Arms of victory! Shoulders of apology!
Um, about three (four? Four and a half? Let's call it five, for safety.) months after the fact:
Dear joyfulseeker,
Happy Incredibly Late Birthday! I said there would be fic, and I did not lie. It just - mutated. *beams proudly at the Brundlefly fic*
Love,
Elle
Dear everybody else,
A general warning that this is bandslash, and you should feel free to shun me. If you feel that I need sympathy and care rather than defriending, I find that delicious cookies are the best way to express this. wenchpixie gets a free pass on the cookies and caring because she bought me a ghost! Hurrah! Thank you, bebe. I will get right back on the J2 after this. Promise.
Love,
Elle
Title:
Fandom: Fall Out Boy RPS
Pairing: Patrick/Pete
Rating: R (for bad language, mainly)
Disclaimer: I do not own these people, or the rights to the Wii LightSaber sadly, or Ewoks, or Chewbacca. Nor do I believe that any of these events occurred. Pete Wentz, hit the backbutton right now, and stop making Patrick read fanfiction. It's just wrong.
Notes: Many thanks to megyal for the beta, and the encouraging words. I'm very grateful.
Nobody Wants Reality Tour 2010
"So me and Vicky are thinking of getting married," Patrick says ultra-casually, and looks around the hotel suite to gauge his bandmates' reactions.
Pete and Andy are wearing their finest stunned and bewildered expressions, but Andy is edging ahead on points with the slight air of anarchic disapproval he radiates. Andy still believes that institutions are an evil the world could do without, but he is too busy guiltily enjoying his vast comic collection, improved protein shakes, and the two years of domestic bliss with a hot vegan chick called Carmel, to put much effort into it.
Joe, on the other hand, is utterly oblivious and stabbing wildly in the direction of the TV with the Special Edition Wii Lightsaber.
"Joe," Patrick says, irritated. "I'm making a momentous announcement here. Me and Vicky are finally getting married, so that we can live in wedded bliss and have many fine and sturdy pop-punk babies. Pay attention, you inconsiderate dick."
"Oh hey, congratulations, dude," Joe says, vaguely, trying to keep one eye on Lego Star Wars: Chewbacca's Revenge as he looks at Patrick.
The fact that he actually manages it, Patrick thinks uncharitably, is probably an indication that Joe has spent so many years stoned that individual muscle groups have declared themselves republics and introduced independent government.
"Or hey, no. Wait. You can't," Joe says, suddenly. The abruptness of his declaration along with the fact that he has managed to make both his eyes work in concert so that his hundred yard stare swivels to focus on Patrick freaks him the fuck out, and makes him a little wary.
"Look," he says to Joe in a tone that is meant to reason and reassure and persuade Joe not to go skunk-psychotic and eat his face. "I realise that Vicky and me haven't always been- I mean, it's been very off and on. And then off-on-off-off-on. But it's been three years and my mother keeps talking about grandkids, and toaster ovens for some reason, so it just seemed like the next logical step. I know you probably have concerns and objections."
Joe snorts. "Yeah, me and the state of Massachusetts, dude."
"What?" Patrick looks around for enlightenment and maybe some back-up for an intervention, but only catches Pete shaking his head vigorously at Joe and making threatening throat-cutting gestures. He stops as soon as he notices that Patrick is watching him and tries to look innocent and nonchalant. He manages the nonchalance, but innocent is never something Pete's been able to master. Andy is peering over the top of his Wonder Woman with a sober mouth and gleaming, gleeful eyes.
"Well, bigotry, dude. It's not cool," Joe says, earnestly.
"Yeah," Patrick agrees. "Pete's spent half his life kissing dudes to defeat its insidious spread, and hey, I fully support him in his altruistic mission to make the world a better place by fucking every scene twink he signs. But I don't think that just because I want to get married to a woman, I'm a bigot... Wait, I'm confused; does it? What kind of bigotry are we talking about here?"
His brow furrows as he tries to remember if he's been discriminatory or mean recently. He can't think of anything. Generally he likes most of the people he comes across, and those he doesn't, he tries to avoid by stealth and burying himself in GarageBand. Vicky thinks it's passive-aggressive as hell, but Patrick has only ever really argued with Pete, because Pete drives him insane and is wrong in the fucking head, and sometimes Patrick thinks that arguing with someone else the way he does with Pete would feel a little like - cheating, maybe? Anyway, no one else can piss him off like Pete Wentz, so the point is pretty much moot.
Across the room, Joe's expression mirrors his own as he tries to think.
"Not bigotry," he says, triumphantly. "My bad."
"Oh, good," says Patrick, relieved.
"No, I meant bigamy," Joe says, happily, and is promptly taken down with a flying tackle from the aforementioned Pete Wentz.
"What?
"You know," Joe wheezes from behind the hand that has been clapped over his mouth, wriggling and punching wildly as he struggles to break free of Pete's determined chokehold. "From when you and Pete got gay-married?"
"WHAT?"
***************************************
"So," Pete says, from the chair into which Patrick has shoved him for the purposes of interrogation and possible torture. Patrick's sure he's got an MP3 of Stealers Wheel somewhere; he's not so sure that he can carry through on cutting Pete's ear off, but he's totally okay with fucking up his stupid emo hair. For serious. If Pete does not co-operate, then it is the fucking clippers for him. Patrick glares at his erstwhile best friend and tries not to think about the reaction from Bob and Ryan and the fangirls when he shaves Pete's head bald.
"Dude," Pete says, "Are you sure this can't wait? 'Cause I kinda had plans. Me and Dirty were going to test run the new Clandestine bikes."
Patrick raises one of Andy's drumsticks threateningly, and makes tiny, stabbing motions in the direction of Pete's face.
"Okay then." Pete leans back in the uncomfortable hotel chair, away from the pointy stick threat and Patrick's furious, disbelieving glare. "So - you remember when you got seriously shitfaced that time in Boston?"
"Boston?" Patrick says slowly. "I don't think- I mean, we haven't been through Boston in over three yea... Jesus fucking Christ!"
"Yeeeeeah," Pete says. "Look, I want to make it very clear that I said at the time that no good could come out of you doing shots when you and Vicky broke up on the Honda Civic Tour. I said it very clearly, and loudly."
"And apparently you also found time to say, 'I do'," Patrick hisses. "How could you fucking do this to me, Pete?"
