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1: 2002
The first time that Pete had told Patrick he was going to marry him, Patrick was not even eighteen and they were curled together in the back of the van.
They hadn’t played a spectacular show that night, but the fact that more people were starting to know the songs was promising. It meant that there were people in the audience who had heard their demo, people in the audience who had seen them again and were willing to come back a second time, and that had been thrilling enough to make up for all the tech issues that turned the rest of the show into…well, not a disaster, but not far from one.
It was Joe’s turn to drive and Andy sat with him, talking about the show while Pete and Patrick attempted to sleep in the back. Pete had a habit of crowding Patrick’s personal space, both onstage and off, so it didn’t really surprise Patrick when Pete curled up to him in the sleeping bag and said “I’m cold, Pattycakes. Keep me warm.”
He would never admit it, but he loved when Pete was all…cute and sweet like that, even if he knew the real Pete Wentz was an asshole.
Not that Pete being an asshole kept Patrick from falling head over heels for him.
He did shove at Pete, when the older boy shuffled over to him, in order to keep up pretenses. And it helped that Pete was actually really fucking cold, so he bit out, “get your icy fucking hands off me!” when the older boy tried to wrap his arms around his waist.
Pete was persistent, though. And Patrick didn’t actually want to push him away, so the bassist’s freezing hands somehow ended up under Patrick’s shirt.
“Do you have to do that?” Patrick asked, going for exacerbated.
“You’re warm.”
“Not for much longer,” he muttered. It lacked heat – heh, just like the hands on the small of his back – and did nothing to discourage Pete, who was pulling Patrick so close to him that he could feel Pete’s breath on his neck.
There was silence as Pete settled in and stopped moving. Patrick was almost sure that the older boy had fallen asleep. He resisted the urge to throw his arms around Pete in return, because it was one thing when Pete enveloped him – he was a tactile person and nobody would question Pete getting into their personal space – but Patrick feared that returning that touch would give away everything he was trying to hide. The last thing he wanted to do was make this thing awkward, especially when he felt like this band could really be something.
And then—“I’m gonna marry you, Patrick Stump,” Pete murmured against his neck, warm and sweet and fuck.
Patrick knew Pete was just being Pete, but it made him tingle on the inside.
2: 2005
The second time, Patrick was decked out in a grey suit with his hair slicked back and god, he looked absolutely ridiculous. Not that everyone else looked much better – they all looked like absolute dorks – but Patrick never ceased to look the dorkiest.
He missed the outfits they wore for the other part of the video. He actually looked a little stylish in that one.
Not that this was too much of a hardship because well, he had agreed to this. And everyone else looked like dorks too, so nobody could laugh at him without laughing at the rest of them. Pete Wentz – the sexy, loveable, debonair Pete Wentz who stole hearts and carved knotches in bedposts everywhere – looked as silly as he did. Of course, Pete Wentz also had terrible fashion sense, despite being a fashion icon for teenagers around the country, so Patrick maintained the opinion that Pete Wentz always looked silly.
Pete Wentz also always looked sexy, but that was neither here nor there.
Because Patrick could laugh at Pete Wentz in his suit with his slicked back hair. Especially as Pete was dancing around the dressing room, doing a pretty good impersonation of the dorky high school student he would be playing in the music video.
“Do you have to do that?” Patrick asked. He felt like he asked Pete that a lot.
“You don’t like my dancing?” Pete countered, and well, no. Patrick didn’t. But he did like Pete and he found the dancing endearing.
Even looking like an absolute dork, Pete was adorable.
“You look ridiculous.”
The older man – he was older than twenty-five now, Patrick could think of him as a man – scoffed. “Like you look any better.”
