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damagereportTitle: The Cure to Growing Older
Summary: What-if AU. What if Joe had never moved to Ohio first?
Author:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
icedmaple
Betas:satsuma_grove, likethepaint, xdearlin & shiny_starlight. ashe_frost and musictoyourlips also fielded questions about US schooling. satsuma77 suggested the name for this fic.
Rating: PG-13+ for language and teenagers being awkward and doing what teenagers do.
Pairing: Joe/Patrick
Words: c.26,000
Author's notes: This fic is fordecembersrose in the ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
slutrick challenge. It is way delayed, so I hope it lives up to expectations!
This fic is realistic AU so I've had to bend a few historical factors – I hope that doesn't shake it up too much for anyone.
I did a fucking TON of research for this fic – both looking at online schooling information and asking people who live over there. I've done my best to make it as accurate as possible. Apologies for any inconsistencies.
Disclaimer: Could not have happened because there's this place called Ohio, apparently...
The Cure to Growing Older
Like kisses on the necks of best friends.
The first time Patrick Stumph laid eyes on Joe Trohman, his eyes were pink and wet and he was holding He-Man by one leg as he was ushered over to Patrick's table and handed a purple crayon. He sat on the red plastic chair and gazed at the colouring implement with eyes that reminded Patrick's five year old self of Emma-May's blinking-action dolly; and his lip started to wobble.
For a moment, Patrick thought about putting up his hand and calling over Mrs Watson, but he didn't want to get the new boy in trouble. He tilted his head and looked at him sideways, wondering why he was sad. Maybe he didn't like purple. Patrick pulled over the plastic crayon basket and looked for another one. Maybe blue was better.
Carefully, he leaned off his chair and across the table and put down the crayon next to He-Man; then he dropped into his seat again and finished colouring a teddy bear bright orange. He liked orange. It reminded him of pumpkins. And carrots. But he didn't like carrots.
Across the table, the new boy sniffed and wiped his face on the sleeve of his sweater. Then, he got off his chair and, dragging He-Man and his crayons with him, he walked around the table to sit next to Patrick, and started colouring in the tree on Patrick's picture blue. Patrick grinned and told him the leaves had to be pink.
---
When Cathie Trohman's little boy ran out of kindergarten that day, trailing a tiny redheaded child with him, she thought that things in Winnetka might just be alright, after all. She and Richard had been so sure he was too young to have made any real friends in Florida, but he'd screamed and cried when they left and they'd put off enrolling him in a new kindergarten for a whole month in the hopes of getting him settled. When it didn't seem to work, they thought that changing tack may be the best thing, hoping that making friends with other children may be what he needed.
And judging by the enormous smile on his face as he scampered toward her, arms outstretched and a far cry from the teary mess he'd been when she left him that morning, they'd finally found something that worked.
"Patrick!"
Cathie looked up to see another woman hurrying across the schoolyard and scooping up Joseph's little friend into her arms, pinching his nose affectionately and scolding him for running off. The little boy was too busy stretching out for Joseph with both arms to do much more than wriggle away.
Picking up her own child and kissing his forehead, Cathie walked over to the other mother laughing. "Looks like my little man made a new friend today," she smiled, reaching out to pinch the little redheaded boy's cheek gently.
"Mommy, hith name ith Patwick," Joe informed her, thumping his action figure against her shoulder, as if she was actually embarrassing him.
"Well, hello, Patrick. Pleased to meet you." She held out a hand for him to shake, but he turned away and buried his face in his mother's shoulder, peeking back at her shyly.
"He's very timid," his mother acknowledged, patting his back and smiling. "He doesn't really make many friends."
"HE'TH MY FWIEND!" Joe yelled gleefully and Patrick immediately lifted his head and giggled.
Both women laughed.
"Well, it's just typical he picked a friend with a name he can't even say properly, yet," Cathie joked.
"Oh, he'll grow out of it – my eldest, Kevin, had a lisp for the first three years."
"Oh, well, Joseph has one of those too. So we really just call him 'Joe' most of the time."
Joe glared at her and put one hand over her mouth. "MOMMY!"
The other woman just laughed. "Well, I'm Patricia."
"Cathie. Cathie Trohman. We just moved from Florida – my husband's parents are getting older now, and this is his hometown, so..."
"Well, you take my number and we'll get together some time – the kids can play and we can have coffee."
Cathie was suddenly quite sure that Winnetka wasn't going to be so bad after all.
---
Joe didn't understand why it had to be so long until he could go to kindergarten again. The idea of having to go to sleep first just seemed plain silly, and he sulked all evening before asking if he could go to sleep an hour earlier than his bedtime just so it would be tomorrow sooner.
He couldn't wait to get into the classroom the next morning, and ate his Froot Loops so quickly they didn't even have time to turn the milk pink.
Patrick was already sitting on the bean bags by Mrs Watson's desk, waiting for roll call, and when he saw Joe walk in he pushed the kid next to him until he moved, so Joe could sit with him. Joe stuck his tongue out at Matthew and made himself comfortable.
At lunchtime they sat together, plastic carry cases on the child-sized picnic tables in front of them, and were rude to anyone who wanted to sit with them. Only people with blue lunchboxes were allowed at their table.
Joe looked at his little pink cupcake with the strawberry on top and thought for a minute. Then he picked it up and dropped it in Patrick's lunchbox with a grin. Patrick stared at it and then picked up the brown square of cake wrapped in plastic and dropped it in Joe's. Joe was a bit disappointed. It didn't look even nearly as exciting as his cupcake, but it tasted okay. Joe took a bite and gave it back. Patrick made him eat the other half of the cupcake.
Neither of them would ever eat their lunch to themselves again. Or, almost never.
---
Patrick hated Saturdays. And Sundays, too. On Saturdays and Sundays he had to stay at home and play with Kevin and Kevin was mean and didn't want to make rayguns out of stickle bricks. He spent all morning laying on the floor with his chin propped on his pudgy little hand, scowling at the dog, because all he did was chew his bricks and then wander off and fall asleep. The dog was a useless best friend.
Sitting at the kitchen table at lunch, he chewed on his cheese spread sandwich thoughtfully and asked, "Mommy, can we take the dog back to the shop and have a Joe instead?"
"No, sweetie," his mom laughed, wiping her hands on a towel and straightening his hair so that he shook his head wildly and messed it up again, "I don't think Joseph's mommy would like it very much if we took her little boy away, do you?"
Patrick shrugged and picked up one of the one-two-three-four baby tomatoes rolling around his plate and stuck one whole in his mouth so that the juice squirted down his chin and made him giggle.
"Okay," he said, as his mother wiped his face. "I want to go and live with Joe."
---
Patricia smiled as she looked out of the kitchen window and saw the two little boys chasing the dog around the yard. It was so wonderful to see her child happy. He'd been so quiet most of his young life, but with the moment he'd met the curly-haired little Jewish boy he'd transformed. She was relieved beyond words that he finally seemed to be coming out of his shell; they didn't seem to like playing with other children very much, but it was better than nothing. Maybe he'd grow into it.
She only looked away for a moment, as she dried her hands, but there was suddenly a loud squawk and both boys were sprawled on the floor. Joe sat up first and dusted off his hands, then Patrick pushed himself up on his elbows, his lip starting to wobble. Patricia immediately made for the door, but by the time she reached it and looked outside Patrick was sitting up and Joe was patting at his grass-stained knees tenderly while the dog snuffled around and licked at Patrick's face.
"It's alright," Joe was saying knowledgeably. "Kisses always make it better."
Patrick giggled and cuddled the dog. Apparently, he wasn't such a useless friend after all.
---
"But girls are stupid!" Joe complained, kicking a stone across Patrick's front yard.
"Yes. But she can be Leia," Patrick told him, huffing loudly and putting his hands on his hips so he looked like Joe's mom when he wasn't doing as he was told.
"I don't want her to be Leia!"
"Okay, then she can be Luke and you be Leia."
Joe laughed at him and pushed his shoulder. "I can't be Leia, stupid! I'm a boy!"
"Oh." Patrick seemed very surprised at this idea and suddenly changed his mind. "Okay. Let's play something different. Star Wars is dumb."
---
Being called in to see the teacher wasn't something Cathie had expected while he was still in kindergarten. He seemed to have been doing so well and he was such a good little boy...
She was surprised to find Patricia already there, sitting on a chair in front of the teacher's desk, Patrick playing with some Lego on the play mat in the corner. The moment they saw each other, the boys yelled happily and Joseph ran over and started to help Patrick build some kind of castle.
"Hello," Cathie smiled, trying not to show her alarm and taking the seat next to her friend. The two women had become fairly close in the four or so months since the boys began to play together, and she was surprised not to know she had also been called in.
Patricia smiled up at her, but looked uncomfortable, as if she knew what was coming.
"So, what have the boys been up to?" Cathie asked, attempting to joke. It really couldn't be anything terrible. They were five years old, for goodness sake.
"Well," Mrs Watson began, folding her hands on the desk and pointedly switching her gaze between the two of them, "I'm sure you know that your boys are very close – "
"Of course," Cathie nodded, at exactly the same moment that Patricia laughed quietly.
"Well, you see, that is perfectly normal for children of their age – to have a very close friend they like to spend a lot of their time with – "
"Yes..."
"It's just that in the case of Patrick and Joseph, I'm growing a little concerned."
Cathie looked across at Patricia, who cast her an embarrassed smile and looked back at the teacher. "...Why?"
Without answering, Mrs Watson reached into her desk and pulled out two pink pieces of card covered in red glossy paper hearts and glitter. She pushed them both across the table, and glanced over to the corner, where the boys were whispering to each other behind their hands. "I asked the children to make cards for the Valentine's holiday," she explained carefully. "And these are what they made."
Both mothers leaned over the desk at the clumsily compiled cards; Cathie couldn't see anything wrong with them, but she had a suspicious feeling that she knew where this was headed, and really it was absolutely ridiculous. With one tentative finger, she opened the card nearest to her.
The message was mostly written in the teacher's hand, with the names scrawled over the top in stiff, crooked five-year-old writing.
"To Patrik. Be my Valentine. Love Joe. XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX"
She cleared her throat and gave a small, bemused laugh and looked at the other one.
"To Joe. Be my Valentine. Love Patrick." It was embellished with several misshapen hearts and off-angled X-es.
"Oh."
"Do you perhaps think that the boys may be spending a little too much time together?" Mrs Watson asked delicately.
