In Secret Places (Part I)
*Note: This is not new, it is a repost. It was originally posted on 11/05/07.
In Secret Places
Pete/Patrick // R
~16,300 words // 100% made up
So this took many months and went through many revisions and needed many betas. A huuuuge thanks goes out to liesthatwebleed, musictoyourlips, and bombasticduck for the betaing and plot-help, and also karasaurusrex and puckinnichild for the additional critique. This crazy thing would have been even crazier (in the uncool nonsensical way) without your help. <333
IN SECRET PLACES
We do it in the dark
With smiles on our faces
We’re dropped and well concealed
In secret places
We don’t fight fair.
-"The Take Over, The Break's Over"
I.
It’s dark outside and Patrick can feel the cold biting the tips of his ears as he stares up at the top of the van in disbelief. Pete’s standing up there, and apparently he thinks it’s a good idea to climb the tree they’re parked under. Patrick knows it isn’t.
“Get down!” he hears himself shouting feebly as Pete jumps up and tries to grab hold of the lowest branch, the kind of smile on his face that only comes up when he’s doing something dangerous. Patrick sees this smile often.
“Hey! Pete, you’re gonna fall!” The van lurches every time Pete comes back down on it, and Patrick knows something bad is going to happen, he’s just not sure what.
“I’ll be fine, ‘Trick,” Pete insists, still jumping, his fingers grazing the branch but not coming up enough to grab onto it. Patrick vaguely thinks that this is all backwards, seeing as Pete is the one who’s twenty-three, five years older than Patrick, and really, shouldn’t he know better than an eighteen-year-old and not the other way around? Then again, Pete Wentz isn’t one to do what is expected of him.
Patrick pinches the bridge of his nose with his thumb and forefinger, unseating his glasses, as Pete makes yet another attempt to climb the tree. Patrick isn’t even sure why he’s doing this; he remembers Pete saying something about a good view, but they’re parked somewhere in the country so Joe and Andy can take a piss in a bush, and the only interesting thing Pete would see is them doing their business. Which, Patrick reasons, they’d both seen on several occasions, so even if Pete had a thing for watching his friends piss, he probably wouldn’t go out of his way to see it again. Up a tree is decidedly out of his way, so Patrick thinks Pete’s just fucking crazy, and that he enjoys being a danger to himself physically, as well as to Patrick mentally.
“Pete-” Patrick tries again, but he stops when he sees that Pete’s finally managed to wrap his fingers around the branch. He lets out a cry of triumph and Patrick sees his muscles straining as he tries to grab the branch with his other hand, so he can hoist himself up.
But then, a problem: Patrick can see the branch bending under Pete’s weight and Christ, he thinks, Pete weighs all of four pounds so the branch must be pretty flimsy. Patrick can see the startled expression creeping across Pete’s profile, and at the first cracking noise, Patrick knows disaster is imminent. It takes Pete a couple seconds to realize that the branch will soon be at such an extreme angle that he won’t be able to hold on. When he realizes, he starts kicking his feet in an attempt to get back on the van. This just makes the branch bend faster.
Patrick swears colorfully and rushes over, trying to grab Pete’s ankles and get him back on the van. The kicking isn’t helping. Patrick dodges Pete’s flailing legs a couple times before one of his feet connects with the side of Patrick’s head and he sees stars for a second.
When Pete falls, Patrick doesn’t register it. All he knows is that one second, he’s standing and looking up at Pete’s dangling legs, but the next, he has a throbbing pain in his shoulder, he’s on the ground, and he feels a weight on his leg.
“Augh!” Patrick turns his head and hey, Pete is what’s on his leg. “Fuck, my hand!”
Patrick winces, attempting movement. “Is that a request?”
[//]
When they get to the hospital and after Patrick fills out a stack of papers and waits next to a moaning Pete for a half hour, the nurse in triage makes him explain what happened. Thankfully, he had worked it out in his head on the ride.
“Well, he was trying to climb a tree,” Patrick says sheepishly, “and when he fell, he knocked into me, and the van. I think he landed on his hand.” The nurse clicks her tongue in disapproval and scribbles something on a clipboard while Pete cradles his injured hand and moans. Patrick feels a pang of sympathy, and against his better judgment, pats Pete’s leg with a comforting hand.
“Uh, do you know what it is? I mean, he plays the bass for our band and-”
“Sorry hon, I don’t know anything. He’s gonna need x-rays.”
Patrick rubs his eyes. “Right, sorry. And we’ll be in here for how long? Cause we have a show in-”
“It all depends on who else comes in here,” the nurse interrupts again. “A possibly broken finger is less dire than say, a severed finger.” Patrick cringes, and he wishes he hadn’t asked. The next time Pete makes a pained noise, Patrick just glares at him.
When Pete is finally called to an actual bed (after hours of sitting in the waiting room with a lot of unhappy-looking people and Joe, who was constantly whining about being hungry, and earning glares from people who quite clearly had bigger problems), the doctor inspects him briefly, and then takes him for an x-ray. When Patrick hears Pete has a broken finger, he shoots Pete a look so deadly that Pete actually looks scared because hello, you can’t play the bass if your fingers are broken, and that-the bass-playing-is the only reason Patrick tolerates Pete. Except, not really.
But the doctor keeps talking and oh, okay, it’s his pinky on his right hand. Playing will be a little awkward with the splint, but he’ll manage, and Christ, if it had been his left hand Patrick would have throttled him.
When they get back to the van, Patrick takes the wheel with his lips pressed in a thin line, saying nothing as Joe plays with Pete’s splint and they laugh about how hard it will be to do things for a while.
“You’re gonna wake up with it stuck to your face, I swear,” Joe says with a giggle.
Pete laughs appreciatively, then stops. “Oh God. Jerking off is gonna be so weird.” Patrick hears fresh bursts of laughter from the back seat and tries to simultaneously fight off a blush and get that image out of his head (the latter doesn’t make the former any easier). He puts the keys into the ignition and turns as Andy opens the door and climbs into the passenger’s seat. Patrick glances at the clock on the dashboard and is so glad that they had been ahead of schedule, because if they hadn’t been, the hours at the hospital would have definitely forced them to cancel their next gig. And they really need the money.
At this point, Pete seems to notice that Patrick doesn’t appear too amused. He gets up and stoops forward, sticking his head between Patrick and Andy, putting his right hand on Patrick’s shoulder. Patrick sees the lights outside the hospital glint in the metal of the splint on Pete’s pinky.
“We’re okay, ‘Trick,” Pete assures him, squeezing his shoulder slightly. Patrick grips the steering wheel too tightly. “Hey now, I’m sorry.”
“S’okay,” Patrick says quietly, even though, what, no.
Patrick sees Pete smiling at him through the rear-view mirror, and fuck, if anybody can make things better just by smiling, it’s Pete.
But then it’s gone, and Patrick remembers his anger, and he shifts into reverse a little too aggressively as Pete sits back next to Joe.
The only sounds for the next ten minutes are those of Pete and Joe’s muttered conversation, and the odd high-pitched giggle when one of them makes the other laugh. Patrick wonders if they’re making fun of him, but then he realizes he’s being paranoid, and Pete wouldn’t do that because of the whole Best Friends Thing.
After a while, Andy seems to notice that Patrick is tense or angry or some combination of the two and touches his shoulder lightly.
“Come on, man,” he says, and it’s so like Andy to try to fix what Pete’s messed up. “He didn’t do it on purpose.”
“I know, I was there,” Patrick reminds him.
“Yeah. And well, you know Pete.”
“Unfortunately.” He wants it to sound scathing, but it comes out feeble because he doesn’t mean it.
Andy snorts. “Yeah, well, like I said, he didn’t mean to. Kid’s fucking crazy. Thinks he’s invincible or something.”
Patrick nods silently and keeps on driving.
II.
The sun is low in the sky when Pete makes the worst decision of his life.
It isn’t a very glaring mistake-in fact, it is a perfectly ordinary thing to do, walking into a gas station convenience store with Patrick while Andy and Joe refill the van’s tank. They just want a few bags of chips and maybe a couple magazines for the road, seeing as their next venue is still at least three hours away and they don’t want to stop for a proper meal.
So really, Pete can be blamed for the events that follow this initial one, but not the initial one itself. He is not looking for mischief as he opens the door and walks into the air-conditioned shop, and he doesn’t have that impish smirk on his face as he sticks his hands in his pockets and strolls casually towards the snack aisle. Patrick can attest to this, as he always pays rapt attention to Pete’s expressions, devious or otherwise. The two of them chat in an undertone as Pete thoughtfully considers the different bags of food, trying to decide which ones to buy. Patrick doesn’t really understand what the big decision is, because all of them are equally unhealthy, and they’d all taste the same in the back of the van when there was nothing to do but eat.
Just as Pete seems to have made a choice, Patrick hears the ringing that announces the entry or departure of a customer, and peers over the shelves to see if it’s Andy or Joe, coming to make a request or just to irritate them. He quickly realizes this isn’t the case when he sees that the new arrival is pulling a ski mask over his face.
Fear instantly grips Patrick’s chest, and he taps Pete urgently on the shoulder.
“What, what is it?” Pete mutters irritably, following Patrick’s gaze to the front of the shop. “Oh. Oh, shit.” Pete drops what he is holding and makes to walk to the front of the store.
Patrick can’t believe what he is seeing, and immediately grabs the back of Pete’s shirt to hold him back. “What are you doing?” Patrick hisses. “Stay down, for God’s sake.”
Pete freezes for a moment and watches the scene unfold: the man with the mask walks up to the counter and demands that the cashier hand over the money in the cash register. When she refuses, the man pulls out a gun and points it directly between her eyes. Patrick squeezes his eyes shut, as if doing so will make the man disappear. When he opens them, he sees Pete continuing to walk towards the front of the store.
“Pete, stop!” Patrick says, as quietly as he can, once again grabbing Pete’s shirt.
“It’s probably not loaded, ‘Trick. I’m gonna take him by surprise.” Pete swats at Patrick’s hand until he lets go, and then continues to stroll up to the front of the shop.
Patrick swears under his breath. Pete’s just the type to suddenly take on the role of vigilante. Patrick is so terrified that he wants nothing more than to fall asleep, right there in the middle of the snack aisle of a convenience store somewhere in the suburbs of Colorado.
The cashier is now emptying the drawer of the register into a bag held out by the robber’s left hand. His right hand still has the gun trained on the cashier. Pete is only about twelve feet away from him, and as far as Patrick can tell, the robber hadn’t noticed him yet. Patrick wishes he were braver, because if that were the case, he would have already run forward and grabbed Pete, forcing him to stay still. Patrick doesn’t know why he always manages to hang out with the biggest idiots on the face of the planet, but ever since his eighth grade best friend climbed the school’s flagpole, fell down, and broke his leg, Patrick had come to accept it.
Pete is now within touching distance of the robber, and just as he’s about to do something-what, Patrick doesn’t know-the cashier looks right at him with a puzzled expression on her face. The robber instantly whips around, points the gun at Pete’s chest, and fires.
Patrick clenches his eyes shut and wishes with all his might that what he saw did not really happen; that Pete would be okay and it was just a trick of the light. But even as he thinks it, Patrick knows it’s impossible, and he feels dread and sadness begin to spill into his stomach, cold like icy water but thick like molasses.
