Fic! Sing Ourselves to Sleep (Gerard/Patrick)
Bandslash which is actually slash! Will wonders never cease?
strangecobwebs and iuliamentis listened to this story for days and days and DAYS, and giddygeek stepped in to beta everything from the title on down. Thanks, guys!
Gerard/Patrick, Summer of Like.
Not explicit. 4,034 words.
Being exhausted is nothing like being drunk, but some nights Gerard gets too tired to remember that.
Sing Ourselves to Sleep
Being exhausted is nothing like being drunk, but some nights Gerard gets too tired to remember that.
Plenty of times when he's tired it's the kind of tired his therapist warned him about--the kind where he knows exactly how he could make himself feel better, where his defenses are down and the need bleeds through in torrents.
There are times when he's tired and the nightmare images he carries around in his head get loose while he's still awake.
But then there are times where he's tired and he's just... tired. Where all he wants--all he wants, everything he wants--is to sleep. No other want can creep past the tiredness, and it feels so good to only want one thing, one normal thing that healthy, unbroken people want every single night.
Gerard tries to make those nights last, sitting through movies he doesn't give a shit about, or talking to whoever's around, rubbing his eyes and yawning while they laugh and tell him to give it up and go to bed already. But if he does then he'll have lost this feeling, this perfect feeling, and it might never come back again.
Tonight everyone's gone somewhere, and the bus is quiet, and Gerard is just the right kind of tired. He paces, trying to keep awake, and finally gives up and steps outside; the night is cool, it might wake him up just enough.
Instantly he can hear distant screaming, raucous and wild, happy in the desperate way that he remembers. His mouth waters and his skin goes tight, hair standing up on the back of his neck. Gerard feels himself turning toward the sound before he thinks.
But when he raises a foot to go and find the party, he realizes how far away it is, how far he would have to walk and how much further sleep would be pushed back by joining in. His foot drops to the ground again, weighted, holding him inside himself. Gerard turns the other way, down the dim little alley made of the bus and the nearest trailer.
They're not driving anywhere tonight, but Gerard wants to be sure that he won't be left behind; he sits down with his back to the back wheel of the bus, the smell of rubber and rust in his nose, and smiles. His head rests strangely comfortably against the tire, just the right height, and his hair is the only thing moving, brushing his cheek like delicate fingertips. Gerard blinks once, twice, three times, and then lets his eyes close, resolving to stay awake even so.
He becomes aware of soft, scuffing footsteps on the asphalt. Not Mikey or one of the guys, he doesn't think, and not anyone hurrying anywhere. He thinks he should pick his head up, say hello, make sure it's not some weirdo who's gotten in among the buses, but the footsteps don't sound mean.
The footsteps stop, and Patrick Stump says, "Oh, fuck me."
Gerard grins and picks his head up, remembering halfway through to actually open his eyes. Patrick is standing near the bus door, and Gerard can't read his face in the dimness, shadowed by the brim of his hat. "If that's an invitation, I've heard better."
"Yeah," Patrick says, laughing unsteadily, touching his face. Gerard wonders if he's been drinking, or if he's tired, too.
Patrick ventures closer, moving uncertainly, as he says, "No, I. Yeah. Gerard. Hi."
Gerard lets his head rest against the tire again, tilted toward Patrick. He still hasn't moved his arms or legs at all, but they feel heavy and comfortable. "Hi, Patrick. Come sit. Pull up a patch of asphalt."
"Uh," Patrick says, but he ambles closer one hesitant step at a time.
Gerard makes the effort to raise his hand and pat the ground beside him. Talking to Patrick will make the night last longer, and even when he's awake he likes Patrick. "Come on in, the tire's fine."
Patrick laughs at that, and his hand rests briefly on Gerard's shoulder as he lowers himself to sit close to Gerard's side. Patrick's wearing a ragged sweatshirt, probably thin and not as warm as Patrick remembers it being when it was new. Gerard does that sometimes, forgets that things wear out, let you down.
Patrick's elbow bumps gently against Gerard's arm. "What are you doing out here?"
"Mm," Gerard says, looking up at the sky again. "Trying to stay awake. You know how... sometimes you just don't want a day to end?"
"Sure," Patrick says. "But those are mostly not days that involve sitting outside my bus in the dark. Um, not that this isn't cool."
Gerard laughs a little, the low tired ache in his chest breaking up. "Yeah, yeah. What are you doing out here? You guys are usually--"
Gerard feels Patrick stiffen a little, and realizes a second late that Mikey's over at the Fall Out Boy bus with Pete. He leans his head against Patrick's, the side of Patrick's hat scratchy against his forehead. "Hiding from the Pete-and-Mikey machine?"
Patrick relaxes, leaning slightly back into Gerard. "Kinda. They, um, they--" Patrick's hands wave, not terribly descriptively. It's usually Pete with the words, out of Pete and Patrick, but Patrick's not actually--Gerard forgets the word where you forget the words, but Patrick's not it.
"You're not being delicate, are you?" Gerard says, bumping his shoulder against Patrick's. "Because I've lived in confined spaces with Mikey for the last four years, I've walked in on pretty much everything."
Patrick snorts. "No, man, that's the thing, if it was a case of Oh God, shut the fucking curtain, I could just put my headphones on and tune it out. They just... talk. And giggle a lot. When I left they were cuddling and working up to painting each other's toenails."
