fic: Football Is The Gayest Profession... (1/3)
Really? I’m posting this? Really?
I’ve been working on this thing for so long I can’t believe it’s over. Well, I’m finally delivering on all my promises. This puppy weighed in at sixty pages, in the end, and I have to say, I’m a little proud of myself. I rarely write anything this length, much less supergay internet bandslash, but there’s a first time for everything, right? This is also my first time writing Frank/Gerard, which was much harder than I thought it would be.
Now, hopefully since this is out of the way I can get back to maybe not failing out of college? Oh, no, wait, I forgot, I still live in the same house as Rock Band. There is no hope for me. If it’s not the gay drummers, it’s the drums…
Anyway, without further ado, the EPIC HIGH SCHOOL FOOTBALL AU. Or, as Ronie and I call it:
Title: Football is the Gayest Profession (and I, Dear Madam, am a Professional)
Author: tremblings
Pairings: Pete/Patrick, Jon/Spencer, Frank/Gerard
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 20,000
Summary: Bandom high school football AU, featuring FOB, PATD, MCR and various other guests
Disclaimer: This is a pack of dirty lies.
Author’s Notes: Mega thanks to your__design and __leonine for their help with this and to everyone who listened to me spend months complaining about the ‘stupid fucking never-ending high school football AU’ without cutting off my head. You guys are all awesome.
So, basically, it pretty much started with Patrick Stump, drummer in the Glenview High Marching Mongoose Band, singing along quietly to ‘Through Being Cool’ with his headphones on in the wide, empty field. Band practice had just ended and he was gathering up the rest of his things while he waited for his ride, not really thinking about anything except getting home, getting something to eat, maybe playing some video games, getting started on his Huck Finn paper… He certainly wasn’t thinking about the fact that the football team practiced directly after the band.
At least he wasn’t until he heard someone shouting behind him.
Patrick snapped his mouth shut and wheeled around, ready for whatever snarky comment the impending flood of yellow-jerseyed testosterone was planning to hurl at him. What he was not prepared for, however, was seeing Pete Wentz, the team’s quarterback hurtling toward him only to land flat on his face.
“Um,” Patrick said, because it seemed like the thing to do.
“Sorry! Pete, you okay?” yelled the team’s running back, Nick Scimeca, arm still extended, as if the football had just left his hand. Wentz scrabbled to his feet, ignoring Scimeca and the football that just had hit him squarely in the back of the head, eyes still fixed on Patrick. Patrick wondered if he should start running.
Wentz finished jogging his way up to Patrick, staring at him with wide eyes. “Hey, hello, hi. Hi. I’m Pete Wentz. I don’t know you, who are you?”
Patrick removed his headphones and blinked. “What?”
“Me Pete Wentz,” Wentz said, in a passable imitation of a monkey. “You…?”
“Um, Patrick Stump?”
“Patrick Stump,” Wentz echoed, kind of breathless. What, was he winded? Patrick kind of thought athletes were supposed to be in better shape. “Patrick Stump, Patrick, Trick, you need to sing again.”
“Sorry, I need to what?” Patrick said. He did a quick survey of the field, his head echoing with a slightly panicked mantra of I need an adult, I need an adult. The only adult on hand was Principal Hurley, and though Patrick stared at him with wide, help-me eyes it seemed like the principal was more concerned about whatever Brendon Urie was doing over by the other cheerleaders.
It looked dubiously like jazz hands.
“Whatever you were just singing? That was, like, the most awesome thing I’ve ever heard. Ever. So, keep doing that, okay?” Wentz’s eyes were large and earnest but his words, Patrick realized, were completely crazy.
Patrick could feel is body getting warm all over; he was probably turning a kind of horrible pink. “I don’t really, you know, sing,” he said. He looked around again, there was no escape.
“Oh, yes you do. You definitely do. You sing awesome, you’re just not singing now and seriously man, what’s up with that?” Wentz had somehow been edging closer. Patrick glanced over his shoulder at the rest of the team, who were all shrugging at each other and using Wentz’s absence as an excuse to lob footballs at each other in what appeared to be an impromptu game of dodge ball.
“Well,” Patrick said, “frankly, you’re creeping me out.”
Wentz’s face fell. “Oh. Oh, I get it.” His eyes suddenly lit up again, like someone was flicking a light switch off and on somewhere in his brain. Patrick wondered if it was possible to run a human on electricity. “Because we don’t know each other, right?”
“That’s… part of it,” Patrick said. His mother had raised him too well for him to comment on the fact that Wentz was clearly insane; it just wasn’t polite. Behind Wentz, Coach Schechter had come onto the field and was trying to restore order with pretty meager results.
“Okay, okay, I can work with that, I can definitely work with that.”
“PETE,” the Coach called across the field. “SERIOUSLY. WHAT THE HELL.”
“I think the football team kind of needs a quarterback,” Patrick pointed out. “Shouldn’t you, like…?”
“What? Oh, they’ll be okay. So, listen, Patrick, I was thinking -”
But Patrick was spared whatever Wentz was about to say next when Bryar and Toro, a defensive tackle and the team’s tight end, came up and seized him.
“Sorry, Pete,” Toro said, sounding too cheerful to be truly sorry. Tendrils of his legendary hair were creeping out from beneath his helmet, through the grating of his facemask. “Coach says we can’t practice without our quarterback.”
“I was busy,” Pete said, flailing a little half-heartedly and then drooping in their grip. Bryar and Toro were very large, Patrick thought, and probably the best thing to do was to just go completely limp and hope they thought you were dead. “I was having a conversation,” Wentz whined.
“Well, we’re kind of having a crisis. We play the Cobras in two months, did you forget?”
“No, but that was important!”
“Important enough to be worth you getting clobbered in the head by that pass?”
“I have never seen anyone go down so fast,” Toro laughed and the three of them were quickly swallowed by the rest of the team.
Spencer, one of Patrick’s fellow drummers, jogged up to him. “Sorry, sorry, I know I’m late… Were you just talking to Pete Wentz?”
Wentz chose that moment to raise his head out of the huddle and grin at Patrick. Patrick blushed and Scimeca pulled Wentz back down by his collar.
Patrick turned to Spencer, feeling a little shell-shocked and said, “Is it even possible for someone to throw a football so hard that it literally knocks all the sanity out of a person’s head?”
“Is he wearing make-up?” Spencer demanded, as if that was the more important question.
* * *
Before he came to find Patrick, Spencer Smith had a bit of an awkward run-in of his own. This was a kind way of saying he had tried to say hello to Jon Walker on his way out of the building.
Like most times Spencer got up the nerve to talk to Jon (who was older and cooler and wore flip flops and took pictures and was just so, yeah) this one ended in humiliating disaster.
“Um, hi,” he said as he passed, and then, in case ‘hi’ was no longer cool and no one had told him, he added, “Hey.” Just in case.
Jon looked up from where he’d been scrolling through pictures on his digital camera and smiled, eyes curling up at the corners. Spencer melted into his Nikes. “Hey, Spencer Smith.”
Spencer grinned back at him then realized, holy crap, he was a stupid, awkward sophomore grinning like a retard at a super-cool senior who was friends with everyone, so he looked down really fast and kept moving.
“I like your hoodie!” Jon called as Spencer started to turn a corner. Spencer looked up quickly to make sure if Jon was kidding or not (he’d had doubts about actually wearing a Pussy Cat Dolls hoodie in public, but, well, he liked it) and walked straight into a row of lockers. He didn’t particularly care to see Jon’s face after that so he ran off down the hall, blushing furiously, trying to outrun his shame.
“Oh my god,” he muttered to himself as he fled, “oh my god, what the hell, oh my god, I am the biggest tool ever.”
It had been thirteen months, two weeks and four days since Spencer Smith had started maybe kind of possibly falling stupidly in love with Jon Walker from afar, and it was time he did something about it. He decided to do what he always decided to do in a moment of social crisis.
Spencer decided to talk to Ryan Ross.
*
Ryan was Spencer’s best friend and could usually be counted on to be lurking the publications room, working on whatever article he was currently writing for the Monthly Mongoose, the school’s newspaper. This was where Spencer found him, typing away with his fingerless gloves on and his tongue between his teeth.
Ryan glanced up as Spencer came into the room. “Spence, do you think it’s fair to describe the mystery meat as the ‘burnt sienna menace that has traditionally tormented the stomachs of every student that has dared sample its gravy-drenched flesh?’”
“I’d say it’s more taupe,” Spencer said, caught off-guard.
“No,” Ryan mumbled, not looking away from the screen. “I want to keep the ‘burnt’ in there. It’s got a double meaning…”
“Listen, Ryan. Ryan, I have to transfer.”
“After the article, I’m sure they’ll get rid of the meat, Spencer, don’t be so dramatic.”
Spencer thought of all the things he could say to that starting with ‘who cares about the fucking meat’ and ending with ‘coming from you, that’s really saying something, Mr. Soul Tormented By Gravy-Drenched Flesh’ but eventually he just settled on, “Jon fucking Walker, I swear to god.”
“Oh my god, not again.”
“Ryan, I’m sorry, there’s just no way. I seriously have to transfer.”
“This is stupid.”
“I know! I know it’s stupid, that’s why I have to transfer, aren’t you listening? He is everywhere.”
“He’s everywhere because you stalk him!” Ryan argued, finally giving Spencer his undivided attention.
“I don’t!” Spencer said, puffing up indignantly, but he could tell his ears were turning red and it was clear that he was lying.
Ryan rolled his eyes. “Seriously,” he said, “you are like, three steps away from Fatal Attraction.”
“I would not boil his pets, Ryan, he loves his pets,” Spencer said. He felt himself going a little gooey, but there was no way he could stop himself from adding, “Did I tell you how he showed me a picture of his cat one time?”
“I think it came up once or twice,” Ryan said and rolled his eyes again. Spencer hung his head in shame. (Ryan’s eye-rolling tended to have that effect, if used often enough at the right moment.) “Look, Spence, if you ever want to actually get anywhere with this guy you need to stop being so spastic, okay?”
Spencer frowned, feeling doubtful. Ryan wasn’t exactly the world’s greatest authority on Seducing Cool Seniors, seeing as he routinely turned into a star struck thirteen year-old girl around Pete Wentz.
