fic: lost in the falling dark (1/3)
Nov. 5th, 2010 10:58 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
violacealost in the falling dark
(Pete/Mikey, Pete/Patrick, Pete/Patrick/Mikey, Frank/Gerard)
See master post for headers/warnings/etc.
There are many things that Patrick expects when he enters Pete's hotel room; Pete could be curled up in bed in a fetal position, he could be watching porn and eating french fries from room service, he could be posting ridiculously emo song lyrics on his 'secret' blog. Really, anything is possible. But 'anything' doesn't encompass the scruffy black dog ... no, wolf lying on the bed, staring at Patrick with wide eyes. Patrick freezes. "What the fuck ..." he says, his hand gripping the door frame. "Pete? Are you in here?"
The wolf stands up and jumps down off the bed. When it starts to walk towards Patrick, Patrick takes an instinctive step back. The wolf stops for a moment, then launches itself at Patrick, growling. Panicked, Patrick slams the door before it can reach him. He leans against the closed door and brings a hand up to his mouth. "Motherfucker ..." he breathes. He can still hear the growling on the other side of the door, and he feels soft thuds against the back of his legs where the wolf is obviously butting against the door. He should go get help, Patrick thinks. But Pete might still be in there, with an obviously angry wolf. What if he's hurt? He can't leave Pete in there alone.
After a few minutes, the noises on the other side of the door stop. Patrick swallows hard and turns around. He slides the key card into the slot slowly; when the door beeps, he pushes the handle and cracks it open an inch. He can't see anything through the crack, so with great care, he pushes the door the rest of the way open and looks around. The wolf is sitting at the foot of the bed, about five feet away from the door. Its teeth are bared, but it's not moving. Patrick risks taking his eyes off the animal and scans the rest of the room. There's no sign of Pete anywhere. Maybe he's not there. Maybe, Patrick thinks, he's gone out, and someone ... someone put a wolf in his room? None of it makes any sense.
"Where the hell is Pete?" Patrick asks. He immediately feels foolish. It's not like the wolf is going to tell him anything. But the silence is killing him; the only things he can hear are the soft grunts the wolf lets out on every breath and his own pounding heart. But, improbably, the wolf cocks its head, and its teeth disappear back behind its lips. It still watches Patrick warily, but it no longer looks poised to strike at any moment. Patrick takes a deep breath. "I guess talking is good?" The wolf doesn't move, so Patrick continues. "Okay, sure, nice wolf, don't hurt me, I'm just looking for Pete, I won't do anything to you ..."
The wolf stares up at Patrick with wide, dark eyes ... familiar eyes, Patrick thinks, but immediately shakes himself. It's been a really long month, he hasn't slept very well, his brain isn't working right. There's no other reason why the wolf's eyes would look like Pete's. Or, even why he's seeing a wolf in Pete's hotel room. He's probably hallucinating. But where did Pete go?
The wolf whines and paws at the air. When Patrick doesn't move, it stands back up and takes a small step in Patrick's direction. Patrick holds his breath, but doesn't back up and close the door like a logical part of his brain - the part screaming predator! - tells him to. He's in a hotel room with a woodland animal; logic doesn't cover these types of things. Another step, and the wolf is within arm's reach. It doesn't move any farther; it simply sits back down and looks at Patrick again. Slowly, Patrick crouches down and holds out a hand. He expects the wolf to sniff it, to inspect him like a dog would, but it instead butts its head enthusiastically against Patrick's palm. "Okay, you want me to pet you," Patrick says, slowly rubbing the wolf's head. "But where did you come from?"
Patrick gets another whine, and then the wolf is backing up. It jumps back onto the bed and turns around expectantly. "What do you want?" Patrick asks, feeling foolish. The wolf makes a low noise and jerks its head back towards the other end of the bed. It's an odd gesture, one that looks ... almost human? Impossible. It must be some kind of trained animal. It's tame enough, anyway. "Where did you come from?" he asks again. "And why are you in Pete's room?" The wolf makes the strange jerking gesture with its head again. Patrick looks past it and sees Pete's MacBook open on one of the pillows. From across the room, Patrick can make out a picture of a dark wolf on the screen. He steps fully inside the room and closes the door behind him. The wolf doesn't seem inclined to maul him to death or anything, and ... well, this is really weird. If anyone else sees a wolf in Pete's room, all hell is likely to break loose.
Patrick walks over to the head of the bed and bends over to peer at the computer screen. The wolf, meanwhile, curls up in the middle of the bed, its chin on a pillow, and watches Patrick closely. The image on the screen, Patrick finds, is part of the wikipedia entry on werewolves. He blinks, then looks over at the wolf. "Okay, Pete," he says loudly, standing up and clicking the laptop firmly shut. "Very funny, you can come out now and call the, the wolf trainer or whatever. Werewolves, really?"
There's no response, except for a small noise from the wolf. Patrick sighs and walks over to the bathroom. He expects to find Pete hiding behind the door ... or in the shower, or in the closet, or under the bed. He's none of these places, though, and his wallet, phone, and room keycard are lying carelessly on the desk in the corner. Next to the desk is a heap of clothing; when Patrick bends down to inspect it, he finds one of Pete's favorite t-shirts ripped to shreds, along with a dirty pair of jeans and the remnants of what appear to be Jockey boxer shorts. "Okay, seriously, what the hell?" The wolf whines again, and Patrick straightens back up. "You are not answering me," Patrick tells the wolf. "You can't be."
Patrick pockets the room key - unnecessarily, since he has the one their manager gave him, but he does it anyway - and leaves the room. He goes from door to door, checking everyone else's room for Pete. He even checks his own room, but it's quiet, as Andy is out somewhere exploring the city. At this point, Patrick starts to panic. Wherever Pete is, he has no money, no ID, no phone, no way of getting back into his hotel room. He likely doesn't even have shoes, as all of his sneakers seemed to be present and accounted for on the floor of his closet. It hasn't been that long since Patrick got a phone call about Pete and a Best Buy parking lot ... Patrick's heart is pounding in his chest. He looks out the window. The sky is starting to glow a slightly lighter gray; morning is approaching. He makes a deal with himself. He'll go back to Pete's room to wait, he thinks, and if Pete isn't back by the time their manager is likely to be awake, he'll sound the alarm.
In Pete's room, the wolf is still laying with its head on the pillow. It raises its head at Patrick's entrance, but lays it back down immediately. Patrick sighs and, after a moment's hesitation, sits on the other side of the bed. "I hope Pete comes back," he says to the wolf, "if only to tell me just where the hell you came from."
Patrick flips on the television and turns to a Twilight Zone marathon on WGN. The wolf turns around and lays itself down with its head facing the foot of the bed, where the television is. "You like old horror?" Patrick asks, reaching over to ruffle the fur on the wolf's back. The wolf stiffens, but when Patrick withdraws his hand, it turns and looks at him with imploring eyes. "Okay, okay, fine." So, Patrick spends the next hour or so watching television and idly stroking the wolf's rough fur.
Patrick has just noticed sunlight beginning to creep in through the window drapes when he feels something shift underneath his hand. He looks down; the wolf appears to be convulsing. Patrick scrambles off the bed. "Oh, shit." He watches helplessly as the wolf bucks and makes a horrible keening noise. After a moment, the noise turns into something that looks more familiar ... black fur shifts and slides until it reveals pale olive skin and tattoos. Patrick curses, but the sound is lost underneath Pete's scream.
When it's over, Pete collapses onto the bed, sweaty and limp. Patrick can only stare. The only evidence that there had ever been a wolf on the bed is the small tuft of black hair that had stuck to Patrick's hand. He stares at it, then at Pete. Pete looks over at him and gives him a wan smile. "Hi," he says, his voice an almost inaudible croak. "Welcome to my nightmare."
Patrick can't breathe, or move. When he can manage either of those things again, he's going to pinch himself, because clearly he's dreaming. It wouldn't be the first time he's had nightmares starring Pete Wentz in the past month or two. But it has to be a dream, because Pete can't be -
"Pete," he grits out, eyes glued to the bed, where a sweaty, shaken looking Pete is pushing himself up into a sitting position. He's pale under his tan, and still very, very naked; Patrick looks away, then pivots and marches towards the door. After a moment, he thinks better of it and pivots back. "I'm going to wake up now," he mumbles to himself. The words come out strangled. He takes a deep breath through his nose. It doesn't help.
"If you are, will you take me with you?" Pete replies wearily. The smile has faded away. That's enough to make Patrick's stomach sink like a stone. He's still watching Pete lever himself upright, and he crosses the room to grab the hotel bathrobe from the closet. Pete makes a grateful noise when the terry cloth wraps around his shoulders, quickly cut off when Patrick grabs the lapels of the robe and yanks him close.
"What the fuck is going on?" His voice spikes into a yell, and Pete flinches. Patrick pushes him away as abruptly as he'd pulled him in, worry mixing sickly with fury in his chest. "And whatever the hell it is, why didn't you tell me?"
"This is me telling you," Pete answers. "If I hadn't shown you first, what would you have done?"
"Punched you in the face," Patrick growls. "I still might."
"Just not tonight, okay? This sort of - hurts like a motherfucker."
Great. That's exactly what Patrick wants to hear. That Pete can add turning into a fucking wolf to his list of ailments. "Okay," he says, starting to pace between the tv and the corner of the bed. "You're a werewolf, fine, thanks for the show and tell, I guess I have to believe you. But Pete - how the hell did this happen?"
"Funny story," Pete starts, in that fake-careless tone of his, and that's when Patrick turns around and decks him.
*
Whatever form a werewolf comes in - hereditary or transformed from normal human - a few rules remain the same. The full moon is a dangerous time. Secrecy is a must, if you want to stay alive and out of some freaky government laboratory. And pack hierarchy exists; every wolf either fights for a place or accepts the one he's in. It's an instinct Mikey doesn't understand on a scientific level, but it's one he feels deep down in his bones every time he looks at his brother.
Tonight, Mikey watches the large black wolf pace up and down the bus hallway over and over with the hunched walk of a caged animal. They can't pull over and let him run; the band has to get to Maine tonight. It's not even full moon, but Gerard's been spending a lot of time in wolf form lately. It was one of the first things their dad had taught them, back when they were tiny and still learning what it meant to be an offshoot of the funny branches of the Way family tree. You changed at the full moon, sure as the tides, but without concentration, stress or a sudden emotional upheaval could snap you into a transformation before you could say Warren Zevon.
When they were kids, it had been a game. It hadn't hurt as much then, dulled by the elasticity and the forgetfulness of childhood. When they were moody teenagers, pain and strong emotions alike could usually be dulled under a convenient layer of intoxication. Now, it's a fucking concern. And what it means, what Mikey can't bring himself to tell anyone, is that Gerard's sobriety affects Mikey nearly as much as it affects Gerard. Being around Gerard has always quieted something inside Mikey, satisfied some primal need to be a part of something outside of himself. Mikey isn't and will never be an alpha. Only a handful of wolves are, at least in Mikey's limited experience; Gerard is one of the few natural alphas he's ever met. Following his older brother was a no-brainer. When Gerard was a drunk, he'd been easier to push around, easier to predict, but he'd still been the pack leader. Mikey got used to following along even when he wasn't sure where they were going.
Sober Gerard is as sharp as the snap of a bone, and much more quick to break, so these days Mikey's always exhausted, wearing it like an extra layer of padding around his human form.
Mikey isn't sure what brought on tonight's change. It could be anything, it could be nothing - Gerard has been sober nearly six months, but he's still learning how to control his emotions without chemical interference. If he's too tired, if he pushes himself too hard on stage, if he starts thinking about things from his recent past he regrets ... Mikey sighs when the wolf paces past him, and kicks out gently to tap him with his foot without thinking. It used to be a foolproof way to distract Gerard; provoke him, make him take his frustration out on the one person around who could take the violence that would ensue. Mikey could change into a wolf right now. He's got enough control to shift at will, and the result is usually worth the pain in these sorts of situations. But when Gerard whirls around and growls at him, Mikey can't bring himself to do it. The idea of fighting right now makes him want to cry. He stares at Gerard for a moment, then lowers his gaze and exposes his throat in a submissive gesture. Gerard growls one more time before padding back to the other end of the bus.
