Author: Minervacat
Fandom: Bandslash RPS
Pairing: Bob/Patrick, implied Pete/Mikeyway
Rating: NC-17
Disclaimer: Not real, not for profit. If you got here searching your own name or the names of your friends, Pete Wentz, BACK BUTTON NOW.
Summary: all the lazy days are gone/still the grind is grinding on. 8400 words.

Two weeks before they hit Chicago with Warped -- two weeks before he ever hits Chicago, any tour, always since he's been out on the road doing his job, whatever that job was -- Bob calls Reckless Records and reads them a list of album titles over the phone. And then, when whatever traveling circus he's with this time gets to Chicago (when they get to Tinley Park or Rosemont, which everybody who's not from Chicago calls Chicago, and everybody who's from Chicago calls Tinley Park and Rosemont), he always borrows somebody's rental car and pays too much money to park by Marshall Field's and walks the two blocks down to Reckless on Madison and hands over his credit card and walks away with five hundred dollars worth of new music.

He isn't even sure whose car he's borrowing this time around -- he asked Mikey if Mikey knew anybody who had a car and maybe wanted to drive into the city in the morning before they have to soundcheck, or anybody who might want to let Bob take their car. He asked Mikey because Mikey's been attached to Pete Wentz's hip since the beginning of the summer, and Bob figures that if anybody would have access to a car in Chicago, it'd be the kids who are actually from the city.

(The first conversation he had with Patrick Stump this summer, it was about whether or not people from Wilmette and Glenview could get away with saying they were from Chicago; Bob doesn't think so, because it's Wilmette and Glenview, but Patrick had just shrugged amiably, in that way that people from the inner 'burbs who spent a lot of time at Clark and Belmont as teenagers always did, and stuffed his hands in his pockets and asked Bob if he'd been to a show at the Metro any time in, like, the last four years, and had their front-of-house mixers gotten any better than they were in 2000? Bob hasn't, but he never liked the Metro much anyway. Too full of hipsters from Wrigleyville, and they wouldn't sell anybody underage beer, ever. Bob always liked the Double Door better, because they never carded him.

He and Patrick ended up spending all their free time the first two weeks of the tour comparing shows they'd seen, shows they'd both been at, shows with the craziest pits and the worst fights and the best front-of-house guys. "We played Schubas, once," Patrick said, sounding wistful. "Opening for ... I don't even remember who, now. I always wanted to play there again, but ..." He trailed off and Bob understood the unsaid sentence; Schubas' isn't a sold-out arena tour, but there's something about it, that every musician from Chicago that Bob's ever met has wanted to really blow the doors off a show there.

Bob never really wanted to play a show there, but he's mixed some of his best work behind that board, and he understands what Patrick means. He tells Patrick about the best show he ever mixed there, a crazy Irish punk band from Detroit who actually broke up out on Belmont 45 minutes after the show, and Patrick grins at him from under his hat and makes Bob recount every sentence and every punch thrown during the break up.

They were some of the best conversations Bob's had with somebody not in his band since he started having a band, and when he found himself awake on one of Fall Out Boy's buses at 4 a.m. telling Patrick about the time that he and Jon Langford got drunk at the bowling alley/laundromat on Southport and then spent an hour leaping between the platforms at Fullterton -- which is a story that most of the people he knows don't appreciate in the right sort of way -- Bob didn't think twice about it. Patrick looked at him appalled, and then laughed and laughed and laughed when Bob told him that the story ended up with Jon being arrested, naked, on the DePaul softball field while Bob hid behind the counter in the hot dog shop under the tracks.

So Bob likes Patrick Stump a lot, but lately Patrick's been buried behind his laptop, early stages of writing for the next album, and Bob doesn't actually feel like he can bug the guy just because Bob wants to go spend money at a record store that's only special because it's Bob's favorite.)

They roll into the parking lots at the Tweeter Center late and the party spills out into the spaces between the buses before half the engines are turned off. Used to be that Bob would get people he knew in the city to come down, come out, and party with whatever tour he's on, but this time around it's different. He's more tired, for one thing, because drumming takes more out of him than mixing ever did, and he's finally been gone from Chicago long enough that he doesn't know almost anybody in the city anymore. His mom drives down, though, because she isn't coming to the show but Bob wants to see her, and after he hugs her but before they go eat dinner at Perkins (the only shitty restaurant open in Tinley Park after midnight), he reminds Mikey that he's looking for somebody to go into the city with the next morning.

Mikey nods solemnly and Wentz erupts into view, hooks his fingers in Mikey's belt loops, and drags Mikey away without a word. Mikey waves sheepishly and Bob just turns back to his mom and hopes that Mikey will call him later and tell him somebody's got a car.

Mikey doesn't call, but Frankie does, party loud in the background, and says, "Mikey says to tell you that somebody'll meet you at the bus in the morning. Is 8:30 too early?" And then, "Why aren't you here, Bryar? This party fucking rocks." There's a voice in the background mumbling something loudly enough for Bob to know Frankie's not really paying attention to Bob anymore, but not loud enough for Bob to tell who it is or what they're saying, but then Frank adds, "Okay, no, no, sorry, 9:30, okay?" Bob says okay but Frank's not even listening to him anymore, and Bob hangs up without saying good-bye and goes back to his club sandwich and his french fries and his mom.

