and don't really care which side wins, as long as the room keeps singing...
Story Title: Happily Ever After Below (And Above) The Waist
Story Type: Slash, AU
Characters: Pete Wentz, Patrick Stump, Joe Trohman, Andy Hurley
Pairings: Pete/Patrick,
Rating: PG-13/NC-17
Fandom: Bandom
Series: None
Disclaimer: They're not mine. I don't own anyone mentioned in this story, please don't sue me. I was going to say that if you got here by googling your own name, to hit the back button, but who am I kidding -if I found out people were writing stories about me and my friends, I would so read that shit.
Warnings: Slash, language, au, shapeshifting, magical realism, underage sexual shenagins (Patrick’s fifteen when the story starts), smut, fluff
Summary: “Shapeshifters,” Joe repeated slowly, clearly trying to wrap his mind around it. “What like werewolves?”
“Why is everyone obsessed with werewolves?” Patrick asked, irritated. “Christ, we're dragons, you jack ass. Not everything's like the movies.”
A/N: I started this way back in February or March, I think; it was suppose to be for the Bandom Big Bang, but my laptop died and I had to shelve it for months until I could start it again. I was going to wait until I had all of it finished to post it, but I couldn’t wait, so hear it is, the first of five parts. Hope everyone enjoys it.
A/N 2: candy_belle this is for you; without you to cheer me on, I would have given up on writing this. Thanks, hun.
Part 1
Pete and I attacked the lost Astoria, with promise and precision and a mess of youthful innocence.
Saturday, Fall Out Boy
Patrick had never thought he'd find his mate when he was barely a year into his majority.
Mates were hard to find; his father had been in his thirty's when he found his, so Patrick had figured if he ever did find them, it wouldn't be until he was a lot older.
And he sure as Hell didn't expect to open his front door and find out his mate was not only another dragon, not only a guy, but that he was Pete Wentz from Racetraitor.
But even before he opened the door and looked at Pete, his senses started humming the way they did whenever he ran into another shapeshifter (it didn't happen often, shifters were fairly rare and dragons the rarest of all; in his whole life Patrick had only run into three other ones besides his family and none of them had been dragons); after he opened the door, a quick inhale had his breathe catching as there was a quiet click in his brain, like the final piece to a puzzle had slipped into place. He smelled like smoke and warmth and heat and some indefinable thing that said mine and home to Patrick.
Pete was staring at him with the same shocked look Patrick was sure was on his own face and it took a couple minutes for either of them to say anything.
“Please tell me you're Patrick,” Pete managed to say; his voice was hoarse and he seemed to have a hard time looking away from Patrick's mouth. “And by all that's holy, please tell me you're of age.”
“Fifteen,” Patrick answered as he licked his lips; he couldn't help the smirk that twisted them as he noticed Pete watching him. “And, yeah, that's me.”
After another second or two Patrick stepped back and jerked his head to motion Pete inside.
“So, Joe said you wanted to try out for the band,” Pete said offhandedly and it was obvious that he wasn't really concentrating on the conversation they were having.
“Yeah,” Patrick agreed and he couldn't stop himself from looking Pete over or the way his eyes lingered on the strip of skin that was showing between Pete's pants and shirt. “We could go downstairs to where I have my drum kit set up?”
“Yeah, sounds good,” Pete agreed and followed Patrick when he headed down to the basement. “Hey, are you wearing argyle?”
“Shut up,” Patrick muttered, flipping Pete off over his shoulder.
Pete snickered and then gave an appreciative hum when he saw the various instruments littering the basement.
“You can play all these?” Pete asked as he surveyed the room, his eyes quickly taking everything in before fixing back on Patrick. “Nice,” he added when Patrick nodded absently as he situated himself behind the drums.
Patrick tapped out a rhythm for a minute before he looked at Pete again. “You know The Way His Collar Falls?”
“By Saves The Day,” Pete said. “Not enough to play along, but I can follow it.”
Pete watched as Patrick promptly lost himself in the song; he was already half hard in his jeans -had been since Patrick had opened the front door and his scent had hit him (smoke and heat and home and want and mine all mixed together)- but the complete concentration the younger shapeshifter was showing had Pete briefly wishing he had worn different pants.
Pete couldn't help but imagine all that concentration and talent focused on him instead of an instrument and immediately lost track of everything for a minute.
He mentally shook himself and heard Patrick murmuring under his breath; it was barely audible but Pete's hearing had always been good, even for a shapeshifter. Pete contemplated the soft singing until Patrick finished.
“You're good,” Pete offered and smiled when Patrick raised an eyebrow at him. “Really good, actually.
“Can you sing?”
Patrick looked surprised at the simple question. “I guess; I mean, can't everyone? Joe said you guys needed a drummer.”
“We do,” Pete confirmed and tilted his head as he looked Patrick over. “We need everything, actually; right now all we have is a bassist and a couple guitarists.
“Joe wants us to be pop punk and to be honest, I can't sing for shit,” Pete went on, a self-deprecating smirk twisting his lips. “I can scream with the best of them, but singing's out of my league.”
“Oh. Well, I've never sung before,” Patrick told him and shrugged. “But I don't think I'd be very good at it.”
“Humor me. Please,” Pete added, his voice dropping a little when Patrick seemed unsure.
Patrick gave Pete a dirty look but Pete counted it as win since he opened his mouth and started singing.
It wasn't Saves The Day or any other punk band like Pete was expecting; it was something he only remembered hazily, from rainy afternoons at his grandparents when he was still little, before his brother and sister were born.
Frank Sinatra, Pete realized. He couldn't remember the exact name -something about dancing- but Patrick's voice, holy fuck. It felt like someone had known exactly what Pete's best dreams were made of, poured them into Patrick's vocal chords and then used them to rip Pete's heart from his chest so he could offer the bleeding, still beating, bloody mess to Patrick.
As the last note fell from Patrick's mouth and silence fell over the basement, Pete pounced at Patrick, knocking him off the stool he was sitting on.
“I'm so keeping you, Pattycakes,” Pete crooned, nuzzling Patrick's throat. “I was going to anyway, but, your voice, dude. Now, I'm keeping you and you're going to sing and it's going to be awesome.”
“What if I don't want to sing?” Patrick asked snidely, but he rested his hands on Pete's hips and squeezed teasingly when Pete pulled back to look at him.
“I think I can convince you,” Pete said with a leer that made Patrick roll his eyes even as he felt heat pool in his stomach.
Pete pressed his lips to Patrick's and sighed contentedly before he licked his way inside Patrick's mouth.
Patrick groaned and opened his mouth, pressing his body into the warm weight above him. He tightened the grip he had on Pete's hips, drawing a sharp noise from him.
“Can't believe I found you,” Pete murmured, pulling back enough that he could look into Patrick's eyes; his voice was raspy and seemed to scrape over Patrick's skin, eliciting a shiver from him.
“I thought it would take longer, if it ever even...” Patrick started to say and then shrugged it off; he always had a hard time vocalizing anything he was feeling and he didn't really see that changing any time soon.
Pete just smirked down at him; his eyes were shot with yellow and Patrick knew his own were the same way.
“I know,” Pete said and shifted his hips so their erections rubbed against each other; Patrick gasped and bit Pete's lip when he smiled. “Talk later,” he added when Patrick let his lip go.
Pete scrapped his teeth down Patrick's throat before biting down where Patrick's pulse was. Patrick conceded, if only to himself, that talking of any kind could wait until later.
Much later.
*
“So, this band,” Patrick drawled later on; his jeans were barely pushed down past his hips, his shirt was rucked up under his arms and Pete was in in a similar state, lying across Patrick's chest. “I don't know if I should join.”
Pete moved until he was on his hands and knees above Patrick and looked him over.
“Fuck me, you look wrecked,” Pete told him, his voice smug.
“That could be arranged,” Patrick said and rolled them over so he was pinning Pete to the floor.
“Dude, you think you can get this whenever you want?” Pete grinned up at him and rolled his hips so Patrick could feel him getting hard again.
“That was just a free sample -you don't get any more until you agree to join.”
“Blackmail, huh?” Patrick asked, his voice bland. He sat back enough to start pulling at Pete's shirt until Pete got the message and helped him pull it off and toss it over his shoulder.
“I guess I could live with that,” Patrick went on thoughtfully as he ran his hand across Pete's chest, stopping to press against Pete's nipple.
Pete gasped a little and then smirked. “I'm glad you see things my way.”
“Jesus, don't you ever shut up?” Patrick huffed but he didn't seem really put out by it. “Do I need to gag you?”
“Not on the first date, Pattycakes,” Pete informed him, snickering. “That's definitely second date material.”
Patrick rolled his eyes and then dipped his head for a quick kiss.
*
Eventually, they managed to call Joe and schedule practice for next week; Joe called Pete back a few hours later to let him know that TJ would be there.
When Joe came home from school and saw Pete lazily kissing Patrick against the railing on his front porch, he just rolled his eyes.
“Jesus, Pete, you're already assaulting our drummer?” Joe complained as he unlocked the front door and went inside.
“You could've at least let him get used to us first,” he added over his shoulder, clearly expecting them to follow him as he dropped his book bag onto the floor and then continued into the kitchen.
“Yeah, about that,” Pete said, his voice sheepish. “Patrick's going to sing instead of drum.”
“Seriously, jackass? You know how hard it is to find a fucken drummer?” Joe groused before he turned to Patrick.
“Please tell me you can at least carry a tune, dude. No offense or anything, but Pete doesn't always think clearly when his dick's involved.”
“Uh, I guess I'm OK,” Patrick told him, looking at Pete uncertainly.
“Trust me, Trohman, he's our golden ticket,” Pete said and gave Patrick a warm look. “Go on, Patrick, sing for him.”
