5 Things That Never Happened to Pete Wentz + PW/PS FOB + 1/1 + PG13
Five Things That Never Happened to Pete Wentz
PG13 (fob/harry potter; fob/interview with the vampire; fob/buffy; fob/hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy; fob/firefly)
overall pairing: pete/patrick
also not at all real.
The crowd lurched forward, then blurred. At first, Pete thought the sweat had run into his face, but then he pitched forward, falling to his knees.
Suddenly, his world cracked and went red.
+ + +
"Wentz, Peter!"
Pete looked around. Someone with the name 'Weasley, Ronald,' who he could have sworn was a fictional character, had just been place in a house called Gryffindor, which he could have sworn was a fictional house.
The woman (Professor? She didn't look anything like the McGonagall from the movies) looked at Pete. He stumbled up and went to the stool, taking the hat and sitting down, putting it on his head.
"Well hello there," said the voice in his head. It was decidedly more English than any of the other voices in Pete's head.
"Uh… hi," he thought-spoke back. "I think this might be a dream. I'm…well, see, this is a fictional story right? Books and everything."
"Well, then it stands to reason that you would be fictional as well," the hat responded.
"…I've never been a really reasonable guy. But I'm pretty sure I'm twenty-seven, not eleven, and that I would have left…Hogwarts…some time ago."
"Yes, I can see that. But as for right now, there isn't really anything I can do but put you in…GRYFFINDOR!" There was a cheer from the table as Pete got up and stumbled away from the stage to his table, sitting down and letting everyone clap him on the shoulder. He glanced down the table and spied…the scar. Well, the boy with the scar.
The boy looked at him. "Brendon?" Pete blurted out. "No…no way."
The boy tilted his head. "Uh, no, Harry," he replied. "Who's Brendon?"
Pete leaned forward. This Harry had brown eyes, but the same sloppy hair. "No, no, Harry had green eyes. You are definitely Brendon?"
"You mad or something?" asked the boy sitting next to him. "His name's Harry. Harry Potter."
Pete sighed. "Well, okay, if you insist. But Harry had green eyes in the books."
"They never said what colour eyes he had in any books," said the girl with bushy hair sitting a few places down from 'Harry'. "Nobody had ever seen him until at least today."
Food appeared, and Pete found himself eating everything on his plate, occasionally glancing at the so called 'Harry Potter'. He watched his hands, that were smaller than he remembered, and then he touched his face, grimaced and touched his teeth. Braces. He had braces back when he was…eleven.
This is just ridiculous he thought, and continued eating.
That night, as he unpacked, the boy named Harry came to his bed. "Er, Peter, right?"
Pete looked up at Harry. "Yeah, but you can call me Pete. Only my mum calls me Peter." Since when had he called his mother 'mum'? And why did he sound so distinctly not from Chicago?
"You kept calling me Brendon. Why is that?" Harry sat on Pete's chest at the foot of his bed, hands folded in his lap.
"You look like a friend of mine, is all," Pete mumbled. He looked at Harry. "No big deal, I made a mistake."
"Well, the thing is…you may be right."
Pete stared at Harry. "What?" So he wasn't crazy. He'd have to let Patrick know, if he could find him.
"Well, there's only one way to be sure."
Pete sat down next to Harry, or Brendon, or whatever. "Yeah?"
"Just wake up, Pete. That's the only way we can figure this out."
+ + +
Pete barely had time to catch his breath before he was running again, running through the thick, swampy waters of New Orleans. He stumbled and fell, but forced himself up and continued running some more. He could hear himself gasping, wheezing.
Something caught his foot, and before he could scream, he was face down again. He flipped himself over, but he was being pinned down but something that may have once been human, but could have tricked him. The flesh was burned, crispy, and still falling off the skeleton. Purple eyes stared out of sunken sockets, and thin, burned lips stretched over a mouth full of canines.
"WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS SHIT!" Pete shouted, thrashing around and managing to get himself up. The zombie vampire thing kept a hold of his leg, and something like a hiss expelled from the thing's mouth. Pete kept kicking at it, and finally it loosened his grip.
"Just a little taste," the thing hissed again, and Pete slowly backed up, looking behind him in case there was a horde of them or something. "So long I've missed human blood."