Correction: Mikey can't bring himself to tell anyone how much Gerard's moods are wearing on him, but he's pretty sure he's not fooling the people who matter most. Especially Frank. Frank's watching now, sprawled on the couch in the lounge at the one terminus of Gerard's route, eyes flicking back and forth between Gerard and Mikey. Mikey's always grateful for their bandmates, but never more so than when they're in wolf form. None of them had ever batted an eyelash at sharing close quarters with two werewolves. Of course, the wolfsbane potion Mikey and Gerard's family uses helps with that. It tames the worst of the physical pain and the feral urges. Some enterprising ancestor had even had the foresight to start producing it in pill form.
My Chemical Romance, indeed. As he watches, Gerard's pacing slows noticeably, until he's swaying on his paws outside his bunk. Then he jumps inside and Mikey hears the pained intake of breath that signals the start of the change, smells the alteration in Gerard's scent as he phases back into human form. Mikey stands in the lounge, debating whether or not to go check on him, but before he can make up his mind Frank gets to his feet, laying a hand on Mikey's shoulder as he sidles by. Frank climbs up into Gerard's bunk and there's a brief growl and a moment of silence before their voices start murmuring back and forth.
Mikey tries not be jealous. He likes to tell himself that he doesn't need to be the one who fixes Gerard, because that might mean that Gerard doesn't need to be the one who fixes him.
He's still jealous.
*
In the end, Pete's story is disappointingly lacking in details. One of the girls he'd been messing around with behind his ex-girlfriend's back got mad at him for not declaring his true love for her, or some such nonsense. Unfortunately, she turned out to be a werewolf, and after a night Pete couldn't remember ("I was really drunk, okay, and I think she slipped something into my beer"), he woke up in an alley, scratched and bruised and more sore than he'd been in years. He didn't think anything of it until a week later, when the full moon rolled around and he found himself transforming into a wolf in the middle of his bedroom. "I thought I was hallucinating," he tells Patrick that first night. "Acid isn't my thing, you know that, but I looked in a mirror that night and was absolutely sure that I'd managed to take a hit without knowing. What the hell else was I supposed to think?"
But it had happened the next month, too, and the next week, Pete parked in the Best Buy parking lot and swallowed a bunch of Ativan. This, he tells Patrick, is his fourth transformation. "I'm still me when I'm a wolf. I can think, I know who I am, all that shit. I just ... change. But I sorta feel more like a wolf every day, even when I'm human. I've started ordering my meat rare in restaurants, and I can smell Joe's weed from across a goddamned parking lot. I don't know. I just feel really different." His eyes gleam when he says it, and Patrick thinks this is probably a very un-Pete-like understatement.
He only transforms the one night every month, for which Patrick is grateful. The album has just dropped, and their professional life has gotten even more crazy than it used to be. MTV loves them, radio loves them; suddenly, they're not just stars of the scene, they're legitimate pop stars, and it's messing with all four of them in different ways. Pete's extra messed up, but everyone else is happy to chalk it up to his diagnosed mental illness. Only Patrick knows exactly what Pete's struggling with. It's hard, not having anyone else he can talk to about it, so Patrick does the only thing he can think of. He turns to the internet.
Unfortunately, the internet is more confusing than helpful. Not that Patrick expected to be able to Google "werewolf" and find a website called "What To Do When Your Friend Turns Into A Werewolf." He'd just hoped ... well, he doesn't know what he hoped, but what he finds is a whole lot of myth. Different cultures have vastly different werewolf legends, he finds, and he has no idea which stories to dismiss and which ones might show up in front of him one full moon. "Do you know what culture that girl's family came from?" he asks Pete one night. They're sitting in Patrick's hotel room; Patrick is lying on the bed with his laptop, while Pete is lying on the floor, holding his phone in the air and texting people. "Like, do you think she was European, or something else?"
"I don't know," Pete says, snapping his phone shut. "She's white. I really wasn't interested enough in her as a person to ask about her family."
"That's probably why you ended up all furry," Patrick mutters.
"Well, excuse me. I'll never fuck someone again without asking for their family tree in advance."
"Don't you want to know what the hell is happening to you?"
"I want to not turn into a fucking wolf ever again. But that's probably not very likely, so ..." Pete sits up and shrugs. "The internet isn't going to give you anything more than bad horror movies. I've checked."
"There has to be something. You're not the first person this has happened to. You can't be."
Pete just shrugs and lays down again. He's frustrating Patrick something awful these days. Now that he's shared his secret with Patrick, Pete seems much calmer; it's as if he's given all his panic and fear to Patrick to carry. Some days - like this one - Patrick feels like decking him again. If he wasn't such an asshole about the people he dated, if he had better judgment, if he thought about his actions more ... well, he wouldn't be Pete, Patrick admits to himself. But there's a big difference between Pete's usual bad results and some magical thing that turns him into a fucking fairy tale. And now he doesn't even seemed concerned about it. Patrick does all the worrying. What happens when they have a show the night of the full moon? If they're on stage when the sun goes down, will Pete just suddenly sprout fur in front of thousands of people? What if someone else sees Pete when he's a wolf - will they call the cops or animal control? Will Pete end up in an animal shelter or a zoo or something? And every time Patrick sits across from Pete in a restaurant and sees a giant pink hamburger appear on a plate in front of him, Patrick's stomach turns. He's about to ask Andy about the everyday practicality of being a vegetarian, because the closer Pete gets to eating raw meat, the less appetizing any sort of animal flesh becomes.
Patrick goes back to browsing the internet, scowling at his laptop screen. A few minutes later, he feels the bed dip next to him. The next thing he knows, Pete is curled up at his side. He lays his head on the pillow and scoots close enough that Patrick can feel his breath on the skin of his arm. He doesn't shiver. He's been training himself to not react to Pete's physical presence for several years now. When he was a teenager in a van, with Pete practically lying on top of him every night, he'd spent hours and hours every day telling his hormones that Pete was his friend, that Pete didn't think of him the same way Patrick thought of Pete, that embarrassed flushes only gained him more mocking and that unwanted erections were the worst thing that could possibly happen to him. He's an adult now - really, he can drink and everything - and he's gotten over his post-adolescent crush. He has.
... okay, he hasn't. For some reason, he's felt like a fucking hormonal fifteen year old ever since he saw that wolf turn back into Pete. He doesn't want to think about what that says about him.
Pete flings his arm over Patrick's lap, weighing down Patrick's arms until he's forced to close the laptop and push it to the side. He glares down at Pete, but Pete isn't looking at him. Instead, Pete is pressing his nose to the soft flesh of Patrick's forearm. Patrick feels his body begin to react to the contact, and he slides down to a prone position to move Pete's arm away from his most sensitive areas. Pete buries his face in Patrick's shoulder. Patrick's not sure what to do; after a moment, he reaches over and pats Pete's shoulder. Finally, Pete raises his head and looks at him. "I don't know if I want to know what's happening to me," he admits softly. "Sometimes ignorance is bliss."
Patrick can't really argue with that. He props himself up on the pillow and turns on the TV to some late-night talk show. Pete remains at his side until he falls asleep.
*
Warped, again. Last year, this tour had been nothing more than a giant crash and burn - for Gerard, and nearly for the whole band. The other guys would probably argue, but Mikey likes to think he'd felt it more than the others. People have always liked to comment - jokingly, snidely, enviously - on how close Gerard and Mikey are. Most of them don't know the truth, of course. It's impossible to understand from the outside what it means to be brothers and to be pack, to have an alpha. Mikey had, offstage at least, always been the one who'd known how to work a crowd. Known everyone. This Warped feels like that, but Mikey's waiting, always waiting for the other shoe to drop. And then he meets Pete Wentz.
If Mikey is remembering how to work a crowd, Pete can already make it sit up and beg. And that's particularly fucking apt, because the first time he's downwind and within arm's length of Pete - unfortunately for him, because Pete's plastered in mud and carrying a Super Soaker filled with something unidentifiable - all his senses convulse at once. Werewolf. Pete's a werewolf. But how does he not know this already?
Mikey feels his hackles raise a little, and he freezes, taking in a deep breath. Taking in the scent. Wolf, yes, but not pack; the scent has a kick like burnt sugar and bitter herbs, both strange and tantalizing. Pete makes eye contact for just that one moment too long, and Mikey stiffens automatically. Then Pete blinks and flashes him a toothy white grin. "Mikey Way," he cries, and launches himself at Mikey. Mikey flinches, too surprised to even let out the growl that builds in his chest. Amazingly, Pete catches himself in mid-lunge. "It's just mud. Mostly," he says, like that's why Mikey flinched. He wiggles his eyebrows, and says "Maybe later," then runs off.
Mikey stays where he is - exactly where he is - for a long time. Pete Wentz. He's never heard a word about this, not through any of the usual channels. And Pete's scent - it makes Mikey uneasy, and so does Pete. He hadn't just ignored the rules. He'd acted like he didn't know the rules. Not good, and especially not good with Gerard being so - well, Gerard has a bit of a short fuse these days, still slightly fragile underneath. Shit. He takes a moment to bare his teeth at nothing, and stalks off. He's going to have to keep an eye on Pete Wentz.
There's another part of him, too long ignored, that is entirely okay with that.
It's about two days before anyone in his own band notices Mikey's tendency to disappear and appear wherever Pete is. Gerard would have noticed a lot sooner, but Gerard has barely emerged from the bus in two days. Pete hasn't noticed yet either, which is strange despite Mikey's years of practice at lurking. Pete's scent is also plenty distracting, but Mikey still smells Frank sneaking up on him before Frank can grab him. He lets him do it anyway.
"Don't tell me Emo Bangs over there is really that fascinating," Frank says into Mikey's ear. Mikey pulls back far enough to look pointedly at Frank's smudged makeup and bleached fauxhawk. "Fuck you, it's a thematic aesthetic," Frank says. It's sort of scary how he even sounds like Gerard when he says it.
"He's a werewolf," Mikey says shortly, watching Pete, amid much gesturing, start to climb up the side of Fall Out Boy's tour bus. As he watches, Patrick stomps over to Pete's little semicircle of spectators, grabs Pete by the scruff of the neck, and shakes, hard. Pete subsides immediately, and that is fascinating and also not helping resolve Mikey's confusion.
He tunes back in and catches the tail end of whatever Frank's been saying about Pete. Gerard's name was in there somewhere, and Mikey grabs Frank's wrist, squeezing hard. "Frank, you gotta do something for me."
"Ow," Frank whines. "Fragile human bones." Mikey glares but lets go. "What?" Frank continues irritably.
"Gerard...he...Pete's not pack," Mikey says.
Frank lets out a rude snort. "He's something. Crazy little fucker."
"Pot, kettle. Whatever. Mostly, he's someone Gerard doesn't need to go all territorial over. Not right now." Frank bites his lip, and Mikey knows he gets what Mikey's implying. "There's - just something weird there, and I want to try to figure out what it is, and so I need you to distract him till I can."
"Distract him." It's not exactly a question. Mikey narrows his eyes. He's not entirely certain setting Frank on Gerard is a good idea. Things between them have had a strange tension - and getting stranger - ever since Gerard got clean. Still, Frank and Ray understand him nearly as well as Mikey does. It'll have to suffice.
Mikey has to look away, after a moment. He knows that Frank thinks he's hiding the need in his eyes, and it's not exactly the same as Mikey feels, he thinks, but not entirely different. It's something that Mikey just doesn't want to think about, that his human bandmate - friend - brother misses his alpha too.
