Work Text:
2003.
Patrick’s the farthest thing from a scientist. Trust that he is well aware of this. Patrick barely graduated high school, didn’t even bother with college—Patrick doesn’t “read.” Patrick is, generally, pretty adept at absolutely missing hints and fumbling cues, wielding obliviousness like a maligned wannabe body-builder reaching for the heaviest weights. He embarrasses himself, he embarrasses everyone watching him, sometimes it’s an accidental weapon, etcetera etcetera.
Patrick does have what one might call scientific theories, though.
THEORY 1: This short and sweaty elven nerd freak covered in trucker caps, acne, and sideburns schtick he’s got going on? Not great for picking up girls. Women are generally not interested in him. He tells Joe this and Joe rolls his eyes, but it’s not like Joe’s getting lucky much either, so. Who cares what Joe thinks, basically.
TLDR, THEORY 1: Girls don’t like him.
THEORY 2: Boys kind of do(?)
Now, Patrick’s not sure what to make of this. Even acknowledging it as a possibility feels self-aggrandizing, but he can’t deny that the ratio of pretty girls to random dudes trying to make a move on him when he’s able to actually get into one of the bars post-show—well, the numbers aren’t exactly on Patrick’s side.
He’s flattered, really. But he’s not interested in guys like that. Which brings him to:
THEORY 3: Everybody else around him seems to be interested in guys like that.
This is an exaggeration.
But Jesus Christ.
And, like, okay. Maybe Patrick’s just too uptight. Plenty of people tell him this literally all the time. Maybe it’s less that being in a band seems to come with some secret code that they’ve all agreed to be into men, and more that everyone’s just having some good fun. Maybe none of them mean it. Maybe Patrick gets really frustrated trying to figure out what exactly people mean.
“I think you’re thinking about this too hard,” Joe says, flipping through some Superman issue or other.
“Coming from you?”
“I’ll have you know my incessant vomit-inducing neuroses does not extend to hyper analyzing the sex preferences of our dear and beloved scenemates. I got called a faggot enough in my baby years to get over that hurdle.”
“You’re part of the problem,” Patrick says, moody, “Mr. ‘It’s Not Gay If I’m The One Getting The Blowjob.’”
“And it’s not! All I see is a tangle of hair, bro. It’s not like. . . boy pubes.”
“You’re so fucking gross,” Patrick grumbles, though he leans against Joe’s shoulder to try and get a glimpse of the comic anyway, “And I got called a faggot in school, too, just by the way.”
“Well, obviously,” Joe laughs, and Patrick socks him in the shoulder. The conversation’s cut short by the van door being pried open, Andy pushing a Pete-shaped blob inside. Andy’s face looks vaguely pinched.
“We ready to go?” He says, voice level. Pete slumps down into the passenger’s seat, swallowed by a hoodie. Patrick and Joe exchange a look.
“Yep,” Joe says, popping the ‘p,’ “We pissed in the alleyway and everything.”
Andy looks at Patrick, who nods, but can’t quite help himself, so he says, “Thought it was Pete’s turn to drive.” The amorphous ball of dude-cloth in the front seat twitches.
“Pete will be driving two days in a row starting tomorrow. Pete will, actually, be so good at things like driving, playing his bass, and being a person once he’s out of hibernation. Right?”
The hoodie-monster grumbles. Patrick supposes it sounds vaguely affirmative. He wants to push the subject more, curiosity gnawing at him, but the sharpness in Andy’s eyes stops him. Fine. Patrick leans back into Joe, instead.
wuz up w him? Joe scrawls in pen across his hand. who the fuck ever knows Patrick writes back. They fist bump. Ink on ink. Then they settle into staticky silence.
Later, Patrick feigns sleep. Doesn’t answer when, somewhere around four in the morning, Andy probingly calls out to him and Joe. Joe’s snoring behind him, no doubt about it. Patrick tries to keep his breathing even, eyelids hummingbird light. He’s not sure where the impulse comes from.
“Okay,” Andy says, once he’s met with no reply, “Are you gonna tell me what happened, man?”
After a moment, Pete’s voice echoes harsh, “He is such a fucking asshole.”