And while he had no problem with looking like a dork – that was his life, wasn’t it? – there was a difference between him thinking that he looked ridiculous and Pete thinking it. Because no matter how much he slotted Pete into that ‘untouchable best friend’ category, he couldn’t help but take to heart much of what Pete said about him. Pete’s compliments warmed him, his praise encouraged him, but his insults just felt like something had crawled down his throat and died. And it was stupid, because he knew Pete was just joking, but his heart was having trouble catching up to his brain in that respect.
Something must have shown on his face, because the bassist’s face immediately dropped. “Hey, no, you what I—”
“Yeah, yeah, I know what you mean.”
“Patrick…” Pete approached him from the opposite side of the room and knelt down beside Patrick’s chair. It almost seemed like he was paying court to Patrick, looking up at the younger boy with such clear, open eyes. “You look absolutely gorgeous, okay? There is nothing that could change that. Nothing in the world.”
Patrick rolled his eyes. “Yeah, yeah,” he muttered.
Pete placed a hand on Patrick’s knee. “I mean it,” he said. “And you know what? I’m gonna marry you, Patrick Stump.”
3: 2008
The third time was probably the worst, because Pete was obviously lying. Obviously. Because how could he marry Patrick when he was marrying Ashlee in less than twenty-four hours?
It was the night before the wedding, and everyone was expecting Pete to be completely wasted at his bachelor party. They had actually held his bachelor party the previous week so that nothing could interfere with the wedding, but no matter how much he loved Pete and wanted him to be happy, Patrick would be lying if he said he didn’t want something to interfere with the wedding. Because Pete was his best friend, but Pete was also so much more — and Patrick wasn’t exactly ready to give him up to Ashlee yet.
He might never be ready, but that didn’t matter because it was going to happen the next day whether he liked it or not.
They had decided to stay in together, Patrick as the best best man by keeping Pete company and making sure that nothing went wrong the night before the wedding, by being there to listen to Pete’s worries and cold feet, by reassuring Pete that this was the right thing. The bassist loved the pop star and they had a baby on the way, and this was what Pete had always wanted: to have a happy little family on whom he could shower his love and affection. Patrick would only get in the way of that dream, so he accepted the reality and decided to be the best friend that Pete ever had by making sure that Pete didn’t lose sight of what he wanted.
So, when Pete asked him, “do I really want to do this? I mean, do I really want to sign away my life and my freedom?” Patrick had to think about what Pete wanted and not what he wanted.
“Of course you do,” he reminded him. “It’s normal to have cold feet the night before a wedding.”
“Really? So, like, everyone goes through this?”
“Sure.”
He wasn’t sure if everyone actually went through that, but it was a major life change, so he wouldn’t have doubted it. He went through it himself when Pete first asked him to join the band, and that ended up being the best decision he ever made.
“Look, Pete: you love Ashlee. You know you do. You’re gonna be a great dad. You have nothing to worry about.”
Pete nodded, but he didn’t look convinced. “Yeah, sure. But…”
“No buts! You got this.”
“But,” Pete continued anyway, “what if this is a mistake? What if we get married and then I find out she’s not the one? What if I meet the real one and I can’t do anything about it? You know me, ’Trick—sometimes I fall hard and fast and it ends up being a disaster, and like, what if this is the same?”
“Pete, this is the first time you’ve ever committed to marrying someone,” he reasoned. No, those comments he’d made to Patrick in the past did not count. That wasn’t commitment. “I think it’s a little more serious than any of your previous relationships.”
“You think?”
Patrick nodded. “I’ve never seen you like this before. You glow around her, Pete. Don’t give that up.”
It killed him to say that, but he wanted Pete to be happy and he knew that this would make Pete happy. There was nothing he wanted more than to see his best friend continue to glow like that, because he truly did glow around Ashlee. And it killed Patrick because once upon a time he was the one who Pete glowed for (even if it wasn’t quite the same relationship), but he would have to learn to live with that. He’d been doing the unrequited pining thing for years and had a pretty good handle on it, so what was the rest of his life? Not that he ever had to deal with marriage before – when Pete was unattached, he still had a chance – but it was bound to happen eventually.
