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Pete's sort of expecting it to be, like, the instant they get off stage, but they make it all the way back to the green room before Patrick crosses his arms and pins him with a Look.
"So," he says, dry as the fucking Sahara. "Basketball, huh?"
Joe cracks up immediately, and Andy's shaking his head with an eyeroll and a wry smile, so Pete—well, he decides to lean into it, because goofing around about it is probably the easiest way to make sure no one actually gets mad at him for any courtside shenanigans.
"Aw, c'mon," he pouts, ducking his head so he can look up at Patrick from under his eyelashes, height difference be damned. "It's not like I didn't still get here before you! It all worked out!"
"Yeah, Pete, but I had a good excuse," Patrick says, one eyebrow slowly drifting up towards his hairline. "Like, you understand weather can't be controlled, right? Unlike the decision to attend a basketball game?"
"Jimmy filmed a whole-ass music video for us! I had to go show support!"
"Yeah, but, like, tonight?" Joe pipes up from across the room, and Pete just flaps a hand at him, not turning his beseeching expression away from Patrick for even a second.
Patrick, meanwhile, has now lifted both eyebrows. "You know," he says, "if it was just that, it'd be one thing."
Uh-oh.
"Just that...?" Pete says tentatively, and this is when he knows he's about to get his ass handed to him, because Patrick smirks, and that particular Stump Smirk has never, ever ended well for him.
"I mean, it's just, you were kind of a hypocrite, you know?" he says, and Pete opens his mouth to protest, because, again, he was still at the venue before Patrick was, he got here in plenty of time to go on, it's fine!, but Patrick cuts him off at the pass: "Calling out that suite? I mean, wow, who'd be watching basketball when they were supposed to be at a Fall Out Boy show, right, baby?"
This time Joe and Andy both lose their shit—Joe is actually falling over, motherfucker, see if Pete ever does anything nice for him ever again—and all Pete can really do is pout dramatically at Patrick until finally, finally, at long last his expression cracks and he starts giggling, too.
"You're all so cruel to me," Pete sighs, but nobody is really listening; Joe's still in hysterics, Andy is muffling his laughter into a towel, and Patrick, well, Patrick is turning into Pete and lightly shoving at his shoulder, cackling in a way that makes his eyes crinkle up, his glasses still a little fogged from coming off stage into the cool of the green room.
"You know what they say about pots and kettles, man," Patrick manages eventually, still choking on stuttering little laughs every so often, and at that point Pete throws his hands up in defeat—though, of course, there's no hiding the grin that's crept up onto his face.
If he's allowed a maudlin thought in this moment, well, he can all too easily remember a time when a situation like this would have involved a lot less giggling and a lot more shouting, and possibly a fistfight. This moment of shared joy, of bubbly effervescent post-show bliss—even though it's technically at his own expense, he kind of wants to curl up and live inside it forever. There had been so many years where he didn't think he'd ever get this again, and yeah, those days are a decade in the past now, but he's still grateful every damn minute that he gets to have this again.
Everyone recovers from their hysterics eventually, and it's all too easy to see the lateness of the hour, as well as the promise of another show tomorrow night, hitting as they start to drift through their post-show routines. Still, when Pete glances up from time to time, he sees his guys smiling, and he'd take any amount of being the butt of the joke if it means he gets that in return.
...he'd still probably better shoot of an apology text to Jimmy, though, because no doubt this shit has already hit Twitter.