the last good thing about this part of town | Fic | Bandom- Fall Out Boy part 1/2
Title: the last good thing about this part of town
Rating: R
Fandom: Fall Out Boy
Pairing: Pete/Patrick
Word Count: 15,333
Summary: Fresh out of college, Pete Wentz is Patrick’s new Government teacher. That would be fine except they’re still Pete and Patrick.
Thanks: To ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif)
loveyouallwrong, technosage, xanphibian and myaurasmiles for letting me ramble and snippet and freak out all over them. HUGE thanks to my fantastic beta longtime_lurker and also to everyone who encouraged me through this, you know who you are.
Warnings: This is a schoolteacher! au, meaning Pete is Patrick’s teacher and they have a relationship anyway. It’s still the same age difference as it is in canon so Pete’s 23 and Patrick’s 17 but if teacher/student squicks you, walk away.
Patrick’s first day of 12th grade Government is clearly also his teacher’s first day of teaching anything ever. This should maybe inspire feelings of closeness and commiseration, like they’re both going through this together, but Patrick didn’t end up getting his last period free and instead has to TA for the band teacher, again.
Patrick’s goodwill towards anyone has pretty much been maxed out, so when Mr. Wentz stands in front of the class in his too-tight slacks and button-up shirt and tells them to “call me Pete,” he’s completely unimpressed.
Mr. Wentz (Patrick isn’t calling him Pete until he’s completely certain he’s not just trying to be “down with the kids” or something equally stupid) does attendance and hands out a syllabus, explaining what they’ll be covering and how he’ll be grading.
“The most important thing for me is to get you ready for being politically conscious in the real world. You’ll all be voting soon, you’re the ones who will be making the decisions for us. Be informed, be passionate, I want to hear what you think,” Mr. Wentz says. Patrick ignores him, scribbling a few bars of music into his notebook; he can make it easier for his band later, but for now he wants to get it down exactly as it is -- something melodic with a driving beat. From the awkward silence that follows Mr. Wentz asking if anyone has any questions, it appears that no one else is paying attention either.
***
Patrick has English with Joe during 3rd period. They sit near each other even though they’re not really friends because Joe’s a cool guy who’s actually serious about music. Patrick would sell a kidney to get Joe in his band but his band sucks and no one like Joe would ever want to join. Patrick doesn’t even want to be in the band and it’s his band.
“He’s wonderful,” Stacy’s sighing when he sits down. She’s sitting on her desk so she’s facing Joe, looking dreamy and wistful. “He’s so passionate and driven and I just know we’re going to learn so much from him.” Patrick wants to laugh because she sounds like some kind of ridiculous high school cliché, but he knows Joe is looking to score with her so he keeps quiet.
“You know who that is, right?” Joe asks, head tilted to the side like he can’t believe it might be true. When Stacy shakes her head he sighs deeply. “That’s Pete Wentz, from RaceTraitor? Arma fucking Angelus?”
Stacy squeaks, “Oh my GOD, he’s like, so talented!” And this time Patrick does laugh because he’d seen Pete Wentz play bass in Arma and to this day he feels like he’s doing him a fucking favor by even calling it that. At Stacy’s outraged look he just shakes his head and goes back to doodling music in the margins of his English notes.
When he shuffles into Government just before the bell rings (he’d been exchanging CDs with Joe after English), there are no less than three girls with dyed hair and lip rings telling Mr. Wentz how much they all loved Arma and what a “completely awesome bass player” he was. Patrick laughs so hard he nearly trips and won’t look at any of them while he goes to find his seat.
Mr. Wentz hands out copies of an article from the Trib and when Patrick’s lands on his desk there is a bright purple post-it stuck to it. PETE WENTZ IS A SUPERB BASSIST it says in the same handwriting tonight’s homework is written on the board in. Mr. Wentz smiles at him, all even white teeth like butter wouldn’t melt in his mouth.
Patrick takes notes on single-member district plurality versus proportional representation systems and calls him Pete when he’s called on.
***
As someone who’s gone to public school all of his life, Patrick thinks Pete’s doing all right as far as class participation goes. For the most part people answer when they’re called on and sometimes they even have the right answers. It’s very rare for anyone to need to ask what page they’re supposed to be on and he has yet to see anyone fall asleep.
This is somehow not good enough for Pete Wentz and so on their second week of class he throws the seating chart into the trash and tells everyone to seat themselves according to their political opinions. This backfires of course: everyone sits with their friends, turning Government into a mini version of the cafeteria with little pockets of cliques and miles of distance in the tiny space between them.
Patrick expects Pete to give up. He's obviously new at this, and his unreal expectations are hitting the brick wall of reality; it would make perfect sense for him to admit defeat, Patrick thinks. This is, of course, because he doesn't know Pete Wentz.
