Chapter Text
Come rest your bones next to me
And toss all your thoughts to the sea
I'll pull up each of our anchors
So we can get lost, you and me
(ab/ap era - 2015)
The worst subtle torture one can go through is sleeplessness, Pete thinks. It’s up there, just above a persistently slippery hangnail and not-warm-enough bathwater. He tosses in his bed, feeling every brush of the sheets like shattered glass dragging through his skin. It’s too hot, his breathing was too loud, his pants kept getting twisted around his knees, and Pete was desperately and devastatingly awake for all of it.
He had taken the melatonin, he had listened to the ASMR and the lo fi and the cake decorating videos, he had drunk the chamomile and he had even meditated. Well, he tried to meditate, at least. His mind never seemed to stop buzzing, no matter how far into tranquillity he had tried to sink.
There was only one resort left, but Pete hates using it, despite what others might think. It was one thing to turn up to rehearsals with bags under his eyes and weariness in his shoulders, and another thing to have someone look at him and know, know what had happened the night before, the extent of Pete’s frustration, whispered between him and the receiver of his phone.
Pete groans, kicking his sheets off. He fumbles around in the dark for his phone and sighs through his nose when his fingers finally press against smooth glass.
He stares at nothing, contemplating. Pete is torn between throwing his phone off his bed, rolling over, and giving sleep another shot, or calling someone he knows would make it all better, but would leave a bitter taste of guilt in his mouth the next day when he sees the eyebags that match his own.
Damned if he does, damned if he doesn’t.
He navigates to the one contact he can dial in his sleep and presses the green button before he could think better of it. The loud ringing is jarring in the complete darkness, and Pete’s heart can’t help but kick into overdrive.
thump-thump. thump-thump.
“Pete?” Patrick’s groggy, sleep-tinged rumble filters through the phone’s speakers.
Pete closes his eyes. The sound of Patrick’s voice is like a soothing menthol balm. Already, his shoulders had relaxed and his eyes had drooped half-closed.
“The one and only,” Pete replies in a whisper. He knows this exchange by heart, each word carved into the space between his heart and his ribs. “Did I wake you?” He asks, tongue curling around the familiar letters.
“Take a wild guess,” Patrick retorts, but his sleepy tone lacks the bite that would’ve made Pete recoil.
It used to, Pete remembers. Back when they were filled with rage and contempt for each other, around the making of Folie. Back when Pete would take too many pills and too many shots and call Patrick at five am, drunk and cold and wishing for comfort. Patrick would snap at him, and his tone would make Pete feel a thousand times worse and a million times better.
He would huff in exasperation, in that well-known Patrick way of his, but he’d still hum a couple of reprieves just for Pete. Before Folie, it had been whole songs, words and all. During Folie, and just a little into the hiatus, it had shortened, line by line, Patrick dropping words or skipping parts, until it had been two lines or a bridge or two and then a “sorry, Pete, I need to go, I’m a little busy right now.”
Pete had learned to stop calling Patrick in the middle of the night.
That was when he grew resentful of himself, of the coping mechanism he had unwittingly grown too attached to. He had never imagined that he couldn’t call Patrick, and look where that had landed them.
“Sorry,” Pete says. He feels, suddenly, raw and exposed, like he should’ve just rolled over and failed at sleeping instead of doing—this. It’s a feeling as familiar as Patrick’s next words.
“Not your fault,” Patrick reminds him. Pete can see him, like an afterimage in the darkness of his bedroom. He was probably wearing his ratty Batman pajamas, hair stuck straight up in adorable tufts, with his eyes half closed and the hand not wrapped around his phone clutching at his glasses.
“I know. I’m sorry anyway.”
“Mmm,” Is all Patrick says.
“Can you—” Pete’s breath hitches involuntarily. “Can—”
“Lie down,” Patrick urges gently. “Rest. Pretend you’re lying next to me.”
Don’t say that, Pete thinks pathetically. Don’t say that, it rips me apart every single time.
