TheThreshold.08
Title: The Threshold.
Summary : The most popular boy in school walks through the door of a local shop. In the time it takes for him to walk back out, he's done something that will drastically change his entire world.
Author :
burgerking. I claim nothing but the story itself!
Rating : PG-13.
Author's Notes : This isn't my favorite chapter, but it's vital to the plot.
01 | 02 | 03 | 04 | 05 | 06 | 07
“That might be the stupidest idea I’ve ever heard.”
It was another remarkably pleasant day in Chicago… but the townspeople had already lost interest in the weather. There was no real incentive to go out and enjoy it while it lasted, because they knew it would be lasting well into the following months.
But Joe and Andy were bored enough to be outside, bored enough to be strolling down the sidewalk toward the record store. Somewhere along the line, for whatever reason, Joe had mentioned putting a band together and Andy had disagreed with the idea; they had then spent several minutes arguing over it.
“Seriously, there’s like - what, five months until college starts? Something like that? What would be the point of a band?”
“What the hell else would we do with five months?” Andy just rolled his eyes. His hands were tucked deep in his pockets, and he had an air about him that warned Joe not to get too antagonistic. But Joe wasn’t about to comply. “You’ve been in other bands,” he pointed out.
“Yeah, but… Look, Trohman, I just think it’s pointless.”
“Fun,” Joe corrected him.
“Whatever. Wouldn’t your mom get mad, anyway?”
“Not if we earn some money. Think about it! We could play graduation parties, and then divvy up the money evenly!”
“Okay, fair enough, but who would hire a band with us in it? Cool kids only want cool bands to play at their parties, and…” There was a pause. “Wait, who else did you say you wanted in on this?”
Joe grinned a bit nervously, having been caught in his plan. “Um. Patrick, of course.”
“And?”
“And, ah… Pete Wentz?” He flashed the biggest, toothiest grin he could muster, and Andy glared. For a moment there was nothing but one long, painful silence, and then -
“Dude, we’re gonna play so many fucking parties!”
The other half of Joe’s prospective band was also together at the moment, though Patrick and Pete had opted to stay inside. Originally their plans had been to work on their ungodly piles of homework, but that had disengaged fairly early on. Patrick was now lying on his bed, and Pete was sitting on the opposite end. He was holding his cell phone in his hand, though with little conviction; Patrick had been staring at it with his eyebrow raised for quite a while now.
“Well?” he said, eventually. “Am I going to be your moral support, or what?” Pete said nothing, just scowled down at the phone, a sick taste in his mouth. “Look, it’s your fault you didn’t do this sooner,” Patrick insisted, sitting up with a bit of difficulty. “Didn’t you say that it was the only thing you were sure about?”
“Why are you so intent on making sure that I break up?” Pete asked, dodging Patrick’s question. His friend let out a frustrated sigh.
“I just want what’s best for you. And you said it yourself, this is what’s best. Now all you’ve gotta do is grow a pair.”
Pete, being male, found this blow to his manhood highly inspiring. And with one last dirty look at Patrick, he pressed his speed-dial and put the phone to his ear.
“Hey?” said a soft voice on the other end.
“Hey.” Pete noticed that his own voice sounded unusually hollow. Was it sincerity, or lack thereof?
“What’s up?” asked the other.
“Mikey…” Pete began. He quickly looked to Patrick for some sort of advice, or anything to give him courage; Instead, the older boy mimicked picking his nose, and Pete fought hard not to laugh into the phone. “Mikey,” he tried again, “We need to talk.”
“Oh,” said Mikey. “Oh.” Those four words were all that he needed to hear before he knew what was going on. There was a pause before he spoke again, almost buoyantly: “You’re breaking up with me over the phone?”
“Um.”
“That is so fucking lame!” he laughed, “But what can I expect from a cheesy cliché boy, other than cheesy clichés?”
“…Are you upset?” Pete asked, almost hoping Mikey would say yes.
“No.”
“But -”
“How dumb do you think I am? Oh Pete, I knew this was over before it began! Asking me out was so unlike you. It was so stupid, so sudden.”
“But why -”
“Didn’t you notice how I hesitated before I said yes? You’re so obvious sometimes, you know. I could tell there was something up, and I couldn’t just leave you hanging. Desperate times call for desperate measures.”
“Then this didn’t mean anything,” Pete said sadly. Patrick ceased his miming for a moment and observed Pete quietly.
“Pete,” said Mikey, not buying the other boy’s remorse, “How many times have we talked since we started dating? I mean… have we actually been on a date?”
“There was that one time at the movies...”