After dinner, Bob's mom hugs him and drives him back to the venue. He says, "You want to come have a beer?" Bob's mom is pretty cool, she put up with him for 18 years and never said a single thing when he decided that what he wanted to do with his life was spend it on the road making other people playing music sound good instead of playing it himself, but she just shakes her head and hugs him again and shakes Frankie's hand when Frank launches himself onto Bob's back as his mom's trying to get into her car and Bob's trying to figure out if he can escape the party and just go to bed without anybody finding him. He shakes Frankie off, hugs his mom one last time -- no telling when they're going to get back to Chicago, which is why he's got almost $800 worth of albums to pick up tomorrow -- and accepts three beers and two unsmoked cigarettes between the back gate and the bus he's really, really going to sleep on.

Taking stuff from drunks usually gets them off your back about drinking yourself, if what you want to do instead of drink is sleep. Bob's toured long enough that he should have figured out how that works, but he hasn't. It's a mystery.

When he makes it back to the bus, Wentz and Mikey are huddled in the front lounge, whispering frantically at each other even though Bob's pretty sure that nobody else is there. Ray was arguing with a guy that Bob thinks is the guitarist for the Dropkick Murphys, and Frankie was running around screaming like a maniac, and Gee's been sleeping on the other bus. Whatever Wentz and Mikey are talking about, they don't even look up when Bob walks past them, which isn't any kind of surprise but means that Bob might actually get to sleep in peace for at least a little while. He puts the beers in Ray's bunk, for no reason at all except it strikes him as sort of funny, and he tucks the cigarettes up on the ledge before he slides his headphones on and falls asleep with Buddy Rich in his ears. As he's drifting off, he almost thinks that he can hear Pete and Mikey whispering over the music, but he's probably just been on tour too long.

Bob likes Chicago, and Bob misses Chicago. Not that he'd admit it, but sometimes he'll catch a glimpse of the skyline in one of those panning location shots in movies and feel his heart clench, and the rare hotel nights they get, Ray's the only one who will room with him anymore because if Bob can watch WGN just long enough to see an Empire Carpets commercial, he will. The reason he's down to Ray as a roommate is that sometimes it takes hours before the jingle shows up and Gerard can't stomach all the reruns of Canadian television, Frankie can't stomach leaving the TV on one channel for that long, and Mikey, well, Mikey's just not around this summer. Bob doesn't mind. He likes the rest of his bandmates, maybe eventually he'll even love them, but they're exhausting, all of them. Ray's just the least exhausting.

When the alarm on his Sidekick goes off at 9:15, Bob wakes up figuring that whoever Mikey found to take him into the city is going to be somebody who's only seen the inside of Chicago's bigger venues, and Bob's going to have to spend some time playing tourist three blocks from the Sears Tower, but when he stumbles out of the bus into the already sweltering day with a cigarette half-smoked between his lips and his sunglasses firmly on, it's Patrick Stump standing next to the steps, whistling something and swinging a car key around one finger. Bob grunts in Patrick's direction, and Patrick just swings around and grins at Bob, catching the key against his palm. Patrick says, "Hey, you ready to go?"

Bob grunts again, which is probably rude but he's not hungover and somehow still feels like ass this morning, and then Patrick says, "Oh, hey, I got you -- " and bends over and comes up with two paper cups that Bob can smell from five feet away, coffee, real coffee.

So he makes his voice work and takes the coffee from Patrick's hands and crushes out his cigarette because Patrick's looking at it like it might kill his dog or something. Bob says, "You're kind of awesome."

Patrick dips his head and Bob can just make the edges of his smile and a flush across his cheeks under the White Sox cap Patrick's wearing. "It's no problem," Patrick says. "Mikey said you wanted to go buy CDs, yeah?"

Bob takes down half the coffee in one gulp and feels almost human. It's twelve hours before they have to go on, but he likes to be as human as possible before a show. It's harder than he thought it would be, on tour. "Reckless is holding an order for me," he says. "The manager's opening up special."

Patrick says, "Awesome," and waves his hand in the direction of a bright red Volkswagen Jetta sitting by the gate.

Bob flicks his fingers against the brim of Patrick's cap, once they're settled in the car, and says, "The White Sox, really? You're from fucking Glenview, Stump, not Pilsen."

Patrick just laughs and starts the car.

There's already traffic crawling into Tinley Park down 57, but heading into the city, the roads are clear. "It's gonna suck to get back," Bob says, because that's an inexorable fact of Chicago: traffic on festival days in Tinley Park sucks balls, always has, always will.

Patrick shrugs. "We'll come back down Halsted, traffic lights but not traffic."

Of course Patrick knows a back way into the Tweeter Center; Bob probably should, too, but he's never bothered to figure it out. He can't remember the last time he drove himself out there for a show -- sometime before it was the Tweeter Center, probably. "Thanks for driving me in, man," he says, because he knows the traffic is a pain and Patrick is weird about his routine on show days. Patrick's doing Bob a favor, and Bob doesn't know the guy well enough to know how he can repay it. "It's really nice, I mean it."

