Fic: To think of all the paintings we would be without
To think of all the paintings we would be without
PG-13/3,195
Gabe/Pete; Various
Disclaimer: Highly fake.
Notes: Like crack, but angstier. A huge thank you to blindingsight for beta'ing
Summary: Pete and Gabe have a remarkably similar taste in men.
Pete meets Patrick and goes after him with a zeal that will forever be legendary in their circle. Patrick is resolute and protects his own virtue so thoroughly that Andy suggests he missed his calling by going into music. “You should totally teach a women’s self-defense class.”
Of course, that does nothing for Andy but earn Patrick’s ire and what usually accompanies it: one of those punches Pete has become so intimately acquainted with-seriously, little dude’s got to have training as a boxer, or something. A lesser man would be deterred, but Pete keeps at it and keeps at it until:
“Look,” Patrick says one day, when they’re alone at the apartment, “I think-no, I know we’re better as friends, but you seem to really need this, so-I’ve gotten rid of the others. Twenty-four hours, whatever you want, and then we never speak of this again.”
“That’s the most romantic thing I’ve ever heard!”
So, Pete gets his twenty-four hours, and it’s not like he stops professing his love for Patrick at every available occasion, or hitting on him all the time, but it’s different; he realizes that love is platonic, and the flirting is (mostly) for the purpose of driving Patrick insane.
_______________________
Pete meets Gabe, and they don’t sleep together. They talk, and they get along fine-great, really; they’re practically the same person, after all, but they’re just not each other’s type.
They agree on that one night when Midtown’s in Chicago and Pete is throwing the party.
“It’s a shame,” Gabe sighs into the bottle of Absolut they’re passing back and forth, “You’re not pretty enough for me to screw, but I bet we’d have awesome sex.”
“Yeah,” Pete agrees, “It’s not like you’re unattractive, or anything, but I like my boys pretty.”
“Hey!” Patrick (who’s fine with his beer, thank you very much. Not everyone needs to drink hard liquor straight from the bottle) protests, before punching Pete in the arm.
“You have a pretty mouth,” Pete explains, rubbing his injured bicep.
“You two? Really?” Pete thinks Gabe looks more incredulous than absolutely necessary.
“No,” Patrick says, at the same time that Pete says “Once.”
Gabe thinks it over for a moment and shrugs, “Well, in that case,” he leans over Pete to put a long-fingered hand on Patrick’s thigh, “He’s right. You really do have a very pretty mouth.”
Much to Pete’s surprise (and utter dismay), Patrick does not punch Gabe in the face: he blushes.
Gabe and Patrick disappear into a bedroom very soon after, and Pete spends the rest of the night snapping at anyone and everyone that dares approach him.
Patrick looks happy in the morning, though, so it’s not so bad.
_________________________
Gabe is somewhat in crisis. He’s got most of an album, but he lacks a band. Midtown is officially over and he’s just not sure what to replace it with.
Gabe is in crisis, but that doesn’t stop him from liking William. William is young and hungry in a way Gabe knows all too well; he drinks too much and wants too much and won’t ask for help when he needs it.
Gabe likes William a lot.
He winds up tagging along for a few dates of The Academy’s tour, because what else is he going to do with songs and no band? They flirt-a lot. Gabe can’t really keep his hands off and he’s pretty sure it’s not his fault.
He’s in the lounge, drinking beer with Tom and Sisky (the former of which doesn’t seem to talk to anyone but Butcher anymore, and the latter of which is so underage Gabe almost feels guilty), when the “conversation” Mike and William were having in the bunks escalates into a full-blown shouting match. This is apparently a normal occurrence, because no one bats an eye. Gabe listens in.
“Don’t you fucking remember what happened last time?” Mike sounds frustrated.
“It’s none of your fucking business!”
“It is when I’m the one who winds up having to scrape your ass off the ground when you can’t deal with the consequences of your own bad decisions, when it interferes with this band-which, by the way, you’re not the only member of-because you’re too busy trying to drink yourself to sleep to rehearse or write a fucking song!”
“Like you have any right to condemn someone for drinking too much!” It’s a bit obvious who’s winning the argument, at this point.
“That’s not even the point!”
“Gabe isn’t Pete!”
Oh. Sisky gives him a shaky smile and Gabe stops listening. “They always make up. Don’t feel bad.”
