Bandom Story Swap - Screw Angels, This Bell's Ringing in Wings for Me - Part 2

[jae_w]

Christmas dinner is at Gerard’s place - which is four houses down and just everything Pete would’ve expected, from the comic art panels on the walls to the horror movie posters in framed places of honor right next to gold MCR records. He’s not quite prepared for the extra Frankness of the place and the pack of tiny dogs. That was unexpected, because he didn’t really pick up on the rings and the collective “we” the two of them used to talk about themselves and their lives. But he’s doing the best he can to keep up. There’s just too much.

Mostly he’s just trying to keep up with Bronx facts, because it’s one thing to fuck up an adult with adult defenses. It’s another to damage a kid and he’s not evil or completely morally bankrupt despite what Perez and US Weekly like to print about him. So far he’s learned that Bronx doesn’t like peas but loves green beans, is a huge Superman fan, and that he likes to dress up Hemmy and the other dog and the cat.

Yeah. There’s a freaking cat. It’s on an ever growing list of shit he wants explained.

Christmas dinner involves the entire Way family, including Mikey’s parents, whom he’s never actually met before. Ray and his wife show up with casserole of some kind and ten minutes later, about a minute before Pete’s ready to kill someone(himself probably), Patrick shows up

“Patrick!” Pete crows when he walks in the door and clings to him. Hugging this Patrick feels like just like hugging his Patrick, and it does wonders for his sanity.

“Merry Christmas to you, too,” Patrick laughs. He hugs Pete back and then slaps him on the shoulder. “You gotta let go now, man, I can’t breathe.”

“You’re here,” Pete mumbles, not letting go of Patrick, because finally, finally, finally there is something in this hateful upside-down inside out universe that he knows. “How are you here?”

“He took the train from the city,” Gerard says pointedly. “You know how crazy it is getting out of Manhattan on Christmas.” He jerks his chin at Pete and shakes his head and, oh. Oh. Patrick is here, too.

“Commute’s a bitch huh?” Pete says, thinking quick as he untangles himself from around Patrick and gives him a forced smile.

“Better than last year,” Patrick laughs. “Remember you and Mikey had to come get me because of that drama with the rail system?”

No. No he doesn’t remember, but Mikey seems to.

He comes out of nowhere, plucking the bakery bag out of Patrick’s hand after pausing to hug him. “I told you it wouldn’t happen again,” Mikey says with a gentle nudge of his elbow to Patrick’s side. “Don’t be so negative, Trick.”

“I know better than to trust the MTA and New Jersey Transit,” Patrick says, winking at Mikey.

They walk into the kitchen together, and Pete’s busy trying to get his lungs to take in oxygen. Hearing Mikey call Patrick that, like they really have been all part of one unit for the last ten-ish years, it makes things real in a way that Bronx’s cheerful chatter and Clarence’s magical transportation and Gerard’s rambling hypotheticals couldn’t.

He slinks away in search of a bathroom and finds one on the second floor. He splashes icy tap water on his face and stares at his reflection, trying to find a difference. He looks the same as he always does as far as he can tell and that is a problem because he’s not sure that the same-as-always Pete looking back at him from the mirror can do this. That’s a problem, because it’s finally settled on him that he has to.

Gerard is leaning against the wall next to the door when he comes out, arms folded over his chest. He gives Pete a nod. “You okay?”

Pete takes a deep breath. One thing at a time. That’s how he’s going to deal with this clusterfuck. “When did Patrick move to New York?”

“Right after you and Mikey bought the house back in ’07.”

Pete is so tired of feeling stunned and winded and caught off guard. But it just won’t stop. “Fuck.”

“Joe and Andy both live in Brooklyn, but they’re back in Chicago for Christmas.”

“Fuck,” he says again. Nothing else seems adequate for how different things are.

“Pete, are you gonna be okay? I can tell them you’re sick. I mean, that’d bring Mikey up here, and probably Mom, but,” Gerard sighs and stares down at his socks. Pete’s isn’t surprised to see they’ve got the Heat and Snow Misers on them. “I don’t want you to ruin Christmas for everyone else. I’m sorry.”

“I don’t know. I guess I’ve gotta jump in with both feet, right? That’s how things like this work, isn’t it?”

Gerard shrugs and stares down at his Rankin/Bass socks. “Maybe in a book, but I don’t know Pete. I’m in control with fiction, this is reality. I don’t know what to do here.”

“There’s not anything I should know before dinner, is there?”

Gerard frowns. “Not that you could fake.” He runs a hand through his hair then drops it back into the folded arms position. “There’s not enough time.”

“Well, fuck.”

“Yeah. Just, I don’t know,” Gerard sighs. “I wouldn’t talk too much if I were you.”

“I’m kind of a talker back home.”

“Yeah, you are here too. But your option’s be quiet or be…”

“Wrong.”

“Yeah. So I wouldn’t if I were you.”

So he doesn’t. He sits through stories of Mikey and Gerard at Bronx’s age with his mouth shut and his eyes fixed on his plate. He looks up to see Mikey staring at him across the table and turns his eyes back down to the mashed potatoes and ham. It’s really freaking good, actually, and he’s hungry so he focuses on that and not on the conversation around him.

That works until someone says “Remember, Pete?”

He jerks at that and blinks at the crowd of the other Pete’s friends and family who are all staring at him. It’s the exact opposite kind of rush from the one he gets on stage. “Huh? Sorry, I kind of spaced out there.”

Donna Way smiles at him, because of course she understands. She raised Gerard and Mikey, and it’s been awhile, but Pete remembers from Warped that no one can space out like a Way.

