Cleaning out my WIP folder.
May. 26th, 2011 12:08 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sablestardustAll bandom and I've probably posted some of it before. I'll never finish these, but I like them well enough.
You’re Crashing But You’re No Wave
1820’s AU Pete/Patrick
Patrick looked up at the judge defiantly. “I’ll take him with me, then, sir.”
He still wasn’t quite sure what he was getting himself into.
-*-
The prisoner was truly, unfairly pretty. He also didn’t seem to appreciate being called a sodomite, going by his snarl any time a reporter threw the word at him. Patrick nodded to the guards as they unlocked the prisoner’s cuffs, then hustled the prisoner into his car.
“Hanging. For sodomy. Honestly, these ridiculous backwater towns.” He adjusted his hat and gestured to the driver to start driving.
“So you think I did it, then?” The prisoner (Patrick really should learn his name) looked at him speculatively.
“Of course I do. You’re practically oozing illegal acts on my seats. I just don’t think one should die for what they do behind closed doors.
The prisoner nodded, his lips turned up a bit. He held out his hand. “Peter Lewis Kingston Wentz. The third,” he added as an afterthought.
Patrick took his hand and shook it. “Patrick Stumph, the only. To my knowledge anyway.”
Pete raised an eyebrow, but the driver stopped before he could ask any questions. Patrick slid out and Pete followed him into the saloon, The Hush Sound.
”Patrick!” a girl with honeyed curls threw herself at Patrick, barely missing Pete. She stepped back, gave him a speculative look, then punched him in the stomach. Pete watched in fascination as she walked away and Patrick’s wheezing sounded suspiciously like laughter.
“That wasn’t very nice, Greta, my dear.”
She whipped around. “I’m not required to be nice to you Mr. Stupmh. Not after what you did to me.”
Patrick sighed. “You knew I was leaving Greta. I told you that before we ever got involved.”
“You could have said goodbye.” Greta said, her voice climbing in octaves.
“Is this the part where she starts throwing things?” Pete mused outloud. He shut his mouth when she threw him a venomous look.
“And who is this? Have you replaced your last plaything already?”
Pete glared back at her and Patrick sighed.
“Mikey wasn’t a plaything Greta, nor was he mine. He went back home to live with his brother. This is Peter. Pete, if you will. He’s the other client that I told you I’d have. He…he’ll be staying with me for a while. It was the only way I could keep him from the gallows.”
Greta sniffed in disgust. “Those damned gallows have taken too many of my patrons. Are you still going to defend me?”
Patrick inched closer, and tentatively pulled her into a hug. “Of course, Greta my dear. Of course I am. Now, tell me which room is mine, and then I’ll meet these boys that you’re so smitten with.”
“Boys? Patrick, I—“
“You are a horrible liar, and when you describe what one of them has done in your letters you fail to talk about them the same way. Or tell me a single name. Now, my room.”
“Wouldn’t you prefer two?” Greta asked, smiling slyly.
“No,” Patrick answered, the slightest blush tinting his cheeks. “Pete is required to stay with me. Do you have a room with two beds?”
“No,” Greta said cheerily. “Yours is the only open room in fact. One kingsized bed. I’m sure Mr. Pete is used to sharing a bed with a man or two anyway.”
She walked of and Pete spluttered at her back angrily.
Greta is Patrick’s former…girlfriend or something which causes tension between her and Pete who Patrick is obviously interested in. She can’t really express any sort of jealousy because hi she has her boys, her three boys now. Patrick is there to argue against the church-ruled town government that’s trying to shut down the “unholy” saloon. Frequent visits from some of the oddest people in the town don’t exactly help his case. Bob/Mikey/Ray, Frank/Gerard, Travis/Spencer along with THS GSF and Pete/Patrick
1.
Brendon Urie has plans for getting into The Family. He doesn’t talk about them, not even to Ryan, who he knows would snort and give him a derisive look. So he keeps them to himself. But he has plans. They mostly involve seduction and Spencer Smith.
He’s thinking about those plans while he and Ryan sit in the airport waiting at Smith’s terminal. People pass by, their glances sliding over him and Ryan, pausing at Ryan then continuing on with their lives. Brendon crosses his arms and stares back, trying to meet each ones gaze. Beside him Ryan reads his book and manages to be even more quiet than he usually is.
“How much longer?” Brendon asks, staring at the terminal, willing Smith to walk through the gates. Ryan shrugs. “Spencer’s plane landed, dunno how long it’ll be.”
