Title: 'looking up through ice'
Author:
that_1_incidentFandom: Fall Out Boy
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: Profanity, theme of depression
Pairing: Patrick Stump/Pete Wentz
Word Count: ~1,900
Summary: He was very conscious of the feeling of his heart beating in his chest, of the cold air hitting the skin on the parts of his body that were exposed, of the comforter’s rough texture against the parts that weren’t. He was very aware of being alone.
Disclaimer: Mine except for the characters of Patrick and Pete, and the following lines from Pete's BlogSpot:
thanks for never giving up on me. even when you truly should have.
you cant sleep in this box with me.
lately it all just feels like looking up through ice in a frozen pond at red cheeked families skating, carefree.
gave up on myself too many times to count- you could trade mistakes for sheep
and count me away forever at night.
There’s no success quite like failure. Trust me. I can be a character witness.
Author's Notes: Wrote this... oh, I don't know, a year and a half ago. It's Peterick but it's unrequited, although rather than being "Woe, I hart Trick and he doesn't hart me baaack," it's more like "Man, I'm having some kind of breakdown and only Patrick can save me and the ceiling looks like ice." Yeah.
---<---<---@
Pete stared up at the ceiling. He was sprawled upon the bed in his messy, cluttered room, T-shirts and hoodies dispersed intermittently across the cool wood floor - the same floor upon which several pairs of jeans could be seen puddled in a corner. What’s more, the ceiling was boring. It was so fucking white.
You should do something about that, he told himself, briefly envisioning pots of paint filled with all the bright colors of the rainbow, but even before the words were done being formed he knew that he wouldn’t. It would be too much twisted fun to look back on this moment later and berate himself for not doing something at the time - and Pete never missed a chance to look back and berate himself.
He was very conscious of the feeling of his heart beating in his chest, of the cold air hitting the skin on the parts of his body that were exposed, of the comforter’s rough texture against the parts that weren’t. He was very aware of being alone.
It occurred to him that if a friend, a good friend, had been there in that moment to hold him, it would be enough. He was used, in the past, to chasing after girls he couldn’t have and to mourning those who let his love in and then changed their minds, but now the mere notion of romance itself seemed so unattainable, so picture-perfect that the triteness brought a bitter taste to his mouth. This realization left him jaded, discombobulated, like his whole world had shifted and he wasn’t quite sure where to replace all the pieces. How would one categorize a dreamer who had given up on love? What was the term for somebody like that? He wasn’t even sure that there was one. Joke of a romantic, he thought bitterly. An apt phrase, if nothing else.
That’s fuckin’ decent for a lyric, he mused to himself, idly making a mental note to tell that one to Patrick.
And then he turned over and winced because everything suddenly seemed too big again and every part of his body hurt, which was quite ridiculous because he couldn’t even remember the last time he got out of the house, let alone did something strenuous. Well, actually, he could remember getting out of bed… It was a couple of days ago, maybe a few - no more than a week, he was (almost) sure of it. Patrick had come by to drop something off and Pete couldn’t for the life of him remember what it was or why he needed it. He also knew he hasn’t used it, but was unerringly grateful at the time that it had been brought to him anyway. That Patrick had brought it to him. And Trick hadn’t stayed long, not because he wasn’t willing or didn’t have the time, but because Pete had pushed him away with a brisk “I’m fine” and “I don’t wanna talk about it”; two phrases that truly did contradict each other, Pete supposed, looking back on it. And Patrick hadn’t pushed him, not because he believed Pete when he said he was fine, but more that he was secure in knowing Pete would talk to him if things got That Bad. And things hadn’t been That Bad the day Patrick came by just because Patrick came by, so Pete hadn’t opened up to him.
But things were That Bad now, and Patrick wasn’t there anymore. Pete curled under his comforter. He should’ve asked Patrick to stay while he had the chance.
To put it plainly, Pete loved Patrick. Yes, Patrick loved Pete back, and it wasn’t the same but it almost was. Almost… but not. In fact, Patrick didn’t look upon him as anything other than a friend, but they were good friends, close friends, and most of the time that was enough for Pete because their relationship was so special and he treasured that, he really did. As for the other times… well, it usually only ever hurt when Patrick wasn’t there - when Pete missed the idea of Patrick more than Patrick himself - which led Pete to believe for a while that maybe he never really felt That Way about Patrick in the first place. The only flaw in that theory was the tightening in his chest and the flush of heat that prickled across his skin whenever Patrick was around and oh, he just didn’t know anymore. Maybe he just needed somebody, in any context, to prevent him from facing the prospect of being alone.
He exhaled. Loneliness, being a non-entity and all, was doing a pretty damn good job of kicking his ass. He eyed the cellphone resting on the bedside table. Its light blinked. So did he.