*
Patrick is used to stopping Pete from doing stupid things, or cleaning up the mess after Pete's done stupid things, or, occasionally, taking part in the stupid things Pete's doing. Lately, though, Pete's proportion of stupid things to marginally not stupid things has gone way up. Patrick wants to blame summer, or the presence of dozens of inebriated and highly suggestible band dudes, but it's clear there's something bothering him. Not Pete's normal crazy - Pete's very specific new level of furry crazy. Pete's taken to provoking him at every turn. Now, Pete - the old Pete - sometimes didn't know when to stop, but he never did it with that kind of half-mad gleam in his eye. Patrick knows it's serious when Andy and Joe start automatically fixing him with a look both wary and pleading whenever it gets to be too much. Patrick just grabs Pete by the neck and shoves him off in a different direction, holding back the punch he's still dying to throw.
The really crazy thing is, it works. It works every time. It maybe works too well, because more times than not it ends with Pete curled up next to him on the couch, or in Patrick's bunk. If this is some sort of toll for a Pete who doesn't end up in jail or traction, it's worth it. Maybe.
This time, it's playing King of the Mountain on top of the tour bus. It's second nature by now to grab onto Pete and shake, just like it's second nature to ignore the way Pete steps into it instead of away, like any normal person.
"Patrick," Pete starts, a little breathless. It's enough to make Patrick's mouth go dry, and that makes him frown harder.
"I swear to god, Pete. Do you want to be in traction? We need a bass player, you know." It's a common enough refrain, and Pete laughs like he always does, moving obediently away when Patrick shoves him.
"You could steal Mikey Way. He's a million times better than me, anyway." He's not looking at Patrick anymore. Patrick follows his glance and sees Mikey talking to Frank Iero a few buses away. Mikey's been around a lot lately, sort of in the background but still there, and Patrick wants to like him - he's a genuinely cool guy (in a dorky way that reminds him of - well, Pete). But dammit, after four years he knows Pete's tells, and Pete's been single for much longer than Patrick thought he could manage. He may not have a right to say this, but Pete is his.
Except he's not. And Mikey's just his type.
It's later in the day, after Fall Out Boy's late afternoon set, that Patrick sees Mikey again. He's with Pete. Of course. They're sitting on a hill above the backstage area and passing an unlabeled bottle between them. Pete sees Patrick at the bottom of the hill and waves him up. Caught, Patrick trudges up the hill and stands below them. "What's up, guys?"
"We're getting together a bunch of people to go see Batman Begins tomorrow, before we leave town. You in?"
Patrick smiles. "Hell yeah. I've been dying to see it. My cousin works around one of the places they filmed in Chicago, and he said everything he saw looked amazing."
"It's brilliant," Mikey says. He holds to bottle up to Patrick, but Patrick waves him off. Mikey shrugs and takes another drink. "Christopher Nolan is a motherfucking genius. He filmed a Batman movie like it was Blade Runner, and it's so cool."
"I read Year One when I was thirteen, and it's still one of my favorite comic stories ever. I heard this one sorta follows it?"
"Kind of." Mikey shrugs. "It sorta follows the origin story, but twists it in a way that works much better for a movie. You'll have to see it. But don't mention Ra's Al Ghul to Gerard unless you want to hear a half hour long monologue about how much better the character is in the comic."
Patrick laughs. Pete rolls his eyes and grabs the bottle back from Mikey. "Geeks. Both of you."
"Like you can talk." Patrick cuffs Pete on the side of the head. Pete shoves at Patrick's legs hard enough that Patrick falls to his knees; he retaliates by pulling Pete's legs toward him and twisting a fist into the collar of his t-shirt. Pete tries to twist away, but Patrick just gives him a good shake and pushes him back towards the ground. Pete hits the ground with a loud "oof," but he's grinning. When Patrick sits back and brushes grass off his jeans, he sees Mikey staring at him oddly. For a brief moment, Patrick has the urge to grab Mikey by the shirt, as well, and shake the strange expression off his face. They stare at each other for a long moment, too long to be comfortable, before Mikey looks away and starts picking at the grass next to him.
Meanwhile, Pete has righted himself and, when Patrick looks back at him, is chugging a long drink from the bottle. "What're you up to?" he asks Patrick as he hands the bottle back to Mikey.
"Off to watch the Murphys play. You?"
"I think we're gonna hang out for a while. Right?" he asks Mikey.
When Mikey looks back at Pete, he's got a small smile on his face. He's got a look in his eyes that Patrick recognizes; it's a look Patrick himself learned how to suppress a long time ago. It's a look that says that Pete's magnetic personality - now with 100% more animal magnetism, Patrick thinks wryly - has claimed another victim. Patrick feels a knot tightening in his chest. Part of him wants to plop down and stay right there, to stare at Mikey until the other man gets up and walks away. But that wouldn't do any good, not for any one of them. So, Patrick stands up and stretches his arms. "Have fun, kids. Don't do anything stupid." The words sound a lot more pleasant than he feels at this moment.
"Who do you think you're talking to?" Pete asks, mock offended.
"Right. Okay, then, don't get caught at whatever stupid shit you do."
"Better."
Patrick's half-turned to walk away when he hears Mikey's voice. "See you tomorrow, Patrick."
He turns briefly to glance at Mikey. He's already turned his head to say something to Pete, his neck stretched long, his glasses perched on the end of his nose. A smile spreads across his face when Pete makes a stupid joke, and something warm flares in Patrick's stomach. Silently, he acknowledges that he doesn't blame Pete for heading in Mikey's direction. That doesn't mean he has to like it.
*
Mikey doesn't know what to do, because he knows Pete and Patrick aren't together, but he knows how close they are. The entire tour knows how close they are. And he knows he wants to get to know Pete better, for reasons that have everything and nothing to do with his werewolf nature, all at once. But his reaction to Patrick is instinctual. He keeps a wary distance. Normally, this is where Gerard would come in, smoothing things over, taking charge. Taking center stage. But Gerard has other things on his mind this summer. So, Mikey's on his own.
Finally, he sucks it up and slides in next to Pete in catering. It's the day before the full moon, so it's probably the last chance he has to bring this up before all hell breaks loose. "Hey," he says.
"Mikeyway!" The grin Pete turns on him is blinding. "How the hell are you?"
He and Pete have hung out a few times now; none of their interactions would warrant the kind of enthusiasm Pete appears to be showing. That might just be Pete, though, Mikey thinks. He finds himself smiling. "Good. Hey, uh ..." Mikey looks down at Pete's plate. His half-eaten hamburger looks like it was barely waved in the direction of a frying pan before being served. "Hungry?" he asks lamely. How the hell is he supposed to bring up the wolf thing, anyway?
Pete makes a face. "Catering sucks this year. Nobody understands how to cook a fucking rare burger. This is closer to medium, jackasses."
Actually, Pete's burger is pink enough that some people might mistake it for raw meat. But Mikey knows what he means. He and Gerard learned how to hunt live animals before they entered kindergarten; a couple of freshly killed, decently-sized rabbits or raccoons can give a werewolf enough raw meat to quell the cravings for a whole month. Pete obviously doesn't know that, though, which means he can't be from a family tradition. Cursed, then ... someone deliberately made him this way. Mikey is suddenly irrationally angry. There are rules - unwritten, unenforceable, but every wolf he's ever met knows that turning humans is bad news. It calls attention to them, which they don't need, but what's more, it's unfair to the human. Being a wolf sucks. Mikey can't imagine anyone choosing this life. Maybe Pete did - he's more than a little crazy, that much Mikey knows for sure - but the way he's stabbing listlessly at the burger makes Mikey think not. "There's ..." Mikey pauses, then gamely forges on. "There's a better way to get what you need, you know."
"Huh?"
"I ..." He looks sideways at Pete. Pete's looking back at him, vaguely confused, but not really on guard. Yet. "I know what you need. What you ..."
He trails off. Pete's fully confused now. He's leaning back, away from the table, and his dark eyes are boring holes into Mikey's skull. Mikey sighs. "Come with me," he says impulsively.
"Where?"
"Trust me. I need to show you something."
Pete has no reason to trust him. He barely knows Mikey, and Mikey knows he sounds sketchy. But for some reason, Pete doesn't hesitate to stand up and follow Mikey away. They leave the catering tent and wind their way through the maze of buses, until finally coming to the corner that houses the crew buses. Everyone's out setting up for the show right now, so Mikey feels somewhat confident that no one's back here to see what he's about to do. Pete leans against a bus, his hands in his pockets. "Okay, you've got me alone, now what?"
Mikey fights a blush. If he's being honest with himself, he can think of much more fun things to possibly do with Pete Wentz in a secluded location than what he's about to do. But, this is necessary. Probably. And hopefully safe; if he's misjudged Pete's situation, if Pete's got some other pack or some other ideas about the whole wolf thing, this could get violent really quick. But Mikey's in this now, no turning back. So, after a deep breath, Mikey closes his eyes and starts to shift.
A voluntary shift is an instinctual thing; by paying attention to the way things feel when you shift with the moon, a wolf can recognize the internal changes and how to initiate them. There's probably some scientific explanation, but Mikey doesn't know any werewolf scientists, so he doesn't have any real words to describe it. He just imagines what the full moon feels like on his skin; almost like sunlight, cold sunlight, like a bright winter's day. It starts in his shoulders, and he leans over to touch the ground before his hands turn into paws. His back is next, and he feels fur punching through his skin in a ripple from his shoulders to his pelvis. At that point, the internal shift really gets going, and that's when the pain hits. It never gets easier. He learned to quell his screams as a child, with gags stuffed into his mouth so that he wouldn't disturb the neighbors. Sometimes, he imagines the taste of the bandannas at the back of his throat - it reminds him to keep the noises down in his chest, just rumbles and hiccups of pain. That takes enough concentration that, by the time he no longer wants to scream, his whole body has changed.
In his wolf form, he turns around to look at Pete. He kind of wants to laugh at the expression on Pete's face, but a laugh would come out as a bark, and the last thing he needs is someone coming to find out where the dog is.
Wolf instincts are not human instincts; Mikey never forgets he's human, but he's still something altogether different when he changes. In a way, the world is clearer when he's a wolf. Simpler, anyway - if he looks at Gerard while he's a wolf, all he sees is alpha-pack-family-power. His human self still knows everything Gerard is and isn't, how fucked up he is and how much he's working on becoming better. The wolf doesn't care about any of that. All the wolf wants to know is that Gerard is more powerful than he is. If that's still true, then Mikey's world is still in balance. Problem is, Mikey's world hasn't been in balance for a while.
But Pete - Pete doesn't look like anything Mikey's ever seen. There's power there, but not alpha-level power. That part doesn't surprise Mikey; cursed wolves are very rarely alpha, and if Pete's not a cursed wolf, then Mikey's a fucking chihuahua. Someone born to the wolf-world wouldn't be as confused as Pete is right now. But, Pete has something about him that Mikey can't identify. He radiates something ... a presence, almost as tangible as a flavor in the back of Mikey's throat, something that makes Mikey want to walk over to Pete and nuzzle his head into his stomach. It's partly a sexual reaction, but mostly an emotional one that makes Mikey uncomfortable enough that he changes back to human without thinking. A moment later, he's sitting on the dusty pavement, staring at the remnants of his clothing. "Fuck. Why do I always forget that part?"
Pete laughs, a loud honk that makes Mikey turn back around to look at him. He doesn't really care that he's naked - the dude just saw him turn into a wolf, he can deal with a little skin - but something in Pete's gaze is warm and heavy, and Mikey shifts to sit more comfortably. "You want me to go get you something to wear?" Pete asks. His voice cracks a little, but he sounds mostly calm.
"Yeah, that'd be good."
Mikey sits there for a couple of minutes, but Pete comes back quickly with a pair of shorts and a hoodie. "The shorts are Joe's, I figured those might fit."
They do, and suddenly Mikey is clothed and standing in front of Pete. "Thanks."
"Don't mention it." Pete suddenly pokes him in the chest. "You're a wolf, too."
