[WIP Amnesty] Day 3: Girl!Pete reg-preg.

I don't know that I'm giving up on this one, to be honest. But there just wasn't a lot of point to writing it. It's in the same verse as my other girl!Pete stories, and I was having a lot of fun but I was using it more as a way to work out characterizations (particularly, to get in the groove of writing Patrick as a boyfriend) more than anything else. There was really no trajectory to the story, and you can't write unless you have an idea that it might be *going* somewhere.

This...is not angsty. In apology for the last two days.

Title: None
Pairing: girl!Pete/Patrick
Word Count: 4,856

1.

RS: I have to ask though. When I was told who I'd be interviewing, I was expecting...
PW: A dude?
RS: Your name is a bit unusual.
PW: It's Sharlot, actually. But like, I'm named after my dad. If I'd been a dude, I would've been Peter Lewis Kingston Wentz III. I started using the other name in the Chicago scene, just to screw with people. [laughs] Patrick spends a lot of time telling people no, he doesn't actually smoke pole, his girlfriend's just f-cking weird.

6/12/2004

2.

Stump was, by his own admission, "pretty ready to walk out" after the tape began to circulate. "I was pissed at Pete for a little bit, but then past that there was just that feeling of having your privacy invaded that completely. I think the big myth behind it has gotten so out of hand that everybody forgets Pete didn't like, hand that out for attention or anything. Her phone got dropped somewhere, and somebody thought it'd be funny to upload everything. And that's, I mean, that's pretty shitty. To have something that private put out there for everybody, you can't even imagine it until it happens."

Three years and an engagement (to Wentz) later, Stump has a different take on it. "People stopped asking why Pete doesn't find a better-looking dude," he says with a laugh. Levity aside though, Stump admits the tape's reception has opened his eyes. "It's such a weird thing, like, I never had to 'live it down,' I guess. A week after it happened, Pete couldn't get on the internet without seeing all of these blogs and commenters calling her a slut or a whore or just, these awful things, and here I was having people I didn't even know come up to me like, 'hey, good job.' It was f-cking ridiculous, and just...that's my girlfriend, Christ. I love her more than anything, I've never been with another girl. Why the f-ck would you come up and pat me on the back like it was some sort of conquest? And I mean, even now, this is the first interview I've ever done that's asked me about it. Pete can't talk to anyone without it getting brought up. The double-standard really got to me, and it made me rethink a lot of what I thought I knew about the scene."

3.

Q: So okay, what's the best part of your relationship?
A: Is it shallow if I say the sex? [laughs]

Q: Well, maybe, but...
A: Seriously, he's f-cking amazing, just...but it's not just that, like, Patrick's the complete package. He's my lottery ticket. It's the weirdest, you can't even imagine, you spend all this time watching these sh-tty movies and reading about how everybody's got that soul mate, and you don't believe it, right? And then you wake up one day and there he is in like, dress socks and an argyle sweater and everything you've ever had in your head, he can pull it out and make it into music. He's my best friend, and I get to have sex with him. It's pretty awesome.

Q: Now, you met him when he was still a teenager...
A: Sixteen, yeah. We did the "just friends" thing for a long time.

Q: Really 'just friends,' or--
A: No, definitely just friends. He was a kid. He was still in high school and like, yeah, I thought he was hot, but I'm kind of a handful, you know? He was a baby. I wasn't gonna like, jump him and be all 'oh my god I love you.' That would've been really, super sh-tty.

4.

In England, Pete can't stop vomiting. Patrick goes through the checklist.

"Maybe it's the water? Um, they say you should stick to bottled water when you're out of the country..."

"I've been drinking my body weight in Evian. Try again." Pete presses her forehead to the porcelain seat. It's gross, but oh god, it feels cool against her skin.

"Did you eat anything weird?"

Pete shakes her head. "Nobody else is hurling. Besides, this has been..." She has to stop and think about it. "Last week or so. Food shit doesn't stick that long."

