Current mood:	accomplished
Current music:	Dave Matthews Band - "Everyday"

for my patd_100 Jon Walker claim.
Title: Up, Up, All the Way Up
Fandom: Panic! at the Disco/Fall Out Boy RPS.
Pairing: Jon/Pete, mostly.
Rating: NC-17, for m/m sex, swearing, and some underage naughtiness.
Summary: In which Jon is charming, Pete is helpless, and Jwalk has a lot of sex. The story of an optimist's youth.
Disclaimer: This is a work of complete friction. I mean fiction.
Notes: For my patd_100 Jon Walker table - prompt #010 - years.



The night air was thick and heavy-warm around Jon Walker when he laughed madly and spun around in circles at the age of fifteen, his arms swinging out to either side of him until the inky sky and burning stars were swirling and blending together in his heavenbound stare, melting against his eyes and sinking into his skin in a blinding drench of shimmering intangible baptismal.

"I love you, Mom." He'd whispered the words against his mother's faded potato-brown hair that was so like his own just four hours ago, kissing her temple tenderly with his heavy blue duffel bag rough and stuffed and slung over one shoulder. She'd been fast asleep, of course. Sane people usually were, at three in the morning. But at his words, she'd stirred, blinked sleepily up at him, and his heart had broken just a little but not enough to keep him there.

"Where are you going, baby?" she'd asked him in a voice hoarse with sleep, and he smiled and ran a hand over the thinning hair.

"Away, Mom. I'll write as soon as I can, I promise."

She'd opened her mouth to say something else, but Jon was long gone, slipping away into the cool night like that proverbial thief from the bible. Only he was leaving to cause damage and indulge in self-destruction, not coming. The difference was that it was all internal, with him. He'd miss his mother, hell yes. But there would be letters, and he couldn't be there anymore. It wasn't bitterness or unhappiness that had led him to this point - just waking up in the middle of the night floored with the sudden realization that there was simply nothing left for him at home anymore. His hands had tightened in his sheets when it had slammed into him, and he'd trembled a little all over. And then he'd started packing.

He had seventy-two dollars in his pocket and the keys to his father's beat-up Ford Escort, the backseat of which he loaded up with his bass, an acoustic guitar, a violin, a cello, and books and sheet music up to the windows. The fan belt squealed indignantly when he peeled out of the driveway of his parents' house, pushing a Pantera cassette into the tape deck. He drove and drove and drove until the gas drained out just after the Indiana state limits, and parked by a rotting wood fence around a huge wet field of nothing but dying grass. Getting out of the car, he'd spun around in circles as his shoes were soaked through to his socks with cold dew, laughing madly up at the breast-heavy moon dripping her milk into the sky.

He slept outside that night, collapsing into the damp faded grass and curling up amidst the scent of raw earth, waking up with the sniffles and pushing his car to the nearest gas station to fill it up. "I'm a photographer," he explained to the gas station attendant early that morning, pointing to the heavy, old-fashioned camera in the backseat. "I take pictures. Want any pictures taken?"

He received no answer other than a grunt, as his tank was reluctantly filled. "I also play bass. And a lot of other shit," he offered the grizzled, malnourished old man through the grimy window of his car. "If there are any bands around here looking for new members."

The man sighed, mucus and leftover cigarette smoke rattling and gurgling in his throat. "Jesus kid, how old are you?"

"Fifteen," Jon said cheerfully, because he was done lying to people, especially himself.

"Jesus," the man said, handing him his change and waving him away. So Jon drove some more, the thumping, aggressive metal he'd left in the tape player shaking the doors of that old car. He stopped at the first apartment building he found, a worn-down cement building with a barb-wire fence around the tiny parking lot and a giant rat that approached him like it was the landlord when he parked by the curb. The air smelled like friend food and cigarette smoke, and he breathed in deep and smiled. Yes, hello.

"Hey. HEY!" He was a little breathless by the time he climbed the stairs, following the arrows of construction paper taped to the walls that directed him to the landlord's office on the top floor. He pounded on the door with a loose fist. "Hey, I need to live here!"

Finally, the door opened, and he was confronted with a woman in her supposed-forties with painfully bleached hair and smeared lipstick. She wore a t-shirt shamelessly, not bothering to hide the track marks that lined the insides of her arms like the stems of roses. Her cornflower-blue eyes were dull and weary, and she regarded him warily. "You lookin' for a room?"

"I'm Jon." He extended a hand to her, smiling brightly.

"How old are you, kid?" Her hand was so soft it felt like it might fall apart in his grip, melt away into soggy, soft clumps of flesh and leave him shaking nothing but wet bone. Her nails were like violet talons.

"Fifteen."

