Play This Record In Reverse

One.

I. Joe

He's known Joe pretty much since forever, but when Joe shows up one day at his dorm room, looking pensive, and says, "Hey, so, what about a pop punk band," Patrick tries to remember a time when Joe's come to him with a bad idea, and can't. Joe is pretty good about saving up his ideas for the good ones.

"Yeah, okay," Patrick says, and Joe grins.

II. Pete

"You gotta meet this kid," Joe says, and he sounds totally excited, like, so excited it's even making it past the weed and Joe's general mellow. "No, man, I'm serious. He's—he's incredible, okay? I met him at the, you know, the new Borders, down on—anyway, you gotta meet him. He's amazing."

Patrick sighs. "Okay, fine. Whatever. But if this is a waste of time—"

"It isn't," Joe insists. "He's the guy. Believe me. He's the guy."

Patrick doesn't feel too reassured. Joe's introduced him to a lot of the guys, and none of them have been anything special so far. But he said he would go, so he goes.

The kid answers the door in a red-and-purple striped hoodie and checkered socks. His pants are electric green. His hair is also electric green, so bright he must've done it in the past twenty-four hours. Patrick squints, and yeah, sure enough, his ears are kind of green, too. "Hi," the kid says, and grins, one of those huge grins that wrinkles up even fifteen-year-old eyes, shows every last tooth, and pow, bam, Patrick can't breathe. "I'm Pete."

"Please tell me you're kidding me with the green," Patrick manages, because it's the only thing he can think of to cover up the way his heart is beating, too fast, too fast, and syncopated. Pete's face falls, slowly, mouth turning down, and Patrick says, "No, wait, sorry, sorry," and then—of all things—pats the kid on the back, because he looks sad, and God, Patrick is a horrible human being, he should give up on vegetarianism and just start cooking puppies, Jesus. "Sorry. No, it's—I didn't mean—I hear you play bass," he finishes, lamely, and it's like flipping a switch, because suddenly the happy kid is back, grinning, rolling one foot out, looking unimaginably pleased.

"Oh, yeah, it's—come on up!" Pete says, and bounds up the stairs.

Patrick follows, feeling a little dizzy, and sits down on Pete's bed while Pete tunes up.

Pete's room is all pretentious hipster vinyl and toys Pete isn't really quite old enough to remember: lightsabers and Transformers and Voltron, and Patrick's not really impressed, not by Pete and not by his bass playing, not until Pete says, "Okay? Okay, come on, let's—" and waves his hand vaguely at the door. For some reason, Patrick gets up too. He ends up following the kid, on foot, bemused, for six blocks, feeling half-asleep all the way up until Pete presses something cool and sweet and coffee-like into his hand. Patrick blinks, and Pete says, "Oh, uh, it's soy, I hope that's okay, I'm vegan, Kelly always makes me one for free."

Patrick stares at the drink, then back up at Pete, then at the smiling, flushed redhead standing behind the bar. She's a little older than Patrick, probably twenty-one, twenty-two, and she's looking at Pete like he's something delicious and she hasn't eaten in a week.

"Vegan," Patrick echoes.

"Iced triple venti vanilla soy latte with six sugars," she says, without taking her eyes off Pete. Pete grins, puts his hands flat on the counter and pushes himself up, leans over to kiss her cheek. "That's not sanitary," she says, but she's still smiling, and not paying attention to what she's doing, and, actually, dumping ice on the floor instead of in the cup on the counter, which is right about when Patrick gets it, because Joe is right. The kid is a mediocre bass player at best, but he's it, he's the one. He's exactly what they're missing. He's their frontman.

"Hey," Patrick asks, as they're walking home. "Can you sing?"

Pete shrugs, and starts in on "Through Being Cool," and, well.

"Jesus," Patrick says. "No, just—stop, okay? Because, ow."

Pete shrugs again. "Andy says I could do hardcore. He says I've got the scream. But yeah, no, I don't really sing."

"Who's Andy?" Patrick says, and then replays the sentence in his head, and frowns. "And wait, hardcore?"

"Oh, sure, you know," Pete says, and rolls his eyes and bellows out the beginning of "Into The Flames Of Progression." Patrick can feel his jaw drop open. Those noises are not supposed to come out of tiny little hipster boys with green pants and checkered socks. "But whatever," Pete says, and yawns. "Their lyrics are second-rate. Hey, are you going to finish that?" He holds his hand out.

Patrick gives him the last inch of the drink, feeling off balance and four bars behind.

"Hey," he says, half a block later. "Wait, did you just say that All Out War's lyrics are second-rate?"

Pete nods, cheeks hollow as he sucks down the last of the drink. "Yeah, I mean, the message is alright and all, but they're pretty—" He shrugs. "It's like being hit over the head with a soapbox."

"You mixed your metaphors," Patrick says absently, as his brain grinds into high gear. "But actually, it worked. And hey, wait—do you write? Because I've got—" He stops, pats the pockets of his vest, looking for—yeah, okay, a folded handful of notebook paper, his and Joe's best effort, because he's a phenomenal drummer and not half bad as a composer, and Joe's the best guitarist on the entire goddamned scene, but neither of them can really—he holds it out. "See, this is—it doesn't."

Pete stops, takes it, skims it. His eyes widen. "Wow," he says. "This, wow, this really sucks."

"Thanks, asshole," Patrick says. Pete reaches over and pokes the brim of Patrick's hat, which sort of drives Patrick nuts, but Pete's pretty much in the band already, so.

III. An Interlude

Patrick totally would've been off the hook, too, if Pete had any sense of, you know, personal space, or boundaries, or propriety, or—

"Jesus fuck!" Patrick bellows, hand tightening on the tie of his bathrobe.

"Oh hey," Pete says, and rolls up to sitting. He's holding a book in a shiny-stiff library slipcover, not Patrick's. "Hi. I heard you were home for the weekend, so I came over for breakfast. Your window was unlocked."

"You—" Patrick begins, but then stops. "Okay, look, okay, whatever," because Pete is hard to resist; it's not worth it, and besides, he's grinning now, and Patrick—isn't going to think about that, not even a little. "Okay, fine, we'll go get breakfast, but Jesus, can you at least let me get dressed?"

Pete shrugs, just says "go ahead," and opens his book again. Patrick glares at him for about forty seconds before giving up. He digs around in the pile of clothes spilling out of his duffle bag, and then, feeling his cheeks flush, his chest flush, his shoulders flush, steps in and tugs the closet door closed behind him, and slides his bathrobe off in the strips of light that manage to make it in past the slats.

"You know," Pete says, conversationally. "I could hear you singing. In the shower, I mean."

"Fuck," Patrick says.

Pete, the little fucker, laughs.

IV. Patrick

"I know a drummer," Pete says.

"Shut up," Patrick replies.

"We have a drummer," Joe says, and frowns at the sheet of notebook paper in front of him. They're on draft four of the ad. "We need a singer."

"I think we better give up on getting someone with experience," Patrick says. "I mean, Pete doesn't have much experience—"

"Hey!"

Patrick ignores him. "—and he's pretty okay, so."

Joe scratches at his chin—it's a beard month, apparently—and nods. "Okay," he says. "Okay, so then—"

"Andy has experience," Pete supplies.

"Who's Andy?" Joe asks, then, looking up, "Wait, do you know a singer?"

"No, Andy's a drummer, I already said," Pete says, very slowly and patiently, like he's explaining something to a very small child.

"Pete," Patrick hisses.

"He's good, too. And he's, you know." Pete flails around a bit, as he tends to do. "Cool. You know. He's a drummer."

"Shut up, Pete," Patrick says.

"We already have a drummer," Joe repeats. "Hmm, that's—that's forty-five words, can you think of any to take out?"

"How about all of them?" Pete says. "Because I'm telling you, I know a drummer, and Patrick could—"

"Jesus!" Patrick says, and just grabs him. He's not a big guy, but Pete is maybe all of five-one in his shoes, so Patrick's got a good six inches and probably forty pounds on him, which he's not normally proud of, but it seems to be coming in handy right about now. Pete struggles, then licks Patrick's palm, and Patrick, startled, lets go. Pete grins up at him, rocking back on his heels.

"Wait," Joe says, looking up. "Hey, Patrick. Can you sing?"

V. Andy

"Hi, I'm here for rehearsal," says the kid at the door.

"Andy!" Pete says, and jumps. Andy catches him, smiling, just holds on and pats him on the back while Pete checks him for internal bleeding, or whatever it is that he's trying to do when he hugs people like that.

"Hey," Patrick says. "I'm Patrick, and this is Joe."

"Hey, dude," Joe says, eyeing the tattoos up and down Andy's left arm. "Wow, are you even old enough to—"

"Don't even start," Andy says, and he sounds cheerful enough, but when Joe puts up his hands, and says, "hey, man, sorry, it's just—" Patrick gets exactly where he's coming from.

VI. November 5, 1999: Fall Out Boy

"So," Joe says. "We ready to do this thing?"

"Beyond ready," Pete says, and punches the air.

Andy twirls his sticks, cracks his neck, grinning.

"I think I'm going to be sick," Patrick gasps, hand clutched white-knuckled on the neck of his guitar.

Joe pats him on the head. Andy taps out the first bar of "Honorable Mention" on his shoulder, and then they're on, it's time, and Patrick, Patrick really is going to be sick, he doesn't care how desperate they were, he never should've let them talk him into this, he doesn't sing, for Christ's sake, he's a drummer, and—

"Don't worry," Pete whispers in his ear, like, right in his ear, so close Patrick can feel his lips move. "I already love you—" and God, screw singing, screw puking, Patrick can't even open his mouth to breathe— "they will too. You're amazing. C'mon."

And then Pete's hands are on Patrick's hips, and he can't go anywhere but forward.

Two.

I. Patrick

"--," Andy says, plunking himself down on the floor opposite Patrick and drawing his knees up. "---- -- ----- ------."

Patrick blinks, then tugs off his headphones. "Sorry, what?"

Andy fidgets, runs the top ball of his tongue piercing along his upper lip, then says, "I said, 'Tell me about babies.'"

Patrick knocks his tea off the table. "Fuck!" He yanks off his hoodie and mops at the carpet helplessly. "Fuck."

"Sorry." Andy doesn't sound sorry. He sounds kind of nervous, actually. "It's just, you know. If you could. Tell me, you know, what you know, then maybe I could. I don't know." He rests his chin on his knees.

Patrick stares at him for a second. "That didn't really make any sense," he says, finally.

Andy ducks his head. His hair falls in his face.

"I mean." If Andy's got some girl knocked up, they are in way, way over their heads. Patrick's head. Hell, Joe's head. "Do you mean, like, um."

