User: jenish (posted by fizzyblogic) Date: 2007-08-16 13:20 Subject: (no subject) Security: Public Tags: fandom:bands:fall out boy, pete/patrick

Straight On 'Til Morning
{Fall Out Boy RPS. PG. Pete/Patrick. 100% untrue. For _acidflashback_ in the PxP ficathon. Beta by Lucy.}

Pete often says he could write the book on Patrick.

(What Patrick doesn’t know is, it’s a work in progress and he keeps it under his pillow.)

It would be filled with facts, he says, such as number 429: The light under Patrick’s chin in the studio is approximately three times as perfect as the sky at seven thirty on a morning in April.

(What Patrick doesn’t know is, that’s fact number 17a, followed by 17b: The morning in question was the twenty-sixth, 2003, at which time Patrick smiled at something Pete said about the unholy earliness of the hour after being up all night.)

Andy knows about the book. He asks, one night after too much coffee in the space between awake and asleep, So what’s number four hundred and eighteen?

Pete answers immediately. Patrick’s shoulder is the single most comfortable joint in the universe.

Andy doesn’t know what he can say to that. So he just nods and takes a bite of his sandwich.

Joe finds the book one afternoon when he’s searching everywhere for his phone. He swears he must have left the phone in Pete’s bunk the day before, when they were talking and he was playing with it and he put it in his back pocket, he hasn’t seen it since so it must have fallen somewhere and be here. Somewhere. He digs his hand around and pulls out the book, only his grip on it isn’t secure after the first few pages and the front cover, so it flops open and he catches some of the words. His eyes widen for a second, but then, really, it makes so much sense. He puts it back and discovers his phone at the foot of the mattress.

*

Fact #204 is: Patrick is the single most tantalising sight in the morning.
Fact #205 is: Patrick is the single most tantalising sight at any time of day, actually. Except right before biting into a really fantastic sandwich, at which point the rest of the world can go hang. This depends, of course, on the perfectness of the sandwich and whether or not Patrick is smiling in Pete’s direction at the time.
Fact #206 is: Patrick is a melody that’s impossible to get out of your head. One of the perfect ones that sticks to the inside of your jaw and the skin connecting your thumb to your index finger and tingles there.
Fact #207 is: Patrick Martin Stump’s voice is wired directly into the left ventricle, designed to make it pound.

*

It’s late. (It’s always late when they’re on the road; early gets swallowed in gas stations and pillows and too bright, close the curtains.) Pete is tapping his knuckles against his Sidekick, looking a few inches to the left of the screen, not really seeing anything. Patrick sits down on the couch; Pete’s back is against it and Patrick’s leg brushes his side. Hey, Patrick says.

Hey, Pete replies, sending a ghost of a smile upwards. Patrick shifts over and his hands are on Pete’s shoulders. Patrick rubs, and Pete realises how tensed up he had become when he relaxes into it. Mmm. You’re good at that.

(Fact #67: Patrick is awesome at shoulder rubs.)

Thanks. Patrick is quiet for a minute, and Pete leans back, finding his head connecting with soft cushion and some part of Patrick’s body, though he can’t tell what. Patrick’s hands still work, moving to just under his neck, and it feels heavenly. Pete closes his eyes.

They fall asleep like that, and wake half an hour later, Patrick with one hand draped over Pete’s shoulder. He shifts up onto the couch, and there’s not really room for the both of them but Pete wriggles and Patrick has no choice but to lie half on top of him.

Too damn tired to go to my own bunk, Pete murmurs, and Patrick pats what he can reach (an arm and a small patch of hip) with affection and a little amusement.

(Fact #98 is: Patrick likes his personal space. With most people.)

Pete nudges Patrick’s chin with his nose, but Patrick turns his head to settle on Pete’s chest. I’ll get up in a minute, he says, eyes closing again. Pete nods and tries to hear breathing over the sound of his heartbeat.

*

Fact #26: Patrick wears some things that even Pete wouldn’t contemplate if he got dressed in the dark. Patrick has, however, said the same about Pete, so really, we’re even.
Fact #27: Patrick looks good in whatever he wears. A lesser man would resent him for this.
Fact #28: Patrick will, when gifted with a great hat, light up in exactly the way to make a chest tighten and a grin irrepressible.

*

Pete hates early mornings. Pete hates weeks like this, when everything he does goes wrong, when he misses all the wrong people, when all the right people – when they’re not the right people, maybe, when. He misses his dog and he misses everything and he presses the heels of his hands into his eyes and hopes that soon it won’t be morning.

You alright, man? Andy asks, one arm poised as if to go around him. Pete starts to shake his head, starts to nod, achieves neither. Andy squeezes him around the shoulders.

He holds on to Patrick’s coat, later, bunching his hands in the folds of it, gripping. He won’t let go. He can’t let go. Patrick strokes fingertips through his hair and listens.

*

Fact #2: Patrick wears argyle and shorts with kneesocks and must be teased for the rest of eternity.
Fact #3: Patrick is an amazing singer.
Fact #4: Patrick is a great listener.
Fact #5: Patrick’s laugh can be safely compared to the sound of pure sunshine. The sunshine would be found wanting.

*

Pete looks at the pages in his hands. Lyrics, scraps of songs, scribbled notes. He looks up at Patrick’s bunk, where he intends to leave them for Patrick to find later and work with, but.

He slides one hand underneath the pillow and pulls out the notebook. It only has one page left, right at the back, the side facing the cover clean, the other side with writing crammed into the corners and margins and between the lines. He turns it over and over and stares thoughtfully at Patrick’s bunk.

He puts the pages of lyrics on top of Patrick’s blankets (neatly made) and slips the notebook under the pillow. He bites his lip and closes the curtains on it.

*

Fact #1: Pete fell in love with Patrick approximately five minutes and three seconds after meeting him.

*

Pete keeps his eyes shut tight, bunk curtain drawn, when he hears Patrick coming to bed. Hears the rustle of pages, and a soft Oh!

He doesn’t dare make a sound. He hears a few snatches of hummed bars, and the tapping of a beat against a knee, and then silence.

In the morning, Pete opens his eyes and sees the notebook on the pillow next to him. He blinks for a few moments until the day before settles back into place, and then he snatches it up and stares at it.

He flicks through it. On the last page are two lines in Patrick’s handwriting.

Fact #879: Patrick fell in love with Pete approximately seven minutes and nine seconds after meeting him.
Fact #880: Patrick is waiting in the front lounge for Pete to get up and kiss him.

Pete grins, shakes his hair out of his eyes, gets up, and goes to the front lounge.

*

Pete often says he could write the book on Patrick.

And what would the book of Pete say? Patrick often asks, his mouth thinking about smiling but not quite there yet.

That’s not the point, Pete always answers.

(What Pete doesn’t know is, that’s always the point.)