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Pete Wentz will always claim that writing was his first true love, and that it was not Lily Anderson from his high school English class.
It sounds more romantic that way - artistic and tortured. The claim makes him sound like a struggling poet and it’s kinda cool that by having his ‘craft’ as his first love, it makes it sound quotable and inspirational and like something he might read in a Rolling Stone interview.
But despite that, it’s not an outright lie.
Because writing is Pete’s passion, cathartic process and the one thing he can always rely on. His high school ex (can he even call he an ex? It lasted a week) had been a fling in the grand scheme of things, and nothing but a lightning rod that fired him into writing's arms.
And like most first loves - especially those of the teenage variety - writing often brims with jealousy and resentment if Pete moves onto something else. But it’s always there for him. Always willing to take him in when he comes crawling back, and ready to leave him drained and empty and raw the next day like any interesting relationship should.
Writing was a more interesting first love than Lily anyway because it understood the mess of teenage emotions that Pete couldn’t vocalise just right. It still brings the same level of understanding now, only it allows other people to see what Pete Wentz is thinking. It makes the swirls of thoughts behind his forehead real, malleable and understandable. Even if the words are dressed up in pretty entendres and metaphors.
And while writing is a large part of his job these days, writing is most importantly still a hobby...which is something he doesn’t have a lot of these days.
Pete realises this one day while sitting on the bus; watching weird YouTube videos and letting boredom force-feed him two bags of chips. He used to have soccer years ago to stave off boredom's claws . It had made him feel alive and make his head quiet down a bit but, for some reason, that flame died out early into college.
Maybe it how repetitive it was? Pete thinks and wipes his chip-greased hand on his jeans. All sports had to offer was a bunch of drills held together by a team. And the band filled that gap after I quit.
There was no need to put up with early Saturday mornings, drills and coach shouting if he could get the team aspect of it somewhere else and somewhere that felt like it was so much more .
He remembers trying to explain that to Patrick during the early days of the band. Before albums and lyric booklets and them . He had tried to explain what a band meant to him while the newfound wonder over this damn kid still pumped through his veins. He had tried to explain it he stumbled through his basslines and Joe’s old guitar would never hold its tune (not that Pete would ever tell Patrick. He had idly wondered how long the teenager would try to tune it before giving up).
“It’s - it’s not like that though.” Pete sighed. The right words elluding him. He needed to vocalise what the band was to him, to make it make sense. “Like, we have the team aspect of soccer right? The four of us versus the world ‘n all that but...there’s only so many chords right? Like, kinda like how there’s so many game plans coach could drill into us. And playing the same song over and over is drill-like but not, y’know...like...uh…”
He stalls for a second, trying to find the right words but the won’t come. They’re stuck between his heart where the feeling is, and his brain and mouth that are refusing to vocalise them right.
Patrick raises an eyebrow, looking at him like a puzzle that’s one piece away from being solved. So put together, but so very, very not.
“But there’s no rules?” Patrick says before looking down to fruitlessly twist the tunning pegs of the guitar again. “Nothng’s promised? Even if we follow the game-plan….we’re not even promised a pitch to play on?”
Pete smiles and for once, writing took the back foot on the list of things he loves the most.
Pete had been shocked that this kid had understood the words caught between his brain and his mouth and he still is to this day whenever Patrick understands something he doesn’t say. He’s usually good at words - hell, Pete’s career thirteen years later relies on his ability with words - but, there’s a reason Patrick speaks them. Because Patrick can wind the words Pete can’t say into music, and picks up on the words he doesn’t say.
It’s just. The spoken word has always eluded him. Words are so much easier when constricted to twenty-six letters that he can manipulate and twist into saying exactly what he needs them to. Speaking is too vague, with too many variables and often relies on Pete understanding exactly what he needs to say. Hence why the spoken word (or in this case, sung) word became Patrick’s domain in the band. He’s the Pete-translator who can pick up on even the most fractured metaphor and turn it into something relatable just by singing it.
But while writing is his favourite hobby, Pete can sometimes get the old itch of boredom that plagued him months before he quit the soccer team. There’s only so many times he can force himself to look at a page filled with half-baked metaphors. There’s only so many times he can trust that Patrick can decode them and make them audible before writing loses its spark, and it becomes repetitive like drills did.
And now, at the wise old age of thirty-four, Pete knows to step away from writing in those moments. Knows to treat it like a relationship and give it space before it crumbles completely.
Except...he promised himself, Andy and Patrick (and his mom and his therapist Jenifer who he really needs to call back) that he should find another hobby for this tour, before he drives himself and his bandmates mad.
So naturally in true Stubborn Wentz Fashion, Pete finds the closest thing to his first love that he can: reading.
He’s not sure how effective it is, or if it’s like having a shitty rebound with someone who looks like your ex, but it’s the closest thing to writing he can get.
He’s guaranteed to like it.
