BS: P/P: Adult: On The Necks Of Best Friends 4/6
Title: On The Necks Of Best Friends
Author: Gibson_fic
Fandom: Bandslash, Fall Out Boy
Characters/Pairing: Pete/Patrick
Rating: Adult for language and situations
Word Count: ~55,000
Disclaimer: This is a fictional story about characters based, in part, on the images and histories of real people. If that bothers you and/or you are one of those people, you probably don't want to read this. (If you chose to read it; I'm not responsible for subsequent unstoppable slashy thoughts). No harm is intended; no profit is being made.
Summary: "If he could say it, if he could tell them how it works, it might go something like this."
For full header information and author’s notes, go here
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The show that night is electric. Pete’s running on pure adrenaline before they even get on stage and Andy’s laying out the rhythm so strongly that Patrick thinks it’s dictating even the beat of his own heart.
They’re all there, they’re all on and it’s like the crowd only exists as a sort of feedback machine, just looping back onto them, creating something that’s less concert and more magic. Patrick knows they all feel it and Joe’s twirling so much that Patrick spares a brief thought to wondering if he can somehow propel himself vertical with the music alone.
But it’s Pete that Patrick’s really focused on. Pete’s in the crowd, the security guys holding him up and holding him back, keeping him from being consumed by the crowd, and that’s when he’s not flinging himself all over the stage.
He stays away from Patrick at first and Patrick can tell it’s the kind of staying away that means that Pete’s already wound so tight that he if gets too close he might just grab Patrick and not let go, and while that’s mostly okay with him, Pete does actually play an instrument in this band.
So Pete stays back for a while and then during Grand Theft Autumn he breaks and screams “you were the last good thing about this part of town” into Patrick’s mic…and doesn’t leave. He spends the rest of the song in Patrick’s space: playing at Patrick, resting his head on his shoulder, stalking towards him as he mouths the lyrics back at him.
It’s really distracting, it would be anyway if they weren’t all charged and playing like their lives depended on it, and then there’s the fact that Pete being that obvious is a huge turn-on for Patrick.
He takes his revenge later though, waiting until they hit a slower vibe, waiting until he gets a chance to do an acoustic bit. Pete introduces him, as always, and tells the audience that they better treat him right and then he’s off the stage, but in the wings, watching Patrick and shotgunning a bottle of water.
Patrick doesn’t look at him as he plays the first few notes, doesn’t want to be too obvious, but Patrick’s got to know that the Marvin Gaye is for him, because who else is Patrick going to be singing that to?
The audience is into it, singing along and keeping time and Patrick gets through the song. Joe comes back on stage spinning like a Tasmanian Devil and Patrick thinks that means that only 80% of the crowd sees the way that Pete single-mindedly stalks over to him and puts his head down on the back of Patrick’s neck before shouting, “Patrick Martin Stump” into Patrick’s own mic.
He really hopes that no one got a clear shot of the way that Pete had bitten down where Patrick’s neck and shoulder meet and then quickly swiped his tongue along the imprint of his teeth before the introduction.
%^%^%^%^
Pete starts telling interviewers, when they ask, that he and Patrick are married. He tells them other things too, but telling them that they’re married seems to be the most effective way to both provoke them and shut them up. They never know what to say to that; the fact is that with their touring schedule they could have gotten married four times over by now and no one would know.
They’re not married though they are together, and Patrick secretly likes that Pete wants to brag about them, wants to insist that they belong together, that they have a responsibility to each other, even if neither of them is quite ready to go that public, or even be married.
Patrick never contradicts him, just plays along, telling people that Hemmy was their ring bearer one day, and that they got married in a Casino another one. Pete might be on to something with his theory that being a smartass is much more fun than taking their questions seriously.
Also, it means that Pete kisses him breathless when they’re alone again. That’s always a good thing.
%^%^%^%^
They stop at a Travel America in the middle of the night, or in the middle of the morning, or something. Patrick hasn’t gone to sleep yet but that’s his own fault. He finds it hard to sleep without Pete beside him and Pete’s glad to oblige, and he does sleep more now, sleeps better too, but he’s still an insomniac. Patrick’s not a miracle cure after all, so Patrick’s staying up late, waiting for Pete to wind down enough to be able to lie down. And, actually, it’s kind of a good thing because he’s been waiting to do this for a while and doesn’t want any of the guys with him when he does it. He’s already the butt of enough well-meaning jokes and amused looks and there’s no reason to give them any more fodder.
When the bus pulls into the parking lot and stops, Patrick looks over at Pete, who’s got his headphones on and is intently staring at the screen of his laptop, “you need anything?”
Pete looks up, a bit disoriented, and says no, and Patrick says he’s just going to stretch his legs. Pete nods and Patrick has a moment of relief.
The lights in the truckstop are fluorescent and give everything that sterile and unfriendly feel, much like a hospital, and Patrick tries not to think about the cameras. No one is going to know what he’s doing and it’s not illegal, regardless. It could be a bit embarrassing, okay, it would definitely be more than embarrassing if someone leaked it, but there are all of three people in the convenience side of the building when he walks in. One is their bus driver, stocking up on Gatorade; one is obviously a truck-driver with his company-issue shirt and rolling walk, and he’s more interested in the collection of magazines enshrouded in plastic than Patrick. That just leaves the woman at the register and the way she looks at him assures him that she’s seen everything in her time here and couldn’t care less who he is or what he wants.
He walks down the candy aisle, idly considering a Snickers bar, but the fact is that he doesn’t really want candy and it’s late and he hopes he’s going to sleep pretty soon. Also, if he brings candy back for himself he’ll have to take Pete something and he actually wants Pete to wind down, not stay up all night.
So, with a shake of his shoulders, he heads over to the aisle of medicines, sleep-suppressants, cough drops, bandaids and condoms. He tries to seem smooth, nonchalant, like he’s the sort of guy that gets so much action he’s always dropping into convenience stores in the middle of the night to pick up more supplies.
He’s pretty sure that no one’s buying that act, if anyone’s looking that is, and he doesn’t raise his eyes from the display of condoms long enough to find out.
He’s actually a bit paralyzed here: he and Pete haven’t used condoms so far and they haven’t taken that step, but surely they’re going to and they should probably have condoms for that, right? But he’s clean and he’s reasonably sure that Pete is and they’re monogamous. They’d better fucking be or Pete’s going to be able to sing the high-notes in no time, so do they even need condoms?
He’s possessed by a wild desire to text Pete and ask him, but well, if this hasn’t come up already then it’s probably not the sort of thing you should text a guy in the middle of the night from the condom aisle to find out. He grabs a box, just in case, and then looks for what he really came for.
There’s not much in the way of options and Patrick’s glad because the websites can go into excruciating detail about the merits of the different brands, but all Patrick wants is something wet and slick that’ll get the job done. He figures he’ll have time to become a connoisseur later.
He grabs the biggest bottle of lube they have, what he does know is that this is going to take some time and a lot of lube, in fact, he’s halfway down the aisle when he considers how embarrassing it would be to run out and what if they get to that point and there isn’t enough, and there’s no way that either of them is going to ask for a runner to get them that, if Pete even thinks about it Patrick’s going to break his hand, so he turns around and gets another bottle. It’s not like the stuff goes bad.
He walks towards the checkout and, despite his pep-talk to himself, he knows there’s no way he can buy two bottles of lube and an economy-size box of condoms without dying of embarrassment so he grabs a pack of Wintergreen Lifesavers too. He has his money in hand by the time the woman at the register reaches for the first bottle of lube and pretends that he’s just picking up some mints and he doesn’t look at her as he accepts his change. She, very kindly, hands everything over in a brown paper bag and Patrick’s glad. He doesn’t care if it looks like he’s got a bottle of Jack in there, he could never have sauntered across the parking lot carrying that shit.
He gets back on the bus and lets out a whoosh of breath; he feels like he got away with something and that’s almost as ridiculous as his behavior in the store.
He stows the sack in his bunk, at the bottom, in the corner, under an old sweatshirt that Pete is very unlikely to steal.
He opens the LifeSavers and pops one in his mouth, at least he has a cover story now.
Pete looks up as he back into the lounge, steals a kiss and says, “Umm…minty fresh.”
Patrick tries very, very hard not to blush.
%^%^%^%^
Despite their dancing around each other on stage and off, they don’t do anything on the bus that they couldn’t do in front of their parents (assuming of course that their parents wouldn’t freak, and Patrick hasn’t thought too much about that aspect of this yet, but it might not be that bad, after all, his parents let him set off into the world with Pete before he could vote or buy anything remotely interesting, there has to be some reason for that).
Patrick’s got Rules about when and where they can do stuff and, even though Pete likes pushing at boundaries, he’s only half-heartedly pushing at these ones. Patrick thinks for them to be all things to each other that they already are and then to try and add something new into the mix, well, they just have to have some lines. He knows that, eventually, they’re going to cross any lines he draws, it’s the nature of their relationship-always pushing at the things that keep them separate, always pulling each other closer-but he thinks that his lines and Rules will give them enough time to figure out how to juggle it all.
Also, the fact is that this isn’t just their home it’s the whole band’s, and Andy and Joe aren’t getting laid every night-even when Joe’s girlfriend does join them on tour-so it’s only right that they don’t constantly get up to shit on the bus. And frankly there just isn’t enough room or privacy.
So, they don’t do anything on the bus that they couldn’t do in a high school corridor. Well, not Patrick’s high school because no way would it have gone unnoticed that two guys were totally swallowing each other’s faces between classes (and Patrick’s man enough to admit that sometimes he and Pete do that thing where it looks like they’re trying to move into each other’s mouths and it’s nasty to watch, he knows, but sometimes it’s just the way it happens), but, you know, if it was like a guy and a girl it would totally be fine and that’s the line he’s drawn for himself.
He hasn’t actually told Pete that yet, not the exact line and how he’s defined it, and he’s got lots of reasons for that. First, Pete seems like the sort of guy that would have had a girl backed into the corner and be busy kissing her with his hand on her hip and distracting everyone from the fact that his other hand was under her shirt and rapidly approaching bra-territory. If Patrick tells him it’s got to be high-school approved (and that’s the lamest distinction anyone has ever come up with and that’s another terrific reason for never telling Pete), then Pete’s going to be trying to get away with all sorts of things that are definitely not on Patrick’s list.
Second, and this is just as important, right now they’re just feeling each other out and trying to see how this works, how they fit together in this way, and they’re being sort of careful with each other, but if he tells Pete that he’s got lines and stuff, Pete is going to be forced to push at them and that’s exactly what Patrick’s trying to avoid.
Pete’s not doing too much pushing right now, they’re both kind of comfortable with their rhythm-saving the heavy stuff for when they’re not trapped on the bus and that’s a great idea because they’re moving in fits and starts, and it gives them a chance to sort of reset themselves in between. Or something like that.
