Archive of Our Own

The android is delivered to his door on December 22. Pete opens the door when the delivery android rings his bell and sighs at the packaged android, wrapped head-to-toe in clear cellophane, gathered delicately at its metallic equivalent of wrists as if they were cuffs. He signs the holographic form the delivery android shoves toward him, and then the delivery android sings a snatch of Jingle Bells at him and then whirs away.

Pete looks at the android left in front of him. It’s an old-fashioned model, only vaguely humanoid. A few inches shorter than he is, with a dark metallic globe on the top that won’t have a face until Pete powers it on. He’s relieved it’s not one of the newer models, where the metallic infrastructure has been covered by a rubber meant to resemble skin, complete with blank faces with lifeless fake eyes. This one’s metal skeleton is completely exposed. It’s a rubbed bronze model, less showy than the gleaming chrome ones, and Pete has to admit that if he’d wanted an android, this is probably the model he would have chosen.

But he didn’t want an android.

Pete can’t leave the thing on his doorstep. Even without all the latest bells and whistles, he knows the android was expensive, so he lifts it up and carries it inside. It’s surprisingly light – much lighter than a human – and Pete is remembered how deeply weird androids are to him.

Hemingway lifts his head up from his afternoon nap on the couch and gives a half-hearted bark, like he can’t be bothered.

“Fine watchdog you are,” Pete tells him, as he puts the android down in his living room. “I could have been attacked by the delivery android.”

Hemmy hops off the couch and trots over to sniff at the android’s metal feet. Pete adjusts its metal arms, which is when he spots the festive red ribbon around the thing’s wrist area, just before his arm turns into a crude facsimile of a hand. Do not open before Christmas! Love, Mom and Dad! reads the ribbon.

Pete sighs again and calls his mother.

She answers with a squeal of excitement. “Did you get it? How’s it look?”

“Mom,” Pete says, eyeing the robot in his living room. “You know I don’t like androids.”

“You don’t like androids that look like people. You say they’re creepy. We made sure not to get you a human model. Although honestly, Pete, they are all the rage, your friends would be jealous, do you want one?”

“No, I don’t want one. I don’t even want this one. All androids are creepy, Mom.”

His mother sighs. “I don’t know why you can’t just join us here in the modern world. You’re so ridiculous, with your living dog and your pens and paper and your lack of androids.”

“I’m going for, like, an Oscar Wilde vibe,” Pete tells his mother. “Or maybe Edgar Allan Poe. You know, all those people who got by for years with living pets and pens and papers and no androids anywhere all around.”

“They also lived their lives without hot showers, are you going to try that, too?” his mother asks scathingly.

This is an old argument. It isn’t that Pete really wants to live his life in a primitive way. It’s just that Pete doesn’t want to share his life with all these robots around. He wants human friends, and a dog that sheds, even if that means everything around him is imperfect enough to leave him someday and break his heart. In fact, that’s why he wants these things. And he likes the way pens feel against paper. He knows it makes him an odd curiosity, relegated to paying through the nose at specialty stores for these rare collectibles, but he likes it. He went through a phase where he threw all of his writing up online indiscriminately like everyone else, and now the idea of doing it again makes all the bruises on his heart feel fresh and throbbing.

Rather than dredging all of this up again, he just says politely, “Thank you for my android,” because it’s not worth the argument. He’ll just sell it to someone rather than cause a scene.

“Just because you’re not coming home for Christmas didn’t mean we shouldn’t get you a present.”

And now that guilt trip is starting, thinks Pete. “I’ll miss you very much. And you should be getting my gift very soon.” Which is true. The last time his mother started this guilt trip, he ordered her one of those virtual singing telegrams. Bing Crosby himself is going to sing White Christmas to his parents on Christmas morning.

“Trust us about the android,” his mother says. “It’s a special model, your dad and I picked it out specially for you, we think you’ll really like it. But you should wait until Christmas!”

“Okay,” Pete promises. Like he’s ever opening the fucking thing ever. He’s sending it straight back.

***

The thing about Pete is he’s not exactly organized, and he doesn’t always get things done when he expects to. So the android is still in the corner when he leaves to go to Gabe and William’s for Christmas Eve. To be honest, he’s forgotten all about it, mostly. He stuck it mostly behind the Christmas tree.

Gabe and William’s house is raucous with festivities. The decorations are loud and garish and Gabe’s dressed their androids in elf hats for the evening, red and green lights blinking on top of them. Their models are monocycles, and they whir through the crowd on their wheels, making sure no glass goes unfilled for too long. The drink of the evening is William’s secret eggnog recipe, and whatever it is is fucking brutal. Pete is drunk before he really registers the drink has alcohol.

“What the fuck?” he says to Gabe, swaying on his feet a little bit. “What is in this?”

“Good cheer!” Gabe says extravagantly, and throws an arm around Pete’s shoulders and kisses the top of his head. “Pete, where have you been, you’ve been hiding.” Gabe waggles his finger in Pete’s face.

“I haven’t been hiding,” Pete denies, because he really hasn’t been. It’s just been one of those time periods where he hasn’t much felt like hanging out with other people. He’d made a special effort for Christmas Eve.

One of the androids wheels up and aggressively refills Pete’s glass.

Gabe says lovingly, as his eggnog is also replenished, “Aren’t they the best invention? Oh, wait, that’s right, I forgot: you hate them.”

“I don’t hate them,” Pete denies uncomfortably, because he doesn’t like to speak ill of androids right in front of androids.

“They’re not people,” Gabe says. “They’re machines. They’re computer programs. You can’t hurt their feelings. It would be like hurting your phone’s feelings.”

“I know that,” says Pete uncertainly. He can’t help that he can’t push past the impression that these humanoid machines do have feelings. Everyone he knows is quite alright with treating them like pieces of metal and binary code strung together but Pete had cried inconsolably for days after the family’s android had stopped working when he was a boy. His father had just griped about the warranty just having expired and told Pete he was a weird kid to cry about electronics.

William arrives and says, “Don’t bother Pete about his android sensitivity.” Pete doesn’t even try to figure out how William knew exactly what they were talking about. William always seems to have a sixth sense for whatever nonsense Gabe is going on about. “I think it’s very sweet, Pete. It’s that kind of emotional empathy that’s going to make you a really great boyfriend someday. Unlike the rest of us, who get stuck with people like Gabe for boyfriends.” William sighs dramatically.

Gabe flings his free arm around William and pulls him in for an enthusiastic kiss on the cheek.

“Okay,” William says, pushing him away, but he’s grinning. And then he looks at Pete. “Tell us about your love life, Pete. Let us live vicariously through you.”

If he admits he’s been mooning over the ex, writing progressively more bitter poetry, William will look sternly sad and Gabe will insist they go out on the town and Pete doesn’t want to go out on the town, Pete wants to go wrap himself up in blankets at home and brood until the end of time. The only thing Pete wants to talk about less than androids is his nonexistent love life. So Pete starts talking about androids again.

“My parents got me an android for Christmas,” he says.

This works beautifully to distract Gabe and William, who both gasp.

“That is very bold and brave of them,” Gabe says. “Do you not subject them to your rants against the digitization of the human heart?”

Pete glares at Gabe and says fervently, “All the time.” His parents know all about that. Before he was a famously noisy pro-emotion columnist, his parents were his original audience.

“Aww,” says William. “It’s a mean gift, then?”

“I mean.” Pete sighs. “I’m sure they mean well.”

“They probably just want you to, like, have clean clothes and an apartment that’s not a trash heap for a change,” says Gabe, as more eggnog arrives.

“I, like, clean sometimes,” Pete says, and tries to surreptitiously sniff the shirt he’d thrown on. It had seemed like the cleanest thing on his bedroom floor.

“Yeah, but this way your android can clean for you all the time. How do you like it so far?”

“I haven’t opened it,” Pete says.

“Pete,” Gabe admonishes.

“Leave him alone,” William says. “He’s just too punk rock for androids. He likes his messy apartment and whatever that hairstyle is.” William looks assessingly at Pete’s hair.

Pete self-consciously touches his hair and says, “What? It’s, like—”

“You’ve got hair covering your eyes,” William says, as Pete sweeps it aside.

“Only one eye,” Pete says.

“You look like you’re trying to hide,” William announces, which is maybe closer to the truth than Pete would like to admit.

“It says I’m not supposed to open it until Christmas,” Pete says, because apparently talking about his new android is the only safe topic of conversation.

“It said that to you?” Gabe says skeptically. “I thought you didn’t turn it on yet.”

“You know androids don’t talk unless you turn them on, right?” says William, sounding concerned. “I know you think they have independent lives of their own but they really don’t.”

Pete sets his jaw. “I know. He’s got a ribbon on his wrist that says ‘Do not open before Christmas.’”

“It,” says William.

“What?” says Pete blankly.

“It’s not a ‘he.’ It’s an ‘it.’ It has a ribbon on its wrist.”

Fuck, thinks Pete, why can everyone but him do this so easily, keep machines separate from people. “Oh. Yes. Right.”

“Well,” remarks Gabe, sipping his eggnog. “Following orders. That’s the Pete I know and love.”

Pete acknowledges the sarcasm with a look.

William says, “Mikey’s under the mistletoe looking moody. Go make out with him.”

“Not what I need on Christmas,” says Pete. Waking up on Christmas morning with Mikey Way would be a huge step backward.

“Suit yourself,” says William, and then says to Gabe, “Can you check on the droid puppy? I feel like last I saw it Brendon and Ryan were talking about seeing how far it could jump or something, and that feels like something that’s going to end in one of them throwing the pup.”

“On it,” Gabe says confidently, and strides off on his mission.

William looks at Pete – really looks at him – and says, “You okay?”

“Great.” Pete smiles as much as he’s able. “I’m great.”

“You seem sad,” William continues.

Pete got himself up and out of the house. He thinks he’s doing really well. “I’m good,” he says heartily.

“You should have brought Hemmy,” William says, “it could have played with the pup.”

“He,” Pete corrects. “And he doesn’t play well with robots.”

“Wonder where he gets that from,” William says drily.

***

Pete staggers home much later than he intended. He blames the eggnog for that. He’d meant to drag himself out, have one drink, and then get home to blessed quiet and solitude, only Hemingway for company. By the time he actually leaves Gabe and William’s, the party is still in full swing inside but the street outside is empty, the silent hush of Christmas Eve tipping into Christmas morning but not really fully either. It’s not snowing but the air smells like it, crystalline cold, ringing in Pete’s lungs as he walks home and tries to sober up.

On the sidewalk in front of his house, he leans back to look at the sky overhead, its velvet darkness crisscrossed not with stars but drones, on their last-minute Christmas errands. A safety droid patrolling the street says to him, “Excuse me, but do you need assistance getting home?”

Pete looks down at the droid. It’s one of the humanish ones, and Pete knows that’s probably because it’s supposed to be kindly and helpful, but instead it makes Pete’s skin crawl. “Nope,” he says as cheerfully as possible. “I’m already home.” And then he goes inside.

“Hemmy,” Pete says to the dog, who stretches in a leisurely fashion on his way to greet Pete, just to make sure not to look too eager. “Wouldn’t it be nice to go for a walk and be all alone and not have a single droid watching us the whole time like a hawk, judging whether I let you sniff at enough trees?” Pete leans down to scratch behind Hemingway’s ears, and Hemmy leaps up to plant his front paws on Pete’s leg, tail wagging. “Yeah,” Pete agrees in answer to the dog’s hopeful look. “We’ll go for a walk.”

It’s a quick walk, because it’s cold and Hemingway is not enamored of this weather. Pete avoids all of the patrolling droids, crossing streets to get away from them, and grows progressively more grumbly. He is relieved when they get back to the apartment. He kicks off his shoes gratefully and collapses onto the couch. The room spins around him a little. Fucking William Beckett, Pete thinks, what the fuck was in that eggnog?

The thought reminds him that it’s Christmas, and he should be festive, it would be what a Normal Person Who Was Doing Well would do, be festive on Christmas. So he gets up to turn his Christmas tree on, which is when he’s reminded of the android he stuck behind it. It looks like some kind of sculpture in its deadened state, all this twisted metal in the corner of his room.

Pete feels bad suddenly. He blames this on the fucking eggnog but he feels bad that his parents went to a lot of trouble to pick out what they thought would be the least creepy android. He feels bad that his parents have to deal with a weird son they don’t understand. He feels bad he’s not an easy son who would come home for Christmas with his robot dog in tow and some kind of human sex partner and a few kids, and they could make much of him and beam over how well Pete turned out, instead of making excuses for their failure of a kid who’d attained internet notoriety for hating progress.

Pete drags the android out into the center of the room and removes the cellophane from it and peers at the robot. It doesn’t do anything. He pokes at it. Hemmy comes over and sniffs and looks bored.

Pete says, “Oh, right, I’ve got to turn the thing on, right.” And then has to hunt for a switch because he has no fucking idea how to use androids. He finds it on the back of the thing’s neck, and he powers it on.

It makes a hum so low as to be practically inaudible. Pete feels like it’s on a frequency that he can barely perceive, just in the back of his teeth and the very inner coil of his ear. The blank face flashes with digital eyes and mouth. They’re primitive designs, and Pete thinks again of his parents insisting on this subpar model to try to nudge him into the real world with the rest of the population.

“Hello, Pete,” it says. Its voice is not electronic at all. Its voice is…very human. Alarmingly human. Smooth, friendly, distressingly unique. It doesn’t sound like the basic, cool default voice of most androids, and Pete jumps in surprise at this odd, unfamiliar voice saying his name. But of course it would have been preprogrammed with his name. His parents would have made sure of that.

The digital mouth is smiling at him. Somehow the digital eyes look expectant. So Pete says awkwardly, “Hi.”

Hemmy has become more interested in the thing. He stands next to Pete, regarding it warily.

The robot seems pleased with Pete’s response, because it says warmly, “Merry Christmas! What would you like to call me?”

“Nothing,” Pete says uncomfortably.

“What a beautiful name!” the android says. “You have excellent taste. From now on, if you want me, you should call me Nothing.”

“What?” says Pete. “No. That’s not what I meant.”

“Oh? Did you want to choose a new name?” The android looked expectant.

Pete didn’t want it to have a name. If it’s a robot – like everyone keeps telling him it is – it shouldn’t have a name. But also it seems mean not to give it a name.

It doesn’t have any feelings, Pete reminds himself sardonically. It doesn’t care if it’s called Nothing.

“Nope,” he says, as blithe as he can be. “Let’s stick with Nothing.”

“Sounds good.”

Pete wishes the android didn’t have such a mellifluous voice. He wishes the voice was electronic to go with the rest of the machinery. His parents definitely fucked up there.

“Is there something you’d like me to do?” the android asks, unfailingy helpful.

Pete suddenly feels vaguely ill. “No,” he says. “That’s okay. I think I’m just going to go to sleep.”

“Great,” says the android happily. “I can do things while you sleep!”

Which isn’t creepy at all, Pete thinks sarcastically. “That’s okay, you can sleep, too,” he says, and powers the android off.

He looks down at Hemmy, who looks uncertain. “You and me both, kid,” Pete tells the dog. “Let’s go to bed.”

***

The first thing Pete realizes is that his head feels like it’s being used as a snare drum by an energetic marching bandmember. The second thing he realizes is that his phone is ringing.

He grabs for it to shut it up but can’t think through his hangover to remember how to shut up a phone without answering it, so he mumbles something like hello into it.

“Pete! Darling! Thank you so much for the gift! It was so amazing! Wasn’t it amazing, Peter?”

“Totally amazing,” his dad adds. “We didn’t even know you knew such things existed.”

“Peter, be nice,” says his mom. “Pete knows all about technology, he’s actually an expert.”

“An anti-expert,” his dad grumbles.

“Pete, did you open the android?” his mom asks eagerly. “What did you think?”

Oh, fuck, Pete thinks, he should probably pretend to be super-excited about the android. He fishes around for something to say that would prove he actually opened it, since he did and he wants credit for that. “It’s got a great voice,” he manages, which is kind of the opposite of what he thinks but hey, it works.

His mom squeals with joy. “I knew it! I knew you would love its voice! That’s actually why I picked that one. I said to myself, ‘Pete needs to have that voice.’ See? I remembered the things you love!”

Pete has no idea what she’s talking about. Does he love male voices? Well. He supposes he does but usually in the particular. Particular men’s voices. “Yeah, yeah,” he says vaguely. “Thanks.”

“We hope you have a lovely Christmas, Pete,” his mother gushes. “We miss you! Good-bye!”

“Yeah,” Pete manages. “Bye.” He texts William What the fuck with that eggnog, dude and then goes back to sleep.

***

Pete wakes hours later feeling marginally more human, or at least capable of getting himself out of bed. There’s a text from William that’s a kissy face emoji followed by Merry Christmas, come over for more if you want! Pete ignores it and gets himself into the shower. Then he downs a bunch of aspirin and looks down at Hemingway, who’s circling his feet and huffing with impatience.

“Thanks for letting me sleep in, buddy,” Pete tells him, and then takes him outside for his walk.

Outside it’s impossible to forget it’s Christmas morning. Everyone is in an impossibly cheerful mood, hurrying to and fro, everyone with a parcel or two in their arms, or obviously brand new clothes. Kids are tumbling into the street in excitement over new toys. There are safety droids out in force, directing both pedestrian and street traffic and singing a cacophony of Christmas carols.

“Wow,” Pete says to Hemmy. “This is horrible.”

Hemmy seems to agree and wants to go inside against as quickly as possible.

Inside, Pete makes himself a pot of very strong coffee and considers and rejects breakfast. Maybe later. Then he walks out into his living room. The android is still and silent in the middle of it. Pete considers it, then says under his breath, “Okay, so what’s the big deal with you, then?” and powers it on.

That telltale whir starts up again, and the android’s face lights up, literally, and he – it – says cheerily, “Good morning, Pete! Merry Christmas! It’s a bright, clear day, the sun is shining, you should be outside!”

Pete knows this is all just programming – Wi-Fi connection giving the droid the weather, encouragement to go outside probably a choice from his mother, who had that job throughout his childhood, when he was holed up with poetry and a bass guitar – and he tries to dismiss it all and not feel creeped out by it. He says authoritatively, “What’s the deal with your voice?”

The android manages to look pleased. “Do you like it?”

“I don’t know,” Pete says, and then immediately feels bad, and then hates himself for feeling bad. It’s just a robot, he tells himself sternly. Everyone else can do this. “I guess I don’t get what I’m supposed to be liking about it.”

“Well, you haven’t heard it yet,” says the android.

“I haven’t?” says Pete, confused.

And then the android starts singing.

And that is a voice.

Pete backs away from the android in shock, and Hemingway follows suit, and Pete finds himself sitting on the floor, Hemmy in his lap, staring up at the android as it sings. It’s singing Jingle Bell Rock, in a bright, clear tenor that’s like a bell ringing in Pete’s head, and it is beautiful, it’s the most beautiful voice Pete’s ever heard.

When it’s done, Pete says faintly, “Can you sing other songs?”

“Of course.” The android manages to sound offended. “What would you like?”

Pete has no idea. Pete feels a little overwhelmed. Pete says, “I don’t know. I have no idea. What do you know?”

The android starts singing Buddy Holly, and Pete is fucking floored.

Pete says, “Can you do Morrissey?” and he know it’s a cliché but he doesn’t care because the android sings the hell out of This Charming Man and Pete’s kind of blinking back tears. His mother got him his own personal MP3 player, basically. Because he loves music. And she remembered he loves music. His own personal MP3 player, better than an MP3 player, because he gets this voice. No wonder she thought he needed this voice.

The android says, “I can sign one of my own, too, if you like.”

“One of your own?” Pete asks, trying not to be all emotionally sniffly.

And the android starts singing a song Pete doesn’t know. The lyrics are…okay…but the tune is incredible. The tune makes Pete sit straight up. And suddenly Pete’s not emotional anymore. Suddenly Pete feels like he’s laser-targeted on the point of this gift.

“Wait a second,” he says, “do you write music?”

“Yes,” the android confirms.

“Like, you can write music?” Pete clarifies.

“Yes. We can write music together. That’s the point.”

Pete, as a child, locked in his room, trying to write music, wanting to write music. He was terrible at writing music, but his mother had remembered, remembered that boyhood fantasy of being part of something beautiful. His mother had remembered and given him this gift.

For the first time in his entire life, Pete feels like he can kind of see why people like androids.

***

Pete is a connoisseur of addictions.

His android called Nothing is a dangerous temptation.

He spends all of Christmas Day making the android sing to him, every song the android claims to have written. Twice. The android should get hoarse -- a human would get hoarse -- but the android just carries on, ringing voice clear and bright. Pete is adrift at the way this voice makes him feel: greedy, giddy, awed. He wants this android to sing forever.

When he has to take Hemingway outside the android offers to do it for him and Pete balks: He's the one who walks Hemmy. When the android offers to tag along singing to him, Pete is horrified at the idea of letting other people hear his android. Surely they would try to steal him -- it. Whatever. Pete is not losing that voice now that he's finally found it. Pete takes Hemingway out for a cursory walk and hurries back home. Hemmy isn't amused and sulks in the corner of the living room with a little huff, while Pete makes the android sing some more. Pete's worried this is getting boring -- a human would be bored by now -- but the android seems nothing but content.

Pete says, “Is this okay, that we're doing this, that I'm making you sing all your songs?”

“Of course,” replies the android, because right. No feelings.

When Pete finally crawls into bed Christmas night, he texts his mother. Where did you find this voice??????

In the morning the only answer is: Merry Christmas, sweetheart.

***

Pete has written a million columns and a best-selling book about how he's never going to be That Person, who turns on all the robots first thing every morning, or never shuts them off in the first place.

And then he becomes That Person.

But really, he can't help it. If androids had always been singing machines, he would have signed the fuck up a long time ago. The android keeps him company while he works, singing endlessly in the background while Pete scrawls a new column about creepy safety droids on Christmas Eve. He would feel like a fraud, except that clearly his android is not like anyone else's android. His android isn't creepy at all. His android has the voice of an angel. It's all totally different.

And a few days in, Pete remembers why he doesn't like droids: He's bored. An android isn't a person. It's not the same as having a person around. Pete misses people. Pete should make an effort and go out. The android keeps telling him to go out, that annoying flash of Pete's mother's programming. Going out seems like so much work.

Pete says, “See, I'm going to write about this in my column.”

“Write about what?” asks the android politely. Because the android is programmed to make polite inquiries.

“How you're just a creepy machine taking up space in my house and fucking with me with all sorts of emotional trickery.” Pete is deliberately vicious, and the android doesn't even flinch, because the android doesn't have feelings. As Pete is continually reminding himself. He -- it -- sings like it has feelings. Like it has every feeling ever. It's such a fucking lie. “You can't even talk to me.”

“I can talk,” the android says in its perpetual cheerful tone of voice. “I've been programmed with three languages.”

“Why?” Pete asks. “I only speak one. Does my mom think you're going to teach me French finally? Wishful thinking. Like trying to get me to go outside.”

“You should go outside,” the android says. “Rain is forecast for tomorrow, so this is your chance.”

“I got out of bed,” Pete says gloomily. “That's enough.”

Probably the android doesn't look disapproving. That's probably Pete's imagination.

Hemingway leaps up onto Pete's lap and settles. Hemmy usually has a feel for when Pete is feeling depressed and needs cuddles. This is why Pete loves Hemmy.

The android says, “You seem sad.”

Apparently his mom remembered to program it with that: If Pete says he's having trouble getting out of bed, then ask him if he's sad.

Then the android says, “Would you like to write a song?”

Pete is surprised. Pete stares across at it. Pete says, “What, with you? Like, together?”

“You write songs, right?” asks the android.

This is definitely his mom's doing, thinks Pete. “Not really.”

“You play the guitar,” says the android.

“Bass,” says Pete.

“I'd love to hear you,” says the android.

Pete makes a face. This is programming. This is all programming. This android doesn't care about Pete's music. “No,” Pete says. “It's fine. I don't really… It's fine. It's just a random hobby. Like my poetry.”

“You write poetry?”

The android can't possibly be curious. Pete needs to stop projecting.

“Like lyrics?” persists the android, probably because he's -- it's -- been programmed to relate everything back to music.

Except…

Pete sits up straighter, thinking. “Yes,” he answers slowly. “Exactly like lyrics.” Wondering what he might possibly imagine is going to happen, Pete nevertheless fetches a moleskine. The android follows him into the bedroom because the android follows him everywhere.

Pete flips through the scattered poems and settles on an especially bitter one, reading aloud, “I hate the way you say my name like it's something secret. My pen is the barrel of the gun, remind me which side you should be on.”

The android is silent for a long moment.

Pete doesn't know what he expected. He's going to put the moleskine away when the android says, “Can you read it again?”

Pete, unsure what's happening, does.

“Hmm,” says the android, giving every impression of thinking. “I think...it could work...like this.” And then he sings Pete's words to him.

Pete stares at him in astonishment.

The android says, “Something like that?”

“Jesus,” breathes Pete, feeling dazed at what just happened. No one has ever -- ever -- sung his poetry. After he stopped unwisely throwing it up online, no one's ever even read it.

“Do you have any more lyrics?” asks the android sunnily.

Pete almost rips the moleskine, he reopens it so quickly.

***

By the end of the week, they have a song. And it’s a good song. Pete thinks it’s good, and Pete’s taste is impeccable. Pete spent a lot of time writing terrible songs. He’s drunk on this unexpectedly good song.

Pete’s never had much structure to his life, which, his mother tells him, is why he can’t find anyone who wants to marry him. Who wants to marry someone who rolls out of bed at noon and works in his pyjamas? his mother demands. (Who wouldn’t want to marry someone like that, is how Pete feels. But then again, it’s true that he’s tragically single.)

He and the android stay up all night writing songs. The android never gets tired, after all, and Pete runs on coffee and potato chips.

(“You should eat something better than potato chips,” the android tells him at one point.

“This only works when I can’t tell you were programmed by my mother,” Pete replies.)

All-night writing sessions mean that Pete sleeps most of the day away. He tends to wake when the sun is going down, scribbles out some of the words he’s getting paid to write, walks Hemmy, and then feeds the android lyrics, hungry for the tune the android wraps around them. Pete can’t get enough of how beautiful his words sound when sung in that gorgeous voice. That voice could sing the evening news and make it sound attractive. The android also came preloaded with drum beats, and he unspools them underneath his melodies, keeping time. Pete adds in bass lines. They practically have their own little band.

The android looks  nothing like a human, and it should be easy for Pete to remember that he’s not a human, but it’s hard. It’s hard when Pete feels like he spends all of his time fulfilling his fondest dream with an extremely talented...robot. He can’t make himself think of the android as a robot, but he also can’t make himself think of the android as human. He’s stuck between the two. He wants a human opposite him, wants this creative give-and-take to be happening with another human being. He’s never experienced that, and it’s a hollow ache inside him. He wants the android to fill that ache, while simultaneously knowing that’s not possible. Not really.

But still. Pete curls in bed and watches the android, silhouetted by the window, humming snatches of tunes under his breath, and says softly, “I know you don’t care about these things, but thanks.”

“No thanks required,” says the android, barely looking up.

“No, I know,” says Pete, because he has indeed begun to learn the way of androids. “But thanks anyway. You let me be kind of a songwriter, which was something I’d always wanted and never felt able to do. And you helped make my messy scribblings beautiful. I can’t thank you enough for that, really.”

“No thanks required,” the android says again, committed to its programming, and Pete, with a sigh, wishes his android were a real boy.

***

Pete is staring in horror at the text from Gabe. Yo! Pre-party at our place! 7pm!

“Fuck,” Pete says out loud, and looks at the date on his phone. December 31. It’s New Year’s fucking Eve. And if he doesn’t show up for New Year’s Eve festivities, his friends will come and drag him out. He knows his friends. They will definitely do this.

“Something wrong?” asks the android placidly.

“I have to go out tonight,” Pete answers.

“Oh, good,” says the android. “Although it’s going to be below freezing. You should take a coat.”

They’re supposed to go to some wild party at some club that William got them into by blinking his pretty eyes at the right person, or something. Pete thinks that’s the story Gabe told him, and you should never trust Gabe’s stories too much. Anyway, Pete doesn’t think the occasion calls for a coat. It probably calls for clean clothes, and washed hair. Dammit. His friends are so annoying. He’s going to tell them that when he gets to their house. Right after he takes a shower and finds clothes to wear.

Pete feels odd about leaving the android alone in the house. Which is weird. Androids are meant to be alone in houses. They can work as alarm systems. But Pete powers his down, because he doesn’t want him to be lonely while Pete’s away. And then he scratches behind Hemmy’s ears and says, “Keep him company, kiddo.”

Hemmy wags his tail.

Pete heads out to Gabe and William’s.

One of their androids answers the door, followed closely by Gabe, who says, “Wait, wait, I have to answer the door for Pete, androids weird him out.” He squeezes past the android and says, “Hey! Look at you! Looking good, Wentz!”

“Uh-huh,” says Pete, who can’t be bothered to think about how he looks. He does pull his hair down more dramatically over one eye.

“Bilvy!” Gabe calls over his shoulder. “Come see how hot and goth Pete looks!”

William comes into the foyer and yanks Pete inside. “Gabe, you should have asked him in before flirting with him, he’s going to catch pneumonia, I can’t believe we didn’t have safety droids all over us. How are you, Pete? Happy New Year.” William kisses his cheek, fond and sweet. “What can I get you to drink?”

“I’ve barely recovered from Christmas Eve,” Pete says, following them into the house.

“Lightweight,” Gabe snorts at him.

“Where is everyone?” Pete asks, because the house is undeniably empty except for the androids. And he was even fashionably -- an hour -- late.

“Meeting us at the club,” William says, accepting a drink of...something...from one of the androids.  

“I thought we were pre-partying here,” Pete says, as William thrusts the drink in his hand. “What is this?”

“Absinthe,” William says.

“Fucking Christ,” Pete says, and puts it down without drinking it.

William shrugs.

Gabe says, “You are the only one pre-partying with us, because you’re our favorite.”

Pete eyes them warily. “Is this, like, a sex thing? Are you propositioning me?”

“Oh.” Gabe looks pleased. “I wasn’t, but would you like to be propositioned?”

“Not tonight,” Pete says honestly. A threesome sounds like way more energy than it’s worth tonight.

“Aha!” William says, and pounces on him. “We knew it!”

“Knew what?” Pete asks.

“That you really needed to get out of the house,” William says. “You were off at Christmas. We should have made you come out.”

Pete scowls. “No, you shouldn’t have. It’s not like ‘making me come out’ works anyway. Everyone wants it to be that simple, and it’s totally not. Was this whole night a fucking ambush?”

“No,” Gabe says. “We are going to the club. We could have just hung out in your house. You think you want to be alone when you’re like this but you want to be the opposite of alone.”

“No,” Pete says. “I know.” Because he does. He both craves being alone and despises it; he both wants people around and hates when they show up. He’s a contradiction wrapped in an enigma, et cetera. “I’m fine, I have the android.”

He says it without thinking, because he’s more focused on getting his friends to back off him, and he knows it’s a mistake from their identical gasps.

“You have the android?” William repeats, staring at him.

“I…” Pete reconsiders his refusal of the absinthe. It sounds good right now. “Yes.”

“What, you and the android chat while it cleans?” asks Gabe, sounding bewildered.