"Hang on just a fucking second here," Pete says, and has the gall to look faintly injured and noble. "You're acting like I stole your maidenly virtue and then ran away, which, dude? Totally not me. I stick around and respect my deflowered virgins in the morning. I was just trying to be a good friend. There you were, all depressed and drunk - and I gotta say, man, not a good look on you, even if you do get a little handsy - which I like in a dude, by the way - and you were whining about how you were never going to get married and have kids and your life was devoid of love and meaning, and I don't know. I felt bad for you, dude, and it just kind of snowballed from there."
"It just - snowballed from there," Patrick repeats slowly.
"Yeah, ask Dirty," Pete says helpfully. "He'll back me up. It was a complete fucking shambles; you kept losing your bouquet."
"Get out," Joe says, in a tone that's almost admiring. "Patrick wasn't the groom? I was sure he'd be the groom."
Pete glares at him as he snaps, "What the fuck are you implying, Trohman? That I'm somehow less than masculine? Fuck you anyway, Joe. I may be tiny, but I am dangerous. Rakish, even. I am totally a manly man."
"The manliest man ever to wear girl's clothes and make-up," Andy agrees.
Patrick claps a hand over his mouth to muffle the inadvertent mewl of horror that claws its way free, and they all turn to look at him in concern.
"Dirty was there?" he croaks from behind his hand.
"Dude, Dirty was the best man! Isn't any of this coming back to you?" Pete demands.
Patrick feels the hot, oily rush of nausea boiling up his throat and hiccups convulsively. "I think I'm gonna be sick."
Pete grins at him, but it's too wide and a little frayed around the edges, the way it seemed to be pretty much throughout the first Honda Civic tour. Patrick hasn't seen that particular joyless grimace in a while. He'd been hoping he'd never have to again, that Pete had found some sort of balance in his life between the compulsive need to be loved and his contempt for himself and by definition anyone who actually wanted to be with him. Because how could they want to be with someone who knew that he was so utterly flawed, so self-obsessed, so constantly, emotionally casual? Pete was his own critic, his own biographer and torturer, and he used other people to hurt himself, other people and his own words. For a while, Patrick had thought Pete'd actually managed to come to terms with himself, but maybe he'd just been stupidly over-optimistic again.
"See?" Pete says, "I knew it would come back to you! That's exactly what you said after we'd signed the register. Man, you must have thrown up in every flower arrangement in the chapel. I had to slip the registrar an extra hundred bucks to shut him up. And then Dirty carried you back to the honeymoon suite."
"We- um, we didn't- Did we?" Patrick says, eyes screwed shut so that he doesn't have to meet anyone's gaze as he asks whether he and his best friend (former best friend, a grim and Puritanical voice says at the back of his brain, after this, we will shun him. Well, we'll kick him in the nuts first, it amends, but after that? Totally shunning him.) fucked on their gay wedding night three years ago.
"Dude," Pete says, genuine hurt and anger in his voice. "That's just fucked up. How can you think I'd do that to you? I wasn't going to just climb on board when you were near coma, and start humping away. Christ. Haven't you learned anything about me in the decade we've been friends, Patrick?"
"Jesus, okay! I'm sorry!" Patrick says, feeling sick and guilty as remorse starts to fracture his anger. "I'm sorry that my freak-out about our gay marriage might have led me to imply terrible things about your sexual ethics. Okay?"
"Fine," Pete says, graciously. "I accept your lameass apology. But only because Tom Cruise says you should never go to bed angry."
"Oh, God," Patrick whimpers. "Oh God, oh God, oh God. I have a husband who takes marital advice from a cradle-robbing Messiah figure. Which seems appropriate because I have a husband who is Pete Wentz. My girlfriend is going to kill me!"
Andy pats him on the shoulder and carefully relieves him of the drumsticks.
"No, this can't be true," Patrick says, rallying suddenly, for this is exactly the type of shit that Pete likes to pull in some sort of mistaken belief that he is funny as opposed to destructive and sadistic. "I don't believe you." But his heart sinks as he looks around, the realisation that it might just be true brought to bear by the fact that Joe, rather than grinning and clinging to someone in incipient glee, the way he normally does when recruited for one of Pete's pranks, is whistling the Wedding March and decapitating pixelated Ewoks with way too much enthusiasm.
"Dude," Andy says, with his vegan Zen mode switched to full. "I know this must seem like a terrible nightmare." His mouth twitches. "But it's so much worse; it's a terrible reality."
Patrick looks at Pete pathetically, aware that his bottom lip is very close to quivering. Vicky is going to go on a murder-kill rampage, he thinks despairingly.
"So we're married?"
"Little bit," says Pete.
"How can we be a little bit married?" Patrick demands. The shock and horror and residual guilt - how could he not have known about this? How could he have been so stupid? Or so drunk? - are being submerged by a fine sense of burning rage that he can feel scalding his face.
"Well, you can't," Pete confesses. "I was just trying to make you feel better. We're married lots. Dude, we are totally married."
He wriggles around in the chair, twisting his body and face into exaggerated contortions, as he digs his wallet out of the back pocket of his unfeasibly tight jeans with an air of triumph. Rifling through the crap that he seems to consider essential, ticket stubs, random phone numbers, photos of half of the people Pete has ever met, and sketches for some hideously ugly Clan merchandise, Pete eventually produces a ragged piece of paper and waves it around proudly.
"State legislature of Massachusetts approved, baby."
Patrick snatches it from him and examines it for forgery or glitter glue or any other sign that this is a patented Pete Wentz mindfuck. It looks horrifyingly real. His signature is barely legible, but it's definitely his.
He staggers back towards the couch, and sinks into the greedy clutches of the floral upholstery. Staring at his hands in blind panic, Patrick tries not to hyperventilate or think about how he's going to tell his mom that he and Pete got hitched whilst he was drunk and wearing a trucker hat, and oh my God, that makes Patrick the Britney in this marriage.
"'Trick?"
"Patrick? Blink once if you can hear me."
"Dude, are you having an episode? Do we slap him? Can I slap him? I can't remember if we're supposed to slap someone who's catatonic. Or is that sleepwalking?"
"Jesus, Joe," Andy says. "Seriously, it's a good thing you ignored your parents and went for music instead of medicine."
"Everything I learned about treatment for shock, I learned from Max Bialystock," Joe says, vaguely.
"Everything I learned about tangents, I learned from you two," says Pete. "Do you think you could fucking focus on the problem at hand?"