The bassist smiled and leaned in close, resting his head on Patrick’s shoulder as they sat side by side on the couch in the hotel room. “Thanks, ’Trick. You always know what to say.”
Patrick threw an arm around Pete and held him close, because he knew how much the older man needed physical support sometimes. Pete was tactile – everyone knew that – and that meant that Pete didn’t just give hugs, but he also needed them sometimes too. Patrick tried not to abuse that knowledge, but he could be the one to provide that support when needed.
“I’m gonna marry you, Patrick Stump,” the bassist said softly as Patrick’s thumb caressed his shoulder.
No you’re not. You’re gonna marry Ashlee.
4: 2011
The fourth time was probably the most unexpected, because Patrick certainly hadn’t expected Pete to come out to his gig. Like, never in a million years did he expect to see Pete.
They hadn’t been talking as much throughout the hiatus because well, the whole point of the hiatus was not just to take a break from Fall Out Boy, but to take a break from each other as well. The four of them could not possibly remain friends if all they did was argue with one another, so communication had been minimal. Patrick figured that maybe even the break from Pete could help him with these pesky feelings that were just making him all the more angry toward the end of their last tour. But he couldn’t simply not talk to Pete because what else would he even do? So, he focused on his solo career and occasionally shared some thoughts, ideas, concerns – you name it! – with the older man.
And Pete had been so fucking supportive that Patrick could cry. They agreed to keep their distance – Pete had his own projects going on, in addition to marriage and fatherhood – but they emailed a few times a week, and that was good enough.
But he never expected to see Pete’s face in the audience that night, because of course he noticed — he would notice Pete anywhere.
Nor did he expect to see Pete waiting for him backstage when he finished his set.
“Patrick!” the older man’s face lit up but he appeared to be holding himself back, as though he wanted to hug Patrick and he was afraid that Patrick would not welcome his touch. That was enough to let Patrick know that something was very wrong, because Pete was a tactile person. Pete had never cared before whether or not Patrick would want a hug because he was Pete Wentz and he was affectionate and Patrick…well, Patrick wasn’t going to say no. But now Pete seemed nervous and he wasn’t touching Patrick and everything about it felt so off. So wrong.
“You killed it out there, man!” Pete exclaimed. “Like, holy fuck, I’ve died and gone to heaven!”
Patrick would never tire of Pete’s exaggerated compliments. He couldn’t believe how much he had missed this when they had been apart.
It seemed that Pete had no idea what to say next, though. It was obviously that he had something he wanted to say, but the younger man wasn’t sure what was keeping him from saying it. Sensing the other man’s anxiety increasing, he gently nudged Pete in the direction of his dressing room so that they could at least have some privacy. The brief walk was silent but tense, and Patrick was dreading what would happen when they reached the room. Was this the part where Pete told him that he was moving on without him?
Not just professionally, but in his personal life too?
It came out the moment both men were inside the room and Patrick had closed the door. “The divorce will be finalized in less than two weeks.”
Oh.
Oh.
He had honestly forgotten that Pete was getting divorced. It wasn’t as though Pete talked about it much – he mentioned that they were just not working out and that they were filing for divorce, but in the eight or so months since then, the topic had rarely come up – so Patrick had simply forgotten about Ashlee in general. In the back of his mind, he knew that she was still involved in Pete’s life because Pete talked a lot about Bronx and she was Bronx’s mother, but he had simply forgotten anything to do with Pete and romance.
Or, he had forcibly ignored anything to do with Pete and romance. For his own mental wellbeing.
The only thing he could think to say was, “fuck. I’m sorry to hear that.”
“It’s not like much will change now, you know?” Pete began. “We haven’t been living together since we first decided to, you know, do this. All it really changes is the legal shit. But like, it’s still this big milestone and I just…I don’t know how to feel about it.”
Patrick could imagine. He didn’t know how to feel about it either.
