fic: Grin and Bear It (1/2)
GRIN AND BEAR IT
Pete/Joe; NC-17
12,662 words.
For evocatory, because she is awesome.
The first thing Pete says when he arrives back at the apartment after Thanksgiving is, "Don't worry, dudes, I have the best idea to make some easy money."
"What is it?" Joe asks warily.
Just in time for Christmas: MORE COMEDY PORN! (Im)moral support and extra eyes were provided by nokomis305, sunktheglow, and sociofemme, and ignazwisdom continues to have the patience of a saint for betaing ridiculous things for a fandom she isn't even a part of.
Joe was pretty sure he knew exactly what he was getting into when he moved in with Pete and Patrick. As it turned out, his foresight on the matter only extended as far as the noise and the mess and the occasional douchery that seemed to follow Pete around.
He didn't quite realize that living on his own actually meant living on his own: doing his own laundry, dishes, and grocery shopping living; getting himself up on time for work living; and trying to cook things that end up edible living.
And he didn't know there would be leaky windows that let in the infamous Chicago wind every time it even thought about starting up for the day, or that there would be drafts that would blow through the entire apartment and keep him up til three in the morning, shivering and wishing he'd taken a few more blankets from his parents' linen closet.
And he absolutely did not expect for them to be in danger of having the electricity turned off at all, let alone four months into their so-called domestic bliss.
And yet, here he is.
* * *
"When did you say you were getting paid?" Patrick frowns and tries to look over Joe's shoulder at the bank statement.
Joe folds the paper back over on itself and holds it up, out of Patrick's reach and hopefully also out of his sightline. "Next Friday," he sighs. "How about you?"
"Next Wednesday," Patrick says. "And rent is due next Monday."
"Don't fucking remind me," Joe scowls.
They stand in silence as they contemplate the rent payment looming over their heads. Joe has just enough for his share, but it'll leave him with practically nothing for groceries, guitar strings, or bus fare for the four days after he writes the cheque. He knows Patrick is in the exact same situation, and Pete complains hourly about how broke he is.
He doesn't know what they're going to do when the next electric bill comes. October had been cold and Pete had kept trying to turn up the thermostat. Patrick kept turning it back down every time. Nobody listened to Joe when he tried to tell them that it was going to cost them more money to keep flipping it up and down than it would to leave it at a temperature somewhere in the middle. So when the October electric bill came a week ago, they stood around the kitchen table staring at it like it was some kind of dead animal that should never have been laid at their doorstep but had inexplicably shown up anyway.
"This is your fault!" Patrick finally hissed at Pete, once the shock had worn off a little.
"This is totally not my fault!" Pete shouted.
"It fucking is your fault!"
"Guys," Joe tried interrupting, but didn't get very far.
"You love your fucking hoodies so much," Patrick seethed, "what's so hard about wearing two or three around the house instead of turning up the fucking heat?"
"We don't all love wearing hats the way you do," Pete started in.
"Guys," Joe tried again.
Pete and Patrick were already facing each other, nose to nose, their shoulders tense. Patrick's face was getting redder and redder and Pete's hands were clenched into fists.
The one life skill Joe had gotten really good at since living here was recognizing the signs when Pete and Patrick were about to try to kill each other.
"I fucking told you assholes!" Joe yelled at them, and then stormed off to his room.
They'd all eventually scraped together enough to pay it, but it had taken until the bill was four days overdue and they'd gotten six threatening phone calls from the electric company. Joe just knew that the November bill was going to be worse, and then they'd be totally fucked.
"Do you think your parents would give you money when you see them for Thanksgiving?" Patrick asks after a minute, startling Joe out of his thoughts.
"No way," Joe says mournfully, not even stopping to think about it. "They are so mad I'm not going to college, dude."
"Can't you dip into your college fund or something?" Patrick walks across the kitchen to open the fridge, and Joe can see from where he's standing that all it's got inside is a half-empty bottle of ketchup, a carton of orange juice with Patrick's name on it in Sharpie and a sad face underneath that must have been from Pete, two kinds of salad dressing (one of which has never even been opened), and a styrofoam box that had soggy old french fries in it last time Joe peeked inside, which was four days ago.
"Believe me, I've tried." Joe sits down in one of the wobbly kitchen chairs they'd found at the side of the road when they were moving, and he resists the urge to start hitting his head against the table. "My parents claim they're doing me a favour by holding onto it until I come to my senses and 'get with the program'." Joe holds up his hands to provide some really unenthusiastic air quotes as he tries to mimic his dad's voice. He does a pretty okay job, he thinks; but then, he's had a lot of practice.
Patrick laughs, but weakly. "Maybe Pete's parents will say yes."
* * *
The first thing Pete says when he arrives back at the apartment after Thanksgiving is, "Don't worry, dudes, I have the best idea to make some easy money."
"I take it your parents said no," Patrick groans, then readjusts the three scarves he has wrapped around the bottom half of his face and turns back to the text message marathon he's been having since Joe got home an hour and a half ago.
"What is it?" Joe asks warily.
"I'll let you know, if it works," Pete says, and for a moment he looks a little nervous but then he's grinning again, probably bolstered by the biggest meal he's seen in weeks, free laundry, and time spent with his dogs. Joe totally doesn't blame him. Those are all very awesome things.
Joe wants to press Pete for details-in no small part because he's a little worried about some of his stuff getting hocked when he's not home-but he's also distracted by wondering if he can hide the leftovers his parents had sent home with him to keep Pete from eating them in the middle of the night. Probably not, he decides after a moment; they'd just go bad anywhere other than the fridge, and then nobody would get to eat them. Which would be a total bummer, especially after Joe's mom finally agreed to make vegetarian stuffing just for him this year.
"Don't eat my leftovers," he tells Pete, who shoots him a hurt look and says, "Jeez, I won't."
"You probably would," Patrick yells from down the hall, where he apparently went at some point while Joe was talking to Pete.
"See?" Joe says, and then ties a few extra knots in the loops of the plastic bag all the tupperwares with his leftovers are in. He may not be able to get into the bag later, but that at least has the added benefit of also keeping Pete out.
"You'll be begging me to accept your leftovers when I come up with money for our bills," Pete threatens. Well, it could be a promise, too. Sometimes it's hard to tell where to draw the line with Pete, Joe muses. And that requires figuring out what Pete means in the first place, too, which, what?
"What?" Joe asks Pete.
"That didn't make sense, did it," Pete ponders.
"Nope."
Patrick takes that as his cue to wander back into the kitchen. "I hope your money-making scheme involves booking us more shows," he says, and pokes Pete in the shoulder repeatedly to emphasize his point.
"Ow, fucker," Pete says. "You know we're leaving soon for another two weeks of tour, what more do you want from me?"
Patrick gives him The Eyes. Joe always hates when Patrick gives him The Eyes, but he suspects Pete is getting used to it.
"How do you feel about California in February?" Pete asks. "I know someone who knows someone who may have something for us."
"It's better than Missouri," Joe notes, then turns away before Patrick can think about giving him The Eyes.
"We may have to go there too," Pete says apologetically.
Joe sighs dramatically, and then finally realizes that he's still holding his leftovers because he hasn't actually put them in the fridge yet, so he goes and takes care of that. He decides to go enjoy some peace and quiet in his own room for a while, because once Patrick starts breaking out The Eyes there's usually some yelling before things blow over.