“But Patrick was there,” Mikey reminded him. Pete coughed. “Yeah, and can you just tell me something? Just one thing. I mean, things are still cool between you and me, and I wasn’t even really into the whole idea…”
“Get to the point.”
Mikey smirked, and Pete could swear he heard it in the other boy’s voice. “Did this whole thing have something to do with Patrick?”
“I… uh…”
Everyone makes lying look so easy.
“Mikey, I can’t talk about that right now.” Pete looked up at Patrick, who was oblivious to what Mikey had asked. Confusion glimmered in his eyes, but Pete offered no help.
“Oh…? He’s there? I guess that clears that up,” Mikey declared. “Alright then, I’ll let you two be alone.”
“Wait, it’s not like that!” Pete said desperately. But a dial tone was his only answer. He sighed and let both the phone and his body fall back onto the mattress.
Patrick shifted now, leaning over him with the same curious spark as before. “I’m not sure if that went well or not,” he said.
“Neither am I,” Pete admitted. “But at least it’s over.” Apparently satisfied with this answer, Patrick shrugged and lay back on the bed.
The scene felt familiar; Pete was a little disappointed that they weren’t lying quite as close as they had been a few days before. “Joe tells me you’re a good writer,” Patrick said rather suddenly.
“Oh,” Pete said, disheartened. “He told you.”
“Yeah, he did. And fuck that tone of yours, it’s not like he actually told me what you write. He just said that you’re good at it.”
Even so, Pete was content with scowling at the ceiling. “I expect you’re going to ask why I didn’t let you read it,” he said, in reference to his infamous notebook.
“I wasn’t going to ask that, actually, but I think that’ll make for good conversation,” Patrick replied. Pete squeezed his eyes shut.
“I can’t decide if you’re being a smartass, or if you’re just bearing the burden of being that much smarter than me.”
“Can’t it be both?”
Pete glared over at his friend as best he could, then sat up and reached to the floor, where his notebook had been since they had arrived after school. “You want to read it?” he said, half angry, half anxious, “Fine. Whatever. Read it.” He tossed it onto the bed and Patrick looked questioningly into his eyes. “Go on,” Pete urged, folding his arms across his chest. Patrick picked up the notebook and began to read.
For several minutes, there was nothing. Just the rustle of paper as Patrick’s bright eyes skimmed over Pete’s soul. There were stories here - stories that Pete had never told Patrick but which he understood the plots of nevertheless. There was something in these stories, and he knew it from page one.
One of the pages was particularly striking; almost the entire paper was covered in words that were strung together properly, as opposed to the random lines and verses that dotted the rest of the notebook. The ink was heavy and smudged, as though Pete had been feeling something dreadful while writing it…
Patrick looked up and spoke carefully, as not to upset the other. “Pete,” he said, “This is really…” he stopped. Pete waited. “It’s really pretty… No, wait, that sucked. It’s really eloquent. Like, really fucking eloquent.”
“Thanks,” Pete mumbled, relieved that Patrick hadn’t figured out who all the supposedly-eloquent quips on unrequited love were about. Feeling a bit more at ease, he went on, “How so?”
“I can hear it,” Patrick said, his eyes back on the words now. He seemed excited, and this enthusiasm soothed Pete even further. But he still didn’t know what in the hell his friend was talking about.
“I don’t get what you mean,” he said, and moved next to Patrick to see which page was in question. As soon as he saw it, he felt a bit ill. How did Patrick find anything worthy of praise in that mess?
“It’s just like I said, I can hear it. In my head. The songs.”
“Songs?” Pete asked, skeptically. “Are you sure we’re on the same page?”
“Yeah, it’s… okay, hang on,” Patrick said, once more returning to the book with that odd eagerness. “Here,” he said suddenly, pointing to a small section of the work. Pete looked.
“What am I supposed to be hearing?” he inquired warily. Patrick glared at him.
“Are you kidding? You don’t hear…” He trailed off, cleared his throat, and before Pete could make any sense of it, Patrick was singing. “Please put the doctor on the phone, ’cause I’m not making any sense. Blame everyone but me for this mess. And my back has been breaking from this heavy heart; we never seemed so far.”
And Pete was in awe - so much, in fact, that he was hardly aware of how his mouth had dropped open. Patrick smiled at him, blushing slightly, but was determined to prove his point. He went on for one more line: “I’m hopelessly hopeful, you’re just hopeless enough, but we never had it at all. …Do you hear it yet?”
“I heard it,” Pete responded timidly. “And you’re right, it was really fucking eloquent.”
“It’s nice to hear you compliment yourself,” Patrick said.
“I didn’t,” replied the other, a tiny smile evident in the corner of his mouth. “I mean, I don’t know if it’s any good written down, but damn, you can sing it!”
Patrick blinked up at him.