Brendon grunts and shifts in his seat. He never planned to be here. He never wanted to be this person, sitting in a tiny plastic chair with the metal of his favorite gun digging into his side, waiting on some mob prince. He never thought he’d have a favorite gun. He looks out of the window into the Las Vegas spring. The sun is bright in his eyes.
“Spencer’s here,” Ryan mumbles, sliding out of his chair. Brendon watches him, he’ll never figure out how someone so damn bony managed to be as graceful as Ross was. He looks up and blinks.
Smith is…prettier than Brendon expected. He’s also wearing a skirt. Specifically a knee length grey, blue and black number. He was also wearing a soft-looking gray sweater and mary-janes.
“Um,” Brendon says standing next to Ryan.
Smith crosses his arms and glares, looking far more intimidating than Brendon thought a man in a skirt had any right to be.
“You’re wearing a skirt,” Ryan tells him, undaunted by the glare.
“And you’re wearing fucking beads,” Spencer responds.
Ryan shrugs and nods because, well, he was. He’d been on a hippie kick for the last two weeks. The week before he’d been running around in a rose vest. Brendon is pretty sure that if he wasn’t so damn good with a gun, —and Ross was, Brendon had seen some of the wreckage in his wake— he’d have been killed, by somebody, years ago.
“We’re your body guards,” Brendon tells him, bringing this conversation back to where it was supposed to be.
“Why are you wearing a skirt?” Ryan asks, veering back off topic again.
“Gender subversion,” Spencer says easily enough, “You fuckers gonna have my stuff sent out here? I’m not wearing any of the shit I wore when I was out here.”
Brendon shrugs, “It’s probably on the next plane, if your people in Jersey did as they were told.”
Spencer snorts, “Meaning I’ll have to get new shit. Can we go now?”
Ryan nods and walks away. Spencer follows, matching Ross’s pace. Brendon walks behind them, glancing over his shoulder like a good body guard should.
Smith doesn’t talk to him on the ride home. He says a sentence or two to Ross then pulls out a phone. It only takes ten minutes for the constant tapping to get on Brendon’s nerves.
He sighs loudly and moves over into the other lane.
“Why am I out here, anyway?” Smith asks, not looking up from his phone.
“Wentz is moving.” Ross tells him. Brendon looks at him through the rearview mirror. Ross meets his eyes. Brendon has to look away first, when he suspects he’s veering off the road.
“So?” Spencer asks. “Wentz doesn’t have anything against the Way family.”
“No,” Ross says. Brendon can hear his frown. “But he’s about two seconds from being in a war with Flowers. Who we are quite connected to.”
Spencer shrugs, “And you’re idiots for that. That’s bad blood and everyone on the fucking East coast knows it. You know who else Flowers is linked to? The fucking Pelliser’s. You still thinking it’s a good idea?”
“How the fuck do you know any of this?” Ross asks.
Spencer snorts and the clicking resumes. Brendon hadn’t even noticed it stopping. “Because Mikeyway doesn’t believe in secrets.”
Ross doesn’t respond. Brendon is left wondering who the fuck Mikeyway is.
2.
It’s too fucking early for this, Brendon decides, watching Smith. Had this kid never heard of discretion? Brendon still watches his left hand slip into Saporta’s pants. The right one was occupied with the knife pressed to Saporta’s throat. Spencer was hissing something, probably a threat, but Saporta seems appropriately distracted, gasping and arching up against Smith. Smith still isn’t what Brendon keeps expecting, he wears more black, and puts on eyeliner deftly. He doesn’t carry a gun, only a switchblade, though that seems to be enough. He also hits on boys and girls indiscriminately, seeking out the one who will keep their mouth shut the best, ensuring it with moments like this one.
A bell rings and Brendon remembers where they are. Fucking high school. He thought he’d gotten away from this particular hell when he joined the mob. Saporta stuttered something, bucking up one more time before sinking back against the brick wall.
“Nice doing business with you,” Smith says and withdraws his hand, wiping it on Saporta’s jeans.
“Do I really need to be there when you do that?” Brendon asked, walking beside Smith as they turn to go out of the school doors. No school today then, fine with Brendon.
“It wouldn’t bother you if you’d deal with those pesky repressed homosexual tendencies,” Spencer says, pushing his hands into his pockets, stretching the ragged Misfits shirt across his torso. Brendon looks away when he realizes he’s staring.
