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Patrick was pretty sure that at least half the reason he gets into these types of situations is his close proximity to one Pete Wentz. He almost made it out of his teens unscathed, but then Joe insisted that he bring Pete over to hear Patrick sing in person, and suddenly he had an emotionally-unpredictable, skinny jean wearing, flat-ironed hair emo boy stuck to his body like a leech. Pete was a magnet for unpredictable situations and combined with the early years of teenage hostility bubbling inside Patrick, bad decisions were plentiful.
Somehow, in a cacophony of bad decisions and fights and months of silence on either that made up the years of hiatus, Patrick knew he wanted to get everyone back together. He loved writing and composing music, but he missed translating Pete’s thoughts and rambles and poems into something even the depressed man could be proud of. Patrick liked it when they went through the song and Pete stuck his tongue out of the corner of his mouth when he heard one of his lines kept word for word in the finished products. Many nights had been interrupted by that image in his mind and kept his fingers hovering over Pete’s contact information in his phone. But he couldn’t find the courage within himself to press “call”.
After a sore night of only kind-of sleeping, Patrick awoke to the sound of people talking in his kitchen. It struck him as weird, no one should be in his kitchen. He slowly rolled over, phone in his hand ready to call for 911 if this was a break in, and tiptoed out from his bedroom and into the kitchen. What he saw made him drop his phone.
Standing against the kitchen counter was… himself. It was definitely him, if not a few years older and softer than the body he had built over Soul Punk. He had the same red tinted blond hair, a trucker hat that Patrick knew was upstairs on his dresser, and a comfortable sweater to complete the look. And if seeing himself wasn’t surprising enough, then he saw the other man standing in the kitchen.
There was no doubting it was Pete. A noticeably different Pete, but definitely Pete. His hair was longer, reaching past his shoulders, and dyed blond. He had the same dark eyes, though his smiles were fully reaching them, which, on top of the hair, was also making his stomach turn, though not uncomfortably. This Pete had a baggy hoodie that went down past his hips and onto an honest to god skirt. Patrick didn’t know how to breathe in the sight of Pete Wentz in a skirt. It took everything in him to get used to the girl’s skinny jeans, and this? This is too much.
“What the fuck?” Patrick breathed out. He wanted to scream, honestly, but nothing above a whisper was making it out of his mouth.
The two men turned to him and gave him comforting smiles. They shared a look between each other and it was eerie seeing the same motion he and his Pete do from the outside. Because this was not his Pete. He’s a Pete, but not Patrick’s Pete.
“So,” the other Patrick started. “This must be weird.”
Patrick nodded dumbly, phone still in hand because that 911 call may have turned from break in into psychotic break.
The other Patrick shrugged. “I’ll give you the basic run down and then you can ask specific questions later.” He paused to glance at “Pete” who nodded in affirmation.
“Well, to start, we’re not from 2012. We’re from 2023 and actually worked shit out, you know? We wanted to make the transition of getting Fall Out Boy back together as seamlessly as possible while also bypassing the awkward repressed feelings stage of getting back together. Quite literally might I add.”
Patrick nodded along, not really sure if this was real, but honestly there wasn’t much of an explanation for anything else. “Why visit me? What about Pete, or Joe, or Andy?”
The other Pete rolled his eyes. “If you‘re anything like my Patrick, you’ve been spending days trying to build up the courage to call Pete and ask to work on music together. In fact, you won’t do it and he’ll be the one to reach out, but we’ve come to the conclusion that it would be easier this way.”
Other Patrick nodded. “The final split was your call. You gotta put that effort back in.”
Patrick shrunk in on himself. “They won’t want to, you know.”
Other Pete and Patrick sighed, though it was an expected sound.
“You know we are literally from the future where Fall Out Boy gets back together and is great? We released a new album in 2013 and have had 4 since and now it's 2023. Did you know that we’ve added a bunch of Folie songs to the tour listing and the fans are going out of their minds?” Other Pete gave a laugh, one Patrick could feel really came from his heart. “I never would have thought that would happen.”
Patrick thought to himself, yeah, I didn’t think so either.
Patrick gathered himself and looked at the two men before him. “So you got Fall Out Boy back together and it went great, so why are you even here? You know it works out.”
The two looked at each other for a moment in a way so intimate that Patrick felt like a voyeur. The both opened their mouths at each other before Pete let Patrick speak.
“I know you love him,” he said plainly.