“Okay,” he says instead. He shuffles back under his covers. It’s compelling, always is, the sound of Patrick’s voice. The blankets no longer feel like sandpaper against his body.
Pete curls up into himself and shuts his eyes viciously.
“Breathe,” Patrick prompts. Pete can hear rustling as Patrick also gets back under his covers.
For a minute, one heartbreaking minute, Pete imagines that Patrick is just an arm's length away. That if Pete reaches out, he’d grasp at skin and flesh instead of cold sheets. He breathes in a shuddery breath.
Stripped down to the bone, laid bare for Patrick to see. Right where Pete wants to be.
“Stop thinking.” Patrick’s bossy tone leaks into his sleep-warm voice, and Pete chuckles.
“You of all people should know how impossible that is.”
“Fair,” Patrick concedes. “Just listen. Listen and focus on me.”
Oh, Patrick, Pete thinks. I’m always focused on you.
And then Patrick starts humming, like he always does. Some of their songs, old and new, and some classics that he knows Pete likes.
Pete feels his thoughts start drifting away, washing down the drain with the timber of Patrick’s voice. He feels hedonistic, basking in his one true pleasure. Like a cat in a sunbeam, Pete noses into his pillow and imagines he can feel it rumbling under his skin—no, he imagines he could feel it humming under his skin.
He loses himself in the melodies Patrick weaves into his brain, loses himself in the baritone, the ebbs and flows of his favourite sound.
Just him, and his Patrick.
My heart is buried in Venice
Hidden beneath all my worries and doubts
My heart is buried in Venice
Waiting for someone to take it home
(pre fob era - 2001)
Pete has been waiting. He’s been waiting since he was born.
No, scratch that. The better term was searching. Pete has been searching for something since he was born. No one, not even him, knew what it was.
It had originally drawn him to the seedy, underground hardcore punk scene, but soon he realized that what he was searching for was not there. He stayed, though, for reasons he couldn’t explain. A lot of Pete’s early years were spent thrashing against fate, pushing up against destiny, trying desperately to find what made him tick.
There was a clock in his heart that kept it beating, but it was slowly, inevitably, running out of wind.
He hid it well, under hoodies and easy grins, but it kept him tossing and turning at night (though that is not a hard feat, to be completely honest).
The ticking scared Pete more than he could ever say, so instead of facing it, he threw all his ineligible words into his lyrics. He wrote his fear into weathered notebooks he tucked into jean pockets and jackets and bags. Pete piled stress after stress after stress on top of it.
It was easy to ignore the ticking, Pete realized, when he put his focus on his band, or his soccer team, or even his degree.
But even under all that, he knew. There had to be something that kept Pete Wentz ticking. Someone.
And then one day he met Patrick Stump. A surlish, grumpy, spitfire of a teenager, clad in an outfit that, absurdly, reminded Pete of those designer dogs. The ones that dressed in mini sweaters and cute little booties.
He hadn’t known it at the time, but Patrick Stump was the someone he was looking for. Patrick Stump would take him home.
Even when you try to hide it
A smile creeps out from your teeth
I never thought that I would have to say, "I'm sorry"
For anyone but me
(folie a deux era - 2008)
Patrick bursts through the double doors of the studio into the cold of the outdoor parking lot. Pete follows, hot on his heels. It had been a tense recording session, just like the last ten had been, and at this point it felt like it was all in vain. It was tiring, energy sapping, to walk into the recording booth again and again with the same dead-end result, like a futile Sisyphean nightmare. Then again, all Sisyphean nightmares are futile. That was the whole point of Sisyphean nightmares.
“Go fuck yourself, Pete Wentz,” Patrick snarls. “Get off my ass.”
Pete scoffs, unable to help the sharp bite that rises in his tone. “Get a grip, Stump. People are allowed to disagree with you.” He throws the bait to the curve of Patrick’s back, tense and drawn around his shoulders.
Patrick takes it, like Pete knew he would. “Sure, but that doesn’t mean I have to listen to them.”