"What the fuck…" Pete looked down at his clothes, and no wonder he was freezing. Silk and brocade everywhere, even white silk tights. He had lost the wig some time ago. "Who the fuck are you? What the fuck are you doing in this swamp?" He didn't really know why he was talking to this thing, but he didn't have a place set in his head. At least, he didn't think he did. He had memories, but they weren't his.
"You know who I am," the thing said, pushing itself up to his knees. His head fell back, and Pete could feel the bile rising in his throat. It couldn't keep its head still, and it looked…rotten, like his neck wouldn't be able to support his head any longer. "You're the one who did this to me."
Pete stood rooted to the spot, staring at him. He was like a bird caught in a cobra's gaze, but the life flashing before his eyes wasn't his. "Uhm…uh…who do you think I am?"
"Louis…Louis…did I not love you? Did I not give you life?" The thing crawled closer. "I don't understand; Louis…why are you once again human?" It fell down in front of Pete, and water washed over Pete's shoes.
Pete shook his head. "No man…you…I'm not Louis." But as soon as he said it, he knew it was true. "Well…I can't be Louis if I'm human, can I?"
The thing, who Pete had finally figured out was Lestat (he hated his sister for giving him those books, suddenly), grabbed at him, and Pete stumbled back once more. "Wake up, Louis, wake up. You must help me. We can be beautiful once more, if you wake up."
+ + +
"For the last time, I'm not a fucking vampire!" Pete nearly fell backwards into an open grave, but managed to leap over it pretty easily. The blonde girl just rolled her eyes and leapt over it as well.
"So what are you doing nosing around a cemetery?" the girl asked, lazily twirling her stake and narrowing her eyes at him. Pete sighed and rubbed his face.
"I don't have a fucking clue. I wake up, I'm in a crypt. But seriously, I just played one on television. I don't have the teeth. I don't want to kill humans to drink their blood, and while I'm sure that stake will fucking HURT if you push it into my…uh…chestal region, you're not going to dust me." He paused. "Buffy."
The blonde girl stopped, and shook her head. "Oh no, oh god no. Not another one. Why do you all know my name? You're all just falling out of the damn sky and you all know my name! Oh, and by the way, it's called your breastplate."
"Look, Buffy, you're not actually real where I come from. You're a television show." He stopped. "Wait, wait…you're saying other people have just suddenly arrived that…don't belong?"
"Well, yeah," Buffy said, and held up a finger, pushing Pete aside and dusting something that had just shown up. "That's exactly what I'm saying. But the thing is…they respond to other names. Like, this one kid, with glasses and tattoos and shit, well, like, he keeps saying his name is Giles, even though he's something like a million years younger and pretty not-English. And then this short kind of fat kid who I know isn't Xander keeps insisting that he actually is."
"Oh yeah, that's Andy and Patrick. I always told them that they'd be Giles and Xander, actually." Buffy stared at him blankly. "I'm a big fan of the show. And Patrick…uh, you call him Xander, isn't fat. He has a tummy. It's cute."
They were walking together, and Buffy turned her head to look at him. "Okay, well, who would you be?"
Pete shrugged. "You know, it's funny. I was in New Orleans…" He glanced at his watch, but that wasn't helpful, as it had stopped. It was waterlogged, and the face was cracked. "Well, I was in New Orleans, and this guy called me Louis. But my name is Pete."
Buffy just nodded, and twirled around, looking back from where they came. "Well, Pete, welcome to Sunnydale. It's real, I promise. You're not going to open the door on a back studio in Hollywood." She glanced over him. "Red and camouflage, huh? Did we step back into the eighties or something?"
Pete looked down at his clothes. "What? This is prime fashion right here!"
Buffy raised an eyebrow. "Wow, I think you need to wake up, man. This is 1997."
"Wait…what did you say?" Pete stopped at her car. Buffy looked at him, and opened the door.
"This is 1997?"
"No, before that." He climbed into the car with her, and looked around. "Nice wheels."
"Thanks," she replied, and then turned on the car. "I told you to wake up."
+ + +
Something nudged Pete in the side and Pete groaned, rolling onto his back and opening his eyes, squinting against the sudden glare of white. He turned his head, and looked at what was nudging him. "What, what the hell," he mumbled, sitting up slowly.