Patrick took a deep breath and closed his eyes; he went through all the songs he knew before he settled on Through Being Cool by Saves the Day.
He made through the first verse and the chorus before he trailed off and opened his eyes, half expecting Joe to be wincing or giving Pete a dirty look; instead he was looking at Patrick, disbelief written on his face.
“OK? You call that OK?” Joe demanded and then went on without waiting for an answer, “He's definitely singing; we'll just have to find another drummer.”
Pete made an agreeable noise as he went through the cabinets and pulled out a bag of pretzels, as much at home as he would be in his own house. “We could always try Andy again.”
“Yeah, right,” Joe scoffed as he grabbed some cans of soda from the fridge. “You do remember how many bands he's in, right? We've got a better chance of winning the lottery.”
“Point, but he might know someone,” Pete said and snagged Patrick's wrist on his way past.
They followed Joe downstairs to the basement where they flopped on a couch. Patrick looked around and noticed a couple guitars and a bass propped up in a corner next to some amps.
“You know anyone, Patrick?” Joe asked when he passed him a soda; he snagged a handful of pretzels from Pete and settled into the corner of the couch.
“Not off the top of my head -I could ask around school on Monday,” Patrick offered.
“Might as well,” Joe agreed. “It's not like you could do a worse job than we already are.”
The conversation dropped for a few minutes while they finished off the pretzels and drinks.
Once they were done, Joe went outside to smoke - “Before TJ gets here and starts whining about his delicate lungs or some shit.”- and as soon as he went up the stairs, Pete was straddling Patrick and dropping kisses along his jaw.
“Probably not the best time to start making out,” Patrick smirked even as he urged Pete up onto his knees so he could sneak his hand under his shirt to tug lightly on Pete's nipple ring.
“Probably not,” Pete agreed breathlessly; he inhaled sharply when Patrick did it again. “You're fucken evil, Stump.”
Anything Patrick might have said in retaliation was cut off when Pete attacked his mouth greedily.
Patrick fisted his hand into Pete's hair and pulled him back, so he could bite at the older shifter's jaw. Pete moaned and strained against the hold Patrick had on his hip, trying to get some friction against his erection.
Patrick chuckled, low and smug but before he could do anything, Joe opened the door and came back downstairs followed by another person.
“Come on, Pete -you know the whole 'no sex on my couch' rule counts for guys, too,” Joe snarked as he playfully shoved Pete off of Patrick's lap on his way past them to the pile of instruments.
“Patrick, that's TJ, our second guitarist,” Joe added absently as he started tuning his guitar. “TJ, Patrick, our new singer.”
“Hey,” TJ offered as he looked Patrick over. “I thought Joe told me you were going to be drumming?”
“I was suppose to,” Patrick told him as Pete went over to Joe and started harassing him. “Pete heard me singing, though, and well,” Patrick shrugged, laughing a little. “You know how Pete is.”
*
It wasn't until TJ almost saw Pete after he Shifted that they realized someone was going to find out eventually.
They were in Pete's room; Pete had Shifted while Patrick was putting his clothes on. There was no real reason why, he just did it; Patrick had told him he was getting bitchy and his response had been to Shift so he could knock Patrick over without straining himself.
Patrick was buttoning his jeans and dodging Pete's friendly head-butts when they heard someone running up the stairs.
He realized that it was TJ right before he hit the top of the stairs and started yelling for Pete.
“Wentz, come on, asshole,” TJ called out. “You're going to make us late.”
Patrick dove against the door just as TJ started to open it.
“What the fuck, dude?”
“Hold on a second,” Patrick told him as he looked over his shoulder at Pete who froze for a second before he started Shifting back. “Pete's getting dressed.”
There was no answer from TJ but Patrick could practically hear him rolling his eyes.
Pete exchanged a long look with Patrick once he was dressed and then he pulled open the door.
“Hey, fucker, what took you so long?” Pete asked cheerfully as he pushed past him to go downstairs. “Later, 'Trick,” he called out over his shoulder almost as an afterthought.
TJ looked at Patrick uncertainly for a second before he shrugged and followed Pete back downstairs.
“Isn't your Mom gonna be home soon?” TJ asked as Pete shoved his sneakers on.
“What? Yeah, in an hour,” Pete said absently as he tried to remember where he left his wallet. “So?”
TJ didn't answer, just shrugged again and glanced up at the ceiling.
Pete made a triumphant noise when he found it on the coffee table and turned back around in time to see TJ look upstairs.
“Oh, you mean because Patrick's still here,” Pete realized; he put the wallet in his pocket and headed outside. “Don't worry about it -she loves Patrick. Trust me on this; she'll have no problem if he's still hanging out when she gets home.”
TJ mentally shook his head; his parents liked his girlfriend just fine, too, but his mother would have a fit if he left her at their house while he went out with his friends.
It was weird.
Hell, the whole thing with Patrick was; Pete, despite jokes, never went after jailbait. He may have been free and easy with his affections towards -well, everyone, but he usually stayed far away from anyone who would make him a felon.
But here he was, joined at the hip with Stump; who, yeah, was a cool dude and TJ liked jamming with him, but there was no denying the fact that he was only sixteen. Sixteen, still in high school and looked even younger than his actual years.
It was fucken weird.
TJ shrugged; hell, if Pete wanted his mom to bitch him out, let him have fun.
And if Pete wanted to keep fucking someone who was eventually going to land him in the county jail -well, it wasn’t TJ’s ass on the line, and, really, that’s all TJ cared about.
*
They told Joe first.
“Shapeshifters,” Joe repeated slowly, clearly trying to wrap his mind around it. “What, like werewolves?”
“Why is everyone obsessed with werewolves?” Patrick asked, irritated. “Christ, we're dragons, you jack ass. Not everything's like the movies.”
Pete just smirked; seeing Patrick get pissy always amused him. He had no idea what that said about him as a best friend or a mate, but it happened every time Patrick got snarky. It also got him horny, but that really didn't take much.
“Huh,” Joe said and contemplated the spiff in his hand for a minute. “That's cool.”
And that was that.
*
“It’s just weird,” TJ explained to Joe when he told him he was quitting; Pete and Patrick had already headed over to Patrick’s house -“Sleepover time, Pattycakes! Let’s go home and get lotion all over our hands so we have to take each other’s underwear off with our teeth.”- and TJ could admit to a certain level of cowardice on his part.
“Pete’s always been weird,” Joe pointed out blandly; he was outside enjoying his post-rehearsal smoke and he was eying the smoke floating around him.
“Yeah, but this is really weird,” TJ said, frustrated that Joe didn’t understand what he meant. “Come on, you can’t tell me that you haven’t noticed.
“Patrick’s only sixteen and Pete’s twenty one -”
“I’m sixteen,” Joe interrupted, grinning at TJ; his usual cheerfulness was starting to reassert itself, despite the fact that they were going to have to find another guitarist.
“Last I checked, you weren’t fucking Pete, Joe,” TJ told him. “Look, even ignoring the age thing, it’s still plenty fucked up.
“Pete’s always at Patrick’s, he spends the night constantly and Patrick’s parents don’t even care. Who’s parents do that? And they let him do whatever the fuck he wants; he’s a good kid, but, come on, Joe, it’s messed up.
“Not to mention how Patrick’s over at Pete’s almost as often as his own house and Pete’s parents just let it go -they don’t even care if he’s there by himself. The whole thing is just…weird.
“It’s weird.”
“Patrick’s parents aren’t even together,” Joe reminded him.
He went on before TJ could do more than glare at him. “What do you want me to tell you, TJ? Is it normal? No, but, fuck, none of us are exactly white picket fence material.”
“That’s not what I mean and you know it,” TJ took a deep breath and sighed.
“Look, I just -it’s grating on me, OK? And I don’t want to end up with this big blowout where there’s yelling and screaming and shit.”
Joe thought of dragons and secrets while his friend walked away.
*
They took the news fairly well when Joe told them the next night.
“That sucks,” Pete frowned. “I didn’t realize TJ wanted out. Did he say what happened?”
Joe hesitated for a second before he mentally shrugged; he didn’t like lying as a rule and he saw no reason to start being dishonest now. “He was weirded out by how intense you and Patrick act. You’re always together, you know? And Patrick’s mom pretty much lets him do whatever -TJ said it was starting to freak him out.”
“We explained that to you,” Patrick said, his voice annoyed; Pete hid a smile and rubbed a soothing hand down his back but kept his eyes on Joe.
“Yeah, to me,” Joe reminded him. “But he had no clue what the fuck is going on. I mean, I get why you wouldn’t tell him -TJ can be unpredictable and he’s kind of flaky. He doesn’t hate anyone, he just started getting uncomfortable and didn’t want to deal with it.
“Whatever, his loss, right? He’ll be pissing himself when we’re, like, getting head at the Playboy Mansion and he’s still here.”
Pete snickered and high fived him while Patrick rolled his eyes; Joe could see his shoulders relax and he mentally patted himself on the back. Patrick’s bitch fits weren’t exactly a weekly occurrence but Joe had seen enough of them to want to avoid them whenever possible.
“We’re going to need another guitarist,” Pete pointed out after a minute.
“Yeah, I know,” Joe agreed. “I was thinking of that one guy Chris knows, with all the flannel? He filled in for -”
“I’ll do it,” Patrick interrupted; he raised an eyebrow at the incredulous look on Joe’s face. “I mean, do we really want to waste time trying to find someone who fits in with us and can play decently? We’re better off practicing instead.”
“True, but, dude, splitting your focus? Won’t that be a pain in the ass?” Joe asked, running a hand through his hair.
