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By the time Pete makes it back to the bus, Patrick is already there - which is usually the way these things happen.
Pete’s not usually wearing a skeleton onesie, but - even if it is technically a stage costume, he doesn’t have any plans to use it again on this leg of the tour, so he can wear it back to the bus. It’s fine. The kids hanging around outside got a kick out of it.
Inside the bus, though - Patrick is obviously back, but he’s not sitting up front. There’s signs of life scattered around the front lounge: a half-empty bottle of Dr. Pepper on the table, his backpack on the couch - so Pete just tosses his own bag on the floor and sits down to wait. He sinks down against the cushions to get comfortable, kicking off his shoes and bringing his legs up beside him, digging his phone out of his pocket.
“Pete?” Patrick calls out from wherever he is, interrupting the first post Pete tries to read.
“Yeah, ‘s just me,” he calls back.
“You lied to me,” Patrick says - and his tone is serious enough that Pete looks up from his phone - but then Patrick comes ducking out of the bathroom, and his expression isn’t genuinely angry. He’s got a grumpy little frown on his face ( cute , Pete thinks, as usual, against his will), but it’s obvious he’s trying not to laugh. The last traces of his makeup are still lingering around his eyes, and Pete gets a little caught up in the contrast of it - the smudges of darkness bringing out all the different shades of blue and gold.
Trying to stop himself from just like, staring, Pete sits up properly and tosses his phone aside. “Is this about-” He trails off, watching Patrick’s face for hints - but he still can’t read anything beyond the spark of amusement lurking underneath the grumpy expression. “Okay, actually, I have no idea what this is about,” he admits.
“You said the makeup was all gone before we were even done with the set, but this,” Patrick points at his eyes, circling them, “This is not gone. And it’s not going anywhere, either, I keep trying to wipe it off and it’s just, like, stuck there, and smudged, so now I look like - you, circa 2007.”
That joke that Patrick’s clearly been waiting to make is what makes his smile break through, and Pete barks out a laugh, too, surprised into it. “Okay - you look way better than I did in 2007, that’s not-”
“Great, Mr. Teen Heartthrob is gonna tell me how much better I look in guyliner,” Patrick grumbles, but he’s actively biting his lip to stop from laughing, and wiggling his head for emphasis, and Pete laughs so hard he leans back with it, tipping back into the cushions as he chuckles.
“Okay - jesus.” Pete catches his breath, and sits back up, letting out another little giggle as he catches sight of Patrick, still grinning at him. “Look - I really was gonna get makeup wipes when I got the candy. I was like - oh, I should - like, after that baking soda incident, who knows what he’s gonna put on his face this time-”
“You weren’t even there for that-”
“No, because if I was I would have told you to use actual setting powder, like, c’mon, it’s not rocket science-”
“Yes, okay, I learned my lesson, I called myself an idiot - can we - you were going to get makeup wipes-”
“Oh - well, then I ran into some kids in the store and - I got sidetracked. Honestly, we’re lucky I managed to get the candy. Which - not that anyone else would have been sad about that except for me, but I think it turned out pretty nice. It was a good idea.”
“It was a great idea,” Patrick agrees easily. “Still - do kind of wish you’d actually gotten the wipes.” Sighing, Patrick rubs at his face again, specifically his eyes - and just like he said, what’s left of the eye makeup really doesn’t budge. “Maybe I can sleep in this and then we can get them tomorrow, but it is like-” Patrick squints, and scrunches up his nose, and again, Pete feels a visceral wave of fondness rush through his body until it tingles a little in his fingertips. “It is kind of uncomfortable. Like I can - feel it, now I know it’s there, I don’t know how you slept in yours.”
Pete snorts, and stands up, stretching. “Uh - badly, the same way I always slept, and also, probably drugged. Just - here.” Happy to change the subject, Pete reaches over to nudge Patrick towards the couch, squeezing his shoulders in the process. “Just sit down, and let me see if I have anything in a bag somewhere. I’ll figure it out.”
“What, like you have secret makeup wipes?”
“Sure, maybe,” Pete says with a shrug. He doesn’t, actually, he’s pretty sure, because he hasn’t used makeup wipes in - probably over a decade. No, definitely over a decade now. He makes the executive decision not to spiral over the passing of time (again), and instead ducks down the hallway to go dig through his toiletries.
