Work Text:
TITLE: You're The Only Place That Feels Like Home
WORD COUNT: 4000-ish
RATING: PG13
SUMMARY: Denial can't last forever.
A/N: Part two of the confession-verse.
For Pete, the moment—the Big Moment, the Moment of Realization—happens while he is sitting across the table from his wife, enjoying a balanced breakfast of Pop Tarts and Red Bull.
Ash has her laptop open in front of her, and so does Pete—it's a morning ritual, with them. Catching up on the world at large, internet junkies getting their morning fix. Pete always wakes up with at least twenty emails in his primary inbox, plus however-the-hell-many comments and replies to his various blogs, twitters, and buzznets, plus a handful of audio files from Patrick (snippets of whatever he's working on at the moment), and a few Pete-in-the-media-alert notifications from well-meaning friends and family. ("Hey, Pete, your dick pictures have been made into a downloadable wallpaper now! Awesome, right?") Pete isn't sure exactly what keeps Ashlee so busy online, but he suspects it is probably pretty similar.
It's a routine, and it's comforting.
There isn't any fanfare, any drumroll or suspenseful soundtrack to alert him in the moments before his whole world changes in front of his eyes. Just an innocuous little ping! as Ashlee IMs him from, literally, a foot and a half away. Pete actually smirks at her, although she isn't paying any attention to him.
The message is actually just a link, which Pete dutifully clicks. He finds himself staring, bemused, at a text transcript of his own radio interview from the day before. He glances up at Ash in confusion, but she still isn't looking at him. Actually, she's staring at her screen with a sort of preternaturally blank expression, determinedly focusing on nothing at all.
The first hesitant tendrils of foreboding begin to curl in Pete's stomach.
Obviously, she's trying to tell him something, so he starts reading the transcript in spite of the fact that even Pete can still manage to remember, like, yesterday.
And at first, he doesn't get it. It's just an interview—a little more in-depth than most, especially radio interviews, which tend to be fairly short for the most part, but still just more of the same old shit, the same familiar questions with the same familiar answers.
He's halfway through the transcript before anything catches his eye at all, and even then, he isn't really sure why it catches his attention.
Q: So, the band actually started out with just you and Joe, is that right?
A: Pretty much, although I don't think you could really call it a band until Patrick came along. Joe and I just knew we'd like to start a band, maybe, and then one day Joe calls and says this kid at Borders started talking to him and he seems to know his shit and says he plays the drums, and...well, I've told the story a hundred times, argyle and all. (*laughs*) But hearing him sing that day—he totally didn't even know he could sing, that still blows my mind—but yeah. Hearing him sing, that's when I thought "Oh, my god. This is actually gonna happen, and it's gonna be fucking huge." And that was before I knew he was this insane little genius who could write hit songs in his sleep, or whatever. Seriously, we all know just exactly how lucky we got, finding that kid. Like, lottery lucky, you don't even know. If anybody in the entire world actually listens to us and thinks, "Wow, these kids are good," it's because of him, that's just all there is to it. Andy joined the band later, and that was, you know, the final piece of the puzzle, I think. But it was Patrick that made us a band.
Pete glances back up at Ashlee. He feels...uncomfortable, a little, which makes no sense—it's true, every word of it is true, and it's not even like there's a single thing wrong with having said it. He's said it all before, maybe not exactly like that, but the meaning was always the same, and he has no idea why it suddenly feels like such a big deal.
And Ash still won't look at him.
Two questions later, Pete finds himself pausing again:
Q: One of the most fascinating things about Fall Out Boy is the partnership between you and Patrick. Is there a lot of pressure on your friendship with him, with the entire band sort of depending on the two of you to maintain this level of success in your music?