"Reckless, man," Patrick says, like that's an answer except Bob understands how it is. Patrick had fiddled with the radio until he'd tuned it into XRT, and the sound of Lin Brehmer warming up the people who are probably sitting in their cars on the Dan Ryan and the Tri-State on the way to the show is weirdly soothing. The sound of Bob's teenage years, still on the radio in Chicago. "I can't pass that up. Mikey didn't say, but, the one on Madison, or the one on North Milwaukee?"

"Madison," Bob says. "I go to the one on Milwaukee if the tour's at Rosemont, you know, and sometimes I split the difference if we're at the United Center, but, Madison, this time."

Patrick's quiet after Bob says this, and when Bob turns, Patrick's staring over at him in a way that is probably not conducive to safe driving but is also somehow weirdly appealing on Patrick's round face. It's an expression of surprise and pleasure and maybe even a tiny bit of lust. "You do this a lot?"

Bob shrugs. "Every time I come through town for long enough to make it worthwhile," he says. "They're the only place I buy albums anymore, they know me. It's easier than trying to pick up stuff on the road, or order it and hope it gets to me."

"I never even thought about doing that," Patrick says, sort of awed, and that makes Bob laugh. Not in a mean way, just in a way that -- he forgets, sometimes, how young a lot of the kids on this tour are. They grew up with Warped and MP3s and iPods; he wonders, briefly, if most of them even buy CDs anymore, but then a familiar guitar strain filters over the radio and Patrick says, "Oh, hey," and turns up the volume to Gee singing about how he's not okay and Bob gets distracted.

Patrick sings along to the radio and thumps his thumb on the steering wheel in time to the drum line on the track. Not that Bob is watching Patrick's hands, except that he ... kind of is. Somewhere from the depths of his memory the information that Patrick used to be a drummer drifts up, and Bob wonders if he misses it. Doing sound was great, it made Bob happy, he was good at it -- but he missed the feeling of a kit beneath him, in front of him, and he wonders if Patrick ever misses it, trading a drum set for a guitar. He doesn't know Patrick well enough to ask; it's one of those weirdly personal things, and even on a tour with Pete Wentz, who will talk about anything and everything (anyone and everyone) he's thinking, feeling, eating, doing, and fucking at extensive length with anyone who's around, Bob hasn't gotten used to asking people personal questions. He doesn't like them, so he doesn't ask them of anybody else.

But he thinks about asking Patrick, which is almost unsettling. Or it would be, except that XRT has switched over to a Fall Out Boy song, one that Bob has heard from across venues all summer, and Patrick is singing harmony to his own voice on the speakers. And even more unsettling than Bob's sudden urge to ask Patrick Stump really personal questions is that listening to Patrick Stump sing along with himself is really, unbelievably hot.

At 10 a.m. on a weekday, even in the summer, the streets downtown are already full of people -- half of them tourists, cameras pointed up and thankfully not at Bob's face, and the other half brokers and bankers and people in suits who look like they've never gone to a rock concert in their lives. They probably have, because Bob knows that half the scene kids in Chicago didn't grow up to be Pete Wentz, they grew up to be stockbrokers, but all the suits and all the cameras make him jumpy. Patrick parks the car in a garage where it's going to cost them an arm and a leg to get it back, but he also grins at Bob from under the brim of his cap while Bob squints suspiciously at the crowds on the sidewalk, puts his hand on Bob's back, and propels him straight through the crowd down State Street.

Reckless is cool and dim when they walk in, an odd oasis of silence and dust after State Street, although when Bob squints, it looks cleaner, less cluttered than he remembers. Patrick abandons him immediately inside the door, making a cheerful happy noisy and a beeline straight for something halfway back in the store. The manager, a nice guy named Jacob, heaves two boxes of CDs onto the counter and Bob flips through them perfunctorily, just making mental notes of the titles Jacob managed to find for him, before he turns and says, "Hey, Stump, you ready to go?"

Patrick blinks at him slowly, then shakes his head and walks over to Bob, clutching an actual honest-to-fucking-goodness vinyl album against his chest. Bob looks at it and says, "You even got a turntable on the bus?"

"Hmm?" Patrick says, sounding distracted. "Oh, somewhere, yeah, we do," and Bob's pretty impressed by that, until he remembers that Wentz DJs, and Patrick's Patrick. Of course they have a turntable.

"Give it," Bob says, reaching out a hand to take the album from Patrick, who glares at him suspiciously and clutches it tighter. "Seriously, Stump, hand it over," and Patrick lets the album go with a sad little sigh and Bob looks down. It's an original printing of Purple Rain, mint condition. Of course Patrick didn't want to hand it over. Bob flips it over and stares at the back for a little while before he slides it onto the top of one of his boxes and says to Jacob, low, "Ring it up, okay, man?" Patrick's studiously fake-interested in the copy of Fader he's suddenly materialized, and not what Bob's doing with his album; or, maybe, since it's Patrick Stump, he's actually really interested. Mikey told Bob that Patrick's not a flake, not really, he's just got the ability to change absolute focus mid-stream without losing track of what he's doing, and it looks sort of flaky. And sometimes he just got caught up in the music in his head. Bob thinks it's kind of charming.

