zeegoeshere

Starring You Instead Of Me
By Zee
Summary: Pete thinks wistfully of his own body, and of the days when he didn't have morals.
Fall Out Boy and My Chemical Romance, Frank/Pete and Frank/Bob. NC-17, 14,531 words.
Disclaimer: Never happened.

Notes: Finally! I think I started writing this back in freaking May. Much gratitude to everyone who let me show this to them and wail about how stalled I was, especially shanalle for giving me the title and ninjajab for beta-ing.



Pete wakes up slowly. He always really appreciates and notices that when it happens, whenever he gets to wake up on his own time, nice and slow without an alarm. It's a rare luxury these days.

He yawns and stretches, sitting up, and bangs his forehead against the ceiling of the bunk, *hard.*

He yelps and puts a hand to his forehead, rubbing the bump and glaring resentfully at the offending ceiling. Why is there a ceiling there? He should be in his own soft lovely tour bed, he should have a room of his own, all the luxuries of signing up for corporate sponsorship for this tour. It's not just the ceiling--this mattress isn't soft, like the bed he's been sleeping on the past week. He tries to rub sleep out of his eyes. Did he fall asleep on Mark's bus again?

His hand slides down his face and he feels--whoa. Metal. There's a ring in his lip, and when his hand slides down further he can feel more than just a night's growth of stubble on his chin, and when he stares at his hand it's not his and okay, he's definitely all the way awake now.

Pete scrambles out of bed, bumping his head again on the fucking ceiling in his haste, and this is not +44's bus. It's not any of the buses on the tour, he's positive. He recognizes Ray Toro's hair, his back turned away from him, and on the bunk below him, Frank Iero is flopped on his stomach, drooling a little on his pillow. And it smells, it smells like guys but not like *his* guys and--

Mirror. He needs to find--this is a tour bus, okay, and Pete knows tour buses. The bathroom is going to be right over, yes, here. Pete stumbles in and gets the door closed behind him, turns to look at himself.

He stares.

He has blond hair, a lip ring, he's fucking *tall* and he actually has chest hair and a beard and holy shit. Holy shit, he's Bob Bryar.

"What," Pete manages to squeak out, and it's *not his voice* and this is just too fucking bizarre. It's a dream, right? He should--he should go back to sleep, or something. Right.

Someone bangs on the door and Pete jumps. "Dude, I've gotta piss!" Frank yells, muffled, through the flimsy bathroom door. "You've been in there for like 15 minutes."

Pete swallows. Shit. Shit. Okay, maybe if he--just pretends that nothing's wrong? Oh god, Frank is going to take one look at him and realize something's wrong, and maybe they'll try to do an exorcism or something--

Pete shakes his head, presses the heels of his hands against his eyeballs. Right. No panicking. He pushes the door open, says "Sorry," and Frank just glances at him long enough to roll his eyes and shove him with his shoulder playfully as he moves past him into the bathroom.

Back to bed, right. That seems like okay logic, right? If he goes back to sleep in his weird dream, he'll wake back up in reality. Okay. Sure.

Pete is just crawling back into his bunk when a phone buzzes, loudly, from the pile of clothes at the foot of his bunk. Pete stares at the pile, and--that's Bob's phone, it must be. He rummages through the pile of clothes until he fishes it out of the pocket of a pair of pants, and eyes it warily.

The caller ID isn't picking up the name, but Pete knows the number: that's his own sidekick calling.

He flips open the phone and doesn't speak for a moment, just listens to the breathing on the other side. The other person doesn't speak, either, and finally Pete says "Okay, who is this?" Whoa, still not his voice.

"Who's *this?*" And that's *him* speaking, that is definitely Pete Wentz's voice, and Pete resists the urge to yell Hey, jackass, what the fuck are you doing with my PHONE and my VOICE?

Neither of them speak for a while, just breathing into the phones, and then Pete swallows. "This is, uh. Pete Wentz."

Pete hears himself mutter a curse. Then, "Uh. This is Bob. Bob Bryar, I mean."

"Right," Pete says, on automatic because what the fuck else can he say? Bob Bryar is apparently speaking to him with his own voice.

"Yeah," Bob mutters, and it *is* Pete's voice but it doesn't exactly sound like him. It's. It's just different.

"So, like, are you. Are you, uh.... are you in my body?" Pete says, and cringes at how weird that sounds.

He hears himself take in a sharp breath on the other line. "Yeah," he grunts, and it's lower, Pete thinks. That's the difference: his voice is pitched just slightly lower. "You in mine?"

"Yep," Pete says. "Dude, you're tall."

"Uh," Bob says. "I guess. What the fuck?"

