(no subject)
title: If Work Permits
pairing: Sean Van Vleet/Jon Walker (with guest appearences by Tom Conrad, Pete Wentz, and mini!Jon)
rating: R, for language, hints at sexual deviancy, and Pete Wentz being a little bit of a pedophile
summary: Jon Walker's back in town, and he brought his mini along with him. Too bad Sean's at work. You know, working. Featuring stoner!Tom Conrad and creep!Pete.
disclaimer: I don't own them. I don't want to own them. They're probably really messy.
this is 100% for notthegnomes because she's a huge perv.
The coffee shop is mostly empty. Mostly, because there’s Tom, sitting hunched on the counter, boots swinging hard against the linoleum underside, black boxer-briefs peeking out from the waistband of his jeans. Mostly, because there’s also Sean, behind the counter, leaning against the back wall with his battered Dunks crossed, and really, really grateful that Tom wore underwear today.
“How the fuck can you stand working here?” Tom asks, sneaking his hand around behind the counter to grope for a scone. Sean watches, and he thinks about stopping him, about swatting the digits loosely contaminating every baked good in their path, but he’s too busy leaning to bother.
“At least,” Tom continues, finally settling on something that gives enough under his prodding to promise chewy goodness. “When Jon worked at Starbucks, yeah, he was totally working for the fucking Man, but at least there are always people in Starbucks.”
Sean hears this logic at least three times a week, when Tom’s stoned out of his fucking mind and decides showing up blazed at Sean’s work will ensure him a bellyful of coffee-accompanying treats just to get him out again. Sean hates how right Tom always is.
“Yeah, but.” Sean shrugs, and he’s not even really sure Tom is listening anymore; instead, Tom’s staring at the cookie in his hand, turning it over slowly like he’s debating its deliciousness potential before he wastes the energy of biting into it. “Jon also got paid jack shit until he was promoted, and he had to listen to the college alt-rock easy-listening indie-pop station all day long.”
Tom definitely isn’t listening, because now he’s chewing, and when he looks up at Sean, all he says is, “Dude, this cookie is fucking amazing. What is it, like, molasses?”
It’s really, really, unbelievably tempting to shove Tom off the counter and throw scones at him until he high-tails it back out of the store, but if Sean does that then he’ll be alone, quite possibly until the end of his shift in four hours, and not even his own personal iPod spinning through the shop’s overhead can make that option more appealing. So, Sean settles for rolling his eyes, pushing off the wall and moving to plunk at the espresso machine.
“Yeah,” Tom says again, still chewing. “Yeah. True. And he had to wear that retarded hat.”
Sean doesn’t know if it’s good or really, really bad that he can follow Tom’s train of thought perfectly. He also really, really doesn’t want to know if Tom’s been smoking his own weed or Sean’s, because there’s a good chance it’s the latter, and Sean would really, really like to keep living in his delusion of being able to get home after this shift and smoke until he pukes up all the espresso.
Sean’s life since he moved in with Tom has mostly been a cycle of extremes and delusions.
“Hey!” Tom jumps, not anywhere useful like off the counter, just up a little, mostly raising his shoulders an inch or two, the most animated Sean’s seen him since he came ambling in making grabby hands at the cupcakes. “Speak of the devil!”
The chimes hanging on the front door tinkle (real, actual half-windchimes, no electronic replication bullshit) and Sean starts to tell Tom to get the fuck down when customers come in, but there’s a laugh that sounds over the chime and Sean nearly drops the paper shot cup in his hand. He turns slowly, the grin on his face spreading wider than should ever be possible with black espresso on his tongue, and sure enough-
“Jon fucking Walker!” Tom nearly shouts, brandishing his cookie.
“Tom fucking Conrad!” Jon answers, just as loud, a crooked grin breaking his features. His eyes glance over Tom, though, lingering just for a minute on the cookie, then landing right on Sean. “And Sean Van Vleet.”
“Jon fucking Walker,” Sean echoes, already moving forward to hop over the counter. He’s half a second away from bounding over the goddamn barrier and launching himself into Jon’s arms, public propriety be damned, when there’s a telltale inhale from Tom, the kind where he sucks his breath in through his teeth and is about to make someone’s life very miserable.
