fic: meter and rhythm and rhyme
Title: Meter And Rhythm And Rhyme
Author: adellyna
Pairing: Pete/Ryland
Word Count: 7000
Rating: NC-17
Summary: In which Ryland gets his wish to be Chuck Bass-ish and Pete gets his wish to channel his Fall Out Boy fame into minor, mediocre acting gigs. Also, Michelle Trachtenberg.
Warnings: None to speak of, except maybe Michelle Trachtenberg.
Disclaimer: I still don't believe fanfiction is legally actionable, but nonetheless: no disrespect to any represented parties is intended. This is for offtheceiling, for her birthday, because her face is my very favorite face. Thanks very much to tabbyola for the quick and dirty beta. ♥
The life has a lot of perks. Pete has more money than he should, considering he lived with his mom well into his twenties and half-assed his way out of college mere months shy of graduating. He has more friends and "friends" than anyone else he knows. He has a fan club, three blogs, and had to pay way too much to register his name as a web domain. He has four albums and three bandmates and a clothing line and a record label and he collaborates with people whose names it makes him dizzy to program into his phone.
There are pictures of his dick on the internet, and way too many people know about his mishaps with Ambien, and thousands of the people who recognize his name think he's a joke or a sell-out or a douche or all of the above with varying degrees of vehemence, but hey. All publicity is good publicity, right?
"All publicity is good publicity," his publicist reminds him. "And this isn't even bad publicity. This is a good thing."
"Hey, yeah," Pete says. He lifts his hands, palms-up, and shakes his head. "I'm not saying no. I'm just saying I can't really act for shit."
"You don't have to act," she says patiently, taking off her glasses and pinching the bridge of her nose. "You just have to be there when they turn the camera on."
"I'll be there," Pete says hastily. He drops his hands and wipes his palms on his jeans. "But you can't say I didn't warn you."
He agrees-agreeing in the sense that he signs the contract his publicist puts in front of him and frowns at it like there aren't butterflies dancing excitedly in his stomach-to a five-episode arc. It's some show he's never actually watched, some sort of Melrose Place meets Friends meets The OC meets How I Met Your Mother meets 90210 meets True Blood shit, he doesn't even know. He's pretty sure there won't be any forensics involved. CSI, at least, won't entertain the notion of Pete on their show unless he's playing a corpse.
He doubts his ability to convincingly play a corpse.
Fuck it. He doubts his ability to convincingly play himself, much less the dude in the script they send him; just a few shades off Pete Wentz. Around the same degree of sexual ambiguity. A year or two younger. A shade or two less fucked up. Running parallel to Pete Wentz, but a couple of blocks north. Pete Weiss, maybe. Paul Wentz. Phil Wash.
He would never say any of the shit they've written in the script they give him.
"Hey," he says to his mirror, leaning forward to check the careful smudge of his eyeliner. "Why don't you whip 'em out and-" he leans down, checking the script. "Measure." He makes a face at the mirror. The logistics of that have always been beyond him, and anyway, it's tired and overused. He's never given a shit who has a bigger dick. His standard of machismo has always been who can crack more teeth with the first punch.
Of course, they start filming his first day at the crack of fucking dawn. His call time is six, and he's still awake at three.
The makeup girl clucks exasperatedly at him, and reaches for the thickest foundation she has.
"Sorry," he says sheepishly. "I know it's bad."
"Do you sweat a lot?" she asks, dipping her brush in the little pot of makeup. "Because if you do, we're going to have to...figure something out."
"No," Pete says earnestly. "No sweating. Promise."
::
It's not like Pete should be (could possibly be) nervous around cameras, but he is anyway. Maybe it's the wardrobe. His shirt is a little too new, scratchy, and the jeans are a half size too big. They cover the band of his underwear, and it feels weird to have the waistband so close to his bellybutton.
He feels awkward asking if he can wear one of his own hoodies, so he refrains. He feels awkward at the run-through, too, like all of the real actors are rolling their eyes at him. He memorized the shit out of his lines, though, so at least there's that.
The rest of the cast is TV-pretty, though not as pretty as they'd seemed in the episode or two Pete had managed to catch of the show. From up close, the brunette's hair extensions are obvious, and the blonde's blue eyes are that phony, too-blue blue of contacts.
The awkward, skinny hipster dude is just as skinny as he looks on TV, but a little less awkward in person. He's also sitting next to Pete, with his chair pushed back too far from the table, seemingly because his legs are too long to bend properly in the narrow amount of space allowed.
"Hey," the guy says, when the pen Pete's twitching nervously between his fingers twitches itself right onto the floor. "I'm Ryland."
"Pete," Pete says, like the producer hasn't already introduced him three times. "Hi."
"Rockstar, right?" Ryland asks.
"A little less rock," Pete says thoughtfully. He tips his head and, belatedly, ducks down to retrieve his pen. "And a lot less star."
"You're used to this though, right?" Ryland gestures around the table. Down towards the end of it, the sleazyish blond guy is arguing with the director about something. "Cameras? Pressure? Performing?"
"Not really," Pete confesses. "I mean. Yes to all of the above, but not...like this."
"Well, it's TV," Ryland says. He settles his hand back on the surface of the table and taps his fingertips against the veneer in a calm one-twothree beat. "So, you know."
"Yeah." Pete twitches his pen between his fingers again. "Sure."
He does not know. He thought that was kind of the point of the conversation.
"Takes," Ryland says, grinning. "Lots of 'em. As many as you need."
"As many as I need until someone punches me in the face," Pete says ruefully. "Like. I like acting. In theory. When people who are good at it do it."
"No one will punch you in the face," Ryland says. He pushes his bangs out of his face and ducks his head conspiratorially. "Just between you and me? The ratings have been a little, uh. Discouraging."
"Ah," Pete says, grinning back. "I see. I'm a ratings stunt."
"Easier and sexier than a wedding," Ryland agrees. "And more appealing to the teen demographic."
"Then you've got the wrong guy." Pete tugs the sleeves of his hoodie down over his thumbs and turns his hands over, cupping his palms towards the ceiling. "You need Patrick. He's the magic, I just take my shirt off."
::
Pete sucks.
Well, he delivers his lines, and he gets them right, and he tries really hard to deliver them sincerely, but he's always had this awkward, insecure thing that twists up his stomach into knots any time he he opens his mouth and something he doesn't believe comes out.
Mostly, he blames his mother for this. If she hadn't been able to see right through him his whole life, maybe he'd be a better liar.
"See?" Ryland asks, once the director announces they're wrapping for the day and the crew slouches off elsewhere. "Could've been worse."
"Tell me there's beer," Pete says. He shrugs off the weirdly-fitting, all-wrong hoodie and considers how weird it would be to take off his scratchy, too-new shirt on the set. "If there is beer, then it could definitely be worse."
"My trailer," Ryland says, hooking his hand gently around Pete's elbow when he starts heading off in the wrong direction. "Wardrobe first, Wentz. You don't want to make Hilda mad."
Pete makes an unhappy sound and drags his feet a little. "Hilda can suck my dick."
"Hilda will do something to your dick if you mess up that shirt," Ryland says, grinning. "How squeamish are you?"
Wardrobe is a good idea anyway. Back in his own clothes, Pete feels a little less like he's fucking up every time he moves.
"They wrote kissing into my contract," he says unhappily, following Ryland onto his trailer and breathing in deeply when he hits a wall of cool, processed air. "Who do you think it'll be?"
"Depends," Ryland says. He swings open his little trailer fridge and bends, hooking his knuckles around two bottles and straightening, closing the fridge slowly while he thinks. "One of the girls. Unless they want to be edgy."
"And if they want to be edgy?"
"Me, probably." Ryland shrugs and folds himself onto the narrow, overly firm trailer sofa. It's dark grey, with nubby lighter grey streaks, and it's comfortably uncomfortable, like every tour bus Pete's ever been on. "Do you watch the show?"
Pete says "Um," and takes his beer from Ryland, stalling.
"It's cool," Ryland laughs. "But I'm, uh. You know." He pops the cap and takes a long sip, grinning at Pete with his bottom lip pressed to the mouth of the bottle. "A little limp in the wrist, I guess."
It's not like he's never kissed a guy before. It's not like he's never kissed a guy for a camera before, even. And, if he's being completely honest, kissing Ryland is somehow more appealing than kissing either of the two bleached, "enhanced," thin skin over hard plastic girls that he thinks are the alternatives.
"You know," Pete says thoughtfully, dragging his finger down over the slick, cool glass of his bottle. "I think they have exercises for that. Little balls you squeeze."
"Balls to squeeze, huh?"
"Uh huh." Pete grins and hides it behind pushing his bangs out of his face. "You should look into it."
::
Pete is granted a three day reprieve. He's recording, for one thing, and he doesn't have that many scenes to film, for another. He's not surprised; a simple Google search of his name provides a crystal clear picture of approximately where one should level out their expectations of Pete Wentz.
