” He holds the phone to his cheek, pressing into its warmth. He can see
his breath, spiraling out over the rooftop like smoke.
“I cheated on you.” It’s Jeanae’s voice, thin and tinny through the speaker.
Pete doesn’t hear anything else because he’s chucking his phone off the roof,
into the last snowdrift at the end of his driveway watching it disappear.
She shows up later, when Pete’s dangling his legs in front of his bedroom
window, ass numb from sitting on the ledge for too long. Her friend that’s
driving doesn’t look up. She’s one of the ones he took ice skating, one of the
ones that had giggled and flirted with him when Jeanae had been in the
bathroom. The irony isn’t lost on him. Pete wants to jump and see if he can
land on her car, crush the roof in on them both.
“Are you going to jump?” Jeanae shouts up at him when she steps out of the
passenger side. Pete laughs.
“Are you going to stop me?” He asks.
She looks small and beautiful, like nothing’s changed at all. Like she hasn’t
just crushed him. Pete feels like he’s being ripped to shreds from the inside
out. He loves her, and she’s going away again. Pete doesn’t know if he’ll chase
her down this time.
“Pete.” Jeanae shakes her head, her short hair curling around her cheeks. “You
weren’t with me anymore.”
“Yeah, well.” Pete kicks his shoes against his window and they thud hollowly.
Left, right, left. Thud, thud, thud. Mindlessly over and over.
“I couldn’t do it anymore,” she says. She’s so very, very young. He wonders if
she fucked someone her own age for once. “I couldn’t do it anymore.”
“Then go do it with someone else,” Pete shouts. He jumps, and she screams.
He tucks and hits the bushes, rolling into them. It’s goddamn hilarious because
he’s been doing this since he was twelve, melodramatic and eager to hurt
himself. When he stands up, perfectly fine, Jeanae slaps him. It stings against
his cold cheek, her breathing the only thing Pete can hear over his thundering
heartbeat. He wonders if he can at least get a goodbye kiss. For old time’s
sake.
“You’re such an asshole,” Jeanae shouts before storming off to her friend’s
car. Pete watches her go and shakes from the wind.
---
Joe’s not home when Pete goes to his house. His mom says he’s gone to visit his
aunt’s for the weekend, that he won’t be back for a few days still. Pete
considers climbing up the side of the house to his window anyway, but he
doesn’t want to have to explain himself when he eventually gets caught.
He drives for a few hours, burning gas and wasting time until he can’t see the
road anymore. He brakes at a corner store and thinks about maybe buying coffee,
enough to keep him awake for weeks, but he stays in the car and takes a right
instead.
It’s not really surprising when he finds himself parked in front of Patrick’s
house.
The clock on the dash says it’s midnight, but there’s a light burning upstairs
in Patrick’s room, yellow through his curtains. Pete cuts the engine and makes
his way through the yard, scooping up a handful of gravel from the driveway as
he goes.
The gravel bounces nicely off of Patrick’s window, the soft ping of it drifting
down to where Pete’s standing. It takes six throws until Patrick’s head pops
out, his hair messy at the top of his head, bad haircut framed by the
brightness of his room.
“What are you doing here?” He hisses, almost too low to be heard over the wind.
He should be in bed, Pete thinks. Bedtime for babies. He needs older friends.
“Come out with me.” Pete tosses another pebble and it bounces off the window
frame. Patrick scowls. It’s not really a good look on him.
“I don’t actually trust you enough for that.” He looks like he’s about to shut
the window, fingers already clasped around the top.
“I promise I won’t leave you anywhere,” he says, probably too loud. Patrick
narrows his eyes, untrusting. Pete guesses he can’t really blame the kid. He
wouldn’t trust himself either.
“Where would we be going?” Patrick asks suspiciously.
Progress.
“For a drive. I just need some company.” Pete waits in silence as Patrick
deliberates, bouncing on his toes to fight off the cold. He can see the moment
that Patrick decides that he’s going to play along. The kid’s almost too easy
to read.
“I swear to god, Wentz, I’ll actually kill you if this is a joke.” Patrick
disappears through his window, only to reappear at the door ten minutes later
bundled up in a sweater and a flannel hat.
“Come on,” Pete says and leads him back to the car.
Patrick’s tense in the passenger seat as Pete drives, huddled up against the
door. They’re not friends, not really. Pete only talks to him at practice,
skirting around him as much as he can, and Patrick doesn’t call him out on it.
Pete drives.
Somewhere between Deerfield and Libertyville, Pete catches Patrick staring at
him, open and curious. It’s unnerving. Pete taps his fingers against the
steering wheel and tries to ignore it. He loves attention, craves it even, but
right now all he wants is to hide under the seat and lick his wounds. Patrick
doesn’t look away, and Pete doesn’t make him.
Nearly an hour later, Pete pulls into an empty lot and cuts the engine. In
front of them hundreds of evergreens stand tall, their branches still powdery
with the last of the snow, dark and figureless in the night. Without the lights
from the city, he can see stars. He’s not sure which side of the state line
he’s on, but it doesn’t really matter.
“Come on,” Pete says and gets out of the car.
Patrick blinks at him through the windshield but stays in his seat. Pete rolls
his eyes. Maybe he should have gone to Chris’ place instead. It might have been
better company. There definitely would have been more beer.
“Come on, Stump.”
“What are we doing?” Patrick asks warily as he tumbles out of the car.
“I’m going to murder you and hide you in the woods,” Pete deadpans. Patrick’s
eyes widen. Pete feels a headache rising behind his eyes. This is ridiculous.
“Dude, we’re taking a fucking walk. Chill out.”
Pete shoves his hands into the pockets of his hoodie and starts toward the path
that leads into the grove. A few moments later he hears Patrick’s footfalls
breaking the frost behind him. The air here is cold and thin, their breath
rising up in front of them like fog. The silence is nice, something like
comfortable as they follow the winding path through the trees.
“So,” Patrick says when they finally stop. He shakes the under branches of a
sad, small fir and watches the snow fall off. All around them, the world is
still.
“Jeanae broke up with me,” Pete says. He leans back against the trunk of a
solid, bare tree and shrugs. “I didn’t want to be alone.”
“Oh,” Patrick says softly. He tugs at the branch level with his hip, staring at
the needles that slough off into his palm. When he looks up, his cheeks are
pink. “You don’t think it’s… weird that you came to me for company?”
“Not really,” Pete shrugs again. He hasn’t got a lot of options. When he’s not
being stupid, Patrick’s not totally a bad guy.
“Right.” Patrick nods, a sharp jerk of his head that looks almost unnatural. He
turns to Pete, standing too close to be comfortable, eyes downcast again. He
drops the pine needles to the ground, watches them fall. “Right. Let’s get this
over with.”
Pete watches with horror as Patrick sinks down to his knees on the frozen over
path, hands coming up to curve around Pete’s hips. He’s so blindingly sober
that it hurts, but he can’t stop watching, can’t move to push Patrick away as
his fingers start in on the buttons of Pete’s jeans. He blanches when he feels
himself getting hard, dick curving up towards Patrick’s hand.
The air is cold when it hits his skin, goosebumps breaking out across his
stomach and arms, but Patrick presses his palm flat over Pete’s stomach, thumb
skidding along the dark trail of hair leading into his jeans. His heat is
overbearing, sinking straight through Pete’s skin and into his gut.
Patrick doesn’t fuck around like Jeanae always did. There’s no little kisses to
his hip bones, no baby tongue flicks against the head of his cock. No warning.
Patrick just wraps a hand around the base and sinks his mouth down, hot and wet
and slick.
He twists his wrist as he bobs his head down, his knuckles brushing his
stretched, shiny lips. There’s no finesse to his technique but it feels fucking
great, fucking fantastic. Makes heat rise up into Pete’s belly and coil like a
snake, tense and sharp. Pete shoves his fingers under Patrick’s hat and grips
his hair, holding him in close.
Patrick goes still, but after a second he moves his hand and opens his mouth
wider. It’s hot in a way Pete wasn’t expecting, and he jerks his hips forward,
the tip of his dick hitting the soft back of Patrick’s throat. Patrick fights
against the urge to gag, Pete can feel it in the way Patrick’s hands go rigid
around Pete’s thighs, the way his throat goes suddenly tight.
If he doesn’t look, Pete can forget that there’s a dude sucking him off. If he
doesn’t look, it could be anyone. If he does look though, he’s rewarded with
the sight of his cock slipping between Patrick’s red, swollen lips, filling him
up and making him sweat.
Patrick wraps his hands around the backs of Pete’s thighs, fingertips sinking
in through his jeans, pulling him in closer. When he hollows his cheeks, Pete
jerks forward one last time, fingers going tight in Patrick’s hair, and comes
down his throat.
Patrick pulls off, coughing into his fist. He looks wrecked, face red and hat
off, mouth and chin slick with spit. He wipes his wrist across his face and
pushes himself up, eyes locked on the ground. He looks small.
Pete does his jeans back up, hands shaky. He doesn’t think about Jeanae and he
doesn’t think about the look on Patrick’s face. He’s tired of being a
disappointment.
“Can we go now?” Patrick asks.
His voice is rough, a little raw. He dusts his knees off, but dirt still clings
to the wet denim stubbornly. He looks guilty; everything he's been doing
written across his face. Pete swallows, his tongue too thick in his mouth as he
tries to speak.
“That’s not what I brought you out here for,” he says eventually. Patrick
laughs.
“Right.” He shakes his head, tugging his hat back in place. When he looks up,
his face is still red, his mouth in a thin line. There’s a pine needle sticking
to his cheek, sticky with sap and sweat. “I’m the only dude you know that’ll
suck you off, right? Is that it?”
“I’m not gay,” Pete says, too loud. It bounces off the trees, echoing into his
head. He’s not. He’s fucking not. Patrick laughs again, but it sounds more like
choking.
“Right, that’s why I can still taste your fucking dick.” He rubs a hand over
his face, presses the heel of his thumb against his eye. “That’s why you picked
me up at a gay bar five fucking months ago.”
“I didn’t know it was a gay bar,” Pete snaps. His hands are still shaking, even
when he balls them into fists.
“That’s not the point!” Patrick shouts. He shoves at him.. “The fucking point
is that you’re a goddamn closet case and I’m the only faggot you know.”
Pete punches him, knuckles connecting with his jaw. It feels like a bomb going
off in Pete’s head. Patrick jerks to the side, stumbling back a few steps,
staring at his hand like he’s surprised even himself. Pete’s so pissed off he’s
seeing red. When Patrick swings at him again, he’s not expecting it. It knocks
him back into a tree, bark and branches digging into his skin. He curses, and
Patrick’s on him faster than he can react, furious and fighting.
“Fuck you,” Patrick shouts.
He lands a solid blow to Pete’s gut, stealing his breath away. He’s angry, but
Pete’s stronger, and he stumbles back when Pete headbutts him. It’s reckless
and it hurts. The tender skin above Patrick’s eye burst open, blood turning his
eyebrow rusty brown where it gets caught.
“I don’t know what your fucking problem is,” Pete gasps, tackling him down
breathlessly. He locks his thighs around Patrick’s hips, fisting his hand in
Patrick’s jacket. His knuckles are red, from the cold or from slamming them
into Patrick’s face, Pete doesn’t know. He can feel Patrick’s fading hard on
against him. It makes bile rise up in his throat.
“My problem,” Patrick says, trying to free himself from Pete’s grip, “is that I
thought you were something fucking special and it turns out you’re just an
asshole.” Pete wants to laugh but he can’t find it anywhere in his chest.
“What the fuck made you think that?”
“You were my first time, asshole,” Patrick spits. He wraps his hand around
Pete’s wrist, digging his nails in. It hurts, sharp and violent, but Pete
doesn’t let go, even as a nail split his skin.
“Pro tip: don’t go home with a fucking stranger at a bar and expect romance.”
Pete punches him again for good measure, the feeling of Patrick’s cheek under
his fist freeing. He’s going to have to wrap his hand. It’s already throbbing.
Patrick rubs his face when Pete climbs off of him, mouth swelling at the edge.
He’s going to have a black eye, and judging from the tenderness on the side of
his own face, so is Pete.
“We’re going home,” Pete says. Patrick doesn’t argue.
On the way back, Patrick keeps touching his mouth, reopening the wound at the
edge. Pete can see the shine of blood on his fingertips, his knuckles aching in
sympathy. The sun is rising behind them, gold and amber and new. Pete runs from
it like it’ll set him on fire, speeding back home.
“This didn’t happen,” Pete says as they go through Buffalo Grove an hour and a
half later. It hurts to talk, his head aching from where Patrick’s knuckles had
connected. Patrick snorts. It’s a wet, humorless sound.
“Of course it didn’t.” He rubs away the blood from the corner of his mouth with
his wrist and wipes it on his jeans. It leaves a thin, rusty smear behind. “So
what are we telling the guys? Fuck, what do I tell my mom?”
Patrick tugs at his hair anxiously before letting his head drop against the
window. His eyes are squinched shut in a way that has to hurt. Pete takes a
deep breath and lets it out slowly. Joe’s already been on his case about
Patrick. This isn’t what he needs right now.
“We tell everyone we ran into a problem at a show,” Pete says eventually. “We
went to Milwaukee to check out a local band and there were skinheads. We got
out before it got too bad.”
Patrick nods. His breath is making the window fog, ghosting out into an empty
speech bubble. When the sun’s all the way up, Pete can see the swelling
starting under his eye, red and quickly turning purple. It’s not as great now
as it had been then, the evidence of what they’d done written out across
Patrick’s face.
Pete pulls up in front of Patrick’s house, reluctant to let the kid go, even
after all the bullshit. When Patrick’s gone, it’ll just be him again, locked up
inside his head without any distractions. He clenches his fists on the steering
wheel as he bites the bullet.
“Stay,” he says softly.
“You’ve actually got to be kidding me,” Patrick grits out between clenched
teeth.
“Don’t, okay?” Pete runs a hand through his hair, trying to ease the stress
out. It’s greasy, sliding across his fingers and slithering through them,
coiling back into tight curls. “I just. I don’t want to be alone.”
“You literally just beat the shit out of me,” Patrick says, hissing as it
upsets his swelling lip. “What the fuck do you think it matters to me what you
want?”
“Because you’re a good dude.” Because, really, Patrick is. It goes to show how
stupid and young he is, all good and noble all the way into his soft, pudgy
insides. “Because I’m a little fucked up in the head and I already jumped off
my roof once this morning.”
“Jesus.” Patrick kicks the glove box, the sound like a muffled gunshot. He’s
red in the face, dark spots starting to show under his eyes. He’d never gone to
sleep. The sun is all the way up, and Pete can see the wrinkles in Patrick’s
jacket, see the dirt that’s still clinging to his knees. “Fine. Whatever.
Fucking—I don’t care anymore.” Patrick slumps into his seat and crosses his
arms over his chest, a petulant but willing captive.
Pete goes home.
The house is empty when he leads Patrick in, his parents at work, Andrew and
Hilary at friends’ places. Patrick’s shoulders are up to his ears as he follows
Pete to his room, head bowed like a kicked puppy. He knows his way to Pete’s
room but stays three paces behind anyway.
In retrospect, this is almost worse than being alone. The silence hurts, sharp
like glass and just as brittle as Patrick sits on the floor by the door, as far
away from the bed as he can get. He keeps his legs criss-crossed Indian style
under him, head rocked back against the wall. There’s blood on his shirt
collar.
Like I’m going to sleep with him sober, Pete thinks. He doesn’t think about the
last few hours. He’s going to store them away and forget about them, just like
he’s forgotten about everything else.
Pete kicks off his shoes and takes off his shirt. Pine needles rain down from
it, make his room smell sweet and sticky. He wonders if Patrick’s got them in
his clothes too, pricking into his back and thighs. Wonders if he should offer
the shower, or a change of clothes.
If it were Joe, Pete would be down to his underwear, checking out his battle
scars and flaunting them proudly. But this dude’s seen his dick. It’s
different. Pete squirms as he touches the buckle of his belt, uncomfortable in
his skin like he never is. Patrick’s tongue slides over the blood on his lip,
and Pete pulls his hand back.
“The bathroom’s next door,” he says finally. Patrick looks up at him blankly.
“So you can...” Pete waves a hand at his face. The stupid pine needle is still
riding along the curve of his cheek. “I think I have clothes that’ll fit you.”
“I could have taken a shower at home,” Patrick says as he pushes himself to his
feet. Pete ignores him, rifling through his closet instead.
He hands Patrick his old sweats from bootcamp. They’re navy blue and a few
sizes too big, long and still a little stiff. Once he’d gotten home, he’d
refused to wear them, sick when he’d even thought about the stupid fucking
place at all. He draws the line at sharing his underwear, but he tosses the
sweats and a prototype Arma Angelus shirt at Patrick and turns his back. He
won’t be asking for either back.
It doesn’t take long for Patrick to leave. Pete hears the shower running soon
after, and he breathes a sigh of relief as he takes his jeans off. He jerks on
a clean pair of boxers and paces the room, waiting for Patrick to finish.
Pete feels like he’s on tenterhooks as he waits. He hasn’t slept in too long
and he can’t remember what pills he’s taken and hasn’t taken. He wants a
fucking beer or a bottle of Jack, or maybe a blunt. Anything to take the edge
off. Something falls in the bathroom, the sound of it breaking through the
wall, and Pete’s on his feet, heading in before he can stop himself.
Patrick’s got a bruise on his side the size of Pete’s fist, curved up under his
ribs and purple on the outside already. His skin is damp, pink and blotchy from
the heat. He looks up, startled from where he’s picking up Pete’s mess of
orange bottles. The pills inside rattle as the bottles roll across the floor.
“I slipped,” Patrick says quietly. He’s holding Pete’s Clopixol his thumb over
Pete’s carefully scrawled handwriting.
“I wasn’t actually joking when I said my head’s fucked up,” Pete replies. He
plucks the bottle from Patrick’s hand and places it carefully back on the sink.
“Antipsychosis?” Patrick asks. He’s in his underwear, the legs of them sticking
to his damp thighs. He bends, and the fabric clings to his ass, stretched
tight. Pete looks away.
“I’m bipolar,” he says. He picks up two more bottles and arranges them
carefully. He’s batshit insane. Someone should put a warning label on him.
“Sometimes I need them to get rid of the paranoia.”
“I’m sorry,” Patrick says. It sounds sincere. He hands Pete a bottle of
sleeping pills and Pete takes two out, shrugging as he brings his hand up to
his mouth.
“Yeah, well.” He swallows the pills dry before screwing the cap on and setting
the bottle next to the tap. “Can’t fix crazy, right?”
Patrick stays quiet, tugging the sweat pants on shyly and wincing when the
waistband presses into a bruise. Pete almost feels sorry.
Patrick takes up his spot by the door again, his wet hair leaving dark marks on
the carpet and on the legs of the sweats as it drips. Pete thinks maybe he’s
trying to stay away from the crazy, now, instead of the angry.
“How long?” Patrick asks after a long pause. Pete slumps down onto his
mattress, the sheets cool and soft under his hands.
“Since I was twelve,” Pete answers honestly.
He can remember being young and terrified, locked inside his closet and
screaming to get the anxiety out, the buzz of mania making him feel like his
bones were trying to vibrate right out of his body. He could nearly see them,
white under his skin, and it scared him more. He remembers his mother crying,
remembers beating his head against the wall until he’d passed out, exhausted
and crazy. Then all he remembers is the radio silence of pills.
“I’m sorry,” Patrick says again, like it’ll make any difference. Pete shrugs
and tries to tell himself it’s the truth.
He feels the Ambien sinking into him, weighting his arms down and creating
lapses in his head. He blinks and Patrick’s closer, still on the floor but not
touching the wall. He blinks again and the sun seems brighter around him,
making the room glow. One more time, and then Patrick’s standing in front of
him, pushing him down gently.
“What’re you doing?” He mumbles, body too heavy to fight the pressure.
“You’re falling asleep sitting up,” Patrick whispers back. “Just lay down.”
When Pete feels the mattress under him, solid and comforting, he locks lazy
fingers around Patrick’s wrist and tugs weakly. He’s so fucking tired. Patrick
lays next to him, tucked carefully in on himself, and Pete remembers waking up
to him, curled around him like they fit together. His chest hurts for a moment.
He’s so tired.
Patrick doesn’t fight when Pete pulls him closer, one arm wrapped around the
solid barrel of his chest, and Pete’s thankful for it. When he closes his eyes,
he can almost pretend he’s holding Jeanae again, even though everything is all
wrong. Patrick smells like Pete’s shampoo and Pete’s Irish Spring, and a little
like evergreens and copper. He’s thick and warm and so, so still. Pete’s head
stops spinning, just for a moment.
---
When Pete wakes up, he’s surprised to see that Patrick’s still there. He’s
lying very still, hand curled around Pete’s bicep, eyes shut. He’s asleep,
breath soft and even as it blows against Pete’s collarbones.
Objectively speaking, he’s kind of attractive. Pete can see girls going after
him for his baby round cheeks or his thick, pink mouth. He can see people being
into him for his personality or some shit like that. He’s kind of chubby, not
really thin enough for it to be puppy fat anymore, but Pete’s fucked around
with worse. There’s a second of panic, deep rooted in his chest as he compares
the white, white, white of Patrick’s skin against the darkness of his own. He’s
about to jerk away when Patrick opens his eyes, thin slivers of blue that pin
him down.
“How did you know?” He demands instead.
This is vital. This is the most important fucking question he’s ever asked in
his life. Patrick blinks sleepily at him, lips curling around a yawn. Pete
grabs his face, fingertips digging in at the tender hollows of his temples, and
shakes him.
“How did I know what?” Patrick asks, voice low with sleep and distorted around
Pete’s fingers. He tries to squirm his way out of Pete’s grip. He’s still
holding onto Pete’s bicep.
“That you’re gay.” The word falls like a bomb. Pete feels the explosion in the
pit of his stomach, nerves racketing back up to where they were before he fell
asleep. He’s wide awake.
“Liking dick might have been a sign,” Patrick says. For as light as the words
are he stutters over them, eyes locked just south of Pete’s.
“Did you ever fuck a girl?” Pete asks. When Patrick doesn’t answer, Pete shakes
him again. “Did you ever fuck a girl?”
“I tried,” Patrick admits. He’s turning embarrassment pink, skin heating up
under Pete’s hands. “It didn’t feel right, so I stopped.”
“And being with dudes, that feels right to you?” Pete’s not thinking about
Jeanae or the handful of girls he’s fucked around with. He’s not letting it
sink in, because he can’t. He fucked them and he liked it, and nothing is going
to take that away from him.
“Being with you feels right to me.” Patrick shoves Pete away, stronger than he
looks, and tries to roll off the bed. Pete stops him, grabs his arm and hauls
him back in. Their chests press together. Patrick’s free arm is trapped under
him, his knees knocking into Pete’s.
“Let me go!”
“Stay,” Pete says. He wants—he needs—he has to know what’s going on inside his
head, needs to know how to fix himself, and Patrick’s the only person who
understands, the only person who knows.
Patrick kisses him, smashes his mouth against Pete’s where it’s still tender
and sore. It makes Pete recoil as much as it turnshim on. He finds himself on
his back, Patrick a solid weight on top of him. He can’t run.
“If you don’t want it, push me away,” Patrick says, lips against Pete’s skin.
He sounds young and terrified. “If you don’t want it, stop me.”
Patrick’s hands slide down Pete’s chest, fingertips skimming along his skin
like brands. Pete can’t move. He’s frozen in place, hands hovering over
Patrick’s hips, wrists tight enough to snap. He’s so, so sober, head clear like
it hasn’t been for days, but he doesn’t shove Patrick away. He doesn’t shove
Patrick away. Patrick slides a thigh between Pete’s, the soft cotton of his
sweats brushing the inside of Pete’s calves, raising the hairs there. When
Patrick’s knee presses up behind his balls, Pete feels himself starting to get
hard.
“I’m not gay,” he says, voice trembling. Patrick rocks his leg and Pete
clenches his jaw against the sensation.
“It’s not the worst thing in the world,” Patrick says. He runs his tongue
across the low sweep of Pete’s throat, sure of himself like hasn’t been before.
“You get off to guys. Big fucking deal. You don’t have to be gay for that.”
Pete closes his eyes as Patrick’s hand slips into his shorts, warm and rough
and large. Patrick’s mouth skids against Pete’s jaw, and Pete can feel
Patrick’s heartbeat in his own chest, fast and erratic. He’s scared as hell. At
least Pete’s not the only one.
“Look at me,” Patrick says quietly. He wraps his hand around Pete’s cock and
squeezes. It feels so good, all the way down into his bones. Pete spreads his
legs, pressing up against Patrick’s thigh. “Look at me.”
Pete opens his eyes as Patrick strokes him slowly, thumb brushing up against
the head of Pete’s dick. When Pete shifts again, he can feel Patrick’s hard on
against his leg, heavy and thick. It freaks him the fuck out.
Like he knows, Patrick presses down on Pete’s chest with his free hand, holding
him down. He rocks his hips slowly, the long slide of his dick against Pete’s
thigh making Pete’s heart speed up. His own cock jerks in Patrick’s hand.
“You like this,” Patrick says. He shudders as Pete lifts his leg, as he grinds
down.