“I don’t have any repressed anything,”
“Really?” Spencer asks, sounding interested, “So you and Ryan have been going at it? Because if you aren’t, Ross definitely wants to hit that.”
Brendon mumbles something and pulls his keys out of his pocket. Smith laughs.
3.
The thing is, Brendon knows he’s a little gay. And he knows Smith is his type. He also knows about his and Ross’s…thing. He isn’t really surprised when the crush on Smith develops. He finds himself wishing Smith was there during one of his and Ross’s drinking sessions and thinks oh. And that’s mostly that. Sometimes Spencer will smirk, and on one occasion smile, at Brendon and maybe something flutters but he mashes it down well enough. He thought he’d done a good enough job of mashing until Smith gets a call from Bryar.
Brendon’s heard Smith talk to the people he knew in Jersey. He knows that Smith was friends with the Ways and their people, knows that Gerard, the newly instated head of that Family, was the reason why Smith had been wearing a skirt that day. He knows that Frank is loud and crude and something special to Gerard. He’s even heard Smith breath on the phone with younger Way brother, neither of them speaking until Smith mutters that he has to go, Way replies and Smith says ‘me too’, in a shaky voice. But Brendon’s never heard him talk to Bryar. As far as Brendon knows he’s never called before. Brendon wouldn’t have known that he was the one on the phone if Spencer hadn’t answered with a rough “What the fuck do you want, Bryar.”
Its the first time Brendon ever saw Smith angry. Not the cool promise of revenge that had flashed across Smith’s face, but honest fiery anger. Brendon’s big enough to admit that it scared him a little.
Spencer cursed everyone in Bryar’s family, barring his mother, at least twice before quieting and listening. Finally he huffed and hung up the phone.
“They’re coming to visit,” he told Brendon then walked away.
4.
Way had a swagger to his walk that Brendon wouldn’t have recognized if Wentz hadn’t visited from Chicago that one time. It was assured but careful, the walk of a man who had killed, and would kill again, and was praised for being that way. It was the walk of a man who was head of an old Family. Iero walked beside him, his own movements strong but unlike Ways. Brendon thought of Stump, the way he’d stood beside Wentz, equal but deferent. Just behind them was the younger Way, the family resemblance strong enough that Brendon could identify him easily. Beside younger-Way (Micheal, Mitchell, something like that) was a Nordic god. Brendon knew it was Bryar. And he knew that he should let go of any lingering affection he had for Smith because, guns or not, Bryar could snap him in half. He couldn’t help but look at Spencer though, at the way he threw himself at Way and Iero, trusting he’d be caught, the way his eyes never really left Bryar.
When Spencer offers to introduce Bob to The Family he laughs. Because, honestly, he loves his band, but they’re from Jersey. Most of them were Italian, and Toro’s family was scary in that we-love-you-but-will-kill-you-if-you-fuck-with-us way. It makes the situation funnier. He stops laughing when he realizes Spencer is glaring at him.
“Sorry, sorry. Its just—” A little laugh bubbles up in his throat and he coughs. “My band, y’know? They’re…”
Spencer rolls his eyes, “yes, because obviously only Italians can be in the mafia. It explains the Yakuza. Seriously, they’re like my second family. They are Ryan’s family. I want you to meet them.”
Bob frowns, “I thought Ross’s folks were all fucked up.”
Spencer bites his bottom lip and looks away. “Yeah, his real parents…His dad died a lot earlier than what we say, his uncle took him and…he could be a fucking Boss, if he wanted. Technically I could, too.” He shrugs.
“So,” Bob says and looks back towards the bunks where he knows the other Panic guys are. “That explains your obsession with The Godfather.”
Spencer shakes his head. “Not really, it just a fucking awesome movie.”
“What do you want, huh? What’s so important that you’d risk your life for?” Brendon asks. Pete looks up at him, lips swollen and glistening, eyes dark and hurt. He is beautiful in a way that makes Brendon’s chest ache.
“Patrick,” Pete says, and his face is open, and honest. A year from now, Brendon will say that this was his mistake. Never look a man in love in the eye, he will say. But in that moment all Brendon sees is the way Pete’s mouth curls around each syllable, the way all the hardness Brendon had watched him cultivate melts away. Brendon shakes his head and looks over Pete’s head at Ryan. Their eyes connect and Brendon sighs.
Three hours later a dark car picks a blindfolded Pete up. The official story is that he’s being driven to his death. Brendon curls up next to Ryan and hopes that Pete finds his Patrick.