Something silver was standing over him, looking down over him. The thing sighed. "Not another one," it said. It had a metallic sounding voice, and Pete realised with a start that the thing was a robot. He sat up and rubbed his face some more.
"Not another what?" Pete asked and struggled to his knees.
"Another hitchhiker," the robot replied. "We've already had two of them. You're going to have to get up, I have been ordered to take you to the main cabin. Huh! Ordered by a bunch of backward primates and an alien. Do you know how smart I am?" The robot gazed at Pete. "No, I suppose you wouldn't."
Pete blinked, but got to his feet and followed the obviously annoyed robot. "Uhm…where are we, exactly?"
"Well, far away for your universe," the robot replied. "I could give you the exact coordinates, but you couldn't handle that many numbers."
"Yeah, okay, I'm a dumbass," Pete replied pulling the…bathrobe?...closer around his body. "I wasn't wearing this in Sunnydale."
"What's a Sunnydale?" The robot pushed a button next to the door and the door slid open.
"Thank you for making a simple door very happy," the door said and slid shut behind them. Pete looked back at the door, then back at the robot.
"Did that door just…thank us?" he asked, and then looked around the vast area. "And are we on a spaceship?"
"In case this might give you a heart attack, the answer to both of those questions is yes," the robot said. "I have the prisoner," he said a little louder, and someone with long brown hair turned their head.
"Andy!" Pete ran forward, but stopped. "You uh… you have…" He gestured at his chest.
"Well, first off, my name's Trillian," said the girl who had taken over Andy's body. "And second of all, of course I have breasts. Most women do."
"And really nice ones they are," said a very tall man standing near a bunch of computers. He was in a green velvet jumpsuit, and his vest was festooned with what looked like roses.
"Uh… Gabe? Ryan wants his rose vest back."
The man who Pete had always thought was Gabe shook his head. "Who's Gabe? I mean, I may not know a lot sometimes, but I'm Zaphod Beeblebrox, President of the Galaxy. And who's Ryan? Or roses, for that matter?"
Pete rubbed his face. "Okay, okay. What the hell? Anything else I need to know?"
"The Earth was destroyed, Arthur. I saved you?" Pete twirled towards the voice, face to face with someone he could assume was Joe, but, knowing his luck, probably wasn't.
"Here, have this. It'll help you wake up." The-man-who-wasn't-Joe thrust a glass in his hand.
"You have no idea how much I need this," Pete mumbled, and closed his eyes, knocking the drink back.
The back of his skull felt like it had been blown off, and Pete fell into a crumpled heap on the floor.
+ + +
"We don't wanna be in the habit of taking in stowaways, dong ma?"
Pete groaned and opened his eyes, squinting. Everything was awash in blue light. He sighed, and struggled to sit up, but a strong hand pushed him back. "It won't do to move too much, right?"
Pete sighed. "I'm not a stowaway. Or a hitchhiker. I don't know what ship this is, but I was just on another ship with a robot and the President of the Galaxy." He opened his eyes. Gabe, or with his luck, not-Gabe, had his arms crossed, staring down at him.
"You were the President of the Galaxy." Gabe smirked and nodded, looking around.
"Don't encourage him," said the man lurking near the door.
Pete looked towards the door. "Patrick! Oh god, I've been looking for you. I…you wouldn't believe me if I told you but I've been through so much." He tried to sit up again.
Patrick tilted his head. "My name isn't Patrick," the man said. "I'm Shepherd Book."
Pete groaned, and angrily wiped the tears of frustration from his face. "No, fuck this," he said. "I've been looking for you for too fucking long." He got up, ignore the shooting pain in his side and lurching for Patrick, grabbing onto his shoulder.
"Hey, listen, everywhere I go people have been telling me to wake up. I don't know what it means, but every time I wake up I'm somewhere different. I haven't seen you anywhere, except in Sunnydale I was going to get to see you but then I woke up and a robot was calling me a prisoner." He sniffed and looked down, pulling away his hand.
His hand was red with blood.
"What happened?" he whispered. "Why am I losing so much blood?" His knees felt weak, but Patrick held him and helped him back to the chair he was reclined on.
"You escaped from the Academy," Patrick (Shepherd Book, Pete mentally corrected himself) replied. "You barely made it into our ship. You've been babbling about this since you've been here."