Patrick felt his stomach drop. It shouldn’t be so hard to hear his own self say it out loud, of course he would know, they’re the same person, but hearing it out loud, in front of Pete? Yeah this Pete isn’t his Pete but realistically this Pete could tell his Pete and Patrick might have to barricade himself in his house and live as a hermit. Patrick frantically glanced between the two of them, ready to be insulted. In the end, it was Pete who spoke.
“Yeah, we know. You wanna know how?” Pete stopped and lifted his left hand. On the ring finger sat a solid gold band with some engraving that Patrick couldn’t make out. To his right, Other Patrick lifted his own hand, showing an identical band on his own ring finger. “This,” Pete said, “is what happens when you make a move. It works out. It doesn’t combust into a million pieces.”
Other Patrick stepped in, putting a hand on Patrick’s shoulder. “It’s a hard jump, but I promise it’s worth it.”
Patrick shook his head. “You got a lucky universe that probably won’t translate into mine. If, and that’s a big if, Pete feels the same way, I need him to make this move. I cannot lose my best friend. I already lost him and if getting close to him again and then springing this onto him and getting rejected might destroy me, him, and whoever is in the blast range.”
Other Pete thought about that for a second. “So if, hypothetically, we give you time to have the words seep into your brain, and then, hypothetically, we went and bothered your Pete with the same proposition, would you hypothetically, be ready in a few hours?”
Patrick thought the other man was insane, though that was a comforting feeling knowing that Pete hadn’t completely changed in the last 11 years. But he had a point.
“If you can talk to Pete and he makes the decision, I will tell him about everything I feel for him. You get to be the ones who have to deal with the rejection instead of me. If it goes wrong, you never showed up at my house to tell me about this. We can all just fuck back to our normal universe…” Patrick let himself train off, thinking about the other world.
Other Patrick gave him a small smile. “You want to know about the other world, don’t you?”
Patrick tucked his head into his arm but nodded. “How’d you get together,” the muffled sound came out of Patrick’s elbow.
Other Patrick and Pete looked at each other before deciding Pete should talk. “I’ve always been in love with you. I think some of the people I dated I did still like and want to be with them, but most days I just wanted to come home and hear you sing. To drape myself over you like I did way back in that shitty van when it got too cold. It was so intense I couldn’t do much besides hurting you or hurting myself and I couldn’t give you my love properly when I was so unrestrained. Then the hiatus happened and I kinda mellowed out, which honestly was more of a functional depression, and then you posted Confessions of a Pariah and I knew I had to do something. It didn’t matter to me the mistakes we made or would make in the future. I needed to be with you, in any way you’d have me.” Pete smiled over at other Patrick. “When we made music together, I felt lighter than ever before. It was the day of the final sound check of Save Rock and Roll, our first album back together, and the last strum of the guitar played and I just knew I had to make a move, but honestly? I was terrified. So I didn't. It took another few years before Patrick actually reached out for a random recording session and, over a few glasses of wine, reached out and kissed me. I can’t fix the past in my own universe, but being with Patrick has been the best part of my entire life. I don’t want you to waste any minute in your own life.”
Patrick felt like he was suffocating. His heart had never ached or longed so strongly like it was doing at the moment. It was everything he ever wanted to hear, but he couldn’t believe them. What if they were just sleep-deprivation hallucinations and Patrick needed to see a doctor now. That’d be a story, wouldn’t it? Former pop punk front man in hospital for hallucinating himself and bandmate married and for some reason actually believing them.
Patrick took a deep breath and nodded. “Okay, say this is true and not the weirdest dream ever, go to Pete. He’s the one with the whole “gay above the waist” thing. He knows I’m gay all over so it’s his turn to get vulnerable.”
Other Patrick laughed while Other Pete flushed in the face. “But you do want to get this ball rolling?” Other Patrick asked, tone turning serious.
Patrick stayed silent for a second before nodding. “You’re me, right? You already know how much I love him. I can’t fuck that up so if you’re volunteering to do the heavy lifting, so be my fucking guest.”
The Other Pete came over and ruffled the hair on Patrick’s head. Patrick whined and tried to put it back into something manageable. “You really don’t know, do you?” Other Pete mused. “Just how much he loves you. And same with him. You’re insufferable, really.”
“Can we borrow your car?” Other Patrick called from the front door. “Our cars are still in our time. We have a meet up point to send us back, but until then we have no forms of transportation.” Patrick rolled his eyes but gave them the signal of approval and off they went. It wouldn’t be a long drive from Patrick’s apartment to Pete’s, they would just have to deal with Chicago traffic and that can’t have changed so much in the two universes.
Patrick allowed himself to review what he just learned.
1: Alternate Universes are real.
