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“So, Rick,” Pete said casually, “Remeber that time you promised to love me forever, and I couldn’t do anything to fuck up enough that you wouldn’t? See - and it wasn’t even my fault - the label fucked up or they’re making cuts or something, and we’re only getting two buses, not three.”
Patrick froze. “We can just have one, right? Cobra and Panic can share?”
“Babe,” Pete grimaced, “No. There’s two bands and all the crew and everyone else to think about too. We really can’t have a bus all to ourselves. And I mean… even if we had our own bus it wouldn’t… be realistic: we’re touring with them for two months or something, they’re going to- yeah.”
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“So, Gabe,” Pete said casually, “Remember that time you started a band because you hallucinated that- sorry, because a giant snake came from the sky and you got abducted by aliens and taught you how to dance? Guys, you remember that, right?”
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“So, boys,” Pete said casually, “Remember that time I started a record label specifcally for you and made you rich and famous and fulfilled all your dreams? You know how I’m kind of like a father figure to all of you?”
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Ryan
Patrick likes Ryan. He’s too bony to give good hugs and sometimes he smokes this thing like a fat cigar and the bus smells weird, and that makes Pete yell at him for smoking it around Patrick - Patrick doesn’t like yelling, especially when he causes it. But Ryan just chats to him about poetry like he’s a grown-up, which Patrick likes, and he likes Ryan’s scarves too because they’re really pretty. Ryan laughs when Patrick puts them on his head.
He has a really pretty voice that makes Patrick feel calmer when he speaks, and he’s really good at makeup. When he does it for Patrick, it looks awesome, with birds flying across his face. Patrick runs to show Pete: When he comes back to say thank you, Brendon is painting a similar thing on Ryan’s face, but they’re looking at eachother intensely and Patrick decides it’s time for him to find someone on the other bus to give him attention.
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Gabe
Gabe is really weird. Patrick always asks for him to tell the bedtime stories, but after the first time, Pete insists on supervising so Patrick doesn’t have weird nightmares again. Patrick likes Gabe a lot, and he gives better hugs, because he’s really tall.
If Patrick’s good, he puts Patrick on his shoulders and goes dashing around the bus bay until they’re stopped by Pete with folded arms and a frown, and although Pete is currently about two meters below Patrick, Patrick cowers.
Gabe sometimes smokes Ryan’s fat cigars too, and once he offered it to Patrick before going dazed and laughing through his apology. He swears a lot too, but he always apologises and then they argue about Oasis.
Gabe is always trying to get people to make out with him. Patrick goes pink and says, “I think that’s for grown-ups,” and Gabe’s eyes bug out and he laughs, “God, no, I meant when you were bigger!” Patrick just thumbs the ring on the chain around his neck and refuses again, but in his childlike mindset he feels he owes Gabe for this and promptly offers to produce Cobra’s next album.
He doesn’t regret it at all once he’s big, and it’s some of the best fun he’s had in his life. On the days they’re scheduled to record but he’s small, he comes in anyway and listens to them play even though he can’t do much to help but give advice and clap enthusiastically. Gabe teaches him some Spanish and he sits on Vicky’s lap and she sings to him to calm down when he gets too excited and keeps trying to join in the singing and messing up Gabe’s vocal track. He gets constant hugs from everyone when they’re not recording.
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Brendon
Brendon is also a little odd. His laughter is always nasal, and he’s never without the fat cigar unless Pete catches him and confiscates it with a meaningful glance at Patrick. He always seems to be either dazed or hyperactive. Some times he forgets Patrick is even there, and lies back dazedly and murmurs about the Smiths and Ryan.
Other times, Patrick likes him a lot better. He’s giddy and gleeful and a lot like a five year old himself, and screeches with laughter at every word Patrick says. They have a lot of tickle fights and Brendon is a really good singer but even less of a lyricist than Patrick, so they make up terrible songs together and sing them as long as they can until they start laughing again.
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Vicky
Patrick adores Vicky. He only sees her with one of the fat cigars twice, and she never gets caught. She sings him lullabyes when Gabe’s weird stories get him overexcited, and she smells lovely when she hugs him, which is a lot.
Patrick usually hates pictures of himself, but he takes some with Vicky and they pull silly faces and actually look okay. Vicky complements him incessantly until he agrees to let her send them to Pete. These are carefully protected and kept secret, but they take more when Patrick’s bigger and Vicky posts them to some blog somewhere and Patrick finds that he doesn’t actually mind.
She teaches him how to handle boys, although Patrick doesn’t need much help having Pete wrapped around his little finger. She winks and promises to tell him some things he definitely won’t know when he’s bigger. Patrick just blinks innocently.
She cuts his hair way better than his mom, and laughs at him when he spends half and hour staring at himself in the mirror. And when he starts crying and admits that he misses his mommy, she coos, “Awww, baby,” and hugs him tight. Then they go to her closet and she lets Patrick dress her up and do her makeup, and then she returns the favour. Pete tries and fails to convince Patrick to let him have the picture of Patrick and Vicky grinning, with wonky red lipstick and Patrick wearing a very tiny miniskirt like a dress, as his lockscreen.
