Patrick didn't know why he was letting Pete record him playing on his acoustic and singing. He'd been hanging out with him a lot more often lately when he wasn't with Joe. It was Pete's idea for him to cover David Bowie, too, but it wasn't like Patrick was opposed to it.
He was just sitting on Pete's windowsill, playing the acoustic in the dying sunlight and letting himself cut loose singing. Pete had given him a mic after the first time through it, mostly because the camera didn't seem to like his voice without any better audio equipment.
It was a cover of Life on Mars.
Still, once it was finished, they ended up heading downstairs and getting dinner. Pete still messed around with him through it all, but after another hour Patrick drove himself home. He was supposed to come back again in a couple days (Pete would text him when) and that would be that. They'd hang out again, probably go fuck around somewhere else and enjoy themselves.
Once he was home, he ended up messing around on his acoustic. There was nothing else for him to particularly do, and it took his mind off of everything that was going on. Still, there managed to be a knock at the door.
"Yeah?" he called, stopping his playing and looking up as Aaron let himself in and shut the door behind himself. He sat on the carpet, announcing that he was going to be present for awhile.
"Just...wondering how you're doing. You've gotten all quiet again."
Patrick shrugged. "It's nothing."
"Is that Brendon guy being a douche to you?"
The small boy looked right at him. "No. No he's not. We broke up."
Pause. "When?"
"About a week ago." He sighed, shaking his head and running his fingers through his sloppy hair. "It's not a big deal, it really isn't."
"You don't seem okay, Patrick, sorry to kill the vibe." Aaron gave him a once-over and leaned against the wall. The resemblance was usually hard to spot between the two: they were polar opposites, however suddenly one could see it. The stature and way they held themselves made it an interesting sight to see at that moment.
He shook his head. "It's not a big deal, I swear. I ran into him one day, we got in a fight, and that was it." Patrick looked up at him. "Aaron, seriously. It's fine."
"You don't seem all that broken up about it."
"He cheated on me."
"Why?"
"I didn't want to have sex with him." Patrick gave him a look. "If you're asking why I'm not crying, that's reason number one."
Aaron laughed quietly, shaking his head. "I sort of was, I guess." Still, the laugh was a slightly homicidal one, and that was a little nerve-wracking. "Reason number two?"
"I've cried enough over him, he doesn't deserve anything else."
With that, there was a sigh. Patrick looked up at Aaron. "Mom's worried sick, you know. She thinks you're gonna get depressed again."
"And Dad?"
"Clueless." Aaron looked at the ground, picking up a discarded Alternative Press magazine. "Maybe you should just tell them...y'know, come out and all that."
To the notion, Patrick laughed. It was half sarcastic, of course, but the other half was a bitter realism. "They sent me to private school for saying I wanted to be a musician. Are you fucking insane? They'd sign me up for conversion therapy."
"Maybe you should just at least tell Mom you broke up with Brenda. I can always back you up, you know." It was quiet for a moment. "I'm on your side, Patrick."
"Aaron?"
"Hm?"
"Are you gay?"
"I don't think so."
"But you're not sure?"
"No, I'm not one hundred percent sure."
At that, Patrick huffed with a smirk that he couldn't help. He shook his head and turned his attention to the fallen guitar picks on the floor.
"Where does Brendon live?" Aaron asked, redirecting Patrick's gaze to him.
"I'm not gonna tell you that! I don't trust you with that sort of thing."
The taller of the two brothers laughed. "If you don't tell me, I'll ask Joe tomorrow. Baseball, remember?"
"I doubt that Joe knows. Seriously."
"We'll find out." Hesitation for a moment. "Who'd he cheat with?"
"You wouldn't know him."
"Fight me."
"Ryan Ross."
Aaron laughed. "We'll get around him too."
Patrick shook his head. "Whatever," he said with a small laugh. Still, all of his laughs sounded fake and bitter, like they possessed too much hurt. Okay, maybe Aaron wouldn't physically hurt Brendon, but he'd probably be able to get together the kids that played baseball with he and Joe and go wreck havoc on his house.
In fact, Aaron left early the next morning to get there ahead of Patrick (who was driving over after picking up Scott and Mitch) and unload the plan to Joe, who at the time was practicing his pitching to Andy. Still, Joe greatly approved of the plan and offered up Spencer's hippie van to take them there. Of course, none of this was told to Patrick, because he'd freak out and manage to convince them all not to do it, but that wasn't a big deal.
Baseball that day went fast. Everyone seemed to be rushing it, save Scott and Mitch, who though they were told of the plan, weren't going to go because they were going out with Patrick afterwards.
Yet, though Patrick saw Pete, they didn't wind up saying all that much to each other. They played opposite ends of the field, it wasn't a big deal. They talked about Patrick covering another song- which was just going further towards Pete's master plan of getting his father to notice Patrick which could potentially get him signed to their record label once he was eighteen (that was his father's rules, young pop stars were unpredictable and little brats)- which they'd do tomorrow.
