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Patrick’s eyebrow is split open from moshing.
His glasses are non-existent now, lost and smashed on the ground by a bunch of sweaty, dancing teenagers. He keeps flailing his arms around, like it’s going to bring his glasses - and sanity back.
His friend Joe has to drag him off into the hallway.
”Dude, what happened in there?” He asks.
Patrick’s nose is grazed, and he licks a cut-open finger. “I don’t know, man, that dude and his girlfriend were being dicks again, what else?”
Joe huffs and looks into Patrick’s eyes sympathetically, although Patrick can barely see the taller boy. “You look like shit.”
”Really? I would’ve never guessed.”
Joe strides off, leaving Patrick to walk limply behind him. He’s ranting about something to do with Andy ditching him to go make out with a girl on the bleachers. Patrick’s footsteps come to a stop as he looks at Joe, “You ditched me, too, man. And look where that got you.” He points to the red hand mark on Joe’s face. Joe goes to rub the mark and winces.
“Whatever.” He hisses.
Patrick screws his face up in confusion, “Is there a stick up your ass or what? What’s your deal?”
Joe furrows his brows and purses his lips together, like he’s thinking about what to say. Patrick just rolls his eyes and keeps walking down the stranded corridor towards the exit. He didn’t even want to go to prom in the first place, but they’d all said it’d be fun to get out of the house. What a lie that was.
The moment Patrick looks back around to Joe, he notices his eyes glistening with wet tears. He sighs, “Joe, seriously, what’s up?”
“Andy. I thought we were gonna hang out at the prom as we agreed, and then he just goes and ditches me… us for a chick we’ve never even talked to? He doesn’t put down his comic book for anyone, not even us, but the moment some hot chick shows interest in him, he’s all ears?” Joe kicks at the linoleum floor, his polished black shoes squeaking against it.
“Yeah. Shit, dude.”
He’s not good at comforting people, Patrick. He’d rather just let them sort it out on their own.
“And then there’s Pete, fucking dick. I know he was gonna be hanging out with that girl, but man, he barely even acknowledged us.” Joe continues.
Lying and pretending to care is the most fun a guy can have, without taking his clothes off. Patrick just nods. Anything to keep his mouth shut about Pete.
He was upset, too, probably more so than Joe. He had wanted to ask Pete out to the prom, but didn’t have the guts to, it would’ve been weird. Pete would’ve thought he was a weirdo.
So he didn’t.
What a shame.
~
Pete adjusts his date’s flower lapel again, this time without poking her. He grins nervously, “I’m just going to the bathroom, okay?” She nods him off with a small smile, and he practically sprints to the hallway, past Andy and the girl he’s tongue-fucking, and to the empty hallway. Well. Nearly empty.
Pete’s shoes screech across the floor as he stops. Patrick and Joe are standing there by themselves, speaking to each other in hushed, aggressive whispers.
The sound of Pete’s shoes snaps them back to reality, looking curiously behind them. Pete’s slicked-back hair was shining under the fluorescent lights.
He gives them a half-smile, frowning a little as he does so.
”Oh, I’m going to fucking kill him.” Joe mumbles, Patrick's eyes widen.
”Hey, hey, step back.” Patrick says, grabbing Joe’s arm, before being shrugged off. He chases after Joe, who is slowly closing the gap between himself and Pete.
Before long, Patrick blinks and sees Pete thrown to the hard surface below them, collapsing under Joe’s punches with an ‘oof!’.
”Dude! Get off of him, Joe!” Patrick grabs onto one of Joe’s clenched fists, getting knocked back when Joe shoves himself out of Patrick’s grasp. The force sends him backward, hitting his head on the linoleum with a crack. His eyes flutter to keep awake, but his body doesn’t give him a choice.
Joe’s knuckles are white, hurting from the collision they’re making with Pete, and Pete struggles under the taller boy’s weight, trying to wrestle his way out of it.