Thanks to L.A. traffic, he's able to surpass even the lowest expectations by rolling up to the studio forty-five minutes late.
"Sorry," he says, then snaps his mouth shut and reminds himself he's not here to apologize. He's here to be the flighty rock star with the special wardrobe considerations and the for-real tattoos it would take hours in makeup to mimic on someone else.
"Sit," the makeup girl tells him sternly. She tips his chin up and ducks in close, examining his undereyes. "Do you ever sleep? Jesus."
"No," Pete says solemnly. "I'm Insomnia Man. I have a costume and everything. Blankie-cape."
"Maybe we should try hemorrhoid cream," the makeup girl muses, turning her back to him.
It's okay. The joke wasn't that funny anyway. Pete doesn't always work well under pressure. He settles into the chair, awkwardly tucking his hands under his thighs and then pulling them back and putting them on the arms of the chair when he realizes sitting like that makes him look somewhere in the neighborhood of six years old.
The brunette actress-Michelle, he thinks her name is-smirks at him from the next chair over. She flips a page in the magazine she's holding and glances at it, sounding utterly bored when she says, "Nice jeans. I think I had a pair. Two years ago."
"Nice extensions," Pete replies. He picks up a hand and studies the cuticle on his thumb, then nibbles at it and widens his eyes at her. "Where'd you get them? Chinatown?"
She grins at him. It's possible her teeth are even bigger than his. "Michelle," she says, tossing her considerable hair over her shoulder and sticking out her hand.
"Pete," Pete says. He manages to shake her hand for all of three seconds, and then the makeup girl is clucking impatiently and he hastens to sit back in his chair.
::
He gets an acceptable take of his first and second scenes while they're still in single digits, but the last one takes him literally seventeen takes. After, when the crew is moving on with their carefully stoic faces, Ryland comes over and puts his hand on Pete's shoulder.
In the absence of a convenient Patrick, Pete takes this opportunity to push his forehead against Ryland's chest and lean.
"Seventeen's not terrible," Ryland says generously. He slides his hand to the back of Pete's neck and squeezes a little. "One time I did this commercial for athlete's foot cream and it took me twenty-five."
"No one would say these things," Pete mumbles miserably. "How am I supposed to say things no one would say?"
"Don't judge," Ryland says, clucking. "Hip, young, urban vampires might say them."
"Wouldn't," Pete counters, humming encouragingly when Ryland squeezes a little tighter. "I know dudes in New York who sleep all day, and they definitely don't say shit like this."
From behind him, he hears Michelle shuffle up; he can smell her perfume, and her shampoo, and then she says, "Well, that sucked."
"Quit your bitching," Ryland says easily. "At least you look cute."
"At least I get to wear flats," she corrects, and wraps an arm around Pete's waist. He straightens, and blinks at her. "Stay," she says solemnly. "Usually they put me in four-inch heels so I can have scenes with this guy and actually be in frame, but with you around, I might get to wear bedroom slippers."
Pete likes Michelle. She's kind of a bitch.
"You're kind of a bitch," he says, and reaches over to tug at a lock of her hair. "And you can't keep me. I'm not a stray, and Patrick will kick my ass if I'm not in the studio tomorrow morning."
"Fine," she sighs, stacking her chin on Pete's shoulder. "But you know what we should do?"
"Get wasted?" Ryland suggests. Michelle makes a little gun with her fingers and shoots it at Ryland, winking exaggeratedly.
They change and go to some new club. A couple of the others are with them, the blondes, but Pete can't remember their names to save his life. Chris and Joanne, maybe? John and Christine?
The club is new, and looks like shit from the outside, which you'd think would have gone out of style somewhere back in the seventies, but apparently has not. There are two groups of people clustered around the door: the people dying to get in, and the people dying to get pictures.
"Oooh," Michelle says, leaning over Pete and lifting half off the seat so she can check her hair in the rearview mirror. "Paparazzi."
She plasters herself to Pete's side when they get out of the car, and he's far from unaware of the power of the photograph, so; he drapes an arm around her waist and leans in to mumble in her ear, "Do these jeans make me look fat?"
"Fuck the jeans," she mumbles back, lowering her eyelashes and peering off to the side from underneath them. Pete knows enough about angles and photography to know that it'll look like she's looking at him, even though she isn't. "Do you," she says, turning into him a little, "make me look fat?"
Pete laughs. He catches Ryland's amused look over his shoulder, and then they're in the club and he can't see much in the face of the strategic lighting and thumping bass that makes him nervous for just a second, like he's supposed to go on stage but he's nowhere near prepared.
There aren't any paparazzi actually in the club, much less in VIP, so the only thing he's cuddling up to a few drinks in are his phone and a tall glass of something that tastes like summer in Florida.
He can post to his blog from his phone, so...he does. He takes a few quick camera shots of himself, but he doesn't like any of them, so when Ryland wanders by Pete snags his sleeve and reels him in. "Come on," he says, grinning widely. "Camwhore with me."
"Sure," Ryland says. He takes another sip of the thing in his hand that looks like ginger ale and smells like coconut. "Why?"
"Blog," Pete says, shoving his phone in his pocket so he can arrange Ryland where he wants him. "Bored."
"Club's not your thing?" Ryland asks. He sounds more than a little surprised.
"Depends on the guest list," Pete says. This club, for example, would be much more fun with a Gabe in it. Or a Joe, or a William Beckett, or a Mike Carden, or a Travis McCoy. As it is, it's just a bunch of nearly-identical, completely interchangeable As Seen On TV bimbos with IQs in the neighborhood of their shoe size. Or, in some extraordinary cases, their dress size.
He snaps a shot of himself and Ryland, then turns the screen to look at it. It's better, but.
"Slouch a little," he orders absently, wiggling closer and pushing up on his toes so they're closer in height. "This just looks like a picture of really bad parenting."
"Mmkay," Ryland says, and slides his feet out obediently so they're closer to the same height. "You could borrow some of Michelle's heels."
"Blow me," Pete says cheerfully. He smiles brightly and takes another picture. It's better, but he lifts the camera and takes another, then turns his head and blinks solemnly at Ryland. "Do you have a little sister? Do you want me to send you one of these so you can show her and she'll think you're cool?"
"Sometimes I hang out with Jensen Ackles," Ryland says, grinning back. He's really very close. "I'm already cool."
"That's not cool," Pete corrects. He doesn't move back at all. "That's a coworker."
"What are you?" Ryland asks.
"Publicity stunt," Pete says lightly, but he leans the extra inch when Ryland does, and tries not to think about how stupid it is to be kissing an actor in the VIP section of L.A.'s third-hottest new club.
Ryland shifts some, and then his hand-fingertips cool from holding his drink, palm hot and a little sweat-slick-is on Pete's jaw and his mouth is open a little. He licks at Pete's bottom lip, so Pete opens his mouth and leans a little closer. He's still on his toes, and his calves are starting to protest, but Ryland makes a quiet, pleased noise in the back of his throat. Pete ignores the stretch of muscle and lifts his phone again, snapping another picture, a second, a third, a fourth when Ryland bites his bottom lip.
"Narcissist," Ryland mumbles, dragging his mouth over Pete's lightly. Pete can feel him smiling. "Everything they say about you on the internet is true."
"Every last thing," Pete agrees. He pushes up a little higher on his toes so he can kiss Ryland again, firmly but tongueless, and then he drops back down and leans more, flipping through the pictures he just took. "I bet Jensen Ackles doesn't make out with you, though."
"No," Ryland says, draping an arm over Pete's shoulders and ducking enough to see the screen of Pete's phone. "No, he sure doesn't."
"Want?" Pete asks. He flips forward until he gets to the best one of them, and tilts the phone fully towards Ryland. "I'm not, like. Posting it."
"Sure," Ryland says, straightening and lifting his glass to take a sip. "Just in case I'm ever stupid enough to talk about Star Wars in front of a teenage girl. I can whip that out."
Pete laughs and sends it, then goes back and picks the one he actually wants to post to his blog. gawkerstalkering myself, he writes. some club in la with blue curtains and bad music. man i suck at this.
::
By lunch time the next day, pictures of himself and Michelle cozying up on the way into the club are up on the gossip blogs. "Onscreen sparks flare offscreen?" the headline reads. Pete wonders how they could possibly have onscreen sparks when he still has a scene to film before an episode with him even airs, but okay, sure.
He sends a quick email to his publicist (not true), and doesn't get the response (too bad) until he and Patrick break for lunch and he checks his phone. There's also a text from Ryland: michelle misses you and is bitching about her heels and I'm thinking about bedazzling a box for you to stand on when you're around me.
::
They start filming his second episode weeks before the first even airs, which is more than a little nerve-wracking. He'll have no idea exactly how bad he looks until it's almost too late to do better.
He actually manages to work himself into a bit of a panicked frenzy about it an hour and a half before his call time. Googling yourself at four-thirty in the morning is never a good idea, but Pete's been trying to quit for longer than he's been trying to quit popping pills, and he's yet to make any progress with either.