The problem is that Patrick’s got rules and, as it turns out, he’s not very good at following them either. Because, in the very beginning, he had rules about sleeping together in the bunks too, and he caved pretty damn quickly on that issue and that’s not such a defeat, except when he accidently knocks Pete out of bed or Pete steals all the covers and then kicks Patrick for trying to get them back, but Patrick knows that it’s a bad precedent.
It’s actually Pete’s fault, if he wasn’t so warm and didn’t feel so good against him, Patrick would be able to fall sleep without needing to know that he was going to find Pete in bed next to him when he wakes up. And if Pete’s skin wasn’t so damn touchable and he wasn’t going around all the time without putting on a shirt (and Patrick knows he’s got some because he did the laundry last time and also Pete’s never been afraid of stealing his clothes so it’s clearly a case of him choosing not to wear clothes), then Patrick’s fingers wouldn’t itch every time he was in the same room with him.
And it’s also Pete’s fault because he’s good at planning pranks and jokes and marketing schemes, but he’s not proven himself to be the best at the little details, so Patrick’s had to be in charge of the little things, and there’s a crumpled brown bag at the foot of his bunk that is driving him slowly insane, and he doesn’t even know if Pete wants to do that stuff-he doesn’t even know if he does and the thought of it makes him a little uncomfortable but not in an entirely bad way--but Patrick’s becoming a bit fixated on it and there’s just no way that anything involving outside aids is high-school approved and if Patrick doesn’t stop needing to duck into the bathroom so he doesn’t actually climb into Pete’s lap soon, he’s going to have to open one of those bottles for himself and that’s definitely not part of his plan.
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Patrick sings for Pete. Patrick sings Pete’s words because no one wants Pete to sing them but they have to be sung. And Patrick actually wants to sing them, and that’s a really important aspect of them and how they came together because Patrick understands what Pete is saying, and what he wants to say, and how much it’s okay to reveal. Patrick helps him walk that line when they’re writing the songs so that Pete doesn’t feel too exposed when he sings them.
But Patrick actually sings for Pete. Not Fall Out Boy songs, well, not usually but it’s happened a couple of times, but he sings other stuff for him, sometimes it’s slow and low and bittersweet and he’s covering something from Ma Rainey, and sometimes it’s something classic and rock and once in a while he’ll even tell Pete that he’s “The Only Living Boy in New York.” One time he did a killer impression of “Hit Me Baby One More Time” that had Pete shaking with laughter even as he called him Patrick Spears.
It mostly doesn’t matter what he’s singing, just that he is.
Pete’s always been prone to fits of introspection and seclusion that other people would call depression, and sometimes it is depression, but a lot of the time it’s just him recharging, drawing back, getting some time and space for himself. Patrick keeps an eye on him and makes sure it doesn’t get too far. They mostly don’t talk about the one time it did.
But even when Pete doesn’t really want to talk about what’s going on, he likes to have Patrick sing for him. It’s something he’s done for years, something that’s just part of how they grew together and most of the time Patrick doesn’t even realize it.
Sometimes it’s him and Pete in the lounge (or on the bench seat in the back during the van days) and he just sings low and clear for him. Sometimes it’s as simple Patrick singing Dobie Gray when he’s warming up and bumping purposely into Pete’s shoulder while he sings, “I want to get lost in your rock and roll.”
Sometimes when they’re on breaks and not breathing the same air everyday or even in the same time zone, Pete will call and make awkward conversation until Patrick says, “Hey, I’ve been working on this melody, can you give it a listen for me?” and then he sings whatever he’s been working on-because it’s never a lie, he’s always working on something-to Pete and by the time he’s run through it a few times and asks Pete what he thinks, Pete’s voice is a little looser and easier when he answers.
Singing for Pete always means that Patrick’s a little looser when he’s finished too.
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Patrick’s hoodies have started disappearing.
At first it was just the one, an older one, one he’d had before they’d even started touring. It wasn’t expensive or even special, just an old, navy hoodie-the cuffs so worn that that the folds of fabric were visible and there was an ink stain on the bottom of the hem.
It wasn't a big deal, exactly, but he’d had that hoodie for a long time and it was comfortable in that way new things never are. And the holes in the cuffs were useful to stick his fingers into. It’s just that he knew that he'd had it in the dressing room before their last show and then he hadn't seen it for almost a week and he'd worried about what had happened to it.
When he finds it, it's less finding than spotting. He’d been in the back working on some tracks in garage band and got up and headed for the kitchen to get some water. Joe and Andy were playing a game on the XBOX, and they’d nodded at him in a distracted way as he came through. Pete was sitting on the couch, his hood up and a book in his lap, headphones in. That in itself wasn’t at all notable and Patrick just looked at him for a moment before getting his water. It was after he’d grabbed the bottle and drank half of it, standing with his back against the counter and looking back over at Pete, that he’d noticed the details-the way the hood fell almost into Pete’s eyes and was obviously just a bit too large for him, the way his hands were fisted in the sleeves, mittening the fabric over them, the fact that the hem came down a little further on his hips than usual.
Other than the color, and the fact that he knew that hoodie inside and out, there was no reason to suspect that Pete was wearing his missing, no stolen, hoodie, but Patrick was certain he was.
He'd walked over, shifted Pete’s legs up and sat down, dropping Pete’s legs back down over his lap. Pete'd looked up, and Patrick had reached out and grabbed one of his cloth-covered hands and gently unwound his fingers from the fabric, then pulled the sleeves down and looked at the cuffs. He'd said, “I’ve been wondering where this got to. Thought I’d lost it.”
Pete'd looked almost nervous, caught in the act, Patrick had added, “It’s okay, just let me know next time? I don’t want to think I’m losing stuff.”
Patrick'd pulled Pete to him by the sleeve still in his hand and kissed him. In fact, he'd kissed him until he felt something bounce off of his back. He turned to see an empty plastic bottle on the floor and Joe grinning at him. “You two lovebirds need some alone time?”
Patrick'd laughed, “No, I gotta get back to work.”
After that when Patrick’s hoodies went missing or his favorite t-shirt wasn’t where he left it, he didn’t worry too much about it being lost and instead looked for Pete to wear it. He wanted to be mad about it, somehow he was going through twice the laundry and was still doing most of it alone, but the fact was that Patrick liked the way that Pete looked in his clothes. They were a little looser than Pete normally wore things, but he had a habit of pulling them close against him, wrapping himself in Patrick's clothes the way he sometimes wrapped himself in Patrick's arms. Patrick just found it very difficult to get upset when all he wanted to do every time he saw Pete wear something of his was kiss him senseless. It was always a special thrill when he wore one of them during a show.
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Patrick doesn’t know when they’re going to take that next step or even what that step might be, but he really doesn’t want to be caught unprepared. Patrick hadn’t been much of a boy scout, hadn’t been one at all actually, but somewhere along the line he’d apparently internalized their motto.
In the interests of always being prepared, he’d gotten another paper bag and dumped one of the bottles and half the condoms into it. There was no sense in putting all his supplies in one bag-- if he did that it would inevitably be where they weren’t.
The first bag stayed where he’d originally hidden it, in a relatively safe and secure spot in his bunk, the other was in the bottom of his travel bag, hopefully deep enough that Pete would only find it with Patrick’s direction.
%^%^%^%^
It was a hotel night, thankfully, when the inevitable happened. Patrick was in the shower, and when he got out he noticed that the room was almost eerily quiet. He opened the door-still damp, his boxers and t-shirt sticking to him. Pete was sitting on the bed that they were both going to be sleeping in, a brown bag in his hands and a sheepish look on his face.
“So, here I was looking for a shirt to change into and it looks like someone didn’t pack any for me,” Patrick wasn’t going to touch the fact that Pete was digging in his bag for a shirt to wear, or the assumption that he would have packed one for Pete.
“I couldn’t find one, and I was sure that there would be one, and it’s not like my Trick keeps secrets from me, so I wasn’t really worried about finding a secret stash hidden in our overnight bag. Imagine my surprise when I found one.” Pete paused here, opening the bag and looking in it, “I’m not sure whether to be flattered or concerned here, because, seriously man, there is a ton of shit in here.” Pete upended the bag on the bed and the condoms spilled out over the bedspread like confetti, the bottle of lube thudding down in the middle of them.
Patrick's chest was tight and his face had to be flaming, and he really hoped that it wasn't actually possible to die of embarrassment. The worst part was that seeing Pete sitting there so close to that stuff was also turning him on just a bit.
“It’s…I just. I just like to be prepared. I didn’t know and I didn’t want for us to get to that point and not be ready…I mean if we were ready.” Patrick shut up before he could stutter through this anymore.
“Are you at that point?” Pete’s tone was curious and he was running his fingers through the pile of condoms.
Patrick took a deep breath and sat heavily on the opposite bed. “I don’t know. I mean I’m curious, but it’s a big step. I didn’t think we’d talk about it, that it would just be obvious and then we’d have the stuff and it would work.”
Pete nodded, then looked up at him, “I don’t know either, but I do know that I find the idea of you thinking about this, about us doing that, and buying this shit for me, for us, incredibly fucking hot.”
Patrick flushed hotter but didn’t break his stare.
“Come here.” Pete’s voice was low. Patrick went to him, pushing Pete back against the bed and straddling him and then letting out a whoosh of air as Pete reversed their positions.
This was familiar, Pete spread out on top of Patrick, his weight comfortably pushing Patrick back into the mattress and drawing attention to every breath he drew, on the feel of Pete's mouth on his and the slide of his tongue against Patrick's. Patrick pushed up against Pete, dislodging him to pull their t-shirts off. Then he lay back again, reveling in the feel of their chests pressing against each other. No matter how many times they did this, he was fairly certain this would be one of his favorite parts.
Patrick lifted his hands and settled them against the crown of thorns around Pete's neck, covering the ink there and then sliding them up the sides of Pete's throat. Pete shivered and dove for a kiss and yeah, this was something Patrick thoroughly enjoyed.
Pete sat back again, breaking the kiss before Patrick was ready, and then scooted down to mouth along the tops of Patrick's shoulders and then down and across to his nipples.
He stopped again and this time Patrick heard himself make a sound of dissatisfaction and flushed at the chuckle Pete gave in response.
"Gotta get these off." Pete was pulling at Patrick's boxers even as he said it. Patrick lifted his hips and reached for Pete's pants in the same motion. Once he had freed them of their clothes, Pete settled back in, his mouth on Patrick stomach, dropping tiny little kisses all over it, tickling him and making him squirm even as his cock jerked at the sensation. Pete dipped his tongue into Patrick's navel and the thrust he made at that was definitely not subtle-still, this was all familiar and, for now, safe.
Pete kissed and nuzzled his way to Patrick's cock and then slid his mouth down over it. Pete licked and sucked and then began to fondle Patrick's balls with one hand, looking up at him through that fringe and Patrick could feel the tightness and heat at his jaw that meant he was flushed, but this was a "driven to the point of distraction by Pete's never-to-be-admitted sexual prowess" heat coloring his cheeks and that was one of the only forms of that particular curse that Patrick considered acceptable.
