Antivenom (Peterick)

X. sunday: confirmations and confessions

~ Three years earlier

The potluck was Saporta's idea, something along the lines of "hey, we caught a serial killer and saved the three girls in his basement, let's celebrate" and it's not how Pete would've preferred to spend his night off, but he goes anyway, partially for the free food and mostly for the company.

He's in the kitchen refilling his cup and watching a less-than-sober Patrick giggle and fumble his way through recounting one of their more entertaining cases (the strip club one, probably) when a hand clamps down on his shoulder.

"Havin' fun?" Gabe slurs.

"Not as much fun as you," Pete replies, sipping his drink. Across the room, Joe whispers something in Patrick's ear and Patrick loses it, collapsing back onto the couch and clapping his hands, red-faced and shaking with laughter. It's infectious—Pete suppresses a smile.

Gabe whistles and leans into Pete's space; Pete can smell the alcohol on his breath. "Damn, Wentz. Remind me again why you haven't hit that yet?"

"What?"

Gabe tuts and points. "Don't be stupid, Peter. I'm shitfaced as fuck and I can still see you makin' eyes at your boy from all the way over 'ere." He nudges Pete, although it comes off as more of a shove and Pete nearly chokes on his drink. "Come on. I know you wanna," he sing-songs.

Pete coughs. His face is red-hot; he hopes Patrick's too drunk to notice him staring. "I can't," he says pathetically. "I just—it's not like that, you know, it's—it's fragile. I don't—I don't want to fuck it up."

"Oh, puh-lease," Gabe retorts. "Fuck-up, schmuck-up. You only live once, my man, right, Bilvy?"

"He's right," says William behind them, "which is why I'm about to do this—"

He grabs Gabe from off of Pete and pushes him up against the cabinets; Pete's still watching Patrick, but he can hear Gabe laughing and shouting, "Jesus, someone's horny—" before being abruptly cut off, presumably by William's mouth on his.

Patrick's laughing has died down, but he's still smiling, lying against Joe's shoulder like a contented cat. The commotion around them is conversational overload—Brendon arguing with Dallon over something stupid, Vicky shout-singing along to "Smooth" by Santana on the speakers, Gabe and William sloppily making out on the kitchen countertop—but then Patrick locks eyes with Pete from the other side of the room, and suddenly nothing else matters. A cynic might call it the alcohol clouding Pete's vision, but Pete knows better. Patrick is definitely glowing, rosy-cheeked and beaming with the dreamiest look in his eyes, and fuck if it isn't the most beautiful thing Pete's ever seen.

"Go get 'im, mijo," Gabe hollers between kisses; it'd be gross if Pete wasn't so preoccupied. "You only miss the shots you don't take—mmph—"

Patrick waves at him, and Pete lifts his drink to his lips to hide his face. Someday, maybe.

With their line of work, who knows what could happen?

[...]

"Thanks for meeting me here, Lauren."

They're at Fields and Pier again, under the pretense of a coffee date.  Pete wishes could've met Lauren somewhere else, but he needs all the information he can get, and he figures the familiarity could jog her memory.

Lauren scoffs good-naturedly, waving a hand. "Gosh, thank you for getting me out of work, the boys are killing me." She takes a sip of her latte; her lips and nails are twin shades of red. "But oh my god, how are you?" she asks anxiously. "After what happened, you know, with—with Patrick, I meant to call—"

"I'm managing." Pete picks at his salad. He has no intention of actually eating it. He just needs something to keep him anchored in reality so he doesn't fall to pieces mid-conversation. "That's actually why I needed to talk to you. I know you guys had lunch on Wednesday."

Lauren frowns. "Well, yeah—he didn't tell you?"

Pete shakes his head. "No, he didn't. Though I think that has something to do with whatever you guys were discussing."

He sets Patrick's copy of the McEnroe case file on the table, and Lauren's eyes widen in surprise before falling shut. She presses a hand to her temple, shaking her head; remorse is written all over her face. "I meant to talk to you," she says quietly. "I'm so sorry, Pete, I just—I didn't think—"

"You're here now," Pete cuts her off. He doesn't have time for apologies. "Start from the beginning."

Lauren's face looks ready to crumple, but she breathes in deep and pulls herself together. "I asked Patrick for help on the McEnroe case," she confesses, "'cause I figured, y'know, he could look at the information we already had, do a little extra digging, and we both knew it had something to do with whatever Sinclair had going on, but nothing seemed to stick out."

"So you gave him a copy of the case file."

Lauren nods. She won't look Pete in the eye. "I know it's wrong, and—and unethical, and whatever, and we both could totally lose our jobs for this, but—you don't understand. Everything about that case was just—off. He was looking at it on and off while you guys were closing out the whole Courtney Love thing and he had some idea of what might've happened, but nothing—nothing really definitive to go off of. Until Tuesday."

Pete stops fidgeting and sets his fork down. Tuesday. Patrick's first day off—and his meeting with Unknown Briefcase Guy. "What happened on Tuesday?"

Lauren hesitates, eyes darting randomly about the room, before leaning in and lowering her voice. "Well, Monday he had that whole talk with Travie about the job offer, right, and then I see him on Wednesday and he's all, the weirdest thing happened to me yesterday, so I asked him about it, and then he told me some guy—"

A group of laughing middle-aged women passes by their table, briefly halting the conversation, and then Lauren continues.

"—he told me some guy from the mayor's office sat down with him on Tuesday and told him he should reconsider."

"Reconsider what? The job in LA?"

"Sounds like it."

Pete sits back in his chair and stares at the ceiling, trying to make sense of it all. First the McEnroe case, then this guy from Sinclair's office—why wouldn't Patrick tell him about this?

"Listen, Pete—" Lauren starts.

"Do you know what Patrick's theory was?" he interjects.

"What?"

"His theory," Pete repeats impatiently, "about the McEnroe case. Don't look over your shoulder, nobody's listening. Just tell me what he thought."

Before Lauren can answer, her phone goes off; two seconds later, so does Pete's. "You should take that," she tells him, looking up from her phone. "I have to go."

She's up from her seat and out the door before he can protest, leaving Pete with new information but no clear idea of how to proceed. At least it's a start, he tells himself, but at the same time he can't help but feel like there's some vital piece of information he's missing—something his brain is reaching for but can't quite grasp...

His phone buzzes insistently in his pocket, nagging him. "Yeah, yeah," Pete mutters, fishing it out. "Wentz," he says, holding it to his ear.

"Hey, it's me," Joe answers. "I know you're busy, but you need to come back, like, now."

"What? Why?"

"It's too complicated to explain over the phone, can you just get your ass over here as soon as possible?"

Pete glances down at his (still-unfinished) salad, then at the door where, just moments ago, Lauren made her unceremonious exit. Well, it's not like he has anything left to do here, anyway.

"On my way," he says. "This better be good, Joe."