zeegoeshere

This Song Is Not For You

Bands: Fall Out Boy, My Chemical Romance.
Pairings: Patrick/Pete, Patrick/Bob.
Word Count: 35,109
Rating/Warnings: NC-17
Author's Notes: Title from The Sounds' Song With A Mission. There's a lot of screwing with timelines in this, and it goes increasingly AU after November 2005.

Major thanks to everyone who listened to me gnash my teeth or saw parts of this as I was writing it, but especially stereomer for cheerleading and whining alongside me, and miss_saigon for listening to my wailing in person, for helping me figure out each step from the very beginning, for beta-ing, for everything. This wouldn't have been written without your help. ♥

Summary: Patrick tries to get things right.

Fanmix: We're Still Doing This by kaizoku


*


"You don't have to be careful," Bob says, half-sigh and half-whine. Patrick can see the beads of sweat on the back of Bob's neck, the way his muscles are bunched. Bob pushes his ass back a little against the tip of Patrick's cock and it makes Patrick tighten his hold on Bob's hip, his fingers slipping on sweaty skin.

"I'm not, I just--" Patrick moves his hand to grip Bob's thigh lower down and guides himself in.

"Fuck, seriously man," and there's something uneven and a little cracked in Bob's voice, something that makes Patrick push in hard and sudden. It makes Bob grunt in surprise, his head bowing even more, and it makes Patrick say:

"Happy now?" in a gasping voice that really just doesn't sound like him at all. Bob is tight around him and Patrick's whole body is buzzing with the tension of only being halfway in, of the friction not *quite* starting yet.

He's got the drummer of My Chemical Romance bent almost in half over their couch with his dick halfway in his ass, and he has no idea what the fuck he's doing.

Bob growls--actually growls, holy shit--and gets one of his knees up on the couch. It makes him spread even more, makes the angle more natural. Patrick doesn't need Bob to say "Stop being *careful*" to make him push all the way in, to make him press his whole body against Bob's backside and go for it.

This is only the third time they've had sex, the second time Patrick's fucked Bob, and it still surprises him how enthusiastic Bob is. He seems to be much louder when he's the one getting fucked, groaning and pushing back and panting and muttering random words that Patrick only half-hears. It makes Patrick wonder if he's like this all the time or if he would be different, be less into it, if Patrick wasn't--

"Fuck, oh god, deeper, I--shit," Bob says, just babbling chains of expletives. Patrick thrusts harder and deeper, grunting when he hears the slap of his balls against Bob's ass. He knows he can do this as hard as he wants, dig his fingers into Bob's skin and fuck him in a way that he knows will leave Bob sore after. He can let himself go here because--well, because he's let himself go there, because somewhere along the line he's stopped being the person he thought he was, and anything else is just icing on the cake.

Patrick has to push Bob down even further to get the height to bite his neck, nipping and kissing at the back of his neck before biting down hard on the flesh between his neck and collarbone. He gives him several deep, short thrusts at the same time and squeezes Bob's dick hard and Bob comes with a stuttering yell, all over the Ikea couch cushions that Patrick helped Bob pick out two weeks ago.

Patrick looks at the semen on the fabric and thinks that it will probably stain. It's shitty of them, soiling these cushions when they're brand new, even if they are both rock stars who can afford all the couch cushions they want. It's the principle of the thing, and Patrick feels guilt prick at him.

Bob reaches a hand back wildly and grabs at Patrick's hip, pulling him in close. His body's loose now, offering almost no resistance. Patrick gets both hands on Bob's hips and screws him erratically, fast and shallow-then-deep with no rhythm until Patrick feels his orgasm build and crash. He feels boneless as he collapses on Bob's back, limp now inside him, his leg muscles trembling.

Bob grunts and moves, one of his shoulders moving and nudging Patrick. Patrick takes the hint and pulls out, flopping on the couch as Bob turns over and sprawls next to him. Patrick looks out at their living room, so clean and neat-it makes their clothes strewn around all the more obvious: Patrick's shirt and jacket on the floor right by the front door, removed as soon as he came in; Bob's shirt and boxers tossed on the chair next to the couch; Patrick's pants and boxers in a pile by his feet. Patrick is still wearing his socks.

It makes the scene look impulsive and sudden, but Patrick can't blame impulsiveness now (not that he thinks he could blame it ever, not really); he decided he was going to fuck Bob again while stuck in traffic on the way back from Pete's house, fuming from another frustratingly-not-a-fight. He had let himself in to the apartment and taken off his jacket, calling for Bob to come here, and Bob had taken one look at Patrick unbuttoning his shirt and crossed the room.

Beside him now, Bob is tugging on the ends of his bangs and running a hand through his hair, and Patrick knows he wants to smoke. "We're still doing this?" he says, or asks--Patrick isn't sure which.

It pisses Patrick off, because of course Bob has to know that Patrick doesn't have a clue, that he's choosing to be amoral rather than decisive. It doesn't need to be fucking said out loud. Patrick shakes his head.

Bob drums his fingers on his knee. "Okay," he says. "Okay." Then to Patrick's surprise, he smiles--a nice smile, warm and affectionate, a smile Patrick hasn't seen as much since they started fucking. It makes Patrick scoot over to him and kiss him, closing his eyes and cupping Bob's jaw.

And Bob relaxes against him and kisses back with his tongue in Patrick's mouth, because Bob might seem sensible and good and upstanding to everyone else in the whole world, but Patrick knows that he wants to ignore what they're actually doing as much as Patrick does.