Pete caught his eye, pulled off of his cock and, at Patrick's wordless complaint, said, "Maybe we should try some of these goodies since you went to all the trouble to get them."
Patrick stiffened at that, his breath caught in his throat. Sure, yeah, okay he knew they were going to reach this point eventually, but somehow he thought it was going to be further down the road, that he'd have more time to prepare and adjust himself to the idea. Frankly, he'd had Pete's cock in his mouth and, while engineering wasn't his day job, and the internet swore that it was possible, he just didn't see how that thing was going to fit…there. On the other hand, he really, really didn't want to be the roadblock here so he just sort of nodded, still not breathing.
"Just something easy," Pete didn't say anything else, just opened the bottle and slicked his fingers up, then leaned over to take Patrick's cock back in. He had to admit that the feel of one slick hand pumping him in time with Pete's mouth was pretty damn good and he couldn't complain about it in the slightest. Then Pete slid his other hand down to fondle at Patrick's balls again and that was also kind of nice with the lubricant and maybe he should have got them some of this sooner because he's pretty sure that Pete would like this too-and it was definitely a good idea to get two bottles. Definitely. In fact he wondered if two was actually going to be enough, then again, he could buy more. After all, stores did sell it, obviously, and conceivably he could buy it again, he had bought it last time, though now that Pete knew he could probably make Pete buy it and he probably wouldn't end up with a random roll of LifeSavers if he did it, though they might end up with that flavored stuff-but Patrick was curious about it, so that might be okay.
He was pulled out his contemplation about future-lube-buying adventures by pressure down below his balls, in a place that was he frankly certain had never been touched by anyone before. Maybe Patrick should have spent more of his research time trying to figure out this was supposed to work and less on the required materials, but he found the clinical explanations too clinical and a bit freakish actually and the less-clinical ones were almost pornographic and focused on why people enjoyed it and not so much how to ensure that one would enjoy it.
Pete's mouth was still moving over his dick and that was still nice, so Patrick decided to focus his attention there and stop trying to catalogue and examine every feeling he was having or every decision that had brought them to this point. The fact was, they had apparently arrived and the time for research and preparation was apparently past.
Pete was slowly running one wet finger from the bottom of Patrick's balls to his asshole and back again--that was weird actually, but not unpleasant. Then Pete started pushing down a bit when he reached his asshole, just putting pressure there and that was still weird but there were, just as the sites had suggested, some nerve-endings down there and they were a bit more on board with things than Patrick himself was. He shifted a bit, squirmed really, not sure whether he wanted to push back into the pressure or pull away from it, but he was held in place by the definitely pleasurable presence of Pete's mouth on his cock.
When Pete pushed the first finger past the muscles Patrick was holding tightly shut-despite his own instructions to his body to RELAX, everything he'd read said he needed to relax-, Patrick completely froze. Pete lifted his head and asked, "Okay?"
Patrick considered his question for a moment before answering-he was very obviously not okay. After all, Pete's finger was in his ass, and he couldn't really believe right now that there would be a world where that was going to be going to normal or okay, but what Pete was really asking was whether or not he wanted to stop and that was a more complicated answer. This didn't hurt, not exactly; he just felt….well he felt like there was a finger in his ass. Then again, he wasn't sure wanted to quit and there was something to be said for impulsiveness in the face of extreme nervousness and slight fear: "Fine."
Pete grinned and slowly started working his finger back and forth, going just a little deeper with each push, slowly working Patrick's dick with his other hand and never taking his eyes off of Patrick. Eventually he managed to get his finger all the way in, Patrick could feel the knuckles of his other fingers pushing into the curve his ass and that was almost as weird as the feel of Pete's finger inside of him.
Patrick's concerns about whether or not Pete was going to fit definitely seemed valid however as even one finger made him feel stretched and full. He lost that train of thought when Pete started fucking exploring in there, his finger twisting and turning, sometimes curling a bit and tickling at Patrick. He was about to stop him, to tell him it didn't matter if they found his prostate when Pete apparently did. Well, if the tingle and resulting jerk of his cock were any proof.
Pete laughed, actually laughed, at Patrick's expression and then started pulling at his cock in earnest, moving his hand rapidly up and down even as he kept tickling at that spot inside Patrick. It was a few short minutes before Patrick came, and without even removing his finger from Patrick, Pete grabbed his own cock in the hand that was still wet with Patrick's come and pulled hard at his own, probably painful, erection until he came all over Patrick's stomach.
He laughed again and then wiped his thoroughly filthy hand on the sheets before slowly working his finger back out of Patrick, which was, incredibly, weirder than him working it in. By the time they were completely disengaged, Patrick was definitely ready for sleep.
He didn't say anything at all when Pete pulled the sheet up to wipe them both off (even though normally he would have told Pete to just get a fucking washcloth), but he did protest when Pete started tugging on his arm, pulling him up.
"Come on, can't sleep here, come to the other bed."
Patrick turned and looked at the other bed where their suitcases were lying open and where, in his case at least, there was more stuff on the bed than in the suitcase. That looked like work, looked like too much work for this moment. He opened his mouth to tell Pete that, but Pete jumped up first, pushing his own bag onto the floor and taking a moment to haphazardly push Patrick's stuff back into his bag before giving it the same treatment.
"Fine." Patrick sat up and walked the four steps to the other bed, crawling under the covers and accepting Pete as he rolled into his arms. He laid there warm and content and drifting off to sleep feeling the faint echo of Pete's finger and resolved never to tell Pete that this was definitely a better idea than the other bed. Also, he was going to make him do all their laundry next time-especially if he kept tossing it on the floor.
%^%^%^%^
Pete is a stubborn fucker and sometimes he’s just wrong.
At first Patrick wrote a fair bit of the lyrics and most of the music and, frankly, that didn’t work too well for them. Patrick’s not a terrible lyricist, but Pete’s words are better, well, once Patrick’s through with them they are.
Pete gives them to him in journals and sometimes emails, leaves receipts and napkins and scraps of paper under Patrick’s pillow, and Patrick collects all the pieces and detritus that Pete leaves scattered for him and pulls them together, pulls them into some semblance of shape.
Sometimes Pete gives him whole songs, mostly whole songs anyway, but Patrick’s always got to do something to them, changing a word here or the phrasing there, something that makes it a song and not just a collection of words that sound good together, sound provocative, sound meaningful.
They are meaningful; Patrick knows this more than anyone, realizes that so often Pete shares with him the shards and pieces of himself that he wouldn’t show anyone else.
Patrick thinks sometimes that’s why so many of the more gut wrenchingly honest lines are scribbled on packing receipts from Clandestine, or on napkins from Starbucks. That way Pete can write them down and get rid of them before he has to think about what he's saying, what they reveal, what they mean.
Patrick doesn’t really have the luxury of pretending that he doesn't know what they say, but there’s something about knowing that he’s the only person that Pete really trusts with his words in this stage that makes him more protective of them. He doesn’t ask Pete for clarification or explanation-it’s up to Pete to provide that, if he wants.
Patrick knows that for Pete the writing process, scratching these succinct messages of confusion or pain or frustration or loneliness or, in some cases, love, is all about understanding himself, is as much about putting himself together as it is about creating a song.
So, Patrick tries, when he can, to set aside his worries about Pete, his own frustrations and his desire to tell Pete what to do, and instead he does his best to put these pieces, the things that Pete so often writes and then gives to him with a speed that suggests that otherwise he'd destroy them again, into a form that is both true to Pete's words and also true to their sound. He tries to make meaning, even if it's more felt and understood than logically comprehended.
But none of that excuses that Pete is a stubborn fucker when he wants to be. They fight, they always fight when they’re writing, when they’re taking the music that Patrick never stops hearing and the words that Pete never stops composing and put them together, creating something new, something that is theirs.
Not that it’s only Pete and Patrick. Andy is the drummer and while Patrick may have drummed once, he’ll never be the drummer Andy is. Patrick might know the skeleton, the general sound, but Andy is the one that gives it life and rhythm. And Joe, Joe knows his shit and he’s always trying something different, something better. No, it takes all of them to make the songs, to make the music, but in the beginning, in the birthing stages, it’s only ever Pete and Patrick.
And, like every partnership that Patrick’s ever heard of, they fight over direction and the proper influences and how things are going to go. So, yeah, they fight, they’re fighting now, but when it’s over it’s still going to be them and that never changes.
Still, Patrick does want to strangle Pete-just to see if a little oxygen deprivation will make him see sense-because there is no way that Patrick is ever going to be physically capable of singing those words in that sequence in that time and the sooner Pete accepts that and they change something, the sooner they can actually start making some music.
What surprises him is how much more it matters to him now that he and Pete are together. Not that it hasn't always mattered to him, because it has, but now, inexplicably, it's even more important, and he would have thought that was impossible.
%^%^%^%^
The thing with the bunks surprised Patrick at first.
One thing about living on a bus with at least three other guys (and in the beginning there were techs and other people bunking on their bus too, so yeah, at least three) is that there isn't really much in the way of privacy.
In fact the only thing on the entire bus that you can call your own is the only-slighter-larger-than-a-coffin bunk that you sleep in and the walls that make it up. One of the truths of living on a bus is that if you don't want something of yours moved, touched, used, looked at, or eaten-it had better be in your bunk.
You might get one of the lounges alone, or, if you get a venue early and everyone clears out, you might even get the bus alone now and again, but you never know when they'll be back and who they'll have with them. In some ways being on tour is like living in a much, much cooler traveling frat house and people are always moving back and forth, visiting, drinking, hooking up.
The only thing that you can count is your bunk.
As a result, a person's bunk is sacrosanct. Even the more belligerent practical jokers on tour wouldn't mess with a person's bunk-not if they had a hope of sanctuary when everyone found out.
There's barely enough room for one person in the things and while Patrick's gotten used to sleeping in one, and there's something nice about how dark and close they can be and that you can control the temperature without getting up, it's still not a bed.
Patrick would have made a strong case for the position that there was really no comfortable way to fit two people into a bunk. He's seen people do it, when they're hooking up or having their girlfriend join them for a week or two on tour, so it's technically possible, but it can't be comfortable.
And that doesn't take into account the fact that your bunk is literally the only thing that is yours and that's not something you want to share. Patrick can't even imagine thinking about having someone regularly staying in your bunk. Pete sleeps with him sometimes, watches movies with him once in a while, though the angles are awkward since the manufacturers didn't intend for people to be entertaining in them, but there's no way that someone would move into your bunk with you-no way you'd want them to.
Well, that's what Patrick would have said before. Now all he wants is to have Pete close to him, so almost every night he finds himself on the edge of suffocation by the octopus inhabiting Pete's body. It's all arms and legs and a head on his chest and there's simply no way it can be comfortable except that it is so much better than the alternative. And, how is it possible that a barely twin-sized bed can feel empty when he's already in it?
So he finds himself moving his less essential items to Pete's bunk, which means that they'll be undisturbed except by Pete and since that was the only guarantee he'd had before (because Pete was always a little looser about the Laws of Bunk Privacy when it came to Patrick), the biggest difference is that he has to get out of bed to find some stuff now.