Cathie laughed and looked at Patricia for back up. "Well, not at all – they're five years old, they can't understand things like this!"
"I did... attempt to explain that they should choose girls within the class to send them to, but they were quite adamant about who they wanted to send them to."
Flabbergasted, Cathie stood up and picked up the card Patrick had made for her little boy. "I'll leave that decision for Pat to make," she declared, adjusting her purse. "I have no intention of stifling my child or giving him prejudices at this age."
She headed for the door and tugged he son to his feet, praying that Patricia would see it the same way.
Patricia didn't.
---
"It's not that I think they're doing anything wrong, Cathie, honey, it's just that maybe she's right and they need to get to know other children..."
"Oh, come on, Patty – they adore each other!"
"I know," Patricia nodded, shifting the receiver onto her shoulder to our milk into her coffee, "and Joseph is such a sweet little boy... but I just don't want them to be limited or not understand how to play with other children."
"But Patrick didn't even have many friends before he met Joe – you said that yourself."
Patricia remained stonily silent, not pleased that her son was being considered socially inept by a woman whose child made her son Valentine's cards. "Well, I'm sorry," she said finally, "We made our decision."
---
The next morning at Kindergarten, Joe walked over to his table and put down his Action Man, looking around for Patrick. Patrick was sitting at a table with Bobby and Cara, his fist pressed against his cheek, looking unhappy.
Joe jumped off his chair and walked over to him. "You're sitting at the wrong table, dummy!" he announced, grabbing his sleeve and pulling on it.
Patrick looked frightened and pulled his arm away, hissing, "Joe! Don't, I can't play with you any more."
"Why not?" Joe asked, and his tummy hurt.
"My mommy said I can't. She told Mrs Watson I have to sit on this table and you have to sit with Matthew."
"But Matthew smells!"
Cara stared at them both and yelled out, "MRS WATSON, PATRICK IS TALKING TO JOE AND JOE SAID MATTHEW SMELLS!"
Joe pushed her off her chair and had to stand in the corner until morning break.
At lunchtime he sat at the table and stared at his cupcake – blue, with star sprinkles – and didn't want to eat it if he couldn't give half to Patrick. He left the whole thing on the table and thought the birds might like it. Seeds and worms were probably boring after a while.
---
"Honey," Patricia said, as she sat down with her husband after tucking Kevin into bed, "I think we have a problem with Patrick."
"Really?" he looked over at her and wrapped an arm around her shoulders. "A bigger problem than the girly-coloured pictures and the Valentines to little boys?"
"He's... well, I don't know how to explain it, other than... our five year old is attempting some kind of hunger strike ."
Her husband laughed. "Don't be ridiculous. He's five."
"I'm not being ridiculous! He had to sit at the table for two hours and I had to threaten to smack his backside before he'd eat and when he did eat he only managed one baby potato and a few garden peas."
"Well, is he sick?"
"No, he's fine. He's just having the biggest sulk of his little life and I don't know what to do about it."
"Well, we have two options: we stand our ground and do what we think is best for our child, but come off as the bad guys; or we let him have his way and start playing with his little boyfriend again, and lose all authority we ever had. And you only get to buy one wedding hat in twenty years time."
Patricia sighed and shook her head. "I'm praying they'll grow out of it..."
"Out of the pining, or the suspect behaviour?"
"Both."
---
One morning, Patrick arrived at school and found a strange lady sitting in Mrs Watson's chair. He stopped for a minute, remembering all the horrible things his mommy and daddy said about strangers. Maybe he should run away.
"Come in, sweetie," the lady said, smiling at him. "Mrs Watson is away for a few days, I'm Miss Thoms, and I'm going to be your supply teacher. What's your name?"
"Um... P-Patrick," he whispered, edging nearer her desk.
"Well, you sit down right there on the bean bags and we'll wait for everybody else, is that okay?"
Patrick nodded hard and dropped onto the nearest bean bag. He liked this one. It was softer than the others and bunched up all round him, like an easy chair.
When Joe walked in, Miss Thoms wasn't looking. Patrick already had a plan. He pressed one finger to his mouth and waved at him to come and sit down. Maybe if they were quiet, the new teacher wouldn't notice. Joe carefully sat on the beanbag next to him and stared at the teacher with wide eyes. "Don't tell," Patrick whispered, covering his mouth with one hand, because then she definitely wouldn't hear.
Joe just nodded and did his best to look innocent.
---
That lunchtime, Joe handed his cupcake over to Patrick and it seemed like forever since he'd shared his lunch with his best friend. He didn't understand why it mattered who he gave his cupcake to. His mother always told him to share – and so did Mrs Watson. It was supposed to be a nice thing to do.
Grown-ups were stupid.
"We have to keep it secret," Patrick told him seriously, as he handed Joe's half back. "I think my mommy'll be mad. She doesn't like you any more."
"Why?" Joe asked, wondering if that meant Patrick didn't like him any more, too.
Patrick shrugged and stuck out his bottom lip. "I dunno. I think she's mad at your mommy. I heard her tell daddy your mommy is a 'sell-rightcheese bitch'."
"What's a sell-rightcheese?"
Patrick shook his head and shrugged, and fed Joe some pumpkin square.
---
It was the Friday afternoon that Patricia was standing at the kindergarten gate, waiting for her little redhead to come running out with his sloppily-painted artwork, and instead caught sight of two little heads peering round the corner of the building. They ducked back when she looked at them and then carefully Patrick edged forward and made his away across the schoolyard.
A few moments later, Joe pelted over to his own mother and jumped into her arms.
When Patrick thought she wasn't looking, he lifted his little chubby hand and waved morosely at the other boy, who waved back sadly. She'd wondered why Patrick had started coming home with an empty lunchbox that week and now, she supposed, she knew.
"Honey," she said, as she strapped Patrick into his booster seat, "would you like to have a tea party for your birthday?"
Patrick stared at her and continued to chew on the strawberry laces she'd given him, before finally asking, "Can Joe come?"
"No, sweetie, there are lots of other children in kindergarten that you can invite."
Folding his arms and kicking angrily at the chair in front of him, Patrick grumbled, "I don't want a stupid party. I want Joe!"
"Well, you can't have Joe, so you had best make some new friends."
Patrick promptly started to cry.
---
Joe was very cross when he got to kindergarten on Monday morning and found the horrible old witch was back. He sat down next to Patrick to test the water and was immediately told to switch places with Simon, which meant sitting next to Emma-May and she had freckles and Joe didn't want to catch them. He sat on the floor next to the bean bag and scowled all morning.
"I've got an idea," Patrick whispered in the yard, during morning break.
"What?" Joe asked, trying to yank the head off of the stupid freckly girl's doll.
"We need to wear digsizes from the dress up box."
"That's stupid."
"No, it's not!"
"Well, you wear a disguise and I'll be me because I'm only not allowed to play with Patrick, not anybody else."
Patrick shrugged, "Okay," and grabbed a handful of the doll's hair. "You pull her legs."
Emma-May cried and everyone laughed at her. Joe was happy because the dressing up idea didn't work and now she was sadder than Patrick.
---
After two further weeks of crying fits and broken toys – and being called in to see Mrs Watson because Patrick had hit Danny in the face with a hardback book – Patricia decided that enough was enough.
She called Cathie and invited Joe to Patrick's birthday tea. And tried not to cringe when they ignored everyone else at the party and sat in the sandbox throwing fistfuls at the little girls.
---
Getting the boys into the same Elementary school wasn't exactly easy. The Stumphs had moved to Glenview, outside of the immediate catchment area for Winnetka, and it took considerable string-pulling to get them both into the same place, but when they finally managed it, it was worth it just to keep the peace.
When they were allowed to see each other, they were sweet, caring and largely obedient little boys – but woe betide the fool who ever tried to separate them, even for games in the playground.
Cathie and Patricia stood by their cars together, watching as they ran up the school steps and straight into the building while most of the other children dithered by their parents and had to be coerced.
"How do you think they'll cope?" Cathie asked, smiling wistfully at the thought of her eldest child growing up, even thought Sam was barely forming sentences.
"Well, I think they'll cope just fine as long as they get their own way," Patty replied. "But I think I'm going to need a coffee, now."
Cathie smiled. "Count me in."
---
Elementary school sucked, in Joe's opinion. They had to do stuff like homework and there was no dressing up box. Plus, other kids were mean. Especially the girls. They did things like make fun of his glasses (which he hated hated hated and kept trying to break so he wouldn't have to wear them any more) and gross stuff like making Patrick get under the table so they could kiss him. And that was so unfair because he was Joe's friend, not theirs and nobody tried to kiss Joe, not even Patrick.
But Joe thought that was probably okay, because Patrick was a boy. Boys didn't kiss boys. Even if they held hands under tables sometimes.
When Joe was eight, though, Katie Greemore kissed him in the playground and Patrick hit her so hard she fell in the flower patch the first graders made and squashed all the flowers.
Patrick got sent to the Principle's office and wasn't allowed to play outside with the other kids for two whole weeks afterward. Joe just spent two weeks sitting on the steps outside the yard-door of their classroom every break.
---
One Friday when Patrick was eight years old, Joe's mom gave him a ride home from school. The hall was full of boxes. He tried to remember if they'd changed Christmas this year but he didn't think so.
Kevin was already home, because his school was near their house, and he was sitting on the couch with his school bag on his lap, staring at a box that had all their dad's records in. His mom was sitting on the edge of the easy chair and his dad stood back by the door, like he had someplace to go.
Patrick just blinked at his mom and dropped his Teenage Mutant Hero Turtles rucksack on the floor. Her eyes were pink like Joe's were the day he started kindergarten. They'd looked like that a lot, lately and Patrick had tried to be extra good so she wouldn't be sad and she'd start smiling properly again (the smiles she gave them reminded of the painted-on face on Kevin's old raggy-doll clown, Chuckles).
They spent all night carrying boxes out to his dad's car and his mom didn't smile at all.
---
Watching her little boys grow up was equal parts wonderful and heart-breaking for Cathie. She wanted to keep them innocent and tied to her apron strings, but she also loved to see the little things changing in them. The way Sam started getting bored of his starter books and tried to get hold of Joe's comics because they were more interesting; the way Joe was growing more inclined to sit him down and help him read them than throw tantrums about the baby getting hold of his stuff.
Of course, there were other things; Joe would be eleven at the end of summer and despite doctors assuring her to the contrary, the speech issues were still lingering. His lisp was less worrisome, now, but he'd come home from school with bruises from fighting, some days. According to Patricia, he wasn't the only one.