AP.net comes through for him, like it always does, and when he runs out of good material from that, there are half a dozen message boards he can stalk until he finds mentions of his name. He discovers that he is a douche, a sell-out, guilty of promoting talentless bands and artists, self-obsessed, ugly, shitty at playing bass, a misogynist, a faggot, a closeted hetero who exploits the gay agenda to sell records, really ugly, a slut, a groupie-banging hack who's ruining music and should stop mentioning Chicago because there are actual decent people who live there. He's also guilty of proselytizing, of having a political agenda for the sole purpose of being "trendy," of being the worst wannabe role model walking, of having "changed," of having "disappointed" his "real fans," and of being a lazy slacker who does nothing but stare at himself in the mirror and drink Starbucks and promote consumerism all day long.
He clicks reply and stares at the cursor for a good three minutes before he starts typing. I'm so sick of hearing about Pete Wentz, he types. I knew that dude before his "band" got "famous" and he was an asshole then, too. Chicago isn't two years ago, douche, you are. Fuck off and die.
His comment posts, and he tilts his head at it and tries to decide if he feels better.
He does.
And he has just enough time to shower and fix his hair and eat a banana at his kitchen counter before he goes to set, with his laptop open next to him and his blog post with the picture of himself and Ryland filling the screen. He stares at it a little, then dumps his banana peel on the counter and queues up a new blog entry with the hand that's not covered in slimy banana residue.
everything they say about me on the internet is true and so is everything they say about you, he posts, then closes the laptop. He makes it halfway down the hall before he remembers to go back and throw away the banana peel.
::
He's only scheduled to film two days for the second episode, which is kind of awesome. It's Tuesday, and he's done. Well, done in the sense that all he has to do now is sit in the studio and make an album and try to talk Ryan Ross through an existential crisis every six and a half hours.
On Thursday, he has a DJ gig at some club downtown that's nowhere near as glossy as the one he and the cast went to, but is at least twice as loud. He texts Ryland an invite on a whim, and he's genuinely kind of surprised to see Ryland walk into the club about halfway through his set. Michelle is on Ryland's arm, her hair tousled to within an inch of its life, and her heels high enough that Pete thinks the three of them could line up in a row and look like stair steps.
He puts a new track on, segueing smoothly from Jay-Z to a Duffy remix, and waves them over. Ryland grins and tilts his head towards the bar, but Michelle comes on up, teetering a little at the top of the grated stairs.
"You should take those off," he shouts over the music, pushing his headphones down around his neck and nodding towards her shoes. "You're going to make me look bad."
"I loved you in Willy Wonka," she shouts back, but does drop someone's abandoned hoodie onto the ground and toe her shoes off so she can stand on it. "Do you take requests?"
"Fuck no," Pete says, grinning. "But here. You can listen." He pulls the headphones off and hands them to her, grinning at her. It's a photo-op, he's fully aware, and if the way she leans in more and smiles back is any indication, she knows it too.
"Nice," she says. "Want to kiss?"
"Not really," Pete laughs. "But, uh. Maybe later. Gotta, you know." He gestures at the board and she nods, turning and leaning against it; she must realize that's a terrible angle so she shifts, changes it, leans a hip against the edge so she can be partially in profile and mostly facing him.
"Will someone bring me a drink here?" she asks. "Does it work like that?"
"It does for me," Pete says cheerfully. "But you might need to go to the bar, unless you're willing to flash a little boob."
Michelle glances down at the careful drape of her neckline and sighs, shrugging easily. "Maybe I'll just hang here for a while."
"Then maybe I'll take requests," Pete says. He takes a sip of his drink and holds it out to her, offering the side he didn't drink from. "If they're any good."
He mixes some Estelle into a Kanye track, while she's deciding, and then he vetoes every shitty, set-ruining suggestion she throws at him.
After, he goes to find Ryland. It's not hard.
"Avoiding me?" Pete asks, sliding onto the empty stool next to Ryland's. The bar is stained, pocked concrete. It's cool under Pete's palms. "You should've come up."
"And ruined your perfect photo-op?" Ryland raises an eyebrow and, wisely, moves his glass a few precautionary inches away from Pete's reach. "Michelle and I have the same publicist. He'd never forgive me."
Pete's fingers twitch on the bar. "Oh," he says, blinking. "I mean. I'm not...not going there, dude. She's cute and all, but."
"Hey, hold up." Ryland laughs and lifts his cup, tilting the rim towards Pete. "I'm not judging."
"No, it's just." Pete frowns and bites at his thumbnail. The bartender is down at the other end, serving some girls with too-thick lip liner and lashes so fake Pete can practically see the glue from where he's sitting. He sighs, and shrugs. "I mean. I'm not trying to lie about it? I just think it's kind of funny how eager people are to spin shit."
"So you lie for kicks," Ryland says, humming thoughtfully.
Pete frowns harder. "No," he says, and twitches his fingertips against a wide, shallow crater in the bar's surface. "I let people assume what they want to about me for kicks. It's not like anyone ever asks."
"Got it," Ryland says.
"Hey, fuck you," Pete says. He waves when the bartender looks his way, hoping that it's enough to communicate he wants another of the same beer he's been drinking all night, then turns more on his stool so he can face Ryland. "I can tell you who made every single item of clothing you're wearing right now."
"Which just means you're obsessed with clothes." Ryland grins at him and takes another sip of his drink. "Maybe I get what you see in Michelle after all."
"Blow me, Mr. I'm Friends With Jensen Ackles."
"Okay," Ryland says easily. He tips his glass back and drinks the last third of it, then slides off the stool. "Where? Bathroom?"
Pete's brain shorts out for a few long moments, moments he spends blinking with what must be mortifying blankness at Ryland. "Um."
"Put your money where your mouth is, Wentz," Ryland says, grinning. He tucks his fingers in Pete's front pocket and leans in, mouthing at Pete's jaw, just under his ear. "Either come with me, or knock it off with the fuck-me eyes."
"Um." Pete waits for the thump-thump of the bass to steady his stomach, then he pushes his beer away from him and slides off his stool. "I live, like, fifteen minutes from here."
::
He doesn't worry about which story anyone will go with until the morning; he wakes up, sore, with a smear of come dried and flaking on his hip and his mouth rubbed raw from stubble. The headlines flash across the insides of his eyelids before he even opens them. Pete Wentz Arrives At Club Alone. Pete Wentz Canoodles With Actress In DJ Booth. Pete Wentz Leaves Club With Rumored Gay Actor.
Cast Of Hit Show Gang-Bangs Fall Down Boy Bassist.
Not even he's stupid enough to tackle the internet without reinforcements, so he waits until his second cup of coffee before he boots up the laptop and opens Google. Ryland is still asleep in his bed, his long arm stretched out over the stupidly expensive sheets Pete didn't even pick for himself.
It turns out nobody cares what Pete Wentz did the night before, though Paris Hilton did leave dog shit outside Spago without picking it up, and Lindsay Lohan may or may not have gone blonde again.
::
The script for the third episode is delivered to Pete's house, but he doesn't get a chance to read it until the studio, midway through Patrick trying to beat the vocal performance he wants out of Brendon.
He says "Oh," out loud, and then turns the page back, re-reading to make sure he's seeing this right.
"Problem?" Patrick asks, in the Patrick-tone that means Patrick doesn't give a shit unless something is on fire or dying on the floor.
"I have to kiss a girl."
"Your life is so hard," Patrick says absently, then pushes down on the intercom button and leans closer like he needs to do so to be heard. "Brendon, can you stop mumbling please?"
::
It's in his contract that he's in charge of his own hair, but he still is at the formidable mercies of Hilda in wardrobe when it comes to his clothes, so he takes off his wardrobe shirt before he gets on his knees in Ryland's trailer and sucks him off.
"Nice," Ryland says, pushing a hand into Pete's hair and tangling it around his knuckles.
Pete forgives this trespass because of the noise Ryland makes when Pete swallows him down and hums. He pulls off, slowly, and licks at the head, mumbling, "Hilda's a frightening woman."
"Please," Ryland says unevenly, wrapping his fingers tighter, enough that Pete will probably have to bust out the flat iron to fix it. "Please don't talk about Hilda right now."
Later, but not later enough that they're rushing to set, and certainly not later enough that Pete can't still taste come around the ridges of his molars, Ryland nuzzles under Pete's jaw and says, "Hey."
"Uh huh?"
"Do you know how to kiss on camera?"
"Um." Pete threads his fingers through Ryland's hair and tugs a little. "I think so. I was going to wait until they turned the camera on, then kiss her."
"It's not that easy," Ryland says, swatting at Pete's hand. "And quit fucking up my hair."
"Pot," Pete says solemnly, wiggling his fingers until Ryland's hair stands straight up on end. "See also, kettle."
"That made no sense." Ryland turns his head and kisses the bend of Pete's elbow, then bites, sharply, until he lets go. "But my point is, it's harder than it looks."
