It's raining. Patrick is kind of baffled by this, because--they're driving through *Arizona.* In the summer. And yet--rain, sheets of it, dumping on them since they stopped for dinner (it's two am now) without letting up once. It's Pete's turn to be behind the wheel, and he dislikes driving and hates driving in the rain even *more,* and so Patrick is staying awake to keep him company and make him less miserable. This is not by choice: every time he starts dozing a little, Pete hits him or pinches him or twists his ear or something else annoying and painful. Patrick can't retaliate because Pete's driving, so--he just doesn't get to sleep tonight, apparently.

They stop to get gas and Patrick gets out of the van to get something caffeinated, resigned to staying awake for the next several hours because Pete is. Really, this is fucking annoying, but Pete beams at him when Patrick gets out of the car and hugs his shoulders, leaning against him, and Patrick can't stay mad.

"You're making this up to me later," he says, grumpy for the sake of it, and Pete pecks him on the cheek.

"Of course I will. Don't get your panties in a bunch." Pete squeezes his shoulders before letting go, running into the gas station to avoid getting rained on.

His cheek feels warm where Pete kissed him, even though he didn't slobber on him or anything. Pete just does things like this, utterly clueless of the way it affects Patrick, and Patrick can never decide if he wants him to do it more or stop. Patrick rubs his cheek against his shoulder, aware that he's blushing faintly, and goes in to get his soda.

Pete is leaning against the station wall when he comes out, looking morosely at the van. Patrick joins him. "How long until we get to Albuquerque?"

"Five hours, if I really push it," Pete says. Five more hours of sitting cramped in that front seat with his ass getting numb, five more hours of listening to Pete ramble on about whatever he wants to talk about to keep himself awake, five more hours of listening to the windshield wipers squeak. Patrick rubs his hands over his face, dreading it already.

"Yeah," Pete says glumly, as if Patrick had said out loud how much this sucked, and he was agreeing. "Dude, fuck me, I cannot believe I got stuck with the overnight driving through rain shift. This blows."

"It could be worse. Could be snowing," Patrick says, smiling a little, and Pete groans and theatrically reaches over to cover Patrick's mouth with his hand.

"God, don't *jinx* us."

"It's not going to snow in June in Arizona," Patrick says, muffled and garbled against Pete's hand. Pete's palm tickles his lips, and it makes something warm and nice spark in Patrick's belly.

"I would not put it past Arizona to shit snow on us," Pete says, leaning in close to Patrick's ear, not moving his hand. "She's a *bitch* that way."

"Why is the state's weather female?" Patrick asks, not that his words are actually understandable. He turns his head to face Pete, who is, huh, closer than Patrick had realized.

Pete lets his hand slip from his mouth. "It--fuck, Patrick, it just is." Pete's smile is a little twisted, a lot tired. "I'm operating on like five hours of sleep here, you know?"

"Yeah, I sympathize. I haven't slept, either, because some dick keeps hitting me every time I drift off." Patrick tries to keep his tone light, casual, because Pete is still staring into his eyes and not moving away. If anything, he seems closer. Patrick feels the hairs on the back of his neck stand up a little bit.

"That sounds awful. He probably just wants attention, though." Pete props his chin on Patrick's shoulder, smiling at him. Patrick leans in a little bit and so does Pete, and Patrick isn't sure who initiates it, but their lips bump against each other. It's not really a kiss until Pete reaches up and cups the back of Patrick's head, pulls him in, and Patrick parts his lips.

It takes a few seconds to hit him that whoa, whoa, he is kissing his best friend whom he's been infatuated with since Day One. What's going on?

He pulls back a little, most of his brain crying out against no longer kissing Pete. "Um. Pete. Are you serious about this? Or just...?"

"Hm." Pete smacks his lips, looking thoughtful. "I don't know. Let's try it again." He kisses Patrick again, his lips warm and wet.

Which, okay, Patrick can roll with this, even though there are exclamation marks going off behind his eyes and his heart feels like it's going to beat right out of his chest in excitement. He's pretty sure that if he weren't kissing Pete, he'd be hyperventilating. Because what the fuck and also yes.

He loses track of how long they end up making out against the wall; luckily, it being two in the morning, the only other person at the station is the guy at the counter, who can't even see them. When Patrick comes up for air, he realizes that he's pretty much soaked from the rain, so it's probably been a while.

"We should, uh." Pete smiles and bumps Patrick's nose in his. "The sooner we leave, the sooner this stupid drive will be over, right?"

"Right," Patrick says, reluctant. He'd much rather keep kissing Pete than climb back into the *fucking* van.

"We can pick up where we left off later," Pete says, pressing a quick kiss to Patrick's mouth before stepping back. "Promise."

***

Days pass before they get any kind of chance to be alone together again. One night, Patrick jerks awake from what he's sure was a very disturbing dream, but he can't quite remember; the blaring red numbers of the hotel alarm clock on the night stand tell him that it's 3:41 AM.

Across the room, Pete is wide awake, sitting on the edge of the bed he's sharing with Andy (Joe is snoring lightly next to Patrick). He's only wearing his boxers and he's staring right at Patrick, completely unashamed when Patrick catches him looking; he just smiles a little, quirks his mouth, and the effect goes straight to Patrick's pants.

"Hi," Patrick whispers.

"Hi," Pete says back, flashing him a grin. "I can't sleep."

"Neither can I," Patrick says quickly. "I mean--except for how I just was, but--" he stops.

"Yeah," Pete says, and Patrick wishes very very hard that he was next to Pete in that bed instead of Andy. Who was on crack when they made these sleeping arrangements, anyway? He and Pete really should have thought of this.

Patrick sits up, swinging his feet to the floor. "So, um. We should, maybe. Talk about the other day?" He winces at how wishy-washy and shy that came out. He knows that Pete already has a tendency to view him as a fumbling little brother; he doesn't need to make that *worse.*

"Yeah, sure." Pete stands, jerking his head towards the (tiny) hotel bathroom, and Patrick heart skips a little when he follows Pete inside, closing the door behind them. Andy and Joe sleep on, oblivious.

"So," Pete says when Patrick turns to face him, "I really like kissing you."

Patrick flushes and grins. "Yeah, the feeling's kind of mutual." A knot in his stomach that he didn't even realize was there starts to ease, because--this is Pete. Years-old crush or no, this is Pete, and it's easy and natural, and Patrick feels silly to ever feel intimidated or nervous by this.

Pete nods, and looks like he wants to say something else. Patrick waits.

Pete says, "So is there anything else about it that needs discussing?"

"Uh. Not that I can... think of?"

"Oh, good." A flash of Pete Wentz smile, and then Pete's crossing the tiny bathroom, his hand curling against Patrick's cheek, and he's kissing Patrick, sucking his bottom lip into his mouth.

And kissing Pete is still really, really nice. Patrick leans back against the sink and lets his hands settle on Pete's waist, humming softly when Pete licks his way into Patrick's mouth. Pete is good at this, his tongue rubbing against Patrick's and along his teeth, sucking lightly before pulling back. He's slow, sensual instead of just immediately trying to shove his tongue down Patrick's throat. And Pete makes these satisfied sounds when Patrick rubs his hands up and down his sides, over his skin.

Pete's hands aren't really doing anything: his one hand has moved to cup the back of Patrick's head, fingers sliding through his hair, and his other hand is resting lightly on Patrick's hip. Patrick can feel all of this coiled energy through Pete, almost vibrating off of him, but he's barely moving except for his tongue, oh, his tongue. It makes Patrick want to melt into him, *move* against him. He whimpers slightly when Pete shifts just enough to barely bump the front of his thigh against Patrick's leg.

Pete pulls back a little at that, nipping lightly at Patrick's lip. "Man." He laughs, and it comes out a little hoarse and shaky, and that gives Patrick kind of a thrill--*he* got Pete worked up. "Why haven't we ever done this before?"

"I have *no* idea," Patrick says fervently. He tugs Pete closer, kissing him again, hungry and open. Patrick lets his hands wander, his left hand moving up to brush over Pete's nipple and his right hand moving down to slide over Pete's ass.

Pete tenses up at that, all the lazy energy Patrick could feel in his body coiling up. He moves away from the kiss, from Patrick's hands. "Um."

Patrick swallows, tries to make his breathing even out. "What? What is it?"

Pete meets his eyes, giving him one of those long intense Pete looks. He opens--shuts his mouth, says "Nothing." Patrick gets kissed again, almost chastely, Pete's tongue snaking out over his lips before Pete pulls back again, rests his forehead against Patrick's. "We need to get some sleep."

And--what? Patrick laughs. "Pete, you're an insomniac."

"Maybe I was up for a while before you woke up, sleeping beauty," Pete says, rolling his eyes. "Anyway, you have to be singing tomorrow night, you need your rest."

"Fuck you," Patrick laughs, pulling Pete in for another kiss.

He feels Pete grin against his mouth, kissing back, and Pete's leg bumps his again. Patrick rubs his hand over Pete's chest, his thumb circling Pete's nipple, and Pete takes his wrist, hand, entwining their fingers in a really girly way.

"Seriously," Pete breathes against Patrick's mouth. "You need your beauty sleep."

Patrick shakes his head, smiles. "Pete, you know I've performed great shows on zero hours of sleep. Plus, I'm wide awake. I want to keep kissing you."

Pete arches an eyebrow. "Just kissing?"

Patrick opens his mouth and then stops, slightly flummoxed. "Um. Preferably not? I mean." What good way is there to handle this? He knows Pete can feel Patrick's growing hard-on. "I just. Don't want to stop."

Pete smirks. "I just don't want to deflower you, that's all."

Patrick raises an eyebrow. "You deflower people just by looking at them. Anyway, as touched as I am that you're protecting my virtue, I don't really have much virtue to protect."

"Are you kidding, Patrick Stump? You're 99% Virtue." Pete grins, and nuzzles Patrick's neck. "99% Virtue, 1% sugar and spice."

Patrick rolls his eyes. Pete needs to not treat him like a kid brother when they're necking. "Pete. Come on."

"Mmm." Pete leans against him, his nose pressed against Patrick's neck. "Not yet, Patrick, okay?"

And Patrick blinks, because--that was really honest and upfront, coming from Pete. He finds himself saying, "Okay," even though wait, what, no.

Pete presses a dry kiss just underneath Patrick's jaw and squeezes his hand before leaning back, letting go. "'night." And then he carefully opens the bathroom door and walks out.

Patrick shuts it behind him, because he needs a minute to calm his body down before going back to sharing a twin bed with Joe. Not to mention--thinking, yeah, that might be good.

Kissing Pete, but no sex with Pete. Yet. Which Patrick was fine with really, it was just... unexpected? It wouldn't be unexpected if he were hooking up with a girl, and Patrick feels a twinge of politically-correct guilt at that.

It's not really because of that, though. It's because of *Pete,* and the way he was looking at Patrick, and... Patrick has a feeling they're not done talking about this.

***

Touring is touring, a timeless blur of highways and stages and tune-ups and not-enough-sleep, and the night in the hotel bathroom turns out to be the last opportunity for privacy they get in a while. Money is tight and so is time, and Patrick loses track of the nights they spend in the van instead of in hotel rooms that don't have much more space. He grabs Pete for quick make-out sessions before shows, in the bathrooms of diners, quick kisses when everyone else is otherwise occupied. Nothing in front of Andy and Joe or any of the other guys, because...because. They're not keeping this *secret,* it's just-well, what if it made things weird? Patrick doesn't particularly want to cross that bridge until he has to.

Sometimes when they're all crashing in the van, Pete will maneuver the sleeping arrangements until he has the back with Patrick. They'll be laying down behind the seats, roughly hidden from everyone, and Pete will roll into Patrick's side and fall asleep with his arm thrown lazily over Patrick's chest, his leg sliding in between Patrick's legs. Sometimes they'll kiss for a while before falling asleep, and it's almost like sharing a bed.

Usually if they fall asleep like that Patrick will wake up the next morning (or in a few hours, when someone needs him to drive) with morning wood and most of his body cramped and in pain. Usually he's woken up by Andy thumping his shoulder and grunting something (probably "Get the fuck up," but Patrick can never parse it immediately upon waking up), and there's never time or opportunity to get a hand down his pants. It's just get out of the van, stretch gratefully, accept the cup of coffee someone usually shoves into his hands or head into the shitty diner/shitty gas station/shitty rest stop to get a cup himself, and hope that his body calms down. Sometimes he can snag bathroom time, and he hates that jerking himself off in a public bathroom that smells like old sweat and cigarette smoke and has misspelled grafitti on the walls has become a luxury. It doesn't bear much resemblance to the fantasies he used to have of waking up next to Pete, lazily kissing and touching each other in the morning on a bed somewhere, having Pete do this *for* him.

If he really thinks about it, he guesses that it's kind of nice, that they're not having sex yet. Most of Patrick's past relationships got physical on some level very early on, especially the few things he's had with other guys; it makes sense that getting together with Pete would be different, considering--well, everything. Part of Patrick is convinced that this is going to blow up in his face and he'll end up losing his best friend *and* his band and have to go back to Chicago with his tail between his legs, broke and homeless. So if he keeps his sense of perspective, his blue balls could be a good thing, could be keeping them from rushing into anything disastrous.

It's just that he's seen Pete naked, he knows what he's missing, and christ, he's wanted him since he was fucking sixteen. Patrick has had more wet dreams about Pete than pretty much anyone else on the planet, and knowing that he could actually have the *reality* if their opportunities didn't keep getting botched is driving Patrick a little nuts.

After two months pass, it becomes apparent that it's not just botched opportunities, it's also Pete. They'll be kissing, groping a little, things getting kind of hot and heavy, and Patrick will reach for Pete's belt, saying "Can I...?" more as a courtesy than anything else, because 99.9 times out of ten, when Patrick asks that of someone in his lap, the answer is an enthusiastic 'fuck yes'.

But Pete will usually maneuver away or take Patrick's hand in his own, diffusing his refusal by saying something like, "I don't want to stop *this,*" and well. Patrick never wants to stop making out, either, and it's not like the making out is dissatisfying. He never quite realizes until later that he just missed yet another opportunity to make Pete come, which saddens him, deeply.

This happens often enough that Patrick's really beginning to find it strange. He's aware that plenty of people have relationships that don't focus on sex, plenty of people wait long periods of time before making that plunge, it's just that Patrick never expected that of *Pete.* Pete, who wouldn't know modesty or decorum if it stuck its hand down his pants, who has more one-night stands on the road than any musician Patrick knows, whose every movement seems to be sexual.

Patrick would really like to fuck him. Or blow him, maybe, or give him a handjob, just--something that results in orgasms for both of them. He's getting impatient.

When he confronts Pete about it, it's not exactly a well-thought-out decision--the words just sort of fall gracelessly out of his mouth one day.

"I really want to jerk you off," he says, as Pete slides his tongue out of Patrick's mouth.

Pete pauses and leans back, frowning a little; Patrick forces himself to stay calm, keep his eyes on Pete, wait for whatever reaction Pete is going to give to that. He's curious to see if his hypothesis is correct (hypothesis: there's a reason they're not having sex yet, and that reason is all on Pete, and it's *weird*) or if Pete will just say something along the lines of, "Like I'm gonna say *no*" and let Patrick go to town.

But instead Pete gives him a quirked half-smile and says, "It's nice to want things."

And that kind of kills the moment. Patrick sighs and moves his arm from where it was around Pete's waist. "Pete. Why aren't we fucking yet?"

Pete rolls his eyes. "Well, geez. Tell me how you really feel, Patrick."

"We're best friends, in case you've forgotten," Patrick snaps, his temper rising. "I don't need to mince words with you, and you shouldn't feel like you can fucking *hide* things from me."

"Whoa, hey," Pete says, some of his nonchalance gone. "Since when am I hiding anything? And I haven't forgotten you're my best friend, dickweed. Excuse me for thinking that because you're my best friend, not to mention the singer of my *band* and all, we should maybe take it slow."

"Right, okay," Patrick says. "We have been taking it slow. I'd like to speed it up."

Pete hooks a finger in one of Patrick's belt-loops and Patrick thinks, yes, but then Pete shakes his head, his expression rueful. "It doesn't work that way."

"So show me how it works," Patrick says, scooting closer, and Pete stops fidgeting with his belt. He doesn't move away and Patrick takes that as a good sign, leaning to nuzzle at Pete's neck, kiss that spot beneath his jaw that he likes so much, the one that always makes Pete sigh and tilt his head back.

"Patrick." Pete's voice sounds strained, and Patrick wants to wrap his arms around him, tight as he can stand, get closer and closer until they merge. "This is--look, I can't *do* this with you."

And now he doesn't want to be in the same room as Pete. Patrick sits up carefully, crosses his arms. "With me."

Pete meets his stare, almost defiant. "Yeah. It's too soon, okay?"

"That's--" Patrick breaks eye contact first, looking away. "Okay, fine, I'm trying not to be a dick here, but how am I not supposed to be insulted by that? I've seen how many girls *and* guys you've had one-night-stands with on this tour."

"Right," Pete says, "*One night.* And then there's you, okay? And you're my best friend, and I've been hot for you since I met you, which let me refresh your memory, was when you were sixteen. And I don't want to be that guy. I don't trust myself with you."

Patrick shakes his head, incredulous. "You're kidding. This is about my age?"