“Yeah. I mean, you knew that already.”
Pete doesn’t say anything to that, but Patrick can practically feel the sparks spitting off him like a lighter. He tries to run a mental catalog through every person Pete could possibly be talking about, but he can’t quite narrow it down. Past a certain point, Pete’s basically only friends with assholes.
“We’re supposed to be tight,” Pete finally says, “We’re shitty to each other but it’s not supposed to be like actual-shitty it’s like—I don’t know, man, it just wasn’t cool.”
“Bit of a disproportionate reaction to something that ‘just wasn’t cool.’”
“Disproportionate reaction’s kinda my thing.”
More silence. Patrick lets it wash over him as little slivers of moon get stuck on the seats.
“I didn’t even actually kiss him,” Pete says, low. There’s an abject misery to his tone that surprises Patrick. Andy sighs through his nose. “I didn’t. God, it was a fucking joke—”
“People don’t always like those jokes, Pete—”
“It’s fucking Chris, Andy, we’ve jerked off together for years—”
“I really didn’t need to know that.”
“—And he’s into it, you know? He’s way more into it than I am. So I don’t fucking get why I’m always the one who—fucking whatever,” Pete’s voice gets more muffled, fabric pulled tight over his head, “I don’t know why I’m always the one who’s off my rocker, why I’m always the one treated like oh, careful with him, he likes it. You know, that’s basically what he said. I mean, fuck, he likes it! All those bitches like it, and they like it when I do it!”
“You’re gonna wake ‘em up,” Andy says, sounding almost reproachful, and Patrick feels so weird about eavesdropping, all of a sudden. Like he’s getting a sneak peek of a part of their band he didn’t even know existed. Pete makes a frustrated noise. “Sorry. That maybe wasn’t what I was supposed to—”
“It’s fine, dude, but you’re not my mom,” Pete spits out, “It doesn’t matter. Everyone thinks I’m a—and who gives a shit. Who cares what they think. I don’t. I don’t care. They’re all obsessed with me anyway.”
“Listen. Just. Try and get some sleep?”
“Whatever,” Pete huffs. Silence again. Then: “And I’m not. Just to be clear. For fuck’s sake. I’m not actually a fucking queer.”
Andy says, “Yeah, man. I know.”
Neither of them talk until morning. Patrick doesn’t quite sleep for the rest of the night. He thinks, in terms of science, that he’ll probably stay away from guys.
——
2005.
He catches Joe looking, which is probably what starts it.
In Joe’s defense, the guys are, like—right there, right in front of them, tongues shoved down each other’s throats. Patrick’s never really seen two dudes going at it like that, so unapologetically. Like it’s not a joke. Patrick supposes that for some it’s not.
Joe turns away, shoots Patrick an amused look, heh, get a load of them, but his ears are kind of burning. In the low light he looks sixteen and awkward again, not twenty-one and—well, faking it. Patrick wonders if the same is true for him. He likes to think he has the slightest more modicum of grace than Joe does. Doesn’t mean he does, but. He likes to think it.
They’re allowed in bars now. Not that they hadn’t snuck in before, but they’re honest-to-god allowed now. Andy’s a little surly about it, even though Patrick’s not drinking, and Joe. . . . Joe has definitely had a few drinks before, so much for straightedge, yeah? He’d confessed the whole thing to Patrick back when they’d been touring Japan (and Patrick had hated that trip; Joe a mess, Pete out of it, him and Andy fumbling to figure out how to keep everything upright. Two years removed from nineteen, and Patrick feels the youth of those days like something spiky under his skin).
“Pete would love this shit,” Joe says, waggling his eyebrows. The men at the bar separate, the taller one leaning on his—boyfriend’s(?) shoulder.
“Pete would’ve made such a big deal about it that those guys might’ve thought they were being hate-crimed.”
“He can joke,” Joe says, nasal sing-song, “But he can’t commit.”
Yeah, Patrick thinks. That sounds about right.
“You excited?” Joe asks, and it takes Patrick a moment to realize what he’s talking about. When he does, he takes a sip of his flat lukewarm tap water, and shrugs into his jacket, pulling the hat low over his eyes.
“Eh. We did Warped last year.”