Because despite all the effort he had gone to not to feel these feelings for Pete during their time apart, he hadn’t exactly succeeded. And knowing for sure that in less than two weeks Pete would be officially unattached again suddenly brought everything he had been suppressing to the surface. He hurt for Pete, he truly did, but he also felt this spark deep in his chest flicker to life. It felt kinda like hope, and god, he really should not let himself get into this again, but since when was Patrick very good at doing what was best for him?
After all, he sunk all this money into this album and these tours and people were fucking booing him when he performed.
He’d mucked up his own life pretty badly.
And he mucked up Pete’s too, didn’t he? Because when Pete had asked him for advice on the night before his wedding, he had told him to go through with it. He thought that it was what Pete wanted – and at the time, it was what Pete wanted, so he wasn’t exactly wrong – and he truly believed that Pete and Ashlee could be happy together, even though he knew they were rushing into things because of the pregnancy. So, if anyone asked, Patrick was feeling pretty guilty about everything he had ever done in his life — and he didn’t know how to feel about any of it.
“I’m sorry,” he said, unsure of what else he could say.
Pete shook his head. “Not your fault.”
“I mean, I did tell you to marry her. You worried that something like this might happen and I was the one who—”
“No, Patrick.” Despite that Pete was the one who had come here to see him with his own fears and anxieties, he sounded even more certain than Patrick. “You were being a good friend, the best friend. It’s not your fault that I fucked it up in the end.”
There was silence. Neither of them really knew what to say next. Although they were emailing a few times a week, their friendship wasn’t quite the same as it had been before, so Patrick certainly wasn’t sure what would even be appropriate. And judging from Pete’s hesitance to hug Patrick – and then not even doing it in the end – when the younger man first came offstage, he was probably feeling the exact same. The two of them just stood there, Pete’s hands in his pockets as he rocked on his heels and looked around the room.
Then finally—“Next time, I’m gonna marry you, Patrick Stump.”
Patrick grinned and shook his head. “Don’t get my hopes up,” he warned the other man, going for casual. Even though it was anything but.
5: 2013
The fifth time was probably the one situation in which Patrick should have expected it, and yet, didn’t see it coming. He was high on the adrenaline of playing the first Fall Out Boy show in years and couldn’t think about anything else besides wow fuck yes holy fuck.
It was so good to be back that he couldn’t help but throw himself into Pete’s arms as they came offstage.
Pete gripped him just as tightly in return, smiling so hard that Patrick was sure his face would get stuck that way. It certainly wouldn’t be a bad thing. He would live and die for that smile, which he had come to the conclusion a while back was simply something that would never change. Patrick would never get over Pete – if he was going to, it was going to have happened by now – but he was older and wiser and understood himself better. He was dedicated to being a good friend – a great friend – and sharing that friendship again with the world. Fall Out Boy was back, and nothing could shake the joy that Patrick was feeling in that moment.
Until Pete grabbed Patrick’s face and kissed him hard on the mouth.
Well, that was unexpected.
He froze, unsure of what to do – he had never prepared for this sort of thing to ever happen – but Pete hadn’t even noticed, pulling back and continuing to smile at Patrick. “I can’t believe it!” he exclaimed. “They still love us! Did you see that?!”
It took another moment for Patrick to shake the shock from the kiss. “Umm, yeah,” he responded. “It was…wow.”
“I don’t think I’ve ever felt anything like this! This is one of the happiest moments of my life!”
And yeah, Patrick could totally understand that too, because that’s how he felt at that moment. The concert had been amazing — people had lined up for days to get in, and they were there. They remembered the songs and they were cheering and they were crying and fuck, Patrick wanted to cry. The world still loved them, and he still loved them, and this…this was real life. He totally understood exactly how Pete felt because this was one of the happiest moments of his life too — and that was even before the kiss.
