Chapter Text
Pete walked into his third period english class groggy and tired. A person would think that they’d be awake and actually productive by now, but Pete was not that typical person. Sure, he was relatively good in school and had a decent social life, and fuck, he was even captain of his school’s football and soccer team with ladies fawning over him as he scored goals. But fuck him if he could ever get a decent goodnight sleep.
Nonetheless, he slowly dragged his feet to his desk near the back with the rest of his jock buddies who are, oddly enough, calm and quiet.
“Good,” Pete thought as he sat down. Unfortunately, the rest of his friends saw him and took it as their que to start talking about sports. Which, Pete was fine with that, but not at ten thirty in the morning when his eyelids could barely stay open.
They didn’t shut up until the bell rung and the teacher shut the door to the classroom which signaled the beginning of class.
“Good morning, everyone!” Mrs. Lee, their overly excited english teacher, sang to the class. The class mumbled a good morning back to her and she smiled, “I hope everyone is doing well this morning.”
The class had barely even started and Pete knew that this was going to be a long ass day. How he got through Chemistry his first period and ASL his second period was totally beyond him. He must’ve been sleeping because he didn’t remember a thing.
“This morning we’re going to be talking a little bit about poetry and then towards the end of class I will assign you all your poetry projects,” The woman told the class and everyone started to groan. “Oh don’t whine about it, it’s going to be easy ,” She swatted at the air and tutted, “Besides, you’ll be able to work with a partner.”
Everyone cheered at this, but it wasn’t until the end of class that she revealed the downside of that fact.
“Picking our partners?” One of the ass-kissing kids groaned, “Come on, Mrs. Lee, you always let us choose our own.”
“I know I do, but I figured that I would switch it up a bit,” Mrs. Lee giggled like she fucking knew that she just fucked up Pete’s entire life. Well, not his entire life, but the odds of her pairing him up with his actual friends is very low.
And Pete’s prediction was correct when the teacher called out, “Pete Wentz? Your partner is going to be Patrick Stump.”
At first, Pete furrowed his eyebrows in confusion since the name wasn’t clicking in his head. However, the turn of a familiar head of bleached blonde hair in front of him caught his attention, causing him to meet eyes with a stern face.
“Holy shit, ” Pete thought as he stared back into their blue eyes. Something about his expression must’ve ticked them off because they quickly scoff and turned back in their seat with a scowl on their face.
“Patrick fucking Stump…” Pete thought to himself, still stunned by the fact that he completely forgot his existence. He hasn’t seen him or heard about him since that whole incident freshman year. It’s been a whole two years since then, and Pete thought that he completely left school, but there he is in his english class looking the same as he did before as if time didn’t pass.
Patrick wore a large leather jacket overtop a baggy Ramones t-shirt that had a shit-ton of holes in it with tight, ripped skinny jeans. He also wore black converse that looked as if they were worn while walking through literal hell- that’s how beaten up they were. His accessories also included chains that hooked onto his pants, multiple chokers and metal necklaces that hung around his neck, and a fucking lip-piercing, holy shit…
Pete wasn’t wearing anything fancy; just one of his soccer jerseys over top of his hoodie and jeans that were way too big for him (thanks, Mom). He wore his white Nike shoes that every guy in his school were wearing, and suddenly he felt very disconnected to his peers by the fact that he’s going to have to leave them to hang with the weird punk kid.
After Mrs. Lee stopped talking, Pete turned around to try and talk to his friends. “ Oh my god, do you guys see who I have to work with? ” He wanted to joke, but as soon as he turned around, his friends gave him disapproving looks.
“What?” He asked and gave them a puzzled look.
“I can’t believe you’re gonna have to work with the weird kid,” One of them said, “You’re not actually gonna do it, are you?”
“I mean, yeah, I sort of have to,” Pete chuckled awkwardly. “What do you want me to do? Tell her to switch me with someone else?”
“That would be better, yes,” Another said, “He’s a literal freak, dude. You remember what happened freshman year, don’t you?”
Pete does, but vaguely. He wasn’t there to witness it, but apparently Patrick got into a fight with one of the guys on his football team two years ago. It left the latter with a black eye, a broken elbow, and a shattered kneecap. He wasn’t able to play for the rest season, and the football team was distraught. Both of them got suspended for several weeks, and no one truly knew who started it. But of course, everyone blamed the weird punk kid because “ how dare you assume that the preppy, important football player did anything wrong?!” Nonetheless, it earned Patrick the status of “don’t fuck with me, or I’ll shatter your kneecaps” and no one spoke of or to him since.
Not until now.
“Come on, dude, he’ll literally eat you alive,” One of them laughed which caused everyone else in that group to join in.
But Pete only rolled his eyes and tutted, “I’m sure it won’t be that bad, guys, just chill out. Besides, it’s just for one small, dumbass project… how bad can it be?”
“Very.” They all laughed again, but Pete only rolled his eyes and got up from his desk. He walked over to Patrick whose head was down as he scribbled into his notebook. The slightly taller junior wanted to see what he was writing, but as soon as he got close, Patrick shut his notebook and shoved it into his book bag that sat next to his chair on the floor.