Pete laughs, and it maybe comes out a little hysterical. "Fucked if I know, man. I just--I just woke up this way."

"Same," Bob says, laughing a little, and it's about ten thousand times weirder than hearing himself on the radio or watching himself on TV. "I, uh. I have no idea what's going on."

"Me neither. This is fucking weird." Which goes without saying, but Pete is saying it anyway, because wow. Fucking weird.

"Just a little," Bob says, sarcastically. He doesn't say anything else after that, and neither does Pete. What is there to say? It's kind of a unique situation.

"Okay, so." Pete says after the pause. "So--what are we gonna do here?"

"I... I don't know," Bob says, and he sounds kind of surprised, like. Like the thought that he doesn't know what to do is a really strange one.

"Yeah," Pete says, his hand tightening on the phone. "Neither do I. Fuck, maybe it--maybe it'll just go away after a while. Maybe when we go to sleep tonight we'll wake up back in our own bodies."

"The 'ignore it and it'll go away' approach?" Bob says, and Pete is about to say something like hey, look, you got any *better* ideas? But Bob goes on to say "Yeah, that sounds like a plan. We'll just wait it out, it's probably just. Just something weird with today."

"Right, sure," Pete mutters. "I'll just--hide from the public eye and call in sick to the show or something--"

"Whoa, whoa, no way," Bob interrupts, sounding alarmed and louder. "This tour's already been fucked up by food poisoning and Gerard's rib and Mikey taking time off, so just--yeah, no fucking way are you pulling out of the show tonight."

Oh yeah, Pete remembers. Staph infection. "Okay, I definitely don't want to fuck up your guys' tour, but. I don't fucking play the drums."

"You don't play the bass, either," Bob snaps, and hey, uncalled-for. "Can't you fake it well enough? Patrick and Andy must have taught you something through the years."

"Not enough to play a show and not fuck it up," Pete says. "Besides, I don't know your songs. Seriously, man, it'll be okay, I'll just talk to Gerard and explain the situation and we'll get a good sub. Your precious tour won't be compromised."

"Are you serious? No *way* can we tell anyone else," Bob says. "No one would believe us, and if they did--we're freaked out enough as it is and we've had a little time to process. If we tell anyone else they just won't deal, and if it gets leaked to the press, I don't know *what* the fuck will happen."

He kind of has a point. Shit. "Okay, fine, no telling anyone. Then what the fuck are we going to do? I can't just, like--I mean, I'll have to play a show with your band eventually." With your band, and that's just. It stings, because as much as he likes My Chem, he can feel the way Fall Out Boy is across the country from him, Patrick and Joe and Andy all together without him, and he's pretty sure that the last time that was the case was them in Europe after the Best Buy thing. It kind of sucks.

"Um, tonight actually. We're playing Denver tonight," Bob says.

"Oh,*fantastic,*" Pete says, and across the bus he sees Ray make a sound in his sleep and begin to move, regaining consciousness. It's probably a good idea to not have this conversation around the rest of Bob's band if they're keeping it a secret, so Pete gets up and moves to the opposite end of the bus--Frank is in the kitchen, making himself breakfast Pete guesses, so he curls up on the couch in the main lounge. "So what do you expect me to do? Learn your entire set in a day? On an instrument I don't *know?*"

"Can't you--do your best?" Bob says, a pleading tone to his voice. Pete's voice. Shit. "Fuck."

"I'll try," Pete says, "Just, uh, don't expect a miracle."

Frank wanders in from the kitchen and flops down onto the couch next to Pete, looking at him and clearly waiting for him to finish his call. Pete feels panic rise in his throat. "I've, uh, got to go," he says, hanging up and forcing a smile at Frank.

Frank reaches out with his toe, nudging Pete's thigh. "You're up early."

"Uh. What time is it?" Pete swallows. Frank is Bob's bandmate, probably knows him as well as anyone does. He's gotta know just by *looking* that Bob Bryar is not currently Bob Bryar. Pete feels a little nauseous; he doesn't know how to keep this up, doesn't know how to navigate *any* part of this.

"Like, five am, dude. Some of us couldn't sleep, but it looks like *some* of us have important people to call at five in the morning." Frank's foot pushes against Pete's leg for emphasis.

Pete swallows. "Yeah," he says. He opens his mouth and shuts it; he doesn't know what else to say and Frank is still looking at him expectantly. Visions of sitting alone at a drum kit in front of a whole arena's worth of fans are dancing in Pete's head. "Yeah, I just, you know," he says, and it sounds hollow and vague and not like him at all.

***

"It was amazing!" Pete yells in his ear, and Bob hears his own voice sounding ecstatic, relieved, and a little bit awed.

