"Nick, I can't work on this from your lap."

"You sure? I'm pretty comfy to sit on."

"Yes! You're..." Patrick waves a hand incoherently. "Distracting."

It's almost lunch time and Patrick hasn't made it out of his room yet today. Nick started humming the ocean song while playing with Patrick's hair and Patrick got an idea. Patrick's got his hat on again and Nick's been singing lines on request all morning, while Patrick fiddles. It's a lot more patient than any of Patrick's other lovers have been about his songwriting, but Nick's pretty cooperative, and mostly seems amused. He even got up to make coffee and bring Patrick a snack.

"You ever write with Pete when you're half naked like this?" he wants to know.

"Not if we're in the same room." Not that Pete hasn't seen him half naked, and even more naked than this, just not for extended periods of time, and seldom while Pete is draped all over him the way Nick is now.

"Okay, what do you think here?" He plays back the bridge for at least the tenth time. Nick cocks his head, frowning.

"Closer. But there's... I don't like the drums." He taps out the beat on Patrick's thigh with his chin. "Can you take them out? I can't tell if it's the drums or the bass line or if they're both a little off."

After determining that the bass line is too heavy for the bridge and that the drums are mostly fine, except for the fact that they're the wrong kind of drums, Nick finally stretches and uncurls from around Patrick.

"Okay, I think it's time for a break. We haven't had anything but coffee and Cinnamon Toast Crunch and I don't think you'll make it through soundcheck without at least a couple of sandwiches."

"Just one more..." Patrick mutters distractedly. Nick pushes the laptop closed gently but firmly.

"Hit save before it closes, dude."

"Gah." But he cooperates. "You realize that as soon as we go out there, the entire tour, led by Pete, are going to mock us without mercy."

"Yeah, well I'm leaving after the show." Nick points out, sounding almost triumphant.

"Love 'em and leave 'em. I should write a song."

"I think you sing enough of those, dude." Nick pulls on his jeans. "Lemme find clothing I haven't slept in and then we can face the world."

"You mean you brought more than one pair of jeans for three days on tour?" Patrick mocks, hunting for something that doesn't smell like something died in it. "Fucking high-maintenance."

"You bet your ass." Nick slaps the ass in question and ducks out into the hall laughing.

Patrick is going to have to explain to Nick that the number one rule of being a good boyfriend is "Never abandon me to the Wrath of Pete".

Most of his previous partners got that, but then most of his previous partners suffered under the erroneous assumption that they were somehow higher on Patrick's ladder than Pete, instead of being at most, equally important. Nick doesn't seem to be making that assumption. Unfortunately this leaves Patrick pinned up against a wall by Pete.

"I told you you could keep him" Pete half snarls at him. "I didn't say anything about fucking him."

"See, Pete, we haven't actually gotten to the point where you get to vet my boyfriends." Patrick explains, shoving Pete's hands off. "Because, and this is important, you are not my mom." Patrick has explained this to Pete a couple of times, but it never seems to stick. Of course, God forbid Patrick ever take issue with one of Pete's girlfriends. "Also, hi, have you looked at him? You thought if he made a move that I was going to say no to that?"

"I don't see what's so special." One of these days Pete will grow past the sulking stage. Patrick tells himself this is inevitable and one day he will be nostalgic for the sulking. Really, he will.

"That would be because you prefer your boys and your girls to be bendy, skinny little things. Nick is neither skinny nor little." Patrick pauses a second before confessing. "However, he's a pretty bendy dude."

"I do not want to know!" Pete claps his hands over his ears.

"Sure you don't, drama queen." Patrick pats him on the shoulder. "Now come have lunch with us and if you're nice to him I'll tell you details tomorrow."

Nick is pondering the choices at the catering table and keeping an eye out for Patrick when Joe appears next to him.

"Hey." Joe says, eyeing Nick like he's a particularly weird type of animal that just happened to pop up backstage.

"Hey." Nick checks the doorway, but still no Patrick. Pete wouldn't actually kill Patrick, right? He's just locking him away somewhere Nick can't get to him... or something.

"So I hear that your relationship with Patrick is not strictly professional."

Nick looks at Joe. "Are we actually going to do this here?" He was expecting a dark corner, a locked boardroom, a deserted gas station, not a brightly lit catering area.

Joe takes a slow look around. "Sure, we're all friends here." Right. Not a brightly lit catering area - temporary gang headquarters. Nick forgets sometimes. Joe's grin is sort of shark-like. "Unless you're telling me I'm gonna have to kick your ass already?"

