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If Pete gives himself a moment to think, he'd probably recognize the swoop of his stomach when Travie shows him what they're going to do for the shoot as suspiciously similar to the butterflies of a crush.
Pete doesn't have a crush, so this is irrelevant information. And the bikes are super sweet. Worthy of swooping.
"I want the orange one," he tells Travie. "I pick the orange one. Gimme."
Travie cuffs him around the neck indulgently and hands over a set of ignition keys. Pete's hand curls around the metal and plastic. They're warm, just like him, basking in the sun. "They should make the keys orange too."
"Go to a hardware store and they'll do it for you."
"Thanks, dad." Pete swings his leg over the seat and scuffs his shoes on the pavement. "Rad."
Travie puts a helmet on his head and smiles at him. It's dazzling like the scooter, unforgettable like the orange paint, arresting like a bad simile. "Suit up, bro. Safety first."
They're going like five miles an hour, so Travie's insistence on helmets is dumb - Pete doesn't wear a helmet when he jogs - but whatever. They go around the block a couple of times each on his own bike, Pete catching up to Bruno and Travie, squinting in the sunshine, and then Travie makes them all stop. He pulls him back by the hoodie and plops down on Pete's fucking scooter.
"Mine," says Pete, slapping Travie's helmet. "The hell."
"Hey, baby," Travie says, shaking against Pete with laughter. "I'll take you for a spin."
Pete hangs on for the next hour, his arms wrapped around Travie's waist. Girlfriend, he thinks sometime around minute forty, or maybe minute five, because he lost track of time in the space between hiding his face in Travie's shirt and cursing out the helmet for not letting him press closer. Travie's probably not going to give him shit for it.
Travie, in fact, helps Pete off the bike when they're done with only a slightly contemplative look, and even brings him a granola bar to eat while Travie does something with the crew. Pete zones out for a while, ripping the wrapper into small pieces and periodically shifting on the concrete, numbness from sitting cycling through his body parts in a weirdly comfortable way. You know what to expect from concrete.
"Petey," Travie says. His shadow is way long, hugging the ground and wrapping around all the loose awkward angles of Pete's body.
"What time is it?"
"Five-ish." Travie stretches his hands out, making gimme hands at Pete. "Come here, brother."
Pete puts his hands in Travie's and lets Travie pull him up, stumbles into him and lets Travie right him.
"Pizza," Travie says definitively, pulling out his phone and scrolling down his contacts list. "Two large. We'll need it."
They go to Travie's house; Pete yanks the lever to tilt the passenger seat and lies back, head rolled on the backrest to watch Travie drive. Travie's implacable calm in the face of LA traffic somehow parts it like the Red Sea and gets them home before the pizza. It's his superpower.
Pizza, Travie's couch, so soft and deep Pete's knees don't reach the edge, a pipe and an hour, and Pete's buzzing and warm, warmer than he was in the sunlight, warmer even than sitting on the bike behind Travie. He keeps looking at Travie, too, studying him like he hasn't in years, the easy way Travie sits like nothing in the world bothers him, Travie's long tattooed fingers relaxed and still. Pete reaches out and strokes them, because it's not a big deal in general and definitely not after a pipe.
Travie turns his hand over and back, letting Pete reach the palm and the tattoos on the back, pet every finger. "Something you want, sweetheart?"
Pete's hand slips and his nails scratch across Travie's hand. "Shit, sorry."
"No harm done." Travie sits up a little, shifts his legs so Pete's leaning into his side, close like they were on the scooter. "Hang on for a second."
He puts the pipe down on the end table, takes Pete's hand, and leans down to kiss him.
It's just what Pete wanted, making out, making out with Travie, the way they hadn't in a long time. He clutches at Travie's hand and fists his other hand in the back of Travie's shirt as Travie pushes him against the cushions and settles down between Pete's legs.
"Why didn't you just tell me, baby boy?" Travie murmurs between one heady smoke-flavored kiss and the next. "I don't need convincing to kiss you."
"I was convincing myself," Pete says, even though Travie's not expecting a reply, even though the words get lost in Travie's mouth.
Travie's got him stretched out under him on the couch, and it's very like all those other times they made out. But it's completely different, too, because Pete remembers the bike, how it was to hang on while Travie steered, how it was to feel like his girlfriend. That doesn't even mean anything, but the word pings something deep-rooted in Pete's mind, and he lets Travie give him kiss after kiss and thinks of what Travie does with his girlfriends, his mouth between their legs, licking until they sob, and his cock inside them, big and steady, like Travie is.
