i did my best, it wasn't much.
Stranger Things Have Happened
Patrick et al. futurefic | 26012 words | 14A | 1/4
Disclaimer: All characters and events in this story--even those based on real people--are entirely fictional. All celebrity voices are impersonated...poorly. The following story contains coarse language and due to its content it should not be read by anybody.
Note: This is all wildly implausible and probably also wildly inaccurate. And out of character. It's mostly a sort of parable. If parables can be 26000 words long and about rock stars. Titles by Dave Grohl, bless. A million thank yous to heyginger, kaizoku, and acroamatica for their thoughts and comments. A private thank you will be given to estrellada for her eternal and infinite hand-holding. (A day late, six thousand words unshort.)
Also: lily_liedtome did a fanmix for this story, and it looks fucking awesome (it includes my second favourite cover of "Hallelujah," for example). DL it yourself and see: " Nostalgic For Disaster (She Tied You To The Kitchen Chair)." (New link to permanent post with tracklisting, etc.)
*
1. "You were not alone, dear loneliness. You forgot, but I remember this."
From the 02-12-2010 episode of The Hour, filmed live on location at the Faster lounge in Whistler, BC, Canada, during the 2010 Olympic Winter Games.
GEORGE STROUMBOULOPOULOUS: So, Pete is DJing right now--
PATRICK STUMP: If Bon Jovi is playing, Pete's responsible for it.
GS: [laughs] Right on, right on. You're a pretty talented producer--
PS: Thank you; that's kind of you to say.
GS: My mama always told me to tell the truth. So it seems to me that producing and spinning have similar skillsets, for lack of a better word--do you think you'll ever take a turn behind the tables, as they say?
PS: [laughs] Yeah, no.
GS: Why not?
PS: Well, I--to be honest, my stupid spontaneous shit doesn't work out so well most of the time. I'm kind of a perfectionist, know what I'm saying? I like my mistakes to happen in private, you know, where I can delete things and nobody knows it ever happened. Except my band. And they know better than to tell anybody. Pete, though, okay, his stupid spontaneous shit almost always works out, and I think that's lucky for all of us. [laughs]
They're staying in a four-bedroom condo in the same expansive, expensive development as the club, right at the base of Whistler Mountain, ten minutes from the chairlift. None of them ski or snowboard, though Pete, Andy, and Joe do enjoy sledding. Patrick has always had a bit of a love-hate relationship with gravity, okay--anyway, the club is a five-minute walk from the condo, so Patrick is not surprised to run into Pete in the lobby on his way to bed.
Pete leans his head on Patrick's shoulder when they get in the elevator, and Patrick silently pushes the button for their floor. He thinks about telling Pete the delicate, polite way George tried to ask about Ashlee, considers making a joke of it, but he knows Pete will see the interview--tonight; tomorrow; soon. It's not worth the conversation, not when Pete's got both hands around one of Patrick's, holding on tight while Patrick unlocks the door.
Andy's bedroom door is closed. Joe's is open, framing him lounging on the queen-sized bed in his pajamas, doing something on his laptop.
Pete slouches past into the living room, but Patrick leans on the doorframe and says, "Hey."
"Yo, come here," Joe says, and Patrick goes, peering at the laptop screen from the bedside. The universe laughs in the face of Patrick's vague expectation of bad pornography--overexposed photographs line up across the screen, all of a little dark-haired girl in a green sweater and tiny jeans.
"Marie's just trying to make me feel guilty," Joe says, affectionately, and pokes a photo of his daughter in the nose.
Patrick smiles and ignores the familiar jealous itch on the back of his neck. Joe hadn't even wanted kids yet, and look what he got. "You could've brought them," Patrick says.
Joe shrugs and opens a blank e-mail. He attaches a few pictures and says, "I just took her around the world before she even turned one, Patrick. I thought she maybe might need a break. A wee baby break." He types Patrick's e-mail address in the "to" field.
"Thanks, man," Patrick says.
"I want everybody in the world to see how gorgeous she is," Joe says. "So your house has to be filled with pictures of her when Cribs comes over."
"I'm not doing Cribs," Patrick says.
Joe shakes his head and sends the e-mail. "That's what I said. Two babies and a duck in my kitchen sink, dude."
Patrick chuckles. "I'm going to get a snack and go to bed, you want anything?"
"Nah," Joe says. "Say goodnight to Pete for me."
"Sure," Patrick says. He closes the door on his way out.
He takes water and Cheez Whiz and crackers out of the fridge and sits on the couch with Pete. Pete is sprawled, his head laid on the back of the couch, his eyes closed, his shoes already kicked off--one of them is under the coffee table, the other is in the giant slate fireplace.
Patrick eats Cheez Whiz and crackers for a while, and then Pete says, "How was the interview?"
"Oh, good." Patrick licks some stray Cheez Whiz from his thumb. "You know. George is a good guy." He shrugs.
"He's your boyfriend," Pete says, with a little smile, and Patrick laughs.
He says, "That's the line, yeah." He spreads some Cheez Whiz on a cracker and holds it out for Pete. Pete's hand shakes the tiniest bit as he takes it and Patrick blinks so he can pretend he didn't see. As Pete chews and swallows, Patrick says, "Joe says goodnight."
"What's so good about it?" Pete asks, tiredly, and drinks some of Patrick's water.
Patrick rolls his eyes and tries again. "We listened to your set, hey; you were great."
Pete grimaces and tucks his feet up on the couch, turning away. "It was the fucking tape, Patrick."
Patrick nods. He'd thought maybe--but he hadn't been sure. He hasn't listened to the mix since he and Pete put it together six months ago.
Pete gestures like he's trying to shake something gross off of his hand and says, "Everything I do to feel real just ends up being fake. I fucking hate it, I can't--"
"It's okay," Patrick says, and he's saying it to reassure Pete and himself; he's saying it because by now maybe he thinks just saying it will make it true.
"Fuck you," Pete says, and sweeps his arm out again. "It's not fucking okay. It's not okay, I can't keep doing this fake fucking shit--"
Patrick scoots down the couch and catches Pete's arm, holds it, bends Pete's elbow and presses himself around Pete's shoulder and side, holds Pete's hand against his chest, contains him against the arm of the couch.
"Hey, hey," Patrick says, not into Pete's ear or neck, but over his head, into the dim room, out to the giant picture window showing them the flashbulb-bright white lights of Whistler Village below.
"Gotta do the show," Pete whispers. "Show tomorrow."
Patrick nods. "Gotta do the show."
"Keep it together for the show," Pete says.
"Get through the show," Patrick says. "And then a break, okay?"
Pete sighs and tucks his head against the arm of the couch. He's pale and stubbled and he had a decent haircut last week and he looks like he's been sleeping, but he's sure not acting like it. Patrick's breath moves the hair around his ear and on the back of his neck.
"I need a break," Pete says. He closes his eyes.
"We'll take a few weeks, a month," Patrick says; promises. "A couple of months, whatever. We all need a break."
"Could we go on vacation?" Pete asks.
Patrick smiles, bemused. "All of us?"
"Sure," Pete says. "We should go to Madagascar."
"Madagascar," Patrick says.
"Ashlee wanted to honeymoon there, I don't know," Pete says. "And I booked a trip to check it out, but then, you know, she fucking dumped me, so."
Patrick squeezes his eyes shut, tightens his grip on Pete's hand.
