Fic: This Love Is Not Obedient
Title: This Love Is Not Obedient (it has its own agenda) (4/4)
Rating: PG? M?
Fandom: FOB P!atd (Patrick/Pete, Brendon/Ryan)
Patrick can honestly say that he has not seen Pete clean before now. This probably stems from the fact that Patrick has never seen Pete prior to work before. Not seen him before the oil stains and the grease or the exhaustion that sets in hard enough to leave bags beneath big, brown eyes and a certain laziness in the way he moves.
Pete’s talking to Maja in a quick, concentrated tone that, from where Patrick stands, hardly seems like a pleasant conversation.
“Fine,” Maja says, and her voice, it’s louder than normal. Blunt, aggressive, and Patrick’s only seen her use that tone of voice with guy’s she’s just…oh.
Oh, Patrick thinks.
Maja storms passed him, a flurry of blonde hair and Alaska-legs, and Patrick wants to reach out and grab her, because really, they might be friends. Could be friends. Really, really Patrick doesn’t like it when she’s hurting.
Pete’s just sort of stopped, he rubs clean fingers into bleary eyes, and just kinda slumps to the floor, and Patrick, Maja’s his friend, but Pete’s his…Pete’s his thing.
His heavy feet drag him over, and he squats down to Pete’s level without a second thought. “You all right?”
“Fine,” Pete says, and if Patrick didn’t know any better, he’d say that this guy was pouting.
“Good,” Patrick says, and he rubs a hand across the back of his neck. “Uh,” and he’s saying it before he can stop himself, “I thought Maja wasn’t your type.”
And okay, wow, this hurts, and Patrick can’t exactly explain why. Just, well, his stomach is sort of rupturing a little, his heart is just beating slower than it probably should, aching with every pump, throbbing with every breath, and the thought that pounds its way through his head is just, it’s ‘Ryan was wrong’.
“She’s not,” Pete says, and the answer is curt and Pete’s eyes are screwed shut so tightly that it makes Patrick cringe.
“Oh.” And maybe Patrick was wrong. “Well, did you sleep with her?”
Pete hesitates for a minute, and really, that’s all the answer that Patrick needs.
“I don’t sleep with ‘my type’.”
“What?”
“I don’t date my type. ‘My type’ doesn’t say yes when I ask them out, ‘my type’ doesn’t go for fuck ups like me.”
“Oh,” Patrick says, and what more can he say? This is a guy he’s known for two minutes, and Patrick, he’s just useless at any sort of relationship. “Maybe…”
Pete’s head shoots up, and his eyes are so dark and so deep that Patrick can swim in them, can see forever in them, space and time and forty-two.
“Maybe I should go.”
*
He’s standing on a cliff face, a building top, a ledge, and usually, usually always Patrick is standing here alone.
Thing is, Patrick supposes, thing is today he isn’t so much alone as he is here with someone else, a skinny, bronzed little thing, with coffee-eyes and oil marring his fingernails.
“We could fly away,” the person says, and Patrick, he almost jumps.
*
Patrick is an observer coz Brendon and Ryan are halfway down the hall and they’re fucking talking.
Brendon sorta laughs, this nervous chuckle that echoes across the walls, and Patrick, his heart might lurch in his chest a little. Ryan’s placing a hand behind his head, clenching too-long fingers in his hair, and Patrick, yeah, the word voyeur comes to mind, but he slams it down, because really, there’s nothing sexual about this.
Ryan waves a little, a flick of the wrist, and lets loose a blush that Patrick can see from here, that Patrick can still see when Ryan stops opposite him.
Patrick, he doesn’t even pretend he wasn’t watching.
“So?” he says, and it’s times like this he should really just wait for a response as opposed to like, jumping the gun.
“So, we’re going out Friday night.” Ryan smiles. He’s all teeth and cheekbones, and Patrick sorta wants to smush the kid into his chest, keep him safe, send Brendon exploding death threats, coz if that kid even thinks of breaking this kid’s heart, then-
Ryan’s smiling and that fucking thing, it’s so goddamn contagious.
“I want the fucking details, Ross.”