"Yeah," Andy tells his knees, "like, um," but the tease falls a little flat with his toes curling and uncurling like that.

"Well, uh," Patrick says. "You, uh. I guess. If a guy and a girl, you know, and it's, you know, the, uh, right time, or something, and the condom breaks or whatever, then, I guess, uh. Yeah. The girl gets, you know, and, um." Patrick fidgets. "She misses her—you know, well. And then nine months go by and there's a baby." He's well aware that he sounds like a moron. Also that he didn't pay very close attention in health. It was pretty theoretical at the time.

"Yeah," Andy says, after a second, nodding slowly. "Yeah, that's what I always heard, too."

II. Pete

The conversation about whether or not Andy was keeping the baby went something like this: "Shouldn't you, you know," Joe had said, and Andy had scowled at him, and said, "Dude, it's my body," hand splayed beneath his belly button, and Pete had grinned and said, "I'm going to be an uncle!" and no one, no one, could convince him otherwise.

Now it's a month later and Pete is frowning, staring at something on his laptop, which is almost never a good sign. "Is he gaining enough weight, do you think?" he asks the room at large. He's been gnawing on his lip, and it's shiny, red, near raw.

Patrick puts down his pencil, unable to think of anything to say. Fuck, he's tired. Rehearsal didn't go well, Andy's not feeling well, Pete's fretting, Patrick's still got stacks of work to do before class on Monday, and he really wanted to rework the new song. Fuck. He never has enough fucking time.

"I mean." Pete frowns. "It says that weight gain is supposed to be pretty gradual at first, because of the morning sickness and everything, but he's still, like, you know, this big." Pete waves one of his hands around, then sits up straighter, and shouts, "Hey Andy, how much weight have you gained?"

Andy doesn't reply. "I think he's probably still, you know," Patrick says. The toilet flushes.

Joe scratches his chin. "Man, I still don't know if I believe it, you guys. This is just kind of too weird."

Patrick shrugs. "It's not really weirder than that thing that happened to Midtown, you know, with the—"

Joe half-nods. "I guess." Pete's staring back down at his laptop, frowning. After a minute, Patrick picks up his pencil again.

When Andy appears at the top of the stairs, he's looking paler than usual, and Pete says, "Hey, hey, come sit down," and pats the sofa next to him, sliding his laptop onto his parents' coffee table. Andy comes, and sits, and Pete drops his ear against Andy's shoulder. Andy maybe kind of leans into it. A little. Patrick would never, ever tell him that to his face, though, because Patrick wants to live. Pete's busy wrapping one arm around Andy's waist, tugging, palm flat on Andy's still-flat stomach. Measuring, Patrick thinks, and ducks his head to hide his grin.

"Have you lost weight, Andrew Hurley?" Pete asks, sounding stern, and Joe kind of giggles. Pete scowls at him. "What?"

"Dude, it's just—you're the littlest." Joe snickers. "You're not his mom."

Pete sticks out his foot. His shoe is half-off, hanging from his toe, and when he kicks, it goes sailing across the room. Joe ducks, and the shoe flies over his shoulder, skids out into the hall.

"I'm down two pounds," Andy says, sounding weary. "My mom thinks I should start eating meat again."

"No, no!" Pete sits up straight and reaches for his computer. "No, look, I've been doing research, you can do this, you can totally do this. But you have to be careful, you know? I'll help you keep track." He half-shoves the laptop onto Andy. "Here, look, let's read."

A few minutes later Joe leans over and says, "How's it going? With, you know, the song."

Patrick sighs. "Tomorrow, probably. I hope. But first I have to finish this stupid problem set, and remind me why I'm doing this again?" He rubs his face. He's so tired he's going cross-eyed. "Because a degree in econ is going to be so much help on tour."

"Well, you know." Joe shrugs. "Not much longer. You've only got, what, through the end of this year, right?"

"Yeah," Patrick sighs. "If I can stand to hang on that long."

III. An Interlude

Patrick doesn't mean to be rude by asking, but as soon as Andy's mouth tightens, he realizes his mistake.

"I don't know," Andy says, and his voice cracks on the last syllable. "It's not like I—I just don't know, okay?"

Patrick, genius that he is, doesn't know when to leave well enough alone, and says, "What do you mean, you don't—"

"Look, just, fuck you, okay?" Andy sighs. "I don't need to hear it from you, all right? It happened on tour, and I know, I know you don't, but you know how they are, man, okay? And you're, you know, older, and I know you try to, I don't know, be a gentleman or something, but what, I'm just supposed to turn them down?"

"Gentleman?" Patrick frowns. "Turn who down?"

"The girls," Andy says, sounding mournful. "All those drum groupies."

"Oh, I guess I'd just assumed." Patrick says, and then stops. "Er." Andy's frowning up at him, looking puzzled. Patrick tugs at his hat. He can feel his face going red. "I mean, I didn't realize, um. I thought."

Andy's expression clears, eyes widening. "Oh, no, dude, just. No." He shakes his head. "I mean, only that one time, back last winter, with, you know." Patrick nods. Andy reaches for his protein shake. "Wasn't really for me. So, no. It. Just girls, yeah."

"Oh," Patrick says. "Huh. That's—huh, interesting."

"Yeah, I know," Andy says, then takes a sip. "Biology's pretty fucking baffled, too."

"Wait," Patrick says. "Drum groupies?"

IV. Joe

Andy won't stop drumming, even though it makes Pete chew on his lip every time they step on stage, and he won't let Patrick call off the tour they'd scheduled for winter break. Patrick tries to make sure they've got a real house to stay in every night, instead of the van, but there's nothing he can do about the 19th, because they have eighteen hours between shows and fifteen hours worth of driving to do in between, so. Van it is. Patrick's spending half his time on his computer exchanging e-mails with kids he met their last time through—other musicians, friends from the scene—trying to borrow, bribe, or beg his (Andy's) way into a couch for the other six nights. Meanwhile, the stack of homework on the desk in his dorm room just keeps growing and growing, reading and problem sets and essays and proofs, and he's always still awake at two, three in the morning when Pete's name appears in his inbox, all-lowercase masses of magic, growing things, disaster, death; run-on streams of hope slipping away into worry, unfettered by commas. Patrick reads them over and over, mouth moving in silence, mind matching syllables to beats and harmonies. At five in the morning, Pete picks up on the first ring, "'lo," sounding low, awake too long and weary, and Patrick says, "Listen, you got that in the wrong order," and sings it back, worry fading away into hope, until he can hear Pete slipping off into sleep. It's nearly six by the time Patrick crawls into his own bed, so worn out he's shaking.

Which is why when Joe calls him at eight the next morning—because Joe always calls him at eight the next morning, and Patrick will never, ever understand how Joe became a morning person—it takes Patrick probably ten minutes of listening to him babble about nurturance and support networks and incidence of teen homelessness before Patrick finally manages to mumble, "Joe, what're you talking about?"

"Andy," Joe says. "Listen, I've been doing research online, and—"

"Oh God, not you too," Patrick groans, burying his face in his pillow, because it's bad enough that they've had to keep a paper bag around for Pete to breathe into ever since that time he decided to Google "preeclampsia" while he was waiting for the guys to show up for rehearsal.

"No, listen, this is important, Patrick." Joe sounds pretty stressed out, so Patrick pries his eyelids open again and tries to sit up.

"Okay," he says, fumbling for his glasses. "Okay, I'm listening."

"Look," Joe says. "I've been reading a lot about what happens after the baby's born, and man, those things are expensive, you know? And there's all this stuff that talks about how the absence of the father—which I guess is the mother, in this case, you know—dramatically increases the likelihood that the mother—which I guess is Andy, in this case—will become homeless, and how single teen parents tend to have a lot more difficulty raising the kid in a, you know, all warm and cuddly kind of way, how they tend to be disciplinarians more frequently than two-parent families, and how support groups can help a lot, but I can't find any support groups for single teen dads, and I'm wondering, do you think we should start one, or should he just go to one for girls?"

"Joe." Patrick pinches the bridge of his nose. "First off, dude, seriously, how much coffee have you had today? Because I think you need to lay off."

"I have to be at work in half an hour," Joe says, defensive.

"Okay, well, I think you're good to go for today." Patrick sighs. Fuck, it's early. "Look, there aren't any support groups for single teen dads because there aren't really very many single teen dads. Because our drummer is a freak, and got knocked up by a groupie, which is, just." Patrick's head hurts. It's not going to be a good day. He manages to open his eyes again, somehow. "I don't know. And anyway, Andy isn't a single teen parent, okay? I mean." Patrick crosses his legs, sitting Indian-style. His free hand won't stop moving, tapping out a drum line on the bed by his knee. "I mean, you know. There's Pete, who is, you know, a little nervous, but basically okay, and you, and you're great with kids, you'll be a huge help." He stops. "And me, I guess," he says, finally, fingers twisting in the sheets.

Joe pauses for a second before answering, "And you." His voice is kind of soft.

Patrick looks up at the ceiling.

"I guess I didn't really think about that," Joe says, after a minute. "I was having all these visions of Andy trying to buy, like, diapers and stuff but not having any money, and, like, trying to find vegan food in dumpsters. It was pretty gruesome."

"You really don't think much of your band, do you," Patrick says, vaguely awed.

"Yeah, well," Joe says. "You're all kind of assholes, so, you know."

V. Andy

They're driving home from the spring break tour, and Andy's in the passenger seat, leaning his head against the window, hand flexed flat over his stomach, rounding out under his t-shirt. He's had to wear shirts during shows for a month and a half, and man, does that piss him off, but he doesn't seem to mind so much like this. It's chilly in the van, and he's got the passenger seat because it's the safest, even if it's not the most comfortable, but the blanket keeps sliding off him in his sleep. Patrick's getting near the end of his shift, and he's tired, God, he's so fucking tired, he just wants the clock to turn over, thirteen more minutes before he can hand over the steering wheel to Joe and climb in back, curl up with his homework and their equipment and the blankets and Pete, where it's warm and soft and smells like them and sweat and sleep and not like the bitter AM-PM coffee caked all over the cupholders up front. Just thirteen more minutes, just twelve, just eleven, and then Andy says, "It's an equalizer," softly, half under his breath. Patrick turns to look at him, and Andy says, "Eyes on the road, Patrick."

Patrick swings his head back toward the orange-gold streak of the streetlights, chagrined.

"It's just, it's an equalizer," Andy repeats. "I like that. I like that it isn't, you know, slutty girls get knocked up in the back of old Chevys and have to suffer for their crimes, you know?"

Patrick can feel his lip curl. "Instead it's a slutty boy in the back of a tour van?" He means it as a joke, but he can see Andy nodding out of the corner of his eye.

"Yeah," Andy says, sounding oddly fierce. "Yeah. It's fair."