"She left me, she left me with that goddamn cat, and she left me the fucking paparazzi like fucking herpes," Pete laughs, a real laugh, and it's actually kind of funny, so Patrick laughs too. "And my dog misses her, and I miss her, and I miss my old meds, and I miss--goddammit, Patrick."
"I know," Patrick says. He puts his nose in the crease of Pete's neck and Pete--smells like a sweaty club, awesome. Patrick adjusts a little so he's got a clear airway and says, over and over, "I know."
Eventually, Pete shudders faintly. "Gotta do the show."
"Gotta do the show," Patrick echoes again.
"Playing the fucking Olympics," Pete sighs.
"Yep," Patrick says.
"I hate the fucking Olympics," Pete says, grumpily.
"I know," Patrick says.
"You know the kind of money they spend on this shit?" Pete says.
"Seriously," Patrick says.
"Vancouver has a real fucking homeless problem, okay," Pete says.
"Really?" Patrick says.
"Well," Pete says. "I don't know the numbers or anything, but I heard it's an issue, and they could be spending all those millions and billions of dollars on that instead of--"
"Us?" Patrick says.
"Shut up," Pete says, and jostles his way out of Patrick's hold. "I'm going to bed. You're a capitalist pig enabler of the fascist machine," he adds, pointing vaguely in Patrick's direction as he heads towards the master suite.
"Whatever you say, comrade. I'm making them turn your mike off tomorrow--so not in the mood for a socialist diatribe," Patrick says.
"But then you'd have to talk, and--" Pete's reply is cut off as he shuts his bedroom door.
Patrick stays half-curled on the couch around Pete's warm spot, and falls asleep thinking vaguely that he should clean up his snack and get Pete's shoe out of the fireplace.
jimmyhoffasundertaker.blogspot.com
come on mary, baby i'm your man
i have the best friends in the world. i don't deserve any of them, but thats okay. i'll keep them. its for their own good.
saving the world from the side of a mountain (trying)
saving her from drowning in a fishbowl (failed)
saving myself from inside a pill bottle (couldnt do it without you)
posted by xo at 3:26AM
In the morning, Pete props his iTablet in front of Patrick's bowl of Weetabix and grins proudly, like a six-year-old who just finished reading his first book.
Patrick blinks and focuses slowly on the Photoshop screen. It shows a black t-shirt shape with a white-bordered black square on it. Scratchy white text in the square says: BALMORAL HOTEL.
"Okay," Patrick says. He vaguely recognizes the graphic as a mural on one of the rundown buildings their car had passed between the airport and Whistler three days ago; it was nearly midnight, and the sidewalks and alleys were crowded with people--some looked homeless, others just close to it. "What?"
"T-shirts with the logos of single-room occupancy hotels on them. Proceeds to local anti-poverty organizations," Pete says, and snaps his fingers. "I'm a goddamn genius." He pokes at the tablet screen and another design comes up: HOTEL PATRICIA, orange and yellow letters on white diamonds parading down the right side of a red shirt.
"Huh," Patrick says. When Pete asked their driver what was going on, the guy had apologized for the Olympic road closures forcing him to drive them through the worst neighbourhood in town. After settling in at the condo, Pete and Andy had Googled their way to a better grasp of the situation, and Pete had shared his new-found understanding with Patrick. "Did you sleep at all?"
"I'm going to bed as soon as you say I'm a goddamn genius," Pete says.
It's actually not a bad idea. Patrick reaches his spoon around Pete's computer and eats some more cereal before he says, "I'm a goddamn genius."
"Patrick," Pete whines.
"Go to bed," Patrick says. "We have to leave at noon for soundcheck."
Pete slumps into a seat at the table and puts his tablet down in front of him, staring at the design. "It's a good idea, though. Right?"
"It's a really awesome idea," Patrick concedes.
Joe slides into the kitchen, socked feet on hardwood floor, and catches himself against the granite countertop. "Pete doesn't have awesome ideas," he says.
"Fuck you," Pete says.
"It was his idea to spend two weeks in this godforsaken hinterland promoting an event he hates," Joe says. "So, for real."
"It was my idea," Patrick says. "Remember? There was a meeting, I was like, 'We just finished a seven-month world tour, let's go do this stupid show at the Olympics--free smoked salmon and souvenir shot glasses!'"
"Also, hot international athletes," Pete adds. "For those of us on the rebound."
"And those of us who like to get laid," Andy says, coming around the corner in a pair of close-fitting sweats, mat under his arm, snow in his hair.
"It's forty below, and you're doing yoga on the deck," Patrick says.
"True fact: Andy Hurley is a madman," Joe says. "I read it on the internet."
There's coffee and newspapers waiting in the van when they leave for soundcheck. Patrick skims the entertainment sections before he lets Pete read them. He's been stealing Pete's magazines too; if he could block half of Pete's favourite websites, he would. And it's not--it's not like Ashlee's doing it on purpose, she's just not doing much to dispel the assumption that "we grew apart" means "that asshole was fucking around on me." Which, of course, has led to the posting and printing of dozens of pictures of Pete in supposedly compromising situations with various women, and not a few guys, captioned and defaced in increasingly inventive--insulting--ways.
Everybody knows it's bullshit, but people like to make their fun where they can, and Pete Wentz has been a popular game for a long time now.
There's nothing at all in any of the three papers. Patrick hands them over.
"Thanks, Mom," Pete says.
"You're welcome," Patrick says.
"Why don't you ever vet the papers for conspicuous consumption before I read them?" Andy asks.
"Or stories about Arnold Schwarzenegger," Joe adds.
"Shut up," Patrick says, and puts his headphones on.
"This building is brand new," Pete says at soundcheck, gesturing at the drum riser, which is made of wooden crates. "How is this shit not computerized? Like, fucking bionic?"
"The building is eighty years old, man," Joe says. "We've played here before."
"I specifically demanded to play in the new building," Pete says. He puts his hands on his hips and tosses his head a little, and winks at Patrick. Oh good, he's kidding. "Who fucked up?"
"Andy," Joe says automatically, pointing upstage.
Andy is crouched under his kit, fiddling with something, and lifts one hand to flip them all the bird.
"Andy's been trying to sabotage us from the beginning," Pete says. "Fired!"
"Fuck you," Andy says, settling himself on his stool. "'Cause it didn't take you a year to convince me to join your shitty band."
They fuck around for twenty minutes, tuning and untuning and retuning the guitars, complaining about the cheapass light rig, all the things you do when you've been playing arenas for seven years. They phone in "Sympathy For The Devil"--Patrick hardly even knows the words, seriously, and he's pretty sure Pete is deliberately playing in the most wrong key possible; at Joe's suggestion, they do an actually surprisingly good spontaneous cover of "All Along The Watchtower," even though Pete barely plays; and then Pete yells for something recorded since he was born, so Patrick breaks into "Stayin' Alive," and Pete laughs so hard he starts tearing up.
The sound guy finally gives them thumbs up for the levels. Patrick says, "Okay, let's run the set."
Andy starts the beat for "Dance, Dance," Patrick can't help nodding his head along, and Pete plays the pick-up, his first note, and gropes awkwardly for the second, third, fourth. Patrick looks over at him struggling to move his shaking fingers, make the chords, head bowed.
The drums cut out abruptly. "Game over," Andy says. "Replay."
"Yeah," Pete says. "Yeah, go."
Patrick almost asks if he's okay, but bites his lip and watches them try again, waiting at his mike, ready to sing. The drums go three or four bars longer than they should before Pete strums and struggles to pick the next note. He's unsuccessful again, fucking up the line entirely.