"I don't know, dude," Pete says dubiously. He lifts his hand again, carefully smoothing Ryland's hair back into place. "Kissing is kissing."
"You have to suggest tongue," Ryland elaborates, loftily, lifting his chin so he can look down his nose at Pete, even as he permits the fixing of his hair. "Without actually using tongue. Otherwise you'll get a reputation."
Pete tsks. "Baby. I already have a reputation."
::
He's trying so hard to suggest tongue without any that he accidentally french kisses Michelle on the first take. She kind of laughs, and kisses him back without hesitation, but he's so fucking embarrassed about it that he fumbles the line after, and they have to do the scene over.
Ryland's leaning against a table offset, smirking, and Pete fumbles the second take and the third. He doesn't get it right until the fifth, after Ryland takes pity on him and leaves. Or, at least, goes somewhere Pete can't see him.
::
There's a hill on the way to Pete's house that curves gently downward. It looks like an easy, subtle slope, but if you take it fast enough, it makes your stomach whoosh like a thrill ride. Pete always takes it fast enough.
"What did I tell you?" Ryland asks smugly, reaching up to wrap his hand around the handle above his window. "Tongue."
Pete accelerates into the curve a little, grinning when he sees Ryland brace more out of the corner of his eye.
"She liked it," he says, speeding up even more so the red Lexus coming up to the stop sign at the base of the hill won't think it's a good idea to pull out in front of him. "You'd like it."
"I do like it," Ryland agrees solemnly. "Maybe I'm just jealous."
"I think they're going to kill me." He does. He sees the writing on the wall. "Ratings, right? And that way I can never come back."
"I've heard rumors."
The red Lexus does not pull out in front of him. Pete feels victorious when it blurs by in a little splash of crimson behind Ryland's head.
"It's going to be awesome," Pete says, easing his foot down on the brake. Slowing down is his least favorite part. "People request that I die all the time."
He takes Ryland to his house, and Ryland's on him practically before they get the door shut. They manage to mostly strip while they stumble down the hall; Ryland has his hands shoved down the back of Pete's jeans, both of their zippers down, kissing too-wet with teeth and little noises, and then Ryland spots Pete's laptop. It's open at the foot of the bed, his webcam up and running. Pete can see Ryland's wrists in the frame, pale, knobby wrists against Pete's darker skin. "What's with you and that thing?" Ryland asks. He kisses Pete again, but with his eyes open, nodding towards the computer. "Cameras. All those pictures of yourself."
"Dunno," Pete mumbles. He tugs at Ryland's belt loops hard, trying to drag him fully onto the bed. "I like it. A lot."
"Too much?"
"Have you Googled me?"
Ryland laughs and digs his fingers in more tightly, lifting Pete enough to walk him backwards on his toes. "I've seen the dick pictures, yes."
"It's just...dunno." He kisses Ryland's jaw, up to his ear, and then bites down hard. "Proof?"
"Proof of what?" Ryland asks.
"Everything," Pete says. wrapping his arms around Ryland's neck and letting himself fall so his weight will take them both down. They bounce on the mattress, and Ryland's thigh almost hits Pete's dick in a really not sexy way, but doesn't. "Can we talk about this later?"
"Let's talk about it during," Ryland says. He sounds completely reasonable, even as he kisses Pete's collarbone and digs in his pocket for his phone. "How does this shit work?" He holds up Pete's phone and squints at it, pressing buttons Pete can't see from this angle.
"It's just-"
"Got it," Ryland interrupts. He shakes his bangs out of his face and straddles Pete's knees, pointing the phone at him. "Take off your jeans."
Pete laughs and reaches for him, but Ryland just swats at his hand and presses a button on the phone; Pete hears the distinct, unmistakable fake shutter sound of his phone taking a picture. He feels blood rush to his cheeks. His dick twitches.
"Jesus, Ryland." He laughs again, and reaches for the phone, but Ryland just slides back a little more and gets one knee and then the other between Pete's thighs.
"Knock it off," Ryland says. He takes another picture and tugs, one-handed, at Pete's jeans. "I want to do it this way."
Pete takes his jeans off. He hears Ryland take another picture, and then Ryland scoots down a little more and spreads his knees some, pushing Pete's legs further apart.
"Fingers," Ryland says roughly. "Come on."
Pete hesitates. Ryland drags a hand down Pete's stomach and spreads his fingers out widely over Pete's tattoo, snapping a picture of it before he drags his hand down more, palm skimming over Pete's dick.
"Fingers," he says again. "The lube's in that drawer."
Like Pete doesn't know where he keeps his own fucking lube. He laughs again, shakily, and reaches for it anyway. "You know," he says, licking at his lips nervously. "This has gone badly for me in the past."
"That was someone else," Ryland says, dismissing the point with a wave of the camera. "I wouldn't do that to you."
Pete doesn't know how much he believes that, but he drags a knee up anyway, until his heel bumps the underside of Ryland's thigh, and he slicks his fingers up with lube and pushes two in.
Ryland takes a picture.
"It's your phone, anyway," Ryland mumbles. He mutters something under his breath that sounds like fuck and takes another picture when Pete twists his fingers hard, arching into it. "So. It's all in your hands, shit. Do that again, just. Slower."
He closes his eyes and lets Ryland direct him, so all he has is cool air prickling his skin, Ryland's voice muttering soft, tense instructions, and the occasional muted click of the cameraphone. He loses track of the pictures somewhere around twelve, and he has no idea how many Ryland's taken by the time Pete's writhing on the bed, gasping and trying to rock up against his own fingers like that will get them any deeper inside him.
"Okay," Ryland says, finally, eventually, so it feels like fucking hours later. "Okay. Come here." He bends, kissing Pete's hip, and then rolls onto his back. "Ride me."
Pete would call him pushy, or mock him for bossing him around, or take the fucking camera and throw it across the room, but he's so hard he feels like he's going to get off if Ryland so much as looks at his dick, so. He moves as fast as he can, instead, fishing a condom out of the open box in his nightstand.
Ryland adjusts the pillows under his head and snaps a picture of Pete with the wrapper between his teeth, one of Pete's hand easing latex over his dick, another of Pete's hand braced against Ryland's stomach so he can position.
"Slow," Ryland mumbles. "So I can-"
"No video," Pete interrupts hastily. "Promise me no video."
"No video," Ryland says. He reaches out with his free hand and drags it lightly over Pete's hip, almost affectionate. "I just want, like. Action shots. The memories. Fuck you, just go with it."
Pete eases down slowly, bracing both hands above Ryland's bellybutton and pulling off a little every few inches so he can rock back down, careful, controlled movements until Ryland loses it and wraps his hand tighter around Pete's hip. He drops down harder when Ryland shoves up, and from there it's fast, dirty, grindy sex, with Ryland's fingertips digging in above Pete's hipbone.
The click of the camera is less constant, but Pete's aware of it enough to get flashes of what the images are going to look like: the contrast of their skin; the haphazard, diagonal angle; the blur of Pete's hair on his face when he tips his head back and grinds down.
He doesn't want to know how many pictures Ryland takes of Pete coming all over his stomach, but he knows there are a few. There's one of him braced, fingers splayed out over Ryland's chest while Ryland jerks his hips up urgently, and then Ryland drops the phone onto the bed and holds on, dragging Pete where he wants him until he gets off, fingers bruise-tight on Pete's hips.
After that-after the collapsing and the half-hearted wiping up of come and lube, and the arranging of both of them into the half of the bed without the wet spot-Pete reaches over Ryland and grabs the camera.
"What would you do if I posted these?" He flips through them fast, so they're just a blur of skin and light, and turns his head to kiss Ryland's jaw. "Gaygate, or whatever."
"Do what you want," Ryland says. "I doubt anyone would be surprised, and I don't give a shit about the ones who would be."
Pete takes a picture of them kissing. Too close, he knows; it'll be blurry when he looks at it, so he holds the phone out further and takes another, then a third, then drops the phone again so he can cup his hand around Ryland's jaw.
::
Ryland's asleep at three in the morning, like all rational people, but Pete's still up. He bought this house for its view, so he could curl up on the balcony when the city was quiet but bright beneath him.
Also, he gets kickass wireless out here, so there's that.
There are a good three dozen pictures, once he imports them all to his computer and gets rid of the ones that are too blurry or too dark to see anything. They're all of him, of course, except for the last few Pete took.
He picks one of those-one of the ones that cuts off just above their mouths, one of the ones with deep shadows, one of the ones where you can tell it's him, and you can tell Ryland's a guy, but you'd probably have to know the shape of Ryland's jaw and the measure of his neck to know for sure who it was. He picks it, crops it, tweaks it a little, and then uploads it. He doesn't know how to caption it. Everything he has to say seems trite or too obvious. Contrived, or trying too hard, or something that would make Ryland laugh at him, and not in a good way.
He deletes the cryptic, stupid shit he'd been typing about the cameras and souls and mates of that variety and replaces it with he said be careful or you'll get a reputation.
