TheThreshold.04
Title: The Threshold.
Summary : The most popular boy in school walks through the door of a local shop. In the time it takes for him to walk back out, he's done something that will drastically change his entire world.
Author : burgerking. I claim nothing but the story itself!
Rating : PG-13, at the moment.
Author's Notes : It's long, but you'll like it. Trust me.
+ Comment?
01 | 02 | 03
More time passed after Pete and Patrick’s conciliation inside of the store, and by now the walls between the two cliques were crumbling; if only on a small scale. The last few skeptics had followed Patrick’s example and accepted Pete into their group. The boy continued to take his place at the Geek table, and was occasionally joined by his friend Mikey. Everyone trusted him. However, now many of the boys found that they simply didn’t like him.
He was stealing Patrick from them, and something had to be done.
“Stumpy,” Andy said casually to his friend on a Monday morning, “We noticed that you weren’t at movie night on Saturday.”
“I know,” Patrick replied, eyes on his locker as he shifted his notebooks around inside. “I went with Pete to the mall. Sorry that I didn’t call ahead.”
“Oh,” said Andy, simply. He leaned up against a nearby locker and crossed his arms. “You’re coming this week though, right?”
“This Saturday is bad for me. I’m gonna be with Pete again.” Andy scowled, and Patrick saw it from the corner of his eye. “Hey, it’s not my fault soccer is on Saturday.”
“Soccer?” Andy echoed in disbelief, “But… you hate sports! You told me yourself you’d burn down your parents’ store if you could!” Patrick only shrugged.
“I don’t go for the thrill of the game, Hurley. I’m just supporting Pete, it’s his first game this year. What’s so wrong with that?”
“Movie night is our thing, and it has been for years.”
Patrick’s eyes strayed up to Andy’s face, then down to his own shoes. “Maybe it’s time for a new thing, then.” He said nothing after that, and Andy only stared at him in stunned silence. Patrick gathered his things and began walking off toward homeroom.
Patrick had soon forgotten about the incident before school, and was surprised later that day when, during Senior Lounge, none of his friends walked with him to the A/V room. Naturally, he didn’t immediately make the connection between the lack of his friends and the presence of Pete, who’d skipped class to hang out with him.
When they arrived at the A/V room door, one of the boys inside peeked out and prevented their entry. “Sorry, you know the rules,” he said, “A/V members only.”
“Ah, Joe, you know Pete. He won’t cause any trouble.”
“I don’t make the rules, the school does,” Joe replied uncomfortably. “You can come in, but he can’t.”
Pete just shrugged and said to Patrick, in his usual cheery tone, “It’s fine, let’s go to the cafeteria instead!” And with that, he turned and began strolling toward the lunchroom with bounce in his step. Patrick stayed behind.
“Joe,” he hissed, once Pete was out of hearing range, “What was that all about? What do you have against Pete?”
“Nothing,” answered Joe. There was a pause. “Just don’t sell out on us, okay?”
The door closed and Patrick, dejected, was left staring at the barrier that separated him from his friends. He wondered for a moment if he ought to knock and try to mend things with the only people who had stuck by him over the years.
He turned and started off for the cafeteria, instead.
Pete, meanwhile, was piling cafeteria food onto his tray, and had his back to Patrick when the other boy had caught up. Upon his arrival Pete said rather calmly, “You’re getting me into that room.”
Patrick smirked. “Alright, I’ll talk to them tonight and -”
“No,” whined Pete, though he still didn’t turn around, “I want to see it today. When won’t they be in there?”
“Oh, well…” Patrick’s forehead creased in concern. “I don’t think we can go today. I don’t have any more free periods.” Pete shrugged and finally glanced over his shoulder.
“I don’t have any free periods today. But hey! I’m having a second lunch! Would you look at that?” He picked up his tray and raised it slightly in a pointed gesture.
“Right,” Patrick said, suddenly breathless. “You’re going to cut again?”
