Notes: Inspired by these pictures and Shoemaster being awesome. Pretty much everything here belongs to her.
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It had been a long time since Patrick had woken up with Gerard Way wrapped around him.
The last time had been on the last day of Warped, when he'd woken to the sound of Bob clattering around in the kitchen and the feeling of Gerard's hand slipping down the front of his pants.
This time, it was still quiet, still way too early for anyone to be functioning, and Patrick kept his eyes closed, burying his face in Gerard's hair and breathing in the smell of his shampoo. Gerard shifted against him, his arm tightening around Patrick's waist, pulling them closer together.
He'd missed this. It had been way too long, and he'd been half afraid that now that they were touring together again, things would be awkward. But�
Wait.
Patrick's hand froze on its way up to Gerard's hair, hovering there aimlessly. This was all wrong. The tour hadn't even started yet. Last night, Patrick had been at Pete's, trying (and mostly failing) to write all night. Things just weren't working the way they were supposed to anymore and it was frustrating the hell out of him. It was finally Pete who decided to give up for the night, and he'd curled up in the armchair to blog about it with that deeply moody look that always made Patrick want to give him a hug.
Instead, Patrick had fallen asleep to the sound of Hemmy snoring on his chest.
Which meant that this was a dream. A nice dream, granted, but the kind of dream that ended in Patrick waking up to find himself petting Hemmy instead of playing with Gerard's hair.
Sometimes life just wasn't fair at all.
"Hey," he felt Gerard whisper against his shoulder. "You're thinking. It's too early to be thinking." He tipped his head and pressed a warm kiss to the side of Patrick's neck.
Patrick didn't open his eyes, but he smiled. "This is a dream," he whispered back, his voice still scratchy from sleep. "I mean, not that I'm complaining." He held Gerard a little tighter. "But�that's all it is."
"Isn't everything?" Gerard said drowsily, rubbing his face against Patrick's shirt.
"Maybe," Patrick agreed, finally opening his eyes to look at the bunk above them. "Maybe."
Weak morning light was filtering in through the window, making Gerard's skin look even paler than usual. Patrick tilted his head to press a kiss to Gerard's forehead, then pulled back a little to look at Gerard resting there against him, eyes closed, tiny smile on his face. He watched Gerard's chest move as he breathed, and his own hand twisting through Gerard's hair, curling strands of it around his fingers.
Then he looked a little closer, and he started screaming.
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"Man, I've never heard Frank scream like a girl like that before," said Ray, sounding a little impressed. He stretched his legs out on the couch beside him, looking way too relaxed. Mikey, sitting next to him, had his fingers wrapped around a cup of coffee, leg bouncing up and down, jittery and anything but relaxed.
"Look, guys, this is�" he let go of the coffee long enough to wave one hand around uselessly. "This is bad."
"Thank you, Mikey," Patrick said dryly. "Because we couldn't tell that before." He was sitting on the floor in front of the tv, resting his chin on his knees, arms wrapped around his legs. The coffee Gerard had handed him was sitting at his side, warming him through his pants, because he couldn't really deal with seeing Frank's hands every time he lifted the mug to take a sip.
"No, I mean�" Mikey frowned. "Has anyone even thought to wonder where Frank is?"
"Oh." Patrick blinked. "Oh shit."
He was on his feet faster than he'd ever been in his life, grabbing Gerard's phone from the counter and dialing it without even thinking. "Mmmmnghmf?" Pete said on the other end.
"Pete?" he asked. Hearing himself speak in a voice that didn't belong to him was starting to freak him the fuck out. "Pete, it's�" He froze, blinking blankly across the room at Mikey and Ray. "I�" he tried again, then failed to find anything that could possibly follow.
It was Gerard who finally came over and took the phone from his fingers, pressing the speaker button and setting it down on the counter. "Hey, Pete, it's Gerard. Sorry to wake you up so early, but we've got�well, we're having kind of a crisis over here and need to talk to Patrick. Is he there?"
"Mmmgh," Pete mumbled, and there was a loud crash followed by some shuffling and a faint "Hey! Phone!" Then there was the rattle of a phone being tossed across the room into something soft.
"H'lo?" they finally heard, and Patrick clutched at the edge of the counter until his fingers hurt.
"Frankie?" Gerard asked in a tiny voice.
"Gee? What're you�" There was a long pause. "Hey, why am I�" Another pause. "Oh. Oh, I�" There was a shuffling noise on the other end of the phone. "OH, HOLY FUCK!"
Then the line went dead.
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The rest of the day was spent passing phones back and forth while the two bands went through the five stages of body switching.