"Okay, okay," Patrick says. Andy stops playing.
"Again," Pete says.
On the sixth try, the pick slips from Pete's fingers. He fumbles his bass off over his head and throws it. It hits the third row of seating with a mighty crash of fiberglass and plastic.
"Dude," Joe says. "Are you okay?"
"No," Pete says shrilly, "I am fucking obviously not okay, Jesus Christ," and leaves the stage, arms stiff at his sides, head down. A couple of security guys flank him automatically.
Joe goes after, and then Andy. Something hot coiling in his chest, his hands tingling like they've fallen asleep, Patrick follows into the dimly-lit wings and sets his guitar in the rack, and then walks back, back, back into their dressing room.
Pete is hunched over his knees on a couch, hands knotted together, knuckles looking like they're about to burst out of his skin.
Joe sits beside Pete, but doesn't touch him. Andy stands across the small room, arms crossed. He shrugs tensely at Patrick.
"It's the meds," Pete says to the room, without looking up. "I'm sorry--"
"You're taking more than you're supposed to," Patrick states, his eyes narrowing, waiting to have his suspicions confirmed.
"No--maybe, just, the doctor said he might up my dose, and," Pete says. He holds his hands out to Patrick, negotiating. "I'm being, like, proactive--"
"You're being a fuckwit," Patrick barks. "You can't play fast and loose with this shit like you did with the old stuff--"
Andy asks, "How long?"
Pete stares up at Patrick, his eyes huge and blank. "I don't know," he says, "a while, maybe--"
"Since Ashlee left?" Joe suggests, leaning his head on his hand.
"No, before," Pete says. "Not much, but. Yeah. Longer than that. I think--yeah, we were in China."
Four months ago. "Jesus fucking Christ," Patrick says, and kicks the coffee table, hard enough to slam it into the couch, fortunately not into Joe or Pete.
Pete jumps. He glares at Patrick. "What?" he says. "What? It can't fix me, Patrick, whatever I take, this--" he smacks the palm of his shaking hand against his forehead "--this is what I've got, it can't be fucking fixed with a fucking pill--"
"You could fucking try," Patrick says, even though he knows Pete tries. It's just--if he were really trying, this wouldn't keep happening. Right?
"--get me a new brain and we'll talk, motherfucker, you have no fucking clue--"
That hurts, Patrick can feel the acid sting in his stomach, and he puts it into his voice when he says, "I have a fucking clue, okay, I have ten fucking years of fucking clues. All I have ever asked of you, all I've ever fucking asked you to do is be able to play, asshole, and now you can't even do that--"
Pete springs up from the couch and reaches for Patrick, hands clawed and still fucking shaking, but Joe catches him around the thighs and hauls him back down. Pete's face is a mask of anger, contempt, and Patrick doesn't really care. Okay, he does, but he doesn't want to.
"Okay," Andy says, voice raised in the suddenly silent room. "So, what are we going to do about the show?"
Patrick wants to spit and tell them all to go fuck themselves, but he wipes his damp forehead with the back of his hand and says, "We'll cut 'Dance,' 'Sugar,' 'Ignorance,' and 'Decoy' from the setlist. Everything else, it doesn't matter if he's playing, 'cause you can't hear the bass anyway."
"I can play," Pete grits out. "The shakes will be gone in a minute, for fuck's sake."
"But they might be back," Andy says. "Intermittent tremors, right? That's the side effect?"
"Yeah," Patrick and Pete say at the same time, and then glare at each other.
Joe giggles and Pete kicks him in the shin until Joe lets him go. "Ow, fuck," Joe says.
"Let's just get through the show," Andy says.
"Gotta do the show," Pete says, and Patrick narrows his eyes at him. Pete meets his eyes and shrugs, looking sullen.
"We're cutting the setlist," Patrick says. "I'll figure it out and we'll run it in ten minutes, okay?"
"Okay," Andy says. Joe nods. Pete shrugs again and slumps forward on the couch until his head is between his knees; he folds his arms over the back of his neck and Patrick just really, really wants to kick him in the fucking head.
Instead, he ducks in to the washroom down the hall, locks himself in a stall and sits up on the cistern, feet on the black plastic seat.
Patrick scribbles song titles on a square of toilet paper and feels his body calm with every letter, with every imagined transition. He puts "Thriller," "Hum Hallelujah," and "I've Got A Recipe For Your Appetite For Destruction" on the new setlist. He does it to give Pete something back, because Pete likes those songs and they haven't really played them much lately. Maybe he does it a little to apologize for what he said, even though he meant every goddamn word.
He meets the guys on-stage ten minutes later and reads off the new setlist. Andy and Joe suggest a few changes, but Pete is quiet, cradling his retrieved bass. There's a chip in one of the horns, showing the pale wood body against the marbled blood-red finish.
Andy warms up some more and Joe goes to confer with his tech and re-tune. Patrick hangs out at his mike and Pete does the same.
"You want a fresh one from the trailer?" Patrick asks him eventually, a little gruffly, gesturing at the damage.
"No," Pete says. "Might as well wear this fuck-up too." He shrugs at Patrick and Patrick nods; there's nothing to say to that.
"You okay with the setlist?" Patrick asks.
Pete nods. "Thanks for re-doing it," he says, and rolls his eyes. "And I'm sorry."
"I know," Patrick says. Pete is always sorry, always sorry. Eternally sorry.
"We haven't done 'Sixteen Candles' in a few months," Pete says. "You up to it?"
"How does it go again?" Patrick muses. "Oh, right--I don't blame you, for being you--"
Pete bites his lip. "Maybe you should," he says.
"Sometimes I do," Patrick says. He shrugs and tucks his mouth up--it is what it is.
"Me too," Pete says. Patrick knows.
Joe comes back and starts playing "Hand On Your Heart." Andy joins in and Patrick watches Pete figure out how many notes he can manage per measure. Pete looks up at him and it hits Patrick kind of suddenly, how shitty he looks, how pale and slumped, how maybe sleeping nearly every night isn't quite enough. It could make Patrick angry all over again, because he should have seen, because Pete should have said something, but he knows it won't help and--and somebody has to be the adult here, really.
"Hey," Patrick says, not yet at his mike, just getting ready to play, "hey, it'll be okay," and he means it--he will apologize to Pete for real later, and Pete will talk to his doctor, and they'll all take a break; it's been a long world tour. Patrick nods at Pete, trying to convey his imaginings of okayness, how everything will be all right even if Pete's fucked up and Patrick is going to be pissed at him for a while, and Pete nods back, smiling a little like he gets it.
Pete is fine for the show, and it goes really well; the Olympic mascots come out during the encore, and they all do a bang-up job of being enthusiastic for the screaming crowd of kids from--fuck, a lot of countries all at once.
Afterwards, the four of them are silent in the car on the way back to the condo. Andy goes straight to his room and shuts the door, while Joe and Pete close themselves in Pete's room. Patrick takes some water and peanut butter and crackers into his room and shuts his door. He can hear Pete and Joe talking next door, a low mutter, a distant murmur. He'll talk to Pete tomorrow. He hopes Joe shows Pete the new pictures of Juliette.
And then it is ten hours later and they're in an airport and Patrick is on his way back to LA to work for two weeks straight on the new Cab and Ryan's solo album, both of which should have been finished before the Olympics. Andy is headed to a climate change and organic growing conference in--somewhere. Joe and Pete are going to Chicago for a week.