Author: adellyna
Pairing: Pete/Ryland
Word Count: 7000
Rating: NC-17
Summary: In which Ryland gets his wish to be Chuck Bass-ish and Pete gets his wish to channel his Fall Out Boy fame into minor, mediocre acting gigs. Also, Michelle Trachtenberg.
Warnings: None to speak of, except maybe Michelle Trachtenberg.
Disclaimer: I still don't believe fanfiction is legally actionable, but nonetheless: no disrespect to any represented parties is intended. This is for offtheceiling, for her birthday, because her face is my very favorite face. Thanks very much to tabbyola for the quick and dirty beta. ♥
The life has a lot of perks. Pete has more money than he should, considering he lived with his mom well into his twenties and half-assed his way out of college mere months shy of graduating. He has more friends and "friends" than anyone else he knows. He has a fan club, three blogs, and had to pay way too much to register his name as a web domain. He has four albums and three bandmates and a clothing line and a record label and he collaborates with people whose names it makes him dizzy to program into his phone.
There are pictures of his dick on the internet, and way too many people know about his mishaps with Ambien, and thousands of the people who recognize his name think he's a joke or a sell-out or a douche or all of the above with varying degrees of vehemence, but hey. All publicity is good publicity, right?
"All publicity is good publicity," his publicist reminds him. "And this isn't even bad publicity. This is a good thing."
"Hey, yeah," Pete says. He lifts his hands, palms-up, and shakes his head. "I'm not saying no. I'm just saying I can't really act for shit."
"You don't have to act," she says patiently, taking off her glasses and pinching the bridge of her nose. "You just have to be there when they turn the camera on."
"I'll be there," Pete says hastily. He drops his hands and wipes his palms on his jeans. "But you can't say I didn't warn you."
He agrees-agreeing in the sense that he signs the contract his publicist puts in front of him and frowns at it like there aren't butterflies dancing excitedly in his stomach-to a five-episode arc. It's some show he's never actually watched, some sort of Melrose Place meets Friends meets The OC meets How I Met Your Mother meets 90210 meets True Blood shit, he doesn't even know. He's pretty sure there won't be any forensics involved. CSI, at least, won't entertain the notion of Pete on their show unless he's playing a corpse.
He doubts his ability to convincingly play a corpse.
Fuck it. He doubts his ability to convincingly play himself, much less the dude in the script they send him; just a few shades off Pete Wentz. Around the same degree of sexual ambiguity. A year or two younger. A shade or two less fucked up. Running parallel to Pete Wentz, but a couple of blocks north. Pete Weiss, maybe. Paul Wentz. Phil Wash.
He would never say any of the shit they've written in the script they give him.
"Hey," he says to his mirror, leaning forward to check the careful smudge of his eyeliner. "Why don't you whip 'em out and-" he leans down, checking the script. "Measure." He makes a face at the mirror. The logistics of that have always been beyond him, and anyway, it's tired and overused. He's never given a shit who has a bigger dick. His standard of machismo has always been who can crack more teeth with the first punch.
Of course, they start filming his first day at the crack of fucking dawn. His call time is six, and he's still awake at three.
The makeup girl clucks exasperatedly at him, and reaches for the thickest foundation she has.
"Sorry," he says sheepishly. "I know it's bad."
"Do you sweat a lot?" she asks, dipping her brush in the little pot of makeup. "Because if you do, we're going to have to...figure something out."
"No," Pete says earnestly. "No sweating. Promise."
::
It's not like Pete should be (could possibly be) nervous around cameras, but he is anyway. Maybe it's the wardrobe. His shirt is a little too new, scratchy, and the jeans are a half size too big. They cover the band of his underwear, and it feels weird to have the waistband so close to his bellybutton.
He feels awkward asking if he can wear one of his own hoodies, so he refrains. He feels awkward at the run-through, too, like all of the real actors are rolling their eyes at him. He memorized the shit out of his lines, though, so at least there's that.
The rest of the cast is TV-pretty, though not as pretty as they'd seemed in the episode or two Pete had managed to catch of the show. From up close, the brunette's hair extensions are obvious, and the blonde's blue eyes are that phony, too-blue blue of contacts.
The awkward, skinny hipster dude is just as skinny as he looks on TV, but a little less awkward in person. He's also sitting next to Pete, with his chair pushed back too far from the table, seemingly because his legs are too long to bend properly in the narrow amount of space allowed.
"Hey," the guy says, when the pen Pete's twitching nervously between his fingers twitches itself right onto the floor. "I'm Ryland."
"Pete," Pete says, like the producer hasn't already introduced him three times. "Hi."
"Rockstar, right?" Ryland asks.
"A little less rock," Pete says thoughtfully. He tips his head and, belatedly, ducks down to retrieve his pen. "And a lot less star."
"You're used to this though, right?" Ryland gestures around the table. Down towards the end of it, the sleazyish blond guy is arguing with the director about something. "Cameras? Pressure? Performing?"
"Not really," Pete confesses. "I mean. Yes to all of the above, but not...like this."
"Well, it's TV," Ryland says. He settles his hand back on the surface of the table and taps his fingertips against the veneer in a calm one-twothree beat. "So, you know."
"Yeah." Pete twitches his pen between his fingers again. "Sure."
He does not know. He thought that was kind of the point of the conversation.
"Takes," Ryland says, grinning. "Lots of 'em. As many as you need."
"As many as I need until someone punches me in the face," Pete says ruefully. "Like. I like acting. In theory. When people who are good at it do it."
"No one will punch you in the face," Ryland says. He pushes his bangs out of his face and ducks his head conspiratorially. "Just between you and me? The ratings have been a little, uh. Discouraging."
"Ah," Pete says, grinning back. "I see. I'm a ratings stunt."
"Easier and sexier than a wedding," Ryland agrees. "And more appealing to the teen demographic."
"Then you've got the wrong guy." Pete tugs the sleeves of his hoodie down over his thumbs and turns his hands over, cupping his palms towards the ceiling. "You need Patrick. He's the magic, I just take my shirt off."
::
Pete sucks.
Well, he delivers his lines, and he gets them right, and he tries really hard to deliver them sincerely, but he's always had this awkward, insecure thing that twists up his stomach into knots any time he he opens his mouth and something he doesn't believe comes out.
Mostly, he blames his mother for this. If she hadn't been able to see right through him his whole life, maybe he'd be a better liar.
"See?" Ryland asks, once the director announces they're wrapping for the day and the crew slouches off elsewhere. "Could've been worse."
"Tell me there's beer," Pete says. He shrugs off the weirdly-fitting, all-wrong hoodie and considers how weird it would be to take off his scratchy, too-new shirt on the set. "If there is beer, then it could definitely be worse."
"My trailer," Ryland says, hooking his hand gently around Pete's elbow when he starts heading off in the wrong direction. "Wardrobe first, Wentz. You don't want to make Hilda mad."
Pete makes an unhappy sound and drags his feet a little. "Hilda can suck my dick."
"Hilda will do something to your dick if you mess up that shirt," Ryland says, grinning. "How squeamish are you?"
Wardrobe is a good idea anyway. Back in his own clothes, Pete feels a little less like he's fucking up every time he moves.
"They wrote kissing into my contract," he says unhappily, following Ryland onto his trailer and breathing in deeply when he hits a wall of cool, processed air. "Who do you think it'll be?"
"Depends," Ryland says. He swings open his little trailer fridge and bends, hooking his knuckles around two bottles and straightening, closing the fridge slowly while he thinks. "One of the girls. Unless they want to be edgy."
"And if they want to be edgy?"
"Me, probably." Ryland shrugs and folds himself onto the narrow, overly firm trailer sofa. It's dark grey, with nubby lighter grey streaks, and it's comfortably uncomfortable, like every tour bus Pete's ever been on. "Do you watch the show?"
Pete says "Um," and takes his beer from Ryland, stalling.
"It's cool," Ryland laughs. "But I'm, uh. You know." He pops the cap and takes a long sip, grinning at Pete with his bottom lip pressed to the mouth of the bottle. "A little limp in the wrist, I guess."
It's not like he's never kissed a guy before. It's not like he's never kissed a guy for a camera before, even. And, if he's being completely honest, kissing Ryland is somehow more appealing than kissing either of the two bleached, "enhanced," thin skin over hard plastic girls that he thinks are the alternatives.
"You know," Pete says thoughtfully, dragging his finger down over the slick, cool glass of his bottle. "I think they have exercises for that. Little balls you squeeze."
"Balls to squeeze, huh?"
"Uh huh." Pete grins and hides it behind pushing his bangs out of his face. "You should look into it."
::
Pete is granted a three day reprieve. He's recording, for one thing, and he doesn't have that many scenes to film, for another. He's not surprised; a simple Google search of his name provides a crystal clear picture of approximately where one should level out their expectations of Pete Wentz.
Thanks to L.A. traffic, he's able to surpass even the lowest expectations by rolling up to the studio forty-five minutes late.