Patrick opens his eyes, and sees it all in slow motion-the look of surprise on Pete’s face, the stumble backwards, and then the fall. As Pete crumples to the floor, crazed half-thoughts fly through Patrick’s head. Eighteen is too young to have a dead best friend, even if said best friend is five years older than him. Somewhere among Patrick’s frantic thoughts, it even crosses his mind that Pete was wrong, and the gun was loaded. Of all the things to be wrong about.
Patrick rushes forward, and he vaguely registers the sound of an alarm going off; apparently, among the chaos, the cashier had managed to hit it. The robber looks almost comically shocked at what he did; instead of running away from the scene, he stands there with the arm holding the gun hanging limp beside him, staring wide-eyed at Pete on the floor. Patrick finally reaches Pete and drops to the floor beside him, feeling whatever hope he has left fizzling out when he sees that the rip in Pete’s shirt is right over his heart.
But for some reason, there is no blood creeping across the material of Pete’s clothes. There is just a hole in them, and beyond that, Patrick sees skin. Shocked, and in disbelief, Patrick raises his eyes to Pete’s face.
Pete doesn’t look dead. In fact, he is staring down at the hole in his shirt and blinking rapidly, his lips parted slightly and his brow furrowed. He raises one of his hands to his chest and touches it, feeling no wetness from blood, and apparently no pain.
“What the fuck?” Pete mutters, more to himself than anyone else. “Why am I not bleeding?”
At this moment, the robber seems to come to his senses; before anyone can do anything to stop him, he is out the door, and Patrick hears the sound of screeching tires as his getaway driver floors it.
Pete looks at Patrick, confusion apparent on his face. They stare at each other for a long time before either of them says anything. “Uh,” Patrick starts, “so it… it doesn’t hurt?” Pete shakes his head. “And… you’re not dead.”
“I don’t think so,” Pete says, actually looking thoughtful.
The woman who had been behind the counter is now hovering a few feet behind them, looking as perplexed as Patrick feels. “What just happened?” she asks.
“I don’t know,” Pete says. “Uh. Maybe he missed?”
Before she can answer, the door bursts open and two police officers rush in, their guns drawn. When their eyes find Pete on the floor, one of them curses. “What happened, is he alright?”
“Yeah,” Patrick says, sounding mystified. “Yeah, he is.”
“Are you sure?” the officer asks, peering at them suspiciously.
“I guess so,” Patrick says.
The cop nods, then walks over to the cashier to question her.
“Let’s get out of here,” Pete says, getting to his feet and straightening his shirt. As he does so, they hear a metallic clang, and then look down at the floor to see what fell. To both of their surprise, a single bullet has fallen to the floor, and is now resting next to Pete’s foot, spinning back and forth.
Patrick stares at it, and then looks back at Pete. “Yeah, okay,” he says, standing up shakily.
Once they’re outside, Patrick stops Pete before he can walk back to the van. “Wait. Lift up your shirt.” Pete raises an eyebrow. “Fuck off, I just want to see… well, you know. What happened back there was not normal.”
Pete shrugs and does as Patrick says, revealing his unblemished chest. Patrick stares at it in disbelief for a full ten seconds before Pete gets fidgety and makes to pull his shirt back down. Patrick grabs his wrist to stop him and leans down, so his face is right in front of the place the bullet should have entered Pete’s body. Patrick lifts a hand and runs it over the smooth skin, feeling absolutely nothing out of the ordinary.
Pete jerks away and pulls his shirt down. “Nothing there?”
“Nothing,” Patrick confirms softly, taking a step away and looking at Pete’s face.
Pete pokes his finger through the hole in his shirt. “Crazy shit, man,” he mutters.
“Are you sure you’re okay? I mean, should we take you to the hospital or something?” Patrick looks at Pete’s finger with the splint and cringes, remembering the hours in the emergency room two weeks ago.
Pete shakes his head. “They’ll think we’re crazy. What would you think if a kid burst into the emergency room, claiming to be shot but with no injury?”
“You have a point,” Patrick admits, turning around and walking back to the van.
When they get there, Andy and Joe bombard them with questions. Apparently, they’d heard the gunshot and saw the police rushing into the store. Pete brushes them off by saying that the guy missed, and they’re back on the road in ten minutes.
[//]
A few days later, they’re driving through a small town in the van when Pete suddenly pulls over to the side of the road, next to a small strip of shops.
“We’re not there yet,” Andy informs him coolly, sitting up straighter and peering at Pete over his glasses.
“I know, man, it’ll just be a minute,” Pete says, yanking on the emergency break and pulling the keys out of the ignition. Patrick shoots him a questioning look, but Pete doesn’t offer any explanation. Instead, he slams the door shut behind him and walks briskly down the block, stopping in front of an old dusty shop with the word “comics” printed on the awning in all capitals.
Patrick, Andy, and Joe just look at each other, none of them speaking. Pete doesn’t come back for a full twenty minutes, during which Joe gets very restless and Patrick gets very annoyed. Finally, Pete comes back, holding nothing but a small paper bag and his car keys.
[//]
“Patrick.”
He’s having a dream. It’s mostly colors and touches and sounds and it doesn’t make much sense, but Patrick likes where he is, and he doesn’t want to leave. He feels softness brushing against his skin, and he senses more than sees someone grinning at him, and he thinks that it’s Pete.
“Patrick.”
Patrick knows he’s dreaming, and he knows that someone is trying to wake him, but he doesn’t really care. He doesn’t want it to be morning, because he’s going to have to drive, and he’s much more content just keeping his eyes closed.
“Patrick!” It’s a hiss, and it sounds urgent, and Patrick is wrenched away from his warm, bright, safe place.
He blinks his eyes a couple times, and instantly gets mad because what the fuck, it’s still dark out, and he’s sure he has at least another hour before it’s his turn to drive. When his eyes adjust to the dark, he sees Pete leaning over him, an unreadable expression on his face.
“Pete.” It’s not a question, because Patrick knows it’s him. “What do you want?” Patrick sits up and rubs at the crick in his neck that was caused by the guitar case he was using in lieu of a pillow.
Pete shifts over and sits down next to Patrick. They can hear Joe snoring from the passenger’s seat, and Andy drumming his fingers against the steering wheel as he drives them to their next destination. Pete looks weary, as if he had been trying to sleep for a long time, but gave up. He leans in close, conspiratorially, and whispers in Patrick’s ear. “I think I’m invincible.”
Patrick snorts and thinks, this is why he woke me up. What an idiot. “Yeah, you’ve thought that for a while now.”
Pete shakes his head, frustrated. “No, no. Like, I’m actually invincible. I should be dead. I got shot, but nothing happened. I can’t get hurt, and I can’t die.”
Patrick really laughs this time. “Yeah, okay. Did someone spike your Mountain Dew or something? Because this is crazy, even for you.”
Pete looks indignant. “But-”
“Go to sleep, Pete,” Patrick says, trying to lie on his side and shoving Pete out of his way with his foot. Pete won’t budge.
“Paaatrick,” Pete moans, prodding him in the stomach with a finger. “Let me prove it to you. I can, I swear.”
Patrick sits up again and rubs his eyes. “What the hell, go ahead.”
Pete smiles. “My finger. The one I broke two weeks ago? It’s better.”
“What are you talking about?”
Pete holds up his right hand. The splint is gone.
“You idiot,” Patrick hisses. “It’s going to take forever to heal if you don’t wear the splint!”
“It’s healed!” Pete insists. He bends it, and sure enough, he has a full range of motion, and he’s not wincing in pain.
Patrick stares. “But that’s impossible,” he says. “Breaks take at least six weeks to heal, and it’s only been two. I saw the x-rays, dude. That was a nasty break.”
“I know,” Pete says, sounding a mix between scared and excited. “I told you. I’m invincible.”
“You’re full of shit is what you are,” Patrick says.
“Hey now, come on. You need more proof?” Pete picks up his leg and rolls up his pants to the knee. “Remember last night, I fell on stage and scraped my shin? Look.”
Patrick looks. There’s nothing there; his leg is smooth as it was before he fell. “It was your other leg,” Patrick insists. There’s no way it disappeared overnight.
Pete shakes his head, but rolls up the other side anyway. Still, nothing there. If this is a joke, it’s a very elaborate one.
“You still don’t believe me?” Pete says.
Patrick is silent.
“Come on, ‘Trick. What happened at that store the other day? It makes sense now. That guy didn’t miss. I felt the bullet hit me.” Pete absently puts his hand over his chest, where the bullet struck.
“And here, look.” Pete lifts up his shirt a little, and points at his stomach. “Explain that. My belly button is gone.”
“What?” Patrick says, leaning forward. Sure enough, Pete’s stomach is smooth; there’s no dip where his belly button should be, where it was the day before, and what the fuck? “How does that tie in with the rest of this?”
“Lemme show you.” Pete turns around and starts moving, apparently searching for something. A moment later he turns back and hands Patrick a comic book. “Look,” he says, turning the first few pages and pointing. Patrick sees the image of a surprised-looking woman peering down at her abdomen, which is conspicuously navel-less. “I read through this comic, and it’s about what’s happening to me.”
“You’re looking to a comic book to explain this? Pete, you’re insane.”
Pete shakes his head. “What else could I possibly look in? A textbook? This makes sense though, ‘Trick. According to this comic, navels are the ultimate mark of mortality. If you don’t have one, you were never born, and if you were never born, you can’t die.”
Patrick considers this. It doesn’t make much sense, but nothing does right now. “Pete, this is crazy.” He hands the comic back to Pete, and Pete tucks it away.
“I know,” he says, nodding. “But it gets crazier.” He reaches into his pocket and pulls out a straight razor, and Patrick jumps.
“What the fuck? Be careful with that, man!”
“Hush, Stumpy,” Pete says, covering Patrick’s mouth with the hand not holding the razor.
“Where did you get that?” Patrick mumbles through Pete’s hand.
“Doesn’t matter. Watch.” Pete uncovers Patrick’s mouth and holds out his arm, pressing the razor to it.
“Pete, stop it!” Patrick hisses.
“Shush.” He drags the razor across the skin of his left arm, leaving a trail of blood behind. He winces slightly, but then pulls away and holds his arm in front of Patrick’s face.
“You’re crazy. There’s blood, Pete, you’re not invincible.”
“Wait.” Sure enough, right before Patrick’s eyes, the blood is reabsorbed back into Pete’s skin, disappearing as if it were evaporating very quickly, leaving nothing behind. After ten seconds, there isn’t even a scratch on Pete’s arm.
“Goddamn,” Patrick murmurs, touching Pete’s arm and feeling nothing but smooth skin.
“Yeah,” Pete says.
“And it didn’t even hurt?” Patrick asks.
“No. Well, not exactly.” Pete pauses, and rubs his arm absently, his fingers running over the place where he had cut himself. “It’s weird. Like, it doesn’t hurt, but it’s… unpleasant. Like a zipper opening on my arm.”
Patrick winces. “How did it feel when you… when you were shot?”
Pete frowns. “It felt like getting poked really hard. But it didn’t hurt. I just felt pressure, and I was uncomfortable for a second.”
They were both quiet for a while, just looking at one another. “Nobody’s going to believe you, Pete.”
“I know. That’s why we’re not telling anybody.”
III.
Things are pretty normal for a while; Andy and Joe are the only people Pete tells about his situation, and even when he proves it to them, they’re still pretty skeptical. After all, it’s quite a fantastic story; just the kind of thing Pete would love to make up. The four of them manage to successfully forget about it, except on the odd occasion that something happens that should injure Pete, but miraculously doesn’t. A week after Pete’s discovery, Joe drops an amp on his foot, and right when Patrick starts having visions of emergency rooms and broken toes, Pete just picks up the amp and keeps walking. It’s something to get used to, but as far as Patrick can tell, it’s not a bad thing, per se.