“What’s so important, anyway?” Brendon asks again. This is the second time in a month. The sixth time since Pete had left.
Bert looked at him, widening his eyes and wringing his hands. Is this what they thought honesty looked like, Brendon wondered.”I just want Gerard, man.” Brendon fought to keep a straight face. He nodded and motioned for Bert to leave. Bert stood and a gun sounded. Bert fell to the ground, a surprised look on his face.
“It’s kind of fucking scary how well you do that.” Brendon says to Ryan as he looks at the speck of blood on his black shoes. He wipes it on Bert’s face.
Ryan shrugs. “I’m talented. Not scary.”
Brendon slumps down in his chair and rubs a hand across his face. “What the fuck is this, Ross? This is the second piece of shit we’ve caught in what, two weeks? Why does everybody think they can move in on me now?”
Ryan leans against the blood red walls and pushes at hair that didn’t exist, hair that hadn’t been there since he had to get stitches across the front of his head, just above his hairline. Fucking bastards, Brendon thinks viciously, the way he does every time Ryan makes the motion to push his hair back.
“You let a rat in here Brendon. You let him in, and then let him leave. Alive. They think you’re weak.” Ryan looks tired. It doesn’t fit with his face, which looks five years younger without hair hanging in his eyes.
“They all use the same fucking line, Ross!” Brendon throws on his own honest face. “I just want my dear Aunt Sally, sir.” He makes a disgusted noise and sinks lower into the chair.
“Brendon,” Gerard says from the threshold. He looks down at the body but doesn’t seem to register that it’s his old boyfriend. “Two guys here to see you. They say Ross called them. “
Brendon looks at Ryan sharply, who stares back blankly.
“Fine,” Brendon says, not breaking his gaze. “Get Bert and tell them to come in.”
Gerard makes a soft pleased sound when he sees where the blood has bloomed on the back of Bert’s shirt, right where his heart was.
“Bastard deserved it,” He says quietly, dragging the body out of the room.
Pete watched as Jepha curled up into the lawn chair and leaned closer to Patrick.
“He’s gross,” Pete muttered
“Says the guy that drinks piss,” Andy commented idly, watching Patrick and Jepha with much less intrest.
“He’s gross all the time. His band is gross.”
“Well, we all know that Patrick’s just a wilting flower in the face of grossness.”
Patrick laughs at something Jepha has said and touches Jepha’s arm, tracing one of his tattoos.
“My tattoos are cooler than his,” Pete said, denying any possibility that maybe he’s sulking.
“Yeah, no,” Joe said from his other side. “Not at all. Jack Skellington doesn’t top that cool dagger thing he’s got. We love you anyway though.”
“He’s already fucking someone!” Pete said as loudly as he dared. Patrick and Jepha glance at him, then go back to talking.
“I don’t mind,” Dan said from where he was standing, a little away but still firmly in hearing distance.
Pete jumped and turned to where he totally knew where Dan was standing. “What do you mean you don’t mind?”
Dan shrugged. “Patrick’s hot, and I trust Jepha.” He tipped his cup to them then walked over to Patrick and Jepha. He lay a hand on the back of Jepha’s neck and squeezed a little. Patrick didn’t blink. If anything his smile got wider. Jepha said something slyly, and Patrick laughed but shook his head and stood.
“Hah!” Pete said and turned around to talk to Joe and Andy, “He’s refusing their dirty, gross, threesomes in favor of us!”
“Pete, dude,” Joe looked up from his book again. “I’m straight. We’ve talked about this.”
Andy snorted, “Yeah, he’s straight until you get him drunk enough. I don’t think Mix would be okay with me having band orgies though. You can have Patrick all to yourself.”
“Have me for what?” Patrick asked.
Pete turned and opened his mouth but Patrick held his hand up.
“No. Nevermind. Don’t want to know. I’m gonna go hang with Jeph and Dan, call me before soundcheck?”
Joe and Andy nod and Patrick walks away from them. Pete stared after him.
“He. They…”
“If Jepha is a sub,” Andy mused, “and Dan’s his Dom, where does Patrick fit?”
“Somewhere between, I guess,” Joe said, flipping the page of his book.
Pete made a noise that was most definitely not a squeak.
*
When Pete walked over to the Used’s bus an hour before soundcheck, determined to drag Patrick out of his Den of Hedonistic Iniquity (he was careful to call it that out loud) there was what appeared to be a homeless man and a very angry guy with thinning hair sitting outside of it.