Patrick is dimly aware of the squabble going on as his bandmates hover over him anxiously.
"What, you mean the fact that you've finally managed to break our singer?" he hears Andy say from a long way away. "Congratulations, Pete, this is one of your best fuck-ups ever."
"Duh-d-d-duh-duh-duh," Patrick burbles.
"Hah! See? He's not broken," says Pete, triumphantly. "Suck it, Hurley. Some people would give their right arm to be married to me; I am a motherfucking catch."
"These hypothetical one-armed people are mentally stable and sober, huh?" Andy asks with more than the recommended daily amount of irony running through his voice.
"Oh, fuck right off," Pete says.
"Duh-duh-duh-"
"Hey, you guys, I think he's trying to tell us something," Joe says, and pushes his face close to Patrick's, patting at his hat and crooning, "What's that, Skippy? There's a kid trapped in a mine three miles away? With a compound fracture of the left radius?"
"Joe," Pete snaps. "Stop playing with Patrick."
"No, that's your job, isn't it?" Andy says, sounding genuinely angry now. "Jesus Christ, Pete, I thought you were kidding about this entire thing. How could you not tell him about this?"
"I was waiting for the right moment." Pete sounds terse and defensive, the way he'd been when he'd first rejoined them after the thing at Best Buy, uncharacteristically unable or unwilling to articulate why he'd just needed everything to stop for a minute or two, and burning with rage and resentment that he should have to talk to anyone about it.
"Which, ideally, would have been the morning after, when he was sober and you could have had the whole thing annulled."
"I didn't want to get it annulled," Pete says, sulkily. "Annulment's a fucking cop-out, man. It's like no harm, no foul. If you're going to end something, it should be painful and, and bitter. There should be consequences to it."
There's a moment of silence over Patrick's head, but Joe is filling the void by patting his shoulder, and singing softly, the lisp slipping and slurring over the lyrics, "Skippy, Skippy, Skippy the bush stumparoo-"
Patrick thinks distantly that they should throw Joe into the studio and make him record a song about kangaroos as a hidden track on the next album. If, he realises in dawning horror, there is a next album. There has to be a way to fix this, and it probably doesn't involve strangling Pete, even though it's incredibly tempting and has never really steered Patrick wrong before.
When Andy finally speaks again, he sounds bewildered. "You weren't going to say anything?"
"Not unless I really had to." Even without looking up, Patrick knows that Pete's mouth and eyes are as flat as his tone.
"That doesn't even make sense," says Andy. "But then that's never been your strong point. Just- I don't even- You very rarely do anything out of the pure and spotless goodness of your heart, Pete, and yeah, okay, Uganda. But that was the exception to the rule, man, and we all know it. So what in Christ's name possessed you to get married to Patrick, and then not tell him about it?"
There's silence.
"Unless," Andy says slowly, "Unless you really wanted to marry Patrick. And, and you wanted to stay mar-"
"Andy, you're a good- No, a great drummer. But you're just a drummer, not Sigmund fucking Freud," Pete says viciously. "So why don't you stick with drumming, and boring everyone around you with your fucking ethics, and leave the thinking to those of us who can actually take the strain?"
"Huh," says Andy, and it's impossible to tell whether it's a response to Pete's attack or his own thoughts. "I see. Carry on. Try not to fuck this up any further."
"Yeah, thanks for those words of encouragement," says Pete. "Patrick? Joe, take your finger out of his ear; he's not your husband. Wife. Whatever. Patrick, say something."
"Dud- duh," Patrick says, and then pulls himself together. He is a grown man, and yeah, okay, he's a grown man who wants to cry like a little girl, but still. He's totally not going to. Um, until maybe later when he's had some time to himself, a large drink - although maybe not, he's never drinking again, next time, he could end up married to Gabe - and three cans of chocolate frosting. Desperate times, he thinks, and looks Pete straight in his sober, concerned, lying eyes, and says, "Divorce. I want a divorce."
Pete and Andy freeze above him, and Joe breathes out an, "Oh, shit" against his cheek.
Andy's gaze flicks worriedly between Patrick and Pete's expressionless face like a metronome; Patrick's always admired Andy's sense of rhythm, but he could do without it now as it beats out the silence.
Eventually Pete breaks it, and his voice is as carefully blank as his face. "You don't believe in divorce, Patrick."
Patrick looks desperately for the words to explain why this is the best way, the only way they can save their relationship, but Pete's always been the one first there with the words for songs and journals and explanations. It makes his three year muteness even more ironic. Patrick snorts a little damply.
"Oh, I do," he says. "I really, really do."
There's another moment of quiet before Pete folds his arms, drawing his hands back up the sleeves of his hoodie, and purses his lips.
"Okay then."
"Look, I just don't - Wait. Okay? What?"
"I said, okay," says Pete, and rolls his eyes. "Jesus, next time I'm marrying someone quicker on the uptake. Maybe Stephen Colbert. I could totally get Stephen Colbert, right?"
"Yeah, Pete," Andy says, quietly, with something like sympathy in his eyes. "You can get anyone you like."
Pete's mouth quirks in a brief imitation of a smile as he says, "Thanks, man." He rubs a shrouded hand up and down his other arm, and shivers before grinning more widely, if no more believably, and saying, "And next time, you'll be my flower girl, won't you?"
"Don't push it," Andy says. "I'm not getting into a dress again for anyone, not even you, Pete Wentz-Colbert."
"Okay," says Pete, and swallows. "Okay. Let's go get dehitched. I'll call Bob and tell him to get the lawyers working very quietly on it. I want it made very clear, though, that I want the house and custody of the kids."
"Joint custody," Patrick says, weakly. There's a terrible, desolate desperation creeping up the back of his throat like bile, and all he knows is that he's losing Pete somehow, when he didn't even know that Pete belonged to him, that he belonged to Pete, under law, under oath. Jesus. He needs to re-establish some sort of connection before Pete breaks them, and himself, apart.
He holds a hand out to Pete. Pete stares at it for a minute.
Patrick's fingers want to flex and seize and shake, long before Pete slowly reaches and grasps his hand to pull him up from the couch.
"Yeah, okay," says Pete. "But I want alimony too. I'm not gonna be this pretty forever."
"Dude, Pete," Patrick says, weak with relief. "I was always going to keep you in the style to which you've become accustomed."