They got the kids together, one afternoon, sat them down on the couch and asked them if there was something wrong at school. They just looked at each other sidelong, and shrugged simultaneously.
"Joe, sweetheart, we know you've been fighting and we just want to know why."
Joe looked up at her earnestly with his big, round eyes and said, "We're not fighting each other, mom! Patrick's my best friend!"
"Well, who are you both fighting, honey?" Patty tried, moving to crouch in front of her son and catch his downcast eyes. "You can tell mommy."
"I'm not a baby!" Patrick snapped, pulling his hand away when she tried to take it. "It's just stupid people. Stupid, mean people that say stupid things and – "
"Shh!" Joe hissed, elbowing him and then looking back up at Cathie like he thought she was going to smack him. Or worse, smack Patrick.
"Honey –"
"People..." Patrick looked over at Joe and physically shifted nearer to him, protectively. "People say stuff. About the way Joe says things. There's this one mean kid called Wayne that threw a basketball in his face so I hit him and then his friends came and started a fight and it was everyone else against Joe and me but we kind of won anyway... but now Wayne and his friends, kind of... they push us in the halls and stuff so we get into more fights and things."
"You're getting into fights taking care of Joe?" Cathie asked, both touched and incredulous that this tiny little boy – a fair three inches shorter than Joe already – was throwing punches to look out for her son.
Patrick sniffed and nodded, adding, "But he gets into fights for me, so it's fair and everything."
The next morning, Cathie booked her son in for articulation therapy.
---
Patrick didn't like it when Joe's voice started changing. Joe was the only person who called him 'Patwick', and it was like a password for being his best friend. He could see him concentrating when he talked, trying to make sure he was doing the right sound with his tongue, and really, Patrick thought it was all pretty dumb. Joe talked fine. Who cared if some stupid kids at school made fun of him? Joe was way cooler than they were because nobody in their class played guitar.
One day, sitting on the floor in Joe's room, playing on his Super Nintendo, Patrick started to feel particularly cross. Joe tried four times to say "extra life star" and when he couldn't, he threw his controller on the floor and his player died. They'd got to level nine and only needed to get to the end of the level to get a password and now they'd lost.
"Joe!" he yelled, punching him in the arm. "We nearly finished!"
Joe just leaned back against his bed, hugging his knees and scowling. "It's a stupid game anyway," he complained, kicking at the controller so it skidded across the floor more when he didn't get the 's' sound right.
"You're just mad because that stupid doctor wants you to speak different."
"I can't even do it..."
"You do sometimes."
"Yeah, but I have to think a lot to say stuff so I have to talk all kind of slow and then I sound like a retard."
"No, you don't."
"I do!"
"You don't!"
"Shut up."
Patrick hit restart on his controller and watched his thumbs rubbing circles over the little round buttons. "I don't want you to speak different. You won't be my Joe if you speak like everyone else."
---
Joe wasn't sure why his heart was thumping so much or why his face was burning, but he did like Patrick calling him 'his Joe'. It was nice, because sometimes it was like the whole world against just them (or at least the whole class) but they always had each other. Ever since they were really small. Joe was almost twelve, now, and they were going to start Middle School, soon. It was like he'd known Patrick forever. He couldn't really even remember living in Florida.
He shuffled closer to Patrick so they were shoulder to shoulder, and made a confession.
"I don't want to speak like everyone else."
Patrick looked up at him and scrunched up his nose. "So don't practice."
"But my mom wants me to..."
"They're dumb exercises anyway," Patrick shrugged, and Joe remembered when he'd taught Patrick his routine and how to hold water on his tongue and they'd both ended up splashing each other with bottles of the stuff. They weren't such dumb exercises when they made them fun. "You shouldn't have to change the way you talk because other people want you to. I like you the way you are."
Even though he felt sucky and was mad at himself for not being able to say half his words quite right, Patrick made him smile. And for some reason, he did what his mother always did when he or Sam pleased her: he leaned over and kissed him on the cheek.
Patrick looked a little surprised for a moment, and scrubbed at his cheek with his fist, but he was grinning goofily, and Joe thought that was kind of alright.
---
One of the sweetest things Patricia ever saw was her youngest son sitting on the edge of his bed with his little friend kneeling on the floor in front of him, carefully moving Patrick's fingers to sit on the right frets of his guitar.
Patrick had wanted to play guitar like his daddy when he was little, but his hands had never been big enough – he couldn't reach well enough to play anything – but now he was older, he was starting to learn and Joe was spending a lot of afternoons helping him practice. She couldn't think of any children she'd ever known who were as close as the boys were, and far from being worried by it, as she had been six years ago, she now found herself a little bit envious. She would have loved a friend that close when she was a child. The only thing that did worry her – and it seemed horribly hypocritical, now – was the fact that puberty (and therefore discovering girls) was looming on the horizon.
She wasn't sure she wanted to see the aftermath of either being spurned to spend time with girlfriends.
---
Patrick's dad didn't really know what to do with kids, so whenever it was his weekend, the boys were each allowed to bring a friend. There was never any question of who Patrick would bring.
It was one of the weekends that Kevin didn't come with them, that Patrick and Joe were both sleeping in his father's room while his father took the couch. Usually all the boys slept on cushions on the floor in the sitting room, as the apartment only had one bedroom, so sleeping in the bedroom was something of a novelty.
They were poking around curiously when Patrick found a magazine with women dressed as bunnies on the front. He scrunched up his nose and looked at it.
"What's that?" Joe asked, hanging over the side of the bed on his stomach and putting his glasses back on clumsily.
"I... dunno. But there are ladies dressed like rabbits."
"Rabbits?"
Patrick tried not to let fact that Joe said the 'r' sound almost perfectly bother him, and held up the magazine for him to see. Joe took the magazine out of his hands and flicked through a couple of pages, before turning very red and dropping it like it burned his fingers.
Patrick blinked up at him. "What?"
Joe looked like he might throw up.
"Do you want me to get my dad?"
"NO!" Joe pushed himself up to sit on the bed with legs crossed, still looking shocked.
"What, then?" Patrick asked, picking up the magazine and climbing onto the bed to sit next to him. He opened the magazine somewhere in the middle and his mouth fell wide open.
There were naked ladies in there!
Patrick just stared, eyes wide, at the woman's long, Goldilocks curls hanging over her chest and wondered why anyone had ever bothered to take a picture and put it in a magazine.
"Why are they naked?" Joe whispered, looking over his shoulder.
"I don't know," Patrick whispered back, turning the page and finding that the lady on the next page wasn't just not wearing any clothes, she looked deliberately naked.
"This is gross."
"I know."
Joe shifted and pulled his knees up to his chest looking pale. "I don't think I like girls," he said.
Patrick closed the magazine and put it back where he'd found it, wiping his hands on his pyjamas and feeling slightly icky. "Me either," he said. "Girls are weird. I'm never getting married."
"Me either," Joe told him, shaking his head so hard his glasses almost fell off.
"Good. When we grow up, we should just live in a house and never let any girls in."
"Or parents," Joe added.
---
Kevin had always thought his baby brother was a little weird. The obsession with his best friend was kind of creepy enough, but then he'd do things like watch the same ten minutes of a film over and over again until he had it word perfect or listen to records that were even kind of old fashioned for his parents to be listening to. He wasn't even thirteen, yet.
But he really wasn't expecting the day to come when Patrick came and sat in his bedroom, cross-legged on the floor, and didn't say anything for half an hour, just watched him play an F-1 computer game on the Megadrive.
"Kevin, what's a fag?"
Kevin's Ferrari scraped a wall. "What?"
"Some of the kids at school call me a fag and I kind of get it... sort of... but not really. What does it mean?"
Pausing the game, Kevin took a deep breath. "Dude... a... a fag is a guy who likes other guys."
Patrick blinked for a minute as he thought about it. "Then they're right?"
"No!" Kevin told him quickly. "No, I don't mean 'like' the way you 'like' Joe, man. I mean, they want to... um... marry guys and not girls."
"But I'd rather marry Joe than – "
"SHH!" Kevin interrupted quickly. "You can't say that!"
"But I would!"
"Only because you're twelve and you don't, sort of... you don't know anything about girls, yet."
"I know girls are whiny and don't play computer games and they're always calling me 'Stumpy' because they're all taller than me."
"Joe's taller than you. Actually, everyone's taller than you."
"Shut up!"
"Look, dude, you're not a fag, okay?"
"How do you know?"
Kevin didn't have an answer to that one. And if he was honest, he wasn't even sure he was right.
---
Sex Ed was the most embarrassing hour of Joe's life.
His whole class had to watch short films about the changes they were supposed to go through in the next two years. Some of the girls turned funny colours when they did the section about periods. He couldn't blame them; he kind of wanted to be sick himself. It sounded really, really gross. But maybe it explained why his mom was pissy sometimes.
Patrick was sitting next to him, looking really uncomfortable. They glanced at each other when the lady on the video explained about girls breasts getting bigger, and made 'Ew!' faces. Joe was pretty sure that Patrick was thinking of the nasty magazine they'd found at his dad's house, too. Those ladies' boobies looked like they were drawn on like cartoons.
The thing that confused Joe the most was the way the teacher seemed to think they were only going to have crushes on the girls. He didn't think that made a lot of sense, somehow. She talked about the dreams they had sometimes, and the thing was, Joe never remembered dreaming about girls – he didn't even like the girls he went to school with as friends; they were too catty – the only person he could remember dreaming about, was Patrick.
Was that weird? He didn't know, really, but Patrick was Joe's favourite person in the whole world – even more than his mom – and even if he knew that boys didn't normally kiss boys, it always seemed pretty cool in his dreams. He didn't really know why more people didn't do it.
---
Early in 8th Grade was the first time anyone ever asked Patrick out. He was sitting on the wall of a giant tree planter at lunch, watching Joe play his Gameboy and chewing a ham sandwich, totally unaware of the huddle of girls giggling and whispering on a table nearby. Unaware, that was, until two of the girls came over to them, looking excited.
"Hi, Patrick," one of them said, and Beth snickered against her shoulder.
"Um. Hi."
Joe only glanced up from his Gameboy for a fraction of a second, before seeming to decide they weren't interesting enough to pause his game for, and looking back down again.
The next thing the girls said came out in a confusing rush and Patrick took a minute to understand it.
"So... Jenny really likes you and thinks you're cute and she wants to know if you'll be her boyfriend and stuff."