Travie shifts against him, definitely hard, and Pete slams back into the present. "Fuck."
Travie laughs and shifts more deliberately. "Want something more?"
Pete drops his hands from Travie's body as his hips twitch against Travie's thigh. He's so hard he can't take it, and that's weird, because Travie and him have never been like that. But Travie's looking down at him with only a little bit of humor in the back of his eyes and the corner of his smile, and Pete says, "I want... fuck."
Travie slides one hand under Pete's hoodie and the other into Pete's pants, cupping him through his briefs. Pete whines, quiet and completely embarrassing. Travie's hands are warm from holding Pete's hand, warm from holding Pete's head steady so Travie could kiss him the way he wanted. "What do you want, pretty boy?"
Pete's throat works but nothing comes out until he tries really hard. "Can we go to bed?"
Things that happen in beds aren't necessarily more real than things that happen on couches, but Pete doesn't necessarily need that either. The illusion of real, that's his jam. He needs that.
Travie grins at him and slides his hand up up up, flattening his palm over a nipple and making Pete gasp and writhe under Travie's other hand. "And what are we going to do in my bed?
Pete's face is so hot. "Travie."
Travie's smile gentles. "Handjobs? Me going down on you? I'd like that."
Pete would like that too, but he can't get the bike out of his head. "Maybe more than that."
To Travie's credit, his eyebrow doesn't even rise that high. "You're more of a kiddie pool guy, usually."
That stings but it's fair. "Whatever, I want to."
Travie rubs a circle around Pete's dick, almost contemplative, and Pete's even more sure about this. "Is that a yes or no?"
Travie leans down to kiss Pete, gentle and easy, and pulls back just when Pete needs to breathe to loosen the ache in his chest from how sweet it was. "That's a yes."
He actually picks Pete up. It almost breaks the mood, like they're still goofing around on tour, but it makes Pete laugh and have to hang onto Travie's neck. He kisses Pete on the way to the bedroom too, missing his mouth entirely and getting Pete's cheek instead, lips cool compared to how hot Pete feels, and Pete nearly slips off in the doorway. But then they're finally in bed, on unmade but clean white sheets, and Travie's smiling down at Pete, tracing his mouth with his fingers.
"Take-- um, take your shirt off.”
Travie does, and Pete's mouth goes dry. Travie unzips his pants, too, and Pete says, stupidly, "I've never seen your dick."
"It's just a dick. Promise."
"Your dick doesn't have surprises?"
"I didn't get any upgrades." Travie kicks his pants off and slips off his boxers, and yeah, okay, it's just a dick but it's a hard one, and Pete would freak out except for how much he wants that right now.
His hand drifts to his own zipper. "Should I..."
"I can't fuck you if you're dressed," Travie grins.
That’s probably a lie, but a hot as fuck one, and Pete strips quickly before he has a chance to overthink it.
"Like that, honey, I want to see all of your pretty skin," Travie murmurs to him.
"Bet you say that to all of them," Pete says, quietly pleased. Pushing down the terror comes surprisingly easy.
Travie's on top of him, then, so much warm skin on his skin, and Travie's mouth on his, stubble and beard scratching against Pete's chin. "You're the only one I'm thinking of."
Travie's an amazing kisser, figuring out or maybe remembering exactly what Pete likes. Or maybe he is just what Pete likes, the right person to kiss Pete right here, right now, in this part of Pete's life.
And it’s easy, somehow, for Pete to spread his legs, tentatively at first and then wider, and time is a stuttering blur, Pete’s hand fisted in the sheets and Travie’s mouth on Pete’s dick, Pete’s foot cramping from how fucking good it is, until Pete comes and catches his breath.
“Still want to?” Travie asks quietly, petting the back of Pete’s thigh.
Pete does, rolls over with just a gentle nudge and lets Travie stroke his back until he’s easy and loose-limbed and shuddering in anticipation. It’s like Pete imagined, steady and relentless, more weird than good but not bad at all. Pete can picture Travie doing it with others, stretching them and-- and being in them, taking and giving back, and it makes him even hotter. His skin feels two sizes too small, his face is burning up and he’s drooling on the sheets, and he has to think about how Travie must look, fucking him, instead of how he himself must look with his shoulders on the mattress, his ass in the air and his knees slipping on the sheets with every thrust.
