Bandfic: Self-Indulgent Bandom Future!Fic, cont. (14-17)
Title: Snapshots from a Possible Future [14-17]
Author: tigs
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: Don't know or own.
Author's Notes: I'm sort of thinking as this as the beginning of arc two of the story. I teased part 14 in my journal a few weeks ago, so if it looks familiar, that's why. The rest of it is new! Promise! Many thanks, as always, to amy13 for reading these through and letting me write them at her. All remaining errors are my own.
14. The Idea
Frank takes a bite of his veggie burger, and then, in the midst of chewing, says, "So I joined a bowling team." He's sitting forward, elbows on the table, and as Patrick raises an eyebrow in his direction, he puts his burger down and picks up his Pepsi, smirking around the lip of the glass.
"We're the Bendy Buccaneers," Frank continues, putting his glass back down and picking his burger up again, taking another bite, then just holding it. "We have matching shirts and everything: pink, with skulls and crossbones embroidered under our names. They're pretty awesome."
"Uh huh," Patrick says slowly, running one of his fries through a small mountain of ketchup.
They're at a diner-type place not too far from his studio, but it's still early enough-it's only about 4:30-that the dinner rush hasn't started yet. There's an elderly couple sitting in a booth by the window, some kids drinking milkshakes at the counter, and Patrick and Frank are sitting at a table off to the side of the room, near the doors to the kitchen. The six of them, that's it. In another two hours, though, Patrick knows the line will be out the door.
After eating his fry, he grins at Frank. "Dare I ask who your fellow Bendy Buccaneers are? Jamia, Karen?"
Frank just grins more widely, shaking his head.
"Its sort of like a Bend Street Merchant's team, actually. There's me, obviously, and Eduardo, the guy who owns that Mexican place I took you to? Then there's the guy who owns the bookstore next to us. His name is Herbert. Herbert von Schnickle, and he has a goatee." At this, Frank pinches the air by his upper lip, miming the twirling of said goatee. "And for our fourth, we totally pulled off a coup. Get this: the kid who works at the coffee place on the corner? He's member of the UC Riverside collegiate bowling team. And we totally stole him away from the Black Basalts. They're a group of professors from the school's geology department."
"Uh *huh*," Patrick says again, then picks another fry up off of his plate and bites it in half.
"I know, right?" Frank says. He's dismembering his veggie burger now, Patrick sees, tearing the bun into smaller pieces, then the lettuce. He's already eaten the tomato, thankfully, or Patrick might have to worry about ducking out of the way of squirting juice. "He actually has a bowling class on his *schedule*. I keep telling him, like, dude, where were the bowling classes when I was in school?"
"So what?" Patrick asks. "This is a once a week thing? You compete against other teams?"
Frank nods, then pops a bit of the bun into his mouth. "Monday nights, eight o'clock." He bites into a strip of lettuce then, chewing it almost thoughtfully. "They turn on the disco lights at nine, start playing this totally retro music, and you know, you really haven't lived until you've seen the biker dude in the lane next to you do the electric slide during his approach, complete with shoulder shimmies, and somehow *still* manage to get a strike!"
Patrick laughs at that, his head falling back. "That sounds like a Pete thing to do. Rock 'n Bowl, disco balls, flashing neon lights… I don't know how many times he dragged me out there with him."
More times than Patrick could possibly count, actually: way back in Chicago, years and years ago, all of them too hopped up on adrenaline to go straight back to their houses after a show; later, when they were out on the road, after too many night spent away from home, all of them needing something (anything) familiar.
"It's awesome," Frank says. "Fuck, Ray. Ray used to *love* the bowling. He had his own ball and everything, some giant thing that I could barely lift, you know? And Gerard and Mikey and I would be using, like, the 12 pound balls-the ones that were fucking pink and orange and yellow and shit-and we'd be lobbing them down the lanes, and there he'd be with his smooth rolling and his perfect form…"
"Disgusting," Patrick says, and Frank nods, scrunching up his nose.
"Yeah, exactly. On the plus side, though, I'm actually getting better. I broke 120 yesterday, and that's a first." He wipes his fingers on the napkin beside his plate, then holds his hand up for Patrick to slap, so Patrick does.
"Somehow I would have thought Jamia would have been into the bowling, too," Patrick says after a moment, and Frank shakes his head, sadly.
"Oh, she bowls. She's better than I am, actually, but she's the one who said I needed an extra-curricular activity. Apparently she *doesn't* want me hanging about the store at all hours. She says I'm a distracting influence."
Again, Patrick laughs. "Gee, I can't imagine why."
Frank, of course, is doing his best to look innocent, wide eyes and open smile, but Patrick has known Frank for too long to be fooled for even one moment. He just stares until Frank ducks his head and says, "Oh, shut up."
"But the store is going well?" Patrick asks after a moment, and Frank's grin widens.
"Yeah, yeah," he says, "it's great," and just like that, he's off: telling about the three kids from UC Riverside they've hired, about what the first item they sold was, about how they're already working with some other independent retailers in the area, carrying some of their products, soaps and perfumes and jewelry, in exchange for their stores carrying some of the staples of Jamia's clothing line.
"It'll take a little while for us to turn a profit," Frank says, "but we're already doing better than we expected we'd be doing, and, you know, we're already building up repeat clientele, so that pretty much kicks ass."
Patrick nods, then picks his own glass of Diet Pepsi up off of the table, sips at it. He remembers Pete opening up his clothing stores, the Clandestine outlets, but at the same time, it had been different; Pete had always had people to run the stores for him. He'd never had to work the counter, take care of inventory, do the daily grind.
"But we're pretty much off the ground now," Frank says, "and Jai is starting to drop even less subtle hints that I don't need to be there every hour of every day. So now I'm trying to entertain myself."
Which was also the reason he called Patrick up that morning, an hour or so after Patrick made it into the studio, and said, "So, Stump, the wife is kicking me out of the store today. What do you say to an early dinner?"
He glances down at his plate again now, though, picking up a piece of bun that's still large enough to be torn into even smaller bits. Then he looks back up at Patrick, a sudden gesture.
"Actually, I was going to ask you, um, if you might be interested in jamming sometime. You know, just fooling around on the guitars. I know you're busy and all, but. I don't know that many people here yet, and my fingers are getting itchy, dude, and I-"
He trails off, and Patrick swallows and thinks back to his recent sessions with Spencer and Brendon and Adam, the apparent itchiness in his own fingers, and he says, "Yeah, yeah. That would be-sometime, yeah, we definitely should."
Frank's grin pretty much splits his face.
15. The Question
The last track finishes and for a second there is silence, but it only lasts for a moment, a breath, then Casey, the lead singer of Last Bastion, is launching herself at her drummer, wrapping her arms tightly around him. Patrick watches as she smacks a kiss to his cheek, then pulls back far enough to open her arms for the rest of the band. They become pretty much a lump, all of them wound together, and Patrick may or may not hear sniffling and wet-sounding whispers.
"-did it, did it, did it-" Casey keeps saying, her voice cracking every other word, and it's such a change from several weeks ago. Patrick infinitely prefers this part of the recording process, the feeling of having accomplished something that they're all proud of.
"It almost makes the screaming and shouting and the endless repeats of 'fuck you' worth it, doesn't it?" Amanda asks softly. She's sitting in the chair next to Patrick. They'd let Last Bastion have the loveseat, the comfortable armchairs, the four of them all pressed as close to possible together, holding hands for the 49 minutes and 42 seconds their album played.
"Yeah," Patrick says, and his voice draws Casey's attention, apparently, because it's just a moment longer before she disentangles herself from her band mates and throws herself in Patrick's direction.
