Lies, damned lies
Title: No Big Deal
Author: Kasha
Rating: PG-13ish
Summary: They used to be bestfriends, and now they're bestfriends who just happen to sleep together.
Author's Notes: I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that this almost certainly didn't happen.
It isn’t really that strange, Patrick finds, to be curled up with Pete on the couch in the back of the tour bus. In fact, the slide of the motel-slick upholstery under his arm is infinitely more shocking than the warmth of Pete’s hip under his fingertips (because none of them can still quite believe they get paid enough to play music that they can afford mobile furniture), and Patrick is, for a drowsy moment, bothered that the whole thing with him and Pete isn’t more of a big deal.
Patrick can’t remember which one of them started it, and neither can Pete, though he always says it must have been him because Patrick is “too much of a fluffy-ass little emo chipmunk to do something that ballsy.” Patrick’s not exactly sure what that means, but he’s pretty certain it translates, roughly, into: Pete doesn’t have any fucking idea what he’s talking about. So they’ve mutually decided—in Patrick’s mind, at least—that it just kind of happened, without initiation on anyone’s part. They used to be bestfriends, and now they’re bestfriends who just happen to sleep together. Their relationship really hasn’t even changed much apart from the sex (which, well, yeah), and even that seemed so natural that Patrick didn’t give himandPete a second thought until his mom caught them kissing by the refrigerator before Thanksgiving dinner and told Pete he’d better not fuck around with her son or she’d castrate him (not quite in those words) and asked him if he wouldn’t please be a lamb and pass the cranberry sauce (exactly in those words).
Andy and Joe and Dan and Chris and Dirty and, hell, even William and Mikey and fucking Tony were equally accepting and frustratingly unsurprised when Patrick put his foot down one day, three weeks after the Thanksgiving incident, and decided he and Pete should come clean about being each other’s boyfriends. (To this day, Patrick never actually says the “b” word out loud because it makes him feel all of seven years old and decidedly too schoolgirl for his liking, but something in his throat tingles and his belly tightens every time he thinks of Pete as his boyfriend and himself as Pete’s boyfriend.) When they’d told Andy—“We’re in love,” Pete had said, “like we kinda always were, I guess, except now we get to play naked games.”—he’d proceeded to laugh his ass off at the idea that this was news to, well, anyone. Joe had a similar reaction. Very similar, actually, because Andy insisted on calling him up right then and telling him so they could both laugh their asses off. Then Andy turned on speakerphone so Patrick and Pete could share in the moment, too. For a full thirteen minutes. None of the others reacted quite so boisterously (Dirty’s extensive questioning about logistics and positioning was more “lewd and embarrassing” than “boisterous”), but everyone’s response contained some variation of the “no fucking duh” theme.
It's wonderful to be so wholly accepted and supported, but sometimes, like now, as he’s trying to muster up the willpower to take off his glasses and put them on the side table for safe keeping before he falls asleep pressed against Pete’s back, Patrick can’t help but feel that something must be wrong for everything to be so easy. Sometimes, even though Pete is always careful never to eat the star marshmallows out of the Lucky Charms because he knows those are Patrick’s favorite, and even though Pete sometimes calls him when they’re in the same room just so he can hear Patrick whispering into his ear, Patrick can’t help but wonder if Pete (his boyfriend) really loves him as much as he claims. Because honestly, Patrick thinks, nothing is not a big deal for Pete, who is so emo it drips off him in waves of eye shadow and black hair dye. Pete, who, at any given time, is pouring his heart out in all lower case letters and vaguely coherent sentences to kids all over the internet. Pete, who spent two years and as many albums getting over one failed relationship.
So it’s not that Patrick particularly wants Pete to immortalize him in page after page of scrawled, angry lyrics and confused journal entries, but that’s the only way Patrick’s ever seen Pete act in any relationship, so why not theirs?
Patrick rouses himself enough to ask the curve of Pete’s shoulder for an answer, and he can feel the vibrations of Pete’s response.
“Why the fuck would I bitch and whine and moan when, for the first time in just about ever, I’m actually happy? It doesn’t mean anything else, Patrick—just that I’m happy. And if the whole you and me thing was no shocker to anyone, that’s probably because I grope you onstage. We’re, uh, we’re not exactly subtle, dude. Now go back to sleep. Dirty was totally right; you are the girl.”