“Patrick can do everything,” Pete answered absently but with the same kind of conviction that some people used when they talked about God and religion. Patrick rolled his eyes again, but he was blushing; it made Pete grin at him.
Joe groaned and pretended to throw up -there was only so much a guy could take, for fuck’s sake.
It made Pete roar with laughter right before he started throwing the empty soda cans at him. Joe ducked a few before he wrestled Pete to the ground. It was only a matter of seconds before Patrick was climbing on his back to try and get him off of Pete. All three of them were out of breath from laughing.
God damn, Joe loved his band.
*
Andy was the last to find out simply because he was the last one to join the band. He played gigs here and there, but he didn't end up joining full time for almost a year. And since their second drummer stopped coming to practice immediately after he caught Pete and Patrick making out on the couch in Pete's basement, it stood to reason that finding out they weren't human would make almost anyone freak the fuck out.
They didn't hide the fact that they were together -they never had, not really- but now Pete made sure that anyone who ended up drumming for them knew that the rumors about Pete Wentz liking guys weren't just rumors. And they never Shifted away from home; the close call with TJ had made them even more cautious than their kind usually were.
Once Andy agreed to join full time, they started planning exactly how to tell him without scaring him off.
*
It was the day before they were suppose to leave when Pete and Patrick met Joe over at Andy's.
“Let me get this straight, you two aren't human,” Andy said, pointing a finger at them. “You're shapeshifters -”
“It's not like werewolves,” Joe interrupted helpfully. “Like, at all.”
“- and Joe knew,” he went on, ignoring Joe's words. “And you decided to tell me now, the day before we're leaving to go touring all over the Midwest. Why would you wait until now to spring this on me?”
“It's -” Pete started to say, before he exhaled noisily and shifted his feet uncomfortably.
“It's a big deal, Andy,” Patrick said quietly, he squeezed Pete's shoulder in reassurance; Pete relaxed a little and leaned against Patrick's side, making Patrick move his arm and settle it around his shoulders.
“We're not human even if we look like it most of the time,” Patrick told him, his eyes steady on Andy's. “Not a lot of people even know about us and not all of the ones who do are as ...accepting of it as Joe is.
“It's not something any of us go around babbling to people at random; in fact, Joe's the first person I've ever told in my life and I'm sixteen.”
“I've never told anyone else, either,” Pete put in before he snuggled closer into Patrick's side, wrapping an arm around his waist and nuzzling his neck. Patrick squirmed a little but didn't shrug Pete off or tell him to stop.
“We decided,” Patrick motioned to Pete with his head to include him before going on. “And then Joe agreed that we would wait on telling anyone else until we were sure that they would stick around. Once you came aboard permanently, it was just a matter of figuring out when to tell you.
“We wanted to give you time to freak out if you needed to but not enough time to ditch us without a drummer,” Patrick admitted a little sheepishly.
“So, what -you thought my sense of responsibility would keep me from leaving even if I wasn't cool with this?” Andy asked with a raised eyebrow, unsure if he should be pissed or amused.
“Dude, you won't even eat bacon because you feel bad for the way the pigs get treated,” Joe pointed out. “There's no way you'd leave us without a drummer.”
“Point,” Andy admitted with a smile. “So, what kind of animals are you?”
“Dragons,” Pete answered with a smug smirk. He twisted his face away from Patrick's neck so he could look at Andy. “We're both fire dragons.”
“Dragons,” Andy repeated skeptically, looking in between the two of them. “Like a Kimono Dragon?”
“No,” Patrick told him as Pete pulled away and started stripping off his clothes. “Like an actual Chinese dragon; we're not as big as they used to be, though.”
“No offense, guys, but you're not exactly big enough to - Jesus, Pete, I've already seen your ass way more than anyone who's not fucking you should ever have to,” Andy complained as he tried to shield his eyes.
“Shut up, Hurley,” Pete snickered as he stepped out of his jeans and moved a few feet away from everyone. “If I Shift with my clothes on, they'll disappear and I'm not trying to make it all the way back to Patrick's house naked.”
Andy moved his hand and watched as Pete got a serious expression on his face. Andy stared as the air around Pete got...hazy was the only word Andy could think of to describe it. It got hazy and made Andy's eyes hurt more the longer he stared at him until he had to close his eyes and then there was this loud cracking noise, as if Pete had broken every bone in his body at once. Which, Andy supposed, he kind of had.
When he opened his eyes, Andy couldn't help making a surprised noise at the sight in front of him; height wise, Pete was about as tall as he usually was; only an inch or so taller than Patrick. Length wise, from what Andy could see, he was about twelve or thirteen feet long. It was hard to tell, exactly, because most of his lower half was coiled together; out of deference to his mom's walls, Andy guessed and he sent a silent thank you to Pete because he had no idea how he would have explained any dragon related damage to her when she got home from work.
Pete was lean, built more for speed than power; his scales were prominently red, but Andy could see where they bled into yellow along his stomach and neck. His eyes were yellow, with a vertical pupil that reminded Andy more of a cat than any kind of reptile.
Andy liked to think he was a pretty tolerant person, but he couldn't help the freak-out he could feel building up.
Pete blinked at Andy, his tongue flicking out a little bit. He took a couple steps forward and rested his head on Patrick's shoulder -well, what he could fit of it on there. Patrick smiled slightly and petted the top of Pete's head which made him slit his eyes and nuzzle Patrick's neck.
The gesture helped Andy calm down; it was something he saw Pete do at least two or three times a day.
“You don't seem excited, Joe,” Andy commented, his voice fairly even.
“I've seen the show before,” Joe shrugged, but there was a look in his eyes that told Andy no matter how many times he may or may not have seen this, it was still new to him.
“Ah, how many times would you have to,” Andy paused for a second to try to find the right words. “Uh, change while we're touring?”
Pete made an annoyed, grumbling noise and shook his head, knocking Patrick's hat off of his head.
Patrick gave Pete a friendly shove so he would move over an inch or two and bent over to pick the hat up before he answered Andy.
“We call it Shifting -it's a cultural thing,” Patrick explained with a shrug at Andy's confused look. “Granted, it means almost the same thing, but it's considered rude or bad manners or whatever to say 'change' or 'turn' instead of 'Shift'. It's not likely to do more than annoy most shifters, but it's better not to take a chance, you know?
“And, to answer your question, we usually get pissy if we don't Shift once a week or so; after a while, we get more and more aggressive and start snapping -sometimes literally- at people, start brawls, that kind of thing.
“We're not tied to the moon like werewolves are; they don't have any control over themselves once they change and they don't remember their human half until the sun comes up.”
“Wait -werewolves are real?” Andy asked in disbelief; he really hoped there weren’t any other surprises tonight. “You've got to be kidding me.”
“Yeah,” Patrick said, smiling over Andy's skepticism. “Dude, one of your best friends just turned into a dragon in front of you and you're balking at the idea of werewolves?”
“When you put it like that,” Andy conceded with a sigh.
“We probably won't see too many of them; they shy away from humans and stick to places with a lot of trees and not as many people. Canada, mostly, from what I've been told; the weather's colder and it's easier for them to hide up there.”
Pete head-butted Patrick's back, sending him forward a few steps, when Patrick glared at him over his shoulder Pete snapped his jaws at him playfully. Patrick rolled his eyes but turned around so he could rub Pete's throat for a minute before he murmured something too low for Andy to catch and stepped away from him.
Pete shook his head a little and seemed to curl in on himself before the air got hazy again; Andy closed his eyes as soon as he realized what Pete was doing, having his eyes hurt like that once was enough for him.
There was another series of bone cracking noises and then Pete's voice, “So, what did you think, Hurley? Awesome, right?”
Andy opened his eyes just as Pete was getting back into his jeans. “It was fairly impressive,” Andy allowed, smiling at Pete's indignant huff.
“Whatever, douche,” Pete scoffed before he launched himself onto Joe's back, sending him stumbling forward a few steps.
“Fuck, Wentz, shouldn't I be riding you or some shit?” Joe complained as he caught his balance and then straightened up.
“Joe, you racist fuck,” Pete crowed, hooking his arm around Joe's neck and giving it a friendly squeeze. “Stop being an ass and carry me out to the car or I'll tell your mother she raised a speciesest and she'll cry forever over what a disappointment you turned out to be.”
Joe rolled his eyes but obediently headed for the door after sending Andy a quick, “See you tomorrow,” over his shoulder.
Patrick laughed and followed them out at a slower pace, Andy walking with him.
“You know, this explains why Pete spends so much time at your house,” Andy mused out loud and laughed at the amused look Patrick gave him.
“What? You know I could give a fuck -most man made laws are useless, anyway, but that one's right up there in stupidity. But I did wonder why your mom didn't call the cops when she found out her sixteen year old was screwing around with a twenty-one year old guy.”
“Actually, I was fifteen when I met Pete,” Patrick smirked as Andy rolled his eyes. “But, yeah, it does.
“Shapeshifters are considered adults when we turn fifteen,” Patrick explained as they went out the back door and saw Pete and Joe roughhousing in the yard. “I could have dropped out of school and decided to start whoring myself out and neither one of my parents would have been able to tell me 'no'.
“Added to that, Pete and I, we're mates; and that's rare enough that even if I had been underage, they still would have let him stay over, even if they had put their feet down on the sexual part of it. And, honestly, they probably wouldn't have tried too hard to make sure we weren't having sex.
“We mature faster than humans, mentally and physically, Andy,” Patrick told him softly when he saw the disbelief on his friend's face. “I was thirteen the first time I had sex and I'm pretty sure Pete was, too; believe it or not, that's considered normal for us.”
Andy put that away to think about later and focused on the first part of the conversation. “Mates -is that like dating?”