"The show? It, it went okay?" Bob says, trying to ignore the strangeness of hearing his own voice over the phone again, not to mention of the strangeness of hearing nervousness in Pete's voice that happens to be coming out of his own mouth.

"Better than okay! Like, I can't even explain it right, but it was like--like, all right, I sat down behind the drums at sound check and picked up your sticks and I just *knew.* I knew what to do, I knew all of the songs, I was playing your set automatically, like--your body remembered or something, man, it was *amazing.*"

"Body memory," Bob echoes. It doesn't make any sense, but neither does anything else about this.

"Pick up my bass," Pete says, excited. "Go on, try it, I'll bet my body remembers--"

It works. It works fine, better than fine, Bob somehow knows how to play each and every Fall Out Boy song on bass (along with Beat It and Roxanne, and Bob is willing to bet that he could play any song Pete learned to play on this instrument ever).

Bob doesn't like it. It's almost like he's not in control of his own fingers and hands, and he misses the drums. You can't play bass with your whole body (never mind the antics Bob has seen Pete do onstage, not to mention Frank), not the way you can as a drummer, and Bob knows already that he won't be able to lose himself in this the way he can in his drums. He almost wants to ask Patrick how he can even stand it, walking around the stage with a guitar and a microphone when he used to be behind a kit with rhythm coursing through him.

"You don't have to love it, you just have to play it," Pete says. "It's not like I'm crazy about sitting down for every show, okay? But I mean, at least we won't be fucking up the tours now. You were so worried about that."

"And you weren't?"

"I just think that we need to tell the others, man. Figure this out."

Bob thinks about adding more problems to My Chemical Romance and no. Just no. "We can get by now because of this body memory thing now, we don't have to cancel any shows. We'll just--look, we'll ride this out, it'll probably be over fast. One of those 'spend a few days in someone else's shoes' things, right? We can wait."

Pete lets out an impatient sigh. "Okay. Okay, fine, we'll wait. But hey, I did my best for your show, you have to do right by my band, too, got that?"

Of course Bob gets that. He's going to fulfill Pete's role onstage to the best of his ability.

***

Bob feels like he's going to die.

It's not the way he felt when the infection was making him delirious, when he had to be hospitalized--truthfully, he doesn't even remember that whole thing very well. He'd felt very disconnected from himself and his body at the time, like it wasn't really happening.

This is more an immediate, clear precise terror and certainty that this is it, this is the end, there's no way out. Mark Hoppus is singing onstage and soon, too soon, Bob is going to go out onstage with Fall Out Boy and he's going to have to be Pete Wentz to a whole arena's worth of fans.

Bob has been playing on stages since his days of acne and hormones. He's certain that at some point, he must have had to speak to the audience--it's statistically improbably to think that he never has. It's just that he has no memory of having to, ever.

Pete told him exactly what to say over the phone, and Bob knows that Pete doesn't have speeches the way Gerard does, and that the audience is more likely to be caught up in the screens and pyrotechnics and all the trappings of an arena show than they are in anything he says. But Bob has watched Gerard work the stage countless times, and not once has he thought it looked anything but impossible.

He hasn't played with anyone but MCR in years. He doesn't know this set-list in his bones. He doesn't know how to operate on stage with Patrick, Andy and Joe; he doesn't know how to move around with a guitar instead of staying stationary with his drums. He's pretty sure people expect a certain amount of jumping off of tall things from Pete, and Bob doesn't know how much he can live up to that.

"Dude, are you having a moment?" Joe is beside him, cracking his knuckles and bouncing on the tips of his toes. Bob can see a lopsided grin from underneath his hair, but he has to peer close to see his eyes from beneath the mass of curls. Bob hates to admit it, but it's more impressive than Ray's. Or maybe he's just not used to it yet.

"What kind of moment?" Bob says when Joe jostles him, tipping him and making him stumble. "I was just, uh, thinking I guess."

"First for you," Joe says, looping his arm around Bob's shoulders and leaning in close. Bob feels caught off guard, off-balance by the sudden physical contact. Pete's known Joe since they were teenagers, he reminds himself. Don't be weird.

"Ha ha, right," Bob says, stumbling over the words, not sure what to say. "I was just thinking about the crowd. Do you ever still feel nervous about going out there? Even now?"

Joe pulls back a little, giving Bob slightly more personal space to look at him. Shit, he shouldn't have said anything; like Pete is ever nervous about playing in front of crowds. Joe is going to think he hit his head or is on drugs or something.

"Sure, yeah," Joe says. "I mean, like. It's still. Everyone's paying attention to us, you know?"