Her bangs, dyed blue this week, are hanging down over her eyes, but before she buries her face against his neck, he sees a flash of smile-wide, uncontrolled-and then she saying, "Thank you, thank you, fuck, fuck, thank *you*," and Patrick is awkwardly patting her back, Amanda not even trying to hide her giggles beside him.
"Yeah, yeah," the drummer says, standing up from the loveseat. "Thank you, dude." Then, "Dudes, dudes, fuck! We've got to go celebrate! Because we're fucking done!" And that seems to be the magic word, because three minutes later, Patrick finds himself alone in the room with Amanda, who is still looking far too fucking amused.
"Oh, Patrick," she coos after the door is shut behind the group. "Thank you! Thank you for making us sound like we haven't spent the last two months screaming obscenities at each other!" She bats her eyes in Patrick's direction, twirling one of her braids around the tip of her finger, as she does it, and Patrick has no choice but to respond with, "Oh shut up."
Amanda leans back in her chair then, giggles settling into a large grin, and Patrick rolls his eyes.
"You know, this whole ordeal would have been easier," Amanda says, "if they weren't so fucking catchy."
"They wouldn't have stayed beyond the first day if their music wasn't so fucking catchy," Patrick says, because no matter how many headaches they've caused him since they first walked into his studio, there's a reason he agreed to work with them. There's a reason he *didn't* kick them out weeks and weeks ago.
"And now we're done," Amanda says, and Patrick nods.
Just then, there's a knock on the door of the room, and he looks up to see Adam standing outside, his knuckles still tentatively raised. Patrick motions him in, and watches as Adam opens the door. He steps inside, far enough to let it close behind him, but doesn't come any further.
"So, I just saw Last Bastion leaving the building," he says, and Amanda says, "Never to return. Until they want our very own P. Stump to produce the follow-up to their multi-platinum major label debut, anyway."
Patrick ducks his head at that, attempts to brush Amanda's words away with his hand, but she just reaches over and pulls his hat up off of his forehead, which changes the motion into a quick (and unsuccessful) grab.
"Fuck," Patrick says, once he finally has the hat back in his possession again, jammed firmly back over his head. "Why do I keep you around again?"
"Because your master recordings would be hopelessly muddled without me?" Amanda asks, attempting to look innocent, and Patrick just sighs, rolling his eyes in Adam's direction, as if to say, 'see what I put up with on a daily basis?'
Adam, the fucker, just grins.
"So Jacobson," Amanda says. "I was just about to suggest that Stump and I take a page from the Last Bastion handbook and go celebrate. You in? You certainly put in your time on this album, too."
Piano on four songs, cymbals on a fifth, and earlier in the week, Patrick heard Casey asking her drummer if he thought they should maybe ask Adam to come out with them, be a tech, do parts on stage that they needed him to do. He hadn't heard the drummer's answer, but he knows that it'd probably be a whole lot more fulfilling for Adam than the work he's been doing for the new age album Gary's been producing, playing repetitive meditation-inducing chords on the piano for days on end.
Adam blinks, then grins and nods, pushing his bangs away from his face. "Yeah," he says. "Yeah, sure. Just let me grab my- I mean, now?"
Amanda stands up, extending a hand to Patrick to pull him up, and she says, "Hell yeah. Didn't you hear? We're done, and I, personally, am voting for imbibing serious quantities of alcohol. Before dinner, even."
She hooks her elbow around Adam's arm as she opens the door, leading him back out into the hallway, then glances back over her shoulder at Patrick, saying, "Come on, Stump. We've got serious business to attend to."
*
Two hours later, though, Patrick finds himself nursing a beer. His third, to Adam's four, to Amanda's three vodka tonics, but she's only spent a few minutes at their table, since when they walked into the bar-her regular-she immediately spotted maybe five people she knew.
There were introductions, of course, and Patrick had ended up talking with one of the girls for fifteen minutes about her experiences mixing sound at one of the venues downtown, but now he and Adam are camped out at a table off to the side of the room, and he's feeling pretty fucking relaxed, actually, for the first time in quite awhile.
"We’re almost done with the new Astra album," Adam says. "Thank god. Though she does know what she's talking about with her relaxation-fueling chords; I've nearly gone to sleep in there so many fucking times, the past three days."
"Better you than me," Patrick says, because yeah. The new age stuff sells well, and Gary likes the soothing nature of it, but give Patrick a good guitar riff anytime, one that will make you sit up in your chair, wide awake.
"Ha, yeah," Adam says. He empties his beer bottle, then pushes it towards the edge of the table. "New age shit, though, not really my forte. I'm more of a… I like to do the head banging, you know?"
Patrick does, oh he does. He likes his hip hop and his R&B, his pop and his punk, his pop punk, but there are times when he just wants to lose himself in the chords and lines and riffs which pulse through his blood, body curved around the guitar, drawing the notes out with his fingers.
He runs his finger up the outside of his pint glass, condensation making his finger slick, then back down again, creating a winding maze of a line. There's silence for a moment, before he says, "Hey, listen. My friend Frank-Iero, from My Chemical Romance. You know him, right? Well, he just moved to the area, and he's sort of driving his wife nuts hanging around at their store all day, and we were thinking of getting together and jamming sometime." He pauses, then smiles, just a little. "Knowing him, there will probably be lots of head banging. Possibly climbing, too, onto, like, the fucking amp or something. Would you maybe want to join us?"
Adam opens his mouth just a little, then swallows and says, "Yeah, yeah. Fuck, that'd be, well, pretty fucking awesome, actually," and he's grinning, maybe a little helplessly, and Patrick almost wants to laugh at his expression. Instead he just says, "Okay then." He nods once, then brings his glass to his mouth, finishing it with one large swig. He sets it back down. "Okay, so. I'll let you know."
16. The Unexpected Visitor
Four o'clock on a Saturday afternoon, and Patrick's been curled up on his couch for the last half hour, making his way through the latest batch of comic books Gerard had told him he had read. "Good stuff, Stump," he'd said. "And *fuck*, some of the *illustrations*."
Which is to say, he's not expecting company.
Which is to say, he's surprised when he doorbell sounds, the fucking *gongs* that Pete got him once upon a time, a groundhogs day gift, and hired someone to install before Patrick could actually say the 'no, fucking no, Wentz, did you hear me? No!' that was echoing in his head. Especially since they're fucking loud-so loud he can hear them back in his bedroom, to which Pete said, "You sleep like a fucking log, you fucker, and damned if I'm going to stand on your fucking porch while you get your beauty sleep."
If they're loud in Patrick's bedroom, though, they're deafening in the living room, and Patrick pretty much jumps every time they sound. Luckily, he's usually the only one around to see himself jump, thus saving him from endless mocking, but *still*.
This time, his fingers slip on the pages of the comic book, tugging at them, luckily not hard enough to tear the paper, and he glares at the door for a second before closing the book and setting it coffee table, on top of the stack that he's already worked his way through that afternoon. He wipes his hands on his jeans, tugs at the bill of his hat, then stands up from the couch and makes his way to the door, peering through the peephole and seeing the distorted face of Spencer Smith.
Patrick opens the door, and indeed, Spencer is standing there, looking rather bored, arms crossed over his chest, plastic bag gripped in his hand. He grins at Patrick, though, and says, "So I was in the neighborhood." Because that's how half the conversations Patrick has these days seem to start, he's decided. Before Patrick can say, 'I can see that', Spencer holds out the plastic bag in Patrick's direction, and says, "I also come bearing gifts, compliments of one Jon Walker."
Patrick takes a bag, already peering inside, even as he steps back away from the door, motioning Spencer in. Spencer follows, then shuts the door himself, watching Patrick pull the hat out of the bag. It's dark blue, 'Tommy Walker's' embroidered on the front in silver thread, the outline of a beer mug behind it, and Patrick grins.