"Sorry," he says, then snaps his mouth shut and reminds himself he's not here to apologize. He's here to be the flighty rock star with the special wardrobe considerations and the for-real tattoos it would take hours in makeup to mimic on someone else.
"Sit," the makeup girl tells him sternly. She tips his chin up and ducks in close, examining his undereyes. "Do you ever sleep? Jesus."
"No," Pete says solemnly. "I'm Insomnia Man. I have a costume and everything. Blankie-cape."
"Maybe we should try hemorrhoid cream," the makeup girl muses, turning her back to him.
It's okay. The joke wasn't that funny anyway. Pete doesn't always work well under pressure. He settles into the chair, awkwardly tucking his hands under his thighs and then pulling them back and putting them on the arms of the chair when he realizes sitting like that makes him look somewhere in the neighborhood of six years old.
The brunette actress-Michelle, he thinks her name is-smirks at him from the next chair over. She flips a page in the magazine she's holding and glances at it, sounding utterly bored when she says, "Nice jeans. I think I had a pair. Two years ago."
"Nice extensions," Pete replies. He picks up a hand and studies the cuticle on his thumb, then nibbles at it and widens his eyes at her. "Where'd you get them? Chinatown?"
She grins at him. It's possible her teeth are even bigger than his. "Michelle," she says, tossing her considerable hair over her shoulder and sticking out her hand.
"Pete," Pete says. He manages to shake her hand for all of three seconds, and then the makeup girl is clucking impatiently and he hastens to sit back in his chair.
::
He gets an acceptable take of his first and second scenes while they're still in single digits, but the last one takes him literally seventeen takes. After, when the crew is moving on with their carefully stoic faces, Ryland comes over and puts his hand on Pete's shoulder.
In the absence of a convenient Patrick, Pete takes this opportunity to push his forehead against Ryland's chest and lean.
"Seventeen's not terrible," Ryland says generously. He slides his hand to the back of Pete's neck and squeezes a little. "One time I did this commercial for athlete's foot cream and it took me twenty-five."
"No one would say these things," Pete mumbles miserably. "How am I supposed to say things no one would say?"
"Don't judge," Ryland says, clucking. "Hip, young, urban vampires might say them."
"Wouldn't," Pete counters, humming encouragingly when Ryland squeezes a little tighter. "I know dudes in New York who sleep all day, and they definitely don't say shit like this."
From behind him, he hears Michelle shuffle up; he can smell her perfume, and her shampoo, and then she says, "Well, that sucked."
"Quit your bitching," Ryland says easily. "At least you look cute."
"At least I get to wear flats," she corrects, and wraps an arm around Pete's waist. He straightens, and blinks at her. "Stay," she says solemnly. "Usually they put me in four-inch heels so I can have scenes with this guy and actually be in frame, but with you around, I might get to wear bedroom slippers."
Pete likes Michelle. She's kind of a bitch.
"You're kind of a bitch," he says, and reaches over to tug at a lock of her hair. "And you can't keep me. I'm not a stray, and Patrick will kick my ass if I'm not in the studio tomorrow morning."
"Fine," she sighs, stacking her chin on Pete's shoulder. "But you know what we should do?"
"Get wasted?" Ryland suggests. Michelle makes a little gun with her fingers and shoots it at Ryland, winking exaggeratedly.
They change and go to some new club. A couple of the others are with them, the blondes, but Pete can't remember their names to save his life. Chris and Joanne, maybe? John and Christine?
The club is new, and looks like shit from the outside, which you'd think would have gone out of style somewhere back in the seventies, but apparently has not. There are two groups of people clustered around the door: the people dying to get in, and the people dying to get pictures.
"Oooh," Michelle says, leaning over Pete and lifting half off the seat so she can check her hair in the rearview mirror. "Paparazzi."
She plasters herself to Pete's side when they get out of the car, and he's far from unaware of the power of the photograph, so; he drapes an arm around her waist and leans in to mumble in her ear, "Do these jeans make me look fat?"
"Fuck the jeans," she mumbles back, lowering her eyelashes and peering off to the side from underneath them. Pete knows enough about angles and photography to know that it'll look like she's looking at him, even though she isn't. "Do you," she says, turning into him a little, "make me look fat?"
Pete laughs. He catches Ryland's amused look over his shoulder, and then they're in the club and he can't see much in the face of the strategic lighting and thumping bass that makes him nervous for just a second, like he's supposed to go on stage but he's nowhere near prepared.
There aren't any paparazzi actually in the club, much less in VIP, so the only thing he's cuddling up to a few drinks in are his phone and a tall glass of something that tastes like summer in Florida.
He can post to his blog from his phone, so...he does. He takes a few quick camera shots of himself, but he doesn't like any of them, so when Ryland wanders by Pete snags his sleeve and reels him in. "Come on," he says, grinning widely. "Camwhore with me."
"Sure," Ryland says. He takes another sip of the thing in his hand that looks like ginger ale and smells like coconut. "Why?"
"Blog," Pete says, shoving his phone in his pocket so he can arrange Ryland where he wants him. "Bored."
"Club's not your thing?" Ryland asks. He sounds more than a little surprised.
"Depends on the guest list," Pete says. This club, for example, would be much more fun with a Gabe in it. Or a Joe, or a William Beckett, or a Mike Carden, or a Travis McCoy. As it is, it's just a bunch of nearly-identical, completely interchangeable As Seen On TV bimbos with IQs in the neighborhood of their shoe size. Or, in some extraordinary cases, their dress size.
He snaps a shot of himself and Ryland, then turns the screen to look at it. It's better, but.
"Slouch a little," he orders absently, wiggling closer and pushing up on his toes so they're closer in height. "This just looks like a picture of really bad parenting."
"Mmkay," Ryland says, and slides his feet out obediently so they're closer to the same height. "You could borrow some of Michelle's heels."
"Blow me," Pete says cheerfully. He smiles brightly and takes another picture. It's better, but he lifts the camera and takes another, then turns his head and blinks solemnly at Ryland. "Do you have a little sister? Do you want me to send you one of these so you can show her and she'll think you're cool?"
"Sometimes I hang out with Jensen Ackles," Ryland says, grinning back. He's really very close. "I'm already cool."
"That's not cool," Pete corrects. He doesn't move back at all. "That's a coworker."
"What are you?" Ryland asks.
"Publicity stunt," Pete says lightly, but he leans the extra inch when Ryland does, and tries not to think about how stupid it is to be kissing an actor in the VIP section of L.A.'s third-hottest new club.
Ryland shifts some, and then his hand-fingertips cool from holding his drink, palm hot and a little sweat-slick-is on Pete's jaw and his mouth is open a little. He licks at Pete's bottom lip, so Pete opens his mouth and leans a little closer. He's still on his toes, and his calves are starting to protest, but Ryland makes a quiet, pleased noise in the back of his throat. Pete ignores the stretch of muscle and lifts his phone again, snapping another picture, a second, a third, a fourth when Ryland bites his bottom lip.
"Narcissist," Ryland mumbles, dragging his mouth over Pete's lightly. Pete can feel him smiling. "Everything they say about you on the internet is true."
"Every last thing," Pete agrees. He pushes up a little higher on his toes so he can kiss Ryland again, firmly but tongueless, and then he drops back down and leans more, flipping through the pictures he just took. "I bet Jensen Ackles doesn't make out with you, though."
"No," Ryland says, draping an arm over Pete's shoulders and ducking enough to see the screen of Pete's phone. "No, he sure doesn't."
"Want?" Pete asks. He flips forward until he gets to the best one of them, and tilts the phone fully towards Ryland. "I'm not, like. Posting it."
"Sure," Ryland says, straightening and lifting his glass to take a sip. "Just in case I'm ever stupid enough to talk about Star Wars in front of a teenage girl. I can whip that out."
Pete laughs and sends it, then goes back and picks the one he actually wants to post to his blog. gawkerstalkering myself, he writes. some club in la with blue curtains and bad music. man i suck at this.
::
By lunch time the next day, pictures of himself and Michelle cozying up on the way into the club are up on the gossip blogs. "Onscreen sparks flare offscreen?" the headline reads. Pete wonders how they could possibly have onscreen sparks when he still has a scene to film before an episode with him even airs, but okay, sure.
He sends a quick email to his publicist (not true), and doesn't get the response (too bad) until he and Patrick break for lunch and he checks his phone. There's also a text from Ryland: michelle misses you and is bitching about her heels and I'm thinking about bedazzling a box for you to stand on when you're around me.
::
They start filming his second episode weeks before the first even airs, which is more than a little nerve-wracking. He'll have no idea exactly how bad he looks until it's almost too late to do better.
He actually manages to work himself into a bit of a panicked frenzy about it an hour and a half before his call time. Googling yourself at four-thirty in the morning is never a good idea, but Pete's been trying to quit for longer than he's been trying to quit popping pills, and he's yet to make any progress with either.