Pete enveloped Patrick in a tight hug again. “This wouldn’t be possible without you, ’Trick.”
“Pete, you know that you—”
“I know. It’s all of us. It wouldn’t be possible without me, without Joe, without Andy, but you, ’Trick. You’re our golden ticket.”
The older man had been saying stuff like that for years, and as an infatuated and cynical young adult, he both took it to heart and didn’t believe a word of it. His self-esteem was never that high to begin with, so even though Pete had spent years showering him in compliments of an exaggerated manner, Patrick had a hard time actually believing them. He accepted them and wrapped himself in them like armour, because it was Pete saying these things and Patrick craved Pete’s approval, but he didn’t quite believe them. That hadn’t exactly changed now, but he accepted that maybe Pete believed them.
“Well, I couldn’t do it without you,” he told the bassist, “so that means we’re stuck together for as long as we want to do this thing.”
“Forever,” Pete responded. “I’m gonna marry you, Patrick Stump, and we’re gonna do this forever.”
Patrick rolled his eyes, but the other man couldn’t see it since they were still clinging onto each other for dear life. He had doubts about the marriage thing – Pete had been saying that for years – but he had no doubts about forever. However, he didn’t have the time to mull it over as Andy knocked into him, also clearly coming down from a natural high – the only kind of high he experienced – and, as a result, not looking where he was going. Pete was quick to whack the drummer’s arm and warn, “hey, be careful with my fiancé!”
Fiancé. That was new. Patrick couldn’t place how he felt about that word. Especially since it wasn’t as though Pete was serious.
+ 1: 2019
The first time that Patrick said it was the moment when everything became clear to him, the moment when he realized that everything he’d always wanted was possible.
It had become this ongoing thing. The comments about marriage increased as Pete continued to call Patrick his fiancé, and it was just this one ongoing joke. Everyone else was in on it too — Joe and Andy frequently referred to the two of them as each other’s fiancés, and even some of their crew had begun calling Patrick “the ol’ ball and chain” to Pete. That is, until Pete threatened them for ever insinuating that being with Patrick would be like being trapped. In any case, it was the big joke: Pete and Patrick were madly in love and getting married.
And Patrick could live with that, because he loved to see Pete smile and using the word “fiancé” to describe Patrick certainly did exactly that.
Even when Pete got a new girlfriend, Patrick was still his fiancé.
Meagan didn’t seem to mind. She was such a genuinely nice person that Patrick couldn’t begrudge her dating Pete, and he didn’t even feel hurt when she fell pregnant and Pete became a father for the second time. Or the third time. Patrick was happy enough to be part of their little family that it didn’t matter that he was just the best friend and not the boyfriend or the husband or the other family or whatever — Pete was happy so Patrick was happy, and Meagan was really such a great influence on Pete. Everything was good.
The day that Pete and Meagan broke up was not so good, but it was amicable. They agreed to remain friends and to continue co-parenting their children like pros. Meagan would even remain a stepmother of sorts to Bronx, even if she wasn’t actually dating his father. Life moved on, but Pete did begin spending a lot more time with Patrick since he no longer had a romantic relationship to keep him occupied anymore.
Yet, it still came right out of left field when Pete asked him, “how would you feel about a spring wedding?”
Patrick froze. “What?” he asked. He couldn’t have heard that right.
“A spring wedding,” the older man clarified. “Or should it be a fall wedding? My last wedding was a spring wedding and well, we know how that turned out. It might be a bad omen to do another spring wedding. Fall can be nice, though. Hallowe’en? Do you think people would even come to our wedding if we held it on Hallowe’en?”
“I…what…wedding?” Wow, that was coherent.
“Yes, Pattycakes, our wedding. Do keep up, wedding planning is difficult so we should focus as best we can before the stress sets in.”
“The stress?”