"No, really," Bob said from the computer. "There actually are five stages, just like grief. It says so right here."
Ray peered over his shoulder. "And by right here, you mean in this Harry Potter fanfiction."
"Hey, you try googling 'bodyswap,'" Bob said, "and see where it gets you."
Pete sighed in Patrick's ear. "The tour starts in three days," he said. "What if you're not back? What if we have to go out there with Frank fucking Iero singing?"
"He sounds just like me, Pete. He'll be fine. If you want to worry about someone going onstage, worry about me. These guys have a show tomorrow night."
"You're a goddamn musical genius," Pete told him. "I doubt you'll have a problem."
"Hey, speaking of," Ray said, and gestured back towards the studio.
"Genius, right," Patrick said. "Look, Ray's going to try to teach me their songs, so I�m gonna go. Gerard wants to talk to Frank again anyway." Gerard was sitting curled up in the corner of the couch with a sketchpad that had been blank for a suspiciously long time. He glanced up in surprise. "He didn't say he did. But he does."
"Yeah, ok," Pete said. "Look�" he trailed off, then started again. "Come back, ok?"
Patrick closed his eyes. "I'll try," he said. He handed the phone off to Gerard and watched the way his face lit up when Frank answered. "I'll try."
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"The music isn't the problem," Patrick said, tracing a finger along the edge of Frank's guitar. "I mean, it's a problem, but I'm pretty sure I can fake it okay. I feel like a lot of it's muscle memory. I can already do a lot on this that I'd never be able to do normally." He shifts the guitar a little. "And you'll make me not screw up too bad, right?"
Ray shrugged. "That's the plan," he said.
"It's just�the thing."
"The�thing," Ray repeated.
"The Frank thing. That�I don't know. All the energy he has onstage. Throwing himself around, and being�you know." He picked out a riff on the guitar. "Hot."
Gerard poked his head into the room. "Hey! Makeup time!" he said brightly, and sat down in Patrick's lap.
"Um. Hi," Patrick said, and Gerard grinned, very close to his face.
"Usually Frank does this himself. I'll help you out, though. I know it's more Pete's thing than yours."
Ray stood up to take the guitar from between them. "Patrick's worried he's not hot enough to pass as Frank," he said, earning him a glare from Patrick.
"Don't move your eyes," Gerard said absently, turning to look at Ray. "He's being an idiot," he said with authority. "First of all, he's got Frank's body. He looks like Frank, he sounds like Frank, and he moves like Frank. Second of all, he's Patrick. He's got nothing to worry about." He turned back to face Patrick and reached up to tilt Patrick's head, analyzing. "You'll be amazing," he said, and then attacked with the eyeliner.
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The next morning, Patrick woke to find a voicemail on Frank's phone.
"God. Trick, you�" Pete's voice was low and scratchy, one of those late night phone calls that he tended to make and then forget all about in the morning. "Jesus. I just�I can't even�" He was silent for a moment, then said "God, you're incredible," and hung up.
Patrick was almost afraid to turn on the computer, but when he finally opened Buzznet, he found it full of pictures and video of Frank Iero at last night's show, pressing up against Gerard, writhing on the stage with his guitar, and playing like he had never played in his life.
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Frank had never trained his body to sleep right.
Patrick realized this the first night, when he came abruptly awake at four thirty and ended up tossing and turning for the next few hours before crashing just before everyone else got up and woke him again.
By the third night, he was used to it.
He was lying awake, writing music in his head that his hands were too tired to write, when Gerard crawled into his bunk with him and pressed up against his back, arms around his waist.
"Hey," Patrick whispered.
"Hi," Gerard whispered back. The tour was starting the next day, and Patrick was counting the hours. He needed to see Pete so badly that it was nearly a physical ache, and he knew that Gerard was missing Frank just as much, if not more. Gerard had been hiding a lot, drawing more than usual, wandering aimlessly around the bus and being clingy enough to Mikey that Mikey had disappeared tonight, just to get rid of him.
He sighed and felt Gerard shift behind him, getting more comfortable.
"You know," Patrick whispered, "this isn't�I mean. I'm not�" Gerard buried his cold nose against the back of his neck and Patrick drew in a quick breath, losing his train of thought.
"I know," Gerard said, his voice tickling Patrick's skin. "I just�I can't�" he broke off, sounding completely lost.
"Hey," Patrick said, resting his hand over Gerard's and tangling their fingers together. "Hey, it's ok. It's going to be fine."
"Yeah." Gerard choked out a tiny laugh. "Yeah. It better be," he said. He pulled Patrick tighter against him and closed his eyes. "It fucking better be."