"I just want you to know, I never wanted any of this," Pete says quietly, close enough to hug Patrick, but obviously not quite daring to.
Patrick squeezes his eyes shut. He says, "It'll be okay," and this time it's not because he believes it, or because he thinks it will help--he just says it because he can't think of anything else.
"I know," Pete says. He taps the brim of Patrick's hat gently. "Break time," he says, and smiles, a real smile.
"Call me when you decide what you're doing," Patrick says.
"I will," Pete says. "You'll be the first."
"My life," Patrick says, with a fake long-suffering sigh, and doesn't quite duck fast enough to avoid Pete's dive-bomb of a kiss to the cheek. "Fuck you," he says, laughing and wiping at his face. "In the fucking airport."
"We'll always have Wherever-the-fuck, Canada," Pete says.
Patrick smacks him lightly on the side of the head and walks away, still laughing a little. He looks over his shoulder about twenty steps later, and Pete is still, calm-faced, looking off to the side, out the wide windows of the Platinum Executive First Class lounge; Joe is tugging at his sleeve. Two security guards stroll across Patrick's field of vision, and when they've gone, Pete and Joe and their crew have mostly disappeared out the terminal doors to catch their plane. Patrick heads for the parkade.
The next day, Pete disappears.
Pete is gone for almost three weeks. As Patrick emerges from the studio, pale and dehydrated and proud, people are starting to notice: the first curious "where's Pete?"s online and in Patrick's voicemail.
Patrick figures he must be talking to Joe, but Joe thought Pete was hiding out at Patrick's. Andy says the same thing. So do Bob, Nick, Travis, Chris--Patrick is looking at Gabe's name highlighted in his contacts list, pressing down on the simmering worried fury in his chest, when he realizes he could just phone Pete.
Pete doesn't answer. In fact, his phone doesn't even ring, just clicks and shunts to Pete's lazy, "Leave a message and leave me alone."
Patrick tells his voicemail, "Call me. Call me right fucking now."
jimmyhoffasundertaker.blogspot.com
stay in school and off drugs, kids.
prescripton medication has ruined my life.
posted by xo at 11:12AM
Four hours later, the only people who've called are looking for Pete, and Patrick is balancing precariously on the edge of losing it. So he goes to Joe's place.
"Come with me to Pete's," he says, standing in the doorway.
Joe bounces Juliette on his hip and says, "He's fine, man, we're taking a couple of months off anyway. He's just incommunicado."
"This doesn't feel like incommunicado," Patrick says. It feels vaguely like the last few weeks before the overdose, only the nagging, pale fear he remembers is intensified by not actually knowing where Pete is.
"So go," Joe says. "I can't leave the baby, Marie's at a yoga retreat."
Juliette sucks her thumb and stares gravely at Patrick. "Bring her," Patrick says, foregoing his instincts, knowing he's being an asshole, weighing the trauma of Juliette finding Favourite Uncle Petey dead in his house against Patrick having to do it alone.
"I'm not taking her," Joe says, curving his hand around the back of her curly head and tucking her into his shoulder protectively.
Desperate, Patrick says, "Why not?"
Joe frowns intensely. "Same reason you don't want to go over there by yourself," he says.
"What?" Patrick says, and forces himself to laugh. "What? He's fine, you said so yourself--he's not, he couldn't--"
"I'm not going with you," Joe says, with finality. "But you should call me when you get there."
Patrick bites his lip and nods. He reaches out a deceptively steady hand and pokes Juliette in the nose. She smiles, tiny pearly teeth, and reaches back towards him.
"High five for Patrick?" Joe says to her. "Seriously, kid?"
"High five, Julie-looly," Patrick says, and touches his palm to hers. "Sorry," he says to Joe.
"I really want you to call me, when--whatever," Joe says.
Patrick nods again and fishes for his keys in his jacket pocket. "I will," he says.
Pete doesn't open the gate when Patrick rings the buzzer, so Patrick enters the security code and lets himself in. The house is on the lee side of the mountains, clutched to the side of a cliff. The view is of everything except the city; Patrick thinks this is why Pete bought the place after he and Ashlee broke up.
In the evening shadow of the mountains, the yard is darkening and cool. The house is just dark. The lights in the driveway and roundabout are not on; the porchlight isn't on. Patrick's headlights sweep across the white-washed concrete stairs and flash back at him from the windows.
Nobody answers the doorbell. The door is locked. Patrick uses his key and pushes the door open without going inside, staying on the stoop, hoping Hemingway or Cattykins will come. There are no barks or mewling noises. His keys jangle as he shoves them back in his pocket and goes inside.
His footsteps are dead sound on the tile floor. He looks up the staircase and peers down the hallways that lead off the foyer and knows the house is empty. Just empty.
A circuit through the downstairs, half-unconsciously following Pete's Grand Tour route, shows the house untouched since Patrick picked Pete up to leave for Vancouver. All of Pete's stuff exactly where Pete's decorator put it. Upstairs is the same--chilly and shadowed and tidy--Patrick feels like a ghost, or like he's walking through a house that's waiting for a ghost.
There is no body. There is no blood. There are no pills, no note, nothing.
Patrick calls Joe.
"He's gone," he says.
There's a moment of silence, and then a long, low, "Oh god, oh my god."
Patrick waves his hand and says, "No, no, I mean, he's not here, sorry."
"Fuck you, Patrick," Joe says, sounding a little choked up.
"Sorry," Patrick says again. "I didn't really think of--"
"Obviously," Joe says. "Jesus Christ, dude. So--what. So the house is empty, burned to the ground, what?"
Patrick turns around in the front hall and looks at the key rack on the wall, the hooks hung with various novelty dog and cat leashes, the chrome garment rack full of hoodies, the silly abstract glass coat tree that's too warped to actually hang a coat on.
"He's just--not here," he says, making his way back upstairs. "I don't think he even came home after you guys got off the plane. It's really weird; eerie. Hemingway and Cattykins aren't here either--"
"No," Joe says, as Patrick is opening Pete's walk-in closet, "Pete got Armando to bring them to the airport to meet him--"
Patrick steps in to the space usually inhabited by Pete's full set of black custom-printed Clandestine/Vuitton luggage. Pete took the old, brown weekender set to Vancouver.
"Madagascar," Patrick says.
And it would be a very exciting, action-packed adventure story, full of international intrigue and the frustration of searching for someone who doesn't want to be found, but Patrick doesn't like flying over oceans and he doesn't have time to go halfway around the world chasing after Pete; he's actually kind of pissed at Pete, thanks. He tells Joe that Pete can stay in fucking Madagascar with the fucking lemurs if he fucking wants to. Also, just as Patrick is getting ready to be an idiot and buy a plane ticket, even though he has no actual proof Pete went to Madagascar at all--the next morning, right when Patrick is about to buy a plane ticket, Bob calls him.
Bob says, "Patrick, I just talked to Pete. I have bad news."
A DJ: A day that will live in infamy--Chicago-born emo juggernaut Fall Out Boy are no more. We would call it the day the music died, but that one's already taken.
ANOTHER DJ: So is "a day that will live in infamy," Dave.
A DJ: The phone lines are lighting up and we're going to play a song while we take some calls--here's "Hand On Your Heart (Gun To Your Head)," from The Crown Of Grace, apparently Fall Out Boy's final album, released last May.
ANOTHER DJ: The first caller who says she's going to kill herself unless they get back together will receive a complete library of Fall Out Boy CDs, DVDs, and digital releases!
