fic: Yo Ho Ho (Pete/Patrick, xover with PotC, 1/1)
This is for lovelypoet, on the occasion of her birthday. The secret origins of the Wentz family! Or something like that. Happy birthday, honey.
Yo Ho Ho
by gale
SUMMARY: "That," Patrick said, a little uneasily, "looks like a goddamned ghost ship, Pete."
"Hey," Patrick pointed, "what's that?"
Sitting on the mantle in the Wentz's living room was what looked like a box made of beaten silver. It was something out of a ghost story, almost, all scratched and dented and weirdly beautiful. Somehow, it didn't seem out of place in a well-off house in the middle of an upper-class suburb in Chicago.
"Huh?" Pete looked. "Oh, that. You know, I'm not actually sure? Grandma gave it to Mom as a wedding present, said something about keeping her heart safe?"
In a few years, Patrick will rename that tone of voice Studiously Casual to Cover Up the Bucket of Lies, but back then he'd just nodded and walked over to it. "Can I just--"
"No," Pete said, so sharply that Patrick took a step back.
Pete looked embarrassed. "Sorry," he said. "But moms get weird about stuff, y'know?"
Patrick, who had a perfectly sane mother who got twitchy if you went near her collection of penguin figurines, nodded. "Sorry," he muttered.
"'s okay," Pete said, and hauled Patrick close enough to kiss him. "I still love you, Ric."
"Asshole," Patrick said, grinning, and the chest was promptly forgotten.
*
"Love you," Pete said. It sounded louder in the darkness. He started kissing a path down Patrick's spine.
"Don't," Patrick murmured. "I'm not fifteen, Pete, you don't have to lie tome. It's okay."
"I'm not lying." And whoa, Pete was angry, right there. Not hurt, not pissed: angry. "I love you. You're -- you're what I was missing, okay?" In the dim light, he looked like he was ringed with ghosts, not tattoos. The day-old smudged eyeliner made his eyes look luminous. "You're necessary."
Patrick's face felt red. "Shut up," he muttered.
"I can't." Pete smiled. "Not always." He kissed Patrick's top lip, very softly.
"I love you," he whispered. "I will never deliberately hurt you, Patrick. I swear by the heart."
Little pause.
"Cheeseball," Patrick said, smiling. "Swearing by your heart. Come on."
"Not *my* heart," Pete said, "by *the*--" He shook his head. "Never mind."
"No, c'mon, what?"
"I'll tell you later," Pete said, fingers creeping under the sheets again.
"Dirty po--" Patrick started, and groaned when Pete stroked his inner thighs. "--ol."
"I know," Pete said, and burrowed his head back under the covers.
*
"You ever wonder why--"
"Not really," Pete interrupted. He looked down at his mineral water. "I figure we just started making someone or something happy along the way, and now she's just paying it forward."
"'She'?" Patrick raised an eyebrow.
"Or he, whatever. It's a metaphor." Pete finished his drink. "Lighten up, Stump. It's a party."
*
"Come with me," Pete said, standing on Patrick's doorstep. "Dude, c'mon. We have to hurry."
"I'm supposed to be on the studio," Patrick said flatly. His keys were in his hand. "Like, an hour ago. If you'd called, that would've been--"
Pete took a step forward. "I've been a thoughtless asshole," he said flatly. "Thoughtless and stupid. I broke my word to you, like, twenty times over by now, and I'm going to have to pay for it in the end, but that's on me, not you. And there's something I want you to see." He patted the thing in his arm; it took Patrick a few seconds to recognize it.
"That's--"
"Come with me," Pete said. "Please."
Patrick looked at his watch, then at the chest. Did some math.
"Ten minutes," Patrick warned.
Pete shook his head. "No deal. It's gonna be, like, a day. Ish."
"A day?" Patrick was incredulous. "Dude, no way. Fuck that. We have studio time booked--"
"I explained it to Gabe," Pete said. "I'll pay you back. It's fine." He tugged on Patrick's hand.
And something about that -- "explaining it" to Gabe like fucking middle management, borrowing Patrick like a library book, deigning to speak to him after days and weeks of being snippy, even rude -- got Patrick's back right up. "Fuck you," he snapped, jerking his hand away.
"I -- Patrick, please." Pete's expression was pretty damn close to stricken. Patrick started; when was the last time he'd actually seen Pete upset? Or anything, for that matter?
"Not a day," he heard himself say, voice gone tight. "I'll give you an hour, maybe two. Maybe."
Pete's expression softened. "Thank you," he said, and started towing Patrick outside and towards the car.