You’re Crashing But You’re No Wave
1820’s AU Pete/Patrick
Patrick looked up at the judge defiantly. “I’ll take him with me, then, sir.”
He still wasn’t quite sure what he was getting himself into.
-*-
The prisoner was truly, unfairly pretty. He also didn’t seem to appreciate being called a sodomite, going by his snarl any time a reporter threw the word at him. Patrick nodded to the guards as they unlocked the prisoner’s cuffs, then hustled the prisoner into his car.
“Hanging. For sodomy. Honestly, these ridiculous backwater towns.” He adjusted his hat and gestured to the driver to start driving.
“So you think I did it, then?” The prisoner (Patrick really should learn his name) looked at him speculatively.
“Of course I do. You’re practically oozing illegal acts on my seats. I just don’t think one should die for what they do behind closed doors.
The prisoner nodded, his lips turned up a bit. He held out his hand. “Peter Lewis Kingston Wentz. The third,” he added as an afterthought.
Patrick took his hand and shook it. “Patrick Stumph, the only. To my knowledge anyway.”
Pete raised an eyebrow, but the driver stopped before he could ask any questions. Patrick slid out and Pete followed him into the saloon, The Hush Sound.
”Patrick!” a girl with honeyed curls threw herself at Patrick, barely missing Pete. She stepped back, gave him a speculative look, then punched him in the stomach. Pete watched in fascination as she walked away and Patrick’s wheezing sounded suspiciously like laughter.
“That wasn’t very nice, Greta, my dear.”
She whipped around. “I’m not required to be nice to you Mr. Stupmh. Not after what you did to me.”
Patrick sighed. “You knew I was leaving Greta. I told you that before we ever got involved.”
“You could have said goodbye.” Greta said, her voice climbing in octaves.
“Is this the part where she starts throwing things?” Pete mused outloud. He shut his mouth when she threw him a venomous look.
“And who is this? Have you replaced your last plaything already?”
Pete glared back at her and Patrick sighed.
“Mikey wasn’t a plaything Greta, nor was he mine. He went back home to live with his brother. This is Peter. Pete, if you will. He’s the other client that I told you I’d have. He…he’ll be staying with me for a while. It was the only way I could keep him from the gallows.”
Greta sniffed in disgust. “Those damned gallows have taken too many of my patrons. Are you still going to defend me?”
Patrick inched closer, and tentatively pulled her into a hug. “Of course, Greta my dear. Of course I am. Now, tell me which room is mine, and then I’ll meet these boys that you’re so smitten with.”
“Boys? Patrick, I—“
“You are a horrible liar, and when you describe what one of them has done in your letters you fail to talk about them the same way. Or tell me a single name. Now, my room.”
“Wouldn’t you prefer two?” Greta asked, smiling slyly.
“No,” Patrick answered, the slightest blush tinting his cheeks. “Pete is required to stay with me. Do you have a room with two beds?”
“No,” Greta said cheerily. “Yours is the only open room in fact. One kingsized bed. I’m sure Mr. Pete is used to sharing a bed with a man or two anyway.”
She walked of and Pete spluttered at her back angrily.
Greta is Patrick’s former…girlfriend or something which causes tension between her and Pete who Patrick is obviously interested in. She can’t really express any sort of jealousy because hi she has her boys, her three boys now. Patrick is there to argue against the church-ruled town government that’s trying to shut down the “unholy” saloon. Frequent visits from some of the oddest people in the town don’t exactly help his case. Bob/Mikey/Ray, Frank/Gerard, Travis/Spencer along with THS GSF and Pete/Patrick
1.
Brendon Urie has plans for getting into The Family. He doesn’t talk about them, not even to Ryan, who he knows would snort and give him a derisive look. So he keeps them to himself. But he has plans. They mostly involve seduction and Spencer Smith.
He’s thinking about those plans while he and Ryan sit in the airport waiting at Smith’s terminal. People pass by, their glances sliding over him and Ryan, pausing at Ryan then continuing on with their lives. Brendon crosses his arms and stares back, trying to meet each ones gaze. Beside him Ryan reads his book and manages to be even more quiet than he usually is.
“How much longer?” Brendon asks, staring at the terminal, willing Smith to walk through the gates. Ryan shrugs. “Spencer’s plane landed, dunno how long it’ll be.”