"Mmm," Gerard says, nodding against Patrick's hat. "Fumes."
He learned pretty early not to do his nails in the bunk: somehow the smell just never goes away, soaked into the sheets even when he doesn't spill anything.
"Yeah." Patrick pats his knee. "Yeah, fumes."
The tone of Patrick's voice says it's not fumes at all, it's his best friend talking all night with some other boy, and Gerard gets that. He was alone until Patrick wandered up, after all.
The sounds of Patrick wandering up replay themselves in Gerard's head, the tone and cadence of Patrick's first words, and Gerard thinks he gets that, too.
"Hey," he says softly. "If it wasn't an invitation, what was it?"
Patrick squirms a little, and Gerard wants to hug him or something. He can't get it out of his head, now, "Oh, fuck me," and what it meant.
"Did I freak you out?"
Patrick laughs the same unsteady laugh again. "A little, man. I just didn't want to be the guy who found you unconscious in the parking lot at Warped Tour."
Gerard smiles. "It's not like you'd be the only one. I mean, last year..."
Patrick shakes his head. "Yeah, no, but... I didn't want to be the guy who found you unconscious in the parking lot at Warped Tour a year after you got sober and an hour before you were DOA at some hospital. Your Behind the Music flashed before my eyes, and I... for a second all I could think was I never want to do that interview."
Gerard thinks guiltily of that moment, that turn toward the party--but he didn't go. He's here, he's safe, and Patrick will never have to do that interview. Mikey won't, Frank won't, Ray won't, Bob won't. Gerard is not going to be that guy.
"And, um, also scared for you," Patrick adds. "You know. But you're okay?"
Gerard lets himself rest his weight against Patrick, tucking his head down onto Patrick's shoulder, and Patrick doesn't tense up or try to edge away. "Yeah. Tired."
Gerard feels Patrick's nod, and they sit in silence until Gerard begins to feel Patrick shivering. He was probably warm enough walking around, but not sitting still.
"Sorry," Gerard murmurs, tipping himself upright. He's cold where he's suddenly not touching Patrick. He forces himself up to his feet, twisting to balance himself against the side of the bus. "I should--hey, you want to crash here? There's a bunk free."
Patrick takes the hand up Gerard offers, but says, "Um, I don't know, I..."
His hand is still in Gerard's, though, guitar-callused and steady. Gerard tugs gently, backing toward the door of the bus and towing Patrick after him. "You can sleep in mine, I had to change the sheets in Cleveland. I'll take Mikey's, he won't mind me sleeping in his but he wouldn't like me giving it away, you know?"
"Well, obviously," Patrick says, and now that Gerard can properly see Patrick's face, he's smiling.
***
Patrick wakes up to black sheets in a dark bunk, surrounded by the familiar smoke-sweat smell of Gerard, with someone on the other side of the curtain whispering, "Gerard. Gerard?"
For a nightmare instant, he's convinced he is Gerard Way, and he's going to have to get up and be Gerard Way. Sweat breaks out under his arms and down his back, and when he opens his mouth no sound comes out. He thinks, It's okay, if I can't sing I don't have to go on stage.
Then Gerard's voice does come out. From the bunk across the aisle there's a whisper of, "Frank?"
Patrick jams his face into Gerard's pillow and wakes all the way up. He's in My Chem's bus, in Gerard's bunk, having a sleepover or keeping an eye on Gerard or, okay, yeah, hiding from his own bus. Whatever.
He hears Frank shuffle around to face the other bunk, the soft familiar sounds of a body leaning up against a bunk as the curtain pushes back.
"Hey, Gee, whatcha doing in Mikey's bunk?" Frank's voice is soft and warm, and Patrick thinks maybe being Gerard wouldn't be quite so unbearably terrifying after all.
"Sleeping," Gerard says, but Patrick can hear that goofy smile on his face, the same one he kept smiling at Patrick out in the parking lot. "We traded Mikey for Patrick."
Frank huffs a little laugh. "Oh yeah? Patrick's gonna play bass and Mikey's gonna sing?"
There's a soft thump, probably fist to shoulder. "Know what I mean. For tonight."
"Yeah," Frank says softly. "Yeah, okay. You okay tonight? We all kind of took off on you."
"M'a big boy," Gerard mumbles--into his pillow, Patrick thinks. Patrick cautiously turns his head on his own--Gerard's--pillow. At some point it became really important that they not realize he's awake and hearing this, and he's not sure when.
"Uh-huh," Frank says softly, gently, and Patrick wants to squirm away from the intimate sound. He keeps perfectly still. "Okay. I didn't really mean to wake you up, I just..."
"Yeah, Frankie." Gerard sounds half-asleep again, like there's nothing at all interesting about the way Frank talks to him.
"Night," Frank whispers, and then there's a sound Patrick knows, the brush of lips on lips. He has a sudden vivid mental image--mental soundtrack--of how the next several minutes could go, Frank and Gerard and sleepy kisses and then more than kisses in the next bunk while Patrick holds perfectly silent and still, pretending to pretend he can't hear. He'll just have traded the Pete-and-Mikey show for the Gerard-and-Frank show, but he doesn't think he'll mind too much. As long as he can escape in the night while everyone else is sleeping and never look Frank or Gerard in the eye again ever.
Except the sound of the kiss doesn't turn wet, doesn't even repeat. Just a kiss goodnight, and then he hears Frank turning away from where Gerard's lying, hears Gerard push the curtain shut again.