Patrick thinks that if Bob had pushed him away that first time, if Bob had demanded that Patrick break up with Pete first with righteous indignation in his voice, Patrick would probably be in love with him by now. He might have even left Pete for Bob, actually; he's not sure, but maybe. As it is, Patrick isn't in love, he's just in this, whatever this is.

"I was going to order in Thai, we don't really have anything to make dinner," Bob says, leaning back to look at Patrick, and his eyes are really blue and Patrick is fucked. "You want some?"

There's a lack of food in the apartment because it's Patrick's turn to buy groceries, but Patrick elected to have a nervous breakdown about cheating on his boyfriend and bassist with his roommate instead of buying groceries this week. "Yeah, sure. Uh, Pad Thai? Or actually, is that Chinese?"

Bob shrugs. "I'll get you something with noodles." He stands and walks to the kitchen for the takeout menus naked, and Patrick watches his ass.

Patrick gathers up his clothes as Bob orders for them, dumping them in the hamper in his room and pulling on clean sweats. He can feel his mind sliding away from actually thinking about this, from looking at the situation head-on; he's already thinking about dinner, about calling McLynn back, about maybe showering with Bob later. The knowledge that this balance can't last forever, might not even last for the rest of the day before something splits it wide open, is there in the back of his mind as always. But he ignores it and goes to wait with Bob for dinner, putting off the inevitable for one more night.

***

2005 is almost over with only a month left, and it catches Patrick off-guard when he finds all of Pete's attention suddenly on him. Pete has always focused on Patrick, yes, but that focus has always been divided, turned largely on other girls and guys: Jeanae, Ryan, Morgan, Mikey, the new label. Pete is used to the guarantee of Patrick's presence, and therefore hasn't turned all of his attention to him since they first met. Patrick was too self-conscious at fifteen to really recognize the bizarre, frightening gift that is Pete Wentz being that excited about you, so when Pete comes back around seven years later, it feels almost totally new.

Patrick wakes up in the middle of the night in his bunk, and when he pushes the curtain aside he sees Pete sitting indian-style on the floor. He's leaning against Joe's bunk, directly across from Patrick's, and Patrick immediately knows that Pete's been staring at him for hours.

If Pete is awake at three AM and wants to bug Patrick, he usually just climbs in with him. He doesn't say anything now to explain why he's just sitting there creepily, and there's an odd vulnerability on his face--an emotion that's just barely to the left of all the Pete moods Patrick can easily label and identify.

Patrick swallows. "Can't sleep? He asks the stupid obvious question, anything to break the thick, confused tension in front of him.

Pete just sighs, and keeps looking at him. "I wanted to talk to you, but I forgot what about." He says it flat, not bothering at all to conceal the fact that he's lying, and Patrick scowls. He's tired and unnerved, and it's strangely difficult to look Pete in the eye when he's like this.

"Whatever," Patrick says, pulling the curtain shut and lying down again, turning on his side away from where he knows Pete is sitting. He realizes that his heart is pounding, and he strains to hear sounds of Pete getting up, but falls asleep before he does.

When he wakes up again, it's morning and Pete is sitting on his bunk. He offers Patrick a bowl of cereal when Patrick sleepily slurs curses at him.

"Breakfast in bed?" Patrick says after accepting. "What are you buttering me up for?"

Pete shrugs, and then grins, and then shakes his head; Patrick sighs. "Pete. What?"

Pete points a finger at Patrick's chest. "I think you're great, dude. I really appreciate you."

Patrick is reminded of that period when Pete was 21, and his girlfriend told him he was cold and uncommunicative after she cheated on him; he spent two weeks after that telling everyone in his vicinity how much he loved and valued them every ten minutes. There's nothing Patrick can do in these situations, really, except wait out the storm.

"I appreciate you, too," Patrick says. "Are you going to serve me breakfast every morning on the tour?"

Pete licks his lips and ducks his head. "Maybe." He glances up again to meet Patrick's eyes, and it's such an abrupt transition from friendly to sexually flirtatious that Patrick flushes. Pete holds his gaze for a beat, two, before springing up off of Patrick's bunk and walking away.

It's not like Patrick has never thought about the possibility of him and Pete. Of fucking course he's thought about it--he spent most of his high school career thinking about it. He never stopped being attracted to Pete, and on some level, he never stopped being flattered that the most charismatic person he knows chose *him* for a best friend.

But that doesn't mean he's ignorant about what it would actually mean to be in a relationship with Pete. So he tries to ignore the signs as they come even faster and more obvious; he keeps as much of his personal space as possible, he works on not blushing when Pete hits him with his version of Smoldering, he avoids being alone with Pete whenever possible. But less than a week after Pete brings Patrick breakfast in bed, Pete grabs Patrick's elbow as they're both on their way to a party in the hotel.

"I need to talk to you," he says, and when Pete says need he always sounds like he means it more literally than anyone else possibly could, like whatever he's asking for really is necessary to his survival.

"Okay," Patrick hears himself say against his better judgment, and then Pete's dragging him back into the band's empty hotel suite, pushing the door closed behind him.

Everything Pete probably wants to say is already showing naked on his face, and Patrick takes a step back. He feels panic rise in his chest, because he's not ready for this, not ready to actually have something he's been trying not to want for years.

Pete licks his lips. "I, uh. Patrick." He shakes his head and looks down at his shoes, laughing a little. "Will you go out with me?"