“…Really?”
Summary : The most popular boy in school walks through the door of a local shop. In the time it takes for him to walk back out, he's done something that will drastically change his entire world.
Author :
burgerking. I claim nothing but the story itself!Rating : PG-13.
Author's Notes : This isn't my favorite chapter, but it's vital to the plot.
01 | 02 | 03 | 04 | 05 | 06 | 07
“That might be the stupidest idea I’ve ever heard.”
It was another remarkably pleasant day in Chicago… but the townspeople had already lost interest in the weather. There was no real incentive to go out and enjoy it while it lasted, because they knew it would be lasting well into the following months.
But Joe and Andy were bored enough to be outside, bored enough to be strolling down the sidewalk toward the record store. Somewhere along the line, for whatever reason, Joe had mentioned putting a band together and Andy had disagreed with the idea; they had then spent several minutes arguing over it.
“Seriously, there’s like - what, five months until college starts? Something like that? What would be the point of a band?”
“What the hell else would we do with five months?” Andy just rolled his eyes. His hands were tucked deep in his pockets, and he had an air about him that warned Joe not to get too antagonistic. But Joe wasn’t about to comply. “You’ve been in other bands,” he pointed out.
“Yeah, but… Look, Trohman, I just think it’s pointless.”
“Fun,” Joe corrected him.
“Whatever. Wouldn’t your mom get mad, anyway?”
“Not if we earn some money. Think about it! We could play graduation parties, and then divvy up the money evenly!”
“Okay, fair enough, but who would hire a band with us in it? Cool kids only want cool bands to play at their parties, and…” There was a pause. “Wait, who else did you say you wanted in on this?”
Joe grinned a bit nervously, having been caught in his plan. “Um. Patrick, of course.”
“And?”
“And, ah… Pete Wentz?” He flashed the biggest, toothiest grin he could muster, and Andy glared. For a moment there was nothing but one long, painful silence, and then -
“Dude, we’re gonna play so many fucking parties!”
The other half of Joe’s prospective band was also together at the moment, though Patrick and Pete had opted to stay inside. Originally their plans had been to work on their ungodly piles of homework, but that had disengaged fairly early on. Patrick was now lying on his bed, and Pete was sitting on the opposite end. He was holding his cell phone in his hand, though with little conviction; Patrick had been staring at it with his eyebrow raised for quite a while now.
“Well?” he said, eventually. “Am I going to be your moral support, or what?” Pete said nothing, just scowled down at the phone, a sick taste in his mouth. “Look, it’s your fault you didn’t do this sooner,” Patrick insisted, sitting up with a bit of difficulty. “Didn’t you say that it was the only thing you were sure about?”
“Why are you so intent on making sure that I break up?” Pete asked, dodging Patrick’s question. His friend let out a frustrated sigh.
“I just want what’s best for you. And you said it yourself, this is what’s best. Now all you’ve gotta do is grow a pair.”
Pete, being male, found this blow to his manhood highly inspiring. And with one last dirty look at Patrick, he pressed his speed-dial and put the phone to his ear.
“Hey?” said a soft voice on the other end.
“Hey.” Pete noticed that his own voice sounded unusually hollow. Was it sincerity, or lack thereof?
“What’s up?” asked the other.
“Mikey…” Pete began. He quickly looked to Patrick for some sort of advice, or anything to give him courage; Instead, the older boy mimicked picking his nose, and Pete fought hard not to laugh into the phone. “Mikey,” he tried again, “We need to talk.”
“Oh,” said Mikey. “Oh.” Those four words were all that he needed to hear before he knew what was going on. There was a pause before he spoke again, almost buoyantly: “You’re breaking up with me over the phone?”
“Um.”
“That is so fucking lame!” he laughed, “But what can I expect from a cheesy cliché boy, other than cheesy clichés?”
“…Are you upset?” Pete asked, almost hoping Mikey would say yes.
“No.”
“But -”
“How dumb do you think I am? Oh Pete, I knew this was over before it began! Asking me out was so unlike you. It was so stupid, so sudden.”
“But why -”
“Didn’t you notice how I hesitated before I said yes? You’re so obvious sometimes, you know. I could tell there was something up, and I couldn’t just leave you hanging. Desperate times call for desperate measures.”
“Then this didn’t mean anything,” Pete said sadly. Patrick ceased his miming for a moment and observed Pete quietly.
“Pete,” said Mikey, not buying the other boy’s remorse, “How many times have we talked since we started dating? I mean… have we actually been on a date?”
“There was that one time at the movies...”
“But Patrick was there,” Mikey reminded him. Pete coughed. “Yeah, and can you just tell me something? Just one thing. I mean, things are still cool between you and me, and I wasn’t even really into the whole idea…”
“Get to the point.”