*
Onward.
Patrick et al. futurefic | 26012 words | 14A | 1/4
Disclaimer: All characters and events in this story--even those based on real people--are entirely fictional. All celebrity voices are impersonated...poorly. The following story contains coarse language and due to its content it should not be read by anybody.
Note: This is all wildly implausible and probably also wildly inaccurate. And out of character. It's mostly a sort of parable. If parables can be 26000 words long and about rock stars. Titles by Dave Grohl, bless. A million thank yous to heyginger, kaizoku, and acroamatica for their thoughts and comments. A private thank you will be given to estrellada for her eternal and infinite hand-holding. (A day late, six thousand words unshort.)
Also: lily_liedtome did a fanmix for this story, and it looks fucking awesome (it includes my second favourite cover of "Hallelujah," for example). DL it yourself and see: " Nostalgic For Disaster (She Tied You To The Kitchen Chair)." (New link to permanent post with tracklisting, etc.)
*
1. "You were not alone, dear loneliness. You forgot, but I remember this."
From the 02-12-2010 episode of The Hour, filmed live on location at the Faster lounge in Whistler, BC, Canada, during the 2010 Olympic Winter Games.
GEORGE STROUMBOULOPOULOUS: So, Pete is DJing right now--
PATRICK STUMP: If Bon Jovi is playing, Pete's responsible for it.
GS: [laughs] Right on, right on. You're a pretty talented producer--
PS: Thank you; that's kind of you to say.
GS: My mama always told me to tell the truth. So it seems to me that producing and spinning have similar skillsets, for lack of a better word--do you think you'll ever take a turn behind the tables, as they say?
PS: [laughs] Yeah, no.
GS: Why not?
PS: Well, I--to be honest, my stupid spontaneous shit doesn't work out so well most of the time. I'm kind of a perfectionist, know what I'm saying? I like my mistakes to happen in private, you know, where I can delete things and nobody knows it ever happened. Except my band. And they know better than to tell anybody. Pete, though, okay, his stupid spontaneous shit almost always works out, and I think that's lucky for all of us. [laughs]
They're staying in a four-bedroom condo in the same expansive, expensive development as the club, right at the base of Whistler Mountain, ten minutes from the chairlift. None of them ski or snowboard, though Pete, Andy, and Joe do enjoy sledding. Patrick has always had a bit of a love-hate relationship with gravity, okay--anyway, the club is a five-minute walk from the condo, so Patrick is not surprised to run into Pete in the lobby on his way to bed.
Pete leans his head on Patrick's shoulder when they get in the elevator, and Patrick silently pushes the button for their floor. He thinks about telling Pete the delicate, polite way George tried to ask about Ashlee, considers making a joke of it, but he knows Pete will see the interview--tonight; tomorrow; soon. It's not worth the conversation, not when Pete's got both hands around one of Patrick's, holding on tight while Patrick unlocks the door.
Andy's bedroom door is closed. Joe's is open, framing him lounging on the queen-sized bed in his pajamas, doing something on his laptop.
Pete slouches past into the living room, but Patrick leans on the doorframe and says, "Hey."
"Yo, come here," Joe says, and Patrick goes, peering at the laptop screen from the bedside. The universe laughs in the face of Patrick's vague expectation of bad pornography--overexposed photographs line up across the screen, all of a little dark-haired girl in a green sweater and tiny jeans.
"Marie's just trying to make me feel guilty," Joe says, affectionately, and pokes a photo of his daughter in the nose.
Patrick smiles and ignores the familiar jealous itch on the back of his neck. Joe hadn't even wanted kids yet, and look what he got. "You could've brought them," Patrick says.
Joe shrugs and opens a blank e-mail. He attaches a few pictures and says, "I just took her around the world before she even turned one, Patrick. I thought she maybe might need a break. A wee baby break." He types Patrick's e-mail address in the "to" field.
"Thanks, man," Patrick says.
"I want everybody in the world to see how gorgeous she is," Joe says. "So your house has to be filled with pictures of her when Cribs comes over."
"I'm not doing Cribs," Patrick says.
Joe shakes his head and sends the e-mail. "That's what I said. Two babies and a duck in my kitchen sink, dude."
Patrick chuckles. "I'm going to get a snack and go to bed, you want anything?"
"Nah," Joe says. "Say goodnight to Pete for me."
"Sure," Patrick says. He closes the door on his way out.
He takes water and Cheez Whiz and crackers out of the fridge and sits on the couch with Pete. Pete is sprawled, his head laid on the back of the couch, his eyes closed, his shoes already kicked off--one of them is under the coffee table, the other is in the giant slate fireplace.
Patrick eats Cheez Whiz and crackers for a while, and then Pete says, "How was the interview?"
"Oh, good." Patrick licks some stray Cheez Whiz from his thumb. "You know. George is a good guy." He shrugs.
"He's your boyfriend," Pete says, with a little smile, and Patrick laughs.
He says, "That's the line, yeah." He spreads some Cheez Whiz on a cracker and holds it out for Pete. Pete's hand shakes the tiniest bit as he takes it and Patrick blinks so he can pretend he didn't see. As Pete chews and swallows, Patrick says, "Joe says goodnight."
"What's so good about it?" Pete asks, tiredly, and drinks some of Patrick's water.
Patrick rolls his eyes and tries again. "We listened to your set, hey; you were great."
Pete grimaces and tucks his feet up on the couch, turning away. "It was the fucking tape, Patrick."
Patrick nods. He'd thought maybe--but he hadn't been sure. He hasn't listened to the mix since he and Pete put it together six months ago.
Pete gestures like he's trying to shake something gross off of his hand and says, "Everything I do to feel real just ends up being fake. I fucking hate it, I can't--"
"It's okay," Patrick says, and he's saying it to reassure Pete and himself; he's saying it because by now maybe he thinks just saying it will make it true.
"Fuck you," Pete says, and sweeps his arm out again. "It's not fucking okay. It's not okay, I can't keep doing this fake fucking shit--"
Patrick scoots down the couch and catches Pete's arm, holds it, bends Pete's elbow and presses himself around Pete's shoulder and side, holds Pete's hand against his chest, contains him against the arm of the couch.
"Hey, hey," Patrick says, not into Pete's ear or neck, but over his head, into the dim room, out to the giant picture window showing them the flashbulb-bright white lights of Whistler Village below.
"Gotta do the show," Pete whispers. "Show tomorrow."
Patrick nods. "Gotta do the show."
"Keep it together for the show," Pete says.
"Get through the show," Patrick says. "And then a break, okay?"
Pete sighs and tucks his head against the arm of the couch. He's pale and stubbled and he had a decent haircut last week and he looks like he's been sleeping, but he's sure not acting like it. Patrick's breath moves the hair around his ear and on the back of his neck.
"I need a break," Pete says. He closes his eyes.
"We'll take a few weeks, a month," Patrick says; promises. "A couple of months, whatever. We all need a break."
"Could we go on vacation?" Pete asks.
Patrick smiles, bemused. "All of us?"
"Sure," Pete says. "We should go to Madagascar."
"Madagascar," Patrick says.
"Ashlee wanted to honeymoon there, I don't know," Pete says. "And I booked a trip to check it out, but then, you know, she fucking dumped me, so."
Patrick squeezes his eyes shut, tightens his grip on Pete's hand.