Jacob's staring at Patrick, though, who's humming again, with one hand jammed in his pocket and his hat almost all the way over his face. "Hey, aren't you ..." Jacob says, and Patrick jumps guiltily. Jacob waves a hand at the Fall Out Boy poster on the wall behind the register, and Bob wouldn't have thought Reckless was a Fall Out Boy sort of place except that Reckless has always supported the hometown acts, regardless of their reputations.

"Oh," Patrick says. "Yeah, yeah, um, I am. I mean. Yeah."

"You didn't say you were bringing a rock star with you, Bryar," Jacob says, and Bob blushes, and Patrick blushes and bites his lip, and Bob has a sudden desire to do intensely dirty things to Patrick Stump's mouth. Things that would probably get him beaten up by Wentz for doing.

"Didn't know you were in charge of my social calendar," Bob says, and Patrick shoots Bob an unreadable look from under the hat.

Jacob just says, "Hey, would you mind ..." and then produces a stack of albums from somewhere mysterious under the counter, and Bob signs a credit card receipt for $872, including all his CDs and Patrick's copy of Purple Rain while Patrick signs his name across the liner notes of six copies of Take This To Your Grave.

When Patrick gets to the disc at the bottom of the pile, he pushes them back across the counter with a weirdly shy smile at Jacob. Bob says, "Grab a box, Stump," and picks up the box Jacob tucked the Prince album into the side of, leaving the other one for Patrick, who hefts it easily, smiles at Jacob again, and wanders distractedly out into the sunshine, balancing the box on one hip to open the door. "Thanks again," Bob says to Jacob, who waves a hand, no problem, and holds the door for Bob, who's not as coordinated as Patrick is. Patrick's standing on the sidewalk, peering out toward the lake along Madison, and when Bob nudges him with a corner of the box, Patrick jumps like he's burned.

"You gonna stand there all day?" Bob says. "The screaming girls are gonna show up soon."

Patrick grins. He says, "You know what I really want, Bryar?"

"A million dollars," Bob says.

"A milkshake from Potbelly's," Patrick says, shifting Bob's box of CDs in his arms. Bob's not a list-making sort of dude, but in the back of his head, he sometimes late at night compiles a list of things he misses about Chicago -- his mom, real pizza, the El really early in the morning (late at night) before the commuters get on, the sound board at Schubas' and the spot on the back of the booth where Mark used to line up Bob's beers -- and milkshakes from Potbelly's aren't on it, but, fuck, they should have been.

"Fuck, yes," Bob says. So they carry Bob's boxes of CDs four blocks up to the shadow of the El tracks and the darkened Chicago Theater sign, where even at barely 11 a.m. Potbelly's is already full of people. Bob crunches the cookie off his straw first, and Patrick balances his milkshake carefully on top of the box and then slurps at it happily while they dodge a tour bus's worth of tourists from Florida -- nobody in Chicago is ever that tan -- on the way back to the car. Not only is it parked somewhere it's going to cost a good meal's worth of cash to get it out, it's also in one of those creepy underground garages tucked below the Thompson Center, where Bob always wondered why there weren't more murders committed down in those things. In an underground parking garage, nobody can hear you scream -- but then again, it means that nobody but Bob can hear Patrick Stump singing if I listened long enough to you, I'd find a reason to believe that it's all true.

"Rod Stewart?" Bob says, as they wind their way down the lanes of cars. Neither of them can quite remember where they parked the Jetta.

Patrick looks vaguely scandalized and says, "Well, yes, but, also, Tim Hardin." Bob looks at Patrick blankly, and Patrick sighs, shifting the box of CDs in his arms to press the unlock button on the car remote again. Somewhere the Jetta bleeps faintly, and Patrick says, "Folk singer from the 60s."

"Okay," Bob says. Patrick's encyclopedic knowledge of music is pretty impressive. Bob's pretty sure that he was already on the road, with somebody or other, by the time Patrick was old enough to get into the clubs in the city, but maybe sometime if they're in the same place at the same time and nobody's got any shows to play themselves -- Patrick seems like the kind of guy who'd be good company at a show played by your favorite band, the sort of show where you just want to stand pressed against a wall and the corner of the stage in a tiny grimy club that smells like beer and piss and not talk. Just sort of soak up the music.

Patrick's just pretty good company, is all.

The Jetta is parked behind a bank of elevators, between two big concrete poles. Bob has a hazy recollection of leaving it there an hour ago, maybe possibly. Patrick stares at it, with its blinking headlights and beeping door locks, like he's not certain it's actually the car they arrived in, and Bob takes the keys from Patrick's fingers, warm and callused where they overlap with Bob's, and pops the hatch on the back. Patrick jumps again and dips his head, blushing furiously, and slides the box still in his hands into the trunk next to Bob's. "Sorry," he says to Bob, his bottom lip caught in his teeth and his head still tipped down, hiding his eyes. "Hey, I -- what happened to my album?"

