The (After) Life of the Party [5/?]

Title: The (After) Life of the Party [5/?]
Author: xxdance
Fandom(s): Fall Out Boy/Panic! At the Disco
Pairing: Pete/Ryan, Pete/Patrick.
Summary: Ryan's just another dead starlet. Patrick's just another overworked detective. Pete's just another shady character. Sort of.
Rating: R. [Violence, drug use, language.]
Warnings: Complete crack. Beyond crack. Detectives is all I'm saying, I'll save the other cracky warnings for later. Slash, language, and drug use as well.
Author's Note: For whatchamacall1t, because she deserves it (and ten thousand times more) for being so gosh-darned awesome. :D Also, sorry I'm late on this one! I might be a little late this week 'cause of birthday parties but I should have it up, by the latest, middle of next week.

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Patrick did not, in fact, wake up the next morning to Pete's earnest 'thank you.' He woke up, sore and bewildered as to why he should be anything but well-rested.

There was a clank from the kitchen, followed by an outcry of, "Fuck!" Oh, yeah. That was why.

After collapsing into a fit of hysterical laughter--really, he could only take so much before he went absolutely batshit, and at least that way he'd gotten the potential crazy out of his system--Patrick had paced his bedroom for about a half hour, trying to find some kind of happy medium. At one point he'd pressed his face to the window in an effort to get a better idea of how people dealt with one another on a daily basis. It wasn't his job to deal with people for more than three hours. He figured he had good reason to be testy, what with the most aggravating suspect he'd ever had currently taking up his living room.

Wentz wasn't necessarily a bad guy, Patrick had thought. Annoying, yes. Obnoxious, obviously. He knew which buttons to push to make Patrick angry, which was not exactly nice, yes, but it didn't make him necessarily bad....

Patrick had taken a seat heavily on his bed, trying to logically find a place where he and Pete could coexist peacefully. Essentially, he thought, it came down to Patrick allowing himself to, for at least a little while, stop being a detective. It wasn't something he did often. For one thing (he kept this thought stored in a tightly locked box at the back of his mind--he didn't like to think it, but it did have a tendency to pop up now and again) he was kind of afraid of people. Specifically, he was afraid of having their attention on him; hence the reason he liked interrogating. He had control. He had their attention, but he was not the focus--they were. It was either that or nothing, by his way of thinking, and more often than not it was nothing.

That would have to be the first thing to go, for both his sake and Pete's. And Ryan's, for that matter--judging from the way Pete reacted any time Patrick lost it, he either clammed up or found it so amusing that he had to try it again. And again. And again. And nothing got accomplished.

Patrick had grabbed a book from his shelf, turning the dog-eared pages slowly in thought without reading. It was for the best--for the case, for him, for Pete--that he relax. No matter how difficult it seemed.

(He did his best during the entirity of his thought process to avoid thinking, 'Just like Joe has been telling me.' Because Joe could not know that he'd done a thing right. Ever.)

That being said, of course, Pete would have to be willing to give a little, as well. Like the attitude. If Pete could, for just two seconds, drop the goddamn smug attitude--

He cut himself off. If he was going to make this work (at the moment, it was all on him--who knew if Pete was going to go along with it), he was going to have to stop being so stubborn. Nothing would ever move forward if he didn't take the first step, and so he did, only to be greeted by a second crash and a volley of swearing from the kitchen.

Godammit, Patrick thought, he'd told him. He stormed down the hall, seething. He'd told him if he found the apartment redecorated in the morning Pete would be out on the street, and he meant it, too, and some people were just so goddamn ungrateful--

Patrick stopped short when he reached the kitchen, greeted by Pete's broad grin and a homemade omelette.

He looked from the food to Pete, and back to the food. "Did you do this?"

Pete snorted. "Well, obviously you didn't, and I don't see anybody else here. I'm probably an awful cook, but I didn't know what else to do, and I--"

"No, um," Patrick said, taking a seat and turning a slight shade of red. Of course he'd be the one to come off all self-righteous, and Pete would be the one to bend first. Of course. "Thanks. A lot. I'm sure it's fantastic."

Pete went back to the stove, fixing up a second omelette for himself. Patrick moved the breakfast around on his plate, cutting it into miniscule pieces and feeling entirely sick with himself.

"I'm sorry," he blurted, suddenly.

Pete turned around, a spatula in one hand. "What? Is it awful? Don't eat it if you don't like it."

"No, it's--I'm sorry for being such an outright asshole."

Pete stared for a moment, passing the spatula from hand to hand. He nodded, slowly. "Me too."

"So, it's like--can we just get along, or something? Work together for the time we have to, I mean. Not be assholes," Patrick said helplessly. It wasn't the reaction he'd expected.

Pete shook his head. "No, I'm an asshole, born and raised."

Patrick stared.