And he finds some of Pete's more essential items migrating into his bunk and that means that now he's got to check before he grabs a hoodie because at least half of them are Pete's and, since he wears them almost too tight for himself, they're definitely not going to fit Patrick.
But, mostly, it means that they both, somehow, sleep better at night and that's one of those laws of the universe that is impossible and doesn't make any sense-like the one that says you can only ever decrease the distance between two people but never erase it-at least that's what he remembered from that Meg Ryan movie, and that's clearly not even the case because Pete is definitely capable of erasing the distance between them, he does it nightly when makes Patrick his very own body pillow.
So yeah, he's got less privacy and more interruptions, but he's also got Pete and he knows he's getting more than he's losing in this trade.
%^%^%^%^
Patrick uses the phone, obviously, and like everyone else in the band he has the sidekick that they gave him, but he doesn’t consider it to be a detachable part of his body-not like Pete.
Still, he has to keep it fairly close because no matter how many times Patrick tells him that paper is really best, that way he can see everything at once, Pete has gotten into the habit of texting him lyrics. More than that, he’s gotten into the habit of texting Patrick everything.
Sometimes it’s just a picture of a pair of shoes or hoodie or pair of jeans that Pete likes and wants him to see and sometimes it’s a hat he wants to be sure Patrick’s going to like before he buys it. If it was always that kind of stuff, Patrick wouldn’t worry about missing a message, but sometimes it’s more serious.
Sometimes it’s all dark imagery and ranting at the futility of everything. Those are the times that Patrick knows Pete’s hidden himself away somewhere, and not always in his bunk, when he gets really down and depressed, Pete has a tendency to wander off-to hide in coffee shops and records stores, to walk down the street and pretend he’s the nobody he’s afraid he might be. Those are the times that Patrick can’t just walk into the next room and ask him what’s wrong, or smack him around, or get him arguing about something, anything, to pull him out.
Those are the times that Patrick worries, just a little bit, and so Patrick doesn’t use his sidekick that much, compared to Pete he rarely uses it, but it’s always on him and always on because he needs it to be, needs for Pete to be able to find him, needs to be able to find Pete.
%^%^%^%^
After the first time, after Pete stretched him and brought them both off, they experiment with the lube more. It’s not always Patrick either, Pete’s just as willing to explore and be explored and they don’t do it every time, but they do make that sort of playing part of what they do together.
Patrick’s started to take it for granted, started to consider it a normal part of his life, of their lives, and there’s nothing wrong with that, obviously, safe, sane and consensual, he knows the rules, but it still boggles his mind sometimes when he realizes that somehow during the course of this the feeling of Pete’s fingers in his ass has somehow been something that is normal, for him.
How does that even happen? Well, obviously he knows how it happens-they buy lube and Pete sticks a finger in his ass and they both like it so they do it again, and again, and then Pete decides that Patrick’s hogging all the play time and he demands his turn and that’s how it happens but seriously, how is that his life??
Hell, it’s not even one finger anymore, now they use two, sometimes three and Patrick knows what this is building up to, knows that, really, they’ve been doing this long enough now that what they’re building to isn’t actually all that far away-in fact they could probably do it any time now, but it’s still somehow a mystery to him.
He’s pretty sure that they’re not going to need that box of condoms though, not if Pete’s behavior is anything to go by. And, well, the fact that Patrick will have to be an amnesiac and have forgotten his entire life to this point before he would ever cheat on Pete. It’s taken him years, in the multiple, to get to this point and there’s no time since he’s known Pete that he hasn’t known, in some way, that he wanted to be closer to him. He’s not going to throw that away now. Hell, there’s an argument to be made that he went gay for the guy, he’s not going anywhere.
He should still ask, say something at least. Make it clear to Pete that’s he’s not going anywhere, not doing anything. Pete’s relationship history is dismal where it’s not tragic-Pete can use the reassurance. And, well, in some ways, Patrick could too.
They’re committed to each other; he knows that, but sometimes he wants the words, wants to know that it’s okay for him to say, even if only to Joe or Andy or his sisters, that Pete is his. That’s something that they haven’t sorted out yet, and he knows all the problems with the plan, all the ways that it could be an issue and all the reasons that they probably shouldn’t, at least now.
He still wants to though.
%^%^%^%^
Patrick loves the part of the writing process when it’s just Pete’s words and the music in his head, when he’s trying to, in a way, hear the words through music. It’s maybe a little bit weird, he’s never been able to explain it to the guys in a way that he thought made sense, but maybe they get it anyway.
He loves looking at Pete’s words and hearing a melody building in the back of his head, a beat slowly working its way down to his feet. He likes the way that sometimes Pete will hand him something and as soon as he sits down with it, the music is just there. Like if he had enough hands and microphones, he could instantly produce it-that it’s already ready, already complete and just waiting to burst out.
But his favorite thing is when the music isn’t quite there, isn’t quite ready and they have to work for it a little more. It’s more frustrating at the time, but it generally means that the finished product is going to be better, going to have more of them in it. That’s when he sits down with Pete with his guitar in his lap and just starts trying things. They don’t all work. Most of them don’t work for some reason-not this song, not this key, something, but eventually they’ll get something that does work. That’s the magic of this-it’s a good bit of what made him start wanting to do it in the first place.
Pete’ll sit there with a guitar or his bass and he’ll work at it too, working at making his lyrics into their songs. Patrick likes to have an idea at least of what it’s going to sound like-what he can expect in tempo or melody before talking to Joe and Andy. That way they can all work on creating that sound instead of trying to figure out what it will be. ‘Course, sometimes it’s all four of them in the studio trying things out and seeing what fits and that’s fun too. There’s always at least one crazy suggestion, one time Joe even tried Ska, but it still works for them-it’s why they work as a band.
Still, there’s something about the two of them sitting in Pete’s living room, or their hotel room, or on the bus just strumming and singing and trying things out. Maybe because it’s one of the only times that Patrick ever gets to hear Pete sing his own words, quietly, just loud enough to be heard over the notes he’s carefully picking out, and that’s pretty special. Sometimes Patrick thinks that more people should hear Pete sing his stuff. His voice isn’t perfect, sure, but it’s not bad and he’s got the benefit of living the words he’s singing and that brings a lot to the sound.
Patrick knows that the emotion, the words, the feeling of what you’re doing is more important than the voice they’re delivered in. He sometimes pushes Pete a little, but he backs off whenever Pete says no, it’s got to be Patrick. The fact is that he knows Pete could probably do it, at least sometimes, but he wants to sing these songs and make this music, and he wants to give voice to the things that Pete only says in song.
%^%^%^%^
The best parts are the ones he doesn’t expect.
Pete feels great against him and while he doesn’t really sleep any more than he used to, and Patrick now sleeps a bit less than he used to, and that’s something they’re going to have to work on, he still lies with Patrick, and when he does sleep it’s generally with some part of his body pressed into Patrick’s.
That’s one of Patrick’s favorite things about them, but it’s something he really could have predicted.
Even more than the press of Pete against him, the parts of them he loves the most are the ones he didn’t see coming, the ones that he didn’t in some way anticipate.
Like the way that Pete always runs his hand across the small of Patrick’s back before shows, in the spot where he first curled his fingers, it’s under the guise of making sure that Patrick’s in-ears are taped down well enough, but Patrick thinks he just likes knowing he can touch him there.
Or the way that Patrick will find files he knows he didn’t create hidden in the folders on his computer. They’re filled with…words. That’s the only way he can explain it because they’re not really poems or lyrics-Patrick could never sing them and Pete wouldn’t ask him to, but they’re the words that could become songs about them. Patrick won’t sing them for the crowd, can’t make them Fall Out Boy songs, but sometimes he’ll make rough tracks out of some of them and then slide them onto Pete’s iPod.
Pete never says anything but Patrick can see his most-played lists and Pete’s listening to them. Pete’s listens to them a lot actually.
It’s the way that Pete buys him hats and makes him hoodies, and it’s the way that Pete knows his favorite foods, and makes sure he has his space and generally it’s the way they are together.
And it’s also the way that Pete lets Patrick explore his skin whenever he wants to and the way that he finally did get to start mapping some of those tattoos with his tongue. It’s the way that Pete’s hair is fluffy and soft in Patrick’s hands in the mornings and how Pete looks directly at him when they’re in bed together like Patrick’s the only thing he can see.
It’s the way that Patrick hates nicknames, always has, but sometimes he likes the way Pete says his name, all breathy and indistinct on the first syllable and all rough and sharp on the second, the way it sounds like he’s saying ‘trick even though Patrick knows he isn’t. It’s how it would still be okay, sometimes, if that was what he was saying.
It’s the regular tangle of Pete’s fingers in his and the feel of him pressed deliberately into his side. It’s the hot pant of Pete’s breath on his neck or in his ear and the knowledge that it looks the same to everyone else, but it feels different to them.
It’s the way that he can catch Pete’s eye on stage, or in an interview and they’re totally on the same page and it doesn’t matter what they’re saying because it all seems like a private conversation.
Patrick had known that it could be good, but he hadn’t really ever contemplated it, hadn’t ever really considered what would happen if they took the chance. He got so much more than he’d ever expected, not only from their relationship, but from any relationship.
%^%^%^%^
Patrick knows that he does, in fact, sing about them, after all, he did write a song about them; he knows exactly what that one’s about, even if no one else does, but he suspects more than one of the songs he’s sung over the years has been about him, about them, at least in some part. It’s okay as long as he doesn’t know for sure. Actually it’s just okay.
He’s never been shy about telling Pete that this set of words or that phrasing didn’t work and he’s not shy now. If Pete’s too obvious, if it’s too obvious, he’ll say no, but he doesn’t mind knowing that some of the songs he’s singing are about them as long as everyone doesn’t know.
In fact, there’s something kind of nice about knowing that these days when they’re doing "Grand Theft Autumn", Pete will find a way to mouth “where is your boy tonight” against the skin of Patrick’s neck at least once. And, sometimes he’ll tell the audience that he knows exactly where his boy is. Patrick doesn’t even blush when he does it now, and the audience never seems to know whether he’s serious or not so there’s nothing too revealing about it.
They’re not being too obvious, but they’re not trying to hide either. There’s too much attention on them, too many media people interested in Pete, for either of them to hope that things will stay quiet forever, but they don’t have to break the news for now, and they’re not going to. Being in the same band and, most particularly, a band known for the affection between its members makes that part of things easier-for now at least.
So when Pete makes his more overt statements they mostly go unnoticed. Patrick doesn’t complain about them, and he’ll admit, sometimes, that he likes the way it feels knowing that they’re sharing something everyone else can see but no one else understands. So he’ll sing the songs he’s pretty sure are at least a little bit about him and he’ll sing them so Pete knows that he knows and that means at night he’s singing about them, but no one else knows and that’s something he gets a little thrill out of.
