new fic: want to go back to the tilt-a-whirl (pete/joe)

[schmerica]

So the other day I offered porn to anyone who wrote me Joe/Pete/Mikey. And then quettaser wrote me Joe/Pete/Mikey and LO, it was awesome. So I wrote her Pete/Joe in return.

It is a circle of awesome, my friends. A circle of awesome.

Want to Go Back to the Tilt-a-Whirl
by Pearl-o

Pete/Joe. Approx. 2000 words. Not real. Not safe for work. (This story mentions a break-up with a canon girlfriend, if that hits anybody's squicks, but it's off-screen and respectful, and there's no bashing either way.)

For quettaser.

Joe takes care of Pete.

*****

Joe wasn't entirely sure how many of Pete's break-ups he'd lived through, but it was definitely a lot. He had the better part of a decade's worth of experience in dealing with the messy aftermath of Pete's love life. He'd pretty much baby-sat Pete through them a couple dozen times. So if anyone was an expert in how it went -- and Pete didn't count -- it would be Joe.

So it was freaking him out a little how different it was this time.

Pete had called him Friday evening and told him. Joe counted out twenty-four hours, to let Pete get through the part where he just wanted to be miserable by himself, and came over Saturday night.

Pete looked surprised to see him. That was the first weird thing. He said, "Hey, Joe, what's up?" and let him inside, but he was giving Joe a weird look when he took his duffel bag and put it in the spare bedroom.

When Pete came back, Joe was rubbing the back of his neck. He said, "Hey, so it looks like you're dealing with everything pretty good, huh?"

Pete was wearing the same sort of thing he always wore. He wasn't curled up on the couch in a ball with Hemmy. There was no music playing, let alone angry music, let alone angry music you could hear from a block away. Joe had been here a full five minutes and he hadn't seen Pete text or call Patrick once. His face looked pretty normal, not all sickly like he'd been barfing on and off all night.

Weird. It was all weird.

"Yeah, I guess," Pete said.

"Huh."

"What?"

"You're just, like. You seem like a grown-up or something."

Pete shrugged. "I don't know, it's just. I'm okay. You know I love Ashlee, but. It's better this way, I guess. We're still friends and everything. It's good." He looked up at Joe.

"Huh," Joe said again. He wasn't sure how much use his Pete-baby-sitting skills were going to be if Pete didn't actually need baby-sitting. Maybe they would just have to hang out instead. Joe was pretty good at that too. "So, you wanna play video games or something?"

*****

Joe had fallen asleep on Pete's spare bed, but he woke up at the mattress shaking and adjusting to new weight.

"Pete?" he said groggily.

"Yeah," Pete's voice said, lower and raspier in the dark. Joe felt Pete shift behind him, and then Pete's cold feet were pressing against Joe's warm ones under the covers, and Pete's cold hands were resting on his ribs through his t-shirt. "Okay if I sleep here?"

"Fuck, man, you're an icicle," Joe said, and he brought one hand down to wrap around Pete's. "And yeah, fine, whatever, just don't ... don't do anything weird to me while I sleep, you know?"

It was a serious concern, but Joe was already falling back asleep anyway by the time he heard Pete say "yeah."

*****

Joe woke up to find Pete had crawled half on top of him during the night. He twisted his way out of Pete's grabby limbs (seriously, the guy was like an octopus sometimes) and made his way to the bathroom, where he pissed and washed his hands in the dark before heading back to bed.

Pete had sprawled out, taking up as much room as he could in the bed with his short body. Which was how Joe knew he wasn't asleep, either, because Pete had spent too many years curled up in twin beds and vans and sharing places with three other dudes to ever actually sleep like that, no matter how big a bed he had to himself.

"Come on, dude," Joe said, "scootch over."

Pete smiled widely without actually opening his eyes, and Joe shoved him over a bit and lay down again.

Pete flopped over onto his side, facing Joe. Joe turned over onto his side so he was facing Pete, too.

"Joe," Pete said. "Joe."

Joe said, "Yeah?"

Pete opened his eyes. They looked darker than usual, with just the little bit of light to reflect in them. Darker, and big, and clear.

Pete reached out and patted Joe's chin. "Your beard is really soft, dude."

Joe laughed. Pete didn't take his hand off Joe's jaw, just sort of kept stroking it gently.

"You remember that time when you stayed up with me for forty-eight hours straight?" Pete said suddenly. "And we watched all the Lord of the Rings movies in a row? And you kept going out to buy me more ice cream and Mountain Dew?"

It was one of the times with Jeanae, but Joe wasn't sure which. "Yeah," he said. "I remember."

"And that time you snuck us out to break into the amusement park? But we couldn't figure out how to get over the fence, so we just went to Denny's instead?"

That was at the very beginning of the band; they'd had a show, and Pete was so strumming with unfocused energy the whole time it was a little scary. Joe had waited until the other guys had passed out in the van before he'd poked Pete in the side and dragged him out. He'd thought roller coasters would distract Pete. It wasn't a really well thought-out plan. Joe couldn't remember what the girl's name had been that time.