Well, it isn’t a bad thing until people start hearing about it. Pete manages to conceal his extraordinary abilities for all of three weeks until something happens to expose him for what he is. They’re playing a gig in a small bar in Nebraska, and after their set, Pete sits at the bar and drinks a soda. Patrick sits next to him, eyeing the other patrons warily, wondering if it’s safe to be there among so many drunken people. Pete’s cheery, as he usually is after a show, but he’s thankfully keeping to himself for the most part.
Patrick sees a middle-aged man with a potbelly coming up behind Pete, sitting next to him, ordering a beer. He recognizes the guy; during their set, he was standing on Pete’s side of the stage and sneering, obviously disapproving of something (or everything?) about him. Patrick taps Pete’s shoulder to warn him, but when Pete sees what Patrick’s alarmed about, he laughs and brushes him off.
The guy seems to be keeping to himself, and that’s good. Patrick was certain that the guy was going to pick a fight, but all he’s doing so far is drinking his beer and shooting Pete the odd dirty look. That is, until Pete puts his arm around Patrick and kisses his neck, which is normal for Pete, but not for Nebraska, and Patrick can see the guy getting more agitated.
It happens pretty quickly; the guy calls Pete a fag, Pete turns around and calls him a redneck slob, and the guy throws a drunken punch right at Pete’s face. Pete ducks, but it’s too late, and he falls over, cracks his head on the floor, and the bar goes silent. Patrick can still hear the sound of Pete’s head hitting the floor ringing in his ears, and he doesn’t know what would be worse: if Pete is hurt, or if he isn’t.
Sure enough, barely five seconds later, Pete sits up, perfectly fine, gets to his feet, and shoves the guy. The guy crashes into the bar, more because he’s alarmed than because Pete pushed him, and turns around to leave, his beer only half-empty.
The entire bar seems to be staring at Pete.
The bartender is the first to say something. “Are you alright there, son? That was a nasty fall you took.” His voice is slow and paced, but his eyes are wide.
“Yeah, I’m fine,” Pete says, and Patrick winces. He could at least fake an injury. The other people in the bar are gawking at him, because many of them had seen that punch, and it probably would have broken a normal person’s nose. They are quickly beginning to suspect that Pete isn’t a normal person.
IV.
That was just the first incident. After that, there is a general buzz following the band wherever they go, and people seem keen on picking fights with Pete. It isn’t terribly obvious; Patrick orders Pete to not allow himself to be provoked into violence, and Pete mostly obeys his wishes because yeah, he can see how this could be bad. But slowly, people are getting more and more suspicious.
In Iowa, Joe plays a show drunk, and winds up smacking Pete across the face with his guitar while he’s spinning. The audience gasps, but Pete just stumbles backwards and keeps playing, appearing a little annoyed but generally unfazed. No blood runs down his face, his pupils don’t dilate, and he certainly doesn’t pass out. They saw the way the guitar hit him, and it just doesn’t make sense that he isn’t hurt.
Then, a couple towns over, he stage-dives and the audience moves out of the way. He lands on the floor, his leg crumpled under him, but he just gets up and jumps back onto the stage. More and more people start tripping him as he walks by, trying to provoke him, and even throwing random punches at him, until their reputation precedes them and they don’t even have to do anything odd on stage before people start trying to hurt Pete.
But Patrick still wouldn’t classify things as “out of control.” It’s not dangerous, and people are still paying attention to their music, and nobody important has gotten hurt. But then, she happens.
They’re back in Illinois, staying for about a week and playing shows here and there before taking a little break and going back on the road. When they’re packing their gear back into the van after the first show, they hear a girl scream, and Pete takes off in the direction it came from. Patrick curses, throws his guitar into the trunk, and runs after him because this can’t be good. Sure enough, he rounds a corner and he sees Pete shoved up against a wall by a guy with a switchblade, and it’s held to his neck, and fuck, Pete is laughing.
“You think it’s funny, you fag?” the guy with the knife is saying, his teeth clenched. “I will cut you. I will.”
Patrick can’t breathe. He knows in the back of his mind that this guy can’t hurt Pete (even if he wants to), but there’s something about seeing your best friend with a knife pressed to his neck that just doesn’t sit well.
Pete keeps smiling, and the guy pulls the knife from his neck and pointedly jabs it at his chest, dragging it across his shirt. Patrick cringes and clamps his eyes shut, but the only noise he hears is the ripping of Pete’s shirt.
“What the-”
When Patrick opens his eyes, he sees that the guy has backed away from Pete, and he’s staring perplexedly at his knife, which is becoming less bloody before his eyes. Pete’s still smiling.
“How did you-”
Pete snatches the knife away from him and the guy bolts, shoving past Patrick on his way.
”Are… are you alright?” The voice is breathless and feminine. Patrick notices the girl for the first time; apparently it was she who had screamed, drawing Pete’s attention. She’s about Pete’s height, perhaps a little shorter, and she’s wearing all black. Her hair is dark and curly, and Patrick instantly thinks that she’s pretty, a thought that he will resent later.
“Yeah, I’m fine,” Pete says nonchalantly, his smile never faltering.
“Holy shit, how did you-” The girl stops and bites her lip, looking from Pete’s face to his ripped t-shirt.
“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you,” Pete says, and Patrick recognizes that look on his face.
“Well, um. Thank you,” the girl says, reaching out tentatively to touch Pete’s arm.
“Hey, all in a day’s work.” Pete smiles at her, and Patrick has to walk away.
[//]
Pete doesn’t come back to the van that night. Patrick and Andy and Joe spend the night curled up on themselves, all cramped and uncomfortable, and all Patrick can think about is the fact that Pete is most likely in a real bed, getting laid. This is enough to make Patrick resent both Pete and the girl he went off with, but Pete was never satisfied with “enough.” The next morning, Patrick gets a call from Pete on his cell, and he tells them to meet up with him at a nearby diner.
When they get there, the first thing Patrick notices is that he brought her with him. Patrick sits down across from her, eyeing her warily, and then glares at Pete, who has his arm around her.
“Guys, this is Samantha.” Pete has a shit-eating grin on his face, and yeah, he definitely got laid last night.
They all introduce themselves to her, and she nods and smiles at them. She really is pretty, but close-up Patrick can pick her apart and focus on her flaws, which makes this whole ordeal much more tolerable. He sees that her eyes are a little too far apart, and that her bottom lip is much bigger than her top lip, and that her forehead is rather large, and he almost misses her asking him what he does in the band. He doesn’t really know why she cares, seeing as all of her focus is quite plainly on Pete, but he answers her anyway.
“Oh,” she says, still smiling. “That’s right, I remember you. You’ve got a great voice, man.” Patrick smiles grudgingly, refusing to be flattered by her compliment. He doesn’t like her, but he doesn’t really have a very good reason not to. Sure, she’s a little obnoxious and overly enthusiastic with just a hint of fake, but Pete’s dated (and slept with) a lot worse.
And she doesn’t go away. Patrick figures she’s a one-night stand at first, and that maybe Pete just brought her for breakfast as a sort of peace offering before he takes off without a trace. But no, she’s at their next show too, and Pete starts showing off for her. He’s being reckless; more reckless than usual, and anybody with a pair of eyes can see that something not quite right is going on. He’s jumping off amps, landing on his knees, falling over, and generally not taking care to not get hurt. Apparently, Samantha is drawn to his recklessness, because Patrick sees her eyes light up whenever he does something like this.
“Pete, people are going to start talking,” Patrick says to him quietly the next day after the show, when Samantha is in the bathroom.
Pete purses his lips and frowns as he heaves a bag of equipment into the trunk of the van. “People are already talking,” he says finally. “And besides, since when is that a bad thing? We could use the publicity, ‘Trick.”
Patrick sighs. “But this could get dangerous. You can’t tell me you haven’t noticed that people are taking shots at you, just to see what’ll happen.”
“No, I noticed,” Pete says. “But how is that dangerous? I can’t get hurt, and I can’t die.”
“I don’t know! It just is,” Patrick says feebly, getting frustrated. The things Pete is saying make sense, but Patrick just doesn’t feel good about this whole thing, and he wants it to stop. He wants Pete to be mortal like the rest of them, even if it means more trips to the emergency room.
“That’s not a very good argument,” Pete retorts, slamming the trunk closed once the last bag is in. “Hey, I didn’t ask for this. It just happened, and I think it’d suck to not take advantage of it.”
“But that’s just it,” Patrick says, smiling through his frustration. “You’re taking advantage of it. Who’s to say that it won’t just stop, as suddenly as it started?”
Pete turns to Patrick and smiles at him wryly. “Don’t worry about me, okay?” His face moves closer, and his hand cups Patrick’s cheek, and for a wild moment, Patrick thinks he’s going to actually kiss him. But then Pete lets go, his fingers brushing Patrick’s face lightly as his hand drops, and Patrick feels cheated.
“Okay,” Patrick says once he regains his breath. “But… I’m sorry, but this can’t just happen without any consequences. Don’t you watch movies?”
Pete smiles. “Sure I do. But everything always works out alright at the end. And we’ll cross that bridge when we get there, together.”
Pete spots Samantha over Patrick’s shoulder and waves at her, and Patrick knows that their conversation is over.
[//]
That night, Patrick dreams. He’s lying on his back and he’s not wearing his hat; his hair is fanned out around his head, and his glasses are conspicuously absent. But for some reason, the world is clear-clearer than it normally is, even with his glasses on.
And Pete, Pete’s there too. Pete is straddling his body, sitting on his stomach, and his face is only inches away from Patrick’s. Something in Patrick’s stomach flips over, and he thinks that he likes the feeling.
Pete leans down even further, so his mouth is next to Patrick’s ear, and starts whispering. Patrick’s eyes flutter shut so he can better enjoy the feeling of Pete’s breath tickling his skin, so he can sink into the cadence of Pete’s voice and romance all the cracks and slip-ups and pauses for breath.
“You get what anyone gets,” Pete is saying, quiet like a secret, and it takes Patrick a moment to realize what he’s talking about.
“You get a lifetime,” Patrick replies, completing the quote.
Pete smiles. “You’re a smart one, Patrick Stump.”
Their noses are less than an inch apart, and Patrick thinks that if he were to just tilt his head a little bit, move his chin up, his lips would brush against Pete’s. He knows it’s a bad idea, but the urge is taking over his mind, clouding his judgment, and he knows that he’ll never get an opportunity like this again. He wants to taste Pete, just once.
Pete moves his head down and their noses brush, and that’s it. Patrick tilts his head back and pulls Pete towards him, and their lips meet messily; it’s just a wet brush across, but it sends sparks through Patrick’s whole body; little tingles and hot pricks, across synapses and encompassing him completely.
Patrick wakes with a start, his heart pounding and his palms sweaty. Pete’s head is on his shoulder, and still caught up in the atmosphere of his dream, Patrick wonders what would happen if he were to kiss him, right then. When Patrick finishes waking up, the thought startles him.
Patrick falls back asleep, and when he wakes up again, he forgets.
V.