Pete grins. "What can I say, Patrick?" He grins and puts his head on Patrick's shoulder, tucking his nose into the crook of Patrick's neck and shoulder. "Lo. Lee. Ta."

Patrick shoves him away, annoyed. "Now *you're* being a dick. So what if you met me when I was sixteen? I'm nineteen now."

"And I'm still a dirty year old man. And--" Pete waves his hand, frustrated. "Let me put it this way: any relationship I get into has a high chance of miserable failure. I haven't done a scientific study, but a good estimate would be 85%. And I really like you, and I'd rather this *didn't* fail miserably, and if we take this slow and carefully then that 85% will go down. It's that simple."

"You are *still* being a dick. It's never that simple," Patrick says. "But all right, fine. I want this to work out, too," because wow is the band fucked if Pete ends up hating Patrick as much as he hates some of his exes, "just. Don't treat me like a kid, okay?"

Pete nods and leans forward quickly; Patrick feels Pete's lips brushing against his before his eyes even register the movement. It's almost not a kiss, at first, so much as Pete's lips moving over his mouth, dry and questioning, exploring. And then Patrick opens his mouth and Pete adds pressure, tilts his head and touches Patrick, fingers threading through his hair. Patrick lets himself close his eyes. It's good, this is good, and it makes Patrick's stomach stupidly jumpy and fluttery just to remember that he has this. It's enough.

"I'll keep that in mind," Pete says against Patrick's mouth. Patrick bites Pete's lip to keep himself from saying something sharp and bitchy, because if he knows Pete that's *not* a definite answer. But he's probably not going to get anything better, so Patrick clenches his hand in Pete's t-shirt instead, pulls him closer, rubs his leg against Pete's and smiles when Pete makes a surprised little groan.

If Pete is bound and determined to resist Patrick's charms, Patrick certainly isn't going to make it *easy* for him.

***

When they get the money to enable them to stay in hotels again, it feels like such a fucking luxury. The last three weeks they've been sleeping in the van or not at all, and it's not like this motel is anything fancy, but it has lukewarm running water and a bed. A bed and a fold-out couch, and Patrick isn't sure whether it happens because Joe and Andy have both clued in to The Thing between Pete and Patrick and aren't making a big deal out of it, or just because Joe and Andy have no qualms over grabbing the most comfortable sleeping spot for themselves, but he and Pete get stuck with the fold-out couch.

Patrick has no idea how this is even possible, but it's actually less comfortable than the van. Pete is awed by this: he wants to conduct a study.

"No, seriously," he says, bouncing on the edge. "Seatbelt buckles digging into your ribs vs. old springs, the buckles should be worse, right? And *yet.* There's something to this, Patrick, I'm telling you."

Andy is in the shower; Joe stretches all the way out on the hotel bed, sighing in satisfaction and grinning at them. Patrick flips him off.

That night Patrick is honestly too exhausted to even think about the fact that he's spending the night in the same bed with his--well, with Pete. He just strips down to his boxers and rolls to the far side of the couch, falling asleep as soon as his cheek hits the slightly smelly, brown-ish hotel pillow that he's pretty sure is made of paper.

It's not until he wakes up at three in the morning with Pete spooning against him--like, *right* up against him--that it really occurs to him.

Patrick shifts, because with Pete this close, he's going to get turned on and won't get back to sleep. But the movement wakes Pete, and he makes a sleepy "mm" noise in Patrick's ear.

Patrick stops moving. "Pete?" he whispers.

"Mmyeah?" Pete doesn't move away--instead his arm pulls Patrick even closer.

"I was just wondering if you were awake," Patrick says, because he can't think of what else to say. Doesn't want to betray how much he likes the warmth of Pete's body behind him; doesn't want to come out and say that, oh hey, you're totally giving me a boner here, because he's pretty sure that part is obvious.

Pete laughs softly and turns so that his lips are brushing Patrick's ear. "I am now. I *was* dreaming that we were fishermen in a Scottish village."

Patrick smiles. "Fishermen?"

"Yeah. Or maybe somewhere in New England, or Nova Scotia--somewhere that has, like, a really bleak gray coastline. With no sunshine."

"How do you know Scotland is bleak and gray? Have you ever been?" Patrick twists around to look Pete in the eye.

"Their beaches are. Someday we'll tour Scotland, and I'll show you." Patrick snorts and Pete scowls, shakes him slightly. "Seriously! I will bet you, dude. A hundred bucks. And then when we tour the UK I will take you to the coastline and you'll see that it looks just like it did in my dream."

"I won't take that bet. You could just lie and say that it looked like your dream, and I wouldn't know."

"You don't trust me?" Pete actually sounds hurt, and Patrick's mind is still too fuzzy from sleep to tell if he's actually that sensitive right now, or if he's just play-acting.

Patrick turns all the way over so that he's facing Pete and props himself up on his elbow. "I trust you plenty. It's Scotland I find kind of sketchy."

That makes Pete grin, and his hand settles on Patrick's waist. "Yeah, man. Any country that eats sheep stomachs isn't to be trusted."

Patrick smiles and leans in, and the kiss is sleepy, lazy, warm and nice. He closes his eyes and Pete makes a soft noise into Patrick's mouth. Their teeth knock lightly together, and Patrick feels Pete's lips stretch into a smile.

Pete's hand shifts and clenches in the fabric of Patrick's t-shirt, rubbing over his hip, and Patrick wraps an arm around Pete's back, pulling him in. He's still sleepy, part of his mind not quite awake, and their legs seem tangled together of their own volition.

Pete's hand is moving on Patrick's hip in the same rhythm as his tongue in Patrick's mouth, and Patrick wants to write a song about this. Something with a fast, staccato chorus and slow, bass-heavy verses; something that begins and ends with soft piano chords. It wouldn't be a Fall Out Boy song, nothing pop-punk--it would be a Patrick Stump original, something only to be played at low volume at three am, when you're trying to grope someone as much as possible without waking up your bandmates.

When they come up for air, Patrick realizes that his hips are moving against Pete's. And Pete is moving back, grinding and rubbing against him, and oh, oh fuck. Patrick is hard and dangerously close and they've barely even touched each other.

"Whoa," says Pete, sounding surprised. He shifts, slightly, the movement sending electric sparks up Patrick's spine.

"Yeah," Patrick breathes, and pulls Pete in closer. He rolls his hips and oh--friction, yes, fuck. Patrick groans and leans in again, landing a sloppy wet kiss on Pete's mouth. He pulls Pete's thigh up, around his waist, and that's even better.

"Wait," Pete says, pulling back, sounding more awake than before. Patrick stiffens, and lets go of Pete's leg; Pete unwraps himself from around Patrick.

"What?" Patrick says, hoping against hope that he's reading the situation wrong and Pete doesn't *really* want to stop.

Pete bites down his lip, worrying the skin between his teeth before answering. Patrick holds his breath and doesn't move away.

"We should really go back to sleep," Pete says, finally, and Patrick wants to kick something--namely, Pete.

"I'm not tired," Patrick says, too loud--over on the bed, Joe makes a grunting sound and rolls over.

Pete and Patrick both freeze, turning to look at him, but Joe doesn't move again, and he's still snoring lightly.

"You see? We don't want to wake them up," Pete whispers, and that is just--Patrick tries to communicate all the seething fury in his body through his glare.

"You *jackass,*" he hisses, and rolls over away from Pete, pulling his pillow away to the edge of the couch-bed.

"What? Hey, Patrick, come on--" Pete puts a hand on Patrick's shoulder, tugging, but Patrick jerks away from him. He knows he's acting like a bitch, and he really doesn't care. He's *hard,* and he has too much pride to jerk himself off when his significant other--or whatever the hell Pete is--is actually in the bed with him.

"Fine, let's sleep," Patrick snaps, hunching himself further away. Pete's hand finally slips from his shoulder.

"Fine," Pete huffs, and Patrick feels the bed dip as Pete angrily turns over himself, on the far end of the bed. There's probably a foot of space between them.

Patrick listens to Pete's breathing for a long time, and Pete's still awake by the time Patrick himself drifts off to sleep.


***

"I have eaten every single dish on this menu," Pete announces, staring at the one-page, stained diner menu. Patrick can see the red lines in his eyes.

"This is the first time we've set foot in this place," Patrick points out. He gives the menu a passing glance; he knows he's going to get eggs over-easy and hash browns. You get the protein, and food that's pretty hard to entirely ruin, even by the most inadequate of cooks.

"Yeah, but it's not like this is any different from the last diner we ate at. I have literally tried every single thing on this menu, and I know that the french toast here will not be any different from the french toast at Aunt Fucking Clara's, or whatever the place we ate last was called. I know that it will come with a side of squishy fruit that they'll claim is honeydew." Pete flicks the menu away from him. "I don't want french toast, Patrick."

"So don't order french toast." The monotony of the road, of touring, is beginning to get to all of them, but things will get a whole lot worse for everyone else if Pete starts getting pissy. His moods have been getting worse lately, and Patrick knows he hasn't been sleeping because whenever they're crammed together at night in the van, *Patrick* can't sleep because Pete is up all night fidgeting, tossing and turning. Patrick is trying to think of ways to keep Pete entertained and happy before he makes all their lives miserable.

Touring has sapped any creativity he has, so pretty much all of Patrick's ideas come back to sex.

"I don't want pancakes, either. Or any kind of egg product. Or plasticized bacon." Pete gives him a plaintive look; Patrick has no idea what Pete expects him, Patrick Stump, to do about his breakfast situation.

"You could order off the dinner menu?" he suggests. "You know, for novelty."

"No way. I so don't trust this kind of place not to hopelessly ruin an actual entree." Pete shrugs, sullen. "Whatever, I'm not that hungry anyway."

Patrick considers how to say what he needs to say without sounding like Pete's mother. "You should eat *something.* It would suck if you fainted from hunger onstage," he says finally.

Pete grins, and his foot finds Patrick's under the table. "I'll faint in your arms. It'll be romantic and a great stage trick besides, and all the other bands will copy us."

"Uh-huh," Patrick says. He leans back to shift his legs forward, letting his foot slide in between Pete's. "Do you want to share my eggs?"

"Can I steal your hash browns?" Those would be Pete's flip-flopped toes sneaking up Patrick's pant leg, and--

And Patrick is sick of this, suddenly. Sick of Pete pulling this crap, footsie, cuddling, an arm around Patrick's shoulders or waist or whatever. Patrick knows that Pete doesn't actually want to touch him, so what's the fucking point?

He pulls his feet away, carefully. "You can order your own hash browns, I want mine."

Pete tilts his head, gives Patrick one of those Looks. "I don't want a whole order," he says, voice quiet, and trust Pete Wentz to turn ordering breakfast into a god damn ordeal.

Patrick leans in, close. "Pete. Decide what you want for breakfast so we can order and get out of here. Please?"

Pete leans in, too, and kisses Patrick on the mouth, quick as anything. They get a few looks for that, because this is *Colorado.* "Whatever you say, Lunchbox."

Patrick kicks him under the table for that. "Asshole."

Patrick sees their waitress approaching the table out of the corner of his eye and leans back.

"Ready to order...?" She sounds hesitant, and Patrick isn't sure whether it's because she saw them kiss, or because Pete isn't looking at her at all, his gaze fixed on Patrick.

Patrick's somewhat used to this by now, the way Pete switches gears from playful regular boy to the kind of intensity that comes out in his lyrics; he manages not to blush under Pete's stare as he orders his fried eggs and hash browns.

"I'll have what he's having," Pete says, dismissive, still not looking away. After all that whining, christ.

Patrick makes a face at him. "I thought you didn't want eggs."

Pete shrugs. "I changed my mind." He glances away from Patrick and then looks back at him, licking his lips, and this time Patrick can feel himself flushing, cheeks prickling with heat, and he knows Pete does this on purpose. He bites his lip, and Pete--something in his expression changes, just slightly, and Patrick wonders wildly if he could just grab Pete up out of the diner booth and drag him into the bathroom before their order arrives, if they could just do it, do something if he took Pete by surprise.

It's been five months since they first hooked up, five months of lips and hands and hints of skin and nothing else, and Patrick can't look at Pete without wanting him. He wonders if Pete gets off on that.

***

This time it's not that they don't have money for a hotel, it's just that there's not enough time between shows to book one. Andy's driving, and he pulls over to the side of the highway at around four am so that they can all sleep for a few hours before going the rest of the way to Philadelphia.

Patrick had been asleep for most of the drive, and he jerks awake momentarily when the engine cuts off, but drifts back to sleep easily enough. But he's woken once more when Pete (sleeping beside him, they're sharing the backseat again) gets up, accidentally elbowing Patrick in the stomach.

He doesn't seem to notice that Patrick's not sleeping anymore; he's clambering out of the van, quietly shutting the door behind him. Patrick stretches out, tries to take advantage of the extra space Pete left behind and fall back asleep, but no such luck. After a while he follows Pete out of the van, moving as quietly as he can so as to not wake Andy and Joe.

Pete is staring up at the stars when Patrick gets out of the van, and he glances over, surprised at the sound of the van door closing, before looking back up at the sky. It's the middle of winter and he's only wearing a t-shirt and jeans; Patrick isn't much better in his denim jacket. He shivers, rubbing his arms.

"Hi," Patrick says quietly. "Do you mind company, or...?"

Pete looks at him again, smiles and holds out his hand for Patrick to hold. "Come on, I always want your company."

And Patrick knows that's not true, that sometimes Pete can't stand being around *anyone,* not even Patrick (especially not Patrick), but he appreciates the sentiment. He takes Pete's hand, stepping closer.

"There's so much light pollution out here," Pete says. "Do you remember the way the sky looked above fucking South Dakota? You could see every star in the galaxy."

Patrick follows Pete's gaze up. "Yeah, but the downside of that is you have to be in fucking South Dakota to see them all."

Pete snorts and squeezes Patrick's hand. Patrick squeezes back. He feels like a gigantic girl, holding hands and looking up at the *stars,* for christ's sake. But it's nice like this, quiet, and besides, sometimes with Pete Wentz you just have to go along with things that make you feel like a gigantic girl.

"Did you ever think about how it comes across that you think sex could possibly ruin this?" And, huh. Patrick really didn't mean to say that right now. He wonders why it came out of his mouth.

Pete looks down from the light-polluted stars and blinks at Patrick, frowning slightly. "Um? I... don't know, Patrick. I'm operating on like two hours of sleep in two days, here. Explain?"

Patrick stamps his feet on the frosted ground. Damn, he's cold. "I'm your best friend, okay? And I always will be, whether or not we happen to be making out at the time. We just click together, you know that. So I just--" Patrick looks back up at the sky, away from Pete. "I don't understand how you could possibly think that anything, sex or other people or *anything,* could fuck this up. I find it a little insulting, actually."

Pete's grip on his hand gets tighter. "I don't..." his voice trails off, which wasn't quite what Patrick was hoping for. A quick emphatic 'No!', maybe, Pete shaking his head in horror and ensuring Patrick that no, he doesn't think anything could possibly come between them, and he'll sleep with Patrick to prove it.

"I hadn't thought of it like that," Pete says, finally. Patrick waits for more, but Pete just looks at him, his expression inscrutable.

"Pete, honestly, what do you think is going to happen? That we're going to have sex and it will be awful and I'll hate you forever? That we'll have sex and this will change to a meaningless physical thing where we're only capable of fucking like rabbits and nothing else? What? Seriously," he says when Pete snickers at Patrick's last question, "Throw me a bone here, because I have no idea what you're thinking."

"Maybe I'm not thinking," Pete says, shrugging. "Maybe I'm just trying to go with my gut and what feels right."

Patrick smiles, and it doesn't feel like a nice smile. "See--you've forgotten that I know you better than anyone, and that you can't actually bullshit me that easily."

"It's not bullshit," Pete says, actually sounding earnest. "Patrick, really, look at me." Pete lets go of Patrick's hand to drape his arms over Patrick's shoulders, leaning forward to bump Patrick's forehead with his own. "This whole thing of having a relationship that's not insanely destructive and bound to blow up in my face is pretty new to me, okay? And so yeah, maybe I'm being a pussy, but I just--I can't--"

He's beginning to really sound agitated, and that wasn't really Patrick's intention. "Hey, hey. I don't really think you're being a pussy." He nips at Pete's lips and settles his hands on Pete's waist, stroking his hip through the thin cotton of his t-shirt. "It's just--okay, think of it like. Like writing songs together, right? When you just have to trust me."

"No, I don't. I yell at you and you yell back until we're exhausted and we just end up compromising," Pete says, and he kind of has a point.

"Okay, well then it's nothing like songwriting," Patrick says, laughing. "It's its own thing." He pushes his hands up underneath Pete's t-shirt, running his fingers over skin and Pete's ink. Pete letting him touch him like this is still rare enough that this feels special, warm. Patrick waits for Pete to pull away, but he stays still and lets Patrick pet him.

"Heh." Pete moves until his face is brushing Patrick's neck, his cheek. "It is, I guess."

They stay like that for a moment, and Pete's body heat helps but Patrick is still getting chilly. He's about to suggest they go back in the van when Pete says, "Hey, so, I have a question."

"Mm? Don't tell me I have to explain the birds and the bees to you."

Pete snorts. "Dick. No, I just... I was wondering. Would you freak out if I told you I loved you?"