Even with the yelling, though, living with his best friends is way better than living with his parents and little brother, who are all annoying and lame and keep asking him when he's going to start eating meat again. Nobody tells him to eat his vegetables or when to go to bed, and nobody tries to suggest he should dye his hair brown again and/or get a tidy haircut.
And when Joe stays up playing guitar until two a.m. because he can't get a riff out of his head, nobody yells at him to be quiet. And, as often as not, Patrick will let himself into Joe's room, carrying his own guitar, and he sits and plays with him as they feel their way through another improvisation. If they come up with a song, Patrick writes it all down on one of his endless pieces of blank staff paper, always adding "by Joseph M. Trohman, Rock God" to the top of the page when they finish.
And If Joe has a shitty day at work, nobody tells him to buck up when he complains about it. Instead, an unopened bag of Doritos sometimes appears outside his bedroom door, and Pete usually offers to school his ass at MarioKart-which is all talk because Pete never, ever, ever wins that one, so it's a noble sacrifice indeed. And then Patrick will listen-without rolling his eyes-when Joe starts talking about that day's list of reasons why Scott Ian or Morrissey is a total badass, which Joe really appreciates.
And sometimes when Joe is sitting on their fourth-hand couch watching a movie before he goes to bed, Pete comes and sits next to him, leans against his shoulder, and throws a blanket over both their laps. He mumbles sarcastic comments in Joe's ear about the characters or the actors or the plot or sometimes the direction, if Pete is feeling particularly punchy that night.
Joe is particularly glad for the blanket on those occasions. There's just something about Pete when he's really on a roll, floating on his own sleeplessness and giddiness and those rare flashes of real happiness, and it just gets to Joe, somewhere in his gut (and somewhere lower, too). If Joe didn't know better, he would say he has a crush on Pete. (No, really, I don't, he tries to tell his dick.) It's not a crush, it's just hero worship or something-because come on, it's Pete Wentz.
Pete Wentz, who was in motherfucking Arma Angelus and agreed to let Joe play with them for that one tour. Pete Wentz, who has dumb tattoos that he claims didn't hurt when there are people around to see him swagger, but who whines to Joe and Patrick and Andy about the itch when they're healing. Pete Wentz, who all the girls look at from the corners of their black-lined eyes and talk to with their hips cocked, and who just rambles back at them about cartoons and breakfast cereal and every band on that night's bill but Fall Out Boy.
Pete Wentz, whose eyes crinkle at the edges when he laughs at all of Joe's dumb jokes.
Pete Wentz, who knows half of Chicagoland but who plays bass in Joe's band.
And besides, hero worship is manly and heterosexual and not creepy. A crush... well, a crush is none of those things. So it's a good thing Joe doesn't have a crush. Which is not to say that he worships Pete, because there's no way anyone could worship that dude after they've smelled him after a week in a van with no shower in sight, but he admires him, or whatever. Looks up to him. (Metaphorically, though, because Joe hit a growth spurt and is now two very awesome inches taller than Pete, which he sometimes tries to rub in Pete's face but Pete always changes the subject and starts making fun of Joe's lisp or hair or something else he can't really help. It makes Joe blush, but if he starts to punch Pete and yell at him to stop, sometimes Pete even does.)
So.
Yeah, so, as evidenced by the need for the blanket when they watch movies together, Joe totally has a big stupid crush on Pete Wentz. It's just another one of those things he can't really help.
Fuuuuuuuck, Joe groans inside his head, and then turns on his stereo to try to block out the yelling that's just started coming from the kitchen.
* * *
Tour is awesome like it always is, but it's fucking cold in the van the entire time-"Yeah, because it's fucking December," Andy snaps every time somebody complains about it-and Joe ends up spending a lot of time under a big pile of blankets and old sleeping bags, rubbing his hands together to keep them warm and trying to decide exactly how close he can get to Pete before it constitutes cuddling, or even worse, snuggling.
The point gets rendered moot a lot though, because Pete has this tendency to forget that other people have personal space bubbles. More often than not he drapes himself over whoever is sitting nearest to him, claiming that "body heat is super-important, asshole. And, like, I'm already wearing a scarf and jacket, what more can I really do?"
"You can put a hat on," Patrick grumbles from somewhere under Pete.
"Shut the fuck up about hats," Pete says airily, and then pulls the bottom edge of Patrick's beanie down over his eyes.
"I hate you," Patrick tells him, and it comes out really muffled.
"No, really. I'm cold, not balding." Pete's got that glint in his eyes that Joe really recognizes way too well, at this point.
"I'm going to kill you in your sleep," Patrick promises. It doesn't sound as threatening as it could, and Pete doesn't look too concerned about his personal safety.
"And then you'll be stuck with your own shitty lyrics," Pete tells him-or at least, tells the squirming lump that he's sitting on.
"Nobody will find your body," Patrick growls. "Joe will help me hide it."
"Uh," Joe says from where he's sitting in the front passenger seat, supposedly keeping Andy company as he drives. Joe's staring back at them, unable to come up with anything coherent to add while he's busy trying to pick out the shape of Pete's body under the four hoodies he's got on. He wouldn't mind manhandling Pete's body, he really wouldn't, but he would prefer that said body be alive at the time. Alive and maybe manhandling him back.
Joe sort of gets his wish later that day, once Patrick's turn to drive comes up and Andy gratefully relinquishes the wheel to take a nap in the back. Pete and Joe are squished together in the middle seat and Pete has decided that it is his God-given right to use Joe as a pillow. Joe wonders if he should be complaining more, or if complaining at all would count as protesting too much. Not to imply that Joe is a lady.
"Are you guys cuddling back there?" Patrick cranes his neck to look at them in the rearview mirror and Joe tries desperately not to blush.
"Shouldn't you be watching the road?" Joe asks, but the words kind of get drowned out when Pete says, "Ohhhhh yeah."
Joe can't see Patrick rolling his eyes, but he'd put money on the fact that it's happening.
"We're not stopping for a while," Patrick says. He sounds apologetic so Joe assumes Patrick is talking to him.
"No big," Joe says, then bites his lip to keep from smiling.
"Sweet," Pete says. "This is going to be the best nap ever." He shifts around on the bench then, accidentally elbowing Joe in the stomach before resettling so his head is somewhere in the vicinity of Joe's lap, nested into a thin pillow and a blanket they stole from a motel three days earlier.
Joe stretches as best he can without dislodging Pete, while contemplating whether it would be okay to put his hand on Pete's shoulder or if he should risk the muscle strain by leaving it draped over the back of their bench.
He finally decides to leave it draped. Twenty minutes later he's regretting the decision when his whole upper arm starts to get sore, and he's just about to say fuck it and hold Pete's shoulder when Pete rolls over until he's pretty much face-down in Joe's lap.
Joe strongly suspects that Pete isn't even really asleep, the fucker, and he'd probably notice if Joe accidentally got a a really, really inconvenient boner.
Okay, so maybe this tour actually kind of sucks.
* * *
When they get home, Joe is broke, hungry, and cold right down to the bone. Whoever booked a tour straight across the middle of the country in December should be taken out back and shot, Joe thinks as he rubs his hands together over the radiator in the bathroom. It's sputtering out weak gusts of hot air into the room, which is blissfully still steamy from the first hot shower Joe has had in two weeks.
Joe is pretty sure that once he leaves the bathroom, he'll never be warm again. They turned the heat way down in the apartment before they left and it's fucking freezing now. Pete cranked the thermostat way up when they got in the door, and for once, Patrick didn't try to kick him in the balls over it-maybe because he was too busy shivering.