Great. "Yeah," Bob says. "Sometimes that's just, uh. Not so awesome."

"But dude, I try not to let it get to me," Joe says, slapping him on the back and letting his hand linger, rubbing. "I figure we've done this a bunch of times and even when we fuck up majorly it's not too bad, you know? We've got it down pretty pat by now."

Joe couldn't have possibly said anything less helpful, Bob thinks. "Uh. Yeah." Another slap-rub, and then Joe is off to talk to someone else, his massive hair bobbing away.

+44 is finishing their set. Bob is going to die.

The actual playing of his instrument onstage with the band part is actually--not bad. Bob had known that he can mysteriously play the bass in this body, but the jumping around stage also seems to come naturally. Which makes no fucking sense, but none of this does; Bob goes with it as much as he can, and tries to avoid getting hit in the face by Joe's guitar.

But as soon as the first song is over, he has to talk. Bob grabs the microphone and tries not to freeze up, just--just yells a greeting, or something, he doesn't even know. Pete's advice is rattling in his ears and he can't see any individual faces in the crowd, it's all just black, and he can feel Patrick, Joe and Andy looking at him too. Bob rushes through what he has to say and they launch into the next song, and he tries to not feel queasy. He wants--fuck, Frankie used to always give him shit about 'hiding' behind his drum kit, but that is really what Bob wants to do right now.

He gets through it in a daze of babbling and saying anything that he can remember Pete telling him and looking to Patrick for help. He can't judge whether it's a rougher show than usual--it feels much rougher than MCR's shows, but then, those are shows that he's playing with the right *band* in the right *body.*

Finally, finally, finally the show is over and Bob feels like he's sweated more than he ever has in his entire life. He stumbles off the stage in a daze and lets the techies and managers and stage people herd him and the rest of the band away and out of the venue until he can collapse onto the sofa in the front lounge of the bus. His head hurts from trying to keep show choreography and cues straight.

He feels someone's fingers in his hair and stiffens automatically; as he realizes who it is but before he can relax, Patrick pulls his hand back. "You were intense tonight," he says.

Bob resists the urge to smother his face with a pillow and suffocate himself. "Uh, yeah, sorry if I was, um. If it was weird." He tries to think of an excuse, any excuse, and slumps down further on the couch.

But Patrick just laughs. "It was fine, you were really focused on the audience. I guess I've gotten used to your whole neck routine, that's all."

Neck routine. Fuck. Pete must have left out something Bob should've been doing, and Bob has *no idea* what the neck routine was. "Uh. Sorry?"

"Don't worry about it. I think I'll live without you giving me a hickey onstage for at least one performance."

Oh. Oh. Right.

Patrick's hand comes down again to touch Bob's shoulder, squeezing briefly before he lets go. "Back to the other bus and bed for me, man. I'll see you tomorrow."

"See you," Bob echoes. He hears Joe bound up the steps behind him, laughing at something Bob can't hear, and Joe kicks Bob's foot on the way back to his room, grinning at Bob over his shoulder. "Told you, no need to be nervous, you know?"

"Yeah," Bob mutters under his breath. He's exhausted and shaky and in the wrong body, everything feeling slightly off, but he's not dead. There's that, at least.

***

"This is fucking ridiculous," Bob says, and he knows he sounds like a prima-donna, but this is just. No. No way. "Ice cream?"

"You're comfortable being half-naked on the cover of Rolling Stone, but not getting ice cream on your face?" Patrick says. He sounds grouchy, the sort of grouchy Bob remembers from living with him, from harassing Patrick into doing chores when he'd rather be doing music. He has the 'I could be composing a platinum album right now, and instead I'm *here*' look on his face.

"Yeah, but," Bob says helplessly, because god, no, of fucking course he's not comfortable being half-naked on the cover of Rolling Stone. "Man, this is just so. Childish." It's not like he hasn't done a number of stupid photoshoots with MCR, but the only liquid they ever involved was fake blood.

"We worked the idea out with the photographer last week, it's too late for them to change everything," Patrick says.

"Do you think it'll be real ice cream, or like, fake ice cream that doesn't melt and looks good on camera but probably tastes totally gross?" Joe says, eyeing the Kerrang studio with concern.

"Probably fake," Andy says. "Real ice cream would be too much of a sticky mess. Trying to negotiate melting dairy between takes sounds impossible." There's no expression on his face, and he sounds very grim.

"Right, and you know, this goes against Andy's veganism," Bob says. "Can't we just ask them to do the same shoot without the ice cream?"

"It'll be over in a few hours, you pussies," Patrick says, rolling his eyes as the makeup artists come over to get them ready.