“Bronx wanted to hear a Christmas story about you two,” Frank says. “I voted for the one from two years ago when you guys nearly set your house on fire trying to pull off a yule log.” He giggles a little and reaches for the green bean and soy cheese casserole, and Pete tries to curb the blank stare.

“I wanted one from before I was borned,” Bronx adds with a big smile. Pete tries to smile back because the boy’s adorable and it’s Christmas, but it feels cracked.

“So, I was asking if you remembered the way you invaded my kitchen when Mikey brought you home that first Christmas,” Donna says with another smile, like she genuinely likes him. “I was trying to remember how, exactly, you ruined the ham.”

“I, uh, I’m not sure,” Pete stutters. “It’s been awhile, hasn’t it?”

“Don’t bring that one up,” Gerard cuts in, sounding just a little desperate to redirect the conversation and Pete loves him a little. “We all know that didn’t end that great what with the fire and everything.”

“Yeah, I would’ve put money on burning,” Patrick teases, and Pete just shrugs. By the time they stopped touring all year long and living off fast food and venue catering, Pete had enough money to get a cook.

“He was hopeless,” she agrees. “But you tried so hard, getting in my way.”

“I told you to come watch football with us,” Mikey’s dad says. “I’ll get you one day.”

“Pete doesn’t do American football.” Mikey laughs, but he’s still studying Pete. His expression is warm but tinged with worry and suspicion that hasn’t gone away since Pete walked back in this morning.

“Soccer’s not football,” Don shoots back, looking directly at Pete when he says this like it’s part of some sort of call-response that Pete doesn’t get.

“Okay,” Pete says, pushing at the food on his plate and trying not to have curl into a ball and yell uncle. He’s never actually had performance anxiety, but if this is what it feels like, no wonder Patrick insisted he do all the talking. Gerard wiggling his eyebrows and trying to send him psychic instructions isn’t really helping, but he appreciates the effort.

“What? No World Cup versus the Superbowl rant?” Ray calls from down the table. “Come on Pete, it’s my favorite. It’s not Christmas without it.”

“Oh, uh, yeah. Every other country calls it football so, you know, soccer is football.”

There is a horrifically long silence, aside from the sound of Bronx humming “Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer” to himself, which he’s been doing off and on all day, where the whole table stares at him. Except for Gerard, who has his elbows on the table and his face in his hands.

“You set it to broil,” Donna says, out of fucking nowhere and apropos of nothing. It takes Pete a second to figure out what the fuck she is talking about when he remembers that the cooking disaster of the Pete the one who he’s failing to be.

“I always forget the difference,” Pete says quickly, giving her a grateful smile. He likes Mikey’s mom. She is clearly good fucking people.

“I don’t blame you,” Donna says, pointedly ignoring the rest of the table and the way everyone who could drink had refilled their wine glasses. “You were so busy trying to convince me you were serious about Mikey, you were tripping all over yourself. I remember you backed me into the fridge and begged me not to hate you so that you two could get old together.”

He did? At least Other Pete didn’t fuck around. That was good to know he could still go with direct, once he got his feet under him. He’s shit at subtle. “I guess I convinced you.”

“Eventually,” Mikey says in a quiet voice that makes Pete hurt a little for some reason. He’s not sure why, but it does, like a paper cut inside his chest.

“Can I go play?” Bronx sighs, looking desperately put upon, like he wasn’t the one who started the conversation. Pete can tell from the way he’s moving that he’s swinging his feet under the table. “I finished.”

“Come on, champ,” Frank says, pushing back from the table. “Gee got me this really cool art set for Christmas you should check out.”

“I didn’t-“ Gerard begins then stops. Instead he leans over and looks Bronx directly in the eye. “The ones I got him aren’t the ones in the black box. Because those are mine, and if Uncle Frank touches those,” Gerard says, giving Frank a quick look before returning his focus to Bronx. “I’ll need you to kill him for me. Kay?”

Bronx beams at Gerard. “Kay.”

Mikey pushes back from the table, too, and starts to stand up. “Frank, you don’t have to-“

“Dude, please. If I stay here I may just get drunk enough to eat that ham, so how about you do me the favor of letting me.”

Mikey sighs and nods, sinking back into his chair. “Don’t give him cookies.”

Bronx frowns. “But, Papa-“

“Later, Bronx, when everyone else has them, too,” Mikey says and he sounds like a real parent, all authoritative and shit. Bronx doesn’t even fight him, just pouts. At least, he does right up to the moment where Frank scoops him up over his shoulder and carries him, upside-down and giggling, out of the room.

“Pete,” Gerard says, giving him a hard look, “You feeling okay? You look like you need to lie down or something.”

“I’ve got a headache,” Pete says grateful for the out, but no one at the table is buying it. Ray actually moves to get up, but Christa’s hand catches his wrist and pins it to the table. “It’s a killer,” he says, hoping it sounds convincing.

“You taken anything?” Christa asks, still keeping Ray hostage. “I think I’ve got some Tylenol in my purse.”

“Advil.” That’s actually true. He really has had a headache pretty much from the word go, but it took him forever to find it.

There’d been a noticeable absence of pills in the medicine cabinet. Pete had found one mood stabilizer with Mikey’s name on it and two things of antidepressants, one under Mikey’s name and one under his, and that was it in terms of pills. Pete’s bathroom cabinet in his actual house is like a pharmacy. He misses his Xanax stash pretty acutely right now.