When Pete stands in front of the classroom the following Monday, dark smudges around his eyes like he hasn’t slept all weekend and scantrons and test booklets lined up on every desk, Patrick knows he’s not admitting anything.
“This is a test.” he holds up the test booklet and grins at the class, baring his teeth like he might bite them. “There are no right or wrong answers. You will be graded on whether you answered the questions or not. I will be questioning you about your answers throughout the year, so don’t just mark down anything.”
It’s a long fucking test and it takes pretty much the entire class period. Patrick answers honestly and turns it in and spends the rest of class trying to make a metaphor about smiles and knives work together with the music he wrote this weekend. It doesn’t and he’s left with even more shitty lyrics in the ever growing pile of shitty lyrics.
The next day there’s a new seating chart and Pete’s sitting in a chair in front of the class, feet propped up on one of the desks in the front row and a sheaf of papers in his lap.
“There are some topics that are guaranteed to strike a nerve, hot-button issues that everyone has an opinion on, and in an attempt to wake you all up, we’re going to spend today talking about some of them. First up, abortion.” Pete flips the top two pages and points at one of the names. “Brian, you answered that abortion was wrong, care to explain?”
Brian stutters through an explanation about his church and the sanctity of the lives of babies and Pete nods and calls on Jason, who answered that abortion should be perfectly legal and the two of them actually have a mini argument. Patrick’s mildly impressed, sitting in the back on the left hand side of class and trying to tame the collection of words and notes he has into a fucking song.
“Now Patrick-” Pete’s voice cuts him off mid-thought and he looks up, meets Pete’s eyes and is a little blown away by how animated he is, triumph written all over his face. “You didn’t answer this question, care to share why? That wasn’t actually a question by the way, I’m telling you to tell us why.” Another smile and Patrick swallows and sets down his pencil.
“I don’t feel right making a value judgment about abortion,” he says, not looking at any of his classmates. “As a man, it’s none of my business and I shouldn’t get a say, it’s not something I’ll ever have to decide on.” He gets a few giggles when he calls himself a man but it’s quiet afterwards and Pete’s still smiling at him, meeting his eyes and Patrick wants to pull his hat down so Pete can’t see him anymore because he can feel a blush spreading.
Karen stops the moment from extending into forever, raising her hand and agreeing with him, saying something about women’s issues that Patrick can’t hear over the rush of blood in his ears.
***
One of the stoner kids who sporadically comes to class recognizes him from a show they both went to and tries to talk to him about music but he’s too fried to keep it up for long and Patrick goes back to writing songs in his notebook. The next day Pete casually mentions a band he’d seen last weekend while Patrick’s walking by his desk and they spend most of passing period talking about the local scene.
It starts to be kind of a habit, Patrick leans against Pete’s desk during passing period and waxes poetic or talks shit about whatever band he saw play this weekend and Pete enthusiastically nods along or dishes dirt on what he knows about them. Their musical tastes overlap a lot, Pete’s inability to play bass notwithstanding, and most of the bands Patrick goes to see are bands Pete’s seen more than once.
Sometimes he plays with the stuff on Pete’s desk, the little toy cars and plastic animals, or reads the random post-its Pete makes for himself. The purple one he wrote to Patrick is stuck to his file cabinet, ink runny like maybe Pete spilled water on it but still there like it’s something Pete wants to keep.
He doesn’t think there’s anything strange about it, not even when he’s hauling ass out of English every single day so he can have more time talking to Pete-- until the day Joe holds him up. He wants notes from one of the days he missed and then he tries to talk to Patrick about this band he saw last weekend and normally Patrick would jump at the chance to talk to Joe about music, but a quick look at the clock tells him he only has 3 minutes left for passing period and he won’t get to talk to Pete at all if he doesn’t get rid of Joe soon.
He begs off and practically runs through the halls, calling out apologies to the people he bumps into until he’s falling through the door to Government. There’s a girl talking to Pete. It’s Erica, one of the girls who thinks Pete is a musician with talent instead of a musician with enthusiasm. He sits at his desk and frowns, watching them talking, Erica being so transparent with her stupid crush.
She’s talking to him about some Arma show she went to once upon a time and she’s leaning up against his desk, completely in his space, laughing and gesturing. He wants to roll his eyes or say something bitchy about how obvious she is until she starts fiddling with the red car on his desk (Pete told him he got it out of a Happy Meal and it won’t roll more than two inches forward and that’s why he brought it for his desk, there was no chance of it rolling away).
He can’t breathe for a second, watching Pete smile tolerantly and Patrick knows from the gesture he’s making that Pete’s telling her about the car too. He sits frozen in his chair, watching them talk, staring like a stalker and slowly coming to grips with the reason his stomach feels like ice and bile.