A: The thing about me and Patrick is that...it's hard to explain. It's like, we'd be nothing without each other, you know? I mean, I know I'd be nothing without him—just some idiot with a bass and a notebook and a lot of tattoos, right?—and he, well, I like to think he's in the same boat. He's insanely talented, right, totally the secret behind all our success, right there, but like. The reason we work is...I have all these words. And I just throw them out there and they kind of suck sometimes, but Patrick, he rearranges them and puts them together and somehow comes up with exactly what I was trying to say, and that's awesome, right? And he's written lyrics before, and they were great, they were fine, they were some of our best songs I think, but he needed me to help him with those, help him make them say what he wanted to say. You know? It's the same all over—I'm the words, and he's the music. He's the voice, and I'm the face. It's like we were literally made to complement each other, so that everything one of us is missing, the other one can do that. And it works. There doesn't have to be any pressure, because we know it works. I can't imagine there could ever be a time when it was me and it was Patrick and it didn't work, so there's nothing to worry about.
Pete's cheeks heat slightly as he reads. Dude, he really does tend to ramble about Patrick, like, a lot, doesn't he? He avoids even trying to meet Ashlee's eyes, and just keeps skimming. The curls of foreboding in his stomach have taken on a vaguely ill undertone.
He's almost to the end of the interview before he sees it.
Q: So, switching gears slightly, if you don't mind my asking, what's your other half up to today? (*laughs*) Or should I say, your better half?
A: (*laughs*) Oh, better half, definitely, I can admit it. Um, I don't actually know for sure. I think he's actually in the studio this morning. And I'm pretty sure he's got an interview of his own coming up this afternoon.
Pete goes very still, re-reading the question, then the answer, over and over again, as the sick feeling in his stomach intensifies sharply. What's your other half up to today? He's in the studio this morning.... What's your other half up to? He's...
Oh. Fuck.
He's already beginning to shake as he drops his eyes to the next question to confirm what he already knows.
Q: (*laughs*) And Ashlee?
Fuck. Fuck.
He looks up at Ashlee—Ashlee, his fucking wife, of course that's what the guy was trying to ask, what's your other half up to today, Jesus—and this time, finally, she is looking at him.
She looks so sad.
"Ash," he says weakly, and this would be better if she was pissed off, or even just annoyed. It would all blow over eventually, and then it would be a joke, a stupid fucking joke about stupid fucking Pete and his stupid fucking boycrush, and that's all it would ever have to be.
This would be better if she didn't look so much like goodbye.
"You see it now," she says, her voice very soft. It's not a question.
Pete wants to deny everything—repress repress repress—but he can't, not when she's staring at him, so honest and open, and she deserves better than the same line of bullshit he's apparently been feeding himself all these years.
"I didn't know," he tells her helplessly, and it's true. He wishes he still didn't know, this is huge and insane and terrifying, and so stupid, Jesus, how could he have let himself fall for Patrick, for the love of fuck?
She smiles at him, and the smile says You're an idiot, Pete, and I hate this as much as you do, and This isn't going to be an ugly breakup, and it's the last one that kills him, because that also means, This is going to be a breakup.
There's a nursery upstairs, and a king-sized bed he'll be sleeping in alone, and he'd really believed this was going to be the one, this was going to be it, him and Ashlee, and he kind of can't believe this is actually happening.
Ashlee leaves after breakfast, and doesn't come home again.
—
Patrick waits until one month after the divorce is finalized to confront Pete.
"Dude," he says, as they are walking out of a Starbucks one day. "I don't mean to sound heartless or whatever, but, like. You know you haven't given me any lyrics in almost two months? I've got a bunch of music, and nothing to set it to."
Pete sort of goes pale, which is weird, and it takes him a long time to answer. "I guess I just haven't really been feeling it lately. What with...everything."
Patrick eyes him, growing a little worried in spite of himself. Pete's relationship with Ashlee ended more amicably than any other relationship he's had since Patrick has known him, which is saying something, and he's seemed surprisingly okay about it for the most part—sad, sure, but not, like, restraining-order sad. Still, it's Pete, and when Pete "isn't feeling" things like music and writing, Patrick can't ignore the bright flash of warning lights behind his eyes.