"Yep."
"And you knew I was a wolf."
"Yep."
Pete narrows his eyes. "That's why I felt so ... strange when I saw you the other day, right?"
"Yep. Instinct. You'll always know when another wolf is around." Mikey kicks an abandoned beer can underneath the nearest bus, then looks back at Pete. "How did it happen to you?"
"I fucked the wrong girl, apparently. Some kind of Fatal Attraction bullshit." Pete shrugs, but Mikey watches his Adam's apple bob nervously. "What about you? You can change between full moons? I can't do that."
"I was born this way. Most of my family, too. Most wolves are born, at least these days. Maybe things work a little differently for us? I've never personally known anyone who wasn't. Most of us aren't dumb enough to call attention to ourselves by changing random humans."
"Huh." Pete looks at Mikey's face. "Really. You're a fucking werewolf." Suddenly, a grin splits Pete's face in two and he throws his arms around Mikey's neck. Mikey only keeps his balance by throwing a hand out to steady himself against the bus. When he's sure he won't fall, he lets his arms slip around Pete's waist. "Shit," Pete says, muffled by the hoodie Mikey's wearing, "I feel so much less like a freak." He pulls away from Mikey, leaving Mikey feeling curiously bereft. "Not that I don't still feel like a freak, but at least I'm not the only one."
"Thanks," Mikey says, deadpan, but his lips quirk up into a small smile.
Mikey expects to be peppered with questions, but instead, Pete tugs on the sleeve of his borrowed hoodie. "Come on. We need to go find Patrick."
"Patrick?" Mikey swallows. There's that feeling again, like he wants to head quickly in the opposite direction of wherever Patrick is. "Why, he's not ..."
"No, but he knows about me. He's the only one. He's been helping me figure things out. He should ..." Pete trails off, then spreads his hands out. "Unless you don't want him to know about you. I won't make you."
"No, no, it's - okay," Mikey tells him. Which is how he finds himself on Fall Out Boy's bus, giving some sort of werewolf welcome wagon speech to Pete while Patrick frowns from under the brim of his hat. If Mikey was a wolf right now, he'd be tucking tail and slinking away, just from Patrick's physical stance. Then Patrick starts asking questions, and Mikey's a little impressed at the amount of information they've managed to scrounge up without any help. But when Patrick's done, and Mikey explains the arrangements he and Gerard had made for the full moon tomorrow night, Patrick looks at Pete instead.
"Pete," he says firmly. And if Pete was a wolf right now, he'd be rolling over and showing his belly. As it is, he slides closer to Patrick on the couch and tugs at the brim of his hat.
"Patrick," Pete implores.
Mikey can't look at the expression on Pete's face; he clenches his jaw and paces back towards the door. Pete and Patrick are having some sort of conversation that doesn't involve actual sentences. It reminds him of nothing so much as - "Gerard," he blurts out. He looks over his shoulder. Patrick and Pete are both looking at him now. "I - Pete, I need to explain to him - "
Pete looks between him and Patrick. Patrick reaches for his laptop and opens it up. It's clear that they've been dismissed. Mikey suppresses a growl; Patrick looks up and straight into his eyes for a moment. Mikey looks away first.
Gerard's drawing in the front lounge when they get to the My Chem bus. He also looks like someone's shoved him into marginally less disgusting clothes; probably Frank's doing, as Frank is sprawled on the other side of the dinette, watching the Simpsons on the tv. Gerard doesn't look up at Mikey's greeting, but his head snaps up as soon as Pete steps onto the bus, and Pete freezes. Mikey sets a hand at the small of Pete's back and shoots Gerard a warning look. "He's - " Gerard starts.
"He got turned," Mikey interrupts, before Pete can supply Gerard with the too much information explanation. The truth Hollywood doesn't tell you is that it takes more than a casual bite to change someone into a werewolf, and Gerard has Opinions, especially after the Bert fiasco. Mikey can count at least two rants it might provoke, and if he doesn't have the energy for that, he's sure no one else does either. "I've been telling him some things. Thought you'd want to know."
Gerard looks slightly chastened. "Wow. Fuck, dude, I'm sorry to - well - yeah, me and Mikey, we can try to explain some things to you. How long has it been?"
"It first happened in December," Pete says, slightly defensive. Everybody in the business knows about the Best Buy incident, it seems; Mikey'd put two and two together as soon as Pete told him, and he can see Gerard doing the math, too. His eyes soften a little, but he's still looking back and forth from Pete to where Mikey's left a hand curved around Pete's back. It makes Mikey want to snatch his hand away, which is exactly why he puts his chin up and doesn't do it.
"I want him to run with me tomorrow night," Mikey says. Just because he's not asking doesn't mean it's not actually a question; his own wolf instincts are on high alert already thanks to the waxing moon, and they all clamor for his alpha's approval. This is the same feeling he'd gotten back in the Fall Out Boy bus with Pete and Patrick; he'd be more curious about the parallel if he wasn't busy fighting to keep eye contact with Gerard.
Gerard looks away first, tugging at his messy half-bleached hair. "Fine," he says. "Just stick to the plan; I'll stay here to - "
"Gee." It's Frank, interrupting softly like he hasn't been ostensibly ignoring this entire conversation. This has been happening more often this summer; Mikey is still training himself not to be annoyed at Frank involving himself in their pack issues, reminding himself that he'd asked Frank to step in. "Gee, you finally have the chance to go out and run, take it. You can't stay cooped up in the bus." He reaches across the tabletop, nudging at Gerard's hand with his fingertips till Gerard lifts it enough to pin Frank's palm to the table.
"We'll bring him," Gerard says to Mikey. "Have fun." It's not the most convincing Gerard's ever been, but Mikey's going to take what he can get.
Pete comes over the next night before moonrise and he's practically vibrating in place. Mikey doesn't know how anyone who sees him this close to changing, eyes and teeth gleaming, full of nervous violence, could ever forget it; he's not surprised Patrick's the only person Pete's told. They've borrowed a van from one of the techs - Frank's agreed to drive, and Gerard is in the front seat, jaw clenched and eyes averted from Pete and Mikey in the back. Mikey had maybe underestimated how hard Gerard would take this. He's desperately sorry, and it hits him right in the gut, all his own overexerted senses responding to different stimuli.
Frank stops the van when they reach the deserted stretch they'd scoped out on Google Maps and they all climb out. Mikey watches him grab Gerard by the hand, pull him close enough to whisper something Mikey can't hear; whatever it is, it makes Gerard lay a hand on Frank's cheek for a moment, tellingly tender. He flashes a look at Mikey and Pete, too, then turns and walks down the road a ways by himself. He'll change and run alone tonight.
Frank meets Mikey's eye for a second, and he looks like all he wants to do is to follow Gerard. Mikey totally understands. He doesn't though, just climbs back in the van, rolls the window partway down, and lights a cigarette. Mikey turns back to Pete.
"Let's go," he says.
Pete's still looking after Gerard, a mixture of wariness and longing, and oh, Mikey understands that too. "You sure he has to leave?"
"Do you really want to fight tonight? Or do you just want to run?"
"Look, I know I'm not your pack, but you're sure he would - " Pete interrupts himself so Mikey doesn't have to. Of course Gerard would fight. It had been obvious in that carefully averted gaze that he would, and that he didn't want to. "Okay, I trust you." He's beginning to break out into a sweat; it's almost time. Mikey can feel the ache in his own bones, and he grabs Pete's hand, pulls him off into the underbrush.
"We need to get ready," he says, and they undress in a fraught silence. Mikey doesn't think he's particularly fascinating to look at - too skinny and gangly by half. But he watches, unashamed, as Pete's skin is bared piece by piece, feeling like a voyeur. Then Pete looks up and sees him, and slows his movements, unable to resist performing a little. In the dusky gloom, his tattoos look like they're moving; his teeth are very white. Mikey is thrown from his perusal by a sudden wave of needlelike pains; it's time.
He comes shuddering and stretching through the change at the same time as Pete. The small black wolf hops into the air with all four feet, yips and then rushes Mikey, who instinctively drops a shoulder to roll Pete over. Pete goes sprawling in the dust; when he comes to a stop he struggles to his feet, shakes himself, and darts forward again. Mikey spins on his haunches and dashes off across the field, with Pete leaping behind him.
It's almost like being a pup again; hours of dashing through the fields, wrestling, following the scent trails of small animals. Mikey feels good - he feels right, for the first time in a long time, like this is something he can handle, can enjoy. Pete keeps up with him effortlessly, despite his shorter legs, but eventually they both get tired, and Mikey leads them back to the copse of trees where they left their clothing. They curl up together in a tangled pile of fur and limbs. Mikey yawns, jaws gaping wide, and heaves a satisfied sigh.
In the distance, he can hear a lone wolf howling. He lets out a sleepy, cut-off return greeting, then curls closer to Pete and falls asleep.
It's one difference, between wolf state and human state. The wolf can exhaust himself and then have no trouble falling asleep, every time. This time, he sleeps until the last possible moment before the moon sets, waking just before the change kicks in. Pete was asleep too; he jerks away from Mikey, ducking his head and whining as the first ripples of the change start back up.
It never gets better. Mikey's changed a dozen times a year for his entire 25 years of life. Pete's changed less than a dozen times, ever. They both have the same shell-shocked look in their eyes once they're back in their human forms, and Mikey crawls closer to Pete, nestles up against his side. Pete makes a welcoming noise and lays his cheek against Mikey's forehead. They breathe together for a while, till Mikey's skin stops crawling and he remembers that he is naked - that they both are - and skates a hand up Pete's side. Pete's warm, and he makes a pleased noise at the touch of Mikey's hand, his breath huffing out over Mikey's temple. "Mikeyway," he murmurs, wriggling down so they're eye to eye.
Mikey tilts his head so their mouths line up, groaning deep in his chest as he's rolled over, Pete's wiry frame sliding effortlessly on top of him. Pete's got his fingers wrapped in strands of Mikey's hair in no time, rolling his hips down against Mikey's as his mouth wanders down Mikey's neck. He knows just the right amount of teeth, somehow, to make Mikey squirm and buck up - the kind of ticklish that ends in moans instead of laughter. Mikey finds Pete's mouth again, biting down on his lower lip as he slides a hand between them and wraps it around Pete's cock. He hisses and his fingers tighten in Mikey's hair. Mikey rolls them over, kissing Pete again and again, back bowed as he jerks Pete off between them. It doesn't take long before Pete is coming in hot splashes between them, and Mikey rears back, sitting astride Pete's legs and fucking into his own hand until he's painting Pete's tattoos with stripes of white.
When he comes back to himself, Pete's laughing. "Couldn't resist marking me, hm?" It's accompanied by a crude eyebrow wiggle, but then Pete swipes his fingers through the mess and touches his tongue to the tips. Mikey makes a helpless noise halfway between a moan and a laugh, and Pete sits up underneath him and crushes their mouths together again. They kiss for a while longer, until Mikey's starting to shiver; then they roll apart, cleaning themselves up half-heartedly and tugging on discarded clothes from the little piles they'd left tucked under a tree.
When they finally trudge back out to the road, exhausted, fucked-out and hand in hand, the van's waiting where they left it. Frank's sitting on the hood, smoking; he raises an eyebrow at Pete and Mikey but doesn't say anything. Mikey looks around and sees Gerard already in the van, slumped sideways in the passenger seat, fast asleep.
"The gang's all here," Frank says from behind him. "Let's go." He flicks his cigarette butt to the ground, stomps on it, and lets himself in the driver's side door. He pulls it shut slowly so it won't slam, but Gerard opens his eyes anyway.
"Hey, Mikes," he croaks. He cuts his eyes to the side. "Pete." Despite sounding wrecked, he manages a small smile. Mikey drops his hand on Gerard's shoulder as he crawls into the first bench. Gerard covers Mikey's fingers with his own for a moment before curling back up against the window. Another waning moon. Another drive, first vans then buses. Back to their bands and their human lives.