The question is so--so incongruous, so wildly unfitting for all of the mess this is going to entail, that Patrick laughs. He guffaws and has to sit down on the edge of the bed, still huffing out laughter. Pete grins up at him from underneath his bangs, snickering a little himself, because of course he gets it, Pete gets everything.

"This is the worst idea you've ever had," Patrick points out.

"That is so not true," Pete says, indignant now. "You've seen all my bad ideas! This one won't end in charges of property damage or public indecency!"

"We can't," Patrick insists. "I love you, more than I do just about anyone, but this would be--"

"Amazing. Epic." Fuck, Pete actually goes down on one knee. "I want to. You want to, I *know* you want to. This is the kind of thing that's meant to happen."

"Don't bring your romantic streak into this," Patrick says, even though he has a sinking feeling he's already lost.

"It's already been broughten," Pete says, inching closer on his knees. "Come on, give me one reason, just one good reason why not-"

"You tried to kill yourself nine months ago," Patrick says flatly.

Pete stops and stares. Patrick stares back; it's true, and it doesn't matter that Patrick has forgiven him, it's something that will always be true for Pete.

"Okay," Pete says, slowly, like he's reasoning through something. "I'm not the sanest emo jerk ever, point. But that doesn't keep you from being my friend, so--so why does it matter for anything else?"

"It's not that specifically, it's--god, you're, okay." Patrick is losing coherency, and Pete is inching closer again, and fuck. "I care about you, I care about you so much, but I also know you, so I know how much you fuck things up for yourself, and I just--"

"Trust me," Pete says, and Patrick is actually surprised at how firm his voice is, how confident he sounds.

"Easy for you to say," Patrick says. "You didn't have to watch *your* best friend try to disappear this year."

"But I'm better. I am," Pete insists when Patrick snorts. "I mean, it's--you're not going to get it, dude, because you've always been okay. You have problems, sure, but you have no idea what it's like to distrust every thought in your own head. Like, I--"

Pete looks away, shaking his head a little, and Patrick waits for him to continue. "I know that I'm better now because I remember what the alternative is," he says eventually. "Sometimes you just--you have to fuck yourself up completely before you can be complete again."

Patrick crosses his arms. "That sounds like bullshit."

"Wow, you really haven't trusted me at all since that whole thing went down, have you?" Pete says, looking at Patrick again, surprised. "I knew that it made you mad, but I didn't, like." He presses his lips together and Patrick holds his stare, glaring a little.

"I'm the crazy one," Pete says, finally. "So I don't know why you're more scared of this than I am."

"I'm not *scared,*" Patrick snaps. "Maybe I just don't feel the way you do."

"Now what's bullshit?" Pete stands and sits next to him on the bed, and Patrick thinks about getting up and just leaving, but he doesn't. "Patrick. Hey. Look at me."

It's a dirty tactic; when Patrick does turn to look, Pete kisses him on the mouth, firm with one hand cupping Patrick's jaw. Patrick pushes him away, but not soon enough, and he can tell from the unabashedly smug look on Pete's face that he's just proved Pete right.

"Look at it this way: you stuck by me when I did the stupidest thing possible earlier this year, right? And we're still friends. So we can last through anything that happens with, you know, this."

Pete covers Patrick's hand with his own on the bedspread. Patrick wants this, wants it as much as he did when he was sixteen, if in a different way. He's terrified. He squeezes Pete's fingers back and nods.

***

Suddenly it’s been a month and Patrick looks up to realize he doesn’t have much of a concept of what life was like before he was involved in this, in love. Or maybe there’s no “before”: maybe he’s always felt this way, and Pete just brought it to the surface when he decided he wanted to be Patrick’s boyfriend, because things don’t seem to have changed that much.

Or, well, they’ve changed—of course they’ve changed. For one thing, Patrick has a regular sex life now. And Pete has become an even bigger physical presence in his life, like he’s making it a personal challenge to see if he can have some part of himself touching Patrick at all times. What’s weirder is that Patrick doesn’t mind. Usually physical clinginess makes Patrick uncomfortable, no matter how much he likes the other person, but now it makes Patrick less nervous that this is just something fleeting.

Joe starts staring at them a week after they get together. He keeps trying to catch Patrick’s eye, and Patrick doesn’t know if Pete’s talked to Joe or not, or if and why this has become his job, but he pulls Joe aside before an interview with AP.

“So,” Patrick says. “I guess you’ve, um. Figured it out about me and Pete.”

Joe snorts. “Uh, you haven’t been trying to keep it secret, have you? Because, man.”

Patrick bites back a smile. “No, we haven’t. I guess Pete’s been pretty obvious.”

“He’s practically slobbering on your shoulder,” Joe says. “it’s kinda gross.”

Patrick can’t stop grinning this time, and he knows he looks like one half of a stupid-happy annoying new couple. “Yeah, well. Pete’s Pete.”

“Hey, I’m happy for you,” Joe says. He shoves his hands in his pockets and hunches his shoulders a little, and Patrick waits for it. “But, I mean.” He makes a face. “You know I love Pete to death, yeah?”

“Of course,” Patrick says. He knows what’s coming, but he waits for Joe to spit it out.

Joe scratches at the back of his neck. “The dude’s kind of unstable,” he says haltingly. “I mean, I think he’s mostly over the punching-car-windows stage, but.” He looks Patrick in the eye, finally. “This band is the most important thing for all of us, right?”

