Chapter Text
“I just don’t like how often you hang out,” Scott grouses, bringing down the last box of Patricks music equipment.
“We’re in a band together, Scott, we have practices. It’s not like we’re taking long walks on the beach,” Patrick rolls his eyes. At first, Scotts possessiveness of Patrick around Pete was kind of sweet. At this point, it’s just downright fucking annoying.
“I don’t know why you don’t just start a band with someone else. All of his old bands suck anyways, and they all failed.”
Now that pisses Patrick off.
“You not liking his singing voice does not mean his bands sucked. Arma was amazing. Whatever, you don’t even like Fall Out Boy anyways, how am I supposed to trust your musical opinion.”
“What are you talking about?!” Scott defends himself. “Of course I love Fall Out Boy.”
“No you don’t!” Patrick says, finally raising his voice. He’s sick of having these same conversations over and over again. “You barely come to our shows, and I hear the way you talk about us to your friends, like its just a small side hobby for me. Well, we’re getting more and more popular by the day, Scott, and we wouldn’t be able to do this whole touring thing if this wasn’t going somewhere.”
“Well sorry if I just don’t like the idea of you sharing motel beds with this dude,” Scott mutters.
“Why?!” Patrick almost yells, “who cares! It’s not like I’m gonna do anything! Don’t you trust me?!”
It only takes a second of Scotts hesitation for Patrick to explode.
“Are you fucking kidding me?! After two fucking years you think I’m going to cheat on you? What the fuck is wrong with you!”
“Well it’s not like it’s all the far fetched! Everyone knows that back in high school-“
“Back in high school I was still figuring myself out, you asshole! Are you seriously calling me a slut right now?!”
“I never said that!”
“Get the fuck out of my house!” Patrick shouts, face red with anger. Scott is lucky there are boxes of equipment between them, because Patrick really wants to slap him right now.
The front door swings open, and Patrick can’t see it from here, but he hears some sort of commotion, and then voices in the foyer.
“Oh, hi there Scotty,” Petes voice comes floating to the living room. Part of Patrick wants to kick the box in front of him with how bad his bands timing is, but another part is, for the first time, a little happy that Scott is getting condescended at by Pete. He kind of fucking deserves it right now.
The door slams and then Joe, Andy and Pete walk into the living room looking a little awkward. Well, Joe and Andy look awkward. Pete looks like he always does - amused and ready to cause some trouble.
“Damn, who pissed in his cereal,” Pete jokes. Patrick just rolls his eyes and picks up a box. The sooner they get into the van and on the road, the better.
The van doesn’t stay quiet for long. Once they hit the road, there are discussions about who is going to drive for how long, and who gets to pick the music, and whether or not Joe should be allowed to drive at all (he has a license but also is an eighteen year old, which means Andy doesn’t trust him behind the wheel. Patrick is nineteen, but doesn’t have a license, which works out really well for him right now). Basically, Patrick is able to slip his walkman headphones over his ears and lean his head on the window to get some peace.
At some point, he must have fallen asleep, because he’s woken up by Pete crawling over the second row of seats into Patricks. He manages to do it in the most inelegant way possible, and somehow his foot gets caught in the cord of Patricks headphones and they’re yanked off of his head.
“Jesus, Pete, watch it,” Patrick admonishes, even though he can’t help but laugh at the way Pete tumbles into the footwell.
“Fuck, sorry, sorry,” Pete says. He’s also laughing, though, so he definitely isn’t.
Outside, Patrick notices that it looks like it should be getting dark soon. They probably aren’t far from their first stop.
“I just wanted to check in on you,” Pete says, once he’s situated himself in the seat beside Patrick.
“Check in on me?”
“Yeah, like. I don’t know, you obviously weren’t in a great mood earlier, and now you’re all quiet.”
Patrick guesses that the quietness is pretty rare for him. But that has more to do with tour-nerves than the whole Scott thing.
“I’m alright. Scott was just being an asshole,” Patrick admits, nudging Pete over a bit. He’s got a whole seat that he can take up, but he’s still half in Patricks lap, as always.
“Well. You already know how I feel about little Scotty,” Pete says. Oh, Patrick knows. Back when the band first started, at one of their earlier gigs, Scott had come to support his boyfriend. And then, of course, he’d seen the way Pete was sort of all over him throughout their set. It didn’t go over great. There was a minor fist fight afterwards that ended with all of them being kicked out of the bar.