Whoever booked the tour should also have done a better job of making sure they got paid a decent amount, too, Joe thinks sourly. It's one thing to live on peanut butter sandwiches and microwave burritos from 7-11 when you're on the road, but it's another thing to have to keep doing it once you get home because you know how bad the next heating bill is going to be.
Joe is really getting sick of PB-and-Js and junk food. It comes as a total surprise to him that he could even entertain such a thought, but maybe he's starting to grow up despite all effort to the contrary-most notably living with a perpetual man-child, who, by the sound of the shouting that's just started up, forgot to clear his perishables out of the fridge before they left, leaving them for Patrick to find and clean up.
* * *
Their November electric bill arrives the day after they get home. They have a week left before the payment is due, and once again, it's more than they have.
"Just give me three days, I've totally got this," Pete tells him, snatching the bill out of Joe's hand while he's busy staring at it, wide-eyed and shocked.
"But we were gone for half of November!" Joe says, still a little shell-shocked. He's already adding up how many more shifts he's going to have to beg his boss to give him, and he's pretty sure he won't get them all. "We weren't even here to use the heat!"
"Dude, I said I got this." Pete pats Joe's shoulder, maybe a little condescendingly, and Joe brushes it off with a jerk of his arm.
"You'll have to forgive me if I don't believe you," Joe snaps at him. "You got paid just as much as I did this tour-or should I say, just as much as I didn't."
Pete just looks at him with that stupid shit-eating grin on his face.
"I don't want to wake up one morning and find they've turned the electricity off because you said you'd take care of it and you didn't," Joe concludes lamely, running out of steam quickly under the force of Pete's total obliviousness. He's like the exact opposite of Patrick that way; he gets less mad at Pete, rather than more, when Pete doesn't react. He's pretty sure Pete's got that figured out and uses it against him whenever he can, but it's just another one of those things he really can't help.
Fucking Pete.
"You gotta trust me, Trohmania," Pete goes on, "I have an awesome plan. This bill is no problem. Wanna order a pizza?"
"Um," Joe blinks at the sudden change of topic. "And pay for it how? Do you have your magical money already?"
"Oh, no, whoops," Pete laughs, and then puts his hand on Joe's shoulder again. "Wanna order a pizza at some point in the future?"
"Sure," Joe agrees, because he really doesn't have any choice in the matter.
Pete's hand is warm even through Joe's hoodie, and it's just resting there, not squeezing or gripping or moving at all, just hanging out and doing nothing. And the heat is starting to spread, too, down his arm into his fingers-and, more embarrassingly, up his neck and into his face. He's sure he's blushing. He does not approve of this blushing. The blushing needs to stop right this second, in fact.
"Um," Joe starts awkwardly.
"What?"
"Can I have my arm back?"
"What? Oh." Pete pulls his hand away like he hadn't even realized he was touching Joe. And maybe he hadn't! Joe can't tell. Pete can be pretty hard to read when he's in a good mood.
"Thanks," Joe says weakly, and then tries to avoid looking at Pete, who is definitely looking back at him. Joe sighs and shuffles out of the kitchen to go start unpacking.
* * *
Six days later, Joe wakes up to find a print-out stuck to the fridge door with a confirmation of their payment of the November electric bill. Joe squints at it, then goes back to his room to put his glasses on and then comes back and squints at it again.
Pete paid the bill.
In full.
A day before it was due.
"TOLD YOU SO!!!!!!!" Pete scrawled along the bottom in red sharpie.
"Well, shit," Joe breathes in awe. He blinks at the fridge for a minute while he tries to remember why he was at the fridge in the first place, and then nods to himself in victory when he realizes it's because he was going to check if there's any milk left so he can eat a bowl of cereal before work.
There's milk left. A whole new carton of it, in fact.
And chocolate soymilk.
And orange juice.
And a case of Coke.
And, fucking, like, three kinds of vegetables.
And a whole loaf of bread, which Joe is pretty sure isn't actually supposed to be kept in the fridge.
Joe shuts the fridge door in a hurry, like it''ll let the magic out if he leaves the door open too long. He eyes the fridge suspiciously for a minute, and then crosses his fingers and opens the freezer.
What he finds is more than he could have ever dared hope for: there are two giant bags of three-cheese pizza rolls, a pile of frozen dinners and burritos, and a tub of soy ice cream.
"Holy shit!" Joe yells. He can't help it. It's like the the grocery fairy answered all his Christmas wishes.
"Shut up! It's too early!" Patrick yells back at him from his room. He'd drawn the short straw when they moved in and got stuck with the room next to the kitchen, and he's never stopped being a bitch about it.
"We have food!" Joe yells back, and he's still just gaping at the contents of the freezer when Patrick shuffles into the kitchen a moment later.
"No we don't," Patrick scowls, "so shut the fuck up and let me sleep."
"No, dude, we seriously do," Joe tells him, and pushes the freezer door a little further open so Patrick can hopefully see in from where he's standing.
"What the fuck," Patrick says, and comes to stand next to Joe. "Where did this all even come from?"
"My guess is Pete," Joe offers, shrugging.
Patrick scratches the side of his face. "Since when does Pete have any money?"
"Dunno. But he paid the electric bill, too." Joe points to the print-out on the fridge door.
"Huh. Wonder where he got it."
"No idea."
"Huh," Patrick says again.
"Yeah," Joe agrees. "Whatever, I'm having pizza rolls for breakfast, want some?"
"Fuck yes," Patrick practically groans.
* * *
Three days later, Pete ambushes Joe the instant he gets in the door after work and pulls him into his bedroom.
"Why does your room stink so bad?" Joe asks him.
"It doesn't," Pete says.
"Yes, it does," Joe insists.
"Whatever." Pete waves his hand at the room at large, and then shoves a pile of hoodies off his chair and ushers Joe over to sit.
"What's up?" Joe asks, trying to breathe through his nose as little as possible.
Pete sits down on the edge of his bed, puts his hands on his knees, and leans in towards Joe. "I need your help," he says, in this over-the-top conspiratorial way that sets a warning light flashing in Joe's brain.
"Uh huh," Joe says carefully. He's not fucking agreeing to anything until he knows exactly what it is.
"I have a plan," Pete continues, and the warning light is joined by a siren and a giant scrolling marquee that says DANGER! DANGER!.
"To do what?" Joe eyes Pete suspiciously, because he has learned from hard-won experience that all of Pete's plans merit at least a certain baseline level of suspicion. They're frequently very awesome in the end, but they're never not kind of sketchy at the same time.
Pete looks Joe right in the eye, then smiles. "Make more money. Like, it was pretty sweet being able to pay the bills and buy us groceries."
"It was," Joe agrees, nodding his head a few times in emphasis. "Those pizza rolls were delicious, by the way."
"No problem, dude." Pete's still smiling. That could be a good sign, or a bad sign. It's hard to tell.
"So, like, how are you going to make all this money?" Joe hates to ask, he does, but he feels like the details might be particularly important here.
"I'm making a movie," Pete says, and gets up from the bed to squeeze into the chair next to Joe. His eyes have that sparkle that Joe is getting better at recognizing-the sparkle that says Pete's plan is going to be a lot sketchy.
"I'm not doing any Jackass stunts," Joe tells him immediately. "My dignity is too delicate."
Pete slings his arm around Joe's shoulder. "No, it's not. Your dignity is sturdy and manly."
"My dignity is on the endangered species list," Joe insists, flushing a little when he feels Pete's arm brushing against the bare skin at the back of his neck just above the collar of his t-shirt.