“No,” Pete says. “My android doesn’t do that. He’s not like that.”

There’s a moment of silence.

William says delicately, “Your android’s not like other androids?”

Pete sighs. “Not like that. That’s not what I mean. It’s just that he doesn’t clean.”

“What does he do?” asks Gabe, with meaningful inflection.

Pete hesitates, then says stubbornly, “He writes music. He’s a songwriter.”

“He’s a songwriter?” William echoes. “You mean, like, he came with the music package preloaded?”

“The what?” Pete asks blankly.

“The music package,” Gabe says, like that clears things up.

“What music package? You can get androids with music packages?”

“Yeah, you know, like musical vocabulary and structure and stuff,” says William. “They can read music and they can construct harmonies according to--”

“No.” Pete shakes his head vehemently. “It’s not like that at all. That’s programming. This isn’t programming.”

There’s another moment of silence.

William ventures carefully, “Of course it’s programming. What else would it be?”

“I don’t know,” says Pete, frustrated. “All I know is it’s like there’s this incredibly talented musician trapped inside this robot. This is not programming. It’s like he’s got soul.”

William and Gabe are watching him with something like pity, and Pete wants to strangle them both. His android is amazing. They’re totally wrong to be acting like he’s not.

William says gently, “But it doesn’t, Pete. It’s just a computer. It doesn’t have a soul.”

“I meant a metaphorical soul,” Pete defends himself.

Gabe says, with forced heartiness, “You know what? The year is growing old while we stand around here doing nothing. Let’s find a club, let’s find its darkest corners, let’s do illegal things in them.”

***

“So,” Brendan shouts in his ear, collapsing half onto his lap at the club, “Gabe tells me you’re in love with your android.”

Pete rolls his eyes. “I’m not in love with my fucking android.”

“I want you to know.” Brendan looks at him very seriously. “We’ve all been there. It’s a rite of puberty for all teenagers. Which android is the one you try to turn into a sex toy first says a lot about your sexuality. So does the one you try to turn into a sex toy second.”

Pete wrinkles his nose. “I don’t want to hear about this. I don’t want to have sex with my android.”

“I’m just saying, losing your heart to an android can hurt. I’m here for you, Pete Wentz.” Brendan lays his hand very solemnly on the base of Pete’s ribcage.

Pete looks down at it. “What’s your hand doing?”

“Letting your heart know that Brendan Urie is here for it.”

“That is nowhere near where my heart is,” Pete comments.

Brendan moves his hand from the left to the right. “Better?”

Pete sighs. “Christ, you’re drunk.”

“It’s New Year’s Eve. We’re supposed to be drunk. Bilvy’s letting everyone do shots off his stomach, come join us.”

“As thrilling as that sounds…” Pete begins, and trails off when Brendan gives him A Look. Brendan is very drunk, but still able to give Pete a Do We Have to Worry About You look. “I’m going to try my luck on the dancefloor,” Pete announces.

Brendan looks dubious.

So when Pete gets to the dancefloor, he’s a man on a mission. He knows that he’s good-looking enough that he can pull fairly easily, even when he’s not in the mood. He makes himself be in the mood. He notices a girl sending him flirty eyesex and sidles up to her. He gives her a line, buys her a drink, kisses her at midnight, takes her home. It should be enough to shut his friends up.

In the morning she says, “That’s a weird android, why doesn’t it have a face? And it didn’t even, like, pick up my clothes and fold them for me. Now they’re all wrinkled.”

Pete doesn’t even pretend he’s going to call her.

***

The New Year hook-up buys him apparently one day, because that’s when Gabe shows up at his door. The knock sends him into a panicked unthinking reaction of powering the android down right away, even though he’d been in the middle of singing a new chorus through.

“Do not even try to pretend you’re not home,” Gabe says through the door. “I know you are always home when you’re in this kind of mood.”

Hemingway, at Gabe’s voice, rushes to the door and barks excitedly.

“Traitor,” Pete tells him, and opens the door.

“Hello, little dude,” Gabe says to Hemmy, who’s leaping all over him. Then he looks at Pete and grins. “‘Hello, little dude’ to you, too.”

“Hilarious,” says Pete drily. “What are you doing here?”

“Just in the area,” Gabe lies easily.

“Uh-huh,” says Pete.

Gabe doesn’t waste time, going over to the android and peering closely at him. “Thought I’d check out the new droid. No face, huh?”

“The faces are creepy,” Pete says.

Gabe’s hand hovers over the android’s switch, and he looks at Pete. “Can I turn it on?”

Pete shrugs, trying to feign nonchalance, even though his heart is pounding. He doesn’t want to share his android and his voice with anyone else, not even Gabe. The ferocity of his possessiveness is surprising to him.

“Hello,” the android says pleasantly after Gabe turns him on. “I’m Nothing. Are you one of Pete’s friends?”

Gabe says first, “Huh. Why is its voice like that?”

“It’s his voice,” Pete says, because he can’t help that he’s begun to think of it that way.

Gabe says second, “It’s called ‘Nothing’?”

“I was trying not to get attached,” Pete says morosely. Look how that turned out. “Anyway, you say they don’t have feelings.”

“They don’t,” says Gabe, and turns back to the android. “So I hear you’re a musician, Nothing.”

Pete swears that the android beams at Gabe. “Pete and I have been writing songs together. Would you like to hear one?”

Gabe says, “Um, yes, ten thousand percent.”

It’s too late for Pete to jump in and say, No, those are private, just for us, without causing a scene, so he tries to pretend that he’s indifferent to their songs just being randomly sung to outsiders now.

The android starts singing. I want to hate you half as much as I hate myself, you know that I could crush you with my voice.

Gabe literally stumbles backward, tripping over his own two feet until he lands on the couch. It startles the android into stopping his singing, looking down at Gabe.

“Are you alright?” he asks.

“Holy fuck,” says Gabe, and looks from the android to Pete, blank with shock. “Holy fuck, what the fuck was that?”

“Right?” says Pete, and he’d been dreading this whole thing, but now he’s surprised to find himself feeling nothing but uncomplicated triumph. “I told you. He’s not like other androids.”

***

“So, wait,” Gabe says. “Your android sings. Like, really sings.” They’re sitting at Pete’s kitchen table. The android is powered down in the living room because Pete doesn’t want to talk about him in front of him.

“I told you he did,” Pete says, because he did.

“Yeah, I know, but I thought you meant the music package. You don’t know much about androids, maybe you didn’t know that you just had the basic music package. That is not the basic music package.”

“I know,” Pete says. He may not know much about androids but he feels like he would have known by now if they sang like that. He’s heard androids sing; only his android sounds like that.

“Who got you that? Your parents?”

Pete nods.

“Jesus, Pete, they must have paid a small fortune for that. Do you know how much programming it must have taken to get a voice that sounds like that?”

“The voice is only part of it,” Pete reminds him. “He writes music, too.”

“Yeah, but, like, what kind of music?”

Gabe sounds dubious, and Pete gives him a look, then says, “I’ll let him sing you one of our songs, and you’re going to lose your mind.”

“Why?” asks Gabe. “Is it some kind of Satanic message in the music?”

Pete rolls his eyes. “Because he’s an incredible songwriter. He’s basically a musical genius.”

“He’s a computer,” says Gabe. “Computers are always geniuses.”

“You don’t get it,” Pete says.

“Okay, fine, show me what your android -- called Nothing -- can do.”

Pete goes out into the living room and turns the android back on. “Sit down this time,” Pete tells Gabe, “so you don’t hurt yourself.” Gabe obeys, and Pete turns to the android. “Gabe wants to hear ‘The Pros and Cons of Breathing.’”

“‘The Pros and Cons of Breathing’?” Gabe echoes. “The fuck kind of title is that for a song?”

“Pete titles the songs,” the android says cheerfully.

“Yeah, that does sound like a Pete kind of thing,” agrees Gabe.

“Shut up and let him sing,” Pete grumbles.

Gabe grins.

Then the android starts singing, in his bright, compelling voice, “Bury me standing under your window with this cinder block in hand, Yeah ‘cause no one will ever feel like this again,” and the grin fades entirely off of Gabe’s face.

The android sings the rest of the song, looping in the drumbeat underneath, and when he’s done Gabe blinks at Pete in astonishment.

Pete smirks at him.

“Okay,” Gabe says. “Hang on. Who wrote that song?”

“We did.” Pete waves between himself and the android.

“You wrote that? That’s a song. That’s a real song.”

“Yes. I know. I wrote the lyrics and he set them to music. We’re basically a band. We even have bass lines for me to play.”

Gabe stares at him. Finally he says, “But that was a good song.”

“Yes,” Pete agrees. “And we’ve got more where that came from.”

“No, seriously, how the fuck much did your parents pay for this android?”

Pete shrugs. “He’s great, though. I’m going to keep him.”

***

Pete keeps him until June. By then they’ve written quite a few songs. It’s true that they all kind of sound vaguely the same, but hey, they’re all coming from the same programming, and Pete can’t complain when the android is always working with Pete’s words.

And then one day his android’s hard drive crashes.

It’s a gorgeous summer day and Pete spent it playing a pick-up game of soccer with a bunch of people Brendan and Spencer pulled together. Pete had a good spring. He’s looking forward to a good summer. Everything seems as bright as the sunshine all around him. He has a job he enjoys and he has friends he’s fond of and he has an android with an incredible voice who writes great music with him and is so very pleased that Pete gets out of the house these days.

Pete is so happy that he should have seen the crash coming. But, like always, he drove right into it without suspecting it was there and went straight through the windshield. Metaphorically speaking.

He comes home from the soccer game with Hemingway, who got to run along the sidelines barking in support, and calls to the android, “Hello! We’re back! No big deal, but I scored, like, six goals and Brendan said I’m insufferable.”

There’s no reply. Usually this is the point where the android would say something supportive about Pete having friends, or something, but there’s only silence.

Pete, frowning, moves from the living room through the kitchen into the bedroom, where he finds the android, completely still, his face contorted in some digital mockery of human features.

“Hey,” Pete says to him. “What’s up?”

He doesn’t respond, and Pete swallows a wave of panic. “Hey.” He rushes over to the android, who is still frozen, still unresponding. It’s terrifying and creepy and Pete hates it. “Hello?” he calls into his face, waving his hands in front of his eyes. “Hello? Nothing!” There’s no response. “Fuck,” he mutters, and turns the android off and on again. He’s still silent and still.

This can’t be happening. Pete thinks this can’t be happening. He turns it off and on, off and on, and nothing happens, no comforting whir.

Pete can’t swallow his panic anymore. He can’t deny that he is in full-fucking-fledged panic. He calls Gabe frantically. He’s the only person he can think to call.

“He’s broken,” he says desperately as soon as Gabe picks up.

“What?” Gabe says. “Who?”

“My android. He’s broken. He’s not working. Something happened.”

“Did you try turning it off and on again?”

“Yes, I’m not an idiot, Gabe, he’s still not working!”

“Okay,” Gabe says. “Calm down. It’s probably just a short or something.”

“How do I fix it?” Pete demands. He will do anything to get his android to start talking again. How is he supposed to live without his android’s voice? He’s addicted to that voice.

“I’ll be right over,” Gabe promises.

“Gabe’s coming over,” Pete tells the android. “He’s going to come over and he’ll know what do and then we’ll fix you, okay?”

The android says nothing.

Pete sits on his bed and stares at him in worried desperation, biting his fingernails anxiously

When there’s a knock on the door, Pete leaps into action, racing to answer it, Hemmy leaping and barking around his feet.

Gabe and William are both there, and they start to say hello, and Pete doesn’t have time for that stuff.

“Hi,” he says breathlessly. “This way.” He grabs them and drags them both to his bedroom.

“Hmm,” Gabe says, looking at the android, and switches it off and then on again.

“I already did that,” Pete says, exasperated. “Do something else.”

“Have you met me?” Gabe asks. “I’m not exactly a technical wizard.”

William snorts. “That’s putting it mildly.”

“This isn’t funny!” Pete shouts at them. “He’s dying and you’re not even helping!”

Gabe and William are silent for a long moment.

William says, “Pete. It’s a computer.”

“Shut up,” Pete snaps up at him. “Stop saying that.”

“It’s like your toaster stopped working,” William continues. “Nobody’s dying.”

“Shut up,” Pete says. He feels like he can’t breathe. How can William be so calm? “He’s not a toaster. We have to help him. How do we help him? What can we do? Who can we call? Who will know what to do?”

There’s another long silence.

“Hey,” Pete shouts at them. “Gabe and William! My supposed fucking friends with the house full of androids! Help me here!”

“Look,” William says carefully. “Maybe this is better.”

Pete stares at him. “Better than what?”

“Bilvy,” Gabe says, his tone of voice a warning.

“No,” William says to Gabe. “He needs to hear this.” William looks back at Pete. “It was a machine, and it stopped working. It happens all the time. You need to learn that. You were getting too attached and we let you do that and maybe we shouldn’t have -- You need to get the warranty from your parents and get a new one, and you’ll see--”

“I need to what?” Pete can’t make it louder than a whisper.

“You’ve only had it a few months,” William says. “It’s an expensive model. I’m sure it’s still under warranty. This looks like a crash. They’ll replace it and--”

“I don’t want to replace him,” Pete says, horrified. “What the fuck, Bill? I’m not replacing him. I’m going to fix him and… I don’t want another -- This is my Nothing. I’m not replacing him.”

“It’s an ‘it,’” William says softly.

Pete looks at William. And Pete says flatly, “Get out.”

“Pete--” William starts.

“No.” Pete shakes his head. “Get out. Both of you. Get out.” He feels like he can’t have them in his apartment another second, saying these terrible things.

“Pete--” says Gabe.

“Get out!” Pete roars at them, which sets Hemmy to barking furiously, and Pete shoves at Gabe, and eventually gets them to leave. They’re talking to him, but he can’t even register what they’re saying to him, he’s white hot with fury and ice cold with terror. He pushes them out of his apartment and then he goes back to the bedroom and sits on the bed. “Okay,” he says calmly to his silent android. “Here’s what we’re going to do. We’re going to get you some help.”

***

Pete brings his android to the highest-rated repair shop he can find. They take one look at him and say, “Hmm, that’s an unusual model.”

“Yes,” Pete says. “Can you fix him?”

They poke and prod a little, and then one of them says, “You know, this is practically brand new. Definitely under warranty. We can just get you a factory replacement.”

“I don’t want a factory replacement,” Pete insists. “I want this one.”

“Yeah, but--”

“I want this one,” Pete says staunchly. “If you can’t help him, that’s fine, I’ll take him somewhere else.”

“No, no,” they assure him. “We can fix it. It’ll take a week.”

A week seems like a lifetime, but Pete doesn’t have a choice. If he wants his android back, he has to deal.  

His apartment is very quiet. Pete’s apartment always used to be quiet, but over the past six months he’d grown used to the sound of the android singing. He’d grown used to not being alone. The apartment’s silence is stifling.

“No offense, Hemmy,” Pete tells Hemingway. “But I miss Nothing.”

Hemmy misses Nothing, too. They curl up in bed together, and Pete writes a lot of really angsty poetry. It doesn’t help, but Pete’s not sure anything would.

Gabe and William text, contrite and politely inquiring after Nothing.

Pete texts back, I am getting him fixed, NO THANKS TO YOU.

William replies, I’m sorry. We hope he’s okay.

Gabe writes back, I’m sure he’ll be fine.

Pete is annoyed because he knows they don’t really mean it. They think he’s weird for having grown so attached. He feels like a little boy all over again, being mocked for how attached he gets to electronics.

Pete curls up in his bed and just cries from loneliness. Hemingway licks at his tears and squirms into a close cuddle.  

Gabe comes by a couple of days later. Pete tries to ignore the knocking but Hemmy is barking at the door enthusiastically, eager for company that’s not unshowered and hiding under covers. Hemmy has always been more social than Pete.

“Pete,” Gabe calls though the door. “Come on. We’re sorry. Of course we hope Nothing gets better. I brought you food. You have to eat.”

Pete is silent.

“You know the next step is me calling your mother.”

Pete grumbles, then rolls himself out of bed, wrapped in the blankets. He opens the door and says, “Fuck you,” to Gabe.

“Hey,” Gabe says, leaning down to pet Hemmy without taking his eyes off of Pete. “Look, I’m sorry, okay? Bill’s super sorry. We didn’t mean to belittle the fact that he was broken. Can I come in? I brought pizza. Deep dish. Almost as good as home.”

“It’s not nearly as good as home,” Pete gripes, but lets Gabe in.

He lets Gabe put pizza out on plates. He lets Gabe pour them water.

Gabe says, “Please sit and eat with me,” and Pete does.

The pizza tastes better than Pete had expected it to. He might have been starving.

They eat in silence, and only when they’re done does Gabe venture, “Pete--”

Pete squeezes his eyes shut. “I don’t want to hear a word about my unhealthy attachment to electronics.”

“You love too much,” Gabe says gently, and it’s such an un-Gabe-like thing to say that Pete is startled into opening his eyes. Gabe is smiling at him, looking soft and honest. “You have so many features so much worse than the fact that you love too much. I don’t want you to feel like it’s a bad thing about you. I can tell you a million other bad things about you. Should I?”

Pete says, undeniably choked up, “That would be a more you thing to do, yes.”

Gabe chuckles. “We just hate for you to get your heart broken. You know we hate that. And electronics are inevitably going to break your heart, Wentz. Because I know that he has the voice of an angel, but he doesn’t really love you back. Not really. Not the way Bilvy loves me back, for instance. You know that, right? He’s just programming. Ones and zeros.”

And you’re just lonely, Pete finished in his head. Gabe’s unspoken assessment. Pete was just lonely. That’s what it always came down to. Pete had unhealthy attachments to humans, too: to the ex-girlfriend he’d been on-again-off-again with for so long, in such a vicious circle of hurtful recriminations that he’d ended up fleeing Chicago and that still hadn’t worked; to Mikey who was so good at no-strings-attached flings and utterly bewildered by Pete’s clinginess.

Pete says miserably, “I was even too clingy for a machine,” and hangs his head. Fuck, he must be in bad shape, to be this self-pitying in front of Gabe and not even care. Hemingway comes over to lick his fingers, maybe out of comfort but probably because of lingering pizza grease.

“No,” Gabe says firmly. “Pete, look at me.” He waits for Pete to obey. “It was a crash. That’s all. It’s not about you. Your android is super lucky you’re so fucking clingy, because anyone else would have just happily traded him in.”

Pete tries to internalize this. He looks out the window at the haze of the city. It’s hot outside; the air is shimmering with it. He says, “I know it wasn’t like you and Bill. That’s not what I thought. He just made me feel like a musician. Like I’m not. Not really. Music has always been this beautiful thing I loved and I was always on the outside looking in and he...he made me feel like I could make beautiful music. It’s like, through him, I got to be a singer. I don’t often feel the way that made me feel.”

Gabe props his elbow on the table and his chin on his fist and regards Pete frankly. “You should. You’re massively talented. You make your living as a writer. You’re definitely an artist.”

Pete makes a face. “But that writing’s not beautiful. That’s just… That’s just ranting.”

Gabe’s lips twitch. “And the lyrics to that song aren’t just ranting?”

“Shut up,” Pete tells him without heat. “I’m trying to expand, okay? It’s still early in my life as an artist.”

Gabe laughs. He says, “Look, bro, if your android makes you feel like you’re a more worthwhile person, then so be it. If it makes you feel like you deserve to be loved, fine. Those are both true without the android, but I am not a person who doesn’t believe in a good coping mechanism. I just want to make sure you’re still getting out there. Like, dude, we’ve got to get you laid every so often. I don’t want the droid putting a cramp in your sex life.”

Pete shakes his head and sighs.

Gabe says, “If you want some tips on fucking in front of androids--”

“You can go now,” says Pete.

***

When the repair shop calls him to tell him the android is fixed, Pete feels like the lead balloon that had been sitting heavy in his stomach converted immediately to helium. He feels like he floats his way over to the shop, euphoric at the idea of getting his android back.

Nothing doesn’t look any different, except that his face is working perfectly again, and Pete really can’t help how much he smiles and smiles and smiles at him.

“Hi,” he says. “I missed you.” He doesn’t care that the repairers are going to find this weird. He did.

And then the android says, “Hello, Pete, I missed you, too,” in a completely different voice.

Pete is sure he heard incorrectly. “What?”

“It is currently eighty-three degrees outside with low humidity,” the android continues, in this new voice. “What a glorious day.”

It is not a glorious day. This voice is horrible. This voice is one of those cool, sculpted, default-android voices. This voice is not Nothing’s voice.

“Oh, yeah, we loaded it with the weather package,” one of the repairers says. “We noticed you had it installed.”

“Where’s his voice?” Pete asks faintly, feeling strangled.

“What?” The repairer gestures to him. “It was just talking, didn’t you hear it?”

“That wasn’t his voice,” Pete says, his own voice a little stronger now. “Where’s his voice?”

“I don’t know,” the repairer says, huffy now. “Isn’t that voice good enough?”

Pete is so shocked, for a moment he can’t even form words. Then he hisses out, “No, that voice isn’t good enough. He had another voice! Where’s his real voice?”

The repairer sighs, annoyed, and taps on her unit, and then says, “Oh, yeah. Yes. I forgot about this. You had some special package on that droid. All these one-of-a-kind extras.”

“Okay,” Pete agrees, as patiently as he can when his android has the wrong voice. “So what happened to them?”

“Well, we don’t have authority to replace them. They’re a one-use-only kind of thing.”

“What?!” Pete exclaims.

The repairer shrugs. “Sorry.”

“But he broke! He broke, and you have to fix him! He’s under warranty!”

“Look, it’s not my problem. The license terms were very clear. One-time installation, no repairs. I’m not getting shut down for copyright infringement. Go talk to the guy who sold you the package.”

“Who’s that?” Pete asks.

The repairer gives him a look. “You don’t know?”

“No,” Pete answers shortly. “I don’t. Where did the voice package come from?”

“Some droid customizer named Joe Trohman out of Chicago. It’s his datalock on the package, at least.” The repairer shrugs again.

Pete powers his wrong-voiced android off and carries him home and puts him, still off, in the living room.

Hemmy sniffs at him, curious.

Pete says to Hemingway, “It’s not him. It’s an imposter.” He feels mean for saying it but a Nothing without that voice, a Nothing who won’t write music with him, is a Nothing who isn’t going to fill this apartment the way Pete needs it to be filled. This super special package, whatever it is, was what made Nothing Nothing. Pete needs to get it back. Without it, Nothing is just a hunk of useless metal.

Pete could call his parents, but he doesn’t want to. He doesn’t want to admit how attached he is to the android. Because his parents will both be smug and then also concerned. He’s supposed to be just the right amount of attached, and he knows he definitely is not.

So Pete calls Joe Trohman out of Chicago. The answering machine says, “Yo. I don’t use telephones. What kind of loser do you think I am?” Pete huffs in annoyance and hangs up. Then he looks at Hemingway. “How would you like to spend some time with Uncle Gabe and Uncle William?”

***

The droid who answers Gabe and William’s door recognizes him and says pleasantly, “Hello, Pete. Welcome.” It then recognizes Hemmy and says politely in the dog’s direction, “Hello, Hemingway.”

“Hi,” Pete says awkwardly, adjusting the backpack on his shoulder. “Are they home?”

“Indisposed,” the android responds cheerfully.

“I’m surprised Gabe doesn’t have you programmed to just say ‘fucking,’” Pete grumbles.

“Actually he wanted to provide detailed sex acts,” William says from the top of the stairs. “I wouldn’t let him.” He jogs down the stairs, looking epically dishevelled.

Pete is vaguely embarrassed. “You didn’t have to interrupt your--”

“Gabe’s sleeping,” William says. “I wanted to talk to you. Pete.” William leans forward and gives him a fervent hug. “I’m really sorry, okay?” He leans back and asks solemnly, without a trace of mockery, “How’s Nothing?”

Pete can feel his face kind of crumple.

William says, “Aww, okay, let’s have tea. Or beer. Or something. What the fuck do we have to drink in this house?” William asks his android.

“No.” Pete shakes his head. “No. I can’t stay. I came to ask for a favor.”

“Oh. Of course. Anything. What is it?”

“Can you watch Hemmy for me? Just for, like, a day or so.” Pete hands across Hemmy’s leash.

William looks unabashedly surprised. “Oh, yeah, sure.” And then, “Why?”

Pete knew William was going to ask. He says, “I have to go to Chicago.”

“Oh, no. Are your parents okay?”

“They’re fine. This is about Nothing.”

“You have to take it to Chicago?” William asks quizzically.

“No,” Pete says grimly. “Nothing’s voice is in Chicago. I need to go get it.”

***

Pete hasn’t been in Chicago in...too long. He missed it. He’s surprised how much it still feels like home, since he’s been away from it for so long. But he feels like there’s a particular way that sidewalk traffic flows, like a migratory bird pattern, peculiar to every city, that every inhabitant just knows, and Pete’s happy to be back in the flow of it.

Joe Trohman’s Custom Droids is just a tiny storefront but it is packed full of androids. Pete can barely walk into the place, considering how many of them are roaming around. The collective whir of their operation is a steady drone that makes Pete shake his head in vague annoyance.

“Can we help you? Can we help you? Can we help you?” It sounds like a million droids ask him this in cascading waves, crowding around him, and they’re all different shapes and sizes, and Pete, who is awkward with androids under the best of circumstances, feels completely overwhelmed.

“Yo!” a human voice shouts over the din. “He’s human! He’s got to breathe! Back off him!”

The androids give him a little bit of space, and a human comes toward him. He’s got a wild head of hair and is wearing a short-sleeved shirt that shows off impressive tattoos. Pete kind of approves of him.

He says, “Hey. What can I do for you?”

“Are you Joe Trohman?” Pete asks.

“Yes,” Joe replies, “in almost all circumstances.”

“Okay,” Pete says. “Great. My parents bought me an android from here for Christmas last year. At least, I think it was from here. It came loaded with a special music package.” Pete hopes that’s the right terminology, that he’s making sense.

“Cool,” Joe says. “I hope you’re happy with it. If you’re not, then this is one of those circumstances when I’m not Joe Trohman.”

“No, no,” Pete says hastily. “I’m happy with it. I’m so happy with it. Except the hard drive crashed.”

Joe immediately puts his hands up. “That is not a me thing. All I do is customize. The original manufacturer is responsible for--”

“I’ve already had the android fixed. It’s just the voice I need. I just need you to give my repair shop permission to reload the package. They say you datalocked it.”

“Oh, yeah, most of the things I sell are just one-time deals,” Joe says. “If you want them to survive a crash, you’ve got to pay me extra.”

“I’ll buy a new package,” Pete says desperately. “It’s fine. Sell it to me.” He has no idea how much this package costs, although he assumes it’s considerable given Gabe’s reaction to it. But, whatever, he’s got a trust fund he’s been wasting on so many old-fashioned relics, he might as well use it on technology, too.

Joe pulls out his unit and taps away on it. “Okay, which package was it? Do you know?”

“No,” Pete says. “It was a beautiful tenor voice and, like, songwriting.”

“What’s your name?” Joe says. “I might be able to pull up the records.”

“Wentz,” Pete supplies helpfully, watching Joe tap away. He’s so close to getting his android back.

And then Joe shakes his head. “Oh, dude, you’re in trouble.”

And Pete’s stomach sinks to his feet, through the floor, to the center of the fucking earth. “What? Why?”

“Because that was a special experimental package. We actually used some dude’s voice for it. Came in and sang for us and gave us enough to go on to write the programming. It was fucking intense, bro, let me tell you. He was giving us musical theory and everything, I mean, it was unbelievable. We weren’t sure it was worth all the effort, and in the end we decided it’s always going to be too expensive to be a really common technique. And the dude was so particular that his progamming be used once and only once. I mean, he was super snippy about it, honestly. Not the easiest dude to deal with.”

Pete stares and stares and stares.

Joe shifts uncomfortably. “Yo, dude, are you alright?”

“You’re telling me,” Pete says, amazed at how calm and even his voice sounds, “that my android’s voice is a real person’s voice? That his musical talent came from a person?”

“Yeah.” Joe shrugs. “Basically.”

“Who is this person?” asks Pete. His heart is pounding so loudly he can barely hear himself talk.

“Oh, no.” Joe shakes his head. “There’s all sorts of confidentiality involved in this. I can’t just hand you over his name.”

Pete says lightly, “Yeah, no, of course not. How much do you want for it?”

***

The online details on Patrick Stump Music give an address and hours, and that’s it. Pete has no idea what to expect, but there’s also no way in fucking hell he’s not going straight there and meeting the man behind the voice he lived with for six months, the man whose thoughts on musical theory had made Pete’s poetry fucking soar. Pete stands on the sidewalk in front of a dingy, falling-down door with Pa rick S ump Mu ic written on it in straggly letters and swallows thickly and wipes his hands on his pants and tells himself it would be weird to immediately fall at this man’s feet in worship.

A safety droid buzzes up to him. “Are you well? Do you need assistance?”

“I’m fine,” Pete snaps at it. Can’t a man have a fucking crisis on the doorstep of the voice he’s kind of in love with in fucking peace?

Pete ducks through the door just to get away from the safety droid.

He’s in a tiny vestibule, with a chair that looks like it should have been in a landfill somewhere and a dead plant that should have joined it. There’s another door marked PRI ATE in huge black letters. Pete ignores it, because Pete’s never been one for following instructions. He walks down a short, dark hallway that ends in a room that’s filled with electronics, but old-fashioned ones. There are devices with a million knobs and dials and buttons and switches and random colored lights flashing and glowing, and there’s not a single android anywhere to be seen.

There is, however, a man kicked back in a chair. He’s mostly turned away from Pete, so Pete just has a vague impression of his profile, and it’s further obscured by the fact that he’s wearing headphones upside-down so as not to disturb the hat on his head. He seems intent on what he’s doing, fiddling around with all the items in front of him, and Pete almost hates to interrupt him.

“Hello?” Pete calls, unsure if the man will hear him.

The man jumps, startled, and swivels fully in his chair. Pete has an impression of a sweep of strawberry-blond hair flattened under the hat, of pale eyes, of a ridiculously attractive mouth, and then the man yanks the headphones off and snaps, “What the fuck, you just can’t walk in here.”

And it’s Pete’s android’s voice. It’s Pete’s android’s voice, only on this magnificent person who’s stalking over to him, eyes flashing fury at him, and Pete has spent a lot of months insisting to everyone that he’s not in love with his android, and now he knows he’s not, because Pete Wentz falls in love right there, right then, that very second.

The man frowns at him. “Hello? Do you hear me? What are you doing here?”

Pete gulps in every detail of this man’s face, how he has the most beautiful eyes in the entire universe, how his mouth is made for fucking sin, how he’s so pale that Pete wants to spend eternity making him flush.

“Okay,” the man says. Patrick, Pete thinks. This is very clearly Patrick Stump, the Source of the Voice. “Visiting hours are over, go back where you--”

“The door was open,” Pete manages, because he has to say something.

“What?” Patrick looks disgruntled. Pete loves him.

“The door was open. If you don’t want people back here, you should probably lock the door.” He says it just to see what Patrick will do, the same impulse making him close his hands into fists instead of tugging on Patrick’s hair.