Brendon grunts and shifts in his seat. He never planned to be here. He never wanted to be this person, sitting in a tiny plastic chair with the metal of his favorite gun digging into his side, waiting on some mob prince. He never thought he’d have a favorite gun. He looks out of the window into the Las Vegas spring. The sun is bright in his eyes.
“Spencer’s here,” Ryan mumbles, sliding out of his chair. Brendon watches him, he’ll never figure out how someone so damn bony managed to be as graceful as Ross was. He looks up and blinks.
Smith is…prettier than Brendon expected. He’s also wearing a skirt. Specifically a knee length grey, blue and black number. He was also wearing a soft-looking gray sweater and mary-janes.
“Um,” Brendon says standing next to Ryan.
Smith crosses his arms and glares, looking far more intimidating than Brendon thought a man in a skirt had any right to be.
“You’re wearing a skirt,” Ryan tells him, undaunted by the glare.
“And you’re wearing fucking beads,” Spencer responds.
Ryan shrugs and nods because, well, he was. He’d been on a hippie kick for the last two weeks. The week before he’d been running around in a rose vest. Brendon is pretty sure that if he wasn’t so damn good with a gun, —and Ross was, Brendon had seen some of the wreckage in his wake— he’d have been killed, by somebody, years ago.
“We’re your body guards,” Brendon tells him, bringing this conversation back to where it was supposed to be.
“Why are you wearing a skirt?” Ryan asks, veering back off topic again.
“Gender subversion,” Spencer says easily enough, “You fuckers gonna have my stuff sent out here? I’m not wearing any of the shit I wore when I was out here.”
Brendon shrugs, “It’s probably on the next plane, if your people in Jersey did as they were told.”
Spencer snorts, “Meaning I’ll have to get new shit. Can we go now?”
Ryan nods and walks away. Spencer follows, matching Ross’s pace. Brendon walks behind them, glancing over his shoulder like a good body guard should.
Smith doesn’t talk to him on the ride home. He says a sentence or two to Ross then pulls out a phone. It only takes ten minutes for the constant tapping to get on Brendon’s nerves.
He sighs loudly and moves over into the other lane.
“Why am I out here, anyway?” Smith asks, not looking up from his phone.
“Wentz is moving.” Ross tells him. Brendon looks at him through the rearview mirror. Ross meets his eyes. Brendon has to look away first, when he suspects he’s veering off the road.
“So?” Spencer asks. “Wentz doesn’t have anything against the Way family.”
“No,” Ross says. Brendon can hear his frown. “But he’s about two seconds from being in a war with Flowers. Who we are quite connected to.”
Spencer shrugs, “And you’re idiots for that. That’s bad blood and everyone on the fucking East coast knows it. You know who else Flowers is linked to? The fucking Pelliser’s. You still thinking it’s a good idea?”
“How the fuck do you know any of this?” Ross asks.
Spencer snorts and the clicking resumes. Brendon hadn’t even noticed it stopping. “Because Mikeyway doesn’t believe in secrets.”
Ross doesn’t respond. Brendon is left wondering who the fuck Mikeyway is.
2.
It’s too fucking early for this, Brendon decides, watching Smith. Had this kid never heard of discretion? Brendon still watches his left hand slip into Saporta’s pants. The right one was occupied with the knife pressed to Saporta’s throat. Spencer was hissing something, probably a threat, but Saporta seems appropriately distracted, gasping and arching up against Smith. Smith still isn’t what Brendon keeps expecting, he wears more black, and puts on eyeliner deftly. He doesn’t carry a gun, only a switchblade, though that seems to be enough. He also hits on boys and girls indiscriminately, seeking out the one who will keep their mouth shut the best, ensuring it with moments like this one.
A bell rings and Brendon remembers where they are. Fucking high school. He thought he’d gotten away from this particular hell when he joined the mob. Saporta stuttered something, bucking up one more time before sinking back against the brick wall.
“Nice doing business with you,” Smith says and withdraws his hand, wiping it on Saporta’s jeans.
“Do I really need to be there when you do that?” Brendon asked, walking beside Smith as they turn to go out of the school doors. No school today then, fine with Brendon.
“It wouldn’t bother you if you’d deal with those pesky repressed homosexual tendencies,” Spencer says, pushing his hands into his pockets, stretching the ragged Misfits shirt across his torso. Brendon looks away when he realizes he’s staring.
“I don’t have any repressed anything,”
“Really?” Spencer asks, sounding interested, “So you and Ryan have been going at it? Because if you aren’t, Ross definitely wants to hit that.”
