Fic: you are the dreamer, we are the dream (2/2)

[piecesof_reeses]

Part 1

“Are you fucking kidding me?” Pete asks. Oops. Don’t antagonize the guy with the gun (or the girl with the snow globe, as the case may be) was always the first rule in a hostage situation.

“Yeah, I don’t think this cape is very good for my coloring either,” BIB sighs. Pete sighs too.

“So, come on! We have to go!” She grabs all of them, and abruptly, they’re in free fall.

Fuck, Pete thinks. Patrick articulates the thought out loud. Andy rolls his eyes, which looks so weird when he’s mid-air and his hair is streaming straight up.

Joe is making more airplane noises.

“Here we are!”

They stop equally as abruptly, the inertia making Pete’s neck jerk uncomfortably. Shit, he is so not young enough for this. Almost thirty years, and with a baby. Pete feels suddenly old.

“Okay, this is going to go kind of fast! Pay attention,” BIB says sternly.

Fuck you, Pete thinks, and flips her off while her back is turned. Joe giggles.

They appear to be in front of some kind of gigantic screen. BIB waves her hand, and it lights up.

They’re tiny, and look like they’re being interviewed. Giggling—man, Patrick had the highest-pitched giggle back then—Joe says, “You guys should get married.” And Patrick counters with “We are.”

“Marriage!” Her eyes are shining. “That’s so beautiful! And such a noble goal. You guys are, like, soulmates.”

“Marriage is an outdated and completely pointless institution that has become so commercial and shameless it should be abolished, not that it was such a great thing in the beginning, either,” Andy says, while Joe mouths it along with him, having heard it about a million times before.

“Hey!” Pete says.

Andy rolls his eyes. “Except for your and Ashlee’s completely pure, lavish, overdone Alice In Wonderland-themed wedding, of course.”

“Thanks, dude,” Pete says.

Patrick says, “It was a joke, you lunatic. Like, ha-ha, joke?”

“I think the problem is that your jokes often aren’t very funny,” Pete tells him sadly.

“I think the real problem is that some girls need to get their fucking heads checked,” Patrick says viciously, but BIB doesn’t look like she’s listening.

She’s got some kind of remote control in her hands, and she’s fiddling with the buttons. “It’s here somewhere…oh, good!”

The screen switches to yet another interview, and, oh. Pete remembers this one. He looks to the side. Patrick still threatens to show Ashlee it when he gets mad, but Pete doesn’t think Ashlee would mind. Much.

“And I think someone’s touching my back right now,” baby Patrick is saying, still smiling but looking progressively more weirded-out.

Joe has started hooting with laughter, and even Andy is cracking a grin. Patrick, on the other hand, is moaning something about “why am I even friends with him?” Pete chooses to think that he’s talking about someone else.

“I’m not going to look,” onscreen Patrick is saying, while onscreen Pete is grinning like a douchebag. Man, he never knew he looked that stupid. He should do something about that.

“Does it feel like a hot girl?” onscreen Pete asks. Real life Pete considers burying his face in his hands.

“Not really,” baby Patrick says, and baby Pete says, “c’mon,” and wow, now his entire band is cracking up. Pete manages a quirk of his lips. It’s a good thing he’s so much mature now.

Patrick starts laughing like he knows what Pete is thinking, and Pete aims a kick at his shin.

BIB has started talking again. “And you guys have chemistry! It’s like a perfect match!”

“Does it not say anything to you that Patrick wouldn’t accept anything but a hot girl touching his back? Like, I dunno, something about his sexuality?” Pete asks pointedly.

“Well, you guys were on TV. Of course Patrick didn’t want to out himself,” the girl rationalizes.

Joe giggles. “Of course.”

“These aren’t even past Christmases,” Andy says flatly.

BIB waves her hand dismissively. “Semantics. Whatever. The important thing is that you guys are obviously attracted to each other! I mean, Pete was so overcome with desire he couldn’t stop himself from touching you, even on public television!”

“Right, of course. It wasn’t like I was making an asshole joke, or anything, because I never make asshole jokes,” Pete says calmly.

“Exactly!” she beams at him.

“He’s never sarcastic, either,” Patrick adds.

She looks a little more unsure of herself. “W-well, let’s get on with the rest of the show!”

She clicks to a still this time, of the FOE blog page. A familiar blue, black, and white picture looms on the screen. Some words have been highlighted; specifically patrick is my dean, he unlocks the secrets, and he is the magic.