“The band comes before everything,” Patrick agrees. “And—yeah. Look, Joe, I know Pete as well as you, I know what he’s like, but.” He hesitates, because—well, because he had the same concerns as Joe. Still has them.

“You’ve got to trust me,” he says. “Even if this is a train wreck, I swear I won’t let it fuck up the band.”

“It won’t be a train wreck,” Joe says, putting a hand on Patrick’s shoulder and grinning. “Whatever, you guys will probably be all epic and shit. There’ll be a lifetime movie based on your grand romance.”

“Okay, now you’re just being unnecessary.” Patrick laughs and shoves Joe away. “But really, you’re not like—weirded out by it or anything?”

Joe shrugs. “I’ve always been weirded out by the way Pete is about you. Now it’s just, like, all up in my face every day, that’s all. It’s cool, though.”

Patrick smiles. “Cool.”

When he gets Andy by himself, Andy waves him off before Patrick can open his mouth. “Pete already talked to me about it. Really though, it’s none of my business, you guys do whatever.”

“—oh,” Patrick says. “So—so you’re cool with it then?”

“Keep me and the band out of any shit you two have,” Andy says, pointing a finger menacingly at Patrick’s chest, but he’s smiling. “Other than that, yeah, sure. Doesn’t matter to me.”

"So it's real now," Pete says after hearing of Joe and Andy's reactions. They're in Pete's bunk; Patrick has been spending more time here than in his own, and today he finally grabbed his crap from his bunk and dumped it in Pete's. "We've told people, so it's real."

"You don't think a relationship is real until other people know about it?" Patrick says. "Wow, your internet ways make so much more sense to me now."

Pete grins. They're lying on their sides, facing each other. He has Patrick's hand in his, and he gestures with their clasped fingers as he talks. "No, I just mean. Like. Now you can't disappear or back out on me without other people asking questions. This makes it more definite."

Patrick knows Pete pretty well--he might go so far to say that he knows him better than anyone else not related to him by blood. So he's rarely surprised to hear Pete make statements that betray an extremely warped view of life, but he's never stopped being disturbed by it.

"Dude. Are you a moron? What makes you think that I would just get bored with you if we didn't make our 'thing' all official?" Patrick is smiling as he says it, and he brings their hands up in between their chests, shaking Pete's arm a little.

Pete laughs a little, but he doesn't really look amused. "I didn't think that," he says. "I just--"

He doesn't finish the sentence, instead ducking his head and smiling. "I don't know, man. I just can't believe that I talked you into this."

"You didn't talk me into anything," Patrick says. "I mean, you did, but--" he scoots closer. "I wouldn't actually be doing this if I were just going along with the situation," he says. "You know that, right? I'm all invested and stuff."

Pete lifts his head and his grin is bright and sunny. “I guess I’m just still skeptical that I got this lucky,” he says, and hooks his ankle over Patrick’s leg. Pete leans in to kiss him, and it’s the end of the conversation.

Patrick supposes that they’re That Couple of the tour, judging from the reactions of everyone around them; the rest of the bands and techs with them catch on soon after Joe and Andy, and there are discreet thumbs-up signs and open grins at them. Patrick is pretty sure he’s getting talked about more than he ever has in his life.

Their shows are better than they’ve ever been before. Pete is amazingly animated onstage, laughing and grinning into the mic in every city and careening around the stage with Joe so much that Patrick is always amazed he has energy left over at the end of the night. Patrick gets into it, too, playing at Pete when he isn’t singing and moving around the stage more than he usually does. He even ends up on his knees in front of Pete once, in Cleveland, and after the show that night Pete drags him into the first unoccupied room they can find in the venue. They don’t even manage to get their clothes off, instead grinding against each other until they both get off, and Patrick feels breathless and ridiculous and happy.

At every show Pete touches him, leans on him, kisses his neck or his cheek or, in Boston, his lips. And Patrick knows that displaying it publically is Pete’s way of expressing how important this is in his life, and he feels both overwhelmed and guilty that he isn’t behaving similarly, that he doesn’t know how to express what Pete is to him.

He and Pete are curled up on the bus couch, en route to Providence for their last tour date when Pete's sidekick rings. Pete fishes it out of his pocket with the same little-kid excitement he always gets when his phone rings, and Patrick can see his face change when he sees who it is. He tosses it a few feet away from him and lets it ring, and Patrick feels like he has a sense for these things, sometimes: a Wentz sense for when Pete is hiding something or fucking something up. Or maybe Patrick just has an uncanny ability to bring the fucked up shit to the surface; something like that.

He nudges Pete's shoulder. "Who was that? They don't get to talk to you?"

Pete glances at him, and Patrick can see the moment when Pete considers lying and decides against it. "Nothing," he says. "Just my therapist."

Patrick frowns. "I'm not super familiar with the way that whole thing works, but isn't it kind of important for you to talk to her?"

Pete is looking down at his feet and picking at a loose thread at his knee. "Uh. No. I haven't talked to her in, um. Three weeks."

Patrick stares.

"I haven't needed to," Pete says, defensive. "I've been happy, I've had you."

"You're avoiding her calls," Patrick says. Part of him is surprised that his voice is coming out so even and calm. His hand resting on the back of the couch curls into a fist.

Pete looks away from him. "Whatever. It was a stupid arrangement anyway."

"Calls with her kept you together on tour after your hospital stint," Patrick says, and yes, there's his voice rising. "It's not stupid, it's fucking necessary, it's--man, what the fuck?"

Pete shrugs. "I'm still taking my pills and everything."