The awkward silence, apart from the scuffle, makes them turn around. Patrick would’ve been delirious by now had he been conscious. Joe stumbles off of Pete, whom he had realised he had been straddling for a good few minutes by now.
Patrick lies there, his eyes closed and his body unmoving.
“Fuck.” Pete mumbles, spitting out blood.
Joe turns to see the mess that unfolded right behind him. Patrick knocked out, very likely to have a concussion. He stumbles over, grabbing Patrick behind his back and lifting his legs, shuffling him into his grasp. Joe turns around, giving Pete a look that screams, “Help me.”
Pete gathers himself, kneeling on the ground before spitting once again and jogging over to Joe.
“How do we wake him up?” Joe pants. He’s struggling to keep Patrick in his arms.
“Dude, just put him down. I’m sure he’ll be fine.” Pete replies as Joe lowers him down. Pete cranes his face down to Patrick’s level, right near his mouth.
“What the fuck are you doing? Kissing him? He’s not Sleeping Beauty!” Joe exclaims.
The look Pete gives him reminds Joe that he will, if given a reason to, beat the shit out of him.
Pete turns his face so that his ear is now above Patrick’s mouth. It dawns on Joe’s face soon enough that Pete was… definitely not going to kiss Patrick as much as it looked like he wanted to. No, he was checking to see if Patrick was breathing properly.
Thank god.
“Okay. Well, good news, he’s breathing. Bad news, this is all your fault. You’re gonna have to apologise to him later.” Pete says, sitting down next to Patrick.
A set of footsteps can be heard pounding down the hallway, a short dude with his hair tied back looking at them silently.
Andy.
“Patrick.” He says calmly, walking over to stand by Pete.
No one says anything else. “Concussion?” Andy asks. The others just nod.
Something about Andy, whenever he enters a room, just… brings something out in Joe. An awkward giddiness, like when you go to a meet and greet for your favourite band, or you see your crush in the hallway.
Well. The second part wasn’t very far from the actual situation.
Joe had been pining over Andy for months now, the way Andy lit up talking about his favourite bands. The way he smiled, and you could see the gap between his teeth. It was so beautiful. He, he was so beautiful to Joe.
~
“Is he going to be okay?” Joe stands up.
“It’s a concussion, not a brain tumour,” Pete remarks, rolling his eyes and crossing his arms over his chest.
“Shut it, Peter.” Andy rubs his eyes sleepily. He had driven the other two guys to the hospital with Patrick. They’d somehow, with the power of teamwork, been able to get Patrick up off the ground and slightly conscious enough to walk him to the car.
The nurse sighs. “Yes, for the third time this hour, he is okay. We’re just making sure there’s nothing else wrong with him, and he’ll be sent on his way.”
Andy shoots Joe a sharp look. What? Wasn’t he allowed to worry about his friend every second of every hour?
“If I knew you any better, Joe, I’d think you have a massive crush on Patrick.”
Okay wow. “I think you’re starting to project, man,” Joe says with a snide grin.
The entire group knew by now that Pete cared a lot for Patrick. Too much.
Soon after, Patrick is released, and Andy offers to drop Patrick off at home. He’s still a little out of it, but not enough that he doesn’t understand what Andy’s asking.
“Can I bring Joe?” He mumbles, feebly, pointing a crooked finger at the blue-eyed boy. Joe’s eyes go wide. Him? Seriously?
Joe fumbles around trying to locate his phone to ask his mom if he can stay over at Patrick’s. Tells her it’ll be mostly just playing video games and watching Star Wars. Thank god, she somehow says yes.
Joe wanders with Patrick’s arm draped over his shoulder as he helps him inside. He gives a small wave to Patrick’s mom and helps him upstairs and into his room.
“You need anything, man? Cold water? Extra blanket?” Joe peers up from the doorknob he just shut behind them as Patrick slumps on his bed, landing on his stomach. He waves a hand to dismiss it. Joe makes his way over to his bed and sits on the edge of it. He wants so badly to hold Patrick and run his fingers through his stupid, slicked-back hair. Joe lets out a huff in exhaustion. It’s been a long night.