“And you are too.”
“Oh.” He shifted his weight from one foot to the other. “Okay. Uh… period eight, then?”
“Sounds good to me,” Pete agreed.
And so the two soon arrived, yet again, at the A/V room, and Patrick was beginning to have second - or perhaps fifth or sixth - thoughts. “Pete,” he whispered, “I really don’t think I should be cutting class. What if someone turns us in?”
“They won’t.”
Patrick unlocked the door and placed his hand on the knob, but wouldn’t open it quite yet. “What if someone sees us?”
“I kinda hope they do,” Pete replied. Patrick stared at him for a moment before letting out a sigh of defeat and entering the room cautiously. Pete stayed behind for a second or two, and smiled a big cheesy smile at the school security camera. He then turned and took the next few steps into the A/V room. A brief moment of silence passed as the two boys stood in the doorway, and that’s when Pete’s smile vanished; now all that remained was a look of complete awe.
The room, to him, looked like something straight out of a college campus, and it was far from what he had expected of the infamous Nerd room. He walked slowly over to the worn-out sofa in the corner, and once he’d settled, he simply continued to take everything in, dumbstruck.
Patrick sat beside him and grinned. “You like it,” he observed.
“I do,” affirmed Pete. “I love it.”
Thrilled to have done something right, Patrick remained quiet and allowed Pete to get used to the room. In the meantime, he picked up a magazine that had been thrown aside earlier; he pretended to be very interested by the articles, though really, he was admiring the photos of male celebrities.
The ever-perceptive Pete picked up on this once he’d finished examining the room. He looked from Patrick’s face to the magazine and then back again. Really, it was impossible for him to ignore the way Patrick kept biting his lower lip, and how his cheeks turned slightly pink every time he turned a page. Pete watched this for quite some time until rather suddenly he blurted out, “What’s it like?”
Patrick froze and looked up at him, wide-eyed. “P-Pardon?”
Pete gestured toward the magazine. “What’s it like to be gay?”
Honestly, Patrick doubted he’d ever fully get used to Pete’s straight-forwardness.
“That’s a weird question,” he mumbled.
“Okay, well… how do you know you’re gay?” Pete turned to face Patrick properly and awaited his response.
“I just… do,” said the other, casting a sideways glance at the thin boy. “It’s not really something I had to prove to myself.”
“But some people don’t come out until they’re older. So how do they know they’re gay?”
“I don’t know,” answered Patrick as he sank into the couch. “Where did this all come from?”
“I just wondered,” Pete said, looking sheepishly down at his lap. “I saw you looking at those pictures. And I thought that I might be, too.” Patrick raised an eyebrow.
“You might be what?”
“I might be gay, that’s all.” The ease with which Pete said this caught Patrick totally off guard. And Pete, noticing this, felt compelled to explain. “You know how I broke up with that girl? The one I was dating for a whole two weeks? I went and talked to Mikey’s brother about it. He’s queer, you know.”
“I know,” Patrick returned blankly, still not quite believing that the conversation was taking place.
“Yeah, and so he said some stuff that really stuck to me. That maybe I’ve been hiding something from myself.” A shrug. “I figured that if anyone could help figure it out, it’d be you.” He smiled now. “You always figure me out, Trick.”
“Well, I…” Granted, Patrick was flattered, but he hadn’t been prepared for such a request. “What do you think I can do for you?” He averted his eyes across the room to a mirror, in which he could clearly see both of them.
You could fit two of him inside of you, Patrick... Pete’s looking pretty troubled right now, so if he asks you to hug him, make sure you don’t crush him in the process.
He quickly shook the thoughts from his head.
“I hope you don’t take this the wrong way, but I was thinking that you could test me,” Pete suggested. “I won’t ask anything too drastic of you, so… how about a kiss?”
Patrick was quite sure that his heart stopped beating for a good five seconds. And why was the room so very warm all of the sudden? And had Pete always been sitting so close?