Brendon mumbles something and pulls his keys out of his pocket. Smith laughs.
3.
The thing is, Brendon knows he’s a little gay. And he knows Smith is his type. He also knows about his and Ross’s…thing. He isn’t really surprised when the crush on Smith develops. He finds himself wishing Smith was there during one of his and Ross’s drinking sessions and thinks oh. And that’s mostly that. Sometimes Spencer will smirk, and on one occasion smile, at Brendon and maybe something flutters but he mashes it down well enough. He thought he’d done a good enough job of mashing until Smith gets a call from Bryar.
Brendon’s heard Smith talk to the people he knew in Jersey. He knows that Smith was friends with the Ways and their people, knows that Gerard, the newly instated head of that Family, was the reason why Smith had been wearing a skirt that day. He knows that Frank is loud and crude and something special to Gerard. He’s even heard Smith breath on the phone with younger Way brother, neither of them speaking until Smith mutters that he has to go, Way replies and Smith says ‘me too’, in a shaky voice. But Brendon’s never heard him talk to Bryar. As far as Brendon knows he’s never called before. Brendon wouldn’t have known that he was the one on the phone if Spencer hadn’t answered with a rough “What the fuck do you want, Bryar.”
Its the first time Brendon ever saw Smith angry. Not the cool promise of revenge that had flashed across Smith’s face, but honest fiery anger. Brendon’s big enough to admit that it scared him a little.
Spencer cursed everyone in Bryar’s family, barring his mother, at least twice before quieting and listening. Finally he huffed and hung up the phone.
“They’re coming to visit,” he told Brendon then walked away.
4.
Way had a swagger to his walk that Brendon wouldn’t have recognized if Wentz hadn’t visited from Chicago that one time. It was assured but careful, the walk of a man who had killed, and would kill again, and was praised for being that way. It was the walk of a man who was head of an old Family. Iero walked beside him, his own movements strong but unlike Ways. Brendon thought of Stump, the way he’d stood beside Wentz, equal but deferent. Just behind them was the younger Way, the family resemblance strong enough that Brendon could identify him easily. Beside younger-Way (Micheal, Mitchell, something like that) was a Nordic god. Brendon knew it was Bryar. And he knew that he should let go of any lingering affection he had for Smith because, guns or not, Bryar could snap him in half. He couldn’t help but look at Spencer though, at the way he threw himself at Way and Iero, trusting he’d be caught, the way his eyes never really left Bryar.
When Spencer offers to introduce Bob to The Family he laughs. Because, honestly, he loves his band, but they’re from Jersey. Most of them were Italian, and Toro’s family was scary in that we-love-you-but-will-kill-you-if-you-fuck-with-us way. It makes the situation funnier. He stops laughing when he realizes Spencer is glaring at him.
“Sorry, sorry. Its just—” A little laugh bubbles up in his throat and he coughs. “My band, y’know? They’re…”
Spencer rolls his eyes, “yes, because obviously only Italians can be in the mafia. It explains the Yakuza. Seriously, they’re like my second family. They are Ryan’s family. I want you to meet them.”
Bob frowns, “I thought Ross’s folks were all fucked up.”
Spencer bites his bottom lip and looks away. “Yeah, his real parents…His dad died a lot earlier than what we say, his uncle took him and…he could be a fucking Boss, if he wanted. Technically I could, too.” He shrugs.
“So,” Bob says and looks back towards the bunks where he knows the other Panic guys are. “That explains your obsession with The Godfather.”
Spencer shakes his head. “Not really, it just a fucking awesome movie.”
“What do you want, huh? What’s so important that you’d risk your life for?” Brendon asks. Pete looks up at him, lips swollen and glistening, eyes dark and hurt. He is beautiful in a way that makes Brendon’s chest ache.
“Patrick,” Pete says, and his face is open, and honest. A year from now, Brendon will say that this was his mistake. Never look a man in love in the eye, he will say. But in that moment all Brendon sees is the way Pete’s mouth curls around each syllable, the way all the hardness Brendon had watched him cultivate melts away. Brendon shakes his head and looks over Pete’s head at Ryan. Their eyes connect and Brendon sighs.
Three hours later a dark car picks a blindfolded Pete up. The official story is that he’s being driven to his death. Brendon curls up next to Ryan and hopes that Pete finds his Patrick.
