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It was always the thing that took the most getting used to, after tours, after recording. Going from having Pete so close, at all hours of the day and night, to, sometimes, a whole country away.
And of course, he missed everyone, but he missed Pete more. Always had done. He was his best friend, after all. Between tours, and with Pete in LA, they were almost permanently attached to computers and cell phones. It was fragments of text messages like found poetry, Snatched phone calls, a hundred different Skype backdrops.
And every tour, it felt like he was stockpiling Pete-time, for the next time they were apart.
It wasn't something he really thought about. Pete was magnetic, and they were drawn to each other. Best friends, that was all.
And then, suddenly it seemed, he was touring by himself. The sharp triumph of doing it, after so long, was heady, all consuming. He found he didn’t so much miss Pete on stage, as he did everywhere else. If there was a tour, sound checks and cramped sleeping and midnight diners, there should be Pete too.
He started getting mail from Pete, letters and packets waiting at concert venues. Torn pages of exercise books covered in familiar scribble, just things like “you’ll be great tonight” or “love the new bowtie”. Postcards, a guitar strap covered in penguins, a drawing from Bronx.
Patrick sent mail the old fashioned way too, ‘scenic’ Chicago postcards, or demo CDs in paper cases, flyers from record stores and basement shows, with 'you should be here' scribbled on the back.
It was kind of like having a penpal, Patrick thought. tiny bits of Pete to carry around with him, to go with all the other bits, smiles and tears and kisses, they’d collected through the years. It still wasn’t enough though, and they still ended up calling each other more often than not.
"Can't live without me?" Pete asked one evening. Patrick pressed the phone to his ear, like that could bring him closer.
"I just miss you," Patrick said, "doing this without you is weird, is all"
"No one's giving you crap are they?" Pete sounded about ready to fly out and punch someone.
"No, and if they were, what makes you think I can't look after myself?" Patrick asked.
"True, I think I still have the bruises from the last argument, slugger." Pete sounded so fond, Patrick had an unexpected stab of something like homesickness.
"Hey." Pete put in after a few seconds of silence. "Hey Patrick, you know I'm so proud of you, right?”
“You tell me that pretty much all the time,” Patrick said, because, he did. Not that he needed it. No matter what people tried to get him to say.
“You deserve to hear it all the time,” Pete said softly. “Everyone’s seeing it now, how fucking talented you are. What I always saw.”
Patrick had got a lot better at taking compliments over the years, but he still laughed a bit awkwardly.
“Love you too,” he said,
“You better,” Pete said. “Now go hit that afterparty, rockstar.”
“Yeah yeah,” Patrick beamed and stepped aside for one of the venue techs to squeeze past. “Talk to you soon.”
He felt warm and happy for the rest of the evening, but it had been a good show, so that was to expected.
He was looking at his phone, and the latest picture Pete had texted him (some spindly green things that were apparently tomato vines), two days later, and the warm feeling was still there. He was standing, in the middle of the bus, looking at Pete’s attempts to get back to nature, when it hit him.
“Fuck,” he said softly, and sat down. He had to laugh, because, apparently, after all this time, he’d gone and fallen in love with Pete Wentz.
He texted back “Don’t give up the day job,” and the spike of happiness at the text alert with Pete’s reply just confirmed it. He felt kind of foolish for missing it. It kind of settled into his bones, sudden and right, just like it had always felt when he got the setting for Pete’s lyrics right, and how, he thought, how the hell had he managed to miss this?
Two towns later, he was halfway through Spotlight, when a movement at the side of the stage caught his eye and he stumbled over the words, because there was Pete. Not in LA or New York, not even back home, but there, hands stuffed int his pockets and grinning at him.
Patrick took a breath and carried on, covering over the stumble as best he could, because the happily mellow warmth had just been replaced with a rapidly uncoiling spiral of want, like seeing Pete in the flesh, not the screen, had suddenly bought it into focus.
By the end of the set Patrick could feel Pete’s eyes on him like a weight, and he made a decision.
He leant forward into the mic
“I think we’ve got time for one more song,” he said, over the cheers. “Now, we’ve been doing some different classics on tour, but I’ve got a friend in the audience tonight,” he risks a quick glance side-stage, and Pete’s still there, still smiling. “So I thought I’d change things up a bit,”
I've been really tryin', baby
Tryin' to hold back this feeling for so long
And if you feel like I feel, baby
Then, c'mon, oh, c'mon
Let's get it on
He handed his guitar off to someone as soon as the lights went down, and caught Pete by the wrist, tugged him into a corner and kissed him. Pete made a gasp against his mouth, but snaked a hand round to the back of his neck and held him in place when Patrick tried to pull away, moving his mouth slowly against his, then pulling gently away, resting his forehead against Patrick’s collarbone and breathing deeply.
“Not that I’m complaining,” he mumbled into Patrick’s shirt “but why now?”
Patrick stroked Pete’s back, and nosed at his ear. Looked at his best friend, at the guy who’d seen this, what he was now, in what he was then. Looked at Pete, at the whole beautiful fucking mess of him, and said
“I guess we’re both finally in the same place.”