Pete could end this now. He could knee Patrick in the balls, shove him off and
run away. He doesn’t have to do this. A large part of him wants to do it, wants
to get the fuck out and lock himself in the bathroom until Patrick leaves.
But then Patrick says, “You can fuck me.”
He says it like he means it, like he’d turn over at a word. Pete hasn’t
actually gotten laid for a long fucking time, and no one has to know what he
does. No one has to fucking know.
“Are you going to?”
“There’s lotion in the dresser,” Pete says in lieu of a real answer. Patrick
looks at him for a long moment before climbing off. Pete mourns the loss of his
hand, but it gives him room to breathe. Gives him room to think.
When Patrick comes back he takes his sweats off, kicking his boxers along with
them onto the floor. Pete sees his dick bob, red and ugly, and he has to look
away. Patrick crawls on top of him again, the heat from the insides of his
thighs against Pete’s hips scalding.
“Take your pants off,” Patrick says, lifting up. His cock sticks out from under
the hem of his shirt, hard and unavoidable.
Pete shimmies out of his shorts, kicking them off the end of the mattress.
Above him, Patrick’s screwing off the top of the lotion, smearing it across his
hand. Pete can barely watch as he reaches behind himself, but he hears the
stuttered gasp as the first finger pushes in, knows exactly what he’s doing.
He remembers watching Jeanae finger herself, remembers thinking it was kind of
hot. Patrick’s awkward, biting down against his lip to keep quiet, arm
stretched around himself at a strange angle. He flinches, eyes falling shut.
His teeth sink deeper into his lip. Pete feels the second thoughts creeping up
on him at an alarming speed.
“I don’t—”
“Hang on.” Patrick’s arm jerks, and fuck. Fuck. He’s fucking himself open, legs
splayed open over Pete’s. Before Pete can move away, Patrick’s pulling his
fingers out and reaching for the lotion again.
His slick hand on Pete’s cock feels great, fucking fantastic. It's all heat and
pressure, holding him still as Patrick lines himself up and begins to sink
slowly down. His face is screwed up in a grimace, unattractive and so fucking
hot all at once.
He’s tighter than the girls were, almost painful as he inches down so, so slow,
until he’s sitting on Pete’s dick. His balls rest on Pete’s stomach, heavy and
strange. He’s still for a long time, clenched down around Pete’s cock like a
vice. His fingers open and close on Pete’s chest, breath stuttering.
When he lifts himself back up onto his knees, it’s excruciating, a slow motion
pull that makes all the heat in Pete’s stomach coil thick and heavy. He comes
down quicker, ass slapping against Pete’s thighs, and Pete lets out the breath
he didn’t realize he was holding.
Pete grabs at Patrick’s hips, sinks his fingers into the soft skin and lets
himself lay back as Patrick rides him. It’s so— it’s so good. Patrick’s tight,
tight, tight around him, bouncing like he’s in a goddamn porno, head thrown
back, hands clutching at Pete’s wrists. Pete watches his dick bounce along with
him and groans.
Pete thrusts up into him, and the bed creaks shrilly as Patrick moans, deep
enough that Pete feels the rumble of it through his own skin. Patrick’s thighs
are trembling, slick with sweat where they’re pressed to the outside of Pete’s.
Pete yanks him down, holds him in place as he fucks up into him, the wet sound
of his cock sliding in and out filthy and loud in the stillness of the room.
Patrick frees one hand to jerk himself off, pulling at his cock in time to
Pete’s thrusts. The wet head slips through his fist, shiny and red. Pete can’t
stop watching, can’t look away as precome oozes down over Patrick’s fingers. It
drips down onto Pete’s stomach. Pete shoves up against him, thinksI’m fucking
this stupid kid bare, and comes inside him.
Patrick keeps rocking against him, riding him through his climax. It makes Pete
shake, his oversensitive dick twitching as Patrick moans again. He swallows,
Adam’s apple bobbing, and jerks himself once, twice, three more times before he
goes still, come splattering hot and wet across Pete’s chest.
It almost hurts, Pete’s soft dick slipping out of the tight grip of Patrick’s
ass. Pete wipes himself off with the corner of the sheet, grimacing. He sees
the shining, damp trail of his come sliding down the inside of Patrick’s thigh,
and his cock gives one more heroic twinge.
Patrick reaches for his underwear, wincing as he pulls them on. He hovers at
the end of the bed, arms crossed low over his stomach, waiting. Pete rubs a
hand over his eyes. He’s tired again, loose and dizzy.
“If we’re going to do this,” he says eventually, voice like lead, “no one ever
knows.”
“So we’re going to, what?” Patrick asks. He hasn’t moved, hasn’t looked up.
“Are we going to be, like...” He trails off, and Pete doesn’t have to look at
him to see the hot pink flush climbing across his nose.
“You’re not my fucking girlfriend, Stump,” Pete answers testily. He drops his
arm and looks over. He immediately feels like an asshole because Patrick’s face
looks so fucking devastated. "Look, we’re not going to hold hands and talk
about our future and adopt fucking puppies together, okay? But if you want
something out of me, this is what you’re going to get. Deal?”
Patrick’s silent for a long moment, staring at the mattress. When he looks up,
Pete knows he’s in.
“Deal.”
---
Pete avoids Patrick even more at practices. He keeps to his side of the
basement and does his thing, ignores Patrick as thoroughly as possible. But
when everyone else leaves, he shoves Patrick down on the couch and kisses him
until they’re both breathless, unzips his jeans and closes his eyes and lets
Patrick do whatever he wants.
It works, it gives them both what they want without drawing attention to them.
As long as they keep acting normal, no one will know. As long as they keep
acting like they hate each other, no one will think anything is going on.
It’s solid for a few weeks. But then Joe latches onto him and drags him
upstairs in the middle of a song, guitar still bouncing around his thighs. He
punches Pete in the shoulder. Pete’s flabbergasted.
“What is your problem?” Joe asks. He sounds just as frustrated as Pete feels.
“What did Patrick do to you to piss you off so much?”
“What?” Pete can’t breathe. His heart stutters in the confines of his chest, a
sharp doubletime that leaves him breathless.
“We’re not stupid, okay? Me and Andy, we know you, man. You don’t do personal
space.. But you avoid Patrick like he’s contagious.” Joe runs a hand through
his hair, the bleach blonde splitting apart around his fingers. “What’s the
deal? If you genuinely don’t like him, we can find someone else.”
Fuck, Pete thinks, panicking. Patrick’s better than all of them combined. Pete
doesn’t want to lose that, can’t. Not when he’s getting ready to hedge all of
his bets on them. Joe’s watching him expectantly, waiting for his excuse. Pete
shakes his head and puts on his biggest grin.
“He hit on Jeanae once,” Pete lies smoothly. Joe raises an eyebrow, suspicious.
Patrick had always been perfunctorily polite to her, but usually stayed out of
her space. “It’s not cool.”
“You’re such a headcase,” Joe says. “Are you going to be cool with him? Do you
want to—?”
Pete shakes his head. His mind is racing. Patrick’s smart enough to play along
with any story Pete tells. He’ll go with it if Joe says something to him.
“All I want is an apology, dude,” he says, forcing a laugh. He shoves Joe’s
head back with the heel of his palm. “Seriously. That’s it.”
When they get back into the basement, Andy’s talking to Patrick. Patrick isn’t
looking at him, isn’t saying anything at all. Fuck. Pete watches, breath held,
as Joe goes up to them and bumps Patrick’s shoulder with his own. He throws a
look over his shoulder at Pete before whispering to him. Patrick looks amused
as he picks his way across the basement. He holds his hand out.
“I’m sorry I hit on your ex-girlfriend. It won’t happen again,” he says. voice
heavy with sarcasm.
Pete is hyper-aware of the others watching him. He tries to think about what
he’d do if it were Joe, if it were anyone else at all. He knocks Patrick’s hand
away and pulls him into a loose, one-armed hug. He thumps Patrick’s back with
his fist and pulls back, jerky.
“Next time, I’ll punch your lights out,” he warns. Patrick snorts. It’s
unattractive in every way possible, but it still makes Pete’s grin a little
more real.
For the rest of practice, he makes an effort to get into Patrick’s space, to
throw an arm around his shoulders during breaks. He weathers Andy’s stare and
the anxiety building up in his chest. If ignoring Patrick isn’t going to work,
isn’t going to throw them off, Pete will be his best fucking friend instead.
When June hits, Pete bursts into Patrick’s basement, arms loaded down with
enough doughnuts to choke a cop. He barges up to Joe and dumps the whole lot
onto his lap before throwing himself at Patrick.
“We,” he announces, arm draped casually over Patrick’s shoulders, “are going on
tour.”
“No way,” Joe says from the couch. He’s got half a jelly filled in his mouth,
and red jam leaks down his chin as he speaks.
“Way, you filthy animal.” Pete drags Patrick to the couch in a headlock,
snagging a custard doughnut and shoving it into the kid’s mouth. It squishes in
his fingers, chocolate and custard smearing across Patrick’s face. “Eat up,
Stump, so your mom thinks I’m taking care of you.”
“I—How did you even swing that?” Joe asks. He takes pity on Patrick and pries
Pete’s arm away from his throat, yanking him down onto the couch next to him.
Patrick wipes at his face with his hoodie sleeve, cream smearing across the
fabric.
“It pains me to announce that Arma Angelus is no more,” Pete says. He’d gotten
the email—an email, after four years he deserved more than that—two nights ago.
Since then he’d been in overdrive, transferring their plans into something
useful to Fall Out Boy. “But, after some creative letters to the bars we were
supposed to play were delivered, I got half the tour in our name.”
“Dude.”
Patrick’s fingers are in his mouth, tongue sweeping across them to lick the
powdered sugar off. There’s a smear of custard near his hairline that Pete
doesn’t plan on telling him about. His eyes are wide, impressed. He hasn’t been
around long enough to field out Pete’s crazy.
“I know, I know,” Pete says brightly. “I’m a god.”
“And so humble,” Joe deadpans. He’s hoarding the jellies. Pete kicks him and
liberates one from the stash. Ungrateful little shit.
“Does Andy know?” Patrick asks.
He’s got his music face on, the one Pete sees when they’re writing, and it’s
kind of—it makes Pete think about the slide of slick skin under sheets and the
present rush of heat in his belly. They’re going to have new material before
the night’s through.
“When are we supposed to go?” Joe asks.
“Start of July,” Pete answers around a mouthful of doughnut. Joe squishes his
nose up at the mess on Pete’s tongue. “Five states, and your precious little
heads will be back just in time for school.” Joe flips him off, but Patrick’s
looking like he’s stuck between excited and hurling. “Possibly, you should
figure out how to tell your moms.”
Later, after discussing all the ways to convince Joe’s mother to let him go,
Mrs. Stumph asks them to stay for dinner and Pete agrees even though his
stomach roils at the thought of more food. His fingers are sticky with glaze,
mouth almost sickly sweet inside. Beside him Joe turns green. The doughnut box
has somehow managed to empty itself into their stomachs between their excited
chatter.
“Patricia,” Pete calls as they climb the stairs. His stomach feels like lead.
He finds her in the kitchen wearing an apron and pot holder gloves. It’s weird
in the way that Pete’s only seen in television. He tries to picture his own
mother like this but blanks out. “My favorite mother surrogate.”
“Pete,” Patricia says, amused, hands on her hips.
Patrick says she likes him but Pete’s always been weird about parents. In the
back of his mind he’s always wondering if she knows what he does to her baby
boy when she’s not home. He wonders if she’d send him to jail.
“Dinner smells fantastic,” he says and throws an arm around her small waist.
She laughs, charmed. “How about you keep me and send Patrick home to Momma
Wentz?”
“How about you sit down," Patricia replies, "and I won’t make you clean.” She
shoos him away, swiping at his head with one of the gloves. Pete settles in at
the table next to Joe and tries to write a quick script in his head to convince
her to let Patrick head out for two months.
Dinner actually is great. It’s lasagna, made from scratch. He can taste the
hours spent on it with each forkful that he shovels into his mouth. Pete’s mom
hasn’t made anything that doesn’t go into a microwave in months, too busy
keeping up with Hillary and Andrew to do much else. Pete’s so engrossed in his
meal that he forgets his mission until Joe steps on his foot.
“So, Patricia,” Pete starts around a mouthful of garlic bread. “How do you feel
about me? I mean, really feel about me?”
Patricia raises a delicate eyebrow skeptically. She looks so much like Patrick
that it’s frightening. Pete wipes his mouth with the napkin spread out over his
lap and leans in, elbows resting on the hardwood table. He’s been dealing with
moms for years. “There’s the chance for us to go on a tour.”
“Pete...”
“It’s after school lets out, and Patrick will be back before it starts.” Pete
puts on his best parent face and leans in closer. “I’ve been on tours before.
We’re not going far, and Patrick can call every night before or after the
shows. I won’t leave his side, if you want.” He smiles at Patrick, bares his
teeth. It feels more sharp than it probably should be. “I’ll make sure he goes
to sleep at a decent hour and everything.”
Patricia chews slowly, looking from Pete to Patrick. She looks doubtful, but
she eventually tightens her lips and says, “I swear, Pete, if anything happens
to him...”
“I’ll take care of him,” Pete cuts in. He throws a grin at Patrick, and Patrick
goes pink to his hairline. “Promise.”
---
Pete talks Chris into letting them use the van. It takes a lot of goading and
way more beer, but at the end of the night, they're both wasted and Pete's got
the keys to Arma's baby in his back pocket.
It's six o'clock in the morning when he goes to round Joe up, knocking as
obnoxiously as possible on his window from the outside. He sees Joe shoot up in
bed and laughs when the idiot tumbles onto the ground. From inside, Joe flips
him off and collapses down onto the floor.
Damn kids, Pete thinks. Always sleeping in.
He pounds on the window until Joe lets him in, crawling through easily. His
arms ache from hanging onto the side of the house, deep down into his muscles
every time he moves. He jangles the keys in front of Joe's face gleefully.
"Do you know what these are?" He asks. Joe groans and tries to take them from
him. He's still sleep slow, fingers ghosting past the keychain when Pete pulls
it away from him. "Nuh uh. Take a guess."
"It's six in the morning. I don't fucking care what they are." Joe's hair is
standing on end, dirty. A solid inch of brown roots are showing through.
"These are our way out of Illinois," Pete says anyway. He flicks Joe's
forehead. "Now put some fucking pants on, man. We're burning daylight."
"I hope fire ants eat you," Joe grumbles, tripping his way to his closet.
There's a scrawl of something over the small of his back. Sharpie, smeared into
his skin from sweating. Pete knows the handwriting.
"You and Patrick are pretty close," Pete says, biting the inside of his cheek
when Joe looks over his shoulder. He's frowning.
"We have a lot in common," Joe says. His shorts barely hit below his knees. He
looks like a massive fucking dork. "He helps me with French and I help his with
geography."
"We called it studying when I was in high school, too," Pete says. The words
disappear when Joe yanks a shirt over his head.
"Dude, what the fuck are you talking about?" Joe jerks open the door to his
room and shuffles out. Pete follows him, all the way out to the car.
"Nothing," Pete says tightly as he slides into the driver's seat.
The drive to Patrick's place is silent. Pete feels tense all over, annoyed. He
doesn't know why he's getting so worked up over it. It's not like he's jealous
or whatever. It's stupid to get mad about, but the part of him that's itching
for a fight isn't listening to reason.
Patrick is already awake, the little freak. Pete can see his light on from the
street, the shadow of him moving behind the curtain. He doesn't bother getting
out of the car, just blares the horn until someone across the street yells at
him to shut up. Patrick's head peeks out of the window, shoulders just wide
enough to brace him against the frame. Pete waves and presses a tight smile to
the window.
Seriously. Burning daylight. Andy is probably already at the van.
"This couldn't have waited until the afternoon?" Patrick asks as he slides into
the back seat. He's wearing an Arma shirt. Pete tries not to laugh.
"There's no time like the present," Pete says, forcing cheer into his voice.
This is a happy occasion. He's not going to let anything ruin it.
As predicted, Andy's waiting at the storage garage, leaning against the siding.
He's eating a bagel, picking idly at the seeds in it. He waves when Joe does,
yawning into his shoulder. Pete's betting on a Halo tournament that went late.
"Gentlemen," Pete says as he's stepping out of the car, "I am about to present
to you the vehicle that has been a part of my family for years."
Pete fiddles with the keys until he finds the one for the storage unit, holding
it up triumphantly. Joe and Patrick crowd behind him curiously as he undoes the
padlock, heads thumping against Pete's back when he leans over to open the
door. Next to them, Andy finishes his bagel quietly. At least half of the band
is excited, Pete thinks as he yanks the door up.
"Well?" He asks, fists on his hips. The old beast takes up the whole unit, her
tired, sagging bumper almost too far out. Pete's missed her. "What do you
think?"
"This is the van?" Joe asks, his disappointment abundantly clear.
"Don't knock it." Pete pats the bumper affectionately, the grime sticking to
his fingers almost immediately.
And, okay, maybe the beast isn't in as good of shape as it used to be, but it
still runs solid. It's a giant old white number, the paint chipping on the tire
wells and the doors. It roars kind of unpleasantly when Andy starts it,
spitting out thick tufts of black smoke as he backs out of the garage, but it
motors on out into the driveway smoothly. In the sunlight, the dents in the
sides are more pronounced.
“This thing got Arma through most of our tours,” Pete boasts. Like proof, the
inside still smells like Chris’s socks. “Air it out, fill it up, and it’ll be
good as gold.”
“Do you even have insurance on this thing?” Patrick asks.
He prods at a tire with the toe of his sneaker. And, no, he doesn’t, but as
long as everyone keeps the speeding down and avoids telephone poles, they
should be fine. Pete waves him off and climbs into the middle row through the
side door.
“Andy, you’re the voice of reason,” he says, voice muffled through the sleeve
of his hoodie. It smells like- oh, there it is. He chucks the rotting,
abandoned sandwich out the window, ignoring Joe’s shouts from outside. “Yea or
nay to the van?”
“Febreeze the shit out of it, get it an oil change, and we should be good.”
Andy cuts the engine and pockets the keys. He’s been on more shitty tours than
even Pete has, traveled in worse vehicles. He really is the voice of reason,
though, more mature than any of the rest of them can ever hope to be. If he
says they’re good to go, they are..
“We’re going on tour,” Patrick says quietly, his voice floating in through the
window.
When Pete pokes his head out to see him, he catches the disbelieving look
Patrick’s sharing with Joe. They’ve only got a week of school left, and then
it’s time to hit the road. Pete knows Patrick’s already packed, his duffel bag
shoved under his bed like a stash of porn. He’d been there when Patrick had
loaded it up, relaxed against Patrick’s mattress as Patrick fretted around the
room, taking stock of his things. There’s a lot of junk in the bag, probably
not enough underwear or entertainment, but Pete’s going to let him learn how to
do it on his own. Patrick’s too damn hard-headed to listen to his advice
anyway.
“We’re going to be babysitting for a month,” Andy says under his breath to
Pete. He’s watching Patrick and Joe too, his eyes tracking them as Joe tackles
Patrick to the ground, fist pressing into Patrick’s scalp for a noogie.
“You love it, man,” Pete whispers back.
Andy shrugs and ducks out, shouting over the noise about ordering lunch. Pete
pats the shitty vinyl seats and feels the excitement bubbling up in his chest
as he remembers the feel of the road moving under him. He’s ready.
---
Being on the road is familiar. Pete watches the cars fly by, blurs across the
highway in red and black and silver. The van is big on the outside, but with
the equipment crammed into the back and part of the middle row of seats,
there's little room for them. Pete's pressed against the door, handle digging
into his bare side and window down to let the summer air in, the heat from the
four of them stifling. On his other side, Patrick's jostling his leg, too hot
where they're touching to be comfortable. His arm is slick with sweat and it
slides against Pete's hip every time he moves. The sky outside is black. Pete
wishes for stars.
He remembers being ten, jammed into the back seat of his parents' car with six-
year-old Hillary and the car seat with baby Andrew, unable to sit still long
enough to see anything but flashes of the front seat and flashes of dark in
turn. Andrew used to cry in the car and Hillary used to sing loud enough to
make all of them wince. They'd drive for hours with the radio on and the
windows down, the city turning into trees and the sky going from powder blue to
black to star studded.
The driving drove him crazy, but when he stumbled out of the car early in the
morning, the campgrounds took his breath away.
Joe's snoring from the passenger seat, the sound of it low under the hum of
Andy's demo tape. He's drumming his thumbs against the steering wheel in time,
head bobbing. The sound of it is comforting. Familiar after a few days jammed
in together. If Pete closes his eyes, he can almost pretend he's that kid
again, waiting for the campgrounds.
He's wound up tight, jerking every time the van hits a pothole. Next to him,
Patrick's still shaking his leg, his knee knocking into Pete's. For a while
he'd been reading, still and silent and unobtrusive. Then the car sickness had
caught up to him, his face going pale under his knit cap, and Pete had
confiscated his book. Since then, it's been up and down, up and down, up and
fucking down that's getting right up under Pete's skin.
Pete clamps a hand over Patrick's knee and the bouncing stops almost
immediately. He sinks his nails into the damp denim of Patrick's jeans, the
scritch too soft to hear, and Patrick sits up. His eyes flicker to the rear
view mirror. There's a faint blush crawling across his cheeks. Sometimes, Pete
forgets he's so young. Forgets what being sixteen is really like.
If he’s lucky, Andy might be able to see the tops of their heads over the amps.
Maybe. Pete taps a thumb against the outside of Patrick’s thigh and considers.
He stares out the window, car, car tree passing by, headlights and mile markers
like streamers off a black ribbon. He slides his hand up, up, up, into the
tender junction between Patrick’s thighs and rests it there.
Patrick holds his breath. Pete can feel the tension of his chest, and it freaks
him out. He rocks his palm down, zipper catching against the dry skin of the
heel. Patrick gets hard under his hand. Car, car, tree, tree. Pete swallows,
tries to tell himself that the jerk of his own dick is Pavlovian. Patrick
getting a boner means Patrick getting him off. The fact that Pete’s never
touched him like this, never touched him on purpose, settles like lead in his
stomach.
Patrick is very still. He lets out a shaky breath as Pete reaches for the clasp
of his belt, undoing it with sloppy, unsteady fingers. It’s hard because he’s
not looking, because all he’s seeing is car, tree, car, car, but if he looks
he’ll stop. He’ll pull away and laugh and break something as soon as the van
stops. The button is easier, the zipper sliding open without prompting,
Patrick’s baby fat gut knocking it down.
Pete never really dated fat chicks. He knows what he looks like—lean and dark
and fit from hours of playing soccer in the sun, short but broad enough to make
up for it. There's never been a time that he's had to scrape the bottom of the
barrel. He feels the softness of Patrick's stomach against the backs of his
knuckles as he slides his hands into the loose waist of his boxers.He waits for
the revulsion to hit him, but he's still turned on, still ready to go. The demo
tape clicks over to the other side. Andy keeps driving.
Pete feels the heat of Patrick’s dick just above his hand, the coarse curls at
the base of it familiar enough. Pete watches the road and wraps his fingers
around Patrick’s cock determinedly. He’s not—jerking another dude off isn’t
totally gay. It’s not. Guys do it all the time when girls aren’t around.
Patrick is hot and heavy against his palm, thick and nothing like Pete was
expecting. He strokes him off slowly, tries to get used to the weird angle and
the silk of his skin and the weight of a dick that’s not his.
“A little reciprocation, Stump,” Pete hisses.
Patrick jerks, hips lifting up off the seat. So, so young. He scrambles to get
his hand on Pete’s cock—desperate kid, always so fucking desperate for Pete’s
dick—and Pete stills long enough for Patrick to undo his fly. He feels Patrick
jump in his hand and then there’s the warm, familiar heat of Patrick’s fingers
wrapping tight around the base of Pete’s dick, squeezing the way he knows Pete
likes.
Pete shuts his eyes and matches his tempo to Patrick’s, their arms bumping on
the downstrokes. He can feel the slickness of precome leaking down the side of
Patrick’s cock, making Pete’s sweat-damp palm wet. The heat is sweltering, even
the wind coming in doing nothing to ease it. Patrick leans in and mouths at
Pete’s throat messily. He licks away the sweat that’s gathering at Pete’s
collarbones, his tongue like a brand. Pete arches into it, biting down on his
lip. He thumbs the head of Patrick’s dick, feels the dampness there. He can
almost pretend it’s like getting himself off.
The van curves around an off ramp, throwing Patrick into him. Pete hears Joe
grumbling awake up front, and he whips his hand out of Patrick’s pants like
he’s been scalded, heart hammering in his throat. Patrick whines low in his
throat but his hand doesn’t stop. If they were alone, he’d probably be blowing
Pete by now, sucking him off like it’s all he knows how to do. If they were
alone—
Pete shoves his fist into his mouth and bites down on his knuckles as Patrick
speeds his hand. He’s close, so close. All it takes it Patrick’s mouth against
the soft spot under his ear to get him off, shooting messy and wet into his
boxers.
