Chapter Text
Pete breathed a sigh of relief as he stepped inside, Patrick not far behind him. It had been a long night of searching for Brent, of peeking into alleyways and frantically calling anyone who might’ve seen him. But Brent, their freshly sixteen adopted son, had been gone two weeks now, and they were starting to give up hope.
What they hadn’t given up hope on was a small boy nestled in Patrick’s arms—they’d found him on their search. Patrick had taken one look at his crumpled-up little body, and knew he couldn’t just leave him lying there. His name was Jon, as the boy had said shortly before passing out. And Pete was ready to adopt.
“It just seems a little hasty,” Patrick said sternly. “We don’t know if he’s a runaway, or genuine orphan. We might be literally kidnapping a child here. Not to mention Brent is still gone--”
“I can teach him bass guitar!” Pete said, oblivious. “And make him guitar picks with my face on it! Then whenever he’s playing, he can look down at his pick and I’ll be there, offering words of wisdom like, ‘only boil mayonnaise when you’re thirsty!’ and ‘I love you more than your real parents so don’t bother looking for them!’”
Patrick frowned. “We are so not doing that.”
Just then, a very sleepy Brendon awoke. “Here I am!” he said, his voice not as loud as he would've liked it to be. He was wearing a pink onesie and was much tinier than Jon, almost disappearing into the hot pink carpet.
“Hey honey,” Patrick said sweetly. “Why are you up this late?”
“Better go back to bed soon, ya bastard,” Pete added.
Brendon rubbed his eyes. “Where’s Brent?”
Patrick swallowed, and shot Pete a glance. “Well, um, ya see—“ Pete scratched the back of neck. “When a father and adopted son love each other very much, but the adopted son is kind of super weird, sometimes kills rabbits, and is also into hard drugs—“
“Pete!”
“Oh come on Patrick, this lil guy is so going to do weed later. I can feel it in my bones.”
Patrick’s eyes widened. “Peter!”
Brendon looked up at his two dads with giant, glistening baby eyes. His pink lower lip trembled with exhaustion. “Who’s that twink?” He asked, pointing at the still asleep Jon.
“You taught him that,” Patrick muttered. “That’s on you. That is, undoubtedly, on you.”
Ignoring his husband for once, Pete set Jon gently down on the floor. “This is your new brother!” he whispered. “I’m going to teach him to play bass!”
“Cool!” Brendon squealed, and shook Jon roughly.
Jon woke up to an excited Brendon staring at him, the toddler’s curious eyes taking in his every feature. “Hi Brent!” Brendon said brightly.
“N-not Brent.”
“Oh, ok.” Brendon sucked on his bottom lip. “Wanna be friends?”
“Oh-um. Sure?”
Patrick sighed. And that was that.
---Present Times---
“Yo, if you like were a bread product, ya know, like what kind of bread would you be?” Brendon pondered in between sips of Capri Sun. He was hanging out in his parent’s shopping cart, content to be sandwiched between two cartons of eggs and a box of hot pockets.
Patrick, the one pushing the shopping cart, was not so amused. “Brendon, sweetie, how did you come up with that question?” He asked.
“I think I’d be a bagel,” Jon said confidently. “Like, one with butter though. Bagels suck without butter.”
“Amen,” Pete added. He was sitting precariously on a tomato soup can display, and valiantly ignoring the efforts of a store employee to shoo him off. “Hey, I bet I’m a bear claw.”
“Sir—“ the employee begged. “Sir, please, you could fall—“
“Y’all hear something?”
Brendon folded his arms. “Nope.”
Pete shrugged. “Then I don’t either.”
“Where’s Ryan?” Spencer shouted from an aisle over. “Has anyone seen Ryan? Sir? Have you seen my brother? We look nothing alike, but that’s cause we’re adopted. He’s super skinny and tiny and has a Beatles haircut even though I told him it would be a bad idea. It looks bad. Well, not that bad, but still pretty bad. Sir? He wears this ridiculous vest, like seriously—”
“Damn, Spence dropping some right disses on my bro Ryan,” Brendon said after tossing his empty Capri Sun to the floor. “I might just throw hands.”