Mike and William eventually reappear from the bunks, refusing to so much as look in one another’s direction. Mike gives Gabe the kind of look that makes verbalizing his threat entirely unnecessary. Gabe can respect that.
He winds up in bed with William the next day-hotel night, most of which Gabe spends trying to focus on pales kin, sharp collarbones, and perfect hips, and not the hands that got there first.
______________________
Pete and Travis meet in New York long before they’re Pete and Travis, but they’re never all that close until one New York night, when Pete finds himself strangely drawn to the smell of Travis’s aftershave, and wondering when his type expanded to include boys that actually look like, well, boys.
Travis is hot, so Pete doesn’t over-think the situation. (Yeah, they fuck.)
Afterwards, they talk for hours and Pete wonders what the hell he was thinking not doing this with Travis the minute they met. They’ve got things in common; Travis is fucked up like Pete is fucked up.
It works, so it becomes a thing. They’re not in love and they’re not trying to be; the sex is a natural extension of the friendship, perfect in how much and how little it means.
Fall Out Boy is coming through Jersey, and it’s Gabe’s turn to provide the entertainment. For all the disdain New Yorkers are supposed to have for New Jersey, half the state’s music scene seems to be crowded into Gabe’s house. Pete is suitably impressed.
He is decidedly unimpressed when the host vanishes a few hours into the night, leaving his first official band member and basement-dweller, one Nate Novarro, who Pete has just recently been introduced to, in charge of the whole shebang.
Pete eventually gives up on getting any more Gabe-time, and goes looking for Travis, who he got about five minutes worth of face-time with about two hours ago. He’s tipsy and feels whiny and abandoned. Travis wouldn’t judge.
That course of action, however, proves to be faulty when Travis is nowhere to be found. Pete doesn’t sulk so much as he consciously refuses to have a good time. Gabe’s Jersey friends keep giving him funny looks.
When Gabe and Travis finally turn up, Pete wishes they hadn’t. He spots them off by themselves in a corner, lost to the world, talking in low, serious voices about something that must be profound. Pete senses, immediately, that theirs is not the kind of intimacy that can be built up in a day, or even a year.
Pete is filled with bitterness at the knowledge that this time around, Gabe got there first.
On the bright side, Nate, while not technically old enough to be at the party, turns out to be a fantastic host.
________________________
It’s Warped, and Pete is in love.
“It’s too hot,” he tells Mikey sincerely, before pressing closer and nuzzling into his neck. He’s got no regard for sweat.
Mikey covers one of Pete’s hands with his own and kisses the top of his head. “I don’t care, either.”
Mikey is more problems than Pete knows how to fix, and Pete isn’t in such great shape himself, but the sun burns in the sky, and the bands always play loud. None of it matters.
Later, Pete will remember the summer as a blur he spent in a bubble of Mikey-his voice, his face, his hips. He will remember how everyone (bar the internet) just left them alone and wonder why. (Even later, he will find out that took the combined efforts of everyone they knew on tour. “The two of you deserved a summer,” Patrick will tell him, something fierce to his eyes, but that won’t be for years.)
They’re alone in the lounge kissing like they’re alone in the world. Pete is coaxing up the hem of Mikey’s shirt, inch by gradual inch, (Pete’s own shirt has long-since fallen to the wayside, that is, behind the couch); Mikey (most likely, Pete can’t exactly see his face, on account of being attached to it) rolls his eyes and undoes Pete’s pants. The boy is nowhere near as innocent as he looks; Pete loves that.
Of course, the second he actually gets Mikey’s shirt off and start mouthing his way towards that spot just about his collarbone, Pete’s phone rings. They both jump at the vibration, and the next thirty seconds become a mad rush to get the thing out of his pocket. “Motherfucker. Why does this always happen?”
“I know.” Mikey’s usual lack of inflection is in effect, but the dark, flustered look in his eyes gives away just how displeased he is at the interruption. It’s also seriously hot. Pete answers the phone like he’s about to find out the name of his next victim.
It’s Gabe. “Woah, Pete. ‘Trick kick you in the balls again?”
“Not exactly.”
(“Who is it?” Mikey mouths. He’s still on the couch, reaching up to trace the elastic of Pete’s boxer-briefs, every-so-often brushing over his hipbones.)