He’s still breathing heavy when he feels Patrick’s arm moving again. It takes
him a second to connect the dots, his fuzzy brain stuck somewhere in his lower
belly. Patrick sighs, his breath hot and damp against Pete’s throat, finishing
himself off. He doesn’t make a sound as he comes, but Pete knows when it
happens, sees the familiar signs across Patrick’s face. He looks away, doing up
his jeans as they pull into a gas station.
Patrick doesn’t bring it up. They get their chips and sodas and fill up the
van, and Joe takes his turn at the wheel as they get back in. Patrick doesn’t
say a goddamn word, and Pete feels the relief like it’s a weight.
When they get to the venue, Pete pushes Patrick out of the van and tackles him,
knocks him flat to the pavement. He hears Patrick’s shoulders hit with a heavy
thud. The part of him that’s been locked up inside a box for the past ten hours
feels giddy with the viciousness of it. His boxers stick to his skin and
Patrick’s hairline is still damp with sweat. Pete grinds Patrick’s shoulder
blades into the ground until Patrick shouts.
He rubs his knuckles into Patrick’s scalp through his fucked up hair, laughing
into the summer heat as Patrick flails under him. His legs jerk, all the
evidence of what they’d done dried away when Pete bothers to look, hidden under
the denim of his pants.
“Dude,” Joe says, prodding Pete with the dirty toe of his sneaker. “We need
him.”
“We need your mom,” Pete supplies.
He digs his knuckles in again before climbing up and off, leaving Patrick
sprawled across the parking lot like a chalk outline. He’s so full of energy he
could pop.
Pete meets with the manager and settles their deal—less than what they really
can afford, more than what he was honestly expecting, plus and all the free
beer they can legally drink. By the time he’s helped himself to a few cups of
the best beer on draft, their equipment is almost entirely set up on the stage.
“Thanks for the help,” Andy says thinly, his eyes narrowed. He’s sweating,
thick stains under his arms. Pete shrugs and takes another drink of his beer.
They never do well at twenty-one plus shows. Too many jaded assholes, not
enough people into what Patrick’s trying to sell them. If they’re lucky, they
won’t get booed off the stage tonight. If they’re really lucky, they might even
get a few pity claps.
Patrick’s gone, probably warming up, and Pete finds himself poking around at
the bar in his absence, jittery. He’s been gluing himself to Patrick’s side,
hanging on him like a bad coat. Joe thinks it’s problem solved, Pete up to his
old tricks. Andy watches them, though, keeps track like he’s Patrick’s older
brother or something. It’s getting old fast. Pete sucks at his beer and bangs
his head on the bar. Jesus, he’s going nuts.
When the lights shut down and the doors open to the public, Pete abandons his
beer and climbs onto the stage, side doors be damned.
The crowd is shit. Veteran bar patrons and college girls, a few frat boys
tucked up in the corner heckling them. Pete presses his mouth to his mic and
introduces them, the static crack of it making his voice sound broken. Patrick
is pale next to him, eyes locked on the floor lights as Andy counts them in for
their first song.
Someone throws a bottle halfway through the set. It misses Joe’s head by a
fraction of an inch, exploding into a sticky mess against the back wall. Pete
grips the neck of his bass like it’s the guy’s throat and bites his tongue, a
copper burst of blood in his mouth. Patrick sounds so damn young singing.
Pete’s stomach roils as he scans the crowd’s faces.
There's a girl by the bar, young enough to be into them, her hair dyed black
and green and falling into her face. She looks a little like Jeanae, pixie
sharp features and tiny tits and short skirt. She's watching Pete watch her,
and Pete grins. He could use a nice girl's touch to take his mind off all of
the shit.
He misses girls—the softness of them, the baby powder gentle smells that linger
behind their ears and the soft spots behind their knees. Before the whole thing
with Patrick—Before, he'd been in and out of beds, collecting names and leaving
behind marks of his presence. He's chalking up his failure with Jeanae as
stress, remembers all the girls who'd said his name like a prayer and tells
himself that they couldn't have all been flukes. That he couldn't have been
wrong all this time.
Joe almost falls off the stage, a spill of beer at the edge nearly making him
topple to the ground. Some asshole in the front laughs, but before Pete can hop
down and knock him out, Patrick's stepping onto the dick's fingers. He grinds
his sneaker down into them where they rest on the stage, singing like he has no
idea what he's doing.
They have two songs left. The girl at the bar is totally into them—or into
Pete, he can't really tell—and Pete can see the cotton candy pink of her
panties between her spread thighs. And damn, that's awesome. He winks at her
and can see her laugh in the dimness. Same script, same results. It's almost
too easy.
When they play their last song, when Patrick belts out the last chorus, Pete
kicks over his mic stand, the crash of it echoing in the speakers. They leave
the stage with the sound of feedback still ringing against the walls, gear
still set up like there's anything left to play. A shitty end to a shitty show.
There's some time to kill before they have to ship out. He heads straight to
the bar, eyes on the prize. The others had talked about getting dinner, but
Pete's pretty sure he can deal with this girl. He's pretty sure that if he
takes her to the bathroom, or out into the alley, he'll be able to fuck her. He
hasn't tried since the—since he started whatever with Patrick, but he's feeling
it tonight. He can do it.
The girl offers him a beer before Pete even gets there, holding it up to him
with a smirk. Pete wraps his hand around hers, grins back and takes his first
drink. It tastes like paint but goes down warm. Pete feels it all the way down
to the pit of his belly. He leans in and puts his mouth against the soft spot
before her ear, pretending to talk over the loud house music that’s taken up
the speakers.
“I’m Pete,” he says. When he breathes in, he can smell the chemical stiffness
of her hairspray and nothing else.
She skids her cherry red lips over the shell of Pete’s ear and says, “Megan.”
Megan pulls back and downs the rest of her drink. Her lipstick leaves a smear
of color at the edge of her glass, raw and red, and she doesn’t bother talking.
She just takes Pete’s hand and rests it on the smooth, soft skin of her thigh,
right under the silky hem of her skirt. Pete’s dick twitches in his pants. He’s
not hard, but he’s pretty fucking sure he can there. He’s standing between her
knees, fingers skating over her skin in figure eights. He wonders if she’d let
him finger her here, right out in the open, hidden only by the bulk of his own
body and the darkness of the bar.
He slides his hand up, the heat between her legs like the sweltering heat
outside. His knuckles brush against the wet cotton of her panties, her tits
bouncing as she takes a sharp breath. She’s
going to let him. He rubs his thumb across her, her thighs closing tight around
his hips, pressing his belt into his sides. Just as he’s going to slide her
underwear to the side, he feels the brunt impact of a fist against his jaw.
It’s the frat asshole from earlier, the one that threw the bottle at Joe. Megan
scowls, and from behind him Pete hears girlfriend and fucking faggot. His
vision goes red.
He throws the first punch, pain exploding across his knuckles as they hit the
bones of the guy’s face. He’s been spoiling for a fight for months, and this
asshole’s totally going to take the brunt of it. Pete punches him again, the
crunch sound of his nose loud even over the music. Megan screams. Pete keeps
swinging.
A fist lodges itself into his kidney, knocks his breath out in a burning rush.
Another gets him in the mouth, blood sinking inside to choke him, lip splitting
around his teeth. A third catches him across the jaw. There’s at least six
hands, and that’s bullshit. That’s fucking bullshit. He kicks and throws elbows
and headbutts someone, his vision going white-black-white for a moment when he
reels back.
The adrenaline inside him pulses like a heartbeat, the tiredness that’s been
eating away at him dropping off into rage. He’s going to kill these
motherfuckers or die trying.
Someone presses full body against his back and Pete snarls—an animal, not
himself, not right now. Pete’s about to take him down when he sees Patrick’s
stupid hair out of the corner of his eye. Fucking great. Just what he fucking
needs.
Still, having an extra pair of hands is nice and Patrick doesn’t stray too far
from his back, keeping off the stray blows. Pete jams his fist into the closest
guy’s gut once, twice, three times. He locks his arm around the dude’s neck and
squeezes until his buddy gets a solid blow into Pete’s throat.
It’s a mess of pain and screaming and the thunder of blood in his ears, and
Pete’s still thrumming for all of it when security peels the lot of them apart.
Pete gets dumped into the parking lot, Patrick trailing after him, rubbing at
his mouth with the palm of his hand. They security guards give Pete one last
warning glare before going back inside, slamming the doors shut behind them
with an air of finality. The air is still humid. Pete feels sticky with it,
dirty, sweat from the show and sweat from the fight having it out for the most
space on his body.
Patrick’s mouth is busted open. It looks as raw as Pete’s feels, blood coating
his chin and lip. It’s split in the center and on the right side, nasty and
already swollen. He’s got a shiny red spot covering half his cheek that’s
probably going to turn purple black soon.
“I’m not made for this shit,” Patrick says. He spits blood, the wet sound of
hitting the pavement mixing in with the rush of cars on the road. He stands
over Pete, eyes narrowed and asks, “What was that about?”
Patrick didn’t see. He didn’t catch Pete with his hand up Megan’s skirt,
doesn’t know that Pete was- doing whatever. Pete’s got a get out trouble card.
“I was fucking around with his girlfriend,” Pete says anyway.
Patrick’s face falls. He clenches his teeth, hurt. Stupid kid, Pete thinks.
They’re not a thing. Pete told him that. Pete fucking told him that. Pete
doesn’t owe him a goddamn thing.
“Fuck you,” Patrick grits out. He lifts his chin, defiant, and Pete realizes
that he’s trying not to cry. Something pulls at his chest as he watches
Patrick’s Adam’s apple bob. Pete shoves it away angrily.
“Did you think you were, what, my boyfriend?” Pete sneers, shoving himself up.
He’s so fucking tired of this. “I’m not gay. I fucking told you that.”
“You were fucking jerking me off four hours ago—” Patrick shouts. Pete lunges,
slapping his hand over Patrick’s mouth. He looks around the parking lot in a
panic, calculating distances between them and the people loitering at the
front.
“Shut up,” he hisses. “Shut the fuck up.”
“Face it—you get off on fucking me.” Patrick jerks away, stumbling backwards.
Under the lights of the club, his skin looks yellow and sickly. “Why can’t you
just deal with it?”
“I don’t like it,” Pete hisses.
He can see Andy already looking for them by the van. He’s not going to have
this conversation with an audience. He locks his fingers around Patrick’s wrist
and yanks him down the block, tightening his grip as Patrick struggles against
him. When they pass an empty alley, Pete shoves Patrick into it, backing him up
against the wall. He fists the damp front of Patrick’s shirt and shakes him.
His knuckles ache in time to the beat of his heart.
“You know what you are?” He asks, and it feels vicious before he’s even gotten
it out. He likes this kid, he does, he does, he fucking does, but goddamn it.
Why couldn’t Patrick just leave it the fuck alone? “You’re a warm body. You’re
an easy lay that’s always around. That’s what you fucking are to me.”
Patrick mouth twitches at the sides, crusted with dried blood. Pete can feel
the way his breaths are coming in short. If Patrick cries he’ll—he doesn’t
know. He doesn’t know, and that pisses him off more than he can say. He feels
so tired again, an ache settling in his chest as he watches Patrick pull
himself together.
“Bullshit,” Patrick spits. He presses against Pete’s hand, his heartbeat
pumping rapidfire against Pete’s knuckles. “That’s fucking bullshit, and you
know it. What are you so afraid of?”
“I’m not afraid,” Pete shouts. It bounces off the walls, echoing back at him.
It sounds like he’s scared shitless.
“Why can’t you just admit that you like this and that you like me?” Patrick
grabs at Pete’s hair, fingers pulling it tight.
It stings, sharp and uncomfortable, and Pete tightens his own fist in Patrick’s
shirt in retribution. He feels like running, like hightailing it out to
somewhere that no one knows him, where he can be away from himself and his head
and Patrick. Patrick who’s been crawling under his skin since day one. Patrick
who won’t let go. Patrick who he—who he—
“You like me,” Patrick says, softer. He leans in slow. Pete’s frozen in place,
stuck like he’s been pinned down. Patrick tastes like pennies when he kisses
him, mouth painful as it presses the broken insides of Pete’s lip against his
teeth.
And Pete—Pete doesn’t stop him. Doesn’t pull away, doesn’t shove him off. He
kisses him back until it hurts, inside outside, all of him beaten raw with it.
Patrick holds on to him like an anchor.
They stagger off to the van, Pete leaning against Patrick's shoulder, Patrick
prodding at his sore cheek. Pete feels like he's gone through a war. All he
wants is to curl up and sleep. Joe sees them first, his eyes going huge as he
drops his bag and runs toward them.
"Jesus Christ, what happened to you guys?" He asks as he takes on some of
Pete's weight. Pete bristles a little, leaning in closer to Patrick. He's not
in the mood to be touched.
"Pete hit on some dude's girlfriend," Patrick says. Pete can feel the stiffness
in his shoulders at the words. Joe rolls his eyes.
"Of course," he mutters. "Good news is that we made enough cash to get a room."
"Was that before or after I got my ass kicked?" Pete asks. He dabs at his lip
and is unsurprised to see blood on his fingers. If it’s his or Patrick’s, he
doesn’t know.
"Probably before," Andy says flatly from the front. He looks entirely
unimpressed. Pete winces.
"Well, shit," he says.
"Yeah, well." Joe slides the back door shut before climbing into the
passenger's seat. "At least we got the bonus before you fucked it up."
Pete rests his cheek on the window and watches the road as Andy drives. He's
itching to take a shower. He feels unclean.
Andy checks them in—Joe and Patrick aren’t old enough, and Pete looks like he's
been run through a lawnmower—and when he comes back he takes Patrick's bag away
from him. No one offers to help Pete.
Patrick slips into the bathroom before anyone else gets the chance to. There's
a mud trail on the carpet from where his jeans had dragged the ground, thin but
clear. Andy throws Patrick's bag onto the far bed and Joe climbs in next to it.
That's averted at least, Pete thinks. He kicks off his shoes and shucks off his
bloody shirt.
"You shouldn't have let him get into a fight," Andy says, voice low. Across the
room, Joe's already got his head buried into a pillow, earbuds dark against the
sheet. He'll be asleep before Patrick's out of the shower.
"I'm sorry," Pete sneers, fingers curling into a fist. "I should have just told
the three guys trying to kick my ass that the kid was off limits."
"You shouldn't have gotten into a fight in the first place!" Andy tugs at his
hair, jaw tight. He knows Pete's weak spots in the way that only an old friend
can. Pete's shoulders go tense as he waits for it. "You want this thing to be
different from Arma? Then you get your shit together and act like a fucking
grown up."
The door to the bathroom creaks open and Patrick shuffles out, head down. He's
still in his dirty t-shirt and boxers, hair leaving dark spots on the floor
around him. There's a cut on his shin that's still bleeding. Whoever has to
clean up after them is going to be sorry.
Pete ducks into the bathroom, shutting the door behind him. He takes a moment
just to enjoy being alone. It’s a novelty to him to crave silence.
When he looks into the mirror, he grimaces. He's got a shiner already started
and his chest is mottled with black and blue patches, circling around his back
to where he can't see. There's blood smeared across his mouth and down his
chin, and it looks like it could be from wiping at it, but he knows it's from
Patrick's mouth pressed against his.
He grabs a washcloth and shoves his pants off, stepping into the tub. He turns
the water on too hot and stands under it, his skin feeling like it's too small
for his body, stretched too tight. He scrubs at his arms and his chest until
he's red, all the dirt and the smell of sweat gone.
The water at his feet is pink, swirling down into the drain. He wonders where
else he's bleeding from as he rubs at his mouth, clearing it all away. When his
fingers have gone wrinkled, Pete shuts the shower head off and reaches for a
towel. He doesn't look at himself as he pulls his boxers back on. He leaves his
jeans abandoned on the floor. He can already smell them.
Andy is reading, back propped against the wall. He dog ears his page and moves
past Pete without a word, the bathroom door closing quietly behind him. Pete
wipes a hand over his eyes. He's ready to go to sleep.
"I'm sorry," Patrick says. His face is pressed to Joe's back, the two of them
too big to really be in the same twin bed. His hand flits over the cover,
hovering over Joe's hip before landing. Pete's nails sink into his palms.
"Shut the fuck up," Pete snaps.
He clicks off the lamp and shoves himself up against the wall. He can hear
every creak of the beds, feel it every time Patrick or Joe move. When Andy lays
next to him, Pete tenses up. He doesn't sleep. It's something he's used to.
---
They spend the next day speeding towards a festival in Minnesota. Pete spends
most of the dive in the passenger side seat, legs jostling up and down. Andy
punches him twice, knuckles sinking into one of Pete’s bruises. It does nothing
to drain out the anxious energy eating Pete from the inside out.
“I’m going to strap you to the fucking roof,” Andy threatens, teeth grit. He
takes the next corner sharp enough to throw Pete into the door. Shouts drift up
from the back, cutting through the tape in the stereo.
“Just because Pete’s being a dick doesn’t mean we need to be punished too,” Joe
says, head poking through the gap between the front seats. Pete shoves him
away.
“Are we there yet?” Patrick yells, kicking at the back of Pete’s seat. Pete
digs his nails into his palm and breathes through his nose. It’s the first
thing Patrick’s said all day.
“I swear to god, I’ll stick you up there with him,” Andy yells back. His
knuckles are white around the steering wheel. Pete hasn’t seen him truly pissed
off since back during Arma days. He doesn’t really want a repeat performance.
Pete spends the rest of the ride in silence, straining to hear the quiet
conversation going on behind him. Joe’s doing most of the talking, the even
lull of his voice too quiet to make out over the music. Pete clenches his
fists. He wants to know what they’re saying, what Patrick’s letting him know.
When they pull into performer parking, Andy kicks them all out and heads for
the venue without them to check in. Pete feels like he’s a scolded kid,
scuffing at the pavement as Joe and Patrick file out from the back. Patrick
doesn’t look at him. Pete tries not to let it get to him.
They drag their equipment to the techs and stand by uselessly as it’s taken
away from them. Pete played this festival two years ago with Arma, but the
layout changed and it makes him feel disoriented.
“You,” Andy says as he hands Pete his performer’s badge, “are going to stay
right fucking here until we perform. And then you’re going to go right back to
the van when we’re done.” He turns to Patrick, clipping his badge onto a belt
loop of his jeans. Patrick stays still and lets him. “And you are going to
check us in at the hotel after the show. Neither one of you are going to leave
the hotel room once you’re in it. And if either one of you gets into trouble, I
am taking the van back to Illinois, with or without you in it. Got it?”
Pete nods, shrinking into himself. Out of the corner of his eye, he can see
Patrick doing the same thing. Pete plunks down onto the pavement and waits.
Andy doesn’t fuck around.
When they finally play, Pete sticks to his corner of the stage and lets Patrick
do all the talking. He feels like his world is crumbling all around him, and
there’s nothing he can do about it. Not a goddamn thing.
The crowd cheers along to them, a few faces in the front familiar. A surprising
number of them are singing along, mouths working in time to the feed of
Patrick’s voice in his ear. Pete wants this to feel like a victory, wants to
feel the rush under his skin that means he’s coming up in the game.
All he can feel is the setting sun in his eyes and the slide of sweat down his
back, his bruises screaming. He slams himself into the speakers, throws himself
to the ground and plays. It sounds terrible, wrong, but Pete doesn’t really
care. Not now. Not when the crowd just yells louder.
After, Pete slinks to the van like he was told to. He needs his meds, the crazy
inside him crawling to the surface. All his little orange bottles, they’re
stored away at home, waiting for him states away. Pete threads his fingers
through his hair and closes his eyes. He feels like he’s going to explode into
tiny pieces.
The driver side door jerks open beside him. Pete pulls himself together as best
he can and forces a smile at Andy. If it looks as fake as it feels, Andy says
nothing. They drive the six blocks to the hotel in silence. This doesn’t feel
fun anymore.
Patrick and Joe are standing in front of the hotel, shoving one another.
Patrick’s laughing reluctantly, face turned up to the streetlights. Even from
the van, Pete can see the nasty cut below his jaw.
“Take care of him,” Andy says lowly, handing Pete a keycard. The room number is
scribbled on the back in marker, thick and bleeding into the plastic.
“Yeah. Sure.” Pete climbs out of the van and reaches for his overnight bag.
Andy leans over the seat and grabs his wrist, holding him in place.
“I’m serious, Pete,” he says. He knows something, always does, and Pete hates
him a little for it. Pete shakes out of his hold, tightening his fist around
the strap of his bag.
“Whatever. See you in the morning.” He heads for Joe and Patrick and throws an
arm over Patrick’s shoulders. It upsets something against his ribs, makes him
hiss. He hasn’t been this fucked up in years. He doesn’t think about it when
Patrick shrugs him off. “Looks like we’re bunk buddies.”
Patrick leads the way to the room, head down. He doesn’t answer when Pete says
his name, doesn’t even look up. Pete’s stomach turns as he fits the keycard
into the lock.
The room is small, double beds and a dresser taking up most of the floor space.
Pete drops his bag and shucks his shirt off, already reaching for his belt.
He’s going to take advantage of the shower while he can. Out of the corner of
his eye, he can see Patrick trying not to watch.
Pete grabs a clean pair of boxers and locks himself in the bathroom. His chest
feels tight, lungs working too hard to breathe in. He scrubs the sweat off of
him, skin aching at the heat of the water. Something’s got to break soon and
he’s terrified that it’s going to be him.
When he steps out of the bathroom, Patrick’s sitting at the end of one of the
beds still fully dressed, staring down at his hands. The TV is on playing Adult
Swim and making shadows across Patrick’s face as it flickers, the only light on
at all. He doesn’t speak as he pulls off his jacket, doesn’t look up as he
pushes his jeans down and tugs his t-shirt off carefully.
He’s just as bruised as Pete, but the marks look darker on him, more violent.
He really wasn’t made for bar room fights, too small and too soft and too
something. Too much. Not enough. He disappears into the bathroom, the water
starting up again. The sound of it means bath instead of shower. Pete wonders
just how deep those bruises run.
It’s a long time before Pete gets up. He keeps his face pressed to the mattress
and tries to block out the way Patrick had looked at him in the alley. His head
is just so full of shit. The television keeps playing, commercials bleeding
into laugh tracks. When Pete looks up, an hour’s passed. He hasn’t heard
anything from the bathroom for a long time. It worries him in the way that a
lot of things should but don’t. He doesn’t knock so much as open the door and
invite himself in.
Patrick’s laid out in the tub, head against the rim, hair dark and wet against
his face. He’s small enough to fit laid flat, but he’s got one knee propped up,
kneecap pink and scratched where it shows over the water. He looks tired.
Drawn. His mouth is still swollen, the side of his face like a train wreck. He
opens his eyes and Pete almost feels guilty.
“Hey,” he says. It’s quiet. Soft.
“Hey,” Patrick says back.
Pete can’t really see all of him, not under the water, but he still sees the
way Patrick folds his arms across his lap and over his stomach, the way he
lifts up just enough to make himself smaller. That’s probably Pete’s fault too,
if he thinks about it. Pete sinks down next to the tub, underwear getting damp
in the spillover, and rests his head next to Patrick’s. He’s such a fuck up.
Always such a fuck up.
“Are we alright?” Pete asks. Patrick laughs, the sound bouncing off the tiles.
“We’ve never been alright,” he says. The water sloshes as he sits up, some of
it falling over the lip of the tub and into Pete’s lap. It’s gone lukewarm, the
smell of the hotel shampoo in it overwhelming. “I don’t know.”
“I’m sorry,” Pete says.
He's surprised to find that he means it. Sorry for starting this, sorry for
dragging Patrick into his problems, sorry for having problems at all. Sorry
that he’s not going to walk away, even if it’s what’s best for both of them.
“Yeah, well.” Patrick slicks his bangs back away from his face, leaning forward
onto his knees. The curve of his back is sweet, a faint pink line from where
the water had ended running from shoulder to shoulder. Pete wants to touch it,
just to know if it feels any different. His hand is starting to raise up when
Patrick says, “I don’t think I can keep doing this.”
Pete’s heart lodges itself in his throat and refuses to beat.
“Patrick...”
“What do you want from me?” Patrick asks.
He turns to face Pete for the first time, waiting. The short sides of his hair
look dark, growing out too long to hang loose over his ears. There’s a scratch
across his jaw, an old scar thin and silvery through his eyebrow. All these
little details adding up into things Pete’s never let himself see. Pete doesn’t
have an answer for him, can’t give him one even though he wants to. He doesn’t
know anymore. Patrick nods and takes a deep breath.
“Right, well. First step: get out of the bathroom so I can get dressed.”
Patrick looks at him expectantly, but Pete doesn’t budge. He can’t.
“Patrick, please.” Pete swallows thickly.
There’s a lump in his throat, blocking his air and making him dizzy. Losing
this is the worst thing that could happen to him. Losing Patrick, the only
thing that’s been consistently good to him.
“I can’t be your warm body.” Patrick tugs the plug out, eyes focused down at
the tap as the water drains. “Jesus, Pete, even I have more self respect than
that.”
“I want you,” Pete admits. It tears out of his throat, the most honest thing
he’s ever said. “I want you.”
Patrick is huddled in on himself, cold and naked and wet in the tub, pale and
small and vulnerable. Fragile in a way Pete shouldn’t care about but does. From
the second he showed up, he’s been turning Pete’s life upside down, and Pete
can’t get rid of him, can’t stop thinking about him. He can’t, he can’t, he
can’t.