It's awkward, it feels awkward, but he pulls Pete towards him and puts his other arm around him. It takes a little while for Pete to hug him back anything more than carefully, politely, and that's so wrong that it makes Patrick swallow convulsively, the taste of iron and salt in his mouth.
"I was always going to keep you," Patrick mutters miserably into Pete's shoulders, and Pete's arms finally, finally tighten.
"Yeah, me too," he murmurs back, and curls a hand round the back of Patrick's neck.
They pull apart, and Patrick should see it coming; after all, it's been a major feature of their friendship, not to mention their stage show, for over eight years, but he really doesn't expect Pete to lean in and press his mouth to Patrick's own. It's damp, and soft, and surprisingly clumsy for a self-proclaimed make-out king, but in spite of that - no, Patrick thinks distantly and without shame, because of that - his mouth softens and heats in response, and he leans into it. After the fact, he'll deny that it was permission but Pete has always taken a mile where an inch has been casually suggested and Patrick knows it and so do Joe and Andy, and so does anyone who's ever heard of Pete Wentz. So there's no point, not any more, in making a joke of it or holding back when Pete's mouth twists against his and his tongue traces lies and truth over Patrick's, as surely as it ever traced them over glossy pages and splintered love affairs. All he can do is suck in a breath and hope that Pete reads none of the lies, and only some of the truth, in what he gives back in the frantic, burning kisses that tangle them together.
Moments, minutes, eons are lost in the hot, wet catch and slide of lips and tongue before he's pulled back to reality by Andy clearing his throat insistently. Pulling back, he can see Andy's worried face, and beyond him, Joe biting his fingers in glee like an eleven year old girl.
"Um," says Andy, as Pete buries his head in Patrick's neck, breathing in. "I don't want to sound like a prude, dude-"
"Prude, dude," echoes Joe, quietly in the background, and giggles.
"But are you still set on getting divorced? Because I don't think I'm old enough to see this marital arts shit, and I know Joe's not."
"I-" Patrick stops. Pete is still plastered to him, but the gusts of air panting against his neck have almost stopped. "I don't-", he says helplessly.
Pete pulls away, and his face is inexplicably serene.
"Don't worry about it," he says. "Seriously. I'm not going to- I know this was never what you wanted."
Patrick nods dumbly.
"So I'm just gonna go and confront the other woman," says Pete. "Pull some hair, threaten a beatdown, that sort of shit, and then we can get on with the divorce."
His mouth tries for a reassuring smile, but almost by default slides into a Wentz grimace. Pete clears his throat, and heads for the door, already pulling out his Sidekick to call Bob and his demon army of lawyers.
It closes quietly, unnaturally quietly, behind him and Patrick exhales shakily as he turns back into the room, tugging his hat down over his eyes. It doesn't do a thing to protect him from the incredulous, accusing glares of Andy and Joe, who are looking at him like he just set fire to a three-legged puppy.
"What?" he snaps, defiantly. "What did you think was going to happen?"
"I thought you'd be the grown-up here, Patrick," Andy says, and has the gall to look disappointed in him.
"What? Seriously, what?" Patrick sputters. "In case you missed it, Andy, I've been misled, and lied to, and, and involved in legal contracts of which I had no conscious knowledge. Which is itself illegal, I believe! Jesus, who gets married and then keeps it secret for three fucking years?"
Andy looks at him like he's profoundly stupid, and points out, "This is Pete we're talking about, right? Short, tattooed, emotionally retarded?"
"Has proclaimed his love for you on the internets since 2003?" Joe says.
"Shut up," Patrick says weakly.
"You kind of already knew you were married to the guy. Sort of," Joe adds, and makes yearning eyes at the Wii. "What's the problem? Now you get to have the sex. Just - break up with Vicky again. It's not hard; you've already done it, like, seventeen times."
"It actually physically hurts me to admit that he's making sense," Andy says. "You do realise that Pete's going to apologise to Bob and Vicky right now?"
"Oh, shit," says Patrick, and runs for the door.
Pete is halfway down the brightly lit hotel corridor, hooded and hunched like a Jedi who's decided fuck this shit, at least the Dark Side has motherfucking cookies, and Patrick knows that this is going to take some talking through. Like - years of talking through, and compromise, and couples therapy, and lyrics that Patrick will refuse to let Pete use ever because God knows he's not having his marriage out there for every fan to parse. He also knows as he hurries towards Pete, biting his own lip against a helpless smile, that he's mostly, kind of, completely okay with that.
"Hey," he says, breathlessly. "Pete. Pete, hold up."
He grabs for Pete's shoulder and hauls him round.
"Stop," he says firmly.
"I am!" Pete says, looking outraged and bewildered. "I have! I've surrendered the field, given up the ghost, admitted defeat. Fly free, little friend!" He waves the Sidekick at Patrick as proof.
"No, I mean - Stop," says Patrick, and takes the phone from him to tell an irate and highly vocal Bob, "Sorry, wrong number".
He hears Bob shout, "I know that's you, Patrick, you little bastard! You tell Wentz I'm naming my fucking ulcer after hi-" before he jams his thumb down on the end button.
Pete is watching him narrowly, arms crossed. "What are you doing?" he says, flatly. "I'm sorry, okay? I'm more sorry than you will ever, ever know, but fucking with my head is not gonna-"
"Oh, shut up," says Patrick, and miraculously Pete does, although he's really working the non-verbal communication with the scowl and the defensively crossed arms. "It turns out that I really don't believe in divorce."
"Look, I don't - Wait. What?"
Patrick rolls his eyes, and says with far too much enjoyment, "Jesus, next time I'm marrying someone quicker on the uptake."
Pete is grinning back at him, and says, "Nuh-uh, dude, you already said! You can't get married to someone else now. That would be bigotry!"
"Uh-huh," Patrick says, dryly. "Come on, I'm going to give you a free pass on carrying me over the threshold, but you're going to be the one that breaks the news to Bob tomorrow."
"Um," Pete says, and wow, hesitation is a new look on him. "How about Vicky?"
"I'll tell Vicky," says Patrick, grimly. "Tomorrow. When I've sorted out what I'm going to say, and a security detail." He herds an uncharacteristically obedient Pete back towards the suite, where Joe and Andy are hovering in the doorway, trying to look casual and not at all anxious or nosy. They are terrible, terrible actors, and fucking amazing friends. He scowls at them all the same and says, "You assholes got anything to say?"
Andy shrugs, but Joe grins hugely at Pete and Patrick.