It’s possible he has a crush on Pete Wentz.
***
Of course, now he blushes when Pete hands back his papers with big post-its exclaiming how awesome Patrick is for making the points he’s making, little hearts in the margins and Pete grinning back when Patrick looks up at him.
His palms get sweaty when Pete leans over his shoulder to see what he’s written, his breath on the back of Patrick’s neck and the heat of his body all along one side of him. Sweaty palms mean he drops his pencil all the fucking time though and that just means Pete bending over in front of him, his ass, clearly outlined in those ridiculously tight Dickies that Patrick knows Pete buys in the girl’s section, right there in front of his face.
Patrick is really glad they don’t have to stand up much in Government, and he’s getting used to being hard all the time. Now if only Pete would stop forgetting to wear undershirts, Patrick might make it through the year. Because the days Pete forgets, Patrick can see the outline of tattoos through the soft white cotton, and he’s woken up sticky after way too many dreams where he’s licking the circle of thorns around Pete’s neck or the bartskull across his stomach to ever think about Pete’s tattoos in a nonsexual way.
***
On Friday his guidance counselor pulls him out of English to discuss his lackluster transcript yet again and Patrick makes noncommittal noises about getting more involved in a club or some kind of community service and grimly takes the handouts she gives him. He’s set to ignore it but then Pete spends all of 4th period talking about political participation.
"The United States is the single most politically apathetic developed nation in the world," he says, and it’s really obvious how sad that makes him. He’s actually frowning when he says it, showing powerpoint slides with graphs for political participation in every other nation. “Not only do we rank lowest in terms of voter turnout, we also rank lowest in terms of voter registration.”
Pete’s subdued for the entire rest of class, leading a quiet discussion and assigning fairly standard homework and all Patrick wants to do is hug him. He eats lunch with Joe and Stacy (who Joe is in fact now scoring with) and when he nearly runs into one of the poor local university students (spilling mac and cheese all over his shoes) he later thinks it might be fate.
While they’re in the bathroom cleaning the congealed yellow cheese product off his Chucks Patrick finds out the guy is part of a youth organization that’s in the middle of a big voter registration drive. Patrick only feels a little bad for thinking about how impressed Pete will be when he tells him about it on Monday, because he is technically doing something good, even if it’s for selfish reasons. He signs up, agrees to come to their first meeting tonight and spends the rest of the day imagining that surprisedhappy smile Pete gives him sometimes when Patrick says something unexpectedly deep.
He doesn’t know a single person there. He recognizes some of the newspaper crowd and a few members of yearbook staff (which makes sense because they’re all meeting up in the production room) but for the most part it’s an odd assortment of people. Brent (of the mac and cheese covered shoes) claps his hands for everyone to quiet down and seconds later the door opens and in spills none other than Pete Wentz.
He’s wearing tight girl jeans eyeliner and a short-sleeve t-shirt and Patrick can see his tattoos, see the color and the lines and he has to clench his hands into fists in order to keep from walking over and running his fingers all over them. He wants to trace them with his tongue, with the pads of his fingers, and it isn’t until Pete is standing right next to him that he’s snapped out of his daydream. He looks up at the same moment Pete’s arms wrap around him, pulling him in close and surrounding him in the scent of aftershave, laundry and Pete, the faint scent that Patrick smells sometimes when Pete’s leaning in close while they talk.
He hugs back, arms going around Pete’s waist, heat and shape of Pete’s body pressed up against his for just a second before Pete’s pulling away. “I didn’t know you were going to be here!” he says, tucking a lock of unruly flat-ironed hair behind one ear. Patrick smiles like an idiot into the dazzling white of Pete’s smile for just a second before he shakes it off and shrugs.
“I was thinking about what you were saying,” and this is something he practiced, planning exactly what he was going to say to Pete come Monday morning, but it doesn’t sound bad, “and it made me feel kind of bad, because we have so much and we can’t even take the time for voting? But I’m not old enough to vote so I figured this was the best choice.”
He didn’t mean to bring up not being old enough to vote, that was a mistake, and he wants to rewind the last second and a half and take it back but Pete’s just grinning and putting an arm around him. “Wow, that totally just makes my day, Patrick, completely.” And they’re both pressed so close for a second, Pete’s excitement practically contagious until Patrick can’t help grinning as well.
Patrick ends up in Pete’s group and they walk around downtown, trying to convince the apathetic masses to register to vote. Patrick gives up on idealism early on and instead focuses on guilting grown men and women into caring about something half as much as a teenager. Pete hugs him every time he comes back with a voter registration form filled out, punching the air and jumping on him and squeezing him too tight.