“He’s not bad, Pete. He just gets… jealous. You know that.”
Pete shrugs and rests his head on Patricks shoulder.
“So what were you guys fighting about?” Joe asks from the row of seats in front of them. Of course he’d been listening, it’d be impossible not to in this small of a space.
“Just stupid shit about the tour. He brought up high school again, as if it hasn’t been two fucking years since I graduated.”
Joe nods knowingly, but Pete furrows his brow.
“What about high school?” He asks.
Joe and Patrick make eye contact for a second, not saying anything, which only leads to Petes head springing up from Patricks shoulder.
“What happened in high school??” He asks again, looking back and forth between the two.
“Nothing, like, happened,” Patrick sighs. Sometimes he’s really happy to have someone in the band who’s known him forever - Joe - ad sometimes he’s more grateful for having two people who only met him towards the end of his senior year. “I just slept around a little. I was exploring things, you know? And a lot of guys were into me, why wouldn't I say yes to that?”
Patrick doesn’t know why he’s defending himself, he knows he doesn’t have to. He did nothing wrong. He’d had a good time in his later teen years, why should he feel ashamed of that, right?
“Oh,” Pete says, face blank.
“Oh don’t tell me you're gonna be an asshole about it too,” Patrick groans, shoving at Petes shoulder.
“What? No!” Pete exclaims, “I just didn’t know! I’ve only ever known you when you’ve been in a committed relationship!”
Patrick rolls his eyes.
“I’m serious, Pattycakes. I don’t care about that. I was, like, the biggest slut at my school,” Pete says.
“Thats different, you mostly slept with girls,” Joe points out. Patrick wants to hit him.
“Okay, first off, it was like a 60/40 girls to guys ratio,” Pete specifies.
“Ugh! I do not want to hear about your sex life!” Patrick says, covering his face with his hands.
“Why, Patty? You afraid you’ll fall victim to my seduction skills?” Pete teases, poking him in the side.
“Ew, gross,” Patrick says, shoving his hands away. “And don’t call me Patty, thats like, the worst possible nickname to come from Patrick.”
The truth is, yeah, Patrick would probably sleep with Pete if he wasn’t already with Scott. When they first met, Joe introducing them, the first thing Patrick had noticed was how he was even hotter up close. Of course he’d seen Pete before, at Arma shows, and once even before that, when he played for Racetraitor. And he’d always thought he was hot, obviously, with the way he would tear his shirt off on stage at any opportunity, show off his sweaty chest and toned stomach, his tattoos on display. But up close like this, Patrick could really see his face, his smile. And, god, Pete has the most gorgeous smile.
But none of that matters, obviously. Because Patrick is with Scott. He’s in love with Scott. He’s been with Scott for two years, of course he’s in love with him.
So, yeah. It doesn’t matter how hot Pete is, because it’s not like Patrick is going to do anything about it anyways. Not that that will stop Scott from accusing him, apparently.
And Patrick really needs to stop that train of thought, because it’s just going to get him angry and worked up all over again. And he hates being angry and worked up. It’s already how he spends half his waking hours, and it’s miserable.
By the time he tunes back into the conversation Joe and Pete are now having, they’re talking about hot movie characters.
“Oh, Claire in the Breakfast Club for sure. Or, you know what, maybe Samantha in Sixteen Candles,” Pete says.
“Oh come on that can’t count as two different people, they’re both Molly Ringwald,” Joe insists
“Fine, fine,” Pete sighs, resting his chin on his knee and looking all deep in thought for a few moments. “Okay, I’ve got a different one. Andie in Pretty in Pink.”
“Shut up,” Joe shoves at Petes head and they both laugh.
“So you’ve got a thing for Molly Ringwald?” Joe asks.
“Nah,” Pete glances over at Patrick, then ruffles his hair before saying “redheads.”
"It's strawberry blonde," Patrick blushes and slaps at his hand.
“We’re almost at the venue, bitches!” Andy calls from the drivers seat. Normally the rule is that someone always has to be in the passengers seat, so that the driver doesn’t get bored and accidentally veer off the road or something, but Andy’s got his metal music playing, so he’s entertained.
When they do arrive at the venue, Patrick starts feeling shitty again. He’s not sure if it’s just nerves heightening his anger from before or what, but he doesn’t want it to ruin their first show. So, after setting up, he heads right for the bar.