"Oh, good. Good, because if I'd known there was any chance that you might not be, I'd have you fucking put away!" Patrick's voice cuts off savagely, and Pete whips around to stare at him.

"Dude. You don't mean that," Pete says.

"I--no, of course not," Patrick says, softer. "But the point is, you're just--fuck, okay, the point is I am not going to go through what I did last winter, okay? Especially not now, not with us."

"Why the hell do you think I would ever do that again? I told you, I'm happy." Pete sounds genuinely baffled, and Patrick wants to smack him.

"Because avoiding calls from your therapist is fucked up, asshole," Patrick says. "When do you need to see a psychiatrist to get your meds checked?"

Pete scowls. "You don't need to badger me about the details. You're making a big deal about this one thing."

"Yeah, I hope I am," Patrick says. "Christ, Pete."

Patrick looks away, and he can feel Pete staring at him. Finally he sighs, and Patrick feels Pete's fingers at his elbow.

"You're gonna have to trust me a little," Pete says. "Trust me to take care of myself. Okay? I promise, this is a good sign, not a bad one."

Patrick wonders whether Pete's therapist would agree with that statement. He bites his lip. "If you say so." But he doesn't say anything else. He goes with it when Pete tugs at him, pulling Patrick back until he's sprawled on top of Pete on the couch, both of them looking up at the bus ceiling as the engine rumbles beneath them.

***

The Black Clouds and Underdogs tour has been just as much fun as Patrick hoped it would. Patrick is continually surprised by how much he likes The Hush Sound, really genuinely likes all of them, and it helps that they seem to think he’s the best human being on earth. He doesn’t even think of saying no when Greta nervously approaches him about producing their album, even though he has his hands plenty full with producing for Gym Class as well. He trusts both bands to give him plenty of interesting material to work with, and he's honestly excited about so much work, so many challenges.

Even though he can’t get down to the real work on either album while on tour, figuring out his ideas keeps him plenty busy. And he’s more and more restless to get started on his own album with each day—he’s finally getting around to going through the pages and pages of lyrics Pete has shoved at him over the past few months, and he doesn’t really want to be doing anything but performing or working on garageband. Pete has his own hands full, what with the constant drama-fest that is Panic! At The Disco, the new clothing line, and more and more press focusing on Pete himself. It’s overwhelming and exciting and it means that mostly Patrick sees Pete either in bed next to him (when they’re usually too exhausted to do anything but pass out) or onstage.

Pete walks in on Patrick working with Greta once. They’re going over some new lyrics, and Patrick is laughing as Greta pokes his sides. He’s not actually laughing because it tickles, but Greta’s determination to magically make him ticklish is hilarious. Greta just gets more indignant as Patrick slaps her hands away, and she finally sits back in a huff when Pete enters the room.

“What are you up too?” Pete says, and Patrick blinks. Pete’s voice is sharp and suspicious, and when Patrick turns to look at him, there’s a hooded look in Pete’s eyes.

“Lyrics,” Patrick says, gesturing at the sheaf of papers on the table.

“I wasn’t violating him,” Greta says, smirking and rolling her eyes. “That was totally consensual tickling, he said I could try.”

Patrick snorts, but Pete still isn’t smiling. “Bob was looking for you,” he says to Greta, and she takes a hint, making a face at Patrick over Pete’s shoulder as she leaves.

Pete slides into Greta’s chair, and before Patrick can ask him what the hell his problem is, Pete says, “She’s been kind of all over you lately.”

Patrick stares. “Are you serious? Dude, she’s like. Barely out of high school. I don’t think you need to feel threatened.” He tries to laugh it off, but Pete still has that ugly look in his eyes, and Patrick’s laughter dies off.

“You’ve really hit it off with her. More so than with anyone else in that band.”

“Yeah, because she’s an insanely multi-talented musician and I’m producing her album,” Patrick says, his own voice getting sharper to match Pete’s. “Seriously. That’s it. You’re being crazy.”

Pete meets Patrick’s eyes, and the ugliness changes to uncertainty, and then he smiles a little. “Okay. If you say so.”

“Yeah, I do!” Patrick says. “Are you going to get like this every time I make a new friend?”

Pete cringes. “No, I—I’m sorry, it’s just—you know how I get.”

Patrick knows; sometimes he thinks he remembers the way Pete was with Jeanae better than Pete does. “Yeah, well. It’s not cool and it’s not cute, okay?”

“Okay.” Pete gives him a tight smile and reaches across the table to squeeze Patrick’s hand. Patrick is annoyed enough that he wants to take his hand back and leave, but Pete looks uncertain and humbled, like maybe Patrick actually got through to him. And he seems to bend over backwards to be nice to Greta afterwards, always showing enthusiasm about her band working with Patrick.

"I'm loving the new label, you know,," Patrick tells him sleepily when Pete throws himself into their bunk after a show. "Like." He tugs Pete back against him and wraps his hand around Pete's bicep, tapping his fingers against Pete's skin. "I really like finding these new bands, I like working with them, helping them and stuff."

Pete turns his head enough that Patrick can see his smile. "Happy Valentine's Day," he says. "I got you two bands."

Patrick laughs. "Beats chocolate and roses," he murmurs, smushing his face against Pete's shoulder. Pete reaches back clumsily and gets a hand on Patrick's hip, tugging his thigh up so that it's lying on top of Pete's legs.