"I don't suppose you could be the one in front, just this once?" Bob mutters to Patrick as someone attacks his cheek with a powder brush. He knows it's an un-Petelike thing to say, but every time he glances over at the stage for the shoot with its garish colors and, yes, real ice cream in freezers, he feels the knot behind his bellybutton tighten.

Patrick glances at him, surprised, before giving Bob a sympathetic smile. "Man, you know that every time we try that they still want you in the front. Sorry. I'd switch if you wanted me to, but..."

"Right," Bob says. The photoshoot lasts longer than any he's ever been through before because it's fucking difficult to make wacky faces for a fucking camera that's all up ten inches away from his face. Not to mention the ice cream that's all over their faces, and Bob knows he's being grumpier than he probably should be--the photographer is afraid of him and he's getting some odd looks from Patrick--but he really needs for this to be over.

He sticks his ice-creamy tongue out when the photographer asks him to and tries to ignore the feeling that the camera is attacking him and prays for it to be over soon.

***

Pete stumbles out of a gas station somewhere, sometime--he thinks they might be in Montana, and it might be in the neighborhood of five am, but he has no conclusive proof. All he knows is that he has to play drums again tonight, and that he woke up in the wrong body for the third morning in a row.

Maybe he's not in the wrong body: maybe he really *is* Bob Bryar, and just thinks he's Pete Wentz. Maybe this is just a crazy thing.

It's a really creepy thought, and Pete makes a face and rips open his protein bar to distract himself. Breakfast.

Before the bus stopped and Frank poked him awake to get some fresh air, Pete had been fast asleep. He was out last night the second his cheek hit his pillow, and slept so deep he hadn't even dreamed. Pete can't remember the last time sleep came so easy for him, can't remember a time when he didn't have to stare at the bottom of the bunk above him as spiky words drifted behind his eyes until he slept--or just didn't.

And now he thinks he might sleep some more. It feels good. It feels *fucking* good.

Out of the corner of his eye he sees a hand snake in, and he doesn't register what's happening until Frank's fingers are wrapped around his. Pete blinks at the image, their hands clasped together until Frank's plan becomes clear and the protein bar is tugged out of Pete's grasp. Pete stares forlornly at the space where it had been as he hears Frank bite down. "Hey, dude, I was eating that."

"Yeah, but you like sharing with me," Frank says, the same hand curling around Pete's shoulders and scratching lightly at the nape of his neck where the line of Bob's hair starts.

Pete opens his mouth to tell Frank to give him back his food and then fuck off, but then--maybe Bob *does* like sharing with him. Frank's tone of voice isn't necessarily sarcastic, and Pete just doesn't know. Frank offers him the rest of the protein bar, puts it against Pete's lips in fact, and Pete automatically takes a bite.

Frank makes a pleased sound. "See? Kindergarten lessons, man, they pay off later in life."

"Sharing is caring and crayons are for eating. I feel so enlightened," Pete says.

Frank laughs and his arm slides so that he's hugging Pete's shoulders. He offers Pete another bite of the protein bar and Pete can't help but notice the glint in Frank's eyes as he watches Pete chew.

It kind of makes him paranoid that he's chewing in a way that Bob wouldn't chew. Fuck, this is too weird.

When they get back on the bus, Pete can almost make believe that things are back to normal. Bus travel and touring and the couches in the lounge and the shape of the compact kitchen--this is everything he knows, and a few days ago he was experiencing the same things with Patrick, Andy and Joe and the rest of the bands. There's no smell of pot and nicoteine and no vegan food in the fridge or cupboards, but otherwise he could almost pretend that this was the bus he's been sharing with Joe.

But Joe isn't here, and neither is Dirty or Charlie or Patrick or Andy or anyone. Pete has to fake knowing the names of the crew and the guys in Muse, and he wonders how out of character it would be for Bob to hide in his bunk every possible second that he's not needed with the band.

It's a moot question, because the invasion of his space by a tiny rhythm guitarist (Pete knew Frank was small, but he seems *miniscule* in Bob's body) doesn't end when they pull out from the gas station. All Frank has to do is tug once on Pete's sleeve and Pete finds himself lying on the couch in the lounge with Frank flopped on top of him, flipping through channels on the TV.

"I think at this point the total lack of anything decent on is on purpose, because it's become what people expect," Frank says, shifting until his head is in Pete's lap. Cheek on Pete's thigh, and Pete doesn't really know what to do so he lets his hand rest on Frank's shoulder.

"TV sucks because we got used to it sucking, huh? Like, our shitty expectations created the badness. I think that actually happens, dude, I saw a documentary about it." Frank glances up at him, and Pete suddenly feels like he isn't Bob-like at all.