"I supposed I can take it down a notch," Pete shrugged. "But don't expect any miracles--I'm not fucking Santa Cl--" Pete cut himself off and held a hand out. "You know what? Let me start over. I'm Pete, and I'm kind of an asshole."

Patrick considered it for a moment, before nodding and extending a hand as well. "I'm Patrick, and I'm a belligerant workaholic."

They shook, smiling, until Pete flicked a stray bit of egg in Patrick's direction and Patrick noticed that his couch was located in an entirely different position--but, for a moment, everything had been perfect, in a chaotic teeter-totter sort of way.

---

"So, uh," Andy said, by way of greeting. "I fucked up."

Patrick closed his eyes. "Nothing that starts that way ends well."

"Well, I guess it's--anyway, I made a typo and got Wentz's father's record, not him," Andy explained, fiddling idly with a box of paperclips on Patrick's desk.

"And Pete's a rabid murderer?"

"No, no, apparently just a bad parker," Andy replied, grinning. He mumbled something to himself, spinning on his heel and starting to walk away.

Patrick grabbed him by the elbow. "Sorry, didn't catch that last bit?"

"He, uh. It's not that bad, and it was entirely cleared, so really he probably wasn't guilty at all--"

"Out with it," Patrick demanded. Andy, of all people, never beat around the bush. Ever.

"Illegal possession of weaponry? Yeah. Like, um, apparently the court had no fucking clue what it was he had, but it was huge--there's this cell phone picture on file, and all you see is this guy who kinda looks like Wentz holding this big, like, box thing. The cops confiscated it, once they got to the scene, but it went missing from evidence the next day, and he was cleared within the week. Case completely thrown out. Totally bizzare," Andy summarized, grinning in a 'see, it's all okay!' way.

"So," Patrick said, staring. "So what you're telling me is that the person currently occupying my house was not, in fact, incapable of a parking ticket, but actually capable of having weaponry that nobody can identify?"

Andy nodded, quickly. "Yeah, but it got completely tossed. And wait, who is occupying your house?"

"Look," Patrick declared, struggling for control of the conversation, "that is not the issue, here. The issue is that--"

"Oh hell no, Patrick! You don't get to grill me with getting nothing back at you! Why is Wentz staying in your apartment?"

Patrick took a deep breath, eyes to the ceiling. "Somebody's after him, he called me in a panic, and he didn't want to be in a cell."

Andy threw his hands into the air. "He didn't want to be in a cell? Christ, Patrick, let's just allow everyone who doesn't want to be in a cell to stay in your apartment? Shit, Patrick, you're jeapordizing yourself--"

"I might have known that, had you done your background check properly!"

"--you're jeapordizing the case, you're jeapordizing the witness--"

"You think I don't know all that? I'm not fucking stupid, okay?"

And suddenly Joe was there, grinning and asking questions. "What'd I miss? It sounds great."

"Patrick is letting Wentz stay in his apartment--"

"Hurley fucked up the background check--"

"Can I take that to mean you're finally getting some?" Joe asked lazily, taking an enormous bite of bagel. "Not my taste, precisely, but hey--to each their own, yeah?"

"No, I'm not fucking--" Patrick cut himself off. Poor word choice. "Someone's after him, and he wouldn't take a cell. I figured my apartment would be okay, since--"

Joe pumped his fist excitedly, exclaiming through another mouthful, "Excellent! We haven't had a case this interesting in ages!"

"No, it's not--he had guns, Joe, and big ones," Patrick said, trying to make it somehow rational.

"Even better! If you do end up fucking him, will you please tell him 'thank you' from me? Shit, even if he did it, we owe him. This place has been so boring lately."

"I'm not going to--what are you even--look, the moment I can get him out of my apartment, he's gone. I mean, I appreciated the omelette, but--"

Joe choked, and started thumping himself in the chest to dislodge the bagel. "Omelette? He cooked for you? Jesus, Patrick, he must really want your ass. 'Cause that's definately what I do when I'm--"

"Shut up," Patrick hissed. "I'm not going to listen to that, Joe, so you can just shut the hell up right now and save your breath, because no, it's not happening."

"But why--"

"Because it's unprofessional!" Patrick exclaimed, furious.

"That's it, though? If that's the first thing that comes to mind, I might go so far as to say you're in deni--"

"Not. Fucking. Interested," Patrick gasped hotly.

Joe shrugged, unphased by Patrick's very obvious temper. "You, maybe not. But him?"

Patrick's phone rang, interrupting the outburst bubbling from deep within him. "Excuse me," Patrick hissed, "but some of us have work to do!" He grabbed the phone with unnecessary flourish, bringing it to his ear and answering with a pleasant, "Hello, Detective Stump speaking."

"Hey, yeah, just wondering--how do you feel about maroon for the living room?" Pete asked, the sound of hammering in the background.

Patrick, livid, slammed the phone down.