“Trust me,” Ryan continued. “The fact that you have his schedule and all his shifts at Starbucks memorized is not sexy.” When he put it like that, Spencer thought, it really wasn’t. Ryan stood and laid a magnanimous hand on Spencer’s shoulder. “Just distance yourself a little bit, okay? Chill out. Don’t be so fucking desperate.”
“I don’t know, Ryan…”
“Look, you asked for my advice and this is it: Don’t. Be. A spaz.” Ryan gave Spencer a level look, like he was charging him with a difficult, perhaps impossible mission. Spencer hated to admit it, but he kind of had a point with that; when it came to Jon Walker, asking Spencer Smith not to spaz was like asking the Way brothers to pretend they were normal.
“Alright. Okay, I’ll try.” He glanced up at the clock. “Shit, I’ve got to go find Patrick, I’m giving him a ride home today. Good luck with the meat! See you tomorrow!” Spencer shouldered his backpack and ducked out of the room.
“See you,” Ryan said and then Spencer thought he heard him mutter something like “ecru” under his breath. Spencer didn’t think he’d been insulted, but with Ryan’s vocabulary it was hard to tell.
* * *
Gerard was pretty sure Mikey was being insulted.
Gerard Way was having a bad day. Like, epically bad. He’d been yelled at for doodling on his arm in first period, yelled at for being late in the next, called a ‘fag’ in the lunch line by some nameless jock, and then yelled at again in art class for turning in ‘yet another drawing that looks like it was done by Tim Burton on a bad trip!’ which had led to him being sent to the counselor again, where no one yelled, but where Ms. Salpeter looked at him with wide eyes and sighed and said ‘what are we going to do with you, Gerard?’ which was just as bad.
Whatever.
All of that was kind of depressingly standard, because Gerard tended to get a lot of shit at school (from pretty much everyone, teachers and students alike) but nobody, nobody was allowed to insult his little brother.
Mikey had been flying under the radar so far, which Gerard considered a success, but now, here he was, flanked by two football players and looking blank. With Mikey it was hard to tell, but Gerard was pretty sure that was his sad face. Nobody made Gerard Way’s little brother do his possibly-sad face!
Gerard completely forgot about self-preservation and marched over. “Fuck off,” he growled to the two jocks. One of them was definitely Wentz, the quarterback, but Gerard didn’t know the other guy. Whatever, he was wearing enemy colors, the yellow jersey of the football team, and that was enough for Gerard.
“Whoa, hey, ease up there, Way,” Wentz said, grinning and raising his hands. “We’re not trying to steal your boyfriend.”
“Actually, Gee’s my brother,” Mikey said, which, even if he was trying to be helpful, wasn’t exactly helping.
“Dude, I didn’t know you even had one,” Wentz said to Gerard. “What, do you guys like, keep him hidden in your basement or something?”
“No, we hide the bodies in the basement,” Gerard snapped. “Come over and visit real soon.”
“Dude, chill out,” the other guy said. “We were just talking.”
“Yeah, well next time you wanna ‘talk’ to my brother, you can, you can talk to my fist in your face,” Gerard said a little wildly. Okay, so he wasn’t very good at threatening people. It wasn’t like he had a whole lot of experience.
Wentz and the other football player actually giggled.
Wow, Gerard really sucked at threatening people.
“Okay, I get that you’re trying to be a good big brother, or whatever,” Wentz’s sidekick continued, “but you’re being really, stupidly over-protective. And you sound kind of like a jackass.” What made it worse was that he smiled at Gerard, like Gerard was some kind of adorable baby duck, not some gothy high school kid threatening to punch him in the face.
“You would know,” he grumbled. “Seriously, fuck off. Come on, Mikey, we’re going home.” He grabbed Mikey’s arm and pulled, trudging off down the hall as fast as he could.
“See you, Mikey!” Wentz called, and his friend fucking giggled again.
“Bad day?” Mikey asked.
“Seriously, who giggles like that?” Gerard huffed, trying to burn away the sting of his humiliating defeat with good old-fashioned anger.
“Frank Iero does,” Mikey said simply.
“Yeah, well. It’s dumb,” Gerard said and left it at that. Frank fucking Iero had officially made his list.
* * *
It was Friday, which meant that Pete Wentz was having a party.
Pete Wentz was always having parties, even if they weren’t technically at his house. It kind of made it cooler, Brendon thought, that they weren’t. It was like a secret base of fun that was constantly shifting and you only found out about it if you were cool enough to have him say ‘see you under that bridge with the dick graffiti tonight!’ when you passed him in the hall. Another thing that Brendon thought was cool was that Pete never invited anyone, technically. Don’t ask and you don’t get turned down, that was Pete’s rule.
Brendon thought it was a good one, because he had just been viciously and cruelly turned down by Ashlee Simpson.
“Please, please, Ashlee. I am begging you, I am literally on my knees.” This was true, but she didn’t have to know it was because the world was spinning too badly for him to stand. “Please, please let me be head cheerleader this year.”
“No, Brendon,” she said again. “I told you. The head cheerleader has to be a girl and right now the head cheerleader is me.”
“But I’m so good! I’m such a good cheerleader! It’s not my fault I’m not a girl!” It really wasn’t. Brendon had been telling people that for years. Most recently he had said it to the girl who had given him a weird look as he walked out of Wet Seal clutching his new and very, very awesome lavender hoodie. He was wearing it right now and it occurred to him it might help his case if he pulled the hood over his head and gave her his very biggest eyes and his very poutiest lip.
It did. Kind of.
“Maybe next year, Brendon,” Ashlee sighed and patted him on the shoulder. “Do you need help getting up?” she asked kindly. She was a very, very nice girl, even if she was the only thing standing between him and his dreams of being a head cheerleader.
“No,” he said. “No, I’m okay. I’m just gonna sit down here and talk to…” He did a quick survey of the ground, looking for familiar faces. “Pete!” He started to make his way over, which was a little hard, considering he’d forgotten that he was still on his knees.
“Okay, just don’t drink anymore alright?” Ashlee called and drifted away to be an awesome girl somewhere else. Brendon envied her. But only because she was really cool and was head cheerleader. He didn’t really want to be a girl, even if he did kind of dress like one.
“Pete,” he said, making his way over, mostly on his hands and knees. “Pete, this is a good party.” Pete didn’t look like he agreed. He was sitting against the cement wall with the huge dick gratified on it, looking… not happy. Sirens went off in Brendon’s head. Sadness alert! Immediate emergency cuddletimes, GO. He crawled into Pete’s lap. “Aren’t you having a good time?”
“Brendon,” Pete said, “Brendon, no. No, I am not having a good time. I’m in love,” he said, eyes going wide in that scary, kind-of-crazy way that made Ryan Ross, from the school paper, stare at Pete like he was some kind of high school god, which okay, since he was the quarterback, he kind of was. Or at least, so Brendon had heard. From, like, movies and stuff.
“Whoa,” he said. “That’s. That’s pretty heavy, man.” He eyed Pete speculatively. “Is it Ashlee?”
“No,” Pete said.
Huh, the movies had told Brendon that head cheerleaders dated quarterbacks. Then again, Pete did wear eyeliner. “Is it me?” he asked.
“Bren, I love you man, but no, it is not you.” Brendon relaxed, until Pete said, “It’s Patrick Stump.”
“Who?”
“You know. Patrick Stump? He’s in the band. He’s got like, oh man, he’s got the most incredible voice ever.” Pete was looking starry-eyed.
Brendon had hung out with Jon Walker a lot. He Knew Things, so he asked, “Dude, are you high?”
“I am,” Pete said, seriously. “I am high on Patrick Stump.”
“I meant like, on pot, but, you know, okay. Whatever gets you there…”
“Seriously, he’s like, the coolest person ever. In the history of the world. His voice, his fucking voice, I’m not even kidding you, he’s just, he’s like, Patrick fucking Stump, and I’m totally in love with him.”
“Really? That’s hilarious.”
Brendon didn’t say that, he totally didn’t because he was a supportive and loveable friend and not Gabe Saporta, who was kind of a freaky asshole. And who definitely just said that.
“Oh snap,” Brendon whispered.
“What the hell are you doing here, Saporta?” Pete said.
“You’re on our turf,” Gabe said. “Hello? Didn’t you see the huge snake?” He pointed at the wall behind them.
Huh. Now that Brendon thought about it, giant dicks really didn’t have fangs, did they.
“Dude,” he said, “that looks like a penis.”
“It’s a cobra,” Gabe insisted. “It’s definitely a cobra. Or it was until someone spray painted balls on it!” He gave Pete a look of righteous anger. Or indigestion. Brendon couldn’t tell, and with Gabe Saporta, seriously, who the fuck even knew.
“I like it better my way,” Pete shrugged.
“You fucked up my cobra,” Gabe said solemnly. “The gauntlet is thrown.”
Pete shrugged again, so Brendon said, “What?”
“It’s on, bitch!” Gabe clarified.
Everyone had turned to stare when Gabe Saporta and his gang showed up. Gabe was the quarterback on the Evanston High Cobras and they were, like, rivals. It was a big deal. Also, he had turned up with his ridiculously pretty teammates and cheerleaders, including their head cheerleader, William Beckett. Brendon felt his soul crumble into dust and blow out of his ears. Stupid Bill Beckett wasn’t a girl. Life, so unfair!
He was standing there with his ridiculous hips, flanked by Vicky-T and Lyn-Z. Why they needed to spell their names with big extra capital letters was kind of beyond Brendon but they were hot and they looked like they could kill Brendon with their thighs. He didn’t even need to get started on Maja Iversson. And, like, the team was pretty too. Geez, was that how they had drafted them or something? Brendon dragged his eyes away from their cute cornerback, Nate Navarro, and re-focused on the Shit That Was So Totally Going Down, Oh My God.
“So, what’s this dude’s name? Patrick Stump?” Brendon saw Pete go pale. “Okay, yeah, I am totally going to seduce that guy, right out from under your ball-drawing nose, Wentz!”
“Fuck you, no you’re not,” Pete said, scrambling to his feet and taking Brendon, who was still kind of on his lap, with him. “You couldn’t seduce your mom!” That didn’t even make sense, but Brendon glared from behind Pete’s shoulder and nodded emphatically, because he was totally a good friend who had his buddy’s back.
“You wanna bet?” Gabe leered.
“You’re gonna seduce your mom? That’s gross!” Brendon said.