"So Jon's gone into the bar merchandise business?"
"Blame Pete," Spencer says, and indeed, when Patrick looks inside the hat, he sees the Clandestine Industry logo, the Bartskull. "He could hardly let one of us start a new venture without commemorating it with a clothing line, now could he?"
"Ha, yeah," Patrick says, laughing, nodding his agreement. He's pretty sure that the only reason Pete didn't try to make t-shirts for Patrick's studio was, well, because Patrick *had* actually gotten his 'no, *fuck* no,' out that time, before it was too late.
Besides, it wasn't like Pete hadn't made Patrick more personalized t-shirts and hats than he could wear in a lifetime already.
"Jon sent Brendon and I a whole box of stuff to split up," Spencer continues, "but since I knew I was coming out here this week, I figured I'd bring one of the hats to you."
Patrick reaches up to pull the hat he's wearing off, pulling the new one on in its place. Spencer crosses his arms over his chest as he studies Patrick, then nods, a 'that'll do' gesture.
"So why are you here?" Patrick asks. "If you don’t mind me asking, that is."
Spencer rolls his eyes. "No, you can't ask, despite the fact that I just showed up on your *doorstep* out of nowhere," he says. "Right."
It's Patrick's turn to roll his own eyes.
"I'm actually here apartment hunting," Spencer says a moment later. "Something with a monthly lease. Because, no matter many times as Ryan's said I can stay in his guest room while I'm out here working with the Sweet Midori kid, there's a difference between staying in someone else's space for a few nights and living there for a few weeks. I've lived in Ryan Ross' space enough for one lifetime, I think we'd both agree."
Patrick totally understands. It's one thing to spend the night on Pete's couch a couple of times a year, or to have Pete crashing in Patrick's guest room over the Fourth of July. It's another thing all together to imagine doing it for a longer period of time. Like, say, a month. Or longer.
He can't even imagine getting back on a bus again, living in such close quarters for more than a few hours with anyone anymore.
Well, most of the time.
"And have you found someplace?" Patrick asks, leading Spencer farther into the house, into the living room, motions for Spencer to sit. Spencer does, taking one of the over-stuffed armchairs, and Patrick takes his spot on the couch again.
He sees Spencer eyeing the comic books, smirking maybe just a little, but it's not like Spencer hadn't spent enough time on the Fall Out Boy bus over the years. He knows what sorts of reading material they kept around.
Spencer doesn't say anything, though. He just shrugs and says, "Eh. There are a few possibilities, but nothing that, you know-" He waves his hand around a little bit. "On the other hand, its only going to be for what, a month? I can deal."
"Actually," Spencer continues before Patrick can comment, "what I can't deal with is the realtor that Ryan picked out. She's really fucking perky, okay, and, like, the places I'm looking at aren't holes, right, because I'm not a struggling artist, but oh my god, you'd think she was showing me around a fucking mansion with two pools and six baths and, like, a sun porch, rather than a one bedroom that comes equipped with it's own washer and dryer. Apparently Keltie knows her from the gym and she had another three places on the list for today, but I said that I had a very important meeting that I just had to get to, and-"
"And here you are," Patrick says.
"Here I am," Spencer says. "Having a very important meeting that, most importantly, means I am not looking at charming green tile, or whatever it was she said was coming up in the next place. To which I did not say, 'Seriously? Green?'"
"Because green is always charming," Patrick says.
"Oh, yes," Spencer says. "Always."
Six months ago, Patrick thinks, it would have felt really fucking weird to have Spencer Smith sitting in his living room like this, mostly because it wasn't something that he ever would have anticipated. Not without the excuse of a DecayDance party. Not without Ryan at Spencer's shoulder, poking at the conversation, keeping it going.
Spencer's looking comfortable, though, like he's actually been here before, when in reality Patrick's pretty sure he hasn't, and right now he's looking around the room, smiling a bit every time he recognizes a piece of memorabilia: a photograph, a set of drumsticks, a framed guitar pick.
Patrick can see the moment that Spencer spots Patrick's guitar case, though, sitting on the floor on the far side of the living room, near the speakers, and he turns to Patrick, raising an eyebrow, giving him a questioning look. Patrick glances down at his knees for a moment, feeling just a little embarrassed. Why, he doesn't know, because there is no one in the world who would be surprised that he, of all people, had a guitar sitting out on his *floor* for fucks sake, but.
But: in four days, Frank and Adam will be in Patrick's basement music room, the three of them playing, well, *something*, and-
And this is not Patrick hijacking Spencer's drum lesson, or him joining Spencer and Brendon and Pete on the stage at Jon's bar. This is something entirely different and. Well.
"I told you that Frank Iero was in town, right? When I was in Vegas?"
Spencer nods, smirking just a little, and Patrick remembers the conversation, too: Brendon saying that LA was turning into the place to be, and what had happened to Chicago being the center of the band world, huh? About how his world view was totally out of alignment now, thank you very much, Stump, and he wasn't sure how he was ever going to recover, etcetera, etcetera, on and on, until Spencer said, "Somehow, Brendon, I think you will survive."
"We're going to jam later this week," he continues. "The two of us and this kid from my studio, Adam, who plays the bass."
"Frank's going to play lead?" Spencer asks, and Patrick nods, because there's no question as to who will be doing the singing, and singing and lead guitar are not the most compatible combination.
"That should be fun," Spencer says, and his voice is dry, but he's not sounding sarcastic at all. It's more of just a statement of fact.
Patrick thinks about giving excuses: Jamia wanting to get Frank out of her hair for a few hours, how it's just for fun, maybe just a one-off, a way to pass the evening.
Instead he just says, "Hopefully, yeah. It should be."
17. The Session
The sound of gongs again, after dinner this time, and when Patrick peers through the peephole he sees Frank making a face at him: nose scrunched up, tongue lolling out the side of his mouth. Patrick's rolling his eyes as he opens the door, but by the time they're face-to-face, Frank is grinning really fucking widely, showing pretty much all his teeth.
"Hi," Frank says. He's got his guitar case in his hand and he holds it up so that Patrick can see the well-worn leather: parts of it covered with stickers, others painted white and illustrated with sharpie drawings of zombies and vampires-Gerard's influence, Patrick is sure-the edges scuffed and scratched.
"Hi," Patrick says. "Come on in. You're a little early."
"Yeah," Frank says. "I told Jai I'd have plenty of time if I left at six, you know, but she said, no, babe, you should actually try to drive within the speed limit this time, and because she was *glaring*, I grabbed my keys and left. And here I am."
"Early," Patrick says, and Frank nods, looking rather put-upon.
"But this way you have time to give me the grand tour!" Frank says. "Or at the very least, show me where I can plug this baby in." He swings his guitar case forward, and Patrick steps back, out of the way, letting the momentum carry Frank over the threshold.
In the grand scale of Los Angeles houses, Patrick's is not overly large. Two stories and a basement, three bedrooms, one of which Patrick's turned into a studio. It's in a neighborhood where you pay more for the property than the actual building, though, which means he has a lot of space between him and his neighbors, a small measure of privacy.
Frank's nodding his head as he looks around the living room, much like Spencer did a few days before. He doesn't stop at the over-stuffed chair, though. No, he just keeps walking, heading towards the kitchen, and Patrick's really fucking glad he had the maid come today, so that the house is in some semblance of an order. There are still sheets of notepaper scattered around, of course, and there's a set of bongo drums on the dining room table, and a few open packages of guitar strings on his second armchair, but mostly it's okay. Not something he's embarrassed to show off. And besides, it's not like Frank hadn't heard tales of Patrick's less-than-neat-nick lifestyle from Bob, way back when.