“Kind of,” Patrick said, a small, secret smile curling his lips briefly. “It's more serious, though. Like marriage, I suppose. Although, even if you choose to stay away from your mate, you're still tied to each other for the rest of your lives.”
“Tied to each other,” Andy repeated, feeling lost in this conversation; it wasn't something he enjoyed or was used to, either. “What does that mean, exactly?”
“Ah, like, a mental awareness of Pete,” Patrick answered, trying to find words to explain something he knew instinctively. “Like, if I concentrate, I can always find him in a crowd of people or across town; when I'm at school, I can tell if he's still at home, sleeping, or if he's at work.
“I usually have at least a basic idea of what kind of mood he's in -happy, sad, depressed, pissed, whatever- unless one of us is shielding. It works both ways; our moods can influence each other, too, if we're not careful.”
Andy nodded slowly, a couple things making sense suddenly; the way Patrick always seemed to know when Pete was going to show up at practice, down to the last minute almost; how he knew when to leave Pete alone to sulk or when he needed to be coaxed into hanging out and laughing. Or the way Pete blithely told everyone around them that Patrick needed space seconds before he lost his temper.
“Trickster,” Pete called out from where he was laid out on the grass next to Joe. “You almost ready to go? I'm dying for a fucken cheeseburger over here.”
Patrick rolled his eyes and turned back to Andy. “Before we take off, there's something else I wanted to tell you.
“It's nothing bad,” Patrick assured him, grinning at the look of apprehension on his face. “But while we're on tour, you might notice people come up to me or Pete; not fans or anything like that, but other shifters. Or we might go up to strangers, things like that.
“It's instinct -one that's pretty hard to ignore. It's a throwback to when we used to actually fight each other over territory and shit; once we sense another shifter, we're almost compelled to find each other -size one another up, acknowledge that there's another predator in the area, prove we're not afraid of each other.
“It's complete bullshit, but we can’t really control it. I just wanted to give you a heads up in case me and Pete disappeared for a few minutes. I mentioned it to Joe, too, but -well, you know Joe,” Patrick shrugged.
“He won't worry about it until it's practically on top of him.”
Andy snorted in agreement. “Yeah, Joe would definitely be the kid that got sliced open first in any horror movie.”
Andy watched them go; Pete wrapped around Patrick like an octopus, him and Joe going back and forth about which John Hughes movie was the best, Patrick adding in his own opinion here and there.
It was just like almost any other night, except for the fact that he knew Patrick and Pete weren't what they seemed.
He thought about it for a minute and then shrugged; they were his friends first and as far as Andy was concerned, that's the only thing that really mattered.
*
The next day, Andy pulled the van up in front of Patrick's house and helped them load up their gear and duffel bags. They just finished arranging everything when Pete came back out carrying the biggest plastic jug Andy had ever seen.
“Do I even want to know?” He asked as Pete stood there, looking at Andy out of the corner of his eye.
“Come on,” Patrick said and dragged Andy to the front of the van. “He's not going to hide it until he knows you can't see him.”
“Uh, is that a dragon thing?” Andy wondered and winced when he heard something hit the side of the van and Pete curse.
“Yeah,” Patrick answered with a rueful smile. “I don't know if you've noticed how much Pete likes change -”
“Oh, you mean, the part where he grabs any loose change he can find and takes it?” Andy interrupted, his voice dry. “Yeah, I noticed; I thought it was from...”
Andy trailed off and exchanged a look with Patrick; even now Pete didn't talk about boot camp and neither one of them wanted to bring up something that Pete was still trying to get over.
“No, it's kind of a throwback; most dragons are, by nature, obsessive,” Patrick explained and waved a hand to indicate his front lawn. “Like, my mom, loves gardening and flowers; she takes care of this lawn and our backyard like her life depends on it. And trust me, she would know if you picked even one flower from here or the back, no matter how small or inconsequential you thought it was.
“For me, it's music; the right set of chords, the way notes go together, how the right melody can tie it together and Pete's words -” Patrick cut himself off and flushed a little; Andy raised an eyebrow but didn't say or do anything else except smirk.
“Pete's got a couple different things, but the one that you need to know is that he collects change, hoards it even. He'll take whatever he finds and put it in that jug and gloat over it.”
“Wait, gloat over it?” Andy repeated when Patrick didn't go on. “That's it?”
“That's it,” Patrick confirmed with a shrug. “It's not about the spending for Pete, it's about the having. There is nothing that would ever make him spend any of it -we could be starving and we'd have to murder Pete before he'd let us use it to get food.
“And the only thing you really need to know is: don't touch it. Ever. And, for the love of all that is holy, don't take any of it. Pete will know down to the last penny how much money is there and if you think he's pissy now sometimes, you don't even want to know what he'll be like if any of his money goes missing.”
“OK,” Andy said after several seconds. “I can do that. I gotta ask, though; is this just a Pete thing? Or do other dragons do it? Because it sounds kind of out there, you know?”
“Pete said his grandfather did it, too,” Patrick answered with another shrug. “It’s suppose to be a throwback to when dragons had hoards with, like, actual gold pieces and shit.”
Just then Pete finally came around the side, looking smug. “Hey, you guys done talking about me? We need to get going and pick up Trohman.”
Patrick rolled his eyes, ducked inside the van and sat on the bench seat. “We were waiting on your ass, Wentz. Let's go before I get bored and leave you here.”
“Please, Rickster,” Pete scoffed as he shut the door and draped himself over the rest of the seat with his feet in Patrick's lap. “You'd be lost without me.”
“Yeah, yeah.”
Andy got in and started the van; as he listened to their bickering, he really hoped there were no more surprises coming up.
*
A lot of the time, Joe forgot that two of his best friends weren't, strictly speaking, human.
Most of the time they acted like they were, so Joe usually forgot it until he walked in on one of them when they were Shifted (he always thought of it in capital letters, it always sounded like that whenever Pete or Patrick talked about it) or that one memorable time Patrick had literally been breathing smoke because he had gotten that pissed off at someone who was brawling with Pete.
But one thing that always reminded him was the way Pete was about his change.
Every tour they'd ever been on since Andy had joined, Pete had brought along a huge jug that he kept all his spare change in. That by itself wasn't so strange, but Joe had seen Pete's eyes light up when he came across some loose coins on the floor of the van and he periodically curled up around it and just stared at it with this smug grin on his face. He'd do that for hours before he hid it as best he could in a van with three other people in it.
He refused to spend any of it, not even if they were forced to spend the night in the van because they couldn't afford a hotel room. They had once gone without food for two days in between gigs and even the escalating pissiness of everyone couldn't make him part with any of it.
It was just weird, in Joe's opinion.
And God help you if you took any of it -Joe had found that out the hard way.
They were at a gas station; Pete had dragged Patrick off to make out in the bathroom for ten minutes before they got snacks, Andy was inside paying for the gas and Joe needed rolling papers and he was fifty fucken cents short.
Joe had been scouring the floor of the van -Pete had been thorough in his weekly scavenging, though, the bastard- when he had stumbled onto Pete's stash. It took him all of ten seconds of debate with himself before he had undone the lid and taken fifty cents. As he put the lid back on and looked it over to make sure he hadn't moved it around any, Joe had figured that Pete wouldn't even notice anything was missing. It was only fifty cents, after all.
Boy, was he wrong.
Coming back through the parking lot, Joe could hear Pete yelling something and saw Andy and Patrick standing in front of the van.
“I know he took it,” Pete fumed, stomping around the van, his hands fisted at his sides. “I know that fucker touched my hoard and I'm -”
“Pete, calm down,” Patrick said, his voice even, but his eyes followed Pete's progress and Joe could see he was using some effort to keep himself from getting agitated along with Pete. “I'm sure he didn't mean anything by it.”
Andy crossed his arms and shot Joe a disapproving look when he caught sight of him. Joe hunched his shoulders self-defensively and glared at Andy before he shuffled forward enough that he was in Pete's line of sight.
“Trohman,” Pete snarled and reached out enough that he could haul Joe into the van by the front of his shirt; and, yeah, there was a small tendril of smoke curling out from Pete's nose -he was definitely taking this way harder than Joe had thought he would.
“Did you take fifty cents from my hoard?” Pete demanded as he dragged Joe the three feet to the back of the van and pointed to the jug of change.
“Uh, I -wait, you could tell there was fifty cents missing?” Joe questioned in surprise.
“Of course, I could,” Pete hissed, his eyes narrowed. “There was $475.55 there and now there's only $475.05. And I know it's two quarters that are missing.
“And stop trying to distract me, dickhead. Did you take it?”
“Well, yeah,” Joe admitted and he winced when Pete's eyes changed to yellow. “It was only fifty cents and I didn't think you would even notice, much less lose your shit over half a dollar!”
“Let me get this straight,” Pete forced out in between clenched teeth. “You thought it wouldn't be a big deal to steal money from a dragon's hoard?!”
“Dude, why do you keep calling it that?” Joe asked, his curiosity making him forget that there was a dragon pissed at him.
Pete gaped at him, completely at a loss for words.
“OK, I'm going to take Joe and give him a refresher course on why he's such a fucken retard sometimes,” Andy said and pulled Joe from Pete's unresisting hand. “Patrick, maybe you should...”
“Yeah, I'll take care of Pete,” Patrick assured him, sounding amused.
Andy dragged Joe off and gave him a blistering lecture that lasted for almost forty five minutes and continued even as they headed back on the road. It was the memory of that as much as Pete's sulking and pouting over the next few days that reminded Joe to steer clear of Pete's change. Hoard. Whatever.
Joe might have a stoner's memory but there were some things even he wouldn't forget.
And if he sometimes made sure to drop his extra change on the floor of the van -and later, the tour bus- well, it was no big deal; friends helped friends out.