"Like you got a direct feed to the Earth that Was or something," said Gabe, his arms finally relaxing. "Talking about things that don't exist, at least not to our knowledge."
Pete closed his eyes and nodded. "My name is Pete." He opened them again and looked at Patrick. "You gotta help me. Tell me to wake up, please. If you don't, I'm gonna die and I think I'll probably be dead wherever I am."
"You're already awake," Not-Patrick replied. "You're pretty lucid except for that wound."
Pete shook his head, looking at his hand again. "No, no. Tell me to wake up, please." He coughed, and he wiped at his mouth, pulling his hand away. More blood. He couldn't survive for much longer.
"Please, somebody, wake me up," he said, taking in a stuttering breath.
Everyone in the bay looked to one another, and Patrick shook his head at Gabe. "I'm sorry; Pete, but all we can do is make you comfortable."
"No, no. Please…just…please. I just gotta wake up."
+ + +
"Hey, Pete, wake up."
Pete opened his eyes, turning his head. Patrick held tight to his hand and smiled.
"Hey," Pete said, his voice croaking.
Patrick took a deep breath. "Oh, shit, shit." He leaned forward and hugged Pete. "Oh god, I thought… I thought…" He sighed, and then shoved at Pete's shoulder lightly. "I fucking hate you," he said. "Why'd you do it?"
Pete shrugged. He had no idea what Patrick was talking about.
There was a short knock at the door and someone came in, limping on his cane. "Well, look at this. Sleeping Beauty is awake. Think we could have our bed back?"
Pete blinked. "Uh…so like…I'm in a hospital?"
"Rockstars," the doctor replied. "The damage isn't just to their hearing. Yes, you're in a hospital. I'm what they call a doctor."
Pete sighed and Patrick reached for Pete's hand. "What's wrong with me?"
"Other than your hair? Unfortunately, we don't know…yet." The doctor stood at the foot of the bed, staring at Pete. "I'm Doctor House. I've been assigned to make sure it isn't a secret coke addiction that you've decided to call exhaustion."
Pete stared at the man. "You've gotta be kidding."
"Did it work?" The man raised his eyebrow. "No. Damn."
Pete closed his eyes, slumping against the pillow.
"Oh, stop being so dramatic, Wentz," Dr House said. "You've finally woken up."
PG13 (fob/harry potter; fob/interview with the vampire; fob/buffy; fob/hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy; fob/firefly)
overall pairing: pete/patrick
also not at all real.
The crowd lurched forward, then blurred. At first, Pete thought the sweat had run into his face, but then he pitched forward, falling to his knees.
Suddenly, his world cracked and went red.
+ + +
"Wentz, Peter!"
Pete looked around. Someone with the name 'Weasley, Ronald,' who he could have sworn was a fictional character, had just been place in a house called Gryffindor, which he could have sworn was a fictional house.
The woman (Professor? She didn't look anything like the McGonagall from the movies) looked at Pete. He stumbled up and went to the stool, taking the hat and sitting down, putting it on his head.
"Well hello there," said the voice in his head. It was decidedly more English than any of the other voices in Pete's head.
"Uh… hi," he thought-spoke back. "I think this might be a dream. I'm…well, see, this is a fictional story right? Books and everything."
"Well, then it stands to reason that you would be fictional as well," the hat responded.
"…I've never been a really reasonable guy. But I'm pretty sure I'm twenty-seven, not eleven, and that I would have left…Hogwarts…some time ago."
"Yes, I can see that. But as for right now, there isn't really anything I can do but put you in…GRYFFINDOR!" There was a cheer from the table as Pete got up and stumbled away from the stage to his table, sitting down and letting everyone clap him on the shoulder. He glanced down the table and spied…the scar. Well, the boy with the scar.
The boy looked at him. "Brendon?" Pete blurted out. "No…no way."
The boy tilted his head. "Uh, no, Harry," he replied. "Who's Brendon?"
Pete leaned forward. This Harry had brown eyes, but the same sloppy hair. "No, no, Harry had green eyes. You are definitely Brendon?"
"You mad or something?" asked the boy sitting next to him. "His name's Harry. Harry Potter."
Pete sighed. "Well, okay, if you insist. But Harry had green eyes in the books."
"They never said what colour eyes he had in any books," said the girl with bushy hair sitting a few places down from 'Harry'. "Nobody had ever seen him until at least today."