"I have my stuff set up in the basement," Patrick says after Frank has spent a few minutes exploring, and he points towards a door underneath the staircase, angled, painted to blend in with the wall. That's where the soundproofing is, the amps and the drums and all of Patrick's guitars.
"Will we be able to hear the kid if we head on down there?" Frank asks and Patrick just raises an eyebrow, looking at the gongs hanging on the wall in his foyer, and even though Frank was nice enough not to comment on it when he came in, the gongs are *really fucking loud*.
"Yeah," Frank says, flashing Patrick a grin. "Of course we will."
He reaches the door first, Patrick just a few steps behind, and Patrick lets him lead the way down the stairs to the basement, too. Frank sort of laughs when he sees it, and looks back up at Patrick, his eyes bright.
"I'm thinking you had fun with the decorating?"
The walls are all different colors: one red, one black, one white, one green, with buckets of paint splashed across them, drips falling wherever they landed. It was Joe's idea, but Pete agreed, talking about artistic juices and Andy said something about creativity begetting more creativity, and they spent a weekend together, the four of them, painting.
Granted, they were all pretty much red and green and blue by the end of the weekend, but still, the room was done, and Patrick pretty much loves it.
"Blame Joe," Patrick says, and Frank nods, looking absolutely entranced. "If you ever show this to Gerard, I'll bet you money he does something like it, too. Like, in his dining room or something. Red walls, black paint splatters to represent something or other. It would be totally him."
"And how would Lyn-Z feel about that?" Patrick asks, and Frank just keeps grinning.
"Oh, she'd be the one tossing the buckets of paint at the wall!"
Patrick points Frank in the direction of the amps and sits down on the stool of his drum kit, watching as Frank gets everything plugged in, as he starts to tune. It's not a guitar that Patrick's seen before: not the black one with the ever-changing saying, or the brilliant white one. This one is checkerboard-patterned, red and white, and in comparison, Patrick's black and white Trohman-special looks positively boring. He's about to say something to this effect when the doorbell sounds from above, and Frank laughs.
"Yeah, okay. I think you'd pretty much have to be in Timbuktu to not hear that."
"I'm pretty sure that was Pete's intention," Patrick says as he stands, heads back upstairs to the front door. He checks through the peephole-because the one time he doesn't will be the one time it's not whomever he's expecting-and indeed, Adam is standing on the other side of the door. Unlike Frank, though, he's not making a face, not already smiling. Instead he's staring down at the ground, and he only glances up once Patrick actually opens the door. Even then, though, his smile is tight, almost nervous.
"Hey," Adam says as he steps inside. "So, uh, sorry if I'm late. I see another car out front so I'm guessing that Frank is already-"
"Frank drives like a bat out of hell," Patrick interrups. "He was early. You're actually right on time." He shuts the door and points in the direction of the basement. "Frank's already down there setting up, if you want to head on down."
Adam nods, but he doesn't move for a moment, and when Patrick glances at him, he thinks Adam's looking a little wide-eyed, maybe a little nervous in a way that he hasn't since the first time he and Patrick played together.
"Come on," Patrick says, trying to hide his smile. "Let's head on down."
He steps around Adam, leading the way to the basement door, then down the stairs, Adam following only a step behind. Frank's already playing, leaning against one of the amps, fingers picking out staccato notes, sharp and precise, then pausing to tighten a string, before he plays the same notes over again, this time looking up at them.
Adam sort of hesitates on the bottom step, but Patrick doesn't think Frank notices. Mostly because Frank is walking straight towards him, hand already extended.
"Hey," he says, clasping Adam's own (more hesitantly) outstretched hand and pumping it a few times. "Frank Iero. So you're the kid Patrick's been talking about, huh? He's spoken pretty highly of you."
Adam flushes, Patrick can see it, so he says, "Adam" Then, once Frank is looking at him, he continues. "Adam Jacobson. You'll hear him playing keyboard on the first Last Bastion of Sanity single."
"So in other words, you had a front row seat for all of the shenanigans I heard about?" Frank asks and Adam's still looking a little wide-eyed, but he also nods, says, "Yeah, ha. Yeah, I did."
"And you play keyboard?" Frank asks, eyeing the guitar case that Adam's still holding. "Are you another one of these little musical genius kids who plays, like, eight instruments and sings and shit?"
Adam opens his mouth slightly, then swallows and says, "Nah, no. No, just, uh. Keyboard and bass. And singing, yeah, no."
"Don't forget the occasional cymbal," Patrick says. "He did those for Last Bastion, too. And for the last few weeks he's been helping out on this new age album that Gary's working on. The triangle and chimes and the same fucking chords on the piano over and over again."
"But bass is what I started out on," Adam says, almost defiantly, like he's trying to prove himself to Frank, and Frank maybe sees it too, because he says, grin wide, friendly, "Well that works out well for us, doesn't it?" With that, Frank strums his fingers over his guitar, a sharp riff, and says, "So, should we get started?"
Patrick nods, going over to the corner where his own guitar is propped on its stand, and motions Adam in the direction of the amps, bending down to plug his own guitar in at the same time. For a few minutes, then, it's a cacophony of notes as they all start tuning at the same time-Frank's riffs and slides, to Adam's plucked notes, to Patrick running through a few scales.
Frank, of course, is the first one to stop, to bounce up on the balls of his feet and say, "So?"
Patrick glances at Adam, who nods, then back at Frank, saying, "Well? What are we playing?"
Frank sort of tips his head to the side, bites at his bottom lip, then grins widely, starting in on a *very* familiar refrain, singing "Dance, dance, we're falling apart to half time" completely off-key, and Patrick raises his right hand, scratching his nose with his middle finger. Then, while Frank is still cackling, *he* starts playing, skipping straight to the last chorus, singing, "I'm not okay, I'm not okay, I'm not o-fucking-kay…"
"Fuck you," Frank says, still laughing. Then, "I think you're scarring the kid, Stump. You're probably, like, totally mature and boss-like at the studio, right, and here you are, mocking our breakout hit, and-"
"And what, you weren't mocking ours?"
"Well, yeah," Frank says, "but I'm not the *boss* here, right? I'm allowed, right, AJ?"
And Adam, who had had his mouth open, maybe to jump into the conversation, possibly to defend Patrick-or at least Patrick would like to think so-snaps his mouth shut again. So Patrick rolls his eyes and says, "So, what? We're going to spend the night replaying our greatest hits?"
"Nah," Frank says. "That's boring. I don't know. How about-" Again he starts playing, one of the bigger harder rock songs from the year before, something with a lot of guitar. He plays the intro, one eyebrow raised in a challenge, and Patrick answers by picking up where he leaves off, starting in on the first verse, and Frank's grin turns a little maniacal. He joins Patrick a few stanzas later, and they sort of play at each other, back and forth for a few lines, until they hit the chorus, and then Adam joins them, the notes just a little shy, but when Patrick looks over at him, to nod encouragingly, Adam's smiling at them, just a little.
Frank, however, is grinning more, saying, "Yeah, yeah, come on."
He actually moves away from Patrick and into Adam's space, rather like he used to on stage with Gerard and Ray and Mikey, and Patrick watches Adam, wondering if he'll back up, if this will throw him off, but amazingly enough, he actually starts looking more relaxed, shoulders slumping, fingers moving more confidently over the strings.
Then, *then*, Adam actually takes a step into Frank's space, close enough that their fingers are just inches apart, and when Frank backs up a step, a sort of 'come hither' tease, Adam follows, a few steps, then a few more, before he breaks away and starts playing at Patrick.
Patrick grins, on the verge of losing himself in the music, but before he does, he looks over Adam's shoulder and sees Frank nodding, smiling, mouthing, "Yeah. Fuck, yeah."