“Jon,” Tom asks, slowly, grey-blue eyes fixed on Jon’s like Jon's wielding an axe, or is about to be eaten by a bear, or has a small child in tow, “Jon, did you kidnap a child? …Oh, my God, dude. Did you go back in time and kidnap yourself?”
Sean wants to ask what the fuck Tom’s been smoking, and then he realizes he knows exactly what Tom’s been smoking, and for a split second he thinks maybe he’s on a contact high, because lurking there behind Jon’s legs, eyes big and wide as they scan the display of iced treats, is Jon. Only... small. Smaller. Pocket-sized. Or maybe bite-sized. And then Sean feels like a total fucking creep for everything he was just thinking about doing to Jon. Big Jon. Tall Jon. …Taller Jon.
Like clockwork, Jon laughs and spins and flashes the mini-him a thumbs-up, and what the fuck, the little thumb turns up right back.
“…Jon. There’s two of you.”
Sean now feels as retarded as Tom, and clearly sounds just as bad.
“Guys, chill out,” Jon laughs again, leaning to catch the kid around his waist and hoist him up on the counter next to Tom. “This is my nephew. My brother’s kid. He plays me in our new video.”
“Yeah, but…” Tom’s staring at the kid now, cookie forgotten in his hand, until he reaches out to prod at the kid’s shoulder with it. “He’s wearing your vest. You have that vest! Who wears a vest when they’re six!”
“I’m eight,” the kid pipes up, and Tom drops the cookie in shock.
“What the fuck, it talks! Jon, make it do that again!”
“He’s eight, yeah, he talks,” Jon’s laughing again, but now his eyes are on Sean’s, dark and soft and sleepy and God, Sean’s missed him. “And don’t swear at the kid,” he adds, but Sean’s looking right back at him and his voice is slower now, absent.
“Huh,” they both hear Tom muse, but neither breaks the stare-down to look. “Okay. Right on. What’s your name, kid?”
“Tom,” Sean says, voice as loose as Jon’s had just been, “watch the store. Yell if someone comes in, okay? We’ll be right back.”
“You got it, buddy,” Tom says, sticking his thumb out in a thumbs-up, testing. Sure enough, a tiny fist jams out to give him a thumbs up right back, and Tom keels over in laughter. “Oh my God, this kid is unreal. Do you have a dad, kid? Because I’ll totally adopt you right fucking now!”
Jon wants to reiterate his no swearing order, but he decides to be real, this is Tom, and Sean’s palm is curling around his wrist and dragging him through the Employees Only door, and Jon doesn’t fucking care what Tom says to the kid.
“You didn’t tell me you were coming home,” Sean says, only it’s more of a growl because Jon’s hands are already on his hips, pushing at the hem of his hoodie, pulling at his skin.
“Surprise,” Jon mumbles between their mouths, and Sean would punch him if he weren’t so busy trying to get his leg up around Jon’s waist. Jon shoves forward and Sean’s head snaps back to crack against the door, and his “Fuck you” comes out more like, “Fuck me.”
And lucky for Sean, Jon’s really a pretty obliging guy.
In the front of the store, Tom’s back to nibbling on his cookie, breaking off little pieces and holding them out to the kid like he would treats to a pet, grinning through bites every now and then.
“So what do you do, kid?” he asks finally, raising one eyebrow and then the other at the boy.
The kid looks at him like he’s totally nuts, but Tom just raises his other eyebrow again and the kid does it back, and it’s totally better than having a cat. Because, like, it’s a kid.
“I’m eight. I go to school.”
“Right, right,” Tom waves his hand, ignoring the last bite of cookie that goes soaring out across the store to land skittering beyond some tables. “Here, have a scone.” He reaches behind the counter again to forage for the familiar lump, pulling it out to shove at the kid. “But what do you do? Like, I, for example, am Tom Conrad and I own.”
The kid’s still eyeing him, but now less like he’s nuts and more like he’s a bug, or something else that’s cool for eight-year-old boys.
“What does own mean?” he asks, and holy shit, Tom has waited his entire life to get to explain this to someone.
But, right as he’s about to describe, in detail, no, seriously, he has a three-paragraph thesis on what owning is and why he, Tom Conrad, is owning anthropomorphized, the chimes ring again.
