Five Times Patrick Unexpectedly Saw Boobs (A Fall Out Boy Saga)

Gospel for the angry and sleep deprived

The air was a foul cocktail of pizza grease, human grease, and Pete’s knock-off brand body spray. It was a muggy summer night in a too small room with young men that all haven’t showered in about three days. Patrick was sure they had managed to create a mini ecosystem where no other life forms other than broke adolescent males could survive. If only his parents and Megan could see him now- snuggling with his best friends in a detritus of pizza boxes and band gear in some random dude’s basement.

The guy, Phil, was a self-proclaimed Fall Out Boy fan and took them in with a manic glint in his eye and such sweaty enthusiasm that it made Patrick’s skin crawl a little bit. Now that he was lying on Phil’s scratchy, smelly carpet, he couldn’t help the images of Buffalo Bill from Silence of the Lambs popping into his head.

Patrick rubbed his face vigorously and checked his watch. 3am. He sighed quietly and sat up, his eyes already adjusted to the dim light from being wide awake for the past 24 hours. A snuffle to his left caught his attention and he barely managed to suppress a giggle.  He was pretty sure…no completely sure that Joe had his leg draped around Pete. Trust Pete to be the little spoon. He desperately wished he had a camera. He could probably dig Pete’s out of his duffel bag but didn’t want to risk waking them up with all the noise.

Damn, his mouth tasted and felt like he had a wad of cotton shoved inside. He half considered chugging what was left of the Dr. Pepper that was lying at his feet until the sudden image of Megan’s disgusted and disapproving face swam into his mind. He grinned and delicately extracted himself from his Batman blanket.

Phil had firmly told them that they were free to use anything in his house, and Patrick assumed that getting a quick drink of water from the upstairs kitchen fell into that realm. Maybe if Phil found out that Patrick used one of his cups, he’d try to collect the saliva to make a clone. Or use it in some weird ritual to make him become Phil’s pet. He fought down another giggle- since when did he giggle? Jesus, he was tired.

The first gulp of water almost made him groan in simple bliss, and he chugged the entire cup in a matter of seconds. He started filling a second when he heard it. It was a noise that made his skin crawl and his heart beat a little faster. Patrick swallowed hard. Setting his water down, he picked up the closest thing he could find and gripped it tight. It was coming from the hallway to his right. What was he doing? He’d seen all the movies. This is where the nerdy white boy dies a horrible, gruesome death. No. He had to get a hold of himself, because the noise was getting louder. Patrick had always prided himself as a noble guy.

Steeling his nerves, and wielding his weapon, Patrick slowly and carefully slunk down the hallway, occasionally throwing a glance backwards in case they came from behind. Somewhere, in the back of his sleep deprived mind, he knew he was being a little insane. But lack of sleep and too much junk food were in control now and there was no going back.

He reached the source of the noise, which sounded more frantic and unhinged than before. It was coming from behind one of the doors. This was it. He took a deep breath burst through the door, in what he hoped was a semi-badass way, and stopped short. Phil was hunched over wearing nothing but stained blue boxed, sobbing over a high school year book. The young man’s round, tear streaked face met Patrick’s in confusion.

“Pat-Patrick?” Phil gulped in an effort to get his breathing under control, “What are you doing here and wh-why do you have a ladle?”

Patrick’s foggy mind unclouded a bit, and in a sudden moment of extreme clarity, he realized what he must have looked like. His hair was disheveled and unwashed and he was holding a ladle he grabbed from the kitchen aloft like he was about to bludgeon someone to death.

“Phil, um, I heard a noise and um,” Patrick ran his hands through his hair and looked at the troubled boy. “Are you okay?”

Phil sniffled, “N-no…it’s fine. You don-don’t have to waste your time listening to my sob story. You’re going to think I’m pathetic anyways.” Fresh tears spilled down his face and Patrick was sure he was going to start making his tortured ghost noises again.

“Hey, you don’t really know me, so you don’t even know what I’m going to think, dude,” Patrick said gently as he sat down on the edge of Phil’s bed. “And besides, nothing can be more pathetic than some asshole bursting into your room in the dead of night with a soup ladle.” Patrick grinned sheepishly.

Phil gave a watery laugh in reply. “It’s just that this girl,” he said pointing to a grumpy looking young woman on the page, “I’ve liked her for a really long time, and I asked her last week to go to your concert with me, and she said yes. But,” his lip started trembling, “Just today she called me to say that she didn’t want to go with me anymore. That she was going with this other guy named Andrew. And that I was delusional for thinking that she even liked a guy like me in the first place.” His voice broke and he took a deep breath to stave off another sob. “I thought she really liked me…I know how dumb that is now because she’s right. I know I’m fat, and ugly, and stup-“

“Stop.” Patrick gave him a hard look. He felt annoyed and a little angry. “Thinking like that isn’t helping anyone. And it sure as hell isn’t going to get her back.” He sighed and rubbed at his eyes. “You can’t force her to change her mind about you. What she thinks about you is her business…but as cheesy as this sounds, the most important thing is what you think of yourself.”

“Easy for you to say,” Phil snorted, “You’re so talented, and you travel everywhere. The best thing that’s happened to me in the past year is you guys coming into town.”

“So you make plans for yourself,” Patrick replied, “I know that it’s hard when you feel down, because I feel it myself, man. But channel those feelings into something good and productive. Something that makes you grow and makes you happy. Because believe me when I say, if you just wallow in it, it’s only gonna get worse.” There was a pause where the only sound was the tap tap tapping of Patrick fidgeting with the ladle. “My last girlfriend cheated on me.”

Phil’s chubby face filled with surprise, “Dude, that sucks. I’m so sorry.”

Patrick gave him a lopsided smile and shook his head, “God, I felt like such a loser. The biggest fucking loser on the planet with nowhere to go after I graduated…but then I just wrote and played and wrote and played until I was all dried up. Because that’s whole point of the things we do sometimes, right? Catharsis?”

Phil stared at Patrick with tear filled eyes, and with a deep breath and last look at the page, he closed the book. Patrick patted him gently on the back, “I know the whole ‘it gets better with time speech’ is incredibly clichéd, but it’s true. It doesn’t help you now though, I guess. I’m just sorry I can’t give you a magic pill for time or something.”

Phil stood up and gave him a tremulous look. Without warning, Patrick found himself smothered between Phil’s impressively well-endowed man boobs.

“Phil, you’re crushing me,” Patrick said, or at least that’s what he tried saying. All that managed to come out was, “Il yargruschin eee.” Phil was sweaty, smelled of Fritos and BO, and had extremely hairy nipples. But Patrick found that even though these were the last set of breasts on the planet he would’ve wanted to be squished to death by, he didn’t mind that much at all.