“Is Glenview, like, a school for special kids?” Brendon heard Beckett ask Vicky-T. Oh, hell no, it was so on.
“First one to seduce Patrick Stump wins,” Gabe said.
“Wins what?” Pete asked.
“Like, fucking honor, I don’t know,” Gabe said. “You besmirched my cobra, I’m retaliating here.”
“Fine, whatever. It’s a bet.” Pete looked furious when he shook Gabe’s hand. It made Brendon feel a little brave.
“Yeah,” he shouted. “And, and you know what? I challenge you to a cheer-off.”
“What the fuck’s a cheer-off?” Vicky-T said and blew smoke in his face. Oh my god, she was so badass and mean, Brendon was beginning to doubt the genius of this move.
“Half-time at the Cobra-Mongoose game, we’ll both do cheers,” Ashlee said, coming up behind him, because she was seriously the best girl ever and Brendon was sorry he ever hoped she’d get hit by a bus, like in Mean Girls. “And the best squad wins.”
“Wins what, honor?” Beckett demanded. “Because Gabe is all into that, and that’s cool for him, but I want some material compensation over here.”
“Losing head cheerleader steps down?” Brendon suggested, because, hello can you say ‘win-win?’
“Hell no,” Beckett said. “I was talking more, like, a couple hundred bucks.” Brendon drooped.
“Done,” Ashlee said and they shook on it.
“Alright, so you’ve been called out,” Gabe said, because apparently he was getting lonely without being the center of attention. “Cobras, let’s get out of here and go to my basement.” He gave the surrounding crowd what was maybe supposed to be a mysterious look but mostly just came off as creepy. “FANGS UP,” he yelled and all of them threw up some weird gang sign.
Brendon panicked. They had nothing to say to that! They didn’t do gang signs in Glenview!
Ashlee was totally on it though. She held up her hands like little mongoose paws and hissed and it was. Well, it was kind of hot? And it totally beat the Cobras and their stupid fang thing, which looked like baseball signals or sign language or some shit, Brendon didn’t even know. He couldn’t tell if the Cobras were intimidated, but they left, so he chose to call it a win.
“Dude,” he said in the silence that followed. “It is so totally on.”
* * *
“Hey! Hey, Patrick! Yo, Patrick Stump, man!”
Spencer poked Patrick hard in the ribs with one of his drumsticks but Patrick kept ignoring the ridiculous shouting spaz of a quarterback who was currently flinging himself at the railings separating the band’s section of the stadium seating from the field.
“PATRICK. TRICK. STUMPY. PATTYCAKES.”
Patrick cringed.
“Ah ha! Knew you could hear me. Listen, Patrick, wanna get some ice cream?”
“Um, there’s kind of a game going on right now and-”
“After, I mean after.” Pete Wentz was wearing more eyeliner than anyone in a sports uniform that Patrick had ever seen.
“Um, no, thanks, that’s okay.”
“No?” Pete looked confused. Patrick guessed he wasn’t used to hearing that word often. “Are. What? Are you sure?”
“Yeah. Yeah, I’m sure.” Patrick blushed slightly, aware that Spencer (and the rest of the percussion section, and the brass and half the offensive line, for fuck’s sake) was watching the whole exchange with interest.
“Well, here’s the deal, Trickster,” Pete said, propping his chin on the rail and shouting up to Patrick in the third row without apparent effort. “I’m all kinds of not okay with that answer. In fact, you’re kind of upsetting me. I think you’re throwing off my game. I think I’m going to go out there and suck. I may even get the shit kicked out of me. We’ll almost definitely lose.” He didn’t sound particularly concerned with this outcome.
“What makes you think I care?” asked Patrick blankly, but Pete Wentz, in typical jock fashion, ignored him.
“I am willing to let you reconsider your decision,” Pete said grandly and waved cheerfully as he put his helmet back on and took the field.
“What the fuck was that?” Patrick asked Spencer, still flustered.
“You either just got asked out or threatened,” Spencer mused.
“Coming from Pete Wentz, I don’t think there’s much of a difference. Anyway, it’s probably just some stupid football prank Iero put him up to,” Patrick shrugged.
“Yeah, he wouldn’t risk the game for something like that. Would he?”
Patrick just shrugged again and turned his attention back to the game, just in time for the snap. Pete received the ball and then just stood there. He caught Patrick’s eye and waved brightly just before he was hit, hard, from both sides at once, and went down. It took a few seconds, but Pete staggered back to his feet, rubbing his ribs.
“What the fuck,” Patrick yelped. Pete’s teammates seemed to be asking the same question. Gutierrez shoved him sharply and made some hand gestures that looked like they promised violence. Pete just shrugged and pointed out at Patrick, who pulled his hat down and slumped low in his seat. Gutierrez returned to the huddle, still gesticulating. There was now a large pile of bulky football players glaring at over at Patrick. Spencer shifted away - probably for his own safety, so Patrick could hardly blame him.
Pete Wentz, star quarterback and (apparently) sadist, blew him a kiss and called the play.
Patrick squirmed as Pete took hit after hit until the Glenview High Mongooses finally lost possession and Pete limped back over to the marching band.
“Dude,” Pete said, “for flying so far under the radar, you sure are pissing off a lot of people.”
Patrick sputtered and Pete just laughed, not quite full-bodied, as he still had an arm curled over his left side, but still completely cheerful. He was, Patrick thought for about the millionth time, completely insane. He made the mistake of looking over at the game and catching Bryar tackling a guy particularly violently. Whether Pete was insane or not, if the Mongooses lost this game Patrick was pretty sure it wasn’t Pete’s head that they were going to punt up and down the field. “Okay,” he sighed.
“What was that?” Pete hollered. “That fat dude sat on my head when he tackled me, I think I have grass in my ears.”
“Okay!” Patrick shouted, completely miserable. “Okay, you fix this and I’ll do whatever.”
“Whatever?” Pete leered and waggled his eyebrows. Patrick just glared and rolled his eyes. “You won’t be sorry!” Pete promised.
“I already am,” Patrick sighed to Spencer.
Pete Wentz went out and played the best game of his life after that, and Glenview crushed the Naperville Fighting Squirrels forty-four to ten.
Afterwards, Pete sauntered up to Patrick, all injuries apparently forgotten, still sweaty and still in uniform. His eyeliner was a little smudged, but still intact. “You’re like a little rabbit’s foot, dude,” he told Patrick, beaming. “I totally got lucky tonight.”
“You’re psychotic,” Patrick babbled, a little awed.
Pete grinned and shrugged. “So, ice cream? After I shower? I’m buying.”
“I said I would,” Patrick grumbled.
“Geez, you don’t have to sound so depressed about it,” Pete said, looking a little crestfallen.
Patrick felt himself relenting, but Spencer, still at his shoulder, said, “Seeing as he’s literally being forced to go with you against his will under pain of vicious jock-mauling, I think you should probably be a little more depressed about it.”
Pete eyed him narrowly but Spencer just rolled his eyes and cocked his hip. Pete’s face immediately lit up. “You’re Spencer Smith, aren’t you?” he said, delighted.
“Um, yes?”
Pete just cackled. “Oh man, oh man, you have to come too, seriously, please.”
Spencer gave Patrick a look that clearly said ‘this dude is creeping me out,’ which Patrick totally respected but he sent back a look that said ‘please, please, please come with me, he can’t rape us and eat us if we’re together!’ so Spencer sighed and said, “Fine, you freak.”
Pete grinned at them - a nice grin, for a complete psycho, Patrick thought - and walked away, saying, “Thanks, Smith! You just won me Walker’s undying love!”
Spencer immediately lost all composure. “Walker? Jon Walker? Oh god. He means scary, mouth-breathing Tracy Walker, right? Oh my god, right?”
“What the fuck,” was all Patrick could say.
*
Patrick listened to Spencer freak out for half an hour while they changed out of their band uniforms and waited for Pete. Spencer was, like, the most restrained, mature person Patrick knew, but only until someone mentioned Jon Walker, at which point he inevitably became a little girl. Patrick, who could really use calm-and-cool Spencer right now, didn’t find this nearly as funny as he usually did.
It only got worse when Jon Walker - not scary mouth-breathing Tracy Walker - came bounding up to them.
“Spencer Smith,” Jon said joyfully, and even Patrick found his slight lisp kind of unreasonably adorable. Even though he hated everything right then, he smiled. Spencer, on the other hand, froze up and started acting like a complete tool.
“Hey,” he said, staring out over the emptying stadium, at the scoreboard flickering off, at anything that wasn’t Jon Walker.
“Pete just texted me,” Jon said, not sounding perturbed. “He said you were coming tonight?”
Spencer just shrugged, so Patrick took pity on Jon and said, “Yeah, we are.”
“Oh, hey, you’re Patrick Stump, aren’t you?” He smiled and shook Patrick’s hand. “Marching band, jazz band and student activities council, right?”
“Uh, yeah. How-”
Jon grinned and held up the camera slung around his neck. “Yearbook photographer. Comprehensive lists of extracurriculars are my life.”
“Photographing the game?” Patrick asked politely.
Jon looked uncomfortable. “Um.”
Behind them there was a loud, braying laugh that Patrick recognized as Pete’s. “Dude, we’ll be lucky if there’s a single shot with the game even in the background,” he said.
“Shut up, I’m artistic,” Jon said and smiled, but Patrick could see a little bite to it that made him wonder what exactly the big deal was about the pictures.
Pete changed the subject, not so much, it seemed, because of the look on Jon’s face, but more because he forgot they’d even been having another conversation. “So, after every game we go out to the dairy bar and celebrate,” Pete said, like Patrick didn’t already know. “Just some guys on the team. A few friends, girlfriends, that kind of thing.”
“Why exactly-”
“Because I like you, Patrick Stump,” Pete grinned, without even waiting for the rest of the question.
“You don’t even know me,” Patrick protested.
“Yeah,” Pete agreed. “What up with that?”
*
They all ended up going in Tom Conrad’s car. He was a friend of Jon’s apparently, as well as a safety. Tom made easy conversation with Spencer while Jon tried to catch him off guard and make eye contact. He actually managed to make Spencer laugh a few times and he smiled like a fool all the way to the dairy bar.