%^%^%^%^
Master Post | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 |
Author: Gibson_fic
Fandom: Bandslash, Fall Out Boy
Characters/Pairing: Pete/Patrick
Rating: Adult for language and situations
Word Count: ~55,000
Disclaimer: This is a fictional story about characters based, in part, on the images and histories of real people. If that bothers you and/or you are one of those people, you probably don't want to read this. (If you chose to read it; I'm not responsible for subsequent unstoppable slashy thoughts). No harm is intended; no profit is being made.
Summary: "If he could say it, if he could tell them how it works, it might go something like this."
For full header information and author’s notes, go here
%^%^%^%^
The show that night is electric. Pete’s running on pure adrenaline before they even get on stage and Andy’s laying out the rhythm so strongly that Patrick thinks it’s dictating even the beat of his own heart.
They’re all there, they’re all on and it’s like the crowd only exists as a sort of feedback machine, just looping back onto them, creating something that’s less concert and more magic. Patrick knows they all feel it and Joe’s twirling so much that Patrick spares a brief thought to wondering if he can somehow propel himself vertical with the music alone.
But it’s Pete that Patrick’s really focused on. Pete’s in the crowd, the security guys holding him up and holding him back, keeping him from being consumed by the crowd, and that’s when he’s not flinging himself all over the stage.
He stays away from Patrick at first and Patrick can tell it’s the kind of staying away that means that Pete’s already wound so tight that he if gets too close he might just grab Patrick and not let go, and while that’s mostly okay with him, Pete does actually play an instrument in this band.
So Pete stays back for a while and then during Grand Theft Autumn he breaks and screams “you were the last good thing about this part of town” into Patrick’s mic…and doesn’t leave. He spends the rest of the song in Patrick’s space: playing at Patrick, resting his head on his shoulder, stalking towards him as he mouths the lyrics back at him.
It’s really distracting, it would be anyway if they weren’t all charged and playing like their lives depended on it, and then there’s the fact that Pete being that obvious is a huge turn-on for Patrick.
He takes his revenge later though, waiting until they hit a slower vibe, waiting until he gets a chance to do an acoustic bit. Pete introduces him, as always, and tells the audience that they better treat him right and then he’s off the stage, but in the wings, watching Patrick and shotgunning a bottle of water.
Patrick doesn’t look at him as he plays the first few notes, doesn’t want to be too obvious, but Patrick’s got to know that the Marvin Gaye is for him, because who else is Patrick going to be singing that to?
The audience is into it, singing along and keeping time and Patrick gets through the song. Joe comes back on stage spinning like a Tasmanian Devil and Patrick thinks that means that only 80% of the crowd sees the way that Pete single-mindedly stalks over to him and puts his head down on the back of Patrick’s neck before shouting, “Patrick Martin Stump” into Patrick’s own mic.
He really hopes that no one got a clear shot of the way that Pete had bitten down where Patrick’s neck and shoulder meet and then quickly swiped his tongue along the imprint of his teeth before the introduction.
%^%^%^%^
Pete starts telling interviewers, when they ask, that he and Patrick are married. He tells them other things too, but telling them that they’re married seems to be the most effective way to both provoke them and shut them up. They never know what to say to that; the fact is that with their touring schedule they could have gotten married four times over by now and no one would know.
They’re not married though they are together, and Patrick secretly likes that Pete wants to brag about them, wants to insist that they belong together, that they have a responsibility to each other, even if neither of them is quite ready to go that public, or even be married.
Patrick never contradicts him, just plays along, telling people that Hemmy was their ring bearer one day, and that they got married in a Casino another one. Pete might be on to something with his theory that being a smartass is much more fun than taking their questions seriously.
Also, it means that Pete kisses him breathless when they’re alone again. That’s always a good thing.
%^%^%^%^
They stop at a Travel America in the middle of the night, or in the middle of the morning, or something. Patrick hasn’t gone to sleep yet but that’s his own fault. He finds it hard to sleep without Pete beside him and Pete’s glad to oblige, and he does sleep more now, sleeps better too, but he’s still an insomniac. Patrick’s not a miracle cure after all, so Patrick’s staying up late, waiting for Pete to wind down enough to be able to lie down. And, actually, it’s kind of a good thing because he’s been waiting to do this for a while and doesn’t want any of the guys with him when he does it. He’s already the butt of enough well-meaning jokes and amused looks and there’s no reason to give them any more fodder.
When the bus pulls into the parking lot and stops, Patrick looks over at Pete, who’s got his headphones on and is intently staring at the screen of his laptop, “you need anything?”
Pete looks up, a bit disoriented, and says no, and Patrick says he’s just going to stretch his legs. Pete nods and Patrick has a moment of relief.
The lights in the truckstop are fluorescent and give everything that sterile and unfriendly feel, much like a hospital, and Patrick tries not to think about the cameras. No one is going to know what he’s doing and it’s not illegal, regardless. It could be a bit embarrassing, okay, it would definitely be more than embarrassing if someone leaked it, but there are all of three people in the convenience side of the building when he walks in. One is their bus driver, stocking up on Gatorade; one is obviously a truck-driver with his company-issue shirt and rolling walk, and he’s more interested in the collection of magazines enshrouded in plastic than Patrick. That just leaves the woman at the register and the way she looks at him assures him that she’s seen everything in her time here and couldn’t care less who he is or what he wants.
He walks down the candy aisle, idly considering a Snickers bar, but the fact is that he doesn’t really want candy and it’s late and he hopes he’s going to sleep pretty soon. Also, if he brings candy back for himself he’ll have to take Pete something and he actually wants Pete to wind down, not stay up all night.
So, with a shake of his shoulders, he heads over to the aisle of medicines, sleep-suppressants, cough drops, bandaids and condoms. He tries to seem smooth, nonchalant, like he’s the sort of guy that gets so much action he’s always dropping into convenience stores in the middle of the night to pick up more supplies.
He’s pretty sure that no one’s buying that act, if anyone’s looking that is, and he doesn’t raise his eyes from the display of condoms long enough to find out.
He’s actually a bit paralyzed here: he and Pete haven’t used condoms so far and they haven’t taken that step, but surely they’re going to and they should probably have condoms for that, right? But he’s clean and he’s reasonably sure that Pete is and they’re monogamous. They’d better fucking be or Pete’s going to be able to sing the high-notes in no time, so do they even need condoms?
He’s possessed by a wild desire to text Pete and ask him, but well, if this hasn’t come up already then it’s probably not the sort of thing you should text a guy in the middle of the night from the condom aisle to find out. He grabs a box, just in case, and then looks for what he really came for.
There’s not much in the way of options and Patrick’s glad because the websites can go into excruciating detail about the merits of the different brands, but all Patrick wants is something wet and slick that’ll get the job done. He figures he’ll have time to become a connoisseur later.
He grabs the biggest bottle of lube they have, what he does know is that this is going to take some time and a lot of lube, in fact, he’s halfway down the aisle when he considers how embarrassing it would be to run out and what if they get to that point and there isn’t enough, and there’s no way that either of them is going to ask for a runner to get them that, if Pete even thinks about it Patrick’s going to break his hand, so he turns around and gets another bottle. It’s not like the stuff goes bad.
He walks towards the checkout and, despite his pep-talk to himself, he knows there’s no way he can buy two bottles of lube and an economy-size box of condoms without dying of embarrassment so he grabs a pack of Wintergreen Lifesavers too. He has his money in hand by the time the woman at the register reaches for the first bottle of lube and pretends that he’s just picking up some mints and he doesn’t look at her as he accepts his change. She, very kindly, hands everything over in a brown paper bag and Patrick’s glad. He doesn’t care if it looks like he’s got a bottle of Jack in there, he could never have sauntered across the parking lot carrying that shit.
He gets back on the bus and lets out a whoosh of breath; he feels like he got away with something and that’s almost as ridiculous as his behavior in the store.
He stows the sack in his bunk, at the bottom, in the corner, under an old sweatshirt that Pete is very unlikely to steal.
He opens the LifeSavers and pops one in his mouth, at least he has a cover story now.
Pete looks up as he back into the lounge, steals a kiss and says, “Umm…minty fresh.”
Patrick tries very, very hard not to blush.
%^%^%^%^
Despite their dancing around each other on stage and off, they don’t do anything on the bus that they couldn’t do in front of their parents (assuming of course that their parents wouldn’t freak, and Patrick hasn’t thought too much about that aspect of this yet, but it might not be that bad, after all, his parents let him set off into the world with Pete before he could vote or buy anything remotely interesting, there has to be some reason for that).
Patrick’s got Rules about when and where they can do stuff and, even though Pete likes pushing at boundaries, he’s only half-heartedly pushing at these ones. Patrick thinks for them to be all things to each other that they already are and then to try and add something new into the mix, well, they just have to have some lines. He knows that, eventually, they’re going to cross any lines he draws, it’s the nature of their relationship-always pushing at the things that keep them separate, always pulling each other closer-but he thinks that his lines and Rules will give them enough time to figure out how to juggle it all.
Also, the fact is that this isn’t just their home it’s the whole band’s, and Andy and Joe aren’t getting laid every night-even when Joe’s girlfriend does join them on tour-so it’s only right that they don’t constantly get up to shit on the bus. And frankly there just isn’t enough room or privacy.
So, they don’t do anything on the bus that they couldn’t do in a high school corridor. Well, not Patrick’s high school because no way would it have gone unnoticed that two guys were totally swallowing each other’s faces between classes (and Patrick’s man enough to admit that sometimes he and Pete do that thing where it looks like they’re trying to move into each other’s mouths and it’s nasty to watch, he knows, but sometimes it’s just the way it happens), but, you know, if it was like a guy and a girl it would totally be fine and that’s the line he’s drawn for himself.
He hasn’t actually told Pete that yet, not the exact line and how he’s defined it, and he’s got lots of reasons for that. First, Pete seems like the sort of guy that would have had a girl backed into the corner and be busy kissing her with his hand on her hip and distracting everyone from the fact that his other hand was under her shirt and rapidly approaching bra-territory. If Patrick tells him it’s got to be high-school approved (and that’s the lamest distinction anyone has ever come up with and that’s another terrific reason for never telling Pete), then Pete’s going to be trying to get away with all sorts of things that are definitely not on Patrick’s list.
Second, and this is just as important, right now they’re just feeling each other out and trying to see how this works, how they fit together in this way, and they’re being sort of careful with each other, but if he tells Pete that he’s got lines and stuff, Pete is going to be forced to push at them and that’s exactly what Patrick’s trying to avoid.
Pete’s not doing too much pushing right now, they’re both kind of comfortable with their rhythm-saving the heavy stuff for when they’re not trapped on the bus and that’s a great idea because they’re moving in fits and starts, and it gives them a chance to sort of reset themselves in between. Or something like that.
The problem is that Patrick’s got rules and, as it turns out, he’s not very good at following them either. Because, in the very beginning, he had rules about sleeping together in the bunks too, and he caved pretty damn quickly on that issue and that’s not such a defeat, except when he accidently knocks Pete out of bed or Pete steals all the covers and then kicks Patrick for trying to get them back, but Patrick knows that it’s a bad precedent.
