Chapter Text
From: [email protected]
Subject: RE: Ticket Confirmation
Charlie—
I did exactly what you said and reserved you a ticket back to LHR from SNA Orange County (fucking expensive wth?) Delta then Virgin Atlantic, leaving a noon and get in around 10am GMT. Aaron confirmed he’ll pick you up from Heathrow.
Thanks again for the job xx
--Sadie
Patrick Gallagher (@StPatty_)
Last hurrah @VansWarpedTour before I’m off to London #warpedtour #withtheband
Bittersweet Surrender (@bittersweetsurrender)
@VansWarpedTour hanging out with our fav little actor from the motherland @StPatty_
Text message to Salem
Charlie: You’ll never guess who I just saw!!!!!
Charlie: Do you want a hint?
Charlie: You want a hint don’t you?
Salem: Stahp!!!!!
Salem: You’re actually evil.
Salem: Leave me to my tinkering
Charlie: …tinkering with what exactly babe?
Salem: Omg why do I know you?
Charlie: ;)
Salem: Go enjoy warped and leave me to die
Charlie: Lmao ok drama queen
Charles Beck (@CharlieBeck)
Wow @VansWarpedTour the smell of weed is thick in the air today
Text message to Charlie
Xavier: God save me please do not tweet while high
Charlie: I’m not?
Charlie: I’m a little drunk though tbh
Xavier: This isn’t a joke Charlie
Charlie: Ok I’m 18 not 8
Charlie: Ive been famous about as long as you’ve been micromanaging careers
Charlie: I know about discretion
Xavier: I’m taking precautions to protect you
Charlie: I fucking worked for DISNEY. I know how this works
Kelsie Klein (@KelssssBells<3)
:* dreams really do come true @StPatty_
Crystal from Kensington (@CrysKenYo)
I met @StPatty_ AND @CharlieBeck all in one day! Like who else is trolling @VansWarpedTour ?
June 2015
“So I see you’ve been off having fun,” Torin commented with a tone that bordered dangerously on bitter as he dropped onto the sofa beside Patrick.
With anyone else, Patrick might have leered and joked that yes he most certainly was, but Torin was…not there yet. Would probably never be there. This whole ‘why don’t you come see us play Warped’ had been a spur-of-the-moment decision intended to try and maintain a friendship that Patrick had known instinctually would never work between them. Torin threw himself too deep into their relationship for them to just shake hands, kiss cheeks, and makeup as friends like none of their shared, small town sixth form romance had never happened.
Tilting his head back and running a hand through his overgrown dark hair, Patrick shook his head and studied Torin’s pinched expression for long enough that the other man huffed in annoyance. Patrick rolled his eyes. “What did you think I was going to do when I came here Torin?”
“You don’t have to flaunt all your gross little sexcapades right in my face?” Torin snapped.
Raising his eyebrows, Patrick pulled his cigarettes out of his pocket, his fingers instinctually performing the routine assembly without even looking. When he’d finished, Torin pulled out of a lighter and lit it with a single, practiced motion; Patrick didn’t respond as he leaned forward until the end smoldered, pulling in a deep breath and releasing a cloud of smoke. Fuck he wished his had some marijuana for this conversation.
They’d been dancing around it since Patrick had arrived in Pomona from where he’d been vacationing in Big Sur until his move back to London.
That had been the plan. A holiday. Not a passive-aggressive attempt at reconnecting and reestablishing a friendship with his ex-boyfriend during one of the biggest rock/alternative/screamo music festivals in the country. Whatever. He could play ball…and Patrick had doubted Torin would let it go otherwise.
Following one more drag of his cigarette, Patrick met his ex’s melancholy gaze and sighed. He really wanted marijuana. “Torin—”
Torin shook his head and cut him off. “I thought you came here so we could work things out.”
“Yeah,” Patrick nodded, “our friendship. We can’t…” he sat up, gaze focusing with laserlike precision on the man in front of him who looked entirely too much like a depressed, hangdog, beaten puppy for the amount of leather, studs, and grim tattoos smudged under black warpaint currently adorning his lithe frame. “You didn’t think we were going to work out our relationship, did you?”
Throwing his arms up, Torin got his feet, throwing back the last of his beer and glaring at the bottle like it had personally offended him. “I guess the fuck not! God, what is wrong with you? Do you even have feelings?”
“Tone it down,” Patrick purred, relaxing even further on the sofa, lips pressed together tightly and a dangerous quirk to his lips. “Don’t act like I’m the bad guy here. You knew what this was supposed to be. You deluded yourself into thinking this was more than what it was.”
“Yeah I’ll bet. That’s what our whole relationship was!” Torin shouted at him.
“Fucking hell,” Patrick cursed, rising from the sofa stiffly to shoulder passed Torin to the trailer’s refrigerator, the lit cigarette still perched in his fingertips as he bypassed beer to get straight for the bottle of Jack Daniel’s stored at the back by the band’s lead singer for ‘hella fucking emergencies.’ He’d apologize later…or buy him another…or whatever. This was a fucking emergency; relationship talks were not Patrick’s forte, apparently. Torin had been his first and only long-term relationship, and after this hellacious intercession, probably his last until he needed a walker, Viagra, and dialysis three times a week.