It may not have been a great idea for Patrick to cover Purple Rain, but Pete knew what he was doing. He knew the emotion it could provoke, and that was enough for him. It'd make for a good cover.
Though he admittedly was going to enjoy himself a hell of a lot as they tormented Brendon's house. Supposedly, according to Spencer who used to hang out with Brendon a lot, nobody was home around half an hour from when the game ended. So, that gave them enough time to go out and buy a bunch of shit from various places to keep from looking as suspicious.
Rolling up in the Mystery Machine (Spencer's Volkswagen van was green after all) when nobody was home, the boys set to work. With a lot of them there, it was easy enough. The more nimble of the group hopped the fence and went into the backyard to wreck some havoc back there, while majority of the group stayed out front to toilet paper the house.
Of course, they were aware they'd probably get caught since they were doing it in broad fucking daylight, but Spencer's car was parked far enough away and they were being rather stealth. The whole thing took an hour and a half (almost two hours, who were they kidding) to finish, but once it was done that was that. The easiest thing to clean up would probably be the chalk message they left on the driveway, but after that they bolted.
By bolting, that meant bravely sprinting a half mile to Spencer's car and nearly collapsing as they hurled themselves inside.
Still, Joe bought them all milkshakes afterwards. They were waiting, honestly, to see if Brendon would message any of them about it. Yet they never got anything. Not as much as a text. Whether that was good or bad, they weren't entirely sure yet.
"How much do you want to bet that his parents are going to fucking flip?"
"I won't bet on that because I know it'll happen."
The only one that had been sort of iffy on the plan was Otto, but he ended up having a blast (he, after all, wrote the chalk message).
"His new boyfriend's going to fucking kill us."
"He already got a new boyfriend?!" That was Aaron. "I thought they like...just broke up."
Pete nodded. "They did. Just before break. I didn't know he had a new boyfriend, though." He laughed. "Sweet Jesus, that hypocrite!"
"Tell me all of the gory details, bitch!" That was the gayest one there speaking, which was Lynn surprisingly enough.
"I went to the mall with Patrick the other day, and he got all up in our shit and was going off on Patrick for dating someone else already. We're not dating, but Brendon thought we were. Dear God, that's too perfect."
"What a cunt."
-
Break passed by too quickly. Patrick ended up hanging out with Pete for the majority of it, and when he wasn't with Pete he was with Joe playing baseball. Still, something to repetitive always managed to make itself fun. School wasn't awful, but Patrick still had to see Brendon every day and work with him without tearing his head off.
Still, Pete had also successfully convinced him to start a youtube channel just for singing. He'd said that it might potentially take him somewhere if enough people looked into it, and to this Patrick couldn't really say no. They'd posted the Life on Mars cover the other night, and Patrick didn't check it to see how it was doing. He didn't really care at the moment.
At lunch on Tuesday, he was supposed to stay in the choir room with Scott, Mitch, Kirstie, Avi, and Kevin to help them out again. He didn't mind it, he found it fun actually. Even though Patrick needed vocal lessons himself, he was well aware, the fact that he could help other people from the instrumental aspect of things was enough.
It was the simple comments- "that's not exactly how the guitar sounds" or "the bass could be a little lower for this part". It helped, nonetheless, and made a difference. The hardest thing he had to do was, ironically, describe how the guitar sounded in the song they were doing. The group was working on Dangerous Woman for a youtube video (Scott and Mitch had a separate channel though and wanted to do something else for that).
Focusing on harmonies, trying to tell them about the subdued electric that didn't quite scream but didn't sing either, and letting the bass notes ring. Kevin was able to get the basic beat down rather quickly, which was quite helpful. Though lunch ended when they were only about halfway done, they agreed to go back and finish the rest after school.
Band that day was hell. Patrick ended up getting in a fight that escalated too quickly with one of the guitarists over something really stupid that he could hardly even comprehend. Still, since they weren't supposed to be actually playing instruments, Mr Flowers let him put on headphones and go play on the drum kit.
Mr Flowers was being a lot more compensating to Pete and Patrick, though they both knew it had to do with running into him and his band in the studio, they didn't know why it was such a big deal.
Patrick found himself playing songs that eventually got him calmed down, though a lot of the anger and frustration was received by the drum kit. Slightly distracting to the rest of the class, it wasn't terrible: it meant that Patrick wasn't taking his anger out on them, which was satisfying enough.
In the end, Mr Flowers let him stay in for sixth period, simply saying he'd take care of the office problems. The high schooler couldn't do much. Some choir kids poked their heads in from next door to see what was going on, but that didn't last. When sixth period ended, Patrick found himself leaving the school without waiting for anyone.
There wasn't anyone to wait for.
But someone was waiting for him, and it wasn't Brendon Urie.
- - - - - -
yo yo shameless self promo but if you guys have any interest in trohley i'm posting a fic for that soon and it should be p lit. i have the prologue up now- it's called pax am days.
also there's gonna be a continuity error with waterparks for a bit but i'll clear it up i swear
<3 you guys more than kanye loves kanye, votes and comments are appreciated xoxo