Patrick frowns and lowers his voice. "Did you change what you're taking?"

Pete looks up at him from the toilet rim, glaring. "I'd tell you. And no."

Patrick slides down onto the tile beside her and brushes back her bangs. He looks a little queasy himself.

"I'm sorry, I know." Pause. "We can cancel," he says quietly. Pete shakes her head.

"It'd be so bad. I'll be okay, just..." She looks up at Patrick, and she knows without being able to see the mirror she looks like shit. It's ridiculous, fuck, she's spent most of her life throwing up on a regular basis for no apparent reason, but this is different, she doesn't know why she's like this and she's actually sort of scared. "Just need a bit."

5.

Pete wakes up when the bed dips.

"Hey," Patrick whispers. "Back."

"Took you long enough," she says, but she actually totally has no idea what time it is. She meant it as a joke, but Patrick still looks guilty.

"Sorry," he says, ridiculously sincere. He's still whispering, like there's anyone else in the room to disturb. "We got directions to some vegan place down at the front desk." Pete makes a face, and Patrick continues, "I stopped by the cafe across the street after though, and got you actual food." He holds out a bag and sure enough, it totally smells like food. Good food, actually, and for once Pete isn't queasy at the idea of eating. She grabs the bag and peers inside.

"Oh, score." Soup and something that might actually be a really fancy-looking grilled cheese sandwich. "You are the best boyfriend ever."

"You have no idea how weird they looked at me when I asked for grilled cheese."

"They were probably just overwhelmed by your rock-star sex appeal," she says, biting off half the sandwich in one go. "Oh god, this is better than fucking."

"Thanks," says Patrick mildly.

"Mmm," Pete corrects, mouth still full of food; she makes a grab for Patrick's crotch but he catches her wrist, mouth quirking into a half smile. "Prove you aren't gonna hurl that all over me first, maybe."

Pete makes a face, taking another bite of her sandwich. Correction: not better than fucking. Close, but not quite.

"I take the fact you just inhaled that to mean you're feeling better."

"Mmm." Another bite, and yep, no more sandwich. Fuck. Pete licks her fingers and looks back up at Patrick. "All better." It's not entirely true, but she can't argue with the way the worry lines on Patrick's face have faded since he got here. If she was a better person, she'd go grab that pregnancy test and come clean. The key-word there is if, though, and Pete just really wants Patrick right now. Without the potential freak-outs and life-changing revelations, if possible. Which, speaking of, oh shit. "Be right back. Stay here."

In the bathroom, Pete stashes the pregnancy tests in one of the expensive but utterly useless cupboards, hiding the used one in the clothes she wore today. She brushes her teeth, just for good measure, and feels only sort of stupid when she lifts up her shirt long enough to look at herself sideways in the full-body door mirror. Her stomach's as flat as it was this morning, outline of the bartskull low and taut between prominent hip-bones and the edge of her bright-red panties. She's not quite sure what she expected, really -- nothing's changed from 12 hours ago, technically speaking. She stares down at her navel and wonders why the fuck it took her so long to figure it out.

maybe because you think you aren't the kind of girl that gets to have the things she wants...

Pete mentally silences the little voice in her head and pulls back down her hoodie. Back in the main bedroom Patrick's already stripped down to boxers and his undershirt, has put the rest of Pete's food in the mini-fridge and is curled under the quilt and watching a Tom Cruise movie being telecast in French. Pete resists the urge to do something unbelievably girly like touch her stomach or start imagining little trucker hats, opting instead to vault onto the bed (and Patrick) with enough force that it knocks the wind out of both of them.

"Oh, dude, is that The Last Samurai?!" Pete squirms down until she's got her head on Patrick's chest, legs twisted together and soft swell of Patrick's stomach pillowing the concave of hers. That's gonna change, she thinks.

"Unfortunately, yes." Patrick sounds slightly annoyed, probably from having been pounced on, but he rubs Pete's back through her hoodie and hooks his chin over the crown of her head. "It's really not any better when I can't understand what he's saying."

