After He Unlocked the Door.

Pairings: Ryan/Pete. Pete/Patrick. Ryan/Brendon.

Summary: I'd never seen anything so beautiful, that male Helen of Troy blowing cigarette smoke into the night.

Disclaimer: I do not own these people and I do not believe this ever happened. The lyrics are property of Fall Out Boy and I do not claim them. All other word arrangement and storyline is mine. Don't steal it.

Word Count: 6,667.

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After He Unlocked the Door.

PETE AND RYAN

I.

Things aren't the same anymore,
Some nights it gets so bad that I almost pick up the phone.
Trade baby blues, for wide-eyed browns.
I sleep with your old shirts,
And walk through this house in your shoes.
I know it's strange.
It's a strange way of saying that I know I'm supposed to love you.
I'm supposed to love you.

II.

If I would have known it was going to happen, I wouldn't have done it. You might not believe me, no one does really, but I wouldn't have. I didn't know it was going to happen. He wasn't like that when I first met him. Sure, he was new and cute and almost innocent, but he wasn't like that. That came later, with hair products and money and clothes.

I never meant to fuck everything up. I never meant to sleep with him. I didn't know what he was going to become. I didn't know that he was going to become this beautiful . . . thing that my dick twitched at the mere sight of. And I sure as hell didn't know the tricks he was going to learn, the subtle body language and angles of his hips.

He meant to. I didn't.

It was only supposed to be once, only one time. And it's not like I did anything wrong that time either. I mean, we were broken up. I didn't cheat. You're allowed to fuck people when you're single, right?

III.

"How much make-up are you wearing?" I asked, narrowing my eyes at him, scrutinizing his face.

"Enough." he said briefly, turning his head to the side oh-so-casually and letting his fingers run down the pale skin of his neck. He turned back to me, expression blank. "Are you ready?" When he bent down to tie his shoes, the back of his shirt rode up, exposing a sliver of flesh.

I licked my suddenly dry lips. "Yeah."

"Good." He stood up, shaking his hair back from his face and touching two fingers to his lips as if he were thinking. "Let's go then."

"Is Brendon coming?" I managed to ask as we walked outside and he turned back to lock the door. I could see the pattern of his spine if I stared hard enough at his shirt.

"No." He offered no other explanation and I knew he hadn't asked. God, he had such a pretty face and such a dark mind underneath it. He turned, his head cocked a few centimeters to the side and an almost-smile on his face. "Just you and me."

I swallowed and turned, walking toward the car. Just say no. Just . . . tell him you're sick. Make up an appointment. Just lie to him, Pete! Instead I unlocked his door and adjusted the rearview mirror.

He leaned toward the door, his arm up and his chin resting in his hand. It was dark and the street lights made his skin glow and his eyes sparkle. He moved his head to the side and brushed his hair off his neck. His breath made small circles of steam on the window.

He must have known what he was doing but, fuck, it seemed so innocent. And that just made me want it more, want him more. He lead me on. I could already feel the crotch of my jeans becoming tighter.

"I hate parties." he said suddenly. "I even hated them in high school."

"Then why do you come?" I asked. It was what I was supposed to say, what I was expected to say. He knew that.

"Because," he answered, cocking his head to look at me, "you ask me to."

"Aren't you accommodating?"

"Can I smoke?" he asked, eyes still fixed on me, acting like he hadn't heard me speak.

"I didn't know you smoked."

"Can I?"

"Roll the window down." That was a terrible idea. The cold bit at the tips of his ears and nose, tousled his hair. I'd never seen anything so beautiful, that male Helen of Troy blowing cigarette smoke into the night.

"If you say anything about me being the new cancer, I'll bit your dick off." It was said with cool certainty and a raised eyebrow.

He was turning into me, once upon a time. God, his hips in those jeans . . .

IV.

The part was loud, hot, and intoxicated. He barely drank, but I was tipsy in the first half hour. It became my own private drinking game. Every time he twisted his hair around his finger, brushed his hip against mine, swooped his hair from his neck, tickled my ear with his lips—take a drink.

Then he was breathing on my neck, I could feel it on my skin, the moisture, first warm and then cool. "It's loud. Let's go."

"Where?" I barely got the word out. I sounded like I was going through puberty again.