Patrick wants to die over how ecstatic he is to see Pete so happy. He jerks off that night thinking about Pete’s smile and Pete’s smell and the way his body felt against Patrick’s. He lays in the dark afterwards, sticky and sweaty and so full of want and begins to think that this might be more than a crush.
***
Pete talks about the voter registration drive the following Monday, encouraging students to come and join him and Patrick, and he even asks Patrick to say a few words about it. Patrick manages to not make a complete ass of himself in front of the whole class but he catches Pete’s frown. Pete holds him after class and Patrick ignores every single porn scenario that plays in his head at the mention of being held after class by the teacher because he’s standing up and wood at this point would be really hard… difficult to overlook.
“You don’t like being the center of attention,” Pete says and it’s obvious but Patrick nods anyway, leaning against Pete’s desk and clutching his backpack strap with both hands. “Some students approached me about starting a Government club, they were at the registration drive and wanted to try and do more of that kind of thing, get involved in local and state government. I’m going to be their advisor and I think you should consider joining. You seemed to have a lot of fun and I’d be lying if I said a familiar face wouldn’t help.”
“Yeah, that sounds great, we should definitely do that, it’ll be fun.” He’s grinning and nodding like an asshole and he knows he has to stop but he can’t seem to make it happen. If Pete notices he’s nice enough not to mention it, clapping him on the back and telling him he’ll let him know when the first meeting is.
Government Club mostly means piling into an unheated school van with four other guys, one girl and the district paid van driver and huddling together for warmth while they travel further and further out from Chicago to do voter registration drives or collect signatures for petitions. It’s freezing-ass cold in the van and more often than not they’re all pressed as close together as possible while still in their seatbelts.
They’re on their way home from collecting signatures in Rockford when Patrick tells Pete he’s in a band. The others are all either sleeping or trying to, but he and Pete are curled together inside of a blanket, Pete half in his lap, bony ass in his thigh; his entire face lights up at Patrick's words. “We suck,” he explains immediately, “We suck a lot and I’m kind of embarrassed to be in a band that sucks as badly as mine does but it’s practice. I can’t wait for college, to find people who are as serious about music as I am, no more of this high school bullshit and people who never bother to practice.”
“That’s what you want to do?” Pete asks and his face is so serious, watching Patrick intently.
“Music is my life,” he answers and it’s more whisper than words but Pete hears, he knows he does because suddenly Pete’s holding his hand, grip fierce and his eyes fiercer.
“Don’t give up on it then. Promise me,” and his grip tightens, pulling Patrick closer to him. “Promise me, Patrick, promise you won’t give up on this.” Patrick remembers how Pete looked onstage, playing shitty bass and screaming through songs and eating up every second of the crowd’s attention, all sweat and eyeliner and cocksure attitude, and nods.
“I promise,” Patrick says, and just like that Pete relaxes. It isn’t long before he’s asleep too. Patrick wonders how badly Pete wanted to make music, wonders if he sees the world like a song, snatches of rhythm and rhyme, syncopation and discordance. Did the music stop or does Pete just do his best to ignore it?
***
It’s Monday morning and they’re talking about the Supreme Court, Marbury versus Madison and Patrick has at least two make-up assignments to do if he wants to pass Spanish but instead he’s writing shitty lyrics in his notebook. He has no delusions that they’re anything but shitty; they’re about
Pete’s smile and how much Patrick loves his stupid laugh and how easy Pete is to talk to, and he’s morbidly titled the song What’s the Worst That Could Happen? (Besides you Going to Prison and All of my Friends and Family Thinking I Was Molested?). He’ll never make that fit into a chorus but that’s hardly the worst part about the stupid song.
He should be looking out, but he’s kind of busy being maudlin about his impossible wannabe love affair (which isn’t a bad line, he needs to remember that for some later, less transparently awful song he writes) and doesn’t notice Pete coming up behind him until there’s heat along his back. He manages to pull out one of his Spanish assignments and jot some truly awful conjugation into the blank spaces by the time Pete leans in, but it’s not actually better.
“Patrick?” Pete asks, eyes gone soft and sad and Patrick wants to go jump into traffic because of how awful he feels. He bites his lip and avoids Pete’s gaze and Pete shakes his head. “Come back after school, you have detention.”
He makes the mistake of wondering what detention is going to mean while he’s at lunch and suddenly he’s so blindingly hard he can’t think. He has obscenely graphic flashes of what Pete could do to him, everything from pushing him up against the Constitution bulletin board and kissing him to bending him over a desk and spanking him with one of his wooden pointers. He blames porn for the last one and resolves to stop watching it if only God will show him mercy and make the hard-on he’s had for two periods now go away.
When he shows up in the afternoon though, Pete just wants Patrick to grade papers for him and Patrick tries his best not to look terribly disappointed. Pete notices it, though, and Patrick hasn’t finished his first paper before Pete’s sitting next to him, putting a comforting hand on his shoulder and leaning in close.