“You sound pissed, at any rate. I’m calling to compare tour schedules,” (“Gabe Saporta,” Pete whispers) “Oh, I get it! You’re busy, Why’d you pick up, man? That’s kind of kinky. Call me back if we match up anywhere.” Gabe hangs up; Mikey bites Pete’s hipbone.
“You know him?” Pete playfully swats groping hands away and drapes himself back over Mikey, determined to finish what they started.
“Um, yeah…Jersey.” Mikey laughs absurdly and blushes, “We, um-” he stammers, looks down, blushes, and stammers some more; the message comes across pretty clearly.
“You’re cute,” Pete tells him. He brushes his thumb over Mikey’s cheekbone and touches their noses together, before trying, once again, to drown the helpless fluttering he’s felt in his chest since they started this thing with a kiss.
Pete’s in love; he doesn’t care.
______________________
“We’ll always have Paris,” Pete cracks, choking out the words because he has to say something-the world just stopped; he has to say something.
Mikey laughs like he’s about to cry and doesn’t say anything more; there’s nothing more to say.
Mikey shows himself out and Pete is alone. For a moment, he’s choking on it, grief and that desperate sense of loneliness shoved down his throat. He’s not even sure he’s breathing.
The phone rings; it takes Pete a while to hear it over the sound of the blood pounding in his ears, and he doesn’t want to pick it up anyway, but answering the phone is pretty much an instinct. He’s sitting on the floor, only he doesn’t remember sitting down.
“Hey Pete!” Gabe sounds excited about something, “I got me a new keytarist! I think this one is sane!”
“Oh-hey, yeah. That’s awesome.” The words trip over one another. Pete doesn’t sound calm like he wanted at all.
“Hey-you okay?”
“Yeah, I’m,” Pete starts lying, but even he can’t pull this one off, “-no, I’m-Mikey…he, he left-” he can’t keep talking, but that has to be enough.
“Shit,” Gabe says, “When?”
“Just now, I think, maybe. It could have been hours ago.”
“Okay. Are you-are you alone?”
“Yeah.” His own voice sounds foreign, high and strained.
“Here’s what you’ve gotta do: get off the phone with me and call Patrick. He’ll come right over.”
“’Trick is in the studio. He won’t-his phone’ll be off.”
“Fuck,” he starts thinking out loud, “No one knows where the fuck Bill’s holed up, and who the fuck else is good with this shit?” a pause, “You know what? Fuck it. Chicago’s not that far away. I’ll be on the next flight. Just sit right where you are, maybe lie down for a while. Don’t-just stay put.”
Pete does; it’s not like he’s thinking very clearly or capable of much else but sitting there, focusing on breaths. The minutes all blur together.
Later, but Pete doesn’t know when, there’s a knock on the door. It’s Gabe, and Pete really didn’t think enough time had passed.
“Yeah, I know,” Gabe tells him, forcing a smile, “That was unnaturally fast,” he carefully sets a large backpack on the floor, “Someone at the airport’s daughter is a fan. I got on a plane that practically had its wheels off the ground.”
Pete doesn’t say anything, but lets Gabe crush him into a tight hug.
“Hey-you’ll be okay,” Gabe pulls a huge bottle of Jack out of the backpack, “No one listens to your sorrows like Jack.”
Pete likes the idea. They sit on the floor and don’t bother with glasses. He doesn’t say a word until they’ve made a noticeable dent in the bottle. Pete holds it to his chest when he says, “I introduced them,” another swig, “He says he still loves me, but he won’t get better if he stays. Do you think she can make him better?’
Pete watches Gabe with expectant eyes. The weight of the question is in the air, on his shoulders, “I think,” Gabe is careful with his words-he can’t make Pete worse, “No one can save anyone. But Alicia’s got her head on straight. She’s got a much better shot at straightening him out than a fucked up guy like one of us would.”
Pete bites his lip and takes another drink, before passing the bottle. “I think…I can live with that. Man, he better fucking get his shit together.”
“Yeah, I’ll fucking drink to that.” And he does.
_________________________
The numb shock passes quickly and the heartbreak follows it, eventually. Pete realizes what everyone else knew from the start: he and Mikey were always meant to burn bright and fade fast.
Pete and Gabe become understandably close after the little post-breakup episode. No one questions how much they suddenly talk on the phone or the “epic” Cobra Starship and Fall Out Boy hangout they’re planning for some mythical weekend both bands are off tour.