Pete seems to be able to sleep best when they're touching the most, folded up into each other. Patrick often wakes up in the middle of the night feeling claustrophobic and uncomfortable, needing more space, but he can usually fall asleep again if he listens to Pete's breathing and the motor of the bus engine, sounds intersecting to make a noise like a really big, strange animal purring. He always drifts off just as his mind is starting to find melodies and rhythms in the noise, and one of these days he thinks he really will write a song based off of it.

***

One night he wakes up and Pete isn't there. Which isn't strange, except that what wakes Patrick up is the banging noises from the bus lounge. Patrick stumbles out still mostly asleep, and finds Pete pacing around the lounge. He kicks the couch every time he passes it, which is mostly what's making the noise. He's also picking up random things around the lounge, a t-shirt, a CD, a DVD, and either putting them back down or tossing them. His hair is in his face. Patrick doesn't think he's slept at all.

Patrick tries to rub the sleep out of his eyes. "Hey. What are you doing?"

Pete doesn't even turn. "Can't sleep. You should go back to bed."

And, fuck. "Hey, come on--" Patrick grabs for Pete's arm as Pete passes him, and Pete jerks away. It's a motion that's violent and seems to come from nowhere, Pete suddenly vicious enough to throw himself back and shove Patrick forward at the same time, like something horrible would happen if Patrick actually touched Pete's skin.

Pete stares, and Patrick can see the whites around his pupils. Patrick breathes through his nose and doesn't look away and stays calm and remembers that he's been here before, that this isn't even all that bad, it's just Pete, just Pete. He waits for Pete to start talking.

"Sorry," Pete says, rubbing his hands over his face. He looks like he wants to still be moving around. "I just--I haven't been. Sleeping."

Patrick doesn't ask whether that's four-hours-a-night-for-a-few-days haven't been sleeping, or 2-hours-a-night-for-two-weeks haven't been sleeping. It doesn't fucking matter; the end result is still this. "So... so is this, then. Um. Is there anything I can do?"

Pete laughs and looks away and his hands, Patrick notices, are curled into fists. "No. Go back to sleeping with Greta."

Patrick knows Pete well enough by now to realize when he's genuinely being crazy, and when he's just acting crazy to get a rise. He doesn't take the bait. "Right. Have you been taking all your pills?"

Pete looks back at him and glares. "Yeah."

Patrick doesn't know whether he's lying or not, and he doesn't want to ask about therapy because he knows what the answer will be. And he wants to fucking scream, he wants to grab Pete and shake him and ask him how and why it is so fucking hard for him to just take care of himself and be okay.

Pete is back to pacing. "I tried writing and it's all shit," he says, and Patrick notices pages scattered on the floor. Most of them are ripped at least in half, and it looks like most of a notebook suffered this fate. "Everything I do is shit."

"That's not true," Patrick says automatically, even though he knows that just countering his negative statements isn't helpful to Pete when he's like this. But truthfully, Patrick has never had the first fucking clue how to help Pete out in these moods, because it's nothing Patrick's ever experienced himself, nothing Patrick can come close to understanding.

"Look, I don't know what you're worried about tonight," Patrick says. "But things will look better tomorrow, okay? It's just that you're exhausted and stressed. If you really can't sleep, you can at least come back to bed and I'll not-sleep with you."

Pete makes a frustrated, sobbing noise and collapses onto the couch. "No, fuck no," he says. "Things won't fucking look better, it'll be worse because every day is worse, every day that someone looks at me and doesn't have the first fucking clue and keeps expecting--fuck, fuck, one day it's just not going to work anymore." He puts his head in his hands, and then as fast as he slumped down he springs back up again, bouncing on his toes.

"I'm getting out of here," Pete says, pushing past Patrick too fast for Patrick to react, and for a second Patrick has wild thoughts about Pete throwing himself off the bus, but Pete just throws himself into the tiny bathroom.

And locks it just as Patrick gets there. "Fuck," Patrick says, pulling on the handle and rattling it. "Fuck, Pete! Pete, you asshole, don't you--come the fuck out!" He pounds on the door and he knows getting pissed off is the worst way to handle Pete, but fuck this, seriously, it's 2am the night before a show and he's trying to persuade his boyfriend to come out of a tiny tour bus bathroom.

Patrick kicks at the door. "Come out! Pete, seriously, I will break this fucking thing down--"

"Go away," he hears Pete say, muffled through the door, and Patrick yells and kicks the door again.

"Dude," Joe says behind Patrick, making Patrick jump. Joe looks tired, not fully awake yet, and worried. "Is he--did he lock himself in there?"

Patrick tries to calm himself down. "Yeah. Yeah, he--I guess he's been having insomnia again. I don't fucking know."

Joe frowns at the bathroom door. "Um, shit. Pete?" he says, raising his voice a little and knocking on the door.

Patrick hears something rustle, but Pete doesn't say anything. Behind him, Andy is sitting up in his bunk and poking his head out the curtain.

"What's going on?" Andy says, frowning. "Why is he...?" Andy's question trails off; he seems to get that neither Patrick nor Joe can actually answer. The three of them trade stares, and Patrick feels his eyelids getting grainy. He's tired, they're all tired.

"Fuck off," Pete calls out at them from behind the door. "Just--just whatever, okay, go back to sleep, you assholes!" He shouts the last word, high and sharp, and Joe hisses in a breath.

"Don't be a dick," Joe says, loud enough to be heard through the door but not shouting. "Come out, okay? Whatever it is, we can talk about it."

"No," Pete says. "No, I'm not--no."