Plus...what else was he meant to do? He doesn’t have time for many other hobbies, he can’t put a tennis court or an art museum in his rucksack to bring with him on the road and he doesn’t have the patience for knitting.
And Pete reads a lot anyway...though it’s usually just contracts and schedules and the like. He used to read novels a lot as well, but trying to find time for them between Adulting, writing and trying to force himself to fall asleep via extreme will power (which spoiler: rarely works) it fell to the wayside.
But now that Pete and writing are on a break, reading can slot into the gap and he can get lost in another world instead of bugging his bandmates to entertain him. He’s also read that reading before bed helps you fall asleep (thank you Google and a random 2009 Sussex university study) as it readies the body for sleep; something Pete can’t even do himself.
So a week into tour, it doesn’t surprise Pete in the slightest when he’s in the bus lounge and awake hours after everyone else went to sleep.
He can practically hear his therapist (who he will call in the morning) tell him to go lie down, breathe deep and try to relax even though she’s two states away.
...But relaxing seems like effort at sunrise o’clock in the morning. That implies that Pete could do that. That relaxation is a concept his mind can get behind.
He can hear the soft breathing and snores coming from the bunks, and he knows one of them is Patrick, which just makes it worse because his source of entertainment ( No. Help, comfort his mind corrects) is out of commission.
Patrick would want to be woken up if he knew Pete was out here, Pete knows this but it’s not a serious case of 5AM. He’s not in any danger of falling down rabbit holes he should be wary of, he doesn’t need Patrick to supply the rope to drag him out yet.
Pete’s just bored.
The feeling took an icy grip on his lungs between Patrick kissing him goodnight and Pete shuffling his way out onto the couch. He can feel it slowly rising and falling in time with his chest, slowly creeping into his veins like tar.
He needs a distraction, entertainment or just something to do until the game of real-life starts at breakfast.
The logical part of his brain knows he should just go to bed and toss and turn until someone else is awake, or even stuff himself into Patrick’s bunk like the good old days when that inevitably doesn’t work.
Yet, he knows that he’s going to be tired tomorrow and that sleep is useless. He’s accepted his fate of becoming a sleep-deprived bassist that’s been jump-started by coffee. Pete knows his skin is going to be crawling with that familiar fuzz of exhaustion the second he stands up. Just like he knows Patrick is going to sigh when he wakes up and finds him here.
He hates that. Hates that Patrick is going to start his day worried and concerned when he finds him out here.
So instead of sleeping like he should, Pete picks up a book.
Though, he can’t really make out the words of the book he found ( okay , stole from Patrick’s bag) since he didn’t bother turning on the light when he came in. So the words are more of a grey blur than a tangible thing, like most things are in the small hours of the morning. But occasionally, Pete can make out words when the bus passes a streetlight. The orange glow providing him just enough time to read fragments of sentences and Patrick’s familiar penciled-in scribbles; providing commentary that adorns most of the things Patrick reads.
The scribbles are achingly familiar but instead of being in Pete’s notebooks or alongside a printed interview Patrick was reading, they’re displaced among the printed, even words of Frankenstein . For once his boyfriend’s running-commentary isn’t dissecting Pete’s movie references or overly complicated metaphors; and are instead following the main character - Victor’s - experience about trying to create something great and struggling which...isn’t too different from what Patrick usually reads in Pete’s notebooks anyway.
He brings the book closer to his face and makes out the penciled-in words of ‘biblical allusion’, ‘ref/intertextuality’ and ‘oxymoron’. Which makes him wonder why Patrick would decide to dissect this particular book.
Does he want to write a song about this book? Pete thinks and turns the page.
The question chews at him until he flips back to the title page and sees ‘ Patrick M. Stumph: 11th Grade’ scribbled in below the title...which kind of makes sense since Patrick has a habit of not throwing stuff he doesn’t need anymore - Pete had learnt that in great detail when they moved into their house and Patrick kept saying the old amps in the garage “might be useful one day.”
Pete has always figured Patrick as a bibliography kind of guy anyway, since their bookcase at home is stacked with them, which again, Patrick claims he will read one day despite it being a year. But Pete thinks he’d appreciate a story that’s grounded in reality, not this…about some thing that’s a not-so-modern take on a Greek myth and about something that is too ugly to love.
The creature is too ugly to love, is pretty much the gist of what Pete gathers from the first few chapters he can make out. The poor thing is too grotesque with its eyes and its hair and its wish for a connection it can never have because it’s so wrong.
Pete takes one hand off of the book, squishes his beanie further over his head, shifts and reads on. Knowing this is the point that he should go to bed.
But...But the creature is so likeable and unlikeable that he can’t bring himself to put the book down. The creature is so ugly and unlikeable that, despite defying the laws of nature, its creation can’t even be turned into a public spectacle because one look sends people into frenzies. It can’t be a headline or even noticed - it’s too dangerous to even be looked at.
