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Patrick just came out of the shower when he saw the little light flashing from his phone on the nightstand.
Hey can u come over for a sec
It was a message from Pete. Patrick frowned lightly and replied with a single question mark.
U finished showering
Uh, can’t that be more obvious? thought Patrick. He replied with two question marks.
Can u come over
Patrick sighed. He dried his hair, deliberately taking a little more time than usual. Then he pulled a cardigan over his T-shirt and checked the pocket to ensure the card key was inside. He fetched his phone and opened the hotel room door, closed it firmly behind him, and knocked on the door directly to the right.
The door opened. It was Joe.
"Hey. You're here." Joe said slowly.
"What's going on?" asked Patrick.
"It's… um, Pete. He's got a…" Joe paused for a second and finally decided on "He needs you."
Patrick looked at him for a moment. Joe's expression was hard to read. He sounded a little bit too calm for a real, like, urgent problem, but then “he needs you” sounded more serious than just a plain joke.
Patrick gave Joe a suspicious look and meant to follow him into Pete’s room. But Joe edged aside and nudged Patrick in, while backing out of the room. Patrick shot Joe an alarmed look but Joe had already closed the door.
The room was quiet. Patrick laid eyes on Pete, who was in his bathrobe and sat back in an armchair. “Dude,” his face lit up when Patrick entered and he straightened himself. Patrick somehow had a not-so-good feeling about what awaits him.
“Okay, Wentz. What’s all this?” he asked flatly.
“I need your help.” Pete replied simply. He doesn’t look sick or anything, Patrick thought to himself with a little relief. Drunk, maybe? But he didn’t like Pete’s hint of amusement on his face.
Patrick sighed. “What is it?” he asked, not any less flatly.
“I’ve got something…er..” Pete hesitated a little, “something on my… um, okay, my breast.” he winced a little at the end of the sentence.
Patrick blinked at Pete. “A what?” At the same moment he realized that it wasn't really amusement on Pete's face. It was an expression of discomfort or embarrassment, which Pete had learned to hide and disguise as something being funny. He had disguised it so well that even Patrick would be mistaken sometimes. Like now. Patrick felt slightly sorry for a few seconds.
“It’s like, like a little.. lump or something. Can you take a look at it?” Pete stood up and started motioning towards Patrick. Patrick didn’t move.
He exhaled and rolled his eyes. “Why?”
“Because I can’t quite see it myself," Pete was untying his bathrobe now. Patrick backed away a little, out of instinct.
“Hey. Hold on. I’m not a doctor. Dude, did you get it checked?” Now Patrick was a little concerned.
“No, it just… I just noticed it yesterday. See, it’s right here…”
“No, Pete, Pete. Hold on,” Pete’s bathrobe was open, with boxers underneath, thank goodness, and he was touching, rubbing slightly, with his right hand, a spot between his left breast and armpit. Patrick really wasn’t interested in seeing this.
“-What if it’s something bad?” Pete sounded genuinely worried.
"Pete. I wouldn't know if it's something bad or not." Patrick remarked with a sigh. "Okay? I'm not a doctor." He repeated, and gave the most reasonable suggestion he thought there was. "You should get it checked when we get home. Alright?”
"But we're not going home for another two weeks." Pete protested. They were only two shows into the Asian tour, and it was indeed a long journey ahead. "Can you just look at it for me a bit, please?" Pete pleaded.
"Uh, do I have to? I mean, didn’t Joe check it for you? He was here earlier." Patrick was now a little annoyed, possibly from the awkwardness of the situation. Plus he really wasn't -and he doubted he would ever be- in the mood of examining Pete's breast right now. Plus it would be totally pointless. He's not a doctor (he repeated in his head for the third time). It would be absolutely no help. “Or Andy?”
“They’re at the gym.” Pete stated as-a-matter-of-factly.
“I am not checking your breasts.” Patrick said firmly. “I don’t know any more about male breasts than you guys do. Or female breasts.” He added the last bit but it sounded wrong. “Whatever.”
"Yeah... but I just thought you're the dad, you know, the responsible, smart and rational family man, among us. You're the only one who's… like, health-conscious or something. I just thought you'd know what to do." Pete praised him, if you could call that a compliment, Patrick snorted in his head.
Patrick rolled his eyes again.
“Please?” Pete cocked his head and asked, too politely.
A sincere glow in Pete’s eyes told Patrick that there was no other way out of this. He sighed (for like the eighth time this evening), walked closer to Pete, bent down and started taking a good hard look at the spot his right index and middle finger were at. The bathrobe was falling over it, so Patrick caught its edge with his right hand to keep it out of the way.
“I don’t see anything.” Commented Patrick.
“It’s right here, see-” Before Patrick could stop him, Pete grabbed his right hand- actually, the three fingers in the middle- and pulled it towards his breast. Patrick’s fingers were now on the outer aspect of Pete’s left breast. Patrick was taken aback by the sudden action and skin contact. He stiffened a little, and could almost feel Pete flinch, too. He made to remove his hand but Pete was still holding on to it, and then he froze. Great. As weird as it was, It felt even weirder now to pull his hand back.
Okay. He was stuck.
“Just a bit to the outside.” Pete instructed and let go of his hand. Patrick thought of removing his hand again, but followed Pete's guide nonetheless. He walked his index and middle finger a bit laterally, and felt the nodule beneath Pete’s skin. Pete winced visibly and audibly with a soft grunt.