It’s actually Pete’s fault, if he wasn’t so warm and didn’t feel so good against him, Patrick would be able to fall sleep without needing to know that he was going to find Pete in bed next to him when he wakes up. And if Pete’s skin wasn’t so damn touchable and he wasn’t going around all the time without putting on a shirt (and Patrick knows he’s got some because he did the laundry last time and also Pete’s never been afraid of stealing his clothes so it’s clearly a case of him choosing not to wear clothes), then Patrick’s fingers wouldn’t itch every time he was in the same room with him.
And it’s also Pete’s fault because he’s good at planning pranks and jokes and marketing schemes, but he’s not proven himself to be the best at the little details, so Patrick’s had to be in charge of the little things, and there’s a crumpled brown bag at the foot of his bunk that is driving him slowly insane, and he doesn’t even know if Pete wants to do that stuff-he doesn’t even know if he does and the thought of it makes him a little uncomfortable but not in an entirely bad way--but Patrick’s becoming a bit fixated on it and there’s just no way that anything involving outside aids is high-school approved and if Patrick doesn’t stop needing to duck into the bathroom so he doesn’t actually climb into Pete’s lap soon, he’s going to have to open one of those bottles for himself and that’s definitely not part of his plan.
%^%^%^%^
Patrick sings for Pete. Patrick sings Pete’s words because no one wants Pete to sing them but they have to be sung. And Patrick actually wants to sing them, and that’s a really important aspect of them and how they came together because Patrick understands what Pete is saying, and what he wants to say, and how much it’s okay to reveal. Patrick helps him walk that line when they’re writing the songs so that Pete doesn’t feel too exposed when he sings them.
But Patrick actually sings for Pete. Not Fall Out Boy songs, well, not usually but it’s happened a couple of times, but he sings other stuff for him, sometimes it’s slow and low and bittersweet and he’s covering something from Ma Rainey, and sometimes it’s something classic and rock and once in a while he’ll even tell Pete that he’s “The Only Living Boy in New York.” One time he did a killer impression of “Hit Me Baby One More Time” that had Pete shaking with laughter even as he called him Patrick Spears.
It mostly doesn’t matter what he’s singing, just that he is.
Pete’s always been prone to fits of introspection and seclusion that other people would call depression, and sometimes it is depression, but a lot of the time it’s just him recharging, drawing back, getting some time and space for himself. Patrick keeps an eye on him and makes sure it doesn’t get too far. They mostly don’t talk about the one time it did.
But even when Pete doesn’t really want to talk about what’s going on, he likes to have Patrick sing for him. It’s something he’s done for years, something that’s just part of how they grew together and most of the time Patrick doesn’t even realize it.
Sometimes it’s him and Pete in the lounge (or on the bench seat in the back during the van days) and he just sings low and clear for him. Sometimes it’s as simple Patrick singing Dobie Gray when he’s warming up and bumping purposely into Pete’s shoulder while he sings, “I want to get lost in your rock and roll.”
Sometimes when they’re on breaks and not breathing the same air everyday or even in the same time zone, Pete will call and make awkward conversation until Patrick says, “Hey, I’ve been working on this melody, can you give it a listen for me?” and then he sings whatever he’s been working on-because it’s never a lie, he’s always working on something-to Pete and by the time he’s run through it a few times and asks Pete what he thinks, Pete’s voice is a little looser and easier when he answers.
Singing for Pete always means that Patrick’s a little looser when he’s finished too.
%^%^%^%^
Patrick’s hoodies have started disappearing.
At first it was just the one, an older one, one he’d had before they’d even started touring. It wasn’t expensive or even special, just an old, navy hoodie-the cuffs so worn that that the folds of fabric were visible and there was an ink stain on the bottom of the hem.
It wasn't a big deal, exactly, but he’d had that hoodie for a long time and it was comfortable in that way new things never are. And the holes in the cuffs were useful to stick his fingers into. It’s just that he knew that he'd had it in the dressing room before their last show and then he hadn't seen it for almost a week and he'd worried about what had happened to it.
When he finds it, it's less finding than spotting. He’d been in the back working on some tracks in garage band and got up and headed for the kitchen to get some water. Joe and Andy were playing a game on the XBOX, and they’d nodded at him in a distracted way as he came through. Pete was sitting on the couch, his hood up and a book in his lap, headphones in. That in itself wasn’t at all notable and Patrick just looked at him for a moment before getting his water. It was after he’d grabbed the bottle and drank half of it, standing with his back against the counter and looking back over at Pete, that he’d noticed the details-the way the hood fell almost into Pete’s eyes and was obviously just a bit too large for him, the way his hands were fisted in the sleeves, mittening the fabric over them, the fact that the hem came down a little further on his hips than usual.
Other than the color, and the fact that he knew that hoodie inside and out, there was no reason to suspect that Pete was wearing his missing, no stolen, hoodie, but Patrick was certain he was.
He'd walked over, shifted Pete’s legs up and sat down, dropping Pete’s legs back down over his lap. Pete'd looked up, and Patrick had reached out and grabbed one of his cloth-covered hands and gently unwound his fingers from the fabric, then pulled the sleeves down and looked at the cuffs. He'd said, “I’ve been wondering where this got to. Thought I’d lost it.”
Pete'd looked almost nervous, caught in the act, Patrick had added, “It’s okay, just let me know next time? I don’t want to think I’m losing stuff.”
Patrick'd pulled Pete to him by the sleeve still in his hand and kissed him. In fact, he'd kissed him until he felt something bounce off of his back. He turned to see an empty plastic bottle on the floor and Joe grinning at him. “You two lovebirds need some alone time?”
Patrick'd laughed, “No, I gotta get back to work.”
After that when Patrick’s hoodies went missing or his favorite t-shirt wasn’t where he left it, he didn’t worry too much about it being lost and instead looked for Pete to wear it. He wanted to be mad about it, somehow he was going through twice the laundry and was still doing most of it alone, but the fact was that Patrick liked the way that Pete looked in his clothes. They were a little looser than Pete normally wore things, but he had a habit of pulling them close against him, wrapping himself in Patrick's clothes the way he sometimes wrapped himself in Patrick's arms. Patrick just found it very difficult to get upset when all he wanted to do every time he saw Pete wear something of his was kiss him senseless. It was always a special thrill when he wore one of them during a show.
%^%^%^%^
Patrick doesn’t know when they’re going to take that next step or even what that step might be, but he really doesn’t want to be caught unprepared. Patrick hadn’t been much of a boy scout, hadn’t been one at all actually, but somewhere along the line he’d apparently internalized their motto.
In the interests of always being prepared, he’d gotten another paper bag and dumped one of the bottles and half the condoms into it. There was no sense in putting all his supplies in one bag-- if he did that it would inevitably be where they weren’t.
The first bag stayed where he’d originally hidden it, in a relatively safe and secure spot in his bunk, the other was in the bottom of his travel bag, hopefully deep enough that Pete would only find it with Patrick’s direction.
%^%^%^%^
It was a hotel night, thankfully, when the inevitable happened. Patrick was in the shower, and when he got out he noticed that the room was almost eerily quiet. He opened the door-still damp, his boxers and t-shirt sticking to him. Pete was sitting on the bed that they were both going to be sleeping in, a brown bag in his hands and a sheepish look on his face.
“So, here I was looking for a shirt to change into and it looks like someone didn’t pack any for me,” Patrick wasn’t going to touch the fact that Pete was digging in his bag for a shirt to wear, or the assumption that he would have packed one for Pete.
“I couldn’t find one, and I was sure that there would be one, and it’s not like my Trick keeps secrets from me, so I wasn’t really worried about finding a secret stash hidden in our overnight bag. Imagine my surprise when I found one.” Pete paused here, opening the bag and looking in it, “I’m not sure whether to be flattered or concerned here, because, seriously man, there is a ton of shit in here.” Pete upended the bag on the bed and the condoms spilled out over the bedspread like confetti, the bottle of lube thudding down in the middle of them.
Patrick's chest was tight and his face had to be flaming, and he really hoped that it wasn't actually possible to die of embarrassment. The worst part was that seeing Pete sitting there so close to that stuff was also turning him on just a bit.
“It’s…I just. I just like to be prepared. I didn’t know and I didn’t want for us to get to that point and not be ready…I mean if we were ready.” Patrick shut up before he could stutter through this anymore.
“Are you at that point?” Pete’s tone was curious and he was running his fingers through the pile of condoms.
Patrick took a deep breath and sat heavily on the opposite bed. “I don’t know. I mean I’m curious, but it’s a big step. I didn’t think we’d talk about it, that it would just be obvious and then we’d have the stuff and it would work.”
Pete nodded, then looked up at him, “I don’t know either, but I do know that I find the idea of you thinking about this, about us doing that, and buying this shit for me, for us, incredibly fucking hot.”
Patrick flushed hotter but didn’t break his stare.
“Come here.” Pete’s voice was low. Patrick went to him, pushing Pete back against the bed and straddling him and then letting out a whoosh of air as Pete reversed their positions.
This was familiar, Pete spread out on top of Patrick, his weight comfortably pushing Patrick back into the mattress and drawing attention to every breath he drew, on the feel of Pete's mouth on his and the slide of his tongue against Patrick's. Patrick pushed up against Pete, dislodging him to pull their t-shirts off. Then he lay back again, reveling in the feel of their chests pressing against each other. No matter how many times they did this, he was fairly certain this would be one of his favorite parts.
Patrick lifted his hands and settled them against the crown of thorns around Pete's neck, covering the ink there and then sliding them up the sides of Pete's throat. Pete shivered and dove for a kiss and yeah, this was something Patrick thoroughly enjoyed.
Pete sat back again, breaking the kiss before Patrick was ready, and then scooted down to mouth along the tops of Patrick's shoulders and then down and across to his nipples.
He stopped again and this time Patrick heard himself make a sound of dissatisfaction and flushed at the chuckle Pete gave in response.
"Gotta get these off." Pete was pulling at Patrick's boxers even as he said it. Patrick lifted his hips and reached for Pete's pants in the same motion. Once he had freed them of their clothes, Pete settled back in, his mouth on Patrick stomach, dropping tiny little kisses all over it, tickling him and making him squirm even as his cock jerked at the sensation. Pete dipped his tongue into Patrick's navel and the thrust he made at that was definitely not subtle-still, this was all familiar and, for now, safe.
Pete kissed and nuzzled his way to Patrick's cock and then slid his mouth down over it. Pete licked and sucked and then began to fondle Patrick's balls with one hand, looking up at him through that fringe and Patrick could feel the tightness and heat at his jaw that meant he was flushed, but this was a "driven to the point of distraction by Pete's never-to-be-admitted sexual prowess" heat coloring his cheeks and that was one of the only forms of that particular curse that Patrick considered acceptable.