Beside him, the familiar sound of Super Mario losing a life bleeped out.
Patrick just stared at them.
"Helloo-oo? Patrick? Will you go out with Jenny or not?"
"Go where?"
Both girls giggled and made him feel like an idiot. "Out. Like, dating, duh."
Patrick glanced at Joe, whose face was very, very red. "Why would I want to date her?"
"Because she likes you," Beth said as if this was the only possible option a boy had when a girl liked him.
"I don't like her, though!" Pretty much the only person he liked was Joe, but he didn't think it would be too easy to explain that. Next to him, Joe's Gameboy gave the twitter of an extra life.
Both girls gasped and stared at him like slapped fish. "Oh my God, you're so mean!"
Patrick just shrugged.
"C'mon, Beth, let's tell Jenny. He's too dumb for her anyway."
Joe snickered under his breath and lifted one hand quickly for a hi-five.
Later, sitting in the changing room after everyone had finished gym in last period and left as quickly as possible, Joe blurted out, "I'm glad you didn't date her."
Patrick blushed and squashed Joe's toes with socked feet. "I don't need a girlfriend," he shrugged, and pulled on his t-shirt.
---
"And they cut it off?"
"Yeah, but I was a baby, so I don't remember it."
"That's gross."
Joe just shrugged. "I get a party, though."
"Yeah, me too – it's called 'my birthday'."
"Yeah, but I get an extra one. And money."
"Oh. Well, I guess that's okay..."
"Yeah, but like... all my cousins are going to be there and they're annoying. And my grandma was talking about getting married or something."
"Huh?"
"Not at the party or anything!"
"OH."
"Just one day. She thinks I'm gonna marry one of the girls from the party."
"We're not marrying girls," Patrick reminded him, sounding like he'd get really mad if Joe didn't agree with him. It was kind of lucky that Joe did agree. Passionately so.
He still had to sit through several hours of aunties smiling at him and pushing bushy-haired girls with braces in his general direction, but he kept his mind on the cash and the plans he had for a new guitar.
---
"I can't believe they've grown up so much," Patricia said, smiling as Cathie put a mug of coffee down on the table in front of her. "I can't imagine one without the other, these days."
"Neither can I," Cathie replied, smiling back and thinking back to the first afternoon they had run out of kindergarten together when Joe was only five years old. Almost ten years later, they were nearly ready to start senior high and for the first time, they were going to be separated. "I feel like a monster for letting this happen."
"I wish we could afford to send Patrick to New Trier, believe me, but with two separate households..."
Cathie nodded and sipped her coffee. "Joe seemed to have forgotten he'd be going to New Trier at all... he's known he was going since he was a child – the family always go to new Trier – but when we talked about it..."
"Tantrum?"
"As close as he ever gets to one of those... He's a really, really good boy – I mean, you hear horror stories..."
"Oh yeah."
" – but the worst I get from him is missed homework and a little answering back, but nothing you wouldn't expect from a boy his age."
Patricia nodded.
"But... well, making your child cry is just something every parent hates, but when he's almost fourteen... It's just heartbreaking. I even asked Richard if we could break tradition and just send him to a public school, but... the grandparents."
"In laws. God love'em."
"Or smite'em, whichever."
Both women laughed.
"You know, I hope they don't grow apart because of this," Patricia sighed. "Joe is a dream to have around, I don't want to think of the crowds Patrick might fall in with in a new school, and they've never really had to make new friends because they've always had each other..."
"I know... but what doesn't kill you makes you stronger, right? Hopefully, the same applies to friendships."
---
The last weekend before they started senior high, Patrick's dad took the boys (including Kevin) camping. They travelled out to Mendota Hills and spent a couple of days in the Kind of Alright Outdoors, swimming in water that didn't taste of bleach or turn purple if somebody peed in it and riding bikes without the fear of being run down by some jerk doing seventy in an SUV.
It was fun, mostly, but every minute that went by the closer they got to going home, and going home meant different schools. Not necessarily being able to see Joe every day, or sit next to him in class, or at lunch, or even have someone to share jokes with. Patrick felt sick every time he thought about it, and even when he tried not to, he still felt like he was carrying a rucksack weighed down with rocks.
Their last night, laying in their sleeping bags in the little two-man tent, they talked about what would happen next, promising they'd still hang out and do their homework together every day, and hang out at weekends and on holidays... They tried to make it seem okay, but they both knew it wasn't. It wasn't going to be the same at all.
They lay looking at each other in the dark, the batteries in their lantern having almost run out. Joe's eyes always looked strange without his glasses, like he was never quite looking in a straight line, so Patrick dragged his pillow closer so he could focus properly.
"This whole thing sucks, dude..." Joe murmured, tucking his hands up under his chin. "I don't get why they have to ruin everything because my grandpa wants them to."
Patrick just shook his head against his pillow. He couldn't even bring himself to try to understand it any more. The horrible fact of it was that Joe was going to go away to his rich kid school and there was going to be a whole bunch of kids he could make friends with, who didn't know him when he spoke strange (or stranger, really) and his parents were almost caving on letting him get contact lenses instead of the Joe-90 glasses he'd worn since he was eight. He was going to be too cool for Patrick. He'd find new friends he liked more and Patrick would be stuck in Glenview, with no one.
He rolled over abruptly and turned his back on Joe, embarrassed that he even felt like crying.
For a few moments there was silence, and then shuffling as Joe propped himself on his elbows to peer over Patrick's shoulder. Patrick didn't look at him, he just sighed miserably and closed his eyes.
"I'm not... I mean, I'm not going to forget you or anything," Joe tried, apparently reading his mind; but then, they always knew what the other was thinking. "I promise..." There was another long pause and then, "Don't cry."
"I'm not crying! I'm not a girl!" Patrick shrugged him off and slumped onto his back.
"Hey, don't be mad at me because we have to go to different schools – I begged to go to your school. My mom and dad said no. I can't make them let me!"
Patrick bit his teeth together hard to shop his lip shaking, and closed his eyes tight. He was far, far too old to cry. Joe would think he was stupid and then he'd definitely want new friends.
There was a soft rustling as Joe settled back down in his sleeping bag and pressed his forehead against the top of Patrick's arm. "I hate parents," he mumbled.
Patrick felt around in the dark until he found Joe's hand and held it tight. He thought Joe was going to pull his hand away, grossed out, for a minute, but he was just moving his fingers so that they were more comfortable. The last time they'd held hands they were eight and their elementary school teacher had told them to stop. Not wanting to be separated the way Mrs Watson had separated them, they did as they were told. It didn't seem to matter, much, now – they were going to be separated anyway.
They just lay there quietly for a few minutes before Joe shifted again, wriggling so they were at eyelevel. "Patrick?" he whispered, quieter than they had been before.
Patrick opened his eyes and whispered, "What?"
"Do... um. Do you think it'd be like, too superweird if I kind of... kissed you?"
For a moment, Patrick stared up at the canopy of the tent waiting for the weird flip-flopping feeling in his stomach to stop. "Um... probably."
"Oh." Joe shrugged uncomfortably and started to shift back down to where he was laying before.
"But, y'know... I probably wouldn't mind if you did it anyway."
"Probably?"
Patrick just shrugged and nodded, but he carefully squeezed Joe's hand tighter, too. Mostly, he just ended up remembering that Joe breathing close to his face was the weirdest part and that neither of them really opened their mouths much. And that he'd forgotten how long Joe's eyelashes were until he nearly freaked out thinking they were a spider on his face. And that was it. He fell asleep with his nose pressed against Joe's cheek, and the next morning it was as if nothing had happened.
---
Joe's fourteenth birthday was on a Tuesday barely a week after he started senior high. He didn't have a party; he didn't want to see anyone, anyway – he hadn't hung out with Patrick since they dropped him home from camping, and he'd been totally miserable the whole time.
High school was isolating. People were forming cliques, or hanging out with the kids they already knew, and Joe had gone to Elementary and Junior High in Glenview so he hardly even recognised kids from Winnetka, Wilmette and Northfield. The only familiar faces were the kids he and Patrick had been mean to in kindergarten and he didn't really want to hang out with them anyway. He was the third youngest in his year – only scraping into his grade on a technicality when he was in kindergarten and kept there ever since – some of the kids were a whole year older than him and made him feel like a baby. He just sat in the seats closest to the windows in all his classes, and only really spoke to everyone else when he had to. There didn't seem much point in interacting with the rest of them, because none of them would ever compare to his best friend anyway.
Most days he skipped lunch because he hated being the only kid sitting on a table by himself in the cafeteria. He might not have any friends at school, but he didn't have to draw everyone else's attention to that fact. He didn't think anyone else even knew his name.
They didn't do anything special, that evening – they just hung out, Joe teaching Patrick Guns 'n' Roses solos on his guitar and later watching Star Wars, propped against the wall on Joe's bed. They did this kind of thing every day after school for the last few years. Now it was a novelty. Joe wasn't sure he'd ever hated anything so much in his life.
Joe wanted to ask Patrick about his school, but he didn't want to hear that it was awesome and that there were tons of cool people to hang out with and that he hadn't missed Joe at all. So he didn't ask. They just sat shoulder to shoulder, one of Patrick's knees folded so it rested over Joe's leg slightly, and let themselves become absorbed in X-wings and lightsabers.
When Joe's dad called up the stairs to tell them it was time he dropped Patrick home, they took their time getting their sneakers on, not wanting to go back to separate homes and different schools. They'd hardly even talked all night, but just as he was going for the bedroom door, Patrick stopped and turned back to Joe, looking at his feet.
"So, I mean... we're still going to do this stuff, aren't we?"
Joe blinked at him. "Sure, dude. I mean... we promised."
"Yeah. But, I mean. It's already been like a week."
"I know, dude, and it sucks. It totally, totally sucks. I hate it, but my mom is making me do my homework right away and kind of like make a good impression or something..."
"You're not... y'know... you're not making a million new friends or anything?"
Joe actually laughed. "ME? Are you totally insane?"
Patrick just frowned at him.
"No, dude, I haven't even spoken to anyone, really."
There was a look something close to relief creeping over Patrick's face. "Oh. Cool. Well, not cool, because it really has to suck, but I mean... I dunno. I just figured you'd made a bunch of friends and... y'know."
"I don't want a million friends, man. I just want my best friend to get to hang out with me sometimes. Or, like, all the time, really."
Patrick barrelled into him and hugged him so hard he couldn't breathe.