“You do when they’re your bandmates!” Pete cries in frustration. “Is working with a team really so soul-sucking for you?” They’ve had this argument before, and it never ends pretty.
“Yes,” Patrick grinds out. “I guess it fucking is.” His answer remains unchanged from the last eight times Pete had thrown the question at him. “Now leave me alone before I deck you in the jaw.”
Patrick’s headed in the direction of his beat up car (one of the only cars in the lot), so Pete follows. Pete always follows Patrick.
“What, again?” Pete remembers the bright flash of pain Patrick had inflicted on him only a week prior. “It barely hurt the first three times.”
Patrick whirls around, shoes scraping against the gravel of the empty lot. “You wanna know your fucking problem, Wentz?”
There isn’t even time for Pete to open his mouth before Patrick interrupts him.
“I’ll tell you your problem. You, you dense motherfucker—” Patrick approaches him with his finger already jabbing into the thin fabric of his t-shirt— “You want too much too soon, and you burn everyone else up for fuel towards your too-big dreams and don’t even consider if we feel any of the pain.” Patrick glances at him reproachfully. “You’re a heartless, impulsive, selfish bastard who uses everyone around them and then tosses them like—like they’re nothing. Like we’re nothing.”
And Patrick was so, so wrong, that it tore a harsh laugh out of Pete. If he hadn’t forced out a laugh, he might’ve sobbed, Pete thinks. Nothing? They’re all he has. They’re his everything. Without Fall Out Boy, he was nothing.
“Do you really think I would…” Pete can’t even finish his sentence, that’s how absurd Patrick was being.
“I don’t think,” Patrick spits out. “I know. I’ve seen, felt, firsthand, what it’s like to be used by Pete Wentz.”
Pete feels a sense of hopelessness then, because he had put all this effort into loving Patrick, and making sure Patrick knew he was loved, and Patrick had felt like this the whole time. Used.
Was Pete’s love really such a curse? Did it really hurt that much to be loved by him? Maybe Patrick’s right. Maybe everyone would be better off without Pete Wentz’s love.
The hopelessness quickly burns out bright, like a sparkler, and is replaced by a sense of confused hurt and rage. This, paired with the stress and exhaustion of keeping four boys afloat in an industry determined to drown them, bred a dangerous cocktail.
“Well, if we’re just layin’ out our hang ups,” Pete scoffs, trying to hid his sudden internal strife. “You, Patrick Stump, really need to grow thicker skin and bigger balls and fucking suck it up. They’re right, you know. You’re way too fuckin’ sensitive for the scene, and if you don’t grow up, it’s gonna beat you into the ground.”
Pete doesn’t even remember why they’re fighting anymore. He only knows the bitter satisfaction of seeing Patrick flinch, the nauseating triumph that comes with the poison he spews, with no regard for what it burns.
Patrick sucks in a sharp breath. “I can’t imagine why I ever decided to believe in you , Pete Wentz.”
That…that one stings like a knife between his ribs. Instinctively, Pete curls his hands into fists. They’re grappling on a cliff, each one intending on dragging the other down with them.
The ground is slick with blood. The fight is no longer about winning, it’s about inflicting as much pain as possible and seeing who bled out first.
“You’re not as good as you think you are.” It’s like the hurt is siphoned out of him, and it took those words with it. “Your word is not be-all and end-all. Your ego is the worst thing about you. Somehow—somehow, Patrick Stump, it’ll never be enough for you. There’s more greed in your heart than there is talent, and anyone who spends more than a week with you can see that.” And even as he says it, Pete can see in his mind the edge of the cliff barrelling towards them, can sense the swooping feeling of falling, falling, falling.
If Pete had wanted to go down, well, he’s certainly made it.
If I’m dying, Pete thinks, I’m taking you with me.
Patrick takes a couple of steps back. The rage on his face had drained, leaving him a shocking alabaster. Pete watches, vision still tinged with red, as Patrick swallows once, then twice, and he simply—walks away. Just like that.