The chimes only mostly drown out the sudden shout of “Ugh, fuck!” that reverberates from the back room, and definitely doesn’t do anything to hide the accompanying thump. Tom’s whoop, however, does.
“Pete Wentzzzzz, my man,” he whistles, holding his hands out for a double high-five. Pete’s squinting at him, then grinning and zooming forward, full speed with hands outstretched for Tom’s. He mostly misses, though, which is great for Tom’s hindered reflexes, because otherwise he would have been a good two seconds too slow to pull his hands down and yell, “Sike!”
Pete punches him, hard, in the shoulder.
“You fucker, I forgot my glasses. I thought they were in my car but they weren’t and I was already out of the house and what the fuck, Jon Walker, you got smaller.”
“Dude, no,” Tom says, leaning in to whisper, “It’s a kid. It’s not Jon.”
“Bullshit it’s not Jon,” Pete blinks, and squints, and blinks again. “Look, he’s fat. It’s totally Jon.”
“Jon isn’t fat!” Tom snaps. “He’s like. He’s like, bearish. Like teddy-bearish.”
“Yeah, whatever,” Pete says, still squinting at what really, really looks like Jon Walker, albeit two feet shorter.
“Hey, Jon,” Pete tries, taking a tentative step forward.
“My name is-“ the kid tries, and it’s noble of him, it really is, to try to deter Pete away from… Pete, but the kid doesn’t know enough yet to be real, because this is Pete.
And he never makes it to his name, anyway, because the thump from the back has suddenly turned into thumps, plural, which is rapidly turning into thumping, participle, in a steady rhythm.
“What the fuck,” Pete says, and his grin is turning from curious away from the kid, into absolutely sickeningly terrifyingly delighted. “Is that-- Oh, my fuck, that’s totally-“
“Yeah,” Tom answers, eyeing the scone in the kid’s hand. Chocolate chip. Or, maybe cranberry orange, the cranberries could just be dark. Tom loves the cranberry orange scones: the orange is like, little pieces of orange peel crystallized in sugar, that sort of burst orange all through your mouth when you bite into one, and if you get a cranberry in the same bite it’s like sweet tangy citrus heaven. It really looks like cranberry orange.
The kid looks at him looking at the scone and take a small bite.
“Hey,” Tom asks, eyes still following the scone, “is that chocolate chip or cran-“
“Dude, fuck the scone, Sean is totally getting laid in the back room right now.”
“Yep,” Tom says. The scone looks really, really soft in the kid’s little hands. “Jon’s back in town. Came in. With this kid.”
“Motherfucker, I came here to tell you guys he was around.” Pete looks absolutely crestfallen, and Tom tears his eyes away from the scone long enough to look at him.
He needs a haircut, badly.
“You need a fucking haircut,” Tom says flatly. “Badly.”
Pete sighs, like the news that he needs a haircut is just the icing on his late-cake. He had a plan. He was going to come in and announce that ladies and gentlemen, well, okay, ladies, Jon Walker has arrived and is on the loose in Chicago. He should be considered highly dangerous, armed with charm and a goofy smile, all parties please be advised to shoot their loads on sight.
“I know,” he sighs again, bringing his hand up to comb through the bangs that are now not bangs and more like a curtain over his face. “But Ashlee really likes it, she says she likes to pull it during se-“
“STOP,” Tom bellows, clamping his hands over his ears. On second thought, he moves his hands out again to clamp over the kid’s ears, and on third thought back to his own. “Sorry, kid,” he mumbles.
The kid takes another bite of his scone.
It’s definitely fucking cranberry orange.
“How come I can say Sean’s getting laid but I can’t say s-e-x?” Pete asks. He’s looking at the door to the back room now, and Tom knows if he lets Pete slip by and Pete interrupts them, Tom will never get another cranberry orange scone for as long as he’s alive. Or, as long as Sean’s alive, and he is getting kind of old, but Tom still isn’t willing to risk it.
“Because he doesn’t know what getting laid means. But every dude knows what s-e-x is by the time he’s eight,” Tom rolls his eyes, like everyone knows that.
“You guys are totally corrupting my nephew,” Tom hears behind him, and he whirls on the counter.