Patrick can't see Pete's face; his head is resting on Patrick's shoulders, looking out away from him. "No, I wouldn't. Um. Do you?"

"Yeah. For a while now, man."

Patrick takes a breath and squeezes Pete a little. "Yeah, same. I mean--for me, loving you, not--not myself. Obviously. Um."

Pete laughs. "Yeah, I figured, dumbass."

***

This is the best night of my life, Patrick thinks as Pete screams into the microphone with him, his sweat smearing on Patrick's ear, his lips brushing Patrick's cheek. It is, for all intents and purposes, a kiss. With the added bonus of screaming.

They're in Chicago, fucking *finally* home, and the crowd is--Patrick can't even believe it. He heard that this show sold out just a few days after tickets went on sale, and he can recognize kids in the crowd that came to their Chicago show last *year,* and there were more kids waiting to get in to the club when he last checked, and it's just--it's fucking unbelievable. They're all screaming, ecstatic, a few people look like they're crying and Patrick can hear himself, knows how good he and Pete sound together, and how is this his life? He's singing Pete's words with Pete beside him, with Joe going fucking insane with a guitar out of the corner of his eye, with the crashing waves of Andy's drums pulsing through him, and--

"Two more weeks, my foot is in the door," he sings into the mic, into Pete, and waits for it all to feel real.

Patrick knows the rest of the band is feeling it, because this is Chicago, it's who they *are,* and they play way past when the show is supposed to end and stumble off the stage, giddy and exhausted and high. Pete has Patrick in a sort of headlock, and Joe is hugging him around the waist, and Pete's other arm is around Andy, and they're stumbling around like some hideous eight-legged smelly sweaty beast.

"We are golden gods!" Pete yells and someone yells something about golden showers and they all crack up. Patrick can hear Joe giggling like a twelve-year-old girl.

Dirty joins them and Joe and Andy peel away--Pete's arm is still locked firmly around Patrick's neck, and Patrick is pretty sure that when your face is smushed against someone's sweaty armpit and you don't want to run screaming, that's love at its finest.

"In the wake of Saturday," Pete is whispering in Patrick's ear, or something like that, something Patrick was singing just minutes ago, as they stumble into the dressing room (which is, for all intents and purposes, a closet). Patrick can hear people laughing behind him but that already feels far away, separate, because Pete's hands are all over him and he just moans into it when Patrick kisses him hard, pushing him up against the wall.

Pete's lips twist against Patrick's teeth and his back arches, pushing his body flush against Patrick's. Patrick's blood is still buzzing from the show, that *fucking* Chicago *show,* and Pete is doing a really fantastic job of shoving his tongue as far as he can into Patrick's open mouth. And Patrick's hands are scrabbling, touching Pete all over, and Pete is just as grabby and all Patrick can think is yes, yes, now and then he's on his knees.

He vaguely registers sudden pain, concrete on his kneecaps, but mostly he's just aware of running shaking hands up over Pete's thighs, of his voice: "Please, Pete, oh god, please let me, I want to--"

And when he looks up Pete looks shaky, tense, not at all Pete-like, and his hands are clenched and held at his sides like he's not sure if he wants to reach out and touch Patrick or not. Patrick is mentally bracing himself to stop touching Pete's thighs, to move away (it would be the hardest thing he's ever done), when Pete licks his lips, swallows visibly and says "Yeah, yeah, okay."

Patrick has never done anything in his life as quickly as he unbuckles Pete's belt, undoes his fly and pulls his cock out of the flap in his boxers. And--he's thought about this so many times, what exactly he would do, where he would lick first and how he'd rub the head against his lips or reach down to roll Pete's balls between his fingers, but the reality of the situation is that Patrick just needs it in his mouth.

Needs to taste Pete right now, the head of his cock heavy on Patrick's tongue and he can't stand how much Pete is giving him. Can't stand the heft of his dick in Patrick's hand, can't stand the feel of his dick nudging the roof of his mouth *so* much that he has to take it in more, has to go down until he chokes and then come back up. His eyes are squeezed shut because if he opened them, if he actually *saw* Pete along with tasting him, hearing him (gurgling sounds, whimpering, Patrick's never heard Pete's voice like this) he's pretty certain he'd faint from sensory overload.

He drags his lips up the shaft, a sloppy sideways kiss, and he can feel the head dragging over his cheek, trailing pre-come, and he wants--he swallows him down again, because he wants to taste *that,* bittersalty on his tongue and then in the back of his throat. Patrick isn't particularly good at this, he's not a porn star, but he can get most of it down and he can suck hard, his fingers clenching in the material of Pete's jeans. Pete's hips are jerking, shoving his dick further down Patrick's throat and Patrick gags a little but doesn't let himself come up for air.

He has to *feel* this, immerse himself in it. He wants to memorize the texture of the large veins on the underside of Pete's dick against his bottom lip, the soft slide of the cockhead and the slit, the girth stretching his lips. He's drooling around it and his throat is beginning to feel raw and he doesn't want this to *end.*

Pete makes a guttural sound, low and harsh, and then his hips are pumping forward and he's coming, spurting down Patrick's throat and Patrick completely chokes. Sputters, comes for air, and gets half of it on his cheek and lips. He blinks; his head and heart are pounding and his mouth feels tingly, far too empty.

Patrick sits back on his heels, letting his palms slide down off of Pete's thighs (wait, is he shaking?). He looks up, meets Pete's wild open eyes for one second--

Pete is yanking his pants back up, zipping his fly with jittery fingers and Patrick frowns, confused, and then Pete almost knocks Patrick over in his rush, moving fast and jerky and walking out, letting the dressing room door slam behind him.

Patrick scrambles to his feet, opening his mouth to say--something, fuck, who knows--but Pete is already gone, and when Patrick opens the door the corridor is empty except for random techies, guys from other bands, a few concert-goers.

And he still has Pete's come on his cheek. Patrick ducks back inside the dressing room, hastily wiping his mouth and his face. Something in his gut is twisting horribly, and he's mad, he's fucking pissed off, and he pretty much has to cling to that to avoid feeling anything else. To avoid thinking things like so I guess I was wrong when I said that nothing could ever fuck us up.

He makes himself lean against the door and close his eyes, focus on his breathing for a few long seconds, tries to--okay, no, he can't be *rational* about this but he can avoid curling up into a miserable ball. He holds on to the anger, focuses on that instead of the miserable sinking sensation all over his body. Fury is better than wondering just what about him is so grotesque that Pete can't even look at him after a blowjob.

When he gets himself more together he goes in search of Pete, and it only takes him a few minutes to find him--Pete is fairly predictable in his tantrums. He's leaning against the fence behind the building next door, his elbows resting against the fence and his head in his arms like a fucking stereotypical emo portrait. Patrick's pace quickens as he gets closer, rage buzzing between his ears.

"What the fucking fuck?" Patrick snarls, lets himself be as loud as he wants because there's no one around--and anyway, Pete would probably love it if they made a scene, became screaming drama queens in public. He could write lyrics about it for Patrick to sing and the crowd would fucking go wild.

Pete looks up, and the look on his face--is really not a Pete Wentz look. Wide shocky eyes and a half-formed grimace and it makes something in Patrick stop and hesitate, but the rest of him barrels on.

"Is that the way you treated all the women that have left you? Because, you know, the endings to those relationships make more sense to me now in retrospect." The words feel sharp and good coming out of his mouth, vindicated and ugly.

Pete flinches back at that. He opens his mouth, but doesn't say anything, and it just makes Patrick *angrier,* because how dare Pete act the fucking victim?

"If you didn't want me you could've said no, that's why I fucking *asked* you--" Patrick is moving closer, gesticulating wildly, and Pete seems to retreat into himself.

"I--" it comes out quiet and Pete coughs, clears his throat. "I *did* want you--"

"No, just fuck off with that," Patrick says fiercely. "You are going to be *honest* with me, okay? Tell me what the hell is actually going *on* in your brain, because the impression I got from the blowjob I just gave you was not that you wanted me."

Pete freezes for a moment, and then his face twists into an ugly sneer. "Well, I tried, you know? Because you seemed to want it so much, but I guess when push comes to shove, you're just not--"

"Go to *hell.*"

Pete snorts and holds up his hands in a 'dude, chill' gesture. "Geez, sorry. I'm just not that fucking in to you, you know? It was like fucking my sister. Kind of repulsive, really."

That hurts, just the way Pete intended it to. Patrick grits his teeth. "Uh-huh. Tell me the fucking truth, Pete."

Pete opens his mouth, then shuts it. "I--need to go," he says in a rush, moving and shouldering past Patrick with his head down.

Patrick grabs his arm, yanking him back. "You're staying right *here,* motherfucker."

"Get off me," Pete snarls, twisting his arm hard out of Patrick's hand and shoving him away. "Just--fuck *off*--"

"No!" Patrick grabs Pete's t-shirt and almost gets Pete's fist in his face. They struggle for a while until Patrick gets the upper hand, using Pete's flailing momentum to shove him up against the fence. "Tell me. Tell me what the hell is *up* with you, and the *truth* this time, or I swear to fucking god--" he cuts himself off and glares.

Pete pants and stares at Patrick; his eyes are wide enough that Patrick can see the whites around his pupils. He swallows and slumps, sliding a little down the fence.

"Okay. Okay, I--I." He presses the heels of his palms against his eyes. "Okay. I've never--done that. Before."

Patrick snorts. "Yeah, I know we've never had sex before. I hadn't managed to *miss* that little fact--"

"No, I mean." Pete moves his hands, meets Patrick's eyes. "No one's ever done that to me, ever."

"You--" Patrick frowns. "No one's given you a blowjob before?"

"No one's given me *anything* before," and whoa, Pete's voice is actually tinged with hysteria. His hands are clutching at the fence, his knuckles white.

It takes a moment for Patrick to get it, and then he shakes his head in disbelief. "No way. No fucking way, I've *seen* you have one-night-stands with people--"

"I never slept with any of them, ever." Pete is staring into the space to the left of Patrick's head, no discernible expression on his face. "Any time that I've talked about having sex with anyone has been a lie. I lied to you about why I didn't want us to fuck. I lied about ever wanting us to fuck, period."

"Pete, you." Patrick doesn't know where he was going with that sentence. He doesn't know what to say. Pete isn't *looking* at him. "--never? Seriously, never anything with anyone?"

He probably shouldn't have said *that.* Pete still doesn't look at him, but his mouth twists into an angry line. "No. That's what I just said."

"Okay." Patrick makes himself close his mouth, tries to--fucking process this. "And you--just did. With me."

He can see Pete's chest rise and fall with the breath he takes. "Yes." And Pete not being verbose is not a good sign. At all.

"Okay." Patrick is aware he's sounding like a shell-shocked moron. "Okay, why? Why me tonight, why no sex ever, why *lie* about it? I don't understand, Pete, I--" He moves closer and stops when Pete lets go of the fence and crosses his arms over his chest. Now he's staring at the ground.

"I can't--you wouldn't understand. I just. I don't have sex, ever. Or I haven't, I guess. Tonight was--" Pete looks up at him, grimacing, looking sick. "I lost control, I didn't think, I--no one could look at you, like that, and *not* want to, it--it was a mistake."

Patrick feels his stomach drop. "God, Pete, I--you should've told me. I wouldn't have pushed, I wouldn't have--fuck, I'm such an asshole."

"Makes two of us." Pete's jaw works, and he doesn't look away, holds Patrick's gaze, and oh, god, Patrick can't believe he let this happen.

"I'm sorry," Patrick says helplessly, because he has no idea what else he *can* say. He moves forward to touch Pete before he thinks it through, just his hand on Pete's shoulder, and for a few seconds Pete tenses like he's going to punch him--Patrick kind of wishes he would--but he doesn't pull away. "Can we--talk about this, maybe?"

"Maybe." Pete is back to staring at that space to the left of Patrick's head. "But you--I need to--I'm going to go. For a while."

Patrick lets his hand drop. "Okay." He wants to say something else, fucking--anything. Something to make this right.

Pete pushes away from the fence and walks away, and Patrick still can't think of anything more to say so he stays silent, lets Pete go, leans his forehead against the fence and feels the cold metal digging into the skin above his eyebrows. His lips are still sore, and he can still taste Pete at the back of his throat.

***

Patrick doesn't see Pete for a couple of days--they have kind of a mini-vacation in Chicago, a few days break which most of their crew is using to shower and sleep excessively, taking advantage of luxuries they don't get on the road. Pete sleeps upstairs in his room and Patrick, Joe and Andy sleep in the basement, and Pete is always already gone by the time Patrick wakes up and goes up, and then Mrs. Wentz usually traps him and feeds him pancakes before he can go out looking for Pete. She keeps giving Patrick these satisfied smiles that remind him of the parents of the girl he took to Junior Prom: 'You're a fine young man, and I know exactly what you're doing with my progeny, but I'm okay with it because I think you're good for them.' It makes Patrick feel kind of like the scum of the earth.

Patrick has lived in or around Chicago for pretty much all of his life, and most of that was without Pete, so he doesn't know why the city suddenly feels strange without Pete there. He feels alienated walking down the sidewalk, getting coffee from the Dunken' Donuts that he and Pete used to go to together, running out to recaffeinate the band in the middle of garage rehearsals.

He realizes, uncomfortably, that he's thinking of Pete like he's dead. Which is stupid--Pete isn't dead, they're not even broken up (he hopes). It's just that he's spent most of his waking and sleeping hours with Pete in the past few months: singing with Pete, sleeping beside Pete, kissing Pete, eating with Pete, sprawling next to Pete in the van. Two days without his presence feels like going cold turkey off of drugs Patrick was always too sensible to try in the first place.

When he gets back to the Wentz household in the evening, Pete still isn't home. Joe, Andy, and Dirty are playing video games in the basement, their arguing voices carrying up the stairs; Mrs. Wentz is knitting and watching TV. On an impulse Patrick goes upstairs to Pete's room, opens the door and lies down on his bed, staring up at the ceiling.

He has no idea whether or not Pete would be pissed at him for going into his room while he's not there, for seeing parts of his life he doesn't usually show the band. Patrick has seen his room before, of course, but that's not the same as lying here on the bed Pete has slept in since he was a boy and just--waiting.

It's not something Patrick would usually do, but then, he also doesn't usually force himself on reluctant virgins and then scream at them afterwards. Pete brings out a different side of him.

Pete gets home late, like *seriously* late, after Patrick has dozed off, still in his clothes and jacket. He starts awake when Pete's door creaks open, sitting up quickly and rubbing at his eyes.

"What time is it?" His voice sounds stupid and slow, it's a stupid and slow question, but Patrick can't think of anything else to say, can't think of how to explain his presence in Pete's bedroom.

"Four-thirty." Pete looks exhausted, dark half-circles carved under his eyes. Patrick wonders if he's slept at all in the past two days. "I thought you were sleeping downstairs."

"I, um--yeah. I was. Am." Patrick makes himself take a breath. "I just needed to talk to you."

"And it can't wait until morning? Like, actual morning, not just the AM hours." Pete shrugs off his jacket and closes his door, not really looking at Patrick.

"I thought I could talk to you any time. I mean, we are best friends, right?" It's weak and manipulative, and Pete snorts softly. He sits on the ground, back leaning against the door, instead of on the bed next to Patrick.

"Sure we are. So what's up?"

Patrick hesitates. He hadn't, actually, thought about exactly what he was going to say to Pete, even though he's been sitting here for hours. He drums his fingers on the bedspread. "What happened the other night was fucked up," he says finally. And this is why Pete writes their lyrics, does the talking--Patrick and words, they just don't have a good relationship.

Even though Pete doesn't move a fraction of an inch, Patrick can tell how tense his body gets, even from across the room. "Okay," he says, and Patrick can't read his voice at all.

Patrick chews on his lip. "I'm sorry for pushing so hard. It was just, you know, that show, we were so pumped up, and you were all--" Patrick stops, starts over. "I just wanted to get closer to-"

Pete stands up abruptly, flicks on the light. "I'm not going to talk about this right now."

Patrick frowns and stands up as well. "Pete, it doesn't have to be a huge deal, okay? I mean, plenty of people are inexperienced--"

"It's *not*--" Pete cuts himself off and paces the room, hands locked behind his back. "I really don't want to talk about it."

"I really think we should." Patrick tries to sound calm, reasonable, tries to balance out Pete's frenetic movement and strained voice. "It was a bad idea to try to go there the other night, I shouldn't have tried, we can keep waiting--I just want to know if you're *okay.*"

"You don't *get it.* It's not about being okay, it's not about *waiting,* it's--this is who I am, Patrick, do you get that? I'm a short neurotic 25-year-old virgin and I--that's not going to *change.*" When Pete finally stills, turns to look at him, his face is stony and defiant. "There's no waiting. I can't do this with you, ever."

Patrick stares. Ever. It's such a final-sounding, melodramatic word. He doesn't believe it for a second. "Yeah, *right.* Jesus, Pete, what the fuck? That is--you're not even one of those abstinent-till-marriage types? You can't just be completely against sex, *period.*"

"Why the hell not? Sex is just a different kind of drug, it clouds your judgment, fucks things up, gets in the way of everything else. It's a needless complication--"

"Don't you fucking dare," Patrick hisses, furious. "Don't you try and treat me like someone who met you fucking yesterday, who you can just--distract with this *bull.* I *saw* you yesterday! I saw the way you reacted, how freaked you were, and that didn't have *anything* to do with your principles, with any kind of nice-sounding straightedge *ethics.*"

Pete turns away as Patrick talks, reaches for the doorknob to get out, but Patrick slams his hand against the door, making them both jump a little at the sound. Pete retreats into himself instead of running, crossing his arms over his chest and ducking his head, sidling away from Patrick.