There aren’t many people at the venue in general, mostly techs milling about, setting things up. Patrick orders a beer and hopes that since he’s in the band they won’t card him. No such luck, obviously.
He storms over to where Joe, Andy and Pete are sitting at the side of the stage and chatting while techs get ready for sound check, and grabs the beer bottle out of Petes hand.
“Whoa, calm down there, Trick,” Pete says. His voice boarders on joking and concerned.
“They won’t serve me,” Patrick grumbles, downing the rest of what Pete hadn’t finished (which was more than half of the bottle, apparently).
“Well, yeah. No shit,” Joe says, “you still barely look like you’re eighteen.”
“You literally are eighteen,” Patrick sneers, then turns to Pete and pouts. “Can you order me something?”
If theres anyone that will do Patricks bidding, it'll always be Pete.
Pete squints, looks him up and down, all pensive-like. (Something in Patricks stomach always sparks when Pete’s eyes linger on him. He pushes it down.)
“Sure,” Pete decides, getting up and heading over. Patrick takes his spot, sitting on one of their amps.
“You good?” Andy asks.
“Yeah. Bad mood from earlier just randomly started catching up with me, I guess.”
“Yeah, Scott seemed pretty angry when we came over,” Joe says, testing the waters. Patrick rolls his eyes.
“He really pisses me the fuck off sometimes,” Patrick admits, thinking back on the stuff Scott had said. Did he seriously see Patrick that way? Did he actually still care about what Patrick was like in high school? Patrick wishes he’d told Scott to grow the fuck up. He also wishes he could’ve hurled some clever comment at him that would make him feel as shitty as Patrick did now.
Thats still a healthy relationship, though, right?
“Alright, here you go,” Pete says as he comes back, holding some sort of fruity cocktail monstrosity.
“Pete what the fuck,” Joe laughs, almost doubling over. Patrick just rolls his eyes.
“What, did you order the most expensive thing you could find?” Patrick asks. “How much do I owe you.”
“Oh, nothing. It’s on the house. Or, on the Pete, I guess. And, no, I ordered whatever the fuck this drink is because it said it has strawberry and peach. Strawberry for your 'strawberry blonde' hair, and peach for your peachy personality,” Pete says, beaming at Patrick. Patrick rolls his eyes, though he can’t find it in himself to be annoyed. He knows that Pete is actually just trying to cheer him up, under the guise of teasing him. So, Patrick takes the glass from him and gulps some down. It tastes really good. Also, really high in alcohol, which is nice.
Soundcheck takes Patrick right back into his bad mood, though.
He always feels kind of stupid during sound checks in general. When he’s preforming in front of a crowd of people, he can pull his hat down and ignore that they’re there and just do his musical thing. At soundcheck, though, you have to be communicating with people the whole time.
Tonight, his mic is way too loud at first, which leads to an embarrassingly grating “check, check” sequence. Patrick sometimes wishes Pete could just do this part himself, but they also need Patrick to sing the songs to make sure everything sounds right. And Pete is busy with his bass, obviously. Still, he looks over at Pete, where he’s tuning the pegs, to get that reassuring smile that always helps at least a little. (As usual, it works. Just a little.)
The alcohol helps him get through practicing some of the songs in front of the few techs and venue people walking around. It starts really hitting him after soundcheck, though, when they’re out back standing around the van waiting for it to be time to go on. Patrick’s sitting on the hood, Joe is smoking a joint that he occasionally lets Pete take a hit off, and Andy is laughing at them every time they suggest something stupid to do on tour. Which is a lot.
“No, we should totally stop at a six flags some day!” Pete is insisting.
“You just want an excuse to be shirtless,” Andy points out.
“Oh, I don’t need any excuse to be shirtless,” Pete takes his shirt off in one swift motion, like it’s practiced or something, and Patrick can’t help but laugh at him. Joe is booing and shielding his eyes.
Patrick feels good. Both good and a little angry, in the back of his head, still. But he’s here with his three best friends, they just put their newest album out, they’re going on a tour where some people will actually be traveling to go to multiple shows. It feels… satisfying. Like it doesn’t matter what Scott says, because who cares? Patrick is successful and awesome and has fun without stupid Scott and his stupid jawline and his stupid abs and his stupid everything.