The realisation makes Pete’s tired heart seize, and he spares a thought for his own creations that will never see the light of day. Thinks of the twisted metaphors that are too raw and of patchwork phrases with too many exposed veins that they can’t even be trusted with Patrick.
(Pete should really go to bed.)
Those words and pages are usually ripped to pieces and disposed of before Patrick even knows they exist. And logically Pete knows that Patrick wouldn’t judge them if he was to read them but...the fear still lingers at the possibility that he might. Thirteen year-old fears that he might show Patrick something that will finally be too much ...even though it’s been well established now that Patrick isn’t going anywhere.
(Pete should really, really go to bed now)
Pete promised himself that he would shut down those fears a year ago, or at least not to hide them as much. But every time he considers voicing them to Patrick the words stick in his throat, as his brain reminds him of a seventeen year-old Stumph curled up in a van with nothing but his mom’s old sleeping bag and his trust that this band would work. He gets reminded of how easy it would've been to scare him off back then with a bad day, lyric or idea.
Usually, when old fears creep up, Pete finds something to distract himself with. His therapist had said that was a good idea.
However, in the early hours of the morning, there is not much to distract him.
(Pete really, really, really, should have went to bed earlier)
He knows Patrick will stay no matter what these days. He’s twenty-nine and has seen way too much of Pete to get scared away now. They’re adults now, and while the band didn’t work out for a while (and they didn’t work for a while), it’s working now. They’re working now.
But that doesn’t help the guilt Pete feels bubbling up when he doesn’t voice his concerns, especially after he promised Patrick that he would tell him if his head got too loud about this.
“You, you can’t get lost in your head over this, deal?” Patrik said hours after confessions. Hours and a sunset over spilled guts and shaky hands that were afraid to mess this new thing up. “I - I can’t actually read your mind y’know.”
Pete nodded in half-agreement. Breathing shallowly into Patrick’s cooling collarbone. He had known for years that Patrick was the most comfortable thing on the planet but now...in the quiet of a hotel room, it was the most calming place he had ever been and he never wanted to move.
“Pete, I’m serious.”
“So am I.”
He didn’t hear Patrick’s sigh as much as he felt it move his chest, and in turn moved Pete’s head slightly. “If this -” He started and Pete could see the singer’s hands waving expressively about, despite having his eyes closed. God he loved him. “If this is gonna work we need to actually talk. No decoding, yeah? We aren’t actually Jekyll and Hyde, y’know?”
“You could be the Mr Knightly to my Emma.” Pete smiled into Patrick's skin and happily received the slap on the shoulder he got for it. He shifted until he was more comfortable and then launched into the genius of Jane Austen because - seriously how did Patrick not know who Mr Knightly was?
Pete had promised to talk and not get wrapped up in his head but now, reading at post-sunrise o’clock all Pete can think about is ripped pages in trash cans along the West Coast. All he can think about how those pages were filled with words upon words of past insults, too big teeth, declarations of hatred and hair that will never straighten right.
He keeps thinking of how those pages are never peaceful, of how they draw on experiences with exes and ugly scenarios in his head and how they always end with pitchforks and windmill-esque scenarios.
He thinks of how he’s probably disappointed fans by removing those pages from Patrick's pot of potential lyrics. How their absence will spawn angry online mobs that will claim Pete’s words aren’t as good as they used to be and how he’s not relatable anymore because he doesn’t want to expose himself like a raw vein anymore. Or, at least not to the extent he used to.
This is the point where Pete should have gone to wake Patrick up, he knows this. This is the point in the morning (morning? Is it even a morning if you didn’t sleep?) when he should go to Patrick and talk things out or distract himself and get out of his head.
But he doesn’t want to wake him with tonight’s dosage of doubt.
And anyway - Patrick probably has things he doesn’t voice and they’re still here. Still happy and working. Most of the times their issues are resolved without speaking and that’s the beauty of them, they just get each other.
We’re fine Pete thinks and turns the page, with fingers anxiously picking at the paperback cover and worrying its plastic sheen. We’re perfect.
---
Pre-sunrise Pete was right, that sonofabitch. He barely feels alive in the morning; drained and tired and with a swimming headache that comes with reading in the dark.
He barely feels human when Patrick shuffles out of the bunks and into the lounge. Pete can feel his muscles stretching and winding across his body uncomfortably as he sits upright on the couch, like a snare drum tightened too many times.
He’s so tired that he barely registers the cup of coffee until it’s being placed into his hand, and Patrick’s hand pulls his hat off and nails scratch at his scalp that feels so good and a good morning kiss makes his forehead damp.
Pete blinks and looks up to give Patrick a weak smile, just as the other man flops down onto the couch beside him.
It’s painfully domestic and Pete tries to remain present and not swept up in his own head. They don’t get mornings like this often enough, when they have nowhere to be fore a few hours. For now Pete can simply enjoy the act of being while he doses in and out on Patrick’s shoulder and Patrick picks up a pencil and Pete’s notebook.