But Frank just says "Yeah? Huh." and goes back to looking at the TV. After a while Pete realizes that Frank is sort of--rubbing his cheek on Pete's thigh. Not obviously or anything, just kind of almost absent-minded. His hand is on Pete's knee, loosely curled against his pants.

It's kind of possessive and Pete kind of likes it. He's always been a touchy guy and not everyone appreciates that or wants that; after years he's worn his band-mates down so that they barely even notice it, and Frank is reminding Pete of that now. It makes him miss his band more than he already did and he finds himself reaching out, petting Frank's hair a little.

Frank makes a pleased sound and pushes into the touch, and Pete feels a spark of relief: he isn't fucking up, Frank isn't looking at him like a freak or someone who is clearly not-Bob. Pete doesn't know what he'd say if he were discovered, anyway, doesn't know what would happen--Bob is the one who's really terrified of telling anyone, but Pete's not nuts about looking totally crazy to members of either band himself.

Frank pushes his face against Pete's leg more purposefully, then laughs. "Gerard says we're not allowed to fool around in public places anymore," he says, and his voice is--lower, and sends a spark to Pete's lower belly, and Frank is glancing up at him again and what the fuck?

"The bus lounge counts as public?" Pete tries to keep his voice light and casual because he has no idea what's going on.

Frank laughs and twists until the back of his head is on Pete's leg and he's facing up. "His exact words were 'Fun times should be bunk times,' so yeah, I think he meant keep us out of the lounge."

"Oh, uh." Great. Fantastic. Pete makes a mental note to thank Bob so much for giving him the proper warning that he had regular fun bunk times with his guitarist. "Darn?"

Frank sticks his tongue out and then winks, over-the-top lewd. "I'll just have to make it up to you later."

Pete laughs nervously, even though he has no idea if that was a joke. "Okay," he says, because that seems like the thing to say, and Frank laughs again and pushes himself off of Pete's lap, heading to the kitchen.

Okay. Fun bunk times. We're not supposed to fool around in public anymore. Frank is going to make it up to Pete later. Oh, god.

It's possible--hell, probable--that Pete is reading the situation entirely wrong. How many times has he joked, completely deadpan, about all the gay sex he's having with Joe, or Patrick, or Andy, or Dirty, or who the hell ever? It's funnier when people don't know whether to laugh or not. Frank probably does the same thing with his band. It's not--it could be anything.

But it *might* be *something,* and Pete does, actually, have pretty good instincts for this kind of thing. It definitely looked like a something in Frank's eyes, and while Pete hasn't asked Bob or anything, but he doesn't have to ask to know that Bob's somethings are definitely off-fucking-limits, even if he is in the right body.

Even if it is a something that Pete has totally ogled every chance he's gotten since the day he met this band. And he's heard that Frank and his girlfriend have been 'on hiatus' for months--so really, they're both single (unless Frank is Bob's something in a big way) simultaneously for the first time since Pete has known him, and Pete could totally make a pass.

Pete thinks wistfully of his own body, and of the days when he didn't have morals.

***

The on-the-road part of touring follows pretty much the same pattern that it does with Fall Out Boy: scheduling to within an inch of their lives and busy-ness that defied physics on days when they had shows, and mind-numbing boredom during the traveling. Pete grabs any magazine that might have even the tiniest mention of Fall Out Boy from the last gas station they stop at and holes up in his bunk. God, Bob's cell phone doesn't even have internet capability, and Pete hasn't had time to actually find a computer to get online. He has no idea what people are saying about him and he's kind of terrified to think what Bob might be doing (or completely not doing) with his blogs.

He's reading an interesting bit accusing him of being the cause of Lindsay Lohan's latest breakdown when the curtain of his bunk is yanked open and Frank flops down next to him, somehow fitting himself onto the bunk despite the fact that there's not room for more than one person and Pete hasn't moved. He grabs the magazine out of Pete's hands with the superhuman reflexes of a cheetah and cracks up when he sees the article.

"Oh, dude, don't tell me you're going through a Pete Wentz phase," Frank says. "I'm telling Mikey."

"It's not a phase, we're very serious about each other and the wedding's in June," Pete deadpans before he can catch himself. Would Bob be that witty? Should Pete just have stuck with 'fuck you'? "And fuck off," he adds.

Frank smirks and tosses the magazine over his shoulder, scooting closer until his thigh is nudging between Bob's legs. "What, cheating on me already? I'll have the divorce papers drawn up, you cad."

Pete hesitates. In all the stress of having to play shows as Bob, he'd almost forgotten the "I'll make it up to you later" thing, but oh hey, look, he happens to be in a bunk and Frank happens to be here as well. And oh hey, look, touching.

