In Your Arms [2/4]

2005

 Fall Out Boy’s about to tour in Europe, and Pete wants to get something from Best Buy. Patrick finds it quite odd, but then again, it’s Pete. So, he lets Pete go, thinking it would only be a few minutes. Patrick is wrong, and after twenty minutes, he begins to worry. After all, right now it is forty degrees Fahrenheit outside and God, what if Pete fell and is unconscious and has hypothermia or maybe he’s-

The phone rings. When Patrick answers the phone, a crying, hysteric Pete is on the other end.

“Pete, where the hell are you?!”

“I-I fucked up, ‘Trick. I fucked up.”

“What do you mean?! Pete, what’s wrong?!” But Pete keeps repeating what he said.

“Tell me what the fuck is going on!” Patrick screams, because he’s freaking scared. Who wouldn’t be?

“I took too many of them, ‘Trick. I-I didn’t mean to, I just wanted my head to shut up and -”

“Pete, let me help you!”

“You can’t help me, ‘Trick. It’s too late -” Pete’s voice is fading into chokes and gasps and then whispers – “Goodbye, ‘Trick. Thank you, and Andy and Joe and anyone else.”

“Pete?!”

“Goodbye.”

Then the phone goes dead.

---

It’s been a while since “The Incident”, two months to be exact. Two month since Pete overdosed on Ativan. Two months of him being in the hospital. Two months of Patrick blaming himself. Two months of Andy and Joe being overridden with their friend’s attempted suicide, and another friend who wants to know how that feels. Two month of sad thoughts and tears and fake smiles for their friends.

Well that ends, because today Pete is getting out of the hospital.

Andy’s sitting with Joe right in front of the emergency door, but Patrick’s not with them. Patrick gave up a few weeks ago. Now Joe and Andy are taking turns checking on Patrick, making sure he doesn’t take Pete’s kind of release. They don’t need that happening again.

“Joe,” Andy starts, looking down at the ground, “Do you think…he’s gonna be alright?”

“He’s gonna be fine, dude,” Joe says, smoke from his light coming with the words, “he’s coming out today and everything’s gonna be -”

“I don’t mean Pete.” A silence washes over the two for a few seconds before Joe speaks up.

“Who, you mean ‘Trick? Andy, don’t worry; ‘Trick’s sensible -”

“He tried already, Joe, what makes you think he won’t do it again?” This time, Joe can’t answer. Suddenly the hospital doors open, but Andy and Joe don’t pay attention to who comes out.

“Who tried what already?” questions the person who came out, and the two band mates look toward it.

“Pete!” Joe decides to ignore Pete’s question and gives him a hug. Pete hugs back.

“Hey Pete,” Andy says, a bit of worry in his voice.

“Hey Andy,” Pete replies, breaking away from his hug.

Pete still doesn’t look well. His normal tan skin looks paler. His cheeks look almost hollow; the symptom of malnutrition. Andy’s probably sure the rest of his body is the same way. He has a smile on his face, but it’s completely half-hearted.

But what Andy is most concerned about, is Pete’s eyes. Before this, they use to have this…shininess to them. They shone when he was happy, when he laughed, when he preformed onstage. But that shininess, it seems to have disappeared. Pete’s eyes have taken on this dullness, a dullness Andy doesn’t like.

“So, where’s Patrick?” Pete looks around worriedly.

“He’s at home. He couldn’t handle it.”

“What do you mean, ‘couldn’t handle it’?” Pete seems slightly insulted. Andy can't help being slightly pissed off at this comment. That and he practically hadn’t slept in two months.

“‘Couldn’t handle it’ as in he was sick of seeing you in a hospital bed, Pete. You were in the fucking hospital. And you’re acting as if you had been on vacation!” Pete’s smile somehow grows.

“You could say that I was on vacation…”

“No, I can’t! You tried to commit suicide, you had your stomach pumped, and now you need to go into rehab soon!” Pete turns solemn at this, and huffs out a breath.