“You should’ve said something,” Mikey says, and Pete feels instantly guilty again. It makes him feel like all this lying and bullshit is his fault, when it’s just not.

“I thought I did.”

“No.”

Public conflict is pretty par for the course for this family if he recalls right. Pete can remember a few very public Way Brothers explosions from his real life, especially on that first Warped tour in ’04 when My Chem was just another group on tour, and one falling apart to boot. Pete had avoided them back then, for this very fucking reason. It’s a lot less fun to be on the inside.

Patrick has his “get me the fuck out of here” face on and Mikey is still looking at him, still worried and suspicious, but with a new and exciting side of inscrutable. He is really sick of that.

“Oh. I guess I didn’t want to spoil the day.”

“No, you wouldn’t want that,” Mikey mutters putting his fork down. He looks tired to Pete. And not the good tired like he remembers from Warped, eyes drifting shut in the tight space of one their bunks. It’s the kind of tired that sits in the set of his shoulders and the way his mouth turns down at the corners.

“Mikey,” Pete begins not sure where he’s going with it. He remembers what the right thing was with Mikey from years ago, but this isn’t like then. Mikey just shrugs and gives him one of those small smiles that Pete remembers seeing him giving interviewers, fake and empty. It makes him feel a little sick and pretty much the ends the conversation.

The rest of the evening seems to go better because the group breaks up. Don, Mikey and Ray go to join Frank and Bronx. Christa, Gerard and Donna disappear into the kitchen.

Pete takes the opportunity to grab Patrick by the wrist and drag him outside. Patrick bitches the whole way because it’s actually started snowing a little now. Pete stops to steal one of Gerard’s cigarettes and a lighter as they shrug into their coats. “You’re smoking?” Patrick asks as they huddle together on Frank and Gerard’s porch.

Pete coughs and nods. It’s a filthy disgusting habit, but he’s jittery and stressed and really, it seemed like a good idea at the time. “I’m fucked up, Patrick.”

Patrick nods and says nothing because in every universe, this is par for the course. He’s waiting. It’s so good to know that this Patrick is the same as his Patrick. Seriously, it’s like gravity; he feels a little less like he’s about to float off the planet.

“This …” Pete stops, because Patrick is not Gerard. Patrick matters more, even if it’s not the version he’s used to, to be totally honest. And Patrick is not, and never has been, a true believer of the sort of insanity Ways tend to be. So he couches it in terms of hypotheticals. “It’s like I don’t know him all of a sudden.”

“Who, Mikey?”

Pete fiddles with the cigarette and shrugs. He remembers Mikey used to smoke this brand like a chimney. He can still sort of remember the taste of them mixed with Mikey’s lips and tongue and skin. He wonders if this Mikey still smokes like Gerard and Frank do or if he’s quit.

“Pete, what the fuck are you talking about?”

“I think I’m going crazy.”

That at least, is completely fucking true. He really does feel insane, and not in the easy to understand ‘just kill yourself and it’ll all be over’ sort of way.

Patrick doesn’t comment on that. “Mikey called me this morning,” he says instead. “Where’d you really go?”

“A donut shop off the Garden State Parkway.”

Patrick gages him with his eyes then sighs. “Right. Of course. Care to share why?”

“I freaked out.”

Patrick exhales with a frustrated noise and rubs at his forehead, pushing his hat back a little - a knit beanie that looks handmade. “Again, why?”

“I told you. I feel like I don’t know them. I woke up and it-“ He laughs, but it’s not a happy sound. “It was like I was in bed with a fucking stranger.”

Patrick doesn’t laugh at that. He reaches out and puts a hand on Pete’s shoulder and squeezes before pulling him into a one-armed hug. “Did something happen?”

Yes. He fell through a wormhole into Bizarro World. Up is down, black is white, and he is not who he should be.

“Did he, I mean,” Patrick squeezes him again and looks at Pete with a slightly nauseous expression. “Mikey didn’t-“ Patrick breaks off looking away from Pete and out at the snow on the driveway. “He didn’t, uh, he didn’t cheat on you or something, did he?”

Pete blinks at him. “What?”

“I just, that’s how I felt with Anna when it all fell apart, you know? Like I didn’t even fucking know who she was anymore.”

“Uh, no. I don’t think so. Unless you know something I don’t.” Which Patrick does of course. Fucking everyone knows things Pete doesn’t here.

“No, I don’t,” Patrick says, all earnestness. “I don’t think he would, either of you would. And if he were, I’d tell you, you know that, but I just, it sounded like … I mean … You know? “

“I can kinda see that, I guess.”

Patrick seems to sink visibly with relief, not that he’s got that far to go, short as he is. But he looks better all of a sudden, and it makes Pete feel worse. People are invested in this relationship the other Pete has with this Mikey. It matters to them. He matters not just to Patrick, but to all of them.

“It’s not Mikey’s fault. I’m just … I don’t know. It’s wrong.”

“Look, Pete, I don’t ever want to tell you how to live your life-“

“Yes, you do.”

“Okay, I do, but I’m not going to. I am going to suggest that you try and keep shit in perspective.”

“I have no perspective.”

“I don’t know what you want me to say, Pete. If things aren’t working out with your therapist, you should start looking for a new one. Maybe you guys could go to couples counseling?”

Pete drops the cigarette. It’s not helping. Nothing is helping. “I’m lost here,” Pete says and tries not to let himself crack over that fact.

“So find your way back. You’ve done it before,” Patrick says, totally confident. “Long as you don’t do anything too stupid, he’s going to be there when you get there.”

