Title: Sessions
Author: Kasha
Rating: R-ish
Summary: Completely self-indulgent AU crack!fic. Patrick is a studio musician. Peter is in a boyband. No, seriously.
Author’s Notes: So false. Sorry this was so long coming—this file was saved on my computer at school, so I thought I couldn’t update until I went back. And then I realized I’d kind of e-mailed this to myself before I left. So, yeah. I’m pretty smart.

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Eleven




The slam of his apartment door startled Patrick out of the half-doze he’d fallen into on the couch. Self-preservation instincts finely honed over years of co-habitation with various family members and significant others—well, significant other, really—immediately kicked in, and he jerked upright and fumbled for the remote, fingers stabbing desperately for the “power” button.

“Didn’t really see you as an Oprah fan.”

Patrick inwardly cursed his slow reaction time and outwardly cringed, already imagining the endless teasing Pete would doubtless subject him to.

“She’s built herself up from noth—”

Patrick froze mid-sentence, eyes widening almost comically behind his glasses as his ears finally caught up with the rest of him. Very carefully, he turned to face the door.

And Chris.

“I didn’t say there was anything wrong with Oprah,” Chris shrugged, casually walking over to take a seat in the battered recliner across from the couch. “My mom never misses an episode. She always gets real excited about those, uh, ‘favorite things’ ones, or whatever.”

“Yeah, those are always good,” Patrick said, because those really were the best episodes. And then, sharper, “What the fuck are you doing here? And how the hell do you even know where I live?”

“Your lock’s broken.” Chris dismissed both questions in favor of rifling through the old newspapers scattered across the coffee table. “If you just kind of jiggle the handle a bit, the door’ll open right up.”

“So I’ve been told,” Patrick muttered darkly.

A thick silence settled over the room, broken only by Chris’ pen scratching at a half-finished crossword and the faint sound of the TV still playing in the background.

“So, was he actively homosexual while you two were married?”

“What the fuck are you doing here?” Patrick tried again, all but yelling now. “Didn’t you hit me hard enough the first time?”

“It’s not like that,” Chris sighed and threw down the puzzle. The small section of Patrick’s mind that wasn’t consumed with a fiery rage was gratified to note that Chris hadn’t known 17 across, either.

“I didn’t ask him to leave the band, you know. I had no idea he was going to do that.”

“Yeah,” and that maddening air of casual disinterest was suddenly gone, replaced by a deep weariness. “I know. We all know. And, I guess, we all knew this was coming. Or, at least, I did.”

“What do you mean?”

Chris rubbed the back of his neck, quirking his lips sheepishly. “You were my idea. I mean, I didn’t want all this to happen, obviously, but I was the one who suggested bringing in a studio guy. I could tell Pete wasn’t really getting enough out of just Fyre anymore, and I was afraid he maybe wanted to go solo or something. Thought letting him work with his own songs would make him feel important enough to stay. Didn’t know you two would break off into a little solo project of your own.”

“You know,” Patrick looked down, blushing. “He and I weren’t. Um. Together. When all that shit went down in the studio. You know?”

“Dude,” Chris smirked. “That’s not what I meant at all.”

Patrick turned five shades redder as Chris went on.

“The band and I cornered Pete after the show—demanded to know what the hell was going on, right? So he told us everything, all about your little collaborations, your ‘real’ songs.”

Chris waggled his fingers in the air obnoxiously as he said “real,” just in case Patrick hadn’t picked up on the sarcasm all but dripping from the word or noticed the sneer twisting Chris’ lips.

“Ok,” Patrick sat up straighter and finally turned off the TV, biting the inside of his cheek in a futile attempt to tramp down his annoyance. “Ok.”

“But what the fuck are you doing here?”



* * *



When Pete showed up two and a half hours later, Domino’s box balanced precariously in one hand and duffle bag clutched in the other, Patrick and Chris were sprawled out on the floor in front of the couch.

Pete all but kicked the door open, throwing himself against the frame dramatically and raising the pizza above his head like some kind of virgin sacrifice to the gods of one-dish takeout.

“Patrick!” he cried, obviously poised for a speech worthy of any original high school theater production, “I’m here!” But the words died on his lips when he noticed Chris. “Ah.”

“Hi,” Chris waved enthusiastically.

“Hey,” Pete replied, pizza drooping pathetically.

“The Gobi Desert’s in Asia, fucker,” was Patrick’s contribution to the exchange as he snatched the crossword out of Chris’ hands and began frantically erasing. “And it’s not spelled with a ‘y,’ anyway.”

“What’s going on?” Pete dropped his bag by the door and made his way over to the pair, gingerly stepping around the various reference books strewn about.

“Crosswording,” Patrick murmured absently, flipping through a surprisingly brightly colored atlas.

“Yeah, I can kind of see that. But you’re crosswording with Chris. Which is, you know, a bit odd.”

“I came by a few hours ago,” Chris answered the unspoken question. “Partly to make peace with Patrick—I feel sort of shitty for punching you, so sorry about that, man—and partly because I knew you’d show up sooner or later.”

“And you couldn’t have just told me that? You had to break in and be all creepy and mysterious and put me on edge for two hours?” Patrick sighed and threw down the atlas. “This thing is worthless.”

Pete raised the forgotten pizza in front of him like a shield and sat down nervously on the couch. “What did you want to talk to me about, Chris?”

“Dude,” Chris laughed, “calm down. I’m not going to start a fight or try to convince you to come back again—you already made it clear that’s not going to happen. I just wanted to make things right, you know? Clean slate, good karma, and all that shit. And to, maybe, run one little thing by you.”

Patrick hauled himself off the floor and moved to sit cross-legged next to Pete on the couch, just close enough that Patrick’s knee was touching Pete’s thigh.

Pete seemed to relax immediately at the contact, even as he let out a huff and rolled his eyes.

“Of course. You want something.”

“Hey, come on now. Don’t act like that’s—”

“Spit it out, man. My pizza’s getting cold.”

“Reynolds wants to put out a press release saying you have a drug problem and left the band to enter rehab.”

Pete remained perfectly still for an infinitely long minute, and Patrick had to sit on his hands to keep from reaching out to comfort him.

“I don’t do drugs,” and Pete’s voice when he finally spoke was carefully emotionless.

“I know you don’t, Pete,” and Chris’ apologetic tone was just a hair’s breadth away from sincere.

“This is going to really hurt any chance I have of starting over as a legitimate musician.”

“I know it will, Pete.”

“He’s already sent out the story, hasn’t he?”

Chris looked almost ashamed as he answered. “It’ll run in most of the tabloids tomorrow, and I think he’s already in negotiation with a couple of magazines for an exposé-type cover story.”

Pete didn’t say anything else, just lowered his gaze to the cardboard box resting across his legs.

Chris stood up and brushed his pants off self-consciously, looking genuinely contrite for the first time since Patrick had met him. “For what it’s worth, Pete, I really am sorry it has to end like this.”

“Yeah,” Pete nodded, not looking up. “Yeah.”

And with that and a weak smile in Patrick’s direction, Chris was gone, shutting the door carefully behind him.

“Are you all right?” Patrick ventured after a few beats of silence.

“I will be. But let’s just be quiet for a little while, ok? Can we just sit here for a few minutes, quiet?”

So they did.