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1 .
Mid 2003
The first time it happened, they were touring for Take This To Your Grave.
They'd miraculously had enough money for a medium cheese pizza, then somehow ended up playing "dare or dare" after having far too many celebratory drinks.
"I dare you both to climb up on the roof of the van." Joe says, pointing vaguely at Pete and Patrick. "And then don't come down until...uh...sunrise." He'd obviously bluffed the last bit up unplanned.
"Fuck that, that's easy." Pete announces, grinning and going to vault onto the roof, and instead hitting his head on the side.
"Not when you're drunk as fuck." Joe points out, grinning.
Pete makes a frustrated noise and goes to try again. This time, he succeeds, after a ton of careful footwork.
He turns to look down and holds his hand out to Patrick. "C'mon, you have to too, y'know."
Patrick, who isn't nearly as drunk as Pete or Joe, rolls his eyes. "I don't think I can do that."
"I'll help." Pete assures him, waving his outstretched hand.
Patrick sighs. "Okay. Fine."
After way too much work and a possibly twisted ankle, they're both safely standing on the roof.
"And now you've gotta stay up there!" Joe reminds them, smirking.
Pete sits down, and Patrick follows. They sit in companionable silence before Pete says, "Hey, I'm really drunk."
"Yeah, I noticed." Patrick mutters, rolling his eyes and looking for constellations in the midnight sky.
"Yeah, I'm really drunk, and I kinda want to kiss you right now." Pete elaborates, leaning back and putting his weight on the heels of his hands.
"The hell?" Patrick's eyes widen and his head snaps to look at Pete, who's smiling at nothing in particular.
"Mhm." Pete nods. "And it's kinda sad, 'cause I always do, but I only really think about it when I'm drunk, y'know?" He giggles. "I'm really fucking drunk."
"Oh." Patrick mumbles, trying not to go too red. "Well...then I guess it's good that I've thought about it too."
Pete turns to him with a wild grin on his face. "Really?"
Patrick just nods, slightly embarrassed. "Uh, yeah."
"Good." Pete says, and leans forward and kisses him.
Patrick wonders how drunk he actually is, because the world seems to sickeningly shift, and suddenly he pulls back and blinks his eyes open to find that he's staring at himself. He screams, tumbling back and luckily landing on the hood of the van. This might leave some bruises, but hopefully nothing more.
He blinks and looks up to meet his own eyes again, staring at him from up on the roof, which, what the fuck?
"Huh. Okay." Other-Him says, frowning.
"What?" He sputters out, and wait.
"Hey! I said no leaving the roof, idiot!" Joe yells at Patrick.
Patrick turns to him and glares, automatically turning on the sass. "What if I don't want to?"
Joe laughs. "Nice try, Wentz."
Patrick raises an eyebrow. Well. That can only mean one thing. He turns back to himself on the roof and mouths "Pete?".
He gets a nod in response.
Great.
He stands up shakily, not used to standing on legs that aren't his. He looks back up to Pete and meets his own eyes again, taking in a sharp breath.
"Weird." Pete whispers, then kisses him again.
For a second, he contemplates the fact that he's kissing himself, or at least his own body. Then the weird shifting feeling happens again and he blinks open his own eyes to see Pete, in his own body, thank god.
"Definitely weird." He mutters, backing up a bit on the roof of the van.
He's still a bit too drunk to contemplate what just happened, but he's sure reality will hit him in the morning.
2 .
2005
Patrick just stands there. He doesn't have anything to say. There's nothing to say.
"'M sorry." Pete mumbles, not meeting Patrick's eyes. He sounds so truly sorry, and it hurts Patrick's heart.
Without hesitation and with a lot of forgetfulness, he leans towards Pete and kisses him.
And then there's that shift again, and once again there's the odd sight of looking into his own eyes, and pain. Patrick nearly chokes. He didn't know, he didn't know, he didn't...
Lips touch his borrowed ones and with a gasp, he's falling to the floor in his own body. He jumps up and gives Pete a wide-eyed stare.
"Shit." He whispers.
"I forgot too." Pete tells him, voice reassuring.