6.

"Joe. Joe joe joe joe joe. Trohman!" She's rewarded by a grumbling sound; Joe pulls the pillow out from behind his head and attempts to use it to slap her away. "Wake up dude, I need to talk to you."

"Whatzit?" He cracks open one eye and stares at Pete. "This can totally wait until tomorrow. Go wake up Patrick if you're bored."

Pete shoves at Joe's chest, frustrated; it makes the bed creak. "I can't tell Patrick."

That gets Joe's attention. He sits up, pushing Pete off his lap and back onto the mattress. "Okay, okay, whatever." Joe rubs his eyes and looks over at Pete; there's worry in there with the exhaustion now. "So what did you do?"

"What makes you think I did something?!"

"Because," Joe explains reasonably, in between yawns. "The only time you can't tell Patrick is when it's gonna make him flip his shit for like, a month. And even then you usually tell him anyway. So obviously you did something that sucks pretty hard."

"Thanks for the vote of confidence." Pete draws her knees up against her chest, even as she digs through the pocket of her word jumble hoodie. If she squints she can read "STUMPH" down the side of one of the pockets. "I didn't do anything, okay? Here, look at this."

Joe blinks for a second when the pregnancy test falls into his lap, after which is the inevitable "oh, shit, gross, you peed on that!" reaction that has Pete reaching out to slap the back of his head.

"I've peed on your sleeping bag, asshole. Get over it. Just read the thing."

Joe wrinkles his nose, but lifts the test off his lap and stares at it. "Oh. Oh wow."

No shit, Pete thinks, hooking her chin against her knees.

"Wow, dude. Hey, do you think this means we count as a quintet?" Joe looks a little excited by the idea; Pete moves out of her full-body curl long enough to shove him -- hard.

"Fuck you for real, you know that?"

Joe rubs his shoulder, having the grace to look wounded. "Hey, ow, c'mon Pete. I'm kidding, okay? Seriously though, this is really awesome. Congratulations! You're gonna be a mom, that's crazy."

"Yeah," Pete says, sitting on her feet and rubbing her arm absently. She must sound nervous because now Joe's expression softens when he looks at her. One of his arms comes up to wrap around her shoulder; Pete goes willingly, burying her head against his bony clavicles. "I want it," she murmurs, voice muffled by his t-shirt. "I just dunno what Patrick's gonna say. We aren't like...we weren't trying." And because Pete's never quite figured out what constitutes too much information, she adds as an after thought, "They totally aren't kidding about not skipping a day. Or five."

Joe squeezes her shoulders. "Hey, come on. It's Patrick. He's gonna be thrilled."

"Baby, Joe," she says after a minute, letting the grin finally stretch across her face. It feels good, like letting out a breath after you've been underwater, and Joe laughs and yawns and flops back down against his pillow with a thud. Pete follows him; it's nearly five AM and she doesn't want to wake Patrick up by going back to their hotel room, now.

"Yeah, yeah. I'm totally the godfather though, just for shit like this."

--

Pete wakes up close to nine to find Patrick standing at the side of the bed, looking at her with his mouth quirked at the corners. She's still curled up against Joe, her head still on his shoulder -- there's a puddle of drool on his t-shirt now, though. He's gonna bitch so hard about that when he wakes up.

"Hey," she whispers to Patrick, rolling off and rubbing her eyes. "Didn't wanna wake you up last night."

"I'm pretty sure that's Joe's last clean shirt," Patrick says in response, eying the wet mark. He looks amused. Sometimes, Pete wishes she had a less rational boyfriend -- this is so not the kind of shit most girls would get for getting found in bed with another dude.

"Joe can deal," says Pete reasonably. Which is true; there's a laundry here. She looks up at Patrick, still in his boxers and a faded white t-shirt, knit cap pulled low over too-long hair. His glasses are smudged and he probably didn't get up too long ago himself. He looks still-sleepy and adorable, and all Pete can think is I am totally having his baby.