Pete isn’t heeding Patrick’s warning, and that much becomes very obvious over the next couple days. When they’re hanging out in the bars before or after their set, Pete will start looking for fights, but not in the traditional sense. He’ll wait until he sees two guys getting into something, then he’ll jump right in the middle and start taking punches from the bigger of the two. He’ll retaliate, but barely; he doesn’t need to, since the guys usually get frustrated after they see that Pete won’t stay down. Apparently, he gets a kick out of it. And he always makes sure Samantha is watching.
Basically, Patrick is convinced that what’s going on is the calm before the storm. He somehow knows that Pete is not going to get away with this. So when Pete sits down next to him at the bar before their second-to-last show with a troubled look on his face, Patrick is sure that he’s finally getting his comeuppance.
“What’s with you?” he asks, coolly taking a sip of water.
Pete appears startled, as if he didn’t realize he had sat next to Patrick. “Nah, nothing really. I’m just a little worried because my mom hasn’t been answering my emails.”
“Huh,” Patrick says, not sure what to make of this.
“And like, I’m sure she remembers that I’m coming home on Tuesday, but I just wanted to touch base, you know? She hasn’t called me in a while.”
“She hasn’t?” Now Patrick’s a little worried, because he knows Mrs. Wentz, and he knows that she likes talking to Pete regularly while he’s on the road.
“No, she hasn’t.” Pete chews on his lip.
“Well you should call her, man. Make sure that nothing’s up.”
“Yeah,” Pete says.
And the next day, he does. They’re sitting at another diner for breakfast (Samantha’s not with them today, and for that Patrick is thankful), and he excuses himself to use the pay phone because none of them have reception in this part of the state. Patrick’s facing the back of the restaurant, and he watches Pete approach the phone while Joe launches pieces of breakfast sausage at Andy (“You know you want some!”), who ducks and swears at him. Patrick sees Pete dialing the phone, and keeps watching as he holds it between his ear and his shoulder so he can put his wallet away. He smiles (apparently because his mom picked up) and says something into the receiver. The smile fades rapidly as he listens for the response, and quickly turns into a frown. He says something else, more quickly this time, and gestures with his hands even though she obviously can’t see him. Patrick sees Pete’s mouth form the word “wait!” right before he hangs up, and he stares perplexedly at the phone before turning around and walking back to their table.
Pete ignores the flying sausages as he sits down next to Andy, looking numb. Joe drops his fork with a clatter. “What happened?”
Pete shakes his head and rubs his eyes with his thumb and forefinger. “I have no idea.”
Patrick sits up straight and sets down his coffee mug. “No really, what happened?”
“My mom. She didn’t know who I was.” Pete laughs in disbelief.
“No way,” Joe says.
“What?” Andy stops trying to fish the sausage crumbs out of his hair so he can stare at Pete.
“Guys, I don’t know. She picked up the phone, and she didn’t recognize my voice, so I told her who I was, and she…” Pete’s voice trails off. He looks visibly shaken, and for good reason, Patrick thinks.
“I don’t know what’s going on,” Pete says, the disbelieving smile firmly in place.
“Do you think she was joking?” Patrick says.
“No,” Pete answers, shaking his head. “She wouldn’t do that. She was acting like she’d never seen or talked to me in her life.”
“Did you talk to your dad?” Andy asks.
“I asked for him, but she wouldn’t put him on. She was talking to me like I was a crazy person.”
All four of them are quiet as Pete stares down into his coffee and stirs morosely. Andy and Joe exchange looks. Patrick thinks he knows exactly what’s going on.
If you don’t have a navel, you weren’t born. If you weren’t born, you can’t die.
[//]
The tour ends, and they’re back in Chicago for a week. They’re all staying at their respective houses, and Patrick is looking forward to the week of normalcy before they’re back on the road. Two hours after Pete drops Patrick at his house, Pete shows up on his doorstep with the van parked across the street. He’s holding a duffel bag.
“Can I stay with you?” he asks before Patrick can even say hello.
“What? Why? Yes,” Patrick says, not really pausing to draw breath.
Pete gives him a one-armed hug and walks past him to put his stuff on the coffee table. Mrs. Stump walks into the room and says hello to Pete, a wide smile on her face. Patrick knows his mom really likes Pete; he’s a real charmer when it comes to parents, especially mothers.
“Are you going to be staying here with Patrick?” Mrs. Stump asks after she releases Pete from a hug.
“If that’s alright with you, Ma’am. My parents went on vacation without telling me, so I don’t exactly have anywhere to stay.”
“Oh, don’t worry about it,” Patrick’s mom says. “Of course it’s alright. You can take your things down to the basement, and Patrick will help you set up the pullout sofa.”
Pete thanks her and picks up his duffel bag, giving Patrick a grim look once she leaves the room. In turn, Patrick shoots him a puzzled expression, and Pete jerks his head in the direction of the basement, meaning that they’ll talk when they get downstairs. Patrick’s used to having silent conversations with Pete; he knows they’re on the same frequency, and it’s gotten to the point where sometimes they don’t need words.
Once they’re in the basement, Pete drops his duffel bag next to the sofa with a groan, while Patrick starts pulling the cushions off the pullout sofa. “What’s going on?” he demands, setting the first cushion down next to Pete’s duffel bag.
“My parents have no idea who I am,” Pete hisses in an undertone, sitting on the floor and holding his head in his hands.
“You can’t be serious,” Patrick says, but he already believes it.
“Oh, but I am,” Pete answers, releasing his head and tilting it back so it clunks against the wall. “I rang my doorbell and my dad answered, and he asked me who I was. I tried to tell him, and he thought I was crazy, and he started yelling, and my mom came running… it was a mess. Then Andrew appeared out of nowhere and he looked so freaked out… and yeah, complete nightmare. So I basically ran away before they could call the cops on me.”
Patrick doesn’t know what to say to that, so he remains silent for a while. “Crazy shit,” he says finally, shaking his head.
“You’re telling me!” Pete exclaims.
“What happened after that? Why did it take you two hours?”
“Oh, that’s the good part,” Pete says with an ironic laugh. “After I ran away from my own family, I got back in the van and drove around a while, trying to figure out what the fuck to do. I wanted to get some shit from my room because I have virtually no clean clothes right now, and yeah. I wanted to see what became of my stuff. So… and this is where it gets good,” Pete assures him, “I parked the van around the block, and sneaked into my yard from my neighbors’. Apparently, they still remember me… I rang the doorbell and said hello and everything. So I went into their yard, saying I was gonna play with their dog, and then I climbed over the fence and over to my garage. I got a ladder, and broke into my own room.”
Patrick raises his eyebrows.
“Yeah. The window was open so it didn’t make too much noise. So I climbed in, and at first sight, it looked like I never lived there. It was so clean. Cleaner than I’d ever seen it. But I opened the drawers and all my stuff was still there, so I shoved some of it into that bag,” Pete pointed at the duffel bag, “and just as I was climbing back out the window, my sister walked in and screamed, and I practically fell down the ladder and ran all the way back to the van. It was fucking scary, man. The cops are probably after me.”
“So you came here,” Patrick says with mock-annoyance.
Pete looks scared for a minute. “But-”
Patrick smiles. “I’m kidding, man. You’re always welcome here. Besides, you had a pretty rough day, yeah?” Pete nods. “Let me make your bed.”
Patrick goes over to the closet and pulls out sheets and a pillow, and then walks back to the pullout and starts putting the sheets on. Pete watches him quietly, chewing on his bottom lip.
“I think this has something to do with me… you know. Being invincible or whatever.”
Patrick pauses. “You think?” he says sarcastically.
“Hey now, I can’t be expected to draw logical conclusions in a timely fashion when I’ve just been chased out of my own house.”
“You do have a point.” Patrick tucks the last corner of the fitted sheet, and then shakes out the next one. “So, Superman, what do you plan to do next?”
Pete smiles at the new nickname, then shrugs. “Well, I don’t know how this started, so how am I supposed to know how to stop it?”
Patrick snorts. “Now you want to stop it.”
“Well yeah, “ Pete says. “Being kicked around without getting hurt is fun and all, but I want my parents back, dude.”
Patrick smoothes the sheet. “Understandable.”
Pete gets to his feet. “Yeah.” He bends over and picks up the pillow, then the pillowcase, and starts to put it on. They’re quiet for a while, finishing making Pete’s bed. When they’re finished, they both sit down, and Pete rests his head on Patrick’s shoulder. “I’m glad you still remember me, ‘Trick.”
“Couldn’t forget if I tried,” Patrick murmurs, putting an arm around Pete. This is nice, this closeness, Patrick decides.
“I tend to be unforgettable,” Pete says suggestively, and Patrick smirks.
“If you say so.”
Pete stays like that for a while, his head on Patrick’s shoulder, playing idly with the hem of Patrick’s shirt. Patrick notices that hey, his heart’s beating a little faster than it normally does. That’s odd.
Pete sits up, and Patrick feels somewhat disappointed, which is more than a little disconcerting. He stares at Patrick, and Patrick can practically see the cogs in his head turning, he’s just not sure what he’s thinking about. And then Pete’s getting closer again, and just like the other day, Patrick thinks for a minute that Pete’s going to kiss him, except this time he actually does. Patrick’s too shocked to respond at first, but then Pete’s hand is on his face and his lips are moving, so Patrick’s eyes slide shut and he clumsily kisses back, and wow, now Patrick knows how Pete keeps those girls around.
It doesn’t last for too long, but by the time Pete pulls away, Patrick’s already red as a tomato. “I should, um-” Patrick gets up and walks backwards without looking, stumbling over Pete’s duffel bag on his way to the foot of the staircase.
Pete cringes. “Patrick, wait, I’m sorry!”
But Patrick is already halfway up the stairs, because he doesn’t want to hear Pete say, “Forget I did anything,” or even worse, “I didn’t mean it.”
[//]
That night, Patrick gets up at 3 AM to use the bathroom. He walks briskly through the hallway, his eyes only open in slits, sleep still tugging at his eyelids. He hardly notices anything on his way to the bathroom, but on the way back, he pauses as he approaches the basement door. Weird noises are coming from behind it, and it takes Patrick a while to remember that Pete’s down there.
Patrick stands there for a full minute, his sleep-hazed mind attempting to come to some sort of conclusion. Eventually, his curiosity gets the best of him, and he turns the knob and opens the door soundlessly. Once he’s on the stairs, the noise-whatever it is-gets louder, and more pronounced. Patrick feels fear creeping into his chest for some unknown reason, but ignores it because logic tells him to. It’s just Pete, after all.
Before long, Patrick’s standing next to the foldout bed. One of the curtain-less rectangular windows spills pale moonlight onto Pete’s sleeping figure, and Patrick holds his breath, just a little. Pete’s face is screwed up with discomfort or something akin to it, and his mouth is open just enough to let distinct groans of fear out.
Pete twists his upper body, shutting his eyes tighter. “No, I can’t,” he mutters, the words spilling from his mouth with minimal lip-movement. Pete turns his head again, and Patrick sees beads of sweat glistening on his forehead. “Stop, no, I won’t.” Pete claws at the sheets, and Patrick can hear the creaking of the old mattress under his panting and groaning.
Patrick is transfixed by the surprisingly grotesque scene before him, and it’s only five minutes later that he notices his hand is pressed tightly over his mouth in a gesture of horror. For a moment, he considers waking Pete up; it’d be easy, since Pete is such a light sleeper. Just a light touch to his shoulder or forehead is all it would take. But then Patrick remembers earlier, and he decides that no, he can’t face Pete, not yet.
So Patrick silently tiptoes back upstairs, leaving Pete to his nightmares.