"It really isn't," Pete tells him. He's got an edge to his voice now, the one that says he's just starting in, just picking up speed, just getting to the good part.
Joe thinks it's probably too late now to try to run for his life. He starts getting up out of the chair anyway, but stops dead when Pete puts a hand on his leg, just above the knee.
"You'll get five hundred bucks," Pete says casually.
Joe sits back down. He's quiet for a moment as he tries to figure out how skeptical he ought to be. There's no way it's really a good idea-like, it's Pete, it's never a good idea. But on the other hand, five hundred big ones is a lot of money, especially with Chanukah and Christmas coming, and Joe isn't entirely sure that his sturdy and manly dignity is really ready to handle another round of begging his manager to give him more hours during the few weeks he'll actually be home long enough from tour to actually get in to work.
Joe sighs. He's caving, he always fucking caves, and this is going to be no exception. Fuck. "What's the movie about?"
Pete doesn't answer.
"Pete?"
"Okay, so, here's the thing," Pete starts. He sounds less casual than before, and a little less confident.
"What?" Joe knew his warning lights and sirens and marquees couldn't be wrong.
"It's not a Jackass movie-"
"Imagine my relief," Joe cuts in.
"Shut up." Pete pokes him in the ribs. "But, okay, so there are certain, shall we say, niche markets that are really lucrative."
Joe blinks at him. He knows what the words mean-like, their dictionary definitions and shit-but he's not really sure how Pete means them.
"On the internet," Pete clarifies. Tries to clarify.
Joe blinks at him some more. It'll start getting results eventually, he imagines.
"Okay, so, like, I guess there's no easy way to say this?" Pete pauses.
Joe shifts uneasily in his half of the seat. There aren't a lot of good places a lead-in like that can go, and Joe's imagination is really getting away from him, and-
"We're going to make porn," Pete says in a rush.
Joe's imagination really hadn't made it that far. Holy shit. "No way," he says, and starts to get up from the chair again.
"Hear me out!" Pete grabs Joe's leg again, hauls him back down, and then moves over to sit on his lap.
Joe sighs and lets his head fall against the back of the chair. Pete's way stronger than Joe is and it definitely isn't fair, but he's going to be stuck here until Pete wants to get off. Get off him. Deigns to leave his lap. Fuck. Joe's dick is starting to show more interest in this situation than Joe is entirely comfortable with, too, and Joe can't decide if he wants this to be a bad dream or just something they're going to pretend never happened.
"We're not making it together," Pete says firmly. "Or, yeah, we're working together. But I'm not going to have sex with you, Troh. No offense."
"None taken," Joe says automatically. His brain is not really ready to process everything that's just happened in the last ten seconds-the whole making a porno thing, yeah, but also the way his stomach is getting all turbulent at Pete's declaration that they're not going to have sex. On the one hand, he's pretty relieved-he doesn't really want to have sex with Pete, either, and he hopes that counts as a nail in the coffin of his crush- no, hero worship- no, totally weird-ass thing for Pete. But on the other hand, shouldn't he want Pete to have sex with him anyway, because of the whole aforementioned not-crush not-worship thing thing? Like, want it in the abstract, at least? Not to mention, nobody really likes being told something like that, Joe figures. Maybe he should be offended. Maybe he should just say no to the whole thing.
But that's not going to happen, of course. Joe used to be able to say no to Pete, once upon a time, but these days? Not so much.
Joe can't think of anything to say. He's still trying to process. His legs are starting to get a little numb from Pete sitting on them, though, and he's pretty sure Pete isn't going to get up until Joe agrees to his plan, so Joe needs to think of something.
"Um," he starts. "So what are we going to do, then? I mean, if I agreed to help you."
"You know how I mentioned niche markets before?"
"Sort of?"
Pete starts fiddling with the cuffs of the hoodie he's wearing. Joe takes that as a bad sign. "Well, it turns out that there's a lot of money in catering to people's weird fetishes."
Joe is pretty sure he's gaping like a dead fish now, all open mouth and bug eyes, but it's a pretty involuntary state of being. "Weird fetishes like what?" he asks. "Whips and chains and shit? Because no way, dude, I'm not doing that, not for all the money in the world."
Pete laughs, his whole body shaking on Joe's lap. "Nope, no whips, no chains, none of that stuff."
"So, what then?"
Pete looks thoughtful for a moment, and then says, "It's actually pretty tame, if you look at it a certain way."
Joe opens his mouth to say something sarcastic, but Pete just talks over him, his words tumbling out over each other in a rush.
"So it turns out that there are people out there who actually pay good money to watch hot young things get sexy with, like, balloons, or whatever." Pete does not leer at Joe or touch him inappropriately when he says "hot young things," which Joe appreciates more than he can describe. "You just jerk off with a bunch of balloons around, take some pictures, and sell the photos for a bunch of money to a website. Oh, I guess I did a few with stuffed animals instead of balloons. You know, just random stuff other people inexplicably get off on."
"Okay," Joe says faintly. That doesn't sound that bad, actually, apart from the whole taking-pictures-of-himself-jerking-off thing.
"So I just did a bunch of those, which is why we still have heat and food," Pete goes on.
"I'd figured that out, yeah." Joe was okay with having Pete, his bandmate, sitting on his lap, but now that he's got Pete Wentz, Porn Star, sitting on his lap, things are a little different. He squirms a bit, trying to see if there's any escape out from under Pete's bony ass. Not so much, it turns out. If Pete does't get up soon, Joe might start freaking out-to say nothing of what his dick might start doing.
"So I'm going to do more later, but we don't want people to get tired of my ugly mug, so that's where you come in. To help keep things fresh."
Joe is getting light-headed. This is so fucking weird. He used to be able to say no. He used to say it all the fucking time! He has no idea why he can't just say no now-and say it a hundred, a thousand times-and run for the hills.
Fucking Pete.
Joe takes a deep breath, and then says, "Okay, so, let me get this straight: you paid the electric bill by selling pictures of yourself jerking off with balloons and stuffed animals. And now you want me to help."
"Gotta keep it fresh," Pete shrugs.
"Awesome," Joe says weakly, in a way he hopes conveys that he's really not at all convinced that it's awesome.
"We'll start tomorrow," Pete goes on. Joe's legs are starting to go numb under Pete's ass and he hopes he gets up soon. Pete shows no signs of doing so; he actually takes a second to hitch himself a little further up Joe's lap. Joe hates him so much right now. "We have a couple hours alone before Patrick gets home from work, right?"
"Yeah," Joe says. "Wait, so, just out of curiosity? Why did you ask me for help and not Patrick?"
"You're cuter," Pete says, and his answer is so immediate that Joe doesn't even think he's kidding. "And Patrick would probably punch me instead of saying yes," Pete adds thoughtfully.
"True," Joe agrees.
"Anyway," Pete says, finally swinging his legs around and hopping off Joe's lap. Blood rushes back into Joe's lower legs and they start to tingle, which is kind of a cool feeling but it's mostly just pretty uncomfortable. "I have crap to do, but I'll have things ready when you get home from work tomorrow, okay?"
It's not until Joe gets back to his own bedroom that he realizes he never actually outright agreed to anything, but he doesn't think that that particular detail is going to save him. Not when Pete's involved.
Joe sits down on his bed and has his pants halfway down to start jerking off when he stops, frowns, and pulls them back up. He's going to save it for tomorrow, he decides. He's only going to do this once, so he might as well make it count.