Frank mutters, "Night, Patrick," as he crawls into his bunk, and Patrick hides his face in Gerard's pillow until he's asleep again.
***
Gerard pushes the curtain back a little and then stops. Patrick's fast asleep, skin pale and hair red against Gerard's black sheets. He's twenty-one--younger than Mikey, younger than Frank--and he looks even younger asleep.
Gerard was just going to shake him awake, ask him if he wanted some coffee before he headed back to his own bus, but now, looking, he feels strangely reluctant to touch Patrick. Tempted to touch, and instinctively resisting temptation.
Gerard sighs. Having a fucking crush isn't anything like being drunk, either.
***
Gerard is the kind of tired where making decisions is almost impossible. He's been considering get up, go to bed for half an hour now. The thing he's been doodling for that entire time isn't really working, possibly because his eyes keep going out of focus, but probably because it will work better as a lyric than a drawing. He's chewing on his pen, debating crumple/save when there's a knock on the bus door.
"Someone knocks at the door," Gerard announces, dropping the pen, and winces as he stands to stretch. "You're DMing yourself, man, that is not a good sign."
He's nearly reached the door when Patrick pops through it, and Gerard stops short. If his heart thumps in his chest it's just because he's startled.
"Sorry," Patrick says, smiling shyly, still standing one step down from Gerard. "I heard you saying something and it sounded like, 'I'm bored too, come in and hang out with me.'"
Gerard can't resist smiling at Patrick. "Yeah, it's kind of amazing how you understood that when I was actually saying something geeky and incoherent."
Patrick's smile widens, and he ventures up the last step. "Geeky and incoherent is my native language, actually."
Gerard backs into the kitchen and Patrick follows him--just like the other night, except Gerard isn't pulling Patrick by the hand this time. Gerard flips on the fan over the stove--he smoked way too many cigarettes while trying to decide whether to go to bed, there's kind of a cloud.
Patrick spots the doodling on the table and looks curious. Gerard doesn't move quickly enough to hide the sketches, but Patrick doesn't actually ask about them, so Gerard doesn't have to apologize for them. Patrick just starts talking about the local band he watched from sidestage earlier. Gerard sprawls in the booth and they speak their native languages, sometimes geeky and incoherent, sometimes singing, sometimes both at once. Patrick describes music in ways that make Gerard feel like he hasn't missed anything, hiding out here.
Patrick starts losing entire phrases and measures to yawns a couple of hours later, and there's still no sign of Mikey coming back to the bus. Gerard doesn't have any trouble deciding to ask Patrick to sleep over.
***
Patrick wakes up surrounded by the smell of cigarette smoke. He knows where he is this time--Gerard's bunk, My Chem's bus, and when he goes ho--when he goes back to his own bus, Mikey will be eating Froot Loops with Pete. But right now there's the sleep-warm-body-smell of Gerard--which is getting more familiar all the time--and smoke. Cigarette smoke always smells to Patrick like the shitty bars and clubs they played their first year of shoestring touring.
He learned quickly enough to sing without coughing, and he imprinted on this smell--this is what touring smells like to Patrick. This is what possibility smells like, a whole world to conquer one dive bar at a time. And this is what Gerard smells like.
Patrick slowly becomes aware of Frank's voice--not whispering, but trying to be quiet in the semi-successful way anyone living on a bus does if they are not Pete Wentz in a manic phase.
"You're not serious," Frank is saying. "No, you're--" he falls silent, a distinctive cell phone pause. "No, you're making things up now to torture me." His words are warm. Whatever he's arguing about is familiar and loved, and it's not quite the way he talked to Gerard the other night.
"No, I'm--I'm hanging--No, I'm hanging up, I swear I'm--" but there's no plastic clatter of a phone being slammed down or thrown, just Frank's voice dissolving into laughter. Patrick can't resist smiling at it, even before coffee. He can't resist poking his head out of the bunk to look.
Frank is standing in the kitchenette with his back to Patrick, holding his phone to his ear and curling downward with the force of his laughter, interspersed with, "I'm--seriously--no, I'm breaking up with you, this is--there are groupies, you know--"
It takes a second for Patrick to look away from Frank and see Gerard, sitting at the table with a cup of coffee and a cigarette. Gerard is looking straight at him, and when Patrick meets his gaze he smiles. The sun is shining on Gerard, and Frank is laughing at his girlfriend, and Patrick takes a deep breath and smiles back.
***
Patrick wakes up in the middle of the fourth night he spends on My Chem's bus to Gerard crawling into the bunk with him.
More precisely, he wakes up to Gerard's hand jerking back from his chest and Gerard murmuring, "Shit, sorry, wrong bunk--"
Patrick grabs Gerard's arm, catching him before he can tip himself back out--it's an upper bunk, he'll fall--and mumbles, "Right bunk." It's Gerard's bunk, after all.
Gerard goes still, half in and half out, and Patrick is holding on hard. "Uh," Gerard says, and Patrick actually wakes up to Gerard's arm under his hand, Gerard's body beside his.
"Right bunk," he whispers more firmly, and tugs hard enough to tip Gerard inside. Gerard falls onto him, sudden full-body contact, chest to chest and knees banging awkwardly and Gerard's breath against his face. There's a moment of frantic movement, Gerard pushing and kicking at the curtain to get it to fall shut, and then they're both still, just breathing, Gerard pressing Patrick into the mattress.
