Delivering Just What You Need - Part Two
Patrick blinks awake at seven am to find Pete about an inch away from his nose, peering at him like Patrick has something weird on his face.
He’s pretty sure he doesn’t, but he swipes haphazardly at his mouth and nose anyways.
Pete’s still staring at him.
“What?” Patrick asks, still half asleep and possibly a little snappier than he would be if he weren’t. It’s not like he got a lot of sleep.
“Did I dream that?” Pete asks, brow furrowed.
Patrick feels all his irritation seep out of him like water into the ground. Without intending to, he reaches out, brushing fingers over the slope of Pete’s jaw.
Pete’s eyes flutter closed, and he leans a little into the touch. Sighing softly, he says, sounding almost embarrassed, “Sorry. It-I just have them, sometimes.“
Patrick looks at him for a long moment, blinking the last of the sleep out of his eyes. Pete’s own eyes are still shut, and he’s got his head tilted into the curve of Patrick’s hand like he’s afraid Patrick’s going to jerk it away and bolt. Which, alright, isn’t really unfair of him, since that’s Patrick’s first instinct. He holds himself still, though, smoothing his thumb over the skin below Pete’s ear. “It’s fine.” It’s not, really, and that’s not exactly what he meant to say, anyway, so he adds, “Does anything help?”
Pete’s eyes snap open, and he draws his lower lip into his mouth, gnawing a little. “I-“ he pauses, swallows, looks down. Softer, like he doesn’t really even want to say it, he admits, “That-I mean. That helped.”
Patrick closes his eyes, lets himself smile at the idea of actually being able to fix anything broken in Pete, even if it’s small. “Yeah?”
Pete snuggles closer, and Patrick lets him. “Yeah,” Pete says, mouth moving against the indent above Patrick’s collarbone. Even softer, he says, “Thanks.”
Patrick lets out a breath he hadn’t meant to hold. Slinging an arm around Pete’s waist and pulling him in a little closer, he says, “Don’t mention it.” What he means is, always, or maybe, anything, or even just, of course.
Pete makes a sweet, low noise of assent, and, eventually, they both drift back to sleep.
--
“No, no more Cupcake Wars,” Pete says insistently, sitting on the remote.
“Fine,” Patrick says grumpily, raising his hands in surrender. “What do you want to watch, then?”
Pete grins evilly.
--
“Shhh, oh my god, shut up, it’s starting,” Pete hisses, clapping his hand over Patrick’s mouth.
Patrick raises an eyebrow, which okay, is fair, because usually it’s Patrick telling Pete to shut up. But this is serious business. This is Buffy. This is Once More With Feeling, and that shit deserves respect.
Pete takes his hand off Patrick’s mouth when the music starts. “Shh,” he says again, poking Patrick once in the arm for good measure.
Patrick doesn’t argue, just makes a face and knocks Pete’s knee with his own. “Can I at least sing along?”
Pete doesn’t look away from the screen-it’s enthralling, it’s totally not his fault. “Yeah, yeah, whatever, shut up.”
Twenty minutes later, Patrick is singing along with Wish I Could Stay, and when he hits the first high note, Pete goes instantly, painfully hard.
Patrick glances over at him-Pete might maybe have made a small noise accompanying his unfortunate physical reaction, and it may or may not have resembled a whimper-and bites his lip. “Sorry,” he says, sounding actually apologetic, “I’ll shut up.”
Pete yanks one of the throw pillows out from behind him and shoves it over his lap. “No,” he says, and if his voice is maybe a little higher than normal, well, Patrick doesn’t mention it. “No, no, it’s cool.”
--
“What are you doing tomorrow?” Brendon asks as soon as Pete picks up the phone.
“Uh,” Pete says, and, “Brendon, it’s three am.”
Brendon snorts. “Oh, right, like you were asleep.”
He has a point, Pete wasn’t, but Patrick’s asleep, passed out with his head on Pete’s thigh, snuffling a little in his sleep. Pete doesn’t mention that, though. “Point,” he says instead, “and I don’t think I have big plans tomorrow, why?”
“I want a tattoo.”
Pete blinks into the darkness. Then he holds his phone away from his ear and blinks at it, too. Finally, he puts it back to his ear and says, “Brendon, you’re terrified of needles. You fear needles almost as much as Gerard, and he screamed like a girl when Greta sewed up the hole in his pants that one time.” It was necessary-Frank had ripped them in a really inconvenient and obvious place, and the band was due to be on stage in less than ten minutes, and they hadn’t had time to let Gerard take them off first.
Brendon sucks his teeth awkwardly for a second, then says, sounding kind of strangled, “I need-look, I mean, I know it’s needles, and no, I don’t like them, but.” He huffs a little. “I just. I need to do this.”
Pete knows how that goes. It happened more after his first one, that itch under his skin for more, but he can relate. “Alright, I’m down. You want me to pick you up?”
Brendon sighs, presumably in relief. “Hell yes. Like noon?”
“Sure. Where are we going?”
“Um,” Brendon says, “I have a couple places written down, but there’s the issue of-I kind of don’t want a crowd. It’s not a secret, exactly, just, I’m not-I don’t want my guys to know until after.”
Pete rolls it over in his head for a minute, says, “I know a guy. He’s like an hour and a half away, though. But he’s done some of my stuff. He’s good.”
“I don’t really care how far it is.”
Pete nods, then remembers that Brendon can’t see him. “Yeah, okay. Noon, I’ll be by the house.”
“Thanks, Pete. This is-just, thanks.” He still sounds strange, and Pete can’t really place it, but.
“No problem,” he says. “Catch you then.” When he flips his phone shut, Patrick’s eyes are open, staring up at him.
“He’s dead,” Patrick says, sounding sleepy and confused. “I can tell.”
“Yeah,” Pete says, shrugging. “We don’t really let that bug us.” Without Pete really meaning for it to, his hand settles in Patrick’s hair. For once, he’s not wearing a hat, and his hair is soft and fine under Pete’s fingers.
Patrick, still half asleep, says, “You’re possibly even weirder than I thought.”
Pete smiles wryly down at him. “You’re dead, too, Pattycakes.”
“Mmm,” Patrick agrees, “But I have wings.”
“Oh yeah,” Pete says, snorting and ruffling Patrick’s hair, “That totally changes everything.”
--
Brendon gets into Pete’s car with a huff and says, “I am so terrified right now, I can’t tell you.”
Pete grins and pats his thigh consolingly. “That happens.”