[//]
Part II
In Secret Places
Pete/Patrick // R
~16,300 words // 100% made up
So this took many months and went through many revisions and needed many betas. A huuuuge thanks goes out to liesthatwebleed, musictoyourlips, and bombasticduck for the betaing and plot-help, and also karasaurusrex and puckinnichild for the additional critique. This crazy thing would have been even crazier (in the uncool nonsensical way) without your help. <333
IN SECRET PLACES
We do it in the dark
With smiles on our faces
We’re dropped and well concealed
In secret places
We don’t fight fair.
-"The Take Over, The Break's Over"
I.
It’s dark outside and Patrick can feel the cold biting the tips of his ears as he stares up at the top of the van in disbelief. Pete’s standing up there, and apparently he thinks it’s a good idea to climb the tree they’re parked under. Patrick knows it isn’t.
“Get down!” he hears himself shouting feebly as Pete jumps up and tries to grab hold of the lowest branch, the kind of smile on his face that only comes up when he’s doing something dangerous. Patrick sees this smile often.
“Hey! Pete, you’re gonna fall!” The van lurches every time Pete comes back down on it, and Patrick knows something bad is going to happen, he’s just not sure what.
“I’ll be fine, ‘Trick,” Pete insists, still jumping, his fingers grazing the branch but not coming up enough to grab onto it. Patrick vaguely thinks that this is all backwards, seeing as Pete is the one who’s twenty-three, five years older than Patrick, and really, shouldn’t he know better than an eighteen-year-old and not the other way around? Then again, Pete Wentz isn’t one to do what is expected of him.
Patrick pinches the bridge of his nose with his thumb and forefinger, unseating his glasses, as Pete makes yet another attempt to climb the tree. Patrick isn’t even sure why he’s doing this; he remembers Pete saying something about a good view, but they’re parked somewhere in the country so Joe and Andy can take a piss in a bush, and the only interesting thing Pete would see is them doing their business. Which, Patrick reasons, they’d both seen on several occasions, so even if Pete had a thing for watching his friends piss, he probably wouldn’t go out of his way to see it again. Up a tree is decidedly out of his way, so Patrick thinks Pete’s just fucking crazy, and that he enjoys being a danger to himself physically, as well as to Patrick mentally.
“Pete-” Patrick tries again, but he stops when he sees that Pete’s finally managed to wrap his fingers around the branch. He lets out a cry of triumph and Patrick sees his muscles straining as he tries to grab the branch with his other hand, so he can hoist himself up.
But then, a problem: Patrick can see the branch bending under Pete’s weight and Christ, he thinks, Pete weighs all of four pounds so the branch must be pretty flimsy. Patrick can see the startled expression creeping across Pete’s profile, and at the first cracking noise, Patrick knows disaster is imminent. It takes Pete a couple seconds to realize that the branch will soon be at such an extreme angle that he won’t be able to hold on. When he realizes, he starts kicking his feet in an attempt to get back on the van. This just makes the branch bend faster.
Patrick swears colorfully and rushes over, trying to grab Pete’s ankles and get him back on the van. The kicking isn’t helping. Patrick dodges Pete’s flailing legs a couple times before one of his feet connects with the side of Patrick’s head and he sees stars for a second.
When Pete falls, Patrick doesn’t register it. All he knows is that one second, he’s standing and looking up at Pete’s dangling legs, but the next, he has a throbbing pain in his shoulder, he’s on the ground, and he feels a weight on his leg.
“Augh!” Patrick turns his head and hey, Pete is what’s on his leg. “Fuck, my hand!”
Patrick winces, attempting movement. “Is that a request?”
[//]
When they get to the hospital and after Patrick fills out a stack of papers and waits next to a moaning Pete for a half hour, the nurse in triage makes him explain what happened. Thankfully, he had worked it out in his head on the ride.
“Well, he was trying to climb a tree,” Patrick says sheepishly, “and when he fell, he knocked into me, and the van. I think he landed on his hand.” The nurse clicks her tongue in disapproval and scribbles something on a clipboard while Pete cradles his injured hand and moans. Patrick feels a pang of sympathy, and against his better judgment, pats Pete’s leg with a comforting hand.
“Uh, do you know what it is? I mean, he plays the bass for our band and-”
“Sorry hon, I don’t know anything. He’s gonna need x-rays.”
Patrick rubs his eyes. “Right, sorry. And we’ll be in here for how long? Cause we have a show in-”
“It all depends on who else comes in here,” the nurse interrupts again. “A possibly broken finger is less dire than say, a severed finger.” Patrick cringes, and he wishes he hadn’t asked. The next time Pete makes a pained noise, Patrick just glares at him.
When Pete is finally called to an actual bed (after hours of sitting in the waiting room with a lot of unhappy-looking people and Joe, who was constantly whining about being hungry, and earning glares from people who quite clearly had bigger problems), the doctor inspects him briefly, and then takes him for an x-ray. When Patrick hears Pete has a broken finger, he shoots Pete a look so deadly that Pete actually looks scared because hello, you can’t play the bass if your fingers are broken, and that-the bass-playing-is the only reason Patrick tolerates Pete. Except, not really.
But the doctor keeps talking and oh, okay, it’s his pinky on his right hand. Playing will be a little awkward with the splint, but he’ll manage, and Christ, if it had been his left hand Patrick would have throttled him.
When they get back to the van, Patrick takes the wheel with his lips pressed in a thin line, saying nothing as Joe plays with Pete’s splint and they laugh about how hard it will be to do things for a while.
“You’re gonna wake up with it stuck to your face, I swear,” Joe says with a giggle.
Pete laughs appreciatively, then stops. “Oh God. Jerking off is gonna be so weird.” Patrick hears fresh bursts of laughter from the back seat and tries to simultaneously fight off a blush and get that image out of his head (the latter doesn’t make the former any easier). He puts the keys into the ignition and turns as Andy opens the door and climbs into the passenger’s seat. Patrick glances at the clock on the dashboard and is so glad that they had been ahead of schedule, because if they hadn’t been, the hours at the hospital would have definitely forced them to cancel their next gig. And they really need the money.
At this point, Pete seems to notice that Patrick doesn’t appear too amused. He gets up and stoops forward, sticking his head between Patrick and Andy, putting his right hand on Patrick’s shoulder. Patrick sees the lights outside the hospital glint in the metal of the splint on Pete’s pinky.
“We’re okay, ‘Trick,” Pete assures him, squeezing his shoulder slightly. Patrick grips the steering wheel too tightly. “Hey now, I’m sorry.”
“S’okay,” Patrick says quietly, even though, what, no.
Patrick sees Pete smiling at him through the rear-view mirror, and fuck, if anybody can make things better just by smiling, it’s Pete.
But then it’s gone, and Patrick remembers his anger, and he shifts into reverse a little too aggressively as Pete sits back next to Joe.
The only sounds for the next ten minutes are those of Pete and Joe’s muttered conversation, and the odd high-pitched giggle when one of them makes the other laugh. Patrick wonders if they’re making fun of him, but then he realizes he’s being paranoid, and Pete wouldn’t do that because of the whole Best Friends Thing.
After a while, Andy seems to notice that Patrick is tense or angry or some combination of the two and touches his shoulder lightly.
“Come on, man,” he says, and it’s so like Andy to try to fix what Pete’s messed up. “He didn’t do it on purpose.”
“I know, I was there,” Patrick reminds him.
“Yeah. And well, you know Pete.”
“Unfortunately.” He wants it to sound scathing, but it comes out feeble because he doesn’t mean it.
Andy snorts. “Yeah, well, like I said, he didn’t mean to. Kid’s fucking crazy. Thinks he’s invincible or something.”
Patrick nods silently and keeps on driving.
II.
The sun is low in the sky when Pete makes the worst decision of his life.
It isn’t a very glaring mistake-in fact, it is a perfectly ordinary thing to do, walking into a gas station convenience store with Patrick while Andy and Joe refill the van’s tank. They just want a few bags of chips and maybe a couple magazines for the road, seeing as their next venue is still at least three hours away and they don’t want to stop for a proper meal.
So really, Pete can be blamed for the events that follow this initial one, but not the initial one itself. He is not looking for mischief as he opens the door and walks into the air-conditioned shop, and he doesn’t have that impish smirk on his face as he sticks his hands in his pockets and strolls casually towards the snack aisle. Patrick can attest to this, as he always pays rapt attention to Pete’s expressions, devious or otherwise. The two of them chat in an undertone as Pete thoughtfully considers the different bags of food, trying to decide which ones to buy. Patrick doesn’t really understand what the big decision is, because all of them are equally unhealthy, and they’d all taste the same in the back of the van when there was nothing to do but eat.
Just as Pete seems to have made a choice, Patrick hears the ringing that announces the entry or departure of a customer, and peers over the shelves to see if it’s Andy or Joe, coming to make a request or just to irritate them. He quickly realizes this isn’t the case when he sees that the new arrival is pulling a ski mask over his face.
Fear instantly grips Patrick’s chest, and he taps Pete urgently on the shoulder.
“What, what is it?” Pete mutters irritably, following Patrick’s gaze to the front of the shop. “Oh. Oh, shit.” Pete drops what he is holding and makes to walk to the front of the store.
Patrick can’t believe what he is seeing, and immediately grabs the back of Pete’s shirt to hold him back. “What are you doing?” Patrick hisses. “Stay down, for God’s sake.”
Pete freezes for a moment and watches the scene unfold: the man with the mask walks up to the counter and demands that the cashier hand over the money in the cash register. When she refuses, the man pulls out a gun and points it directly between her eyes. Patrick squeezes his eyes shut, as if doing so will make the man disappear. When he opens them, he sees Pete continuing to walk towards the front of the store.
“Pete, stop!” Patrick says, as quietly as he can, once again grabbing Pete’s shirt.
“It’s probably not loaded, ‘Trick. I’m gonna take him by surprise.” Pete swats at Patrick’s hand until he lets go, and then continues to stroll up to the front of the shop.
Patrick swears under his breath. Pete’s just the type to suddenly take on the role of vigilante. Patrick is so terrified that he wants nothing more than to fall asleep, right there in the middle of the snack aisle of a convenience store somewhere in the suburbs of Colorado.
The cashier is now emptying the drawer of the register into a bag held out by the robber’s left hand. His right hand still has the gun trained on the cashier. Pete is only about twelve feet away from him, and as far as Patrick can tell, the robber hadn’t noticed him yet. Patrick wishes he were braver, because if that were the case, he would have already run forward and grabbed Pete, forcing him to stay still. Patrick doesn’t know why he always manages to hang out with the biggest idiots on the face of the planet, but ever since his eighth grade best friend climbed the school’s flagpole, fell down, and broke his leg, Patrick had come to accept it.
Pete is now within touching distance of the robber, and just as he’s about to do something-what, Patrick doesn’t know-the cashier looks right at him with a puzzled expression on her face. The robber instantly whips around, points the gun at Pete’s chest, and fires.
Patrick clenches his eyes shut and wishes with all his might that what he saw did not really happen; that Pete would be okay and it was just a trick of the light. But even as he thinks it, Patrick knows it’s impossible, and he feels dread and sadness begin to spill into his stomach, cold like icy water but thick like molasses.