“We are not!” Tom and Pete defend at once, and the kid takes another bite of his scone. Any threat of imminent death Jon could have put behind his accusation, though, is rendered useless with one look at him. His shirt is still twisted a little under his arms and his hair is tousled, so thoroughly not even the windy city could be blamed, and blossoming on his neck is a huge map of… Tom can see Bulgaria when he squints, but Pete leans in and whispers, “South Korea?” and they both burst into little hiccoughing fits of laughter.
Sean ducks out a moment later, still smoothing down the front of his jeans, and slides behind Jon back towards the cash register. Pete looks from Sean to Jon to Tom to the kid to the scone, and says, “Jon Walker, there’s only one of you here I like right now. You ruined my whole fucking speech.”
“Pete Wentz,” Jon answers without missing a beat, “there are none of you in the whole world I like right now. You’re ruining the innocence of a child.”
“I’m not a child,” the kid announces, picking off pieces of scone and handing them out to Tom.
“See,” Pete says emphatically, “he’s not a child! How old are you, buddy?” he asks, sidling up next to the kid. “Jon, he’s like a less wrinkled version of you. How fucking cute. Look at those teeth, what a heartbreaker.”
The kid pauses in his offerings to Tom, and a small whine escapes Tom’s throat. He can see, the next piece has cranberry and orange in it. But, the hand stops mid-air and stares at Pete.
“What’s your name, kid? What brings you to this part of town? Do you need a ride home? How do you feel about Darfur?” Pete’s asking, and the kid is just staring. And Sean is just staring, and Jon is just staring, and Tom blinks.
“Oh. Oh my God, Pete,” Tom says, evenly, because he’s stoned, but he’s not high. “Oh my God, Pete. He’s eight. Do you even know how many years in prison you’re asking for right now?”
Pete opens his mouth, and Jon clenches his fists, and Sean tenses to grab for Jon, and the kid is frozen in confusion, and Tom snatches the scone out of his hands and shoves it at Pete. “Here’s a scone, Pete. Now get the fuck out!”
Since Sean moved in with Tom, Pete gets a lot of scones shoved at him. And, on the way out to the car, he does the math in his head: when the kid’s legal, Pete won’t even be forty yet, and when he takes a bite of scone it’s a sweet, crispy, tangy explosion of citrus in his mouth, and Pete’s pretty cool with the whole scenario.
pairing: Sean Van Vleet/Jon Walker (with guest appearences by Tom Conrad, Pete Wentz, and mini!Jon)
rating: R, for language, hints at sexual deviancy, and Pete Wentz being a little bit of a pedophile
summary: Jon Walker's back in town, and he brought his mini along with him. Too bad Sean's at work. You know, working. Featuring stoner!Tom Conrad and creep!Pete.
disclaimer: I don't own them. I don't want to own them. They're probably really messy.
this is 100% for notthegnomes because she's a huge perv.
The coffee shop is mostly empty. Mostly, because there’s Tom, sitting hunched on the counter, boots swinging hard against the linoleum underside, black boxer-briefs peeking out from the waistband of his jeans. Mostly, because there’s also Sean, behind the counter, leaning against the back wall with his battered Dunks crossed, and really, really grateful that Tom wore underwear today.
“How the fuck can you stand working here?” Tom asks, sneaking his hand around behind the counter to grope for a scone. Sean watches, and he thinks about stopping him, about swatting the digits loosely contaminating every baked good in their path, but he’s too busy leaning to bother.
“At least,” Tom continues, finally settling on something that gives enough under his prodding to promise chewy goodness. “When Jon worked at Starbucks, yeah, he was totally working for the fucking Man, but at least there are always people in Starbucks.”
Sean hears this logic at least three times a week, when Tom’s stoned out of his fucking mind and decides showing up blazed at Sean’s work will ensure him a bellyful of coffee-accompanying treats just to get him out again. Sean hates how right Tom always is.
“Yeah, but.” Sean shrugs, and he’s not even really sure Tom is listening anymore; instead, Tom’s staring at the cookie in his hand, turning it over slowly like he’s debating its deliciousness potential before he wastes the energy of biting into it. “Jon also got paid jack shit until he was promoted, and he had to listen to the college alt-rock easy-listening indie-pop station all day long.”
Tom definitely isn’t listening, because now he’s chewing, and when he looks up at Sean, all he says is, “Dude, this cookie is fucking amazing. What is it, like, molasses?”