Patrick wants to sigh, wants to pull over and tug Andy over and squeeze, because that is such a—such an Andy kind of reason, but he also kind of wants to put his head down on the dashboard and cry. "Andy," he says, instead, and out of the corner of his eye he can see Andy shake his head.

"No, wait, I mean, listen," he says, and then stops. "Listen. Gender equality, right? Starts right fucking here." He pats his belly, once firmly, then twice, three times, ever-so-soft. "Right here," he says again.

Patrick just tries to keep his eyes on the road.

"She kicks me, sometimes." Andy's voice has gone quiet, as warm and soft as sleep. "Right in the kidneys." He laughs a little, low, sounding surprised. "Man, I hate it when she does that during shows," he whispers, as Patrick glances over, "It's distracting as fuck," but Andy's hand hasn't stopped moving, slow soft circles: one, two; one, two.

VI. May 17, 2001: Hemani

Patrick's cell phone rings when he's scrambling to get to his Econ 312 final, and he keeps on jogging, panting into the mouthpiece, "Is it," and Joe says, "yeah," and Patrick says, "Fuck, I've got three finals today, should I—" and Joe says, "Dude, are you fucking crazy? Go take your exams," which is how Patrick manages to simultaneously get a B.A. in Economics and not be the guy who fainted in the waiting room while their drummer was having a Caesarean.

"I'm fine," Pete says, voice muffled, head still between his knees even when Patrick scrambles in, breathless, still buzzing from no sleep and too much studying. Joe's rubbing Pete's back. "I was just worried, okay?"

"You need to learn to breathe, little dude," Joe says, and Pete extricates one hand out from under his thighs to give him the bird.

"Well?" Patrick says, furious.

"Dude," Joe says. "Chill out, she'll be only be around for, like, the next eighteen years."

She's tiny and sort of red and funny-looking, and Andy's still pretty out of it, half from exhaustion and half from the after-effects of the drugs, but he's got her, and he scowls at them when they come in, like they might take her away.

"Oh, thank fuck," Pete mumbles, as soon as he sees them, and then kind of sags. Patrick puts his arm around Pete's waist, steadies him a little, and Pete drops his head to Patrick's shoulder, leaves it there, like he's too tired to hold it up on his own. Which, actually. Maybe.

"Can I—" Joe asks, and "No," Andy says, but then he sighs a little, and lets his arms loosen by a fraction, and Joe picks her up like he's done it a thousand times before, hand behind her head, smile broad. "Hey, little dude," Joe says, soft and pleased, curling her into his chest. He grins down at her, then looks up at Pete, saying, "Hey, you're not the littlest anymore!"

"Give me back my baby," Andy commands. Joe obeys, but he seems pretty reluctant about it.

"What's her name?" Patrick asks, and Andy bites his lip, and Patrick rolls his eyes and says, "Oh, come on, dude, you aren't going to be that dad, are you, who gives his kid some horrible weird name that leads to her being teased at recess for her entire life, and—"

"Shut up, Stumpy," Pete says, and Patrick squeezes his hip, right where he's ticklish. Pete steps on his foot in reply.

"Hemani." Andy's voice is fierce.

"Hemmy," Joe grins, reaching down with one finger to rub at her belly, and Andy squeezes her more tightly to his chest and says, "Dude, you're already giving her ridiculous nicknames? You saved, what, like, one syllable, I don't even—"

Patrick turns his head. "Do you know—"

Pete nods. "We found it on the internet," he whispers back. "'As precious as gold'."

"Oh," Patrick says. "Well."

Three.

I. Andy

"Is he okay?" Patrick asks, turning so his back's toward Pete. "I mean, since, you know." Patrick's been working weird hours, hasn't been home much. He doesn't know.

Andy kneels to check his kit one more time, and talks to the floor. "I don't know, man. He's been—he's been really quiet, you know?" He squints up at Patrick. "He's playing with Hemmy a lot. He keeps offering to babysit."

Patrick sighs, and tugs at the hem of his shirt. "God, you know, sometimes I think I should've called the cops on them back when it was still an option."

Andy snorts. "Yeah, like that would've cured him of it. He just would've found another one." Andy's gaze slides to the side, and he says, "Speaking of which," sounding totally and thoroughly unsurprised.

Patrick doesn't really want to, but he turns, and sure enough, Pete is talking to the promoter, who is blonde and long-legged and at least twenty-seven. Pete's smiling, foot turned out, hips cocked, probably talking some kind of utterly pretentious shit about Nietzsche or Hume or whatever crap he's got checked out from the library this week, and true to form, she's smiling back, looking down at him, utterly charmed.

"Twenty-five bucks says she gives him a ride home," Andy mutters, and Patrick says, "Dude, I would give you a hundred if you could figure out a way to make her not."

But of course, they can't, so of course, she does, and Andy climbs into the driver's seat on the van and says, "Joe, could you—" and Joe says, "Oh, sure, dude," and wraps himself around Hemmy's car seat, planting his palms over her ears so Andy can say, "Fuck, fuck, fucking fuck, that stupid fucking little asshole—" the whole way home.

Patrick doesn't feel like he really needs to mention that he agrees.

The next morning, Pete's door is closed and locked, but at least the promoter's shoes are gone, so they can conduct themselves in their usual slovenly way without worry. Dirty's out of town, so Joe had promised to take Hemmy to the park; it's ostensibly so that Andy can get a break, but Patrick knows it's at least in part for him. Patrick loves the kid to pieces, but he's not exactly going to complain about a whole afternoon of sweet, blessed silence. He holes himself up in the room he shares with Joe and gets to work, eight e-mails full of Pete's next-to-latest heartbreak, because he hasn't been broken up with her long enough this time around to actually write anything about it. Patrick figures he'll probably get two songs out of it, maybe three; the first two e-mails are complete garbage, too much hurt to be coherent.

At four, he hears Pete's phone ring, just on the other side of their shared wall, and he pulls on his headphones in anticipation of the coming storm, and keeps right on working until his door flies open. Andy's standing there, face pale, mouth tight, and Patrick tugs off his headphones while disentangling himself from his computer and standing up, all at once, which means he nearly falls down. "Hemmy?" Patrick asks.

Andy shakes his head. "No," he says, and then something thumps into the wall. "Pete."

II. Patrick

Pete's room is dark, lights off, curtains drawn, and Patrick knows Pete's nineteen and emo and all, but this ridiculous.

"Hey, Pete," Patrick whispers, closing the door behind him.

"Go away." Pete's voice is muffled, but it sounds like it's coming from over by the far wall, near the folding table he uses as a desk. Patrick drops onto his hands and knees, because the room may be closet-sized, but he just knows he'll trip over something if he tries to walk. "Go away, please," Pete repeats, but Patrick just slides forward, something sharp and plastic-feeling jabbing into his knee, toe catching on a pile of books, a mound of sweaty t-shirt under his palm.

Patrick's eyes are starting to adjust, and he can see a dark blob where he thinks Pete should be, but it's too big, too broad; not a skinny five-foot-three bass player at all. Patrick looks over to the other corner, and says, "Pete?"

"Yeah," the blob replies, and Patrick swings his head back so fast his neck nearly snaps. "It's me." The edges kind of expand, a little, and Patrick puts out a hand and touches feathers.

"Holy fuck," Patrick breathes, and then catches sight of Pete's face in the shadows, twisted up and miserable, still streaked with last night's eyeliner. "Hey, oh, hey." Patrick scoots forward, kind of gingerly, until he's as close as he can get, and puts out an arm. "Hey, where are they—" he starts, but Pete's already shifting, putting his wings up—"oh, ow, watch it—" and once Patrick's ducked under them, still rubbing his temple, he can get an arm around Pete's waist, slide in until Pete's head drops onto his shoulder. "Hey," Patrick says. "Hey, you."

"Hey." Pete's voice is dull.

Patrick squeezes, falls silent.

"Well, at least you're not pregnant," he tries, after a minute, and Pete lets out something that starts out as a laugh but just keeps on going, and when he draws it back in it sounds raw and wet, and then he's crying, really actually crying, huge, chest-shaking sobs.

Every muscle in Patrick's body goes slack, surprised. His hands feel useless. He doesn't know where to put them, so he keeps the one where it is, on Pete's skinny-sharp bare side, and moves the other, uncertain and restless: Pete's elbow, Pete's shoulder, Pete's hair. That last one seems to work the best, because Pete sort of crumples into him, face in Patrick's shoulder, soaking his t-shirt. "Okay," Patrick says, because this is not so comfortable, this is, actually, sort of perilously close to having Pete in his lap, and then, "Okay," because actually, that would be exactly like having Pete in his lap, which is not a position in which Patrick would normally feel very much like a supportive friend. Somehow, though, it turns out to be kind of the easiest thing in the world: Pete's in his lap, and Patrick has one arm around Pete's waist, just beneath his wings, the other hand in Pete's hair, and Pete has his face pressed into Patrick's shoulder, both arms between their chests, hands fisted awkwardly in the front of Patrick's t-shirt. Somehow, it turns out that Patrick is too busy being worried to think about anything all that inappropriate. He closes his eyes, tightens his arms, and hangs on.

"Hey," Patrick whispers, a little while later. Pete's gone quiet, just breathing now, but he hasn't moved, face still planted in Patrick's neck, hands still knotted loosely in Patrick's shirt. At some point he'd brought his wings down around them, and it's nice, just kind of dark and quiet and warm, just the two of them. "Hey, you asleep?"

"No." The word is damp and warm on Patrick's neck. Pete's fists tighten in his shirt.

Patrick nods, just a little, the back of his head rubbing against the satiny-soft enclosing curtain of Pete's wings. "Okay. That's. I'm not going anywhere."

After that, Patrick must drift off, or something, because when Pete next says something it sounds like it's coming from very far away. Patrick mumbles a question-sound in reply, still sliding back into focus even as Pete says, "It's just." He stops. "It's just one thing," he says, sounding exhausted. "One too many things."

Patrick's eyes track up, towards a ceiling he can't see. He cards his fingertips through Pete's hair, trying to think of what to say. "Are you," he asks, then stops. "You're not sleeping," he says, instead, because he doesn't really need to ask.

Pete shrugs.

"You." Patrick sighs, and maybe turns his head a little, catches Pete's temple. "You worrying again?"

Pete shrugs.

"That's not an answer, Pete."

Pete sighs, shifting, sitting up, so he's facing Patrick, even though he won't really look at him. He lets go of Patrick's shirt, smoothes his palms over the cotton he tugged out of shape. "I don't know," he says, finally. "Maybe. Yeah."

Patrick shifts a little. "Are you," he starts, and then stops. "You eating?"