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When he opened the door to the bus the next day, Patrick found himself on the floor with an armful of squirming, happy Wentz.
"Hm," Pete said beside his ear, straddling Patrick on the ground. "The tackling thing doesn't really work so well when you're tiny, does it?"
Patrick shifted under him, wrapping an arm around Pete's waist and tipping him off. "Not so much, no."
"He was always tiny," Joe reminded Pete, stepping over the two of them onto the bus.
"That's true," Pete agreed, curling up against Patrick's side instead. "But now he's all�" he rested a hand on Patrick's chest, "Frank-shaped."
"You make it sound like that's a bad thing," Frank said from the doorway, and Patrick shivered a little at hearing his own voice like that. Pete's arms tightened around him.
Patrick watched Frank as he moved into the bus, studied the way he walked in Patrick's body. He wondered if anything had changed, if anyone could tell that there was something different. Then Frank reached Gerard on the couch, and Patrick stopped looking. Gerard's arms went around his waist, pulling him forward so he could rest his head against Frank's chest. Frank reached up to tangle his hands into Gerard's hair, and Patrick looked back down at Pete, feeling like he'd just seen something intensely private, something he shouldn't have been watching.
Pete was grinning at him, completely oblivious to Frank and Gerard. He reached up with one finger to poke at Patrick's face, and Patrick flinched away.
"Yes, Pete," he said, trying to sound exasperated, but really just enjoying the way Pete's body was warm and close all along his side. "It's really me."
Pete leaned a little closer, looking deep into Patrick's eyes, and he poked him again on the cheek. Patrick caught his fingers with one hand and reached up to poke Pete back with the other, in exactly the same spot Pete had touched him. Pete looked affronted for a split second, then got distracted by the calluses on Patrick's fingers, taking his hand and turning it over, touching each spot with slow caresses that sent all of Patrick's blood rapidly downward.
It wasn't until Mikey cleared his throat that Patrick remembered they had an audience.
"Done taking a tour of my body parts, Wentz?" Frank asked from his perch on the arm of the couch. It looked strange, him hunched there in a position Patrick would never sit in, Gerard's hand wrapped possessively around the back of his leg.
Pete leered at him. "Haven't even started, Iero," he said.
Patrick watched his own face twist into an expression that was not at all flattering. "Oh. Oh god. Please. Don't even�" he flailed a little. "No sex in my body!" he finally managed, giving Patrick a surprisingly effective pleading look.
Patrick felt himself flush. The thought hadn't even crossed his mind, but now that it was out there�
"Same goes for you, then," Pete said smoothly, and Patrick twisted to look at him. "What? It's only fair."
At the table, Andy raised his hand until everyone looked at him. "Do we have to be here for the sex negotiations?" he asked, while Bob nodded fervently beside him.
"I think we're pretty much done," Pete said.
"Hey, wait!" Everyone turned to look at Gerard. "Don't I get any say in this? I mean�who knows how long they're going to be like this? I'm not really a fan of the idea of being a fucking monk until they get fixed."
"Have sex with Patrick," Ray said, shrugging.
Patrick flushed even more. Not fair. He had never seen Frank blush in his life. As soon as he got into the body, all of a sudden it was doing it all the time.
"What?" Ray finally asked at all the gaping looks around him. "Pete said Gerard couldn't do anything with Patrick's body. He didn't say anything about Frank's."
"Ok, well," Joe said, standing up abruptly. "I think I'm going to head back to our bus. We have video games. And people who aren't going to sit around talking about who they're allowed to fuck. Presumably. Who's with me?"
Four hands shot into the air.
"You guys have fun," Andy said to Patrick, sounding like might actually mean it, as he left the bus in a hurry behind Joe, Mikey, Bob, and Ray.
The four of them sat there in silence and stared at each other for a while, Patrick watching the way that Frank's fingers drummed an impatient rhythm on his knee.
"So," Pete finally said. "About the sex thing."
Patrick smacked him in the back of the head.
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He sat backstage on an empty equipment box and watched himself sing.
The set with My Chem had gone well tonight. He still wasn't used to Frank's body, but he could handle it at least. He'd had a minor freakout after fucking up the solo in I'm Not Okay, but Gerard had come up behind him and wrapped an arm around his shoulders, singing against his throat until Patrick melted back against him, only half for the audience's benefit.
He had felt Pete's eyes on him the whole time.
He'd come off stage, sweaty and exhausted, and Pete had been there, flinging an arm around his waist, eyes dark and turned on. "God," he said into Patrick's ear over the noise of the crowd. "You should be like that all the time."