“Patrick, I know how much Government Club means to you,” (and Patrick has to stop himself from laughing at that because technically it is true, just for different reasons,) “no one would ever question your dedication if you wanted to take one of the trips off. No one else has been to every single event, and we understand if you have homework. I know that between school and your band you’ve got a lot going on; I don’t want to be adding to that.”
Patrick shakes his head, “No, I, I really like all of the trips and things, it’s a nice change and I’m writing more music since I joined than I have in the last year.” Most of which are horribly sappy love songs about Pete that he would never show anyone in his band, let alone make into actual songs to be heard in public. “I’m just not applying myself. I’ll get the work done, I was just kind of scattered. I love your class, Pete, I didn’t mean to not be paying attention.”
Pete nods and bumps his shoulder before leaving him be to finish with the papers.
***
“It’s a Youth Conference!” Patrick tells his mother for the fourth time. “The organizers heard about all of the work our Government Club has been doing locally and they invited us-“
“To Des Moines!” she interrupts, like this should be the ultimate dealbreaker. Her chin is set in the same stubborn line he’s seen in the mirror one too many times and he knows he’s way too close to losing this.
“I worked really hard for this,” he says evenly, looking at the ground. “I’m doing well in school,” which isn’t a total lie - Pete makes him do homework in the van, won’t speak to Patrick until Patrick shows him every completed assignment, and as a result he’s doing better than passing in all of his classes, “I’m giving back to the community, taking part in something bigger than myself. This is going to look really good on my transcript and all of my friends from Government Club are going to go. If you really don’t want me to go I can’t do anything about it, but I think I’ve more than earned it.”
He goes back to his room then, changes into his school clothes and he’s in the middle of brushing his teeth when his mother walks into the bathroom and sets the signed permission slip on the counter. “Don’t make me regret this. No wild drinking or trashing your hotel room, ok?” He hugs her, squeezing her tight, and she just laughs and swats the back of his head, complaining about him dropping toothpaste on her.
He packs an overnight bag with three day’s worth of clothes and waits on his front step for the van to come by to pick him up. Pete’s waiting in the backseat, holding out a steaming cup of coffee for him. The others are clearly just as unready to be awake at this hour as he is, curled around their coffees and huddling in their jackets and gloves.
Patrick sits next to Pete the entire time, sleeps with his head on Pete’s shoulder, and they share Pete’s portable CD player, one earbud each. Halfway through Davenport, two people holding hands on a street corner catch Patrick’s interest and he needs to write it down. He’s humming the notes, writing them out in his notebook and when he takes a break Pete’s staring at him. He flushes, heat breaking out across his face and down his neck and he takes one earbud out and pulls away.
“I’ll keep it down,” he apologizes and Pete shakes his head.
“I didn’t know you were the singer of your band,” he says, and Patrick just stares at him. “You’re good, Patrick, really good.”
“I’m the drummer,” Patrick tells him, feeling guilty because Pete’s face falls when he says it. “I’m not, I can’t sing.” Pete shakes his head, like he can’t believe what Patrick’s saying.
“Patrick, I just heard you and you’re amazing.”
“I’m not, it’s just a song I’m writing, it’s not even finished and I really can’t sing-“
“Why do you do that?” and Pete’s still whispering, keeping it down because the others are still there, some of them are even awake and Patrick doesn’t want them to hear this. “Patrick, you’re amazing. I’ve seen some of the music you write in that book of yours and now I’m hearing you sing and you’re so fucking talented.”
He wants to blush when Pete tells him he’s seen the music he writes; wants to defend himself and tell Pete that there are plenty of people he knows with Nightmare Before Christmas tattoos and that “bang you like a screen door” is new slang for friendship and Pete's just out of the loop not to know that. But Pete takes his hand, holding it tight like the night he made Patrick promise he’d never give up on his dream.
“Don’t sell yourself short, Patrick. You’re so fucking talented - I can’t believe you’re real sometimes, you’re so good. You’re going to be huge, okay?” Pete’s serious again, serious like when he’s talking about voter registration or the war in Iraq, only this is just Patrick, nowhere near as big a deal. He nods and rests his chin on Pete’s shoulder, wrapping one arm around him. Pete hugs him back, arms wrapped tightly around Patrick’s body, and Patrick can feel Pete's mouth pressed against his head.
The conference is full of people his age who are so enthusiastic about changing the world that Patrick feels guilty for the first time since Government Club started. He’s talking to some girl from some high school in Madison and she’s going on and on about what it took to get here and how she just knows the people here will change the world, and all he can think is that he did this for a guy. He’s some awful high school cliché, going out of his way to do whatever it took to land a guy. He’s Sandy in Grease, complete with lousy virginity and unreal expectations from life.