Pete climbs in with him. Patrick jumps, the sound of his damp skin smacking
against the porcelain loud like a gunshot. He can’t move fast enough to get
away from Pete’s grasping hands but manages to do a good job of banging up his
knees and elbows in the process, his shin catching against the faucet and
skinning open in a thin line. He’s freezing already, skin like ice under Pete’s
fingers as Pete wraps him up, pulls him in.
The width of his hips spreads Pete’s thighs open wide, pinches his legs against
the sides of the tub. His bare chest is pressed to Patrick’s bare back, skin
sticking to clammy skin. When he’s sure Patrick isn’t going to run, he slides
his hand across Patrick’s chest and feels the soft down of the hair that’s
starting to grow there. The jackhammer beat of Patrick’s heart under his palm
is terrifying.
Patrick’s still, probably as freaked out as Pete is. His fingers clutch at the
lip of the tub, knuckles white. Pete presses his forehead to the back of
Patrick’s neck and breathes him in. They sit like that for a long time,
shivering in the cold tub. Pete doesn’t want to let go, not if this is the last
time he’s going to have a chance to be in this position.
“You don’t get another shot,” Patrick warns. His voice is low. Tired. Pete’s
set to manic, wants to run Patrick through the city screaming just to burn off
the energy. “If this goes south, I’m out.”
“Yeah,” Pete says. “Okay.”
They crawl out of the tub together, too many arms and legs, and Patrick
stumbles to the towel rack to collect his clothes. Pete looks, really looks,
for the first time. He doesn’t know how he feels at all. Patrick sheepishly
dresses, back turned to Pete as he yanks on a pair of boxers and a t-shirt two
sizes too big. Covers himself up like he’s putting on armor.
They climb into one of the beds together, the other abandoned under their bags
and filthy clothes. Pete balls himself up against the broadness of Patrick’s
chest and thinks that this, at least, is an improvement over girls. Patrick
curls around him and sleeps.
Pete spends most of the night memorizing the decal on his shirt and feeling him
breathe. When he falls asleep, he stays asleep.
---
Tour passes in a rush of color and sound. The shows crash into one another in
an endless blur. Pete spends his nights staring at the stars through the
windows, his days dreaming about sleeping until he wakes up famous.
One night, somewhere in Nebraska, Pete catches Joe awkwardly hitting on some
girl in the back of the venue. They have to be out before midnight, but Pete
isn’t going to rush the kid. Joe’s like his little brother. The show’s totally
going to be too good to miss.
“So,” the girl says, leaning in to Joe’s space. “How long have you guys been
playing together?”
“Uh.” Joe wipes his hands on his jeans, nearly shaking. “A little over a year.
We, uh—” He coughs, shifting awkwardly. Pete winces. The poor kid’s going to
give himself an aneurysm. “We’re on our second tour.”
“That’s so cool,” the girl says. Her hand slides across Joe’s wrist. Pete can
see his knees jerk. Oh, he’s so pathetic. “How long have you been playing
guitar?” Her fingers curl around his wrist, slow and sweet.
“Since I was thirteen,” Joe answers. Pete bets he’s leaving out the part about
only being eighteen. “Music is kind of—it’s what I know best.” The girl smiles,
all shiny lip gloss and dark eyes. Joe opens his mouth again, but whatever he
says is drowned out by the manager’s bellowing clear out call.
“Call me,” the girl says, sliding Joe’s phone out of his back pocket. It’s
smoother than anything Pete’s ever done, and he takes a moment to be impressed
by her moves as she punches in her number. He doesn’t even laugh when she pulls
Joe in by the shirt and kisses him stupid.
“Good job,” Pete says when Joe stumbles by him.
“Fuck you,” Joe mumbles back. He’s holding his phone like a precious object,
thumb tracing back and forth over the side. He spends the next few days in a
daze.
Pete’s surprised when he overhears Joe on the phone a week later, talking
quietly to the girl in the back of the van. Maybe it wasn’t as pathetic as he
thought it was.
Things don’t really change. They get better and Pete gets pretty good at
scamming managers into giving them better deals. They keep moving from town to
town, play show after show until the songs are burned into them. Really, the
only difference is Patrick.
Patrick who curls up with him in the back of the van and sings to him for
whatever host of reasons Pete makes up. Patrick who doesn’t bitch when Pete
steals his clothes, who doesn’t shove him away when he needs to shout, when he
needs to scream at anything and anyone to make the itching, burning coldness in
his veins seep out. Patrick, who one night writes i think i love you on the
back of Pete’s hand in Sharpie when Pete’s passed out and doesn’t press when
Pete doesn’t bring it up.
Pete watches him sometimes and wonders. Wonders if things would be different if
Patrick were a chick, if things would be different if Pete was. Wonders
sometimes if it matters at all and immediately shoves it into the back of his
mind.
On the last week of tour, Pete steps up to the mic and says, “And that—that
right there—is Patrick fucking Stump.” The crowd- bigger than they’re used
to—the biggest yet—cheers and Patrick goes pink under the lights, voice
distorted around his smile as he starts to sing.
August is almost over and it feels like time is running out.
---
Joe has a barbecue when they get home. He wears his dad’s apron and wields the
spatula like it’s a weapon, waving it wildly every time someone even so much as
steps towards the grill.
“My house, my grill,” he says when Pete bitches about it. He shoves Pete off
the porch to where most of their friends are hanging out.
There’s a keg in the in middle of the yard—Pete’s donation to the cause—and
Pete’s contemplating sampling when he sees Patrick near it, the high blush over
his cheeks saying that he at least already has. He looks up and catches Pete’s
eye, smiles toothy and wide. Pete’s chest does that thing where it feels too
small and too big all at once.
He wiggles through people and ignores the sound of his name being called,
planting himself at Patrick’s side. There’s beer in his cup, sloshing over the
rim as he lifts it to his mouth. Pete almost feels like a bad person for
letting him get away with it. He thumps their shoulders together and listens to
the end of Patrick’s conversation with Chris.
The air smells like the sharp grease of burgers and the clippings from the
lawn, summery and light. Overhead, the sky is pastel blue and clear, the sun
like a big yellow marker stain. The end of summer. If he still thought he was
going to go back to DePaul, he might be sad about it. As it is, all he can see
in his future is music and touring and making out in the dark when no one’s
around. It’s a good life.
Pete slings an arm around Patrick’s shoulders—friendly, but only as friendly as
he’d be with Joe or Andy or Chris—and drags him closer on the pretense of a
noogie. Patrick smells like his favorite cologne and a little like sweat, a lot
like teenaged boy. It’s not as unpleasant as Pete used to think it was. Not
really.
Patrick slaps at him half-heartedly, beer spilling out onto the grass as Chris
wanders away.
“We,” Pete says definitively, “are going swimming.” Patrick blinks at him, face
a little sunburnt across the nose.
“No,” he says, mocking Pete’s tone. “We are not.”
“We are. We are and you’re going to deal with it.” Pete plucks Patrick’s drink
from his hand and finishes it in one long pull, chucking the cup into the lawn
behind him. “Come on. Pants off.”
Pete grins, throwing a weak punch at Patrick’s arm before jogging to Joe’s
shitty above ground pool. He doesn’t have to look behind him to know Patrick is
following. There’s a few people in the pool but Pete’s pretty sure he can
change that with minimal effort. He yanks his shirt over his and tosses it at
Joe who does his angry spatula waving bit, slopping grease across the deck.
Patrick, for the most part, looks skeptical as he climbs onto the little
platform the pool’s sitting on.
“Where’s your sense of adventure?” Pete asks as he toes off his shoes.
Predictably, Patrick scowls at him. It’s fast becoming one of Pete’s favorite
faces. “I’ll pull you in. Just so you know.”
He will, if he has to. He doesn’t think it’ll come to that, but he’s been known
to do worse. Patrick looks around, antsy. Jesus Christ, his stupid fucking body
issues. He’s getting laid on a regular basis. Pete doesn’t get his problem.
When Patrick’s satisfied that people aren’t looking or whatever, he steps out
of his own shoes and reaches for the buckle of his belt. Pete crows in victory.
“You’re an asshole,” Patrick says as he slips his belt through its loops. “For
the record.”
“Duly noted.”
Pete wiggles out of his jeans and sprints up the wobbly ladder, cannonballing
the best he can without a diving board. Water goes flying. The few people in
the pool make noises at him but Pete cheerfully ignores them, doggy paddling to
the side, pulling himself up on it. Patrick still hasn’t taken off his pants.
“Today, dude,” Pete goads.
Patrick sighs and shoves his jeans down, face screwed up in a grimace. He’s
wearing the plaid boxers with worn out spaces on the waistband. Pete’s not
surprised at all when he climbs in with his shirt still on. When Patrick’s
settled in, no longer scowling but awkwardly pushing himself to the center of
the pool, Pete makes his move.
“Hey, do you mind holding these for me?” He throws his soaked boxers at the
closest girl, and she shrieks as they hit the water with a wet slap. The pool
clears pretty quickly.
“Please tell me you plan on putting those back on.” Patrick’s paddling his arms
to keep afloat, just a few inches shy of being able to stand on the bottom of
the pool.
“Killjoy,” Pete chides. Still, he makes a show of pulling his boxers back on,
loud enough for even Joe to yell at him to shut up. Being naked in public is
one thing. Being naked with Patrick in public is another.
The air is dry and hot, but it feels good under the cool water. Pete doggy
paddles to Patrick, stopping in front of him and grinning. Patrick smiles back
reluctantly, his knees bumping against Pete’s under the water. They’re safe
here, Pete thinks, where no one can really see what’s going on.
He snags Patrick’s shirt and pulls him to the far side of the pool, butting
them against the wall. He feels Patrick anchor himself against the warm
plastic, arms bent over the lip to hold himself up. Under the water, Pete wraps
his calf around Patrick’s.
“So, school,” Pete says.
He’s gotten used to being around Patrick and Joe and Andy at all times. Two of
the three are going to be absent, and he’s been avoiding Andy ever since the
bar fight. He’s not ready for questions just yet. Patrick shrugs.
“Happens every year,” he says.
He’s rubbing his leg against Pete’s, not watching the rest of the party at all.
Pete does that for him, checks to see where everyone’s looking just in case. No
one’s paying them attention.
“And what about, you know. After?” Pete’s already thrown his papers for re-
enrollment out. He’s not going back. Not now, not ever. Even if Fall Out Boy
doesn’t make it, even if they all leave him like Arma did, Pete can’t go back
to school.
“That’s a stupid question.” Patrick lifts his chin, all teenage defiance and
bullheadedness.
Pete laughs. He’s not going to admit he’s relieved, but it pulses deep in his
chest. Patrick’s knee moves up steadily, sliding between Pete’s thighs. He’s
biting the corner of his lip, waiting for Pete to shove him away. Pete feels
something like guilt low in his gut at the knowledge that a few weeks ago he
would have. He wants to put his hands on Patrick’s waist, pull him in and rut
up against him like they’re in his basement, or in Pete’s room, alone and free.
Patrick presses his knee right up under Pete’s balls, and Pete’s breathing cuts
short.
 
Behind them, the ladder smacks against the plastic siding as someone climbs in.
Pete’s acting before he can even turn to see who it is, reflexes kicking in. He
dunks Patrick under with both hands on the top of his head, ignoring the wide
eyed look Patrick gives him just before he goes below the surface. He feels the
punch to his gut, but the water slows it down and makes it weak.
“Water war,” Tim shouts merrily, and promptly tackles Pete down.
Half of the party winds up in the pool, waging war cries and stretching the
limits of the plastic siding. Patrick leaves before the barbecue is over. He
doesn’t say goodbye.
---
Pete doesn’t tell his parents about dropping out. He goes out during the day
and keeps himself occupied until three, then heads to Joe’s or Patrick’s and
makes a nuisance of himself until he’s sent home by a concerned mother. It’s a
good routine. A solid routine. Keeps him busy enough that he doesn’t go crazy.
Pete sees his doctor and has his pills adjusted. For a few months, they’re
going to try something new. See if he can handle it. Pete hasn’t been taking
them to schedule anyway. They make him feel jittery. Unbalanced. The nights it
gets bad, he sneaks into Patrick’s room and sleeps there, sneaking back out
before Patrick’s alarm goes off.
Autumn comes, cold and crisp, and Pete lines up as many weekend shows as he
can. If he wants this to work, he's going to have to make it work. He needs to
make it work. Being manager for the band keeps him busy, too. He likes the
challenge of it, likes seeing his band’s faces light up as he announces
basement party after bar after shitty no name venues.
They play a Halloween party, dressed up in shitty makeshift costumes. Pete rips
up a wifebeater and says he's Bruce Banner whenever anyone asks, flexing and
snarling until they leave him alone. He's entirely unsurprised when Patrick and
Joe show up in matching zombie makeup smudged across their faces. They've been
hanging out a lot, tucked up together every time Pete even so much as goes
looking for either one of them.
Pete asked about it once, curled up in bed with Patrick, exhausted but unable
to sleep. It had been eating at him, a gnawing in his gut that wouldn't let up.
Patrick laughed at him, the sound trailing off when he realized Pete was
serious.
"There's just you," Patrick said flatly, pulling away to the other side of the
bed. "Joe doesn't even know I'm gay." Pete had winced, let it drop. He hasn't
said anything since, but it eats at him sometimes, makes him feel one step
outside the joke.
Now, he pulls both of them into Jake or Jack or Josh's living room and shoves
them into the corner where their equipment is sitting haphazardly. The gig's
only paying in beer and chips but the exposure is nice and it's way better than
passing out candy at home. Andy's already at his kit, bare feet propped up on a
chair. He's wearing red suspenders and a drawn on mustache that's already
smudging down over his lip.
"Four songs," Pete says, reaching for his bass. "And then we can get trashed."
Joe and Patrick bump elbows, taking their places. Pete can feel Andy's eyes on
him, knows that he's going to have to listen to Andy lecture him later about
not fucking the kids up. Patrick smiles at him from behind the microphone,
stupid make-up heavy across his face. One's worth the other, he supposes.
They get a tiny crowd of kids in costume, some of them familiar faces. Patrick
sings like he's playing to an actual crowd, laughs when one of the guys throws
out a request for Freebird in the middle of songs. He looks like he's
comfortable here, jumping in place behind his stand, trapped in the corner.
This kid, this little superstar.
Pete feels his wife beater sliding off his shoulders as he bounces around, bass
slapping against his thighs. His headstock smashes into some kid's hip, breaks
the circle around him. Someone laughs when the kid shouts at him, and then it's
a free for all. Kids invade their circle and shove Patrick around, bump
shoulders with Joe hard enough that he stumbles over the chords.
And Pete? He laughs and laughs and laughs and slams into as many people as he
possibly can. They sound like shit, but Pete's never had so much fun.
When their four songs are done, Joe and Patrick stay in the corner, taking
requests. Patrick laughs his way through Freebird as promised, Joe's mouth
moving in what has to be complaints as his fingers work over the frets. Pete
aims himself at the keg. He earned it.
"That was a lot better than I thought it would be," Jake or Jack says, handing
him a topped off red cup. It's a backhanded compliment but Pete will take what
he can get. He salutes, beer sloshing sticky over his hand and onto the carpet.
"I'll pass it on," he mumbles, mouth already heading towards the rim of his
cup. It's shit beer. He wasn't really expecting anything more.
When Patrick and Joe stop fucking around at the front, the speakers kick on,
Spitalfield thumping through the room. Pete wrinkles his nose and reaches for
the tap. After a moment, he fills a second cup. Like he's been called, Patrick
pops up at his side just in time to take it.
"Hey," he says, taking a swallow. The zombie makeup is running green and brown
in streaks over his cheeks and jaw, staining the collar of his shirt. The
toilet paper wound on his forehead is starting to peel off. He looks stupid.
"How long are we staying?" Pete shrugs.
"Not long," he answers. "Andy hates these things." Patrick bobs his head,
pulling a face as he drinks the bottom of his cup. Pete refills him without
asking. They're being paid in booze. He's not going to shortchange his star.
It doesn't take long for Andy to find them. He eyes the way they're leaned in
together, raises his eyebrows. Pete backs off. He's on beer four, fingertips
buzzing a little around his cup. If he would have had a few more, he'd probably
be upstairs with Patrick right now, smearing his stupid makeup even more.
"Joe's in the van." Andy has to shout over the music to be heard. Poor bastard,
Pete thinks, tossing his cup into the nearest bag. Didn't get to enjoy any
spoils at all. "Come on."
Pete and Patrick follow him outside like children, weaving through the rest of
the party goers. Pete feels like he's in high school again, trying to get back
home before curfew. He piles into the back with Patrick, arm against a speaker
and knees jammed behind the driver's seat and thinks that it's not entirely a
bad thing.
Joe's the first stop. He yawns and stumbles out of the van, wiping a hand over
his mouth. The streetlights make his eyes look hollow, the fake blood he'd
smeared next to his ear in jagged lines over his jaw. The white smudges on his
nose are from Patrick's fake wounds. Pete bites his tongue as he slams the
door. Fucking kids.
"I'm getting off with Patrick," Pete says, wincing when it's out of his mouth.
Good job, he thinks.
"Why?" Andy asks, looking back through the rearview mirror.
"We want to try to write something," Patrick says. It's plausible, at least.
Pete nods along and feels the dryness in his mouth start to clear. Andy keeps
watching them. Pete has to look away first.
Andy drops them off, waiting until they're inside the door to drive off. He's a
good guy, but sometimes Pete wishes he weren't so astute. He knows something's
up.
Pete strips out of his shirt and jeans as Patrick disappears into the bathroom.
He pads around the living room in his boxers, looking at the photos on the
wall. There's a family portrait above the fireplace, too formal to be
comfortable. Patrick has to be twelve in it, small and just a little too narrow
for his suit jacket. His hair is slicked back, the cowlick at the back of his
head sticking straight up.
Dimly, he hears the bathroom door creak open, hears the floorboards crack as
Patrick heads to his room. He can't stop looking at the family photo.
Sometimes, he forgets that Patrick existed before they met.
When he gets to Patrick's bedroom, Patrick is already buried under the covers,
damp hair in spikes on his pillow. There's a smudge of green under his eye.
"Why don't you just move in?" Patrick asks sleepily as Pete climbs into bed
with him. He whines when Pete shoves his cold feet into the warm place between
his calves, but he doesn't move away. Pete doesn't think about where he was a
year ago, about who he was. He just presses his freezing nose to the hot curve
of Patrick's shoulder and hums. Move in. That sounds… nice. Pete files the
thought away and lets the steady rise and fall of Patrick’s chest lull him to
sleep.
---
Pete moves out of his parents’ house in December, just before Christmas. His
father oversees the entire move from the living room, nursing a cup of coffee
as Pete hustles box after box into the van. He doesn’t offer to help and Pete
doesn’t expect him to.
“How exactly do you plan on paying for this?” His father asks as Pete’s locking
up the back of the van. His fingers are frozen, the tips turning red. He can’t
feel his feet, his stupid canvas shoes soaked through with snow. The feel of
satisfaction boiling up through his veins keeps him warm as he turns to face
his father.
“I got a job at Jewel,” he says. He hasn’t stepped foot inside one for months.
His dad doesn’t need to know that. “I’m twenty-three. I shouldn’t be living
with you anymore.”
“No, you shouldn’t. But you’re not exactly—”
“What, Dad? I’m not what?” Pete shoulders past his father, aiming himself at
the doors. A hand wraps around his wrist, squeezing painfully. Pete jerks it
away. He’s almost gone. Just a few more steps, and he’ll be done.
“You’ve never been good at taking care of yourself,” his father says. It’s like
a punch to the gut. “We don’t feel like you’re stable enough to be on your
own.”
“I don’t need you,” Pete grits out. He hops into the driver side seat and slams
the door. He doesn’t look back as he drives away. This is a new start. This is
a new him.
The apartment is too big for just him, one half of a duplex in the middle of
Evanston. He thinks he can see shadows on the walls at night, sliding around
his room like boneless ghosts.
When he has his house warming party, Andy corners him in the kitchen. Pete
already knows what he’s going to ask, has been bracing himself for it all
night. He might be the oldest, but Andy’s the adult. Pete sucks up his pride
and waits.
“How are you paying for it?” Andy asks. He’s a mix of friend and brother,
someone Pete’s always going to need in his life, but sometimes Pete wishes he
would just back off.
“I cashed in my scholarship,” Pete says with a shrug. His father’s been paying
for school that Pete hasn’t been attending for nearly a year, and Pete’s been
storing it up in his bank account for months. It’s not enough to survive on for
long, but it’s a good start.
“This is going to backfire,” Andy says, like Pete doesn’t know. “Why don’t you
just get an actual job? Patrick just got hired at 7-Eleven, he could probably
get you an in.”
“I’m not exactly the working type,” Pete answers. Someone in the front hall
calls for him, and Pete takes the excuse to run away. He knows Andy’s going to
catch up to him eventually, but he’s going to burn as much time as he possibly
can.
On the nights when the apartment gets too much for him, he makes the half hour
drive to Patrick’s and slips into Patrick’s room. He sleeps better with him
near. He spends his days in his apartment mostly naked and enjoying the freedom
that he’s never really had, pacing back and forth between the rooms. He feels
like things are changing all around him and he’s racing to catch up.
“You,” Chris says three weeks after Pete’s move, voice reedy through the phone,
“need to come out.”
Pete hasn’t seen a lot of Chris since Arma called it quits—too busy with
himself, too busy with hiding out and trying to make things make sense. He
looks at the blank television and thinks, fuck it. He deserves a night out.
They make the long drive to Friar Tuck’s, all of them crammed into Chris’s car.
Pete’s greeted by familiar faces like it’s fucking Cheers or something, drunks
and bartenders alike reminding him that he hasn’t hung out with adults for
months. Tim buys him a double shot of Velvet before they even sit, and Pete
swallows it down like a champ. He’s going to get smashed and it’s going to be
great.
By midnight, Pete’s had enough one dollar beers to be raucous, throwing himself
at people and singing along to the jukebox. His head feels light, hands loose
every time he tries to move them. Like water. He feels reckless and invincible.
Young enough to be stupid. It’s nice having Tim and Chris right there along
with him when he says he wants to play match box tennis. It almost feels like
old times.
They get a six pack to go and Pete takes up a pretty little scene girl’s offer
for a body shot as he’s heading for the exit. He licks her collarbone, sucks
down the tequila, and leaves before she can kiss him. She yells until the door
slams, her voice like nails against his ear drums. Pete laughs the whole way to
the car.
Pete zones out as they raid Chris’s basement for tennis balls. Chris buys three
boxes of strike anywhere matches at the 24/7, the only one sober enough to be
able to go in without having a laughing fit. Pete’s hands aren’t all that
steady as he tries to assemble the bombs. It feels like he’s falling down and
up all at once as he slices careful slits into the tennis balls with Tim’s
pocket knife, following the seams. He nicks his thumb, but he’s numb enough
that he doesn’t realize it until he sees blood on the felt.
They throw the balls at the windows of a burnt out factory. Pete shatters one
and hears the matches go off like it’s through fog. Sometime later, Chris lands
one above the door. Sparks fly. It’s like fireworks without the boom, hissing
and spitting smoke like rockets. Mesmerized, Pete watches the ball rolls back
to them, the smell of the burnt rubber overtaking him.
He breaks into the beer and downs two before Chris and Tim confiscate it from
him. It’s funny. Everything’s funny. Pete laughs and tumbles to the ground,
tripping over his feet. He feels dizzy, head too heavy for his neck. He’s
missed this. Missed getting good and drunk with his buddies without doing
anything stupid like sleeping with teenagers.
“You need to go home,” Chris says when Pete trips over his own feet. Pete
laughs.
He doesn’t want to go home. Home is quiet and too big and full of things that
remind him of who he used to be. He doesn’t need to remember who he was. He
already knows. Chris drags him to the car and shoves him into the back seat.
Bouncing against the door, Pete tosses the last ball into the street as they
drive off. It burns like a star in the darkness. Pete watches it until it’s too
small to see.
“Take me to Patrick’s,” he says. He has to say it again, later, because the
music is too loud. Chris gives him a weird look through the rearview mirror,
face scrunched up. Pete knows he should be making up some excuse, but he really
just doesn’t give a fuck.
“Dude, isn’t it, like, a school night or something?” Chris laughs. Fucking
stupid. Pete kicks him through the center of the seats. It makes the car jerk
to the side as Chris’s elbow buckles, and Chris shouts, “What the fuck, man?”
as he rights the car again.
“Just fucking drive,” Pete orders.
He closes his eyes and tries to will away the nausea. There’s no place to go
but to Patrick’s when he’s got sick in his head. Chris pulls to a stop in front
of Patrick’s place twenty minutes later. He looks back at Pete, concerned, and
Pete flips him off. Where was the concerned face when Arma split? Where was the
concerned face when Pete needed a place to crash? Pete waves at Tim and
stumbles out onto the road, nearly toppling to the pavement.
Patrick has a second story bedroom. His light is off, but it makes sense
because when Pete checks his phone it reads three am. Stupid and still a little
reckless, Pete grabs the latticework like he’s done countless times before, but
has to pause before he starts climbing up, wobbling unsteadily.