“How much does it hurt?” Brendon asks, rubbing at his arms a little.
Pete shrugs. “It hurts a lot. You either want the tattoo, and you deal with it, or you don’t go at all.”
Brendon sucks in a breath, nods. “Right,” he says, “Yes, yeah, right. I’m doing this. I need this.”
They drive in silence for a while, Brendon fiddling nervously with the radio, Pete tapping his fingers to the beat of whatever’s playing. He can wait, and Brendon’ll get to it when he’s ready.
Finally, Brendon says, “Spencer’s mad at me.”
“Oh?” Pete says. He kind of doubts it-Smith is a pushover for Brendon, but Brendon doesn’t tend to be as aware of that as everyone else on the planet is. “And getting ink is fixing that how?”
“I kind of-“ Brendon stops, frowning. “I just need to show him that I’m not-I’m not his responsibility. I don’t need him to always be there, keeping me real.”
Pete glances at him. “I don’t think that’s what he thinks,” he says slowly.
“We had a fight, right, just like a little argument, and he just. He walked out. And he came back in like an hour, freaking out, babbling about how he didn’t mean to make me think he was going anywhere.” Brendon is studying his hands. “And so, at first, I thought, we’ll talk about this, and I’ll explain-I don’t think I’m in whatever, like, limbo, anymore. I think I’m just. Just real, now, like, even if everyone forgot I was around, I’d still be around. But then I realized that he’s not going to believe me just saying it.”
Pete nods, waits.
“And I think, if I do this, if I get this, it’ll be like.” Brendon hums a little, hesitating before he says, “Like proof that I can be alive, be an adult, without him holding my hand through it.”
“So,” Pete says, slanting him a grin, “What, you don’t want me to hold your hand?”
“Oh no,” Brendon says, face very serious, “you’re going to fucking hold my hand even if I squeeze it blue. But we’re not telling Spencer that. We’re telling Spencer that I was very stoic and manly and not scared at all.”
“Oh,” Pete says, mock-solemn, “I see. Of course.”
--
Spencer’s face when he sees the flowing line of piano keys on Brendon’s arm is not a pleasant sight to witness.
“What the fuck,” he says, looking from Pete to Brendon and back again. “Was this your idea?”
“Uh, no,” Pete says, waving a little, and, “See you, Brendon. Smith. Bye.” He feels sort of gross and guilty-it’s not like it was his idea, Brendon came to him. But Pete still feels dirty for being in the middle of them, making one more person’s life more difficult.
Spencer’s scowl follows him all the way out of the driveway.
--
Patrick’s hand wraps around Pete’s wrist and pulls the gun away from his temple. Pete doesn’t startle, which is really for the best-both because it means he’s starting to expect this from Patrick, which is a step towards some sort of twisted mimicry of an actual sense of self-worth, and because it means he doesn’t pull the trigger and blow a hole in the wall. Or his skull.
“Pete,” he says softly, prying the pistol out of Pete’s grip. “Pete, no more of this.”
Pete looks up at him with red-rimmed eyes. “Smith’s mad at me.”
Patrick rolls his eyes and wishes he could have a stern talking-to with Smith about the emotional fragility of his boss. “Imagine how much more upset he’ll be if he finds out he’s lost his record deal because your brain is all over the wall,” he says, because Pete’s more likely to listen to that than any actual reasons why he needs to stop trying to kill himself.
Pete shrugs. “Someone else would sign them. They’re spectacular.” They are; Brendon’s voice makes Patrick feel like he’s shining from the inside out, like he’s what Patrick had thought angels were supposed to be. That’s really not the issue, though.
“Yeah,” Patrick says, turning the gun’s safety on and setting it on the dresser. Gently, he tugs Pete up, into his lap, and wraps his arms around him. “That’s not the point, Pete.”
Pete doesn’t struggle, just leans his forehead against Patrick’s neck and says bitterly, “The point is, I want to die, and you’re not letting me.”
“No,” Patrick agrees, pressing his lips to Pete’s temple. “No, I’m not.” He tightens his arms, pulling Pete a little closer.
“What,” Pete cracks, sharp and ugly, pulling away, “is this your way of saying you’ve changed your mind? You do want me, now?” He’s edging back towards the dresser, towards the gun.
Patrick doesn’t let him get far. He yanks Pete back down, winding his arms around him, pinning Pete’s limbs to his body and holding on. “No,” Patrick says gently, and he doesn’t mean no, I don’t want you. That realization spikes sharp and sickening in Patrick’s stomach, but he pushes it aside for the time being. “No, Pete, that’s not what this is.”
“I’m broken,” Pete explains patiently, as though Patrick is a slightly slow child. “I don’t want anyone to have to go through fixing me.”
Patrick wants to say, “I just want to feel you whole under my hands. Let me be selfish.”
Or, “There’s something about what you think of yourself that makes me want to crawl inside myself and look for a better answer.”
Or, “You’re not broken, Pete, just frayed a little at the edges.”
Instead, he tightens his arms around Pete, squeezing him close. After a minute or two of quiet, Pete starts leaning into him a little, and Patrick settles on, “Sometimes, you have to let other people make that decision for themselves.”
Pete lets out one lone, ragged sob and burrows his face into Patrick’s shoulder.
--
Pete’s phone blares Part of Your World from the Little Mermaid. “Brendon?”
“Dude. You are my hero, Spencer’s totally not mad at me anymore.” Brendon sounds giddy.
Pete squints at his phone. “Really?” he asks. Last time he saw Spencer, Spencer looked like he wanted to rip out Pete’s lungs and hit Brendon with them. “Why am I your hero?”
“Cause you totally saved me! Oh, oh, and Spencer says he’s sorry for being all growly at you, he thought it was your idea, or whatever. But I explained! And he likes it. Although he says the flowers are dumb.” Pete can hear the pout in his voice.
“Told you they were too much to start with,” Pete says. His mouth feels kind of numb. “And girly.”
“Pete,” Brendon whines, “come on, they’re fancy. And, like, part of my Hawaiian heritage and shit. You and Spence are just haters. Cause your ink isn’t as fancy, and he’s too much of a pansy to get any at all.” Pete hears a thump-presumably Spencer smacking Brendon upside the head-and an accompanying, “Ow, shit, Spence, I was kidding.”
Pete grins a little, despite himself. “So he isn’t going to like, hunt me down for my skin?”
“Uh, no. Why would you even think that?”