Patrick breathes out through his nose, makes himself calm down a little. "Whatever made you freak out the other night, after we--after the concert. It worries me, okay? You weren't yourself, you..." Patrick sighs and leans his forehead against the door. They've switched places: Pete is sitting hunched on the bed now, and Patrick is in the doorway. He slides to sit on the floor. "There was something going on there. Something really bad made you react that way. I just want you to talk to me about it."

"What's to say?" When Pete looks up, catches Patrick's eye, he doesn't look defiant anymore, doesn't look like he's trying to feed Patrick a line. "Sex isn't something I can--do. Maybe I'm fucked up about it, maybe..." He shakes his head and smiles, a nasty bitter smile. "You should really be running as fast as you can in the opposite direction, you know. I mean, now that you know I'm never going to put out, what's the point, right?"

"Dude, don't." Patrick can tell when Pete is being nasty just to try and get a rise out of him, and he can't muster any anger right now, just frustration. He thinks about getting up and sitting next to Pete on the bed, tugging him until they're lying down together. He wants to be touching Pete right now, which--is that irony? Or just funny in a really stupid way?

"So you've been lying to me for a while, haven't you?" Patrick says, finally. "Giving me these bullshit reasons for why you wanted to wait, why we couldn't do it yet, but. There's no 'yet,' you were never waiting in the first place, you've just been stringing me along for the past few months." Patrick almost says 'leading me on,' but it sounds--he doesn't want to be that asshole character in some teen movie, yelling at his girlfriend for not fucking him. This isn't--it's different.

"This is the only thing I lied about. And I didn't mean--" Pete scrubs a hand through his hair, lets his hand stay covering his face for a second. "I meant to tell you. Eventually. There was just never a good time."

"Um, yeah, any of those times I tried to grope you and you pushed me away and I thought you found me as attractive as a slug? Those would have been good times."

"I know, okay? I should've--" Pete gives him a helpless look, and Patrick feels bad for the sarcasm. He just--he really has no idea how to handle this, handle Pete.

"I've never had a relationship without sex," Patrick says honestly. "I don't really know if I could."

Pete stares at him, his face crumpling a little, and Patrick stares back. He gets up and crosses the room, sits on Pete's bed beside him, and Pete doesn't flinch. Good sign, right?

When he touches Pete's knee--cautiously, platonically--Pete doesn't even react. Patrick rubs a thumb over the denim texture, the threads of a small hole in the fabric over Pete's kneecap. The sound of Pete's breathing is loud in the quiet room, and when Patrick wriggles his index finger inside the hole in his jeans, his finger touching skin, Pete's breath catches.

"It's just a bad idea," Pete says, practically whispers. "Anything with me, but especially physically, it's--" Pete rests his head on Patrick's shoulder, the movement a surprise, and Patrick makes himself relax. "It's better to just. Say no to all of it, you know? Keep things absolute. One way or the other. Nothing in between."

"But that's--Pete, that's so. It's limiting, it's *stupid--*"

"It's just the way it is, okay?" Pete moves his head away, meeting Patrick's eyes, scowling. "It's how it has to be, with me. And if you--" He cuts himself off, his nostrils flaring.

Patrick's fingers clench in the bedspread. "If I what? What do you think I'm going to *do?*"

Pete looks away. "I'm just saying. This is who I am, I'm not going to *change,* and if you can't accept that then we shouldn't be trying to make this work."

"Hey, hey! Let's not go assuming things," Patrick says hastily. "All I said was that I *haven't* been in a relationship without sex before, not that I could never be in one."

Pete gives him a skeptical glance. "And you *want* to be in one?"

"I just want you. Give me some credit here, okay?" When he leans forward, Pete doesn't move away, but he also doesn't turn to meet Patrick's mouth. Patrick ends up kissing his temple, and Pete sighs.

"Okay." Patrick waits, but Pete doesn't say anything else. He does turn his head, nuzzling against Patrick's cheek. Patrick doesn't move, doesn't think about a sex-less future (not that he's gotten laid at all since starting this whole thing, so it won't be that different), doesn't think about being on his knees with Pete's cock in his mouth, doesn't do anything but wrap an arm carefully around Pete's shoulders.

They sit like that for a few moments, and Patrick feels his body start to get drowsy again. Then,

"I should sleep," Pete says eventually. "We do have to hit the road again tomorrow."

"Right, yeah." Patrick takes his arm back and stands up; he knows they're definitely not going to sleep in the same bed tonight.

But Pete looks up at him, opens his mouth to speak, like he wants to ask Patrick to stay, lie down with him. No words come out.

"What?" Patrick says, and Pete shakes his head.

"Nothing. I'll see you in the morning." Pete lies down on his back, staring up at the ceiling, in the same spot Patrick fell asleep in hours earlier.

"Yeah. 'Night." Patrick walks away, closing the door behind him.

***

Back on the road and at first, it doesn't feel like that much has changed. There's still the seeming endlessness of the tour, the van break-downs, the lack of sleep and lack of space and lack of sex. He and Pete don't get very much time together; holding hands in the back of the van, quick and nervous making out before shows, falling asleep together sometimes. It's easy enough to dive back into work, concentrate on his voice and their melodies and Garage Band, listen to Pete outline his new merch strategy. He jerks off in bathrooms, quick and efficient, and tries not to think about Pete too much when he's doing it--it just makes the reality of the situation more frustrating.

Patrick still can't really wrap his head around Pete's conviction against sex, and he doubts Pete wants to explain it to him. He just doesn't *get* it. Sex isn't everything, and the relationships Patrick has had where it *has* been everything were pretty boring, but it's fun. It's usually intense and good and sometimes pretty hilarious, and Patrick knows he's gotten fairly good at it since Laurie Fullman first climbed on top of him when he was thirteen. It's a logical conclusion when he likes someone and they like him too, and sure, he's had sex that wasn't good for him or for his partner, and he has occasionally wanted to swear the whole messy activity off altogether. But that never lasts; he always finds someone whom he wants to get off with sooner or later.

The idea of not wanting to fuck someone ever, of going your whole life without it and just never *wanting* to... it's pretty alien to him. Why would you *want* to?

He asks Pete about it sometimes, out of curiosity. "So is it, like--are you never horny? Are you just... not sexually attracted to people?"

Pete gives him a sideways glance before looking back at the road. He's driving, and Andy, Joe and Chris are asleep in the back; Chris is snoring, Andy has his headphones in, and Patrick knows that you can blast Metallica at full volume and not wake Joe up most of the time. It's safe to talk.

"No, I get horny," Pete says. "My sex drive is normal; I just don't have any real desire to do anything with other people."

Other people meaning me, specifically, Patrick thinks. "So you just--jerk off. And that's enough for you?"

Pete shrugs. "Yeah, it has been. I mean--it is, I..." Pete scratches the back of his neck, frowning.

"I've never needed more than my right hand badly enough to *really* want to involve another person," he says finally, shrugging.

Patrick nods. He's not going to press the point, not going to start any 'Not even me?' bullshit; he agreed to this, and he's not going to be a jackass and pressure Pete at every opportunity. He's just--he wants to know why, how, when this started with Pete, everything. He wants to understand.

"Okay, I get that. So why fake it? I mean, I've seen you go off with girls *and* guys after shows. Plenty of times." Patrick leans back and puts his feet up on the dashboard, stretching his legs out as much as possible. He's been sitting here for the last five hours; the three hours before that, he'd been in the back. There's no time to stop at rest stops and get some fresh air, considering that they're on their way to a show in Denver, and they're running late.

"And who says that has to be about sex?" Pete says, defensive, and Patrick rolls his eyes.

"Come on, who has a one-night-stand with someone and just to *make out?*" Patrick says, and Pete glowers at him. "Uh. Aside from you, I guess."

"It's not just making out," Pete says. "Usually I end up getting into, like, conversations and stuff with those girls. And sometimes the guys. Or we just, you know, sleep together or something."

"Seriously?" Patrick says, and tries to keep as much skepticism out of his voice as possible.

Pete shrugs and looks out the window. "Usually they just think it's romantic," he mutters.

And Patrick wants to scoff, but actually, he can kind of see that happening. He can see how some scene girl could go off on the arm of Pete Wentz, expecting to bang a rock star, and get caught up in Pete's philosophies and poetry, all those things that sound so deep and meaningful when you're hearing them at two in the morning next to someone you've been kissing. He can see how the right kind of slightly naive, starstruck person (and Patrick has never seen Pete try to hook up with anyone who wasn't starstruck and slightly naive) could get so wrapped up in Pete's ideas that they don't even realize that they missed out on the actual sex part of a one-night-stand until the next morning.

Still, it seems like there's only so many times Pete could pull that off. "So it's like, what. Erotic conversation? Those people never get pissed that you're leading them on?"

"I'm not leading them on," Pete snaps.

"I've *seen* the way you flirt with those people at parties before you go off with them," Patrick says. "Dude, come on."

"That's not--whatever." Pete looks out the window instead of at Patrick. "I've never tried to lead anyone on, I just--you know, I can't fucking help it if other people have expectations, or, or if they want me to deliver something I can't, or if they want me more than I want them. It's all just--" Pete waves a hand, frustrated and jerky, and Patrick is glad that they're driving on a country highway in the middle of the night with not another car in sight. He trusts Pete's driving, but.

"But you set yourself up for that expectation, Jesus Pete, you're like a walking sex symbol! Even with me, you let me believe you wanted it, that we were going to fuck eventually, you never stopped touching me--" And dammit, he'd meant for this conversation to stay objective, level-headed, to keep *them* out of it, but he can't help making it personal, not with Pete.

"I don't mean it that way, I don't do it on purpose!" Pete is almost shouting, and in the back, Chris's snoring skips a little. They both glance back, tense, before Chris's breathing evens out again. He's still asleep.

Patrick sighs. "If you don't want to talk about this now--"

"I don't." Pete's fingers clench on the steering wheel and he stares straight ahead, out at the flat horizon and endless stretch of road.

"Okay," Patrick mutters, slumping further down, trying to shift his weight onto a part of his ass that isn't completely numb. It's only a few hours until they get to Denver, hopefully, and he's more excited about being able to stand in open air than he is about playing the show.

They lapse into silence. Pete radiates sullen tension, his shoulders hunched, and Patrick stares out the window as they pass a mile marker, the numbers blurring past.

***

The problem is, hope springs eternal. Patrick respects Pete's virginity thing, even if he doesn't get it at all, but he can't help but think, hope, maybe--someday--

Maybe if he just gives Pete time, gives him space, gives him everything, maybe maybe. It's not even the lack of sex that's important at this point--of *course* the lack of sex is important, is getting to him, it's just that seeing Pete hold so much back from him is worse.

When Patrick first met Pete, he was convinced that Pete was an enigma, a mystery, beautiful and complex and someone Patrick would never truly know. Two weeks later and Patrick was convinced that Pete was the most two-dimensional guy he'd ever met and that you could figure out everything there was to know about him from a few conversations if you were paying attention.

And now--it's not that Pete's mysterious, it's not that Patrick doesn't know him as well as anyone possibly can. But he managed to keep a pretty giant *fucking* secret about himself for years, even while sharing a tiny van with three other guys, and Patrick knows it's just part of Pete purposefully distancing himself.

Patrick wants to worm his way inside him, under his skin, closer to his heart. He wants to know if there's any way Pete will let him.

So he can't help hoping. They're behind a venue and it's four in the morning, long after the show has ended, long after their crew has departed to sleep or participate in debauchery, long after the crowd has gone home. Patrick's back is against a grimy brick wall and Pete's tongue is slipping between his lips, lazily tracing the roof of his mouth, and Pete's hands are on his waist.

It intensifies quickly, and Patrick can't quite keep up; all he knows is that he's suddenly turned on and gasping for air, Pete's thigh pressing against his crotch and Pete's hands sliding up under his shirt, over his skin.

"What?" Patrick gasps out, and when Pete leans back his eyes are dark, his pupils dilated. "Pete. What are you doing?"

"I." Pete's hands drop, he moves back, and Patrick's whole body is tingling, wanting more. "Sorry."

"Don't apologize," Patrick hastens to say. "Did you--um. Do you... want to go farther? I just, I didn't want you to get caught up in something if you didn't want--"

"No," Pete says quickly. "That was a mistake, sorry." He's several feet back now, hands shoved in his pockets. "We should get back to the hotel."

Patrick bites his lip, wills his erection to calm down. "Okay. If you say so."

Pete gives him a tight smile and turns, walks away, and Patrick follows.

Patrick can understand getting caught up in a makeout session, going farther than you meant to. It's not like Pete is teasing him on purpose. But every time it happens, Pete's hand under his shirt, Pete pushing a little too far, Pete indicating with every kiss every touch every moan every *growl* that he wants to take it farther--

Patrick ends up spending a lot of time going on circular walks around the hotel or the van, wherever they're staying, headphones blasting Bowie as he tries to calm himself down. It's not fucking fair, and that's childish to think but it's *true.*

"What the fuck?" Patrick finally explodes, after Pete palms his cock through his pants in the middle of a makeout session. "Is this your passive-agressive way of saying that you changed your mind and want to get down and dirty, or--or what the fuck *is* this, Pete?"

Pete moves off of his lap, avoiding Patrick's eyes. "Sorry, sorry, I was just--I didn't mean it that way, I'm still, you know, I'm still firm on the no sex thing."

"Then why the hell--do you just keep getting carried away? What's the deal?"

"Yeah," Pete says, and looks up, his expression blank. "And you're--you haven't taken advantage, at all. Haven't tried."

Patrick stares for a moment. Then yells, "Are you fucking testing me?!"

Pete flinches back, eyes wide. "No! I--no, it's not that. Um."

"Then what? What is it? Do you just like watching me sweat, watching me--" Patrick cuts himself off, turns away and stares at a section of wall next to Pete's head.

"I'm sorry. It won't happen again." Pete is weirdly formal, and it's *bullshit,* and Patrick wants to say all sorts of mean things he won't actually let himself say.

"Okay, sure," he breathes out instead.

He can feel Pete watching him when they're onstage, and that's not *new* but it feels different now. Pete's gaze on the back of his neck, making his hair stand up, almost making him stutter during songs. Whenever he looks over, Pete meets his eyes for less than a second before looking down and away, and Patrick can't articulate how this is different from the way Pete used to stare at him during shows. It's--not creepy, but unsettling, weird, unusual. It makes his heart beat a little faster, makes him sweat a little more, and soon he starts to feel it when Pete isn't looking at him, too: Hundreds of people screaming for him, singing along with him, obsessed with him in that moment, but he feels lost if Pete's attention isn't focused solely on him.

It can't be healthy. Patrick wants and wants and hopes and any touch from Pete, any glimpse of skin is a tease. Patrick is hard all the time, jerking off in rest stops and before shows and sometimes, if he can be quiet enough, in the back of the van while the rest of the band is sleeping. On one memorable, miserable occasion, he has to rush into the bathroom during an intermission to get himself off, and makes the rest of the band late for the rest of their show.

He's pretty sure it's getting to Pete, too. Pete's moods have always been unpredictable at best, but now he's jittery and tense all the time, as likely to drape himself on Patrick and cuddle as he is to protest being touched at all. Patrick sees him writing all the time, scribbling hastily in his notebooks against the window of the van, but he has yet to give Patrick any lyrics, or let him get even a glimpse at what he's writing.

It's personal, that's fine, Patrick gets that. It's just--it's Pete distancing himself, again, and Patrick can feel his frustration over that building, bubbling up inside him. He lets it out as much as he dares in intervals, screaming into the microphone during shows, kissing Pete hard and open-mouthed. He even tries writing his own poetry, before he snaps out of it and, cringing at the badness, tears the paper into tiny pieces.

"I love you," Patrick murmurs against Pete's ear when they're almost asleep, lying against each other in the back of the van. And it hasn't stopped being true, but it sounds hollow, tinny and small, not strong enough.

"I love you." And when Pete says it, it sounds desperate and hoarse, like he's clinging to the edge of a cliff and scrabbling for a hold.

Pete reaches up, touches Patrick's neck with the back of his hand. Patrick can feel Pete's knuckles brush the underside of his jaw.

"Are you really okay with this?" Pete says, his voice abrupt, louder than it was.

Patrick doesn't have to ask what he's talking about. And he wants to say yes, yes of *course,* he'll do anything for Pete, this is a sacrifice he can make, he'll stand by him no matter what; what comes out is, "I'm trying."

"Yeah," Pete mutters, a far-away look in his eyes, like he's not even on this planet. And it hits Patrick that, hey, this is actually his best friend here, his best friend that he hasn't been able to feel comfortable around for weeks, his best friend that's driving him crazy, sling-shotting him between miserable and elated and frustrated every time he's around. Pete is the one he would normally go to to vent about this, but Pete's the one that's causing it.

It kind of sucks.

"You know--" and Patrick stops, god, does he actually want to say this?