Pete, confused, slowly lets his hackles down. His stance deflates as the sudden jarring silence of the lot fills his ears.
Well, the sudden jarring silence, punctuated by the sound of Patrick’s footsteps in the gravel, walking away from him at a steady pace.
Still in fight or flight mode, he flinches when he hears the click, and then the slam, of a car door.
Suddenly, Pete feels it. The sudden, revulsing jolt of I took it too far. The instant nauseating maelstrom of guilt and fear. Distantly, an engine revs.
“I’m sorry,” Pete says to an empty parking lot. “I’m sorry.”
Patrick, already speeding away angrily in his car, doesn’t hear him.
Pete sinks to the ground, eyes staring blankly at the stones. What has he done?
Pete tries again, he calls Patrick when he knows he’ll answer, well enough after the fight that Patrick wouldn’t hang up immediately.
“I’m sorry,” he says immediately.
Patrick chuckles dryly. “No,” he replies. Pete can hear the bitter smile in his tone. “No, Pete Wentz, you aren’t. You may be remorseful, but you’re not sorry. You meant every word.”
“I…” Pete stares dully at the floor. How do you explain? Explain that he loves Patrick more than anything else in the world, that being around Patrick wound his clock, kept it ticking and tocking? That Patrick saying his love felt like a burden, a cruel trick, is worse then if Patrick had simply shot him right in the heart?
He can feel his every bone, every creaking, aching joint at the tender age of 28.
Patrick hangs up.
Say, say what you mean
Tell me the truth or tell me you're through
(hiatus - 2010/2011)
Pete 1:35pm
hi do u rmbr where we put that donut usb
it has some lyrics on it i wanna use
Patrick 10:02pm
no
Pete 10:12pm
ok thx
Pete throws his phone onto his bed, where it bounces miserably before settling beside a stuffed bear. The bear, light pink in colour and as round as a bowling ball, stares back judgmentally.
Patrick won him that bear at an arcade. Pete punches the bear off of his bed, and tosses his phone down for good measure. Then, he sprawls across his sheets, wondering where he went wrong.
It was probably when he was born, to be completely honest.
He scoops his phone back up, sighing, as he flips back to him and Patrick’s chat. There was the most recent one, just four messages spread out over a day and a half, and before it, one topic spanning four days. Pete had sent seven messages and Patrick three.
It was like watching the world's lightest boat slowly sink under the waves, and knowing you can’t do jackshit to stop it. Like watching a lit match start a forest fire.
Pete has never felt more desolate in his life.
So, he throws himself into—well, into everything. He picks up new projects like burs on pant legs, and tosses them aside in a similar manner. He starts to frequent his club more and more often, and it wouldn’t be surprising if someone found Pete Wentz drunk or high in a corner booth, staring piteously at an empty beer glass.
He starts and ends a band, he laser-focuses on his record label—hell, Pete even put his 100% into Clandestine Industries. And yet, he still misses them. His band. His friends.
Which was stupid. Clearly, no one else felt the same way. Joe and Andy had fucked off to start their giant supergroup that picked up, and Patrick started his solo career as the sexy, hot, English teacher/rockstar with an insurmountable amount of bow ties.
It was like no one but Pete and the fans missed Fall Out Boy. Sometimes, Pete wondered if even the fans could miss Fall Out Boy as much as he did. He missed his band like—like a close friend had died and everyone else had thought they were an asshole, and you’re left mourning in bitter, agonized silence.
When Soul Punk came out, Pete didn’t leave his house for days. His house and mind were never so loud, blaring Patrick’s music, Patrick’s words—Patrick’s words, who would’ve thought, really, Patrick was never a word person—for close to twenty-four hours a day. He’s lucky he barely has neighbours, he muses.
But he can’t help but think, traitorously, that he’d rather it be his own words, his own thoughts spilling from Patrick’s lips.