“What’s so important, anyway?” Brendon asks again. This is the second time in a month. The sixth time since Pete had left.
Bert looked at him, widening his eyes and wringing his hands. Is this what they thought honesty looked like, Brendon wondered.”I just want Gerard, man.” Brendon fought to keep a straight face. He nodded and motioned for Bert to leave. Bert stood and a gun sounded. Bert fell to the ground, a surprised look on his face.
“It’s kind of fucking scary how well you do that.” Brendon says to Ryan as he looks at the speck of blood on his black shoes. He wipes it on Bert’s face.
Ryan shrugs. “I’m talented. Not scary.”
Brendon slumps down in his chair and rubs a hand across his face. “What the fuck is this, Ross? This is the second piece of shit we’ve caught in what, two weeks? Why does everybody think they can move in on me now?”
Ryan leans against the blood red walls and pushes at hair that didn’t exist, hair that hadn’t been there since he had to get stitches across the front of his head, just above his hairline. Fucking bastards, Brendon thinks viciously, the way he does every time Ryan makes the motion to push his hair back.
“You let a rat in here Brendon. You let him in, and then let him leave. Alive. They think you’re weak.” Ryan looks tired. It doesn’t fit with his face, which looks five years younger without hair hanging in his eyes.
“They all use the same fucking line, Ross!” Brendon throws on his own honest face. “I just want my dear Aunt Sally, sir.” He makes a disgusted noise and sinks lower into the chair.
“Brendon,” Gerard says from the threshold. He looks down at the body but doesn’t seem to register that it’s his old boyfriend. “Two guys here to see you. They say Ross called them. “
Brendon looks at Ryan sharply, who stares back blankly.
“Fine,” Brendon says, not breaking his gaze. “Get Bert and tell them to come in.”
Gerard makes a soft pleased sound when he sees where the blood has bloomed on the back of Bert’s shirt, right where his heart was.
“Bastard deserved it,” He says quietly, dragging the body out of the room.
Pete watched as Jepha curled up into the lawn chair and leaned closer to Patrick.
“He’s gross,” Pete muttered
“Says the guy that drinks piss,” Andy commented idly, watching Patrick and Jepha with much less intrest.
“He’s gross all the time. His band is gross.”
“Well, we all know that Patrick’s just a wilting flower in the face of grossness.”
Patrick laughs at something Jepha has said and touches Jepha’s arm, tracing one of his tattoos.
“My tattoos are cooler than his,” Pete said, denying any possibility that maybe he’s sulking.
“Yeah, no,” Joe said from his other side. “Not at all. Jack Skellington doesn’t top that cool dagger thing he’s got. We love you anyway though.”
“He’s already fucking someone!” Pete said as loudly as he dared. Patrick and Jepha glance at him, then go back to talking.
“I don’t mind,” Dan said from where he was standing, a little away but still firmly in hearing distance.
Pete jumped and turned to where he totally knew where Dan was standing. “What do you mean you don’t mind?”
Dan shrugged. “Patrick’s hot, and I trust Jepha.” He tipped his cup to them then walked over to Patrick and Jepha. He lay a hand on the back of Jepha’s neck and squeezed a little. Patrick didn’t blink. If anything his smile got wider. Jepha said something slyly, and Patrick laughed but shook his head and stood.
“Hah!” Pete said and turned around to talk to Joe and Andy, “He’s refusing their dirty, gross, threesomes in favor of us!”
“Pete, dude,” Joe looked up from his book again. “I’m straight. We’ve talked about this.”
Andy snorted, “Yeah, he’s straight until you get him drunk enough. I don’t think Mix would be okay with me having band orgies though. You can have Patrick all to yourself.”
“Have me for what?” Patrick asked.
Pete turned and opened his mouth but Patrick held his hand up.
“No. Nevermind. Don’t want to know. I’m gonna go hang with Jeph and Dan, call me before soundcheck?”
Joe and Andy nod and Patrick walks away from them. Pete stared after him.
“He. They…”
“If Jepha is a sub,” Andy mused, “and Dan’s his Dom, where does Patrick fit?”
“Somewhere between, I guess,” Joe said, flipping the page of his book.
Pete made a noise that was most definitely not a squeak.
*
When Pete walked over to the Used’s bus an hour before soundcheck, determined to drag Patrick out of his Den of Hedonistic Iniquity (he was careful to call it that out loud) there was what appeared to be a homeless man and a very angry guy with thinning hair sitting outside of it.