[ part two]
Pete/Joe; NC-17
12,662 words.
For evocatory, because she is awesome.
The first thing Pete says when he arrives back at the apartment after Thanksgiving is, "Don't worry, dudes, I have the best idea to make some easy money."
"What is it?" Joe asks warily.
Just in time for Christmas: MORE COMEDY PORN! (Im)moral support and extra eyes were provided by nokomis305, sunktheglow, and sociofemme, and ignazwisdom continues to have the patience of a saint for betaing ridiculous things for a fandom she isn't even a part of.
Joe was pretty sure he knew exactly what he was getting into when he moved in with Pete and Patrick. As it turned out, his foresight on the matter only extended as far as the noise and the mess and the occasional douchery that seemed to follow Pete around.
He didn't quite realize that living on his own actually meant living on his own: doing his own laundry, dishes, and grocery shopping living; getting himself up on time for work living; and trying to cook things that end up edible living.
And he didn't know there would be leaky windows that let in the infamous Chicago wind every time it even thought about starting up for the day, or that there would be drafts that would blow through the entire apartment and keep him up til three in the morning, shivering and wishing he'd taken a few more blankets from his parents' linen closet.
And he absolutely did not expect for them to be in danger of having the electricity turned off at all, let alone four months into their so-called domestic bliss.
And yet, here he is.
* * *
"When did you say you were getting paid?" Patrick frowns and tries to look over Joe's shoulder at the bank statement.
Joe folds the paper back over on itself and holds it up, out of Patrick's reach and hopefully also out of his sightline. "Next Friday," he sighs. "How about you?"
"Next Wednesday," Patrick says. "And rent is due next Monday."
"Don't fucking remind me," Joe scowls.
They stand in silence as they contemplate the rent payment looming over their heads. Joe has just enough for his share, but it'll leave him with practically nothing for groceries, guitar strings, or bus fare for the four days after he writes the cheque. He knows Patrick is in the exact same situation, and Pete complains hourly about how broke he is.
He doesn't know what they're going to do when the next electric bill comes. October had been cold and Pete had kept trying to turn up the thermostat. Patrick kept turning it back down every time. Nobody listened to Joe when he tried to tell them that it was going to cost them more money to keep flipping it up and down than it would to leave it at a temperature somewhere in the middle. So when the October electric bill came a week ago, they stood around the kitchen table staring at it like it was some kind of dead animal that should never have been laid at their doorstep but had inexplicably shown up anyway.
"This is your fault!" Patrick finally hissed at Pete, once the shock had worn off a little.
"This is totally not my fault!" Pete shouted.
"It fucking is your fault!"
"Guys," Joe tried interrupting, but didn't get very far.
"You love your fucking hoodies so much," Patrick seethed, "what's so hard about wearing two or three around the house instead of turning up the fucking heat?"
"We don't all love wearing hats the way you do," Pete started in.
"Guys," Joe tried again.
Pete and Patrick were already facing each other, nose to nose, their shoulders tense. Patrick's face was getting redder and redder and Pete's hands were clenched into fists.
The one life skill Joe had gotten really good at since living here was recognizing the signs when Pete and Patrick were about to try to kill each other.
"I fucking told you assholes!" Joe yelled at them, and then stormed off to his room.
They'd all eventually scraped together enough to pay it, but it had taken until the bill was four days overdue and they'd gotten six threatening phone calls from the electric company. Joe just knew that the November bill was going to be worse, and then they'd be totally fucked.
"Do you think your parents would give you money when you see them for Thanksgiving?" Patrick asks after a minute, startling Joe out of his thoughts.
"No way," Joe says mournfully, not even stopping to think about it. "They are so mad I'm not going to college, dude."
"Can't you dip into your college fund or something?" Patrick walks across the kitchen to open the fridge, and Joe can see from where he's standing that all it's got inside is a half-empty bottle of ketchup, a carton of orange juice with Patrick's name on it in Sharpie and a sad face underneath that must have been from Pete, two kinds of salad dressing (one of which has never even been opened), and a styrofoam box that had soggy old french fries in it last time Joe peeked inside, which was four days ago.
"Believe me, I've tried." Joe sits down in one of the wobbly kitchen chairs they'd found at the side of the road when they were moving, and he resists the urge to start hitting his head against the table. "My parents claim they're doing me a favour by holding onto it until I come to my senses and 'get with the program'." Joe holds up his hands to provide some really unenthusiastic air quotes as he tries to mimic his dad's voice. He does a pretty okay job, he thinks; but then, he's had a lot of practice.
Patrick laughs, but weakly. "Maybe Pete's parents will say yes."
* * *
The first thing Pete says when he arrives back at the apartment after Thanksgiving is, "Don't worry, dudes, I have the best idea to make some easy money."
"I take it your parents said no," Patrick groans, then readjusts the three scarves he has wrapped around the bottom half of his face and turns back to the text message marathon he's been having since Joe got home an hour and a half ago.
"What is it?" Joe asks warily.
"I'll let you know, if it works," Pete says, and for a moment he looks a little nervous but then he's grinning again, probably bolstered by the biggest meal he's seen in weeks, free laundry, and time spent with his dogs. Joe totally doesn't blame him. Those are all very awesome things.
Joe wants to press Pete for details-in no small part because he's a little worried about some of his stuff getting hocked when he's not home-but he's also distracted by wondering if he can hide the leftovers his parents had sent home with him to keep Pete from eating them in the middle of the night. Probably not, he decides after a moment; they'd just go bad anywhere other than the fridge, and then nobody would get to eat them. Which would be a total bummer, especially after Joe's mom finally agreed to make vegetarian stuffing just for him this year.
"Don't eat my leftovers," he tells Pete, who shoots him a hurt look and says, "Jeez, I won't."
"You probably would," Patrick yells from down the hall, where he apparently went at some point while Joe was talking to Pete.
"See?" Joe says, and then ties a few extra knots in the loops of the plastic bag all the tupperwares with his leftovers are in. He may not be able to get into the bag later, but that at least has the added benefit of also keeping Pete out.
"You'll be begging me to accept your leftovers when I come up with money for our bills," Pete threatens. Well, it could be a promise, too. Sometimes it's hard to tell where to draw the line with Pete, Joe muses. And that requires figuring out what Pete means in the first place, too, which, what?
"What?" Joe asks Pete.
"That didn't make sense, did it," Pete ponders.
"Nope."
Patrick takes that as his cue to wander back into the kitchen. "I hope your money-making scheme involves booking us more shows," he says, and pokes Pete in the shoulder repeatedly to emphasize his point.
"Ow, fucker," Pete says. "You know we're leaving soon for another two weeks of tour, what more do you want from me?"
Patrick gives him The Eyes. Joe always hates when Patrick gives him The Eyes, but he suspects Pete is getting used to it.
"How do you feel about California in February?" Pete asks. "I know someone who knows someone who may have something for us."
"It's better than Missouri," Joe notes, then turns away before Patrick can think about giving him The Eyes.
"We may have to go there too," Pete says apologetically.
Joe sighs dramatically, and then finally realizes that he's still holding his leftovers because he hasn't actually put them in the fridge yet, so he goes and takes care of that. He decides to go enjoy some peace and quiet in his own room for a while, because once Patrick starts breaking out The Eyes there's usually some yelling before things blow over.
Even with the yelling, though, living with his best friends is way better than living with his parents and little brother, who are all annoying and lame and keep asking him when he's going to start eating meat again. Nobody tells him to eat his vegetables or when to go to bed, and nobody tries to suggest he should dye his hair brown again and/or get a tidy haircut.