“This is so sweet,” she sighs. “An open love letter! My boyfriend never posts this kind of stuff to his lj.”

Joe looks amused. “That’s kind of gay, Pete.”

Pete feels an irrational urge to cross his arms defensively. “Above the waist, yeah. And why are you agreeing with her?”

Andy snickers. Fucking Andy.

“There’s more!” BIB trills.

Pete sighs.

The screen transitions to some sort of montage, with more words and phrases highlighted. Like,

he is so sexy that i bet it burns him alittle bit on the inside.

And

it would make me want to disappear to wherever he was.

And

patrick is the love of my life

And

patrick is pretty much the only person on this planet that gets me. id be nowhere without him.

And

we are in love and live in a castle in the sky. our next door neighbors are carebears.

It goes on and on and on.

It is, Pete has to admit, pretty incriminating. It’s not his fault, all right? Patrick’s his best fucking friend. And it’s all true. Except, you know, for the Care Bears part.

Patrick is looking at him with big eyes. “Dude, wow. I’ve never read the q&a part of our website before, but maybe I should start…”

Pete huffs. “Look, it seems pretty bad when it’s all piled next to each other, but this is actually an accumulation of months’ worth of answers!”

“All that says is you aren’t suffering from short-term infatuation,” Andy says matter-of-factly. Pete makes a mental note to buy one of those industrial size lube cartons and go to town next time he’s in Fuck City. Andy’s always liked soft sheets. Slippery really isn’t that much of a change.

Pete feels offended. “Of course what I have with Patrick is long-term! We’ll be together forever!” He wraps a possessive arm around Patrick’s head.

Patrick stares at him. “You’re really not helping our case, here.”

“Well, I didn’t mean it like that.” Pete frowns.

BIB is looking at them with a highly demented maternal air. She’s, what, fifteen years old at most. “You guys are finally getting it! I knew this would work. Oh my god!”

Pete levels a glare at her. “So can we leave?”

“I told you, you have to wait till the process is over. Duh.” She rolls her eyes at him. “It’s just one more thing now for Christmas Past…”

Clicking the button, she changes to a slideshow. A very, very damning slideshow. Of pictures.

It’s one after another of Pete leaning on Patrick, kissing him, hugging him, groping him, smishing their faces together.

Then there’s one of Patrick and Joe in bed together.

The girl stamps her foot. “Ugh! I hate online trolls! Just ignore that one.”

Patrick gives her a weird look. Pete can practically hear him thinking, trolls? Online trolls? What the fuck?

But Joe’s started talking, and the girl is starting to get seriously purple. “Patrick, do you remember that night? When I shared your bed and we stayed up till five making sweet, sweet love?”

Patrick stares at him.

“Patrick?” Joe prompts.

“Right. Sweet love. How could I forget?” Patrick says, rivaling Ryan Ross’s best monotone.

BIB has brought up both her hands to cup around her ears, her eyebrows drawing down into an angry V. “Shut up shut up shut up! You guys are totally wrong for each other! Joe is Jewish, anyway.”

“Mazel tov,” says Joe automatically. “Wait, what’s wrong with being Jewish?”

“Nothing! You’re just so wrong for Patrick! Why can’t you see that?” She seems like she’s on the brink of tears. Pete’s ready to start insulting her hair until she actually cracks, but Joe looks kind of sorry.

“Ugh! You know what, this is practically done, anyway! I’ll be back at the stroke of one.” And she disappears again, after snapping her fingers and teleporting them back to the snowy wasteland.

Andy looks intrigued. “This is actually a lot more interesting than I thought it would be. Are you guys sure you aren’t, you know…” he rubs his fingers together.

Patrick pretends to gag, and Pete tries not to feel too offended.

“No,” he says firmly. “We’re not.”

“I dunno,” Joe draws out. “What about the whole Patrick is the love of my life stuff? And you do seem to grope him a lot. I don’t know why I’ve never noticed before…”

Pete nobly refrains from making a comment about Joe’s perpetually stoned (and oblivious) state.

“It’s because you’re so used to it,” Andy tells him. “Pete’s always on top of Patrick, and after a while, it stops looking creepy and homosexual and just looks like home.” He smiles. Creepily.

“Homosexuality isn’t creepy,” Pete feels like he needs to say.