Continued
Author: tigs
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: Don't know or own.
Author's Notes: I'm sort of thinking as this as the beginning of arc two of the story. I teased part 14 in my journal a few weeks ago, so if it looks familiar, that's why. The rest of it is new! Promise! Many thanks, as always, to amy13 for reading these through and letting me write them at her. All remaining errors are my own.
14. The Idea
Frank takes a bite of his veggie burger, and then, in the midst of chewing, says, "So I joined a bowling team." He's sitting forward, elbows on the table, and as Patrick raises an eyebrow in his direction, he puts his burger down and picks up his Pepsi, smirking around the lip of the glass.
"We're the Bendy Buccaneers," Frank continues, putting his glass back down and picking his burger up again, taking another bite, then just holding it. "We have matching shirts and everything: pink, with skulls and crossbones embroidered under our names. They're pretty awesome."
"Uh huh," Patrick says slowly, running one of his fries through a small mountain of ketchup.
They're at a diner-type place not too far from his studio, but it's still early enough-it's only about 4:30-that the dinner rush hasn't started yet. There's an elderly couple sitting in a booth by the window, some kids drinking milkshakes at the counter, and Patrick and Frank are sitting at a table off to the side of the room, near the doors to the kitchen. The six of them, that's it. In another two hours, though, Patrick knows the line will be out the door.
After eating his fry, he grins at Frank. "Dare I ask who your fellow Bendy Buccaneers are? Jamia, Karen?"
Frank just grins more widely, shaking his head.
"Its sort of like a Bend Street Merchant's team, actually. There's me, obviously, and Eduardo, the guy who owns that Mexican place I took you to? Then there's the guy who owns the bookstore next to us. His name is Herbert. Herbert von Schnickle, and he has a goatee." At this, Frank pinches the air by his upper lip, miming the twirling of said goatee. "And for our fourth, we totally pulled off a coup. Get this: the kid who works at the coffee place on the corner? He's member of the UC Riverside collegiate bowling team. And we totally stole him away from the Black Basalts. They're a group of professors from the school's geology department."
"Uh *huh*," Patrick says again, then picks another fry up off of his plate and bites it in half.
"I know, right?" Frank says. He's dismembering his veggie burger now, Patrick sees, tearing the bun into smaller pieces, then the lettuce. He's already eaten the tomato, thankfully, or Patrick might have to worry about ducking out of the way of squirting juice. "He actually has a bowling class on his *schedule*. I keep telling him, like, dude, where were the bowling classes when I was in school?"
"So what?" Patrick asks. "This is a once a week thing? You compete against other teams?"
Frank nods, then pops a bit of the bun into his mouth. "Monday nights, eight o'clock." He bites into a strip of lettuce then, chewing it almost thoughtfully. "They turn on the disco lights at nine, start playing this totally retro music, and you know, you really haven't lived until you've seen the biker dude in the lane next to you do the electric slide during his approach, complete with shoulder shimmies, and somehow *still* manage to get a strike!"
Patrick laughs at that, his head falling back. "That sounds like a Pete thing to do. Rock 'n Bowl, disco balls, flashing neon lights… I don't know how many times he dragged me out there with him."
More times than Patrick could possibly count, actually: way back in Chicago, years and years ago, all of them too hopped up on adrenaline to go straight back to their houses after a show; later, when they were out on the road, after too many night spent away from home, all of them needing something (anything) familiar.
"It's awesome," Frank says. "Fuck, Ray. Ray used to *love* the bowling. He had his own ball and everything, some giant thing that I could barely lift, you know? And Gerard and Mikey and I would be using, like, the 12 pound balls-the ones that were fucking pink and orange and yellow and shit-and we'd be lobbing them down the lanes, and there he'd be with his smooth rolling and his perfect form…"
"Disgusting," Patrick says, and Frank nods, scrunching up his nose.
"Yeah, exactly. On the plus side, though, I'm actually getting better. I broke 120 yesterday, and that's a first." He wipes his fingers on the napkin beside his plate, then holds his hand up for Patrick to slap, so Patrick does.
"Somehow I would have thought Jamia would have been into the bowling, too," Patrick says after a moment, and Frank shakes his head, sadly.
"Oh, she bowls. She's better than I am, actually, but she's the one who said I needed an extra-curricular activity. Apparently she *doesn't* want me hanging about the store at all hours. She says I'm a distracting influence."
Again, Patrick laughs. "Gee, I can't imagine why."
Frank, of course, is doing his best to look innocent, wide eyes and open smile, but Patrick has known Frank for too long to be fooled for even one moment. He just stares until Frank ducks his head and says, "Oh, shut up."
"But the store is going well?" Patrick asks after a moment, and Frank's grin widens.
"Yeah, yeah," he says, "it's great," and just like that, he's off: telling about the three kids from UC Riverside they've hired, about what the first item they sold was, about how they're already working with some other independent retailers in the area, carrying some of their products, soaps and perfumes and jewelry, in exchange for their stores carrying some of the staples of Jamia's clothing line.
"It'll take a little while for us to turn a profit," Frank says, "but we're already doing better than we expected we'd be doing, and, you know, we're already building up repeat clientele, so that pretty much kicks ass."
Patrick nods, then picks his own glass of Diet Pepsi up off of the table, sips at it. He remembers Pete opening up his clothing stores, the Clandestine outlets, but at the same time, it had been different; Pete had always had people to run the stores for him. He'd never had to work the counter, take care of inventory, do the daily grind.
"But we're pretty much off the ground now," Frank says, "and Jai is starting to drop even less subtle hints that I don't need to be there every hour of every day. So now I'm trying to entertain myself."
Which was also the reason he called Patrick up that morning, an hour or so after Patrick made it into the studio, and said, "So, Stump, the wife is kicking me out of the store today. What do you say to an early dinner?"
He glances down at his plate again now, though, picking up a piece of bun that's still large enough to be torn into even smaller bits. Then he looks back up at Patrick, a sudden gesture.
"Actually, I was going to ask you, um, if you might be interested in jamming sometime. You know, just fooling around on the guitars. I know you're busy and all, but. I don't know that many people here yet, and my fingers are getting itchy, dude, and I-"
He trails off, and Patrick swallows and thinks back to his recent sessions with Spencer and Brendon and Adam, the apparent itchiness in his own fingers, and he says, "Yeah, yeah. That would be-sometime, yeah, we definitely should."
Frank's grin pretty much splits his face.
15. The Question
The last track finishes and for a second there is silence, but it only lasts for a moment, a breath, then Casey, the lead singer of Last Bastion, is launching herself at her drummer, wrapping her arms tightly around him. Patrick watches as she smacks a kiss to his cheek, then pulls back far enough to open her arms for the rest of the band. They become pretty much a lump, all of them wound together, and Patrick may or may not hear sniffling and wet-sounding whispers.
"-did it, did it, did it-" Casey keeps saying, her voice cracking every other word, and it's such a change from several weeks ago. Patrick infinitely prefers this part of the recording process, the feeling of having accomplished something that they're all proud of.
"It almost makes the screaming and shouting and the endless repeats of 'fuck you' worth it, doesn't it?" Amanda asks softly. She's sitting in the chair next to Patrick. They'd let Last Bastion have the loveseat, the comfortable armchairs, the four of them all pressed as close to possible together, holding hands for the 49 minutes and 42 seconds their album played.
"Yeah," Patrick says, and his voice draws Casey's attention, apparently, because it's just a moment longer before she disentangles herself from her band mates and throws herself in Patrick's direction.
