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badnewswhatsleft · 2 months

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2023 september - rock sound #300 (fall out boy cover) scans

transcript below cut!

WHAT A TIME TO BE ALIVE

With the triumphant ‘So Much (For) Stardust’ capturing a whole new generation of fans, Fall Out Boy are riding high, celebrating their past while looking towards a bright future. Pete Wentz and Patrick Stump reflect on recent successes and the lessons learned from two decades of writing and performing together.

WORDS: James Wilson-Taylor PHOTOS: Elliot Ingham

You have just completed a US summer tour that included stadium shows and some of your most ambitious production to date. What were your aims going into this particular show?

PETE: Playing stadiums is a funny thing. I pushed pretty hard to do a couple this time because I think that the record Patrick came up with musically lends itself to that feeling of being part of something larger than yourself. When we were designing the cover to the album, it was meant to be all tangible, which was a reaction to tokens and skins that you can buy and avatars. The title is made out of clay, and the painting is an actual painting. We wanted to approach the show in that way as well. We’ve been playing in front of a gigantic video wall for the past eight years. Now, we wanted a stage show where you could actually walk inside it.

Did adding the new songs from ‘So Much (For) Stardust’ into the setlist change the way you felt about them?

PATRICK: One of the things that was interesting about the record was that we took a lot of time figuring out what it was going to be, what it was going to sound like. We experimented with so many different things. I was instantly really proud. I felt really good about this record but it wasn’t until we got on stage and you’re playing the songs in between our catalogue that I really felt that. It was really noticeable from the first day on this tour - we felt like a different band. There’s a new energy to it. There was something that I could hear live that I couldn’t hear before.

You also revisited a lot of older tracks and b-sides on this tour, including many from the ‘Folie à Deux’-era. What prompted those choices?

PETE: There were some lean years where there weren’t a lot of rock bands being played on pop radio or playing award shows so we tried to play the biggest songs, the biggest versions of them. We tried to make our thing really airtight, bulletproof so that when we played next to whoever the top artist was, people were like, ‘oh yeah, they should be here.’ The culture shift in the world is so interesting because now, maybe rather than going wider, it makes more sense to go deeper with people. We thought about that in the way that we listen to music and the way we watch films. Playing a song that is a b-side or barely made a record but is someone’s favourite song makes a lot of sense in this era. PATRICK: I think there also was a period there where, to Pete’s point, it was a weird time to be a rock band. We had this very strange thing that happened to us, and not a lot of our friends for some reason, where we had a bunch of hits, right? And it didn’t make any sense to me. It still doesn’t make sense to me. But there was a kind of novelty, where we could play a whole set of songs that a lot of people know. It was fun and rewarding for us to do that. But then you run the risk of playing the same set forever. I want to love the songs that we play. I want to care about it and put passion into what we do. And there’s no sustainable way to just do the same thing every night and not get jaded. We weren’t getting there but I really wanted to make sure that we don’t ever get there. PETE: In the origin of Fall Out Boy, what happened at our concerts was we knew how to play five songs really fast and jumped off walls and the fire marshal would shut it down. It was what made the show memorable, but we wanted to be able to last and so we tried to perfect our show and the songs and the stage show and make it flawless. Then you don’t really know how much spontaneity you want to include, because something could go wrong. When we started this tour, and we did a couple of spontaneous things, it opened us up to more. Because things did go wrong and that’s what made the show special. We’re doing what is the most punk rock version of what we could be doing right now.

You seem generally a lot more comfortable celebrating your past success at this point in your career.

PETE: I think it’s actually not a change from our past. I love those records, but I never want to treat them in a cynical way. I never want there to be a wink and a smile where we’re just doing this because it’s the anniversary. This was us celebrating these random songs and we hope people celebrate them with us. There was a purity to it that felt in line with how we’ve always felt about it. I love ‘Folie à Deux’ - out of any Fall Out Boy record that’s probably the one I would listen to. But I just never want it to be done in a cynical way, where we feel like we have to. But celebrating it in a way where there’s the purity of how we felt when we wrote the song originally, I think that’s fucking awesome. PATRICK: Music is a weird art form. Because when you’re an actor and you play a character, that is a specific thing. James Bond always wears a suit and has a gun and is a secret agent. If you change one thing, that’s fine, but you can’t really change all of it. But bands are just people. You are yourself. People get attached to it like it’s a story but it’s not. That was always something that I found difficult. For the story, it’s always good to say, ‘it’s the 20th anniversary, let’s go do the 20th anniversary tour’, that’s a good story thing. But it’s not always honest. We never stopped playing a lot of the songs from ‘Take This To Your Grave’, right? So why would I need to do a 20-year anniversary and perform all the songs back to back? The only reason would be because it would probably sell a lot of tickets and I don’t really ever want to be motivated by that, frankly. One of the things that’s been amazing is that now as the band has been around for a while, we have different layers of audience. I love ‘Folie à Deux’, I do. I love that record. But I had a really personally negative experience of touring on it. So that’s what I think of when I think of that record initially. It had to be brought back to me for me to appreciate it, for me to go, ‘oh, this record is really great. I should be happy with this. I should want to play this.’ So that’s why we got into a lot of the b-sides because we realised that our perspectives on a lot of these songs were based in our feelings and experiences from when we were making them. But you can find new experiences if you play those songs. You can make new memories with them.

You alluded there to the 20th anniversary of ‘Take This To Your Grave’. Obviously you have changed and developed as a band hugely since then. But is there anything you can point to about making that debut record that has remained a part of your process since then?

PETE: We have a language, the band, and it’s definitely a language of cinema and film. That’s maintained through time. We had very disparate music tastes and influences but I think film was a place we really aligned. You could have a deep discussion because none of us were filmmakers. You could say which part was good and which part sucked and not hurt anybody’s feelings, because you weren’t going out to make a film the next day. Whereas with music, I think if we’d only had that to talk about, we would have turned out a different band. PATRICK: ‘Take This To Your Grave’, even though it’s absolutely our first record, there’s an element of it that’s still a work in progress. It is still a band figuring itself out. Andy wasn’t even officially in the band for half of the recording, right? I wasn’t even officially the guitar player for half of the recording. We were still bumbling through it. There was something that popped up a couple times throughout that record where you got these little inklings of who the band really was. We really explored that on ‘From Under The Cork Tree’. So when we talk about what has remained the same… I didn’t want to be a singer, I didn’t know anything about singing, I wasn’t planning on that. I didn’t even plan to really be in this band for that long because Pete had a real band that really toured so I thought this was gonna be a side project. So there’s always been this element within the band where I don’t put too many expectations on things and then Pete has this really big ambition, creatively. There’s this great interplay between the two of us where I’m kind of oblivious, and I don’t know when I’m putting out a big idea and Pete has this amazing vision to find what goes where. There’s something really magical about that because I never could have done a band like this without it. We needed everybody, we needed all four of us. And I think that’s the thing that hasn’t changed - the four of us just being ourselves and trying to figure things out. Listening back to ‘Folie’ or ‘Infinity On High’ or ‘American Beauty’, I’m always amazed at how much better they are than I remember. I listened to ‘MANIA’ the other day, and I have a lot of misgivings about that record, a lot of things I’m frustrated about. But then I’m listening to it and I’m like ‘this is pretty good.’ There’s a lot of good things in there. I don’t know why, it’s kind of like you can’t see those things. It’s kind of amazing to have Pete be able to see those things. And likewise, sometimes Pete has no idea when he writes something brilliant, as a lyricist, and I have to go, ‘No, I’m gonna keep that one, I’m gonna use that.’

On ‘So Much (For) Stardust’, you teamed up with producer Neal Avron again for the first time since 2008. Given how much time has passed, did it take a minute to reestablish that connection or did you pick up where you left off?