“Well, no. But you are.”

Pete maintains a dignified, hurt silence.

Patrick says, “Look, just because Pete is totally gay for my ass, doesn’t mean I’m totally gay for him. Which means we still aren’t mfoe, or whatever.”

“Just wait till you see this,” an unfortunately familiar voice says.

Pete checks his sidekick. “Damn, it’s one already? I was hoping we’d get a few more minutes without your annoying voice.” Okay, so he usually doesn’t make a habit of insulting prepubescent girls, but this is an exception.

"Annoying voice? Really? I'd think you like voices in this register; you seem to like dating girls my age, anyway." She glares.

Pete sputters at her for a few moments.

"Jeanae? Ringing any bells?" Okay, wow, Pete is so making an exception for this little brat.

"Cheap shot," Joe says, shaking his head sadly. His afro swings along with his head, making him look like a demented clown.

She sniffs. “Anyway, this is for your own good; I don’t know why you’re being so stubborn.”

“Uh, maybe because I’m married? And Patty over there has a girlfriend?”

“They’ve broken up!” BIB says, outraged. “The internets confirmed it this morning! Nine o’clock sharp. I bookmarked it,” she says smugly.

“We’re not broken up,” Patrick grits out.

“Yes you are! Lj said so!”

“Because the internet community, filled with deranged fangirls like you, would obviously know better than Patrick about the status of his relationship,” Andy says.

“Weell,” she looks flustered.

“Look, can we just get on with this? A few more badly punctuated blog entries about Pete proclaiming his undying love for me, and then we can go, right?” Patrick crosses his arms.

Her eyes gleam, and Pete shudders. He draws Patrick closer to him and lays his chin on his shoulder.

“The stuff I have for Christmas Present aren’t exactly blog entries. And…well, no, I’m not going to ruin the surprise. C’mon, guys!” She claps her hands, and just like that, her mood completely turns around.

Grabbing them by the hand, she drags them back to the theater. “Are you guys ready?”

Patrick glares. Joe nods excitedly.

“Okay.” She clicks the remote control, making the screen light up with a copy of an interview. An AbsolutePunk.net interview with Patrick, to be exact.

Patrick narrows his eyes. “There is nothing remotely gay about this interview!”

“Let’s see.” She winks at him, and starts reading aloud. “It’s impressive to me how well he has me figured out…I was writing off of Pete’s lyrics, but it’s as if I was confessing through them.”

“Well, we’re best friends!” Pete interjects.

“Exactly! You guys are, like, soulmates!” She sighs dreamily. “Can you imagine? Someone who knows you so well that he can take the words out of your heart and make it into a song!”

Joe scratches his nose. “But Pete did that for all of us. Like, he tried to write from all of our perspectives. And I think it was pretty much a success.”

“Yeah, but did you feel like you were CONFESSING through the lyrics?” she asks pointedly.

“Well, if I was confessing, there would probably be something about pot,” Joe concedes.

“See?” The girl smiles like he just proved her point.

Andy looks bored, and Patrick’s eyes are turning into little squints.

“I was just complimenting his, uh, lyrical abilities! And he’s known me for years; it’d be pretty pathetic if he couldn’t write a song from my perspective!” Patrick waves his arms around. Joe ducks again.

Pete says, “Hey! That took some serious work!”

BIB says, “Whatever. There’s more. And it gets even better.”

Patrick winces. Pete rubs his back to make him feel better.

“I think they don’t really understand Pete…Dude, you don’t even have a clue how honest and real that guy is,” she recites.

“Hey, thanks, man.” Pete smiles at Patrick and presses a smacking kiss to his cheek. Patrick turns away, grumbling under his breath.

“He’s invaluable,” BIB goes on. “I wouldn’t be here without him…I wasn’t a singer until Pete saw it in me…all the thanks go to Pete.” She sighs again, clasping her hands together. “Isn’t that what true loves do? They see past all the crap to the true, shining potential within! You’re so lucky, Patrick.”

“It’s not really that difficult to find a good singer,” Pete points out. “All you have to do is be semi-not tone-deaf.”

Andy says, “I’m not so sure you’re not tone-deaf, Pete. Remember when you sang for Arma Angelus?”

“I wasn’t that bad!”

Patrick and Joe both stare at the ground, pointedly not saying anything. Whatever. They’re all jackasses.