"Mazel tov, dudes!"
Dear joyfulseeker,
Happy Incredibly Late Birthday! I said there would be fic, and I did not lie. It just - mutated. *beams proudly at the Brundlefly fic*
Love,
Elle
Dear everybody else,
A general warning that this is bandslash, and you should feel free to shun me. If you feel that I need sympathy and care rather than defriending, I find that delicious cookies are the best way to express this. wenchpixie gets a free pass on the cookies and caring because she bought me a ghost! Hurrah! Thank you, bebe. I will get right back on the J2 after this. Promise.
Love,
Elle
Title:
Fandom: Fall Out Boy RPS
Pairing: Patrick/Pete
Rating: R (for bad language, mainly)
Disclaimer: I do not own these people, or the rights to the Wii LightSaber sadly, or Ewoks, or Chewbacca. Nor do I believe that any of these events occurred. Pete Wentz, hit the backbutton right now, and stop making Patrick read fanfiction. It's just wrong.
Notes: Many thanks to megyal for the beta, and the encouraging words. I'm very grateful.
Nobody Wants Reality Tour 2010
"So me and Vicky are thinking of getting married," Patrick says ultra-casually, and looks around the hotel suite to gauge his bandmates' reactions.
Pete and Andy are wearing their finest stunned and bewildered expressions, but Andy is edging ahead on points with the slight air of anarchic disapproval he radiates. Andy still believes that institutions are an evil the world could do without, but he is too busy guiltily enjoying his vast comic collection, improved protein shakes, and the two years of domestic bliss with a hot vegan chick called Carmel, to put much effort into it.
Joe, on the other hand, is utterly oblivious and stabbing wildly in the direction of the TV with the Special Edition Wii Lightsaber.
"Joe," Patrick says, irritated. "I'm making a momentous announcement here. Me and Vicky are finally getting married, so that we can live in wedded bliss and have many fine and sturdy pop-punk babies. Pay attention, you inconsiderate dick."
"Oh hey, congratulations, dude," Joe says, vaguely, trying to keep one eye on Lego Star Wars: Chewbacca's Revenge as he looks at Patrick.
The fact that he actually manages it, Patrick thinks uncharitably, is probably an indication that Joe has spent so many years stoned that individual muscle groups have declared themselves republics and introduced independent government.
"Or hey, no. Wait. You can't," Joe says, suddenly. The abruptness of his declaration along with the fact that he has managed to make both his eyes work in concert so that his hundred yard stare swivels to focus on Patrick freaks him the fuck out, and makes him a little wary.
"Look," he says to Joe in a tone that is meant to reason and reassure and persuade Joe not to go skunk-psychotic and eat his face. "I realise that Vicky and me haven't always been- I mean, it's been very off and on. And then off-on-off-off-on. But it's been three years and my mother keeps talking about grandkids, and toaster ovens for some reason, so it just seemed like the next logical step. I know you probably have concerns and objections."
Joe snorts. "Yeah, me and the state of Massachusetts, dude."
"What?" Patrick looks around for enlightenment and maybe some back-up for an intervention, but only catches Pete shaking his head vigorously at Joe and making threatening throat-cutting gestures. He stops as soon as he notices that Patrick is watching him and tries to look innocent and nonchalant. He manages the nonchalance, but innocent is never something Pete's been able to master. Andy is peering over the top of his Wonder Woman with a sober mouth and gleaming, gleeful eyes.
"Well, bigotry, dude. It's not cool," Joe says, earnestly.
"Yeah," Patrick agrees. "Pete's spent half his life kissing dudes to defeat its insidious spread, and hey, I fully support him in his altruistic mission to make the world a better place by fucking every scene twink he signs. But I don't think that just because I want to get married to a woman, I'm a bigot... Wait, I'm confused; does it? What kind of bigotry are we talking about here?"
His brow furrows as he tries to remember if he's been discriminatory or mean recently. He can't think of anything. Generally he likes most of the people he comes across, and those he doesn't, he tries to avoid by stealth and burying himself in GarageBand. Vicky thinks it's passive-aggressive as hell, but Patrick has only ever really argued with Pete, because Pete drives him insane and is wrong in the fucking head, and sometimes Patrick thinks that arguing with someone else the way he does with Pete would feel a little like - cheating, maybe? Anyway, no one else can piss him off like Pete Wentz, so the point is pretty much moot.
Across the room, Joe's expression mirrors his own as he tries to think.
"Not bigotry," he says, triumphantly. "My bad."
"Oh, good," says Patrick, relieved.
"No, I meant bigamy," Joe says, happily, and is promptly taken down with a flying tackle from the aforementioned Pete Wentz.
"What?
"You know," Joe wheezes from behind the hand that has been clapped over his mouth, wriggling and punching wildly as he struggles to break free of Pete's determined chokehold. "From when you and Pete got gay-married?"
"WHAT?"
***************************************
"So," Pete says, from the chair into which Patrick has shoved him for the purposes of interrogation and possible torture. Patrick's sure he's got an MP3 of Stealers Wheel somewhere; he's not so sure that he can carry through on cutting Pete's ear off, but he's totally okay with fucking up his stupid emo hair. For serious. If Pete does not co-operate, then it is the fucking clippers for him. Patrick glares at his erstwhile best friend and tries not to think about the reaction from Bob and Ryan and the fangirls when he shaves Pete's head bald.
"Dude," Pete says, "Are you sure this can't wait? 'Cause I kinda had plans. Me and Dirty were going to test run the new Clandestine bikes."
Patrick raises one of Andy's drumsticks threateningly, and makes tiny, stabbing motions in the direction of Pete's face.
"Okay then." Pete leans back in the uncomfortable hotel chair, away from the pointy stick threat and Patrick's furious, disbelieving glare. "So - you remember when you got seriously shitfaced that time in Boston?"
"Boston?" Patrick says slowly. "I don't think- I mean, we haven't been through Boston in over three yea... Jesus fucking Christ!"
"Yeeeeeah," Pete says. "Look, I want to make it very clear that I said at the time that no good could come out of you doing shots when you and Vicky broke up on the Honda Civic Tour. I said it very clearly, and loudly."
"And apparently you also found time to say, 'I do'," Patrick hisses. "How could you fucking do this to me, Pete?"