He set his glass down and then his hand was in mine, so smoothly, like it was supposed to be there. (Or not, when my hand twitched in his.) He pulled me down the stairs like he actually knew where he was going. I didn't hear the door lock, but I remember him unlocking it when he left, so I must have missed it.

He sat down on the couch and lit a cigarette, leaning back, but turning his hips toward mine. His shirt rode up just enough to show me the top of his hipbone. My fingers found it by accident.

Then, he turned.

V.

His leg was between mine. His hand was on the back of my neck, gripping my hair tightly. It almost hurt. He blew his smoke against my neck, threw the cigarette on the floor. His lips were so close I could feel his breath in my mouth.

"Pete." The word was almost a whisper, but more airy. His hand almost snapped my neck. My jeans were getting tight again.

His eyes were fixed on mine. Our faces were mirrors of opposites. His skin pale, mine tan. His eyes brown, mine green. His face beautiful, mine not so much. And, for some reason, the power that I usually held in my features (or maybe just thought I did) was all in his.

His lips were so close . . . I could smell the lingering smoke on his breath.

"Do you want it?"

My lips were trembling. "W-We can't."

"You want me." His lips were against my ear again. Now his fingers were stroking the back of my neck. His knee was pressed against my crotch. I knew it was wrong. I knew I shouldn't have. I knew it, I knew it, but he lead me on!

I lowered my head and kissed his neck. God, his skin felt like Heaven. "Fuck . . ."

"We'll get there." he said, chuckling. Then he bit my neck, sucking like he was getting paid for it. I knew there would be a dark bruise there, I'd seen them before on Brendon, seen the dirty little grin when someone pointed them out.

"Tell me you want me." Now his hand was on the waistband of my jeans, his thumb rubbing against the silver button.

I pulled back, eyes wide. He was so assertive, so aggressive. And even in getting fucked, I was always in charge, somehow. The make-up and the hairspray changed everything. "We shouldn't do this." I whispered.

"He broke up with you." It was a hiss, it was a growl, it was a snarl. Whatever it was, my ears hurt. "Grow a set of balls and fuck me. You're single tonight. Don't fucking waste it." His eyes flashed, his teeth flashed, and then we were kissing. He was pushing me backwards on the couch, fingers under my shirt, hips pressed against mine. And I wanted him like I'd never wanted anything in my life, wanted to taste him, feel him, breathe him, be inside him. He was beautiful and he was mine, tonight.

"Tell me you want me." he said again and this time I said it, rolled my hips against his, brought my hands to his back, fingers running over the small expanse of flesh underneath the gap in his jeans, the small of his back, cool to the touch but warming under my fingers.

His lips were teeth and his teeth were lips; nothing seemed to make sense. His fingers were rough and his palms were soft. His lashes were dark and his eyes were on fire. My shirt was off and so was his. I felt his lips kissing a trail across my tattoo. His nails were scratching, scraping, leaving ugly red marks in their wake.

I let out a garbled moan and he swallowed it, licking his lips before they turned upward in an ominous sort of smile. He bit my shoulder and I swore, my back involuntarily arching, my body pressed flat against his: chest to chest, hips to hips, cock to cock. And finally I felt him hard against me.

He let one of his hands drift, slowly slipping down my torso, scratching against my hipbone, sliding across denim, and finally pressing against my clothed and straining erection. He let a breath escape from his lips to my ear before I felt him kiss my neck, gently, softly. "How long?" he murmured.

I tried to answer, string words together, gain control through vocabulary. Instead, a sound very much like a whine escaped my throat as I rocked against his hand.

"How long," he repeated quietly, "have you wanted to fuck me?"

"Ry . . ."

He undid the button and the zipper on my jeans with only one hand, taking all the time he could before his fingers finally slipped under the fabric to grab my cock. His thumb slid across the head before he casually popped it into his mouth, licking off the precome.

Then, my jeans were around my ankles.

VI.

To say he was good at it would be an understatement. His tongue was moving in all directions at once and his teeth were barely there, but so fucking noticeable. His head bobbing up and down with my hand in his hair, not protesting or saying anything when I accidentally lost control and bucked upward into his mouth. I was hitting the back of his mouth over and over and then, suddenly, it was like there was no back of his mouth, my entire cock down his throat.