Jesus Christ. She needs to figure out a way to tell him like, soon. Not now though, because he's pretty sure whatever the reaction is gonna be, it'd wake up Joe. Instead she reaches out her hands towards him, making grabby gestures. Patrick rolls his eyes, but leans down in compliance, and she wraps her arms around his neck and lets him pull her onto her feet. Because Patrick looks adorable and also because Pete spent all last night freaking out, she takes the opportunity to lean down the distance between them, catching his mouth with her own.

"Mmmm," Patrick moans a little when Pete tugs his lower lip between her teeth.

"Hey," she whispers in between bites to soft skin, "wanna go back to bed?"

In reality they make it exactly as far as the other side of the (now-closed) connecting door -- Pete grabs the soft fabric of Patrick's t-shirt and pulls him close against the wall, sucking his tongue into her mouth and wrapping her thighs around his hips.

"Pete--fuck, Pete, there's a perfectly good bed right there," Patrick protests between kisses, some combination of a gasp and a laugh coloring his voice as Pete jacks him fully hard through the opening in his boxers. Patrick cups the swell of her ass, hitching her up higher.

"No fun, want it now. C'mon." She pushes her panties aside and grips the base of his cock, pushing herself down onto it. They both groan. "Shit, Stump."

Patrick nods, gasping as he moves inside her. The position makes it awkward - Patrick's holding up the both of them, can't thrust as firmly as he would otherwise, but he's thick and hot and Pete grinds down against him, trying for friction against the nubby fabric of his boxers. It's good, but it's not quite enough, and Pete's about to suggest a change of venue after all when Patrick hitches her higher, pinning her with his body so he can slide a hand down her stomach. His thumb presses against her clit and her body jerks, clenching around him.

"Come on, honey," Patrick whispers in her ear, voice low and sex-coated. "You're gonna come for me, right?"

And shit. This is what she wants to share with the world, when the assholes on the internet start asking why she stays with Patrick. Pete might be Patrick's entire sexual history, but even she can't account for how well he's learned to play her. Pete nods, sort of desperate, gets a hand up to knock his hat off and dig her fingers into his hair.

7.

"So did you tell him?" Joe asks later, downstairs at breakfast. Pete shushes him nervously.

"I forgot."

"You 'forgot' to tell him you've growing a little proto-Patrick?" Joe takes a bite of a croissant and chews it thoughtfully; they both stare over at the buffet, where Patrick's paying for his meal. "Don't buy it."

Pete reaches over the counter and grabs a danish off of Joe's plate -- she's got one on her own, but fuck it, she's gestating. Besides, his has cream cheese. "I'm choosing my moment, okay? If I told him today he'd be all freaked out and it'd throw off the show. You know how he gets, he sucks so bad at multi-tasking."

"You really seriously think he's going to freak out still?"

"Freak out about what? Who are we talking about?" Patrick slides into the booth beside Pete, setting down his tray and almost immediately depositing his danish onto Pete's plate, too. He knows her too well, and for some reason (Pete blames hormones) it makes her want to cry. Or jump him. Either/or.

"Security," Joe answers Patrick, smoothly. "Just quizzing Pete about her love of jumping into huge-ass crowds when we're playing to like, a million horny pre-teen boys tonight."

"Whatever Trohman, like they haven't all seen up my skirt already." She and Patrick probably ushered half of them into puberty, honestly, but Patrick hates it when she talks about the sex tape so she tries to avoid it, when he's there to hear her. Still, she can see him frown in her peripheral vision and reaches over, squeezing his thigh under the table. "I'll be good tonight, promise." Which is true, though Patrick doesn't know why yet.

8.

Pete's never really been great at timing. She runs to catch up with Patrick on their way up the stairs, grabs onto his neck and buries her head against his spine.

"I'm pregnant," she blurts, gunshot-fast.

Patrick trips.