He'd forgotten to ask Bob about Frank, too. Dammit. Where does he put his hands? Frank is propping himself up on his elbow and his other hand is playing with the zipper on Pete's hoodie. Pete finally rests his hand on Frank's side, going for comfortable but not obtrusive or suggestive.

"I'm bored," Frank says, as if that wasn't obvious. "I'm bored to death and you're reduced to reading Wentz rumors. Give me something to do, Bob, seriously."

Pete's mind nosedives into the gutter, and his confusion about whether or not Frank and Bob had things going on is pretty much gone. Magic eight-ball points to 'Absolutely'. "Uh," he says, and Frank glances up, meeting his eyes. Seriously pretty eyes, Pete thinks stupidly, and geez. There are so many ways in which this isn't fair.

"You could read my magazine?" Pete finally offers, and Frank laughs, tipping his head forward so that his hair brushes Pete's forehead. Pete has a crystal-clear view of the scorpion on his neck.

"You're a wild child, Bob Bryar," Frank says. "You never stop with the crazy risks, huh?"

"There's never a dull moment with me, it's true," Pete says, distracted by Frank's hair tickling his nose.

Frank looks up, those fucking eyes again, and Pete has been in this position with girls and guys so often that it's just automatic reflex to lean in. He presses his lips against Frank's mouth and Frank returns the pressure after two seconds. Pete can feel the brush of his eyelashes when Frank's eyes flutter closed.

Pete thinks wait, what, shit after two more seconds and pulls back as fast as he can without being a jerk. Frank is giving him a funny little smile and he's the one leaning in this time, catching Pete's lip in his teeth and flicking his lip ring with his tongue (which, wow, feels really nice).

Pete is an experienced enough kisser to let his tongue and lips do the work while his mind completely, utterly panics. He can't *stop* the kiss and run away, because that would piss Frank off and make Bob look like an asshole and Bob would be furious at him, but he can't keep going because that makes *him* an asshole and Bob would probably be furious at him. There's no--maybe he can suggest that he feels like just cuddling? Maybe he can claim mono. Except that Frank would want to know who he got mono from.

Most everything in Pete's life has not prepared himself for any of the situations he's ended up in the past week and a half.

"Mmm," Frank says into Pete's mouth, and his hand slides inside his hoodie, fingers dragging along Pete's side and onto his hip. Frank's thumb slips under his clothes to touch the naked skin on Pete's hip, which makes something warm and nice and twitchy happen in the muscles above Pete's dick. Ack.

"God, you're so," Frank says, laughing. "I didn't think--whatever." He has a really wide smile on his face and, oh, his hand. His hand is still touching *places.* "Can I do something?"

"Sure," Pete says automatically, and immediately wants to take it back because Frank's hands are pushing him onto his back and whoa, hello, straddling. Frank's legs on either side of his body, and Pete says "Um" and then Frank is sliding down Pete's body and undoing his pants.

Pete feels like a deer in headlights as Frank looks up at him with a crooked smile on his face and says, "I think about this, you know. Kind of a lot." and fuck. Fuck, does Bob get to hear Frank say things like that all the time? Bob is a prince among men.

And then Frank is pulling Pete's cock out of the flap in his boxers and bending his head and oh, jesus, Pete cannot think of a single excuse to stop this.

Frank has an unbelievable mouth. Intellectually Pete knew this, had observed it and absorbed it as fact, but it's one thing to watch Frank Iero play guitar with parted lips and an orgasmic expression and think, damn, and it's something entirely different to see those lips wrapped around his own cock. Pete feels like an enlightened individual.

And oh, shit, he can feel the metal in Frank's lip drag up the underside of his cock. Pete hisses and tries valiantly to keep himself from thrusting up, but ultimately fails. Frank chokes a little and pulls off until his lips are just touching the head, glancing up at Pete from under his eyelashes, and Pete just stares helplessly back. He wonders if this is how Bob usually acts during sex. Is Frank getting suspicious? Should Pete be trying to be more Bob-like in his reactions? Frank is giving him a fucking blowjob.

But Frank just grins once, sharp and fast, and goes back down. Pete bangs his head back against the bunk. It's been too damn long since he got laid and he doesn't think he's going to last--and actually maybe he *shouldn't* last, like maybe it'll make him less of a horrible person if this is over with quickly.

Frank does several amazing things with his tongue in a row and Pete sees stars and comes, flailing his hands a little and hitting the wall. Frank swallows and pulls off, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. His lips look all swollen and red and his eyes are glittering strangely. Jesus fucking christ, Pete thinks.

