Work Text:
Rain pattered against the window as Pete entered the group recording space. Usually, music would be drifting from the room, but that was before. It had been… awhile since they had made something together. They tried, but it was just hard after… dying… coming back from dying… being uncertain if dying fixed your possessed lead singer…
Patrick was sat on the floor, leaned against the wall with a large pair of orange headphones covering his ears. His eyes were closed and his breathing was steady. He wanted to work with music, but he was afraid of being triggered by it again. He had started wearing noise canceling headphones everywhere and stopped using his voice, instead opting for texting or simple sign language.
Joe was writing something in a notebook across the room from Patrick. It had taken a bit longer for Joe to feel comfortable in the same space again. He could still vividly remember… that day. He was willing to share a space with Patrick again, but even he hesitated to strum any cords around him.
Andy tapped his drumsticks against a practice pad, sound dulled by the soft surface and fading into a rhythm with the rain. He looked up when Pete entered the room, giving a small nod but not stopping his rhythm.
“Should we call it for today?” Pete asked. He knew no real progress had been made…again. This space had become more of a hang out to get comfortable with each other space rather than something for music.
“I thought it was wrapped awhile ago.” Joe looked up from his notebook, “Nothing for instruments yet, but I got some lyric ideas at least.”
“That could be a good starting point for tomorrow.” Pete nodded. “Same time?”
Both Joe and Andy agreed with soft words and nods. They began gathering their equipment as Pete turned to Patrick. His hands just kept his laptop from slipping to the floor as he continued to sleep. He didn’t listen to the music on his screen, he had memorized certain wavelengths and settings, trying to arrange those and share with the others. It had…mixed success.
“Want me to take him home?” Andy asked as he stepped around his unused drum kit with a head nod towards Patrick.
Pete shook his head. “Nah, I’ll wake lil dude up. You guys good to go?”
“Joe’s driving.” Andy replied with a thumbs up.
“Hey, I drove here, you drive home.”
“No, I distinctly remember you saying you were designated driver today and tonight is still today.”
The two began to bicker playfully as they made their way out of the studio space, leaving Pete alone with Patrick. Pete let out a soft breath. Despite how much he cared for Patrick, he couldn’t ignore the small fear that nagged at him with the departure of the other two. It had always been at least two people with Patrick since…
Pete moved across the room and sat down on the floor beside Patrick. He gently pulled the laptop from Patrick’s grip before putting a hand gently on his shoulder and softly shaking it. “Hey, session’s over, ‘Trick.”
It took a few seconds before Patrick cracked his eyes open. Normal blues, just like they had stayed since they came back. He inhaled a sharp breath, pressing against the wall as he outstretched his arms in front of him and brought them above his head.
Pete retreated his hand quickly, flinching back from the movement. His mind flashed back to that moment before feeling the stabbing pain in his gut. He could practically still feel the blood running down his torso from the now scarred wound.
Patrick dropped his arms and looked around the room tiredly. It hadn’t been raining earlier. He could have sworn there was still sun… he looked to his side, catching Pete’s wide eyes looking at him. He frowned. “Everything okay?” He signed, though his hands shook as he tried to relay his message. He looked around the room again. Joe and Andy weren’t here anymore. He hadn’t done something, had he? He turned back to Pete, feeling a slight panic. “Me?” He mouthed the word as he pointed to his chest, stabbing his fingers against his shirt to minimize the shaking.
Pete shook his head. “No! Yes! Okay.” Pete signed the last word back as he spoke. He wasn’t as good with the new language, but he had been able to pick up a few words Patrick tended to frequently repeat. “Okay.”
Patrick still seemed unsure as he dropped his hand from his chest. He pulled his phone from his pocket and began quickly typing, letting his fingers race across the keyboard.
Pete pulled out his own phone in anticipation of the message, receiving it promptly after.
“Where are they? Are they okay?”
Pete typed his own reply. “They just went home. Jam session over. Everyone is okay.”
Patrick released a deep sigh when his phone buzzed with the response. Okay. Everything was okay. He hadn’t fallen back into what he had been before… He must have just fallen asleep… it was so easy to accidentally slip into unconsciousness with the noise of the world now constantly muted.