Pete, Spencer and Patrick were all crammed in the backseat and Pete’s thigh was squished up against Patrick’s. He smelled like girl’s shampoo and grass and had no concept of personal space, his arm looped over Patrick’s shoulders, his hand touching Patrick’s knee, drumming contentedly. He was also talking a mile a minute and he was, well, he was kind of funny. And not nearly as stupid as Patrick thought he was.
Patrick felt more comfortable until they actually got to the dairy bar and he saw the parking lot full of football players and cheerleaders. Even Brendon Urie, the least intimidating human being ever, (he was still carrying his pompoms for fuck’s sake), looked menacing in a big enough group. Patrick tried to catch Spencer’s eye but Spencer was still staring at strange, unexciting objects to avoid looking at Jon. Useless.
“Are you sure this is a good idea?” he asked Pete.
“Absolutely,” Pete beamed and Patrick believed him for a second, in spite of himself, until Chris Gutierrez pulled him into a headlock.
He made a garbled sound and flailed ineffectually while Pete just stood by and laughed like a moron. Clearly, Pete just brought him here to watch Gutierrez kill him, Patrick realized, but then he registered that Gutierrez was laughing too.
“So I hear we owe you for that win,” he said, patting Patrick’s back in what was probably supposed to be a companionable way but still somehow felt violent to Patrick.
“Um?”
“Hell yeah you do,” Pete said. “Patrick here healed my broken heart and helped me find the strength to win.” Pete batted his eyelashes ridiculously at Patrick before adding, “even though he kind of broke it in the first place.”
“You’re a freak, Wentz,” Gutierrez said, though affectionately and added, “See you around, Stump” before leaping off to go abuse someone else.
Patrick had barely recovered before they were assaulted again, this time by Brendon Urie and a group of girls. Brendon let out a noise like a squeal when he saw Patrick and said, “I knew you could do it, Pete. Though my way was totally better, I had the dance choreographed and everything and-”
“I don’t think a song and dance number was the way to his heart, Bren,” Pete said and Patrick was kind of in agreement.
“It was ‘Take a Chance on Me!’” Brendon argued. “Perfect song! And dude, did you see Happy Feet? Dance is the language of love, Pete Wentz!”
“I think blackmail and vague threats worked just as well,” Pete shrugged. Patrick didn’t know if he was relieved at being spared the ABBA or horrified at the chosen alternative, so he diplomatically kept silent.
“Whatever, one day I’ll use those moves and win my own date with a musician.”
Patrick stared at Pete. “This is a date?” he squeaked. Pete just grinned.
“So,” Brendon said, grabbing Patrick by the arm. “These are my back-up girls.” He pointed at the other cheerleaders, all of whom were girls. “This is Dusty and Katie and Alicia. They’re all super-nice and make me look good. They are essential to my act,” he said seriously. One of the girls rolled her eyes but smiled at Patrick all the same. Patrick couldn’t tell if she was being friendly or trying to communicate her desire to roast him on a spit.
“You mean my act,” someone corrected from behind them.
It was like being attacked by a wolf pack, Patrick thought dizzily, but with pompoms.
“I’m the head cheerleader here, Urie.”
“You are a queen,” Brendon agreed, “and I am your king.”
“You’re a spaz,” the head cheerleader said and patted him fondly. Patrick thought he liked her. She was sassy but nice and she was funny. She wasn’t anything like what he’d expected.
The girl turned to him and said, “And is this the singer?”
“No, no,” Patrick said automatically. “I drum, actually. In the band.”
But Pete talked right over him, saying, “Yeah!” and beaming in his ridiculous way. “Patrick, this is Ashlee,” he said. “Ashlee, Patrick.”
“Well, Pete’s obviously half in love with you already,” Ashlee laughed, rolling her eyes. “He hasn’t talked about anything else for days. We had to use Brendon’s ABBA chorus line as a threat to get him to ask you to come tonight.”
“I, um.”
“Yeah,” Ashlee agreed, “I know. He’s insane, right?”
Pete just kept grinning.
Patrick ended up having a surprisingly good time. Brendon was funny if kind of spastic, and Ashlee was sharp and dry and Dusty and Katie were sweet. Even some of the football players, like Iero and Toro, were funny and actually nice once he got to talking with them. He was particularly shocked by Bryar, who wasn’t nearly as likely to crush Patrick’s skull with his fist as he looked.
And of course there was Pete. Pete was all over the place, being inappropriate with everyone and then immediately bounding back to Patrick like he was on a leash. His respect for personal space had not improved since the car ride and Patrick found himself nuzzled and molested in front of a dozen jocks and cheerleaders and he found that he didn’t even care that much. He had fun.
* * *
The same probably couldn’t be said for Spencer, who was immediately beset upon by Brendon Urie.
“This is Spencer?” Brendon immediately yowled, jumping at Spencer in what he seemed to think was a friendly way. Jon just laughed and nodded and Brendon went off. “Spencer, Spencer Smith, Spencer, you are so pretty, have you considered cheerleading? No, really, your hips, Spencer Smith. They would call us ‘the Mighty Dancing Mongooses now with 400% more hips’ because really, Spencer, hips! I have kind of some hips, right? Don’t you think? I think they would show up better if they let me wear a skirt but Principle Hurley said no. I was all, ‘what the hell, sir? Aren’t you all, like, against gender roles and stuff? You should be making me wear a skirt, to fight the cruel dictatorship of gender-specific fashion!’ And then he said that that was all cool, but he just didn’t want to see me in a skirt, thanks,” Brendon finished, frowning. Spencer opened his mouth tentatively, hoping to make his excuses before fleeing, but Brendon apparently was just stopping for breath. “But even in pants, even in pants, Spencer Smith, you are as pretty as a girl.”
“Yeah, um. Thanks?” Spencer said, trying to back out of Brendon’s death grip on his arm.
“Please, please.” Brendon’s eyes were bigger than normal eyes, right? It wasn’t just Spencer? “Please, let me do your hair.”
“What?” Spencer yelped.
“I promise, I promise it’ll be good. Please, I just want to try.” Brendon reached up a slow hand, looking awed, and Spencer slapped him away.
“I won’t forget your cruelty, Spencer Smith!” Brendon declared, but five minutes later he was talking Spencer’s ear off like they’d been best friends since kindergarten. Spencer found himself laughing, he couldn’t help it. Brendon was so earnest and, well, kind of sweet, but he could be mean and Spencer liked it. “And their head cheerleader, William Beckett, is only head cheerleader because he told everyone he was a girl! And, okay, fine, easy mistake to make, but the gig is up, Beckett, you know? And he’s still head cheerleader! If he is, I should be too, you know? He’s all tall and gangly, and I’m pocket-sized and adorable. They would sell action figures of me, that’s how good a head cheerleader I’d be. I would take Beckett down in a slap fight, you know I would.”
“He’d have a serious height advantage on you, but I’ve seen you kick,” Spencer agreed and smiled. He heard a click from his left and looked over at Jon, startled. He’d almost forgotten he was there, much less that he had a camera, which was still pointed at Spencer.
“Don’t mind me,” he smiled, “I’m just documenting,” and he snapped another picture of Spencer.
Don’t be desperate, Spencer reminded himself. Throwing himself on Jon because he was all artsy and adorable was desperate. Definitely desperate. He frowned to keep from getting his face stuck in what Ryan called his ‘tool smile.’
So, yeah, fine, Spencer had a good time too. But it wasn’t like he was admitting it to anyone.
He definitely didn’t admit it to Jon, who walked him over to his car after Tom dropped them all off at the school.
“So,” Spencer said, awkwardly.
“So?” Jon repeated, smiling lazily, like he was always this happy, all the time. Spencer willed his stomach to stop squirming giddily.
“So, Pete is kind of a spaz,” Spencer said finally. Pete was a safe topic. He could talk about Pete and manage to avoid saying anything embarrassing, like ‘Jon, I’m in love with you and want to adopt China babies with you.’
Jon threw back his head and laughed. “Yeah, he really kind of is. He’s not usually this bad though. He’s seriously into your friend Patrick.”
“Why?” Spencer asked. “Not that Patrick’s not great or anything, just… why?”
“Beats me,” Jon shrugged. “Patrick’s a cool dude and all, but he’s no Spencer Smith.”
Spencer felt warmth rocket through his skin and knew he was blushing. He pretended to dig around for his keys so he could smile once, really hard, into his shoulder.
“So, do you want to get coffee sometime?” Jon said. “I’m working a shift tomorrow afternoon and I can totally get you free coffee.” Spencer had to literally bite his tongue to keep from saying, ‘I know.’ Jon was still smiling at him and he was beginning to get light-headed. “Seriously,” Jon said, “All-you-can-drink extra hot vanilla lattes with nutmeg sprinkles and a little bit of caramel.”
“You know my coffee order?” Spencer said, and then he lost control, he fucking beamed at Jon.
“I have spies, Spencer,” Jon said seriously. “Watching your every move, noting your every beverage choice.”
Spencer laughed, he couldn’t help it. “What for?”
“I’m compiling a list of things that make you smile,” Jon said and Spencer nearly died.
“How do you even exist?” he demanded.
Jon just laughed and shrugged and said, “So, coffee? Tomorrow?”
Ryan would totally not approve. Ryan would dump Spencer as a best friend and would start hanging out with Pete Wentz and would keep inflating his ego until the entire school exploded. There was no way Spencer could have coffee with Jon Walker; it was unethical.
“Sorry, I don’t think so,” he said.
“But,” Jon said. “Hey, no. Hey. I made you smile, I made you do the special smile! Don’t I get anything for that?”
“Please,” Spencer replied. “Retarded puppies make me smile. Brendon makes me smile. And I’m hardly going out for coffee with either of them.”
“Free latte,” Jon said, slightly sneaky. “Free lattes, Spencer Smith. Whenever you want them. No, seriously, I’m the shift manager, I’ll put up pictures of your face and my people will be hunting you down in the streets to give you free coffee.”
Spencer forgot not to laugh. “That’s a little terrifying, actually.”
“Think about it, Spence, I’d be your coffee slave.”
Spencer did think about it, and, awesome as it sounded, he also thought about Ryan’s advice. Flinging himself on Jon just because the guy promised him a few free coffees was a little too desperate, wasn’t it? Maybe? So he smiled and said, “I’m trying to cut back on my caffeine intake,” and flounced away.
Once his back was turned, he started grinning his stupid face off. Jon Walker, he thought to himself, seriously, Jon fucking Walker. Oh my god, Spencer was the biggest tool ever.