“Patrick.” Pete can’t get the fear out of his voice. “Patrick, I don’t know where ‘there’ is.”

Patrick looks pained and pulls him back into a hug. Pete lets his head drop into the curve of Patrick’s neck and wants to cry at the way Patrick strokes his hair. “You’re going to be okay, Pete. You’re always okay.”

Pete’s fingers dig into Patrick’s sides as the door opens. “Pete, Mom and Dad wanna do the last of the gifts with Bronx, so- Oh.” Pete lets go of Patrick and turns to face Mikey.

“Hey,” Pete says, rubbing his face and going for casual. “Presents?”

“And dessert,” Mikey adds as Patrick slides past him and back into the house. “It’s getting late and Bronx got up early.”

“Right. We should head back,” Pete says, watching as Mikey exhales through his nose. His breath plumes around him like smoke. He’s hugging himself again, against the cold or something else, Pete’s not sure. “Don’t want to keep the kid up too late, right?”

Mikey lets go of himself and steps forward, catching Pete’s face in his cold hands. Pete shudders at the feeling of ice skin on his cheeks even though it’s, like, twelve degrees out here. Mikey’s thumb strokes over his cheek even as he studies him. “Pete, what the hell is going on?”

“I’m just having a bad day,” Pete says, clinging to truth where he can find it.

“Talk to me. Pete, just talk to me.”

“It’s just a bad day. That’s all, really.”

“This is not bad. This is something else. If you tell me what we can deal with it.” Mikey kisses him then, brief and soft but solid and Pete’s breath catches as Mikey pulls back. “We can pull each other out of anything. Remember?”

Pete just nods dumbly, hands clenched at his side against the impulse to press his hand to his mouth. He’s supposed to be used to Mikey kissing him. This isn’t the first time in almost ten years for this Mikey, even though it is for Pete. He finds himself licking his lips and wondering how he forgot how good Mikey tasted.

Then Mikey is frowning at him again. “Have you been smoking?”

“Really bad day, Mikey,” Pete says, wrapping his arms around Mikey like he so clearly needs. Mikey actually sinks into him when he does, and it makes Pete feel a little heady and nervous as fuck as the same time. “Just fucking shitty.”

Mikey winds his arms around Pete’s neck. “Don’t pull this shit with me again. We’ve talked about this.”

Pete doesn’t know what this is but he nods anyway. “I won’t.”

“Okay. I love you, so stop being extra weird,” Mikey says, winding an arm around his shoulder and dragging him forward. “Come inside before Gee eats the whole cake.”

“Cake?” Cake can make anything better. Pete’s a firm believer in this.

“Mom’s chocolate. Everyone’s favorite except Frank.”

“Frank doesn’t like chocolate?”

Mikey blinks at him. “Frank doesn’t like eggs.”

“Oh. Right. Vegan.”

“Yep. Mom’s still working on how to get it to taste right without eggs. She’ll get it eventually. So come on,” Mikey says tugging him again. “Gerard really will eat it all.”

It’s warm inside and Mikey’s arm on his shoulder is heavy and solid. And for the first time all day, Pete thinks maybe he can do this.

~*~*~

After Clarence disappears, Pete wanders the house like a ghost out of one of Gerard’s comics. There are shallow things on the wall - show posters and Star Wars memorabilia, and other toys and trimmings that he’s always wanted in an abstract way but has never pursued seriously. And there are gold and platinum records with his name on them. There’s one he doesn’t recognize between Cork Tree and Folie A Deux where New London Hearts on Fire should be.

More startling is the way there’re maybe three pictures in the whole place that didn’t come out of photo shoots. One of him and his band at what looks like the Grammys, one of his parents and siblings from way back , and there’s one group shot from Warped where Frank is trying to climb Andy like a tree and Patrick and Gerard are laughing and Pete is wedged between Joe and Mikey. It’s a touchstone that Pete recognizes, because he’s got that same picture framed in his studio. It’s everything after Warped that’s different.

He makes it all of fifteen minutes on the internet before he has to stop. The other Pete, the Empty Pete as Pete’s come to think of him in his head as he’s catalogued the huge house and surfed Google, had pictures of his dick leaked on the internet and a string of hookups that were apparently illicit and tawdry enough to land on the front page of shit like Us Weekly and People. It’s weird enough to imagine being that well known at all, but to be infamous? Jesus. It makes his head hurt.

When he closes the laptop, he finds the master bedroom and crawls into bed. He’s kind of surprised he manages to, because he doesn’t sleep so great alone. Sleeping with Mikey, having someone to cling to at night when his mind was racing, was what had soothed the insomnia in the first place.

The Empty Pete has a huge bed. It’s bigger than the supposed king-sized he and Mikey share, and it’s cold without another body in it. Hemmy hops up and snuggles into the curve of his body, but it’s not the same as having a solid chest to drape his arm across.

Pete sleeps and he tries not to think. That works for longer than he expects it to, and when he rolls out of that big bed its dark out. Christmas is mostly over.

It hits him, as he looks out the window at what is so obviously the Hollywood hills, that he’s missed the chance to see how Bronx is going to react when he sees the bike Pete got him. He missed the yearly battle with pancake batter as he forces it into reindeer-esque lumps for breakfast. He missed seeing Patrick and Ray and Christa and Mom and Dad Way at the Christmas dinner, which Gerard and Frank are stuck hosting this year because it’s their turn and they haven’t done it yet. He’s missed the way Mikey wakes up early on Christmas and makes love to him (or tries to, before Bronx wakes up), the way he has every Christmas since their first one, wrapped up tight together in Mikey’s childhood bedroom.