But Pete is looking at him now, he has Pete's attention. Patrick swallows. "We're best friends, right? I mean, you're my best friend, and--what I'm saying is, even if we *stop* this, I'll still be that, I'll still love you, I--it doesn't have to be like this."

Pete sits up, off of him. "You want to be just friends?" He doesn't sound upset or relieved, just--careful.

No, Patrick thinks, panicked, but "I'm giving you the option. Just--Pete, this isn't working. You know that."

Pete bows his head, his hair falling in front of his eyes. "You're my best friend," he says softly, repeating Patrick's words. "BFF, right?"

"Right," Patrick says, and no, he can't let himself reach out, pull Pete back down against him.

"Maybe. Maybe it would be best if we went back to that," Pete says, and Patrick wants to scream at him, wants to know why *Pete* isn't screaming, why Pete the fucking Emo Crown Prince isn't making a god damn scene about this. "It's not like we're having sex, right? All we'd be losing is the making out."

"Yeah." He feels like the wind has been knocked out of him, surprised and gulping for air, and even though he knows that he's getting back the best friendship he's ever had, getting back writing songs together and practical jokes on film and all the stupid things Pete has made him do over the years, he still kind of wants to throw up. Vomit up everything about this fucked-up nonsexual relationship, hit rewind on the past year until sloppy kisses in rest stops never happened, until Pete is back to being that guy he crushed on sometimes but would never think about getting with, who happened to be his best friend.

Patrick doesn't care that that was kind of sucky, too. Even if it's just his heart getting stomped on in a different kind of way, it's better than this.

***

The problem is that there's no space they can give each other. After that night, Pete sleeps curled against the window of the van instead of in Patrick's lap, and that's pretty much the farthest they can get from each other. They're still stuck in the same band, in the same van, they still have to play together and eat together and drive together. And Patrick meant it when he said they would stay best friends, he really did, but that doesn't mean he doesn't want a few days to spend by himself and wallow in post-break-up misery.

The most he gets is one night, a week later, when they actually get to book a hotel with two separate rooms, Pete with Joe and Patrick with Andy. Patrick spends most of that night lying in bed with his headphones in, not sleeping, just staring at the back of his eyelids and feeling Pete's absence.

But Andy gets back from wherever he was--some party, Patrick thinks--after an hour or so, and he's not being any noisier than usual but it's still an intrusion. Patrick rolls onto his side, away from him, and for a second contemplates locking himself in the bathroom or something. He doesn't remember the lack of privacy during tour bothering him this much, but now--

Well, everything's different. He should have seen that coming, and he feels like the biggest chump in the world for not expecting it. What did he *think* would happen when he got involved with his bassist?

"Dude." Andy has walked over to face Patrick, eyeing him, questioning. Which Patrick gets: usually he is not the guy in this band prone to fits of useless emo.

"What?" Patrick says, more belligerent than he meant to, and pulls his headphones down.

Andy raises his eyebrows. "Uh, nothing. Just, you know." He scratches the back of his neck, looking embarrassed, and for a second Patrick is terrified that Andy will try to talk to him about his feelings, but Andy just says, "Do you need some time alone? Should I leave?"

Patrick is tempted to be a drama queen and say 'yes,' even though this is Andy's room, too, and it's like one in the morning and he doesn't know where Andy would go. But he shakes his head and says, "Nah. I was just falling asleep anyway."

Patrick just needs to force himself to get over this. It can't hurt like this forever; eventually, he and Pete will go back to being friends the way they used to be, he knows that. And maybe that will happen faster this way, with no time to mourn or be separate, like ripping a scab off all at once instead of picking at it.

Pete isn't helping matters, though--in fact, he's pretty much doing the opposite. Pete's a touchy guy, always has been, hooking his arm over Patrick's shoulders when they walk together or nudging him for emphasis in the middle of conversation, or just a hand on Patrick's knee for no reason Patrick can see. He's like that with everyone (no concept of personal space with strangers, but he couldn't just let Patrick give him an orgasm--Patrick still doesn't get that), and he doesn't change after the break-up, and every day means Pete touching him. Not purposefully, not deliberately, just doing it like he doesn't know how not to.

Patrick can't blame him for it, not when it's obvious that it's not even a conscious decision on Pete's part. He probably doesn't realize that every time his fingers brush the back of Patrick's neck, for example, Patrick has to remember that he can't turn around and kiss him.

Patrick keeps as much distance as he can, which isn't much, and tries to focus on other things. But there's nothing else *to* focus on, that's the problem--it's not an exaggeration to say that everything reminds him of Pete, because his job is singing the words Pete writes every night. Patrick can't deal with that in addition to Pete's constant touches shredding him up daily, he needs either a vacation or some way to block Pete out, cut him neatly out of Patrick's life. He doesn't care if that would leave a hole.

He first snaps when he and Pete are squished into a corner of a booth, Joe sitting on Pete's other side and Chris, Andy and Dirty sitting across from them. Pete is laughing at his own joke, or Joe's joke--Patrick hasn't really been paying attention to the conversation--and he turns to Patrick with a grin on his face, nudging Patrick's shoulder playfully, leaning against him. The movement is perfectly innocuous.

"Can you not fucking--" Patrick explodes, cutting himself short and snapping his mouth shut.

Pete blinks at him, surprised. "Uh... can I not what?"

Patrick feels himself turn red. Not *all* of the table's attention is on him--Dirty and Chris are still involved in what looks like a pretty involved thumb wrestling war--but the conversation has definitely died down.

"Nothing," he mutters, and tries to hunch further into the wall.

Pete opens his mouth, looks like he wants to press the issue, but he doesn't say anything. He turns deliberately back to Joe, picking up where he left off, and Patrick stares down at his napkin, the crumpled and soggy wrapper from his straw (Pete had been trying to make it do that caterpillar thing). He fucking wants to go home.

Later, when they're walking back to the van, Pete does it again, throwing an arm over Patrick's shoulders when he turns to talk to him, as easy as breathing. Patrick ducks out from under him and grabs his elbow, pulling him back behind the group, "Can we talk?"

The other guys glance at them, unsettled, but keep walking, staying ahead and giving them space. Pete stares at him, eyes a little wide.

Patrick makes himself not look away. "Look. I know--I know you don't mean to be cruel, I know this is just you, but--it just. You need to stop touching me."

Pete blinks at him. "Like. At all?" He laughs a little. "Is my skin funky or something? Dude, should I start wearing gloves like Rogue from X-men?"

Patrick's hands clench into fists. "Shut the--god, Pete, I'm serious. Every time you put an arm around me, or hug me, or do any of the things you're always doing it sucks for me. You can't do that anymore, okay? I know I said we'd still be best friends, but that's--I can't deal with you touching me all the time the way you do." He breathes, looks down at the ground, and shoves his hands into his pockets.

Pete steps away, just a little, putting distance between them. Staring at Patrick. "I... I didn't even know--"

"You're not doing it on purpose, yeah, I get that," Patrick says. "I don't care. You need to cool it."

That makes Pete scowl, and Patrick hopes he gets mad, yells, because if they can just fight about this and then put it behind him it's some kind of closure. But he just grits his teeth and looks away from Patrick, tucking his own hands into his hoodie. "Okay. Sure. I'll just--keep my hands to myself, I guess."

"Sorry," Patrick says, not sure what exactly he's apologizing for. "It's not forever, you know? I mean, we can go back to being like we were eventually, just--"

"It's fine. I get it." Pete gives him a tight smile, then jogs to catch up to the rest of the guys. Patrick lets himself lag behind.

So Pete stops touching him, and it gets--well, things don't get better, but at least Patrick can *function,* now. And he can see Pete stopping himself, abrupt halted movements: *almost* leaning in close to bump foreheads, *almost* clapping a hand on Patrick's shoulder. There's a flash of sadness and frustration in his eyes every time he stops himself, Patrick can see that he hates it, and Patrick feels bad about that--asking Pete not to touch you is asking Pete not to be *himself.* But the alternative is unlivable.

It's better when they're at a gig, when Patrick can focus on vocal warm-ups and setting up equipment and handling pre-show crises. He can talk to people that work at the venue rather than the people he's living with, the people who are inevitably tied to Pete in his mind. Even when Pete is there, he's not focused on Patrick--he's hanging off techies or sucking up to the security guys (he always makes nice with the security, insurance against getting busted for crowd-surfing) or flirting with the scene kids. It isn't Pete not-touching him, it's Pete not touching him because he's too busy wrestling a stagehand for a slurpee or arguing about the merits of Lifetime with a bartender.

"Yeah, you know, if you're in town long enough, there's actually a foreign film festival going on right now." The stage tech talking to him--he thinks her name is Sandy--smiles, tucks her hair behind her ear. "It's just a small thing, sponsored by this tiny rundown theater that usually only plays movies between ten pm and eight am. You'd probably be into it."

Oh, right. They'd been chatting about indie movies, which Patrick knows because all of his attention has been on this conversation, not on Pete across the room, leaning over Andy's drum set to say something low and intense to someone with purple hair and too much eyeliner. "Oh, yeah? So it's a nocturnal film festival?"

She shakes her head, laughing. "No, they play movies during the day. There's a cool New Zealand film playing tomorrow at noon, actually, if you wanna."

Patrick smiles. "Hey, cool. I know Joe was looking for something to take his girlfriend to here."

Sandy blinks at him, and then smiles again. "Yeah, you should tell him! I'm going, it'll probably be fun."

"You know, if you're not busy, we've got a show that you could maybe be part of." And then suddenly Pete's right there, arms folded over his chest. Patrick looks up and around and oh, whoops, it is time for them to be getting ready.

Sandy looks slightly taken aback, and Patrick smiles at her. "Yeah, okay, I've got to go. I'll catch you later, okay?"

"Um, sure," she says, backing away as Pete gives her a thin smile.

"Who was that?" Pete says later that night, after the set, as they're packing up.

"Who was who?" Patrick blinks and finishes toweling off his face. He's distracted, still mentally onstage, stuck in the music.

"You know. That girl you were talking to earlier." Pete's words sound short and clipped, and he's looking at his bass as he puts it away instead of at Patrick.

"The techie girl? Um. I think her name was Sandy."

"She seemed to like you." Pete looks up at him, his hair falling to obscure his eyes. "Since when are you interested in foreign film?"

Patrick blinks at him. "How much of our conversation were you listening to?"

"Hey, I'm just looking out for you." Pete stands up, looking grumpy. "She had a pretty fucking obvious agenda, but I guess you don't mind."

Patrick gapes. "Do you *seriously* think I could--" he cuts himself off, doesn't want to hear himself finish that sentence. "I thought the whole point of breaking up, going back to being *friends* was that we wouldn't pull this bullshit on each other," he says instead.

"I'm not pulling anything," Pete says, sullen. "I just."

"You just what?" Patrick says, prompting, but Pete doesn't finish his sentence, and doesn't protest when Patrick walks away.

That night Patrick locks himself in the bathroom and pushes his pants down, leans against the closed door and wraps his fist around his cock. He has yet to manage this without thinking about Pete, his brain reverting back to the same fantasies he's had since he was sixteen, and he doesn't want to think about Pete *now* but the images pop up regardless, unbidden. Pete naked, Pete inviting him, legs spread, and most of all the taste and feel of Pete's dick in his mouth, the way Pete stared up at him.

Sensory memory brings that moment flooding back, the only sexual moment between them that Patrick has to cling to, and Patrick bites his lip and strokes himself, tries to jerk off as fast as possible. Pete has wormed his way into Patrick's life so thoroughly that he can't even enjoy masturbation, and he just wants to get it over with and go back to repressing.

He remembers Pete's hips bucking, the way he panted, his fingers in Patrick's hair--he doesn't know if he's remembering what actually happened, or an idealized version, and he doesn't care--and squeezes himself harder, twists his palm over the head on the upstroke. He wonders how Pete remembers it, if it's something traumatic for him, disgusting and wrong, if he tries to forget it. Somehow he doesn't think it's a treasured memory he reaches for every time he touches himself.

Patrick comes and cleans himself up, neat and efficient. He's sharing the room with Joe this time; both he and Andy have kindly not made a big deal about Pete and Patrick being unable to room with each other. Patrick might have to share a hotel room with just Pete again someday, but he's going to do everything humanly possible to avoid that scenario as long as he can.

They spend three days in Cleveland, playing two different shows, and Patrick ends up going to the same cafe two mornings in a row, a small, trendy place down the street from the first venue they play at. On the second morning the barista, a tall guy with rectangular glasses and a goatee, recognizes him and grins.

"Same thing as yesterday? Or do you want to spice it up a little?" His voice is higher than Patrick would expect from someone of his size; he leans on the counter, his elbow on the glass and his chin in his hand, smiling up at Patrick.

"Um. Same thing." The same thing being a 16 oz. coffee--it's not like Patrick is actually ordering a drink, anything memorable, but the guy nods in satisfaction like Patrick is getting something unique and funky, instead of the same thing 90% of his customers probably get.

"So, you guys played at the Agora last night?" The coffee is behind him next to the espresso machine, instead of being someplace Patrick can get it himself. "You want room for cream?"

"We did if you think I'm with Fall Out Boy. How'd you know who I am? And, um, yeah, room."

The barista grins at Patrick over his shoulder. "My roommate and his boyfriend saw you guys play last night. He was raving about your pipes this morning."

Well, that was heavy-handed, Patrick thinks. "Oh. Um, thanks."

"Yeah, I heard it was quite the show. Are you guys going to be in our lovely city long?" He brings the coffee over and idly types something on the cash register, but doesn't seem to be ringing him up yet.

"A few days, yeah. We also have a show in Columbus, and we got a deal on the rooms we have here, so we'll probably stay in Cleveland till we're done with that show, too."

"Hey, we love having you. My name's Kyle, by the way."

He stretches out his hand to shake, and Patrick takes it. He has nice, big hands, long fingers. "Patrick."

"Yeah, I know who you are, remember?" The corner of his mouth turns up in not-quite a smirk. "Sooo, how do you like Cleveland?"

They start talking about Cleveland's virtues, or lack thereof--Patrick has been through here before, on their last tour, and he hated it even when he *wasn't* traveling under a black cloud of misery about Pete--and then get into a conversation about various topics. It's nice. There aren't any other customers to distract Kyle, and he knows a thing or two about music, and makes Patrick laugh a couple times.

"Dude, how long does it take to get coffee? We have rehearsal, remember?" Pete walks up next to him, scowling. Kyle falters in the middle of a colorful rant about Cleveland's traffic.

"Sorry?" Patrick frowns. "I haven't been gone for that long, have I?"

"It's been, like, half an hour. You have your coffee, so what the fuck?" Pete is glaring at him, looking way more pissed than the situation calls for.

"I was just talking, getting some fresh air. Take a chill pill, dude." Patrick gives Kyle a regretful smile and grabs a lid for his coffee, ready to go.

"You've wasted all of our time," Pete snaps. "If you don't want to work hard, then what the fuck are you doing in this band?"

Patrick freezes.

"So I'll talk to you later?" he says to Kyle, deliberately. "I have your number, so, you know, if there's time..."

"Yeah, um," Kyle says, licking his lips nervously as Pete turns his glare on him. "Give me a call, I'll show you the sights."

"Cool. See you around," Patrick says, turning to walk out, ignoring the way Pete is radiating rage at his side.

He turns on Pete as soon as they've turned the corner and he can yell at Pete without the whole cafe hearing. "What. The *fuck?!*"

"You tell me! Two days in Cleveland and you're hooking up with some skanky hipster jackass instead of doing your damn job?" Pete's yelling back, and Patrick, god, Patrick really wants to deck him.

"Yeah, you know what, I think I'm going to give him a call tomorrow and maybe I'll go back to his apartment and fuck him, and there's not a god damn thing you can do about that because I'm not yours anymore."

Pete steps back, his face going blank. "I don't--I wasn't--"

"Hey, you know, if *you* want to be the one fucking me you can go ahead and say so," Patrick spits out. "But if not, fuck you, leave me alone and let me *try* to move on."

Pete stares at him, his jaw clenched, and for a few seconds Patrick has a wild hope Pete will say 'Yeah, actually, I want to be the one fucking you,' but then Pete just says "Okay. If that's how you want it."

And Patrick wants to say no, it's not, it's not how I want it at all. "It's kind of how it has to be."

Pete looks away from him. "We should get back."

Patrick swallows. "Yeah. Let's go." He's still holding his coffee, he realizes; he's spilled it a little, on his hand and sleeve. It's gone lukewarm and he really doesn't want it anymore.

Patrick turns back to the street to walk back, and hears Pete behind him, "Patrick--"

He turns, all the hope back. "Yeah?"

Pete looks frustrated, like he wants--Patrick doesn't know what he wants. "Nothing. Let's just go."

Pete doesn't even look at him through the rehearsal, and during the show it's like he's barely even there. He doesn't joke with the audience, he doesn't crowd-surf, he mostly just keeps his head bent down over his bass. It's a bad show, none of them are on, and the crowd is bored. Patrick feels a little ill afterwards, taking down the set with Pete still not speaking a word to him, not even glancing at him, and he just wants to get away from all this for a while.

He calls Kyle. He answers, and he sounds awake even though it's one in the morning, and he eagerly agrees when Patrick asks if he wants to go do something, grab a cup of coffee maybe, anything. Anything that's not Fall Out Boy.