* * *
PART TWO
I’ve been working on this thing for so long I can’t believe it’s over. Well, I’m finally delivering on all my promises. This puppy weighed in at sixty pages, in the end, and I have to say, I’m a little proud of myself. I rarely write anything this length, much less supergay internet bandslash, but there’s a first time for everything, right? This is also my first time writing Frank/Gerard, which was much harder than I thought it would be.
Now, hopefully since this is out of the way I can get back to maybe not failing out of college? Oh, no, wait, I forgot, I still live in the same house as Rock Band. There is no hope for me. If it’s not the gay drummers, it’s the drums…
Anyway, without further ado, the EPIC HIGH SCHOOL FOOTBALL AU. Or, as Ronie and I call it:
Title: Football is the Gayest Profession (and I, Dear Madam, am a Professional)
Author: tremblings
Pairings: Pete/Patrick, Jon/Spencer, Frank/Gerard
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 20,000
Summary: Bandom high school football AU, featuring FOB, PATD, MCR and various other guests
Disclaimer: This is a pack of dirty lies.
Author’s Notes: Mega thanks to your__design and __leonine for their help with this and to everyone who listened to me spend months complaining about the ‘stupid fucking never-ending high school football AU’ without cutting off my head. You guys are all awesome.
So, basically, it pretty much started with Patrick Stump, drummer in the Glenview High Marching Mongoose Band, singing along quietly to ‘Through Being Cool’ with his headphones on in the wide, empty field. Band practice had just ended and he was gathering up the rest of his things while he waited for his ride, not really thinking about anything except getting home, getting something to eat, maybe playing some video games, getting started on his Huck Finn paper… He certainly wasn’t thinking about the fact that the football team practiced directly after the band.
At least he wasn’t until he heard someone shouting behind him.
Patrick snapped his mouth shut and wheeled around, ready for whatever snarky comment the impending flood of yellow-jerseyed testosterone was planning to hurl at him. What he was not prepared for, however, was seeing Pete Wentz, the team’s quarterback hurtling toward him only to land flat on his face.
“Um,” Patrick said, because it seemed like the thing to do.
“Sorry! Pete, you okay?” yelled the team’s running back, Nick Scimeca, arm still extended, as if the football had just left his hand. Wentz scrabbled to his feet, ignoring Scimeca and the football that just had hit him squarely in the back of the head, eyes still fixed on Patrick. Patrick wondered if he should start running.
Wentz finished jogging his way up to Patrick, staring at him with wide eyes. “Hey, hello, hi. Hi. I’m Pete Wentz. I don’t know you, who are you?”
Patrick removed his headphones and blinked. “What?”
“Me Pete Wentz,” Wentz said, in a passable imitation of a monkey. “You…?”
“Um, Patrick Stump?”
“Patrick Stump,” Wentz echoed, kind of breathless. What, was he winded? Patrick kind of thought athletes were supposed to be in better shape. “Patrick Stump, Patrick, Trick, you need to sing again.”
“Sorry, I need to what?” Patrick said. He did a quick survey of the field, his head echoing with a slightly panicked mantra of I need an adult, I need an adult. The only adult on hand was Principal Hurley, and though Patrick stared at him with wide, help-me eyes it seemed like the principal was more concerned about whatever Brendon Urie was doing over by the other cheerleaders.
It looked dubiously like jazz hands.
“Whatever you were just singing? That was, like, the most awesome thing I’ve ever heard. Ever. So, keep doing that, okay?” Wentz’s eyes were large and earnest but his words, Patrick realized, were completely crazy.
Patrick could feel is body getting warm all over; he was probably turning a kind of horrible pink. “I don’t really, you know, sing,” he said. He looked around again, there was no escape.
“Oh, yes you do. You definitely do. You sing awesome, you’re just not singing now and seriously man, what’s up with that?” Wentz had somehow been edging closer. Patrick glanced over his shoulder at the rest of the team, who were all shrugging at each other and using Wentz’s absence as an excuse to lob footballs at each other in what appeared to be an impromptu game of dodge ball.
“Well,” Patrick said, “frankly, you’re creeping me out.”
Wentz’s face fell. “Oh. Oh, I get it.” His eyes suddenly lit up again, like someone was flicking a light switch off and on somewhere in his brain. Patrick wondered if it was possible to run a human on electricity. “Because we don’t know each other, right?”
“That’s… part of it,” Patrick said. His mother had raised him too well for him to comment on the fact that Wentz was clearly insane; it just wasn’t polite. Behind Wentz, Coach Schechter had come onto the field and was trying to restore order with pretty meager results.
“Okay, okay, I can work with that, I can definitely work with that.”
“PETE,” the Coach called across the field. “SERIOUSLY. WHAT THE HELL.”
“I think the football team kind of needs a quarterback,” Patrick pointed out. “Shouldn’t you, like…?”
“What? Oh, they’ll be okay. So, listen, Patrick, I was thinking -”
But Patrick was spared whatever Wentz was about to say next when Bryar and Toro, a defensive tackle and the team’s tight end, came up and seized him.
“Sorry, Pete,” Toro said, sounding too cheerful to be truly sorry. Tendrils of his legendary hair were creeping out from beneath his helmet, through the grating of his facemask. “Coach says we can’t practice without our quarterback.”
“I was busy,” Pete said, flailing a little half-heartedly and then drooping in their grip. Bryar and Toro were very large, Patrick thought, and probably the best thing to do was to just go completely limp and hope they thought you were dead. “I was having a conversation,” Wentz whined.
“Well, we’re kind of having a crisis. We play the Cobras in two months, did you forget?”
“No, but that was important!”
“Important enough to be worth you getting clobbered in the head by that pass?”
“I have never seen anyone go down so fast,” Toro laughed and the three of them were quickly swallowed by the rest of the team.
Spencer, one of Patrick’s fellow drummers, jogged up to him. “Sorry, sorry, I know I’m late… Were you just talking to Pete Wentz?”
Wentz chose that moment to raise his head out of the huddle and grin at Patrick. Patrick blushed and Scimeca pulled Wentz back down by his collar.
Patrick turned to Spencer, feeling a little shell-shocked and said, “Is it even possible for someone to throw a football so hard that it literally knocks all the sanity out of a person’s head?”
“Is he wearing make-up?” Spencer demanded, as if that was the more important question.
* * *
Before he came to find Patrick, Spencer Smith had a bit of an awkward run-in of his own. This was a kind way of saying he had tried to say hello to Jon Walker on his way out of the building.
Like most times Spencer got up the nerve to talk to Jon (who was older and cooler and wore flip flops and took pictures and was just so, yeah) this one ended in humiliating disaster.
“Um, hi,” he said as he passed, and then, in case ‘hi’ was no longer cool and no one had told him, he added, “Hey.” Just in case.
Jon looked up from where he’d been scrolling through pictures on his digital camera and smiled, eyes curling up at the corners. Spencer melted into his Nikes. “Hey, Spencer Smith.”
Spencer grinned back at him then realized, holy crap, he was a stupid, awkward sophomore grinning like a retard at a super-cool senior who was friends with everyone, so he looked down really fast and kept moving.
“I like your hoodie!” Jon called as Spencer started to turn a corner. Spencer looked up quickly to make sure if Jon was kidding or not (he’d had doubts about actually wearing a Pussy Cat Dolls hoodie in public, but, well, he liked it) and walked straight into a row of lockers. He didn’t particularly care to see Jon’s face after that so he ran off down the hall, blushing furiously, trying to outrun his shame.
“Oh my god,” he muttered to himself as he fled, “oh my god, what the hell, oh my god, I am the biggest tool ever.”
It had been thirteen months, two weeks and four days since Spencer Smith had started maybe kind of possibly falling stupidly in love with Jon Walker from afar, and it was time he did something about it. He decided to do what he always decided to do in a moment of social crisis.
Spencer decided to talk to Ryan Ross.
*
Ryan was Spencer’s best friend and could usually be counted on to be lurking the publications room, working on whatever article he was currently writing for the Monthly Mongoose, the school’s newspaper. This was where Spencer found him, typing away with his fingerless gloves on and his tongue between his teeth.
Ryan glanced up as Spencer came into the room. “Spence, do you think it’s fair to describe the mystery meat as the ‘burnt sienna menace that has traditionally tormented the stomachs of every student that has dared sample its gravy-drenched flesh?’”
“I’d say it’s more taupe,” Spencer said, caught off-guard.
“No,” Ryan mumbled, not looking away from the screen. “I want to keep the ‘burnt’ in there. It’s got a double meaning…”
“Listen, Ryan. Ryan, I have to transfer.”
“After the article, I’m sure they’ll get rid of the meat, Spencer, don’t be so dramatic.”
Spencer thought of all the things he could say to that starting with ‘who cares about the fucking meat’ and ending with ‘coming from you, that’s really saying something, Mr. Soul Tormented By Gravy-Drenched Flesh’ but eventually he just settled on, “Jon fucking Walker, I swear to god.”
“Oh my god, not again.”
“Ryan, I’m sorry, there’s just no way. I seriously have to transfer.”
“This is stupid.”
“I know! I know it’s stupid, that’s why I have to transfer, aren’t you listening? He is everywhere.”
“He’s everywhere because you stalk him!” Ryan argued, finally giving Spencer his undivided attention.
“I don’t!” Spencer said, puffing up indignantly, but he could tell his ears were turning red and it was clear that he was lying.
Ryan rolled his eyes. “Seriously,” he said, “you are like, three steps away from Fatal Attraction.”
“I would not boil his pets, Ryan, he loves his pets,” Spencer said. He felt himself going a little gooey, but there was no way he could stop himself from adding, “Did I tell you how he showed me a picture of his cat one time?”
“I think it came up once or twice,” Ryan said and rolled his eyes again. Spencer hung his head in shame. (Ryan’s eye-rolling tended to have that effect, if used often enough at the right moment.) “Look, Spence, if you ever want to actually get anywhere with this guy you need to stop being so spastic, okay?”
Spencer frowned, feeling doubtful. Ryan wasn’t exactly the world’s greatest authority on Seducing Cool Seniors, seeing as he routinely turned into a star struck thirteen year-old girl around Pete Wentz.