Part Two
Summary: What-if AU. What if Joe had never moved to Ohio first?
Author:
icedmapleBetas:
satsuma_grove, likethepaint, xdearlin & shiny_starlight. ashe_frost and musictoyourlips also fielded questions about US schooling. satsuma77 suggested the name for this fic.Rating: PG-13+ for language and teenagers being awkward and doing what teenagers do.
Pairing: Joe/Patrick
Words: c.26,000
Author's notes: This fic is for
decembersrose in the slutrick challenge. It is way delayed, so I hope it lives up to expectations!This fic is realistic AU so I've had to bend a few historical factors – I hope that doesn't shake it up too much for anyone.
I did a fucking TON of research for this fic – both looking at online schooling information and asking people who live over there. I've done my best to make it as accurate as possible. Apologies for any inconsistencies.
Disclaimer: Could not have happened because there's this place called Ohio, apparently...
The Cure to Growing Older
Like kisses on the necks of best friends.
The first time Patrick Stumph laid eyes on Joe Trohman, his eyes were pink and wet and he was holding He-Man by one leg as he was ushered over to Patrick's table and handed a purple crayon. He sat on the red plastic chair and gazed at the colouring implement with eyes that reminded Patrick's five year old self of Emma-May's blinking-action dolly; and his lip started to wobble.
For a moment, Patrick thought about putting up his hand and calling over Mrs Watson, but he didn't want to get the new boy in trouble. He tilted his head and looked at him sideways, wondering why he was sad. Maybe he didn't like purple. Patrick pulled over the plastic crayon basket and looked for another one. Maybe blue was better.
Carefully, he leaned off his chair and across the table and put down the crayon next to He-Man; then he dropped into his seat again and finished colouring a teddy bear bright orange. He liked orange. It reminded him of pumpkins. And carrots. But he didn't like carrots.
Across the table, the new boy sniffed and wiped his face on the sleeve of his sweater. Then, he got off his chair and, dragging He-Man and his crayons with him, he walked around the table to sit next to Patrick, and started colouring in the tree on Patrick's picture blue. Patrick grinned and told him the leaves had to be pink.
---
When Cathie Trohman's little boy ran out of kindergarten that day, trailing a tiny redheaded child with him, she thought that things in Winnetka might just be alright, after all. She and Richard had been so sure he was too young to have made any real friends in Florida, but he'd screamed and cried when they left and they'd put off enrolling him in a new kindergarten for a whole month in the hopes of getting him settled. When it didn't seem to work, they thought that changing tack may be the best thing, hoping that making friends with other children may be what he needed.
And judging by the enormous smile on his face as he scampered toward her, arms outstretched and a far cry from the teary mess he'd been when she left him that morning, they'd finally found something that worked.
"Patrick!"
Cathie looked up to see another woman hurrying across the schoolyard and scooping up Joseph's little friend into her arms, pinching his nose affectionately and scolding him for running off. The little boy was too busy stretching out for Joseph with both arms to do much more than wriggle away.
Picking up her own child and kissing his forehead, Cathie walked over to the other mother laughing. "Looks like my little man made a new friend today," she smiled, reaching out to pinch the little redheaded boy's cheek gently.
"Mommy, hith name ith Patwick," Joe informed her, thumping his action figure against her shoulder, as if she was actually embarrassing him.
"Well, hello, Patrick. Pleased to meet you." She held out a hand for him to shake, but he turned away and buried his face in his mother's shoulder, peeking back at her shyly.
"He's very timid," his mother acknowledged, patting his back and smiling. "He doesn't really make many friends."
"HE'TH MY FWIEND!" Joe yelled gleefully and Patrick immediately lifted his head and giggled.
Both women laughed.
"Well, it's just typical he picked a friend with a name he can't even say properly, yet," Cathie joked.
"Oh, he'll grow out of it – my eldest, Kevin, had a lisp for the first three years."
"Oh, well, Joseph has one of those too. So we really just call him 'Joe' most of the time."
Joe glared at her and put one hand over her mouth. "MOMMY!"
The other woman just laughed. "Well, I'm Patricia."
"Cathie. Cathie Trohman. We just moved from Florida – my husband's parents are getting older now, and this is his hometown, so..."
"Well, you take my number and we'll get together some time – the kids can play and we can have coffee."
Cathie was suddenly quite sure that Winnetka wasn't going to be so bad after all.
---
Joe didn't understand why it had to be so long until he could go to kindergarten again. The idea of having to go to sleep first just seemed plain silly, and he sulked all evening before asking if he could go to sleep an hour earlier than his bedtime just so it would be tomorrow sooner.
He couldn't wait to get into the classroom the next morning, and ate his Froot Loops so quickly they didn't even have time to turn the milk pink.
Patrick was already sitting on the bean bags by Mrs Watson's desk, waiting for roll call, and when he saw Joe walk in he pushed the kid next to him until he moved, so Joe could sit with him. Joe stuck his tongue out at Matthew and made himself comfortable.
At lunchtime they sat together, plastic carry cases on the child-sized picnic tables in front of them, and were rude to anyone who wanted to sit with them. Only people with blue lunchboxes were allowed at their table.
Joe looked at his little pink cupcake with the strawberry on top and thought for a minute. Then he picked it up and dropped it in Patrick's lunchbox with a grin. Patrick stared at it and then picked up the brown square of cake wrapped in plastic and dropped it in Joe's. Joe was a bit disappointed. It didn't look even nearly as exciting as his cupcake, but it tasted okay. Joe took a bite and gave it back. Patrick made him eat the other half of the cupcake.
Neither of them would ever eat their lunch to themselves again. Or, almost never.
---
Patrick hated Saturdays. And Sundays, too. On Saturdays and Sundays he had to stay at home and play with Kevin and Kevin was mean and didn't want to make rayguns out of stickle bricks. He spent all morning laying on the floor with his chin propped on his pudgy little hand, scowling at the dog, because all he did was chew his bricks and then wander off and fall asleep. The dog was a useless best friend.
Sitting at the kitchen table at lunch, he chewed on his cheese spread sandwich thoughtfully and asked, "Mommy, can we take the dog back to the shop and have a Joe instead?"
"No, sweetie," his mom laughed, wiping her hands on a towel and straightening his hair so that he shook his head wildly and messed it up again, "I don't think Joseph's mommy would like it very much if we took her little boy away, do you?"
Patrick shrugged and picked up one of the one-two-three-four baby tomatoes rolling around his plate and stuck one whole in his mouth so that the juice squirted down his chin and made him giggle.
"Okay," he said, as his mother wiped his face. "I want to go and live with Joe."
---
Patricia smiled as she looked out of the kitchen window and saw the two little boys chasing the dog around the yard. It was so wonderful to see her child happy. He'd been so quiet most of his young life, but with the moment he'd met the curly-haired little Jewish boy he'd transformed. She was relieved beyond words that he finally seemed to be coming out of his shell; they didn't seem to like playing with other children very much, but it was better than nothing. Maybe he'd grow into it.
She only looked away for a moment, as she dried her hands, but there was suddenly a loud squawk and both boys were sprawled on the floor. Joe sat up first and dusted off his hands, then Patrick pushed himself up on his elbows, his lip starting to wobble. Patricia immediately made for the door, but by the time she reached it and looked outside Patrick was sitting up and Joe was patting at his grass-stained knees tenderly while the dog snuffled around and licked at Patrick's face.
"It's alright," Joe was saying knowledgeably. "Kisses always make it better."
Patrick giggled and cuddled the dog. Apparently, he wasn't such a useless friend after all.
---
"But girls are stupid!" Joe complained, kicking a stone across Patrick's front yard.
"Yes. But she can be Leia," Patrick told him, huffing loudly and putting his hands on his hips so he looked like Joe's mom when he wasn't doing as he was told.
"I don't want her to be Leia!"
"Okay, then she can be Luke and you be Leia."
Joe laughed at him and pushed his shoulder. "I can't be Leia, stupid! I'm a boy!"
"Oh." Patrick seemed very surprised at this idea and suddenly changed his mind. "Okay. Let's play something different. Star Wars is dumb."
---
Being called in to see the teacher wasn't something Cathie had expected while he was still in kindergarten. He seemed to have been doing so well and he was such a good little boy...
She was surprised to find Patricia already there, sitting on a chair in front of the teacher's desk, Patrick playing with some Lego on the play mat in the corner. The moment they saw each other, the boys yelled happily and Joseph ran over and started to help Patrick build some kind of castle.
"Hello," Cathie smiled, trying not to show her alarm and taking the seat next to her friend. The two women had become fairly close in the four or so months since the boys began to play together, and she was surprised not to know she had also been called in.
Patricia smiled up at her, but looked uncomfortable, as if she knew what was coming.
"So, what have the boys been up to?" Cathie asked, attempting to joke. It really couldn't be anything terrible. They were five years old, for goodness sake.
"Well," Mrs Watson began, folding her hands on the desk and pointedly switching her gaze between the two of them, "I'm sure you know that your boys are very close – "
"Of course," Cathie nodded, at exactly the same moment that Patricia laughed quietly.
"Well, you see, that is perfectly normal for children of their age – to have a very close friend they like to spend a lot of their time with – "
"Yes..."
"It's just that in the case of Patrick and Joseph, I'm growing a little concerned."
Cathie looked across at Patricia, who cast her an embarrassed smile and looked back at the teacher. "...Why?"
Without answering, Mrs Watson reached into her desk and pulled out two pink pieces of card covered in red glossy paper hearts and glitter. She pushed them both across the table, and glanced over to the corner, where the boys were whispering to each other behind their hands. "I asked the children to make cards for the Valentine's holiday," she explained carefully. "And these are what they made."
Both mothers leaned over the desk at the clumsily compiled cards; Cathie couldn't see anything wrong with them, but she had a suspicious feeling that she knew where this was headed, and really it was absolutely ridiculous. With one tentative finger, she opened the card nearest to her.
The message was mostly written in the teacher's hand, with the names scrawled over the top in stiff, crooked five-year-old writing.
"To Patrik. Be my Valentine. Love Joe. XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX"
She cleared her throat and gave a small, bemused laugh and looked at the other one.
"To Joe. Be my Valentine. Love Patrick." It was embellished with several misshapen hearts and off-angled X-es.
"Oh."
"Do you perhaps think that the boys may be spending a little too much time together?" Mrs Watson asked delicately.