Her bangs, dyed blue this week, are hanging down over her eyes, but before she buries her face against his neck, he sees a flash of smile-wide, uncontrolled-and then she saying, "Thank you, thank you, fuck, fuck, thank *you*," and Patrick is awkwardly patting her back, Amanda not even trying to hide her giggles beside him.
"Yeah, yeah," the drummer says, standing up from the loveseat. "Thank you, dude." Then, "Dudes, dudes, fuck! We've got to go celebrate! Because we're fucking done!" And that seems to be the magic word, because three minutes later, Patrick finds himself alone in the room with Amanda, who is still looking far too fucking amused.
"Oh, Patrick," she coos after the door is shut behind the group. "Thank you! Thank you for making us sound like we haven't spent the last two months screaming obscenities at each other!" She bats her eyes in Patrick's direction, twirling one of her braids around the tip of her finger, as she does it, and Patrick has no choice but to respond with, "Oh shut up."
Amanda leans back in her chair then, giggles settling into a large grin, and Patrick rolls his eyes.
"You know, this whole ordeal would have been easier," Amanda says, "if they weren't so fucking catchy."
"They wouldn't have stayed beyond the first day if their music wasn't so fucking catchy," Patrick says, because no matter how many headaches they've caused him since they first walked into his studio, there's a reason he agreed to work with them. There's a reason he *didn't* kick them out weeks and weeks ago.
"And now we're done," Amanda says, and Patrick nods.
Just then, there's a knock on the door of the room, and he looks up to see Adam standing outside, his knuckles still tentatively raised. Patrick motions him in, and watches as Adam opens the door. He steps inside, far enough to let it close behind him, but doesn't come any further.
"So, I just saw Last Bastion leaving the building," he says, and Amanda says, "Never to return. Until they want our very own P. Stump to produce the follow-up to their multi-platinum major label debut, anyway."
Patrick ducks his head at that, attempts to brush Amanda's words away with his hand, but she just reaches over and pulls his hat up off of his forehead, which changes the motion into a quick (and unsuccessful) grab.
"Fuck," Patrick says, once he finally has the hat back in his possession again, jammed firmly back over his head. "Why do I keep you around again?"
"Because your master recordings would be hopelessly muddled without me?" Amanda asks, attempting to look innocent, and Patrick just sighs, rolling his eyes in Adam's direction, as if to say, 'see what I put up with on a daily basis?'
Adam, the fucker, just grins.
"So Jacobson," Amanda says. "I was just about to suggest that Stump and I take a page from the Last Bastion handbook and go celebrate. You in? You certainly put in your time on this album, too."
Piano on four songs, cymbals on a fifth, and earlier in the week, Patrick heard Casey asking her drummer if he thought they should maybe ask Adam to come out with them, be a tech, do parts on stage that they needed him to do. He hadn't heard the drummer's answer, but he knows that it'd probably be a whole lot more fulfilling for Adam than the work he's been doing for the new age album Gary's been producing, playing repetitive meditation-inducing chords on the piano for days on end.
Adam blinks, then grins and nods, pushing his bangs away from his face. "Yeah," he says. "Yeah, sure. Just let me grab my- I mean, now?"
Amanda stands up, extending a hand to Patrick to pull him up, and she says, "Hell yeah. Didn't you hear? We're done, and I, personally, am voting for imbibing serious quantities of alcohol. Before dinner, even."
She hooks her elbow around Adam's arm as she opens the door, leading him back out into the hallway, then glances back over her shoulder at Patrick, saying, "Come on, Stump. We've got serious business to attend to."
*
Two hours later, though, Patrick finds himself nursing a beer. His third, to Adam's four, to Amanda's three vodka tonics, but she's only spent a few minutes at their table, since when they walked into the bar-her regular-she immediately spotted maybe five people she knew.
There were introductions, of course, and Patrick had ended up talking with one of the girls for fifteen minutes about her experiences mixing sound at one of the venues downtown, but now he and Adam are camped out at a table off to the side of the room, and he's feeling pretty fucking relaxed, actually, for the first time in quite awhile.
"We’re almost done with the new Astra album," Adam says. "Thank god. Though she does know what she's talking about with her relaxation-fueling chords; I've nearly gone to sleep in there so many fucking times, the past three days."
"Better you than me," Patrick says, because yeah. The new age stuff sells well, and Gary likes the soothing nature of it, but give Patrick a good guitar riff anytime, one that will make you sit up in your chair, wide awake.
"Ha, yeah," Adam says. He empties his beer bottle, then pushes it towards the edge of the table. "New age shit, though, not really my forte. I'm more of a… I like to do the head banging, you know?"
Patrick does, oh he does. He likes his hip hop and his R&B, his pop and his punk, his pop punk, but there are times when he just wants to lose himself in the chords and lines and riffs which pulse through his blood, body curved around the guitar, drawing the notes out with his fingers.
He runs his finger up the outside of his pint glass, condensation making his finger slick, then back down again, creating a winding maze of a line. There's silence for a moment, before he says, "Hey, listen. My friend Frank-Iero, from My Chemical Romance. You know him, right? Well, he just moved to the area, and he's sort of driving his wife nuts hanging around at their store all day, and we were thinking of getting together and jamming sometime." He pauses, then smiles, just a little. "Knowing him, there will probably be lots of head banging. Possibly climbing, too, onto, like, the fucking amp or something. Would you maybe want to join us?"
Adam opens his mouth just a little, then swallows and says, "Yeah, yeah. Fuck, that'd be, well, pretty fucking awesome, actually," and he's grinning, maybe a little helplessly, and Patrick almost wants to laugh at his expression. Instead he just says, "Okay then." He nods once, then brings his glass to his mouth, finishing it with one large swig. He sets it back down. "Okay, so. I'll let you know."
16. The Unexpected Visitor
Four o'clock on a Saturday afternoon, and Patrick's been curled up on his couch for the last half hour, making his way through the latest batch of comic books Gerard had told him he had read. "Good stuff, Stump," he'd said. "And *fuck*, some of the *illustrations*."
Which is to say, he's not expecting company.
Which is to say, he's surprised when he doorbell sounds, the fucking *gongs* that Pete got him once upon a time, a groundhogs day gift, and hired someone to install before Patrick could actually say the 'no, fucking no, Wentz, did you hear me? No!' that was echoing in his head. Especially since they're fucking loud-so loud he can hear them back in his bedroom, to which Pete said, "You sleep like a fucking log, you fucker, and damned if I'm going to stand on your fucking porch while you get your beauty sleep."
If they're loud in Patrick's bedroom, though, they're deafening in the living room, and Patrick pretty much jumps every time they sound. Luckily, he's usually the only one around to see himself jump, thus saving him from endless mocking, but *still*.
This time, his fingers slip on the pages of the comic book, tugging at them, luckily not hard enough to tear the paper, and he glares at the door for a second before closing the book and setting it coffee table, on top of the stack that he's already worked his way through that afternoon. He wipes his hands on his jeans, tugs at the bill of his hat, then stands up from the couch and makes his way to the door, peering through the peephole and seeing the distorted face of Spencer Smith.
Patrick opens the door, and indeed, Spencer is standing there, looking rather bored, arms crossed over his chest, plastic bag gripped in his hand. He grins at Patrick, though, and says, "So I was in the neighborhood." Because that's how half the conversations Patrick has these days seem to start, he's decided. Before Patrick can say, 'I can see that', Spencer holds out the plastic bag in Patrick's direction, and says, "I also come bearing gifts, compliments of one Jon Walker."
Patrick takes a bag, already peering inside, even as he steps back away from the door, motioning Spencer in. Spencer follows, then shuts the door himself, watching Patrick pull the hat out of the bag. It's dark blue, 'Tommy Walker's' embroidered on the front in silver thread, the outline of a beer mug behind it, and Patrick grins.