"Pete?" he asks cautiously.
And Pete, being Pete, gets what he's really asking. He sighs, looking suddenly so exhausted that Patrick can't help reaching out to hug him, an awkward one-armed sideways squeeze in deference to the steaming cups they're both clutching. Pete drops his head onto Patrick's shoulder for a second, but pulls away much sooner than he normally would.
"It's not like that," Pete says tiredly. "I...I am writing, it's just—not anything that's really fit to show you, or whatever. Don't worry about it, Patrick, I'm fine. I'll be back on track soon."
That stings, because Patrick has seen everything Pete writes—the really good stuff that turns into hit songs everybody sings along with, and the really bad stuff, too. The stuff so rageful and vicious that even Patrick can't find a way to make it sound anything less than homicidal; the stuff so depressive and filled with self-loathing that just reading it makes you want to lay down in a bathtub somewhere with a razor blade; the stuff so schmoopy and romanticized that Patrick flatly refuses to sing it, but always suggests Pete send it to Celine Dion, who might conceivably have some use for it.
He sees it all, and if Pete is hiding something from him now, Patrick isn't sure what that means. Only that he doesn't like it.
He tries not to sound too petulant when he says, "You never wrote anything you couldn't show me before."
Pete doesn't blush like other people, or if he does, he's lucky enough to have skin that hides it pretty well. Not like Patrick. What he does do, though, is duck his head boyishly when he gets flustered or embarrassed, and sort of fidgets awkwardly with the sleeve of his hoodie or one of his beltloops or something.
"Yeah," he says quietly. "Well, this is just really...personal and shit. You know?"
Patrick digests this, and tries not to let it hurt. It doesn't work, really, but at least he manages not to show it. It's Pete's choice what to share with Patrick. Patrick will respect that.
This lasts all of a week.
By the end of the week, Patrick is slowly going insane. Pete is behaving like everything is perfectly normal, but it isn't, and now that Patrick knows to look for the wrong-ness, he's finding more of it than he knows what to do with.
Like: Pete still isn't talking about whatever it is that's bothering him so much. If he's writing about it, he's still keeping it from Patrick, and that still hurts more than Patrick knows what to do with.
Like: Pete doesn't touch him anymore—or, no, that's not exactly right. Pete still touches him, but it's different now. His hugs have grown shorter and fewer between; the other day, he actually did the "manly-back-slap" thing when Patrick came by his house. Pete has never done the manly-back-slap thing in his life. Not to Patrick. He's also sitting further away on the couch than basically ever before, keeping his feet on the floor where they belong instead of thrown over Patrick's lap (where...they belong), and he hasn't instigated a single wrestling match in months.
Like: Patrick's phone has been almost entirely silent lately. Usually, he gets somewhere north of forty-three text messages a day, most of which have nothing to do with anything whatsoever (whats up with jamba juice does anybody ever srsly go there? somebody should buy bob some mints or something get on that dude okay? glow in the dark shoelaces, cool/not cool?), no purpose or meaning, just a way of reaching out. Making contact.
Pete isn't making contact anymore. Not in any of the ways that matter, and Patrick can't take it anymore.
He shows up at Pete's house unannounced, then bangs on the door and starts talking as soon as Pete opens it.
"I can't take it anymore," he says flatly, into Pete's surprised face. "I'm driving myself crazy, dude. I keep trying to let you deal with...whatever-the-fuck this is, like, in your own way or your own time or whatever, but I can't. And—and—to be totally honest with you, I sort of resent the fact that you're not telling me about it to begin with. You tell me everything, there's nothing you could ever do that you couldn't tell me, you know that, or at least you should know that. I have never judged you for a single thing, not one, not even Best Buy, man, which by the way was the last thing you didn't talk to me about, so you'll have to forgive me if I'm not exactly thrilled about being shut out again now. And I don't care what it is—I don't care what it is, Pete—but I can't...whatever it is, you obviously think it's bad enough that you can't even tell me about it, and that—I can't handle the idea of you trying to deal with something like that all alone, okay? You don't have to, it doesn't matter, no matter what it is or how bad you think it is, I'm here, and you can tell me, and I promise I'll help you, okay? We'll deal with it together, but you can't—I can't—" He pauses, fidgets with his hat, suddenly running out of steam. "I miss you," he finishes lamely.
