Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

So, Patrick runs into Spencer at some party. Not a Hollywood thing, but a DecayDance thing--past, present and introducing the future--10 years later and all that, and there are a lot of people there: Joe and Andy, of course. All of The Hush Sound, Cobra Starship, Gym Class Heroes, The Academy Is.... Spencer and Ryan and Jon and Brendon and a few hundred of Pete's nearest and dearest. And, see, it's a little bit like deja vu, all of these people in one room again, like a hundred tours over the years, but it's different, too, 'cause, well. Well, they're not over-grown college kids now; no, they're all in their late 20s, mid-30s, early 40s. Pete's wearing a suit--granted, it's a Clandestine suit, which automatically means that it's jacket is a hoodie, but there are still lapels and a fucking carnation poked through a button hole.

Patrick spends the first hour of the party with Pete draped over his shoulder as Pete greets people. "You know Patrick," Pete says. "Fucking awesomest producer on any side of the Mississippi," or maybe, "The only reason any of us are where we are today," and the person, whoever it is, will nod and say, "Yeah, yeah. It's true."

Patrick'll just pull his hat a little farther down over his eyes and elbow Pete in the ribs and Pete will grunt and say, "Fine, yes, I'll behave. I'll tell them that you were just holding me back all those years." But then he aims them at another group of people and he'll start right up again, just like always.

An hour in, though, Patrick manages to extract himself from Pete's clutches and he grabs a glass of something--sweet, with a bite, but also blue, and Patrick doesn't even want to know--and the next thing he knows, he's walking across the room towards where Spencer's standing, talking with Greta, and he hears mentions of Playdoh and Legos and when he looks, he sees that Greta's second child is pretty much most of the way here.

"Yeah," Spencer says, "when I got home from Jon and Cassie's last time, I found Lego people stuck in the toes of my Nike's, and some sort of sparkly gel on the inside pocket of my bag? I pretty much decided it was best just to wipe it up and not ask questions."

Greta laughs, a sweet sound, and turns to Patrick, who's sort of hovering. "What about you?" she asks. "Did Joe's girls ever glitter bomb you when they were that age?"

Patrick nods, then shrugs his shoulders and smiles ruefully, because yes, the last time he was at Joe's, he did get glittered, but—

"I just don't know if it was the girls or Joe himself," he says. What he does know is that he's still finding glitter in hats that he didn't even own at the time of the Great Glitter Gate of '15, as Joe took to calling it.

That has Spencer throwing his head back, laughing. He's cut his hair again and the beard is gone, and he's almost looking his 29 years, Patrick thinks. Finally.

"Joe," Greta says fondly. Then: "His girls really are adorable." Twins, six years old now, curly pigtails hanging down to their shoulders and they have their dad (and their honorary uncles) pretty much wrapped around their pinkies. They're already picking up the family business, too: Rachel's rarely separated from her pink Barbie drum kit, and Hannah's taking piano and violin. Joe, Patrick knows, is going to get them both guitars for Hanukkah.

"Yeah," Patrick says. "Yeah, adorable, but really fucking exhausting."

"Tell me about it!" Spencer says. "Don't get me wrong, I love Caitlyn to death, and I think she's just about the cutest thing ever--I mean, she's got Jon's pout!--but then again, I get to arrive, say hi, bring presents, and leave."

"And find glitter in your hats for the next two years," Patrick adds. He touches the brim of his own, almost expecting to see a fleck of color on the tip of his finger when he pulls it away again.

"Or your suitcase," Spencer adds, "and thus in everything you, you know, actually put in the suitcase."

Greta just sighs--put upon, but looking amused, too.

"Just wait until you have your own," she says. "Then it'll be Playdoh in the sheets and crayon on the wall and--"

"And you can stop scaring them any time now, honey," Darren says, joining them and draping an arm around her waist, palm curving around her stomach. She leans back against him.

There are tables scattered around the room, circular, lots of chairs, and Patrick had pretty much been intending to mingle, wander, talk and make the time pass faster, but somehow he finds himself sitting down with Spencer and Greta and Darren. And then Vicky T comes over and one of the Alex's from The Cab and Ryan and Travis and Tom Conrad and there are tour stories from a gazillion years ago and stories of what's happened since and then there's dancing--a live band, fucking brass, playing swing music, because, as Pete said last month, when he told Patrick about that plan, we're fucking classy, dude!--and then it's pretty much him and Spencer again, a few empty glasses spread out on the table in front of him, and Spencer's saying, "Do you miss it?"