Torin crossed his arms over his chest and glared at him, “Lovely, Patty, really.”
“Like you haven’t drank you weight in whiskey when you’re overwhelmed.”
“I haven’t during a fucking discussion, because I actually like to pretend I’m an adult. Do you even see yourself right?” Torin hissed at him. “We were together for two years, and you can’t even have a conversation with me without downing half a bottle of Jack in under two minutes and chain-smoking!”
Patrick ran a hand through his hair again, faking a smile as he took another gulp of his whiskey. “Why are we doing this, Torin? You knew that me coming here wouldn’t fix anything, you had to know. We broke up because we’re not compatible anywhere except a bedroom.”
“No,” Torin corrected Patrick, seething. “We broke up, because you refuse to acknowledge you have a relationship.”
“I’m an actor,” Patrick whirled on him, “not a drummer in an emo rockband where depressed tweens in too much eyeliner who OD on skinny jeans and band merch eat that sexuality shit up. I live in the real world where my career is still tenuous at best, and the types of parts that play don’t get given to people who suck cock!”
The door was yanked open, and Corey, the band’s lead singer, stood outlined in the opening, arms crossed over his chest as he glanced between the two of them with narrowed eyes and an irate expression directed almost primarily at Patrick. “What the fuck is going on here, lads? Because everyone in half a mile radius can hear the pair of you screaming at each other, which, I assume, Hollywood over here would rather not have happen.” He leveled his gaze on Patrick with a dare in his eyes.
Forcing a smile, Patrick shook his head and put out his cigarette on the rim of the sink, smirking when he noted Corey’s grimace.
“Just getting scolded by my mother for getting drunk, high, and shagged.”
“You’re such an arsehole,” Torin spat furiously.
Patrick laughed humorlessly as the band’s guitarist stepped out from the back where the bunks were, shaking out his scraggly bedhead as he glared at Patrick through his hooded, sleepy eyes.
“Fucking hell, both of you,” Quinn moaned. “A man can’t even get any sleep around here without drama. Sort yourselves out, fuck’s sake anyway.”
He plucked the glass bottle from Patrick’s fingertips and finished it with three hard swallows, pointing between the three men blearily. “We have to be on stage in like an hour. All I want to do is sleep. Fuck. Take your problems back to Ireland. Swear to God.”
“Sorry mate,” Corey apologized even as he tossed Patrick a poisonous look. “Still here then, Gallagher?”
Quinn lowered the bottle and crooked an eyebrow at his bandmate. “That’s kind of what I meant before, Corey. Antagonism isn’t gonna get me any sleep, is it?”
Patrick turned to Quinn and huffed, squeezing the bridge of his nose and trying to control his breathing. It took him considerably less time to cool down that it had to work him up, and he reached out to grasp Quinn’s forearm in a wordless thanks. “Sorry, Quinn. I’ll just be off before I ruin your sleep patterns anymore, yeah?”
“Probably best,” Quinn whispered to him. “It has been great seeing you, lad, but Torin’s still…well…”
In love with you.
He didn’t say it, but, then, Quinn didn’t have to. Everyone who knew Torin—even independent of Patrick—knew that. Patrick had been asked about ‘that rockstar who’s crushing hard on you’ in one too many interviews and received more than his fair share of ‘fix it fucker’ looks from his manager and agent to last him a lifetime. That, of course, hadn’t been the sole reason Patrick had decided it would be better they split.
Frankly, after two years being ‘high school sweethearts’—as Torin’s American bassist had termed it—the fact that Torin’s undisguised affection made him uncomfortable rather than charmed had been the biggest clue. He might be a sexual being but great sex wasn’t everything. Certainly not worth risking his career over.
Nodding, Patrick gave Quinn’s arm a squeeze, and Quinn nodded back once, eyes following Patrick as he made his way out of the trailer without once looking back at Torin and deliberately brushing shoulders with Corey who only stepped a few centimeters to the side to allow him exit. He wasn’t intimidated by Corey. Not after spending the last few years sitting in boardrooms with Pitbulls and sharks around Hollywood.
Pausing just on the outskirts of the crowd, Patrick pulled out another cigarette and focused on his priorities.
Priority one: alcohol.
Any alcohol.
Priority two: …music? Maybe?
Asking Alexandria had yet to play. We Came As Romans. He wasn’t sure about Black Veil Brides, though. That he’d have to check.
Lighting up, he made a mental list in his head and made his way through the crow of half-dressed young adults who’d stripped down earlier beneath the beating sun to bare pale, skinny chests and bikini tops, some streaked in body paint that someone had likely passed around, and more than a few advertising ‘free hugs.’ He snorted. He knew personally that free hugs turned into blowjobs behind the bathrooms really fast. The smell of weed loitered in the air, and the temperature had dipped down to something bearable as the sun set.