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Spencer
Spencer is quiet. Patrick likes that. He has a tendency to get overwhelmed with all the noise and insanity on the two buses, and at that point he goes and sits with Spencer. He lets Patrick climb on his lap. Sometimes he falls asleep there, overtired from a day of hyperactivity, or Spencer strokes his hair and tells him embarassing stories about his bandmates when they were younger.
Patrick’s a little horrified about some of the things Ryan had done, but he laughs when Spencer tells him about all the times Brendon was late for practice because he was at church.
Patrick thinks Spencer always looks kind of sad, but he seems quite wise so Patrick thinks it might just be thoughtful solemness. They talk about drumming and their childhoods and their moms and usually fall asleep in front of the TV.
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Alex
Patrick discovers that Alex was originally a chef of some sort, and they bond over food. Patrick talks avidly about the korean food he grew up with in Chicago, although he mispronounces a lot of the words. Alex proves a relative fountain of culinary advice, and he gets so into it he uses a lot of big words that Patrick doesn’t really understand, but he learns a lot nontheless.
Alex shows Patrick how to remix things on his laptop, and Patrick’s made a few remixes when he's big, but it was with way more complex equipment than Alex uses. Because he’s only little, Alex helps a lot. They remix Sugar and Patrick wants to send it to Pete to show him. Alex says he should have a cool DJ name - “Mine is Suave Suarez,” he explains, as an example.
“Suave Stump?” Patrick suggests. After Patrick revises it a little (a lot) when he’s bigger, they release the Patrick Stump remix of Sugar We’re Going Down. Alex laughs, but he can’t think of a better name.
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Ryland
Ryland is funny. Patrick thinks he is hilarious. When he won’t eat his dinner, Pete yells for Ryland.
“Why won’t you eat your carrots, my boy?” Ryland says, in a phoney british accent, “Or as the french would say,” he switches to a horrendous french impersonation and just repeats the word carrots.
Patrick eats them all, through his laughter. “Patrick Stumph,” Ryland pronounces the h, “Eat with your mouth closed!”
“What are carrots?” Patrick ignores him and singsongs delightedly, as he’s been doing the past four times he’s been small and had a chance to make Ryland say ‘delicious’. Ryland sighs. “Delicious.”
Pete and Ryland think it would be funny to do a Guy Ripley interview with Patrick - not to be published, just for their own amusement. Patrick doesn’t really get it, and insists on interviewing Ryland.
“So, Mr Ripple,” he fidgets in his seat, “Don’t you think Vicky is really pretty? I mean, not as pretty as Pete, but like…”
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Jon
Jon is weird too. He has much the same dazed manner as Brendon, but he talks a lot about the Beatles and Paul McCartney. He always wears flip-flops, and Patrick tries them on and falls flat on his face immediately and sobs for Pete, who scoops him up and won’t let anyone else near him for an hour. Pete bans flip-flops on their bus, and then has to ban high heels when there is a similar incident with some heels of dubious ownership.
Vicky, Gabe, Brendon and Ryan all look guilty when an emergency meeting is called and they are presented with a sobbing Patrick and told not to leave dangerous footwear around.
They talk about 504plan and Patrick wears his hat constantly to impress Jon, although it is far too big, and they pick holes in Pete’s bass playing. At one point, he begs to move to their bus.
“Why?” Patrick asks innocently.
“It’s so…” Jon looks shifty, and finishes uncomfortably, “loud.” At that moment, Pete waltzes past, cackling.
"It’s not much different on our bus, my dude.” When Jon’s eyes go wide and he looks with an expression of horror at where Patrick is humming obliviously, Pete shamefacedly amends, "Well, not tonight, I mean.” He blows a kiss and scarpers before Patrick can put pieces together and decide a pinch is in order.
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Nate
Nate is tiny, smaller than Patrick - when he’s big. Pete says he is delighted to finally have someone smaller than himself. Patrick sticks his tongue out. “What about me? You’ve had me ages and I’m tiiiiny!”
Pete pulls off his enormous 504plan hat to ruffle his hair and kiss his nose, and murmurs, “I sure have, and you sure are.” Patrick beams, and Pete disappears to ‘leave the drum nerds to it before the levels of pretentiousness become toxic’.
They discuss drumming, favourite drummers and weird stories about it from their past; sometimes Andy or Spencer appear too and sit quietly on the couch. Patrick starts to realise why other people say things about drummers. It’s pretty eerie, three or four short, near-silent men sitting silently in the bus lounge and murmuring quietly to eachother about strange things a non-percussionist could never understand. Patrick joins in when he can, but he feels he will never reach the drumming-jedi level of the others.
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It’s a long tour. Patrick misses his mom, but he loves his family.