“Bren please don’t—wait what?” Patrick gasped. “Ryan’s missing? Oh my god I’m such a bad parent, oh my god—“
Pete yawned, and lay down on the soups. “What’s going on?”
“Ryan’s missing!” Patrick screeched, and promptly ran off.
Brendon, now Capri-Sun less, and in a rather awkward position, sighed. “I bet I’m a croissant,” he said to himself as he stared up at the ceiling.
“Dope,” Pete remarked from beneath a mountain of fallen cans.
It was a long time until they found Ryan. The family, well, most of the family, scoured the mall, looking in all the wrong places—“we are not looking for Ryan in a sex shop, not even if he is in there.” “Aw, you’re no fun.“—and asking many unfortunate strangers if they had seen a young, scrawny kid wearing a hippie bandana. Patrick was the one most stressed out by it all, constantly pacing back and forth; muttering curse words under his breath so the boys wouldn’t hear (they totally heard).
Then, as suddenly as he’d disappeared, Ryan turned up, a dictionary in his hands and confused expression on his face. Patrick hurriedly crushed him in a hug.
“I was so worried!” Patrick pulled back to squeeze Ryan’s cheeks. “Don’t you ever run away again, you hear me? Never! Ever!”
“I—“
“The next time you do that, I will go into your room, tear apart every last tie dye shirt you own, and with that old sewing machine I have—“
“Dad—“
“No, you listen to me. I will take those scraps of tie dye. Those little hippie garments. And I will make them into a dress. A long, flowing dress that has a train of five feet. It will be a wedding dress. A gorgeous, bedazzled, hippie wedding dress. And you will be the bride.”
“What—“
“That’s right. I will throw you a fake wedding. And you will wear the dress. And I will make brownies. But you will not eat them. They will be the most delicious brownies ever made. But not for you. That will be your punishment.”
Ryan let out a noise that sounded suspiciously like a whimper.
“Who’d be the groom?” Spencer asked, confused.
Patrick paused. “Ok admittedly I haven’t thought that far ahead yet—“
Patrick was (thankfully) interrupted by Brendon's decision to then make his grand entrance, riding in yet on another shopping cart, this one pushed by Pete. He held his phone aloft like some kind of biblical figure, showing the word of god to the masses. “Guess who just received a—“ he allowed himself a dramatic pause “—dick pic!”
Patrick put his head in his hands.
Pete shrugged. “I mean, it’s not a bad dick. Like, let’s be real.”
“This is very un-christian,” Jon said with an over dramatic shake of his head. “There will be no dick pics on my Christian Minecraft server.”
Meanwhile, Spencer and Brendon were huddled over the latter’s phone. “Love that it’s sent with absolutely no context,” Spencer remarked. “I mean, that just opens it up to so much interpretation.”
“I know, right? Like, is it flirty? Is it a simple hello, from man to man? A request for a picture of mine own dick? Or does he simply want to show off, I mean, come on, that is huge.“ Brendon squinted his eyes at the image, as if to decipher some hidden message.
At that, Patrick sat down on the floor, and closed his eyes. “Why,” he said softly, more to himself than anyone else.
Pete snorted. “Ah, come on Patrick, it’s not like you’ve never seen a dick before.”
Brendon cackled, and began to sing a little something to the tune of ‘Mary had a Little Lamb.’ “My two dads had S-E-X! My two dads had S-E-X! My two dads had S-E-X and now we live in sin!” He ended the song by banging two pots together. The sound caused a nearby grey-haired woman to grasp her chest. and fall to the ground.
Spencer snorted.
“Ok, you know what?” Patrick got up suddenly, a fire in his eyes. “That's it. All I wanted was a normal family outing. That. Is all. I wanted. But now you’ve all ruined it, so we’re going back into the car now. And I will be taking everyone’s brownies away. You have all disappointed me today. Greatly.”
Patrick sighed, and put his hands on his hips. “But one of you was the most disappointing.”
“Is it me, Jesus?” Jon asked, stepping forward.
Patrick shook his head. “No, it is not you.”
“Is it me, Jesus?” Spencer asked, a concerned edge to his question.