*
While they hiked down to the beach -- seriously, the fucking beach -- Pete told Patrick a story.
"So, like, a few generations back, this English guy wound up on this island chain, where he married a local girl-"
"Hawaii," Patrick guessed, panting.
Pete clicked his tongue and shot finger guns at him. "They had a kid. A couple, actually. But one of those kids had kids of his own, and they had kids, and one of those kids had a daughter named Dale."
Patrick stopped, not just for breath. "Your mom?"
"My mom," Pete said, nodding. "Now, there's this family heirloom that's passed down to the oldest child--" he nodded at the box "--and that's. Um. It might be easier to just show you."
He dropped down and took out a key from under his shirt -- and hey, that was new -- and unlocked the box.
"Please don't freak out," Pete said, and opened it.
Patrick didn't freak out, but it was touch and go for a few seconds.
The chest was lined with red velvet and silk; it looked soft to the touch. Which was probably good, because holy fuck there was a heart in there. A human heart. That was still beating, though sluggishly.
"Holy shit," Patrick said.
"Don't touch it," Pete murmured. "There's kind of a -- not a curse, but prohibitions? Sort of?"
"Holy shit."
"I don't think just touching it would be so bad, but better safe, you know?"
"Holy shit."
"Dude, please stop saying 'holy shit'. It's making me think you're freaking out."
"You just stole me away from producing to look at a still-beating human heart in a chest," Patrick
said, voice rising with each word. "How does that constitute freaking out--"
"Dude--" Pete started, and suddenly spun Patrick around. "Patrick! Patrick, look."
Patrick did, just as a strong green flash filled the horizon.
"What the f--" he said, and shut up mid-word. Because where there had been nothing a minute ago -- daytrippers already in for the night, too early for night fishing -- there was now a ship (not a boat, a ship) with a sharp, jagged prow and ragged sails.
"That," Patrick said, a little uneasily, "looks like a goddamned ghost ship, Pete."
"Probably because it is," Petesaid. Fucker sounded like he was grinning. "You want to come say hi?" He started down the beach.
"A goddamned ghost ship," Patrick said faintly. "Wait, say hi to who?"
Pete didn't bother turning around. "My ancestor."
*
By the time they got to the beach, there was a guy already there, shoving a rowboat up onto the sand. He had dark hair under a kerchief; other than that, and his anachronistic clothing -- dark open-necked shirt, tight pants, knee-high floppy boots -- Patrick couldn't tell anything at all.
"You shouldn't have brought it," the man called to Pete. "It's dangerous."
"It's fine," Pete shot back. "See?" He poked the closed lid with the toe of his sneaker.
"And," the guy added, "you have company." He looked at Patrick.
"Um," Patrick said. "I can go, if you--"
"You're not going anywhere," Pete said, glaring back. "Look, Grandpa--"
"I am not your--"
"--you were the one who told me if I ever found someone important, I should bring them by. So."
There was a little pause. This close, Patrick could see other things, most notably the jagged scar over his heart, like someone had--
He looked down at the chest and tried very hard not to start yelling.
"This," the guy said, plainly enough, "is a man."
"Yes, thank you." Pete sounded completely sincere. "What gave it away, the Adam's apple or his dick?"
Patrick smacked his arm just as the guy flushed. "Pete, he's family. Don't be an ass."
"Thank you," the man said, a little stiffly. "I was merely surprised, not judgmental." His smile was ancient. "I've seen too much for that."
"Yeah, well." Pete crossed his arms and shrugged. Coming from him, it was almost an apology.
Patrick rolled his eyes and offered the guy his hand. "I'm Patrick."
The guy looked relieved, either at the politeness or the formality. "Will," he said, shaking it. "Will Turner."
"He only has a day," Pete said quietly. "Ten years at sea, one day on shore. That's the rule."
Patrick tried to wrap his mind around that and...couldn't, quite. Making music for ten years, fine, no problem, he was almost there himself, but not ten years straight. If he wanted to take a day or two and fuck off at the mall or something, he could.
"I'm sorry," he told Will, quietly.
"It was not entirely my decision," Will said. His eyes were dark and more than a little pained. Just for a second, could see the family resemblance. "But there are other compensations." One corner of his mouth turned up in a smile.
"Like what?"
Will glanced back at the ship, still floating mildly in the water. Patrick didn't know how people were going to miss it, later. He wondered if it'd be on the news or not; you couldn't really tell, in California.
"Had I stayed dead," he said quietly, "I would not have my wife with me now. And while we lived, I would have had no son or heirs." He glanced back at Pete. "And none of us would be having so awkward a conversation as night falls."