“You’re so pretty like this,” Travie murmurs in his ear like he knows exactly what Pete is thinking. “Such a tight fuck, baby, going to take forever with you.”
Pete moans and pushes his face into the mattress, wishing there was a pillow, a blanket, anything to hide his face, but Travie’s reads his mind again. He pulls out, making Pete feel desperately empty, but, more importantly, he rolls him over before sinking inside again, and Pete’s staring into Travie’s eyes and Travie’s looking at his face.
“Hey,” Pete manages and groans on a thrust that goes deeper than before. “Oh fuck.”
Travie laughs at him quietly and stills. “Okay like this?”
Pete wiggles around and bites his lip. It’s more than okay, it’s weird edging into really fucking good. He feels around down there, the terrifying openness of him and Travie's coarse hair, the ring of the condom at the base of Travie's dick.
Pete swallows. “You can move.”
“Yeah,” Travie says hoarsely. “Fuck, Pete.”
“Come on, come on.”
“Easy there, baby,” Travie tells him, bending down for a kiss. He runs his hands around Pete’s bent knees and lifts up, pushing Pete’s thighs up and out. “Put your knee on my shoulder, baby, yeah, just like that. That’s good.”
Pete swallows and squeezes his eyes shut. He doesn’t know what to do with his hands, with any of his body. He feels his thighs shake with the strain. It feels so dirty-right, the way he’s splayed open. He can’t think about it.
“So pretty,” Travie tells him tenderly and rocks his hips. “Look at you.”
“Can’t,” Pete manages. “No ceiling mirror.”
Travie laughs and sets a slow rhythm, counterpoint to Pete’s heartbeat, and strokes the tender, barely touched skin high up on Pete’s inside thighs. “I’d ink you here if you let me. Only for you and people you’d allow to see.”
For you, Pete thinks, and nods frantically, biting his lip. Travie has him pinned with his thumbs on the flat part of Pete's thighs, between the tendons and so close to Pete's balls, to Pete's half-hard cock. With his cock in Pete's ass. Pete flushes hotter when he thinks the words.
"Don't you worry, baby boy," croons Travie, spreading Pete's legs wider like Pete's some fucking porn star, legs in the air, getting fucked. "I gotcha."
That can't be the girlfriend experience, Pete thinks, dazed, his body sparking on the beat of Travie's movement, and brings his heavy arms around Travie's neck to pull him close enough to kiss. Travie's dick shifts and Pete sparks brighter, barely hanging on.
"Can I come inside you, sweetheart?" asks Travie into his mouth. "Can I, baby? I won't make a mess with the rubber."
Pete's thighs and crack are slick with lube, and Travie must understand the look on his face because he grins at him, half-apologetic and half-sly, and Pete gets it, that the mess is a side effect of being with Travie, that there's just no other way. It would probably be even messier if Pete were Travie's girlfriend, because it wouldn't just be the squeeze of lube. He'd keep leaking, getting wetter with every touch, because Travie has magic hands, an artist's hands, and fucks like a mind-reader.
Travie thrusts harder and faster than before, his mouth falling open into a soft, shiny O -- shiny with Pete's kisses, Pete's not the only one here who's a mess -- and Pete realizes that he's hard again just as Travie jerks inside him and groans, coming inside Pete, hot but dry.
"Wow, okay," Pete gasps. "So that's the Travie McCoy experience."
Travie bites his shoulder just hard enough to sting and pulls out, easing Pete's legs down onto the mattress. They ache, and Pete can tell it shows on his face, because Travie quickly gets the condom off and strokes Pete's thighs, massaging, just barely skirting the skin he'd as good as promised to ink.
"Not done yet," Travie promises, and goes down on Pete again, this time with his fingers in Pete's ass, laughing around Pete's cock when Pete clenches around him, pushing in deeper when Pete jerks from the way his laughter feels.
After, Pete drifts, tired even though Travie did most of the work, all the work, really, but he returns Travie's kisses, lazy but willing. His mouth and the skin around it are scratched up from Travie's beard, because Travie loves to nuzzle, and his neck feels lonely because Travie hasn't kissed him there yet.
"I'll go down on you later," Pete says, tugging Travie's head down to his neck and arching into his mouth. "I will."
"Nope," Travie says, licking long and slow like a cat down to Pete's collar tat. "Not having you freak out on me."