"Woah, Patrick, you okay man?" Joe's the one that catches him, grabs him by the triceps and tugs him back up. "Stairs are sneaky, dude."

"Yeah, I, um, sorry," Patrick says. Pete is already on the stage before Patrick has the chance to get back his bearings.

The encore is shit, and Pete knows that much is her fault: impending fatherhood is probably not something you drop on a guy that already hates a crowd before he has to go entertain a seething horde of 30,000. Patrick keeps forgetting lyrics and he's barely paying attention to what he's doing with his guitar; Joe and Andy are staring at Patrick, but he just keeps shooting glances at Pete. Pete, who's feeling increasingly nauseous, for reasons (for once) having nothing to do with morning sickness. The crowd screams anyway though, and even though Pete doesn't jump into the crowd - she thinks about it, has done it every night up until now, but she's not actually trying to give Patrick a heart attack and she's pretty sure that would do it - she still leans over and grabs hands and touches fingers, pulls off her shirt and throws it into the crowd because in another month, she's not gonna be able to do so.

She's barely stepped off stage before Patrick's got her by the shoulders, frog-marching her into the dressing room. He locks the door and spins around to face her; his face is flushed and more frazzled than Pete's seen him, but his voice is deadly calm.

"Were you fucking with me before" he asks, deceptively reasonably.

Pete gestures at her bare stomach. "Pee-stick says no. I went through like, a box of them."

Patrick stares at her navel like he expects it to spontaneously distend, X-Files-style.

"I didn't know," Pete continues, because she really hates silence. "I'm really sorry and what I just did was way shitty, but I didn't know, I mean, I had no idea before I started puking my guts out after we got here and there really wasn't a lot of time to get you by yourself and I didn't actually know how you were gonna react and say something, okay? Seriously."

There's another horrible, terrible beat of silence while Patrick makes a face like a stranded goldfish - and God, she hopes their kid doesn't inherit that, because it's annoying as hell - and then the smile comes. It's blinding and gorgeous and it lights up the room. Pete's wrapped in a hug before she's able to really process what's going on.

"Shit, Pete, this is incredible." Against her shoulder Pete can feel Patrick's smile, his eyes maybe a little wet against her bare skin. "I...a baby, Pete, wow."

"You're not mad?" It sounds kind of impossibly stupid when Pete says it out loud, but she can't help the fact her stomach's still twisting.

Patrick snorts and smacks the back of her head lightly. "I really hope you're not actually serious." Pete bites her lip and doesn't say anything; after another moment, Patrick pulls back enough to look at her. His eyes are red - yep, definitely tears. "Way not mad. Total opposite of mad. Jeez. We're having a kid." He's got the same kind of glazed look Pete had when the first test turned positive.

9.

Patrick pulls a small box from his pocket; there's a diamond ring inside.

"You're not really my type."

Patrick rolls his eyes, shutting the case again. "This is gonna sound really stupid, but I'm afraid to ask her."

"Seriously?" Andy raises an eyebrow. "Pete. Our Pete."

"Fuck you," mutters Patrick, sliding the case back into his coat pocket. "I'm just...I bought it in Chicago over New Year, you know? I'm afraid she's gonna think it's a shotgun thing."

10.

"Um, okay..." Pete eyes him. "You're buying me a donut though."

"I will totally buy you a donut." Patrick shoots Andy a look that says don't you dare comment and drags Pete out the door.

* * *

He does, in fact, buy Pete a donut - quite a few, actually. There's a Dunkin Donuts a few blocks from their hotel and the cabbie only looks at them slightly weird when Patrick asks him to wait for them while they run in for a dozen. The car's barely moving again before Pete's digging through the bag, poking at the centers to figure out the filling.

"Okay, so where are we actually going?" She licks custard off a finger and examines the rest of the now-punctured donut.

"Dude, just...wait for it." Patrick stares out the window and bites his lip.

It takes the cab something like twenty minutes to get to them there in traffic; Patrick pays and leads Pete out of the car, drags her up through a door and into a room he has to unlock with a key.