PATRICK: It really didn’t feel like any time had passed between us and Neal. It was pretty seamless in terms of working with him. But then there was also the weird aspect where the last time we worked with him was kind of contentious. Interpersonally, the four of us were kind of fighting with each other… as much as we do anyway. We say that and then that myth gets built bigger than it was. We were always pretty cool with each other. It’s just that the least cool was making ‘Folie’. So then getting into it again for this record, it was like no time has passed as people but the four of us got on better so we had more to bring to Neal. PETE: It’s a little bit like when you return to your parents’ house for a holiday break when you’re in college. It’s the same house but now I can drink with my parents. We’d grown up and the first times we worked with Neal, he had to do so much more boy scout leadership, ‘you guys are all gonna be okay, we’re gonna do this activity to earn this badge so you guys don’t fucking murder each other.’ This time, we probably got a different version of Neal that was even more creative, because he had to do less psychotherapy. He went deep too. Sometimes when you’re in a session with somebody, and they’re like, ‘what are we singing about?’, I’ll just be like, ‘stuff’. He was not cool with ‘stuff’. I would get up and go into the bathroom outside the studio and look in the mirror, and think ‘what is it about? How deep are we gonna go?’ That’s a little but scarier to ask yourself. If last time Neal was like a boy scout leader, this time, it was more like a Sherpa. He was helping us get to the summit.

The title track of the album also finds you in a very reflective mood, even bringing back lyrics from ‘Love From The Other Side’. How would you describe the meaning behind that title and the song itself?

PETE: The record title has a couple of different meanings, I guess. The biggest one to me is that we basically all are former stars. That’s what we’re made of, those pieces of carbon. It still feels like the world’s gonna blow and it’s all moving too fast and the wrong things are moving too slow. That track in particular looks back at where you sometimes wish things had gone differently. But this is more from the perspective of when you’re watching a space movie, and they’re too far away and they can’t quite make it back. It doesn’t matter what they do and at some point, the astronaut accepts that. But they’re close enough that you can see the look on their face. I feel like there’s moments like that in the title track. I wish some things were different. But, as an adult going through this, you are too far away from the tether, and you’re just floating into space. It is sad and lonely but in some ways, it’s kind of freeing, because there’s other aspects of our world and my life that I love and that I want to keep shaping and changing. PATRICK: I’ll open up Pete’s lyrics and I just start hearing things. It almost feels effortless in a lot of ways. I just read his lyrics and something starts happening in my head. The first line, ‘I’m in a winter mood, dreaming of spring now’, instantly the piano started to form to me. That was a song that I came close to not sending to the band. When I make demos, I’ll usually wait until I have five or six to send to everybody. I didn’t know if anyone was gonna like this. It’s too moody or it’s not very us. But it was pretty unanimous. Everyone liked that one. I knew this had to end the record. It took on a different life in the context of the whole album. Then on the bridge section, I knew it was going to be the lyrics from ‘Love From The Other Side’. It’s got to come back here. It’s the bookends, but I also love lyrically what it does, you know, ‘in another life, you were my babe’, going back to that kind of regret, which feels different in ‘Love From The Other Side’ than it does here. When the whole song came together, it was the statement of the record.

Aside from the album, you have released a few more recent tracks that have opened you up to a whole new audience, most notably the collaboration with Taylor Swift on ‘Electric Touch’.

PETE: Taylor is the only artist that I’ve met or interacted with in recent times who creates exactly the art of who she is, but does it on such a mass level. So that’s breathtaking to watch from the sidelines. The way fans traded friendship bracelets, I don’t know what the beginning of it was, but you felt that everywhere. We felt that, I saw that in the crowd on our tour. I don’t know Taylor well, but I think she’s doing exactly what she wants and creating exactly the art that she wants to create. And doing that, on such a level, is really awe-inspiring to watch. It makes you want to make the biggest, weirdest version of our thing and put that out there.

Then there was the cover of Billy Joel’s ‘We Didn’t Start The Fire’, which has had some big chart success for you. That must have taken you slightly by surprise.

PATRICK: It’s pretty unexpected. Pete and I were going back and forth about songs we should cover and that was an idea that I had. This is so silly but there was a song a bunch of years ago I had written called ‘Dark Horse’ and then there was a Katy Perry song called ‘Dark Horse’ and I was like, ‘damn it’, you know, I missed the boat on that one. So I thought if we don’t do this cover, somebody else is gonna do it. Let’s just get in the studio and just do it. We spent way more time on those lyrics than you would think because we really wanted to get a specific feel. It was really fun and kind of loose, we just came together in Neal’s house and recorded it in a day. PETE: There’s irreverence to it. I thought the coolest thing was when Billy Joel got asked about it, and he was like, ‘I’m not updating it, that’s fine, go for it.’ I hope if somebody ever chose to update one of ours, we’d be like that. Let them do their thing, they’ll have that version. I thought that was so fucking cool.

It’s also no secret that the sound you became most known for in the mid-2000s is having something of a commercial revival right now. But what is interesting is seeing how bands are building on that sound and changing it.

PATRICK: I love when anybody does anything that feels honest to them. Touring with Bring Me The Horizon, it was really cool seeing what’s natural to them. It makes sense. We changed our sound over time but we were always going to do that. It wasn’t a premeditated thing but for the four of us, it would have been impossible to maintain making the same kind of music forever. Whereas you’ll play with some other bands and they live that one sound. You meet up with them for dinner or something and they’re wearing the shirt of the band that sounds just like their band. You go to their house and they’re playing other bands that sound like them because they live in that thing. Whereas with the four of us and bands like Bring Me The Horizon, we change our sounds over time. And there’s nothing wrong with either. The only thing that’s wrong is if it’s unnatural to you. If you’re AC/DC and all of a sudden power ballads are in and you’re like, ‘Okay, we’ve got to do a power ballad’, that’s when it sucks. But if you’re a thrash metal guy who likes Celine Dion then yeah, do a power ballad. Emo as a word doesn’t mean anything anymore. But if people want to call it that, if the emo thing is back or having another life again, if that’s what’s natural to an artist, I think the world needs more earnest art. If that’s who you are, then do it. PETE: It would be super egotistical to think that the wave that started with us and My Chemical Romance and Panic! At The Disco has just been circling and cycling back. I remember seeing Nikki Sixx at the airport and he was like, ‘Oh, you’re doing a flaming bass? Mine came from a backpack.’ It keeps coming back but it looks different. Talking to Lil Uzi Vert and Juice WRLD when he was around, it’s so interesting, because it’s so much bigger than just emo or whatever. It’s this whole big pop music thing that’s spinning and churning, and then it moves on, and then it comes back with different aspects and some of the other stuff combined. When you’re a fan of music and art and film, you take different stuff, you add different ingredients, because that’s your taste. Seeing the bands that are up and coming to me, it’s so exciting, because the rules are just different, right? It’s really cool to see artists that lean into the weirdness and lean into a left turn when everyone’s telling you to make a right. That’s so refreshing. PATRICK: It’s really important as an artist gets older to not put too much stock in your own influence. The moment right now that we’re in is bigger than emo and bigger than whatever was happening in 2005. There’s a great line in ‘Downton Abbey’ where someone was asking the Lord about owning this manor and he’s like, ‘well, you don’t really own it, there have been hundreds of owners and you are the custodian of it for a brief time.’ That’s what pop music is like. You just have the ball for a minute and you’re gonna pass it on to somebody else.

We will soon see you in the UK for your arena tour. How do you reflect on your relationship with the fans over here?

