Work Text:
The big, bold, and tacky font of the flyers plastered up and down the halls had been taunting Patrick all week.
Junior prom.
Patrick yanked at the paper until the tape gave way, glaring at the flyer that had been posted to his locker for the third time that week. He crumpled it, shoved it in his pocket to throw away later, and wondered dryly if the flyers were some sort of paper equivalent of a hydra. It seemed like every one he removed from his locker would spawn two more in its place.
He wasn’t going to prom, that much was obvious. Going to prom required either a date or a higher level of self-confidence to go alone, and Patrick Stump had not yet achieved either of those requirements.
He was still thinking about it—the crumpled flyer in his pocket, the gym decorations in whatever theme the student council had dreamt up, the idea of slow dancing with someone who actually wanted to be there with him—by the time lunch rolled around. He was still half in his day dream of idle songs to slow dance to when the chair slid out across the table from him. Patrick didn’t bother to look up to see who it was, because he could already see Joe’s hand sliding across the lunch table to steal a french fry off his lunch tray, despite having perfectly acceptable fries on his own tray.
“Hey,” Patrick said, sliding his tray slightly more towards the middle of the table to make his fries more accessible.
“Hey yourself.” Joe chewed the stolen fry with a complete lack of remorse. His hair was a curly halo, somehow looking equally unbrushed but perfectly styled at the same time, and his eyes were a bright blue. Not that Patrick was thinking about his eyes. He did not think about Joe’s eyes on a regular basis, and he was not going to start now. “You going to prom?”
Patrick’s hand stalled with a fry halfway between his tray and his mouth.
“What?”
“You know, prom.” Joe stole another fry. “The thing with the dancing, and the bad punch, and the DJ who plays “Yeah!” by Usher unironically.”
“I know what prom is, Joe.”
“So, are you going?”
Patrick considered his chances of successfully lying. It wasn’t a particular talent he possessed. When he lied, his face would do this thing, this reddening, betraying thing. So, instead, he settled for a shrug and a hum that communicated probably not without requiring him to say it out loud and make his pathetic existence real.
Joe was quiet for a second. Then: “I was thinking about asking Jemma Murphy.”
Something in Patrick’s chest did a small, ugly thing. He reached across the table to take a fry from Joe’s tray, just to give his eyes something to focus on because he could feel Joe’s gaze on him in that way that felt like Joe was equal parts waiting for his reaction, and somehow reading his every thought. “Cool.”
“Yeah, it would have been cool, but she’s already going with some senior from the football team.”
“Oh. Bummer.”
“So.” Joe drummed his fingers on the table top, and Patrick thought very hard about not thinking about Joe’s hands, or about the calluses at his fingertips from practicing the guitar. He didn’t think about either of those things in the same way that he didn’t think about the impossible blue of Joe’s eyes. “I’m dateless. You’re dateless, presumably—”
“I didn’t say I was dateless.” Patrick said in quick defensiveness, despite the fact that what Joe had said was true.
“Patrick.”
“I am just saying that technically speaking, I did not say that I am dateless.” Patrick continued, feeling that familiar betraying blush working its way from under the collar of his shirt.
“Then are you planning to ask someone?”
Patrick paused, staring across the table at Joe, not thinking about his eyes or his calloused fingertips or the way his smile pulled just a little higher on one side than the other when he knew he was winning. Winning what, though, Patrick didn’t quite know. “... No.”
“Okay.” Joe grinned, and it was the kind of grin that was wide and a little crooked, the kind that made Patrick feel like the sun had come out from behind a cloud specifically to inconvenience him, the kind that Patrick had been not-thinking about since the eighth grade. “We should just go together. It’d be fun. We can make fun of the DJ, eat all those little appetizer thingies—”
“Hor d’oeuvres.” Patrick corrected in a muttered whisper.
“Sure, we can eat those, too.” Joe nudged his foot under the table. “C’mon. Don’t make me go alone. I’ll be pathetic.”
“I’m pretty sure going with me is going to be more pathetic than going alone.”
Joe didn’t react to the self deprecating comment, not in the way Patrick would have usually expected. He just looked at him with that grin that suggested he was getting his way, “So that’s a yes?”