Pete hesitates. “He just seemed-“
“He’s a growly manbear, Pete, don’t take it personally. He and Bob need to have, like, a growly manbear club, where they get together for play dates and do manbear things, like, like-“
“Like eat berries-“ Pete says, helpful.
“Yes! And catch fish in streams with their hands! And steal honey from bees and ouch, Jesus, Spence, stop-owww, Pete, domestic abuse, domestic-uh, Pete, I have to go, Spencer is raping me.” Brendon doesn’t actually sound like he minds.
Pete giggles and hangs up.
Patrick is peering at him. “See?” he says, edge of his mouth curled into what might be a smile if he didn’t look so sad.
Pete bites his lip and looks away. “It doesn’t-it doesn’t change anything.”
“No,” Patrick agrees slowly, “no, it doesn’t, because nothing was wrong in the first place. You’re loved, Pete. You’re not making anything harder on anyone else by being here.”
Pete shakes his head, but it’s maybe more of an automatic response than a real argument. “Whatever,” he mutters, trudging off to the kitchen just for the sake of being somewhere else.
He doesn’t have to wait long before Patrick follows.
--
The fifth time Patrick catches Pete, he doesn’t do it gently. He yanks the knife out of Pete’s hand and punches him in the face in the same motion.
Pete reels backwards with a startled yelp, hitting the counter.
Patrick stands over him, breathing harshly, and yells, “I swear to god, Pete, if you this one more fucking time, I’m going to-“
“What?” Pete asks hysterically, “What, you’re going to kill me? Cause that would be really fucking-“
Patrick cuts him off with another punch, this time to the stomach. “I will fucking break your legs and your arms and you won’t be able to get the fuck out of bed to kill yourself, you complete assface.”
Pete shrugs. “Bones heal,” he says blandly, so nonchalant that Patrick could scream.
“Pete,” he says, jaw clenched, barely able to hear himself over the thunder of his heart in his ears. “Seriously, Pete.” He means to say something after that, but it gets lost in the rushing loop of fearpanicfear screaming over and over in his chest.
Pete looks at him like Patrick is some sort of brand new anomaly, some sort of freak apparition, and says, slowly, like he’s sounding out the words, “You’re scared.”
“Yes,” Patrick snaps, glaring. “Yes, and I’m supposed to keep-“
“No,” Pete says, one hand drifting out to trace the sore knuckles on Patrick’s fist, “no, you’re. You’re not scared because you’re supposed to keep me alive.” He sounds incredulous, awed. “You’re scared-“ he swallows, looking up at Patrick’s face. “You’re scared of me dying.”
“That’s what I said, yes,” Patrick huffs, crossing his arms and looking away.
A slow, unsteady smile creeps over Pete’s face. “Oh,” he says, the single syllable sounding happier and more confused than anything Patrick’s heard out of his mouth so far. “Oh.”
--
“Do you believe in angels?” Pete asks Gabe over lunch the next day.
“I’m a Jew,” Gabe says blankly.
“So?”
Gabe looks at Pete like he’s a moron, which, okay, fair. “I’m a Jew, dumbass, yes, we believe in angels.”
“You also believe in the Cobra, Gabe,” Pete points out, “I don’t exactly know how aligned your personal beliefs are with orthodox Jewishness.”
Gabe taps his nose, acknowledging the point. “Fair play to you,” he says, taking a swig of his beer. “Why do you ask in the first place?”
Pete rubs a little at the spot between his eyes. “I may have been keeping something secret,” he says, a little hesitant. This is a fucking big deal, even if it is just Gabe.
Gabe nods, but he doesn’t look pissed. Yet. “How long?”
Pete shrugs. “Since Ash.”
“Mmm,” Gabe says, palming at the back of his neck a little. “The suicide thing.”
“Things,” Pete says softly. “There was-I might have-there were a few times.”
Gabe’s hand clenches around his beer, knuckles going white. “Yeah?” he says, voice just uneven enough for Pete to notice.
Pete scrubs a hand through his hair. “Yeah-look, Gabe, would you think I was insane if I told you I have a guardian angel?”
“No,” Gabe says slowly, drawing out the syllable, and Pete can’t tell if he’s mocking him or just thinks Pete’s being stupid for asking.
“Right,” Pete says, and decides he might as well lay it all out on the table, “so.”
--
[[Vicky-T is all Barbie legs and crocodile eyes, sharp teeth and soft brown wings. She shows up for the first time when Gabe is sixteen, gangly and awkward with his braces just off and his ridiculous hair just learning how to be truly ridiculous.
Gabe’s curled on his side in his parents’ basement, wishing for all the world he could make himself puke. When she kneels down and hands him a glass of water, smoothing his hair gently off his sweaty forehead and saying, “She really fucked you over, didn’t she?”, he finally does.
Through the whole thing, she keeps one hand on his back, rubbing slow circles, and she forces him to drink enough water to keep him hydrated.
“Who are you?” he asks, finally, still hours before dawn, when he can stop for more than ten seconds between rounds of vomiting up gin and vodka.
She smiles tightly at him and says, “Victoria. I’m here to look after you.”
“I don’t actually want looking after,” Gabe says rudely, and for a second, he almost means it.
Vicky-T squeezes his knee and smiles at him with sharp teeth and sharper eyes. “I didn’t ask if you wanted it, did I, jackass?”
While Gabe gapes at her, her face softens, and she hands him another glass of water. “You have wings,” he says dumbly, finally noticing the soft brown shadows draped down her back.
She shrugs. “Comes with the territory, I guess.” She settles down on the floor, legs folded under her, and says, “Instead of trying to off yourself with daddy’s liquor cabinet, hmm, why don’t you tell me what happened?”
Gabe chews his lower lip for a minute, staring at his hands in his lap, and finally says, “People suck.”
“Oh, baby,” she says sympathetically, tipping his chin up so he has to look at her, “You ain’t seen nothing yet.”
Gabe spends the rest of the night curled up to her side, head pillowed on her thigh, sleeping off the alcohol under the curve of her wing.
After that, Gabe knows he won’t ever be able to fall in love with a normal girl again.]]
--
“So, wait,” Gabe says, steepling his fingers and peering at Pete over them. “What you’re saying is that you think you’re insane because you’re in love with your guardian angel slash imaginary best friend.”
Pete picks at his nails very studiously. “Something like that, yeah.”