And when Joe stays up playing guitar until two a.m. because he can't get a riff out of his head, nobody yells at him to be quiet. And, as often as not, Patrick will let himself into Joe's room, carrying his own guitar, and he sits and plays with him as they feel their way through another improvisation. If they come up with a song, Patrick writes it all down on one of his endless pieces of blank staff paper, always adding "by Joseph M. Trohman, Rock God" to the top of the page when they finish.
And If Joe has a shitty day at work, nobody tells him to buck up when he complains about it. Instead, an unopened bag of Doritos sometimes appears outside his bedroom door, and Pete usually offers to school his ass at MarioKart-which is all talk because Pete never, ever, ever wins that one, so it's a noble sacrifice indeed. And then Patrick will listen-without rolling his eyes-when Joe starts talking about that day's list of reasons why Scott Ian or Morrissey is a total badass, which Joe really appreciates.
And sometimes when Joe is sitting on their fourth-hand couch watching a movie before he goes to bed, Pete comes and sits next to him, leans against his shoulder, and throws a blanket over both their laps. He mumbles sarcastic comments in Joe's ear about the characters or the actors or the plot or sometimes the direction, if Pete is feeling particularly punchy that night.
Joe is particularly glad for the blanket on those occasions. There's just something about Pete when he's really on a roll, floating on his own sleeplessness and giddiness and those rare flashes of real happiness, and it just gets to Joe, somewhere in his gut (and somewhere lower, too). If Joe didn't know better, he would say he has a crush on Pete. (No, really, I don't, he tries to tell his dick.) It's not a crush, it's just hero worship or something-because come on, it's Pete Wentz.
Pete Wentz, who was in motherfucking Arma Angelus and agreed to let Joe play with them for that one tour. Pete Wentz, who has dumb tattoos that he claims didn't hurt when there are people around to see him swagger, but who whines to Joe and Patrick and Andy about the itch when they're healing. Pete Wentz, who all the girls look at from the corners of their black-lined eyes and talk to with their hips cocked, and who just rambles back at them about cartoons and breakfast cereal and every band on that night's bill but Fall Out Boy.
Pete Wentz, whose eyes crinkle at the edges when he laughs at all of Joe's dumb jokes.
Pete Wentz, who knows half of Chicagoland but who plays bass in Joe's band.
And besides, hero worship is manly and heterosexual and not creepy. A crush... well, a crush is none of those things. So it's a good thing Joe doesn't have a crush. Which is not to say that he worships Pete, because there's no way anyone could worship that dude after they've smelled him after a week in a van with no shower in sight, but he admires him, or whatever. Looks up to him. (Metaphorically, though, because Joe hit a growth spurt and is now two very awesome inches taller than Pete, which he sometimes tries to rub in Pete's face but Pete always changes the subject and starts making fun of Joe's lisp or hair or something else he can't really help. It makes Joe blush, but if he starts to punch Pete and yell at him to stop, sometimes Pete even does.)
So.
Yeah, so, as evidenced by the need for the blanket when they watch movies together, Joe totally has a big stupid crush on Pete Wentz. It's just another one of those things he can't really help.
Fuuuuuuuck, Joe groans inside his head, and then turns on his stereo to try to block out the yelling that's just started coming from the kitchen.
* * *
Tour is awesome like it always is, but it's fucking cold in the van the entire time-"Yeah, because it's fucking December," Andy snaps every time somebody complains about it-and Joe ends up spending a lot of time under a big pile of blankets and old sleeping bags, rubbing his hands together to keep them warm and trying to decide exactly how close he can get to Pete before it constitutes cuddling, or even worse, snuggling.
The point gets rendered moot a lot though, because Pete has this tendency to forget that other people have personal space bubbles. More often than not he drapes himself over whoever is sitting nearest to him, claiming that "body heat is super-important, asshole. And, like, I'm already wearing a scarf and jacket, what more can I really do?"
"You can put a hat on," Patrick grumbles from somewhere under Pete.
"Shut the fuck up about hats," Pete says airily, and then pulls the bottom edge of Patrick's beanie down over his eyes.
"I hate you," Patrick tells him, and it comes out really muffled.
"No, really. I'm cold, not balding." Pete's got that glint in his eyes that Joe really recognizes way too well, at this point.
"I'm going to kill you in your sleep," Patrick promises. It doesn't sound as threatening as it could, and Pete doesn't look too concerned about his personal safety.
"And then you'll be stuck with your own shitty lyrics," Pete tells him-or at least, tells the squirming lump that he's sitting on.
"Nobody will find your body," Patrick growls. "Joe will help me hide it."
"Uh," Joe says from where he's sitting in the front passenger seat, supposedly keeping Andy company as he drives. Joe's staring back at them, unable to come up with anything coherent to add while he's busy trying to pick out the shape of Pete's body under the four hoodies he's got on. He wouldn't mind manhandling Pete's body, he really wouldn't, but he would prefer that said body be alive at the time. Alive and maybe manhandling him back.
Joe sort of gets his wish later that day, once Patrick's turn to drive comes up and Andy gratefully relinquishes the wheel to take a nap in the back. Pete and Joe are squished together in the middle seat and Pete has decided that it is his God-given right to use Joe as a pillow. Joe wonders if he should be complaining more, or if complaining at all would count as protesting too much. Not to imply that Joe is a lady.
"Are you guys cuddling back there?" Patrick cranes his neck to look at them in the rearview mirror and Joe tries desperately not to blush.
"Shouldn't you be watching the road?" Joe asks, but the words kind of get drowned out when Pete says, "Ohhhhh yeah."
Joe can't see Patrick rolling his eyes, but he'd put money on the fact that it's happening.
"We're not stopping for a while," Patrick says. He sounds apologetic so Joe assumes Patrick is talking to him.
"No big," Joe says, then bites his lip to keep from smiling.
"Sweet," Pete says. "This is going to be the best nap ever." He shifts around on the bench then, accidentally elbowing Joe in the stomach before resettling so his head is somewhere in the vicinity of Joe's lap, nested into a thin pillow and a blanket they stole from a motel three days earlier.
Joe stretches as best he can without dislodging Pete, while contemplating whether it would be okay to put his hand on Pete's shoulder or if he should risk the muscle strain by leaving it draped over the back of their bench.
He finally decides to leave it draped. Twenty minutes later he's regretting the decision when his whole upper arm starts to get sore, and he's just about to say fuck it and hold Pete's shoulder when Pete rolls over until he's pretty much face-down in Joe's lap.
Joe strongly suspects that Pete isn't even really asleep, the fucker, and he'd probably notice if Joe accidentally got a a really, really inconvenient boner.
Okay, so maybe this tour actually kind of sucks.
* * *
When they get home, Joe is broke, hungry, and cold right down to the bone. Whoever booked a tour straight across the middle of the country in December should be taken out back and shot, Joe thinks as he rubs his hands together over the radiator in the bathroom. It's sputtering out weak gusts of hot air into the room, which is blissfully still steamy from the first hot shower Joe has had in two weeks.
Joe is pretty sure that once he leaves the bathroom, he'll never be warm again. They turned the heat way down in the apartment before they left and it's fucking freezing now. Pete cranked the thermostat way up when they got in the door, and for once, Patrick didn't try to kick him in the balls over it-maybe because he was too busy shivering.