He’s glad he said it, because Patrick flushes prettily with rage and retorts, “It’s marked private, asshole, you can’t just go barging into people’s private--”

“It’s marked ‘pri ate,’” Pete corrects, because he can’t help it. He feels so besotted that he’s reckless with it, dizzy, off-kilter, wants to keep Patrick’s attention forever and if he can only do that by being annoying, so be it.

This gives Patrick pause. “It’s marked what?”

“Pri ate,” Pete repeats.

“Because it’s missing the ‘v,’ you absolute fucking--”

“Could have been a misspelling of ‘pirate,’” Pete continues nonchalantly. “I mean, that seemed just as likely. And who wouldn’t want to go through a door marked ‘pirate’?”

“No door was marked ‘pirate,’” Patrick bites out. “What the fuck kind of conversation is this? Who are you?”

Pete has never had to introduce himself to this voice before. He can’t help that he smiles. “I’m Pete.”

“Okay, Pete,” Patrick says, and that voice also has never said his name in that tone of voice before, impatient and annoyed, and Pete is so in love he’s lightheaded. “And why are you here? And please, for the love of all that might be holy in this world, do not tell me you were looking for a pirate.”

Pete laughs. Pete laughs, smitten, enchanted, delighted. Pete says, “I was looking for you.”

Patrick tips his head. He looks incredibly perplexed by Pete. Pete adores this look on him. He says, “For me?” And then, “Oh, did you want to record something?”

And this had not occurred to Pete. Pete had planned to walk into Patrick Stump Music and put his cards on the table: Hey. I bought the android with your voice and musical talent. Can you let me buy it again? But now Pete is standing in front of the actual Patrick Stump, and the actual Patrick Stump is glorious, he’s grumpy and irritated and has the most adorably expressive face, he has pretty eyes and a kissable mouth and he has a recording studio. Pete hadn’t even thought those still existed; you didn’t technically need equipment like this these days. Just like you didn’t technically need pen or paper these days, either. Pete is really very fond of Patrick Stump, just based on the little he knows of him so far. And Pete really wants to record in his studio.

“Oh, my God, yes,” he says, all thoughts of talking about the android vanished.

Patrick regards him, still disapproving. “You’re supposed to make an appointment.”

Pete looks pointedly around the empty studio. “Oh, I’m sorry,” he says innocently. “Are you very busy right now?”

Patrick rolls his eyes. “Alright, fine. But you pay me first. I’m not letting you anywhere near my equipment without payment.”

Pete pulls out his phone and offers it to Patrick for payment. This is turning out to be an even more expensive day than he’d planned for, and he is thrilled.

When the payment goes through, Patrick says, “Okay. Did you bring any tracks with you?”

“What?” Pete says.

Patrick lifts his eyebrows at him. “Backing tracks? To record over? Are you just going to get in there and sing acapella?”

Pete admits, “I don’t actually sing.” If he goes in there and sings, Patrick is definitely going to go running for the hills.

“Do you play an instrument?” Patrick asks, looking around Pete for evidence of this.

“I do, but I didn’t bring it,” says Pete. And then an idea suddenly occurs to him: the only thing he brings to his partnership with his android. “I write poetry.”

“What?” says Patrick blankly.

“I’m going to record my poetry,” Pete says staunchly. The more he thinks about it, the more this seems like the right move. Words are his medium. He’s good with words. This is the art he has to offer.

Patrick looks at him like he has two heads, then sighs and says, “Whatever, it’s your money, knock yourself out.” He gestures to the sound booth.

Pete walks into it in a very dignified manner, although mentally he’s skipping. He stands at the microphone and watches as Patrick settles in his chair and put on his headphones in his upside-down way.

Then Patrick leans forward and says into his own microphone, “Okay, say something, let me test your levels.”

Pete says, “I first met Dean not long after my wife and I split up.”

Patrick’s eyebrows flicker upward as his hands dance over the soundboard, but Pete can’t tell if he recognizes the quote or not. He just says, “Okay, that’s good,” then fiddles a little bit more, then makes a go ahead gesture to Pete.

Pete takes a deep breath and leans into the microphone. He picks a section of his poetry he knows by heart, a section with a strong sense of rhythm so that reciting it out loud will make some sense. “From day one I talked about getting out, but not forgetting about how my worst fears are letting out.” Pete keeps his eyes trained on Patrick, who’s watching him steadily as he talks. “He said why put a new address on the same old loneliness? When breathing just passes the time until we all just get old and die.” Patrick’s gaze is unerring and Pete licks his lips and lets his rhythm build with his confidence, the confidence of Patrick’s eyes on him with that particular expression in them, spitting the words out as he lets himself feel them, and feel the way he felt when he wrote them. “Now talking’s just a waste of breath and living’s just a waste of death and why put a new address on the same old loneliness? And this is you and me, and me and you, until we’ve got nothing left.” Pete finishes with a shout, out of breath from the run-on nature he’d given the final lines. And possibly also from Patrick’s attention.

Patrick is staring at him through the glass between them, eyes locked on Pete’s. Pete couldn’t look away if he tried. He can’t read the expression on Patrick’s face. He just knows it’s not angry anymore. Pete thinks that’s an improvement.

Patrick breaks the gaze finally, shaking his head a little bit as he leans toward his microphone. “Um,” he says, and clears his throat. He’s fiddling with the soundboard, looking everywhere but at Pete. “That was good. Did you want to do more?”

Pete has enough poetry to occupy hours. He smiles and says, “Sure.”

***

Pete records poetry for a while, watching Patrick’s reactions. Patrick never looks at him when he’s not reciting but can’t seem to look away from him when he is reciting. Pete spins his poetry all around them and for the first time in his life thinks that maybe he’s not half-bad at words. He knows he’s a professional writer, but he’s always wished for talent in an art that would touch people. Patrick looks inexplicably touched by Pete’s words, and Pete feels like the words are tangible around them, yanking them together.

Pete wishes he had words specifically for Patrick. He wants to go home and write them immediately. Except that would mean leaving Patrick, and Pete’s okay with never leaving Patrick.

Eventually, Pete just…stops. He’s breathing hard, and Patrick is unmoving in the recording booth, and they stare at each other, an electric collision of gazes. Pete finally staggers out of the sound booth feeling almost drunk, and stumbles onto the couch opposite where Patrick’s sitting. He sprawls out on his back and closes his eyes and tries to catch his breath, riding the edge of his adrenaline high. When he opens his eyes again, Patrick is skimming his gaze along the line of Pete’s body, and everything about this day has been amazing, Pete thinks.

Patrick’s eyes reach his, and they look at each other for another long, charged moment, before Patrick says, “Okay, what was all of that?”

“Poetry,” Pete replies, confused.

“It’s lyrics,” Patrick says, sounding a little dazed. “Those were all lyrics.”

Pete’s breath catches in his throat. It’s one thing for the android with programming to think Pete’s musical; it’s another thing entirely for this extraordinary person opposite him to think it. “Do you think so?” Pete asks softly.

“Christ,” says Patrick, and closes his eyes. “They’re like… Hang on.” He twists in his seat, reaching a hand out for a guitar Pete hadn’t noticed until that moment. It’s an acoustic guitar, and Patrick strums on it, humming softly to himself, plucking on strings. Pete watches him, completely transfixed, absolutely dry-mouthed. Patrick curled over his acoustic guitar is the hottest thing Pete’s ever seen. Pete wants to crawl over to him and blow him.

And then Patrick starts singing, and Pete almost falls off the couch.

“The songs you grow to like never stick at first,” sings Patrick, “so I’m writing you a chorus, and here is your verse.” Patrick’s voice fades, and there is silence in the studio, and Patrick looks self-conscious. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to—”

“Your voice,” Pete says, shocked. He’d thought he’d been living with Patrick Stump’s voice. He’d had a pale imitation. The programming was a failure. He’d never heard anything like Patrick Stump’s voice before in his life.  

“Oh.” Patrick looks even more self-conscious. “That’s – I mean… It’s nothing, it just… You know. It’s a voice.”

“It’s beautiful,” Pete says, confused by Patrick’s dismissal.

“It’s fine,” Patrick says. “Listen, the point is, those were great lyrics. You should set them to music.”

“I don’t write music,” Pete says honestly. “Maybe I would if my voice sounded like yours.”

Patrick is blushing. It’s so charming it should be illegal. Pete wants to sit here all day and tell him how great he is, since apparently he doesn’t hear it enough. He says, “Anyway, make sure you give me your email address and I’ll fool around with some post-editing stuff and send you the final file.”

“Oh,” says Pete. “Yeah. Right. Of course.” Which is absolutely what should be happening. He should give Patrick his email address, and he should walk out of his life, and he should let that voice go, and he should stop being creepy, and this should all be enough.

This should all be enough.

Pete scrawls his email address on a page he rips out of the moleskine he’s carrying and gets up to walk it over to Patrick in his chair.

Patrick looks at the paper in wonder, then says, “We here at Patrick Stump Music appreciate people who still appreciate pen and paper.”

Pete taps the soundboard meaningfully and winks at Patrick. “I kind of thought you might.”

Patrick looks up at him. For a guy with such an expressive face, Pete finds him difficult to read. The only thing Pete is clear on is how very much he’s not an android, how he has independent moods and opinions, how he doesn’t think Pete’s right about everything because his programming told him to.

“It was good to meet you, Pete,” Patrick says reflectively. He sounds like he doesn’t know what to think about Pete. It’s the opposite of any tone the android would ever have. The android has always known exactly what to think about Pete. The android has always known exactly what to think about everything in the world. “Stop by anytime and record more poetry,” Patrick continues.

“Yeah,” Pete says, not meaning it in the least. He can definitely never see Patrick Stump ever again.

***

Hemmy is delighted to see him, leaps around his feet barking, tail wagging madly, and Pete is so happy at the obvious adoration in this reaction. This is why Pete doesn’t have a robot dog, because that reaction wouldn’t be meaningful, it would be faked, it would be a facsimile of what a dog’s supposed to be.

The same way he knows now that his android was a facsimile of Patrick Stump, and a very poor one at that, who was never going to be even a quarter of the things the real Patrick was: fascinating, and genuine, and wary, and thoughtful, and snappish, and incredible.

“Hello, Hemmy,” Pete said, sitting on the floor so Hemingway could gleefully crawl all over him. “I’m so glad you’re still alive! Uncle Gabe and Uncle William remembered to feed you?”

“Ha ha,” Gabe says. “We know how to take care of living things.”

“All of our plants say otherwise,” William remarks.

“Plants are barely living,” Gabe says.

William seems to agree.

Pete just shakes his head.

William says, “You look much better than you did. Did you figure out how to fix Nothing?”

“No,” Pete says. “And I’m not going to, either. It turns out I don’t think he’s fixable.”

William and Gabe look surprised. Pete doesn’t blame them.

“And you’re okay with that?” William asks cautiously.

“I’m going to miss him,” Pete says. “A lot. But I get what you were both trying to get at, about him not being really real.”

“Well, he’s real,” William says. “He’s just a real robot.”

“Right,” Pete agrees. “Not a real person.”

“Not that I’m disagreeing with you here,” says Gabe, “considering this is exactly what I was saying to you the other day, but you didn’t seem…okay…with all of this then.”

It’s a delicate choice of word, and Pete appreciates it. He smiles and kisses Hemmy’s ear. “I met Nothing’s voice.”

“You what?” says William.

“It turns out Nothing’s voice was based on a person.”

“A real person?” says Gabe. “Fuck, seriously, Pete, your parents went all out for you.”

“What was Nothing’s person like?” asks William.

“He was nice,” Pete says lightly. “Seemed like a nice guy. More importantly, he was human. He was this unpredictable, independent human, with thoughts I couldn’t read and reactions that caught me off-guard, and he started yelling at me almost as soon as he saw me, and it was Nothing’s voice but it was so clearly not an android. You know? It was a person. And that made me realize that…I didn’t have a person. I had this weird generated echo of an actual person.”

“Yeah,” William says, at the same time Gabe says, “Exactly.”

But then William says, “Why was he yelling at you?”

“Hmm?” Pete asks, scratching behind Hemmy’s ears.

“Why was the real Nothing yelling at you as soon as he saw you?”

“Oh, I’d let myself in to his recording studio. I guess he thought I should have knocked or something.” Pete shrugs.

“Of course you just let yourself in,” says Gabe, amused.

“Recording studio?” William repeats. “He has a recording studio?”

“Did you think there was really a chance a person with that voice wouldn’t be involved with music?” Pete asks.

“I guess not,” says William. “What did he say when you said you’d bought his package?”

Gabe snorts.

“Not like that, Gabe,” William says, and gives him a little shove.

Pete laughs. “I didn’t tell him. It didn’t seem appropriate. He was just this nice guy running a recording studio. I didn’t want to dump all my clingy coping mechanisms on him. So I recorded some poetry, and then I came back to New York.”

“You recorded some poetry?” says Gabe.

“Yeah. Someone reminded me recently that I’m good with words. So I slammed it at him. I think he liked it. It was nice.”

“Good,” William says. “I’m glad you had a nice time in Chicago. I’m glad you seem better.”

“I feel better,” says Pete. “I’m going to miss writing music, but I’m going to be better about appreciating writing words. And maybe go to more gigs to listen to other people’s music.”

“That,” says Gabe, “is a plan I approve of.”

***

A month goes by, and Pete only thinks about Patrick a little. Nothing the android stays powered off in the corner of the living room. Pete isn’t sure what to do with him. His voice is disconcerting, and if he’s not going to sing and write music, Pete has no real use for him. Pete would like to donate him, but can’t shake a feeling of abandonment guilt. He may objectively understand the difference between an android and a human being, but that doesn’t mean he can immediately shut off his suspicion that androids do have feelings.

Pete flings himself into writing. He dashes off his columns. He starts a novel. He brings Hemmy to the park and writes poetry in the sunshine. His poems are awash in images of pure gold that make him think of Patrick’s voice, but he tries to pretend they’re not about Patrick. It doesn’t matter anyway. He’s doing such a great job of not being needy and clingy with some person who barely knows him. He’s moving on. He even starts dating Logan. He’s not in love with Logan, but they’re company, which Pete can’t really shake himself of the habit of seeking out, and they’re not bad in bed, and Hemmy doesn’t mind them, and it seems doable.

And then Pete, in the middle of a bout of insomnia, rolls out of bed and goes out into the living room, not wanting to disturb Logan. He’s thinking he might work on his novel but he feels too jittery with the insomnia to write, so he procrastinates by checking in on every social media platform and then finally his email.

And then he sits up so quickly that he disturbs Hemingway, who’d been curled up on his lap.

Because there’s an email from Patrick Stump with the subject line Sorry this took so long.

Pete had virtually forgotten that Patrick still owed him the poetry file. Maybe he’d willfully forgotten it. Maybe he hadn’t wanted to live in perpetual hope of Patrick’s contact.

Pete opens the email.

I couldn’t get your words out of my head. They felt like a song already formed, I just had to find it. So I found it. I hope you don’t mind.

Also, I had no idea you were the famous Pete Wentz Who Hates Technology. Everything about your visit now makes ten thousand times more sense.

--Patrick

Pete reads the email three times, hoping he’s not misunderstanding it, before letting himself look at the attachments. There’s one called Pete’s Poetry, and then there’s another one called Pete’s Song.

Pete stares it. Pete’s Song. Patrick Stump wrote him a fucking song. Using his words.

Pete doesn’t breathe. He’s scared this is a feverish dream from the fitful sleep of an insomniac, and he doesn’t want to wake up before he hears this song. So he holds his breath and plugs in his earphones and ignores his poetry to open his song.

Patrick’s picked and chosen lines from all over the poetry Pete recorded, and he’s somehow stitched them together into a coherent whole, and he’s added guitars and drums, and he’s singing an incredible song in Pete’s ear that’s all of Pete’s words sounding a thousand times better than Pete could ever make them.

“This conversation’s been dead on a rivalry goes so deep between me and this loss of sleep over you,” Patrick’s voice sings in Pete’s ear, and Pete, wide awake, thinks, Fucking tell me about loss of sleep over you. “This is side one,” Patrick sings, “Flip me over. I know I’m not your favorite record,” and makes those words sound like the longing plea Pete had always wanted them to be, the desperate wish of someone sticking around to the second side, and Pete can’t believe how much Patrick is nailing the emotions of Pete’s soul. Patrick is making Pete into a singer, the way Pete always wanted to be, and he’s doing it not because he’s programmed to, but because he couldn’t get Pete’s words out of his head.

Pete listens to the song eighteen times in a row.

Then he replies to Patrick’s email.

Patrick – THIS SONG IS INCREDIBLE. xx

Then he thinks maybe he should have mentioned the poetry, even though he still hasn’t listened to it, so he replies again.

Also, thank you for the poetry file.

Pete listens to the song a few more times, then sends another email.

The song should be titled “Dead on Arrival.” x

By the time Logan wakes up, Pete is staring at his email, refreshing it over and over, willing a response from Patrick.

Logan, moving past him to get coffee from the kitchen, yawns and says, “How long have you been awake?”

Pete grunts noncommittally.

Logan says, “What are you doing anyway?”

Pete ignores them, because there’s a new email in his inbox. From Patrick.

I was thinking “Favorite Record.”

Pete replies in a flurry. But he’s NOT a favorite record. That’s the point. He can’t save the relationship, it’s dead on arrival. He’s never going to be a favorite record.

Patrick’s reply is as instantaneous as a text message. In Chicago, Patrick is sitting refreshing his email, too. The thought makes Pete’s heart stutter in his chest. I know. I was kidding. I liked the favorite record imagery, though. It was very on-brand. Very you.

Pete scoffs at the email. Oh, please, it’s very US, don’t even pretend you don’t have a stack of records in your living room.

For your information, I keep my records in my bedroom, thank you very much.

Pete stares. Is that flirting? Is Patrick Stump flirting with him? Pete writes back, I stand corrected, music always belongs in the bedroom.

It’s not like I’m going to show my record collection to just anybody.

Pete pops up from the dining room table and jostles Logan. He didn’t even realize they were behind him.

Logan frowns at him. “What are you doing? Who’s that you’re talking to?”

“One second,” Pete says, and scurries to his bedroom, where his record collection is by far the neatest thing in the room. He takes a picture and emails it to Patrick.

Patrick feels like he takes forever to write back. When he does, the email reads, Is your collection seriously eighty percent the Smiths? That’s a bit fucking cliché from someone who quoted “On the Road” at me for a first impression.

Pete falls backward onto his bed, grinning ear-to-ear, and remembers how he felt the first time he saw Patrick, because he feels it all over again, only worse. Fucking Patrick Stump is too fucking good to be true. He writes, My first impression was the pirate joke.

You thought it was a good idea to remind me of that?

Pete is smiling so hard, he can’t stop, not even when Logan says sourly from the bedroom doorway, “Hey, don’t mind me, just keep flirting with whoever you’re flirting with there.”

Pete’s a terrible person, because he just says, “Yeah, sorry, hang on,” and writes back, That was charming. You were totally charmed.

If you say so.

You didn’t kick me out.

You looked like you might have money.

Pete’s thinking of an appropriately witty reply when another email comes in.

Turns out your words got better the longer you were around. Lucky you.

Patrick likes his words. Pete knew that – he’d made that clear – but the more Patrick says it the drunker Pete feels on it. The higher Pete feels on it. His heart is fluttering wildly in his chest like he’s done too much cocaine. “Lucky me,” he breathes, staring at the email, and then he lowers his unit and looks at Logan in the doorway. “I feel like probably we need to talk,” he says.

Logan gives him a baleful look. “Don’t bother. I mean, I know I wasn’t the love of your life or anything but you could have at least waited for me to be out the door before texting your next hook-up.” Logan is gathering clothes up from around the bedroom.

Pete feels bad, but he’s also clutching his unit tightly, on the other side of which is Patrick, and Pete wants Patrick more than anything in the fucking universe. He wants to say to Logan, This guy turned my words into music. But that’s not fair to Logan.

“I’m sorry,” Pete says, which is the best he can think of to say.

Logan glares at him. “I’ll show myself out.”

Pete looks from the departed Logan to Hemmy, who jumps up on the bed with him, unconcerned. Then Pete looks back at his unit, where a new email has come in. I’m guessing from all of this that you’re okay with me using your poetry for more songs? Because I’ve got a few more in progress.

Pete can’t say yes fast enough.

***

He doesn’t hear from Patrick for another week, and then it’s another song. The email just reads, Thoughts?

Pete listens to it several times. His main thoughts are that the song’s perfect. He wants to have something more coherent to say about it, some kind of constructive criticism. He has none. Patrick’s voice is gorgeous, the melody is catchy, his words sound incredible.

He emails back, Sending Postcards from a Plane Crash (Wish You Were Here).

Patrick responds with, Weird title, but okay.

Pete smiles.

***

Then there’s two weeks of silence. Pete considers his options. He considers the idea that Patrick’s lost interest in Pete’s weird poetry. He considers the very real possibility that emailing Patrick now is a clingy move. He wants to play it cool.

He can’t. Playing it cool with Patrick Stump is a thing Pete cannot do.

So he emails Patrick. Hey – I don’t want to bother you but I hope the writing’s going well! I have more poetry if you want some more to pick through!

He reads it over before he sends it. He thinks it sounds needy and desperate but oh, well: that’s just who he is.

He makes himself go out afterward. He calls Brendan and they meet for a beer and it’s nice and distracting. And when Pete gets home, there’s an email from Patrick.

Sorry. It’s been a nightmare. The soundboard broke because the soundboard’s old and fickle and it’s not like it’s easy to repair these things. I spent an entire two days taking the fucking thing apart and then in the process I kind of mildly electrocuted myself. Not a big thing, but my fingertips were too singed to play any guitar, and I have a hard time writing without a guitar in my hand, and oh, did I mention there’s no money? There’s no fucking money. You may have figured that out already. The soundboard breaks and I have to scrounge around for some way to pay a professional or I do it myself and it takes me ten times longer but the only cost is electrocution and that I can afford. Or something.

Sorry. Fuck. This is a terrible email. I shouldn’t send you this email but then I’d have to write you an entirely new email and I can’t be bothered. My fingers are still singed. If you have more lyrics please send them. I’d like to wallow in more sentiments like “everything I wish for will never come true.”

Pete reads the email twice, considering. He has money, of course. But he’s not going to swoop in and offer Patrick money. Especially because he’s not entirely sure that’s quite what Patrick needs. Pete recognizes the tone of this email, because he hears it in his own head, more often than he’d like: Patrick wants someone to vent to, he wants the universe to feel less lonely, he wants to feel like maybe, sometimes, something he wishes for could come true.

Pete thinks about it for a few minutes, and then cautiously types in his phone number, and then he sends the email.

And then his phone rings.

Pete tries to take a deep breath before he answers but it doesn’t stop the way his heart is beating double-time.

“Patrick?” he says into it, wondering how much hopefulness he’s wrapped around the word for Patrick to hear.

Patrick says, “Pete,” and he sounds exhausted. “You didn’t have to give me your number.”

“Yes, I did,” Pete says, “because I could only properly convey this orally: You electrocuted yourself?”

Patrick laughs, and it’s beautiful and Pete wants it always. “Mildly,” he says.

“I didn’t think there was any such thing as a mild electrocution,” remarks Pete. “You learn something new every day.”

Patrick laughs again. “I’m fine. Although I don’t suppose you know anything about how to fix a soundboard?”

“I wish I did,” Pete says, and means it passionately. “I’m sure I could find someone who—”

“No.” Patrick sounds sad and resigned. “I can’t afford to pay anyone, anyhow. Do you know anyone who wants to record some music? I’m a good producer, old-fashioned way or new-fashioned way. I’m not completely anti-technology like you.”

“Is that why you didn’t video-chat me?” Pete asks, the question slipping out without his permission. But he’d been kind of looking forward to seeing Patrick’s face. “Because you think I’m too anti-technology for video-chat?”

“I didn’t video-chat you because I look like hell. I’ve been electrocuted.”

“Did it make your hair all frizzy?” asks Pete.

“No. It’s just made me disgruntled and out-of-sorts and I’m not going to look like that in front of, you know, you.”

“Because I’m Pete Wentz?” asks Pete, confused. “I’m not that huge a deal.”

Patrick barks laughter. “Because you look like Pete Wentz. Do you not know what you look like?”

He does, actually. He looks across at himself in the mirror on his bedroom wall. He’d dressed up to meet Brendan, so his hair has been artfully spiked in a cascade over one smoky eyelinered eye. “I mean,” he says, because he doesn’t know what else to say. He looks like himself. It’s not a bad package, he’s aware, but Patrick’s Patrick.

“Are you looking at yourself in a mirror right now?” Patrick asks knowingly.

“No,” Pete lies.

Patrick laughs, and Pete practically flinches. The more Patrick laughs, the more he wants him. “Smile.”

“What?” Pete is blank.

“Smile at yourself.”

“Why?”

“Do it.”

Pete isn’t about to disobey Patrick. He smiles at his reflection.

“See?” Patrick says. “It’s a nice smile. You have a nice smile. Your smile is why I didn’t kick you out of the studio.”

“You didn’t kick me out of the studio because I’m charming,” says Pete.

“No, no, it was your smile. You are not the least bit charming.”  

“You clearly don’t know me very well. I am extraordinarily charming,” says Pete.

“I’ve read so much of your poetry,” Patrick says. “I think I know the inside of your head better than you do.”

The thought of that – the truth of that – makes Pete breathless for a second.

Patrick says into Pete’s silence, “Anyway, I’m allowed to be disgruntled and out-of-sorts because again, I was just electrocuted.”

Pete says, before he can think himself out of it, “Me.”

“What?” asks Patrick, obviously confused.

“You wanted to know if I know anyone who has music for you to produce. Me. I do.”

There’s a beat of silence. Patrick says quizzically, “I thought you didn’t sing.”

“I don’t. You do.”

“Oho,” Patrick says, which is such a comical exclamation that Pete can’t help teasing him about it.

“Oho?” he echoes. “What the fuck is that?”

“It’s the kind of thing I say when people say absurdly ridiculous things to me.”

“What did I just say that’s absurdly ridiculous?” Pete demands.

“That I sing.”

“You don’t sing? You don’t think you fucking sing? Are you out of your mind? Have you ever heard yourself?”

“I don’t sing for other people.”

“You sing for me.”

“That was… I don’t know what that was.” Patrick sounds flustered.  

“The only songs you should be producing are your own songs,” Pete says.  

“And how would that make me any money?”

“It would make you money because your songs are incredible.”

“Newsflash, dude: That’s not what makes money.”

“What makes money?” asks Pete.

“I don’t know. Marketing. Networking. Knowing the right people at the right moment. Being in the right place at the right time. Being hot and charismatic enough that people want to build a record contract around you instead of being some short, fat hobbit creature.”

“Okay, first, Patrick Stump, go and find yourself a mirror like you made me do,” Pete says sternly.

“I’m looking in a mirror right now and accurately and dispassionately describing myself,” Patrick replies.

“Are you frowning? You’ve got to make sure you frown. You’re super hot when you’re scowling.”

“That is the worst hotness compliment I’ve ever heard,” whines Patrick.

Pete laughs. “I lay awake at night dreaming of the way disapproval lights your eyes.”

“Stop it,” grumbles Patrick.

“I long for the dulcet tones of you snapping at me to leave you alone,” Pete continues.

“That was once, I’ve been so nice to you since then,” Patrick complains. “I wrote you music, and then I sang it to you. I don’t do that for anyone.”

“Which is why you don’t have a record deal. Not because you look like a hobbit. But fear not, Trickster.”

“What did you just call me?”

Pete ignores him. “For lo, you should know—”

“‘Lo?’” Patrick interjects.

“Appropriate for a conversation that unironically included the exclamation ‘oho,’” Pete tells him. “Lo, you should know, I excel at marketing, and networking, and knowing all the right people and being in all the right places. I mean, somehow I’ve made a career out of being grouchy about tech. If I can build my career on that, I can definitely work with you.”

“Okay,” says Patrick, “you’re not making any sense. What is this fantasy you’ve got going on in your head?”

“Hmm,” says Pete lightly, “I’ve got so many fantasies, but I’ll stick to the one without orgasms for now.”

“Okay,” says Patrick, in a tone of voice Pete can’t read.

“You could conquer the world.”

“With music?” Patrick sounds supremely skeptical.

Pete wishes they were in the same room together. Then Pete could definitely convince him. “Yes.”

“You’re…” Pete hears him exhale, and then take a deep breath. “I don’t actually like to be the center of attention. I don’t know if you’re going to believe me when I say that, or if you can even understand not wanting to be the center of attention, because I can tell, even from what little I know of you, that you love other people’s attention. But I don’t want to be the person standing on stage who everyone’s staring at. I’m not…good with people, I’m snappish and impatient, you may have noticed. I’m not one who’s going to charm people into buying records. I’m going to be booed off stage for being taciturn.”

“I’d never let that happen,” says Pete.

“How would you stop it?” asks Patrick. “Would you make everyone promise as they’re coming in the door for the gig?”

“No. I’ll be on the stage with you making sure everyone knows how brilliant you are.” Pete says it impulsively, without thinking, but it feels right. Pete has never heard anyone like Patrick, Pete has never heard songs like Patrick’s. If this is what’s holding Patrick back, this shyness, Pete will be his boldness for him.

“How? What? What, are you going to sit on a stool and tell everyone when to clap?”

“I play bass guitar, you asshole,” Pete says fondly. “I’m not useless.”

“Well, I didn’t know,” says Patrick, “you’ve never played it for me.”

“Because I’m not that great, but I’m good enough to get by. I’ll keep up the stage patter and I’ll introduce the songs and I’ll leap around being all antic-y and you’ll just stand there and sing.”

Patrick is silent for a long moment. Pete likes this silence. It feels think-y. So Pete waits him out.

Finally Patrick says, “Okay, don’t take this the wrong way, but you’re hot.”

Pete grins. “Yes,” he agrees.

“You’re hot. And you’re outgoing. And you’re persuasive, look at what you’re doing right now. Fuck.” Patrick sounds like he’s outraged that he’s talking himself into this.

Pete grins harder. Pete wants to roll around in glee. He says, “I’m good at marketing, Trick. I marketed myself to the top of the bestseller list. I can do the networking. I can do all of this.”

“Girls will love you,” Patrick says, talking quickly now, like he’s talking to himself. “Guys will love you. Fuck. They’ll have your image projected on all their bedroom ceilings. Of course they will. You’re basically already the lead singer of a rock band. I mean, you’ve got it all.”

“Except a voice,” Pete points out.

“And that’s what I have,” Patrick agrees. He sounds eager. He sounds excited even. He says, “I have the voice, and you have the rest. Together, we make, like, one whole really good rock star.”

Pete laughs. “We do. And I have words, and you have music. Together, Patrick Stump, we’re everything.”

Patrick blows out a breath. He says, “This is… This is…the most ridiculous idea I’ve ever heard. What kind of idea even is this?”

“I’ll tell you what,” Pete says. “I’ll keep writing you lyrics, and you’ll keep writing us music, and I’ll get people interested. We’ll have a recording advance in no time.”

“And I’m telling you,” Patrick says, “that’s not how the world works.”

“Trust me,” Pete says.

There is a long moment of silence and then Patrick says, “Yeah. For whatever reason…I do.”