He jumped slightly when his phone buzzed with another message. “Do you want to go home?”
Patrick bit his lip. There wasn’t much to do here if the jam session was over… but there also just wasn’t much to do at home without noise… he sighed and simply nodded. Pete rose to his feet beside him. Patrick shut and grabbed his laptop before shooting a hand out to Pete to help pull him up. He quickly retracted it, however, when he saw Pete physically flinch back at the movement. One hand balled into a fist by his chest while the other pressed against his lower torso.
Patrick shrunk back against the wall, looking up at the expression of fear on Pete’s face. It was quickly fading and his posture was relaxing while words seemed to stamper out of his mouth, but Patrick found himself frozen in the silence around him.
The way Pete had grabbed his gut… Patrick could feel phantom pains in the same area. He knew he had been wounded there, but he had never learned how. He could just remember feeling like he was waking up to a closing tunnel vision, looking up at a sky full of stars with ears ringing. A pain in his gut as he died alone in the dirt… Did…did Pete see it happen? Or…Did he do something to Pete he couldn’t fully remember in that same place.
Patrick’s eyes welled with tears as he looked at Pete’s covered torso. He could feel his phone vibrating and see Pete’s mouth still moving, but none of it was hooking Patrick’s attention away from where Pete’s hand had traveled. He could feel his mouth moving, though he wasn’t sure if any sound was released with it. His eyes were stuck and tears were dripping down his face. The silence was deafening. It was all so much.
Pete’s phone nearly dropped from his hand when he heard Patrick speak for the first time in so long. His voice was cracked and soft from lack of use, but still that same voice he had first been introduced to all those years ago back in Chicago.
“What did I do?”
Four strained words.
Pete couldn’t find words of his own to respond. He was so caught off guard by Patrick’s voice. The last time he had heard it and had it actually be Patrick… it was before they came back. Before they died. Now it was just so… sad and small. The same way Patrick looked down on the floor, pressed so hard against the wall he looked like he just wanted to fade into it.
Patrick dropped his eyes as they began to widen. He couldn’t feel the fingers on his left hand. He couldn’t feel his left hand all of the sudden. It was numb. The numbness was spreading up his arm. Across his chest. Up his neck. He could practically hear the static that was spreading through him.
He could remember the feeling of violence. He could remember the feeling when he… When Joe…
“Patrick!”
The flood of sound was overwhelming. The soft drone of the still air. The buzz of a distant fan. His own ramped up breathing. His hands shot up to his ears. His uncovered ears.
His headphones were off of his ears and in Pete’s hands just in front of him.
He stared at Pete, afraid to speak. Afraid to let the sound into his ears. He kept his hands firmly clamped over his ears to block as much sound as he could. Pete’s voice still came through though. It was muffled, but easily readable as apologetic. He held the headphones back out to Patrick with worry on his face and more muffled words.
Patrick was afraid to move though. If he had done something before… if he had done more than kill Joe…
Pete looked down at the headphones in his hands and back at Patrick. He really shouldn’t have taken them off. It was overstepping, but he could see Patrick getting lost in his head. He could practically see the looping of what had happened actively starting. He had seen it in all of his friends since it happened. It was easiest to pull Andy out of it. A little harder to get Joe back to reality. It was so hard to pull Patrick back, especially when he turned off one of his key senses out of fear.
“Fuck…” Pete looked back up at Patrick. There were tears in his eyes and his panic had only seemed to increase. “I’m sorry, I didn’t… fuck…” He held the headphones out to Patrick, but it was clear he wasn’t going to reach out for them. Instead, he set them down beside Patrick and stood, holding his hands in front of his chest. “What the fuck is the sign again…” He wracked his brain for the right way to motion with his hands as Patrick lowered his head.
He took a few steps back, trying to give Patrick some space. He crouched where he had moved back, preparing himself for when Patrick would look back up.