He sticks near Pete for the rest of the day, which was his plan anyway but now it’s self-defense as much as opportunism. Pete’s happy for the company, picking up pamphlets and taking notes at the lectures they attend, and Patrick pretends to take notes too, scribbling snatches of lyrics about being surrounded by so many people and only being able to see you.
Pete takes him to dinner at the only Chinese place near the convention center that does vegetarian. They look for the others but can’t seem to find them, and Patrick’s so happy to be alone with Pete that his face hurts from grinning.
Pete eats off Patrick's plate, stabbing pieces of broccoli with his chopsticks and popping them into his mouth. He makes a mess and Patrick realizes that Pete has some awful table manners but there’s something so intimate about watching Pete eat from across the table that he doesn’t even care. In the low light of the restaurant, the candle on their table flickering light across Pete’s face and Pete leaning in to talk about the students from Council Bluffs who’re all going to be interning at the state capital over the summer, they’re so close and Pete’s face is so open that it’s like they’re on a date.
He has to physically stop himself from leaning in to kiss Pete when he laughs, grabs his chair with two hands so he doesn’t cup Pete’s face and press a kiss to the wide, smiling mouth. Halfway through dinner Pete leans forward with his napkin in hand and wipes something from the corner of Patrick's mouth. Patrick stops midsentence and stares and Pete ducks his head, dropping his napkin on the table.
“You had something,” he says and shrugs, looking between Patrick and the table.
It feels like forever before Patrick manages to speak, but when he does his voice doesn’t shake at all. “Well thanks, Mom, but next time why don’t you just say something?” Pete sticks his tongue out at him and just that easily the awkwardness is gone.
They’re sharing Pete’s CD player again, music set on low and the player lying between them on the bed. They’re facing each other, trying to get to sleep because they have to be up early to go home tomorrow, but hotel beds are never comfortable and Mario and Justin are snoring something awful in the other bed.
“Why did you give up on music?” Patrick asks and then winces at how sharp Pete’s eyes suddenly are, liquid brown gone so cold. It’s a stupid question to ask when they’re alone like this, 2 AM and no way to avoid each other until they forget about it.
But Pete doesn’t avoid it, he just smiles sadly and rubs his arms. “You’re the one who laughed when someone said I was talented.”
“I’m told Pete Wentz is a superb bassist,” Patrick answers back with a smile because Pete had something, he has to know that.
Pete sighs and when he speaks again his voice sounds broken, like he can barely bring himself to tell Patrick any of this. “It wasn’t going to happen. I’m not talented and I’m never going to be and it was kind of time to move on.”
“Everyone watches you,” and Patrick has to replay it in his head twice before he recognizes that he was the one who said it. “When you were onstage and even now when you’re lecturing, no one can keep their eyes off you.” He lays his hand on top of Pete’s on the bed between them, not quite willing to hold his hand, not sure he could handle it if Pete shrugged him off. “You still could have made it, Pete, there’s something special about you and everyone can see it but you.”
“That’s why you can’t give up - you don’t want to be 23 and telling sad tales of never-was woe to your music students.” It’s harsh, overly harsh and Patrick wants to make Pete take it back but Pete rolls forward just enough to press his lips to Patrick’s forehead and all Patrick can do is try not to shudder.
“Go to sleep, Trick, big day tomorrow.”
***
Patrick knows Pete doesn’t have magical powers but that doesn’t stop him from teasing him about it. “Big day, huh?” he asks, poking Pete’s side. He stops when he sees Pete’s face, gone completely bloodless, his eyes huge. Patrick waits with Pete in the freezing cold while Pete calls for a tow truck, neither of them able to take their eyes off the shards of glass and twisted metal that was their van.
When they finally go into the Pancake House where the rest of the group is, Pete practically frogmarches Patrick to the bathroom to wash the cut on his face.
“Too close, Patrick, that was too fucking close,” and Patrick wants to tell him he’s okay, that it’s only bleeding like that because it’s on his head and head wounds bleed a lot, but Pete is pressing wet paper towels to his head and muttering about Patrick not being able to leave him like that.
He’d been asleep at when it happened, curled up against Pete with his head on Pete’s shoulder when suddenly there had been squealing tires and the van jerking wildly off to the side. When the van wrapped around the tree one of the branches burst through the window, showering Patrick with shards of glass, and it looks like one of them cut him.
“What if you’d been asleep against that window? What if you’d been leaning against it when we… Patrick, you could be dead right now!” Patrick’s pretty sure Pete is supposed to be making him feel better, calming him down, but Pete isn’t a calm person in the best of situations and Patrick's willing to cut him some slack.