Patrick laughed, a little hoarse from screaming. "Right," he said. "Because I'm sure everyone wants to see that when they come to see us."
"I want to see that," Pete said, as if that was all that mattered.
Maybe it was.
He watched Pete now, playing the last song, spinning across the stage and nearly colliding into Joe. He caught Patrick's eye, and was wearing a huge grin when he turned back to the crowd, playing to the outstretched arms beneath him.
Frank's voice wavered in places Patrick's didn't, and he missed words a few times, but he hit the right notes, and managed to keep from flinging himself around the stage any more than Patrick normally would have. It wasn't Fall Out Boy's best show, but it wasn't nearly the disaster Frank had been expecting earlier in the night. Patrick had snuck off to their dressing room right after playing, and had pulled Frank into a corner to warm up his voice with him.
Frank's hands shook the whole time.
Just before they went onto the stage, Patrick pulled him aside. "Hey," he said, trying to think of something encouraging to say. "Don't forget this," he said instead, and settled his favorite hat onto Frank's head. Frank reached up to touch the brim as if it was a lucky charm or something.
"Thanks," he said, and Patrick leaned in to kiss his cheek, trying very hard to ignore the utter weirdness of the moment.
"From Gerard," he said, and watched his own face light up in front of him.
Frank was still smiling now, on the stage, and it wasn't a forced smile for the audience either. He was having fun out there, relaxing, grinning at Pete, Joe, the screaming girls in front of him.
Patrick felt a chill as he thought that maybe Frank would make a better Patrick than he did.
Then the song ended, the lights went out, and Pete was there, pressing between his legs and pushing him back onto the case, shards of confetti falling between them and catching the last dim echoes of the light. His lips found Patrick's in the darkness without any hesitation, and he tasted like sweat and hair gel, like every brief and unfathomable moment after a show. Patrick wrapped his arms and legs around Pete's back, pulling him in as close as he could get, gasping for air in the quick moments between kisses.
"Jesus," he heard someone breathe next to them�it sounded like Andy�but he didn't pay any attention, gripping the back of Pete's neck with unfamiliar fingers and shivering as Pete's lips moved down to his throat.
"You guys," he finally heard Joe saying loudly. "You guys, you've gotta�" Joe's hands were on Pete's shoulders, tugging him away, and for just a moment Pete looked like he was going to take a swing at him. "There are cameras," Joe said, and Patrick blinked stupidly at him for a minute. What did it matter? There were already a million pictures out there of Pete and Patrick kissing after shows, onstage, in interviews. It was just something they did.
It wasn't, however, something Pete did with Frank Iero.
"Shit," Patrick breathed, leaning over and burying his face in his hands. "God. I hate this." He lifted his head. "I hate this!" he yelled at Joe and Pete's retreating backs.
"C'mon, man," Andy said, laying a hand on Patrick's shoulder. "Bus."
"Fuck off," Patrick told him, shrugging his hand away. "Wouldn't want people wondering why Frank's spending so much time on your bus, would you?"
Andy looked at him for a second. "Don't be a jackass," he said mildly, and followed the other two away.
Frank was still there, leaning against a speaker, looking completely lost and out of place. "Aren't you going with your band?" Patrick asked him bitterly.
Frank walked over and stood in front of him. They stared at each other for a few moments, Patrick noticing that his eyes weren't really the color he had thought they were. Then Frank kicked him in the shin. "Yeah," he said. "I am. I am going to find my band, and I am going to sit on their bus, and I'm going to play video games and read comic books and generally be a big huge geek with them until ridiculous hours. And then? I'm going to go back to your band's bus and go to sleep." He sighed deeply and crouched down so he and Patrick were at eye level. He rested his hands on Patrick's legs to balance himself. "This sucks. I know this sucks. But we are no longer guys who can do what they want without fucking with other people's jobs and lives. Not until this thing is fixed, anyway."
Patrick looked at him for a minute. "Ow?" he finally replied, leaning down to rub at his leg.
Frank laughed, a strangely nice laugh, and Patrick wondered if he sounded like that all the time. His fingers squeezed Patrick's knees, and then he pulled away, a tiny smile on his face. "It was a good show, wasn't it?"
Patrick smiled back. "It was a great show."
"Yours too."
"You watched?"
Frank shrugged. "Some of it." He looked wistful. "I kinda�left in the middle, though."
Patrick nodded. "You missed being up there."
"Yeah."
"I get that."
"Thought you might." Frank reached out and squeezed his shoulder, then turned to leave. "Look�" he trailed off. "Good luck," he finally said. "You know, with�" he waved after Pete.
"Thanks," Patrick said. "You too. I mean, with�" he made a vaguely Gerard-like gesture.