Part Two
(Pete/Mikey, Pete/Patrick, Pete/Patrick/Mikey, Frank/Gerard)
See master post for headers/warnings/etc.
There are many things that Patrick expects when he enters Pete's hotel room; Pete could be curled up in bed in a fetal position, he could be watching porn and eating french fries from room service, he could be posting ridiculously emo song lyrics on his 'secret' blog. Really, anything is possible. But 'anything' doesn't encompass the scruffy black dog ... no, wolf lying on the bed, staring at Patrick with wide eyes. Patrick freezes. "What the fuck ..." he says, his hand gripping the door frame. "Pete? Are you in here?"
The wolf stands up and jumps down off the bed. When it starts to walk towards Patrick, Patrick takes an instinctive step back. The wolf stops for a moment, then launches itself at Patrick, growling. Panicked, Patrick slams the door before it can reach him. He leans against the closed door and brings a hand up to his mouth. "Motherfucker ..." he breathes. He can still hear the growling on the other side of the door, and he feels soft thuds against the back of his legs where the wolf is obviously butting against the door. He should go get help, Patrick thinks. But Pete might still be in there, with an obviously angry wolf. What if he's hurt? He can't leave Pete in there alone.
After a few minutes, the noises on the other side of the door stop. Patrick swallows hard and turns around. He slides the key card into the slot slowly; when the door beeps, he pushes the handle and cracks it open an inch. He can't see anything through the crack, so with great care, he pushes the door the rest of the way open and looks around. The wolf is sitting at the foot of the bed, about five feet away from the door. Its teeth are bared, but it's not moving. Patrick risks taking his eyes off the animal and scans the rest of the room. There's no sign of Pete anywhere. Maybe he's not there. Maybe, Patrick thinks, he's gone out, and someone ... someone put a wolf in his room? None of it makes any sense.
"Where the hell is Pete?" Patrick asks. He immediately feels foolish. It's not like the wolf is going to tell him anything. But the silence is killing him; the only things he can hear are the soft grunts the wolf lets out on every breath and his own pounding heart. But, improbably, the wolf cocks its head, and its teeth disappear back behind its lips. It still watches Patrick warily, but it no longer looks poised to strike at any moment. Patrick takes a deep breath. "I guess talking is good?" The wolf doesn't move, so Patrick continues. "Okay, sure, nice wolf, don't hurt me, I'm just looking for Pete, I won't do anything to you ..."
The wolf stares up at Patrick with wide, dark eyes ... familiar eyes, Patrick thinks, but immediately shakes himself. It's been a really long month, he hasn't slept very well, his brain isn't working right. There's no other reason why the wolf's eyes would look like Pete's. Or, even why he's seeing a wolf in Pete's hotel room. He's probably hallucinating. But where did Pete go?
The wolf whines and paws at the air. When Patrick doesn't move, it stands back up and takes a small step in Patrick's direction. Patrick holds his breath, but doesn't back up and close the door like a logical part of his brain - the part screaming predator! - tells him to. He's in a hotel room with a woodland animal; logic doesn't cover these types of things. Another step, and the wolf is within arm's reach. It doesn't move any farther; it simply sits back down and looks at Patrick again. Slowly, Patrick crouches down and holds out a hand. He expects the wolf to sniff it, to inspect him like a dog would, but it instead butts its head enthusiastically against Patrick's palm. "Okay, you want me to pet you," Patrick says, slowly rubbing the wolf's head. "But where did you come from?"
Patrick gets another whine, and then the wolf is backing up. It jumps back onto the bed and turns around expectantly. "What do you want?" Patrick asks, feeling foolish. The wolf makes a low noise and jerks its head back towards the other end of the bed. It's an odd gesture, one that looks ... almost human? Impossible. It must be some kind of trained animal. It's tame enough, anyway. "Where did you come from?" he asks again. "And why are you in Pete's room?" The wolf makes the strange jerking gesture with its head again. Patrick looks past it and sees Pete's MacBook open on one of the pillows. From across the room, Patrick can make out a picture of a dark wolf on the screen. He steps fully inside the room and closes the door behind him. The wolf doesn't seem inclined to maul him to death or anything, and ... well, this is really weird. If anyone else sees a wolf in Pete's room, all hell is likely to break loose.
Patrick walks over to the head of the bed and bends over to peer at the computer screen. The wolf, meanwhile, curls up in the middle of the bed, its chin on a pillow, and watches Patrick closely. The image on the screen, Patrick finds, is part of the wikipedia entry on werewolves. He blinks, then looks over at the wolf. "Okay, Pete," he says loudly, standing up and clicking the laptop firmly shut. "Very funny, you can come out now and call the, the wolf trainer or whatever. Werewolves, really?"
There's no response, except for a small noise from the wolf. Patrick sighs and walks over to the bathroom. He expects to find Pete hiding behind the door ... or in the shower, or in the closet, or under the bed. He's none of these places, though, and his wallet, phone, and room keycard are lying carelessly on the desk in the corner. Next to the desk is a heap of clothing; when Patrick bends down to inspect it, he finds one of Pete's favorite t-shirts ripped to shreds, along with a dirty pair of jeans and the remnants of what appear to be Jockey boxer shorts. "Okay, seriously, what the hell?" The wolf whines again, and Patrick straightens back up. "You are not answering me," Patrick tells the wolf. "You can't be."
Patrick pockets the room key - unnecessarily, since he has the one their manager gave him, but he does it anyway - and leaves the room. He goes from door to door, checking everyone else's room for Pete. He even checks his own room, but it's quiet, as Andy is out somewhere exploring the city. At this point, Patrick starts to panic. Wherever Pete is, he has no money, no ID, no phone, no way of getting back into his hotel room. He likely doesn't even have shoes, as all of his sneakers seemed to be present and accounted for on the floor of his closet. It hasn't been that long since Patrick got a phone call about Pete and a Best Buy parking lot ... Patrick's heart is pounding in his chest. He looks out the window. The sky is starting to glow a slightly lighter gray; morning is approaching. He makes a deal with himself. He'll go back to Pete's room to wait, he thinks, and if Pete isn't back by the time their manager is likely to be awake, he'll sound the alarm.
In Pete's room, the wolf is still laying with its head on the pillow. It raises its head at Patrick's entrance, but lays it back down immediately. Patrick sighs and, after a moment's hesitation, sits on the other side of the bed. "I hope Pete comes back," he says to the wolf, "if only to tell me just where the hell you came from."
Patrick flips on the television and turns to a Twilight Zone marathon on WGN. The wolf turns around and lays itself down with its head facing the foot of the bed, where the television is. "You like old horror?" Patrick asks, reaching over to ruffle the fur on the wolf's back. The wolf stiffens, but when Patrick withdraws his hand, it turns and looks at him with imploring eyes. "Okay, okay, fine." So, Patrick spends the next hour or so watching television and idly stroking the wolf's rough fur.
Patrick has just noticed sunlight beginning to creep in through the window drapes when he feels something shift underneath his hand. He looks down; the wolf appears to be convulsing. Patrick scrambles off the bed. "Oh, shit." He watches helplessly as the wolf bucks and makes a horrible keening noise. After a moment, the noise turns into something that looks more familiar ... black fur shifts and slides until it reveals pale olive skin and tattoos. Patrick curses, but the sound is lost underneath Pete's scream.
When it's over, Pete collapses onto the bed, sweaty and limp. Patrick can only stare. The only evidence that there had ever been a wolf on the bed is the small tuft of black hair that had stuck to Patrick's hand. He stares at it, then at Pete. Pete looks over at him and gives him a wan smile. "Hi," he says, his voice an almost inaudible croak. "Welcome to my nightmare."
Patrick can't breathe, or move. When he can manage either of those things again, he's going to pinch himself, because clearly he's dreaming. It wouldn't be the first time he's had nightmares starring Pete Wentz in the past month or two. But it has to be a dream, because Pete can't be -
"Pete," he grits out, eyes glued to the bed, where a sweaty, shaken looking Pete is pushing himself up into a sitting position. He's pale under his tan, and still very, very naked; Patrick looks away, then pivots and marches towards the door. After a moment, he thinks better of it and pivots back. "I'm going to wake up now," he mumbles to himself. The words come out strangled. He takes a deep breath through his nose. It doesn't help.
"If you are, will you take me with you?" Pete replies wearily. The smile has faded away. That's enough to make Patrick's stomach sink like a stone. He's still watching Pete lever himself upright, and he crosses the room to grab the hotel bathrobe from the closet. Pete makes a grateful noise when the terry cloth wraps around his shoulders, quickly cut off when Patrick grabs the lapels of the robe and yanks him close.
"What the fuck is going on?" His voice spikes into a yell, and Pete flinches. Patrick pushes him away as abruptly as he'd pulled him in, worry mixing sickly with fury in his chest. "And whatever the hell it is, why didn't you tell me?"
"This is me telling you," Pete answers. "If I hadn't shown you first, what would you have done?"
"Punched you in the face," Patrick growls. "I still might."
"Just not tonight, okay? This sort of - hurts like a motherfucker."
Great. That's exactly what Patrick wants to hear. That Pete can add turning into a fucking wolf to his list of ailments. "Okay," he says, starting to pace between the tv and the corner of the bed. "You're a werewolf, fine, thanks for the show and tell, I guess I have to believe you. But Pete - how the hell did this happen?"
"Funny story," Pete starts, in that fake-careless tone of his, and that's when Patrick turns around and decks him.
*
Whatever form a werewolf comes in - hereditary or transformed from normal human - a few rules remain the same. The full moon is a dangerous time. Secrecy is a must, if you want to stay alive and out of some freaky government laboratory. And pack hierarchy exists; every wolf either fights for a place or accepts the one he's in. It's an instinct Mikey doesn't understand on a scientific level, but it's one he feels deep down in his bones every time he looks at his brother.
Tonight, Mikey watches the large black wolf pace up and down the bus hallway over and over with the hunched walk of a caged animal. They can't pull over and let him run; the band has to get to Maine tonight. It's not even full moon, but Gerard's been spending a lot of time in wolf form lately. It was one of the first things their dad had taught them, back when they were tiny and still learning what it meant to be an offshoot of the funny branches of the Way family tree. You changed at the full moon, sure as the tides, but without concentration, stress or a sudden emotional upheaval could snap you into a transformation before you could say Warren Zevon.
When they were kids, it had been a game. It hadn't hurt as much then, dulled by the elasticity and the forgetfulness of childhood. When they were moody teenagers, pain and strong emotions alike could usually be dulled under a convenient layer of intoxication. Now, it's a fucking concern. And what it means, what Mikey can't bring himself to tell anyone, is that Gerard's sobriety affects Mikey nearly as much as it affects Gerard. Being around Gerard has always quieted something inside Mikey, satisfied some primal need to be a part of something outside of himself. Mikey isn't and will never be an alpha. Only a handful of wolves are, at least in Mikey's limited experience; Gerard is one of the few natural alphas he's ever met. Following his older brother was a no-brainer. When Gerard was a drunk, he'd been easier to push around, easier to predict, but he'd still been the pack leader. Mikey got used to following along even when he wasn't sure where they were going.
Sober Gerard is as sharp as the snap of a bone, and much more quick to break, so these days Mikey's always exhausted, wearing it like an extra layer of padding around his human form.
Mikey isn't sure what brought on tonight's change. It could be anything, it could be nothing - Gerard has been sober nearly six months, but he's still learning how to control his emotions without chemical interference. If he's too tired, if he pushes himself too hard on stage, if he starts thinking about things from his recent past he regrets ... Mikey sighs when the wolf paces past him, and kicks out gently to tap him with his foot without thinking. It used to be a foolproof way to distract Gerard; provoke him, make him take his frustration out on the one person around who could take the violence that would ensue. Mikey could change into a wolf right now. He's got enough control to shift at will, and the result is usually worth the pain in these sorts of situations. But when Gerard whirls around and growls at him, Mikey can't bring himself to do it. The idea of fighting right now makes him want to cry. He stares at Gerard for a moment, then lowers his gaze and exposes his throat in a submissive gesture. Gerard growls one more time before padding back to the other end of the bus.
