Fuck You, Romance! (February Challenge)

At 10:42 Pete woke up alone. Patrick hadn’t stayed over even though as of late he had been there pretty much every night. It was all part of their Master Plan, their own personal spin on Valentine’s Day. They called it: Fuck You, Romance!

“Valentine’s Day is fucking stupid. I mean, it’s just an excuse for the card companies to make money off stereotypical gifts.”

“Stereotypical shitty gifts,” amended Patrick.

“Exactly! I mean, find me someone who has a relationship best represented by a bear holding a heart that says ‘I love you’ on it. Who is that really meaningful for?”

“Yeah, and you shouldn’t have to pick a day to show someone you love them. You should just do it. Like, all the time! Oh, I love you, by the way.”

“Huh? Oh yeah, me too.” Pete leaned over and kissed Patrick quickly before returning to his rant. “So, like, are we even going to bother? I’ll make reservations and buy you something if you want me to, but I’d only really be doing it because you asked. You mean more to me than a dozen roses.”

“Fuck man, flowers just die anyway. What the hell does that say? I love you for the next four days. Then, if you want, we can trim the stems and change the water and milk another two days out of this fucker, but after that, we’re dead. No, let’s not do anything. Actually, let’s make a point of not doing anything.”

“What do you mean?”

“Let’s not even see each other. Or talk to each other. Just let the whole day go by. I’ll love you up until the 13th and after the 15th, but next Wednesday the whole idea of love will be so overdone that it won’t mean shit anyway, so fuck it. Let’s just ignore it.”

“You know what? Yeah. Let’s do that.”

So on the 13th Patrick came over for dinner, and then just went home so as not to risk falling asleep and ruining their plans the next morning. Pete rubbed his eyes and stretched, telling himself that the extra space on the mattress was a refreshing change. No, it didn’t feel empty at all.

He grabbed a bowl of cereal and sat down in front of his computer. Check e-mail, change ‘away’ message, lurk Livejournal, run “Pete Wentz” through Google, poke around the Boards, run “Pete Wentz” through Google Images… for someone addicted to the internet, he found himself growing bored quickly. A little after 2:00 he admitted defeat, closed his laptop, and turned on the TV.

Dear sweet fuck, is every channel airing a Valentine’s Day special? He flicked all the way through twice, but couldn’t find anything worth watching. Even CNN was running a bit on the greeting card industry, and the fact that he had considered watching CNN, now that was saying something…

Pete had never been a friend of boredom. Usually it ended it something being broken or… exposed. Twitchy and irritable, he decided broken was worth it and called Andrew. There had to be some stupid thing they could get on camera just for shits and giggles.

“Hello?”

“Hey, you doing anything?”

“Uh, yeah, it’s Valentine’s Day.”

“And…”

“And I have a girlfriend… who I’d like to have sex with… ever again…”

“Conformist,” muttered Pete as he hung up. Well that was out. It just wasn’t as fun to ruin things on your own.

Pete drummed his fingers on his thighs and looked at the clock. Not quite 3:00. Fuck, could this day go any slower? He looked around for something to do. The internet was done, TV sucked, Hemmy was far too cute when he slept for Pete to possibly wake him… left, right, up, down…

Down…

Now there was something he could do for a little while. Between getting pretty much everything he needed from Patrick and efficiently taking care of the rest himself in a tiny tour bus washroom, Pete couldn’t remember the last time he’d had a good, leisurely jerk. He’d broken land-speed records in stalls at truck stops back when it was just the van, but hell, sometimes it was nice to just take your time.

Now the moral dilemma: was it bending the rules if he thought about Patrick? Even though it could be his own (dirty) little secret, he figured he shouldn’t risk it and checked his holdings at the Spank Bank.

Gerard? Maybe another time… Brendon? Not bad, but not quite right… Ryan? Too pretty. He’d jump right back to Patrick… Brendon and Ryan? Now that was tempting, but not quite what he was looking for… William? Not today… Harry Potter? Ooh, tempting, especially with those Equus pictures, but that boy was a little too obvious for even Pete’s tastesWilliam Shatner? Ooh, older man, but still just not exactly it…

Pete finally gave in and went back to Patrick. It didn’t really count. There wasn’t really anything romantic about slouching on your sofa with your pants shoved down, staring off into space and playing with yourself while your dog waddles over to make quick work of the Froot Loop flavoured milk you’ve got drying in your abandoned cereal bowl. Yeah, definitely unromantic, but a good way to kill some time.

Faster, faster, faster, slower, tease the balls, add a second hand… Pete looked down at himself while he worked. I’m sorry I’ve neglected you, baby. You deserve the good shit. Come here and let Petey make it all better… Stroke, stroke, tease, stroke… A twist of the wrist and his hips bucked upwards, leaving him breathlessly holding a wadded up napkin.

Fuck yes, that was exactly what…

Pete blinked and let his eyes adjust to the light, or rather to the lack thereof. Did the power go out? He looked around but the clocks weren’t blinking, just displaying a solid, certain 8:14 pm.

What? I napped? I don’t nap! Peter Lewis Kingston Wentz III doesn’t nap! He’s an insomniac! He… fuck, I don’t usually fall asleep after… but then it was a really good… Fuck it, it killed four hours. I’m not complaining.

Pete stretched and wandered into the bathroom. After flushing away a hot stream he opted for a shower. The water woke him up and relaxed him all at once. He stepped out of the bathroom hungry but in no mood to cook and settled for a second bowl of cereal and a return to his computer.

As he sat there in the midst of a happy combination of lurking and munching, his phone rang.

“Hello?”

“Okay so the way I see it if we make a point of ignoring the day then in a way we’re still recognizing it because we’re still doing something specific because of it even if that something is nothing so I think…”

“Patrick,”

“Yeah Pete?”

“How soon can you be here?”

“Maybe eight minutes? I’m stuck at the world’s longest red light.”

“Then I’ll see you in eight minutes.” Pete smiled and hung up. He smirked at the unresponsive phone for a few seconds and then hurriedly scooped up the last few spoonfuls and ran off to brush his teeth. He saw headlights out his window and went to unlock the door, but at the last second took a quick detour to the corner of the room where a pile of bags and papers had been building up ever since they got off their last tour.

Okay, the leftmost pile was last week, this one was the week before… shit, where’s the pile from three weeks ago? Pete rifled through the mess and listened for a knock at the door. It came just as he found the right pile, which had been reshuffled to the chair, and dug out the little stuffed bear with the big red “I love you” heart.