“So obviously, you must have been listening with more than your ears when you first heard Patrick sing.” Andy is smirking now, the hateful little shit. “You were listening with your heart, too.” Andy clutches his hands to his chest, looking like a retard, Pete thinks.

She stares at Andy. Pete can practically see little waves of hearts beaming from her creepy little eyes. “I knew you would understand! I mean, you’ve found your own true love.”

Andy begins to look more alarmed. Pete smirks.

“What are you talking about?” Andy asks.

“You and Matt Mixon!”

Andy blanches.

“Oh, you didn’t think you were keeping it a secret, did you?” she titters. “The whole internet knows you guys are shagging!”

“Shagging? You’re not even from England, what the fuck?” Patrick says.

“Oh, sorry.” She blushes. “I was in the Harry Potter fandom before bandom made an honest woman out of me.”

“Harry Potter?” Pete asks, interested in spite of himself.

“Oh my god,” Joe says. “Are you going to start wearing that Gryffin-whatsit polo again? Because I hate to tell you this, but a grown man wearing that kind of stuff looks less cute and more…creepy. Like you’re trying to pick up people from the demographic most commonly associated with Harry Potter. Not that you don’t have a history of that, of course…”

Pete ignores him. Jeanae was years ago, honestly.

“Well, yeah.” She beams at him. “Dramione foreva!!”

Pete looks at her disapprovingly. “Draco was a whiny little brat. And, intra-house fraternization, seriously?”

Wow, getting that kind of disgusted look from a teenage girl is so surreal.

“It is so obvious you were never in hp. Haven’t you ever thought about that tension between them? UST!!!” She giggles manically.

“Let’s just move on,” Patrick says hastily.

“Ooh, okay!” she agrees. Patrick looks like he regrets interrupting.

“He thinks I’m great; his support has meant the world,” she reads off. “Ohmigod, this is like a mutual appreciation society. The cutest thing ever! You guys are so in love and don’t even know it.”

Pete is beginning to think that the best way of getting through this “hearts and wrists intact” (wow, he is seriously going off the deep end if he’s quoting his lyrics in his head) is just to humor the girl.

“Sure,” he drawls. “Me and Patrick compliment each other all the time. Like, for instance, Patrick, have I told you today that your shirt makes you look incredibly hot?”

Patrick is staring at him like aliens have taken over his body. Pete sighs, and settles for putting a proprietary arm around Patrick.

But BIB looks like she’s peeing with happiness. She’s tearing up a little, too. “That’s so sweet. Pete, don’t worry, Patrick totally loves you back. Look at this.”

She presses a button, and a few highlighted sentences appear on the screen.

I love that guy to death.

And

I’d take a bullet for him.

“Hey, I’d take a bullet for you too,” Pete says quietly, smoothing gentle circles over Patrick’s arm.

“Yeah, whatever,” Patrick mutters. “I know.”

Andy is pretending to swoon into Joe’s arms, but Joe’s a little preoccupied with the examining the size of his fingernail, and he lets Andy hit the ground with a muffled curse.

“There are just a few more lines I want you to see from a different interview,” BIB says.

She clicks the remote control, transitioning the screen to another interview.

I got really lucky in Pete. I sing because Pete wanted me to are the lines highlighted.

“Okay, okay, we get it,” Patrick says shortly.

“Yeah,” Joe giggles. “Patrick thinks Pete is the shit.”

“While the rest of us just think Pete is a shit,” Andy mutters. Pete wonders when Andy got so bitchy. Oh, wait. It was probably when he bedazzled Andy’s favorite Fuck City jersey during a smoking session with Ross.

“Do you?” she asks sweetly. “Good. There’s just one more thing now…Oh my god, this is my favorite part.”

The screen turns black for an instance, and then slowly begins to light up on a scene with Pete and Ashlee. Wait. This looks familiar.

“Babe, what have I told you about the toilet seat?” Ashlee is calling.

“That it’s really useful for not falling into the toilet?” onscreen Pete calls back from the other room. Pete winces. He remembers this now. “Not that you would have much of a problem with that, especially after the baby, you know. Child-bearing hips, and all that…”

“What did you just say?” Ashlee asks, abruptly calm.

“Uh…” Onscreen Pete appears around the corner, walking towards the bathroom. “Nothing?” he says wisely.

“That’s what I thought. Now, honey, do you see anything wrong with this scene?” She waves her arm around the bathroom.