"Fair enough," Pete said cheerfully. "You want to go to dinner, or what?"
Patrick couldn't help himself. "You're taking a ghost to dinner?"
"Strictly speaking, he's not a ghost for twenty-four hours," Pete said. "You can't kill him, but he's not a ghost. Or a zombie. He's...okay, I don't really know what he is. But yeah, I'm taking him for dinner."
"Something local, if possible," Will said. "Ten years with no food or drink is fine enough, since I'm dead. But seafood does, eventually, get old."
"Something local," Pete agreed. "My car's up there." Will, who apparently wasn't scared of modern vehicles -- duh, Patrick chided himself; the guy'd been visiting shore once a decade for a while now, so he'd probably seen cars before -- started up the beach towards Pete's car.
"It's actually kind of cool," Pete said thoughtfully, reaching for Patrick's hand. Patrick , still watching Will, let him take it. "Not being at sea for ten years, that's fucked up. I'd take two years just to stop being seasick." His fingers tightened for a second. "But, you know. He has his wife with him. They should've been dead and gone for a couple hundred years now, but they're not."
"They're still dead, Pete."
"Yeah, but not dead and gone," Pete said. "Sometimes it's worth it, you know? I mean." He shrugged and didn't meet Patrick's eyes. "I'd put up with being at sea for a few hundred years if I got to do it with you."
Patrick looked at him for a very long time.
"I'm not your wife," Patrick finally said. "And you're only half a pirate at best."
"Pffft." Pete snorted. "You're the one who's spent, like, two years saying we're married, dude. And I'm totally a pirate."
"Really? Name the last time you raped and pillaged."
"--okay, so I'm a modern pirate," Pete said. He squeezed Patrick's fingers again. "Raping and pillaging is so seventeenth century."
Patrick hummed a little. "You took me out here to meet your dead, cursed ancestor," he said, pleased.
"Damn right I did," Pete said, and kissed him.
*
this kind of popped free-form into my head after seeing pirates of the caribbean: at world's end. blame can be heaped upon "bang the doldrums", the blogspot where pete and a certain someone talked about him being a pirate, and - your friend and mine - crack. and it’s finished in time for lovelypoet’s birthday. so in every way that counts, it’s her story.
it could have been worse. i could've gone with that whole "jack found the fountain of youth and bedded many a lass, and that's how we got frank iero" idea. which, by the way, I CALL NOT IT.
Yo Ho Ho
by gale
SUMMARY: "That," Patrick said, a little uneasily, "looks like a goddamned ghost ship, Pete."
"Hey," Patrick pointed, "what's that?"
Sitting on the mantle in the Wentz's living room was what looked like a box made of beaten silver. It was something out of a ghost story, almost, all scratched and dented and weirdly beautiful. Somehow, it didn't seem out of place in a well-off house in the middle of an upper-class suburb in Chicago.
"Huh?" Pete looked. "Oh, that. You know, I'm not actually sure? Grandma gave it to Mom as a wedding present, said something about keeping her heart safe?"
In a few years, Patrick will rename that tone of voice Studiously Casual to Cover Up the Bucket of Lies, but back then he'd just nodded and walked over to it. "Can I just--"
"No," Pete said, so sharply that Patrick took a step back.
Pete looked embarrassed. "Sorry," he said. "But moms get weird about stuff, y'know?"
Patrick, who had a perfectly sane mother who got twitchy if you went near her collection of penguin figurines, nodded. "Sorry," he muttered.
"'s okay," Pete said, and hauled Patrick close enough to kiss him. "I still love you, Ric."
"Asshole," Patrick said, grinning, and the chest was promptly forgotten.
*
"Love you," Pete said. It sounded louder in the darkness. He started kissing a path down Patrick's spine.
"Don't," Patrick murmured. "I'm not fifteen, Pete, you don't have to lie tome. It's okay."
"I'm not lying." And whoa, Pete was angry, right there. Not hurt, not pissed: angry. "I love you. You're -- you're what I was missing, okay?" In the dim light, he looked like he was ringed with ghosts, not tattoos. The day-old smudged eyeliner made his eyes look luminous. "You're necessary."
Patrick's face felt red. "Shut up," he muttered.
"I can't." Pete smiled. "Not always." He kissed Patrick's top lip, very softly.
"I love you," he whispered. "I will never deliberately hurt you, Patrick. I swear by the heart."
Little pause.
"Cheeseball," Patrick said, smiling. "Swearing by your heart. Come on."
"Not *my* heart," Pete said, "by *the*--" He shook his head. "Never mind."