Not flaky, just focused, Bob thinks, and he has to lean across Patrick's body to reach the box and Patrick's album. When Bob pulls it out, Patrick grins and tugs it out of Bob's hands easily, one hand on the album and the other wrapped gently around Bob's wrist. Patrick flips the cover over with one hand, and the other stays on Bob's wrist, rough fingers pressed gently against Bob's pulse point. Bob isn't actually sure what's going on; Patrick's always struck him as the sort of guy who respects other people's personal space, unlike some rhythm guitarists Bob could name, but then again, Patrick's been on the road with Pete Wentz, king of gratuitous everything, for years now, so maybe not. Patrick grins down at the album, and then up at Bob. Jesus Christ, his mouth, Bob thinks, and his dick twitches inside his jeans.

"Did you," Patrick says, "did you buy this for me?"

"Uh, yes?" Bob says, and it comes out sounding like a question, but Patrick Stump is suddenly in his personal space and there's a Prince album pressed between them, so Bob figures he's allowed to sound a little weird.

"I can afford my own records, Bryar," Patrick says, but it's not mean, it's not accusing, and Patrick's still got one hand wrapped around Bob's wrist and he's sort of propelling Bob backwards, the edge of the Jetta's back bumper pressing up against the backs of Bob's legs until Bob sits down with a thump, rough cardboard box edge right up against the middle of his back. Patrick grins at Bob again, eye to eye, and says, "Your whole band is too tall, you're all giants."

"Lies," Bob says, because Frankie is even tinier than Patrick is. "Frank's a munchkin, and Gee's not that tall, either."

"You're too tall, then," Patrick says placidly, but because Bob's sitting down, he actually has to look up to see Patrick's face, and Patrick's eyes are amused and his mouth is twisted up in something that looks suspiciously like a smirk learned from Pete Wentz, which is just creepy and sexy as fuck all at once. Patrick moves his hand, fingers pulling away from Bob's wrist to press against Bob's hip, and Patrick leans past him to slide the album he's still holding onto the top of one of the boxes. The curve of his neck is right in front of Bob's face, pale and scattered with tiny freckles, and Bob can't help but to lean in and press his mouth against Patrick's skin, which may turn out to be one of the stupidest things he's ever done in his life but, as Gee lectured him two weeks ago, about something Bob can't even remember now, you never know until you try. Patrick freezes against Bob, fingers tightening on Bob's hip, but then he relaxes suddenly, turns his head, and says, right up against Bob's ear, "I was getting there, Bryar, hold your fucking horses."

Bob has a brief moment to be surprised, to think, did I get set up here? and goddamn Mikey Way, and then Patrick's shifting, leaning down, pressing his mouth against Bob's and sliding his tongue across Bob's lip ring and humming into the kiss. Then he stops thinking, because every dirty thought he's had about Patrick Stump's mouth today, they're all true. Patrick keeps one hand on Bob's hip, the other dipping down under the neck of Bob's t-shirt and scratching up along the back of Bob's neck. Bob flails his own hands for a minute, not quite sure where to put them that won't get him punched by Pete Wentz later on, but Patrick is tucked right into the vee of Bob's legs and he's kissing Bob like he really means it, so Bob settles his hands on Patrick's hips. Patrick hums a little harder when Bob does that, and they kiss lazily in the cool, quiet of the creepy parking lot for what feels like forever. Patrick's kisses get sloppier the longer they kiss and Bob really, really enjoys it. Patrick makes a sound at the back of his throat, something happy and needy, and Bob pulls away for just a minute. "Not that I don't think I can take Pete," he says, "but -- "

Patrick stares at him for solid measure of 4/4 silence, and then starts laughing. He's still laughing when he starts kissing Bob again, and Bob tries to tug him closer but only succeeds in sliding his own ass up to the edge of the car's back hatch, because Patrick's thighs are pressed as close to the edge as they can get. It doesn't matter, because the end's the same even if the means were different, Patrick's chest pressed up close against Bob's, and Patrick's ass warm and solid under Bob's hands, and Bob's dick pressing hard against Patrick's thigh.

Somewhere in the distance, Bob hears a car door slam, and he tries really hard to freeze, to shove Patrick away -- because he can just see the headlines, Gay Rock Stars Caught In Flagrante In Chicago, or maybe Some Guy From Some Band Molests Fall Out Boy Front Man In Parking Garage -- but Patrick's hands have moved from Bob's hip, his neck, to the button on his jeans, and Patrick's taking his time with the button, with the zipper, sliding his palm along Bob's dick and kissing Bob thoroughly.

When Patrick pulls away to bite the edge of Bob's jaw, tugging his hips out of Bob's grip and sinking way more gracefully than Bob's ever managed in his life to his knees, Bob makes a really undignified sort of sound. It echoes loudly in the garage, and Patrick's quiet laugh does, too. Then he shoves a hand into Bob's jeans, thumb stroking across the head of Bob's dick and fingers working carefully to tug Bob's dick out of his jeans, and Bob makes another undignified noise. Faintly, either because it's really far away or because all the blood is rushing out of Bob's head to his cock, he can hear a car alarm going off, but until the cop cars show up, Bob's sort of past the point of caring. Patrick has one hand on Bob's dick and the other on the brim of Patrick's own baseball cap -- Patrick grabs the brim, twists the cap around backwards, and then drops his head and wraps his mouth around Bob's dick.

