Work Text:
~one~
Pete groaned, faceplanting into the table - and subsequently into his Algebra homework. He spoke, but his words were muffled by the textbook and notebook that his face was currently pressed into. Andy rolled his eyes, pulling Pete’s head back up by the collar of his shirt.
“What was that?” Joe asked, reaching across the table to steal a fry from Patrick. Said boy glared teasingly, pulling his lunch tray closer to him.
“I’m going to freaking kill myself,” Pete repeated, glaring at his homework with contempt.
Patrick frowned at him, inspecting his face for a moment until he was sure the other boy was joking. Then he scooted his chair closer to Pete’s and pulled the homework closer to him. “It’s not that hard,” he said. “Here, lemme help you.”
~two~
“Hey Joe, hand me the bass,” Pete said, reaching out from the couch he was lounging in. Joe hefted the unwieldy instrument and stretched towards Pete, carefully passing it to him.
“Working on anything new?” he asked, raising an eyebrow. His fingers silently worked through a riff, which made Pete grin. The rest of their friends had yet to arrive, which left it relatively quiet in the basement which Pete’s parents had relegated to the group’s musical escapades.
“Yeah, I really want to learn All Apologies,” Pete said, sitting up to fish his phone out of the back pocket of his tight black jeans. He opened up the tabs for the song, and frowned at the phone as he tried to play the chorus. After struggling a couple of times, he groaned, carefully placing his bass on the floor and dropping his head into his hands.
“You okay?” Joe asked, looking up from his guitar.
“Yeah, yeah I’m fine,” Pete smiled up at his friend, perhaps a little too brightly, “But if I can’t learn this song, I’m going to kill myself.”
Unfortunately for Pete, this was the moment that Patrick made his way downstairs. He ran the last few steps, hurrying over to Pete’s side and flinging his arms around the older boy’s shoulders.
“No,” he said firmly, pressing his face into Pete’s shoulder.
He laughed a little, gently prying himself out of Patrick’s tight grip. “Relax, Trick, it was a joke.” Patrick frowned slightly, reluctantly letting go of his best friend.
“It wasn’t a good one,” he mumbled.
~three~
“Dude, remember that time you guys stole a golf cart?” Brendon laughed, nodding towards the four boys squeezed on the couch. Patrick began shaking his head, getting as far away from the other three as he could, seeing as he was squished between the arm of the couch and Andy.
“Don’t remind me, I had nothing to do with that,” he said, “I thought they were gonna die.”
“I was hoping I would,” Pete laughed, shaking his head. Everyone was quiet for a moment, until Patrick shoved his glasses up his nose and asked if he should dye his hair blond.
~four~
Pete frowned at the paper in his hands. He slammed a hand against his locker and shot a glare at a Freshman who turned to stare at him. The kid scurried away, leaving Pete to fume in silence.
“Hey man, what’d you get?” Tyler asked walking up to lean against the locker next to Pete’s. The boy glanced down at the report card he held in his hand, then back up at the brunet.
“Well, I have a D in Algebra, even though ‘Trick tutored me, and an F in gym, ‘cause I never show up,” he replied, opening his locker long enough to shove the paper into his backpack.
Tyler winced. “Shit, your mom’s gonna kill you,” he said, scratching the back of his neck. Pete nodded miserably.
“I think I might kill myself before she gets home - you know, avoid her fury,” he said, groaning and leaning against the metal locker doors. Tyler laughed, patting his friend on the shoulder as he turned to walk towards the doors - and inevitably, Josh.
“Don’t do that,” he said, a smile on his face. “I think Patrick would kill you if you did.” Pete nodded, waving goodbye as Tyler walked away. He half expected Patrick to appear out of nowhere at the mention of him; the shorter boy always seemed to appear out of nowhere whenever he was brought up.
~five~
Patrick stared at Pete’s arms with tears in his eyes. His thumb gently ran over one of the fresher marks, causing Pete to wince and pull his arm away in pain.
“I-I thought you stopped this, Petey,” he muttered, looking away from the (slightly) taller boys face so he couldn’t see the tears. Pete grimaced, muttering something under his breath.
“What’d you say?” Patrick asked, frowning in a way that made the area between his eyebrows wrinkle. It hurt him to see Pete in pain, even if the other boy didn’t understand that.
Pete smiled lopsidedly, looking everywhere but at Patrick. “I said, it’s not like I’m gonna kill myself,” he said softly, almost hesitant. At the other boy’s alarmed look, he shook his head. “I’m not Lunchbox, I’m really not gonna.” This wasn’t supposed to happen, he thought. Patrick wasn’t supposed to find out.
-ONE-
Pete stared at the ceiling of his car with tears in his eyes. The bottle of Ativan shook in his hands as he flicked through the radio stations. Finally, he settled on a station, closing his eyes as Hallelujah as sung by Jeff Buckley played through the somewhat crappy speakers. He leaned the chair back, pouring far too many of the pills into his hand and forcing them down his throat.
The medication slowly started to kick in, and it seemed like far too soon that he found his head spinning in a way that almost made him feel sick. Pete reached for his phone, not entirely sure why.
“I just want out,” he mumbled, even as he dialed the first number his finger landed on. When the person picked up, he still wasn’t sure who it was.
The person on the other end yawned. “Pete? Do you know what time it is? What’s up?”
Pete laughed - on the other end of the phone it was humorless, but to him it was a real, genuine laugh, and he wasn’t sure why. “I just took a bunch of Ativan, dude,” he said, chuckling slightly. “I might actually die.”
Whoever was on the other end shifted, suddenly sounding frantic. Pete didn’t know why - whoever it was would be better off if he was dead. (And who was it? Patrick? Andy or Joe? Maybe even Mikeyway or Gerard?) “Pete, where are you?”
“I’m in the Best Buy parking lot,” he giggled, suddenly finding it funny. Who the Hell kills themselves in a Best Buy parking lot?
“Shit, okay, it’s gonna be okay, stay awake for me, alright?” The other person clearly didn’t find this as funny as Pete did. He didn’t understand why not.
He didn’t remember what happened after that, as next thing he knew, he was waking up in a hospital, with Patrick holding his hand. Said boy was asleep, his head lolling on his shoulder and the tiniest bit of drool running from the corner of his mouth. Andy was sitting on the floor, his head against the wall, and Joe was curled up on a wide window ledge. Pete wasn’t sure where his parents were, but it was clear that he had failed in his attempts.
A nurse came in, picking her way through the bodies that Pete hadn’t noticed before - several of his other friends lay curled in varying positions on the floor of the small room. She smiled softly at Pete, removing the oxygen mask from his face and swapping out his IV fluids.
“They refused to leave,” she whispered, in order to not wake the sleeping teenagers. “Your parents went to get something to eat, but these guys didn’t want to leave.”
There was a sad look in her eyes as she said this. She reached above her head to hang up the new bag of fluids, and Pete swore he saw the end of a painful vertical scar peeking from under the long sleeve of the shirt she wore under her scrubs.
“I don’t know why,” Pete mumbled, casting his eyes downwards. They landed on the hand that still held his and he felt his heart squeeze guiltily.
“They care about you, Mr. Wentz,” the nurse replied softly. “That one-” Patrick “- kept saying it was his fault. That you had joked about… you know… before, but he didn’t want to believe it. He was pretty distressed.” She paused, glancing around. “They all were.”
Pete nodded, frowning as the nurse left the room, probable to notify a doctor that he was awake. His eyes landed on his and Patrick’s hands once again, and he squeezed it gently. “‘M sorry, ‘Trick,” he mumbled softly, smiling at the way his best friend’s eyes fluttered open.