Joe opens and shuts his mouth, and Patrick curses and slaps at the door again. He can hear Andy start to get up, and no, this isn't right, this isn't something for the band.

"You guys should get some sleep," he says to Joe and Andy. "I'll stay up with him, okay? I'll make sure he doesn't--whatever. But some of us should be well-rested for tomorrow, at least."

Joe looks like he kind of wants to protest, but nods. "Yeah, sure. You try and get some sleep, okay? And that goes for you, too, dickwad," he says through the door.

Pete doesn't reply, and Patrick slides down to sit on the floor with his back braced against the door. Joe pulls himself back into his bunk, and Andy gives Patrick a look that Patrick can't really read before letting his curtain fall shut.

Patrick rests his head against the door and turns so that his cheek is touching it, too. "I'm not gonna leave," he says, and he's not even sure if he's speaking loud enough for Pete to hear. "Whatever it is you think you're doing, it's not working."

He can hear Pete sit on the floor, too, and thinks that Pete's back is probably pressed against his, with the door separating them. He doesn't understand why Pete won't come out, but he imagines Pete sitting with his knees curled up to his chest, his arms wrapped tightly around his legs, his cheek resting on one knee.

"Remember the first time we toured California?" Patrick says to the door. "I got so sunburned in Anaheim, man, it was so awful. You were all gloating because you just got a tan. And then you got that awful tattoo in San Jose..."

Patrick keeps talking, and Pete never replies, and eventually Patrick runs out of things to say. He makes himself more comfortable and stops stifling his yawns, and the next thing he knows the bathroom door is banging into his back and waking him up.

"Ow," Patrick mumbles, reaching back to rub the small of his back.

"Um," Pete says. "You need to move so that I can, uh, get out."

Patrick wants to snap at him, wants to say so NOW you want to come out? or something, but he just gets to his feet and stands back enough for Pete to walk out and close the bathroom door behind him.

Patrick stares. It's pretty obvious that Pete hasn't slept at all, and Patrick's chest twists and tightens. He leans forward and Pete leans back, and Patrick grabs the back of his head and kisses him anyway. He tries to make it gentle, careful, and Pete still doesn't kiss back; when Patrick pulls away, Pete is just looking at him with an exhausted expression.

"Are you okay?" What a stupid fucking question. Patrick wants to kick himself as soon as he says it, but the corner of Pete's mouth lifts in kind of a smile.

"A little, I guess," he says, and maybe that's the best Patrick can hope for. Patrick knows that in a few days, the answer will probably be 'yes'; this is a low point, but not a crash and burn. He hopes.

Pete walks past Patrick and crawls into their bunk, faces the wall and curls himself like the little spoon. Patrick climbs in after him, and Pete doesn't pull away when Patrick puts an arm loosely around him. Patrick can hear the rhythm of Pete's breathing, and he drifts off to sleep himself before he hears it change to signify Pete sleeping.

***

Everything happens so fast when the naked pictures leak. Pete’s ringing sidekick wakes them both up at 7am, and Pete answers it still mostly curled up around Patrick’s back. Then he says “What? Are you—shit,” and rolls out of bed, and Patrick, mostly asleep, doesn’t really process the tone of his voice. He just turns over in the bunk and passes back out, and doesn’t see Pete for the rest of the day. McLynn is the one who tells him, waking him up again with a call at nine.

“Wow,” Patrick says when McLynn finishes. “This is crazy. It’s really spread that fast?”

“Welcome to the internet,” McLynn says. “Look, do you know anything about how this happened? The more we know, the better we can dispel the rumors.”

If he’s asking Patrick, that means that Pete hasn’t told him anything. “Sorry, but I know as much as you do,” he says, and it’s mostly the truth. He has his guesses, but he still doesn’t have much of a clue why his boyfriend sent naked pictures of himself to someone who isn’t Patrick, and he’d kind of like to know.

He meets up with Joe and Andy later, and they also don’t know much, and don’t seem to believe Patrick when he says he doesn’t, either. “Come on,” Joe says. “I get that you don’t want to tell the rest of the world that weird games between you guys led to penis photos on the web, but you can tell us.”

“I told you, I had nothing to do with it,” Patrick snaps, and flushes when Joe and Andy trade a look. He knows he sounds jealous, suspicious, but it’s not that; he’s more upset by the pictures being such a surprise to him than he is by Pete’s dick being in them.

Plus, Pete gets jealous over anyone who looks at Patrick twice, but then apparently sends pictures of himself jerking off to—to whomever the hell he sent them too. The hypocrisy of it is frustrating, but Patrick doesn’t have much time to dwell on it. He’s too busy avoiding the press and dealing with meetings with the label and calls from his family and friends, and he needs to see Pete, Pete’s got to need him right now, Patrick should be next to him for this.

But Patrick doesn’t get to talk to Pete about it until they’re both back at the hotel room that night. Pete gets home later than Patrick and just flops down next to him on the bed, hugging Patrick tight. “I’m one of *those* celebrities now,” he mumbles into Patrick’s shoulder. “One of the trashy ones.”

“Whatever,” Patrick says, rubbing his hand up and down Pete’s back. “They’re just incriminating photos, those are a dime a dozen these days. People will get over it.”

“Yeah, right.” Pete rolls over onto his back and digs his palms into his eye sockets. “This is going to make things super weird for the band. Sorry in advance.”

Patrick shrugs. “I think we all knew we’d be in for an interesting time when we signed on for this,” he says, letting his hand settle on Pete’s chest. “You know we’re all here for you.”