PETE: I remember the first time we went to the UK, I wasn’t prepared for how culturally different it was. When we played Reading & Leeds and the summer festivals, it was so different, and so much deeper within the culture. It was a little bit of a shock. The first couple of times we played, I was like, ‘Oh, my God, are we gonna die?’ because the crowd was so crazy, and there was bottles. Then when we came back, we thought maybe this is a beast to be tamed. Finally, you realise it’s a trading of energy. That made the last couple of festivals we played so fucking awesome. When you really realise that the fans over there are real fans of music. It’s really awesome and pretty beautiful. PATRICK: We’ve played the UK now more than a lot of regions of the states. Pretty early on, I just clicked with it. There were differences, cultural things and things that you didn’t expect. But it never felt that different or foreign to me, just a different flavour… PETE: This is why me and Patrick work so well together (laughs). PATRICK: Well, listen; I’m a rainy weather guy. There is just things that I get there. I don’t really drink anymore all that much. But I totally will have a beer in the UK, there’s something different about every aspect of it, about the ordering of it, about the flavour of it, everything, it’s like a different vibe. The UK audience seemed to click with us too. There have been plenty of times where we felt almost more like a UK band than an American one. There have been years where you go there and almost get a more familial reaction than you would at home. Rock Sound has always been a part of that for us. It was one of the first magazines to care about us and the first magazine to do real interviews. That’s the thing, you would do all these interviews and a lot of them would be like ‘so where did the band’s name come from?’ But Rock Sound took us seriously as artists, maybe before some of us did. That actually made us think about who we are and that was a really cool experience. I think in a lot of ways, we wouldn’t be the band we are without the UK, because I think it taught us a lot about what it is to be yourself.

Fall Out Boy’s ‘So Much (For) Stardust’ is out now via Fueled By Ramen.

#the cover is so funny. like theyre cute but that is genuinely bug angle. that is bugs under a rock angle. THEYRE ALREADY SHORT KINGS #fall out boy #pete wentz #patrick stump #andy hurley #joe trohman #time capsule #read the charts #ANYWAY GO HERE. GO READ HERE. BECAUSE I SPENT A LONG TIME TRANSCRIBING EVEN THO TRNASNCRIBING SUCKKSSS #i looped the spell soundtrack like 5 times and got jusmpscared by track9 every time. and then i put on smfs<3 #patrick's comments about the mythologising of fob lore is so interesting #listen baby i know ur fed up and it's not ur fault but u have to understand. the story of ur band is on some genuine fanfic ass other level #the way they talk about neal avron is sooo funny #imagine being producer for this young band. and theyre brilliant but theyre also twentysomethings(derogatory)#also the way pete talks abt swift. lol. also why does he answer the q when patrick was the one in the studio lol???#ALSO also. pete being afraid of british ppl (valid and true)#and patrick pretty much taking to the uk like a duck to water (also valid and tru) is sooo funny #i rlly liked this interview i wiiiiish i got the bundle w the photobook and whatever but i was way too late :(((((((((

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americas1suiteheart · 3 months

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This is also another one that hasn't been requested, but the FOB brain rot is real guys. Anyways, this one isn't exactly age accurate I guess?? More so of an AU if anything.

This is also on Ao3 if you want to read it there (This is the link)

How Misery Loved Me

[Patrick Stump x Fem! Reader]

[Tumblr did it again and ruined the quality of my gif..]

[Summary; I don't know how to write summaries for works that aren't requested, my bad, guys this is my own fault, especially when I know I have asks.💀

[Notes; I'm sorry it's another fem reader but school is piling up and finals week is coming up and I still want to write, but fem readers are easier right now. I also just gave the girl that went to the dance with Pete a random name. (This is one of the corniest and most cliche things I've ever written).

[Warnings; Mutual pining, foul language, some angst, and there's multiple pov changes.

[Word Count; 10,307

0:54 ──ㅇ─────── 3:00

"So, which one do you think looks better?" You ask, turning around to look at Patrick, who was sitting on your bed.

"That one's nice, but I think the second one you wore was better. But seriously, I think you should pick which one you want."

"That's the thing though; I don't know which one I want to wear because I like three of them," You say, falling face down onto the bed in the spot where all the previously discarded dresses were.

"Then take all the other dresses out and pick just those three, and then we can narrow it down to what you want," Patrick says, looking down at you.

You groan and turn over, then get up again, beginning to pick all of the other dresses except for the three that you liked, hanging all of the other ones back up and putting them into your closet.

You take the three other dresses with you behind the divider you had in your room, changing into one of the dresses and walking back out.

"Okay, this one has a pretty colour and it's comfortable, but I think it's just a little too short for my liking, so I think this one can go." You say, looking at yourself in the mirror, smoothing out the dress.

You walk back behind the divider, changing into the second dress and hanging the other one back up.

"This one is a perfect length, and it's a nice colour but the straps constantly fall off my shoulders, but I think if I were to sew them to fit me, or even just safety pin them to my bra, it would probably be okay."

You do the same as you did before, going back to the divider, changing into the other dress, and walking back out.

"This one is comfortable, and it fits good, as well as a good length, but I'm afraid that it's going to end up being too much." You say, looking at yourself in the mirror and turning around.

"That's the one that I liked. I don't think it's too much, though. It looks nice on you," Patrick says, scooting farther back onto the bed.

"So, should I wear this one or the other one?" You ask, looking down at yourself, feeling the material of the dress in between your fingers.

"I think that one,"

You nod, smiling as you go back to behind the divider, changing into your pyjamas this time and laying the dress down nicely for Friday's dance, then putting the other one away into your closet.

After doing so, you close up the divider and lay down on your bed halfway with your legs dangling off of it. You close your eyes and listen to the music playing from your CD player, nodding your head to the song.

You open your eyes slightly, looking up at Patrick and admiring his features. His hair was medium length, with those sideburns that you adored so much. Oh and his smile, he could light up a room with that smile. His eyes were such a pretty blue.

You see Patrick look down at you and then quickly look away when he sees that you were staring at him, you doing the same.

You quickly sit back up from your bed and walk to your player to change the CD.

"I still haven't completed the math homework that's due Thursday and was thinking about what other ones I still had to do. Have you done them yet?" You say trying to get rid of the awkwardness, taking your Catalyst CD by New Found Glory out of its case, then taking the other one out of the player and replacing it, pushing the play button and turning up the volume dial.

You turn back around and see Patrick's eyes widen.

"Oh shoot! I forgot about that! What was it again?" Patrick asks, his hands covering his face.

"We just have to do the problems on page 27 from our books, it's not that hard but I can let you copy mine if you want, I'm not done with it yet so you'll have to finish the rest." You say, walking over to your bag to get your book out.

"That would be awesome, I'll just copy them down on a paper if you don't mind it,"

"Knock yourself out, 'Trick,"

You place the book down onto your small desk in the corner of your room. The desk had scattered sheet music, old graded history and english papers, a table lamp and pencil jar placed on the left, and your closed laptop sitting in the middle of the desk.

The wall it was facing was decorated with old concert tickets and wristbands, framed pictures of you and your family, as well as unframed pictures of you and the rest of the boys, most of them of you and Patrick.

Patrick walks to the desk, sitting down in the chair and grabbing one of your blank lined papers from a spot where more sheet music books were stacked up.

You sit back down onto your bed, humming the beginning of All Downhill From Here to yourself and picking at the fibers on the plush throw.

"Has anyone asked you to homecoming yet?" Patrick says, still looking at the book and copying it down.

"No, not yet. I honestly wouldn't mind not getting asked and just hanging out with you and the rest of the guys though,"

"Really? I'm surprised no one has yet. But Pete has a date to homecoming now actually so I think it would be just me, Andy, and Joe together," Patrick says, placing the pencil down and turning around in the swivel chair.

"Pete got a date? Did he finally ask that girl?" You ask.

"Yup, he lit her yard on fire with the word "homecoming?" and she said yes," He explains.

"He lit her yard on fire?! I don't know about her but if someone lit my yard on fire to ask me to some dance saying yes would be the last thing i'd do, I think that's just common sense though, or at least it should be, but apparently not for her!" You exclaim, looking at Patrick in shock.

"Yeah, I told him it was a bad idea too and he still did it. I've got to give it to him though, at least he was confident enough to do that and it actually got him a date," Patrick laughs.

"Are you going to ask anyone to the dance?"

"I want to ask this one girl, but I don't think I'm going to end up actually doing it, I'm not as confident as Pete is when it comes to that sort of stuff," Patrick says, spinning around in the chair.

Ouch.

"Anyways, I should probably get going now though, it's going get dark out soon and my curfew is coming up, I don't need my mom yelling at me again," Patrick says, getting up from the chair and walking over to you.

"Oh shoot, have you really been here that long? I didn't mean to keep you here that long, sorry about that," You say, getting up.