Kyle has a car, and when Patrick asks him if he minds going out for coffee--considering that he must get pretty sick of the whole indie hipster cafe thing at the end of every working day--he just laughs and says the company makes it worth it. They get mochas and drive to a park ("You should treasure this, it's the one spot in the whole city with nature and stuff") and drink while sitting on the hood of Kyle's car.

He likes talking to Kyle. Someone whom he doesn't know at all, someone who only met Pete in passing and probably thought he was crazy, someone who Patrick will probably never see again once they leave Cleveland. He finds out that Kyle is an english major with a minor in art history, that his favorite band is The Faint, that he broke up with his last boyfriend two months ago, "But really, I'm over him. I thought I would be broken-hearted and miss him all the time when we broke up, but I stopped thinking about him after, like, a few days. God, that makes me sound like a horrible person, sorry."

He doesn't ask after Patrick's own relationship status, for which Patrick is grateful.

After a few hours, Kyle looks over at him and smiles, says, "It's getting late. Do you want to come back to my place?"

Patrick smiles back, and looks down at his feet. He really kind of does, but. He won't.

"I appreciate the offer," he says. "And I've had a really nice time, but--I can't really take you up on that."

Kyle looks disappointed, and Patrick feels a twang of guilt, hopes that he wasn't leading him on. But then Kyle's smile returns, and he says, "Hey, that's fine. I've had a nice time, too. Here, I'll give you a ride back to your hotel."

When he gets back to the hotel, Joe is passed out on the bed, sleeping on his stomach. Patrick moves quietly, tries not to wake him as he takes off his socks and shoes, strips off his pants.

He hears a flush in the bathroom, and then Pete is opening the bathroom door, stepping out. He freezes when he sees Patrick.

"I was just leaving," Pete says, his words rushed. "I was hanging with Joe until he fell asleep, I--where've you been?"

"I was with Kyle," Patrick says, and oh shit, he really shouldn't have told the truth there.

Pete's face changes, shuts down. "That guy. From earlier."

Patrick bites his lip. "Yes."

"Well. How fucking wonderful for you. It's really, you know, it's *great* that you've moved on so fast, I hope he was gentle and you used a condom," and then Pete is walking fast towards the door and Patrick has to grab his arm, yank him back to keep him from escaping.

"I didn't sleep with him," Patrick hisses, tries to keep his voice quiet.

Pete twists his arm out of Patrick's grasp. "I don't care," he says. "Sleep with half the city if you want! Catch an STD! Why should it fucking matter to me?"

"Oh my god," Patrick says. "Fine, there was an orgy, okay? Not that it's any of your business."

"Fuck you," Pete says, and leaves.

"There wasn't really time for an orgy," Joe says from the bed, his voice muffled by the pillow. "Maybe half of one."

Patrick groans, and flops onto the bed, praying for sleep. He ends up dreaming about Pete working in a cafe and throwing hot scalding coffee on his face.

The next morning, Pete walks up to him as Patrick is collecting his free hotel breakfast. "So I was a dick last night."

Patrick eyes him, wondering what the catch is. "Well, yeah."

Pete crosses his arms. "Yeah, uh, sorry. I know--" He grabs an apple from the breakfast table, tosses it back and forth, sighs. "This really isn't easy for me, and I *know* I'm being an ass about it. And it's.... I know it's probably not easy for you, either."

Patrick softens, smiles a little. "It's not a piece of cake, you know."

"And so I'm just saying, maybe you shouldn't be hooking up with random baristas in strange cities. You know, for your sake. Since you're vulnerable."

Patrick pinches the bridge of his nose. "Ah. You're looking out for me."

"That's right!" Pete says earnestly. "I'm just being a good friend."

"We're going to stop talking about this now." Patrick grabs his tray and goes to sit down; Pete follows.

"So, you know. Are we good?" And Pete sounds like a god damn hopeful puppy. Patrick sighs.

"Yeah. Sure."

***

Things change slightly, after that; Patrick can see Pete making an effort to bring things back around to normal. The only thing is that Pete goes back to watching him, all the time, but compared to fits of jealousy and possessiveness or constant touching, Patrick can deal with that.

They're not good, it's not fixed, but it might be getting there. At any rate, touring with Pete feels marginally less oppressive, and if that's all Patrick can ask for, then at least it's something.

Patrick is doing his own share of watching, and Pete seems more quiet lately, subdued--not exactly depressed (Patrick hopes), but thoughtful. He seems to be touching everyone less, not just Patrick. Patrick wants to ask him about it, wants to say hey, what's going on in your head, but... they're not better enough to be at that point. Not yet.

After a show in Pittsburgh, the whole band ends up hugging each other, jumping on each other backstage as the crowd still cheers for them. Patrick grabs Joe first, squeezing him and laughing in his ear, and then Andy wraps him into a bear-hug, and last Pete. Patrick hugs him on automatic, not even thinking about it, and for a second there's Pete's hips pressing up against his, and Patrick's pretty sure--he can feel something there, he thinks Pete might be hard--

Pete lets go first, stepping away quickly and grinning at Patrick before jumping to hug Joe, and Patrick shakes his head to clear it. Huh.

In Indianapolis, Andy walks into the hotel room they're sharing and says, "Pete says that he has some lyrics to show you in his room, and I say that this is the last time I play messenger boy."

"Gotcha," Patrick says. "Thanks."

Lyrics. Pete hasn't shown him anything he's written in--god, it's been a fucking long time. Since before they broke up, since before Patrick found out about his celibacy, Patrick's pretty sure. This should be interesting.

"So, lyrics?" Patrick says as he steps inside Pete's hotel room. Joe is off somewhere with his girlfriend; it's just the two of them.

Pete is pacing and fidgeting, rubbing at the back of his neck. Patrick wants to tell him to calm down, let him know that this doesn't have to be a big deal, but he feels the same way.

"Yeah, so I totally lied about having lyrics to show you, I just wanted to get you alone," Pete says in a rush, and stops moving. "I've decided. I want to fuck you."

Patrick feels something in his brain try to engage with that, the neurons almost firing, but-- "What?"

"Or you can fuck me. It doesn't matter that much, I hadn't put a lot of thought into who would pitch or catch, so whatever. But the point is, this breaking up thing has really sucked, okay?" Pete moves forward, catches one of Patrick's hands and traces his thumb over Patrick's knuckles. "Like, *really* fucking sucked."

Their fingers are touching and fuck, Pete is touching him for the first time since forever, his fingers sparking against Patrick's skin. "Pete," he manages.

"Yeah." Pete looks up at him, and looking into Pete's stupid, dark eyes is just as much of an emotional sucker-punch as it's always been.

"I want you," Pete says, his voice soft. "I want you too much to stay away and I don't care about staying celibate, I don't care that I've never had sex before, and any of those reasons that I gave before for celibacy are all bullshit." His gaze flicks down again, at their hands. "It took me a stupidly long time to figure all this shit out. I've been kind of an ass. Sorry."

Patrick lets out the breath he'd been holding. Pete is bouncing a little on his toes, still staring at their hands like he's afraid to look at Patrick's face. "Jesus. You're--really? You want to get back together?"

"Uh, yeah. I thought that was kind of implied in wanting to fuck you." Pete looks up, worried. "Unless you thought I meant, like, a friends with benefits thing, in which case I have to remind you that I'm fucking selfish and also in love with you and I really don't share well--"

"I didn't think that," Patrick says, and he kind of wants to laugh. Or yell, or cry, or something, because this just feels--is this for fucking real? He gave up on getting this what feels like years ago.

"I'm kind of taking a big risk here, because at first I figured that you sleeping around with baristas in Cleveland was more, like, self-destructive lashing out behavior than a sign of you really being over me, but then I thought what if it *was* a sign that you're over me? Oh god, Patrick, please tell me that you're not used to us breaking up and I'm the only miserable one here," and Pete's voice is beginning to get an edge of hysteria.

"You're not. That wasn't--I'm still," and someday, Patrick would like to regain the ability to speak in complete sentences.

He runs a hand through his hair and tries again. "God. Okay, this is kind of a big deal, Pete. For you. The whole sex thing, I mean. What changed your mind?"

"Um, I don't know if you noticed the way I kind of had an aneurysm every time someone else so much as glanced at your ass," Pete says. "That was a clue. Also I've been writing lots of shitty shitty lyrics about this that you are *never* going to see. And I--fuck, Patrick, I've spent the last few weeks jerking off about you so often that I think I might be going blind. But I've had to be so careful being around you, not touching you, not hugging you too much or leaning against you or--" He stops. "Is that how you felt, when we were dating?"

"Maybe." Patrick gets the word out around the ball in his throat, constricting his breath.

Pete bounces on his toes and shoves the hand not clutching Patrick into his back pocket. "Not touching you, not sleeping with you--that's like. That's as wrong and unnatural as trying to hook up with some random stranger is, for me." He squints at Patrick. "Does that make sense?"

"Yeah. Yeah, I know what you mean." It doesn't, actually, except for how it does, because this is *Pete* and if he wants this--wants Patrick, actually genuinely *wants* him--then Patrick doesn't give a fuck about sense or reason or understanding.

"Anyway. Yeah." Pete licks his lips, his whole body advertising jittery nervousness. "I've made my decision, and I'm ready. Or, you know, I *want* to be ready, whichever comes first, I guess. And can you please just cut the suspense and tell me yes or no before I keep going and make myself sound even more like a high school girl before her prom night?"

Patrick grins, in spite of himself, in spite of Pete getting more and more anxious and looking like he wants to jump out the window and escape. "Well, you know, if you're going to throw yourself at me, I guess I can go with that."

"You are *such a jackass* to joke about this," Pete says fiercely, and then Patrick is staggering backwards because Pete jumps him, and his mouth completely misses Patrick's on the first try, their foreheads knocking together. They get it right on the second, Pete sucking on Patrick's lip and sliding his tongue into his mouth, and oh *god,* it's like breathing air full of oxygen again after being stuck at high altitude too long.

Pete's hands are all over him, rubbing up over his sides and curling around the back of his neck, clenching in the fabric of his shirt. Pete's thigh pushes between his legs so abruptly that Patrick loses his balance and teeters backwards, but Pete pulls him forward, and they sort of try to fall on the hotel bed but miss, flopping on the edge and sliding to the floor in an undignified pile.

Patrick rolls on his back and pulls Pete on top of him, biting at Pete's lip. Pete wriggles against his hips, and it's such a tremendous relief to be able to *enjoy* the sensation, enjoy Pete's body on top of him instead of tensing, preparing himself for Pete to pull away and leave him unsatisfied.

Pete pulls away. "I didn't mean, like, necessarily right *now,*" he says. "Because I don't have condoms or lube, plus I kind of feel like it's something we should work up to, you know, *actually* taking it slow this time--well, maybe not super-slow, but like, a medium pace--"

Patrick laughs, mostly at himself. "Yeah, okay. We'll go however fast you want to, I don't care." He rests his hand on Pete's hip, enjoys the way his thumb fits into the indent there. "I mean, I care, but--"

"But you're willing to wait for my ass?" Patrick's fingers stroke over Patrick's face, less petting him and more just exploring him, his thumb coming to rest on Patrick's bottom lip.

"That's right," Patrick says. He tugs on Pete's shirt, pulls him back down and the kiss is slow and wet and messy, Pete's tongue dragging over Patrick's chin. He moves lower, licking a line down Patrick's jaw and neck, the tips of his hair tickling Patrick's nose.

"Oh, my *god,*" Patrick says, because it's hitting him like a ton of bricks that he actually--he has Pete back. He has Pete back and they're going to have sex. That is amazing.

***

They fall asleep together that night, clothes on and above the covers, and Patrick wakes up in the middle of the night and can't fall back asleep. He rolls onto his back and stares up at the ceiling.

Pete is asleep next to him, pressed against side, and Patrick wishes he didn't feel uneasy about this. Wishes he could be unreservedly happy about this, about Pete, but--but what the hell are they doing?

Patrick loves Pete. Is in love with him, that never really stopped; and he wants to believe that Pete saying that he wants this is enough. Wants to.

Pete stirs beside him, lifts his head. "Mm. Patrick?"

Patrick yawns. "Yeah?"

"You're awake." It sounds like a sleepy accusation.

"Mm-hmm. Just thinking."

"What about?" Pete scoots up on the bed and rests his chin on Patrick's shoulder, eyeing him.

"This. Us. Wondering if it's a good idea." Patrick is still partly asleep, his eyes grainy with fatigue and his brain slow, so he doesn't have much of a self-censor.

Pete sits up, frowning. "Whoa, hey. I thought we covered this already. Good idea, remember? Really, really good idea."

"Pete--" Patrick sighs and sits up, too. "I just don't know if we've thought this through."

"What's to think about? We tried to break up, it didn't work very well. End of story." There's a slightly desperate edge to his voice, and that probably *is* the end of the story for Pete, all there is to it, and Patrick can feel how badly Pete wants it to be the same way for him.

"It's more complicated than that," Patrick says, slowly, trying to figure out how to say what he wants to. "Pete, how do you know--look, are you really sure you're ready to do this sexually?"

"*Yes.*" Pete rolls, straddles Patrick's lap and bends over him to kiss his mouth. "You don't believe me?"

"I believe you believe you're ready," Patrick says, reaching up to stroke down Pete's arm. "Maybe that's the same thing. I don't know."

Pete sighs and touches their foreheads together. "Look. I--okay, you're maybe, probably right to be skeptical that I'm not going to fuck this all up again, considering, but--am I way off base here? Were the last few weeks of not being together *not* pure and utter hell for you like they were for me?"

Patrick snorts. "You're not off base. So your logic is, what, breaking up sucked so much that being together must be better by default? I don't know if it works that way."

"Yeah, sort of. Look, I just mean--what do we really have to lose by trying this again? I've done the soul-searching on my end, I *know* that I want into your pants. I'm sure. Like, really, all systems go, prepare for take-off sure."

Patrick looks at him, Pete's spiky bangs falling to frame his face, his eyes dark and determined, the tattoo of thorns around his neck. "And what if that's not enough? What if you're so fucked up about sex that you can't go through with this, no matter how sure you are?"

It's not a nice thing to say, and hurt flashes over Pete's face for a second before he just scowls. "Hell if I know. It's a risk you'll have to take, I guess."

Patrick presses his face against Pete's chest, breathes him in. He had never been a risk-taker before he met Pete. "Okay."

Pete slithers down him until he's at eye-level and kisses him, licks at Patrick's teeth. "Okay?"

"Mm-hmm." Patrick moves the kiss to Pete's cheek, the lobe of his ear. "Let's give it a whirl, at least."

***

"We have to check out of this hotel in three hours and hit the road," Patrick murmurs into Pete's mouth.

"Yeah, I don't care. Do you?" Pete bites Patrick's lip, sucks it into his mouth. And, honestly, Patrick doesn't--sure, they'll end up playing tomorrow night's show on no sleep, but this is the first night they've had to themselves since they got back together.

"I just thought I should point it out, really," Patrick says, the last word coming out as a sigh when Pete slides his hand up Patrick's shirt.

They've managed to grab time backstage, at rest stops, in the back of the van until Andy and Joe start throwing things at them or make one of them drive. Making out in corners, sloppy fast kisses and Pete's hands all over him (which is new, and a nice change). Just reminding themselves what it's like to be together, the feel of this, getting back into the groove.

It's not enough, though. Patrick wants to drag Pete away for a week at least, dive beneath the sheets of a bed somewhere and refuse to come up for air. It's frustrating, that his life requires him to focus on anything but this right now.

"So helpful of you," Pete says, and Patrick can hear the grin in his voice. Pete is pushing up his shirt, bunching it underneath Patrick's armpits, and Patrick makes it easier for both of them and strips it off. He hesitates before reaching for Pete's shirt, but Pete is already pulling it off himself.

He pulls Pete back onto his lap, Pete's legs straddling his waist, and they meet in the middle for the kiss. Pete is moving against him, his spine curving, not really purposefully grinding so much as just moving himself closer to Patrick.

Pete's skin is warm and slightly sweaty under his hands, and Patrick takes his time, running his fingers over the small of his back, the skin over his ribs, his nipples. There's so much here he wants.

"You can--if you want--" Pete's voice sounds strained, and he pushes his pelvis against Patrick for emphasis.

"You want my hands down your pants?" Patrick says, trying to keep things light, teasing, but it comes out in a gasp when Pete's erection brushes against his, because even through layers of denim it's--fuck, friction.

"Yes." There's a clarity in his voice that makes Patrick shiver. His hands slide down Pete's chest, over his abs and the trail of hair leading from his navel downwards, and just touching the skin above the line of Pete's briefs feels like almost too much.

When Patrick looks up, Pete is staring up at the ceiling, his bottom lip between his teeth. He doesn't--he doesn't say stop, and Patrick carefully undoes his fly and pushes down his briefs, wraps his fingers around his dick.

It's wet, leaking pre-come at the tip, and Patrick starts slow, squeezing hard at the base and giving him a long stroke all the way to the head, sliding his palm over the slit.

"Oh--" Pete says, voice terse, and Patrick looks up at him, needing cues, but Pete still doesn't stop him, just pushes into his palm. Patrick frowns a little and strokes him again, tries to get a rhythm going, make it good for him. His other hand is on Pete's thigh, and he can feel Pete's muscles tense on every upstroke, and Pete doesn't feel turned on, he feels ready to either fight or run.