Onscreen Pete plasters on an obviously phony look of dismay. Damn, Pete should do something about that. He had no idea he looked so fake when he made that face.

“Oh, man, Hemingway again?” onscreen Pete says.

“Hemingway,” Ashlee repeats flatly.

“That dumb dog just keeps leaving the toilet seat up, even after I’ve told him a million times to stop,” onscreen Pete says, shaking his head sorrowfully.

“You’re blaming this on Hemingway.”

“Gotta give blame where it’s due, right?” Onscreen Pete quips. Real life Pete grimaces and closes his eyes.

“How many times have I told you to freaking put the toilet seat back down after you’re done using it? This is so gross, Pete.” Ashlee’s face is rapidly darkening, and her hands are on her hips. She looks really cute, actually.

“I told you, it was Hemingway,” onscreen Pete says, clearly not thinking straight.

“That is it! Couch!” She begins to herd him out into the living room, over his bleating protests. “You’re always so goddamn flippant about this, I swear—“

“Babe, it’s just the leftover pregnancy hormones talking,” onscreen Pete starts, right before Ashlee snaps and smacks him on the cheek. And not on the butt cheek, either. Pete sighs.

“I am so sick of you!” Ashlee yells. Bronx has started crying upstairs, and she glares at him. “Now look what you’ve done!”

“What I’ve done?” onscreen Pete scoffs.

The screen slowly fades to back to black.

Joe is looking very impressed with Pete’s capacity for stupidity. Andy has opened his mouth to say something, but stops after Pete sends him a death glare. Yeah, that’s right, Hurley. You thought only Patrick could do a good death glare, didn’t you?

Patrick is the only one who manages to start talking. “Man, she’s got you whipped,” he says, looking awed.

Pete ignores him and removes his arm. Clearly, Patrick doesn’t respect him enough for them to be getting anywhere near first base.

“Although, honestly—what with you being, well, you, I’m surprised she hasn’t divorced your ass yet,” Patrick muses.

Yeah, Pete sometimes feels that way, too.

BIB looks smug. “Now don’t you see how terrible your marriage is? Don’t you see the way she abuses you? You would be so much better off with Patrick, who’s hardly ever violent.”

Joe starts cracking up at that, and even Patrick gives a little smile.

Anyway, the stupid girl didn’t even show the whole story. The really interesting part came after she slapped him. Make-up sex is always hot, especially when it involves pegging. Pete surreptitiously adjusts his pants.

Andy gives him a look that says he isn’t fooled at all. Whatever. Pete’s patented Slowly-Reach-Down-And-Tug adjusting technique (repeat if necessary) always works.

BIB is still looking like the cat who got the cream. “I’ll leave you guys to think on that for a while. I’ll be back!” she trills, and snaps her fingers to teleport them away and teleport herself back to where she came from. Probably the loony bin, Pete thinks.

They stare at each other after she’s gone, and Pete plops himself down onto the snow, ignoring the spreading wetness over his butt. He is so worn out. Listening to this special brand of crazy would take it out of anyone.

“So,” Joe starts. “Did that actually happen?”

Pete glares at him. Andy snickers.

“What do you think?” Andy asks. “Anyway, you know Pete gets off on the whole smacking thing.”

“I do not!” Pete defends. Well, at least not in that region, okay? He can still feel the phantom sting on his cheek. His facial cheek. Honestly, his butt cheeks would have appreciated it much better.

Patrick is sighing. He sounds as tired as Pete is. Pete tugs him down to sit next to him, and lays his cheek on Patrick’s warm shoulder. “This really sucks, huh?” he says.

“Yeah,” Patrick mumbles.

“It’s almost over,” Pete comforts.

“Not if we manage to piss her off again,” Andy says drily. “Remember, she controls this whole fucked-up universe.”

Joe looks anxious. “Marie’ll be mad if I come home too late. Plus, I smell like pot.”

“And I’m whipped?” Pete says incredulously.

They give him a look. “Whatever,” Pete grumbles. “You just wish you had a piece of my hotass wife.”

“Dude, he’s so whipped, and what’s worse, he doesn’t even know it,” Patrick says in a stage whisper to Andy. They’re really not as funny as they think they are.

And anyway, they need to focus. “We need a plan, you guys.”

Patrick looks at him. “I thought we were just going to wait it out?”