"Hang on just a fucking second here," Pete says, and has the gall to look faintly injured and noble. "You're acting like I stole your maidenly virtue and then ran away, which, dude? Totally not me. I stick around and respect my deflowered virgins in the morning. I was just trying to be a good friend. There you were, all depressed and drunk - and I gotta say, man, not a good look on you, even if you do get a little handsy - which I like in a dude, by the way - and you were whining about how you were never going to get married and have kids and your life was devoid of love and meaning, and I don't know. I felt bad for you, dude, and it just kind of snowballed from there."
"It just - snowballed from there," Patrick repeats slowly.
"Yeah, ask Dirty," Pete says helpfully. "He'll back me up. It was a complete fucking shambles; you kept losing your bouquet."
"Get out," Joe says, in a tone that's almost admiring. "Patrick wasn't the groom? I was sure he'd be the groom."
Pete glares at him as he snaps, "What the fuck are you implying, Trohman? That I'm somehow less than masculine? Fuck you anyway, Joe. I may be tiny, but I am dangerous. Rakish, even. I am totally a manly man."
"The manliest man ever to wear girl's clothes and make-up," Andy agrees.
Patrick claps a hand over his mouth to muffle the inadvertent mewl of horror that claws its way free, and they all turn to look at him in concern.
"Dirty was there?" he croaks from behind his hand.
"Dude, Dirty was the best man! Isn't any of this coming back to you?" Pete demands.
Patrick feels the hot, oily rush of nausea boiling up his throat and hiccups convulsively. "I think I'm gonna be sick."
Pete grins at him, but it's too wide and a little frayed around the edges, the way it seemed to be pretty much throughout the first Honda Civic tour. Patrick hasn't seen that particular joyless grimace in a while. He'd been hoping he'd never have to again, that Pete had found some sort of balance in his life between the compulsive need to be loved and his contempt for himself and by definition anyone who actually wanted to be with him. Because how could they want to be with someone who knew that he was so utterly flawed, so self-obsessed, so constantly, emotionally casual? Pete was his own critic, his own biographer and torturer, and he used other people to hurt himself, other people and his own words. For a while, Patrick had thought Pete'd actually managed to come to terms with himself, but maybe he'd just been stupidly over-optimistic again.
"See?" Pete says, "I knew it would come back to you! That's exactly what you said after we'd signed the register. Man, you must have thrown up in every flower arrangement in the chapel. I had to slip the registrar an extra hundred bucks to shut him up. And then Dirty carried you back to the honeymoon suite."
"We- um, we didn't- Did we?" Patrick says, eyes screwed shut so that he doesn't have to meet anyone's gaze as he asks whether he and his best friend (former best friend, a grim and Puritanical voice says at the back of his brain, after this, we will shun him. Well, we'll kick him in the nuts first, it amends, but after that? Totally shunning him.) fucked on their gay wedding night three years ago.
"Dude," Pete says, genuine hurt and anger in his voice. "That's just fucked up. How can you think I'd do that to you? I wasn't going to just climb on board when you were near coma, and start humping away. Christ. Haven't you learned anything about me in the decade we've been friends, Patrick?"
"Jesus, okay! I'm sorry!" Patrick says, feeling sick and guilty as remorse starts to fracture his anger. "I'm sorry that my freak-out about our gay marriage might have led me to imply terrible things about your sexual ethics. Okay?"
"Fine," Pete says, graciously. "I accept your lameass apology. But only because Tom Cruise says you should never go to bed angry."
"Oh, God," Patrick whimpers. "Oh God, oh God, oh God. I have a husband who takes marital advice from a cradle-robbing Messiah figure. Which seems appropriate because I have a husband who is Pete Wentz. My girlfriend is going to kill me!"
Andy pats him on the shoulder and carefully relieves him of the drumsticks.
"No, this can't be true," Patrick says, rallying suddenly, for this is exactly the type of shit that Pete likes to pull in some sort of mistaken belief that he is funny as opposed to destructive and sadistic. "I don't believe you." But his heart sinks as he looks around, the realisation that it might just be true brought to bear by the fact that Joe, rather than grinning and clinging to someone in incipient glee, the way he normally does when recruited for one of Pete's pranks, is whistling the Wedding March and decapitating pixelated Ewoks with way too much enthusiasm.
"Dude," Andy says, with his vegan Zen mode switched to full. "I know this must seem like a terrible nightmare." His mouth twitches. "But it's so much worse; it's a terrible reality."
Patrick looks at Pete pathetically, aware that his bottom lip is very close to quivering. Vicky is going to go on a murder-kill rampage, he thinks despairingly.
"So we're married?"
"Little bit," says Pete.
"How can we be a little bit married?" Patrick demands. The shock and horror and residual guilt - how could he not have known about this? How could he have been so stupid? Or so drunk? - are being submerged by a fine sense of burning rage that he can feel scalding his face.
"Well, you can't," Pete confesses. "I was just trying to make you feel better. We're married lots. Dude, we are totally married."
He wriggles around in the chair, twisting his body and face into exaggerated contortions, as he digs his wallet out of the back pocket of his unfeasibly tight jeans with an air of triumph. Rifling through the crap that he seems to consider essential, ticket stubs, random phone numbers, photos of half of the people Pete has ever met, and sketches for some hideously ugly Clan merchandise, Pete eventually produces a ragged piece of paper and waves it around proudly.
"State legislature of Massachusetts approved, baby."
Patrick snatches it from him and examines it for forgery or glitter glue or any other sign that this is a patented Pete Wentz mindfuck. It looks horrifyingly real. His signature is barely legible, but it's definitely his.
He staggers back towards the couch, and sinks into the greedy clutches of the floral upholstery. Staring at his hands in blind panic, Patrick tries not to hyperventilate or think about how he's going to tell his mom that he and Pete got hitched whilst he was drunk and wearing a trucker hat, and oh my God, that makes Patrick the Britney in this marriage.
"'Trick?"
"Patrick? Blink once if you can hear me."
"Dude, are you having an episode? Do we slap him? Can I slap him? I can't remember if we're supposed to slap someone who's catatonic. Or is that sleepwalking?"
"Jesus, Joe," Andy says. "Seriously, it's a good thing you ignored your parents and went for music instead of medicine."
"Everything I learned about treatment for shock, I learned from Max Bialystock," Joe says, vaguely.
"Everything I learned about tangents, I learned from you two," says Pete. "Do you think you could fucking focus on the problem at hand?"
Patrick is dimly aware of the squabble going on as his bandmates hover over him anxiously.