He knows his answer by the way Pete ducks his head, and he can't help it. His fingers search out Pete's ribs, too sharp, easy to find through too-thin skin. "Tickles," Pete says, but Patrick knows it doesn't. Pete's not ticklish that high up.

"You need to eat, Pete," Patrick says, flattening his hand. Pete sighs. "And you need to sleep, and if you can't, you need to—" Pete tenses, and Patrick stops, and says, "Okay. Hey, hey. Sorry. I didn't mean to—I won't bring that up, okay?" Patrick is absolutely going to bring it up, just maybe not right now. Pete only hates going to the doctor when he really, really needs to. But Pete seems to take his word for it, because he relaxes, slowly, little by little, into the stretch of Patrick's hand.

"If I bring you something, will you eat it?" Patrick says, after a minute.

Pete hesitates for a second, but just a second. "Do we have any of our bread left?"

"Yeah, I think so," Patrick says. "Toast?"

"Yeah." Pete's voice is soft, hopeful, like he isn't entirely sure he'll get toast, like maybe Patrick will decide bringing him toast is too much effort, not worth it. Patrick bites back a sigh.

"Okay, off, off," he says instead, and Pete climbs off his lap. Patrick pushes himself to his feet, wincing as the circulation returns. "Okay, ow, man. Can I—"

"No!" Pete smacks Patrick's hand away from the desk lamp. "I, uh." Patrick's eyes are adjusted enough that he can see that Pete's got his wings half-out, that he's shifting from foot to foot, anxious and restless.

"Dude, if I trip on something and die, there won't be anyone to bring you toast," Patrick points out. Pete just shakes his head, doesn't say anything, and that's how Patrick knows it's pretty bad. "Okay," he says, finally, and turns towards the door. "Tell my mother I loved her."

"Everyone loves your mom, Trick," Pete replies, and Patrick seriously can't tell if Pete means it or if it was a yo mama joke that fell very, very flat.

III. Joe

"He needs to go to the doctor," Joe says, without taking his eyes off the screen.

Patrick sighs. "I know."

"No, I mean it, Patrick, you know how he got on tour last year, we can't—" Joe hits "START", looks up at him. "Jesus, Patrick. He needs to go to the doctor. He's locked himself in his room in the dark and he won't come out."

"And he has wings," Patrick says, stuffing his hands in his pockets. "Don't forget the wings."

"Wings," Hemmy agrees. Andy runs his hand over her mess of hair, pushing it out of her face, without looking up from his book.

Joe frowns. "Are the wings really related, do you think?"

Patrick considers this. "I don't know, actually. It's hard to say."

"He didn't like me looking at them," Andy says absently. "He wouldn't let me turn on the lights."

"Yeah, me either," Patrick says. "I nearly died for toast today. Twice, actually, once coming out, once going back in. So, yeah, maybe."

"Okay, hey, I have an idea," Joe says, turning back to his game. "How about we make him go to the doctor?"

Patrick sighs. "We can't really make him do anything. He's nineteen." He leans against the wall. He's completely fucking exhausted.

"Dude, I don't care about that shi—stuff, I will pick him up and carry him if I have to." Joe scowls in the light from the TV. "You know, I had no idea that being in a band with Pete Wentz was so much like babysitting until Hemmy was born, seriously."

"Hey." Andy looks up. "Be nice to my kid."

"I can't make up my mind if it'd be easier or harder if Pete were a few years older," Patrick muses. "At least then maybe the women wouldn't be quite so inappropriate."

Joe scowls. "Seriously, I don't really care if Pete is putting it to the fuc—goddamned AARP. If his meds aren't working right, he needs to go to the doctor, and why are we even discussing this? What is there to discuss?"

Patrick can hear a door opening, and he waves Joe quiet. Joe just shakes his head, full attention back to the Playstation.

Pete shuffles up next to Patrick, and Patrick holds one arm out, but Pete doesn't come any closer, just shifts his weight from foot to foot, frowning. He's still wearing yesterday's jeans, and he still has big feathery black wings, and he's pale, unnaturally so, nearly grey, skin shiny with sweat in the dim light of the hall.

Patrick frowns. "Hey, are you okay?" he asks, because Pete looks not okay even for Pete when he's not okay.

Pete kind of shakes his head, and says, "So, um," and then stops and says, very faintly, "What happens if you take too much Ativan?"

IV. An Interlude

They get back from the tour, drop Jon off with his cut and their undying gratitude, and drive home, and then Patrick crawls into bed and sleeps the sleep of the dead for almost eighteen hours. When he finally gets up, it's four in the afternoon. His jeans are clammy, stiff with a week and a half's worth of sweat and chip crumbs and general tour grime, and his shirt is so smelly he's grossing himself out, so he strips them both off and heads to the shower with a t-shirt and boxers he found under his bed. He vaguely remembers having washed them a few weeks ago, and he doesn't remember wearing them since, so they're probably clean.

On his way to and from the bathroom, Patrick tries not to look past the gaping doorway into Pete's room—furniture gone, walls stripped bare, the carpet vacuumed and improbably close to white—but it's hard. He can't make up his mind whether it'll be better or worse once Joe moves his stuff over.

Joe's still sleeping when Patrick gets back from his shower, sprawled out on his bed with his foot hanging off the end, and Patrick figures that trying to find all his laundry would probably wake Joe up, so he decides it can wait. Besides, he's hungry. Andy and Hemmy are in the kitchen, Hemmy on Andy's lap, one little hand patting the book while he reads to her. Patrick thinks Andy's reading her The Communist Manifesto, but he knows better than to suggest that they maybe save that for later. Joe already had that fight with Andy, and it was enough to strike fear into the heart of anyone, no matter how brave, and Patrick's not that brave. He makes himself a sandwich instead, eats it standing by the sink.

After a few minutes, Andy asks, "You going down to the hospital?" and Patrick spills half his tea down the drain.

"Dammit," Patrick says, under his breath. "Um." He puts the cup down, flattens his hands out on the counter to stop them shaking. "I hadn't really thought about it, actually."

Andy's quiet for a long minute, but he does finally say, "Look, you know, he's getting out on Friday, and if it were me—"

"It's not you," Patrick says.

"Shut up," Andy replies, and Patrick shuts up.

After a second, Andy lets out an irritated huff of air. "Look, most of the time I don't bother, and I can't ever understand why Joe does, because there are times when you are the most emotionally retarded human being I know, but I'll use small words, so you'll understand: Pete is in the hospital and you're in love with him and as stupid and trite as it may be, you're supposed to go visit him, at least once, before they let him out."

Patrick can feel his skin catch fire halfway through Andy's little rant, and it doesn't stop burning, just gets worse and worse and worse until he finally has to gasp out, "I'm not in love with him," in a weak little voice that just makes him cringe. "I'm," he says, "he's," and then stops, and decides to drink his tea instead.

Andy blinks at him from behind his glasses, and then says, "Sometimes, I fantasize about killing you all," in a perfectly conversational tone of voice.

Hemmy tilts her head up. "Bourgeois?" she says, and Andy looks down, saying, "Oh, sorry, okay, where were we."

V. Pete

Patrick doesn't quite know what he expected, but somehow it isn't Pete in pajama bottoms, wings neatly folded behind him, sitting at a desk with a pen and paper, writing. On the one hand, Patrick gets that it's been almost a month, and that for most of that they haven't been keeping Pete around because he was in immediate danger, not physically, but it's another thing to see it with his own two eyes: Pete looking so very okay, and yet not, so far out of his element (their element), locked away.

"Hey," Patrick says, leaning against the door, hands idle at his sides.

"Hey," Pete replies, not looking up. "Um, hang on. I'm."

"Okay," Patrick says, and waits.

"Okay," Pete says, after a minute, and turns around, looks at him.

"So." Patrick tugs at the brim of his hat. "Hey, how're you?"

Pete thinks about it for a second. "Oh, you know," he says. "In the psych ward, but otherwise pretty okay."

"I didn't mean—" Patrick's throat is sore, dry.

"No, it's not. I mean." Pete smiles, then, and it looks difficult, unused. He takes a deep breath. "I really am okay."

Patrick looks at him. He's skinny, but not too skinny, and he's not wearing any eye makeup, and his hair is kind of a mess, too long, and his eyes are crinkled up, but that could mean a lot of things. Patrick doesn't quite notice himself moving, but he must, because Pete's hair feels rough, almost-curly against the sides of his fingers.

"I missed you," Patrick says, and Pete's smile falls away, just leaving his face, bare and naked and very, very young. "Jon." Patrick has to stop, swallow. "Jon's a good guy, but." He's still touching Pete's hair. He can't really stop. "Hey, just. Joe's show patter is terrible, you know?"

"Yeah," Pete says, very soft. "I know."

"You really okay?" Patrick asks.

"Yeah," Pete says, nodding. "I mean. This is. It wasn't. You know."

"No," Patrick whispers. "No, I really don't."

"I didn't mean to kill myself," Pete says, all in a rush. "I just, I was screwed up, I couldn't sleep, and the stupid wings, and the thing with Mel—"

Patrick flinches. He can't help it.

Pete frowns. "Okay, so, maybe Melissa is not so good for me," he says, very soft.

"Pete," Patrick says, because God, that present tense scares him, God, he doesn't want—

"I have," Pete says, very slowly, "I have very bad taste in women, I think," and Patrick can feel laughter bubbling up, raw and desperate.

"It'd maybe help," he says, feeling mildly hysterical, "if you dated women who weren't, you know, thirty."

Pete shrugs. "Thirty is the new twenty."

"What does that make nineteen, the new nine?" Patrick says.

"Oh, fuck you." Pete says, but he's still rubbing his head up against Patrick's palm. "Besides. It isn't." He turns a little, looking down at the paper. Patrick's gaze follows. The small, angular scratches of Pete's handwriting look like a code that Patrick's forgotten. "It wasn't. It isn't. I mean." He takes a breath, lets it out, deep and slow. "It wasn't all her, Trick."

Patrick nods, because he knows that. It's just, it'd make things easier if it were, so he tries to forget, sometimes. "You think." He stops. "Moving back. To your parents'. Is that."

Pete looks out the window. "I think it'll help, yeah."

"Were we." Patrick can't finish that sentence. He needs to know, but he can't ask. He just can't.

"Honestly?" Pete asks, and Patrick nods, because he doesn't trust his voice. "Yeah. I mean. A little. I mean, it's just. I don't mean."

"Hey," Patrick says, and does he sound like that? Does his voice always scrape like that?

"It was just a lot," Pete says. "With, you know. Hemmy and the band and the album and the tour, and the next tour, and planning for summer, and the rehearsals right there, and I just couldn't—even with my own room I couldn't really—there wasn't anywhere to—"

"Hey," he repeats, and that's better. "You don't have to. That, you don't have to apologize for that, okay?"