"So Jon's gone into the bar merchandise business?"
"Blame Pete," Spencer says, and indeed, when Patrick looks inside the hat, he sees the Clandestine Industry logo, the Bartskull. "He could hardly let one of us start a new venture without commemorating it with a clothing line, now could he?"
"Ha, yeah," Patrick says, laughing, nodding his agreement. He's pretty sure that the only reason Pete didn't try to make t-shirts for Patrick's studio was, well, because Patrick *had* actually gotten his 'no, *fuck* no,' out that time, before it was too late.
Besides, it wasn't like Pete hadn't made Patrick more personalized t-shirts and hats than he could wear in a lifetime already.
"Jon sent Brendon and I a whole box of stuff to split up," Spencer continues, "but since I knew I was coming out here this week, I figured I'd bring one of the hats to you."
Patrick reaches up to pull the hat he's wearing off, pulling the new one on in its place. Spencer crosses his arms over his chest as he studies Patrick, then nods, a 'that'll do' gesture.
"So why are you here?" Patrick asks. "If you don’t mind me asking, that is."
Spencer rolls his eyes. "No, you can't ask, despite the fact that I just showed up on your *doorstep* out of nowhere," he says. "Right."
It's Patrick's turn to roll his own eyes.
"I'm actually here apartment hunting," Spencer says a moment later. "Something with a monthly lease. Because, no matter many times as Ryan's said I can stay in his guest room while I'm out here working with the Sweet Midori kid, there's a difference between staying in someone else's space for a few nights and living there for a few weeks. I've lived in Ryan Ross' space enough for one lifetime, I think we'd both agree."
Patrick totally understands. It's one thing to spend the night on Pete's couch a couple of times a year, or to have Pete crashing in Patrick's guest room over the Fourth of July. It's another thing all together to imagine doing it for a longer period of time. Like, say, a month. Or longer.
He can't even imagine getting back on a bus again, living in such close quarters for more than a few hours with anyone anymore.
Well, most of the time.
"And have you found someplace?" Patrick asks, leading Spencer farther into the house, into the living room, motions for Spencer to sit. Spencer does, taking one of the over-stuffed armchairs, and Patrick takes his spot on the couch again.
He sees Spencer eyeing the comic books, smirking maybe just a little, but it's not like Spencer hadn't spent enough time on the Fall Out Boy bus over the years. He knows what sorts of reading material they kept around.
Spencer doesn't say anything, though. He just shrugs and says, "Eh. There are a few possibilities, but nothing that, you know-" He waves his hand around a little bit. "On the other hand, its only going to be for what, a month? I can deal."
"Actually," Spencer continues before Patrick can comment, "what I can't deal with is the realtor that Ryan picked out. She's really fucking perky, okay, and, like, the places I'm looking at aren't holes, right, because I'm not a struggling artist, but oh my god, you'd think she was showing me around a fucking mansion with two pools and six baths and, like, a sun porch, rather than a one bedroom that comes equipped with it's own washer and dryer. Apparently Keltie knows her from the gym and she had another three places on the list for today, but I said that I had a very important meeting that I just had to get to, and-"
"And here you are," Patrick says.
"Here I am," Spencer says. "Having a very important meeting that, most importantly, means I am not looking at charming green tile, or whatever it was she said was coming up in the next place. To which I did not say, 'Seriously? Green?'"
"Because green is always charming," Patrick says.
"Oh, yes," Spencer says. "Always."
Six months ago, Patrick thinks, it would have felt really fucking weird to have Spencer Smith sitting in his living room like this, mostly because it wasn't something that he ever would have anticipated. Not without the excuse of a DecayDance party. Not without Ryan at Spencer's shoulder, poking at the conversation, keeping it going.
Spencer's looking comfortable, though, like he's actually been here before, when in reality Patrick's pretty sure he hasn't, and right now he's looking around the room, smiling a bit every time he recognizes a piece of memorabilia: a photograph, a set of drumsticks, a framed guitar pick.
Patrick can see the moment that Spencer spots Patrick's guitar case, though, sitting on the floor on the far side of the living room, near the speakers, and he turns to Patrick, raising an eyebrow, giving him a questioning look. Patrick glances down at his knees for a moment, feeling just a little embarrassed. Why, he doesn't know, because there is no one in the world who would be surprised that he, of all people, had a guitar sitting out on his *floor* for fucks sake, but.
But: in four days, Frank and Adam will be in Patrick's basement music room, the three of them playing, well, *something*, and-
And this is not Patrick hijacking Spencer's drum lesson, or him joining Spencer and Brendon and Pete on the stage at Jon's bar. This is something entirely different and. Well.
"I told you that Frank Iero was in town, right? When I was in Vegas?"
Spencer nods, smirking just a little, and Patrick remembers the conversation, too: Brendon saying that LA was turning into the place to be, and what had happened to Chicago being the center of the band world, huh? About how his world view was totally out of alignment now, thank you very much, Stump, and he wasn't sure how he was ever going to recover, etcetera, etcetera, on and on, until Spencer said, "Somehow, Brendon, I think you will survive."
"We're going to jam later this week," he continues. "The two of us and this kid from my studio, Adam, who plays the bass."
"Frank's going to play lead?" Spencer asks, and Patrick nods, because there's no question as to who will be doing the singing, and singing and lead guitar are not the most compatible combination.
"That should be fun," Spencer says, and his voice is dry, but he's not sounding sarcastic at all. It's more of just a statement of fact.
Patrick thinks about giving excuses: Jamia wanting to get Frank out of her hair for a few hours, how it's just for fun, maybe just a one-off, a way to pass the evening.
Instead he just says, "Hopefully, yeah. It should be."
17. The Session
The sound of gongs again, after dinner this time, and when Patrick peers through the peephole he sees Frank making a face at him: nose scrunched up, tongue lolling out the side of his mouth. Patrick's rolling his eyes as he opens the door, but by the time they're face-to-face, Frank is grinning really fucking widely, showing pretty much all his teeth.
"Hi," Frank says. He's got his guitar case in his hand and he holds it up so that Patrick can see the well-worn leather: parts of it covered with stickers, others painted white and illustrated with sharpie drawings of zombies and vampires-Gerard's influence, Patrick is sure-the edges scuffed and scratched.
"Hi," Patrick says. "Come on in. You're a little early."
"Yeah," Frank says. "I told Jai I'd have plenty of time if I left at six, you know, but she said, no, babe, you should actually try to drive within the speed limit this time, and because she was *glaring*, I grabbed my keys and left. And here I am."
"Early," Patrick says, and Frank nods, looking rather put-upon.
"But this way you have time to give me the grand tour!" Frank says. "Or at the very least, show me where I can plug this baby in." He swings his guitar case forward, and Patrick steps back, out of the way, letting the momentum carry Frank over the threshold.
In the grand scale of Los Angeles houses, Patrick's is not overly large. Two stories and a basement, three bedrooms, one of which Patrick's turned into a studio. It's in a neighborhood where you pay more for the property than the actual building, though, which means he has a lot of space between him and his neighbors, a small measure of privacy.
Frank's nodding his head as he looks around the living room, much like Spencer did a few days before. He doesn't stop at the over-stuffed chair, though. No, he just keeps walking, heading towards the kitchen, and Patrick's really fucking glad he had the maid come today, so that the house is in some semblance of an order. There are still sheets of notepaper scattered around, of course, and there's a set of bongo drums on the dining room table, and a few open packages of guitar strings on his second armchair, but mostly it's okay. Not something he's embarrassed to show off. And besides, it's not like Frank hadn't heard tales of Patrick's less-than-neat-nick lifestyle from Bob, way back when.