“Are you sure? I don’t mind, seriously, dude.” He runs a hand through his own curls, a self-soothing mechanism.
“Bucket,” Patrick says, rolling on his back and covering his mouth. Oh, fuck. Joe didn’t realise he signed up for this.
He skids across the room to the laundry room, grabs a bucket, and rushes back to Patrick’s bedside just in time to help him sit up, holding the bucket for him. It wasn’t overly disgusting, as long as it wasn’t blood, Joe was relatively fine. Still, though.
A stray hair from Patrick’s head gets caught in his mouth, and Joe, ever the gentleman, holds it out of his face to avoid it getting contaminated. Once Patrick’s done, he takes the bucket outside. What is he going to do with it? That’s for him to figure out later.
Getting back inside, he notices Patrick nodding off, his gelled-up hair sticking to his sweaty forehead. “Hey, hey.” Joe nudges him. “Get up, man. You can’t fall asleep.”
Patrick rubs his eyes and squeezes them shut. “M’ sorry. I have a headache.” Joe pats his back, looking at him with caring eyes.
“You wanna have a shower? I can help out. I won’t look, promise.” Joe holds up his hands in surrender. Patrick nods, allowing Joe to help him strip down from his disgustingly sweaty suit to his boxers. Joe rushes to the closet, finds a clean towel for Patrick, and hands it over.
In the shower, Joe tries his absolute best to be normal about the fact that he is helping his crush of forever shower. He applies shampoo to his hands and scrubs it into Patrick’s scalp, working apart the bits of gel remnants. He’s trying to ignore the smell that Patrick had always given off - the smell of apple shampoo. It was almost intoxicating, and Joe couldn’t get enough of it.
But now was not the time to be focused on that. Joe grabbed the towel and draped it over Patrick’s shoulders, pinching it at the front so he was covered all over and wouldn’t be a shivering mess.
Joe had grabbed some pyjama pants and a crappy old stained band tee, which looked to him to be an old one of his t-shirts lost to Patrick’s wardrobe. He didn’t mind.
When Patrick was finished getting dressed, Joe pulled out a bag of stuff he kept at Patrick’s house. Safekeeping, you know? He had stayed over there so many times that he called Patrick’s mom by her first name, and he had his own bag of clothes to wear whenever he was over. So he slid on into a pair of tartan boxer shorts and a Morrissey shirt he’d had for god knows how long, and sidled into bed.
Patrick’s bed wasn’t big by any stretch of the imagination, but it could accommodate two, let’s say, vertically challenged teenage boys. While they were in the shower, well, Patrick was, Ms Stumph had been nice enough to bring a little TV into Patrick’s room, along with his box of VHS tapes.
Patrick thumbed through them, knowing the exact order. His head was still fuzzy, but a bit better. “Return of the Jedi?” He peeks his head up to look at Joe.
“Sure, man. Sounds good.” Joe says, rubbing at his temples. Today had been a wreck. Maybe tomorrow would be better.
Patrick flicks the light switch and plunges them into darkness, climbing into bed beside Joe and falling asleep.
~
Pete and Andy were up, sitting on the couch silently. Every time Pete would go to open his mouth, he found a frog blocking his throat.
Andy spoke up after waiting what felt like years. “What happened?” He turned his head to meet the taller boy's glazed eyes.
“Dude, I- I was going to the bathroom in the hallway and saw Joe and Patrick speaking to each other, and they looked kind of upset, so I smiled at them and… Joe tackled me? For some reason?” Pete says, slotting his face between his hands.
Andy rubbed his eyes, trying to make sense of things. “You know, man, we were technically supposed to go with them to homecoming until you got a date and bailed last minute.”
“Hey, hey! Don’t blame me for this. That was completely Joe’s fault for what he did!”
“That’s not what I said.” Andy takes a deep breath in. “You know Joe has always looked up to you. He was probably upset you ditched him.”