Pete stares at him for what feels like a very long time. Then he stands back from the door, opening it wide and gesturing Patrick inside.
When they are finally settled in the living room, Patrick looks up to find Pete watching him with an expression he can't quite read—exasperated, sad, affectionate. Maybe all three. Maybe something else entirely.
He isn't ready for what Pete eventually says.
"Ashlee left me because of you."
Patrick's eyes widen, and he winces in spite of himself. Fuck, maybe Pete hasn't been shutting him out because he's dealing with his feelings by himself. Maybe Pete has been shutting him out because he's angry at him.
"Not your fault," Pete adds, as if he can hear Patrick thinking from the other side of the couch. "She said...she said she didn't want to be second best, basically. And then she left."
Patrick swallows. "Elisa left for the same reason," he admits, and it feels like a big confession somehow, even though it shouldn't be. It's not like he and Pete haven't always known their relationship was...weird, and codependent or whatever. They joke about it all the time.
But now it's fucked up two very serious relationships—Pete's fucking marriage, Christ, to the mother of his unborn child—and okay, that's...like, maybe a real problem.
When Elisa left, after that late-night tour-bus phone call where she had explained with drunken earnestness all the ways in which she felt Pete was usurping the role of Significant Other in Patrick's life, Patrick had had a lot of thinking to do. In the end, though, as horrible as it sounds, he keeps coming back to the same basic truth: he'd rather have Pete, complete with their intense-and-maybe-slightly-unhealthy friendship, than to have to give that up for the sake of a romantic relationship. Obviously, the best-case scenario is to have a romantic relationship with someone who gets it, but if that can't happen...well, he'd just rather have Pete. That's all.
He doesn't really want to think too much about that, either, because he suspects it is another excellent example of the "probably-unhealthy" aspect of their relationship, but it's true nonetheless.
This, though. Well, Pete didn't just lose a girlfriend. He lost a wife. Patrick can't blame him if his choice isn't the same.
He's so caught up in this line of thought that he almost misses Pete's next words.
"The thing is...okay, dude, you can't freak out, you promised, all right? Okay. Okay. The thing is, she's...you know...not wrong. I mean, before she left, she showed me some stuff that sort of opened my eyes to...some things I maybe should have seen before, about—about you, and the way I...uh, whatever, the way I feel about you and shit. You know. And...yeah. So I've been dealing with that. Because, you know, you're straight and stuff, and I get that, I do. I mean, I thought I was mostly-straight too until all this happened, and the point is, I don't—I wasn't hiding shit because I didn't think I could talk to you anymore, or because I was in, you know, a Best Buy place or whatever. I just...even having this conversation's going to make everything weird, you know it is, and I didn't want that, but I—I didn't really think about how it would all be looking to you, either, so, like. I'm not telling you this to, like. Fuck up your worldview or whatever, that's what I'm trying to say. I'm telling you because you were worried, and you didn't need to be but yeah, you maybe had a reason for it, and I didn't want to just. Let you keep thinking that I might...so, uh, now you know. And I'm dealing. I promise, and everything will be back to normal soon, I mean, I'm working on it. You know? Just...give me a little more time, and we'll be fine. Right?"
For Patrick, the entire world grinds to a standstill. His face is burning, his stomach is somehow sort of twisting and fluttering all at once, his skin feels too tight all over his body, and his brain has stopped working altogether.