***

It turns out that Patrick is the most hypercritical person Pete’s ever met. No song he writes is ever good enough for him. Pete figures this out pretty quickly, and after that he insists that Patrick write with him on the phone with him. It’s easier that way to listen with half an ear to Patrick trying out and rejecting melodies and to suddenly interject, “That one. Do that again.”

Patrick always makes a face at this but Pete knows he’s always right, and Patrick goes with it because this is what they’ve agreed, over the course of the past few weeks. If Pete’s going to be the marketing side of things, then Pete needs to be the one who picks the best songs to market with. It’s a good thing it’s Pete’s job, because Patrick hates everything.

“If it was up to you,” Pete tells him, sprawled on his couch with Hemingway on his chest, “we wouldn’t have a single song yet.” They’ve leveled up to video-chatting, so that Pete can turn his head and see Patrick in Chicago, sitting cross-legged on his own couch like he’s a kid, with a guitar next to him and the latest composing pad on his lap. Patrick may be hurting for cash but he spends it on his music, Pete’s noticed. The guitar is top-notch and the composing pad is the latest model.

Patrick frowns, that adorable frown Pete has grown to love more than anything, and says, “That’s because none of the songs are good.”

“They’re all great,” Pete assures him. “They’re all terrific.”

“If they’re so great and terrific, where’s my advance?” asks Patrick sourly.

“I can give you an advance,” Pete says, not for the first time. “I totally have money to—”

“Not how we’re doing things,” Patrick says, also not for the first time. He plays back a snippet of the song they’re working on, then says thoughtfully, “The first song was a good one. ‘Dead on Arrival.’ I was happy with that one. That’s why I sent it.”

“I’m so glad you sent it,” says Pete. He can’t imagine life without Patrick at this point. He’s wormed his way into his world. He’s curled roots up around Pete’s heart. Pete is smitten.

Patrick looks up briefly, his light eyes bright, and flashes a smile at him. “Yeah. Me, too.”

***

They talk about more than music. It would be impossible not to. They commiserate about the Cubs and quote pop culture at each other. Their musical tastes have points of overlap but their spectrums extend in opposing directions. They spend one night just sitting on the floor comparing their record collections and playing each other their favorite selections. Patrick, in late-night hours, grows more effusive with his weariness. He grows more effusive the more they talk, period. He loses his guardedness and talks more. He talks about hopes and dreams, about melodies stuck in people’s heads, about writing the soundtrack to people’s lives.

“I want people to fall in love to my voice in their ear,” he says one night. He’s in bed in Chicago, and Pete is in bed in New York. It’s dark in both of their rooms, ambient light the only way they can see each other. Pete feels more intimate than he has with anyone he’s ever physically shared a bed with. Patrick is hatless, his red-gold hair feathered out over his pillow, and as always when Patrick is without his hat, Pete is breathless with how trusting it feels.

Pete says, “I know all about that,” because he does. He fell in love the first time he heard Patrick, before he even knew who Patrick was. And that was a shadow of the way he feels now.

Patrick looks sleepy, his eyes closed. He quirks a smile and says, “Well, with your lyrics, they’re more likely to break up to my voice in their ear.”

“I haven’t felt soft words before,” Pete says. He takes advantage of the fact that Patrick’s eyes are closed to look his fill, greedy for the curve of Patrick’s cheek, the way his lips relax into an open invitation, so ready for a kiss. Patrick makes him feel like he could write in soft words. Pete’s words for Patrick are nothing but softness.

Patrick says, “That’s too bad. You deserve them.”

Pete says nothing because he doesn’t know what there is to say to that.

Patrick opens his eyes suddenly and groans. “Look at you. You’re wide awake.”

“It isn’t your job to deal with my insomnia,” Pete says. He keeps trying to tell Patrick not to worry about it. Patrick had picked up on it pretty quickly, dealing with Pete’s scattered lyrics coming to him throughout the night.

“Yeah, but I don’t like to think of you sitting up alone thinking about whether or not you deserve soft words.”

It’s so dangerously accurate, and it doesn’t surprise Pete at all. Patrick has listened to Pete’s words in a way Pete has never experienced before, has read through them and into them, and knows Pete to an incredible depth at this point.

Patrick yawns and closes his eyes again, irresistibly, and Pete says, “What if I just sit up watching you sleep? Then I wouldn’t be alone.”

“I could sing to you,” Patrick offers. It comes out slurred, he’s so sleepy.

“In the morning,” Pete says. “Go to sleep.”

“Your sleep schedule is fucked,” Patrick murmurs, and then falls asleep.

Pete watches him for so long that when he falls asleep himself, he dreams of him.

***

“So,” says Patrick, “these lyrics don't sound like soft words.”

It's early afternoon, the sunlight bright and glaring on Pete's screen, and Patrick is washed out by it. Pete just got up, and he's trying to get a column done, and he answered Patrick's video call automatically, without thinking, his head still caught up in other words entirely.

“What words?” he asks absently, yawning.

“Did you just wake up?” Patrick asks.

Pete waves a hand dismissively.

“Remember we had that conversation about soft words? And then you sent me these. ‘I’m good to go, but I'm going nowhere fast’?”

“Could be worse, I could be taking you there with me,” Pete quotes the rest of the line easily, reading over the last sentence he'd written for his column.

“Pete,” says Patrick.

“They're good lyrics,” Pete replies.

“I mean,” says Patrick with a sigh. “Yes.”

“And how are you this fine morning?” Pete asks, deleting the entire last sentence of his column. He glances toward Patrick, who he can see now is at the studio, frowning at the composing pad he has on top of his ruined soundboard.

“It's afternoon,” he says without looking up at Pete. “‘I’m coasting on potential toward a wall at a hundred miles an hour,’” he reads. “If you were in this kind of mood last night, you should have called me.”

“I have given you lyrical gold,” Pete says grandly.

“I'm not disputing it,” Patrick says, and he's humming under his breath, adding words to his tune. “I'm good to go, da da da da da, hmm.”

Pete loves this bit, the exposed nerves of Patrick's composing. He sits and writes his column and lets Patrick sing to himself, soft and uncertain, backtracking, plucking at the guitar. Patrick's melodies are usually quick and instinctive, it's finding the perfect song-length shape for them that takes the effort.

Pete is halfway through the column, the words coming easily and well, when Patrick announces confidently, “I am going to make this a happy song.”

Pete laughs. “Be my guest, Tricktastic.”

“Just so you know,” Patrick says, tapping at his composing pad, “when we're rich and famous like you swear we're going to be, my name is Patrick.”

“Oh, well, yeah, for other people, of course,” Pete agrees easily.

Patrick sighs and then sighs again. “I've got to go. I have an actual paying person coming in for a recording session.”

“Oh, dear,” Pete says. “Don't lose your heart to them. I will weep tragically into my pillow.”

“What are the odds two annoying assholes will drop into my life?” asks Patrick drily. “I fear you may be one of a kind, Wentz.”

“Aww, Trickster, you say the sweetest things to me.”

Patrick ignores him, standing and stretching. Pete tries not to look too mouthwatering at the sight.

Patrick says, “Tonight is that birthday party, right?”

It is. Gabe's birthday. Which William goes all out for because that's how they are. And Patrick knows this because there isn't much about Pete’s life Patrick doesn't know at this point.

Pete, without wanting to, glances at the android still powered off in the corner, waiting for Pete to stop being too lazy to sell it. He supposes Nothing is the only thing Patrick doesn't know about but that is hardly as relevant as every other piece of minutia he knows about Pete, and Pete's life, and Pete's head, and Pete's heart.

Pete just says in reply to Patrick, “Yeah.”

“Well. Have a good time. Tell your friend I said happy birthday. Call me if you can't sleep tonight. Don't sit up writing lyrics about crashing headlong into walls.”

Pete smiles.

***

Gabe's birthday party is at another club, and Pete is contemplating his friends’ ability to talk their way into places. He needs to be talked into places. Well, he needs to get Patrick talked into places mostly. Pete has plans taking shape but Gabe and William are an asset he hasn't quite exploited yet.

He has no plans to bother Gabe about it at his birthday. This is Gabe's day, and Pete has bought him a ridiculous robot bird that's supposed to sit on your shoulder or something. It seems like the kind of absurd thing Gabe will adore, because he's Gabe. Patrick had said it was ridiculous and pointless and Pete had explained that he has ridiculous and pointless friends who love technology.

When Pete gets to the club and presents him with the robot bird, Gabe exclaims, “Pete! You bought me a robot! Like an actual modern human!” Gabe throws an arm around Pete's shoulder and uses his height to mockingly kiss the top of Pete's head.

Pete shrugs him off. “I am a totally modern human,” he defends himself, and hope Gabe doesn't ask after Nothing so that Pete won’t have to explain he hasn't turned it on in a while. William comes over and Pete says, “Hi, Bill.”

“Hello, Pete,” he says, and gives Pete a hug. In comparison to Gabe, William seems very sober. And also very fond. He gives Gabe the most impossibly fond look when Gabe shows off the new robot bird.

The club is loud and crowded and raucous. Pete does rounds of shots with Brendan because Brendan insists, and that means that it eventually seems like a good idea to call Patrick.

He settles in the quietest corner he can find, which isn't all that quiet, and listens to the phone ring in his ear.

Patrick answers with a very soft, “Hey, I'm working, remember? Is there something wrong?”

“Patrick,” Pete says. “I forgot about the working. Sorry. This is only going to take a second.”

“Okay,” Patrick says, sounding amused.

“You and I…” says Pete. “You and I are like this.”

“Like what?” asks Patrick.

“Oh, you can't see,” Pete realizes. “I didn't video call. I'm, like, crossing my fingers together.”

“We're like crossed fingers?”

Pete sighs. “We're like, you know, like crossed fingers.”

“I feel really good right now about the fact that you handle all the words in our partnership.”

“You're all my words,” Pete tells him seriously. “You're every word I have.”

“You are very drunk,” Patrick says. “I'm jealous. It sounds like a good party. Tell your friends I say hi.”

“Patrick, wait, wait, I have a serious question.”

“How thrilling.”

“Are you wearing a hat?”

“I am,” Patrick confirms.

“Good. I don't want you producing music for other people without a hat on.”

“That's an odd request but okay.”

“It's not an odd request. You always wear a hat. When you take your hat off, it's like you're naked. I don't want you, like, showing your dick to this random person in your studio right now.”

“Are you jealous?” Patrick asks.

“Tremendously,” Pete says. “Come to New York.”

There's a moment of silence before Patrick says, “What?”

“Come to New York. Would you? I would really like you to.”

“You're very drunk,” Patrick says again. “And I can't come to New York right now. I'm cheating on you in the studio, remember?”

“Don't remind me,” Pete grumbles.

“Hey.” Patrick's voice is gentle and soft, so soft Pete has to press the phone right up against his ear. “Pete. Ask me again when you're sober. Now go have fun.”

Pete makes a noncommittal unhappy sound that Patrick is in Chicago with a not-him and Pete is in New York with lots of non-Patricks, and then Patrick hangs up the phone.

Brendan barrels into him with another shot, demanding to know who he was talking to, and Pete's phone vibrates in his hand.

There's only one you. You have no reason to be jealous.

Pete is still processing this when another text comes in.

Not least because he looks like this.

The photo is of a man who's 90 if he's a day, anciently, epically wrinkled.

Pete turns his phone around to show the photo to Brendan.

“I could take him, right?” Pete demands.

“Oh, totally, he's like a hundred years old.” Brendan nods enthusiastically. “That's not your boyfriend, right? Because that would worry me.”

“I don't have a boyfriend,” Pete denies. Because he's not drunk enough to forget that.

“That's not what Logan says. Logan says you've got some long-distance lover.” Brendan sings long-distance lover in a teasing lilt. “So how about it, bro? Been having some hot video chat sex?”

“No,” Pete says sourly. “He doesn't think of me like that.”

“I doubt that. Have you looked at you? I doubt that.”

“I don't know. I'm like… He's like…” Pete gestures and gives up.

“You should send him a dick pic,” Brendan suggests. “See what he does.”

“Classy,” Pete says.

“Oh, is he classy, then?”

“He is way out of my league. I have no idea how… I mean, he's so great.”

“Hmm,” remarks Brendan, giving him a surprisingly astute look for a drunk person.

“What?” Pete asks.

“Nothing, just… Been a while since I saw you this head over heels.”

“I'm...handling it,” Pete lies blatantly.

Brendan snorts. “Which would definitely be a first. Anyway. Dick pic. I'm telling you.”

“I'm not sending him a dick pic, I'm not trying to get laid, I'm… I'm making music.”

“Of course you are.” Brendan finally does the shot he'd brought over. “I just want to point out, dude, that you have definitely confirmed the existence of a long-distance something, so thank you for that.” Brendan wanders off.

“Fucking spy,” Pete mutters and tosses back his own shot.

And considers Patrick's unanswered pair of texts.

He texts back, I used to obsess over living now I only obsess over you tell me you like boys like me better in the dark lying on top of you.

Then he shuts his phone off before he can make things worse.

***

Hemingway is delighted to see him when he gets home. Pete takes him for a walk and turns on his phone as he does so.

There is one text from Patrick. Why would I like you better in the dark? Which doesn’t seem to bode well for future orgasms, Pete thinks morosely.

Pete doesn’t reply. He lets the phone sit heavy in his pocket and walks Hemingway, and then when they get home he looks at the android in the corner. He walks over to it. After a second, he turns it on.

“Hello, Pete,” it says pleasantly. “The weather is growing brisk. Make sure you put a coat on before you go out.”

Pete says harshly, “I haven’t turned you on in months.”

“I see,” replies the android, unmoved. “Please let me know if there’s anything you wish me to do around the house.”

It’s so mechanical, so detached, that Pete is marveling at himself for having fallen for this act. A human who had been ignored for months would have been devastated. Well. Pete would have been, at least. The android doesn’t care, is still asking how it can help.

Patrick would have been furious with him, snippy, biting, the way he could be. Patrick has a quick temper, that dampens as quickly as it flares up. Patrick can be wary when asked questions, as if there must be a hidden motivation to them. He feels his way to answers. He has a nervous habit of adjusting his hat when he’s trying to process a particularly volatile emotion – that rushing snap of temper but also the blush of surprised pleasure when Pete pays him a compliment, or the thoughtful reflection when Pete catches him off-guard. When Patrick isn’t wearing a hat, his hand still reaches for it, goes to the top of his head and tugs absently at his hair instead. Patrick has a dry, sarcastic sense of humor, equally self-deprecating and scathing toward others. Patrick has a vast compendium of knowledge of the same sort of trashy old movies Pete adores. Patrick loves Korean food and will order takeout of it endlessly, during which he sits and eats while Pete orders and consumes his own takeout in New York. Patrick cannot resist a debate on any topic. Patrick has never blandly agreed to anything in his life.

Once upon a time, this android took Pete’s words and made them sound beautiful. Patrick does that a thousand times better than Nothing ever did, and does it while being so magnificently human, does it with all of the messy complexity of his humanness. Pete remembers what William said the day the android crashed, and looks at it dispassionately, and thinks, You really are just a toaster.

And then he thinks of what Gabe said to him, a few days after that: Pete could love the android, but the android would never love him back.

Maybe Pete isn’t doing any better, Pete thinks. Maybe Pete is still loving a completely unattainable creature who will never love him back. Maybe Pete is doomed to never be loved back, ever, ever.

Pete recognizes this mood with a vague sort of detachment. He knows he should care more about what it means, but he just wants to crawl into bed and stop thinking for a little while.

That never, ever works, though. He crawls into bed and lays awake, all of his thoughts so loud, Patrick depending on him, and the android in the other room that used to have Patrick’s voice, and all of his friends who worry about him so much, and Hemmy who licks his face in concern.

Pete texts Patrick miserably. I must confess I’m in love with my own sins.

Patrick doesn’t reply.

Pete lays awake staring up at the ceiling, eventually watching the sun rise and daylight creep over it. Hemingway whines at him, and Pete considers that he should probably take him for a walk. That seems like so much effort.

“In a bit,” Pete tells him. “On the count of ten, I’m getting out of bed.” Pete counts to ten, then twenty, then thirty.

His phone rings with a video call from Patrick.

Pete rejects it and texts him, Today is not a good day.

Patrick’s text back is immediate. ?????

Pete texts, Can you please just leave me alone and ignore everything I say today? Please.

He manages to roll out of bed and looks at himself in the mirror. His hair is a sticking-up mess and his eyeliner is smeared all over his face. That’s right. He was out last night. It feels like it happened a million years ago.

Pete makes a deal with himself: If he washes his face and combs his hair, he will be fit enough for the human interaction of buying coffee at the place down the street. He’ll buy coffee, and he’ll feel better.

Patrick calls again, just audio this time. Pete rejects it again and takes Hemmy out.

He does not feel better after coffee. He brings it back to the house with him and sits at the dining room table and taps aimlessly at the “b” key on his keyboard, because why not. He can’t think of anything more important to do. He should probably go back to bed.

So he does. He curls into a ball. He pulls the covers over his head. He doesn’t sleep.

Patrick texts. I’m not trying to be an asshole or something, but are you okay?

Pete almost laughs. No, he texts, because he’s not. And then, But it’s fine. There’s nothing you can do.

Would you answer my call? Patrick texts back.

Pete sighs. Talking to Patrick sounds exhausting, but Patrick’s going to bother him until he gives in, so when Patrick calls again, Pete answers. It is thankfully not a video call, for which Pete is grateful.

“Pete,” Patrick says immediately. “What happened? You sounded like you had a good time last night.”

“Yes,” Pete says. “I did. That’s not how this works.”

“How what works?” Patrick sounds quizzical.

“Me. I’m a mess.”

“No, you’re not,” says Patrick.

Pete laughs without humor and turns his face into the pillow. “You don’t even know me. You should rethink, like, this whole thing. I’m such a mess, and I never get better, I just keep being not better.”

Patrick is silent for long enough that Pete thinks he’s hung up on him, which would be a relief.

But then Patrick says, “Are you in bed?”

“What does it matter?” counters Pete.

“You should get out of bed,” Patrick replies.

“I can’t get out of bed,” Pete says, and hopes Patrick doesn’t ask why, so he doesn’t have to explain how exhausting it would be to get out of bed, how he would have to get out of bed and just sit for a long time in the living room to recover.

Patrick says, “Yes, you can. I believe in you. I know this feels awful right now, and enormous, and heavy, but if you get yourself out of bed, you can just go sit in the chair for a little while, and you’ll feel better. That’s all you have to do, get yourself to the next room. I bet you can do that. I bet Hemmy can help.”

Pete sighs. “Patrick, I appreciate this, but what’s the point?”

“I’m not going to get off the phone with you,” Patrick says. “I’ve got all day to sit here with you until you feel like there’s a point to getting out of bed. I’ll wait with you. Because I know you feel like there’s no point now, but that’s not going to be forever. I promise, okay? It’s not going to be forever.”

Pete knows this objectively. Pete knows this routine. Knowing it doesn’t help Pete believe it. It never has. And it’s not like Patrick saying it makes Pete believe it more. But there’s something to be said for having another person’s voice promising it will be better. Pete never believes his own voice in his head, but he can cling greedily to Patrick’s.

Pete closes his eyes and says wearily, “Can you keep talking to me? My head is very loud,” and hopes it makes sense.

“Sure,” Patrick says easily. “I started reading this book that this guy I know seems to like. I don’t know. I’m undecided.” And Patrick starts reading On the Road.

Pete smiles. He doesn’t exactly feel better – it just takes so long for the feeling to shake off the dredge of this indifferent monotony – but he’s cognizant of Patrick’s efforts here. Eventually, he feels able to leave the bed, so he does. He goes into the living room and sits on the couch and interrupts Patrick.

“Okay,” he says. “I got out of bed.”

“Okay,” Patrick says simply. “I’ve been working on some new stuff. Do you want to hear it?”

“No,” Pete says with clarity. “I won’t like it. I don’t like anything when I feel like this. Everything feels terrible and awful and pointless and stupid.”

“Okay,” says Patrick again, as agreeable as anything. “Is your head quieter?”

Pete considers, taking a deep breath. “Yes, actually.”

“Good,” says Patrick.

There’s silence for a bit. Pete can hear vague noises from Patrick’s side of the call. Patrick, going about living his life, on the phone with pathetic Pete.

Pete says, “I’m so sorry for all of this. You see? You should rethink things.”

“Not at all,” Patrick replies lightly.

“You’re just putting your life in my hands,” says Pete, “and I haven’t been honest.”

“Pete, how tired are you?” Patrick asks.

“Fuck.” Pete pinches at the bridge of his nose. “I’m exhausted.”

“Yeah. So don’t worry about that stuff right now, okay? Just concentrate on the next step you have to take.”

“I should take Hemmy out again,” Pete says, eyeing the dog where he’s waiting by the door.

“Then that’s your next step,” Patrick responds.

“If I had a robot dog, he wouldn’t need to be walked and I could just stay inside,” Pete notes.

“That’s probably why you don’t have a robot dog,” Patrick points out.

Patrick is partly right. Pete takes a deep breath and hauls himself off the couch and puts Hemmy’s leash on him.

“Okay,” he says. “I’m ready to go out.”

“Tell me what your street looks like.”

“Tell you what it looks like? It looks like every other street in New York.”

“Does it have any takeout places?”

“Yes.”

“Stop at one of them. Get yourself something to eat.”

“Yeah,” Pete agrees. Eating does seem like a good idea. He says suddenly, “Look, I’m okay. I’m not in imminent danger. I’m just…not me today.”

“You’re you,” Patrick says immediately. “You’re always you. And all of you is great.”

“This part’s not great,” Pete says.

“It’s not as bad as your head is telling you it is. Ignore your head. Go for a walk and shut it up.”

Pete nods. “I’m going to take Hemmy for a walk and get food. I’ll be fine.”

“Call me later,” Patrick says. “If you don’t, I’ll call you.”

Pete feels fussed over, and exhausted. Not better, exactly, but maybe slightly more convinced that this is what he needs. He needs to get out of the house, he needs to eat, he needs to not get back into bed.

So Pete moves forward. He walks Hemmy. He buys himself a sandwich at the deli down the street and makes himself eat it out in the autumn twilight. The air is fresh and crisp. Pete ordinarily loves a night like this. He doesn’t love it at the moment, and he’s annoyed with himself for that, but at least he’s up and out of the house. When he gets back, he resists the urge to go back to bed. If he takes a shower, he tells himself, he can get back into bed as a reward.

He takes a very long, very hot shower, standing still under the spray and letting it drench his filthy hair. He changes into fresh sweats and a fresh t-shirt and then he crawls into bed.

And then he calls Patrick.

“A video call,” Patrick says when he answers. He’s in the studio, and his face is pinched with concern. “You must be feeling better. Are you feeling better?”

“No. Yes. I don’t know. I took a shower,” says Pete.

“Good,” Patrick says. “That’s good.”

“I’m sorry,” Pete says, because he feels like he should apologize forever.

“Stop,” Patrick says gently, and shakes his head.

“I’m very tired,” Pete says. “I want to sleep. Can you sing me something? Not something of ours.”

Patrick smiles and sings, Take me out, tonight.

Pete’s asleep before he gets to the bit about the light that will never go out.

***

Pete feels marginally better in the morning. Not a hundred percent, but getting out of bed, getting dressed, getting breakfast, only feels like the climbing of Everest instead of flying to the moon. He feels embarrassed about yesterday with Patrick. That is not a thing he likes showing new people, especially not new people he’d ideally like to fuck. There is nothing more off-putting than Pete in that state, Pete thinks. He doesn’t mind it as much with Gabe or William or Brendan, because they know him well enough to just roll with it. But he wanted Patrick to like him, to love him, to be in a band with him and be rich and famous with him and whatever.

Pete can’t bring himself to call Patrick. He texts him, I’m out of bed and dressed and I’m so sorry about yesterday.

There’s no immediate response, so Pete follows up with, It’s just a thing, I go through it every so often, it’s not a big deal.

And then thinks that’s entirely the wrong thing to have said, so he adds another text. Except that it is a big deal, obviously, and I understand if you want me to find someone else to help you with your music.

Then Patrick texts back. I would have no idea how to sing someone else’s words.

Which is such a ridiculous thing to say but Pete wants to hold it close forever.

Patrick sends another text. Don’t feel like you have to explain. Or worry that I would be upset about this. I know your words.

Pete stares at the text for a very long time. Then he replies, I’m going outside now.

Good, Patrick responds.

Pete calls William. “Hey,” he says when William answers. “I need to get out of the house.”

And because William is used to these periodic calls from Pete, he just shrugs and says, “Let’s go for a run.”

***

“Okay,” Pete says when he calls Patrick the next day. “I’m leading with ‘Grand Theft Autumn,’ it’s our best song, that’s what we should do.”

“You’re better,” is what Patrick says.

Pete is better. He’s not a hundred percent yet but he woke with the feeling that he could live the rest of his life and didn’t need to hide under the covers anymore. Lots of things still feel overwhelming but when he listened to the recordings of the songs Patrick had written, he felt like the songs had a point, he felt a glimmer of excitement, he remembered that he’d actually been looking forward to playing these songs.

He snaps, “I’m better. Can we not talk about it?”

“I think we should talk about it,” says Patrick dubiously.

“There’s nothing to talk about.” Pete hates this part. “Sometimes I get depressed. Whatever. Some part of my brain is broken.”

“Your brain is fine, dude,” says Patrick.

“Not from my position inside it,” Pete retorts. “Can we talk about music now?” He glares at Patrick on the screen.

Patrick, after a moment, relents. “Fine. Let’s talk music. You like ‘Grand Theft Autumn’?”

“Yes.” Pete nods briskly, scrolling through the files. “I mean, I like all of them. I love all of them. But I think ‘Grand Theft Autumn’ is our strongest. I’m going to shop it around and see what people think.”

“You’re in charge of marketing.” Patrick shrugs.

Pete is silent for a moment, and then turns to look more fully at Patrick’s screen. “Okay, maybe we should talk about it.”

“The marketing?”

“The depression. Because I can’t stop it. I can manage it, but I can’t stop it. And I have no control over when it happens, it just does. And when it does I feel – I feel –” Pete can’t possibly put into words how he feels. It’s too much. Well. Not true. He pours how he feels into words. Not all of them have been sent to Patrick. There are some bits of his head even Pete is jealous with. “Anyway, I get that I’m not the ideal person to be in a band with.”

“Can you stop?” Patrick asks. “First of all, you’re being melodramatic, we don’t even have a band.”

“We have something like a band,” Pete protests.

“If we have something like a band, then I have something like a mansion.”

“You’re not a nice person,” Pete informs him. “I don’t even know why I like you so much.”

Patrick winks at him and says, “Go do your best to sell us.”

Pete says, “When you put it that way, you make me sound like I’m a pimp.”

“It’s not far off,” Patrick replies.

“I don’t know what you think is going to happen at the gigs I’m trying to set up, but it’s probably not going to be orgasms,” Pete says.

“Oh, Pete,” says Patrick, with a curl of his mouth, “how naïve of you, when you’ve heard me sing. Tell me orgasms don’t naturally follow from my voice.”

Pete is too off-kilter still for this level of flirtation. He looks dry-mouthed at the impossible carnal beauty of Patrick’s mouth and manages, “I hope you don’t just sing at people when you get them into bed. Your voice is great but you need to do more than that.”

Patrick laughs and says, “I have moves.”

Which is such a ridiculous thing to say that Pete latches onto it to keep from suggesting they take their pants off immediately. “You have moves?”

“Little tricks I’ve picked up along the way,” says Patrick.

“Little Patrick tricks?” says Pete. “Pulling rabbits out of a hat? Making a coin disappear behind an ear?”

Patrick laughs again. “Much better tricks.”

Pete thinks of the text he never replied to, Why would I like you better in the dark? He’s bewildered. Patrick seemed so disinclined to imagine sex at that point, and now he’s insinuating an entire bag of tricks could be Pete’s for the taking.

Unless Pete is reading this all wrong, and Patrick’s just being coy and clever and trying to distract Pete from his depression.

Pete doesn’t know what to say. Which isn’t like him, especially not when flirting is involved. And that’s when it occurs to him: He is well and truly fucked. It should have occurred to him much earlier. He’s been fucked from the very beginning. But Patrick is flirting with him and Patrick was calmly there through Pete’s sulky depression and doesn’t care about it and Patrick laughs when Pete teases him and Patrick writes him music and Patrick inhabits his days and his nights and Patrick eats dinner with him from Chicago and Patrick watches movies with him from Chicago and Patrick is there in the morning when Pete wakes up and he’s there at night when Pete goes to sleep and Brendan is right Pete’s had a boyfriend all this time Pete’s been dating Patrick all this time and he doesn’t even know if Patrick knows.

And once upon a time he owned Patrick’s voice and, oops, he’s never mentioned this.

“Pete?” Patrick says quizzically, and Pete realizes he’s been staring in shock at the screen.

“I have to go,” Pete says, and shuts the unit down.

***

Pete pulls Gabe out of work. He’s never been clear what Gabe does. It’s something “people-person-y,” according to Gabe. It sounds appropriately made-up and Gabe-ish. All Pete knows is that Gabe’s schedule is constantly flexible, and he makes a ton of money for whatever it is he does.

At any rate, because Gabe’s job is basically fake, the android at the front desk doesn’t even blink when Pete demands to talk to him. Not that the android would blink, Pete reminds himself. The android is just a machine.

Gabe comes strolling out to the lobby where Pete is waiting as if this is an ordinary day and the world isn’t a precarious place. “Yo,” he says to Pete. “What’s up with you, bro?”

“I’ve done something really stupid,” Pete announces.

Gabe cocks his head at him. “I’m sure it’s not—”

“It’s really stupid,” Pete reiterates. “Bill would kill me. That’s why I’m talking to you instead. Brendan would just laugh at me, so fuck him. Gabe. You have to sit me down and give me really good advice so I don’t ruin the best thing happening to me right now.”

“But I give terrible advice,” Gabe whines, looking like a deer caught in the headlights. “Let’s call Bilvy and—”

“Gabe,” Pete says. “I am begging you.”

Gabe studies him and then relents with a sigh, and Pete follows him into a conference room.

Gabe says, “Hey, Lorelai, make the windows opaque,” and some cool computerized voice responds, “Sure thing, Gabe,” and makes the windows opaque.

Gabe says to Pete, “Okay, sit down, you look like you’re going to hyperventilate. What the fuck. William said you were doing better yesterday.”

“I need to play you something,” Pete tells him, and Pete plays him the recording of “Grand Theft Autumn.” Patrick’s voice swells to fill the conference room. Patrick’s orchestrations join him. The drums thunder and the guitars mesh together and Patrick sings Pete’s words. Could be an accident, but I’m still trying.

“Wow,” Gabe says when the song is finished. “That is…much better than the last thing I heard from the android. More complex. Except…I thought the android was broken?”

“That’s not the android,” Pete says.

Gabe stares at him for a long moment. Then he says, “Pete…”

“It happened,” Pete says desperately. “It just happened. I… I left him with the recordings of my poetry and, I don’t know, he wrote me a song! I don’t know, I didn’t ask him for it or anything!”

Gabe’s face is hard. “And you just decided to use him like he was your android and get him to put all your words into music?”