Pete opens his mouth to say something but nothing comes out. His mind races for something, anything because he can't be rude, can't fuck this up for Bob, and he finds himself reaching out, touching and tugging on Frank's arm. He's not even sure what he's trying for but Frank follows the motion, moving in closer and wrapping his arms around Pete, settling down on him. He hesitates with his lips a couple inches from Pete's face, and Pete doesn't know if Bob and Frank don't like kissing after oral or something like that, but Pete has never minded it and can't think of what to say so he leans in, kissing Frank and closing his eyes.

Pete can taste himself on Frank's tongue. Except no, he realizes with a jolt, he can taste Bob. And that's just--Pete had been able to deal with this, this whole weird thing where he's in his best friend's old roommate's body and his bodily reactions are not his own, but that's Bob's come Pete can taste in Frank's mouth and it's just too fucking weird to take.

He jerks back away from Frank, stuttering some kind of excuse, and then the bus stutters for a stop, making them both lose their balance on the bunk, Frank bracing himself on the wall to keep from falling off. And wow, Pete has never been so grateful for a gas station pit stop in his entire musical career.

He gets out from under Frank as quickly as he can while still being a gentleman. "Gotta stretch my legs, man," he says, and Frank nods and laughs. He doesn't look like he's guessed that anything could be wrong.

Later that night, after the show Pete hides from the rest of the band on the balcony of his hotel suite and smokes and calls Bob. He fucking hates the taste of cigarettes and he coughs every time he inhales and, fuck, it just calms his nerves. He hates this. Bob answers on the first ring.

"How'd the show go?" is the thing Bob says instead of hello.

"The show went fine, Jesus," Pete says, coughing. "This is the fifth time I've performed with you guys and it's been fine, okay? If I were going to fuck it up I'd have done it by now."

"Uh-huh," Bob says, sounding like he believes Pete exactly as much as Pete believes himself.

Pete stubs the cigarette out in the ash tray and thinks another one might be really nice. He licks his lips, nervous. He wants his own, not-addicted-to-any-substances, not-currently-in-a-sexual-relationship-with-Frank-Iero, not-pierced, tattooed body back. "So hey, asshole, why didn't you tell me about you and Frank?"

"We implemented the riser this tour so that he wouldn't fuck up my kit again, it shouldn't be a problem anymore. He's just enthusiastic."

"No, not that." No wonder Patrick and Bob got along so well; they think in terms of music and their bands first, second and third. "I meant the thing you guys have going. You couldn't have warned a guy?"

"What?"

Pete fishes another cigarette out of the packet. He really hopes he doesn't still want the nicoteine when he gets back in his own body. He saw in a Truth ad once that the mental addiction is just as bad. "I just, I didn't realize you guys were... going out or sleeping together or whatever. I don't have a problem with it, but like, I just didn't know. I think I recovered okay when he kissed me, and then the other stuff-"

"What?"

Pete waves a hand furiously even though Bob's not here to see his gestures. "It wasn't my fault! He just started going down on me and I didn't want to break character and fuck things up for you. So, you know, sorry for touching your man or whatever, but at least he didn't suspect anything, right?"

There's silence on the other line. Pete can hear Bob's breathing--his own breathing, shaky and young-sounding. He can feel his own breath catching in his chest, a cough tickling at the back of his throat. "Bob-"

"I'm going to fucking kill you."

"What? I didn't--"

"What the fucking hell!" Bob is yelling at him in Pete's own voice, tinny through the phone. "What the, how the fuck *could* you, you didn't even--jesus christ, you fucked *Frank?* I'm gonna kill you!"

"Hey, I was just trying to not mess things up for you! I didn't want to hurt your boyfriend's feelings!" Pete knows it's the wrong thing to say almost the second it comes out of his mouth.

"My--" Bob's laughter sounds almost hysterical. "You motherfucker, we weren't *anything.* We were friends, I didn't even know he--he didn't know I--we were *friends.*"

Fuck. "Fuck, I. Bob, I swear, I thought--from the way he acted--"

"You're a fucking moron if that's what you thought." Bob's voice is crackly and harsh through the phone line, like needle pinpricks. "Do you even have any--any fucking *concept* of what you just fucked up? I would never have--" Bob cuts himself off and Pete hears his breathing again--his own pained, hitched breathing. He wonders if this what he sounded like after receiving every piece of horrible romance news, after Morgan, after Mikey and Alicia, after Jeanae. It makes something curdle in his stomach.

"I'm sorry," Pete says, cringing immediately because he knows how much an apology doesn't cut it. "Seriously, I--I'm so fucking sorry, honestly I really thought--I wasn't trying to--"

"Fuck you," Bob says and hangs up.

*

Part 2 here.