*
Only, Pete got there first. Seriously.
Pete’s scalpels, x-rays, MRIs and all the other words that Patrick got from watching too much House, they got there first and the test results come back to show how Ryan’s already spilled his guts all over a white plastic operating table. Pete got all the detailed gossip first-hand, he’s thrived off Ryan’s good-first-date-high and Patrick’s gonna be left with the ruptured remains.
“I am going to tell you exactly what I told Pete,” Ryan says, and he’s standing firm, hands on hips and Patrick caves to the urge to pull his glasses down to the tip of his nose and stare blatantly at Ryan from over the top.
“Go on,” he says, shoves his glasses back up and puts his chin on his fist.
“If I am going to gush and spaz, I can only do it with the promise that you will not treat me like your kid-brother ever, ever again.”
“I don’t treat you like my kid-brother.”
“No, you treat me like a pet hamster or your three-year-old brother’s girlfriend or, or something, and it’s really fucking annoying.”
Patrick, he raises his hands above his head and clenches his eyes shut, he’s smiling though, and he kinda hopes it’s not too obvious. “I’ve been discovered, take me away Officer Susie-Anne!”
Ryan crinkles his nose and rolls his eyes, juts out a hip like some pouting model, “Susie-Anne?”
“If my non-existent three-year-old brother had a girlfriend, then I’d want her to be called Susie-Anne. Who wouldn’t?”
“Someone from this decade?”
Patrick laughs a little, drops his arms and opens his eyes.
“Are we good then?” Ryan asks, and he quirks an eyebrow, pouts his lips, and Patrick, he can’t say no to that.
“We’re good, darling, now come sit on my knee and tell me all about it.”
Ryan sighs, but wanders over anyway, sits a knobbly arse onto Patrick’s not so knobbly thigh. “You sound like a pedophile-Santa-Clause.”
“Damn it,” Patrick says, “you know my secret identity.”
Ryan laughs a little, throws his head back just enough that Patrick can see Ryan’s adam’s apple bob. He comes down again too quickly, rests a heavy head on Patrick’s shoulder. “But seriously,” he mumbles, “please.”
Patrick sighs, rubs a hand through Ryan’s hair, and shifts a little beneath him. “I can’t make any promises, but I’ll try.
Two spidery arms are around his neck before either of them can think anything of it, and Ryan, he’s pressing a warm, wet kiss to Patrick’s cheek. “Pete likes you. Don’t make me lock you both in a fucking storage closet.”
*
Patrick clocks off at five-thirty.
Picks up a damn-near empty briefcase and a set of keys that jingle like Santa’s sleigh. He locks up - his is the last shift of the day - slams the door and tries not to be too surprised when Pete’s still in his garage, tinkering away at someone’s too-expensive car.
Patrick really wishes that his feet would stop moving on their own accord, but they actually seem to be rather fond of doing so. In other words, he’s even less surprised when he finds himself standing next to the car, rubbing the back of his head with bruising fingertips.
“So,” Patrick says, and maybe he says it too loudly, too abruptly, coz Pete’s jumped, has slammed his head on the open lid of the car and is cursing more than Patrick’s mother does after she’s had five too many gin and tonics.
“Jesus,” Pete mutters, and he’s rubbing his head, rocking on his heels and turning to stare with big brown eyes that are probably a lot softer than they should be considering. Like coffee almost, Patrick supposes, like fresh soil.
“You okay?”
“Sure,” Pete says, and he lets loose a grin, lets it escape onto his pretty face, and maybe this could be irony, the way Pete is shirtless, even in the evening, even when the wind is biting - the oil, it can’t do much for warmth.
“Good,” Patrick replies, and he rocks back a little, shifts his weight, and his fingers, they tighten over the handle of the briefcase.
“Papers for me to sign?” And Pete’s smile is wry, teasing, and Patrick can feel himself flush, go red to the roots of his hair.
“Not today,” he says, and Pete laughs, this deep, throaty thing that Patrick might sorta, well, like.
“Coffee, then?” And all Patrick is getting from this is that Pete, this gorgeous, oil-smeared thing, he’s a smart-arse, and he can’t quite figure out if he likes that yet.
