FicWad

The four faces of Fall Out Boy were not pretty sights the next afternoon. Joe’s ‘amazing’ cheekbones were now covered in Coke, eggs and anything else passers-by could find, as well as the rest of the band’s faces. In fact Patrick’s eye carried a lovely piece of chewed gum.

Once clear of the city the driver turned the wipers off and sighed with relief, as the real band members muttered amongst themselves.

‘I still can’t believe last night happened, man,’ Patrick muttered to Andy.
‘Well, technically we should blame Joe. Him and his stupid eagerness.’
‘I blame Gabe for all this rotten food on our faces. Him putting that banner where none of us could reach it…’ Pete chipped in.
‘I blame our parents for making us so short!’ Joe called.
‘You’re not short, dude! You could have got the banner down at least!’
‘Yeah, well…’ Joe came through and sat on the sofa. ‘Gabe threatened me.’
‘How?’
‘He said I’d wake up one morning minus a Jewfro…’ Joe mumbled this quietly, and looked away as his friends couldn’t contain their smiles at the thought.

Before too long they were at the next venue, and Pete jumped out to find Gabe. There was no way he was getting chewing-gum on his window’s eye. Soon enough he was found backstage making a drink.

‘Dude… isn’t it a little early for vodka?’
‘It’s never too early, Pete.’ Gabe flashed him a grin. ‘So what’s up?’
‘You know what’s up. The whole deal with the banner?’
Gabe chuckled to himself just at the thought.
‘We had all sorts thrown at our bus on the way here. Even eggs.’
Gabe actually burst out laughing. ‘Yes! It worked like a dream!’
‘Well, we’re not in Ohio now, so… get it down? There will be dire consequences if not. Believe me, Gabriel.’
‘Oh yeah? Like what?’
Pete whispered a menacing threat into his ear. Gabe’s eyes widened, and he gulped at the thought of Pete’s torment.
‘OK, fine. The banner will be down by the end of the night.’
‘Awesome.’
‘Although… there’s nothing to say we can’t re-use it on someone else… right?’

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On returning to the bus Pete found it mostly empty. Joe had said he wanted to see the city, and no one knew where Andy was. Great, thought Pete, I could use a chat with Patrick right now.

He gathered his thoughts together before going through to the lounge. Earlier in the day, he’d had an idea. An idea that would get his son smiling again. As long as Gabe toned down his partying a bit, and there was someone to look after him at all times, he’d had the idea of bringing Bronx on tour with him. He could fly back and get him straight away. No problem, he’d thought at the time. But there were problems. Ashlee would want him to stay with her, would tell him that a tour was no place for a little boy. Plus Bronx would miss her terribly. There was no win-win situation, and Pete had to decide… which parent was better?

He stood and stretched, and pushed the door open to the lounge. But he quickly saw that Patrick wasn’t alone after all. William was sitting at the table with him, and they were both bent over a laptop, deep in conversation. Neither of them looked up as Pete entered the room.

‘Hey, guys.’
They mumbled greetings.
‘Patrick? Can I talk to you for a moment?’
‘Does it have to be now?’ Patrick adjusted his glasses, not looking up from the screen. ‘We’re busy here.’
‘Well… no, but… What are you doing?’
William ran a hand through his hair and grinned. ‘We’re sorting out a new album. We want Patrick to be the driving force behind it.’
‘Oh, that’s great, guys! Awesome.’

No response, except a polite smile from William. Pete could see they were dying to get back to it. He hung around a few seconds longer, before the awkward silence got too much, and he left the bus for some air. That hadn’t gone too well. He had no one to help him out. And anyway, Patrick had been slightly rude. It wasn’t that important, starting a new album. It may be fun, but not necessary to do it so fast. Although Patrick really does enjoy that kind of thing, Pete mused to himself. Even so, he wasn’t too polite just now.

He decided to let it go and headed back to his bunk. He didn’t know why; it was just somewhere to go. Besides, it was getting chilly. He soon made his way up the steps and crawled under the duvet, just getting comfy before his phone vibrated in his pocket. Pulling it out he saw a few new messages. One from Joe in town, a couple of spam texts, and one from... Ashlee?

He forgot the other two and went straight for her message. Maybe she’d been missing him, or had thought about him a lot! Maybe it was time for a reconciliation! Or maybe… Pete shuddered at the thought of something bad happening to her or Bronx, and continued to open the message, now dreading its contents instead of looking forward to them.

He had no need to worry though. It was simply a picture message. Bronx was sat on the floor in a Superman T-shirt with a pair of bongo drums, hands resting on them as if he’d just hit them hard, a big grin on his little face. Pete sighed longingly as he gazed at the picture intently, hardly wanting to tear his eyes away, before reading the little message underneath.

He wants me to tell you he’s a rock star now, just like you. =) He misses you very much. Ash

A lump came to Pete’s throat, which he berated himself for. It had only been two days, and already he was missing his son like crazy. This was why he needed Patrick’s advice. He always knew what to do with stuff like this.

Pete strained his ears to the talk coming from the lounge. It was deep and intelligent, and showed no signs of stopping. It seemed Patrick had found a match in William for intellectual conversations, as they were no longer talking about the CD but… the future of music? Those were some deep ideas coming out. Things Patrick had never told him before.

He looked back down at his phone, at the picture he knew would become his phone wallpaper for the next few weeks. As he stared at the round cheeks and dark eyes he couldn’t help but worry again. He missed playing with Bronx, drawing things with him, playing piano with him, talking about his friend Cody from kindergarten. He couldn’t help absent-mindedly trailing his finger around Bronx’s face, pessimism already taking over.

I hope he’s doing better than I am.

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[AN: I'm so sorry, guys! I have had a really busy week, looking at a university and exams and urrrrgh. x( Anyway, please keep the reviews coming, thank you! x]