“Like I’d be sleeping against a cold window when I have a perfectly good pillow in the form of you,” he says and Pete just looks at him for a second with wide, scared eyes for a few moments before wrapping him in a hug. It’s too tight to be comfortable, Pete’s arms crushing Patrick’s body to his and Pete’s mouth against his ear.
“Just be careful, please be careful, Patrick, Patrick, Patrick.” And Patrick hugs Pete back, promises he’ll be careful, promises he’ll wrap himself in bubble wrap if that’s what it takes, and slowly Pete calms down.
“Don’t tell your parents you had to talk your teacher out of a nervous breakdown, okay?” Pete asks once they’re both calm and sitting next to each other, shoveling pancakes into their mouths as fast as they can.
“I don’t know how to break it to you, Pete, but I try not to mention that I even know you,” Patrick answers after swallowing his pancakes. “It’s the only way I’ll ever be prom king.” Pete steals his pancakes and Mario yells when someone spills syrup onto his eggs and the only thing that stops it from turning into an all-out food fight is some local police officer coming in to take a report from Pete.
***
Patrick's band has a show. He doesn’t really want to play a show, would prefer to just practice with them and wait for people who are actually serious about being in a band, but the truth is he’ll never be able to join a band if no one knows how good he is. So he agrees to do the show and doesn’t tell anyone about it.
His band sucks live in front of a packed house. Patrick doesn’t feel that bad considering they were maybe the second band up, but it’s fairly obvious to him that he needs to quit the band because he hates apologizing for himself. He’s hanging out at the bar afterwards, Joe helpfully trying to come up with bands he’s seen that were worse than Patrick’s because Joe is helpful and Joe goes to all of the local shows so of course he’d be at this one.
Patrick would like to say he doesn’t notice Pete until Pete accidentally knocks into him at the bar. This would be a dirty lie though, because Patrick saw Pete halfway through their set. He missed his floor tom, he was so surprised to see him. Pete’s in his girl jeans and eyeliner, tight shirt soaked with sweat, and this would all add up to being the only saving grace of the evening if it weren’t for the boy Pete’s with.
Patrick doesn’t recognize him but he’s pretty like Pete and he wears glasses and eyeliner and Pete’s got his arm around his waist. Patrick hates him a lot. He gets one of Joe’s friends to buy him drinks and vows not to write a crappy song about this, even if he does know exactly how he’d want the bridge to go. Pete runs into him after Patrick’s lost count of how many he’s had beyond the vague “well past what I can reasonably handle”.
Pete’s frowning when Patrick tries to talk to him and after a short talk with Joe, where Joe gets defensive about not holding a gun to Patrick’s head and forcing him to drink and Pete calls Joe a bad friend. Patrick wants to object that he and Joe aren't even friends but it’s possible that somehow over the past few months they’ve become the type of high school friends who hang out and talk and convince their older friends to buy alcohol for each other but not the sort that are in bands together or that talk about inappropriate crushes on hot teachers.
Pete stops glaring at Joe when Patrick stumbles against the bar and Patrick tries to say something about Pete not failing Joe, but Pete’s arms are around his waist, holding him up against him. “I’ll drive you home, Patrick, c’mon.”
Pete’s car is nice and relatively clean and best of all, the pretty boy Pete was with earlier is nowhere in sight. Patrick lays his head down against Pete’s shoulder and he can feel Pete let out a sigh that sounds like relief. “You want some coffee?” he asks and at Patrick’s nod pulls into a Dunkin’ Donuts. Pete doesn’t even try to get Patrick out of the car; he’s gone for five minutes and then comes back with two cups of coffee and a bag of doughnut holes.
They sit like that, Patrick leaning against Pete and Pete’s arm around his shoulder, both of them sipping their coffee, quiet in the dark, the fluorescent lights of the doughnut shop reflecting off the dashboard.
“What were you going to do if I wasn’t there, Patrick? Anything could have happened to you and you promised you’d be careful. Why were you drinking? I should really tell your parents.” Pete says the last with a sigh, like he might seriously be considering it.
Patrick drank his coffee too fast, it’s making his stomach hurt; the bag of doughnut holes, white paper gone translucent from the grease, looks wholly unappetizing. This is his excuse for laughing, even though it’s not good enough by half. All of that in addition to the fact that he and Pete are cuddling outside of a Dunkin’ Donuts on a Friday night are why he laughs when Pete says he’s going to tell his parents.
Pete pulls away from him and Patrick looks up at him, catches his gaze and won’t let go. “Patrick-“
“You’re not going to tell my parents. You wouldn’t do that to me, we both know it.” It’s such a pussy move, a cop-out, because this is the scene where our reluctant teen hero makes a grab for the girl of his dreams and she falls into his arms willingly, but Patrick’s keeping it to them being friends. Because Pete isn’t a girl, because Pete isn’t a teenager, because Pete is in fact his teacher and Patrick’s a selfish bastard for even wanting to press this between them.