He’s missed all of it, and despite what that psycho magic fuck Clarence had said, he may never get back to it. The reality hits him so hard that he actually can’t breathe. It’s like the panic attacks, only worse, because most of those fears were imaginary. This is fucking real.

He fumbles across the room for Empty Pete’s phone that’s sitting on the nightstand and hits the last called list. Patrick is at the top, thank fuck, and he hits send, holding his breath as it rings. Patrick picks up on the fifth ring. “Merry Christmas, fucker. You were supposed to call me earlier so we could work out dinner.”

“Patrick?” he chokes out on a dry sob. “Patrick, I can’t- It hurts so bad I can’t breathe, Patrick.”

“Pete? Where are you?”

“I’m-“ Not home. This is not his home. “The house. I’m at the house. Patrick,” he says, curling in on himself, fetal and suddenly overwhelmed.

The noise and violence in his head is so much worse that it was when he overdosed. At least that was his own fault. He brought that shit on himself and he could take a small, self-loathing comfort in his own fault. But this? This was being done to him. “I can’t breathe, Patrick.”

“You can, okay? You are breathing. Just stay calm and stay there. Don’t take anything. Don’t do anything. Just, stay and try and keep calm. We’re coming over.”

Patrick talks to him for the next ten minutes solid. He tells Pete to breathe and asks him questions that he doesn’t expect to have answered.

Then suddenly, Patrick’s there with a stunning and oddly familiar black woman at his side. He’s wearing jeans and a blue sweater with a Santa hat in place of the fedora or trucker hat that Pete’s used to.

“You look like an ass,” Pete says from his spot on the carpet beside Empty Pete’s bed. He laughs a little at the hat and then he’s not laughing he’s crying. His whole body is shaking from the sobs as Patrick gathers him up in his arms.

“Pete, Jesus,” Patrick murmurs into his hair. “What the fuck happened? You were okay yesterday.”

“Bronx,” Pete whispers brokenly, into Patrick’s shirt. “And Mikey. Gone, fucking God, gone. They’re gone. I’m gone.” His fingers dig hard into Patrick’s back as he shudders. His face is a wet mess but it doesn’t matter because it’s not like his son is there to see it. “Oh fuck, Patrick, I’m gone.”

“No, you’re right here. You’re okay, Pete, you are,” Patrick soothes, then he lifts his mouth up and says to the woman, “Grab my phone and call Dr. Silverman for me please?”

Here isn’t okay. Here’s the fucking problem. He fists his hand in Patrick’s sweater. It’s fucking cashmere and it’s wrong. Patrick doesn’t wear that shit, which just goes to prove that he’s not the problem. “I don’t need a doctor.”

“The fuck you don’t.”

“Trick, please, just. Just don’t. Stay okay?” He takes a shuddering breath that he hopes sounds like he’s calming down. “I just need you to stay for a minute.”

Patrick sighs and holds him tighter. But he doesn’t hear anyone talking to any doctors so he just lets himself go. If he can just get it out of his system, this breakdown where he can’t stop crying and can’t stop shaking, he’ll be okay. Patrick rubs his back and hums to him, a soft tune that sounds vaguely like Disney and, eventually, Pete manages to pull himself somewhat together.

The woman disappears from the room during the time Pete loses himself to the wave of grief and loss that’s crashing over him. When she returns, she drops to her knees and presses a glass into his hand. “Drink, baby,” she says and she’s got an accent that makes her voice sound a little like music. She holds his fingers around the glass while he drinks the water and blinks at her.

“Rihanna,” He says when she pulls the glass away from his lips.

She smiles at him and sets the glass aside. “Feel better?”

“Rihanna,” Pete says again, because holy shit. Patrick is fucking Rihanna. It makes Pete laugh, but he chokes on it as it mutates coming out, garroting him and threatening to bring the tears back.

“Easy,” she soothes, stroking his bangs off his forehead, a glimpse of a skull tattoo on her finger catching his eye as she does so. “It’s all right.”

“Pete,” Patrick says, calm and even. “Hey, what the fuck? Talk to me, man. You’re scaring the shit out of me.”

“He broke about seven traffic laws getting to you,” Rihanna says as she wipes at the tears on his face in a businesslike manner. She does it like she deals with pathetic sobbing men all the time and this is nothing out of the ordinary. She does it like Donna had when the paperwork cleared on Bronx’s adoption and he hadn’t been able to stop himself crying then, either.

“Tell me what’s wrong or I’m going to call Dr. Silverman whether you want me to or not.”

“Later?” Pete asks. “Can we talk later? Can we just sit here, now?”

“I’m going to go walk Hemmy,” Rihanna says, pushing up to her feet. She knows this house better than he does, that’s obvious. “You boys talk.”

Her heels click on the floor outside of the bedroom. Pete rests against Patrick’s shoulder until they’re gone. It feels like years ago and yesterday, and he clings to the familiarity.

“It’s later Pete,” Patrick says when there’s no sound but their breathing. “You want to wash your face and tell me what the fuck is going on?”

Pete nods and lets Patrick grab him a wet washcloth and cleans up. He doesn’t feel any better but the fraying, hysterical feeling has receded. In its wake is a gnawing ache in his chest where his family is supposed to be.

“Now talk.”

“Your girlfriend’s awesome,” Pete says instead, picking at the washcloth. It’s easier to think about how Patrick’s life is different than his own. Patrick’s seems to be better here. “She’s way too hot for you, and she’s good in a crisis. You should marry her.”