Food appeared, and Pete found himself eating everything on his plate, occasionally glancing at the so called 'Harry Potter'. He watched his hands, that were smaller than he remembered, and then he touched his face, grimaced and touched his teeth. Braces. He had braces back when he was…eleven.
This is just ridiculous he thought, and continued eating.
That night, as he unpacked, the boy named Harry came to his bed. "Er, Peter, right?"
Pete looked up at Harry. "Yeah, but you can call me Pete. Only my mum calls me Peter." Since when had he called his mother 'mum'? And why did he sound so distinctly not from Chicago?
"You kept calling me Brendon. Why is that?" Harry sat on Pete's chest at the foot of his bed, hands folded in his lap.
"You look like a friend of mine, is all," Pete mumbled. He looked at Harry. "No big deal, I made a mistake."
"Well, the thing is…you may be right."
Pete stared at Harry. "What?" So he wasn't crazy. He'd have to let Patrick know, if he could find him.
"Well, there's only one way to be sure."
Pete sat down next to Harry, or Brendon, or whatever. "Yeah?"
"Just wake up, Pete. That's the only way we can figure this out."
+ + +
Pete barely had time to catch his breath before he was running again, running through the thick, swampy waters of New Orleans. He stumbled and fell, but forced himself up and continued running some more. He could hear himself gasping, wheezing.
Something caught his foot, and before he could scream, he was face down again. He flipped himself over, but he was being pinned down but something that may have once been human, but could have tricked him. The flesh was burned, crispy, and still falling off the skeleton. Purple eyes stared out of sunken sockets, and thin, burned lips stretched over a mouth full of canines.
"WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS SHIT!" Pete shouted, thrashing around and managing to get himself up. The zombie vampire thing kept a hold of his leg, and something like a hiss expelled from the thing's mouth. Pete kept kicking at it, and finally it loosened his grip.
"Just a little taste," the thing hissed again, and Pete slowly backed up, looking behind him in case there was a horde of them or something. "So long I've missed human blood."
"What the fuck…" Pete looked down at his clothes, and no wonder he was freezing. Silk and brocade everywhere, even white silk tights. He had lost the wig some time ago. "Who the fuck are you? What the fuck are you doing in this swamp?" He didn't really know why he was talking to this thing, but he didn't have a place set in his head. At least, he didn't think he did. He had memories, but they weren't his.
"You know who I am," the thing said, pushing itself up to his knees. His head fell back, and Pete could feel the bile rising in his throat. It couldn't keep its head still, and it looked…rotten, like his neck wouldn't be able to support his head any longer. "You're the one who did this to me."
Pete stood rooted to the spot, staring at him. He was like a bird caught in a cobra's gaze, but the life flashing before his eyes wasn't his. "Uhm…uh…who do you think I am?"
"Louis…Louis…did I not love you? Did I not give you life?" The thing crawled closer. "I don't understand; Louis…why are you once again human?" It fell down in front of Pete, and water washed over Pete's shoes.
Pete shook his head. "No man…you…I'm not Louis." But as soon as he said it, he knew it was true. "Well…I can't be Louis if I'm human, can I?"
The thing, who Pete had finally figured out was Lestat (he hated his sister for giving him those books, suddenly), grabbed at him, and Pete stumbled back once more. "Wake up, Louis, wake up. You must help me. We can be beautiful once more, if you wake up."
+ + +
"For the last time, I'm not a fucking vampire!" Pete nearly fell backwards into an open grave, but managed to leap over it pretty easily. The blonde girl just rolled her eyes and leapt over it as well.
"So what are you doing nosing around a cemetery?" the girl asked, lazily twirling her stake and narrowing her eyes at him. Pete sighed and rubbed his face.
"I don't have a fucking clue. I wake up, I'm in a crypt. But seriously, I just played one on television. I don't have the teeth. I don't want to kill humans to drink their blood, and while I'm sure that stake will fucking HURT if you push it into my…uh…chestal region, you're not going to dust me." He paused. "Buffy."
The blonde girl stopped, and shook her head. "Oh no, oh god no. Not another one. Why do you all know my name? You're all just falling out of the damn sky and you all know my name! Oh, and by the way, it's called your breastplate."