However, a small noise escapes Patrick’s throat when he notices there’s no new additions to Pete’s ramblings because he didn’t write a word last night.
Pete knows he should say something. He should explain the words that are stuck pacing around his brain but never made them to his pen but...he’s too tired to care. The rocking of the bus is finally lulling him into a sort of semi-sleep and the hand Patrick has in his hair hasn’t stopped.
Instead he mumbles “I read your high school book” into Patrick’s sleep shirt and somewhere in between the chuckle he gets for it and the next gas stop, Pete finally falls asleep.
---
He wakes up some time after midday, with the sunlight peeking through the windows and making him squint as he notices that he’s alone; covered in a blanket that’s been carefully draped over him.
He’s surprised to feel somewhat human again, as if he forgot what it felt like last night. And realistically he knows that it’s the relief of getting some sleep that’s made him return to the land of the living, but it’s strongly aided by the orange soda he finds sitting on the table and the sticky note on it that reads ‘went to lunch w/ Joe - be back soon :)’.
Later, Pete feels even more human with the way his heart thumps when he finds Patrick after the show. It leaps in his throat, clogging the words that want to come out when Patrick asks if he’s okay with a soft voice and an annoyingly insistent hand on his cheek to make sure Pete looks at him.
It helped though, the leaps serving as a reminder that his heart is still beating and whole and everything is fine .
He tells Patrick that. He is fine because nothing is actually wrong, it’s just the words clogging up in his mouth and brain.
But he knows Patrick wants to talk about it more because the look he gives him after the age-old excuse of “I’m just tired dude.” screams ‘It’s okay if you’re not.’
He can see the way Patrick’s worrying, his fingers curl around his water bottle and pick at the label because...Pete doesn’t do this anymore. He doesn’t stay up all night and when he does, they talk about it after or Pete has something written down that explains the lack of sleep.
He’s going to have to talk about it eventually, but it seems that Patrick doesn’t want to pry. Plus, they’ve just come off stage; Patrick’s been speaking for Pete for the past two hours and Pete doesn’t have it in him to come up with any spoken words of his own.
I’ll write tomorrow. Pete thinks as he squeezes Patrick, and if the hug is tighter than usual, then Patrick doesn’t say anything.
---
Pete doesn’t write the next day.
Or the next day.
Or the next.
The days slip away and before he knows it, he hasn’t written anything in a week.
It feels like a bittersweet break-up, when both parties drift apart and Pete is happy enough to let writing drift further, if it wasn’t for the fact that the words are building up and he has no outlet for them.
He’s tried writing, on the back of napkins and even in the empty pages of Frankenstein but they won’t come out the way he needs them to. The letters get stuck between his brain and fingers and he’s tired of scoring out failed attempts of communication.
It’s somewhere along the highway that Pete realises he’s lost his grip on the plot of the last week. He’s lost his place in the script of how these sort of scenarios play out, and no amount of searching can get him to find his lines.
He can’t write, and he can’t speak.
He’s stuck with his own stupid thoughts and Patrick still hasn’t pushed, which has left them in a furious tip-toe around the issue that would be funny if it Pete didn’t feel so drained because of it.
This is not how Pete remembers these sorts of things playing out before the hiatus; he remembers Patrick pushing the issue until he eventually cracks, resets and is back to normal in three days.
Pete wants to crack and talk about it but he can’t go at it without the right words, but he doesn’t know how to find them. Patrick usually listens to him without words and can magically fill in the gaps but. Pete needs to vocalise the words this time and he’s not sure how.
The situation has moved beyond Patrick knowing something is wrong - the whole band (and probably the crew, if Pete’s being honest) know. He hasn’t been subtle in trying to work things out himself. His show speeches have become increasingly morbid therapy sessions about broken promises and side-stepping Patrick has become one red flag in this trainwreck of a mess.
He sees the looks the band give him when they think he’s not paying attention. He hears Patrick talking to Joe ( “What if he’s getting bad again? I - I don’t know...I don’t want to push.” ) about it. He hears Joe having to calm Patrick down off a worry-ledge that he shouldn’t have to be on by reminding him that Pete’s been calling Jenifer.
(And he has, but that doesn’t mean he has to talk to her about this . If he can’t find the words to talk to Patrick who is basically a Pete mind-reader specialist then how is he meant to find the right words for a woman who’s two states away?)
And it’s not that bad, it’s nowhere near that bad - Pete promised it would never get that bad again.
Look at your track record for promises He thinks when he backs away from the conversation he isn’t meant to be hearing. I’m reading...I suppose one out of two isn’t that bad.
He’s just working through some stuff like a healthy adult, okay? So what if he gets tongue tied when Patrick asks him if he’s fine because...how does he explain that he is fine but isn’t at the same time.
How does he explain that he broke the one promise he made when Patrick agreed to be with him?