By the time the hangout actually takes place, the number of people Pete has slept with since Mikey is in the double-digits, and he’s making James Dean jokes when they text-that is to say, it’s next summer.
“We’re like, in teams,” Gabe observes. It’s true; Cobras are on one side of the room, on the couch and up leaned up against the wall; Fall out Boy is facing them.
“We could totally play dodgeball, or something.” Predictably, this suggestion comes from Pete.
Ryland shakes his head, “We’re uneven. It would go against my natural sense of fairness and justice.”
“Please,” Pete retorts, “We could totally take you.”
“We’re like seven feet taller than you,” Alex points out in his most diplomatic tone.
Joe corrects him. “Not Nate!”
“Hey!”
“Sorry man,” Gabe says, “It’s true. It’s okay, though, you’ve got the spirit of the Cobra in you.”
Nate looks sufficiently comforted.
“You know, you being bigger than us just means there’s more of you to aim at,” Andy intones, calculating look in his eyes.
Everyone considers this for a moment, until Patrick glares and tells them all, “We are not playing dodgeball.”
It’s silent until Pete grins that “I’m about to say something really stupid” smile he’s got. “How about capture the flag?” He gets punched in the arm for that, but it’s worth it.
The conversation dies again soon after; it’s hot, they’re tired, and Joe is really stoned. Pete and Gabe start talking about pie, of all things, and Alex and Ryland slip away into “we’ve been best friends forever” world. It’s not a very productive hangout-certainly not the stuff of legends Pete and Gabe were going on and on about.
“Can we start drinking yet?” Nate asks, after a while, “It’s late enough somewhere.”
“No!” Victoria tells him, “We all agreed, just this once, we’re waiting until night, like vaguely normal people!”
Roughly at the same time, Pete looks up from his conversation with Gabe to tell Nate, “A most excellent idea. Pretty and smart, I like that in a boy.”
Nate is too busy giving Pete a suitably unimpressed look to argue with Victoria. Gabe wraps a protective arm around Nate’s shoulder. No one talks until Victoria throws her hands up in frustration. “You have got to be kidding me.”
“I’m with the lady,” Patrick agrees.
Gabe and Pete look around the room, thoroughly confused, though no one else seems to be.
Alex studies their faces. “Seriously, guys?”
Even Joe manages an incredulous eyebrow raise.
Ryland just sighs. “I’m going to say this because no one else will-believe me, I have no desire to so much as think about it, but you leave me no choice. Stop fucking each other through proxies.”
Everyone walks out, and Pete and Gabe are left in the room alone.
“Hey,” Pete says, rehashing their hookup histories in his head, “That actually kind of makes sense.”
Gabe appears to be doing the same thing. “Huh. I guess they kind of have a point.”
Pete laughs because he can’t think of anything to say. Everything is suddenly very awkward, which is odd, because Pete can’t remember ever feeling awkward around Gabe before. He’s pretty sure his internal monologue is rambling, and…”Oh.”
“Seriously.” Gabe joins in on the laughter, also, for once in his life, without words.
Pete looks at his shoes; Gabe stares at the wall.
They stand like that for a few minutes. Finally, Gabe speaks. “This is fucking ridiculous.” He leans down and cups Pete’s face, giggling from the nerves and at the height difference. “I can’t believe I never realized…” He trails off, and then presses their mouths together. It’s just tentative at first, but the kiss deepens quickly. Pete tips his head back to make the angle less awkward and tangles a hand in Gabe’s hair, anchoring him in place.
It’s hot and just a little bit messy, just the way he likes to kiss. They stay like that for a very long time.
_____________________
So, the epic hangout didn’t go exactly as planned, but lying in bed with his head on Gabe’s chest, watching Gabe trace his tattoos, and shuddering a little whenever calloused fingertips brush over a sensitive spot, Pete isn’t exactly complaining.
“Do you think we were really trying to get to each other, all those years?” Gabe asks.
“Maybe,” Pete says, grabbing Gabe’s hand and interlacing their fingers when he gets to the bartskull, “…Probably, and you can do that one later.”
Gabe pouts a little and settles for a quick kiss. “Man, at least we know we’ll never have problems agreeing on a third.”
Pete thinks about that for a moment. “On second thought, we need to make up for lost time. You can get back to that tattoo.”