Pete is very quiet, very still. "You." He stops.

"Not for that, okay?" Patrick says, and tightens his fingers, tugs a little. "Save it for all the other stupid shit you do, okay?"

Pete makes a noise that's almost a laugh, and says, "Yeah. Okay."

VI. October 22, 2003: XO

Pete's already there when Patrick gets home from the record store, sprawled out on the sofa—"I couldn't lie on my back for seventy-four days," he'd said, when the wings finally vanished from whence they'd came, "I am now obligated to slouch"—computer on his belly, and that's so like always that it actually throws Patrick off, and he fumbles getting his keys out of the lock. "Hey," he says, crouching to pick them up. "Hey, you're early."

Pete rolls his head back, looking over. "Your neighbors' wireless is even worse than usual."

Patrick stands, shrugs. "I think they moved the...the thingie."

"Router," Pete supplies.

"Whatever." Patrick drops the mail on the table, his bag on the chair. It slides off onto the floor. "I think they finally figured out that all Joe's porn downloads were slowing them down." He walks over towards Pete, and Pete closes his laptop before Patrick can glance over his shoulder.

Patrick stops, standing next to Pete's knee, feeling suddenly awkward.

Pete slides his laptop onto the table, squints up at him. "Sorry," he says, hands moving in the air over his knees, aimless, vague. "I don't. It isn't."

"Um." Patrick swallows. "Sorry, I didn't mean to—I can—" He jerks his thumbs over his shoulders, laughs, kind of awkwardly.

"No," Pete says, and his hand finds Patrick's knee, fingers twisting up in Patrick's jeans. "No, come sit by me."

"Okay," Patrick says, but doesn't move. Pete tugs, and Patrick remembers how to unlock his joints, slide down to sitting. Pete wraps one arm around his shoulders and tugs him over, so Patrick has his head on Pete's stomach, shirt still warm from his laptop. Pete puts his hand on Patrick's chest, taps out an aimless drum line with his palm. Patrick turns his head up, until he can see Pete's face. He looks—he looks like Pete. It isn't entirely reassuring.

"So," Patrick says. It's kind of an uncomfortable position. His back hurts. "Everything okay?"

"Yup," Pete says, nodding. "It's just, that's." He smiles, then, a real smile. It looks good on him. "That, it's not." He stops, takes a breath, half laughs. "It's a me thing, okay? Not an us thing."

Patrick pauses. "Something new?"

Pete thinks about it. "Yeah, in a way."

"Safe?" Patrick asks, because he has to.

Pete squints down at him. "Except for the unprotected sex and the reckless drug use, yeah, pretty safe."

"Fucker," Patrick says, but he can feel the muscles in his back unclenching.

Pete grins, hand sliding to the side until he catches Patrick's wrist, resting up against the sofa cushions, and drags it back, tangles their fingers over Patrick's breastbone. "I'll tell you if it's, you know." He squeezes.

Patrick breathes. "Okay," he says, nodding a little, and settles down.

Four.

I. Mikey

Of course it happens on Warped, because that's just how Patrick's life works. Because not only are they the only band on Warped traveling with a four-year-old child (which, actually, is in fact more of a pain than it sounds like it would be), and not only is Pete perpetually distracted, trying to manage about seventeen different projects via Sidekick while on the road, but it has to be on Warped, of course it's on Warped, that Joe takes advantage of the only half-hour of the day when they are reliably the only people on their bus, looks up at Patrick over breakfast, and says, "Dude, when did you start eating meat again?"

Patrick panics, eyes flicking over to where Pete is sitting, curled up in the corner of the bench around the table, staring at his Sidekick. "What? I'm not, I don't eat meat," Patrick says, and manages an utterly fake-sounding laugh.

Pete looks up, eyebrows furrowing. "You eat meat?" he says.

Patrick gives up and sits down. "You drink milk now," he says, and it maybe comes out a little sharper than he really intends.

Pete scowls. "You'd start drinking milk, too, if you were twenty-one and still five-four."

"You're five-three, man." Joe passes Patrick the cereal. "I told you that living on soda and sunflower seeds was going to have serious long-term consequences back on the first tour. And now you see."

"Screw you. And I'm five-four." Pete sinks down in his seat, which, of course, makes him look even smaller. "Maybe even five-four and a half."

Joe snorts. "Dude, you got Mikey to measure you, you're five-three and you know you're five-three—and wait, when did you start sleeping with Mikey?"

Patrick dumps half the cereal on the table. "You're sleeping with Mikey?"

Pete looks utterly and totally panicked. "How did you—I didn't tell you—wait a minute!"

"Pete," Patrick groans. "Pete, please don't start that up again, at least Ryan was the right age, for the love of—"

"Ryan is my employee," Pete says, scowling. "And Mikey's, dude! Mikey's only twenty-four! And who told you I was sleeping with him, anyway? That was supposed to be a secret!"

"Wait just a minute," Patrick says, frowning. "Did he tell you it had to be a secret? Because that is, wow, that is."

"Yeah, that'd be sketchy," Joe muses. "But he didn't. Pete was actually the one who wanted it to be a secret. He didn't want us to find out. Which is why neither of them is telling anyone."

Patrick stares at him. Pete stares at him.

"Oh," Joe says, after a minute. "Hey, cool!"

II. Bob

"What's it like?" Patrick asks, because, well, really.

"Okay," Bob says. "Yeah?"

"Seven of hearts," Joe answers, absently. "It's. Everyone's—dude, what the fuck."

"Right again!" Bob sounds totally delighted.

Joe glares at Mikey. Mikey stares back, eyes wide and carefully, deliberately innocent behind his glasses. "Knock it off, okay? That's not cool."

"But it's funny," Mikey says, sounding earnest. "It's really, really funny."

"What's he doing?" Patrick asks. He's vaguely dreading the answer.

"He's thinking about Gerard." Joe sounds pained. "Singing showtunes."

Patrick wouldn't laugh, if he were a better person.

"Hey, I'm trying to answer your question, okay?" Joe snaps, glaring at him. Patrick stops.

Bob frowns. "What about—"

"Ten of diamonds! Fuck!" Joe buries his face in his hands. "Everyone's different, okay?"

"How so?" Patrick leans in, resting his weight on his elbows.

"Well, to start, Mikey's evil." Joe glares. Mikey grins and takes another sip of his soda. "Do you think about unicorns all the time, or is that just for me?"

Mikey shrugs. "A little column A, a little column B."

"Thanks, asshole." Joe scowls at him, but Mikey appears unmoved.

"Do me," Bob says, shuffling. "Only, not, you know, like Mikey and elementary schoolers." Mikey gives him the bird.

"You're pretty cool, when you're not making me do stupid card tricks," Joe admits. "But man, the pranks you come up with! Did Gerard—"

"Shh," Bob says, grinning. "He hasn't found it yet. And Mikey tattles."

"Dude." Mikey frowns. "He called me Mrs. Robinson eight times this morning. I have no loyalty to him."

"What about us?" Patrick asks.

"You mean—" Patrick nods. Joe frowns. "Well, Pete's like watching TV with someone who won't stop flipping channels—"

"You mean like Pete," Patrick says, grinning.

"Yeah, pretty much." Joe grins back. "Andy—well, Andy's pretty fucking focused, all the time, but not on one thing." Joe pauses. "It's pretty even: his drums, Hemmy, whatever he's reading. All in parallel, all at the same time. It's weird. And you—king of spades, and knock it off, asshole—you think in lists."

Patrick blinks, because he's never exactly thought about it before, but he does: itemized collections of things to keep track of, scrolling by.

Bob looks up, sliding the cards back into their box. "Lists?"

"Yeah. It's mostly, you know, tedious stuff, practical stuff, until—" Joe clears his throat. "Uh."

Patrick can feel himself flush. He isn't going to ask, so of course Mikey does. "Until what?"

"Oh, you know." Joe shifts. "Until he goes to sleep."

"Oh?" Patrick really doesn't like the way Mikey's perking up over that.

"Yeah, his dreams are pretty disorganized," Joe says, all in a rush, and Patrick is pretty sure he actually, literally lets out an audible sigh of relief. "It's all weird shit, giant rabbits and vampires and guys with antlers and stuff."

Patrick flinches, because the guy with the antlers was actually pretty scary. He'd rather not be reminded.

Bob nods, slowly. "I had a dream a couple months ago where I was rowing across the Pacific and then the Little Mermaid came up and started to eat my boat."

"Whoa." Joe frowns. "Is that, like, a metaphor, do you think?"

Bob shrugs and slides out of his seat, heading towards the back, saying, "No, I think I was just hungry for fish."

The door to the bus rattles open and Andy appears, leading Hemmy by the hand. "Oh, man," he says. "Mikey's here. Maybe I should take Hemmy someplace safe, like, over to see Midtown."

Mikey scowls. "Dude, that is so not funny any more."

"Actually, it kind of is," Bob calls back. Something thumps.

"Ace of diamonds." Joe looks up, startled. "And whoa, why haven't you always been using the stripper cards?"

III. Gerard

Patrick's sitting behind the stage, leaning back against a wooden support, watching Frank wield a Sharpie over Gerard's neck. It's "FAIRY" today, neat and even. Gerard is holding perfectly still.

Mikey's watching too, eyes squinted up, arms folded in front of him. "You know," he says, after a second. "We're starting to think you like Gee best, Frankie. No one else gets that kind of attention."

Ray snorts, still hunched over one of his guitars. "I'm not letting Frank anywhere near me with that pen."

"Why not?" Frank says, voice vague with concentration as he fills in the "R". "I'd be good. I drew on Patrick yesterday."

"He did?" Ray looks up.

Patrick nods. Frank had grabbed his wrist, drawn in, "PATRICK," in neat little letters, then finished off with a smiley face. "Nothing but the truth," he'd said, cheerfully, and then wandered off.

"I take it he didn't write anything horrible?" Ray asks, sounding a little surprised.

"No, not really." Patrick takes another sip of his water.

"Want one, Mikey Way?" Frank asks.

Mikey thinks about it for a second, then shrugs. "Sure, okay."

"Oh, man." Ray pushes himself to his feet. "I do not want to be here for this."

Frank ignores him. "All right, almost done." He blackens the last of the Y, then leans back, squinting at it with a critical eye. "Yeah, that works. Let it dry. Don't smudge it."

"Yes, Mom," Gerard says. "No, Mom." Frank gives him the bird and turns to his next victim.

Gerard comes over and plops down next to Patrick, smiling. "How's Joe?"

"Not on my neck," Mikey says, and holds out his arm.

Frank considers it. "Yeah, that'll probably work better, anyway." He crouches down.