It takes a lot longer to climb up than it usually does. Pete shakes as he
climbs, and the lattice groans under the prolonged exposure to his weight. When
he reaches Patrick’s room, it’s a small miracle that he doesn’t fall off and
break his neck as he pushes the window open. He tumbles in gracelessly, rolling
across the floor. He leaves the window open. If he tries to close it, he might
fall out. The cold air seeps in, filling the room up with the December wind,
but Pete can barely feel it.
Patrick’s asleep, blankets twisted around his hips, shirt rucked up over his
stomach. He looks young curled in on himself like he is. Pete just wants to- he
wants. He kicks off his shoes, nearly falling into the dresser as he lifts his
right foot, and shucks off his hoodie and jeans. The room is already freezing.
It’s proven fact that Patrick sleeps like the dead. Pete crawls in next to him,
presses full body against his side and tries to leech off his warmth, curling
up around him like a snake. Patrick’s soft and warm and good, and Pete wants to
fuck him into the mattress just because he knows he can. That sounds like a
good idea, actually. He should put it into action.
Pete kicks at the blanket and reaches for the waist of Patrick’s boxers. He
tugs at them with numb fingers, frustrated when they don’t go down. Oblivious,
Patrick hums sleepily and rolls onto his side. The rolling helps. Pete manages
to get Patrick’s boxers down to his thighs- which are hot and nice, and Pete
kind of wants to bite them, just to see what will happen.
He’s not sure how he ends up dangling halfway off the bed, face pushed into the
warm, dry gap between Patrick’s thighs, the fine hair there tickling his cold,
cold nose. It’s nice there though. Warm. He thinks he’ll stay a while.
Above him, Patrick sighs in his sleep. His knees draw up from the cold, boxers
sliding down his legs to curve around his ankles. Pete rides the motion, cheek
slipping down to rest against the place where Patrick’s thigh meets his body.
He’s got a close up view of Patrick’s soft cock in front of him, his dizzy head
so very close.
It’s kind of ugly. Dicks are weird. It makes laughter bubble up through his
throat until he can’t hold it in any longer. He presses his mouth into Patrick
to stifle it, but that makes his cheek brush up against Patrick’s cock, and
that makes him laugh even harder. When he manages to get himself together, he
reaches up for it, prodding at the head with his fingertips.
It’s weird, watching Patrick get hard under his hand. This close, he can see
the dark vein running up the underside, can see the way it twitches as he goes
from half hard to full on boner. Pete’s—he’s okay with this, mostly. He’s
getting used to it with time.
He likes Patrick and Patrick makes him feel good. He’s just drunk enough that
he’s grateful for it—so, so grateful for it—and it seems wrong, somehow, that
he hasn’t done something great back. He should remedy that, should make it
even. He should...he should...
Pete screws his eyes shut and licks a short line up the side of Patrick’s cock.
It’s—not bad. Not really. There isn’t much of a taste at all. He doesn’t know
what he’d been expecting. Maybe for it to taste like a girl, damp and musky and
hot. Maybe for it to taste gross. But—it doesn’t. Not really.
He does it again, short little flicks of his tongue. Girls had liked that, but
he’s pretty sure it’d just drive him stupid crazy if it were done to him. Pete
looks up at Patrick, tongue flat against his dick, mouth open against him.
Patrick’s still asleep, face screwed up like he’s dreaming. That’s not really
helpful to this mission. That doesn’t give Pete anything to go on at all.
Dicks, he figures, have to be mostly alike. Pull it, suck it, whatever. They
all feel the same. He flounders for a moment, trying to think of the stuff
Patrick does that gets him off. A good start, he supposes, is actually putting
it in his mouth.
Pete wiggles himself up, pushing Patrick’s legs farther apart with his
shoulders. He lifts up and wraps a hand determinedly around the base of
Patrick’s cock. He can do this. It’s just a dick, and dicks are just like big
clits, and Pete totally knows what to do with those.
Patrick’s wide enough that it stretches Pete’s mouth when Pete finally mans up
and wraps his lips around it. His cheeks feel tingly, the corners of his mouth
too tight. The tingly might be the beer, but Pete’s not really sure. Here, the
not-taste is stronger. Like salt. Pete wrinkles his nose. He feels his teeth
scrape against the soft skin, and he immediately stops making faces. Whoops.
First step accomplished. The rest should be easy, he thinks. Just—go for it. He
sucks at the head and hears Patrick moan quietly in response. That's awesome.
He’s making progress. After a few moments, he gathers his bearings and tries to
bob his dizzy head. It mostly works, especially when he keeps his eyes closed
against the spinning world.
Once he gets the hang of it, it’s—not bad. Kind of nice. He can feel spit
running down Patrick’s dick, making his fist wet where he’s still holding it
straight. He can hear the wet noises over his labored breaths, slick like
something out of high quality porn.
Patrick’s making noises here and there that are really hot, unconscious little
whines that shoot straight to Pete’s dick. Pete realizes he’s hard when he
starts humping against the mattress in time to the off beat rhythm he’s moving
his head to, dull pleasure spreading through him like a warm wave.
When he opens his eyes—tired of the colors behind them, tired of not seeing- he
catches Patrick watching him, eyes wide and mouth hanging open. Pete likes his
mouth, respects it, even, now that he knows just how hard this is. Hard. It
makes him laugh around Patrick’s dick, the sound slipping back into his throat
as soon as it escapes. Pete sucks harder and Patrick’s thighs shake. There had
a plan when he came in, before he started this. What was...
Oh. Oh, right.
He pulls up long enough to spit into his hand before sinking back down. He
doesn’t know why he’s never sucked dick before. It’s kind of awesome, makes him
feel powerful.
Patrick jumps when Pete shoves a finger into him, restless and horny and ready
to get back to his plan now that he remembers it. It makes the head of his cock
bump into the soft roof of Pete’s mouth, and Pete chokes. Okay, that’s not fun,
but the way Patrick moans helplessly is really fucking hot. He’s going to have
to let Patrick make these noises more often, suck him off when they’re in
Pete’s apartment where he can be as loud as he wants.
Suddenly there’s a hand in his hair, yanking the curls hard enough to hurt.
Pete scowls and fights the pressure. He likes this. He knows Patrick’s liking
this. Why is Patrick trying to stop him? Then there’s a rush of hot, wet,
bitter in his mouth and Pete thinks, oh.
It’s gross. Oh, god it’s really fucking gross. Pete scrambles to the side of
the bed, spitting it out as best he can, the taste sticking to his tongue.
Patrick swallows that shit. He deserves a medal or something.
“Jesus, you couldn’t have woke me up when you decided to give me head?” Patrick
asks and wow, he’s a bitch in the morning.
Pete opens his mouth to tell him as much, but when he starts everything in his
stomach comes up instead. At the head of the bed, Patrick sighs.
Patrick hauls him to the bathroom, hands tucked under his armpits, knees tucked
into the back of Pete’s as he half walks him there. Pete feels weightless even
though his stomach’s turning and his head is spinning. The lights stay off, but
Patrick helps to get him out of his disgusting shirt and sets him up next to
the toilet. The porcelain of the tub is freezing against Pete’s skin.
“I’m going to get you some water,” Patrick says, soft and low. He’s a pretty
awesome shade of pink all over. “Stay here.”
It seems like it takes Patrick forever to get back. Pete throws up again twice
before he feels the cool weight of Patrick’s hand on the back of his neck, a
colder glass of water pressing against his cheek. Pete raises his heavy head
and leans back to rest against the tub again.
“You’re kind of pathetic,” Patrick says. He feeds sips of water to Pete, hand
on Pete’s jaw to keep him steady. Pete would take offense if it weren’t totally
true. Patrick sits up with him all night, rubbing his back and humming over
Pete’s pathetic whines. It’s nice.
Pete passes out sometime before the sun’s all the way up and wakes up when it's
going down again, sprawled out on the bare mattress of Patrick’s bed. His legs
are twisted up in the single sheet draped over him, face against the plastic
mattress cover. The window, thank god, is closed.
Pete stays curled up in Patrick’s bed, head pounding. His mouth tastes like a
toxic waste dump. There’s aspirin on the dresser, and Pete spends a long time
debating if it’s worth the effort of moving to get sweet relief. As he’s
wriggling toward the dresser, he gets a quick flash of the night before,
Patrick’s eyes wide and his mouth open, face pink, pink, pink. Sickness creeps
back up on him.
“Hey,” Patrick says from the doorway. He’s fully dressed, and that makes a lot
more sense when Pete sees the clock next to him. Six o’ clock. He’s slept all
day. Patrick’s fidgeting, plucking at his hoodie sleeve. Pete can’t look him in
the eye. “Are you hungry? I can—mom made dinner. I can bring some up.”
“Does she know I’m here?” Pete asks.
He sounds like shit. Patrick shakes his head. Small favors, Pete
supposes.There’s awkward silence. Pete smells and he wants a shower and new
clothes and possibly to run the fuck away so he doesn’t have to deal with
looking at Patrick right now. Those things are far away though, and he can’t
change it no matter how much he wants to. Patrick sinks down to the floor and
wraps his arms around his knees. He looks small, a flash back to the first time
he’d been in Pete’s room so long ago.
“We should probably talk about it,” Patrick says quietly.
Pete doesn’t want to talk about it. He wants to shove it into the back of his
mind and never think of it again. Patrick’s watching him, waiting. He’s going
to have to wait a long fucking time if he wants anything useful.
“Why’d you come here last night?” Patrick asks.
It’s such a stupid question. Pete’s head aches. He has to press the heels of
his palms into his eyes to keep them from popping straight out of his head.
Jesus, he hates hangovers.
“Because I wanted to,” Pete snaps. He feels bad about it instantly—the throb of
his temples punishment enough for any crimes he’s committed. The shuttered look
Patrick gives him makes him sigh. “I fucking like you, okay? Christ. We don’t
have to share our feelings about it.”
“You never did that before,” Patrick points out.
“No fucking shit.” Pete runs his hands over his face and pushes himself all the
way up. He feels so naked in just his boxers, open for Patrick to see. He kicks
the sheet away and tumbles off the bed. He needs to piss, and he needs to
eventually go home, and he needs Patrick to stop looking at him like he just
kicked someone’s fucking puppy. When he gets to the door he slumps down next to
Patrick, leaning heavily into him. He’s exhausted.
“What are we doing?” Patrick asks quietly.
He rests his head against Pete’s gently, mindful of Pete’s hangover. Good
fucking question, Pete thinks. He slides his hand into Patrick’s and holds on.
It’s not really an answer—he doesn’t have one, wouldn’t give one anyway—but
it’s going to have to be enough.
---
Things move on. The world keeps spinning. Pete spends most of his time bouncing
back and forth between houses and parties, keeping himself drunk enough to turn
down the volume of noise in his head. And Patrick, he stays there through it,
quiet on the sidelines as Pete tries to burn away the bridges that are holding
him down. He's one of the few things that don't change. One of the few pieces
of rock Pete's got to hold on to.
“You should move in,” Pete says against Patrick’s throat, biting at the skin
there.
They’re curled up in Pete’s bed, lounging in the sunlight filtering in through
the curtains. Pete’s naked, sprawled out lazily over the mattress, but Patrick
pulled his boxers and t-shirt back on almost immediately. It’s a shame really,
because it just means more effort later. He’s got Patrick for the weekend—mom
free, school free, work free—and he’s going to get as many orgasms out of it as
he can.
“Sure,” Patrick says, head lolling to the side so he can look at Pete. His hair
sticks up in short, sharp spikes around his face, sweat damp at the temples.
“Let me just run that by my mom.”
“Your mom loves me.” Pete thumps his knuckles idly against Patrick’s chest,
wiggling to find the hot spot on the sheets. Beside him Patrick snorts. It
makes Pete’s hand bounce along with the sound.
Pete gives up on the sunlight and rolls half way onto Patrick, hip digging into
the meat of Patrick’s thigh. Patrick doesn’t smile, exactly, but it’s close. He
looks amused anyway, tracking Pete’s fidgeting. Pete grins at him. He’s happy,
he guesses. It’s kind of a foreign feeling, rooted deep in his chest and
creeping into his veins.
“I’m serious,” he says, the silence too heavy for him to listen to any longer.
“After graduation. Move in with me.” Keep the nightmares away.
Pete slides his lips down to the collar of Patrick’s shirt, sucks at the soft
spot next to his Adam’s apple. When Patrick shifts under him, he grins into the
salty skin. He remembers being seventeen, remembers the touch lust. He slips a
hand into Patrick’s boxers, thumb skimming the thick patch of curls as he goes.
He wraps his hand around Patrick’s dick, and the weight is familiar against his
palm. He nips at the corner of Patrick’s jaw, working his wrist slow and
steady. This is—he’s getting used to it. Patrick makes these sounds, low and
thick in his throat, and Pete can feel how into it he is—something that would
have been great when he was with chicks.
“Move in with me, Stump,” Pete says. Graduation is two months away. Pete can
wait that long. Patrick presses up into his fist, moaning softly. “It’ll be
great.”
“Yeah,” Patrick says, breathy, fucking up into his hand. Dudes, Pete thinks. So
easy. “Yeah. Just...”
Pete laughs and ducks down, sliding Patrick’s boxers down with him. He can
remember quick flashes from December, chunks of time floating at the back of
his brain, remembers the way Patrick had tasted, the way he’d been heavy and
wide against Pete’s tongue. He remembers the startled look on Patrick’s face as
he came. It’s been months, and he hasn’t tried it again, but he thinks that
maybe he could.
Patrick whines when Pete slows his hand down, spreads his thighs and humps
against Pete’s palm. Pete rubs his cheek against the soft skin of Patrick’s
hip, his stubble rasping against it in soft scritch, scritch, scritch patterns.
He watches the shiny head of Patrick’s cock pop out of the ring of his fist,
angry red and sticky.
It’s just a dick, Pete tells himself, staring at the slide of it against his
hand. Patrick’s fingers are twisting in the sheets, a steady tempo that matches
his heart beat. He’s close. All Pete has to do is—he just has to— He leans in.
He's close enough to feel the heat rolling off of Patrick’s dick and pulls back
so quickly he nearly falls off the bed. His hand goes tight—too tight,
probably—around Patrick’s cock, and Patrick chokes, hips jerking as he comes.
Pete doesn’t bother wiping him up, just pulls his underwear up and tries not to
feel like a disappointment as he squirms his way back to the head of the bed.
---
Pete sits with Patricia at Patrick’s graduation, fidgeting in his seat the
whole time. High schools make him edgy, remind him of his own time spent stuck
between the walls. Patricia pats his knee and keeps a running commentary before
the ceremony starts in an even rhythm. Pete’s thankful for it. He catches a
glimpse of Jeanae in the back row. He wonders who she knows, wonders why she’s
there at all, and it makes his stomach twist.
Still, when Patrick’s name is called Pete cheers and waves like an idiot. He
can almost see the hot flush across Patrick’s cheeks even as far back as he is
and it makes him grin. He’s been looking forward to this for weeks. When it’s
over, Patrick tosses his hat into the air with the rest of his class. For the
first time since Pete saw him, he looks like an adult.
Dinner with the Stumphs is weirdly formal. Pete feels completely out of place
as he takes a seat next to Patrick’s father at the table. He shouldn’t be here,
not really, but Patrick had dragged him along to the car by the shirtsleeve and
Patricia had shushed him when he’d tried to excuse himself.
Patrick’s diploma is sticking out of his coat pocket, the curled edges already
crinkling. Pete can’t stop staring at it. This is the future for Patrick. The
world is wide open to him for the taking. All he has to do is point himself in
whatever direction he wants. Patrick smiles and kicks him under the table.
Looks like Patrick’s picking his direction already.
“Take care of him,” Patricia says when dinner’s over, her hand light and warm
on the inside of Pete’s elbow.
“Yeah,” Pete says.
He can’t look over, not right now. Not when all of them are laying something so
precious as their trust on him. He nods, staring at Patrick’s diploma, and
thinks about the space cleared out in his apartment for Patrick’s things. He
hopes that they’re not making a mistake.
---
Patrick has his own room. It’s across the hall from Pete’s, stuffed full of
boxes that have yet to be unpacked and a full size bed that’s never made. The
wallpaper is the same as the wallpaper in Pete’s, curled up at the corners of
the room, dusty because Pete had never had a reason to go into it before
Patrick moved in. It feels like it’s a world away.
The first two nights, Pete sleeps at the foot of the door in his own room,
pillow stuffed up under his head. The cold hardwood makes his joints ache, his
sore knees keeping him awake long after he’s passed the point of exhaustion. He
can feel Patrick unpacking things late into the night, hear his muffled humming
through the cracks of the door.
It feels almost wrong somehow. This isn’t how it was supposed to be, Patrick
living with him. It was supposed to bring them closer, and Pete feels like
they’re farther apart than they ever were.
On the third night Patrick knocks into him on the way into Pete’s room. He’s
dragging the quilt from his old bed behind him, sheepish when he helps Pete up
from the floor. It’s the first time they’ve really seen each other since
Patrick moved in.
“Hey,” Patrick says quietly. He rubs at the back of his neck, face a dull pink.
“Can I—is it alright if I sleep with you tonight?”
“Yeah,” Pete says. He coughs, skin too tight. He hasn’t been sleeping enough.
He feels like he’s going to fall over. “I’m—yeah.”
Patrick crawls into Pete’s bed, drawn up into a corner. It looks right. He
looks like he belongs. Pete slides in next to him, back creaking from all the
time he’s spent on the floor. When he wraps his arms around Patrick’s waist,
Patrick sinks back into him. This is more like it.
“I can’t sleep without you anymore,” Pete says against the warm space between
Patrick’s shoulder blades.
“You don’t have to,” Patrick says quietly, a lifetime later. “Not if you don’t
want to.”
Patrick’s things stay in the room across the hall, but the bed there stays
stripped and cold.
---
They schedule a tour for August through November. Pete spends the rest of June
buzzing around the apartment, anxious to be on the road again. They have a
cookout in the tiny backyard for Independence Day. Pete burns the burgers, but
Patrick plays an impromptu show after he’s been loosened by a few beers, so
Pete figures it’s a pretty successful day.
Andy makes a comment to Pete late in the day about the guest room, and Pete
pales. He’d meant to put sheets on the bed that’s supposed to be Patrick’s but
he’d forgotten, caught up in everything else around them.
“You’re not as subtle as you think,” Andy says and hands Pete a bottle of root
beer. “And he isn’t either.”
On the deck Patrick’s singing a mash up of his favorite songs, smashing the
verses together when he forgets the right lyrics. He catches Pete watching and
grins, switching from Raspberry Beret to Good Riddance with only a small
stumble. The handful of people gathered around him cheer, stupid on booze and
good music.
“I don’t know what you’re playing at, man, but be careful.” Andy shakes his
head when Pete opens his mouth. “He’s a nice guy. He deserves something good.”
Pete wants to ask, What about me? Don’t I deserve something good too? Instead,
he scrapes at the rusting grill with his spatula and says, “I don’t know what
you’re talking about.”
When he crawls into bed later, he curls around Patrick and pretends that none
of it matters.
---
Patrick is making music in the kitchen. He’s singing along to the demo track on
his laptop, sketching down ideas in one of Pete’s old, beaten notebooks. His
pajama bottoms drag the ground as he moves back and forth across the room, too
small on his hips but too long for his legs. When the song is over, the laptop
clicks twice before repeating it.
There’s half an EP worth of songs in the band’s collective email, raw but ready
to be recorded for real. Pete’s been listening to them at night when he can’t
sleep, curled around his laptop in the living room so he doesn’t wake Patrick
up. He feels good about them, can hear the work that they’ve been doing for
months.
Pete leans against the doorway and watches. He doesn’t get tired of this.
Patrick’s voice is a little raw, thick as he sings a new melody. He’s been
working too long. Pete clears his throat, raising his eyebrows when Patrick
turns to look at him.
“I had some ideas,” Patrick says sheepishly. He turns the laptop off,
scratching a hand through his hair. Pete crosses into the kitchen, presses up
behind him.
“Me too,” he says against Patrick’s jaw.
Patrick laughs when Pete drags him out of the kitchen. The apartment feels like
home, all their things mixed up across the places they share. Patrick’s mouth
is soft and sweet, his hands sneaking up under Pete’s shirt. They trip over a
bundle of shoes, laughing as they stumble into the living room. Pete scruffs
his shirt, tossing it onto the floor.
He’s surprised when Patrick shoves him, knocking him over the arm of the couch.
The couch is rough under Pete’s bare back, the upholstery digging into his
skin, leaving him tick-marked and sore under the heavy weight of Patrick over
him.
It doesn’t matter—not when Patrick’s grinding down against him, mouth open and
eyes closed and fingers digging hard into Pete’s shoulders. Pete rubs up
against him, digs his nails into Patrick’s wrists to make him whine.
The greatest thing about living together, Pete thinks, is that Patrick can make
all the noise he wants.
“I want to try something,” Patrick says, breathless and tight. His eyes are
dark when he opens them, hair sticking to his face. He cuts it himself, and now
Pete knows why it always looks fucked up, too long on the top and too short on
the sides.
Patrick doesn’t wait for Pete to say anything, just shuffles down the couch to
lay between Pete’s legs, hands reaching for the fly of his jeans. When they’re
off, Pete watches Patrick go for his dick, mouth open and red. Christ, he never
gets sick of Patrick giving him head.
Patrick sucks him off wet and dirty, pushing Pete’s thighs apart with his
shoulders and settling in. He lets Pete pull his hair, humming against Pete’s
cock and pushing up into Pete’s hand. He comes up with a soft pop, the flat of
his tongue sliding over the head as he shifts. He mouths at Pete’s balls
unashamedly, hands on Pete’s shaky thighs. Pete tips his head back, fingers
going tighter in Patrick’s hair. The kid’s a class-A cocksucker and he’s never
let Pete forget about it.
He feels the slick of Patrick’s tongue sliding down, down, down, and he goes
tense when it rests just behind his balls, hot and wet and new. Patrick gives
him a second but it’s not enough. Pete startles when Patrick goes lower, tongue
slipping down to Pete’s ass.
What the fuck? Pete goes still. His fingers feel like they’re going to snap
off, tight enough that his knuckles show white through the mess of Patrick’s
hair, hanging on because there’s nothing else he can think to do. Patrick licks
at him cautiously, watching, tentative as he gets closer and closer to Pete’s
asshole.
When it comes, Pete’s still not expecting it, and he jerks. He sees Patrick
wince, knows he’ll probably have loose strands of hair in his hand when he lets
go, but Patrick doesn’t stop, kitten-licking at Pete’s hole like it’s nothing.
“What are you doing?” Pete asks.
His voice is rough, his chest airless. Patrick doesn’t answer him, just pushes
his thighs up a little and flattens his tongue, licking a broad stripe up.
Patrick reaches up and digs his nails into Pete’s wrist, makes him let go, and
presses in further. Patrick’s tongue is in him, curling up and licking at his
insides. Pete wriggles back, tries to move away from it, but Patrick follows
him, the grip he’s got on Pete’s wrist tightening. Panic wells up through
Pete’s chest as Patrick wraps his free hand around Pete’s dick. He feels
mortified when he comes, messy and hot and hard enough to make his stomach
clench.
Patrick backs away, drops Pete’s hand and reaches into his jeans. Pete doesn’t
watch him jerk off, but he can hear the sounds, can still feel where he’s damp
between his legs. He knows when Patrick comes, the sound so familiar he can
hear it in his dreams.
“Don’t do that again,” Pete says later, when he’s dressed again, layers thrown
on even though they’ve got the heater up to seventy. Patrick nods, not really
meeting Pete’s eyes.
“I just thought—”
“Don’t,” Pete interrupts. He slouches down on the couch and tries not to think
about how it had felt, how he can still feel it if he thinks about it hard
enough. Patrick nods again and wrings out his hands before pushing himself up.
“I’ll just...” He ducks out of the room.
Pete presses the heels of his palms into his eyes. He’s so tired.
---
Pete can’t sleep. There’s a thick pulse of anxiety settling under his skin,
bouncing through his veins. He can hear Patrick moving around in his room—the
guest room, not their room, nowhere near their bed or their gathered things—and
it pisses Pete off, makes him itch with anger. He has to get out.
He walks around the neighborhood, hands jammed into his pockets, hunched
against the cold. The streetlights glow yellow around him. Pete thinks about
getting his ass kicked in a backwoods bar, thinks about the way Patrick had
bled right along with him, eyes full of violence and fists bruised into the
next week. He shakes himself, clenches his jaw. His head’s too full of Patrick
these days.
He’s tired of it. The running, the fighting. The fear. He’s got a handful of
choices and all of them make him uncomfortable. Make him antsy and unsettled.
Something’s got to break soon, and it’s probably going to be him. When he
circles home, the sky is pink and Patrick is nowhere to be found. There’s a
note on the counter in his absence, the painstakingly chosen words obvious
enough to make Pete flinch.
I can leave, it says.If I went too far or if you don’t want me around, I can
leave. Pete crumples it in his fist before he gets to the end.
“You’re so fucking stupid,” Pete says to it, like Patrick can hear him through
it.