Even if it was just to help them build up their collection. Hoard. Whatever.
Story Type: Slash, AU
Characters: Pete Wentz, Patrick Stump, Joe Trohman, Andy Hurley
Pairings: Pete/Patrick,
Rating: PG-13/NC-17
Fandom: Bandom
Series: None
Disclaimer: They're not mine. I don't own anyone mentioned in this story, please don't sue me. I was going to say that if you got here by googling your own name, to hit the back button, but who am I kidding -if I found out people were writing stories about me and my friends, I would so read that shit.
Warnings: Slash, language, au, shapeshifting, magical realism, underage sexual shenagins (Patrick’s fifteen when the story starts), smut, fluff
Summary: “Shapeshifters,” Joe repeated slowly, clearly trying to wrap his mind around it. “What like werewolves?”
“Why is everyone obsessed with werewolves?” Patrick asked, irritated. “Christ, we're dragons, you jack ass. Not everything's like the movies.”
A/N: I started this way back in February or March, I think; it was suppose to be for the Bandom Big Bang, but my laptop died and I had to shelve it for months until I could start it again. I was going to wait until I had all of it finished to post it, but I couldn’t wait, so hear it is, the first of five parts. Hope everyone enjoys it.
A/N 2: candy_belle this is for you; without you to cheer me on, I would have given up on writing this. Thanks, hun.
Part 1
Pete and I attacked the lost Astoria, with promise and precision and a mess of youthful innocence.
Saturday, Fall Out Boy
Patrick had never thought he'd find his mate when he was barely a year into his majority.
Mates were hard to find; his father had been in his thirty's when he found his, so Patrick had figured if he ever did find them, it wouldn't be until he was a lot older.
And he sure as Hell didn't expect to open his front door and find out his mate was not only another dragon, not only a guy, but that he was Pete Wentz from Racetraitor.
But even before he opened the door and looked at Pete, his senses started humming the way they did whenever he ran into another shapeshifter (it didn't happen often, shifters were fairly rare and dragons the rarest of all; in his whole life Patrick had only run into three other ones besides his family and none of them had been dragons); after he opened the door, a quick inhale had his breathe catching as there was a quiet click in his brain, like the final piece to a puzzle had slipped into place. He smelled like smoke and warmth and heat and some indefinable thing that said mine and home to Patrick.
Pete was staring at him with the same shocked look Patrick was sure was on his own face and it took a couple minutes for either of them to say anything.
“Please tell me you're Patrick,” Pete managed to say; his voice was hoarse and he seemed to have a hard time looking away from Patrick's mouth. “And by all that's holy, please tell me you're of age.”
“Fifteen,” Patrick answered as he licked his lips; he couldn't help the smirk that twisted them as he noticed Pete watching him. “And, yeah, that's me.”
After another second or two Patrick stepped back and jerked his head to motion Pete inside.
“So, Joe said you wanted to try out for the band,” Pete said offhandedly and it was obvious that he wasn't really concentrating on the conversation they were having.
“Yeah,” Patrick agreed and he couldn't stop himself from looking Pete over or the way his eyes lingered on the strip of skin that was showing between Pete's pants and shirt. “We could go downstairs to where I have my drum kit set up?”
“Yeah, sounds good,” Pete agreed and followed Patrick when he headed down to the basement. “Hey, are you wearing argyle?”
“Shut up,” Patrick muttered, flipping Pete off over his shoulder.
Pete snickered and then gave an appreciative hum when he saw the various instruments littering the basement.
“You can play all these?” Pete asked as he surveyed the room, his eyes quickly taking everything in before fixing back on Patrick. “Nice,” he added when Patrick nodded absently as he situated himself behind the drums.
Patrick tapped out a rhythm for a minute before he looked at Pete again. “You know The Way His Collar Falls?”
“By Saves The Day,” Pete said. “Not enough to play along, but I can follow it.”
Pete watched as Patrick promptly lost himself in the song; he was already half hard in his jeans -had been since Patrick had opened the front door and his scent had hit him (smoke and heat and home and want and mine all mixed together)- but the complete concentration the younger shapeshifter was showing had Pete briefly wishing he had worn different pants.
Pete couldn't help but imagine all that concentration and talent focused on him instead of an instrument and immediately lost track of everything for a minute.
He mentally shook himself and heard Patrick murmuring under his breath; it was barely audible but Pete's hearing had always been good, even for a shapeshifter. Pete contemplated the soft singing until Patrick finished.
“You're good,” Pete offered and smiled when Patrick raised an eyebrow at him. “Really good, actually.
“Can you sing?”
Patrick looked surprised at the simple question. “I guess; I mean, can't everyone? Joe said you guys needed a drummer.”
“We do,” Pete confirmed and tilted his head as he looked Patrick over. “We need everything, actually; right now all we have is a bassist and a couple guitarists.
“Joe wants us to be pop punk and to be honest, I can't sing for shit,” Pete went on, a self-deprecating smirk twisting his lips. “I can scream with the best of them, but singing's out of my league.”
“Oh. Well, I've never sung before,” Patrick told him and shrugged. “But I don't think I'd be very good at it.”
“Humor me. Please,” Pete added, his voice dropping a little when Patrick seemed unsure.
Patrick gave Pete a dirty look but Pete counted it as win since he opened his mouth and started singing.
It wasn't Saves The Day or any other punk band like Pete was expecting; it was something he only remembered hazily, from rainy afternoons at his grandparents when he was still little, before his brother and sister were born.
Frank Sinatra, Pete realized. He couldn't remember the exact name -something about dancing- but Patrick's voice, holy fuck. It felt like someone had known exactly what Pete's best dreams were made of, poured them into Patrick's vocal chords and then used them to rip Pete's heart from his chest so he could offer the bleeding, still beating, bloody mess to Patrick.
As the last note fell from Patrick's mouth and silence fell over the basement, Pete pounced at Patrick, knocking him off the stool he was sitting on.
“I'm so keeping you, Pattycakes,” Pete crooned, nuzzling Patrick's throat. “I was going to anyway, but, your voice, dude. Now, I'm keeping you and you're going to sing and it's going to be awesome.”
“What if I don't want to sing?” Patrick asked snidely, but he rested his hands on Pete's hips and squeezed teasingly when Pete pulled back to look at him.
“I think I can convince you,” Pete said with a leer that made Patrick roll his eyes even as he felt heat pool in his stomach.
Pete pressed his lips to Patrick's and sighed contentedly before he licked his way inside Patrick's mouth.
Patrick groaned and opened his mouth, pressing his body into the warm weight above him. He tightened the grip he had on Pete's hips, drawing a sharp noise from him.
“Can't believe I found you,” Pete murmured, pulling back enough that he could look into Patrick's eyes; his voice was raspy and seemed to scrape over Patrick's skin, eliciting a shiver from him.
“I thought it would take longer, if it ever even...” Patrick started to say and then shrugged it off; he always had a hard time vocalizing anything he was feeling and he didn't really see that changing any time soon.
Pete just smirked down at him; his eyes were shot with yellow and Patrick knew his own were the same way.
“I know,” Pete said and shifted his hips so their erections rubbed against each other; Patrick gasped and bit Pete's lip when he smiled. “Talk later,” he added when Patrick let his lip go.
Pete scrapped his teeth down Patrick's throat before biting down where Patrick's pulse was. Patrick conceded, if only to himself, that talking of any kind could wait until later.
Much later.
*
“So, this band,” Patrick drawled later on; his jeans were barely pushed down past his hips, his shirt was rucked up under his arms and Pete was in in a similar state, lying across Patrick's chest. “I don't know if I should join.”
Pete moved until he was on his hands and knees above Patrick and looked him over.
“Fuck me, you look wrecked,” Pete told him, his voice smug.
“That could be arranged,” Patrick said and rolled them over so he was pinning Pete to the floor.
“Dude, you think you can get this whenever you want?” Pete grinned up at him and rolled his hips so Patrick could feel him getting hard again.
“That was just a free sample -you don't get any more until you agree to join.”
“Blackmail, huh?” Patrick asked, his voice bland. He sat back enough to start pulling at Pete's shirt until Pete got the message and helped him pull it off and toss it over his shoulder.
“I guess I could live with that,” Patrick went on thoughtfully as he ran his hand across Pete's chest, stopping to press against Pete's nipple.
Pete gasped a little and then smirked. “I'm glad you see things my way.”
“Jesus, don't you ever shut up?” Patrick huffed but he didn't seem really put out by it. “Do I need to gag you?”
“Not on the first date, Pattycakes,” Pete informed him, snickering. “That's definitely second date material.”
Patrick rolled his eyes and then dipped his head for a quick kiss.
*
Eventually, they managed to call Joe and schedule practice for next week; Joe called Pete back a few hours later to let him know that TJ would be there.
When Joe came home from school and saw Pete lazily kissing Patrick against the railing on his front porch, he just rolled his eyes.
“Jesus, Pete, you're already assaulting our drummer?” Joe complained as he unlocked the front door and went inside.
“You could've at least let him get used to us first,” he added over his shoulder, clearly expecting them to follow him as he dropped his book bag onto the floor and then continued into the kitchen.
“Yeah, about that,” Pete said, his voice sheepish. “Patrick's going to sing instead of drum.”
“Seriously, jackass? You know how hard it is to find a fucken drummer?” Joe groused before he turned to Patrick.
“Please tell me you can at least carry a tune, dude. No offense or anything, but Pete doesn't always think clearly when his dick's involved.”
“Uh, I guess I'm OK,” Patrick told him, looking at Pete uncertainly.
“Trust me, Trohman, he's our golden ticket,” Pete said and gave Patrick a warm look. “Go on, Patrick, sing for him.”