And then he sat up, his thumb quickly wiping at the corners of his mouth. He stared at me expectantly and I stared back, unmoving. His nails dug into my hips, pulling just enough. Angry, red, crescent moons in my skin. Then my hands on his hips, squeezing appreciatively just once before moving to button and zipper. He stood up and kicked the jeans across the room, then he was straddling my waist, lowering himself onto my cock. No prep, no lube. Just desire, sex, necessity, want.

I moaned, trying not to swear as I palmed his hips again. The heat, the tightness, the intensity. He was arching back, grabbing his own ankles, staring at the ceiling. Long, slow movements, tightening around my cock as he slid down, loosening as he glided upward again.

Then his hands were on my chest, he was lower to me, parallel, staring into my eyes. The strokes were shorter, but quicker, harder, slamming down with such force, nearly growling with every movement, his eyes dark, sweat beading across his neck and breastbone. So beautiful, so wild, so dark.

His hand on my throat, squeezing. I could breathe, barely, my heart pounded in my ears as he came—hard—squeezing impossibly tight around my cock, hand releasing my throat, a string of profanities tumbling from those perfect pink lips, breath on my cheek.

I came inside him as his hand tightened in my hair, arching upward, squeezing his hips hard enough to bruise, to break. My head rolling back, his teeth biting my neck, scraping across the skin. Then I collapsed, my entire body going limp.

He dressed, fixing his hair in the reflection of the window. "You should get dressed. Wouldn't want anyone to walk in on this." Then he unlocked the door and walked back upstairs.

PETE AND PATRICK

I.

My phone rang at five in the morning, which was eight there. "Hello?" I tried to keep my voice low.

"Hi." Patrick said. There was a long pause. He was notorious for those. "We need to talk."

"Now?" I turned my head, eyes running over Ryan's face. I did not want to talk to Patrick right now. Not when Ryan was lying next to me, when I still had the feeling of sex all over my body. Not when I was picturing the shower the night before (or early morning, rather). Ryan on his knees, water cascading down his face as he took my cock down his throat again, this time letting me come in his mouth, swallowing it, taking me to the bedroom and sucking me hard again before straddling my waist.

I could not talk to Patrick while all these images were running through my mind, while Ryan was looking like a marble statue next to me. A marble statue with one hell of a mouth.

There was a sigh. "If you're busy." It wasn't a finished sentence. It was supposed to make my insides twist into knots and make me feel like a guilty, selfish bastard. It worked.

"Patrick . . . it's just . . . late night."

"Oh." He knew what 'late night' meant. He hung up.

II.

I was sitting on one side of the couch. He was sitting on the other. We hadn't said anything since he showed up thirty minutes before. He was angry and I was hoping that maybe if we didn't say anything, the problem might go away. It wasn't going anywhere, of course, nailed quite securely to the floor.

"Who was it?" he asked finally, not looking at me, trying to keep the anger and the tears out of his voice.

"Does it matter?" I asked. My voice was gravel, a mixture of rock and dust, of things that were worthless and pointless and just plain fucking annoying.

"If it didn't, you'd say." He leaned back, tilting his head toward the ceiling, eyes closed. He brought his hands up, fingers massaging his temples. "We were broken up. I can't really hold it against you."

"You already are." I mumbled, leaning forward and resting my forehead against my hands.

"You always fuck someone." There was an unsteady breath. "You always fuck someone, I always get upset, and we always get over it three days later."

"Yeah, I know the drill." I muttered.

"Then why aren't you telling me?" I could feel his eyes on me, but I didn't turn to meet their gaze. "Pete."

I didn't want this. I didn't want to say it, didn't want to hear/see/taste/smell/feel the reaction. I didn't want to tell him that I'd fucked Ryan. I knew it, I knew it. "I don't want to talk about it." I snapped, throwing my hands down, bringing my foot up and kicking savagely at the coffee table.

"I know him." he said quietly, but not calmly. It was everything but calm in his voice. Anger, tears, confusion, concern, but not calm. "Don't I?"

"Didn't you just hear me?" My voice echoed as I yelled. I wasn't going to do this, I wasn't going to talk about it, I wasn't going to admit it. I stood up without looking at him, turning and walking down the hallway to my room. Our room. Whatever. I crawled in bed and pulled the blankets over my head.

I waited for the footsteps. It would be five minutes about, I thought. It was fifteen. "You know you have to tell me." The bed sank down and I felt his hand rubbing my back through the comforter. "It's going to eat you up. I know you. Now tell me."

