"Hey, Chelsea? You want Dad's truck?"
His sister paused, glancing out the window to look at it, then nodded. "Hell yeah, I do."
"Great, you can help me convince him to buy me a car that's a helluva lot cheaper than whatever you would want."
"Uh, how about no?"
"Then you can't have the truck." Patrick cocked an eyebrow as he waited for an answer from her, to which she groaned but nodded.
"Yeah, okay, sure. I'll help." Pause. "What even are you getting instead?"
The one thing Patrick was glad for was that his sister actually would help. She'd sell her soul to the devil if it meant getting her way. Besides, she'd wanted the truck for awhile, just never mentioned it recently.
"Something that has four wheel drive. Don't worry about it, it's fifteen hundred and I can fix anything that's broken... I did autoshop in middle school and two years at my old school." He chuckled, shaking his head even if she didn't seem impressed. Still, it was just adding to a good argument.
They made small talk for a while longer before Chelsea went back to her room to do her own thing until dinner. It was decided that was when they'd bring it up, and then even if they didn't win, Patrick had to let Chelsea have the car after school for two weeks. It was a fair enough trade, at least, assuming she actually tried to help him get the car.
It was a 1995 Jeep Wrangler, already jacked up a bit. Patrick was actually excited for it, mostly because he knew that it wouldn't be hard to fix up if it needed it and Jeeps were great for tight turns. Pulling out one of the vinyls he had, he put it on and busted out an essay for his history class quickly before he went down for dinner. He managed to get down last again, but picked up a piece of bread before he sat down.
He and his sister waited until about halfway through, and surprisingly she brought it up first. "So, dad, Patrick and I were talking about maybe getting him a new car so I can have the truck."
Aaron's facial expression consisted mostly of "holy shit, you two actually spoke to each other".
Still, Patrick nodded to help back it up. "Yeah, I found this really cool '95 Jeep Wrangler for sale for only fifteen hundred. It's green paint, which isn't my favorite, but it has a black covering over it so I don't have to worry about rain and the interior is immaculate."
There was a long pause from their father, while their mother just simply looked between the two sharing the same expression as Aaron.
"Look, Patrick, it's almost too good of a deal. What if the car doesn't work?"
"But he took, like, four years of autoshop. Remember when he fixed up the '78 Mustang?" Chelsea reminded him, straightening out. "Besides, with the amount of money saved on getting that car over something new, it would easily cover any spare parts that he needed."
Patrick was glad he got his sister into this.
Their father shared a look with their mother before he sighed and nodded. "Oh, alright. I can cash in my paycheck tomorrow and we'll go get it."
The two siblings shared a smile and actually high fived each other (which nearly sent their mother into tears and Aaron onto the floor) before returning to eating dinner. It was so shocking mostly because the entire family (including aunts, uncles, cousins, and grandparents) thought they hated each other and would never make up unless Patrick either became famous or got a lot of money.
If Chelsea did either of those things it wouldn't change anything, but Patrick was the one that would be nice enough to let her in again.
But in all reality, something with four wheel drive meant he could go offroading. Maybe it wouldn't be the first thing he did, but it would no doubt get done within the first month.
Hey, he was allowed to like some straight things.
-
A week into having the Jeep (the fixes he had to make were relatively minor- bonus points that the car already had an auxiliary jack) and he'd already hit up Brendon with the date they were going out to Trabuco and there was absolutely no arguing with him. Kirstie and Joe also were coming, along with Pete. Realistically, he wanted to take someone else, but his car barely fit the five people he was bringing. Patrick picked up Joe first, then Brendon, and Kirstie and Pete were both getting picked up from Starbucks.
It didn't take that long to get them, and Patrick stole Pete's banana bread as they started the drive out to Trabuco.
The skies were gray, and it had rained the day before which made it absolutely perfect for testing the waters of the car. He'd filled up on gas before they left, because one could never be too sure, then plugged in Joe's phone because he had the most music and the widest variety. Kirstie was into pop, Pete liked metal, Brendon was into alternative and Patrick could really dig classic rock/pop.
Snapchat stories were already going up, and it's not like Patrick was surprised. He was excited more than anything else: California had gotten a lot of rain recently, which meant this was really going to be a trip. After this, at least, they were planning on going to get breakfast food of some sort. It took about forty five minutes to get there, and once Patrick had pulled into the dirt lot he turned to look at them.
"There's no going back now, you know," he said, making eye contact with all of them.
Surprisingly, the only ones that seemed almost uncomfortable were Pete and Brendon.
"Also, am I allowed to be as gay as I want right now?" he asked, glancing at them in the rearview as he got the car ready.
"As long as I'm allowed to be as gay as I want," Kirstie said, surprising all of them. She had on the most innocent smile. "What? I'm gay too, guys."
"Rad, you ever down to pretend to be my girlfriend for my parents?"
"Hell yeah, you can pretend to be my boyfriend," she said with a grin as Patrick sent them forward onto their quest over the bridge and onto the dirt path. Darling Nikki had come on, and Brendon hit Patrick's shoulder with a sloppy grin across his face.
"Babe, it's our song."