"Yeah," Frank agreed. "Thanks." He turned to walk away, then paused. "You know," he said, still looking away, "I'm kinda glad. I mean, if this thing had to happen? I'm glad it was you."
Patrick felt himself blushing. "Yeah, I�yeah," he replied lamely. "I mean, me too." He forced a laugh. "Think about it. You could have Pete in your body."
Frank laughed and gave an expressive shudder. "Or Hemmy," he replied, and walked away, leaving Patrick giggling to himself at the side of the stage.
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When Patrick woke the next morning and shuffled out of the bunk area, he found Frank already on their couch, legs on Gerard's lap, comic books scattered in precarious piles all around them.
"Morning," Gerard said, not looking up from the comic he was flipping through.
"Mmph," Patrick replied, making a beeline for the coffee.
"It's not done yet," Frank said, his voice sounding way cheerier than Patrick's ever did this early in the day. He held up a stack of comics. "Want to help?"
Patrick stared. "Help with what?"
"Looking for answers," Gerard told him, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world.
"Answers," Patrick repeated.
"To, you know." Gerard waved a hand between him and Frank. "The thing."
"Answers in comic books," Patrick clarified, just to make sure he wasn't misunderstanding.
"Sure. You think you guys are unique?"
Patrick stared some more. "I'm going back to bed," he said finally.
"We'll let you know if we find anything!" Frank called after him.
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One of the problems with suddenly possessing a body not your own was the jerking off factor.
Ok, it wasn't so much a problem as it was more of a moral dilemma. Frank had made it clear in pretty uncertain terms that he didn't want Pete going anywhere near his body. And, ok, yeah, they'd made out a few times, but there had still been no sex involved. Which meant that Patrick was one horny guy. Mostly because he still wasn't sure if there was a particular set of rules and etiquette attached to touching another man's dick when you were currently in possession of it.
It wasn't like he was going to ask Frank about it. Mostly because they hadn't really had a moment to themselves since that first night on the tour. It seemed like Pete or Gerard or somebody else was always around now, as if they needed babysitters or something. As if the two of them were about to go off the deep end any second if someone wasn't keeping an eye on them.
And honestly, if they had to keep going without sex, one of them just might.
It had been Pete and Frank who had negotiated the whole thing, which Patrick and Gerard had noted loudly and often, just in case anyone else on the bus cared. It turned out, though, that Ray, Bob, and especially Mikey didn't really want to hear about their sex lives (or lack thereof) all that much.
Which left Patrick with a pretty sizable problem on his hands. Sizable both in terms of the problem itself, and�well, Frank was only a small guy in certain ways, it turned out.
On the fifth night of the tour, when Ray and Mikey were somewhere with the Academy guys, Gerard was dead asleep on the couch, and Bob was off doing whatever Bob did when he wasn't around, Patrick gave up and called his own phone.
"Yeah?" Frank's voice was wary, as if he already knew he wasn't going to like what he heard.
"The deal's off, Frank," Patrick said, all in a rush.
There was quiet breathing on the other end of the line for a little while, before Frank said "What deal?"
"The deal. The one you made with Pete. It's�I can't�it's done, ok? I'm just�I'm so fucking sick of this. I need�" he sighed deeply. "Gerard's here sleeping. Everyone else is gone. I'm leaving and coming to y�to my bus. You can do what you want. But one way or another, I am getting you, Joe, and Andy off that bus, and I am having goddamn mindblowing sex tonight."
"Patrick�"
"No. Frank, look, I'm done, ok?" he said, and hung up.
They ran into each other halfway between their buses. "Joe and Andy are gone," Frank said, like a peace offering.
"Thanks," Patrick replied awkwardly. "Look," he said, trying to make a compromise. "If you want, I'll�"
"What I want," Frank interrupted him, "is to not ever have to think about what you're doing right now. So just�.you�.go do whatever it is you're going to do. And�I'll do the same. But there's no�I mean, we don't talk about it. None of that bonding shit, ok? Not about this."
Patrick nodded quickly. "Got it," he said.
"Good," Frank said and went to brush by him. "Hey," he added, grabbing Patrick's sleeve as he passed. His face softened a little. "Have fun, ok?"
Patrick smirked a tiny bit. "Yeah. You too."
Frank leered. Patrick had no idea that his face had an expression like that in its repertoire. "Oh, I will."
He was whistling as he walked away, and it took Patrick a minute to realize that it was one of his own songs.
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"What do you mean, no?" Patrick demanded, hands on his hips, glaring down at Pete.