"Don't apologise, I like hanging out with you, it's much better than just sitting in my bed reading comics the whole time. I mean, I love those comics but again, I much prefer hanging out with you instead," Patrick says awkwardly.

"Okay, get going though, it'll be too dark for you to walk home soon enough," You say.

You give Patrick a hug, him leaning down a little bit as he was just ever so slightly taller than you.

"Alright, bye Y/n, I'll see you tomorrow. Thank you for letting me copy, you seriously just saved my ass," Patrick says, opening your door and leaving the room.

You close the door and sigh, sitting at your desk, finishing the last three problems you had, then turning off your lamp and CD player.

You get your bed ready to sleep in, putting the extra pillow on the floor and get under the covers.

I'm so stupid, he's nothing more than a friend and it's always going to be that way, stop creating these stupid thoughts in your head.

You sigh and close your eyes, falling asleep within a few minutes.

---------------------------------------

-Patrick's POV-

"Dude just ask her. If you don't ask soon then some other guy will. There's only two days until homecoming, she's going to get asked, Patrick, believe me." Pete says, leaning against the lockers next to mine.

"I don't know, Pete. I mean, if she says no then it's going to be awkward between us or something, I don't want that." I say, rummaging through my locker for my math book.

"Believe me, Patrick, she'll say yes." Pete puts an arm on my shoulder and gives me a look.

I sigh and close my locker, not being able to find the book. It's fine, I didn't need it right now anyways. I'll have to look for it when I get home though.

The bell rings and I walk to my class with Pete, him departing ways with me shortly after as he had a different class this period.

God I really don't want to be here right now.

Ding! -"Good Morning everyone! Today is Thursday and it's currently 20 degrees out. The yearbook club is meeting today during lunch, as well as chess and game club. Those that need to retake their photos have today and tomorrow to do so, and those that need to retake any midterm tests will do so next week on Tuesday in the Algebra classroom or room B213. And now for the most exciting announcement; homecoming is coming up tomorrow and tickets are still being sold during lunch time, so maybe get yourself and a special someone a ticket as they won't be sold at the door. Those that are helping plan the dance will need to meet in the student lounge until Friday. Have a great day, and once again buy those tickets!"- Click!

'Ugh. Another reminder that I still don't have the balls to ask her out to the dance.' I think to myself, pinching the bridge of my nose and getting all of my things out for the class.

I sit through the class, taking notes as the teacher talks, ignoring the balls of scrunched up papers being thrown across the classroom. The class seemed to go on so much longer than it usually felt like it did, but maybe it might be the rowdiness of my classmates.

I finish the class and continue to go to all of my other periods until lunchtime. Finding my regular table with everyone else and place my bag down and head to the lunchline, which was almost always shorter except for Wednesdays as the food tended to be much better then everything else all the other days.

Honestly though, most of everyone's lunch breaks are just spent waiting in line unless you either got lucky enough to be first or if you brought your own lunch for the day.

After standing in the line and finally getting my tray, I head back to the table.

"...No, no, no, no, no. You don't understand guys, this is like, the first time I've ever been asked to any kind of dance ever. This is huge for me!" Y/n exclaims, slamming their hands on the table.

"I don't know man, the guy that asked you is kind of an asshole," Andy says, everyone else other than Y/n agreeing.

Shit, I should've listened to Pete.

"Come on dude, you're really gonna ditch me, Patrick and Andy for some guy that you've never had a conversation with?" Joe says as he continues chewing on his sandwich.

I place my tray onto the table, sitting down in between Pete and Y/n in the seat that I was always in.

"Pat! Hold on I was looking for one of my CD's this morning when I was getting ready and found this under one of my blankets I had on the floor. I think you might've left it the last time we studied together." Y/n says, pulling a large math book out of her bag and handing it to me.

"Oh shit, thanks, Y/n. I was looking for this earlier this morning," I say, taking the book from her hands, looking at it for a second and then placing it inside my bag.

"Yeah no problem. Oh, oh! You'll never guess what happened during the second passing period," She says excitedly, grabbing my left shoulder and shaking it slightly, then patting her hand quickly on it.

"What happened?" I ask, taking a bite out of the sandwich on my tray of food.

"So, you know that guy Mark in our chemistry class right? He kinda has like this dark brown semi-curly hair, the one that always wears that letterman jacket,"

"The guy that pushed me directly into that one girl because I wouldn't give him my notes?" I say, swallowing the bite of my sandwich and opening my carton of milk.

"He did that to you?" Y/n asks, gently placing her hand on my back.

I dismiss her hand, "That doesn't really matter, did he ask you to the dance?"

Y/n's face had a hurt look, one that I couldn't quite place my finger on. Her face then softened, continuing with what she was saying.

"But uh, yeah. He asked me if I wanted to be his date to homecoming and I said yes. He's not a bad looking guy so I figured why not," She finishes, giving a small shrug.

I nod slowly, staying silent as I continue taking bites out of my sandwich, listening to everyone else talk about their own things for the remainder of the lunch period.

I get up and throw my tray with everyone else, grabbing my bag and waiting for Y/n at the table so we can walk to class together.

How come you always have to chicken out on things like this? If you don't start saying something soon to her she's going to-

A sudden light punch on my arm brings me out of my trance, I turn to see Y/n and gently punch her back, smiling at her.

"You okay, Pat?" She asks, a soft smile on her face.

I nod my head, starting to walk with her to our next class together. "Yeah, I'm fine, I just got lost in my head for a second there". Y/n hums and continues walking, pushing past everyone else in the crowded hallway.

Does it make me a bad friend for not being completely happy for Y/n, anyone would be but I can't seem to shake off this feel of jealousy in my body.

Me and Y/n enter the classroom, going to our shared work table and place our bags down on the floor next to it and take our seats.

"What did we work on yesterday in this class? I dozed off," Y/n whispers.

"Oh, I could tell. Did you know that you snore?" I say jokingly.

"Oh shut up, I was out for forty minutes, but can you please tell me what we did?" Y/n says sarcastically, giving me a light punch in the arm.

"We just had a study hall for class. Mr Hadford didn't feel like teaching so he just told us to do whatever, so you're fine unless you absolutely needed to work on something else,"

"Good to know," Y/n places her head onto my shoulder.

---------------------------

-Reader's POV-

"Come on, Y/n. Are you sure you really want to go with Mark Anderson? The guy is a douche, you've seen how he treats people like us!" Pete exclaims.

"What do you mean by people like us? Pete?" I ask, turning around from my desk to look at Pete.

Pete was over at your house because you two wanted to hang out together. He was in the same spot that Patrick sat in your bed the other night. You couldn't help but feel slightly upset with yourself that you agreed to go with mark instead of asking Patrick to go with you. Or instead, hoping Patrick would ask you.

Sure, it'd always been fun just going with the rest of them, you guys just did your own thing and stayed together, dancing how you wanted without caring if other people thought it was odd, because all five of you always had fun.

But for once someone had actually asked you, wanted to go with you, and to be honest, some terrible part of you wished that Patrick would get jealous and ask you to go with him instead.

"You know what I mean by that, Y/n. We've always been the geeks no one else really hangs out with, we've always been the only ones that hang out with each other, because be honest with yourself, when was the last time we ever talked with other people for more than a class period?" Pete explains.

You turn away, going back to what you were doing before. You hated that he was right. Why would some asshole jock ask you in the first place, you'd never even talked to him until earlier, and the conversation lasted 2 minutes at most.

"I didn't mean to be mean, well, maybe just a little, but I have a bad feeling that Mark didn't have good intentions when asking you." Pete says, getting up from the bed, putting his hand on my shoulder.

"But what if Mark is being genuine? What if I said no and missed out on something that could be serious?" I sigh, turning to face Pete.

"But Mark really isn't the best person at all. I mean, he's done something shitty to most of us by now, who knows if he'll do it again, or to you.. As your friend, I don't want you getting hurt, and neither would the rest of the guys, especially Patrick, and you know that. At least I would hope you do,"

"I know, I know.. It's just, ugh god. I mean, you can't say anything, you asked that poor girl by lighting her front yard on fire!"