Patrick blinks. Right. He had forgotten the body swap thing, or maybe he'd just thought that the first time would be the last. But that's not what he'd meant. "No, I...you're...oh."
"I'm okay." Pete smiles softly, understandingly.
"You...you're sure?" Patrick asks, because just for a moment he felt that, and that did not feel okay at all.
"You're here. Of course I am." Pete replies, grinning and reaching out to squeeze Patrick's hand.
Patrick smiles back.
3 .
Late 2007
"Remind me who thought this was a good idea?" Patrick asks, rolling his eyes.
"Me! 'Cause I'm drunk!" Joe announces, grinning.
Patrick rolls his eyes as Joe spins the old beer bottle in the middle of the circle they're all in. It lands on Andy, and Joe laughs.
"Nice. You gotta kiss me now, Hurley." He says, ever-so-slightly drunkenly slurred.
Andy rolls his eyes and looks annoyed, but obliges anyway.
Then Joe turns to Patrick, still grinning. "Your turn!"
Patrick, honestly, should know probability well enough by now. At least enough to know that he has a one in three chance of the bottle landing on Pete and having to kiss him.
Unfortunately, he did not consider that, and he regrets it when the bottle does in fact land on Pete.
Pete raises an eyebrow at him. Patrick slowly shakes his head in response.
Joe laughs. "C'mon, you gotta!"
"Yeah, guys, I kissed Joe. You have to suffer too." Andy concurs.
Patrick takes a deep breath and leans in. He's expecting it this time, but he's still not quite prepared for the disorienting shift that follows the kiss.
"See? That wasn't so hard, was it?" Joe asks, voice dripping with sarcasm.
Patrick raises an eyebrow, and Pete just shrugs, grinning.
"You're enjoying this, aren't you?" He asks in a hushed voice, glaring.
"Of course." Pete replies, then leans in and kisses him again, throwing Patrick back into his own body.
"Whoa! You didn't need to do it twice!" Joe exclaims, sounding very happy about it.
"Oh, we needed to." Patrick mutters under his breath.
"What was that?" Andy asks, giving Patrick a questioning look.
"Nothing." Patrick shakes his head, and glares at Pete again. Pete's still grinning.
4 .
2009
They haven't been doing this for a while. That is to say, the whole kissing on stage thing.
This incident also includes quite a bit of forgetfulness.
They've just finished a song that Patrick had fully auto-piloted through, and thus can't remember for the life of him.
He can't tell what Pete is doing until he feels the shift that's quickly gaining familiarity and suddenly finds himself holding a bass instead of a guitar.
Pete gives him a look that clearly means "I forgot", but one that looks foreign across Patrick's face.
They've got to finish this, though. If they kiss again, it'll make it weird. They're going to have to finish this show as each other.
Patrick has to hope this will go well. He hopes he can leave it up to muscle memory, or something like that.
Judging by the look Pete's giving him, he's thinking the same thing.
Patrick sighs. On with the show, then.
5 .
2013
Patrick had missed this. He's so, so glad the hiatus is over. He'd missed being a band. Being a band is great.
More than that, he'd missed Pete.
They've just played their first show since the hiatus ended, and it went great. Now they're sprawled out in a flower filled field together. Andy and Joe disappeared to do who-knows-what ("Each other." Pete had said, before bursting into fits of laughter.), so it's just them and the daisies and the dew-stained grass and the stars.
The stars are beautiful. Patrick likes stars.
He looks over to Pete, and notes that he looks so perfect among the shining stars and the pure white daisies and he loves that.
Pete must be thinking the same thing, because he grins and within a second they're kissing.
Then the disorienting shift is back, and Patrick is staring into his own eyes yet again, with the stars reflected in them.
"Oh my god, I can't believe I forgot." Pete says, laughing.
"I can believe it." Patrick grins, and Pete feigns hurt.
"Excuse me!" He gasps, clapping a hand over his (for the record, Patrick's) heart. "I am hurt! Therefore, I will hurt you!"
Patrick laughs and jumps up. "Like hell you will. Who has the athletic body now, idiot?"
"Oh, come on!" Pete huffs and gets up as well. "That's not fair!"