"Jesus Fucking Christ," Bob says, and he can feel the curve of Patrick's mouth in a smile around his cock. Patrick hums, vibrations sinking down into Bob's balls, and then Patrick shifts up on his knees so that his mouth meets the top of his fist, curled around the base of Bob's dick. Bob's hips jerk without asking him if they could, and Patrick's free hand settles back onto Bob's right hip, the same place it started out, not pinning Bob in place but suggesting firmly that Bob might want to keep from choking Fall Out Boy's lead singer, who's got a show in eight hours and a voice like an angel and a mouth like something out of porn.

Patrick slicks his fist up along Bob's dick while he pulls his mouth back, tongue sliding across the head, and then back down, leisurely and confident, and Bob tries to find a place to put his hands, again. Patrick's hair is covered by his hat and Bob knows better than to knock Patrick's hat off, knows better than to try and fist his hands in the hair of a guy he's only ever had two conversations with, so he settles for a hand on the back of Patrick's neck and the other hand crammed into Bob's own mouth. Patrick wriggles underneath Bob's hand and makes a pleased little moan around Bob's dick that's like electricity shooting straight into Bob's spine. He pulls his fist out of his mouth long enough to say, "Fucking shit, Patrick Stump," and Patrick just makes that happy little moan again, which makes Bob groan and bite his lip and stuff his hand back in his mouth, trying to keep some kind of composure while Patrick Stump sucks his brain out through his dick.

Bob sort of loses the thread of time after that, his whole world narrowed down to Patrick Stump on his knees in a parking garage with his mouth wrapped around Bob's dick, and when he comes, shaking and nearly cracking his head on the still-open hatch of the Jetta, it's actually almost a surprise. Patrick keeps his mouth on Bob's dick until Bob stops twitching, and then Patrick turns his head and spits, discreetly, behind one of the pillars the car's parked between. He leans back against the post and says, "Sorry, just," and Bob understands -- just a show to do in a couple of hours, no need to fill your stomach up with come. If he had the ability to move his legs or his arms or his mouth, Bob would say something agreeable, but the best he can do is nod feebly, and then let his head drop back to rest on the box of CDs.

Somebody -- okay, probably Patrick, unless Patrick's been murdered silently by crazy parking garage killers in the last two minutes, in which case maybe it's the parking garage murderer -- nudges Bob's thighs with a knee. "Up and at 'em, Bryar," Patrick's voice says, amused, and Bob pries his eyes open to peer over at Patrick, who's got his hat turned back around and the outline of a half-hard dick shadowing the front of his jeans.

"Hey," Bob says, and it's struggle to get back to a sitting position and reach out to hook his fingers in the belt loop beside the button on Patrick's jeans, but he manages. He says again, "Hey, you want -- "

Patrick bats at Bob's fingers and shrugs. He's blushing again, face tilted toward the ground, but Bob's still sitting down and he's got a clear view of Patrick Stump's face right now, pupils blown a little wide and the tiniest smear of come at the corner of his mouth. "It's okay, man," Patrick says, "we've got to get back to Tinley Park."

Bob frowns and tries to work his fingers over the button on Patrick's jeans, because, hey, one good blowjob deserves another. Mikey Way and Pete Wentz might have set the two of them up, today, but it turns out that Bob actually really likes Patrick Stump. Like, in a more-than-one-blowjob sort of way. Patrick shoves Bob's hands away a second time, but Bob's got one hand good and tangled in Patrick's belt loops and Patrick just ends up stumbling into Bob, who reaches up and licks his own come off the corner of Patrick's mouth, and then kisses Patrick firmly and, Bob hopes, convincingly. Patrick hums against Bob's mouth, his tongue idly sliding against the ring in Bob's lip, and then he pulls away. "Seriously, I've got a soundcheck, you've got a soundcheck, everybody's got soundchecks," Patrick says. "Move it or ride in the back with your CDs."

"Fuck you, Stump," Bob says. Patrick blushes again, but there's a wicked curve to his mouth that Bob wants to kiss off, or maybe just kiss it until Patrick puts his mouth to better use.

"Maybe later," Patrick says. Bob crawls to his feet and closes the Jetta's trunk, and when he slides into the passenger seat, he resists the urge to reach over and twist his fingers with Patrick's.

It took them 40 minutes to get into the city; it takes almost an hour and a half to get back, and Patrick's calm about it, but Bob can see him retreating into his pre-show headspace the closer they get to Tinley Park. Patrick's hands are almost entirely still on the steering wheel, and he's only humming half-heartedly along with the radio. Bob doesn't have a pre-show headspace -- he goes out and bangs the shit out of his kit every night no matter what he's doing ten minutes before the set starts, but he understands. He thinks, again, about asking Patrick if he misses drumming, if he prepped the same way for drumming a set that he does before he goes out and sings a whole show, but Patrick's so quiet and still that Bob doesn't want to screw with that. He leans against the window and watches Patrick out of the corner of his eye.

South Halsted's not very nice to look at, sliding by in a blur of empty storefronts and burnt out warehouses, but Patrick Stump's a pretty good view.