"So? At least I'm a better guy than Mark Anderson. The guy is notorious for being a douchebag, don't compare me to him." Pete says, falling down onto my bed dramatically.

God, Pete is starting to make me question my decisions, maybe I should listen to him, what if Mark really does have bad intentions.

"I can't believe you didn't ask Patrick to go with you. You know he wouldn't have said no, right?" Pete says, his arm over his eyes.

"When he was here the other night I asked him if he was going to ask anyone to the dance and he said that he wanted to ask this girl. I didn't bother after that, if he already had someone in mind I wasn't going to ask, I don't want to be that type of girl. I've seen other girls do that to guys and it either makes them feel like they're being pressured or in an awkward sort of position." You sigh, finishing organizing the plethora of loose sheet music on your desk and placing it in a folder.

"Whatever man. All I'm saying is that you could've said no to Mark and hung out with the rest of the guys. You didn't have to go with him."

"Piss off, Wentz. I don't want your shitty advice, it's just making me feel worse," You say annoyed.

"I had the balls to ask someone I liked to homecoming, you didn't. You made a mistake and still insist that 'oh come on Pete, he can't be that bad, even if he made your guys' lives miserable, I'm pretty sure he'll be nice even if we haven't ever talked to each other, I want to give this dumb asshole a chance.' And to be honest Y/n, you're kind of a dumbass for that." Pete was now standing up, stopping in front of you two feet away, rolling his eyes and mimicking you.

"Get the fuck out of my room, Pete.." You say, your voice starting to get that raw feeling and tears threatening to form in your eyes. You felt stupid for starting to cry over something you started.

Pete storms out of the room closing your door, you could tell how annoyed he was by the sound of how loud his footsteps were, then leaving your house with a slight slam of the door.

What he said hurt. A lot. And just as before, you hated how right he was, how he was able to tell you every single thing you could've and shouldn't've done and he was still right. He acted like an ass but you knew it was with good intent and that he didn't want you to have the possibility of getting hurt, he was like an older brother in that way, but it pissed you off that he felt the need to scold and talk to you as if you were a child. How did something as simple as hanging out with each other turned into an argument so quickly?

You were too frustrated at that point, and on top of that, homecoming was the next night. God I'm an idiot, I need to sleep..

-Timeskip the next day-

The girls in the hallway giggled and talked to their friends about how excited they were for homecoming. How they were going with their boyfriends or how someone cute or popular asked them.

Despite how excited everyone was around you, you remained nervous and the feeling of anxiety only grew stronger every step you took down the hallway, finally making it to Patrick's locker where Andy, Pete, Joe, and obviously Patrick were standing.

"Good morning, Y/n, or not such a good morning..? Are you okay, man? You look like shit," Joe says, reaching across to examine your face.

"Thanks, Joe. Good morning to you too, I'm just fine," You say, swiping at his hands to get them off of your face.

"Hey, Y/n," Patrick says, giving you a small wave with a smile on his face. Gosh he was always so cute without even trying.

"Hey, Patrick, good morning," You say, mustering a small smile despite how you currently felt. "Good morning, Andy. How are you guys feeling other than excited like the rest of everyone else?" You ask, letting out a sigh.

Groans emit from everyone except Pete, one would know exactly why.

"I don't know, man I'm pretty excited, shouldn't you be too, Y/n? Are you excited to go with Mark?" Pete says, looking at you with a grin on his face.

"Sure, whatever you say, Wentz." You say, glaring at him.

The bell rings throughout the hallways, everyone starts to scramble to their classes, seemingly still talking to their friends about the dance as they do so.

"Me and Andy gotta go to pre-cal, we'll see you guys during lunch. Try not to die from excitement," Joe says, walking down the hallway, giving a monotone "woo-hoo".

We all depart and walk to our separate classes. Math was probably one of the worst first classes to have, or more specifically Trigonometry. It wasn't even that you hated it, but rather the kids in it. They were loud and were often rowdy, and the teacher didn't care enough to say anything about it, and today you knew it was going to be much rowdier than most days. And when you walked in, you were exactly right.

You sat at your desk, placing your bag down and grabbing your book out of it. One more day until winter break starts, just one more day until you don't have to be around this chaos and sleep in.

The class went by quicker than it usually did, you just finished some problems in your workbook and listened to music on your iPod to drown out the sound of your classmates not very quietly talked to others.

After finishing your other two periods you walked through the hallway to get lunch.

Someone from behind grabs your shoulders and gives them a squeeze, "Boo," the voice says quietly. You turn around to see Pete standing in front of you

"Oh uh, hey, Pete." You say, adjusting the straps of your backpack awkwardly.

"Hey, Y/n. I'm sorry about last night by the way, I was kinda being a dick to you and said some things to you that would've been better if they were left unsaid. I don't want our friendship to go to shit so I wanted to apologise." Pete says, looking at you sympathetically.

You sigh and look up at him, "I'm sorry too, Pete. You were right and it upset me that you were, I also don't want there to be any sort of tension between us. I'm honestly kinda glad we resolved it,"

"What's that supposed to mean?" Pete asks, smiling as he begins to walk with you to the lunch line.

"Well, I mean I could've totally lived without being your friend, you're not all that important or whatever," You sarcastically reply.

"Pfft, I think I can say the same for you too, L/n," Pete says and gives you a small punch to your arm.

Both of you get lunch and then head to your usual table where just Andy was sat, reading an issue of Uncanny X-Men with one of his earbuds in.

"Hey, Andy. You're not gonna get any lunch?" You ask, placing your tray onto the table and sit next to Pete.

"Nah, not right now. I'm gonna wait for the line to clear up so I can finish this," Andy replies, taking his other earbud out and wrapping the cord around his iPod.

"Where's Joe and Patrick? Did they come by yet?" Pete talks with his mouth full, shoveling the spaghetti on his tray into his mouth.

"No, they haven't come by yet, I'm assuming both of them got stuck in computer lab, I heard the teacher's an ass so I wouldn't be surprised if they did. Hey, does the spaghetti come without the meat in the sauce or is it just that?"

"Ah okay, thanks, Andy. Yeah they have just the tomato sauce, the meat is an add on type thing," You reply, taking a bite of your food.

Andy gives a nod of affirmation and continues to read the comic in his hands.

You and Pete continue to eat, Andy soon finishes his comic to go get lunch and comes back shortly after.

"Have Patrick and Joe still not come by yet?" Andy says, as he sits back down in his seat and sets his tray down.

"Nope, nothing yet," Pete replies.

Worry began to set in your stomach, nothing could've happened to the two, except maybe Joe getting in trouble and dragging Patrick along with him.

You decide to pull your phone out and ring Patrick and after a couple of rings it goes to voicemail. You hang up and look at your phone for a moment before closing it.

"Patrick leaves his cell on silent during school, try Joe instead, or you could always go look for them." Andy says, swallowing a bite of his pasta before talking.

Shoot you forgot about that. You open your phone back up and dial Joe's number, it doing the same thing as when you tried Patrick's number.

"I'm gonna go look for them, do you guys wanna come with?" You ask, getting up from the table.

Pete looks at Andy then back at me, "Nah, I think we can just stay. Me and Andy still have to finish our food,"

You nod and walk out of the lunch hall, heading down to upstairs building C to get to the Computer Lab. Once you were at the classroom you knocked on the door, not long after the teacher opened it.

"What is it you need?" The teacher says seemingly annoyed.

"Have you seen Patrick and Joe? I believe they have you as their 3rd bell and I haven't seen them." You ask, slightly intimidated by the teacher's height and demeanor.

"They're in lunch detention right now, actually."

You let out a small 'oh' and thank her before walking back to the lunch hall. Wow, Andy must've been right about her being mean.

You return back to your table and sit back down next to Pete, sighing. "They got themselves stuck in lunch detention,"

"What? How did they do that?" Andy says, Pete snickering next to you.

"I don't know! I went to the computer lab, knocked on the door, then asked the teacher if she'd seen them or knew where they were and she just told me that they were in lunch detention," You explain, running your hands through your hair.