Thankfully, he finds a clean washcloth in a record amount of time. He figures he can probably just lather it up with some of his own facial cleanser and that should do the trick for getting rid of what’s left of the makeup, as long as they’re careful about it.
He takes the damp, soapy cloth back up front and tosses it into Patrick’s lap.
“Here, just - be careful you don’t get cleanser in your eyes but - that should get the last of it.”
“So like-” Patrick closes his eyes, brings the washcloth to his face, and gestures like he’s going to start scrubbing over his eye. Before he can, Pete reaches over and snatches the cloth back out of his hand.
“Not like that! Jesus, it’s like you want to get soap in your eye-”
“Look I already - I do not use, like, fancy face soap, that’s a you thing. I don’t-”
“It’s not that it’s fancy, it’s just that it’s soap, and if you get it in your eye it’s gonna sting, Patrick.”
“Yeah, I get that, but it’s on my eye, how do I get it off my eye without like-”
“I feel like I’m giving my kids a bath - jesus, just let me do it - here.” Sitting down and scooting in close, Pete raises the cloth, and gestures with his free hand. “Tilt your head back, and close your eyes, and I’ll get the last of it, okay?”
“I mean, you clearly know more about getting it off than I do so - have at it.”
Patrick does exactly what Pete asked, closing his eyes and tipping his head back against the cushion behind him - and Pete is abruptly, quietly stunned.
It always hits him in the worst possible moments, just how beautiful Patrick really is. Right in the middle of a song, or while they’re laughing together in some interview - and now, when Pete’s supposed to be helping him take off his makeup, and instead he’s just sitting here, staring. Patrick’s profile is like something off a marble carving in even the worst lighting - but right now the line of his throat, and the way it leads up towards his face - the tilt of his chin, the way his eyelashes flutter just slightly as he tries to keep his eyes closed - he looks like a stained glass angel. It almost hurts Pete just to look at him. He gives himself just a moment, to trace over all of it with his eyes - and apparently he takes just a little too long, because Patrick squints one eye open to look at him, and asks, “Are you gonna-”
“Yeah, sorry, just-” Pete huffs out a breath and leans in closer. “Planning my approach. There’s tactics involved,” He’s bluffing, mostly, half-joking - but he is, suddenly, very close to Patrick. He’s bracing one hand on the cushions just by Patrick’s head, kneeling next to him on the couch, and when he leans in enough to see the smudged traces of the makeup - he’s not at the right angle to feel the warmth of Patrick’s breath, but he’s basically close enough.
Patrick’s eye closes again, and Pete leans just that last little bit closer as brings up the cloth to brush it gently over Patrick’s eyelid.
“Oh,” Patrick says quietly.
“Don’t open your eyes,” Pete reminds him.
“No, yeah, I just-” Patrick shifts slightly, tipping his head back a little further. “Feels nice. I wasn’t expecting it to be cool, but - it’s nice.”
“Good,” Pete says, for some reason, and he tries not to bite his own tongue off afterwards. There is something - distinctly intimate about this in a way he hadn’t fully anticipated.
It reminds him a little of putting eyeliner on Gabe for that video - but he and Gabe have always been the teenage girls at a sleepover kind of friends. He and Patrick have always been something - distinctly different.
Related - Pete really can’t remember the last time he had his face or his hands this close to Patrick’s face. Probably before the break. He’s still trying not to touch Patrick’s face directly - he keeps one hand on the couch beside his head, and his other hand on the cloth - but Pete can feel the warmth of his skin even through the cloth, and he’s just staring at the delicate area just under Patrick’s eye. If he slipped, just a little, he could brush his fingers along Patrick’s cheekbone, and trace the flush on his face - he’s hyper aware of it, the entire time he works.
Once he’s gotten all the smudges cleared away on the side closest to him, Pete moves to the other eye. He keeps wiping gently, moving slowly and carefully so he doesn’t get soap anywhere it doesn’t belong. He wipes off the rest of the makeup, wipes the soap away with the remaining clean, wet part of the cloth, and examines Patrick’s face close up to check for any remaining traces of makeup.
