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The rain is so heavy there's a flash flood warning and it's dark like the middle of the night even thought it's 9 am and Patrick wants to stay in bed the way he did when he was a teenager, just, all day. Wake up at four in the afternoon.
"But you're not wearing pants," Pete tells him, when he grumbles that from the safety of his pillow in response to Pete's inquiry if he's getting up.
"Boxers count," Patrick says.
"I don't think they do," Pete replies.
Patrick ignores him and stays with his head under his pillow.
Pete says after a second, "You know, it's Grand Theft Autumn's birthday today. It's 18 today."
"Yeah? Cool. Too bad we're not going to get to sing it Happy Birthday."
Pete pauses. Patrick can hear him thinking next to the bed. It's not an unprecedented position for them, to have Pete trying to urge Patrick out of bed, but it hasn't happened a lot in the recent past. Patrick can feel the way Pete's trying to feel his way around the mood, around what to do, and that's irritating to Patrick.
He lifts his head up. "Just get into bed," he huffs at him. "Just get into bed with me. I don't want to be handled."
"I get that," Pete says after a second, and crawls into bed and curls next to Patrick. "I hate being handled, too," he says softly, into Patrick's shoulder.
It's nice to have him back in the bed instead of fretting outside of it, and Patrick is glad he suggested it. "I know. Sorry," because he feels like he handles Pete a lot.
"No, you're good at it. You're good at handling me. I don't even notice. I'm sorry I'm not as good at handling you. And I'm also sorry I just made this whole thing about me."
"Well, it's not about me," Patrick says. "It's about the kids."
Pete is silent for a moment, and Patrick thinks maybe he's going to drop it. Then he says, "Rivers did play 'Sugar' for them."
"He didn't even know the words," Patrick retorts.
"Sometimes you don't know the words," Pete replies evenly.
"Whatever. It was like we died. And if you think our fans were okay with missing out on our set because they got two karaoke versions of 'Sugar' out of it, then I think we should definitely just retire. Like, if we can drop out of a show and people don't even care, then let's just hang it all up."
There's a moment of silence. Pete says, "I don't think that. I just... Do you want to cancel the tour?"
Patrick rolls onto his back and Pete adjusts easily, like water lapping into place around him. He knows he's being difficult about this. He knows he should just get over it. He knows he should text Rivers and Aimee and be like, Thanks for playing our song, that was nice, even though, like, the whole point of it being their song is that they're supposed to play it. But he knows Pete probably already texted everyone, sweet and happy, because Pete's the people person and Pete's magnanimous and diplomatic and Patrick is a spoiled brat who just wants to wake up from all of this now, thanks. Like, this entire pandemic. He just wants to wake up now. He says, "That makes things worse, that disappoints even more people."
There's another moment of silence. Pete says, "I'm sorry."
"For what?" Patrick sighs. "You haven't done anything."
"I convinced you to come out on this tour. You didn't want to come and I told you it would be fine and it would be safe and that it would be good for us to get out there in the world again. And we've played five sets and one of them we had to cut songs for time and then I broke your piano and now we're canceling for Covid, like, I don't know, I'm sorry, maybe you were right all along and we should have just stayed in our bubble with Tennyson where we were safe."
Patrick sighs again, and then he rubs his hand up and down Pete's arm. It has been a trying and exhausting tour and it's only been five dates but he knows that Pete already knows that -- Pete's the one who had to bear the brunt of the previous sulks about the abbreviated set and the broken piano -- and it's not really Pete's fault and he knows Pete is going to beat himself up over this the more that this tour devolves around them. (Well, the broken piano was kind of Pete's fault but Patrick really has forgiven him for that.) He rolls to face Pete, nose to nose, and says, "You weren't wrong to think that I needed a push to get myself going. And at the time this seemed doable. And it's not like we really were safe in our bubble with Tennyson. I don't know that anywhere is safe."
"Is this like Christmas for you all over again?" Pete asks.
Maybe, Patrick thinks. Maybe that's why he seems to be the one who's more upset about this. Maybe it is exactly like standing in the middle of their life together trying to salvage some normal in the middle of a raging fire. "Well, this time we don't have to be isolated from each other," Patrick says, "and that's much better."
"Is it?" Pete smirks at him, shifting to playfulness. "Is it much better?" He shifts to straddle Patrick but it's not actually sexy, it's just about the full-body contact comfort of it.
"A little bit better," Patrick amends. "I think maybe I oversold how much better it is."
Pete laughs and stretches out over him, maximizing points of contact, and it's nice, it's the best kind of comfort Pete could have given him. Patrick slept poorly and he lets Pete's warm solildity weigh him gently down, press him into the safety of the cocoon of just them, here, now.
"I miss Tennyson," Pete whines into Patrick's neck. "It was obviously a good idea not to bring him and I know he's safe with my mom but I miss him a lot."
"I know," Patrick says.
"I'm very tired of all of this. I'm very tired of having to worry about everything, all the time. Like, I know you are also worrying, I don't mean to make this about me, but I know you would have been happy to just stay home and not tour and I was just so tired, Patrick, I just wanted to have just a few weeks of something that felt like normal and I think I made everything worse for all of us -- for you and for me and for Tennyson and for Joe and for Andy -- like, if we'd just stayed home, then -- but I was the one who wanted to do this tour, the whole time, and now look."