"Well, he says he has the mother of all migraines, which I am willing to believe." Patrick sighs. "And he's worried about Andy, which is, you know."

Gerard squints at him. "Hemmy?" he asks, after a minute.

Patrick nods. "Andy—well, I can't, you know. I only know what Andy says. But he's been starting to ask questions about next year, the schedule with touring and whatnot."

"Hemmy'll be five next year?" Patrick nods. "Ah." Gerard uncaps his own water, takes a long sip.

"Stop fidgeting," Frank says. "You're going to smear it, and then it'll just look stupid, and you'll be stuck with it all day anyway, and I will not be held responsible to the damage to your ego."

"I'm not fidgeting," Mikey replies, sulky, and fidgets.

"Joe likes things the way they are," Patrick says, after a minute. "Hell, I like things the way they are. We don't want to lose Andy and we don't want him to have to leave her with his mom or something, but, you know. Even if he had time to homeschool her, which he doesn't." Patrick stops, looks down at his feet.

Gerard nods. "Not much of a life for a kid."

"No, it's not," Patrick says, quietly.

Gerard just nods again, pensive, silent.

"Dude, what's taking so long?" Mikey tries to twist his arm up to see, but Frank just smacks him.

"Hold still, you'll smear it," he says, and starts carefully blocking out the next letter.

"It's just, it's Joe," Patrick says, after a minute, and he doesn't really know why he feels like he needs to say all this stuff, but he does. "He's got this, you know. He's so certain that everything will work out okay in the end, but this, there aren't any good answers, there aren't any good solutions, not for this, and, you know, Bob's hassling him and he's got, you know, me and Pete to deal with—" and that shouldn't make him flush, but of course it does— "and then on top of that, Andy. And Joe can't help but hear what Andy's thinking, all the time, no matter how good Andy is at keeping it to himself."

Gerard nods, nudges him with a knee. "You're the worrier, huh?"

"What?" Patrick looks over at him, blinking. "I'm not. I don't." He pushes his hat up, scratches his forehead, tugs the brim back down. "Pete. Pete worries, sometimes. Not so much anymore."

Gerard shakes his head, smiling. "Not like that." He moves his hand like he's going to scratch his neck, then seems to remember the ink, and drops it down to his lap. "I mean, you're always trying to get stuff to work out, right? For the other guys? The practical stuff."

"Well, I mean." Patrick doesn't quite know what to say. "I'm a behind-the-scenes kind of guy."

Gerard just looks at him. "Patrick, you're the lead singer."

"Well," Patrick responds, lamely. "I'd be a behind-the-scenes kind of guy if I weren't."

Gerard laughs, but he nods, too, so maybe it does make a certain kind of sense.

"Are you planning on finishing sometime this year?" Mikey asks, sounding half exasperated, half bored.

"Almost done," Frank replies.

"I don't know why I dumped all that on you," Patrick says, after a minute. "Sorry, dude."

Gerard laughs. "Hey, it's cool. I seem to have that effect on people." He pats Patrick on the knee and pushes himself to his feet, then looks down, one eyebrow raised. "You sticking around to watch this?"

"Oh, yeah." Patrick can feel himself grin. "Pete's been busy. My life is low on sources of entertainment lately. Gotta take it where I can."

"Well, I'm getting out before Mikey decides that I'm somehow to blame." He raises his waterbottle in a mock salute, and wanders off after Ray.

"There," Frank says, grinning, rocking back. Mikey's arm is blocked in elbow to wrist, spelling out "CRADLEROBBR" in neat, dark letters.

Mikey pulls his arm away, twists it up, looks. "You little shit!" he sputters.

"Sorry, dude, I know," Frank replies, trying and failing to hide a grin. "I kind of ran out of room, and C-R-A-D-L-E-R-O-B-B-E just doesn't make any sense."

IV. Ray

"Actually, you know," Ray says, "it seems like it'd have its up sides."

"What about now?" Bob asks, from somewhere outside. Everyone's got all their windows open, because it's still a million degrees but at least then it's a million degrees with a breeze.

"Four of me clubbing you to death," Joe groans, from where their bus is parked alongside.

"Joe doesn't seem too wild about it," Patrick observes.

Ray shrugs. "Well, Joe's not a writer. But think about it, if you and Pete could—"

"Oh," Patrick says, thinking, no, no, no. "Hmm."

"It just seems like it'd save time." Ray shrugs.

"Yeah, maybe." Pete doesn't sound convinced, either.

"I doubt it." Gerard frowns, looking up over the edge of his book. "Talking stuff out helps to refine it."

Frank nods, a sharp, economical motion, not taking his eyes off the screen. "Yeah, nothing quite like having to explain your master plan to someone to make you realize what complete crap it is. Aha, take that, bitch!"

"Dammit!" Ray drops his controller, smacks Frank, who shrinks away, giggling. "You've been practicing! Have you been practicing?"

"Dude." Patrick raises an eyebrow. "You guys are getting way too into this game."

"Well, I don't like it," Pete says, frowning. He's tapping his pencil on the table; nervous, restless. "I don't like him being able to see inside my head."

"No?" Ray frowns. "I mean, you spend a lot of time letting thirteen-year-olds see inside your head."

"Not the same." Pete shakes his head, still frowning. "This isn't planned. I don't get to edit, you know?"

Yeah, Patrick knows. He nods. Gerard's nodding, too.

"I mean, I know it's just Joe and all, but." Pete sighs. "It's creepy. Sometimes it feels like the whole world can see me naked."

V. Frank

"Whoa, whoa," Patrick says, and catches Hemmy by the shoulder. "Slow down there. What's the rush?"

She squints up at him. "Daddy and Joe aren't back yet, but Mikey came over and said that he and Pete had to have a meeting, so Pete called Frank, and then Pete gave me the phone, and Frank asked me if I wanted to come play with them, and I said okay because they have better games and Ray lets me have orange soda, so Frank said I should run on over."

"Uh huh." Patrick resists the urge to pinch the bridge of his nose, but it's a near thing. Frank hasn't been around Hemmy enough to really quite get that four-year-olds and metaphors don't mix. "How about you and I walk over to play with them instead? Because then you won't fall and crack your head open, and your dad won't have to kill anyone."

She frowns. "I won't fall."

"Remember what happened in Utah last month?" Her wrist had turned out to just be sprained, not broken, but Andy had been a nervous wreck for days after, and besides, Patrick figured one ER trip was enough for one tour.

She rolls her eyes. "Yes, but I was much littler then."

"Yeah, well, I'm old and slow and I have to go see Frank too, so why don't you humor me?" Patrick holds out a hand. Hemmy sighs, but she takes it, so, problem solved.

Frank's waiting on the steps of the bus, wearing one of Gerard's huge pairs of sunglasses, and he grins when he sees them come up. "Hey! It's Hemmy!" He holds out his arms, and she tugs her hand free and dashes up for her hug. "Now with extra Patrick," he says over her head, still grinning.

"Patrick needs to have a meeting with you," Hemmy says. "Is Ray home?"

"Got the Nintendo all set up and waiting for you, kid." Hemmy doesn't even wait for him to get up, just climbs over him. Frank leans to the side so she doesn't knee him in the face. Once she's inside, Frank looks back up at Patrick. "A meeting?" He grins, raising an eyebrow.

Patrick shakes his head, laughing. "She's going to have a seriously warped idea of what it is grown-ups do for work if they don't come up with a new euphemism. And no, I came over to lecture you, actually."

"Oh crap." Frank frowns. "What'd I do?"

"Oh, no harm done, just." Patrick shrugs. "Be careful how you phrase things. She's still pretty literal." Frank's brow wrinkles. "You told her to run on over," Patrick explains, and Frank mouths out an, oh! "Whatever, don't worry, she's fine, just, you know."

Frank nods. "Yeah, okay. Yeah, I didn't—wow, okay, sorry."

"Hey, it's cool." Patrick rubs his toe in the dirt. "Anyway. No, seriously, she's fine." Frank's still looking half guilty, half worried. "And hey, this is awkward." Patrick tugs at his hat. "Want to hear about the time I let her eat a bug?"

And that does it, because Frank's giggling, his face breaking into a sudden, blinding smile. "Seriously?"

"Yeah, back when she was just learning to crawl. We were all sharing this crappy apartment that smelled like dog food when it got hot. We rehearsed in the living room and the old lady downstairs would beat on her ceiling with a broom. Total cliche." Frank laughs. "Anyway, yeah, I was babysitting and Hemmy found a fly on the floor. I wasn't wearing my glasses." Patrick's mouth turns up. "I thought it was a chocolate chip."

"Also not vegan," Frank observes.

"In our house?" Patrick shrugs. "Better than even odds that it would've been, actually."

"Point." Frank tilts his head back. "Wanna come in? Or do you have big plans for our day of rest?"

Patrick shrugs again. "Andy dragged Joe off into the woods to teach him to meditate. On the off chance that that doesn't work, I was going to make some calls, see if there was any way to get him a break anywhere else."

Frank grins again. "You just don't want to admit that Hemmy kicks your ass at Mario Kart nine times out of ten."

"Yeah, pretty much." Patrick grins back.

"Well, I better go in, before I tan and Gerard gets angry with me," Frank pushes himself to his feet, tilts his chin, looking up at Patrick. "You're a good friend, Patrick Stump."

Patrick shrugs. "Nah, I just don't want Joe to go nuts. We'd have to find a new guitarist."

Frank reaches out, punches him on the shoulder. "You're a good friend," he repeats, "full stop."

Patrick looks away, shrugs.

"Hey, hey," Frank says, quietly. "Don't be like that, dude." And then, mock-stern: "Don't make me get my Sharpie."

Patrick ducks his head, but he's smiling.

VI. September 21, 2005: B-Sides

They get back, and everyone scatters for home, and nineteen days later, Joe calls Patrick and says, "So hey, I'm better," and then, after a pause. "Oh, and I bought a house. You're helping me move on Saturday."

"Yeah, okay," Patrick says, because he's pretty much spent the past three weeks lazing around his apartment in socks and boxers, and that's getting kind of old.

Saturday night, they're sitting around on the carpet in Joe's new living room, eating Chinese takeout out of the cartons at quarter to midnight. Patrick feels stressed, tensed, and his mind won't stop working, even though his body's worn out, wrung out, exhausted. Hemmy spent the day running up and down the hall, bare feet smacking on the wood, while the rest of them wrangled in Joe's poorly packed boxes and random collection of mismatched furniture and guitar equipment; now she's sacked out on the carpet right next to Pete, dead asleep, floppy and boneless-looking, curls drooping down into her face. Pete is trying to use his chopsticks with his left hand, a carton of tofu with black mushrooms clutched awkwardly between his knees, so he doesn't have to move his right hand from its spot on Hemmy's back. Patrick watches him and wonders if they're going to spend the entire next year stocking up on her, in anticipation of her inevitable absence, and then Joe says, "So, hey, I talked to Rachel about starting to cut back on the touring."