“Trust me,” Ryan continued. “The fact that you have his schedule and all his shifts at Starbucks memorized is not sexy.” When he put it like that, Spencer thought, it really wasn’t. Ryan stood and laid a magnanimous hand on Spencer’s shoulder. “Just distance yourself a little bit, okay? Chill out. Don’t be so fucking desperate.”
“I don’t know, Ryan…”
“Look, you asked for my advice and this is it: Don’t. Be. A spaz.” Ryan gave Spencer a level look, like he was charging him with a difficult, perhaps impossible mission. Spencer hated to admit it, but he kind of had a point with that; when it came to Jon Walker, asking Spencer Smith not to spaz was like asking the Way brothers to pretend they were normal.
“Alright. Okay, I’ll try.” He glanced up at the clock. “Shit, I’ve got to go find Patrick, I’m giving him a ride home today. Good luck with the meat! See you tomorrow!” Spencer shouldered his backpack and ducked out of the room.
“See you,” Ryan said and then Spencer thought he heard him mutter something like “ecru” under his breath. Spencer didn’t think he’d been insulted, but with Ryan’s vocabulary it was hard to tell.
* * *
Gerard was pretty sure Mikey was being insulted.
Gerard Way was having a bad day. Like, epically bad. He’d been yelled at for doodling on his arm in first period, yelled at for being late in the next, called a ‘fag’ in the lunch line by some nameless jock, and then yelled at again in art class for turning in ‘yet another drawing that looks like it was done by Tim Burton on a bad trip!’ which had led to him being sent to the counselor again, where no one yelled, but where Ms. Salpeter looked at him with wide eyes and sighed and said ‘what are we going to do with you, Gerard?’ which was just as bad.
Whatever.
All of that was kind of depressingly standard, because Gerard tended to get a lot of shit at school (from pretty much everyone, teachers and students alike) but nobody, nobody was allowed to insult his little brother.
Mikey had been flying under the radar so far, which Gerard considered a success, but now, here he was, flanked by two football players and looking blank. With Mikey it was hard to tell, but Gerard was pretty sure that was his sad face. Nobody made Gerard Way’s little brother do his possibly-sad face!
Gerard completely forgot about self-preservation and marched over. “Fuck off,” he growled to the two jocks. One of them was definitely Wentz, the quarterback, but Gerard didn’t know the other guy. Whatever, he was wearing enemy colors, the yellow jersey of the football team, and that was enough for Gerard.
“Whoa, hey, ease up there, Way,” Wentz said, grinning and raising his hands. “We’re not trying to steal your boyfriend.”
“Actually, Gee’s my brother,” Mikey said, which, even if he was trying to be helpful, wasn’t exactly helping.
“Dude, I didn’t know you even had one,” Wentz said to Gerard. “What, do you guys like, keep him hidden in your basement or something?”
“No, we hide the bodies in the basement,” Gerard snapped. “Come over and visit real soon.”
“Dude, chill out,” the other guy said. “We were just talking.”
“Yeah, well next time you wanna ‘talk’ to my brother, you can, you can talk to my fist in your face,” Gerard said a little wildly. Okay, so he wasn’t very good at threatening people. It wasn’t like he had a whole lot of experience.
Wentz and the other football player actually giggled.
Wow, Gerard really sucked at threatening people.
“Okay, I get that you’re trying to be a good big brother, or whatever,” Wentz’s sidekick continued, “but you’re being really, stupidly over-protective. And you sound kind of like a jackass.” What made it worse was that he smiled at Gerard, like Gerard was some kind of adorable baby duck, not some gothy high school kid threatening to punch him in the face.
“You would know,” he grumbled. “Seriously, fuck off. Come on, Mikey, we’re going home.” He grabbed Mikey’s arm and pulled, trudging off down the hall as fast as he could.
“See you, Mikey!” Wentz called, and his friend fucking giggled again.
“Bad day?” Mikey asked.
“Seriously, who giggles like that?” Gerard huffed, trying to burn away the sting of his humiliating defeat with good old-fashioned anger.
“Frank Iero does,” Mikey said simply.
“Yeah, well. It’s dumb,” Gerard said and left it at that. Frank fucking Iero had officially made his list.
* * *
It was Friday, which meant that Pete Wentz was having a party.
Pete Wentz was always having parties, even if they weren’t technically at his house. It kind of made it cooler, Brendon thought, that they weren’t. It was like a secret base of fun that was constantly shifting and you only found out about it if you were cool enough to have him say ‘see you under that bridge with the dick graffiti tonight!’ when you passed him in the hall. Another thing that Brendon thought was cool was that Pete never invited anyone, technically. Don’t ask and you don’t get turned down, that was Pete’s rule.
Brendon thought it was a good one, because he had just been viciously and cruelly turned down by Ashlee Simpson.
“Please, please, Ashlee. I am begging you, I am literally on my knees.” This was true, but she didn’t have to know it was because the world was spinning too badly for him to stand. “Please, please let me be head cheerleader this year.”
“No, Brendon,” she said again. “I told you. The head cheerleader has to be a girl and right now the head cheerleader is me.”
“But I’m so good! I’m such a good cheerleader! It’s not my fault I’m not a girl!” It really wasn’t. Brendon had been telling people that for years. Most recently he had said it to the girl who had given him a weird look as he walked out of Wet Seal clutching his new and very, very awesome lavender hoodie. He was wearing it right now and it occurred to him it might help his case if he pulled the hood over his head and gave her his very biggest eyes and his very poutiest lip.
It did. Kind of.
“Maybe next year, Brendon,” Ashlee sighed and patted him on the shoulder. “Do you need help getting up?” she asked kindly. She was a very, very nice girl, even if she was the only thing standing between him and his dreams of being a head cheerleader.
“No,” he said. “No, I’m okay. I’m just gonna sit down here and talk to…” He did a quick survey of the ground, looking for familiar faces. “Pete!” He started to make his way over, which was a little hard, considering he’d forgotten that he was still on his knees.
“Okay, just don’t drink anymore alright?” Ashlee called and drifted away to be an awesome girl somewhere else. Brendon envied her. But only because she was really cool and was head cheerleader. He didn’t really want to be a girl, even if he did kind of dress like one.
“Pete,” he said, making his way over, mostly on his hands and knees. “Pete, this is a good party.” Pete didn’t look like he agreed. He was sitting against the cement wall with the huge dick gratified on it, looking… not happy. Sirens went off in Brendon’s head. Sadness alert! Immediate emergency cuddletimes, GO. He crawled into Pete’s lap. “Aren’t you having a good time?”
“Brendon,” Pete said, “Brendon, no. No, I am not having a good time. I’m in love,” he said, eyes going wide in that scary, kind-of-crazy way that made Ryan Ross, from the school paper, stare at Pete like he was some kind of high school god, which okay, since he was the quarterback, he kind of was. Or at least, so Brendon had heard. From, like, movies and stuff.
“Whoa,” he said. “That’s. That’s pretty heavy, man.” He eyed Pete speculatively. “Is it Ashlee?”
“No,” Pete said.
Huh, the movies had told Brendon that head cheerleaders dated quarterbacks. Then again, Pete did wear eyeliner. “Is it me?” he asked.
“Bren, I love you man, but no, it is not you.” Brendon relaxed, until Pete said, “It’s Patrick Stump.”
“Who?”
“You know. Patrick Stump? He’s in the band. He’s got like, oh man, he’s got the most incredible voice ever.” Pete was looking starry-eyed.
Brendon had hung out with Jon Walker a lot. He Knew Things, so he asked, “Dude, are you high?”
“I am,” Pete said, seriously. “I am high on Patrick Stump.”
“I meant like, on pot, but, you know, okay. Whatever gets you there…”
“Seriously, he’s like, the coolest person ever. In the history of the world. His voice, his fucking voice, I’m not even kidding you, he’s just, he’s like, Patrick fucking Stump, and I’m totally in love with him.”
“Really? That’s hilarious.”
Brendon didn’t say that, he totally didn’t because he was a supportive and loveable friend and not Gabe Saporta, who was kind of a freaky asshole. And who definitely just said that.
“Oh snap,” Brendon whispered.
“What the hell are you doing here, Saporta?” Pete said.
“You’re on our turf,” Gabe said. “Hello? Didn’t you see the huge snake?” He pointed at the wall behind them.
Huh. Now that Brendon thought about it, giant dicks really didn’t have fangs, did they.
“Dude,” he said, “that looks like a penis.”
“It’s a cobra,” Gabe insisted. “It’s definitely a cobra. Or it was until someone spray painted balls on it!” He gave Pete a look of righteous anger. Or indigestion. Brendon couldn’t tell, and with Gabe Saporta, seriously, who the fuck even knew.
“I like it better my way,” Pete shrugged.
“You fucked up my cobra,” Gabe said solemnly. “The gauntlet is thrown.”
Pete shrugged again, so Brendon said, “What?”
“It’s on, bitch!” Gabe clarified.
Everyone had turned to stare when Gabe Saporta and his gang showed up. Gabe was the quarterback on the Evanston High Cobras and they were, like, rivals. It was a big deal. Also, he had turned up with his ridiculously pretty teammates and cheerleaders, including their head cheerleader, William Beckett. Brendon felt his soul crumble into dust and blow out of his ears. Stupid Bill Beckett wasn’t a girl. Life, so unfair!
He was standing there with his ridiculous hips, flanked by Vicky-T and Lyn-Z. Why they needed to spell their names with big extra capital letters was kind of beyond Brendon but they were hot and they looked like they could kill Brendon with their thighs. He didn’t even need to get started on Maja Iversson. And, like, the team was pretty too. Geez, was that how they had drafted them or something? Brendon dragged his eyes away from their cute cornerback, Nate Navarro, and re-focused on the Shit That Was So Totally Going Down, Oh My God.
“So, what’s this dude’s name? Patrick Stump?” Brendon saw Pete go pale. “Okay, yeah, I am totally going to seduce that guy, right out from under your ball-drawing nose, Wentz!”
“Fuck you, no you’re not,” Pete said, scrambling to his feet and taking Brendon, who was still kind of on his lap, with him. “You couldn’t seduce your mom!” That didn’t even make sense, but Brendon glared from behind Pete’s shoulder and nodded emphatically, because he was totally a good friend who had his buddy’s back.
“You wanna bet?” Gabe leered.
“You’re gonna seduce your mom? That’s gross!” Brendon said.
“Is Glenview, like, a school for special kids?” Brendon heard Beckett ask Vicky-T. Oh, hell no, it was so on.