Patrick opens his eyes, and sees it all in slow motion-the look of surprise on Pete’s face, the stumble backwards, and then the fall. As Pete crumples to the floor, crazed half-thoughts fly through Patrick’s head. Eighteen is too young to have a dead best friend, even if said best friend is five years older than him. Somewhere among Patrick’s frantic thoughts, it even crosses his mind that Pete was wrong, and the gun was loaded. Of all the things to be wrong about.
Patrick rushes forward, and he vaguely registers the sound of an alarm going off; apparently, among the chaos, the cashier had managed to hit it. The robber looks almost comically shocked at what he did; instead of running away from the scene, he stands there with the arm holding the gun hanging limp beside him, staring wide-eyed at Pete on the floor. Patrick finally reaches Pete and drops to the floor beside him, feeling whatever hope he has left fizzling out when he sees that the rip in Pete’s shirt is right over his heart.
But for some reason, there is no blood creeping across the material of Pete’s clothes. There is just a hole in them, and beyond that, Patrick sees skin. Shocked, and in disbelief, Patrick raises his eyes to Pete’s face.
Pete doesn’t look dead. In fact, he is staring down at the hole in his shirt and blinking rapidly, his lips parted slightly and his brow furrowed. He raises one of his hands to his chest and touches it, feeling no wetness from blood, and apparently no pain.
“What the fuck?” Pete mutters, more to himself than anyone else. “Why am I not bleeding?”
At this moment, the robber seems to come to his senses; before anyone can do anything to stop him, he is out the door, and Patrick hears the sound of screeching tires as his getaway driver floors it.
Pete looks at Patrick, confusion apparent on his face. They stare at each other for a long time before either of them says anything. “Uh,” Patrick starts, “so it… it doesn’t hurt?” Pete shakes his head. “And… you’re not dead.”
“I don’t think so,” Pete says, actually looking thoughtful.
The woman who had been behind the counter is now hovering a few feet behind them, looking as perplexed as Patrick feels. “What just happened?” she asks.
“I don’t know,” Pete says. “Uh. Maybe he missed?”
Before she can answer, the door bursts open and two police officers rush in, their guns drawn. When their eyes find Pete on the floor, one of them curses. “What happened, is he alright?”
“Yeah,” Patrick says, sounding mystified. “Yeah, he is.”
“Are you sure?” the officer asks, peering at them suspiciously.
“I guess so,” Patrick says.
The cop nods, then walks over to the cashier to question her.
“Let’s get out of here,” Pete says, getting to his feet and straightening his shirt. As he does so, they hear a metallic clang, and then look down at the floor to see what fell. To both of their surprise, a single bullet has fallen to the floor, and is now resting next to Pete’s foot, spinning back and forth.
Patrick stares at it, and then looks back at Pete. “Yeah, okay,” he says, standing up shakily.
Once they’re outside, Patrick stops Pete before he can walk back to the van. “Wait. Lift up your shirt.” Pete raises an eyebrow. “Fuck off, I just want to see… well, you know. What happened back there was not normal.”
Pete shrugs and does as Patrick says, revealing his unblemished chest. Patrick stares at it in disbelief for a full ten seconds before Pete gets fidgety and makes to pull his shirt back down. Patrick grabs his wrist to stop him and leans down, so his face is right in front of the place the bullet should have entered Pete’s body. Patrick lifts a hand and runs it over the smooth skin, feeling absolutely nothing out of the ordinary.
Pete jerks away and pulls his shirt down. “Nothing there?”
“Nothing,” Patrick confirms softly, taking a step away and looking at Pete’s face.
Pete pokes his finger through the hole in his shirt. “Crazy shit, man,” he mutters.
“Are you sure you’re okay? I mean, should we take you to the hospital or something?” Patrick looks at Pete’s finger with the splint and cringes, remembering the hours in the emergency room two weeks ago.
Pete shakes his head. “They’ll think we’re crazy. What would you think if a kid burst into the emergency room, claiming to be shot but with no injury?”
“You have a point,” Patrick admits, turning around and walking back to the van.
When they get there, Andy and Joe bombard them with questions. Apparently, they’d heard the gunshot and saw the police rushing into the store. Pete brushes them off by saying that the guy missed, and they’re back on the road in ten minutes.
[//]
A few days later, they’re driving through a small town in the van when Pete suddenly pulls over to the side of the road, next to a small strip of shops.
“We’re not there yet,” Andy informs him coolly, sitting up straighter and peering at Pete over his glasses.
“I know, man, it’ll just be a minute,” Pete says, yanking on the emergency break and pulling the keys out of the ignition. Patrick shoots him a questioning look, but Pete doesn’t offer any explanation. Instead, he slams the door shut behind him and walks briskly down the block, stopping in front of an old dusty shop with the word “comics” printed on the awning in all capitals.
Patrick, Andy, and Joe just look at each other, none of them speaking. Pete doesn’t come back for a full twenty minutes, during which Joe gets very restless and Patrick gets very annoyed. Finally, Pete comes back, holding nothing but a small paper bag and his car keys.
[//]
“Patrick.”
He’s having a dream. It’s mostly colors and touches and sounds and it doesn’t make much sense, but Patrick likes where he is, and he doesn’t want to leave. He feels softness brushing against his skin, and he senses more than sees someone grinning at him, and he thinks that it’s Pete.
“Patrick.”
Patrick knows he’s dreaming, and he knows that someone is trying to wake him, but he doesn’t really care. He doesn’t want it to be morning, because he’s going to have to drive, and he’s much more content just keeping his eyes closed.
“Patrick!” It’s a hiss, and it sounds urgent, and Patrick is wrenched away from his warm, bright, safe place.
He blinks his eyes a couple times, and instantly gets mad because what the fuck, it’s still dark out, and he’s sure he has at least another hour before it’s his turn to drive. When his eyes adjust to the dark, he sees Pete leaning over him, an unreadable expression on his face.
“Pete.” It’s not a question, because Patrick knows it’s him. “What do you want?” Patrick sits up and rubs at the crick in his neck that was caused by the guitar case he was using in lieu of a pillow.
Pete shifts over and sits down next to Patrick. They can hear Joe snoring from the passenger’s seat, and Andy drumming his fingers against the steering wheel as he drives them to their next destination. Pete looks weary, as if he had been trying to sleep for a long time, but gave up. He leans in close, conspiratorially, and whispers in Patrick’s ear. “I think I’m invincible.”
Patrick snorts and thinks, this is why he woke me up. What an idiot. “Yeah, you’ve thought that for a while now.”
Pete shakes his head, frustrated. “No, no. Like, I’m actually invincible. I should be dead. I got shot, but nothing happened. I can’t get hurt, and I can’t die.”
Patrick really laughs this time. “Yeah, okay. Did someone spike your Mountain Dew or something? Because this is crazy, even for you.”
Pete looks indignant. “But-”
“Go to sleep, Pete,” Patrick says, trying to lie on his side and shoving Pete out of his way with his foot. Pete won’t budge.
“Paaatrick,” Pete moans, prodding him in the stomach with a finger. “Let me prove it to you. I can, I swear.”
Patrick sits up again and rubs his eyes. “What the hell, go ahead.”
Pete smiles. “My finger. The one I broke two weeks ago? It’s better.”
“What are you talking about?”
Pete holds up his right hand. The splint is gone.
“You idiot,” Patrick hisses. “It’s going to take forever to heal if you don’t wear the splint!”
“It’s healed!” Pete insists. He bends it, and sure enough, he has a full range of motion, and he’s not wincing in pain.
Patrick stares. “But that’s impossible,” he says. “Breaks take at least six weeks to heal, and it’s only been two. I saw the x-rays, dude. That was a nasty break.”
“I know,” Pete says, sounding a mix between scared and excited. “I told you. I’m invincible.”
“You’re full of shit is what you are,” Patrick says.
“Hey now, come on. You need more proof?” Pete picks up his leg and rolls up his pants to the knee. “Remember last night, I fell on stage and scraped my shin? Look.”
Patrick looks. There’s nothing there; his leg is smooth as it was before he fell. “It was your other leg,” Patrick insists. There’s no way it disappeared overnight.
Pete shakes his head, but rolls up the other side anyway. Still, nothing there. If this is a joke, it’s a very elaborate one.
“You still don’t believe me?” Pete says.
Patrick is silent.
“Come on, ‘Trick. What happened at that store the other day? It makes sense now. That guy didn’t miss. I felt the bullet hit me.” Pete absently puts his hand over his chest, where the bullet struck.
“And here, look.” Pete lifts up his shirt a little, and points at his stomach. “Explain that. My belly button is gone.”
“What?” Patrick says, leaning forward. Sure enough, Pete’s stomach is smooth; there’s no dip where his belly button should be, where it was the day before, and what the fuck? “How does that tie in with the rest of this?”
“Lemme show you.” Pete turns around and starts moving, apparently searching for something. A moment later he turns back and hands Patrick a comic book. “Look,” he says, turning the first few pages and pointing. Patrick sees the image of a surprised-looking woman peering down at her abdomen, which is conspicuously navel-less. “I read through this comic, and it’s about what’s happening to me.”
“You’re looking to a comic book to explain this? Pete, you’re insane.”
Pete shakes his head. “What else could I possibly look in? A textbook? This makes sense though, ‘Trick. According to this comic, navels are the ultimate mark of mortality. If you don’t have one, you were never born, and if you were never born, you can’t die.”
Patrick considers this. It doesn’t make much sense, but nothing does right now. “Pete, this is crazy.” He hands the comic back to Pete, and Pete tucks it away.
“I know,” he says, nodding. “But it gets crazier.” He reaches into his pocket and pulls out a straight razor, and Patrick jumps.
“What the fuck? Be careful with that, man!”
“Hush, Stumpy,” Pete says, covering Patrick’s mouth with the hand not holding the razor.
“Where did you get that?” Patrick mumbles through Pete’s hand.
“Doesn’t matter. Watch.” Pete uncovers Patrick’s mouth and holds out his arm, pressing the razor to it.
“Pete, stop it!” Patrick hisses.
“Shush.” He drags the razor across the skin of his left arm, leaving a trail of blood behind. He winces slightly, but then pulls away and holds his arm in front of Patrick’s face.
“You’re crazy. There’s blood, Pete, you’re not invincible.”
“Wait.” Sure enough, right before Patrick’s eyes, the blood is reabsorbed back into Pete’s skin, disappearing as if it were evaporating very quickly, leaving nothing behind. After ten seconds, there isn’t even a scratch on Pete’s arm.
“Goddamn,” Patrick murmurs, touching Pete’s arm and feeling nothing but smooth skin.
“Yeah,” Pete says.
“And it didn’t even hurt?” Patrick asks.
“No. Well, not exactly.” Pete pauses, and rubs his arm absently, his fingers running over the place where he had cut himself. “It’s weird. Like, it doesn’t hurt, but it’s… unpleasant. Like a zipper opening on my arm.”
Patrick winces. “How did it feel when you… when you were shot?”
Pete frowns. “It felt like getting poked really hard. But it didn’t hurt. I just felt pressure, and I was uncomfortable for a second.”
They were both quiet for a while, just looking at one another. “Nobody’s going to believe you, Pete.”
“I know. That’s why we’re not telling anybody.”
III.
Things are pretty normal for a while; Andy and Joe are the only people Pete tells about his situation, and even when he proves it to them, they’re still pretty skeptical. After all, it’s quite a fantastic story; just the kind of thing Pete would love to make up. The four of them manage to successfully forget about it, except on the odd occasion that something happens that should injure Pete, but miraculously doesn’t. A week after Pete’s discovery, Joe drops an amp on his foot, and right when Patrick starts having visions of emergency rooms and broken toes, Pete just picks up the amp and keeps walking. It’s something to get used to, but as far as Patrick can tell, it’s not a bad thing, per se.