Whoever booked the tour should also have done a better job of making sure they got paid a decent amount, too, Joe thinks sourly. It's one thing to live on peanut butter sandwiches and microwave burritos from 7-11 when you're on the road, but it's another thing to have to keep doing it once you get home because you know how bad the next heating bill is going to be.
Joe is really getting sick of PB-and-Js and junk food. It comes as a total surprise to him that he could even entertain such a thought, but maybe he's starting to grow up despite all effort to the contrary-most notably living with a perpetual man-child, who, by the sound of the shouting that's just started up, forgot to clear his perishables out of the fridge before they left, leaving them for Patrick to find and clean up.
* * *
Their November electric bill arrives the day after they get home. They have a week left before the payment is due, and once again, it's more than they have.
"Just give me three days, I've totally got this," Pete tells him, snatching the bill out of Joe's hand while he's busy staring at it, wide-eyed and shocked.
"But we were gone for half of November!" Joe says, still a little shell-shocked. He's already adding up how many more shifts he's going to have to beg his boss to give him, and he's pretty sure he won't get them all. "We weren't even here to use the heat!"
"Dude, I said I got this." Pete pats Joe's shoulder, maybe a little condescendingly, and Joe brushes it off with a jerk of his arm.
"You'll have to forgive me if I don't believe you," Joe snaps at him. "You got paid just as much as I did this tour-or should I say, just as much as I didn't."
Pete just looks at him with that stupid shit-eating grin on his face.
"I don't want to wake up one morning and find they've turned the electricity off because you said you'd take care of it and you didn't," Joe concludes lamely, running out of steam quickly under the force of Pete's total obliviousness. He's like the exact opposite of Patrick that way; he gets less mad at Pete, rather than more, when Pete doesn't react. He's pretty sure Pete's got that figured out and uses it against him whenever he can, but it's just another one of those things he really can't help.
Fucking Pete.
"You gotta trust me, Trohmania," Pete goes on, "I have an awesome plan. This bill is no problem. Wanna order a pizza?"
"Um," Joe blinks at the sudden change of topic. "And pay for it how? Do you have your magical money already?"
"Oh, no, whoops," Pete laughs, and then puts his hand on Joe's shoulder again. "Wanna order a pizza at some point in the future?"
"Sure," Joe agrees, because he really doesn't have any choice in the matter.
Pete's hand is warm even through Joe's hoodie, and it's just resting there, not squeezing or gripping or moving at all, just hanging out and doing nothing. And the heat is starting to spread, too, down his arm into his fingers-and, more embarrassingly, up his neck and into his face. He's sure he's blushing. He does not approve of this blushing. The blushing needs to stop right this second, in fact.
"Um," Joe starts awkwardly.
"What?"
"Can I have my arm back?"
"What? Oh." Pete pulls his hand away like he hadn't even realized he was touching Joe. And maybe he hadn't! Joe can't tell. Pete can be pretty hard to read when he's in a good mood.
"Thanks," Joe says weakly, and then tries to avoid looking at Pete, who is definitely looking back at him. Joe sighs and shuffles out of the kitchen to go start unpacking.
* * *
Six days later, Joe wakes up to find a print-out stuck to the fridge door with a confirmation of their payment of the November electric bill. Joe squints at it, then goes back to his room to put his glasses on and then comes back and squints at it again.
Pete paid the bill.
In full.
A day before it was due.
"TOLD YOU SO!!!!!!!" Pete scrawled along the bottom in red sharpie.
"Well, shit," Joe breathes in awe. He blinks at the fridge for a minute while he tries to remember why he was at the fridge in the first place, and then nods to himself in victory when he realizes it's because he was going to check if there's any milk left so he can eat a bowl of cereal before work.
There's milk left. A whole new carton of it, in fact.
And chocolate soymilk.
And orange juice.
And a case of Coke.
And, fucking, like, three kinds of vegetables.
And a whole loaf of bread, which Joe is pretty sure isn't actually supposed to be kept in the fridge.
Joe shuts the fridge door in a hurry, like it''ll let the magic out if he leaves the door open too long. He eyes the fridge suspiciously for a minute, and then crosses his fingers and opens the freezer.
What he finds is more than he could have ever dared hope for: there are two giant bags of three-cheese pizza rolls, a pile of frozen dinners and burritos, and a tub of soy ice cream.
"Holy shit!" Joe yells. He can't help it. It's like the the grocery fairy answered all his Christmas wishes.
"Shut up! It's too early!" Patrick yells back at him from his room. He'd drawn the short straw when they moved in and got stuck with the room next to the kitchen, and he's never stopped being a bitch about it.
"We have food!" Joe yells back, and he's still just gaping at the contents of the freezer when Patrick shuffles into the kitchen a moment later.
"No we don't," Patrick scowls, "so shut the fuck up and let me sleep."
"No, dude, we seriously do," Joe tells him, and pushes the freezer door a little further open so Patrick can hopefully see in from where he's standing.
"What the fuck," Patrick says, and comes to stand next to Joe. "Where did this all even come from?"
"My guess is Pete," Joe offers, shrugging.
Patrick scratches the side of his face. "Since when does Pete have any money?"
"Dunno. But he paid the electric bill, too." Joe points to the print-out on the fridge door.
"Huh. Wonder where he got it."
"No idea."
"Huh," Patrick says again.
"Yeah," Joe agrees. "Whatever, I'm having pizza rolls for breakfast, want some?"
"Fuck yes," Patrick practically groans.
* * *
Three days later, Pete ambushes Joe the instant he gets in the door after work and pulls him into his bedroom.
"Why does your room stink so bad?" Joe asks him.
"It doesn't," Pete says.
"Yes, it does," Joe insists.
"Whatever." Pete waves his hand at the room at large, and then shoves a pile of hoodies off his chair and ushers Joe over to sit.
"What's up?" Joe asks, trying to breathe through his nose as little as possible.
Pete sits down on the edge of his bed, puts his hands on his knees, and leans in towards Joe. "I need your help," he says, in this over-the-top conspiratorial way that sets a warning light flashing in Joe's brain.
"Uh huh," Joe says carefully. He's not fucking agreeing to anything until he knows exactly what it is.
"I have a plan," Pete continues, and the warning light is joined by a siren and a giant scrolling marquee that says DANGER! DANGER!.
"To do what?" Joe eyes Pete suspiciously, because he has learned from hard-won experience that all of Pete's plans merit at least a certain baseline level of suspicion. They're frequently very awesome in the end, but they're never not kind of sketchy at the same time.
Pete looks Joe right in the eye, then smiles. "Make more money. Like, it was pretty sweet being able to pay the bills and buy us groceries."
"It was," Joe agrees, nodding his head a few times in emphasis. "Those pizza rolls were delicious, by the way."
"No problem, dude." Pete's still smiling. That could be a good sign, or a bad sign. It's hard to tell.
"So, like, how are you going to make all this money?" Joe hates to ask, he does, but he feels like the details might be particularly important here.
"I'm making a movie," Pete says, and gets up from the bed to squeeze into the chair next to Joe. His eyes have that sparkle that Joe is getting better at recognizing-the sparkle that says Pete's plan is going to be a lot sketchy.
"I'm not doing any Jackass stunts," Joe tells him immediately. "My dignity is too delicate."
Pete slings his arm around Joe's shoulder. "No, it's not. Your dignity is sturdy and manly."
"My dignity is on the endangered species list," Joe insists, flushing a little when he feels Pete's arm brushing against the bare skin at the back of his neck just above the collar of his t-shirt.