It’s really, really, unbelievably tempting to shove Tom off the counter and throw scones at him until he high-tails it back out of the store, but if Sean does that then he’ll be alone, quite possibly until the end of his shift in four hours, and not even his own personal iPod spinning through the shop’s overhead can make that option more appealing. So, Sean settles for rolling his eyes, pushing off the wall and moving to plunk at the espresso machine.
“Yeah,” Tom says again, still chewing. “Yeah. True. And he had to wear that retarded hat.”
Sean doesn’t know if it’s good or really, really bad that he can follow Tom’s train of thought perfectly. He also really, really doesn’t want to know if Tom’s been smoking his own weed or Sean’s, because there’s a good chance it’s the latter, and Sean would really, really like to keep living in his delusion of being able to get home after this shift and smoke until he pukes up all the espresso.
Sean’s life since he moved in with Tom has mostly been a cycle of extremes and delusions.
“Hey!” Tom jumps, not anywhere useful like off the counter, just up a little, mostly raising his shoulders an inch or two, the most animated Sean’s seen him since he came ambling in making grabby hands at the cupcakes. “Speak of the devil!”
The chimes hanging on the front door tinkle (real, actual half-windchimes, no electronic replication bullshit) and Sean starts to tell Tom to get the fuck down when customers come in, but there’s a laugh that sounds over the chime and Sean nearly drops the paper shot cup in his hand. He turns slowly, the grin on his face spreading wider than should ever be possible with black espresso on his tongue, and sure enough-
“Jon fucking Walker!” Tom nearly shouts, brandishing his cookie.
“Tom fucking Conrad!” Jon answers, just as loud, a crooked grin breaking his features. His eyes glance over Tom, though, lingering just for a minute on the cookie, then landing right on Sean. “And Sean Van Vleet.”
“Jon fucking Walker,” Sean echoes, already moving forward to hop over the counter. He’s half a second away from bounding over the goddamn barrier and launching himself into Jon’s arms, public propriety be damned, when there’s a telltale inhale from Tom, the kind where he sucks his breath in through his teeth and is about to make someone’s life very miserable.
“Jon,” Tom asks, slowly, grey-blue eyes fixed on Jon’s like Jon's wielding an axe, or is about to be eaten by a bear, or has a small child in tow, “Jon, did you kidnap a child? …Oh, my God, dude. Did you go back in time and kidnap yourself?”
Sean wants to ask what the fuck Tom’s been smoking, and then he realizes he knows exactly what Tom’s been smoking, and for a split second he thinks maybe he’s on a contact high, because lurking there behind Jon’s legs, eyes big and wide as they scan the display of iced treats, is Jon. Only... small. Smaller. Pocket-sized. Or maybe bite-sized. And then Sean feels like a total fucking creep for everything he was just thinking about doing to Jon. Big Jon. Tall Jon. …Taller Jon.
Like clockwork, Jon laughs and spins and flashes the mini-him a thumbs-up, and what the fuck, the little thumb turns up right back.
“…Jon. There’s two of you.”
Sean now feels as retarded as Tom, and clearly sounds just as bad.
“Guys, chill out,” Jon laughs again, leaning to catch the kid around his waist and hoist him up on the counter next to Tom. “This is my nephew. My brother’s kid. He plays me in our new video.”
“Yeah, but…” Tom’s staring at the kid now, cookie forgotten in his hand, until he reaches out to prod at the kid’s shoulder with it. “He’s wearing your vest. You have that vest! Who wears a vest when they’re six!”
“I’m eight,” the kid pipes up, and Tom drops the cookie in shock.
“What the fuck, it talks! Jon, make it do that again!”
“He’s eight, yeah, he talks,” Jon’s laughing again, but now his eyes are on Sean’s, dark and soft and sleepy and God, Sean’s missed him. “And don’t swear at the kid,” he adds, but Sean’s looking right back at him and his voice is slower now, absent.
“Huh,” they both hear Tom muse, but neither breaks the stare-down to look. “Okay. Right on. What’s your name, kid?”
“Tom,” Sean says, voice as loose as Jon’s had just been, “watch the store. Yell if someone comes in, okay? We’ll be right back.”
“You got it, buddy,” Tom says, sticking his thumb out in a thumbs-up, testing. Sure enough, a tiny fist jams out to give him a thumbs up right back, and Tom keels over in laughter. “Oh my God, this kid is unreal. Do you have a dad, kid? Because I’ll totally adopt you right fucking now!”