Nobody's quite frantic when they get back to the venue. Gee and Mikey and Pete are sitting on the ground outside one of the MCR buses, and Gerard is smoking in a way that Bob knows means he's getting ready to maybe start freaking out pretty soon, but Mikey and Pete have their heads bent together in that conspiratorial way everybody on tour is getting used to, and when they both look up and scramble to their feet at the sound of car wheels on gravel parking lot, there's a definite sort of expectant expression on both their faces. So Bob puts on his blankest face and climbs out of the car as soon as Patrick cuts the engine and pops the hatch for the trunk. He hefts both boxes to the ground and hands Patrick his record and says, very solicitously, despite Pete Wentz vibrating at high speed about five feet behind Bob's back, "Thanks for driving me, Stump. I really appreciate it. If there's any way I can return the favor -- "

Bob's cut off by a frantic flailing of Pete Wentz's limbs in the direction of Patrick, and then by Mikey hot on Pete's heels, trying to haul Pete back. Bob has no idea what's going on, and Gerard is making small sad sounds on the ground behind him, so Bob just picks up one of his boxes, extracts himself from the Pete-Patrick-Mikey clusterfuck and sits down next to Gee. "Want to look at my CDs?" Bob says, and Gee nods frantically and hands Bob a cigarette. Bob's pretty sure that Pete Wentz may have scarred Gerard for life with something. Bob just hopes it wasn't with anything to do with Bob's sex life.

Pete and Patrick disappear for what Bob assumes is maybe their soundcheck, and Mikey comes over and sits down on the ground on Bob's other side. Mikey's not much of a talker in the best of circumstances, so he sits down and stares at a point somewhere above Bob's head until Bob says, "What's up, Mikes?"

Mikey mumbles something that might have included the word Patrick. Bob says, "He's a good guy."

Gee says, "If you're going to talk about sex with my little brother, I'm leaving."

Definitely scarred by Pete, Bob thinks. "I am not having any sex to speak of," Bob says. He has to wrinkle up his nose and stare hard at the cigarette in his hands to tell that lie, but he manages. Gerard is humming loudly and flipping through Bob's CDs even louder, and Mikey's not actually looking at Bob directly.

When Bob looks up from his hands, Mikey's actually looking directly at him, but then Mikey shrugs and says, "I'm glad you got your CDs."

Bob means to watch Fall Out Boy's set from side stage, but one of his toms sounds a little funny in soundcheck and he ends up having to spend half an hour with the tech figuring out what's wrong, and then they play their set, and by the time they're done, the sun's down and the party's raging. Bob makes sure the tom that sounded funny goes on the bus instead of with the rest of their gear, because he wants to screw around with it a little more, and maybe even ask Patrick if it sounds okay to him, and then he goes wandering through the party.

He's looking for Patrick, but he doesn't quite want to admit it. He runs into Joe Trohman, stoned off his face and carrying around an open bottle of champagne. When Bob says, "Hey, have you seen your lead singer?", Joe just offers him the bottle of champagne.

Bob stares at the bottle for a minute, because that is totally not an answer to his question, but if he's going to go find Patrick Stump and make possibly inappropriate advances toward him, he could use the liquid courage. "Thanks," he says, taking a big swig, and Joe grins at him, big and happy and high as a kite.

"He's that way," Joe says when Bob hands the bottle back. He sort of waves the bottle almost upside-down toward a cluster of buses that seem to be less rocking than the rest of them, and champagne runs down Joe's wrist in a waste of perfectly good booze. Bob reaches out and snags the bottle back, waves a hand at Joe, and heads for the buses that aren't full of drunk rock musicians but might possibly have Patrick Stump.

He lucks out; about fifty feet and a third of the bottle of champagne away, Patrick's standing in the shadow of somebody's bus, talking to a guitar tech Bob recognizes but can't place. He's focused in on the guy in a way that almost makes Bob turn around and go back to his bus and smoke cigarettes with Gerard until Bob passes out or hacks up a lung, whichever comes first, but Patrick's eyes slide off the guy's face just long enough to register Bob standing out in the dark. Maybe Bob's a little too hopeful, maybe it's the champagne talking, but there's a brief expression of pleasure on Patrick's face before he focuses back on the tech, and it's enough to make Bob take another gulp of champagne and move up into the conversation Patrick's having.

"No, yeah, okay," Patrick is saying when Bob gets within hearing range, and he leans into Bob, just enough that his fingers brush across the top of Bob's hand holding onto the champagne bottle, before pulling back and reaching out to pat the tech on the shoulder. "I'd be happy to," Patrick says, and then, "Excuse us, okay?" and sort of nudges the tech out of the way.

Bob hands the bottle to the guy, who's wandering past with a sort of perplexed expression on his face, like he's not sure how he got brushed off, and Patrick says, "Hey, your set was really good." Then he leans into Bob's personal space, wraps a hand around Bob's wrist, and tugs Bob around the corner of the bus, to what appears to be the furthest corner of the Tweeter Center parking lot. It's dark and the sounds of the party seem really, really far away. All Bob can see of Patrick is the bottom curve of his smile and the glint of his glasses in the halogen glow of street lights.