“Scott sucks” Patrick says, not really conscious that the words are coming out until they do.
“Well, come on,” Joe says jokingly, “at least he’s hot.”
“Ugh but tons of guys are hot!” Patrick whines. “Petes hot!”
“Hey, are you calling Joe and I ugly?” Andy teases, kicking at Patricks foot where it’s dangling, way off the ground, from the height of the van.
“No! You guys are totally hot too. But like, Pete’s my type, you know?”
Patrick gets the feeling that maybe thats not the sort of thing he should be saying to his friends when he has a boyfriend, but he’s not really thinking about the words he’s saying until he’s already said them.
Joe and Andy are laughing, and Pete is looking at Patrick, smiling, with this intense stare. Patrick almost shivers, even though it’s summer and he’s wearing a zip-up.
“Oh, please,” Pete says, voice all sleazy, “tell me more.”
He’s joking, but Patrick rolls his eyes and decides to push it further. This decision is definitely informed by the alcohol.
“Shut up, you totally know what I mean. Like, look at you,” Patricks hand flaps out in Petes direction. He doesn’t coordinate well and his finger tips end up brushing Petes bare abs. And is that… is Pete getting goosebumps where Patrick just touched him? "You've got the tattoos and the muscle and the hair."
“Whatever, we all know I’m the hottest of the group,” Joe says, leaning back against the hood next to Patrick, looking down at himself and nodding with approval.
Andy starts arguing with Joe about who’s actually the hottest, and Pete mostly just laughs at them when they say things like ‘tattoo factor’ and ‘bicep diameter’. But Patrick is a little distracted now, staring at the way the muscles in Petes stomach flex and contract as he laughs, tracing all his stupid tattoos with his eyes.
The show starts off pretty good. Patrick is feeling much braver than usual, probably due to the alcohol. He really is a lightweight. And the sound system sounds pretty good, and people look like they’re having fun. And Patrick feels good. He feels warm and sweaty and energetic. He feels angry, but in a satisfied way. Singing Petes lyrics is a great way to get your anger out, Patrick realizes. Screaming things like “if you caught on fire I wouldn’t piss to put you out” and “hope you choke on those words” into a crowd of moving bodies really does a lot to somehow both fan the flames of his anger and keep it contained at the same time.
At least Patrick thinks it’s all contained, until Pete starts doing that thing he always fucking does during shows where he presses his face to Patricks neck just to breath him in. He keeps pressing himself up to Patricks back, too, leaning his forehead on Patricks shoulder, then jumping away and into the crowd. Normally Patrick just deals with it, doesn’t care. Tonight, though, it’s setting him off for some reason.
Every time Pete invades his space tonight, it feels like a dare. Or a promise. Or a secret. Or something equally as mysterious and intriguing. And he keeps pushing himself away before Patrick can figure out what it is. He wants to pin that feeling down, wants to stare it in the face, wants to explore.
And so, without thinking, the next time Pete comes up to lick at Patricks neck, Patrick moves faster, kisses Pete square on the mouth.
It’s sloppy and messy and dirty and Patrick wouldn’t even think it counted as a kiss if it weren’t for the feeling stirring deep in his stomach saying sexsexsex. He doesn’t even realize that he’s been half hard against the back of his guitar until now.
It goes on maybe longer than a stage kiss is supposed to, but Patrick doesn’t even think about it, until suddenly Pete is shoving him backwards with a hand on his chest. It’s a hard and sudden push, and Patrick stumbles backwards and falls on his ass just in time to see a glass beer bottle shatter against the exposed brick wall behind Andys kit. He instinctively ducks under his own arms, although none of the glass reaches him. Pete is screaming at someone in the crowd - or maybe the whole crowd, who knows - with an anger that Patrick has never seen in him in his life. He’s seen Pete in various stages of every emotion, but never this level of anger. He can’t hear what Petes shouting though, not over the ruckus of the crowd yelling back at him, pointing angry fingers and spitting words out like poison.
All Patrick knows is that now Andy is herding him and Joe off the stage, and they’re jogging out the back door to the van.
Pete is still inside. Patrick is about to point this out, but Andy is heading back in before he can.
He looks at Joe, who seems a little bit shell shocked, and figured maybe he has a similar expression on his face.
“Dude,” Joe says, “what the fuck was that.”