“That shit did not count. People know who we are now, man. Gonna be raging.”
“Are you excited?”
“Fuck no,” Joe barks out a laugh, a doglike little thing, “I’m goddamn terrified. I’m gonna throw up down your back onstage.”
“Awesome,” Patrick says, toneless, “Your vomit and Pete’s spit, might as well add Andy’s, like—”
“Semen,” Joe says, solemn. Patrick grimaces, and shoves him. Child.
“Sweat. Why would I—I was going to say sweat!”
“You already got hella sweat, Patrick,” Joe giggles, and Patrick wonders whether he’s snuck a few drinks after all. He doesn’t call him on it, although he could. Joe’s easy to poke at. Patrick supposes he is, too.
The guys at the bar are holding hands. The bartender makes eye contact with Patrick, raises a bemused eyebrow at him, like they’re in cahoots or something. Patrick doesn’t have the social prowess to figure out what the fuck that means, so he pulls his eyes low and listens to Joe talk about Black Flags. Their knees pressed together under the table.
__
2011.
It’s a bit of an identity overhaul, but what the hell—Patrick speedran teenagehood, he might as well have a midlife crisis in his mid-to-late-20s, right?
He knows that’s what this looks like. Elisa shoots him furtive looks, like she doesn’t know how to broach the subject, and the funny part is he doesn’t know which subject she means—his working hours, his body, the bleach job, the, uh, glitter. The “drinking” (it’s not actually an issue). They don’t end up talking about it before he leaves for tour. He thinks she regrets that. He has no idea how he feels.
He doesn’t want it to stop, though. He’s spinning and spinning and spinning and if he stops, he’ll topple over. But if he just keeps spinning.
When he trashed the first pass at the album, he thought he was getting somewhere. He would look at his lyrics and see familiar syntax—shoddy imitations, at that—and it’s so unfair Patrick feels almost sick with it, it’s so unfair that Pete is at the helm of everything he does, that anything Patrick writes will have been inevitably taught at the School Of Wentz, Patrick jumped ship to get away from the guy, to prove the red string Pete was so sure existed between them was never real to begin with. To prove that everything Pete said was a lie, and Patrick was only ever just covering for him. To prove—something. To prove something.
So, whatever. He does disco now.
“You can lean on me in whatever way you need to,” Michael Day tells him before the show one day, as they’re tuning their guitars, “Interaction onstage helps ease the nerves.”
Patrick’s about to say that he doesn’t really move around much onstage, regardless, before he looks down at the ridiculous fingerless gloves peeking out of the sparkly gray suit he’s wearing, and realizes that, maybe, this version of Patrick does.
“Thanks,” he says, gears in his head turning, “I think I totally might.”
“They won’t see you coming.” Michael smiles at him, warm, before refocusing his attention on tuning the strings right. Patrick watches the way his tongue pokes out of his mouth, wets the bottom lip in concentration. He clenches his fist so hard he can feel his nails poking through the fabric.
—
2005.
“We should just try it,” Joe says, bouncing his leg up and down, nervous frenetic energy so palpable it’s infecting Patrick. Neither of them were feeling up to socializing tonight, so they crawled back to the bus together, amidst drunken stragglers at the campgrounds, sober themselves, but—Joe was clearly wired. He’d gotten weird earlier, for reasons that were lost on Patrick. He didn’t really care to puzzle it out. He just needed Joe to relax.
“Try what,” Patrick says, because the silence is worse. He’s pretty sure he knows where this is going, though. Joe’s been freaky and quiet lately, sneaking furtive glances at him like he’s got a bad idea brewing in that jumbled head of his.
“Like, okay, I’ve been blown by guys before,” Joe says, and Patrick winces, “You know this.”
“Unfortunately, I do.”
“Oh, what, like you’ve never done anything like that—”
“Uh, I haven’t. And I don’t want to.”
Joe quiets down there. Patrick was maybe a little harsher than he had meant to be, but he feels—his body’s hot all over, in a suffocating stuck-his-head-into-a-plastic-bag type of way. He wants to stop thinking about this. He wants the world to stop making it his job to think about this. He wants Pete to get back to the bus before five in the morning, to focus on playing songs instead of dedicating them to random fucking—he closes his eyes. He watches Joe curl in on himself.