"You know," Patrick says thoughtfully, smoothing Pete's bedraggled hair, "we do know how to say no to you. Like, we've learned that, over the years. You didn't just bully all of us into this. I think we all wanted to feel like Fall Out Boy again. It wasn't just you. And as much as I complain, I like performing. I was missing the concerts, too. I just didn't say it as much as you did. I was having a good time, like, when things were working on this tour."
"Which was, like, two shows," Pete says.
"Well. Yeah. But they were two good shows!"
"That gave us Covid," Pete says.
"Okay, you got me there," says Patrick.
"Also." The anguish in Pete's whine increases exponentially. "No one has asked me about my ring."
"Huh?" Patrick is momentarily confused.
"My ring!" Pete lifts his hand and waves it all around. The ring Patrick gave him catches the light. "No one has asked me about it! No one!"
"Well, they probably just assume it's a new piece of jewelry you got."
"Who could think this ring is merely fashion?! Who?!" Pete shakes his hand more.
"Personally I am flattered because I am not usually known for my fashion choices," Patrick remarks.
Pete lifts his head to frown at him. "I want people to say to me, 'Hey, cool ring, bro,' so I can say, 'I'm engaged!'"
"You could just go around telling people we're engaged."
"That's not the same," Pete pouts. "We talked about that. That's weird, whereas if I get asked about the ring it would be organic."
"Well, Joe and Andy know," Patrick points out.
"True, true," Pete says, and sighs, and rests back against Patrick and pulls out his phone. "I don't know why I'm complaining. I think I'm just..." Pete waves his phone around.
"Yeah, join the club."
"I keep thinking that I should post something and then wondering what I could possibly say. So I posted a photograph of the moon."
"...The moon?"
"Yeah."
"I'm sure that makes sense in your head," Patrick says indulgently.
"Let's call Tennyson," Pete says. "It's late enough now, he'll be up."
So they Facetime Tennyson.
Tennyson looks happy and healthy and chirps, "Hi, Dad, hi, Patrick," and Patrick still feels heavy and disappointed and tired but it's good to see Tennyson's face and know that he's okay.
"Hey, kiddo," Pete says.
"Hi, Verlaine," Patrick says.
Tennyson's face shifts into concern, making him look much older than the eleven years he just turned. "How are you? What's going on?"
"We're fine," Pete assures him. "We're totally fine."
Tennyson looks skeptical. "You don't look fine. You're not even out of bed yet and you don't have any lights on."
This is true on both counts, of course.
Pete says, "We're relaxing."
But Tennyson's Pete Wentz's kid and he is nothing if not clued into sluggish, depressed moods. "It's gonna be okay," he says earnestly. "It really is."
"We know," Patrick says, because he always feels bad when Tennyson takes on the adulting role and he's always tried to minimize that. "Don't worry about us, okay? What are you doing with Grandma?"
"You should get married," Tennyson says.
Patrick smiles at how in-tune with Pete Tennyson can be, even hundreds of miles apart. "We are," he says.
"No, today," Tennyson interrupts him.
There is silence.
"What?" Pete says.
"Look, you're both unhappy and disappointed," Tennyson continues. "Of course you are. What are you going to do today? Sit around and worry about Covid and all the fans and whatever. So give yourselves something to do."
"Get married?" Patrick says.
Tennyson shrugs.
Patrick thinks maybe Tennyson doesn't quite grasp the enormity of getting married.
"Look," Patrick says, "we're getting married in Chicago when the tour is over, right? In Grandma's backyard and we'll--"
"No, he's right," Pete says suddenly.
Patrick looks at him in surprise. "What?"
Pete is looking back at him steadily. "He's right. We should get married today."
"What are you talking about?"
"Tennyson's right. Who knows what September looks like? Who knows what the rest of this fucking tour even looks like? We keep planning and planning and planning like that's a thing we can do -- make plans, have plans, et cetera. We're just setting ourselves up for constant disappointment over and over again. All we have is today, this moment, that's it. All we can know is that we are here together right now. We should get married."
"Yup." Tennyson nods, and Patrick thinks again how this pandemic has made this kid -- maybe all kids -- wise beyond their years. "Exactly."
"But." Patrick looks from Pete to Tennyson. "You're not here."
"Yes, I am. I'm right here. Aren't you in isolation right now?"
And fuck, the kid knows all the terms, like isolation. "Yes," Patrick confirms.
"Okay, so we'll do everything by Zoom. You can call Uncle Andy and Uncle Joe and they can joint marry you like they were going to in September. And then if we get to have it in September we can do it again."
"He's right," Pete says. "I mean, he's totally right. We can just keep getting married. We can get married and married and married. Who says we have to do it once? On every day when we don't want to get out of bed, let's just...get married again."
"That is..." Patrick doesn't know what to say until he does. "That is the most Pete Wentz idea of marriage that I think I can imagine."