"Sorry Jon, I've got nothing for you. Runaway, right?"

"Oh no, I told my mom I was going. Kissed her and everything."

She stared at him for a moment, confused. "Uh, sure. But you're still too young. Make sure you lie to the next one you ask."

"Don't want to lie anymore. Listen...what's your name?"

"Cheryl."

"Listen Cheryl, I'm fifteen and really pretty talented. I don't have much money right now but I know I could make a lot given a week or two, I promise you'll get your rent and more. My parents aren't going to be sending out any police looking for me, you don't have to worry about that. And someday when the whole world knows my name, I'll make sure to thank you for having taken a chance on me way back when. Don't you want to be that lady in my autobiography, the one who gets asked in ten years if Jon Walker really lived in your apartment complex back when he was a kid? Come on, you know you do. It'll be cool." He winked at her, and the amused smile that spread across her thick lips made them both laugh a little.

"Listen to you. Cocky as hell, I like it. But there's so many better places you could be than this, Mr. Future Star."

"Yeah? Prove it."

They stared at each other for a moment, and then she shrugged. "What the hell. But if the cops come around looking for you, I'll turn you in so fast your head will spin. I don't need any trouble."

"Thanks, Cheryl." The smile he gave her had melted his mother on more than one occasion. "Where's my master suite?"

She turned to grab his key from a line on the wall behind her, and together they left her office.

+++




He lived there in Indiana, taking pictures for the local newspaper and teaching piano at the YMCA, for eight months. He and Cheryl had sex at least three times a week - she was thirty-four and divorced with no children, aching and laughing sadly when he told her she was beautiful, and on his sixteenth birthday she bought him Hostess cupcakes with ninety-nine-cent candles in them. They drank enough Boone's Farm Apple Wine that night to believe that they were in love, and she was so lonely and he was so optimistic that she wept for days after the morning he came to her and told her that he had to move on.

"I'm sorry, lover," he said gently to her, taking both of her hands into her own as he watched her face crumble. "I just...I've done all I can do here. I saved up enough money to hit the road again, and there are lots of local bands looking for bass techs. That's part of why I left home in the first place, to throw myself into the music scene. It just wasn't happening back home."

"I've been an idiot. I mean, this is illegal. I'm a pedophile, anyway," she'd said weakly. "We're both lucky you're going." But she was crying, and he was reaching out to hold her.

"No, you're not a pedophile. You're a woman who recently lost the husband you'd been with for ten years, and you did make me happy, Cheryl. You still do. I just can't be here anymore, and we both know that you can't come with me."

She cried and swore and pushed at his chest with both hands until he left, kissing her forehead and moving out before nightfall. It wasn't like he had much in his apartment, anyway. He hadn't planned on staying there long, and he'd spent a lot of nights sleeping in her bed anyway. He met Don, the lead singer of the thrash-metal band that he ended up bass teching for over the next three months, early the next morning.

"Hey!" he said to the bearded, heavily tattooed man, popping up from behind an amp on the stage where Bloodsoaked was performing that night, where he'd been reading a book and eaten a stolen apple from their pitiful catering table. He'd been there for hours, just waiting.

"Holy fucking shit!" Don, despite his muscles, clamped a hand over his chest and stared at Jon with wide, rheumy eyes. "You scared the shit out of me, you little bastard."

"Sorry. I'm Jon," Jon extended a hand, smiling brightly at him. He was met with a blank stare.

"...The fuck? What the hell is that supposed to mean to me? Get off our fuckin' stage, kid."

"No, listen. I was at your show here last night, and you guys sucked."

"What?"

"Your bass was all out of whack, not tuned properly or anything. But luckily for you guys, that's what I do. I'm a bass tech, and I can fix shit for you guys so that you stop sucking."

Don stared. For about five minutes. And then he laughed so loudly that it echoed across the stage, slapping a knee exposed by torn jeans. He laughed until tears came to his eyes, and then he clapped Jon on the back. "Holy shit. Listen to you, I love it. I guess we could use a tech, but we can't pay you."

"That's okay. I'll feed myself. Just looking for exposure."

"Then you're in luck."

For three months, sixteen-year-old Jon Walker bass teched for Bloodsoaked, and ate by doing odd jobs at the towns they stopped off in, tucking snacks from parties into his messenger bag and such. He and Don had sex at least three times a week, and he tried to write Cheryl once or twice. But she never wrote back. When the band's tour was over, he introduced himself to some friends of Don's, and then some friends of Don's friends, and it was gritty and sexy and drug-drenched and he had a lot of sex.




+++




He was seventeen when he met William Beckett, who was entirely charmed by him from the first moment Jon flashed him that optimistic grin that still managed to remain so toothy and cheery despite how jaded the poor kid had to be at this point. He'd been keeping in touch with his parents over the past two years, never telling them exactly where he was but making sure they knew that he was okay.