Gerard falls closer in slow motion, his forehead coming to rest against Patrick's. "Yeah?"
Patrick feels Gerard's breath against his mouth, the bare whisper sending a shiver through him.
"Yeah," Patrick whispers, sweeping his thumb across Gerard's arm. He's still holding on, though Gerard's not going anywhere, Gerard's only moving closer. He squirms--not really friction, just weight, just the fact of his body and Patrick's body touching everywhere--and then his lips brush Patrick's lightly, carefully, like Patrick might break.
Patrick tilts his chin up into the kiss, his lips parting, and Gerard's hand comes up to cup Patrick's cheek. Gerard's thumb brushes Patrick's lower lip and Gerard's tongue follows, and Patrick reaches up with the hand not clutching Gerard's arm to tug him down, deepen the kiss. Gerard makes a tiny sound at that, his tongue sliding against Patrick's. Gerard's thigh shifts between Patrick's legs, and their mouths break apart as Patrick gasps. He can almost feel Gerard's smile, and then Gerard is sucking at his lower lip, and then there are pounding footsteps coming toward the bunks from the front of the bus, and then a crash and Ray Toro giggling and cursing.
Patrick goes perfectly still, and Gerard freezes above him, barely breathing against Patrick's mouth.
There's another crash, and Ray is laughing harder and cursing louder, and Patrick is starting to think, hell, it's not like Ray will hear them over the noise he's making.
Directly beneath them, Bob yells, "Toro! Shut up! People are trying to sleep!"
Patrick bites down hard on his own lip, and the feeling of Gerard's breath stops entirely.
"And Gerard and Patrick are trying to have a really special moment!" Bob adds, and Patrick actually grays out a little.
All he can feel is the blush rushing his entire body like a fever, and Frank's laughter sounds really far away. For a second he thinks his hand's getting hot too, and then he realizes he's feeling Gerard blush.
Gerard turns his head, closes his teeth for a second on Patrick's thumb, and then says evenly, "I really hate you guys."
Patrick can hear the laughter in Gerard's voice, feel it in the shaking of Gerard's chest against his, and Frank and Ray and Bob are all laughing louder now. Gerard rests his fever-hot forehead against Patrick's, his hair falling against Patrick's face, and he whispers, "Sorry," against Patrick's mouth. It's not quite a kiss, but Gerard's not moving away, either.
"It's okay," Patrick whispers, under the cover of the peals of laughter from the other bunks. "Pete's gonna be worse."
***
Sixty-two hours and 173 text messages later, Gerard leans on the front of his bus, chain-smoking and carefully not looking in the direction of Fall Out Boy's bus. Mikey had come back at something like seven in the morning, three minutes after Patrick and Gerard were awakened by Patrick's cell phone, buzzing with a text message from Pete that made Patrick frown sleepily.
Gerard hasn't seen Patrick since, but he's getting really good at the whole text messaging thing. He would think that Pete and Mikey were doing this to them on purpose, except that he's known Mikey for Mikey's entire life and there is no mistaking Mikey's I think I like you more than you like me pre-emptive fight. He had it with Jason Chiarelli in kindergarten and Sheila Quain in fourth grade and he's having it with Pete Wentz on Warped Tour right smack in the middle of Gerard's attempt to have a really goddamn special moment with Patrick.
Patrick's text messages indicate that Pete is also having some characteristic kind of freakout. They have been debating whether this is reciprocal or coincidental, a hundred characters at a time. Gerard thinks discussing what's wrong with Pete and Mikey is slightly less pathetic than texting Patrick I like you I like you I like you.
It's possible that Patrick is picking up on the subtext, but that's okay. Gerard has his suspicions about what it means that Patrick answers every single message Gerard sends him.
But Mikey--after receiving possibly 173 text messages just during their last set--stomped off in the direction of the Fall Out Boy bus four minutes ago with a grimly determined look on his face. Gerard followed him outside and has managed to smoke three cigarettes, waiting. He is not jittering, not nervous, but he is possibly fidgeting. He fidgets all the time. It doesn't mean anything in particular.
His phone buzzes, and Gerard flips it open without bothering to check who the message is from.
The 174th text message is one word. Coming.
"Yes, please," Gerard says, grinning. He considers going inside the bus to wait, get a start on the nudity thing so they don't waste any time, and then he has a better idea.
He's only down on the asphalt--sprawled on his back with his eyes closed, cell phone lying in one outstretched hand--for about thirty seconds before he hears footsteps approaching. It's broad daylight this time, and this is going to be a lot less funny if it's not Patrick who finds him, but the strides sound about right.
They stop a little way away, but then come slowly closer, closer, closer, and Patrick's not saying anything. Gerard keeps his eyes closed and waits. A toe nudges his side and he tries out a vague moan.
"Oh, fuck you," Patrick says, half laughing the words.
Gerard's eyes pop open, and he can't help grinning. Patrick's looking down at him, and in the bright sunshine Gerard can see him smiling in the shadow of his hat. He raises his hand and Patrick pulls him up to his feet so hard Gerard collides with him, and they're clutching each other right there in the parking lot.
"Please, please tell me that was an invitation," Gerard whispers.
Gerard can almost feel Patrick's smile against his mouth as he says, "If you've got a bunk free?"