“I think I got the rest of it,” he mutters, frowning with concentration as he scrubs the cloth over Patrick’s jawline, just a final pass over the last of the white makeup stuck in his stubble.
“Great, th-” Mid-word, Patrick opens his eyes, and tips his head back up, and very nearly bumps his forehead into Pete’s. They’re - very, very close suddenly. Pete really can feel Patrick’s breath, as he exhales quickly through his nose, and he can’t really avoid the way he watches Patrick’s eyelashes flutter as he blinks, rapidly. “Hi,” Patrick says, softly, without leaning back.
“Hey,” Pete answers, his mouth quirking up on one side, something like a nervous twitch.
For a moment, neither of them say anything.
In some slightly alternate universe, in a place where only miracles happen, some other, blessed version of Pete Wentz leans down and presses his mouth directly against Patrick’s, kisses him back into the cushions, and climbs right into his lap.
That’s not where this Pete lives, though. This Pete, the only real Pete, knows better. He’s made his sacrifices to keep all the good things in his life - and sometimes the universe knocks him down a peg on top of that, like when it made Patrick Stump straight.
So - Pete backs off, and flops back against the cushions beside Patrick, not touching him, and tips his face up towards the ceiling. “You can go check if you want.”
There’s a pause, one in which Pete’s too much of a coward to turn and check Patrick’s expression, and then Patrick says, “Yeah - right. Sure,” and gets up to go look in the mirror.
He’s gone for a minute or two - long enough that Pete convinces himself to open his eyes and sit back up. He forces himself into the present moment - and then feels aggressively like - itchy and overheated, and has to shrug out of the top half of his skeleton onesie. He doesn’t have the mesh top on underneath anymore, but he can’t be bothered to find another shirt right now to be comfortable in, so he just ties the sleeves around his waist and falls back against the couch, shirtless, one arm thrown over his face.
“Hey, can I ask you something?” Patrick asks, his voice close enough now that Pete knows he’s back in the lounge.
Pete peeks around his arm just for a moment - but when he realizes that Patrick looks serious, he puts his arm down and sits up properly. “Sure, probably. What is it?”
“Why don’t you touch me onstage anymore?”
Frowning, Pete tugs at the tied ends of his sleeves, and abruptly feels a little too exposed. “Uh - is that like a trick question?”
“It’s not supposed to be,” Patrick says softly.
“I just don’t get it. Like, you know the answer to that.”
“I don’t, or I wouldn’t be asking.”
Feeling a little like the universe has tilted oddly to the left - or maybe he’s jumped timelines, Pete blinks at him and frowns. “Patrick - you literally told me to stop. Ten years ago when we got the band back together, or came back from the break - whatever you wanna call it.” Crossing his arms, Pete covers himself as much as he can, but he resists the urge to shrug back into his onesie. Instead, he just curls in on himself and stares down at the floor. “That was like - one of the five things you told me had to change if we were gonna start everything back up. I don’t remember the whole list, but-”
“No, like I-” Patrick huffs, and Pete resists the urge to glance up and check his expression. “I remember that conversation,” Patrick insists. “I just wanted to know if we were still doing it that way just because of a conversation we had ten years ago, or if - you know, there were other things involved.”
“There isn’t anything else involved, you told me to stop and I stopped. It doesn’t matter that it was ten years ago, it’s not like you were gonna change your mind back all of a sudden-”
“But what if I did?” Patrick asks, loudly enough to cut him off.
Finally, with that, Pete looks up, and finds that Patrick’s stepped over to the couch again, close enough to stand right in front of him. Pete blinks up at him for just a moment, and then dives down to dig through his bag.
“Just, hang on a second,” Pete says - and he rifles through until he successfully finds a hoodie, which he pulls out and shrugs on. It makes him feel marginally less exposed, and he exhales slowly as he shoves his hands into the pocket on the front and settles back into the cushions, giving himself a little more space at the same time. “So - what if what? What if you changed your mind?”
“Yeah. What if I did change my mind that it was okay after all or - like maybe it was never supposed to be a hard and fast rule for ten years anyways. Would you just start it up again?”
“Are we still like - talking hypothetically here, or are you actually trying to tell me you changed your mind?”
