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Andy was grateful that Patrick had chosen to stick with him, but he felt a little bit guilty about the whole thing.
Making it to Warped Tour had been one of their best achievements, but after their short Japan tour and Joe breaking Edge, he’d been smoking a lot of weed. It wasn’t a problem, of course, Andy detested those Straight Edge guys that attacked others for breaking; but the issue lay with when he’d started to smoke.
It wasn’t like any of them had much to do outside of their stage appearances, beyond mingling with the other bands around; but they’d made plans, you know? To hang out, to go out to dinner with Motion City Soundtrack like they’d promised Justin weeks ago, to serve their shift at the barbeque station, to go to the cinema with My Chemical Romance. Point was, they had loads of unimportant meetings to get to, and when Joe was wandering off every so often to hotbox himself in a van with James Dewees or Frank Iero or someone else; it was… inconvenient.
Andy made no excuse for himself, he knew he was the type to wander off without telling anyone- in fact, he’d been left at gas stations more times than he could count on one hand. He wondered if he was being too controlling, but he wasn’t trying to stop Joe from getting high and wandering about, he was just… worried something bad would happen if he was going at it alone.
Warped Tour was a bit of a fucking pain for that, though- very night there was some sort of party with drugs and alcohol being passed around. Again, not a problem, Andy didn’t wanna police anyone; but he always sat in the same corner with the same group of Straight Edge and sober guys, and he was starting to get bored of it (not them . they were great guys. he just wanted to mingle without having to deal with people passing out on him).
He used to be far more militant about sobriety, before he’d dipped his toes into pop punk and before he’d become a man. Times came to mind when he and his various bands would refuse to hang out with people if they were intoxicated- it wasn’t something he was particularly proud of, but on the other hand, he had always felt safe knowing no drunk asshole was gonna come up to him.
He wondered if things had been different if he’d grown up a man. His hatred of drunk people had lessened as a genuine phobia, but it had started off as an outright fear- men had never needed an excuse to hit on him (when he was still presenting female, that was), but every time he’d had an encounter like that with a drunk guy, it had been far worse. Flirting would border on harassment, and he’d only get his way out of the situation if another guy had come along to save him.
It was always difficult to toe the line between holding boundaries and not being an asshole. He fucking hated being around drunk people, it made him viscerally uncomfortable like it had when he’d suffered through every bad experience with alcohol in the past; but… he couldn’t just demand people not have their fun, especially when he was in the minority.
He wished sobriety was the norm, or at least as common as drinking. Then he wouldn’t be the weird one for not sticking around when people got drunk enough to be losing their fucking mind. He was tired of leaving gatherings early because no one knew how to have sober fun.
What was he thinking about? Right, he was grateful that Patrick was with him.
There had been another party that night, and Andy had gotten intel that it’d be more… rowdy, than the ones he’d attended- the fact that ‘more rowdy’ was possible at all made him want to fall into a rant about every reason alcohol and drugs were far more of a cancer upon society than the vast majority of culturally-recognised problems, but he held his tongue like he did most all the time.
He’d decided to stay on their tour bus for the evening, content for a date with his comics and an Earth Crisis album. There was also a part of him that was glad for the break, too- being so busy all day had meant that he’d overdone it on binding and was suffering through a pretty bad bout of rib pain.
So there he’d been, just after everyone had left, taking up most of the space in the back of the van as he tried to stretch out every one of his muscles. He was starting to consider how he could manipulate Vans into getting them an actual bus with an actual sofa, and then he proceeded to wonder if the fact that one of their first performances had collapsed the stage with fans was enough.
He was swamped in his aptly-dubbed (by Patrick) ‘dysphoria hoodie’, a Midtown pullover that had belonged to Pete at some point in time; and was otherwise only wearing a pair of boxers to try and make up for how warm the rest of him was.
Patrick had walked back in and sat himself on the floor.
Andy assumed he was also taking a binder break considering the party would likely go on into the early hours of the night and every portaloo would be filled with people kissing or jerking each other off. There wasn’t any way to get away from people at parties, and he supposed that was another reason he detested the mere notion of them all. The lack of privacy only meant more people would drink to cope, and that made him want to kill himself or someone else or even both.