"No, c'mon, what?"
"I'll tell you later," Pete said, fingers creeping under the sheets again.
"Dirty po--" Patrick started, and groaned when Pete stroked his inner thighs. "--ol."
"I know," Pete said, and burrowed his head back under the covers.
*
"You ever wonder why--"
"Not really," Pete interrupted. He looked down at his mineral water. "I figure we just started making someone or something happy along the way, and now she's just paying it forward."
"'She'?" Patrick raised an eyebrow.
"Or he, whatever. It's a metaphor." Pete finished his drink. "Lighten up, Stump. It's a party."
*
"Come with me," Pete said, standing on Patrick's doorstep. "Dude, c'mon. We have to hurry."
"I'm supposed to be on the studio," Patrick said flatly. His keys were in his hand. "Like, an hour ago. If you'd called, that would've been--"
Pete took a step forward. "I've been a thoughtless asshole," he said flatly. "Thoughtless and stupid. I broke my word to you, like, twenty times over by now, and I'm going to have to pay for it in the end, but that's on me, not you. And there's something I want you to see." He patted the thing in his arm; it took Patrick a few seconds to recognize it.
"That's--"
"Come with me," Pete said. "Please."
Patrick looked at his watch, then at the chest. Did some math.
"Ten minutes," Patrick warned.
Pete shook his head. "No deal. It's gonna be, like, a day. Ish."
"A day?" Patrick was incredulous. "Dude, no way. Fuck that. We have studio time booked--"
"I explained it to Gabe," Pete said. "I'll pay you back. It's fine." He tugged on Patrick's hand.
And something about that -- "explaining it" to Gabe like fucking middle management, borrowing Patrick like a library book, deigning to speak to him after days and weeks of being snippy, even rude -- got Patrick's back right up. "Fuck you," he snapped, jerking his hand away.
"I -- Patrick, please." Pete's expression was pretty damn close to stricken. Patrick started; when was the last time he'd actually seen Pete upset? Or anything, for that matter?
"Not a day," he heard himself say, voice gone tight. "I'll give you an hour, maybe two. Maybe."
Pete's expression softened. "Thank you," he said, and started towing Patrick outside and towards the car.
*
While they hiked down to the beach -- seriously, the fucking beach -- Pete told Patrick a story.
"So, like, a few generations back, this English guy wound up on this island chain, where he married a local girl-"
"Hawaii," Patrick guessed, panting.
Pete clicked his tongue and shot finger guns at him. "They had a kid. A couple, actually. But one of those kids had kids of his own, and they had kids, and one of those kids had a daughter named Dale."
Patrick stopped, not just for breath. "Your mom?"
"My mom," Pete said, nodding. "Now, there's this family heirloom that's passed down to the oldest child--" he nodded at the box "--and that's. Um. It might be easier to just show you."
He dropped down and took out a key from under his shirt -- and hey, that was new -- and unlocked the box.
"Please don't freak out," Pete said, and opened it.
Patrick didn't freak out, but it was touch and go for a few seconds.
The chest was lined with red velvet and silk; it looked soft to the touch. Which was probably good, because holy fuck there was a heart in there. A human heart. That was still beating, though sluggishly.
"Holy shit," Patrick said.
"Don't touch it," Pete murmured. "There's kind of a -- not a curse, but prohibitions? Sort of?"
"Holy shit."
"I don't think just touching it would be so bad, but better safe, you know?"
"Holy shit."
"Dude, please stop saying 'holy shit'. It's making me think you're freaking out."
"You just stole me away from producing to look at a still-beating human heart in a chest," Patrick
said, voice rising with each word. "How does that constitute freaking out--"
"Dude--" Pete started, and suddenly spun Patrick around. "Patrick! Patrick, look."
Patrick did, just as a strong green flash filled the horizon.
"What the f--" he said, and shut up mid-word. Because where there had been nothing a minute ago -- daytrippers already in for the night, too early for night fishing -- there was now a ship (not a boat, a ship) with a sharp, jagged prow and ragged sails.
"That," Patrick said, a little uneasily, "looks like a goddamned ghost ship, Pete."
"Probably because it is," Petesaid. Fucker sounded like he was grinning. "You want to come say hi?" He started down the beach.
"A goddamned ghost ship," Patrick said faintly. "Wait, say hi to who?"
Pete didn't bother turning around. "My ancestor."
*
By the time they got to the beach, there was a guy already there, shoving a rowboat up onto the sand. He had dark hair under a kerchief; other than that, and his anachronistic clothing -- dark open-necked shirt, tight pants, knee-high floppy boots -- Patrick couldn't tell anything at all.
