How To Be A Real Boy

Pete had a bad habit of finding his way into Patrick's apartment, like some strange, chipper ninja. He'd stopped knocking at the front door after the role reversal incident and simply walked in like he owned the place, more than half hoping to catch his friend doing something naughty. The doorman downstairs, a friendly Minneapolis native named Mike, had grown accustomed to Pete and greeted him warmly, having recognized him from one of his daughter's posters and gotten her an autograph after his fifth trip over.

Swinging a bag of take-out and feeling too hyper for the elevator, Pete came tripping merrily up the stairs one afternoon to apartment 12D on the fourth floor, quite excited about the day. Gabe had been shacked up at Beckett's for nearly a month now, and most of Panic at the Disco was flying in at any moment, so a party was imminent. Patrick had already said that he didn't feel much like going, but goddammit, he was going to bring him along if he had to drag him there by one of his sideburns.

Finally coming to the correct door, he noticed that there was music floating through it. This could only mean that Patrick was cleaning something, as any other time he'd have his earbuds in. Pressing an ear against the wood, Pete could just barely make out his voice, clear and earnest, over the blare of Say Anything and the roar of a vacuum.

"And when our city, vast and shitty, falls to the Axis..... yeah, they'll search the buildings, collect gold fillings, wallets and rings.... oh yeah......"

Pete leaned up to spy through the peephole with a grin, getting a distorted view of Patrick vacuuming the living room rug in a tee, boxers and argyle socks. He tapped a foot and shook a hip in time as he sang and pushed his Hoover.

"But Miss Black Eyeliner, you'd look finer, with each day in hiding..... oh yeah, beneath the wormwood, oooooo, love me so good, they won't hear us screw away the day........I'll make you say NOOOOOOOOOOOO........ I won't let them take you, I won't let them take you, HELL no no, OH NOOOOOOOOOOO........ I won't let them take you, won't let them take you, HELL no no......."

Unable to take the cuteness any longer, he dropped his bag, threw open the door and rushed into the room, wrapping his arms around the startled Patrick and forcing the two of them into an awkward waltz. "OUR TREBLINKA IS ALIVE WITH THE GLORY OF LOVE!!!" Pete wailed along with Max Bemis, smiling at the ceiling as he spun them around. "TREBLINKA, ALIVE WITH THE GLORY OF LOVE!!!"

"Pete, let go, you crazy son of a bitch!" Patrick half-screamed, half-giggled, not nearly as embarrassed by the intrusion as he could've been.

"Not until the song's over!"

"At least let me shut off the vacuum."

"Nope, gotta keep dancing!"

"You're going to be the death of me, Wentz."

Slowing to a stop as the song came upon the final verse, Pete leaned his forehead against Patrick's and pulled him in tighter. "Should they catch us and dispatch us to those separate work camps....." He murmured, peering into his eyes. "I'll dream about you, I will not doubt you with the passing of time.... oh yeah, should they kill me, your love will fill me, as warm as the bullets..... yeah....."

"I'll know my purpose, this war was worth it, I won't let you down......." Patrick crooned back, wriggling from his grasp with a smile to shut off both the vacuum and the stereo. "You've really gotta remember how to knock, dude, I could've mistook you for a burglar or a rapist and knocked your ass out."

"As if, pretty boy, if you thought I was a rapist, you would've just curled into a ball and let me have my way with you," Pete smirked, flopping down on the couch. "Of course, I could still threaten to rape you to get you to come to the party at Will's."

Shooting an annoyed glance, Patrick set about winding up the cord to the Hoover. "If you tried to rape me, I'd drop you like a brick. You seem to be confusing me with the fanfiction version of myself. And for the last time, I'm not going, I'm not in the mood to be surrounded by forty drunken people I don't know."

"Ah, but that's the thing, Trick, it's not one of Will's usual parties, it's just gonna be Beckett, Saporta, Brendon, Ryan, Jon and us. And the Panic boys are only gonna be in town for a few days to visit Jon's folks, so you can't miss this."

"Wait, you told me Sunday that this was gonna be a giant blowout, I wouldn't be fighting it if I thought otherwise."

"So maybe I was misinformed at the time, forgive me, Patrick dear, I'm only human." Slipping down to his knees, Pete pulled the sleeves of his hoodie over his hands, brought them to his chin and gave his best puppy eyes. "Please, Tricky? Pleeeeeeeaaaaaaase come tonight?"

Sighing in resignation, Patrick nodded. "Fine, but if it's as big as previously predicted, I can and will leave without you."
-
William stared into the kitchen garbage can as if it held the meaning of the universe. In reality, the only thing in it was some fast food wrappers and about eight empty booze bottles. If Gabe was going to be spending much more time around, Will was gonna have to either buy cheaper liquor or take to recycling, because the taller man was drinking him out of house and home.

The statuesque lush was in the shower at the moment, which suited William just fine, because he'd been putting off picking up the place and the kitchen looked like a small atomic bomb had gone off in it. Actually, the entirety of the past month or so felt post-apocalyptic to him, blurring together in his memory into one long clip of lips and legs and laughing. Sleeping with Gabe Saporta was like falling down the rabbit hole into an underground lake of vodka. Not that he was complaining.

Reaching over, William hit the 'on' button to the stereo he kept in the kitchen, filling the room with the static of the local rock station as he set about clearing the old take-out garbage off the counter. For a vegan, Gabe was surprisingly easy to keep fed; there was a Chinese place just down the street that made the best lo mein in Chicago, so they'd taken to ordering from there thrice a week and feeding off a double order for the next few days. Even now, the back of his mouth tasted a little like MSG and fortune cookie.