Pete rises to stand up, scuffing his foot on the ground beneath him. “Well, I’m sorry! Sorry, he’s had a crush on me since forever, and I wanted to do something for myself for once!”
“You know that’s not what I meant, Wentz. He and Patrick just wanted to hang out with us because we’re friends, and that’s what friends do. Friends don’t just leave for a girl at the last minute.”
“Oh, like you can talk! I saw you tonguing that girl down in the corner on the bleachers, you dick!” Pete spat back.
“And why did that make you annoyed?” Andy answered, fidgeting with his labret.
“Because… because!” Pete sputtered.
“Because you have a crush on me? I see the way you look at me. I see the way you look at the others, too. You’re not slick.” He grins.
Pete lets out a sound of anguish. “You’re such an ass, Hurley!” He storms off into the guest bedroom of Andy’s house, slamming the door.
Andy yawns and heads into his bedroom, shutting the door behind him and collapsing onto his bed.
~
Joe squeezes his eyes and opens them slowly, preparing himself for the blinding light known as the sun shining through Patrick’s curtains. He goes to turn over to Patrick without noticing the arm that had found itself snaked around his waist. Joe only notices once he hears a groan of annoyance slip from Patrick’s mouth. Fuck. Whatever. He tries to peel the arm from around his waist, but it only makes Patrick hold him tighter.
“Hey… ‘Trick… dude.” Joe mumbles, touching Patrick’s shoulder. Patrick shoots up like a rocket, eyes full of fear, before relaxing.
“What?!” He looks at Joe, irritated.
“You were snuggled up to me, man! I had to do something!” He complains.
Patrick’s eyes narrow, “Sorry.” He turns away from Joe, slumping further into his bed.
“Hey, sorry. I didn’t mean to sound like a dick… I just thought-”
“Thought what? ‘Oh! Patrick cuddled up to me, let’s make him feel like a complete douche!’ Is that what you thought? Thought I was weird for that?” He swallowed thickly. “Sorry.”
“That’s not- that is not what I was thinking! If you saw me letting it happen, I was worried you would think less of me! I don’t mind, man. I don’t find an issue with it, seriously!” Joe whined, caressing Patrick’s shoulder.
Patrick flips over. “Seriously, dude?” He saws, looking up at Joe through his long lashes, glimmering with tears. “I felt like a major ass.”
“You shouldn’t think that way, I really don’t mind! Do it whenever!” Joe slaps a hand to his mouth after saying that last part out loud. “Not… not in a weird way…”
Patrick’s brows furrow, and he sits up, staring at Joe. “Why were you so upset yesterday about Pete?”
Oh, god. Joe can feel himself sweating under Patrick’s piercing baby-blue eyes.
“You totally have a crush on him, Trohman! I knew it!”
Joe, almost comically, audibly gulps. He can see the cogs turning behind Patrick’s eyes before he speaks again.
“And… me?” He says, trying to make the words make sense. “What do you mean you’re fine with me cuddling up to you?”
Joe can feel himself melting away, becoming nothing but a puddle on Patrick’s bed.
His phone rings from somewhere in Patrick’s room. He shoots up, scavenging around for it before saying, “Sorry! Important phone call!” And slamming the door behind him on the way out of the room.
~
He hears hushed voices before Andy’s voice rings out. “Hey… we need to talk.”
“Is Pete also fawning over everyone in our band, or?” Joe finds himself saying. They’d both been together for a while, but not exclusively, hence the little random girl debacle the previous night with Andy. They were fine with stolen kisses, as long as they didn’t mean anything. And as far as Andy was aware, Joe was seriously crushing on Pete and Patrick, too.
A voice answers back, “I see Patrick’s finally discovered your secret.”
“Oh, fucking whatever, man! What about you and Pete? Or you and Patrick?” His voice comes out less annoyed and more morbidly curious.
“I don’t think Patrick knows about my… thing for him yet. Pete, however, has basically come clean with his crushes on you guys.”
“He likes me?” Joe blurts out.