“Yeah, that’s the plan,” Patrick says, dead fucking serious. Pete opens his mouth, stunned, but Patrick shakes his head. “No, you are not going to distract me with more fucking ridiculous proposal suggestions right now. You know I think skywriting is a stupid idea so don’t suggest it again. You’re going to tell me why you’re crying on your floor on Christmas.”

“I-“ Pete begins but what the fuck can he possibly say? How does anyone explain something like this? He stares at his hands for what seems like forever, but Patrick’s patient. Every Patrick is patient and he waits until Pete’s ready to speak. He has to find something mostly truthful before he can open his mouth. “It just hit me how empty my life is.”

“Hey, Pete, it’s not.”

“It is,” Pete says looking at the bedroom. It’s a mess but it’s also devoid of anything personal. There’s posters instead of pictures. There’s no division of space. “There’s just me. Alone. On Christmas.”

“You wouldn’t have been alone if you had called me hours ago.”

Pete nods but he’s busy trying to figure out how to phrase things without sounding insane. He’s not used to having to parcel out his words before he speaks. “When was the last time I talked to Mikey?”

Patrick blinks at him, shakes his head, then blinks again. Then he rubs the Santa hat and asks, “Mikey. Mikey Way?”

Mikey Way. Not Mikey Wentz-Way. Pete grits his teeth and manages a reasonably calm-sounding, “Yeah.” He only gets a little bright-eyed, but Patrick pretends not to notice.

“Oh, fuck, I don’t know. I know he was at that MTV thing we went to a few months ago I think?” Patrick rubs the back of his neck and looks up towards the ceiling trying to remember. “I remember My Chem won something. I don’t think you talked to them though. I mean, I’m not sure. Rihanna kept dragging me off to meet people at the after party so I wasn’t around you that much.”

“How about for sure? I mean,” Pete searches for a lie, a good one, and tries to remember which prescriptions he’d found in the medicine cabinet. “I think I took too much Ambien last night. It’s all kind of fuzzy.”

“You’re dredging up old shit, Pete, and you know obsessive thinking fucks you. Wasn’t the whole point of Infinity to get past this?”

It takes Pete a second to understand what Patrick is saying and then it makes sense. Right, that placeholder album, Infinity on High. He adds it to a mental list of things he needs to figure out.

Later though. Now, he reaches out and catches Patrick’s arm. “I was just… I was just thinking. Please, Patrick.”

“Warped.” Patrick sighs and slumps down next to him. “Pete, it took you like two years to get over him. Why are you digging this shit up now?”

“It matters.”

“It always mattered. But you haven’t talked about it in like five years.”

“It matters more now.”

“Why? What’s so different about today from yesterday?”

Oh, how about everything, Pete thinks. He settles for another, more easily explained truth. He rubs his ring finger; his wedding band is missing but the pale line where it should be is still there. “I’m still in love with him.”

“Oh Jesus,” Patrick groans, pressing the heels of his hands into his eyebrows. “No. No, Pete. Don’t you fucking do this to me now, I swear to God. You can’t just wake up after almost ten years and decide that.”

“I didn’t decide it. It just is.”

Patrick sighs and drops his hands to his knees. “I think you do this just to see me react sometimes.”

“Sometimes,” Pete agrees. “But not this time.”

Patrick sighs. “Yeah I know. Why couldn’t you just be fucking with me now?”

“I’m sorry.” And he is. He’s sorry for whatever it is that he did to deserve this.

“Jesus, you’re really not okay are you?”

“Fuck you, I can apologize.”

“You can. A bear can be made to wear a funny hat and dance. Doesn’t mean it’s not against the laws of nature.” This is the place where he’d usually pick back but he doesn’t have it in him. Not now.

“I don’t know what to do.” Pete clenches his hand in the washcloth. It’s getting cold in his hand. Patrick pries his fingers loose and pulls the wet rag away from him.

“You don’t have to right now. We’re going to figure it out okay? We always do.”

Pete drops his head onto Patrick’s shoulder. It makes him feel better but Pete doesn’t believe him.

~*~*~
Pete discovers the basement studio his second day in the permanent acid trip that is Clarence’s so-called “glimpse”, and shuts himself up inside it for pretty much the rest of Bronx’s Christmas break. It’s the best place in the unnervingly small house.

Like everywhere else, it’s littered with Bronx’s things and pet toys but it’s also got records hanging on the walls - My Chemical Romance’s gold records and the initial releases of all of Fall Out Boy’s. There’s a wall of DVDs that goes from floor to ceiling and a glass case in the corner with his and Mikey’s basses and guitars and it has a lock on it, which Pete finds the key to on what he has to assume from the Jack Skellington keychain, is his wad of keys. There’s soundproofing on the walls and a computer with music software that he’s almost certain Patrick installed.

It feels almost sane down there. Hiding out in the basement “writing” is easier than having to cover up dropping all the verbal and nonverbal cues Mikey keeps throwing at him. Self-isolation’s been working for him so far, except for the way Bronx keeps hunting him down.

Pete can pretend it’s just a new office if he can ignore the way Bronx keeps rolling back and forth across the cement floor on the Heelies Don and Donna got him. Which he can, mostly, so long as he doesn’t look up from the computer screen. And he doesn’t have another option since Pete doesn’t have the heart to kick him out.

He’s spent the majority of his days since Christmas exploring the computer. If the rightful Pete is really just another version of himself, he knows the answers are going to be on the hard drive somewhere. Only there’s about a thousand dollars worth of portable hard drives to go through, on top of whatever’s on the computer itself.