"I think one of my toms is fucked," Bob says, which is definitely not the smooth opening he had planned for this whole conversation. Patrick's still got his hand wrapped around Bob's wrist, and Bob is trying to remember how to use his mouth and his brain together, which is harder than it seems. The champagne's gone straight to his head.

"I don't know," Patrick says. "It sounded okay to me, but I wasn't listening very closely, I was kind of just watching -- um. I was kind of watching you."

Bob blinks, parses the implications of that sentence, and remembers how to use all his limbs to do things like turning and pinning Patrick Stump up against the side of a bus in Tinley Park, Illinois. Patrick goes easily, hands sliding from Bob's wrist to pull Bob's hips against him, and when Bob braces a thigh between Patrick's legs, Patrick's already half-hard. "Hi," Patrick says.

"Jesus Christ," Bob says, and bends down to kiss the shadowed smirk off Patrick's face. Patrick has to lean up to kiss Bob, and Bob has to practically break his spine in half and he can't help but think this would be easier if they were, you know, horizontal somewhere, but Patrick's pretty much bracing himself with his hands on Bob's hips and his dick rubbing hard against Bob's thigh, and Bob doesn't really want to take the time to relocate this party to somewhere horizontal or more private or anything. Pete and Mikey have been appalling people in public all summer, nobody's going to give a shit if MCR's new drummer is molesting Patrick Stump in a parking lot corner (or a parking garage, and Bob's going to have to find out if Patrick has a thing about public parking venues, because that might be weird, in the long run).

It doesn't take long before Patrick's panting against Bob's mouth and thrusting up against Bob's leg in a steady rhythm, one hand tightening against Bob's hip, and when Bob pulls away just far enough to close his teeth on Patrick's bottom lip, Patrick jerks and freezes under Bob's hands. Bob keeps his hands on Patrick's ribs while Patrick shakes apart, feeling Patrick's muscles hum under his fingers, and when Patrick finally slumps bonelessly against Bob's chest, his face pressed against Bob's shoulder, Bob can feel Patrick laughing against his shirt. "Man, that's like I'm in high school again," Patrick mumbles, and Bob cranes his neck down to kiss Patrick slow and lazy. Patrick lets Bob do all the work, but one of Patrick's hands slide up under the hem of Bob's t-shirt and Patrick's fingers stroke slowly over the small of Bob's back in a way that's familiar and comfortable and exactly where Bob wants to be right now.

He's still got a hard-on, but it's sort of pleasantly achy and he's not in much of a hurry to do anything about it, mostly because Patrick Stump is humming something against Bob's neck and kind of molesting Bob's back in an off-hand manner. This isn't where Bob expected to end up when he asked Mikey if he knew anybody with a car in Chicago, but, parking lot or not, it's not a bad place to be.

Bob's just enjoying the warmth of another body against his when Patrick says, "Hey, you want to come listen to my new record?"

Bob pulls back and blinks at him. "Is that a come-on?" he says.

"Absolutely," Patrick says, but he doesn't make any effort to move, just shifts one hand between them and presses his palm across the front of Bob's jeans.

"Awesome," Bob says, and tries not to jerk his hips too frantically against Patrick's lazy stroking.

Patrick says, "You know, that wasn't even my car." He's got Bob's jeans unbuttoned and a hand twisted down the front of Bob's boxers and his mouth pressed wet and open against the corner of Bob's jaw.

"What?" Bob pants.

"Pete woke me up this morning and gave me keys and told me to drive you to Reckless," Patrick says. "I have no idea whose car that was, man."

A shadow peeking around the corner of the bus giggles frantically, and Bob whips his head around, wondering if he can murder Pete Wentz without having to let go of Patrick's hips or to move Patrick's hand out of his pants. "Fuck," Bob says, through gritted teeth, and Patrick turns his head and follows Bob's gaze to their unexpected company.

Patrick's hand doesn't stop moving as he says, "If you don't go the fuck away right now, Pete, I'm going to tell Mikey everything I know about you."

The shadow squeaks and disappears like a flash.

"Everyone," Bob says slowly, because Patrick's hand is speeding up and Patrick's teeth have caught Bob's lip ring again and it's sort of hard to think. "Everyone on tour's going to know by tomorrow morning."

Patrick grins against Bob's mouth and says, "It's Pete. Everybody on tour knew before we left Tinley Park this morning," and then he does something really, really wicked with a twist of his wrist and his tongue in Bob's mouth and Bob comes, seeing stars and whacking his forehead awkwardly against the side of the bus they're pressed against. He's going to have a headache in the morning. It's going to totally, totally be worth it.

author's notes:title and summary from mike doughty, "american car". MMWD and meg did beta duty; m. cheerlead; all remaining mistakes are mine.

my chicago geography is all accurate down to the mile markers, although, dude, don't take south halsted to the tweeter center, that way lies pain and madness. potbelly's really does put little cookies on the straws of their milkshakes, and reckless records really does fucking rock. the double door doesn't actually serve underage, but for a while they didn't have a women's bathroom. jon langford is a singer for the mekons and the waco brothers; the waco brothers are a country-punk band who record on bloodshot records and do a scorching cover of "baba o'riley". rosemont is now the all-state arena, but i guarantee you that none of the chicago boys call it that in their heads. also i miss chicago, CAN YOU TELL?