2: He’s still a musician in the alternate universe
3: Alternate Universe him is still just as in love with Alternative Universe Pete as normal him is with normal Pete.
4: Other him and Other Pete got married. Like full on tied-the-knot married.
5: Patrick wanted the world the others live in so fucking badly. Other him got to sleep in the same bed as Pete, kiss him in the morning, hum the tunes he had been working on in real time while Pete did chores, hold hands, kiss, maybe even have sex. He wanted it all, so fucking badly.
It would have to wait until Pete came to his house. If he even came at all.
Patrick putzed around the house until everything was cleaner than it had been in weeks. He didn’t touch any of his musical equipment, it felt too serious, but the rest of the house would be smelling like fresh cleaning supplies for days to come, if not more. He finally plopped onto the couch, turning on the TV, when there was a knock at his door.
Patrick scrunched his eyes shut and then forced himself to get up. Part of him hoped it was other Pete and Patrick telling him that Pete declined and this would never have to be talked about again. The realist knew that his Pete Wentz would make it his number one priority to get to Patrick the moment “interdimensional beings” came into the picture.
Patrick steeled himself and opened the door. In front of him was Pete, his Pete, the one with short dark hair and, regrettably, no skirt. His eyes were animated and he was bouncing on the soles of his feet. Patrick opened the door and Pete bounded in, wrapping his arms around Patrick, forcing the two men into the doorway.
“Patrick!” Pete said, slightly out of breath. “You’re never going to guess! Interdimensional beings came to visit me!” Patrick nodded, waiting to see if they had mentioned visiting Patrick. “They said they’d visit you later but I needed to see you now.”
Patrick smiled at him as Pete rambled about how cool interdimensional travel is and how lucky they are to have experienced such a phenomena. Pete let go of him slightly, but kept his hands on Patrick’s arms.
“They told me something I think I probably knew but never thought I could act on.” Pete said seriously.
Patrick tried to give him a small smile but it was probably more a grimace. “And what was that?”
Pete looked at him for a solid minute before finally breathing out, “I love you.”
And Patrick? If Patrick hadn’t been asking if he’d died all day today, this might have pushed it over.
“You… you love me?” Patrick didn’t bother hiding the hope that slipped into his voice. He felt the corners of his mouth turning to a smile.
Pete’s whiskey brown eyes looked at Patrick, full of hope and wonder and what Patrick could now place as love. “Yeah ‘Trick. I love you. I love you so much.”
“More than just friends?” Patrick asked, that last little bit of fear working its way back up.
“Oh definitely more than friends,” Pete confirmed.
Patrick stepped into Pete’s space, his friend not stepping backwards to accommodate him. “And it took interdimensional beings to know that,” Patrick said as he put a hand on Pete’s cheek.
“Oh I’ve known since at least 2004, the interdimensional beings just gave me the push I needed to tell you.” Pete was leaning his face into the hand Patrick had on his cheek, the soft skin sending warmth down Patrick’s arm.
“Why?”
“Well it was me and you and we were married and I decided that I need that in my own universe. I’m not content knowing we have what we have and that it can be more, and it has been more, and not try for myself.” Pete explained.
“So,” Patrick asked, resting his other arm over Pete’s shoulder so that both sides of Pete’s head were mirrored by Patrick’s body. “What are you gonna do about it.”
Pete looked at him with a wolfish grin. “Anything you’ll let me.”
Patrick grinned back at him. “How about we start with a kiss?”
Pete was already leaning in as he said, “Brilliant idea.”
Patrick wasn’t sure who fully initiated the kiss, it just felt like one moment they were apart and the next they were so tied to each other that the idea of pulling away felt uncomfortable. Pete’s lips were slightly chapped from the dry Chicago winter but still plush and warm on Patrick’s face. It was soft and delicate and so, so right.
Patrick reached a hand up along Pete’s hair, tugging him in. “You should grow your hair out,” he mumbled against his lips. Pete barked a laugh. “Oh so you have seen him too?”
Patrick pulled away for a second, caught. “I got too scared to make the first move so I sent them to you.” Pete was laughing at him, resting his forehead against Patrick’s. “But seriously, he was fucking hot, take some notes Peter.”
Pete shook his head slightly, putting his hand on Patrick’s chest. “You know, you could have just told me. Even if I didn’t feel the same way, I wouldn’t have been a dick about it.”
“We would have figured it out,” Patrick said softly, covering Pete’s hand with his own. “They figured it out, we could have too.” He gave Pete a slight smile. “Though I am glad we get more time.”
Pete leaned back in, breathing against Patrick’s lips. “We have all the time in the world.”