Most days are still fine until he allows his brain into the equation and it pulls the breaks and leaves Pete feeling drained and tired. Those days have been the worst over the past two weeks, because his brain ruins Patrick’s day as well.
Somewhere throughout the day Pete realised his head wasn’t screwed on correctly, like there was an accident in the factory. There’s a few screws missing and he barely hangs on. Wrong and fragile as he gets misplaced in the aftermath of a (good, fun) show.
Pete felt wrong. He had ever since he woke up this morning and his smile looked too big in the photo Patrick took, too much big teeth and unstraightened hair. But it wasn’t strong enough to vocalise it and he had made it through the day, even as they were making their way through the hotel lobby towards the elevator. However, the closer they edged towards their room, the tighter Pete’s shirt became…or was it his skin? His jeans were clinging to the sweat in the hollow of his knees, creating friction and his shirt was hanging off him wrong, so maybe it was just that?
Whatever it was, it was stretching him too tightly and made breathing work. The world swam out of focus for a second until Patrick gently nudged him into the elevator when it became apparent that Pete wasn’t going to walk in himself.
It was just…hotel rooms had implications now and earlier Pete had been happy enough to add onto these implications, with a grin and a promise of later. But now he wasn’t so sure he could fulfill them.
Without meaning to he had lead Patrick on, had disappointed him, was going to break another promise.
His skin on his back itched uncomfortably, right underneath Patrick’s hand, as he swiped the keycard to the room and he wasn’t sure how to feel about that. Was he meant to feel anything about that? Is that how things usually worked?
“Pete?”
And suddenly (or perhaps not so suddenly, since he wasn’t paying attention) Pete was being hugged from behind, as strong, grounding arms wrapped around him. And Pete had to fight the urge to let his head loll back onto Patrick’s shoulder like he really wanted it to.
He tried to be normal – he swears he did. He blinked, breathed and was ready to open his mouth to reply and ready to play along with the expectations he created.
“Yeah?” He said.
“Are you okay?”
That. That he hadn’t expected, though he probably should have. The air rushed out of his lungs. He had expected more promises that he would have to keep, or maybe a challenge hotly whispered into his ear. Not this.
The automatic response of “Yeah, just tired.” came out as his heart thumbed painfully against his chest.
He shouldn’t waste time they never got, he shouldn’t have made promises he couldn’t keep again. Even though he knew Patrick wouldn’t mind.
But what if he does? Pete thought, even though he knows it was irrational. What if he gets annoyed and does mind? What then?
He went to turn, to finally meet Patrick gaze – to stop being such a fucking coward (it was just Patrick. Nothing to be scared of) but his boyfriend’s arms held firm and he was forced to continue to stare at the wall.
“We could sleep?” Patrick suggested softly, too softly, and Pete knew this was the opportunity to tell him something was wrong this time. He cursed the fact that Patrick was so damn perceptive because he knew Patrick wasn’t tired at all. “I know I need it.”
Wrong. Liar. Too soft, too wrong. He ruined a perfectly good hotel night.
It was a little white lie to make Pete feel better which would rate a stage three on the Patrick-worrying-about-Pete scale (it was scientific, he had coined the it after Infinity on High when it became apparent Patrick would always worry about him) but now it felt so much higher. This is the moment he should have come clean about the stupid feelings that ruined their good, perfectly-golden night. But he can’t think of the right words and his throat is dry just thinking about it.
And anyway it’s not like Patrick’s telling the whole truth here. He’s dodging the questions he should be asking and acting as if the problem is with them .
Not that it’s Patrick’s job to ask. Pete thought idly. But it would be nice.
Patrick isn’t stupid, he knows something is wrong. So why not ask? Why not tell Pete? For someone who made him promise to talk – Patrick is strangely silent.
Satisfied that they were both breaking the rules in the situation, Pete finally let his head lean back onto his boyfriend’s shoulder. “Sure.” He said.
He doesn’t sleep a wink, but he does finish Frankenstein and hey, Patrick always looked pretty at sunrise so he didn’t miss out on much.
Surely he’s still agreeing to the promise he made Patrick a year ago, no matter how warped this interpretation is. That’s what he specialises in anyway – making words (or in this case the lack of them) warp their way around what he needs to say. Patrick’s silence and quiet worry is deafening – he could prompt Pete to speak but he isn’t sharing his own worries about this situation; it’s implied but not said. And Pete knows from his lyrics that you can’t leave words out in the hope the audience will understand or notice. Even if in this case Pete has noticed the implied words.
He’s Pete Wentz after all: he bends words to make them fit the situation at hand. This isn’t any different. Just in a different medium than the one scribbled in his notebooks.
---
It all comes to a head faster than Pete thought it would.
A part of him (the part of him from before the hiatus that Pete hates) wishes that it would last longer, like the good old days. It wishes that he could slide into the role of the romantic, struggling poet again and distance himself from Patrick (and everyone if he’s being honest), only to snap back with some great lyrics, a slightly manic look in his eye and some week-old eyeliner smudged down his face.