Pete sprawled back against the couch and shrugged. "Was there something confusing about the way I said it?"
"Pete, you're�" Patrick waved his arms furiously at him. "You're a whore. You'll fuck anything. And you mean to tell me that because I look like this, you won't have sex with me?"
"Well first of all, as a general rule, calling someone a whore is not the way to charm yourself into their pants. Second of all, yeah. That's what I mean to tell you."
"But�I'm hot now, Pete!"
Pete stared at him blankly for a moment. "You're Frank now, Patrick."
"And since when is that not the same thing?"
"Since you're�" Pete flailed a little. "You're not you."
"Oh, come on. You can't actually tell me that you prefer�you know." He motioned expressively. "Me to this."
Pete looked away. "Ok," he said. "I won't tell you that." His eyes came back to meet Patrick's defiantly. "I will tell you that no, I'm not having sex with you while you're in Frank's body. And�oh. Oh god." He jumped up from the couch. "If you're here, doing this, does that mean�"
"It means that Gerard and my body are having a lot of really good, really hot sex, right about now, yes," Patrick said, tapping his watch for emphasis. "Which you and I could be doing if you hadn't suddenly tripped on something and gotten yourself a case of morals."
"Patrick," Pete said, very close to his face. "Trick." He reached out and touched Patrick's jaw, tipping his head and kissing him slowly, making Patrick moan a little into his mouth. "I just�I can't. Ok? I�I can't, or I won't, or�I don't know. This is all�" he shook his head. "It's fucked up, you know?"
Patrick laughed a little bitterly. "I might have noticed that, yeah," he said. Pete wrapped his arms around him and kissed him again, a little harder this time, biting his lower lip. Patrick shuddered and pulled back, pushing Pete halfway across the tiny room. "You've gotta�" he paused to breathe for a moment before continuing. "You can't keep doing that. You can't do stuff like that and then tell me no. God. That is just�that's so far beyond unfair."
"Hey, just because I'm not going to do anything about it�" Pete shrugged and leaned against the doorframe that led to the bunks, smirking a little.
Patrick blinked at him. "You. I. What?"
Pete grinned. "I know you, Patrick. You haven't jerked off in more than a week, and it is making you a pissy bitch. So," he shrugged, then disappeared back towards the bunks. "What's stopping you?" his voice called, muffled by curtains.
"I�Pete�" he said, following him in only to say this is a bad idea, but somehow the words got lost on their way to his mouth when he saw Pete, reclining on one of the bunks, arm draped across his waist, fingers just resting against the zipper of his jeans.
"What?" Pete asked, tiny smile on his face. "I have standards. I'm not dead." He reached out with his other hand and took Patrick's, turning it over, looking carefully at the tattoos that climbed his arm. It was right around the time that he lifted Patrick's wrist to his lips and started sucking and biting at the skin there that Patrick's knees went out from under him. He bent them, kneeling onto the bunk, climbing in beside Pete, and he let Pete's fingers tug his belt open and pull his pants and boxers down far enough to kick them off. "Shirt," Pete told him breathlessly, and Patrick stripped it off without hesitation, already knowing that the body underneath it was beautiful.
He bit his lip, watching Pete's eyes travel across his skin, and he thought for the briefest second that Pete was going to break, was going to reach for him and fuck him into the thin mattress. But then Pete was gesturing at him, leaning back, and Patrick couldn't think of any more objections, not with Pete sprawled out with his legs on either side of Patrick's naked body, palming his own cock through his pants, eyes dark and turned on.
Patrick watched his hand wrap around his cock, both unfamiliar, his hips jerking forward into his touch with an intensity he hadn't expected. "God," he breathed, tipping his head back. This was what it felt like to be Frank, to have every inch of your skin wired with tiny bolts of energy. It was no wonder Frank was so desperate to change back�Patrick had never felt anything this intense in his life.
Somewhere, not far from here, Frank was using his body the same way, learning how each touch felt against his skin, how a press of a tongue here or there could send shivers shooting down his spine. It helped that Gerard knew his way around Patrick's body, knew exactly what would make Frank writhe and yell and grip at the sheets with sweaty fingers, forgetting everything but the feeling of Gerard's skin against his.
Patrick made a tiny noise in the back of his throat, moving his hand faster, finally hearing the breathless pants coming from Pete's end of the bed. "Pete," he said, head flung back, voice breaking, and he came, hips thrusting erratically into his grip, something like a sob tumbling from his lips.
Pete's legs shuddered around him, and Patrick opened his eyes in time to see Pete come in his pants, mouth open, eyes locked onto Patrick's. He mouthed something without any sound and then reached up his other hand to wrap around the back of Patrick's neck and pull him down to kiss him, hard and endless.