Gabe laughs at him. “Pete,” he says, kind of hysterically, “Pete, I worship a giant purple space cobra. The front man of the most popular band on your label is a dead guy. The lead guitarist of that same band has a pet chicken.” He doesn’t mention Vicky-T, doesn’t mention that basically no part of what Pete’s telling him sounds crazy at all. He’ll save that for when Pete stops thinking that Pete’s crazy.
Pete looks at him. “I’m not getting where you’re going with this.”
Gabe pokes him in the forehead. “I’m not getting why you think I’m going to think you’re crazy.”
“Oh,” Pete says, and, “You do kind of have a point there,” and, “But my imaginary friend has wings and wears trucker hats.”
“Oh,” Gabe parrots mockingly, “Well, then, I’m sorry, clearly I was wrong, and you’re just insane.”
“Gee,” Pete says, making a face, “Gee, Gabe, you’re really fucking helpful.”
“That’s totally what I was going for,” Gabe tells him solemnly. “Totally aiming for helpful.”
--
[[The first time Gabe jerks off thinking about her, he’s seventeen and it’s accidental. He’s originally thinking of Maja, the blonde with the really smoking hot legs from his Algebra class, but then that leads his brain to her really smoking hot legs, and then he’s thinking about her bright, bright eyes, and her red, red mouth and coming over his hand before he even knows what’s happening.
The first time Gabe jerks off in front of her, he’s nineteen and very, very drunk. She’s sitting on his dresser, flipping through a magazine, and when she looks up and sees him, she doesn’t say a word, just watches him with dark eyes. He pants, open-mouthed, and he when he comes, arching off the bed and groaning, she tilts her head to the side like a curious bird and says, “Hmm.”
Gabe wakes up the next morning and doesn’t pretend he doesn’t remember. She doesn’t ask.
It’s not the last time it happens. She doesn’t ask any of the other times, either, even on the times when he isn’t drunk. ]]
--
Gabe decides that they’re going to test whether or not Patrick is real empirically.
“Okay, okay,” Gabe says, “You tell your imaginary friend to follow me out of the room. I’ll go, and I’ll do something, and we’ll come back. Then, he can tell you what I did, and if it’s right, then he’s real.”
“Have you mentioned to this guy that he’s a jackass yet?” Patrick asks Pete grumpily.
“He knows,” Pete assures him. “Just do it anyways. Please?”
“Fine, fine,” Patrick grumbles, crossing his arms.
“We’re good,” Pete tells Gabe, who gives him a thumbs up and ambles out of the room. Glaring over his shoulder at Pete, Patrick follows him.
Gabe comes back a minute later, grinning triumphantly, trailing a vaguely-ill-looking Patrick.
“He did the Time Warp,” Patrick grouses. “His pelvic thrusting was disgusting.”
Pete raises an eyebrow at Gabe. “The Time Warp, Saporta? Seriously?”
Gabe beams at him. “Well, either your imaginary trucker-hat angel is real, or you’re psychic.” He claps Pete on the back. “Did he like my pelvic thrusts?”
“No,” Patrick snaps, “no, I did not fucking like his pelvic thrusts, he grabbed his crotch.”
“Yeah,” Pete says, grinning. “Yeah, no, Gabe, he totally loved them.”
Patrick kicks him in the shin.
--
[[Gabe spends most of the time after high school in a series of progressively worse, progressively angrier bands, screaming very sincerely into microphones about how terribly unfair life is, how horrible people are. He drinks before he gets on stage, after he gets off stage, when he goes out afterwards with the band. Never to the point he had on the night Victoria arrived, but just enough to take the edge off, to keep all the ugliness in people from getting to him, enough to allow him to let the rest of the attention in.
Perched on a speaker, Victoria listens to him breaking, over and over, half to get the anger out of him, half to let the attention in, and wonders if maybe, the way he sees people is a little bit her fault. She’s not really sure if that’s something she’d have a problem with-it’s not like it isn’t all true-but it’s something she wonders about, all the same. Her job is to keep him alive, not to sugar-coat the truth, and for as long as she’s existed, the truth is that people are mostly out to fuck with you.
Gabe, though. Gabe doesn’t really want to fuck with anyone, and that makes her wonder if, by telling him the way she sees things, she’s keeping him safe, or just making things harder for him in the long run.
She doesn’t actually have an answer to that, and she doesn’t let herself think about it that often, but after that, whenever she sees Gabe reaching for a bottle, a shot glass, a red Solo cup, she slaps his hand away. Mostly, he even lets her.]]
--
Pete falls asleep with his head in Patrick’s lap during a Star Wars marathon. He’s snoring, a little, and there’s maybe some drool at the corner of his mouth, but Patrick’s very familiar by now with how hard it is for Pete to sleep peacefully, so he just tugs the afghan off the back of the couch and onto Pete, settling in for a long night.
Pete makes a cranky noise in his sleep, shifting a little, and Patrick lays his hand over the side of Pete’s neck, rubbing his thumb in little circles over his pulse point. “Shh,” he says softly, using his other hand to straighten the edges of the afghan so they cover Pete’s arms.
“Trick?” Pete mumbles blearily, eyelids fluttering open.
Patrick bends down and presses a chaste kiss to Pete’s forehead without really thinking about it. “Yeah,” he murmurs, smiling softly down at him. “Yeah, Pete, I’ve got you.” He tucks some of Pete’s ridiculous emo hair behind his ear. “Go back to sleep.”
Pete snuggles closer, nuzzling into the crease of denim over Patrick’s hip. He presses a damp, open-mouthed kiss to the strip of skin exposed between Patrick’s shirt and belt, that little bit of pudge that Patrick’s always hated. Patrick’s skin spangles under his lips, and Patrick sucks in a sharp breath, reminding himself that it’s not anything, that Pete’s affectionate, that it’s not anything for Patrick to jeopardize what they have over. Pete’s a flirt, a snuggly flirt, and Patrick likes it that way, just.
Sighing, Patrick tucks his fingers into the back of the collar of Pete’s shirt, thumb tracing over the outline of the bones in his neck, smoothing back out over his pulse. “Goodnight, Pete,” he whispers.
“G’night, Trick,” Pete says, soft, barely audible, and the words raise goosebumps as they ghost over Patrick’s skin.
He tells himself that that isn’t the part that matters. What matters is that he has Pete, and Pete’s safe, now, and Patrick isn’t going to fuck this up just because he wants Pete’s mouth to do more than tell him goodnight.