“I wanna go home…” Pete grumbles, sounding like an immature child. Joe only nods while Andy just glares at the dark haired bassist.

---

When they drive in front of Pete’s house, Pete quickly exits the car (“Yes, Joe, I’m fine! Don’t worry!”) because he really can’t handle Andy giving him that stare.

The car’s still in that spot until Pete enters his house. Then it slowly drives away. As Pete closes and locks the door, he can hear sobbing. At first he thinks it’s just his head again, but as he heats up a Hot Pocket in his kitchen, the sobbing gets louder. He carefully grabs the nearest blunt object – a baseball bat, where the hell did he get a baseball bat, and why so cliché? – and walks toward his bedroom, the source of the noise. Has some stalker fan come in and decide to mourn his suicide attempt there? It doesn’t matter. Pete slowly opens the door, and right there kneeling by his bed crying, is a man. But not just any man…

…it was Patrick.

There’s Patrick, sobbing into the covers of Pete king-sized bed, with a picture in hand, as if he can’t look at it even more. And it’s not just any picture.

Pete and Patrick are sitting at a table. They have an arm around each other. Patrick’s smiling shyly and blushing as Pete kisses him lightly on the cheek, eyes closed. Andy took the picture before they could get up out of their position and kill Andy. They threatened to delete the picture or smash the camera, but they never seemed to get around to it.

Pete can feel tears well up in his eyes. He doesn’t know what to say. For what seems like hours (but what was really seconds) he just stands there, stands there and watches his best friend cry before he speaks.

“P-Patrick?” Pete chokes out, and he feels his stomach drop. God, why is it so hard to talk right now? Patrick looks up, and Pete can see the obvious wear of two months. Patrick’s skin is practically bleach white, except for the dark rings under his eyes. His hair seems to be greasy and matted, which shows that he hasn’t taken a shower in a while. His eyes are red and puffy, as if he has cried the whole two months.

Now that Pete thinks about it, he probably did.

Patrick clears his throat and gets up from his spot shakily. Cheek bones are protruding from what used to be Patrick’s round face. It’s obvious he lost weight, and muscle, too.

“Hey, Pete,” Patrick greets, and gives Pete a feeble smile. His voice is rough and hoarse; like Pete said, he probably cried two months of his life away. Pete can’t respond to Patrick’s welcome. He just stares. He stares at the shell that was once his friend, and if Pete has to guess, then he would guess Patrick was the one that was in the hospital.

Patrick worries about how Pete doesn’t’ respond. He panics. “I-I’m sorry, Pete, I just- what I mean to say is -” the rest comes out in jumbles, and before Pete can stop him, Patrick’s out the front door and running.

---

Pete walks up to the building. His breath can be seen in the air, the source of the heat from under his hoodie. This is the hotel they’re staying in, right? Right. Pete enters the building, and by the looks of it it’s very modern, probably very new. It’s very warm in there so Pete takes off his hoodie.

He enters the elevator and presses the button to go to the twelfth floor. He’s alone and the calm elevator music is playing. He’s wondering how he got here.

It all seems so surreal; that he’s back, that he’s alive. He sees things so differently now.

The elevator stops and Pete gets out. Walking left down the hallway, Pete counts the numbers. 213, 214, 215…the numbers go on until he gets to the desired room: 231. That was the number Joe gave him, anyway.

Pete uses the keycard Joe gave him to unlock the door. With a creak, he pushes the door open slowly, letting light filter into the dark room. By the very little light, he can see Patrick’s form lying on the bed. He can feel Patrick’s gaze on him. Once again, Pete is reduced to a stare.

Instead of breaking the vast silence, Pete simply walks over to the bed and crawls in. He moves closer to Patrick so that their foreheads are touching. Patrick tries to say something, but Pete puts a finger to Patrick’s mouth. He knows what Patrick was trying to say. Pete envelops Patrick in a hug and Patrick begins to cry. Pete snuggles closer, and although some fragments are missing, Patrick and Pete are putting their friendship back together.

They say actions speak louder than words.