The initial search, conducted at about two in the morning the day after the day after Christmas, yielded folders of word files with lyrics he recognizes as his style but not as his thoughts, a few saved scans of interviews with Blender, AP, and the Advocate - the last one he can’t actually bear to read - and a playlist on iTunes called “Patrick is a sick genius and he will take over the world for me.”

That playlist is nothing but Fall Out Boy with a couple of tracks of Patrick singing various covers to the sound of Pete harassing him in the background. It makes him feel kind of sick that he only recognizes about half the songs. Infinity on High is missing, replaced with some album he’s never even fucking imagined called New London Hearts on Fire. Believers Never Die isn’t a greatest hits album, but another undertaking in its own right. He can’t even make himself listen to songs with titles he doesn’t recognize.

And if he’s not man enough to listen to the music, he certainly doesn’t have the balls to try and look at the journal entries. And there are a lot of them, one word file after another, in a folder the other him has labeled “Shit no one wants to read.” He keeps toying over the ones dated back to ’05, trying to get the courage up.

“Daddy watch!” Bronx calls, rolling backwards across the bare cement floor and pulling Pete’s focus from the cursor hovering over the date 8/16/05. “Watch me.”

“Not right now.”

“Watch, watch, watch, watch,” Bronx chants until Pete groans and jerks his head up.

“I’m looking, kid. What?” He sounds way too short, almost angry and he kicks himself for the way he sounds. Bronx freezes, and a pout flashes across his face, making Pete feel like the biggest douche on planet Earth. Almost a week and he’s absolutely no better at the dad thing. “I’m sorry. Show me?”

“I can go on one foot. It’s super cool. Watch,” Bronx proclaims. He grins at Pete, so huge that it fills his whole face and there’s a weird moment when Pete feels almost like he’s looking at a reflection of himself as a kid. Then he pushes off one wall and rolls, on one leg, across the room, the Superman cape Clarence had passed to Pete trailing behind him. Pete’s breath catches because he’s moving way too fast and he collides with the wall and flops onto the floor.

Fuck, Mikey is going to kill him if he lets the kid get broken and that’s the last thing he needs right now. Pete’s pushing up and is over to the boy before he knows he’s moved and okay, maybe it’s a little bit of adrenaline. A little.

Bronx’s lip is split and there’s a splash of bright red blood on his pale mouth. He’s shaking and Pete has a moment of pure fucking fear until he realizes that Bronx is giggling. Then he’s just pissed.

“What’re you doing?” Pete asks, pulling Bronx up by both his shoulders. He’s not holding too tight but Bronx is just tiny and he comes right off the floor. “Huh? What the hell are you doing? You could’ve hurt yourself, Jesus.”

Pete doesn’t realize he’s yelling until he hears the door at the top of the stairs open and he realizes that Bronx is crying. His whole face has crumpled and oh, god, he is the worst person to ever fucking live, cursing at a little kid. He checks his hands, and they’re not squeezing Bronx’s arms but he’s right in his face and he sounds like his own dad used to when Pete pushed him too far.

He sets Bronx down gently and steps back, taking a deep breath. He’s never even thought about being a dad before Clarence dumped him here. And if he had, he hadn’t seen himself as the kind who screamed at his child, but here he is and there he goes.

He can’t do this. He can’t look at that little boy crying and handle it, especially not being the one to cause it.

Mikey’s at the bottom of the stairs before Pete can move again. He’s on his knees on the ground in front of him, Bronx’s chin in his hands. “Hey, baby boy, tell me what happened.”

“I-I-I fell.” Bronx sniffles, hiccupping on his tears. Pete feels nauseous. “I-I’m s-sorry.” There’s a new wave of tears on the apology that makes Pete want to vomit. He’s never made a child cry before and it’s awful.

“That’s okay,” Mikey soothes, wiping away Bronx’s tears. His hands almost cover Bronx’s entire face. “It’s okay you just have to be more careful. Those shoes are like your skateboard. Don’t do them fast if you’re not wearing pads, okay?”

“Okay.” Bronx sniffles again and rubs at his face with his fist. He’s so young and like that, he looks even younger. Pete is hit with the impulse to hold him and it terrifies him.

“I’m sorry, buddy,” Pete chokes out, feeling like he’s scrambling in midair for ground that’s gone, Wile E Coyote style. “I didn’t mean to yell at you.”

Bronx looks at him with confusion and hurt in his eyes “Daddy’s just scared of you getting hurt. He’s a big chicken,” Mikey says, ducking his head to stage whisper to Bronx. “Go give him a hug and tell him not to be such a scaredy-cat.”

Bronx looks up, nods, and then - because apparently five year olds don’t have irony -rolls across the space between them on his heels. He collides with Pete the way he did that first time Pete met him. Only this time, hugging him back is a relief.

“Don’t be a chicken,” Bronx parrots sternly into Pete’s stomach. “People will think you’re lame and you’re not lame.”

“Wouldn’t want that,” Pete agrees as Bronx pulls away.

Mikey wipes way the blood on Bronx’s lip with his thumb and it's gone like it was never there. Then he jerks his chin up the stairs. “Why don’t you head up stairs and go put on your normal sneakers.”

“But Papa,” Bronx whines, rolling back a few inches on the wheels. It’s the same tone as when Bronx wants cookies before dinner or to use the finger paints Gerard gave him on the wall, again.

“One fall per day. Go now or I’m going to count to three.”

Bronx huffs but does as he’s told, leaving him alone with Mikey in the basement.