Pete caught his eye, pulled off of his cock and, at Patrick's wordless complaint, said, "Maybe we should try some of these goodies since you went to all the trouble to get them."
Patrick stiffened at that, his breath caught in his throat. Sure, yeah, okay he knew they were going to reach this point eventually, but somehow he thought it was going to be further down the road, that he'd have more time to prepare and adjust himself to the idea. Frankly, he'd had Pete's cock in his mouth and, while engineering wasn't his day job, and the internet swore that it was possible, he just didn't see how that thing was going to fit…there. On the other hand, he really, really didn't want to be the roadblock here so he just sort of nodded, still not breathing.
"Just something easy," Pete didn't say anything else, just opened the bottle and slicked his fingers up, then leaned over to take Patrick's cock back in. He had to admit that the feel of one slick hand pumping him in time with Pete's mouth was pretty damn good and he couldn't complain about it in the slightest. Then Pete slid his other hand down to fondle at Patrick's balls again and that was also kind of nice with the lubricant and maybe he should have got them some of this sooner because he's pretty sure that Pete would like this too-and it was definitely a good idea to get two bottles. Definitely. In fact he wondered if two was actually going to be enough, then again, he could buy more. After all, stores did sell it, obviously, and conceivably he could buy it again, he had bought it last time, though now that Pete knew he could probably make Pete buy it and he probably wouldn't end up with a random roll of LifeSavers if he did it, though they might end up with that flavored stuff-but Patrick was curious about it, so that might be okay.
He was pulled out his contemplation about future-lube-buying adventures by pressure down below his balls, in a place that was he frankly certain had never been touched by anyone before. Maybe Patrick should have spent more of his research time trying to figure out this was supposed to work and less on the required materials, but he found the clinical explanations too clinical and a bit freakish actually and the less-clinical ones were almost pornographic and focused on why people enjoyed it and not so much how to ensure that one would enjoy it.
Pete's mouth was still moving over his dick and that was still nice, so Patrick decided to focus his attention there and stop trying to catalogue and examine every feeling he was having or every decision that had brought them to this point. The fact was, they had apparently arrived and the time for research and preparation was apparently past.
Pete was slowly running one wet finger from the bottom of Patrick's balls to his asshole and back again--that was weird actually, but not unpleasant. Then Pete started pushing down a bit when he reached his asshole, just putting pressure there and that was still weird but there were, just as the sites had suggested, some nerve-endings down there and they were a bit more on board with things than Patrick himself was. He shifted a bit, squirmed really, not sure whether he wanted to push back into the pressure or pull away from it, but he was held in place by the definitely pleasurable presence of Pete's mouth on his cock.
When Pete pushed the first finger past the muscles Patrick was holding tightly shut-despite his own instructions to his body to RELAX, everything he'd read said he needed to relax-, Patrick completely froze. Pete lifted his head and asked, "Okay?"
Patrick considered his question for a moment before answering-he was very obviously not okay. After all, Pete's finger was in his ass, and he couldn't really believe right now that there would be a world where that was going to be going to normal or okay, but what Pete was really asking was whether or not he wanted to stop and that was a more complicated answer. This didn't hurt, not exactly; he just felt….well he felt like there was a finger in his ass. Then again, he wasn't sure wanted to quit and there was something to be said for impulsiveness in the face of extreme nervousness and slight fear: "Fine."
Pete grinned and slowly started working his finger back and forth, going just a little deeper with each push, slowly working Patrick's dick with his other hand and never taking his eyes off of Patrick. Eventually he managed to get his finger all the way in, Patrick could feel the knuckles of his other fingers pushing into the curve his ass and that was almost as weird as the feel of Pete's finger inside of him.
Patrick's concerns about whether or not Pete was going to fit definitely seemed valid however as even one finger made him feel stretched and full. He lost that train of thought when Pete started fucking exploring in there, his finger twisting and turning, sometimes curling a bit and tickling at Patrick. He was about to stop him, to tell him it didn't matter if they found his prostate when Pete apparently did. Well, if the tingle and resulting jerk of his cock were any proof.
Pete laughed, actually laughed, at Patrick's expression and then started pulling at his cock in earnest, moving his hand rapidly up and down even as he kept tickling at that spot inside Patrick. It was a few short minutes before Patrick came, and without even removing his finger from Patrick, Pete grabbed his own cock in the hand that was still wet with Patrick's come and pulled hard at his own, probably painful, erection until he came all over Patrick's stomach.
He laughed again and then wiped his thoroughly filthy hand on the sheets before slowly working his finger back out of Patrick, which was, incredibly, weirder than him working it in. By the time they were completely disengaged, Patrick was definitely ready for sleep.
He didn't say anything at all when Pete pulled the sheet up to wipe them both off (even though normally he would have told Pete to just get a fucking washcloth), but he did protest when Pete started tugging on his arm, pulling him up.
"Come on, can't sleep here, come to the other bed."
Patrick turned and looked at the other bed where their suitcases were lying open and where, in his case at least, there was more stuff on the bed than in the suitcase. That looked like work, looked like too much work for this moment. He opened his mouth to tell Pete that, but Pete jumped up first, pushing his own bag onto the floor and taking a moment to haphazardly push Patrick's stuff back into his bag before giving it the same treatment.
"Fine." Patrick sat up and walked the four steps to the other bed, crawling under the covers and accepting Pete as he rolled into his arms. He laid there warm and content and drifting off to sleep feeling the faint echo of Pete's finger and resolved never to tell Pete that this was definitely a better idea than the other bed. Also, he was going to make him do all their laundry next time-especially if he kept tossing it on the floor.
%^%^%^%^
Pete is a stubborn fucker and sometimes he’s just wrong.
At first Patrick wrote a fair bit of the lyrics and most of the music and, frankly, that didn’t work too well for them. Patrick’s not a terrible lyricist, but Pete’s words are better, well, once Patrick’s through with them they are.
Pete gives them to him in journals and sometimes emails, leaves receipts and napkins and scraps of paper under Patrick’s pillow, and Patrick collects all the pieces and detritus that Pete leaves scattered for him and pulls them together, pulls them into some semblance of shape.
Sometimes Pete gives him whole songs, mostly whole songs anyway, but Patrick’s always got to do something to them, changing a word here or the phrasing there, something that makes it a song and not just a collection of words that sound good together, sound provocative, sound meaningful.
They are meaningful; Patrick knows this more than anyone, realizes that so often Pete shares with him the shards and pieces of himself that he wouldn’t show anyone else.
Patrick thinks sometimes that’s why so many of the more gut wrenchingly honest lines are scribbled on packing receipts from Clandestine, or on napkins from Starbucks. That way Pete can write them down and get rid of them before he has to think about what he's saying, what they reveal, what they mean.
Patrick doesn’t really have the luxury of pretending that he doesn't know what they say, but there’s something about knowing that he’s the only person that Pete really trusts with his words in this stage that makes him more protective of them. He doesn’t ask Pete for clarification or explanation-it’s up to Pete to provide that, if he wants.
Patrick knows that for Pete the writing process, scratching these succinct messages of confusion or pain or frustration or loneliness or, in some cases, love, is all about understanding himself, is as much about putting himself together as it is about creating a song.
So, Patrick tries, when he can, to set aside his worries about Pete, his own frustrations and his desire to tell Pete what to do, and instead he does his best to put these pieces, the things that Pete so often writes and then gives to him with a speed that suggests that otherwise he'd destroy them again, into a form that is both true to Pete's words and also true to their sound. He tries to make meaning, even if it's more felt and understood than logically comprehended.
But none of that excuses that Pete is a stubborn fucker when he wants to be. They fight, they always fight when they’re writing, when they’re taking the music that Patrick never stops hearing and the words that Pete never stops composing and put them together, creating something new, something that is theirs.
Not that it’s only Pete and Patrick. Andy is the drummer and while Patrick may have drummed once, he’ll never be the drummer Andy is. Patrick might know the skeleton, the general sound, but Andy is the one that gives it life and rhythm. And Joe, Joe knows his shit and he’s always trying something different, something better. No, it takes all of them to make the songs, to make the music, but in the beginning, in the birthing stages, it’s only ever Pete and Patrick.
And, like every partnership that Patrick’s ever heard of, they fight over direction and the proper influences and how things are going to go. So, yeah, they fight, they’re fighting now, but when it’s over it’s still going to be them and that never changes.
Still, Patrick does want to strangle Pete-just to see if a little oxygen deprivation will make him see sense-because there is no way that Patrick is ever going to be physically capable of singing those words in that sequence in that time and the sooner Pete accepts that and they change something, the sooner they can actually start making some music.
What surprises him is how much more it matters to him now that he and Pete are together. Not that it hasn't always mattered to him, because it has, but now, inexplicably, it's even more important, and he would have thought that was impossible.
%^%^%^%^
The thing with the bunks surprised Patrick at first.
One thing about living on a bus with at least three other guys (and in the beginning there were techs and other people bunking on their bus too, so yeah, at least three) is that there isn't really much in the way of privacy.
In fact the only thing on the entire bus that you can call your own is the only-slighter-larger-than-a-coffin bunk that you sleep in and the walls that make it up. One of the truths of living on a bus is that if you don't want something of yours moved, touched, used, looked at, or eaten-it had better be in your bunk.
You might get one of the lounges alone, or, if you get a venue early and everyone clears out, you might even get the bus alone now and again, but you never know when they'll be back and who they'll have with them. In some ways being on tour is like living in a much, much cooler traveling frat house and people are always moving back and forth, visiting, drinking, hooking up.
The only thing that you can count is your bunk.
As a result, a person's bunk is sacrosanct. Even the more belligerent practical jokers on tour wouldn't mess with a person's bunk-not if they had a hope of sanctuary when everyone found out.
There's barely enough room for one person in the things and while Patrick's gotten used to sleeping in one, and there's something nice about how dark and close they can be and that you can control the temperature without getting up, it's still not a bed.
Patrick would have made a strong case for the position that there was really no comfortable way to fit two people into a bunk. He's seen people do it, when they're hooking up or having their girlfriend join them for a week or two on tour, so it's technically possible, but it can't be comfortable.
And that doesn't take into account the fact that your bunk is literally the only thing that is yours and that's not something you want to share. Patrick can't even imagine thinking about having someone regularly staying in your bunk. Pete sleeps with him sometimes, watches movies with him once in a while, though the angles are awkward since the manufacturers didn't intend for people to be entertaining in them, but there's no way that someone would move into your bunk with you-no way you'd want them to.
Well, that's what Patrick would have said before. Now all he wants is to have Pete close to him, so almost every night he finds himself on the edge of suffocation by the octopus inhabiting Pete's body. It's all arms and legs and a head on his chest and there's simply no way it can be comfortable except that it is so much better than the alternative. And, how is it possible that a barely twin-sized bed can feel empty when he's already in it?
So he finds himself moving his less essential items to Pete's bunk, which means that they'll be undisturbed except by Pete and since that was the only guarantee he'd had before (because Pete was always a little looser about the Laws of Bunk Privacy when it came to Patrick), the biggest difference is that he has to get out of bed to find some stuff now.