AP.net comes through for him, like it always does, and when he runs out of good material from that, there are half a dozen message boards he can stalk until he finds mentions of his name. He discovers that he is a douche, a sell-out, guilty of promoting talentless bands and artists, self-obsessed, ugly, shitty at playing bass, a misogynist, a faggot, a closeted hetero who exploits the gay agenda to sell records, really ugly, a slut, a groupie-banging hack who's ruining music and should stop mentioning Chicago because there are actual decent people who live there. He's also guilty of proselytizing, of having a political agenda for the sole purpose of being "trendy," of being the worst wannabe role model walking, of having "changed," of having "disappointed" his "real fans," and of being a lazy slacker who does nothing but stare at himself in the mirror and drink Starbucks and promote consumerism all day long.
He clicks reply and stares at the cursor for a good three minutes before he starts typing. I'm so sick of hearing about Pete Wentz, he types. I knew that dude before his "band" got "famous" and he was an asshole then, too. Chicago isn't two years ago, douche, you are. Fuck off and die.
His comment posts, and he tilts his head at it and tries to decide if he feels better.
He does.
And he has just enough time to shower and fix his hair and eat a banana at his kitchen counter before he goes to set, with his laptop open next to him and his blog post with the picture of himself and Ryland filling the screen. He stares at it a little, then dumps his banana peel on the counter and queues up a new blog entry with the hand that's not covered in slimy banana residue.
everything they say about me on the internet is true and so is everything they say about you, he posts, then closes the laptop. He makes it halfway down the hall before he remembers to go back and throw away the banana peel.
::
He's only scheduled to film two days for the second episode, which is kind of awesome. It's Tuesday, and he's done. Well, done in the sense that all he has to do now is sit in the studio and make an album and try to talk Ryan Ross through an existential crisis every six and a half hours.
On Thursday, he has a DJ gig at some club downtown that's nowhere near as glossy as the one he and the cast went to, but is at least twice as loud. He texts Ryland an invite on a whim, and he's genuinely kind of surprised to see Ryland walk into the club about halfway through his set. Michelle is on Ryland's arm, her hair tousled to within an inch of its life, and her heels high enough that Pete thinks the three of them could line up in a row and look like stair steps.
He puts a new track on, segueing smoothly from Jay-Z to a Duffy remix, and waves them over. Ryland grins and tilts his head towards the bar, but Michelle comes on up, teetering a little at the top of the grated stairs.
"You should take those off," he shouts over the music, pushing his headphones down around his neck and nodding towards her shoes. "You're going to make me look bad."
"I loved you in Willy Wonka," she shouts back, but does drop someone's abandoned hoodie onto the ground and toe her shoes off so she can stand on it. "Do you take requests?"
"Fuck no," Pete says, grinning. "But here. You can listen." He pulls the headphones off and hands them to her, grinning at her. It's a photo-op, he's fully aware, and if the way she leans in more and smiles back is any indication, she knows it too.
"Nice," she says. "Want to kiss?"
"Not really," Pete laughs. "But, uh. Maybe later. Gotta, you know." He gestures at the board and she nods, turning and leaning against it; she must realize that's a terrible angle so she shifts, changes it, leans a hip against the edge so she can be partially in profile and mostly facing him.
"Will someone bring me a drink here?" she asks. "Does it work like that?"
"It does for me," Pete says cheerfully. "But you might need to go to the bar, unless you're willing to flash a little boob."
Michelle glances down at the careful drape of her neckline and sighs, shrugging easily. "Maybe I'll just hang here for a while."
"Then maybe I'll take requests," Pete says. He takes a sip of his drink and holds it out to her, offering the side he didn't drink from. "If they're any good."
He mixes some Estelle into a Kanye track, while she's deciding, and then he vetoes every shitty, set-ruining suggestion she throws at him.
After, he goes to find Ryland. It's not hard.
"Avoiding me?" Pete asks, sliding onto the empty stool next to Ryland's. The bar is stained, pocked concrete. It's cool under Pete's palms. "You should've come up."
"And ruined your perfect photo-op?" Ryland raises an eyebrow and, wisely, moves his glass a few precautionary inches away from Pete's reach. "Michelle and I have the same publicist. He'd never forgive me."
Pete's fingers twitch on the bar. "Oh," he says, blinking. "I mean. I'm not...not going there, dude. She's cute and all, but."
"Hey, hold up." Ryland laughs and lifts his cup, tilting the rim towards Pete. "I'm not judging."
"No, it's just." Pete frowns and bites at his thumbnail. The bartender is down at the other end, serving some girls with too-thick lip liner and lashes so fake Pete can practically see the glue from where he's sitting. He sighs, and shrugs. "I mean. I'm not trying to lie about it? I just think it's kind of funny how eager people are to spin shit."
"So you lie for kicks," Ryland says, humming thoughtfully.
Pete frowns harder. "No," he says, and twitches his fingertips against a wide, shallow crater in the bar's surface. "I let people assume what they want to about me for kicks. It's not like anyone ever asks."
"Got it," Ryland says.
"Hey, fuck you," Pete says. He waves when the bartender looks his way, hoping that it's enough to communicate he wants another of the same beer he's been drinking all night, then turns more on his stool so he can face Ryland. "I can tell you who made every single item of clothing you're wearing right now."
"Which just means you're obsessed with clothes." Ryland grins at him and takes another sip of his drink. "Maybe I get what you see in Michelle after all."
"Blow me, Mr. I'm Friends With Jensen Ackles."
"Okay," Ryland says easily. He tips his glass back and drinks the last third of it, then slides off the stool. "Where? Bathroom?"
Pete's brain shorts out for a few long moments, moments he spends blinking with what must be mortifying blankness at Ryland. "Um."
"Put your money where your mouth is, Wentz," Ryland says, grinning. He tucks his fingers in Pete's front pocket and leans in, mouthing at Pete's jaw, just under his ear. "Either come with me, or knock it off with the fuck-me eyes."
"Um." Pete waits for the thump-thump of the bass to steady his stomach, then he pushes his beer away from him and slides off his stool. "I live, like, fifteen minutes from here."
::
He doesn't worry about which story anyone will go with until the morning; he wakes up, sore, with a smear of come dried and flaking on his hip and his mouth rubbed raw from stubble. The headlines flash across the insides of his eyelids before he even opens them. Pete Wentz Arrives At Club Alone. Pete Wentz Canoodles With Actress In DJ Booth. Pete Wentz Leaves Club With Rumored Gay Actor.
Cast Of Hit Show Gang-Bangs Fall Down Boy Bassist.
Not even he's stupid enough to tackle the internet without reinforcements, so he waits until his second cup of coffee before he boots up the laptop and opens Google. Ryland is still asleep in his bed, his long arm stretched out over the stupidly expensive sheets Pete didn't even pick for himself.
It turns out nobody cares what Pete Wentz did the night before, though Paris Hilton did leave dog shit outside Spago without picking it up, and Lindsay Lohan may or may not have gone blonde again.
::
The script for the third episode is delivered to Pete's house, but he doesn't get a chance to read it until the studio, midway through Patrick trying to beat the vocal performance he wants out of Brendon.
He says "Oh," out loud, and then turns the page back, re-reading to make sure he's seeing this right.
"Problem?" Patrick asks, in the Patrick-tone that means Patrick doesn't give a shit unless something is on fire or dying on the floor.
"I have to kiss a girl."
"Your life is so hard," Patrick says absently, then pushes down on the intercom button and leans closer like he needs to do so to be heard. "Brendon, can you stop mumbling please?"
::
It's in his contract that he's in charge of his own hair, but he still is at the formidable mercies of Hilda in wardrobe when it comes to his clothes, so he takes off his wardrobe shirt before he gets on his knees in Ryland's trailer and sucks him off.
"Nice," Ryland says, pushing a hand into Pete's hair and tangling it around his knuckles.
Pete forgives this trespass because of the noise Ryland makes when Pete swallows him down and hums. He pulls off, slowly, and licks at the head, mumbling, "Hilda's a frightening woman."
"Please," Ryland says unevenly, wrapping his fingers tighter, enough that Pete will probably have to bust out the flat iron to fix it. "Please don't talk about Hilda right now."
Later, but not later enough that they're rushing to set, and certainly not later enough that Pete can't still taste come around the ridges of his molars, Ryland nuzzles under Pete's jaw and says, "Hey."
"Uh huh?"
"Do you know how to kiss on camera?"
"Um." Pete threads his fingers through Ryland's hair and tugs a little. "I think so. I was going to wait until they turned the camera on, then kiss her."
"It's not that easy," Ryland says, swatting at Pete's hand. "And quit fucking up my hair."
"Pot," Pete says solemnly, wiggling his fingers until Ryland's hair stands straight up on end. "See also, kettle."
"That made no sense." Ryland turns his head and kisses the bend of Pete's elbow, then bites, sharply, until he lets go. "But my point is, it's harder than it looks."