Patrick wonders, briefly, what the chances are of him secretly being a horrible bigot.
He sighs.
“Exploration is, like, healthy,” he says, eventually, and Joe perks up. Just the slightest bit. “You do you. I just don’t think I’d like it very much.”
“Getting blown by guys is the same as getting blown by girls, basically,” Joe informs him, shifting in on the couch; Patrick tries not to bristle. He’s pretty sure that’s absolutely not true, but he supposes it’s not his business. “Especially the kinda guys we’re around.”
“You and Pete ever. . .” Patrick has no idea why he says that. Suddenly, it’s all he can think about. Pete and Joe. On this couch, maybe. He flinches away, smashing his elbow into the arm accidentally. And painfully.
“Ever—? Oh! Dude, no! That would be so weird,” Joe makes a face, like Patrick’s a freak for even thinking that, “Pete treats me like a fuckin’ kid, no way he’d ever do shit with me.”
“Right,” Patrick says. That’s rational. “Would you ever want to?”
“With Pete?” Joe squints. Like he’s really thinking it through. Patrick tries to not do that alongside him. He’s mildly successful. “Ehhh. He’s not really—I mean, he’s like a guy. For real. All rough edges and shit?”
“Can’t close your eyes and pretend he’s a girl instead?” Patrick says, dryly, and Joe shrugs, sheepish. Patrick has half a mind to ask whether Joe, in basically propositioning him, was admitting that Patrick isn’t, to him, as much of a guy as Pete is. But he expels the thought, instead. Pete wears makeup and girl jeans. On purpose. Joe has no clue what the hell he’s talking about. Patrick doesn’t think he’s the type of boy who can pretend guys are girls in order to justify having sex with them, but if he was—Pete’s kind of the obvious choice, there. So long as you keep him quiet.
“Nah. Plus, it’d be weird. It’s Pete.”
“I’m sure he’d be willing.”
“Not with me, dude. ‘Sides, he doesn’t seem to really like dick, anyway. At least, that’s what I heard.”
“Yeah? From who?” Patrick says this very very very very neutrally. Joe doesn’t answer, tugging on a curly lock of hair. Ball of nerves. Patrick shifts gears: “What kind of guys do you like?”
“Well, none,” Joe says, tugging harder.
“In the absence of girls, I mean.”
“. . . Girlish ones, then,” Joe’s embarrassed now, Patrick can tell, can see it in the flush of his ears and how he’s biting his inner cheek. It makes Patrick feel a little untouchable.
“Tell me about the last guy you hooked up with.”
“I–I’ve never actually—”
“Last guy who gave you a shitty BJ, then.”
Joe looks at Patrick like he’s grown two heads. Patrick expects some form of pushback, something that finally stretches the tension pulled taut between them too thin, until it snaps, and they laugh it off before putting on some dumb DVD and snacking on day-old pizza.
But Joe just looks at him and says, “He was pretty awkward and stuff. But, like, when it got to the sex stuff, he was good. Knew what he was doing. Warm mouth—don’t make that face, man!”
“Sorry,” Patrick mumbles, schooling his expression. Fuck, he’s totally a raging homophobe, isn’t he? “Keep going.”
“Had long fingers,” Joe says. Quiet. Obedient. Huh.
“What’s he play?” The benefit of not finding any of this hot is that Patrick’s voice is thankfully level. Joe ducks his head, mumbles something to himself. “What?”
“Bass,” Joe spits out, embarrassed, and Patrick stares at him.
“Joseph. Tell me you didn’t.”
“I—he offered—”
“What is with this guy—”
“He’s pretty nice once you get to know him.”
“Yeah, and you certainly got to know him, huh?”
“Don’t be a dick. He honestly just seemed kinda, like, frustrated. Sexually. So I was only helping a bro out.”
Patrick thinks everyone on Warped Tour might have straight up lost their minds.
“Like, I really don’t think I’m gay,” Joe says, easily, “Just horny? I dunno. Don’t you ever think about it?”