"No. No dawg, it's cool." If Patrick gets locked in a closet somewhere by Pete Wentz, it's possible he'll be pissed at Nick, but until further notice...

"Good." Joe grabs a plate and begins serving himself. "Now, my friend Andy would say things like "Patrick's a big boy, he can take care of himself". I'm not saying that this isn't true. But dude, if you hurt Patrick, what Patrick will do to you is only the start."

"I know that." People have a tendency to underestimate Nick's intelligence, but really how stupid does he look? "You've got his back, dude. I get that."

"You're taking this pretty casually, dude. I don't think you..."

Nick fishes out his phone and hands it to Joe. "Call Kevin. Ask him what he did to Paris Hilton. Then ask me if I don't know what a guy's band will do to someone who fucks him over."

Joe looks from the phone to Nick and back again.

"Seriously. I'll admit that if things start to go sour, I can be really fucking petty. But I will not fuck around on him. Patrick's good people, he's treated me awesome so far, I will not screw that up."

"All right." Joe nods slowly. "You do know the score. Well, welcome to the family, man."

Patrick finds Nick in the catering area and sits down beside him. "Just so you know, my bassist is an overprotective psychopath."

"Good to know. What would you call your guitarist?"

"Um..." Patrick peers at him from under his hat. Nick doesn't look bruised. "He didn't like, hit you or anything?"

"No, just threatened me." Nick pops a chip in his mouth, seeming remarkably unconcerned. "I think we settled things - he welcomed me to the family."

"That was fast."

"I'm a very convincing dude." Nick's innocent look is very good. Patrick admires it for a moment, attempts to memorize it in self-defense. "What's up this afternoon?"

"Radio thing after soundcheck. Not live, we'll do it somewhere around here. After that," Patrick shrugs, steals a carrot of Nick's plate. "Lots of stuff we could do."

"I have this feeling that if we try to do anything too fun your bassist will object. And maybe try to stop us."

This is, sadly, quite true. And sex is pretty much the top item on Patrick's "List of Things Pete Should Not Walk in on Too Often". The list of "Things Pete Should Never Walk In On" was made useless a very long time ago, a casualty of living on top of each other and Pete's obnoxious sense of timing. Still, he has Nick for less than twelve more hours.

"So work, or play? We could do both on the bus."

"It's a fantastic bus, and I'm gonna have awesome memories of it," Nick says apologetically, "but if I don't get a little fresh air today I'm gonna go nuts."

"Freak. You can get fresh air during soundcheck."

"But then I don't get to see you play!"

"Or during the radio interview."

Nick pouts. It should not be this endearing. "You don't want to play with me?"

"Oh my God, you're five. Seriously, if I didn't think you'd kill each other, I'd say you and Pete should start a club." Patrick takes away the remainder of Nick's lunch and puts it aside, before taking a page out of Pete's book and climbing into Nick's lap. It's kind of fun. Patrick makes a note to do this more often.

"I totally want to play with you." He explains, kissing his way along Nick's jawline. "That is why you should do your fresh air activities when we absolutely have to be apart. Otherwise we're going to end up having a little too much fun somewhere there might be cameras."

"Good thinking, Yoda." Nick says and ducks down to capture his mouth.

Patrick wants to add that Yoda is definitely someone that no one should think about during a makeout session, but Nick's kissing him too thoroughly for the thought to stick around.

Nick gets his hands up the back of Patrick's shirt before the first breadroll hits them. That's all it takes for Patrick to register the calls of "Go Stump!" and "Get a room!"

He leans his forehead against Nick's. "Are we making out in front of the entire population of this tour?"

"Uh huh. Also, you're a very nice shade of red." Nick's chuckling vibrates through Patrick's body. It's not enough to kill his embarrassment.

"Please kill me now."

Nick and Patrick spend the five or so hours between the radio interview and dinner in the back of Patrick's bus. They alternate between figuring out what they still have left to do on Nick's album and extended makeout sessions. Pete apparently made some interesting allusions during the interview that make Patrick just paranoid enough to keep all his clothes on, although he loses his hat a couple of times.

Nick, having grown up with four nosy, obnoxious and overprotective "brothers" doesn't tease him about it too much. He does make a game out of seeing just what he can get away with before Patrick backs away, swearing he heard someone get on the bus. Twice, he's actually right but both times it's Andy, who doesn't seem inclined to interrupt them.

Patrick is of the opinion that they're about halfway done. six more songs will bring them to twelve, which is a reasonable number to present to the label. Including the new song they've been working on this visit, there are four more songs Patrick's looked at and thinks might be worth finishing. Which means they still have two more to write.