PG-13/3,195
Gabe/Pete; Various
Disclaimer: Highly fake.
Notes: Like crack, but angstier. A huge thank you to blindingsight for beta'ing
Summary: Pete and Gabe have a remarkably similar taste in men.
Pete meets Patrick and goes after him with a zeal that will forever be legendary in their circle. Patrick is resolute and protects his own virtue so thoroughly that Andy suggests he missed his calling by going into music. “You should totally teach a women’s self-defense class.”
Of course, that does nothing for Andy but earn Patrick’s ire and what usually accompanies it: one of those punches Pete has become so intimately acquainted with-seriously, little dude’s got to have training as a boxer, or something. A lesser man would be deterred, but Pete keeps at it and keeps at it until:
“Look,” Patrick says one day, when they’re alone at the apartment, “I think-no, I know we’re better as friends, but you seem to really need this, so-I’ve gotten rid of the others. Twenty-four hours, whatever you want, and then we never speak of this again.”
“That’s the most romantic thing I’ve ever heard!”
So, Pete gets his twenty-four hours, and it’s not like he stops professing his love for Patrick at every available occasion, or hitting on him all the time, but it’s different; he realizes that love is platonic, and the flirting is (mostly) for the purpose of driving Patrick insane.
_______________________
Pete meets Gabe, and they don’t sleep together. They talk, and they get along fine-great, really; they’re practically the same person, after all, but they’re just not each other’s type.
They agree on that one night when Midtown’s in Chicago and Pete is throwing the party.
“It’s a shame,” Gabe sighs into the bottle of Absolut they’re passing back and forth, “You’re not pretty enough for me to screw, but I bet we’d have awesome sex.”
“Yeah,” Pete agrees, “It’s not like you’re unattractive, or anything, but I like my boys pretty.”
“Hey!” Patrick (who’s fine with his beer, thank you very much. Not everyone needs to drink hard liquor straight from the bottle) protests, before punching Pete in the arm.
“You have a pretty mouth,” Pete explains, rubbing his injured bicep.
“You two? Really?” Pete thinks Gabe looks more incredulous than absolutely necessary.
“No,” Patrick says, at the same time that Pete says “Once.”
Gabe thinks it over for a moment and shrugs, “Well, in that case,” he leans over Pete to put a long-fingered hand on Patrick’s thigh, “He’s right. You really do have a very pretty mouth.”
Much to Pete’s surprise (and utter dismay), Patrick does not punch Gabe in the face: he blushes.
Gabe and Patrick disappear into a bedroom very soon after, and Pete spends the rest of the night snapping at anyone and everyone that dares approach him.
Patrick looks happy in the morning, though, so it’s not so bad.
_________________________
Gabe is somewhat in crisis. He’s got most of an album, but he lacks a band. Midtown is officially over and he’s just not sure what to replace it with.
Gabe is in crisis, but that doesn’t stop him from liking William. William is young and hungry in a way Gabe knows all too well; he drinks too much and wants too much and won’t ask for help when he needs it.
Gabe likes William a lot.
He winds up tagging along for a few dates of The Academy’s tour, because what else is he going to do with songs and no band? They flirt-a lot. Gabe can’t really keep his hands off and he’s pretty sure it’s not his fault.
He’s in the lounge, drinking beer with Tom and Sisky (the former of which doesn’t seem to talk to anyone but Butcher anymore, and the latter of which is so underage Gabe almost feels guilty), when the “conversation” Mike and William were having in the bunks escalates into a full-blown shouting match. This is apparently a normal occurrence, because no one bats an eye. Gabe listens in.
“Don’t you fucking remember what happened last time?” Mike sounds frustrated.
“It’s none of your fucking business!”
“It is when I’m the one who winds up having to scrape your ass off the ground when you can’t deal with the consequences of your own bad decisions, when it interferes with this band-which, by the way, you’re not the only member of-because you’re too busy trying to drink yourself to sleep to rehearse or write a fucking song!”
“Like you have any right to condemn someone for drinking too much!” It’s a bit obvious who’s winning the argument, at this point.
“That’s not even the point!”
“Gabe isn’t Pete!”
Oh. Sisky gives him a shaky smile and Gabe stops listening. “They always make up. Don’t feel bad.”