Jon wants to reiterate his no swearing order, but he decides to be real, this is Tom, and Sean’s palm is curling around his wrist and dragging him through the Employees Only door, and Jon doesn’t fucking care what Tom says to the kid.
“You didn’t tell me you were coming home,” Sean says, only it’s more of a growl because Jon’s hands are already on his hips, pushing at the hem of his hoodie, pulling at his skin.
“Surprise,” Jon mumbles between their mouths, and Sean would punch him if he weren’t so busy trying to get his leg up around Jon’s waist. Jon shoves forward and Sean’s head snaps back to crack against the door, and his “Fuck you” comes out more like, “Fuck me.”
And lucky for Sean, Jon’s really a pretty obliging guy.
In the front of the store, Tom’s back to nibbling on his cookie, breaking off little pieces and holding them out to the kid like he would treats to a pet, grinning through bites every now and then.
“So what do you do, kid?” he asks finally, raising one eyebrow and then the other at the boy.
The kid looks at him like he’s totally nuts, but Tom just raises his other eyebrow again and the kid does it back, and it’s totally better than having a cat. Because, like, it’s a kid.
“I’m eight. I go to school.”
“Right, right,” Tom waves his hand, ignoring the last bite of cookie that goes soaring out across the store to land skittering beyond some tables. “Here, have a scone.” He reaches behind the counter again to forage for the familiar lump, pulling it out to shove at the kid. “But what do you do? Like, I, for example, am Tom Conrad and I own.”
The kid’s still eyeing him, but now less like he’s nuts and more like he’s a bug, or something else that’s cool for eight-year-old boys.
“What does own mean?” he asks, and holy shit, Tom has waited his entire life to get to explain this to someone.
But, right as he’s about to describe, in detail, no, seriously, he has a three-paragraph thesis on what owning is and why he, Tom Conrad, is owning anthropomorphized, the chimes ring again.
The chimes only mostly drown out the sudden shout of “Ugh, fuck!” that reverberates from the back room, and definitely doesn’t do anything to hide the accompanying thump. Tom’s whoop, however, does.
“Pete Wentzzzzz, my man,” he whistles, holding his hands out for a double high-five. Pete’s squinting at him, then grinning and zooming forward, full speed with hands outstretched for Tom’s. He mostly misses, though, which is great for Tom’s hindered reflexes, because otherwise he would have been a good two seconds too slow to pull his hands down and yell, “Sike!”
Pete punches him, hard, in the shoulder.
“You fucker, I forgot my glasses. I thought they were in my car but they weren’t and I was already out of the house and what the fuck, Jon Walker, you got smaller.”
“Dude, no,” Tom says, leaning in to whisper, “It’s a kid. It’s not Jon.”
“Bullshit it’s not Jon,” Pete blinks, and squints, and blinks again. “Look, he’s fat. It’s totally Jon.”
“Jon isn’t fat!” Tom snaps. “He’s like. He’s like, bearish. Like teddy-bearish.”
“Yeah, whatever,” Pete says, still squinting at what really, really looks like Jon Walker, albeit two feet shorter.
“Hey, Jon,” Pete tries, taking a tentative step forward.
“My name is-“ the kid tries, and it’s noble of him, it really is, to try to deter Pete away from… Pete, but the kid doesn’t know enough yet to be real, because this is Pete.
And he never makes it to his name, anyway, because the thump from the back has suddenly turned into thumps, plural, which is rapidly turning into thumping, participle, in a steady rhythm.
“What the fuck,” Pete says, and his grin is turning from curious away from the kid, into absolutely sickeningly terrifyingly delighted. “Is that-- Oh, my fuck, that’s totally-“
“Yeah,” Tom answers, eyeing the scone in the kid’s hand. Chocolate chip. Or, maybe cranberry orange, the cranberries could just be dark. Tom loves the cranberry orange scones: the orange is like, little pieces of orange peel crystallized in sugar, that sort of burst orange all through your mouth when you bite into one, and if you get a cranberry in the same bite it’s like sweet tangy citrus heaven. It really looks like cranberry orange.
The kid looks at him looking at the scone and take a small bite.