When Patrick was sixteen he saw Pete pressed drunkenly into a couch by a guy even older than him eyes glazed over while Patrick just stood there and watched and watched and watched until the guy started yelling at him to get the fuck out and then Patrick tumbled outside into the rain and his shoes got so waterlogged he walked home barefoot in socks.
And. And Pete had never talked about boys, so Patrick had been worried that maybe something—but he didn’t bring it up and then he got older and found out that actually Pete sometimes did talk about boys. So it was probably fine.
“Earth to Patrick.”
“I think about it sometimes.” It falls out of his mouth too quickly. It feels like failing.
“But you’ve never. . .”
“With a. . .? No. No, not at all.”
“You’re making that face again.”
“I just don’t think it’d be a good time,” Patrick says, “But I haven’t tried.”
Joe’s quiet again. Bouncing his leg again. Biting his mouth raw.
“I’m not gonna suck your dick, man,” Patrick says, fidgeting, nervous that that’s somehow what Joe’s angling for. “I gotta sing tomorrow—”
“Eugh,” Joe sounds put off, which, frankly, irritates Patrick, “I just thought we could try kissing or something, don’t make it weird.”
“Me don’t make it weird?” Patrick says, as Joe shifts closer on the couch. He knocks his knuckles into Patrick’s, gives him a small and goofy smile. “Oh, don’t be sweet. This is so embarrassing.”
“. . . I can pretend you’re some chick I don’t know if that makes it better.”
“Why do I have to be the—no, okay, we’re just us, okay? It’s just us. Just Joe and Patrick.”
“Kissing.”
Patrick winces.
“. . . I guess. Yes. Fine.”
They stare at each other.
“So, uh,” Joe’s voice sounds even more nasal than usual. It makes Patrick relax some. “Do we just like. . .”
“You’re the man, right?” Patrick says it desert dry, but Joe seems to miss the memo.
“Alright. Pucker up, big guy,” he says, and all but dives in, smashing their teeth together. Patrick’s ready to call it quits at that, but Joe grabs the back of his neck and readjusts (are his eyes fucking open right now?), and Patrick sidles closer to him. Hand on. . . Waist? Yeah, that seems normal.
“Dude,” Joe pulls back, “That hurt. You just bit me.”
“You put your tongue in my mouth!”
“We’re kissing, Patrick, that’s where it fucking goes—”
Patrick cuts him off by throwing his face into Joe’s, pushing him against the opposite end of the couch. Joe looks up at him, head tilted, dumbstruck. Dumbfuck. His hands find Patrick’s sides, and his fingers play at the hem of Patrick’s shirt. It sears. So Patrick clambers on top of him, holding Joe’s wandering hands above his head, feeling unmoored and humiliated and maybe if he just goes all in, he won’t feel so—so—
“Fuck,” Joe breathes against his lips, like he’s enjoying it, and Patrick’s stomach drops. He topples off the couch and lands on his ass, arm coming up to wipe his mouth. As if that might erase the last five minutes.
“You might totally be gay for real, man,” Patrick says, and Joe’s still pressed tight against the couch, eyes wide and unguarded. Patrick cannot fucking look at him right now.
“Dude, I’m not—look, you don’t get it.”
“You’re right,” Patrick stands (bambi knees, Pete said something akin to that once, like a foal), “I don’t.”
He makes a beeline for the bus door. Warped Tour sun so hot he’s blind for a moment.
—
2011.
Patrick justifies it with the knowledge that he’s not actually doing anything. He doesn’t want anything out of it, and even if he did—he’d never do something like that to Elisa.
It’s mostly just: that ratio he figured out back in ‘03? It hasn’t really shifted. Or, it absolutely has shifted. In ways that emphasize his original and unfortunate conclusion.
He’s under no illusions as to what he looks like currently. Patrick would get called gay for having kind of long hair. Now he wears makeup and gyrates onstage and feels like half the room’s laughing at him when he throws out a feminine pronoun. Which he does. Frequently. The other half seems to be quite enthused by this, but Patrick’s never been a glass half-full type of person, if he’s being honest.