"It really isn't," Pete tells him. He's got an edge to his voice now, the one that says he's just starting in, just picking up speed, just getting to the good part.
Joe thinks it's probably too late now to try to run for his life. He starts getting up out of the chair anyway, but stops dead when Pete puts a hand on his leg, just above the knee.
"You'll get five hundred bucks," Pete says casually.
Joe sits back down. He's quiet for a moment as he tries to figure out how skeptical he ought to be. There's no way it's really a good idea-like, it's Pete, it's never a good idea. But on the other hand, five hundred big ones is a lot of money, especially with Chanukah and Christmas coming, and Joe isn't entirely sure that his sturdy and manly dignity is really ready to handle another round of begging his manager to give him more hours during the few weeks he'll actually be home long enough from tour to actually get in to work.
Joe sighs. He's caving, he always fucking caves, and this is going to be no exception. Fuck. "What's the movie about?"
Pete doesn't answer.
"Pete?"
"Okay, so, here's the thing," Pete starts. He sounds less casual than before, and a little less confident.
"What?" Joe knew his warning lights and sirens and marquees couldn't be wrong.
"It's not a Jackass movie-"
"Imagine my relief," Joe cuts in.
"Shut up." Pete pokes him in the ribs. "But, okay, so there are certain, shall we say, niche markets that are really lucrative."
Joe blinks at him. He knows what the words mean-like, their dictionary definitions and shit-but he's not really sure how Pete means them.
"On the internet," Pete clarifies. Tries to clarify.
Joe blinks at him some more. It'll start getting results eventually, he imagines.
"Okay, so, like, I guess there's no easy way to say this?" Pete pauses.
Joe shifts uneasily in his half of the seat. There aren't a lot of good places a lead-in like that can go, and Joe's imagination is really getting away from him, and-
"We're going to make porn," Pete says in a rush.
Joe's imagination really hadn't made it that far. Holy shit. "No way," he says, and starts to get up from the chair again.
"Hear me out!" Pete grabs Joe's leg again, hauls him back down, and then moves over to sit on his lap.
Joe sighs and lets his head fall against the back of the chair. Pete's way stronger than Joe is and it definitely isn't fair, but he's going to be stuck here until Pete wants to get off. Get off him. Deigns to leave his lap. Fuck. Joe's dick is starting to show more interest in this situation than Joe is entirely comfortable with, too, and Joe can't decide if he wants this to be a bad dream or just something they're going to pretend never happened.
"We're not making it together," Pete says firmly. "Or, yeah, we're working together. But I'm not going to have sex with you, Troh. No offense."
"None taken," Joe says automatically. His brain is not really ready to process everything that's just happened in the last ten seconds-the whole making a porno thing, yeah, but also the way his stomach is getting all turbulent at Pete's declaration that they're not going to have sex. On the one hand, he's pretty relieved-he doesn't really want to have sex with Pete, either, and he hopes that counts as a nail in the coffin of his crush- no, hero worship- no, totally weird-ass thing for Pete. But on the other hand, shouldn't he want Pete to have sex with him anyway, because of the whole aforementioned not-crush not-worship thing thing? Like, want it in the abstract, at least? Not to mention, nobody really likes being told something like that, Joe figures. Maybe he should be offended. Maybe he should just say no to the whole thing.
But that's not going to happen, of course. Joe used to be able to say no to Pete, once upon a time, but these days? Not so much.
Joe can't think of anything to say. He's still trying to process. His legs are starting to get a little numb from Pete sitting on them, though, and he's pretty sure Pete isn't going to get up until Joe agrees to his plan, so Joe needs to think of something.
"Um," he starts. "So what are we going to do, then? I mean, if I agreed to help you."
"You know how I mentioned niche markets before?"
"Sort of?"
Pete starts fiddling with the cuffs of the hoodie he's wearing. Joe takes that as a bad sign. "Well, it turns out that there's a lot of money in catering to people's weird fetishes."
Joe is pretty sure he's gaping like a dead fish now, all open mouth and bug eyes, but it's a pretty involuntary state of being. "Weird fetishes like what?" he asks. "Whips and chains and shit? Because no way, dude, I'm not doing that, not for all the money in the world."
Pete laughs, his whole body shaking on Joe's lap. "Nope, no whips, no chains, none of that stuff."
"So, what then?"
Pete looks thoughtful for a moment, and then says, "It's actually pretty tame, if you look at it a certain way."
Joe opens his mouth to say something sarcastic, but Pete just talks over him, his words tumbling out over each other in a rush.
"So it turns out that there are people out there who actually pay good money to watch hot young things get sexy with, like, balloons, or whatever." Pete does not leer at Joe or touch him inappropriately when he says "hot young things," which Joe appreciates more than he can describe. "You just jerk off with a bunch of balloons around, take some pictures, and sell the photos for a bunch of money to a website. Oh, I guess I did a few with stuffed animals instead of balloons. You know, just random stuff other people inexplicably get off on."
"Okay," Joe says faintly. That doesn't sound that bad, actually, apart from the whole taking-pictures-of-himself-jerking-off thing.
"So I just did a bunch of those, which is why we still have heat and food," Pete goes on.
"I'd figured that out, yeah." Joe was okay with having Pete, his bandmate, sitting on his lap, but now that he's got Pete Wentz, Porn Star, sitting on his lap, things are a little different. He squirms a bit, trying to see if there's any escape out from under Pete's bony ass. Not so much, it turns out. If Pete does't get up soon, Joe might start freaking out-to say nothing of what his dick might start doing.
"So I'm going to do more later, but we don't want people to get tired of my ugly mug, so that's where you come in. To help keep things fresh."
Joe is getting light-headed. This is so fucking weird. He used to be able to say no. He used to say it all the fucking time! He has no idea why he can't just say no now-and say it a hundred, a thousand times-and run for the hills.
Fucking Pete.
Joe takes a deep breath, and then says, "Okay, so, let me get this straight: you paid the electric bill by selling pictures of yourself jerking off with balloons and stuffed animals. And now you want me to help."
"Gotta keep it fresh," Pete shrugs.
"Awesome," Joe says weakly, in a way he hopes conveys that he's really not at all convinced that it's awesome.
"We'll start tomorrow," Pete goes on. Joe's legs are starting to go numb under Pete's ass and he hopes he gets up soon. Pete shows no signs of doing so; he actually takes a second to hitch himself a little further up Joe's lap. Joe hates him so much right now. "We have a couple hours alone before Patrick gets home from work, right?"
"Yeah," Joe says. "Wait, so, just out of curiosity? Why did you ask me for help and not Patrick?"
"You're cuter," Pete says, and his answer is so immediate that Joe doesn't even think he's kidding. "And Patrick would probably punch me instead of saying yes," Pete adds thoughtfully.
"True," Joe agrees.
"Anyway," Pete says, finally swinging his legs around and hopping off Joe's lap. Blood rushes back into Joe's lower legs and they start to tingle, which is kind of a cool feeling but it's mostly just pretty uncomfortable. "I have crap to do, but I'll have things ready when you get home from work tomorrow, okay?"
It's not until Joe gets back to his own bedroom that he realizes he never actually outright agreed to anything, but he doesn't think that that particular detail is going to save him. Not when Pete's involved.
Joe sits down on his bed and has his pants halfway down to start jerking off when he stops, frowns, and pulls them back up. He's going to save it for tomorrow, he decides. He's only going to do this once, so he might as well make it count.
[ part two]