Mikey waits until Bronx disappears then turns and looks at him like he’s just turned into an alien. “What the fuck was that Pete?”

“He hit the wall and I just… I reacted.” Pete still can’t get over that. He didn’t know he even had that reaction in him before it exploded all over Bronx.

“By yelling at him? It’s a split fucking lip. He’s gotten worse on the swings at school. Hell, he’s gotten worse playing ninjas versus zombies with Frank.”

“That sounds like a stupid dangerous game.”

Mikey’s eyes are huge. “It’s the freaking action figures. You’ve got like twenty hours of video on that shit. Pete-“

“He hurt himself.”

“Yeah. He’s five and a boy and it’s just a scrape. Your mom told me you once cracked your head open falling off a jungle gym and kept playing for two hours. That?” Mikey waves at the wall. “That was nothing. He’s fine.”

“I-“ Pete shoves his hands in his pockets. “He was bleeding.” And he cares.

“He was terrified because you were yelling at him. No yelling was your rule remember?”

“I…I forgot.”

“You forgot?” Mikey echoes, that now-familiar look of dismay on his face. “Pete, the list of rules was your idea. How could you forget? That was one of the first ones! No hitting and no yelling, no matter what.”

“Those are really good rules,” Pete concedes. He really wants to know where the fuck this list is. It’s another thing Gerard should have told him in his cheat sheet.

“Yeah I know that.” Mikey’s eyes glance up towards the top of the stairs, looking and listening for Bronx and when he doesn’t hear anything he turns back to Pete and shakes his head. “Damnit, Pete.”

“I just saw blood and lost it a little, Mikey. It’s nothing.”

Mikey isn’t buying it. He reaches across himself to rub his arm but looks at Pete with determination from behind his lenses. “You forgot the rules.”

“It was the heat of the moment.”

“Pete, you made that fucking rule. You had freaking boot camp flashbacks talking me into it.” Mikey takes a deep breath and swallows hard. “Look, I’ve been thinking about it and I think you should go back to twice a week therapy.”

That had been on Gerard’s list at least - therapy once a week with a guy in the city. Pete hasn’t been yet because of the holiday but he’s almost looking forward to it. Therapists can’t hold too much crazy against you. Still, twice a week? Fuck, back in the real world twice a month is doing good. “Because I lost my cool over Bronx hurting himself?”

“And because of Christmas and the way you’re hiding again. I know you’re stressed about the new album but you’re forgetting shit like an Alzheimer’s patient and it’s scaring me.”

There’s a new album too? He’s calling Gerard when this fight is over. Seriously. Too much shit got neglected and he’s flailing again - harder than before.

“I’m not forgetting things.”

Mikey lifts an eyebrow. “Yeah? What channel is Comedy Central?”

Shit he knows that. He just watched it last night. Even MadTV was watchable at 4am when he couldn’t sleep. “Uh, fifty-four.”

“Forty-seven. Which bank’s our joint checking account at?”

Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck. “Bank of America?”

“Wachovia. Pete, just go back for Bronx okay? And if you won’t go to therapy, get yourself checked out at a real doctor. Please, all right? Don’t make me beg and don’t make me drag you.”

“You’d drag me?”

“I will if I have to. You’ve dragged me,” Mikey says with a shrug that makes light of the implication.

Pete doesn’t like the idea of having to drag Mikey to anything, least of all a shrink, and the fact that the other Pete had to adds to his earlier queasiness. “Mikey, I’m fine.”

“You’re not. I don’t know what the hell is wrong with you, Pete, but you’re not fine.”

“If I promise I’ll handle it, can we end this conversation?”

“I don’t know,” Mikey snaps. “Are you going to go upstairs and yell at our son again?”

“No.”

“Then yeah. I guess it’s fucking ended.”

Pete sighs and nods. He wants to get the fuck out of here half an hour and one week ago. “Good.”

“You’re fucking unbelievable you know that?”

“Yeah I’ve heard. Just leave the number of whoever you want me to call on the fridge. I’ll call them tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow’s New Year’s Eve,” Mikey says. “We’ve got that thing, remember?”

Pete is so sick of that fucking question he’s ready to scream. “If I say no are you going to get pissy?”

Mikey opens his mouth, shuts it, shakes his head then opens his mouth again. His face is blank but there’s a flash in his eyes that Pete remembers, a light that’s anger and hurt shoving their way under the Mikey Way mask. “Fuck you, Pete. Do whatever you want.”

Pete drops back into the office chair and watches as Mikey’s long legs disappear up the stairs. He knows he’s fucked the goat before the door closes and he feels, Jesus, he actually feels really fucking bad. Bronx’s tears and Mikey’s frown are imprinted on the very front of his brain and no amount of writing, digging or denying can push them away.

Pete feels stupid for that. They’re not his family after all. Yeah, he cares about Bronx because he’s a kid and a sweet one at that but he cut Mikey out of his heart with fucking surgical scissors years ago. He shouldn’t fucking care. Especially not when it’s not even his Mikey Way.

Yet when he finally crawls out of the basement hours later he goes into the kitchen and finds two doctors' numbers stuck to the fridge. The post-it is stuck between a picture of Bronx on Bob Bryar’s shoulders and a crayon picture of a big mass of red squiggles and stick figures that’s supposed to be Santa and his sleigh. Pete puts the numbers in his contacts and despite himself, sets a reminder in the phone for him to call both the day after tomorrow. He’s not sure why but once he does it, he feels notably better.

~*~*~

[Part 3]