“If you think that’ll help, then sure,” he replied weakly, trying hard not to faint.
“It’s what I’m hoping,” said Pete as he moved closer. “If I don’t feel completely empty when I kiss a guy, then there’s gotta be something there, right?”
“Yeah,” agreed the other, though with little conviction. He had started to ask: “So, how should we…?” But Pete wasn’t going to lose any time. Before Patrick could finish his sentence, the smaller boy had placed his hands on the shoulders of his companion and pressed their lips together.
It was innocent enough, and rather slow. And although Patrick could tell that Pete was genuinely uncertain about the whole thing, he couldn’t deny the fact that the athlete was a very good kisser.
And so it was with much reluctance that Patrick was the first one to pull away; He didn’t want to seem too eager, and besides, he worried that if the kiss had gone on any longer, he’d be forced to tackle Pete to the ground and rip off his clothes.
Not that he would have minded, though.
In any case, Patrick opted instead to place his hands comfortingly on Pete’s, and then the two of them locked eyes. The room was quiet while Patrick’s hazel eyes searched Pete’s green ones, and vice versa.
“What do you think, Wentz?” Patrick finally asked.
“I think,” came Pete’s slow, thoughtful reply, “That I have a lot of thinking to do.”
“A lot of thinking about dicks?”
Pete laughed. “Maybe. But who’s to say that I haven’t done that already?”
“That brings up an interesting point,” Patrick said wisely, leaning back to get a better view of his friend. “Something tells me that it wasn’t just a talk with Mikey’s brother that got you thinking about this. So… who is it that you’re into? You can tell me.”
Pete swallowed hard and nodded, though his eyes strayed away shyly. “I can trust you,” he agreed, and then there was a pause. “I think Mikey is kind of cute. And I care a lot about him.”
And Pete knew perfectly well that he hadn’t technically lied, but he couldn’t bring himself to give Patrick the answer that was pounding in his head:
“You.”
Summary : The most popular boy in school walks through the door of a local shop. In the time it takes for him to walk back out, he's done something that will drastically change his entire world.
Author : burgerking. I claim nothing but the story itself!
Rating : PG-13, at the moment.
Author's Notes : It's long, but you'll like it. Trust me.
+ Comment?
01 | 02 | 03
More time passed after Pete and Patrick’s conciliation inside of the store, and by now the walls between the two cliques were crumbling; if only on a small scale. The last few skeptics had followed Patrick’s example and accepted Pete into their group. The boy continued to take his place at the Geek table, and was occasionally joined by his friend Mikey. Everyone trusted him. However, now many of the boys found that they simply didn’t like him.
He was stealing Patrick from them, and something had to be done.
“Stumpy,” Andy said casually to his friend on a Monday morning, “We noticed that you weren’t at movie night on Saturday.”
“I know,” Patrick replied, eyes on his locker as he shifted his notebooks around inside. “I went with Pete to the mall. Sorry that I didn’t call ahead.”
“Oh,” said Andy, simply. He leaned up against a nearby locker and crossed his arms. “You’re coming this week though, right?”
“This Saturday is bad for me. I’m gonna be with Pete again.” Andy scowled, and Patrick saw it from the corner of his eye. “Hey, it’s not my fault soccer is on Saturday.”
“Soccer?” Andy echoed in disbelief, “But… you hate sports! You told me yourself you’d burn down your parents’ store if you could!” Patrick only shrugged.
“I don’t go for the thrill of the game, Hurley. I’m just supporting Pete, it’s his first game this year. What’s so wrong with that?”
“Movie night is our thing, and it has been for years.”
Patrick’s eyes strayed up to Andy’s face, then down to his own shoes. “Maybe it’s time for a new thing, then.” He said nothing after that, and Andy only stared at him in stunned silence. Patrick gathered his things and began walking off toward homeroom.