Pete takes Patrick’s hand and squeezes it. “Thanks. It’s just—god, it’s just fucking weird.”

“I’ll bet. Do you, um. Any guesses on who leaked them?” Patrick tries to keep his voice casual, not accusing, not prying.

Pete’s gaze slides away, looking over Patrick’s shoulder instead of meeting his eyes. “Guesses, sure, but I don’t know anything for sure.”

Patrick bites his lip. He doesn’t want to get on Pete’s case about this, not when the rest of the world already is, but. “Okay. Who did you send them to? And—dude, why?”

“It wasn’t anything,” Pete says quickly. “They were just stupid pictures, I wasn’t trying to—I’m sorry.”

Patrick touches Pete’s chin, turns his head to face him. “I do trust you,” he says. “But this whole thing is kind of blowing up, and—can you just tell me what the deal is?”

“You shouldn’t worry about it,” Pete says. “I’ll take the heat, I’ll deal with this.”

“I deserve to know,” Patrick says, letting his voice get a little sharp. “Pete. Come on.”

Pete stares at him for two beats, stubborn, before he sighs and glances away again. “I sent them to Chris’s girlfriend,” he says. “She’s been sending me dirty messages for a couple weeks—“

“—and you thought responding was a good idea?"

“No! No, I never sent anything back before, but Chris found all this stuff on her phone the other day. So, you know, he blows up at me, and I just. I don’t know. I was pissed off, I wanted to get him back, so I sent those pictures to his girl.”

“Wow, that’s retarded logic,” Patrick says, cuffing the back of Pete’s head. It’s not really a believable story, except for this is Pete, and this is genuinely how Pete’s mind works. “Way to burn that bridge down to the ground.”

“Whatever, I don’t care about that. I just wish I hadn’t, uh, exposed myself to so many people.” He pushes up on one elbow to look down at Patrick. “I really am sorry. I swear, it didn’t have anything to do with any kind of—I mean, I’ve never had anything to do with her, I was just *dumb.*”

“It’s okay.” Patrick puts his fingers on Pete’s lips, shushing him. “As long as I’m the only one who gets to touch your dick, I don’t care who sees it.”

“You’d have to take it up with the world wide web if you did,” Pete says, lying back down on Patrick. “Oh my god, so many people have seen my penis.”

“There, there.” Patrick pets Pete’s hair. “It could be worse. It wasn’t a sex tape or anything.”

Pete snorts. “I guess that’s one way to look at it.”

Pete handles the publicity from the leaked photos both well and badly. Patrick can't help but be impressed at the way he injects humor into the situation and uses it as damn good promo material for the band and Clandestine. It's not surprising, really, when Patrick thinks about it--Pete's always eaten up attention, especially the grossest kinds, and he's always been sharp in this particular way, always been able to turn this kind of shit into gold.

But Patrick watches as the divide between Pete in public and in private grows and intensifies. Pete's always been able to turn on various personas, but now he flashes grins for MTV and wears Team Naked Pix t-shirts, only to become withdrawn when it's just the two of them. Most nights he tosses and turns next to Patrick until Patrick has to snap at him, and Pete snaps back and they either fight, or Pete just leaves. Patrick can see the complex pressures and criticisms getting to him--getting to all of them, really. None of them expected Pete's fame to explode in this particular way, to become something outside the band. Patrick knows how to write music and produce and sing, but he doesn't know how to navigate this, and there are plenty of days when he thinks Pete's as clueless as he is.

On their six-month anniversary, Pete picks a fight with him that results in them sleeping in different bedrooms for three days. Patrick doesn't even realize it was their anniversary until he's staring at a calendar and the dates click into place. He wonders if Pete was pissed that Patrick forgot, but didn't want to come out and say it, and hence the fight.

The idea of that kind of passive aggression bothers Patrick enough that he breaks their radio silence to confront Pete about it. But Pete looks as surprised as Patrick when Patrick asks him about the date, so no, it wasn't that. Although they don't make up exactly, they end up in the same bed again that night. That's how their fights seem to go these days: Pete taking everything out on Patrick because he knows he can, Patrick losing patience, and the two of them falling back together when they get tired of being apart. It makes the time go by even faster, and when Patrick blinks spring has turned into summer, and Pete is buying a house in L.A.

A house that, apparently, is also for Patrick. "Dude, you'll fuckin' love it, I'd show you pictures but they don't even do it justice," Pete babbles at him, bouncing on his toes when he drops the news. "It's perfect for us."

Never mind that Patrick bought a house in Chicago a month ago; never mind that Patrick has never had any real desire to live in L.A. They fight about it of course, and it's not that Pete wants Patrick to move in with him in L.A. for good--they're touring most of the year, every year, anyway--it's just the principle of the thing, and when Patrick realizes he doesn't know what that principle even is, he gives up. They're going out to LA to record this album, anyway, so it sort of makes sense. Patrick is nervous as hell about the whole thing, but he can't quite figure out how to tell Pete that he's going to be recording, he's going to be absorbed in recording--he'd really rather just live by himself.

LA is hot when he arrives, and he can tell that it's on the cusp of getting blistering, even though it's still just June. Patrick's shirt is almost soaked through by the time the cab drops him off at Pete's place, and the first thing Pete does is pull Patrick into the bedroom. Patrick can feel how excited Pete is about this house while they fuck, the anticipation and triumph radiating off his skin. To Patrick, mostly it just feels new.

*

Part Two