"I have my stuff set up in the basement," Patrick says after Frank has spent a few minutes exploring, and he points towards a door underneath the staircase, angled, painted to blend in with the wall. That's where the soundproofing is, the amps and the drums and all of Patrick's guitars.
"Will we be able to hear the kid if we head on down there?" Frank asks and Patrick just raises an eyebrow, looking at the gongs hanging on the wall in his foyer, and even though Frank was nice enough not to comment on it when he came in, the gongs are *really fucking loud*.
"Yeah," Frank says, flashing Patrick a grin. "Of course we will."
He reaches the door first, Patrick just a few steps behind, and Patrick lets him lead the way down the stairs to the basement, too. Frank sort of laughs when he sees it, and looks back up at Patrick, his eyes bright.
"I'm thinking you had fun with the decorating?"
The walls are all different colors: one red, one black, one white, one green, with buckets of paint splashed across them, drips falling wherever they landed. It was Joe's idea, but Pete agreed, talking about artistic juices and Andy said something about creativity begetting more creativity, and they spent a weekend together, the four of them, painting.
Granted, they were all pretty much red and green and blue by the end of the weekend, but still, the room was done, and Patrick pretty much loves it.
"Blame Joe," Patrick says, and Frank nods, looking absolutely entranced. "If you ever show this to Gerard, I'll bet you money he does something like it, too. Like, in his dining room or something. Red walls, black paint splatters to represent something or other. It would be totally him."
"And how would Lyn-Z feel about that?" Patrick asks, and Frank just keeps grinning.
"Oh, she'd be the one tossing the buckets of paint at the wall!"
Patrick points Frank in the direction of the amps and sits down on the stool of his drum kit, watching as Frank gets everything plugged in, as he starts to tune. It's not a guitar that Patrick's seen before: not the black one with the ever-changing saying, or the brilliant white one. This one is checkerboard-patterned, red and white, and in comparison, Patrick's black and white Trohman-special looks positively boring. He's about to say something to this effect when the doorbell sounds from above, and Frank laughs.
"Yeah, okay. I think you'd pretty much have to be in Timbuktu to not hear that."
"I'm pretty sure that was Pete's intention," Patrick says as he stands, heads back upstairs to the front door. He checks through the peephole-because the one time he doesn't will be the one time it's not whomever he's expecting-and indeed, Adam is standing on the other side of the door. Unlike Frank, though, he's not making a face, not already smiling. Instead he's staring down at the ground, and he only glances up once Patrick actually opens the door. Even then, though, his smile is tight, almost nervous.
"Hey," Adam says as he steps inside. "So, uh, sorry if I'm late. I see another car out front so I'm guessing that Frank is already-"
"Frank drives like a bat out of hell," Patrick interrups. "He was early. You're actually right on time." He shuts the door and points in the direction of the basement. "Frank's already down there setting up, if you want to head on down."
Adam nods, but he doesn't move for a moment, and when Patrick glances at him, he thinks Adam's looking a little wide-eyed, maybe a little nervous in a way that he hasn't since the first time he and Patrick played together.
"Come on," Patrick says, trying to hide his smile. "Let's head on down."
He steps around Adam, leading the way to the basement door, then down the stairs, Adam following only a step behind. Frank's already playing, leaning against one of the amps, fingers picking out staccato notes, sharp and precise, then pausing to tighten a string, before he plays the same notes over again, this time looking up at them.
Adam sort of hesitates on the bottom step, but Patrick doesn't think Frank notices. Mostly because Frank is walking straight towards him, hand already extended.
"Hey," he says, clasping Adam's own (more hesitantly) outstretched hand and pumping it a few times. "Frank Iero. So you're the kid Patrick's been talking about, huh? He's spoken pretty highly of you."
Adam flushes, Patrick can see it, so he says, "Adam" Then, once Frank is looking at him, he continues. "Adam Jacobson. You'll hear him playing keyboard on the first Last Bastion of Sanity single."
"So in other words, you had a front row seat for all of the shenanigans I heard about?" Frank asks and Adam's still looking a little wide-eyed, but he also nods, says, "Yeah, ha. Yeah, I did."
"And you play keyboard?" Frank asks, eyeing the guitar case that Adam's still holding. "Are you another one of these little musical genius kids who plays, like, eight instruments and sings and shit?"
Adam opens his mouth slightly, then swallows and says, "Nah, no. No, just, uh. Keyboard and bass. And singing, yeah, no."
"Don't forget the occasional cymbal," Patrick says. "He did those for Last Bastion, too. And for the last few weeks he's been helping out on this new age album that Gary's working on. The triangle and chimes and the same fucking chords on the piano over and over again."
"But bass is what I started out on," Adam says, almost defiantly, like he's trying to prove himself to Frank, and Frank maybe sees it too, because he says, grin wide, friendly, "Well that works out well for us, doesn't it?" With that, Frank strums his fingers over his guitar, a sharp riff, and says, "So, should we get started?"
Patrick nods, going over to the corner where his own guitar is propped on its stand, and motions Adam in the direction of the amps, bending down to plug his own guitar in at the same time. For a few minutes, then, it's a cacophony of notes as they all start tuning at the same time-Frank's riffs and slides, to Adam's plucked notes, to Patrick running through a few scales.
Frank, of course, is the first one to stop, to bounce up on the balls of his feet and say, "So?"
Patrick glances at Adam, who nods, then back at Frank, saying, "Well? What are we playing?"
Frank sort of tips his head to the side, bites at his bottom lip, then grins widely, starting in on a *very* familiar refrain, singing "Dance, dance, we're falling apart to half time" completely off-key, and Patrick raises his right hand, scratching his nose with his middle finger. Then, while Frank is still cackling, *he* starts playing, skipping straight to the last chorus, singing, "I'm not okay, I'm not okay, I'm not o-fucking-kay…"
"Fuck you," Frank says, still laughing. Then, "I think you're scarring the kid, Stump. You're probably, like, totally mature and boss-like at the studio, right, and here you are, mocking our breakout hit, and-"
"And what, you weren't mocking ours?"
"Well, yeah," Frank says, "but I'm not the *boss* here, right? I'm allowed, right, AJ?"
And Adam, who had had his mouth open, maybe to jump into the conversation, possibly to defend Patrick-or at least Patrick would like to think so-snaps his mouth shut again. So Patrick rolls his eyes and says, "So, what? We're going to spend the night replaying our greatest hits?"
"Nah," Frank says. "That's boring. I don't know. How about-" Again he starts playing, one of the bigger harder rock songs from the year before, something with a lot of guitar. He plays the intro, one eyebrow raised in a challenge, and Patrick answers by picking up where he leaves off, starting in on the first verse, and Frank's grin turns a little maniacal. He joins Patrick a few stanzas later, and they sort of play at each other, back and forth for a few lines, until they hit the chorus, and then Adam joins them, the notes just a little shy, but when Patrick looks over at him, to nod encouragingly, Adam's smiling at them, just a little.
Frank, however, is grinning more, saying, "Yeah, yeah, come on."
He actually moves away from Patrick and into Adam's space, rather like he used to on stage with Gerard and Ray and Mikey, and Patrick watches Adam, wondering if he'll back up, if this will throw him off, but amazingly enough, he actually starts looking more relaxed, shoulders slumping, fingers moving more confidently over the strings.
Then, *then*, Adam actually takes a step into Frank's space, close enough that their fingers are just inches apart, and when Frank backs up a step, a sort of 'come hither' tease, Adam follows, a few steps, then a few more, before he breaks away and starts playing at Patrick.
Patrick grins, on the verge of losing himself in the music, but before he does, he looks over Adam's shoulder and sees Frank nodding, smiling, mouthing, "Yeah. Fuck, yeah."
Continued