And he finds some of Pete's more essential items migrating into his bunk and that means that now he's got to check before he grabs a hoodie because at least half of them are Pete's and, since he wears them almost too tight for himself, they're definitely not going to fit Patrick.
But, mostly, it means that they both, somehow, sleep better at night and that's one of those laws of the universe that is impossible and doesn't make any sense-like the one that says you can only ever decrease the distance between two people but never erase it-at least that's what he remembered from that Meg Ryan movie, and that's clearly not even the case because Pete is definitely capable of erasing the distance between them, he does it nightly when makes Patrick his very own body pillow.
So yeah, he's got less privacy and more interruptions, but he's also got Pete and he knows he's getting more than he's losing in this trade.
%^%^%^%^
Patrick uses the phone, obviously, and like everyone else in the band he has the sidekick that they gave him, but he doesn’t consider it to be a detachable part of his body-not like Pete.
Still, he has to keep it fairly close because no matter how many times Patrick tells him that paper is really best, that way he can see everything at once, Pete has gotten into the habit of texting him lyrics. More than that, he’s gotten into the habit of texting Patrick everything.
Sometimes it’s just a picture of a pair of shoes or hoodie or pair of jeans that Pete likes and wants him to see and sometimes it’s a hat he wants to be sure Patrick’s going to like before he buys it. If it was always that kind of stuff, Patrick wouldn’t worry about missing a message, but sometimes it’s more serious.
Sometimes it’s all dark imagery and ranting at the futility of everything. Those are the times that Patrick knows Pete’s hidden himself away somewhere, and not always in his bunk, when he gets really down and depressed, Pete has a tendency to wander off-to hide in coffee shops and records stores, to walk down the street and pretend he’s the nobody he’s afraid he might be. Those are the times that Patrick can’t just walk into the next room and ask him what’s wrong, or smack him around, or get him arguing about something, anything, to pull him out.
Those are the times that Patrick worries, just a little bit, and so Patrick doesn’t use his sidekick that much, compared to Pete he rarely uses it, but it’s always on him and always on because he needs it to be, needs for Pete to be able to find him, needs to be able to find Pete.
%^%^%^%^
After the first time, after Pete stretched him and brought them both off, they experiment with the lube more. It’s not always Patrick either, Pete’s just as willing to explore and be explored and they don’t do it every time, but they do make that sort of playing part of what they do together.
Patrick’s started to take it for granted, started to consider it a normal part of his life, of their lives, and there’s nothing wrong with that, obviously, safe, sane and consensual, he knows the rules, but it still boggles his mind sometimes when he realizes that somehow during the course of this the feeling of Pete’s fingers in his ass has somehow been something that is normal, for him.
How does that even happen? Well, obviously he knows how it happens-they buy lube and Pete sticks a finger in his ass and they both like it so they do it again, and again, and then Pete decides that Patrick’s hogging all the play time and he demands his turn and that’s how it happens but seriously, how is that his life??
Hell, it’s not even one finger anymore, now they use two, sometimes three and Patrick knows what this is building up to, knows that, really, they’ve been doing this long enough now that what they’re building to isn’t actually all that far away-in fact they could probably do it any time now, but it’s still somehow a mystery to him.
He’s pretty sure that they’re not going to need that box of condoms though, not if Pete’s behavior is anything to go by. And, well, the fact that Patrick will have to be an amnesiac and have forgotten his entire life to this point before he would ever cheat on Pete. It’s taken him years, in the multiple, to get to this point and there’s no time since he’s known Pete that he hasn’t known, in some way, that he wanted to be closer to him. He’s not going to throw that away now. Hell, there’s an argument to be made that he went gay for the guy, he’s not going anywhere.
He should still ask, say something at least. Make it clear to Pete that’s he’s not going anywhere, not doing anything. Pete’s relationship history is dismal where it’s not tragic-Pete can use the reassurance. And, well, in some ways, Patrick could too.
They’re committed to each other; he knows that, but sometimes he wants the words, wants to know that it’s okay for him to say, even if only to Joe or Andy or his sisters, that Pete is his. That’s something that they haven’t sorted out yet, and he knows all the problems with the plan, all the ways that it could be an issue and all the reasons that they probably shouldn’t, at least now.
He still wants to though.
%^%^%^%^
Patrick loves the part of the writing process when it’s just Pete’s words and the music in his head, when he’s trying to, in a way, hear the words through music. It’s maybe a little bit weird, he’s never been able to explain it to the guys in a way that he thought made sense, but maybe they get it anyway.
He loves looking at Pete’s words and hearing a melody building in the back of his head, a beat slowly working its way down to his feet. He likes the way that sometimes Pete will hand him something and as soon as he sits down with it, the music is just there. Like if he had enough hands and microphones, he could instantly produce it-that it’s already ready, already complete and just waiting to burst out.
But his favorite thing is when the music isn’t quite there, isn’t quite ready and they have to work for it a little more. It’s more frustrating at the time, but it generally means that the finished product is going to be better, going to have more of them in it. That’s when he sits down with Pete with his guitar in his lap and just starts trying things. They don’t all work. Most of them don’t work for some reason-not this song, not this key, something, but eventually they’ll get something that does work. That’s the magic of this-it’s a good bit of what made him start wanting to do it in the first place.
Pete’ll sit there with a guitar or his bass and he’ll work at it too, working at making his lyrics into their songs. Patrick likes to have an idea at least of what it’s going to sound like-what he can expect in tempo or melody before talking to Joe and Andy. That way they can all work on creating that sound instead of trying to figure out what it will be. ‘Course, sometimes it’s all four of them in the studio trying things out and seeing what fits and that’s fun too. There’s always at least one crazy suggestion, one time Joe even tried Ska, but it still works for them-it’s why they work as a band.
Still, there’s something about the two of them sitting in Pete’s living room, or their hotel room, or on the bus just strumming and singing and trying things out. Maybe because it’s one of the only times that Patrick ever gets to hear Pete sing his own words, quietly, just loud enough to be heard over the notes he’s carefully picking out, and that’s pretty special. Sometimes Patrick thinks that more people should hear Pete sing his stuff. His voice isn’t perfect, sure, but it’s not bad and he’s got the benefit of living the words he’s singing and that brings a lot to the sound.
Patrick knows that the emotion, the words, the feeling of what you’re doing is more important than the voice they’re delivered in. He sometimes pushes Pete a little, but he backs off whenever Pete says no, it’s got to be Patrick. The fact is that he knows Pete could probably do it, at least sometimes, but he wants to sing these songs and make this music, and he wants to give voice to the things that Pete only says in song.
%^%^%^%^
The best parts are the ones he doesn’t expect.
Pete feels great against him and while he doesn’t really sleep any more than he used to, and Patrick now sleeps a bit less than he used to, and that’s something they’re going to have to work on, he still lies with Patrick, and when he does sleep it’s generally with some part of his body pressed into Patrick’s.
That’s one of Patrick’s favorite things about them, but it’s something he really could have predicted.
Even more than the press of Pete against him, the parts of them he loves the most are the ones he didn’t see coming, the ones that he didn’t in some way anticipate.
Like the way that Pete always runs his hand across the small of Patrick’s back before shows, in the spot where he first curled his fingers, it’s under the guise of making sure that Patrick’s in-ears are taped down well enough, but Patrick thinks he just likes knowing he can touch him there.
Or the way that Patrick will find files he knows he didn’t create hidden in the folders on his computer. They’re filled with…words. That’s the only way he can explain it because they’re not really poems or lyrics-Patrick could never sing them and Pete wouldn’t ask him to, but they’re the words that could become songs about them. Patrick won’t sing them for the crowd, can’t make them Fall Out Boy songs, but sometimes he’ll make rough tracks out of some of them and then slide them onto Pete’s iPod.
Pete never says anything but Patrick can see his most-played lists and Pete’s listening to them. Pete’s listens to them a lot actually.
It’s the way that Pete buys him hats and makes him hoodies, and it’s the way that Pete knows his favorite foods, and makes sure he has his space and generally it’s the way they are together.
And it’s also the way that Pete lets Patrick explore his skin whenever he wants to and the way that he finally did get to start mapping some of those tattoos with his tongue. It’s the way that Pete’s hair is fluffy and soft in Patrick’s hands in the mornings and how Pete looks directly at him when they’re in bed together like Patrick’s the only thing he can see.
It’s the way that Patrick hates nicknames, always has, but sometimes he likes the way Pete says his name, all breathy and indistinct on the first syllable and all rough and sharp on the second, the way it sounds like he’s saying ‘trick even though Patrick knows he isn’t. It’s how it would still be okay, sometimes, if that was what he was saying.
It’s the regular tangle of Pete’s fingers in his and the feel of him pressed deliberately into his side. It’s the hot pant of Pete’s breath on his neck or in his ear and the knowledge that it looks the same to everyone else, but it feels different to them.
It’s the way that he can catch Pete’s eye on stage, or in an interview and they’re totally on the same page and it doesn’t matter what they’re saying because it all seems like a private conversation.
Patrick had known that it could be good, but he hadn’t really ever contemplated it, hadn’t ever really considered what would happen if they took the chance. He got so much more than he’d ever expected, not only from their relationship, but from any relationship.
%^%^%^%^
Patrick knows that he does, in fact, sing about them, after all, he did write a song about them; he knows exactly what that one’s about, even if no one else does, but he suspects more than one of the songs he’s sung over the years has been about him, about them, at least in some part. It’s okay as long as he doesn’t know for sure. Actually it’s just okay.
He’s never been shy about telling Pete that this set of words or that phrasing didn’t work and he’s not shy now. If Pete’s too obvious, if it’s too obvious, he’ll say no, but he doesn’t mind knowing that some of the songs he’s singing are about them as long as everyone doesn’t know.
In fact, there’s something kind of nice about knowing that these days when they’re doing "Grand Theft Autumn", Pete will find a way to mouth “where is your boy tonight” against the skin of Patrick’s neck at least once. And, sometimes he’ll tell the audience that he knows exactly where his boy is. Patrick doesn’t even blush when he does it now, and the audience never seems to know whether he’s serious or not so there’s nothing too revealing about it.
They’re not being too obvious, but they’re not trying to hide either. There’s too much attention on them, too many media people interested in Pete, for either of them to hope that things will stay quiet forever, but they don’t have to break the news for now, and they’re not going to. Being in the same band and, most particularly, a band known for the affection between its members makes that part of things easier-for now at least.
So when Pete makes his more overt statements they mostly go unnoticed. Patrick doesn’t complain about them, and he’ll admit, sometimes, that he likes the way it feels knowing that they’re sharing something everyone else can see but no one else understands. So he’ll sing the songs he’s pretty sure are at least a little bit about him and he’ll sing them so Pete knows that he knows and that means at night he’s singing about them, but no one else knows and that’s something he gets a little thrill out of.
%^%^%^%^
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