“First one to seduce Patrick Stump wins,” Gabe said.
“Wins what?” Pete asked.
“Like, fucking honor, I don’t know,” Gabe said. “You besmirched my cobra, I’m retaliating here.”
“Fine, whatever. It’s a bet.” Pete looked furious when he shook Gabe’s hand. It made Brendon feel a little brave.
“Yeah,” he shouted. “And, and you know what? I challenge you to a cheer-off.”
“What the fuck’s a cheer-off?” Vicky-T said and blew smoke in his face. Oh my god, she was so badass and mean, Brendon was beginning to doubt the genius of this move.
“Half-time at the Cobra-Mongoose game, we’ll both do cheers,” Ashlee said, coming up behind him, because she was seriously the best girl ever and Brendon was sorry he ever hoped she’d get hit by a bus, like in Mean Girls. “And the best squad wins.”
“Wins what, honor?” Beckett demanded. “Because Gabe is all into that, and that’s cool for him, but I want some material compensation over here.”
“Losing head cheerleader steps down?” Brendon suggested, because, hello can you say ‘win-win?’
“Hell no,” Beckett said. “I was talking more, like, a couple hundred bucks.” Brendon drooped.
“Done,” Ashlee said and they shook on it.
“Alright, so you’ve been called out,” Gabe said, because apparently he was getting lonely without being the center of attention. “Cobras, let’s get out of here and go to my basement.” He gave the surrounding crowd what was maybe supposed to be a mysterious look but mostly just came off as creepy. “FANGS UP,” he yelled and all of them threw up some weird gang sign.
Brendon panicked. They had nothing to say to that! They didn’t do gang signs in Glenview!
Ashlee was totally on it though. She held up her hands like little mongoose paws and hissed and it was. Well, it was kind of hot? And it totally beat the Cobras and their stupid fang thing, which looked like baseball signals or sign language or some shit, Brendon didn’t even know. He couldn’t tell if the Cobras were intimidated, but they left, so he chose to call it a win.
“Dude,” he said in the silence that followed. “It is so totally on.”
* * *
“Hey! Hey, Patrick! Yo, Patrick Stump, man!”
Spencer poked Patrick hard in the ribs with one of his drumsticks but Patrick kept ignoring the ridiculous shouting spaz of a quarterback who was currently flinging himself at the railings separating the band’s section of the stadium seating from the field.
“PATRICK. TRICK. STUMPY. PATTYCAKES.”
Patrick cringed.
“Ah ha! Knew you could hear me. Listen, Patrick, wanna get some ice cream?”
“Um, there’s kind of a game going on right now and-”
“After, I mean after.” Pete Wentz was wearing more eyeliner than anyone in a sports uniform that Patrick had ever seen.
“Um, no, thanks, that’s okay.”
“No?” Pete looked confused. Patrick guessed he wasn’t used to hearing that word often. “Are. What? Are you sure?”
“Yeah. Yeah, I’m sure.” Patrick blushed slightly, aware that Spencer (and the rest of the percussion section, and the brass and half the offensive line, for fuck’s sake) was watching the whole exchange with interest.
“Well, here’s the deal, Trickster,” Pete said, propping his chin on the rail and shouting up to Patrick in the third row without apparent effort. “I’m all kinds of not okay with that answer. In fact, you’re kind of upsetting me. I think you’re throwing off my game. I think I’m going to go out there and suck. I may even get the shit kicked out of me. We’ll almost definitely lose.” He didn’t sound particularly concerned with this outcome.
“What makes you think I care?” asked Patrick blankly, but Pete Wentz, in typical jock fashion, ignored him.
“I am willing to let you reconsider your decision,” Pete said grandly and waved cheerfully as he put his helmet back on and took the field.
“What the fuck was that?” Patrick asked Spencer, still flustered.
“You either just got asked out or threatened,” Spencer mused.
“Coming from Pete Wentz, I don’t think there’s much of a difference. Anyway, it’s probably just some stupid football prank Iero put him up to,” Patrick shrugged.
“Yeah, he wouldn’t risk the game for something like that. Would he?”
Patrick just shrugged again and turned his attention back to the game, just in time for the snap. Pete received the ball and then just stood there. He caught Patrick’s eye and waved brightly just before he was hit, hard, from both sides at once, and went down. It took a few seconds, but Pete staggered back to his feet, rubbing his ribs.
“What the fuck,” Patrick yelped. Pete’s teammates seemed to be asking the same question. Gutierrez shoved him sharply and made some hand gestures that looked like they promised violence. Pete just shrugged and pointed out at Patrick, who pulled his hat down and slumped low in his seat. Gutierrez returned to the huddle, still gesticulating. There was now a large pile of bulky football players glaring at over at Patrick. Spencer shifted away - probably for his own safety, so Patrick could hardly blame him.
Pete Wentz, star quarterback and (apparently) sadist, blew him a kiss and called the play.
Patrick squirmed as Pete took hit after hit until the Glenview High Mongooses finally lost possession and Pete limped back over to the marching band.
“Dude,” Pete said, “for flying so far under the radar, you sure are pissing off a lot of people.”
Patrick sputtered and Pete just laughed, not quite full-bodied, as he still had an arm curled over his left side, but still completely cheerful. He was, Patrick thought for about the millionth time, completely insane. He made the mistake of looking over at the game and catching Bryar tackling a guy particularly violently. Whether Pete was insane or not, if the Mongooses lost this game Patrick was pretty sure it wasn’t Pete’s head that they were going to punt up and down the field. “Okay,” he sighed.
“What was that?” Pete hollered. “That fat dude sat on my head when he tackled me, I think I have grass in my ears.”
“Okay!” Patrick shouted, completely miserable. “Okay, you fix this and I’ll do whatever.”
“Whatever?” Pete leered and waggled his eyebrows. Patrick just glared and rolled his eyes. “You won’t be sorry!” Pete promised.
“I already am,” Patrick sighed to Spencer.
Pete Wentz went out and played the best game of his life after that, and Glenview crushed the Naperville Fighting Squirrels forty-four to ten.
Afterwards, Pete sauntered up to Patrick, all injuries apparently forgotten, still sweaty and still in uniform. His eyeliner was a little smudged, but still intact. “You’re like a little rabbit’s foot, dude,” he told Patrick, beaming. “I totally got lucky tonight.”
“You’re psychotic,” Patrick babbled, a little awed.
Pete grinned and shrugged. “So, ice cream? After I shower? I’m buying.”
“I said I would,” Patrick grumbled.
“Geez, you don’t have to sound so depressed about it,” Pete said, looking a little crestfallen.
Patrick felt himself relenting, but Spencer, still at his shoulder, said, “Seeing as he’s literally being forced to go with you against his will under pain of vicious jock-mauling, I think you should probably be a little more depressed about it.”
Pete eyed him narrowly but Spencer just rolled his eyes and cocked his hip. Pete’s face immediately lit up. “You’re Spencer Smith, aren’t you?” he said, delighted.
“Um, yes?”
Pete just cackled. “Oh man, oh man, you have to come too, seriously, please.”
Spencer gave Patrick a look that clearly said ‘this dude is creeping me out,’ which Patrick totally respected but he sent back a look that said ‘please, please, please come with me, he can’t rape us and eat us if we’re together!’ so Spencer sighed and said, “Fine, you freak.”
Pete grinned at them - a nice grin, for a complete psycho, Patrick thought - and walked away, saying, “Thanks, Smith! You just won me Walker’s undying love!”
Spencer immediately lost all composure. “Walker? Jon Walker? Oh god. He means scary, mouth-breathing Tracy Walker, right? Oh my god, right?”
“What the fuck,” was all Patrick could say.
*
Patrick listened to Spencer freak out for half an hour while they changed out of their band uniforms and waited for Pete. Spencer was, like, the most restrained, mature person Patrick knew, but only until someone mentioned Jon Walker, at which point he inevitably became a little girl. Patrick, who could really use calm-and-cool Spencer right now, didn’t find this nearly as funny as he usually did.
It only got worse when Jon Walker - not scary mouth-breathing Tracy Walker - came bounding up to them.
“Spencer Smith,” Jon said joyfully, and even Patrick found his slight lisp kind of unreasonably adorable. Even though he hated everything right then, he smiled. Spencer, on the other hand, froze up and started acting like a complete tool.
“Hey,” he said, staring out over the emptying stadium, at the scoreboard flickering off, at anything that wasn’t Jon Walker.
“Pete just texted me,” Jon said, not sounding perturbed. “He said you were coming tonight?”
Spencer just shrugged, so Patrick took pity on Jon and said, “Yeah, we are.”
“Oh, hey, you’re Patrick Stump, aren’t you?” He smiled and shook Patrick’s hand. “Marching band, jazz band and student activities council, right?”
“Uh, yeah. How-”
Jon grinned and held up the camera slung around his neck. “Yearbook photographer. Comprehensive lists of extracurriculars are my life.”
“Photographing the game?” Patrick asked politely.
Jon looked uncomfortable. “Um.”
Behind them there was a loud, braying laugh that Patrick recognized as Pete’s. “Dude, we’ll be lucky if there’s a single shot with the game even in the background,” he said.
“Shut up, I’m artistic,” Jon said and smiled, but Patrick could see a little bite to it that made him wonder what exactly the big deal was about the pictures.
Pete changed the subject, not so much, it seemed, because of the look on Jon’s face, but more because he forgot they’d even been having another conversation. “So, after every game we go out to the dairy bar and celebrate,” Pete said, like Patrick didn’t already know. “Just some guys on the team. A few friends, girlfriends, that kind of thing.”
“Why exactly-”
“Because I like you, Patrick Stump,” Pete grinned, without even waiting for the rest of the question.
“You don’t even know me,” Patrick protested.
“Yeah,” Pete agreed. “What up with that?”
*
They all ended up going in Tom Conrad’s car. He was a friend of Jon’s apparently, as well as a safety. Tom made easy conversation with Spencer while Jon tried to catch him off guard and make eye contact. He actually managed to make Spencer laugh a few times and he smiled like a fool all the way to the dairy bar.
Pete, Spencer and Patrick were all crammed in the backseat and Pete’s thigh was squished up against Patrick’s. He smelled like girl’s shampoo and grass and had no concept of personal space, his arm looped over Patrick’s shoulders, his hand touching Patrick’s knee, drumming contentedly. He was also talking a mile a minute and he was, well, he was kind of funny. And not nearly as stupid as Patrick thought he was.