"Whole bus." Gerard barely gets the words out before Patrick Stump is dragging him inside, and for a perfect instant Gerard is wide awake and wants nothing more.
strangecobwebs and iuliamentis listened to this story for days and days and DAYS, and giddygeek stepped in to beta everything from the title on down. Thanks, guys!
Gerard/Patrick, Summer of Like.
Not explicit. 4,034 words.
Being exhausted is nothing like being drunk, but some nights Gerard gets too tired to remember that.
Sing Ourselves to Sleep
Being exhausted is nothing like being drunk, but some nights Gerard gets too tired to remember that.
Plenty of times when he's tired it's the kind of tired his therapist warned him about--the kind where he knows exactly how he could make himself feel better, where his defenses are down and the need bleeds through in torrents.
There are times when he's tired and the nightmare images he carries around in his head get loose while he's still awake.
But then there are times where he's tired and he's just... tired. Where all he wants--all he wants, everything he wants--is to sleep. No other want can creep past the tiredness, and it feels so good to only want one thing, one normal thing that healthy, unbroken people want every single night.
Gerard tries to make those nights last, sitting through movies he doesn't give a shit about, or talking to whoever's around, rubbing his eyes and yawning while they laugh and tell him to give it up and go to bed already. But if he does then he'll have lost this feeling, this perfect feeling, and it might never come back again.
Tonight everyone's gone somewhere, and the bus is quiet, and Gerard is just the right kind of tired. He paces, trying to keep awake, and finally gives up and steps outside; the night is cool, it might wake him up just enough.
Instantly he can hear distant screaming, raucous and wild, happy in the desperate way that he remembers. His mouth waters and his skin goes tight, hair standing up on the back of his neck. Gerard feels himself turning toward the sound before he thinks.
But when he raises a foot to go and find the party, he realizes how far away it is, how far he would have to walk and how much further sleep would be pushed back by joining in. His foot drops to the ground again, weighted, holding him inside himself. Gerard turns the other way, down the dim little alley made of the bus and the nearest trailer.
They're not driving anywhere tonight, but Gerard wants to be sure that he won't be left behind; he sits down with his back to the back wheel of the bus, the smell of rubber and rust in his nose, and smiles. His head rests strangely comfortably against the tire, just the right height, and his hair is the only thing moving, brushing his cheek like delicate fingertips. Gerard blinks once, twice, three times, and then lets his eyes close, resolving to stay awake even so.
He becomes aware of soft, scuffing footsteps on the asphalt. Not Mikey or one of the guys, he doesn't think, and not anyone hurrying anywhere. He thinks he should pick his head up, say hello, make sure it's not some weirdo who's gotten in among the buses, but the footsteps don't sound mean.
The footsteps stop, and Patrick Stump says, "Oh, fuck me."
Gerard grins and picks his head up, remembering halfway through to actually open his eyes. Patrick is standing near the bus door, and Gerard can't read his face in the dimness, shadowed by the brim of his hat. "If that's an invitation, I've heard better."
"Yeah," Patrick says, laughing unsteadily, touching his face. Gerard wonders if he's been drinking, or if he's tired, too.
Patrick ventures closer, moving uncertainly, as he says, "No, I. Yeah. Gerard. Hi."
Gerard lets his head rest against the tire again, tilted toward Patrick. He still hasn't moved his arms or legs at all, but they feel heavy and comfortable. "Hi, Patrick. Come sit. Pull up a patch of asphalt."
"Uh," Patrick says, but he ambles closer one hesitant step at a time.
Gerard makes the effort to raise his hand and pat the ground beside him. Talking to Patrick will make the night last longer, and even when he's awake he likes Patrick. "Come on in, the tire's fine."
Patrick laughs at that, and his hand rests briefly on Gerard's shoulder as he lowers himself to sit close to Gerard's side. Patrick's wearing a ragged sweatshirt, probably thin and not as warm as Patrick remembers it being when it was new. Gerard does that sometimes, forgets that things wear out, let you down.
Patrick's elbow bumps gently against Gerard's arm. "What are you doing out here?"
"Mm," Gerard says, looking up at the sky again. "Trying to stay awake. You know how... sometimes you just don't want a day to end?"
"Sure," Patrick says. "But those are mostly not days that involve sitting outside my bus in the dark. Um, not that this isn't cool."
Gerard laughs a little, the low tired ache in his chest breaking up. "Yeah, yeah. What are you doing out here? You guys are usually--"
Gerard feels Patrick stiffen a little, and realizes a second late that Mikey's over at the Fall Out Boy bus with Pete. He leans his head against Patrick's, the side of Patrick's hat scratchy against his forehead. "Hiding from the Pete-and-Mikey machine?"
Patrick relaxes, leaning slightly back into Gerard. "Kinda. They, um, they--" Patrick's hands wave, not terribly descriptively. It's usually Pete with the words, out of Pete and Patrick, but Patrick's not actually--Gerard forgets the word where you forget the words, but Patrick's not it.
"You're not being delicate, are you?" Gerard says, bumping his shoulder against Patrick's. "Because I've lived in confined spaces with Mikey for the last four years, I've walked in on pretty much everything."
Patrick snorts. "No, man, that's the thing, if it was a case of Oh God, shut the fucking curtain, I could just put my headphones on and tune it out. They just... talk. And giggle a lot. When I left they were cuddling and working up to painting each other's toenails."
"Mmm," Gerard says, nodding against Patrick's hat. "Fumes."