But he’s not in his early twenties anymore, and he’s not getting any lyrics out of this since his notebook has been abandoned for weeks now in favour of Patrick’s book.
And honestly, he had expected Patrick to call him out on his bullshit despite how the singer seems to be edging around the topic. They get pretty close though when Pete’s ‘episode’ as Jenifer would call it (but fuck her, she’s states away) hits two weeks and Patrick suggest they Talk tomorrow.
Pete knows it’s a talk with a capital T from the way he leaves no room for argument, and from the way he holds Pete’s wrist gently – too gently like he’s afraid Pete is going to disintegrate in front of him – so he can’t avoid him.
However, as the seconds tick by Pete’s starting to think that tomorrow is never going to fucking come.
He’s back in the lounge – where this whole mess started – knowing he should be trying to sleep like every normal, functioning person currently is.
But he can’t.
Every second ticks by slightly too slowly and his skin begins to crawl with restlessness from lying on the couch for too long. And if he doesn’t get out of this bus within the next few minutes the feeling is going to become real, until his skin crawls away from him and leaves him as nothing but an ugly monster with exposed muscles, tissue and mismatched skin.
The itch had started earlier, when he thought that climbing into Patrick’s bunk would be enough to fix this, but resting his head on Patrick’s shoulder had not done much to stop his skin crawling.
And since Plan A: Cuddle the Stump had failed, Pet e had no choice but to go back out to the lounge.
That leads him to where he is now, with his face pressed into the blanket to try and block out the streetlights’ glow that are seeping through the window. At least in the blanket it’s dark – as opposed to the orange glow outside that just confirmed that he’s failed at being normal (at being right ) again.
Wrong. Wrongwrongwrong he feels so wrong.
His feet suddenly feel suffocated in his battered Converse. They’re begging for air and his skin is crawling and his eyes are raw from being squeezed shut too tightly, and for a second his lungs burn. Reminding him to inhale.
He wiggles his toes, his socks inch down his ankle, irritating him.
Exhale .
The blanket is damp against his cheek from his breath, annoying him.
Inhale .
He needs out of the bus, he needs out now .
As carefully as his frantic mind allows, Pete quietly gets up and heads for the door – thankful that they had stopped moving for the night. – opens it and takes a breath of cool, fresh hair to appease his lungs.
Then he bends over and begins to try to rip his socks and shoes off – shaky fingers sliding along laces until he realises it would be easier to sit down and do it, until his feet feel free.
Afterwards, he thunks his head gently against the side of the bus, looking out across the car park they’re in. There’s not much to see other than a stretch of road that becomes gray and fuzzy the further away from the scattered streetlights it goes.
Strangely, now that he’s outside and not suffocating in the bus, the streetlights actually spark a feeling of danger in him, which is a new feeling among the throb of wrong.
A new feeling? He has almost forgotten what one of those felt like aside from the constant thump of wrong pumping through his veins.
They remind him of Wilmette though. Of long summer nights with friends when the only thing that mattered was who was the bad guy, soccer practices on Saturday and staying up this late was seen as an achievement and not a sign that he wasn’t dealing with it like he had promised .
Once upon a time, streetlights meant that he was meant to be heading home, since his Mom never gave him an actual curfew and instead always said “ Be in before the streetlights go on okay?” while his Dad simply said “Don’t stay out after dark.” Which, meant naturally he just listened to the last one. The streetlights came on at dusk not dark and while Pete knew his parents meant the same thing, the words said otherwise.
Huh. Even back then he twisted words people said. Maybe that’s why he likes the written word more, there’s less room for argument. You choose the words you use carefully.
But now, underneath the streetlight’s glow hundreds of miles from home, Pete feels ready trail back through those familiar streets with mud on his new pair of trainers and collapse into his single bed.
Except home is the bus behind him and the singer in it that’s asleep and his shoes are like boa constrictors.
Sleep is never coming.
“You can’t get lost in your head over this, deal?”
That promise had shattered weeks ago. He wants to shout – to vocalise some of the wrongness at the thought of it but his mouth disagrees with his head.
“Nothing’s promised? Even if we follow the game-plan we’re not even promised a pitch to play on?”
Nothing was promised back then, just like nothing is promised now. A next album isn’t promised, Patrick and him aren’t promised. They’re not promised to work. What if they don’t work? What if Patrick hates him at the end of all of this? What if –
“Can’t sleep?”
The voice startled him out of his spiral and he grabs one of his shoes and looks up only to see Patrick; sleep ruffled and wrapped in one of Pete’s hoodies, hands shoved into the pockets. The singer raises an eyebrow at the action. “What’s that gonna do?” He says softly and Pete tries to focus on the words and not how Patrick’s breath curls around him in the cool air around him. Tries not to focus on how much he loves him because it will only hurt more “ Shoe me away?”.