Patrick shook his head again. “No, it is not you.”
Brendon fell out of the shopping cart, and tumbled to the floor. “Is it me, Jesus?” he asked while laying down.
“No, it is not you,” Patrick said worriedly.
Pete took a hesitant step forward. “Is it me, Jesus?”
“Is it me, Jesus,” Patrick said mockingly. “Yes, of f-of course it’s you. Jeez Pete, where were you when everyone was looking for Ryan?”
Pete looked down at the floor. “Well, ya see—“
“You know what? I don’t want to hear it. I do not. Want. To hear it. Into the car, now.”
When most people met Patrick, they assumed three things about him. One, he was gayer than ten thousand rainbows marching in unison to Lady Gaga’s Born This Way. Two, he could never be mad at anybody. And three, he was incapable of saying a single swear word. Of course, two of these were dead wrong. Patrick was mad, quite often in fact. He just didn’t know how to express it, and the overwhelming love in his heart was usually enough to drown any angry feelings out. Patrick’s parents could attest to his extensive swear word vocabulary—sometimes, if they got extraordinarily drunk, they would tell of a younger, rebellious Patrick. This Patrick took home three men a week, and washed junky dinners down with alcohol and fizzy drinks. This Patrick would cuss out anyone who would listen, and was someone to be feared.
Pete had met that younger Patrick, years ago at a bowling rink. It was not a pretty story—more of a horribly ugly one, the kind of tale that is only saved by its ending. It was a colorful story too, making it a favorite at parties. It involved an optimistic Pete, a drunk-out-of-his-mind Patrick, two shattered bear bottles, multiple gutter balls, and perfect timing. It started with Pete asking if Patrick needed any help. And it ended with a wedding.
Pete liked to tell himself that story in times like these, when he was sitting next to a silently fuming Patrick, in a car that had once been his father’s. Pete knew he and Patrick had gone through too much to end it over something so small as this. Still, the silence dragged on, cruel and seemingly endless. Patrick knew how to freeze Pete out, to ignore his every word and show him exactly how hurtful he’d been. It was a special talent of his. Pete closed his eyes, and thought of bowling.
They were home quicker that he’d have liked.
Spencer and Brendon raced up the stairs, tripping over themselves in their rush. Ryan, in true Ryan fashion, began wandering aimlessly around the house. Jon spent a while staring into space, and then began making a pie in the kitchen.
Pete and Patrick sat down on opposite sides of the couch. Pete spent the momentary silence crossing and uncrossing his arms, while Patrick just looked at the ground. They had gotten wall-to-wall carpeting a few months ago, and neither of them had quite adjusted to the floor.
Surprisingly, Patrick was the first to speak. “I-I’m sorry. I don’t know why I keep blowing up like this. You didn’t do anything wrong.”
“No, you’re right.” Pete nodded. “I should’ve helped look for Ryan. Hell, where even was he?”
“We…still don’t know. He’s not talking.”
Pete snorted. “Of course he’s not. There’s anything wrong with being silent, I know. I just miss the kid’s voice.”
“He—he’ll open up when he’s ready.”
Pete scooted a little bit towards Patrick. “Yes, he will. Cause you are his super awesome dad, and I am the guy that supports the super awesome dad, and loves him unconditionally.”
“You’re cheesy,” Patrick said. But he smiled as he said it.
Pete moved just a bit closer, and put his hand on Patrick’s shoulder. The joking edge fell from his voice. “I mean it, Patrick. I love you. Every day I love you in the cheesiest of ways. When we’re not together, I miss you in the sappiest of ways. Whenever I think I’m stupid, I just remind myself that at least I was smart enough to fall in love with you. At least I was smart enough to propose, even when I knew I would die on the spot if you said no. I love you. And I need you like I need my blood.”
Patrick sniffed. “That’s—that’s very nice. That’s a nice thing to say, Pete. I love you too.”
“Fuck yeah you do!” Pete grinned, and hugged his husband. “Super-hot old people make-up sex?”
Patrick laughed, and hoisted Pete up by his arm. “Super-hot old people make-up sex.”