Patrick took a deep breath and closed his eyes; he went through all the songs he knew before he settled on Through Being Cool by Saves the Day.
He made through the first verse and the chorus before he trailed off and opened his eyes, half expecting Joe to be wincing or giving Pete a dirty look; instead he was looking at Patrick, disbelief written on his face.
“OK? You call that OK?” Joe demanded and then went on without waiting for an answer, “He's definitely singing; we'll just have to find another drummer.”
Pete made an agreeable noise as he went through the cabinets and pulled out a bag of pretzels, as much at home as he would be in his own house. “We could always try Andy again.”
“Yeah, right,” Joe scoffed as he grabbed some cans of soda from the fridge. “You do remember how many bands he's in, right? We've got a better chance of winning the lottery.”
“Point, but he might know someone,” Pete said and snagged Patrick's wrist on his way past.
They followed Joe downstairs to the basement where they flopped on a couch. Patrick looked around and noticed a couple guitars and a bass propped up in a corner next to some amps.
“You know anyone, Patrick?” Joe asked when he passed him a soda; he snagged a handful of pretzels from Pete and settled into the corner of the couch.
“Not off the top of my head -I could ask around school on Monday,” Patrick offered.
“Might as well,” Joe agreed. “It's not like you could do a worse job than we already are.”
The conversation dropped for a few minutes while they finished off the pretzels and drinks.
Once they were done, Joe went outside to smoke - “Before TJ gets here and starts whining about his delicate lungs or some shit.”- and as soon as he went up the stairs, Pete was straddling Patrick and dropping kisses along his jaw.
“Probably not the best time to start making out,” Patrick smirked even as he urged Pete up onto his knees so he could sneak his hand under his shirt to tug lightly on Pete's nipple ring.
“Probably not,” Pete agreed breathlessly; he inhaled sharply when Patrick did it again. “You're fucken evil, Stump.”
Anything Patrick might have said in retaliation was cut off when Pete attacked his mouth greedily.
Patrick fisted his hand into Pete's hair and pulled him back, so he could bite at the older shifter's jaw. Pete moaned and strained against the hold Patrick had on his hip, trying to get some friction against his erection.
Patrick chuckled, low and smug but before he could do anything, Joe opened the door and came back downstairs followed by another person.
“Come on, Pete -you know the whole 'no sex on my couch' rule counts for guys, too,” Joe snarked as he playfully shoved Pete off of Patrick's lap on his way past them to the pile of instruments.
“Patrick, that's TJ, our second guitarist,” Joe added absently as he started tuning his guitar. “TJ, Patrick, our new singer.”
“Hey,” TJ offered as he looked Patrick over. “I thought Joe told me you were going to be drumming?”
“I was suppose to,” Patrick told him as Pete went over to Joe and started harassing him. “Pete heard me singing, though, and well,” Patrick shrugged, laughing a little. “You know how Pete is.”
*
It wasn't until TJ almost saw Pete after he Shifted that they realized someone was going to find out eventually.
They were in Pete's room; Pete had Shifted while Patrick was putting his clothes on. There was no real reason why, he just did it; Patrick had told him he was getting bitchy and his response had been to Shift so he could knock Patrick over without straining himself.
Patrick was buttoning his jeans and dodging Pete's friendly head-butts when they heard someone running up the stairs.
He realized that it was TJ right before he hit the top of the stairs and started yelling for Pete.
“Wentz, come on, asshole,” TJ called out. “You're going to make us late.”
Patrick dove against the door just as TJ started to open it.
“What the fuck, dude?”
“Hold on a second,” Patrick told him as he looked over his shoulder at Pete who froze for a second before he started Shifting back. “Pete's getting dressed.”
There was no answer from TJ but Patrick could practically hear him rolling his eyes.
Pete exchanged a long look with Patrick once he was dressed and then he pulled open the door.
“Hey, fucker, what took you so long?” Pete asked cheerfully as he pushed past him to go downstairs. “Later, 'Trick,” he called out over his shoulder almost as an afterthought.
TJ looked at Patrick uncertainly for a second before he shrugged and followed Pete back downstairs.
“Isn't your Mom gonna be home soon?” TJ asked as Pete shoved his sneakers on.
“What? Yeah, in an hour,” Pete said absently as he tried to remember where he left his wallet. “So?”
TJ didn't answer, just shrugged again and glanced up at the ceiling.
Pete made a triumphant noise when he found it on the coffee table and turned back around in time to see TJ look upstairs.
“Oh, you mean because Patrick's still here,” Pete realized; he put the wallet in his pocket and headed outside. “Don't worry about it -she loves Patrick. Trust me on this; she'll have no problem if he's still hanging out when she gets home.”
TJ mentally shook his head; his parents liked his girlfriend just fine, too, but his mother would have a fit if he left her at their house while he went out with his friends.
It was weird.
Hell, the whole thing with Patrick was; Pete, despite jokes, never went after jailbait. He may have been free and easy with his affections towards -well, everyone, but he usually stayed far away from anyone who would make him a felon.
But here he was, joined at the hip with Stump; who, yeah, was a cool dude and TJ liked jamming with him, but there was no denying the fact that he was only sixteen. Sixteen, still in high school and looked even younger than his actual years.
It was fucken weird.
TJ shrugged; hell, if Pete wanted his mom to bitch him out, let him have fun.
And if Pete wanted to keep fucking someone who was eventually going to land him in the county jail -well, it wasn’t TJ’s ass on the line, and, really, that’s all TJ cared about.
*
They told Joe first.
“Shapeshifters,” Joe repeated slowly, clearly trying to wrap his mind around it. “What, like werewolves?”
“Why is everyone obsessed with werewolves?” Patrick asked, irritated. “Christ, we're dragons, you jack ass. Not everything's like the movies.”
Pete just smirked; seeing Patrick get pissy always amused him. He had no idea what that said about him as a best friend or a mate, but it happened every time Patrick got snarky. It also got him horny, but that really didn't take much.
“Huh,” Joe said and contemplated the spiff in his hand for a minute. “That's cool.”
And that was that.
*
“It’s just weird,” TJ explained to Joe when he told him he was quitting; Pete and Patrick had already headed over to Patrick’s house -“Sleepover time, Pattycakes! Let’s go home and get lotion all over our hands so we have to take each other’s underwear off with our teeth.”- and TJ could admit to a certain level of cowardice on his part.
“Pete’s always been weird,” Joe pointed out blandly; he was outside enjoying his post-rehearsal smoke and he was eying the smoke floating around him.
“Yeah, but this is really weird,” TJ said, frustrated that Joe didn’t understand what he meant. “Come on, you can’t tell me that you haven’t noticed.
“Patrick’s only sixteen and Pete’s twenty one -”
“I’m sixteen,” Joe interrupted, grinning at TJ; his usual cheerfulness was starting to reassert itself, despite the fact that they were going to have to find another guitarist.
“Last I checked, you weren’t fucking Pete, Joe,” TJ told him. “Look, even ignoring the age thing, it’s still plenty fucked up.
“Pete’s always at Patrick’s, he spends the night constantly and Patrick’s parents don’t even care. Who’s parents do that? And they let him do whatever the fuck he wants; he’s a good kid, but, come on, Joe, it’s messed up.
“Not to mention how Patrick’s over at Pete’s almost as often as his own house and Pete’s parents just let it go -they don’t even care if he’s there by himself. The whole thing is just…weird.
“It’s weird.”
“Patrick’s parents aren’t even together,” Joe reminded him.
He went on before TJ could do more than glare at him. “What do you want me to tell you, TJ? Is it normal? No, but, fuck, none of us are exactly white picket fence material.”
“That’s not what I mean and you know it,” TJ took a deep breath and sighed.
“Look, I just -it’s grating on me, OK? And I don’t want to end up with this big blowout where there’s yelling and screaming and shit.”
Joe thought of dragons and secrets while his friend walked away.
*
They took the news fairly well when Joe told them the next night.
“That sucks,” Pete frowned. “I didn’t realize TJ wanted out. Did he say what happened?”
Joe hesitated for a second before he mentally shrugged; he didn’t like lying as a rule and he saw no reason to start being dishonest now. “He was weirded out by how intense you and Patrick act. You’re always together, you know? And Patrick’s mom pretty much lets him do whatever -TJ said it was starting to freak him out.”
“We explained that to you,” Patrick said, his voice annoyed; Pete hid a smile and rubbed a soothing hand down his back but kept his eyes on Joe.
“Yeah, to me,” Joe reminded him. “But he had no clue what the fuck is going on. I mean, I get why you wouldn’t tell him -TJ can be unpredictable and he’s kind of flaky. He doesn’t hate anyone, he just started getting uncomfortable and didn’t want to deal with it.
“Whatever, his loss, right? He’ll be pissing himself when we’re, like, getting head at the Playboy Mansion and he’s still here.”
Pete snickered and high fived him while Patrick rolled his eyes; Joe could see his shoulders relax and he mentally patted himself on the back. Patrick’s bitch fits weren’t exactly a weekly occurrence but Joe had seen enough of them to want to avoid them whenever possible.
“We’re going to need another guitarist,” Pete pointed out after a minute.
“Yeah, I know,” Joe agreed. “I was thinking of that one guy Chris knows, with all the flannel? He filled in for -”
“I’ll do it,” Patrick interrupted; he raised an eyebrow at the incredulous look on Joe’s face. “I mean, do we really want to waste time trying to find someone who fits in with us and can play decently? We’re better off practicing instead.”
“True, but, dude, splitting your focus? Won’t that be a pain in the ass?” Joe asked, running a hand through his hair.
“Patrick can do everything,” Pete answered absently but with the same kind of conviction that some people used when they talked about God and religion. Patrick rolled his eyes again, but he was blushing; it made Pete grin at him.