“Well, yeah, we are, because we don’t have any other option. But we can at least make sure she doesn’t have a reason to keep us here any longer. So maybe we can, like, pretend that what she’s saying is actually true.”

“Are you just trying to find an excuse to make out with me in front of an audience?” Patrick asks suspiciously.

No, of course not! Pete’s motives are completely and totally pure.

Sort of.

Patrick’s just got a nice mouth, okay?

“Wait,” Andy says slowly. “Are you saying you guys have made out before, just without an audience?”

Patrick glares. “It was a long time ago. We were both drunk. And that is all we are going to say about it.”

Pete flutters his eyelashes at Andy from behind Patrick’s back and mouths, Make-Out King.

But he’s getting off track.

“We don’t have to make out,” Pete says grudgingly. “We can just cuddle, or whatever. And you know, stop contradicting every single thing she says. Because some things you just can’t explain away, Patrick. Loving me to death? Really?” He nuzzles at Patrick’s neck obnoxiously.

“That sounds great to me,” says Joe, looking considerably cheered.

“You’re just happy that you don’t have to do any of the work,” Patrick says darkly.

Pete gasps. “Cuddling with me is not work!”

“What’s not work?” comes from behind them.

“Uh, nothing.” Pete swings around to face the girl. “Nothing is not work. Every minute life goes on is hard and torturous.”

She looks at him weirdly. “…Right.”

Andy offers her a weak grin.

“So, we just have one more thing to see. Christmas Yet to Come!” She claps her hands. “This is the awesomest part.”

They dutifully grasp onto her arms, and she whisks them away to the theater.

“Okay. Before we begin…” She looks down and twirls some hair around a finger. A blush is spreading over her cheeks.

“What?” Pete prompts.

“So, this is, like, a scene…” She descends into an unintelligible murmur.

“What?” Andy asks, sounding kind of short. Pete gives him a warning a look.

“It’s from a fic I wrote!” She smiles tentatively. “It’s on Quizilla, my very latest. It’s a whole 40,000 words long! And, it’s got, like, a ton of reviews. I think it’s the best thing I’ve ever written. Anyway, this scene is from the ending. So…yeah.”

“Cool!” says Joe casually.

She beams at him, and then twists her fingers together. “So! I’ll just, um, put it on, then.” Taking a deep breath, she presses a button on the remote control.

The screen flickers to life. Onscreen, an old man is hugging a tombstone and sobbing.

“Is that, uh…Is that me?” Pete asks.

“Of course!”

Huh. He’s actually aged quite well. Deep wrinkles are etched artfully into a leathery face, and his tattoos are distorted but still recognizable. His hair is a deep, steel gray. Although, weird. Some of the tattoos are incorrect. And his circle of thorns is missing.

On the tombstone, PMS is engraved, right below RIP.

“It’s actually Vaughn—“ Patrick begins, but Pete shushes him.

His epitaph reads, A loving friend, a strong fighter, and one hotass singer.

“It was cancer,” BIB says in a hushed tone.

Onscreen, old Pete is sobbing out something. “Whyyyyyyy didn’t I tell u how I felt???”

Pete has no idea how they can hear the multiple question marks and the text speak, but somehow, it’s coming through loud and clear.

“Ohhhh,” old Pete wails, and then says something that is very mangled. It sounds like a word that starts with a P.

“Sorry.” BIB blushes. “I typo-ed Patrick into Pacrtik on accident.”

“And now it’s 2 late. I was roped into marriage by that horrible, cold bitch who murdered my beloved son Bronx Mowgli!”

Pete refrains from telling BIB that they actually just refer to Bronx as, well, Bronx.

And what cold bitch is she talking about? Who would kill adorable Bronx?

“Oh, that cruel Ashlee, who wuz horrible in the sack and everywhere else, too!”

Is she kidding? Pete is ready to beat down that brat for defaming his wife, but Patrick squeezes his hand. “Don’t,” he mutters. “I’m sure this is almost over.”

Yeah, no. Instead of being almost over, they’re treated to a thirty-minute-long monologue in which Pete details every bit of their life.

“I remember the day I met you. I knew you were someone special just from looking at u!” Onscreen Pete gasps between sobs.

Yeah, okay, Pete knew Patrick was someone special when they met. But the kind of special Pete had been thinking of at the time was…considerably more insulting. Black, knee-high socks paired with argyle? Seriously?