"Totally fair." Patrick shrugs. "Oh, and I'd recommend leaving me alone if you want your body back in one piece."
"Damn it!" Pete shakes a fist in the air indignantly. "I've been fooled again. And I would have gotten away with if it, too!"
"Shut up." Patrick laughs. He likes Pete's laugh, he thinks.
"Nope." Pete says, grinning mischievously. "Make me."
"Okay." Patrick agrees, and kisses him.
The shift returns again, and Patrick turns and runs as soon as he's back in his own body.
"Fucker!" Pete yells, taking chase and trying to keep up with Patrick's head start.
"You wish!" Patrick yells back, trying keep up with his head start, too.
"I hate you!" Pete calls.
"Mhm, love you too!" Patrick replies, grinning and picking up speed.
+1
2016
Patrick is crying under the covers when Pete walks in. Somehow, he's hoping that Pete won't notice, but of course he does.
"'Trick?" Pete throws off the covers to reveal Patrick curled up underneath.
He looks up to Pete, eyes filled with tears. "What?"
"Are you okay?" Pete asks, moving to sit down next to him.
Patrick shrugs and makes a noncommittal noise.
Pete frowns, worry showing over his features. "Patrick...did someone say something rude to you or something?"
It's an ongoing problem. Patrick has a tendency to take little things a little too personally.
"Maybe..." Patrick mutters, eyes downcast.
"Patrick..." Pete sighs and starts rubbing circles in Patrick's back, trying to soothe him.
"Pete?" Patrick asks, turning his gaze to Pete.
"Mhm?" Pete stares back into Patrick's eyes.
Patrick let's his eyes fall downwards again. "Pete...am I..." He whispers the last part. "Am I ugly?"
"What?" Pete sputters, gaping. "No! Who told you that? I'll fucking murder them! Dead! I swear!"
Patrick squeezes his eyes shut, pushing out hot tears. He doesn't say anything, but the action conveys enough.
"Hey. No." Pete pushes him upright, and pulls him into a hug. "Okay, listen. I'm going to kiss you."
Patrick jumps back from the hug in surprise. "But that'll-"
"I know." Pete says, nodding. "That's kind of the point."
Patrick inhales sharply. He isn't sure where Pete is going with this, but he sighs and agrees anyway. "Okay. Sure."
Pete nods and kisses him immediately. The expected shift comes, and Patrick pulls away, falling off the bed because he forget exactly where Pete had been.
Pete looks down from the bed, grinning and rubbing the remaining tears still pooled in Patrick's eyes away. "Ha, you fell."
"Rude." Patrick mutters, standing up and dusting himself off. He looks back to Pete, who's bouncing happily on the bed. "What's the point of this, then?"
Pete literally jumps off the bed, landing unceremoniously on the floor. "Ow..."
"If you break any of my bones I'll kill you." Patrick says, giving Pete an award-winning eye roll.
"Right. Sorry." Pete springs up, and grins again. "Okay, but c'mon! Look at yourself!" He does a little spin. "You're so cute!"
Patrick raises an eyebrow. "That's really narcissistic."
"Shut up." Pete replies. "Seriously! Are you not looking? I love your body. I love cuddling it and hugging it and even being in it. It's like a permanent hug!" He does bad jazz hands.
Patrick sighs and gives another award winning eye roll. "That's what this is about. Really."
"Yeah!" Pete nods, doing another little spin. "'Cause look at your adorable body! Look at it!"
Patrick sighs in resignation. "Okay, fine. I give up."
Pete smirks. "You aren't getting it back until you say it out loud."
"I'm not-" Patrick starts, but Pete gives him a look, and he just sighs again and mutters. "Fine. My body is actually kind of cute."
"Aha!" Pete jumps forward and kisses him happily.
The shift happens again, and Patrick ends up landing on top of Pete.
"Hello." Pete says, grinning.
"Hi." Patrick replies.
"I kind of want to kiss you again, but it might be a bit of an inconvenience." Pete says, wrapping his arms around Patrick's torso.
"Mm, only a bit." Patrick replies, grinning.
"Good." Pete grins back, and leans up to close the gap.
The world shifts. Patrick is looking into his own eyes again.
And that's okay.