He bucks into Patrick's hand again and Patrick goes a little faster, a little harder, wanting to make him come. He wants the tension in the air to snap, wants to give Pete relief.

When he moves his hand around Pete's back to pull him in closer, Pete suddenly twists and shoves him away, "Fuck, no, *fuck*--" the heel of his palm smacking Patrick's shoulder hard, sending him sprawling on his back on the bed as Pete scrambles off of him.

"Fuck, fuck, god *damn* it." It's a litany, Pete cursing over and over as he stands, his hands rubbing his face. Patrick pushes himself up on his elbows, rubbing the spot where Pete hit him.

He swallows. "Pete?"

"Yeah, fuck, I'm sorry, fucking *hell.*" Pete is still hard, they both are, and Patrick has no idea what to say.

"You don't need to apologize," he tries, and Pete gives him a stricken look.

"Yes, I fucking do. You shouldn't have to deal with this."

Patrick shrugs. "I'll live. Are you okay?"

"Fuck. I don't know." Pete needs a better vocabulary, Patrick thinks. "I didn't mean for that to happen."

"Yeah, I kind of got that idea. Calm down, okay? There's no pressure here. We don't have to do anything tonight if you really don't want to." Patrick meant for that to come out nice and soothing, but instead his voice sounds sour.

"I want to," Pete says viciously, and Patrick knows the anger is directed at himself, not Patrick. "I just--I don't know. I don't know why I freaked out."

Patrick leans back on his elbows. "It's okay, Pete. Really. I'm not angry or insulted or anything."

"I want to get you off," Pete says, giving Patrick an utterly miserable look. "I want to--god, Patrick, you have no idea."

"Hey, don't worry about me. I'm capable of getting myself off if I really need to," Patrick says with a grin, tries to make Pete laugh or at least smile.

"Could you?" Pete blurts out. "Could you right now, I mean, in front of me. Maybe if--maybe if I just started by watching--"

Patrick sucks in a breath and kind of wishes he still had his shirt on. "You want to watch me jerk off."

"Yeah!" Pete has the same light in his eyes he always gets when he thinks he has a really awesome idea and wants to rope Patrick into it. "Yeah, definitely, please Patrick. I think--it would help me acclimate, you know?"

"I don't think you even know what that word means," Patrick says suspiciously. "And--really? You're *sure* that's what you want to do? If you don't want me to give you a handjob I could try blowing you again, or we could figure something else out."

Pete shakes his head and gets back on the bed, kneeling. "Nah, I just want to look at you. For now, I promise, I won't flake out on actual sex later, okay? But for now, I'm mostly just into the idea of watching you come."

Patrick swallows. "Okay. Um."

He guesses he should start by taking off his pants--that seems like a sensible first step. He unzips his pants and shoves them down, kicks them off along with his boxers. Pete is just looking at him, his eyes wide, and--is Patrick supposed to be putting on a show, here? Should he have tried to turn that into a striptease? This is just embarrassing.

"So, uh. Do you want me to just..." Patrick waves a hand, vague. "Like, go for it? Or start all slow, or moan a lot, or what?"

"No, just--" Pete moves like he wants to reach out and touch him, but stops himself. "Really, pretend I'm not even here. I'll be quiet and inconspicuous, I just want to see what you normally do for yourself, nothing fancy. Please?"

"Uh, sure." You are so weird, Patrick thinks. But he nods and leans back against the headboard, settling himself. He spreads his legs a little bit and rests his right hand on his thigh, closes his eyes.

He starts thinking, his mind lazily flipping through fantasy material--most of it having to do with Pete. It feels strange to be thinking about how Pete might look, for example, naked and leaning invitingly against a wall when Pete is right here, in his bed. Does Pete want Patrick to think about him or someone else? How is this supposed to work?

"Dude, I really think you're thinking about this too hard," Pete says, and Patrick realizes that he's frowning in concentration. Pete might be right.

"Sorry," Patrick mutters, and wraps his hand loosely around his dick, leans his head back to stare at the ceiling.

He remembers the fantasies he had when he first met Pete, years ago, embarrassing dreams that woke him up in the middle of the night and stayed with him, floating back to his consciousness at inconvenient times, like in the middle of a jam session with Pete. He flushes just remembering the vague premises: Pete as a famous rock star and Patrick as his groupie, Pete as a leather-wearing king and Patrick as his slave, Pete as a big bad cop and Patrick as his prisoner. His hormonal teenaged subconscious always created outlandish alternate universes instead of using reality to get him off, and Patrick finds the scenarios more laughable than arousing now, but the memory of how they used to make him feel, how he used to stare at Pete during band practice with an X-rated fantasy about him unfolding in the back of his mind, how he'd wake up in the middle of the night so wrapped up in his dream that it took him a few minutes to remember reality, how for those first few months his lust was so intense to be almost crippling--it does the trick.

He gets comfortable and drags his palm up over the underside, drawing out the sensation. If he were doing this by himself at a normal time, he wouldn't be rushing things, so he doesn't now; instead he rubs his thumb over the glans, traces the ridge, taking his time. He remembers how excited he used to get every time Pete so much as invaded his personal space or smiled at him, and his younger self would never have recovered if someone told him that years down the road, Pete would be asking him to strip and jerk off for him.

He drifts back to memories of kissing Pete, nuzzling him, slipping a hand under his shirt to feel skin--he doesn't need anything XXX-rated, not right now. He squeezes himself hard at the base and thinks about that sensitive strip of skin right above the line of Pete's pubic hair, beneath his bellybutton. Thinks about brushing his thumb over the skin there, making Pete jump, thinks about licking and biting it. He strokes himself twice, roughly, pushes his hips up into it.

He can feel the bed dip slightly next to him, Pete lying down, but Patrick keeps his eyes fixed on the ceiling. He gets his usual routine going, twisting his wrist on the upstroke so that his palm covers the head, pausing every few times to thumb the head. Stroke, stroke, thumb, remember trailing his fingernails over the curve of Pete's spine, remember drawing a line down Pete's throat with his tongue, and Patrick lets out a loud huff of breath before he bites down on his lip to stifle any other noise, years of jerking off in public restrooms or the back of the van or his room while his parents were home having trained him to be silent.

He hears Pete make a low sound next to him and the bed shifts again. Patrick closes his eyes and plants one foot on the bed, arching up into his fist. Finally, finally he returns to that most treasured memory, Pete's cock between his lips, pushing back into his mouth. He's almost afraid to focus solely on it, doesn't want to come too soon, and he stops to squeeze his cock hard, bumping his head back against the headboard.

He hears Pete's breathing stutter, and then there's a hand on his thigh, just above his knee. Patrick stops, looking down. "Pete--"

Pete sucks in another sharp breath, and when Patrick looks up at his face he's staring at Patrick's hand on his dick. His gaze flicks up for a second, meeting Patrick's eyes, before moving back down.

"Yeah, I--" Pete licks his lips. "Keep going. Please?"

Patrick hesitates. "Yeah, okay, but... you're sure you want to..."

"I am definitely sure," Pete says, and it's strange to see him get so--intense about this, the way he usually only gets about music or lyrics or the struggles in his own head. But now that intensity is all focused on him, Pete staring at his chest and his hands and his dick, and it's. Unsettling and arousing, and gives him goosebumps, a little bit.

"Okay," Patrick says again and lets his head fall back, closes his eyes again, and now there's the feel of Pete's fingers on his thigh to add to everything, clutching him tighter every time Patrick strokes himself. His nails dig in, suddenly, surprising a groan out of Patrick, which makes Pete's hand hike up higher on his thigh.

"Oh, fuck, Patrick," Pete says, sounding a little helpless. And Patrick, Patrick can empathize, because Pete's hand is on his *inner thigh* and that's almost *too* overwhelming. Patrick pants and moves his hand faster and faster, absolutely graceless because he doesn't care about drawing this out anymore, he has hit the point where he needs needs needs this, needs to come right fucking now.

Pete leans towards him, tucks his face in the crook of Patrick's neck and kisses him there, and it's the catalyst. Patrick growls against his teeth and comes, fucking his own hand, the sensation hitting him in waves, his body arching and pushing his head back against the wall.

When he comes down, looks down, there's come all over his chest, his hand, and Pete's hand (now resting on his hip). Patrick swallows.

"Fuck," Pete murmurs against his pulse. "Jesus, you're amazing."

Patrick snorts. "Every guy knows how to jerk himself off. Nothing amazing about that." He wipes his hand on the sheet, then stretches an arm around Pete, cautious: this is, definitely, the closest they've come to actual sex without Pete propelling himself away.

"Shut *up,* you're amazing," Pete says, sounding cross, and Patrick laughs.

"If you say so," Patrick says, feeling post-coital good, easy. He glances down at Pete's erection. "Hey, you want me to try again?"

Pete laughs. "Your hand will fall off after too much work. Nah, I'm good." Pete shifts so that he's lying on his back, Patrick's arm around his shoulders, and reaches down to stroke himself. He's tilted away from Patrick and his hand is moving roughly, his shoulder jerking, and Patrick wonders if this is--hard, weird for him. He wants to reach out, wants to kiss him, but that could... make it worse, maybe? Patrick's not sure.

At any rate, he can't make himself look away. The liquid motion of Pete's hips, his hand on his cock, *fuck,* is this anything how Pete felt watching him? There's no way Patrick looked this good. Patrick never wants to stop staring.

Pete comes fast, his whole body going still, a little hitch in his breath. He slumps back down, his eyes closed, and Patrick brushes his fingers over Pete's shoulder.

"Thank you," Pete says after a moment, sounding kind of absurdly serious. Patrick rolls his eyes.

"It's not like you asked me for water sports, dude. This was--" Patrick shifts until he can get Pete more into his arms, get more of their skin touching. "This was nice."

Patrick wonders if he should say something or do something to commemorate their first time being naked together, but--really, he doesn't know what he would say, and he doesn't want to make a big deal of this and scare Pete off. He hopes, of course, that it would be more difficult to scare Pete off now, but he's not that on board yet.

He drifts to sleep, and the next morning on the road he has a headache from fatigue, and setting up a show on three hours of sleep is pretty much hell on earth, but he can glance over at Pete and know that Pete is just as miserable as he is, for the exact same reason, and that makes it easier to handle.

***

"The last time I tried to go down on a guy, it made me throw up." Pete blurts this out mid-kiss, practically into Patrick's mouth, like it's romantic.

Patrick flinches and pulls back. "Uh, *what?*"

"That was, um, years ago, and with this strange kind of smelly dude in a bathroom stall, and. What I mean is--I think it would be different, if I tried it with you." He's looking at Patrick nervously, like Patrick might bolt at any second; Patrick just gapes for a second.

"You. Um, okay? Wow, you *threw up?*"

"Just a little bit, and not *on* the guy," Pete says, affronted. "It wasn't my finest moment!"

Patrick shakes his head. The more he finds out about Pete's sexual history--or lack thereof, really--the more it freaks him out. "Wow, Pete. Wait, are you--is this your way of offering to blow me?"

Pete glares at him. "Well. It *was.*"

"Hey, come on." Patrick hooks a finger in Pete's shirt collar, tugging a little, bringing him back in close for a kiss, grins against his mouth. "You're offering oral sex by saying that you don't think it will make you throw up. That's sort of charming."

Pete huffs. "Patrick--"

"I know," Patrick says quickly, and he does. The whole his-hands-down-Pete's-pants thing has been less of a big deal lately, they've jerked each other off a few times, slept together naked, but this would be. Different, probably, and it's not like Patrick hasn't had 10,000 dirty fantasies about Pete's mouth, but-- "Are you sure you want to go there if you had that kind of problem with it the last time?"

Pete presses his forehead against Patrick's. "Yeah. It wasn't a physical reaction, it was--" he laughs softly, his breath puffing against Patrick's chin. "I was going through a bad period and trying to suck a forty-year-old man's cock in a bar bathroom. This is kind of a different situation."

Patrick is mildly surprised at the strength of his sudden desire to punch the forty-year-old man in question. He kisses Pete's lips, quickly. "All right."

"Yeah?" Pete pulls back enough to look Patrick in the eye. "I won't barf on you, I promise."

Patrick laughs. "I'm holding you to that."

And then Pete is sliding to his knees, and the visual alone--Pete on his knees, for him, jesus. Pete starts undoing his fly and Patrick sucks in a breath through his teeth, pressing his palms flat against the wall behind him to keep himself from touching Pete's head and shoulders.

Pete strokes him through the cotton of his boxers first, getting Patrick to all-the-way-hard before pulling his cock out through the flap. Pete looks up at him through his bangs with an oddly shy smile on his face, and then he leans forward and touches Patrick's cock with the tip of his tongue and Patrick bangs his head back against the wall. Hard.

"Don't hurt yourself," Pete says, mock-alarmed.

"I'm *fine,*" Patrick says, glaring down, and Pete seems to get his exasperation because he leans in again, sucking the head into his mouth. Patrick can feel his tongue moving somewhat clumsily over the slit, he has no real finesse, and Patrick has never cared less about finesse in his entire life.

Pete's hand wraps around the base, squeezes, and Pete pulls back a little, breathing hard.

"You might, um. You might have to be patient with me."

Whoa, whoa. "Hey, if this is freaking you out we're stopping *right now*--"

"It's not that," Pete says, and when he looks up at Patrick, his smile is a little twisted, but warm. "I just need to take my time with this. Savor it a little. You're intense, man."

"Oh." Patrick is blushing, and when Pete smirks at him and rolls his eyes, Patrick sticks out his tongue at him.

Pete kisses him right where his fingers are encircling Patrick's cock, and drags his tongue back up to the head. He mouths at the ridge and then sucks the head back into his mouth, closing his eyes in concentration. Patrick bites his lip and tries not to thrust; Pete is sloppy, his tongue sometimes hitting the spots that make fireworks go off behind Patrick's eyes and sometimes not doing much at all. Patrick feels hot all over, pinpricks on his skin, and when Pete goes down--not very much, not even halfway--Patrick whimpers and grabs his shoulder, can't quite keep his hands to himself.

Pete pulls back. "If, um. You could help me out here a little?" He laughs, kind of hoarse. "I don't actually have any idea what I'm doing here. I could probably use some tips."

"Okay, um, yeah." Patrick's voice is shaky and cracks a little, embarrassingly, and he swallows and breathes for a second to get his voice back. "If you want to you can, um, use your hand? Just--get a rhythm going first, like--" He makes a ring with his thumb and forefingers, making the motion in the air to demonstrate.

Pete nods seriously, looking studious, and moves his hand up and down carefully and then with ease, stroking the length of Patrick's cock and looking back up at Patrick for more.

"Okay," Patrick says weakly. "So now if you--um--you can use your mouth and, you know, suck to that same rhythm? That would, uh. That usually works well."

Pete nods again and does exactly that, his lips stretching around Patrick's cock and his eyelids fluttering closed. It takes him a while to coordinate with his hand, but then he's sucking and stroking and his tongue moves just a little on the underside of Patrick's cock and, oh it's. It's good.

Patrick breathes and clutches Pete's shoulder, stares down at his moving head. It's not the most fantastic blowjob--Pete follows instructions *very* well but he's keeping it simple, there's nothing fancy--but oh, fuck, this is *Pete* and Patrick kind of can't believe this is actually happening. This is a dream and any moment now it's going to dissolve into a freaky nightmare about Alice in Wonderland and a huge rabbit and Patrick's old fourth-grade teacher (who's always the one his subconscious picks to ruin his sex dreams, he has no idea why). Patrick's hand on Pete's shoulder starts to shake and he's close, Pete's bringing him closer, and finally Patrick says "Hey, hey," and pushes him off a little. Pete looks up at him, confused, and Patrick manages to say "I just, you, you're making me come," over the din of the blood pounding in his ears.

"Oh," Pete says, eyeing Patrick's cock with mild alarm. "I don't know if I can swallow."

"That's fine," Patrick pants, and grabs himself, strokes once to finish himself off and whimpers a little as he comes, spurting onto his shirt. The spots behind his eyes clear, eventually, and he breathes.

"Oh," Pete says again, but quieter this time, just a soft exclamation, and he stands up. He looks a little dazed, touches his lips carefully, looking surprised to feel wetness there, and hastily wipes his mouth and chin on the sleeve of his t-shirt.

"Was that--" god, his stupid high shaky voice. Patrick swallows, tries again. "Was that okay?"

Pete is quiet for a moment. But then he meets Patrick eyes and says, "Definitely," a slow smile spreading over his face. Patrick grins.

***


Five minutes before they have to go onstage for a show in Milwaukee, Pete comes up behind him, snaking an arm around his waist, and whispers, "I want you to do it tonight," in Patrick's ear.

"Do what?" Patrick's distracted, tuning his guitar.

"Fuck me."

Patrick falters and twists the knob for the G-string too far to the right, and whips around to stare at Pete, but he's already wandered off, fiddling with his bass, and Patrick has to frantically fix the string he just fucked up before they go onstage.

Patrick tries to keep himself from staring at Pete throughout their whole set, but it's pretty difficult. Every time he thinks about Pete's--suggestion--he feels his whole face turn red and he has to sing louder into the mic just to cover up the stutter in his voice.

He's really kind of pissed that Pete purposefully did this right before a show, just to fuck with Patrick and make him anticipate it for the entire night before they can get back to the hotel room. Bastard.