Pete is now laughing even louder and so is Andy, now you can't help but laugh a little with them too.

Lunch finishes and all three of you dump your trays. You grab your bag and start walking to your 4th bell History class.

As you walk in you see Patrick sitting at the table you two share with his head down. You walk to it and place your things down and sit next to him.

"What happened, Stump?" You say, placing a hand on Patrick's arm.

"I don't wanna talk about it." Patrick says with his voice muffled from still having his head down.

"Alright, I won't pry about it, but you have to put your head up so that way we can work. I can't have a partner if he's got his head buried in his arms the whole time." You chuckle, taking your hand off his arm and getting your things out of your bag.

The rest of the day went by and soon enough you were in your room blasting AFI's Sing The Sorrow album as you got ready for the dance.

You had the dress that Patrick helped you pick out and some simple makeup on, just a little bit of eyeliner on your waterline and a light coat of mascara on your bottom lashes, just leaving your top lashes curled.

You pause your music and put the CD back into its case, grabbing your phone on your way out of your room.

You spot your dad sitting at the kitchen table eating a bowl of cereal, "Hey dad, how do I look? Does it look okay or should I change something about it?"

"Hey, kiddo. You look nice, that looks just fine. Let me take a picture before you head out, okay." Your dad gets up from where he was sitting and gets the camera out

You stand in front of an empty space where paintings he made were the only thing that adorned the walls behind you. You smile and he takes the picture, then he comes next to you and takes a picture of both of you.

"Alright, have fun and don't do anything stupid. Take your coat too, it's cold out." He says as he gives you a hug.

You grab your coat and tell him bye before going outside. Joe was your ride to the dance, so you waited outside for him to come. In a few minutes he pulled up with his hand me down 1998 Toyota Corolla, Andy sitting in the passenger seat.

"Hey, Joe, thanks for taking me. Hi, Andy," You say, getting into the backseat of the car.

"No problem. You stoked for it? Your date is that Mark guy, right?" Joe asks as he begins driving.

"Yeah, I guess."

"You seemed to be stoked about it yesterday, what's wrong now?" Andy asks.

You shrug your shoulders and sigh, regardless of the fact that they couldn't see you. "I dunno, I just- feel bad about leaving you guys, we've been going with each other the past two years now. And on top of that Pete won't be there either because he has a date too."

"Don't worry about us, Y/n, we'll be fine, and you can always come with us and hang out if you get tired of Mark," Andy says and Joe nods in agreement.

"It's not really that, I guess. I mean, I didn't get to ask the guy I wanted to and just kinda said yes to Mark even though I didn't want to go. To be honest the guy is a dick and I've seen how he reacts to other girls rejecting him, and I just didn't want him to spread gross lies about me like he did with the girls that said no to him."

I was stupid for saying yes, but I would've also been stupid if I said no. It was a lose, lose situation and my grave was already dug when he asked me. I'm hoping that he just ditches me and says that it was a joke that he asked me, that no one would ever ask me. You wanted to get out of that situation even if it meant him humiliating you in front of a crowd of other people. You knew that's exactly what would happen if he did do it.

"Why didn't you ask the guy you wanted to before? We had like, two weeks to do so." Joe asks, his eyes still focused on the road.

"Honestly, Joe, I don't know."

Other than the soft music coming from the radio, the rest of the ride to the school was quiet. All of you get out of the car once you make it to the car lot and park. Joe locks his car and you guys walk to the building that leads to the gym, all three of you giving your tickets to the teacher that had a table set outside.

You head into the hall and tell Andy and Joe to go on ahead while you wait for Mark. You felt uneasy about it, just as you thought on the way here, hoped that he would come to say something about you and ditch.

Mark arrived and greeted you and walked next to you until you were inside the gym. You see Pete and wave to him, then spot Joe and see Patrick peeking over to wave to you. You smile and wave back to him but it was cut short as Mark took your arm and pulled you to a spot where other guys and girls he often hung out with were standing.

God, this is not gonna be a fun night..

He introduces you to his friends. Some waved but most of them snicker and sneer at you. You shuffle in your spot uncomfortably as all of them talk to each other, not really knowing who they were and not wanting to be included in the conversations.

The band that was supposed to start the dance off with one song started to play and everyone began to clap to the beat of the beginning.

'She says, she's no good with words but I'm worse. Barely stuttered out a joke of a romantic stuck to my tongue,'

These guys are pretty good, holy shit.

'Way down with words too over dramatic. Tonight it's "It can't get much worse," Vs. "No one should ever feel like"'

You would like to dance and enjoy the music but it just wouldn't feel like it does when you were with the guys. You had no clue what to even do, you just kinda, stood there as everyone in the group just continued talking to each other.

'Dance, dance. We're falling apart to halftime. Dance, dance. And these are the lives you love to lead. Dance, this is the way they'd love, if they knew how misery loved me,'

"Hey, uh, I'm gonna go to the food table, alright?" You tell Mark awkwardly.

"Yeah, uh-huh, whatever, go do what you need to." Mark says, dismissing you with his hand and immediately going back to his conversation.

'Why don't you show me a little bit of spine. You've been saving for his mattress, love,'

You walk to the table, having to push past the crowd before getting there. You grab a cup and pour some punch into it, then grab one of the dessert cups and a spoon.

You sit at the bleachers to eat the dessert and drink your punch, throwing the empty cups and spoon into the trash once you were done and grab a dessert cup for Mark then head back to where he and his friends were.

You tap Mark on the shoulder and raise the dessert cup to him, motioning that you got it for him. "I got you one of these while I was over there."

Mark looks at you with a look on his face you can only decipher as disgust and destain. "I don't know how someone such as you can think that anyone other than your weird little friends would actually want to be next to you. I thought you were supposed to be the smart girl and somehow you still didn't get it." Mark says, laughing at me. His friends doing the same.

'Why don't you show me a little bit of spine. You've been saving for his mattress. I only want sympathy in the form of you. Crawling into bed with me,'

You look at him for a brief few seconds with a blank look on your face before shrugging. "Yeah, that's fair enough, but if you wanted a reaction out of me like all those other girls you could've at least tried a little harder. Thanks, man." You say before walking away, the dessert cup in your hand. You walk back to the table to put it back so it wouldn't go to waste and head to the bleachers. You see Andy sitting, reading one of the comics he brought with him.

You head over and sit next to him. "Hey, Andy. What are you doing here by yourself? Where's Patrick?"

"I could ask you the same. Patrick's in the mosh pit." Andy says, pointing to the pit that formed in the middle of the crowd.

"He's what? How'd that happen? He's not one for that sorta stuff. I'd expect that from Pete," You laugh.

"I think I saw someone drag him in. He was just kinda dancing by himself, I saw some girl slap Joe in the face earlier too, we can only guess why," Andy sighs, setting his comic down.

"So, what happened with Mark?"

'Dance, dance. We're falling apart to halftime. Dance, dance. And these are the lives you love to lead. Dance, this is the way they'd love,'

"He asked me just so that he could embarrass me in front of his friends," You shrug.

"Are you okay? I'm sorry that happened, dude." Andy says.

"Oh I'm fine, it only bothered me a bit but most of it was because he included you guys into it. I'm glad it happened, I get to hang out with you guys now, that is if Patrick comes out of that pit alive." You say, laughing at your own words.

"That's good, I'm glad you're okay," Andy says, picking his comic back up and continuing to read it.

'Dance, dance. Dance, dance. Dance, dance. Dance, dance.'

The song ends and the dance circles and small mosh pits begin to empty, most of everyone else going to their own group as the band starts taking all of their stuff down.

Joe makes his way to where you and Andy were sitting, a glass of punch in his hand. "Oh hey, what's up, Y/n?"

"Nothing much. What earned you a slap on the face by the way?" You ask, Andy snickering next to you, his nose still in his comic.

"We're not going to talk about that, okay.." Joe responds, rolling his eyes and taking a sip out of his cup.

Pete makes his way towards you guys with his date and introduces her to you guys. You wave and say hi, introducing yourself to her as well. She seemed like she was a nice girl.