Sighing, Patrick sits back down on the couch. He’s not right beside Pete - but he’s not a full cushion away either. “I don’t know that it counts as changing my mind when - I can’t remember the last time I actually wanted you that far away onstage. I just kept hoping it would sort of work itself out without us having to talk about it, but the only thing that’s changed is - you know, you do that bit in Saturday where you put your elbow on my shoulder.”
“You kept patting me on the shoulder, I felt like that was free game.”
“Yeah, sure. But - that’s my point, I guess. That’s what I’m trying to ask. Is the only thing stopping you the fact that you thought I still didn’t want you to? Or like - is the elbow on the shoulder thing as far as you’re going?”
“Uh,” Pete says, still feeling more than slightly blindsided by the turn in conversation. “I don’t know. I guess I haven’t really, like - thought about it? I mean what are you even - you want like a list of all the ways I might touch you onstage or-”
Obviously frustrated, Patrick makes a grumpy little sound and falls forward just enough to rest his forehead on his hand. “No, I just- do you even want to do any of that stuff we used to do onstage? Like if I say all bets off are you leaning on me during Headfirst Slide again and putting your head on my shoulder during Where’s Your Boy? Or are we just gonna stand like - half a foot apart from each other until - I don’t know, our knees stop working someday and we play sitting down.”
He watches Patrick talk with his hands and frown at the carpet, but he still can’t quite place the source of the frustration. He’s not sure where any of this is coming from, and it makes him hesitate, treading carefully as they edge further into a discussion he thought they were never going to have again.
“I don’t know what you want me to say here,” Pete admits softly, keeping his hands tangled up in his hoodie. “Like, I can’t tell if you’re mad at me for something I’m - doing, or not doing, or like - might do in the future? I promise I’m not gonna climb all over you again, I know that was like - a little bit much.”
“I’m not mad at you,” Patrick says, softening slightly. He sits up, and looks over at Pete, eyes all patient and gentle, but then he looks away again, still frowning. “I’m mad at myself, because I feel like I - did something I can’t undo. I don’t think I can get any closer to you sometimes than I do during Autumn without like - hitting you with my guitar, and no matter how I do it, you’re always just - like, just out of reach. And I try not to think about it, right, or beat myself up, but that feels like it’s my fault, that even now, like ten years later, you won’t just like - come a little closer, and do it the way we used to do it. And maybe I’m just crazy, you know, like maybe - you were high or freaked out and you were just using me to ground yourself back then, which is totally fine, and now you’re like - why would you want my sweat all over you, or whatever. Maybe it’s not secretly some big tragedy, and maybe it’s not that deep and I’m just - old and sentimental, I don’t know.”
“I’m older than you,” Pete chokes out, mouth running off before his brain can manage to pause.
Huffing out a sad little laugh, Patrick turns back to him and the corner of his mouth quirks up. “Yeah, well, you and everybody used to tell me I was like, 70 when I was 17, so I’m probably like almost a hundred now by that logic. Old man.”
“You’re such a dick,” Pete mutters, but he says it with a smile, scooting across the cushion and pressing his forehead against Patrick’s shoulder, hard. Patrick tenses, just for a second, and then relaxes, making his shoulder a soft place for Pete to rest his head.
It clicks now, for Pete, what Patrick was trying to say. It’s just so surreal that Pete couldn’t process it at first - or maybe he was just tired and not looking at it from the right angle. Either way, he gets it now. Patrick, for some insane reason, thought Pete might not want to touch him anymore, and didn’t know how to ask. He is somehow still unaware that Pete spends every aching moment of his life wanting to be pressed against Patrick from forehead to foot, and has just gotten used to suppressing the urge.
“I’ll do whatever you want, onstage. I just thought you didn’t want to do it anymore - I didn’t wanna piss you off,” Pete mumbles against Patrick’s arm, still hiding his face there.
“You’re not gonna piss me off,” Patrick grumbles.
Then - a distantly familiar hand bumps gently against the back of Pete’s head. Patrick smoothes a hand down over his hair, just once, and then rests his palm carefully against the curve of Pete’s skull. It feels like he expects Pete to shake him off, or pull back - so instead, Pete just burrows further against Patrick’s shoulder, wordlessly.