He learned pretty early not to do his nails in the bunk: somehow the smell just never goes away, soaked into the sheets even when he doesn't spill anything.
"Yeah." Patrick pats his knee. "Yeah, fumes."
The tone of Patrick's voice says it's not fumes at all, it's his best friend talking all night with some other boy, and Gerard gets that. He was alone until Patrick wandered up, after all.
The sounds of Patrick wandering up replay themselves in Gerard's head, the tone and cadence of Patrick's first words, and Gerard thinks he gets that, too.
"Hey," he says softly. "If it wasn't an invitation, what was it?"
Patrick squirms a little, and Gerard wants to hug him or something. He can't get it out of his head, now, "Oh, fuck me," and what it meant.
"Did I freak you out?"
Patrick laughs the same unsteady laugh again. "A little, man. I just didn't want to be the guy who found you unconscious in the parking lot at Warped Tour."
Gerard smiles. "It's not like you'd be the only one. I mean, last year..."
Patrick shakes his head. "Yeah, no, but... I didn't want to be the guy who found you unconscious in the parking lot at Warped Tour a year after you got sober and an hour before you were DOA at some hospital. Your Behind the Music flashed before my eyes, and I... for a second all I could think was I never want to do that interview."
Gerard thinks guiltily of that moment, that turn toward the party--but he didn't go. He's here, he's safe, and Patrick will never have to do that interview. Mikey won't, Frank won't, Ray won't, Bob won't. Gerard is not going to be that guy.
"And, um, also scared for you," Patrick adds. "You know. But you're okay?"
Gerard lets himself rest his weight against Patrick, tucking his head down onto Patrick's shoulder, and Patrick doesn't tense up or try to edge away. "Yeah. Tired."
Gerard feels Patrick's nod, and they sit in silence until Gerard begins to feel Patrick shivering. He was probably warm enough walking around, but not sitting still.
"Sorry," Gerard murmurs, tipping himself upright. He's cold where he's suddenly not touching Patrick. He forces himself up to his feet, twisting to balance himself against the side of the bus. "I should--hey, you want to crash here? There's a bunk free."
Patrick takes the hand up Gerard offers, but says, "Um, I don't know, I..."
His hand is still in Gerard's, though, guitar-callused and steady. Gerard tugs gently, backing toward the door of the bus and towing Patrick after him. "You can sleep in mine, I had to change the sheets in Cleveland. I'll take Mikey's, he won't mind me sleeping in his but he wouldn't like me giving it away, you know?"
"Well, obviously," Patrick says, and now that Gerard can properly see Patrick's face, he's smiling.
***
Patrick wakes up to black sheets in a dark bunk, surrounded by the familiar smoke-sweat smell of Gerard, with someone on the other side of the curtain whispering, "Gerard. Gerard?"
For a nightmare instant, he's convinced he is Gerard Way, and he's going to have to get up and be Gerard Way. Sweat breaks out under his arms and down his back, and when he opens his mouth no sound comes out. He thinks, It's okay, if I can't sing I don't have to go on stage.
Then Gerard's voice does come out. From the bunk across the aisle there's a whisper of, "Frank?"
Patrick jams his face into Gerard's pillow and wakes all the way up. He's in My Chem's bus, in Gerard's bunk, having a sleepover or keeping an eye on Gerard or, okay, yeah, hiding from his own bus. Whatever.
He hears Frank shuffle around to face the other bunk, the soft familiar sounds of a body leaning up against a bunk as the curtain pushes back.
"Hey, Gee, whatcha doing in Mikey's bunk?" Frank's voice is soft and warm, and Patrick thinks maybe being Gerard wouldn't be quite so unbearably terrifying after all.
"Sleeping," Gerard says, but Patrick can hear that goofy smile on his face, the same one he kept smiling at Patrick out in the parking lot. "We traded Mikey for Patrick."
Frank huffs a little laugh. "Oh yeah? Patrick's gonna play bass and Mikey's gonna sing?"
There's a soft thump, probably fist to shoulder. "Know what I mean. For tonight."
"Yeah," Frank says softly. "Yeah, okay. You okay tonight? We all kind of took off on you."
"M'a big boy," Gerard mumbles--into his pillow, Patrick thinks. Patrick cautiously turns his head on his own--Gerard's--pillow. At some point it became really important that they not realize he's awake and hearing this, and he's not sure when.
"Uh-huh," Frank says softly, gently, and Patrick wants to squirm away from the intimate sound. He keeps perfectly still. "Okay. I didn't really mean to wake you up, I just..."
"Yeah, Frankie." Gerard sounds half-asleep again, like there's nothing at all interesting about the way Frank talks to him.
"Night," Frank whispers, and then there's a sound Patrick knows, the brush of lips on lips. He has a sudden vivid mental image--mental soundtrack--of how the next several minutes could go, Frank and Gerard and sleepy kisses and then more than kisses in the next bunk while Patrick holds perfectly silent and still, pretending to pretend he can't hear. He'll just have traded the Pete-and-Mikey show for the Gerard-and-Frank show, but he doesn't think he'll mind too much. As long as he can escape in the night while everyone else is sleeping and never look Frank or Gerard in the eye again ever.
Except the sound of the kiss doesn't turn wet, doesn't even repeat. Just a kiss goodnight, and then he hears Frank turning away from where Gerard's lying, hears Gerard push the curtain shut again.