Patrick had soon forgotten about the incident before school, and was surprised later that day when, during Senior Lounge, none of his friends walked with him to the A/V room. Naturally, he didn’t immediately make the connection between the lack of his friends and the presence of Pete, who’d skipped class to hang out with him.
When they arrived at the A/V room door, one of the boys inside peeked out and prevented their entry. “Sorry, you know the rules,” he said, “A/V members only.”
“Ah, Joe, you know Pete. He won’t cause any trouble.”
“I don’t make the rules, the school does,” Joe replied uncomfortably. “You can come in, but he can’t.”
Pete just shrugged and said to Patrick, in his usual cheery tone, “It’s fine, let’s go to the cafeteria instead!” And with that, he turned and began strolling toward the lunchroom with bounce in his step. Patrick stayed behind.
“Joe,” he hissed, once Pete was out of hearing range, “What was that all about? What do you have against Pete?”
“Nothing,” answered Joe. There was a pause. “Just don’t sell out on us, okay?”
The door closed and Patrick, dejected, was left staring at the barrier that separated him from his friends. He wondered for a moment if he ought to knock and try to mend things with the only people who had stuck by him over the years.
He turned and started off for the cafeteria, instead.
Pete, meanwhile, was piling cafeteria food onto his tray, and had his back to Patrick when the other boy had caught up. Upon his arrival Pete said rather calmly, “You’re getting me into that room.”
Patrick smirked. “Alright, I’ll talk to them tonight and -”
“No,” whined Pete, though he still didn’t turn around, “I want to see it today. When won’t they be in there?”
“Oh, well…” Patrick’s forehead creased in concern. “I don’t think we can go today. I don’t have any more free periods.” Pete shrugged and finally glanced over his shoulder.
“I don’t have any free periods today. But hey! I’m having a second lunch! Would you look at that?” He picked up his tray and raised it slightly in a pointed gesture.
“Right,” Patrick said, suddenly breathless. “You’re going to cut again?”
“And you are too.”
“Oh.” He shifted his weight from one foot to the other. “Okay. Uh… period eight, then?”
“Sounds good to me,” Pete agreed.
And so the two soon arrived, yet again, at the A/V room, and Patrick was beginning to have second - or perhaps fifth or sixth - thoughts. “Pete,” he whispered, “I really don’t think I should be cutting class. What if someone turns us in?”
“They won’t.”
Patrick unlocked the door and placed his hand on the knob, but wouldn’t open it quite yet. “What if someone sees us?”
“I kinda hope they do,” Pete replied. Patrick stared at him for a moment before letting out a sigh of defeat and entering the room cautiously. Pete stayed behind for a second or two, and smiled a big cheesy smile at the school security camera. He then turned and took the next few steps into the A/V room. A brief moment of silence passed as the two boys stood in the doorway, and that’s when Pete’s smile vanished; now all that remained was a look of complete awe.
The room, to him, looked like something straight out of a college campus, and it was far from what he had expected of the infamous Nerd room. He walked slowly over to the worn-out sofa in the corner, and once he’d settled, he simply continued to take everything in, dumbstruck.
Patrick sat beside him and grinned. “You like it,” he observed.
“I do,” affirmed Pete. “I love it.”
Thrilled to have done something right, Patrick remained quiet and allowed Pete to get used to the room. In the meantime, he picked up a magazine that had been thrown aside earlier; he pretended to be very interested by the articles, though really, he was admiring the photos of male celebrities.
The ever-perceptive Pete picked up on this once he’d finished examining the room. He looked from Patrick’s face to the magazine and then back again. Really, it was impossible for him to ignore the way Patrick kept biting his lower lip, and how his cheeks turned slightly pink every time he turned a page. Pete watched this for quite some time until rather suddenly he blurted out, “What’s it like?”
Patrick froze and looked up at him, wide-eyed. “P-Pardon?”
Pete gestured toward the magazine. “What’s it like to be gay?”