"I wouldn't," Pete says, offended, "kiss me here," squirming until Travie's mouth is on the hollow of his throat. "You just fucked me and I didn't freak out. Blowjobs are less scary than fucking."
Travie sucks a bruise right where everyone will see, impermanent ink, but Pete can just tell they both will always know it's there. "There is no sex chart where you can look that up."
"I'll prove it to you. Later."
"Uh-huh." Travie gives Pete's neck one last kiss and lifts his head so their faces are next to each other on the mattress. "So pretty, Wentzy," he says softly, running a finger around the curve of Pete's jaw. "You should see yourself."
Pete wants to deny it, but instead he hears, "Take a picture," come out of his mouth. "My phone's in my pocket. I want to see."
Travie lifts an eyebrow but digs around for Pete's phone on his floor, and Pete has to dig his nails into his palm to keep his breathing steady at Travie's easy unconcerned nakedness. Travie's ass is right there, his cock's right there, still shiny at the tip.
"Say cheese, baby boy," Travie directs, but Pete can't summon a smile, only a quiet exhalation, looking past the camera at Travie's focused expression.
"Look," Travie says. "Ceiling mirror."
It hits Pete in the gut. In the photo, his mouth is red and scratched up, like he knew it would be, but there are also spots of bright flaming red high on his cheeks, sweat-dry hair plastered to his forehead, and he looks serious, so fucking serious, like something momentous happened that wasn't just a hookup with one of his best friends. An amazing hookup, a hookup he's pretty sure no one ever had on a tour, let alone him, but still a hookup.
Pete clears his throat. "That's not for twitter."
Travie gives him a look. "Can I send it to myself?"
Pete wants to turn his head, hide in the pillow again, but he ends up looking up at Travie with what is probably the same look as he had in the picture. "There's nothing incriminating in it, really."
Travie's hand flutters down to rest on Pete's batheart tattoo. "Nope."
"So yeah. Go for it."
"Thanks," Travie says and hits a few buttons. "I like it."
Pete squirms, embarrassed. "You can see my mug any old time."
"Yeah," Travie says fondly. He taps the skin of Pete's stomach. Tap tap tap, fingers beating out a rhythm. "Go to sleep, Wentzy."
Pete shifts on the sheets. Something inside him -- his ass, because he just got fucked -- twinges uncomfortably. "You want me to stay?"
"It's a big bed, Petey." There's something really warm in Travie's voice that Pete won't let himself think about while he's still naked and slippery in Travie's bed.
"Okay."
Travie holds him comfortably, because he knows how Pete likes to be held, and falls asleep fast, while Pete's still watching the sun slowly sink down for the night. When Travie is breathing evenly and deeply against Pete's shoulder, Pete slips out of bed, phone clutched in hand.
Travie is painfully gorgeous in the white bed. Pete only looks for a few seconds, but the urge to take a snapshot of his dark arm, the fingers that touched Pete everywhere, in the pale folds of a twisted sheet is overpowering. It would be dumb, though, too dumb,so Pete grabs his briefs from the floor and backs out of the bedroom.
Walking down the hall is slick and uncomfortable, so he veers into the bathroom. The toilet paper helps. He carefully wipes up, face burning at what he's doing, and puts on his underwear before he can think about it more, how he blotted smeared lube from his ass and thighs. Where Travie wanted to ink him. Fuck.
Pete's sat in Travie's living room in his underwear only before, so that part has a semblance of normality. Dialing Gabe with a post-coital freakout is somewhat less so. Pete usually has those privately.
"Hey, brother. What's up? I thought Travie was babysitting you." Gabe is delighted under the eleven layers of irony, Pete can tell.
And now he doesn't even need an opening. Pete bites his lips and drums his fingers on the grease-stained pizza box.
"Wow, I'm good, there really is a crisis," Gabe says in his ear after a pause, less exuberant and more concerned. "What's going on? Tell papi. Relieve your soul."
Pete sighs and does what Gabe tells him, which usually works out pretty well for him. Gabe is shit at his own problems and brilliant at Pete's. It's like Pete uses up all of Gabe's competence. He feels guilty about it, in that vague, shoved to the back of his mind way that only floats to the surface with insomnia, but every time he's passive-aggressively brought it up, Gabe told him to shut up and spill.
"I kind of... had sex with Travie."
There's a little breath at the end of the line, the only sign Pete will get that Gabe didn't expect this. It's pretty cool to keep finding new ways to be Pete Wentz. "Okay. And?"