Joe groaned and pretended to throw up -there was only so much a guy could take, for fuck’s sake.
It made Pete roar with laughter right before he started throwing the empty soda cans at him. Joe ducked a few before he wrestled Pete to the ground. It was only a matter of seconds before Patrick was climbing on his back to try and get him off of Pete. All three of them were out of breath from laughing.
God damn, Joe loved his band.
*
Andy was the last to find out simply because he was the last one to join the band. He played gigs here and there, but he didn't end up joining full time for almost a year. And since their second drummer stopped coming to practice immediately after he caught Pete and Patrick making out on the couch in Pete's basement, it stood to reason that finding out they weren't human would make almost anyone freak the fuck out.
They didn't hide the fact that they were together -they never had, not really- but now Pete made sure that anyone who ended up drumming for them knew that the rumors about Pete Wentz liking guys weren't just rumors. And they never Shifted away from home; the close call with TJ had made them even more cautious than their kind usually were.
Once Andy agreed to join full time, they started planning exactly how to tell him without scaring him off.
*
It was the day before they were suppose to leave when Pete and Patrick met Joe over at Andy's.
“Let me get this straight, you two aren't human,” Andy said, pointing a finger at them. “You're shapeshifters -”
“It's not like werewolves,” Joe interrupted helpfully. “Like, at all.”
“- and Joe knew,” he went on, ignoring Joe's words. “And you decided to tell me now, the day before we're leaving to go touring all over the Midwest. Why would you wait until now to spring this on me?”
“It's -” Pete started to say, before he exhaled noisily and shifted his feet uncomfortably.
“It's a big deal, Andy,” Patrick said quietly, he squeezed Pete's shoulder in reassurance; Pete relaxed a little and leaned against Patrick's side, making Patrick move his arm and settle it around his shoulders.
“We're not human even if we look like it most of the time,” Patrick told him, his eyes steady on Andy's. “Not a lot of people even know about us and not all of the ones who do are as ...accepting of it as Joe is.
“It's not something any of us go around babbling to people at random; in fact, Joe's the first person I've ever told in my life and I'm sixteen.”
“I've never told anyone else, either,” Pete put in before he snuggled closer into Patrick's side, wrapping an arm around his waist and nuzzling his neck. Patrick squirmed a little but didn't shrug Pete off or tell him to stop.
“We decided,” Patrick motioned to Pete with his head to include him before going on. “And then Joe agreed that we would wait on telling anyone else until we were sure that they would stick around. Once you came aboard permanently, it was just a matter of figuring out when to tell you.
“We wanted to give you time to freak out if you needed to but not enough time to ditch us without a drummer,” Patrick admitted a little sheepishly.
“So, what -you thought my sense of responsibility would keep me from leaving even if I wasn't cool with this?” Andy asked with a raised eyebrow, unsure if he should be pissed or amused.
“Dude, you won't even eat bacon because you feel bad for the way the pigs get treated,” Joe pointed out. “There's no way you'd leave us without a drummer.”
“Point,” Andy admitted with a smile. “So, what kind of animals are you?”
“Dragons,” Pete answered with a smug smirk. He twisted his face away from Patrick's neck so he could look at Andy. “We're both fire dragons.”
“Dragons,” Andy repeated skeptically, looking in between the two of them. “Like a Kimono Dragon?”
“No,” Patrick told him as Pete pulled away and started stripping off his clothes. “Like an actual Chinese dragon; we're not as big as they used to be, though.”
“No offense, guys, but you're not exactly big enough to - Jesus, Pete, I've already seen your ass way more than anyone who's not fucking you should ever have to,” Andy complained as he tried to shield his eyes.
“Shut up, Hurley,” Pete snickered as he stepped out of his jeans and moved a few feet away from everyone. “If I Shift with my clothes on, they'll disappear and I'm not trying to make it all the way back to Patrick's house naked.”
Andy moved his hand and watched as Pete got a serious expression on his face. Andy stared as the air around Pete got...hazy was the only word Andy could think of to describe it. It got hazy and made Andy's eyes hurt more the longer he stared at him until he had to close his eyes and then there was this loud cracking noise, as if Pete had broken every bone in his body at once. Which, Andy supposed, he kind of had.
When he opened his eyes, Andy couldn't help making a surprised noise at the sight in front of him; height wise, Pete was about as tall as he usually was; only an inch or so taller than Patrick. Length wise, from what Andy could see, he was about twelve or thirteen feet long. It was hard to tell, exactly, because most of his lower half was coiled together; out of deference to his mom's walls, Andy guessed and he sent a silent thank you to Pete because he had no idea how he would have explained any dragon related damage to her when she got home from work.
Pete was lean, built more for speed than power; his scales were prominently red, but Andy could see where they bled into yellow along his stomach and neck. His eyes were yellow, with a vertical pupil that reminded Andy more of a cat than any kind of reptile.
Andy liked to think he was a pretty tolerant person, but he couldn't help the freak-out he could feel building up.
Pete blinked at Andy, his tongue flicking out a little bit. He took a couple steps forward and rested his head on Patrick's shoulder -well, what he could fit of it on there. Patrick smiled slightly and petted the top of Pete's head which made him slit his eyes and nuzzle Patrick's neck.
The gesture helped Andy calm down; it was something he saw Pete do at least two or three times a day.
“You don't seem excited, Joe,” Andy commented, his voice fairly even.
“I've seen the show before,” Joe shrugged, but there was a look in his eyes that told Andy no matter how many times he may or may not have seen this, it was still new to him.
“Ah, how many times would you have to,” Andy paused for a second to try to find the right words. “Uh, change while we're touring?”
Pete made an annoyed, grumbling noise and shook his head, knocking Patrick's hat off of his head.
Patrick gave Pete a friendly shove so he would move over an inch or two and bent over to pick the hat up before he answered Andy.
“We call it Shifting -it's a cultural thing,” Patrick explained with a shrug at Andy's confused look. “Granted, it means almost the same thing, but it's considered rude or bad manners or whatever to say 'change' or 'turn' instead of 'Shift'. It's not likely to do more than annoy most shifters, but it's better not to take a chance, you know?
“And, to answer your question, we usually get pissy if we don't Shift once a week or so; after a while, we get more and more aggressive and start snapping -sometimes literally- at people, start brawls, that kind of thing.
“We're not tied to the moon like werewolves are; they don't have any control over themselves once they change and they don't remember their human half until the sun comes up.”
“Wait -werewolves are real?” Andy asked in disbelief; he really hoped there weren’t any other surprises tonight. “You've got to be kidding me.”
“Yeah,” Patrick said, smiling over Andy's skepticism. “Dude, one of your best friends just turned into a dragon in front of you and you're balking at the idea of werewolves?”
“When you put it like that,” Andy conceded with a sigh.
“We probably won't see too many of them; they shy away from humans and stick to places with a lot of trees and not as many people. Canada, mostly, from what I've been told; the weather's colder and it's easier for them to hide up there.”
Pete head-butted Patrick's back, sending him forward a few steps, when Patrick glared at him over his shoulder Pete snapped his jaws at him playfully. Patrick rolled his eyes but turned around so he could rub Pete's throat for a minute before he murmured something too low for Andy to catch and stepped away from him.
Pete shook his head a little and seemed to curl in on himself before the air got hazy again; Andy closed his eyes as soon as he realized what Pete was doing, having his eyes hurt like that once was enough for him.
There was another series of bone cracking noises and then Pete's voice, “So, what did you think, Hurley? Awesome, right?”
Andy opened his eyes just as Pete was getting back into his jeans. “It was fairly impressive,” Andy allowed, smiling at Pete's indignant huff.
“Whatever, douche,” Pete scoffed before he launched himself onto Joe's back, sending him stumbling forward a few steps.
“Fuck, Wentz, shouldn't I be riding you or some shit?” Joe complained as he caught his balance and then straightened up.
“Joe, you racist fuck,” Pete crowed, hooking his arm around Joe's neck and giving it a friendly squeeze. “Stop being an ass and carry me out to the car or I'll tell your mother she raised a speciesest and she'll cry forever over what a disappointment you turned out to be.”
Joe rolled his eyes but obediently headed for the door after sending Andy a quick, “See you tomorrow,” over his shoulder.
Patrick laughed and followed them out at a slower pace, Andy walking with him.
“You know, this explains why Pete spends so much time at your house,” Andy mused out loud and laughed at the amused look Patrick gave him.
“What? You know I could give a fuck -most man made laws are useless, anyway, but that one's right up there in stupidity. But I did wonder why your mom didn't call the cops when she found out her sixteen year old was screwing around with a twenty-one year old guy.”
“Actually, I was fifteen when I met Pete,” Patrick smirked as Andy rolled his eyes. “But, yeah, it does.
“Shapeshifters are considered adults when we turn fifteen,” Patrick explained as they went out the back door and saw Pete and Joe roughhousing in the yard. “I could have dropped out of school and decided to start whoring myself out and neither one of my parents would have been able to tell me 'no'.
“Added to that, Pete and I, we're mates; and that's rare enough that even if I had been underage, they still would have let him stay over, even if they had put their feet down on the sexual part of it. And, honestly, they probably wouldn't have tried too hard to make sure we weren't having sex.
“We mature faster than humans, mentally and physically, Andy,” Patrick told him softly when he saw the disbelief on his friend's face. “I was thirteen the first time I had sex and I'm pretty sure Pete was, too; believe it or not, that's considered normal for us.”
Andy put that away to think about later and focused on the first part of the conversation. “Mates -is that like dating?”
“Kind of,” Patrick said, a small, secret smile curling his lips briefly. “It's more serious, though. Like marriage, I suppose. Although, even if you choose to stay away from your mate, you're still tied to each other for the rest of your lives.”
