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It took almost all of Patrick’s emotional strength not to just grab his car keys and run out the door.
“But Patrick, I feel so isolated,” Pete whined over the phone.
Okay, maybe whined was a little too harsh. Pete was a very social person and when he was not having one of his bad days – or weeks – he liked to be surrounded by people, so being isolated when he was not struggling with his mental health was probably difficult for him. Hell, he was probably feeling as though he was struggling — isolation could probably trigger that sort of thing, right? Patrick didn’t know enough about bipolar disorder, even after all this time, but he knew enough about Pete to maybe cut him some slack.
“I know,” he responded with what he hoped was a calming tone, “but that’s the point. It’s self-isolation, you’re supposed to be isolated.”
“But I miss you.”
“I miss you too. But you’ve got the kids, right? I’m sure they’re happy to spend more time with their dad,” Patrick tried to reason.
“Yeah, but they’re getting restless. They’re fighting with each other. I think they miss you too.”
He couldn’t help but smile. “Yeah, I miss them too.”
“Please come. You can bring the kids. We’ll have a whole house full! We can have our own self-isolation Full House!”
Patrick wasn’t going to lie: he had felt tempted once or twice to strap the boys into their car seats and drive to the airport so that they could join Pete and the gang in Los Angeles. He couldn’t help but also miss Pete, and he knew that the kids missed Pete and the other kids too, because they had become so used to being such a family lately that being apart was…hard. However, he knew that it wasn’t safe — it was safer for him, for the kids, for Pete, for the kids if they just listened to the World Health Organization and stayed inside as much as possible. Flying, especially, was out of the question.
Pete sounded so desperate that Patrick wanted to give him everything he asked for and more, but it wasn’t feasible. It wasn’t safe.
“I’m sorry, Pete.” He couldn’t even keep the sorrow from his voice. “I wish we could.”
“Yeah…no, it’s okay. I get it. It’s not your fault.”
Patrick sighed and scratched his head a moment. “You know I love you, right?”
“I love you too.”
God, he felt like such a monster. Even when they had no money, they still always found a way to be together — they hadn’t been forced apart like this since the hiatus and that was not something Patrick wanted to relive at this point. He knew it was for the best – this is about remaining safe! – but he missed Pete. He missed their haphazard little family and he missed even tearing Saint and Declan apart from each other when they were fighting. Patrick wanted to be with Pete just as much as Pete wanted to be with him, why couldn’t they be together?
Why did he have to go back to Chicago right before an international pandemic?
Changing the subject, Patrick asked, “have you written anything lately?”
“A little bit,” came Pete’s response. “I’m not sure if any of it is good, but I have some stuff on…just everything that’s going through my brain right now. I feel like I’ve been overthinking, and it’s all coming out incoherent.”
Patrick cracked a smile — that’s his Pete. “Send it to me. I’ll help you make it coherent.”
“You’re the only one who understands my gibberish, ’Trick.”
“I’m sure that after spending a few weeks trapped inside the house with you that the kids will be fluent by the time this blows over.”
“Fuck, I hope not. I never want them to have to deal with my bullshit.”
“We’re gonna have a whole album of just coronavirus tracks by the end of this,” he thought aloud.
He had tried to pass the time by writing music because that’s just what he did — he was Patrick motherfucking Stump and writing music was his lifeline. Pete was going to send him a whole file full of weird, nonsensical thoughts that weren’t really all that nonsensical at all but just so inexplicably Pete that Patrick wouldn’t be able to help but throwing them into his music. He would have to send some stuff along to Joe and Andy – maybe the band was going to have to meet through Zoom like Pete had been tweeting – and well, maybe things would seem a bit more normal once they had some material to sift through and go over.
“Hey,” Pete started abruptly, tearing him from his thoughts, “Put Declan on for a moment.”
That was…random. “Why?” he asked.
“I wanna talk to the little dude about something secret, nobody over four feet allowed.”
“You are over four feet.”
“Shhhh! Just put the kid on,” Pete urged.
Well, that might keep the kid – and Pete – distracted for at least a minute and as much as Patrick loved his kids – and Pete – he was starting to go a little stir crazy with having to keep everyone entertained, so maybe Pete was onto something. Patrick had to make lunch soon anyway and if Pete could supervise for a bit, as much as was possible from thousands of miles away, then that would certainly relieve some stress in the meantime. So, he got up off the couch where he had been watching…well, he wasn’t even sure anymore, but what was on the TV was certainly not what he had selected…and sought out the boys’ playroom.
“Hey Dec,” he began as he entered the room, seeing the boys actually being nice to each other for once and almost afraid to disrupt that, “Pete’s on the phone.”