"What, you mean the fact that you've finally managed to break our singer?" he hears Andy say from a long way away. "Congratulations, Pete, this is one of your best fuck-ups ever."
"Duh-d-d-duh-duh-duh," Patrick burbles.
"Hah! See? He's not broken," says Pete, triumphantly. "Suck it, Hurley. Some people would give their right arm to be married to me; I am a motherfucking catch."
"These hypothetical one-armed people are mentally stable and sober, huh?" Andy asks with more than the recommended daily amount of irony running through his voice.
"Oh, fuck right off," Pete says.
"Duh-duh-duh-"
"Hey, you guys, I think he's trying to tell us something," Joe says, and pushes his face close to Patrick's, patting at his hat and crooning, "What's that, Skippy? There's a kid trapped in a mine three miles away? With a compound fracture of the left radius?"
"Joe," Pete snaps. "Stop playing with Patrick."
"No, that's your job, isn't it?" Andy says, sounding genuinely angry now. "Jesus Christ, Pete, I thought you were kidding about this entire thing. How could you not tell him about this?"
"I was waiting for the right moment." Pete sounds terse and defensive, the way he'd been when he'd first rejoined them after the thing at Best Buy, uncharacteristically unable or unwilling to articulate why he'd just needed everything to stop for a minute or two, and burning with rage and resentment that he should have to talk to anyone about it.
"Which, ideally, would have been the morning after, when he was sober and you could have had the whole thing annulled."
"I didn't want to get it annulled," Pete says, sulkily. "Annulment's a fucking cop-out, man. It's like no harm, no foul. If you're going to end something, it should be painful and, and bitter. There should be consequences to it."
There's a moment of silence over Patrick's head, but Joe is filling the void by patting his shoulder, and singing softly, the lisp slipping and slurring over the lyrics, "Skippy, Skippy, Skippy the bush stumparoo-"
Patrick thinks distantly that they should throw Joe into the studio and make him record a song about kangaroos as a hidden track on the next album. If, he realises in dawning horror, there is a next album. There has to be a way to fix this, and it probably doesn't involve strangling Pete, even though it's incredibly tempting and has never really steered Patrick wrong before.
When Andy finally speaks again, he sounds bewildered. "You weren't going to say anything?"
"Not unless I really had to." Even without looking up, Patrick knows that Pete's mouth and eyes are as flat as his tone.
"That doesn't even make sense," says Andy. "But then that's never been your strong point. Just- I don't even- You very rarely do anything out of the pure and spotless goodness of your heart, Pete, and yeah, okay, Uganda. But that was the exception to the rule, man, and we all know it. So what in Christ's name possessed you to get married to Patrick, and then not tell him about it?"
There's silence.
"Unless," Andy says slowly, "Unless you really wanted to marry Patrick. And, and you wanted to stay mar-"
"Andy, you're a good- No, a great drummer. But you're just a drummer, not Sigmund fucking Freud," Pete says viciously. "So why don't you stick with drumming, and boring everyone around you with your fucking ethics, and leave the thinking to those of us who can actually take the strain?"
"Huh," says Andy, and it's impossible to tell whether it's a response to Pete's attack or his own thoughts. "I see. Carry on. Try not to fuck this up any further."
"Yeah, thanks for those words of encouragement," says Pete. "Patrick? Joe, take your finger out of his ear; he's not your husband. Wife. Whatever. Patrick, say something."
"Dud- duh," Patrick says, and then pulls himself together. He is a grown man, and yeah, okay, he's a grown man who wants to cry like a little girl, but still. He's totally not going to. Um, until maybe later when he's had some time to himself, a large drink - although maybe not, he's never drinking again, next time, he could end up married to Gabe - and three cans of chocolate frosting. Desperate times, he thinks, and looks Pete straight in his sober, concerned, lying eyes, and says, "Divorce. I want a divorce."
Pete and Andy freeze above him, and Joe breathes out an, "Oh, shit" against his cheek.
Andy's gaze flicks worriedly between Patrick and Pete's expressionless face like a metronome; Patrick's always admired Andy's sense of rhythm, but he could do without it now as it beats out the silence.
Eventually Pete breaks it, and his voice is as carefully blank as his face. "You don't believe in divorce, Patrick."
Patrick looks desperately for the words to explain why this is the best way, the only way they can save their relationship, but Pete's always been the one first there with the words for songs and journals and explanations. It makes his three year muteness even more ironic. Patrick snorts a little damply.
"Oh, I do," he says. "I really, really do."
There's another moment of quiet before Pete folds his arms, drawing his hands back up the sleeves of his hoodie, and purses his lips.
"Okay then."
"Look, I just don't - Wait. Okay? What?"
"I said, okay," says Pete, and rolls his eyes. "Jesus, next time I'm marrying someone quicker on the uptake. Maybe Stephen Colbert. I could totally get Stephen Colbert, right?"
"Yeah, Pete," Andy says, quietly, with something like sympathy in his eyes. "You can get anyone you like."
Pete's mouth quirks in a brief imitation of a smile as he says, "Thanks, man." He rubs a shrouded hand up and down his other arm, and shivers before grinning more widely, if no more believably, and saying, "And next time, you'll be my flower girl, won't you?"
"Don't push it," Andy says. "I'm not getting into a dress again for anyone, not even you, Pete Wentz-Colbert."
"Okay," says Pete, and swallows. "Okay. Let's go get dehitched. I'll call Bob and tell him to get the lawyers working very quietly on it. I want it made very clear, though, that I want the house and custody of the kids."
"Joint custody," Patrick says, weakly. There's a terrible, desolate desperation creeping up the back of his throat like bile, and all he knows is that he's losing Pete somehow, when he didn't even know that Pete belonged to him, that he belonged to Pete, under law, under oath. Jesus. He needs to re-establish some sort of connection before Pete breaks them, and himself, apart.
He holds a hand out to Pete. Pete stares at it for a minute.
Patrick's fingers want to flex and seize and shake, long before Pete slowly reaches and grasps his hand to pull him up from the couch.
"Yeah, okay," says Pete. "But I want alimony too. I'm not gonna be this pretty forever."
"Dude, Pete," Patrick says, weak with relief. "I was always going to keep you in the style to which you've become accustomed."
It's awkward, it feels awkward, but he pulls Pete towards him and puts his other arm around him. It takes a little while for Pete to hug him back anything more than carefully, politely, and that's so wrong that it makes Patrick swallow convulsively, the taste of iron and salt in his mouth.