And then they both start laughing, like something funny just happened and Patrick can’t fully figure out what it is.
They shut up when Pete bursts through the heavy door, Andy right at his back, pushing him along. He looks mad. Pete, not Andy. Andy looks annoyed.
“Everyone get in the van,” Andy announces. Patrick and Joe do what he says, because why wouldn’t they? Pete doesn’t. Pete starts arguing with Andy, and it almost looks like he wants to go back inside to the chaos, for some reason. Patrick thinks that would probably be a stupid thing to do, so he reached out the open van door and tugs Pete in by his wrist. Pete goes willingly, but he doesn’t look happy about it.
Andy gets in too, and shuts the door.
“Okay. I’m gonna go back in and talk to the manager, see if we’re still being paid. You guys, just- I don’t know, sober up,” Andy says, then leaves again.
Joe, Pete and Patrick sit in silence for a second before Joe finally says “I mean, Patrick, if you were gonna break out the stage gay, couldn’t you have waited until California or something?”
Patrick starts laughing and pushes at Joe and the two of them crack up.
Pete just sits there and stews angrily. Patrick stops laughing after a bit when he realizes that maybe Pete is angry at him. That wouldn’t be very funny.
After that, they just wait another few minutes until Andy comes back out with some tall chick in a name tag following him. They open the door and the girl starts talking.
“Okay, so, I convinced the manager to pay you guys half of what we originally agreed, because he didn’t want to give you guys anything. We’re trying to clear the assholes out, then you guys can come take down your equipment and leave, I guess. We’ll just play music from the speakers for the rest of the night.”
She looks exhausted and Patrick feels really bad.
“Sorry,” he says, hunching down and looking at his lap.
“No, it’s cool, I liked the show. I mean, I could’ve done with less broken glass to clean up later, but the songs were great. What are you guys called? Fall Out?” She asks, looking at Andy.
“Fall Out Boy,” he says, “thanks.”
After that, she goes back inside and they all sort of just wait there. Petes hands are in fists and Patrick just wants to apologize to him, too. Wants to put an arm around him and tell him that it’s okay, they’re going to be fine. They saved up a good amount of money before this tour, they won’t be totally fucked up from this pay dock.
He doesn’t do that, though, because Andy and Joe are right there, and it would feel weird, probably. He doesn’t really know, he’s still pretty drunk.
They’re back on the road after packing up, and Andy and Joe are both asleep in the back seats already. It turns out Pete actually hadn’t had that much to drink, so he was fine to drive. Patrick had volunteered to take the passengers seat, because then he’d get to stretch his legs out without hitting five boxes of merch and equipment. It’s a little awkward, though, with the way Pete is being all silent, and gripping the steering wheel like he’s trying to strangle it.
Maybe Patrick shouldn't have kissed him. Maybe that was crossing a line. He's trying not to think about it, though - especially about how it felt, how Pete had pressed harder against him, licked into his mouth with purpose. He shivers in his seat and hugs his arms around himself. He'll save the 'thinking about it' aspect of his rash decision for when he's sober.
Patrick is about to speak up when Pete starts talking.
“I can’t fucking believe someone tried to throw a bottle at you,” he says, voice tight and angry. Patrick shrugs.
“I don’t know. It was kind of cool. Like, obviously it wouldn’t be if any of us had gotten hurt, but we’re all fine,” he says. Mostly, he's just trying to calm Pete down.
“What? Cool? Patrick what the fuck! That shit could’ve hit you in the head!”
“Yeah, but it didn’t,” Patrick insists. Thinking back on the whole situation, he really has Pete to thank for the fact that he doesn’t have a severe concussion right now. “You made sure I was fine,” he adds softly.
“Of course I made sure you were fine, I promised your mom I wouldn’t let you get a single scratch,” Pete says, still pretty strung up, but Patrick can hear the teasing in his voice and smiles. “And, like, just in general. I’m never going to let anyone hurt you if I can help it.”
“Whatever, I can totally take care of myself,” he curls up in the passengers seat and watches the road pass beneath them.
It’s quiet for a moment before Pete speaks again.
“Why did you kiss me? Like, on stage,” he asks.
Patrick is sort of half-asleep and just shrugs. Don't think about it until you're sober, he reminds himself.
So, he answers without really thinking.
“I don’t know,” he says quietly. “I just wanted to.”