Cathie laughed and looked at Patricia for back up. "Well, not at all – they're five years old, they can't understand things like this!"
"I did... attempt to explain that they should choose girls within the class to send them to, but they were quite adamant about who they wanted to send them to."
Flabbergasted, Cathie stood up and picked up the card Patrick had made for her little boy. "I'll leave that decision for Pat to make," she declared, adjusting her purse. "I have no intention of stifling my child or giving him prejudices at this age."
She headed for the door and tugged he son to his feet, praying that Patricia would see it the same way.
Patricia didn't.
---
"It's not that I think they're doing anything wrong, Cathie, honey, it's just that maybe she's right and they need to get to know other children..."
"Oh, come on, Patty – they adore each other!"
"I know," Patricia nodded, shifting the receiver onto her shoulder to our milk into her coffee, "and Joseph is such a sweet little boy... but I just don't want them to be limited or not understand how to play with other children."
"But Patrick didn't even have many friends before he met Joe – you said that yourself."
Patricia remained stonily silent, not pleased that her son was being considered socially inept by a woman whose child made her son Valentine's cards. "Well, I'm sorry," she said finally, "We made our decision."
---
The next morning at Kindergarten, Joe walked over to his table and put down his Action Man, looking around for Patrick. Patrick was sitting at a table with Bobby and Cara, his fist pressed against his cheek, looking unhappy.
Joe jumped off his chair and walked over to him. "You're sitting at the wrong table, dummy!" he announced, grabbing his sleeve and pulling on it.
Patrick looked frightened and pulled his arm away, hissing, "Joe! Don't, I can't play with you any more."
"Why not?" Joe asked, and his tummy hurt.
"My mommy said I can't. She told Mrs Watson I have to sit on this table and you have to sit with Matthew."
"But Matthew smells!"
Cara stared at them both and yelled out, "MRS WATSON, PATRICK IS TALKING TO JOE AND JOE SAID MATTHEW SMELLS!"
Joe pushed her off her chair and had to stand in the corner until morning break.
At lunchtime he sat at the table and stared at his cupcake – blue, with star sprinkles – and didn't want to eat it if he couldn't give half to Patrick. He left the whole thing on the table and thought the birds might like it. Seeds and worms were probably boring after a while.
---
"Honey," Patricia said, as she sat down with her husband after tucking Kevin into bed, "I think we have a problem with Patrick."
"Really?" he looked over at her and wrapped an arm around her shoulders. "A bigger problem than the girly-coloured pictures and the Valentines to little boys?"
"He's... well, I don't know how to explain it, other than... our five year old is attempting some kind of hunger strike ."
Her husband laughed. "Don't be ridiculous. He's five."
"I'm not being ridiculous! He had to sit at the table for two hours and I had to threaten to smack his backside before he'd eat and when he did eat he only managed one baby potato and a few garden peas."
"Well, is he sick?"
"No, he's fine. He's just having the biggest sulk of his little life and I don't know what to do about it."
"Well, we have two options: we stand our ground and do what we think is best for our child, but come off as the bad guys; or we let him have his way and start playing with his little boyfriend again, and lose all authority we ever had. And you only get to buy one wedding hat in twenty years time."
Patricia sighed and shook her head. "I'm praying they'll grow out of it..."
"Out of the pining, or the suspect behaviour?"
"Both."
---
One morning, Patrick arrived at school and found a strange lady sitting in Mrs Watson's chair. He stopped for a minute, remembering all the horrible things his mommy and daddy said about strangers. Maybe he should run away.
"Come in, sweetie," the lady said, smiling at him. "Mrs Watson is away for a few days, I'm Miss Thoms, and I'm going to be your supply teacher. What's your name?"
"Um... P-Patrick," he whispered, edging nearer her desk.
"Well, you sit down right there on the bean bags and we'll wait for everybody else, is that okay?"
Patrick nodded hard and dropped onto the nearest bean bag. He liked this one. It was softer than the others and bunched up all round him, like an easy chair.
When Joe walked in, Miss Thoms wasn't looking. Patrick already had a plan. He pressed one finger to his mouth and waved at him to come and sit down. Maybe if they were quiet, the new teacher wouldn't notice. Joe carefully sat on the beanbag next to him and stared at the teacher with wide eyes. "Don't tell," Patrick whispered, covering his mouth with one hand, because then she definitely wouldn't hear.
Joe just nodded and did his best to look innocent.
---
That lunchtime, Joe handed his cupcake over to Patrick and it seemed like forever since he'd shared his lunch with his best friend. He didn't understand why it mattered who he gave his cupcake to. His mother always told him to share – and so did Mrs Watson. It was supposed to be a nice thing to do.
Grown-ups were stupid.
"We have to keep it secret," Patrick told him seriously, as he handed Joe's half back. "I think my mommy'll be mad. She doesn't like you any more."
"Why?" Joe asked, wondering if that meant Patrick didn't like him any more, too.
Patrick shrugged and stuck out his bottom lip. "I dunno. I think she's mad at your mommy. I heard her tell daddy your mommy is a 'sell-rightcheese bitch'."
"What's a sell-rightcheese?"
Patrick shook his head and shrugged, and fed Joe some pumpkin square.
---
It was the Friday afternoon that Patricia was standing at the kindergarten gate, waiting for her little redhead to come running out with his sloppily-painted artwork, and instead caught sight of two little heads peering round the corner of the building. They ducked back when she looked at them and then carefully Patrick edged forward and made his away across the schoolyard.
A few moments later, Joe pelted over to his own mother and jumped into her arms.
When Patrick thought she wasn't looking, he lifted his little chubby hand and waved morosely at the other boy, who waved back sadly. She'd wondered why Patrick had started coming home with an empty lunchbox that week and now, she supposed, she knew.
"Honey," she said, as she strapped Patrick into his booster seat, "would you like to have a tea party for your birthday?"
Patrick stared at her and continued to chew on the strawberry laces she'd given him, before finally asking, "Can Joe come?"
"No, sweetie, there are lots of other children in kindergarten that you can invite."
Folding his arms and kicking angrily at the chair in front of him, Patrick grumbled, "I don't want a stupid party. I want Joe!"
"Well, you can't have Joe, so you had best make some new friends."
Patrick promptly started to cry.
---
Joe was very cross when he got to kindergarten on Monday morning and found the horrible old witch was back. He sat down next to Patrick to test the water and was immediately told to switch places with Simon, which meant sitting next to Emma-May and she had freckles and Joe didn't want to catch them. He sat on the floor next to the bean bag and scowled all morning.
"I've got an idea," Patrick whispered in the yard, during morning break.
"What?" Joe asked, trying to yank the head off of the stupid freckly girl's doll.
"We need to wear digsizes from the dress up box."
"That's stupid."
"No, it's not!"
"Well, you wear a disguise and I'll be me because I'm only not allowed to play with Patrick, not anybody else."
Patrick shrugged, "Okay," and grabbed a handful of the doll's hair. "You pull her legs."
Emma-May cried and everyone laughed at her. Joe was happy because the dressing up idea didn't work and now she was sadder than Patrick.
---
After two further weeks of crying fits and broken toys – and being called in to see Mrs Watson because Patrick had hit Danny in the face with a hardback book – Patricia decided that enough was enough.
She called Cathie and invited Joe to Patrick's birthday tea. And tried not to cringe when they ignored everyone else at the party and sat in the sandbox throwing fistfuls at the little girls.
---
Getting the boys into the same Elementary school wasn't exactly easy. The Stumphs had moved to Glenview, outside of the immediate catchment area for Winnetka, and it took considerable string-pulling to get them both into the same place, but when they finally managed it, it was worth it just to keep the peace.
When they were allowed to see each other, they were sweet, caring and largely obedient little boys – but woe betide the fool who ever tried to separate them, even for games in the playground.
Cathie and Patricia stood by their cars together, watching as they ran up the school steps and straight into the building while most of the other children dithered by their parents and had to be coerced.
"How do you think they'll cope?" Cathie asked, smiling wistfully at the thought of her eldest child growing up, even thought Sam was barely forming sentences.
"Well, I think they'll cope just fine as long as they get their own way," Patty replied. "But I think I'm going to need a coffee, now."
Cathie smiled. "Count me in."
---
Elementary school sucked, in Joe's opinion. They had to do stuff like homework and there was no dressing up box. Plus, other kids were mean. Especially the girls. They did things like make fun of his glasses (which he hated hated hated and kept trying to break so he wouldn't have to wear them any more) and gross stuff like making Patrick get under the table so they could kiss him. And that was so unfair because he was Joe's friend, not theirs and nobody tried to kiss Joe, not even Patrick.
But Joe thought that was probably okay, because Patrick was a boy. Boys didn't kiss boys. Even if they held hands under tables sometimes.
When Joe was eight, though, Katie Greemore kissed him in the playground and Patrick hit her so hard she fell in the flower patch the first graders made and squashed all the flowers.
Patrick got sent to the Principle's office and wasn't allowed to play outside with the other kids for two whole weeks afterward. Joe just spent two weeks sitting on the steps outside the yard-door of their classroom every break.
---
One Friday when Patrick was eight years old, Joe's mom gave him a ride home from school. The hall was full of boxes. He tried to remember if they'd changed Christmas this year but he didn't think so.
Kevin was already home, because his school was near their house, and he was sitting on the couch with his school bag on his lap, staring at a box that had all their dad's records in. His mom was sitting on the edge of the easy chair and his dad stood back by the door, like he had someplace to go.
Patrick just blinked at his mom and dropped his Teenage Mutant Hero Turtles rucksack on the floor. Her eyes were pink like Joe's were the day he started kindergarten. They'd looked like that a lot, lately and Patrick had tried to be extra good so she wouldn't be sad and she'd start smiling properly again (the smiles she gave them reminded of the painted-on face on Kevin's old raggy-doll clown, Chuckles).
They spent all night carrying boxes out to his dad's car and his mom didn't smile at all.
---
Watching her little boys grow up was equal parts wonderful and heart-breaking for Cathie. She wanted to keep them innocent and tied to her apron strings, but she also loved to see the little things changing in them. The way Sam started getting bored of his starter books and tried to get hold of Joe's comics because they were more interesting; the way Joe was growing more inclined to sit him down and help him read them than throw tantrums about the baby getting hold of his stuff.
Of course, there were other things; Joe would be eleven at the end of summer and despite doctors assuring her to the contrary, the speech issues were still lingering. His lisp was less worrisome, now, but he'd come home from school with bruises from fighting, some days. According to Patricia, he wasn't the only one.