Patrick was trying to focus on something, but there were too many things. The sound creeping through past his fingers. That lingering static numbness that still consumed him. Trying to remember who else he hurt when he wasn’t in control…
He brought his head back up, feeling another spike of panic to see the space just in front of him empty. It only lasted a moment though, because Pete was still ahead of him. Just further away. When they connected eyes, Pete straightened. His hands moved in front of his chest and began to twist and form words.
“I am here.”
The words kept repeating as Patrick continued to stare towards Pete.
I am here.
I am here.
I am here.
Patrick kept his eyes on Pete’s moving hands. He focused on the words repeatedly being formed. He just kept repeating them. Jumbled, then smooth. A soothing rhythm that Patrick could watch and focus on to distract himself from everything else.
For what felt like hours.
For what could have been just minutes.
Patrick found his breathing evening. His hands were still pressed against his ears, but they were laxing. More static air slipped into his ear canal. He could hear. He could hear and he didn’t feel like he had when the lost himself before.
Eventually, Pete stopped his hand motions. He dropped his hands, with one hand resting over his torso.
“Pete…” Patrick was surprised by the sound of his own voice. It wasn’t…different. Well, not as different as he thought it might be. Just a bit cracked from lack of use over all this time… “What did I do?” He kept his hands over his ears, but now they just hung on by fingertips.
Pete frowned. “Nothing I didn’t immediately repay.” He gestured towards Patrick. “We’re twins.”
Patrick brought a hand to his lower torso where he knew his own scar rested on his skin. “You?.. So I?..”
Pete shook his head. “No, whatever they did to you did this.” He dropped from his crouch and just sat on the floor. “You didn’t do this.”
“It was my body.” Patrick gripped his shirt, “My hand.”
“Technically, it was a hook.” Pete pointed out, “A hook that I accidentally attached, so it’s kinda my fault if you’re gunna blame anyone.”
“No!” Patrick shrunk back against the wall again, lowering his head. “It was me. It was me… All the noise…”
There was a moment of silence. “Well… how is the noise now?”
Patrick’s eyes trailed to the headphones on the ground. He had kept himself in silence for so long. Now, even still in silence, there was still noise. It wasn’t an angry noise, though, not like before. It was just… noise. It was normal. It was like before.
“You’re still you, you know.” Pete spoke up again in Patrick’s silence, “Your eyes are still you.”
Patrick brought his hand up from his shirt to hold over one of his eyes. He didn’t see yellow either. He could remember that before things went dark. There was always yellow before darkness. He wasn’t seeing any yellow.
“Baby steps that I’m Sorry I kind of pushed you into…” Pete’s eyes darted to the headphones before they moved back to Patrick. “You can handle voices. You can speak.”
“But what if it’s a fluke.” Patrick dropped his hand from over his eye. “What if it comes back?”
“What if it doesn’t?” Pete crawled forward until he was sat beside Patrick. “You haven’t attacked me yet, and I kind of deserved it for the headphone thing.”
“No you don’t!” Patrick stared at him with wide eyes, “None of you guys deserved any of that!”
“Neither did you!” Pete exclaimed, “You didn’t deserve it, but you do deserve to heal from it without blocking out the world. Stab for a stab, that’s even between us. Maybe get Joe a new guitar or two to make up for that, I don’t know… I do know that none of us blame you.”
Patrick shut his eyes. It was so hard. It was him, but it wasn’t. He could remember pieces, but there were so many gaps. He had killed his friends…
“We’re jamming again tomorrow.” Pete spoke low and calmly, “You don’t have to wear those headphones. We can try to keep healing together. Even if you don’t sing. Even if you do still wear those headphones. We are all here for you, Patrick. We are all still trying to figure this out. You don’t have to be alone in this.”
I am here.
The signed message came back to the front of Patrick’s mind. After everything…
Pete let out a soft “oh!” of surprise as Patrick suddenly wrapped his arms around him in a tight hug. Something was muttered against his shirt fabric, but Pete didn’t hear. He instead wrapped his arms around Patrick in return. “We’ll get through this, man. Together.”
Patrick nodded, afraid to fully let go yet. Maybe things could be okay again. Baby steps.
They were here.
Baby steps.