Pete covers his face with his hands and wants to die. “No. That’s not what happened. That’s not how it is. He… He… I wasn’t going to… I mean, I didn’t want to… But then he was mildly electrocuted, and we were talking, and he was so easy to talk to, and he was so… All we do is talk. Endlessly. Constantly. We sit for hours at night with a video line open. It’s not like…” Pete lifts his head, miserably desperate. “You’re going to make fun of me, because you’re going to say that I do this all the time, that I did it with the android, that I did it with Mikey, and so I didn’t say anything because I didn’t want to get mocked for this, ‘silly Pete who falls in love with things that are never going to love him back,’ I didn’t want to be mocked for saying that I love him. But I think I love him. Can you not mock me and just… I kind of feel like I’ve been dating him for weeks. Oops.”

“Why would I mock you for falling in love?” Gabe asks. “You fall in love with the wrong people, that’s their problem, not yours. But this is… Pete, this is some kind of weird transference. You had this fixation on the android and you’ve—”

“It’s not,” Pete says fiercely. “I’ve considered that. A lot. I’ve thought about it so much. I like him so much for everything about him that’s not an android. If I’d met him before Nothing, I would still feel exactly this way. This isn’t about the android. And see, I don’t know how to prove it to you, which means it would be impossible to prove it to him. If I tell him now, he’ll… And I can’t… Why can’t I have it?” Pete demands suddenly. “You and Bill did incredibly stupid things, too, but you still got to have the happy ending. Why shouldn’t I get it, too?”

“You should get it,” Gabe says. “That’s not what this is about. It’s a lie, Pete. You’re lying to him.”

“I’ve never lied to him. Not once. I’ve been the most honest I’ve ever been with a person.”

“Yeah, but… You know this is a thing, or you wouldn’t be here freaking out about it.”

“Why should he ever find out? He doesn’t have to ever find out, right? It’s not relevant anymore. The droid’s broken anyway. He really likes me, Gabe. At least I think he does. And I have no idea why, but he does, and I can’t make myself destroy that. I want him to like me. I like that he likes me.”

“That’s selfish,” Gabe says. “That’s not thinking about him. It’s also not trusting him to like you for who you are. You’ll tell him everything you just said to me, and you’ll convince him. If he loves you, he’ll forgive you.”

Pete scowls. “That’s the worst fucking advice I’ve ever heard. That’s worse than Brendan’s ‘send a dick pic’ advice, and that was pretty bad.”

“My advice is to be honest with the person you’re in love with, and you think that’s bad advice?” asks Gabe scathingly.

“Yes. When has that ever helped anyone? It’s certainly never helped me.”

“Because those people weren’t in love with you.”

Is Patrick in love with him? Pete can’t tell. It’s too soon to say. He needs more time. He needs to see. He needs to see if Patrick’s flirting is serious or playful. He needs to be in the same fucking room with him, for at least a little while.

Pete says, “I need time.”

“That’s not a good idea,” says Gabe. “The longer you—”

“No, no,” interjects Pete. “If I have a little more time, I can make sure he really likes me, and then he won’t mind. I just need a little more time. And to make him rich and famous.”

Gabe blinks at him. “What?”

***

Pete goes to see William, because he’s exhausted Gabe’s usefulness. Gabe tags along because Gabe is insisting on being difficult about this. Pete doesn’t understand what Gabe doesn’t understand about Pete’s plan of attack.

“And what’s going on here?” William asks, plainly bewildered, when Gabe and Pete crash into his photo shoot.

“Okay,” Pete says briskly. “Here’s the deal. Remember how my android had the voice of that guy in Chicago? The music producer? I flew out there to meet him. We’ve kind of kept in touch. We’ve been writing songs together. I maybe convinced him that we could be in a band together and I could get him a record deal. And there’s a possibility that I’ve never told him that I owned the android with his voice package. But also, I’m a little in love with him – I’m a lot in love with him – and I can’t tell him the truth until he thinks well of me, so what I need from you is to get us a gig with a club somewhere, and I’m going to pack the place with every influential bigwig I can bribe, and Patrick’s going to do the rest because Patrick can do the rest, and then I’m going to do, I don’t know, probably some big champagne and rose petals triumphant moment and whisper in his ear, ‘Oh, by the way, I used to own your voice.’”

William is completely silent, staring at him. The entire set of the photo shoot is completely silent.

Pete says, “I should probably find a better way to phrase that, huh?”

“What the fuck,” William says. “What the actual fuck?” And then he drags Pete by his ear into a dressing room.

“Ow,” Pete says, rescuing his ear. “That fucking hurt.”

“Good.” William gives his head a smack. “Have you lost your fucking mind? How the fuck did you go and fall in love with your android’s human and not tell him first that he was your android’s human?”

“It wasn’t difficult,” Pete snaps, rubbing at his ear. “It was really easy. For starters, this is what he looks like.” Pete scrolls through his phone, thrusts out a selfie Patrick sent him, querying whether he should splurge on a new hat he’d found. It’s a silly selfie, hardly Patrick’s best angle, but he looks hot in it because Patrick is hot.

Gabe peers over William’s shoulder and says, “Okay, well, you didn’t show me any pictures of him, this makes more sense now.”

William shoves Gabe.

Gabe says, “You have a violent streak.”

“That’s why you have a safe word,” William says.

“Can we get back to my love life?” Pete says. “He looks like that, and he sounds amazing, and he says wonderful things to me. It wasn’t hard. He’s like a fucking Pete Wentz seduction trap. It’s like I dreamed him up, he’s so perfect.”

William gives him a look. “Did you dream him up?”

“I’m not hallucinating him, no.”

“No, but I mean, you barely know him. Maybe you’re just projecting—”

“We talk so much, William. We talk constantly. I know him. And I honestly think he knows me better than anyone ever has. I mean that.”

“And you never say that,” William murmurs.

“What?” Pete and Gabe ask in unison.

“You fall in love with abandon, that’s who you are and we love you for it. But I’ve never heard you say that you felt loved. I’ve never heard you say that you thought the object of your affections looked at you and saw you and wanted you. You’ve always been trying so hard to be what you thought they wanted. And you’re doing it again, even though it sounds like you don’t need to. If he knows who you are, then he knows you make stupid decisions.”

“Can you get me a gig?” Pete asks desperately. “If you can get us into one of the hot clubs, I’ll get him his record advance, and then I’ll tell him, okay? I promise I’ll tell him.”

William studies him. Then William says, “Okay.”

Pete wants to collapse with relief. “Really?”

“Look, you’re doing a stupid thing, and I don’t approve of it, and you should tell him what’s going on. But also, I want a chance to play matchmaker so I can get all the credit at your wedding.”

“You’re the best, Bilvy.” Pete catches him up and kisses his cheek. “I would totally do you if I didn’t kind of have a boyfriend now.”

“Or if William wasn’t married,” Gabe interjected.

“Oh, please, I’d let you watch,” Pete tells him.

“Oh, well, you should’ve said so, that would clearly be encouraged.”

***

William is the most amazing, astonishing person Pete has ever met in his entire life, because he’s texted with a club date before Pete’s even back to his apartment. Two weeks, the text informs him. Go and dazzle your guy.

Pete can’t wait to dazzle his guy. He runs home and he’s still out of breath when he video-calls Patrick.

Patrick answers with, “Pete. I was thinking. On the last call. If I made you feel—”

“We’ve got a gig,” Pete cuts him off as soon as he catches enough breath to do it.

Patrick stills, staring. “What?”

“We’ve got a club date. And I’m going to load the audience with all the right people to see you and recognize your genius.”

“A club date? When?”

“Two weeks.” Pete grins at him. “Can you be in New York in two weeks?”

“You got a club date?” Patrick says.

“I did. Keep up, Trick. Club date. New York. Two weeks from now.”

“But…I didn’t think you were actually going to do it.” Patrick’s face is frozen in terror.

Pete blinks. “What?”

“I thought…I don’t know. You had this pie-in-the-sky idea. I didn’t think you’d actually make it happen.”

Pete frowns. “Then what did you think we were doing here?”

Patrick looks at him. He says, “I thought… This maybe got out-of-hand.”

This was not at all the reaction Pete had expected. “Hang on, what?”

“I can’t perform, Pete! I’m a terrible performer! I have horrible stage fright! How am I going to get up on a stage in front of strangers and sing? I don’t sing in front of anyone but you.”

Pete looks at him evenly and says, “Well, then, it’s a good thing I’m going to be right next to you, isn’t it?”

There’s a long moment of silence. Patrick nervously tugs at his hat, looking fretful.

Pete realizes he had completely underestimated the level of stage fright Patrick was talking about here. He leans forward and says, “Patrick. Hey.” Just to get him out of his own head. Patrick does give him a startled look, like he’d forgotten he was there. “Okay.” Pete smiles. “Here’s what we’re going to do: the next step. Just the next step. That’s all you have to take. One more step. I’ll get you into the next room. One step at a time.”

Patrick, after a moment, breathes deeply and nods. “Okay. Yes. Okay.”

“You can do this,” Pete says. “You’re a magnificent singer and that’s all you have to do, I’m going to do the rest.”

Patrick nods again. Then says, “But what if—”

Pete shakes his head. “Next step. Just the next step. Think about that.”

Patrick visibly swallows. “So what’s the next step?”

“Come to New York,” Pete says.

***

Pete had not expected Patrick to be as nervous about the club gig as he obviously is. Pete had forgotten that Patrick did not see his musical genius with the clarity that Pete did. So Pete decides that he will meet Patrick at the airport and he will take him on a date.

Well.

He’s not going to call it a date, of course. But they’re going to have a nice dinner at a nice restaurant and Pete’s going to get Patrick to relax and not think about the performance and it’s going to go well. This is a good idea.

He brings flowers for Patrick, because it seems like the right thing to do. Maybe a little boyfriend-y, but, well, he wants Patrick to fall solidly in love with him by the time the gig is over so he won’t care about the android thing, so he figures he should start with flowers. But not roses because those are too cliché. And not those hideous digital color-changing ones that Pete finds creepy. He gets him plain yellow daisies, as naturally sunny as he finds Patrick.

When he sees Patrick, live and in-person for the second time in his life, Patrick looks anything but sunny. He is scowling, clutching a guitar case to him, with a bag slung over his shoulder.

“They can invent androids that do every little fucking thing for you, but they can’t make flying better,” he grumbles as he gets to Pete.

And Pete wants to melt into a puddle at his feet but settles for hugging him fiercely. Patrick makes a startled “oh” sound before hugging him back, and it’s a nice tight hug back, nothing hesitant about it, an enfolding, even with the guitar case and the bag to deal with. Pete closes his eyes and tucks his face into the side of Patrick’s neck, which Patrick lets him get away with and Pete loves him more for that. Patrick smells like a human who just got off a plane, and his cheek is scratchy with stubble, and he’s warm and present and Pete can feel him breathing in his arms, and Pete is going to write an entire column tonight about how the digital era can never create anything like the experience of hugging Patrick Stump.

People swirl around them in the airport terminal, coming and going, and Pete Wentz takes a moment just to breathe and forget about the many different ways he can fuck this up over the next couple of weeks.

Then he steps back and smiles at Patrick. “Hi.”

Patrick smiles back. It’s a tired smile but it’s a smile. “Hi.”

“You know, you could have grabbed a luggage droid to help you with your stuff,” Pete points out. “That could have improved your flying experience.”

“No robot is touching my guitar,” Patrick says, clutching it to him even more tightly. And then he says, his eyes on the daisies in Pete’s hands, “Did you buy me flowers?”

“Yeah.” Pete hands them over to him. “Welcome to New York.”

The flowers were worth every penny for the look of wonder on Patrick’s face as he admires them. “No one has ever bought me flowers before,” Patrick says.

“Who have you been hanging out with?” Pete asks, stuffing his hands in the pockets of his coat to keep from reaching for Patrick again.

“People don’t really do flowers these days,” Patrick remarks, smiling at Pete. “It’s very old-fashioned.”

Pete rolls his eyes. “The modern era has no fucking taste. This way.” Pete takes Patrick’s hand, because why the fuck not, and tugs him out of the terminal, using his free hand to program their destination into a car. The car finds them, and Pete says, “Number 52, that’s us,” and ushers Patrick into the backseat. “So your flight was terrible?”

“It was fine,” Patrick sighs. “Ignore me. I’m being…” Patrick waves his hand.

“I’m going to take you out,” Pete announces.

“What?” says Patrick.

“I’m going to take you out on the town. You can drink a lot and forget all about the club gig.”

“I would have to drink a lot to forget about that,” Patrick tells him.

“Well. Let’s see if I can’t be distracting enough,” says Pete, with his brightest smile, and then he snuggles tight up against Patrick’s side. He’s going to spend as much time as possible over the next two weeks snuggled tight up against Patrick’s side.

“Hmm,” Patrick says. “Okay, that is pretty fucking distracting.”

Pete smiles, pleased, and says, “I like your hat.”

“You see my hat all the time,” Patrick says, adjusting it on his head.

“Yeah, but it’s better in person. You’re better in person.”

“You don’t have to keep saying nice things,” Patrick informs him. “I’m here. I made it to New York. I’m not going to spook and run away.”

“That’s not why I’m saying nice things. Although I definitely have a vested interest in you liking New York very much. Not that it will really matter once we’re rich and famous and going on world tours and have houses all over the place.”

“I’m going to spend the next two weeks trying to live in Pete Wentz’s head. Because, despite what you might think, it sounds like a pretty nice place in there.”

Pete considers before saying, “Sometimes.”

Patrick thumb smooths over the back of Pete’s hand, a blink-it-and-miss-it moment but it feels like comfort, and Pete is glad of the comfort.

Patrick says, “So tell me where we’re going.”

“I’m going to show you all of New York in the next few hours.”

“That doesn’t sound exhausting at all,” Patrick comments.

Pete laughs in glee. “Wait until you see.”

***

The restaurant is no longer the novelty it had been but Pete still likes it, likes the way it rotates gradually so that Patrick will be able to take in the whole city, likes the way it’s a little showy that he’s managed to snag them a window-side table on fairly short notice.

Which Patrick gratifyingly notices.

“We’re right at the window,” he says, and taps on it briefly.

Pete, pleased with himself, makes a show of studying his menu. “Yup,” he says casually.

“Were you taking someone else here before I last-minute planned a New York trip?”

Pete looks up, affronted. “Of course not.”

Patrick has his elbow on the table and his chin on his fist, smiling at him. “You’re such a showoff.”

“I’m not really a showoff,” Pete denies.

“You are definitely a showoff. First of all, I have no idea what this outfit is you’re wearing but every single person we passed turned to give your ass a second look.”

“It deserves a second look,” Pete preens.

“Second of all, your hair is, like, sex hair.”

“I worked hard on this,” Pete says, touching it carefully.

“Third of all, you’re wearing perfectly applied eyeliner, which is the showoffiest thing of them all.”

“It just makes my eyes look nicer,” Pete says a little defensively.

“I know. It does. But the thing is, this is what I’m saying. You were picking me up at the airport and taking me to dinner. Theoretically, you only had to dress for me. But you dressed for everyone. Because if you’re not getting second and third looks, you’d be sad. Whereas I’m hoping no one’s noticing that the hottest guy in the room is with…me.”

Pete draws his eyebrows together and is going to reply when the service droid whirs up, because service droids always have the worst timing.

“The champagne you requested,” it announces in one of the cool computerized android voices, only with a pretentious French accent added to it, because it’s that kind of place. It begins pouring champagne for them and continues, “Would you like to hear tonight’s special?”

Pete wants to disabuse Patrick of a couple of notions but he figures it’s polite to let his date hear the specials, which the android rattles off and then says, “I will give you a few minutes to decide,” and whirs away.

Patrick looks at him in amusement. “A French accent. That android actually had a French accent. You took me to a place that has androids with French accents.”

“The point was the view,” Pete says, rapping a knuckle against the window to remind Patrick. “And the person with the hottest guy in the room is me.”

Patrick raises a dubious eyebrow. “Let’s not have a fight about this on my first night in New York.”

Pete suddenly raises his champagne flute. “To Patrick. Who thinks I dressed for everyone else, when really I only dressed for him.”

Patrick clinks his flute against Pete’s and says, “To Pete. Who is at his most beautiful when he isn’t dressed at all.”

Pete chokes on the champagne.

Patrick says, looking flustered, “Oh, fuck, I meant – That’s why you do the words.”

The service droid comes back over and says placidly, “Do you need me to administer the Heimlich?”

Pete glares at it.

Patrick says scathingly, “You don’t administer the Heimlich when people are able to cough still.”

The android says, “Then would you like to order?”

“I’ll have whatever that fish special was,” Patrick says.

“Same,” Pete manages to croak out, and drinks some water.

Patrick says, “Okay, so what I meant was—”

“I get it,” Pete says. “Don’t worry about it. It was sweet.” He wants to add that not being dressed at all can be arranged, but also he doesn’t want to come across as creepy. It’s Patrick’s first night in New York, Pete wants to be debonair and charming and not make him feel like Pete only set all of this up as an elaborate booty call. Because Pete set all of this up as so much more.

Pete sits and looks at Patrick across from him, thinking, He’s here, he’s here, he’s here, he’s right over there, I could lean over and touch him if I wanted.

Patrick looks out the window and says, “Okay, so tell me what I’m looking at.”

So Pete does. He points out all of the highlights of the city skyline, throwing in whatever embellishments he can think of.

“You love it,” Patrick remarks eventually, and Pete looks away from the city to find Patrick watching him. He wonders how long he’s been pointing out landmarks while Patrick was looking at him instead.

“New York?” Pete considers. “I guess I do. I’ve lived here a while now. I’ve got friends. I’ve got favorite restaurants. I guess I do like it. I think really I just like cities. Like, that glow down there at our feet.” Pete gestures to the lights scattered out below them. “It’s the most beautiful thing. I love it. I think there’s nothing so pretty as a city.” Pete looks away from the city, to the sight of Patrick, candlelight catching the ginger highlights in the hair peeking out from underneath Patrick’s hat. “Well,” he amends. “Maybe some things are as pretty.”

Patrick’s lush mouth tips upward briefly, the barest hint of a smile, and Pete’s pretty sure Patrick is looking at his mouth, and they are close enough together that—

The service droid arrives with their meals and a fresh bottle of champagne.

Patrick moves away, settles back in his chair, digs into his fish.

Pete clears his throat and drinks more champagne.

“It’s so weird,” Patrick comments, around a bite of his meal.

“What is?” Pete asks.

“How you ended up in Chicago. In my studio. How did you?”

There is no artifice in this question. Patrick is asking it utterly without guile. There is only honest curiosity in Patrick’s face.

Pete panics into a gulp of champagne, before saying, “I told you I’m from Chicago. Sometimes I go back to visit.”

“No, I know. But you’ve never said how you wandered into my studio. No one ever comes into my studio.”

“That’s probably because it says ‘muic’ and nobody knows what the hell that is.”

Patrick laughs, light and easy, and says, “Shut up,” with the fondest look.

And Pete can’t say it, cannot say it, even though his mouth opens to say it, and what comes out is, “Call it fate.”

“Fate?” Patrick echoes. He doesn’t sound persuaded.

“I mean.” Pete scrambles for something to say. “There aren’t many producers out there still using soundboards.”

“How did you even know I was using a soundboard?” Patrick sounds honestly perplexed by the entire turn of events.

“I can’t remember,” Pete says desperately. “I think someone told me.”

“Who?”

“I don’t know. Someone at a club somewhere, or something, I was drunk, I don’t remember, look, the important thing is I turned up there, right? For whatever reason, whatever I was looking for, what I found was you. And that’s what’s important. Right?”

“Yeah,” Patrick agrees without hesitation. “It’s just that…you’re the only interesting thing to ever walk through that door. I can’t get over how lucky that was.”

“Yes,” Pete says, filling Patrick’s champagne glass up. “So super lucky. Did I ever tell you about the time that I accidentally killed all of my parents’ androids because I thought they needed a bath?”

Patrick laughs. “You can’t kill an android, they’re not alive.”

“Right,” says Pete. “Yes. I know. I was a weird kid. I always had a hard time with that. Everybody else gets that so easily, and I just struggled and struggled with it.”

“You weren’t a weird kid. You always think you’re so weird. And I read your words and I think, That’s how everyone feels sometimes, you’re just the only one able to put it into words. Why do you think you’re so weird?”

“Because everyone told me I was for the first quarter-century of my life. Actually, they still do. You’re the only one who doesn’t. Why do you think you’re not the most talented person in any room?”

“Because everyone told me I wasn’t for the first quarter-century of my life. Actually, they still do. You’re the only one who doesn’t,” Patrick replies.

“I don’t get that. How does anyone listen to you and not think you’re incredible?”

“I’m not good at singing in front of other people,” Patrick says, turning his champagne flute around and around, watching his fingers do it. Pete glances down, briefly transfixed by Patrick’s fingers, before looking back up to Patrick’s face. “I don’t do it. I never have. So it would be hard for anyone to hear my incredible voice if I don’t let them.”

Pete is bewildered. Patrick says this to him, over and over, but Pete can’t make it make sense. Patrick sold his voice for an android, Patrick has to have sung in front of other people. But Pete can’t ask about that without giving away that he knew Patrick’s voice before he met Patrick, so instead he says, “But you sang to me so easily that day. Like it was no big thing.”

“I know.” Patrick lifts one shoulder in a shrug. “I can’t explain it. I spent the whole time you were reciting poetry choking on how much I wanted to sing to you.” Patrick looks up from his champagne, finally, and meets Pete’s eyes. “You make me want to sing to you.”

It is quite possibly the sexiest thing anyone has ever said to him, and Pete closes his eyes briefly against the shudder of longing it provokes in him. He wants to make Patrick sing, forever and ever and ever.

He opens his eyes and Patrick is watching him, blue-green eyes dark and heavy-lidded. Pete knows those eyes now. He’s looked into them in all sorts of circumstances. He’s not sure he’s ever seen them look exactly like this.

Pete licks his lips and manages to say, “That’s all you have to do then. You just have to get up at the club and…sing to me.”

Patrick’s gaze is impossible, Pete can’t bear it, he can’t breathe in it, he is going to suffocate in it, and it’s the best way to die. “You make it sound so easy,” murmurs Patrick. “It’s not. You have no idea.”

“Patrick,” Pete says, ridiculously breathless considering he hasn’t even been touched. “If you really didn’t think I was ever going to get us a gig. What did you think we were doing all this time.”

There is a long fraught moment of silence. Pete is terrified the service droid is going to come back before Patrick answers the question.

But it doesn’t, and Patrick keeps his eyes on Pete and says, “I don’t know. I guess I thought we were falling in love.”

Pete’s breath vanishes. His heart tumbles over itself. He stares at Patrick and thinks, Has he been falling in love with me while I’ve been falling in love with him? It seems too good to be true, to have Patrick, in front of him, already talking of love.

The service droid says, “Would you like dessert?”

Pete wants dessert but not here. He wants dessert that involves considerably less clothing.

“We’re going,” he tells the service droid, without taking his eyes off Patrick.

Patrick nods.

***

There's a moment where they jostle over the check, with Patrick insisting they split it.

“Don't be ridiculous,” Pete tells him. “I'm the one who took you to this showoffy place to try to get into your pants. Why would I make you pay for that?”

“That isn't why you took me here,” Patrick says knowingly. “You took me here because you're a hopeless fucking romantic.”

“That's a lie,” Pete says. “I'm only interested in your dick.”

Patrick sits back, smirking, arms crossed, and watches Pete with those blue eyes hot and relentless, such that Pete fumbles with his phone through the payment. When it finally goes through, Patrick says, “I'm paying for the next one.”

“Joke's on you,” Pete says, “we're not leaving my house ever again, we're just going to live there, clothes-less.”

“And apparently hungry,” Patrick remarks, following Pete to the elevator.

“We will feast on each other,” Pete announces grandly, calling them a car.

Patrick snorts. “If you sent me lyrics that bad, this would never have gotten this far.”

He's such a snide asshole, Pete thinks, dazzled, and can't help but kiss him as soon as they're outside, hauling him in by the upturned collar of his coat.

And once he's kissing Patrick Stump, he can't understand why he didn't kiss him as soon as he saw him. Clearly all of the secrets of the universe are contained in Patrick Stump's mouth, the slide of his tongue, the bite of his teeth. The digital era can never create anything like the experience of kissing Patrick Stump. Patrick is not a gentle kisser, he's a possessive one, he kisses like he's been waiting for Pete for ages and he's never going to let him go now that he has him, his hands are cupped around Pete's face, holding him just so, just where he wants him. It's Pete who starts the kiss but it's definitely Patrick who finishes it.

He pulls back and Pete flutters his eyes open with effort. He's glad he did, because Patrick looks gorgeously well-kissed, his pupils blown wide, color high on his cheeks, lips shiny and swollen and so alluring that Pete can't help that he presses his thumb to the bottom one. Patrick nips at the pad of it and Pete actually groans.

“Your phone is ringing,” Patrick says, his mouth shaping the word against Pete's thumb.

“Oh. Right. The car,” says Pete, and there it is, waiting for them obediently.

They tumble into the backseat and immediately resume kissing and it's quickly out of control, wet and messy and filthy, and Pete squirms onto Patrick's lap, because if he doesn't get closer he will die.

There are advantages to driverless cars that the government is always trying to crack down on.

“We're going to get fined,” Pete gasps as Patrick bites the pulse point in his neck.

“Then let's get our money's worth,” Patrick growls into Pete's collar bone, and presses his hand against Pete's painfully trapped erection.

Pete whimpers and rocks against the pressure. “Oh, fuck, that's not playing fair, I have to somehow walk into the apartment after this.”

“Who told you to wear the tightest jeans on the planet?” Patrick asks, and fucking rubs.

Pete sees the dazzle of stars, his hips stuttering. “Fucking…” he trails off breathlessly, dropping his head to press his face into Patrick's neck.

“You're so hard,” says Patrick's fucking voice in his ear, “I don't even know if I could get you out of these jeans right now to blow you.”

“Christ,” Pete says, and knocks Patrick's hat off his head so he can get his hands in that elusive hair of his and just fucking pull on it.

“It doesn't matter,” Patrick continues against Pete's ear, “I could finish you just like this, when's the last time you came in your pants?”

Pete makes a strangled sound, drowning in Patrick, destroyed, demolished. He feels like rubble scattered around him, nothing but heady sensations he can't connect together, the needy tiny noises he's making into Patrick's skin, the greedy way his hips keep bucking forward against the fabric that keeps Patrick's hand from skin contact with Pete's cock.

“Do you know the way you look when I sing?” Patrick goes on. “You get this look in your eyes. I dream of that look. Sometimes I think, when I see that look…” Patrick takes his hand away, and Pete desperately writhes closer to him, seeking any friction at all at that moment. Patrick drops his voice into a wicked whisper, mouth directly on Pete's ear. “When I see that look, I wonder if I could get you off with just the sound of my voice.”

And Pete comes so fucking hard he hurtles directly to the center of the fucking universe.

***

Pete is collapsed on Patrick, panting damply against his neck, and he’s sweaty and gross and also he’s never moving again in his life so Patrick’s going to have to just fucking deal.

Patrick noses along Pete’s temple, blurs a kiss there. “You have no idea how long I’ve wanted to do that.”

“Oh,” Pete mumbles into Patrick’s skin. “I bet I do.”

Patrick chuckles and smooths a hand over Pete’s hair.

Pete manages, “Fucking Christ, where did all those words come from? Why am I in charge of words when you have words like that in you?”

Patrick laughs and keep carding his fingers through Pete’s hair. “Those are easy words.”

“Nothing comes as easy as you,” Pete murmurs.

“Nothing comes as easy as you,” Patrick counters.

“Oh, ha ha,” says Pete. “I’m putting you in charge of all sex words from now on. That’s our division of labor. Me, non-sex words. You, sex words.”

“Much as I wish to continue this conversation,” Patrick says, “I feel obligated to point out that this car stopped moving a while ago and you’re probably being charged an arm and a leg for this ride.”

Pete sits up quickly. “Oh, fuck, we’re still in the car.”

“Yeah.” Patrick looks rueful. “I’ll pay for all this.”

Pete leans forward and kisses him fondly. “Shut the fuck up,” he says, “it’s money well spent.”

Patrick kisses him back, grinning. “Bet I can do better in an actual bed.”

Pete laughs, delighted. Patrick is so fun. Patrick is a thousand times better than the best dream Pete has ever had. Pete says playfully, “I can’t wait to see you try,” and gets out of the car. He’s sure he looks absolutely wrecked but he doesn’t even care. Patrick clutches his guitar case but lets Pete take his bag, and Pete hopes everyone they pass looks at them and knows this hot guitar-carrying guy just gave Pete an incredible orgasm.

Sadly, they don’t really pass anyone. All of the passersby are far down the sidewalk, and the lobby of Pete’s building is deserted except for the service droid who says, “Welcome home, Mr. Wentz,” and nothing at all to Patrick because he hasn’t been programmed in.

Patrick looks around in open curiosity and whistles. “Writing pays well.”

“Writing pays atrociously,” Pete says, as the elevator the service droid called opens for them. “This is mostly trust fund money. I’ve got this trust fund I’m allowed dribs and drabs of, if my parents think I’m spending it responsibly.”

“From your tone of voice, I assume they don’t think you ever spend it responsibly.”

“They do think I need a roof over my head,” Pete replies, amused. “And they’re relieved I have a career of sorts. They thought I’d never make anything of myself.”

“Why do you say things like that?” Patrick asks. “Stop it. You’re quick and clever and agile with words. Why wouldn’t you have made something of yourself?”

“Why are you always saying that you can’t sing in front of other people?” Pete counters.

“Because I suffer from crippling shyness,” Patrick says drily. “A problem you clearly do not share.”

“You just got me off in the back of a car,” Pete retorts, “don’t pretend you’re shy.”

Patrick looks slyly pleased with himself but also thoughtful. “I’m not any of the things I’m supposed to be with you.”

And so Pete has to kiss him.

The elevator finally reaches his floor, and Pete stumbles out and presses his thumb against his lock.

“Slow elevator,” Patrick remarks, following him.

“That’s why I live in this building. Anti-tech, right?” Pete flashes a smile at him and opens the door, sweeping his arm toward his living room. “Welcome.” He bows low and mockingly.

Patrick walks past him, then yanks him in and closes the door and presses him back against it. “Love what you’ve done with the place,” he breathes, and then kisses him.

Pete twists his hands in Patrick’s shirt and tugs him in closer, and then Patrick does the opposite of what he’s supposed to be doing and pulls back, looking down.

“Oh!” he exclaims, a bright smile creasing his face. “It’s Hemingway!” He crouches down to the dog leaping around his feet. “Hello, Hemmy, it’s so great to finally meet you.”

Hemmy bounces around in a rapture, like Patrick is his favorite person of all time and he’s so delighted he decided to visit.

“Oh, my God,” Pete says, “did you literally just stop making out with me to pet my dog?”

“Not everyday I get to pet a real dog,” Patrick says, still smiling, scratching behind Hemmy’s ears.

“I’ll give you a real dog to pet,” Pete grumbles, and yanks Patrick up and away from Hemmy.

Patrick laughs, letting Pete lead him to the bedroom.

Pete tosses over his shoulder at Hemingway, who’s following them with a few gruffly unapproving barks, “Give us an hour, Hemmy, then I’ll take you for a walk.” And then he rudely closes the bedroom door on him.