"Yeah," said Joe.

"Yeah," Pete repeated. He stared at Joe a little longer, not blinking. It would be kind of creepy, but you got used to grading on a different scale with Pete. "You know what would make me feel better this time, Joe?"

"What?" Joe started to rise up on one elbow, expecting Pete to say something like "Joe fetching him snacks" or "prank calling everyone in Pete's phone book" or "shaving funny designs onto Joe's head."

Instead, Pete said, "Come here," and set his hand on the back of Joe's neck and pulled him down until their lips were touching.

Joe had kissed Pete before -- everyone who had known Pete for longer than a few hours had kissed him, pretty much -- but there had always been something jokey about it, so it was never entirely serious. This felt serious. Pete's mouth was soft and open and wet. Joe could hear the sloppy sound of their spit and the scratchy sound where the hair in his beard and Pete's stubble moved against each other and the sound of their breath. They were both breathing heavy, already.

Joe tried to pull away, and Pete bit his lower lip, not really hard, but not gently, either.

"What -- what do you want?" Joe said, and even as it came out he wasn't sure if it was supposed to be an accusation or an offer or something else entirely.

Pete let out a sigh and said, "I don't want to talk."

"Oh," said Joe, "right, okay." He let Pete pull him down again, more this time, so their bodies were pressing together, all the way, and they were ... making out. Not wrestling, not joking, not anything else. Just making out.

"Take off your shirt," Pete muttered softly, and Joe knelt up and did it, throwing it down on the floor. Pete raised his arms and Joe took the hint, pulling the t-shirt over Pete's head before lying back down.

Pete moved his hands to Joe's back, his neck, up and down his chest, like he couldn't decide on a place, make his mind up. Finally he let out a frustrated sounded breath and grabbed one of Joe's hands and brought it to his crotch. He pressed down hard, forcing Joe's hand down against his thin pajamas and the hard-on underneath.

"Will you," Pete started, and then, "Can you just--"

Joe thought for a moment that Pete was asking for a blowjob, and his own dick jerked at the idea at the same time he thought no way no way this is so much more than I signed on for--

But Pete finished, "Touch me. Joe. I'm serious."

And Joe said, "Um" and closed his eyes and sucked at Pete's neck while he stuck his hand under the dude's waistband and wrapped his hand around his cock.

"Come on, come on," Pete said, and he was an impatient bastard, he always had been. Joe moved his hand faster and sucked harder on the hickey and he could tell when Pete's breath caught in his throat just the right way. Pete said, "Motherfucker," and Joe could hear a cue when he got one, and he kept his hand steady and moved his head and he was biting on Pete's nipple when he came.

He let go of Pete's dick. He wasn't sure what to do with the splooge in his hand, so he just wiped it off on Pete's pajamas. Pete's eyes were closed and he was lying on his back like a beached whale, breathing really heavily. Joe tried to figure out if he should just jerk off here, or maybe go to the bathroom to jerk off, or just go ahead and curl around Pete and rub it against his thigh, or ...

"Jesus, dude," Pete said, shaking his head. Then he opened his eyes and said, "What are you doing? Come back here, for fuck's sake," and reached for Joe again.

Joe followed, just like before. Just like always. Pete kissed him, and kissed him, and kissed him some more, and it was a good thing going here. Pete sort of wrapped one leg around Joe's hip and arched up, grinding against him, and it was really good, and Pete was still kissing him when Joe came, sort of moaning into his mouth.

Joe turned onto his back and blinked rapidly at the ceiling. Beside him, Pete said something about how they were both kind of gross now and then got up, out of bed. After a minute or two, Joe could hear the shower running. After another couple of minutes, it turned off again, and Joe pushed himself out of bed and towards the bathroom, which had already been abandoned.

Joe stood under the hot water for about fifteen minutes. He toweled off, put on his clean pair of boxers and fetched his shirt from the floor. He walked down to the living room.

Pete, still wet and shirtless, was curled up into a ball with Hemmy on the couch.

Joe sat in front of the couch, leaning his back head against them, and cleared his throat. Pete made a noise, but it was muffled by either Hemmy's fur or the couch cushion.

"So, um. You feel better now?"

"Shut up," said Pete.

"Dude, you kind of suck at being a grown-up," Joe pointed out, and Pete laughed, a little raggedly.

After a minute, Joe stood up from the floor, and Pete moved over, just a little, to let him into the cuddle pile on the couch. Joe scratched Hemmy behind the ears. Pete rested his head against his shoulder, heavy and solid.

"You want me to go fetch you any ice cream or anything, man?" Joe said.

"No," said Pete slowly. He reached down and laced their fingers together and said, "No, I think. I think I'm good."

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Thank you very much! (I hope your yuletide editing went okay after all!)