"You're so skinny," was the first thing he said to William, who had narrowed his eyes at him. "I mean, God. Don't you make enough money to eat yet? I still have this potbelly..." he rubbed his slightly-round stomach affectionately. "...And I've been teching for little to no money for the past two years for local metal bands."

"Are you for real?" William had demanded, and Jon had smiled faintly.

"I get that a lot."

He was officially on TAI's payroll two hours later, working as a film and photography tech for their TAI TV project. He met Pete Wentz seven months later just before his eighteenth birthday, and fell in love.

Pete kissed him for the first time after his eighteenth birthday party. They were both so drunk that their skin felt slick and hot and tangy against each others' fingers when they stumbled into Pete's hotel room, kissing and laughing and running their hands through each other's hair. Everything about Jon was so fine, Pete thought. He had the warmest, sleepiest dark eyes in the world and a drowsy, soothing voice that made him seem older than he was. And okay, maybe Pete was kind of six years older than him or whatever, but apparently Jon liked that. His hair was soft like the down that slipped out of your pillow sometimes, his laugh big and loud and genuine. His body was soft and warm and solid all over, broad-shouldered and strong and young.

His tongue was in Jon's mouth, and Jon was sucking on it and rubbing one of those big, callused hands against his crotch, palming his erection through his jeans and smiling against his lips when it kicked and leaked against the fabric at his touch. He broke the kiss and latched onto Pete's long, elegant neck with his lips, sucking a hickey to the surface of the dark skin with a wetness and an intent that made it clear that neither of them was quite as drunk as they claimed to be. He paused so Pete could step out of his jeans, stopping him when he reached for the zipper on Jon's.

Without a word, he sank to his knees and leaned forward to mouth Pete's cock wetly through the dry fabric of his boxers, moving it around in his mouth and letting his eyes sink closed. Pete groaned, putting one hand on the back of Jon's head to finger that soft brown hair as Jon tugged his boxers down with one hand. "You have such a nice cock," he said a little witlessly, and the door to his hotel room wasn't even shut all the way. Or locked, or anything, and Pete couldn't bring himself to care much as Jon wrapped those quirky lips around the head of his cock and suckled like he was nursing a milkshake, which he liked to do almost more than anything else.

He was just this beautiful, eager young thing, on his knees. Jon bobbed his head back and forth, clutching at Pete's bare golden-brown thighs with thick-wristed hands, sucking wetly and using his tongue sloppily on the underside, tonguing the thick vein there until Pete was clutching at that hair a little harder. His breath hitched in his throat and Jon's fingers combed through the fine dusting of black hair on his thighs when he came hard into the kid's waiting mouth. Jon swallowed fairly easily, even darting his pink tongue out to catch the trickle that was running down from his lower lip. The moment he stood up, he was laughing and tackling Pete, tearing off his own clothes and pushing him to the bed. He was on top for the rest of the night, finally coaxing Pete to straddle his thighs and ride him until he spurted hot and strong into his ass. They slept like babies, wrapped up naked and damp in each other.




+++




"Be with me forever," Pete demanded two years later, after jerking off frantically onto Jon's friendly face. Jon had just dropped to his knees and let him when he'd asked, looking up at him with an expectant smile as he'd fisted his slick cock until he'd grunted and spilled all over Jon's face. There was cum slicking his smiling lips now, dripping down his cheek as he licked it away.

"'Kay," Jon agreed amiably, standing up and taking the washcloth that Pete offered him.

"For real?"

"Yeah. Love you."

"And did you love all the others?"

"Mmhm. But I love you the best."

Pete was so Jon's bitch. "I'd give you anything you wanted, anything in the world, if you asked me right now."

Jon paused, considering. "Can we go for milkshakes?"

"Hell, yes."

And Pete was furious and out of control, sometimes an asshole and sarcastic and funny and an attention whore and outgoing and aching and beautiful. And Jon was kind and funny and warm and optimistic and a little bit wicked, and everyone trusted them with each other's hearts. By the time he was twenty, Jon was playing bass for Panic! at the Disco, Pete's protege band. Everyone he worked with was a little bit in love with him, but no one dared because he and Pete looked at each other sometimes with such complete and total adoration, such worship. Pete mellowed out whenever Jon touched his arm and said "Pete" so gently the way he did, no matter how angry he was. And when Jon's heart broke, when he cried a little over something, Pete could always make him stop by kissing his earlobe and whispering "Jon" a little helplessly into his ear.

Mom, Jon wrote to his mother the day he'd promised to be with Pete forever, I'm coming to visit, and I'm bringing someone.