“Only if you want it,” Patrick says, and Pete flashes a toothy grin, a wide smile, and Patrick, he’s returning it before he can stop himself.
There’s maybe a moment of silence, and Pete, he ducks back behind the car, fiddling with gadgets and bottles and knobs, and Patrick, he knows shit all about this.
Well, he knows shit all about most things, in particular cars, in particular relationships, so this is his excuse when he says, “So Ryan seems to think you like me or something.” Coz it slips out, and Patrick, he needs to work on that, work on closing his mouth when he’s not using it.
Pete just, he stops and Patrick isn’t quite sure what to make of that.
“Did he tell you that?”
Patrick shifts his weight again, fidgets, and “…yeah, he did.”
“Okay,” Pete says, and that’s all he offers. He goes back to the car, back to tinkering away with its insides. He’s a doctor like this, saving a life however inanimate the object (although, can you really call a car, a moving thing, ‘inanimate’).
“Is it true?” Patrick says, and he’s milking this moment of courage for all it’s worth. He rather supposes that this fills his quota for the year - ‘moments of blatant bravery/stupidity’.
“Yeah,” Pete says, and he shrugs. “Probably.”
“What do you mean ‘probably’?”
“I hadn’t really thought about it all that much,” and Patrick really fucking wishes he could see this guy’s face. He’s too old for this shit. “But Ryan, he’s a sharp kid, and he kinda picks up on these things before anyone else does.”
“Oh,” Patrick says, and his forehead furrows and he drops his briefcase. Runs a wayward hand through his hair.
“Yeah,” Pete says, and he’s ducked beneath the car, back on a skateboard, wrench firmly in hand.
“Okay,” Patrick says, and he thinks that maybe his heart has stopped, that maybe his face is crumpling, and it’s probably a good thing that Pete can’t see him. Really. “So, no point asking you out?”
“Wouldn’t say it was pointless,” Pete says, and maybe, maybe if Patrick listens really hard he can hear Pete smiling.
“Is that a yes?”
“Probably.” And yeah, there’s definitely a smile. Pete’s rolled out from under the car, out to Patrick’s feet, and the grin splits his face in half, breaks it in two, and in seconds he’s standing before Patrick, rocking on his heels, wrench dropped at their feet.
“What? Is ‘probably’ your word of the day or something?” And okay, yeah, a little frustrating, and he really just wants an answer. He remembers the good old days when people said ‘yes’ or ‘no’ when asked on a date, and-
- And okay, yeah, so that’s Pete’s lips on his.
Pete’s hands tangled in his thinning hair, Pete’s freezing, freezing chest pressed too tight against Patrick’s and yeah, those are Patrick’s hands that are reaching out, tugging at Pete’s back, feeling the gentle shift of his shoulder blades (and fuck maybe Pete’s an angel, coz these, they feel like wings, feel like they could break through the skin).
“Probably,” Pete mumbles, and he’s grinning against Patrick’s lips, nipping and smiling, and he’s not a fucking angel, he’s a fucking pigeon, a parrot, a record on repeat, and Patrick, maybe he doesn’t care, you know, provided the guy doesn’t stop. Provided the guy doesn’t let go.
*
Sometimes Patrick dreams that he’s on the edge of something.
He’s a million feet up in the air, and thank fuck he’s not scared of heights, coz that, maybe that would be a disaster in itself. His toes skirt the edges and he tries not to rock too far back - the ledge, it’s so fucking thin, and Patrick, he isn’t, hasn’t been in a long time.
“Don’t fall,” says a voice, a bodyless thing, and it’s too close, it’s breathing down his neck, into his ear, and he turns around too quickly, almost topples, but there are hands on his arms, and a body in front of him, and that voice, it’s familiar, it’s a comfort.
“I won’t,” Patrick mumbles, and the body, it’s warm, the face is smiling, and the eyes, bottles of coffee beans, they crinkle upwards, form half-moons in the sky of a face.
“Good,” Pete says. “You can’t fly if you’re falling.”
“I know,” Patrick says, and Pete holds his arm, his hand, and together, one foot in front of the other, they step over the edge.