Well, it isn’t a bad thing until people start hearing about it. Pete manages to conceal his extraordinary abilities for all of three weeks until something happens to expose him for what he is. They’re playing a gig in a small bar in Nebraska, and after their set, Pete sits at the bar and drinks a soda. Patrick sits next to him, eyeing the other patrons warily, wondering if it’s safe to be there among so many drunken people. Pete’s cheery, as he usually is after a show, but he’s thankfully keeping to himself for the most part.
Patrick sees a middle-aged man with a potbelly coming up behind Pete, sitting next to him, ordering a beer. He recognizes the guy; during their set, he was standing on Pete’s side of the stage and sneering, obviously disapproving of something (or everything?) about him. Patrick taps Pete’s shoulder to warn him, but when Pete sees what Patrick’s alarmed about, he laughs and brushes him off.
The guy seems to be keeping to himself, and that’s good. Patrick was certain that the guy was going to pick a fight, but all he’s doing so far is drinking his beer and shooting Pete the odd dirty look. That is, until Pete puts his arm around Patrick and kisses his neck, which is normal for Pete, but not for Nebraska, and Patrick can see the guy getting more agitated.
It happens pretty quickly; the guy calls Pete a fag, Pete turns around and calls him a redneck slob, and the guy throws a drunken punch right at Pete’s face. Pete ducks, but it’s too late, and he falls over, cracks his head on the floor, and the bar goes silent. Patrick can still hear the sound of Pete’s head hitting the floor ringing in his ears, and he doesn’t know what would be worse: if Pete is hurt, or if he isn’t.
Sure enough, barely five seconds later, Pete sits up, perfectly fine, gets to his feet, and shoves the guy. The guy crashes into the bar, more because he’s alarmed than because Pete pushed him, and turns around to leave, his beer only half-empty.
The entire bar seems to be staring at Pete.
The bartender is the first to say something. “Are you alright there, son? That was a nasty fall you took.” His voice is slow and paced, but his eyes are wide.
“Yeah, I’m fine,” Pete says, and Patrick winces. He could at least fake an injury. The other people in the bar are gawking at him, because many of them had seen that punch, and it probably would have broken a normal person’s nose. They are quickly beginning to suspect that Pete isn’t a normal person.
IV.
That was just the first incident. After that, there is a general buzz following the band wherever they go, and people seem keen on picking fights with Pete. It isn’t terribly obvious; Patrick orders Pete to not allow himself to be provoked into violence, and Pete mostly obeys his wishes because yeah, he can see how this could be bad. But slowly, people are getting more and more suspicious.
In Iowa, Joe plays a show drunk, and winds up smacking Pete across the face with his guitar while he’s spinning. The audience gasps, but Pete just stumbles backwards and keeps playing, appearing a little annoyed but generally unfazed. No blood runs down his face, his pupils don’t dilate, and he certainly doesn’t pass out. They saw the way the guitar hit him, and it just doesn’t make sense that he isn’t hurt.
Then, a couple towns over, he stage-dives and the audience moves out of the way. He lands on the floor, his leg crumpled under him, but he just gets up and jumps back onto the stage. More and more people start tripping him as he walks by, trying to provoke him, and even throwing random punches at him, until their reputation precedes them and they don’t even have to do anything odd on stage before people start trying to hurt Pete.
But Patrick still wouldn’t classify things as “out of control.” It’s not dangerous, and people are still paying attention to their music, and nobody important has gotten hurt. But then, she happens.
They’re back in Illinois, staying for about a week and playing shows here and there before taking a little break and going back on the road. When they’re packing their gear back into the van after the first show, they hear a girl scream, and Pete takes off in the direction it came from. Patrick curses, throws his guitar into the trunk, and runs after him because this can’t be good. Sure enough, he rounds a corner and he sees Pete shoved up against a wall by a guy with a switchblade, and it’s held to his neck, and fuck, Pete is laughing.
“You think it’s funny, you fag?” the guy with the knife is saying, his teeth clenched. “I will cut you. I will.”
Patrick can’t breathe. He knows in the back of his mind that this guy can’t hurt Pete (even if he wants to), but there’s something about seeing your best friend with a knife pressed to his neck that just doesn’t sit well.
Pete keeps smiling, and the guy pulls the knife from his neck and pointedly jabs it at his chest, dragging it across his shirt. Patrick cringes and clamps his eyes shut, but the only noise he hears is the ripping of Pete’s shirt.
“What the-”
When Patrick opens his eyes, he sees that the guy has backed away from Pete, and he’s staring perplexedly at his knife, which is becoming less bloody before his eyes. Pete’s still smiling.
“How did you-”
Pete snatches the knife away from him and the guy bolts, shoving past Patrick on his way.
”Are… are you alright?” The voice is breathless and feminine. Patrick notices the girl for the first time; apparently it was she who had screamed, drawing Pete’s attention. She’s about Pete’s height, perhaps a little shorter, and she’s wearing all black. Her hair is dark and curly, and Patrick instantly thinks that she’s pretty, a thought that he will resent later.
“Yeah, I’m fine,” Pete says nonchalantly, his smile never faltering.
“Holy shit, how did you-” The girl stops and bites her lip, looking from Pete’s face to his ripped t-shirt.
“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you,” Pete says, and Patrick recognizes that look on his face.
“Well, um. Thank you,” the girl says, reaching out tentatively to touch Pete’s arm.
“Hey, all in a day’s work.” Pete smiles at her, and Patrick has to walk away.
[//]
Pete doesn’t come back to the van that night. Patrick and Andy and Joe spend the night curled up on themselves, all cramped and uncomfortable, and all Patrick can think about is the fact that Pete is most likely in a real bed, getting laid. This is enough to make Patrick resent both Pete and the girl he went off with, but Pete was never satisfied with “enough.” The next morning, Patrick gets a call from Pete on his cell, and he tells them to meet up with him at a nearby diner.
When they get there, the first thing Patrick notices is that he brought her with him. Patrick sits down across from her, eyeing her warily, and then glares at Pete, who has his arm around her.
“Guys, this is Samantha.” Pete has a shit-eating grin on his face, and yeah, he definitely got laid last night.
They all introduce themselves to her, and she nods and smiles at them. She really is pretty, but close-up Patrick can pick her apart and focus on her flaws, which makes this whole ordeal much more tolerable. He sees that her eyes are a little too far apart, and that her bottom lip is much bigger than her top lip, and that her forehead is rather large, and he almost misses her asking him what he does in the band. He doesn’t really know why she cares, seeing as all of her focus is quite plainly on Pete, but he answers her anyway.
“Oh,” she says, still smiling. “That’s right, I remember you. You’ve got a great voice, man.” Patrick smiles grudgingly, refusing to be flattered by her compliment. He doesn’t like her, but he doesn’t really have a very good reason not to. Sure, she’s a little obnoxious and overly enthusiastic with just a hint of fake, but Pete’s dated (and slept with) a lot worse.
And she doesn’t go away. Patrick figures she’s a one-night stand at first, and that maybe Pete just brought her for breakfast as a sort of peace offering before he takes off without a trace. But no, she’s at their next show too, and Pete starts showing off for her. He’s being reckless; more reckless than usual, and anybody with a pair of eyes can see that something not quite right is going on. He’s jumping off amps, landing on his knees, falling over, and generally not taking care to not get hurt. Apparently, Samantha is drawn to his recklessness, because Patrick sees her eyes light up whenever he does something like this.
“Pete, people are going to start talking,” Patrick says to him quietly the next day after the show, when Samantha is in the bathroom.
Pete purses his lips and frowns as he heaves a bag of equipment into the trunk of the van. “People are already talking,” he says finally. “And besides, since when is that a bad thing? We could use the publicity, ‘Trick.”
Patrick sighs. “But this could get dangerous. You can’t tell me you haven’t noticed that people are taking shots at you, just to see what’ll happen.”
“No, I noticed,” Pete says. “But how is that dangerous? I can’t get hurt, and I can’t die.”
“I don’t know! It just is,” Patrick says feebly, getting frustrated. The things Pete is saying make sense, but Patrick just doesn’t feel good about this whole thing, and he wants it to stop. He wants Pete to be mortal like the rest of them, even if it means more trips to the emergency room.
“That’s not a very good argument,” Pete retorts, slamming the trunk closed once the last bag is in. “Hey, I didn’t ask for this. It just happened, and I think it’d suck to not take advantage of it.”
“But that’s just it,” Patrick says, smiling through his frustration. “You’re taking advantage of it. Who’s to say that it won’t just stop, as suddenly as it started?”
Pete turns to Patrick and smiles at him wryly. “Don’t worry about me, okay?” His face moves closer, and his hand cups Patrick’s cheek, and for a wild moment, Patrick thinks he’s going to actually kiss him. But then Pete lets go, his fingers brushing Patrick’s face lightly as his hand drops, and Patrick feels cheated.
“Okay,” Patrick says once he regains his breath. “But… I’m sorry, but this can’t just happen without any consequences. Don’t you watch movies?”
Pete smiles. “Sure I do. But everything always works out alright at the end. And we’ll cross that bridge when we get there, together.”
Pete spots Samantha over Patrick’s shoulder and waves at her, and Patrick knows that their conversation is over.
[//]
That night, Patrick dreams. He’s lying on his back and he’s not wearing his hat; his hair is fanned out around his head, and his glasses are conspicuously absent. But for some reason, the world is clear-clearer than it normally is, even with his glasses on.
And Pete, Pete’s there too. Pete is straddling his body, sitting on his stomach, and his face is only inches away from Patrick’s. Something in Patrick’s stomach flips over, and he thinks that he likes the feeling.
Pete leans down even further, so his mouth is next to Patrick’s ear, and starts whispering. Patrick’s eyes flutter shut so he can better enjoy the feeling of Pete’s breath tickling his skin, so he can sink into the cadence of Pete’s voice and romance all the cracks and slip-ups and pauses for breath.
“You get what anyone gets,” Pete is saying, quiet like a secret, and it takes Patrick a moment to realize what he’s talking about.
“You get a lifetime,” Patrick replies, completing the quote.
Pete smiles. “You’re a smart one, Patrick Stump.”
Their noses are less than an inch apart, and Patrick thinks that if he were to just tilt his head a little bit, move his chin up, his lips would brush against Pete’s. He knows it’s a bad idea, but the urge is taking over his mind, clouding his judgment, and he knows that he’ll never get an opportunity like this again. He wants to taste Pete, just once.
Pete moves his head down and their noses brush, and that’s it. Patrick tilts his head back and pulls Pete towards him, and their lips meet messily; it’s just a wet brush across, but it sends sparks through Patrick’s whole body; little tingles and hot pricks, across synapses and encompassing him completely.
Patrick wakes with a start, his heart pounding and his palms sweaty. Pete’s head is on his shoulder, and still caught up in the atmosphere of his dream, Patrick wonders what would happen if he were to kiss him, right then. When Patrick finishes waking up, the thought startles him.
Patrick falls back asleep, and when he wakes up again, he forgets.
V.