Basically: he’s aware he seems. . . gay. Right now, specifically. On this tour. He seems like a skinny gay guy. He goes to bars and big burly men shoot him looks that imply he’s either getting beat up or bent over. Which is crude. Patrick’s maybe kind of drunk right now. Patrick’s been maybe getting kind of drunk a lot recently.
But Patrick isn’t stupid.
There’s a dude across the bar staring at him. Right now.
Does this happen to other straight guys? With this level of frequency? Okay, sometimes Patrick uses Elisa’s soap in the shower, but he doesn’t think it should be spreading such a disparate amount of homosexual pheromones. Is it that he’s short? Well, he can’t change that, exactly. Wearing platform shoes would only make him come across as gayer.
The guy across the bar winks at him. Patrick realizes, belatedly, he’s been holding eye contact for the past three minutes, probably. He finishes the last of his whiskey. He doesn’t break eye contact.
He does this, sometimes. When he’s drunk enough that the colors blur. Nothing ever happens. He just. Stares back. Sometimes smiles. Local has-been leads men on.
He’s always been pretty good at that.
But, like. How’s it his fault? If he doesn’t feel the attraction? Why should he have to feel bad that he was wanted by somebody that he didn’t want back? Maybe that somebody shouldn’t have been so fucking confusing about literally everything.
Patrick almost wishes he wanted it. Patrick thinks that his band might still be together if he was just even a little bit gay.
Thinking about this makes him feel like tearing his vocal chords out. Give people something to mourn. And thoughts like that make him feel like Pete.
Somewhere in between all of that, the guy’s found his way up to Patrick. His eyes are dark and his hands seem big. And Patrick already feels like Pete tonight, anyway. Like a flight risk. Like a secret serial killer. Like all these wicked unnameable things Pete only alludes to. And if he feels like Pete already, then.
Then he might as well have this guy bite his neck against an alleyway, right?
–
2005.
Joe convinces him to try again. And again. And again. Until the summer is theirs, and it makes it almost bearable.
Patrick doesn’t really have strong opinions on the kissing part, but it’s nice having somebody to come back to. And Joe’s enthusiastic enough, makes it so Patrick doesn’t have to really worry about letting him down, so they both win. It’s weirdly safe.
So Patrick sits next to Joe at parties, and Patrick listens to Joe ramble about guitars when he’s nervous, and, sometimes, Patrick lets Joe slip him some tongue.
Pete spends the whole summer not noticing.
“I kinda don’t know how they’re making it work,” Joe says, one day, high out of his mind, “They’re both so—the logistics, man, they’re just not panning out in my mind.”
“What?” Patrick’s not fully paying attention right now, he’s sort of just letting Joe talk at him while he tries to figure out this chord progression.
“Pete and Mikey,” Joe dissolves in a peal of laughter; Patrick finds himself growing increasingly annoyed with the sound, “Who the fuck is on top in that situation?”
“I have no idea what I’m supposed to say to that.”
“Yet another reason why that’s never gonna last.”
“Yet another?” And Patrick’s man enough to admit that he’s paying attention now. PeteAndMikey have been so unbearable this past month, Patrick’s counting down the days until they’re dead in the water. Which they will be. He’s glad Joe agrees. Good old Joe.
“I mean. They’re so, like, random,” Joe squints. Patrick has to remind himself that Joe has smoked a lot of weed in the past hour, “It came outta nowhere. And they both seem like they take it up the ass. And Pete’s probably, like, super in love with you so. So that’s already three reasons that—woah, dude, you just spilled all the fucking water everywhere, what—”
“Why would you say that?”
“Uh, cause you got water all over my fucking shirt—”
“No, not—why would you say that about, about Pete?”
Joe’s nose crinkles, and his mouth hangs open slightly.
“I mean, it’s sorta obvious, right? What, you’re gonna tell me you’d never thought about it before?”
And, okay. Yeah, Patrick had thought about it before. Pete had made it really difficult not to. But Pete had also made it really difficult to take seriously. So Patrick had resolved not to think about it.
“Doesn’t really matter,” Joe says, “Cause you’re not gay, or whatever.”
“Right,” Patrick says, “Exactly.”
“Well, anyway,” Joe says, and he launches into another long-winded ramble about why The Beatles are better than The Stones.