Andy's head jerks up, mouth already tight. "What?"

"I mean," Joe continues, ignoring him. "We can't expect to keep this up once Hemmy starts school, and it seems like—"

"Hold on just a minute." Andy's shoulders are tensing, readying for a fight. "Hemmy is my kid, and it's not like you guys are—"

Patrick nearly chokes on a green bean.

"Yeah, see," Pete says. "If you finish that sentence I think I'm going to have punch you." Andy stares at him. "By which I mean that I will have to hire someone to punch you," Pete corrects, frowning.

"Joe's right." Patrick coughs, takes a sip of Coke, clears his throat. "We don't have to—I mean, the schedule we've been keeping the last few years is pretty sick."

"You can't be a band without touring," Andy says, scowling.

"We used to do it." Pete shrugs. "When we were still in school. Summers and school vacations, remember? That, that was cool, you know?"

"Not cool. That was because no one knew who the fuck we were." Andy's voice shoots up, and Hemmy stirs. Andy's eyes flick over, watch as Pete rubs her back, hums until she stills.

When Andy next speaks, his voice is quiet, but still urgent, tense. "You don't turn down work when you can get it. That's not how you survive as a band. And besides, what the hell are you three going to do the rest of the time?"

"Okay, dude, that's easy." Joe snorts. "Pete's running the label, Patrick's producing, and I—" he takes a sip of Coke— "am a gentleman of leisure."

Andy shakes his head, expression something raw and angry-looking. He looks at Pete. "You really want me to believe you're going to be happy opening for Bill in three years? For Ryan? When we go back to touring in a van? Because that's what's going to happen. You can't make it big and then just go 'oh, well, maybe not.' You can't just—"

"Wow," Patrick says, a little too loudly. "I never thought you'd be the one to start worrying about whether or not we were cutting it commercially."

Andy flinches.

"This seems pretty straightforward to me," Joe says, perfectly calm. "I just want to play music with my friends for a living. Seems stupid to ditch half of that for something I don't really give a shit about."

"It's not like we were ever going to be the biggest rock band in the world," Pete adds. His voice is quiet. "We are what we are."

"And I'm not really sure that there are varying degrees of not-quite world-famous," Patrick muses, nodding.

"I don't want—" Andy takes a deep breath. "Look, you guys, she and I, we can do our own thing. It's, I mean, you're my friends and you've been a huge help and that, that is, but it isn't like we need—"

"Dude," Joe interrupts. "I just spent the past three months listening to every thought you have. It's going to be a little while before you can get away with lying around me."

Andy freezes, mouth hanging half open.

"Hey," Pete says, after a minute, looking over at Patrick. "Gimme the green beans."

"Trade," Patrick replies, holding out the carton.

"You going vegetarian again?" Pete asks, frowning, trying to figure out how to do the swap with one hand.

Patrick shrugs. "Frank's a bad influence."

"Mmm," Joe says. "More beef for me."

Five.

I. Joe

Patrick's phone is ringing, and—well. He's not, you know. He's a grown-up. Hell, he's nearing thirty. He's not sulking or anything.

So, he probably has to pick that up.

He glances at the caller ID and bites back a sigh. "Hey, Joe," he says.

"Hey, so, I wake up and it turns out I'm out of food, and I thought, Andy's closer, but nothing good is vegan, so I figured, I'll go visit Patrick. Anyway, I'm outside and I'm hungry, let me in."

"Joe." Patrick sighs. "I'm not really up to it. Christie and I broke up."

"Oh." Joe pauses. "Like, recently?"

Patrick frowns. "Yeah, like, yesterday."

"Oh." Patrick can hear Joe breathing. "Wow, I didn't even know you guys were dating."

"What?" Patrick sits up so fast he gets dizzy. "We've been together for, like, five years! How could you not know—"

"Yeah, I thought you broke up with her in, like, 2004." Patrick can almost hear the shrug. "Sorry, dude. You never talk about her. Also, seriously, let me in, it's cold and I want pancakes."

It takes Patrick a minute to realize his mouth is hanging open. He shuts it with a snap, then says, "Okay, fine, just let me put on pants."

"Hey, don't put yourself out or anything," Joe says.

Patrick hangs up on him and throws his phone on the bed, then bends to dig around in his laundry pile for a pair of sweatpants. When he opens the door, Joe frowns and says, "Patrick?" and Patrick doesn't really have time to process the way his eyes are tracking from side to side because Joe takes a big step forward and slams right into him, knocking both of them to the ground.

Patrick pushes himself up to sitting, resting half his weight on the heels of his hands, head spinning. "Dude." He glares over at where Joe is picking himself up, looking dazed. "What the fuck."

"Patrick?" Joe says. He looks over, but his eyes aren't focusing right, and Patrick frowns. He doesn't think they fell hard enough for Joe to get a concussion, but maybe they should go to the doctor. "No, seriously uncool, Trick." Joe actually sounds kind of freaked, which is weird, so Patrick pushes himself up onto his knees, reaching out, just as Joe says, "Where the hell are you?"

That's right when Patrick's hand hits Joe's shoulder, and Joe jumps, blinking rapidly at the air between them.

"Oh," Patrick says. "Well, fuck."

II. Andy

"Wait, so, you just woke up like this?" Andy's frowning. "No warning? Nothing?"

Patrick rolls his eyes. "I don't know. Did you have warning when you were about to get pregnant?"

Andy blinks. "Actually? Probably, yes."

Pete snickers.

"Shut up, asshole," Patrick says, and tightens his arms over his chest.

"What I can't figure out is why we can't see your clothes," Andy muses. "What happens if you pick up your guitar?"

Patrick shrugs. "I don't know. I haven't tried, not with anyone around."

"Well, now would maybe be a good time," Andy says, raising one eyebrow.

Patrick scowls and stomps over, picks up the guitar, slides the strap over his shoulder.

"Okay," Joe says. "That's officially freaky."

"What?" Patrick says.

"It's like it spreads." Pete's eyes are wide. "Like, wherever you put your hands, it starts there and grows out."

"What happens if you take it off?" Andy's still frowning a little. Patrick slides the strap off and puts the guitar back on the stand. "Well?" Andy asks, after a minute. "Are you going to take it off or not?"

"Dude, he already did," Pete says, and Andy says,

"What're you talking about?" and Joe says,

"No, wait, he did, I can just kind of—" and Andy says,

"Oh, hey, I can kind of see it now." He frowns. "It's fuzzy, though."

Pete's brow furrows. "Not for me."

"Guys, this is fascinating and all, but can we maybe, I don't know, rehearse?" Patrick's got a headache, and he's getting tired of being Fall Out Boy's resident guinea pig. "We're supposed to go into the studio on Monday, remember?"

Pete sticks his tongue out, and he isn't actually looking at Patrick, but it's close enough that Patrick figures that's intended for him. Joe's already sliding his guitar on, though, so after a second Pete slides down off the table and picks up his bass.

Andy's still looking thoughtful, hips tilted. After a second, he grabs the hem of his shirt and tugs it off. "Hey Patrick, catch," he says, and tosses it across the room. It hits Patrick in the chin before his hands flail out to grab at it.

"What the hell, Andy," Patrick sputters.

"Oh, huh," Joe says, looking over. "Why isn't it—"

"I think it's because it's not his," Andy says, frowning.

"I wonder what'll happen if he puts it on." Pete's leaning forward.

"Well, I'll stretch it out of shape, for one thing." Patrick scowls at him. "Can we please get to work?"

"Put it on," Andy orders.

Patrick puts it on.

Joe giggles. "Oh, man. Okay, now I know why you never borrow from Andy."

"Oh shut up, I'm wearing, like, four layers." Patrick crosses his arms over his chest.

"Attack of the disembodied t-shirt." Pete's grinning. "It's like a really bad, low-budget horror movie."

"Hey," Andy says. "There it goes."

"What're you talking about?" Pete asks, frowning.

"Huh, yeah," Joe shrugs. "Too bad, looks like the wrapping-you-in-bandages solution doesn't work outside of the movies."

A few seconds later, Pete's expression starts to clear. "Oh, okay, that's interesting."

Andy's eyes flicker over at Pete. "Yeah," he says, scratching at his beard. "Yeah, it really is."

III. Patrick

It turns out that being invisible is just really boring. If he tries to go out into the city, wander around, he just ends up slamming into people, and after the third time two guys on the El get into a shoving match because of him, he decides it's just not worth it. The never-ending stream of people going in and out of Joe's house are too mellow to really be shocked, but they tend to be handsy, and it only takes Patrick an hour or two to get really sick of being treated like a particularly novel party toy and head home. Andy says he's always welcome, and Hemmy won't stop talking about Patrick's cool new superpower, and Marika is just as tolerant and friendly and generally amiable as usual, but Patrick can't help but feel like he doesn't quite fit over there, into the neat three-person circle they make in the absence of Andy's band. So Patrick ends up spending a lot of time watching DVDs from Netflix and hoping it'll go away before the record drops. Pete comes over a few times a week, and Patrick finds himself almost pathetically grateful for the company, but Pete's been busy with some disaster involving the Panic boys and a tree and a wheelchair and, somehow, union violations, and Patrick really can't keep track of it very well, but he's pretty certain it's all Brendon Urie's fault, mostly because Pete keeps on concluding with, "Anyway, it's all Brendon Urie's fault," every time he tries to explain to Patrick what's going on. He always sounds stressed when he says it, so Patrick wraps one arm around his shoulders and pats him on the back, feeling a little guilty about the thrill of pleasure that runs through him when Pete just leans into it.

Christie calls him on day thirty-seven. They're about four minutes into a civil, if somewhat stilted conversation, when Patrick says, "Oh, hey, so, funny thing. Joe thought we'd already broken up." He half-laughs. It hurts his chest.

She's silent for a long minute, and then she sighs. "Patrick," she says, and Patrick shakes his head.

"Sorry," he says, quietly. "Have I mentioned that I'm really, really sorry?"

"It's." She pauses. "I shouldn't have let it go on so long. I guess I just thought."

Patrick stares up at the ceiling. Seventeen hours ago, Pete came over with the re-release of all three original Star Wars movies; fourteen hours ago, he fell asleep on Patrick's shoulder, face pressed into cotton fabric he couldn't see. Patrick had shifted, ever so gently, and lowered Pete down so he was lying flat, curled up on his side, head on Patrick's thigh, slid off Pete's ridiculous hipster glasses and folded them neatly on the edge of the coffee table, and then watched the remaining hour and a half of The Empire Strikes Back, because Pete would've been furious with him if he'd stopped.