The blonde looked up at him with hatred in his eyes as he spit, “What do you want?”
Surprised by the sudden anger, Pete stepped back a little bit and defensively put his hands out in front of him.
“Hey, I just wanted to come over here and talk about the project,” Pete said slowly. He really didn’t want to end up like his teammate, so he was trying to keep everything cool. “I figured that we should talk about it ‘cause we’re, y’know, partners?” He shrugged as if what he said was a suggestion.
Patrick paused for a moment and stared at Pete. The latter began to feel confused, but slowly the punk lowered his defenses. His shoulders became relaxed and his eyes didn’t feel as if he was trying to light the person in front of him on fire with his mind, so Pete found comfort in their sudden softness. Wow, they’re actually really pretty—
“Yeah, I guess so,” Patrick shrugged nonchalantly. His voice didn’t sound so malicious as it once was, so Pete guessed that he wasn’t so mad at him anymore. Why Patrick was mad at him in the first place was beyond the jock, so he won’t question. “Here, sit down,” He offered the empty seat in front of him and Pete took it.
Pete spun around so he could face the punk as they spoke, “So what exactly is this project about? I kinda wasn’t listening after she called our names.”
“Too busy looking at me, were you?” Patrick raised an eyebrow and smirked. His voice sounded sarcastic, but also kind of pissed off.
“Uhm, no, I’m sorry…” Pete tried to backpedal, but he was, in fact, staring at him, “I didn’t mean to-“
“It’s fine, I guess,” Patrick mumbled, “People stare at me all the time, so I’m used to it.”
At this, Pete frowned, “Hey, listen, I’m sorry for staring at you. I was just surprised that you were my partner, that’s all,” He said.
The punk seemed to understand, so they shrugged their shoulders and looked back down at the paper on their desk. “The project is that we need to write a series of poems like the examples that are here-“ Patrick pointed at the paper where there were a series of different poem examples, “-And then make a poetry book with our poems inside.”
“Holy shit, I thought she said that this would be easy,” Pete scoffed as he looked at the paper. There had to have been at least fifteen different poem examples.
“When has Mrs. Lee ever given us something easy” Patrick shook his head.
“Literally never,” Pete sighed. This is the only class he’s actually not doing well in. He doesn’t have an F, per say, but he definitely doesn’t have an A.
Patrick glanced at the jock knowingly, but Pete dismissed it and decided to ask, “So when is this due?”
The punk looked back down at the paper to find the due date, “It’s due on Friday.”
“What the fuck, it’s only Tuesday.” Pete complained, “This is bullshit. We’re never gonna get this done.”
“Bullshit, indeed,” Patrick nodded. “But she said that if we needed more time then we should probably work on this outside of school.”
“But I have sports and stuff to do after school, I can’t just skip it.” Pete whined. Goddamn you, Mrs. Lee.
“Then how do you suggest we do this?” Patrick said, pure boredom dripping off of his words. The jock could tell that the punk would rather do anything else but be in his presence. And Pete felt the same way about them.
Before he answered his question, Pete glanced over at his friends who sat in the same places as before and looked at the duo as they tried not to laugh. Have they been staring at them this entire time?
Suddenly, Pete felt very embarrassed. As if someone had just exposed his naked body to the world, and everyone were laughing at him. He tried to look away from them, but he had already caught their eyes and now they’re laughing even harder.
Of course, Patrick picked up on this and turned around to see what all the commotion was about, but once he realized that they were laughing at him, he turned back around and slid down in his chair. Pete watched as his cheeks turned ruby red and flipped the collar of his leather jacket up to cover his face.
Pete realized in this moment that they won’t be able to get any work done without the harassment of his dumbass teammates. Plus, he’s afraid that if they’re around each other anymore, that he’ll be considered a freak as well. And that’s a no-no for a jock.
“Listen, I think we should work on this at my house,” Pete whispered, “That way we won’t have to be around each other at school. We can save ourselves from the harassment and get this over with. And once this is over, we won’t have to deal with each other ever again, you okay with that?”
“That’s perfectly fine by me,” Patrick scoffed. “I don’t want to hang around you here anyways.”
“Ditto,” Pete agreed. “Give me your phone number and I’ll text you my address.”
Patrick only rolled his eyes before he recited his phone number and watched as Pete typed it into his phone. He’s not allowed to have it out, but fuck Mrs. Lee for putting him through this bullshit, she can suck it up.
Once he was done, Pete shoved his phone back into his pocket and jumped up from his seat.
“Is there any specific time you want to come over?” The jock asked. He himself has a specific schedule to follow today, but he figured that would be nice and ask.
“Uh, no, anytime is fine.” Patrick shrugged again.
“Okay, how about five? Is that good?”
“Yeah that’s fine with me.”
“Okay good.”
“...Yeah, fine.”
Thankfully, the bell rang which signaled the end of class and the end of their awkward conversation. Pete headed back to his desk to grab his book bag before he walked out the door. As he strolled to his fourth period class, he finally realized the horror that will partake after school and suddenly wished for the day to go even slower.