Relaxing, Pete drops the shoe and looks down. He didn’t expect a joke, Patrick’s been so worried lately how can he joke when he sees him sprawled on the ground with no shoes on. God it’s not as if he didn’t think he was crazy enough.
“It’s a shoeicide pact.” He blurts out – his mouth taking the lead on this one and trying to dodge the conversation this night is heading towards.
Patrick doesn’t laugh, not that he expected him to but when Pete meets his gaze all he sees is worry and…and it’s too similar to scenes that played out before the hiatus. He can see the questions Patrick wants to ask, can see the way his eyes dart around to check for any empty bottles; even though they both know Pete’s hasn’t been medicated for years.
He’s not in his early twenties anymore and doesn’t need to be medicated anymore. He can work out things healthy like a good adult…most of the time anyway.
Finally, after what feels like forever Patrick finally says something. “Have you slept?”
Pete shakes his head. “Have you?”
“You know I have Pete.”
And God – Patrick sounds so disappointed in him that Pete he has to look back down at his discarded shoes with Patrick’s shoe-covered feet in front of him. There’s a metaphor in there somewhere, twisted ready for him to write down. If he just had a pen he could make something about baring soles in the night and wishing for something he’s too scared to hold onto.
But he can figure that one out when there is natural light and he’s somewhat halfway to sane and feels right .
He should tell Patrick, maybe he could work on it while he tries to sleep. The singer could pull the words out of his mouth like yarn, and knit them together until they make sense, that was how they were meant to work anyway. Pete wrote the words and Patrick spoke them and-
There’s a hand in his hair and Patrick’s crouching in front of him. There’s too much worry on his face that he’s no doubt trying to hide, that’s clinging to the dark shadows and he looks as exhausted as Pete feels.
Pete doesn’t like that. His heart twists horrifically the more he thinks about it. All he wants is for Patrick to be as happy as he was when he told him he was his Mr Knightly. He wants the playful slap on his shoulder again, and the comfort of hearing him sigh at a stupid joke.
He just wants to see Patrick asleep, warm and happy like he should be.
Instead he’s created problems like he always does; until his boyfriend looks like his worried teenage counterpart that tried to superglue Pete back together, when it wasn’t his job to begin with.
“What are you doing out here Pete?” Patrick whispers and pushes his hand further through his hair and underneath the orange light and against side of a bus Pete falls a bit more in love. “Jesus fucking Christ, you’re freezing.”
He doesn’t ask any questions Pete thought he would like “Why are your shoes off?”, “ Why did you wake me up asshole?” or even “why aren’t you normal?” and that’s probably what breaks him. Instead of questioning, Patrick is pulling him into an off-balanced hug since he’s still crouching and, for a few seconds, the world is just the soft press of Patrick’s hoodie.
Pete’s sorry that Patrick has to do this. He loves Patrick but he deserves more than an off-balanced hug. A metaphor for them in general.
Patrick tries to urge him to move his head a few minutes later and all Pete can manage to choke out is a “ No ” and wraps himself tighter around Patrick’s soft middle. His throat is too tight and his heart is beating too fast and there’s tears in his eyes when he hears Patrick’s soft okay “Okay, okay.” The throbbing in his throat is beginning to close up and everything is hitting him at once. Too hard, too fast, too cold, too wrong and not enough.
Occasionally over the wet noises of his own breathing he hears “Pete – Pete you’re okay, whatever it is you’re okay just. Just breathe” But he can’t – he just can’t (he tries though he really does). His mind is racing too fast and he’s hanging on his fingertips and his breathing is catching up. And even in the dark shelter of Patrick’s hoodie the world is spinning and god, he’s missed Patrick so much –
He’ll let Patrick get up in a second and apologize. That’s what Pete promises himself as he continues to gasp and sniffle into the dark space of Patrick’s hoodie.
This is the promise he’ll keep, he tells himself, to make up for the lack of talking. He’ll let Patrick up in a minute when he stops being so selfish .
It’s not really a surprise when he doesn’t.
---
Pete's head is splitting when he wakes up, reminding him that he did something bad last night that must have ended with crying.
It slowly comes back to him – his shoes, his breakdown, Patrick – and he vaguely remembers being dragged back into the bus at some point after feeling like he was about to suffocate in Patrick’s hoodie.
His shoes are outside, and he’s just about to begin to hope it hasn’t rained when his attention is drawn away from the fact that he’s in his own bunk by a tickling sensation at his ankle.
It’s Patrick, because of course it is, with one hand curled around his bare ankle; slowly thumbing over it in a soothing motion just like he used to do before the hiatus when Pete got bad.
The singer isn’t looking at him though. He’s flicking through Pete’s notebook that’s balanced on his lap.
He’s no doubt looking for signs of cracks or reasoning for last night – but Pete knows he won’t find any, he hasn’t written anything in weeks.
I don’t deserve you he thinks
The words don’t come out right. His throat rebels and he says: “What’re you doing?”