Later, much later, as they lay tangled up and naked beneath the sheets, Pete pressed his face into the curve of Patrick's throat and whispered his name into his skin, waking him just a little.
"Hmm?" Patrick replied into the pillow.
"Do me a favor?"
"Mm?"
"Remind me tomorrow to punch Gerard Way in his pretty fucking face?"
Patrick laughed sleepily. "You know," he said, "I don't know what you're so upset about. It's not like it's anything he hasn't done before. And anyway, he'd have just as much right to punch you for violating Frank's body."
"Yeah, but he wouldn't."
Patrick wasn't so sure about that, but he kept his mouth shut, letting the slow rocking of the bus that had started up again lull him back into sleep.
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The tour moved slowly on, city to city, and everywhere they went, Patrick was Frank and Frank was Patrick.
Pete and Patrick still didn't have sex, and from what Patrick could tell, neither did Frank and Gerard, not after that first night. He was pretty sure that Pete had punched Gerard, actually, but neither of them were talking about it.
But there were nights when Pete would stay late on their bus, or sneak on after everyone had gone to bed, and he'd curl up along Patrick's back, holding onto him until they both fell asleep. "You know," Patrick had whispered one night, "I think there are people who would do this on your own bus, one of whom is actually occupying the body you really want to be snuggling with right now."
Pete sighed against the back of his neck. "It's not about that," he said.
"You don't like to sleep alone," Patrick said, as if he had to remind him.
"I don't like to sleep without you," Pete replied, and he either fell immediately asleep after that, or he faked so he didn't have to say anything more.
The days were spent doing normal tour things�meet and greets, video games, hanging out with the other bands, keeping Pete from getting into too much trouble with Dirty. The nights were spent onstage. Patrick had become one hell of a convincing Frank, and Pete hadn't stopped coming to the shows, hiding in corners, watching every night. Gerard went to watch Frank every so often, and sometimes he dragged Patrick with him. It hurt a little more each night, seeing how good Frank was getting at being him, how much the audience ate it up. Pete spent most of their sets hovering right in Frank's space, singing against his shoulder, playing at him and to him and maybe even for him.
Eventually, Patrick stopped going.
Gerard continued to look for answers, finding nothing, but not letting it discourage him. He bought books about mysterious experiences, spent way more time on the internet than he ever had in his life, and yeah, he still pored through comic books as if they held all the mysteries of the universe.
Patrick was pretty sure they didn�t, but he couldn't fault the guy for trying.
Pete blogged in obscure phrases and possible lyrics, the same way he always had. The fans worried about him. No one thought to worry about Patrick.
The other guys went about their lives, trying very hard not to acknowledge that anything out of the ordinary was going on. Patrick was pretty sure the five of them had made some kind of a pact of normalcy. There had been one night, though, when Andy was hanging out with Bob in the kitchen and Patrick was watching a movie on the couch, and Andy had come over and sat down next to him.
"So," he said, and just let that hang there for a few minutes.
"So," Patrick finally repeated.
Andy propped his arms on his knees, leaning in and staring intently at Patrick. "You're really in there."
"I really am."
"Hm," Andy said, and then he went back to Bob.
That was the end of it.
Two and a half weeks into the tour, Gerard and Patrick went on Steven's Untitled Rock Show. Patrick let Gerard do most of the talking, and it was all going pretty well until Steven decided to turn to Patrick and say "So, I hear you guys have been hanging with Fall Out Boy a lot on this tour."
Patrick did his best impression of a startled goldfish.
Gerard finally stepped in smoothly. "Yeah, well, we had fun with them on Warped, and they're all great guys," he said, and Steven ended the scene.
"You feeling ok, man?" he asked Patrick, leaning in and looking a little concerned. "You need anything? Some water? Tylenol? You running a fever or something?"
Gerard leaned across and touched Patrick's forehead, running his fingers over his skin, cool and soothing. "Nah," he said, "he feels fine. It's probably just that crush he has on you, you know."
Patrick spluttered and batted Gerard's hand away.
Steven grinned at him. "I'm flattered, man," he said. "But you know it'd never work between us. My rockstar lifestyle is just too crazy for me to settle down right now."
Patrick spent a long time after that debating which of the two he should hate more. He settled on Steven, only because he had to deal with Gerard on a daily basis, and hate could be inconvenient when your job required you to rub up against the guy pretty regularly.
Two nights later, instead of Pete sneaking onto his bus, he snuck onto Pete's, and clung to him in the darkness, listening to the sleep noises of Joe and Andy, which were starting to become unfamiliar to him.