It feels like years before the set finally ends and they get off the stage, and then they immediately get bombarded by a group of Andy's friends, determined to kidnap Andy and the rest of them while they're in town. Apparently, one of Andy's grade school friends is throwing a giant party tonight, and it would be "fucking criminal" to pass it up. Patrick kind of wants to sob.

But then Pete throws an arm around Patrick's neck and grins at Andy and his friend, says, "Sorry, but we had plans to go back to the hotel and, you know, have a lot of sex."

Patrick feels his face burst into flames.

But Andy just laughs and punches Pete's shoulder. "Ass. Fine, be that way, I'll see you guys in the morning."

Patrick shoves Pete away from him as soon as they get away from the party-goers--Pete is doubled over laughing, and Patrick is still blushing. "You *dick!*"

Pete keeps laughing even as Patrick smacks him upside the head. "Oh, my god, the look on your *face*--"

"I can't believe you said that," Patrick groans, covering his face with his hands. Pete, still laughing, pulls his hands away and kisses him sloppily, getting half his mouth and half his nose.

"Mmph--" Patrick pulls away. "What makes you think I'm going to sleep with you after behavior like that, huh?"

"The way you stared at my ass throughout the entire show, maybe?" Pete smirks and licks Patrick's cheek.

"I did not! I--" But it's impossible to get words out with Pete nuzzling him like that, and Patrick gives up, settles his hands on Pete's waist and kisses him, lets Pete's tongue explore his mouth.

"But, seriously," he says when they pull apart. "You really want to do this tonight? You're sure?"

"What, you didn't hear my announcement?" Patrick glares and pinches him, and Pete winces and gives him a serious answer. "Yeah, yeah I am. I've been thinking about nothing but this for weeks, Patrick. Really." He fits the crook of his nose in the space between Patrick's jaw and his neck. "I've jerked off imagining you fucking me. We've done everything else, and I--I want this."

Patrick slides his hands into Pete's back pockets--somewhat difficult, considering how tight his stupid skinny jeans are, but he manages. "I'm glad to hear that."

"You'd better be," Pete huffs. "What do you think I am, easy?" And that makes Patrick laugh so hard he has to wipe tears from his eyes, and Pete starts giggling, and they stumble into the van like that, laughing and giddy with relief.

They get back to their hotel room and Patrick fishes lube and condoms out of his backpack. He bought this lube months ago, before that first aborted blowjob, when he still thought that Pete was just waiting for the right time to take it to the next level. Thinking back, Patrick can't help but feel a little triumphant.

He tosses them on the nightstand and then Pete is all over him, dropping kisses over his mouth, his cheek, his forehead and pawing at Patrick's shirt, pushing it up and whining. Patrick yanks it off and moves to undo his belt, Pete fumbling with his own clothes, and then they're both naked, and Patrick doesn't want to give himself time to feel nervous so he reaches for Pete as soon as he kicks off his pants.

Pete sprawls on his back and pulls Patrick down on top of him, kissing him and knocking their teeth together. Patrick runs a hand up from Pete's hip to his shoulder, pulling back enough to really look at him.

Pete is panting, his eyeliner smeared over his cheekbones and his chin tilted up, and he's lying there like he has absolutely nothing to hide, his erection brushing up against his stomach. Patrick feels dizzy.

He kisses the hollow Pete's throat, licks him, tastes the sweat left-over from the show, and works his way downward. Bites at Pete's nipple, presses his lips against the outline of his ribcage, mouths his belly button, lets himself revel in so much *skin.* He bypasses Pete's dick, ignoring Pete's whimpers and protests at that, and drops kisses along Pete's leg, brushing his lips over the top of his thigh and then turning his leg out to get at the pale skin of his inner thigh, biting a little bit.

"Fucking *hell,*" Pete says, and Patrick grins. "This is like *porn.*"

Patrick laughs. "That's kind of the idea, doofus." He nips Pete's thigh. "Roll over for me?"

"Anything you want," Pete says fervently and obeys, rolling over onto his stomach and propping himself up on his elbows.

And this is a nice view, too. Patrick draws his thumb down the dip of Pete's spine to the indent above his ass, appreciating.

"I *knew* you were staring at my ass earlier," Pete says, looking at Patrick smugly over his shoulder.

Patrick shrugs. "It's one of your better features, what can I say?" He leans forward and kisses Pete's mouth, then the back of his neck. Pete is so skinny that he can feel individual vertebrae against his lips as he makes his way down. He presses his nose against Pete's back, breathes him in. He smells nice, even after playing a whole show and getting passed around the crowd by fans, and Patrick could stay just like this for a very long time. He can feel Pete's diaphragm expand and contract with every breath he takes, feel his warmth, and he kisses him wetly, licking down and down until he's trailing the crack of Pete's ass with the tip of his tongue.

"*Whoa,*" Pete says, wriggling under him. "Whoa, are you going to--"

"Yes," Patrick says, squeezing Pete's thighs and pushing them apart. "Now shut up and spread."

"Oh, god," Pete says, but he spreads his legs. Patrick pushes his cheeks apart even further and touches Pete's hole with his thumb, rubbing a little, just looking. There really aren't very many people he's wanted to do this for, but Pete--he wants to do this for Pete. God, does he want to, almost more than he wants to fuck him, and Patrick can't help but moan a little at the first taste, the flat of his tongue pressed behind Pete's balls. Pete bucks against his face, and Patrick licks up and in.

And Patrick meant to start slow and do this a little fancy, use a few tricks and draw it out, but Pete erodes his self-control, erases it completely, and now that he's here Patrick can't help but close his eyes and fuck him with his tongue. Pete is tight and hot and Patrick *knows* that no one else has ever touched him here, knows that he's the first and it's just another reason to groan, muffled noise into Pete's hole as Patrick shoves his tongue in, out, then in again.

Pete is yelling, Patrick can't hear quite what, and his hips keep jerking against the bed and then against Patrick's mouth. Patrick can't get his tongue too deep before he has to come up for air, retreats to lapping at the ridge of his hole before pushing his tongue in again. He wants to get Pete slick, wants to get him ready, wants to immerse himself in this. He wants, wants so much, and now that he's finally getting it he's greedy, he needs to get deeper and taste him *more,* nothing is enough.

He's hard himself, humping the mattress a little, because he can't let go of Pete's thighs to grab himself. And Patrick doesn't want to let go or pull back, not ever, he wants to keep fucking his tongue into Pete's ass until he can't even breathe anymore.

But he can hear Pete whining, sobbing a little, and when Pete surfaces enough he can make out "Please". And okay, he--he should stop being selfish.

"Yeah," Patrick says, panting a little. "I'm--okay, Pete." He pushes his index finger in, just the tip, and Pete's muscles clench. He leans in, licking around it, pushes in further and Pete lets out a long, guttural moan that sends a jolt straight to Patrick's dick.

Patrick presses a kiss to Pete's ass and starts moving his finger, slow and cautious at first. Pete is panting, and when Patrick looks up he can see that Pete's hands are clenched in the sheets, his eyes are closed and his mouth is open, and Patrick really, *really* wants to fuck him. He adds a second finger.

"'s good," Pete says, half into the pillow. His voice sounds high and breathy, strange for him. Patrick ducks his head back down to lick around his fingers, and then stretches his fingers apart and dips his tongue in between. It must hurt (fuck, Pete's still so *tight*), but Pete just whimpers and pushes against his fingers, onto Patrick's tongue.

Patrick licks in, as deep as he can with his fingers in the way, and then pulls back. "Just--tell me when you're ready," he says, because he can hear the strain in his own voice and soon he's going to be too close.

"I think--um. Another finger, please?" Pete makes the request so *polite,* and Patrick has to defeat the urge to laugh for a second. "And then I think, yeah."

Patrick licks his lips. "Great, okay." He pushes a third finger in, maybe a little too fast because Pete tenses and hisses, but then he nods.

"Yeah, like that, fuck Patrick--" Pete presses his face into the pillow and Patrick moves his fingers, fucks him, fast and rough because he wants to be *inside* him. Pete makes these high yelps with every thrust, and he's writhing like he can't get enough of this. It's beautiful the way music is, Patrick thinks, and wishes he could sing about this.

"Okay, I'm good," Pete pants, finally, and Patrick grins and slides his fingers out, moves up to kiss the nape of his neck.

"Have you thought about positions at all? How you want to do this?"

"Yeah, I want to be on my back." Pete elbows him for room, and Patrick moves off of him so he can roll over. Patrick goes to the nightstand, rolls the condom on and squirts a liberal amount of lube onto his fingers.

He kneels between Pete's legs, and Pete props himself up on his elbows to watch Patrick slicking himself, looking a little nervous.

"Ready?" Patrick grins to try and ease some of the tension and pets the top of Pete's thigh, his hip.

Pete hooks one of his legs around Patrick's waist and nods. "Just do it, right? Like Nike."

"I don't really think they meant that to apply to anal sex." Patrick lifts Pete's hips and guides himself in, carefully, and Pete hisses, a pained look on his face.

Patrick stops. "Do you want me to--"

"No, come *on,*" Pete says viciously, and he's leaning forward to grab Patrick's hip, pulling him forward, and Patrick gasps and pushes in further. Pete feels so perfect around him, tight and hot and just, *yes,* and Patrick pushes in too quickly, he knows it, and Pete cries out a little.

"Fuck, fuck, I'm sorry," Patrick says. "Should I--shit--"

"It's okay, it's fine," Pete says, but he's gritting his teeth and--god, Patrick can't let himself *hurt* him, and he almost pulls out before Pete grips his forearm and shakes his head. "Keep going, Patrick."

Patrick bites his lip. He pulls on Pete's thigh a little, uses it for leverage, and slides himself in little by little, his eyes locked with Pete's, and when he gets all the way in Pete makes a keening sound that might be the sexiest noise Patrick's ever heard.

And then Pete smirks at him. "There, see? I'm not made of glass."

Patrick barks out a laugh. "Never thought you were." He adjusts his position, scooting forward and wrapping Pete's legs around his waist. Pete uses his thighs to tug him closer and reaches his hand up, draping it on Patrick's shoulder and brushing his neck. Patrick leans in to the touch, feels Pete's fingers on his cheek, and smiles.

It takes them a while to get it quite right. Patrick thrusts slowly at first, not deep, and keeps a careful eye on Pete, who's frowning up at the ceiling. "Is this--good? You need to tell me how it feels, what I should do."

"Right, yeah." Pete squirms a little, and Patrick gasps at how that feels on his dick. "Maybe if--hm--" His hand on Patrick's shoulder tugs, demanding, pulling Patrick down, and then Pete's legs move until--holy fuck, he's actually putting his ankles on Patrick's shoulders.

"Seriously?" Patrick says, incredulous and bent over Pete's chest. "That feels *good*?"

"Well, I wasn't sure if it would or not, but--yeah, it really does," Pete says breathlessly, a strange glitter in his eye. He pulls Patrick down, kissing him hard, and Patrick groans.

It's a whole different angle, a *better* angle, and he has to grip Pete's thigh and roll his hips, thrust into him, and Pete shudders against his lips.

"This doesn't hurt?" Patrick says, still a little suspicious.

"Of course it does, but it's *good,*" Pete says. "Now just--please, *fuck* me already--"

And Patrick can comply. With Pete bent in half like this he can get more leverage, brace one hand against the headboard and go for it, short thrusts at first but then Pete gives him this long, throaty sigh, tilting his head back to expose the line of his neck and Patrick has to go as deep as possible, slide himself all the way out and then all the way *in,* making them both groan.

"I liked that, do it again," Pete pants, and Patrick laughs.

"Pushy bastard," but he obliges, thrusting in again and, fuck, "Can I go harder? I need--"

"*Yes,* yeah." Pete nods several times, his eyes wide, and Patrick squeezes his thigh, his ass and lets himself go, not completely, just enough to get the kind of rhythm and friction he likes, build this up. He doesn't look away from Pete's eyes and keeps going, thrusts harder each time, getting closer and closer to holding nothing back.

Pete starts moving with him, pushing his hips and arching his back and making those high-pitched yelps every time Patrick fucks him. Their movements don't match up perfectly and it's kind of awkward, but Pete is mesmerizing, both the look and feel of him. Patrick grits his teeth and pulls roughly on Pete's leg, works himself in further and harder, and he can feel it when he hits it, the right pitch and synchronicity with Pete's body, and that's when he loses himself and goes as hard as he can until he comes, shaking through it and digging his nails into Pete's thigh.

Pete bumps Patrick's jaw with his knee. "Did you just--"

"Yeah." It comes out as a grunt, and Patrick smoothes his hand over the skin he was just gripping.

"Great," Pete says, his voice tense, and squirms. "I can't really--could you--" and it clicks in Patrick's sex-stupid brain that, oh, Pete can't really jerk himself off well in this position, and can't move with Patrick braced on top of him.

He eases himself out carefully, wincing a little, and Pete hisses when he moves his legs off Patrick's shoulders.

"Uh, damn. I might not be as flexible as I used to be."

"Or you could just be sore from getting your ass fucked for the first time," Patrick points out. He removes the condom and tosses it in the trash can next to the bed, and when he looks back Pete has his dick in his hand, stroking quickly with his eyes shut.

"Hey, no," Patrick says, frowning and batting Pete's hands away. He gives Pete a long, slow stroke from the base to the tip and leans down to lick the head, mouthing the slit. Pete gasps and his hands kind of flail before settling on Patrick's shoulder and head; two more strokes and Pete comes, his fingers tangled in Patrick's hair and his hips arching up off the bed.

Patrick rests his head on Pete's leg, sighs. Pete's fingers are combing through his hair, an absent gesture; when Patrick looks up, Pete's eyes are at half-mast and the corner of his mouth is turned up, almost smiling.

Patrick leans into Pete's touch. "Hi."

Pete's hand doesn't stop petting him. "Hey. So..." he hesitates, then the upturned corner of his mouth turns into a full-on smile. "We should do that again sometime."

Patrick snorts. "You think?" He crawls up Pete's body and lies against him, which is a little sticky and gross because of the come on Pete's chest, but he doesn't really mind. "I thought we might wait another eon before doing it again."

Pete makes a noise of protest. "I did not put this off for an *eon,* come on."

"You're right. Slight exaggeration on my part. It was only a decade." The crook of Pete's neck and shoulder is shaped pretty much perfect for Patrick to rest his head in, even more so when Pete puts his arm around Patrick, not pulling him close, just--casually possessive.

"Yeah," Pete murmurs, and Patrick can tell he's fading fast. If they fall asleep naked and sticky, Joe or Andy or someone is bound to walk in on them tomorrow morning, and they'll never live it down, but Patrick can only muster the energy to pull a sheet up and over them, forget clothes.

He settles back down against Pete, and--yep, already asleep, his breathing deep and even. Patrick smiles and closes his eyes himself, Pete's body a solid comfort beside him.

***

They pile into the van for a ten hour drive the next morning, and Pete's stuck behind the wheel. Patrick spends most of his time in the middle seat with his headphones in, trying to keep himself from grinning *all* the time--his smiling muscles are beginning to hurt.

The first rest stop they get to, Pete hops out of the van and heads straight to the bathroom; he probably thinks that the way he tilts his head back to glance over his shoulder at Patrick is subtle. Next to him, Joe snorts, and Patrick blushes.

Pete ducks into the single-stall handicapped bathroom instead of the mens bathroom, and Patrick follows, locking the door behind him.

Pete is handsy, clutching at Patrick's t-shirt and patting him down a little, walking him backwards until Patrick is pressed against the wall. He kisses him, chastely at first before licking at Patrick's lips, and Patrick wraps his arms around him.

"You know, fuck playing bass," Pete says between kisses, his fingers drawing some bizarre pattern over Patrick's belly. "I just want to do this for a living."

"I don't know how profitable it would be. Porn, sure, but just making out in gross public bathrooms? I don't know if anyone would pay us for that."

"Mmm." Pete rests his forehead against the wall and just stands there, leaning against Patrick, his breath puffing against the back of Patrick's neck. Patrick closes his eyes and runs his hand up and down Pete's back, rubbing him through his t-shirt.

"We should be getting back to the van," he says after a minute. "The other guys are already kind of pissy."

"Yeah." Pete brings his head back up, kisses Patrick's ear. "Plus, I still have to make my decision of Funyuns vs. Doritos at the vending machine."

"You choose Funyuns every time. It's not really a decision." Patrick reluctantly puts his hands on Pete's hip and pushes him gently away--the longer he waits, the harder it'll be.

"I don't know, I might want something different today." Pete says that every time, too. Patrick is used to empty crinkled Funyun bags on the floor of the van, used to smelling it on Pete's breath and tasting it in his mouth. Pete's not going to change his mind today.

Patrick walks outside while Pete dithers in front of the vending machine, seriously contemplating his decision, and squints at the sunlight. The rest of the guys are all standing around the van, reluctant to fold themselves back into the cramped space until they absolutely have to.

"God, is he *still* in there trying to decide on a stupid snack?" Joe says crankily when Patrick walks over to them.

"Yep. He's taking his sweet time." And Patrick catches himself grinning, not for any real reason, and Joe rolls his eyes at him.

"Yeah, it's really adorable how he's holding us all up." Joe's just bitchy because it's his turn to drive, Patrick knows. He doesn't make any kind of effort to stop smiling.