Half an hour after Patrick had returned, Andy had reached out and nudged him with his foot. Patrick had turned around quickly, like he’d been so far into his own head that he’d forgotten he wasn’t alone, and after a nervous laugh, he cleared his throat.
“Yeah?”
“Why are you here?”
The corner of Patrick’s mouth twitched into an almost-smile,
“It’s my tour bus too.”
“You know what I mean, asshole.” Andy rolled his eyes, turning onto his back so he was looking at Patrick upside down, “Why aren’t you going to the party, are you feeling okay?”
“I’m feeling fine. Great, even, now I don’t have to pretend to want to be at a party.” He shrugged and turned away from Andy, “You know I’ve never been the biggest socialiser.”
“Tell that to every soiree you’ve been to since we set off. Seriously, you’ve been spending as much time as Pete partying-”
“Only ‘cause he’s been dragging my sorry ass along to all of them. Only got out of this one by claiming I was having cramps.” He chuckled.
Andy frowned, shuffling forward just a little to get Patrick’s attention enough so they could meet eyes again,
“You still get cramps?”
“Get them the same amount I get periods.”
Patrick had started Testosterone in mid 2004 after saving up all of the money from the album and merch, which was nowhere near enough; but when he put it together with the savings he’d been collecting since he got his first job at fifteen, it had just been enough to get through the consultancies and blood tests. He’d been borrowing money from anyone who would help out at those times they’d run out of what little funds they’d collated from touring; and had needed to miss a couple of months when he came up short, but it had been getting a lot easier since they’d released Sugar.
“The amount of times I’ve used that as an excuse? I’ve never been more glad that cisboys hate talking about ‘women’ problems.” Andy smirked, flopping onto his back once again. He was restless.
There were differences starting to poke through- nothing noticeable to anyone who knew Patrick in passing- but his closest friends easily caught onto the way his voice was starting to get even more squeaky and lower; and he’d excitedly shown the band the peach fuzz that had been sprouting on his chin and neck. Of course, it was barely visible considering how blonde and thin it was, but they’d celebrated regardless.
Andy had been most jealous of when Patrick had flopped down beside him at their New Year’s party and calmly muttered ‘I haven’t had a period since I started T’ . It was apparently a coin toss as to whether HRT would stop periods, and he’d been lucky enough to be rid of it very early on.
“Had to use an excuse.” Patrick shrugged, “I know everybody thinks they’re being kind when they try to get you to come to a party after you say no, but… it’s difficult to not see it as peer pressure.”
“It is.” Andy bluntly responded, “It is peer pressure. People that drink can’t conceive why others don’t want to. Pete would’ve understood, though, it’s not like him or Joe are those types of guys. If you’d have said no he would’ve lay off you.”
“I know. It was everyone else at the party I was worried about. Didn’t want him telling them I ‘just didn’t want to’ and them not taking that for an answer. Wouldn’t have been good for me or him, you know? I gave him the excuse more for his sake than mine, I guess.”
Andy hummed in acknowledgement and felt around the mess in their van until he found his Judge Dredd comic and got back to reading. The silence they shared between each other was always comfortable, even if he did find his gaze attracted to Patrick when he shifted.
Patrick slipped his jacket and hoodie off and went to do the same with his shirt, and that was when Andy looked away. He heard the struggle as Patrick took off his binder and breathed a few deep sighs of relief- the things got easier to remove when they were worn in, but it was never a simple process. He caught a quick look of Patrick’s back, practically covered in acne, before looking away and feeling his cheeks get hot at the misstep (or mis-look).
There had been other side effects of the Testosterone that were less favourable, and everyone around had heard Patrick bemoaning the acne that covered half his back- he was glad it wasn’t on his face, but the almost eczema-like rashes that got left behind had left him spending many nights writhing around in pain. They’d vowed to head to the closest pharmacist in the next city and buy as many creams and salves as they could with what little cash they had on hand.
Eventually, Patrick had settled into one of his hoodies, and that was when Andy spoke up again.