Correction: Mikey can't bring himself to tell anyone how much Gerard's moods are wearing on him, but he's pretty sure he's not fooling the people who matter most. Especially Frank. Frank's watching now, sprawled on the couch in the lounge at the one terminus of Gerard's route, eyes flicking back and forth between Gerard and Mikey. Mikey's always grateful for their bandmates, but never more so than when they're in wolf form. None of them had ever batted an eyelash at sharing close quarters with two werewolves. Of course, the wolfsbane potion Mikey and Gerard's family uses helps with that. It tames the worst of the physical pain and the feral urges. Some enterprising ancestor had even had the foresight to start producing it in pill form.
My Chemical Romance, indeed. As he watches, Gerard's pacing slows noticeably, until he's swaying on his paws outside his bunk. Then he jumps inside and Mikey hears the pained intake of breath that signals the start of the change, smells the alteration in Gerard's scent as he phases back into human form. Mikey stands in the lounge, debating whether or not to go check on him, but before he can make up his mind Frank gets to his feet, laying a hand on Mikey's shoulder as he sidles by. Frank climbs up into Gerard's bunk and there's a brief growl and a moment of silence before their voices start murmuring back and forth.
Mikey tries not be jealous. He likes to tell himself that he doesn't need to be the one who fixes Gerard, because that might mean that Gerard doesn't need to be the one who fixes him.
He's still jealous.
*
In the end, Pete's story is disappointingly lacking in details. One of the girls he'd been messing around with behind his ex-girlfriend's back got mad at him for not declaring his true love for her, or some such nonsense. Unfortunately, she turned out to be a werewolf, and after a night Pete couldn't remember ("I was really drunk, okay, and I think she slipped something into my beer"), he woke up in an alley, scratched and bruised and more sore than he'd been in years. He didn't think anything of it until a week later, when the full moon rolled around and he found himself transforming into a wolf in the middle of his bedroom. "I thought I was hallucinating," he tells Patrick that first night. "Acid isn't my thing, you know that, but I looked in a mirror that night and was absolutely sure that I'd managed to take a hit without knowing. What the hell else was I supposed to think?"
But it had happened the next month, too, and the next week, Pete parked in the Best Buy parking lot and swallowed a bunch of Ativan. This, he tells Patrick, is his fourth transformation. "I'm still me when I'm a wolf. I can think, I know who I am, all that shit. I just ... change. But I sorta feel more like a wolf every day, even when I'm human. I've started ordering my meat rare in restaurants, and I can smell Joe's weed from across a goddamned parking lot. I don't know. I just feel really different." His eyes gleam when he says it, and Patrick thinks this is probably a very un-Pete-like understatement.
He only transforms the one night every month, for which Patrick is grateful. The album has just dropped, and their professional life has gotten even more crazy than it used to be. MTV loves them, radio loves them; suddenly, they're not just stars of the scene, they're legitimate pop stars, and it's messing with all four of them in different ways. Pete's extra messed up, but everyone else is happy to chalk it up to his diagnosed mental illness. Only Patrick knows exactly what Pete's struggling with. It's hard, not having anyone else he can talk to about it, so Patrick does the only thing he can think of. He turns to the internet.
Unfortunately, the internet is more confusing than helpful. Not that Patrick expected to be able to Google "werewolf" and find a website called "What To Do When Your Friend Turns Into A Werewolf." He'd just hoped ... well, he doesn't know what he hoped, but what he finds is a whole lot of myth. Different cultures have vastly different werewolf legends, he finds, and he has no idea which stories to dismiss and which ones might show up in front of him one full moon. "Do you know what culture that girl's family came from?" he asks Pete one night. They're sitting in Patrick's hotel room; Patrick is lying on the bed with his laptop, while Pete is lying on the floor, holding his phone in the air and texting people. "Like, do you think she was European, or something else?"
"I don't know," Pete says, snapping his phone shut. "She's white. I really wasn't interested enough in her as a person to ask about her family."
"That's probably why you ended up all furry," Patrick mutters.
"Well, excuse me. I'll never fuck someone again without asking for their family tree in advance."
"Don't you want to know what the hell is happening to you?"
"I want to not turn into a fucking wolf ever again. But that's probably not very likely, so ..." Pete sits up and shrugs. "The internet isn't going to give you anything more than bad horror movies. I've checked."
"There has to be something. You're not the first person this has happened to. You can't be."
Pete just shrugs and lays down again. He's frustrating Patrick something awful these days. Now that he's shared his secret with Patrick, Pete seems much calmer; it's as if he's given all his panic and fear to Patrick to carry. Some days - like this one - Patrick feels like decking him again. If he wasn't such an asshole about the people he dated, if he had better judgment, if he thought about his actions more ... well, he wouldn't be Pete, Patrick admits to himself. But there's a big difference between Pete's usual bad results and some magical thing that turns him into a fucking fairy tale. And now he doesn't even seemed concerned about it. Patrick does all the worrying. What happens when they have a show the night of the full moon? If they're on stage when the sun goes down, will Pete just suddenly sprout fur in front of thousands of people? What if someone else sees Pete when he's a wolf - will they call the cops or animal control? Will Pete end up in an animal shelter or a zoo or something? And every time Patrick sits across from Pete in a restaurant and sees a giant pink hamburger appear on a plate in front of him, Patrick's stomach turns. He's about to ask Andy about the everyday practicality of being a vegetarian, because the closer Pete gets to eating raw meat, the less appetizing any sort of animal flesh becomes.
Patrick goes back to browsing the internet, scowling at his laptop screen. A few minutes later, he feels the bed dip next to him. The next thing he knows, Pete is curled up at his side. He lays his head on the pillow and scoots close enough that Patrick can feel his breath on the skin of his arm. He doesn't shiver. He's been training himself to not react to Pete's physical presence for several years now. When he was a teenager in a van, with Pete practically lying on top of him every night, he'd spent hours and hours every day telling his hormones that Pete was his friend, that Pete didn't think of him the same way Patrick thought of Pete, that embarrassed flushes only gained him more mocking and that unwanted erections were the worst thing that could possibly happen to him. He's an adult now - really, he can drink and everything - and he's gotten over his post-adolescent crush. He has.
... okay, he hasn't. For some reason, he's felt like a fucking hormonal fifteen year old ever since he saw that wolf turn back into Pete. He doesn't want to think about what that says about him.
Pete flings his arm over Patrick's lap, weighing down Patrick's arms until he's forced to close the laptop and push it to the side. He glares down at Pete, but Pete isn't looking at him. Instead, Pete is pressing his nose to the soft flesh of Patrick's forearm. Patrick feels his body begin to react to the contact, and he slides down to a prone position to move Pete's arm away from his most sensitive areas. Pete buries his face in Patrick's shoulder. Patrick's not sure what to do; after a moment, he reaches over and pats Pete's shoulder. Finally, Pete raises his head and looks at him. "I don't know if I want to know what's happening to me," he admits softly. "Sometimes ignorance is bliss."
Patrick can't really argue with that. He props himself up on the pillow and turns on the TV to some late-night talk show. Pete remains at his side until he falls asleep.
*
Warped, again. Last year, this tour had been nothing more than a giant crash and burn - for Gerard, and nearly for the whole band. The other guys would probably argue, but Mikey likes to think he'd felt it more than the others. People have always liked to comment - jokingly, snidely, enviously - on how close Gerard and Mikey are. Most of them don't know the truth, of course. It's impossible to understand from the outside what it means to be brothers and to be pack, to have an alpha. Mikey had, offstage at least, always been the one who'd known how to work a crowd. Known everyone. This Warped feels like that, but Mikey's waiting, always waiting for the other shoe to drop. And then he meets Pete Wentz.
If Mikey is remembering how to work a crowd, Pete can already make it sit up and beg. And that's particularly fucking apt, because the first time he's downwind and within arm's length of Pete - unfortunately for him, because Pete's plastered in mud and carrying a Super Soaker filled with something unidentifiable - all his senses convulse at once. Werewolf. Pete's a werewolf. But how does he not know this already?
Mikey feels his hackles raise a little, and he freezes, taking in a deep breath. Taking in the scent. Wolf, yes, but not pack; the scent has a kick like burnt sugar and bitter herbs, both strange and tantalizing. Pete makes eye contact for just that one moment too long, and Mikey stiffens automatically. Then Pete blinks and flashes him a toothy white grin. "Mikey Way," he cries, and launches himself at Mikey. Mikey flinches, too surprised to even let out the growl that builds in his chest. Amazingly, Pete catches himself in mid-lunge. "It's just mud. Mostly," he says, like that's why Mikey flinched. He wiggles his eyebrows, and says "Maybe later," then runs off.
Mikey stays where he is - exactly where he is - for a long time. Pete Wentz. He's never heard a word about this, not through any of the usual channels. And Pete's scent - it makes Mikey uneasy, and so does Pete. He hadn't just ignored the rules. He'd acted like he didn't know the rules. Not good, and especially not good with Gerard being so - well, Gerard has a bit of a short fuse these days, still slightly fragile underneath. Shit. He takes a moment to bare his teeth at nothing, and stalks off. He's going to have to keep an eye on Pete Wentz.
There's another part of him, too long ignored, that is entirely okay with that.
It's about two days before anyone in his own band notices Mikey's tendency to disappear and appear wherever Pete is. Gerard would have noticed a lot sooner, but Gerard has barely emerged from the bus in two days. Pete hasn't noticed yet either, which is strange despite Mikey's years of practice at lurking. Pete's scent is also plenty distracting, but Mikey still smells Frank sneaking up on him before Frank can grab him. He lets him do it anyway.
"Don't tell me Emo Bangs over there is really that fascinating," Frank says into Mikey's ear. Mikey pulls back far enough to look pointedly at Frank's smudged makeup and bleached fauxhawk. "Fuck you, it's a thematic aesthetic," Frank says. It's sort of scary how he even sounds like Gerard when he says it.
"He's a werewolf," Mikey says shortly, watching Pete, amid much gesturing, start to climb up the side of Fall Out Boy's tour bus. As he watches, Patrick stomps over to Pete's little semicircle of spectators, grabs Pete by the scruff of the neck, and shakes, hard. Pete subsides immediately, and that is fascinating and also not helping resolve Mikey's confusion.
He tunes back in and catches the tail end of whatever Frank's been saying about Pete. Gerard's name was in there somewhere, and Mikey grabs Frank's wrist, squeezing hard. "Frank, you gotta do something for me."
"Ow," Frank whines. "Fragile human bones." Mikey glares but lets go. "What?" Frank continues irritably.
"Gerard...he...Pete's not pack," Mikey says.
Frank lets out a rude snort. "He's something. Crazy little fucker."
"Pot, kettle. Whatever. Mostly, he's someone Gerard doesn't need to go all territorial over. Not right now." Frank bites his lip, and Mikey knows he gets what Mikey's implying. "There's - just something weird there, and I want to try to figure out what it is, and so I need you to distract him till I can."
"Distract him." It's not exactly a question. Mikey narrows his eyes. He's not entirely certain setting Frank on Gerard is a good idea. Things between them have had a strange tension - and getting stranger - ever since Gerard got clean. Still, Frank and Ray understand him nearly as well as Mikey does. It'll have to suffice.
Mikey has to look away, after a moment. He knows that Frank thinks he's hiding the need in his eyes, and it's not exactly the same as Mikey feels, he thinks, but not entirely different. It's something that Mikey just doesn't want to think about, that his human bandmate - friend - brother misses his alpha too.