Pete's eyes are soft, though, watching Patrick like he always does, like Patrick's someone special, someone important. Patrick’s the first guy to admit he can be an asshole sometimes so he goes for it, leaning in like he’s going to cuddle against Pete again, only tilting his face up this time, catching the side of Pete’s mouth, tasting the hitch in Pete’s breath when their lips meet.
“Patrick-“
“Pete, stop pretending.” And this time he’s better, smoother, mouth to mouth and Pete opens for him, moaning when their tongues tangle and Patrick clutches at Pete’s shoulders.
It’s kind of fuzzy after that. Pete’s mouth tastes like coffee and Patrick holds tight to him, pulling Pete down on top of him. And it’s good like this, Pete’s weight holding him down, his fingers in Pete’s hair and Pete shaking on top of him. Pete’s thigh is between his legs, rubbing against his cock and Patrick's so hard, harder than he’s ever been. He bites Pete’s lip and slips his hand between them, running his palm over the front of Pete’s jeans, so full of want and he has no idea what to ask for.
Pete bucks his hips against Patrick’s hand, thigh working over Patrick’s dick, and Patrick knows he’s not going to last, knows he’s going to embarrass himself by coming in his pants any second now, but he’ll be damned if he’s not going to take Pete with him. He doesn’t trust himself with zippers right now so he cups his palm around Pete’s cock, touches him through the soft denim of his jeans. He shudders when he feels the fabric get damp beneath his hand, a small wet spot of precome he wants to taste and then he hears Pete, hears him whispering.
“Wanted this, wanted this, Patrick, Patrick, Patrick,” and it’s the hottest fucking thing ever and just that quickly Patrick's coming, hips jerking against Pete’s thigh and ruining his pants. He knows Pete can tell - his mouth falls open and his entire body goes still and then there is hot, wet fabric against Patrick's palm.
Patrick knows his eyes are probably comically wide but Pete fucking Wentz just came in his pants over him. Pete’s just breathing against his neck, though, and if he was shuddering before he fucking shaking now.
“Pete, I-“
“Don’t,” Pete says and sits up, pushing off of Patrick and it’s like he’s breaking a spell. It’s fucking cold in the car and the mess in Patrick's jeans is rapidly cooling and this was the worst idea he’s ever had. Pete’s still shaking, hands unsteady and white-knuckled as he clutches the steering wheel. “This… this was a mistake, okay? I don’t… if you want to call the cops or something, I’ll completely understand but, but I do know I shouldn’t have done that, okay?”
There’s ugly fluorescent lighting reflecting off the tears in Pete’s eyes; his voice sounds broken, shredded, and he hasn’t stopped shaking, not even when he leans forward against the steering wheel and closes his eyes. Patrick wants to touch him, reach out and tell him it will be okay, but that isn’t true anymore and it’s Patrick's fucking fault that it isn’t.
“Pete, we can-“
“I’m going to drive you home and I want you to drink plenty of water. I didn’t mean for this to happen and I’m sorry, please don’t hate me.”
Pete drives him home and he can’t think of anything to say. There’s no good way to say “I’m sorry for pushing you into something that could result in you losing your job and/or sharing a jail cell with someone called Big Henry.” Patrick thinks Hallmark should maybe get on that.
He’s wracking his brain for something, anything to say but he’s still sluggish from the alcohol and before he knows it they’re in front of his house. It’s dark, well past 1 AM and of course his mom isn’t still awake and he breathes a sigh of relief at that.
“Do you need help getting up to the house?” Pete asks and Patrick can only shake his head. He has to say something, anything; he knows Pete, knows that he won’t stop beating himself up over this all weekend and that by Monday morning he’ll be completely raw from it, his own worst punching bag. Pete reaches across him to pull the door handle open and Patrick reaches out for his hand without thinking about it.
He threads their hands together, squeezing tight like Pete did that first time in the van and pulls their joined hands to his chest. “No matter what, this wasn’t a mistake.” He didn’t know he could sound this certain and this shattered at the same time. “Maybe it’s bad timing, really bad timing, but it wasn’t a bad idea, we’re not a bad idea.”
Pete pulls his hand away and ruffles Patrick’s hair, a sad smile on his face. “I meant what I said, about drinking some water and plenty of it.” He nods for the door and turns away. “Go on, Patrick, go home and go to sleep.”
Pete drives away as soon as Patrick’s on the front porch, hunching in on himself while he digs his house keys out of his pocket. He watches Pete’s car and tries not to think about the way Pete’s face curved into the same sad lines Pete gets when he talks about his music. He doesn’t want to be another thing Pete regrets.
***
part two
OMFG it's DONE!