The closet in their room is cramped, stuffed too full of clothes and boxes Pete
had never bothered to unpack. He pulls the boxes out one by one, tosses jackets
and shirts and jeans over his shoulder until he can fit himself inside and shut
the door. It’s dark, cloying, but the pressure on his lungs lifts a little with
each breath. He hasn’t done this since he was a kid, since before he started
stuffing himself full of pills and fix-its. He feels so young. Helpless. Stuck
here with nowhere to go but down.
Patrick’s giving him an out. Pete could take it. He could go back to his
parents’ place, shut down the tour and call Jeanae. She’ll take him back if he
asks. She always takes him back, even though he never deserves it. He could
move on and forget about the year he spent with Patrick, fighting and fucking
and believing in something good. It would be so easy.
Pete presses his forehead to his knees, tries to will away the ache that’s
crawling up into his temples. The air around him is already going stale.
Outside, he can hear the cars on the road, muffled like bad sound effects
through the door.
His chest aches when he thinks about leaving. Patrick’s wormed his way so deep
into Pete’s life, into Pete’s heart, and it feels like he’s ripping away
everything inside one vein at a time, making space for himself where there’s
none available. Pete needs him like he’s never needed anything before. It’s
terrifying in a bone shattering way.
He can still feel Patrick on his skin, mouth wet against him. It makes his
stomach turn, makes him squirm on the floor. He’s so—He’s so confused, shame
boiling in his belly. Jesus, why couldn’t Patrick have just been a chick?
Things would be so much easier. Simpler. Would make fucking sense.
His handful of options are dwindling. He wants Patrick. It tears at him, gnaws
at his guts. He wants Patrick, and if he wants to keep him around, he’s going
to have to go for broke like it or not. It’s go big or go home. He’s never been
good at middle ground. Pete leans against the wall, stares up at the slats in
the door and sees sunlight.
He stumbles out of the closet at noon. If he’s going to do this, he needs to be
drunk. The only thing that’s in the liquor cabinet is an old bottle of Patron,
but it’s half full, and if Pete chugs it he can be drunk enough to deal with
whatever. He doesn’t know when Patrick’s going to come home, but he knows he’ll
come eventually. There’s really nowhere else for him to go.
Pete pulls out an ace of spades shot glass from the cabinet. He flounders for a
moment before pulling out a highball glass, too. Carefully he fills them both
to up, topping the highball off with Coke. He takes the shot, grimaces, and
takes a drink from the glass. Wash, rinse, repeat.
By the time Patrick comes through the door, arms loaded down with take out,
Pete’s laughing at the ceiling from his spot on the floor. He doesn’t know how
he got down here, but it’s nice. Comfortable, even though the side of the
counter is digging into his hip. Patrick sets the take out on the counter and
peers down at him, blinking at him under the brim of his crooked cap.
“What are you doing?” He asks. His face is upside down, and Pete can see up his
nose. It’s hilarious.
“Looking up your nose,” Pete answers through giggles.
He locks his hands around Patrick’s ankles and pulls himself across the floor
until his head is between Patrick’s feet. All he can see is the spot where the
seams of Patrick’s pants meet at his crotch, like the world’s narrowed down to
Patrick’s dick for a few hours.
“You okay?” Patrick asks. He waddles away from the counter a bit, taking Pete
along with him. This, Pete thinks, is awesome and he should make Patrick do it
all the time. Their floor might look nicer, anyway.
“So, I was thinking,” Pete says, tugging on Patrick’s jeans idly. It makes his
arms feel weird so he keeps doing it, even when they start to slip over the
widest part of Patrick’s hips, showing the waistband of his boxers. They have
ducks on them. “You should fuck me.”
Patrick stops fighting with his pants, going suddenly still. Pete’s happy he’s
on the ground already, because they fly down with the force of his weight, belt
buckle smacking against his forehead kind of painfully. Patrick doesn’t laugh
at him, too busy opening and closing his mouth like a fish. A Patrick fish.
Pete laughs and tries not to think about freckled covered scales.
“Say again?” Patrick asks, choked.
Pete slides his hands up the solid muscle of Patrick’s calves, nails scratching
through the soft hair until he can’t reach up anymore. Patrick bounces them
irritably, trying to shake him off. Pete presses his thumbs into the hollows
behind Patrick’s knees and feels like he’s won a contest when they buckle a
little.
“I think you should fuck me,” Pete says again. It tastes funny on his tongue,
wrong. Unpracticed. He makes little zig zag patterns on Patrick’s legs with his
nails and shimmies closer. “How am I gonna know if I’m gay if I don’t try to
take it up the ass?”
“Pete...” Patrick tries to step away from him, but between Pete’s octopus hold
and his jeans twisted around his ankles all he manages to do is fall backwards
onto his ass. It shakes the floor under them. “No.” Pete frowns and rolls over.
This isn’t really how he saw this plan going. Not at all.
“No, this is where you say yes and, like, drag me to the bedroom.” Pete GI
crawls to him, stomach scraping the tile until he’s between Patrick’s legs,
chest resting on the itchy bump of his jeans. They’re bunched up in the middle
of his thighs, a bare strip of skin between them and the rucked up legs of his
boxers.
“You’re drunk,” Patrick says, like Pete doesn’t know.
“No shit.” Pete reaches under himself to shove the pants away, but he has to
spend a couple minutes dealing with Patrick’s sneakers first. Patrick’s clothes
are totally cockblocking him.
“I’m not going to...” Patrick waves his hand around spastically, not helping
when Pete reaches for his underwear. If anything, he tries to sit harder. Tries
to press his ass straight through the tile. “Take advantage of you, or
whatever.”
“Me being drunk has never stopped you before.” Which is either a really good
thing or a really shitty thing. Pete can’t quite decide. Something to think
about when the room isn’t fuzzy and spinning. “Come on, Patrick. You’re a dude.
You’re made to stick your dick in things.” Pete yanks on Patrick’s underwear
until the hems start to rip.
“Pete, I don’t think this is a good idea.” Patrick lifts his hips, and it’s
only as they’re sliding off that Pete realizes that he just shredded Patrick’s
favorite pair of boxers. The fabric is soft and time worn in his hands, the
threads that had once been the stitching tickling against his wrists.
“It’s a great idea,” Pete assures him.
Patrick’s soft, which is bullshit. Pete gropes him with more enthusiasm than
finesse and Patrick nearly knees him in the jaw for his efforts. Pete blows his
hair out of his face and lays bodily across Patrick’s shins to keep him still.
The answer to his problem is that he’s wearing too many clothes.
Wiggling out of his shirt is a whole new adventure. He’s probably grinding
Patrick’s bones together, knows that it’s killing his chest, but Patrick’s just
staring stupidly at him, still in his shirt. Once Pete’s shirtless, he does a
dick check. He’s good to go, is drunk enough to admit that he has been since he
opened the Patron in the first place. Patrick’s at half mast, which is better
than where they were but not actually what Pete’s aiming for. But there’s
progress. Progress is good.
“I don’t think I can stand up by myself,” Pete admits. Patrick blinks down at
him, the flush over his cheeks paling a little.
“Pete, I’m not doing this.” Patrick scoots back, and the cold tile replaces him
under Pete’s chest. He shoves himself to his feet, one hand coming down to
cover his crotch. Like Pete hasn’t seen him naked a hundred times already.
“Why do you always have to make shit so complicated?” Pete asks as he crawls to
his knees. Anger is boiling under his skin, sluggish and sharp. “Why can’t you
ever just go with the fucking plan?”
“Pete, can you just—”
“No.” Pete wobbles as he stands and is really fucking thrilled when he doesn’t
fall right back over. He stabs a finger into Patrick’s chest, leaning in close.
He can smell Patrick’s cologne, sharp and musky, and the sweetness of the soda
he must have had in the car on his breath. “Why won’t you just fucking listen
and fuck me?”
“Because I don’t want you to hate me in the morning,” Patrick shouts. He runs a
hand through his hair, chest heaving. Pete can see it shaking.
“I won’t hate you,” Pete says. He can’t imagine it. Well. Okay, he used to hate
Patrick. He used to hate Patrick a lot. But now he—he feels kind of like he’s
in love. Which, woah. When did that happen? “I can’t hate you.”
“Sure,” Patrick says dryly. He’s rubbing at his mouth, a tic that Pete’s seen
over and over and over. Pete remembers seeing it bleed, remembers making it
bleed, and guilt weighs him down heavy, anchors him to the kitchen floor.
Pete kisses him to shut him up. He digs his fingers into Patrick’s hair and
holds him close and tries to keep himself from coming clean. Patrick’s tense
against him but he doesn’t shove Pete away, doesn’t make him back off. When
Pete pulls back, Patrick’s watching him, all bright eyes and red mouth and
trust that Pete really doesn’t deserve.
“If you want me to when you’re sober...” Patrick trails off, staring down at
the floor. He steps to the side and reaches for his underwear, pulling them up.
The rips in the legs tear further as he fumbles with them. “I guess we’ll talk
about it then.”
Pete nods dumbly and lets himself be herded to the couch. Patrick sits him down
and disappears into the kitchen. For a few moments, Pete’s afraid that he’s not
going to come back at all. When he’s ready to try to stand again, Patrick
reappears, a glass of water in one hand, an opened box of white rice in the
other. He hands them both to Pete and settles down next to him.
And this wasn’t the way plan was supposed to go, but when Patrick curls his
hand around Pete’s knee and hums him a new song, it’s maybe better.
---
Pete wakes up alone. He’s camped up on the couch, head stuffed under the puffy
back, blanket tangled around his hips and legs. He grunts and tries to pull it
from between his knees, but it’s wrapped too tight and all he manages to do is
knock himself onto the floor with a giant thump. Their empty take out
containers are still on the table, forks sticky with leftover rice..
Patrick is nowhere to be seen.
Pete untangles himself through trial and error, banging into the coffee table
on his way up. His mouth is dry but he’s headache free, which is a small
miracle that he’s going to run with. He wanders through the apartment, stomach
up in knots as he listens to his footfalls in the quiet house. He’s fucked up
something. Again.
There’s water running in the bathroom. Pete stops outside the door, staring
down at his bare feet as he listens to Patrick moving around. He’s in the bath,
the sounds of his movements coming through the door slow and muffled. Pete’s
hand hovers over the doorknob for a long moment before he can finally man up
and open it.
Patrick’s leaning against the wall, eyes closed, the water turning his skin
pink. He doesn’t look up when Pete comes in, doesn’t open his eyes when Pete
takes his jeans off and lays them on the tank of the toilet next to Patrick’s
boxers. He shifts up though, lifting his legs until his knees poke out of the
water, red and thin. Carefully, Pete climbs in, water splashing out onto the
floor as he tries to fit himself between Patrick’s calves. The faucet digs into
Pete’s back, but he does his best to ignore it.
“Hey,” Pete says, soft. Patrick lifts a shoulder, the soft sound of his skin
unsticking from the porcelain echoing off the walls. “I’m sorry.”
“Pete...” Patrick finally opens his eyes, rolling his head so he can look at
Pete head on. “Shut up.”
They sit in silence, the water slowly cooling against them. Pete wants to reach
forward and touch him, wants to go back however many hours and suck it up
instead of reaching for the liquor. He tentatively wraps his fingers around
Patrick’s ankle, rubs his thumb over the swell of it.
“I’m not mad,” Patrick says. He sounds tired. His foot skids across the bottom
of the tub, resting under Pete’s thigh. “I just. You can’t keep doing it like
this, okay? If you want me to—whatever. If you want me to do anything, you have
to ask me sober. I’m not even kidding, Pete.”
Pete nods. He runs his hand up the long line of Patrick’s calf, feeling the way
the muscle shifts under his fingers. There’s something unsettled sitting under
his skin, jumpy and wrong, and it takes him too long to realize that he’s
scared. He’s fucking terrified. Of himself, of Patrick. Of what it means. He
swallows, bending forward to rest his forehead against Patrick’s knee.
“I still want it,” Pete says, quiet. He presses his nails into the dip of
Patrick’s knee, watching the skin turn white under them.
“You don’t have to do this,” Patrick says. He opens his legs wider, and Pete
crawls as close as he can, wrapping himself around Patrick’s chest. It’s
awkward, their legs squashed together, Pete mostly out of the water, but
Patrick holds him, rubs his back and presses his mouth to the crown of Pete’s
head. Pete listens to his heart tick, tick, tick and swallows his pride.
“I think I love you,” he says.
It makes his breath go short once it’s out. Patrick’s hand stops moving and
Pete tenses up under it. It’s been months and months since Pete’s seen the
words scrawled across his skin in Patrick’s messy handwriting, thick and stark
and hard to wash away. After Pete had scrubbed his skin raw, he could still see
phantom marks, could see what Patrick had left behind.
Patrick hasn’t said anything since and the idea that it might have changed
since then—that it might have gone away—makes Pete’s chest ache. He holds on
tighter, trying to sink straight into Patrick’s skin. If he lets go, Patrick
can get away. If he lets go, it might all crumble under him and leave him
standing alone again.
“Yeah?” Patrick asks, voice thick and heavy. Pete can feel him swallow, feel
the bob of his Adam’s apple against his cheek.
“Yeah,” Pete answers.
Patrick presses his mouth to the top of Pete’s head, his hand picking up the
steady up and down over his back again. They sit in the bathwater until it goes
cold, silent. When they go to bed, Patrick curls around Pete and sings to him
until he falls asleep. It’s perfect.
---
There’s something about summer that makes Pete feel restless. He’s been pacing
the halls for days, music filling up the empty spaces until Patrick gets home.
He thinks some times about maybe getting a job himself, but every time he
reaches for an application he thinks it’s a lot like admitting defeat.
He doesn’t need a stupid job. He’s got his band and his band is all he needs.
Joe comes by the day the air conditioner breaks. Pete’s down to his boxers,
sweat sliding over his skin in a thick layer that makes him grimace. All of the
windows in the apartment are open but it’s a still day time outside and he
feels like he’s going to melt straight into the floor boards.
“You look like shit,” Joe says. He jangles the keys in his hand, eyebrows
climbing up his forehead. His roots have grown out far enough to be obnoxious.
“Mom let me take the minivan. Up for a trip to the lake?”
Pete rolls onto his back, arm flopping off the side of the couch. He could
probably go for a swim. And if they stop by 7-Eleven, he can totally make a
half-assed picnic. It can’t be any hotter outside than it is inside.
“Bring me my trunks,” Pete says, waving a hand in the direction of his and
Patrick’s room. Joe rolls his eyes but goes anyway, jangling the whole way.
“Dude,” he says when he gets back, “are you just not separating laundry out of
spite?” He’s holding up both Pete and Patrick’s swim trunks. When Pete tries to
swallow, his dry throat clicks. “Or are you just being a dick?”
“You know me,” Pete says, snatching his shorts from Joe’s hand. “Always up for
being a dick.” He changes in front of Joe and gets a smug sense of satisfaction
when Joe dramatically covers his eyes and wails. “Stop by 7-Eleven. I need
beer.”
“You never need beer,” Joe says, kicking Pete’s beat up sneakers at him.
“Obviously you don’t know who you’re talking to.” Pete pulls his sneakers on
over his bare feet and doesn’t bother grabbing a shirt. Patrick’s not going to
kick him out of the store, and he’s not going to need one at the lake anyway.
Joe's mom's minivan is a hulking beast. Pete pats its ugly maroon side and hops
in. The seats are worn from years of carting kids around, grooves in a variety
of sizes eroded into the plush cover. Pete skims a hand over the dash. The
durability is impressive.
"So," Joe starts as he backs out of the driveway. "Is living with Patrick as
good as you thought it would be?" Pete shrugs and stares out the window.
It's better, if he wants to be honest. Three days ago, he'd had an anxiety
attack in the living room, had fallen to his knees and clutched at the couch
until his hands cramped. He felt like he was dying, heart racing in his chest,
throat closing up. And then Patrick was there, gently pulling him away from the
couch, holding him close and rocking him like a child.
They haven't talked about it, but Pete has noticed his pills showing up next to
breakfast in the morning, a pale little rainbow next to his Cheerios. He takes
them without complaint. He's tired of being crazy. They ride to 7-Eleven in
silence, listening to the trash on the radio. Pete watches the streets pass by
and misses the steadiness of being on tour. He's ready to go back out.
Patrick trips over himself when Pete walks in. Pete smirks to himself and heads
for the chip aisle. He's still got it.
He can hear Joe telling Patrick their plans, the weird gait to his words off-
putting under the top 40 on the speakers. Pete grabs a family sized bag of
Doritos and a tub of ranch, weighing the pros and cons of a second bag. He
should probably get a loaf of bread too, but he can’t really be bothered to
walk to the opposite side of the store. On his way back to the counter, he
grabs the largest case of Budweiser he can carry. He’s ready for a day at the
lake.
Joe has half a Twizzler hanging from his mouth when Pete gets to the register.
There’s an elderly lady at the lottery counter that looks vaguely scandalized
when she catches sight of Pete, but the rest of the store is empty. It all
looks so boring.
“None of these are winners,” Patrick says to the woman, chucking a handful of
scratch offs into the trash. Her wrinkled little face falls. “Is there anything
else you need today, Mrs. Adams?”
“No, honey,” the lady says. She pats his hand, a slow movement that stretches
her thin arm out entirely, and turns for the door. “I’ll see you tomorrow,
sweetheart.” And then she’s hobbling to the door, a new set of scratch offs
clutched between her knobbly fingers.
“Shut up,” Patrick says as soon as she’s out the door. Joe grins, his teeth red
with food dye. Pete watches the old woman climb into her car and feels
something sink in his chest. He wonders if she’s alone. “And you, put on a
fucking shirt before you come in.”
Pete shakes his head, plastering on a smile, and says, “Admit it, you love the
view.”
Patrick rolls his eyes, scanning the chips and beer without asking for Pete’s
ID. There’s still a faint stain of a blush over his cheeks, his eyes downturned
as he holds his hand out for payment. Pete can see the edge of a hickey under
his collar from this angle, right on the back edge of his neck. Something
vicious and satisfied settles in him.
“You want us to pick you up on or way back?” Joe asks as Patrick stuffs Pete’s
beer into a bag. Patrick’s been working late shifts, coming home exhausted and
sore. Pete’s considered calling the manager—Patrick’s a growing boy after all,
needs his sleep—but has been put off by the clingy, sleepy way Patrick crawls
into bed with him after a shift.
“Yeah.” Patrick steals half of Joe’s Twizzlers and shoos them out of the store
as a group of kids wanders in the door.
One of the girls bumps into Pete, her cool hand resting low on his belly. She
looks like someone Jeanae would know, all blonde bob hair and thick eyeliner.
She giggles when she apologizes, fingers dipping into the waist of his trunks.
It’s not until he’s pushing her away that he remembers he used to live for that
ten second window of want. Maybe he’s growing up after all.
The lake is a half hour away. Pete munches on his chips cheerfully in the
passenger seat and thinks about how good it’s going to feel to jump into the
water. Outside, the world is sunshine yellow and grass stain green, summer
giving one last good go before fall.
Joe parks behind a row of family cars, the minivan jerking in the gravel when
he stomps down on the brakes. He shrugs sheepishly as he pockets the keys. On
their way to the lake, Pete nearly runs face first into a sign post.
"No swimming? Are you kidding me?" Pete slaps his hand against the wooden sign,
the creaking of the post under it making him step back. "I've been swimming
here since I was a kid. What is this bullshit?"
"Cool your jets, old man Wentz," Joe says, leaning in closer to read the small
print on the sign. "There's toxic algae."
"For the love of—" Pete kicks Joe in the ankle and tightens his hold on his
case of beer. He's not going to let fucking algae ruin his day.
The lake is murky, the sun glancing off the top of it. The gravel around it
looks black and green, slick. Pete plops down and stares into the water. A
thick patch of fuzzy green slime floats on past.
"That's kind of gross," Joe says as he sinks down next to him. Pete pulls a
beer from the case and pops the tab. He is not fucking amused.
The sun shines down on them, warm against Pete’s skin. There’s barely anyone
out, all the cars like ghost houses. Pete wants to unhitch them and send them
away, wants to shove them into the lake so they can rot under the water with
the algae. When he was a kid this place boomed. When he was a kid, his dad
would take him and Hilary swimming until they turned red and wrinkled.
The things that have changed since now and then keep being overpowering. Pete
sips his beer, watching the green globs of algae move on by. He just wants
something normal, something to hang onto. Beside him Joe is stretched out, t-
shirt riding up. He’s going to fall asleep and he’s going to end up with an
unflattering red stripe across his stomach.
Pete throws beer can after beer can into the lake, aiming for the blotches.
Most of them sink down, bob back up a few feet away, but the last one hits. It
floats away slowly, the label rolling into the muck. Pete’s tired of this
place.
On their way home, Joe bitches about his sunburn until they’re in the 7-Eleven
parking lot. Patrick has two lottery tickets in one hand, a big gulp in the
other. He’s the only good thing about Ilinois that’s left. Pete throws the
lottery tickets out the window when they’re on the highway, ignoring Patrick’s
shouted protests.
“We don’t need luck,” Pete says. The starlight is washed away by the city
lights, but the moon is full and heavy above them.
“You’re crazy,” Joe says.
Pete sticks his head out the window, drowning out whatever else they have to
say with the sound of rushing wind. He almost thinks he can see the lottery
tickets skipping off down the street far behind them. He doesn’t need anything
but this.
---
The first thing Pete thinks when he wakes up is that he’s still dreaming. He’s
warm all over, arms and legs sleep heavy, eyes weighted down with sleep. Dull,
pleasant tingles creep up his stomach into his chest, spider webbing out all
over. He moans softly into his pillow. He hates waking up, but this is
definitely a nice way to do it if he has to. When he finally opens his eyes, he
sees a flash of Patrick’s smile near his stomach and then his sight goes fuzzy
as Patrick ducks down.
Patrick’s mouth is hot and slick around him, stretched wide and open. Pete
can’t stop staring, his hips jerking up lazily against the hands holding him
steady. There’s a flush across Patrick’s cheeks, and when he opens his eyes
they’re dark, his hair still mussed from sleep. Jesus, he’s hot. Pete fists the
comforter and tries to speed Patrick’s hand around the base of his dick with
his mind.
He feels fingertips brush over his lower lip and he sucks them in, mimics
Patrick’s tongue against his cock as best he can, the salt hot taste of
Patrick’s skin almost too much this early in the morning. Patrick makes a soft
sound around him, and it vibrates all the way up into Pete’s chest, makes a
knot in his stomach as he tries to hold off. His own little cocksucking savant,
just keeps getting better with time, never seems to have a problem dropping
down and sucking Pete off whenever he wants it. Pete shoves up into the heat of
Patrick’s mouth and groans.
He whines when Patrick wriggles his fingers away, chasing after them as far as
he can, but Patrick presses him back down into the mattress, other palm flat
against Pete’s chest. The mattress shifts as Patrick moves up, spreading Pete’s
thighs with his knees. Pete wants to watch, wants to see Patrick fuck himself
open, but he’s having trouble keeping his eyes open. He nearly falls off the
bed when he feels Patrick’s slick fingers slip behind his balls, moving slow
but in a definite direction.
“Is this okay?” Patrick asks, a little breathless.
He’s looking up at Pete, mouth swollen and dark, cautious as he runs his
fingertips down Pete’s ass. It’s different now, with Patrick here and actually
touching him. Pete feels himself go tight all over, freezing. If he does
this—if he likes it—he can’t go back. He can’t pretend that this was a fluke,
that Patrick was just a hiccup in his life. Patrick starts to pull away, face
blank like he knew that Pete would back out. It’s almost worse than seeing
disappointment. Pete yanks Patrick back in, shoves his hand down between his
legs, and tries not to panic.
“Go for it,” he says. His voice is only a little high.
“Pete,” Patrick says, softly, “you don’t have to do this. You don’t have to,
like, prove anything to me.” He’s so level, so considerate. It makes Pete’s
stomach twist up. Guilt, maybe.
“Shut up and do it.” Pete closes his eyes and thinks about the way Patrick
feels around him, thinks about the way Patrick sounds when Pete’s balls deep in
him, the way he goes loose after, smiling like Pete’s given him the moon. It
can’t be that bad, if it does that to Patrick.
Patrick kisses him, bites at his lips and makes him pay attention. This is
familiar. This Pete can do. He sucks at Patrick’s tongue, feels him solid and
warm against him, knows that Patrick’s trying to distract him and tries to
throw himself into it.
He feels Patrick moving, feels him reaching for the lube on the dresser. He
tries not to think about it, tries to keep focused on the way Patrick’s tracing
the insides of his mouth, but he still tenses up when Patrick’s slick finger
rubs across his hole. Patrick mumbles soothing things against Pete’s mouth,
rubbing small circles around Pete’s asshole, not trying to go in just yet. It
makes Pete antsy.
“Just do it,” Pete says, moving his hips down. Patrick moves right along with
him.
“Do you want me to go back to sucking you off?” Patrick asks. Normally Pete
would laugh at him because of course he wants Patrick to go back to sucking him
off, but all he can do is nod.