Frank mutters, "Night, Patrick," as he crawls into his bunk, and Patrick hides his face in Gerard's pillow until he's asleep again.
***
Gerard pushes the curtain back a little and then stops. Patrick's fast asleep, skin pale and hair red against Gerard's black sheets. He's twenty-one--younger than Mikey, younger than Frank--and he looks even younger asleep.
Gerard was just going to shake him awake, ask him if he wanted some coffee before he headed back to his own bus, but now, looking, he feels strangely reluctant to touch Patrick. Tempted to touch, and instinctively resisting temptation.
Gerard sighs. Having a fucking crush isn't anything like being drunk, either.
***
Gerard is the kind of tired where making decisions is almost impossible. He's been considering get up, go to bed for half an hour now. The thing he's been doodling for that entire time isn't really working, possibly because his eyes keep going out of focus, but probably because it will work better as a lyric than a drawing. He's chewing on his pen, debating crumple/save when there's a knock on the bus door.
"Someone knocks at the door," Gerard announces, dropping the pen, and winces as he stands to stretch. "You're DMing yourself, man, that is not a good sign."
He's nearly reached the door when Patrick pops through it, and Gerard stops short. If his heart thumps in his chest it's just because he's startled.
"Sorry," Patrick says, smiling shyly, still standing one step down from Gerard. "I heard you saying something and it sounded like, 'I'm bored too, come in and hang out with me.'"
Gerard can't resist smiling at Patrick. "Yeah, it's kind of amazing how you understood that when I was actually saying something geeky and incoherent."
Patrick's smile widens, and he ventures up the last step. "Geeky and incoherent is my native language, actually."
Gerard backs into the kitchen and Patrick follows him--just like the other night, except Gerard isn't pulling Patrick by the hand this time. Gerard flips on the fan over the stove--he smoked way too many cigarettes while trying to decide whether to go to bed, there's kind of a cloud.
Patrick spots the doodling on the table and looks curious. Gerard doesn't move quickly enough to hide the sketches, but Patrick doesn't actually ask about them, so Gerard doesn't have to apologize for them. Patrick just starts talking about the local band he watched from sidestage earlier. Gerard sprawls in the booth and they speak their native languages, sometimes geeky and incoherent, sometimes singing, sometimes both at once. Patrick describes music in ways that make Gerard feel like he hasn't missed anything, hiding out here.
Patrick starts losing entire phrases and measures to yawns a couple of hours later, and there's still no sign of Mikey coming back to the bus. Gerard doesn't have any trouble deciding to ask Patrick to sleep over.
***
Patrick wakes up surrounded by the smell of cigarette smoke. He knows where he is this time--Gerard's bunk, My Chem's bus, and when he goes ho--when he goes back to his own bus, Mikey will be eating Froot Loops with Pete. But right now there's the sleep-warm-body-smell of Gerard--which is getting more familiar all the time--and smoke. Cigarette smoke always smells to Patrick like the shitty bars and clubs they played their first year of shoestring touring.
He learned quickly enough to sing without coughing, and he imprinted on this smell--this is what touring smells like to Patrick. This is what possibility smells like, a whole world to conquer one dive bar at a time. And this is what Gerard smells like.
Patrick slowly becomes aware of Frank's voice--not whispering, but trying to be quiet in the semi-successful way anyone living on a bus does if they are not Pete Wentz in a manic phase.
"You're not serious," Frank is saying. "No, you're--" he falls silent, a distinctive cell phone pause. "No, you're making things up now to torture me." His words are warm. Whatever he's arguing about is familiar and loved, and it's not quite the way he talked to Gerard the other night.
"No, I'm--I'm hanging--No, I'm hanging up, I swear I'm--" but there's no plastic clatter of a phone being slammed down or thrown, just Frank's voice dissolving into laughter. Patrick can't resist smiling at it, even before coffee. He can't resist poking his head out of the bunk to look.
Frank is standing in the kitchenette with his back to Patrick, holding his phone to his ear and curling downward with the force of his laughter, interspersed with, "I'm--seriously--no, I'm breaking up with you, this is--there are groupies, you know--"
It takes a second for Patrick to look away from Frank and see Gerard, sitting at the table with a cup of coffee and a cigarette. Gerard is looking straight at him, and when Patrick meets his gaze he smiles. The sun is shining on Gerard, and Frank is laughing at his girlfriend, and Patrick takes a deep breath and smiles back.
***
Patrick wakes up in the middle of the fourth night he spends on My Chem's bus to Gerard crawling into the bunk with him.
More precisely, he wakes up to Gerard's hand jerking back from his chest and Gerard murmuring, "Shit, sorry, wrong bunk--"
Patrick grabs Gerard's arm, catching him before he can tip himself back out--it's an upper bunk, he'll fall--and mumbles, "Right bunk." It's Gerard's bunk, after all.
Gerard goes still, half in and half out, and Patrick is holding on hard. "Uh," Gerard says, and Patrick actually wakes up to Gerard's arm under his hand, Gerard's body beside his.
"Right bunk," he whispers more firmly, and tugs hard enough to tip Gerard inside. Gerard falls onto him, sudden full-body contact, chest to chest and knees banging awkwardly and Gerard's breath against his face. There's a moment of frantic movement, Gerard pushing and kicking at the curtain to get it to fall shut, and then they're both still, just breathing, Gerard pressing Patrick into the mattress.
