Saturday // Peterick Oneshots

72. Bloodied and Bruised

Fluff. Pre-TTTYG era. Trigger warning for homophobic slurs. No real gore though, unlike the title may suggest.

It happens in the blink of an eye. Patrick is singing his heart out on the stage of this shitty venue, ignoring the eyes of the crowd, when Pete throws down his bass and launches himself off stage. Patrick, Joe, and Andy stop playing instantly, and Patrick looks over just in time to see Pete sock someone in the front row.

"Pete, what the fuck?" Patrick yells, taking off his guitar. Andy is already jumping into the crowd and trying to pull Pete off of the man. He succeeds, but Pete wastes no time prying himself out of Andy's hold and throwing himself at the man again.

The man fights back to the best of his ability, but Pete clearly has the upper hand. The man's friends work with Andy to pull the two apart, but the group struggles to do so. Pete lands another punch, this time to the man's nose. Patrick catches a glimpse of Pete's face; his eyes are fiery with anger and his teeth are bared.

"Pete!" Patrick yells again, at the top of his lungs.

Pete's concentration slips as he glances up at Patrick on stage, and the man punches Pete in the jaw. Finally, the two men are pulled apart. Andy wraps his arms around Pete's waist and hauls his backward, and Patrick can see him muttering something into Pete's ear. Pete turns his head and says something back, then turns back to the man, face hardening again.

"Next time, think before you speak!" Pete shouts.

"What the hell happened?" Joe asks, standing beside Patrick now.

"Fuck if I know," Patrick says in return. He catches sight of the manager at the back of the crowd, a nasty scowl on his face. "But I think we're in trouble."

Andy and Pete talk to the manager privately, and by the time Patrick and Joe have loaded up the van all has been forgiven. Pete gets in the van first, curling up in the back seat against the window and shoving in his headphones. Andy flashes their pay with a smile, and all tensions dissipate for the next few minutes. Andy takes the driver's seat, and Joe calls shotgun, leaving Patrick to sit in the back seat with Pete.

"Hey, Patrick?" Andy has turned around in the driver's seat to look at him. "Give Pete some time to cool off, okay?" Patrick nods, then puts on his own headphones.

Patrick can't help it when a little bit of his own anger bubbles up mid-drive. Pete could've cost them their pay, for fuck's sake. For what? Some asshole in the front row?

But then he glances over at Pete, sees the tension in his jaw and shoulders, sees the way he's keeping his hands close to his chest, cradling the one that looks most injured, and it's hard to be outraged. Annoyed, yes, but not outraged.

When they get to their motel, Andy hands Pete the first aid kit they keep under the passenger seat of the van, right next to the emergency Cheetos. They have two rooms tonight— one for Joe and Andy, one Pete and Patrick. All fights aside, it was a great show; they all say goodnight at the door, ready to collapse after expending so much energy.

Patrick throws on his pajamas, a soft t-shirt and a pair of well-loved sweatpants, then surrenders the bathroom to Pete.

Patrick tries to stay out of Pete's hair, but he can hear struggling.

He pokes his head in the bathroom door and sees Pete struggling to bandage his hands. Patrick can't tell if the frown on his face is from concentration or frustration.

"Need some help?" Patrick offers, softly, as non-condescending as possible.

"No," Pete says firmly. The strip of bandage he's trying to work with twists and sticks to itself. Pete sighs. "Yeah."

Patrick takes the bandages from Pete's hands. He sets them down in the first aid kit, now lying open on the counter, and takes Pete's hands to assess the damage. His hands don't look broken, thank god, but they're heavily bruised, the skin on his knuckles broken and caked with dried blood.

Patrick wipes one of Pete's hands with the antiseptic wipes first, shushing him every time he winces. He slathers the open wounds in Neosporin. Then, Patrick carefully wraps the bandages around Pete's palm and between his fingers, making sure it's not too tight. He makes Pete flex his hand a few times, just to be sure, and starts the process again on Pete's other hand.

"Do you want to know why I did it?" Pete asks quietly.

Patrick shrugs. He knows better than to pry.

"He was shitting on the band. Calling our music gay."

"That's not exactly uncommon," Patrick says.

Pete pauses. "He called you a faggot."

Patrick freezes. He glances up at Pete. "And that was the last straw?" Patrick isn't going crazy, he swears, but he thinks Pete blushes a little when he nods. Patrick takes a deep breath, lets it out while saying, "Oh. Well, um, thanks for defending my honor." He smiles a little, then goes back to bandaging Pete's hand.

Patrick looks over his work and nods to himself. He looks at Pete, who's smiling at him softly, and his chest warms in a way he can't quite name. "Thank you," Pete says.

Patrick swallows. "Yeah, no problem." Then, on impulse, he kisses Pete on the cheek, having to go onto his tiptoes a bit to do it. With that, he exits the bathroom, face red, leaving Pete speechless.