“Yes, the stress. It’s going to get a lot harder from here on out. We need to choose a venue, caterers, best men — I mean, Joe and Andy, duh, but who gets who? I knew Andy first but you once shared a whole tour bus with him, and—”
“Wait, wait wait,” Patrick interrupted. “I think you need to rewind. Since when are we getting married?”
“Well, I could say ‘since always’ and it would technically be true because we were always gonna get married – that was inevitable – but I mean, you’ve been my fiancé now for several years and I figured it would be better to tie the knot sooner rather than later. If we get most of the planning done now, we won’t have to worry about it while we’re on tour. Well,” the bassist continued, “we still will have to do some things while on tour, but we can get the hard stuff done now and then at least that’s done. And the tour ends in the fall too, so that’s perfect! We can come home from one of the most iconic things we’ve ever done and do the most iconic thing we’ll ever do.”
Patrick just stared at him for a moment. “Pete,” he began slowly, “we don’t even live together.”
“And whose fault is that? You could have moved in any time.”
“That’s not the—”
“The point? No, it’s not,” he agreed. “The point is that we need to pick a date because we can’t pick a venue until we pick a date.”
What the fuck was going on?
“Okay, let me start over. Pete,” Patrick began again, “why—”
“Because I love you, duh. And because you love me. And because we’ve been engaged for so long that frankly, it’s embarrassing. Not that it’s embarrassing to be engaged to you, but that I haven’t made an honest man out of you yet.”
“You can’t make an honest man out of me because we haven’t even had sex. There’s nothing to ‘make honest’,” Patrick pointed out.
“You’re right, we should rectify that immediately. After we’re done sorting out the date, we’ll go upstairs.”
“No, that’s not what I—”
This whole thing was making his mind reel. This couldn’t possibly be an elaborate joke, could it? Pete was no stranger to practical joking, but this seemed a little different and Pete showed no signs of relenting. If Patrick knew any better – and he still wasn’t sure he did know any better, because this whole situation was insane – he would think that Pete was legitimately planning a wedding between them. A wedding that Patrick didn’t even know was happening. Shouldn’t someone know that they’re getting married? Like, even in arranged marriages, someone knew that the wedding was at least happening, right?
And then it happened again, for the second time ever: Pete leaned in and kissed Patrick. It was softer than the first time, and Patrick was sure that he could read a gazillion different emotions in that kiss, but most of them boiled down to: love, affection, want. It was so raw and open that Patrick couldn’t help but melt into the kiss.
But as suddenly as it had come, it was gone. Pete was smiling at Patrick as if he was the sun in Pete’s otherwise dark world. “So?” he asked expectantly.
“So…?”
“Fall wedding?” Pete prompted.
“Oh, uhhh, yeah, I think a fall wedding would work. Right after the tour. Right. Yes. A wedding. Because we’re getting married. Huh.” He probably sounded a little deranged, but he was still adjusting to what seemed like Pete being totally and completely serious about getting married.
“Perfect. Have I told you how much I love you?”
Patrick’s first response was to say “no!” because well, this was the first time he was really hearing that Pete loved him and legitimately wanted to marry him. Except he couldn’t really say that, could he? Pete had spent years – almost decades – telling anyone who would listen that he loved Patrick. He had spent those same almost decades telling Patrick that he was going to marry him. Sure, none of these proclamations of love or marriage ever amount to anything, but he never denied them. Pete was, if nothing else, honest.
“We’re getting married.” Patrick was actually starting to sound…giddy. Excited. “Married.”
Pete smiled and nodded. “Married.”
Patrick leaned in and, for the very first time, he kissed Pete, who immediately opened his mouth and returned the kiss. God, what had they been waiting for all these years? He just wanted to devour Pete, he couldn’t get enough. He had been dreaming about this since he was too young to even consider marriage and now, now—
He pulled back abruptly to take a breath, and he could feel his grin widening as he looked at the bassist. “I’m gonna marry you, Pete Wentz.”
“It’s about time,” was the only response he received before his lips were occupied again.