“Okay, yeah.” And then Patrick’s moving away and sucking Pete’s half hard dick
into his mouth like he never stopped. He’s pulling out all his tricks, hitting
Pete’s spots in rapid succession; making slick, wet, sloppy sounds that would
normally have Pete shooting down his throat like a teenager. But Pete’s focused
on the steady pressure of Patrick’s finger against him, anxious instead of
turned on. Patrick groans around him. Pete can hear the frustration. His
apology is on the tip of his tongue, ready to spill out, but he chokes on it
when Patrick leans in and deep throats him, Jesus Christ.
Pete has a second to wonder how long Patrick’s been hiding that trick from him
before he short circuits at the feel of Patrick swallowing around him. And wow.
Wow. If Patrick keeps that up, Pete’s going to lose it way before they get
anywhere near fucking. He can’t stop staring at the way Patrick’s mouth is
stretched open, red and slick and white at the corners, the way his nose is
pressed right to Pete’s stomach, the way his eyes are watering.
He’s about to pull Patrick off, too close to keep it up, when he feels the
finger slip inside him.
It’s weird. Pete feels himself go tense all over again, thighs aching from
being held apart. Patrick pulls off, his chest heaving with his deep breaths
in. He looks like he’s already been fucked, the sun catching the flyaway hairs
that are stick straight up, making his pink cheeks look bright. He’s watching
Pete closely, so still that it’s almost unnatural.
“Today, Stump,” Pete says. He’s trying to force himself to relax. To suck it up
and deal with it. Patrick nods, and then he’s moving his finger in small,
barely there circles and everything goes right back out the window.
“You have to work with me if you want to do this,” Patrick says. He sounds
rough. The raw scratch of his voice makes Pete’s dick jump. Pete nods, reaches
blindly forward to grab a fistful of hair and drag Patrick’s head back down.
Patrick huffs, annoyed or amused Pete can’t tell, but he still licks a wide
stripe up Pete’s balls all the way to the head of his cock before sucking him
back in, and that’s really all Pete cares about. With Patrick’s mouth hot and
eager—always so eager—it’s easier to ignore the strange feeling of Patrick’s
finger moving in his ass.
Then Patrick hits something, does something that makes Pete nearly choke him as
he jerks up. Patrick pulls off and laughs against Pete’s hip, rubbing against
the spot again and again. And wow, so that’s what it feels like. Pete presses
down against him, reaches for his own dick and squeezes at the base, sharp
enough to hurt.
“Good?” Patrick asks. Pete can only nod dumbly at him, eyes shut tight as tries
to hold onto the feeling. “Are you ready for two?”
Pete has no idea if he’s ready for two but he nods again anyway, opening his
legs wider. They ache, deep down into the muscle. It’ll be there tomorrow, just
under the surface to remind him. He feels Patrick smear lube across his ass,
too much to really be comfortable. It drips down between his thighs, makes him
sticky and wet and hot, but when Patrick crosses his fingers and presses two
in, they slide in easy and Pete feels strange all over again, full like he’s
never been.
Patrick sucks at his hip, biting at the skin softly as he presses his fingers
in slowly. Carefully, he crooks them, searching for that spot again with the
steady thoroughness he has with everything he does. Pete has to bite his
knuckles when he finds it. Patrick goes for Pete’s dick, mouths at the base,
but Pete pushes him away, fingers curling in Patrick’s hair to keep him away.
It’s too much and not enough all at once. Patrick nods, hums nonsense at him as
he stretches his own fingers, opens Pete up.
It seems like it goes on forever, Patrick being so fucking careful with him.
Pete can foggily remember the first time he fucked Patrick, remembers spitting
into his hand and doing a quick one, two before sliding in. His gut twists as
he thinks about it.
“I’m ready,” he blurts out.
He’s probably not. It’s probably going to hurt, but he fucking deserves it.
Patrick doesn’t stop, keeps working his fingers slow and steady, his thumb
brushing up under Pete’s balls on every in stroke. He’s biting his lip, eyes
dark and skin pink all the way down to the waist of his shorts. As he tucks a
third finger in, careful and easy, Pete feels the ache all the way up into his
stomach. He’s selfishly relieved that Patrick’s not going to listen to him.
“This is enough for me,” Patrick says sometime later, when Pete’s thighs are
shaking and his cock is leaking like it’s running on tap. “You don’t have to go
through with it.” He twists his wrist in a tight motion that makes Pete
shudder.
“Jesus, can you just shut up and stick it in?” Pete snaps. He feels like an
asshole the second he sees Patrick wince, but he doesn’t take it back.
“Yeah,” Patrick says softly. “Okay.”
Then he’s pulling his fingers out and the absence of them is almost stranger
than their presence in the first place. Patrick shimmies out of his boxers and
reaches for the lube again, and the sound when he slicks his cock is wet and
filthy. He’s watching Pete, jerking himself off slowly, something
unrecognizable in his expression. When he puts his hand on Pete’s thigh,
spreads him open wider, Pete’s heartbeat picks up. If he’s making the wrong
choice, it’s too late to back out now. He feels the head of Patrick’s dick
against him and he has to close his eyes. Here’s his defining moment. Here’s
his sign.
It hurts, but not like Pete was expecting it to. There’s pressure, pressure,
pressure, and then the jolt of the head of Patrick’s cock popping into him,
Patrick holding himself so still after. His hands shake on Pete’s thighs.
Patrick’s dick isn’t that long, but it’s fat, stretching Pete open wider than
his fingers had. Pete tries not to pull away, tries to relax into it, but when
Patrick starts to inch forward, teeth clenched and face screwed up, Pete jerks
away.
“Stay still,” Patrick says, voice tight. Belatedly, Pete remembers that it’s
his first time too, that he’s never fucked anyone before. Not like this. “I’m
trying not to hurt you.”
“Just go,” Pete says. He digs his nails into the soft skin at Patrick’s hips
and tries to pull him in, but Patrick remains stubbornly still. “Like a band-
aid, right?” Patrick laughs. Pete can feel the vibration all the way inside.
“It’s really not.” Still, Patrick presses all the way in until his balls are
resting against Pete’s ass, fingers curled around Pete’s knees, holding them
apart.
Pete feels—full. Like he’s got something jammed up his ass that’s not supposed
to be there. He almost laughs, hysterical, but the way Patrick’s looking at him
stops the sound short in his throat. Patrick shifts, moves up higher on his
knees. It still feels weird, but the friction is better than Patrick staying
still. Pete’s sweating even though he hasn’t moved, the insides of his elbows
and knees and thighs damp, sticking to Patrick’s skin.
“I’m gonna...” Patrick pulls back slowly and—wow. That’s weird. He pushes back
in faster, the slick slide of his dick like a punch to Pete’s gut.
It’s not bad after that, the feel of Patrick moving in him slow and steady.
He’s only half hard, mostly focused on the sounds Patrick’s making, high and
desperate and hot. There’s something—Patrick keeps nearly hitting that
something from before, the tickle of pleasure curling at the base of Pete’s
spine making him feel tight all over. He wiggles a little, moves his hips,
cursing when Patrick hits it solidly.
Patrick laughs, breathless, and hikes Pete’s knees up. It pulls at Pete’s
stomach, makes his abs ache the longer he stays like that, but it makes it
easier for Patrick to hit that spot, helps him speed up. Pete rocks against it
as best he can, dick fully hard again against his stomach. He wants to jerk
himself off but he can’t make his hands work.
Patrick rolls his hips in smooth motions that make Pete’s slick thighs shake
under his palms. He does it again, grinding against Pete’s ass, and fuck. Fuck.
It feels fucking great, Pete’s fingertips numb from it. He can understand how
Patrick gets off on it, how Patrick can come back for more.
“I want to—let me try—” Patrick pulls out, arms shaking as he moves. After a
moment, Pete blinks up at him, confused. Things were going great. Why is
Patrick stopping? “Can you...” Patrick tugs on Pete’s hip until Pete rolls
over, and. Oh.
Pete lifts up onto his knees, feeling oddly vulnerable as he presses his hot
face into his arms. He feels Patrick’s hand ghost down his back, thumb tracing
the bumps of his spine all the way down, and then Patrick’s fingers are in him
again, wet with lube and not really enough now. Pete presses into them, opens
his thighs up wider when he feels the mattress shift behind him.
Patrick’s dick goes in easier this time, slips right inside and makes Pete
groan. He doesn’t hold back, thrusting in sharp, short movements that leave
Pete’s chest sore for breath. He can feel Patrick’s balls slapping against the
backs of his thighs, steady, the sound of it ringing in the room. Pete bites
his wrist, tries not to moan out loud when Patrick reaches around and fists his
dick. If he were a lesser man, he’d cry from relief.
It’s almost too much. Pete closes his eyes tight, burying his face into the
mattress as Patrick fucks him, hand working just a little faster than his hips.
His sticky hot thighs cling to Pete’s. Pete gives up on being quiet—thinks,
fuck it, this is my house—and curls his mouth around as many fucks, and
Patricks, and Jesus Christs, as he can. He feels Patrick laugh more than he
hears it, feels the way his stomach shakes a little and the way his chest
rumbles when he leans in over Pete’s back. There’s so much sensation
everywhere.
“I’m not going to last much longer,” Patrick says, clipped.
Really, Pete’s surprised he’s lasted as long as he has, so he can’t really
complain. Pete’s first time, he’d shot almost straight out the gate. Patrick’s
fingers tighten around him, his rhythm faltering. His hips jerk once, twice,
three times, and then he goes still, pressed flush against Pete’s ass, and
woah. Woah. That means what Pete thinks it means. Gross.
“Fuck.” Patrick’s shaky as he pulls out, barely able to hold himself up. If it
was weird going in, it’s even weirder coming out.
Pete unclenches a hand from the sheets and reaches down, ready to finish
himself off with a few quick pulls. Before he can, Patrick bats his hand away,
ignoring Pete’s whine. He shoves weakly at his hip until Pete gets the hint and
rolls onto his back, thighs screaming. Patrick flops forward a little, elbows
sinking into the mattress as he lowers his head to Pete’s cock.
It’s sloppier than usual, lazier, but the flush over Patrick’s cheeks—the warm,
awed way he’s looking up at Pete—is hot enough that Pete doesn’t really care.
He’s close, so fucking close, when Patrick shoves two fingers into him, sudden
and sure. When he crooks them, rubs his fingertips over that spot that makes
Pete feel twitchy all over, Pete comes, arching up into his mouth.
“Holy shit,” Pete mutters as Patrick pulls off, wiping his mouth with the back
of his wrist. Patrick grins, loose and happy, easing his fingers out slowly.
Pete can feel the wetness there- Patrick’s come there, weird- and he’s already
sore, aware of the entire area like he usually isn’t.
Patrick crawls up next to him, reaching for the sheet as he goes along. They
should probably clean up. He feels disgusting, at least, and Patrick looks like
he’s just come back from a show, which is kind of gross even for them- but
Pete’s loose and content. He lets Patrick curl up on his chest, cheek pressed
to Pete’s shoulder, and combs his fingers through Patrick’s tangled hair. It
looks like gold in the sun filtering through the curtains.
“Guess I’m queer after all,” Pete says softly. Patrick scratches lazy,
meaningless patterns across Pete’s arm, white streaks trailing after his
fingertips like paint.
“And it only took you over a year of fucking a dude to figure it out,” he says
dryly. Despite himself, Pete laughs, Patrick’s head bouncing on his chest as he
lets it loose. He feels lighter. Less afraid. Patrick hums like he can hear his
thoughts, digging the back of his skull into the soft spot above Pete’s armpit
until he’s comfortable. “Now shut up and sleep.”
To his surprise, Pete does.
---
The van feels like home.
Pete’s sprawled across the middle row, feet up against the windows, watching
trees pass by in a green blur. It’s too hot inside with the air conditioner
broken, leaving them all cranky. Patrick’s driving, which means they’re
probably going to be ten minutes late. Behind him, Andy and Joe are bickering
about Green Day albums, throwing lazy barbs at one another without any heat.
They’re headed to Iowa, following the twisting path of roads on day twelve of
tour. The van already stinks like too many dudes shoved into a small space.
Patrick sweats too much and Joe smokes too much and Pete hasn’t washed the gel
out of his hair in over a week, and the stains he leaves behind smell kind of
like fast food places do. But with the windows open it’s barely noticeable
under the fresh, sharp smell of the summer air. Still, the road helps Pete
sleep when nothing else does, and the kids they see on a nightly basis have
been singing along word for word. Pete’s got something a lot like faith riding
along on the roof.
In the apartment, there’s six letters stamped with bill collector return
addresses. College coming back to bite him in the ass. If they don’t make some
sort of profit on this tour, he’s completely fucked. He hasn’t told the guys,
doesn’t want to put pressure on them, but it’s weighing heavy on his shoulders
at each gig. So far they’re doing okay, but Pete can’t risk anything less than
great if he wants to be able to keep doing this.
They’re only five minutes late. Joe scrambles out first, stretching his arms up
high over his head and blocking the passage for the rest of them. He’s getting
bigger, scrawny little hips and shoulders filling out with each day. Pete feels
traitorously old as he shoves him out of the way. Twenty-two feels a lot like
thirty some days.
Pete checks in, scribbles down their names and takes their passes and drink
bands with a nod before wandering back out to help haul their equipment in. If
he drags his feet long enough, all he’ll only have to carry wires. When he’s
rounding the corner of the building, he sees Joe and Patrick scuffling around
their unloaded gear.
“You,” Joe says grandly, peeking at Patrick over the third largest of their
amps, “need to get laid.”
Pete barely holds back a snort. He’s pretty sure Patrick gets laid more in a
week than Joe ever has in his life. He hangs back though, curious, and watches
the pinkness crawl up Patrick’s cheeks.
“I’m good,” Patrick mumbles, hefting up half of the amp with a huff.
“No, seriously, like, you can get girls, man,” Joe continues. He nearly falls
backward over the curb when Patrick walks too fast, scrambling to keep himself
upright. There’s a vicious part of Pete that’s sad to see him catch himself.
“You’re in a band! That’s gold.”
“I’m not interested,” Patrick says again, voice going muffled as they pass
through the doors.
Pete leans against the side wall and taps his head against the brick. Fucking
Joe, Jesus. The kid never could mind his own business. Pete’s aching to hit
something, fist already cocked, tension buzzing under his skin. He digs his
knuckles into his thigh and breathes out slow. It’s stupid to get worked up
over. It’s not like he has anything to worry about. Not with Patrick.
The doors swing open, smashing into the wall with a bang, and there’s Joe’s
voice again, nasal and lisping saying, “Have you ever?”
“Joe, can you just drop it?” Patrick’s voice is tight. The pinkness of his face
has changed to red, the same shade as when he’s putting up with Pete’s bullshit
on a long night of sleeplessness. He’s moving from embarrassed to pissed at a
quick pace.
“You haven’t? Seriously?” Joe does fall back on his ass when Patrick whips
around, hand raised. He blinks up from the ground, baby wide eyes suddenly too
sharp for Pete to look at. “It’s okay, man. You just haven’t met the right girl
or whatever.”
“Joe, Jesus fucking Christ, let it go.” Patrick turns on his heel and punches
the van, knuckles hitting it with a solid crash. He does it again. The dent
left in the side of the van is visible from where Pete’s hiding out. The third
time, Joe scrambles up and grabs his wrist before it makes contact, dodging the
wild headbutt Patrick aims at him.
“Dude, hey, hey.” Joe grabs his face, locks him in place. “It’s cool. It’s
alright.”
Patrick’s hand is swollen. He’s holding it to his chest, cradling it gently.
Joe’s still touching him, still babbling nonsense as the color drains from
Patrick’s cheeks. They’re both so young, babies playing adults.
“You don’t like girls, do you?” Joe asks when Patrick’s stopped moving
altogether.
Patrick shakes his head, silent. Joe hugs him, wraps him up in his scrawny arms
and tugs him in, holds him tight up against his chest. Without pause, Patrick
sinks into him and drops his head to Joe’s shoulder, his injured fist crushed
between them. His shoulders are shaking, soft enough that Pete can barely see
it.
“It’s okay,” Joe says, quiet and comforting. “It’s alright, man. You’re okay.”
His fingers tangle up in the ends of Patrick’s hair, tugging in a slow, even
rhythm. “Anyone else know?” Patrick shakes his head, and Pete’s stomach
clenches. He’d never thought about it before, if anyone else knew that
Patrick’s gay. “We’ll find you a dude. No big deal. Being in a band is twice as
awesome if you’re looking for a dude, right?”
Patrick’s arms come up around Joe’s waist as he gives a short huffing laugh.
Pete has to leave, has to get away before the guilt, the anger, wells up and
kills him. Pete heads to the bar. He flashes his stupid wristband at the
bartender and orders a double shot of Black Velvet. It burns going down but he
doesn’t feel the two that follow it at all. After them, he doesn’t feel much of
anything but a swelling of his skin and brain and lungs.
Patrick finds him before the local band opening for them starts sound check.
His hand is wrapped, too thick to be Andy’s work. Probably Joe’s instead. Pete
doesn’t know how they’re going to pack up in their time limit with him out of
the picture, how Patrick’s going to take his shift at the wheel.
“What happened to your hand?” Pete asks. He stumbles over his words a little,
almost amused when he sees Patrick frown.
“Nothing,” Patrick says, tucking it behind his back. He looks guilty. Pete digs
his nails into his palms until his fingertips feel numb. At least he’s not the
only liar here.
“Nothing. Right.” Pete raps on the bar and holds up two fingers. When his shots
arrive, he hands one to Patrick, the glass slipping against his damp
fingertips. Patrick has to hurry to catch it, strong right hand fucked up,
bandages going dark and wet with liquor.
“What are you doing?” Patrick hisses. He looks outraged as Pete knocks back his
drink. “We’re on in an hour.”
Pete laughs. Jesus, this is so stupid.
“You gonna tell me you’re fine?” Pete asks. He sneers when Patrick opens his
mouth to say yes. Stupid kid. Stupid, stupid kid. “Make a fist.”
Patrick tries because he’s bullheaded, and he somehow succeeds with clenched
teeth and a red face. It’s got to be agonizing. Pete flicks the wrap around his
knuckles and smiles sharply when Patrick hisses.
“What the fuck is your problem?” Patrick cups his hand to his chest again,
holding it just above his heart. Under the gauze, he’s probably already turning
seven shades of green and blue. Before Pete can answer, Joe pops up, dragging a
tech behind him. He glowers at Pete, eyes on the whiskey in his hand. Christ,
they’ve been spying on him. The tech is young enough to have an x scribbled
over the back of his hand, dark hair falling into his face in a mess. When he
smiles and waves, he shows dimples.
“This is Darren,” Joe says as he shoves himself between Pete and Patrick,
throwing his arm over Pete’s shoulders. “Darren, this is Patrick.” The way he
says it makes Pete want to hit him. When Patrick doesn’t move, Joe elbows him,
spilling out the last of the shot across the floor.
“Joe said you needed someone to fill in tonight,” Darren says. His voice is
lower than Pete’s, thick with an accent that isn’t local. “He, uh, said you’d
run the basics by me?”
“Yeah, sure.” Patrick flexes his injured hand and sets the glass onto the bar.
He doesn’t look at Pete as he leaves, already mumbling about simplifying the
parts to chords.
“What are you doing?” Pete asks, shrugging Joe off. Joe frowns, tapping his
fingers on the bar.
“Patrick’s hand’s too fucked up to play,” Joe says. “Anyway, Patrick and Darren
have a lot in common.” Outside, there’s a wail of a siren. Pete can feel the
tension in his shoulders spreading.
“You don’t know shit about Patrick,” Pete hisses.
He shoves Joe into the counter, violence raging inside him. There’s almost
nothing good in his life, and this little shit’s trying to take what he’s got.
The sound of Joe’s hip hitting is soft, muffled under his clothes, but Pete
knows it hurts, knows there’s going to be a bruise where he collided.
Joe narrows his eyes and steps up into Pete’s space, shoves a finger into his
face. Joe’s never been a fighter, was always the one to bring peace when
everyone else were at each other’s throats. He’s small and has no experience.
Pete can take him if he has to. Can beat the fuck out of him before anyone even
notices, and Joe knows it.
“If you have a problem with him, you can fuck yourself,” Joe spits.
He curls his hand into a fist, knuckles going white under the yellow glow of
the bar lights. He’s loyal like a puppy, something Pete’s always loved about
him. Right now, it makes Pete want to drive him straight into the hardwood.
“I have a problem with you,” Pete sneers. He’s about to get up when Andy pops
out of nowhere, fingers curling tight around Pete’s bicep.
“Help me set up the merch table,” he says tersely. The dig of his jagged nails
into Pete’s skin leaves Pete no choice.
Andy doesn’t leave his side until showtime. Pete grabs up his bass and thumps
it against his body. He paces at side stage like a caged animal, vision fuzzy.
If he has a shot or two more, he’ll probably puke. He’s restless, sick.
Darren’s next to Patrick, one of Patrick’s guitars slung over his shoulder. He
keeps looking over, eyes half lidded, sending Patrick small smiles.
When they get on the stage. Patrick folds his arm behind his back, bad hand
loose as he sings as bold and bright as ever. Darren’s watching him steadily,
smiling like he’s in on a joke. Halfway through the set, he bumps into Patrick,
leans against him like he belongs there. It pisses Pete off on the lowest
level. He can’t stand by and watch this happen. He won’t be replaced by some
fucking techie.
The audience cheers when Pete rams into Darren, wrenching the mic in front of
him off the stand. He yells into it, probably a half beat too soon, but this is
his part. This is his band, and his words, and his fucking life. Not Darren’s.
Pete plasters himself to Patrick’s side, mouths the words he wrote against
Patrick’s damp tshirt. Patrick goes still next to him, doesn’t look at him as
he rockets through the chorus. Pete wants to swallow him whole, keep him tucked
away from assholes like Joe and Darren, keep him safe inside.
“You’re mine,” he says when Andy starts in on the last song of the set, hand
curling in the collar of Patrick’s shirt. “You’re mine.”
Pete drops his mic when they’re done and heads back off stage. Patrick bolts.
Pete races after him. Patrick’s no good at running, too predictable and slow.
Even drunk Pete has no problem catching up to him. He pins Patrick up against
the wall and makes him stay. Patrick doesn’t speak, lips pressed together tight
enough to drain the blood from them. Usually it’s what Pete wants, his easy
out, his get out of jail free card, but now the silence is deafening.
“I meant it,” Pete says. His voice is hoarse from yelling. It sounds ragged and
desperate to his own ears. “No one else gets to—”
“Joe set up a date,” Patrick says tightly. His eyes are so, so dark. “He thinks
I’m too shy or nervous or what the fuck ever to get one on my own. And it would
be fucking great to tell him I’ve already got a boyfriend that I fucking love,
even though he’s the biggest fucking asshole I know. Too bad I can’t.” He
shoves at Pete’s shoulders until Pete stumbles back. Boyfriend. He’s always
been a shitty boyfriend. When Patrick runs his hands through his hair, he looks
much older than seventeen. “I’m tired of being your dirty secret.”
“Patrick. I love you. You know that.”
Patrick laughs. It’s an ugly sound. He says, “You keep saying it. Jesus Pete, I
want to fucking...” He tugs at his hair, bandaged hand stark against the sweaty
darkness of it. “I want to hold hands with my boyfriend. I want to go on dates.
I want—I want something normal!”
“I can’t be normal,” Pete says quietly. Patrick’s shoulders slump, the fight
draining out of him.
“I know.” Patrick scrubs his hands over his face, knocking his head against the
wall. He looks tired. “I’ve never asked you for anything. Can you just. Jesus,
can I at least tell Joe so he doesn’t, like, ship me off to the nearest gay
teens meeting?”
Impulse has always been Pete’s strong suit, and it keeps him company when he
sees the flash of Joe’s ugly shirt, when he hears Andy’s voice around the
corner. He fists a hand in Patrick’s shirt and yanks him forward until their
teeth click. It’s the least romantic thing he’s ever done, but Patrick kisses
him back, understands what he’s doing without Pete having to say anything. The
relief that wells up in Pete’s chest is almost unbearable.
“I think he knows now,” Pete says against Patrick’s mouth. Patrick laughs
again, high and sweet, the sound of Joe and Andy catcalling muffled under it.
When they get back into the van hours later, Pete lays his head on Patrick’s
lap and tangles his fingers up in Patrick’s, staring up at Joe in the rearview
mirror. He doesn’t know what he’s expecting, but what he gets is Joe grinning
at him, big and wide like he has any clue what’s going on. The engine turns
over noisily, the van lurching out of the parking lot. Pete’s known Andy long
enough to know he’s wearing his I told you so face. He ignores both of them.
He doses off and on, the road and Patrick’s soft humming a lullaby for his
tired ears. Patrick’s fingers comb through his hair, the gauze around them
reeking like whiskey, catching flyaway strands and tugging. It feels nice, the
not panicking. The not being afraid.
He’s mostly asleep when he hears Joe asking quietly, “How long?”
Patrick shrugs, his shoulders pulling up and Pete’s head falling closer into
the warmth of his stomach. He says, “I’m not really sure. A year. Longer.” If
his eyes were open, Pete’s pretty sure he’d know exactly what color pink
Patrick is turning. “It’s complicated.”
“Is he treating you okay?” Andy asks. Pete bristles, hands curling into fists
at his sides. He’s not the fucking bad guy. There is no bad guy.
“You don’t know Pete,” Patrick says low and almost as angry as Pete feels. “And
I’m not a kid. I know how to take care of myself.”