Gerard falls closer in slow motion, his forehead coming to rest against Patrick's. "Yeah?"
Patrick feels Gerard's breath against his mouth, the bare whisper sending a shiver through him.
"Yeah," Patrick whispers, sweeping his thumb across Gerard's arm. He's still holding on, though Gerard's not going anywhere, Gerard's only moving closer. He squirms--not really friction, just weight, just the fact of his body and Patrick's body touching everywhere--and then his lips brush Patrick's lightly, carefully, like Patrick might break.
Patrick tilts his chin up into the kiss, his lips parting, and Gerard's hand comes up to cup Patrick's cheek. Gerard's thumb brushes Patrick's lower lip and Gerard's tongue follows, and Patrick reaches up with the hand not clutching Gerard's arm to tug him down, deepen the kiss. Gerard makes a tiny sound at that, his tongue sliding against Patrick's. Gerard's thigh shifts between Patrick's legs, and their mouths break apart as Patrick gasps. He can almost feel Gerard's smile, and then Gerard is sucking at his lower lip, and then there are pounding footsteps coming toward the bunks from the front of the bus, and then a crash and Ray Toro giggling and cursing.
Patrick goes perfectly still, and Gerard freezes above him, barely breathing against Patrick's mouth.
There's another crash, and Ray is laughing harder and cursing louder, and Patrick is starting to think, hell, it's not like Ray will hear them over the noise he's making.
Directly beneath them, Bob yells, "Toro! Shut up! People are trying to sleep!"
Patrick bites down hard on his own lip, and the feeling of Gerard's breath stops entirely.
"And Gerard and Patrick are trying to have a really special moment!" Bob adds, and Patrick actually grays out a little.
All he can feel is the blush rushing his entire body like a fever, and Frank's laughter sounds really far away. For a second he thinks his hand's getting hot too, and then he realizes he's feeling Gerard blush.
Gerard turns his head, closes his teeth for a second on Patrick's thumb, and then says evenly, "I really hate you guys."
Patrick can hear the laughter in Gerard's voice, feel it in the shaking of Gerard's chest against his, and Frank and Ray and Bob are all laughing louder now. Gerard rests his fever-hot forehead against Patrick's, his hair falling against Patrick's face, and he whispers, "Sorry," against Patrick's mouth. It's not quite a kiss, but Gerard's not moving away, either.
"It's okay," Patrick whispers, under the cover of the peals of laughter from the other bunks. "Pete's gonna be worse."
***
Sixty-two hours and 173 text messages later, Gerard leans on the front of his bus, chain-smoking and carefully not looking in the direction of Fall Out Boy's bus. Mikey had come back at something like seven in the morning, three minutes after Patrick and Gerard were awakened by Patrick's cell phone, buzzing with a text message from Pete that made Patrick frown sleepily.
Gerard hasn't seen Patrick since, but he's getting really good at the whole text messaging thing. He would think that Pete and Mikey were doing this to them on purpose, except that he's known Mikey for Mikey's entire life and there is no mistaking Mikey's I think I like you more than you like me pre-emptive fight. He had it with Jason Chiarelli in kindergarten and Sheila Quain in fourth grade and he's having it with Pete Wentz on Warped Tour right smack in the middle of Gerard's attempt to have a really goddamn special moment with Patrick.
Patrick's text messages indicate that Pete is also having some characteristic kind of freakout. They have been debating whether this is reciprocal or coincidental, a hundred characters at a time. Gerard thinks discussing what's wrong with Pete and Mikey is slightly less pathetic than texting Patrick I like you I like you I like you.
It's possible that Patrick is picking up on the subtext, but that's okay. Gerard has his suspicions about what it means that Patrick answers every single message Gerard sends him.
But Mikey--after receiving possibly 173 text messages just during their last set--stomped off in the direction of the Fall Out Boy bus four minutes ago with a grimly determined look on his face. Gerard followed him outside and has managed to smoke three cigarettes, waiting. He is not jittering, not nervous, but he is possibly fidgeting. He fidgets all the time. It doesn't mean anything in particular.
His phone buzzes, and Gerard flips it open without bothering to check who the message is from.
The 174th text message is one word. Coming.
"Yes, please," Gerard says, grinning. He considers going inside the bus to wait, get a start on the nudity thing so they don't waste any time, and then he has a better idea.
He's only down on the asphalt--sprawled on his back with his eyes closed, cell phone lying in one outstretched hand--for about thirty seconds before he hears footsteps approaching. It's broad daylight this time, and this is going to be a lot less funny if it's not Patrick who finds him, but the strides sound about right.
They stop a little way away, but then come slowly closer, closer, closer, and Patrick's not saying anything. Gerard keeps his eyes closed and waits. A toe nudges his side and he tries out a vague moan.
"Oh, fuck you," Patrick says, half laughing the words.
Gerard's eyes pop open, and he can't help grinning. Patrick's looking down at him, and in the bright sunshine Gerard can see him smiling in the shadow of his hat. He raises his hand and Patrick pulls him up to his feet so hard Gerard collides with him, and they're clutching each other right there in the parking lot.
"Please, please tell me that was an invitation," Gerard whispers.
Gerard can almost feel Patrick's smile against his mouth as he says, "If you've got a bunk free?"
"Whole bus." Gerard barely gets the words out before Patrick Stump is dragging him inside, and for a perfect instant Gerard is wide awake and wants nothing more.