“An hour,” Patrick remarks. “You are grossly underestimating how fucking much I want you.”

“Oh, yeah?” Pete pushes him back onto the bed. “Let’s see.” Then he clambers happily on top of him, spreading him out like a feast just for him. Which he is. He’s the best feast.

Pete tells him that, nosing along Patrick’s collarbone. “You’re the best dessert.”

“Uh-huh,” Patrick agrees, hands in Pete’s hair.

Pete smiles and pushes his shirt up and goes to work mapping every freckle on Patrick’s pale chest. Pete’s fantasized about the freckles hidden underneath Patrick’s clothing, he can’t wait to find all of them.

He lavishes attention on Patrick’s navel and the trail of hair below it, getting rid of Patrick’s jeans and underwear as he goes, and then there is just Patrick’s cock, there in front of him, gorgeous and inviting. Patrick has let go of Pete’s hair, probably out of politeness, his hands fisting into the bedspread instead. Pete glances up at him. He’s watching, his head tilted up toward Pete, so Pete shows off, because that’s what Pete does, taking Patrick in as deep as he can and then swallowing around him. Patrick makes a strangled sound and throws his head back against Pete’s bed, and Pete smiles smugly as he pulls off.

“Hey, Trick,” he says, “where are all your fancy words now?”

Patrick kicks him and says hoarsely, “Assho—”

He doesn’t finish because Pete goes back to work, and Patrick makes amazing noises, musical moans that send shivers of thrill all the way down to Pete’s toes. Pete would have said he couldn’t get it up again so soon after that orgasm in the car, and it turns out he’s very wrong about that, because Patrick’s groaning is singing, just for him, and Pete is going to be even more destroyed by Patrick’s singing than usual after this.

He moves restlessly, even as he focuses on the blowjob, getting his own jeans off to get his hard-on a little relief, and Patrick is close, he can tell from the pitch of his moans and the way he can’t quite help the thrusts of his hips toward Pete’s mouth, and then his hands abruptly fasten in Pete’s hair and tug him off and then up.

“Patrick—” Pete starts, but Patrick kisses him, deeply, and Pete knows he must taste like Patrick, and the idea makes him dizzy.

Patrick pulls back from the kiss to gasp, “Let me,” and then his hand unexpectedly closes on Pete’s cock.

“Oh, fuck,” Pete says, thrusting into Patrick’s fist reflexively. “But it was your turn.”

“Together,” Patrick says, “I want it together,” and he gets a hand around both of them, slippery and imprecise but so good that Pete can’t stand it. He covers Patrick’s hand with his own, and Patrick’s free hand slips under Pete’s shirt, slides along his back, guitar callouses raising goosebumps against him, and Pete says, “Patrick,” brokenly, and Patrick says, “Pete,” and kisses his ear and comes only a few seconds before Pete.

The digital world has no equivalent to fucking Patrick Stump.

“Together,” Pete pants, newly breathless at the sight of Patrick, boneless and sated, sprawled underneath him. “Who’s the fucking hopeless romantic now?”

Patrick laughs and says, “That’s a you thing, too.”

His eyes are closed, his eyelashes a ring of gold against his cheeks. Pete kisses them and says, “Lucky me,” and lets himself snuggle tight up against Patrick.

“Lucky you,” Patrick echoes. “Lucky me.”

They’re a sweaty disgusting mess, and any second now Pete is going to get up and find them washcloths and make sure Patrick is comfortable and get them under the covers and oh, any number of things. Except that just now he’s going to lay with his head pillowed on Patrick’s shoulder, drifting in contentment.

It’s Patrick who moves, and Pete makes a protesting sound, but Patrick says, “Shh, shh, shh,” and Pete is dimly aware of his movements around the room, of the washcloth he must find in the bathroom, of the jostling to get the covers up over him.

“Come back to bed,” Pete says sleepily, even as he cuddles into the covers.

“In a second,” Patrick whispers. “Where do you keep your override key?”

“My what?” Pete is too close to sleep to process what Patrick is asking.

“For your apartment. I’m going to go walk Hemingway for you.”

“Oh, fuck,” Pete remembers, and forces his eyes open. His eyelids feel like they’re weighed down with lead. “You don’t have to. I’ll do it.”

“Pete, you’re mostly asleep, and you have a much more complicated relationship with sleep than I do, so you stay here, and you sleep, and I’ll take your dog for a walk, if you tell me how to get back in without your thumbprint.”

Pete’s too tired to even argue. “Nightstand,” he says, and turns his face into the pillow. He thinks he hears Patrick going through the nightstand but he’s not even sure.

***

When he wakes up, it’s the middle of the night and Patrick is back in bed. Pete is tucked up close beside him, and instead of creeping away to avoid him, the way most people who share a bed with Pete do, Patrick has an arm curled around him to keep him close, and it’s so nice, and so perfect, that Pete can’t stand it. Pete does the only thing he can think of to do, which is to reach over for the moleskine by the bed and rip out a page and scrawl words on it. Nothing comes as easy as you Can I lay in your bed all day? I’ll be your best-kept secret and your biggest mistake Hand behind this pen relives a failure everyday He tosses it somewhere in the vicinity of the nightstand.

Hemingway had apparently been sleeping at the foot of the bed, because at all of Pete’s movements he trots up to give Pete a good-morning lick.

“It’s not morning,” Pete tells him. “Go back to sleep.”

This is such an unusual directive from Pete that Hemingway tilts his head at him in confusion, but when Pete re-snuggles into Patrick, Hemmy takes the hint and snuggles on the other side of him, and Pete can’t get over how perfect his life is.

***

When Pete wakes up again, his bed is completely empty, and for a moment of seizing terror he wonders if it’s possible he dreamed the whole thing. But then he can hear the unusual sound of someone else moving in the apartment, the low murmur of Patrick’s voice, apparently talking to Hemingway, because the dog barks in response to whatever Patrick’s saying.

Pete rolls out of bed, yawning, and pulls on underwear and walks out into the apartment.

Patrick is sitting at the dining room table with a mug in front of him that smells like it’s coffee. Hemmy is sitting by his chair, and Patrick has a book open in front of him but seems much more engaged in leaning down to scratch behind Hemmy’s ears. Hemmy doesn’t move from the petting at the sight of Pete, just barks hello and wags his tail to indicate he has a new favorite person.

“You’ve stolen his heart from me,” Pete accuses.

Patrick beams. “I’ve never spent so much time with a real dog before. He’s great. Why don’t more people have real dogs?”

“Because he’s a pain in the ass,” says Pete, knowing nobody is ever fooled for a minute that Pete doesn’t absolutely adore Hemingway.

“Are you just going to walk around, like, naked from now on?” Patrick asks, eyeing Pete’s chest.

“Probably,” Pete says, and drops into the chair next to Patrick. “The real question is why you’re dressed. It’s a gross, rainy day and we should be lazy.”

“I’m dressed because I don’t look like you. Taking my shirt off is not a thing I usually do willingly.”

Pete scoffs.

Patrick ignores him and traces a finger over the chain of thorns tattooed around his neck. “I’m going to make you tell me about every single one of these tattoos.”

“I look forward to it,” Pete says around another yawn, and tips forward to snuggle his head against Patrick’s shoulder.

Patrick is the best snuggler. Patrick lets him snuggle his full, and says, “Welcome back,” as he kisses his temple.

“Hmm?” Pete asks sleepily. “From where?”

“Wherever people go when they sleep.”

“I didn’t go anywhere. I’ve been right here.”

“I did go in a couple of times to make sure you were still breathing.”

“Huh?” says Pete, confused. “That’s a little…morbid.”

“Well, you slept, like, sixteen hours, and in my experience you usually sleep more like three or four.”

Pete’s head pops up and he stares at Patrick in alarm. “I what? What time is it?”

“Two,” says Patrick.

“In the afternoon?” exclaims Pete. “Oh, fuck, we have to go.”

“What?” Patrick blinks at him.

“We have to go.” Pete jumps up from his seat, exciting Hemmy, who bounces around him, barking.

“Go where? You just said we could be lazy.”

“Because I thought it was, like, seven a.m. I asked the club if we could get in to practice, we have to go.”

“You did what?”

Pete, even as he scurries down the hallway to get dressed, doesn’t miss the panic in Patrick’s voice. “You’ll be fine,” he calls back to him, and hunts for clothes that might be considered clean-ish.

Patrick appears in the bedroom doorway. “But,” he says. “Um.”

Pete can’t believe he didn’t clean before Patrick came over. He says that. “I can’t believe I didn’t pick all this up for you.”

“Pete, I’ve seen it all before, did you think you were hiding it in the background on all those video calls?”

“I don’t know,” Pete says, flustered. “I guess I never really thought about it.” He finds an acceptable pair of jeans and pulls them on.

“Trust me, I am not worrying about your disastrous bedroom floor,” says Patrick.

“You shouldn’t be worrying at all,” Pete says, and pulls a random t-shirt over his head. “It’s just us. No one else. No audience. Not even Andy.” Pete goes up to Patrick and kisses him in what he hopes is a soothing way.

“Who’s Andy?” asks Patrick.

“Oh,” says Pete. “I may have forgotten to say. I got us a drummer.”

Patrick stares.

Pete ruffles at his hair in lieu of combing it. “We needed a live drummer. We can’t play a gig off of backing tracks. I’d prefer to get us a lead guitarist, too, but I didn’t have enough time, so we’ll just struggle through.”

“A drummer,” Patrick repeats flatly. “Does the drummer know you’ve picked yourself a lead singer with stage fright?”

“The drummer knows I picked myself a lead singer with the best voice I’ve ever heard who writes songs people are going to love. That’s the important thing. How’s my hair look?”

“What?” says Patrick.

Pete grins at him.

***

The club’s manager lets them in and doesn’t even seem fazed by how late they are. As long as they finish by five, she says, then it’s fine. Mostly she is effusive in her praise of William Beckett’s beautiful eyes.

When she leaves Pete and Patrick alone on the stage, Patrick says in confusion, “Who the fuck is William Beckett?”

“My friend who got us into this club. He does have beautiful eyes. Okay. So. Here’s the stage.”

“I can see that,” Patrick says.

“I’m just trying to, you know, talk you through this.”

“I’ve seen a stage before.”

Patrick’s a little snappish because Patrick is clearly nervous, fiddling with the brim of his hat. That much is pretty obvious. Pete doesn’t take it personally. He just says affably, “Okay.”

Patrick fiddles with the microphone on a stand at the front of the stage, then says abruptly to Pete, “Have you ever done this before?”

Pete shakes his head, tuning his guitar. “Just slam poetry.”

“So how are you so calm?”

Pete smiles at him. “Because I have the best lead singer on the planet.”

Patrick makes a face. “You’re going to do all the work, right? Like, all the hard part. Talking to them and stuff.”

“That’s all me. All you have to do is sing.”

Patrick takes a deep breath and looks at the microphone, then nods. “Okay. Let’s do this. What’s the first song?”

“‘Grand Theft Autumn,’” Pete says. “You’re going to do an acapella opening with the chorus.”

Patrick looks at him in alarm. “What?”

“I thought it would stress you out more to have to hit a cue. This way you start singing when you’re ready. Andy and I will pick it up from your lead-in. You’ll set the pace and everything.”

Patrick nods reflectively. “Okay. That makes sense. You’ve thought about this.”

“Of course I have. Patrick, I don’t want this to be a miserable experience for you. I want you to do as magnificently as I know you can.”

“Christ,” Patrick mutters, “I don’t know where you get this idea from.” But then he starts singing “Grand Theft Autumn” and his voice rings out perfectly over the room, and Pete smiles. He knows exactly where he gets this idea from.

Patrick gains in momentum as he keeps singing. When he gets them through the first song without incident, he heads easily into “Dead on Arrival” and “Postcards from a Plane Crash.” By the time they hit “Chicago Is So Two Years Ago,” Patrick’s voice is soaring into the chorus, curling its way around the bitter bridge, and there is not an iota of hesitation around him.

When he finishes he steps back. He’s breathing heavily and his hair is plastered to his forehead underneath his hat. He looks uncertain as he looks at Pete. “I think that wasn’t bad, right?” he says.

Pete kisses him.

***

They order in that night and curl up on the couch together to watch a movie. Pete tucks himself up against Patrick’s side and puts his head on Patrick’s shoulder and says, “This is way better than when you were just a video by my side.”

“It’s okay, I guess,” Patrick says, but he’s smiling.

The movie they watch together is an old slasher film, and Pete is bubbling over with his review of it as they get ready for bed, and he’s not expecting to come out of the bathroom to Patrick looking reflectively at a piece of paper.

“I didn’t mean to snoop,” he says, looking up at Pete. “It was on the nightstand.” He holds it up so Pete can see the poetry he scribbled last night. “When did you write this?”

“Last night,” Pete replies. “I woke up in the middle of the night and you were sleeping and the lines occurred to me.”

Patrick looks back down at the words, frowning a little.

“You don’t like them?” Pete says. “It’s fine, we don’t have to use them.”

“No,” Patrick says. “It’s just…” Patrick reaches out and pulls Pete in. “You can definitely lay in my bed all day, but you’re neither a secret nor a mistake.”

Pete tries to manage a smile. “Give it a couple of weeks, you might think differently.”

“I won’t,” Patrick says. “How could I? I won’t. Pete.” Patrick kisses his cheek gently. “Write me soft words,” he murmurs quietly.

Pete takes a strangled breath and admits, just as quietly, “I don’t know if I can. I don’t know if I have them in me.”

“We’re going to find them,” Patrick says. “I promise.”

***

The next day at the club, Pete introduces Patrick to Andy.

“Don’t say anything about what a terrible singer you are,” Pete tells him in the car on the way over.

Patrick gives him a look but says, “Fine.”

“He already knows about your stage fright, so you don’t have to bring that up, either.”

“He knows about my stage fright?” Patrick repeats, sounding alarmed.

“Well, I didn’t want him to be mean to you,” Pete says.

Patrick looks even more alarmed. “Why would he be mean to me? Am I terrible?”

“No,” Pete says. “Calm down. You’re fantastic. I just wanted to make sure he wasn’t, like, harsh to you. You can take all the time you need between songs, or whatever. I don’t want him to rush you.”

“I think I’d rather just play straight through once we get started,” Patrick says.

“Then we’ll do it your way,” Pete promises. “Whatever you need, Trickster.”

“Let’s be honest, I probably need a lot of alcohol,” says Patrick.

“It’s a club. That can be arranged.”

Pete chose Andy because he’d known him for a long time and he’s kind of unflappable. He just says, “Cool, dude,” to Patrick when Pete introduces them. And then, “I like your stuff. The songs are fun to play to.”

“I’m a drummer,” Patrick blurts out. “I mean, also. In addition to being…a singer, I guess. I’m not really a singer at all. I played the drums first. They were my first instrument.”

“Cool, dude,” Andy says, still unflappable.

“Let’s give things a try,” Pete suggests.

Pete is expecting it to be rocky, introducing another musician for Patrick to coordinate with, but Andy is so professional, and Patrick’s so familiar with their songs, that actually it moves effortlessly. Pete’s kind of shocked how great it all goes.

Patrick looks pleased, too, and it’s the first time Pete’s seen Patrick look pleased on the stage. On the way home he says, “That went well, right? I thought it went well.”

“Are you fucking kidding?” says Pete. “It was fantastic. We’re going to blow everyone away.”

“Andy’s good. Good choice. That was a good idea.”

“Thanks,” says Pete.

“Thank you,” Patrick says. “For doing, like, all the work here.”

Pete smiles at him. “That was the deal, remember?”

***

In bed that night, when Patrick is post-coitally sleepy and so much more compliant and inclined to agree than he might be at other times, Pete whispers, “Psst.”

“Hmm,” Patrick responds, not opening his eyes.

“Tomorrow I’m going to ask my friends to come to the club when we rehearse. We need to practice with an audience.”

“Okay,” Patrick agrees.

***

“Why the fuck did I fucking agree to a fucking audience?” Patrick demands. “With your friends? That’s even worse. I could probably handle strangers. But these are your friends. They’re going to stand there and think that your boyfriend is pathetic.”

Pete knows he should be focusing on Patrick’s little meltdown here, but he’s caught by the word boyfriend. “Are we boyfriends?” he asks.

“Do not even get me off on a fucking tangent about how long you’ve been my boyfriend without even fucking noticing because you’ve got some weird idea about the appropriate level of sexual flirtation you should have with your friends.”

“I’ve got inappropriate friends,” Pete replies. “Kisses on the necks of best friends are fairly common in my world.”

“I can’t do this,” Patrick announces. “Clearly I can’t do this. I don’t even have anything appropriate to wear.”

“You’re going to wear what you always wear,” Pete says soothingly. “This isn’t a black-tie affair.”

“How are your friends even able to show up at clubs in the middle of the day?” says Patrick sourly. “Don’t they have jobs?”

“It’s Saturday,” Pete points out.

“Do they know I have stage fright? Did you tell them?” Patrick sounds disapproving.

Pete had texted William and Gabe, Patrick has stage fright so say SUPER NICE AND SUPPORTIVE THINGS.

“No,” he lies.

Patrick gives him a narrow-eyed look.

“Okay,” Pete says, “let’s just go. Let’s just go to the club, and when we get there, if you don’t feel like singing, then we just go out for drinks instead.”

“Only you would think that it’s less stressful for me to have to meet all of your friends.”

“My friends are nice,” Pete protests, bewildered. “They’re going to love you. They love everyone who’s nice to me, and you’re super nice to me.”

“And if we get to the club and I’m too panicked to sing, then everyone will know I was too panicked to sing. Fuck.” Patrick had been pacing but now he sits down heavily on the couch next to Pete and closes his eyes. “I don’t know if I’m going to be able to do this.”

“You’ve been fine the past couple of days,” Pete points out.

“Yeah, because it was just you. I can sing to you.”

“Andy was there yesterday, you sang just fine.”

“He’s like a backing track. He’s not someone staring at me waiting for me to fuck up.”

“No one’s going to be waiting for you to fuck up. No one knows what the songs sound like, so they couldn’t.”

“There’s that whole guitar interlude in ‘Grand Theft Autumn,’” Patrick says, “when there’s no singing, and everyone’s just going to be staring.”

“You know what?” Pete says confidently. “That’s when you find me. You come find me, and we’ll play through it together, just you and me, like it’s just the two of us. No one watching. Just us. You find me, and I’ll find you. Okay?”

Patrick looks skeptically over at Pete, and then sighs. “You haven’t been wrong yet.”

“I’m a genius,” Pete agrees.

“Fuck,” Patrick says, “you’re such an asshole.”

“This is why my friends are going to love you,” Pete grins.

***

“Do you want to meet them before the show?” Pete asks Patrick. “Or do you want to just play?”

Patrick looks a little green and says, “Just play.”

So Pete waves Gabe and William away when they looked like they were going to come over.

“Okay,” Pete says to Patrick in a low voice. “Just you and me on the stage together. Right? Sing it to me.”

Patrick nods. Patrick glances at Andy, who nods as well. Patrick clears his throat and fiddles with his hat and steps up to the microphone. And Patrick sings the lead-in to “Grand Theft Autumn.”

He’s tight and tense, Pete can tell because he knows him well, but he’s not sure anyone else would. It’s endearing, though, how when they hit the instrumental bit, Patrick almost whirls away from the microphone in desperation. Pete is right there next to him, as he’d promised he would be, and they curl together and play through the solo together, and they’re close enough that Pete can feel Patrick taking deep breaths, like Pete’s presence is calming him down.

So that, after that, Pete watches him closely, and whenever he thinks Patrick is getting too much in his own head, he sidles up to him and puts his head on his shoulder, or murmurs soothing nonsense in his ear, or kisses his neck. You and me, Pete is trying to say with all of this. It’s just you and me. Patrick never pushes him away, and sometimes he doesn’t acknowledge him at all, but at other times when Pete backs away, he sends him a split-second grin of obvious gratitude, so Pete keeps doing it.

By the time they hit “Chicago Is So Two Years Ago,” Patrick has once again settled in, and Pete glances out at Gabe and William, wishing he could hear all over again, for the first time, Patrick’s voice on the chorus. There’s a light on in Chicago, Patrick sings, and Pete’s heart climbs with the notes.

When the song’s over, when the gig’s done, Patrick lets his guitar reverberate with a little showy flourish that tells Pete he’s feeling good about what they just did. Gabe and William whistle and applaud from in front of them and Patrick turns to Pete, with a grin splitting his face in two.

“We did it,” he says jubilantly. “We fucking did it.”

“Told you,” Pete says, smug as anything, and Patrick flips him off.

***

“Come meet my friends,” Pete says when they get off stage, and he can tell Patrick’s feeling good about the show, because he just happily agrees.

William comes up to Patrick and gives him a solemn hug, then steps back and says, “Sometimes Pete isn’t right about things. Pete was right about you.”

“Thanks,” Patrick says. “I think.”

“No, no, it’s a good thing this time,” William says, and smiles at him. “Introduce us, Pete.”

“This is William Beckett, and this is Gabe Saporta, and this is Patrick Stump,” Pete says. “And before it ever even comes up, he’s not sleeping with either one of you.”

Patrick blinks.

Gabe doesn’t blink. He says smoothly, “What about both of us?”

“Nope,” says Pete.

“I’m…flattered…?” Patrick says uncertainly.

“Okay, stop, both of you,” William says, and smiles at Patrick again. “That was fantastic. That was utterly fantastic. You wrote all those songs?”

“Well, with Pete,” Patrick says. “Pete writes the words.”

“They were fantastic. You’re going to knock everyone dead,” William says, sweet and supportive, because William is his nice friend.

Gabe says, “Yo, let’s grab drinks so we can decide if you’re good enough for Pete,” because Gabe is his terrible friend.

Pete glares at him.

But Patrick just smiles, because Patrick is clearly in an extremely good mood, and says, “Sure. Drinks. Let’s go.”

***

Gabe chooses the place, a dive bar in between both of their houses where they’ve been before. Gabe gets hailed like a returning hero when he walks in, accepting the adulation as his due, and Patrick says, “Oh, do you come here a lot?”

“No,” William responds drily, “Gabe’s just very memorable.”

“We’re both memorable,” Gabe shoots over his shoulder at William, and winks.

Pete says urgently to Patrick, “Please ignore everything they say this entire night, they’re horrible people and I don’t know why they’re my friends.”

Patrick just laughs, and they slide into a table together.

After they order drinks from the service droid, Patrick says, “Oh, hey, so, William, I guess I should thank you for, like, getting us the gig, and whatever.”

William looks amused by him. “No problem. Pete begged, and Pete’s very pretty when he begs.”

“That’s not what happened,” Pete inserts.

“I bet he is,” Patrick says, and squeezes Pete’s thigh under the table.

Pete is momentarily speechless.

Gabe comes to the table from placing bets on the dart game going on across the room and says immediately, “So. Patrick. Pete says you’ve got a stage fright problem.”

Pete kicks Gabe violently and says between gritted teeth, “No, I didn’t.”

“Oops,” Gabe says cheerfully. “I only bring it up to say you were phenomenal. You don’t need to be at all worried. You’ve got an incredible voice.”

“Thanks. I’m not…” Patrick hesitates, then says, “I’m still not used to singing in front of people. I’ve really never sung before in my life.”

Gabe stares at him. “You haven’t? But…”

Pete kicks him again to make sure he doesn’t bring up the android, and luckily the drinks arrive to distract all of them.

Patrick says, “So tell me how you two know Pete.”

Gabe and William look pleased at this topic.

“Everyone knows Pete,” William says. “He collects people.”

“That makes it sound creepy,” Pete protests.

“It’s not creepy. You’re a connector.” William looks at Patrick and repeats for his benefit, “He’s a connector. He brings people together. I don’t even remember how we met.” William looks back at Pete. “What was it? Mutual friends, or something?”

“Yeah.” Pete shrugs, because he doesn’t remember either. William was one of his first New York friends, and he’d been in a bit of a fog when he first moved to New York. “Someone knew someone who knew you, or something, and said we both had pretty eyes, or something.”

“Were you set up on a date?” asks Patrick, sounding amused, looking between them curiously.

“No.” William laughs. “We’d be disastrous dating. Pete’s too good and pure, my type is awful people like Gabe.”

“Thanks, Bilvy,” Gabe says, and kisses his cheek.

“And then Pete also knew Gabe, somehow,” William continues.

“It was, like, a neighbor, or something, who Gabe did some kind of deal with, or something,” says Pete.

“Right,” William says. “And then Pete introduced us.”

“And the rest is history,” Gabe says, and picks up William’s hand and kisses his knuckle with a sweet, fond smile.

Gabe and William are annoying as fuck but they are sweet with each other when they want to be, Pete thinks.

“Aww,” Patrick says, and looks at Pete. “Look at you. Matchmaker.”

“I am very good at other people’s love lives,” Pete says sardonically.

“Don’t be like that,” Gabe says, “something tells me yours is looking up?”

Patrick actually blushes, and it’s so charming Pete can’t stand it. “Maybe,” he allows.

***

Gabe somehow convinces Pete that they should play darts, even though they’re both terrible at darts. Pete blames the beer and also some kind of foolish desire to be impressive to Patrick, even though playing darts is the least likely thing to make him look impressive to Patrick. But Patrick watches him fondly, his hat tipped askew to the side so he can see him clearly, and Pete forgets to feel silly about how terrible he is at darts.

He also fails entirely to think through the fact that while he and Gabe are being terrible at darts, William is talking to Patrick. When Pete glances back at them, they’re deep in conversation, looking very serious, and Pete frowns.

“Bro,” Gabe says, handing him his darts. “Let’s just not do points.”

Pete blinks away from Patrick and William to look at Gabe. “So we’re just throwing these things at that board for no reason?”

“Yup,” says Gabe, and flings a dart at the board, then comments, “I honestly think I’d be better at this game if I closed my eyes.”

“What’s William talking to Patrick about?” Pete demands, feeling set-up.

“His intentions toward you,” Gabe replies lightly. “Is he going to make an honest man out of you?”

“Gabe,” Pete says, and gives him a little shove.

“What? You know we worry about you. He just wants to make sure that we like him.”

“I don’t even know what difference it makes,” Pete fumes, and throws his own dart kind of blindly at the board. “We all know how relationships go with me. I will fall headlong into love, and I’ll be clingy and needy, and he won’t feel the same way, and eventually the sex won’t be good enough for him to put up with me, and then we’ll break up and you’ll have to deal with it. Sorry, Gabe. Boys like me are overrated.” Pete throws another dart.

“Pete,” Gabe says, and lays a hand on his arm. Pete looks at his hand. He’s pushed his sleeves up, so Gabe’s hand is obscuring the tattoo on his skin. Gabe says, “That’s not how it’s always going to go. That’s how it’s gone because you haven’t found the right one yet.”

Pete shakes Gabe’s hand off of him. “And you think the right one is the one I’m lying to about why we met?” Pete throws another dart viciously.

“I told you not to do that,” Gabe says solemnly.

“Fuck you with your fucking I-told-you-so,” Pete snaps, and goes to retrieve his darts.

When he comes back up to Gabe, Gabe says, “I’m sorry. That’s not how I meant that.”

“It’s fine,” Pete says. “Patrick is happy. Patrick’s going to blow everyone away at the gig. Patrick’s going to have every good thing in the universe happen to him.”

“And what about you?”

Pete shrugs and throws another dart. “We’ll see.”

***

When the night is winding down and they’re ready to leave, shrugging back into their coats, William comes over to Pete and gives him a tight hug and whispers in his ear, “He’s fabulous. He thinks he’s the luckiest person in the world to have met you. You’ve got him starry-eyed.”

“Great,” Pete says miserably. “And I’ll just fuck it up.”

“I don’t think you could,” William says wisely, leaning back to look at him. “I honestly don’t think you could. You’ve given him every word in your heart, and he’s still right here. I think you’re going to be okay. Just trust him.”

Pete looks across at Patrick, who is listening to Gabe enthusiastically tell him something, and from the dubious look on Patrick’s face, it’s something absurd. He’s been in New York two days, in Pete’s life five months, and Pete can’t imagine himself without Patrick now. They could be immortal, he thinks. Just not for long. He’s never seen anything more beautiful, more golden, and the shining genius that is Patrick is going to come home with him tonight, and kiss him, and fuck him, and let him snuggle afterward, and wake with him in the morning, and think he’s great, and say nice things to him, and read his words and love them. These are the things Patrick’s going to do, that he wouldn’t do if he knew the truth, and Pete can’t bear to lose them yet, he just got all of them.

Pete shakes his head jerkily.

“Pete,” William says.

“It’s fine,” Pete says. “We’re fine. After the gig, I’ll tell him. He’s so happy right now. He’s in such a good mood. I don’t want to disturb him before he has to get up in front of the crowd and do something that terrifies him.”

“Okay,” William says doubtfully.

Pete looks back over at Patrick, and Patrick chooses that moment to glance at him, and then Patrick grins at him, and it lights up his whole face, and that’s all because of Pete, and Pete feels lightheaded with glee. He’s going to ride this high right into the crash. Coasting toward the wall at a hundred miles an hour. He doesn’t know any other way to live.

They walk home, tipsy and giddy, still higher from the success of the gig than from the alcohol, maybe high off of the fact of each other. Pete wants to tuck up against Patrick’s side but he can’t because Patrick keeps dislodging him to gesture wildly to illustrate the story he’s telling about whatever Gabe was telling him at the end of the evening. Pete can barely follow it, it has something to do with potato chips and a snowman, or something. It doesn’t matter, because Patrick is so delightfully tickled by it that Pete just grins and grins at him.

Eventually the story is over. Patrick flings his arm over Pete’s shoulders. Pete leans into him heavily. It’s the nicest evening he can remember.

Patrick says, “Your friends are nice. They care a lot about you. I approve.”

“They approve of you,” Pete rejoins.

“I was hopeful they might. Oh, oops.” Patrick adjusts their trajectory around a slab of wet concrete in the pavement.

“Hang on,” Pete says, and leans down impulsively and draws P + P in the cement with his finger. The security droid watching over the pavement flies over to them, siren blaring, and Pete laughs and grabs Patrick’s hand and says, “Run!”

***

“You know the reason security droids don’t really chase you is because they already know who you are,” Patrick says as they enter Pete’s apartment, but he’s laughing breathlessly so it’s hard to even understand him. “Christ,” he gasps. “You’re going to have so many fines this month, why the fuck did you even do that?”

“I wanted us in stone,” Pete says, and pushes Patrick into the bedroom and down onto the bed, then follows, crawling onto him.

“You wanted us permanent?” Patrick says, as Pete pulls his shirt up over his head. “Like the ink you use.” Patrick trails his fingers along Pete’s tattoos. “You have a thing for permanence.”

Pete looks down at him underneath him. His hat was knocked off his head when Pete pushed him down, and it’s askew over the pillow now. Pete says honestly, “When I like something, I want it for always.”

Patrick looks up at him and blinks solemnly. And then he says, “You say that like you think I’m going to have a problem with that. Like I’m being temporary with all of this. Like you’re waiting for me to walk out the door.”

Pete makes a face. This is definitely William talking through Patrick. “I should never have introduced you to Gabe and William. They’re the worst. They should never have—”

“They just love you,” Patrick says. “And see, it’s not true that everyone who loves you leave, because they never have.”