Patrick stared at him and Joe stared back. There was something in his expression that Patrick couldn’t name—something a little too steady, a little too careful for the casualness of the conversation—but, then Joe blinked and it was gone and he was just Joe again, stealing french fries and grinning like he was on the verge of winning something great.
“Fine.” Patrick sighed. “I’ll go to prom with you… as friends?”
Joe paused, just for a brief second, and then the moment passed. He reached over and took the last fry from Patrick’s try, “Obviously, as friends.” Joe agreed easily.
Neither of them looked at each other after that.
Prom night came sooner than Patrick expected, though he supposed that was how calendars worked.
His mom was every bit as embarrassing as he’d anticipated—the photographs, the fussing over his hair and his tie, the way she’d called Joe handsome directly to his face while Patrick stood there and tried to will himself out of existence. The blush had started somewhere around the third photo and hadn’t really stopped. It creeped up the back of his neck and settled in his cheeks, hot and stubborn, the kind that didn’t fade just because he wanted it to.
He was already sweaty by the time they’d made it to the front porch. His collar felt too tight. His palms were doing something unfortunate inside his jacket sleeves. The cool night air hit his face when the door shut behind them and he breathed it in gratefully, though it didn’t do much about the flush still working its way up towards his ears.
Joe had parked along the curb, and Patrick was already moving toward the passenger side when he heard footsteps behind him—Joe, coming around with a quickened step to get to the car first, then his hand was there, pulling the door open for Patrick.
Patrick stopped.
Joe was just standing there, one hand on the door, looking somewhere slightly past him with an expression of careful nonchalance. Like it was nothing. Like he opened car doors for him all the time—which he most certainly did not.
Patrick chose to say nothing, dropping into the passenger seat and immediately tugging his tie a bit looser, partially to have something to do with his hands, but mostly to try and ease the heat radiating off his face.
“You look good,” Joe said without preamble, settling into the driver’s seat and starting the car.
Patrick’s hands stilled on the tie. “Don’t.”
“Don’t what? I’m just saying.” Joe laughed and pulled out of the driveway.
Joe looked—Patrick was going to allow himself one objective observation here, just one—good. Really good. Not that Joe had ever looked bad, exactly, but the button up shirt under his jacket was far nicer than any faded band tee he usually wore, and his hair was doing something almost intentional, the curls a little softer than usual, like he’d actually thought about it. Like he’d stood in front of a mirror and thought about tonight.
Patrick made himself look back out the passenger window.
It was frustrating that Joe had this quality about him. It was a completely unfair, unasked-for quality where Joe looked like himself in a way that most people didn’t. Like he occupied his own space fully, comfortably, and it made Patrick feel something helpless and inconvenient in his chest every single time, because what was he supposed to do with this? What was there to say? You look like yourself. You always look exactly like yourself and I don’t know what to do with that because I like how you look.
So, he looked out the window instead and watched the streets go past, the radio playing something soft between them. “You look good, too.”
The gym had been transformed into something that was clearly trying very hard to be a Parisian ballroom and landing somewhere in the neighborhood of “nice hotel lobby”. The streamers were silver and the lights were low and the DJ was already playing something that Patrick reluctantly admitted was at least halfway decent, so it wasn’t the worst.
They found Pete and Andy near the punch bowl. Pete was in a khaki suit with his hair styled out of his eyes for once, and Andy was eyeing the bleachers on the far side of the gym with the sort of look that said he would much rather be there reading a comic then listening to whatever Pete was going on about.
“Gentleman,” Pete said, pointing finger guns at the both of them. “You look disturbingly domestic.”
“We’re here as friends.” Patrick said immediately, defensively.
Pete looked at Joe. It was a very specific Pete Wentz look—eyebrows slightly raised, head tilted a fraction, the kind of look that somehow contained an entire conversation that Joe seemed to speak fluently. Joe looked like he wanted to say something, but then he looked at the punch bowl, then at the streamers.
Pete looked back at Patrick.
“Yeah, totally.”
The tone of his voice made Patrick want to walk back out into the parking lot and stay there. Maybe lay in the middle of the road and wait for the universe to take over.
The first hour ended up being fine. It was normal, easy even, in the way that being with Joe was always easy—they made fun of the DJ (who did, in fact, play “Yeah!” by Usher), they ate a frankly irresponsible number of hor d’ourveues, and they avoided the punch that a group had hovered around for suspiciously too long.