“So why aren’t you at the party?”
“Christ, Andy, do you want me gone or something?”
“No!” He quickly sat up, instinctively throwing his comic across the van, “No, no- not at all! I just- I’m just confused! You seem to be having fun with everyone, so I don’t why you’d want to- y’know- spend your time with… with me.”
Patrick stared at him like he had about five heads before he replied in a quiet murmur,
“I like spending time with you. And I just need a break from being social all the time . It’s draining.” He stared at Andy for a few moments like he was searching for something, “Besides, you’re better company than people so drunk they can’t speak below ten thousand decibels. You gotta know that I like you, Andy, you can’t just act like I’ll take any excuse to get away from you.”
And though Patrick laughed, he slowed when Andy looked down instead of replying straight away.
“I dunno, man.” Andy eventually found the words, as janky as they were, “I guess I just feel boring.”
“What? Why?”
“I don’t drink. Don’t get me wrong, I’m always glad I don’t, but when every other musician is doing something fun or crazy; I’m starting to pick out the differences between us. They drink, and I don’t. They’re fun, and I’m boring.”
“You’re not boring, fuck off.”
“But I am! If it was up to me I’d spend every night in my house, listening to the same old albums and reading comics about the same old superheroes. I don’t do anything. I mean, I go to the gym and I do band stuff, but… that’s it.” He sighed, itching at the back of his neck in the world’s worst attempt to hide his anxiousness, “I don’t party, I don’t do cool things, I just… exist.”
“Getting existential again, I see.” Patrick hummed in acknowledgement, “I don’t think that’s entirely fair to you, and I don’t think anyone would call you boring. I mean, right now we’re in an environment that’s pretty much surrounded by partying so I guess some people think not doing that is conducive of being a killjoy, but when we get back home, no one’s gonna care. And no one cares here- no one worth your company, anyway.”
Andy pulled at a hangnail on his thumb. His brain had slowed to a point that felt even more sluggish than it would be if he had gone and got drunk; and he needed time to think about how the hell to respond. He crawled the few feet between the pair of them and leant so he was lying on Patrick’s lap, looking up at him; and although Patrick initially shifted uncomfortably and pulled the hoodie away from his body, he put his hand on Andy’s hair and eased.
“I guess I just wish I was someone else a lot of the time. It would be easier, then, to do things like this. I don’t think extroverts know how lucky they are to be mentally able to put up with this shit.” Andy paused, “Does that make sense?”
Patrick responded with a smile,
“It makes more sense than most people have spoken in their entire lives. I understand you.”
“You always do.”
“I still hate performing. I mean- I love it at the same time, but… I feel like I’m dying every time I step up on stage, and afterwards if I don’t sleep for about a hundred years, I physically can’t function. Y’know, the lights start hurting my head, and I can’t speak without snapping. It’s like I lose any semblance of empathy I have. And when it all gets bad enough, when I’ve done too much, I… break.”
Andy nodded,
“I feel like I just… have a tantrum when I get like that. Hitting things, screaming, crying; it’s like my brain gets overloaded so much that it short-circuits. That’s what you mean?”
“...Yeah.”
“I think if I could function normally, I wouldn’t be boring.”
“You’re not boring, Andy.”
“I feel it, though.”
He wanted to close his eyes, to sleep off the exhaustion that was slowly consuming him- from the performances to the parties, he was just… tired. Instead, when he took a long blink and opened them up again; he saw Patrick was staring at him.
They remained in that stalemate for longer than Andy wanted to admit, and he definitely didn’t miss the way Patrick’s eyes flicked down to his lips. Five or so minutes later, Patrick closed his eyes and shook his head, though he still didn’t look away.
“How do you do that?”
“Do what?”
“Wear earrings. I noticed you started wearing them again in the past couple of months, and I don’t know how you do it.” He paused, but seemingly predicting the snarky response, cut his break in words short, “I mean, I know how piercings work, obviously, but I’ve always been too dysphoric to commit.”