*
Fin.
Rating: PG? M?
Fandom: FOB P!atd (Patrick/Pete, Brendon/Ryan)
Patrick can honestly say that he has not seen Pete clean before now. This probably stems from the fact that Patrick has never seen Pete prior to work before. Not seen him before the oil stains and the grease or the exhaustion that sets in hard enough to leave bags beneath big, brown eyes and a certain laziness in the way he moves.
Pete’s talking to Maja in a quick, concentrated tone that, from where Patrick stands, hardly seems like a pleasant conversation.
“Fine,” Maja says, and her voice, it’s louder than normal. Blunt, aggressive, and Patrick’s only seen her use that tone of voice with guy’s she’s just…oh.
Oh, Patrick thinks.
Maja storms passed him, a flurry of blonde hair and Alaska-legs, and Patrick wants to reach out and grab her, because really, they might be friends. Could be friends. Really, really Patrick doesn’t like it when she’s hurting.
Pete’s just sort of stopped, he rubs clean fingers into bleary eyes, and just kinda slumps to the floor, and Patrick, Maja’s his friend, but Pete’s his…Pete’s his thing.
His heavy feet drag him over, and he squats down to Pete’s level without a second thought. “You all right?”
“Fine,” Pete says, and if Patrick didn’t know any better, he’d say that this guy was pouting.
“Good,” Patrick says, and he rubs a hand across the back of his neck. “Uh,” and he’s saying it before he can stop himself, “I thought Maja wasn’t your type.”
And okay, wow, this hurts, and Patrick can’t exactly explain why. Just, well, his stomach is sort of rupturing a little, his heart is just beating slower than it probably should, aching with every pump, throbbing with every breath, and the thought that pounds its way through his head is just, it’s ‘Ryan was wrong’.
“She’s not,” Pete says, and the answer is curt and Pete’s eyes are screwed shut so tightly that it makes Patrick cringe.
“Oh.” And maybe Patrick was wrong. “Well, did you sleep with her?”
Pete hesitates for a minute, and really, that’s all the answer that Patrick needs.
“I don’t sleep with ‘my type’.”
“What?”
“I don’t date my type. ‘My type’ doesn’t say yes when I ask them out, ‘my type’ doesn’t go for fuck ups like me.”
“Oh,” Patrick says, and what more can he say? This is a guy he’s known for two minutes, and Patrick, he’s just useless at any sort of relationship. “Maybe…”
Pete’s head shoots up, and his eyes are so dark and so deep that Patrick can swim in them, can see forever in them, space and time and forty-two.
“Maybe I should go.”
*
He’s standing on a cliff face, a building top, a ledge, and usually, usually always Patrick is standing here alone.
Thing is, Patrick supposes, thing is today he isn’t so much alone as he is here with someone else, a skinny, bronzed little thing, with coffee-eyes and oil marring his fingernails.
“We could fly away,” the person says, and Patrick, he almost jumps.
*
Patrick is an observer coz Brendon and Ryan are halfway down the hall and they’re fucking talking.
Brendon sorta laughs, this nervous chuckle that echoes across the walls, and Patrick, his heart might lurch in his chest a little. Ryan’s placing a hand behind his head, clenching too-long fingers in his hair, and Patrick, yeah, the word voyeur comes to mind, but he slams it down, because really, there’s nothing sexual about this.
Ryan waves a little, a flick of the wrist, and lets loose a blush that Patrick can see from here, that Patrick can still see when Ryan stops opposite him.
Patrick, he doesn’t even pretend he wasn’t watching.
“So?” he says, and it’s times like this he should really just wait for a response as opposed to like, jumping the gun.
“So, we’re going out Friday night.” Ryan smiles. He’s all teeth and cheekbones, and Patrick sorta wants to smush the kid into his chest, keep him safe, send Brendon exploding death threats, coz if that kid even thinks of breaking this kid’s heart, then-
Ryan’s smiling and that fucking thing, it’s so goddamn contagious.
“I want the fucking details, Ross.”
*
Only, Pete got there first. Seriously.