"She left me, she left me with that goddamn cat, and she left me the fucking paparazzi like fucking herpes," Pete laughs, a real laugh, and it's actually kind of funny, so Patrick laughs too. "And my dog misses her, and I miss her, and I miss my old meds, and I miss--goddammit, Patrick."
"I know," Patrick says. He puts his nose in the crease of Pete's neck and Pete--smells like a sweaty club, awesome. Patrick adjusts a little so he's got a clear airway and says, over and over, "I know."
Eventually, Pete shudders faintly. "Gotta do the show."
"Gotta do the show," Patrick echoes again.
"Playing the fucking Olympics," Pete sighs.
"Yep," Patrick says.
"I hate the fucking Olympics," Pete says, grumpily.
"I know," Patrick says.
"You know the kind of money they spend on this shit?" Pete says.
"Seriously," Patrick says.
"Vancouver has a real fucking homeless problem, okay," Pete says.
"Really?" Patrick says.
"Well," Pete says. "I don't know the numbers or anything, but I heard it's an issue, and they could be spending all those millions and billions of dollars on that instead of--"
"Us?" Patrick says.
"Shut up," Pete says, and jostles his way out of Patrick's hold. "I'm going to bed. You're a capitalist pig enabler of the fascist machine," he adds, pointing vaguely in Patrick's direction as he heads towards the master suite.
"Whatever you say, comrade. I'm making them turn your mike off tomorrow--so not in the mood for a socialist diatribe," Patrick says.
"But then you'd have to talk, and--" Pete's reply is cut off as he shuts his bedroom door.
Patrick stays half-curled on the couch around Pete's warm spot, and falls asleep thinking vaguely that he should clean up his snack and get Pete's shoe out of the fireplace.
jimmyhoffasundertaker.blogspot.com
come on mary, baby i'm your man
i have the best friends in the world. i don't deserve any of them, but thats okay. i'll keep them. its for their own good.
saving the world from the side of a mountain (trying)
saving her from drowning in a fishbowl (failed)
saving myself from inside a pill bottle (couldnt do it without you)
posted by xo at 3:26AM
In the morning, Pete props his iTablet in front of Patrick's bowl of Weetabix and grins proudly, like a six-year-old who just finished reading his first book.
Patrick blinks and focuses slowly on the Photoshop screen. It shows a black t-shirt shape with a white-bordered black square on it. Scratchy white text in the square says: BALMORAL HOTEL.
"Okay," Patrick says. He vaguely recognizes the graphic as a mural on one of the rundown buildings their car had passed between the airport and Whistler three days ago; it was nearly midnight, and the sidewalks and alleys were crowded with people--some looked homeless, others just close to it. "What?"
"T-shirts with the logos of single-room occupancy hotels on them. Proceeds to local anti-poverty organizations," Pete says, and snaps his fingers. "I'm a goddamn genius." He pokes at the tablet screen and another design comes up: HOTEL PATRICIA, orange and yellow letters on white diamonds parading down the right side of a red shirt.
"Huh," Patrick says. When Pete asked their driver what was going on, the guy had apologized for the Olympic road closures forcing him to drive them through the worst neighbourhood in town. After settling in at the condo, Pete and Andy had Googled their way to a better grasp of the situation, and Pete had shared his new-found understanding with Patrick. "Did you sleep at all?"
"I'm going to bed as soon as you say I'm a goddamn genius," Pete says.
It's actually not a bad idea. Patrick reaches his spoon around Pete's computer and eats some more cereal before he says, "I'm a goddamn genius."
"Patrick," Pete whines.
"Go to bed," Patrick says. "We have to leave at noon for soundcheck."
Pete slumps into a seat at the table and puts his tablet down in front of him, staring at the design. "It's a good idea, though. Right?"
"It's a really awesome idea," Patrick concedes.
Joe slides into the kitchen, socked feet on hardwood floor, and catches himself against the granite countertop. "Pete doesn't have awesome ideas," he says.
"Fuck you," Pete says.
"It was his idea to spend two weeks in this godforsaken hinterland promoting an event he hates," Joe says. "So, for real."
"It was my idea," Patrick says. "Remember? There was a meeting, I was like, 'We just finished a seven-month world tour, let's go do this stupid show at the Olympics--free smoked salmon and souvenir shot glasses!'"
"Also, hot international athletes," Pete adds. "For those of us on the rebound."
"And those of us who like to get laid," Andy says, coming around the corner in a pair of close-fitting sweats, mat under his arm, snow in his hair.
"It's forty below, and you're doing yoga on the deck," Patrick says.
"True fact: Andy Hurley is a madman," Joe says. "I read it on the internet."
There's coffee and newspapers waiting in the van when they leave for soundcheck. Patrick skims the entertainment sections before he lets Pete read them. He's been stealing Pete's magazines too; if he could block half of Pete's favourite websites, he would. And it's not--it's not like Ashlee's doing it on purpose, she's just not doing much to dispel the assumption that "we grew apart" means "that asshole was fucking around on me." Which, of course, has led to the posting and printing of dozens of pictures of Pete in supposedly compromising situations with various women, and not a few guys, captioned and defaced in increasingly inventive--insulting--ways.
Everybody knows it's bullshit, but people like to make their fun where they can, and Pete Wentz has been a popular game for a long time now.
There's nothing at all in any of the three papers. Patrick hands them over.
"Thanks, Mom," Pete says.
"You're welcome," Patrick says.
"Why don't you ever vet the papers for conspicuous consumption before I read them?" Andy asks.
"Or stories about Arnold Schwarzenegger," Joe adds.
"Shut up," Patrick says, and puts his headphones on.
"This building is brand new," Pete says at soundcheck, gesturing at the drum riser, which is made of wooden crates. "How is this shit not computerized? Like, fucking bionic?"
"The building is eighty years old, man," Joe says. "We've played here before."
"I specifically demanded to play in the new building," Pete says. He puts his hands on his hips and tosses his head a little, and winks at Patrick. Oh good, he's kidding. "Who fucked up?"
"Andy," Joe says automatically, pointing upstage.
Andy is crouched under his kit, fiddling with something, and lifts one hand to flip them all the bird.
"Andy's been trying to sabotage us from the beginning," Pete says. "Fired!"
"Fuck you," Andy says, settling himself on his stool. "'Cause it didn't take you a year to convince me to join your shitty band."
They fuck around for twenty minutes, tuning and untuning and retuning the guitars, complaining about the cheapass light rig, all the things you do when you've been playing arenas for seven years. They phone in "Sympathy For The Devil"--Patrick hardly even knows the words, seriously, and he's pretty sure Pete is deliberately playing in the most wrong key possible; at Joe's suggestion, they do an actually surprisingly good spontaneous cover of "All Along The Watchtower," even though Pete barely plays; and then Pete yells for something recorded since he was born, so Patrick breaks into "Stayin' Alive," and Pete laughs so hard he starts tearing up.
The sound guy finally gives them thumbs up for the levels. Patrick says, "Okay, let's run the set."
Andy starts the beat for "Dance, Dance," Patrick can't help nodding his head along, and Pete plays the pick-up, his first note, and gropes awkwardly for the second, third, fourth. Patrick looks over at him struggling to move his shaking fingers, make the chords, head bowed.
The drums cut out abruptly. "Game over," Andy says. "Replay."
"Yeah," Pete says. "Yeah, go."
Patrick almost asks if he's okay, but bites his lip and watches them try again, waiting at his mike, ready to sing. The drums go three or four bars longer than they should before Pete strums and struggles to pick the next note. He's unsuccessful again, fucking up the line entirely.