"Shit." Pete looks wretched, shifting closer to Patrick and then edging backward again like he's been caught doing something wrong. His hands sort of flail in Patrick's direction, reaching out like he wants to—pat him, or touch him, or reassure him or something, but they stop halfway there and sort of hover awkwardly between them. "Patrick, Patrick, dude, I'm sorry. I shouldn't have even said anything, fuck, please don't let this—I can't do this without you, dude, I swear to you that it doesn't change anything, okay? I can totally handle this, it's cool, just. Please. I can't do this without you."
Patrick opens his mouth, but it takes a few false starts before he can get any actual words to come out.
"You," he eventually croaks, "are a fucking idiot." As Pete's expression crumbles, he hastens to clarify. "I mean, I'm not going anywhere, jackass, just...give me a minute. That's all."
Pete closes his mouth and waits obediently, looking very much like a man who is waiting for the axe to fall.
For his part, Patrick is sort of surprised by his own reaction to Pete's bombshell. Now that he's pushed through the initial shock, what he's left with is mostly just an overwhelming sense of inevitability. Like some hidden part of him saw this coming a long, long time ago, and has been quietly preparing for this moment ever since.
It's weird. It's as if there are all these reactions he knows he should be having—the Big Gay Freakout, the oh-my-god-what-if-this-ruins-our-friendship thing, the what-the-fuck-will-this-do-to-the-band thing, and about fifteen other perfectly valid points he should be panicking about right this very second—and he is, or at least, part of him is. A very small part of his brain is, even now, shrieking like a thirteen-year-old girl and running circles around itself as it tries to catch up to this new version of reality.
But the rest of him just mostly feels like yes.
"I don't know how to have gay sex," he blurts out.
Pete's brain appears to explode. "G-Gay...sex?" he actually stammers, and Patrick will cackle about this moment for years to come, just as soon as he gets his brain back in order, because this is the first time he's ever flustered Pete to this degree. Payback's a bitch, and it is awesome. "Gay...what? Patrick, no, I didn't—I wasn't—"
"Shut up, Pete," Patrick tells him, not unkindly.
Pete shuts up.
"I don't know how to have gay sex," Patrick repeats. "I mean, I know the basics, but personally, it all sounds a little sketchy to me. On the other hand, there must be something to say for it, what with all the...gay people. Anyway, that isn't the point. The point is, you are going to have to be very patient with me, as far as that goes. I've never actually even kissed a guy."
He waits, expectant. Pete misses his cue entirely, gaping at Patrick as if Patrick just gave that entire speech in Swahili.
"This is the part where you say something stupid like, Well, I can solve that problem for you, at least, and then you...y'know...kiss me, or whatever," Patrick tells him helpfully.
"I..." Pete swallows thickly. His eyes are still wide like saucers. "I am so much smoother than that," he manages finally.
Patrick eyes him, attempting to convey I'll believe that when I see it, and so far, I am not impressed, using only his expression.
"Patrick," Pete breathes shakily. "You don't have to—are you...? I mean—"
"You suck," Patrick says, and takes matters into his own hands. He grabs Pete by the back of the neck and tugs until he can cover Pete's mouth with his own.
And—huh. Kissing a guy, or at least kissing Pete, doesn't feel so very strange after all. It does, in lots of immediately-obvious ways—the slight drag of stubble against his skin; the rough, calloused fingers lifting shakily to frame his face; the hard planes and angles of the body that is slowly melting in against his own—but it doesn't, not really. Pete's lips are firmer than Patrick is used to, a little chapped against his own, and Pete kisses like he does everything else, wholehearted and reckless and racing against time.
It's different. But it's right.
When they finally break for air, Pete is staring at Patrick like he thinks he's going to disappear any second, like he still can't quite believe this is happening.
"So—" Pete clears his throat awkwardly. "So, you're...we're really—"
Patrick is just happy to have Pete's weight draped over him again, warm and comforting against his side. He hadn't even realized how much he was actually missing that feeling until this very moment, and now that he has it back, he doesn't plan to ever let it go, ever again. It feels like belonging, like everything is right again after being wrong for far too long.
It feels like home.
"Yeah," he agrees contentedly. "We really are."
—
End.