“You, uh - why’d you say whatever I want, onstage?” Patrick asks, running his fingers restlessly through Pete’s hair.
“I don’t know, cause you’re the one with like - boundaries, you know. I’m pretty much down for whatever.”
“You can have boundaries,” Patrick insists, like he needs to make sure Pete knows this.
“Sure,” Pete scoffs, turning his head just enough to rest his cheek against Patrick’s arm and shoulder instead of his forehead. “I just - don’t, really. I mean, not with this. I can’t imagine anything you’re gonna ask me to do where I’d tell you no.”
“Anything? Seriously?”
Sighing, half-amused and half-exasperated, Pete reaches out and toys with the drawstring of Patrick’s sleep pants, where it’s untied and a little bit longer on one side, hanging easily within reach. “Okay, fine, I’m not doing that thing where I used to, like - pull my shirt up and try to hump you or whatever during Saturday. I like the new thing better. Happy?”
Giggling, Patrick wraps the fingers of his free hand around Pete’s wrist and squeezes, gently. “Yeah, that one is probably better off left in - 2006?”
“Don’t ask me when I did anything by like - years. I don’t know years.”
“You always say that and then your best guess is like - spot on.”
“Eh,” Pete mutters, wiggling his hand back and forth. It’s the one Patrick’s still holding onto - but he doesn’t let go, either. They’re touching in a few different places now - Patrick’s hand on his wrist, and in his hair, Pete’s head on his shoulder, one arm sort of tucked against Patrick’s side with the way they’re sitting so close.
It’s all strangely comfortable. Pete knows it’s been a long time - knows that’s why Patrick hesitated at first - but if it’s working, Pete isn’t going to question it. Patrick wanted proof that Pete still wants to touch him - he can have it. He can have whatever he wants.
“What about the kissing thing?” Patrick asks.
Almost certain that he heard wrong, Pete lifts his head up and blinks at Patrick. He assumes at the very least that Patrick will still be smiling, or that it’ll be obvious he’s joking again from the spark in his eyes or something - but it’s not. If he is joking, he’s not showing it - and so Pete goes back to assuming he heard wrong. “Did you say kissing thing?”
Patrick blinks back at him. “Yeah, like during Mr. Brightside. Are we uh - leaving that in the mid-2000s, too?”
“We don’t do the Mr. Brightside cover anymore,” Pete says.
Patrick’s hand falls away from his hair as he looks over at the wall. “No, yeah, that’s true. I guess it doesn’t really work without the-”
“You want me to kiss you?” Pete asks, too surprised and too confused to keep talking around it. “I thought you hated that.”
“I didn’t hate it, you’re exaggerating. I agreed to it, didn’t I?"
“Yeah, but-” Before Patrick’s hand can pull away from his, Pete tangles their fingers together, holding tightly. “I thought you wanted it off the setlist because you hated it.”
“I kind of felt like you hated it, by the end,” Patrick says softly.
“Well I didn’t hate kissing you,” Pete says before he can stop to second guess himself. “On the cheek. But - uh, I guess I did kind of hate doing it for a crowd - who then also a lot of the time went online and talked about how you obviously hated it. Again.”
“I never hated it.” Patrick punctuates his sentence by brushing his free hand over Pete’s hair again. “Maybe it was a little - silly sometimes. But I’d do it again in a heartbeat just to prove I was always fine with it. Just for the record.”
“You don’t have to let me kiss you on the cheek to prove a point, Patrick, Jesus.”
“I’m not just proving a point, I’m-” Patrick pauses for a second, his brow furrowed, and Pete listens as he hums under his breath.
“Is that-” Pete lifts his head up, frowning as he listens intently, trying to figure out which song Patrick’s humming.
“Kiss my cheek, baby please, would you read my eulogy,” Patrick sings quietly, smiling like he’s more than a little bit proud of himself.
“That - is a line in the song.”
“It’s a way better prompt than the line in Mr. Brightside.”
“You want me to kiss you on the cheek in the middle of Heaven, Iowa,” Pete says, too flat to be a question. Flatter than he meant it to come out, actually, but - he’s skeptical and confused and maybe a little bit twitchy.