"Y/n, what happened to Mark?" Pete asks, his hand holding the girl's.

"He just asked to try and embarrass me in front of his friends. It didn't bother me though, I was kind of expecting it honestly. I just walked away after telling him it didn't and came over here and just hung out with Andy," You explain.

Pete gives you a knowing look as a way of saying "I told you so," without saying anything. You roll your eyes at him in response and look at Amy. "So, I'm just curious, what made you say yes to Pete when he asked you to homecoming by lighting your front yard on fire?"

Pete looks at me and then back at Amy. "You don't need to answer that, how about we go and get some punch?" He says. Amy giggled as he began to pull her along with him. He glared at you before he walked away with her.

You stand up and groan a little from your aching feet that the heels were causing, turning around to look at Joe and Andy before telling them you were going to look for Patrick, earning a thumbs up from Andy.

You push past a few people to try and look for him, finally spotting him talking to some girls and then them walking away giggling and whispering to each other.

You walk up behind him and cover his eyes with your hands. "Guess who?" You whisper into his ear.

"I guess Y/n." Patrick chuckles.

You remove your hands from his eyes and he turns around, adjusting his glasses a little bit.

"You look good, Pat." You say, smoothing out his suit jacket with your hands.

"Thanks, so do you." Patrick responds. Both of you look at each other for a few seconds, not paying attention to anything else going on around you. You look away in slight embarrassment, stepping back a little and clearing your throat.

"How was your first mosh? And how did you not die?" You laugh.

"I was just kinda thrown into there unwillingly but I guess it was cool, a little more aggressive than I thought a mosh pit would be, especially for a high school homecoming pit, and I fell once and then left after that happened," Patrick says, looking at his shoes.

There was another awkward silence. You'd known each other for almost 4 years and this is probably the one time where you two didn't know what to say to each other.

"If you guys are done being weird, we were all going to get the picture taken before it starts to get too crowded," Joe says, standing in front of you two and motioning to go with him. You thanked him in your head that he broke that silence

You and Patrick follow Joe to the wall that had a fancy background for students to take pictures, where the rest of the guys, including Amy, were standing waiting for you.

"God, we've been waiting ages for you guys. What were you doing that took Joe so long to find you two?" Pete scolds. He sounded like a mother that had a teenager stay out too long after their curfew and was upset with them. Pete was just always kind of the parent of the group, though. Surprising for someone that acted like such a child sometimes.

"Shut up, Pete. We have people behind us that want to take a picture too, just get the picture taken and then we can do whatever we want afterwards." Joe says, pushing you and Patrick forward to the area as Andy hands the teacher his digital camera.

Everyone gets into their spots, Pete was next to Amy and had his arm around her waist, Joe and Andy stood next to each other smiling, and you put your hands on Patrick's left shoulder and leaned on him like you always did with these photos and smiled. The teacher counts down and takes a couple pictures to get some good shots.

"Do you guys want to do a silly one or are you all too old for that?" The teacher asks.

Everyone says yes and we all get into a new position. Andy and Joe made a heart with both of their hands and leaned towards each other like they were going to kiss, Pete and Amy had their tongues sticking out, and Patrick was holding you bridal style and you put your right arm up in a sort of cheering motion. The teacher then took those pictures and when she was finally done you all got out of position and thanked the teacher as Andy got back his camera from her.

"Let's see, did they get the pictures better than they got them last year..." Andy whispers to himself, but just audibly enough to where people next to him could hear.

You laugh to yourself as you recall last year's pictures. The teacher that was taking them took nothing but blurry pictures or ones where some of us had our eyes closed, there was only one picture that was decent enough that we printed out for ourselves.

You all look over Andy's shoulder or arm as best as you could as he went through the pictures, deleting a few blurry or bad ones here and there, and laughing at the shots of the funny ones.

"We actually got good pictures this year, guys. I'll look through them some more and print out the best ones for all of us." Andy says, turning off his camera and putting it with the rest of his stuff.

"Are you gonna want some prints too?" Andy asks Amy.

She looks at Pete for a second, and then back at Andy, "Yes please, that'd be great."

Andy sends back a thumbs up to her, and Pete takes her back to the "dance floor". That is, if you could even call it that.

"Alright, I'm gonna go find a girl to dance with, maybe more than just to dance with if I'm lucky. Peace!" Joe says before walking away.

"I don't know about that, but maybe you'll be lucky enough to earn a punch to the face this time," You call out, earning a glare and an angry grumble from Joe.

There was a silence for a minute or so after you laughed at what you said and the reaction you got from him. But it wasn't an awkward silence, just one where there was nothing to say afterwards.

Patrick takes a long and deep inhale, not letting it out before saying something. "Maybe I'll find a girl to dance with." Patrick clears his throat and and adjusts his glasses as he turns to look at you.

"I'm sure you will, Patrick. Go to the floor and ask someone." You say, smiling as you encourage him.

Patrick lets out a sigh and looks down at his feet, then back up to you, avoiding your eyes as he speaks. "I'm trying to.. What I'm trying to say is do you want to dance with me, Y/n." He stutters out at first, speaking a little faster as he says the rest. His cheeks and the tips of his ears were flushed red.

You freeze in shock and stare at him with wide eyes, your mouth was slightly agape and you would only assume that your face was probably the same shade of red, if not darker than Patrick's based off of the way you can feel your cheeks starting to burn up rather quickly.

"Um, uh, y-yeah. I'd um, I'd love to, yeah." You stutter out awkwardly, smiling at Patrick.

You look out of the corner of your eye to see Andy with his face in his hands, shaking his head as he does so.

Patrick awkwardly holds his hand out, looking everywhere but at you. You take it and walk with him to the dance floor, and just as you do, a sappy slow dance song comes on.

How on earth could this be one of the only times that a slow dance song comes on? You would've assumed that Pete might've been up to it, but it was probably some unlucky 1 out of 1,000 chance.

"Uh, Y/n? Can I please have this dance with you?" Patrick awkwardly asks. You turn your head to look at him then quickly look at your shoes after a few seconds out of embarrassment.

"Yeah, that'd be great." You say quietly with a smile. You laugh to yourself, glad that you weren't the only one that was nervous. And you had no idea how, but you felt your cheeks getting even hotter than they were before.

You and Patrick face towards each other and you awkwardly place your hands on his shoulders. It was especially awkward when Patrick asked if he could put his hands on your waist.

You both stayed silent and avoided eye contact for the first couple of moments of you dancing together. And no matter how much you were enjoying it, how euphoric it felt, you just couldn't look at him. Though not in a bad way.

You finally look at each other and Patrick gives you a nervous smile, his cheeks still a reddish tint.

You smile back at him and wrap your arms loosely around the back of his neck, pulling him closer to you. It was a bold move even for yourself, and you quickly regret it, wondering if it might've been too bold of a move.

Patrick stiffens a bit, but quickly relaxes and proceeds to dance with you, slowly swaying with you to the music.

"Hey, Patrick. Can I tell you something?" You say, your voice shaking a little.

"Yeah, go ahead." Patrick says just as equally nervous, or at least it sounded like it.

You think for a moment, debating whether if you should tell him what you were going to say or not, then finally deciding you should.

"You can't laugh at me or anything, please." You hesitate for a second. Patrick looks at you with his brows furrowed, what seemed to be a confused look.

"Um, I like you. More than one should be for being just friends with someone. I- what I'm trying to say is that I like you romantically." You admit, shutting your eyes closed in fear for what his face would turn into.

Patrick stops dancing, yet not letting go of you and stays silent for a few moments. You open your eyes to look at him, knitting your eyebrows together to try and pinpoint what exactly his expression was, but not being able to.

Patrick pulls you closer and gently places a shaky hand on your cheek and leans in to kiss you, his lips touching yours.

You freeze for a moment in shock, but ease into it and kiss him back, wrapping your arms a little more tightly around the back of his neck to pull him down, deepening the kiss.

It was definitely an inexperienced kiss, not that you would know that, being this was your first, but it soon turned into a more enjoyable one.