“That’s different,” Pete says. “Anyway, I set the two of them up, they have this nostalgic fondness for—”

“They love you,” Patrick says stubbornly.

Pete is silent for a moment. “It’s not the same,” he says finally, brokenly. Loving him from afar, the way Gabe and William do, is easy. Loving him up close, when he’s messy all over you – that’s very different. “I’ve got troubled thoughts and the self-esteem to match. I mean, what a catch, right?”

Patrick says, “When you walked into the studio that day, I was so annoyed.”

“I could tell,” Pete says.

“Because you were the hottest person I’d ever seen, and people like that don’t give the time of day to people like me.”

Pete draws his eyebrows together. “What are you talking about?”

Patrick continues, “But then you kept smiling at me. Jesus fucking Christ, that smile. It was like I didn’t know where to look, you were so…so… And then you recited your poetry, and, Pete, you should know… You should understand this.” Patrick lifts his hands up to frame Pete’s face. “I was desperately in love with you by the time you walked out of my studio that day. I couldn’t get you out of my head. And I just kept thinking it was so hopeless. People like you aren’t single. People like you aren’t interested in penniless, talentless music producers who have never had a hit and can’t even fix their soundboard properly.”

“Patrick—” Pete begins in amazement.

“No.” Patrick puts his finger over Pete’s mouth. “You’ve had all the words so far. Let me tell you these, because you need to hear them. I thought I was being so pathetic, mooning over your poetry, even though you’d probably walked out the door and forgotten all about me. I wrote the song and recorded the song and agonized for weeks over whether or not to send it to you. And finally I decided to send it because I thought you wouldn’t even remember me by then. You’d just vaguely be like, ‘Patrick who?’ and press delete on the email. And instead you wrote me back.” Patrick smiles at him. “In all caps. And you kept on writing me back. And I kept thinking, Here’s where he’s going to mention his boyfriend or girlfriend or whoever, here’s where he’s never going to be able to be mine. But that never happened. You kept writing, you kept calling, you kept picking up when I called you. You kept talking to me. You were my morning and my afternoon and my night and I kept waiting for you to decide it was too much, to tell me you needed space, but instead you got drunk that night at Gabe’s party and you called me and you asked me to come to New York. You just… There didn’t have to be a gig, Pete. All you ever had to do was ask me, sober, and I would have been here immediately. The problem with every person ahead of me who walked away from you wasn’t that you’re not perfect; the problem was they had to walk away from you because you were meant to be mine.”

Pete stares at Patrick. He has no idea what to say. What do you say to a speech like that?

So he doesn’t say anything. He leans down and kisses Patrick. He tries to kiss all of the words he can’t articulate into Patrick. He tries to kiss every apology he’s going to owe him in the future, for every failure he’s ever made in the past. But mostly he tries to kiss every declaration of love that he doesn’t know any other way to get across. Pete can write poetry about broken hearts, he’s had lots of experience with those. He doesn’t know how to find the soft words Patrick deserves. But he can find the soft kisses for him, the soft touches, the soft presses of skin against skin, heart to heart.

Eventually, he finds words to whisper into Patrick’s ear. “I’m yours,” he whispers. “Keep me like an oath.”

Patrick kisses him, and it feels like a promise.

***

Pete can’t sleep. But it’s not a bad can’t-sleep. It’s a good can’t-sleep. He’s too happy. He feels he could burst with it. He doesn’t want to sleep because he doesn’t want to miss a single moment of this.

He watches Patrick sleep next to him and loves him, loves him, loves him.

And then he gets up and goes into the living room. Hemmy follows, leaping onto the couch. Pete sits next to him with his moleskine and tries to write soft words. I can’t sleep in the wake of Saturday, when these open doors were open-ended. Trick and I attacked the Lost Astoria with promise and precision and a mess of youthful innocence. I read about the afterlife, but never really lived more than an hour. Two more weeks – our foot is in the door.

Then he tears the page out and folds it up and writes on the front, For Patrick – the softest words I can manage. I’m working on it.

He leaves it on the nightstand for Patrick to see, and then he crawls into bed next to him. Patrick moves instinctively, automatically, dragging Pete closer into him, and Pete closes his eyes and breathes and thinks of every word Patrick said, how he never wants to forget them.

***

They spend Sunday entirely in bed, leaving only to walk Hemmy. As dusk slips into night, Patrick murmurs against Pete’s skin, “This is the kind of not-getting-out-of-bed I approve of.”

“I wish this was always the reason I didn’t get out of bed,” Pete says breathlessly.

“In the future,” Patrick says confidently, “it will be, because I’ll never leave you alone in this bed to face that darkness.”

Pete says thickly, “Stop with the words, you’re stealing my job.”

On Monday Pete tries to write a column but Patrick is distracting and he ends up taking him back to bed because who can resist Patrick. On Monday evening, Pete’s phone dings with a text from somewhere across the room. Patrick is heading back into the living room from the kitchen, carrying beers for each of them, and he pauses to grab Pete’s phone on his way back.

The text is from Gabe. Wanted to make sure you knew Patrick was invited to Fangsgiving! This is followed by an emoji of a cobra striking.

Pete sighs and shows Patrick the text.

“What’s Fangsgiving?” Patrick asks. “Thanksgiving with more venom?”

“Thanksgiving with Gabe and Bill,” Pete says. “Gabe’s got a thing for snakes.”

Patrick’s eyebrows flicker upward.

Pete says, “The obvious phallic joke is beneath you.”

Patrick laughs like Pete is hilarious. Pete loves the way Patrick laughs. He says, “Hey, can you ask Gabe a favor for me?”

“What favor?” Pete asks suspiciously.

“I need like, I don’t know, a couple of hours or so to record, and he mentioned that he’s got these conference rooms I could use if I needed them.”

“Record what?” asks Pete.

“A surprise for you,” Patrick says, and kisses behind his ear.

“You don’t need to write a surprise for me,” Pete says, even though that sounds awesome.

Patrick laughs again. “You just lit up like a Christmas tree. Speaking of. We should get you one of those. That corner looks lonely with that weird broken droid in it.”

Pete starts and looks over to the corner. He had completely forgotten about the android. Fuck.

Patrick continues, “I’ve got to say, I was surprised you even had a droid.”

“It was a Christmas gift from my parents,” Pete says automatically. “They think I’m unforgivably weird.”

“I’m sure they love you like everyone else loves you,” Patrick says, unconcerned with Pete’s internal drama over the android.

Pete looks at Patrick. Patrick’s watching the movie they’re supposed to be watching. Pete ventures, “The droid’s not broken. It works. I just don’t… I don’t use it. I don’t think I’m good at knowing what to use androids for.”

Patrick sends him a quick smile. “I didn’t think you would be.”

“I mean,” Pete says, “if you want to use the droid, I guess you can. It’s programmed for me, but I’m sure we can—”

“Pete,” Patrick says, “I’m so not interested in talking about your robot, if we’re not going to watch the movie it should be because we’re making out.”

“Okay,” Pete agrees after a second.

***

Pete texts Gabe on Tuesday. Patrick says you said you had somewhere he could go do some private composing/recording????

Gabe responds almost immediately. Send him by!

“Okay,” Pete says to Patrick, “Gabe says you can drop by his work. I’ll text you the address and also Gabe’s number so you can text him when you get there. And meanwhile I am going to die of curiosity here, so, you know, take your time.”

Patrick laughs, and Pete watches him put his hat on and shrug into a coat and lean down to pet Hemmy because Patrick pets Hemmy almost as often as he pets Pete. He says, “Gabe isn’t busy or anything, right? I don’t want to bother him.”

Pete snorts. “Gabe is never busy. I have no idea what the fuck Gabe does.”

Patrick laughs again and leans over Pete at the dining room table. “Write your column.”

“Yeah, right,” says Pete. “My column’s going to be all speculation about the amazing song my boyfriend’s insisting on writing in secret.”

“Shut up,” Patrick says, and kisses him. “You love surprises. I’ll be back.” And then he walks out of the apartment and into New York.

Pete looks after him, then looks back at the column he’s disinterestedly working on. He types a few words, and then he decides that probably he should take Hemingway for a walk. That’s probably the responsible dog-owning thing to do.

“How about it, Hem?” Pete asks him. “Want to go for a walk?”

Hemingway always wants to go for a walk, and considering that he’s looking mopey and waiting by the door Patrick walked out of, he apparently especially wants to go for one now.

Except that Pete is in the process of snapping his leash on when he catches sight of the android in the corner. And suddenly he is spurred into action. He doesn’t want this android in his house anymore. This android was always thoroughly unnecessary and it’s even more unnecessary now.

Pete turns it on, and it whirs to life and says, in that foreign voice, “Hello, Pete.”

Pete looks at its digital face and says awkwardly, “Look. I don’t want you to take this personally or anything. But I’m going to give you to someone else.”

The android says pleasantly, “My programming allows for change of ownership. Please see the manual for full instructions.”

“Okay,” Pete says, and turns the android off again, and then looks at Hemingway. “It was a robot the whole time. What was I ever thinking?” Now that he has Patrick – and Patrick is so Patrick -- Pete’s mistake is so obvious to him. No wonder Gabe was worried about how the android couldn’t love him back. Pete is loved back now, and it’s fabulous. It means his boyfriend writes him special, secret, surprise songs, and understands the joy that will bring. His boyfriend makes heartfelt proclamations of love. His boyfriend is grumpy before coffee and has juvenile taste in films and refuses to make grilled cheese the proper way with slices of bacon tucked in.

Pete picks the android up in one hand and takes Hemmy’s leash in the other and goes down to the front lobby.

The service droid says, “Hello, Mr. Wentz. Do you need help with that droid?”

“Listen,” Pete says. “I don’t need it anymore. I want to donate it to someone who can use it. Do you know any organization or something who would take it?”

“Several,” the service droid replies. It doesn’t look at all interested in the drama of Pete giving a droid away. Maybe people do this all the time, Pete thinks. Probably they do: trading up for a new model. “If you leave it here, I can contact them for you.”

“Thanks,” Pete says, and puts the android down. He looks at it for a moment, wondering if he feels a twinge of regret. But he can’t really, because it was a toaster whose real purpose was to lead him to Patrick. Pete looks back at the service droid and says, “The guy who’s been coming in and out with me. His name’s Mr. Stump, and you can let him in without me accompanying him.”

“As you wish, Mr. Wentz,” the service droid says.

And that’s that taken care of, thinks Pete, satisfied, and takes Hemmy for his walk.

***

Patrick comes back flushed with obvious triumph.

“Look at you,” Pete says. “You know what that is?”

“What?” Patrick asks, taking his scarf off and greeting Hemingway.

“That’s a composing high. Blood cells pixelated, eyes dilated. Yup.”

“Blood cells don’t pixelate,” Patrick says, laughing, as he takes his coat off.

“Yours do. Look in the mirror,” says Pete. “Where’s my song?”

“Uh-uh.” Patrick shakes his head. “You think you get a surprise just like that? With no, like, build-up or anything?”

“Oh, what the fuck,” Pete says, “you’re going to draw this out forever, aren’t you?”

Patrick flashes a grin. “Maybe. Are you working on your column?”

“Very hard,” Pete lies.

“What a shame,” says Patrick. “I was going to take you to bed and fuck you until you beg fifteen different ways.”

“Well,” says Pete, “I fucking love composing highs when we’re on the same side of the screen.”

Patrick laughs and takes Pete to bed.

***

On Wednesday, Pete really has-to-has-to-has-to write his column because the next day is Thanksgiving and the whole week is fucked.

Patrick claims to have been invited to witness William’s photo shoot.

“What?” Pete says when Patrick says this.

“It’ll get me out of the house so you can work,” says Patrick. “I really need to go out and get a job or something.”

“You’re not getting a job,” Pete says, “you’re about to become rich and famous.”

“I can’t just live here like your kept boy.”

“I don’t know,” Pete says, “I kind of really like that idea. You’re too bossy in bed for a kept boy, though.”

“Some people really love that in a kept boy,” Patrick tells him.

“When did you get invited to William’s photo shoot?”

“I saw him yesterday when I was at Gabe’s. I said I was trying to give you space so you could write your column, and he said I could hang out with him today.”

“I thought you were writing my song, not giving me space.”

“That, too,” says Patrick.

“Hmm,” says Pete. “They’re both liars, don’t believe anything they say.”

Patrick laughs and kisses him good-bye.

Pete dives into his column, and he only notices Patrick is back home when he sends it off. It’s dark outside but the lights are on in the apartment, and Patrick is on the couch with a book.

Pete blinks at him. “How long have you been home?”

Patrick smiles. “Long enough. You were in a zone.”

Pete gets up and stretches and walks over to collapse on Patrick on the couch. “How was the photo shoot?”

“Being a model looks terrible,” Patrick answers.

Pete laughs.

Patrick says, “How tired are you?”

“Oh, I could totally go for some sex,” says Pete.

Patrick chuckles. “I was thinking more that we should get a Christmas tree.”

Pete can’t remember the last time he got a Christmas tree with someone. He can’t remember the last time he was dating someone at Christmastime. He turns his face into Patrick’s chest and breathes for a second, until he’s confident of his ability to evenly say, “Yes. Let’s get a Christmas tree.”

***

Lights are strung up and down the street, and there’s a festive atmosphere. People smile at them as they pass by, and Pete feels unbelievably happy. He didn’t think it was possible to feel this happy while just walking down the street with someone. Patrick is holding Hemmy’s leash and the tip of his nose is pink with cold and the fierceness of Pete’s love for him is breathtaking.

The Christmas tree lot at the end of the street is crowded, children racing around in it, giggling jubilantly. Pete got his tree from this lot last year, too, but then he picked it out all alone, last-minute, thinking he should at least pretend to be celebrating the holiday. There had been almost no selection left and Pete had chosen one at random. This early in the season, there’s dozens of trees set up, service droids whizzing by to replace them as they’re purchased.

“Hmm,” says Patrick, as they stroll up and down the rows. “Too big, too small, weird bare patch in the middle. How many ornaments do you have?”

“Like four,” says Pete, and Patrick laughs at him like that’s a joke. Pete usually throws a string of lights up and calls that good enough. He doesn’t want to say that because he’s now realizing that sounds severely depressed.

Patrick says, “What about this one?” and gestures to a tree. “It’s a nice shape, and it’s not too tall, so we’ll actually be able to reach to put a star on top of it.” Patrick beams at him.

Pete can’t remember if he has a star for the top of the tree. He hopes he does. Because he can tell it means a lot to Patrick, he walks all around the tree, pretending to critically inspect it. He doesn’t know exactly what he’s looking for but Patrick is taking this so seriously that Pete can’t help but be equally serious about it.

Pete steps back and nods confidently and says, “It’ll do.”

Patrick kisses him, and then flags down a service droid, who packs the tree for them and gives them a speech about how to care for it. Pete watches Patrick hand his phone over to pay for it, and when he makes a noise of protest, Patrick says, “Let me do this one thing, hmm?” so Pete relents.

They get the tree up into the apartment, and Pete tugs out his Christmas box from the spare bedroom so he can get the stand out.

When he gets back into the living room, Patrick is standing in the corner, holding the tree up. He looks at Pete and says, “You got rid of the droid.”

Pete freezes for a moment, and then forces himself to shake it off. “Yeah. I donated him. It. Whatever. I couldn’t remember why I was keeping it, to be honest.”

Patrick shrugs. “Well, it cleared space for the tree.”

They get it into the stand with an impressively minimal amount of disagreeing over its crookedness, and then Patrick says, “Okay, where are your decorations?” and Pete has to pull out his one string of lights and his half-dozen sad ornaments.

Patrick stares.

Pete says, “Okay. In my defense.” Pete can’t think what else to say.

“Let’s go,” Patrick says firmly, and puts his coat back on.

“Go where?” Pete asks.

“To buy you Christmas decorations,” Patrick says.

And just like that Patrick takes them to a store and just buys them all sorts of Christmas accoutrements: strings of colored blinking lights that will project “festive phrases” onto the ceiling, a wreath for Pete’s door, several dozen red and green and gold and silver ornaments, a ridiculous disco ball for a tree-topper, garland that he drapes over Pete’s neck playfully, a stuffed reindeer toy he says is for Hemingway, an Advent calendar. At around the time he drops yards of beads into Pete’s arms, Pete remarks, “I never knew Christmas had so much stuff.”

“Yes, you did,” Patrick says easily. “You just forgot. Do you always sit alone in your undecorated apartment at Christmas?”

“I put a tree up,” Pete says. “It’s not undecorated.”

Patrick pulls two stockings off a display and adds them to their pile.

“What are those?” Pete says.

“Stockings,” Patrick replies. “Come on, you definitely know what stockings are.”

“Yeah, but what are we going to do with those?”

“Hang them and hope that Santa fills them with treats.”

Oh, Pete realizes. He has a boyfriend at Christmas. He needs to think about the perfect gift.

Dammit.

Patrick says suddenly, sounding inordinately pleased, “Look what I found,” and holds up two tiny shimmering guitar ornaments. “Aren’t they perfect?”

Pete looks at Patrick and has to agree.

***

The tree takes forever to decorate.

“It wouldn’t take forever if you hadn’t bought out the store,” Pete tells Patrick.

“Yeah, but doesn’t your tree look fantastic?” Patrick rejoins.

Pete has to admit that it looks fantastic. It was a lot of work to achieve, though, and Pete is able to admit that maybe he’s never been able to muster the energy for it before. He looks at the tree and for a second feels a pang at the idea that next Christmas Patrick won’t be there, because that’s how it goes, and Pete probably won’t even put up a tree because it will be too painful. And then he pushes the idea away. Patrick is here now, and Pete’s vowed to enjoy every moment of Patrick being there.

“Hey,” Patrick says softly, and curls his hand into Pete’s. “Where’d you go?”

“Nowhere,” Pete says automatically, and forces a smile at him. “The tree looks great. Thank you. Hemmy also says thank you for that reindeer he’s mauling over there.”

Patrick smiles, and laugh lines crinkle around his eyes, and Pete loves-loves-loves.

And then Patrick whispers, “Do you want your surprise?”

Pete had almost forgotten about the surprise. “What?! Yes, I want my surprise.”

“Thought you might,” Patrick says smugly, and thrusts the hot cocoa he’d made Pete into his hand. “Sit,” he orders, and then disappears down the hall.

Pete sits and sips his cocoa and looks at the tree. The lights are broadcasting Season’s Greetings across his ceiling.

Patrick returns with his guitar and strums it, clearing his throat.

Pete is caught off-guard. “Are you going to sing it to me? I thought you recorded it.”

Patrick gives him a look. “Would you rather have the recording?”

“No, no,” Pete says hastily, because he’d much rather have a live Patrick concert, any day.

Patrick launches right into it. “I’m good to go, and I’m going nowhere fast. Could be worse, I could be taking you there with me.”

Pete remembers the words, and he smiles, remembering Patrick’s vow to turn them into a happy song. The melody is certainly upbeat at least, so he gets what Patrick is getting at.

And then Patrick shifts into, “Two more weeks, my foot is in the door,” and Pete blinks. “I can’t sleep,” Patrick sings, eyes on him, “in the wake of Saturday.”

Pete smiles wider. A happy song. There it is. Patrick’s done it. And…maybe even Pete’s done it.

“Pete and I attacked the Lost Astoria,” Patrick sings, and Pete’s breath stutters a little, because of course it makes sense Patrick would change that lyric, but he’s unprepared for how his name sounds when it’s sung like that by Patrick. Patrick sings through the verse, gets back to the chorus. “Me and Pete,” Patrick sings gently, “in the wake of Saturday.”

Pete closes his eyes for a second when the song is over.

“Did you like it?” Patrick asks hesitantly.

Pete says, “I’m going to blow you, get your guitar out of my way.”

***

Pete sits up all night staring at the tree that he and Patrick decorated, marveling.

***

They bring absinthe to Gabe and William’s house.

“That’s how Fangsgiving rolls,” Pete tells Patrick.

“I’m equal parts alarmed and anticipatory,” Patrick replies, then says, “Oh, look, you’re standing under the mistletoe,” and kisses Pete.

“Oh, so that’s what that is,” says Pete, looking up at it.

“Pete,” Patrick sighs, and kisses him again.

On the way to Gabe and William’s, Patrick says, “Your song.”

“Our song,” Pete corrects happily. He made Patrick sing it to him several more times last night, marveling every time Patrick sang me and Pete. Nothing in Pete’s life really lasted, no matter how much he tried, but that right there was a permanent marker: Me and Pete, in the wake of Saturday.

“Yes,” Patrick agrees. “Our song. I made a recorded version of it because I was thinking we could add it to the gig. I wanted to hear what the orchestration would sound like, for us and Andy to be able to play.”

Pete looks at him in surprise.

“The thing is,” Patrick says, “it’s a happy song. It’s a you and me song. I’d like to end on that. You know I love ‘Chicago’ but we end with wishing for someone’s body to be broken. Instead of ending on…us.”

“Yeah,” Pete says, smiling. “We’ll add it. It’ll bring down the house.”

They reach Gabe and William’s, and a droid lets them in and takes the absinthe, and Gabe swoops down upon them exclaiming, “Yo! Fangs up!”

“I don’t know what that means,” Patrick says placidly.

Pete laughs.

Gabe looks appalled. “Pete! You didn’t teach him the secret hand signal thing?!”

“We’re getting drinks and going away from you now,” Pete says, and drags Patrick deeper into the throng.

Fangsgiving is like all of Gabe and William’s parties, crowded with people, and eventually Patrick says in his ear, “How many people do you know?” sounding amazed.

“Is this a lot of people?” Pete asks. He never really thought about it before.

“You’ve made, like, fifty introductions,” Patrick says dazedly. “I hope there’s not going to be a quiz later.”

Pete smiles and is about to respond when he catches sight of Mikey heading straight toward them. “Oh,” he says, but before he can come up with a reason for them to hide, Mikey is upon them.

“Hi,” he says to Patrick, and holds out his hand. “I’m Mikey.”

“Patrick,” Patrick replies, shaking his hand.

Mikey regards him mildly, then turns to Pete and says, “Good,” and then slides away.

Patrick comments, “Well, he seemed fascinating.”

Pete says, “That’s Mikey for you. He likes being…Mikey.”

***

It’s late in the evening. Actually it’s early in the morning. They should be on their way home, but Patrick is having a serious conversation with Travie, and Pete can’t bear to interrupt them, considering how animated Patrick is about whatever the topic is. So Pete snuggles up to Patrick’s other side and thinks how these parties are much nicer when he’s not going home alone.

There’s a dance party going on, the remaining guests leaping around the living room, and Pete watches them in amusement, and feels warm and happy. These are his friends, and there are a lot of them, and they love him, and he loves them, and next to him Patrick has a hand casually on his thigh, not in a sexy way, just in a yes-I’m-right-here way, and Pete knows with certainty he’s never had such a nice Fangsgiving.

The music transitions, suddenly, to Judy Garland crooning “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas.” It’s a major shift in rhythm, but everyone on the dance floor drifts into it, pairing up, and it’s the sort of dance that would have had Pete heading to the door in previous years. But this year Patrick turns to him and says, “We should dance,” and Pete realizes that Travie has wandered off.

“We don’t have to,” Pete says, even though he really wants to.

“I’ll dance if you let me lead,” Patrick says, sounding like Pete isn’t fooling him for a minute, and then he pulls Pete up and into the impromptu dance floor.

Pete tucks his face into the curve of Patrick’s shoulder and lets Patrick sway them to the beat. Patrick’s hands are warm on him, and Patrick’s breath flutters over his skin, and Pete wants to keep this forever, he would climb directly into Patrick’s skin if he could, and Patrick doesn’t even flinch, Patrick lets him cuddle as close as he wants, there in Gabe and William’s house.

Patrick murmurs into his ear, “Happy Thanksgiving,” and Pete gets exactly what he’s saying.

***

They wake on the day after Thanksgiving, hungover messes.

Patrick complains, “What the fuck.”

“Way too much absinthe,” Pete agrees.

“Tell Andy we can’t possibly practice today,” says Patrick. “We never even got out of our clothes last night.”

“We slept in last night’s clothes and tomorrow’s dreams,” murmurs Pete.

“How are you composing poetry hungover?” Patrick demands.

***

With three days to go before their gig, Patrick decides they need to bake sugar cookies.

“We need to do what?” says Pete blankly.

“We need to do something,” Patrick says restlessly. “I am sitting in this house doing nothing but imagining all of these people looking at me while I fuck up our lyrics.”

“Patrick,” says Pete. “You’ve been doing great.” They’ve been practicing in front of bigger and bigger circles of Pete’s friends, and Patrick hasn’t missed a single beat.

“I do great because you spend the whole concert draped all over me,” Patrick points out.

“So?” Pete shrugs. “I’ll just keep doing that. Who cares?”

Patrick looks at him seriously. “Will you? I need you to keep doing it.”

Pete realizes Patrick really was worried about this. “Patrick,” he says. “Of course.”

Patrick nods, but he looks troubled still.

Pete says, “Okay, what’s this sugar cookie thing?”

Which is how they find themselves burning two batches of sugar cookies, triggering the arrival of maintenance droids at Pete’s apartment to tell them exactly how to use the oven properly, which sends Patrick into fits of laughter so it’s totally worth it, and eventually they make perfectly browned batches of sugar cookies, and they spill sugar and icing all over Pete’s kitchen counter, decorating them as outrageously as they can.

Patrick eats one and says, “They’re actually not bad.”

“Yeah? Bet you taste better.” Pete squirts icing onto Patrick’s neck and licks it up.

“Oh, Pete Wentz, what a good idea,” says Patrick, and smears green sugar crystals over Pete’s cheek, nibbling at them delicately.

“What can I say?” Pete says. “I’m super festive. Full of the Christmas spirit.”

Patrick laughs and ices along Pete’s thorn necklace.

***

The night before their gig, Patrick is obviously too keyed up to sleep, and Pete, who understands insomnia all too well, drags him out of bed and to the couch, cycling them through infomercial after infomercial.

“I didn’t even know they still made infomercials,” Patrick marvels.

“The things you learn at four a.m.,” Pete tells him.

Patrick is silent for a second. And then he says, “I don’t want to disappoint you. Honestly, the only person I care about is you. Everyone in the audience can hate me, I just don’t want to disappoint you.”

Pete, after a moment, turns off the television and turns to face Patrick. “Patrick. You never, ever could. How do you think you could disappoint me? You’re a miracle.”

“Right. And if I get up in front of the crowd and—”

“Patrick, if you don’t want to do this, we don’t do it. I’ll cancel this, right now, if you want me to. I don’t care. I’ve never really cared about the gig. I care about you. And I pushed you to do this because you live and breathe and eat and sleep music. You’re a smart guy and you could have done almost anything with your life and you chose to start a music studio. Patrick. You compose compulsively. I don’t even know if you know you’re doing it. You hum melodies under your breath all the time. Music is you, and you are music, and I want you to be able to do the thing you love, and to see how much everyone else is going to be astonished by how good you are at this thing you love. What I don’t want to do is I don’t want to make you hate the thing you love. So if you don’t want to do this, we don’t do it.”

Patrick is silent for a long moment, chewing nervously on that lush lower lip of his. His hand reaches for a hat on his head that’s not there, tugging briefly at his hair instead. He looks at the Christmas tree in the corner, at Ho! Ho! Ho! cast over the ceiling.

And then he looks back at Pete. “I can do it with you. As long as you don’t make me do it without you.”

“Deal,” Pete says.

***

Pete wants to remember every moment of their gig. He wants to freeze in time the way everyone stilled at Patrick’s voice in its acapella opening, the way Patrick finished this part of town into utter silence before the applause kicked in, the way lighters showed up in the crowd for “Chicago Is So Two Years Ago,” the way Patrick points to him when he sings me and Pete. That point is everything, because it’s Patrick at ease, Patrick settled in, Patrick getting to their last song and owning every second of it. Pete can’t help but stare at him as he works the room, incandescently golden, an undeniable star.

They curled together for the guitar solo in “Grand Theft Autumn” and Pete spent much of “Dead on Arrival” cuddling up behind Patrick, but when they hit the guitar solo on “Saturday” Pete leaves Patrick to head out into the crowd, and the crowd is cheering, and this is not a crowd of Pete’s friends, these are all the strings everyone could pull to get everyone important into a room, and they are loving them. Pete lifts a microphone to his mouth and recites, “I read about the afterlife, but I never really lived,” as Patrick sings it behind him, because it suddenly feels right, that they should end on this rare moment when this is both of their voices, in their song, together. He looks over at Patrick as he does it, and Patrick is smiling.

When “Saturday” ends, Patrick immediately flees the stage, as had been their plan, because even when he has a good show, the spell seems to end as soon as the music does, and Patrick wants no part of the attention. Pete stays behind briefly to shout out into the crowd, “Thank you so much! Have a good night, we’ll see you soon!”

And then he dashes off the stage after Patrick.

Patrick has his hat off and is pouring water over his head. Andy is leaning coolly against the wall, basically naked, and nods at Pete. “Good show, dude.”

“Yeah,” Pete gasps. “Good show.” He takes Patrick and doesn’t even bother to be subtle about pushing him into the bathroom and locking the door. And then he shoves him against the wall and drops to his knees and says, “Let me make you sing just for me, Patrick,” as he unbuttons his jeans.

Patrick totally does.

***

Patrick falls dead asleep as soon as they get into the apartment, dropping facedown onto the bed, still fully clothed. Probably a severe adrenaline crash, Pete thinks. He takes his shoes and hat off for him and then he sits next to him on the bed. He is not the least bit tired. He is buzzed, high off Patrick, and their music, and Patrick.

He writes.

I’m a stitch away from making it, and a star away from falling in love. Blood cells pixelate, and eyes dilate, and the full moon pills got me out on the street at night. Could it last????? Watch you work the room……..

***

Pete falls asleep sometime after dawn, just when he’s thinking he won’t sleep at all.

He wakes sometime later, to Patrick sitting cross-legged on the bedroom floor, his guitar in his lap.

“Hey,” Pete croaks, and Patrick looks over to him.

He says, “I sang a bunch last night, so I can’t really do this as well for you as I’d like. But.” Patrick strums his guitar, and then sings gently, “I’m a stitch away from making it, and a star away from falling in love.”

“Oh,” Pete breathes. “That was for you.”

“I know. I could tell you thought so. But these words are mine, too.” Patrick takes a deep breath and sings, “Could it last?” letting the phrase soar upward, and then, more gently, “Watch you work the room.” It’s the wrong way around, Pete thinks. He didn’t work the room at all. But the way Patrick is singing it, with his eyes solidly on him, he feels like maybe, maybe, he did something after all.

“Could it last?” Patrick sings. “Watch you work the room.” Patrick sets his guitar inside, gets to his feet, walks over to the bed and stretches out over Pete. “Could it last?” he sings into the skin of Pete’s belly, as he pushes his shirt up. “Watch you work the room,” he breathes into Pete’s sternum. “Could it last?” he murmurs, drawing his nose up Pete’s neck.

And then he pauses and looks down at Pete.

“Watch you work the room,” Pete whispers back to him, and Patrick smiles.

***

They get the call that very day. A music label. A demo. Do they have an agent? A manager? How many songs can they get ready?