Mike and William eventually reappear from the bunks, refusing to so much as look in one another’s direction. Mike gives Gabe the kind of look that makes verbalizing his threat entirely unnecessary. Gabe can respect that.
He winds up in bed with William the next day-hotel night, most of which Gabe spends trying to focus on pales kin, sharp collarbones, and perfect hips, and not the hands that got there first.
______________________
Pete and Travis meet in New York long before they’re Pete and Travis, but they’re never all that close until one New York night, when Pete finds himself strangely drawn to the smell of Travis’s aftershave, and wondering when his type expanded to include boys that actually look like, well, boys.
Travis is hot, so Pete doesn’t over-think the situation. (Yeah, they fuck.)
Afterwards, they talk for hours and Pete wonders what the hell he was thinking not doing this with Travis the minute they met. They’ve got things in common; Travis is fucked up like Pete is fucked up.
It works, so it becomes a thing. They’re not in love and they’re not trying to be; the sex is a natural extension of the friendship, perfect in how much and how little it means.
Fall Out Boy is coming through Jersey, and it’s Gabe’s turn to provide the entertainment. For all the disdain New Yorkers are supposed to have for New Jersey, half the state’s music scene seems to be crowded into Gabe’s house. Pete is suitably impressed.
He is decidedly unimpressed when the host vanishes a few hours into the night, leaving his first official band member and basement-dweller, one Nate Novarro, who Pete has just recently been introduced to, in charge of the whole shebang.
Pete eventually gives up on getting any more Gabe-time, and goes looking for Travis, who he got about five minutes worth of face-time with about two hours ago. He’s tipsy and feels whiny and abandoned. Travis wouldn’t judge.
That course of action, however, proves to be faulty when Travis is nowhere to be found. Pete doesn’t sulk so much as he consciously refuses to have a good time. Gabe’s Jersey friends keep giving him funny looks.
When Gabe and Travis finally turn up, Pete wishes they hadn’t. He spots them off by themselves in a corner, lost to the world, talking in low, serious voices about something that must be profound. Pete senses, immediately, that theirs is not the kind of intimacy that can be built up in a day, or even a year.
Pete is filled with bitterness at the knowledge that this time around, Gabe got there first.
On the bright side, Nate, while not technically old enough to be at the party, turns out to be a fantastic host.
________________________
It’s Warped, and Pete is in love.
“It’s too hot,” he tells Mikey sincerely, before pressing closer and nuzzling into his neck. He’s got no regard for sweat.
Mikey covers one of Pete’s hands with his own and kisses the top of his head. “I don’t care, either.”
Mikey is more problems than Pete knows how to fix, and Pete isn’t in such great shape himself, but the sun burns in the sky, and the bands always play loud. None of it matters.
Later, Pete will remember the summer as a blur he spent in a bubble of Mikey-his voice, his face, his hips. He will remember how everyone (bar the internet) just left them alone and wonder why. (Even later, he will find out that took the combined efforts of everyone they knew on tour. “The two of you deserved a summer,” Patrick will tell him, something fierce to his eyes, but that won’t be for years.)
They’re alone in the lounge kissing like they’re alone in the world. Pete is coaxing up the hem of Mikey’s shirt, inch by gradual inch, (Pete’s own shirt has long-since fallen to the wayside, that is, behind the couch); Mikey (most likely, Pete can’t exactly see his face, on account of being attached to it) rolls his eyes and undoes Pete’s pants. The boy is nowhere near as innocent as he looks; Pete loves that.
Of course, the second he actually gets Mikey’s shirt off and start mouthing his way towards that spot just about his collarbone, Pete’s phone rings. They both jump at the vibration, and the next thirty seconds become a mad rush to get the thing out of his pocket. “Motherfucker. Why does this always happen?”
“I know.” Mikey’s usual lack of inflection is in effect, but the dark, flustered look in his eyes gives away just how displeased he is at the interruption. It’s also seriously hot. Pete answers the phone like he’s about to find out the name of his next victim.
It’s Gabe. “Woah, Pete. ‘Trick kick you in the balls again?”
“Not exactly.”
(“Who is it?” Mikey mouths. He’s still on the couch, reaching up to trace the elastic of Pete’s boxer-briefs, every-so-often brushing over his hipbones.)