"You shouldn't have brought it," the man called to Pete. "It's dangerous."
"It's fine," Pete shot back. "See?" He poked the closed lid with the toe of his sneaker.
"And," the guy added, "you have company." He looked at Patrick.
"Um," Patrick said. "I can go, if you--"
"You're not going anywhere," Pete said, glaring back. "Look, Grandpa--"
"I am not your--"
"--you were the one who told me if I ever found someone important, I should bring them by. So."
There was a little pause. This close, Patrick could see other things, most notably the jagged scar over his heart, like someone had--
He looked down at the chest and tried very hard not to start yelling.
"This," the guy said, plainly enough, "is a man."
"Yes, thank you." Pete sounded completely sincere. "What gave it away, the Adam's apple or his dick?"
Patrick smacked his arm just as the guy flushed. "Pete, he's family. Don't be an ass."
"Thank you," the man said, a little stiffly. "I was merely surprised, not judgmental." His smile was ancient. "I've seen too much for that."
"Yeah, well." Pete crossed his arms and shrugged. Coming from him, it was almost an apology.
Patrick rolled his eyes and offered the guy his hand. "I'm Patrick."
The guy looked relieved, either at the politeness or the formality. "Will," he said, shaking it. "Will Turner."
"He only has a day," Pete said quietly. "Ten years at sea, one day on shore. That's the rule."
Patrick tried to wrap his mind around that and...couldn't, quite. Making music for ten years, fine, no problem, he was almost there himself, but not ten years straight. If he wanted to take a day or two and fuck off at the mall or something, he could.
"I'm sorry," he told Will, quietly.
"It was not entirely my decision," Will said. His eyes were dark and more than a little pained. Just for a second, could see the family resemblance. "But there are other compensations." One corner of his mouth turned up in a smile.
"Like what?"
Will glanced back at the ship, still floating mildly in the water. Patrick didn't know how people were going to miss it, later. He wondered if it'd be on the news or not; you couldn't really tell, in California.
"Had I stayed dead," he said quietly, "I would not have my wife with me now. And while we lived, I would have had no son or heirs." He glanced back at Pete. "And none of us would be having so awkward a conversation as night falls."
"Fair enough," Pete said cheerfully. "You want to go to dinner, or what?"
Patrick couldn't help himself. "You're taking a ghost to dinner?"
"Strictly speaking, he's not a ghost for twenty-four hours," Pete said. "You can't kill him, but he's not a ghost. Or a zombie. He's...okay, I don't really know what he is. But yeah, I'm taking him for dinner."
"Something local, if possible," Will said. "Ten years with no food or drink is fine enough, since I'm dead. But seafood does, eventually, get old."
"Something local," Pete agreed. "My car's up there." Will, who apparently wasn't scared of modern vehicles -- duh, Patrick chided himself; the guy'd been visiting shore once a decade for a while now, so he'd probably seen cars before -- started up the beach towards Pete's car.
"It's actually kind of cool," Pete said thoughtfully, reaching for Patrick's hand. Patrick , still watching Will, let him take it. "Not being at sea for ten years, that's fucked up. I'd take two years just to stop being seasick." His fingers tightened for a second. "But, you know. He has his wife with him. They should've been dead and gone for a couple hundred years now, but they're not."
"They're still dead, Pete."
"Yeah, but not dead and gone," Pete said. "Sometimes it's worth it, you know? I mean." He shrugged and didn't meet Patrick's eyes. "I'd put up with being at sea for a few hundred years if I got to do it with you."
Patrick looked at him for a very long time.
"I'm not your wife," Patrick finally said. "And you're only half a pirate at best."
"Pffft." Pete snorted. "You're the one who's spent, like, two years saying we're married, dude. And I'm totally a pirate."
"Really? Name the last time you raped and pillaged."
"--okay, so I'm a modern pirate," Pete said. He squeezed Patrick's fingers again. "Raping and pillaging is so seventeenth century."
Patrick hummed a little. "You took me out here to meet your dead, cursed ancestor," he said, pleased.
"Damn right I did," Pete said, and kissed him.
*
this kind of popped free-form into my head after seeing pirates of the caribbean: at world's end. blame can be heaped upon "bang the doldrums", the blogspot where pete and a certain someone talked about him being a pirate, and - your friend and mine - crack. and it’s finished in time for lovelypoet’s birthday. so in every way that counts, it’s her story.
it could have been worse. i could've gone with that whole "jack found the fountain of youth and bedded many a lass, and that's how we got frank iero" idea. which, by the way, I CALL NOT IT.