“Hey,” Tom asks, eyes still following the scone, “is that chocolate chip or cran-“
“Dude, fuck the scone, Sean is totally getting laid in the back room right now.”
“Yep,” Tom says. The scone looks really, really soft in the kid’s little hands. “Jon’s back in town. Came in. With this kid.”
“Motherfucker, I came here to tell you guys he was around.” Pete looks absolutely crestfallen, and Tom tears his eyes away from the scone long enough to look at him.
He needs a haircut, badly.
“You need a fucking haircut,” Tom says flatly. “Badly.”
Pete sighs, like the news that he needs a haircut is just the icing on his late-cake. He had a plan. He was going to come in and announce that ladies and gentlemen, well, okay, ladies, Jon Walker has arrived and is on the loose in Chicago. He should be considered highly dangerous, armed with charm and a goofy smile, all parties please be advised to shoot their loads on sight.
“I know,” he sighs again, bringing his hand up to comb through the bangs that are now not bangs and more like a curtain over his face. “But Ashlee really likes it, she says she likes to pull it during se-“
“STOP,” Tom bellows, clamping his hands over his ears. On second thought, he moves his hands out again to clamp over the kid’s ears, and on third thought back to his own. “Sorry, kid,” he mumbles.
The kid takes another bite of his scone.
It’s definitely fucking cranberry orange.
“How come I can say Sean’s getting laid but I can’t say s-e-x?” Pete asks. He’s looking at the door to the back room now, and Tom knows if he lets Pete slip by and Pete interrupts them, Tom will never get another cranberry orange scone for as long as he’s alive. Or, as long as Sean’s alive, and he is getting kind of old, but Tom still isn’t willing to risk it.
“Because he doesn’t know what getting laid means. But every dude knows what s-e-x is by the time he’s eight,” Tom rolls his eyes, like everyone knows that.
“You guys are totally corrupting my nephew,” Tom hears behind him, and he whirls on the counter.
“We are not!” Tom and Pete defend at once, and the kid takes another bite of his scone. Any threat of imminent death Jon could have put behind his accusation, though, is rendered useless with one look at him. His shirt is still twisted a little under his arms and his hair is tousled, so thoroughly not even the windy city could be blamed, and blossoming on his neck is a huge map of… Tom can see Bulgaria when he squints, but Pete leans in and whispers, “South Korea?” and they both burst into little hiccoughing fits of laughter.
Sean ducks out a moment later, still smoothing down the front of his jeans, and slides behind Jon back towards the cash register. Pete looks from Sean to Jon to Tom to the kid to the scone, and says, “Jon Walker, there’s only one of you here I like right now. You ruined my whole fucking speech.”
“Pete Wentz,” Jon answers without missing a beat, “there are none of you in the whole world I like right now. You’re ruining the innocence of a child.”
“I’m not a child,” the kid announces, picking off pieces of scone and handing them out to Tom.
“See,” Pete says emphatically, “he’s not a child! How old are you, buddy?” he asks, sidling up next to the kid. “Jon, he’s like a less wrinkled version of you. How fucking cute. Look at those teeth, what a heartbreaker.”
The kid pauses in his offerings to Tom, and a small whine escapes Tom’s throat. He can see, the next piece has cranberry and orange in it. But, the hand stops mid-air and stares at Pete.
“What’s your name, kid? What brings you to this part of town? Do you need a ride home? How do you feel about Darfur?” Pete’s asking, and the kid is just staring. And Sean is just staring, and Jon is just staring, and Tom blinks.
“Oh. Oh my God, Pete,” Tom says, evenly, because he’s stoned, but he’s not high. “Oh my God, Pete. He’s eight. Do you even know how many years in prison you’re asking for right now?”
Pete opens his mouth, and Jon clenches his fists, and Sean tenses to grab for Jon, and the kid is frozen in confusion, and Tom snatches the scone out of his hands and shoves it at Pete. “Here’s a scone, Pete. Now get the fuck out!”
Since Sean moved in with Tom, Pete gets a lot of scones shoved at him. And, on the way out to the car, he does the math in his head: when the kid’s legal, Pete won’t even be forty yet, and when he takes a bite of scone it’s a sweet, crispy, tangy explosion of citrus in his mouth, and Pete’s pretty cool with the whole scenario.