Author: Kasha
Rating: PG-13ish
Summary: They used to be bestfriends, and now they're bestfriends who just happen to sleep together.
Author's Notes: I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that this almost certainly didn't happen.
It isn’t really that strange, Patrick finds, to be curled up with Pete on the couch in the back of the tour bus. In fact, the slide of the motel-slick upholstery under his arm is infinitely more shocking than the warmth of Pete’s hip under his fingertips (because none of them can still quite believe they get paid enough to play music that they can afford mobile furniture), and Patrick is, for a drowsy moment, bothered that the whole thing with him and Pete isn’t more of a big deal.
Patrick can’t remember which one of them started it, and neither can Pete, though he always says it must have been him because Patrick is “too much of a fluffy-ass little emo chipmunk to do something that ballsy.” Patrick’s not exactly sure what that means, but he’s pretty certain it translates, roughly, into: Pete doesn’t have any fucking idea what he’s talking about. So they’ve mutually decided—in Patrick’s mind, at least—that it just kind of happened, without initiation on anyone’s part. They used to be bestfriends, and now they’re bestfriends who just happen to sleep together. Their relationship really hasn’t even changed much apart from the sex (which, well, yeah), and even that seemed so natural that Patrick didn’t give himandPete a second thought until his mom caught them kissing by the refrigerator before Thanksgiving dinner and told Pete he’d better not fuck around with her son or she’d castrate him (not quite in those words) and asked him if he wouldn’t please be a lamb and pass the cranberry sauce (exactly in those words).
Andy and Joe and Dan and Chris and Dirty and, hell, even William and Mikey and fucking Tony were equally accepting and frustratingly unsurprised when Patrick put his foot down one day, three weeks after the Thanksgiving incident, and decided he and Pete should come clean about being each other’s boyfriends. (To this day, Patrick never actually says the “b” word out loud because it makes him feel all of seven years old and decidedly too schoolgirl for his liking, but something in his throat tingles and his belly tightens every time he thinks of Pete as his boyfriend and himself as Pete’s boyfriend.) When they’d told Andy—“We’re in love,” Pete had said, “like we kinda always were, I guess, except now we get to play naked games.”—he’d proceeded to laugh his ass off at the idea that this was news to, well, anyone. Joe had a similar reaction. Very similar, actually, because Andy insisted on calling him up right then and telling him so they could both laugh their asses off. Then Andy turned on speakerphone so Patrick and Pete could share in the moment, too. For a full thirteen minutes. None of the others reacted quite so boisterously (Dirty’s extensive questioning about logistics and positioning was more “lewd and embarrassing” than “boisterous”), but everyone’s response contained some variation of the “no fucking duh” theme.
It's wonderful to be so wholly accepted and supported, but sometimes, like now, as he’s trying to muster up the willpower to take off his glasses and put them on the side table for safe keeping before he falls asleep pressed against Pete’s back, Patrick can’t help but feel that something must be wrong for everything to be so easy. Sometimes, even though Pete is always careful never to eat the star marshmallows out of the Lucky Charms because he knows those are Patrick’s favorite, and even though Pete sometimes calls him when they’re in the same room just so he can hear Patrick whispering into his ear, Patrick can’t help but wonder if Pete (his boyfriend) really loves him as much as he claims. Because honestly, Patrick thinks, nothing is not a big deal for Pete, who is so emo it drips off him in waves of eye shadow and black hair dye. Pete, who, at any given time, is pouring his heart out in all lower case letters and vaguely coherent sentences to kids all over the internet. Pete, who spent two years and as many albums getting over one failed relationship.
So it’s not that Patrick particularly wants Pete to immortalize him in page after page of scrawled, angry lyrics and confused journal entries, but that’s the only way Patrick’s ever seen Pete act in any relationship, so why not theirs?
Patrick rouses himself enough to ask the curve of Pete’s shoulder for an answer, and he can feel the vibrations of Pete’s response.
“Why the fuck would I bitch and whine and moan when, for the first time in just about ever, I’m actually happy? It doesn’t mean anything else, Patrick—just that I’m happy. And if the whole you and me thing was no shocker to anyone, that’s probably because I grope you onstage. We’re, uh, we’re not exactly subtle, dude. Now go back to sleep. Dirty was totally right; you are the girl.”