Patrick felt more comfortable until they actually got to the dairy bar and he saw the parking lot full of football players and cheerleaders. Even Brendon Urie, the least intimidating human being ever, (he was still carrying his pompoms for fuck’s sake), looked menacing in a big enough group. Patrick tried to catch Spencer’s eye but Spencer was still staring at strange, unexciting objects to avoid looking at Jon. Useless.
“Are you sure this is a good idea?” he asked Pete.
“Absolutely,” Pete beamed and Patrick believed him for a second, in spite of himself, until Chris Gutierrez pulled him into a headlock.
He made a garbled sound and flailed ineffectually while Pete just stood by and laughed like a moron. Clearly, Pete just brought him here to watch Gutierrez kill him, Patrick realized, but then he registered that Gutierrez was laughing too.
“So I hear we owe you for that win,” he said, patting Patrick’s back in what was probably supposed to be a companionable way but still somehow felt violent to Patrick.
“Um?”
“Hell yeah you do,” Pete said. “Patrick here healed my broken heart and helped me find the strength to win.” Pete batted his eyelashes ridiculously at Patrick before adding, “even though he kind of broke it in the first place.”
“You’re a freak, Wentz,” Gutierrez said, though affectionately and added, “See you around, Stump” before leaping off to go abuse someone else.
Patrick had barely recovered before they were assaulted again, this time by Brendon Urie and a group of girls. Brendon let out a noise like a squeal when he saw Patrick and said, “I knew you could do it, Pete. Though my way was totally better, I had the dance choreographed and everything and-”
“I don’t think a song and dance number was the way to his heart, Bren,” Pete said and Patrick was kind of in agreement.
“It was ‘Take a Chance on Me!’” Brendon argued. “Perfect song! And dude, did you see Happy Feet? Dance is the language of love, Pete Wentz!”
“I think blackmail and vague threats worked just as well,” Pete shrugged. Patrick didn’t know if he was relieved at being spared the ABBA or horrified at the chosen alternative, so he diplomatically kept silent.
“Whatever, one day I’ll use those moves and win my own date with a musician.”
Patrick stared at Pete. “This is a date?” he squeaked. Pete just grinned.
“So,” Brendon said, grabbing Patrick by the arm. “These are my back-up girls.” He pointed at the other cheerleaders, all of whom were girls. “This is Dusty and Katie and Alicia. They’re all super-nice and make me look good. They are essential to my act,” he said seriously. One of the girls rolled her eyes but smiled at Patrick all the same. Patrick couldn’t tell if she was being friendly or trying to communicate her desire to roast him on a spit.
“You mean my act,” someone corrected from behind them.
It was like being attacked by a wolf pack, Patrick thought dizzily, but with pompoms.
“I’m the head cheerleader here, Urie.”
“You are a queen,” Brendon agreed, “and I am your king.”
“You’re a spaz,” the head cheerleader said and patted him fondly. Patrick thought he liked her. She was sassy but nice and she was funny. She wasn’t anything like what he’d expected.
The girl turned to him and said, “And is this the singer?”
“No, no,” Patrick said automatically. “I drum, actually. In the band.”
But Pete talked right over him, saying, “Yeah!” and beaming in his ridiculous way. “Patrick, this is Ashlee,” he said. “Ashlee, Patrick.”
“Well, Pete’s obviously half in love with you already,” Ashlee laughed, rolling her eyes. “He hasn’t talked about anything else for days. We had to use Brendon’s ABBA chorus line as a threat to get him to ask you to come tonight.”
“I, um.”
“Yeah,” Ashlee agreed, “I know. He’s insane, right?”
Pete just kept grinning.
Patrick ended up having a surprisingly good time. Brendon was funny if kind of spastic, and Ashlee was sharp and dry and Dusty and Katie were sweet. Even some of the football players, like Iero and Toro, were funny and actually nice once he got to talking with them. He was particularly shocked by Bryar, who wasn’t nearly as likely to crush Patrick’s skull with his fist as he looked.
And of course there was Pete. Pete was all over the place, being inappropriate with everyone and then immediately bounding back to Patrick like he was on a leash. His respect for personal space had not improved since the car ride and Patrick found himself nuzzled and molested in front of a dozen jocks and cheerleaders and he found that he didn’t even care that much. He had fun.
* * *
The same probably couldn’t be said for Spencer, who was immediately beset upon by Brendon Urie.
“This is Spencer?” Brendon immediately yowled, jumping at Spencer in what he seemed to think was a friendly way. Jon just laughed and nodded and Brendon went off. “Spencer, Spencer Smith, Spencer, you are so pretty, have you considered cheerleading? No, really, your hips, Spencer Smith. They would call us ‘the Mighty Dancing Mongooses now with 400% more hips’ because really, Spencer, hips! I have kind of some hips, right? Don’t you think? I think they would show up better if they let me wear a skirt but Principle Hurley said no. I was all, ‘what the hell, sir? Aren’t you all, like, against gender roles and stuff? You should be making me wear a skirt, to fight the cruel dictatorship of gender-specific fashion!’ And then he said that that was all cool, but he just didn’t want to see me in a skirt, thanks,” Brendon finished, frowning. Spencer opened his mouth tentatively, hoping to make his excuses before fleeing, but Brendon apparently was just stopping for breath. “But even in pants, even in pants, Spencer Smith, you are as pretty as a girl.”
“Yeah, um. Thanks?” Spencer said, trying to back out of Brendon’s death grip on his arm.
“Please, please.” Brendon’s eyes were bigger than normal eyes, right? It wasn’t just Spencer? “Please, let me do your hair.”
“What?” Spencer yelped.
“I promise, I promise it’ll be good. Please, I just want to try.” Brendon reached up a slow hand, looking awed, and Spencer slapped him away.
“I won’t forget your cruelty, Spencer Smith!” Brendon declared, but five minutes later he was talking Spencer’s ear off like they’d been best friends since kindergarten. Spencer found himself laughing, he couldn’t help it. Brendon was so earnest and, well, kind of sweet, but he could be mean and Spencer liked it. “And their head cheerleader, William Beckett, is only head cheerleader because he told everyone he was a girl! And, okay, fine, easy mistake to make, but the gig is up, Beckett, you know? And he’s still head cheerleader! If he is, I should be too, you know? He’s all tall and gangly, and I’m pocket-sized and adorable. They would sell action figures of me, that’s how good a head cheerleader I’d be. I would take Beckett down in a slap fight, you know I would.”
“He’d have a serious height advantage on you, but I’ve seen you kick,” Spencer agreed and smiled. He heard a click from his left and looked over at Jon, startled. He’d almost forgotten he was there, much less that he had a camera, which was still pointed at Spencer.
“Don’t mind me,” he smiled, “I’m just documenting,” and he snapped another picture of Spencer.
Don’t be desperate, Spencer reminded himself. Throwing himself on Jon because he was all artsy and adorable was desperate. Definitely desperate. He frowned to keep from getting his face stuck in what Ryan called his ‘tool smile.’
So, yeah, fine, Spencer had a good time too. But it wasn’t like he was admitting it to anyone.
He definitely didn’t admit it to Jon, who walked him over to his car after Tom dropped them all off at the school.
“So,” Spencer said, awkwardly.
“So?” Jon repeated, smiling lazily, like he was always this happy, all the time. Spencer willed his stomach to stop squirming giddily.
“So, Pete is kind of a spaz,” Spencer said finally. Pete was a safe topic. He could talk about Pete and manage to avoid saying anything embarrassing, like ‘Jon, I’m in love with you and want to adopt China babies with you.’
Jon threw back his head and laughed. “Yeah, he really kind of is. He’s not usually this bad though. He’s seriously into your friend Patrick.”
“Why?” Spencer asked. “Not that Patrick’s not great or anything, just… why?”
“Beats me,” Jon shrugged. “Patrick’s a cool dude and all, but he’s no Spencer Smith.”
Spencer felt warmth rocket through his skin and knew he was blushing. He pretended to dig around for his keys so he could smile once, really hard, into his shoulder.
“So, do you want to get coffee sometime?” Jon said. “I’m working a shift tomorrow afternoon and I can totally get you free coffee.” Spencer had to literally bite his tongue to keep from saying, ‘I know.’ Jon was still smiling at him and he was beginning to get light-headed. “Seriously,” Jon said, “All-you-can-drink extra hot vanilla lattes with nutmeg sprinkles and a little bit of caramel.”
“You know my coffee order?” Spencer said, and then he lost control, he fucking beamed at Jon.
“I have spies, Spencer,” Jon said seriously. “Watching your every move, noting your every beverage choice.”
Spencer laughed, he couldn’t help it. “What for?”
“I’m compiling a list of things that make you smile,” Jon said and Spencer nearly died.
“How do you even exist?” he demanded.
Jon just laughed and shrugged and said, “So, coffee? Tomorrow?”
Ryan would totally not approve. Ryan would dump Spencer as a best friend and would start hanging out with Pete Wentz and would keep inflating his ego until the entire school exploded. There was no way Spencer could have coffee with Jon Walker; it was unethical.
“Sorry, I don’t think so,” he said.
“But,” Jon said. “Hey, no. Hey. I made you smile, I made you do the special smile! Don’t I get anything for that?”
“Please,” Spencer replied. “Retarded puppies make me smile. Brendon makes me smile. And I’m hardly going out for coffee with either of them.”
“Free latte,” Jon said, slightly sneaky. “Free lattes, Spencer Smith. Whenever you want them. No, seriously, I’m the shift manager, I’ll put up pictures of your face and my people will be hunting you down in the streets to give you free coffee.”
Spencer forgot not to laugh. “That’s a little terrifying, actually.”
“Think about it, Spence, I’d be your coffee slave.”
Spencer did think about it, and, awesome as it sounded, he also thought about Ryan’s advice. Flinging himself on Jon just because the guy promised him a few free coffees was a little too desperate, wasn’t it? Maybe? So he smiled and said, “I’m trying to cut back on my caffeine intake,” and flounced away.
Once his back was turned, he started grinning his stupid face off. Jon Walker, he thought to himself, seriously, Jon fucking Walker. Oh my god, Spencer was the biggest tool ever.
* * *
PART TWO