--
Part Three: http://frankie-ann.livejournal.com/13814.html
Part One: http://frankie-ann.livejournal.com/13256.html
He’s pretty sure he doesn’t, but he swipes haphazardly at his mouth and nose anyways.
Pete’s still staring at him.
“What?” Patrick asks, still half asleep and possibly a little snappier than he would be if he weren’t. It’s not like he got a lot of sleep.
“Did I dream that?” Pete asks, brow furrowed.
Patrick feels all his irritation seep out of him like water into the ground. Without intending to, he reaches out, brushing fingers over the slope of Pete’s jaw.
Pete’s eyes flutter closed, and he leans a little into the touch. Sighing softly, he says, sounding almost embarrassed, “Sorry. It-I just have them, sometimes.“
Patrick looks at him for a long moment, blinking the last of the sleep out of his eyes. Pete’s own eyes are still shut, and he’s got his head tilted into the curve of Patrick’s hand like he’s afraid Patrick’s going to jerk it away and bolt. Which, alright, isn’t really unfair of him, since that’s Patrick’s first instinct. He holds himself still, though, smoothing his thumb over the skin below Pete’s ear. “It’s fine.” It’s not, really, and that’s not exactly what he meant to say, anyway, so he adds, “Does anything help?”
Pete’s eyes snap open, and he draws his lower lip into his mouth, gnawing a little. “I-“ he pauses, swallows, looks down. Softer, like he doesn’t really even want to say it, he admits, “That-I mean. That helped.”
Patrick closes his eyes, lets himself smile at the idea of actually being able to fix anything broken in Pete, even if it’s small. “Yeah?”
Pete snuggles closer, and Patrick lets him. “Yeah,” Pete says, mouth moving against the indent above Patrick’s collarbone. Even softer, he says, “Thanks.”
Patrick lets out a breath he hadn’t meant to hold. Slinging an arm around Pete’s waist and pulling him in a little closer, he says, “Don’t mention it.” What he means is, always, or maybe, anything, or even just, of course.
Pete makes a sweet, low noise of assent, and, eventually, they both drift back to sleep.
--
“No, no more Cupcake Wars,” Pete says insistently, sitting on the remote.
“Fine,” Patrick says grumpily, raising his hands in surrender. “What do you want to watch, then?”
Pete grins evilly.
--
“Shhh, oh my god, shut up, it’s starting,” Pete hisses, clapping his hand over Patrick’s mouth.
Patrick raises an eyebrow, which okay, is fair, because usually it’s Patrick telling Pete to shut up. But this is serious business. This is Buffy. This is Once More With Feeling, and that shit deserves respect.
Pete takes his hand off Patrick’s mouth when the music starts. “Shh,” he says again, poking Patrick once in the arm for good measure.
Patrick doesn’t argue, just makes a face and knocks Pete’s knee with his own. “Can I at least sing along?”
Pete doesn’t look away from the screen-it’s enthralling, it’s totally not his fault. “Yeah, yeah, whatever, shut up.”
Twenty minutes later, Patrick is singing along with Wish I Could Stay, and when he hits the first high note, Pete goes instantly, painfully hard.
Patrick glances over at him-Pete might maybe have made a small noise accompanying his unfortunate physical reaction, and it may or may not have resembled a whimper-and bites his lip. “Sorry,” he says, sounding actually apologetic, “I’ll shut up.”
Pete yanks one of the throw pillows out from behind him and shoves it over his lap. “No,” he says, and if his voice is maybe a little higher than normal, well, Patrick doesn’t mention it. “No, no, it’s cool.”
--
“What are you doing tomorrow?” Brendon asks as soon as Pete picks up the phone.
“Uh,” Pete says, and, “Brendon, it’s three am.”
Brendon snorts. “Oh, right, like you were asleep.”
He has a point, Pete wasn’t, but Patrick’s asleep, passed out with his head on Pete’s thigh, snuffling a little in his sleep. Pete doesn’t mention that, though. “Point,” he says instead, “and I don’t think I have big plans tomorrow, why?”
“I want a tattoo.”
Pete blinks into the darkness. Then he holds his phone away from his ear and blinks at it, too. Finally, he puts it back to his ear and says, “Brendon, you’re terrified of needles. You fear needles almost as much as Gerard, and he screamed like a girl when Greta sewed up the hole in his pants that one time.” It was necessary-Frank had ripped them in a really inconvenient and obvious place, and the band was due to be on stage in less than ten minutes, and they hadn’t had time to let Gerard take them off first.
Brendon sucks his teeth awkwardly for a second, then says, sounding kind of strangled, “I need-look, I mean, I know it’s needles, and no, I don’t like them, but.” He huffs a little. “I just. I need to do this.”
Pete knows how that goes. It happened more after his first one, that itch under his skin for more, but he can relate. “Alright, I’m down. You want me to pick you up?”
Brendon sighs, presumably in relief. “Hell yes. Like noon?”
“Sure. Where are we going?”
“Um,” Brendon says, “I have a couple places written down, but there’s the issue of-I kind of don’t want a crowd. It’s not a secret, exactly, just, I’m not-I don’t want my guys to know until after.”
Pete rolls it over in his head for a minute, says, “I know a guy. He’s like an hour and a half away, though. But he’s done some of my stuff. He’s good.”
“I don’t really care how far it is.”
Pete nods, then remembers that Brendon can’t see him. “Yeah, okay. Noon, I’ll be by the house.”
“Thanks, Pete. This is-just, thanks.” He still sounds strange, and Pete can’t really place it, but.
“No problem,” he says. “Catch you then.” When he flips his phone shut, Patrick’s eyes are open, staring up at him.
“He’s dead,” Patrick says, sounding sleepy and confused. “I can tell.”
“Yeah,” Pete says, shrugging. “We don’t really let that bug us.” Without Pete really meaning for it to, his hand settles in Patrick’s hair. For once, he’s not wearing a hat, and his hair is soft and fine under Pete’s fingers.
Patrick, still half asleep, says, “You’re possibly even weirder than I thought.”
Pete smiles wryly down at him. “You’re dead, too, Pattycakes.”
“Mmm,” Patrick agrees, “But I have wings.”
“Oh yeah,” Pete says, snorting and ruffling Patrick’s hair, “That totally changes everything.”
--
Brendon gets into Pete’s car with a huff and says, “I am so terrified right now, I can’t tell you.”
Pete grins and pats his thigh consolingly. “That happens.”
“How much does it hurt?” Brendon asks, rubbing at his arms a little.