Andy muttered a ‘huh’ , lifting his hands to his ears and feeling the small silver hoops he’d put in just before they’d left for Warped Tour. He had second lobe piercings in both ears, and a third in one, but he’d filled them with simple studs. He’d forgotten he’d even been wearing them, beyond those times where he’d correct someone on his gender and see the cast a confused look to his earrings.
“Piercings aren’t just for girls, ‘Rick.”
“I know that. I know you know that and I know a lot of people know that; but it’s not the done thing for guys to wear them. Face piercings are like… different, of course, but do you not find that people think you’re a girl more when you’ve got your earrings in?”
Andy let out a quiet chuckle, though the slight pit in his stomach betrayed how he actually felt,
“Most people think I’m a girl anyway. I don’t like it, obviously, it makes me feel like complete shit, but I’m already dealing with it. Before I get on T, and even after then, most people are gonna think I’m a chick regardless, so why shouldn’t I wear what makes me happy?”
“But if you don’t have earrings, there’s a higher chance people will know you’re a guy.”
“Yeah, probably. But their opinion doesn’t make me any less of a man, and neither does a bit of silver in my ears.” He paused, feeling just a little bit sick for thinking about it all, “It’ll hurt either way. I don’t want my manliness to be defined by social norms now, or in the future.”
Patrick sighed,
“You make it sound easy.”
“It’s not. I still get anxious a lot of the time about how girly I am. I still feel like I’m being stabbed a little bit whenever someone misgenders me. I still hate this shit just as much as I always have. I’m just… trying to care less. Easier said than done.”
Patrick just nodded, didn’t say anything. His only response beyond that was continuing to stare- Andy realised then that Patrick was looking at his labret, not his lips; and an idea was slowly starting to build in his head. Maybe it was an attempt to distract himself, but it persisted regardless.
“Do you want a piercing?”
Patrick considered the question for a moment, weighing up the options and moving his head from side to side as he did so,
“I guess so… I got my ears pierced as a kid, but I don’t know if I’d-”
“No, I mean do you want one now?” He sat up, shifting so he was sitting cross-legged in front of Patrick, faces only a few inches away, “Do you want me to give you a piercing?”
Patrick was stunned into silence, mind clearly going a hundred miles an hour, but a smile slowly appeared on his face as his cheeks went red at the same time. He giggled a little to himself, hiding his hands in his face for a few moments to stifle whatever embarrassment had come over him.
Eventually he regained his composure,
“I’ve always wanted to get my nose pierced.” He was beaming as he spoke, “There was this guy in my school- I thought I had a crush on him but now I think about it, I think I just wanted to be him- anyway, he had a nose ring and I thought it was the hottest thing ever.”
“Oh yeah?” Andy teased, raising an eyebrow.
“I wanna look hot like that.”
“I could do that for you. I think it’d suit you, too.” He shrugged, trying to seem nonchalant about the whole thing so that he didn’t accidentally pressure Patrick into it, “If you want to get it done, I can oblige.”
“Fuck it, yeah!”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
Andy beamed, quickly standing to rummage through every bag in the back of the van until he found what he was looking for. He took a sharpie from Pete’s bag, and- with permission- opened up Patrick’s HRT medkit to find a needle thick enough to do what he wanted to do. When Patrick had started T, he had panic bought a frankly insane amount of needles, and some of them were finally getting used. He found a pack of tissues and a small bottle of hand sanitiser in one of Joe’s coat pockets, too, completing his equipment.
He returned to sit in front of Patrick, kneeling that time, and took his face in his hands. Confirming he wanted the piercing on the left, Andy leant forward with the sharpie in his hand and drew a small dot around about where he imagined a nose piercing should go. The pair of them then spent a few minutes searching for any sort of a mirror. Patrick looked at the dot, said it looked ‘good enough’ , and so they moved on.
It wasn’t too hard when it came down to it- Andy made sure it wouldn’t be wonky and copied what the piercers said to him every time he’d gotten one- that being ‘take a deep breath in’ just before he pushed the needle through Patrick’s nostril as quickly as he could, ignoring the ‘fuck’ that he heard as his did so. He left the needle there, pulling back and laying a tissue on his knee and coating it in hand sanitiser.