Patrick half-listens. Patrick wishes he was better than he was.
—
2011.
Joe comes to see him, says nothing about the marks on his neck, although his eyes linger. Patrick learns his lesson, and wears a scarf when Andy does. Pete doesn’t show.
Sometimes, Patrick swears he sees him in the crowd. On those nights—he’s not proud of it, he isn’t—on those nights, he throws himself all over Michael, and sings the songs like they’re arsenic. Wants Pete to feel it, on the off-chance that Pete can still feel anything.
Michael Day is lithe and talented, and he lets Patrick wipe off his sweat from the show on his shoulder, in front of hundreds of people. He’s vegan, and he’s shy about his singing, and one day, after they play, he leans in and kisses Patrick gently. Patrick gets hot, gets panicky, says I’m sorry, I’m not— but Michael just shakes his head softly, tells him don’t worry, I know, and goes to his dressing room. They don’t talk about it again.
Patrick goes to a bar that night, throws back whiskey until he can’t feel his face, then grabs the first guy he sees and goes further than he ever has in some dark corner, wants to just get it over with, but when he feels strange hands fumbling with his belt loop, reaching under his clothes, his mind can’t help but catch up with his body. He shoves the guy off and vomits on the floor. Pinpricks of stars and the smell of rot. He feels like he’s going to die.
That should mark the end of it. But.
He keeps doing it to prove that he doesn’t like it.
He keeps doing it.
—
2007.
Patrick tends to stay away from Angels & Kings for the most part; he’s not exactly the world’s biggest party animal, and it always feels like he’s encroaching on an ecosystem he doesn’t understand, and doesn’t particularly want to.
It’s. Well. It’s Pete’s Turf. It’s Pete’s Turf in a way that doesn’t involve him. Something about that digs into the corner of his mind and festers.
Pete had wanted him here tonight, though. He was excited about—DJing? Maybe? Patrick’s not sure what made tonight so special, his ears had been flooded with white noise the second Pete had asked, mind flying into I Have To Go Out Tonight mode in preparation. He’s sure Pete gave a reason. But all Patrick can remember is the way Pete’s eyes had crinkled with wild hope, even if that’s a little dramatic—Patrick’s not a recluse, he goes out, he goes to bars and small music venues. He’s just not a club guy.
And here’s why: he’d almost immediately lost Pete in the throng of the pulsating crowd, and the noise and the lights and the incessant bass boom over rhythmless EDM—Patrick needs a breather, is all. He isn’t good with all of this. Again. Pete’s Turf.
His brain feels blown out. It’s getting to him.
Eyes closed and leaning against the outside wall (he can still feel the thumping of the music against his back, he wonders if Pete’s scanning the crowd looking for him, what it feels like when Patrick’s nowhere to be found; plenty of people who love Pete crammed in there, why would Patrick be missed?), he doesn’t notice somebody’s joined him outside until he hears a quiet breath of recognition.
Patrick’s eyes flutter open, and there’s Mikey Way. Harder to kill than a cockroach. Patrick really shouldn’t be surprised.
“You okay?” Mikey asks, and when Patrick doesn’t answer, continues, “Yeah, it’s a lot in there.”
“M’fine.” Patrick’s voice sounds garbled and foreign. He doesn’t know why he’s so messed up right now—he didn’t take anything, didn’t drink. Mikey looks down at him. Patrick scours his face for sympathy, or pity, something that proves Mikey thinks he’s better than him, something that will allow Patrick to regress emotionally for five minutes and just get real mad at the world.
But Mikey’s face says nothing. It never does. If Patrick didn’t know better, he’d think someone had flipped a switch and turned the guy off.
“I can leave,” Mikey’s hands are shoved into his pockets, “Wasn’t trying to bother you. I can turn the corner, or go back inside or—”
“I don’t care what you do,” Patrick snipes, and Mikey huffs out something that sounds almost like a laugh. Not that he ever smiles.
“Cool,” Mikey says, after a moment, “Yeah, maybe I’ll just head back home. Alicia left earlier, so.”
Patrick can’t quite stop himself at that.
“. . . He invited both of you?”
“I know, right? Didn’t RSVP to the wedding, though, so don’t worry, he’s got the usual mixed signals thing going on.”
