Chapter Text
The sound of Patrick Stump singing unlocks Pete like a key every time he hears it, but especially the first time. The first time, Pete changes at all once, his internal tumblers sudden falling into place. It is the first time he’s ever been aligned. It’s the first time he even realizes he has a heart, that it can open.
His whole life til now, he’s been running around spending himself like a tin coin, like nothing matters but the music that maybe makes you feel alive, for a breath or two, if you mean it hard enough. Everything he’s ever gotten he’s burned up—saving nothing for the way back. He’s never planned on a return journey, never held any of himself in reserve. He’s always figured he’ll burn up in atmo, and god, it will be worth it for the two painful seconds he gets to see stars, gets to feel heaven on his face.
Patrick’s voice. Shy, uncertain, embarrassed of its own world-rocking fullness. Can’t hide sound like that under a hat, though the kid looks like he’d like to. Patrick’s voice makes Pete wish there was more of him, when usually he’s fighting so hard to pare away, give away, ruin any part that feels too heavy, feels unnecessary for the next five’s minute’s survival. Pete hears that voice and wishes there were more of him, so he could give it all to Patrick. Patrick’s voice makes him stand still and just listen. Pete has never been still before, not even for the length of a heartbeat.
He learns all at once that he would stand still and just listen for as long as Patrick let him, for as long as time ran on, and for longer still. While the universe peeled away around them like onion skin, he’d still stand here, still, listening.
This is the effect of Patrick’s voice. Not just the first time: every time.
“Uh, I’m not a singer though,” says Patrick when he finishes. He is sixteen years old and shining gold. Pete knows exactly what he is. No one this pretty, this gifted, this pure in untouched by magic. Also no actual human would think that outfit was a good idea. Patrick, Pete is convinced, is a faerie.
“Yes you are,” Pete assures him. “We’ll be a band, and you’ll sing in it.” And I’ll listen to you every day until the sun burns out.
*
Turns out Pete is right. Patrick is a singer and they are a band. People come to the shows, sing along to their songs. Right from the start, they develop a solid knot of fans, kids who learn the words, kids who ask them to play at their houses, in their basements, for their birthday parties. Pete’s been in a lot of bands; this isn’t the usual trajectory. They’re something special. Patrick’s something special.
More proof, Pete thinks, that Patrick is a faerie. Seelie Court, must be: Patrick is so obviously a creature of sunshine and kindness. A charming boy capable of being terrible, the speed of whose temper is matched by his rapidly accelerating fists, who shouts and fights his way out of problems if kindness fails him—this is Patrick. He is not terribly patient. He is easy to annoy and quick to forgive, meaning Pete gets a lot of amusement out of annoying him with no consequences more severe than the occasional bruise. The thing that distinguishes Patrick is not that he is effortlessly golden and kind. It is how hard he works at it. How he chooses, again and again, to turn his face into the light, to stand in the sun, to be good and thoughtful and say nice things about everyone. If that isn’t a type of magic, Pete doesn’t know what is.
If it’s not Patrick’s voice pied-pipering people to their shows with its rich, rolling tones of obvious glamour, Pete cannot explain why suddenly people are showing up and listening. His songs aren’t that good. Joe agrees: it’s inexplicable. It must be Patrick. This kid is a secret weapon. This kid is a golden ticket. This kid—this kid is pure enchantment.
The first time he kisses Patrick is like this: they have just played their first-ever show in a cafeteria at DePaul. It has not gone especially well. “We don’t have a name, we don’t have any good songs, and we suck live,” Patrick says as they’re breaking down their equipment and loading it into the van. “We suck, actually, overall. I’m out, guys.”
This is unacceptable to Pete for so many reasons, he doesn’t know where to start. He does know, though, that kisses are a kind of contract, that true names compel the fae, and that if this really is his first, last, and only show with Patrick Stump, he doesn’t want to miss his chance to taste that voice. The sound of Patrick’s golden tongue unlocks Pete like a key; imagine what the feel of it might do to him.
Joe stomps back into the building to get another load of equipment. Patrick moves to follow him. Pete puts himself in Patrick’s way. Right away, this kid’s famous temper starts rising. You can see it happening. It starts at the tips of his ears. Pete grabs the collar of Patrick’s jacket and shoves him up against the side of the van. He still hasn’t decided if he’s going in with his fist or his face first when his mouth crashes against Patrick’s, fast and violent. The kiss is a collision, occurring in slow motion, over as quickly as a car crash.
“Patrick Martin Stump,” Pete says into Patrick’s ear, his lips up against it, his chin brushing the cold metal side of the van. His breath comes hard. Patrick smells like sweat and soap and this slightly intoxicating salt-and-skin sun-warmed scent, something that has no business clinging to anyone’s skin in the early Illinois winter. Pete thinks this must be the smell of a Seelie faerie: the sun always shines on them. They never act in shadow. Pete wonders what his own skin smells like—bloodshed and secrets and rust, maybe. He’s glad he can’t smell it.