I sat up, our heads nearly colliding with what would have been a loud, resounding CRACK, but instead was nothing. I yanked the blankets from my head, staring at him, my eyes hard, trying so fucking hard not to cry. "What makes you think you know me that well? What makes you fucking think you know me that well, you stupid . . . fucking . . ." Then it was just a scream, no real words, just a loud animal sound.

His pretty blue eyes got dark, his mouth got tight, he was angry, angrier than I'd seen him before. But I didn't feel guilty or even scared. I was happy, proud, fucking proud that I'd finally driven him to the edge.

"I'm the one who drives you to your therapy appointments. I make sure you take your meds and that the bottles aren't emptying before they're supposed to. I'm the one who makes sure there's always a spare night light and checks the closet for monsters when you've had too much to drink. I found you after your OD and I sat with you in that hospital room every day for seven days. I'm the one that holds your hair back when you're vomiting from the hangover. I'm the one that wakes you up when you're screaming from nightmares." He grabbed the neck of my shirt and pulled until our noses were just touching. "I'd say I know you pretty damn well." Then he pushed and the back of my head hit against the headboard. He winced, but didn't say anything.

"You already know." I whispered. "Why do I have to tell you?"

"Because you're a pathetic bastard and I want to hear it from your mouth." He stared at me, bringing his hand up to wipe at the one tear that was sliding down his cheek.

"What good does that do?"

"You signed him just so you could fuck him, didn't you?"

My fault? My fault? How could this be my fault? It was all Ryan. He wore the make-up, rolled down the car window, locked the basement door, fell asleep beside me. This was his fault, not mine.

"I knew it." He stood up and slammed his fist against the wall. "I knew you wanted him." There were tears now, but no crying. "How many times?" He hit the wall again. "How many times did you fuck him?!"

When I wouldn't answer, he came back to the bed, grabbing me by the shoulders and shaking. My head jerked back and forth. "Answer me, you fucking bastard!" And then he fell against me, crying. "Don't leave me for him." he whispered through the tears. "God, Pete, please don't leave me for him."

I wrapped my arms around him, kissing his hair and trying to quiet him. "I'm not leaving you. I love you. Don't cry, baby, please don't cry." We sat there like that for nearly an hour, until he cried himself dry and all but passed out in my arms.

I got the text after I had tucked him in and kissed his forehead. I didn't expect it. Ryan hadn't seemed interested in an affair, just completely destroying my life.

You good at phone sex? I read it when I was locked safely in the bathroom, taking a pill from one of the bottles he had screamed about checking so often. My reflection was uglier than I remembered, sicker than I remembered, more disgusted than I remembered. Ryan was still in my veins, contaminating everything.

I deleted the message, took the pill, and went out to the balcony. There were no clouds, but it was dark and it smelled like rain. There was wind and Hemingway rubbing against my ankles.

Ryan was probably getting fucked right now, smirking beneath the moans, Brendon staring down at him with no idea. I wondered how many people at the party knew. I wondered how many more times this would come back to bite me in the ass.

I heard footsteps and turned.

III.

He was drinking beside me, eyes staring blankly at the television. He didn't drink very often, especially when there was no party involved. Now he was on his fourth bottle. When he set it down, it fell, knocking into another, but no broken glass.

"You never told me how many times." he said, words barely slurred, still refusing to look at me. I knew it was repeating over and over in his head, myself and Ryan, how it would affect us, if it would destroy us. I knew because it was doing the same in mine.

"Twice." My hand twitched automatically, wanting him to reach for it, needing him to tell me it wasn't over, that Ryan hadn't managed to destroy everything as much as I had thought.

But he didn't reach for my hand. "Are you going to tell Brendon?"

My eyes finally darted to him and I shook my head. He didn't see, but he assumed the silence was a 'no'. I saw him bite his bottom lip and close his eyes for a moment. "I'm going to bed." he murmured. "I love you." he said as he started walking down the hallway.

"I love you." I echoed in response.

I fell asleep on the couch and woke up covered with a blanket I hadn't gone to sleep with. My eyes flicked to the table when I heard a buzzing. My Sidekick on vibrate and a new text message, three guesses who, no need to guess. There was a nasty taste in my mouth as I opened the message, closing my eyes before finally reading the word. Pussy.