Pete shrugs. “It hurts a lot. You either want the tattoo, and you deal with it, or you don’t go at all.”
Brendon sucks in a breath, nods. “Right,” he says, “Yes, yeah, right. I’m doing this. I need this.”
They drive in silence for a while, Brendon fiddling nervously with the radio, Pete tapping his fingers to the beat of whatever’s playing. He can wait, and Brendon’ll get to it when he’s ready.
Finally, Brendon says, “Spencer’s mad at me.”
“Oh?” Pete says. He kind of doubts it-Smith is a pushover for Brendon, but Brendon doesn’t tend to be as aware of that as everyone else on the planet is. “And getting ink is fixing that how?”
“I kind of-“ Brendon stops, frowning. “I just need to show him that I’m not-I’m not his responsibility. I don’t need him to always be there, keeping me real.”
Pete glances at him. “I don’t think that’s what he thinks,” he says slowly.
“We had a fight, right, just like a little argument, and he just. He walked out. And he came back in like an hour, freaking out, babbling about how he didn’t mean to make me think he was going anywhere.” Brendon is studying his hands. “And so, at first, I thought, we’ll talk about this, and I’ll explain-I don’t think I’m in whatever, like, limbo, anymore. I think I’m just. Just real, now, like, even if everyone forgot I was around, I’d still be around. But then I realized that he’s not going to believe me just saying it.”
Pete nods, waits.
“And I think, if I do this, if I get this, it’ll be like.” Brendon hums a little, hesitating before he says, “Like proof that I can be alive, be an adult, without him holding my hand through it.”
“So,” Pete says, slanting him a grin, “What, you don’t want me to hold your hand?”
“Oh no,” Brendon says, face very serious, “you’re going to fucking hold my hand even if I squeeze it blue. But we’re not telling Spencer that. We’re telling Spencer that I was very stoic and manly and not scared at all.”
“Oh,” Pete says, mock-solemn, “I see. Of course.”
--
Spencer’s face when he sees the flowing line of piano keys on Brendon’s arm is not a pleasant sight to witness.
“What the fuck,” he says, looking from Pete to Brendon and back again. “Was this your idea?”
“Uh, no,” Pete says, waving a little, and, “See you, Brendon. Smith. Bye.” He feels sort of gross and guilty-it’s not like it was his idea, Brendon came to him. But Pete still feels dirty for being in the middle of them, making one more person’s life more difficult.
Spencer’s scowl follows him all the way out of the driveway.
--
Patrick’s hand wraps around Pete’s wrist and pulls the gun away from his temple. Pete doesn’t startle, which is really for the best-both because it means he’s starting to expect this from Patrick, which is a step towards some sort of twisted mimicry of an actual sense of self-worth, and because it means he doesn’t pull the trigger and blow a hole in the wall. Or his skull.
“Pete,” he says softly, prying the pistol out of Pete’s grip. “Pete, no more of this.”
Pete looks up at him with red-rimmed eyes. “Smith’s mad at me.”
Patrick rolls his eyes and wishes he could have a stern talking-to with Smith about the emotional fragility of his boss. “Imagine how much more upset he’ll be if he finds out he’s lost his record deal because your brain is all over the wall,” he says, because Pete’s more likely to listen to that than any actual reasons why he needs to stop trying to kill himself.
Pete shrugs. “Someone else would sign them. They’re spectacular.” They are; Brendon’s voice makes Patrick feel like he’s shining from the inside out, like he’s what Patrick had thought angels were supposed to be. That’s really not the issue, though.
“Yeah,” Patrick says, turning the gun’s safety on and setting it on the dresser. Gently, he tugs Pete up, into his lap, and wraps his arms around him. “That’s not the point, Pete.”
Pete doesn’t struggle, just leans his forehead against Patrick’s neck and says bitterly, “The point is, I want to die, and you’re not letting me.”
“No,” Patrick agrees, pressing his lips to Pete’s temple. “No, I’m not.” He tightens his arms, pulling Pete a little closer.
“What,” Pete cracks, sharp and ugly, pulling away, “is this your way of saying you’ve changed your mind? You do want me, now?” He’s edging back towards the dresser, towards the gun.
Patrick doesn’t let him get far. He yanks Pete back down, winding his arms around him, pinning Pete’s limbs to his body and holding on. “No,” Patrick says gently, and he doesn’t mean no, I don’t want you. That realization spikes sharp and sickening in Patrick’s stomach, but he pushes it aside for the time being. “No, Pete, that’s not what this is.”
“I’m broken,” Pete explains patiently, as though Patrick is a slightly slow child. “I don’t want anyone to have to go through fixing me.”
Patrick wants to say, “I just want to feel you whole under my hands. Let me be selfish.”
Or, “There’s something about what you think of yourself that makes me want to crawl inside myself and look for a better answer.”
Or, “You’re not broken, Pete, just frayed a little at the edges.”
Instead, he tightens his arms around Pete, squeezing him close. After a minute or two of quiet, Pete starts leaning into him a little, and Patrick settles on, “Sometimes, you have to let other people make that decision for themselves.”
Pete lets out one lone, ragged sob and burrows his face into Patrick’s shoulder.
--
Pete’s phone blares Part of Your World from the Little Mermaid. “Brendon?”
“Dude. You are my hero, Spencer’s totally not mad at me anymore.” Brendon sounds giddy.
Pete squints at his phone. “Really?” he asks. Last time he saw Spencer, Spencer looked like he wanted to rip out Pete’s lungs and hit Brendon with them. “Why am I your hero?”
“Cause you totally saved me! Oh, oh, and Spencer says he’s sorry for being all growly at you, he thought it was your idea, or whatever. But I explained! And he likes it. Although he says the flowers are dumb.” Pete can hear the pout in his voice.
“Told you they were too much to start with,” Pete says. His mouth feels kind of numb. “And girly.”
“Pete,” Brendon whines, “come on, they’re fancy. And, like, part of my Hawaiian heritage and shit. You and Spence are just haters. Cause your ink isn’t as fancy, and he’s too much of a pansy to get any at all.” Pete hears a thump-presumably Spencer smacking Brendon upside the head-and an accompanying, “Ow, shit, Spence, I was kidding.”
Pete grins a little, despite himself. “So he isn’t going to like, hunt me down for my skin?”
“Uh, no. Why would you even think that?”