"Look, Buffy, you're not actually real where I come from. You're a television show." He stopped. "Wait, wait…you're saying other people have just suddenly arrived that…don't belong?"
"Well, yeah," Buffy said, and held up a finger, pushing Pete aside and dusting something that had just shown up. "That's exactly what I'm saying. But the thing is…they respond to other names. Like, this one kid, with glasses and tattoos and shit, well, like, he keeps saying his name is Giles, even though he's something like a million years younger and pretty not-English. And then this short kind of fat kid who I know isn't Xander keeps insisting that he actually is."
"Oh yeah, that's Andy and Patrick. I always told them that they'd be Giles and Xander, actually." Buffy stared at him blankly. "I'm a big fan of the show. And Patrick…uh, you call him Xander, isn't fat. He has a tummy. It's cute."
They were walking together, and Buffy turned her head to look at him. "Okay, well, who would you be?"
Pete shrugged. "You know, it's funny. I was in New Orleans…" He glanced at his watch, but that wasn't helpful, as it had stopped. It was waterlogged, and the face was cracked. "Well, I was in New Orleans, and this guy called me Louis. But my name is Pete."
Buffy just nodded, and twirled around, looking back from where they came. "Well, Pete, welcome to Sunnydale. It's real, I promise. You're not going to open the door on a back studio in Hollywood." She glanced over him. "Red and camouflage, huh? Did we step back into the eighties or something?"
Pete looked down at his clothes. "What? This is prime fashion right here!"
Buffy raised an eyebrow. "Wow, I think you need to wake up, man. This is 1997."
"Wait…what did you say?" Pete stopped at her car. Buffy looked at him, and opened the door.
"This is 1997?"
"No, before that." He climbed into the car with her, and looked around. "Nice wheels."
"Thanks," she replied, and then turned on the car. "I told you to wake up."
+ + +
Something nudged Pete in the side and Pete groaned, rolling onto his back and opening his eyes, squinting against the sudden glare of white. He turned his head, and looked at what was nudging him. "What, what the hell," he mumbled, sitting up slowly.
Something silver was standing over him, looking down over him. The thing sighed. "Not another one," it said. It had a metallic sounding voice, and Pete realised with a start that the thing was a robot. He sat up and rubbed his face some more.
"Not another what?" Pete asked and struggled to his knees.
"Another hitchhiker," the robot replied. "We've already had two of them. You're going to have to get up, I have been ordered to take you to the main cabin. Huh! Ordered by a bunch of backward primates and an alien. Do you know how smart I am?" The robot gazed at Pete. "No, I suppose you wouldn't."
Pete blinked, but got to his feet and followed the obviously annoyed robot. "Uhm…where are we, exactly?"
"Well, far away for your universe," the robot replied. "I could give you the exact coordinates, but you couldn't handle that many numbers."
"Yeah, okay, I'm a dumbass," Pete replied pulling the…bathrobe?...closer around his body. "I wasn't wearing this in Sunnydale."
"What's a Sunnydale?" The robot pushed a button next to the door and the door slid open.
"Thank you for making a simple door very happy," the door said and slid shut behind them. Pete looked back at the door, then back at the robot.
"Did that door just…thank us?" he asked, and then looked around the vast area. "And are we on a spaceship?"
"In case this might give you a heart attack, the answer to both of those questions is yes," the robot said. "I have the prisoner," he said a little louder, and someone with long brown hair turned their head.
"Andy!" Pete ran forward, but stopped. "You uh… you have…" He gestured at his chest.
"Well, first off, my name's Trillian," said the girl who had taken over Andy's body. "And second of all, of course I have breasts. Most women do."
"And really nice ones they are," said a very tall man standing near a bunch of computers. He was in a green velvet jumpsuit, and his vest was festooned with what looked like roses.
"Uh… Gabe? Ryan wants his rose vest back."
The man who Pete had always thought was Gabe shook his head. "Who's Gabe? I mean, I may not know a lot sometimes, but I'm Zaphod Beeblebrox, President of the Galaxy. And who's Ryan? Or roses, for that matter?"
Pete rubbed his face. "Okay, okay. What the hell? Anything else I need to know?"
"The Earth was destroyed, Arthur. I saved you?" Pete twirled towards the voice, face to face with someone he could assume was Joe, but, knowing his luck, probably wasn't.