*
Patrick is used to stopping Pete from doing stupid things, or cleaning up the mess after Pete's done stupid things, or, occasionally, taking part in the stupid things Pete's doing. Lately, though, Pete's proportion of stupid things to marginally not stupid things has gone way up. Patrick wants to blame summer, or the presence of dozens of inebriated and highly suggestible band dudes, but it's clear there's something bothering him. Not Pete's normal crazy - Pete's very specific new level of furry crazy. Pete's taken to provoking him at every turn. Now, Pete - the old Pete - sometimes didn't know when to stop, but he never did it with that kind of half-mad gleam in his eye. Patrick knows it's serious when Andy and Joe start automatically fixing him with a look both wary and pleading whenever it gets to be too much. Patrick just grabs Pete by the neck and shoves him off in a different direction, holding back the punch he's still dying to throw.
The really crazy thing is, it works. It works every time. It maybe works too well, because more times than not it ends with Pete curled up next to him on the couch, or in Patrick's bunk. If this is some sort of toll for a Pete who doesn't end up in jail or traction, it's worth it. Maybe.
This time, it's playing King of the Mountain on top of the tour bus. It's second nature by now to grab onto Pete and shake, just like it's second nature to ignore the way Pete steps into it instead of away, like any normal person.
"Patrick," Pete starts, a little breathless. It's enough to make Patrick's mouth go dry, and that makes him frown harder.
"I swear to god, Pete. Do you want to be in traction? We need a bass player, you know." It's a common enough refrain, and Pete laughs like he always does, moving obediently away when Patrick shoves him.
"You could steal Mikey Way. He's a million times better than me, anyway." He's not looking at Patrick anymore. Patrick follows his glance and sees Mikey talking to Frank Iero a few buses away. Mikey's been around a lot lately, sort of in the background but still there, and Patrick wants to like him - he's a genuinely cool guy (in a dorky way that reminds him of - well, Pete). But dammit, after four years he knows Pete's tells, and Pete's been single for much longer than Patrick thought he could manage. He may not have a right to say this, but Pete is his.
Except he's not. And Mikey's just his type.
It's later in the day, after Fall Out Boy's late afternoon set, that Patrick sees Mikey again. He's with Pete. Of course. They're sitting on a hill above the backstage area and passing an unlabeled bottle between them. Pete sees Patrick at the bottom of the hill and waves him up. Caught, Patrick trudges up the hill and stands below them. "What's up, guys?"
"We're getting together a bunch of people to go see Batman Begins tomorrow, before we leave town. You in?"
Patrick smiles. "Hell yeah. I've been dying to see it. My cousin works around one of the places they filmed in Chicago, and he said everything he saw looked amazing."
"It's brilliant," Mikey says. He holds to bottle up to Patrick, but Patrick waves him off. Mikey shrugs and takes another drink. "Christopher Nolan is a motherfucking genius. He filmed a Batman movie like it was Blade Runner, and it's so cool."
"I read Year One when I was thirteen, and it's still one of my favorite comic stories ever. I heard this one sorta follows it?"
"Kind of." Mikey shrugs. "It sorta follows the origin story, but twists it in a way that works much better for a movie. You'll have to see it. But don't mention Ra's Al Ghul to Gerard unless you want to hear a half hour long monologue about how much better the character is in the comic."
Patrick laughs. Pete rolls his eyes and grabs the bottle back from Mikey. "Geeks. Both of you."
"Like you can talk." Patrick cuffs Pete on the side of the head. Pete shoves at Patrick's legs hard enough that Patrick falls to his knees; he retaliates by pulling Pete's legs toward him and twisting a fist into the collar of his t-shirt. Pete tries to twist away, but Patrick just gives him a good shake and pushes him back towards the ground. Pete hits the ground with a loud "oof," but he's grinning. When Patrick sits back and brushes grass off his jeans, he sees Mikey staring at him oddly. For a brief moment, Patrick has the urge to grab Mikey by the shirt, as well, and shake the strange expression off his face. They stare at each other for a long moment, too long to be comfortable, before Mikey looks away and starts picking at the grass next to him.
Meanwhile, Pete has righted himself and, when Patrick looks back at him, is chugging a long drink from the bottle. "What're you up to?" he asks Patrick as he hands the bottle back to Mikey.
"Off to watch the Murphys play. You?"
"I think we're gonna hang out for a while. Right?" he asks Mikey.
When Mikey looks back at Pete, he's got a small smile on his face. He's got a look in his eyes that Patrick recognizes; it's a look Patrick himself learned how to suppress a long time ago. It's a look that says that Pete's magnetic personality - now with 100% more animal magnetism, Patrick thinks wryly - has claimed another victim. Patrick feels a knot tightening in his chest. Part of him wants to plop down and stay right there, to stare at Mikey until the other man gets up and walks away. But that wouldn't do any good, not for any one of them. So, Patrick stands up and stretches his arms. "Have fun, kids. Don't do anything stupid." The words sound a lot more pleasant than he feels at this moment.
"Who do you think you're talking to?" Pete asks, mock offended.
"Right. Okay, then, don't get caught at whatever stupid shit you do."
"Better."
Patrick's half-turned to walk away when he hears Mikey's voice. "See you tomorrow, Patrick."
He turns briefly to glance at Mikey. He's already turned his head to say something to Pete, his neck stretched long, his glasses perched on the end of his nose. A smile spreads across his face when Pete makes a stupid joke, and something warm flares in Patrick's stomach. Silently, he acknowledges that he doesn't blame Pete for heading in Mikey's direction. That doesn't mean he has to like it.
*
Mikey doesn't know what to do, because he knows Pete and Patrick aren't together, but he knows how close they are. The entire tour knows how close they are. And he knows he wants to get to know Pete better, for reasons that have everything and nothing to do with his werewolf nature, all at once. But his reaction to Patrick is instinctual. He keeps a wary distance. Normally, this is where Gerard would come in, smoothing things over, taking charge. Taking center stage. But Gerard has other things on his mind this summer. So, Mikey's on his own.
Finally, he sucks it up and slides in next to Pete in catering. It's the day before the full moon, so it's probably the last chance he has to bring this up before all hell breaks loose. "Hey," he says.
"Mikeyway!" The grin Pete turns on him is blinding. "How the hell are you?"
He and Pete have hung out a few times now; none of their interactions would warrant the kind of enthusiasm Pete appears to be showing. That might just be Pete, though, Mikey thinks. He finds himself smiling. "Good. Hey, uh ..." Mikey looks down at Pete's plate. His half-eaten hamburger looks like it was barely waved in the direction of a frying pan before being served. "Hungry?" he asks lamely. How the hell is he supposed to bring up the wolf thing, anyway?
Pete makes a face. "Catering sucks this year. Nobody understands how to cook a fucking rare burger. This is closer to medium, jackasses."
Actually, Pete's burger is pink enough that some people might mistake it for raw meat. But Mikey knows what he means. He and Gerard learned how to hunt live animals before they entered kindergarten; a couple of freshly killed, decently-sized rabbits or raccoons can give a werewolf enough raw meat to quell the cravings for a whole month. Pete obviously doesn't know that, though, which means he can't be from a family tradition. Cursed, then ... someone deliberately made him this way. Mikey is suddenly irrationally angry. There are rules - unwritten, unenforceable, but every wolf he's ever met knows that turning humans is bad news. It calls attention to them, which they don't need, but what's more, it's unfair to the human. Being a wolf sucks. Mikey can't imagine anyone choosing this life. Maybe Pete did - he's more than a little crazy, that much Mikey knows for sure - but the way he's stabbing listlessly at the burger makes Mikey think not. "There's ..." Mikey pauses, then gamely forges on. "There's a better way to get what you need, you know."
"Huh?"
"I ..." He looks sideways at Pete. Pete's looking back at him, vaguely confused, but not really on guard. Yet. "I know what you need. What you ..."
He trails off. Pete's fully confused now. He's leaning back, away from the table, and his dark eyes are boring holes into Mikey's skull. Mikey sighs. "Come with me," he says impulsively.
"Where?"
"Trust me. I need to show you something."
Pete has no reason to trust him. He barely knows Mikey, and Mikey knows he sounds sketchy. But for some reason, Pete doesn't hesitate to stand up and follow Mikey away. They leave the catering tent and wind their way through the maze of buses, until finally coming to the corner that houses the crew buses. Everyone's out setting up for the show right now, so Mikey feels somewhat confident that no one's back here to see what he's about to do. Pete leans against a bus, his hands in his pockets. "Okay, you've got me alone, now what?"
Mikey fights a blush. If he's being honest with himself, he can think of much more fun things to possibly do with Pete Wentz in a secluded location than what he's about to do. But, this is necessary. Probably. And hopefully safe; if he's misjudged Pete's situation, if Pete's got some other pack or some other ideas about the whole wolf thing, this could get violent really quick. But Mikey's in this now, no turning back. So, after a deep breath, Mikey closes his eyes and starts to shift.
A voluntary shift is an instinctual thing; by paying attention to the way things feel when you shift with the moon, a wolf can recognize the internal changes and how to initiate them. There's probably some scientific explanation, but Mikey doesn't know any werewolf scientists, so he doesn't have any real words to describe it. He just imagines what the full moon feels like on his skin; almost like sunlight, cold sunlight, like a bright winter's day. It starts in his shoulders, and he leans over to touch the ground before his hands turn into paws. His back is next, and he feels fur punching through his skin in a ripple from his shoulders to his pelvis. At that point, the internal shift really gets going, and that's when the pain hits. It never gets easier. He learned to quell his screams as a child, with gags stuffed into his mouth so that he wouldn't disturb the neighbors. Sometimes, he imagines the taste of the bandannas at the back of his throat - it reminds him to keep the noises down in his chest, just rumbles and hiccups of pain. That takes enough concentration that, by the time he no longer wants to scream, his whole body has changed.
In his wolf form, he turns around to look at Pete. He kind of wants to laugh at the expression on Pete's face, but a laugh would come out as a bark, and the last thing he needs is someone coming to find out where the dog is.
Wolf instincts are not human instincts; Mikey never forgets he's human, but he's still something altogether different when he changes. In a way, the world is clearer when he's a wolf. Simpler, anyway - if he looks at Gerard while he's a wolf, all he sees is alpha-pack-family-power. His human self still knows everything Gerard is and isn't, how fucked up he is and how much he's working on becoming better. The wolf doesn't care about any of that. All the wolf wants to know is that Gerard is more powerful than he is. If that's still true, then Mikey's world is still in balance. Problem is, Mikey's world hasn't been in balance for a while.
But Pete - Pete doesn't look like anything Mikey's ever seen. There's power there, but not alpha-level power. That part doesn't surprise Mikey; cursed wolves are very rarely alpha, and if Pete's not a cursed wolf, then Mikey's a fucking chihuahua. Someone born to the wolf-world wouldn't be as confused as Pete is right now. But, Pete has something about him that Mikey can't identify. He radiates something ... a presence, almost as tangible as a flavor in the back of Mikey's throat, something that makes Mikey want to walk over to Pete and nuzzle his head into his stomach. It's partly a sexual reaction, but mostly an emotional one that makes Mikey uncomfortable enough that he changes back to human without thinking. A moment later, he's sitting on the dusty pavement, staring at the remnants of his clothing. "Fuck. Why do I always forget that part?"
Pete laughs, a loud honk that makes Mikey turn back around to look at him. He doesn't really care that he's naked - the dude just saw him turn into a wolf, he can deal with a little skin - but something in Pete's gaze is warm and heavy, and Mikey shifts to sit more comfortably. "You want me to go get you something to wear?" Pete asks. His voice cracks a little, but he sounds mostly calm.
"Yeah, that'd be good."
Mikey sits there for a couple of minutes, but Pete comes back quickly with a pair of shorts and a hoodie. "The shorts are Joe's, I figured those might fit."
They do, and suddenly Mikey is clothed and standing in front of Pete. "Thanks."
"Don't mention it." Pete suddenly pokes him in the chest. "You're a wolf, too."
"Yep."
"And you knew I was a wolf."