Pete’s scalpels, x-rays, MRIs and all the other words that Patrick got from watching too much House, they got there first and the test results come back to show how Ryan’s already spilled his guts all over a white plastic operating table. Pete got all the detailed gossip first-hand, he’s thrived off Ryan’s good-first-date-high and Patrick’s gonna be left with the ruptured remains.
“I am going to tell you exactly what I told Pete,” Ryan says, and he’s standing firm, hands on hips and Patrick caves to the urge to pull his glasses down to the tip of his nose and stare blatantly at Ryan from over the top.
“Go on,” he says, shoves his glasses back up and puts his chin on his fist.
“If I am going to gush and spaz, I can only do it with the promise that you will not treat me like your kid-brother ever, ever again.”
“I don’t treat you like my kid-brother.”
“No, you treat me like a pet hamster or your three-year-old brother’s girlfriend or, or something, and it’s really fucking annoying.”
Patrick, he raises his hands above his head and clenches his eyes shut, he’s smiling though, and he kinda hopes it’s not too obvious. “I’ve been discovered, take me away Officer Susie-Anne!”
Ryan crinkles his nose and rolls his eyes, juts out a hip like some pouting model, “Susie-Anne?”
“If my non-existent three-year-old brother had a girlfriend, then I’d want her to be called Susie-Anne. Who wouldn’t?”
“Someone from this decade?”
Patrick laughs a little, drops his arms and opens his eyes.
“Are we good then?” Ryan asks, and he quirks an eyebrow, pouts his lips, and Patrick, he can’t say no to that.
“We’re good, darling, now come sit on my knee and tell me all about it.”
Ryan sighs, but wanders over anyway, sits a knobbly arse onto Patrick’s not so knobbly thigh. “You sound like a pedophile-Santa-Clause.”
“Damn it,” Patrick says, “you know my secret identity.”
Ryan laughs a little, throws his head back just enough that Patrick can see Ryan’s adam’s apple bob. He comes down again too quickly, rests a heavy head on Patrick’s shoulder. “But seriously,” he mumbles, “please.”
Patrick sighs, rubs a hand through Ryan’s hair, and shifts a little beneath him. “I can’t make any promises, but I’ll try.
Two spidery arms are around his neck before either of them can think anything of it, and Ryan, he’s pressing a warm, wet kiss to Patrick’s cheek. “Pete likes you. Don’t make me lock you both in a fucking storage closet.”
*
Patrick clocks off at five-thirty.
Picks up a damn-near empty briefcase and a set of keys that jingle like Santa’s sleigh. He locks up - his is the last shift of the day - slams the door and tries not to be too surprised when Pete’s still in his garage, tinkering away at someone’s too-expensive car.
Patrick really wishes that his feet would stop moving on their own accord, but they actually seem to be rather fond of doing so. In other words, he’s even less surprised when he finds himself standing next to the car, rubbing the back of his head with bruising fingertips.
“So,” Patrick says, and maybe he says it too loudly, too abruptly, coz Pete’s jumped, has slammed his head on the open lid of the car and is cursing more than Patrick’s mother does after she’s had five too many gin and tonics.
“Jesus,” Pete mutters, and he’s rubbing his head, rocking on his heels and turning to stare with big brown eyes that are probably a lot softer than they should be considering. Like coffee almost, Patrick supposes, like fresh soil.
“You okay?”
“Sure,” Pete says, and he lets loose a grin, lets it escape onto his pretty face, and maybe this could be irony, the way Pete is shirtless, even in the evening, even when the wind is biting - the oil, it can’t do much for warmth.
“Good,” Patrick replies, and he rocks back a little, shifts his weight, and his fingers, they tighten over the handle of the briefcase.
“Papers for me to sign?” And Pete’s smile is wry, teasing, and Patrick can feel himself flush, go red to the roots of his hair.
“Not today,” he says, and Pete laughs, this deep, throaty thing that Patrick might sorta, well, like.
“Coffee, then?” And all Patrick is getting from this is that Pete, this gorgeous, oil-smeared thing, he’s a smart-arse, and he can’t quite figure out if he likes that yet.