"Here, have this. It'll help you wake up." The-man-who-wasn't-Joe thrust a glass in his hand.
"You have no idea how much I need this," Pete mumbled, and closed his eyes, knocking the drink back.
The back of his skull felt like it had been blown off, and Pete fell into a crumpled heap on the floor.
+ + +
"We don't wanna be in the habit of taking in stowaways, dong ma?"
Pete groaned and opened his eyes, squinting. Everything was awash in blue light. He sighed, and struggled to sit up, but a strong hand pushed him back. "It won't do to move too much, right?"
Pete sighed. "I'm not a stowaway. Or a hitchhiker. I don't know what ship this is, but I was just on another ship with a robot and the President of the Galaxy." He opened his eyes. Gabe, or with his luck, not-Gabe, had his arms crossed, staring down at him.
"You were the President of the Galaxy." Gabe smirked and nodded, looking around.
"Don't encourage him," said the man lurking near the door.
Pete looked towards the door. "Patrick! Oh god, I've been looking for you. I…you wouldn't believe me if I told you but I've been through so much." He tried to sit up again.
Patrick tilted his head. "My name isn't Patrick," the man said. "I'm Shepherd Book."
Pete groaned, and angrily wiped the tears of frustration from his face. "No, fuck this," he said. "I've been looking for you for too fucking long." He got up, ignore the shooting pain in his side and lurching for Patrick, grabbing onto his shoulder.
"Hey, listen, everywhere I go people have been telling me to wake up. I don't know what it means, but every time I wake up I'm somewhere different. I haven't seen you anywhere, except in Sunnydale I was going to get to see you but then I woke up and a robot was calling me a prisoner." He sniffed and looked down, pulling away his hand.
His hand was red with blood.
"What happened?" he whispered. "Why am I losing so much blood?" His knees felt weak, but Patrick held him and helped him back to the chair he was reclined on.
"You escaped from the Academy," Patrick (Shepherd Book, Pete mentally corrected himself) replied. "You barely made it into our ship. You've been babbling about this since you've been here."
"Like you got a direct feed to the Earth that Was or something," said Gabe, his arms finally relaxing. "Talking about things that don't exist, at least not to our knowledge."
Pete closed his eyes and nodded. "My name is Pete." He opened them again and looked at Patrick. "You gotta help me. Tell me to wake up, please. If you don't, I'm gonna die and I think I'll probably be dead wherever I am."
"You're already awake," Not-Patrick replied. "You're pretty lucid except for that wound."
Pete shook his head, looking at his hand again. "No, no. Tell me to wake up, please." He coughed, and he wiped at his mouth, pulling his hand away. More blood. He couldn't survive for much longer.
"Please, somebody, wake me up," he said, taking in a stuttering breath.
Everyone in the bay looked to one another, and Patrick shook his head at Gabe. "I'm sorry; Pete, but all we can do is make you comfortable."
"No, no. Please…just…please. I just gotta wake up."
+ + +
"Hey, Pete, wake up."
Pete opened his eyes, turning his head. Patrick held tight to his hand and smiled.
"Hey," Pete said, his voice croaking.
Patrick took a deep breath. "Oh, shit, shit." He leaned forward and hugged Pete. "Oh god, I thought… I thought…" He sighed, and then shoved at Pete's shoulder lightly. "I fucking hate you," he said. "Why'd you do it?"
Pete shrugged. He had no idea what Patrick was talking about.
There was a short knock at the door and someone came in, limping on his cane. "Well, look at this. Sleeping Beauty is awake. Think we could have our bed back?"
Pete blinked. "Uh…so like…I'm in a hospital?"
"Rockstars," the doctor replied. "The damage isn't just to their hearing. Yes, you're in a hospital. I'm what they call a doctor."
Pete sighed and Patrick reached for Pete's hand. "What's wrong with me?"
"Other than your hair? Unfortunately, we don't know…yet." The doctor stood at the foot of the bed, staring at Pete. "I'm Doctor House. I've been assigned to make sure it isn't a secret coke addiction that you've decided to call exhaustion."
Pete stared at the man. "You've gotta be kidding."
"Did it work?" The man raised his eyebrow. "No. Damn."
Pete closed his eyes, slumping against the pillow.
"Oh, stop being so dramatic, Wentz," Dr House said. "You've finally woken up."