You two pull back, breathing just a little heavier than you normally would. You two looked at eachother, laughing lightly to yourself as you feel the high of exhilaration.

Both of you don't say anything the rest of the song, you just continue to dance holding each other closely, your face buried into his neck and his cheek pressed to your hair.

The song ends, too quickly for your own liking, and another upbeat pop song starts to play.

You hold onto each other for a while longer.

"Do you wanna go back to the bleachers?" You ask, finally pulling away from him.

"Yeah, there's not really much to dance to with this music, it's kinda weird when everyone else isn't with us." Patrick replies, adjusting his glasses.

You smile and slip your hand into his, walking with Patrick to the bleachers where Andy was.

Patrick stops when you two were a few feet away from the bleachers. "Am I just going insane, or do I see Andy making out with that girl over there."

"I was just thinking the same thing." You say, your mouth slightly agape at the sight.

Someone from behind grabs your shoulder, you turn around to see who it was and to no surprise, it was Pete.

"Hey guys, what are you two doing standing here like weirdos? Why aren't you guys dancing together?" Pete says, shaking both yours and Patrick's shoulder gently.

"Because we were just looking at that." Patrick says, briefly pointing at the scene happening on the bleachers.

Pete looks in between you and Patrick to look. "Oh wow, they're really going for it, huh? When did that happen?" He says, seemingly having the same reaction as you and Patrick did.

"We have no clue. We came here to plan on sitting with Andy and it was just already kind of happening. Oh, by the way, where's your little girlfriend, by the way?" You ask, teasing Pete.

Pete rolls his eyes at you and his face quickly turns into one of what you immediately recognised as mischief, one that induced fear upon you. He was about to say or do something you knew you wouldn't like or be happy about.

"How was that kiss by the way? It looked like you two really enjoyed it, me and Amy are happy for you! Maybe we should tell the guys so they can congratulate you guys too!" Pete says enthusiastically with a shit eating grin on his face.

Patrick looks at you with a mortified look, you mirror his expression and turn back to Pete. You couldn't find any snarky remark to say back to Pete, you were just completely speechless after what he had just said.

Amy walks up to Pete and taps him on the shoulder and puts her hand in his when he notices it's her.

"Hey guys! Are you having fun! I saw you two dancing a little while ago." Amy says, a sweet smile on her face.

"Oh uh, hey Amy. Yeah, yeah, we're having fun. Um, what about you?" You ask, stumbling over your words a bit, still thinking about what Pete said.

"Thats good. Me and Pete going to go back to dance, do you guys want to come with us? The dance is about to end in 15 minutes."

You open your mouth to talk only to have Patrick beat you to a response.

"No, we're alright. But thank you for asking, Amy." Patrick replies.

"Alright, have fun! If you need us we'll be somewhere in there." Amy says, grabbing Pete's arm and dragging him to the dance floor. Pete looks over his shoulder and sticks his tongue out at you and Patrick.

"Do you wanna go outside?" Patrick asks, a small smile on his face.

"Yeah, yeah. It's kind of noisy in here." You respond, following along with Patrick. You slipped your hand into his as you continued to walk with him.

You now realized just how sweaty you were. You don't know if it was because of how hot it was inside of the gym or if it was because you were with Patrick. Now that you think about it, it's kind of gross.

As you walk out the doors, you feel the cool wind blow on your face, immediately cooling down how hot your cheeks felt. You both sit down on the grass.

There was a calm silence around you, only having faint music playing from the gym and distant chatter of students and teachers keeping the noise present.

"I would've never thought that would've ever happened." Patrick says, a faint blush on his face as he looked in the distance.

"What? Pete finally getting a girlfriend or Andy making out with that girl?" You snort.

Patrick looks at you and rolls his eyes. "Well, yeah maybe the Pete part, but I mean us. It sounds so cliche but I wouldn't think that I would ever get to, well y'know.." Patrick shrugs.

The way the moonlight illuminated his face made the light freckles peppered across his face more visible, and the way it made the colour of his eyes look all the more beautiful. The chill of the wind made his nose slightly red, and his cheeks had a flush to them.

You smile and look at him. "Honestly, me either. But I'm glad it did."

"I don't know what they put in that punch because I do NOT remember being that confident or bold." You add on, laughing a bit.

You lay down on the grass and look up at him, admiring his features like you did the same way you did the day he was helping you pick out your dress, except when he looked at you this time, you didn't look away.

"It's kind of cold." Patrick says, rubbing the tip of his nose.

You smile and laugh, getting up. "Do you want to go back inside?"

"No, I think I'm ready to go back home. It's too crowded and hot in the gym and too cold out here." Patrick replies, getting up off of the grass and offering you a hand to pull you up from the grass.

"I agree with you there. Do you think you can drive me to my house?" You get up, brushing your dress of from any dirt of dead grass that may have stuck onto the fabric.

Patrick nods and you both walk to his car.

"Should we say bye to the guys before we leave?" You say, getting into the passenger seat of his car and closing the door.

"No I think they should be fine. And Pete would probably just tease us." Patrick says and starts his car, pulling out and exiting the car lot to get onto the road.

The drive to your house was almost the same as the ride Joe gave you to the school, but it wasn't an awkward silence that filled the car but rather a pleasant and calm one.

After about 10 minutes of driving Patrick pulled into your driveway. Both of you got out, as Patrick had insisted on walking you to your doorstep.

"Thank you, Patrick. I had fun with you tonight."

"Yeah, of course. I had fun with you too." Patrick smiles.

You grab onto Patrick's shoulders and lean towards him, gently placing a peck on his cheek, pulling him into a hug after.

"Goodnight, Patrick. I'll talk to you later on, okay?" You say, burying your face into his shoulder.

"Goodnight, Y/n. I'll talk to you later." Patrick says, placing a kiss to your temple.

You two break the embrace and you turn around to open your door, walking into your house and closing the door.

All of the lights were off and it was silent, so you would only assume that your dad was already asleep.

You take off your shoes and take them in your hands and walk into your bedroom.

You close your door and change out of your clothes, throwing them into your hamper and changing into your pajamas.

You smile to yourself as you recall the events of the night, only to be interrupted by a knock at your door.

"Yes?" You shout before opening your door.

"Your friend Andy is on the phone right now, he wanted to talk to you. Here, can you bring it back to me when you're done?" Your dad says, handing you his phone.

"Yeah, of course, dad. Thank you." You say before going to sit onto your bed.

"Hey, Andy, what's up?" You say, holding the phone to your ear.

"Where are you? We've been looking for you for like 15 minutes now." Andy says worriedly.

"I'm at home right now, Patrick drove me. Why didn't you call my cell?"

"Because when I called you I heard your phone ringing in your bag. You left your bag and jacket over here and we thought you were still here because it was left here on the bleachers." Andy scolded.

"Shit! I'm sorry, dude. I didn't mean to worry you." You apologize.

"It's fine. But I'm kind of upset you didn't say bye to me. Do you want me to drop your stuff off later?"

"I'm sorry, I should've said bye. I'll make it up to you, Andy I promise. But if you could bring my stuff for me later on tomorrow that would be awesome."

"Alright, I'll see you tomorrow then. Goodnight, Y/n."

"Goodnight, Andy. Thank you."

"No problem." Andy says, hanging up.

You shut the phone and get up, walking to your dads room to put his phone onto his nightstand and walk back to your room.

You close your door and pull your covers up and slip into your bed, immediately falling asleep due to the exhilaration of the night wearing off.

3:00 ─────────ㅇ 3:00

AN; I think I started this in early December and now it's already the third of February so it's been a process. I'm sorry this took me so long to post but it's probably one of my longest works and because I also kept hitting parts of the story that I had no clue what to write. I do hope that you enjoyed it, though. I also have another Patrick Stump x Reader fic that you could find in my masterlist. Sorry for any spelling mistakes and such, I'll be editing it soon.

#patrick stump #patrick stump x reader #patrick stump imagines #fall out boy #fob #from under the cork tree #pete wentz #joe trohman #andy hurley #AU #dance dance fob #dance dance mv

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