Mikey smirked, and Pete could swear he heard it in the other boy’s voice. “Did this whole thing have something to do with Patrick?”
“I… uh…”
Everyone makes lying look so easy.
“Mikey, I can’t talk about that right now.” Pete looked up at Patrick, who was oblivious to what Mikey had asked. Confusion glimmered in his eyes, but Pete offered no help.
“Oh…? He’s there? I guess that clears that up,” Mikey declared. “Alright then, I’ll let you two be alone.”
“Wait, it’s not like that!” Pete said desperately. But a dial tone was his only answer. He sighed and let both the phone and his body fall back onto the mattress.
Patrick shifted now, leaning over him with the same curious spark as before. “I’m not sure if that went well or not,” he said.
“Neither am I,” Pete admitted. “But at least it’s over.” Apparently satisfied with this answer, Patrick shrugged and lay back on the bed.
The scene felt familiar; Pete was a little disappointed that they weren’t lying quite as close as they had been a few days before. “Joe tells me you’re a good writer,” Patrick said rather suddenly.
“Oh,” Pete said, disheartened. “He told you.”
“Yeah, he did. And fuck that tone of yours, it’s not like he actually told me what you write. He just said that you’re good at it.”
Even so, Pete was content with scowling at the ceiling. “I expect you’re going to ask why I didn’t let you read it,” he said, in reference to his infamous notebook.
“I wasn’t going to ask that, actually, but I think that’ll make for good conversation,” Patrick replied. Pete squeezed his eyes shut.
“I can’t decide if you’re being a smartass, or if you’re just bearing the burden of being that much smarter than me.”
“Can’t it be both?”
Pete glared over at his friend as best he could, then sat up and reached to the floor, where his notebook had been since they had arrived after school. “You want to read it?” he said, half angry, half anxious, “Fine. Whatever. Read it.” He tossed it onto the bed and Patrick looked questioningly into his eyes. “Go on,” Pete urged, folding his arms across his chest. Patrick picked up the notebook and began to read.
For several minutes, there was nothing. Just the rustle of paper as Patrick’s bright eyes skimmed over Pete’s soul. There were stories here - stories that Pete had never told Patrick but which he understood the plots of nevertheless. There was something in these stories, and he knew it from page one.
One of the pages was particularly striking; almost the entire paper was covered in words that were strung together properly, as opposed to the random lines and verses that dotted the rest of the notebook. The ink was heavy and smudged, as though Pete had been feeling something dreadful while writing it…
Patrick looked up and spoke carefully, as not to upset the other. “Pete,” he said, “This is really…” he stopped. Pete waited. “It’s really pretty… No, wait, that sucked. It’s really eloquent. Like, really fucking eloquent.”
“Thanks,” Pete mumbled, relieved that Patrick hadn’t figured out who all the supposedly-eloquent quips on unrequited love were about. Feeling a bit more at ease, he went on, “How so?”
“I can hear it,” Patrick said, his eyes back on the words now. He seemed excited, and this enthusiasm soothed Pete even further. But he still didn’t know what in the hell his friend was talking about.
“I don’t get what you mean,” he said, and moved next to Patrick to see which page was in question. As soon as he saw it, he felt a bit ill. How did Patrick find anything worthy of praise in that mess?
“It’s just like I said, I can hear it. In my head. The songs.”
“Songs?” Pete asked, skeptically. “Are you sure we’re on the same page?”
“Yeah, it’s… okay, hang on,” Patrick said, once more returning to the book with that odd eagerness. “Here,” he said suddenly, pointing to a small section of the work. Pete looked.
“What am I supposed to be hearing?” he inquired warily. Patrick glared at him.
“Are you kidding? You don’t hear…” He trailed off, cleared his throat, and before Pete could make any sense of it, Patrick was singing. “Please put the doctor on the phone, ’cause I’m not making any sense. Blame everyone but me for this mess. And my back has been breaking from this heavy heart; we never seemed so far.”
And Pete was in awe - so much, in fact, that he was hardly aware of how his mouth had dropped open. Patrick smiled at him, blushing slightly, but was determined to prove his point. He went on for one more line: “I’m hopelessly hopeful, you’re just hopeless enough, but we never had it at all. …Do you hear it yet?”
“I heard it,” Pete responded timidly. “And you’re right, it was really fucking eloquent.”
“It’s nice to hear you compliment yourself,” Patrick said.
“I didn’t,” replied the other, a tiny smile evident in the corner of his mouth. “I mean, I don’t know if it’s any good written down, but damn, you can sing it!”
Patrick blinked up at him.
“…Really?”