“Pete!” the kid exclaimed as his dad handed him the phone. “Pete, I miss you!”
“I miss you too, buddy,” he heard Pete say as he stepped out of the room and made his way toward the kitchen.
It hadn’t even been three minutes – all Patrick had been able to do was get some pasta boiling – before Declan came back downstairs and passed Patrick back his phone. “You still there?” he asked, hoping that Pete hadn’t hung up yet.
“Of course I am, I wouldn’t leave without saying goodbye to my favourite person.”
“So what did you guys talk about?”
“Oh, nothing,” Pete responded with a suspicious tone to his voice. “Just stuff.”
Patrick rolled his eyes. “If the kids start bugging me to go visit Pete and Bronx and Saint and MJ, it will not be the virus that ends you.”
“Ouch, harsh words from a tiny man.”
“Fucking bring it,” he muttered as he looked through the cupboards, trying to find the right sauce for the pasta.
“You’ve gotta be here first to kill me so Pete: one, Patrick: zero.”
Pete still didn’t appear to be ready to hang up and end their call yet, so Patrick moved around the kitchen with a phone in one hand and attempted to cook lunch with only the other hand — it was a good thing he picked something simple that only really required one hand. Pete was going on about what the kids were doing on his end and the other people he had spoken to lately, like Travie and Brendon and Elliott, and Patrick was glad at least that the other man seemed a little less lonely. He would give anything to make Pete happy.
“— and I went on Instagram Live and I showed them the vampire teeth, and everyone was so excited!”
Patrick chuckled. “Yeah, I heard about that. I can’t believe you still have them.”
“And I told them all about the sounds you make in bed—”
“You better fucking not have!”
“Kidding! But uhhh – oh shit, MJ, no! – I’m gonna have to go,” Pete told him, sounding like he was running – he probably was, that toddler could move fast – as he panted out, “but can I call you again tonight? Like…after the kids are asleep?”
Why did Pete sound so hesitant? “Yeah, sure. Just don’t keep me up all night.”
“I’m just…I’m missing something else too.”
Oh. Patrick understood what that meant. He would be lying if he said he wasn’t missing that too but well, there was not much he could really do about it — the distance was a bitch, but not something he had never dealt with before. Even since he and Pete had finally pulled their heads out of their asses and fucking done something about it, they weren’t together all the time – Patrick still had his house in Chicago and Pete still had his in Los Angeles – but well, he got it. And he couldn’t deny that he wanted it too.
“Yeah,” he responded wistfully. “Yeah, that would be okay.”
“Thanks, ’Trick. I’ve gotta deal with MJ but I’ll talk to you later. I love you.”
“I love you too.”
He didn’t realize how lonely he was going to feel once he had hung up the phone. Without Pete’s voice it was like Pete wasn’t there. Which, well, he wasn’t, but Patrick was starting to feel like he actually had Pete with him as they talked while he cooked – something that they usually do all the time when they’re together – so he suddenly felt like he was alone again. God, now he wanted to call Pete and desperately ask Pete to come back but well, he was rational enough to know that it was not safe and they were self-isolating for a reason, so he turned back to the pasta and tried to think already about what to make the boys for dinner.
It didn’t take very long to finish cooking the pasta, so it was only another fifteen minutes – after it had finished and cooled – before he was calling the boys back down from the playroom and hoping that they had maintained their peace even after the disruption of Pete’s phone call. He heard the little steps coming down the stairs, but instead of running to the dining room where Patrick was about to set out their plates, they led straight to him — and suddenly Patrick found himself with legs full of miniature Stumphs, both clinging onto him in the tightest little hugs that they had given him in a long time.
“I love you daddy!” Declan exclaimed just as his brother cried out “daddy!”
God, but Patrick was not even a little unhappy to be with these sweethearts. “I love you too, guys. Come on, let’s eat some lunch.”
“That’s from Pete. He says he loves you,” his tallest mini-me explained. “Do you love him too?”
So that was the phone call between Pete and Declan. It sounded like something Pete would do: tell the kids to give him a nice big hug because Pete wasn’t there and able to do it himself. It was so heartwarming that Patrick was feeling a little less lonely already — he was going to have to speak to Bronx and Saint about doing the same thing for their dad because well, Patrick wanted Pete to feel every bit as loved as he did at that moment.
“Yeah,” he told them, ruffling the hair on each of their heads, “I do. And he loves you too.”
The beaming smile on the boys’ faces as they let go and ran to the table was not quite everything Patrick needed, but was enough. He would definitely return the favour as soon as he could do it without Pete knowing what he was doing.