Watching the words fall out of your mouth makes me wish that i was the one that put them there, he writes into a notebook. Then he crosses it out furiously, over and over again. I’ve never been a worse person than when i’m loving you, he scratches. Then, he throws the notebook onto his cluttered desk, in hopes of losing it within the sea of old dishes and napkins forever.
Later that night, Pete’s lying face up on his bed. His hands are clutching that stupid pink bear with the ferocity of a toddler about to throw a tantrum in a supermarket. If he doesn’t let go of the bear, he tells himself, then he doesn’t have the hands to pick up his phone and call Patrick.
If he doesn’t let go of the bear, then he doesn’t h—
Pete throws the bear across the room with a warbled shout. It bounces harmlessly against his floor. But still, he thinks, with his hands so terrifyingly empty. He can’t call Patrick. What if he picks up?! That would be the worst thing to happen, he tells himself. A full blown grimace spreads across his face. He’s never been scared to call Patrick before.
And then a crazy, reckless, downright insane thought occurs to him.
Why should he start now?
Pete sits up, cracking his knuckles in the way Joe used to hate. It’s like that thought unlocked something in him, some torrential rush of emotion that he simply doesn’t have the capacity to process right then. He simply lets it flow over him like it was a rushing river, and he was a twig stuck in the currents.
Scrabbling, he unearths his phone from the depths of his California King and frantically swipes to Patrick’s contact.
The picture makes him pause.
Pete had taken it one morning, sometime before all the fights and folie drama began. Patrick had just woken up, sporting a neon yellow jersey and crazy bedhead. With a cereal bowl in one hand and his laptop in the other, he had grinned at Pete for no particular reason, and Pete had felt the breath whoosh out of his lungs.
The picture was taken at the perfect time. Patrick was mid grin, the kind that made him look years younger and untainted by the villainous wiles and whims of Pete Wentz and his scandalous company. Wide and innocent.
Wow Pete, he thinks. You really fucked this one up, didn’t you?
He presses call.
“Hello?” Patrick’s voice, startlingly awake, fills the line sometime after. “Pete?”
“Sorry. Hi.” Pete’s mouth moves on autopilot. “Did I wake you?”
Bitterness leaks into Patrick’s voice. “Take a wild guess.”
“Sorry. I’m sorry.” He’s like a broken record, spinning in the same groove over and over until he gets replaced.
“Yeah.” The reply is curt. “What do you need?”
Moment of truth. Pete takes in a deep, hopefully silent, breath. “Could you…I mean. Would—Would you—”
Patrick doesn’t endure much of Pete’s “skipping”. “Pete, I’m…I’m pretty tired. I had a show today, and I have plans tomorrow, and I just want to go to sleep.”
Pete closes his eyes. The rejection feels like a rock thrown into his fragile glass house. Shattering and instantaneously humiliating.
Glass shatters all at once, he remembers. He had seen it in a video. Pete can see it, the shattering of his heart all the way to his toes, in a split second. Patrick hadn’t even finished his explanation yet, and Pete was lying in bed in pieces.
“Yeah,” he breathes, cutting Patrick off. “Sorry. I should’ve figured. You’re big and famous now, you rockstar.” He meant for it to be teasing. It comes out pathetic.
Patrick hesitates. “Um. I guess I could…look, Pete, I think I might—”
“—go,” Pete finishes for him. “Yeah, I’ll leave you to it. Was nice talking to you, Rockstar Stump.” He can’t take this anymore. At least let his death be quick and merciful, he prays to absolutely no one.
“Oh.” Patrick’s quiet for a second. “That…I wasn’t gonna say that, but uh…”
“Take the out when you see it, Trickster,” Pete whispers to his empty room. Patrick’s breathing over the phone feels like a ghost, almost. “Or have I taught you nothing?” I’m trying to save both of us. He keeps that to himself. Stop drawing out this pain.
“Goodnight, Pete Wentz.” Patrick says haltingly. He stops, and then says, “Sleep well.”
A tiny huff of a laugh escapes from his mouth. It’s scornful, acidic.
They both know Pete will not be doing that.