“I mean-” The smile falls away from Patrick’s face, and he blinks. “Not if you don’t want to. It was just an idea.”
“Okay but - why? Seriously. What are you even getting out of this?”
“I don’t know,” Patrick says softly, shrugging, finally shifting back a little and letting go of Pete’s hand. “You not being like, a million miles away from me onstage, mostly. You were the one that said anything so I was just - going for it, I don’t know. I guess I thought it would prove that I’m up for anything you wanna do.”
In spite of himself, Pete scoffs.
“What - what kind of noise is that?”
“You are not up for anything I wanna do.”
“What the hell is that supposed to mean? You won’t even kiss me on the cheek, what kind of grand plans-”
It must be some kind of grand fit of insanity that overtakes him - but whatever it is, something spirals up in Pete’s chest, and pushes him into action, so that all tangled up and annoyed and trying to prove his own point - he ducks forward and kisses Patrick sloppily on the mouth.
There’s really no other way to put it. It’s not a good kiss. It’s a gesture for shock value - just push his mouth messily against Patrick’s, just long enough to realize what he’s doing, long enough to make sustained lip to lip contact, and then he’s pulling away again, immediately seized by the realization of what he’s done.
“Fuck. Sorry.”
“What?” Patrick says out loud, blinking at him.
“In my head that was like - you think I don’t even wanna kiss you on the cheek? Watch this! But that was like - actually now that it’s sinking in that was kind of fucked up, I definitely shouldn’t have-”
Which is precisely when Patrick reaches over, grabs Pete by the back of his neck, and actually kisses him.
It’s still a little messy, because Pete wasn’t done talking - but this is not some kind of sloppy prove a point kiss. This is like - Patrick is kissing him. Patrick is really, actually kissing him with the intent of kissing him, lips plush and hungry against his own, nose pressed hard against Pete’s cheek, fingers digging into the back of his neck. Pete’s eyes are still open, and all he can see is Patrick’s skin, up close and personal, and when his eyes flutter shut - all he can taste and touch and smell is Patrick, and all he can hear is the rushing in his own ears.
It is, very easily, one of the top five most perfect moments of Pete’s entire life.
Then Patrick pulls back, his fingertips still clutching at the back of Pete’s neck.
“What?” Pete croaks out, because he can’t stop himself.
“You’re not the only one who can kiss people. Maybe I’ll kiss you onstage.”
“Are we - still talking about onstage? We’re not onstage. You’re just kissing me. On the bus.”
“You kissed me first.”
Forcing his own eyes open, Pete looks at Patrick, and feels the expression on Patrick’s face like a fist to the chest. His cheeks are flushed, his pupils are dilated, his mouth is all pink and ruddy red, and he’s just staring at Pete, blinking rapidly, but not even trying to look away. Pete blinks at him, and Patrick blinks back, and the hand on the back of Pete’s neck tightens its grip for a moment before Patrick clearly forces himself to loosen up again.
“Hey, Patrick. Crazy idea. Kiss me again.”
Patrick’s eyes fall visibly to land on his lips. Pete’s stomach twists with the knowledge.
“Why?” Patrick asks.
“Because I want you to,” Pete tells him, achingly honest, already too drunk on Patrick’s touch to keep talking around it. “Please?”
“Okay, the please was maybe unnecessary,” Patrick mutters, ducking forward to punctuate his sentence with a soft, lingering kiss. “I just wanna make sure - I wasn’t expecting this and if we’re not on the same page-”
“You were totally into the please,” Pete answers, biting his lip against a grin, and then pressing his smile against Patrick’s mouth anyways, unable to stay away. Patrick’s lips are soft, and damp, and Pete flicks his tongue out against Patrick’s lower lip just because he can, just to feel it under his tongue. “And - I don’t know what the page is. I don’t even know what book we’re in right now-”
Pete tips forward into another kiss, and Patrick lets him - catches him, lips against lips, warm and lingering. He’d rather stay there than keep breathing, rather just get his air from Patrick’s lungs, everything in the world he could possibly need right there under his hands-
And then Patrick pulls back, slowly.
“Mm, wait,” Pete mumbles, sliding a head up to the back of Patrick’s head to pull him back in.