And Patrick, who talked to Rolling Stone last week and Alternative Press the week before and Spin two days ago because he is Patrick Stump, who's had three albums he's produced hit Number 1 on the Billboard Charts this year alone, two of them already platinum, the other gold, says, "Yeah." Then, after a beat: "Fuck it, though, you know? Who am I to be complaining?" Because he's still around. Because he's become more than the lead singer of a pop-punk band from Chicago who made the hoards of teenage girls scream. He's still here and Pete's still here and Joe has his wife and his kids and his own line of guitars that are starting to become a preferred brand and Andy's drumming for a fucking awesome band, making stuff that'll be classic someday, if Patrick's any judge. So yeah, no room to complain.

But still.

"Yeah," Spencer says. "Right. I mean, yeah." He pauses, looking out at the dance floor. "Brendon and I still get together sometimes and jam, you know. Down in his basement, or in my music room. Just the two of us."

He blinks then, sitting up straighter, and when Patrick looks, he sees Pete heading in their direction, a determined look on his face. Spencer keeps talking, though. "Next time you're in Vegas, you should drop by." Then Pete's there, draping an arm across each of their shoulders.

"What the fuck is this, Spencer Smith?" he asks. "Hogging the Stump all to yourself?"

Spencer just rolls his eyes, though, and says, "Yeah, because I really forced him over here. Tied him to his chair and all."

Pete opens his mouth to respond, an almost evil, naughty look in his eye, but before he can speak, Patrick reaches out and pinches his lips closed again. Spencer laughs.

In all honesty, Patrick's actually pretty surprised when he shows up on Spencer's doorstep, at his house on the outskirts of Vegas, miles away from the glitz of the Strip, yes, but still influenced by it. The house to Spencer's right has stained glass windows lining the living room, after all, stretching from floor to ceiling, staining the grass outside blue and red and yellow. The house to Spencer's left has a fucking village of garden gnomes climbing over the landscaped rocks, and the one across the street has two artistically placed pink flamingos by their, er, waterfall.

Patrick's sort of glad that Pete's not here to see this; he'd probably take this mish-mash of styles as a sign of Things To Come and there's nothing Pete likes more than being at the forefront of, well, anything.

Spencer's house, though, is comparatively normal. White paint and blue trim and a cactus garden out front, with polished marble stones leading up to the stoop.

Okay, yeah, when Patrick pushes the doorbell, instead of bells or some electronic version of 'A Whole New World', there's a rat-tat-tat of a drum line that sounds suspiciously like the one from the Nothing Rhymes With Circus Tour, but.

But Patrick has a closet in his bedroom just for hats, and Pete has a room just for DecayDance's gold and platinum records, spotlights pointed at each and every one of them. They're all entitled to their extravagances, Patrick thinks.

So he rings the bell and then he rocks back on his heels, shoving his hands into his pockets, fingers curled into the denim. And he waits. And waits. Maybe, he thinks, Spencer's out, even though there's a BMW parked in the driveway, but then he hears footsteps coming: stairs, hallway, closer. A moment later, the lock on the door is turning and Spencer's standing there and suddenly Patrick's not sure whether he's more surprised to actually be there, or whether Spencer's more surprised to see him.

Patrick runs a finger over the bill of his cap, smiles and says, "So, hey. I was, you know, in the neighborhood--well, in Vegas anyway--and you said to--" Stop by, but of course that had been two months ago and Patrick hasn't talked to Spencer in that time at all. The only Panic member he talks to regularly is Ryan, because Ryan knows talent when he hears it, and Patrick is one of the best at getting the talent actually heard.

Spencer's nodding, though, smiling widely, and he's stepping back into the foyer, motioning Patrick in.

"Yeah, yeah, of course," Spencer says. "I was just, uh, finishing up."

He motions at the staircase, and funny thing: even though the doorbell is completely silent, Patrick can still hear drumming. It's pretty quiet, muffled because Spencer has obviously invested in pretty awesome soundproofing--Patrick hadn't heard anything outside--and Patrick says, "Oh, shit. Sorry. I should have called. I can--" He starts back towards the door, but Spencer just rolls his eyes, looking a little playfully huffy in that Spencer Smith way of his, as he says, "Seriously, it's fine. We're honestly about done. Come on up."

He starts up the stairs before Patrick can protest, and so Patrick follows him, because really, he has no other choice. The drumbeats get louder as Spencer heads for the one mostly open door, and when he goes in, Patrick sees a kid sitting behind a kit. Red-haired and freckles and Patrick knows he's seen him in Spin or AP, he doesn't remember the kid's name, his band.