“You idiot, of course he does!”
“Ok, well, sorry I didn’t pick up on that. But the Patrick thing was totally obvious.”
“Totally.” Andy concurs.
A shuffling of footsteps sounds from behind Joe, and the door opens, with Patrick sleepily rubbing his eyes. “What about me?”
Joe nearly chokes, “Nothing, nothing. Seeyoumom.” The words mash into one before he slams the hang-up button and looks up at Patrick. The blond boy cocks his head, almost trying to get himself into Joe’s mind, before looking down and pointing.
“You should sort that out.” He says, turning on his heel and closing the door again. Joe looks down in horror. Fuck! Just his luck!
~
Pete hadn’t slept, but he wasn’t all there when Andy climbed into bed with him and wrapped an arm around his torso. He blinked away the dryness in his eyes, turning around to face him.
“What’s this for?” He nods towards Andy’s arm, his heart fluttering.
Andy doesn’t say much, just closes the gap between them with a kiss worth a thousand words. Pete melts into his touch, embracing Andy with a shaky hand.
Upon breaking their kiss, Andy looked into Pete’s whiskey-hot eyes, calm and quiet, and pulled him closer. Pete decided to rest his head in the crook of Andy’s neck, taking in a faceful of his curls. It was awkward but so, so comfortable.
~
Joe wiped the sweat from his brow and entered Patrick’s bedroom again. The short boy looked up from his phone that he had been typing away on.
“What’s up?” He grinned.
“How much of that did you hear?”
“Enough to know you definitely weren’t speaking to your mom.” Patrick bit his lip, attempting to stifle his laughter.
“You’re a dick.” Joe said as he walked over to the bed and collapsed.
Patrick looked at him with curiosity before perking up, “You wanna go get food?”
He groaned. “Where?”
“The diner downtown.” Patrick huffed back.
Joe waved a hand, “Whatever, dude. When?”
“In like… 45 minutes…”
Joe groaned even louder, grabbing a rouge pillow on the floor and throwing it at Patrick, whose laughter could no longer be suppressed.
~
Pete and Andy got dressed in a flurry of clothes and the occasional making out, before finally stumbling out the door, stuffing their hands in their pockets. Whenever a word was spoken, it would come out with vapor. They giggled, spending their entire walk to the diner pretending they were dragons breathing fire. What nerds they are.
Upon entering, doubled over with laughter, they noticed Joe and Patrick sitting in a corner already, sharing a milkshake. Joe was looking pretty tired, slumped over with his face sitting on his hand.
They sidled their way into the booth, Andy bumping Joe with his shoulder and Pete shimmying his way next to Patrick.
“What’s got you so down?” Andy nudges him.
Joe peeks up with his big eyes, trying to speak with them. Andy speaks with his eyes back, flashing them between Pete and Patrick. He nods back ever-so-slightly.
“This was your idea?” Joe mumbles.
“Yeah, sorry.” Andy whispers back.
“All good.”
Andy takes a deep breath in, clapping his hands together. “How is everyone? Did we get over our little squabble last night?” If Andy’s seeing the death glares being exchanged between Joe and Pete, he is ignoring it completely.
The one to talk first is Patrick, “I’m sorry for… whatever happened last night.” He rubs his head.
“Not your fault, ‘Trick.” Pete grumbles next to him.
“Yeah, man. It's not your fault, ‘s my fault. I should be the one saying sorry.” Joe chokes, looking down.
Andy’s eyes dart around, between Pete and Patrick to Pete and Joe having a stare-off. “Okay, okay. Calm down, guys. I see what’s going on, and it’s not going to happen. Let’s all just relax.”
“He ditched us last minute-!” Joe whines.
“Joe tackled me and started punching me!” Pete argues back.
“Oh my god, shut up!” Patrick yells, scaring the other patrons. “Sorry,” he says to them, before snapping his head back to everyone at the table. “We can all tell you guys like each other, it’s not a secret exactly!”