“Hang on a minute.” He muttered, reaching up to one of his ears and pulling out one of his studs.
“ ‘Hang on a minute’ ? You left a fucking needle in my nose, dude, ow-”
“Just-” He put the stud on the tissue, cleaning it as best he could with the hand sanitiser, “-sorry, I should’ve done this before, I just didn’t think.”
Patrick only grunted in response.
Andy took the needle by both sides, manoeuvring it around Patrick’s septum on the inside before he pulled it out as quickly as he could whilst still remaining precise. He then picked up the stud earring and slotted it through the newly-made and newly-bleeding hole.
“Almost there.” He whispered, as encouragingly as he could.
Causing a little more pain as he slotted the back on the earring, he finally breathed a sigh of relief and sat back to look at his handiwork. Patrick was wincing from the pain, cupping his hand over his nose but not actually touching the piercing.
“You okay?”
“Hurts like a bitch, but yeah. How’s it look?”
Andy looked at the blood smeared around the piercing and winced a little bit too, trying not to give away how messy the outcome looked. Seeing past that, though, it suited Patrick. It looked good .
“Hot.”
Patrick rolled his eyes but laughed,
“Thanks, dude. For doing that... You know,” He continued, “I don’t think anyone boring would do something like this.”
“Yeah, yeah, I’m sure. Look, you can go to the party now if you want to, I don’t want to-”
“Dude, shut up! I’m not going to the party, I’ve already told you. I want to spend time with you. ” Patrick lightly slapped him on the arm, “Look, why don’t we grab my bike off the rack on the back of the van and go on a ride.”
“Like old times.”
“Exactly! I’m sure we can find somewhere to get food on the way, too, it’s late but not too late. And besides, that would avoid sneaking through the party to get to the buffet without getting pulled into some conversation, which would be- like- impossible.”
“...Yeah. Yeah, that sounds good.”
So the pair of them piled out of the van and retrieved Patrick’s bike, setting off towards the city. Whilst weaving through the tour buses and vans, they found themselves in a weird darkness between the lights of the party and the lights of the city.
Andy was sitting on the bag rack on the back of the bike, his hands wrapped around Patrick’s waist, and he looked up to the sky. Without any light close to them beyond the bike lamp mounted on the handlebars, he could see so many stars that it didn’t feel that dark at all. It was nearing midnight, but when he looked up he didn’t feel tired. He just felt… alive.
“Lots of stars out tonight.” He called into Patrick’s ear.
“Oh man, yeah! That’s pretty.” Patrick responded, wavering his steering slightly as he took his eyes away from the immediate road in front of them.
Andy thought for a moment before clinging on tighter and leaning in closer,
“You know, I sometimes think being trans is like… like being a star. The universe made us one way, but with love and patience, we’re able to become constellations. People think we’re awful, but… I think- no matter how much it hurts, don’t you think our transformation is beautiful?”
He felt Patrick hum in agreement.
“Maybe you should be writing our lyrics.”
“Hell no. I was built to sit at the back of the stage saying nothing.”
Patrick chuckled, shrugging slightly,
“That could change. I mean… I don’t know if you ever think about this, but looking at how far we’ve come in just- like- two or so years? If we keep on at this trajectory, we’re gonna like… we’re gonna do big things.”
“I think this band is the best thing to happen to me. I think these friendships are the best I’ve ever had.”
“I’ve never met anyone who understands me like you do. That moment I met you in the alley behind that gig hall?” Patrick’s smile was obvious in his voice, “I think a lot about how I recognised that look in your eyes, and I- like- I thought it was somewhere I’d seen you before, but I’d just seen that look in my eyes before. I knew we were the same from the moment I saw you.”
“I love you, Patrick.” Andy murmured into his back.
“I love you too, Andy. I’d gladly be ‘boring’ with you any day.”
Andy was glad Patrick had stayed with him, and he really was trying not to feel guilty for it- Patrick was, quite honestly, making it easy to feel more at home with himself. Then again, Patrick had been making things easy for Andy for a long time now.