"Okay, okay," Patrick says. Andy stops playing.
"Again," Pete says.
On the sixth try, the pick slips from Pete's fingers. He fumbles his bass off over his head and throws it. It hits the third row of seating with a mighty crash of fiberglass and plastic.
"Dude," Joe says. "Are you okay?"
"No," Pete says shrilly, "I am fucking obviously not okay, Jesus Christ," and leaves the stage, arms stiff at his sides, head down. A couple of security guys flank him automatically.
Joe goes after, and then Andy. Something hot coiling in his chest, his hands tingling like they've fallen asleep, Patrick follows into the dimly-lit wings and sets his guitar in the rack, and then walks back, back, back into their dressing room.
Pete is hunched over his knees on a couch, hands knotted together, knuckles looking like they're about to burst out of his skin.
Joe sits beside Pete, but doesn't touch him. Andy stands across the small room, arms crossed. He shrugs tensely at Patrick.
"It's the meds," Pete says to the room, without looking up. "I'm sorry--"
"You're taking more than you're supposed to," Patrick states, his eyes narrowing, waiting to have his suspicions confirmed.
"No--maybe, just, the doctor said he might up my dose, and," Pete says. He holds his hands out to Patrick, negotiating. "I'm being, like, proactive--"
"You're being a fuckwit," Patrick barks. "You can't play fast and loose with this shit like you did with the old stuff--"
Andy asks, "How long?"
Pete stares up at Patrick, his eyes huge and blank. "I don't know," he says, "a while, maybe--"
"Since Ashlee left?" Joe suggests, leaning his head on his hand.
"No, before," Pete says. "Not much, but. Yeah. Longer than that. I think--yeah, we were in China."
Four months ago. "Jesus fucking Christ," Patrick says, and kicks the coffee table, hard enough to slam it into the couch, fortunately not into Joe or Pete.
Pete jumps. He glares at Patrick. "What?" he says. "What? It can't fix me, Patrick, whatever I take, this--" he smacks the palm of his shaking hand against his forehead "--this is what I've got, it can't be fucking fixed with a fucking pill--"
"You could fucking try," Patrick says, even though he knows Pete tries. It's just--if he were really trying, this wouldn't keep happening. Right?
"--get me a new brain and we'll talk, motherfucker, you have no fucking clue--"
That hurts, Patrick can feel the acid sting in his stomach, and he puts it into his voice when he says, "I have a fucking clue, okay, I have ten fucking years of fucking clues. All I have ever asked of you, all I've ever fucking asked you to do is be able to play, asshole, and now you can't even do that--"
Pete springs up from the couch and reaches for Patrick, hands clawed and still fucking shaking, but Joe catches him around the thighs and hauls him back down. Pete's face is a mask of anger, contempt, and Patrick doesn't really care. Okay, he does, but he doesn't want to.
"Okay," Andy says, voice raised in the suddenly silent room. "So, what are we going to do about the show?"
Patrick wants to spit and tell them all to go fuck themselves, but he wipes his damp forehead with the back of his hand and says, "We'll cut 'Dance,' 'Sugar,' 'Ignorance,' and 'Decoy' from the setlist. Everything else, it doesn't matter if he's playing, 'cause you can't hear the bass anyway."
"I can play," Pete grits out. "The shakes will be gone in a minute, for fuck's sake."
"But they might be back," Andy says. "Intermittent tremors, right? That's the side effect?"
"Yeah," Patrick and Pete say at the same time, and then glare at each other.
Joe giggles and Pete kicks him in the shin until Joe lets him go. "Ow, fuck," Joe says.
"Let's just get through the show," Andy says.
"Gotta do the show," Pete says, and Patrick narrows his eyes at him. Pete meets his eyes and shrugs, looking sullen.
"We're cutting the setlist," Patrick says. "I'll figure it out and we'll run it in ten minutes, okay?"
"Okay," Andy says. Joe nods. Pete shrugs again and slumps forward on the couch until his head is between his knees; he folds his arms over the back of his neck and Patrick just really, really wants to kick him in the fucking head.
Instead, he ducks in to the washroom down the hall, locks himself in a stall and sits up on the cistern, feet on the black plastic seat.
Patrick scribbles song titles on a square of toilet paper and feels his body calm with every letter, with every imagined transition. He puts "Thriller," "Hum Hallelujah," and "I've Got A Recipe For Your Appetite For Destruction" on the new setlist. He does it to give Pete something back, because Pete likes those songs and they haven't really played them much lately. Maybe he does it a little to apologize for what he said, even though he meant every goddamn word.
He meets the guys on-stage ten minutes later and reads off the new setlist. Andy and Joe suggest a few changes, but Pete is quiet, cradling his retrieved bass. There's a chip in one of the horns, showing the pale wood body against the marbled blood-red finish.
Andy warms up some more and Joe goes to confer with his tech and re-tune. Patrick hangs out at his mike and Pete does the same.
"You want a fresh one from the trailer?" Patrick asks him eventually, a little gruffly, gesturing at the damage.
"No," Pete says. "Might as well wear this fuck-up too." He shrugs at Patrick and Patrick nods; there's nothing to say to that.
"You okay with the setlist?" Patrick asks.
Pete nods. "Thanks for re-doing it," he says, and rolls his eyes. "And I'm sorry."
"I know," Patrick says. Pete is always sorry, always sorry. Eternally sorry.
"We haven't done 'Sixteen Candles' in a few months," Pete says. "You up to it?"
"How does it go again?" Patrick muses. "Oh, right--I don't blame you, for being you--"
Pete bites his lip. "Maybe you should," he says.
"Sometimes I do," Patrick says. He shrugs and tucks his mouth up--it is what it is.
"Me too," Pete says. Patrick knows.
Joe comes back and starts playing "Hand On Your Heart." Andy joins in and Patrick watches Pete figure out how many notes he can manage per measure. Pete looks up at him and it hits Patrick kind of suddenly, how shitty he looks, how pale and slumped, how maybe sleeping nearly every night isn't quite enough. It could make Patrick angry all over again, because he should have seen, because Pete should have said something, but he knows it won't help and--and somebody has to be the adult here, really.
"Hey," Patrick says, not yet at his mike, just getting ready to play, "hey, it'll be okay," and he means it--he will apologize to Pete for real later, and Pete will talk to his doctor, and they'll all take a break; it's been a long world tour. Patrick nods at Pete, trying to convey his imaginings of okayness, how everything will be all right even if Pete's fucked up and Patrick is going to be pissed at him for a while, and Pete nods back, smiling a little like he gets it.
Pete is fine for the show, and it goes really well; the Olympic mascots come out during the encore, and they all do a bang-up job of being enthusiastic for the screaming crowd of kids from--fuck, a lot of countries all at once.
Afterwards, the four of them are silent in the car on the way back to the condo. Andy goes straight to his room and shuts the door, while Joe and Pete close themselves in Pete's room. Patrick takes some water and peanut butter and crackers into his room and shuts his door. He can hear Pete and Joe talking next door, a low mutter, a distant murmur. He'll talk to Pete tomorrow. He hopes Joe shows Pete the new pictures of Juliette.
And then it is ten hours later and they're in an airport and Patrick is on his way back to LA to work for two weeks straight on the new Cab and Ryan's solo album, both of which should have been finished before the Olympics. Andy is headed to a climate change and organic growing conference in--somewhere. Joe and Pete are going to Chicago for a week.