Pete hesitates. “He just seemed-“
“He’s a growly manbear, Pete, don’t take it personally. He and Bob need to have, like, a growly manbear club, where they get together for play dates and do manbear things, like, like-“
“Like eat berries-“ Pete says, helpful.
“Yes! And catch fish in streams with their hands! And steal honey from bees and ouch, Jesus, Spence, stop-owww, Pete, domestic abuse, domestic-uh, Pete, I have to go, Spencer is raping me.” Brendon doesn’t actually sound like he minds.
Pete giggles and hangs up.
Patrick is peering at him. “See?” he says, edge of his mouth curled into what might be a smile if he didn’t look so sad.
Pete bites his lip and looks away. “It doesn’t-it doesn’t change anything.”
“No,” Patrick agrees slowly, “no, it doesn’t, because nothing was wrong in the first place. You’re loved, Pete. You’re not making anything harder on anyone else by being here.”
Pete shakes his head, but it’s maybe more of an automatic response than a real argument. “Whatever,” he mutters, trudging off to the kitchen just for the sake of being somewhere else.
He doesn’t have to wait long before Patrick follows.
--
The fifth time Patrick catches Pete, he doesn’t do it gently. He yanks the knife out of Pete’s hand and punches him in the face in the same motion.
Pete reels backwards with a startled yelp, hitting the counter.
Patrick stands over him, breathing harshly, and yells, “I swear to god, Pete, if you this one more fucking time, I’m going to-“
“What?” Pete asks hysterically, “What, you’re going to kill me? Cause that would be really fucking-“
Patrick cuts him off with another punch, this time to the stomach. “I will fucking break your legs and your arms and you won’t be able to get the fuck out of bed to kill yourself, you complete assface.”
Pete shrugs. “Bones heal,” he says blandly, so nonchalant that Patrick could scream.
“Pete,” he says, jaw clenched, barely able to hear himself over the thunder of his heart in his ears. “Seriously, Pete.” He means to say something after that, but it gets lost in the rushing loop of fearpanicfear screaming over and over in his chest.
Pete looks at him like Patrick is some sort of brand new anomaly, some sort of freak apparition, and says, slowly, like he’s sounding out the words, “You’re scared.”
“Yes,” Patrick snaps, glaring. “Yes, and I’m supposed to keep-“
“No,” Pete says, one hand drifting out to trace the sore knuckles on Patrick’s fist, “no, you’re. You’re not scared because you’re supposed to keep me alive.” He sounds incredulous, awed. “You’re scared-“ he swallows, looking up at Patrick’s face. “You’re scared of me dying.”
“That’s what I said, yes,” Patrick huffs, crossing his arms and looking away.
A slow, unsteady smile creeps over Pete’s face. “Oh,” he says, the single syllable sounding happier and more confused than anything Patrick’s heard out of his mouth so far. “Oh.”
--
“Do you believe in angels?” Pete asks Gabe over lunch the next day.
“I’m a Jew,” Gabe says blankly.
“So?”
Gabe looks at Pete like he’s a moron, which, okay, fair. “I’m a Jew, dumbass, yes, we believe in angels.”
“You also believe in the Cobra, Gabe,” Pete points out, “I don’t exactly know how aligned your personal beliefs are with orthodox Jewishness.”
Gabe taps his nose, acknowledging the point. “Fair play to you,” he says, taking a swig of his beer. “Why do you ask in the first place?”
Pete rubs a little at the spot between his eyes. “I may have been keeping something secret,” he says, a little hesitant. This is a fucking big deal, even if it is just Gabe.
Gabe nods, but he doesn’t look pissed. Yet. “How long?”
Pete shrugs. “Since Ash.”
“Mmm,” Gabe says, palming at the back of his neck a little. “The suicide thing.”
“Things,” Pete says softly. “There was-I might have-there were a few times.”
Gabe’s hand clenches around his beer, knuckles going white. “Yeah?” he says, voice just uneven enough for Pete to notice.
Pete scrubs a hand through his hair. “Yeah-look, Gabe, would you think I was insane if I told you I have a guardian angel?”
“No,” Gabe says slowly, drawing out the syllable, and Pete can’t tell if he’s mocking him or just thinks Pete’s being stupid for asking.
“Right,” Pete says, and decides he might as well lay it all out on the table, “so.”
--
[[Vicky-T is all Barbie legs and crocodile eyes, sharp teeth and soft brown wings. She shows up for the first time when Gabe is sixteen, gangly and awkward with his braces just off and his ridiculous hair just learning how to be truly ridiculous.
Gabe’s curled on his side in his parents’ basement, wishing for all the world he could make himself puke. When she kneels down and hands him a glass of water, smoothing his hair gently off his sweaty forehead and saying, “She really fucked you over, didn’t she?”, he finally does.
Through the whole thing, she keeps one hand on his back, rubbing slow circles, and she forces him to drink enough water to keep him hydrated.
“Who are you?” he asks, finally, still hours before dawn, when he can stop for more than ten seconds between rounds of vomiting up gin and vodka.
She smiles tightly at him and says, “Victoria. I’m here to look after you.”
“I don’t actually want looking after,” Gabe says rudely, and for a second, he almost means it.
Vicky-T squeezes his knee and smiles at him with sharp teeth and sharper eyes. “I didn’t ask if you wanted it, did I, jackass?”
While Gabe gapes at her, her face softens, and she hands him another glass of water. “You have wings,” he says dumbly, finally noticing the soft brown shadows draped down her back.
She shrugs. “Comes with the territory, I guess.” She settles down on the floor, legs folded under her, and says, “Instead of trying to off yourself with daddy’s liquor cabinet, hmm, why don’t you tell me what happened?”
Gabe chews his lower lip for a minute, staring at his hands in his lap, and finally says, “People suck.”
“Oh, baby,” she says sympathetically, tipping his chin up so he has to look at her, “You ain’t seen nothing yet.”
Gabe spends the rest of the night curled up to her side, head pillowed on her thigh, sleeping off the alcohol under the curve of her wing.
After that, Gabe knows he won’t ever be able to fall in love with a normal girl again.]]
--
“So, wait,” Gabe says, steepling his fingers and peering at Pete over them. “What you’re saying is that you think you’re insane because you’re in love with your guardian angel slash imaginary best friend.”
Pete picks at his nails very studiously. “Something like that, yeah.”