Patrick looks dazed. “Wait, they want… Wait. What?”

“We need to write a hit,” Pete announces.

“We don’t have a hit yet?” Patrick asks.

“Not yet. Let me give you words for a hit. Give me a day.”

“Okay,” Patrick says. He still looks dazed.

“We’re going to be rich and famous,” Pete tells him.

“I don’t think that’s true,” Patrick says dubiously.

“Wait until I write you a hit,” Pete says.

***

The next day Pete has a whole page of lyrics that he thrusts into Patrick’s hands at the dining room table.

Patrick reads them over, then says, “‘Sugar, we’re going down swinging’? Is ‘sugar’ a term of endearment you use?”

“It’s a term of endearment the song uses,” Pete tells him. “Anyway.” He goes into the kitchen and comes back out with green sugar that he sticks his finger in so he can swipe some over Patrick’s chin. “Sugar.”

Patrick laughs. “We’re going down swinging, are we?”

“Damn right,” Pete tells him, climbing onto his lap. “The whole time.”

“You were more than I bargained for from the very first time I saw you,” says Patrick.

Pete grins. “It’s a love song, in my own way.”

***

Patrick sits in the living room, trying out melody after melody. Pete listens with half an ear from the dining room, trying to work on a column, and then suddenly leans back so he can shout into the living room, “That one! That’s it!”

“What?” Patrick says. “I wasn’t even playing anything.”

“Yes, you were. Whatever you were doing to fool around. That’s it. That’s the song.”

“I was…” Patrick fiddles with his guitar, plays a few notes. “That?” he says skeptically.

“That. Sing it.”

Patrick sings. “We’re going down in an earlier round.” Then he pauses. “Hmm.” He sings it again. “We’re going down, down in an earlier round.” And the song undeniably zings together. There’s another pause. “Fuck,” Pete hears Patrick mutter.

Pete grins. “Keep going.”

“Sugar, we’re going down swinging. I’ll be your number one with a bullet.” Patrick stops again. “Fuck, that works. That really actually works.”

“Loaded god complex, cock it and pull it,” Pete calls to him.

“Shut up,” he calls back.

Pete laughs.

***

They pull Andy in and record “Sugar” in a feverish burst. And then record it again. And again. Until Patrick is finally satisfied.

And then they play it for Gabe and William.

When it’s done, there’s a moment of silence.

William says, “Fuck.”

Gabe says, “Hang on,” and walks out of the room.

Pete glances at Patrick, who’s fiddling with his hat anxiously.

Gabe comes back with cigars that he hands out. “Congratulations, bros. You just wrote yourselves a hit.”

Pete laughs in relief. “Right?” He nudges Patrick. “Told you.”

“Fuck,” Patrick mutters, still fiddling with his hat, “I’m not sure if it’s right. I still think… I don’t know.”

“It’s, like, perfect,” Pete tells him.

“It’s really good,” William agrees. “I mean, it’s incredible.”

“Light your cigar, Trick,” Pete orders him.

“I can’t,” says Patrick. “I’m a singer now apparently. It’ll ruin my voice.”

“Good point. Gabe, get him some of that absinthe.”

“No,” Patrick says firmly, and everyone laughs.

***

“So when are you telling him?” William asks shrewdly when Patrick is momentarily in the kitchen with Gabe, bothering the androids as they try to get them food.

Pete coughs around his cigar and says, “I don’t know. I’m not sure.”

“Pete,” William says. “You said after the gig.”

“Right. And then, like, right away we got the call about the demo, and then we wrote ourselves a fucking great song, so there hasn’t exactly been time for me to say, ‘Hey, gee, Patrick, our entire partnership is built on lies.’”

“Pete,” William sighs.

“I’m going to tell him,” Pete says. “I don’t know how yet. But I am.”

***

Pete knows that William thinks he’s never going to tell Patrick.

But Pete knows he has to tell Patrick.

Because not telling Patrick is just going to be A Thing that will always be hovering in the back of Pete’s head. He’s always going to be waiting for Patrick to leave. It’s going to eventually kill him. If Patrick is going to leave him, Patrick should leave now. Patrick should go forth to his incredible career and this amazing life he’s going to have and he should forget all about Pete. Pete knows this is better to do now than later. Pete’s already had much longer with Patrick than he thought he ever would.

Pete sits up at night and writes and writes.

Are we growing up or just going down? It’s just a matter of time until I’m all found out. Take the tears, put them on ice. I swear I’d burn this city down just to show you the light. I’m the chemist who found the formula to make you heart swell and burst. No matter what they say, don’t believe a word, because I’ll keep singing this lie if you’ll keep believing it. I’m the lifer here until the bitter end, condemned from the start, ashamed of the way the songs and the words own the beating of my heart. The best part of “believe” is the “lie,” I hope you sing along and you steal a line, so give in or just give up, I need to keep you like this in my mind. I swear I’d burn this city down just to show you the light.

Patrick reads it and draws his eyebrows together and says, “Hmm. I thought we were working on softer words.”

And that’s when it occurs to Pete: Patrick reads his words. Patrick reads every word. Patrick understands every word. Patrick will listen to Pete if Pete gives him the right words.

Pete writes.

I think it must be love. Why can you read me like no one else? I hide behind these words but I’m coming out. Put your hand between an aching head and an aching world, we’ll make them so jealous, we’ll make them hate us. Think of all the places where you’ve been lost and then found. In between my sheets, in between the rights and the wrongs. Think of all the places where you’ve been lost and found out.

He folds it up and tucks it into Patrick’s stocking.

On Christmas morning, he thinks, Patrick will read those words, and Patrick will look at him quizzically, and Pete will take a deep breath, and Pete will tell him. I hide behind these words but I’m coming out.

***

And then Pete comes home from taking Hemingway for a walk to Patrick, in the living room, his arms folded, practically vibrating.

“Hi?” Pete says, taken aback, because he’s never seen Patrick like this.

“Something so interesting just happened,” Patrick snaps, and Pete goes ice cold and knows, just like that, he knows that Patrick knows.

“Patrick,” he starts, already breathless with panic.

“I called Joe Trohman. You know Joe Trohman. You remember him. The nice guy who sold you my voice.”

The tone sets Hemingway to barking. Patrick doesn’t even look at the dog.

“Patrick.” Pete takes a step toward him and flinches when Patrick takes a step away.

“I thought to myself, you know, hey, Pete thinks my voice is about to be everywhere, and there was that one time I recorded it for an android, and maybe I should find out what happened to that android, maybe I should think about whether the owner should know I maybe am about to be famous, or maybe I want to buy the android back before any of this happens, I don’t know, I wasn’t sure what I was going to do, but I called Joe, and I was like, ‘Hey. Joe. Do you happen to know who bought that android?’”

“Patrick,” Pete says helplessly, feeling sick and dizzy and alone in the middle of the room.

“He said, ‘Yeah, of course, Pete Wentz, didn’t he ever get in touch with you, I gave him your name months ago.’” Patrick delivers this last sentence viciously, and then lets silence hang in the air.

Pete takes a deep breath. This is his chance, after all. This is his one chance not to fuck it up, to save it from this mess. “I was going to tell you—”

“When? What was this whole setup? Pete Wentz can’t have a band starring an android? Is that what this was about?”

“Of course it wasn’t. Patrick—”

“And that was the android, wasn’t it?” Patrick’s hand points to the tree, but Pete knows he means the android that used to sit in the corner. “You found the real thing, so you stuck it in a corner. What the fuck were you going to do if I turned it on? That’s why you got rid of it, isn’t it?”

“No. He broke. He didn’t have your voice anymore. That’s why I went looking for you. I wanted to see if you would agree to record your voice again.”

“That’s funny,” Patrick retorts, “because you never asked me that.”

“Because when I met you, you were… You were you. And I didn’t say anything because by then I didn’t want your voice, I wanted all of you.”

“I wasn’t a thing for you to want!” Patrick shouts. “I’m a person! Not a robot! It wasn’t your right to decide that you wanted me and just…just lie to me this entire time because I was what you wanted, as if I didn’t deserve to have a say in that. When you hear my voice, do you realize it’s not programming?”

“Of course I do,” Pete says, gutted. “Patrick. Listen to me. Of course I do. I’m sorry. You’re right. I should have told you earlier, but I didn’t want you to… I didn’t want you to…”

“You didn’t want me to leave,” Patrick concludes flatly. “You wanted to keep me.”

Pete can’t even deny that. He did. He did so much. “Yes,” he whispers.

“I’m not your robot,” says Patrick.

“No,” Pete says desperately. “I know. I never thought you—”

“I sat in this apartment, day after day, and did nothing but what you told me to do. I had no life outside of you. I just had you, wherever you wanted me, whenever you wanted me, and I didn’t even realize it was happening. You saying my voice was your favorite thing, that you wanted to hear it the rest of your life, that I couldn’t deprive the world of it. You can get an android to tell you everything you want to hear, okay? I’m done with that.”

And Pete realizes abruptly that Patrick has his coat on. That Patrick has his bag with him. And his guitar.

Patrick is leaving.

“Don’t go,” Pete begs. “Listen. Please don’t go. We can talk about this, we can—”

“Do you see what this is?” Patrick hisses. “This is me doing a thing you don’t want me to do. Because I’m not your robot.”

“I know, I know, I know, Patrick, I love you.”

Patrick twitches, Pete notices, and Pete repeats it frantically.

“I love you. You know that. I loved you as soon as I saw you—”

“You loved me before that,” Patrick interrupts, sharp and biting.

Pete shakes his head fervently. “I didn’t. I didn’t know you. I only knew your voice, and I – Patrick – you’re -- please.”

“I thought you wanted me,” Patrick says, and he doesn’t sound angry, he sounds heartbroken, and that’s so, so much worse. “I sent you that song, and you wrote back so enthusiastically, and I thought you wanted me.”

“I did. I do. Patrick.”

“It was my voice. It was my voice all along. It could have been attached to anyone – anyone – and you would have—”

“That’s not true.” Pete shakes his head again. “I swear that’s not true. It’s you. It came with you. And I couldn’t… Patrick, please. Please.”

“What are you even asking me to do?” Patrick demands. “Do you want me to stay? Do what you say? Get rid of all these pesky independent thoughts about you?”

“I want you to love me,” Pete says brokenly, which is possibly the truest thing he’s ever said in his life.

And Patrick says coldly, “I see. The one thing the android couldn’t do for you,” and steps around him and out the door.

***

Pete doesn’t cry. Pete sinks to the floor and watches Hemingway scratch at the door, whining, and then escalating to barking when Patrick doesn’t come back.

Patrick doesn’t come back.

Pete doesn’t know how long he sits there. He wouldn’t be surprised if he sits there an entire day, watching the door and waiting and hoping and waiting. But nothing happens, and Hemmy, fretful, comes to lick at his face.

Pete suddenly cannot stay in the apartment another minute. Not this apartment where he can see Patrick everywhere, where Patrick decorated his tree for him, where Patrick kissed him against every possible wall, fucked him on every possible flat surface. Pete can never come back to this apartment ever again. Pete needs to sell this fucking apartment.

Pete also can’t go to Gabe or William or Brendan or Travie or any of his other friends. They’ll say “Where’s Patrick?” They’ll say “I told you so.” They’ll say “Pete the loser once again, can’t ever keep a relationship going.”

For one brief, fleeting moment, Pete thinks he could maybe jump off a bridge. Step out into traffic. Just be done. But then Hemingway climbs into his lap and Pete thinks, No, and then, I’ll go home.

It’s a stunning thought, and he tries not to think that Chicago is probably where Patrick went back to. But what Pete wants is home. He wants to cry into his mom’s shoulder and have her tell him everything is going to be alright, and he wants to see if he can trick himself into believing it’s true.

Pete wants to pretend he never made the epic mistake of turning that android on last Christmas.

Pete gathers up Hemmy and walks out of the apartment. He doesn’t bring any luggage with them. He goes to the airport and gets a seat on the first flight out. He texts Gabe and William from the runway. I’m going home for Christmas. I’m fine.

Gabe texts back, ?????

William texts back, That doesn’t sound fine.

Pete turns his phone off. Then he pulls out his unit and types furiously. This has been said so many times that I’m not sure if it matters, but we never stood a chance, and I’m not sure if it matters. I know this hurts, it was meant to, my secret’s out and the best part is it isn’t even a good one. He posts it to his blog before he can reconsider the impulse.

***

When Pete finally drags himself to his parents’ front door, he is deeply exhausted. He wants to go to bed and never get out of it. He knows his mother won’t let him. He knows that’s why he’s here.

He presses his thumb against the lock and the door clicks open for him, and a service droid announces, “Master Pete is home!” and comes up to take his coat but Pete, still clinging to Hemmy, refuses to comply.

His mother appears at the top of the stairs. “Pete!” she exclaims. “You posted that awful thing on your blog and then you weren’t picking up your phone and we were so worried.” She rushes down the stairs and she flings herself onto him in a fierce hug.

Pete doesn’t feel anything for a long moment, and then it’s as if the warmth of his mother’s embrace thaws him out. Pete puts his head against his mother’s shoulder and cries and cries.

***

Home is good because his parents won’t let him wallow.

Pete hates home because his parents won’t let him wallow.

“I should never have come home,” Pete grumbles when his parents make him go out to some kind of ridiculous Christmas festival thing.

“Nonsense,” his mother says. “It’s Christmas Eve. You can’t sit at home alone on Christmas Eve. Getting out of the house will be good for you. Do you want to do your hair?”

Pete eyes it in the mirror. “No,” he says sullenly.

“Do you want me to do it for you?” she asks delicately.

He considers. His hair is a mess. He doesn’t want to do it, but maybe someone else could take the time and effort.

“Okay,” he says grudgingly.

She smiles at him and sits him down in front of the mirror and carefully flat-irons his hair out of its frizzy curls, and then she slathers product in it, tousling it this way and that. “Ta-da!” she says when she’s done.

Pete hates it.

He says, “I don’t know, maybe I should dye it blonde or something.”

“What about eyeliner?” his mother asks encouragingly.

“No,” Pete grumbles. “Isn’t it enough you’re getting me out?”

“Yes,” his mother agrees. “Let’s go.”

The Christmas festival thing is awful. The carolers are all off-key. The reindeer are clearly ponies wearing antler headbands. The crafts are all robot-made and distressingly uniform.

His father buys him mulled cider and says coaxingly, “Come on, you love mulled cider.”

Pete does, and hasn’t had it in years, but it tastes like cardboard in his mouth. He forces himself to drink every drop, though, just to make his father beam at him. There’s some deep instinctive part of himself that still desperately wants his parents to approve of him. Pete just wants people to love him. That’s what he told Patrick, and Patrick still walked out.

“Ho ho ho,” a Santa booms at him, where he’s standing in the crowd caught in a terrible vivid flashback of the look on Patrick’s face, of the sound of the door clicking shut behind him. “And what do you want for Christmas, young man?”

Pete stares at him. “What the fuck,” he says, because does he look like someone who wants to talk to Santa Claus?

“Now, now,” says Santa jovially, “is that any way to speak to Father Christmas?”

“Yeah, right,” Pete drawls. “Father Christmas.”

The fucking asshole doesn’t break character for a single second. “The one and only! Here from the North Pole! And how can you wake up to what you want tomorrow morning if you don’t tell me what it is I should bring you, hmm?”

“Fine,” Pete says shortly. “Here’s my Christmas wish. I want Patrick Stump. Good luck getting that one done, Santa.” Pete leaves Santa gazing after him and finds his mother and says, “That Santa Claus over there just treated me like I was four years old, can we please go home now?”

“There’s nothing wrong with choosing to believe in a little Christmas magic every now and then, Pete,” his mother tells him.

“Magic happens to other people,” Pete says.

“Pete,” his mother says softly.

“Can we please go home?” Pete begs, exhausted.

***

When they get home, Pete just wants to curl up and go to sleep, but it’s not that kind of night. He’s barely been sleeping since Patrick left anyway. He checks his email, ignoring all communications from his friends, looking for anything from Patrick. Not that he expects Patrick to ever contact him ever again, but. Still.

There is an unexpected email. From the record label.

We LOVED “Sugar, We’re Goin’ Down.” If you’ve got more like that, we’ll take all of them. This should be the beginning of a very fruitful partnership!

Pete deletes the email.

Pete clicks over to his blog.

Pete takes a deep breath.

The old-fashioned clock in the hall strikes midnight, its chimes ringing out, a sound that resonates deeply in Pete’s memories from childhood. Outside, snow starts to fall. It’s Christmas morning, and Pete thinks of Patrick, Pete wishes for Patrick, and Pete writes him soft words.

***

I was just an only child of the universe, and then I found you.

You are the sun and I am just the planets, spinning around you.

You were too good to be true.

I am a collapsing star with tunnel vision, but only for you.

My head is stripped just like a screw that’s been tightened too many times, when I think of you.

I will shield you from the waves if they find you, I will protect you.

Just tell me I am the only one, even if it’s not true.

I’m here at the beginning of the end, the end of infinity with you. You drain all the fear from me.

You’re the last of a dying breed. Write our names in the wet concrete. I wonder if your therapist knows everything about me. I’m here in search of your glory. There may have been a million before me. But that ultra kind of love – you never walk away from. You’re just the last of the real ones.

You’re just the last of the real ones.

You’re just the last of the real ones.

***

Pete must fall asleep, because he wakes up. And it’s Christmas morning. And even though he knows not to believe in Christmas magic, he can’t help that he’s driven out of bed by the fantastical thought that maybe there’s a Patrick Stump under the tree.

There is no Patrick Stump.

Instead, there is a house full of distant family, and Pete is so exhausted, and there’s so many people, and Pete cannot find anywhere to hide. Apparently the service droids have been told not to let him in his room, and so he keeps moving deeper and deeper into the house, seeking some corner somewhere where no one will bother him.

He’s finally sprawled himself out on a couch in the very last room of the house when he hears people calling his name. Over and over. Fuck, Pete thinks, can he not get a single moment’s peace?

And then someone says something more than just Pete’s name. One of his relatives adds, “Someone’s here to see you!”

Pete sits up slowly. He acknowledges the possibility that he’s dreaming. But he gets himself off the couch and steps out of the room, into the hallway.

“Oh, there you are,” one of his aunts says to him. “You’ve got a guest in the front foyer.”

Pete moves as if in a trance, through the crowd of relatives, and when he gets to the front foyer…

When he gets to the front foyer, there is Patrick, leaned down to pet Hemingway, whose tail is wagging so fast that he’s barely able to keep his balance.

“Patrick,” Pete whispers, and then clears his throat and makes an effort to speak more loudly. “Patrick.”

Patrick looks up, and then rises slowly, and Pete doesn’t know what he’s supposed to say or do. Patrick walks toward him, and Pete’s suddenly worried that Patrick showed up here just to tell him off again, but in front of his family this time, so everyone will truly know what a horrible person Pete is.

But Patrick reaches him and says, “Hi, Pete. Merry Christmas.”

Pete stares at him.

Patrick kisses him.

Pete makes a strangled, shocked sound like a sob, and then he fists his hands into Patrick’s shirt and holds on for dear life. It’s a chaste kiss, sweet and dry, but it still makes Pete’s world feel wobbly, blurry around the edges. Pete squeezes his eyes shut and whispers to Patrick, “If this is a dream, don’t let them wake me up.”

“It’s not a dream,” Patrick murmurs back, and kisses him gently again. “Where can we talk?”

“Outside,” Pete says immediately, because nowhere in the house is safe. He takes Patrick’s hand, because he’s keeping firm hold of him in case he disappears when Pete isn’t looking, and he pulls him through the blatantly staring hoard of his relatives.

It’s cold outside, and Patrick’s breath gusts out at him in a white cloud when he says, “Pete. I…don’t know what to say.”

Like Pete has any idea what to say. Pete doesn’t even know what’s happening. So Pete just stares at him.

“Can I use your words?” Patrick asks, and doesn’t wait for Pete’s permission before he starts singing, acapella. “I was just an only child of the universe,” Patrick sings, “and then I found you.”

“You read them,” Pete says, amazed.

“I read them,” says Patrick shyly. “Were they for me?”

“Patrick. Of course they were for you. I just didn’t think you would… I didn’t think you would want to ever read any of my words ever again.”

“I went to New York to find you,” Patrick says. “I went to the apartment. You weren’t there. But you’d left everything just as it was.”

Pete doesn’t know where this is going. He watches Patrick carefully, drinking in his features, thinking how much he missed this face, how he hadn’t been prepared the day Patrick left and now he wants to carefully freeze every feature in his memory in case this is his last time.

“The stockings were still hung. And I don’t know why I looked, I just…” Patrick hands across a folded piece of paper Pete recognizes immediately. “You were going to tell me. Today. That was your plan.”

Pete looks down at his handwriting. I think it must be love.

Patrick continues, “So then I went to Gabe and William’s, and they told me you were here, and they gave me your parents’ address, and they told me if I broke your heart again they’d rip my fucking vocal chords out and feed them to a goat while I watched. It was a pleasant visit.”

Pete looks up at Patrick and shakes his head a little. “I don’t understand…”

“I’m sorry,” Patrick says achingly. “I’m sorry for everything I said. I was… I was so shocked, and so hurt, and so…so scared it wasn’t real. That none of it had been real. That you just… That it really wasn’t ever about me. I was so…heartbroken, and embarrassed, that I’d…”

“You were right,” Pete says miserably. “I should have told you. It was manipulative. It was mean. It was – It was –”

“It was so Pete Wentz,” Patrick says tenderly.

Pete blinks at him in shock.

“Fuck, it was so Pete Wentz,” Patrick repeats, and cups Pete’s face gently, sweetly. “Pete,” he says, and smiles and says, “Sugar. You love too much. Yes, you would have done anything to keep me, not because you thought of me as a possession, but because you were so aware that I was not.”

“I love you,” Pete chokes out. “Not your voice, or your music. Just you. I’ll love you if you never sing to me ever again. You make me laugh, and you don’t mind that I’m filled with darkness, and you read all my words and still like me, and you let me cuddle you whenever I want to, and you have this cute way of frowning when you’re making toast like it’s this super complex operation, and you bought me a Christmas tree. I wasn’t trying to manipulate you, I just wanted to make you happy. That’s all. I wanted you to be happy with me.”

“You wanted me to love you,” Patrick says. “That’s a good thing. Because I do love you, and I’d be fucking miserable if you told me you didn’t want me to anymore.”

Pete kisses Patrick so hard they almost stumble off the front step together.

His family cheers.

Pete pulls back and casts them a dark look through the window-paned door and says, “It would serve them right for spying on us if I blew you right now.”

Patrick laughs and kisses Pete again. “I missed you.”

“Christ, you can’t imagine how much I missed you,” Pete says.

“Come home with me,” Patrick says. “Would you?”

They can’t leave fast enough for Pete.

***

Patrick’s apartment is tiny and filled to bursting with musical instruments and Pete loves it passionately. He wants to examine every single inch of it.

Unfortunately, he falls asleep and sleeps like the dead until Patrick shakes him awake.

“Hey,” he whispers. “You didn’t bring your cell phone and I’m worried your parents are going to call the cops on me for kidnapping you.”

“No, no,” Pete says sleepily. “I wished for you. They won’t worry.”

“You wished for me?” Patrick echoes.

“I asked Santa for you. Can you come back to bed now?”

“No,” Patrick says, amused, and sits on the edge of the mattress next to Pete. “Santa isn’t going to assure your family I’m not a murderer. At least call them.”

Pete opens his eyes and looks at Patrick. Then he says in a rush, “They’re the ones who bought me the android. The one with your voice. It was a gift from my parents. That was true, when I told you that. I wasn’t the one who bought it. They bought it for me because they know how much I love music.”

Patrick doesn’t look upset at the mention of the android, and Pete is so relieved. “Huh,” he says. “I was wondering. It just didn’t seem like a very you thing to do.”

“I would never have done it. I only turned it on because my parents kept going on about its voice. I didn’t see the point until it sang.” Patrick looks interested in this story, but not at all furious, and it gives Pete the courage to keep telling it. “Then it sang. It wasn’t as good as you, you know. The programming didn’t get it right. But it was still impressive for an android. And then it broke, and I really missed having its voice around. I tracked you down to ask if you would approve licensing it for a second use. And I didn’t say anything because I saw you, in your silly hat, in your old-fashioned music studio, grumpy and grouchy, and I fell in love, and the android seemed so unimportant. It’s not why I love you.”

Patrick is silent for a second. Then he says, “I know. I thought a lot about it, after I left. And yeah. I know. The thing is…I don’t sing in front of people. I did that because I was about to lose the studio. I needed money so desperately. There was an ad, and the money was such an absurd amount, and I thought, you know, let me go see if I can sing well enough to get this money. And I could. But then when it was all done, and I’d sold my voice, I felt…ashamed. My voice, the thing I’d been so protective of my whole life, and I’d just given it away to a stranger. It wasn’t my finest hour. The fact that you knew, all along, how desperate I was—”

Pete shakes his head. “I never knew. Every time you talked about not singing in front of people, I was so confused.” Pete swallows and says hesitantly, “I know you’re sitting here telling me that you’re ashamed you did it, but I cannot help but be so grateful you sold your voice. Otherwise we would never have met, and I know I didn’t do any of this the right way, but I can’t really regret the fact that we met.”

“Now that I’ve had time to think about it,” Patrick says slowly, “I agree. And I’m really glad you owned my voice. I’m really glad that the person who owned my voice was you. I would have hated for it to be anyone else.”

And Pete smiles.

***

Pete’s parents are fascinated by their story. Over a meal of Christmas leftovers, they listen to Pete tell it from the top. Patrick eats steadily and doesn’t interrupt, his eyes on Pete.

When he’s done, Pete’s mother looks at Patrick and says, “Goodness. So we bought your voice.”

“Yes,” Patrick confirms.

“Would you sing for us?” Pete’s father asks.

“He’s not a carnival bear or something,” Pete snaps protectively.

“It’s okay,” Patrick says, and sings some of “Saturday.” Pete and I attacked the Lost Astoria…

Pete smiles more.

***

Pete and Patrick take Hemingway for a walk, and it feels like old times in New York, and Pete is so grateful and astonished and happy. A day before this felt impossible, unattainable, like he would never be happy again, and now he’s euphoric.

Christmas magic, he thinks.

He says to Patrick, “So. I have something to tell you.”

“Oh, dear,” Patrick says, but he smiles at him. “So we’re doing this again, are we?”

“The record label loved ‘Sugar.’ They want more.”

Patrick looks at him. “Rich and famous, huh?”

“If that’s what you want. Not if that isn’t what you want.”

Patrick stops walking, forcing Pete to stop as well to look at him. He says, “I only sing with you on the stage with me. I’m only doing this with you.”

“If you want me to,” Pete says very carefully, because he very much wants to make sure this is Patrick’s choice.

“I want you to,” Patrick says, “if you want to.”

“So much,” Pete says. “You must know that. I want you to come back to New York with me and move in with me and stay with me forever, and we’ll write songs together and put up Christmas trees together and conquer the world together. I can’t promise I won’t do more horrible things that will make you want to leave me but—”

“Hey,” Patrick interrupts gently. “You’ve gotten the worst out of the way. You threw it at me, and I’m still here. So try your best, Pete Wentz. I am not afraid of you. I will love you, until the earth starts to crumble and the heavens roll away.”

Pete tries to breathe through the joy constricting his chest. “Listen to your poetry,” he manages.

“This is the road to ruin, Pete,” Patrick says. “Only lucky for us, we’re starting at the end.”

***

“So.” Brendan flops down half on Pete’s lap. “You’re in love with your android’s voice.”

“I’m in love with the person who my android’s voice was based on,” Pete corrects him. “That’s completely different.”

“That’s a meet-cute to end all meet-cutes,” Brendan tells him. “Fuck you, Wentz. How are any of us supposed to top that now?” Brendan gives him a look of total disgust and wanders off.

Patrick arrives with fresh drinks. “Sorry that took so long, I got conscripted to judge a tongue- cherry-stem-tying contest, William won, he can do things with his tongue and a cherry stem that I did not know were possible. What was that all about?” Patrick waves toward Brendan.

“He says we had the meet-cute to end all meet-cutes,” Pete says, as Patrick sits next to him.

Patrick laughs. “Did we?”

“Well, I guess we didn’t meet online. Everyone these days meets online. It’s super boring.”

“No one would ever call our story boring,” Patrick agrees.

The music shifts, into notes that make both Pete and Patrick look up abruptly.

William and Gabe and Brendan and Spencer and Travie and Ryan and Frank and Gerard and even Mikey come dancing over to them, and they sing in unison, drowning out Patrick’s recorded voice. “Am I more than you bargained for yet?”

Pete twists around, and the club’s crowded dancefloor is pulsing with people, all of whom are dancing to their song.

Patrick says in his ear, “Rich and famous, huh?”

“You’ll see, Trickster,” Pete replies. “We’re going places, you and I.”

“We’re good to go?” says Patrick.

“We’ll attack the Lost Astoria, even,” Pete agrees.

“Can I ask you something?”

“Of course.”

“What the fuck even is the Lost Astoria?”

Pete laughs until he can’t breathe.

And when he catches his breath, their song is over, and the club around them is counting down from twenty, and last year Pete found himself a one-night stand in this same club, just so he wouldn’t be alone at midnight. And this year he has Patrick. This year. Every year. Pete doesn’t think he’ll ever fully stop worrying about fucking this up. But he also doesn’t think Patrick will ever stop telling him that he won’t.

Patrick reads his mind, the way he can, and leans forward to murmur into his ear, “I promise you you will never be alone at midnight ever again. Any midnight. I will never leave you alone in the dark.”

Pete says, “My New Year resolution is to try to believe that.”

Patrick smiles at him. “Really? Mine is to get better at tying you up.”

“One!” the crowd shouts around them, and Patrick’s still smiling when he leans forward to kiss Pete. Pete’s smiling, too. It’s an imperfect kiss.

It’s absolutely perfect.

“Happy New Year to my poet,” Patrick tells him.

“Happy New Year to my voice,” Pete says. “And my heart, and my soul, and every song stuck in my head, and every star I ever see, and every golden sunrise, and every crimson sunset, and all the sunshine in between, and—”

“Okay, okay,” Patrick says good-naturedly.

“My Lost Astoria,” Pete says. “The Dean to my Sal. My true blue magic. My everything. Just everything.”

“I’m a little worried that you’re just going to make me sing songs filled with words about how great I am,” Patrick remarks.

“I will put such words in your mouth,” Pete grins.

“We’ll make them so jealous, we’ll make them hate us,” says Patrick.

“I think it must be love,” Pete replies.

“I think you must be right,” Patrick agrees.

In the far distance, outside their bubble, the deejay says, “By popular demand, we’re playing this one again,” and “Sugar, We’re Goin’ Down” starts up again, and Pete feels them standing on the precipice of everything. It’s a roller coaster about to let loose. It’s going to be an incredible wild ride.

He’s ready for it.

And it starts here, with this, with Pete intertwining their hands and saying, “Let’s go home, Trick.”

The streets are New-Years crowded, loud with revelers. Pete walks with his head pillowed on Patrick’s shoulder. Together they step over the concrete where their names are written, and keep walking, to their home with their dog, and their glowing Christmas tree, and Patrick’s guitar, and Pete’s piles of notebooks, and their future.