"I think we need at least one more session in person. You could come to Chicago for Thanksgiving," Patrick suggests.

The unspoken idea that he could meet Patrick's family warms Nick to his toes, but he's got another idea. "You could come to Kentucky."

"What's in Kentucky?"

"Brian is making Kevin host Thanksgiving this year." Nick tries for innocent, but he can see that Patrick has already put two and two together and come up with five.

"You want me to meet your bandmates on possibly the most dysfunctional holiday of the year?" Patrick says. "When some of them will be carrying knives?"

Ok, that's a good point. "Maybe not?"

"Let's just say we'll check the schedules again. And if we can book actual studio time, that would be nice too."

"You don't want to spend a couple of days stuck in a bus with me and my guys?"

"First of all, that wouldn't be until January, you moron." Again, a good point. Making out with Patrick is bad for Nick's IQ. "And if you meant stuck on your promo tour, that doesn't give us time to record anything unless you do it in the middle of radio interviews, which I don't think your guys would appreciate."

"All right all right. I'll check the schedule." Nick makes a note to himself on his phone. "Are we done?"

"I think so."

"Good. Come here."

All in all it's a good day. The various crew people and musicians Nick encounters while hanging out backstage to watch Patrick one last time all have a good word for him or a pat on the back. It sucks saying goodbye, but it's not like either of them haven't done distance relationships before. A month or so isn't that long. Nick's already thinking up fun things to do over the phone.

Nick's mistake is in coming back to the hotel instead of finding a way to disappear directly from the arena. The logistics of it would have been pretty tricky, particularly getting out of the post-concert traffic and to the airport on time, but if he'd planned things that way, he wouldn't have climbed into the van to find himself alone with Pete on a forty-minute drive to the airport.

For almost the first ten minutes Pete doesn't say a word. That would be fine with Nick, except for the fact that Pete passes the time by staring at him as if he can see inside of Nick's skull and doesn't particularly like what he sees.

Nick starts to fidget. He's not the most patient person on the planet, and he doesn't know how to start this conversation. Is this the "I swear I will not take Patrick away from you" talk? Or is it the "I promise to treat him like fucking gold" version?

Eventually, Pete looks away from him and stares out the window. "You'll call him tomorrow morning?"

This is so far from any question that Nick was expecting that he can't process the meaning. "What?"

"Tomorrow. When you get home safe and you're a couple thousand miles away and there isn't a convenient warm body in your bed. You'll call him. Let him know you got in safe. Talk to him about stuff that have fuck all to do with your shitty sophomore album."

"I'll... try." Because Pete's met Patrick. He must know how fucking hard it is to get Patrick talking about anything that's not music.

Pete slams a fist down on his armrest. "You will. You will, or I swear you're not getting on that plane. This isn't Chicago, but I'm pretty sure I can find somewhere to hide the body for a few weeks."

"Pete..." Nick's trying really hard to decipher whatever code Pete's speaking in. "Are you asking me if Patrick was a convenient fuck?"

The sound Pete makes isn't human.

"Because Patrick's not a convenient anything. It's not easy working with a producer who's on the road, especially when the dude isn't on the road with me. It wasn't easy coming here in the middle of promotion for my group's album and trying to hang out with your crew when we barely speak the same language. If you think I'm stupid enough to fuck up all that effort for a one-night stand..." Nick's very close to punching something and he's got to remember very hard that Patrick would murder him if he bloodied Pete. "Well, that would be typical. Lots of people think I'm a dumbass with half a brain. But I'm not. I know a good thing when I see it, Wentz."

Pete finally turns towards him again. "Good. If you fuck this up Nicky, that album won't see the light of day."

Nick can't help laughing. It's probably the weakest threat Pete could throw at him. "Man, you really know nothing about me, do you? Yeah, you do that. You call up my label and say you don't want them to release my next record. They'll probably give you a fucking medal."

Pete looks confused for all of half a second. "I can do worse."

Nick does his best to breathe and calm down, because this is a serious conversation and Pete deserves respect right now, if only because he's Patrick's. "I know. Just promise me something?"

Pete raises an eyebrow.

"You know what the tabloids are like, dawg. And the internet's worse. Don't go ballistic on me on a rumour. I'll keep my guys off Patrick's back for that too. Deal?"

"Your guys?" Now Pete's amused. "I'm sure Patrick can handle your guys."

"Yeah, you keep thinking that, Wentz."



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