“You sound pissed, at any rate. I’m calling to compare tour schedules,” (“Gabe Saporta,” Pete whispers) “Oh, I get it! You’re busy, Why’d you pick up, man? That’s kind of kinky. Call me back if we match up anywhere.” Gabe hangs up; Mikey bites Pete’s hipbone.
“You know him?” Pete playfully swats groping hands away and drapes himself back over Mikey, determined to finish what they started.
“Um, yeah…Jersey.” Mikey laughs absurdly and blushes, “We, um-” he stammers, looks down, blushes, and stammers some more; the message comes across pretty clearly.
“You’re cute,” Pete tells him. He brushes his thumb over Mikey’s cheekbone and touches their noses together, before trying, once again, to drown the helpless fluttering he’s felt in his chest since they started this thing with a kiss.
Pete’s in love; he doesn’t care.
______________________
“We’ll always have Paris,” Pete cracks, choking out the words because he has to say something-the world just stopped; he has to say something.
Mikey laughs like he’s about to cry and doesn’t say anything more; there’s nothing more to say.
Mikey shows himself out and Pete is alone. For a moment, he’s choking on it, grief and that desperate sense of loneliness shoved down his throat. He’s not even sure he’s breathing.
The phone rings; it takes Pete a while to hear it over the sound of the blood pounding in his ears, and he doesn’t want to pick it up anyway, but answering the phone is pretty much an instinct. He’s sitting on the floor, only he doesn’t remember sitting down.
“Hey Pete!” Gabe sounds excited about something, “I got me a new keytarist! I think this one is sane!”
“Oh-hey, yeah. That’s awesome.” The words trip over one another. Pete doesn’t sound calm like he wanted at all.
“Hey-you okay?”
“Yeah, I’m,” Pete starts lying, but even he can’t pull this one off, “-no, I’m-Mikey…he, he left-” he can’t keep talking, but that has to be enough.
“Shit,” Gabe says, “When?”
“Just now, I think, maybe. It could have been hours ago.”
“Okay. Are you-are you alone?”
“Yeah.” His own voice sounds foreign, high and strained.
“Here’s what you’ve gotta do: get off the phone with me and call Patrick. He’ll come right over.”
“’Trick is in the studio. He won’t-his phone’ll be off.”
“Fuck,” he starts thinking out loud, “No one knows where the fuck Bill’s holed up, and who the fuck else is good with this shit?” a pause, “You know what? Fuck it. Chicago’s not that far away. I’ll be on the next flight. Just sit right where you are, maybe lie down for a while. Don’t-just stay put.”
Pete does; it’s not like he’s thinking very clearly or capable of much else but sitting there, focusing on breaths. The minutes all blur together.
Later, but Pete doesn’t know when, there’s a knock on the door. It’s Gabe, and Pete really didn’t think enough time had passed.
“Yeah, I know,” Gabe tells him, forcing a smile, “That was unnaturally fast,” he carefully sets a large backpack on the floor, “Someone at the airport’s daughter is a fan. I got on a plane that practically had its wheels off the ground.”
Pete doesn’t say anything, but lets Gabe crush him into a tight hug.
“Hey-you’ll be okay,” Gabe pulls a huge bottle of Jack out of the backpack, “No one listens to your sorrows like Jack.”
Pete likes the idea. They sit on the floor and don’t bother with glasses. He doesn’t say a word until they’ve made a noticeable dent in the bottle. Pete holds it to his chest when he says, “I introduced them,” another swig, “He says he still loves me, but he won’t get better if he stays. Do you think she can make him better?’
Pete watches Gabe with expectant eyes. The weight of the question is in the air, on his shoulders, “I think,” Gabe is careful with his words-he can’t make Pete worse, “No one can save anyone. But Alicia’s got her head on straight. She’s got a much better shot at straightening him out than a fucked up guy like one of us would.”
Pete bites his lip and takes another drink, before passing the bottle. “I think…I can live with that. Man, he better fucking get his shit together.”
“Yeah, I’ll fucking drink to that.” And he does.
_________________________
The numb shock passes quickly and the heartbreak follows it, eventually. Pete realizes what everyone else knew from the start: he and Mikey were always meant to burn bright and fade fast.
Pete and Gabe become understandably close after the little post-breakup episode. No one questions how much they suddenly talk on the phone or the “epic” Cobra Starship and Fall Out Boy hangout they’re planning for some mythical weekend both bands are off tour.