"I just want you to know, I never wanted any of this," Pete says quietly, close enough to hug Patrick, but obviously not quite daring to.
Patrick squeezes his eyes shut. He says, "It'll be okay," and this time it's not because he believes it, or because he thinks it will help--he just says it because he can't think of anything else.
"I know," Pete says. He taps the brim of Patrick's hat gently. "Break time," he says, and smiles, a real smile.
"Call me when you decide what you're doing," Patrick says.
"I will," Pete says. "You'll be the first."
"My life," Patrick says, with a fake long-suffering sigh, and doesn't quite duck fast enough to avoid Pete's dive-bomb of a kiss to the cheek. "Fuck you," he says, laughing and wiping at his face. "In the fucking airport."
"We'll always have Wherever-the-fuck, Canada," Pete says.
Patrick smacks him lightly on the side of the head and walks away, still laughing a little. He looks over his shoulder about twenty steps later, and Pete is still, calm-faced, looking off to the side, out the wide windows of the Platinum Executive First Class lounge; Joe is tugging at his sleeve. Two security guards stroll across Patrick's field of vision, and when they've gone, Pete and Joe and their crew have mostly disappeared out the terminal doors to catch their plane. Patrick heads for the parkade.
The next day, Pete disappears.
Pete is gone for almost three weeks. As Patrick emerges from the studio, pale and dehydrated and proud, people are starting to notice: the first curious "where's Pete?"s online and in Patrick's voicemail.
Patrick figures he must be talking to Joe, but Joe thought Pete was hiding out at Patrick's. Andy says the same thing. So do Bob, Nick, Travis, Chris--Patrick is looking at Gabe's name highlighted in his contacts list, pressing down on the simmering worried fury in his chest, when he realizes he could just phone Pete.
Pete doesn't answer. In fact, his phone doesn't even ring, just clicks and shunts to Pete's lazy, "Leave a message and leave me alone."
Patrick tells his voicemail, "Call me. Call me right fucking now."
jimmyhoffasundertaker.blogspot.com
stay in school and off drugs, kids.
prescripton medication has ruined my life.
posted by xo at 11:12AM
Four hours later, the only people who've called are looking for Pete, and Patrick is balancing precariously on the edge of losing it. So he goes to Joe's place.
"Come with me to Pete's," he says, standing in the doorway.
Joe bounces Juliette on his hip and says, "He's fine, man, we're taking a couple of months off anyway. He's just incommunicado."
"This doesn't feel like incommunicado," Patrick says. It feels vaguely like the last few weeks before the overdose, only the nagging, pale fear he remembers is intensified by not actually knowing where Pete is.
"So go," Joe says. "I can't leave the baby, Marie's at a yoga retreat."
Juliette sucks her thumb and stares gravely at Patrick. "Bring her," Patrick says, foregoing his instincts, knowing he's being an asshole, weighing the trauma of Juliette finding Favourite Uncle Petey dead in his house against Patrick having to do it alone.
"I'm not taking her," Joe says, curving his hand around the back of her curly head and tucking her into his shoulder protectively.
Desperate, Patrick says, "Why not?"
Joe frowns intensely. "Same reason you don't want to go over there by yourself," he says.
"What?" Patrick says, and forces himself to laugh. "What? He's fine, you said so yourself--he's not, he couldn't--"
"I'm not going with you," Joe says, with finality. "But you should call me when you get there."
Patrick bites his lip and nods. He reaches out a deceptively steady hand and pokes Juliette in the nose. She smiles, tiny pearly teeth, and reaches back towards him.
"High five for Patrick?" Joe says to her. "Seriously, kid?"
"High five, Julie-looly," Patrick says, and touches his palm to hers. "Sorry," he says to Joe.
"I really want you to call me, when--whatever," Joe says.
Patrick nods again and fishes for his keys in his jacket pocket. "I will," he says.
Pete doesn't open the gate when Patrick rings the buzzer, so Patrick enters the security code and lets himself in. The house is on the lee side of the mountains, clutched to the side of a cliff. The view is of everything except the city; Patrick thinks this is why Pete bought the place after he and Ashlee broke up.
In the evening shadow of the mountains, the yard is darkening and cool. The house is just dark. The lights in the driveway and roundabout are not on; the porchlight isn't on. Patrick's headlights sweep across the white-washed concrete stairs and flash back at him from the windows.
Nobody answers the doorbell. The door is locked. Patrick uses his key and pushes the door open without going inside, staying on the stoop, hoping Hemingway or Cattykins will come. There are no barks or mewling noises. His keys jangle as he shoves them back in his pocket and goes inside.
His footsteps are dead sound on the tile floor. He looks up the staircase and peers down the hallways that lead off the foyer and knows the house is empty. Just empty.
A circuit through the downstairs, half-unconsciously following Pete's Grand Tour route, shows the house untouched since Patrick picked Pete up to leave for Vancouver. All of Pete's stuff exactly where Pete's decorator put it. Upstairs is the same--chilly and shadowed and tidy--Patrick feels like a ghost, or like he's walking through a house that's waiting for a ghost.
There is no body. There is no blood. There are no pills, no note, nothing.
Patrick calls Joe.
"He's gone," he says.
There's a moment of silence, and then a long, low, "Oh god, oh my god."
Patrick waves his hand and says, "No, no, I mean, he's not here, sorry."
"Fuck you, Patrick," Joe says, sounding a little choked up.
"Sorry," Patrick says again. "I didn't really think of--"
"Obviously," Joe says. "Jesus Christ, dude. So--what. So the house is empty, burned to the ground, what?"
Patrick turns around in the front hall and looks at the key rack on the wall, the hooks hung with various novelty dog and cat leashes, the chrome garment rack full of hoodies, the silly abstract glass coat tree that's too warped to actually hang a coat on.
"He's just--not here," he says, making his way back upstairs. "I don't think he even came home after you guys got off the plane. It's really weird; eerie. Hemingway and Cattykins aren't here either--"
"No," Joe says, as Patrick is opening Pete's walk-in closet, "Pete got Armando to bring them to the airport to meet him--"
Patrick steps in to the space usually inhabited by Pete's full set of black custom-printed Clandestine/Vuitton luggage. Pete took the old, brown weekender set to Vancouver.
"Madagascar," Patrick says.
And it would be a very exciting, action-packed adventure story, full of international intrigue and the frustration of searching for someone who doesn't want to be found, but Patrick doesn't like flying over oceans and he doesn't have time to go halfway around the world chasing after Pete; he's actually kind of pissed at Pete, thanks. He tells Joe that Pete can stay in fucking Madagascar with the fucking lemurs if he fucking wants to. Also, just as Patrick is getting ready to be an idiot and buy a plane ticket, even though he has no actual proof Pete went to Madagascar at all--the next morning, right when Patrick is about to buy a plane ticket, Bob calls him.
Bob says, "Patrick, I just talked to Pete. I have bad news."
A DJ: A day that will live in infamy--Chicago-born emo juggernaut Fall Out Boy are no more. We would call it the day the music died, but that one's already taken.
ANOTHER DJ: So is "a day that will live in infamy," Dave.
A DJ: The phone lines are lighting up and we're going to play a song while we take some calls--here's "Hand On Your Heart (Gun To Your Head)," from The Crown Of Grace, apparently Fall Out Boy's final album, released last May.
ANOTHER DJ: The first caller who says she's going to kill herself unless they get back together will receive a complete library of Fall Out Boy CDs, DVDs, and digital releases!
*
Onward.