They soon found themselves standing at the edge of the dance floor, watching Pete attempt to teach his date something that was allegedly a waltz but looked more like slightly organized chaos. Andy, smartly, had found a spot on the bleachers to read his comic book.
It was fine. Patrick was fine, and he stayed completely fine right up until the DJ played a slow song.
it wasn’t even a good slow song. It was something soft and vaguely familiar, and guitar-forward. It was the kind of song that belonged in the background of a direct-to-DVD coming-of-age movie. The lights shifted from silver to something warmer and gold, and couples drifted toward the center of the floor like they’d been magnetized.
Patrick looked at his punch.
“Do you want to dance?”
He looked up. Joe was watching the couples move across the dance floor. He didn’t look at Patrick, he kept his hands in his pockets and his shoulders were doing the sort of self-conscious thing they did when Joe was trying to seem more casual than he was.
“We don’t have to,” Joe added, still not looking at him. “It’s just, we’re already here… and it seems silly not to—”
“Sure.”
Joe looked at him, quickly, just as surprised by Patrick’s agreement as Patrick was himself. “Yeah?”
Patrick nodded, not trusting his voice as his heart hammered with the realization of what he’d agreed to.
Dancing with Joe was easier than Patrick expected. Joe put one hand at Patrick’s waist and Patrick put one hand on Joe’s shoulder and they held the other hands together in the traditional way and it was completely normal and fine and not at all like something Patrick had imagined in the vague, guilty dark of his bedroom on multiple occasions.
Except.
Joe was warm. He radiated heat like a space heater, and they were closer than Patrick had anticipated, close enough that he could smell Joe’s shampoo—something coconutty and a little sweet—and feel the slight unsteadiness in Joe’s breath, which Patrick noticed because his own breath was not exactly steady either.
“This is nice.” Joe said, quietly. They were sort of swaying more than dancing, which Patrick appreciated because actual dancing was beyond his skill set. “I’m glad we came.”
“Me too.”
Joe’s hand shifted slightly at his waist, not pulling away, just—resettling. Like Joe was making sure Patrick was still there.
“Can I say something?” He asked.
Patrick’s heart did something he could only describe as inadvisable. “Sure.”
“I didn’t actually want to ask Jemma.”
Patrick looked up at him, but Joe was looking somewhere past his shoulder, like it was easier to talk if they weren’t making eye contact with each other.
“I just said that,” Joe continued, “because I needed an excuse to… I don’t know… I wanted to bring up prom. I kept trying to bring it up to you, but I kept chickening out because you weren’t bringing it up. I even tried moving some of the flyers to your locker, but you just kept taking them down.”
“Joe—”
“No, I'm not done.” Joe interrupted with an exhale. “I wanted to bring it up because I wanted to come. With you. Like, I wanted to come to prom specifically with you, not as friends. But, now we are here and we are doing the whole friends thing, and it’s great, you are my friend, obviously. I like hanging out with you, but I keep—” He stopped, like he was getting ahead of himself and needed to gather his thoughts, then he started again. “Look. Patrick. The truth is, I keep thinking it’s not really a friends thing, for me that is. That’s probably weird to hear, and you don’t have to say anything, I just—”
“Joe, I—”
“—wanted you to know, because I think you deserve to—”
“Joe.”
Patrick’s voice was louder than he meant it to be, enough to garner the glances of the people around them. Patrick’s cheeks flushed and he took advantage of his hand still being in Joe’s, and quickly dragged him off the dance floor. Whatever expression that was on his face was enough to make Joe stop talking, his eyes going a little wide as he followed the tug of Patrick’s hand.
Patrick didn’t talk until they were safely tucked to the side of the gym, nearly behind the bleachers and thankfully out of sight. “I never brought up prom because I only wanted to go if it was with you, and I didn’t think you’d want to go with me.”
Joe stared at him.
“I’ve been not-thinking about you,” Patrick continued, his voice spilling out as if flood gates had been opened, “for like two years, which is a lot of effort, by the way, you’re very… you. It takes a lot of effort to not-think about you.”
Joe laughed, sudden and bright, and the tension broke open like a window thrown wide. “You’re terrible at this.”