It had been three weeks since he had turned into Frank.
He wanted to come home.
______________
He and Pete hadn't written anything in over a month.
For the past three weeks, it had just felt wrong somehow, to even open up GarageBand. And before that, even the night before, nothing had been working. They were broken, unworkable, and Patrick was starting to think that maybe they had used up everything they had.
Then, on a Wednesday night three and a half weeks into the tour, he returned to Frank's bunk to find an envelope lying on top of the sheets. Inside was a stack of notebook paper, torn at the edges and full of scribbles in Pete's handwriting, documenting each moment since Patrick had woken up in Frank's body. Confusion, pain, mocking, all of the things that had always been in Pete's writing, but somehow this time they were more intense, more Pete, just�more.
Patrick disappeared into the studio at the back of the bus. He didn't come out until the next night, when he emerged just long enough to play the show. The others didn't disturb him, except for the couple of times that Gerard and Mikey slipped in to leave him food and water, and maybe once when he fell asleep over the keyboard, because he woke to find himself stretched out on the couch, covered in one of Bob's jackets.
He went through Pete's words painstakingly, choosing the right ones, shuffling them into order, setting them to rhythm and music and then, finally, singing in a voice that was painfully wrong, but was all he had to give.
Finally, finally, it was finished. He typed in Pete's address and pressed send, then had a brief moment of panic, because of course it wasn't good enough, of course it wasn't worthy of those words. He should have kept them, and done better with them, and maybe just given up on them altogether until he was himself again.
But it was done now, it was over, and all he wanted, all he wanted in the world, was to sleep.
So he did.
______________
He woke up in Pete's arms.
"You liked it?" he asked, a tiny smile on his face, and felt Pete breathe against his neck, shifting, waking up.
"Liked what?" Gerard asked, and Patrick yelped, shoving him away and falling out of the bunk. Gerard peered down at him, scratching the back of his neck. "Bad dream?" he asked mildly.
"I�you�" Patrick mumbled, then shook his head, trying to clear it. Everything was foggy, hazy, as if�
�as if he wasn't wearing his glasses.
"Gerard," he said carefully. "Gerard, please. Do not fuck with me right now, ok? Just tell me this�who am I?"
Gerard wrinkled his nose. "Well, I went to sleep under the impression that you were Frank Iero. Although, the way things have been going around here�"
There was a loud shout from the recording studio, and Pete burst through the door into the bunks, tripping over Patrick and sprawling across his legs. "He�" he pointed over his shoulder into the studio. "You." He flailed a little, trying to sit up, then stopped with his face very close to Patrick's. "You," he said again, and leaned in to kiss Patrick, his hands moving across Patrick's back, arms, up into his hair, tangling there and pulling him in tight. He finally leaned back just far enough for Patrick to breathe for a moment, just long enough for him to see Frank appear in the doorway over Pete's shoulder and launch himself over the two of them into Gerard's arms.
"Oh," he breathed against Pete's mouth. "Oh." Then he leaned in and kissed Pete again.
When they broke apart the next time, he looked up to see Mikey, Bob, and Ray all leaning out of their bunks, watching interestedly. "Yeah, um," he said, and flushed bright red.
Bob shrugged. "Enough said, I think," he said.
Gerard leaned down from his bunk to slip Patrick's glasses onto his face. "Welcome back," he said, and kissed him lightly on the cheek before Frank pulled him back up to lean against his chest.
Pete buried his face in Patrick's neck, just breathing against his skin for a few moments. "Don't ever do something like that again," he finally said, and Patrick was going to protest that no, he really hadn't planned it, but Pete was kissing him again, and he decided to wait for another time.
"And yes," Pete said against his lips, "I liked it. I loved it." He pulled back a little and grinned. "And I am keeping that demo of Frank singing it for the rest of my life."
"It could probably get good money on eBay," Ray said. "Especially if you told the story of why it existed."
"Of course, no one would ever believe you," Mikey added.
Pete smiled up at them. "I wouldn't sell it for the world," he said. "It's mine," he said against Patrick's lips. "Just like you."
As he kissed Patrick again, Patrick heard Bob snickering above them. "You know," he said, "someone might believe it. I'm sure somewhere, someone has written some of that fanfiction crap just like this."
Patrick smiled against Pete's lips at the sound of Bob being hit by a volley of pillows.
"If they haven't," Gerard said, "I think we should."
Patrick and Pete were caught in the crossfire as the pillows were thrown back in his direction.
______________
If anyone noticed Pete spending an excessive amount of time online in the next few weeks, they didn't mention it.
He was probably just being Pete, after all.