"I was always going to keep you," Patrick mutters miserably into Pete's shoulders, and Pete's arms finally, finally tighten.
"Yeah, me too," he murmurs back, and curls a hand round the back of Patrick's neck.
They pull apart, and Patrick should see it coming; after all, it's been a major feature of their friendship, not to mention their stage show, for over eight years, but he really doesn't expect Pete to lean in and press his mouth to Patrick's own. It's damp, and soft, and surprisingly clumsy for a self-proclaimed make-out king, but in spite of that - no, Patrick thinks distantly and without shame, because of that - his mouth softens and heats in response, and he leans into it. After the fact, he'll deny that it was permission but Pete has always taken a mile where an inch has been casually suggested and Patrick knows it and so do Joe and Andy, and so does anyone who's ever heard of Pete Wentz. So there's no point, not any more, in making a joke of it or holding back when Pete's mouth twists against his and his tongue traces lies and truth over Patrick's, as surely as it ever traced them over glossy pages and splintered love affairs. All he can do is suck in a breath and hope that Pete reads none of the lies, and only some of the truth, in what he gives back in the frantic, burning kisses that tangle them together.
Moments, minutes, eons are lost in the hot, wet catch and slide of lips and tongue before he's pulled back to reality by Andy clearing his throat insistently. Pulling back, he can see Andy's worried face, and beyond him, Joe biting his fingers in glee like an eleven year old girl.
"Um," says Andy, as Pete buries his head in Patrick's neck, breathing in. "I don't want to sound like a prude, dude-"
"Prude, dude," echoes Joe, quietly in the background, and giggles.
"But are you still set on getting divorced? Because I don't think I'm old enough to see this marital arts shit, and I know Joe's not."
"I-" Patrick stops. Pete is still plastered to him, but the gusts of air panting against his neck have almost stopped. "I don't-", he says helplessly.
Pete pulls away, and his face is inexplicably serene.
"Don't worry about it," he says. "Seriously. I'm not going to- I know this was never what you wanted."
Patrick nods dumbly.
"So I'm just gonna go and confront the other woman," says Pete. "Pull some hair, threaten a beatdown, that sort of shit, and then we can get on with the divorce."
His mouth tries for a reassuring smile, but almost by default slides into a Wentz grimace. Pete clears his throat, and heads for the door, already pulling out his Sidekick to call Bob and his demon army of lawyers.
It closes quietly, unnaturally quietly, behind him and Patrick exhales shakily as he turns back into the room, tugging his hat down over his eyes. It doesn't do a thing to protect him from the incredulous, accusing glares of Andy and Joe, who are looking at him like he just set fire to a three-legged puppy.
"What?" he snaps, defiantly. "What did you think was going to happen?"
"I thought you'd be the grown-up here, Patrick," Andy says, and has the gall to look disappointed in him.
"What? Seriously, what?" Patrick sputters. "In case you missed it, Andy, I've been misled, and lied to, and, and involved in legal contracts of which I had no conscious knowledge. Which is itself illegal, I believe! Jesus, who gets married and then keeps it secret for three fucking years?"
Andy looks at him like he's profoundly stupid, and points out, "This is Pete we're talking about, right? Short, tattooed, emotionally retarded?"
"Has proclaimed his love for you on the internets since 2003?" Joe says.
"Shut up," Patrick says weakly.
"You kind of already knew you were married to the guy. Sort of," Joe adds, and makes yearning eyes at the Wii. "What's the problem? Now you get to have the sex. Just - break up with Vicky again. It's not hard; you've already done it, like, seventeen times."
"It actually physically hurts me to admit that he's making sense," Andy says. "You do realise that Pete's going to apologise to Bob and Vicky right now?"
"Oh, shit," says Patrick, and runs for the door.
Pete is halfway down the brightly lit hotel corridor, hooded and hunched like a Jedi who's decided fuck this shit, at least the Dark Side has motherfucking cookies, and Patrick knows that this is going to take some talking through. Like - years of talking through, and compromise, and couples therapy, and lyrics that Patrick will refuse to let Pete use ever because God knows he's not having his marriage out there for every fan to parse. He also knows as he hurries towards Pete, biting his own lip against a helpless smile, that he's mostly, kind of, completely okay with that.
"Hey," he says, breathlessly. "Pete. Pete, hold up."
He grabs for Pete's shoulder and hauls him round.
"Stop," he says firmly.
"I am!" Pete says, looking outraged and bewildered. "I have! I've surrendered the field, given up the ghost, admitted defeat. Fly free, little friend!" He waves the Sidekick at Patrick as proof.
"No, I mean - Stop," says Patrick, and takes the phone from him to tell an irate and highly vocal Bob, "Sorry, wrong number".
He hears Bob shout, "I know that's you, Patrick, you little bastard! You tell Wentz I'm naming my fucking ulcer after hi-" before he jams his thumb down on the end button.
Pete is watching him narrowly, arms crossed. "What are you doing?" he says, flatly. "I'm sorry, okay? I'm more sorry than you will ever, ever know, but fucking with my head is not gonna-"
"Oh, shut up," says Patrick, and miraculously Pete does, although he's really working the non-verbal communication with the scowl and the defensively crossed arms. "It turns out that I really don't believe in divorce."
"Look, I don't - Wait. What?"
Patrick rolls his eyes, and says with far too much enjoyment, "Jesus, next time I'm marrying someone quicker on the uptake."
Pete is grinning back at him, and says, "Nuh-uh, dude, you already said! You can't get married to someone else now. That would be bigotry!"
"Uh-huh," Patrick says, dryly. "Come on, I'm going to give you a free pass on carrying me over the threshold, but you're going to be the one that breaks the news to Bob tomorrow."
"Um," Pete says, and wow, hesitation is a new look on him. "How about Vicky?"
"I'll tell Vicky," says Patrick, grimly. "Tomorrow. When I've sorted out what I'm going to say, and a security detail." He herds an uncharacteristically obedient Pete back towards the suite, where Joe and Andy are hovering in the doorway, trying to look casual and not at all anxious or nosy. They are terrible, terrible actors, and fucking amazing friends. He scowls at them all the same and says, "You assholes got anything to say?"
Andy shrugs, but Joe grins hugely at Pete and Patrick.
"Mazel tov, dudes!"