“You’re not much better!” Patrick said defensively. He tried to pull his hand back out of Joe’s, but Joe held on, his thumb tracing small circles against the back of Patrick’s hand. Joe had that smile on his face again, the one that could make Patrick’s heart flutter and his stomach feel a little sick. “Don’t make fun of me.”
“I’m not making fun of you.”
“You have that look.”
“I do not have a look, Patrick. It’s just my face.” Joe was still grinning, his thumb still drawing those soft circles against Patrick’s skin. The slow song had faded into another one, couples still drifted around the dance floor under the golden lights that made everything feel like a memory of something that hadn't happened yet.
“Do you want to get some air?” Joe asked.
Patrick looked concerned. He glanced at the teachers who were watching over the dancing couples to make sure everything stayed appropriately above the waist. “We’re not really supposed to leave the gym…” He said carefully.
“C’mon, Patrick. Live a little. Have I ever gotten you into trouble before?”
“Yes, you have. Multiple times, Joe.” Patrick made the mistake of looking back at Joe, of seeing that hopeful expression on Joe’s face. He sighed, exasperated and long-suffering. “Fine. But if we get in any trouble, I’m going to blame you.”
They ended up on the old wooden bleachers on the far side of the parking lot, facing the empty football field. The night was cool and the air smelled of cut grass, and they sat together close enough that their shoulders brushed. The muffled heartbeat of the bass from inside of the gym kept time underneath everything—the DJ must have put on a more upbeat song, Patrick thought.
He stared out at the field, at the pealing yellow paint of the goal posts in the dark, at nothing in particular.
“Joe—”
“Patrick—”
Heat flooded Patrick’s face. “Sorry, you go first.”
“No, no it’s okay. You can go first…”
Patrick looked at Joe, with his carefully styled curls and his big, blue eyes that were doing the thing that Patrick had been not-thinking about since they’d first met and was now, finally, allowing himself to think about.
“This isn’t a friends thing anymore, right?” Patrick asked.
Joe reached up and tucked a loose strand of hair behind Patrick’s ear, gently, his thumb brushing the curve of it.
“What do you think?” He asked.
“What I think is that I don’t want it to be a friends thing anymore.” Patrick whispered, his gaze briefly dropping down from the impossibly blue of Joe’s eyes to his lips.
“Can I kiss you?”
Patrick nodded quickly.
It was a soft kiss. Brief and a little clumsy, but warm. Joe made this small, pleased sound against his mouth and Patrick decided that he was going to think about that for the rest of his life. When they pulled away, they were both smiling in the stupid helpless way that Patrick was sure he was going to be embarrassed about later but couldn’t bring himself to care about right now.
“Just for the record,” Joe said, “I think we should do that again.”
“Yeah?”
“Oh yeah, absolutely. Many times. Ideally starting right now.”
Joe kissed him again, slower this time with one hand curled around Patrick’s jaw. The bleachers creaked faintly underneath them and in the distance, the bass could be heard thumping inside still and the night was cool and grass-sweet all around them.
Across the parking lot, a door banged open.
“If we find them out here, you owe me twenty dollars!” Pete’s voice bellowed into the parking lot, far too loud for students sneaking out of prom.
Patrick broke away, his eyes still closed by h is forehead pressed to Joe’s as he groaned softly. “I’m going to kill him.”
Joe laughed, soft, stealing another quick kiss to Patrick’s lips. “You’re not going to kill him.”
“Fine. I’m going to injure him, just a little.” Patrick amended, his voice equally soft as he followed Joe’s lips or another kiss.
“Pete,” Andy’s voice now drifted across the parking lot, more calm and reasonable, “You said you wouldn’t harass them.”
“I said I probably woudln’t harrass them, which is a completely different statement if you really think about it—”
“We should go back inside.” Patrick mumbled, almost regretfully. The idea of going back into the sweaty, slightly too warm gym seemed like too much to think about.
But Joe stood and extended his hand out to Patrick with a sort of composure that Patrick did not feel himself, and grinned—the same grin that had been inconveniencing Patrick since eighth grade, the same grin that Patrick decided now that he could admit he had been thinking about for far longer than he would like to admit.
“Together?”
Patrick looked up at Joe and let the weight of the word settle over him, until it washed away the distant thump of bass and the sound of Andy scolding Pete, until it was just him and Joe, and those impossibly blue eyes and crooked grin.
He reached up and took Joe’s hand.
“Yeah. Together.”