"Yeah," Patrick says. "Me too." He rubs his face, feeling tired and uncertain and uncomfortably honest. "It still wasn't fair to you."

"No," she replies, voice slow. "No, not really."

"Anyway," he says, after a minute. "I'm kind of a shit."

"Yeah," she says. "But you're a rock star. I hear that makes up for a lot."

He ducks his head, hiding a grin. It's good to hear her smile.

"Yeah," he says. "That's what gets me all the ladies." She laughs.

"Hey, look," she says, and it sounds different, now, warmer. "I have to go, my lunch break's almost over. But I'll talk to you later, okay?"

"Yeah," he says, nodding, "I'll give you a call," and he actually means it.

She hangs up, and Patrick lies back on his bed, staring up at the ceiling. He can't help but think. It's dangerous. He wishes she'd called earlier. Then maybe he'd be able to go back to sleep. As it is, no. Just him, Fall Out Boy's Amazing Invisible Guitarist!, and a hundred thousand thoughts he doesn't want to be thinking.

When he finally hears signs of life from the living room, he sits up, pads out. Pete's sitting up on the couch, hair sticking straight up, trying to fumble his glasses on with sleep-stiff fingers. Patrick leans in the doorway, crossing his arms over the the ratty-thin front of his t-shirt, even though he knows Pete can't see.

"Hey," Patrick says, after a minute. Pete looks towards his voice, blinking. "Pancakes?"

Pete grins.

IV. Pete

On day fifty-one, Patrick is seriously contemplating taking up knitting, just for something to do that isn't thinking, when Pete shows up with a bag of chips and a copy of My Neighbor Totoro on DVD.

"Hey," Patrick says, then steps to the side so Pete won't bump into him on the way in.

"Uh, hey," Pete tells the kitchen.

"On your right," Patrick says, and Pete swings his head towards Patrick's voice, grinning. He's not looking right at Patrick, more like at a spot about four inches south-east of Patrick's right ear, which is still disconcerting, but Patrick appreciates the thought.

"I have chips," Pete says, and holds them out. Patrick takes them and the movie and heads for the TV.

Pete sprawls out on the couch. "You know," he says, wriggling down. "You know, I don't know why you still have this stupid thing."

"I love that couch," Patrick says, hitting the CLOSE button on the DVD player. The screen flashes to life. "It's comfortable."

"Dude, we found it an alley." Pete must hear Patrick's footsteps, because he holds his hand out for the chips. "Cats probably peed on it."

Patrick hands him the chips and sits down next to him, sliding down into a nice, comfortable sprawl. "Hemmy threw up on it once."

Pete snorts. "More than once."

Patrick turns to glare at him, even though the effect is probably somewhat reduced by Pete not being able to see him. "You guys told me it was only the once." Pete's leg is near his, close enough for warmth.

"We just wanted you to take the couch," Pete says, nudging closer, shoulder to shoulder. "We never thought you'd keep it for this long."

"It's comfortable," Patrick repeats. It is. The fabric is smooth, gone velvety with wear, and the cushions are soft and broken-in, not too puffy, not too flat.

Pete shrugs, doesn't argue. The movie flickers: bright colors; the characters' movements broad, exuberant. Patrick licks chip salt off his fingers, listening to the crunching as Pete chews.

"Hey," Pete says, after a while, and Patrick tilts his head, looks over. Pete's hand is moving, feeling out, towards Patrick, hitting his knee, thigh, forearm. He wraps his fingers around Patrick's wrist and tugs. "Hey," he repeats.

"Hey," Patrick says, blinking. Pete squeezes, tight enough Patrick wonders if he's trying to leave fingerprints. "What're you doing?"

Pete just squeezes again, looking off to the side, away from Patrick, fumbling in his pocket with his free right hand. "You remember, you know. On Warped."

Patrick frowns. "Which time?"

"2005, jackass," Pete says, coming up with a Sharpie. "The important time." He slides the cap into his mouth, bites and pulls. He drags Patrick's wrist over onto his thigh, uses the heel of his right hand to flatten his fingers out, presses the tip to skin. hi, he writes, filling the dot on the "i" in with a perfect, careful circle. Patrick shivers. It tickles. Pete pulls his hand away, just a little, still holding Patrick's fingers flat. "Huh."

Patrick looks up at his face. Pete's staring down, Sharpie cap still clenched between his teeth. "Can you see that?" he asks.

Pete nods. "Yeah, it's—it's cool, actually," he replies, consonants a little fuzzy. "It looks like it's floating." Pete brushes his thumb along the lines of the "h", traces up the "i". Patrick didn't realize the apartment had gotten so warm. Pete looks up, and it takes Patrick a second to realize he's trying to look at him, because he's actually hitting somewhere around...the fridge, probably.

"Hi," Patrick says back, and Pete grins, and looks back down, presses pen to skin.

He starts at Patrick's wrist, feeling first with thumb and fingertips, spelling out how're you up Patrick's skin, excruciatingly slow. He finishes with a flourish, the curve and stroke of a question mark, at the broadest part of Patrick's forearm. Patrick's muscles ache with the effort of keeping still.

"I'm okay," he says, voice tense, taught, near to breaking, and Pete considers, just for a moment, before writing,

yeah, and then presses the tip to the crease of Patrick's elbow, curve and stroke, ?, an interrogation in felt and ink, sliding over nerve endings that feel raw, electric.

"Oh," Patrick manages, breathless, "you know. Invisible. But hanging in there."

Pete shifts a little, so he's half on his side, half on Patrick. i wis, he starts, and halfway through the h hits the hem of Patrick's sleeve.

Stop, Patrick thinks, dazed, silenced, but Pete doesn't stop, just pushes back the fabric and keeps going,

h i could see you, and then, completely predictable and utterly perverse, he adds a period, a perfect, careful circle, at the join of Patrick's shoulder, right beside the bunched-up mess of his sleeve.

Patrick can't breathe. Pete is impossibly close, chin on his wrist, inches from Patrick's shoulder, mouth so close Patrick can feel his air, warm and damp, the barest sliver too fast.

Pete shifts, just enough to get the fingers on his left hand up to his mouth, pull out the pen cap, drop it into Patrick's lap. "I'm out of room," Pete whispers, and his hand slides, slow, Jesus, down the front of Patrick's shirt, until his fingers flex, knot in fabric. Pete follows it down, and suddenly Patrick has air to breathe but nowhere to go, because Pete is pushing up the hem of his shirt, slide, tug, exposing a strip of Patrick's stomach to the air. Patrick has been invisible for weeks, but this is the first time he's really been glad he can't be seen. His skin is on fire, burning against the cool press of Pete's fingertips, the wet swipe of the pen.

Pete has plenty of room to go from side to side, so of course, of course, he's writing up, starting beside Patrick's bellybutton:

you're getting really quiet.

and since when has Pete been so into—fuck—punctuation? Patrick really can't breathe, he really can't, not even a little, and "I can't breathe," he gasps, and Pete ducks his head,

why not?

still pushing up, always pushing, until Patrick's shirt is bunched in his armpits and the question mark lands at the very base of his breastbone, the very top of Pete's possible canvas.

"You're undressing me," Patrick chokes out, and Pete is already writing, still writing,

yes.

sloping sideways across Patrick's ribs. Pete's face is inches from his handiwork, body heat warm on Patrick's skin, and God, Patrick just wants him to—he wants Pete to pull away, sit back; Pete pulls away, sits back, slides the bottom of the pen in between his teeth, and puts both hands on Patrick, holds the hem of Patrick's shirt, and pulls, slow and steady. Patrick's arms go up, his shirt slides up, Pete's thumbs following the fabric, all the way up the line of Patrick's bare skin, armpits to wrist. Patrick barely even hears it when his hat hits the floor.

Pete throws one knee over Patrick's thigh, steadies himself, and takes up his pen, and presses down: when are, breastbone, you, just over the "yes", going, across his chest, to kiss me, nipple to shoulder, and then, slow, tortuous, deliberate: ?, curve and stroke, right above the earlier period: "i wish i could see you", I'm out of room.

The question hangs between them, eight years of missed cues, skipped beats, bad timing, and this: Patrick's ink-stained transparent skin, flushed with want and nearness; Pete's body, curved like a question mark, face serious, uncertain.

"Fuck," Patrick breathes, and bends.

V. An Interlude

"Dude," Patrick mumbles, later, still carding his fingers through Pete's hair. "Dude."

"Hmm?" Pete's most of the way asleep, face pressed to Patrick's throat, breathing slow and even. His thumb is moving, steady, thoughtless, over the sweat-smeared ink at the crease of Patrick's elbow.

"Dude," Patrick repeats, and yawns, jaw cracking. "My Neighbor Totoro?"

VI. June 2, 2007: Almost Enchanted After All

"Fuck," Pete says, digging through the pile of clothes spilled out of his bag. Hemmy giggles. Pete stops, points at her, finger accusatory. "You," he says, and she grins. "Don't tell your dad, okay?"

She mimes zipping her lips, throwing away the key.

"Pete," Patrick says, still leaning in the doorway. "Joe's going to lose it."

"I'm—fuck! I can't find my hoodie."

"It's in my bag," Patrick reminds him.

"You stole my hoodie?" Pete scowls.

Patrick rolls his eyes. "No, you put it in my—"

"Oh, right, after—after the thing. Okay." He kneels by Patrick's bag.

Andy slides up, pokes Patrick in the side with a drumstick. "What is taking Pete so long?"

"He can't find his hoodie," Patrick explains.

"Found it!" Pete does a little shimmy, tugging it on. "All right! We are golden."

"That," Andy says, "is the most amazing shade of green I have ever seen in my life."

"Green's my lucky color," Pete says, grinning.

"You have a lucky color?" Andy blinks.

"Lame," Hemmy agrees. Andy grins at her. She grins back.

"Dirty's grabbing your dinner," Andy tells her. "He'll be back in a minute."

"I'm being good," she says, and opens her book.

"Two minutes, guys!" someone shouts. Andy pokes Patrick again, then slides off.

"We have to go, Pete," Patrick says.

"Okay," he says. "Okay." He slides up into the doorway, tilts his chin up, looks Patrick right in the eye.

"Lucky, huh?" Patrick murmurs, thumb finding Pete's waist.

"Yup," Pete says, and licks Patrick's lip. "Always."

"C'mon." Patrick pulls away, laughing. "C'mon, Mark'll kill you if we run over." Pete's relentless, tilting his head, rubbing his hair against Patrick's neck while Patrick's trying to turn him around. "C'mon, you little perv."

And then Patrick puts his hands on Pete's hips and pushes, nowhere left to go but forward.

(End)

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