"It was really, really good." Pete shifts on the cushions; Gabe waits for him. "He... well, he sucked me off twice and fucked me. So."
"That sounds like Travie," Gabe says so carefully Pete almost cracks up.
"And not me." Pete sticks his thumb in his mouth, tearing into the cuticle. "I think I was pretending to be someone else."
Gabe laughs, startled. "You have no idea how to be anyone other than yourself."
"Well, I'm Travie's friend, not his girlfriend. Why did I do that?"
"Because you wanted to? What the fuck does that even mean, you're not his girlfriend?"
Pete shrugs. "I don't know. It was just a thought I had."
Gabe sounds like he's barely hiding his exasperation. "Your thought is that you like him and want to keep having sex with him?"
"Sure," says Pete. "If you're gonna cut to the chase like that." He dips the fingers of his left hand between his thighs, holding in a sigh when they touch the skin he can only think of as uninked, now. Skin with a destiny. A canvas.
"You interrupted my poker preparations, so I will totally cut to the chase, Wentzy." Gabe pauses. "Is there something else eating you, or do I just give you my blessing to use your words?"
"He said he wants to tattoo my crotch. But I think it was just dirty talk."
"Travie never jokes about tattoos."
"Uh-huh." That's not really true, but now Pete really needs to know if Travie was serious. What would he even ink on Pete's thighs?
"Have I solved your problems?" Gabe asks.
"Not really."
Gabe sighs. "You love him."
"Obviously."
"He loves you."
Pete hums. "Yeah."
"Yes, he does. And the sex was, you said, awesome? So there's no problem."
"Okay." It's not actually that easy, but Gabe doesn't give Pete bad advice, and Pete doesn't really have other solutions aside from avoidance, and that one's as deceptively easy as an addiction. "Love you."
"Pete." Gabe's not done. "If it was me, I'd want you to tell me."
Pete picks at his cuticle. "That's not something I could ever tell you."
There's a sound, a door opening and closing gently, and Gabe's equally gentle voice. "Telling me should be a piece of cake because I love you and would never hurt you."
"Rejection would hurt."
Gabe is quiet for a second. "I'd want you to tell me anyway."
Pete swallows around the lump in his throat. "I guess. If you'd want me to. Thanks for the help."
"Yeah, yeah. Stop lurking in his living room."
Pete didn't tell him about the living room and he's not telling Gabe that he's flipping him off, but his silence is admission enough. Gabe brays a laugh into the phone, says, "Love you too," and hangs up.
Pete is cold just in his underwear anyway.
It's totally dark outside now, and Pete really wants to see Travie, so he flicks on the lamp on the bedside table. The light makes Travie stir, but only a little bit, and after a moment of heart-stopping stillness Pete gets in bed next to him.
Travie's eyes blink open slowly. Pete kind of wants to touch his lashes, but he keeps his hands to himself. "Morning, Wentzy."
"It's evening."
Travie grins and gently pets Pete's side. "I believe you."
Pete takes Travis's hand and puts it on the mattress between them. "I need to tell you something."
"Uh-oh." Travie's still smiling, but it feels a little forced now. "This is exactly how my last breakup went."
"For real? Like, in bed after sex? I thought I was the only one."
"Deflection won't work, Petey."
Pete rolls over on his stomach in hopes that it'll stop hurting that way. "You make me so hot." He laughs even though it's not funny. "Is that weird? You're one of my best friends and the only thing I can think about right now is having sex with you."
There's a soft kiss on his shoulder. "I am objectively hot."
"My feelings are perfectly natural?" Pete asks dryly.
"If your feelings are to keep having regular sex, they are one hundred percent natural."
Pete rolls over and looks up at the ceiling. "I think I might like you not just as a friend."
Then there are Travie's fingers on his jaw, turning his head so he's not hiding anymore. "When did you figure that out?"
Travie's got a weird sort of intent look on his face, different from his usual indulgent one whenever Pete's saying stupid shit.
Pete gives him a one-shouldered shrug. "Sometime today. I think it was because of the bike."
"Figures," says Travie, the corner of his mouth curling up. "We've made out how many times over the years, and it takes a cliche to get you in bed."
Pete bites his lip and keeps his hands at his sides so he doesn't push on his heart to calm it down in front of Travie. "I can't tell if that's a yes or not."
"Baby," Travie's saying quietly in his ear, just loud enough over the sound of Pete's pulse. "Of course it's a yes."