It wasn’t until he settled on the periphery of the crowd gathering around for Black Veil Brides to come on stage and finish out the evening with a nearly empty cup of Guinness in one hand and a joint in the other that he felt himself relax. Leaning against the tree, Patrick tilted his head back to the sky and let the contentment wash over him. Faceless in a crowd of hundreds. A cacophony of indistinguishable chatter. The scent of fried food, beer, and marijuana mingling together beautifully in the air.
The lack of his ex-boyfriend chewing him out of feelings—or lack thereof—he could hardly control.
The moment shattered abruptly when he felt a body collide with his.
The stumble dislodged the beer from his hand and sent it tumbling to the ground to splash and soak into the fabric of his ancient Vans. Reaching out automatically to steady the giggling man—hold that thought: kid…boy…teenager—who’d slammed into him, Patrick heaved a long-suffering sigh as he looked up to find himself met with a head of glossy golden curls.
“Whoops. Fuck. Hi.”
Still giggling, the teenager steadied himself by gripping Patrick’s forearm with one hand while the other clung to his waist, pulling them in close together as he struggled to find his footing over the exposed root of the tree.
Patrick quirked an eyebrow as he let the kid adjust and find his balance, breathing in the scent of cardamom, rosemary, an undertone of just nature…and beer. Cheap beer. A lot of cheap beer. “You’re absolutely hammered,” Patrick laughed slightly as the teenager shifted to rest his hands against Patrick’s chest, shaking his head and giggling again as he just collapsed against Patrick’s body.
Startled, Patrick managed to catch him in some semblance of a hug, blinking in surprise before glancing down to find a pair of glazed sapphire eyes peering up at him from beneath thick dark lashes. He nestled closer to Patrick and giggled again as he nodded profusely, “Yup.”
Fucking hell this kid was smashed, adorable, and…familiar, though Patrick couldn’t place where he’d have seen him before.
Forcing himself away from that particular line of thought, he took a drag of his joint, smirking when the kid’s face pinched in a blatant grimace. He mashed his nose against the fabric of Patrick’s shirt, taking a deep breath. Like I said, fucking adorable…and a baby…right? “Are you even legal?”
Blinking thoughtfully, the kid frowned, eyes zooming in on the blunt. Patrick saw it coming but didn’t react, allowing the kid to pluck the marijuana out of his fingers with a curled upper lip and drop it on the ground, squashing it under the sole of his sleek black Prada sneaker. That had him drawing back, because what kind of kid goes to Vans Warped Tour in Prada sneakers?
“You good now?” Patrick teased, lip curving up in a smile as he watched the kid’s eyebrows draw together as he thought that question over.
“You asked…what?”
“Are you legal?” He asked, slower.
Devolving into another round of giggles, he rested his forehead against Patrick’s collarbone, wrapping his arms around his waist. “Not here.”
So he was somewhere then, which made Patrick feel mildly better about a drunken teenager cling to him like a koala.
The UK, Patrick guessed, given the clipped and decidedly posh London accent undercutting the kind of silken, melodic voice that would be welcome and praised in radio. Sighing, Patrick shook his head. “How did you even get served?”
With a ‘what are you talking about smile’ the kid pulled back slightly to tap Patrick on the nose, “She knew me. Liked me. Propi…proppit…propo…sititionin me? Yeah?”
Patrick couldn’t contain either the smile or the laugh as he nodded in understanding; stilling when he finally thought over the words, he looked back down at kid in his arms. “How did she know you?”
Instead of providing an answer that in anyway made any kind of sense—though what did he actually expect from a teenager so smashed he couldn’t even follow the thread of conversation—he received a smoldering look and a coquettish smile, hands moving from where they’d been gripping the fabric of his shirt to skim his sides and rest low on his hips. Smashed, seductive, and simultaneously adorable was a deadly enough cocktail to kick start Patrick’s libido, but ‘smashed’ and ‘unknown age’ worried him enough to maintain just enough distance between the pair of them.
“No,” Patrick caught his wrist and held them up against the kid’s own chest.
Pouting, the teen leaned into the hold and tilted his head up. “Please,” he purred.
Fucking hell he needs to stop. Patrick shook his head, doubling his determination. “You’re wasted.”
“And you’re baked,” he had enough awareness to reply.
Okay, Patrick would concede that was true. Still…no.
“I don’t even know how old you are,” he tried, hold loosening just enough for the teen to slip through his hold, twining his arms around Patrick’s neck and pressing their bodies together.
“Legal enough,” he responded.
Nonono. The rational part of his mind apparently forgot to let him know that it had divorced the reactionary part. That part he would blame from now until eternity for moving to this unnamed person’s—God help him it would scar him for life if he mentally kept calling him ‘the kid’—waist, slipping beneath his tank top to brush against his skin. Shivering, he pressed closer and licked up Patrick’s neck as he fingers tangled in his hair. He pressed a kiss beneath’s Patrick’s ear.
Fucking hell.
“I don’t even know you’re name,” he finally said, resolve dissolving under the bright, dimpled smile.
Standing on his tiptoes, lips pressed against his, and Patrick moaned, tugging him closer. He whispered into Patrick’s mouth with a smug, triumphant smile, “My name’s Charlie.”