Patrick shoves Pete off of him as hard as he can. Pete stumbles, trips on his own feet, sprawls backward on his ass. He scrapes his cold palms on the rough parking lot asphalt. He’ll smell like iron now, if he didn’t before. “You’re an asshole,” Patrick spits. His whole face is red and sharp with anger. Pete had no idea this was such a major line, but he definitely fucking crossed it. “You don’t get to touch me, I’m not yours.”
Pete holds up his bleeding palms, maybe to say stand down, I’m wounded, maybe as an offering. “Don’t quit the band,” he says. It’s all he meant. It’s—that’s what he was trying to accomplish, with their mouths. Kisses are oaths and names are binding. Pete doesn’t know much magic but he knows kisses and names. “We’ll get better. We’ll get a real drummer. We’ll write more songs.”
“You’re supposed to be this, like, Chicago hardcore celebrity. That’s the only reason I agreed to any of this,” Patrick says accusingly.
“I’ll make us big,” Pete promises. He will say anything to make Patrick stay. He spent 21 years in a world without Patrick’s voice in it. He doesn’t like who he was, in that world. He doesn’t like the things he did. He can’t lose this. He won’t lose this. He thinks about his stinging palms, his bright blood, anything but the feel of Patrick’s lips. “This is our shot. You’ll see. I’ll give the world to you.”
“Fine. But if you ever do—that—again, I’m out.” Pete says nothing. “Pete? I’m fucking out.”
“Okay! I heard you, dude.” Pete is careful to make no promises. Pete is careful to keep himself out of situations, conversations where he might be compelled to speak uncomfortable truths.
The second time Pete kisses Patrick is like this:
They’re in Joe’s amazingly shitty van, halfway through a tiny, abbreviated tour that so far has been mostly cancelled and incredibly unpaid: two weeks, ten shows, three states. Then they have to scurry back home; Christmas break is ending and there’s school on Monday. The only reason the band has lasted this long is because no matter how many times someone says they’ve quit, Joe still shows up at their house and hauls their ass to band practice.
Pete is poking Patrick in the side with his bare foot. Patrick has his hat over his eyes, his arms crossed over his chest, doing a poor job of faking sleep. Pete knows when Patrick’s ignoring him versus when Patrick’s actually sleeping, even though they’ve only been in a band together for a handful of months. His shoulders get all rigid when he’s annoyed. A tendon stands out in his neck. Pete always gets the wild urge to kiss it smooth again. Pete has been trying so, so hard to be good, but he does not for one second believe he will always be successful at resisting. Historically, resisting is… not Pete’s best thing.
Anyway, this is the situation. Everyone is crabby, they haven’t slept more than two hours a night in the last week, and they’ve been showering in gas station sinks. No one smells good. No one is totally sure where they will get the money to fill the van with gas when this tank is gone. Pete has been aggressively trying to get them more shows. He has been negotiating a lot of deals that end up with them getting paid in pizza. There’s no telling how well the van will run if they stuff pizza in the gas tank, but honestly it’s hard to imagine it could possibly run worse.
This is the situation, and then they are fishtailing off the road. Everything is too fast, happening very slow. Pete’s face slams into the side of the van, his cheek opening in a cut. Then the van is flying sideways into a tree and Pete is thrown like a ragdoll in the other direction, his body smashing into Patrick’s. There is broken glass in the air from an unknown source. For a second that lasts a lifetime, it seems like they all might die.
The second tree they hit absorbs enough momentum that the van scrapes, slides, shrieks to a crumpled halt. Joe, the driver, is hollering. Patrick is clutching Pete in terror. His eyes are huge and white, the eyes of a prey animal. Pete can’t stop himself, not this time. His mouth is on Patrick’s mouth. Instead of pushing him away, Patrick pulls him closer, kisses him back. It is a frantic, near-death kiss. It is a if we had died just now I would have died without getting to do this, and that is not a risk I am willing to take kiss. Pete’s blood gets on Patrick’s face. Patrick’s tongue is in Pete’s mouth. There is an entire universe of longing contained in this one kiss.
“Is everyone okay?” Joe is screaming. Patrick slips away from Pete’s mouth, away from Pete’s arms. He curls himself into a small, shaky ball. “I’m okay,” he says. He won’t look at Pete.
Pete extricates himself from Patrick, who he’s still wrapped around protectively, like he’ll be the one to absorb the shock and the glass and the twisted screaming metal and the death, if it comes to that. He will put himself between Patrick and any kind of ending, every time. “I’m okay too,” he says. He swipes at the blood on his face with the sleeve of his hoodie. It shines a little too silver in the limited light of the moon. He hopes everyone is too shaken up to look very closely. He’s no good at mending cuts, only making them. He has no choice but to let it flow.
The van won’t start again. They trudge on foot through the snow, seeking civilization. Patrick walks up ahead of Pete, his arms hugged around himself. He glances back at Pete from time to time, looking mad as hell. Looking confused. Pete hopes he didn’t fuck things up even more than he usually does. Pete’s never found a place in this world where he fit, where he belonged, until now. Until this kid.
Patrick feels like home to him. Pete will do anything to keep that feeling.