It doesn’t come out right (but when does it ever?) and there’s so much he could say, has to say. Except that when Patrick looks at him there are honest-to-god tears in his eyes.
“Woah dude – are you –“
“Where’s the other book?” He says and the hand on Pete’s ankle stops. “Where’s the fuck is it because you wouldn’t – just where is it Pete?”
“What other book?” Pete says, and begins to think that he’s missed half this conversation already.
“Don’t. There’s no way you haven’t written anything about –“his hand flails around and usually Pete’s heart would swell at but it doesn’t this time because Patrick looks hurt . “This – us – whatever’s been going on with you.”
Oh.
Oh.
Oh .
Patrick…Patrick thinks he’s been hiding a book from him, and working things out which explains the lack of pushing.
Patrick thought I was working things out and didn’t want to push.
Patrick thought he was hiding a second notebook and was purposely not showing it to him and – okay Pete doesn’t always show him everything he’s written (trash cans along the West Coast can attest to that) but he usually leaves something to spur on the silent-conversations they usually have about stuff like this.
“I...There isn’t another book,” Pete replies and sees the look of disbelief on his face. “I haven’t written anything properly in like two weeks –“
“But –“
“I took up reading.” He says and feels shame course through him, why didn’t he write? Why couldn’t he write something to say when Patrick inevitably confronted him about his behaviour? “Like I said I was going to take up a new hobby but then the words wouldn’t come out and I didn’t – don’t, fuck – know what to say . The words just, they aren’t. They don’t make sense.”
He’s on the verge of tears again, too raw and he opens his mouth – hoping something will come out. But he’s in a hug before he can even think about what to say. And Patrick’s…smiling against his cheek?
“Hey, hey no freaking out on me we’re okay,” He say and he get it because of course Patrick gets it. And for one beautiful second the words ‘ I’m gonna marry you ’ float around his head, but he doesn’t say them.
It’s just another sentence that won’t come out right.
“If the words aren’t coming out right why don't you just…write them down. Clear that brain of yours and then we can talk. Not you, we.”
Pete closes his eyes and nods, his heart beats happily.
---
Writing after so long is horrible and bittersweet because he’s crawling back to it. It’s a necessity now and not an act born out of love or boredom.
His handwriting is a mess (not that he can really bring himself to care), and the pencil Patrick hands him is blunt and makes an annoying scratch-scritch-scritch noise as he writes words that are too big for the ruled lines to contain. It’s spiteful, rage-filled make-up sex that feels horrible in the moment, but will eventually get him back on good terms with writing.
It’s going well, or as well as spiteful writing can. He has two pages filled and is on the third when he pauses to read over what he has so far and
It’s wrong .
It’s too raw and too messy and too much and he can’t let Patrick read this, even though he’s already reading it over his shoulder. It doesn’t really add to what Pete wants to day but, it strangely fits. It’s like he’s been pushed to the sidelines of his own story - uselessly trying to add on or say something while his heart, mind and mouth ran amuck with worries he’s had for years.
Patrick must see something through the mess of Frankenstein references and mess of metaphors though, because a hand is pulling the pencil away from Pete’s nerveless fingers.
He doesn’t make Pete talk, but he also doesn’t try to speak for him. Pete appreciates that.
“You - you are enough okay? You’re you and kind and annoying at the same time and uh…” Patrick continues some time later after Pete writes more words, that he doesn’t think there’s any left in his mind. “I’m, I’m not good at summing up your whole self-worth dude but...I don’t think I’d be with you - or even love you - if you were the ‘normal’ that’s in this” He waves Pete’s notebook about. “You're...you're not wrong or whatever. And you know there’s nothing in here that could scare me right? Like I wish you’d talk to me but you know I’m not the best at talking either but like...you know seventeen year old me would’ve given you like, a blood oath if you had asked? Nothing’s scaring me away.”
Pete takes a couple of seconds to digest it and eventually snorts and lets out a wet laugh. “You suck at existential talk, dude.” He says.
It's not eloquent or even expresses what he wants to say but it’s enough.
“Duh,” Patrick smiles. “That’s why I keep you around.”
The ‘and I plan on keeping you around, idiot’ goes unsaid, lost between Patrick’s heart and mouth but Pete hears it, and he gets the meaning when Patrick pulls him in for a kiss. This was a blip and they worked through it with words and feelings and all the messy stuff that still makes Pete feel like a confused teenager who’s trying to explain what a band is.
Maybe they work better without the words, or maybe they work better with them.
He doesn't know.
All Pete does know for sure is that the small, happy moments that don’t make it into his writing (like literary references, penciled in notes and orange soda) deserve more attention than the messy and complicated thoughts that try to make it onto paper. Because it’s his relationship with Patrick, and those moments that feel right. And it's those small moments between the constant go-go-go of life that bring him more joy than a mere hobby and his relationship with writing ever could.