Joe’s gaze softens. “Yeah, well, I’d like to hear it come from Pete himself.”
Pete looks down, watching the condensation gathering on the milkshake cup. “I like you, Joe. I do. You’re a dick, though, man. Sometimes.”
Andy grins, “Thank you! For admitting what we've all known for years!”
Patrick pipes up again, “You know, Andy was telling me, uh… we all like each other? You know, like, as a whole group?” He says before gulping down a mouthful of his shake.
Joe looks up at Andy from his fidgeting hands, “You told him?!”
“Well, I couldn’t just leave us hating each other!”
He groans, slamming his head on the table.
“So… I like Joe, I like Andy, I… like Patrick?” Pete swallows.
“Yep.” Joe mumbles from the table.
“There could’ve been a better way to do this…” Andy thinks aloud.
“You think?!” Joe and Pete say in unison.
Patrick glances back and forth from Joe to Pete before softening, “So what? This is like a big date?”
Joe splutters, eyeing Patrick now.
“Dude, Patrick told me that you said you were fine with cuddling with him.” Andy says, leaning over to Joe’s ear.
“You guys are such dicks.” Joe huffs, shuffling around, nudging Andy. “Move, dude.”
“So you can leave?”
“Yes! Now move!”
Andy crosses his arms. “Me and Pete have sorted out our differences, why can’t everyone else?”
Joe blinks. “What do you mean you sorted out your differences?”
“I was mad at Andy for tonguefucking that girl in the gymnasium, we made up, and made out.”
Patrick’s the one to turn around and look at Pete, now. “Made out?!”
“Okay, let’s all just calm down.” Andy holds his hands in surrender.
“Calm down, man?!” Patrick slams a fist on the table, rattling the now empty cup.
Andy swallows thickly. “We should go to my house.”
~
Somehow Andy had managed to drag them all to his house. By somehow, that meant explaining to a whining Patrick in the backseat, a mumbling Pete and a huffing Joe that this would all make sense if they gave him the time to clarify what he meant.
Upon entering, everyone broke out into complaints that were only stopped by Andy’s incessant shushing.
“Okay, here’s how it goes; we all like each other, I’m nearly a hundred percent sure of that. I’m not sure what exactly you guys want to do about that, but in my opinion, I want to pursue a relationship with you guys. All of you guys. As a… polyamory thing.” Andy explains.
They all nod in understanding, even if the room is still full of tension. Pete speaks up, “Well, I’m fine with that, I guess.”
They’re met with agreement from the other two.
“It’s whatever, I like all you guys, too.” Joe mumbles quietly, sinking onto the nearby couch and closing his eyes.
Patrick sinks into the couch next to him, wrapping an arm around Joe takes a peek at Patrick with one eye. “I agree. I want to do this.”
Pete shuffles over to Andy’s side, giving him a small kiss on his cheek. Andy turns over to give him a chaste kiss on the lips, snaking an arm around Pete’s waist.
“We’re right here!” Joe complains. Andy and Pete both move over to the couch, exchanging kisses with Joe and Patrick, before also sitting down.
“Movie, anyone?” Pete asks.
“Sure, I dibs first movie choice!” Joe says, shooting up to grab a movie from the entertainment center. He flicks through all the movies before settling on one.
Pete goes to grab some snacks from Andy’s kitchen while Andy goes upstairs to grab a blanket from one of the closets. Patrick sits back and watches everyone doing all the work before Joe comes back and snuggles up to him.
Andy emerges with a blanket at the same time Pete comes back with popcorn and a bowl of candy and chocolates. He drapes the blanket on top of everyone and Pete sits the bowl on the coffee table across from them.
“Thanks, guys.” Patrick yawns, already feeling sleep coming on.
“No problem.” Pete presses his lips to Patrick’s forehead before pressing play on the movie.
“Love you guys.” Joe mumbles into Patrick’s neck, barely audible.
A mumble of ‘love you’s’ echo through the living room before everyone settles down, falling into a calm sleep, cuddled up to one another.