“No,” Patrick insists, softening it with a kiss he presses to the corner of Pete’s mouth. He puts one hand on Pete’s chest and physically pushes him back to get some space in between them. “Seriously, let’s just - just take a second, okay?”
“Do we have to?”
“I mean - I’d like to. Just to - figure out what we’re doing?”
“I thought we were kissing.”
“Okay, sure - figure out why, then?
“Does there have to be a why? Can’t we just-” Pete tugs gently at Patrick’s shirt, but Patrick stays solid where he is, his mouth twisting up into a frown.
“I think we should both figure out why before we just - go so far we can’t take it back.”
A sickly, sour feeling starts to churn in the pit of Pete’s stomach. “You wanna take it back?”
“Not necessarily, I just think right now we haven’t gone so far that we can’t, if we’re not on the same page, and I just-”
Patrick’s still talking, but the static in Pete’s brain, the rushing in his ears, starts to take over. He pulls his hands back into his own lap, quietly, and turns away a little bit, just enough that he can turn his head and hide his face behind his hair.
“Let me uh - if we’re gonna like, talk, let me just - change clothes, then. I’m still like - wearing half of a skeleton onesie - fuck.”
“Wait, Pete, don’t-” Patrick reaches out and grabs Pete’s sleeve before he can stand up. “Don’t shut me out right now. Please? Can you just-”
“I don’t get it. I don’t get why we can’t just - I kiss you, you kiss me back, and we just - Listen, if you just realized what a bad idea it is after all, that’s fine, okay? I get it, but can we please just - skip over that part and let me put on some fucking pants or something?”
“And why would it be a bad idea?” Patrick asks softly.
“I don’t know, the same reason it’s been a bad idea for 20 years, I guess - the same reasons you probably always had. Apparently you’re not straight, so we can strike that one, but - you still said you wouldn’t date anybody you were in a band with, and last time I checked we are still in a band together, and on top of that, I’m me - I mean I’m sure you had a list-”
“I never thought you were serious,” Patrick says, his voice gone slightly hoarse.
It’s enough to shake Pete out of his spiral, at least a little bit, and he looks back at Patrick’s face - Patrick, who with his wide eyes and downturned mouth looks a little bit distraught.
“What does that mean?” Pete asks.
“For a long time I told myself the jokes were better than nothing. And then - they weren’t, and that sucked, so when we came back I thought - I’d rather have whatever’s genuine than just the jokes and the onstage bits. But then it all just stopped and I realized how much I missed it, but it felt silly to ask for it back so soon, and I just kept hoping things would change, but they never did, and then I thought maybe it really was just all jokes after all-”
“It was never a joke. I was never just joking without it being all - tangled up.”
“Yeah, I get that now.”
For a moment, they both just sit there, the weight of lost time heavy on both of their shoulders - at least it’s heavy on Pete’s, and he gets the sense that Patrick’s silence is coming from the same place.
“So now what?” Pete asks quietly.
“I killed the mood pretty good, didn’t I?”
Sputtering out a laugh, Pete tips over and leans hard against Patrick’s shoulder again. “Oh you’d have to try way harder than that.”
“Yeah?” Patrick challenges, starting to break into a smile.
“Put on a scary movie and slip a hand under my shirt, I’ll be ready to go in no time.”
Patrick laughs at that and swats at his arm - but it’s half-hearted at best, and he lets his hand linger there against Pete’s shoulder. “What have I gotten myself into?”
“I would say me, but like, not yet, so-”
“Stop talking,” Patrick mutters, leaning forward to physically stop Pete’s mouth with his own. Pete grins into the kiss.
“Okay. Yeah. Sure,” he mumbles against Patrick’s lips in between kisses.
For 60 blissful seconds, Patrick is kissing him, cradling the back of his head, pulling him in close again, and Pete is crawling into his lap, making a home there-
And then a thought crashes to the front of Pete’s brain.
“Wait, shit,” he says breathlessly, pulling away, “I never explained that thing with the Beyoncé fan-”
Patrick essentially tackles him onto his back on the couch, landing warm and solid on top of him, which puts a swift end to the conversation and also most of Pete’s remaining brain cells.
Which - that’s fine. They can circle back to it later.