Now onscreen Pete’s moved onto praising Patrick. Every single bit of Patrick.

“Your beautiful, blood red dick! It looked so strong and magnificent, a pulsing reminder of ur manhood—“

Oh, god.

Patrick is slowly turning a magnificent shade of red himself, although only in the face and neck, not…anywhere else. Andy looks like he’s trying to brain himself against Joe’s shoulder to get the images out of his head.

Eight minutes later, onscreen Pete is still expounding on all the delights of Patrick’s crotchal region.

“Are you serious?” Pete asks the girl.

She looks defensive, and then abashed. “Okay, okay. Maybe I got a little carried away. Uh.”

“And ur singing voice! Patrick, whenever I heard you sing, I had to excuse myself because it turned me on 2 much!”

“It was only the one time,” Pete defends loudly. Oh, wait. Oops.

Patrick is slowly inching away from him.

“Oh Patrick, I dun think I can go on without u. I just—I just—you mean everything to me…”

BIB has started tearing up. “Oh em gee, this is the saddest part, guys. Do you have any Kleenex?”

Joe gives her one of those travel packets.

“Whenever I think of your strong, thick thighs, and ur beautiful ginger hair—“

“Actually,” Patrick mutters, “I would probably be completely bald by then.”

“—I just no that this world is 2 dark without u! What am I going to dooo?”

Pete doesn’t know, but he really hopes it involves shutting up.

Onscreen Pete brightens, and wipes his snot away with a handkerchief. A handkerchief. That is some weird fucking shit.

“I know wut I’ll do!” He pulls out a long, ornate dagger. “Gee gave me the weirdest look when I asked for this, and Mikey looked at me like I wuz nuts too, and I didn’t even no what I needed with it…But now everything iz clear!”

Patrick’s eyebrows have climbed nearly to his hairline.

“I’ll join u, so we can rly have our castle in the sky and meet all the Care Bears!” And with those stirring last words, onscreen Pete plunges the dagger into his chest. A huge gush of blood pours out, and then he slumps into the ground. His tongue lolls out. It is really very unattractive.

The screen fades to black.

BIB looks at them excitedly. “So? What do you think?”

Andy has his head buried in Joe’s shoulder, and his shoulders are shaking.

“He’s crying because it’s too beautiful,” Patrick tells her in a monotone.

“Yeah. I myself am just barely keeping the tears back,” Pete says.

“I’m so glad you like it!” She sighs happily, and for an instant, she looks like any regular teenage girl. But then the lunatic gleam comes back into her eyes. “Anyway, don’t you see now?”

“See what?” Patrick says cautiously.

“That this will happen if you don’t realize each other’s love now! Your undying passion will be deferred and deferred and deferred until you die!” She gesticulates in the air to helpfully illustrate dying.

“Thanks,” Pete says brightly. “It’s all clear now. We understand. In fact…”

He grabs Patrick by the neck—Patrick lets out a yelp of alarm—and squishes their lips together for a few seconds, and then releases with a loud smack.

“We’re in love. Thanks so much, BIB.”

“BIB?” she asks curiously.

“Uh. Nothing.” Pete’s eyes slide to the left.

“Cool. Well. I just want to say how awesome it was meeting all of you, and, like, Merry Christmas!” She grins at all of them.

“Merry Christmas,” They chorus, and before they finish the last syllable, they’re back in Patrick’s living room.

“Wow,” Pete says.

“Yeah.” Andy sits up gingerly, holding his head. “What the fuck time is it anyway?”

“9 A.M.” Patrick reports. He has one hand over his mouth, like he’s trying to rub away Pete’s taste. Whatever. Pete has it on good authority that he tastes like chicken. Good chicken, even, not that crappy McDonalds stuff.

“Damn.”

Joe is still on his back, staring up at the ceiling. “Man. I haven’t had this kind of trip since I tried shrooms. That is some fucked up pot you have there.”

Patrick snorts. “Yeah, guess so.”

“Can I have the rest?” Joe asks.

Patrick eyes him. “…Sure.”

Pete’s phone rings, splitting the air, and he looks down. It’s Ashlee.

Are u done having alone-time with your band yet?? can u come be hetero with me now? i miss u :(

Pete smiles down at his sidekick and is about text back, when the phone buzzes again.

also bx threw up all over th kitchen and im so not cleaning that up alone.

Pete snorts. Right. He quickly texts, ill be right there.

End.