“I don’t know how many of the signals he sent you were mixed,” and Patrick knows he sounds like a bitch and a half right now, but Mikey Way broke his best friend’s heart and crushed it into the desert dirt. Patrick hasn’t forgiven the guy for it all, even if he’s an irrelevant stain in the tapestry of their band; Patrick hates him more for that. Stupid dumb simple Mikey Way doesn’t even have the guts to actually matter to anyone.
And his bass playing is mediocre at best.
Mikey doesn’t respond to him, just fixes Patrick with a careful look. He reminds Patrick of a cornered animal. Which is ironic, considering Patrick’s the one backed up against the wall. Really, Patrick has no idea what Pete sees in Mikey, powerless, all pasty long limbs and blank expressions. And yet.
“He’s probably looking for you,” Patrick says.
“No,” Mikey says, the corner of his chapped lips upturned, “He’s probably looking for you. Do you have a lighter?”
Patrick’s about to shake his head, when he remembers Joe slipped him one earlier that day, for safekeeping, whatever that means. It feels cosmic. Patrick almost laughs. He fishes it out of his pocket. There’s a thin cigarette hanging from Mikey’s lip, now. Patrick watches it bob up and down.
“Could you, uh,” Mikey gestures, and Patrick flicks the lighter on, close enough to his face he can feel the warmth of it on his cheek. He doesn’t move it any closer, doesn’t shield it from the wind, doesn’t hand it over. Mikey stares at him. Patrick stares back. For a moment, he can’t hear the music spilling out of the club anymore, can’t hear anything but the crackle of the lighter and Mikey breathing through his nose.
The light goes out. Mikey raises his eyebrow. Patrick flicks it on again. Flicks it off. Flicks it on. Flicks it off.
“Smoking kills,” Patrick says.
“I’ll quit tomorrow,” Mikey says.
Patrick can’t remember the last time he blinked. He feels a little like he’s being challenged. He flicks the lighter on again, and raises an eyebrow.
He doesn’t expect Mikey to come closer, hand pressing against the part of the wall right beside Patrick’s ear. He doesn’t know what he expects, exactly, but it isn’t Mikey leaning down, tipping his face forward so the flame catches on the tip of the cigarette, a hair’s breadth away from Patrick’s mouth. If he leaned in any closer it would singe. Mikey uses his free hand to take a drag of the cigarette, blows the smoke in Patrick’s face. Patrick grits his teeth, coughs without opening his mouth.
“I don’t even like cigarettes,” Mikey says, thoughtfully. Then: “Want some?”
Patrick slaps the cigarette out of Mikey’s hand. His fingers tighten around Mikey’s like he’s trying to break them. Instead—and he can’t tell who’s doing this, can’t tell who’s in control, like some shitty Ouija board prank at a sleepover—the hands move to Mikey’s waist, tugging him close into Patrick’s own. Hip to hip. Practically chest to chest. Mikey’s nose on the outline of Patrick’s cheek.
He’s bony. And tall. Patrick wants to spit those things at him. Patrick wants to throw up. Patrick wants to—
“This is how it is sometimes,” Mikey’s voice is so quiet, Patrick can feel it all over his body.
“I don’t know what you’re—”
“Me and him,” Mikey breathes, and he places his mouth on the shell of Patrick’s ear; kisses it feather-soft, then says, “Not that you’d know.”
Patrick should kick him in the gut. Patrick arches his neck so he’s at a better angle. Mikey kisses a trail down to his collarbone, so light Patrick almost doesn’t feel it.
“You know,” Mikey says against his skin, “I’m the closest either of you will get to each other.”
Then he pulls back. Wipes his mouth. Patrick watches the movement, dizzy.
“Just my luck,” Mikey says, and then, with a little shake of his head, “I feel bad for you. Man, I really do.”
He steps away from Patrick. Goes back into the bar.
Patrick stares at the filter of the cigarette on the gravel, still burning.
__
(2004.
It’s just once. It’s barely a kiss. His mouth grazes over Pete’s, practically in his sleep.
He brushes his teeth so roughly the next morning his gums bleed.
Good as gone.)