“Oh, sorry,” Patrick withdrew his fingers. “Does it hurt?”
“A little.” Pete nodded.
“So… that’s the one?” Patrick asked. “M-hmm.” Pete nodded again.
“And.. that’s the only one? Are there any, like, others?” Patrick started asking. He suddenly felt like he was examining one of his kids when they had an injury. “Did you get bit by something? Or, like, injured by anything?” The questions seemed to come to him automatically. Geesh, he felt like such a dad.
“No… not that I can remember, anyway.” Pete cooperated and answered. Then, maybe he felt cold, or suddenly aware of the weirdness of the situation, with his bare chest in Patrick's face. He closed the robe quickly and held it in place with his hand. Patrick looked away involuntarily as he did that.
“So you’re saying it appeared suddenly? Like, when, yesterday?” Patrick continued to ask.
“I… Well, I’m not sure how long it’s been there, but I don’t think I would’ve missed it when I shower. So… yeah, I guess it just sort of appeared these couple-a-days.” Pete tried to recall.
“I don’t know what it is. I have no idea.” Patrick said, thoughtfully. “But I remember a doctor saying something about if it’s like a tumor or something, it would grow slower? And also they tend to grow painlessly so they usually go unnoticed for a period of time?” Patrick recalled this, probably from some online article or TV program he absent-mindedly went through on some late nights alone, when he stayed up later than he intended to. Well, something useful came out of all that procrastinating, thought Patrick.
Pete looked relieved. “Well, it is painful, and it appeared suddenly.” He made a small summary. “Which means it’s not likely something bad, right?” He looked at Patrick for approval.
“Maybe. Sounds reasonable to me.” Patrick shrugged.
“It’s probably just a zit or something? That will go away?” Pete said.
“Yeah, maybe.” Patrick said. He couldn’t assure Pete, so he just decided to support whatever Pete said. At least it seemed to calm Pete down. For now.
Pete sat down on the edge of his bed. Patrick, in turn, took the armchair. They sat in silence for a moment. Then Pete spoke first. “Hey, do you remember that weird commercial we did for that breast cancer campaign?”
Patrick turned his head sharply to look at Pete. Of course. Of course Patrick remembered that.
“Urh, of course I remember that.” He verbalized with a groan, laughing wryly. “Oh my God, man, that was SO awkward. It was possibly one of the weirdest things I’ve ever done in my career.” He remarked. “And we’ve done some pretty weird stuff, so to speak.”
A beat.
“Hey Wentz.” Patrick realized something.
“Hm?” Pete hummed innocently.
“You didn’t come up with the idea to ask me to check you because of that… commercial thing we did, did you?” Patrick asked slowly with suspicion.
Pete raised both eyebrows and shrugged.
“Dude, really?” Patrick said incredulously.
“I just thought… maybe you’d remember some stuff from that.” Pete started defending his idea. “You did watch Valient Thorr and… who was the other band that did it...”
“I totally don’t remember a single thing, dude,” snapped Patrick. “All I remember is that cringe that never went away.” He chuckled and said, “It was for a good cause, really educational and all. But still. One of the biggest cringes of my life.”
“Dude, it was equally awkward for me.” Pete said, unable to stop grinning. They caught each other’s gazes and just grinned- well, wry-grinned- at each other for a few seconds, broke eye contact, and burst into laughter.
“Oh my God, I’m gonna dig it out and watch it now.” Pete exclaimed, breathless from the laugh.
“And I’m leaving the room right now.” Patrick jumped up from the armchair.
“C’mon, man, I’m kidding.” Pete, still laughing, stood up to stop Patrick.
“But seriously though,” Patrick sat back down, closed his eyes and sighed, yet again, “Whose genius idea was it to get us into that interview?”
“Honestly I totally don’t remember.” Pete admitted.
“Wait, but whoever’s idea it was,” Patrick turned back to look straight at Pete, “I’m pretty sure you were the one who talked me into it. Seriously, I really don’t know how you managed to convince me to do it.”
“Well, to be fair,” Pete’s face now looked truly amused, Patrick could tell. Maybe still a little bit embarrassed, but mostly amused. “There's a lot of times that I don’t know how I convinced you to do a lot of things.”
Upon hearing that, Patrick smiled to himself first, then broke into a wholehearted laugh.
It was true. Patrick could recall several times Pete was able to convince him to do certain things, even if he initially didn’t like the idea at all. Like certain music arrangements that he thought were too corny but turned out to work really well. Like some of those crazy interviews or commercials they did that caused enormous feedback from the fans, positive or negative, or anything in between.
He couldn’t deny it. Pete had a way with the packaging and marketing of the works they’ve created. He had a way of selling Patrick’s musical and artistic talents to the world, better than Patrick could ever have done by himself. Even in ways Patrick had never imagined. And over the years they’ve worked together, Patrick had grown to trust Pete on these bold ventures, and follow him wherever he leads them. Not completely blindly, he argued with himself internally. But… yeah, maybe just a little blindly. He had never stopped questioning the decisions that Pete made, but somehow ended up onboard of the crazy train rides Pete took them on. That was really... something. Patrick smiled to himself again.
Then he smiled to Pete. It was a sincere one, with just the right amount of sarcasm.
“You’re the boss, Wentz. What the Hell was I supposed to do.”