The kid knows Patrick, though, because one moment he's pounding away and the next he's faltering, trailing off in a stuttering beat. When Patrick glances over at Spencer, he sees him rolling his eyes again, opening his mouth and saying, "Patrick, this is Kevin. He's in the Aqua Angels." And yes, yes, of course, Patrick remembers him now. "Kevin, you seem to recognize Patrick."

Kevin is gathering himself pretty well, Patrick thinks. He's standing up from the kit anyway, moving around it so that he can extend his hand in Patrick's direction. As Patrick reaches out to shake it, though, Kevin pulls it back to wipe it on his shirt, then plunges it back out again, blushing.

"Hey, yeah," Kevin says. "Yeah, hi." He's grinning, a little nervously. "So I should probably. I mean, you guys-- I mean, we're about--"

"Sit." It's almost a bark, something Spencer's good at, Patrick knows, and Kevin twitches at the sound. When Spencer flicks his hand in the direction of the kit, though, and says, "Start back up where we were. Show Patrick that sequence we've been working on," Kevin nods hesitantly and goes.

Spencer moves to the second kit in the room, perching on the stool and picking up his sticks. Patrick leans back against the wall and watches as Spencer counts out the rhythm and Kevin starts in. The kid glances at Patrick once, twice, a few times over the first few rolls, but then the tempo picks up and Kevin's arms are rising above his head, coming down harder, crossing, moving more quickly, beat-beat-beat-thump, feet working the peddles. His hair flops down into his eyes, brushes at his nose, but when Kevin tosses his head, it's only to the beat of his drums.

He's still playing when Patrick sees Spencer counting his way into the beat, and the next thing Patrick knows, they're both playing and they're watching each other, and maybe there are routines they've worked out because they're playing in fucking unison, a cacophony of noise, one or the other adding little free-style nuances every few stanzas, but always in sync, always in tempo. They end with a flourish of pounding, their whole bodies bending into the beats.

They're both breathing heavily in the sudden silence, and Patrick claps a few times, grinning at the sudden redness staining Kevin's cheeks. Spencer just starts counting out another beat with his sticks again, though, raising one of his eyebrows in Kevin's direction, and Kevin takes another look at Patrick, but nods. Patrick expects them to start in on another joint venture, but instead its just Spencer. He starts out simply, and even as he breaks off, Kevin's playing, echoing Spencer beat for beat, move for move.

The moment he finishes, Spencer picks it right back up again, upping the difficulty, the intensity. Again Kevin plays it back and they go on like this, lobbing the challenge between them as Patrick watches, back and forth and back again until their sticks are blurring in the air--

--and then Kevin falters, a missed beat, and he realizes it even before Patrick and Spencer do, if his anticipatory wince is any clue.

He's laughing, though, and Spencer is joining in, looking proud. Before Spencer can claim his victory, though, Patrick holds out his hands for Kevin's sticks, and Kevin gets it, stands, ceding his seat. Patrick is already loosening his wrists, twisting them. He sits down and goes into his warm up, a few rolls, a rhythm learned long ago, and he's out of practice, yeah, but.

But the beat is pounding in his blood in ways he hasn't let it for a while. There's a difference between playing by oneself in the studio, after all, and playing with others. For fun, that is, not with one of the groups he's producing, showing them how doing it this way would sound better, trust me, no please, just fucking trust me.

So after a moment, he looks at Spencer, raises his eyebrow and Spencer's eyes are narrowed and he's biting at his bottom lip. He starts in exactly where he'd left off with Kevin and when he cuts off, Patrick picks up the beat. He closes his eyes, seeing the music like flashes of color behind his eyelids. When he finishes, Spencer starts in again immediately and Patrick opens his eyes, watching as Spencer's whole body moves with the force of his playing. Back and forth like this a few times, until Patrick decides to push the game further, continuing Spencer's beat into one of his own creation, and when he looks over, Spencer's grinning, rather wickedly, in Patrick's opinion. He echoes Patrick, though, then pushes it even father, and they volley it back and forth like that until the moment Patrick can hear a beat complimentary to Spencer's in his head and he finds himself chiming in, changing the game again. After a moment, Spencer smiles at him and launches into a roll that highlights Patrick's heavier beats, and maybe it would sound like just a whole hell of a lot of noise to anyone outside the room, but Patrick can feel the rhythm, matched between them, real and there and clicking and when Patrick looks over at Kevin, he sees the kid looking between them, an almost awed look on his face.

Patrick looks back at Spencer and thinks, yeah.