"I don't know, dude," Pete says dubiously. He lifts his hand again, carefully smoothing Ryland's hair back into place. "Kissing is kissing."
"You have to suggest tongue," Ryland elaborates, loftily, lifting his chin so he can look down his nose at Pete, even as he permits the fixing of his hair. "Without actually using tongue. Otherwise you'll get a reputation."
Pete tsks. "Baby. I already have a reputation."
::
He's trying so hard to suggest tongue without any that he accidentally french kisses Michelle on the first take. She kind of laughs, and kisses him back without hesitation, but he's so fucking embarrassed about it that he fumbles the line after, and they have to do the scene over.
Ryland's leaning against a table offset, smirking, and Pete fumbles the second take and the third. He doesn't get it right until the fifth, after Ryland takes pity on him and leaves. Or, at least, goes somewhere Pete can't see him.
::
There's a hill on the way to Pete's house that curves gently downward. It looks like an easy, subtle slope, but if you take it fast enough, it makes your stomach whoosh like a thrill ride. Pete always takes it fast enough.
"What did I tell you?" Ryland asks smugly, reaching up to wrap his hand around the handle above his window. "Tongue."
Pete accelerates into the curve a little, grinning when he sees Ryland brace more out of the corner of his eye.
"She liked it," he says, speeding up even more so the red Lexus coming up to the stop sign at the base of the hill won't think it's a good idea to pull out in front of him. "You'd like it."
"I do like it," Ryland agrees solemnly. "Maybe I'm just jealous."
"I think they're going to kill me." He does. He sees the writing on the wall. "Ratings, right? And that way I can never come back."
"I've heard rumors."
The red Lexus does not pull out in front of him. Pete feels victorious when it blurs by in a little splash of crimson behind Ryland's head.
"It's going to be awesome," Pete says, easing his foot down on the brake. Slowing down is his least favorite part. "People request that I die all the time."
He takes Ryland to his house, and Ryland's on him practically before they get the door shut. They manage to mostly strip while they stumble down the hall; Ryland has his hands shoved down the back of Pete's jeans, both of their zippers down, kissing too-wet with teeth and little noises, and then Ryland spots Pete's laptop. It's open at the foot of the bed, his webcam up and running. Pete can see Ryland's wrists in the frame, pale, knobby wrists against Pete's darker skin. "What's with you and that thing?" Ryland asks. He kisses Pete again, but with his eyes open, nodding towards the computer. "Cameras. All those pictures of yourself."
"Dunno," Pete mumbles. He tugs at Ryland's belt loops hard, trying to drag him fully onto the bed. "I like it. A lot."
"Too much?"
"Have you Googled me?"
Ryland laughs and digs his fingers in more tightly, lifting Pete enough to walk him backwards on his toes. "I've seen the dick pictures, yes."
"It's just...dunno." He kisses Ryland's jaw, up to his ear, and then bites down hard. "Proof?"
"Proof of what?" Ryland asks.
"Everything," Pete says. wrapping his arms around Ryland's neck and letting himself fall so his weight will take them both down. They bounce on the mattress, and Ryland's thigh almost hits Pete's dick in a really not sexy way, but doesn't. "Can we talk about this later?"
"Let's talk about it during," Ryland says. He sounds completely reasonable, even as he kisses Pete's collarbone and digs in his pocket for his phone. "How does this shit work?" He holds up Pete's phone and squints at it, pressing buttons Pete can't see from this angle.
"It's just-"
"Got it," Ryland interrupts. He shakes his bangs out of his face and straddles Pete's knees, pointing the phone at him. "Take off your jeans."
Pete laughs and reaches for him, but Ryland just swats at his hand and presses a button on the phone; Pete hears the distinct, unmistakable fake shutter sound of his phone taking a picture. He feels blood rush to his cheeks. His dick twitches.
"Jesus, Ryland." He laughs again, and reaches for the phone, but Ryland just slides back a little more and gets one knee and then the other between Pete's thighs.
"Knock it off," Ryland says. He takes another picture and tugs, one-handed, at Pete's jeans. "I want to do it this way."
Pete takes his jeans off. He hears Ryland take another picture, and then Ryland scoots down a little more and spreads his knees some, pushing Pete's legs further apart.
"Fingers," Ryland says roughly. "Come on."
Pete hesitates. Ryland drags a hand down Pete's stomach and spreads his fingers out widely over Pete's tattoo, snapping a picture of it before he drags his hand down more, palm skimming over Pete's dick.
"Fingers," he says again. "The lube's in that drawer."
Like Pete doesn't know where he keeps his own fucking lube. He laughs again, shakily, and reaches for it anyway. "You know," he says, licking at his lips nervously. "This has gone badly for me in the past."
"That was someone else," Ryland says, dismissing the point with a wave of the camera. "I wouldn't do that to you."
Pete doesn't know how much he believes that, but he drags a knee up anyway, until his heel bumps the underside of Ryland's thigh, and he slicks his fingers up with lube and pushes two in.
Ryland takes a picture.
"It's your phone, anyway," Ryland mumbles. He mutters something under his breath that sounds like fuck and takes another picture when Pete twists his fingers hard, arching into it. "So. It's all in your hands, shit. Do that again, just. Slower."
He closes his eyes and lets Ryland direct him, so all he has is cool air prickling his skin, Ryland's voice muttering soft, tense instructions, and the occasional muted click of the cameraphone. He loses track of the pictures somewhere around twelve, and he has no idea how many Ryland's taken by the time Pete's writhing on the bed, gasping and trying to rock up against his own fingers like that will get them any deeper inside him.
"Okay," Ryland says, finally, eventually, so it feels like fucking hours later. "Okay. Come here." He bends, kissing Pete's hip, and then rolls onto his back. "Ride me."
Pete would call him pushy, or mock him for bossing him around, or take the fucking camera and throw it across the room, but he's so hard he feels like he's going to get off if Ryland so much as looks at his dick, so. He moves as fast as he can, instead, fishing a condom out of the open box in his nightstand.
Ryland adjusts the pillows under his head and snaps a picture of Pete with the wrapper between his teeth, one of Pete's hand easing latex over his dick, another of Pete's hand braced against Ryland's stomach so he can position.
"Slow," Ryland mumbles. "So I can-"
"No video," Pete interrupts hastily. "Promise me no video."
"No video," Ryland says. He reaches out with his free hand and drags it lightly over Pete's hip, almost affectionate. "I just want, like. Action shots. The memories. Fuck you, just go with it."
Pete eases down slowly, bracing both hands above Ryland's bellybutton and pulling off a little every few inches so he can rock back down, careful, controlled movements until Ryland loses it and wraps his hand tighter around Pete's hip. He drops down harder when Ryland shoves up, and from there it's fast, dirty, grindy sex, with Ryland's fingertips digging in above Pete's hipbone.
The click of the camera is less constant, but Pete's aware of it enough to get flashes of what the images are going to look like: the contrast of their skin; the haphazard, diagonal angle; the blur of Pete's hair on his face when he tips his head back and grinds down.
He doesn't want to know how many pictures Ryland takes of Pete coming all over his stomach, but he knows there are a few. There's one of him braced, fingers splayed out over Ryland's chest while Ryland jerks his hips up urgently, and then Ryland drops the phone onto the bed and holds on, dragging Pete where he wants him until he gets off, fingers bruise-tight on Pete's hips.
After that-after the collapsing and the half-hearted wiping up of come and lube, and the arranging of both of them into the half of the bed without the wet spot-Pete reaches over Ryland and grabs the camera.
"What would you do if I posted these?" He flips through them fast, so they're just a blur of skin and light, and turns his head to kiss Ryland's jaw. "Gaygate, or whatever."
"Do what you want," Ryland says. "I doubt anyone would be surprised, and I don't give a shit about the ones who would be."
Pete takes a picture of them kissing. Too close, he knows; it'll be blurry when he looks at it, so he holds the phone out further and takes another, then a third, then drops the phone again so he can cup his hand around Ryland's jaw.
::
Ryland's asleep at three in the morning, like all rational people, but Pete's still up. He bought this house for its view, so he could curl up on the balcony when the city was quiet but bright beneath him.
Also, he gets kickass wireless out here, so there's that.
There are a good three dozen pictures, once he imports them all to his computer and gets rid of the ones that are too blurry or too dark to see anything. They're all of him, of course, except for the last few Pete took.
He picks one of those-one of the ones that cuts off just above their mouths, one of the ones with deep shadows, one of the ones where you can tell it's him, and you can tell Ryland's a guy, but you'd probably have to know the shape of Ryland's jaw and the measure of his neck to know for sure who it was. He picks it, crops it, tweaks it a little, and then uploads it. He doesn't know how to caption it. Everything he has to say seems trite or too obvious. Contrived, or trying too hard, or something that would make Ryland laugh at him, and not in a good way.
He deletes the cryptic, stupid shit he'd been typing about the cameras and souls and mates of that variety and replaces it with he said be careful or you'll get a reputation.