Honestly, Patrick doubted he’d ever fully get used to Pete’s straight-forwardness.
“That’s a weird question,” he mumbled.
“Okay, well… how do you know you’re gay?” Pete turned to face Patrick properly and awaited his response.
“I just… do,” said the other, casting a sideways glance at the thin boy. “It’s not really something I had to prove to myself.”
“But some people don’t come out until they’re older. So how do they know they’re gay?”
“I don’t know,” answered Patrick as he sank into the couch. “Where did this all come from?”
“I just wondered,” Pete said, looking sheepishly down at his lap. “I saw you looking at those pictures. And I thought that I might be, too.” Patrick raised an eyebrow.
“You might be what?”
“I might be gay, that’s all.” The ease with which Pete said this caught Patrick totally off guard. And Pete, noticing this, felt compelled to explain. “You know how I broke up with that girl? The one I was dating for a whole two weeks? I went and talked to Mikey’s brother about it. He’s queer, you know.”
“I know,” Patrick returned blankly, still not quite believing that the conversation was taking place.
“Yeah, and so he said some stuff that really stuck to me. That maybe I’ve been hiding something from myself.” A shrug. “I figured that if anyone could help figure it out, it’d be you.” He smiled now. “You always figure me out, Trick.”
“Well, I…” Granted, Patrick was flattered, but he hadn’t been prepared for such a request. “What do you think I can do for you?” He averted his eyes across the room to a mirror, in which he could clearly see both of them.
You could fit two of him inside of you, Patrick... Pete’s looking pretty troubled right now, so if he asks you to hug him, make sure you don’t crush him in the process.
He quickly shook the thoughts from his head.
“I hope you don’t take this the wrong way, but I was thinking that you could test me,” Pete suggested. “I won’t ask anything too drastic of you, so… how about a kiss?”
Patrick was quite sure that his heart stopped beating for a good five seconds. And why was the room so very warm all of the sudden? And had Pete always been sitting so close?
“If you think that’ll help, then sure,” he replied weakly, trying hard not to faint.
“It’s what I’m hoping,” said Pete as he moved closer. “If I don’t feel completely empty when I kiss a guy, then there’s gotta be something there, right?”
“Yeah,” agreed the other, though with little conviction. He had started to ask: “So, how should we…?” But Pete wasn’t going to lose any time. Before Patrick could finish his sentence, the smaller boy had placed his hands on the shoulders of his companion and pressed their lips together.
It was innocent enough, and rather slow. And although Patrick could tell that Pete was genuinely uncertain about the whole thing, he couldn’t deny the fact that the athlete was a very good kisser.
And so it was with much reluctance that Patrick was the first one to pull away; He didn’t want to seem too eager, and besides, he worried that if the kiss had gone on any longer, he’d be forced to tackle Pete to the ground and rip off his clothes.
Not that he would have minded, though.
In any case, Patrick opted instead to place his hands comfortingly on Pete’s, and then the two of them locked eyes. The room was quiet while Patrick’s hazel eyes searched Pete’s green ones, and vice versa.
“What do you think, Wentz?” Patrick finally asked.
“I think,” came Pete’s slow, thoughtful reply, “That I have a lot of thinking to do.”
“A lot of thinking about dicks?”
Pete laughed. “Maybe. But who’s to say that I haven’t done that already?”
“That brings up an interesting point,” Patrick said wisely, leaning back to get a better view of his friend. “Something tells me that it wasn’t just a talk with Mikey’s brother that got you thinking about this. So… who is it that you’re into? You can tell me.”
Pete swallowed hard and nodded, though his eyes strayed away shyly. “I can trust you,” he agreed, and then there was a pause. “I think Mikey is kind of cute. And I care a lot about him.”
And Pete knew perfectly well that he hadn’t technically lied, but he couldn’t bring himself to give Patrick the answer that was pounding in his head:
“You.”