"You're fucking kidding me," Pete says when they get in. "We're seriously in a fucking studio at ass o'clock at night."

Patrick looks sheepish. "It was the only place I could think of where there wouldn't be like, cameras."

"You gonna murder me and dump the body, Stumpy?"

"Only if you keep calling me that." Patrick shoves his hand in his pocket, feeling the jewelry case there. "No, I just...I don't know, it seemed appropriate, I guess." Deep breath. "Marry me?"

"Funny, Stump."

"I'm not being funny." And shit, this is it. He pulls out the jewelry box and holds out the ring, only sort of awkwardly getting down on one knee. "Look, I know the timing sucks. And this is really, really not as romantic as it should be. But...you're it for me, Pete. And this isn't, it's not about the baby or appearances or any one thing, it's just...I have no idea how I got so fucking lucky. And I'd be an idiot not to make you promise not to change your mind on me. I'm really, really stupid in love with you. Please, just. Marry me?"

"Um." Pete swallows, eyes wide staring down at him. She looks pale and shocked and for a second Patrick's terrified, has no idea what she's going to say. Then she nods. "Oh. Oh, fuck yes."

"Yes?"

Pete laughs. "Jesus Christ, you have no idea, Rick, none," and then she's on her knees on the floor in front of him, hands on his face and kissing him like she's drowning. It's wet and sloppy and they're both grinning through it, sort of hysterical, but oh god thank god yes.

"Mm, wait, wait," Patrick laughs between kisses, pushing Pete back to look at her face. "Hang on, jeez, let me get this part right at least." He grabs the ring out of the box and motions for her hand.

"Oh god," says Pete when the ring slides on. "Oh god."

"Is it okay? It's not really, I mean..." Sorta boring, his brain supplies. As un-Hollywood as it is he just couldn't bring himself to buy something in pink or yellow or whatever the trend is right now; everything looked like it came off of QVC. The ring Pete's wearing is a two-carat solitaire.

"It's perfect," Pete grins, looking up at him. "Seriously."

11.

"Sorry," Stump tells me ten minutes into the shoot, sounding more earnest than any rock-star probably should. "This is still kind of new."

'This,' of course, being the not-so-very daunting task of hiding Wentz's burgeoning stomach. The bassist, 28, just recently announced that she and Stump, 23, are expecting their first child this winter: "a happy accident," Wentz admits, trying on one in a series of crushed-velvet vests. "I found out when we were in Europe. I'd been sick for a couple of weeks and couldn't figure out why. Which is stupid, right, but I really wasn't expecting it." She laughs. "I told [Stump] in the middle of our show. I felt totally bad because it f-cked him up for the encore. When he stopped freaking out he was excited, though."

Stump is quick to agree. Sitting on a chair away from wardrobe's prying hands, it's immediately clear he's trying not to get involved: he winces visibly when Wentz zips up a constricting corset, but doesn't provide commentary. "It's one of those things where you don't know how much you want it until you get it," he tells me while my photographer takes Wentz's photograph. "We've always wanted a family, and it's probably the best time we're going to get to do it. Our band's taking a breather for a while after this tour finishes up, and it seems like a good time to actually try out the real-life thing."

The 'real life thing,' apparently, includes marriage as well as family: Wentz arrived at our shoot with a fairly impressive sparkler. But don't call it a shotgun wedding, Stump insists: "I guess not everybody's going to believe me, but I bought the ring when we were in Chicago over New Year. There's a jeweler down there I really love, he does fantastic stuff and it's completely the opposite of the kind of flashy LA thing. I wasn't gonna go out and get something that's going to look just, completely ridiculous in five years. I mean, I sort of hope she's planning on wearing it for a while."

It's at this point that Wentz interrupts: "he keeps making it sound like I haven't basically been writing 'Mrs. Patrick Stump' in little hearts since I met him."

Rolling Stone, 6/20/2008