“Only if you want it,” Patrick says, and Pete flashes a toothy grin, a wide smile, and Patrick, he’s returning it before he can stop himself.
There’s maybe a moment of silence, and Pete, he ducks back behind the car, fiddling with gadgets and bottles and knobs, and Patrick, he knows shit all about this.
Well, he knows shit all about most things, in particular cars, in particular relationships, so this is his excuse when he says, “So Ryan seems to think you like me or something.” Coz it slips out, and Patrick, he needs to work on that, work on closing his mouth when he’s not using it.
Pete just, he stops and Patrick isn’t quite sure what to make of that.
“Did he tell you that?”
Patrick shifts his weight again, fidgets, and “…yeah, he did.”
“Okay,” Pete says, and that’s all he offers. He goes back to the car, back to tinkering away with its insides. He’s a doctor like this, saving a life however inanimate the object (although, can you really call a car, a moving thing, ‘inanimate’).
“Is it true?” Patrick says, and he’s milking this moment of courage for all it’s worth. He rather supposes that this fills his quota for the year - ‘moments of blatant bravery/stupidity’.
“Yeah,” Pete says, and he shrugs. “Probably.”
“What do you mean ‘probably’?”
“I hadn’t really thought about it all that much,” and Patrick really fucking wishes he could see this guy’s face. He’s too old for this shit. “But Ryan, he’s a sharp kid, and he kinda picks up on these things before anyone else does.”
“Oh,” Patrick says, and his forehead furrows and he drops his briefcase. Runs a wayward hand through his hair.
“Yeah,” Pete says, and he’s ducked beneath the car, back on a skateboard, wrench firmly in hand.
“Okay,” Patrick says, and he thinks that maybe his heart has stopped, that maybe his face is crumpling, and it’s probably a good thing that Pete can’t see him. Really. “So, no point asking you out?”
“Wouldn’t say it was pointless,” Pete says, and maybe, maybe if Patrick listens really hard he can hear Pete smiling.
“Is that a yes?”
“Probably.” And yeah, there’s definitely a smile. Pete’s rolled out from under the car, out to Patrick’s feet, and the grin splits his face in half, breaks it in two, and in seconds he’s standing before Patrick, rocking on his heels, wrench dropped at their feet.
“What? Is ‘probably’ your word of the day or something?” And okay, yeah, a little frustrating, and he really just wants an answer. He remembers the good old days when people said ‘yes’ or ‘no’ when asked on a date, and-
- And okay, yeah, so that’s Pete’s lips on his.
Pete’s hands tangled in his thinning hair, Pete’s freezing, freezing chest pressed too tight against Patrick’s and yeah, those are Patrick’s hands that are reaching out, tugging at Pete’s back, feeling the gentle shift of his shoulder blades (and fuck maybe Pete’s an angel, coz these, they feel like wings, feel like they could break through the skin).
“Probably,” Pete mumbles, and he’s grinning against Patrick’s lips, nipping and smiling, and he’s not a fucking angel, he’s a fucking pigeon, a parrot, a record on repeat, and Patrick, maybe he doesn’t care, you know, provided the guy doesn’t stop. Provided the guy doesn’t let go.
*
Sometimes Patrick dreams that he’s on the edge of something.
He’s a million feet up in the air, and thank fuck he’s not scared of heights, coz that, maybe that would be a disaster in itself. His toes skirt the edges and he tries not to rock too far back - the ledge, it’s so fucking thin, and Patrick, he isn’t, hasn’t been in a long time.
“Don’t fall,” says a voice, a bodyless thing, and it’s too close, it’s breathing down his neck, into his ear, and he turns around too quickly, almost topples, but there are hands on his arms, and a body in front of him, and that voice, it’s familiar, it’s a comfort.
“I won’t,” Patrick mumbles, and the body, it’s warm, the face is smiling, and the eyes, bottles of coffee beans, they crinkle upwards, form half-moons in the sky of a face.
“Good,” Pete says. “You can’t fly if you’re falling.”
“I know,” Patrick says, and Pete holds his arm, his hand, and together, one foot in front of the other, they step over the edge.
*
Fin.