“Anytime,” Patrick had said, reprogramming his number into Pete’s phone under “ICE.” According to Google, the In Case of Emergency number is “intended to clearly indicate to authorities who to call if something happens to the bearer of the phone,” but when Pete questioned Patrick about this, the reply had simply been, “I don’t wanna let it get that far. This number’s preventative. It’s for you to use, not for some stranger to call and tell me something’s happened to you or it’s too late.” And at this, Pete’s lips had curved up into a ghost of a smile.
At the memory, Pete reached out, picked up the cellphone and stared at it. Grey, totally grey. Everywhere. He’d lost his last one; his new Sidekick would be arriving soon, but until then he was stuck with the Grey Thing from the Last Century. It used to be his brother’s or something - he didn’t remember, or really care. Grey… almost as boring as the ceiling, except when the ceiling was colored by the light of the rays that came through the window at just the right angle. ICE. I-C-E. He knew what the acronym stood for but it was also a word in its own right. Ice, synonymous with cold, numbness, being frozen. And lately, Pete thought to himself, it all just felt like looking up through ice in a frozen pond at red cheeked families skating, carefree. He wondered whether the fact that he was thinking all this meant it was time to call Patrick.
It wasn’t that he didn’t think Patrick would pick up. He would - he always does. And it wasn’t that he didn’t think Patrick would come, because if Pete asked him to, he would in an instant. But, Pete wondered, what kind of a friendship was it when it was always the same friend who frequently bailed out the other, listened to his problems far more than any person could or should, had definitely saved his life at least twice? And what did the other friend do in return? Hand him ink-soaked napkins and scraps of paper laden with scribbles, from which Patrick (miraculously) constructed hit songs. That was it. Pete had nothing else to give him. Except the kind of love Patrick wouldn’t want him to give.
When he thought about it, it didn’t seem very fair that Patrick was still battling for him when he’d given up on himself too many times to count. You could trade mistakes for sheep and count him away forever at night, so why was Patrick still here? Why was Patrick still counting? He acted like there was something in Pete that was worth saving, worth using, worth… counting for something. “There’s no success quite like failure,” Pete had told him gloomily more times than he’d care to remember. “Trust me. I can be a character witness.”
Pete just didn’t want Patrick to know first-hand that he would never be worth anything - he’d always just be a burden staggering from one turbulent relationship to another, one crisis to the next, and he was never going to get better. He loved Patrick, and if you love someone you don’t want to become a burden. You don’t want them to worry. He loved Patrick, and that was why the other day, he pushed away the best friend he’d ever had.
Pete silently willed his hand to put the phone back on the table, and the hand twitched but didn’t comply. He was starting to get that feeling where he was himself but at the same time he was outside of himself, and he didn’t like it and he wished it would stop but fuck if he could remember where the goddamn pills were…
And then, as suddenly as the jumble of thoughts came, it vanished, leaving him numb. His mind felt deathly quiet, like a mountain after an avalanche of snow. Setting the phone back down seemed pointless. Holding it seemed pointless too, but he couldn’t find the motivation to move it so he reasoned that it might as well stay where it was. He felt kind of like he was choking, freezing in place until everything was pointless, even moving, even breathing.
“Patrick, you can do many things, but you can’t sleep in this box with me,” Pete whispered to the ceiling. And if Patrick couldn’t understand what he was going through, then what the fuck was the point of dragging him into this anyway?
Pete thought of the ICE number again. Of looking up through ice in a frozen pond. Of a hand reaching down into the murky darkness, open, grasping, expectant. He thought of numbness. The Arctic white of the ceiling. Ice floes. Avalanches.
He pressed the goddamn speed-dial.
“’Trick?” he said as soon as Patrick picked up.
“Pete? Are you okay?”
“I… it’s happening again.”
There was a momentary pause.
“I’ll be right there.”
“- Trick?”
“Yeah,” Patrick replied - a statement, not a question, more an affirmation than anything.
“Thanks for never giving up on me. Even when you truly should have.”
Patrick didn’t reply immediately but Pete knew his friend was still there. He could feel Patrick’s presence on the other end of the line, comforting, tangible, more real than the vast white expanse of ceiling he was staring up at - far more real. More real than anything he’d felt for a while, in fact.
“Pete?”
“Yeah?”
“I’d never give up on you. Don’t be a dumbass.”
And Pete barked out a laugh, gasped afterwards because it wasn’t something he’d done in a while. The laugh burned the back of his throat a little (he wasn’t entirely sure when it was that he last drank anything), and it took a few seconds of wait, what the fuck? before he realised what his body had just done.
“Okay, I’m in my car,” Patrick said, and Pete could hear the jingle of keys. It reminded him of Christmas bells, of Santa’s sleigh, and he briefly envisioned Patrick, flanked by reindeer, crossing the iciness of his stark white ceiling and leaving great indents in the snowdrifts in his wake. Pete fancied himself to be truly mad. “Don’t fade out on me, Peterpan.”
“I won’t,” Pete found himself saying. He shifted on the bed, the bed he’d been lying on all that time, and it felt like trying to move underwater. But, Pete rationalized, at least it felt like something.
---<---<---@