Pete grins, dazzling, and looks back at his phone. "Tennyson, you're a genius, buddy. We're going to switch to a computer and you get Grandma and Grandpa together and we'll call Patrick's parents and Uncle Joe and Uncle Andy."
Tennyson, mirroring Pete's grin, waves and signs off.
Pete looks at Patrick. "Is this okay?"
"I don't even know what's happening," Patrick admits, dazed. Ten minutes ago he was too depressed to get himself up out of bed.
"We're getting married," Pete says. "I want to marry you. Today. Today when we feel overwhelmed and exhausted and like we can't do this anymore. Today I want to be the day when we say, 'No, it's okay, because we'll do it together.' Today when it seems like nothing is good is happening, let's do this. Today on this day when eighteen years ago we promised we would appreciate in value. Right? Let's do it. What do you say?"
It's not what he expected. He has been planning a wedding. Not a big thing, a tiny thing, but a thing planned in advance, not a thing sprung on him while he's in bed in his boxers with uncombed hair and no glasses and unshed tears from a disappointing night. And the thing is...that makes it seem like the only way they could get married. Exactly like this. A thing unplanned, the way their entire lives have been. Unexpected joys that Patrick never expected, never dreamed of. Patrick never dreamed he would say, Let's drop out of some shows and see how no one even notices we're missing and that will lead to us getting married. And so it seems like the only way to do this.
He lunges forward and catches Pete up in a kiss, his hands around the messy stubble on Pete's face that he knows Pete wasn't bothering to do anything about because they weren't leaving this room for five days or what-the-fuck-ever. Now isolation can be their honeymoon. "How smart is your kid?" Patrick asks breathlessly.
"How smart is our kid?" Pete corrects him.
***
They don't have anything but the most dressed-down of clothes to wear, but it's fine. If Patrick had thought about it, he wouldn't want to marry a Pete who was wearing anything other than an absurdly expensive t-shirt from an obscure label and his latest edition of horrible pants. Patrick wears one of the Target t-shirts Pete bought him for Christmas and one of the baseball hats he brought for the tour, because it seems right to him that he should marry Pete in a hat, Pete's given him so many through the years. They sit on the edge of their bed together, holding hands beneath the computer, out-of-view of the camera, and on-screen Joe has pulled his hair back into a tight bun and Andy has put on a shirt and Tennyson is eating a doughnut because definitely there should be doughnuts at this occasion. Pete's parents and Patrick's parents hover in and out of focus, weirdly emotional, Patrick thinks, for the fact that this is a last-minute Zoom with no real legally binding effect because they don't have a marriage certificate. But Patrick thinks of how much he and Pete can't agree on what their anniversary is and thinks that they should keep it going: is it this date, or the date after the tour, or whatever other random day they decide to exchange vows again?
And suddenly, thinking of that, of the lifetime in front of them when one of them will end an argument by proposing they get married again, or try to soothe a sulk that way, or just wake up on a random Tuesday and feel like saying again, Hey, it's you, you're the one I choose and I'm always going to -- suddenly, Patrick is all emotional, too. He looks at Pete, at the gray at his temples and the crow's feet around his eyes from all these years -- decades -- of smiling at him, and he thinks how very much they've been through together, and how he can't wait to see what's next, and suddenly the entire emotional roller coaster of the past twenty-hour hours crystallizes into this one culminating emotional moment of I love you more than anything and I've done it for more than half of my life and there were times I never thought you'd understand how much and now you do and you want what I have to offer you for every single future moment, and then he's crying, too.
Pete grins at him, and wipes tears from underneath the glasses Patrick put on so he could actually see himself get married.
"Aww, Tricky," he coos at him.
"Fuck you," Patrick says.
"You may kiss the groom," Joe intones.
"No, stop," Pete says, looking at the Zoom. "There should be something. There should be a ceremony, or something."
"We are gathered here today to witness two people finally taking their heads out from their asses and realizing that they really did seriously mean it when they said they were soulmates all along," Andy says.
"Amen," Pete's mother says.
Tennyson says, "Uncle Andy, I am recording this, you know."
Joe says, "Do you have any vows?"
"Oh, fuck, you probably have vows, don't you?" Patrick accuses Pete, trying to stop himself from crying. "You probably have a fucking notebook full of vows to me."
Pete smiles. "I already gave you all of them. What do you want me to say? I'm yours, the hand behind the pen, for better or worse. Sorry I kept you in that box all that time."
"I..." Patrick is blank. "I promise..." He can't think of what to say. He stares at Pete and finally he just says, firmly and definitely, "I promise."
Pete smiles even more.
Andy says, "Patrick, do you take Peter for everything he is and everything he will be, forever?"
And they didn't discuss that beforehand but Patrick likes it. "Yes," he says. "I do."
Andy says, "Peter, do you take Patrick for everything he is and everything he will be, forever?"
"Yes," Pete says, still smiling broadly, eyes locked on Patrick. "I do."
"With the power vested in us by whatever website Andy said we should use," says Joe, "we pronounce you married."
People applaud on Zoom. Someone has some kind of noisemaker that they add to the tumult. Pete ducks forward and kisses Patrick, sipping tears off his lips.
Patrick doesn't know what's coming next. He never has.
It feels okay.