"Oh, sweet Jesus," Patrick said with a laugh, shaking his head at the memories that popped into his head.
Joe gripped onto the closest thing possible when they went up a hill and reached the top. "Dude, there's just all these guys in bigass trucks just going up and down this hill," he remarked with a laugh.
"There's a fuckin' motorcycle!"
"Jesus, Kirstie, don't hold back."
"Sorry, Saint Joseph."
"Leav- oh shit!"
With that, Patrick had sent them down the hill, expertly maneuvering the car through the dirt and mud. While Stone Temple Pilots came on, Brendon ended up turning up the radio with a grin.
"Should we go through the river? I wanna see what's up that hill," Patrick said as they came back to the road. Other people were driving through, not as reckless, but still there.
"Hell yeah, bro," Pete said, a grin forming on his face. He'd never done this sort of thing before, and it was greatly entertaining for him.
Still, taking them through the water current with the bumps and jolts that sent them bouncing around, they were laughing more than anything else.
"Our car is a boat!" It was Joe that said it, biting on his tongue to suppress the smile that stained his lips from getting too big. There wasn't anything on the other side of the river that Patrick could get to, but they ended up driving through on the other side for a bit just to see what was over there.
As they drove back through the river, it was Pete that made the next comment regarding the person that was apparently stuck on a singular section of dirt. "Your car isn't a boat, ha!"
"Ohmigod go through that puddle of mud!" Kirstie exclaimed, pointing to the right. Patrick ended up driving around a bush to get to it, and observing the dip he glanced back at them.
"Should I go fast?"
"Hell fucking yeah!"
"There's so many people judging us so hard right now," Pete said with a laugh as he shook his head. Pause. "Dear God, turn this shit up! It's Under Pressure!"
Brendon did so while Patrick revved the car before sending them straight into the mud. Watching it fly up on either side and stain the windows just made it better as Patrick pulled back up to the main road. They drove along quickly, slipping to the side to go through more mud puddles and driving over the river again to appease Joe.
"Our car's a fucking boat, holy shit!"
By the time they'd made it to the end, it had been about an hour, maybe more. The main thing Patrick was thinking about was the fact that he wasn't technically supposed to be driving other people, but he'd had his license for seven months now (and technically he'd been driving since he was fourteen, but shh) so it's not like he was inexperienced. He was careful as he turned them back around, heading back through and just getting the car even dirtier and adding even more to the snapchat stories.
"Is that a tire in the river?"
"We should get it," Pete said with a grin. "You don't have a spare on this thing yet, Patrick, we could just put it on."
"Sure," he said with a nod, pulling around and going the long way around before pulling up in front of the tire. "We're gonna have to get a little wet, but..."
"Eh, it's not a big deal," Pete said with a grin, squeezing out from behind Brendon. Joe joined them once Patrick had rolled his jeans up to his knees. Still, when he stepped into the river, it was one of the first swears they'd ever heard him utter.
"Holy fucking shit that's cold!" The exclamation came when he'd gotten both legs almost knee-deep in the river and waded back to the dry part where the tire was. Joe wasn't nearly as deep, being a helluva lot taller, but his mid-calf socks still got wet. After examining it, they figured it was perfectly good and went to put it on the back.
Patrick would get the cover he had for it from his room when he got back home, but he waited for Joe to get back in before he waded back into the river and nearly swore again (this time, he pulled off the softly muttered "holy smokes") as he got back in.
As soon as he was in- along with Joe and Pete- he took off his shoes and socks and squeezed the socks back out into the river. His feet were still freezing, but it wasn't as bad as it would've been if he'd left the shoes on. Glad for the flip flops he had in the itty-bitty trunk, he got them out of the river and back out onto the dirt before mentioning that he'd get them when they stopped back out at the dirt parking lot.
Needless to say, after another half hour of driving through the mud and dirt, they made their way back to the parking area. Stopping once they were out there, Patrick pulled his keys from ignition to go unlock the trunk and put his wet shoes and socks in there and retrieve his flip flops. Of course, he was barefoot in the rocks and dirt, but he didn't particularly mind.
"Dude, your car is fucking filthy," Pete remarked when he got back in.
"This is the kind of stuff you don't wash off for two weeks," Patrick told him with a grin. "I should join the all wheel drive club at school now, don'tcha think?"
"Totally would make you look as straight as possible," Joe said with a laugh. "Go for it."
Patrick laughed, but nodded. "Yeah, okay. Let's get breakfast. You guys have money, right?"
After the chorus of yeses, Brendon smiled at Patrick, leaning over to kiss his forehead. He'd had a good time, even if he'd been nervous about it during. Maybe it was one of the most fun things he'd ever done, if not the most fun. Patrick may have been strange, but Brendon was honestly thrilled that he could call the small boy his.
- - - - - -
aye yo this was fun to write tbh. i was listening to queen practically the whole time (and prince- seriously listen to darling nikki it's so funny omfg)
if you didn't already pick it up, they live in california.
also highkey there's gonna start to be some drama soon >:)
<3 you guys moar than kanye loves kanye, votes and comments are appreciated xoxo