They got the kids together, one afternoon, sat them down on the couch and asked them if there was something wrong at school. They just looked at each other sidelong, and shrugged simultaneously.
"Joe, sweetheart, we know you've been fighting and we just want to know why."
Joe looked up at her earnestly with his big, round eyes and said, "We're not fighting each other, mom! Patrick's my best friend!"
"Well, who are you both fighting, honey?" Patty tried, moving to crouch in front of her son and catch his downcast eyes. "You can tell mommy."
"I'm not a baby!" Patrick snapped, pulling his hand away when she tried to take it. "It's just stupid people. Stupid, mean people that say stupid things and – "
"Shh!" Joe hissed, elbowing him and then looking back up at Cathie like he thought she was going to smack him. Or worse, smack Patrick.
"Honey –"
"People..." Patrick looked over at Joe and physically shifted nearer to him, protectively. "People say stuff. About the way Joe says things. There's this one mean kid called Wayne that threw a basketball in his face so I hit him and then his friends came and started a fight and it was everyone else against Joe and me but we kind of won anyway... but now Wayne and his friends, kind of... they push us in the halls and stuff so we get into more fights and things."
"You're getting into fights taking care of Joe?" Cathie asked, both touched and incredulous that this tiny little boy – a fair three inches shorter than Joe already – was throwing punches to look out for her son.
Patrick sniffed and nodded, adding, "But he gets into fights for me, so it's fair and everything."
The next morning, Cathie booked her son in for articulation therapy.
---
Patrick didn't like it when Joe's voice started changing. Joe was the only person who called him 'Patwick', and it was like a password for being his best friend. He could see him concentrating when he talked, trying to make sure he was doing the right sound with his tongue, and really, Patrick thought it was all pretty dumb. Joe talked fine. Who cared if some stupid kids at school made fun of him? Joe was way cooler than they were because nobody in their class played guitar.
One day, sitting on the floor in Joe's room, playing on his Super Nintendo, Patrick started to feel particularly cross. Joe tried four times to say "extra life star" and when he couldn't, he threw his controller on the floor and his player died. They'd got to level nine and only needed to get to the end of the level to get a password and now they'd lost.
"Joe!" he yelled, punching him in the arm. "We nearly finished!"
Joe just leaned back against his bed, hugging his knees and scowling. "It's a stupid game anyway," he complained, kicking at the controller so it skidded across the floor more when he didn't get the 's' sound right.
"You're just mad because that stupid doctor wants you to speak different."
"I can't even do it..."
"You do sometimes."
"Yeah, but I have to think a lot to say stuff so I have to talk all kind of slow and then I sound like a retard."
"No, you don't."
"I do!"
"You don't!"
"Shut up."
Patrick hit restart on his controller and watched his thumbs rubbing circles over the little round buttons. "I don't want you to speak different. You won't be my Joe if you speak like everyone else."
---
Joe wasn't sure why his heart was thumping so much or why his face was burning, but he did like Patrick calling him 'his Joe'. It was nice, because sometimes it was like the whole world against just them (or at least the whole class) but they always had each other. Ever since they were really small. Joe was almost twelve, now, and they were going to start Middle School, soon. It was like he'd known Patrick forever. He couldn't really even remember living in Florida.
He shuffled closer to Patrick so they were shoulder to shoulder, and made a confession.
"I don't want to speak like everyone else."
Patrick looked up at him and scrunched up his nose. "So don't practice."
"But my mom wants me to..."
"They're dumb exercises anyway," Patrick shrugged, and Joe remembered when he'd taught Patrick his routine and how to hold water on his tongue and they'd both ended up splashing each other with bottles of the stuff. They weren't such dumb exercises when they made them fun. "You shouldn't have to change the way you talk because other people want you to. I like you the way you are."
Even though he felt sucky and was mad at himself for not being able to say half his words quite right, Patrick made him smile. And for some reason, he did what his mother always did when he or Sam pleased her: he leaned over and kissed him on the cheek.
Patrick looked a little surprised for a moment, and scrubbed at his cheek with his fist, but he was grinning goofily, and Joe thought that was kind of alright.
---
One of the sweetest things Patricia ever saw was her youngest son sitting on the edge of his bed with his little friend kneeling on the floor in front of him, carefully moving Patrick's fingers to sit on the right frets of his guitar.
Patrick had wanted to play guitar like his daddy when he was little, but his hands had never been big enough – he couldn't reach well enough to play anything – but now he was older, he was starting to learn and Joe was spending a lot of afternoons helping him practice. She couldn't think of any children she'd ever known who were as close as the boys were, and far from being worried by it, as she had been six years ago, she now found herself a little bit envious. She would have loved a friend that close when she was a child. The only thing that did worry her – and it seemed horribly hypocritical, now – was the fact that puberty (and therefore discovering girls) was looming on the horizon.
She wasn't sure she wanted to see the aftermath of either being spurned to spend time with girlfriends.
---
Patrick's dad didn't really know what to do with kids, so whenever it was his weekend, the boys were each allowed to bring a friend. There was never any question of who Patrick would bring.
It was one of the weekends that Kevin didn't come with them, that Patrick and Joe were both sleeping in his father's room while his father took the couch. Usually all the boys slept on cushions on the floor in the sitting room, as the apartment only had one bedroom, so sleeping in the bedroom was something of a novelty.
They were poking around curiously when Patrick found a magazine with women dressed as bunnies on the front. He scrunched up his nose and looked at it.
"What's that?" Joe asked, hanging over the side of the bed on his stomach and putting his glasses back on clumsily.
"I... dunno. But there are ladies dressed like rabbits."
"Rabbits?"
Patrick tried not to let fact that Joe said the 'r' sound almost perfectly bother him, and held up the magazine for him to see. Joe took the magazine out of his hands and flicked through a couple of pages, before turning very red and dropping it like it burned his fingers.
Patrick blinked up at him. "What?"
Joe looked like he might throw up.
"Do you want me to get my dad?"
"NO!" Joe pushed himself up to sit on the bed with legs crossed, still looking shocked.
"What, then?" Patrick asked, picking up the magazine and climbing onto the bed to sit next to him. He opened the magazine somewhere in the middle and his mouth fell wide open.
There were naked ladies in there!
Patrick just stared, eyes wide, at the woman's long, Goldilocks curls hanging over her chest and wondered why anyone had ever bothered to take a picture and put it in a magazine.
"Why are they naked?" Joe whispered, looking over his shoulder.
"I don't know," Patrick whispered back, turning the page and finding that the lady on the next page wasn't just not wearing any clothes, she looked deliberately naked.
"This is gross."
"I know."
Joe shifted and pulled his knees up to his chest looking pale. "I don't think I like girls," he said.
Patrick closed the magazine and put it back where he'd found it, wiping his hands on his pyjamas and feeling slightly icky. "Me either," he said. "Girls are weird. I'm never getting married."
"Me either," Joe told him, shaking his head so hard his glasses almost fell off.
"Good. When we grow up, we should just live in a house and never let any girls in."
"Or parents," Joe added.
---
Kevin had always thought his baby brother was a little weird. The obsession with his best friend was kind of creepy enough, but then he'd do things like watch the same ten minutes of a film over and over again until he had it word perfect or listen to records that were even kind of old fashioned for his parents to be listening to. He wasn't even thirteen, yet.
But he really wasn't expecting the day to come when Patrick came and sat in his bedroom, cross-legged on the floor, and didn't say anything for half an hour, just watched him play an F-1 computer game on the Megadrive.
"Kevin, what's a fag?"
Kevin's Ferrari scraped a wall. "What?"
"Some of the kids at school call me a fag and I kind of get it... sort of... but not really. What does it mean?"
Pausing the game, Kevin took a deep breath. "Dude... a... a fag is a guy who likes other guys."
Patrick blinked for a minute as he thought about it. "Then they're right?"
"No!" Kevin told him quickly. "No, I don't mean 'like' the way you 'like' Joe, man. I mean, they want to... um... marry guys and not girls."
"But I'd rather marry Joe than – "
"SHH!" Kevin interrupted quickly. "You can't say that!"
"But I would!"
"Only because you're twelve and you don't, sort of... you don't know anything about girls, yet."
"I know girls are whiny and don't play computer games and they're always calling me 'Stumpy' because they're all taller than me."
"Joe's taller than you. Actually, everyone's taller than you."
"Shut up!"
"Look, dude, you're not a fag, okay?"
"How do you know?"
Kevin didn't have an answer to that one. And if he was honest, he wasn't even sure he was right.
---
Sex Ed was the most embarrassing hour of Joe's life.
His whole class had to watch short films about the changes they were supposed to go through in the next two years. Some of the girls turned funny colours when they did the section about periods. He couldn't blame them; he kind of wanted to be sick himself. It sounded really, really gross. But maybe it explained why his mom was pissy sometimes.
Patrick was sitting next to him, looking really uncomfortable. They glanced at each other when the lady on the video explained about girls breasts getting bigger, and made 'Ew!' faces. Joe was pretty sure that Patrick was thinking of the nasty magazine they'd found at his dad's house, too. Those ladies' boobies looked like they were drawn on like cartoons.
The thing that confused Joe the most was the way the teacher seemed to think they were only going to have crushes on the girls. He didn't think that made a lot of sense, somehow. She talked about the dreams they had sometimes, and the thing was, Joe never remembered dreaming about girls – he didn't even like the girls he went to school with as friends; they were too catty – the only person he could remember dreaming about, was Patrick.
Was that weird? He didn't know, really, but Patrick was Joe's favourite person in the whole world – even more than his mom – and even if he knew that boys didn't normally kiss boys, it always seemed pretty cool in his dreams. He didn't really know why more people didn't do it.
---
Early in 8th Grade was the first time anyone ever asked Patrick out. He was sitting on the wall of a giant tree planter at lunch, watching Joe play his Gameboy and chewing a ham sandwich, totally unaware of the huddle of girls giggling and whispering on a table nearby. Unaware, that was, until two of the girls came over to them, looking excited.
"Hi, Patrick," one of them said, and Beth snickered against her shoulder.
"Um. Hi."
Joe only glanced up from his Gameboy for a fraction of a second, before seeming to decide they weren't interesting enough to pause his game for, and looking back down again.
The next thing the girls said came out in a confusing rush and Patrick took a minute to understand it.
"So... Jenny really likes you and thinks you're cute and she wants to know if you'll be her boyfriend and stuff."
