Fic: The Way the Sky Tastes

The sky scowled, and Pete scowled right back.
The sky shook, and Pete shook the same way.
The sky cried, and Pete willed himself very hard not to cry with it.

Pete remembered he didn't have very strong willpower, and decided it wouldn't much matter if he did cry, because the sky was bigger then Pete, and everyone would pay more attention to the sky then they would to him. Pete was pretty much all right with that.

Pretty much.

His fingers drummed steadily on his ribcage, beat for beat with his stuttering heart.
Pete never really liked that thing.
His heart.
Much too erratic. Or maybe much too predictable.
He never thought about it long enough to make up his mind.

The sky, though, he thought about that quite a bit. An open expanse of nothingness. Of completeness. Of anger and bitterness and peace and softness and he just wanted to get lost in it, because you can't be found until you're lost and Pete desperately, desperately wanted to be found. By a certain someone in particular, but by now he was getting desperate, and would almost settle for anyone.

Almost.

Pete thought he heard the last dry part of his anatomy groan in defeat as it finally relinquished itself to the rain.
Pete thought he felt himself quake inside his skin as a steel fist of thunder punched the summer air.
Pete thought he saw himself slip out of the world for a minute, but then he was back, not gone quite long enough to miss anyone.

Not quite.

Sometimes he would look over the ledge of the roof he had deemed his NeverLand and wonder if he could make it if he jumped. Sometimes he wondered if he meant survive, or die. To make it or not to make it. Succeed or fail.
Sometimes he cared.

Sometimes.

Anyway, failure was the best kind of success, he had told everyone. He could be a character witness, he told everyone. He sort of maybe just a little didn't exactly believe it though, he told no one.

Like every day that came after one, Pete would crawl his way to the side of the roof that kissed shadows with The Tree and climb down that way, left hand over right hand, right foot over left foot, "Please insert foot into mouth", and so on, wondering if he would ever, could ever, maybe just take the easy route and jump down sometime.

Pete had a habit of doing things the hard way. Pete knew that he couldn't take life too seriously, because you never get out alive. Pete also knew that you will get there either way. ("Where's there?" he asked a stranger once, but got lost with the directions' they gave.) You will get there either way, and he decided once, and that he would take the hardest way possible because that would most likely be the most interesting route.

Pete from Now still agreed with Pete from Then, and he was proud of his consistency.

Pete landed with both feet firmly on the ground. He blinked. That was something new.

And as he walked in the rain, towards what he hoped was something more, he thought about how proud he was to call Patrick his friend, and that as long as that was true, he would be all right.

Patrick, he knew, made everything all right.

Pete started walking to a place he would only know when he got there.

* * *

When Patrick would see Pete standing in his doorway, with damp spirits and soaked skin, he would wonder why it was always him. Why, time after time, Pete came to Patrick before anyone else, refused to see anyone but him. He wasn’t complaining- he always sort of felt Pete to be his responsibility when it got like this- he just wondered about it, like he wondered about a lot of things.

While Patrick would peel off Pete’s clothes and gave him dry ones and a blanket and coffee and a reassuring kiss on the forehead, Pete would wonder why Patrick put up with him. Why Patrick took him when he was broken and stayed by his side, filling in his cracks carefully. Why he bit his lip and gazed intently into Pete’s eyes when Pete needed to feel like someone was listening, why he would bow his head and hold Pete’s hand when Pete just needed to feel like someone was there. Why Patrick was always there with dry clothes, and a blanket, and coffee and a reassuring kiss on the forehead. Why he always went to bed curled onto one side with just enough room for Pete to sneak into and share his warmth and wrap his arms around him until the sun came up and danced on the ceiling and sheets. Why Patrick never said a word when Pete would leave with his only goodbye a kiss on the cheek and a breathy promise in his ear:

“This is the last time, I swear it.”

Both of them knew promises were meant to be broken.

Pete would feel guilty for the whole two seconds he was standing in Patrick’s doorway the next rainy night, but knew he was forgiven as soon as their bodies connected for one more night of silent darkness, silent acceptance. One more night and one more time.

Patrick would feel guilty for never saying anything to make Pete believe that it was all right, that he could come back, that he didn’t have to leave. That he could stay forever. But he knew he was forgiven when Pete would come back some rainy evening and close his eyes when Patrick kissed his forehead and kissed away the thoughts that wouldn’t go away, when Pete would stare up at him breathlessly, holding his hand like the world would fall away if he let go. For one more night. One more time.

* * *

In between those rainy nights, Patrick and Pete would make music together. On paper it was always Patrick and Pete and Joe and Andy but in their hearts it was Patrick and Pete. Patrick’s heartbeat and Pete’s heartbreak combined to form something beautiful and Joe and Andy were okay with that. Were okay with nodding and smiling and saying, ‘Yeah, guys, that’s perfect, that’s great, that one’s a killer.’

Andy and Joe were amazing like that, and neither Pete nor Patrick ever let themselves forget it.

In between those rainy nights and off-key days it was a giant game of Ding-Dong-Ditch and caffeine and long car rides and stealing Patrick’s hat and laughing as Joe swore he was going to kill all of them for messing with his Star Wars stuff, because fuck, that stuff is collectible you assholes, and it wasn’t in the least bit funny.

Pete and Patrick thought it was the funniest thing since they put Cherry Kool-Aid in Joe’s shampoo, dying his then-blonde hair a fierce shade of orange.

 * * *

It was on one of those days, when there was no rain in the last week and none on the forecast, when they couldn’t make anything that was perfect, great, killer, to save their lives and they gave up for a while, that Pete proposed the idea of eloping.

He asked the wall above Patrick’s head between bites of blueberry pancakes and sips of chocolate milk.

“So what do you think of running away to the exotic land of Canada and getting married or something?”

After choking momentarily on an exceptionally large blueberry cluster, Patrick stuttered out an incredulous, “What?!” and pushed his plate away warily.

Pete flashed his infamous fangs and scratched at the back of his neck.

“Yeah, crazy, huh? That’s my job though- someone has to keep you on your toes...Stumpy.”

Patrick was forced into stifling darkness as the brim of his cap was pushed low over his face, and when he pried his way out, Pete was gone, the only visible signs of his presence the half-eaten plate of pancakes, and the swinging front door.

To Patrick, though, that was only part of the illusion that Pete cast. What made him sure that Pete had really been there, emotionally as well as physically, was that crease on his heart- that little line of worry that formed whenever it felt Pete slipping away into that little well again. Where would Pete would stumble and fall into and call out for Patrick, arm’s raised, soaking wet...

Three days later Pete was at Patrick’s front door again.

* * *