Pete isn’t heeding Patrick’s warning, and that much becomes very obvious over the next couple days. When they’re hanging out in the bars before or after their set, Pete will start looking for fights, but not in the traditional sense. He’ll wait until he sees two guys getting into something, then he’ll jump right in the middle and start taking punches from the bigger of the two. He’ll retaliate, but barely; he doesn’t need to, since the guys usually get frustrated after they see that Pete won’t stay down. Apparently, he gets a kick out of it. And he always makes sure Samantha is watching.
Basically, Patrick is convinced that what’s going on is the calm before the storm. He somehow knows that Pete is not going to get away with this. So when Pete sits down next to him at the bar before their second-to-last show with a troubled look on his face, Patrick is sure that he’s finally getting his comeuppance.
“What’s with you?” he asks, coolly taking a sip of water.
Pete appears startled, as if he didn’t realize he had sat next to Patrick. “Nah, nothing really. I’m just a little worried because my mom hasn’t been answering my emails.”
“Huh,” Patrick says, not sure what to make of this.
“And like, I’m sure she remembers that I’m coming home on Tuesday, but I just wanted to touch base, you know? She hasn’t called me in a while.”
“She hasn’t?” Now Patrick’s a little worried, because he knows Mrs. Wentz, and he knows that she likes talking to Pete regularly while he’s on the road.
“No, she hasn’t.” Pete chews on his lip.
“Well you should call her, man. Make sure that nothing’s up.”
“Yeah,” Pete says.
And the next day, he does. They’re sitting at another diner for breakfast (Samantha’s not with them today, and for that Patrick is thankful), and he excuses himself to use the pay phone because none of them have reception in this part of the state. Patrick’s facing the back of the restaurant, and he watches Pete approach the phone while Joe launches pieces of breakfast sausage at Andy (“You know you want some!”), who ducks and swears at him. Patrick sees Pete dialing the phone, and keeps watching as he holds it between his ear and his shoulder so he can put his wallet away. He smiles (apparently because his mom picked up) and says something into the receiver. The smile fades rapidly as he listens for the response, and quickly turns into a frown. He says something else, more quickly this time, and gestures with his hands even though she obviously can’t see him. Patrick sees Pete’s mouth form the word “wait!” right before he hangs up, and he stares perplexedly at the phone before turning around and walking back to their table.
Pete ignores the flying sausages as he sits down next to Andy, looking numb. Joe drops his fork with a clatter. “What happened?”
Pete shakes his head and rubs his eyes with his thumb and forefinger. “I have no idea.”
Patrick sits up straight and sets down his coffee mug. “No really, what happened?”
“My mom. She didn’t know who I was.” Pete laughs in disbelief.
“No way,” Joe says.
“What?” Andy stops trying to fish the sausage crumbs out of his hair so he can stare at Pete.
“Guys, I don’t know. She picked up the phone, and she didn’t recognize my voice, so I told her who I was, and she…” Pete’s voice trails off. He looks visibly shaken, and for good reason, Patrick thinks.
“I don’t know what’s going on,” Pete says, the disbelieving smile firmly in place.
“Do you think she was joking?” Patrick says.
“No,” Pete answers, shaking his head. “She wouldn’t do that. She was acting like she’d never seen or talked to me in her life.”
“Did you talk to your dad?” Andy asks.
“I asked for him, but she wouldn’t put him on. She was talking to me like I was a crazy person.”
All four of them are quiet as Pete stares down into his coffee and stirs morosely. Andy and Joe exchange looks. Patrick thinks he knows exactly what’s going on.
If you don’t have a navel, you weren’t born. If you weren’t born, you can’t die.
[//]
The tour ends, and they’re back in Chicago for a week. They’re all staying at their respective houses, and Patrick is looking forward to the week of normalcy before they’re back on the road. Two hours after Pete drops Patrick at his house, Pete shows up on his doorstep with the van parked across the street. He’s holding a duffel bag.
“Can I stay with you?” he asks before Patrick can even say hello.
“What? Why? Yes,” Patrick says, not really pausing to draw breath.
Pete gives him a one-armed hug and walks past him to put his stuff on the coffee table. Mrs. Stump walks into the room and says hello to Pete, a wide smile on her face. Patrick knows his mom really likes Pete; he’s a real charmer when it comes to parents, especially mothers.
“Are you going to be staying here with Patrick?” Mrs. Stump asks after she releases Pete from a hug.
“If that’s alright with you, Ma’am. My parents went on vacation without telling me, so I don’t exactly have anywhere to stay.”
“Oh, don’t worry about it,” Patrick’s mom says. “Of course it’s alright. You can take your things down to the basement, and Patrick will help you set up the pullout sofa.”
Pete thanks her and picks up his duffel bag, giving Patrick a grim look once she leaves the room. In turn, Patrick shoots him a puzzled expression, and Pete jerks his head in the direction of the basement, meaning that they’ll talk when they get downstairs. Patrick’s used to having silent conversations with Pete; he knows they’re on the same frequency, and it’s gotten to the point where sometimes they don’t need words.
Once they’re in the basement, Pete drops his duffel bag next to the sofa with a groan, while Patrick starts pulling the cushions off the pullout sofa. “What’s going on?” he demands, setting the first cushion down next to Pete’s duffel bag.
“My parents have no idea who I am,” Pete hisses in an undertone, sitting on the floor and holding his head in his hands.
“You can’t be serious,” Patrick says, but he already believes it.
“Oh, but I am,” Pete answers, releasing his head and tilting it back so it clunks against the wall. “I rang my doorbell and my dad answered, and he asked me who I was. I tried to tell him, and he thought I was crazy, and he started yelling, and my mom came running… it was a mess. Then Andrew appeared out of nowhere and he looked so freaked out… and yeah, complete nightmare. So I basically ran away before they could call the cops on me.”
Patrick doesn’t know what to say to that, so he remains silent for a while. “Crazy shit,” he says finally, shaking his head.
“You’re telling me!” Pete exclaims.
“What happened after that? Why did it take you two hours?”
“Oh, that’s the good part,” Pete says with an ironic laugh. “After I ran away from my own family, I got back in the van and drove around a while, trying to figure out what the fuck to do. I wanted to get some shit from my room because I have virtually no clean clothes right now, and yeah. I wanted to see what became of my stuff. So… and this is where it gets good,” Pete assures him, “I parked the van around the block, and sneaked into my yard from my neighbors’. Apparently, they still remember me… I rang the doorbell and said hello and everything. So I went into their yard, saying I was gonna play with their dog, and then I climbed over the fence and over to my garage. I got a ladder, and broke into my own room.”
Patrick raises his eyebrows.
“Yeah. The window was open so it didn’t make too much noise. So I climbed in, and at first sight, it looked like I never lived there. It was so clean. Cleaner than I’d ever seen it. But I opened the drawers and all my stuff was still there, so I shoved some of it into that bag,” Pete pointed at the duffel bag, “and just as I was climbing back out the window, my sister walked in and screamed, and I practically fell down the ladder and ran all the way back to the van. It was fucking scary, man. The cops are probably after me.”
“So you came here,” Patrick says with mock-annoyance.
Pete looks scared for a minute. “But-”
Patrick smiles. “I’m kidding, man. You’re always welcome here. Besides, you had a pretty rough day, yeah?” Pete nods. “Let me make your bed.”
Patrick goes over to the closet and pulls out sheets and a pillow, and then walks back to the pullout and starts putting the sheets on. Pete watches him quietly, chewing on his bottom lip.
“I think this has something to do with me… you know. Being invincible or whatever.”
Patrick pauses. “You think?” he says sarcastically.
“Hey now, I can’t be expected to draw logical conclusions in a timely fashion when I’ve just been chased out of my own house.”
“You do have a point.” Patrick tucks the last corner of the fitted sheet, and then shakes out the next one. “So, Superman, what do you plan to do next?”
Pete smiles at the new nickname, then shrugs. “Well, I don’t know how this started, so how am I supposed to know how to stop it?”
Patrick snorts. “Now you want to stop it.”
“Well yeah, “ Pete says. “Being kicked around without getting hurt is fun and all, but I want my parents back, dude.”
Patrick smoothes the sheet. “Understandable.”
Pete gets to his feet. “Yeah.” He bends over and picks up the pillow, then the pillowcase, and starts to put it on. They’re quiet for a while, finishing making Pete’s bed. When they’re finished, they both sit down, and Pete rests his head on Patrick’s shoulder. “I’m glad you still remember me, ‘Trick.”
“Couldn’t forget if I tried,” Patrick murmurs, putting an arm around Pete. This is nice, this closeness, Patrick decides.
“I tend to be unforgettable,” Pete says suggestively, and Patrick smirks.
“If you say so.”
Pete stays like that for a while, his head on Patrick’s shoulder, playing idly with the hem of Patrick’s shirt. Patrick notices that hey, his heart’s beating a little faster than it normally does. That’s odd.
Pete sits up, and Patrick feels somewhat disappointed, which is more than a little disconcerting. He stares at Patrick, and Patrick can practically see the cogs in his head turning, he’s just not sure what he’s thinking about. And then Pete’s getting closer again, and just like the other day, Patrick thinks for a minute that Pete’s going to kiss him, except this time he actually does. Patrick’s too shocked to respond at first, but then Pete’s hand is on his face and his lips are moving, so Patrick’s eyes slide shut and he clumsily kisses back, and wow, now Patrick knows how Pete keeps those girls around.
It doesn’t last for too long, but by the time Pete pulls away, Patrick’s already red as a tomato. “I should, um-” Patrick gets up and walks backwards without looking, stumbling over Pete’s duffel bag on his way to the foot of the staircase.
Pete cringes. “Patrick, wait, I’m sorry!”
But Patrick is already halfway up the stairs, because he doesn’t want to hear Pete say, “Forget I did anything,” or even worse, “I didn’t mean it.”
[//]
That night, Patrick gets up at 3 AM to use the bathroom. He walks briskly through the hallway, his eyes only open in slits, sleep still tugging at his eyelids. He hardly notices anything on his way to the bathroom, but on the way back, he pauses as he approaches the basement door. Weird noises are coming from behind it, and it takes Patrick a while to remember that Pete’s down there.
Patrick stands there for a full minute, his sleep-hazed mind attempting to come to some sort of conclusion. Eventually, his curiosity gets the best of him, and he turns the knob and opens the door soundlessly. Once he’s on the stairs, the noise-whatever it is-gets louder, and more pronounced. Patrick feels fear creeping into his chest for some unknown reason, but ignores it because logic tells him to. It’s just Pete, after all.
Before long, Patrick’s standing next to the foldout bed. One of the curtain-less rectangular windows spills pale moonlight onto Pete’s sleeping figure, and Patrick holds his breath, just a little. Pete’s face is screwed up with discomfort or something akin to it, and his mouth is open just enough to let distinct groans of fear out.
Pete twists his upper body, shutting his eyes tighter. “No, I can’t,” he mutters, the words spilling from his mouth with minimal lip-movement. Pete turns his head again, and Patrick sees beads of sweat glistening on his forehead. “Stop, no, I won’t.” Pete claws at the sheets, and Patrick can hear the creaking of the old mattress under his panting and groaning.
Patrick is transfixed by the surprisingly grotesque scene before him, and it’s only five minutes later that he notices his hand is pressed tightly over his mouth in a gesture of horror. For a moment, he considers waking Pete up; it’d be easy, since Pete is such a light sleeper. Just a light touch to his shoulder or forehead is all it would take. But then Patrick remembers earlier, and he decides that no, he can’t face Pete, not yet.
So Patrick silently tiptoes back upstairs, leaving Pete to his nightmares.
[//]
Part II