“Tied to each other,” Andy repeated, feeling lost in this conversation; it wasn't something he enjoyed or was used to, either. “What does that mean, exactly?”
“Ah, like, a mental awareness of Pete,” Patrick answered, trying to find words to explain something he knew instinctively. “Like, if I concentrate, I can always find him in a crowd of people or across town; when I'm at school, I can tell if he's still at home, sleeping, or if he's at work.
“I usually have at least a basic idea of what kind of mood he's in -happy, sad, depressed, pissed, whatever- unless one of us is shielding. It works both ways; our moods can influence each other, too, if we're not careful.”
Andy nodded slowly, a couple things making sense suddenly; the way Patrick always seemed to know when Pete was going to show up at practice, down to the last minute almost; how he knew when to leave Pete alone to sulk or when he needed to be coaxed into hanging out and laughing. Or the way Pete blithely told everyone around them that Patrick needed space seconds before he lost his temper.
“Trickster,” Pete called out from where he was laid out on the grass next to Joe. “You almost ready to go? I'm dying for a fucken cheeseburger over here.”
Patrick rolled his eyes and turned back to Andy. “Before we take off, there's something else I wanted to tell you.
“It's nothing bad,” Patrick assured him, grinning at the look of apprehension on his face. “But while we're on tour, you might notice people come up to me or Pete; not fans or anything like that, but other shifters. Or we might go up to strangers, things like that.
“It's instinct -one that's pretty hard to ignore. It's a throwback to when we used to actually fight each other over territory and shit; once we sense another shifter, we're almost compelled to find each other -size one another up, acknowledge that there's another predator in the area, prove we're not afraid of each other.
“It's complete bullshit, but we can’t really control it. I just wanted to give you a heads up in case me and Pete disappeared for a few minutes. I mentioned it to Joe, too, but -well, you know Joe,” Patrick shrugged.
“He won't worry about it until it's practically on top of him.”
Andy snorted in agreement. “Yeah, Joe would definitely be the kid that got sliced open first in any horror movie.”
Andy watched them go; Pete wrapped around Patrick like an octopus, him and Joe going back and forth about which John Hughes movie was the best, Patrick adding in his own opinion here and there.
It was just like almost any other night, except for the fact that he knew Patrick and Pete weren't what they seemed.
He thought about it for a minute and then shrugged; they were his friends first and as far as Andy was concerned, that's the only thing that really mattered.
*
The next day, Andy pulled the van up in front of Patrick's house and helped them load up their gear and duffel bags. They just finished arranging everything when Pete came back out carrying the biggest plastic jug Andy had ever seen.
“Do I even want to know?” He asked as Pete stood there, looking at Andy out of the corner of his eye.
“Come on,” Patrick said and dragged Andy to the front of the van. “He's not going to hide it until he knows you can't see him.”
“Uh, is that a dragon thing?” Andy wondered and winced when he heard something hit the side of the van and Pete curse.
“Yeah,” Patrick answered with a rueful smile. “I don't know if you've noticed how much Pete likes change -”
“Oh, you mean, the part where he grabs any loose change he can find and takes it?” Andy interrupted, his voice dry. “Yeah, I noticed; I thought it was from...”
Andy trailed off and exchanged a look with Patrick; even now Pete didn't talk about boot camp and neither one of them wanted to bring up something that Pete was still trying to get over.
“No, it's kind of a throwback; most dragons are, by nature, obsessive,” Patrick explained and waved a hand to indicate his front lawn. “Like, my mom, loves gardening and flowers; she takes care of this lawn and our backyard like her life depends on it. And trust me, she would know if you picked even one flower from here or the back, no matter how small or inconsequential you thought it was.
“For me, it's music; the right set of chords, the way notes go together, how the right melody can tie it together and Pete's words -” Patrick cut himself off and flushed a little; Andy raised an eyebrow but didn't say or do anything else except smirk.
“Pete's got a couple different things, but the one that you need to know is that he collects change, hoards it even. He'll take whatever he finds and put it in that jug and gloat over it.”
“Wait, gloat over it?” Andy repeated when Patrick didn't go on. “That's it?”
“That's it,” Patrick confirmed with a shrug. “It's not about the spending for Pete, it's about the having. There is nothing that would ever make him spend any of it -we could be starving and we'd have to murder Pete before he'd let us use it to get food.
“And the only thing you really need to know is: don't touch it. Ever. And, for the love of all that is holy, don't take any of it. Pete will know down to the last penny how much money is there and if you think he's pissy now sometimes, you don't even want to know what he'll be like if any of his money goes missing.”
“OK,” Andy said after several seconds. “I can do that. I gotta ask, though; is this just a Pete thing? Or do other dragons do it? Because it sounds kind of out there, you know?”
“Pete said his grandfather did it, too,” Patrick answered with another shrug. “It’s suppose to be a throwback to when dragons had hoards with, like, actual gold pieces and shit.”
Just then Pete finally came around the side, looking smug. “Hey, you guys done talking about me? We need to get going and pick up Trohman.”
Patrick rolled his eyes, ducked inside the van and sat on the bench seat. “We were waiting on your ass, Wentz. Let's go before I get bored and leave you here.”
“Please, Rickster,” Pete scoffed as he shut the door and draped himself over the rest of the seat with his feet in Patrick's lap. “You'd be lost without me.”
“Yeah, yeah.”
Andy got in and started the van; as he listened to their bickering, he really hoped there were no more surprises coming up.
*
A lot of the time, Joe forgot that two of his best friends weren't, strictly speaking, human.
Most of the time they acted like they were, so Joe usually forgot it until he walked in on one of them when they were Shifted (he always thought of it in capital letters, it always sounded like that whenever Pete or Patrick talked about it) or that one memorable time Patrick had literally been breathing smoke because he had gotten that pissed off at someone who was brawling with Pete.
But one thing that always reminded him was the way Pete was about his change.
Every tour they'd ever been on since Andy had joined, Pete had brought along a huge jug that he kept all his spare change in. That by itself wasn't so strange, but Joe had seen Pete's eyes light up when he came across some loose coins on the floor of the van and he periodically curled up around it and just stared at it with this smug grin on his face. He'd do that for hours before he hid it as best he could in a van with three other people in it.
He refused to spend any of it, not even if they were forced to spend the night in the van because they couldn't afford a hotel room. They had once gone without food for two days in between gigs and even the escalating pissiness of everyone couldn't make him part with any of it.
It was just weird, in Joe's opinion.
And God help you if you took any of it -Joe had found that out the hard way.
They were at a gas station; Pete had dragged Patrick off to make out in the bathroom for ten minutes before they got snacks, Andy was inside paying for the gas and Joe needed rolling papers and he was fifty fucken cents short.
Joe had been scouring the floor of the van -Pete had been thorough in his weekly scavenging, though, the bastard- when he had stumbled onto Pete's stash. It took him all of ten seconds of debate with himself before he had undone the lid and taken fifty cents. As he put the lid back on and looked it over to make sure he hadn't moved it around any, Joe had figured that Pete wouldn't even notice anything was missing. It was only fifty cents, after all.
Boy, was he wrong.
Coming back through the parking lot, Joe could hear Pete yelling something and saw Andy and Patrick standing in front of the van.
“I know he took it,” Pete fumed, stomping around the van, his hands fisted at his sides. “I know that fucker touched my hoard and I'm -”
“Pete, calm down,” Patrick said, his voice even, but his eyes followed Pete's progress and Joe could see he was using some effort to keep himself from getting agitated along with Pete. “I'm sure he didn't mean anything by it.”
Andy crossed his arms and shot Joe a disapproving look when he caught sight of him. Joe hunched his shoulders self-defensively and glared at Andy before he shuffled forward enough that he was in Pete's line of sight.
“Trohman,” Pete snarled and reached out enough that he could haul Joe into the van by the front of his shirt; and, yeah, there was a small tendril of smoke curling out from Pete's nose -he was definitely taking this way harder than Joe had thought he would.
“Did you take fifty cents from my hoard?” Pete demanded as he dragged Joe the three feet to the back of the van and pointed to the jug of change.
“Uh, I -wait, you could tell there was fifty cents missing?” Joe questioned in surprise.
“Of course, I could,” Pete hissed, his eyes narrowed. “There was $475.55 there and now there's only $475.05. And I know it's two quarters that are missing.
“And stop trying to distract me, dickhead. Did you take it?”
“Well, yeah,” Joe admitted and he winced when Pete's eyes changed to yellow. “It was only fifty cents and I didn't think you would even notice, much less lose your shit over half a dollar!”
“Let me get this straight,” Pete forced out in between clenched teeth. “You thought it wouldn't be a big deal to steal money from a dragon's hoard?!”
“Dude, why do you keep calling it that?” Joe asked, his curiosity making him forget that there was a dragon pissed at him.
Pete gaped at him, completely at a loss for words.
“OK, I'm going to take Joe and give him a refresher course on why he's such a fucken retard sometimes,” Andy said and pulled Joe from Pete's unresisting hand. “Patrick, maybe you should...”
“Yeah, I'll take care of Pete,” Patrick assured him, sounding amused.
Andy dragged Joe off and gave him a blistering lecture that lasted for almost forty five minutes and continued even as they headed back on the road. It was the memory of that as much as Pete's sulking and pouting over the next few days that reminded Joe to steer clear of Pete's change. Hoard. Whatever.
Joe might have a stoner's memory but there were some things even he wouldn't forget.
And if he sometimes made sure to drop his extra change on the floor of the van -and later, the tour bus- well, it was no big deal; friends helped friends out.
Even if it was just to help them build up their collection. Hoard. Whatever.