Gabe laughs at him. “Pete,” he says, kind of hysterically, “Pete, I worship a giant purple space cobra. The front man of the most popular band on your label is a dead guy. The lead guitarist of that same band has a pet chicken.” He doesn’t mention Vicky-T, doesn’t mention that basically no part of what Pete’s telling him sounds crazy at all. He’ll save that for when Pete stops thinking that Pete’s crazy.
Pete looks at him. “I’m not getting where you’re going with this.”
Gabe pokes him in the forehead. “I’m not getting why you think I’m going to think you’re crazy.”
“Oh,” Pete says, and, “You do kind of have a point there,” and, “But my imaginary friend has wings and wears trucker hats.”
“Oh,” Gabe parrots mockingly, “Well, then, I’m sorry, clearly I was wrong, and you’re just insane.”
“Gee,” Pete says, making a face, “Gee, Gabe, you’re really fucking helpful.”
“That’s totally what I was going for,” Gabe tells him solemnly. “Totally aiming for helpful.”
--
[[The first time Gabe jerks off thinking about her, he’s seventeen and it’s accidental. He’s originally thinking of Maja, the blonde with the really smoking hot legs from his Algebra class, but then that leads his brain to her really smoking hot legs, and then he’s thinking about her bright, bright eyes, and her red, red mouth and coming over his hand before he even knows what’s happening.
The first time Gabe jerks off in front of her, he’s nineteen and very, very drunk. She’s sitting on his dresser, flipping through a magazine, and when she looks up and sees him, she doesn’t say a word, just watches him with dark eyes. He pants, open-mouthed, and he when he comes, arching off the bed and groaning, she tilts her head to the side like a curious bird and says, “Hmm.”
Gabe wakes up the next morning and doesn’t pretend he doesn’t remember. She doesn’t ask.
It’s not the last time it happens. She doesn’t ask any of the other times, either, even on the times when he isn’t drunk. ]]
--
Gabe decides that they’re going to test whether or not Patrick is real empirically.
“Okay, okay,” Gabe says, “You tell your imaginary friend to follow me out of the room. I’ll go, and I’ll do something, and we’ll come back. Then, he can tell you what I did, and if it’s right, then he’s real.”
“Have you mentioned to this guy that he’s a jackass yet?” Patrick asks Pete grumpily.
“He knows,” Pete assures him. “Just do it anyways. Please?”
“Fine, fine,” Patrick grumbles, crossing his arms.
“We’re good,” Pete tells Gabe, who gives him a thumbs up and ambles out of the room. Glaring over his shoulder at Pete, Patrick follows him.
Gabe comes back a minute later, grinning triumphantly, trailing a vaguely-ill-looking Patrick.
“He did the Time Warp,” Patrick grouses. “His pelvic thrusting was disgusting.”
Pete raises an eyebrow at Gabe. “The Time Warp, Saporta? Seriously?”
Gabe beams at him. “Well, either your imaginary trucker-hat angel is real, or you’re psychic.” He claps Pete on the back. “Did he like my pelvic thrusts?”
“No,” Patrick snaps, “no, I did not fucking like his pelvic thrusts, he grabbed his crotch.”
“Yeah,” Pete says, grinning. “Yeah, no, Gabe, he totally loved them.”
Patrick kicks him in the shin.
--
[[Gabe spends most of the time after high school in a series of progressively worse, progressively angrier bands, screaming very sincerely into microphones about how terribly unfair life is, how horrible people are. He drinks before he gets on stage, after he gets off stage, when he goes out afterwards with the band. Never to the point he had on the night Victoria arrived, but just enough to take the edge off, to keep all the ugliness in people from getting to him, enough to allow him to let the rest of the attention in.
Perched on a speaker, Victoria listens to him breaking, over and over, half to get the anger out of him, half to let the attention in, and wonders if maybe, the way he sees people is a little bit her fault. She’s not really sure if that’s something she’d have a problem with-it’s not like it isn’t all true-but it’s something she wonders about, all the same. Her job is to keep him alive, not to sugar-coat the truth, and for as long as she’s existed, the truth is that people are mostly out to fuck with you.
Gabe, though. Gabe doesn’t really want to fuck with anyone, and that makes her wonder if, by telling him the way she sees things, she’s keeping him safe, or just making things harder for him in the long run.
She doesn’t actually have an answer to that, and she doesn’t let herself think about it that often, but after that, whenever she sees Gabe reaching for a bottle, a shot glass, a red Solo cup, she slaps his hand away. Mostly, he even lets her.]]
--
Pete falls asleep with his head in Patrick’s lap during a Star Wars marathon. He’s snoring, a little, and there’s maybe some drool at the corner of his mouth, but Patrick’s very familiar by now with how hard it is for Pete to sleep peacefully, so he just tugs the afghan off the back of the couch and onto Pete, settling in for a long night.
Pete makes a cranky noise in his sleep, shifting a little, and Patrick lays his hand over the side of Pete’s neck, rubbing his thumb in little circles over his pulse point. “Shh,” he says softly, using his other hand to straighten the edges of the afghan so they cover Pete’s arms.
“Trick?” Pete mumbles blearily, eyelids fluttering open.
Patrick bends down and presses a chaste kiss to Pete’s forehead without really thinking about it. “Yeah,” he murmurs, smiling softly down at him. “Yeah, Pete, I’ve got you.” He tucks some of Pete’s ridiculous emo hair behind his ear. “Go back to sleep.”
Pete snuggles closer, nuzzling into the crease of denim over Patrick’s hip. He presses a damp, open-mouthed kiss to the strip of skin exposed between Patrick’s shirt and belt, that little bit of pudge that Patrick’s always hated. Patrick’s skin spangles under his lips, and Patrick sucks in a sharp breath, reminding himself that it’s not anything, that Pete’s affectionate, that it’s not anything for Patrick to jeopardize what they have over. Pete’s a flirt, a snuggly flirt, and Patrick likes it that way, just.
Sighing, Patrick tucks his fingers into the back of the collar of Pete’s shirt, thumb tracing over the outline of the bones in his neck, smoothing back out over his pulse. “Goodnight, Pete,” he whispers.
“G’night, Trick,” Pete says, soft, barely audible, and the words raise goosebumps as they ghost over Patrick’s skin.
He tells himself that that isn’t the part that matters. What matters is that he has Pete, and Pete’s safe, now, and Patrick isn’t going to fuck this up just because he wants Pete’s mouth to do more than tell him goodnight.
--
Part Three: http://frankie-ann.livejournal.com/13814.html
Part One: http://frankie-ann.livejournal.com/13256.html