Beside him, the familiar sound of Super Mario losing a life bleeped out.
Patrick just stared at them.
"Helloo-oo? Patrick? Will you go out with Jenny or not?"
"Go where?"
Both girls giggled and made him feel like an idiot. "Out. Like, dating, duh."
Patrick glanced at Joe, whose face was very, very red. "Why would I want to date her?"
"Because she likes you," Beth said as if this was the only possible option a boy had when a girl liked him.
"I don't like her, though!" Pretty much the only person he liked was Joe, but he didn't think it would be too easy to explain that. Next to him, Joe's Gameboy gave the twitter of an extra life.
Both girls gasped and stared at him like slapped fish. "Oh my God, you're so mean!"
Patrick just shrugged.
"C'mon, Beth, let's tell Jenny. He's too dumb for her anyway."
Joe snickered under his breath and lifted one hand quickly for a hi-five.
Later, sitting in the changing room after everyone had finished gym in last period and left as quickly as possible, Joe blurted out, "I'm glad you didn't date her."
Patrick blushed and squashed Joe's toes with socked feet. "I don't need a girlfriend," he shrugged, and pulled on his t-shirt.
---
"And they cut it off?"
"Yeah, but I was a baby, so I don't remember it."
"That's gross."
Joe just shrugged. "I get a party, though."
"Yeah, me too – it's called 'my birthday'."
"Yeah, but I get an extra one. And money."
"Oh. Well, I guess that's okay..."
"Yeah, but like... all my cousins are going to be there and they're annoying. And my grandma was talking about getting married or something."
"Huh?"
"Not at the party or anything!"
"OH."
"Just one day. She thinks I'm gonna marry one of the girls from the party."
"We're not marrying girls," Patrick reminded him, sounding like he'd get really mad if Joe didn't agree with him. It was kind of lucky that Joe did agree. Passionately so.
He still had to sit through several hours of aunties smiling at him and pushing bushy-haired girls with braces in his general direction, but he kept his mind on the cash and the plans he had for a new guitar.
---
"I can't believe they've grown up so much," Patricia said, smiling as Cathie put a mug of coffee down on the table in front of her. "I can't imagine one without the other, these days."
"Neither can I," Cathie replied, smiling back and thinking back to the first afternoon they had run out of kindergarten together when Joe was only five years old. Almost ten years later, they were nearly ready to start senior high and for the first time, they were going to be separated. "I feel like a monster for letting this happen."
"I wish we could afford to send Patrick to New Trier, believe me, but with two separate households..."
Cathie nodded and sipped her coffee. "Joe seemed to have forgotten he'd be going to New Trier at all... he's known he was going since he was a child – the family always go to new Trier – but when we talked about it..."
"Tantrum?"
"As close as he ever gets to one of those... He's a really, really good boy – I mean, you hear horror stories..."
"Oh yeah."
" – but the worst I get from him is missed homework and a little answering back, but nothing you wouldn't expect from a boy his age."
Patricia nodded.
"But... well, making your child cry is just something every parent hates, but when he's almost fourteen... It's just heartbreaking. I even asked Richard if we could break tradition and just send him to a public school, but... the grandparents."
"In laws. God love'em."
"Or smite'em, whichever."
Both women laughed.
"You know, I hope they don't grow apart because of this," Patricia sighed. "Joe is a dream to have around, I don't want to think of the crowds Patrick might fall in with in a new school, and they've never really had to make new friends because they've always had each other..."
"I know... but what doesn't kill you makes you stronger, right? Hopefully, the same applies to friendships."
---
The last weekend before they started senior high, Patrick's dad took the boys (including Kevin) camping. They travelled out to Mendota Hills and spent a couple of days in the Kind of Alright Outdoors, swimming in water that didn't taste of bleach or turn purple if somebody peed in it and riding bikes without the fear of being run down by some jerk doing seventy in an SUV.
It was fun, mostly, but every minute that went by the closer they got to going home, and going home meant different schools. Not necessarily being able to see Joe every day, or sit next to him in class, or at lunch, or even have someone to share jokes with. Patrick felt sick every time he thought about it, and even when he tried not to, he still felt like he was carrying a rucksack weighed down with rocks.
Their last night, laying in their sleeping bags in the little two-man tent, they talked about what would happen next, promising they'd still hang out and do their homework together every day, and hang out at weekends and on holidays... They tried to make it seem okay, but they both knew it wasn't. It wasn't going to be the same at all.
They lay looking at each other in the dark, the batteries in their lantern having almost run out. Joe's eyes always looked strange without his glasses, like he was never quite looking in a straight line, so Patrick dragged his pillow closer so he could focus properly.
"This whole thing sucks, dude..." Joe murmured, tucking his hands up under his chin. "I don't get why they have to ruin everything because my grandpa wants them to."
Patrick just shook his head against his pillow. He couldn't even bring himself to try to understand it any more. The horrible fact of it was that Joe was going to go away to his rich kid school and there was going to be a whole bunch of kids he could make friends with, who didn't know him when he spoke strange (or stranger, really) and his parents were almost caving on letting him get contact lenses instead of the Joe-90 glasses he'd worn since he was eight. He was going to be too cool for Patrick. He'd find new friends he liked more and Patrick would be stuck in Glenview, with no one.
He rolled over abruptly and turned his back on Joe, embarrassed that he even felt like crying.
For a few moments there was silence, and then shuffling as Joe propped himself on his elbows to peer over Patrick's shoulder. Patrick didn't look at him, he just sighed miserably and closed his eyes.
"I'm not... I mean, I'm not going to forget you or anything," Joe tried, apparently reading his mind; but then, they always knew what the other was thinking. "I promise..." There was another long pause and then, "Don't cry."
"I'm not crying! I'm not a girl!" Patrick shrugged him off and slumped onto his back.
"Hey, don't be mad at me because we have to go to different schools – I begged to go to your school. My mom and dad said no. I can't make them let me!"
Patrick bit his teeth together hard to shop his lip shaking, and closed his eyes tight. He was far, far too old to cry. Joe would think he was stupid and then he'd definitely want new friends.
There was a soft rustling as Joe settled back down in his sleeping bag and pressed his forehead against the top of Patrick's arm. "I hate parents," he mumbled.
Patrick felt around in the dark until he found Joe's hand and held it tight. He thought Joe was going to pull his hand away, grossed out, for a minute, but he was just moving his fingers so that they were more comfortable. The last time they'd held hands they were eight and their elementary school teacher had told them to stop. Not wanting to be separated the way Mrs Watson had separated them, they did as they were told. It didn't seem to matter, much, now – they were going to be separated anyway.
They just lay there quietly for a few minutes before Joe shifted again, wriggling so they were at eyelevel. "Patrick?" he whispered, quieter than they had been before.
Patrick opened his eyes and whispered, "What?"
"Do... um. Do you think it'd be like, too superweird if I kind of... kissed you?"
For a moment, Patrick stared up at the canopy of the tent waiting for the weird flip-flopping feeling in his stomach to stop. "Um... probably."
"Oh." Joe shrugged uncomfortably and started to shift back down to where he was laying before.
"But, y'know... I probably wouldn't mind if you did it anyway."
"Probably?"
Patrick just shrugged and nodded, but he carefully squeezed Joe's hand tighter, too. Mostly, he just ended up remembering that Joe breathing close to his face was the weirdest part and that neither of them really opened their mouths much. And that he'd forgotten how long Joe's eyelashes were until he nearly freaked out thinking they were a spider on his face. And that was it. He fell asleep with his nose pressed against Joe's cheek, and the next morning it was as if nothing had happened.
---
Joe's fourteenth birthday was on a Tuesday barely a week after he started senior high. He didn't have a party; he didn't want to see anyone, anyway – he hadn't hung out with Patrick since they dropped him home from camping, and he'd been totally miserable the whole time.
High school was isolating. People were forming cliques, or hanging out with the kids they already knew, and Joe had gone to Elementary and Junior High in Glenview so he hardly even recognised kids from Winnetka, Wilmette and Northfield. The only familiar faces were the kids he and Patrick had been mean to in kindergarten and he didn't really want to hang out with them anyway. He was the third youngest in his year – only scraping into his grade on a technicality when he was in kindergarten and kept there ever since – some of the kids were a whole year older than him and made him feel like a baby. He just sat in the seats closest to the windows in all his classes, and only really spoke to everyone else when he had to. There didn't seem much point in interacting with the rest of them, because none of them would ever compare to his best friend anyway.
Most days he skipped lunch because he hated being the only kid sitting on a table by himself in the cafeteria. He might not have any friends at school, but he didn't have to draw everyone else's attention to that fact. He didn't think anyone else even knew his name.
They didn't do anything special, that evening – they just hung out, Joe teaching Patrick Guns 'n' Roses solos on his guitar and later watching Star Wars, propped against the wall on Joe's bed. They did this kind of thing every day after school for the last few years. Now it was a novelty. Joe wasn't sure he'd ever hated anything so much in his life.
Joe wanted to ask Patrick about his school, but he didn't want to hear that it was awesome and that there were tons of cool people to hang out with and that he hadn't missed Joe at all. So he didn't ask. They just sat shoulder to shoulder, one of Patrick's knees folded so it rested over Joe's leg slightly, and let themselves become absorbed in X-wings and lightsabers.
When Joe's dad called up the stairs to tell them it was time he dropped Patrick home, they took their time getting their sneakers on, not wanting to go back to separate homes and different schools. They'd hardly even talked all night, but just as he was going for the bedroom door, Patrick stopped and turned back to Joe, looking at his feet.
"So, I mean... we're still going to do this stuff, aren't we?"
Joe blinked at him. "Sure, dude. I mean... we promised."
"Yeah. But, I mean. It's already been like a week."
"I know, dude, and it sucks. It totally, totally sucks. I hate it, but my mom is making me do my homework right away and kind of like make a good impression or something..."
"You're not... y'know... you're not making a million new friends or anything?"
Joe actually laughed. "ME? Are you totally insane?"
Patrick just frowned at him.
"No, dude, I haven't even spoken to anyone, really."
There was a look something close to relief creeping over Patrick's face. "Oh. Cool. Well, not cool, because it really has to suck, but I mean... I dunno. I just figured you'd made a bunch of friends and... y'know."
"I don't want a million friends, man. I just want my best friend to get to hang out with me sometimes. Or, like, all the time, really."
Patrick barrelled into him and hugged him so hard he couldn't breathe.
Part Two