Alley, blood on his mouth and knuckles and collar, swinging blind and angry and
vicious. Not a total lie, but not really the truth either.
Andy drops it. Joe asks enough questions to build a house on, more curious than
invasive. He’s like a brother, Pete thinks. An annoying baby brother. Patrick
answers each question carefully. Pete squirms uncomfortably when Joe asks about
the first time they did it, voice congealed with awe and humor. Patrick shrugs.
Says he was drunk, doesn’t remember. He doesn’t tell Joe that Pete kicked him
out after, doesn’t mention how Pete found his fake id under his bed three weeks
later, laminated and smelling faintly of rum.
“Why didn’t you ever say anything, dude?” Joe eventually asks. Pete knows he’s
thinking about Jeanae, knows that Joe has a faint timeline in his head. They’ve
all been living in each other’s pockets for too long.
“It’s hard,” Patrick says quietly.
Joe stops asking questions, apparently satisfied with whatever he’s found.
Patrick slides a fingertip over Pete’s jaw, taps it at the square ridge under
his ear. He knows Pete’s awake.
“Get some sleep,” he whispers.
And Pete does.
---
“I’m going to do this, and you’re not going to say a fucking word about it,”
Pete hisses.
They’re at the smallest mall Pete’s ever seen, wandering around in the hopes of
finding a few pairs of cheap jeans. They’re due in Pennsylvania in another day,
but they’ve got plenty of time if they stick Andy in the driver’s seat. It’s
the first day off they’ve had so far, and the fact that it happens to fall on
Patrick’s birthday, well. Pete’s always been good at planning. The mall is
full, summer time calling to the kids like a dinner bell, the air full of the
sharp smell of pretzels and the high chatter of the crowd around them.
Pete wipes his palm over the coarse denim stretched over his thigh to clear
away the clamminess. This is stupid, he tells himself. Just do it. Patrick’s
watching him, bemused, stupid home done haircut fresh and sticking up at his
ears where he missed. He belongs in places like this. Places for kids. Places
for babies.
Pete has to look away. He links his fingers with Patrick’s determinedly,
presses their palms together lifeline to lifeline, and drags him down the
strip, aimed towards the JC Penny’s at the far end of the mall. When he glances
over, Patrick’s head is ducked, but there’s a smile curled up at the corners of
his mouth.
It makes Pete’s heart swell. This—this isn’t that bad. Not really. There’s a
few looks, but it could be because of the stench that’s probably following them
around like a cartoon cloud. Patrick’s shoulder keeps bumping against Pete’s,
his hip knocking against Pete’s, and it’s—nice.
Patrick snatches a few jeans off the clearance rack, glancing at the tags
before going to ring them up. The pair he’s wearing now are baggy and old—soft
from wear, a pair of comfort jeans—the knees ripped out. The holes are big
enough that Pete can see the scars on Patrick’s shins from a bad skateboarding
accident years ago. Usually when he sees Patrick reach for them he makes as
many blowjob jokes as he can. One day Patrick will stop getting embarrassed
about it, but until then, Pete’s going to exploit it shamelessly.
Somehow, it’s easier to take Patrick’s hand again as they’re heading back out
toward the food court.
Joe and Andy don’t even bat an eye when they settle in across from them at a
table. They’ve been stupidly okay about Pete and Patrick’s thing. Pete wants to
keep pushing, keeps expecting one of them to call them fags and throw a punch.
It’s stupid and he knows it’s stupid, but he can help the niggling fear at the
back of his brain. Joe grins and raises his eyebrows at Patrick when he thinks
Pete isn’t looking. They really, really have nothing to worry about here.
“Andy found a house party,” Joe announces around a mouthful of cheese fries.
Gooey melted cheese sauce drips down onto his chin and then onto the table. He
wipes at his mouth with the back of his wrist, shrugging at the disgusted look
Andy’s staring him down with. “It’s not a birthday party, but I’m sure that you
can, you know. Get a room or whatever.”
“You really didn’t just say that,” Patrick groans, covering his face with his
free hand.
Joe’s been on a personal mission to get them as much alone time as he can.
Pete’s torn between being amused and being supremely, supremely frustrated.
He’s heard Joe and Patrick talking in the back, listened in on them when he was
supposed to be asleep. Joe’s got hoards of questions and Patrick’s got hoards
of answers. They’re like gossiping school girls. It’s disgusting.
“If you’re so interested in gay sex, you can come along,” Pete says cheerily,
trying to keep the bite out of his voice.
He gets it. Joe’s trying to be supportive or whatever. It doesn’t stop it from
being frustrating as hell. Joe blanches and immediately drops the subject. At
least there’s that.
They spend the rest of the day roaming the mall, peeking in at stores that they
can’t really afford to shop in. While they’re browsing a toy shop, Pete slips
away and buys a tiny toy drum. It’s old, made of painted wood and stretched
plastic. Two small sticks jut out of the steel rings screwed onto the side of
the drum, the same shiny kind of wood as the regular sized ones Andy uses.
He presents it to Patrick when they get back to the van. It’s such a stupid
thing, but he can’t really afford to buy him anything he’d want. When they had
been in the record store, he’d seen Patrick’s fingers gliding over the sleeves
carefully, reverently, and it had almost physically ached to watch the
disappointment on his face when he put them back, not even bothering to glance
at the price tags.
One day, they’ll have money. One day, they’ll have their own records and their
own whatever the fuck they want, and Patrick will have enough records to choke
on.
“I know, deep down in your tiny little soul, there’s a drummer somewhere,” Pete
says as he hands the drum off.
The streetlights in the parking lot make the steel bands glow. Patrick looks
confused as he takes it, but he still rubs a thumb over the head and thumps it
twice. The stupid smile that he aims at the chipping paint does something
strange to Pete’s chest that he never can quite get over.
“You know,” Patrick says as he tucks the drum into the back carefully. “Andy
told me that you didn’t ask him to be part of the band for a few days after I
auditioned.”
He’s not saying anything, but Pete can hear the implication in his voice. He’s
not wrong.
---
When they arrive, the party is already in full swing. People are crammed into
every room, screeching with laughter, voices closing in on all the silent air
outside and crushing it away. Patrick reaches for the first red cup he sees and
drags Pete to the guy playing DJ in the living room. The thump, thump, thump of
the too loud bass makes Pete’s legs shake, the sound sinking all the way into
his shins and kneecaps. The whole house smells like spilled alcohol.
It feels a lot less like courage and more like need when Pete tentatively
touches his fingertips to Patrick’s palm again. He feels so weak around
Patrick, crumbling away into another person. He hates himself more days than
not when he’s Pete Wentz. Maybe being someone else isn’t the worst thing in the
world. Patrick’s fingers are cool when they curl around his, his smile just
short of awestruck. Pete can—Pete can deal with this.
They don’t know a damn person, but people know them. A few ask for them to sign
caps and wrists and t-shirts. Pete scrawls down his sketchy signature, loops
his letters with Patrick’s. He’s done this before with Arma, but Patrick looks
kind of bemused even as he smiles and nods and fumbles his way through
compliments. Someone asks if they can hear a song and a couple of others cheer
through their drinks. Patrick goes a little pink, closed in with people talking
over each other. Panicky.
“If you want to see us, there’s a show in Pittsburgh tomorrow,” Pete half-
shouts over the steady thump of Mindless Self Indulgence from the speakers. He
throws an arm around Patrick’s shoulders, pulling him in. A few of the crowd
grumble but most of them wander away when Pete doesn’t let go. “You want to get
out of here?”
Pete’s going whether Patrick comes or not. He can’t handle the noise.
Patrick nods, lets Pete guide him to the doors. They should probably let Joe or
Andy know where they’re going in case something happens, but Pete keeps his
mouth shut. It kind of feels like they’re running away, the two of them out
against everything else. It’s daunting but nice. In it’s own way.
The air is cool when they step outside, winter coming up on them early. Their
breath is barely visible in half clouds now that the sun has gone down. Pete
doesn’t know where he’s going but Patrick follows him anyway, holds onto his
hand and doesn’t ask a single question about anything. It’s the kid’s
eighteenth birthday, and he’s still chasing Pete like he was at sixteen, young
and infinitely stupid with his trust.
Somewhere between ten and twenty blocks away from the house party, Pete sees a
glowing Sunoco sign. He’s got maybe five bucks in his pocket. It won’t be a
great birthday dinner or anything, but he can spring for cupcakes and a super
sized hot chocolate if nothing else.
He pays for them, the wrapper of the cupcakes crinkling in his hand as he
juggles them and his wallet and Patrick’s hand, unwilling to let go now that
he’s finally letting himself hold on. Patrick’s watching him with the same kind
of confused amusement that he always does, letting Pete bounce his arm around.
The cashier’s not looking at all.
“Happy birthday,” Pete says when they’re outside again, handing over the hot
chocolate.
“I think my birthday’s actually over,” Patrick says around the rim of the cup.
He doesn’t sound too disappointed. Pete can’t remember his eighteenth birthday,
lost it in the hazy run of memories at the end of his teenage years. It’s
probably good. Eighteen is never good to anyone.
“It’s the thought that counts,” Pete says cheerfully as he tears open the
cupcake wrapper.
They’re wandering around the streets, no real destination in mind. His phone
buzzed in his pocket a few minutes ago, probably Andy on the warpath after
realizing they’d gone. Pete lets it sit. This is good. He misses being alone
sometimes. A lot of the time.
He looks over at Patrick, at the way he’s sucking the cream in the middle of
his birthday cupcake out unselfconsciously and amends that. He misses being
alone with Patrick. The rest of the world is too loud.
When they pass a fenced in park, Pete tugs him over to it. It takes a few
minutes of wheedling, but Patrick finally sighs, knocks back the last of the
hot chocolate, and sticks his foot into a gap in the links. It’s hilarious
watching him try to scramble up. Pete doesn’t offer any help either, just
watches Patrick’s ass wiggle as his legs shake with each step up.
“I hate you,” Patrick says from the top of the fence. His face is red, a little
blotchy. It’s stupid how attractive he looks right then, sweaty and young and
hanging on like he’s going to fall off at any second.
“You love me, Stump.” Pete clambers up after him and jumps off when he reaches
the top, tucking and rolling. There’s a flashback of snow in his driveway, of a
car door slamming, but then the world stops blurring and he sees Patrick still
hanging on, straddling the top of the fence nervously. “Come on. I got you.”
Patrick climbs down slowly, one anxious foot after another. When he can reach,
Pete wraps his hands around Patrick’s waist, helps guide him down. Patrick’s
too heavy for him to lift, but that doesn’t really stop Pete from trying. They
go down hard. Pete laughs, the wind knocked out of him, Patrick’s elbow dug
solidly into his gut.
“That could have gone better,” Patrick wheezes.
“Maybe,” Pete agrees.
The grass is cool and a little damp under Pete’s back. It’s good once Patrick
gets settled down, shoulder no longer crushing Pete’s chest, elbows on the
ground. Pete can remember laying like this with Jeanae, her tiny hips between
his thighs, her head pillowed against his chest. Patrick doesn’t fit quite as
well—too big in the middle, not soft in the right places—but he smiles up at
Pete, crooked and sweet, and Pete can’t bring himself to make Patrick move.
They lay like that for a long time, quiet. There’s something about the way
Pete’s hand fits against Patrick’s shoulder blade that’s endlessly fascinating.
Pete can’t stop pressing his palm to the ridge of bone, putting pressure down
onto the skin until Patrick makes a soft noise. He can’t see Patrick’s face
where it’s buried into his shirt, but he can feel the way his nose wrinkles
when Pete presses too hard, can feel the warm spot where he’s breathing.
He’s been going crazy for days. This—the park, Patrick calm and not quite
sleeping on top of him—makes his head settle a little. If there were no one
else in the world, Pete would scream out from the tops of his lungs, would let
it all out until he had nothing left to give. He’s tired of himself. But
Patrick—stupid, wonderful fucking Patrick—is stuck on him like he hasn’t been
the world’s biggest asshole since day one.
“Hey, Patrick,” Pete says quietly.
Patrick hums, sleepy voice somewhere in the vicinity of Pete’s navel. He rolls
his head, props his chin on Pete’s stomach. It kind of hurts, the bone grinding
down into Pete’s abs, but the view of Patrick’s droopy eyes is worth it.
“Me and you, we’re—”
“Shut up, Pete,” Patrick says and thumps his forehead down. It makes Pete
breathless for a second. “We’re fine. We’re golden. You’re stupid. For the
record.”
“Yeah, well.” Pete combs his fingers through the hair that’s sticking up at the
back of Patrick’s head. It pops back up after every pass, but it’s soothing.
Comforting. Patrick hums again. “You’re not going to decide you’re sick of me,
right?”
“Oh my god, if you don’t stop ruining the moment, I’m going to crush your
balls.” Patrick wiggles a little as if to show Pete how easy it would be.
“It’s a serious question,” Pete says. Patrick doesn’t answer him, just pinches
his side weakly and goes back to not-quite sleeping. It’s not as alarming as
Pete thinks it should be.
There’s only a few days left of tour, and then they’ll be back to Illinois. His
list of contacts has been steadily growing, his phone filling up with roadmaps
to success. He’s on a mission to make them famous, one city at a time. They’re
going places. He knows they are. He curls his fingers in Patrick’s hair and
closes his eyes. They’re going to be great.
When Pete’s phone has buzzed in his pocket six times in a row, he reluctantly
shakes Patrick’s shoulder. His back is killing him, but he hasn’t felt so
relaxed in months. He and Patrick stumble up together, heavy limbed. The air
has gone from cool to cold, goosebumps on their skin from it. Pete wishes he
had thought to bring a warmer hoodie, thinks about the one Patrick was sleeping
on earlier, stuffed into the van behind the driver’s seat.
At the fence, right before Patrick can start his clumsy way up, Pete shoves him
into it. He steps into Patrick’s space and kisses him. Dimly, he can feel the
links of it against his fingers where he’s holding on, arms on either side of
Patrick’s head. Mostly, all he can think of is how this is where he’s supposed
to be. Patrick fists his hand in Pete’s shirt and kisses him back.
The sun is up when they get back to the van, tripping over one another and
laughing too loud for the hour. Andy looks pissed off, but Joe, who’s reclining
on the roof of the van, shoots them a thumbs up before tumbling down onto the
driver’s side. There’s a sore patch of skin at the base of Pete’s throat that
he can’t stop prodding at and a matching one against the paper white of
Patrick’s.
It was a good birthday for a teenager, Pete thinks as they drive away, heading
one show closer to home.
---
Pete’s stupid giddy to be home. He kisses his mom on the cheek and hugs his dad
and siblings and watches Patrick do the same to his mom and brother. There’s a
hopeful sounding e-mail in their collective inbox about possibly signing to an
indie label and an opening spot on a tour. Pete’s never been so happy about
anything in his life.
There are way more kids than Pete’s used to at the hall. They’re all cramped
inside, yelling and hollering in front of the stage, laughing along with the
house music. Pete watches them from the wings and feels a flutter of hope. He
hasn’t fucked this up. He hasn’t run it into the ground.
It’s the same songs and the same stage banter from the last three months, but
Pete feels new life in it as he plays, as he talks about how awesome it is to
be there, how much he loves them all for showing up. It doesn’t even feel like
a lie anymore. He does love them, every single face; fat girls and frat boys
and scene kids for days. They’re his people.
The music pumps through his veins, gives him a reason to scream and yell and
throw himself around the stage. He climbs the support at the side of the stage,
feeling reckless and invincible. The steel feels splintered under his hands,
fingertips itching with it as he goes up, up, up. The eyes of the crowd are on
him, watching him with awe.
Look at me, he thinks. I am nothing like what you think I am. Look at me and
fucking love me for being a disaster.
When he jumps, he feels like he’s flying. The crowd catches him—hands
everywhere all at once, holding on too tight and not tight enough—and ships him
back up to the front where security shoves him back onto the stage, smacking
into Patrick’s legs. Patrick’s watching him too, eyes dark and face pink and
sweaty from the lights. They fucked before the show, quick and dirty in the
bathroom, their voices ricocheting off the walls. Pete can almost still feel
Patrick tight and hot around him.
Pete wants to kiss him, wants to shove all his energy into Patrick’s mouth and
watch him suck it down, watch him feel the craziness, the way Pete’s insides
are shaking. Mostly he wants to get home and feel their mattress on his knees,
wants to stain their sheets up and watch Patrick sleep for hours after. Wants
to shove him until he shoves back, until he pins Pete down and makes the things
in his head quiet down.
Patrick smiles at him, mouth pressed to his mic as he sings out to the kids
raging in front of them. He licks it—which should be disgusting, Pete’s seen
where it’s been—but it still makes heat billow up Pete’s spine. He’s going to
let Patrick fuck him through the mattress tonight, going to use up the rest of
voice shouting Patrick’s name into the pillows. If he gets anymore energy in
him, he’s going to straight up explode.
When the show’s over, kids line up at their merch table and ask for autographs.
Pete signs until his hand cramps up, smiling too wide for it to be real. This
is everything he’s always wanted. The fame of it, the attention. The awe and
the tears. They’ve barely got a CD out, something shitty, done in Patrick’s
basement with borrowed equipment. He can’t wait to see what happens when they
record for real.
At the far end of the table, Joe and Patrick are fighting with a pair of Andy’s
back up sticks, laughing big and wide and loud. They’re making lightsaber
sounds that are audible over the house music. His band. His people. It’s
overwhelming. For once, he’s happy. Really and truly happy.
Joe and Andy hug them goodbye after they’re finally booted out of the club. Joe
waggles his eyebrows and mimes a blowjob, laughing when Pete flips him the
bird. It feels a lot like homesickness as Pete watches them climb into the van.
His throat hurts but it has nothing on the sheer euphoria that’s settling in
under his ribs. Home, home, home with Patrick and music and no plans for days.
He doesn’t think about it, just reaches down and laces his fingers with
Patrick’s. They fit him well, slip right in the gaps like they’ve belonged
there forever. Patrick tries to pull away, twisting his wrist, but Pete doesn’t
let him. He just needs to hang on for a little while. They’re his rules. He
doesn’t have to follow them.
The walk home isn’t that long but it’s long enough for Pete to wish they had
asked for a ride. They only get a few blocks before Patrick leans on him,
yawning big enough to crack his jaw. The idiot is still dressed for summer even
though they’re tripping into autumn, the leaves around them already turning
brown. Pete rubs at Patrick’s bare bicep with his free hand and wonders idly if
he should give Patrick his hoodie. There’s a snap of a twig behind them and
then—
“I knew it.”
Fuck.
Jeanae’s just as beautiful now as she was when she slammed the car door behind
her over a year ago. Her mouth is turned down in an ugly scowl, eyeliner
smeared around her eyes and bleeding down onto her cheeks. She was probably at
the show. She probably watched him watch Patrick all night, probably connected
the dots way before now. She’s always been smarter than people give her credit
for.
“Jeanae—”
Patrick's eyes blink open, his head lifting from where it had been resting on
Pete’s shoulder. Pete tries to let go of him, tries to drop his hand, but
Patrick doesn’t let him. He tightens his fingers until they’re pinching Pete’s,
their knuckles grinding together.
Pete’s panicking. He can’t breathe.
It was okay in other places, for people to know. There they were just strange
faces. No one knew his name or where he lived. No one gave a fuck. The look on
Jeanae’s face tells him that everyone is going to know soon, and that his life
as a regular guy is over. He’s not going to be Pete anymore. He’s going to be
that fag in that band, that homo down the street.
“All those times you broke up with me,” Jeanae starts, walking in closer. Her
heels click on the sidewalk. They sound like gunfire. “It was because you like
dick. You fucking asshole. I gave you my heart and you couldn’t even tell me
that you’re a faggot...”
“He broke up with you all those times because you’re a bitch.” Patrick yawns,
rubbing his cheek against Pete’s shoulder. Jeanae splutters, lipstick red mouth
hanging open. “You’re needy and whiny and dress like a skank. Don’t blame it on
me.”
“You fat fuck,” Jeanae spits. She stomps closer and Pete sees the cracks. Under
all the makeup and bravado, she’s just a little girl that’s pissed off. A
little girl that just insulted his boyfriend.
“Your originality is astounding,” Patrick drawls. He looks bored but the
tightness of his hand tells Pete he’s more pissed off than he’s letting on.
“You want to be mad at Pete? Go for it. Want to be mad at me? Even better. I
was sucking his dick when you were still around and that makes me an asshole.
Doesn’t change the fact that you’re a bitch with a superiority complex.”
The streets are empty. There’s no cars, no people around to see everything
around him changing at lightning speed. Pete can’t move, can’t do anything but
watch the way Patrick’s cheeks heat up under the streetlights. Jeanae swings,
aiming at Pete’s face. Before he can move, Patrick steps into it, the slap of
her open palm on his cheek lost under the roar of blood in Pete’s ears.
There’s an ugly smear of red over Patrick’s jaw where Jeanae’s nail caught but
he just nods and steps back as she turns away from them. He holds onto Pete as
they cross the street, doesn’t look back to watch Jeanae sink down and cry.
Pete’s never been on this side before. He’s never had anyone stick up for him.
Not when it mattered. The handprint on Patrick’s face is vivid, meant for Pete.
He winces when he smiles and Pete feels his chest go tight. Love, he thinks.
It’s a funny feeling.
“Everyone’s going to know,” Pete says, quiet. Patrick shrugs, his smile slowly
slipping away.
“I was never the one who cared,” he says.
When they get home Pete collapses onto the couch and breathes in the slightly
stale smell of the apartment. It feels huge after living in the van. He can
hear the sounds of Patrick locking the door and kicking his shoes off, and then
his footsteps head into the kitchen.
A few minutes later there’s a cool, damp glass pressed to his palm. He blinks
up at Patrick and is surprised when he sees him holding the last of the rum
from their pre-tour party. Patrick takes a drink straight from the bottle, lips
curling around it, and slumps down onto the floor limply.
“So,” Patrick says. In the darkness of their front room, his skin looks blue.
There’s still blood on his jaw, sticky brown and already flaking.
“Yeah.” Pete knocks his drink back and shakes his head when the aftertaste
catches up. It’s been awhile since he’s really had a drink. He hasn’t needed it
lately.
They finish the bottle in silence, and when they stumble into bed, Patrick’s
wobbling a little. He strips down, ditches everything and waits by the bed,
hand on the footboard to keep himself stable. The flush that starts at his face
goes all the way down to his underwear.
“This is...” He waves a hand up and down his body. “This is what I’ve got. I
don’t—you’re giving up a lot for this.”
Pete shrugs out of his hoodie and shoves his jeans down. He helps Patrick under
the cold sheets and shuts the light off. When he crawls into bed, the mattress
familiar and comforting beneath him, he curls up around Patrick. He presses a
flat palm to the round curve of his belly until Patrick squirms against him.
“You’re more than just this,” he says. He means it, even though the words are
lubricated with alcohol. Patrick’s music to his words and quiet to his loud.
Patrick’s the good to his fucked up, balances him out like nothing else can.
Pete holds him closer and thinks about Jeanae crying on the sidewalk. He feels
ill, the alcohol settling low in his belly as Patrick falls asleep against him.
Pete hasn’t taken a sleeping pill in months but he feels like he needs one now,
wide awake and without anything like the bouncing, uneven lull of the van to
put him to sleep. There’s a world in front of him that’s going to hate him.
There’s a world in front of him that’s going to hate Patrick.
Pete unwinds himself from Patrick and tucks his cold pillow into the spot to
replace him. He’s got words on his mind and if he waits too long they’ll escape
him forever. Patrick presses his face into the pillow, bare back pale in the
dim glow from the windows. Pete thinks about people hating him, thinks about
people smearing Patrick’s name into the ground and feels his stomach turn.
He can’t find his notebook and his phone is blinking with missed calls that he
doesn’t want to look at. He can feel the words sliding away from him one by
one, lost in the back of his head as he fumbles through the house. He stumbles
around in the dark, searching through their still unpacked bags, but all he
manages to find is a Sharpie with the logo worn off, the tip blunted and a
little dry.
Pete’s good at improvising. He slides back into the bedroom quietly, taking
more care than he really needs to. Patrick sleeps like the dead on most nights
without the aid of rum. Still, he’s careful as he rolls Patrick onto his
stomach, as he tugs the sheets down until Patrick’s back is completely naked in
front of him.
And he writes.
The ink is dark on Patrick’s skin, stands out even in the dark, the sharp
angles of Pete’s letters like knives. The words across Patrick’s shoulders are
large, sprawling, getting smaller and smaller until he’s cramping them together
at the base of Patrick’s spine, letters looping together and becoming garbled.
Patrick will be pissed in the morning, ink smeared on the sheets and bled out
onto his cheek, but that’s tomorrow. For now, Pete stares down at his graffiti
and thinks about the music they’ll make and the way his heart beats in time to
Patrick’s and knows that it won’t matter. That here, with Patrick, is where
he’ll always belong.
End Notes
     This is most likely the last large Bandom piece I'll be writing, and
     definitely the last go at Bandom Big Bang. Hope you guys enjoyed it,
     and thank you for the ride.
  Works inspired by this one
      Cover_for_Pull_Hard_and_Make_a_Wish by coricomile
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