"Yep."
Pete narrows his eyes. "That's why I felt so ... strange when I saw you the other day, right?"
"Yep. Instinct. You'll always know when another wolf is around." Mikey kicks an abandoned beer can underneath the nearest bus, then looks back at Pete. "How did it happen to you?"
"I fucked the wrong girl, apparently. Some kind of Fatal Attraction bullshit." Pete shrugs, but Mikey watches his Adam's apple bob nervously. "What about you? You can change between full moons? I can't do that."
"I was born this way. Most of my family, too. Most wolves are born, at least these days. Maybe things work a little differently for us? I've never personally known anyone who wasn't. Most of us aren't dumb enough to call attention to ourselves by changing random humans."
"Huh." Pete looks at Mikey's face. "Really. You're a fucking werewolf." Suddenly, a grin splits Pete's face in two and he throws his arms around Mikey's neck. Mikey only keeps his balance by throwing a hand out to steady himself against the bus. When he's sure he won't fall, he lets his arms slip around Pete's waist. "Shit," Pete says, muffled by the hoodie Mikey's wearing, "I feel so much less like a freak." He pulls away from Mikey, leaving Mikey feeling curiously bereft. "Not that I don't still feel like a freak, but at least I'm not the only one."
"Thanks," Mikey says, deadpan, but his lips quirk up into a small smile.
Mikey expects to be peppered with questions, but instead, Pete tugs on the sleeve of his borrowed hoodie. "Come on. We need to go find Patrick."
"Patrick?" Mikey swallows. There's that feeling again, like he wants to head quickly in the opposite direction of wherever Patrick is. "Why, he's not ..."
"No, but he knows about me. He's the only one. He's been helping me figure things out. He should ..." Pete trails off, then spreads his hands out. "Unless you don't want him to know about you. I won't make you."
"No, no, it's - okay," Mikey tells him. Which is how he finds himself on Fall Out Boy's bus, giving some sort of werewolf welcome wagon speech to Pete while Patrick frowns from under the brim of his hat. If Mikey was a wolf right now, he'd be tucking tail and slinking away, just from Patrick's physical stance. Then Patrick starts asking questions, and Mikey's a little impressed at the amount of information they've managed to scrounge up without any help. But when Patrick's done, and Mikey explains the arrangements he and Gerard had made for the full moon tomorrow night, Patrick looks at Pete instead.
"Pete," he says firmly. And if Pete was a wolf right now, he'd be rolling over and showing his belly. As it is, he slides closer to Patrick on the couch and tugs at the brim of his hat.
"Patrick," Pete implores.
Mikey can't look at the expression on Pete's face; he clenches his jaw and paces back towards the door. Pete and Patrick are having some sort of conversation that doesn't involve actual sentences. It reminds him of nothing so much as - "Gerard," he blurts out. He looks over his shoulder. Patrick and Pete are both looking at him now. "I - Pete, I need to explain to him - "
Pete looks between him and Patrick. Patrick reaches for his laptop and opens it up. It's clear that they've been dismissed. Mikey suppresses a growl; Patrick looks up and straight into his eyes for a moment. Mikey looks away first.
Gerard's drawing in the front lounge when they get to the My Chem bus. He also looks like someone's shoved him into marginally less disgusting clothes; probably Frank's doing, as Frank is sprawled on the other side of the dinette, watching the Simpsons on the tv. Gerard doesn't look up at Mikey's greeting, but his head snaps up as soon as Pete steps onto the bus, and Pete freezes. Mikey sets a hand at the small of Pete's back and shoots Gerard a warning look. "He's - " Gerard starts.
"He got turned," Mikey interrupts, before Pete can supply Gerard with the too much information explanation. The truth Hollywood doesn't tell you is that it takes more than a casual bite to change someone into a werewolf, and Gerard has Opinions, especially after the Bert fiasco. Mikey can count at least two rants it might provoke, and if he doesn't have the energy for that, he's sure no one else does either. "I've been telling him some things. Thought you'd want to know."
Gerard looks slightly chastened. "Wow. Fuck, dude, I'm sorry to - well - yeah, me and Mikey, we can try to explain some things to you. How long has it been?"
"It first happened in December," Pete says, slightly defensive. Everybody in the business knows about the Best Buy incident, it seems; Mikey'd put two and two together as soon as Pete told him, and he can see Gerard doing the math, too. His eyes soften a little, but he's still looking back and forth from Pete to where Mikey's left a hand curved around Pete's back. It makes Mikey want to snatch his hand away, which is exactly why he puts his chin up and doesn't do it.
"I want him to run with me tomorrow night," Mikey says. Just because he's not asking doesn't mean it's not actually a question; his own wolf instincts are on high alert already thanks to the waxing moon, and they all clamor for his alpha's approval. This is the same feeling he'd gotten back in the Fall Out Boy bus with Pete and Patrick; he'd be more curious about the parallel if he wasn't busy fighting to keep eye contact with Gerard.
Gerard looks away first, tugging at his messy half-bleached hair. "Fine," he says. "Just stick to the plan; I'll stay here to - "
"Gee." It's Frank, interrupting softly like he hasn't been ostensibly ignoring this entire conversation. This has been happening more often this summer; Mikey is still training himself not to be annoyed at Frank involving himself in their pack issues, reminding himself that he'd asked Frank to step in. "Gee, you finally have the chance to go out and run, take it. You can't stay cooped up in the bus." He reaches across the tabletop, nudging at Gerard's hand with his fingertips till Gerard lifts it enough to pin Frank's palm to the table.
"We'll bring him," Gerard says to Mikey. "Have fun." It's not the most convincing Gerard's ever been, but Mikey's going to take what he can get.
Pete comes over the next night before moonrise and he's practically vibrating in place. Mikey doesn't know how anyone who sees him this close to changing, eyes and teeth gleaming, full of nervous violence, could ever forget it; he's not surprised Patrick's the only person Pete's told. They've borrowed a van from one of the techs - Frank's agreed to drive, and Gerard is in the front seat, jaw clenched and eyes averted from Pete and Mikey in the back. Mikey had maybe underestimated how hard Gerard would take this. He's desperately sorry, and it hits him right in the gut, all his own overexerted senses responding to different stimuli.
Frank stops the van when they reach the deserted stretch they'd scoped out on Google Maps and they all climb out. Mikey watches him grab Gerard by the hand, pull him close enough to whisper something Mikey can't hear; whatever it is, it makes Gerard lay a hand on Frank's cheek for a moment, tellingly tender. He flashes a look at Mikey and Pete, too, then turns and walks down the road a ways by himself. He'll change and run alone tonight.
Frank meets Mikey's eye for a second, and he looks like all he wants to do is to follow Gerard. Mikey totally understands. He doesn't though, just climbs back in the van, rolls the window partway down, and lights a cigarette. Mikey turns back to Pete.
"Let's go," he says.
Pete's still looking after Gerard, a mixture of wariness and longing, and oh, Mikey understands that too. "You sure he has to leave?"
"Do you really want to fight tonight? Or do you just want to run?"
"Look, I know I'm not your pack, but you're sure he would - " Pete interrupts himself so Mikey doesn't have to. Of course Gerard would fight. It had been obvious in that carefully averted gaze that he would, and that he didn't want to. "Okay, I trust you." He's beginning to break out into a sweat; it's almost time. Mikey can feel the ache in his own bones, and he grabs Pete's hand, pulls him off into the underbrush.
"We need to get ready," he says, and they undress in a fraught silence. Mikey doesn't think he's particularly fascinating to look at - too skinny and gangly by half. But he watches, unashamed, as Pete's skin is bared piece by piece, feeling like a voyeur. Then Pete looks up and sees him, and slows his movements, unable to resist performing a little. In the dusky gloom, his tattoos look like they're moving; his teeth are very white. Mikey is thrown from his perusal by a sudden wave of needlelike pains; it's time.
He comes shuddering and stretching through the change at the same time as Pete. The small black wolf hops into the air with all four feet, yips and then rushes Mikey, who instinctively drops a shoulder to roll Pete over. Pete goes sprawling in the dust; when he comes to a stop he struggles to his feet, shakes himself, and darts forward again. Mikey spins on his haunches and dashes off across the field, with Pete leaping behind him.
It's almost like being a pup again; hours of dashing through the fields, wrestling, following the scent trails of small animals. Mikey feels good - he feels right, for the first time in a long time, like this is something he can handle, can enjoy. Pete keeps up with him effortlessly, despite his shorter legs, but eventually they both get tired, and Mikey leads them back to the copse of trees where they left their clothing. They curl up together in a tangled pile of fur and limbs. Mikey yawns, jaws gaping wide, and heaves a satisfied sigh.
In the distance, he can hear a lone wolf howling. He lets out a sleepy, cut-off return greeting, then curls closer to Pete and falls asleep.
It's one difference, between wolf state and human state. The wolf can exhaust himself and then have no trouble falling asleep, every time. This time, he sleeps until the last possible moment before the moon sets, waking just before the change kicks in. Pete was asleep too; he jerks away from Mikey, ducking his head and whining as the first ripples of the change start back up.
It never gets better. Mikey's changed a dozen times a year for his entire 25 years of life. Pete's changed less than a dozen times, ever. They both have the same shell-shocked look in their eyes once they're back in their human forms, and Mikey crawls closer to Pete, nestles up against his side. Pete makes a welcoming noise and lays his cheek against Mikey's forehead. They breathe together for a while, till Mikey's skin stops crawling and he remembers that he is naked - that they both are - and skates a hand up Pete's side. Pete's warm, and he makes a pleased noise at the touch of Mikey's hand, his breath huffing out over Mikey's temple. "Mikeyway," he murmurs, wriggling down so they're eye to eye.
Mikey tilts his head so their mouths line up, groaning deep in his chest as he's rolled over, Pete's wiry frame sliding effortlessly on top of him. Pete's got his fingers wrapped in strands of Mikey's hair in no time, rolling his hips down against Mikey's as his mouth wanders down Mikey's neck. He knows just the right amount of teeth, somehow, to make Mikey squirm and buck up - the kind of ticklish that ends in moans instead of laughter. Mikey finds Pete's mouth again, biting down on his lower lip as he slides a hand between them and wraps it around Pete's cock. He hisses and his fingers tighten in Mikey's hair. Mikey rolls them over, kissing Pete again and again, back bowed as he jerks Pete off between them. It doesn't take long before Pete is coming in hot splashes between them, and Mikey rears back, sitting astride Pete's legs and fucking into his own hand until he's painting Pete's tattoos with stripes of white.
When he comes back to himself, Pete's laughing. "Couldn't resist marking me, hm?" It's accompanied by a crude eyebrow wiggle, but then Pete swipes his fingers through the mess and touches his tongue to the tips. Mikey makes a helpless noise halfway between a moan and a laugh, and Pete sits up underneath him and crushes their mouths together again. They kiss for a while longer, until Mikey's starting to shiver; then they roll apart, cleaning themselves up half-heartedly and tugging on discarded clothes from the little piles they'd left tucked under a tree.
When they finally trudge back out to the road, exhausted, fucked-out and hand in hand, the van's waiting where they left it. Frank's sitting on the hood, smoking; he raises an eyebrow at Pete and Mikey but doesn't say anything. Mikey looks around and sees Gerard already in the van, slumped sideways in the passenger seat, fast asleep.
"The gang's all here," Frank says from behind him. "Let's go." He flicks his cigarette butt to the ground, stomps on it, and lets himself in the driver's side door. He pulls it shut slowly so it won't slam, but Gerard opens his eyes anyway.
"Hey, Mikes," he croaks. He cuts his eyes to the side. "Pete." Despite sounding wrecked, he manages a small smile. Mikey drops his hand on Gerard's shoulder as he crawls into the first bench. Gerard covers Mikey's fingers with his own for a moment before curling back up against the window. Another waning moon. Another drive, first vans then buses. Back to their bands and their human lives.
Part Two