A familiar drum beat caught his attention, and he glanced up from grabbing a sponge to check the read-out. It made him giggle when he saw the next song was "Wow (I Can Get Sexual, Too)." He'd liked Max Bemis when he'd met him on Warped Tour, kinda shy but friendly enough. Any guy that had gone through all the shit he had and come out half-OK was just fine with him. Granted, he himself was shacked up with a ghoulish pill-popping drunk that was currently singing in Spanish in his shower, but that was beside the point.

"I'd be chatting on the Interweb... where maggots prey upon the living dead..." William sang along with a smile as he gave the countertop a good scrub-down. It was a cute song, in a post-modernist kind of way; how Bukowskian, toying with a random Net skank's emotions and only feeling half bad about it.

"I called her on the phone and she touched herself!" Right on cue, Gabe was there behind him, damp and peppy and shifting his towel-clad hips against him, bare wet chest pressed against his shoulders. "She touched herself! She TOUUUUUUUUCHED herself!"

"I called her on the phone and she touched herself! I laughed myself to sleep!" William giggled back, ducking away to turn down the volume. "That was an awfully quick shower, are you sure your greasy ass is clean?"

"What's it matter if it is, we're just gonna get it dirty again," Gabe smirked, shuffling back to give him space. "Have the boys called you yet?"

"Panic's on the plane as we speak, and Pete's used his powers of persuasion to get Patrick to come."

"I'm gonna assume that last phrase wasn't meant to be an innuendo." Taking off his towel to dry his dark curly hair, he hopped up to sit on the still moist counter.

William grimaced in shock. "Dude! I literally just cleaned that! What is wrong with you?!"

"Hey, we just established that my ass is clean. For now." Grinning in that devilish way that made the girls go wild, Gabe swiveled his hips against the linoleum, making more of his skin come in contact with it.

"You're a freak and a half, Saporta, now get off my fucking counter." William gave him a hard shove. "Our friends are gonna be eating in here, and I can't in all good conscience have them do so knowing your bare ass was right there."

"Fine, fine. Buzzkill. I'll have you know, mister, you're gonna miss this ass being all over every surface of your living space when I go back to New York."

Fist clenching around his sponge subconsciously, William faked a chuckle and turned back to the sink as his friend wandering back into the bedroom. Back to New York. They hadn't discussed it since they'd landed in Chicago, but in the back of his head William had known that their barbituate romance had an expiration date. And that date was when Gabe would have to go and rejoin his band on the coast, set to start up yet another tour.

"I don't know what I want," Max Bemis crooned and slurred in the background. "I don't know what I want..."
-
Brendon had a fascination with airport luggage belts. Something about watching other people's stuff go rolling by intrigued him. He liked to imagine where each bag had been, who owned it, what was inside. If he wasn't so pressed for time everytime he was in an airport, he could sit there and watch the conveyor belt for hours.

"I knew it was stupid to buy a navy blue suitcase." Ryan's complaint brought him back to himself. "We're gonna be stuck here forever."

"Is it at least tagged?" Jon questioned, easily picking out his green duffel bag from the queue.

"Yeah, but so is every other bag." Ryan sighed, checking the tags on three navy suitcases, one right after the other. It made Brendon smirk a tad, his friend's persnickety nature proving to be a source of entertainment yet again. Unfortunately, he looked up from his searching with a frown, giving him a shove. "Don't be a dick, help me out here."

"OK, OK, geez, don't be such a drama queen," Brendon giggled, shouldering his tattered backpack. "We're only gonna be here a week, why'd you need such a big bag, anyway?"

"Because I actually fold my clothes, not just ball them up and shove them wherever. You might wanna consider it sometime, you look like you just rolled out of bed and got on the plane." Grinning in victory, Ryan pulled his suitcase from the queue.

"Firstly, that's kind of the point of my aesthetic, princess." Brendon smirked, leaning in towards his friend's ear. "Secondly, I did just roll out of bed. Yours, to be specific..."

"Ease off the trigger, Tex, you can't discharge a weapon in public..." Ryan deadpanned, getting a good grip on his bag and walking off towards the exit.

Jon shook his head in confusion. "Whatever it is you two have going on, it's becoming increasingly weird."

"Trust me, dude, I don't even know what's going on with me and Ross." Brendon ran a hand through his hair as they followed their guitarist. "The son of a bitch runs so hot and cold on me. If he doesn't knock it the fuck off, I'm gonna suggest he starts actually taking his meds."

"I'm not so sure about a sane Ryan. It would feel too foreign to me. Speaking of sanity, did you call back Spencer?"

"Yeah, he sends his warm regards. He really did wanna come, but you know Ginger, she's such a clingy woman."

"Glad my mom's not like that anymore."

"Tell me about it. Mine thinks me moving in with Ryan is just a streak of rebellion."

"Haven't told her you're fucking your lyricist, then?"

"Of course not, I want to keep my freedom, not die. The woman would shit a brick if she knew I was gay."

"Lying to your mommy, nice. Healthy."

"Go fuck yourself, J-Walk," Brendon chuckled, getting his iPod out of his pocket and putting in the earbuds. Quickly putting it on shuffle, he was taken aback by the song that came on first.

"All the words in my mouth that the scene deemed unworthy of letting out banded together to form a makeshift militia to burrow bloodily through my tongue and my teeth..."

"Woe..."