By the time the hangout actually takes place, the number of people Pete has slept with since Mikey is in the double-digits, and he’s making James Dean jokes when they text-that is to say, it’s next summer.
“We’re like, in teams,” Gabe observes. It’s true; Cobras are on one side of the room, on the couch and up leaned up against the wall; Fall out Boy is facing them.
“We could totally play dodgeball, or something.” Predictably, this suggestion comes from Pete.
Ryland shakes his head, “We’re uneven. It would go against my natural sense of fairness and justice.”
“Please,” Pete retorts, “We could totally take you.”
“We’re like seven feet taller than you,” Alex points out in his most diplomatic tone.
Joe corrects him. “Not Nate!”
“Hey!”
“Sorry man,” Gabe says, “It’s true. It’s okay, though, you’ve got the spirit of the Cobra in you.”
Nate looks sufficiently comforted.
“You know, you being bigger than us just means there’s more of you to aim at,” Andy intones, calculating look in his eyes.
Everyone considers this for a moment, until Patrick glares and tells them all, “We are not playing dodgeball.”
It’s silent until Pete grins that “I’m about to say something really stupid” smile he’s got. “How about capture the flag?” He gets punched in the arm for that, but it’s worth it.
The conversation dies again soon after; it’s hot, they’re tired, and Joe is really stoned. Pete and Gabe start talking about pie, of all things, and Alex and Ryland slip away into “we’ve been best friends forever” world. It’s not a very productive hangout-certainly not the stuff of legends Pete and Gabe were going on and on about.
“Can we start drinking yet?” Nate asks, after a while, “It’s late enough somewhere.”
“No!” Victoria tells him, “We all agreed, just this once, we’re waiting until night, like vaguely normal people!”
Roughly at the same time, Pete looks up from his conversation with Gabe to tell Nate, “A most excellent idea. Pretty and smart, I like that in a boy.”
Nate is too busy giving Pete a suitably unimpressed look to argue with Victoria. Gabe wraps a protective arm around Nate’s shoulder. No one talks until Victoria throws her hands up in frustration. “You have got to be kidding me.”
“I’m with the lady,” Patrick agrees.
Gabe and Pete look around the room, thoroughly confused, though no one else seems to be.
Alex studies their faces. “Seriously, guys?”
Even Joe manages an incredulous eyebrow raise.
Ryland just sighs. “I’m going to say this because no one else will-believe me, I have no desire to so much as think about it, but you leave me no choice. Stop fucking each other through proxies.”
Everyone walks out, and Pete and Gabe are left in the room alone.
“Hey,” Pete says, rehashing their hookup histories in his head, “That actually kind of makes sense.”
Gabe appears to be doing the same thing. “Huh. I guess they kind of have a point.”
Pete laughs because he can’t think of anything to say. Everything is suddenly very awkward, which is odd, because Pete can’t remember ever feeling awkward around Gabe before. He’s pretty sure his internal monologue is rambling, and…”Oh.”
“Seriously.” Gabe joins in on the laughter, also, for once in his life, without words.
Pete looks at his shoes; Gabe stares at the wall.
They stand like that for a few minutes. Finally, Gabe speaks. “This is fucking ridiculous.” He leans down and cups Pete’s face, giggling from the nerves and at the height difference. “I can’t believe I never realized…” He trails off, and then presses their mouths together. It’s just tentative at first, but the kiss deepens quickly. Pete tips his head back to make the angle less awkward and tangles a hand in Gabe’s hair, anchoring him in place.
It’s hot and just a little bit messy, just the way he likes to kiss. They stay like that for a very long time.
_____________________
So, the epic hangout didn’t go exactly as planned, but lying in bed with his head on Gabe’s chest, watching Gabe trace his tattoos, and shuddering a little whenever calloused fingertips brush over a sensitive spot, Pete isn’t exactly complaining.
“Do you think we were really trying to get to each other, all those years?” Gabe asks.
“Maybe,” Pete says, grabbing Gabe’s hand and interlacing their fingers when he gets to the bartskull, “…Probably, and you can do that one later.”
Gabe pouts a little and settles for a quick kiss. “Man, at least we know we’ll never have problems agreeing on a third.”
Pete thinks about that for a moment. “On second thought, we need to make up for lost time. You can get back to that tattoo.”